OT 
 1 
 
 
Benefits Forgot 
 
popular 6s, Iftcwels* 
 
 The Manxman. By HALL CAINE. 
 
 The Bondman. By HALL CAINE. 
 
 The Scapegoat. By HALL CAINE. 
 
 The Master. By I. ZANGWILL. 
 
 Children of the Ghetto. By I. ZANGWILL. 
 
 The King of Schnorrers. By I. ZANGWILL. 
 
 The Premier and the Painter. By ZANGWILL and COWEN. 
 
 A Drama in Dutch. By Z. Z. 
 
 The Heavenly Twins. By SARAH GKAND. 
 
 Ideala. By SARAH GRAND. 
 
 Our Manifold Nature. By SARAH GRAND. 
 
 The Ebb-Tide. By STEVENSON and OSBOURNE. 
 
 An Imaginative Man. By R. S. HICHENS. 
 
 Sentimental Studies. By H. CRACKANTHORPE. 
 
 Terminations. By HENKY JAMES. 
 
 The Potter s Thumb. By FLORA ANNIE STEEL. 
 
 From the Five Rivers. By FLORA ANNIE STEEL. 
 
 In Haste and At Leisure. By E. LYNN LINTON. 
 
 Chimaera. By F. MAI EL ROBINSON. 
 
 A Superfluous Woman. 
 
 Transition. By the Author of " A Superfluous Woman." 
 
 A Pastoral Played Out. By M. L. TENDERED. 
 
 A Daughter of this World. By FLETCHER BATTERSHALL. 
 
 A Comedy of Masks. By DOWSON and MOOKE. 
 
 The Countess Radna. By W. E. NORRIS. 
 
 A Victim of Good Luck. By W. E. NORRIS. 
 
 The O Connors of Ballinahinch. By Mrs. HUNGERFORD. 
 
 The Tower of Taddeo. By OUIDA. 
 
 The Story of a Modern Woman. By E. HEPWORTH DIXON. 
 
 The Last Sentence. By MAXWELL GRAY. 
 
 The Justification of Andrew Lebrun. By FRANK 
 
 BARRETT. 
 The Naulahka. By KIPLING and BALESTIER. 
 
 LONDON: \VM. HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD ST., W.C. 
 
Benefits Forgot 
 
 H Iftovel 
 
 Wolcott Balestier 
 
 Author of 
 
 " The Average Woman" 1 " 1 
 
 Joint- Author ivith Rudyard Kipling of 
 
 " The Naulahka" 
 
 London 
 
 William Heinemann 
 1895 
 
AH rights reserved 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was James Deed s wedding morning, and the town 
 knew it. Deed himself was so full of the knowledge 
 of it, that his face would break from time to time, without 
 his will, into a fond and incommunicable smile of happiness 
 as he rode alone toward Maverick on his horse. His eye 
 measured the crisp and sparkling Colorado morning ; and 
 he took the sun upon his large, wholesome, likeable face, 
 with the pleasant feeling that its shining was for him. The 
 agreeable world seemed to have him in thought, and to be 
 minded to do the handsome thing by his wedding-day. And 
 the evil things the blizzards and sand-storms, and the winds 
 that will be howling at all hours in Colorado, shunned the 
 face of this thrice blessed day. 
 
 The cattle pony which Deed was riding had got the news 
 of the kindling morning air, though he lacked word of the 
 wedding ; but it was enough that he also knew what it was 
 to be happy. Deed patted his flank affectionately, as they 
 swung into town together ; and he was of a mind to give 
 good morrow to the herd that came to the barbed wire fence 
 to observe his happiness with impassive eyes. It was too 
 
 B 
 
FORGOT. 
 
 early to see Margaret ; but when he had waked at the ranch- 
 house on his cattle range, where he had spent the past few 
 days, he had found it impossible to remain quietly within 
 doors, and since he must ride it was the nearest thing to 
 seeing her to ride in her direction. 
 
 The curtains were still down at the windows of the house 
 where Margaret had been staying with Beatrice Vertner for 
 a month. The Vertners occupied the largest dwelling in 
 Maverick, except the brick house which Snell had built since 
 he had made his strike at Aspen ; its architecture was in the 
 journeyman-carpenter Queen Anne manner common to 
 Western towns which have reached their second stage. The 
 pony, accustomed to stopping, swerved in toward the gate, 
 and Deed was obliged to restrain him, unwillingly. There was 
 no one in sight to mind that he should kiss his hand to a certain 
 curtain in the second story ; but he was obliged to content 
 himself with this. He gave the pony the rein, and went 
 swinging into Maverick by way of Mesa Street. 
 
 His eye roved anxiously, with another thought, as he gal 
 loped along, over the circle of snow-peaks that separated 
 Lone Creek Valley from the world outside, and rested on a 
 cleft in the white hills, through which his youngest son, 
 Philip, should at the moment be making his way from 
 Pinon, on horseback, to be present at the wedding in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Zacatecas Pass, which found its way through this breach in 
 the Sangre de Christo range, led down, at a point thirty miles 
 above Maverick, to the railway, by which Philip should be 
 taking a train within a few hours. A dusty cloud hung 
 above the trail, of which Deed feared he knew the mean 
 ing. It seemed probable that it was snowing in the moun 
 tains. If it was, Philip would almost certainly fail to arrive 
 in time : it was equally certain that he would be in danger. 
 There had been a thaw, succeeded by freezing weather, 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 3 
 
 and the crusted snow clung upon the huge mountain shapes 
 with an effect of being moulded on them. 
 
 It was charming to follow the modelling of their mighty 
 bulks under the conforming vesture of white, swelling and 
 dying away in divine suggestions of hidden grace, with the 
 effect of a maiden s raiment. The edged lines by which the 
 hills mounted to the summits lay crumpled on one another, 
 buried in softness. The snow plumped the hollows and 
 pursued their climbing sides to the secretest fold. The 
 angles were curves, and the curves glistering reaches of 
 satin ; for, at every point the sunlight meshed itself in a 
 gleam of white, and the whole field of snow shone with a 
 blinding glitter. 
 
 The polished radiance of the hills gave off, in fact, a glare 
 which the eye could not meet with patience, and Deed, 
 withdrawing his glance from the mountains, fixed it on the 
 scattered town into which he was coming. He knew every 
 building in it : he had seen most of them go up. He 
 remembered when the general supply store of Maverick 
 had stood if a tent may be said to stand where the post- 
 office now reared its ugly splendour of brick, stone-trimmed 
 and mansard-roofed. In the road over which he was riding 
 there was a familiar spot where an embattled squatter had 
 held his own against the town for a twelvemonth, refusing 
 to move the log cabin which he had built in the centre of 
 Mesa Street before there was a Mesa Street. Deed had 
 contributed to the building of the Episcopal church, past 
 which he was riding at the moment ; and, as he glanced at its 
 roof and front, he was sorry that he had not put aside more 
 profitable business long enough to get himself appointed a 
 member of the committee on its architecture. He tried to 
 excuse himself by remembering that he had insisted on the 
 simple and genuine Gothic interior, carried out in pine, 
 which made it a very tolerable little church within. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 He had had nothing to do with the roller skating rink ; 
 nor with the Grand Opera House, which depressed the 
 observer by its resemblance to Libby Prison, though it was 
 an achievement of wood, and clapboarded up to the summit 
 of its false front. The ingenuousness of the pretence with 
 which the false front faces down the spectator in the new 
 towns of the West would be almost a thing to disarm criticism 
 if the front were, in itself, more beautiful : certainly if the 
 aspect of the front on the side intended for the audience 
 were less hideous one could hardly like to humiliate it by 
 going around behind and spying out the nakedness of the 
 device. As it is, nothing could be pleasanter. 
 
 As Deed s eye ranged over the roofs of the main street be 
 hind the fronts, he smiled at the disproportion between the 
 height of the actual squat buildings, and the height which 
 the fronts alleged for them. His happiness gave an edge 
 to his observation ; he saw familiar things as if for the 
 first time. On the treeless plain over which Maverick 
 was dispersed nothing obstructed the vision for miles, 
 and from so slight an elevation as that along which 
 Deed was cantering, one commanded a panoramic view 
 of the entire place. The hotel at the station, the public 
 school, with its high central tower, the post-office, and the 
 railway hospital, were the only structures, besides the church, 
 which lifted themselves above the level of the prevailing one- 
 and two-storied buildings. Except in the main street, the 
 dwelling houses lay isolated from one another in archipela 
 goes, marking the push of the real estate boom to one and 
 another corner of the young city. 
 
 As Deed came into the business centre of the place 
 (distinguished as such by the board sidewalk that went loftily 
 along the thoroughfare on either side the way, and by 
 the blazonries in red, black, and chrome yellow, on the 
 muslin signs tacked upon the fronts of the shops, and the 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 5 
 
 tethered cattle ponies, burros, and Studebaker wagons of the 
 ranchmen who began to come into town), he was hailed by 
 a loitering group gathered about a telegraph pole in front 
 of the post-office. 
 
 " Coin the wrong way round, ain t you, Mayor ? " inquired 
 one of the group. 
 
 Deed had served the unexpired term of a Mayor of 
 Maverick who had suffered the inconvenience of being shot 
 in the early days of the town ; and the usual military titles 
 refusing to fasten themselves readily to a certain dignity 
 which the town recognized in him, it had compromised upon 
 " Mayor," as being a fortunate combination of the respectful 
 and the jocular. 
 
 Deed s answering smile owned the impeachment of the 
 humorous reference ; but the etiquette of Western chaff 
 is not to sanction such an understanding with speech. 
 It is, rather, de rigueur to meet such references with a 
 heavenly unconsciousness of innocence and to own them 
 only deep within the understanding eye, which admits both 
 parties to such amenities into the open secret of the no- 
 secret. 
 
 " Well, yes ; for Aspen and some places up Eagle River 
 way I m going a good ways around, Burke," said Deed 
 with twinkling eyes, as he checked the pony; "but I m 
 headed right for the telegraph office, I think, unless I ve taken 
 my observations wrong." 
 
 He was giving his pony the rein, as some one said, 
 " There was some tell about town here, Mr. Mayor, of 
 your having asked unanimous consent to make another mat 
 ter a special order of business for to-day." The postmaster, 
 who had served a term in the legislature, was fond of the 
 phrases he had learned at Denver. 
 
 "Yes; anything we can do for you, you know ," 
 
 darkly intimated the young fellow on whom the town s repute 
 
6 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 for the possession of the hardest drinker in the county de 
 pended. On Sundays Sandy was the sexton of the Epis 
 copal Church ; other days he divided between Ira s and 
 certain odd jobs. 
 
 " To be sure : that reminds me there is something you 
 can do for me, Sandy. Ira has my orders. Call on him this 
 evening and take the camp." 
 
 " Make it a dozen, Mayor," wheedled Sandy. 
 
 " Could n t," responded Deed. " I ve made it two." He 
 smiled at the group. Sandy guffawed his enjoyment of the 
 prospect. The rest coiled their tongues deep in their 
 cheeks, shifted the pain of sustaining their bodies from one 
 leg to the other, and gazed at the "Mayor" with a broad 
 smile. 
 
 " Denver ? " asked some one. 
 
 Deed shook his head. " Anheuser & Busch." 
 
 "Bottles?" 
 
 "Kegs." 
 
 He surveyed the grinning group with a smile, as he caught 
 up the reins. The points at which he differed from them 
 were perhaps rather more obvious at the moment than those 
 by which he was allied to the life of the place, and of the West. 
 In spite of eight years spent in the West, broken only by oc 
 casional visits to his old home in New York, and, (while Mar 
 garet was still in question), by a single visit to Europe, his 
 bearing retained a sort of distinction, which no measure of 
 consent to a civilization that surveys life with its hands in its 
 pockets and its trousers in its boots was likely to vitiate. 
 
 In being unaggressive this bearing escaped the condemna 
 tion under which all forms of aloofness from the common 
 lot properly lie in the West ; and, in being on humorous 
 terms with itself, it rather commended itself than otherwise 
 to a people who must see life as a joke if they would escape 
 seeing it as a tragedy. It was far from being his manner 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 7 
 
 of distinction that gave Deed his place in the regard of 
 Maverick, and of Lone Creek county, of course ; and it was 
 scarcely by it that he prevailed in his practice before the 
 Supreme Court at Denver, or in his fights for mineral claims 
 at Leadville. He counted, as every one does in the West, who 
 counts at all, by pure force. 
 
 Deed liked the West as men like what serves their ends, 
 and for something more. There was a kind of obligation 
 of gratitude upon him to like it, for it had been his rescue 
 from lethargy after the death of his wife in New York ten 
 years before. He had had no wish to live when he came 
 West, and his friends were surprised to hear after six months 
 that he was still alive. He was what is called "a very sick 
 man " when he reached Maverick ; and, as he was also a 
 very miserable one, the chances that he would presently be 
 borne to the desolate little graveyard on the mesa just out 
 side the limits of Maverick were rather better than the 
 chances of his pulling through to find a new strength with his 
 reviving interest in life. In the event he not only " came 
 around," as the neighbours said ; but, in laying hold upon 
 the practice of his profession again, discovered a pleasure 
 in pursuing the application of its principles to new 
 conditions. 
 
 He chaffed the West, now, when he met a man who, like 
 himself, had once been a New Yorker or a Bostonian ; but 
 this was by way of reminding himself to remember how 
 absurd the whole affair was, after all. The real fact was, 
 that, absorbed in his work, in creating a future for his boys, 
 and finally in accumulating the fortune which he had seen 
 one day, might be his for the use of the needful energy, 
 he had forgotten to philosophize the West, as he had been 
 used to do while he lay staring idly from his sick-bed on a 
 range of mountains which he remembered thinking too big. 
 Consciously, or unconsciously, he had cast in his lot with 
 
8 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 this huge, crudely prosperous, blundering, untutored land ; 
 and if he had still reserves, there was never time left from 
 his mines, his cattle and his law to think of them. 
 
 He was putting spurs to his horse, as Snell, the leading 
 merchant of the place, who had just joined the group, in 
 quired suggestively, " The young men will hardly arrive in 
 time for the ceremony, I take it, Mr. Deed ? " 
 
 U I don t know, Mr. Snell," said Deed, restraining the 
 pony which was charing to be off again. " I hope to see 
 Philip. He s dropped his mining experiment up at Pinon, 
 at my suggestion, and he will get through by the two-thirty 
 train, I hope, if he gets over the Pass all right. I don t 
 know whether to hope that he has left Laughing Valley 
 City or not. I m just on my way to the telegraph office 
 to inquire." He cast a doubtful look toward Zacatecas Pass. 
 
 " Looks some like snow, up around the Pass," commented 
 one of those young men of middle age who, in the West, 
 somehow keep the sap of youth jogging lustily in their veins, 
 at an age when it has dried out, or soaked down into the 
 roots of New England men. It is possible that the specu 
 lative fancy of man does not engender a new scheme with 
 every moon for nothing. The habit seems to keep the 
 juices alive and fluent ; and, at least, it makes an open mind, 
 which is itself, no doubt, the better part of youth. 
 
 "It does look like snow," owned Deed, as he glanced 
 anxiously again toward the mountains ; and some one ven 
 tured to ask him about Jasper. He was detained by business 
 in New York, he said, at which Snell exchanged a significant 
 glance with his neighbour. He hardly expected him for the 
 wedding, he added. It was pretty well known in Maverick 
 that Jasper wasted no approval on his father s second marriage; 
 and there were persons who saw dubious things beneath the 
 peremptory summons which he had given out a fortnight ago 
 as calling him to New York. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. g 
 
 As Deed, to cut short the embarrassment of this line of 
 questioning, definitively caught up the reins and gave the 
 pony a cut with the quirt, the group gathered about him 
 lifted their sombreros, or such rakish or merely slovenly 
 caps as they wore, and swung them about their heads in 
 the burlesque by which Western manners express their 
 condescension to the customs of a superseded civilization. 
 It was not a bow, nor precisely a ceremony of farewell, 
 but a mixed expression of thanks for the " irrigation " 
 to be offered at Ira s in the evening, and of an embarrassed 
 sentiment of congratulation on the event of the day, 
 which did not quite know the smartest way of conveying 
 itself. 
 
 When some one inquired " What s the matter with James 
 Deed, Esquire?" and the crowd gave the foreordained 
 answer, with a single voice, they had really done for him all 
 that one sovereign can do for another in the way of expres 
 sion of good-will : it was frankincense and myrrh, and oil 
 and wine and precious stones offered him on a tray of gold, 
 if you liked. It was meant for the same thing ; and Deed 
 did not like it less. He turned in his saddle, and waved 
 his own wide-brimmed hat to them in acknowledgement, 
 his fine smile on his lips. 
 
 THE COLORADO sunshine was flooding the room in which 
 Margaret awaited his coming, without let from blinds or 
 shades. She stood in the big patch of radiance flung upon 
 a rag carpet past fear of fading, and looked wistfully out of 
 the window. The house stood a little apart, at the head 
 of Mesa Street, the chief thoroughfare of Maverick, near the 
 outskirts of the town ; and, in the clear mountain air she 
 could see for a long distance down the road. 
 
 Breakfast was over ; and Beatrice Vertner had left her 
 after it to attend to some household duties, which weddings 
 
io BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 apparently do not make less important in their process of 
 dwarfing all other concerns. 
 
 A quarrel between father and son, Margaret was saying 
 to herself, as she stood by the window it had not come to 
 that yet, but Jasper s opposition to his father s second mar 
 riage had only been saved from that by the moderation and 
 temperance of her husband who was to be : she felt sure of 
 that seemed, at best, a wretched business; but this was, 
 she felt, unbearably sad. In the foolish days when she was 
 saying Deed nay, because she did not yet know her 
 self, and he was following her from New York to Paris, 
 and from Paris to Geneva, and from Geneva to Naples, 
 patient, decently doubtful of himself, but persistent, she 
 had seen what it cost him merely to be separated from his 
 sons. Later, she had come to understand how the obliga 
 tion he had felt to find something within himself to replace 
 the tender care of the mother his boys had lost before they 
 were old enough to know the meaning of such a loss, must 
 have reacted upon, and enriched his feeling for them. She 
 remembered how, seeing that his concern for their welfare 
 was the substance and texture of his life, she had warned 
 him it was at Naples that such affection as his played 
 with high stakes; and how his face had darkened almost 
 angrily at her hint of the possibility that sons might disap 
 point one s faith in them. 
 
 Just before their first meeting Deed had bought and 
 stocked for his boys the cattle range from which she hoped 
 he was riding in at this hour, and Jasper was established 
 there in undivided charge until Philip then in the first year 
 of one of his foolish boy s experiments in Chili should be 
 ready to come back and take his share in the management. 
 She recalled well enough how she had rallied their father s 
 unwitting boasts of Jasper s success, how she had assisted 
 with inward amusement at the pretence that he kept his 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 11 
 
 fatherly fondness covert by bantering it with her, and how, 
 when that was his mood, she had seemed to consent to his 
 transparent vainglory in the shrewdness of his clever young 
 men of twenty-four as a natural enthusiasm about a success 
 ful venture of his own. But constantly she had the sense 
 of his loving pride in both his boys ; and she liked it. 
 
 Deed could not have told her, even if his knowledge of it 
 had got out of the region of half-perceptions in which we 
 keep our reluctances about the faults of those we love, that 
 Jasper belonged to the Race of the Magnificent, who have 
 their own way a happy provision arranging that no one 
 shall find it worth quite what it costs to oppose such ways. 
 When Margaret discovered it for herself, she had only to 
 put it with familiar characteristics of Deed to understand 
 how the partnership papers in the range, which were the 
 origin of the present difficulty, had got themselves signed. 
 
 When Deed, in good-humoured recognition of Jasper s 
 successful management of the range, had offered him a half- 
 share in the profits from it until Philip should be ready to 
 claim the third already belonging in all but form to each of 
 the boys, it was like Jasper to say that it was very good of 
 his father, and that they ought to "put the thing on a 
 business basis." But it was rather more like Deed whose 
 pride in Jasper s business shrewdness commonly took shape 
 before the young man himself in a habit of ridiculing him 
 indulgently about it to have laughed at him and consented. 
 And it was not less of a tenor with their usual relation that 
 he should have let Jasper have his way about giving this 
 profit-sharing, for a limited term, the form of a partnership. 
 
 About his own way Margaret knew he would have no con 
 ceit, while regarding the symmetry of his act in giving Jasper 
 something like the reward his faithfulness and sagacity in 
 the management of the ranch had earned, he would have a 
 certain pride. For Margaret, who, for her own part, had 
 
12 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 ever frugalities and cautions to be satisfied before she could 
 be about a matter, both understood and admired the reck 
 lessness with which Deed was accustomed to do a nice thing 
 thoroughly. To her it was an inevitable touch of character 
 that he should have glanced over the papers of partnership 
 which Jasper had drawn up, should have signed with a smile 
 for his gratification in doing an entirely gratifying thing ; and 
 then should have had the boy to supper with him at the only 
 restaurant in town, where they drank to the success of the 
 range in the champagne left over from the previous night s 
 supper of the Order of the Occidental Star. 
 
 Deed had not meant to marry again, then, of course, and 
 the cattle range was then an incident of his fortune, instead 
 of one of the main facts of it, as it presently became. 
 
 When he first thought of Margaret he congratulated himself 
 that there was still the ranch, for, at a little past forty, he 
 found himself, through the scoundrelly trick of a man he had 
 trusted, almost as entirely on his own hands as he had been 
 at twenty with a fortune to be won again, and with life to be 
 begun pretty much afresh. When this trouble came on him he 
 thought of the boys ; remembered with satisfaction that they 
 were provided for, whatever came ; shrugged his shoulders ; 
 took a look at himself in the glass, measured himself thought 
 fully against the future, brushed the black lock down over the 
 fringe of grey in front ; smiled ; went out and had a good 
 dinner, and began again that afternoon. A year later, when 
 he first offered himself to Margaret, it was pleasant to know 
 that the ranch was now not quite all (some of his mining 
 stocks were doing better) ; but the third interest, which 
 would still remain to him when Philip should have claimed 
 his share in the range, had not lost its importance to him. 
 And Jasper had done wonderful things with the enterprise 
 since they had pledged each other in the bad wine of the 
 " Delmonico of the West." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 13 
 
 It was a little later that there began to be discoverable 
 in Jasper s manner the hints of opposition to his father s 
 second marriage, which had lately come near ending in an 
 estrangement between father and son. The difference be 
 tween them was, after all, but scantily patched up : and on 
 the head of it Jasper had set out for New York, knowing 
 that he could not be back in time for the wedding, and 
 leaving word that he would write his father regarding another 
 matter which Deed had broached to him just before his de 
 parture. The other matter was the re-organization of the 
 arrangement at the ranch to include Philip, who had given 
 over mining, after a twelvemonth in the mountains. 
 
 He had gone to Pifion on his return from Chili, with his 
 young man s interest in anything rather than the usual 
 and appointed thing lying ready to his hand ; but he was 
 now willing enough to accept his father s advice of a year 
 before and join Jasper in looking after the ranch, where an 
 assured income awaited him. Deed had wished to see this 
 wandering, impulsive, hot-blooded, unsettled son of his 
 actually established on the range before his marriage to 
 Margaret. Unexpected events at Pifion had prevented this ; 
 but when he should come down for the wedding it was 
 arranged that he was not to return, but was to take up his 
 residence at the ranch immediately. 
 
 If this provision for Philip s future had not already been 
 made when Margaret first began to be in question, Deed 
 could not have asked her to marry him. He felt, in a degree 
 which it would be difficult to represent, his responsibilities to 
 his boys ; and the long habit of making them the first concern 
 of his life must have prevailed with him, whatever his feel 
 ing for Margaret, if they had needed anything done Tor 
 them. But the ranch was a property which, conducted with 
 any skill, must yield them both a handsome revenue, when 
 both should be established on it. 
 
H BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Margaret liked the faithfulness to the future of his sons, 
 which would not suffer him to put even her, or their common 
 happiness, before it. He was determined to leave nothing 
 at loose ends ; and he was even awaiting the formality of 
 Jasper s assent to the new arrangement at the ranch, as if 
 it were an assent which he was free to withhold as if all 
 property of his boys in the ranch were not derived from 
 his generosity, and as if Jasper s present tenure were not 
 peculiarly by grace of his father s good humour. It was 
 only a form ; but Margaret knew that Deed characteris 
 tically regarded it as a sacred preliminary to their marriage ; 
 and when she saw him riding up to the door, waving a letter 
 in his hand, she knew what letter it must be. 
 
 She ran out into the frosty air to meet him. Standing on 
 the porch, under the shadow of the scroll-saw work, which 
 was as much in the Queen Anne manner as anything about 
 the house, she waited for him to tie his horse, cuddling her 
 arms about her waist. The air had an edge. She gathered 
 herself together : there was the cold to keep out ; and 
 there was a soft, interior content which she was willing 
 to keep in. 
 
 It was hard not to be afraid of some of her feelings lately. 
 
 " Watch your horse ! " she adjured, with a little nervous 
 shiver. He was trying to tie the pony while he kept his eyes 
 on her ; and the tying was on the way to failure. He had 
 taken the letter into his mouth for greater convenience. 
 They both began to laugh, so that he had to take it out. 
 
 " Dearest ! " he whispered, as he caught her to him in the 
 porch. But she would not give him his kiss until they were 
 in the hallway. 
 
 " It s come ! " she said, with a joyous nod toward the 
 letter in his hand, as they went into the sitting-room, which 
 was as discreetly empty as the whole house seemed suddenly 
 to have become in the hush of their happiness. 
 
FORGOT. 15 
 
 " Yes," he said, alternately offering and refusing it to her, 
 as he held her away to make certain that she was the same 
 Margaret with whom he had parted the night before for the 
 last time, and who was to give herself to him in a few 
 hours. 
 
 She sniffed at the flowers he had slipped into her hand in 
 the hallway ; and to make sure she did not cry, laughed at 
 the smile of love on his face, which often oppressed her 
 with the obligation it seemed to lay on her to keep it always 
 there. And then she clapped her hands and laughed again 
 to perceive in herself a kind of young girlish pride in his being 
 handsome and manly and altogether very fine and impressive 
 this morning. 
 
 It was true that he was a striking figure as he stood holding 
 her at arm s length ; and not less so when he left her side 
 and went over to the mantel, where he feaned his head upon 
 his hand and watched her for a moment in silence, as he 
 struck at his riding boots with the quirt he had brought in 
 with him. His hair was a bit grey where his large round 
 head had begun to grow bald on either brow ; but this, with 
 his grizzling eyebrows, and the strongly-marked lines about 
 his mouth which, in a younger man, would have seemed 
 merely the outward sign of resolution, were the only tokens 
 by which one would have known him to be more than thirty- 
 five. His hmr, like the moustache, which was the only adorn 
 ment of his face, was worn clipped quite short; and this 
 gave him, coupled with his rather careful habit of dress, a 
 certain effect of trimness and well-being uncommon in the 
 West. He had the habit of resting his weight firmly upon 
 the ground ; and the dignity and ease of his bearing was not 
 lost in the most impetuous of his habitually rapid movements. 
 His eyes had a tinge of blue in some lights, but it was the 
 indefinable grey in them which gave the look of power and 
 firmness to his face. It is doubtful if these eyes were really 
 
16 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 more blue in his kindly moments ; but it is not doubtful that 
 they seemed so. That which distinguished his look and his 
 manner, however, after the force which no one could fail to 
 feel in him, was an effect of unconquerable youthfulness and 
 buoyancy. His eager, mildly searching glance, his manner 
 of unceasing alertness and energy gave one the sense of a 
 man much alive. 
 
 He glanced with keen liking about a room which he had 
 known for a long time ; but which, somehow, had never been 
 as interesting a room as it was this morning. He was 
 almost in a mood to forgive the wall-paper, which insulted 
 the remnant of Eastern taste in him ; and, as he turned and 
 stared, with his hands in his pockets, into the fire, not know 
 ing what to say in his happiness, it gave him a warm feeling 
 about the heart to see what a gay time the combustible pinon 
 wood of the mountains was having of it in the little grate. 
 There was even a certain light-heartedness about the " what 
 not" in the corner, on which the collection of mineral 
 specimens, part of the religion of Colorado housekeeping, 
 was reflecting the Colorado sunshine from unexpected 
 facets of ore ; while the iron pyrites winked in the sun at 
 some possible tenderfoot mistaking it for gold. 
 
 Beatrice Vertner s taste had contrived to give a home-like 
 expression to such furniture as there was ; but the room was 
 rather bare. The big photograph of Veta Pass, in which a 
 train had stopped to be "taken," hung in frametess, fly-spotted 
 solitude above the tennis racquets and riding crops in one 
 corner. There was a good engraving above the fireplace, 
 framed in unplaned scantling, and a couple of clever oil- 
 paintings, by some of Beatrice s Eastern friends, brightened 
 one corner of the room, which was further lighted up by a 
 brilliant-hued Navajo blanket, hung as a portiere at one of 
 the doorways. The home-made rag carpet, in its modest 
 propriety of colouring, caused the Western villainy in wall 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 17 
 
 paper to wear a self-conscious smirk. At the side-window 
 there was a burst of colour, where the lower sash pretended, 
 not very seriously, to be stained glass. 
 
 " Such a spick-span conscience as I ve got this morning, 
 Margaret," he said, coming over to her and taking her hands 
 again, while he looked down into her eyes, which she 
 straightway dropped. " There is n t an unswept corner nor 
 an undusted piece of furniture in it. I ve had out all the 
 couches, and had down all the pictures, and gone in for a 
 general house cleaning. The boys are safe and settled, both 
 of them, and in seven hours " 
 
 " Seven - and - a - half," she corrected, smilingly, with the 
 precision which seems never to leave a woman who has 
 once taught school. 
 
 " Half is it ? To be sure half past four. But everything 
 must be whole this morning, Margaret, like our happiness. 
 Have you noticed how every one feels responsible, and 
 interested about this affair ? They were all at the win 
 dows as I rode up the street ; or rather they were behind 
 the curtains and I had to try to look the disinterested 
 morning caller on my way to pay a sort of duty call. But 
 they saw through me. My foolish joy leaks through my eyes, 
 I suppose. Margaret, dear," he asked, taking her doubtful 
 and feebly reluctant form in his arms for even on the eve 
 of her wedding, the indomitable Puritan in her must have 
 its shamefaced way with her will " tell me, does it distress 
 you that I can t conceal it ? You are so much better at 
 it. Let me see your eyes. Come, you are not fair. Look 
 up ! " And then, as she tremulously took his glance for 
 a moment he put back his big head, and laughed 
 monstrously. " I see : you were thinking it : that it is 
 unbecoming that they should be laughing over our 
 happiness indecorous um unseemly. Oh, Margaret, 
 you are great fun ! " 
 
 c 
 
1 8 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " Am I ? " she asked, with a shy smile, keeping her eyes 
 on the button she was twisting on his coat. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he cried, through his laughter, as he drew her 
 to the sofa, "you don t know what you miss in not being able 
 to enjoy yourself." He caught her to him, and she hid her 
 head on his broad breast for happiness. 
 
 And with his arm about her he opened the letter. " Is n t 
 it fine, dear, to know that Philip is settled down and done for, 
 before we begin with each other, and that we need not fear 
 for him ? I should have felt as if I were running away from 
 him otherwise. I like to get this letter from Jasper, just at 
 this time. It s only a form, but it makes everything quite 
 sure. I m afraid we re too happy," he sighed, as he glanced 
 over the first lines of the letter, and, as he turned the page 
 he looked up in a daze, and could not believe there had ever 
 been such a thing as happiness in the world. He bit his lips, 
 not to cry out. 
 
 Margaret watched him in silent fright as he read on. A 
 pallor deepened over his face. It went, and he appeared to 
 regain himself. But the thought -whatever it was seemed 
 to clutch him, of a sudden, at the throat, and he buried his 
 face in his hands with a groan. 
 
 Margaret s arms, for the first time of their own motion, 
 stole gently about him. And so they sat for a long time, in 
 silence. 
 
 Once she said softly, " I m so sorry, dearest ! " Questions 
 she saw, could not help him, and she did not know how 
 to say her sympathy. She understood without words that 
 Jasper had in some way played his father false, and she 
 yearned over the man who, in a few hours, was to be her 
 husband with an awed sense of what such a falsity must 
 mean to him. 
 
 The letter shocked her when she read it ; but it could not 
 sharpen her pain for him. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 19 
 
 Jasper explained that he could not hold himself bound by 
 the understanding under which his father apparently supposed 
 him to have taken a half-share in the profits of the range, 
 and that he must decline to surrender to Philip any share in 
 it. He " stood upon the articles of partnership, giving him 
 the rights of an equal partner, for a term of years." The rest 
 was phrases. He should be very glad to offer his brother 
 employment on the range ; should be " most happy to afford 
 
 him every" trusted that "such an arrangement 
 
 might be mutually" hoped that this "would be 
 
 accepted in the spirit in which " ; was sure that his 
 
 father must feel that " Business is always business " : and, 
 disclaiming any motive of greed or animosity, begged him to 
 believe that he remained his " most affectionate son." 
 
 Margaret did not dare look at the stricken man beside 
 her when she had finished this. 
 
 " If he had only died ! " he moaned. 
 
 " Oh, I know, James, I know ! " she murmured, with an 
 uncertain caress. 
 
 "Do you, dear?" He looked up dully. Something 
 vital seemed to have gone out of him. His haggard look 
 appalled her. She shrank from it with a fluttering glance. 
 " No, no," he said, " you don t know. You should be glad 
 you can t. You must have cared for a child in sickness and 
 health and done things for his sake, and been through all 
 sorts of weather with him, and scolded his badness and loved 
 his lovableness to know." 
 
 " Of course, of course ! " whispered Margaret mechanically 
 because she could not find the right words, if, in truth, there 
 were any. 
 
 " You can guess, dear," he said, " and it s good of you ; 
 but to really know you ought to have watched his growth, 
 with its touching likeness to your own growth ; and have 
 seen the little armful of flesh, with the tiny beating heart, 
 
 C 3 
 
20 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 that you were once afraid you should stop with a rough clasp ? 
 grow to be a man, with a man s comfortable power over the 
 
 world into which he came so unknowingly and with a 
 
 man s awful capacity for right and wrong." He sighed. " Yes, 
 yes," he went on with a note of bitterness, " you must 
 have done what you could to help him to a place in the 
 
 world" his voice broke "and perhaps you ought 
 
 really to have been both father and mother to him," he 
 added with the ghost of his smile : " his friend, as you stood 
 in the place of his mother ; his comrade, as you were in fact 
 his father, to honestly know. Thank Heaven you don t know, 
 Margaret ! " 
 
 The patient desolation of his tone touched her inexpress 
 ibly. She took his hand in both hers, studying it absently a 
 moment ; and one might have thought she meant to raise it 
 to her lips ; but, struggling against the tears in her voice, she 
 said, " Ingratitude, though, James is n t it much of a 
 piece wherever you find it, and and suffer from it? I can 
 understand that, I think." She paused, biting her lip for 
 self-control. " Oh, it is cowardly ! " she broke out. " Does 
 n t it seem so, dear ? Cowardly and brutal ! " Her arm 
 slipped about him again, as she searched for these blunder 
 ing words of helpfulness. She would have given the world 
 to reach and soothe the pang which she seemed to herself to 
 be merely moving about in a helpless circle. The unyielding 
 tradition in which she had been nurtured, and which possessed 
 her less since she had let herself love him, but which still was 
 mistress of her, had never been so irksome to her. 
 
 At the moment she longed to recreate herself, for him, 
 the creature of some sunnier land, whose women do not 
 have to wonder how they shall comfort those they love : who 
 have a natural language for affection. But the honesty in 
 her would not suffer her to express more than she could feel 
 instinctively. "Who, who but a coward," she went on 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 21 
 
 chokingly, "could wrong so unanswerably as ingratitude 
 
 wrongs so far past help, so deep beyond protest : so 
 
 deep, deep down that the mere thought of lifting a voice 
 against it is a misery, a nausea, a degradation ! " 
 
 He leaped up. "Yes, yes," he cried, with impatient 
 energy. " But one can act must act when the thing s past 
 talk. Where did I leave my hat, Margaret ? " He took 
 her by both shoulders, with a sudden impulse, and looked 
 for a moment into her eyes. She took fright at his set face 
 in which, save the tenderness for her, there was scarce any 
 thing of sanity. 
 
 " What what are you going to do ? " she asked, under 
 her breath. 
 
 He clenched his hands, as he turned from her, and caught 
 up his hat, which lay on the sofa. " Oh, I don t know, 
 my girl ! I don t know ! My worst, I suppose." 
 
 He was flinging himself out of the door ; but, " James ! " 
 she murmured reproachfully. He turned and kissed 
 her. " In an hour," he whispered ; and was gone, before 
 she could utter one of all the pleadings that hung upon her 
 lips. She tremblingly watched him untie his horse. Every 
 movement of his hands was charged with an angry energy 
 that terrified her. Her heart leaped in fear at the wrathful 
 twitch with which he loosed the knot they had been laughing 
 at together twenty minutes back ; and she cowered at the ugly 
 cut under which the pony shrank, as Deed set off at a gallop. 
 
 Was this the good, the gentle man she loved ? She put 
 her hands to her eyes to shield them from the memory of 
 the look on his face, as he parted with her. It was like the 
 look of unreason such a look as one recalls in explana 
 tion of a terrible event, after it has befallen. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IT was rather more than an hour before he returned, and 
 Margaret had time to think of many things. She trembled at 
 the thought of what he might be doing at any moment of her 
 watching and waiting and poking of the fire. She recalled 
 all that she knew of his hot and reckless temper ; she told 
 over to herself all that she had ever heard from others of the 
 relentless fixity with which he carried out a thing on which 
 he was resolved. 
 
 She knew sadly the quality of his temper of course ; her 
 experiences of it could hardly have failed to be numerous 
 and bitter, in the time which had elapsed since she had 
 known him. It was the chief flaw in his character. In 
 accounting for it to herself she said, when she was not fresh 
 from suffering from some manifestation of it, that no doubt 
 it went along inevitably with his generous and impulsive 
 heart. She was ignorant about such things, and about men 
 in general, but she had never known any one so entirely 
 good and kind and open-hearted, and she told herself it 
 was not for her to measure or question the correlative fault 
 that must always go with a great virtue like that. She had 
 moments of grave doubt about this, of course, and her 
 doubt had been a minor reason among the controlling ones 
 which had caused her to refuse him at first. When she 
 finally discovered that she loved him, it didn t matter; 
 nothing seemed to matter, then. She now thought of his 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 23 
 
 temper as one of the things she should set herself to modify 
 or, rather, to help him about when they were married. 
 What was marriage for if not for some such mutual strength 
 ening and improvement ? 
 
 Something Vertner had told her when she first came, and 
 at which she had laughed, at the time, recurred to her. It 
 made her smile, still, but in a frightened way. Vertner had 
 heard it in Leadville. It was apropos of the grim strength of 
 purpose which every one felt in Deed. Some one had come 
 to a young lawyer, there, to offer him a case, in which Deed 
 was engaged on the other side, and had been asked to 
 Come off! "Ain t you got more sense," inquired the 
 practitioner, expressively, "than to take half a day out 
 of a ten-dollar-a-day job to come and set me on to 
 Deed, in a case where he s got the ghost of a show? 
 Never saw him grip his fist, like that, in a court of 
 law, did you ? Thought not. Must is must about that time, 
 young man ! There ain t no two ways to a burro s kick. 
 I ve been there. In fact I was there day before yesterday. 
 Beaten ? No, sir, I was n t beaten. I was cyclonized. I was 
 taken up by the toes of my boots and swung round and round 
 with one of the prettiest rotary motions you ever saw ; and 
 banged against the top of Uncompaghre peak, out there. 
 No one but myself would have thought it worth while to pick 
 up what was left of me, I suppose. But I did it ; and I 
 picked up too much sense at the same time to try it again. 
 Why, that man s got more knowledge of the law and more 
 
 raw grit, and hang on and stick to n ." He questioned 
 
 the air with uplifted arm for a comparison. " Well, ! " 
 
 he ended hopelessly. " I ll tell you what it is," he went on, 
 with renewed grip of language, " for them that likes monkey 
 ing with the buzz-saw, there ain t nothin like it, short of 
 breaking a faro-bank. It s strawberries and cream to that 
 sort. But to peaceably disposed citizens, like you and me, 
 
24 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Charlie, there ain t nothin at all, anywhere, like stayin 
 pleasantly, and sociably to home, and lettin the saw hum 
 its merry little way through the other fellow s fingers." 
 
 From time to time Margaret would go to the window, 
 and look wistfully down the road. The expression on her 
 round, shrewd, suggestive, wise little face at these times 
 would have helped an observer to understand the look 
 which made her seem older than her twenty-nine years : 
 it was the authoritative look of experience. The look of 
 over-experience that sometimes fixes itself, to the sadness 
 of the beholder, on the face of a woman who has been 
 down into the fight for bread, with men, had passed by 
 Margaret s inextinguishable womanliness; but she had not 
 led an easy life ; and one saw it in her face a face 
 proportioned with a harmony that strangely failed to make 
 it beautiful. 
 
 Her eyes, which were small and bright, were deeply set 
 under a high and well-modelled brow, from which the hair 
 was brushed straight back, in a way that must have been un 
 becoming to another type of face, but which was admirably 
 suited to her own. In falling over her shapely little ears, the 
 silky brown hair waved in a fashion pleasant to see. Her 
 mouth, which was small and daintily made, wore an expres 
 sion of unusual firmness. 
 
 In conversation she would fix her animated hazel eyes on 
 the face of the person with whom she spoke in absorbed at 
 tention, and when the talk was of serious things, a deep, far 
 away look would suddenly possess these eyes. She had an 
 extraordinarily sweet smile ; and there was a gentle and 
 kindly soberness in her expression. She was well and 
 compactly made. Yet her effect was unimposing. She 
 seemed short and slight. She had a well-kept little effect in 
 her dress and the appointments of her person ; but no one 
 would have accused Margaret of knowing anything about 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 25 
 
 dress. She was rather discreetly clothed than dressed in 
 the sense of adornment. She wore white cuffs at her wrists 
 and a narrow collar at her throat, fastened by a brooch of 
 gold, wrought in an old-fashioned pattern. 
 
 Margaret was not smiling when Beatrice came in some 
 time after Deed had gone, and found her with her head 
 pressed against the pane. She turned her tearful face away 
 as Beatrice drew her to her. 
 
 Mrs. Vertner, one saw, had been quite recently a pretty 
 woman and she was still young a year or two younger than 
 Margaret. The brilliant expression, which had distinguished 
 her among all her acquaintance in her young girl days in 
 Newton, (the Boston Newton), where she was still remem 
 bered as a clever girl who had made an inexplicable marriage, 
 was overlaid, for the most part by a look of anxiety and 
 harassment, due to the conditions of her life. She made her 
 housekeeping as little a sordid, crude, and ugly business as 
 she could, and took its difficulties light-heartedly ; but house 
 keeping in a Western town which has still to " get its growth " 
 is at best a soul-wearing affair. Just now she suffered under 
 the rule of a Swedish maid-servant who knew no English, 
 and whose knowledge of cooking was limited to a fine skill 
 in broiling steak insupportably, and a vain address in the 
 brewing of undrinkable coffee. 
 
 " Crying, little one ? " she asked, affectionately. " Won t 
 you do something a wee bit like some one else, dear, one 
 of these days, and let me be by to see it ? That s a good 
 girl." She kissed her, with a laugh. "But stay odd all 
 the rest of the time, Margaret. I should n t like you if 
 you were n t odd, you know not even if you were ever 
 so little less odd. If I want you to be conventional it is 
 only for a moment, to see how it would seem. Come ! 
 Other brides smile. Try one smile ! " she pleaded. And 
 at Margaret s helpless amusement, she snatched her from 
 
26 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 the window, and humming a vague air, which defined itself 
 in a moment as one of the Waldteufel waltzes, she beat time 
 for a second, laughing in Margaret s bewildered, tear-stained 
 face, and caught her away into a romping dance. 
 
 " There ! " she cried, as she sank upon the sofa, breath 
 less with laughing and dancing. "I ve shaken you into 
 sorts, I hope ; and you re ready for the ceremony ; or will 
 be if you ll ever get yourself dressed. Not that I call it 
 
 dressed, to wear that grey Oh, I don t mean that, 
 
 Maggie dear," she exclaimed at a pained look on Margaret s 
 face. She crushed her to her in a devouring embrace. " Or, 
 rather, I do," she added, honestly ; " but I did n t mean to 
 say it. No : you d better wear it," she went on at some 
 sign of hesitation from Margaret. "It will go beautifully 
 with all the rest of it. Margaret Derwenter," she cried, 
 with an affectation of seriousness, "shall I tell you some 
 thing ? You will never be married." She retired for the 
 effect; but fell upon her with all the armoury of woman s 
 peacemaking at Margaret s start. " Literal ! " she cried. 
 " Will you never take things less hard ? As if I meant it ! 
 What I did mean sounds foolish after you ve taken it like 
 that. But I may as well say it. I don t believe the mar 
 riage ceremony is going to marry you, as it does other 
 women, Margaret ; and you need n t tell me it is. If you 
 are ever married it will be by yourself: yes, I mean it 
 by a kind of slow process of consent to the affair. Of 
 course you will have a proper respect for the ceremony; 
 and you will think it has married you. But women like 
 you, Maggie not that there are any are not married in 
 that way. Now, I was married when I left the church, and 
 everybody knew it." 
 
 Margaret laughed, not on compulsion this time, and 
 catching her arm about Beatrice s waist drew her to the 
 window to look down the road with her for Deed s coming. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 27 
 
 Almost any part of Margaret s history, before the time 
 when she began to teach, and, by a curious arrangement of 
 her own, to see the world, must wrong, or at least mis-speak, 
 in the telling, the gentle and sweet-natured woman she had 
 become. 
 
 She had been accustomed to hear in her childhood 
 that she had inherited her father s energy, and her mother s 
 face. This did not strike her as going very deep. She was 
 aware, herself, of several unmanageable drifts in her that she 
 might have understood better, perhaps, as derivations from 
 her parents, if they had lived long enough for her to know 
 them. Her father, who had gone to the Isle of Martinique 
 as a young man, and had made a fortune in business there, 
 had married, rather late in life, a Frenchwoman, a native of 
 the island, and the daughter of one of its chief officials. 
 Margaret supposed that she must attribute the unmanage- 
 ableness that she perceived in herself to this French mother : 
 that, at least, was the theory of her New Hampshire grand 
 mother, with whom she had gone to live after the death of 
 her father and mother. 
 
 Her grandmother did not care for foreigners, as she 
 called them ; but she loved the child, and during all the 
 years that Margaret lived with her was particularly good to 
 her. This was the more to her credit, since Margaret had, 
 from the first, ideas. The habit of mind which she had 
 inherited from her mother, had sometimes a hard time of it 
 with the New England austerity; though the romance be 
 stowed on her from the same source made friends in a curi 
 ous way with the Puritan capacity for self-abnegation. Her 
 conscience perhaps one should say her indomitable con 
 science was altogether Puritan ; while it would be hard to 
 say what we must call the ambition which gave purpose and 
 meaning to all her young days. The abandoned pursuit of 
 Culture for Culture s sake is at least not French ; and, as it 
 
28 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 is perhaps followed with the most pathetic sincerity in the 
 Middle West, it cannot be called altogether a New England 
 foible though it must have been in its beginnings a New 
 England idea. One suspects it of having been engendered in 
 the bleak farm-houses on the New England hills, where the 
 Winter is hardly less long than our American joke avers ; 
 from which the dwellers emerge only for "socials," "mite 
 societies " and lectures, and where the snow-bound solitude 
 turns the limited diversion of apples, hard cider and hickory 
 nuts rather wan before the Spring comes. 
 
 It would be a quarrelsome person who would not suffer 
 any one to get what fun he might out of the idea of Culture 
 for Culture s angular dear sake, no doubt ; and as an alter 
 native to the apples and cider, the mite societies and the 
 lectures, it has, certainly, advantages. But if it should be 
 urged that the theory of life which it implies lacks ease, lacks 
 curves, lacks atmosphere, lacks even to say the worst of it, 
 and have done the sense of humour, only one who had a 
 great many such New England Winters in him ought to say a 
 word. The Winters, though, would palliate worse things 
 things mistaken in fact as well as in spirit. 
 
 Margaret, in her pursuit of this mystic Culture, since it 
 must be said, conceived of education, until her education 
 was done, as an affair possessing length, breadth and thick 
 ness. It is to be feared that she even " improved " her 
 opportunities. They were not many, poor girl, until she 
 left the New Hampshire village for her first stay in New 
 York, where she studied at a school in which she spent a 
 year learning that she was the only pupil who regarded its 
 advantages as precious privileges. Then she left it for 
 Vassar, which was, at least, not touched with sham. She 
 found here other girls with her thought about education ; 
 and she went about the erection of her structure of intelli 
 gence with an energy which presently sent her home to her 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 29 
 
 grandmother ill. The structure remained her point after 
 her return, however ; and the reader who knows anything of 
 this habit of thought should not need to be told that she 
 looked upon it, not as a dwelling that she should one day 
 inhabit, much less as a temple which should one day inhabit 
 her ; but as a shrine whose graceful proportions it was the 
 final privilege to set for ever within one s blessed sight. At 
 nineteen Margaret was more in the way to becoming that 
 distressing product of our felicitous new ways of thinking 
 about women and about education the female prig than a 
 friendly biographer would like to record. 
 
 Her escape from such a fate was due to circumstances 
 outside her control. In the midst of one of the Summer 
 vacations she took up a copy of the Springfield Republican, 
 to learn that the little competence left her by her father had 
 been embezzled, with more important trust funds, by an 
 unscrupulous executor. And, soon after, her grandmother 
 died. Every Sunday morning, from the time when 
 Margaret had come to her as a child, she had lain in bed 
 this estimable lady thinking how she would change on 
 Monday in Margaret s favour, the will which bequeathed all 
 she had to a charity. On Sunday morning a late breakfast 
 gave time for reflection on such subjects ; but on Monday 
 there was never any time at all. And on one of the 
 Mondays which was to have witnessed the fulfilment of her 
 resolve, she died in Margaret s arms. 
 
 The double catastrophe had many lessons for Margaret. 
 She sorrowed for her grandmother bitterly out of the 
 simple and loving heart which no system of cultivation 
 could have educated out of her ; and she never thought of 
 blaming the neglect which had left her with the problem of 
 earning her living close upon her. The money lost through 
 the executor s rascality troubled her solely as an educated 
 girl: a girl with duties, with responsibilities to her self- 
 
30 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 development. It would be putting it too crudely to say 
 that she grieved for the loss of the money, because one 
 might have bought such a lot of Culture with it : travel, 
 that is, and the leisure for study, and the sight of good pic 
 tures, and the knowledge of all the "cultivated" things. 
 But it is only the expression that is at fault : her idea 
 hovered very near this thought. And, as she could not 
 have the thing in one shape, she determined to buy it for 
 herself in another. 
 
 It was necessary that she should provide for herself; 
 and she conceived the enterprising notion of making this 
 necessity serve her purpose. She " taught " ; but she gave 
 the heavy-hearted word a meaning of her own by procuring, 
 through a friend of her father, in Boston (after a year spent 
 in school teaching), a position as travelling governess with a 
 family which put several of her favourite novels to shame by 
 treating her as one of the species. 
 
 She made the tour of Europe with these people, with 
 what she called, in her letters to one of her college-friends, 
 " most satisfying results." She did not mean to the business 
 man s children whom she was teaching; but to what she 
 might have called her own " mental progress." The business 
 man, when he called the results " satisfactory," meant some 
 thing separated by the distance between any two of the 
 planets from the idea contained in Margaret s word ; but his 
 word was at least as much reward as she had expected, 
 outside her salary, for her faithful efforts to decant some of 
 her knowledge into the minds of the business man s 
 children. 
 
 When she was back in America again, she recklessly sat 
 down and waited for another engagement looking to the 
 same ends. This time she wanted to go to Japan, and she 
 kept the advertisement in which her wishes were succinctly 
 stated in the Nation and in the Tribune until a family dis- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 31 
 
 covered itself intending toward Japan, and desiring a gov 
 erness of Margaret s capacity, temperament and terms. 
 
 It will be seen that this was a woman of energy, of in 
 dependence and of original ideas ; but so much lies on the 
 surface. To make it at all clear how she contrived to reconcile 
 these rather aggressive qualities to the softest and gentlest 
 womanhood there need be, one must have known her. 
 To be sweetly firm, to be gifted with the kind of lucidity 
 that does not roil one s own commonplace muddle of a 
 mind by its mere existence, to know, and not to know you 
 know, to hold immoderate opinions in a moderate way, to 
 be transfigured by energy and yet consent to the propriety 
 of your neighbour lying on his sofa ; to perceive that the 
 boundaries of the State of New York, or even though 
 this is asking a good deal the confines of the British 
 Isles, do not limit the imaginable, not to say lady-like regions 
 of our globe; in a word to be tolerant these are great 
 matters. It can hardly discredit Margaret with any reason 
 able soul to own that she failed, for the most part, to realize 
 all these excellences ; but they had become the torment 
 ing measure of her ideal some time before she met Deed, 
 on a visit to Beatrice Vertner (the one friend she had made 
 at her New York school) at her home in Colorado. 
 
 It was mainly the travel which she had sought as grati 
 fying her aspirations toward Culture, which disabused her 
 of her young feeling about that ignis fatmis ; the sight of 
 the various, the populous, the instructive world furnished 
 her with an altogether new point of view from which she 
 grew to pity the provincial Diana who had set out with 
 such a fine courage to hunt down Culture with her little 
 bow and arrow. And yet the Diana remained; and the 
 Margaret of ten years after the Vassar days was at least as 
 remarkable for her likeness in remote, illusive ways to 
 the Margaret who had one and the same conscience for 
 
32 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 the Temple of Culture, and for the Temple of Pure Right, 
 as she was remarkable for her exquisite, her admirable and 
 surprising difference. 
 
 The new notions of life begotten of going about and 
 seeing things had led the way ; but no one who knew her 
 well could have been at a loss to perceive the moulding 
 force which had done the real work of change. It was 
 her womanliness coming in upon her, at the same time, 
 with its incomparable enrichment, which had taught her old 
 vagaries the way to the graces of the new Margaret ; it was 
 what one might almost have called her natural gift for 
 womanliness which finally chastened her edges, and which, 
 in shaping her young strenuousness to softer lines, lost for 
 it none of the validity and justness and simple strength 
 which had gone with her maidenly ways of thinking. 
 
 And yet it is certain that one is not reared in New 
 Hampshire for nothing; that one does not spend four 
 years at Vassar without bearing the Vassar mark ; above all, 
 it is clear that no one can teach for ten years it may be 
 that no one can teach for an hour and live to hide the fact. 
 
 It was Beatrice who first caught sight of the familiar 
 figures of the pony and his rider, coming up the road at a 
 gallop, pursued by a swirl of dust. She could not be per 
 suaded that she did not hear the baby crying ; and descended 
 upon the sound before Deed could reach the porch. 
 
 Margaret would rather he had not tried to find a smile 
 for her. He looked a year older than when he had left 
 her side. They stood for a moment when she opened 
 the door to him, looking into each other s eyes. Then she 
 cast her arms about him, and drew him to her with an im 
 pulse of protection the kind of refuge against the vexations 
 of the world that a woman offers to the man who is dear to 
 her, as if he were the sole sufferer from them on the planet 
 and whispered some words in his ear. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 33 
 
 " I am so sorry," she said simply, as she took his arm, and 
 led him into the room, where she had made up a brighter fire 
 against his return. 
 
 He sat heavily on the sofa, and stared at the blazing 
 pinon sticks, with the look of a man whose fight is done. 
 
 He looked away from her. " We must n t talk of it," he 
 said, after a moment. " It s no stuff to make wedding 
 days of. I don t know," he went on, biting his lip, " how 
 I am going to get my forgiveness that this should have 
 happened as it has." 
 
 She came and stood by his side. " Do you begrudge 
 my sharing your trouble, James ? " she asked. " Would 
 you rather have borne it alone ? I thought that was what 
 it meant to be " 
 
 "What, dear?" he asked tenderly. He drew her down 
 to him, and put his arm about her. She sank on the floor 
 beside him. 
 
 " A wife," she said, blushing faintly, and looking down. 
 
 Their romance was not less dear to them than if they had 
 been younger : it was more sober, but not less valiant. 
 
 "Urn" commented Deed, with a wan smile, 
 
 patting her hand affectionately. She sat, for a moment, in 
 a reverie that took no account of their trouble, and was 
 almost happy. But catching sight of his tense and stricken 
 face, "Something has happened," she said tremulously. 
 
 " Yes : I thought the law could help me," he answered 
 wearily. " It can t. If there were nothing else, I must 
 have let him go with his plunder, and have found heart, 
 somehow, to tell Philip that I had let myself be done out of 
 his future, with a fool s trust." 
 
 " Nothing but the law ? Then there is something else ? 
 There is a remedy ? " 
 
 He did not respond to the joy in her tone, " Yes," he 
 answered gravely. 
 
 D 
 
34 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 She started back and rose from his side, all her fears alive 
 in her face. 
 
 "James !" she cried incriminatingly. He sat silent, with 
 his head in his hands. She regarded him for a moment in 
 anxious perplexity. Then she reached forth her hand, and 
 laid it softly on his shoulder. " You you are quite sure you 
 are doing right ? " she asked gently. 
 
 He withdrew himself. " Margaret ! " he cried reproach 
 fully. " How could I do a wrong to him ? " 
 
 " You can do a wrong to yourself. You can let a longing 
 to right yourself carry you too far," she said bravely. 
 
 " Don t talk in that way, Margaret. There was but one 
 right and one wrong in the world. I had to have that right. 
 What I have done is just." 
 
 "Oh, I hope so!" she cried. 
 
 He was silent for a moment. He was thinking of many 
 things. Suddenly he turned his eyes to hers, and regarded 
 her piercingly. He took her hands in an eager pressure. 
 "What would you do for me?" he asked at last abruptly. 
 
 " My dear James, I " began Margaret, startled. 
 
 " Would you give up all that I have meant to make yours 
 for for me ? " 
 
 His intense gaze was unbearable. She turned away. " You 
 know I would," she murmured. 
 
 " Don t think that because I am giving, I have the right 
 to take away. It s not so." 
 
 "Rights, dear ? Must we talk of them ? Don t you 
 
 think ? " 
 
 " Well ? " he asked, trying to be gentle ; but his rest 
 less anxiety got into his voice. 
 
 " That they stop, I was going to say, where love begins. 
 But, James, you seem so far off so strange." She laid a 
 hand doubtfully upon him, and looked into his face with a 
 questioning glance. " Would it reach you, if I said a thing 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 35 
 
 like that ? " she asked. Her smile was pitiful. " Oh, my 
 dearest, of course I don t care. How should I ? Did I 
 ever care ? And now if it would make you happy " 
 
 "Must it make me happy?" he asked. 
 
 " Would it be worth while to you if it did not ? " 
 
 " Ah, well ! " he exclaimed inconclusively. And for 
 
 some minutes they did not speak. Margaret watched his 
 absorbed face and knitted brows with a thousand rising 
 doubts. 
 
 He may have seen the pained look of inquiry on her face, 
 for he took her clasped hands, and stroked her hair thought 
 fully. With her elbow on the sofa, and her head in her 
 upturned hand, she coiled herself on the floor, and regarded 
 the crackling fire for a long time, in wistful absence. 
 
 She was glad when he spoke, though all her fears cried 
 out against what he might say. As he bent over her, speak 
 ing in a low voice, she kept her eyes on the fire, " Tell me again 
 it would not pain you to lose it all, Margaret. It is not 
 merely money. It has many sides, and meanings. It is all 
 worldly comfort, advantage, leisure, of course, but besides it 
 is freedom freedom to do the things you have wished to do, 
 Margaret ; the things you have not been able to do. It s 
 not fair to ask you until you have tested it. You don t know 
 how much you would be giving up." 
 
 She smiled where she sat. " I know how much I should 
 be gaining if if it can serve you," she said softly, her head 
 turned from him. 
 
 He observed her with keen, grave eyes, which, as he 
 looked, filled with tenderness. He rose and took her in his 
 arms. 
 
 " Is this my reserved Margaret ? " he asked. " Is this the 
 quiet little woman who, a few months since, would scarcely 
 own she loved me, and only the other day was protesting that 
 her training had not taught her the language of affection ? " 
 
 D Z 
 
36 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 She hid her face. " What is it that you wish to do, James ? " 
 she asked anxiously, when she could raise it again. 
 
 He released her without answering. After a moment he 
 took a turn up and down the room. 
 
 " You won t believe it ! " he said suddenly. He went back, 
 and flung himself upon the sofa, with a half groan. The 
 fire had blazed up, and in its play upon his face Margaret read 
 the torture that was going on in him. She was beside him 
 again in a moment. " Margaret," he said, as he caught her 
 hand once more, " do you remember the story of Samson ? " 
 
 " Surely," she answered in wonder. " Why ? " 
 
 " His locks were traitorously shaven. His strength, which 
 was all his riches, was basely taken from him by one he 
 trusted. Then his enemies believed they had conquered 
 him, for his power was gone, and they had put out his two 
 eyes. But in Gaza do you remember, dear ? when they 
 were gathered to see his shame, he put forth one last, mighty 
 effort, and pulled down the temple over their heads, and his. 
 The story has always had a noble ring to me, I don t know 
 why. To day it comes back with special meaning. Would 
 you mind reading it over to me, dear ? " 
 
 Margaret gazed at him in trouble and uncertainty; but 
 she went for the Bible which was her single inheritance from 
 her mother. At home she always kept it on the table near 
 her bed. Just now it was in the trunk, up stairs. When she 
 had it, she brought the volume to him ; and kneeling down 
 with her arm on his knee and face to the blaze, where she 
 could see him by turning her head, opened quickly to the 
 place. 
 
 " But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes/ " she 
 began, " and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him 
 with fetters of brass " 
 
 " No, a little further on, please," said he, keeping his eyes 
 closed. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 37 
 
 " And it came to pass, " she began again, toward the 
 end of the chapter, " * when their hearts were merry, that they 
 said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And 
 they called for Samson out of the prison house ; and he 
 made them sport ; and they set him between the pillars. 
 
 " And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the 
 hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the 
 house standeth, that I may lean upon them 
 
 " And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord 
 God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray 
 thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged 
 of the Philistines for my two eyes. " 
 
 Deed rose abruptly, and paced the floor. Margaret read 
 on, fearful of she knew not what. 
 
 * And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon 
 which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the 
 one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. 
 
 " And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. 
 And he bowed himself with all his might ; and the house fell 
 upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. " 
 
 Margaret dropped the book, and looked at Deed. He 
 was standing quite still, listening in absorption. 
 
 " Was it not great ? Was it not well done, Margaret ? " 
 
 " I don t know," she said, with the touch of preciseness 
 which, without her will, would often make its way into her 
 tone when matters of propriety or morality were in question. 
 She reflected a moment. " Was it right to kill so many for 
 revenge only ? " 
 
 " It was just. His loss was not a common one. It was 
 his two eyes." 
 
 " But barbarous justice don t you think so, dear ? It 
 would be better to suffer under the sense of the worst 
 wrong." 
 
 " No, no," said he, earnestly, almost eagerly. " To me 
 
38 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 it seems nobly done. He did not try to save himself. He 
 perished of his own will in the general ruin." 
 
 Margaret had long been watching him anxiously ; but 
 now, terrified beyond control, she burst forth, " Oh, James, 
 what has Samson s story to do with you or me ? " 
 
 " Everything ! Everything ! " he cried. " Has not Jasper 
 taken my strength in teaching me to know him ? Has he 
 not taken my eyes in robbing me of himself, and of Philip s 
 future, at a stroke ? " 
 
 He paced the floor impatiently. She put forth her hand 
 with an instinctive gesture of deprecation. His haggard face, 
 with its look of determination, awed her. When she tried 
 to cry out her voice failed her. 
 
 " Margaret ! " he cried, pausing suddenly in his walk at 
 some look in her face. "You would not have me bear 
 it?" 
 
 " Oh, James ! " she answered. " It is hard, very hard, I 
 know. But, yes : I would bear it. What else is there 
 fork?" 
 
 "What else?" he cried. "All else! Why, Margaret! 
 Can you ask ? Do you think I could live, and not strike 
 back ? Am I so weak a thing ? Am I cheated of all my 
 
 power, even in your eyes ? Why, dearest " He drew 
 
 her to him, as she rose, with a tremulous motion, and sur 
 veyed her face. " Why, dearest," he repeated, " I have still 
 Samson s power." 
 
 " Still Samson s power ? " She repeated the words 
 helplessly. 
 
 " The power to make him suffer with me," he said sternly. 
 "The power to pull down the temple over his head." 
 
 "And yours?" 
 
 " Surely. Did you think I could not find Samson s 
 courage for Samson s remedy ? " 
 
 " But you will not ! Surely you will not ! " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 39 
 
 " I have," he said, as he turned away. 
 
 Margaret bowed her head. " Oh," she cried, " you said 
 well that I could not believe it." She kept her face in her 
 hands, catching her breath with the sobs that shook her. 
 
 " Margaret ! Margaret ! " he besought her. But she did 
 not heed. He turned away in desperation. 
 
 " Is it is it irrevocable ? " she asked, when she could 
 command herself. 
 
 " Could Samson have built the temple again ? " 
 
 "There must be some retreat." 
 
 " I have given my word." 
 
 " You can buy it back again." 
 
 His face hardened. " So Jasper might say," returned he. 
 " Listen, Margaret ! " he entreated. " I am within my rights 
 my legal rights. What would you have ? May I not do 
 what I will with my own ? In his letter he says that he 
 reckons his * half interest, as he calls it, at $75,000, and that 
 he * can t be expected to give up a thing like that. An hour 
 ago I sold the entire range and cattle for $25,000, without 
 inquiring his preferences. He has given it up," he said grimly. 
 
 She looked into his eyes for a moment in silence. At 
 last she said, "Is this sale completed ?" 
 
 " No, but I am morally bound to complete it." 
 
 " You shall not." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " My dear James, you shall not. Oh, how can I argue 
 such a thing, if you don t see it ? It is cruel, it is wrong, 
 it is wicked." 
 
 "You must let me be the judge of that, Margaret," 
 said Deed gravely. 
 
 " Oh, James, why am I what I am to you, if I may not be 
 your conscience, when yours under frightful trial, I know 
 has left you? You have no right to do this thing." She 
 came close to his side. 
 
40 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 "Oh, there comes your teacher s theory of. life," he 
 cried in unbearable irritation " your hide-bound New Eng 
 land conscience that will not see circumstances, that refuses 
 the idea of palliation as if it were a snare, that finds the same 
 wrong in an act under all conditions, as if killing were always 
 murder." 
 
 " James, James ! " begged Margaret, quite calm and 
 brave now, " don t talk of me. 1 am anything you say. 
 Think of yourself! Consider the life of remorse you are 
 condemning yourself to. Distrust the false passion and 
 pride that tells you you are right now. You are wrong. 
 Listen to me, who have nothing to gain by telling you so. 
 You are wrong." She spoke the words that came to her. 
 
 " Have I not the right to make him suffer as I suffer ? " 
 he asked coldly. 
 
 " I don t know. You have not the right to use all your 
 rights. I am sure of that. It is what they are always 
 telling us, but is it the less true the world would be in 
 tolerable if every one demanded all he is entitled to. You 
 must feel that. Self-surrender, self-denial : all that are 
 they only phrases in the books? Are they too big and 
 fine for our every-day world ? " 
 
 She paused for a thoughtful moment, and with a glance 
 of infinite tenderness regarded him, where he stood rest 
 lessly gnawing at his moustache, and snapping his fingers. 
 
 " As <if I need ask ! " she exclaimed. " As if you had 
 ever needed anything better than just ordinary Thursday 
 Friday and Saturday for your goodness, dear ! Don t I 
 know it ? Who ever used more every-day generosity and 
 kindli " 
 
 "Hush, hush, Margaret," he insisted. "The thing s 
 done, I tell you." 
 
 The fire, which had been dying down, leaped up, and 
 glpwed upon his face. The look she saw on it taught her 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 41 
 
 patience. " Listen, James," she begged, fighting back the 
 sudden tears, which, somehow, had slipped by her guard. 
 
 He shook himself free from her hand with a kind of 
 courteous impatience, and walked to the other side of the 
 room. 
 
 " Don t preach, Margaret, of all things." 
 
 She gazed at him sadly. "Suppose we wait until to 
 morrow morning to speak of this, dear," she said gently. 
 "I can talk to James Deed; but his evil spirit I don t 
 know." She tried to smile. 
 
 " I am quite myself," he said, almost stiffly. " Was it 
 not I who was wounded, and in the best part of me : my 
 love for him ? Why should it not be the best part which 
 answers it ? " He spoke with a kind of fierce calmness, as 
 if he were endeavouring to be gentle and reasonable with 
 her, and found it hard. 
 
 " Is it the best part which tempts to vengeance ? " she 
 asked wearily. 
 
 " I fancied you were calling it that in your heart," he 
 said, with bitterness. " And if it were ? Did not Samson 
 call on Heaven for vengeance that was his word ven 
 geance on the Philistines, and was he not richly answered ? 
 Was he not given strength for it ? " 
 
 " Oh, James," she cried in despair, " how can I argue 
 against such frightful sophistries? " 
 
 They were both in the tense mood in which the added 
 word snaps the bond of friendship, of blood, of love itself. 
 
 "You need not," he said, as he turned from her. "We 
 have had more than enough of argument. It does not 
 change my intention. I shall complete the sale in the 
 morning." 
 
 He was about to leave the room, but she called, 
 
 "James!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
42 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 "You must not." She caught her breath, and sat hastily 
 upon the sofa. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " 
 
 " I tell you you must not. I I will not have it. I have 
 my my rights, as well as you, my rights as your wife who 
 is to be. I will not have your property my property, 
 thrown away for a whim." 
 
 He came toward her quickly. She shrank involuntarily. 
 Her face was white : she set her teeth. 
 
 " Do you mean that ? " 
 
 She nodded painfully. 
 
 " It would have been simpler to say so in the beginning 
 not to say honester," he said with slow bitterness. " You 
 might have spared me the pain of knowing that you could 
 promise to give it all up, when you thought yourself secure 
 from being held to your word. You might have saved your 
 sermons." 
 
 It was like the agony of death to hear these things from 
 him ; but she shut her lips and bore it. If she spoke now, 
 she knew that her tone must belie her words. 
 
 "A moment ago you said," he went on coldly, " that you 
 had nothing to gain. Pardon me if I say that you seem to 
 have had much. It may make your sleep easier to-night, if 
 I tell you that you have gained it" 
 
 He put his hands to his head in bewilderment, caught up 
 his hat, and without a glance at her, left the room. 
 
 Margaret rose, and closed the door behind him. She 
 stood a long time at the window, trying not to cry. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ELEVEN thousand feet above sea-level the dry air reaches 
 the point of saturation with a kind of gasp and shiver. 
 Philip Deed was sure of the storm in the air half an hour 
 before the clouds began to gather. It was the day on which 
 he was to meet his father, at Maverick ; and he had set 
 forth in the morning from Pinon, where he had spent his 
 unprofitable year in mining, planning to reach Bayles Park 
 by one o clock, and to take the railway there for Maverick, 
 where he expected to arrive in time for the wedding. 
 Cutter, who had failed in the mountains also, and whose 
 arrangements for the future were indefinite, was going to the 
 wedding with Philip. His family had always known the 
 Deeds in New York and he and Philip were friends. 
 
 The air grew moist, and the sky darkened as they put 
 their horses at the ascent out of Laughing Valley, into which 
 they had just come down from the other side. A mile up 
 the trail they stopped on an eminence commanding the 
 valley, to look about. A ray of sunshine shot a half-hearted 
 glance from behind the clouds brooding above the way they 
 were to take. The ray was instantly swallowed up ; but the 
 valley was swept by a momentary radiance, under which it 
 started dazzlingly fresh and green, and took the sudden gold 
 on its face with a dancing quiver which almost excused its 
 foolish name. 
 
 The range of hills over which they had just come rose 
 
44 BENEFITS FOEGOT. 
 
 behind Laughing Valley City to the North. To the South 
 the exit from the valley was through Red Rock Canon, be 
 tween whose narrow walls the Chepita fled roaring. The 
 sound reached them where they stood on their height at the 
 edge of the canon, above the scattered noises of the town, 
 which, at this hour (just before the three o clock shift at the 
 mines) was as peaceful, and almost as noiseless, as if it had 
 not been a city on all the maps. 
 
 Where the Chepita cast itself down out of the hills over 
 Moshier s Rock, at the other end of the valley, they could 
 vaguely see its white leap ; and then could follow its serene 
 course through the town. Down at their feet they watched 
 it go brawling into the canon. Quietly as it slipped through 
 Laughing Valley City, the river gave a certain effect of life 
 to the valley, which spread a vast green lawn at their feet, 
 unbroken save by the huddle of buildings at its centre, and 
 by the " dumps " of green or grey or red, which marked the 
 mines outside the town. The close-ranked mountains looked 
 down from every side upon the young city ; and the only 
 apparent points of egress to the world without were those by 
 which the river entered and left the valley the cleft in the 
 hills through which the Chepita hurled itself upon the fall, 
 and the canon by which it swept away. 
 
 Philip Deed was giving up his mining at Pifion because 
 his father wished it, not because, he liked the easy prospect 
 of a home and a bank-account held out to him from 
 Maverick. The thing for which he actually cared was a life 
 not responsible to its next minute a life that should leave 
 him altogether free to speculate with himself. At twenty- 
 three Philip Deed was an interesting subject for prophesy. 
 It would surprise no one who knew him if he should turn 
 out to be a great success, and this was Cutter s faith, but 
 the betting was against it. He had a fine, straggling army 
 of talents, and for commander of them a gusty temper. The 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 45 
 
 sound sense that would often bless him was for the most 
 part present in the hours when he did not need it, and 
 when he would not have been anything but sensible, upon 
 any temptation. He was wise upon impulse, and the pro 
 priety of his sentiments in his best hours merely served to 
 shame him when he was less wise : they did not establish a 
 permanent state of wisdom in him. He made mistakes as 
 other men are respectable : from instinct. He often had 
 occasion to denounce himself passionately. He had a noble 
 and unthinking generosity, a warm heart and a habit of 
 taking people at their own valuation, and of owing more 
 than he could pay. 
 
 There was a generous touch even in Philip s incapacity 
 for it amounted to that to perceive the delicate moment at 
 which meum melts into tuum. It was a kind of incapacity 
 to infect an entire character, and it infected Philip s; at 
 strange times and upon odd occasion the fibre for which 
 one instinctively looked as the accompaniment of other fine 
 traits in him was missing : it was like a lacking sense, rather 
 than a vice, as excellent people are absent-minded. It 
 might nevertheless have been odious Jasper said it was 
 if it had not been seen to be merely the obverse side, of his 
 generosity : what was his was yours, if you were his friend ; 
 and it followed as the kind of corollary to which no open- 
 handed man would give a thought, that what was yours was 
 his. Good fellowship was like that ; it was one of the things 
 that one did n t question. One did n t compel one s friend 
 to ask for one s second coat, when one s friend was shivering ; 
 one gave it and asked no questions when the friend forgot 
 to return it : that was the way of coats and friends. And 
 when the need for a coat was one s own it was a poor com 
 pliment to one s friend if one could not trust him for as 
 good an understanding of the transaction as one s own. 
 
 Philip had never reasoned it out it was not the sort of 
 
46 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 thing to reason about but this was, in general terms, his 
 instinct about the whole business of give and take. He had 
 an entirely good conscience about his money dealings, and 
 obligations of every sort. He knew that he borrowed more 
 than he lent, but that was because the borrowers did not 
 come to him early enough. When he received a sum of 
 money there were always a dozen tedious people who wanted 
 it people to whom he owed it : they got hold of it often 
 before he could lend it to any of the half dozen borrowers 
 who usually hang about such a man. About certain obliga 
 tions of honour he had as sensitive a pride as that of his 
 father, who never owed anybody a penny ; but he would 
 have postponed any ordinary debt to lend a friend in need 
 ten dollars, and he would have had no more scruple in put 
 ting the gratification of some wish of his own before it. It 
 was, in fact, often a race between the wish and the creditor : 
 the kind of wish that it took some time and trouble to 
 gratify was an advantage to the creditor. When the con 
 ditions were favourable he would often arrive first. Philip 
 was, in fine, upon principle and in practice, always generous 
 before he was just. 
 
 He would have found it difficult to explain his theory 
 about the propriety of being generous to himself. It was 
 involved in the foolish pride, not unlike a sense of caste, 
 which had given him a belief, cherished in a careless way 
 from his boyhood and now become an instinctive feeling in 
 him, like a religion, that certain things were proper to him. 
 Reduced to its obvious terms it would have become, like a 
 number of our more obstinate inner religions, an absurdity. 
 Philip got along with his religion by not reducing it by not 
 so much as thinking of it. He acted upon it. Was it that 
 certain insignia, a certain ceremonial, a peculiar dignity were 
 an hereditary appanage of his station ? But what was his 
 station? If he had been brought to this, he would have 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 47 
 
 urged that his station was to be Philip Deed, which might 
 not be much, but was what it was. He could n t pretend 
 to explain. 
 
 One of the more immediate results of this theory of the 
 pre-eminence of the debt he owed permanently to himself 
 over the accidental obligations incurred in paying it, was that 
 his unpaid bills in Pifion, over and above the money his 
 father sent him regularly to run his mine amounted to a 
 trifle over $400. The several small debts making up this 
 sum began to be pressing ; and he was glad to be leaving 
 Phion, not merely because the mines he had been working 
 for himself and Jasper offered no prospect of yielding ore in 
 paying quantities, but because he saw no present means of 
 paying these debts by his own exertions, and they had 
 reached a point where it was inconvenient, and occasionally 
 a little humiliating to add to them. He meant to ask his 
 father to lend him the money. He would be able to pay 
 him in six months ; he knew where he could make twice 
 $400 by that time; and meanwhile he would pay him 
 interest. He disliked to be borrowing from his father in 
 the loose way he had used hitherto. They would make it 
 a business transaction, and he should have his note. 
 
 " Is n t that Pifion Mountain to the right of the big dome 
 of Ute Chief?" he asked, as they stood on their height, 
 looking out over the hills. 
 
 " Yes -j I make it out so," said Cutter. " Melancholy 
 sight." 
 
 Yes oh, yes," agreed Philip heavily. " I ve been think 
 ing of our year up there : what an ass I made of myself drop 
 ping three or four hundred days into those holes in the ground 
 on Mineral Hill." 
 
 " Ugh ! " grunted Cutter. 
 
 " They were n t much as days, of course ; but they were 
 the best I had at the time. They might have brought me in 
 
48 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 a clear ten thousand or so if I had set them to work bank- 
 presidenting, or something. Why think of it a fellow might 
 have married on the earnings of those days. And there they 
 lie at the bottom of the Little Cipher and the Pay Ore/ 
 * Pay Ore ! " he exclaimed scornfully. " Happy thought of 
 its fairy godmother that name." 
 
 " Well, I m not banking heavily on the Little Cipher. 
 But it was luck enough for one day to locate the Pay 
 Ore. The Ryan outfit are going to have those days out of 
 the Pay Ore, you know, Deed. There s stuff in that 
 claim." 
 
 " Yes, I know," assented Philip indifferently, " low-grade 
 stuff. I don t see how it helps me that it would pay to ship 
 if it assayed three dollars better. It might as well be a 
 thousand." 
 
 " Wait awhile. It will be a thousand a thousand better 
 than pay dirt." 
 
 Philip made a contemptuous sound ; but his contempt 
 was outward only. He believed in the future of the " Pay 
 Ore," now that money enough was to be put into it to sink 
 the shaft to the proper depth, as men believe in the woman 
 of their secret ideal the woman whom they shall one day 
 meet and love, but whose virtues it is unprofitable to discuss 
 meanwhile. 
 
 " That s all right," returned Cutter unshakenly. " I ve 
 been down in the mine. Ryan s going to make a big stake 
 out of his lease of the Pay Ore. Watch him and see. He 
 might even take something out of the Little Cipher. He and 
 Buckham know what they are about. Who supposed there 
 was anything in the * Celestina until they took hold of it 
 on a lease ? And now look at it. Why, they were saying in 
 Pifion yesterday that the last assay gave $1,000 to the ton." 
 
 " Pshaw, Cutter ! I am ashamed of that bargain with 
 Ryan." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 49 
 
 His companion permitted himself a smile. " Well, you 
 ought to be the other way. You did n t get enough. 
 Man alive, you don t suppose he and Buckham are here for 
 their health. How many pairs of eyes do you think they 
 need to see that you are next the Celestina ; and that the 
 Pay Ore, anyway and- perhaps the Little Cipher is a 
 straight continuation of their lead ? " He had raised his 
 voice, but he lowered it to say, " Why, look here, Deed, I ll 
 tell you what I ll do : I ll stake my reputation as a mining 
 engineer that they have struck a true fissure vein in the 
 * Celestina, and that it dips your way." 
 
 Philip laughed. "Your confidence is charming, 
 Cutter charming. If you will give me a note of intro 
 duction to the person you have in mind who is prepared to 
 furnish me with board and lodging in exchange for such 
 confidence as that, I don t see what more I can ask." 
 
 The silence that fell between them recognized the exist 
 ence of the subject they were shying away from. It was an 
 hour since Philip had been handed his father s long telegram 
 as they passed through Laughing Valley City. He had bit 
 his lip and turned it over to Cutter. They had found no 
 words for it since, and were still trying to talk of other things. 
 
 " I wonder if you d mind, Deed, if I were to say what an 
 awful cad that brother of yours seems to be," Cutter broke 
 forth at last, while they still stood looking down into the 
 valley from their eminence. 
 
 Philip ground his teeth. 
 
 "Hardly! It saves me the trouble. Oh!" he cried, 
 venting the feeling he had been choking back in a helpless 
 shout of rage, "to think of his coming it over father and me 
 like that ! Confound it, I believe I could have stood being 
 swindled out of my whole future and have managed to pull 
 a decent face about it if he had done it like a gentleman. 
 But this . . . . ! The thing s so dirty, so small, so sneaking ! 
 
 E 
 
$o BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Why, Cutter, it s the grade of midnight assassination. Fancy 
 father ! The favourite son ! " He gave a scornful little laugh 
 and dashed his hand to his eyes. " Damn the fellow, any 
 way ! " he cried. " I swear when I think of it, it seems 
 too low a thing for any one who has a drop of my father s 
 blood in him to have done. I was n t old enough when 
 my mother died to know her intimately; but I don t 
 believe she was like that. And to think that I have spent 
 a year in those cursed mountains up at Pifion, working 
 that mine for him right alongside my own rising early and 
 going to bed late ; giving up every Christian habit ; denying 
 myself every kind of decency of living yes, forgetting how 
 it might feel to live like a gentleman ; and all of it just as 
 much every ounce as much for his infernal mine as for 
 my own ; and I get this for it. I tell you, Cutter, some 
 things turn you sour. The beastly ingratitude of the thing 
 makes me so sick that I can t kick against it. I have n t 
 any kick left in me. I believe some day, when I am cooler 
 about it, I shall be sorry for the fellow for being such a 
 devil of a cad. And to think that he is my brother yes, 
 and my father s son ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! He ll never stick to that point, Deed. It s 
 too indecent." 
 
 " Won t he ! " cried Philip bitterly. " You ve got a lot to 
 learn about Jasper. He ll not only stick to it, but he ll 
 prove that he s right. And what s more he will think so 
 himself. Jasper would n t do anything he didn t think right. 
 He ll think it right if it chokes him. He has done the right 
 thing, and done it at the right time ever since I can remem 
 ber ; and I ve always admired it in him. A man can t help 
 admiring a quality so remote from himself as that, you 
 know," he said bitterly. "Jasper isn t the kind of fool to 
 chuck away a year in a place like Pifion. He knows better, 
 and I respect him for it. His discretion and propriety, that 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 51 
 
 habit of his of doing the wise and sensible thing while I was 
 lucklessly going to some new style of dogs every six months 
 or so, and disappointing my father you can t think, Cutter, 
 what an impression that makes on a younger brother. Jasper s 
 very schoolmasters used to praise him, and even then I knew 
 they were right, and that I had earned my stool in a corner 
 for shirked lessons. As early as that he had a sort of in 
 stinct for the buttered side of life, and you see he has n t 
 forgotten it. You ought to have played marbles with a 
 boy for keeps to really understand a man, you know, 
 Cutter." 
 
 " Oh, come !" said Cutter. "His habit of being right is n t 
 going to help him to hold that ranch against your claim. 
 Your father will have him out of that before we get to 
 Maverick. Jasper is n t the only man who knows law." 
 
 " Humph ! Poor father ! " sighed Philip. He lighted a 
 cigarette. "He won t have much heart left for law, I m 
 afraid. His way is a quicker way. I can t think what 
 would have happened to Jasper if he had told that to father 
 instead of writing it. Like him to use a letter for it ! Father 
 does n t bear things well, you know. They make him wild, 
 just at first. It s part of Jasper s discretion that he knew 
 better than to stand up and tell him such a thing. I believe 
 father would have had to kill him." 
 
 " And that is the kind of man you think likely to sit down 
 under such an injury and twirl his thumbs ? " 
 
 " Hardly. He won t be sitting down. He will be raging 
 about. But it won t do him any good. We ve only got 
 the barest facts ; but you can figure out a good deal if one 
 of your known quantities is character, and if you know 
 Jasper s character you may be sure that he s behind the 
 strongest kind of fortress, if it comes to that. The law can t 
 touch him, I ll wager. Jasper always knows what he is 
 about ; he s got his earthworks piled sky high. You might 
 
 E 2 
 
52 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 as well try to storm that cliff over there." He pointed to 
 the sheer lift of rock opposite them. "It would be a pity, 
 I m sure, if a man s going to abuse a trust, if he should n t 
 make a good job of it. Poor father ! That s what cuts him 
 up, I know. He trusted the fellow, you see. Trusted him ! 
 Heavens ! He loved him ! Pshaw ! Let s talk of something 
 else, Cutter. What s become of your trouble ? Come, I 
 don t want to monopolize all the fun. Tell me, old fellow," 
 he said, laying his hand on the other s shoulder ; " do you 
 hear anything ? " 
 
 Cutter bit an end off the cigarette he had just lighted, and 
 nibbled at the tendrils of tobacco nervously. He glanced 
 with a vengeful look at the stony wall opposite, as he cast 
 the cigarette out into the air, and watched it fall in a waver 
 ing line into the canon, a thousand feet beneath them. " No, 
 nothing ! " he answered at last. 
 
 " And you want to ? " 
 
 " Want to ? You don t suppose I have any will about 
 it, do you ? A man in love, as you may find out some day, 
 Deed, is away past * want and not want. It s all must. " 
 
 " Yes," admitted Philip sententiously, " it s been described 
 to me that way. But one would say " 
 
 " Of course they would ; and awfully easy it is to say, 
 when it s somebody else ; and the girl does n t happen to be 
 the archetype of girlhood, and the one maiden arranged for 
 you from the beginning of time, and possessed of the only 
 smile and the only droop of eyelid you have any use at all 
 for, and all the rest of it. They babble about the happiness 
 of love until a man has to try it, as he tries smoking, 
 because it seems at the time about the most interesting 
 experience one can buy ; but it is a good deal like the 
 smoking when you have taken a puff or two at it : your 
 cigar has a Havana wrapper, as advertised ; it s the 
 Hoboken filler that breaks you up." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 53 
 
 Philip roared at the gloomy face with which Cutter said 
 this ; but his companion s countenance kept its ruefulness. 
 
 It was a year since Cutter s easy life had been given a 
 violently new twist by Elsa Berrian s refusal of him. He 
 had left New York immediately after in a passion of rage, 
 humiliation and love ; and his hurt was still fresh in him. 
 
 The day on which she refused him held more instruction 
 for Cutter about the constitution of human society than 
 he had gathered in the entire preceding twenty-four years. 
 Perhaps most men can look back to such days, when life 
 closed about them with a kind of rigour, and they fought 
 their way through the desperate view of the excessive and 
 useless hardness of things (which suggested suicide as a 
 natural, and not unpicturesque remedy), to the mixed dogged- 
 ness and pluck that enabled them to rise next morning, and 
 have a try, at least, at the inexorability of Fate. Cutter, 
 when he had tasted the dregs of this species of learning, was, 
 to his own sense, a stalking repository of melancholy wisdom. 
 
 He had thought his misery must make all things in 
 different. But, when he snatched at Philip s suggestion 
 that he should go West with him, he had not supposed it 
 would be so unlike New York. He had what he called his 
 " profession " he had studied mining engineering for two 
 years at Columbia but the demand for his inexperience 
 at Pifion left him plenty of time to wish he had not been in 
 such a hurry to leave a life which was arranged for him, and 
 which he understood, for the crude West. His dissatisfac 
 tion may not have been altogether unconnected with the 
 fact that at home he had been a young man about town 
 with a rich father who did not object to his idling until he 
 should have found the thing he wanted to do ; while at 
 Pinon every one was a worker, and was grossly, even 
 brutally, intolerant of any one who was not. 
 
 He was going to stay a year, though. He was resolved 
 
54 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 upon that. He would have felt it to be a confession that 
 he lacked " sand " to give it up earlier ; and he was really 
 too heart-sick about Elsa to be able to think with patience 
 of revisiting New York for a long time to come. It ended 
 in his forcing his habit of laziness into regular application to 
 such business as found its way to him, and, for the first time, 
 he began to study mining engineering in earnest. 
 
 He felt after a few months of life in Pifion as if he had 
 " had a great deal of nonsense knocked out of him." He 
 liked the outdoor life, and, when he could keep the old 
 Cutter under, he got along fairly well with the men with 
 whom his business brought him in contact. But it was 
 perhaps because, after all, he could not help letting them 
 see that he could imagine nobler, not to say more interest 
 ing, examples -of the race than they, that he was a failure 
 at Pinon, when all was said. 
 
 It was not quite his fault. It was not to be expected that 
 he should at once be able to rid himself of the New York 
 theory of life ; and that, other things being equal (though 
 other things had a hard time of it to be equal under such 
 conditions), a man should not seem somehow a better man 
 to whom such words as Wallack s, Daly s, Del s, the Union 
 League, the Academy, Brown s, suggested the same host of 
 associations that they suggested to him. This was of course 
 no more than the deathless and invincible New York conceit 
 which amuses the country at all times ; but it was perhaps 
 dearer to him than to the usual New Yorker, because he 
 had for a number of years had nothing better to do than to 
 foster it. It was his misfortune that he had somewhat less 
 than the usual tact, which helps other New Yorkers to cloak 
 their sense of an obvious superiority ; but it was happily his 
 luck not to be a snob in any sense or degree. 
 
 Philip, who had long since accepted the West, and 
 whose direct habit of thought removed him from the tempta- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 55 
 
 tion of remaining the critical outsider who analyzes the 
 situation it is his main duty to be living, was never tired 
 of making game of Cutter s crude struggles to be crude, and 
 of his habit of pettifogging with his temporary Western lot. 
 He had been accustomed to defend him when he was ridiculed 
 in Pinon ; but in the privacy of the cabin which the two 
 occupied together on Mineral Hill he guyed Cutter s amusing 
 fopperies as much as the camp could have desired. Cutter 
 continued to apply his daintiness to the coarse exigencies 
 of Western life with a smile ; and good-humouredly went on 
 being in his dress the most elegant rowdy that ever was. 
 He was a picturesque figure when in full regalia, with his 
 fire-new chapereros, his nickel-plated spurs, his spotless som 
 brero, on which he kept a fresh leather band at all times, his 
 English riding boots, and his crop. His revolver was of 
 the latest make, and his cartridge-belt looked as if he never 
 used it. 
 
 Cutter s faults, like this little foible of his, were for the 
 most part on the surface. Beneath them all he was as 
 simple, honest and manly as any one need be ; and men who 
 had need of a loyal friend sought Lenox Cutter. The self- 
 confidence, which was not quite conceit, and the touch of 
 selfishness which went with it, were of that not too insistent 
 sort which women are accustomed to the need of condoning 
 in the men of their acquaintance daily, and which men 
 because they know how much of both qualities a man needs 
 to earn a living are accustomed to tolerate so long as the 
 like qualities in themselves are not trodden upon. 
 
 The clouds had been gathering while they talked and 
 hung a threatening black bank in the West as Cutter, 
 turning away from Philip s laugh, glanced at them. 
 
 " We are going to catch it," he said. " Shall we go 
 on?" 
 
 put out his hand from his pony to test the air/ 
 
$6 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 The harsh damp that had fallen on the day made itself felt 
 between his interrogating thumb and forefinger. 
 
 " I must, you know. They will be looking for me at 
 Maverick to-day. I could n t risk being snowed up down 
 there in Laughing Valley City for a week or two. But you 
 must wait, Cutter. There s nothing to hurry you." 
 
 " Pshaw, we shall get to Bayles Park before the fun 
 begins. Anyway, we ll see it out together, unless you want 
 to get rid of me." 
 
 " You re a brick, Cutter ; but you d better stay. I am 
 going to have company whether or no, I think." He nodded, 
 toward the town. " Down the trail there do you see ? " 
 
 Cutter, following the direction of his nod, saw a large 
 crowd of men on horseback issuing from the town, which, 
 a few moments earlier, had seemed depopulated. They 
 had just passed the last group of cabins, on the outskirts 
 of the settlement, and were riding at a canter up the first 
 rise of the long hill which the young men had climbed 
 half way. In the still air the talk of the company rose 
 loudly. It was plain that an unusual event had called them 
 forth. 
 
 " Let s have the glass," said Cutter suddenly. " Fact ! " 
 he exclaimed, after a moment. " There s a young girl among 
 them riding alongside the tall fellow in front. See ? " 
 
 Philip took the glass Cutter handed him, and scanned 
 the party. " By Jove ! " He studied the shouting throng 
 anxiously for a moment. " I don t more than half like 
 the look of that crowd, Cutter. The girl why, man, 
 she s " 
 
 " Rather ! See how she bears herself at the head of that 
 crazy lot. A lady ? She s a queen." 
 
 " Yes," assented Deed musingly, while he kept the glass 
 upon the moving group. " But the man in the centre 
 what do you make of him ? " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 57 
 
 " Which ? " asked Cutter, taking the glass. " The clerical- 
 looking chap ? " 
 
 " Yes, I thought he looked like a clergyman." 
 
 " He is too, by George. See here, Deed, there s going 
 to be a circus here of some sort. We ll have to see this 
 thing out." 
 
 Philip nodded. " Do you notice how all the gestures 
 point his way ; and how they seem to be shouting at him, 
 and keeping him in the centre while he sits his horse with 
 out a word. Do you know, I believe he s the row." 
 
 Cutter s restless pony would not stand while he turned 
 the glass on the crowd again. He got off, and putting an 
 arm through the rein, made an attentive observation. 
 
 " It can t be," he said at length. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " That they are running him out of town." 
 
 " Why, my dear fellow, it fits in perfectly with all you re 
 in the habit of pretending you believe about the cloth." 
 
 " Stuff ! I never said they were rascals," said Cutter, 
 keeping the glass to his eyes. He put the glass down, and 
 remounted. 
 
 " What do you make of the girl s relation to him ? " asked 
 Philip after a moment. 
 
 " Oh, daughter, I suppose. She does n t look as if she 
 belonged to any of the rest of the mob." 
 
 " Careful there, Cutter ; careful ! " He was straining his 
 eyes through the glass. " Some of them may be Englishmen. 
 In fact, I think I see a Viscount. That s no way to speak 
 of the imported article." 
 
 The group was coming within easy eye-shot. A shout that 
 went up at the moment sounded close by. 
 
 " The imported article has a domestic howl," said Cutter. 
 
 " Yes ; and it s getting precious near. We must n t let 
 them find us studying them." 
 
53 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 With one of the silent twitches of the rein understood by 
 cattle ponies, they put their horses into a canter, and passed 
 out of sight of the crowd by a turn in the trail, which writhed 
 about the hill until, near the summit, it pushed forth in 
 the direction of their journey, and began to find its way 
 loftily along the walls of Red Rock Canon. The winding trail 
 brought them in a moment to a point just above that which 
 they had left, and looking down from behind a pile of rocks 
 shielding them from observation, they saw the party halted 
 there. It was a shaggy mob, not carrying out in its dress 
 its suggested English birth and breeding. 
 
 It seemed to be made up of all classes of the town s popu 
 lation. Those in the group at the left, with clay-grimed 
 trousers stuffed in their boots, were from the mines, and, in 
 one or two instances, the candles which they had apparently 
 neglected to put down in their haste were carried by the 
 steel hooks upon their fingers. The two wearing white shirts, 
 (the rest were clothed in the flannel of the West) had a hard 
 look, and might be gamblers. The shopkeepers, who had 
 come along to see the fun, were to be distinguished by the 
 eccentricity of allowing their trousers to drape themselves out 
 side their boots. There were a couple of cowboys, with 
 chapereros, spurs, and sombreros ; and with lariats coiled 
 about their saddle pommels. Most of the crowd carried their 
 weapons in sight. Some of the revolvers were to be seen peep 
 ing from saddle holsters. The cowboys wore their " guns " 
 in cartridge belts about their waists. It was a threatening- 
 looking lot ; yet, when the leader drew his fat black revolver 
 from his belt, and began to toy with it, his playful use of 
 it seemed merely a waggish substitute for the hems and 
 haws of other public speakers. 
 
 The crowd, grouping itself about him, arraigned the clergy 
 man before them, and somewhat apart (still on his horse), with 
 that eye for the scenic and dramatic which plays its uncon- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 59 
 
 scious share in all the extra-legal functions assumed by the 
 people in the country beyond the Mississippi. The tone in 
 which the leader addressed the clergyman was peremptory } 
 certainly ; but his address had its humorous moments, and 
 once, when, from the pitch of his voice, the listeners above 
 guessed that he was burlesquing the hortatory clerical manner, 
 the guffaw greeting the bit of farce showed how the sove 
 reign people may find rewards even in the solemn and pain 
 ful duty of administering justice. 
 
 Philip watched the scene intently. " We shall have to 
 take a hand in this," he whispered at last. " They mean to 
 lynch him." 
 
 " No, no," answered Cutter, under his breath. " The 
 leader is beginning oti a set of resolutions. They don t 
 resolve at lynching bees. They act. Besides, what would 
 they be doing with the girl ? They re running him out." 
 
 Philip said nothing, but glanced thoughtfully at the clouds, 
 which had been folding hill after hill while they waited, and 
 had now totally obscured the mountains which, in fair weather, 
 seemed so near Laughing Valley City that it appeared at 
 times as if one might touch them by stretching out his hand. 
 The vapour scurried close above them. They knew that 
 their own hill must be out of sight from the town. The air 
 grew chillier. 
 
 " Perhaps they might better lynch him," said Philip, at 
 length. " Do you remember when they ran that tin-horn 
 gambling outfit out of Pinon ? It was just such a day as 
 this has been all sun until ten o clock. You surveyed the 
 1 Little Cipher and the Pay Ore for me that morning ; 
 and the weather could n t have been fairer. But how it got 
 its back up after they were escorted out of camp ! It was n t 
 an hour before the town was trying to find itself." 
 
 " Yes," admitted Cutter. " It snowed." 
 
 " Snowed ? You could n t see the electric lights until you 
 
60 BENEFITS FORQOT. 
 
 ran against the poles. And those fellows, wandering toward 
 shelter in that storm, without a horse, and with no telegraph 
 poles to guide them to Castaway Springs .... I know, you 
 always say the Vigilance Committee could n t suppose it was 
 going to snow. But when they brought the bodies in the week 
 after do you remember ? it was awful to see the camp 
 find its conscience. Absolutions would have had a livelier 
 sale than whiskey in Pifion that day, I ve often thought." 
 
 "The wind is n t right for an old-fashioned blizzard 
 to-day," said Cutter, divining his thought. " You and I and 
 the minister will get through all right if they ll only start 
 him. But they ll have to get a move on soon." 
 
 " I was n t thinking of him," said Philip. 
 
 " Why, great heaven, Deed, you don t suppose they are 
 going to send her along ? " 
 
 " Send her ? No. But she ll do what she likes, I think ; 
 and you don t believe she ll desert her father, do you ? " 
 
 Deed took the glass from its case again, and directed it 
 to where she stood withdrawn at a considerable distance, out 
 of earshot, gazing on the scene with a face of anxious misery. 
 He had not seen her closely before. She seemed a quite 
 young girl. She might be twenty or twenty-one ; not more. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he exclaimed, in a low tone. 
 
 Cutter took the glass he offered. " She is pretty," he admit 
 ted. 
 
 " Pretty ! " cried Philip. 
 
 Cutter smiled. " Well, do you want to go down and 
 rescue her? I m with you." 
 
 " From what ? Don t you see what delicate consideration 
 and courtesy they use toward her? See the tall one 
 standing guard over her privacy with averted eyes. And 
 did n t you notice, as they came up the hill, how first one 
 and then another would ride forward to see if there was 
 anything he could do for her? Why, those fellows are 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 61 
 
 knights, you know, Cutter, when it comes to regard for a 
 woman especially a woman above them. By George, she 
 has an air ! " He spent a long moment watching her 
 through the glass. " She is the Princess they treat her 
 like : and she can unbend, too. See the gracious smile she 
 gives her subject-captor the tall fellow. He s been offering 
 to fetch her an ice from the North Pole, and she has declined, 
 with the sort of grace that makes denial a favour." 
 
 The leader folded the paper from which he had been 
 reading the resolutions, and stuck it in his belt. Philip, 
 turning his glass on the minister, caught the glance of uneasy 
 scorn with which he awaited the next movement of his per 
 secutors. It was violent only in its sarcasm : they lifted 
 their wide-brimmed hats as one man, and made way for him 
 to pass. The unanimity and silence with which this was 
 accomplished would have been impressive, if it had not been 
 rather laughable. The minister winced, but straightened 
 himself immediately on his horse, and rode by the ordeal of 
 the row of eyes, fixed contemptuously upon him, with 
 proudly lifted head. Jake Devine, the leading saloon-keeper 
 of the town, bridled in imitation of his haughty carriage, and 
 a smile ran about. Maurice continued to look before him, 
 implying his indifference as well as he might by the walk out 
 of which he scorned to press his horse. The crowd seemed 
 under the spell of its own silence, and no jeer broke from it 
 until the minister had passed the last man, and was on his 
 way up the hill. 
 
 A jocose stone or two pursued him amid the derisive yells 
 that now rose, and one of the group, creeping nimbly up 
 behind, smote the horse resoundingly with a cudgel. The 
 beast gave a snorting bound, and leaped forward up the 
 steep at a gallop. The clergymen s hat an English parson s 
 wideawake was blown from his head by the sudden move 
 ment, and his dignity was scattered upon the wind which 
 
62 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 wafted it from him toward the crowd, and which blew his 
 thin locks out behind as the horse scampered up the uneven 
 ascent, reckless of rocks and turns. 
 
 Philip had seen the girl s streaming eyes as she started to 
 follow him and was gently withheld ; and now he saw her 
 dry her tears with a start of indignation, and point impe 
 riously to the flying hat. The tall young man beside her 
 made after it, and returned it humbly to her. She nodded 
 her thanks, and at the same moment, with a dexterous hand, 
 wheeled her horse, and with a smart touch of the whip set 
 off at a run after her father. 
 
 The thing was so quickly done, that no one had time to 
 interfere, and they all stood gazing stupidly after her for a 
 moment. Then the tall young man gave his pony the spur, 
 and followed her. His animal s clattering hoofs on the rocks 
 urged her horse on, and he did not overtake her until she 
 was rounding the summit on which the young men awaited, 
 unseen, the issue of the scene below. He appeared to 
 entreat her ; she shook her head vigorously, and put his hand 
 down from her rein with a firm, but not unkind briskness. 
 She gave him a smile through her tears ; and he rode on 
 with her. 
 
 The young men followed. It had begun to snow. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE Rev. George Maurice s difficulty with the Vigilance 
 Committee at Laughing Valley City was the climax of 
 the ill-will which began to show itself against him in 
 the town a month or two after his arrival there from his 
 last parish, in Dakota. He had failed with these people 
 not merely because he lacked the cardinal virtue of 
 the West adaptability ; though certainly he was tactless 
 enough, and would often rasp the sensibilities of those 
 whom he would willingly have pleased. Nor had he failed 
 altogether because he was arbitrary, and dictatorial ; his 
 congregation could no doubt have borne that cheerfully 
 from a man they respected : indeed it is not certain that 
 they might not have liked him the better for being a bit 
 of a bully. 
 
 If they had been asked to lay a finger on the source of 
 their dissatisfaction with him they would probably have had 
 to own that they could n t. That was not a thing to make 
 them less dissatisfied, however. He was, in fact, one of the 
 men to whom it would be a pleasure to attribute something 
 forgivable like a definite sin. It was perhaps his indefinite 
 weakness that was unpardonable. 
 
 One might say, for example, as certain people did 
 that he was not too scrupulous about money matters ; but 
 it could not truthfully be said that he was unscrupulous. It 
 might be alleged that he did light things, unbecoming his 
 
64 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 cloth ; but his behaviour was never clearly unseemly. He 
 could easily be proved lacking in consideration for others, 
 or, if one liked and there were usually several who liked 
 for his daughter ; yet when one would say " selfish," the 
 remembrance of a reckless act of generosity would recall 
 itself, or the recollection of the strain of self-sacrifice in him, 
 declaring itself in acts that enslaved to him those whom 
 they helped, and endeared him to a following among the 
 young of all his parishes ; and condemnation was laid by 
 the heels. 
 
 Maurice did not pretend to be perfect. If he had made 
 any such pretence he would, for instance, have felt bound 
 to bury Carstarphen and Telfner when they died of small 
 pox, brought to Laughing Valley City by a party of China 
 men. The men had lived, like other miners, in disregard 
 of every sanitary precaution ; no measures had been taken 
 for disinfecting the cabin in which they had died, and to 
 go to it to read the burial service over them, and then to 
 accompany their bodies to the grave, on the side of Car 
 bonate Mountain, two miles from town, was, as a matter of 
 fact, a serious risk. It was unfortunate that those duties 
 of a minister of the Gospel, which, in personal experience 
 of them, one must, of course, qualify a trifle, should be so 
 simply conceived by the friends of the dead men. His 
 refusal to perform the last office for the men, though made 
 with the proper reluctance and regret, and reasoned cogently, 
 was taken extremely ill. 
 
 The miners who had come to ask his services as the 
 only minister in town, " cursed him out," as they afterwards 
 told the indignation meeting. It was at this meeting that 
 the resolutions were adopted, in which the word " coward " 
 occurred six times exclusive of the indignant preamble. 
 
 The resolutions, which, after the received custom, gave 
 him twenty-four hours to leave town, expressly excepted his 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 65 
 
 daughter ; and the ladies of the place had arranged among 
 themselves to keep her by them, and look after her, with the 
 purpose of sending her after her father, if she should desire 
 to go, when he should be settled somewhere. This plan had, 
 carelessly enough, reckoned without Dorothy s energetic 
 will, it was found, when the time came ; and they let her go 
 with the band that escorted him to the edge of the town 
 because she very quietly would have it so, not imagining it 
 necessary to extract a promise from her to go no further. 
 
 Dick Messiter (a young man whom the ladies knew to 
 have a mill-owning father somewhere in Massachusetts, and 
 whose occupation at Laughing Valley City was that of Super 
 intendent of Cincinnati Mining Co. No. 3) had offered to go 
 along and look after her ; and, in spite of the lamentable 
 occasion of the association of the two young people under 
 these conditions, the circumstance gratified that dumb novel 
 ist, or perhaps it is merely romancer, which seems to lurk in 
 every woman s breast. It struck the ladies of the town, as 
 a beautiful situation ; and they would have been the last to 
 interpose an obstacle to the crisis which is somewhere toward 
 the top of every situation. 
 
 They trembled appropriately for the clergyman, when 
 he was led out in the midst of the shouting mob, 
 and they exchanged the observation that they ought 
 not to have thought of such a thing as letting her go, when 
 they saw her riding among the noisiest of them. It 
 would have been hard if they could not assuage their 
 remorse by the suggestive spectacle of Dick and the girl 
 riding side by side up the hill. If one looked at the 
 matter from this standpoint it was clear that the mob could 
 not be too noisy, and, in a harmless way, it was even to be 
 hoped that it might prove obstreperous : it would be a pretty 
 opportunity for Dick. 
 
 The trail over which Philip and Cutter followed the 
 
 F 
 
66 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 three riders clambered difficultly along the walls of Red 
 Rock Canon ; or sometimes it would dip into it, or 
 wander quite out of it, and take its way along the table 
 land above. Bayles Park, where they were to find the 
 train for Maverick, and where the railway terminated for the 
 present, lay in one of those green and sheltered hollows, in 
 the penetralia of the hills, known to Colorado vocabularies 
 as a Park. For a good part of the year, the parks which 
 are a kind of small paradise to the traveller who comes 
 down into them out of the mountains keep a Spring 
 festival, and if anyone supposes that there are hill-gnomes, 
 he must be sure that it is on these fresh and flower-starred 
 lawns that they hold their revels. At all events, the hills 
 water and refresh them, as if they would keep their ball 
 room bright or perhaps it is with the hospitable thought of 
 maintaining one guest chamber among their unfriendly 
 rocks ; and every mountain traveller knows how to praise 
 the shelter it offers. 
 
 Bayles Park was still well nigh a two hours journey 
 forward, however, and the snow had begun to fly more 
 thickly. The noiseless coming of the storms in which 
 men and beasts are lost in these mountains is their most awful 
 effect : one could die more easily, one feels, in the worst riot 
 of tempest. The snow fell silently about them as they rode, 
 piling the folds of their great-coats, and their ponies flanks, 
 with its stealthy increase. The wind, which blew the flakes 
 in their faces blindingly, was smitten soundless by the Solid 
 curtain of white through which it passed to reach them. 
 The world was filled with snow and silence. It had grown 
 very cold. 
 
 There are often such snow flurries in the mountains ; and 
 then, in a few moments, sunshine again. Philip and Cutter 
 consulted with each other, and did not believe it would last. 
 But they agreed that it should make no difference if it did. 
 
BENEFITS FOUGOT. 67 
 
 They could not turn back and leave those in advance to 
 take their chances, even if Philip was ready to give up the 
 wedding. So people will agree while their feet are still 
 warm ; and they pushed on doggedly, as the fall grew 
 heavier. 
 
 The telegraph line followed the trail, save when, at rare 
 times (led on stubby iron poles), it would go forward, for the 
 sake of a short cut, in a dizzy run over the rocks jutting 
 from the cliff above them. Where the poles were set along 
 their path they were higher, and when the snow was most 
 blinding it was still easy to make out the road by them. 
 But the poles were presently less plain ; and the sullen 
 murmur of the Chepita rising steadily from the chasm which 
 opened at the outer edge of the trail, a measureless void, 
 warned them to use their eyes before they used the reins by 
 which they would sometimes guide the horses. 
 
 " Look sharp, there, Deed ! " shouted Cutter, suddenly ; 
 and Philip withheld his pony in time to save himself from 
 the gulf. 
 
 The pony backed in terror, and when Philip got him start 
 ed forward again, Cutter s horse refused to budge. Cutter 
 alighted, and led him. The animal came forward reluctantly, 
 cowering before each step, and eyeing the way before him 
 doubtfully. The snow-fall appeared suddenly to grow more 
 dense, and the river, down at the bottom of the canon, which 
 had marched with them until now to a soothing melody, 
 seemed suddenly to shake itself free from the silence of 
 which it had been part, and to give forth a muffled roar 
 and shout. 
 
 Cutter looked back for a sight of Philip s face. He 
 could touch his pony s nose ; but the rider was a vague 
 spectre. Cutter gave a prolonged shout. 
 
 " Helo-o-o-o-o." 
 
 They were not three paces from each other ; but "he 
 
 F 2 
 
68 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 could not be sure whether the answer was an echo, or 
 Philip s voice. He pressed his pony back against Philip s. 
 They caught at each other s hands as the animals came 
 together. 
 
 " I was afraid of this," said Cutter hoarsely, with the fear 
 which we find after the event. 
 
 " Yes," answered Philip. 
 
 The frightful huddle and scurry of the big flakes came 
 between them, as they peered in each other s faces ; and 
 their voices reached each other dully out of the pall of 
 snow. 
 
 " Think of those people ! " said Philip, after a moment, in 
 which they let their horses stand. " Think of that girl ! " 
 
 " Hellish ! " muttered Cutter, who had had no comment 
 for the business while they watched it. 
 
 " Come on ! " said Philip briefly ; and Cutter understood. 
 It was true : they must find them. And at the moment 
 they heard a vague sound like voices, in advance. 
 
 Philip s pony would not move quickly enough, and he 
 threw himself off, and jerked him forward. 
 
 " You heard ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 They pressed forward, and presently came upon the group 
 halted in the middle of the trail, bending over the girl, who 
 had been taken from her horse, and was being plied with 
 brandy by the tall young man. Her father, who was rubbing 
 her ears with snow, would raise his eyes from time to time 
 desperately, frowning and blinking at the storm. 
 
 She had not fainted. She was merely exhausted by the 
 storm, and numbed by the cold. The spirits seemed to re 
 store her. She looked up at sound of the shout of greeting 
 with which Philip and Cutter made their presence known, 
 and descried their figures. 
 
 " My horse " she murmured to Messiter, who was 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 69 
 
 stooping over her ; and he and her father raised her up, and 
 set her on her pony, while Philip put himself at the animal s 
 head. 
 
 Philip shouted something in Messiter s ear, as he came 
 around in front of her animal to take his own by the rein. 
 
 " To be sure ! " answered the girl s cavalier. " Had n t 
 thought of it." 
 
 Messiter did not catch what Philip added ; but he 
 replied to the question he guessed in his voice, " Yes ; 
 near here. I know the place well enough when the weather 
 has n t got the blind staggers. Blast the snow ! " he shouted, 
 rubbing his eyebrows and moustache, and mopping the little 
 segment of face which showed between his high muffler and 
 low fitting cap. " Brown s Canon, don t they call it ? " 
 
 He was near enough to see Philip s nod. 
 
 " A cut in the rock, and the cave just inside of it ? Be 
 yond the Fifth Cascade ? " 
 
 " That s the place," said Philip. 
 
 They set forward for it without delay, each leading his 
 own horse, except that Philip took Messiter s besides his 
 own, while Messiter led the girl s. Cutter, who did not 
 know the cave, brought up the rear with the clergyman, who 
 made no attempt to hide from him his disapproval of the 
 storm and of the entire situation. Cutter had never heard 
 such pleasant-hearted, even mellow, grumbling. The man 
 had a charm of manner which one felt through the snow itself. 
 In front, the two young men discussed the whereabouts of 
 the cleft in the rocks (which was known as a canon, for no 
 very good reason), and of the cave. About the place itself, 
 Philip knew best, having bunked in the cave for a night, 
 when he had come over the Pass the year before, on his 
 way to Pinon ; but his companion was much more familiar 
 with the trail. 
 
 They went peeringly forward, dragging the trembling 
 
70 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 horses. There was always an uncertain moment after they 
 had lost sight of one telegraph pole, and before they could 
 make out the next ; and at these times they felt cautiously 
 along the rocky wall that soared into the air on the inside 
 of the trail, and did not venture toward the outer edge. 
 The horses tried each step inquiringly before taking it ; 
 and the two men in the lead, advancing into the unknown 
 with such courage as they might, would often pause to take 
 counsel with each other s ignorance and helplessness. It was 
 impossible to say where anything was in this night of snow : 
 all of their world was that next step which they could see ; 
 and that step might always plunge them into the world 
 which no man has seen at any time. The cold seemed 
 somehow to numb the thought, by sympathy with the 
 bodily pain and bewilderment which intense cold brings. 
 The girl, who had not their resource of motion, was crying in 
 silent agony from it, Philip saw, when he made way at a turn 
 in the path for the young man to lead her horse by him ; 
 and he pressed his flask of whiskey into her hands. They 
 were so cold, and the men s mittens she had drawn over her 
 gloves so clumsy, that she had almost dropped it ; Philip 
 caught it up as it slipped from her, and shouting to his 
 companion to hold on, asked her by a motion to raise her 
 veil, and pulling himself by a jutting boulder to her level, 
 put the flask to her lips. She was very pale ; and the smile 
 she extorted from herself for thanks was pitiful. 
 
 Sometimes the trail turned sharp corners ; and once they 
 found themselves at the edge of the precipice, and the cry 
 of the river leaped up to them through the storm with a 
 sudden loudness. The two in advance shuddered back 
 from the sound, clutching at each other and feeling blindly 
 through the swirl toward the cliff on which their lives hung. 
 Shouldered firmly against the wall once more they paused 
 for a weary and discouraged moment to shake off the snow, 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 71 
 
 and to take heart for another venture into the awful mystery 
 of white. 
 
 The death which might lie before them was certain where 
 they stood, from snow and cold ; and at last they dared 
 question the wall again with advancing hands. Philip was 
 sure the canon and its cave could not be far. But the 
 storm created its own far and near. Ten paces were far one 
 might have to lie down and give up the fight at the end of 
 them the second step was not near ; one might never take 
 it. The wind had risen to a gale ; the cold searched their 
 veins, and their limbs began to answer their wills uncertainly. 
 It was time they found shelter. One of the horses stumbled, 
 and could not rise until Cutter felt his way back along the 
 bridle rein and helped him up. But when he tugged at the 
 reins again the pony would not move. 
 
 " We shall have to give the poor beast up, I m afraid," 
 he said. Philip went back and spoke a heartening word 
 to the pony it had belonged to him in the mountains 
 and the animal came along for a few paces, and stopped 
 again, when it became necessary to repeat the action. 
 
 It was all done in silence. For half an hour no one had 
 spoken, when Philip shouted, " The cascade ! " ; and there 
 reached their ears as they halted to listen, remotely, as if 
 from a great distance, the steady, down-beating pour of a 
 waterfall. The sound triumphed over the clamouring river, 
 and the loud-breathing wind, though it seemed so far away ; 
 and hope blessed them again. 
 
 When the wall opened at last to their weary hands, and 
 discovered the canon, and, a moment later, the cave, they 
 had just strength enough left among them to get the girl 
 from her horse, and set her within the cavern. They sank 
 about her exhausted when they saw her safe ; and for a long 
 time lay powerless to help her or one another. 
 
 Philip was the first to find his feet. 
 
72 BENEFITS FOROOT. 
 
 "Here, Cutter! Stop that! Wake up ! " he cried. 
 Cutter was dozing in the dangerous sleep in which men die 
 from cold. He shook him violently. 
 
 " Let me alone," grunted Cutter ; but Philip caught him 
 up, and seated him against one of the walls of the cave. 
 
 " Wake up ! Do you hear ? " 
 
 " Oh, come off ! " exclaimed Cutter drowsily. 
 
 " See here, do you want your head banged against these 
 rocks? They re sharp, I warn you." 
 
 Cutter started awake. He cast a listless glance over the 
 cavern which was high and spacious, with boulders scat 
 tered about the floor. The roof and sides were toothed and 
 rutted, and showed everywhere sharp points of rock, at 
 sight of which Cutter rubbed his head ruefully, and having 
 found a smile, knew himself again. " Got a match ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " No : but I think you have." 
 
 " Fact." He fumbled for the silver match-case, with 
 the figure of the humorous young demon atop, which was 
 one of the relics of his Eastern career as a young man 
 about town. 
 
 " Good ! " said Philip, energetically. " Then we ll have 
 a fire ! There s a sort of room just back round the 
 curve in the rock there, unless I am out of my bearings, 
 and a thing Hicks and Baxter used to call a fireplace when 
 they were living here on a grub-stake. You ll find some 
 wood. Get up a fire if you can, while I look after this 
 poor girl. Sing out when you re ready, and I ll fetch her 
 back." 
 
 He spoke rapidly and urgently, and Cutter got himself on 
 his feet and made his way with stumbling steps in the 
 direction of the rear of the cavern. Philip watched him 
 anxiously a moment : he had asked him to go, to give him a 
 reason for bestirring himself; but he feared he would drop 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 73 
 
 asleep again, while he went about the kindling of the fire. 
 But there was no time for concern about Cutter. He stood 
 upon his own stiff legs with a groan, and made his way over 
 to where the girl sat propped against the wall of the cave. 
 
 Her head was drooped upon her breast ; but she was not 
 asleep, and she looked up with a lifeless smile as Philip bent 
 over her. He made her take another long pull at his flask, 
 and then snatched off the heavy mittens which Messiter 
 had given up to her, and peeling off the thin gloves under 
 neath, fell to chafing her hands as briskly as his own be 
 numbed arms would let him. 
 
 After a moment, when she began to look about her, he 
 ran over to the prostrate figure of the clergyman, and shook 
 him alive, and then punched up Messiter. When they had 
 found their feet, they came over and helped him ; and the 
 girl was able after a time to reward their common efforts with 
 a look into which the heart and courage had a little returned. 
 She began to seem again something like the girl who had 
 cast off the restraining hand on her rein and galloped up the 
 slope above Laughing Valley City after her father ; and, when 
 they judged it safe, they bore her in among them to 
 the fire which Cutter had cried out awaited them. The 
 ears of one or two of them had been nipped ; but none 
 of their limbs had been frozen, and, with the fire in sight, 
 the men began to dance about, flinging their arms wildly, 
 and beating their hands upon their legs in search of their 
 lost circulation, and suppleness of joint. 
 
 She laughed at their crazy motions, where she sat cuddled 
 in all the wraps they could muster for her in front of 
 Cutter s roaring fire ; and they smiled back at her amuse 
 ment. 
 
 " Whew ! " shouted her tall cavalier, taking off his heavy 
 gloves and blowing on his fingers. " We forgot to shut the 
 front door after us. Don t you people feel a draught ? " 
 
74 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 She gave him a mirthful nod. " That s the etiquette of 
 cave-mouths," she said. " You must always leave them on 
 the latch ! It s in case we should have visitors. Oh, think," 
 she cried, in sudden terror, " if there should be any one 
 else out in this storm ! " 
 
 " Heaven help them ! " said Philip, " or show them the 
 way to something like this." 
 
 " Yes," said Cutter, drawing a musing sigh, as he settled 
 himself by the fire. " I don t know how it was with you, 
 Deed, but there were n t many minutes of stand up and take 
 it left in me, when we found this." 
 
 " Yes ; it s very nice we re here," she said thoughtfully 
 to Philip, who had come over to her corner, and was 
 standing above her, asking if there was anything that could 
 be done to make her more comfortable. " It was awful ! " 
 She paused for a long moment, in thought of it. " How 
 did you happen to know this place? Only think if you 
 had n t come up with us ! " 
 
 Philip perceived that she did not know that he knew 
 that they knew. He pulled himself up, with an inward 
 start. He saw that what he had been about to say would 
 have presumed on their common acquaintance with the 
 scene on the hillside above Laughing Valley. It was evi 
 dent that she had not seen them, as she swept by their post 
 of observation on her flight to join her father. 
 
 " Oh, your friend would have remembered it. It was he 
 who piloted us here ? Mr. ." 
 
 " Messiter : Mr. Richard Messiter to the minister who 
 
 baptized him : to everybody else, just Dick." 
 
 " I should never have found it without Mr. Messiter." 
 
 " And we should never have found it without Mr. ?" 
 
 She hesitated, in her turn, as she looked up into his face. 
 
 " Deed," supplied Philip. 
 
 Deed ? " she repeated. " Oh ! " she added thought- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 75 
 
 fully. " I wonder if you know a Mr. Deed who ." 
 
 Philip waited for her to finish. " Why, he once took me 
 quite informally out of a burning building. Our school was 
 on fire. It was in a village a Pennsylvania village and 
 there were no engines. The boys from the other boarding 
 school across the way formed lines and passed buckets. It 
 was at night. He happened to see me first at a window 
 from his place in the line, and ran in and carried me down 
 stairs. The fire, just for that one frightful moment at the win 
 dow, was worse even than the storm we ve escaped, I think. 
 Wasn t it fine of of that other Mr. Deed, Mr. Deed ? " 
 
 " It was fine," said Philip, looking down into her glowing 
 face. " I m hoping I can prove kinship with him. What 
 was his Christian name ? " 
 
 "A rather odd name Jasper." 
 
 Philip started. " Did all that happen in a village called 
 Aylesford?" 
 
 " Yes. How do you know ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " laughed Philip uncertainly. He bit his lip. 
 
 " Is it some one you know, then ? How very nice ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Philip, "it is some one I know my brother." 
 
 Dorothy exclaimed her surprise. " Then you must have 
 heard my story long ago. I thought I was telling you some 
 thing new." 
 
 " It was new," returned Philip, without animation. 
 
 " Of course. I ought to know that he would n t say how 
 he had done an heroic thing. It would n t be like him." 
 
 " No," assented Philip, " it would n t be like him." It 
 was true that Jasper was not a man to exploit himself. He 
 recognized the trait in him, on reflection, without cordiality. 
 It was part of his propriety. He would long ago have said 
 to himself that to boast was crude. 
 
 " But how very odd that you should be his brother ! " 
 cried Dorothy, returning to her original surprise. She drew 
 
76 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 the saddle blanket with which Philip had covered her feet 
 closer about her. 
 
 Philip burlesqued his thanks, and, with a little " Oh ! " of 
 appreciation, her face melted into a smile. " I did n t 
 
 mean ," she began imploringly. She joined in his laugh. 
 
 " Do you call that fair ? " she asked. 
 
 " What ? " inquired he. 
 
 " Entrapping me, like that." 
 
 " Have I said anything ? " retorted Philip unblushingly. 
 
 " No, but you ve made me. Or perhaps I said it myself 
 but the meaning is yours." 
 
 " Must I mean what you say ? " 
 
 She pretended to muse. " You must n t say what I mean," 
 she answered, looking up at him with a smile that enchanted 
 him. The name, Maurice, suddenly detached itself as he met 
 her glance from the haze of memory in which it had been 
 floating since he had heard it. Since she had mentioned 
 Jasper he had been casting back for the origin of this 
 memory. He recognized it now with a start. It was from 
 Jasper himself that he had heard it. A myriad memories 
 went buzzing in his head. Was it possible ? He recalled 
 a school-boy passion of Jasper s of which he had known 
 a very little as little as younger brothers, just learning to 
 smoke, are thought fitted to hear of an elder brother s love 
 affairs and had guessed a great deal : as much as such 
 brothers commonly guess from slender premises. He had 
 never seen the girl : it had all happened while Jasper was 
 away at school. But he remembered the name now. It 
 was Maurice. 
 
 A pang without meaning or reason passed through him as 
 he glanced at her again. She and Jasper had once been 
 lovers, then. She had permitted him to know her in the 
 intimacy the sacred intimacy, the intimate strangeness, of 
 betrothal. The thought gave him something like a physical 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 77 
 
 shock. With his knowledge of his brother s falsity fresh in 
 his mind the idea filled him with an empty, retrospective 
 anger for her. He felt as if she had been profaned, and 
 he believed his pang to be wholly for her. 
 
 In the silence that had fallen between them while he 
 pursued these thoughts, he discovered himself to be study 
 ing the face which she turned, now, half toward him and 
 half toward the fire-light. There was certainly a nameless 
 expression in it which made the thought of any homage to 
 it lower than the finest peculiarly intolerable. Philip fancied 
 that he liked the sweet seriousness of her face even better 
 than its prettiness ; but he was not sure, a moment later, that 
 he did not like its unconsciousness better than either. She 
 had less than the usual American pallor ; and in her cheeks 
 two bright spots of colour, which had fled before the exposure 
 through which she had passed, began to show themselves 
 unassertively. 
 
 Her gaze had a certain charming freedom, and in all her 
 motions she was singularly unafraid ; but this consisted with 
 a remote touch of reserve which never left her ; and which 
 was constantly causing one to rejoice the more in a con 
 fidence that was in every expression of itself a new gift to 
 the observer, because, in its openest moments, it seemed 
 always to withhold a part of itself. In the same way the 
 sober look, which slept upon the verge of her lightest 
 glances, enriched and gave a special value to the dancing 
 light which would come into her eyes at any challenge of 
 her attention. The eyes themselves had been meant to 
 be grey, apparently ; but one of them had rather agreeably 
 failed on the way to greyness, and had a fleeting tinge of 
 brown, in some lights. A little more pronounced and it 
 might have been a blemish : as it was, it was a part of her 
 indescribable charm. Something in the modelling of her 
 cheeks left the full view of her face a trifle disappointing, 
 
78 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 perhaps ; but this was because her clear, and almost perfect 
 profile promised so much. 
 
 As she sat in the half-darkness, her face thrown into 
 relief by the fire, she was certainly extraordinarily pretty. 
 Her shapely chin was well in the air, her little mouth she 
 was in all ways made upon a little pattern was pursed in 
 meditation, and her straight, sensitive nose was cut with par 
 ticular clearness against the light. It was not her nose 
 which disappointed in her full face ; it was incontrovertibly 
 very good. Her hair, which had taken several tumbles under 
 the late stress, showed that shade of brown which you felt like 
 thanking her for combining with her eyes and complexion, 
 and had, as well, that pretty crinkliness, and excellent habit of 
 waving or curling at unexpected moments, which one knows. 
 
 The pained thought which had drawn Philip s musing 
 glance to her was being replaced by an untroubled pleasure 
 in her beauty as he was roused from his preoccupation by 
 Cutter s voice, inquiring of her from across the fire, " Cosy ? " 
 Their common plight seemed to beget a species of respectful 
 intimacy among them ; and they all spoke as if they had 
 always known one another. 
 
 " Very ! " assented she. Dorothy Maurice had been born 
 in the South, of a Southern mother, and her voice had the 
 melody and vibrant sweetness of the voice of Southern women, 
 without the accent and pronunciation which it would be diffi 
 cult to prove altogether desirable, but which is pretty, too, 
 if you like. " We might almost be happy here for a week, 
 if we could keep warm so long, and if we could find some 
 thing to eat. Don t you think, Mr. " 
 
 "Cutter," he said; and her eyes met Philip s with 
 another smile. 
 
 " Don t you think we might find a larder somewhere about, 
 if we looked ? It is n t possible that the miners who left 
 this wood for our fire would stop at that" 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 79 
 
 Cutter glanced at Philip interrogatively ; and at her hint 
 they explored. Houses wander dissolutely from street to 
 street in Colorado towns, in wheeled pursuit of the real estate 
 market ; but provisions which have once found their way on 
 the backs of burros to a prospector s home in the mountains 
 are less vagrant. After a Summer s work a prospector would 
 be in a poor way who had not something more valuable to 
 load on his pack animals than the jerked beef, coffee, and 
 canned fruits and vegetables upon which the young men pre 
 sently came. 
 
 " Uncommonly white of them to leave so much canned 
 hospitality on a shelf for us, was n t it ? " said Cutter, ex 
 hibiting their discoveries. 
 
 " Dear me ! All that ! " she said. " I should think so ! 
 They must be very nice fellows. Did you say you knew 
 them, Mr. Deed ? " 
 
 " Yes ; as one knows men who take you in for the night, 
 and do the handsome thing for the wayworn traveller. I 
 spent a night here when I first came over the Pass. They 
 were working a claim a little way on down the trail, as I 
 passed them on horseback. It was rather late in the after 
 noon, and when I asked my way of them they told me I d 
 better let them bunk me for the night. I m afraid they did n t 
 leave these good things here with us in view, quite ; but if 
 they had known we were coming along it would have been 
 like them. They will be back in the Spring, I suppose, to 
 begin work again. I hope they won t miss what we shall 
 have to borrow from them." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say they won t mind," said the clergyman, 
 who had been silent for some time, while he thawed himself 
 out by the fire. " Politeness is rather wasted on the rough 
 people one meets in this region, I find." 
 
 " I don t know that, sir," said Messiter. And Philip, 
 who was about to protest, conceived in time that the 
 
8o BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 clergyman was not without reason for his feeling, and 
 forbore. 
 
 " Ah, well, / do, you know ! " returned Maurice courte 
 ously. " An odd business, that, Dick, was n t it ? " he said, 
 with an uneasy humour. " Were you by chance in the 
 place they call Laughing Valley City this morning ? " he 
 asked suddenly of Philip. The intention to ascertain, if 
 possible, how much these two strangers knew of the affair 
 on the hillside was obvious ; but Philip responded, as if 
 he had not perceived it. 
 
 " We came through Laughing Valley City in the morning 
 from Pifion," he said. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Maurice. " Then we passed you very likely 
 on the road without observing you." 
 
 " I think very likely," answered Philip, disingenuously. 
 " We stopped for a while once a little out of the road." He 
 saw her rising flush ; and wished to spare her even if the 
 clergyman did not care to be spared. 
 
 Philip saw Miss Maurice draw a sigh of relief as he made 
 this reply ; and she rose at once, and set about making the 
 coffee or such coffee as was possible without milk. The 
 sugar they had. 
 
 " Any tobacco ? " asked Cutter, as Philip came over his 
 way. 
 
 Philip offered him a bag from which the best of the 
 contents had been spilled in fighting the storm ; and knelt 
 beside him to strike a match. He seated himself near 
 him, next the fire. " Mighty poor business, this," he said 
 as the tobacco began to glow in their pipe-bowls, and 
 the smoke made a homelike fragrance in the air. "I 
 shall never get to Maverick in time for my father s little 
 affair." 
 
 Cutter smiled. " Why, you monstrous ingrate ! " 
 
 " Oh, of course I m thankful it s no worse, but when a thing s 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 81 
 
 no worse, who would be so stingy with his wishes as not to 
 want it better ? Plain luck is n t enough for a man. He s 
 got to have luck glace." 
 
 Cutter roared until the echoes answered him ; and they all 
 looked his way. " Man ! Man ! " he shouted. " You don t 
 want luck any more glad than to-day s I hope." 
 
 " What amuses Mr. Cutter ? " asked Dorothy, coming to 
 wards them unfolding a ragged red table cloth which she 
 had found, and which she was about to spread for them 
 on a square of rock. 
 
 " One on me," said Philip. " He wants to know if it s 
 cold enough for me. May n t I help you, Miss Maurice ? " 
 
 She let him endeavour as much as he would in the help 
 less helping which young men are accustomed to offer young 
 women in such things ; and which is doubtless so much 
 better for being so little effective. 
 
 As they spread the cloth between them on the rock, 
 Dorothy used the opportunity of her position opposite him 
 to observe him attentively, for the first time. She thought 
 him less handsome than Jasper after a moment s inventory. 
 She immediately added that he was better looking than she 
 had fancied in her casual glances. His broad-shouldered 
 vigour had its own value, and she did it justice in recalling 
 Jasper s effect of shapeliness. Philip s robust build wanted 
 symmetry, and his strong face, tanned by exposure to the 
 weather, and undeniably a little freckled, had the look of 
 force rather than beauty. It was not upon a pattern and 
 failed at important points ; but it was in no danger of con 
 fusion with other faces of equally simple and rugged cast. 
 His grey blue eyes, derived from his father, had the quiet 
 look of power : they fronted her squarely when he caught 
 her look, in an amused and kindly twinkle. Less gentle 
 things looked out of their depths unaggressively. With his 
 wide, full forehead, the large mould of his face, the sensitive 
 
 G 
 
82 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 nostrils and firm imder-jaw, he had the look, Dorothy thought 
 to herself, of a man who can do and make do. 
 
 She reflected that he seemed, much less than Jasper, to 
 have himself on his conscience. One could hardly use his 
 long stride to whom it had ever occurred to wonder how he 
 might look in walking ; and he would certainly have made 
 sure, after their fight with the storm, of his hair and the 
 sailor knot straying out of sight under the collar of his 
 flannel shirt, if he had felt the responsibility about his ap 
 pearance which she remembered in the Mr. Deed she had 
 known. The gods playing at bowls would be a sight valued 
 out of proportion to the consideration in which the game is 
 held, and Dorothy found a peculiar entertainment for her 
 thoughts in the spectacle of all this lustiness and vigour 
 spreading a table cloth with her. 
 
 She smiled when the idea occurred to her, and as they 
 failed for the third time to lay the cloth true between them j 
 she caught the ragged thing out of his hands, with a righteous 
 hesitation about her enjoyment, and began asking him ques 
 tions about Jasper, as she went on to lay the cloth and set 
 the table herself. Philip answered mechanically. The thought 
 that this sweet girl had once been Jasper s affianced wife 
 became more tormenting, more shameful, as he perceived 
 her charm. He caught himself staring almost rudely at her 
 in the frequent pauses of their talk abandoning himself to 
 speculation about the affair. How could she ever have 
 cared for him ? He had saved her life ; had she not just 
 said it ? That would be a permanent fact for such a girl 
 a reason for a life-long gratitude. But besides : everybody 
 liked Jasper until they knew him very well. Some of them 
 liked him afterward. It was one of his talents making 
 himself liked. She seemed still to like him herself; all that 
 she said implied it. Was it a lover s quarrel that had parted 
 them, perhaps ? Did she still love him ? He smiled to 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 83 
 
 himself at his concern. All human contingencies were 
 absurdly remote. He knew very well that they might never 
 leave the cave alive. 
 
 They hung shawls and some tattered blankets, found in the 
 bunks, at the crevices and angles of the rocks, for her, when 
 they were seated at last around the flat bulk of rock which 
 she had divined to have served as the miners table ; and 
 they spent themselves in entreaty of her to discover or 
 invent another draught which they might shield her from, 
 until Philip suddenly bethought him of the horses, which 
 they had been obliged to abandon at the cave mouth. In 
 the mortal exhaustion which had overcome them all when 
 they found shelter, they had known nothing better to do for 
 them. It occurred to Philip that perhaps they could be got 
 into the cave. 
 
 They thought it a joke when he proposed it. But when 
 they saw him serious, Cutter and Messiter volunteered to 
 venture out with him ; and, after what seemed a long 
 time, they returned covered with snow, having found all 
 but one of the ponies, and got them into the outer cave. 
 Their whinnies came to them from there piteously ; and 
 Dorothy was for trying if they would eat jerked beef or 
 dried peaches. She went out with Philip when their little 
 picnic meal was done, and brushed the snow from their 
 flanks with a clothes-brush she produced from the bag that 
 was strapped on the saddle of her own pony. 
 
 " What would be the horse for coffee ? " she asked ; and 
 at Philip s, " Water, I m afraid," she drew a sigh. " And 
 we have n t any more than what we found in that little cup 
 of a spring. You see, Mr. Deed, we must get away from 
 here as soon as we can for the horses sake, if not for our 
 own. I m afraid they would n t care for the week I was 
 proposing, even if we should. Poor fellows ! " she mur 
 mured, as they set up their long-drawn moan again. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 They all rose when she returned to the inner cavern, and 
 made a soft seat for her with blankets on the flat rock next 
 the fire. Dick Messiter and Cutter were clearing away the 
 traces of the meal they had just eaten on it. They took 
 turns in fanning from her face the smoke which would 
 sometimes be driven back down the chimney into her face, 
 by the wind still whirling at its worst, without ; and they 
 piled the wood lavishly on the fire for her comfort, until, 
 with a practical instinct, she went over to the corner in which 
 the wood was, and pronounced against the reckless use of 
 their scanty store. 
 
 When she was seated again on the dais of rock, which 
 raised her a little above her court (who, ready to do her 
 bidding, sat or lay about her, coiled into such ease as they 
 could manage on the rocky floor), she looked a smallish sort 
 of monarch ; and, humouring their attribution of despotic 
 power to her, she queened it with a gentle gaiety among them, 
 issuing her commands in the royal plural, and admonishing 
 our good Earl of Deed, and our right worthy servant, Sir 
 Lenox Cutter, with benignant severity. When Dick was 
 beckoned imperiously to her side, he knelt in humbleness, 
 and, with a tap of her riding crop on his shoulders, she said, 
 with an air she knew, " Sir, I dub thee Knight," and cried, 
 " Rise, Sir Knight Dick ! " 
 
 Her unconsciousness of Messiter s devotion was a pretty 
 thing to see. Her unconsciousness, as I have said, was one 
 of her charms : it was pleasant to observe her modest diffL 
 dence of all that touched the thought of self-valuation, and 
 to perceive the impossibility of her ever coming to feel the 
 world s thought of her. But it was especially nice to see 
 how she would not know the love that followed all her 
 motions with pursuing eyes ; and yet how she could give 
 herself so unthinkingly to him in every word. 
 
 Philip, because he would occasionally catch the familiar 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 glances that often passed between them, judged them lovers, 
 with a man s haste. But a more instructed eye would per 
 haps have seen how the divine unconstraint of her attitude 
 towards him might very well be a secret pain to Messiter ; for 
 sometimes a light would come into his eyes by which one 
 might almost guess how he might be hating her for liking 
 him so well. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARGARET had not seen Deed since the morning he 
 had flung himself from the house. She knew nothing of 
 him save what she had lately learned : that he had been 
 called to Leadville the same afternoon to argue a case, and 
 that he had gone. The information of the town regarding 
 the sudden abandonment of the wedding was equally scanty. 
 
 All that day, until far into the afternoon, Margaret sat 
 waiting his return with patient certainty in Beatrice s little 
 parlour. Tears were easy while he was in trouble ; but she 
 could not weep for herself. She sat watching the long 
 stretch of road leading from the house down past the church 
 in which the wedding was set to take place at half past 
 four. A desolate, hunted look crept gradually into her 
 stony gaze, as the cuckoo-clock in the hall told off the half- 
 hours, and he did not come. She rose quickly, biting her 
 lip to repress the tears that began to flow readily enough, as 
 Beatrice came in at four o clock. Beatrice s face trembled 
 with her own emotion ; her eyes were wet and red, as if she 
 had been crying ever since Margaret had last seen her, when 
 she had looked in, at the slamming of the door behind Deed, 
 to ask what had happened. Margaret caught Beatrice s 
 caressing arm away. 
 
 " Let me go," she said hoarsely. " You can t help me," 
 she added in a hard, uneven tone. " No one can help 
 me ! " She choked back a sob. " Oh, can t you see 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 87 
 
 that " A surge of heart-sickness rose in her throat. 
 
 She turned from Beatrice s pitying face, and ran up the stair. 
 
 There were very few wedding garments to put away ; but 
 one may drop as many or as scalding tears as one could 
 wish on a quite small spray of orange blossoms. 
 
 It all seemed so strange, so impossible, so trivially outside 
 reason and experience. The orange rind on which one slips 
 and breaks a limb, the elevator that happened to be here and 
 not there, the train that was on the other track how motive 
 less, how needless, what a littleness of fortuity ! She could 
 not explain how it had happened. It was like a great grief 
 which simply comes upon one ; which befalls without our 
 agency. She had spoken had lied to him, if anyone liked 
 the word better in the irresistible utterance of a feeling 
 stronger than herself. That he should do what he proposed 
 was unthinkable, intolerable : she could not let him blight 
 his life like that. For good or ill she had to speak ; and 
 now, though the event itself was much the most anguishing 
 thing she had known, the only part of it she would have 
 done otherwise, if it had been to do again, would have been 
 to avoid the lie, somehow. 
 
 She would not allow Beatrice to blame him when she let 
 her into her bed-chamber next morning. The shock had 
 affected her physically, and she had yielded to Beatrice s 
 earlier insistence from outside the door at half-past seven 
 and remained in bed. It might have been possible to listen 
 to accusations of him if her own heart had gone out yearn 
 ingly to him in forgiveness. But she was frightened by the 
 hardness against him which she felt to be growing in her. 
 Something almost like rancour began to prosper side by side 
 with her love : it seemed to have warrant in the tenderness 
 which no event could really diminish perhaps it grew out 
 of it. 
 
 If he would, no one could venture to say what the 
 
83 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 desecration of a woman s inmost life must be through the 
 intimacies, the familiarities, the endearments of a betrothal 
 which comes to naught. The exchanged amenities, so 
 infinitely right and sweet because marriage follows, become 
 each a separate indignity and horror when it does not. To 
 Margaret, who took all matters over-seriously, whose training 
 had erected barriers against these things, each of which had 
 been broken down with a pleasant pain of its own ; who 
 cherished, who almost loved her reserves, there was a new 
 and subtler misery behind every pain which could have 
 tormented other women in like trouble. To cast a glance, 
 the most doubtful and fleeting, back upon this one romance 
 of a life curiously lacking, hitherto, in all emollient experience 
 of this sort, tore her with nameless pains. She felt as if 
 she should like never to see a man again. 
 
 She had given up all thought of his return the day before, 
 she fancied. But when Beatrice entered with the morning 
 mail she stretched forth her hand with the impulsive cer 
 tainty that there must be a letter from him. She perceived 
 when Beatrice reluctantly shook her head, that she had 
 secretly believed that he must still come back. It was 
 because the thing was still too incredible. Did men, then, 
 belong to a different race ? Was there one loyalty for them, 
 and another for women? Was there another tenderness, 
 another forbearance, another love ? She had never had a 
 brother : Deed was the only man she had ever imagined 
 qualities for ; she did not know about men were they like 
 this ? Could it be that they knew how to justify such things 
 to themselves that there might be cruelties indigenous to 
 the conscience of men, which women must not blame 
 because men could not know them to be such ? Perhaps to 
 know all the wrong there may be in a wrong, one must have 
 the gift to guess all the poignancy of its consequences ; and 
 she saw that no man could really understand her humiliation. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 89 
 
 It was the lot of a woman to be chosen, distinguished, 
 called apart, made to believe that for one man she was 
 different from all the rest : it was only the extremity of that 
 distinction that could measure the shame of the credulity 
 cast back in the face, the innocent faith become a thing to 
 bite the lip and flush with pain at thought of. She did not 
 lessen her own offence. Coming hard upon Jasper s perfidy 
 she saw how it must have maddened him. She loved him, 
 and, imagining his suffering, pitied him from her heart. But 
 all her smarting pride, the selfhood wounded to death, cried 
 out against the cruelty of this desertion on their wedding- 
 day. Cowering under the indignity which seemed to have 
 stripped her of self-respect, she could not be sure of the 
 validity of any judgment of the miserable woman she had 
 become. His act had beaten her down. She was sickly, 
 unsure of herself, of life, of what she must think. But she 
 knew the dumb resentment that grew slowly in her for the 
 helpless bitterness against him that it was. She loved him. 
 She supposed that she must always love him. But the in- 
 juriousness of the thing he had done stifled in these first 
 hours every gentle thought. When the memory of it was 
 hottest in her she would set her teeth in still wrath. 
 
 There was another thing. It would seem as if the most 
 straightforward of women must have, somewhere in their 
 depths, a kind of sense for indirection, which they can never 
 quite forgive men for not understanding in them. Margaret 
 had wished him to believe her : she felt that his whole future 
 and hers had hung upon his crediting her lie. But this 
 was, unexplainably, a very different thing from liking it in 
 him that he should have believed her. Deed had not 
 closed the door behind him before she had said to herself 
 indignantly that he should have known her better. 
 
 There were moments when it all seemed different, when 
 she compassionated his situation, condemned herself as the 
 
90 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 cause of it, and accused herself passionately for accusing 
 him. He would be suffering as well not in her way at all, 
 but worse, perhaps, because it was impossible to know how 
 bad suffering might be which was outside one s comprehen 
 sion. He must be thinking what she had said the final 
 faithlessness. At these times she would say to herself that 
 she could not wish him to think it less. If it had been 
 what it seemed it was as bad as possible, and she would 
 have liked to have him hate her. 
 
 But when echoes of the scandal stirred up in the town by 
 his abandonment of her began to come to her ears, the springs 
 of tenderness dried in her. The two daily papers published 
 at Maverick having the fear of Deed before them had 
 reported the barren facts with what they meant for a pic 
 turesque reserve, and speculated about the affair with what 
 seemed to them a self-denying decency. Beatrice kept the 
 papers from Margaret of course ; but her boy turned inno 
 cent busybody and brought a copy of one of them to her 
 in furtherance of an enterprise of make-believe which Mar 
 garet had joined him in. Her eye caught the audacious 
 headline ; and before she knew it she had read a dozen lines. 
 She buried her face in her hands in shame : alone with 
 the child she blushed as hotly as if all the world looked 
 on. In fact it did see her : that was her feeling. 
 
 She shed no tears then ; but when Beatrice came in at 
 twilight to light the lamp, she saw that she had been crying. 
 It was not precisely for the comments of the newspaper. 
 She had been thinking of the lines of a poem : 
 " Be good to me ! Though all the world united 
 
 Should bend its powers to gird my youth with pain, 
 Still might I fly to thee Dear ! and be righted 
 
 But if thou wrongst me, where shall I complain ? 
 " I am the dove a random shot surprises, 
 
 That from her flight she droppeth quivering, 
 And, in the deadly arrow recognizes 
 
 A blood-wet feather once in her own wing." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 91 
 
 After Beatrice, Margaret found it easiest in these first 
 days to see Dr. Ernfield, whom Mrs. Vertner had called in 
 immediately. Margaret had liked Dr. Ernfield long before ; 
 and she liked him still better in observing gratefully the 
 devices of kindness by which he referred her prostration 
 solely to physical causes, and the delicacy with which he 
 implied that she had had no history previous to the moment 
 of any of his calls. They had been on almost intimate 
 terms before her wedding day; and she was grateful for 
 his attitude in proportion as she perceived the difficulty 
 to which he must be put to maintain it. 
 
 He had been interesting to her, during the month she 
 had passed in Maverick before her wedding day, not merely 
 as a man though he was an unusually interesting man 
 but because of his situation. He had left a prosperous practice 
 in Boston to come West in search of health. He was still 
 under thirty, and had won his success very young by mak 
 ing a speciality of diseases of the nervous system ; but he 
 had paid for it, so to say, with himself; and he was in 
 consumption. Beatrice, who had known him in Boston, 
 was very fond of him, and in the first month of Margaret s 
 stay he had been often at the house. It was the only house 
 where he felt at home ; he was practising his profession in 
 Maverick to avoid the stagnation of idleness, but he really 
 knew no other family, and he had found that to have known 
 people even slightly in the East is a tie when one comes to 
 meet them unexpectedly under the shadow of the Continen 
 tal Divide. Beatrice, on her part, was accustomed to say that 
 he was very nice. She perhaps meant by this that he had the 
 gift of helpfulness, of sympathy, which, perhaps, is not especi 
 ally common among men. Margaret had thought she saw how 
 this faculty, comfortable as it may be to a physician s patients 
 not to go into the question of his friends might be ruinous 
 to a sensitively made physician ; she had perceived that the 
 
92 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 excess of his sympathy with the work he had done before he 
 came to Maverick had been merely by way of devouring him. 
 
 It was pitiful to remark how his disease had him in its 
 clutch. The sinewy lines of his big body, designed plainly 
 for the use of a strong man, had begun to waste before the 
 attacks of his malady. It was observable, however, that he was 
 still strong of limb ; and the look of his face -kept alive by 
 his ardent and commanding glance, and hidden, for the most 
 part, by a thick brown beard was scarcely the look of a sick 
 man. 
 
 It had been a pleasure to Margaret to see this sturdy fellow 
 who had the effect, in spite of his weakness, of confident 
 strength ramp up and down Beatrice s little parlour, with 
 his hands in his pockets, expounding his theories of health and 
 disease theories which fascinated Margaret by sinking in 
 stinctively for the moral spring underlying all large theories of 
 health ; or anathematizing the whole system of living which 
 gives us the damsel known to discussion as the " American 
 Girl " a creature whose tenseness might not be half bad, Ern- 
 field owned, for the spectator, but was death to the girl. And 
 then it had been still pleasanter to hear him counter this with 
 the story of nervously wrecked young lives, which Margaret 
 saw, around the corners of his modesty, he had won back 
 to the normal way of life. He never spoke of having cured 
 anybody. He would sometimes own that he had taught a 
 person here and there how to live. It had seemed to Margaret 
 that he had accomplished this by transfusing a portion of his 
 own life into each of these persons : for it was obvious that 
 such patients as these must always have drawn their new 
 life, in great degree, from his life : that a cure being in 
 such cases so much an affair of sympathetic understanding, 
 of a brisk, urgent, imperious individuality they had lived 
 at his expense. 
 
 The thought of this strong, fine fellow, who had given 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 93 
 
 his young manhood to the business of reinstating others 
 in life, doomed to a death against the halting wretchedness 
 of which no hindrance could be opposed, unless it existed 
 in the air of Lone Creek County, had been too painful to 
 Margaret for endurance. 
 
 Margaret s frank liking for him and the gentleness of her 
 manner toward him, springing from the compassion for his 
 situation to which she could not give other expression, were 
 perhaps part of her charm for him ; but that which had really 
 drawn him to her was the constant charm residing in her 
 sincerity, her simplicity and directness ; in her goodness ; 
 in the irresistible need in her to front all questions in their 
 highest phase above all in her gentle womanliness. In 
 the three weeks that had passed after her arrival, before Deed 
 and she were ready to lay themselves open to the town s 
 comment, by announcing their approaching wedding, Ernfield 
 had had time in ignorance of her betrothal, and wholly 
 without Margaret s suspicion of what was happening to fall 
 deeply, miserably in love with her. 
 
 It was not precisely his fault ; but his position, when he 
 ascertained it, gave him the sense of moral turpitude he 
 would have experienced if he had allowed himself to 
 become enamoured of a married woman. 
 
 It was just as well, he said to himself: he had deserved 
 it. A man who, in his condition, indulged the thought of 
 connecting his future with another s for longer than one of 
 those radiant moments of monstrous and baseless hope that 
 must visit even the hopeless, was properly condemned to 
 such an awakening. This reflection should have made it 
 easy to think of Margaret s wedding with equanimity ; and 
 certainly should have silenced the thrill with which he 
 heard of Deed s desertion of her on their wedding day. 
 Its effect, however, was to fill him, before the day, with a 
 gloomy reluctance in her presence and a fear of meeting 
 
94 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 her honest eyes ; and after it to shame and daunt him with 
 a clear vision of the meanness of the hope that began to 
 live tremblingly in him. 
 
 He writhed under her approval of what he saw she took 
 for his tact and delicacy, when he was forced, after the 
 event, to visit her in his professional capacity. He felt like 
 a scoundrel when he heard from Beatrice that she could 
 bring herself to see no one but him and her, for the present : 
 that she could not bear that any eyes less friendly and 
 familiar should look upon her grief in these first days. Her 
 trust humiliated and abased him. He wanted to tell her 
 what a scamp he was. He could have blushed at sight of 
 the humble light of thankfulness she turned on him from her 
 weary eyes, as he constructed a theory about her indisposition 
 which referred it to purely physical causes. To see how 
 her pride smarted under this blow in every fibre ; to see 
 how she was ashamed of being ashamed, and yet not 
 abashed to let him perceive it, became intolerable. On the 
 second day, in the mere necessity of putting an end to it, 
 he ordered fresh air for her : he told her that she must go 
 about. 
 
 Beatrice went over the house on her daily duties, with a 
 grieving face. Margaret s position pained her to the heart. 
 She could understand how she might have partly brought it 
 on herself, with the noblest motives ; but nothing could even 
 shadowily justify what Deed had done. She called his act 
 by the hardest names to herself, when Margaret would not 
 hear her denunciations. It was small comfort to talk to her 
 husband. 
 
 " What are you worrying about ? " he would say. " You 
 ought to be throwing up your cap on any reasonable theory 
 of friendship. It s an escape for both of them. You don t 
 think they would have been happy, do you ? " 
 
 " I don t know," returned his wife frankly. " Don t you ? " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 95 
 
 " I think," said Vertner ambiguously, " if they had not 
 been especially Deed it would not have been for lack of 
 hard trying especially Miss Derwenter s." 
 
 "You think she might have tried too hard," suggested 
 Beatrice quickly. "Yes," she owned, after a moment s medita 
 tion ; " Margaret has that way. Perhaps she rather insists." 
 
 "She doesn t know quite when to let up," said Vertner in 
 the tone of admission. His wife had to smile. " It s a 
 virtue knowing when to spare." 
 
 " And you think Margaret has n t it ? " asked Beatrice, as 
 anxiously as if she did not feel that she entirely understood 
 Margaret s sweetly-intentioned severity, and as if she had 
 not reasoned with herself, and with Margaret about it. 
 
 11 Well," owned Vertner, " I think she might consider it 
 not quite moral." 
 
 " No," said Beatrice vaguely, as she helped him on with 
 his coat. She had followed him out into the hallway to see 
 him off for the day. "Perhaps not." 
 
 " And Deed would n t really enjoy that after a bit," said 
 Vertner as he adjusted the fur collar of his coat. " He can 
 take things hard himself, and he does, but not in her way, 
 and he does n t take everything hard. There s a sort of sense 
 of perspective about Deed : that s his humour. He has his 
 varioloid moments." 
 
 "Yes," rejoined Beatrice in sad musing, "and Margaret 
 has n t. I know that. All her moments are acute. She 
 goes conscientiously through the whole disease, whether it s 
 a question of a pin or an elephant." 
 
 " Well, perhaps you can see then, if you ve got to that 
 point, how Miss Derwenter would be the very best wife in 
 the world for a man who takes things in bulk in Deed s 
 whole-souled, passionate, hearty way. There s nothing equal 
 to a gingerly, conscious, penny-wise way of looking at things 
 for a wife for such a man." 
 
96 &ENSF2TS FORGOT. 
 
 11 Ned, you sha n t say such things of Margaret ! " 
 
 " Oh, Margaret s all right," said Vertner in a tone of con 
 viction as he put his hand on the knob. He really liked her 
 when she would let him. " It is n t her fault that Deed is n t 
 built to appreciate her. She could make plenty of men 
 ecstatically happy." 
 
 "What kind of men?" 
 
 " Well, my kind," returned her husband, audaciously. " I 
 should always be ecstatically happy anyway, you know ; and 
 all that she could do for me would be so much clear gain." 
 
 After these talks with her husband nothing but a long 
 conversation with Margaret could put Beatrice right again. 
 She enjoyed the play of her husband s mind of course, but 
 there were occasions for seriousness, and this was one of 
 them. She found Margaret serious enough, yet even she 
 would smile dismally sometimes at the thought of certain 
 contrasts. The concern which she had given herself during 
 the month preceding her wedding-day (the month in which 
 she had made acquaintance with Maverick) as to whether 
 she should be able to like the West struck her, for example, 
 in her present forlorn case as food for a sad amusement. 
 She had not been afraid she should not get along, as the 
 phrase is : she was accustomed to managing so much as 
 that for herself in all sorts of queer places. But it had 
 occurred to her that, even with Deed, the West, as a 
 permanent place of residence, would leave a great many 
 needs in her unsatisfied. She had not dared use adjectives 
 about Maverick ; she might have to live in it, and she had 
 the forethought to avoid attaching labels to the place by 
 which even her own thought of it might finally discover 
 itself to be bound. But it was at least undeniable that 
 Maverick lacked a Public Library. She had thought she 
 should induce Deed to return to the East when he had 
 won back the fortune he had lost the year before he had 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 97 
 
 offered himself to her. Her ideal was a suburb just out of 
 Boston. 
 
 Nothing had taught her so incontrovertibly the force of her 
 love for him as the willingness she had found in herself to face 
 for him the contrary prospect : for her heart had sometimes 
 sunk grievously during her first fortnight at Maverick ; and 
 once, when she thought she perceived from something he 
 said that he was really fond of the West, that it suited some 
 thing in him his sense of humour, perhaps ; she did not 
 know her heart had gone coweringly down into her boots. 
 It was at the thought of this terror that she now indulged a 
 smile. One troubled one s self about such things when one 
 was happy : it had become pitifully indifferent to her 
 whether Deed lived in Colorado or Patagonia. 
 
 One of the pangs which reached Margaret from the outside 
 during the first days of her misery was that which she felt 
 when she learned that Philip was at last arrived in Mav 
 erick. She had heard, in a kind of dream, that there were 
 fears for his safety ; and, finally, that he was given up for 
 lost ; and it had seemed at the time only one of the thousand 
 sides there appear to be to even physical pains. Now that 
 she had come out of the stupor of suffering which had 
 followed Deed s going, and began to be sensible to exterior 
 measures of her trouble, she was surprised to find a fleeting 
 wretchedness in the knowledge that Philip lived, and that 
 his father, who must have been down into the bitterest 
 depths of grief for his imagined loss, rejoiced without her. 
 For a moment she thought of Deed with untroubled tender 
 ness. The other feeling followed, but the loving impulse 
 taught her freshly the unbearable reach of her loss. It went 
 too far. It cut too deep. 
 
 Vertner met the snow-bound party at the station. He 
 usually went to the trains when he was in town. Men he 
 knew were often passing through on their way to Denver or 
 
 u 
 
98 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 to the mountain towns. They gave him the last word about 
 the outlook at the newest mining camp ; they kept him wise 
 about the ups and downs of older places. When they would 
 stay over night at Maverick he would often spend the evening 
 at the hotel losing a little to them at poker, and getting 
 on the inside as he said, of good things in mines and real 
 estate. He brought Margaret word of the arrival of Philip. 
 
 " Mighty close shave those fellows had ! " he said. " It 
 could n t be done once in a dozen times. I would n t back 
 Charlie Cozzens to do it, and he knows every foot of the 
 Pass as if it were his Addition." The retired stage-driver s 
 investment in Maverick real estate was known as " Cozzens s 
 Addition." " But they are badly done up after it. The 
 young lady went to bed." 
 
 " Young lady ! Ned ! " exclaimed Beatrice. 
 
 " Certainly ! Young lady. Young lady and father, in 
 fact. Maiden slender, fair, good-looking very. Father a 
 clergyman ; large, clever, manners until you can t rest : not 
 here purely as a sanitary measure. The young lady really 
 bore it pretty well. You can see that she was prettier three 
 days ago, but she will pick up her prettiness again at the 
 Centropolis House." 
 
 " A clergyman, Ned ! " 
 
 " Well, not too much of a clergyman not the kind that 
 would worry the clerical Inspector of Weights and Meas 
 ures with overweight. A good, practical, every-day, earthly 
 Christian, with a soul away above the unrighteous nickel, 
 shaped to nobler ends, like thousand dollar bills : could 
 make arrangements with soul to overlook some things. 
 Good fellow ! I took a kind of shine to him." 
 
 It was one of Ned Vertner s own sayings that he 
 was a composite. He would not have been anything but 
 the "rustler" he was, dependent on the friendliness of 
 fortune to this month s scheme for his next month s house 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 99 
 
 rent on any account ; but he liked to remember how easily 
 and naturally he might once have been the conventional 
 gentleman whom he hated. 
 
 The Vertners had memories of the revolutionary hero 
 with an honest grandfather, and the three succeeding gener 
 ations of Unitarian ministers which makes a good family in 
 Berkshire. There were no better than they in their village ; 
 and though Ned Vertner, before he was sixteen, disliked the 
 people his family knew in Boston, as he disliked the pro 
 priety of the white picket fence in front of their white frame 
 house with green blinds, it was a gratification to him at times 
 to recall that the good social form of his family had existed 
 for him to refuse. He went to Chili instead of to Harvard 
 at seventeen, and remained there three years, helping a little 
 to build the railway which his party went out to build ; and 
 learning to live hard, to drink hard, and to gamble more 
 than he could afford. 
 
 It was in his third year when he was coming down with 
 a fever which went near to finishing him that Philip Deed 
 joined the party. Philip would have said to anyone who had 
 challenged his liking for Ned Vertner, that he liked him 
 because he had contributed what effect there might be 
 in three months nursing to saving his life. At all events 
 when Vertner was well enough to sail for home they parted 
 in the relation of good comradeship often existing in new 
 countries between men who are of no spiritual kindred. 
 
 It was Deed who, at Philip s suggestion, put Vertner in the 
 way of coming West when he had found Berkshire more 
 impossible than he had left it ; and it was Deed whose 
 professional relations to various adventurous enterprises 
 opened the way to Vertner s first " scheme," and showed 
 him his natural calling. 
 
 The impartial spectator would scarcely have supposed it 
 a calling justifying marriage ; but in Colorado rustling 
 
 H 2 
 
loo BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 has the recognition of one of the liberal professions, and 
 when Vertner had been engaged in it a year he worked a 
 pass as far as Chicago through a friend, and returned from 
 Boston, ten days later, married. It was an incredible mar 
 riage ; it was the one thing, Philip told him, when he met 
 Beatrice, that he should never forgive him for. Vertner 
 admitted that he was ashamed of himself; no one was more 
 conscious than he that he was an undeservedly lucky dog. 
 
 " But what could I do ? " he would say. " I told her it 
 was a shame and a fraud ; I gave her a full resume of my 
 worthlessness ; I told her that if I had ever been good for 
 anything I d got over it ; I told her that my doings out here 
 would turn a Public Gardens swan red with pure shock, and 
 would keep her conscience working on horse-car drivers 
 hours every day. She said she liked it. Then I went for 
 the country, and gave this section down the banks. I told 
 her that she would have to breakfast on climate and dine on 
 scenery ; that in this altitude it takes ten minutes to boil an 
 egg soft, and that they put on beets the day before ; that 
 chickens can t live, and cow s milk is twelve cents a quart ; 
 that pneumonia rides around on a mowing machine ; that 
 she would n t find a library in Maverick, that the church 
 was closed and the lecture bureau in the dry dock, and that 
 you could take up all the civilization in the place on a fork. 
 She said that none of these things mattered, and that 
 something else did. I gave her up." 
 
 " Hush, Ned ! " she was saying now, in response to his 
 profession of liking for Maurice. " Perhaps we can get him 
 to stay with us here for next Sunday. It is months since 
 we had a service. An Episcopal clergyman did you say ? " 
 
 Vertner nodded, as he cut a little more steak for himself 
 (they were at their one o clock dinner). " I did n t say ; but 
 that s his rating. Don t count me in, though, Trix, on any 
 scheme for supplying the pulpit of St. John s in the Wilder- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 10 1 
 
 ness. You remember I took a hand in the last Gospel 
 boom in Maverick. Invite him here, if you like, and get 
 him to preach for you next Sunday. I ve no objection, and 
 he won t kick if you make it worth his while. But leave me 
 out. I would n t undertake the contract of furnishing a 
 clergyman to that congregation again for a commission of 
 fifty per cent, on his salary. If I knew a recipe for a durable 
 angel-wash it would be a different thing : I should know 
 where to look for a market, though the angel-market rules 
 rather low in Maverick. At $700 a year it might n t be worth 
 my while to put on more than one coat." 
 
 " Shame, Ned ! Stop it ! " 
 
 Vertner laughed with enjoyment. Margaret, who had 
 found no way of taking Vertner in the month she had spent 
 in the house with him, was silent. She was thinking of 
 Philip, and wondering how to frame a question which should 
 inform her about him without seeming to seek the information. 
 
 Beatrice saved her the need. " We might go and call on 
 Miss Maurice at the hotel," she said, doubtfully, looking 
 toward Margaret. " That would commit us to nothing. We 
 could see Mr. Maurice and judge for ourselves. Do you 
 think she would see us, Ned ? " 
 
 " Why she was going to bed, when I saw her, to stay until 
 she was rested. But she would see St. John s in the Wilder 
 ness on her father s account, I should think, if you made it 
 plain who you were. Write under your name on your card : 
 Mrs. Vertner representing St. John s in the Wilderness. 
 You ll get the consideration of a commercial man travelling 
 for a big house." 
 
 Beatrice did not smile, but looked at Margaret question- 
 ingly. " I think she might be willing to see us," Margaret 
 answered to Beatrice s enquiring look. " After such an ex 
 perience she might be glad of the sight of friendly faces, 
 even if they were strange," 
 
102 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 They found this to be true when they went next day. They 
 both made friends at once with Dorothy, who was sitting 
 up, and who told the story of what had befallen them in the 
 mountains, gaining for the first time, in seeing its effect upon 
 her hearers, a sense of the danger through which she had 
 passed. She did not need a reminder to make her shudder 
 at the journey through the storm ; but the time in the cave 
 had not seemed unhappy. She had not felt that they were 
 in danger perhaps she had not been allowed to feel it. It 
 occurred to her now to wonder what might have happened 
 if the storm had not ceased the morning after they had 
 taken refuge there ; if the wind had not fallen, the snow had 
 not begun to melt ; and a party of miners, on their way from 
 Bayles Park, had not found them on the second day, weak 
 and exhausted of course, but able to ride to Bayles Park 
 where they took the train. 
 
 It was the hope of seeing Philip that had helped Margaret 
 to come out for the first time since the day that was to have 
 been her wedding day. The event had left her spiritually 
 sore : she could not bear to see anyone, much less listen to 
 the questions which must be asked if she went out. Yet 
 there was nothing she liked so little as what she called, in 
 her plain speech, "dodging": it seemed cowardly not to 
 take the world as it came ; and she was glad of a strong 
 reason for going out. She wanted to see Philip, whom she 
 did not know : it would be the next thing to seeing his 
 father. But it seemed that Philip had left Maverick within a 
 few hours of his arrival. Philip, in fact, had taken the even 
 ing train the night before for Leadville, leaving Cutter to go 
 on to Denver, where he had friends who might find something 
 for him to do in connection with the smelting works there. 
 Margaret knew that he must have gone to see his father at 
 Leadville, and she flushed as she thought of one of the 
 probable subjects of conversation between them. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As Philip asked for his father at the hotel which Deed 
 was accustomed to make his home during his frequent 
 visits to Leadville, it was in his heart to wish that he had 
 not always been the unsatisfactory son. The day before he 
 might have wished it in a spasm of contrition for the 
 necessity of asking his father for more money ; but he was 
 wishing it now because the things they were saying about 
 Deed at Maverick pained and angered him ; he was sure 
 his father was in trouble, and he had come up to Leadville 
 with an impulsive desire to help him if he might. He had 
 telegraphed him from Bayles Park of their safety, and from 
 Maverick, as soon as the rumours reached him, that he was 
 coming up to Leadville. 
 
 He wanted to help his father in the trouble he merely 
 guessed he had not stayed to hear the story ; but to speak 
 to him as he would like to speak, their relation should be 
 more equal : it ought to depend less for its harmony on his 
 father s forbearance. He wished heartily that he had never 
 done anything in particular ; or, lacking that, that his failures 
 had cost his father less. In these moods he always denounced 
 his failures to himself as the result of crude and silly experi 
 ments which he should have known enough to avoid ; but 
 when he was so sensible as this he was usually a little more 
 sensible, and perceived that the whole fruitless drama of his 
 
io 4 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 life, thus far, was inevitable a fellow like him, he supposed, 
 had to make an appointed degree of fool of himself. 
 
 In this light the restless longing of his boyhood to possess 
 himself, to lay hands on the charter of his life on his own 
 account ; his refusal to please his father by going to Columbia; 
 the unquiet wish for a different, a freer life, another set of 
 conditions say a man s ; his aimless and resultless year 
 in Chili as a civil engineer, his six months of orange-growing 
 in Florida, his other six months, in which he saw a fortune 
 in evaporating peaches in the Southern States it was the 
 fortune which had evaporated and this last empty-headed 
 folly at Pinon seemed foolish, indeed, but necessary, like 
 the stages of a disease. He always said to himself in these 
 contemptuous reflections on his doings that he knew better 
 now ; had learned a lesson. And this was in so far true that 
 he seldom made the same kind of fool of himself twice. 
 
 He was thinking how glad he should be to see his father 
 again, as he followed the bell boy out of the crowded hotel 
 office along the creaking hallways, and up the swaying 
 stairs (the hotel had been built of unseasoned timber, when 
 saw-mills were fifty miles away, and money was worth four 
 per cent, a month, and the structure began to fall apart) ; 
 and was adding to himself that since it was in his blood to 
 do undesirable things, it was trebly undesirable that they 
 should be destined to be the disappointment and trouble of 
 so good a fellow as his father. He treated him so hand 
 somely, always, that his disappointment was seldom in 
 evidence ; but Philip knew that it existed, and knew he 
 recalled the fact now with a bitter smile that it had been 
 left for Jasper to realize his father s ideals. 
 
 Jasper had been a cautious and conservative investor at 
 ten ; a patient, thorough-going man of business at seventeen. 
 He sold foreign stamps at school while he was in the First 
 Reader, and drove hard bargains in decalcomanie and 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 105 
 
 marbles before he knew Ins Latin paradigms. He was 
 eight when it occurred to him that he might as well turn a 
 penny by serving the morning paper to his father, and the 
 gentlemen whom he knew on the block (it was in New 
 York), as to let the regular carrier earn it. He rose at five 
 o clock in the morning to look after his papers, and he had 
 been getting up early ever since. 
 
 Philip never got up early unless to go hunting, or birds 
 nesting, or fishing, or to catch the train at the end of the 
 term when he came home from boarding school. He was 
 glad to be going home then, and did n t mind : it was 
 always a happiness to see his father again. He was not 
 merely his father, but a kind of a hero to him. Jasper 
 often got home rather later ; there were trades to be settled 
 with the boys at school. As the elder brother (he used 
 his advantage of a year for all it was worth) he was properly 
 reserved in his feeling about the home-coming. And 
 when the time came Jasper went into business, liked it, 
 stuck to it, succeeded in it ; and then took charge of the 
 ranch and made a success of that. 
 
 Jasper had known what he wanted to do from the 
 beginning ; and was entirely capable of doing it. Philip 
 had known clearly only what he did not want to do ; and 
 thus far he had not done much. It was this that made him 
 hesitate as he came to the door of his father s room. He 
 wished again that he could feel that he stood near his father ; 
 that the invariable kindness which he remembered in him 
 from boyhood had nothing to forgive in him ; that he had 
 not disappointed him. 
 
 But he turned the knob and went in. His father 
 was sitting under the ineffective light of a huge bronze 
 chandelier, wound about with a brambly wreath of gilt, 
 absorbed in work upon a heap of legal documents scat 
 tered over the table, and did not hear Philip s entrance. 
 
106 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 When his son touched him on the shoulder, he turned hastily, 
 and for a moment did not perceive who it was. When 
 he saw he rose hastily, stretching both hands out to him. 
 " Why, Phil ! Phil ! " he cried, and stopped, choking and 
 not knowing how to go on. " I the fact is I thought we 
 should n t be seeing you should n t . Oh, Phil," he 
 broke off, dashing his hands to his eyes, "what luck what 
 blessed luck ! I had given you up. I find a seat, will you ? " 
 
 Deed sat down hastily and buried himself in his papers. 
 His lip shook. 
 
 Philip found a seat on the bed. He was himself much 
 agitated. He had not counted on this at all. He had 
 allowed for his father s anxiety ; and had telegraphed him 
 as soon as they reached Bayles Park ; but that he would 
 think him lost in the storm was outside all his thoughts. 
 Yet no one knew better how near they had all actually 
 been to death in the snow. " Dear father ! " he said to 
 himself, as he watched him making his poor feint of going 
 on with his work. " It s awfully good of him to care ! " 
 
 Deed glanced up at him once, venturing a smile ; and 
 looked down again forthwith. When he was done with the 
 last practicable pretence, he folded his papers slowly. 
 Philip had never seen him so careful about adjusting 
 them. 
 
 He rose at last, clapping the bundled documents on the 
 table briskly, and came over to where Philip was sitting on 
 the bed. Deed dropped down beside him, laying his arm 
 lightly about his shoulders. 
 
 " Well, boy, how goes it ? " 
 
 Philip dropped his eyes. "Why, that was what I came 
 up to ask you, father. How does it go ? " 
 
 A spark lighted in Deed s eye. He drew in his breath 
 sharply. He came back and stood before Philip after a 
 nervous turn across the floor. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 107 
 
 "Phil!" 
 
 " Father ! " 
 
 " You got my wire at Laughing Valley ? " 
 
 Philip nodded. His father regarded him for a moment 
 in pained question of his face. He thought he read his 
 condemnation in it. 
 
 " Say it, Phil ! Say it ! " he cried hoarsely. " Don t 
 sit there dumb ! I know what you think. You re right. I 
 sold you out. I signed away your rights. I did you out of 
 your future with a foolish, amiable stroke of the pen. I 
 trusted a scoundrel, and you ve to pay for it. I wanted to 
 do the handsome thing by Jasper, and I did it at your 
 expense. It s been your treat, all along, Phil," he said, with 
 a miserable smile, " though you did n t know it." 
 
 Philip leaped up. " Great heaven, father, you have n t 
 been thinking that I was shouting around about my mis 
 erable little share in that business. Surely you don t think 
 that I could name it beside your trouble, much less be 
 fooling with the poor question of blame. I should think 
 Jasper was enough to blame for half-a-dozen." 
 
 His father smiled sadly. " What Jasper has done can t 
 excuse me. He could n t have done it if I had n t thrown 
 the way open to him. If I had n t trusted him " 
 
 "And you expect me to accuse you of having trusted 
 him? Would n t a father trust his own son, I should like 
 to know ? Is it a thing he must answer for ? " 
 
 " My God, Phil, has n t he answered for it, is n t he 
 answering for it, will he ever get to the end of answering for 
 it ? " He covered his eyes. 
 
 " I know, father," said Philip, taking a turn across the 
 room. " Ingratitude is like that. It hurts it keeps on 
 hurting." 
 
 "Yes," owned Deed grimly ; "it hurts." 
 
 " Surely it s enough then. Pray don t bother about me. 
 
loS BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 You would have done it for me in the same situation. Do 
 you think I don t know that, or that I don t know that I 
 never gave you the chance ? I Ve not been doing the 
 approved thing. I never have. When I do it will be time 
 enough for me to trot out a grievance." 
 
 " Oh, Phil, I Ve not been fair to you." It was the 
 expression of his sense of his whole course toward him from 
 boyhood ; but Philip took it to refer to the contract. 
 
 " Pshaw, father, I shall rub along for the few years left 
 of the partnership. What difference can it make ? I shall 
 be all the better for having to make my own way for a 
 while." 
 
 " Few years ? " exclaimed his father. 
 
 " The partnership it s five years, is n t it ? " said Philip, 
 dropping on the bed again, and curling his legs up com 
 fortably. " You won t mind my smoking ? " he asked, 
 producing a cigarette. 
 
 His father did not speak, as he drew a match across his 
 boot. "You have n t given Jasper anything. I could 
 understand your feeling that unfair. He has nothing per 
 manently that is mine. At worst you ve lost me nothing, 
 father merely postponed it. It s only five years, and if 
 it were ten or fifteen, it s not your act. It s Jasper s. 
 Don t talk of my loss. There is none. And if there were, 
 what would it be to yours ? I could only lose money by 
 him. I m well, I m not his father. I have n t protected 
 him, and worked for him, and kept him from every sort of 
 harm, and done all I knew for him since he was a child. 
 I never gave him a father s love and trust to wound me with ! " 
 
 Deed groaned. " Oh, stop it, Phil ! Stop it ! You 
 make it impossible to tell you." He rose and wandered 
 about the room aimlessly, picking up the rose-flushed vases 
 on the mantel and studying their red and gilt flowers, 
 turning up the gas and leaving it hissing, detaching the loop 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 109 
 
 that caught back the window curtain, and returning it to its 
 bracket again. Philip watched him wonderingly. His 
 cigarette went out. 
 
 " Oh, come father ! " he said at last, smiling. " One 
 would think you had been putting up some infernal job on 
 me." 
 
 His father looked up, eyeing him haggardly. "You Ve 
 said it." 
 
 "Said what, father? I don t understand." 
 
 Deed paused with the poker in his hand to say over his 
 shoulder, as he stooped to the fire, " They did n t tell you 
 at Maverick, then ? " 
 
 " I gathered you were in your trouble. I heard that your 
 marriage was postponed. I thought you would rather tell 
 me ? " 
 
 " Oh, so I would ! So I would ! " exclaimed his father 
 absently, as he turned from the fire. He looked remorsefully 
 into the eyes that met his. " Why did n t somebody tell 
 you ! " he cried. Philip made a place for him by his side 
 as he came meditatively toward him, with his head down. 
 Deed guessed the grease spot on the carpet, clouding one 
 of the fruit-bearing boys in their ovals, to be kerosene, as he 
 paused a moment in study of it. 
 
 He had decided it was champagne, as he looked up and 
 faced his son again. 
 
 His voice melted. "How the deuce am I going to tell 
 you, Phil ? " 
 
 "What s the use, father?" 
 
 " Oh, use ! " exclaimed Deed impatiently. He tapped his 
 foot above the curly head of one of the dove-coloured boys. 
 " You ve got to know. Pshaw ! Why did n t some one tell 
 you ! " He strode away to the other corner of the room, 
 snapping his fingers noiselessly. 
 
 "Tell me, father " began Philip. 
 
i io BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " You won t believe it ! She did n t." He breathed a 
 heavy sigh. " I suppose it is n t very credible," he said, 
 staring into the air. " I don t understand it myself all the 
 time." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " It s infamous, I tell you. You don t want me to tell it. 
 Better go hear it from the gossips, Phil. I supposed they 
 knew about it by this time I trusted to your having heard it 
 from them. They will know what to think about it. I don t. 
 I think it magnificently right one minute, and the other thing 
 the next. It s cost me enough to be right : it s cost every, 
 one else enough to be wrong." 
 
 " Tell me, father," insisted Philip, " what coil has Jasper 
 got you into ? " 
 
 " Ah, now you have it, Phil ! That s something like ! Stick 
 to that ! That s what I say to myself when I ve accused my 
 self black and blue. I say it was Jasper. It was Jasper ; 
 and it was Adam, too, in the same way. Things have got 
 to have a beginning. It would be a poor sin that had n t 
 some sort of provocation to its back." 
 
 "You forget who you re talking to, father. You don t 
 think you can make me believe you have done anything 
 wrong." 
 
 " I don t know what I can make you believe. Suppose, 
 Phil, you are fool enough to trust a man to wear a diamond. 
 He is n t only wearing your diamond, you see, but your trust. 
 One day he simplifies things by pocketing the stone. In a 
 wrestle for it, you snatch it from him and throw it into the 
 river. You are not strong enough to get it back for yourself 
 and keep it : only just strong enough to keep it from him by 
 losing it yourself. You see how you could n t let him have 
 it, don t you, Phil ? " 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Philip thoughtfully. 
 
 " It s not the stone, you know." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. in 
 
 Philip stroked his moustache thoughtfully. " No, it is n t 
 the stone." 
 
 " You could bear that. The other you can t. I ve sold 
 the range for $25,000," he said abruptly. 
 
 Philip started. " But it was worth $150,000." 
 
 " Yes," said his father, drily, "that s the point." 
 
 Philip stared at him. "And what does Jasper say ? " he 
 asked in a voice which he seemed to hear speaking in the 
 tones of some one else from a distance. 
 
 His father glanced up at him doubtfully. He caught his 
 hands behind his big head as he crossed his legs and threw 
 himself back in the deep sleepy-hollow chair. " Jasper ? 
 Why, that s just the pity of it. We have n t heard what 
 Jasper thinks. It s too bad, because that s where all the fun 
 comes in what he thinks. The fun has been rather slow 
 so far in other quarters." 
 
 " Do you mean that you have ruined yourself to even 
 things up with Jasper?" demanded his son, making no answer. 
 
 Deed glanced at his nails. " I should n t put it that way," 
 he said huskily ; " but that s what it comes to." 
 
 "And Miss Derwenter Mrs. Deed, my mother who is 
 to be ! " 
 
 His father looked steadily into his eyes a moment 
 " I meant to ruin her, too, but she objected." 
 
 " And that is what ? " 
 
 "What parted us. Yes," said his father. 
 
 Philip turned suddenly upon his heel and strode away to 
 the window, brushing aside the lace curtains and vanishing 
 within the embrasure. The street was alight with the night 
 gaiety of Leadville. He bent an unseeing eye on the spectacle. 
 
 As his father gazed after him a look of desolation settled 
 on his face. The lightness he had forced fell away from 
 him and he fixed a glance upon the spot where his son had 
 disappeared bitter, doubting, wistful. 
 
ii2 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 He saw suddenly how the self-accusations of his loneliness 
 the miserable loneliness which had overtaken him since he 
 had broken with Margaret had instinctively looked to Philip 
 for contradiction all along : how he had relied on Philip s 
 comprehension. At his lowest he had said to himself that 
 Philip, cruelly injured as he was by his act, must see how he 
 had come to do it must recognize its inevitableness. Jas 
 per had always had his admiration, his approval : Philip was 
 right about that. But he had always understood Philip 
 better. He was more like himself. And now he trusted 
 him to understand him to make allowances for a thing 
 which he had known quite well, even in his passion, must 
 need some allowance from anybody, and would never be 
 understood at all by more than one or two. One of these 
 he had supposed confidently would be Margaret. To repeat 
 his disappointment in her with Philip would be merely kill 
 ing : he could not bear it. Why, he began to ask himself, 
 had he done this thing ? 
 
 " Oh, come out of that, Philip ! " he cried, at last, in an 
 irresistible burst of impatience. " Come out, and say what 
 you ve got to say. I can stand it, I guess." 
 
 Philip obeyed slowly. He paused just outside the curtains, 
 fastening his eyes on the floor. 
 
 " There s nothing to say, father. You ve done it, have n t 
 you ? " 
 
 " Do you wish I had n t ? " asked his father quickly. 
 
 " Why, it s hardly my part, is it father, to question what 
 you do ? " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaimed his father, contemptuously. " I m 
 not asking for criticism. I ask about your feelings. You 
 know about them, I suppose. You understand, I dare say, 
 how it feels to lose $50,000 ? " 
 
 Poor Deed ! Why should the wrong which he was con 
 scious of having done Philip and Margaret, make him 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 113 
 
 hard toward both of them, where he most wished to be 
 gentle ? 
 
 Philip winced, but controlled himself to say, " What has 
 my feeling to do with it, father ? It s the thing itself that 
 matters, is n t it ? " 
 
 " You mean on high moral grounds ? " asked Deed, the 
 colour rising in his face threateningly. Philip knew the 
 approaches of one of his father s bursts of passion too well 
 to feel guiltless in provoking one of them, however remotely. 
 
 " Do you want me to say I like it, father? I don t. But 
 would my liking better it ? Surely you see, father, that the 
 thing is wrong in itself." 
 
 " Oh, I don t know what I see," cried Deed, gnawing at 
 his bristly moustache as he paced the floor. " I know 
 it seemed the only right thing there was when I did it. I 
 know I had to do it. That s my safest ground, perhaps 
 I had to do it. Good God, Phil ! you see that ! You would n t 
 have had me leave him with his plunder?" He sat 
 down, and instantly leaped up again. Philip wandered rest 
 lessly about. " I have n t it, it s true ; but he has n t. It s 
 cost the whole subject of dispute to beat him ; but I have 
 beaten him. I have rounded on his devilish falsity. And I 
 would do it again. Yes, rather than have to think that he 
 had done such a thing and prospered in it, I would do it 
 twice over. Why, Phil, I Ve beaten him ! Could I pay too 
 much for that ? " 
 
 Philip bit his lip. " Why, since you ask me, father, I m 
 bound to say that I think you could. I think you have. His 
 being a blackguard does n t help it. It makes it worse." 
 
 Deed s face darkened. " You mean that you have paid 
 too much. You mean that I let you in for enough in mak 
 ing you pay for my whim of pleasing Jasper without making 
 you pay for my squaring of accounts with him ? " 
 
 "No," said Philip, looking in his father s face, "I don t 
 
 i 
 
114 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 mean that. They are my accounts, too. It s against me 
 that Jasper has done this as much as against you. Heaven 
 knows," he said, as his face darkened, and he doubled his 
 fist under his sleeve, " I d be glad to square my account 
 with Jasper. If there is going to be a settlement I m ready 
 to pay my share. But, father, there must n t be a squaring 
 of accounts on this basis. The thing s wrong, it s inde 
 fensible, it s impossible." 
 
 Deed drove his clerched hand into his open palm. 
 " Impossible ? For whom ? For you ? For Margaret ? " he 
 demanded. " Or perhaps you mean for Jasper ? " he asked, 
 mockingly. 
 
 " I do mean for Jasper. It s a wrong to him." 
 
 "A wrong to Jasper ! " cried Deed in scornful amusement, 
 kicking a chair out of his path as he walked back and forth. 
 T s s s!" 
 
 "See here, father, I ve no love for Jasper. You must 
 know that. But I can t be part of a scheme for burking 
 him like this." 
 
 " Burking him ? " 
 
 " Well, selling him out, wiping out his share while he s 
 away. You don t want me to help you do a wrong like 
 that to yourself, father ? " 
 
 " Did I ask for your help ? " inquired Deed, in a tone of 
 offence. 
 
 Philip flushed. " Why, I should have said that you had 
 used it." 
 
 " In wiping out ycwr share ? " said his father with threat 
 ening calmness. " Do you object to that ? " 
 
 " I suppose I must say that I object to the purpose you 
 are wiping it out for. Why, father, you see it yourself. You ve 
 as much as owned it. The thing s not fair ! " 
 
 Deed s mouth fell. He stared at him in an amazement 
 that gave way to a look of inexpressible grief, as he came 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 115 
 
 and stood before Philip and laid a doubting hand on his 
 shoulder. " Phil ! Phil ! " he cried, miserably interrogating 
 the eyes which his son let fall. " You re not going back on 
 me?" 
 
 " Going back on you, father ? " Philip snatched the hand 
 hanging by his side. " I m trying to save you. You re 
 letting yourself in for a life time of remorse. You ll kick 
 yourself for this thing before you are a week older. Think, 
 father ! Can you afford to do a wrong like this to Jasper ? " 
 
 His father gave an inarticulate grunt of contempt, and bit 
 his lip as if he feared what he might be tempted to say. It 
 had been in his mind to tell him that he had done his best 
 to buy his word back about the range, in order to keep his 
 word with Margaret, and that he had had his trouble for his 
 pains. But he would not give him so much satisfaction, 
 now. It had not been done for Jasper s sake, at all events, 
 he said to himself scornfully. 
 
 " Drop it, Phil ! " he said suddenly, at last. "This isn t 
 a safe subject between us. I know what I ve done. I ve 
 never had a doubt not one single moment s doubt, mind 
 you about this as far as Jasper is concerned. He s done 
 me the cruellest wrong that a son can do a father. Do you 
 think it s a time to be nice about what I do to him ? " 
 
 " Why, father, is n t it the time of times ? If he had 
 never wronged you, one might afford a luxury like that. One 
 can do it with best friends. But to do an indefensible thing 
 you own that, father: it is indefensible and to choose 
 Jasper for the object of it ! you see, yourself, it won t work. 
 When you put him in the right by putting yourself in the 
 wrong with him you re simply taking a permanent lease of 
 torment ! There s no end to the mess, this way ! Don t 
 you see it ? Aggression of some sort becomes his right. It 
 will be almost a virtue in him. Where will there ever be an 
 end to it ? It will make you unhappy, father. That is what 
 
 I 2 
 
u6 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 I m thinking of. And the unhappiest part of the whole 
 business will be when you see that, after all, it was n t fair." 
 
 "Fair!" cried his father hoarsely. "Fair! Oh, the 
 devil ! " He sat down clenching his hands. The blood 
 rose in his face. 
 
 " Did you wish to be unfair ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " shouted Deed. " Yes ! I wished to be all that 
 you imply ! I wished to be unfair to both of you ! " 
 
 " Both of us ! " exclaimed Philip, turning pale. 
 
 " Oh, I know what you think ! I wished to be unfair to 
 Jasper, and to do it I must be doubly unfair to you, and I 
 did n t care. You don t say it. You talk of Jasper." 
 
 " Father, can you think ? " 
 
 "Yes more than you say." 
 
 Philip grew white about the nostrils. " I have said all 
 that I mean. I say it s shabby to freeze Jasper out in his 
 absence. I say that you are free to use whatever share I may 
 claim in the range as you like. But not for that. I won t 
 be a party to it. I won t stand by and see you do such a 
 wrong to yourself." 
 
 " Say what you mean ! " cried his father with an implica 
 tion in his voice which maddened Philip beyond control. 
 
 " Father ! " he cried warningly. 
 
 Deed thrust his hands into his pockets, and facing him 
 with deliberate bitterness, looked into his eyes. " I will pay 
 you every penny of your damned fifty thousand dollars before 
 you are twenty- four hours older." 
 
 For a moment Philip stared at his father in speechless 
 anger. Then with a cry of rage he burst from the room. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE clerk in the office spared a single gleam of the eye 
 which was busy challenging the new-comers by the evening 
 express from Denver, looking them into the earth and 
 pardoning them into existence again long enough to send 
 them aloft in the care of "Front," to observe Philip s 
 quick push through the office. The crowd parted before 
 his blind look and determined arm, and in a moment he 
 was in the air, reeling up the street, with his veins aflame 
 and his tongue hot upon his lips. 
 
 His anger bore him on through the mob that commonly 
 fills the sidewalk to its edge at night in Leadville. They 
 gave way before his white face and set look. He did not 
 know where he was going until a sharp ascent on the out 
 skirts of the town took his breath in the manner of lesser 
 elevations at the altitude of Leadville. He paused on the 
 summit and, snatching off his hat, bared his moist forehead 
 and beating head. 
 
 The sweet, strong, uplifting keenness of the mountain air 
 swept through his brain. He pushed back the thick hair 
 about his brow and stared up at the stars, shining down upon 
 him through an atmosphere fined to an ethereal rarity. The 
 intolerable exaltation of the air played upon his fevered spirit. 
 
 Standing there, he said to himself that he could never 
 forgive his father : the affront was too deep, the misconcep 
 tion too gross. That he should think him capable of such 
 
ii8 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 meanness ; that he should be ready on the suggestion of an 
 instant to class him with Jasper ; above all that he should 
 asperse him with the thought that he could use a pretended 
 impulse of fairness to a man who had done him a wrong 
 an impulse of generosity if one liked (standing out there in 
 the air Philip said to himself that, after all, it was generous) 
 to cloak a low appeal for himself, it was too much ! It was 
 not what any man could be expected to forgive another. 
 He repeated to himself often that he did not care that he 
 was his father. No human relationship could give a man the 
 right to insult another like that. 
 
 And then, in a moment, he laughed at the boyish self- 
 assertion ; and could have wept for his father. The air was 
 really too tense : he could not think in it. 
 
 He recalled inconsequently that he had meant to ask his 
 father to lend him $400. The recollection was a fresh pain. 
 It seemed to him that his father could not have suspected 
 him in just that way, if he had not given him good cause 
 to know that he was always in want of money that the 
 whole question of money ruled him, at times, in a way 
 which he could not, himself, reconcile with better things in 
 his nature. No wonder his father had thought his urgency 
 interested. Had he ever shown himself disinterested 
 where money was involved ? 
 
 As he went back through the town he thought he would 
 go straight to his father and make it right with him. But 
 the low instinct of pride which Philip was disposed in heated 
 moments to take for the noblest thing in himself withheld 
 him. He could not do it. Finally, perhaps he would do 
 it indeed, the subtle second consciousness knew very well 
 that in the end he must do it, for he could not live unrecon 
 ciled to his father : the amiable need, mixed of generosity 
 and selfishness, to live at one with those nearest him would 
 force him to it at last ; and he knew that he could never let 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 119 
 
 his father make the advance : that would be too shameful 
 yet he must refuse himself the happiness of going to bed 
 with it righted. 
 
 He knew for a folly the honour that he did the shallow 
 conceit of dignity, in waiting ; but he could not get himself 
 into the door of the hotel and up the stairs to his father s 
 room when the time came. He crossed over to the other 
 side of the street when he reached the hotel ; and then he 
 saw that his father s light was out. He told himself, now, 
 that he had probably meant to do it to-night, after all ; that 
 he had been postponing it until he should have had a glass 
 of something at Pop Wyman s to clear his head ; and he 
 believed that he was sorry his father had gone to bed. But 
 when he found him playing at the faro table where he paused 
 for a moment, after his glass at the bar, he sheered away 
 hastily, avoiding his eye ; and went unhappily down Chest 
 nut Street, plunging into the first dance hall he passed, and 
 suffering one of the "beer jerkers" to wheedle him into 
 treating her to a mint julep. She said she never took any 
 thing but mint juleps. He saw again remorsefully the look 
 on his father s face as he bent over the faro table (he was 
 losing heavily) while he chaffed the girl vaguely, from some 
 exterior nimbus of intelligence, on her fad for mint juleps. 
 When she would have dragged him upon the floor, however, 
 to join the quadrille that was forming, he broke away without 
 ceremony and made for the door. 
 
 The miners in their blue shirts and brown, copper-riveted 
 trousers stuck in their boots, and with their armories belted 
 around their waists, beat time to the music which was just 
 beginning in the hot and reeking hall, dimly lighted by 
 kerosene lamps. One of them shouted after him by name 
 to come back. Philip recognized the speaker for a man he 
 had known at Piiion, as he turned for a moment at the door. 
 It was young Hafferton, the tutor who had given up his post 
 
120 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 at Dartmouth to come West for consumption, and, recovering, 
 had not yet found enough money to get back with. He had 
 been the single reporter of the daily paper at Pifion. He 
 had a long nose and a thin straggling beard and wore glasses. 
 Philip supposed he was working the mine he used to talk to 
 him about taking with half a dozen other impecunious young 
 men of his own sort, on a lease. 
 
 " Oh ! hello, Hafferton ! " he said in listless recognition. 
 He went back for a moment to shake hands with him over 
 the rail dividing the dancing floor from the drinking bar. 
 Hafferton told him, that, as he had supposed, he was working 
 the " Come to me Quickly," on a lease. They were hiring 
 no labour ; but putting in their own. They had found good 
 pay dirt he said, and were doing well. He hoped to start 
 for home in the Spring, and to have a little left when he got 
 back to keep him going until he could find something to do 
 again. He was tired of mining. He had given up all the 
 brave hopes with which he had begun. He was content to 
 take a fair day s wages out of their leased claim day by day, 
 if he might. 
 
 " I suppose we shall think of this as a stereopticon view 
 we ve seen, rather than as a real experience a year or two 
 hence, when we re back East," said Hafferton, glancing 
 about the dingy room. "But we must take what fun s 
 moving. Everything goes in Colorado, " he said, repeat 
 ing the current slang phrase. 
 
 Philip refused the inclusion of himself in this point 
 of view with a glance which should have explained to 
 Hafferton what an ass he was. But Hafferton went on, 
 undisquieted. 
 
 " You re down on your ranch, now, I suppose ? " Philip s 
 plans for leaving Pinon had been known before Hafferton 
 left for Leadville. 
 
 " I ve no ranch ! " growled Philip, ungraciously. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 121 
 
 " Why, but I thought " began Hafferton, doubtfully, 
 
 beginning to feel the distance in Philip s manner. 
 
 " I know you did. So did I." 
 
 " Somebody jumped your claim ? " 
 
 Philip surveyed him for a moment, wondering if he could 
 have heard anything. "No," said he, truculently, as if 
 Hafferton was likely to dispute it, " I sold it." 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Hafferton. He had a chirpy manner, 
 and a polite little voice which twisted every nerve in Philip. 
 " I hope you got a good price for it." 
 
 "Yes," said Philip, ambiguously, " I got my price." 
 
 Hafferton glanced at him uncertainly. " I think they re 
 waiting for me," he said, glancing behind him, where the 
 three sets on the floor were making the preliminary bows to 
 their partners. His own young lady was beckoning to him. 
 " So long ! " he said, waving his hand lightly as he dis 
 appeared. 
 
 At the theatre across the way Philip made out, through 
 the cloud of tobacco smoke hovering between him and the 
 stage, an elderly woman in a ball dress, the skirt of which 
 reached to her knees. She was describing to the audience 
 from the footlights in song how she met her " Harry " on 
 Carbonate Hill every pleasant afternoon at the change of 
 shifts. The burden of the matter was that Harry was "such 
 a nice young man ! " Philip found himself waiting for the 
 wriggle by which the cracked voice attacked this phrase, at 
 the end of each stanza ; and came to wonder dully, as she 
 would begin the amorous tale afresh, how she was going to 
 manage to connect the sense of this stanza at the end with 
 her central truth, while the thought went buzzing in his 
 head, " He means to raise that money to-morrow. How?" 
 
 The epithets which he would use against himself on 
 ordinary occasions of remorse did not enough blacken his 
 act. How could he have allowed the talk with his father, 
 
122 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 which he had meant should console him with the knowledge 
 that he, at least, remained faithful to him, to issue in an 
 estrangement between them, and in this miserable resolve 
 of his father s to pay him a foolish debt of pride ? His 
 father had been trying. Oh, of course ! But might he not 
 have guessed that he must be trying ? He knew his temper. 
 Knowing the fine, the good, the generous man behind it, 
 had he ever cared for that before ? And remembering the 
 trial through which he had just passed, recalling that 
 he had found him still trembling from the hurt that Jasper 
 had dealt him, should he not have forborne ; should he 
 not, at all events and at all costs, have avoided losing his 
 second son to him? But what he had implied was intoler 
 able : he turned hot at thought of it. Yet if to be imagined 
 so base was maddening, what must it not be to his father to 
 think him so? He rose with the determination to hunt up 
 his father and make him know his thought before he slept- 
 They could settle the Jasper question another time. Just 
 now his only anxiety was for reconciliation. 
 
 He refused the return check offered him by the frowsy 
 being who guarded the exit to the theatre. The assurance 
 that Harry was " such a nice young man " followed him, 
 with a dying quaver and simper into the street. 
 
 On the sidewalk he encountered Vertner. It appeared 
 that he had come up to Leadville from Maverick to see 
 Deed about a mine they were interested in together to 
 speak accurately, a mine which Vertner had induced Deed 
 to join him in purchasing. The mine was filling with water, 
 and it was a question between putting in expensive machinery 
 to pump it out, and abandoning it. Vertner had in his 
 pocket an assay of the vein they were working. 
 
 " Your father says we can t afford to go on with it : says 
 he has n t got any money (I believe him, for he was just 
 trying to borrow $25,000 when I struck him); but I say 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 123 
 
 we can t afford to give it up. Taber might : we can t. It s 
 a chance in a lifetime. With dirt like that in sight it s only 
 the rich who can afford to economise. You don t happen 
 to have $10,000 in your clothes, do you? " 
 
 "No," said Philip, " I was just going to ask you if you 
 knew where I could borrow $50,000." 
 
 Vertner stopped short (they were walking together toward 
 Harrison Avenue), taking Philip unceremoniously by the 
 arm. " See here ! Put me on to this thing ! What are 
 you and your father up to ? Is there a dollar in it ? " 
 
 " Are n t you in schemes enough, Vertner ? " he asked to 
 turn the subject. 
 
 " No, my boy. There are not schemes enough in the 
 cosmos for the energy I feel in myself when I get up any of 
 these fine mornings. And the mints don t manufacture 
 the money that I feel I could use. What s the use of 
 living if you have n t a new idea for the new day, as it comes 
 along ? These fellows that get an idea when they are eighteen, 
 and spread it thin over the rest of their lives, to make 
 it last, give me a pain. Come ! Whisper it to your uncle ! 
 What are you up to you and your father ? " 
 
 " Oh, drop it, Vertner ! " cried Philip wearily. 
 
 Vertner s quick ear caught the accent of pain in his voice. 
 " Oh, well, now you ve got to tell me, or own up that you 
 won t let a fellow help you. The scheme is dropped with 
 pleasure. I m starting a popular subscription that s worth 
 two of it. I call it Vertner s Grand Popular Subscription 
 for the Presentation to Philip Deed, Esq., of a Nickel 
 Plated Derrick to be employed in elevating him from some 
 Confounded Muss. " He wrote the words on the air with 
 a fluent hand as they walked up Harrison Avenue toward 
 the hotel. The crowd had begun to disperse : the shops 
 were dark, and the gambling houses cast the only light, 
 save that of the electric lamps, upon the street from behind 
 
124 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 their glass fronts. " There s going to be one subscriber to 
 my fund just one. If you want $50,000 you ve got to 
 have it, and I m going to get it for you." 
 
 " It s deuced white of you, Vertner," said Philip with 
 gloomy gratitude ; " but you can t do it. I want it to-morrow." 
 He threw away his cigarette and began rolling another. 
 "Try something possible. Prevent my father from bor 
 rowing $25,000. It will do me the same service." 
 
 " Oh, come ! I call for a show-down ! " cried Vertner. 
 " / don t know what you are driving at." 
 
 "My father has a crazy notion of paying me $50,000 
 to-morrow. Other men would threaten it. He will do it. 
 He fancies he thinks " Philip gulped down the lump 
 in his throat. " He has an idea that I am kicking about 
 that business with Jasper. You know about that ? " 
 
 " No," said Vertner, a quickening glance of curiosity 
 passing over his shrewd face, " I don t. What was 
 it?" 
 
 Philip told him fully, as they paused under an electric 
 lamp, whose knife-edge glare showed them each other s 
 faces and would have tempted an observer to note the 
 contrast between them to remark how Philip s sinewy 
 bulk made more than its impression by the side of Vertner s 
 slight, wiry build, thin, alert little face, and medium stature ; 
 and how Vertner, who, in his own way, was as sufficient as 
 the driving-wheel of an engine, took an aspect of ineffec 
 tiveness from the power expressing itself in every line of 
 Philip s frame. 
 
 The deceptive outward look of ineffectiveness which was 
 accented by contrast with Philip was always what impressed 
 those who met Vertner for the first time ; and, (coupled 
 with the still, sleepy gaze habitually dwelling in his eyes 
 while he was engaged in the approaches to "talking busi 
 ness,") it had often encouraged men with whom he dealt in 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 125 
 
 his early Colorado days, to trade on the unsophistication of 
 an under-endowed young innocent. As Vertner said, with a 
 twinkling eye, in the Western slang that often displaced the 
 inadequacies of his Massachusetts English, " It was the kind 
 of case where a man picks you up for a sucker, and lays you 
 down for a shark." 
 
 To the casual eye Vertner looked about Philip s age, 
 not because he was not seven years older, but because 
 Philip s superior height and weight, his tanned cheek, 
 heavy moustache, high-growing hair, the lips closed firmly 
 on each other from habit, and a certain look of manly self- 
 command in his quiet eyes, added five or six years to his 
 twenty-three summers; while Vertner, who went always 
 clean shaven, whose hair was fair and thin, whose smooth, 
 clever, keen, good-humoured face had that incurable boyish 
 look through all its shrewdness, which every one will re 
 member in some man-boy he knows Vertner, I say, pro 
 cured a diminution of his thirty years by six or seven in the 
 eyes of the casual observer. The observer, when he came 
 to know him better, would have perceived the shrewd 
 lines beginning to gather at the corners of his mouth. By 
 this time he would have liked Vertner, or he might have 
 gone on to add that it was a sophisticated, even a calcu 
 lating mouth ; and might have found something hard in 
 those shrewd lines. 
 
 " Father imagines," concluded Philip, as they moved on 
 " something I said gave him the idea that I feel myself 
 swindled by what he did : selling Jasper out. You know my 
 father. He does n t need facts for his anger; and what I 
 said was easily misunderstood. It was in the nature of the 
 thing. One word for Jasper looked like two for myself. It 
 ended in his swearing that he would pay me my third share 
 in the ranch within twenty-four hours. That was to-night. 
 He has the $25,000 by him from the sale of the ranch. 
 
126 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 That s plain enough from his trying to borrow only 
 $25,000. But he can no more raise $25,000 more by 
 to-morrow, as things are with him, than you can, Vertner. 
 He ll do it though. You know that. And he ll do it at 
 a cost that he will pay for with every moment of his life 
 afterward." 
 
 " Um. You would n t need the the trifle you mention 
 very long, would you ? " 
 
 " Long enough to lend it to my father, take it from him 
 and pay it back." 
 
 " You re not thinking of lending it to him yourself, I 
 take it. There is to be somebody in between ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I suppose it would n t be hard to find a man 
 generous enough to lend father $25,000 of my money with 
 out security if I could get the $25,000." 
 
 They were at the door of a saloon. Philip said he had just 
 been drinking and wanted nothing ; but he went in with 
 Vertner, who ordered vermouth and insisted on his taking 
 something with him. Vertner had learned to drink vermouth 
 in the fast set into which he had fallen at the preparatory 
 school from which there had once been an intention of 
 sending him to Harvard. 
 
 " No, no more," said Philip, shaking his head in answer 
 to Vertner s urgence, after their one glass together. 
 
 "Well then, take my good advice," said Vertner, as they 
 went out into the street together. " Take something with me. 
 If I were in your shoes, I d skip." 
 
 " Oh, no you would n t Vertner. You d know my father 
 if you d lived in my shoes as long as I have, and you d see 
 the folly of it. He ll pay that money over to me just the 
 same, you know, whether I am here to take it in person 
 or not. It s not difficult to deposit a cheque to my credit 
 at his bank, and notify me by wire. If I am going to 
 attempt refusing it I can do it better by staying. The other 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 127 
 
 way I should be helpless. If I stay, though I can t really 
 refuse it, perhaps I can manage what will come to the same 
 thing." 
 
 " Oh, all right ! " exclaimed Vertner, good-naturedly 
 abandoning the point. " Count on me ! " 
 
 They walked Harrison Avenue for an hour or more, discus 
 sing plans for preventing Deed from borrowing the money. 
 Philip could not have given a name to his fears. He merely 
 knew that since his father had stripped himself of the ranch 
 he could not lay hands at such notice on $25,000 of his own ; 
 and he knew no less well that somewhere, in some way, he 
 would lay hands on it and would pay it over to him, if he 
 would let him, next day, together with $25,000 more. He 
 was haunted by a strange dread. 
 
 They went into one saloon and another. Philip was 
 restless. At several places they overheard talk about Deed. 
 It was one o clock and they had dropped into St. Anne s 
 Rest, when Philip, as he put his glass to his lips (he was 
 drinking too much and was conscious of it, but was in 
 capable of stopping), heard a red-faced man standing next 
 him at the bar, say, with an oath : 
 
 " Just my luck! Deed and I are on this here Church 
 Building Fund together : our committee subscribed the 
 square thing, and now Deed 11 shirk his share when the 
 time comes, and the committee 11 have to make up his 
 subscription among themselves. I always said we ought to 
 have subscribed it separately stid of as a committee, but 
 Hank Jackson wanted to keep his subscription dark. He 
 was n t ponying up as much as usual. Should n t wonder if 
 he was going same way as Deed. Iron Silver or Morning 
 Star, did you say?" 
 
 His companion, whose florid face was supported upon a 
 bull neck, and whose moustache had been trained to wanton 
 in a grandiose curve and to han its spreading boughs within 
 
128 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 easy twirling distance of his collar, said that it was the 
 " Iron Silver " he had spoken of. 
 
 11 He must be hard up ! Men in this town ain t putting 
 up Iron Silver stock even when they want to borrow 
 $25,000 pretty bad not very brash ! " 
 
 Philip had put down his glass. His muscles grew 
 rigid. The impulse to seize the bull neck, and choke the 
 man until he denied it was a mastering need ; but he 
 forbore. Perhaps the man spoke the truth. He turned 
 pale, and pinched his eyes with his fingers and beat his 
 head to clear his brain of the fumes of the liquor he had 
 drunk. " Come ! " he cried to Vertner, clutching his 
 arm. Vertner stood still, listening. " Come ! " he repeated 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " You heard ? " he said, when they were outside, in the 
 cold, strong air. 
 
 " Yes. The thing s got to be stopped ! I m with you." 
 
 " Stopped ! " exclaimed Philip. " Stopped ! My God, 
 man, do you know whose * Iron Silver shares those are ? " 
 
 " Your father s." 
 
 " Humph ! Listen ! " He whispered in his ear. 
 
 Vertner started. Under the ghostly glare of the electric 
 light, his face paled. He repeated Philip s word in the 
 same whisper. He caught his arm vehemently, inquiringly. 
 
 Philip nodded. " Come ! " he said. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " To the telegraph office." 
 
 " It s closed." 
 
 "They ll open it for a thing like this." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " Do ? I m going to get that money." 
 
 Vertner went with him. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BEATRICE did not wholly respect her fancy that she oc 
 casionally saw a look of dogged repression or patient pain 
 in Dr. Ernfield s eyes lately. She had fallen into the wifely 
 habit of seeing things a little qualified by her husband s 
 probable comments on her observations ; and she knew 
 that Vertner would make fun of her if she told him of this 
 fancy. But the listless step, which had replaced the brisk 
 ness prevailing through the worst of his former weakness, 
 and the growing haggardness of his whole outward aspect 
 were things which any one must see, she said to herself aftei 
 a day or two. She wondered that Margaret, who saw so 
 much of him, appeared to be blind to them ; but then, 
 Margaret was blind. For her part she resolved to say 
 nothing. It was not her affair. 
 
 Fred Kelfner, his stable boy and factotum, the warmth of 
 whose affection for his employer was one of the jokes of the 
 town, noticed the change at all events, immediately, and 
 told at home that, " Doc. was growin peak-ed agin, and 
 losin all he d gained." Fred drove Ernfield about, and 
 was frequently at the house. Beatrice and Margaret often 
 exchanged a word with him : his loyal adoration of the 
 doctor, taking no account of the derision it won him among 
 boys of his own age, touched them. 
 
 " It don t make no difference to a feller what he does for 
 a brick / " he had said at some intimation from Beatrice on 
 
 K 
 
1 30 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 one occasion that his fealty might lose him caste among the 
 boys. He said it with the exaltation of a noble of King 
 Henry s at Ivry, chanting, 
 
 "And be our oriflamme to-day, King Henry of Navarre !" 
 
 And Beatrice gladly abandoned him to the consequences 
 of his faith to his liege. 
 
 His talk about Ernfield s health, reaching Beatrice at last 
 through her kitchen, suffused her prophetic soul with a glow of 
 confirmation not all pain. When it finally reached Margaret, 
 through Beatrice, she took shame to herself for having leaned 
 on him so much. She recognized that, in the week since 
 Deed s departure, she had fallen into a habit of dependence 
 upon him for part of her daily support a habit which she 
 could not help seeing was growing upon her. A perception 
 of the way in which others must have leaned on his 
 generous strength, if she, so entirely accustomed to stand 
 alone, could fall in a few days into the habit, overwhelmed 
 her at the same moment. In the light of this she seemed 
 to understand how he had come to his present condition. 
 
 When Margaret had worked so much out in her own 
 mind, she had a conscience about suffering him in any way 
 to help her to bear the weight of her own misery. But her 
 resolve to deny herself the support of his strength was found 
 to be less easily carried out by a mere exertion of will than 
 some of her other resolves. If she was to see him at all 
 she discovered that he must constantly lend her a part of 
 himself unconsciously : it was not a question whether she 
 could feel free to accept the beneficent sturdiness that walled 
 her about from the poignant world that she dared not yet 
 take a look at, and sustained her from day to day in her own 
 sense of the Duty that remains, though Pleasure goes. It 
 existed for her, as the sun exists : if , r ,he put herself in the 
 way of its rays she could not be less than warm if she would. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 131 
 
 When, at length, she took this scruple to Beatrice, she 
 was openly scorned for it. 
 
 " But what a girl it is ! " cried Beatrice. " Poke, poke 
 poke at a fire that even your conscience could n t prod into 
 burning a fly ; and let a regular conflagration a Chicago 
 fire kindle under your very nose ! Oh, Margaret ! " she 
 exclaimed with an indescribable accent of despair. 
 
 " Why, what in the world have I done ? " asked Margaret. 
 
 " I don t know whether you have done it yet ; but if you 
 have n t it s his character rather than your carefulness that s 
 to be thanked for it. You remember what I used to tell 
 you before before the other day. You wouldn t believe it 
 then. You would n t tell him, or let him tell him of your 
 engagement. But I ve seen it going on this five weeks. A 
 week ago it might n t have been plain to a girl whose 
 modesty won t let her believe that she can matter to any 
 body. But even to her it must be plain now. Maggie ! 
 Surely you ve seen ! " 
 
 They were seated in the room above the parlour in 
 Beatrice s little two-story house. Beatrice was running a 
 long seam on a pinafore of green gingham for her baby, 
 and, bent over the sewing-machine, in this motherly occu 
 pation, and delivering herself of these sagacities, the air of 
 matronly wisdom seemed to have descended upon her. 
 
 When Margaret took her meaning, after a moment, the 
 shame of it seemed as bad as the newspaper article worse 
 indeed, for of that she had only read a dozen lines, which 
 it was possible to forget ; but of this she tasted the entire 
 ignominy. She did not know what to say. She wanted to 
 fall on Deed s shoulder, and beg his protection from such 
 thoughts. Why was he not here to shield her from them ? 
 But her next reflection was for Ernfield. 
 
 " Beatrice ! " she cried. " I wonder at you ! " 
 
 " I thought you would," she answered calmly. " But 
 
 K 2 
 
132 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 it is really time, dear, I made you wonder. I often try to 
 fancy what such people as I can be made for, yoa know, 
 Maggie. But I never wonder when I am with you. It s 
 our business to cut a path for the feet of people like you, 
 who are made to walk with their heads in the clouds." 
 " It s an insult to him ! " breathed Margaret irrelevantly. 
 " Of course ; and an indignity to you ; and an open affront 
 to Mr. Deed. Don t imagine I don t know that. But it s 
 necessary to say it, all the same." 
 
 " How can you think such a thing of him?" cried Margaret 
 indignantly. She was scarlet. She put back the lock 
 that habitually strayed into her eyes with a gesture of self- 
 control, and went on with the crocheting on which she was 
 engaged. 
 
 " Dear Maggie, he is only a man," returned Beatrice con 
 vincingly. " What makes you think him so different from 
 other men ? " 
 
 " Because he is, I think, for one reason," Margaret returned, 
 studying attentively the baby sack she was making for Beatrice, 
 for a lost stitch. " But if he were ever so like, it would not 
 
 be cause to suppose him capable of such " She paused, 
 
 inconclusively ; and bent her eyes upon the work again. It 
 had been a fortunate resource since she had been unable to 
 fix her mind on reading, or any of her usual occupations. 
 One could think, one could even be as miserable as one liked, 
 or as one must, while one crocheted. " You seem to forget, 
 Beatrice," she went on, quietly, after a moment, " that he is 
 
 very ill dying perhaps ; and that I am, " She did not 
 
 know how to say what she was. 
 
 " Why, you dear, crazy, heavenly-minded, impractical 
 thing ! " cried Beatrice, trying not to laugh. " Since when 
 did men love women less when they were ill ? The people 
 who are most against woman who won t have her on any 
 terms agree that she is a famous nurse ! Oh, Maggie ! " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 133 
 
 she exclaimed, at a look of deep pain on Margaret s face, 
 " I don t mean that. I mean only that men are just as 
 capable of falling in love with a woman on a death-bed as on 
 horseback, or on a front piazza, in the bloom of health. 
 What has that to do with it ? And as to your other objec 
 tion, it s just no objection at all. He can t know that 
 you hold yourself no less bound to to him because 
 because of things. He can t be expected to imagine that 
 you are abhorring him and being loyal to him in a breath. 
 Come ! Be fair, Margaret ! You must own that there is 
 no reason why the man should n t have tumbled into love 
 with you. The next thing is to rescue him." 
 
 " If you mean that I am to show him by my manner that 
 I know him to have such a feeling ; if you mean that I am 
 to insult him, I m sure you must know I could never do it. 
 To think it would be bad enough ; and I don t think it. 
 To give an idea like that the sanction of a word, a silence, a 
 
 look Beatrice ! " she cried, in a tone of injury 
 
 which almost frightened her companion, who remained silent 
 a moment. 
 
 Beatrice pondered the prospect from the bay window in 
 which her sewing machine was set, and from which she could 
 look over her geraniums, fuchsias, roses, lilies, Wandering 
 Jew, and sweet alyssum, up and down the road, and far out 
 to the mountains, flushed just now with the pink of sunset. 
 The flowers ranked in pots on the shelf which followed the 
 bow of the window, caught the gilding light on their greens 
 and let a little filter through upon her head, as she sat 
 before her unfinished seam, thinking. 
 
 u Margaret, dear, you know I can t like to wound you. 1 
 have to be so terribly frank to produce any impression on 
 you : I don t wonder that it hurts you. But you must be 
 hurt ; it s a duty to hurt you to sting you. What century 
 do you suppose you are living in ; in what country ; in what 
 
134 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 state of society ? I m sure I never said or thought that it 
 was nice to be such complicated people as we are, or as our 
 ancestors have made us after spending nineteen or twenty 
 centuries tying bow-knots in themselves. I ve not the 
 least doubt goose " (she gave her an affectionate smile) 
 " that Corydon and Phyllis managed such things a deal 
 better : they would have been stupid if they had n t, with 
 nothing to do but mind the sheep. But we have travel 
 led a frightful distance from such a state of things. Dr. 
 Ernfield and you know sheep only as mutton and lamb : it s 
 impossible that people who have arrived at that should treat 
 each other as simply as if they were still wandering around 
 with crooks under their arms." 
 
 " What makes you think I was born yesterday, Bea 
 trice ? " asked Margaret, fixing her eyes on her. " I 
 know all that. I know it; but it does n t avail with 
 me. There are other considerations considerations infin 
 itely above those ; and which you are just as capable of 
 understanding, if you would only let yourself." 
 
 " Maggie, look at me ! " said Beatrice seriously. 
 Margaret observed her obediently. "/ can understand 
 what people say. The fear of that is anything you like : I 
 don t respect the fear of it ; but I do respect the idea. The 
 wisdom of the ages is in that phrase." 
 
 " You mean the folly," answered Margaret quietly. " You 
 must know quite well, Beatrice, that I could never let the 
 thought which people use in such matters weigh with me. If 
 I should give up my individuality, my life, to conformity, 
 and serve, with all the cowardice I could find the heart for, 
 before the world s notions of things, I should only have lost the 
 realest thing I own, and gained not so much as my master s 
 thanks. I learned that long ago. And one must prick one s 
 fingers on one s own brambles about these things, anyway, I 
 suppose. No one can be a guide for another." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 135 
 
 " But, Maggie," urged Beatrice concretely, " the man s in 
 love with you." 
 
 " So says Beatrice Vertner," returned her companion, 
 gravely. "But if she should be mistaken which she is 
 can she suffer for me the shame which I must feel if I did 
 anything which presumed upon that idea ? And who is there 
 to bear his hurt for him ? " 
 
 To which Beatrice, who, when she was serious was tremen 
 dously serious, answered, "And who, I should like to know, is 
 going to restore to him his present feeling, from which you 
 might turn him back, while there is still time ; who is 
 going to re-create for him the peace of mind you are 
 encouraging him to lose for your sake, without the faintest 
 chance of giving him anything in return ; and what in the 
 world can you say in common honesty when he accuses 
 you, as he will, of having led him on ? " 
 
 " Beatrice, dear," returned Margaret, patiently, " there are 
 things which even you must not say." She went on with 
 her crocheting foi a moment in silence ; and the quiet, 
 steady little push of her forefinger as it ran along the 
 needle, and caught the stitch, seemed, for the moment, the 
 embodiment of her sober view of life. " Don t you think it 
 would be very unworthy for us to assume that a man like 
 Dr. Ernfield could have anything less than the highest, the 
 most delicate regard for a position like mine ? Whatever 
 you say, I believe he must have some guess about my 
 feelings. If he has any such such feeling as you say, 
 he may be trusted, I think, to find wisdom of his own for 
 it : I m sure he does not expect me to control it for him. 
 And if he did, or if I should wish it a thousand times over, 
 pray how should I set about it ? " 
 
 " But, Maggie dear, you could n t be reckless enough to 
 let a man go on ! " 
 
 "I suppose I must have heard that question discussed in 
 
136 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 twenty different cases," returned Margaret a little wearily, 
 "and I could never believe that the remedies proposed could 
 be felt by the man for whom ihey were to be employed as 
 anything better than cruel and insulting. Letting a man 
 go on, as you call it, is, at worst, postponing a question 
 which you may never have to answer which, in half 
 the cases to which women apply what they take for a 
 considerate and unselfish kindness, would never be 
 asked." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " sighed Beatrice. " Men are such stupids. 
 You talk as if they were wise like us. As if they would n t 
 all get themselves into the most dreadful puddles, like a 
 duck s chickens, who think they can swim, if we were n t 
 by to look after them ! " 
 
 "A woman is certainly bound not to allow a man to 
 believe she cares for him when she does n t," owned 
 Margaret ; " but it s hard to see why she must keep a 
 scouting party of foolish ideas about men s feelings in the 
 field every moment of her girlhood. Surely the aggressive 
 attitude that everybody sees in young girls, which implies that 
 every man who comes near you is on the eve of proposing 
 marriage, is not maidenly. I m not sure, though it means 
 so well, that it is not gross. For me to imagine such an 
 intention in Dr. Ernfield (who, if there were no other 
 reason, is too ill to think of marriage with any one,) would 
 be simply unspeakable, Beatrice. You must see it. Come ! " 
 She left her work, and going over to her, stooped and kissed 
 her cheek. " Come, Beatrice, you must see it ! " 
 
 All this judiciousness could not keep a certain change 
 out of her manner toward him, of course, when he came 
 again. Beatrice, though she had retired from the contest 
 defeated, had contrived to poison Margaret s thought of 
 him with consciousness. But it was pleasant to see that he 
 seemed to have no sense of the change. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 137 
 
 Ernfield continued to come ; and Margaret allowed herself 
 without a prick of conscience to look forward more and 
 more to the cheer he brought into the desolate days on 
 which she had fallen. It was certainly true that Margaret 
 always saw her own point of view so plainly and was so 
 simply faithful to it, that she was in danger of reckoning too 
 confidently upon the counterpart of her own feeling in 
 another. It was at least a faith that anyone understanding 
 it must have abused with reluctance ; and in so far she was 
 protected by her very rashness. But Beatrice was probably on 
 unassailable ground in thinking it the reverse of worldly wise. 
 
 Yet, if Margaret had been bothered by two consciences 
 about him, instead of feeling quite free with her one, her need 
 for distraction from the gnawing of her thoughts must 
 have been equally real and equally irresistible. She could 
 not turn over in her mind the scene with Deed on that 
 morning quite every moment in the day. She must have 
 gone mad if no diversion had offered from the circle in 
 which she had come to argue about her conduct on her 
 wedding day. Sometimes, in desperation, she would go into 
 Maverick with Beatrice the Vertners lived not quite in 
 the town and wait about while Beatrice did her marketing. 
 She still hesitated before the thought of returning the calls 
 which had been made upon her, in her capacity of stranger, 
 during the month preceding her wedding day. When she 
 said she did not care what people said she exaggerated as 
 little as anyone who has made that hardy statement can ever 
 have done ; but she owned to herself that, just at first, she 
 could not like to court the questions, and the polite and in 
 direct, but not the less rasping comment that she must meet 
 if she made these calls. 
 
 It was different with Dorothy, who had reached Maverick 
 after that fatal day, and might be supposed not to be privy 
 to her shame. Of course Margaret knew that she must 
 
138 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 know ; but it was quite possible between them to sustain 
 the convention that she did n t. Dorothy would sometimes 
 come to the house, as they became better friends, and sit 
 for an hour or more accepting Beatrice s advice about ar 
 ranging the house they had taken, while she was really 
 listening to Margaret s silence. Sometimes she would find 
 Margaret alone, and would make certain modest and doubt 
 ful advances. She liked her without being sure she under 
 stood her. They exchanged many confidences short of 
 the real ones. They never spoke of Deed, of course. 
 
 Maurice had preached a trial sermon, and was staying on 
 at Maverick in the hope of receiving a call to the pulpit of 
 St. John s. 
 
 Ernfield did not cease to be a question between Beatrice 
 and Margaret. But it was not until Margaret accepted an 
 invitation from him to ride up Ute Pass with him, that 
 Beatrice definitively washed her hands of her. 
 
 Ernfield and Margaret skirted the town, and directed their 
 horses toward the gulch that opened beyond the railway 
 round-house between the small, bare red hills that lay just 
 without the limits of Maverick to the North. These hills, 
 which rose from the plain abruptly, cut off the view of the 
 great mountains behind them unless one climbed to their 
 summits, when the horizon was seen to be populous with 
 snow-peaks. 
 
 The town, after they had passed out of the narrow belt, 
 which was really "city," and which was densely populated 
 by as many as five families to the acre, strayed lack 
 adaisically along their road, until it reached the edge of the 
 hills, where it paused at an Irishman s cabin so suddenly 
 that after turning the first curve leading into the ravine, 
 Ernfield and Margaret seemed to themselves as much alone 
 as if Maverick were not engaged in rustling for the 
 mighty dollar just around the bend. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 139 
 
 The bridle path, followed by their ponies at a canter, 
 turned with the windings of the ravine, at whose bottom a 
 stream might once have run. The rocks, rising in vari-coloured 
 masses to the high brown hills above their heads, would 
 sometimes fall back, and leave a space a hundred yards wide 
 or more, in which the grass grew rankly, but not greenly, 
 in the manner of the herbage of the West. In the early 
 morning it had seemed cold enough for snow ; but that was 
 no hindrance to weather which habitually takes the Indian 
 Summer bit between its teeth just after breakfast every 
 morning and makes a break for the sparkle, the keenness, 
 the unfailing sunniness of the typical Colorado day. It 
 was December ; but in the sun at this hour it seemed like 
 a day in June. 
 
 Half an hour after they had entered the ravine their 
 horses stood upon a height. The path wound up to this 
 point out of the gulch on its way to the Pass. Indeed 
 this was the beginning of what was known as the Pass 
 a road between the hills, which if one followed it far enough 
 and high enough would bring one to Colorado Springs. 
 They were on the summit of the first considerable rise 
 of the foot-hills toward the mountains ; and their station 
 commanded the beautiful valley, in the centre of which Mave 
 rick spread its shabby architecture, and sprawling design. 
 Behind, at their feet, lay a small park, into which the hills 
 dipped from all sides, and through the midst of which a 
 thready brook ran. Margaret, who had seen nothing so 
 vast as this bewildering prospect, running on all sides to the 
 horizon, caught her breath at the expanse. 
 
 The sunshine, bathing the tops of the white peaks far on 
 the thither side of the valley with an enchanting radiance, 
 danced above the plain on which Maverick sat. The kind 
 ling air that breathed about them on their height seemed, 
 as always in Colorado, to be drinking the sunshine and 
 
140 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 making it part of its substance, as one is sure the nobler 
 wines must have done, in their grape days. 
 
 In this atmosphere everything was seen afresh, and Mar 
 garet found all her thoughts of the time since she had 
 parted with Deed discovering themselves in new aspects, 
 as she and Ernfield looked out on this great world this 
 world thrilled with its own silence. In the face of the 
 boundless light and air and earth, and the limitless sweet 
 ness of the sunlight her world, too, seemed large and serene 
 again. 
 
 " We talk of dying when we are sorry," she said to him. 
 " Suppose we should be taken at our word, and remember 
 too late that this is life. Whoa, pony ! " She leaned over 
 and patted the restive animal s neck. She circled the hills 
 with her eyes as she looked up again. " I believe I am 
 accustomed to think that all the hard things are the real 
 life; and I ve been sure of it lately." The tacit reference 
 to her trouble escaped her unconsciously. " But when one 
 sees things like this, one is not sure." 
 
 " I don t know," said Ernfield. " I should think one 
 might be sure they are not. The other things are nearer 
 the miseries and pains and disappointments ; and I 
 suppose they keep tugging at every one s skirts, and crying 
 that they are life. But it s an awful whopper, you may be 
 sure. If they are, the moon is our day, and the sun is the 
 dead body." 
 
 He alighted to tighten the cinch of his saddle ; the pony 
 went through a series of obstructive manoeuvres that gave 
 pause to the conversation for a few moments. 
 
 " I wish I could be as confident," said Margaret when the 
 animal was still. " But the things you speak of, Dr. Ernfield 
 don t you see that in one fashion or another they are so 
 many ways of disabusing us of our cosy conceit that per 
 sonal happiness is the main affair ? And that, at least, we 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 141 
 
 must be sure is not true. Can the wretchedness through 
 which we learn that the world is not a contrivance for min 
 istering to our self-love, but bas other business in hand, such 
 as crushing it, for example, be anything but very right ? " 
 
 " Oh, I suppose not," returned Ernfield, smiling ; " but 
 how about the pink light on Ouray over there ? Is n t that 
 right too ? " He shook his head. " I shall never believe, 
 Miss Derwenter, that the sun in eclipse is the normal thing. 
 I have an endless faith since you speak of contrivances 
 that the sun was mainly invented for shining purposes ; and 
 I m sure we were n t meant to grudge ourselves its shining." 
 
 " Perhaps ! " murmured Margaret. " Perhaps ! " Then, 
 after a moment, she added, " You have a cheerful view of 
 life, Dr. Ernfield." 
 
 Ernfield laughed. " Rather necessary, don t you think ? 
 I ve not enough left to waste in quibbles." It was the 
 first time that he had referred to his condition. 
 
 " Don t say that," she begged. " You are going to get 
 well. Since you talk of not grudging ourselves the sun s 
 shining, you must n t grudge yourself that certainty. It has 
 to be. Surely we have not all the responsibilities. And 
 would it not be a shameful thing to believe that all your 
 your helpfulness and strength, Dr. Ernfield (I must speak 
 plainly if I speak at all, you see), should be taken from the 
 world while there are so many thousand drones and in- 
 capables left to go instead ; and so many thousand tired 
 bodies and minds left behind to weary for the help that 
 you might give them. I can t believe that, Dr. Ernfield, any 
 more than you can believe what what you were just saying," 
 she concluded, with a sense of having said too much ; 
 yet with a pleasure in having let him know her feeling. 
 
 " Why, what an abandoned moralist you are, Miss 
 Derwenter ! " 
 
 He caught his rein upon his arm, and made his pony stand 
 
142 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 where he could tighten the cinch on her saddle, as he said, 
 " Who was it who was saying a moment ago that the teach 
 ing of life seemed to be that it did not exist for us ? And 
 here you would have me flatter myself with the old fiction 
 that I that any man can count that fate ought to clap 
 its eye on me and save me forthwith to be a comfort to the 
 world s declining years. The world will decline nicely, thank 
 you, without me are n t you sure of that ? " 
 
 His head was down against the pony s side, as he gave the 
 cinch the final twist. Pulling up a cinch takes the breath. 
 But she fancied the long inspiration he drew, as he ex 
 claimed "There!" and put the strap at the end of the 
 cinch through the last ring, was more like a sigh. 
 
 " And besides," he went on, after a moment, " there s a 
 thing or so to be said in favour of death. I wonder the poets 
 don t try to say it more, instead of gasping before it in the 
 craven rhymes that seem to please them so awfully. It s 
 a pity, I grant you, that other people have to die ; but I 
 never could see why it should be so intolerable a thought 
 to one s self. I mean, of course, if you have a certain 
 thought about death," he added, gravely " the Christian s 
 thought, I suppose we should call it." 
 
 " But " she began, and stopped impotently. 
 
 " Ah, yes," he owned, " I admit the but. The slow 
 ignominy of this stupid trouble of mine you were going to 
 say the creeping weakness. It s true. I should have 
 chosen a great deal better if I d arranged my own way of 
 going : anyone who knows what a luxurious dog I am down 
 at the bottom of my shirking heart would believe that of 
 me, I hope. But I was n t asked." He glanced at her 
 with a smile. " No, no ! " exclaimed he, as she opened her 
 lips to reply. " Don t try to deny it for me. It s very 
 good of you ; but it s no use, you know. I am a physician. 
 I don t deceive myself. If I could only believe in 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 143 
 
 your denial, you know, I should be glad enough to let 
 you deny it for me by the hour. Or rather I should be 
 glad to have you affirm the other thing for me. To affirm," 
 he said dreamily; "it s the only thing in the least worth 
 while." He paused a moment and Margaret wanted to say 
 to him that he must not go on ; but the processes of his 
 thought always excited her vaguely. 
 
 His instinct for relating the common, daily movement of 
 life to the confident morality which he seemed to keep with 
 an engaging ease at the centre of all his thinking charmed 
 her : since her talk with Beatrice she had never enjoyed the 
 certainty of innocence that this perceived and acknowledged 
 charm had not had as much to do with her persistence in 
 maintaining their relation on the same footing as her 
 consideration for him. She felt guilty about it now, as she 
 often did about anything which gave her happiness. In a 
 way he substantiated her dreams for herself. She could 
 arrive at the same ends by difficult and conscious means : 
 she could keep her impulses, thoughts, feelings at a certain 
 temperature by keeping them under glass ; she could water 
 and tend them and cut them back and get the blooms set 
 down in the Botany, in the end. But things blossomed for 
 him in the open, as if that were their natural atmosphere ; 
 and their flowering was not ruled his plants, she was sure, 
 knew no rules but abundantly spontaneous, like the Nature 
 of which they were part. 
 
 " When Agnosticism is the world s religion," he went on, 
 " I suppose affirmation and denial will be alike indifferent, 
 and alike uninteresting as uninteresting as the world itself 
 will be then. But just now it seems as if all the work that 
 counted at all was being done by men with an awful lot of 
 Yes in them. And even when a fourth of it is pure 
 doubt, and the other three-fourths shout to keep that 
 miserable fourth s spirits up, one has to believe, I think, 
 
144 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 that a brave three-quarter affirmative is better than all the 
 whole negatives between Maverick and well, and Lieutenant 
 Greely s Farthest North. " He laughed painfully. 
 
 Margaret hesitated a moment. Then she said, shyly, 
 "Do you know, Dr. Ernfield, I believe that is what has 
 worn you out affirming for other people. Nervous pros 
 tration it s a kind of physical Agnosticism, don t you 
 think ? It seems as if we did n t even believe in our own 
 bodies any more." 
 
 " You are at least twice too acute for comfort, Miss Der- 
 wenter," he said, smiling. " My breakdown was n t due to 
 anything so amiable. It was really because I had n t the 
 temperance to stop there. The habit of absolute power is 
 an irresistible one, I suppose. It made a despot of me, 
 I know; and whatever my subjects might tell you of their 
 awful case for I assure you I showed no pity it is an ex 
 hausting thing to be a despot." 
 
 " What nonsense ! " She smiled. 
 
 " No, no," he disclaimed, " it s only right that my beastly 
 satisfaction with myself should be taken down a peg or two. 
 I accept this as my punishment." Margaret s lips framed a 
 sound ; but he stopped her. " No, it s not gammon, what 
 I tell you. It s fact. I was outrageous about the whole 
 business. I was young when I began, and I had a little 
 success quite soon. It made me sure infernally, intoler 
 ably sure. I led my patients a devil of a life. Don t think 
 I m inventing. That would be too shameful. Any of 
 them would tell you as much even those I have done 
 something for : those more than the others, perhaps. Oh, 
 I was a brute, Miss Derwenter, whatever you think ! But 
 I ve got my pay. It s wearing being a brute." He 
 smiled at her; but she saw that he was in deadly 
 earnest. 
 
 " I don t know what you were, of course, Dr. Ernfield," 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 145 
 
 she said simply, " though I don t believe you were anything 
 like that. Only one thing is clear to me : you must live to 
 be more of the same sort." 
 
 He bit his lip and turned his head that she might not 
 see his face. " I assure you," he said, huskily, " you must 
 stop wishing me so well, Miss Derwenter. I m not worthy 
 of it. If I were I should be able to bear it better." 
 
 The too ready tears started to Margaret s eyes. " What 
 shall I wish for you, then ? " she asked. " I will wish any 
 thing you like." 
 
 " Wish the impossible, please. That is the only thing that 
 can do me the slightest good. Wish me the man I was six 
 months ago : wish me the love of the only person who 
 matters. Come, don t be close, Miss Derwenter ! Wish 
 the Never Will Be for me ! I might get well on the mere 
 hope of it ! " 
 
 " Do you mean ? " 
 
 "Oh, mean !" he cried. "I don t mean to be rude 
 
 for one thing." 
 
 1 No, no ! " exclaimed Margaret, her face full of earnest 
 ness, "I only meant to say " She had not an idea 
 
 what she had meant to say. 
 
 " The kindest and sweetest thing you could invent. Great 
 heaven, don t I know that ! And don t I loathe myself 
 for letting you even think it for me ! " 
 
 He glanced suddenly at her face, and saw the tears in 
 her eyes. He bit his lips ; an inrush of emotion mastered 
 him. The uncommon mood in which the expression of 
 feelings habitually restrained had left him, was defenceless 
 before the impulse of love which sprang up in him at sight 
 of the sweet tumult of compassion for him in her eye?. He 
 was standing at her saddle pommel. Her arm hung by her 
 side. He caught her hand to his lips in a long, blind, reck 
 less kiss. Margaret gave him a swift, scared look as he 
 
 L 
 
146 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 relinquished it. Then, gathering her reins hastily, she turned 
 the pony back down the road they had come up. 
 
 " Pride, ignorance, sufficiency, folly ! " she said to herself 
 with smarting eyes, thinking of her rejection of Beatrice s 
 warning. Must she always be so grossly wise ? She said to 
 herself that Ernfield was not to blame, and shrank from the 
 thought of him with terror, in a breath. It was her position 
 her intolerable no-position, that made such things possible. 
 
 As Ernfield followed her, she gave him a fleeting glance 
 in which he read a reproach that cut him to the heart. He 
 felt like spurring his horse over the edge of the precipice 
 along which they were riding. But he decided to see her 
 safely home,, first. There were always precipices if one 
 needed them. 
 
 He kept her in sight with difficulty. She pushed her 
 horse down the steeps at a pace which made him fear for 
 her. A single thought was in her mind : Deed. Her heart 
 went out to him in a passionate appeal for shelter and 
 defence. The silent loyalty which she had kept for him, in 
 the midst of all resentment of his act, had leaped to flame 
 at the touch of Ernfield s lips ; and she could not think 
 how she could live until she could stand at his side again 
 where he could protect her from the world and from herself. 
 Pride and bitterness fell away from her like the properties of 
 a dream. Her eyes were wet with joyous tears. 
 
 Ernfield wondered at the radiant look of resolve upon 
 her face as he helped her to alight at her own door. She 
 did not care what he did for her now. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DEED was pitching his effects into his trunk with 
 nervous haste. If he paused for a moment to gaze at 
 the confused heap, the ache at his heart reasserted itself, 
 and he turned from his work, and went to stare miser 
 ably out of the hotel window. In these moments he tasted 
 despair. 
 
 He had paid Philip. That was done with. He had 
 made short work of his protestations ; he knew on which 
 side to place him now. He had gone Jasper s way. Deed 
 told himself that he ought to be glad. He might have 
 gone on trusting him as he had trusted Jasper, until he had 
 confided enough to his honour to make the trust worth 
 abusing ; and a sickening breach of faith, like Jasper s, must 
 have followed in due course. It was better to know the 
 worst now. As he remembered what the worst was, he 
 turned from the window dizzily, and sank into a chair, 
 groaning aloud. 
 
 He no longer had a son. The misery of the words filled 
 up the world s space. But a more hateful pain lay within the 
 loss : that they had lost themselves to him. He could have 
 borne that they should die even if their deaths had 
 trodden on each other s heels, as their falsities had done. 
 But that they should live as ingrates and traitors to his 
 love was a pain beyond the worst that death can bring. 
 What was it, he asked himself, as he sat crouched miser- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 ably in his chair, with his head in his hands, that made 
 ingratitude so intolerable, so damnable, so unforgivable a 
 thing ? Was it that it cut into the best of a man ? Was it 
 because the loving acts on which gratitude follows proceed 
 from the richest, the tenderest, the secretest corners of a 
 man s nature that the agony of an answering baseness, where 
 one has a right to look for the answering love, is so un 
 endurable ? Of course it was a pain to receive a blow in the 
 face, and doubly a pain where one must rather expect a 
 kiss ; but did that explain all the degrading, the soul- 
 nauseating horror of ingratitude ? The pang of it was part 
 of the stock of familiar allusion ; it must have been felt 
 since men first loved and served one another; shredded 
 echoes of quotation floated into his head and out again, as 
 he sat writhing under the torture of it. 
 
 " For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 
 Ingratitude, more strong than traitors arms, 
 Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart ..." 
 
 And Lear s cry he had never felt its awful force before 
 
 "... that she may feel, 
 How sharper than a serpent s tooth it is, 
 To have a thankless child ! " 
 
 Common ! Why it was in the School Speakers ! Every 
 one had felt the wound ! And yet none of all the millions 
 who had suffered from it could say what it was what 
 peculiar, stinging, maddening touch lay in it to make the 
 hurt of it beyond all other hurts. Ah, well ! What 
 difference could it make to them or him ? They knew the 
 pain, and he knew it. The pain was enough. 
 
 He got up and went restlessly about his packing again. 
 Where were the good hours of seven days ago ? he asked 
 himself, as he folded his dress-coat. He smiled sadly for 
 the thought, and for the idea of taking a dress-coat on such 
 a journey. It was useless to take it; but it was equally 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 149 
 
 foolish to leave it : he did not expect to return immediately, 
 and he did not wish to give it to the hotel people. He 
 thought he should go on a long journey, to Florida, to 
 Cannes, to Egypt anywhere away from memory when he 
 had found the men at Burro Peak City who had once 
 wanted to buy the " Lady Bountiful " and had made his 
 sale. The hotel people might prove ungrateful, he said 
 to himself, with a sorry laugh. " Ungrateful ! " he re 
 peated, in the aimless need we feel to keep up a con 
 versation with ourselves when we are miserable. The 
 word flooded his heart with the recurrent ache ; and 
 he dropped the coat listlessly into the tray, and re 
 turned to the window. Ah, where was the man of those 
 good hours of a week ago? He remembered vaguely that 
 he had once been happy, as souls in hell may recall their 
 days of earth : it was an unreal memory, as if it had been 
 another s happiness. Who was the man who had ridden up 
 to a certain door in Maverick a week before with life at his 
 feet, and all the sweet airs of earth blowing for him? Not he. 
 That man had two sons who loved him, and whom he loved. 
 
 Deed looked sadly on the spectacle of the street, crowded 
 with men to whom life still meant something men who had 
 not lost their sons, perhaps, or had never known what it was 
 to have sons, and to love them as one s soul. Why did 
 they go up and down ? It fatigued his sight, this restless 
 motion of which he had once been part before his quarrel 
 with Margaret, before Jasper had turned traitor, before Philip 
 had cut the last tie that bound him to life, and set him 
 adrift among the unfriended men to whom nothing matters. 
 What was it all about ? What was it for ? 
 
 He remembered that they lived in a different world his 
 world of a week ago and that they understood what it was 
 all for, no doubt, as he would have understood, then. They 
 understood ; but his present feeling would be as incompre- 
 
150 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 hensible to them as theirs was to him. Would he have 
 understood it himself a week ago ? All happiness and un- 
 happiness suddenly seemed to him to be shut up to them 
 selves in chambers desolately aloof from each other, and 
 from every other state of feeling. One sensation must for 
 ever be as solitary, as incommunicable as the other. The 
 unbearable sense of loneliness which the thought gave him 
 made him shut his eyes against the sight of the going and 
 coming in the street. The best sympathy, he knew, would 
 be powerless to guess deeper than the outer envelope of his 
 feeling ; and these men, if they would imagine his misery 
 ever so vaguely, must not merely be unhappy themselves, 
 but must be like enough him to understand him ; and he 
 did not understand himself. 
 
 Could any of all the strange chances that brought men to a 
 mining camp from the earth s dust-bins and coal-holes, 
 leaving every colour of human experience behind them, have 
 drawn here one man like enough himself to understand how, 
 a week ago, in the crazy satisfaction of an impulse of pas 
 sion, he could have forsaken a happiness filling and over 
 flowing in the moment of his folly all his hopes ? Was there 
 one who could do an incurable wrong in such besotted con 
 fidence in one hour, and know it for what it was in the next ? 
 With others did the remorse follow instant upon the fatuity ? 
 With so much wisdom after the event, did others find none 
 before ? 
 
 But he knew very well that no one in his place could have 
 done Margaret the unforgivable wrong he had done her. 
 It was left for him to make a loving woman, guilty only in 
 endeavouring to save him from himself, the victim of an 
 infernal suspicion ; and upon the head of it to abandon her 
 on their wedding day. It was an insensate cruelty ; and 
 now it was his punishment to long hopelessly for a forgive 
 ness which he should never insult her to ask. A moment 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 151 
 
 later, thinking how Margaret would judge the expedient he 
 had been driven to that morning in order to raise money to 
 pay Philip, a sharp doubt of its innocence insinuated itself, 
 and he would have been glad to undo it. But that was past 
 praying for ; and, on the whole, it was as safe and fair as it 
 seemed, probably. The $25,000 which he had borrowed 
 at his bank in the morning on the security of some Iron 
 Silver stock part of the Brackett estate of which he was 
 one of two trustees was a temporary accommodation from 
 an estate which owed thrice that sum to his care, and one 
 which could cost it nothing. If he couM have sold his 
 Burro Peak mine, the " Lady Bountiful," in Leadville, he 
 need not have called on it ; but they did n t know the " Lady 
 Bountiful," in Leadville, and the men at Burro Peak who 
 did, and who had offered him $60,000 for it a year ago 
 (when he had refused it) were a four days journey from 
 Leadville, beyond the telegraph and the railway, beyond 
 even the stage coach. As it was he had simply borrowed 
 $25,000 until he could lay his hands on his own money a 
 matter of ten days, as he reckoned it. He could n t wait 
 ten days to pay Philip. He had found it irksome enough 
 to wait for the opening of banking hours on the morrow 
 of their quarrel ; he had itched to have the money in his 
 fingers when he had given him his bitter promise, and he 
 had risen the next morning with his pride engaged to its 
 last crazy and obstinate fibre in the resolve to keep the letter 
 of that promise. He had kept it. 
 
 He turned to his packing once more, with a curse for 
 Jasper on his lips. In the little space of a week he had lost 
 all that made life worth while, and of all this devilish fatality of 
 loss Jasper was the origin. The ruinous righting of himself 
 which, in its endless ramifications, had now pursued him to 
 the last covert of his happiness whom else had he to thank 
 for it but Jasper ? Through him he had been brought to 
 
152 BENEFITS FORGOT, 
 
 the madness which separated him from Margaret ; through 
 him he had just parted with Philip as a stranger ; through 
 him, worst of all, he had laid himself open to the un 
 bearable reproach, from which he had just freed himself 
 with Philip at a cost of which he preferred not to think. He 
 saw all that had happened since the moment he had opened 
 Jasper s letter as one piece of wretchedness, wrong- doing 
 and shame, and of every inch of it he saw Jasper as the 
 author. He longed, in the fury that seized him at the 
 thought, to lay his hand on his throat, and crush out the 
 life he had given him. 
 
 But his helpless rage against Jasper and Philip ended 
 always in a remorseful thought. In the bitterest pain he 
 suffered through their falsity it was a negative mitigation of 
 his grief to know that he had not himself to blame. But 
 as to Margaret it was his shame and torment to know that 
 his own act had lost her to him. In this blackest hour of 
 his life he knew that, but for himself, she might have been 
 by. The single happiness which might have remained to 
 help him to turn his eyes patiently towards the future had 
 been done to death by his own folly. He cursed himself. 
 
 She would never look at him again. He knew that. He 
 should be ashamed if she did. He would not have ventured 
 to lift his eyes to her face if they had met in the street ; yet 
 he longed for her presence at this moment as never before. 
 He would have gone half round the world for a touch of 
 her hand ; and he had cast away the right to take it as any 
 stranger might. 
 
 "Fool! fool!" he roared to the unanswering air, as he 
 paced the room. He flung his arms aloft in the last abase 
 ment of his misery. 
 
 His arms relaxed. He sank into the chair. Tears smarted 
 in his eyes. 
 
 Margaret, when she stole into the room five minutes later, 
 found him so. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 " YES," said Beatrice to her husband, a week after this 
 she repeated it because, after all, perhaps she was not quite 
 sure of it "it was the very best thing she could have 
 done!" 
 
 This thought about Margaret s impulsive flight to Deed 
 and her marriage had been reached by a circuitous route ; 
 but she clung to it now. When Margaret had come down 
 stairs with her bag packed, after her ride with Ernfield, and 
 had asked to have her trunk sent after her to the station, 
 Beatrice had not discredited herself by a question. She 
 divined, in the moment of pause which she suffered to elapse 
 before she spoke, just what had happened, and all the feeling 
 that was making a tumult in Margaret s breast at the mo 
 ment, and casting her into Deed s arms ; and after an awful 
 moment of reflection, in which she reconciled herself to the 
 odious surrender which Margaret was making, and taught 
 herself to like it, and then to delight in it particularly to 
 delight in it as the act of Margaret she fell upon her neck. 
 She said it was the best, the wisest, the most womanly, un 
 characteristic, human, every-day thing that Margaret had ever 
 done, and that she deserved a triple kiss of farewell and 
 approval. 
 
 She had her qualms when she had gone. Her jealousy 
 for the integrity of the unassailable, the righteous position 
 which Margaret had maintained since the event which would 
 
154 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 have crushed another woman returned upon her with a 
 rush ; and it suddenly seemed wholly wrong what she had 
 done. 
 
 It had all been a burning matter with Beatrice since it 
 had happened. She had felt more than she could ever say 
 about it. If she had said everything she thought she would 
 have said that a man who could do what Deed had done 
 deserved forgiveness at no woman s hands. Of course any 
 woman would forgive him, if she loved him ; but that was 
 another matter. If he was to be forgiven, however, surely 
 he should come suing for pardon on his knees. In this 
 light it became something perilously like a point of honour, 
 involving the whole sex, that Margaret should not be the 
 first to seek a reconciliation. 
 
 Beatrice simply could not bear to think that, without any 
 merit or motion on his part, he should win back a happiness 
 which he had not deserved. But she saw that, after all, this 
 did not count. If women went into the question of men s 
 deserts, where would they bring up ? It was the wrong way 
 of approaching the question altogether. The right way was 
 one which she explained to her husband, who smiled at her 
 over his lifted coffee cup they were at breakfast when she 
 made known to him the conclusion at which she had finally 
 arrived about Margaret. 
 
 " How is it the best thing she could have done ? " he 
 demanded. " She did n t do it on your advice, Trix," he 
 said with a twinkling eye. 
 
 "I don t care," returned Beatrice valiantly. "She did 
 right, if there was any right left to do in such a case. It was 
 the womanly thing to have done." 
 
 " Yes," owned Vertner, " it was the weak thing." 
 
 "To be sure," assented Beatrice, accepting this version of 
 her meaning courageously, "and that s its strong point." 
 Vertner laughed. " No, but I mean it," persisted his wife. 
 
BENEFITS FOEGOT. 155 
 
 " In the dreadful situations women are always getting into, 
 since they took to masterfulness and self-sufficiency, there s 
 just one way out that s sure to be right ; and that s the 
 weak way." 
 
 " When in doubt throw away all your trumps." 
 
 " When in doubt be a woman. Of course she abandoned 
 her position. She threw away all her advantage. But her 
 advantage was really too great don t you see? She had 
 to get rid of it. It was a bother. I suppose there is such 
 a thing as being more in the right than you know what to do 
 with. It did n t make her happy, and it must always 
 have kept him from making the advance. I see that now. 
 I used to want him to grovel. But I don t see that it 
 would have done her any real good. It would have been 
 a poor victory at best; and what she has done, if she 
 has done it in the way I suppose she has, would be a 
 triumph." 
 
 "Oh, you need n t trouble yourself to mention that when 
 a woman does do the magnanimous, a man is wincing for 
 it somewhere. I believe you." 
 
 " Hush, Ned ! You know she acted from the purest 
 motives." 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear ! You would n t go and accuse any 
 woman of pure motives, I hope pure and simple motives. 
 Let us admit that she acted from the purest adulterated 
 motives possible. It s a handsome admission." 
 
 Beatrice was silent. She was thinking of something else. 
 " I don t know," she said, after a moment doubtfully, 
 " whether I quite like the mere act of her return to Mr. 
 Deed. But that was inevitable ; and I ve always thought 
 it s a mistake that we ought to leave to men to be deterred 
 by the look of an act. Don t you know, Ned ? Nothing 
 seems very right, let alone very heroic, when you are doing 
 it. Taking the train, getting to the hotel, finding the 
 
156 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 number of his room I m afraid she found it all hard 
 because it must all have seemed so small. She was doing 
 a fine thing ; and there ought to have been some very good 
 music by a concealed orchestra, scenery by the best artists 
 and electric lights. Don t you think so? But when they 
 were in each other s arms and forgiving each other every 
 thing, and agreeing to forget that they had ever tried to forget 
 each other, or do without each other, are n t you sure that 
 she saw that it was the right thing to have done even if it 
 was the weak thing and the absurd thing, and the " 
 
 " Crawfish thing ? " suggested Vertner. " I don t know. 
 You would n t be up to any such game, Trix." 
 
 " I should n t have got into the situation originally. But 
 if i h a d 
 
 " You would have done me up with a weakness to which 
 Mrs. Deed s was hearty." 
 
 "Well, it would have been a different kind. I should 
 have tried to select something that you would understand." 
 
 " Thanks. And do you suppose Deed understands ? " 
 
 " I m sure he does. No woman would do such a thing 
 for a man who she was not sure would understand. He 
 would understand and would be humbled into the dust 
 by it." 
 
 " And you picture her spending the years to come con 
 soling him for the humiliation her brilliant weakness has 
 caused dusting him off? " 
 
 " I picture them both as very happy," returned Beatrice 
 with dignity. Her husband laughed. 
 
 When Vertner came home to their one o clock dinner, 
 she perceived by the look on his face that he had heard 
 something which he did not mean to tell her. 
 
 "What makes you like this business, Trix?" he asked 
 her abruptly, as if they had not discussed the question. 
 
 " Don t you ? " she asked, with quick suspicion. Like 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 157 
 
 a good wife, she kept a rational scorn for her husband s 
 ideas about certain things the sort of things which only 
 women understood ; but she had a respect for his percep 
 tions about character as Vertner said, he lived " by sizing 
 people up," and could n t afford to make mistakes and, at 
 the moment, she had a still greater respect for his news. 
 
 " I like my bread and butter better," said Vertner non- 
 committally, biting delicately at a mushroom. 
 
 It was one of the peculiarities of the Vertner household that 
 their table, in the face of every sort of obstacle, maintained 
 an almost Eastern decency and good cheer. As Vertner told 
 Beatrice, they " would have fresh artichokes if they had to 
 buy up all the canned goods in Maverick to find em." In 
 a country where every one lived by grace of the tin can, the 
 Vertners did not manage their good table without the use 
 of an energy, ardour and inventive skill which would have 
 gone a long way in felling the forests of a hardier sort of 
 pioneering. Vertner did not leave it all to his wife ; he 
 had studied household providing since his marriage, as he 
 studied a number of other unrelated and unexpected things. 
 In most of the other things he, more or less remotely, " saw 
 a dollar ; " but in this he satisfied an instinct for propriety, 
 for excellence, for "having things right," as he called it, 
 which did not follow him always into other departments. 
 
 "Oh, Ned, do let us have something free from your 
 wretched mighty dollar." There was the weariness in her 
 tone which implies an old and hopeless subject bet ween man 
 and wife. " What can there be in Margaret s marriage -to 
 affect the price of corner lots ? " 
 
 She would not have been the loyal wife to him she was if, 
 in accepting him, she had not accepted, without premedita 
 tion, the larger half of his theories. But even when she 
 talked unconsciously in the too alluring, too natural slang, 
 which was so native to the life he led, and either so 
 
158 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 shockingly or so admirably expressive of it (she was not 
 always sure which), she was sorrowfully conscious of her 
 reserves. She might easily have nagged him with them, 
 but not merely her good sense, but a feeling of obligation 
 to his honesty in having told her as much of his way of life 
 as a man can convey to the woman who has not yet married 
 him, withheld her. She could not say that she had not 
 been warned. Yet, in her young girl s ideals there had 
 never been any arrangement made for trimming her life by 
 the market for her husband s new scheme. There was 
 always a new scheme in the Vertner household, and they 
 had it for breakfast, dinner, and supper. 
 
 " Corner-lots are all right," said Vertner. " The trouble is 
 deeper down. Deed has left me with a flooded mine on my 
 hands. If he had stayed where he was, I could have 
 talked him into that pumping machinery." 
 
 "Then I m glad he did n t. You have enough mines, 
 Ned," said she. It was the kind of inapposite wisdom 
 which does not torment a man less for being based upon a 
 feeling to which he partly assents, and not at all on the 
 facts which he knows contradict it. 
 
 " Have I ? I sha n t have enough mines, my dear, until 
 one of them is a money-maker. I ve got too many holes 
 in the ground ; but I m mighty short of mines. This one 
 I m working with Deed or should be if I was has a vein 
 in sight that ." He went on to tell her the seductive story 
 of the assay, and of the wealth at their feet to which she had 
 listened in the case of a dozen other mines. She knew how 
 each of these other mines had turned out, and he knew ; 
 but there is a tameless sublimity of faith known to the man 
 who has once owned a mine and to the man s family, which 
 acknowledges no past and is as gaily independent of ex 
 perience as the clouds that forage the air for the other 
 clouds in which they lose themselves. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 159 
 
 " But where has Mr. Deed gone ? " asked Beatrice at the 
 end of his recital, as enthusiastic now as her husband. 
 
 " How should I know ? A man does n t give away the 
 itinerary of his wedding journey from the steps of the 
 County Court House. Besides in this case there was n t 
 time. I don t see but they were married by a dynamo. 
 Philip and I were both in the hotel office. He had just 
 had his final row with his father. They had given each 
 other that full material for the understanding of each other s 
 character so valuable in family rows the night before ; and 
 this was rather quiet not actually, but by comparison. 
 Deed paid Philip some money that he did n t want, that he 
 hated and abhorred, and which he straightway took to the 
 First National and deposited to his father s credit. Those 
 being the facts, Deed naturally supposed Philip was 
 hankering for it, that he was basely longing for it at any cost 
 to him, and that he was suspecting him of having tried to 
 do him out of it : a thoroughly good misunderstanding like 
 that (without a fact in sight) is just the basis for a gorgeous 
 family row. You know Deed s temper. It s like Barnum s 
 rarities, the hottest, the most ungovernable, the most totally 
 unreasonable temper ever seen in captivity. It s to his 
 credit that he does keep it in captivity most of the time, so 
 that you might think his disposition a good sort. But when 
 
 it blazes look out ! That s all. It was on the blaze 
 
 this time; and when you remember that Philip himself 
 has n t the most well, not the most angelic. . . . you can 
 believe it was a rumpus. Philip refused the money, of 
 course, and obliged his father to insult him to get him to 
 take it. Then they parted for ever ; and an hour after 
 ward, when Philip was just starting up stairs for the reconcilia 
 tion that follows such fool rows, he stood aside to let his 
 father pass, with a lady on his arm. Deed did n t look at 
 him. The porters put some luggage on a carriage in 
 
160 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 waiting, the hotel clerk threw an old shoe after them, and I 
 went back and inquired at the desk, and found out that 
 Philip had a new mother. They had been out to St. 
 George s between the time when Philip came out of the 
 hotel hot against his father and came to hunt me, and 
 the time when Phil, like the sensible fellow he is, went 
 back to make it all up." 
 
 " Well, I m glad they were married in church, anyway," 
 said Beatrice, " and the haste would n t make any difference 
 to Margaret. She would n t care any more what she was 
 married in than than a cassowary." 
 
 "Yes," said Vertner, wickedly, "that indifference of the 
 cassowary to an appropriate wedding dress, and that vile 
 carelessness about orange blossoms is just one of those 
 facts of natural history that lend a charm to " 
 
 But his wife had finished her dinner, and she came over 
 and shook him. 
 
 He grew serious when she asked him for his news. " It s 
 not my news, Trix," he said. "You mustn t ask me." 
 He fell into one of the moods of sober thoughtfulness in 
 which his new schemes were usually imagined, and in which 
 Beatrice was always careful not to disturb him. It was 
 not a scheme to-day, she saw, however. His face was 
 almost sad ; and his musing was apparently often balked by 
 some thought, at recollection of which he would make a 
 wry face, and clench his fist. 
 
 Vertner s trouble was the practical disappearance of 
 Deed or, rather, certain circumstances accompanying his 
 disappearance known only to Philip and himself. In the 
 midst of his wretchedness about this miserable business (it 
 tormented him more than anything that had ever happened 
 to himself not only because if he had raised .the money in 
 time it would n t have happened, but because he really liked 
 Deed, to whom he owed his present position in Colorado) 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 161 
 
 only one thing consoled him : that they had not yet got 
 hold of it in the town, and so could not be discussing it. 
 What Vertner feared was that it would get into the papers. 
 It had not represented itself as a disappearance to the 
 town, thus far. It merely seemed to the gossip of Maverick 
 that Deed was taking an unusually long wedding journey. 
 
 There were, besides, other things still to talk of connected 
 with Deed, and especially other things connected with 
 Margaret and her marriage, from which it is doubtful it 
 the town chatter would really have liked to be called while 
 so much remained unsaid. Margaret s action, as being the 
 most sensational occurrence in what began to be known 
 as " this Deed business " over-topping even Deed s 
 desertion of her on their wedding day needed most of the 
 discussion, and it had held the attention of the ladies 
 steadily since her sudden departure for Leadville, and the 
 announcement of the marriage in the Leadville papers of 
 the following day. In that matter they felt that they had 
 been trifled with. If Miss Derwenter had the high strain of 
 forgiveness somewhere about her enabling her to pardon a 
 man who had publicly deserted her on her wedding day, 
 why in the name of nameless things, had n t she found it 
 out earlier ? Was it for this that she had flaunted her pre 
 ference for Doctor Ernfield in the face of the town ? And 
 what, pray, did she mean by her actions with that gentleman ? 
 If she had really cared for Deed all along, her encourage 
 ment of Ernfield was simply shameless. The probability 
 was that she had set herself to captivate Ernfield in the 
 hope of breaking her fall ; and that, when she found 
 Ernfield obdurate, she had turned to her first lover. 
 
 At all events, when the ladies had been put to the trouble 
 of arriving, after a fortnight s fluttering among other 
 opinions at the belief that the affair between her and Deed 
 was to be regarded as definitively "off," the necessity of 
 
 M 
 
162 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 revising this belief was irksome. The sense of the hard 
 ship of the situation of public opinion was liberally voiced 
 wherever women met ; and occasionally where men met. 
 The ladies usually began with the admission that, so far as 
 Margaret s " carrying-on " with Dr. Ernfield went it was 
 by this phrase that they alluded to the relation which 
 Margaret had imagined so innocent ; it was merciful that 
 she was not in Maverick at this time to hear what was said 
 of it she could not be blamed. What the ladies objected 
 to was her playing fast and loose, and off and on, as they 
 said. " She did n t really seem to know which she wanted, 
 so far as I can see," said Mrs. McDermott, whose husband 
 dealt in hats on Mesa Street. 
 
 " She got to know at the last," suggested one of the 
 ladies grimly, as Dr. Ernfield, on horseback, passed the 
 church in which the ladies were gathered. 
 
 "Yes," laughed Mrs. McDermott. "All of a sudden, 
 as you might say. No doubt Dr. Ernfield gave her cause." 
 
 " Well," exclaimed Mrs. B. Frank Butler, " I m sure you 
 can t say the poor thing was to blame for turning most 
 any way for refuge just at first, when Mr. Deed deserted 
 her on her wedding day going off as casual as you please. 
 And I m not so sure, either, that I blame her for turning the 
 other way for refuge, just at the last. There was n t really 
 anything left for her but that, if she wanted to marry at all ; 
 and as to her flirting with Dr. Ernfield, if you call it that, 
 I don t know what I would call it m self who can say 
 anything against a woman that ain t past marriageable age, 
 for allowing the attentions of a pleasant and agreeable 
 young man that any one can see is dead in love with her ? " 
 
 She lifted her coarsely pretty little head out of the collar 
 of her sealskin sacque at this, bridling ; and it was evi 
 dent that Mrs. Butler would not have been guilty of a 
 wasteful discretion in such a case. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " SEE here," said Vertner to Philip, when he met him in 
 Mesa Street in the afternoon, after his talk with Beatrice, 
 (Philip had come down with him from Leadville on the 
 day that the evidence of Deed s marriage had been offered 
 them), " I Ve been thinking this thing out." 
 
 " You have n t thought it out in any shape that s going 
 to wipe out my assininity, Vertner," returned Philip. " I m 
 at the bottom of this thing, I tell you. You can t get me 
 out from under it. I maddened my father, and if I had 
 had a grain of sense or had had the sense to use the 
 sixteenth part of a grain that I sometimes have when there s 
 nothing to use it on I should have seen that I must 
 madden him. Taking Jasper s part at that ! Well, the 
 thing wasn t square. I suppose I had to protest. But 
 think of it s being Jasper! As if I didn t owe him 
 enough ! " 
 
 " Now you re shouting ! " assented Vertner cordially. 
 " With a fellow like Jasper in sight, it s rank extravagance to 
 waste your curses on yourself. And I would n t go messing 
 with this question of responsibility, either. / don t believe 
 we were meant to settle that," he asserted with his emphatic 
 nod. Vertner had a turn for philosophy in his odd hours, 
 and a sense of his responsibility to religion, to which, when 
 his wife asked him, he gave proper financial expression. 
 He secretly regarded the clergy as a kind of lame ducks whom 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 it was the duty of men blessed with the capacity for turning 
 a penny to help along. It was only vaguely conceivable, 
 under his theory, that they would be in the business if they 
 had known how to rustle for themselves. " The moment you 
 get to portioning out blame, and saying where this would n t 
 have happened if so and so, and how that would have been 
 all right if what s his name," he went on, " you wind 
 yourself into one of those snarls where the more you wind 
 the more you snarl. The simplest way is the woman s way : 
 scrape all the mud in the affair into one ball and fling it at 
 the person concerned in the business that you like least. 
 And the worst possible way is to be a pig about the sack 
 cloth, and snatch it all for your own wear. Better turn over 
 most of the sackcloth in this little matter to Jasper, I guess. 
 He deserves it, and it won t trouble him. He ll keep it on 
 the shelf in the original package. There s something about 
 that brother of yours, you know, Deed, that simply takes 
 your admiration by the collar. You can t resist his talent ; 
 and it would be a shame to try." 
 
 " Oh, I don t try," said Philip, with a lack-lustre face. 
 
 He drew Vertner into a doorway out of the confusion of 
 the street, crowded at this hour with the ranchmen and 
 miners who had come into town for the day for supplies, 
 for their mail, or for mining or cattle dickers, or for mere 
 liquid sociability, and had not yet set out on their return. 
 Their freighted burros and saddled ponies pawed the road 
 way in a long range on either side the street. Sometimes 
 one of the ponies would lift a hoof to the board sidewalk 
 which ran at the level of his knees above the road, and 
 hammer about on the boards until a man would come from 
 a neighbouring saloon and order him to " Whoa there, 
 you ! " 
 
 " Well, that s right," said Vertner heartily in response to 
 Philip s negative as they sheltered themselves in the door- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 165 
 
 way. " If you are a miserable man, and your father an 
 
 utterly wretched one if he has seen Jasper play him the 
 
 lowest trick ingratitude could invent, if he has seen you 
 apparently do the same, and has come within that of losing 
 a wife, and now has had to make his wedding journey a 
 flight from justice " 
 
 Oh, shut up, Vertner!" 
 
 " An opportunity for parley with the law, then. I 
 
 don t care what you call it (it s what he thinks it that makes 
 the difference, is n t it ?), if, I say, one of the first families in 
 Lone Creek County has come to this in a week, it s a 
 glorious satisfaction to know that the hand that pulled the 
 strings belongs to a Jim-dandy of a talent. There s some 
 thing nothing less than bang-up about. Oh, I say, Phil ! " 
 
 he exclaimed remorsefully, as his companion turned away. 
 He clapped his hand upon his shoulder. " I don t mean 
 
 that guff. I thought " He caught his eye with a look 
 
 like pleading in his own. " I thought the other view might 
 comfort you a bit. The tragic we have always with us. 
 Expressive of the feelings, but wearing, you know !" 
 
 He blundered on, until Philip stopped him with, " Oh I 
 know, Vertner. Don t think I don t understand that you ve 
 been my best friend in all this, and are sticking by me like 
 the brick you are. Whatever rot I may talk, don t forget 
 that. And when we find my father " 
 
 " Which will be the day after to-morrow," interrupted 
 Vertner cheerfully. 
 
 " What ? Have you heard ? " 
 
 Vertner rolled his lips over the cigar in his mouth am 
 biguously. " Well, there is a sort of clue. But I suppose 
 I have to own that I m cribbing the date from the general 
 stock of hopefulness. We 11 find him, though, wherever he 
 is gone." 
 
 "Find him? Well, if I thought we shouldn t!" 
 
1 66 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Philip set his teeth in a manner peculiar to him, which 
 Vertner had learned to respect. When it had been a 
 question in Chili of throwing a bridge across a mountain 
 gorge and there had been a call for a volunteer to take the 
 first line across, he remembered that Philip had said quietly, 
 " I ll do it," with that tightening of the muscles of the jaw. 
 
 "I suppose he is suffering," said Vertner meditatively. 
 " And it s so utterly useless." 
 
 " Suffering? A man who never stained his name with so 
 much as the shadow of wrong ; a man whom all the State 
 trusts. Think what he will be supposing that he has done. 
 When I think of that, and think that I am responsible foi 
 the thing !" 
 
 " Oh, confound your responsibility ! " exclaimed Vertner. 
 " Did n t I say I d get that money for you ? Did n t I lead 
 you to rely on me for it ? " 
 
 "Stuff!" 
 
 "And did I get it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Did I get it in time to do any good ? " 
 
 " No, but " 
 
 " Well, then ! " said Vertner conclusively. 
 
 This money, which had come too late was one of the 
 collateral misfortunes for which Philip blamed himself most 
 severely in the trouble with his father. He knew that 
 Vertner, in the failure of all other chances, had humiliated 
 himself before a man who he had been sure from the 
 beginning would lend him the amount if he would consent 
 to ask him ; and so had obtained it at a price he would 
 not have paid willingly for any personal good. The act, 
 useless as it proved in the event, bound him to Vertner, 
 Philip felt, by a peculiar tie. He had always known him 
 for a good fellow ; he had not supposed him quite as good 
 a fellow as all that. He knew what it was himself to 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 167 
 
 borrow money where it was lent grudgingly. Some people 
 were great duffers about money, he thought. 
 
 Of course neither Philip nor Vertner was in a position to 
 know of the intention with which Deed had pledged the 
 stock at the bank in Leadville ; but they had been rightly 
 sure (at first) that he must have gone away with the expecta 
 tion of finding money elsewhere, and returning to redeem 
 the securities before a question could arise. They had guessed 
 so much as this, but as the weeks passed and he did not 
 return, they were forced to believe that other resources (if 
 he had really gone to seek them,) had failed him, and that, 
 recognizing that he could not come back, he had at least not 
 taken pains to make his whereabouts known. 
 
 " I should n t care that we could n t come at him," said 
 Philip, " if we could only let him know." 
 
 " Yes, after the pains you took to explain to that receiving 
 teller that your father had asked you to step around and re 
 deem that stock for him, and the pretty way you manoeuvred 
 the return of the actual stock itself to Deed s tin box in the 
 bank, where the co-trustee can find it any day he has an un 
 natural longing for the sight, and after the way you deposited 
 the other $25,000 to your father s private account, it s a pity 
 to have him glooming around in some Canadian watering- 
 place, ^taking himself for an absconding trustee." 
 
 " See here, Vertner " began Philip hotly. 
 
 " Oh well ! " cried off Vertner. " That is n t the only pity. 
 What gives me a pain is to have to think that we went and 
 wasted a good joke on that bank teller." 
 
 " What joke ? " asked Philip impatiently. 
 
 " The joke of paying back into his old bank the same 
 money your father had just borrowed from it." He quizzed 
 Philip s serious face with his audacious smile. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IT had been Vertner s thought mixed, like many of his 
 thoughts, of kindly intention and an eye to business to ask 
 Philip and Cutter to take charge of the " Snow Find." As 
 Vertner said, it would " bear a little more finding, and they 
 were the men to do it." Beatrice had expressed herself 
 freely about the double meaning which this last clause wore 
 in her husband s mind without shaking him from his pur 
 pose. He said it was really one of the best mines in the 
 State : that it would be another " Iron Silver " if you gave 
 it time and money. The money he hoped Cutter would 
 get from his father, after a while. Cutter s father was not 
 always rich, he knew ; but he often was. It was the inter 
 mittent stockbroker way. And Cutter, as he worked the 
 mine for himself, would soon have the best of all possible 
 evidence of its magnificent promise. Vertner had visions 
 of fetching the father out in a special car to see the " Snow 
 Find " for himself, if it came to that. The thing was a 
 bonanza. Vertner even began, in the rosy dreams which he 
 allowed to curl up out of the accomplished fact of the 
 installation of the two young men in charge of the mine, to 
 see the making of a man of business in Cutter. Even 
 Cutter laughed at this, and Philip roared ; but Vertner said 
 he knew what he was about which was strictly true ; and he 
 proved himself in earnest about working the mine by ad 
 vancing Philip a month s salary, when he asked for it. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 169 
 
 The creditors at Pinon, whom Philip had been unable to 
 silence, as he had hoped, with his father s aid, were growing 
 impudent about the debts they had urged him to contract 
 with servility ; and money was a necessity. He sent all 
 that he could spare out of the salary to his creditors, after 
 lending Sandy Dikes $5, losing $25 on a horse-race at 
 Pueblo, for which Cutter had given him a tip, and paying 
 his share in a little monthly pension which he had got half 
 a dozen others at Pinon to join him in arranging for 
 Doulton. (Doulton s claim had caved in on him, and there 
 was to be an amputation : they were paying the pension 
 until Mrs. Doulton could get along on the profits of the 
 saloon she had opened since the accident.) There was 
 also a book for which he had heard Miss Maurice 
 express a wish: and when the bill for it came from Denver, 
 it was higher than he had expected. He told Vertner after 
 the first week that he would have to raise his salary ; and 
 Vertner, who was generous and understood, and who was 
 shrewd and remembered Cutter, yielded readily enough. 
 
 He offered to raise Cutter s salary also, but Cutter said he 
 should want to get out of the country just as badly, if he 
 had $25 more a month as he should without it ; he added 
 that he was n t worth what he was getting, which he did not 
 believe. He thought himself a good sort of mining en 
 gineer, now ; and if his present wisdom on the subject of 
 mining were matched against the ignorance he had brought 
 to Colorado in a Pullman, there was something in this 
 estimate of himself. 
 
 The "Snow Find" was the mine which Deed had left on 
 Vertner s hands, full of water ; and until he could find the 
 money to purchase machinery to pump the water out, he 
 had determined to bend his energies or rather to let Philip 
 and Cutter bend their energies to working a new lead, 
 away from the water. The new lead was actually a produc- 
 
lyo BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 live one when Philip and Cutter began upon it ; and they 
 were now taking out ore which paid fairly. 
 
 When Beatrice questioned his motives, now, Vertner 
 unscrupulously silenced her with the magnanimous half of 
 them. She could not deny, when it was put to her with 
 Vertner s cogency of statement, that Philip had been miser 
 able, restless and tormented ; running off on every fresh clue 
 to the end of the State, (at ten cents a mile a subject for 
 legislation, if there was one, Vertner said), and coming back 
 weary, disheartened and discouraged. She admitted that an 
 occupation which would give him an interest, and prevent 
 him from brooding upon this business of his father s disap 
 pearance was a praiseworthy idea ; and she praised Vertner 
 for it, when she was not condemning him for including 
 Cutter in the matter. 
 
 " And do you suppose Philip would have gone up there 
 into the hills without him? " Vertner asked securely. "A 
 cabin in the hills, strictly by yourself, would cure anyone of 
 the blues. You ought to prescribe for all the misery, Trix. 
 Confining yourself to Philip is a limitation of talent." 
 
 " I suppose he does feel that he is doing the best thing 
 he could do, until his father is found, in working at this 
 mine for him," she admitted irrelevantly, in the need of 
 admitting something. " And if it should happen that it 
 turns out as rich as you expect, Ned, why what a splendid 
 thing it will be for him to be able to turn it over to his father 
 on his return, and say " 
 
 " I don t think he 11 have to say much. Deed will be glad 
 enough of anything he can raise in the shape of money, by 
 the time he gets back, unless I m a particularly bad guesser." 
 
 " Yes ; but he would n t take it from Philip not after 
 what has passed between them ; not after his casting him off 
 like that, and vowing that he would never see him again. 
 You said that yourself, Ned," 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 171 
 
 " Yes," assented Vertner, yawning, it was the end of the 
 evening, and he had finished his Denver newspaper, and 
 was stretched cosily in his deep chair before the fire " I 
 said that he said it. But Deed s vows are n t always good 
 until used, you know. The very passion he expends in 
 making them seems to have a tendency to wear them out 
 early." 
 
 " I don t think this one will wear out. What he- thought 
 Philip had done was too bad. It had the touch of ingrati 
 tude about it that no one can forgive in any wrong. I know 
 I could n t. And I think Philip is doing just the right thing. 
 It will show his father " 
 
 " That he underrated that mine ? " quizzed Vertner with a 
 laugh, as he rose lazily, in preparation for bed. " It will, it 
 will, my dear ! That is, it will if Cutter senior is the man I 
 take him for." 
 
 "Ned!" 
 
 Vertner smiled the smile of satisfied sophistication at her 
 through his half-closed eyes, as he stretched his arms in a 
 final yawn. " Come ! " he said. " Are you ever going to 
 bed ? " 
 
 PHILIP was glad of the work Vertner offered him at the 
 " Snow Find " because he needed money he always 
 needed money, and the search for his father was an added 
 channel of expenditure now, and a further hindrance to the 
 payment of his debts at Pifion but he liked, besides, to 
 feel that his work was doing something more for him than 
 earning the salary Vertner was giving him. It was pleasant 
 to feel that each bucketful of ore that he saw lifted out of 
 the " Snow Find " was of direct advantage to his father, 
 Until he could find him the next best thing was to be 
 doing something for him. And meanwhile he spent a large 
 
172 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 part of his salary in following up clues of Deed. They all 
 turned out alike ; after an absence of a day or two he would 
 return with downcast face, and resume work at the mine 
 silently ; and Cutter could not find heart to question him. 
 Even Vertner s light spirit would sometimes droop before 
 their repeated failures ; though he always waked the 
 following morning with a fresh idea, which Philip followed 
 out or pooh-poohed, as it happened, but which no longer 
 excited any buoyancy in him. It was maddening to think 
 that his father was making himself unhappy somewhere for 
 the absurdly simple reason that they did not know his 
 address. 
 
 The habit of seeing a great deal of Dorothy, and thinking 
 much of her when he was not with her, went along curiously 
 with his unhappiness about his father. He could not talk 
 to her of his father s disappearance, of course, but to see 
 her was to forget his trouble, and he and Cutter both found 
 time from their duties at the " Snow Find," though they 
 could not go together, to ride with her. It sometimes 
 happened that Philip and Dorothy rode alone ; but it 
 usually fell out that Dick Messiter and Beatrice were of the 
 party. Beatrice was very fond of riding ; and Vertner had 
 been buying her a horse lately with the profits of a little 
 " flyer" in a Leadville mining stock. 
 
 Dorothy and Beatrice became fast friends in the intimacy 
 of these rides ; and Philip, though he imagined, alternately, 
 furtherances and failures in Dorothy s kindness for him day 
 by day, was really in the unvarying enjoyment of the type 
 of good-will a woman sometimes gives to a man whom 
 she trusts. All their relation took its colour from those 
 days in the cave, during which they had learned to know 
 each other ; and this should have satisfied Philip, for the 
 moment. Perhaps it might have ; but he was obliged to 
 remember that Messiter had shared those days as well j 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT 173 
 
 and that, with him, they had succeeded many earlier days, 
 the quality of which it was easy to imagine. It seemed 
 impossible that there had been a time, before the snow had 
 brought them acquainted, when he had not known Dorothy, 
 whose existence now was of the fibre of his own life. But 
 such a time had been, and Messiter had plainly been 
 master of its opportunities. He saw him too clearly for the 
 good fellow he was to believe anything else ; indeed he 
 liked him too well to believe anything else. 
 
 Messiter, who still remained, stimulating an echo of his early 
 usefulness in settling the Maurices house by inventing things 
 to do for Dorothy, would have smiled sadly at this account 
 of his favour with her. He would have said that for those 
 who liked the unafraid, untroubled liking she showed him, 
 it would probably be the sort of thing they liked. Some 
 persons might enjoy the privilege of gazing into those gay, 
 candid, tender, thoughtful eyes, the eyes which were all 
 these by turns to him, but, in his presence, never shy, nor 
 downcast, nor in any kind of happy difficulties. But, for 
 his part, he must have professed that the absence of all 
 hesitations, all embarrassments, had its gloomy side. It was 
 the kind of relation, he knew, which young men and young 
 women were always pretending to themselves and to each 
 other was their ideal of all that was blessed and comfortable. 
 Had he not gammoned young girls with just such talk on 
 the rocks at Mount Desert, at nineteen? But he found 
 nothing in the situation, as it presented itself, either blessed 
 or comfortable, though he stayed on. 
 
 In spite of these lover s doubts, it would be a mistake to 
 suppose that this was not a happy time for all of them. It 
 was clouded for Philip by the continued fruitlessness of all 
 efforts to find his father, as well as by the fluctuations of 
 Dorothy s feeling toward him, which he was partly conscious 
 of spinning out of his fancy, but constantly ready to credit 
 
174 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 afresh. Yet he was happy enough to fear a change to 
 look forward to Jasper s return with a fierce repression of his 
 imagination. How would he and Dorothy meet ? What 
 was their present relation ? Where would they take up the 
 thread ? Was there a tolerable relation toward Dorothy for 
 him, if Jasper still existed for her? These were the 
 questions which he refused to ask himself. They were 
 hints at the threshold of a whole torturing region of 
 speculation, which to enter was to invite useless misery and 
 the need for an immediate decision. Philip hated un 
 pleasant thoughts, and detested immediate decisions ; if the 
 banks a mile ahead concealed the enemy, why there was 
 still the mile ! It might never be completed for one thing. 
 If it were, one would find something to do when the time came. 
 It was partly a reasonable confidence in himself, but chiefly 
 a constitutional unwillingness to face disagreeable facts, which 
 caused him meanwhile to lounge at the stern of the boat, 
 finding the river water smooth and lulling under his hand. 
 
 Messiter s sunny temper, not being for clouds of any 
 kind, he found what happiness he could in the immediate 
 and agreeable fact that he was permitted to be constantly 
 by Dorothy s side ; while Beatrice, having settled Margaret s 
 trouble to her satisfaction, had crossed her off her list, so to 
 say, and, for the moment, concerned herself only inter 
 mittently about her (of course she knew nothing of her 
 husband s concern) awaiting calmly her return to Mave 
 rick, flushed with her bridal happiness, and filled with new 
 ideas about things. She fancied her greatly changed ; it 
 would only show how marriage was the one thing for all 
 women even for those who did not seem at all to have 
 been intended for its blessings. She fancied Margaret s 
 severity, her primness, her " niceness " about certain 
 matters, as smoothed and softened into the real niceness, 
 against which not even Ned could say anything. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. tJS 
 
 Dorothy had begun to plan for the future of her father 
 and herself in Maverick. The people of the church had 
 been charmed by his first sermon, and, as a matter of fact, 
 it was a capital sermon. Their liking for it suggested to a 
 number of minds at once that Maurice should be called to 
 the vacant pulpit of St. John s in the Wilderness. As 
 Beatrice said, it was a long time since they had had a 
 regular service, but the lapse had not been due to the un 
 willingness of the congregation to support a clergyman. It 
 was rather that there were varying ideals in the congregation. 
 But Maurice fitted, in a degree, into all these expectations and 
 wishes. He was a widower, he was not young, his graceful, 
 good-humoured, flattering manner commended him to every 
 one, and especially to those who sought a successful parish 
 visitor ; he was a High Churchman, holding with dignity to 
 his ritual, but careful to avoid grounds of offence, and he 
 preached undeniably good sermons. He was, besides, a 
 trained and enthusiastic musician : on his first trial-Sunday 
 the lady who played the organ fell ill at the last moment, 
 and until a substitute discovered herself, after the second 
 lesson, he himself accompanied the choir he had rehearsed 
 during the week. 
 
 It had ended, after some negotiation, in his being sum 
 moned. Maurice had told them frankly that he could not 
 refer them to his last parish, giving them his own version of 
 the occurrence which had caused him to leave Laughing 
 Valley City ; but when the vestry had heard favourably 
 about him from the Dakota parish to which he referred 
 them, and had definitely offered him the post, he told 
 them, with some inward trembling for his resources were 
 of the slightest, and if this opportunity should fail him he 
 did not know where he should turn that if he was to 
 remain with them they must grant him a higher salary. 
 The vestry was reluctant ; he firm. It ended in their ad- 
 
1 76 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 vancing the salary $100. It was more than they had ever 
 paid before, they said ; but perhaps they had never had so 
 good a clergyman. Maurice smiled, and did not attempt 
 to deny it. He did not believe there were many men of 
 his sort to be had for $800 a year. 
 
 He was now making ready to preach certain sermons 
 selected by Dorothy from a considerable collection sent over 
 the mountains on a burro by the ladies at Laughing Valley 
 City ; and was occupied in going about making the acquaint 
 ance of his new flock. 
 
 His portly, yet shapely and well-carried figure, his round, 
 rubicund, smiling, clean-shaven clerical face, his fortunate 
 voice, his admirable manner soon began to be familiar in 
 Maverick. It pleased Dorothy to see how popular her 
 father had already become. She looked forward with pleasure 
 to remaining a long time in Maverick. Perhaps he would set 
 about raising funds to build a more permanent church. She 
 remembered that the parish in which her father had remained 
 longest was one in which he had built a new church. But 
 there seemed no elements of discord here, none of the 
 foolish, tiresome people who had made trouble in other 
 parishes. Perhaps they should remain for ever. Perhaps 
 it was a new country, a largeish town, there was an oppor 
 tunity perhaps he might one day be Bishop of the diocese. 
 
 Dorothy s plans were made with a pencil and a little 
 memorandum pad, from which she tore a number of sheets 
 without finding a comfortable relation between her father s 
 salary, (after adding their trifling income to it), and the 
 prices prevailing in Maverick for rent, food and clothing. 
 She avoided troubling her father about practical questions 
 when she could ; but, before they left the hotel, where they 
 had been staying since their arrival, she felt that she must 
 set the result of her calculations before him. When she 
 attacked him on the subject at breakfast one morning, he 
 smiled cheerfully. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 177 
 
 " Oh, we shall get along, I think ! We shall get along ! " 
 tie rubbed his large, carefully kept hands together, after 
 spreading his napkin over his ample form. "Have 
 you included your mother s legacy in your calculations, 
 Dorothy ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! But with your salary it only makes a little 
 over a thousand dollars. I m afraid we ought not to have 
 taken so expensive a house." 
 
 His smile revealed the even glitter of perfect teeth 
 beneath a moustache which had been criticised as jaunty 
 for a clergyman. " Why, my dear, we could n t live in an 
 unplastered house, could we?" 
 
 His smile and tone made it seem preposterous, but 
 Dorothy said, doubtfully, "I don t know. Perhaps when 
 we found that we could get nothing plastered under $400 
 we ought to have felt that we must take one of the others." 
 
 " Oh, no ! Why even at Laughing Valley we had a 
 plastered house. Surely it does n t seem an unreasonable 
 ambition, a plastered house. And even if it were, depend 
 upon it, the clergy get what they insist on. A man s needs 
 are measured by the account he gives of them ; and, in 
 turn, he is measured by his needs. If a clergyman shows 
 himself content with a hovel he not only won t get a decent 
 dwelling ; but when it comes to a question of some other 
 need, he will be thought as capable of doing without 
 whatever it may be that he wants as he showed himself 
 capable of doing without the house. I have always found 
 that I got what I wanted by taking the proper stand. I 
 have found that people of a certain class respect the 
 inability of a gentleman to do without things which they 
 have never felt the need of." 
 
 " But, father " protested Dorothy, and paused. She 
 had been about to ask if the price of having all that one 
 wanted might not be that some one else should have less 
 
 N 
 
178 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 than he wanted less than his own, perhaps. She was glad 
 not to have said it : an observation which seems true in 
 the largest bearing may be quite false to the little fact which 
 suggests it, and which one is templed to try by it. Her 
 father was right of course. He was always right. 
 
 Philip and Cutter, in their cabin at the " Snow Find " 
 often discussed Maurice. They agreed that it was a pity 
 that Dorothy should have such a man for a father, or that 
 he should happen to have such a daughter ; but they avoided 
 the discussion of Dorothy herself by tacit agreement. As 
 Philip drew on his town-going boots for the fifth time during 
 a single week, however, and began to rummage in his chest for 
 a white shirt, Cutter made no further effort to contain himself. 
 
 " You re not going in for a boiled shirt ! " he exclaimed 
 as Philip exchanged the loose flannel of the West for the 
 Eastern affectation. Cutter in pursuit of his loyalty to 
 the civilization which had produced him had never dis 
 used it ; though the washerwoman at Pinon had forced him 
 to go to a Chinaman by returning the first white shirts he 
 sent her, contemptuously rough-dried. " Oh, I say ! This 
 is too much ! Do you know, I ve had an idea once or twice 
 lately, Deed, that you are rather hard hit. Tremendously 
 nice girl ! " he murmured to the cigarette he was lighting. 
 
 "Oh, yes, she s nice enough, if that s all," owned Philip, 
 rummaging in his army chest for some collars, which he 
 fished out at last, limp and yellow from their confinement of 
 a year. " Do. you suppose there are any memories in New 
 York long enough to recall the time when this was the 
 pre-eminently pre-eminent shape in collars ? " he asked, 
 holding up a bundle of them. 
 
 " Stocks may have come in again, for all I know," answered 
 Cutter. " Ask somebody more in the way of that sort of 
 information, Crusoe, my boy, than Man Friday. But, I 
 say, Deed : she is nice ! " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 179 
 
 "I think I remember agreeing with you in that ob 
 servation," said Philip. " But I ll sign a treaty with you to 
 regard her as nice, if that does n t satisfy you : I ll give 
 bonds, I ll mortgage myself as security for her niceness, if 
 you like. Come ! " The eagerness of his manner was a trifle 
 out of key with this sort of easiness ; but Cutter forbore 
 his jibes. 
 
 " I say : I m awfully glad for you, old man ! " He 
 had got himself on his feet ; and wrung Philip s hand in 
 silence. 
 
 " Are you ? What a romantic dog you are, Cutter ! It s 
 uncommonly good of you." He turned to the recon 
 sideration of the collars. " I wish I saw any cause to be 
 glad." 
 
 " Don t you ? Then it s because you are infernally un 
 grateful. I m bound to say that I do." 
 
 "Yes," said Philip with a weary smile; "it is you, I 
 believe, who looks for big things from the * Little Cipher. 
 You ve got such a lot of faith, Cutter. It makes a cheerful 
 companion of you. But you are hideously unreliable, you 
 know. You ll be wanting to convince me that it is the 
 honourable obligation of a beggar to go and propose marriage 
 to somebody or other, next. Jasper has furnished me with 
 just the sort of situation for you to try your abominable 
 cheerfulness on. Turn it on, Cutter. Rub up your lamp and 
 get to work. I m ready for any lie, if there s hope in it." 
 
 " Pshaw ! There are paying properties in the world besides 
 the ranch your brother has swindled you out of your share 
 in. You forget the Pay Ore. " 
 
 " Oh, no I don t not when I m in high spirits, and don t 
 need what hope there is in it. But a man can t live on a 
 hope like that, Cutler ; and if he could, a woman could n t 
 and no man could ask her to. And if he could ask her, he 
 could n t ask her father to let her." Cutter smiled at this 
 
 N 2 
 
i So BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 reference to Maurice, who was a kind of joke between them ; 
 and Philip smiled with him, ruefully. The idea of Maurice 
 allowing his daughter to marry any one but a rich man struck 
 them both as humorous ; yet Cutter had to say, to console 
 Philip, rather than because he believed it 
 
 " I don t know. There s some good in the old fraud, 
 after all." 
 
 " Oh, don t go turning your cheerfulness on Maurice ! 
 You have n t got the candle power." 
 
 " You might let me illuminate a little, and try," laughed 
 Cutter. " But it is a sombre subject, that s a fact. You 11 
 have to elope." 
 
 "Shut up, Cutter!" 
 
 " Well, then you ll have to wait for his consent. Put it 
 either way. I m only trying to please you ; and a dash of 
 grey in the groom s hair is n t so bad, if you ccme to that." 
 
 " Oh, drop it ! Your despair is worse than your cheer 
 fulness." 
 
 " Well, it does seem to fit the facts of the case a little 
 closer." 
 
 " Oh, you re right ! You re right. It does ; and I know 
 
 it when I m not with her ; but when I am Damn it, 
 
 man, I love her ! I can t lose her ! " 
 
 " Now you re talking sense." 
 
 " Am I ? It strikes me as a good deal more like the other 
 thing. No ; I always come around to a clear sight of the 
 
 situation Jasper has fixed me out. It s as if he knew 
 
 I must meet and care for the girl he once Bah ! " Philip 
 
 turned on his heel. 
 
 " See here ! Have you given up your faith in the Pay 
 Ore ? " 
 
 " No ; " growled Philip, " and I have n t given up my faith 
 in the coming Brotherhood of Man, but I would n t ask a 
 girl to go to housekeeping on it." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 181 
 
 This was no reason why they should not thresh out 
 together again, for the hundredth time, the actual grounds 
 for faith in the future of the "Pay Ore " : they said together 
 again, and managed to say it without smiling, that the ore- 
 bearing vein was there; that they were taking out good 
 mineral all around the " Pay Ore " on the Hill ; that it was 
 a question of finding out which way the vein dipped, and a 
 question of the capital and patience necessary to reach it ; 
 and they agreed that Ryan had the capital and the patience. 
 Philip ridiculed Cutter s faith, as he always did when they 
 spoke of this subject together ; but it was a way of playing 
 his own hope, and they both knew it. Philip hoped rather 
 easily ; and most easily as a refuge from despair. He liked 
 to be comfortable ; and despair was uncomfortable. If he 
 chose skepticism for an outward seeming, sometimes, it was 
 by way of hedging : one s hopes did not always come off, 
 and a sophisticated doubt looked better on the record, 
 afterward. 
 
 " You 11 live to see Ryan with his pick in that vein, yet," 
 Cutter concluded. He had got to the end of his mining 
 engineer s argument, and was indulging his gift of amiable 
 prophesy. 
 
 " Shall I ? " retorted Philip. " It will be a pretty tableau. 
 But I don t know why we trouble ourselves about it, unless 
 it is to avoid the point." 
 
 " What is the point ? " He looked steadily at Philip who 
 smiled without amusement. " Oh ! " he exclaimed with 
 
 intelligence. " Well, yes " Cutter smiled. " But don t 
 
 you think ?" 
 
 "No sir: I don t." 
 
 Cutter bent forward. " Why, what s the trouble ? " 
 
 " Usual trouble. Another fellow." 
 
 " What ? You think she cares for that ? " 
 
 " That gentleman, as you were about to call him, Mr. 
 
i82 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Cutter, is a great sight too good for any shoe-string tying of 
 mine." 
 
 " Oh, look here Well, Messiter is a good fellow. I 
 
 admit it. But what of it ? Abstract considerations of that 
 sort don t hold in a case of this kind." 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, Cutter," exclaimed Philip, as 
 he buttoned one of the collars about his neck. " I forgot 
 that you were an expert in these things. Well, what does 
 hold? Out with it! Let s have the latest! Don t put 
 me off with any of your mouldy, out-of-date decisions. 
 Give me the brand-newest opinion there is something that 
 can t be reversed before I can get her assent to it Court of 
 Appeals, preferably." 
 
 Cutter pulled at his moustache, thoughtfully; and blew 
 some smoke in Philip s direction. " Well, you might hold, 
 for one thing. I have a notion she likes you." 
 
 " Thanks," returned Philip drily. " I believe the worst 
 of us have a kindness for our coolies, our dragomen, our slaves. 
 Would n t a woman like a man who made a profession, a 
 calling, a vocation of her ; who revered her boots ; whose 
 idea of happiness was being stepped on by them ; who 
 spent his nights in dreaming new ways to be an ass for her 
 sake, and his days in carrying out his dreams ? Would n t 
 she ? I should hope so." 
 
 "You have been going it a little strong with her, this 
 last fortnight. I suppose she has been rather enjoying the 
 spectacle." 
 
 "See here, Cutter," said Philip hotly, " if you think Miss 
 Maurice capable of torturing a man for her amusement 
 merely, you never were more mistaken in your life. She s 
 not that sort. The fineness, the dignity, the genuineness 
 and truth of that girl, Cutter Oh, the devil ! " 
 
 Cutter was laughing. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 183 
 
 THE servant at the Maurices cottage said that Miss 
 Maurice was in the parlour. The house on which Dorothy 
 and her father had finally fixed was the usual frame shell of 
 the newer towns of the West. There were better houses in 
 Maverick the Vertners lived, by comparison, in a mansion 
 but there were cruder buildings too : log cabins chinked 
 with mortar, and houses constructed out of disused packing 
 boxes, and roofed with canvas. On the ground floor, besides 
 the kitchen and the dining-room, there was only the pleasant 
 little room at the front of the house ; and it was this that 
 the maid-servant called a "parlour." It was, in fact, Dorothy s 
 sitting-room and sewing-room ; though Maurice spoke of it 
 as their drawing-room. As Philip turned the knob on the 
 door of this room, he felt a hand upon it on the other 
 side, and releasing his own grasp, the door opened. Jasper 
 stood before him in the act of farewell to Dorothy. He 
 lifted his head, and seeing Philip in the doorway, stretched 
 out his hand to him with his courtly smile. Philip, drawing 
 back to let him pass, kept his gaze fixed on his face, looking 
 him in the eye motionlessly, with a black glance of scorn. 
 He would not see the hand. Flushing to his temples, Jasper 
 gave a contemptuous little laugh and walked by him, turning 
 once more to bow to Miss Maurice. 
 
 When Philip had got himself through the door and into 
 the room, he went up to Dorothy in a dazed way, and offered 
 her his hand. He thought he perceived a kind of reluctance 
 which she conquered in the imperceptible moment that passed 
 before she took his hand in the frank and hearty clasp, 
 which had been from the beginning one of the little things 
 that he had liked best in her. Then she asked him quickly 
 if he had seen her typewriter. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IN his first groping, and bitter explanations of it to him 
 self, Philip saw how natural it was that he should find Jasper 
 with her. He had not known of his return ; and he must 
 have come this morning, as he was certain that he had not 
 been in Maverick the day before ; but being returned, and 
 hearing of her presence in Maverick, what could be more 
 in the course of things than a meeting of old lovers, long 
 separated, in the first hours of Jasper s home-coming ? Oh, 
 it was natural enough ! 
 
 " A typewriter ! " he said, in the easy and flowing tones 
 of one who tries to be easy. " I congratulate you. It s a 
 great thing. You will write your father s sermons, now, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " I don t know," she said. " Yes, perhaps, if I can 
 learn." 
 
 It was, in fact, a longing desire with her, to write her 
 father s sermons for him at his dictation ; he detested the 
 manual labour of writing. But nothing seemed quite so 
 possible and worth while as it had seemed a moment ago. 
 
 " Do you know anything about it ? Perhaps you can 
 show me," she said to make conversation. She chafed 
 under this difficult exchange : it had never been like this 
 between them, hitherto. They had always talked freely, 
 and naturally ; it was one of the things which made this 
 Mr. Deed a pleasant man to get along with she had thought 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 185 
 
 He was so straightforward, so simple and direct : he had no 
 attitude, he never got himself up, he had not even that 
 man s pose in talking to a woman, which she disliked. 
 He talked to her, she felt sure, as he might have talked to 
 a man. He understood things without being told. Men 
 to whom one had to explain irritated her. And now he 
 was not going to understand ; and he was defending him 
 self from the natural course of their usual talk with an 
 artifice. 
 
 Was it in fact true, then, that such a thing as a frank 
 and cordial relation between young men and young women 
 was an impossibility ? She heard Philip saying that he had 
 once spent a month or two in studying the typewriter, as 
 she asked this question of herself. It was going to fall in 
 with one of his young plans for being successful in some 
 other way than the way his father wished, and had been 
 dropped when the plan had followed the other plans. She 
 heard this distantly while she passed in hasty review all 
 possible and impossible occasions for the scene at the door 
 and for his constraint. Was the blame hers, in any way, 
 she asked herself? Or, whosesoever the blame, might it be 
 her opportunity to reconcile them ? Dorothy s goodness was 
 always impulsive : the people who did not like the con 
 sequences of some of her rash bursts of kind-heartedness, 
 said that it was absurd. It was true that she was good in 
 haste, and often repented at leisure ; but she liked better to 
 stumble and wound herself, as she must, in her rush to help 
 some one who had fallen, than to suck wise maxims about 
 prudence in contented inaction. She kept a generous scorn 
 for the mincing caution of the proverbs. All proverbs were 
 stingy and selfish, she thought, and taught one to live for 
 one s self in the handsomest security. 
 
 She went to the typewriter and began to ringer it with the 
 gingerly deliberateness of the novice, while he stood above 
 
186 BENEFITS FORGOT, 
 
 her looking on, and they exchanged question and answer 
 without much notion on either side of what they were 
 talking about. She was feeling, with a woman s sense of 
 social obligation, that she must do something to keep the 
 affair moving ; while her kindly puzzlement about the little 
 drama at the door went on steadily in her thoughts. 
 
 Philip was capable of listening at any time to the taking 
 modulations of her sweet, rich Southern voice, without 
 troubling his head about what she was saying ; and it was 
 in this dreamy way that he was listening to her now, think 
 ing also, as if it were a novel thought, how utterly pretty she 
 was. She was dressed in a house gown of black, with the 
 daintiest suggestion of a dark green velvet at the throat, and 
 shoulders, and sleeves ; and the quietness of this effect 
 seemed to exalt the beauty of her fresh colouring, her good, 
 honest, sincere, admirable eyes, her shapely face. How she 
 stared at her typewriting ! He wished she would look 
 about at him. It was two minutes since he had seen her 
 eyes ; the whimsical brown, floating intermittently in their 
 grey depths, would have had time to change or go. 
 
 There suddenly seemed nothing further to say, and 
 leaning back from the typewriter she patted her hand upon 
 her dress, and called, " Here, Jack ! " A great Newfound 
 land dog, which had been lying on the floor by the side of 
 the typewriter leaped up, placing his forepaws in her lap, 
 and wagging his tail. Jack had been given her by Messiter 
 while they were at Laughing Valley City, and it had been 
 one of the pains of her hurried departure that she must 
 leave him behind ; but Messiter had arranged to have him 
 brought over the Pass by careful hands, and it was a week 
 since he had been restored to her. She was extremely 
 fond of him. He plunged his paws in a moment into the 
 keyboard of the typewriter, and Philip dragged him off. 
 
 The diversion seemed to restore them to themselves, 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 187 
 
 for Philip said, more in the tone of their usual talk than 
 anything that had been said since he entered the room, " I 
 did n t know you had a typewriter." 
 
 And, glad of the change, Dorothy answered, " I have n t. 
 To really have a typewriter I suppose one should know how 
 to use it, if only a very little ; and besides, it does n t 
 belong to me, but to a clergyman, a friend of my father, 
 who left it for me to try. He has gone East on his 
 vacation, and spent a night with us on his way down from 
 Leadville." 
 
 " You will like it immensely. You will hate him when 
 he comes to take it back." 
 
 She shook her beautiful head, laughing. " I don t know. 
 It makes me wriggle!" she said. "I can t bear to pick 
 out the letters. I don t like the noise. And it s all so 
 mechanical, so barbarous ! It s a great convenience, I 
 suppose, and I shall go on with it on papa s account, if I 
 find I can. But I can t see how any one could like it ! 
 What is there to like ?" 
 
 " Everything ! Let me show you ! " 
 " Oh, if you do it like that ! " she exclaimed, as he rattled 
 off a number of sentences, in the seat she gave up to him. 
 
 " You must do it like that ! " he rejoined, without looking 
 up from the key-board over which his fingers twinkled 
 bewilderingly. "You didn t think that you were to go 
 hesitatingly from letter to letter, with a little fearsome pause 
 between each jump, like Eliza in Uncle Tom s Cabin 
 escaping across the floating ice, did you ? " 
 
 He was feeling much happier now. After all, it had only 
 been a school-girl and boy engagement. He knew that it 
 
 no longer existed that it had not existed this four years. 
 
 Was it likely that ? Pshaw ! Had not Jasper called 
 
 on the day of his arrival in the place ? He had not for 
 gotten. Did he ever forget any purpose? He brought 
 
1 88 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 himself back to the consideration of the typewriter lesson 
 with an effort. 
 
 She was interested. "You won t mind if I ask ques 
 tions ? " she said, as she consented to try again for herself. 
 She let her fingers idle over the letters without pressing 
 their white circles. "Why is n t the alphabet set in order?" 
 
 " The better to puzzle you, my dear/ " quoted Philip, 
 absently, but enjoying the use of the epithet. 
 
 " There is a better reason than that," returned Dorothy. 
 She laughed, flushing a little at his phrase. 
 
 " Yes," he admitted, " you will find it a very good thing, 
 after you have gone a little farther, to have the most-used 
 letters nearest your hand. Suppose, now, you put in a fresh 
 sheet of paper, and try a sentence or two on your own 
 account." 
 
 He inserted the paper, showed her the use of the little 
 device for separating words, taught her to pull back the 
 running gear at the top at the warning of the bell, made 
 plain the means of governing the space between lines ; and 
 then gave her a little lecture on the position of the small 
 and capital letters, the punctuation marks and numerals. 
 She listened with serious attention, and, as he bent over to 
 illustrate his meaning, withdrew herself to leave space for 
 the play of his arms, while he pressed the letters, or caught 
 back the sliding rack. 
 
 In this close and amiable proximity the constraint be 
 tween them, of a few moments back, seemed already to 
 have aged itself into an rnhistoried past. She was won 
 dering how this could be the man who had given Jasper 
 the look at the door which she could not forget ; and he 
 was saying to himself that in all the world there were not 
 eyes like those he looked down into when she would glance 
 up suddenly from time to time to ask him a question, or 
 to give one of her flashing turns to his replies, with that 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 189 
 
 charming manner of reserved freedom which was constantly 
 a new grace in her. 
 
 She became proficient enough at last to write out co 
 herent sentences for herself, and together they found the 
 things she wrote very amusing. 
 
 "Suppose you see if you can read what I write from the 
 movement of my fingers, Mr. Deed," she said. " You are 
 not to turn the cylinder up to look ; but only to read, if 
 you can, as I go along." She began in a kind of embarrass 
 ment, and did not get on as well with the first words as she 
 had in her earlier experiments. But she tried again, in a 
 moment, and completed the sentence with a little air of 
 bravado. 
 
 She kept her eyes on the key-board, but as he did not 
 speak she glanced up at him hastily. 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Philip recalled to himself. " I was 
 to read from your fingers. Well, shall we begin ?" 
 
 Dorothy laughed nervously. " We have begun," she 
 said. " Did n t you see ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes ! " assented he. "Or no I was." It 
 was impossible to say that he had been watching the 
 movement of her fingers and speculating upon the question 
 whether all women had such hands, and why he had never 
 noticed how adorably they were contrived for type-writing. 
 He had got to the point of remembering that he had seen 
 a number of young girls hammering away at type-writers in 
 offices without being moved by the spectacle, when her 
 glance called him back. 
 
 " Will you write it again ? " he asked. " I will really 
 watch this time." 
 
 "Oh, I don t think I could write it again," returned 
 Dorothy quickly. 
 
 "Why not? As a punishment for inattention? I 
 suppose I ve deserved it," he said. 
 
igo BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " No. I don t think I ought." 
 
 "It was a real sentence, then. I claim it as a right, 
 in that case. You have made a communication to me, 
 Miss Maurice. You ve no right to withhold it. It has 
 passed out of your hands." 
 
 " Yes," owned she, with amusement, "that s true, but it 
 did n t pass into your eyes. I offered it to you, and you 
 would n t look. You were engaged." 
 
 "Then you are punishing me, and that s equally 
 unfair." 
 
 " No no I m not," she denied doubtfully, " but" with 
 
 a whimsical smile that enchanted him "why it was not 
 
 discreet, what I wrote." She smiled up at him. 
 
 " No ? " he asked in pure enjoyment. 
 
 " No." And then, in a moment, " You would n t urge 
 me to be //^-discreet ? " 
 
 " No, I should n t urge it. I should insist upon it. I 
 do. Come ! " he said, and she wondered why she liked 
 his air of domination better than Jasper s, though she did 
 not altogether dislike Jasper s. 
 
 " And the demon said unto me, Write ! " paraphrased 
 she. 
 
 " It was an angel," said Philip. 
 
 " Was it ? " She bent her hands hesitantly above the 
 key-board. " But you must promise to stay, angel," she 
 said, suddenly arresting herself. She glanced up doubtfully 
 at his face. " No, I won t write it again. It was n t wise ; 
 it was n t nice." 
 
 " That settles it, then : I must see it ! " 
 
 " No," repeated Dorothy. " You would n t like it. It 
 was a quite wrong thing to ask." Her fingers hovered 
 above the key-board, meditatively. She suddenly began to 
 pick out the letters. 
 
 Philip followed her fingers closely. He read, Jetter by 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 191 
 
 letter : " Why would n t you speak to your brother at the 
 door?" 
 
 He rose abruptly from his stooping position above the 
 machine, colouring painfully. 
 
 She looked up, at his impulsive movement, and rose 
 herself. " Oh, what have I done ? " she exclaimed at 
 sight of his face. After a miserable pause, " You need n t 
 tell me. It was very wrong of me. I knew it. But it 
 was n t I who asked, Mr. Deed ? I would never have 
 asked, not myself. I thought," she said, gathering her 
 explanations painfully " or the typewriter thought it 
 was n t I it escaped me that perhaps I could reconcile, 
 bring you togeth " The words died upon her lips. " It 
 was a foolish thought, I see, and yet," she added, with re 
 covered dignity, " perhaps I had a kind of right to it. Your 
 brother is an old friend " Philip looked up at this " and 
 you you have been very good. We have always felt that 
 we partly owe our lives to you father and I since the 
 day of the storm, and " Philip lifted his hand with an 
 appealing gesture. " Well, there s nothing else to say. 
 except that I m very sorry. But, oh, Mr. Deed," she cried 
 suddenly, " why won t you make it up with him, whatever 
 it is and be be friends ? I m sure he can t have done 
 anything very bad nothing that could make it right that 
 you should turn from him. He is good, sometimes he is 
 hard, and he is always masterful : yes but he is good. 
 You must feel that." 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Philip, "I feel that." 
 
 She glanced at him doubtfully, as if in question of his 
 tone. 
 
 " I m sure I ve every reason to know of his goodness," 
 she said, after a pause, with feeling. " If it hadn t been 
 for that" 
 
 " You would n t have been here to appreciate it with me, 
 
192 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 perhaps. No, I remember that. It s another of the quiet 
 things, done without talk or fuss, by which Jasper has put 
 me in his debt. I owe him a great deal, Miss Maurice 
 more than you know." 
 
 Again she hesitated at an indefinable note in his voice ; 
 but she said immediately with her usual openness, 
 
 " I suppose an elder brother has always that great ad 
 vantage, the advantage of being able to do a great deal 
 for a younger brother. It must be very pleasant to him, 
 and he must always wish, if he is a man like your brother, 
 to do always a little more, that he may be able to make 
 you forget his friendly advantage over you by the mere 
 quantity of his friendliness." 
 
 In the midst of his pain and bitterness, Philip could not 
 help smiling faintly at this, but he said, with less care 
 about his tone, " Oh, yes ! I ve never had to complain of 
 short weight with Jasper. He does n t do things by halves. 
 When he does a really friendly thing he heaps the measure 
 up and runs it over. I don t always know what to do 
 with so much magnanimity. You can t put a landslide in 
 your pocket, you know, Miss Maurice, and sometimes you 
 can t even find your manners in time to make your bow." 
 
 She could not avoid feeling the sardonic undertone this 
 time, and she thought she saw, at once, that the cause of 
 offence between them, whatever it was, was largely due to 
 Mr. Philip Deed s sensitive, almost nervous pride ; and she 
 thought, too, that she could guess, pretty clearly, from her 
 knowledge of the two men, something about what would be 
 the usual situation between them. She could see how 
 Philip might detest his brother at times for his very power 
 of doing him favours. She knew how that was herself. 
 She was painfully aware in herself of the strain of mean 
 ness, or self-will, or conceit, she did not know what it 
 was that made the kind of generosity which is open- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 193 
 
 handed enough to allow another to be generous among the 
 most difficult kinds of unselfishness and she could un 
 derstand yes, she could understand entirely, how Philip 
 (whose pride would be less manageable than her own by 
 the degree in which it was a man s and commanding) would 
 feel this peculiarly. The very delicacy with which Jasper 
 would try to conceal a kindness would be an added offence : 
 the need for delicacy was itself humiliating. She could 
 imagine how Philip would become angered on provocation 
 of this sort, and how Jasper would helplessly make the 
 matter worse not that there would be any way of making 
 it better by his forbearance. It would be the kind of 
 case in which neither was to blame, and in which each must 
 blame the other. 
 
 Filled with this idea, she said, with a note of sympathy 
 in her voice that at first bewildered, and then angered 
 Philip, and finally caused him to laugh a little to himself 
 at the completeness of her error, "I m sure we must all 
 have felt that. It s strange, is n t it, that it should be so hard 
 to accept a kindness as we all find it ? One would think 
 that the effort connected with a kindness would be all over 
 when it had been done. It is n t so very easy even to do 
 it ; but to receive it needs heroism. At least I find it does, 
 And I can understand how you would feel that way about 
 your brother, even when you were most grateful to him ; 
 and you would all the time be divided between a wish to 
 make him feel how much you appreciated his kindness, 
 and a wish to box his ears." 
 
 " Oh, it s not a divided wish ! " said Philip, falling in with 
 her mistake, as the easiest defence that offered ; and at 
 this they both laughed. 
 
 " His ears must be smarting most of the time," said she 
 as her laugh ended in a smile. 
 
 "Why, no ; not all the time," returned Philip unwarily. 
 
 o 
 
194 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " You mean ? " she began, still smiling. 
 
 "Nothing that I d better tell you/ he said, quickly 
 withdrawing. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Deed," she exclaimed, with an electrical return 
 to soberness, " I see that there is something really serious 
 between you something that I must n t intrude on. 
 Forgive me ! I have been thinking it one of those little 
 disagreements that a word would set right one of those 
 wretched mistakes where two persons need only to be 
 explained to each other. I see I can t do it ; but you can, 
 Mr. Deed." 
 
 " What ? Explain myself to Jasper ? " 
 
 " I don t know Make it right with him, or whatever 
 men call it. Some one has always to play the generous 
 part, don t you think, where there has been has been a 
 disagreement ? " 
 
 a No, Miss Maurice, I can t do that." He turned away 
 from her and strode toward the window. 
 
 " Oh, that is not like you, Mr. Deed ! He would not 
 hesitate, I am sure, in your place." 
 
 " In my place ? " returned he. She began to stammer a 
 reply ; but he said, " Oh, I beg your pardon my place, in 
 the wrong? No, my brother would not hesitate in my 
 place." 
 
 " I did not say that," she put in sorrowfully. She saw 
 that she had implied it. 
 
 " It does n t need saying, Miss Maurice. You only 
 recognize a universal fact. There are laws of character, 
 you know, and a planetary orbit is wobbly to them. Every 
 body who knows us at all would know, without telling, that 
 in any question between us I must be in the wrong." 
 
 " And are you in the wrong in this ? " she asked, 
 earnestly. " Tell me frankly. I will believe whatever 
 you say. You bewilder me. I don t know what to think. 
 Tell me ! " she repeated. 
 
BENEFI TS FORGO T. 195 
 
 Philip laughed harshly. " You must ask Jasper that." 
 
 "I will," she said. 
 
 "No, don t, Miss Maurice. Don t on any account! 
 Don t think of such a thing ! " 
 
 " Ah, he would be more fair ! " 
 
 " Promise me that you will not say a word of this to 
 Jasper ! " 
 
 "Tell me yourself, then, Mr. Deed." 
 
 Philip took a turn up and down the room. " I can t," he 
 said at last. 
 
 " You see what you leave me to think," she said, sadly. 
 
 Nothing good of me," he answered bitterly. 
 
 She glanced up at his face. The frankness and genuine 
 ness which she had always liked in his look shone through 
 the hurt which possessed him, and gave her confidence to 
 say, looking up to the tall, strong-limbed figure, standing 
 above her, "Do you think it just to your brother to leave 
 him under the imputation of such a silence?" 
 
 Philip started. " Jasper ? " he said. 
 
 "Surely. Your silence implies it seems to say that 
 your brother is somehow much in the wrong ; or else ; 
 
 " Or else ? " asked Philip steadily. 
 
 " I will not say what else. But if that is so it is fair, it 
 is right that you should tell me." She sat down abruptly, as 
 if not quite certain of herself. 
 
 Philip felt, girdingly, the extreme inconvenience attaching 
 to all endeavours to do the fair-minded thing ; the impossi 
 bility, namely, of explaining with decency. 
 
 " In order that you may not be thinking me much in the 
 wrong? " he said. " No, Miss Maurice, I could n t do that." 
 He turned away, 
 
 "You are not fair," she said after a moment, with dignity. 
 "I do not know that there is any right or wrong in th* 
 matter. I am ignorant of everything but that you would 
 
 o 2 
 
196 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 not bow to your brother in my presence. I have put my 
 plea on the score of peacemaking, and if you feel that I 
 have meddled I am rightly served ; but I have a right to ask 
 why you should put a slight on a gentleman whom you 
 
 meet here as as " her voice broke "as my guest, 
 
 Mr. Deed." 
 
 He came back and stood before her. " You have a right 
 to ask that, Miss Maurice, and perhaps I have no right not 
 to answer you. But I can not answer you." 
 
 "Then I must think ? " 
 
 "That I have done a wrong to Jasper which I am 
 unwilling to repair or own. Yes, Miss Maurice." 
 
 " I do not mean that," she said wistfully, and he saw that 
 she was on the verge of tears, yet had to blunder savagely 
 on. 
 
 " What else can you mean ? There is but the choice. 
 You must believe in Jasper or in me." 
 
 " Oh, I knew it ! " she cried, as if to herself. " I foresaw 
 it ! It was for that that I had to try to make it right 
 
 between you. I could not bear " She broke down 
 
 suddenly. 
 
 " You mean that you wished to keep us both for friends. 
 You know now that that is impossible. We are enemies. 
 We cannot have or keep a common friend. Which will you 
 choose ? " 
 
 The passionate tone of demand roused her. She straight 
 ened herself imperceptibly in her seat on the couch, 
 and raised her head, looking up and confronting his flushed 
 face. 
 
 " I will answer your question when you have answered 
 mine," she said. 
 
 She rose and held out her hand listlessly. Philip took it 
 as formally, and suddenly left the room. His head was down. 
 He felt sick spiritually sick to his inmost fibre. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PHILIP went out and got on his horse, and rode furiously 
 toward the " Snow Find." This was the end, he supposed. 
 And for this, again, he had to thank Jasper. He gnashed 
 his teeth as he set his spur in the pony s flank and swept 
 over the long level stretch by the river, outside the town. 
 He had made a fool of himself again, and, as usual, not in 
 a way in which Jasper would have made a fool of himself. 
 His sense of the unhandsomeness, of the impossibility of telling 
 her of the actual state of the case between them seemed in 
 this open light of the prairie, with the wind blowing in his 
 face, an incredible piece of folly. Why should he consider 
 Jasper? Would he have spared him in the same situation ? 
 
 He saw at once that this had nothing to do with the matter, 
 and that it was not for Jasper s sake that he had held his 
 tongue. It was for his own : he could n t have gone on living in 
 the body of a man who had told her that. If he had told it he 
 knew very well with what object he would have spoken. He 
 would have done it to malign his rival to her ; (it had come 
 to that between him and Jasper ; he might as well face it), 
 he would have done it to take a sneaking advantage with a 
 woman of an opportunity to spike another man s guns. 
 That would be bad enough with any man for his rival ; but 
 with Jasper it would be a thing which he would never be 
 able to hold up his head after doing. It became too dirty 
 a piece of reprisal to think of. The perception of the im- 
 
198 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 possibility of doing anything to Jasper s injury, which he had 
 urged upon his father, had laid a firm and withholding grip 
 upon him in the midst of the temptation to tell her every 
 thing ; and now it reasserted itself as a final motive as a 
 thing not to be questioned, or dodged ; as a principle to which 
 he must be faithful, wholly without regard to what it might 
 cost him. It had cost him indirectly his father s friendship, 
 already, and had driven his father to the wretched refuge of 
 flight from an imagined evil; and now it had probably 
 cost him his own happiness. He cursed Jasper, as lie 
 thought of it, between his teeth. 
 
 He was glad to be going to Durango on the morrow to 
 seek his father ; he thought he should remain a week. But 
 in the event he was back the second day. It had become 
 a necessity to him to see her if only at a hopeless distance. 
 
 Dorothy often bit her lip in the days immediately follow 
 ing Philip s call, when she thought of the part she had 
 played. She had been wrong in meddling, of course, and 
 she accused herself bitterly ; but she also accused him. 
 What right had he to drag her into the question between 
 himself and his brother whatever it was ? Why should 
 she take sides ? She said to herself that, whatever he might 
 do, he should not change her neutrality. She was the friend 
 of both. What effect could any quarrel between them have 
 upon that fact ? She was most their friend when she refused 
 to allow their difference to invade her relation to them. She 
 was grateful to Jasper for refraining from making on his part 
 so difficult a demand upon her friendship ; she felt his silence 
 about the whole matter to be a fine generosity. It delicately 
 implied the real character of the difference between the 
 brothers as she had guessed it from the first : it was part of 
 that forbearance which he would have used to avoid the 
 quarrel itself, and which he would now be the first to tender 
 to his brother if he would accept it. The other kind of 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 199 
 
 generosity the freedom with which Philip gave himself and 
 all that he had in the smaller daily matters, she saw was, 
 after all, a less deep and genuine unselfishness than this patient 
 restraint and self-effacement of Jasper s. In smaller things 
 his attitude had not the charm of Philip s gay and thought 
 less open-handedness ; but when a serious opportunity arose 
 an opportunity for a brave and self-denying magnanimity, 
 it was easy to see which was the stronger. She said to her 
 self that it was true, what she had often thought : that 
 Philip was light. 
 
 When a woman makes reflections like these it would be a 
 mistake to seek their basis wholly in the psychological facts 
 with which she believes herself to be reasoning. It was at 
 all events true that, before Dorothy had matured all of these 
 thoughts about the character of the brothers, Philip had re 
 mained away from the house several days ; and that a certain 
 chivalric reserve in Jasper s bearing toward an old question 
 between them, had renewed in her a vague remorse. 
 
 She had supposed herself to have settled all that ; to have 
 put it away in the lumber-room of her memory, where she 
 need only visit it in those moments of sentiment when a 
 dreamy willingness to pain herself possessed her. But a 
 discarded lover is both a more material and a more impor 
 tunate fact when he happens to be in the same town than 
 when he lives before the mental vision only in the letter of 
 dignified complaint which must be answered with the state 
 ment of an unhappy truth. Jasper, in the flesh, patient, 
 unreproachful and obdurately faithful to a love which she 
 had fancied as dead in him as it was in her, was a different 
 man from the one she had pictured as suffering for as long 
 a time as her action had remained a vivid theme of remorse 
 to her ; and as getting over it by the same gradual process 
 through which she had emerged from her remorse. He had 
 not got over it, and he was by her side. 
 
200 BENEFITS FORGOT, 
 
 Their engagement, if one could call it that if it was the 
 kind of engagement on which marriage is supposed to follow, 
 Dorothy believed that she had never called it that to her 
 self had been one of the school boy and girl follies at 
 which one smiles with wonder at twenty-five, and tells to 
 one s grandchildren at sixty with a fond laugh, and a passing 
 inward question touching the colour of those curls now. It 
 had been a pleasant diversion between them the kind of 
 thing which is a little more intense and a little more enter 
 taining than the tennis that one would be playing at that age 
 if one were not engaged in being engaged ; but to think of 
 it as the sort of stuff of which one would make a life, was 
 to speak from the disordered outlook upon things in which 
 all measures and values melt into a mess of triviality. 
 
 It had lasted between them until Dorothy began to go 
 out into society, and to see the world and other men. She 
 did not begin to compare, then, but she perceived a betroth 
 al to be a different matter from the agreeable plaything it 
 had seemed at school : she began to question with her 
 conscience whether she had a right to go on with so serious 
 a thing unseriously. Was it dealing fairly by him ? She 
 saw that it was not : yet she tried, with a woman s devotion 
 to an impossible unselfishness, to keep it up. Jasper had 
 gone West to the ranch by this time, and in degree as the 
 affair seemed wrong and mistaken to her, she found herself 
 endeavouring to make up to him for the wrong (which, if it 
 was really any of hers, was hers unconsciously), by writing 
 him more faithfully. This, too, seemed dishonest, after a 
 time, and, in despair, she let the correspondence flag, 
 believing, or hoping that he would divine what had happened, 
 and that he would save her the pain of explaining. Surely 
 it was natural enough ; he was a man by this time, as she 
 was a woman, and he must know how inevitable it was. 
 
 He perceived as quickly as she could have desired that 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 201 
 
 there was a change ; but he showed no inclination to spare 
 her in defining it. Brought face to face with the necessity 
 for action, she passed a bitter time, in which she struggled 
 with her conscience and the proprieties. To a young girl 
 it still seems doubtful whether, after all, she may not better 
 wreck her life and a man s than be talked about. In her 
 highest moments of self-sacrifice she thought she could gc 
 on with it : then it would come time to write him a letter 
 and she would see that she could not even do so much as 
 that. How was she to live with him for fifty years ? 
 
 Jasper s complaint took at last that tone of demand which 
 lay under the surface of his most pliant moods ; and in the 
 end she saw that she must write him all that was in her 
 heart. It was a very right-spirited letter, telling him the 
 bare truth : that she did not love him as she had supposed, 
 that to marry with no better feeling than she could bring to 
 him would be a permanent wrong to both him and her, and 
 would merely procure their common unhappiness ; and 
 begging him to release her from their engagement. Jasper 
 came on to the Pennsylvania city where her father was just 
 then settled over a church ; and an interview followed of 
 the sort which men and women remember on their death 
 beds. But she did not yield. And Jasper went back to the 
 ranch a changed man. He was hard about women, now : 
 he felt himself cruelly misused. He was very bitter. He 
 said to himself that he did not care what he did now. She 
 was responsible for it. He had said as much to her in his 
 anger. Dorothy, in fact, stood for and symbolized every 
 good thought that he had ever had : she was the goddess of 
 his dreams of being some time a little cleaner and straight- 
 forwarder man than he had yet contrived to be. He was 
 accustomed to say that she could do anything with him, and 
 he had kept her in a species of bondage to this, while they 
 had been together during their engagement. 
 
202 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 This was one of the facts which had wrought upon Dorothy 
 while it was still a question whether she should do right to 
 break the engagement ; it was part of the perilous power 
 that there is for every woman in the passionate need for her 
 of a man who does not on other accounts create an answer 
 ing need in her. It is perhaps a phase of the mother instinct, 
 into which all forms of woman s love tend to dissolve ; but 
 it is certainly always an argument with a woman strong out 
 of all proportion to its actual validity ; and it had not only 
 been a part of the reluctant push toward the self sacrifice 
 she had once contemplated, but, in meeting Jasper, the 
 sense of it was found to have still a power for pain. 
 
 She was surprised and chagrined that it should be so, but 
 so it was ; and in the solitude of her chamber at night, 
 after Jasper had taken away his melancholy eyes, with the 
 look of a settled sorrow in them, and she freed herself from 
 the influence of his patient reserve about all that had been 
 between them, she wept miserable tears. She dried them 
 when she remembered to be indignant at his attitude. She 
 would rather a thousand times be upbraided for what she 
 had done if she had done anything than to be arraigned 
 by that deferential silence which forbearingly would not 
 bring its charge. It was a studied insult she said to herself. 
 But the next day it seemed a chivalry beyond praise, It 
 seemed this most when she recognized, as she found herself 
 doing, in occasional flashes, her girlish ideal in his hand 
 some face and figure, his daring and commanding manner, 
 his air of power, his effect of having his hand on the wheel 
 of the earth, his brilliant and indomitable will. 
 
 Jasper came often during this period of Philip s with 
 drawal ; but she never proposed to him the question she had 
 told Philip she should ask him. Something in his manner 
 when she mentioned Philip forbade it ; and it would be 
 unfair, she saw, to make him own up to the gallant gentle- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 203 
 
 ness and magnanimity he would have used in all this affair 
 with his sensitive and high-strung brother. The use of the 
 adjectives that both condemned and praised him brought 
 Philip sharply before her mind, and she felt again, as if it 
 had been at the moment, the pain that the scene between 
 them had given her. She liked him too well to wish to 
 hurt him, and she had felt that she was hurting him with 
 every word she said. Perhaps he was too easily wounded ; 
 but that seemed, now, a fault that one might forgive nay, 
 certainly ought to forgive to such an occasion. How hot 
 headed he was ! She found herself saying this with a kind 
 of laughing fondness to herself. It seemed suddenly almost 
 a likeable trait in him. It was his fineness the wrong side 
 of it, to be sure but still his fineness. And if he was 
 swift to anger, he was swift to feel : it was because of that. 
 It was easy for other men to be calm : they did not care so 
 much perhaps did not care at all. This made her think 
 of Jasper ; and to think of Jasper made her lift her eyes 
 from her typewriter, and allow her glance to rove out of 
 doors, with an impulsive wish that it might be Philip instead 
 of Jasper with whom she was to ride at two o clock. 
 
 The Maurices house stood, not far from the Vertners , on 
 the outskirts of the town, and the sun swept an unbroken 
 stretch of plain to look on Dorothy at her window. The 
 glowing light and the brisk air without, gave her a longing to 
 be galloping away into the shining day. Her eyes rested 
 with liking on the broad, sunlit level, reaching to the moun 
 tains. If she looked straight before her she could keep 
 the prospect untouched by the sight of a single habitation. 
 She heaved a little sigh. She should probably never meet 
 Philip again, let alone ride with him. The outlook from 
 her window gave all her thoughts a pleasant turn, however ; 
 and she saw herself forgiving something to any one who 
 should ride up into the foreground of this prospect, leading 
 a saddle-horse. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 JASPER took up the interrupted thread of his life at the 
 ranch with zest, in ignorance of what had happened in his 
 absence. It gave him an agreeable thrill to resume his 
 place : to vault into the seat of authority, once more, in 
 putting his leg over Vixen s back. He wondered, as he 
 went about on his horse, hearing reports and giving orders, 
 why he ever abandoned even temporarily this little kingdom, 
 where his word was law, and where he could see from day to 
 day his personal foresight, shrewdness, and force, taking 
 visible shape in the increase of his herd, in the extension of 
 his domain, and in the growth of his influence among the 
 cattle-men of the district. Yes, it was a mistake to spend 
 his time in running across the Continent, while this position 
 was his at home a position which he would not barter for 
 that of any one he knew, which he would not sell, knowing 
 what he did of the future it promised for any sum he was 
 likely to be offered ; and which he would not share with 
 any one on earth. 
 
 Ah, yes ! To be sure he had done right to go to New 
 York. The intention he foresaw in his father to force 
 the question of Philip s share in the range on him, before 
 his marriage, threatened the position itself. It was not a 
 thing he could wish to face out personally ; and if he had 
 ever had the slightest inclination to divide his power at the 
 ranch this would have been the last time he would have 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 205 
 
 selected. Just now, when the fruits of the hard work, the 
 sagacity, the devotion of his five years on the range began 
 to show, was he to share results and much worse, control 
 over future results with Philip ? He had borne the burden 
 and heat of the day, he had watered and tended his little 
 tree, had suffered and groaned and sweated to bring it to 
 bearing ; and here came Philip loafing, in his usual way, into 
 a soft thing that some one else had paid for, and wanting to 
 help pick the fruit and reorganize gardening methods. Jasper 
 had looked on with a scornful eye while Philip spread his 
 series of idle and fatuous experiments over a wide geography. 
 If his father was willing to pay for such cleverness in devis 
 ing schemes for dodging the main point, he was n t. The 
 main point, as he saw it, was work hard work, guided by 
 stiff common-sense. He was a worker himself; and he 
 was n t taking into partnership fellows who liked fishing 
 better than fence-building, and who, in place of his capacity 
 for making one dollar two, knew only how to spend one and 
 borrow two. 
 
 In Maverick, Jasper was welcomed back heartily for the 
 most part. There were men who had been over-reached in 
 a cattle trade by him who marred the pleasure he found in 
 the general acclamation by avoiding him, or greeting him 
 surlily ; there was a widow whom he had been obliged to 
 press in a little foreclosure matter, connected with a house 
 he had bought on speculation in Maverick ; and she had her 
 circle of sympathizers. But these were trifling notes in the 
 chorus of good-will. Just before leaving for New York, 
 Jasper had succeeded in organizing the cattle men of the 
 valley into a Mutual Protective Association, designed to 
 check cattle thieving, (by which many owners had suffered 
 heavily of late) ; to apply a stricter system to the round 
 ups ; to put a stop to the loose practice of branding Mavericks 
 wherever found, between round-ups; to join other associa- 
 
206 BENEFITS FORGOT.. 
 
 tions in petitioning Congress for a better law to prevent the 
 spread of the foot and mouth disease among cattle ; and 
 especially to keep all newcomers out of the valley the 
 Association officially declaring the range to be over 
 stocked. 
 
 There had been certain difficulties in forming the com 
 bination ; half a dozen forces, from different causes, were 
 against it ; and the fact that Jasper, against all opposition, 
 had pushed his plan to a successful conclusion had given 
 him. in his absence, a new and stronger position in Maverick. 
 He had always been popular ; but the town now began to 
 feel that it owed him something. There was even talk of 
 nominating him in the Spring for the office his father had 
 once held ; and it was said that, if he played his cards well, 
 he need n t stop at the Mayoralty. 
 
 At least one eye watched interestedly the subdued and 
 decent air of triumph with which Jasper received these signs 
 of the predominance which he might presently claim in the 
 town. Mr. Snail s sagacious glance pursued him furtively 
 from behind the windows of his Miners Supply Store, as he 
 rode by on horseback, when he came into Maverick from 
 the ranch, following his disappearance down the street with 
 a sardonic smile, and a slow, humorous working of his 
 tongue within his cheek, which seemed to do him good. 
 
 They were all at Ira s one night when some one said that 
 he supposed the next thing they would hear would be that 
 Jasper had bought out his father s half interest in the ranch. 
 He said that he had heard he did n t know whether there 
 was anything in it or not, of course ; but he had heard 
 that Jasper had made an almighty good thing in stocks while 
 he was on in New York. Trust him for knowing a good 
 thing ! He seemed to have his father s long business head 
 with something else besides something like clutch. Nobody 
 ever heard of his letting go of anything that he once laid 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 207 
 
 his fist over, and his father, spite of his dog-goned will, (it 
 was a dose for an adult that will : the speaker had tried it), 
 had let things slip, and lost a fortune. It would be queer if 
 Jasper should pull up and pass his father in the race ; now 
 would n t it? It would be like Deed to be glad. He was 
 gone on those sons of his. He did n t seem to have his 
 natural sense where they were concerned. But it would be 
 interesting if, after his father had given him a half share in 
 the partnership, Jasper should be able to buy the other half 
 for himself. 
 
 " Queer partnership, that, anyway," grunted Mr. Snell from 
 the other side of the cloud of smoke that filled the bar-room. 
 Snell was reputed to have made a fortune in fitting out min 
 ing parties in the early days of the Leadville boom, with 
 a very bad grade of goods at prices not without a touch of 
 naivete for the impartial spectator, not obliged to pay them. 
 And he had made a good thing by "grub staking" two or 
 three young men who had been lucky in prospecting the 
 hills about Aspen. With the coming of fortune he had put 
 on a precise habit of speech (it was a carefully made garment, 
 but the old would sometimes play him the low trick of 
 showing through, in patches), and had waked up one morning 
 with a respect for himself which required the use of the 
 third person in referring to Mr. Snell. 
 
 "What Mr. Snell says is like this," continued Mr. Snell: 
 " A man s all off as soon as he begins bringing family consider 
 ations into business. Mr. Snell has nothin against them: 
 he s a family man himself. But he says to his sons, he says, 
 Look here now, Fred, if you want anything out of your old 
 father, you have got to earn it ; and if you want to do business 
 with him you have got to do business on business principles, 
 every time, sir. And he does it too, gentlemen. The rate of 
 interest is just as high under Mr. Snell s roof and fig-tree, as it 
 is down at his store. The multiplication-table was always good 
 
2 o8 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 enough for me ; and I guess it ll have to do for my boys," 
 he added grimly, with an unwary lapse into the first person. 
 
 " Two per cent, a month, unquestionable security, notes 
 protested right along. That s what does it, gentlemen. Ask 
 no favours and take none ; and more especially have a cast- 
 iron, copper-riveted, water-tight contract with your relatives, 
 if you re foolish enough to have any, and bale the machine 
 dry of family feeling before you start. Now Mr. Deed has 
 got a notion in his head, near as I can make out, that there s 
 two answers to twice two. Down in town here it makes 
 four; but out at the ranch, when he s dealing with that son of 
 his, Jasper, it makes five, or three, or some other fool figger." 
 
 A loyal murmur rose from the crowd at this, and Snell 
 concluded doggedly "Well, anyway, what Mr. Snell says is 
 like this: There s a place for everything, he says, and the 
 place for family feeling is at the family fireside. " 
 
 " Family furnace up Mr, Snell s way, ain t it, Snell ? " asked 
 one of the group. He was joked on his peculiarity, of course, 
 but the town did not venture far in this direction. He owned 
 a good share of the houses of Maverick, was a hard landlord, 
 and employed a number of people in his business, and at 
 his mines. Times were not always perhaps never of 
 the best in Maverick ; and no one felt that he could quite 
 afford the luxury of making an enemy of Snell. 
 
 " I ve put in a furnace lately, sir, I admit. Yes. sir," said 
 he truculently. " And I may be out of my count," he went 
 on, with a remote implication which was not lost on men 
 who liked their humour oblique, "but I think I say I 
 think, young man I ve got a receipt for the coal bill." 
 
 "Come back to make things hum again out at your ranch, 
 I judge," Mr. Snell said to Jasper, when, about a week after 
 the talk between Dorothy and Philip, Jasper stopped his 
 horse in the street to speak to him. Jasper made a point 
 of speaking all men fair, and humouring the willingness of 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 209 
 
 everybody to believe his existence a constant matter for 
 joyous surprise to all good fellows. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Snell, yes things get to loose ends in the 
 master s absence, don t they ? Personal supervision is the 
 only plan, I find. I know it s your plan. Not many things 
 escape your eye." 
 
 Mr. Snell drew his lips to a point, and, stroking them 
 deprecatingly, pretended to weigh the question. "Well, 
 not a great," he consented. " I suppose, now, you rather 
 enjoy seeing the wheels start up again," he went on in a 
 moment, in another tone "like to crack your whip and see 
 things moving eh? " 
 
 Jasper glanced at him. " Why, it s pleasant to be back," 
 he said. " When a man really likes his business there s 
 nothing like business after all, is there, Mr. Snell ? " 
 
 " Nothing ! " agreed Mr. Snell. " Nothing ! Not if it is 
 your business at least," he qualified, " not if you run the 
 machine, not if you re on top." 
 
 " Well, we should n t care to be anywhere else, should we, 
 Mr. Snell ? " laughed Jasper easily. 
 
 Mr. Snell flashed his furtive look on him, and dropped 
 his eyes immediately. " No," he assented, with his dry 
 smile. It was a wrinkled smile, like the skin of last year s 
 apple : withered and pensive and loose. It seemed to 
 become in a moment a little large for his face, and he hastily 
 smoothed it out. " No," he repealed, " I don t believe we 
 should. You wouldn t anyway, I judge. You wouldn t 
 never be caught hankering, Mr. Snell guesses, for the 
 place of that fellow in the theatre orchestras that hits them 
 brasses once in a while, and dandles them sleigh-bells, and 
 whacks his drum in between. I guess if any one was to do 
 much figgerin about your place, they d see you belonged a 
 leetle nigher the middle of the orchestra somethin not too 
 all-fired far from the conductor s chair ; and I should n t 
 
 p 
 
210 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 wonder if they come around to the idee that the centre of 
 his chair was not far off the right thing. You d want a 
 baton in your hand, and then matters would begin to rumble 
 around there. Eh ? " he shouted in enjoyment, rubbing 
 his hands. 
 
 jasper laughed. He could enjoy even Mr. Snell s 
 attribution of the naturalness of the place of command to 
 him. 
 
 Snell went away, rubbing his hands with a glee out of 
 proportion to the superficial dimensions of the joke ; and 
 when he was alone in his private office at the store, drew 
 a paper endorsed " Bill of Sale of Triangle Outfit, " from a 
 bundle of documents in his safe, and seating himself in 
 his capacious leather chair, read it over in smiling silence. 
 
 When Jasper, while still at breakfast next morning, saw 
 Snell s leathery face come suddenly into the sunny prospect 
 from his window, appearing and disappearing with the 
 motions of his horse, he was unable to imagine why he 
 should be taking the long ride from Maverick at such an 
 hour to see him. He had no dealings with him for nearly 
 a year ; what should he want of him ? He accounted 
 for his presence for a moment by the fantastic supposition 
 that Snell was running out to see him for a little early 
 mcrning exercise, and for the pleasure of a chat with him ; 
 and he allowed himself a smile at this idea: Snell no more 
 took aimless exercise on horseback than the other residents 
 of Maverick did, and if it was a question of riding five 
 miles for the sake of a chat with him, (Jasper), he thought 
 he saw Snell wasting good business time in that fashion. 
 The talk of yesterday came back to him : he had thought 
 at the time that old Snell probably wanted something with 
 all that palavering (he called him old, though he was 
 scarcely fifty, because, in the absence of the absolutely old 
 in the West, middle age has to typify senility), and here he 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 21 1 
 
 was to make what profit he could out of it. Jasper deter 
 mined that it should be small. It was a bore, his coming 
 at breakfast time. Couldn t he let a man eat his meals in 
 peace, he growled to himself. 
 
 Jasper combined with his habit of hard work certain 
 luxurious tastes, which he did not allow to interfere with 
 business. He rose early for work (it was one of his counts 
 against Philip that he was never up to breakfast) ; but he 
 liked a dash of Florida Water in his bath, and spent rather 
 more than an hour in grooming himself for the day. He 
 listened to reports about the condition of things within the 
 immediate precinct of the ranch-house from his cowboy 
 cook at breakfast, and gave him his orders then ; but he 
 required a dainty table from him, and did not spare the 
 daily energy necessary to secure a luxury so foreign to every 
 condition of the life he was leading. He dressed like his 
 men because they would not have tolerated anything else, 
 and because it was part of his pose of good fellow to make 
 himself one of them ; but it was one of the marvels of the 
 Valley that he should be allowed to go so neat without losing 
 acceptance with his cow-punchers. It was certainly not 
 because he was obviously a man who must be neat and dainty 
 to live, that this unworthy niceness was pardoned in him 
 though the most casual glance must have shown any one 
 that but through the respect he commanded among his 
 men on other accounts. For a range of fifty miles about 
 the ranch it was understood that Jasper Deed was not the 
 man one would choose to monkey with. 
 
 The loose hang of his dressing-gown about his stalwart 
 figure as he sat at breakfast, concealed the physical sufficiency 
 which was one of the sources of this feeling ; as he rose and 
 stretched himself and went to the window to bow to Snell, 
 with his hands thrust deep in the low pockets of the robe, 
 it might have been guessed perhaps. He had, in fact, no 
 
 P 2 
 
212 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 such strength as Philip s ; but his closely knit frame gave 
 him the credit to the eye of every ounce of force in him, 
 while Philip s sturdy figure, carried without Jasper s distinc 
 tion, had only the effect of its rude power. Jasper was one of 
 the perfectly moulded physical products which Nature turns 
 out in her most careful and workmanlike perhaps not her 
 most inspired moods. He was built like a firmly-rooted, 
 straight, strong young tree ; and his grace, his refinement, 
 his physical adequacy were like that : they took the beholder 
 with their absolute adaptability to their function, with the 
 propriety of their place in Nature. It was this effect in him 
 which made it seem natural that he should keep himself 
 trim : it was by way of being a tribute of respect to so right 
 a figure in the pageant of things. 
 
 His face had the symmetry that goes with such perfect 
 forms. It was not very unlike certain other correct and 
 manly faces, of course : that is the penalty one pays for 
 having the standard face that in degree as other faces 
 approach the standard they must be like one s own ; but even 
 this fault was mitigated, when he spoke, by a hard line of 
 determination which formed itself on either side his mouth, 
 and by the glance of resolve shining from his eyes. The 
 little frown habitually lowering his strongly marked eyebrows, 
 and a habit of twisting the end of his heavy golden moustache, 
 when he spoke, as if quelling things stronger than it would 
 be useful to say, contributed to his effect of force. 
 
 Jasper turned from the window, through which Snell was 
 visible, and threw two or three sticks of wood on the and 
 irons. The ranch house, which was a Queen Anne cottage, 
 built by an Eastern architect under the supervision of Deed, 
 but much influenced in its construction by Jasper s wishes, 
 was set directly under the range of mountains that one saw 
 from Maverick ; and the rear windows looked out upon the 
 pine-clad lower slopes of Mount Blanco. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 213 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Snell," he said, as he turned to greet him. 
 " You re an early bird this morning. Take a seat. Nothing 
 like an early morning ride to put life into a man, is 
 there ? " 
 
 " No ! No ! " assented Mr. Snell absently, as he took the 
 seat, laid his hat carefully on the floor, and fumbled in his 
 breast-pocket for a paper. 
 
 " Well, I m glad to see you letting up a bit on the daily 
 grind. We all work too hard out here. A little too hasty 
 about chasing up the almighty cartwheel ; yes, a little trifle 
 too hurried but it rolls, does n t it, if you don t scramble 
 after it with the rest ? " Jasper put his hand to the back of 
 his head and smoothed his carefully brushed hair. " It 
 rolls. That s my experience. 
 
 " It is not wealth, nor rank, nor state, 
 But git up and git that makes men great. 
 
 Our Colorado maxim says it for us ; and it s about so, I 
 suppose. Eh, Mr. Snell?" Jasper gathered his dressing- 
 gown about him, and seated himself luxuriously in his 
 favourite chair before the fire, watching Snell warily from 
 beneath his drooping lids, with every trading instinct in him 
 alert under this rambling fire of amiability and worldly 
 wisdom. Snell was there to get an advantage over him in 
 some shape : he knew that as well as if he had carried a 
 placard about his neck to advertise him of the fact. He 
 gathered himself together with the secure consciousness that 
 he knew whose the advantage would be when he bowed 
 Snell out of his door. 
 
 " Well, it tain t quite a holiday that Mr. Snell s taking this 
 morning," admitted Mr. Snell, smacking his dry lips, as a 
 preliminary to business and observing Jasper, whose eyes 
 were on his watch chain, with a curious look a look instantly 
 broadened to a smile at some subtle joke which at the lifting 
 
2i 4 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 of Jasper s head, he apparently saw in this. " I guess Mr. 
 Snell has n t taken a vacation from chasing up his own little 
 mighty dollar, yet not a very long one, anyhow and he 
 don t seem extra likely to, while the present scarcity rules." 
 
 " Are they scarce, Mr. Snell ? " asked Jasper. 
 
 " Well, don t you find em so ? " 
 
 Jasper hesitated a moment. " Why, to tell the truth, no, 
 I don t. It takes all my time and some lively rustling to 
 keep them plenty, of course. But I don t mind telling you, 
 Mr. Snell, that I have a pretty good thing here or my 
 father and I have. With two or three open winters, like 
 the last two we ve had, we sha n t be poor men. The 
 increase is enormous, you know, if you don t lose all your 
 cattle in the winter storms : and prices have been fairly good 
 lately. I don t believe in the policy of running down your 
 business, and playing poor all the time. I m not poor, myself, 
 and I don t know that I care who knows it." 
 
 " Why, that s good ! That s good ! JJ nodded Snell, and 
 he let the gloating smile, which had been working about the 
 corners of his mouth, go now, in sheer incapacity to contain 
 his triumph longer. He longed to play his victim further, 
 but he had to say it. " That s the kind of news that warms 
 the cockles of an owner s heart, ain t it ? Mr. Snell don t 
 mind owning up, if you press him, that it warms his. He s 
 been buying some cattle himself lately." 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Snell ! " said Jasper politely. " Whose ? " 
 
 " Yours," returned Snell. He locked his withered 
 hands within each other and leaned forward, resting his arms 
 on his knees, and fixing his eyes on Jasper. 
 
 Jasper straightened out of his lounging attitude involun 
 tarily. His face paled. He found his smile and cigarette 
 instantly, and rose to pick out an alumette on the mantel, 
 with a low laugh of self-contempt, which Snell took for 
 derision of his statement, 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 215 
 
 " You don t believe it," said Snell to his back, with a 
 gurgling note of contentment in his voice. " Well, I don t 
 know as I expected you to," he drawled. " Mr. Snell said 
 to himself when he started out to pay this little morning call 
 that some of his remarks might require substantiation not 
 necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, 
 as the Lone Creek Rustler says in its Notices to Correspon 
 dents. Well, Mr. Deed, I dare say I can substantiate. 
 Might cast your eye over that," he said, coiling his tongue 
 into his cheek to keep himself in subjection, " and that," he 
 added, laying a second paper on the mantel, and still con 
 triving to subdue an importunate smile. 
 
 Jasper stooped to the fire on the hearth and kindled his 
 alumette deliberately before rejoining. He was flushed, as 
 he rose perhaps with stooping but he turned and faced 
 Snell without haste or heat. 
 
 " Who s your employer in this game, Snell ? " He rounded 
 his lips and shaped a ring with the smoke, watching it climb 
 to the ceiling with affectionate solicitude. " Who are you 
 acting for, who s your principal which of my well-wishers 
 put you up to this scheme ? " he repeated as Snell did not 
 answer. He looked down into Snell s bemused face, as he 
 thrust his hands into the pockets of his dressing-gown, and 
 puffed at his cigarette. " I swear, Snell, I gave you credit for 
 more penetration than to waste your time for any one on a 
 scheme that takes me for an unfledged tenderfoot. Do you 
 think I m here for my health ? " 
 
 Snell had recovered himself, and said, with patient good 
 humour, " No, Mr. Deed. I never thought that : your worst 
 enemy would n t accuse you of that. There s good reading 
 in them papers," he added with the effect of an after 
 thought. 
 
 " Entertain yourself with it, then," said Jasper, taking 
 them from where they lay on the mantel, and tossing them 
 
216 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 to him. Snell caught them dexterously, without relaxing 
 the smile which he no longer took pains to conceal, and 
 which spread beamingly now to all his features, affecting 
 even his sandy forelock, which had twisted itself into a curl 
 of sympathy. " I m not in want of reading matter, here," 
 continued Jasper; "and if you ve nothing more to say, 
 Mr. Snell " 
 
 " Oh, I ve got plenty more to say, if that s all," responded 
 Snell, imperturbably, " and you d like this reading. Hm-hm 
 This indenture hm this day hm party of the first 
 part, and Abraham Snell, party of the second part, witness- 
 eth : would you like to know what it witnesseth ? " he 
 inquired, opening wide the document he had been pretending 
 to take stealthy peeps at, while he read. He looked up at 
 Jasper cunningly. 
 
 Jasper scowled back thunderously at him. " Oh, drop 
 that leer, Snell. What are you driving at ? " 
 
 " Why, I ve got a deed here of the Triangle Outfit, 
 whole concern, you know," he said, looking up into Jasper s 
 paling face blandly, " house, land, fences, water privileges, 
 run of the range, and one of the largest and finest bunches 
 of cattle in the State ; increasing enormously, I believe you 
 said." 
 
 " A deed of my range of my cattle ? " repeated Jasper. 
 
 " Well," drawled Snell, with his habitual deprecating pull 
 at his puckered lips, " not too all-firedly, tee-totally yours. 
 Some of it your father s, ain t it? say about two-thirds, / 
 guess it s a good deed. Ought to be deed from a Deed, 
 you know." He leered up into Jasper s miserable face, with 
 a smile of enjoyment. 
 
 "From my father! Stuff!" 
 
 "Do you know his writing?" Snell began to open out 
 the paper. Jasper snatched it from him. At sight of the 
 signature he burst out in a great imprecation, He turned 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 217 
 
 livid, and Snell got hastily on his feet, fearing that he would 
 fall. But he left the fireplace quickly, and going over to the 
 window read the whole document slowly through. 
 
 " What devil s cunning did you use with my father to get 
 him to sign this?" he asked, turning on Snell, as he 
 finished. 
 
 " Not any," responded Snell cheerily. " I guess you used 
 that for me, Mr. Deed, if all your father said was true. I d 
 have worked tooth and nail for a year to a got that deed 
 signed, just as it is there, I don t mind telling you, Mr. 
 Deed, and been glad of the chance. But your father saved 
 me the trouble. He came and offered me the bargain, he 
 urged it on me, he crammed it down my throat ; and after 
 beating him down a trifle, just for self-respect, you know, I 
 yielded politely. He was rather in a hurry, and I didn t 
 want to bother him with a refusal not at that price," he 
 qualified, stroking his chin. " Ranges like this ain t going at 
 $25,000 well, not everyday." He glanced at Jasper, and his 
 eye dropped irresistibly, in a wink. " It tain t no bad 
 bargain," he went on, with a lapse into the cruder forms of 
 his speech. " I don t mind ownin up to that, now it s 
 signed and sealed, and the outfit s mine." Snell did not 
 miss the wince and the clench of the teeth with which 
 Jasper received this. " But it was n t the bargain I was 
 after not entirely." Jasper stared at him. " I suppose 
 you ve forgotten that little transaction of ours a year ago 
 come next Spring, Mr. Deed ? Yes : I thought you would 
 have. Well, you see I ain t. That s the difference. Oh, 
 Mr. Snell s got a memory for kind deeds * Kind deeds can 
 never, never die, the old song says. We used to sing it in 
 our Sunday School back in the New Hampshire days. 
 Don t know that sacred toon, perhaps ? But it s a good 
 toon, all the same a good, old-fashioned truth-telling toon. 
 They can t die kind deeds and if they could, I would n t 
 
218 BENEFITS F011GOT. 
 
 let em. But I ain t had no trouble keepin this one alive ; 
 it s got up with me every morning, and made my breakfast 
 happy for me, and it s gone to bed with me every night and 
 helped me to put in a good night s rest. I ain t forgot, Mr. 
 J. Deed, if you have," he said, rising, and nodding his head 
 bitterly toward him, " and I Ve paid out a tidy sum for this 
 here little dokkyment," snatching it from Jasper s loose 
 clasp, and shaking it in his bony claws, "just to get it to 
 help say so for me. I hope the language is plain, Mr. Deed." 
 
 Jasper kept his hands from Sneil s collar with difficulty. 
 " Quite, Mr. Snell," he said, with his usual coolness. 
 "You ve paid $25,000 for a piece of paper that is worth, at 
 the outside, twenty-five cents. That makes the expense of 
 registering your disapproval of something I ve done, or left 
 undone I really don t recall the particular villainy you 
 allude to twenty-four thousand, nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine dollars, and seventy-five cents. It s not a bad bargain 
 as Mr. Sneil s bargains go." 
 
 "What!" screamed Snell. 
 
 " I say your deed, as you call it, is n t worth the paper it s 
 written on." 
 
 " Oh, it tain t, ain t it ? " sneered Snell comfortably. 
 
 " No. My father had no more right to make that sale 
 than you would have had." 
 
 Snell laughed cheerfully. " Think you re the only man 
 who ain t here as a sanitary measure, do you ? I took a 
 lawyer s advice before I closed with that poor father of yours 
 that ain t got no rights. I m not here for my health 
 not altogether. When will you be ready to gim me 
 possession ? " 
 
 " Never," returned Jasper, closing his lips. 
 
 " Oh, come ! I m willing to accommodate ; but the date s 
 too late. Make it a day or two earlier say to-morrow ! 
 He flirted the deed carelessly about in his hand. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 219 
 
 " I ll tell you something I won t postpone," said Jasper, 
 his fingers working by his side. 
 
 " Yes ? " inquired Snell with the irritating rising inflec 
 tion. 
 
 "And that s putting you out of the house." He began to 
 roll up his sleeve. 
 
 "Inhospitable, ain t you?" said Snell, taking up his hat 
 nonchalantly. " That ain t the way I ll treat you when I m 
 master here. Judge I d better bring the sheriff with me 
 when I come to take possession to-morrow," he said tenta 
 tively at the door. 
 
 Jasper glared at him. He shut the door hastily. When 
 he had gone Jasper ran to his room, cast off his dressing 
 gown, and drew on his riding boots. Vixen was ready for 
 him when he came down the stairs, and flung himself upon 
 her. He dug his spurs into her. Snell was making his way 
 back to Maverick by another road. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 JASPER pushed Vixen across the five miles of level plain 
 lying between the ranch and the mountains on the other 
 side of the valley, with quirt and spur. It was an in 
 comparable morning ; but nothing in his mood answered 
 to it. The stirring, potent, heady morning air swam 
 richly through his blood, awakening him to a hotter anger, 
 and a deeper resolve. He drank its strength as he rode on. 
 It made him strong for what he had to do. He set his 
 teeth and spurred forward, hammering his horse s flanks. 
 The noises of the day s work were only beginning in the ranch 
 houses he passed on the road. The spacious, deep-lunged, 
 awful quiet that settles at night over the big hills and the 
 stupendous prairie reaches of the West had not lifted, and 
 the mountains, black and still in the motionless pines at their 
 feet, and white and still about their snowy heads, looked 
 down on the silence gravely. 
 
 Jasper was not thinking of mountains. His imagination, 
 active enough within its own range of themes, was busy 
 with a man who, up in the hills before him, would be just 
 rising. The hills were not near enough. He cried upon 
 the horse with an oath, as if Vixen could -reduce the distance 
 visibly at the leap she gave under a cut from his quirt. 
 
 At the " Snow Find " shaft a workman was busy lower 
 ing the bucket. Jasper tethered his horse at the cabin 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 221 
 
 door and strode over to him. " Pull up that bucket, will 
 you ? I want to see my brother." 
 
 Mike Dougherty stared at him, and went on lowering. 
 "Pull it up, do you hear?" said Jasper, laying his hand 
 roughly on the man s shoulder 
 
 " Yis. I hear," returned the man. With his arm he 
 followed the revolving crank stolidly. The rope unwound. 
 
 " You ll mind, if you know what s good for yourself." 
 
 " Yis, I ll moind me owners. I takes me orders from 
 Misther Cutter and Misther Bade, d yez moind ? " 
 
 "I am Mr. Deed Mr. Deed s brother." 
 
 Mike shot a look at him as he stooped to his work. He 
 may have found warrant for the statement in the re 
 semblance Jasper bore to Philip. " An how would I know 
 that ? " he said, reversing the crank, and fetching up the 
 bucket, hand over hand, with the same deliberation. Jasper 
 cursed him silently. " There yez are. Yez ll find Misther 
 Dade in the big drift to yer right at the bottom." Jasper 
 got into the cage, and Dougherty lowered away. "The 
 second to the right, d yez moind ? " 
 
 Jasper had thought out his meeting with Philip as he 
 rode. He had decided, if he did not find him at his cabin, 
 to go down into the mine without asking for him. He pre 
 ferred not to give him the opportunity of refusing to see him. 
 
 He dropped past a stretch of pale green earth out of the 
 light. After the mellow stratum of brown he was in the 
 dark, and all colours were alike. The firmament shrank 
 above his head to a narrowing circle, the size of a man s 
 palm. When he looked over the sides of his swinging, 
 sinking bucket, the darkness deepened thickly into the 
 abyss. He told himself that he was a fool to so put 
 himself in Philip s power. But he could not stop now, 
 and at the moment a pin head of yellow flame danced in 
 the depths, and he shouted at it. 
 
222 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 The man behind it caught the bucket as it settled on 
 the floor of the mine, lifting his candle to peer into the 
 visitor s face. All the morning shift was in the mine ; and 
 both the Superintendents. Any one who came now was a 
 stranger, and, in a productive mine, a stranger is likely to be 
 held an enemy until he proves himself a friend. 
 
 " Well ? " interrogated the figure in shadow behind the 
 candle. 
 
 " Is Mr. Deed here ? " asked Jasper, stepping out. 
 
 f Yes ; but he don t allow no one in this here mine," 
 returned Henry Wilson, formerly of Missouri. 
 
 " He ll allow me. I m his brother. I settled that at the 
 top." As the man still scrutinized him, without offering to 
 move, he said, " You don t think I lowered myself down 
 in the bucket, do you ? " 
 
 "/don t know what you did," growled the figure, which 
 now showed a face, as the candle was lowered to the level 
 of the head. 
 
 " Well, I do, then. I satisfied the man on duty at the 
 top before getting down. You can lay odds on that." 
 
 " Yes," assented the man. The candle showed a smile 
 in the recesses of his tawny beard. " I guess you would n t 
 be let by Mike very slick without you halted and gave the 
 countersign. Who did you say ? " 
 
 " I sha n t say it again. Come ! Get a move on ! " 
 
 The man surveyed him again surlily, and turning suddenly 
 away with his candle, left him in darkness. Jasper lighted 
 a cigar and sat down on the edge of the bucket. The 
 man s stumping step died away in the lateral gallery into 
 which he had turned. 
 
 Two minutes passed without a sound. The air of the 
 mine laid a clammy hand on him. He puffed vigorously 
 at his cigar. The silence in the black space not lighted by 
 the fitful glow of his cigar was like a thing in the darkness. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 223 
 
 Then he heard a quick step coming along the same gallery, 
 a candle wavered into sight down the long passage into 
 which he sat looking, and Philip stood above him. They 
 gazed into each other s eyes. 
 
 " You!" cried Philip. 
 
 Jasper lifted his eyes lazily to the candle Philip held 
 aloft, and merely smiled. " Yes." He bit at the end of 
 his cigar. " I want father s address." 
 
 " I can t give it to you." 
 
 " You mean you won t." 
 
 " I said carit] " returned Philip, thrusting the steel 
 point of his candle-holder into a soft space in the wall, 
 and advancing on his brother with bent brows. " I don t 
 know where my father is ; and let me tell you that you will 
 do well to measure your words." He looked steadily into 
 his eyes, across the candle glare. " This interview is not 
 of my seeking." 
 
 " Hum," uttered Jasper meditatively. " Your manners 
 have rather gone off since I met you last. The life of a 
 mining camp seems to have been relaxing." 
 
 Philip bit his lip. " You should not be the first to 
 say so," he said. 
 
 Jasper laughed. " You have n t looked me up with your 
 report of my mine," he said, with impudent perception of 
 Philip s meaning. " No, I understand ; it was n t ready," he 
 continued, lifting his hand deprecatingly at Philip s motion 
 to reply. " I quite understand the delay : there was 
 something else that was n t ready. You were n t ready." 
 A dangerous light kindled in Philip s eyes. "A man 
 who has done a sneaking thing behind another man s back 
 usually is n t ready, I ve noticed, to face the man he s 
 injured." 
 
 Philip s hands twitched at his sides. " Ingrate ! " he cried. 
 " Keep those words to ticket yourself with ! " 
 
224 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Jasper looked at him quietly from between his half- 
 closed lids. " I m talking of you ! " he said. " Bluff is a 
 good dog for tricks; but I m dealing with facts; and I 
 say that to rig a game on me with father in my absence 
 was a dirty act. You can turn it back or front, or upside 
 down," he went on with mounting anger, "but you can t get 
 around that. It was a dirty act, and calling me names 
 won t whitewash it." He came close to Philip, casting the 
 words in his teeth. 
 
 The creak of an ore car on a distant track cut upon the 
 silence that fell for the instant, while Philip searched for 
 words. The preposterous reversal of their positions dizzied 
 him. For a second everything went round in a whirl, in 
 the midst of which Jasper s adroit shifting of the question 
 between them seemed to take on a demoniac physical body, 
 and to go capering through the candle flame, jibing at 
 him. The right which he felt at the centre of Jasper s 
 accusation quelled him, and beat back one after another 
 the answering words thronging to his lips. He clenched 
 his fist and dropped it at his side. Everything in him 
 called upon him to choke back the falsehood in his throat 
 as it touched him ; but as his words touched his father, he 
 owned sickly to himself their truth. The thought dashed 
 him, and Jasper took the word before he could choose 
 between one of the half-hearted answers that lay upon his 
 tongue. 
 
 " You thought I would n t see through this thing you 
 and father did you ? You must have taken me for a bat. 
 Why, you d see through it yourself yes, even you, my help 
 less, pottering brother, who don t know as much of business 
 in a year as I could guess before breakfast any morning ! 
 Yes, you who never turned an honest dollar in all your 
 life, and who have managed to lose a pretty number ; even 
 you would see through it ! The thing s childish, I tell you 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 225 
 
 hiring Snell to make a show of buying the range, and 
 fixing things to take it over on your own account and 
 father s as soon as you ve quieted me. There were just two 
 leaks in that chivalric scheme, let me tell you : First, the 
 idea that I would n t see the point of all this roundabout 
 trick for doing me out of my range ; and second, that I 
 would be quieted. I do see the point, and I won t be 
 quieted. There s going to be a row about this thing 
 before we re done with it, let me tell you ! I should n t 
 wonder if you heard the echo of it as far as the Snow 
 Find/ " he sneered. " I m just the sort of man to sit down 
 and whistle at my fate, I am ! Huh ! " he grunted, for lack 
 of all other expressions of his scorn, and turned away. 
 
 " Do you find yourself safe in always judging other men 
 by yourself?" asked Philip, after a pause. 
 
 Jasper stumbled, and Philip caught up his halting 
 words. " You think you know me. You have said how 
 I am this and that. Answer me ! Am I the man to meet 
 your vile blow with a viler ? Have I ever played the black 
 guard with you since you ve known me ? You must wish 
 to have an accusation on your side. The circumstances 
 make it desirable. It should be a big one too, since it 
 has to shelter you, and stand for answer to an act you 
 know of. But it should be credible. Come ! Spin a yarn 
 you can believe yourself! Make yourself believe that I 
 could stoop to your low-lived notions of what a man may 
 do, and trim my actions by yours. Bah ! Was I ever 
 a sneak? " 
 
 Jasper clenched his hands. " Yes ! " he cried hoarsely. 
 " Yes ! When were you ever anything else ? Your life 
 has been one long slinking out of every sort of duty, re 
 sponsibility and hard work. Your father has fed you since 
 you were a man : he has kept you in amusement, and helped 
 you in every fool scheme for dodging disagreeable things 
 
 Q 
 
226 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 that your ingenuity could invent. You ve gone on horse 
 back, from the first, young man ! Do you think I have n t 
 seen it ? Do you suppose I have n t watched you, while I 
 was putting my back into my own work, and sweating to 
 pull up this ranch you talk about ? " Philip had not men 
 tioned it. lt Sneak, do you say ? Why, if you were mous 
 ing about for a type of all the sneakingest things a man 
 can do, you would n t have to go far. Fancy your demand 
 that I should give up a share in this range to you, after what 
 I ve done for it ? You always had an eye for a soft snap ; 
 but I swear you never had the courage before to put in a 
 claim for such a soft snap as that." 
 
 " Oh," cried Philip, " you should add that. You do 
 well ! Your hellish ingratitude would lack its final touch if 
 you left me to go free of your crime ! It is I who have 
 dealt my father this coward s blow. It is my act that tortured 
 and maddened him and sent him to fling away his fortune 
 distractedly, that he might stab me back with the loss of my 
 share in it ! It is like you to be the innocent one, and 
 mighty like me, is it not, to be in the wrong ? Was I ever 
 anything else ? And it s I, too, it must be I, for if it s not 
 I, it must be you, and that s not possible who begged his 
 brother to stake out a claim for him in the mountains, and 
 then got him without much bother (for you were always an 
 easy-going fool about taking trouble for others, were n t you, 
 Jasper ? ) to work the claim for him, alongside his own. 
 Ah, yes ! " he cried, with a derisive shout that went echoing 
 under the hewn roof above his head, and ran stormily among 
 the galleries, "it would be I, would it not, who took such a 
 service from my brother, who left him to slave for a year 
 for me in an ungodly hole among the hills, and paid him at 
 the end with a coward s trick of fence that has its name 
 among gentlemen. Yes, it would be I ! And it is you, 
 basely wounded and heaped over with injury, it is you who 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 227 
 
 come out of this thing with white hands ! It s a fine saying 
 a monstrous fine saying .... brother ! " 
 
 Jasper slashed away with his cow-puncher s knife at a 
 strip of iron pyrites in the rock at his side, as Philip went 
 on. At the last word he twisted the knife violently and 
 brought away the glistening little stratum at which he had 
 been quarrying. It dropped to the floor of the mine with a 
 tiny note that was like a crash in the silence which fell as 
 Philip ceased. Jasper paled to the eyes. 
 
 " Words ! " he said, in his throat. " Words ! Better stick 
 to them. Keep away from facts ! They hurt. Where 
 is my father ? " 
 
 " I have told you that I do not know," returned Philip in 
 the tone of enforced patience which one uses toward a 
 guest who has outstayed his welcome. He folded his 
 arms. 
 
 "And I think I ve said I don t believe you," answered 
 Jasper. " If you hope to force me to a quarrel with you, 
 by keeping me from the bigger game, let me tell you that 
 you are badly off your base. I ve got a juicy bone to pick 
 with you, later ; you ve given me matter enough this 
 morning for all the quarrel you ll ever have any real need 
 for, I fancy. But I choose my time for quarrels. This 
 is n t my time for a quarrel with you. I m not gunning 
 for assistant sneaks to-day. I m looking for the brains of 
 this deviltry. Tell me where my father is, and when I ve 
 made him disgorge, I ll be ready to give you all the atten 
 tion you can want." 
 
 Philip fixed his eyes steadily on him, above the candle. 
 It began to gutter, and flared between the brothers. 
 
 " Damn you ! " he said deliberately, from within his 
 teeth. " Keep your foul tongue from your father, or by heaven, 
 I ll teach you courtesy ! 
 
 " T-s-s-s ! " uttered Jasper. " An interesting person to 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 teach courtesy ! Tell me," he cried, taking a stride forward 
 (and in the baleful light that suddenly entered his eyes, 
 Philip guessed, as by a fatal inspiration, what he must say) ; 
 " tell me," he repeated, " what did you say of me to Miss 
 Maurice when I left you alone with her not many days ago ? 
 What pleasant tales about me did you entertain her with ? 
 Ah, my knightly brother ! You were asking if you were ever 
 a sneak since I ve known you. To abuse me to a woman in 
 my absence with the mean hope of undermining my favour 
 with her, and slinking into my place ! There s chivalry for 
 you ! The chivalry of a confidence-man ! The courtesy of 
 a back alley ! " 
 
 With a single movement Philip whipped past the candle, 
 and took him by the throat. "You hound!" he cried. 
 
 " Breathe Miss Maurice s name again, and I ll You 
 
 never had a decent thought ! You are as incapable of under 
 standing the movements of a gentleman s mind as if you had 
 sprung from the gutter ! Who taught you such thoughts ? 
 Not your father, damn you ! " 
 
 " Take off your hands ! Take your hands off, I say," 
 shouted Jasper. 
 
 " Must I be a cad because we are sons of one father 
 more shame ? Must I use my position to slander you to a 
 woman because you would have done as much in my place ? 
 How should you guess that your father could wipe out your 
 share in that cursed ranch in the pure generosity of his anger ? 
 It needs a man to understand certain things ! " Philip s 
 voice was a sob. " You think it like him to turn a penny 
 from his revenge, do you ? You can t understand his un- 
 reckoning love turned to unreckoning hate ; you can t 
 understand his ruining himself to even things with you, eh ? 
 Cur ! Do you suppose he knows how to do a thing you 
 could understand ? " 
 
 Jasper cast himself free, and fell upon his brother in blind 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 229 
 
 rage. They clenched in silence and swayed in each other s 
 arms. 
 
 " Curse you ! " muttered Jasper, as Philip forced him to 
 his knees. He caught fiercely at him, and, rising suddenly, 
 by sheer strength, ground Philip back inch by inch, and, 
 with an adroit twist, had all but thrown him. But Philip, 
 winning a fresh grip, cast him back against the wall, where 
 the candle leaped in a dying flame. Jasper s head struck 
 upon a point of rock. He fell heavily to the floor. They 
 had gone crashing into the candle together. It lay upon the 
 floor, extinguished. 
 
 In the darkness Philip stooped in horror, and thrust his 
 hand under his brother s clothing, feeling for the beating of 
 his heart. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE minutes lengthened as he crouched there in the still 
 ness, dazed and shuddering. In the silence he heard the 
 dull, regular stroke of a sledge upon a drill in the recesses 
 of the mine. His eyes seemed bursting in the darkness as 
 he strained them upon the still figure beneath his hands. 
 The blackness began to pale. The daylight, streaming 
 through the shaft, reasserted itself vaguely, and, with his 
 eyes, Philip devoured the motionless form. Its outlines slowly 
 discovered themselves in the sick uncertainty of the yellowing 
 light. 
 
 Steps drew near in one of the lateral galleries, and the 
 gleam of a candle suddenly floated over the white face. 
 Cutter laid a hand upon Philip s shoulder, and he looked 
 up, turning a drawn visage on him. 
 
 Cutter raised his candle, peering upon the prostrate figure ; 
 and as Philip gave way to him, bent above it, and, after a 
 moment s study, gave Philip his candle to hold and put 
 his ear to Jasper s heart. 
 
 "Pshaw! He s all right!" cried Cutter, in a cheerful 
 tone which shook Philip out of his labouring nightmare. 
 " Come ! let s have him in the bucket." 
 
 Philip stooped without a word, and they carried him to 
 the bucket, and stepping in, gave the signal. As they rose, 
 with their freight between them, Cutter caught out his hand- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 231 
 
 kerchief at sight of the wound on the head from which the 
 blood still flowed, and bound it up. 
 
 They laid him on the grass in the wide sunshine, at the 
 top. Philip fetched water and they dashed it in his face. 
 They loosened his collar, and plied him with brandy. He 
 stirred. 
 
 Philip, who had been bending over him, sprang up. 
 " Here, take this ! " he muttered hurriedly, pressing the 
 flask into Cutter s hands. Mike came up with a telegram 
 which had come from Cashier s the small railway station, a 
 mile from the " Snow Find." Philip tore it open, and with 
 a glance at it handed it over to Cutter. 
 
 " PINON, Dec. 22. 
 
 " The Ryan outfit have made a strike in the Little 
 Cipher. Assays $1,200 to the ton. You are a rich man. 
 Come at once to protect your interests. 
 
 " HAFFERTON." 
 
 " By Jove /" shouted Cutter as he read. " Did n t I tell 
 you ! " He rose in excitement. Jasper moaned uneasily. 
 
 " No," said Philip. 
 
 " Well, I told you the other thing. It s all the same." 
 
 " You told me that the Pay Ore was a great mine, and 
 that the * Little Cipher was no good," returned Philip. 
 His voice had a hollow sound. 
 
 Cutter looked at him. "Well?" exclaimed he im 
 patiently. And after a pause, " See here ! Will you take 
 my advice ? " he asked, laying a compelling hand on Philip s 
 listless arm. 
 
 " I don t know," returned Philip, out of the mazy seizure 
 into which the despatch seemed to have plunged him. 
 
 " You don t want to see this fellow when he comes to. 
 And you ought to be at Pihon by the first train that will 
 take you there. Take his horse over by the cabin, and 
 
232 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 catch the 11.12. It s only twenty-five minutes past ten 
 now, and you can make it on that horse of his with hard rid 
 ing. I ll send Mike after you to fetch back the horse, so 
 that it will be at the ranch when we get there." 
 
 " When you get there ? " repeated Philip. 
 
 "Yes; yes! Don t make objections, but start. The 
 Ryans will have time to play the deuce with you if you don t 
 start at once. I ll get Wilson to help me make up a bed 
 for him in the Studebaker wagon, and I ll drive him over to 
 the Triangle myself. I ll see him through. Don t bother ! 
 And get on that horse ! " 
 
 " Cutter ! " said Philip, in a tone of conviction, " you 
 are a brick ! " 
 
 He gave him his hand in a silent pressure, strode over to 
 Vixen, flung himself on her back, and with a wave of his 
 hand to Cutter, disappeared below the brow of the hill on 
 which the "Snow Find" buildings stood. 
 
 Jasper opened his eyes. 
 
 PHILIP saw the meeting hills, within which Maverick lay, 
 part before the climbing progress of his train, and then close 
 in behind it again, as they issued from the valley. The train 
 writhed upon itself, crossing and recrossing its track, snatch 
 ing an advantage where it could, and winning its way from 
 height to height by breathless climbs, by level tugs, in which 
 the engine seemed to fill its lungs, by stealthy curves, by 
 assaults. They stood at last, where a mountain side dropped 
 sheer away, below the rails, and, looking out from the dizzily 
 clambering train, Philip saw beneath a white world, out of 
 which the melancholy firs lifted their wailing arms in scat 
 tered companies. Ouray impended spectrally above the 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 233 
 
 opposite window for a moment ; and then the train was at 
 rest upon the summit, within the black hole which snow 
 closes at all seasons. The scene was the same to Philip s 
 heated sight within the tunnel and without : the monstrous 
 bulks of the interfolded hills, the vision of a white, tumul 
 tuous wilderness, desolately broken by rocks and pines, ran 
 upon his distracted sense like frost tracery, dissolving unin 
 telligibly as it shaped itself. 
 
 He was facing a new fact, with a thousand consequences, 
 and watched the marching panorama as one watches a play 
 in an unfamiliar tongue. He had only known his fact an 
 hour ; but a year s pain had gone into it, and a year s idle 
 wrestling. 
 
 The mine in which the Ryan outfit had struck a fortune 
 was Jasper s. 
 
 As the train pulled out of the tunnel, and slipped down 
 the first stretch of the descent on the other side of the 
 mountains, Philip dreamed in rage of the day in which 
 Jasper should take over with a silent smile the fortune he 
 had won for him. It was the twist too much in this devilish 
 business, he cried to himself, in speechless bitterness, as he 
 stared from the window again. The train swept into a 
 snowshed or burst out of one momently, and he took the 
 white and glistening sweep of the wilderness upon his 
 unseeing eyes in abrupt flashes. In the snowsheds where 
 the other passengers could not see, he beat the arm of his 
 seat in wrath. 
 
 He could bear that Jasper should give him no thanks for 
 the year he had divided between the two mines ; he could 
 bear that he should cheat him of his inheritance, and, in the 
 helpless tangle of fate in which that act had involved his 
 father and himself, and even Margaret, he could bear to owe 
 to Jasper the loss of his fathers trust. He could suffer this 
 and not attempt reprisal ; he could even feel how deeply, 
 
234 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 fatally wrong all reprisal must be. But he could not heap 
 a fortune on the man from whom he had borne all this. 
 
 He frowned on McCormick, as he threw his leg over the 
 pony he hired from him at Bayles Park, for the ride over the 
 Pass. 
 
 " Been gittin bad news ? " asked the hotel proprietor. 
 He had got the best of him in the bargain for the pony, and 
 could afford to be sympathetic. 
 
 " Heard of the strike up at Pifion ? " asked Philip with an 
 idle willingness to amuse his misery by what the man should 
 say. 
 
 " Don t mean the l Little Cipher ? " You ain t got nah- 
 thin to do th that, have you ? " 
 
 " I leased it to the Ryan outfit a couple of months ago." 
 
 " Why, shake ! " cried the hotel man with honest pleasure. 
 " You don t tell me ! They tell me it s a Josephus dandy. 
 Moshier come down the other day on his way to Leadville 
 you know Moshier and he said it was the biggest strike 
 they ve made at Pinon : the hull town s wild about it." 
 Philip conquered the envious pang for which he began to 
 despise himself. 
 
 " How long ago did Moshier say they made the strike ? " 
 he asked, to stifle his thoughts. 
 
 " Bout a week? Have you jist heard about it?" asked 
 the man interestedly. 
 
 " Yes, They were n t in a hurry to let me know." 
 
 " No nachully," mused his interlocutor. "Did they tell 
 you what it assayed? /heard $1,500." 
 
 Philip found a smile. " The assay ists get a little rattled 
 when somebody really strikes something, I ve noticed. 
 Trying to find pay ore in iron pyrites three hundred and 
 sixty-four days in the year dulls a man." 
 
 "Well, you take it easy," said McCormick admiringly. 
 He had spent a good part of his life on an Illinois farm 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 235 
 
 where things do not happen so often as they do in Colorado. 
 " If any one was to have asked me before you spoke up 
 about the Little Cipher bein yours " Philip winced "I 
 should have said you had been losin a near relation stid of 
 strikin it rich in a mine somethin a little nearer n an 
 uncle, and a little further than a father bout a brother, 
 say." McCormick laughed for enjoyment of his humour, 
 but he changed the subject at Philip s scowl. "Say, what 
 become of the pretty young lady and her father that you 
 come through with awhile ago, after the big storm?" And at 
 Philip s answer, "That s good," he said. "Glad to hear it. 
 She was lookin shaky. I was a little mite afraid she would n t 
 pull through. It was a close call you had up round the 
 Fifth Cascade, there. We ain t had such a storm since. Well, 
 better luck this time ! We can t afford to lose you, you know. 
 You ll be one of our millionaires, now. Come in and have 
 something before you start ! " he urged, in the overflow of 
 his hospitality. 
 
 Philip said it was too cold to get off his horse again, and 
 offered him a nip from his flask, if he must pledge him. They 
 drank together, McCormick praising the quality of Philip s 
 whisky. " One more ? Well I don t mind ! Here s to 
 the success of the Little Cipher and its owner." 
 
 " No," said Philip. He laid a hand on McCormick s up 
 lifted arm. "There are better toasts than that, McCormick. 
 Drink to the poor devils who have n t struck it rich ! " 
 
 " Oh, all right," returned McCormick, surprised. " To 
 the poor devils who have n t struck it rich, then ! That takes 
 in me," he added, as he smacked his lips. 
 
 Philip rode away and over the Pass with set teeth. Jasper 
 would be even richer than he had fancied brutally, damnably 
 rich ! It was the chance of mining : Jasper had won, and he 
 had lost, and it was the kind of chance for which he could 
 see himself being almost glad, under certain conditions ; he 
 
236 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 could not imagine himself grudging a brother a fortune, if 
 that were all. Very likely he could do more with a fortune 
 than he could : he had never learned how to use money, or 
 even how to keep it ; and at least there would be something 
 to say for the wisdom of the Fate which should pick out 
 Jasper rather than him for her money favours. But after all 
 that had passed, to choose him as the instrument of her 
 bounty, was an odious freak. Contrived in this way, he did 
 grudge the fortune to his brother and grudged it to him 
 savagely. He felt like howling in his rage to the canon walls, 
 as he thought that it was for this he had spent that cursed 
 year at Pifion. He thought of their fight in the mine. He 
 thought of what he had said to him, and now took none of 
 it back, as he had begun to take it back when he stooped 
 over him in the awful fear of what he had done. On the 
 whole he was glad that he had not known then what he knew 
 now : no one could say to what he might have been tempted. 
 The thing was too intolerable : to suffer the ignominy of 
 Jasper s swindle, to lose his future, to lose his father through 
 him, and to answer it all with a gift ! So did fools ! So did 
 the whining cowards who saw their account in it ! So did 
 the sort of men whom every fibre in Philip s nature went out in 
 contempt for. He pulled himself up with the irrelevant 
 thought that so did Christians. "And if any man smite thee 
 upon thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." One 
 knew what to think of that in these days. But of course it 
 was not meant for these days. The habit of intellectual 
 pity for those who took injunctions of this kind literally and 
 sought to make the impossible application of them to the 
 conditions of every-day life, rose to wash the whimsical 
 thought from its momentary lodgement. And yet, why not ? 
 There was a thought there. 
 
 There was no snow in front of the cave near the Fifth 
 Cascade when he reached it, though a heavy fall lay upon 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 237 
 
 the hills toward which his face was set. The thought of 
 Dorothy and of the days they had spent in the cave days 
 in which the friendly meeting of a common danger, and the 
 natural, candid, almost happy conditions of their situation 
 had drawn them together taught him a new pang. His 
 heart laboured thickly with the sudden pain of the thought 
 that she was lost to him. If he could still hope to restore 
 himself to his place in her thought when he recalled how 
 he had lost it through a sentiment of delicacy about Jasper, 
 he loathed himself what sort of man was he now to propose 
 marriage to any woman ? 
 
 He said to himself, with a smile of irony, that he was in 
 just the condition to tempt a woman to marriage whom 
 he had given reason to distrust and dislike him; and, 
 especially, he was in a state which commends itself, every 
 where, to the careful fathers of lovely girls, and would be 
 certain to commend itself to her money-loving father. 
 
 Not to put too fine a point upon it, he was a beggar ; and 
 a beggar, now, without hope. He saw, now, how he had 
 built upon the expectation that the Ryan outfit would strike 
 it rich in the " Pay Ore " ; he went back and told himself 
 that he should never have gone on seeing so much of Miss 
 Maurice if he had not made sure of this in his own 
 musings upon his future. His visible resources during the 
 time when he was seeing Miss Maurice every day, and for a 
 good part of every day, were contained in a leather trunk, 
 the worse for mountain travel on pack animals. But he 
 had been rich in confidence. He smiled wearily as he 
 remembered that he was always rich in that; if at any 
 moment of his life he could have realized the wealth that he 
 saw in " futures " he would seldom have needed to wonder 
 where he could borrow money to lend good fellows, or to 
 buy a useless third pony. It was an instinct with Philip to 
 want the third pony ; and an irresistible instinct to buy it 
 
238 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 when he lacked money for a new hat. In moments like 
 those he was enduring as he rode forward over the Pass 
 toward Pinon, he recognized these instincts for follies at 
 least as cordially as his wisest friend could have wished ; he 
 even said to himself that it was cold-blooded to have 
 borrowed that last money from Vertner for the purchase of 
 Dan ; but he excused himself by recalling that he had ex 
 pected the " Pay Ore " to do something for him then : it 
 only needed to be sunk deep enough, he remembered having 
 repeated to himself, when he was turning over in his mind 
 the idea of asking Vertner for the loan. But Dan was a 
 good horse and worth the money ; and, anyway, he felt 
 himself absolved by Vertner s own shrewdness. Even with 
 his talent for friendliness, Vertner would hardly have lent 
 him that amount just then if he had n t believed in the " Pay 
 Ore." Surely it was n t in the " Little Cipher " that he was 
 putting his trust ? 
 
 And at this he said to himself for the hundredth time, 
 that if any one liked that kind of humour, it was a pretty 
 stroke on the part of fortune, to have wheedled him and 
 every one who knew the situation existing at Pinon, into the 
 belief that she would one day give him a rich mine for 
 his portion ; and to keep her word in the fashion she had 
 chosen. She had struck it rich for him as she had engaged, 
 but she had struck it rich in Jasper s mine. 
 
 " That keep the word of promise to our ear, 
 And break it to our hope, " 
 
 he muttered to himself. Was it not even in his mine, that 
 she had uncovered the ore-bearing vein, if you would, ac 
 cording to the letter of her agreement his mine in trust : 
 his mine for Jasper ! 
 
 The thought was too bitter. He turned from it to wonder 
 sarcastically if Jasper s luck would hold in the search he 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 239 
 
 knew he would be making for his father, as soon as he was 
 able to be about again. It would be like the way things 
 had been going since his father had struck back at Jasper, if 
 he should find him, and revenge himself as Jasper would 
 know how to revenge himself. Ah, that was the mistake ! 
 It was useless to regret it now ; the thing was done. But 
 what, of all that had happened since, was not the fruit of it ? 
 It would have been a wise or a very hardy man who had 
 ventured to foretell what shape the sure train of evil must 
 take, when his father answered Jasper s blow with another ; 
 but a child could have foreseen the inevitableness of the 
 pursuing chastisement of all this horrid, fertile coil of wrong 
 begotten of wrong. Subtle, ingenious, pitiless by what 
 sureness of indirection, by what deadly certainty of straight 
 forward vengeance, the Law which his father had outraged 
 was taking its satisfaction ! Was it only nightmare ? Did 
 it not truly seem that the wrong which his father had dared 
 try to cure with wrong must go on helplessly begetting other 
 wrong, after its kind, and in its own image ? Philip felt as 
 if he were getting his Bible mixed ; but Nature seemed to 
 have her own idea of the eye for an eye doctrine : that was 
 what he was thinking. She did n t spare. 
 
 His thought ricochetted, in the aimless manner of 
 thoughts, toward the ever-recurring theme of his debts. 
 With his horse s head turned toward Pifion they became a 
 subject of immediate, of even pressing importance. What 
 was he to say to those fellows ? He had staved off men to 
 whom he owed money before ; but he had never made so 
 many promises about any other set of debts, nor broken so 
 many. The letters he had received lately from Pifion had 
 made him writhe ; for it is a curious truth that reminders 
 of debts contracted in carelessness about the means of 
 meeting them, are often felt to be more insulting than 
 reminders of the same nature conveyed to conscious inno- 
 
240 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 cence, whose cheque-book is in its pocket. Philip hated 
 the men to whom he owed money. They represented the 
 difficulty of life. Worse they stood for his weakness : 
 they were his weakness in material form. From this point 
 of view their mere existence was insulting. 
 
 He chose to hold in his pony after passing Laughing 
 Valley City. There was snow at this height, and he did 
 not wish to press the animal. Besides, a plan of getting 
 into Pinon after dark and up to his old cabin on Mineral 
 Hill, a plan of investigating the find at the " Little Cipher," 
 leaving Hafferton in charge, if he was still there, and getting 
 away again before the shopkeepers in the town below should 
 have the opportunity of representing disagreeable facts to 
 him, had been forming itself in his mind. 
 
 In the event Hafferton hailed him from the sidewalk as 
 he rode into the town, and Philip had to alight and walk 
 along with him, while he heard Hafferton s story. It was 
 an interesting story ; and they were at Hafferton s cabin, 
 and Philip had consented to stay the night with him, and 
 allowed his horse to be stabled in the burro shed, behind 
 the hut, before he knew. A party of four were playing cards 
 in the cabin which Hafferton had shared with the editor of 
 his old paper since he had returned to Pifion (his leased 
 mine at Leadville had ceased to pay lately) : and in the 
 doubtful light cast by two candles, set in a couple of whisky 
 bottles, Philip saw at once that one of the party was Charlie 
 White red-haired Charlie White, the newsdealer, whose 
 bill he knew by heart. 
 
 "How are you, Mordaunt?" he said, giving a listless 
 hand to the editor, who rose with his cards, and wrung his 
 hand. 
 
 " Lucky dog ! " said Mordaunt, in a hearty half-whisper, 
 which Philip felt was intended for congratulation. He half 
 withdrew the hand which Mordaunt was crushing ; and then 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 241 
 
 let it lie. They all rose from the table and crowded about 
 him, eager to snatch his hand. " Oh, come ! " cried Philip, 
 as his bones crunched upon each other in the grasp of a 
 hairy paw, " I can t interrupt the game." 
 
 " Game be blowed ! " replied the owner of the paw 
 cheerily. "What s the latest from the Little Cipher ? 
 That s a daisy strike of yours, Deed ! " 
 
 They liked the coolness with which Philip took his good- 
 fortune. When they heard that he had n t seen his mine 
 yet, they formed themselves into a committee on the spot, 
 to escort him to it in the morning. 
 
 " Better hire the * Silas R. Phinney brass band," said 
 Philip, sickly laying hold of the humorous view of the 
 situation ; and staying himself upon it, as the only perma 
 nent object in this lurching welter, while he went on to 
 chaff them. 
 
 None of them knew. But, of course ! Had he not known 
 that no one knew ? Yes, yes ! Oh, no doubt ! But he had 
 not fancied them ignorant in this way. He had expected. . . 
 Heaven knew what he had expected ! Or, yes he remem 
 bered what he must have expected. He had understood 
 vaguely that at Pinon they could not know the mine to be 
 Jasper s how should they ? They had never heard of Jasper. 
 It was all in his own name : both mines had been known in 
 Pinon as equally his : " Deed s mines ; " Philip Deed s 
 mines. Yes ; he had said this to himself; but never the 
 other thing : that they must think the " Little Cipher " his. 
 Was it too obvious, he wondered, now ? Had he been crazed 
 by Jasper s damnable good fortune ? Well, what matter ! 
 They thought the mine his. 
 
 A black suggestion the devil s plucked at him as he 
 stood among these fellows, giving back their congratulations 
 with dazed looks and half-hearted raillery. It came upon 
 him suddenly, fatally, as if this, too. were a fresh thought. 
 
 R 
 
24? BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 The thought was that Jasper knew no more than they. He 
 knew that he owned a mine at Pinon. But which ? 
 
 Philip turned pale, and tried to cry the truth at them. It 
 would not utter itself. Then some one proposed a toast to 
 the owner of the " Little Cipher," and when at last he lifted 
 his voice to explain their mistake at any cost, it was drowned 
 in the uproarious shout of congratulation. 
 
 But Philip was determined, now. He waited until he 
 could catch Charlie White away from the crowd; and 
 
 drawing him into a corner said, " That bill I owe you 
 
 " Oh, that s all right, man ! You did n t think I was 
 anyways worried about that, did you?" asked White 
 jovially. 
 
 " Yes. You have n t left me at a loss to understand that 
 you were worried." 
 
 " Oh, my letters ! " cried Charlie, waving them off mag 
 nificently. " You surely have n t been taking them seriously ! 
 What ? My little joking way ! Why, I thought you were 
 too much of a joker yourself not to understand a bit of 
 fun, like that, Mr. Deed ! " 
 
 " It is n t my idea of fun, Mr. White," retorted Philip, 
 reckless of consequences with a man whom he might have 
 to sue for indulgence the next minute. "I can t meet 
 your bill in cash at the moment," he went on haughtily. 
 " But if you will allow me to return the set of Thackeray, 
 and some of the other books in good bindings it s coming 
 Christmas, and you ll have a sale for them I can make a 
 small payment, on account, on the magazines and other 
 things I owe you for." 
 
 They spoke in an undertone ; but Philip felt that they 
 were watched by the others, who went on drinking, leaving 
 the new-made Mining King to his royal whim. 
 
 "Why, what the ?" began White; and Philip saw 
 
 that he had humiliated himself for nothing. Then, as if 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 243 
 
 taken with discretion, White went on " Why, pshaw, man 1 
 What s the use of talking ! Charlie White ain t the last 
 man to understand how a fellow can be hard up with a 
 leased mine where they ve only just struck the dust. I 
 don t want neither books, nor payment. Not I ! Why, 
 you must come down in the morning, after you ve been up 
 to your mine, and see what you want in our line. We won t 
 stand on the question of credit. Five years and no 
 questions asked is my motto with Mr. Deed." 
 
 If he could have drawn a cheque for $69.17 then and 
 there and handed it over to him, Philip would have an 
 swered this as he was aware that it ought to be answered. 
 The consciousness that he had less than $15 in cash in the 
 world ; and less than $10 in his trousers pockets, taught 
 him to parley with the situation, as it had often taught him to 
 parley with situations less vital. A wandering recollection 
 came to him of something he had been hoping to be able 
 to send Dorothy for Christmas something which he could 
 get at Charlie White s, on credit, as he faced, for a moment, 
 the opposite prospect of a suit. White would n t want his 
 books, nor the small sum on account, if he knew the truth : 
 he didn t need to glance at the hard lines under the smile 
 he was wearing at the moment, to understand this quite 
 clearly. What he would do would be to sue him, now that 
 he was within reach again ; and bring down the whole 
 howling pack of his creditors on him. It would be an 
 infernal row, and he should be spattered with a lot of mud. 
 Why not postpone the question until he could look into 
 the mine quietly, and take himself out of Pinon ? Then, 
 they were welcome to bay at his heels, if they liked : it 
 might amuse them and would n t hurt him. But to bring 
 it on himself while he was here. . . . The horror of the 
 temptation came over him again, and to shut out the vision 
 of the man that it sought to make him, he plunged into, 
 
 R 2 
 
244 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " Don t rely on the mine, White, if you know what s good 
 for yourself." 
 
 " Why not ? " asked White sharply. " You have n t 
 assigned your interest in it, have you ? " 
 
 Philip saw what was in his mind ; he was imagining that 
 he might have assigned his interest to avoid his creditors. 
 He might better risk the truth than that ; if that idea got 
 abroad to-night he might as well drop everything in the 
 morning and give himself up to his creditors. But he 
 knew that the moment when he was likely to risk the truth 
 was past, and in despair he said 
 
 " No. I have n t assigned it." 
 
 It occurred to him that he should have to send his gift to 
 Dorothy anonymously. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BEATRICE in these days was busy with her boy, who had 
 begun at the age of four to develop a profane habit of speech 
 which Vertner by turns laughed at and promised to punish 
 him for. He never did punish him, for he said the child 
 could n t help it ; he was bound to hear it all about him 
 from boys of his own age, in this rambunctious country ; it 
 was part of the country s routine of getting its growth ; 
 Edward the Second would forget all that if he was given 
 time. When Beatrice, in doubt of time s chastisement, 
 would punish the child with a grieving heart, herself, 
 Vertner would bring him consolatory candy, or promise 
 him a ride on mamma s pony, next time she came back 
 from a ride ; and this sort of promise he always carried 
 out. He was very fond of Edward the Second as he called 
 him, though Edward was sometimes very "bad," in the 
 phraseology of his mother especially when she was 
 about to set forth on her rides. The desertion pained his 
 young spirit, and though he was to be left with his nurse, he 
 would occasionally lie on the floor and kick, howling out 
 that he " hoped the pony would buck her off." This 
 pleased Vertner, too ; he would snatch him from the floor, 
 kicking, and having set him on his shoulder would inquire 
 vainly through the noise and dampness if he "wizshum 
 papa s boy ? " He would stay half an hour after Beatrice 
 
246 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 had gone to hold a romp with " son bun, Ned," as he called 
 him on these occasions, in a contempt of English which 
 seemed to soothe the boy ; he would stay in the face of 
 schemes ripening to their fall, and to the loss of plain 
 opportunities of rustle. Beatrice said he spoiled her 
 son. 
 
 "Spoil him ?" retorted Vertner. "I don t know about 
 that ; but I m spoiling his future. There won t be anything 
 left of his estate if I keep on this way. He lost me a couple 
 of hundred dollars yesterday ! Too late. Man could n t 
 wait. / don t know what we can tell him when he asks 
 what we ve done with his patrimonial acres. He would n t 
 believe me, I suppose, if I said I d had to cut off the 
 entail." 
 
 "Well, if you will stay at home with him, Ned, I wish 
 you d keep him out of the irrigating ditch ! " exclaimed his 
 wife irrelevantly. " That cold mountain water will give the 
 child his death, some day." 
 
 "Oh no!" said Vertner cheerfully. "Not unless he 
 bathes in it ! You have n t lived in the West as long as I 
 have, Trix, or you d know that paddling around in an 
 irrigating ditch can t hurt a Western born child. Some 
 hygienic star watches over the nativity of a young voter who 
 adds himself to the population of Colorado from .the start. 
 It s when the child comes West as a tenderfoot at 
 eighteen months, or so, that he dies of croup after his 
 first stolen wade under the cool shadows of the cotton- 
 woods." 
 
 Vertner won the last word by the usual unfairness of mak 
 ing her laugh. The idea of an umbrageous shade cast by 
 the sickly and spindling trees, which, in this dry climate, were 
 kept alive only by the ceaseless flow of the irrigating ditch 
 about their roots, was irresistible. But his wife followed her 
 own ideas of the training of Edward in a soberness which 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 247 
 
 had nothing to do with her toleration of her husband s 
 fooling. 
 
 Ernfield had been very ill after Margaret s departure, and 
 none of them had looked to see him again ; but he was out 
 now, once more, and, when patients did not press, would 
 sometimes join them in their rides. Dorothy was silently 
 kind to him ; and Beatrice and he talked together as they 
 always talked. Ernfield had not been able to bring him 
 self to renew his old habit of calling on Beatrice the 
 habit established before Margaret came but he went to 
 a poker party which Vertner gave, that Beatrice might 
 understand he was not staying away for any reason but 
 the one she must guess. He was sure she knew about his 
 feeling for Margaret, though he was equally sure that no 
 one else knew through her. He lost all his original pur 
 chase of chips at the poker party, and bought a second 
 supply of Vertner, who was banking and, by a quiet 
 system of play of his own, winning the better part of 
 the small stakes for which they were playing. Poker parties 
 were the fashion in Maverick this year : they often took 
 place on Saturday nights ; it was entirely good form for the 
 ladies to play, it being only understood, (the casuistry was 
 their own,) that their winnings belonged to the plate at 
 church the next morning. 
 
 Kiteva Snell did not approve of poker parties ; but per 
 ceiving that the fashion was setting against her in this, she 
 let Cutter teach her one night he would sometimes amuse 
 himself with the ghost of a flirtation to assure himself how 
 wholly he still belonged to Elsa ; his only rule being never to 
 flirt with a girl he respected and a few days later she gave 
 a poker party herself. Every one went everywhere in Mave 
 rick. There was a rigid theory of caste, of course, but it 
 existed chiefly in the confidences exchanged between the 
 ladies who held themselves to be not as other ladies. There 
 
248 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 was, in fact, as everywhere in the West, too little amusement 
 of any sort to permit one to allow one s self the luxury of 
 rejection, or differentiation. 
 
 When Mrs. B. Frank Butler sent out invitations to a 
 " pink tea," however, some of the ladies debated as to 
 whether the line might not perhaps exist somewhere between 
 the railway track, and Mrs. Butler. This lady, who was the 
 wife of one of the railway conductors, lived across the bridge 
 spanning the mountain river flowing between the track 
 and the town much worse, beyond the track itself ; and 
 was reputed to have married her submissive but clever 
 husband three years earlier in Indiana, because she 
 thought she saw the making of a division superintend 
 ent, or general passenger agent under his freight con 
 ductor s jacket. As a matter of fact, her own ambition and 
 resolution had urged him so far on the way to one of these 
 offices as the position of passenger conductor may be 
 she having insisted that he could find such a place in the 
 West until he had left his position on the Indiana road 
 out of sheer weariness of her insistence. He often said 
 that he did not see what he had gained, as he had for 
 feited a place worth $60 a month for a place worth $90, 
 and had at the same time doubled, by his movement West, 
 the cost of living. Mrs. Butler s answer to this was the 
 purchase of a sealskin sacque (short, and possibly not quite 
 new, but indubitably seal) with which to sustain the dignity 
 of her new position as the wife of a passenger conductor. 
 
 " You never know who may see you," she said (it was not 
 clear whether she had the president of the road in her mind, 
 or the receiver, who was just then the more important 
 functionary), "and I m sure the impression a man s wife 
 makes is often half the battle." 
 
 It was out of this feeling, of which she made no secret, 
 that she gave her pink tea ; and the two or three ladies 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 249 
 
 who had doubted came at last, to humour it, as they said. 
 Philip was away upon one of his searches for his father, but 
 Dorothy, as the daughter of Mrs. Butler s clergyman was 
 there, and Beatrice, in her capacity of social representative 
 of Vertner s universal good humour, was there also. The 
 men came in after the tea, and were allowed oysters. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I PLEASE myseif by thinking of Dorothy just at this time 
 as the centre of all the young sentiment gathered about her. 
 In the East, where we know that things are not what they 
 were, a young girl is no longer likely to be called upon to 
 choose among three lovers, a privilege which ought probably 
 to be the inalienable right of every nice girl on both sides of 
 the Continental Divide. But the eager army of adventurous 
 spirits who populate the West, crossing the Mississippi at an 
 age at which a nice girl seems much the nicest thing there is, 
 are apt to find her the rarest product of the country; and to 
 hold her in proportionate esteem. That one man should 
 alone be in the secret of her niceness would, under Western 
 conditions, be a painful extravagance; and though the in 
 stinct of the West is not for economy, it is never, in this 
 regard, other than frugal. By a fortunate provision of Nature 
 the pretty contest between the members of a group of young 
 ranchmen, or mining engineers, or the galliard lieutenants 
 stationed at a frontier fort, cannot go on for ever, else the 
 nicest girl might finally lack niceness enough to go around. 
 She usually mobilizes her straggling lines of amiability, and 
 throws them upon a single knight, after a time, and if they 
 hardily resolve to undertake the Western experiment together 
 she commonly finds, during the first year or two, that she 
 needs all her niceness to keep the experiment going. Some 
 times she returns to the East, and marries, in the end, some 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 251 
 
 humdrum New Yorker or Bostonian. In cases like this she 
 leaves a reproachful sentiment of regard behind her, which 
 half a dozen agreeable young fellows may share without enmity 
 until the next young girl comes from the East to divide their 
 good-will ; and she often takes with her a romantic regret : 
 she sees how the West, or, at least, these young Westerners 
 need her, or some one not too unlike her ; she pities their un 
 friended, unfeminized lot; she thinks how, if she were braver, 
 she should have courage to share it with them ; and after 
 her humdrum marriage she has moments of despising the 
 weak-heartedness which withheld her from sharing it with 
 them. Fifth Avenue is a long way from the Rocky Moun 
 tains: through the mist of distance in miles and in years she 
 finds it easy to imagine herself suffering the West for love 
 of one Jack or Harry if she had only loved him enough 
 and she keeps a perfumed corner of her memory for the 
 real romance that clings about the whole great, rude, un 
 spoiled country beyond the Mississippi : the romance which 
 seized her young girl s fancy, even more than the battalion 
 of young men, and which makes the unceasing and inex 
 haustible interest of the West. 
 
 Dorothy s heart and her conscience were sadly occupied, 
 as, with Jack by her side, she went her parish-visiting way 
 some days following the encounter of the brothers at the 
 " Snow Find." She had heard nothing of this as yet. 
 Her trouble was an ill-starred instance of the imperfection 
 of the frank and abundant Western love-making. Dick, 
 whom she liked so much, Dick who had been so generous 
 and tireless a friend to her, in ways unknown to any 
 friendliness but the very kindest, Dick who had come 
 to her rescue in one of the most difficult hours of her 
 life, and had ever since been beyond all saying good to 
 her and to her father Dick wanted to marry her ! The 
 fact, when it was fully explained to her, almost caused 
 
252 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 her to revolt from the whole institution of marriage. Why 
 should Dick want to marry her ? Why could he not remain 
 her dear, her very excellent, her never-to-be-enough praised 
 or liked friend ? Why must the tiresome question of love 
 perpetually rise to haunt the fine and cheering and noble 
 friendship which might bind men to women, if men were 
 different ? 
 
 She saw this to be childish, or even pettish, but it was a 
 deep feeling in her. If it was wrong, she felt that she was 
 wrong deeply, painfully, wrong. If every social motion 
 between young men and young women must be conceived 
 as charged with meaning as trembling toward love, or 
 away from it, the whole affair of a young girl s relation to a 
 young man became intolerable a game of hide-and-seek, 
 or puss-in-a-corner, unworthy of rational beings. If she 
 must measure her glances, or qualify her hand-clasps, or 
 weary herself with the question of relative cordiality to this 
 man or that, it would be a happiness to be delivered from 
 the whole problem of marriage, or no-marriage. All 
 Dorothy s free, gay, generous nature recoiled from this 
 conception of her relation to anybody whatever. The 
 heartiness, the instinct of good comradeship which differen 
 tiated her from other women, affected her with a contempt 
 for this hair-splitting code, which forbade, and made a 
 shameful thing of the major part of the natural, candid, 
 human instincts of her heart toward men. She could not 
 help grieving for Dick poor Dick ! but she would not 
 allow herself to be sorry for the pleasant days which had 
 led to this. It had been very pleasant to her his friend 
 ship ; and if it was at an end (at least on the old, kindly, 
 unconscious ground), it was not her fault, but her great 
 misfortune. She could not see, as girls often see remorse 
 fully, in such cases, with no better reason, how she had 
 been to blame. Was she to have imagined, then, that Dick 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 253 
 
 was in love with her ? She said to herself indignantly that 
 no such discreditable and vexatious thought about Dick 
 could ever have entered her head. But as the full meaning 
 of Dick s passion for her made its way into her conscious 
 ness, her heart bled for him, in perceiving how just this 
 frame of mind, on her part, must lend poignancy to his 
 regret. That she found him impossible and incredible as a 
 lover, was not a thing to console his lonely sorrow at 
 Laughing Valley City. It was to Laughing Valley that he had 
 returned the day before with a gentle air of asking forgive 
 ness for having spoiled their relation, which went to her 
 heart. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " she said to herself, as she caught sight of 
 Vertner coming toward her down a side street. " He will 
 find some good girl after a while who will see how splendid 
 he is, as I do, and will love him besides. The worst is, we 
 never can be friends again ! " 
 
 Vertner, as he joined her at the corner, asked if he might 
 walk along with her ; and then inquired where she was 
 going. Dorothy said she was going on a round of duty 
 calls, but that she was glad to see him : she wanted to ask 
 him about his plan for enlisting her father in the publication 
 of a Church paper. She spoke anxiously, and Vertner had 
 his unfailing cheerfulness ready for her. 
 
 " Oh, that s all right," he said. " It s a wonderful field. 
 Its curious some clever chap has n t worked it before." 
 He was distributing his happy, indomitable little smile, as 
 they walked, to every one they met. Dorothy, who had 
 come to know a great many people in Maverick herself, by 
 this time, was surprised and amused by the extent of his 
 bowing acquaintance. She said he seemed very neigh 
 bourly ; and Vertner laughed. Oh, yes, he owned, a man 
 had to know everybody. There was no telling what business 
 he would be wanting to go into, one of these beautiful 
 
254 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Colorado days ; and perhaps from a willingness to avoid 
 plumbing the depths of his Church paper scheme with her, 
 he called upon her to admire the unwearying and systematic 
 goodness of the Colorado weather, and insisted upon the 
 admission that there was no place in the world for a man to 
 settle in like Maverick. * I used to think Leadville was 
 about right," he said, with a smile which admitted her into 
 his professional insincerity, " but that was when I owned 
 more corner lots in Leadville than I do now." 
 
 " No, but about the paper " began Dorothy, again. 
 
 And, as if it had slipped his mind, " Oh, yes, about the 
 paper ! " he exclaimed ; and changed the subject. 
 
 Dorothy had intended to make her first call on Miss 
 Kiteva Snell ; but, perceiving that Vertner hoped that she 
 would be obliged to leave him before they had definitely 
 arrived at the subject of the paper, she changed her course, 
 determining to begin with Mrs. Felton, who lived much 
 further out, not far from the river road. 
 
 " Why, you see it s this way," said Vertner, when he 
 found that he must make a virtue of necessity. " There s 
 no diocesan paper ; and your father and I thought it would 
 be a good thing to start one." Dorothy laughed boldly at 
 Vertner s use of the word <{ diocesan " ; if she had not 
 been much concerned about her father s share in the paper, 
 she would have taken time to be amused by the idea of 
 Vertner as the publisher of a Church journal a function 
 which he presently explained that he was to assume, if her 
 father decided to go into the enterprise, and would accept 
 the post of editor. 
 
 It appeared that this was to be a weekly " a little weekly 
 for a cent," Vertner called it ; it was really to be very small, 
 but was to be sold at rather less than a cent, in quantities, 
 to the various congregations of the diocese. " We ll take in 
 New Mexico and Wyoming after a while ; but we thought 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 255 
 
 of beginning with Colorado," said Vertner, modestly. " In 
 these missionary dioceses, you know," Dorothy could not 
 help admiring the glibness with which he used his second 
 hand knowledge procured, she felt sure, from her father, 
 " they have n t got around to the little diocesan papers that 
 are so common in the East. But all dioceses need them. 
 They are popular with the Bishops because it gives them a 
 channel for direct communication with all the people of 
 their dioceses appointments, pastoral letters, and all that, 
 you know ; they are popular with the priests," (Dorothy 
 wished not to be irreverent, but she was forced to smile at 
 Vertner s confident use of her father s high-church word,) 
 " because we print a special edition for each church, with 
 local announcements, and the people like them because 
 they get them for nothing." 
 
 "For nothing?" inquired Dorothy, not understanding 
 how her father was to profit by such an arrangement. 
 
 "Well, the same thing. They feel as if they got them 
 for nothing. Of course each church will subscribe as a 
 body, but the papers will be distributed every Sunday in the 
 pews, free. Every church will subscribe. We sha n t stick 
 them very much for the paper by the hundred." 
 
 " But how do you expect to make your fortune, Mr. 
 Vertner, by that plan and papa s ? I suppose you intend 
 to make your fortune ? " she asked, with twinkling eyes. 
 
 Vertner smote his hands together with delight. He was 
 wearing a pair of sealskin gloves, and the concussion made 
 a resounding noise. " Yes, yes ! " he cried, generously 
 enjoying his foible with her. " Of course ! What are we 
 here for?" 
 
 " For your health, Mr. Vertner ? " suggested Dorothy 
 roguishly, under her breath. 
 
 Vertner smiled with her. " I m afraid it would n t do to 
 trust you with our scheme for making a go of this thing," 
 
256 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 he said, looking at her with admiration. " You might un 
 derstand it." 
 
 " Thanks." 
 
 " It s a good scheme," he said, fondly. " Do you think 
 I could trust you ?" 
 
 " To misunderstand it ? " 
 
 " No not to go and give it away to the big advertisers." 
 They laughed together at this, and Vertner said he thought 
 he could rely on her friendliness to her father to keep her 
 from indiscreet revelations, and explained how they he 
 always implicated her father, Dorothy observed, with interest 
 were only going to charge for advertising in proportion to 
 the circulation, and were only going to charge a cent a line 
 per thousand of circulation, at that. 
 
 " But that is worse and worse," cried Dorothy. " I don t 
 see but you are sure to lose money. You are taking every 
 precaution." 
 
 " Um," meditated Vertner, with a cheerful smile. " Strikes 
 you that way, does it ? Well, it does most every one, to tell 
 the truth. I ve mentioned the idea to half-a-dozen men in 
 Denver who do a good deal of advertising, and that s what 
 they said. They asked me if I couldn t corner enough 
 annual ruin in mines without monkeying with Church news 
 papers, at a cent a line, and prove your circulation by 
 monthly affidavits ? I had to do a little fright at that, of 
 course, as if that view of the case had n t occurred to me. 
 Your intuition, Miss Maurice," he said, making her a 
 flattering bow, " taken in connection with their business 
 judgment, makes me feel happy about the scheme. So 
 you think your father and I would drop our molasses jug if 
 we went into the Church Kalendar on that basis ? " 
 
 "No, Mr. Vertner," returned Dorothy, with an un 
 perturbed face, which Vertner resisted an inclination to 
 applaud, " if you say there is a fortune in it, I shall get my- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 257 
 
 self a new pair of gloves to-day. I m sure you always 
 know when you are going to make a fortune." 
 
 " Ah, that makes two persons who believe in me ! " ex 
 claimed Vertner. " The other is a man in Denver who 
 dropped to my scheme. He fell ofT a ten-story building on 
 it. It was glorious. I chummed with him for an hour like 
 a brother, and swore him to secrecy." 
 
 " Oh, please chum with me like a sister, Mr. Vertner ! " 
 
 " Shall I ? Well, the man said it was too pretty a 
 scheme to give away. I believe you ll have the same 
 feeling," he said with a reverence which he failed in bur 
 lesquing. " You see " 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, we don t make any guarantees about the cir 
 culation. It may be small or it may be large." He 
 paused for the effect. 
 
 "But " began Dorothy, not finding herself more 
 illuminated. 
 
 " Well ! We make them take out a yearly contract in 
 consideration of the lowness of the price." 
 
 " But still I don t see," cried Dorothy. 
 
 " Don t you ? How many subscribers do you think we 
 shall have at the end of six months ? " 
 
 " I don t know," returned Dorothy, laughing. " Five 
 thousand ? " 
 
 " What ! Five cents a line ! Do you want to starve us ? 
 The circulation at the end of the first half year will be a 
 quarter of a million. How many churches do you suppose 
 there are in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, 
 Montana, Dakota, Washington, Oregon, California and 
 Nevada?" He rolled off the portentous list with en 
 joyment. Dorothy again replied that she did not know. 
 " Well, neither do I," owned Vertner frankly; "but there 
 
 s 
 
258 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 must be a quarter of a million regular attendants at those 
 churches at a low calculation. Now do you see ? " 
 
 Dorothy laughed aloud. " And are you going to make 
 every one of those people subscribe to the Church 
 Kalendar ? " she asked. 
 
 "I m going to give it to them ! " replied Vertner. And 
 at Dorothy s look of bewilderment, " On a bona-fide sub 
 scription plan, of course. We ll arrange that with the 
 rectors. But you see the point, perhaps ? " 
 
 " With the advertisers ? " faltered Dorothy. 
 
 Vertner nodded, happily. " But will they will they 
 like it? " asked Dorothy. 
 
 " Well, I don t believe they will renew their contracts 
 for the second year," admitted Vertner sententiously. 
 
 Dorothy did not instantly see her way through the sinu 
 osities of this ingenious plan ; but she thought she was sure 
 that there was a lurking wrong to somebody involved in it. 
 She reserved this for her father, however. She meant to 
 ask him all about it, and to beg him, whatever the honesty, 
 and whatever the promise of the enterprise, not to share in 
 it. She doubted all projects for making money, prima facie. 
 She had not merely a woman s conservatism about finance ; 
 she had the timidity of all who live on a stated income ; 
 and to this she added a rooted distrust of her father s 
 financial capacity. It was the only distrust she allowed 
 herself regarding him ; and even this was affectionate : how 
 should such a man be skilled in the ways of trade ? 
 
 She formed a project of asking Jasper to advise him not 
 to engage in the plan. She knew that her father respected 
 Jasper s judgment ; and perhaps he would suffer himself to 
 be persuaded by him on the business side, when her own 
 remonstrances would not avail. Jasper and her father had 
 been even more intimate since the renewal of their acquaint 
 ance in Maverick than she remembered them in the old 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 259 
 
 days ; Jasper had once come and sat out the evening with 
 her father in his study, smoking a pipe, only looking 
 in on her to say "Good night." Possibly Jasper would 
 go into it with him ; that would make it safe, for she 
 was sure that any business project of which Jasper approved 
 and to which he gave his mind must prosper. But she was 
 in a moment not sure that she wished this. She would 
 not say to herself all that this thought implied to her 
 own consciousness. She shrank from putting it before 
 herself, as she had begun to shrink lately from her pre 
 visions of the final outcome of her present singular relation 
 to Jasper. She had said to herself that she must bring 
 the matter to an end, but she had not yet found the 
 hardihood for that, and meanwhile she felt herself being 
 surrounded, she had the sense of being softened and 
 drawn to him by a slow, certain process, like the fatal 
 eating of the sea into a rock. Jasper s will was in itself a 
 reason for anything that he strongly wished : through all the 
 strength of her own will, she felt this. Sometimes she felt 
 it insupportably, and it was at such times that she said to 
 herself that she must end it. Alas ! it is really only the 
 man who can put an end to such a situation. A woman 
 can only make her way out of it by a violence, an un- 
 womanliness. From all that could be held unwomanly 
 Dorothy shrunk with much more reluctance than from 
 anything that the situation into which Jasper had contrived 
 to bring her with himself could have to offer; and she 
 helplessly let the affair lapse and drift. 
 
 Thinking of Jasper led her to speak of him ; and 
 Vertner s extraordinary interest in the subject was causing 
 her a vague wonder, when they met Dr. Ern field, driving 
 back to Maverick from a professional visit which he had 
 been paying at Loredano. He drew up to the sidewalk and 
 they paused to speak to him. Dorothy thought, sadly, that 
 
 S 2 
 
260 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 he was looking very weak and ill again. Dorothy had last 
 seen him at Beatrice s card party, where he was looking much 
 stronger than now ; and she was grieved by his appearance 
 of illness. She begged him to come and see her ; she said 
 she was in shockingly good health, but she would come 
 down with any new and unstudied disease that he liked, if 
 he would not come without that. But she hoped he would. 
 
 Ernfield said he should be glad to come without excuse, if 
 she would let him. He had often seen Dorothy at Mrs. 
 Vertner s while Margaret was in Maverick ; and twice since 
 Margaret had gone, he had been to the Maurices cottage : 
 once to see Maurice himself, when he had been suffering 
 from a bad cold, and once again to call on them, with no 
 business reason. Dorothy s cordial freedom, her sweetness, 
 and the candid openness with which she lavished herself on 
 him when he came, were not things which any one could 
 fail to like and certainly were not things which a man in his 
 position could be other than grateful for. When he had 
 last seen her he had scorned himself for the stealthy pain 
 which ventured to show its head at the thought that it was 
 only to a man out of the running that a woman could ven 
 ture to be as good as that ; and he was willing to go again to 
 punish himself for the thought, by enjoying her kindness as 
 whole-heartedly as it was offered. Surely, in so far as any 
 one could imply by words said, and left unsaid, that he was 
 a robust marcher in the ranks with the rest, with a brave, 
 rich, life before him, she implied it, with her woman s tact. 
 It was himself he must accuse ; and he did it handsomely, 
 as Dorothy, with the yearning painted on her face, in spite of 
 herself, to do something for him, to somehow give him a lift, 
 to cheer and comfort him, begged him to come and see her. 
 
 Vertner asked the news at Loredano. How was the 
 strike Pope had made in the " Nugget " coming on ? And 
 had Metuchen driven his bunch of cattle over into Bayles 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 261 
 
 Park for the winter? It was part of the kindliness and 
 inbred courtesy, which oddly mingled themselves with other 
 qualities in Vertner, that he forebore to follow Dorothy s 
 suggestion with one of his hearty invitations to Look in on a 
 fellow, once in a while, won t you ? He did not care any 
 thing about Pope s mine, or Metuchen s cattle ; but he felt 
 the obligation to bridge the gap. Ernfield did not want 
 to be asked to that house of painful reminders, he knew ; 
 and he didn t even want to be reminded that anybody 
 was taking care not to remind him. 
 
 Ernfield, after a word of inquiry about Dorothy s church 
 work, which had always seemed to interest him, drove on, 
 turning back to say that he had met Mrs. Vertner coming 
 out of Mrs. McDermott s house, on the river road : they 
 would meet her if they went on. Fred Kelfner, who 
 occupied his usual seat beside the doctor, lifted his hat to 
 Dorothy as Ernfield whipped up his horse. 
 
 They were out of the town now, and walking toward the 
 mountains against the brisk wind which often blows at 
 these altitudes. Ouray was behind them, but on their 
 right the long serrated rib of the Sangre de Christo range 
 cut the fiery welter of the western sky. The range hung a 
 curtain before the setting sun, which went on shining behind 
 it. Over the white flanks of the sweep of hills walling the 
 other side of the valley there began presently to spread a 
 tender, subtle, infinitely delicate glow, like a maiden s 
 blush, which is and is not. 
 
 Vertner talked gaily on, in the wind ; but the still peace 
 and beauty in which the hills lay about her, and a flying 
 rack of thoughts within her mind, kept Dorothy quiet. She 
 began to wish that she had not set out to make a round of 
 visits : she had come out to escape, if she could, from her 
 miserable thoughts about Dick, but she had not lost them, 
 and this new trouble about her father, about Jasper, seemed 
 
262 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 to connect itself with the other, and to agglutinate the 
 whole into that single mass of vexation which will some 
 times cloud over a day or an hour for the lightest-hearted. 
 
 She would have turned back, but she bethought herself 
 of Mrs. Felton, for whom she had set out, and who, she 
 knew, was battling with a misery of her own, which her 
 visit might lighten momently, perhaps. She did not say to 
 herself that to solace Mrs. Felton s homesickness might be 
 a roundabout way of helping herself to climb a little out of 
 her own depths ; though she knew, well enough, that the 
 only real happiness lay, and must always lie, in some one 
 else s happiness. 
 
 Mrs. Felton had lately come to Maverick from Philadelphia 
 as a bride having married a capital young fellow, originally 
 from the same city. He had founded a prosperous Real 
 Estate and Insurance business in Maverick within the year, 
 and had lately been encouraged by his success to return to 
 the East long enough to marry the faithful and charming girl 
 who had waited four years for him. She was just passing 
 through the first homesick time in which young wives, fresh 
 from certain traditions of the East, sit in puzzled and miser 
 able helplessness before the conditions of Western life. Mrs. 
 Felton felt that the desolation, the strangeness, the hideous- 
 ness of her first month in Maverick the month which she 
 had looked forward to as the happiest of her life had left a 
 permanent mark on her. She wondered whether they would 
 see it in her eyes at home when she went back. But she 
 was determined that they never should. They had told her 
 that it would be something like this, not guessing, in their 
 ignorance, a thousandth part of the fact, but prophesying in 
 the cheerful manner of kinsfolk, before one s marriage. They 
 should never know how she had realized their prophecies. 
 
 She planned to confide the truth to Jessie Kidder, who 
 was betrothed to a young man who had just left Harvard, 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 263 
 
 and had gone to Dakota to start a horse ranch ; she planned 
 to warn her under the seal of confidence. It was wrong to 
 let a young girl venture upon such a future blindly. Jessie 
 would be dazed and troubled by what she should say to her ; 
 but she heard her answering that she did n t care ; that she 
 was not marrying to live in this place or that, but for love 
 of her husband, who would be sufficient for her anywhere. 
 And then Mollie Felton saw how she must tell her that that, 
 too, was a mistake : that what she said was true enough, in 
 a way, and more than true enough. She herself had never 
 been so happy. No. But then, she had never been so un 
 happy. She perceived that it would be useless ; but if she 
 ever got home again she no longer really believed that 
 they should ever be free to retraverse all those dreary miles 
 of rail she should tell her. It was a duty. 
 
 Mrs. Felton was of course not very well seen in Maverick. 
 She was thought too Eastern ; too exclusive. She had an 
 honest hatred of gossip, and, in other ways, had not proved 
 as " adaptable " as some of the ladies could desire. It was 
 reported that she had once said that she did not think her 
 self better than her butcher ; but different. And opinions 
 like this separated her from such society as there was in 
 Maverick, and had helped to make her first month difficult. 
 Dorothy understood her trouble exactly : when she had first 
 come to the West she had passed through a time not very 
 unlike Mrs. Felton s, herself. Even in the midst of her 
 week or two of homesickness, however, she had been able to 
 see it, partly, as the joke it was ; and when she was better of 
 it, the humour of the whole Western situation had soon so 
 penetrated her that she remembered her first feeling about 
 the West, now, only as a sentiment which she could call up, 
 at need, to assist her sympathy for another in like case. She 
 did not pretend to delight in the West, now, as Kiteva Snell 
 did ; but she was busy, she was absorbed in making the 
 
264 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 West bearable to her father (who hated it), she was up to 
 her eyes in the business of tempering the situation to him, 
 in the enterprise of making him happy, and for herself she 
 had ceased to care very definitely. One was happy anywhere 
 where one had an absorbing occupation ; and it was this 
 wisdom that she was presently preaching to Mrs. Felton, 
 when she had left Vertner with Beatrice, whom they met 
 near Mrs. Felton s house. 
 
 Mrs. Felton had often accompanied them on their rides 
 lately, and Dorothy pretended that it was to invite her to 
 join Beatrice and Ernfield and herself in a ride on the 
 morrow that she had called. 
 
 Mrs. Felton was not like the pretty little Jewess, upon 
 whom Dorothy called next, unhappy because she " did so 
 miss the matinees" Mrs. Felton s homesickness, if pas 
 sionate, was not fantastic. Dorothy did not ask Mrs. Stern 
 (who for an occult reason, of the sort that no one thought 
 of questioning in Maverick, chose to go to Maurice s church) 
 why she did not complain of the indigestibility of the clay 
 in Lone Creek Valley ; but a number of impossible questions 
 were on her lips. 
 
 At Kiteva Snell s the atmosphere was amusingly different. 
 The Snells, of whom Kiteva was most in evidence, socially, 
 were very happy about themselves and the West. Miss 
 Kitty, in particular, would hear nothing against any State 
 West of the Mississippi, and she kept alive a fine enthusiasm 
 about Maverick and its future which had the fire and the 
 taking largeness of a sentiment of patriotism. She had not 
 seen New York, and did not care to; but she knew and 
 loved the Omaha of her birth, though she could seldom be 
 persuaded to go so far East, when her fathei would go on 
 his pass. She was glad to remember that even her name 
 was Western, for she had been christened Kiteva in honour 
 of a summer resort for the people of Chicago, which her 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 265 
 
 father had been engaged in booming, at the time of her 
 birth. It was a regretable fact that the books she wanted 
 to read were, for the most part, published in New York or 
 Boston, and she could only balance this misfortune by 
 ordering them through the local newsdealer (there was not 
 a bookseller in Maverick), in order that " the money," as the 
 Western phrase is, " might not go out of the town." It hap 
 pened also that the centre of her present intellectual life had 
 its physical habitation on the shores of a New York lake ; but 
 she tried not to remember that the advantages of the 
 "Chautauqua Literary Association" were derived from 
 Jamestown. 
 
 Kiteva had acquired her fondness for reading at a Toledo 
 boarding school, where one could acquire a glossy coat of 
 Culture in three years, with diligence. Kiteva had used the 
 diligence, and when Dorothy first knew her, she was in the 
 earlier maturity of that habit of exactitude and impeccability, 
 which are the very things for general conversation. Her a 
 in u squalor " was quite, quite long, and she pronounced 
 her "Asia" between her teeth, with the alluring sibilant 
 effect : Ada. She accented her " le-gis-lative " on the second 
 syllable, and could pronounce a great many words just as 
 they are in the Dictionary, without smiling. Nothing, 
 though, was so nice in her conversation as her elegant habit 
 of bridling the shambling looseness of our common speech 
 in colloquial phrases, like "couldn t you," which she 
 prettily replaced with "could not you," and the sloven 
 " a-tall," to which she restored its printed aspect so that 
 " at all," with a proper fence between, lived again. Her 
 favourite books of reference were The Orthcepist, A 
 Thousand Words often Mispronounced, and The Verbalist. 
 Her vade mecum, however, was Don t, and it is fair to say 
 that Miss Snell did n t. 
 
 Kiteva did not talk of the things of the mind, as she 
 
266 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 called them, with Dorothy ; she talked of Jasper a little 
 persistently, Dorothy thought. She had heard that he had 
 returned, and had seen him ride by from her window, but 
 had not yet met him face to face since his return. How 
 was he looking ? Had he enjoyed his visit to New York ? 
 He seemed very fond of the ranch, and of his work there. 
 He had done wonders with it. She quoted sayings of 
 Jasper ; she rehearsed incidents of the time before Dorothy 
 came to Maverick. She gave the impression of having 
 known Jasper very well. Dorothy wondered if this was 
 the kind of young lady with whom he occupied his leisure 
 when she was not near. 
 
 She left Kiteva a little abruptly at last ; and took her 
 way back to her own end of the town with a vague feeling 
 of weariness tightening about her heart. Too many things 
 had happened to-day; there was too much to think of. 
 Her head went round in a whirl. 
 
 She entered her own home with Jack, at last, on the verge 
 of tears. The day and the world seemed to have gone hope 
 lessly wrong. Her father, who had learned to interpret the 
 signs of suppressed emotion in her, patted her hand quietly 
 as, with her hat and jacket still on, she took her accustomed 
 seat in his study, on the arm of his big leather chair. 
 
 " Well, little girl, what is it ? " he asked, laying down the 
 volume of Guy de Maupassant he had been reading. 
 
 " Oh, I don t know, father ! I don t know. I wish you 
 would n t go into this paper of Mr. Vertner s," she said 
 abruptly. 
 
 " But my dear young woman ! " He smiled vaguely 
 
 at her. 
 
 " He told me all about it this afternoon. I don t 
 believe," she told him, stroking his beard, as she bent over 
 him, " that you know as much about the Church Kalendar 
 as I do, papa. Ask Mr. Vertner about his advertising ; and 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 267 
 
 his his scheme, as he calls it. It is n t nice. It is just 
 like you, papa, not to have looked into the details of it, at 
 all ; and to have accepted the idea because Mr. Vertner 
 says it is a good one." 
 
 " Pshaw ! pshaw ! There s nothing wrong with the idea, 
 child. What do you know of papers, Dorothy ? " He got 
 up and went over to the upright piano which filled a corner 
 of the study. 
 
 This room, in which Maurice wrote his sermons, and 
 played on his piano, was the largest in the house, and occupied 
 the whole front of the second story. Dorothy never inter 
 rupted him here in the mornings, when the superstition was 
 that he was hammering out his sermons ; but she often 
 spent the evenings with him in its smoke-laden atmosphere. 
 Sermon writing, with Maurice, required the consumption of 
 a number of Havanna cigars, and was accompanied by a 
 good deal of Sullivan and Offenbach on the piano. Dorothy 
 would hear him playing and singing snatches of comic opera 
 in the mornings for half an hour; then the piano would 
 suddenly go silent ; and, from below, she would hear him 
 pacing the floor. Then this sound, too, would cease, and 
 she would know that he was at work, until the piano burst 
 out again. In the moments of silence he was as often 
 reading as writing; but this would have counted as work, 
 too, with Dorothy, if she had known it. She had a little 
 pride of her own in his learning. Maurice s smattering of a 
 number of subjects was far from that, but he was by nature 
 a bookish man ; he read the poets, whom he was fond of 
 quoting in his sermons ; he had once relinquished the 
 thought of a book on the Old Dramatists ; he had a pretty 
 taste for Barrow, whose sturdiness and solidity attracted him 
 by the law of the attraction of opposites, perhaps ; he rambled 
 through him from time to time, pencilling his winged 
 adjectives; and regularly, once a year, he read Thackeray 
 
268 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 from start to finish. His contemporary reading was, for the 
 most part, French ; of the older writers he liked Dumas, 
 whose Trot s Mousquetaires he read at all seasons ; he was a 
 subscriber to the Revue des Deux Mondes and the Saturday 
 Review; and he loathed the present school of American 
 fiction ; he said it lacked but we know what it lacks. 
 
 " Come and sing * The Bailiff s Daughter, " he said, as he 
 took his seat on the piano stool. 
 
 Dorothy, who had taken up her knitting, shook her head. 
 She seated herself in the chair he had left, and, lost to his 
 sight in its depths, she stared into the fire through the tears 
 of overwrought emotion which stole out upon her eyelids, 
 and coursed silently down her cheeks. Her father, after a 
 dreamy prelude, had rattled into the " Entrance March " from 
 the Mikado. 
 
 " Did Vertner say how he was getting along? " he asked, 
 pausing in the middle of the march. 
 
 " No," Dorothy managed to reply in a muffled voice. 
 
 " I should like to get out the first number in January," 
 he said meditatively. He whistled a bar or two of another 
 air from the same opera thoughtfully over to himself; and 
 turned to the piano to finish it. 
 
 " Papa ! " she said, loud enough to be heard above the 
 music. He rose and came over to her. 
 
 " What ! crying ? " he exclaimed. " But this won t do at 
 all." He drew up a chair beside her, and took her hand. 
 " Why, girlie, there s nothing in this. Nothing ! " He 
 regarded her tenderly, as he stroked her hand. He let her 
 sacrifice herself to him from habit, he postponed her to 
 many things ; but he loved her. One saw it in his glance 
 even when it rested on her casually ; no one could have 
 seen him at the moment without feeling sure of it. " I 
 won t enter into it at all if you take it so hard. But you ve 
 been accepting some of Vertner s joking literally. You must 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 269 
 
 allow for his way of looking at things. Why, I don t believe 
 he would care for this paper idea at all if he did n t see a 
 joke in it." 
 
 " Yes, papa," rejoined Dorothy, starting up in her chair, 
 " that s it. It s a joke a practical joke; but it isn t it 
 isn t quite what you would call a fair one, I think, papa, if 
 you understood it. Do look into it before you give your 
 word to Mr. Vertner to be his editor." 
 
 " Of course I will, little girl ! Vertner must n t be allowed 
 to compromise me. Perhaps I ve let him have it too much 
 his own way. But he knows about the business side of it ; 
 and, after my experience with the Church School of Music, 
 I m willing to let some one else take all that responsibility. 
 You can understand that, Dorothy." 
 
 "Oh, father, I ll be so glad if you will ! And let some 
 one else find the money, too ! " 
 
 Maurice pensively stroked his long, golden moustache, 
 with its young-mannish upward turn at the ends, without 
 speaking. " I suppose you see the necessity of my making more 
 money, my dear. The last monthly bills look bad. Maverick 
 seems to be dearer than Laughing Valley. This editorship 
 is more like a necessity than a choice. It is n t time to be 
 too nice," he said, with the doubtful accent of waiting her 
 opinion on this. 
 
 This man, who could satisfy his own conscience about one 
 and another matter of daily dealing with his fellow-men, and 
 forget it lightly; who could shuffle and balance before 
 doubtful questions, and choose the easy issue with a sigh for 
 the man he might have been if things had turned out 
 differently with him, was afraid before his daughter s moral 
 judgments. Their certainty, their bare, blind justice were 
 more than he could bear at times. He avoided all such 
 questions with her when he could ; but he had committed 
 himself to this paper with Vertner ; and, since he must go 
 
270 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 on with it, and she had learned of his connection with the 
 plan, he would go on with her support rather than without 
 it. They lived too much alone, he was too dependent upon 
 her for sympathy, to make it pleasant for him to carry on 
 constantly, by her side, a work which she disapproved of. 
 He was sensitive ; he always reckoned with that. If he had 
 not been it would have been easy to use his authority, as he 
 sometimes did in cases like that of the money he procured 
 from time to time to meet their bills. No one knew better 
 than Maurice how to put aside discussion of painful subjects 
 with dignity; but no one liked less to accept what such 
 uses of power involved. 
 
 He did not think for a moment of abandoning the 
 scheme of the paper; he believed that he and Vertner 
 should make a very good thing of it together ; and it was 
 five years since he had drunk just the wine he liked. The 
 moral question, which had never occurred to him until 
 Dorothy suggested it, he had dismissed without a thought. 
 He understood Vertner s advertising plan at least as well as 
 Dorothy ; but he saw nothing wrong in it, as he had told her. 
 
 He explained to her, now, that it was not original with 
 Vertner ; that it had been tried in the East, where a man 
 had made a small fortune out of it. There was no harm in 
 it, except as there was harm in all business. She did not 
 hope to bring in a new sort of business transaction, which 
 would leave the money in the same pocket, after it as before 
 it, he hoped. They did not dispute he and Vertner that 
 they were going to take money for the advertising ; but they 
 were going to give quid pro quo, strictly. They did not 
 even leave the degree of circulation given to the advertise 
 ment in doubt as was usual. The advertisers were to pay 
 for what they got ; and for no more than they got. She 
 heard Vertner in all these phrases, yet it was her father who 
 spoke, and she did not know how to put her doubts together 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 271 
 
 and bring them to bear on him. She found herself shaken 
 by his confidence ; but she said, " I see you think you 
 understand, papa. But you don t ; you can t, or you 
 would n t have anything to do with it. These advertisers 
 you speak of they are not to know what Mr. Vertner means 
 to do. They will suppose that they are giving their advertise 
 ment to a little paper which will have a circulation of a few 
 hundred copies. When the bills come to them, if Mr. 
 Vertner succeeds in what he hopes to do, they will be 
 for a circulation of a great many thousands ; it will go on 
 increasing every month; and they will have no redress because 
 Mr. Vertner is going to make them sign a contract for a year." 
 
 Maurice laughed lightly. " Don t you think you may 
 safely leave Vertner s scheme to the business men of the 
 Great West, Dorothy? Do you think it likely that they will 
 not understand all the bearings of a proposition that a girl 
 like you can understand?" 
 
 Dorothy stared at him. " Oh, I suppose so," she said 
 after a moment, daunted. " But promise to insist on Mr. 
 Vertner making it plain to them what they are doing." She 
 laughed herself at the futility of this. " I mean," she 
 amended, " that the contract should imply what Mr. Vertner 
 is about what he hopes to do." 
 
 "They would laugh at what he hopes to do. You do, 
 yourself, Dorothy. Every one who knows Vertner under 
 stands his disposition to add ciphers to his schemes. You 
 may be sure he has given them all the ciphers that he thinks 
 they will credit. After all, you know, Vertner is honest. 
 You must n t be losing yourself in any theories depending 
 on the opposite supposition, you know, Dorothy." 
 
 "Oh, of course he s honest!" sighed she, parting with 
 her position, in fragments, as she felt, but with a deep reluc 
 tance. She saw that it was one of those obscure cases where 
 the ethics have a tendency to liquefy, to escape from the 
 
272 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 instinct which is their only witness, and to melt into the 
 medium of the business-like, the practical, the customary. 
 She could not detain them ; perhaps she was wrong to try. 
 Her father must know ; and " Yes, I m sure Mr. Vertner is 
 good," she found herself saying, " in spite of his ways 
 perhaps because of them. There is something very 
 charming about him. He is so sure, so gay ! And I don t 
 believe that he would deliberately do anything that he 
 thought wrong " she argued aloud with herself. 
 
 " Certainly not ! " 
 
 She balanced it all in her mind a moment, and then with 
 the recurrence of her loyal trust in her father, which at the 
 end of every thing had always to be the permanent fact in her 
 relation to him and to his doings, she said, with a brighten 
 ing face, " Oh well, if you have really looked into it, papa, 
 and think it right, why " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Why, of course it is right ! But you will look carefully 
 after Mr. Vertner, won t you, papa ? You will see that he 
 makes an agreement that will be fair to everybody?" He 
 gave the promise readily, though he had no intention of 
 interfering with Vertner. She leaned over, and kissed him. 
 " Dear papa ! And shall we be shockingly rich ? " 
 
 "Appallingly ! " laughed Maurice, easily, as he returned to 
 the piano. " Come and sing that for me." 
 
 She came over to his side, adjusting the light so that it 
 should not fall into the eyes he tired by late reading at night. 
 
 " Then you can have a horse and phaeton," she said, 
 stroking his hair, as he spread out the music for her. 
 
 " I am not sc ambitious, my dear. What I m hoping for 
 is an income which won t force me to look three times at a 
 dollar. Twice, I can bear. Well, are you ready ? " 
 
 He struck a chord on the piano, and she raised her voice 
 to the first notes of the quaint old air. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PHILIP remained a fortnight at Pifion ; and it was a week 
 before Jasper was seen in Maverick again. Dorothy heard 
 from Dr. Ernfield on the day following her parish visits and 
 her meeting with Vertner that Jasper was suffering from the 
 effects of an accident ; but Ernfield either knew no more, or 
 thought it well to say no more, for she got no particulars 
 from him. Vertner had heard all about the affair in the 
 mine from Cutter ; but he had left town the day after their 
 meeting to look after a contract for the electric lighting of 
 Empire, a mining camp lying to the northward, and was not 
 expected to return for some days, so that Dorothy learned 
 nothing from him. 
 
 Jasper s first clear thought on returning to consciousness 
 was of her. What would she think of the fight, if it should 
 come to her ears? Her swift, pitiless moral judgments were 
 as terrible to him as they were to her father. Suppose she 
 thought him in the wrong ? 
 
 But he believed she had not the material for such a 
 thought. Philip s freak of reserve had spared her some 
 facts that might affect her judgment ; and he believed that, 
 in any event, the initial faith in him which Dorothy retained 
 from the habit of an earlier day, would carry him through a 
 good deal with her. He accepted, now, in good faith, Philip s 
 assertion of his forbearance from his obvious opportunity, 
 and he saw that she would never hear Philip s story until 
 
 T 
 
274 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 he should force Philip to defend himself by telling her his 
 own. What a frightful ass Philip was to play the chivalric 
 at that rate, he mused. But that was his affair. 
 
 His thoughts melted dizzily into each other, as he lay 
 half awake on the morning after the accident, trying his 
 eyes in a blinking way every little while on the view from 
 his bedroom window. The cowboy who had been nursing 
 him assured him that the hill he saw was Mount Blanco, 
 fast enough. To Jasper it was a green blur. Some sort of 
 film seemed to be crackling and sparkling before his eyes, 
 like a kaleidoscope, eternally breaking up and renewing 
 itself. He saw objects as the natural eye sees the page of a 
 book held within an inch of the pupil. He felt vaguely for 
 the bandage on his forehead, and then remembered again 
 how it came there, and all that had led up to it. At 
 recollection of the blow, the suffocating sense of hatred and 
 rage he remembered as he fell, was fresh in his mind again. 
 He clenched his hands under the bedclothes. When he 
 was well again, he should not spare. 
 
 The thought that Philip might be making favour with 
 Dorothy, or that she might have learnt what he had refused 
 to tell her, and that the knowledge might, nay, certainly 
 would have effected a promotion of him in her kindness, 
 caused him to thresh restlessly about in the bed. He told 
 Ernneld, when he came, that he must get up to-day. Ern- 
 field smiled quietly, and asked him to try sitting up in bed. 
 He straightened himself and sat up painfully, his eyes wild 
 and unseeing, his carefully-kept hair in disarray. The air dis 
 solved about him; he clutched at his fading consciousness and 
 fell back among the pillows with a moaning curse on his lips. 
 
 It was the fourth day before Ernfield would allow him to 
 sit about in his dressing-gown, and write a letter, and the 
 sixth before he pronounced him well enough to try the 
 voyage down stairs, staying himself upon the balustrade. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 275 
 
 He made Ernfield remain to dinner with him the first day. 
 " I say, I ve been taking a simple cut pretty hard, seems to 
 me. What s been the matter? What have I had ? " 
 
 " Why, you have n t had it, said Ernfield. 
 
 "How s that? You mean I ve escaped it. Well, what 
 have I escaped ? " 
 
 " Congestion of the brain." 
 
 "Humph!" exclaimed Jasper, without troubling himself 
 to explain the connection. "That brother of mine is a 
 brute ! " He asked Ernfield if he would take another bit of 
 venison ; and Ernfield did not pursue the subject. He had 
 his own notions of the way his patient had come by his cut. 
 
 " I say, Ernfield," Jasper went on, after a moment, " you 
 knew something of my new mother, when she was here in 
 Maverick. What was she like? " 
 
 "Like?" 
 
 " Yes. You know I never saw much of her. Was she 
 the kind of woman to make my father happy, for 
 instance?" 
 
 Ernfield busied himself with his fresh slice of venison, 
 pursuing a bit of currant jelly with his fork. " I did n t 
 know your father well ; I could n t say," he answered. " One 
 ought to know more than one party to a marriage to answer 
 a question like that." 
 
 Jasper had heard fragments of the talk which still went 
 on in Maverick about Ernfield and Margaret, of course. 
 He was revolving the gossip of the town in his mind, as he 
 bent his shrewd, penetrating eyes on his companion s face. 
 
 "Yes, to be sure. But you would form some idea of her 
 temperament. Would she be the sort of woman, for 
 example, to support my father in well, in what you might 
 call the extravagances of his temperament ? I suppose you 
 know him well enough to understand what I mean." 
 
 Ernfield looked at him for what seemed a long time with- 
 
 T 2 
 
276 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 out speaking. " Yes," said he, at last, with intention, " I 
 know what you mean." 
 
 " It was rather rough, was n t it ? " agreed Jasper to the 
 unspoken comment. 
 
 " It was cowardly," said Ernfield briefly. 
 
 " It certainly left Miss Derwenter with a nasty position on 
 her hands. It was a test of character abandoning her on 
 her wedding day," he said tentatively. But Ernfield did not 
 offer to discuss this. " She came out of it curiously on a 
 plan of her own," he mused. " But it s given me a kind of 
 respect for her ! Not every woman would have done it, you 
 know, Ernfield." 
 
 " I know," nodded Ernfield to the canned peaches, which 
 had been set before him. 
 
 " She answered my question for me, there : she supported 
 him with a vengeance. But would she in a case where she 
 was n t concerned in just that helpless way ? " 
 
 "I can t answer that," said Ernfield, after a moment. 
 " She would do what seemed right to her." 
 
 " Yes," rejoined Jasper, " I gather that. She seems to 
 have a conscience. But she seems fond of father, too. 
 What I was wondering was whether in a case where he was 
 on one side and her conscience on the other, she might n t 
 well, negotiate with her conscience." 
 
 Ernfield glanced at him without speaking. 
 
 " Well, I m glad you think so," said Jasper, after a moment, 
 in response to Ernfield s contemptuous glance. " Father 
 needs a check." He turned the subject then ; but as he 
 lighted Ernfield s cigarette for him. " Where did the wedding 
 party go ? Did you hear ? " he asked, carelessly. 
 
 Ernfield perceived that he meant to imply that he might 
 have heard from Margaret since her departure from Maverick. 
 But he chose not to resent this. Jasper was not worth the 
 powder. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 277 
 
 "No," he replied. He puffed his cigarette in silence. 
 
 The following day, seeing how Jasper chafed under his 
 confinement, and thinking, on the whole, it might be less 
 harmful for him to venture out than to remain within doors 
 lashing himself into a state of morbid irritation, Ernfield 
 consented to allow him to drive to town. Riding he for 
 bade ; and Jasper found that the jolting of his buckboard 
 was all he cared to bear, for the present. 
 
 He had not seen Snell since the day he had called to make 
 his preposterous announcement ; but this had not surprised 
 him. His father and brother were too wise to attempt to 
 push the matter to a conclusion while he lay ill ; but they 
 should see that he was not seeking a prolongation of the 
 truce. He meant they should hear from him at once. 
 
 When he had been to his lawyer, and arranged with him 
 to secure a temporary injunction against Snell and to begin 
 suit against his father he drove to the Maurices cottage, 
 smiling for the first time since his discomfiture at the 
 " Snow Find." 
 
 He had made up his mind to a definite move which would 
 at least relieve him of the fear of what Philip might be 
 accomplishing with Miss Maurice, behind his back. 
 
 She came in to him with her face alive with sympathy ; and 
 Jasper was agreeably sure that he had not been wrong in 
 thinking she had warmed to him with a new kindness in the 
 week before his accident, while he added to himself that his 
 illness and the wound on his forehead were not things to 
 diminish her mood of good will. He lacked material for 
 guessing that part of her mood of sympathy was due to the 
 fact that she had just parted with Dick Messiter, who had 
 stopped over a train to call on her father in regard to some 
 business on his return from a visit to Denver. (She had 
 found him much changed in the week which had passed 
 since his return to his work at Laughing Valley City.) Much 
 
278 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 more he lacked facts to understand that her recent disposition 
 toward him was the outcome of the talk between her and 
 Philip which had followed his encounter with Philip in the 
 doorway of the room in which he was now sitting. He was 
 occupied, so far as his mind turned toward Philip s refusal, 
 for motives of his own, to give him away, with the negative 
 good fortune that she had no information about their quarrel. 
 It did not occur to him to imagine that if she knew of a 
 quarrel between them, she must believe one of them in the 
 wrong ; and that Philip might be suffering for his Quixotic 
 silence. 
 
 " You have been ill," she said. " You have been suffering." 
 " Oh, so, so !" returned Jasper. " I got a rather nasty cut." 
 " Tell me how it happened. No one has been able to 
 say or perhaps no one would." Jasper slipped down in 
 the sleepy hollow chair she had forced him to take, and 
 toasted the foot he stretched towards the fire, enjoying her 
 interest in his illness. His pallor, she thought, became 
 him ; and the firelight, playing on his handsome face, and 
 twinkling whimsically upon the court-plastered wound, lent 
 his solid, prosy good looks a remote effect of distinction, 
 and of glamour. " Don t let me ask if it s a secret. But 
 if it is n t a secret," she went on, with a laugh, " you can 
 make it as romantic as you like, for I ve heard nothing. 
 You can make out that you have been rescuing a lovely 
 maiden from the Utes, if you wish. That would be as 
 pretty as anything. Or you can have been dragged by 
 Vixen, with your foot caught in the stirrup : that would be 
 exciting. Or a fight with the Eveleighs about your 
 water rights, or fences, would make a good story. I like 
 mining stories, too, Mr. Deed." She smiled at him from 
 her seat at the other corner of the fire. She often chaffed 
 him to avoid the serious talk with him which she had begun 
 to see must one day come ; and which she feared. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 279 
 
 mining story," returned Jasper, staring 
 musingly into the fire, with a disengaged look. 
 
 " How nice ! Well ? " 
 
 " Well I think I must n t tell it," he said, still seeming 
 to muse. He glanced at her speculatively ; and Dorothy 
 thought she saw that she should not be overstepping in 
 urging him. 
 
 " No," he said, shaking his head slightly, in response to 
 her mock humble entreaty. " It is n t altogether my 
 story." 
 
 " How tiresome ! Could n t we buy out the other man s 
 rights in the story ? Is he the same man who owns a part 
 of the mine was that it?" 
 
 The guess was wide, and yet so near that Jasper smiled. 
 "Something like that." 
 
 He glanced at her with intelligence, and she suddenly 
 paled, and cried, in a kind of fright, " Surely it is n t your 
 brother ! Surely you have n t been been ? " She breathed 
 quickly, and stopped. 
 
 " Yes," owned Jasper, with the air of a man who yields 
 to a revelation past remedy, " Yes since you have guessed 
 it, there is no reason why you should n t know. But don t 
 ask me any more about it, please. I could n t tell you." 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! " cried Dorothy. " Of course not. And 
 it was he who ! Oh ! " she exclaimed. Her tone ex 
 pressed reproach and repulsion, and withdrawal. She 
 shuddered away from the thought of Philip s act. " And 
 you have been very ill ! I can see it ! Dr. Ernfield would 
 not own it, but I could see that he was anxious. He was 
 afraid of its affecting the brain." 
 
 " Yes," said Jasper lightly " congestion and all that. 
 But there was never any actual danger of that, I fancy. 
 Ernfield did n t really know what had happened to me, you 
 know one would n t feel inclined to tell even a physician 
 
280 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 a thing like that, of course and he thought my little 
 scratch more serious than it was. You see I have scored 
 on him. Here I am." 
 
 "Yes ! oh, yes ! " breathed Dorothy in an absorption of 
 which she was unaware, and which was far from being as 
 wholly related to the man beside her as he was believing 
 with a joy which he could not have concealed if she had 
 been more attentive. " But you might not have escaped. 
 A little more one way or the other, and ! Oh, how could 
 he ! " 
 
 Jasper had not expected such success. He thought of 
 Philip s chances with her, now, almost with compassion. It 
 was a pretty outcome of the fight that it should make for 
 him in her favour, and lead her to so desirable a thought of 
 Philip. In the luxury of success, he felt that he could 
 afford to be generous generous enough, at least, to let her 
 see that he was. 
 
 " Oh, I don t know ! " he deprecated. 
 
 "Oh, but I do!" exclaimed Dorothy quickly. All her 
 old thoughts about the relations of the brothers returned to 
 her ; and she now caused Philip to suffer for all the excuses 
 she had found for him. 
 
 " No, no ! It was fair enough as fair as such things can 
 be." 
 
 "Would it have been fair if he had killed you?" she 
 asked conclusively. 
 
 Jasper bent quickly toward her, fixing her with a passionate 
 glance. " Would you have cared ? " he asked. 
 
 All his love for her was in his eyes. She lowered her own. 
 
 "Of course," she stammered. "Why, yes! But of 
 course ! " 
 
 " Would you have cared in the way I mean ? " 
 
 She controlled her eyes now and swept his pale, eager face 
 with a furtive look. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 281 
 
 " I don t know/ she said hastily. " I I think not." 
 
 "Oh, but Dorothy, girl, surely this time you know? I 
 have loved you ever since ! I love you even more, I think, 
 than then. It has gone on. It has grown. You won t say 
 that you have n t seen this that you have n t been answer 
 ing it a little bit in your heart. I can t live without your 
 love. I ve tried it a long time. I can t," he cried, " I 
 aait? 
 
 It was the thrilling, irresistible note of passion. It seemed 
 to enfold and seize her ; to benumb her will ; to make a 
 reason of itself for a return. She remembered thinking, in a 
 prevision of f this scene, how his will must always make a 
 reason for anything he strongly wished. The old fascination 
 of his feeling for her returned upon her. Re-created, and 
 palpitating before her as if it had never ceased to be an 
 active part of her experience, the remembered charm went 
 through her veins exaltingly. 
 
 For a moment she felt herself slipping, slipping. 
 
 Jasper read the half-consent in her eyes. He rose and 
 drew near her, but at the touch of his arm she started away. 
 
 " No, no," she cried, rising in her turn. " I don t know ! 
 I must have time to think ! Don t press me for an answer, 
 now ! Don t ! " 
 
 There was a moment in which Jasper stared hungrily into 
 her eyes, balancing in the remote second consciousness the 
 wisdom of pressing his advantage, or of complying with the 
 frightened longing for escape from this moment s decision 
 which he saw in her face. Her look at once promised his 
 bliss and confounded him. 
 
 It was at last his willingness to use the subtle lather 
 than the direct means of arriving at any object which de 
 cided him. 
 
 " Well," said he, " let it be so, then. But you will let me 
 have my answer soon, Dorothy ? " 
 
282 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " Yes, soon," she murmured breathlessly. 
 
 " You have seen that I still cared. You have let me go 
 on. I really don t believe you could have the heart, you 
 know, to cast me off, now. I don t ask you to say anything 
 to that. I only tell you to let you know that I trust you 
 completely." 
 
 He snatched her hand to his lips and was gone. Dorothy 
 trembled to a seat, torn and pulled by a mob of emotions 
 excited, intoxicated, exhausted. 
 
 How could Philip have done a thing like that ! She won 
 dered languidly where he was. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ON the next day Dorothy received the following note I 
 DEAR Miss MAURICE, 
 
 I am leaving town to-morrow for a week. Will you 
 give me, to take with me, the hope of an answer on my 
 return ? I won t bother you to say good-bye. 
 
 Yours whatever your answer, always yours, 
 
 JASPER DEED. 
 
 And to this temperate note she wrote " In a week, then." 
 It was like his invariable consideration to deny himself a 
 word of farewell. Indeed she could not help imagining in 
 this intended absence a more intimate chivalry. It was a 
 fine withholding of himself from so much as the colour of 
 seeming to influence her decision. 
 
 The truth was that Jasper had found a clue to his father s 
 whereabouts through the Leadville lawyer to whom he had 
 written the first day he had been allowed to sit up ; and 
 after a visit to Leadville he was going in pursuit of him. 
 
 The impulse of another man would have been to try to 
 make sure of his future with Dorothy before leaving Mave 
 rick ; but Jasper saw clearly that this course, to which 
 everything, save his discretion, urged him, would only make 
 sure of a failure which no after patience could retrieve. It 
 was better to use a little patience now ; and to go away. 
 
284 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 But he thought it worth while to have a little talk with 
 Maurice, whom he found at the station, as he was boarding 
 his train. 
 
 He took the sleeping car for his destination with a cosy 
 prophecy of success warming his heart. His reverence for 
 Dorothy s instinctive purity and Tightness of feeling, which 
 was at the root of his love for her, consorted with his half- 
 conscious habit of trading on these qualities in her, and he 
 was estimating, as he stepped into the train, the construction 
 of his departure which he could rely upon from her recti 
 tude. He fancied her construing it almost precisely as she 
 did ; and, as he settled himself in the smoking compartment 
 of the sleeper with his cigar, he experienced an inexpensive 
 thrill of virtue at the thought of the nobility she would be 
 imagining in him. 
 
 THE sun shone at Mineral Springs as it did at Maverick, 
 though there was no snow at Maverick, and at Mineral 
 Springs the snow lay hugely heaped as far as Deed and 
 Margaret could see from the hotel portico. The snow, in 
 fact, covered all the one-storied houses in the place to their 
 roofs, and lay in the Pass at a depth which for over three 
 weeks had cut off all communication with the outside world 
 and kept them prisoners. The stage had ceased running 
 on the day of the snowfall, being caught in the Pass, and 
 snowed up there out of sight. It was likely to lie there 
 until the succeeding spring. The driver and his one 
 passenger had ridden into Mineral Springs on the backs of 
 the horses. 
 
 Mineral Springs was usually cut off for three or four 
 months in the year from the outside world. At its altitude, 
 and in its situation, approachable only by a narrow defile 
 between close-lying hills, this was expected, and as the in- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 28: 
 
 habitants would have said, discounted. But the snow did 
 not usually come so early. 
 
 Margaret had smiled with the wistful smile of happiness 
 which had made a home for itself about her mouth since the 
 day of her marriage, at the intelligence which Deed brought 
 her on the morning after their arrival, that they were 
 "snowed in " ! And Deed had found an ambiguous laugh. 
 Margaret said it was delightful. Now they could be sure of 
 quiet. Now they should know that the disagreeable visitors 
 to the Springs whom she had feared when he first suggested 
 the place, would stay away. Of course it was n t the season 
 for them, anyway. She knew that. But those half dozen 
 stray people who sometimes came to such places, late, were 
 worse than a mob. One could decently withhold one s self 
 from a mob ; but the half dozen, if they were in the same 
 hotel, demanded sociability, sat at the same table, wanted 
 to organize excursions, to get up amusements, to talk at 
 unpropitious times, to discuss the women were the worst 
 the new stitch, and the children left at home, and the 
 altitude. 
 
 When she found that there were no visitors whatever at 
 the hotel besides themselves, she had a moment of bewilder 
 ment ; but she said she liked that, too. The hotel, which 
 was a large frame structure of three stories, built for the 
 summer season, when it was crowded by invalids and 
 tourists, was a building designed to shelter forty guests ; 
 and even Margaret found the great dining-room a little 
 daunting for two. She went to the wife of the landlord a hos 
 pitable creature, largely planned like the hotel and begged 
 that they might be allowed to dine in modified state. The 
 landlady was glad to close up the big dining-room, she said, 
 and after that she gave up her usual winter sitting-room to 
 them, and Deed often wrote or read there while Margaret 
 sewed. The hotel was itself set on a high hill above the town, 
 
286 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 and the windows of this room commanded an extraordinary 
 prospect of the snow-covered mountains rising on the other 
 side of the narrow valley. They called it a valley in the 
 town, but it was, in fact, more like a slit in the hills, which 
 plunged precipitously down on either side, fronting each 
 other at a distance of less than half a mile. 
 
 They had stopped at Mineral Springs for the night on the 
 way to Burro Peak City, where Deed hoped to sell the 
 " Lady Bountiful." Deed had not meant to take Margaret 
 on, but to leave her at the hotel for the necessary day or 
 two until his return. Then, he had said, they could remain 
 at Mineral Springs, or go on to another place to spend the 
 remainder of their honeymoon, as she liked. Ah, yes; 
 with that money once restored to the bank, with that stock 
 placed to the credit of his trustee account again, he did not 
 care where they went. He had proposed Mexico to 
 Margaret in the anticipatory relief of having made all that 
 business straight, in the relief of feeling himself again in 
 anticipation not only an honest man by brevet. 
 
 And then the snow had come. The way to Burro Peak 
 was blocked absolutely ; and he could not even get back to 
 Leadville to make a struggle for his good name, or to face 
 the consequences, if necessary. To Burro Peak not even 
 a post had ventured since the storm. The drifting snow 
 had buried the narrow trail along the mountain sides, which 
 men took in midsummer with caution, to a depth where 
 only the May sun would find it ; and the people at Burro 
 Peak City, who had once wanted to buy the " Lady Bounti 
 ful " when Deed had refused to sell, might as well not have 
 existed. 
 
 But it was probably too late to do any good, now, if he could 
 reach them ; he believed Barney Graves would have made 
 the quarterly examination of the affairs of the estate at his 
 usual time, and he knew what must happen then. His 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 287 
 
 fellow trustee lived at Red Cliff, and as Graves knew Deed 
 to have been chosen by Brackett to be one of his trustees 
 as a lawyer, while he knew that he himself had only been 
 chosen as a friend it had been his custom to leave the 
 actual work connected with their common trust to Deed. 
 In atonement for this seeming neglect of his dead friend s 
 interest, it was his habit to come to Leadville quarterly to 
 go over the accounts of the estate with Deed, note his 
 investments, and, as a matter of form, to make a memo 
 randum of the securities in his hands. Deed, who had 
 rather relished the trust, on the whole, had been able to 
 add largely to the value of the estate by judicious manage 
 ment of the mining properties partly making it up ; and he 
 recalled the satisfaction with which Graves had glanced 
 over his last quarterly statement, with a miserable wonder 
 as to his present thoughts. He made sure that Graves 
 would have postponed the examination when he did not 
 find him at Leadville, but his continued and unexplained 
 absence could have had but one effect : it must long since 
 have come to be believed in Leadville that he was dead, or 
 that he had intentionally disappeared. In the latter case the 
 course was obvious, notorious; the very children knew it 
 from the newspapers. In a simpler state of society he said 
 to himself, scornfully, when a man disappeared his friends 
 might imaginably organise a search for him ; in his own 
 world he knew very well that they examined his accounts. 
 
 The intolerable simplicity of the barrier which withheld 
 him from even so much as the chance of making a fight for 
 his reputation, goaded him at times beyond endurance. 
 Each morning he waked to scan the sky for signs of a thaw ; 
 and each night cursed the royal setting of the sun which had 
 shone through all the day without diminishing the snow. 
 Sometimes in his walks with Margaret through the town, or 
 out to the springs on the hill near their hotel, he would 
 
288 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 gather up a handful of the sparkling, fluffy, almost ethereal 
 flakes which held him prisoner, staring at them in contempt, 
 and flinging them away at last with a helpless shrug. 
 
 What he had done had seemed innocent to him, and at 
 worst it was a potential wrong ; the remorseless snow, and 
 the unwilling sun were making it a crime, day by day. 
 
 Margaret saw that he was troubled, and was grieved for 
 him, but it was because of the chagrin of which she knew 
 the chagrin which was cause enough, it seemed to her, for 
 any sickness of heart. She comforted him as she could about 
 Jasper and Philip (she had of course Deed s version of the 
 difference between Philip and himself), but she knew that 
 trouble to be beyond any one s consolation. The double 
 faithlessness and ingratitude, the sudden and absolute loss of 
 both his sons, represented a pain to Margaret which she 
 dared scarcely approach ; she felt that she could not under 
 stand it. It was all that she thought it ; and even in the 
 face of the haunting fear which now lived in him, it had its 
 way with his heart. He was sometimes almost grateful for 
 that other trouble, which was at least superior in its immediacy 
 and claimed a part of the thoughts which must otherwise, it 
 seemed to him, have destroyed him. With the black misery 
 of his real trouble the thought of Jasper and Philip he 
 got along for the most part, as strong men do with the grief 
 of death ; he said nothing and ground his teeth ; and did 
 not suffer the less. 
 
 If it had not been for Margaret s presence and for the 
 happiness of their new relation, he must have been utterly 
 overthrown. She helped him not only by her love, her 
 kindness, her unfailing watchfulness and care and sympathy, 
 but in unconscious ways which she did not suspect. When 
 she perceived that his sadness and abstraction persisted, she 
 began to charge herself partly with it, in her own way 
 accusing herself of not knowing what to do for him be- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 289 
 
 lieving that another woman would have known how to com 
 fort him. She tried not to let him see that she was search 
 ing her conscience for grounds of offence, but Deed surprised 
 her in it ; and blamed himself. After that he joked her 
 steadily, as of old, and maintained before her always a 
 gaiety of demeanour which finally almost helped him to 
 forget the gulf at the edge of which he was living, even 
 if he could not put away from him the corroding thought 
 of his faithless boys. 
 
 When the fatality which lurked at his side like a shadow 
 would take form before him, in spite of all the resources by 
 which he denied its existence, he usually saw himself in the 
 newspapers. He saw in shuddering fancy his " case " it 
 would become his case at once treated in the usual news 
 paper fashion, picturesquely, lamentingly, speculatively, 
 mock-sympathetically, high-virtuously, and all the rest of it. 
 Then the State would have its wonder at this latest stainless 
 name in the dust, and would have its talk, in which it would 
 recognize the entire and cheering fallibility of every one else 
 in a world where one could n t one s self be as straight as 
 one would like. His enemies would enjoy the realization 
 of their prophecies, while his friends. Ah, his friends ! He 
 could not bear that thought. When it occurred to him he 
 would fall to teasing Margaret about something. They had 
 discovered together an infinite number of points at which 
 she was teasable Margaret even learning to enjoy the 
 exploration of her seriousness with him. 
 
 She felt that she owed him this ; and she encouraged him 
 to joke the seriousness which had come so near to wrecking 
 their happiness, as a kind of expiation. It had also the 
 advantage of being a refuge from the chivalrous gentleness 
 and humbleness in which he now sued silently for her for 
 giveness. She could not bear that he should humiliate him 
 self before her as she had once said coldly to herself that he 
 
 u 
 
290 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 must ; if there was any forgiving to be done, he must do it. 
 She felt blessed in being forgiven, even if he had been at 
 fault ; she found it an odious attitude, as a wife, to be 
 brought to book, and forced to forgive him. 
 
 For the most part they did not even impliedly discuss the 
 question which had separated them, and gone so near to 
 part them permanently. In the happiness of possessing each 
 other they could not wish to go back and live that nightmare 
 time over again, even in imagination ; and it only recurred 
 as an actual question between them when Deed, in their 
 
 happiest moments, would question his right to such bliss 
 
 to the bliss which he had once thrown away, and trampled 
 under foot. 
 
 He made her many promises in moods like this that she 
 should never know him again in the convulsions of passion 
 which snatched him away from himself, and left him to do 
 any evil the nearest, the readiest in the devil s mind 
 which then replaced his own. Margaret would not let him 
 talk of such things for long ; and she would not suffer him 
 to reproach himself since the hour at the hotel at Leadville 
 when he had done penance before her in an abasement 
 which would have satisfied even Beatrice. 
 
 In the long evenings they played at cribbage or bezique, 
 or, less often, at chess. Chess was Margaret s favourite 
 game ; but seeing that Deed lacked patience for it and only 
 pretended a pleasure in it for her sake, she would not let 
 him suffer at it, but won him back to the lighter diversions 
 in which his lighter spirit expanded. Sometimes they would 
 set the cards and the board before them for cribbage, and 
 fall to talking, and forget, until the evening was over, that 
 they had meant to play. Deed made her tell him, at these 
 times, of her travels. 
 
 !(n the absolute confidence of their new relation it was a 
 curious pleasure to her to tell many things which she had 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 291 
 
 hidden away in her soul as things impossible to tell any one. 
 The budget of her adventures in the roaming life she had 
 led before she met him, and even after, seemed exhaustless, 
 and Deed was constantly calling for more. He roared with 
 delight at the follies she confessed, the gaucheries she owned 
 up to. He said it was a new revelation of her this history 
 of her independence. He urged her to admit that she had 
 lost by the exchange ; he said that she had sold herself into 
 slavery ; he did n t see how she contented herself. 
 
 " Don t you ? " she asked, letting her eyes rest on him a 
 moment. 
 
 "No," he said, promptly. He leaned toward her and 
 took her hand. 
 
 "Why, James, that s just it ! Neither do I ! But you see 
 I do content myself. I m not planning an escape, I m not 
 thinking of running away." 
 
 " Oh, that s the snow I" he said. " You could n t." 
 
 " No ; that s true. But you ll see when it thaws. It will 
 be the same." She said this earnestly. Even when she 
 let herself go, Margaret held on a little. 
 
 " Ah, you say so ! That s like the bird that never shows 
 a wish for the old freedom until you open his cage. Then, 
 whisk ! And away he goes ! Margaret," he said seriously, 
 "don t you sometimes just a little bit catch yourself 
 longing for the old, free life ? You remember your hesitation 
 about marriage and how you came and held back, and 
 consented and refused, and ran away and took refuge in 
 your wretched idea of independence, and sometimes would n t 
 so much as look out to take a peep. Occasionally I used to 
 think you actually feared a future in which you would n t be 
 allowed to take care of yourself." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " she said. " I know. It was so. And now 
 I like to be taken care of!" She nestled up against him. " I 
 like not to be free. I enjoy being dependent ! Oh, I was 
 
 U 2 
 
292 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 foolish ! " she whispered. " It seemed right that life I 
 was leading. It seemed good and natural. But it wasn t. 
 This is right ! " She looked up at him. 
 
 Their love was good to them ; and not the less good 
 because they won from it the sane and tempered bliss of a 
 man and woman past the dithyrambic joys of first youth. 
 They had been parted by such a difference as might have 
 risen between the hottest blooded pair of young lovers who 
 ever cried off with each other over a ribbon or a photograph ; 
 and they had come together no less eagerly and gladly, in 
 the young lover manner, as if nothing had ever been 
 between them. But now that they had each other, their 
 happiness was the quiet, full-bodied content of the long- 
 married. To have surprised the glance of serene trust that 
 would pass between them, when their eyes met, to see the 
 unafraid tenderness which had come to Margaret since her 
 marriage, to see her lay her hand on his, or stoop to press 
 a fleet kiss on his forehead, as she passed him during the 
 day upon her errands from place to place, would have been 
 to be taught a great kindness for the marriage state. 
 
 If he could have escaped the pain about his boys which 
 was always by him, and could have banished the threat 
 hanging over him, Deed might have been continuously 
 happy. As it was he was very happy when he could forget ; 
 and Margaret (who had nothing to forget, save her per 
 manent trouble about his act against Jasper, of which she 
 forbade herself to speak), was exaltedly happy. 
 
 They went upon walks within the valley over the beaten 
 snow, where paths had been cut, amusing themselves in the 
 town by the sight of the entombed houses sending up a 
 pathetic slip of chimney into the air, out of which the smoke 
 curled steadily. They liked, too, to see the nimble house 
 holder come out of his home through the roof, using the 
 aperture prepared for such emergencies in building moun- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 293 
 
 tain houses. Once they went down at night and watched 
 from the snow, ten feet above the sidewalk, the crowd which 
 gathered nightly at " Mulvaney s " to hazard their earnings 
 at faro and stud horse poker. Margaret disapproved of 
 it, even as a spectacle, but she listened when her husband 
 told her how, the night Philip had maddened him, he had 
 gone to Pop Wyman s and lost a thousand dollars in an 
 hour. He did not tell her how he had settled with Philip, 
 of course ; that might have involved the other. 
 
 The path to the springs, which gave the town its name 
 and part of its prosperity, was one of their favourite walks. 
 It ran along the mountain side on which the hotel itself 
 hung ; but the spot at which the water bubbled warm out 
 of the earth, and spread itself steamingly about, com 
 manded an even opener prospect of the hills than they got 
 from their window ; and they were fond of coming here at 
 sunset, to watch the great disc go palpably down behind 
 the summit of White Face, scorching the snowy ridge with 
 colour. 
 
 The sun had set and left the air chill, and the evening 
 was suddenly grey as they turned one day from this spec 
 tacle, conferring pensively on their happiness, as people will 
 who can keep their happiness at this hour. They saw the 
 figure of a man coming toward them along the path, and 
 began to abuse him to each other for poaching on the 
 solitude. Then thev saw it was Jasper. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 As Philip s train felt its way cautiously down out of the 
 mountains into Lone Creek valley, on his return from Pinon 
 some days after this, he was hoping that he should find Jasper 
 well enough to see him. He meant to seek him at once on 
 his arrival at Maverick ; and give up the " Little Cipher " to 
 him. He had borrowed the mine from him, when he found 
 it served his purpose, with the thought that Jasper had left it 
 with him for a year, and could probably spare it to him for 
 another week or two ; and to himself had added that, if he 
 couldn t, he did n t care. It was the first good the mine had 
 ever done him, and it was certain to be the last. He took 
 what advantage there was in the attribution of proprietorship 
 during the ten days he remained at Pinon, reminding himself 
 smilingly that he might considerably lengthen his tenure of 
 the " Little Cipher," and still leave a good balance on the 
 credit side of his account with Jasper. 
 
 But, as he drew near Maverick, he was seized with the 
 desire to have the thing immediately off his hands. He did 
 not like the suggestions that were bred of this seeming owner 
 ship ; and, since the bitterness of giving up his find to Jasper 
 must come, he wished to have the business of the surrender 
 over. 
 
 Philip s habitual choice of the comfortable issue from a 
 difficulty sometimes led him (out of mere need for an un 
 troubled mind) to march up to troubles which he loathed 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 295 
 
 and feared, with an unintentioned effect of heroism. The 
 idea of turning over to Jasper the mine he had discovered, 
 staked out and worked, was galling enough to be more com 
 fortable as an accomplished fact than he could hope to make 
 it as a prospect. 
 
 Now, too, that he knew what the surrender meant since 
 he had seen for himself the possibilities of this mine which 
 he and Cutter and Vertner had made a jest of, the splendour 
 of the prospect would sometimes thrust itself luminously 
 before his eyes, in empty moments when he would let his 
 gaze wander from the plain fact of Jasper s right to the 
 " Little Cipher." 
 
 The ease with which he had, for the moment, reaped, 
 without his will, the advantages of ownership at Pifion, 
 polluted, every little while, the wholesome current of his 
 thoughts. He put the fantasy from him, when it would 
 recur, with the sense that he could not be well ; it was in 
 this way that murderous aberrations and the lunacy of suicide 
 assailed men. And yet there would return upon him that 
 air-born phantom of a thought : That the fiction of his owner 
 ship, which had lasted a week, needed no motion r on his 
 part to make it permanent : that he had only to keep silence. 
 
 The arrangement by which he had carried on the two 
 mines in his own name lost its old naturalness, as he found 
 himself wishing heartily that Jasper had always known which 
 mine was his, or, at all events, that some one person only 
 one knew at this moment which was his, besides himself. 
 He could easily have told Cutter in the Pifion days ; but he 
 was n t protecting himself against himself in those days ; 
 and he should n t tell him now he could fancy even Cutter, 
 with all his right-mindedness, palliating the obvious facts of 
 the situation, or diminishing his clear obligation. The 
 person he wished to tell, now, was Jasper. He could be 
 depended on not to diminish the obligation. He would 
 
296 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 demand an account of every penny he had expended on the 
 " Little Cipher " since the first pick was driven into the 
 claim ; and would ask for any stray bits of silver he might 
 have brought away in his pockets. Jasper knew his rights. 
 That he (Philip) had staked out both claims in the 
 beginning as his own, was nothing. That he had mentally 
 turned over the " Little Cipher " to his brother when Jasper 
 had written, asking him to see what a " flyer " of $500 would 
 do for him on Mineral Hill, was all that would interest Jasper. 
 Bless you ! he would n t care for the registry at the Land Office. 
 If it had been the other way about there might be some 
 sense in showing by the Land Office books, the advertise 
 ments, and all that, that only one name had appeared in all 
 the transaction, and that, legally, the two mines belonged to 
 but one person. But, in the present situation, Philip s 
 mental cession of the " Little Cipher " to him plainly settled 
 the question. Jasper could n t care to "go behind the 
 returns," Philip said to himself, with a curl of his lip, as the 
 spire of St. John s in the Wilderness came in sight, and he 
 began to get his hand-luggage together. 
 
 The sight of the church recalled Dorothy to his mind 
 from which, in fact, she had never been absent since the 
 memorable day of their last interview; and he said to 
 himself that it was because he was unhappy, not because 
 he was unwell, that the vile thought of the simple the 
 fluidly simple course open to him, dared dance about him 
 beckoningly. If he had not wrecked himself with her, if he 
 could think she could ever care for him, his normal state of 
 cheerful spiritual health would come back to him ; and 
 such thoughts must find their proper place as nightmares. 
 
 "Oh, Dorothy! Dorothy!" he caught himself crying in 
 wardly. " Can t you see that I must have you ! Can t you 
 see that I can t live without you ! " 
 
 As he left the train at the Maverick station, and went 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 297 
 
 into the hotel, which stood on a level with the station 
 platform, overlooking the arriving and departing trains, he 
 met Maurice at the door coming out. 
 
 Maurice s round, handsome face, which we know found 
 a smile readily when the occasion seemed worthy of it, 
 wrinkled into a beaming smile of welcome for Philip. He 
 offered him his large, fair, fat hand. 
 
 " Why, my dear boy ! " he exclaimed in his mellifluous 
 accents. " Just returned, are you ? " with a glance at the 
 traps Philip was carrying in his hand. " It s good to see 
 you again. It s a long time since you ve let us have a 
 glimpse of you. Oh, I know, I know ! " he exclaimed at 
 Philip s deprecatory beginning. "We ve been hearing of 
 your doings." Maurice spoke with a benevolent smile. 
 Philip wondered what he meant. He made a motion to 
 walk by Maurice, whose considerable bulk blocked the 
 narrow hotel-entrance, with the purpose of depositing his 
 luggage with the clerk of the hotel, whom he knew. But 
 Maurice laid a fatherly hand upon his shoulder. " Don t 
 do that ! You are going on to the Snow Find in the 
 course of the afternoon, I suppose?" 
 
 "No," returned Philip abruptly, "I m not. I am going 
 on to The Triangle to see my brother." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! He left town a few days ago to be 
 gone a week ; so that what I was about to ask you to do 
 holds good," he went on, without pausing to observe Philip s 
 agitation. "You will be going on to your mine later in 
 the day, as you can t see your brother, and you must come 
 on to the house, and lunch with us, and take on your 
 things from there." 
 
 " Why " began Philip, confused and baffled by the news 
 
 of Jasper s departure, and at a loss to understand Maurice s 
 sudden warmth. This had hardly been his tone at their 
 last meeting. Philip was about to say something which 
 
298 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 would have implied that Maurice was presuming on a rela 
 tion between them which did not exist, when his companion 
 broke in with, 
 
 " Ah ! That s good ! I hoped you would ! Well, that s 
 settled then. You will want to get rid of the railway grime. 
 We will go right on to the house, if you like. I was just 
 returning home from some parish calls at the hotel. You 
 know Mrs. Montgomery Bolton ? " 
 
 Philip said he had seen her, as he walked on by Maurice s 
 side, dazed and irresolute. He wished to see Dorothy, of 
 course ; would he not be a fool to quarrel with his luck ; 
 would he not be twice a fool to demand of Destiny, in 
 Maurice s shape, the cause of this temporary amiability. 
 He could have laughed, if he had been in a mood to laugh 
 at anything, at the recollection of Maurice s cold and formal 
 greeting at their last encounter. What intention toward 
 him, what hope of service from him, was in the clergyman s 
 mind ? 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MAURICE did not leave him long in doubt. He congratu 
 lated him on his " strike " in the " Little Cipher," using the 
 slang. He had heard of it from Cutter, he said. Was the 
 assay as large as Cutter said ? 
 
 Philip had begun to hate the word " strike " ; and in his 
 loathing for the congratulations which had pursued him 
 since the first day, he was much further gone. The very 
 conductor of his train from Bayles Park had wanted to 
 smoke a cigar with him on the strength of his strike. He 
 had ceased to start at these felicitations, but they were irri 
 tating. If anything could have increased his grudge against 
 Jasper for being the man to whom he must surrender the 
 " Little Cipher " it would have been that the circumstances 
 of the case were things that one could n t explain to a man 
 who wanted to smoke a cigar with you. It was a fact, if any 
 one liked to put it in that way, that he was turning over to 
 his brother a mine to which Jasper had no claim save such 
 as existed in one conscience ; but it was n t the sort of fact 
 that one could mention as one observes that it rains. 
 
 It was impossible he said this to himself when he found 
 that he was not denying Maurice s congratulations in the first 
 instant of hearing them that he should expose his motives 
 to the comment of every mind he met on his way to Jasper. 
 It was n t decent ; and, at all events, would be intolerable. 
 Yet, in the next moment, he saw that though Maurice was 
 
300 BENEFITS FOHGOT. 
 
 the last man to whose eye he should care to submit the 
 spectacle of his moral processes, he must tell him. The 
 moment lengthened, however, and he did not tell him. 
 
 As the gate slammed behind them and they stood in 
 Maurice s front yard, Philip felt again that he must speak. 
 It came upon him with renewed force that Maurice had a 
 right to know ; and that he should be wronging him in 
 keeping silence. Maurice stood in an entirely different 
 relation to the fact from any one else he had met since he 
 knew it himself. To keep silence in Pinon, or before his 
 conductor, might be a matter of taste : but not to tell Maurice 
 was a kind of fraud, perhaps. 
 
 He had opened his lips on the doorstep, with no notion 
 of the way in which he should begin, when Dorothy appeared 
 at the bay window which jutted out into her flower-bed in 
 the yard. Philip had a vision of a black skirt and an electric 
 blue blouse on amiable terms with the fair face above it. 
 She waved her hand gaily to her father with a gesture in 
 which Philip might include himself or not, as he liked. It 
 seemed a very long time since they had spoken together; 
 it was a fortnight since he had seen her. The apparition 
 at the window filled all his senses. He did not go on with 
 what he was saying. 
 
 The stainless white brow of Ouray, visible from the door 
 step, fantastically seemed to be wrinkling itself in reproach 
 as he went in with Maurice. 
 
 Maurice opened the door into the parlour far enough to 
 say to Dorothy that Mr. Deed would stay to luncheon with 
 them, and to ask when it would be ready ; and then led the 
 way upstairs to his own bed-chamber, where Philip got rid 
 of the railway dust, and did what he could by way of 
 freshening the effect of the miner s dress in which he had 
 hastily set out for Pinon, a fortnight before, lacking one day. 
 He wondered how she would receive him. He braced 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 301 
 
 himself for the reception which he feared, and which he 
 felt he had probably earned. 
 
 She received him, however, as he might have guessed, as 
 a hostess, not as a woman. Her expressionless cordiality, 
 her meaningless courtesy daunted him. He would rather 
 have been snubbed outright. Her father, who had taken up 
 his stand with his back to the wood fire in the grate, smiled 
 on the meeting. A moment later he was called from the 
 room by information from the servant that his sexton, Sandy 
 Dikes, was waiting to speak with him. 
 
 " Miss Maurice ! " began Philip, entreatingly, as the 
 
 door closed behind her father. 
 
 She stopped him to ask if the room was not too hot for 
 him. Philip was going hot and cold by turns ; but the 
 temperature was not at fault. He said it was not too hot for 
 him, unless "Oh no," she shook her head. 
 
 Her smooth tones, her conventional smile of good society 
 began to madden Philip. He felt like an unpractised skater 
 slipping impotently about on new ice. 
 
 The passive role assigned to women, which laid them 
 under so many disadvantages, certainly had its moments of 
 triumph ; Philip wondered if women must always use them 
 as cruelly as Dorothy was using them, out of a willingness to 
 avenge themselves on the other moments of helplessness to 
 which the role condemned them. 
 
 At last he looked into her eyes, and asked, without 
 preface, "Is there boiling oil in all your punishments, 
 Miss Maurice ? " 
 
 " I don t know," she returned politely, with the same 
 glittering and correct effect of having said nothing. 
 
 " Because if I might choose the quality of my mercy I 
 should like it strained. I suppose I am not worthy of the 
 unstrained. At all events the steady drip, drip of it, 
 does n t soothe me as it ought to. Please strain your 
 
302 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 mercy, Miss Maurice. What I need, 1 see, is open 
 cruelty." 
 
 She stared at him a moment, in doubt how she should 
 answer this. " I am glad you think that," she said seriously, 
 at last. " But you must look to some one else for it." 
 
 " You mean that it is enough to have deserved such a 
 punishment from a person without asking her to be at the 
 pains of administering it ? " 
 
 " I think you are much in the wrong." 
 
 This time there was no mistaking her earnestness. 
 " Good heavens, Miss Maurice. Have I been guilty of 
 other crimes besides those I know ? " He paused nervously, 
 observing to himself how beautiful she was in the sudden 
 pallor for which he blamed himself. The fair hair curling 
 spontaneously about her high, white brow, those melting 
 grey eyes, dashed with the whimsical thread of brown, the 
 delicate little mouth, which he had set vaguely quivering 
 now, the poise of her exquisite head, seized him with an 
 irrelevant, and fruitless yearning. 
 
 " You know best about that," she said, and he saw she 
 was answering a question he had forgotten the purport of. 
 In an instant, however, he remembered. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Maurice," he cried, " are you fair? I give you 
 my word I don t know what you are talking of, unless you 
 are still thinking of the wickedness I know of; and I can t 
 believe that it s only that." 
 
 " No, it is n t that/ she told him, a little wearily. 
 
 "Is it anything to do with that with my brother? 71 
 he asked, desperately. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I might have known it 1 Well, what, Miss Maurice ? " 
 he demanded, in unconscious rudeness. " I have borne 
 pretty much all I am up to from Jasper Has he been 
 telling you how I have wronged him ? " 
 
BENEFITS FORQOT. 303 
 
 " Do you think that would be like your brother ? " asked 
 Dorothy with an implication in her voice which nettled 
 Philip beyond control. 
 
 " No, I don t, Miss Maurice. He probably told you how 
 finely I have been behaving toward him, and you guessed 
 the other thing from a combination of your knowledge of 
 me, and your certainty that Jasper would always have a 
 chivalrous word for his enemy." 
 
 " Now it is you who are not fair," she rejoined. 
 
 " I don t mean to be unfair," he said, and there he 
 stopped. " Did he tell you of his visit to the Snow Find ? " 
 he asked suddenly. " Is that it ? " 
 
 "No," she returned tremulously. "I guessed it; I forced 
 it from him ; I surprised his confidence. And after all he 
 would tell me nothing ; I would not let him tell me anything. 
 But I understood." 
 
 "Ah !" exclaimed Philip bitterly, "You understood !" 
 
 She rose haughtily. He saw that he had gone too far. 
 
 " Oh, I am abominably rude ! Pardon me ! Or don t 
 pardon me ! Tell me to go. But if you knew, Miss 
 Maurice " 
 
 " Tell me," she begged. She put forth her hand. Philip 
 seized it, and dropped it instantly. He turned away. 
 
 " No, no ! I can t," he cried. " Somebody ought to tell 
 you perhaps. But I can t. It is n t it is n t decent. He 
 clasped his arms despairingly behind his shaggy head as he 
 walked from her toward the window and stared out at the 
 long backbone of the Sangre de Christo range. 
 
 She guessed this for the pride it was ; but she had no 
 information which could have enabled her to justly estimate 
 the obscure and multitudinous motives which made it up ; 
 and she was far from guessing the Tightness of feeling which 
 actually lay at the root of it. 
 
 " But there is something I can tell you, Miss Maurice," 
 
304 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 he said, turning suddenly, with a new light in his eyes which 
 awed her. She shrank from him, and sat down hastily. 
 " Perhaps it will explain for me not this precisely, but 
 everything, and if it explains nothing, why I shall be content 
 that you should not understand my relation to Jasper, either, 
 because nothing will matter, then. I have no right to tell 
 it to you ; though you have a right to know it. But I can t 
 tell you unless you promise me to understand that it asks 
 nothing of you, that it has no relation to you except as your 
 
 knowledge of it may help you to to understand . I 
 
 love you. That is all. I love you." 
 
 She dropped her eyes. 
 
 " I wanted you to know," he said, in the silence that 
 fell. 
 
 " Yes," she whispered, in assent to this. 
 
 " But I did n t want I don t want the fact to exist for 
 you, except as it may help you to think more kindly of me ; 
 to to understand." Philip believed that he meant this. 
 "I have no right to speak of it and absolutely no right 
 to found anything further on it." He did not say it in the 
 hope that she would contradict him ; but a pang shot through 
 him when she did not. He should not have told her any 
 more, he said proudly to himself, whatever she might have 
 urged against this statement ; but her silence whetted the 
 pain at his heart. He rubbed the two half dollars left over 
 from his journey to Pinon against each other in his pocket, 
 and thought how the actual occasion of his forbearance 
 lacked dignity; it really was n t as noble as it seemed, 
 perhaps, for a beggar to refrain from a proposal of marriage. 
 When the beggar happened to be as much in love as he, 
 however, it was hard. 
 
 "Well," he went on, as she still kept silence, "there s 
 nothing more to say." He came over to her, and offered 
 his hand in farewell. " Good-bye, Miss Maurice. If you 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 305 
 
 ever give me a thought after this, remember, please, that 
 whatever you have to think of me, it was in this way that I 
 thought of you that I shall always think of you." 
 
 She said nothing, still ; and he turned to go. 
 
 "But," she called after him, raising her head now, with a 
 smile in which many emotions played, " you are going to 
 stay to luncheon, Mr. Deed ? " 
 
 He turned at the fancy of a note between roguish and 
 caressing in the sound of her unsteady voice, and started 
 toward her withholding himself instantly. Then he re 
 membered what she had asked him and could have smiled 
 for the absurdity of his unhappy lover exit arrested by the 
 banality of a luncheon engagement. 
 
 "No no, I must n t," he found himself saying; but he 
 heard the door knob turn in Maurice s firm clutch, and 
 knew that he must. 
 
 Maurice came in upon them rubbing his large hands in 
 smiling hospitality ; and abandoned the amiable common 
 place he had ready for Philip, to glance sharply at the two. 
 He concealed adroitly his sense of having interrupted an 
 intimate collision ; but he followed them into the dining- 
 room, after having asked Philip to give his arm to Dorothy, 
 svith a look of grave satisfaction on his face. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE luncheon lagged, though it began with salmon, and 
 went on to escalloped oysters, to quail on toast, and finally 
 to a California fruit, which none of them knew. Dorothy 
 said she had forgotten its name ; it grew in a tin can like 
 the oysters and the salmon. They ate, save Maurice, as if 
 the quality of the luncheon alone concerned them. Maurice 
 talked beamingly about a host of subjects, in the full, 
 orotund voice which sounded so well from the pulpit. He 
 made all the talk. Philip was silent and ill at ease; 
 Dorothy answered her father, and kept him going. She 
 flushed when Philip once looked her way. After that they 
 avoided each other s glances. 
 
 When they were alone with their wine and cigarettes 
 Maurice kept up the customs of a higher civilization 
 jealously the clergyman told Philip the history of his 
 purchase of the claret he was drinking, with the deliberation 
 which characterized his talk. Philip writhed inwardly. He 
 longed to get away. 
 
 Maurice seemed to have plenty of leisure, however, and 
 made no move to rise. He left inviting gaps in the conver 
 sation when he had done his story of the wine, as if he 
 expected Philip to take it up, and Philip had begun dimly 
 to divine an intention in this, when Maurice finally said 
 nimself, 
 
 " I think, Mr. Deed, we may deal with each other quite 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 307 
 
 frankly." He cleared his throat, caressing his wine-glass 
 meditatively. 
 
 Philip bowed politely across the table, not knowing what 
 was coming ; but feeling the assumption to be a safe one. 
 He had always been on his guard in his few conversations 
 with Maurice. He did not trust him. He found himself 
 constantly wondering what he was up to ; what purpose 
 underlay the obvious meaning of the things he said. 
 
 " Yes, so I thought," continued Maurice in response to 
 his nod. He offered him cigarettes. Philip took one and 
 struck a match. As Maurice lighted his own, he glanced 
 at his companion through the smoke and asked, as if it 
 were a casual question, " May I ask if I rightly infer that 
 you have a more than common regard for my daughter ? " 
 
 Philip flushed. He was wholly at a loss for an answer. 
 
 " I need not say that it is not to challenge such a regard 
 if it exists, nor to question your action in any way, that I 
 speak," continued Maurice in a conciliatory tone, antici 
 pating the resentment of his inquiry which he began to see 
 rising in Philip s face. " I should not ask if I had not good 
 reason the best of reasons. You will quite agree with me, 
 I am confident, when you understand what they are. But 
 first, as to the main question. I need not repeat it ? " 
 
 " No," said Philip, and was going on angrily, but stopped 
 himself. " Yes, you are right. I love Miss Maurice." 
 
 He remembered that he was talking to her father, who 
 after all, had an excellent right to question him. 
 
 "Ah ! " said Maurice, " I have long believed as much. 
 May I ask it is my last question if I am right in sup 
 posing that you have made Dorothy aware of this ? " 
 
 Philip remembered the scene on which the clergyman 
 had just come in. He had hoped that it might never be 
 known to any soul ; least of all did he like to talk it over 
 with Maurice. But he said helplessly and a little savagely, 
 
 X 2 
 
308 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 "It is true. Yes. But " 
 
 " She has refused you, then ? " 
 
 Philip frowned. " I don t know why you assume " 
 
 he began. 
 
 " Mr. Deed, we shall get on in this delicate matter only 
 if we understand quite clearly that I speak as your friend," 
 interrupted Maurice. He sipped slowly at his claret. " I 
 know that I may not always have seemed so. But I have 
 learned some things have come to my knowledge." 
 
 Vaguely and doubtfully at first, and then surely, Philip 
 had seen for himself that Maurice s inclination toward him 
 was friendly. 
 
 From whatever cause, out of the coldness he had kept 
 for him hitherto ; out of the warm and friendly association 
 with Jasper of which every one in Maverick knew ; out of 
 the old liking for the match broken off by Dorothy, which 
 Philip suspected in him ; and at all events, out of the open 
 favour he had lent the new relation between Jasper and 
 Dorothy, this was the issue. It was strange, but he did not 
 doubt it, and if he had doubted it, Maurice s next words 
 must have been convincing. 
 
 "I have heard the truth about you and your brother; 
 and I have reason to believe that Dorothy is still in ignor 
 ance of it. You are aware of the feeling I have had 
 towards Jasper. I have liked him we have liked him ; 
 and Dorothy still does. It is because I believed that 
 Dorothy s proper understanding of some things, just at this 
 moment, may deeply affect her future and yours, and 
 mine, that I wish to offer you a friendly word." 
 
 "You are very good," murmured Philip, plunging about 
 in his imagination for a final meaning beneath this. 
 
 " No. If I am good, it is to Dorothy to myself. You 
 may believe that I should hardly be speaking to you in this 
 way if it were not of vital concern to me that I should," 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 309 
 
 He judged it unnecessary to enter with Philip into the 
 facts he had lately learned regarding Jasper s present tenure 
 of the ranch. The injunction against Snell had become 
 town talk within two days of Jasper s departure ; and had 
 set all Maverick agog for the painful but interesting story 
 which must be lurking behind this action of Jasper s. 
 Maurice had heard the entire story from Cutter, who saw no 
 reason to withhold the truth when Maurice questioned him 
 at the post-office on the day he heard the rumour of the 
 injunction. 
 
 " I shall speak plainly, Mr. Deed, for both our sakes," 
 the clergyman pursued. " I think it right you should know 
 that your brother has proposed to Dorothy." 
 
 "Jasper!" cried Philip. He fronted Maurice abruptly, 
 perusing his face with an estranged regard. 
 
 (i Have you not known ? " exclaimed the clergyman. 
 
 " Known ! " repeated Philip, with a haggard face. " Yes. 
 Oh yes ! " And, after a moment, " He has offered himself. 
 He has been accepted. Why do you bring me here to tell 
 me this?" 
 
 " He has offered himself," assented Maurice, passing over 
 Philip s tone with dignity, " but he has not been accepted. 
 Dorothy has promised him his answer within a week. The 
 week will be at an end to-morrow." Philip opened his lips 
 with a passionate impulse, but swallowed back his words, 
 grinding his teeth. " What his answer shall be depends, as 
 I believe, upon the way in which you may receive what I 
 have to say." 
 
 " For God s sake, man, go on ! I m listening." 
 
 Philip bit his lip, and waited for what might follow, with 
 his eyes fixed on the line of low-lying hills, opposite Ouray, 
 which were visible from the dining-room window. 
 
 " Quietly, if you please, my dear young sir. This matter, 
 let me remind you, concerns me at least as much as it can 
 
310 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 concern you. Dorothy is my only daughter. My life goes 
 with her happiness. But we can gain nothing by haste." 
 Philip made an impatient gesture of apology. 
 
 He stared at him restlessly, across the table, with his chin 
 in his hand as he went on. 
 
 "What I am about to say," continued the clergyman, "is 
 most intimate. It touches a subject which I had hoped 
 never to be obliged to re-open to any person living. Circum 
 stances have ruled otherwise, and I have now only to add, 
 in disclosing certain facts, that I shall look to you to regard 
 them as communicated under the most sacred seal of con 
 fidence." 
 
 These cautious guards and defences, these precautions 
 against one knew not what, by turns tortured and sickened 
 his companion. He found his perception reeling giddily 
 every little while, before the clergyman s abominable flow of 
 language, which seemed one sheen to him, like the glaze on 
 paper. 
 
 " I don t know whether you know precisely the circum 
 stances attending my departure from Laughing Valley City ? " 
 said Maurice interrogatively. He tried for a parody of the 
 importance of the name in his voice ; but his anxiety came 
 uppermost. 
 
 Philip turned toward him quickly and said, " I "am glad 
 to have the opportunity of letting you know, Mr. Maurice, 
 that I do know rather more than it seemed a kindness to 
 Miss Maurice to mention in the cave that day. I have never 
 felt quite right about that. But it seemed to Cutter and me 
 that she would not care to know that we had seen what 
 passed on the hillside above the canon, the day of the storm. 
 If I had imagined that it could make a difference to you I 
 should have spoken long ago. It was Miss Maurice who 
 was in my thoughts," he confessed. 
 
 "Ah, I am glad of that yes," mused the clergyman; 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 311 
 
 " glad, because it will help you to understand a feeling of 
 mine about that that circumstance. I have never told 
 Dorothy the actual the exact occasion of that scene on 
 the hillside." Maurice leaned over toward Philip, and 
 questioned his face closely. " Do you know it ? " he asked. 
 
 " No," said Philip. 
 
 " Ah, well, perhaps that is as well, too. You will believe, 
 when I tell you this, that I am concealing nothing from you. 
 The Vigilance Committee," he gave them the title with a 
 curl of his large, handsome lip, from which he stroked away 
 his jaunty moustache, "thought me in the wrong in refusing 
 to go and read the funeral service over two men who had 
 died at Laughing Valley of small-pox." Maurice s face 
 worked, and for a moment he did not attempt to go on. 
 " The right or wrong of that we must leave to a higher 
 tribunal," continued he, dismissing the ethical question with 
 a gesture. Philip shuddered. " What immediately concerns 
 us is that Dorothy has never known why I was forced to 
 depart from the place." 
 
 " She must never know," said Philip huskily. A vicarious 
 sense of shame for the clergyman would not let him lift his 
 eyes to look in his face. 
 
 " Exactly. She must never know. But there is anothei 
 matter of which she must not know." 
 
 He turned a doubtful eye on his companion as he paused. 
 Philip turned cold, wondering what worse thing this man 
 could have done to shame his daughter. 
 
 " It is, in a way all the same matter," Maurice was saying 
 while his companion dumbly waited and wondered. Philip 
 drew a breath of relief. " Information reached me a week 
 since through a good friend of ours of hers, of yours ; in 
 point of fact, through Mr. Messiter, that " 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Is Mr. Messiter back in Maverick ? 
 I heard that he had returned to his mine at Laughing Valley." 
 
312 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 u So he has," responded the clergyman, with the ghost of 
 an indulgent smile for Philip s transparent impulse of 
 jealousy. " He came here a week ago for the day only, to 
 see me in point of fact to warn me. He had heard rumours 
 at Laughing Valley that some of my enemies there had been 
 inciting the Bishop when he visited the place a fortnight or 
 so back, to take some action founded on this this accusation 
 against me ; and like the dear, good fellow he is knowing 
 what that must mean for Dorothy he had posted down to 
 Denver without stopping to consult me, in the hope of 
 inducing the Bishop not to move in the matter." Maurice 
 sighed. " It was good of him, but it was useless. Once 
 brought to the ears of the Bishop I have always known what 
 must happen." Philip saw the green hills outside the window 
 swim before his eyes. u And well, the end of it is that I 
 have this morning a letter from the Bishop generous and 
 temperate, even fatherly, but quite plain suggesting that 
 it would be convenient if I should let him have my resig 
 nation of my charge here." 
 
 Philip took the letter he handed him, as he started up 
 with an inarticulate groan on his lips. He carried it to the 
 window, and stared at it for a moment helplessly; the 
 words refused to relate themselves to one another and he 
 finally turned and gave it back to Maurice, in silence. The 
 clergyman shrank from the look on Philip s face as he put 
 forth his hand to take the letter. 
 
 " Yes," owned he ; " it s bad. It is a blow. I won t deny 
 it. And yet not an unbearable blow to me. I have 
 expected it, for one thing ; and I see, now that it has 
 come, that I have long been half willing." He looked 
 at Philip sharply. " I was not made for a clergyman, 
 Mr. Deed." 
 
 " Oh, don t say that, man ! " The cry was torn from 
 him. " For Heaven s sake, don t say that ! " The igno 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 313 
 
 minious, the disastrous fact seemed to connect itself 
 intolerably with the thought of Dorothy; it seemed to leave 
 two lives in ruins. - If it had been the clergyman alone, one 
 would have seen only the tragic waste of a career. But as 
 the fact involved Dorothy, Philip could not face it. 
 
 Turning toward Maurice he saw that a ghastly pallor had 
 stolen over his face, which was sunk upon his breast. He 
 went over to him and clapped him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Come ! " he said gently, with an indescribable mingling 
 of contempt and pity pulling at his heart. "Take this! 
 You will feel better." He poured a glass of the wine 
 Maurice had been discussing in that moment of after- 
 luncheon talk which seemed now so far removed. The 
 clergyman snatched it, and drank it off. 
 
 Philip was ashamed to be witness to his recovery of 
 himself. He turned his back, and went to the window, 
 within sight from which a rider was endeavouring to break 
 the spirit of a bucking pony. There was a large open space 
 behind the house, not yet built upon, and untamed bronchos 
 were often brought here from the neighbouring livery stable 
 for this purpose. The tiresome iteration of the see-saw 
 motion by which the brute was viciously endeavouring to 
 throw his rider renewed Philip s restlessness. 
 
 " You must go away from here," he heard himself saying 
 to Maurice, as he turned in the need of action, or the sugges 
 tion of action. " You must go at once ! " 
 
 Maurice shook his head with the sadness of a superior 
 knowledge. 
 
 " No ! No ! It is ended. I shall never preach again." 
 
 Philip was appalled. 
 
 " Oh, my dear sir ! Shake this off. For your daughter s 
 sake for Dorothy s sake ! Shake it off! " 
 
 Maurice looked up at him with a mournful smile, 
 "Shake it off! My dear young man, I have been dismissed. 
 
314 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 I have been disgraced ! Oh, my God ! " he cried, breaking 
 down suddenly, and burying his face in his hands. 
 
 Philip bit his lip. For a moment there was silence in the 
 room. Then there came a ring at the outer door, and a knock 
 at the door of the room in which they were. Philip darted to 
 it, with the fear in his throat that it might be Dorothy. It was 
 the servant, come to say that Mr. Vertner was in the parlour. 
 "Say that Mr. Maurice will see him presently," he said. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you could not secure another 
 parish ? " he demanded, as he returned. 
 
 Maurice, who had risen at the knock, and was himself 
 restlessly pacing the room with his hands in his pockets, 
 stopped before the table, littered with the remains of the 
 meal, and absently took a bon-bon from a plate. 
 
 " Secure it ? Perhaps. Keep it ? No. This story would 
 rise. Oh, I m not degraded from my office; I m not 
 unfrocked, as they used to call it ! " He laughed scornfully. 
 " It s simply a story the most powerful, the most subtle, 
 the deadliest, the most pitiless enemy a man can know. 
 If I were younger, or, let me say it all ; if I cared for my 
 calling as I once did, if I could be back at twenty-five again, 
 fresh from the seminary, a young divinity student, with the 
 old fire, with the old feeling that the priesthood was the 
 holiest, the noblest, almost the only possible vocation in the 
 world : ah, then I might go on and fight it out ! I might 
 try to live it down. But I don t care ! I have learned to 
 live another life. I have always wanted to do other things, 
 and even when I cared most for my work, I have done 
 tli em. I have done them, at last, so much that they own 
 me. I don t care" he repeated in a kind of cry of pain 
 and stopped short in his march from end to end of the 
 room, to add, looking Philip in the eyes " except except 
 for one thing." 
 
 Philip framed her name with his lips. Maurice nodded. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 315 
 
 " For Dorothy I would give all that remains to me of life ; 
 for Dorothy I would go on in this work of mine, if they 
 would let me, always. She cares for it. To see me give it 
 up will be a shock to her. To see me forced to leave it in 
 disgrace would kill her." 
 
 "She must not know it," said Philip, setting his teeth. 
 
 " Must not," repeated Maurice. He stopped again, and 
 faced Philip. " Ah, I hoped you would say that ! I knew 
 it .... You understand, then, my purpose in telling you. 
 You can see, now, how it is that the man who is to marry 
 Dorothy should share this purpose with me ? " 
 
 "To keep the knowledge from her?" asked Philip 
 quietly. He divined with contempt how Maurice must be 
 doomed to long with all his cowering soul that Dorothy 
 should never come to know him as he was ; but he forced 
 himself to do justice to the impulse of love which had the 
 same need. Maurice loved his daughter ; he forgave him 
 much for that. 
 
 " To keep the knowledge from her," repeated Maurice. 
 " Perhaps you can also understand how it is necessary that he 
 should be able to keep it from her." 
 
 "Able?" 
 
 " If I give up my calling, Mr. Deed, I give up the only 
 means I know of earning a living. I can stay in it, and 
 fight, and she must know; or, (the question of livelihood 
 being done away with,) I can leave it, apparently, of my own 
 will, and she need not know. I must stay in it, if I must 
 go on earning my living ; I must leave it if she is not to 
 know." 
 
 Philip regarded him in amazement. The words sang 
 through his head backwards and forwards. He made 
 nothing of them. 
 
 " Yes," he assented, without knowing to what he assented. 
 
 " A week ago I should have been saying this to your 
 
316 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 brother. I know him now. It is impossible that I should 
 any longer wish his marriage with Dorothy. And yet it 
 may still have to be. You know Dorothy s relation to 
 Jasper. Why not say it frankly ? You know that she once 
 cared enough for him to engage herself to him." Philip bit 
 his lip. "You can judge whether it is unlikely that she 
 will accept Jasper to-morrow when he comes, if nothing 
 happens." 
 
 Philip clenched his hands. "Likely? It is certain! 
 You don t know ! " 
 
 " I do know," rejoined the clergyman quietly. " I have 
 gathered my own impressions from Dorothy, from the 
 discontinuance of your visits to us, from other things. I 
 know what Dorothy thinks ; and I know, now, that she is 
 wrong. It is because of that I speak." Maurice looked at 
 him keenly. " I wish something to happen," he said. 
 
 Philip felt himself choking. " Do you mean ? Speak 
 out, man ! Do you mean that that you think I have a 
 chance with her? " 
 
 " Ah, I must not say ! I recommend you not to be 
 discouraged." 
 
 " Oh, if I thought it ! " cried Philip. 
 
 " I only ask you to remember my situation, hers what 
 we have said." 
 
 "Tell me!" exclaimed Philip fiercely, with a sudden 
 thought : " Have you told all this to Jasper, and has he 
 refused to listen ? " 
 
 "No," returned the clergyman, without offence, and with 
 the sad calm that remains to the purposes of a broken man, 
 " I have spoken first to you. I shall state the necessities of 
 the case to him, only if you force me to." 
 
 A wild joy played through Philip s veins. He turned 
 away to hide his unhoped-for happiness, with its perfect 
 mingling of a satisfied a richly satisfied debt. He drank 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 317 
 
 deep of the pleasure of holding Jasper s fate in his hands 
 before he would turn and face Maurice again. It was 
 worth while to have borne what he had borne from Jasper 
 for this moment. 
 
 "You will see now I may say it frankly, since you 
 understand, now, that it implies no reflection on you how, 
 in my present situation, in Dorothy s situation, I could not 
 let her think of a poor man, even if she were inclined to." 
 
 Philip started. He remembered his old, his rooted distrust 
 of Maurice. Was it possible that all this story was devised 
 cooked up ? But, if it was, what was its object ? He 
 had nothing to give Maurice ; he could do nothing for him. 
 Surely he was the type of poverty ! 
 
 And then, in an instant, he saw. He perceived that he 
 stood on the brink of a precipice, and realized that he had 
 brought himself to it. It was not Maurice. Beside him the 
 clergyman was a man of truth and justice and honour. 
 
 " That is so," he heard the clergyman going on, " because 
 the man who marries Dorothy must be able to make it 
 practicable for me to leave the ministry, now, at once ; and 
 naturally, and without the scandal which would kill her." 
 He paused. Then, after a moment, " But if Dorothy 
 should listen to you," he added, " it must be so for another 
 reason. If Dorothy should engage herself to any one but 
 your brother, it is right to tell you that I must be prepared to 
 find a considerable sum at once." 
 
 Philip s eyes fell. The clergyman studied his face 
 attentively. 
 
 The younger man raised his eyes at last, and gave back 
 Maurice s look. 
 
 "Why? "he asked, coldly. 
 
 "Because I owe your brother rather more than five 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 "Jasper? Why? How?" 
 
318 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " The larger part of it was a loan from him to enable me 
 to take a share in Vertner s paper, The Calendar. The 
 rest is made up of smaller sums, borrowed before and since. 
 It began with a trifling loan to assist me in escaping from 
 certain difficulties rising out of my Church School of Music 
 in Michigan. You may have heard of my failure there. I 
 have always been grateful to him for that. And from time 
 to time I have wanted money. I have never been able to 
 make my tastes harmonize with my income. I think you 
 know how that is, Mr. Deed ? " 
 
 Philip winced at this home-thrust, and winced even more at 
 the association of himself with the pitiable man before him. 
 " Things which to a certain order of mind seem luxuries, to 
 us to me, are necessities. Jasper has found his account 
 in this. When I have wanted money he has always pressed 
 it on me. He has had his purpose. But he has not let me 
 feel it. A week ago, after he had spoken to Dorothy, he 
 sought rne out at the station. He reminded me then." 
 
 " Cad ! " exclaimed Philip under his breath ; but his mind 
 was already far away. A thousand thoughts went racing 
 through his head, grouping themselves odiously, and dis 
 solving again in strange and alluring shapes. 
 
 His companion did not respond, and the conveisation 
 fell. 
 
 Philip sat staring moodily at the stove which, in this 
 room, replaced the usual open fire. A kettle hummed on 
 it, purfling into the air its leisurely cloud of steam. The 
 cat lying before the stove purring regularly, and the ticking 
 of the clock on the mantel made the silence hideous. Philip 
 knew that his hope of Dorothy, his future and his honour 
 lay on the other side of this silence. 
 
 In the swift, final moment of temptation, if a man may 
 be said to think it is at least not his present thought which 
 decides. The thoughts already allowed himself; the trivial 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 319 
 
 consents ; the reasoned compliances gone before, determine 
 for him. He may even find himself bound by his silences. 
 And for Philip, casting about in the blind fever of his hope 
 to save himself, the right and wholesome thoughts which he 
 could still conjure to his aid were answered, not by another 
 and an evil thought, but by a feeling a sweet, strong 
 ecstasy, that gripped and held him, and seemed to have its 
 own sacredness. 
 
 Maurice s secret was it likely that Jasper would keep it 
 from Dorothy beyond the moment in which it served his 
 interest to guard it ? Had not he, Philip, the pre-eminent 
 right of reverence, of tenderness over a future that must 
 always be threatened by the knowledge of what Maurice 
 had told him ? And he loved her. Did Jasper love her as 
 he loved her ? A passionate belief in the supreme right of 
 his love filled him. 
 
 Yet all the rectitude of a life unspotted by an act of 
 wrong rose in protest. Little impulses mingled with the 
 big. A certain pride which he had always kept about his 
 final integrity in money affairs, in the midst of the looseness 
 about them, of which every one knew, caused him to smart 
 in imagination. He seemed to see that he could not do 
 this thing ; not for any happiness the earth could hold ; not 
 for Dorothy. 
 
 He opened his lips to tell Maurice that the " Little 
 Cipher " was Jasper s j and that, if he sought a man strong 
 in the strength that wealth gives, it was to him that he must 
 turn. But the silent shaping of the sentence in which he 
 should tell him, gave the whole story of his real relation to 
 Jasper back to his memory. 
 
 Was it more, or other than a fair exchange the ranch for 
 the mine ? It was ever Jasper s taunt that he did not pay 
 his debts. There was a debt he would pay. The accumu 
 lations, the additions, the compound interest of insult and 
 
320 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 offence, gathered themselves, now, in his mind into a single 
 bulk, in the face of which all scruples grew absurd. 
 
 He would pay the debt ; and if he overpaid it, there was 
 always the obligation his father owed Jasper. The balance 
 could be credited to that account. As he thought of his 
 father, the savage impulse of hate which had caused him to 
 gloat a few moments earlier in the knowledge that Jasper s 
 future lay in his hands, sent a sweep of exultant yearning for 
 vengeance through him. 
 
 He saw that in all his forbearance toward Jasper, in his 
 softening of his father s wrath, in the just course he had 
 tried to walk with his brother since Jasper had wronged him, 
 the black hate which now rose in his heart, had its part. It 
 must always since have lain crouched there. It seemed now 
 to spring out from him into an awful aloofness where, with a 
 beast s instinct, it had the will, if he would let it, to rend 
 and tear. 
 
 Was he to give this man a fortune ? Was he to beggar 
 himself for him ? He was ready to do that. He had meant 
 to do it. But how if to impoverish himself and to enrich 
 Jasper was to lose the new hope of Dorothy, thrilling along 
 his pulses like wine ? Could he bear it ? Perhaps. But to 
 lose her that Jasper might win her ? . . . He shook his 
 head with a gentle smile of scorn. 
 
 " Well ? " inquired Maurice. 
 
 Philip rose suddenly. A light shone in his eyes. 
 
 " May I speak to Miss Maurice ? " . 
 
 The clergyman glanced at him in surprise. But he rose 
 and went to the door with him. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Philip passed out into the hallway with the flicker of a 
 smile on his set lips, 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE sun was dyeing the paper stained-glass in the hall 
 windows to a similitude of the costly beauty they imitated 
 as Dorothy went to the front door at sound of the bell. 
 Through one of the palest lozenges of glass she discerned 
 a figure which she knew for Vertner s. His hand was on 
 the bell when she opened the door to him. 
 
 " Oh, are you back, Mr. Vertner ? " she said, offering him 
 her hand. 
 
 "Yes. You just saved yourself. In another moment I 
 should have started that slam-bang gong on its errand of 
 destruction." It was one of the gongs, set in the door 
 itself, which explode a clangour through the house, sending 
 a shiver to the remotest nerve of the structure. " There 
 would be bells in your landlord s house if we had the build 
 ing of it, would n t there ? We d have them in the window- 
 sashes, they d go off when Cozzens opened his bureau 
 drawers ; they d be concealed in chairs ; we d pave the 
 house with them ; he d go to sleep to a weird whirr from the 
 cellar, and wake to the unmerciful buzz of one of the things 
 by his bedside. I think we could fix him out. How s your 
 father?" 
 
 Dorothy smiled and changed the subject with his own 
 facility. " Papa is very well. Would you like to see him ? 
 He is at luncheon with Mr. Deed, but he will be in, in a 
 
 Y 
 
.322 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 moment." She opened the door into the little parlour at 
 the front of the house. 
 
 " Don t disturb him," said Vertner as he walked briskly 
 over to the plant stand on which Dorothy kept her winter 
 flowers, and put his face down into a geranium. "You 
 made out with the cactus, did n t you ? You must how 
 Beatrice. No, it was only a little matter." 
 
 "About the paper?" 
 
 " Well, partly. I ve got a new idea about the Kalendar. 
 But I think I must have wanted to see you as much as 
 anything. We have n t talked schemes for a long time, 
 have we ? " 
 
 It had been a joke between them since the day of their con 
 ference about the paper that Vertner must always discuss his 
 new scheme with Dorothy before finally committing himself 
 to it. He pretended to defer to her advice ; and Dorothy 
 pretended she believed that he did. 
 
 "Oh, no!" assented Dorothy. "What is the new one, 
 Mr. Vertner ? Is it a bonanza or a gold mine ? I m 
 sure some one is bound to go into it if you don t, and that 
 it will give you the cinch on the whole business, " she said, 
 parodying his phrases fearlessly; "but do you think we 
 ought to go into it ? Should we * come in on the ground 
 floor ? That s the important point for us to consider, 
 is n t it ? " 
 
 She made these suggestions absently. She was thinking 
 of something else. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," rejoined Vertner, gazing at the 
 blooming cactus, while he swung his hat between his legs. 
 "Don t you think we ought to make sure first whether 
 Schlesinger will sell ? " 
 
 Dorothy brought herself back to give this question the 
 advantage of her judgment, and they laughed together, as 
 Vertner explained his plan of forming a syndicate to buy up 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 323 
 
 the entire municipality of Spesiana, a deserted city in the 
 mountains, which had enjoyed its boom but had not lived 
 through it. Vertner meant to organize another boom. 
 Schlesinger had bought most of the city lots on speculation, 
 but he would sell, now, if he was approached right. The 
 boom would begin after the sale. He said he could work 
 the newspapers. 
 
 Vertner noticed that Dorothy s attention wandered. She 
 usually listened to his schemes intently ; and guessing that 
 something interested her more at the moment, he changed 
 the subject with, " So Jasper is back ? " 
 
 " Mr. Deed ? No. It is Mr. Philip Deed who is with 
 papa." 
 
 "No? Is it? I want to see him. I want to congratulate 
 him. You heard, of course ? " 
 
 " About his mine ? Oh, yes. Mr. Cutter told us." 
 
 " You don t seem very glad," he said, glancing at her. 
 
 "Glad? Oh, yes." 
 
 " Well then, not enthusiastic," 
 
 Dorothy regarded him studiously a moment without 
 speaking. Many thoughts were going through her mind 
 many considerations ; and at last a resolution seemed to 
 enter it, for she said suddenly, and with an effect of bracing 
 herself, 
 
 " Mr. Vertner, do you know Mr. Philip Deed very 
 well ? " 
 
 Vertner was instantly serious. "Yes, Miss Maurice. Very 
 well. Why ? " he asked kindly. 
 
 " Because You will know of a difference he has had 
 
 with his brother a quarrel : I I don t know what. I 
 have n t liked to ask. But I must ask some one, now. And 
 you you will know." 
 
 The uncharacteristic hesitations, the tremulous advances 
 and retreats seemed to Vertner to call on his chivalry. 
 
 Y 2 
 
3 2 4 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " But surely you have heard ? " he began blunder 
 ingly. 
 
 " I have heard of the injunction which Mr. Jasper Deed 
 has secured against his brother something about his 
 ranch. Yes. He has had to defend himself, at last." 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " Why, Mr. Deed." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Maurice, but which ? " 
 
 "Mr. Jasper Deed, of course." 
 
 " Jasper?" She nodded. "Jasper?" he repeated. 
 " Jasper defend himself, and at last ? Oh, Miss Maurice ! 
 Why, would you mind telling me how much you do know 
 of this ? " 
 
 She shook her head in rueful bewilderment. " I don t 
 know." 
 
 " Well, you know how things stood when he went away. 
 Let s find a basis, Miss Maurice. This hurts my poor head." 
 
 " But you don t suppose he would tell me, surely ? You 
 know him, Mr. Vertner. Does it seem likely that he could 
 condemn his brother to me if if he had suffered from 
 him. You don t know. Even if it were likely, it would 
 have been impossible to him, to any one, as as things 
 have been." 
 
 " Would it ? " asked Vertner, in a daze. " Oh, yes, of 
 course it would ! " And then, " To whom ? " 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 " Yes, whose impossibility who could n t ? Yes, that s 
 what I mean ? " 
 
 "Mr. Jasper Deed," she said quickly. " Who else could 
 I mean?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t know! I don t know!" cried Vertner, 
 beating back an imaginary army of conjectures with his out 
 stretched palm. And, falling sober again, " Philip, for one, 
 I should say, Miss Maurice ? " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 325 
 
 " Before he went away, did you mean ? " 
 
 " Well, yes," drawled Vertner. 
 
 " But " 
 
 " And did he never tell you how things stood in this case 
 of Deed versus Deed ? " 
 
 " Ah, you expect him to have condemned himself? So 
 did I. I thought him strong enough. I believed he would 
 rather condemn himself than let me doubt his brother 
 wrongly. Oh, if he had been strong enough for that, I 
 should have believed in him always ! I should have known. 
 He did not believe that I would know. He would not 
 believe that I should understand how his brother could be 
 maddening, and he he hot-headed." 
 
 "And do you mean to say ?" cried Vertner. "Oh, 
 
 no, no ! It can t be ! I knew the boy was a wild and roaring 
 unicorn on some subjects, but I never supposed he could go 
 
 and be such an ass as . And you have been thinking 
 
 that he was the one to blame in all this row with Jasper ! 
 Oh, that s very pretty ! " He paused a moment to contem 
 plate the beauty of the idea ! " And you never knew that 
 Jasper had done his brother out of his share in the ranch by 
 a foul trick, and broken his father s heart by the same 
 
 operation : and sent him to ! You never knew all 
 
 that!" he exclaimed, breaking off suddenly. "And you ve 
 
 been thinking Oh ! Wow ! Wow ! " howled Vertner, 
 
 inarticulately. " Why you must keep up with the news of 
 the day, Miss Maurice," he told her, when he could speak. 
 "You mustn t let these facts of contemporary human 
 interest get by you, in this way though, come to think 
 of it, I don t know how you would have heard about it, 
 unless Phil had told you. Except Deed and his wife, who 
 have taken their knowledge off to heaven knows where, no 
 one knows anything about it but Philip and myself. Jasper 
 knows about it. But he did n t tell you ? No, naturally. 
 
326 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 There has been one other the fellow who bought the 
 ranch, Snell. But he s been keeping it dark. / don t 
 know what s possessed him ! " 
 
 " Bought the ranch ? " gasped Dorothy. " Mr. Snell ? " 
 
 "Yes. Oh, yes. That s just a little bit from this 
 picturesque muss. You shall have the rest if you like the 
 sample." 
 
 "Tell me the whole, please, Mr. Vertner. Tell me 
 everything," cried Dorothy in a brave voice that died away 
 in a quiver. 
 
 When Vertner found himself in the street a little later, 
 after telling her the whole story, including Deed s and 
 Margaret s share in it, he turned toward home, cursing 
 himself roundly. He did not like to see a woman cry. 
 
 DOROTHY stood with her face pressed against the pane, 
 looking out desperately toward the big, uncaring mountains. 
 She felt Philip by her side, and could not turn her face. 
 They stood together in the window, for a moment, in 
 silence. 
 
 " Would it matter if I said " began Philip, in a low 
 
 tone. But at the sound of his voice she turned her streaming 
 eyes upon him, and he stood gazing into them. 
 
 " Don t ! " she begged, brokenly. " Don t ! " 
 
 He shrank. It was like a ghostly voice crying out on him 
 to stay his purpose. 
 
 " No, you must listen ! " he had said incoherently, before 
 he knew. He did not know what he meant to ask her to 
 listen to. 
 
 He seized her hand involuntarily. She caught it away. 
 " No," she cried. " No ! You don t know ! " 
 
 His conjecture darted instantly to her father. Had she 
 heard ? Was the little leaven of another s good to fail his 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 32? 
 
 act ? Was she to suffer notwithstanding ? The flux and 
 influx of his will about the odious thing he was doing went 
 on in him sub-consciously in the face of his resolve to take 
 his right, to use the mine which was not his, to square 
 accounts with Jasper, to deal with him as he had been 
 dealt by. 
 
 The thought that he should not benefit her daunted him. 
 He seemed now to himself to find his only warrant for his 
 act in this little note of right, of kindness, or love which 
 sang within it somewhere. 
 
 " I have wronged you, Mr. Deed," he heard her saying, 
 as all his resolve seemed sucked away from him in the 
 sudden outflow of his will. " Oh, I have wronged you 
 bitterly ! " 
 
 He looked up. "Wronged me ? " he cried. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! Oh, yes ! We can t speak of it. There s 
 nothing I can say or do that could make you know how 
 how I feel to have to have " 
 
 He saw the tears start in her eyes with a shock of 
 shame. " I hope there is n t, Miss Maurice ! Don t try to 
 say anything like that ! Pray don t! I could n t bear it." 
 
 " But I must. Your silence I misconstrued it. I 
 thought " 
 
 " And you don t think so, now? I m glad of that." He 
 took her h: nd, and this time she let him keep it a moment. 
 
 " But you don t know what I have thought of you ! " 
 
 Philip frowned, but he said with a smile. " I don t care ; 
 or I sh a nt if you ll tell me what you think, now" He bent 
 over her, looking into her eyes. She dropped her gaze to 
 the carpet. 
 
 " Look up ! " he said. She obeyed him slowly. They 
 let their eyes rest on each other, and melt and mix in a 
 glance that taught them one another. Then he stooped 
 shyly and kissed her. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE days that followed were very dear to Dorothy. She 
 had given herself wholly to him in that first meeting of the 
 lips which seemed to make all things straight, and straight 
 for ever; she had her reserves with him, but she had no 
 doubts. She knew, now, that she had been his and only 
 his, from the beginning. She thought of Jasper, as she now 
 saw him, with a shudder, and made up to Philip in her heart* 
 if not in the outward expressions she allowed herself, for 
 every kindly impulse toward Jasper she had known. 
 
 For the contumely which she seemed to herself to have 
 heaped on Philip in believing him in the wrong in the 
 question between him and Jasper, she could find no proper 
 penance. But the purity, the instinctive morality, the 
 pitiless, colourless sense of right which Jasper feared and 
 admired in her, saw in this silence of Philip s, which had 
 gone so near to cost them each other, a nobility beyond 
 praise. Philip laughed at this when she told him of it in 
 the long interchange of confidences which filled the after 
 noon, after he had spoken and had taken his answer from 
 her. She liked to have him laugh ; but she said that how 
 ever wicked and wrong and dangerous it was to have kept 
 that silence, it was fine, and she would not have had him 
 speak (especially when he saw that she doubted him) 
 even if- 
 
 "Even, if ?" queried Philip, with the rising inflection 
 
 of impudence. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 329 
 
 She looked at him for a moment in affectionate musing. 
 He reached from the other end of the sofa, where they were 
 sitting, and took her hand. " No," she said, as her eyes 
 filled spontaneously with happy tears, "I should never have 
 forgiven you if you had let it go so far as that ! " 
 
 She began to abuse his foibles to win her way back to 
 her reserves. She said it would n t do to spoil him too 
 much. He had spoiled himself enough already. It was 
 no wonder that she had been a long time making up her 
 mind to accept such a reckless, careless, extravagant, hap 
 hazard lover. 
 
 "Oh, come!" cried Philip. "There was nothing hap 
 hazard about my love. I wished sometimes that there 
 might be." 
 
 "There s something hap-hazard about a young man who 
 buys three ponies when he can t possibly use more than 
 one." 
 
 " Not when one of them is for a young lady, who chooses 
 to take a view of things, after the purchase of ponies, which 
 makes it impossible to ask her to ride one of them ! " 
 
 Dorothy blushed. "Oh!" 
 
 He made her agree to use one of the ponies as her own ; 
 
 and when he had taken himself off to the " Snow Find " 
 
 having first given his orders about the pony at the stables, 
 where he had left the animal after he had ceased to see 
 Dorothy she sent word to the livery people that she should 
 want to ride in the morning, early. She caught sight of 
 Ernfield s boy passing the house on his way to the stables, 
 and despatched the message by him. 
 
 " Benn gittin good news, Miss Maurice ? " inquired Fred, 
 as she laid a hand on the phaeton she had come from the 
 house to stop. 
 
 She saw that he recognized the happiness in her face ; 
 and she liked Fred well enough, and felt safe enough with 
 
330 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 him to say, "Yes, Fred very." But she admonished her 
 self that this public impression of her happiness would n t 
 do ; and she asked Fred about Dr. Ernfield. 
 
 Oh, Doc s all broke up lately," said the boy. "7 do 
 know what s the matter of him. He use n t to be like that. 
 He don t seem to have his old git up an git any more, 
 Doc don t ! Here I benn drivin round to tell our patients 
 that we can t come to-day. We re laid up, we are, and 
 that s the way it goes ! " 
 
 Dorothy s heart went out to Ernfield in a pity which took 
 a new edge from her own fortune. She asked Fred, while 
 she smiled at his invariable air of proprietorship in Ernfield, 
 to tell the doctor that she was coming to see him next day, 
 if he would let her. She felt as if her love somehow conse 
 crated her to all the suffering and failure and misfortune 
 everywhere. She felt as if she must be worthy of her bliss ; 
 it must teach her to look out, not in. There was a fresh 
 force in the world ; it was created anew. It seemed to her 
 that her whole life must be an outgiving of the great spiritual 
 truth which had descended upon her. Her one word, of 
 which she had learned the meaning for the first time to-day, 
 seemed to explain so much, to make so much perplexity 
 smooth, to melt so much doubt and trouble, to make foolish 
 so much striving. The joy which knocked at her heart, and 
 seemed to beat there sometimes as if it would burst its gates, 
 was not a thing of which either she or Philip should take all 
 the good. It was for everybody ; only, she thought, they 
 should not know what blessed them. And, in the morning, 
 as a beginning, she took her ride. 
 
 It was a good ride. She seemed to find herself in it, and 
 these early, sunny morning hours, in which she fled along 
 the mesa alone, in a sweet abandonment to the joy of the 
 motion, of the morning, and of the inward tumult of her 
 thoughts, remained always in her memory as moments a 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 331 
 
 little better than speech could report. Even Philip she never 
 told of this ride. 
 
 They took many rides together, however, in the valley, 
 and among the mountains, and up the mountains ; and the 
 compensatory law of Nature by which the work of the world 
 is continued in the face of an engagement, enabled the usual 
 output of ore to be taken from the " Snow Find " daily, with 
 little assistance from Philip. Cutter was one of Nature s 
 assistants in this, and the lovers recognized together his un 
 failing goodness. Philip went back and told her about their 
 life together at Pifion. He said affectionately that Cutter was 
 an awful ass, and the best fellow in the world. He should 
 be sorry when he grew less of an ass, because he might be 
 less entirely the best fellow. He said that he was afraid 
 that the West was teaching him something ; he feared he 
 was acquiring sense about some things ; he could see his 
 affectations dropping away from him, one by one. 
 
 And then he told her about Cutter s affair with Elsa 
 Berrian, and Dorothy compassionated him tenderly. She 
 wished every one they liked to be engaged, to be happy in 
 their love. She said hard things of Elsa, but she professed 
 to be sure that she and Cutter would understand each other? 
 finally, as they had. Surely they had suffered enough from 
 misunderstandings, but all had fallen out well with them. 
 Philip ridiculed her optimism ; and then he asked her if she 
 was quite sure that even they were beyond the reach of the 
 accidents of fate. They would sometimes feign themselves 
 lost to each other for the pleasure of surprising their happi 
 ness afresh ; but something in Philip s voice made her turn 
 upon him quickly. 
 
 "Why? Is there something? Have you heard from 
 your brother? What is it, Philip?" She laid a gentle 
 hand on his arm. 
 
 They were riding on the pine-covered mesa. 
 
332 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Philip denied to himself the ache and the foreboding out 
 of which he had spoken, as he held aside a bough to let her 
 pass. 
 
 " Nothing," he said. " Why should there be anything ? " 
 
 " I don t know. Everything makes me afraid. It was 
 never so until until I had this to lose. It seems to me every 
 little while as if something must happen. Perhaps we are 
 too happy ! " She sighed, and Philip laughed down the 
 wasteful use of a present happiness as an object for the 
 threats of destiny. 
 
 " Do you suppose," he asked, " that no two people were 
 ever happy enough before to excite the jealousy of the evil- 
 minded fates ? " And he added that the fates were still 
 kept so busy on the Atlantic seaboard that they had n t had 
 time yet to come West, and grow up with the country. 
 " They may be wrecking the happiness of some loving pair 
 in Connecticut, or Massachusetts, or New York at this 
 moment. In fact, it s likely. But they have n t time for 
 Colorado. Business is too brisk where they are." 
 
 She laughed, and Philip proposed a gallop. He was 
 willing to be rid of his own thoughts. 
 
 Dorothy liked to make him see how she had come to be 
 such a goose about the proportion of his guilt in his affair 
 with Jasper. It involved accusations on both sides, and, on 
 the whole, they liked the security with which they might 
 now accuse each other as well as anything. She asserted 
 that her idea about that affair was not merely the natural 
 conclusion ; but that she should think the same thing again 
 
 " Oh, come ! " cried Philip. " Not quite ! " 
 
 "I don t know," said Dorothy judicially. "You see 
 what I went on. I was sure you were a hasty, hot-tempered, 
 sensitive, high-strung, harum-scarum young man," she said 
 smiling at him, " and I knew your brother for a gentleman 
 of judgment. You must remember that he had never 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 333 
 
 given me any reason to doubt his honesty or his his 
 virtues. They were n t romantic, like the vices of some 
 other people I could name, but they were solid. At least 
 they seemed so. I believed in them at any rate ; I suppose 
 I esteemed them. Is n t that the word ? " 
 
 " You took good care not to esteem my virtues, I ob 
 serve." 
 
 " Did I ?" quizzed Dorothy. " I had n t noticed. Were 
 they about ? " 
 
 " They were n t estimable." 
 
 " I m sure I did n t esteem them." 
 
 " I believe you. You were busy." 
 
 " Yes," she said, with a little arch lift of her eyelid, 
 " loving them." 
 
 They had been climbing the hill which Margaret and 
 Ernfield had once climbed. He caught her hand to his 
 lips. 
 
 It was easy to answer such expressions of which, how 
 ever, she was very frugal in the manner allotted to them ; 
 and to find the moment s happiness which they should 
 produce in the normal lover ; but it was impossible to keep 
 this content. And when he was away from her, in the face 
 of every reason for joy, he was blankly miserable. Cutter, 
 who was the first to whom he told the news of his engage 
 ment, and who rejoiced in it as became a friend, noticed 
 his moodiness, as Vertner and Ernfield did, also, after a 
 time ; and they twitted or jibed him after their several 
 fashions, until Cutter saw it was serious, and set himself to 
 help him, if he could. But Philip repulsed him, almost 
 rudely. 
 
 In the long nights he thought he must tell her ; but when 
 he saw her radiant face again, it was seen to be impossible 
 and absurd. No ; he had bought his happiness with a 
 price. If the price was high the more reason for not risking 
 
334 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 it by suffering foolish qualms to tempt him to the re 
 velation which hung always on his lips. He thought, 
 sometimes, she must read his secret in his eyes. How 
 could it be that a man should lose the power to face himself 
 in the defenceless moments of solitude, and fail to show it 
 in his countenance ? 
 
 He could still make it seem right what he had done 
 as it touched Jasper. Nay, it sometimes seemed as finely, 
 as excellently right as it had seemed in the moment which 
 had persuaded him to the wrongful silence he was now 
 committed to. But as it lived in the same world with 
 Dorothy, it was a foul and unspeakable thing ; it was to the 
 full the wrong, or more than the wrong it could have 
 seemed to his old rectitude, if it had approached him in its 
 naked guise, with no question of Jasper, of vengeance, of 
 wrong for wrong, or of the love for which he had done it. 
 This love was now good and sweet to him only as he could 
 find a purity of impulse in himself answerable to the purity 
 of hers ; he felt soiled by what he had done, to his in 
 most core. Her very caresses were a shame to him. He 
 thought how she must start away from him if she 
 knew. 
 
 In these moods he framed a dozen passionate confessions 
 in which he told her that he was a scoundrel beneath the 
 least of her kindnesses ; he said that he had her love on 
 false pretences ; that she should know him all of him to 
 know how unworthy he was. He said in these confessions 
 which were never made that he would go away ; that they 
 would not meet again ; and that at this point a crazy pang 
 of jealousy would intrude and he would remember that he 
 could not leave her to Jasper. He knew that she now 
 despised Jasper. Yet this seemed possible, or even 
 probable. 
 
 Tn the midst of this harassment of mind, small things 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 335 
 
 gave him pleasure. It was with a strange joy, for example, 
 that he arranged the details of borrowing on the security of 
 the " Little Cipher " the sum which Maurice owed Jasper. 
 He transacted the business, giving him the money that was 
 to deliver Maurice from Jasper s hands, and to place Dorothy 
 for ever beyond his brother with a pleasure hardly diminished 
 by the sense that he was at the same time giving the final 
 sanction to his deed, and making retreat impossible. 
 
 He recognised, with a start, as he stood by the banker s 
 counter, the feeling which he had accused in his father. 
 His own perception of the unwisdom, the wrong of reprisal 
 upon Jasper, he had played utterly false, and he found him 
 self rejoicing in having done so. He knew, now, the ex 
 ultation his father had felt in squaring himself with Jasper. 
 Still more clearly, but sadly, he saw how his father had been 
 led to cast back his own seeming ingratitude in his face. 
 
 Ah, if he could but get at his father, they might understand 
 each other, now. His father was the one person to whom 
 he could fancy himself telling his story unreservedly, if he 
 could but find him and reconcile himself to him. He did 
 not believe he would be the surer that his plea for Jasper 
 had been the false one it would now more than ever seem ; 
 though he thought of this. What came to him was that his 
 father was the one man who could wholly know the goaded 
 mind in which it had come to him that he could not let 
 Jasper win his love from him, too. 
 
 The thought made the discovery of his father s where 
 abouts even more than the immediate necessity it had been 
 for the past two months. He enjoyed the reflection that 
 Jasper would now be indirectly furnishing him with the 
 money for lack of which he had hitherto failed to find him. 
 He said to himself that he would start soon at once ; and 
 then he recalled that he had promised himself to remain in 
 Maverick until Jasper s return. If Jasper should ever come 
 
330 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 to know of what he had done he did not wish to give it to 
 him to say that he had dodged away. He wished to face 
 him. He was not ashamed of what he had done not, at 
 least, before Jasper. 
 
 He did not find his feeling about it, even as it touched 
 Dorothy, continuous. There were odd lapses in it, followed 
 by quick returns of remorse. It would die away from him, 
 in good hours, when they talked together, and grow a callous 
 lump, which he was conscious of carrying about in his bosom 
 as a burden ; but he was not constantly sure of its meaning. 
 At these times his willingness to enjoy the nearest pleasure, 
 his liking for the comfortable, the agreeable arrangement, 
 minded him to keep it out of his sight, if he could, and for 
 get it. Surely he had a right to his hardly-won bliss ; and 
 if he had not, no one was likely to be benefited by any 
 foolish asceticism about it, unless, indeed, Jasper, whose 
 enjoyment of his brother s incapacity to taste the joy he had 
 snatched from him, being imagined, helped Philip to forget 
 manfully. 
 
 They talked of Jasper sometimes, to make sure of their 
 possession of each other ; they even indulged a wonder why 
 he did not return, though, in their hearts neither wished his 
 return. They felt instinctively that his return would set a 
 period to their present state ; their next state might be better 
 or worse, but it would not be the same. The first days of 
 betrothal came but once, and they hedged them jealously 
 from the world. Dorothy would not let him make their en 
 gagement known beyond the little company of their friends, 
 and made him pledge each of them to secrecy, for a time yet 
 She said she knew it must come ; she should have to be con 
 gratulated ; she should have to see her engagement take its 
 place among the gossip of the town, in the news of the day, 
 but she was not ready for that yet. It was only one degree 
 from having to feel, as she knew she should be made to feel, 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 337 
 
 that a marriage was just a marriage an interesting public 
 function, surrounded by the usual circumstance of ushers, 
 orange flowers, white silk, carriages, subdued whispers, rap 
 turous comment, Lohengrin, and all the rest of it. She 
 might as well be a statistic, and done with it. She admitted 
 that their marriage would be in the census ; but she was 
 willing to postpone her sense of its civic importance. 
 
 Sometimes in their rides long silences would fall, and 
 perhaps they communicated with each other most fully in 
 these. But they liked to speak of the time when a little 
 turn, one way or the other, might have lost them to each 
 other, as it seemed. 
 
 Dorothy would not admit that any chance could have 
 been strong enough to really keep them apart : on which 
 Philip asked her what she said to the chance which she had 
 given herself to accept Jasper. 
 
 " Suppose I had n t come along ! Suppose Vertner 
 had n t let on what an extra abused fellow I was ! It s 
 even betting what answer he would have got." 
 
 "Well, he has n t come back for it," suggested Dorothy 
 "No, but if he had?" 
 
 " I gave myself a week," she said, demurely. 
 " Do you mean that you gave me a week ? Take care ! 
 I sha n t believe that you were spending all your time 
 disliking my part in the row with Jasper! " 
 
 " Oh, you may believe what you like ! " she rejoined 
 flicking her horse with the quirt Philip had given her. 
 
 But, at another time, when they were sitting before the 
 fire in her own home, she told him that it was really he 
 who had gone nearest to make the impossibility of their not 
 coming together possible. What did he say to the extreme 
 folly of telling a young woman he loved her, and asking her 
 in the same moment to understand that the fact was n t to 
 count ? To be sure he had suddenly thought better of this 
 
338 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 absurdity. It was a great point that he had thought better 
 of it. But why ? 
 
 A sick feeling stole over Philip as he parried this question 
 so obvious, so just for the dozenth time, with a weary 
 joke. It reappeared with the haunting effect of a threat. 
 Must this ghost always stand at his elbow ? Might he not 
 better tell her the whole story of his temptation and his fall, 
 and throw himself on her mercy, and her belief in him. 
 
 But he remembered Maurice, who would be so far too 
 much involved in anything he should try to say. He could 
 not wound the faith in her father, which he had given so 
 much to preserve. He wished that Maurice would at least 
 take the action which was now a matter of days, and which 
 could not be much longer postponed. And he wished 
 Jasper would return. There came a point in all threatening 
 discomforts where all his thoughts and desires about them 
 resolved themselves into a single longing to have done with 
 them. 
 
 When he and Maurice met in Dorothy s presence, now, 
 they avoided each other s eye. Philip felt degraded by 
 their common secret. He saw that he must tell Dorothy 
 what he had done if the present situation did not come to 
 an end soon of itself. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 MARGARET clung upon her husband, as Jasper left them, 
 and took the path back into the woods. She looked 
 wistfully into his eyes. " Tell me it is n t true ! " she 
 whispered huskily. " Say that he is wrong ! He would 
 say his worst. I know that ! Oh, James, tell me that it 
 is n t true ! " 
 
 Deed was silent. He watched Jasper s form slowly 
 disappearing among the twilit pines, with blazing eyes. He 
 took his breath shortly. 
 
 " True?" he asked from his absorption. He stroked her 
 head absently. " What true, dear? Scoundrel ! " he muttered. 
 
 "What he said that you you ? " 
 
 " That I pledged bonds left with me in trust to raise 
 money to pay Philip ? Yes. It s true," he said, clenching 
 his hands, and staring over her head at the point where 
 Jasper had vanished among the trees. He was less than 
 half conscious of making the confession which he had 
 considered so often and painfully ; but at her shrinking 
 from him he knew that he had told her, and that he was 
 alone with her knowledge of him. " Do you object ? " he 
 asked abruptly. 
 
 The soreness of his spirit spoke. Every nerve in him 
 ached from the interview which he had just cut short 
 fiercely with a word. 
 
 She could have comforted him, without a backward look 
 
 z 2 
 
340 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 on the story Jasper had told, and he would have blessed 
 her ; and, later, would have humbled himself before her with 
 the truth. At the moment the hand of pure kindness must 
 have been a pain ; and the probe, even in the hands of love, 
 was torture. "Do you object?" he repeated, as she did 
 not answer. 
 
 " Object ? " she cried. " Oh, my husband ! :> 
 
 She saw that he was in the mood when he must be hard 
 with the person nearest him. She had just seen him 
 tormented beyond endurance. She meant to be gentle, to 
 be tolerant. But she could not be silent. 
 
 " I see ! " exclaimed Deed. " You need n t say it. 
 Well, the law objects, too. You are in excellent company." 
 
 " Oh, James, how should I care for that ! You were in 
 the right. I believe it. I only ask you to say it, and I 
 will believe you. Can t you see that I can t bear to think 
 you in the wrong? " 
 
 " Ah yes ! " he exclaimed sadly. " You care too much 
 for the right to bear to think that ! " 
 
 " That is true ! " she said simply. " I don t think you 
 could want me to deny that, James, though you say it as if 
 it were an accusation. You mean that I care for that first, 
 and then for you. I care for you as you are right, the right! 
 Can t you see how it s all the same thing? You have 
 become my right. Oh, James, did n t I take you for that in 
 marrying you ? " 
 
 " Reserving your own definitions," said Deed bitterly. 
 
 " I don t define," she murmured entrcatingly. " I only 
 ask you to say ! " 
 
 " And I can t say ! Nothing that I could say could make 
 what I have done seem right to your ideas of Right. You 
 would be forced to condemn just as I should be eternally 
 forced to do it, in the same situation. It s temperament ! 
 It s character ! " he cried miserably. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 341 
 
 The twilight had deepened during the brief minutes in 
 which Jasper had told his father that he knew the secret of 
 the hypothecation of Iron Silver stock at Leadville, and had 
 given him his choice between retreat from the sale to Sriell, 
 and an immediate publication of the facts of the hypothe 
 cation in the newspapers. He had taken his scornful answer 
 away with him into the dusk. The darkness was now falling 
 about them, touched only by the last reluctances of the day, 
 which the reflected glimmer from the white hills detained 
 vaguely still. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " assented Margaret. " I know. But what 
 can matter if we love each other if we trust each other !" 
 
 " Trust, Margaret ! Did you trust me when I sold the 
 ranch away from this fellow ! Would you trust me, now, if 
 I were to tell you how I used this mining stock out of a 
 need of the same kind ? I am made that way, Margaret. 
 I could n t have helped doing it any more than you can help 
 loathing it, now," he repeated. 
 
 "I don t loathe it," she said patiently. "I am sorry 
 sorry. What you say about the other yes, I see, now, that 
 I was wrong, or unhappy, or I don t know what in my 
 way of asking you not to do that. Perhaps I shall never 
 be able to find words, or ways whatever it is with which 
 other women explain such things," she went on, with a little 
 note of humility in her voice which touched Deed inde 
 scribably, and caused him to take her hand in his in a quick 
 pressure as she stole it gently, almost timidly toward him. 
 " But James," she continued quickly, "we were not married 
 then. I am your wife, now. That has changed everything. 
 I can t judge you. I am part of you. If you have done 
 what what he said, the error, the sin, if there is any, is 
 mine, too. Let us help each other about it, James. Tell 
 me how was it?" 
 
 The moon siole an edge above the summit of Monk s 
 
342 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Head, etching the dusky outline of the mountain against its 
 peeping disk. The light kindled along the snowy flanks of 
 the opposite hills, and ran tremulously into the black depths 
 of the canon beyond. He told her of the means by which 
 he had paid Philip, as they stood in the broadening glow. 
 
 " But you meant to do no wrong ! " she said as he 
 finished. 
 
 " Oh, meant ! " he exclaimed. " Do you think they will 
 care at Leadville what I meant to do ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not," she said. " But I care. If it had not 
 been for the chance of this snow, which might have 
 happened to any one, you would have sold the * Lady 
 Bountiful to those people at Burro Peak, and no one 
 would have been the worse for what you did." She said 
 this stoutly, as much by way of trying to believe it for 
 herself as to comfort him. But her conscience forced her 
 to add, immediately, " But it was an awful mistake it was 
 it was not right, was it, James ? " She looked up into his 
 eyes, questioning him doubtfully, as if she had never 
 known days in which problems like this were decided 
 with instinctive confidence within her own breast. 
 
 " No, Margaret, no ! It was like other things a muddle 
 of right and wrong, I suppose ; but certainly not right. 
 Perhaps I might say for what I did that it would n t be fair 
 to judge it in the gross. But that s the best I could say. 
 I did it because I had to, Margaret. I did n t mean one 
 thing or the other, as you call it. The position in which 
 Philip placed me was intolerable. I changed it I righted 
 it. God knows with what show of justice ! " He turned 
 away. They stood for a moment, silent. Then he said, 
 " Does it not seem my destiny, Margaret dear, to hurt you, 
 and always at the tenderest point ? I seem to have to do 
 the things which must wound you deepest, and then to have 
 to hurt you deeper by wickedly trying to make you pay for 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 343 
 
 my error through your sensitiveness to it. From the hour 
 that I borrowed money at Leadville on those bonds which 
 didn t belong to me I have been ashamed to face myself; 
 what I did has seemed to debase me deeper and deeper 
 every day. I have hated myself. I have wished to tell you. 
 But when you question my act, ever so gently, I must make 
 you suffer for my pain about it. It is because I know the 
 things I do for what they are that I can t bear your sure 
 eyes on them. If I believed myself as much in the right 
 as I am always ready to say I am, I could not shrink from 
 your brave, judgments." 
 
 "Oh, James, it is n t for me to judge. But, don t you 
 see, dear what you say gives me courage to ask that ? " 
 she hesitated. 
 
 " What, Margaret ? " he asked gently. 
 
 " That that all you have done all that you have been 
 led to do since Jasper turned false, is all of one piece, 
 really?" 
 
 " No," said Deed gravely, " I don t see that." 
 
 " But I do ! Oh, James." she cried, " what you did to 
 Jasper was wrong wrong from the beginning ! " 
 
 Deed frowned heavily. " Margaret ! I thought you " 
 
 He bit his lip. 
 
 "That I said I was mistaken in that? In the way I 
 chose to make you feel what I felt yes ! But in my feeling 
 about it oh, no, no, I was right; and if in nothing else, 
 then right in my instinct that it was wrong for you ! Poor 
 James ! It has been wrong, has it not ? " She slipped her 
 hand within his arm. He dropped the arm, and looked 
 away toward the gilded white hills. But she went on, un 
 daunted. " We have tried to cover it up in our happiness, 
 these last few weeks. But it s true ; and I see now I m 
 sure that you see now that we must face it. Do you think 
 I don t understand how, having done what you did with 
 
344 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 J asper, what you did with Philip had to follow ? It was 
 that I feared for you all the endless consequences, all the 
 suffering, all the remorse, all the snarl of wrong ! I feared 
 them for you, James, because I knew you because " her 
 hand stole into his, and this time he held it fast " I loved 
 you ; and because I saw oh, so clearly how it would all 
 be worse for you than for another man how you would 
 make it worse, because you would be trying always to burst 
 your way through the misery ; and because you would suffer 
 more than other men from your failure, and and your 
 wounds ! It was that that forced me to ask you not to do 
 l t. And it s that that makes me ask you now, James, to 
 undo it ! Don t speak ! Don t say you won t or can t. You 
 can, James, and you must ! Can you wish to be subject for 
 ever to such attacks ? Jasper has to make them. They are 
 in his nature ; and they are part of the sure result of what 
 you did," she said bravely. She was launched now, and 
 did not care what she said. " What you did to right your 
 self with Philip was wrong, of course ; but it was not the 
 first, nor the chief wrong." She caressed his shoulder 
 vaguely with the arm she ran about his neck. " Whatever 
 you did, it all came from the other. It could n t have hap 
 pened if the other had n t. And we must go back to that. 
 I see now that we have been mistaken in pretending to each 
 other that that question is dead and all its consequences 
 buried. It can never die, James, until we face it together, 
 and do what we still can." He turned and looked into her 
 pleading face. "It lives between Jasper and you, and will 
 always live until we have the courage to give up our wrong 
 ful right ; it lives between Philip and you, and perhaps that 
 is past help perhaps that is to be our punishment but 
 worse, much worse, it lives between us, James ; and we shall 
 never be happy until it is dead and out of sight ! Oh, I 
 have been thinking while we have been standing here ! I 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 345 
 
 have been seeing, more than ever before, how different we 
 are, how hard it will be, always, for us to understand each 
 other, to make allowance, to remember that we love each 
 other, and to keep that uppermost. But I have become 
 sure that never, for either of us, is there to be peace until 
 this is made right ! " 
 
 Deed drew her to him, and folded her in his arms, 
 " My wise, good Margaret ! " he said. " My gentle, sweet, 
 just girl ! You said a little while ago that I was your right 
 that you had taken me for that. But you see, now, how I 
 could never be that. My right is personal, whimsical, 
 fantastic, brutal, selfish. I construct it myself. I take it 
 habitually as if it were the one right in the world, and as 
 if it might not be the wrong of a dozen others. It is you 
 who must be my right for the future ; and I will obey it 
 humbly. Your Right is certain because it is not yours 
 because it is the Right of others. I will do what you say, 
 Margaret." 
 
 He bent and kissed her. Margaret touched her eyes 
 hastily with her handkerchief. "And will you will you 
 restore the ranch to Jasper ? Will you give him back his 
 share ? " 
 
 Deed s brow knit darkly. " My girl, my girl," he ex 
 claimed in sadness, " you don t know what you ask ! " 
 
 <: But you would do that, surely. You would not 
 hesitate now. for any feeling of of " 
 
 Deed shook his head bitterly. "Is it a light feeling? 
 Do you think I could do it ? Oh, Margaret, you don t 
 think ! " An inflection of reproach stole into his voice. 
 
 Her ear did not fail to note it. But she said, u I do ! I 
 do ! It is because I think and for you that I beg it of you." 
 Her husband bit his lip. " It s preposterous, Margaret ! 
 Ask something reasonable. Would you have me humble 
 myself before Jasper, now after all that has passed, after 
 to-day ? Would you have me go to him, his father 
 
346 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 confess that I had been in the wrong from the beginning, 
 and beg his permission to restore, to give back what I stole 
 from him. I should be lying. I don t believe him in the 
 right ; I believe him hellishly in the wrong. But besides, 
 see what he must think that I do it in fear of his vile 
 threat ! Could you wish that humiliation for me, Margaret ? 
 I don t believe it." 
 
 " No. We must wait, I see. We must make the other 
 right. Then this will come right of itself. You must go 
 back," she said. "You must find your way to Leadville 
 the moment this snow releases us, and restore what you 
 have borrowed." 
 
 " Borrowed ? Do you think it is by that word they will 
 know what I did at Leadville ? It will be a harsher word, 
 Margaret a word with a penalty." 
 
 " Well then," returned she with a simplicity which at 
 once appalled and enchanted him, " you must go back and 
 make it right on those terms." 
 
 He stared at her fascinated. " I will ! " he said at last. 
 
 " I don t mean to urge you to anything your own judg 
 ment does n t approve," she said, temporizing, as even a 
 strong woman must before consequences which are to be 
 wrought out beyond her sight in the man s world. 
 
 " No, no ! It has been in my own mind a long time. I 
 would have done it gladly long ago if I could have got out 
 of this prison, and could have believed that I had a right 
 to commit you to what must follow. I must have my own 
 respect back again, Margaret. You are right. I will go to 
 Leadville, as soon as we can get away from this place, if 
 Jasper does not contrive that I shall go earlier. And I will 
 take the consequences." 
 
 "And then ?" She looked up into her eyes confidently, 
 joyfully. 
 
 " Jasper ? " he asked frowning. 
 
 She nodded. He shook his head. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BEATRICE folded Margaret in her arms and kissed her 
 repeatedly and took off her cloak, and asked her where she 
 had been, when Deed brought her to the house one evening 
 a week later. She said that Ned was down town ; and Mr. 
 Deed was not to think of going on by the nine o clock train 
 to Leadville. She was charmed to keep Margaret while he 
 went on ; but he must stay, too, for the night at least. Ned 
 would be back soon, and he was so anxious to see him. 
 
 As she spoke Beatrice glanced from one to the other. 
 In Margaret s face she thought she saw some of what she 
 had expected a development, a softening, an effect like 
 that which photographers get from the process they call 
 "toning." It was not merely that usual, though indescrib 
 able difference which distinguishes the matron, however 
 recent, from the maid; Margaret had changed almost in 
 proportion to the area she had offered for change ; almost 
 in proportion to what Beatrice had always called to herself 
 her " unmarriageableness." What she saw made her retract 
 silently some things she had said to Vertner ; but still left 
 her wondering. Had Margaret contrived to attune herself 
 to her husband ; or had he, feeling the sacrifice she had 
 made in coming to him, at last, after what had happened, 
 made the history of his sex memorable by shaping himself 
 to her ? Did they get along ? That was what she asked 
 herself. She had decided that they did (Deed s face looked 
 
348 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 strangely sad and worn ; but that was, no doubt, the other 
 matter) as she intercepted his answer to a glance from 
 Margaret in the pause which fell at her hospitable entreaty ; 
 
 and yet She went back to her old feeling that the 
 
 difference between them was too irreconcilable ; and that 
 Margaret, of all persons, was the last to be able to reconcile 
 it (it was always the woman who had to play that part in a 
 marriage, and when the woman was wrong it was hopeless). 
 She said, as these thoughts passed through her mind, that 
 they had been greatly concerned lately when no one heard 
 from them. 
 
 Deed said Yes, they had been snowed up. They had 
 been unable to get out ; they had feared their friends would 
 be anxious. He gave this explanation like a lesson learned 
 by rote. He was conscious that people would be curious ; 
 it was necessary to supply an explanation for current use, 
 and the simpler it was, and the sooner made, the better. 
 Margaret glanced quickly at him as he spoke. 
 
 He would not take off his overcoat in response to 
 Beatrice s entreaties : and in a few moments rose, and made 
 his farewell. Margaret followed him into the hallway. She 
 threw her arms about his neck. 
 
 " Oh James," she begged, through the lump that hung in 
 her throat, " are we doing right ? or no of course we are 
 doing right but do you think ? " 
 
 " Margaret ! " exclaimed he reproachfully. He took 
 down her hands, and gazed into her eyes by the dim light 
 of the hall lamp, under which they stood. " It isn t you 
 who persuades me to falter, is it ? " 
 
 " No, no. But it is so easy to persuade ! It is you who 
 have to act to suffer ! Perhaps I am wrong ! Oh, think ! " 
 
 "I have thought," he said soberly. "You are right. 
 We are both right. We cannot do otherwise. Tell me, 
 dearest," he whispered, stooping to her, " can we ? " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 349 
 
 Their eyes confronted in a look in which each seemed 
 to search the other s soul. 
 
 She turned away choking. " Go ! go ! " she cried in a 
 stifled voice. She caught him to her and kissed him once, 
 twice, and held him to her in a ravenous embrace, from 
 which it seemed she would never let him go. Then 
 suddenly she pushed him away, and, snatching her hands to 
 her face, ran into the room where Beatrice awaited her. 
 
 IT was finally because she was ashamed of her 
 cowardice that she forced herself to look into the Maverick 
 Sentinel the next morning. She glanced at the head-lines 
 with a cowering heart ; and when she found nothing in them 
 beyond the usual budget of snow-slides, murder trials, 
 Washington gossip, European war-clouds, local news, mining 
 and cattle notes, booms and rumours of booms, she began to 
 search again incredulously. Could it be that Jasper had 
 held his hand ? She asked Vertner, in as steady a voice as 
 she could command they were at breakfast if Mr. Jasper 
 Deed was in town. 
 
 "No," said Vertner. "Want to see him?" He smiled 
 over at her, unscrupulously. She shook her head, without 
 smiling. " No," he repeated, "he isn t in town, and it s 
 even up when he will be. He was going to be back in a 
 week when he started ; that was the word he left ; and there 
 was plenty to call him back. But it s nearer ten days 
 and no one s heard anything of him. I did think some of 
 organizing a search expedition to go and find him one of 
 these days when business was slack, but, come to talk to the 
 fellows in town about it, there seemed to be a general 
 agreement that they had n t lost Jasper Deed. I didn t 
 know as I had myself, so I let it drop. But if you want to 
 see him " he offered, with twinkling eyes. 
 
350 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " No, no," she said. And then she told him there 
 could be no harm if she did not tell his errand of the visit 
 he had paid them at Mineral Springs. Vertner pricked up 
 his ears at the first words, and, at the end of her recital, was 
 leaning forward with his face supported between his hands, 
 listening in unconscious absorption. As she finished, he 
 emitted a little whistle. 
 
 " What a fellow ! " he exclaimed, under his breath. 
 " What a fellow ! Snow so deep the drummers didn t try to 
 get out, you say ? Pass blocked ! Everything battened 
 down for the Winter ! Drifts, probably, until you couldn t 
 rest. And that cuss fought his way over into the Springs 
 and saw Deed ! My ! My ! But there was a rustler lost 
 to the honest paths of speculation when that remarkable 
 young man went into the business of being a confounded 
 scoundrel ! Like to have him in partnership with me for a 
 year with his claws cut ! Wouldn t we make this old 
 Centennial State hum ! But what s become of him ? That s 
 what I want to know. I believe I shall have to go after 
 him, now. We can t leave a man with all that sand to die 
 in a snowdrift. Come to think of it, there might be a 
 chance to reform him if we could meet in a snowdrift he 
 underneath, and I on top with a whisky-flask. It would 
 be a pretty triumph leading him home captive, warranted 
 kind and gentle, and trained to go in harness. What a 
 scoundrel ! I m afraid he made Deed unhappy," he said 
 suddenly. 
 
 Vertner had executed a circumscribed war-dance in their 
 bed-room when Beatrice had told him of Deed s safety, on 
 his return the night before. He had said that Deed was a 
 fraud not to wait ; and then had said that he should start for 
 Leadville in the morning to hunt him up. He had some 
 thing to tell him. But, in the morning, when Beatrice 
 asked him if she should pack his bag, he told her that he 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 351 
 
 had decided not to go not to-day, anyway. Deed would 
 probably find out at Leadville for himself, what he had 
 to tell him, and it would be all the better. 
 
 Margaret s eyes filled with tears alarmingly at his sugges 
 tion, and he shyed hastily away from it, and asked her if she 
 would n t go with them on a little picnic they had arranged 
 for that day. They were all going to the Iron Mine. Oh, 
 yes, certainly she would go. But there was no question 
 about it ! Margaret protested. It seemed wicked to be 
 enjoying herself, or even to permit herself the colour of 
 enjoyment, while Deed was away from her on such an 
 errand. But Beatrice s assurance to Vertner that she would 
 go, and the " talking to," which Beatrice gave her when he 
 had left them, silenced her. 
 
 She was full of her own thoughts as she prepared for the 
 long ride to the Iron Mine ; and they were not all of Deed 
 in Leadville. 
 
 She must meet people since she had come back. Some 
 of those she had known during her earlier stay were sure to 
 be of the picnic party. She must bear to guess the com 
 ment that had gone on in her absence from the looks she 
 should receive. Ah, well ! She did not care. There were 
 other things to think of. Yet she caught herself wondering 
 if Dr. Ernfield would be riding with them to the Iron Mine. 
 She had not dared to ask Beatrice who was going ; she had 
 not even asked how he was, though she wished much to 
 know. 
 
 She recalled the occurrences of her former stay in 
 Maverick, one by one. Some of them the days of court 
 ship for example, when Deed and she had seen each other 
 daily, in perfect love and confidence, were sweet recollec 
 tions. But others crowded these out. The morning when 
 she had so nearly sacrificed his love for her to save him 
 from himself, and had failed ; the desolate days which 
 
352 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 followed Ernfield, her flight, her happy flight from this 
 house to which she had come again ; these were haunting 
 memories. 
 
 It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining with that 
 effect of never having shone before, mingled with the sober 
 purpose of going on shining just so for ever, which Colorado 
 knows, and which all December picnics should arrange for. 
 The fact that the entire sum of the grey or doubtful or 
 lowering days in the course of a Colorado year would not 
 make up a fortnight, mysteriously seems not to dull the 
 edge of one s pleasure in each new sun-soaked day. 
 Dorothy was saying something like this to Philip, as they 
 rode out together to meet the party. Vertner had brought 
 Philip the news of his father s arrival in town, and had had 
 hard work, as he told Beatrice afterwards, to restrain him 
 from following Deed to Leadville, forthwith. It was only 
 by representing the case to Dorothy that he had succeeded 
 in keeping him for the picnic, he told his wife. He did not 
 mean that he had told Dorothy anything she did not know ; 
 he had merely indicated to her the propriety of his remain 
 ing and he had remained. 
 
 Philip rode by Dorothy s side with a happy smile on his 
 lips. His heart stirred joyously in time to the hoof-beats 
 of their horses. To know that his father was found ; to know 
 that he must by this have learned that he had a loyal son, 
 was cause enough for throwing up one s hat, and to turn his 
 own trouble idle and foolish. As they rode, Dorothy would 
 occasionally look across the space between their horses and 
 smile with him ; and at these times a gleam of intelligence, 
 of sympathy, would light in her eyes, which seemed to 
 double his happiness. His head swam with it. He would 
 not talk, and Dorothy also kept silence ; but when their eyes 
 met Philip thought how, with every look, she endeared 
 herself more to him, and how she must make her way into 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 353 
 
 his father s heart. How his father would like her ! She 
 should make up for many things to him. She should be a 
 
 daughter to him not in the conventional sense, but truly. 
 
 He fancied her replacing Jasper in his father s heart ; he 
 imagined her atoning for that loss, in so far as any one 
 could. He knew that must always remain an unhealed 
 sorrow, an incurable bitterness ; but she should console it. 
 
 When he met Margaret, for the first time, a few moments 
 later, he seemed to see something in her face which told 
 him that his father must already be as happy as the love of 
 woman could make him. He had had his one glimpse of 
 her on the staircase of the hotel at Leadville, as she was 
 leaving it, a bride ; but her face had been veiled. He saw, 
 instantly, that she was good. She was such a woman as he 
 could fancy his father caring for. He saw why he had 
 married her. These perceptions passed through his mind 
 rapidly as he flung himself from his horse, and took her 
 hand warmly. 
 
 Margaret had imagined this meeting. She supposed she 
 must speak to him ; but she had intended to make it a formal 
 matter. She could not believe him as much at fault as her 
 husband did ; but his attitude bound her, she felt ; and she 
 must be the more careful since he was not by. Poor 
 Margaret ! Her judiciousness was always a failure. It was 
 not less so in this case, for Philip s warmth disarmed her, 
 and with the whole party halted and looking on she could 
 not treat him with obvious coldness. She could only say to 
 herself that, at least, it was not Jasper. Even her husband 
 could not feel Philip to be as much to blame as his brother. 
 And, before she knew it, a wave of tenderness for Philip 
 came over her, like the tenderness she had felt toward him 
 when Deed, for so different a reason, had left her before. 
 He was at least his son. She had not yet found courage to 
 glance at him. She wondered if he looked like htm. She 
 
 A A 
 
354 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 made herself glance down into his honest eyes ; and suddenly 
 believed in him. He was like his father ; his eyes were 
 particularly like his. She returned his hand-clasp. 
 
 " I have hoped we should meet," he said. 
 
 " Yes ! " she murmured breathlessly. 
 
 " Will you tell me how my father is ? You can t know 
 how anxious we have been about him about you." 
 
 "He s not well. He has been he has been troubled. 
 You knew that he had gone on to Leadville ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes ! But he is coming back ? " 
 
 "Soon, I hope." She lowered her eyes. 
 
 " Only soon. Then I must run up I had hoped he would 
 be back to-morrow. Vertner assured me that he would." 
 
 "Oh, don t do that ! " she exclaimed hastily. 
 
 "Don t?" He hesitated. "Ah, you mean . . . . No, I 
 suppose father has n t forgiven me," he said gloomily. Then, 
 with recovered buoyancy, " But that s almost part of his 
 fineness is n t it ? If I had done what he supposes, he ought 
 to hate me. But does he still or, no, I ought n t to ask 
 that ; it is n t fair ; perhaps I ought not even to have spoken 
 to you ; but I saw you. I could n t help it. You can t think 
 what finding father again is to me to all of us. It s mixed 
 up with so many things. But it does n t need to be mixed 
 up with anything to make me glad. He s not like every 
 father, quite, you know; he s not been at all like other 
 fathers in his goodness to me. And he s such a man ! " 
 
 The tone in which he said it sent a thrill leaping through 
 her pulses, and it was hard for her not to shout what she 
 answered a moment later, in an agitated whisper, struggling 
 to control herself. 
 
 "I know your father," she said. She took a hand from 
 her rein, and offered it to him, in a torrent of feeling, for 
 which she could find no words. He caught the hand in a 
 grasp that hurt her as he wrung it. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 355 
 
 "I believe you do," he said, almost reverently. 
 
 The cavalcade had passed them as they paused together. 
 She touched her horse and, with a single glance at him, 
 started in pursuit of the party at a gallop. Philip joined 
 Dorothy and they cantered on slowly after the company 
 together, talking of what had happened. 
 
 They caught up with the others in the gorge making into 
 the hills outside the town the gorge through which Mar 
 garet, and Ern field had once ridden on their way to the 
 neighbouring summit. Cutter, Beatrice, Vertner, Ernfield 
 and Mrs. Felton were among the group in advance. Mar 
 garet, who had rejoined the company before them, they 
 perceived riding by Vertner s side. Every one, save Margaret 
 and Ernfield, appeared in a festival mood ; and their shouts 
 and laughter echoed from wall to wall of the gulch, and 
 floated up into the still, keen air, like a kind of offering 
 to the perfection of the day. Ernfield was with Beatrice, 
 far in advance, and they saw him stoop to her in quiet talk. 
 Beatrice would sometimes turn in her saddle and laugh gaily 
 at something Cutter and Mrs. Felton, who seemed to be 
 having a pleasant time together, would call out from behind. 
 But at these times Ernfield did not turn. Philip guessed 
 that he was willing to avoid Margaret s eye ; and Margaret 
 for her part, kept in the rear with Vertner. Ernfield had 
 joined the van of the cavalcade after it was in motion, and 
 they had not encountered yet. Both were willing to post 
 pone the meeting. 
 
 The gulch narrowed presently, and forced them out of its 
 bottom to a narrow path along the ledge which hung above 
 it. Opposite them a gash in the hill, the effusion of a mass 
 of green earth upon the rocky slope, an abandoned cabin, 
 told the familiar story of failure, the little daily tragedy of 
 disappointment. The memory of another mine, which was 
 always with Philip, now, but had seemed to leave him in 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 the happy hours since he had known his father to be found, 
 returned upon him with a fresh pain. It was a richer mine 
 of which he was thinking. He had been about to say to 
 himself, more fortunate. But was it fortunate ? If he 
 could choose would it not be his wish, now, that the ore- 
 bearing vein in the " Little Cipher" might never have been 
 opened ? He could not wish that it should give out, now : his 
 future had been wagered on it. But what would he not have 
 given to know that he had dreamt the essay, the exploration 
 of the mine, the fingering of the ore in his own hands ? He 
 wished heartily that he had never leased the mine to the 
 Ryans, who must go blundering about and snatch a fortune 
 out of the bowels of the earth, to show his conscience the 
 way to the hell in which it now lived. 
 
 " Poor fellows ! " said Dorothy, looking across at the de 
 serted mine, as they rode along the path slowly, in single 
 file. " What work, what hopes they must have put into that 
 mine ! It is hard, is n t it, to think that where one succeeds, 
 a thousand must fail. It must be so, I suppose ; but what 
 a price for the success ! " 
 
 " Do you mean that these men the men who worked 
 that mine and others like them all over Colorado, and 
 elsewhere, really pay for the lucky fellow s good fortune?" 
 asked Philip, turning in his saddle (he was riding in 
 advance) to look back at her. " That s a hard thought for 
 the lucky fellow, is n t it ? " 
 
 " Oh no, Philip, I did n t mean that ! " She saw what he 
 was thinking of; and hesitated a moment before trying to 
 say just what she did mean. " It s Nature that pays. I 
 suppose we must think that. The men will feel that they 
 have played against Nature and lost; and that is right, too, 
 no doubt. Some must lose ; the chances are infinitely in 
 favour of loss. Every one knows that who sinks a shaft, or 
 digs a tunnel, I fancy. And then some must win. That is 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 357 
 
 natural. The men who fail don t grudge the successes. I 
 think they like to know of them. It is a comfort to them 
 to know that there is some success somewhere. But it lays 
 a great responsibility on the successful ones, does n t it ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Philip. 
 
 They rode on in silence. The hoofs of their horses seemed 
 to make a loud noise as they struck on the rocky path. 
 The others had been moving more rapidly while they talked, 
 and the hoof-beats of the animals in advance, as they died 
 away, seemed to leave them more solitary in this lonely 
 path between the hills than if a party had not been within 
 hail. 
 
 " Philip," she said softly, not guessing his thoughts. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Was n t it fortunate Mr. Cutter and I were talking of 
 it the other day that it was the Little Cipher which 
 turned out so rich ? " 
 
 " Why ? " asked Philip, turning to face her again suddenly. 
 
 " Why, only think if it had been the Pay Ore, and you 
 had been obliged to give it up to your brother, after after 
 all that has happened, and after your making it a success. 
 Fancy your having to think that all the work you had given 
 to your own mine had come to nothing; and the same 
 work in his had brought him a fortune. Fancy your having 
 to know that you had done it for him f Why, Philip, when 
 I think of your being forced to go to him in the face of all 
 the wrong and suffering and insult he has heaped on you, 
 and having to say ! B-r-r-r ! " She shuddered prettily. 
 
 It had come. He felt, now, as if he had paltered and 
 doubted and hesitated, to his shame. How could he have 
 believed that she would not find a forgiveness in that 
 heavenly sympathy for the means by which he had won her. 
 These gentle words, the first in comment on that bitter 
 situation which had found their way to any lips were like 
 
358 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 dew in a thirsty land to him. She must know. He would 
 not wrong her by another moment s shameful silence. His 
 secret choked him. Their love seemed worthless while it 
 remained between them. 
 
 " It would have been an odious position," he said with an 
 effort at lightness. " Perhaps a man might be forgiven for 
 shirking it." 
 
 " You mean he might send some one else to tell him ? " 
 
 " No. I suppose I was thinking that he might do nothing 
 at all." 
 
 " Wait ; and let his brother find out, do you mean ? " 
 
 " Well, yes ; something like that ! " 
 
 " But that would only be postponing it. His brother 
 would be sure to learn of it, sooner or later. And then he 
 would have his silence to accuse him of. If one had a 
 brother like Jasper I don t think one would like to give him 
 an accusation even an accusation like that, where no real 
 wrong would have been done him. Do you ? " 
 
 " I think I should let him find out," said Philip. He was 
 speaking with his head half turned toward her, and with one 
 hand resting on his pony s flank behind the saddle. This 
 kept his body swaying with the animal s forward stride. The 
 others came into sight for a moment at a bend in the road, 
 and vanished again. They probably thought to do the 
 lovers a kindness in leaving them to themselves. " Even 
 suppose he never found out ? " he pursued after a moment, 
 as he turned and leaned forward to adjust the pony s 
 forelock, which had not been properly smoothed under 
 the head strap. 
 
 "But I can t imagine that. His brother would hear. 
 He would know that the strike had been made in his 
 mine." 
 
 " He might n t know which was his. You can imagine 
 that surely," 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 359 
 
 Something in his voice startled her. " Why, Philip ? 
 
 But what do you mean ? " 
 
 They had emerged upon a vast open green upland, and 
 their horses by a common impulse changed their pace to a 
 canter. The others were visible, now, far in advance, upon 
 the road winding as far as the eye could reach between the 
 grassy acres of the park. They cantered along side by side 
 in the sunlight, taking the pure air of the table-land on their 
 faces. 
 
 The interval gave Philip time. But he could not think. 
 Her smiling face, as she glanced towards him in their 
 buoyant flight, daunted him. Would she smile so when he 
 had told her ? He was suddenly afraid to speak. 
 
 But as the animals fell into a walk, " Suppose his brother 
 did n t know," he repeated ; and this time she was sure of 
 the strange inflection. 
 
 She stared at him. " It would be an awful temptation," 
 she said under her breath. She gazed thoughtfully into his 
 eyes. He dropped them. 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 He kept his eyes upon the moving roadway. He felt her 
 glance upon him. She was reading him. He knew it. 
 Would she never break the silence ? Then, at his side, he 
 heard a low moan not like Dorothy s voice a moan of 
 perception and reproach and heart-breaking grief. 
 
 "Oh!" she murmured desolately. "Oh-h-h!" The 
 wail trembled from between her trembling lips ; it seemed 
 torn from her soul. She paled. He saw her sway in her 
 saddle, and stretched out a quick hand to stay her fall 
 She waved him off, brokenly. " No. No. Don t ! Don t 
 please ! " 
 
 " Dorothy " he began. 
 
 She commanded herself and looked into his eyes again 
 with a look of love and longing and despair, with a face of 
 
360 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 sorrow and indignation, and scorn and pity which shook his 
 heart. 
 
 " How could you ! " she cried in a stifled voice, through 
 the tears that began to come. " How could you ! " 
 
 " It was for you," he said. 
 
 " For me ! Oh, Philip, don t say it ! " 
 
 " But for whom else, for what else ? You can t think 
 that I would do it only for money, for revenge ! It was for 
 you only for you ! " 
 
 And you think that makes it better! Oh, what can 
 you have imagined me ! How little little you have 
 understood me. Better ! Oh, Philip ! " she choked. 
 
 " It was a question between losing you and doing it. I 
 did it. It was wrong, it was wicked, it was base if you like. 
 You may think what you will of it. I don t defend it. But 
 I did it for you. And I would do it again." 
 
 " Don t ! " she cried again, shrinking away from him 
 " Oh, no one could accuse you as you accuse yourself. 
 Knowing this this thing that you have let yourself do to 
 be all you say, how oh, Philip, how could you stain our 
 our love with it ! I don t know what you mean. How 
 could it have been ? Did I make you do this ! " she cried 
 suddenly. She stretched out her hand toward him. " Was 
 it my folly, or vanity, in letting Jasper go on, that forced 
 you to it that seemed to give this a reason ? " Philip 
 shook his head. " Oh no, no ! Of course it could n t have 
 been that. But why ? " She stopped short. " What 
 difference can it make ! It s done ! It s done ! And for 
 me for our love. Oh, how could you hope that any happi 
 ness could be bought with such wrong ! Can t you see how 
 it soils and degrades and shames every moment that we have 
 ever had with each other? Can t you see how it must 
 kill me to think that we have come by all that has seemed 
 so sweet and precious and good through a fraud through a 
 trick." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 361 
 
 "No," said Philip stoutly, "I don t see that. I won t 
 see it. If we really love each other, that counts ! But no 
 thing else counts. I can make this right. I have taken. 
 I can restore." He said it, though he knew otherwise. 
 " Why, Dorothy, no one knows. And no one can ever 
 know. I see that you look on me as a common robber. But 
 it s not so. They were both my mines. Jasper sent me 
 money to work a claim for him. The money went into the 
 common fund. I don t know which of the two mines it 
 was used for. I shall never know. When I began to work 
 with his money I said to myself that I should look upon the 
 * Little Cipher as his. But both still belonged to me. I 
 did all the work on them. They only existed through the 
 work I directed upon them. Jasper never thought anything 
 of his chances at Pifion. It was like giving a man $500 to 
 place on a horse for you ; or to buy a lottery ticket with. 
 And I thought so little of the chances, one way or the other, 
 after the first month, that I swear to you it was never in my 
 thoughts which claim was his, and which was mine. Legally 
 they were both mine. In fact they were both mine, not 
 only for all practical purposes, but actually. For Jasper 
 had never bought anything from me. He had given me 
 some money to expend in working a claim." Dorothy 
 opened her mouth, but he went on with a gesture, " Yes, I 
 know. It s true. Don t suppose I shirked the truth for 
 a moment. The difference is no difference. In my con 
 science Jasper was the owner of the Little Cipher, and 
 all that might come from it. He is so yet. I don t dispute 
 it. It has never been present in my mind in any other 
 way since the temptation to keep silence and let him take 
 the other for his, came upon me. Since you must judge me, 
 it is fair that you should know how it has been with me. If 
 it is worse to have done what I did knowingly, I tell you 
 jreely that I did it in the face of vhe knowledge that not all 
 
362 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 the deeds and registrations and formal evidence of owner 
 ship in the world could make Jasper more the owner of the 
 Little Cipher than he was through my word to myself. 
 I know it ; but I did it I mustn t tell you why or how for 
 you." His voice dropped, and as their horses went slowly 
 along, he leaned over, and took the hand she had let fall by 
 her side. " Does that count for nothing with you, Dorothy ? " 
 
 She had been listening to him wearily, wonderingly 
 hoping against hope that he could excuse himself; that he 
 could make the obvious wrong seem right. But at this she 
 started as if waking herself from a sleep, and answered, 
 " Oh, for too much ! Too much ! " She released her hand 
 quietly. Philip felt a shock go through him. " Every 
 word you say makes it a more impossible thing for you to 
 have done, Philip. And to do it, above all, in the name of 
 our love ! You had an opportunity such as comes to a man 
 in a thousand. You could have been strong; you could 
 have turned from that awful temptation, and I should have 
 loved you for it as women have loved heroes and martyrs. 
 I understand the temptation. It was cruel even leaving 
 all this miserable thought of me out of it, it was horribly cruel. 
 I said how it would seem very hard to do right in such a 
 case. That was my first thought. But, oh, Philip, can you think 
 that it makes it easier for me to think you have failed to 
 know that it was hard ! Because the right is hard the wrong 
 is not good is it ? And surely the right is dearer for being 
 difficult ! Any man might have resisted if it had not been 
 bitter to be strong. Only such a man as I have believed 
 you, could be great enough for the noble thing that was 
 open to you." 
 
 "Stop ! Stop ! " he cried, in pain. 
 
 " No, let me speak now, please. The truth is better. 
 Oh, Philip," she cried, " when I think of you with those two 
 mines in your possession, with the knowledge that one of 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 363 
 
 them held a fortune, and that the other was a mere opening 
 in the ground ; and when I think of you with the other 
 knowledge that the one that held a fortune was your brother s, 
 for your conscience, and the empty one, still only for 
 your conscience, belonged to you, and that no one knew 
 this no one I" she drew a deep breath "when I think 
 of that, and remember that that brother had wronged you to 
 the death ; that he had made it seem right to rob him by 
 robbing you ; that he had driven your father to desperation, 
 and brought you to poverty when I think of all those 
 things, and see the splendid, generous, heroic right you 
 might have done, and have to know that you chose to do 
 this oh, if I could have died before I knew it ! " 
 
 A convulsive sob escaped her. She pressed her cheeks 
 rapidly and repeatedly with her handkerchief. When she 
 looked at him again it was with streaming eyes. " Say you 
 were not in your right mind that you did it in error ! Say 
 anything rather than leave me to believe what I must ! It 
 was n t you ! Oh, Philip ! Was not the man I have known 
 you for too proud ? Would he not have seen how the very 
 security with which he might take, and keep silence, forced 
 him to hold his hand ? And would he not have felt, proudly, 
 that every one s ignorance of his duty, and the infinite deli 
 cacy that ignorance forced upon him yes, that the mere 
 thread which bound him must be stronger for him than 
 the strongest bond, because it bound him to himself ? 
 Oh, Philip, say you did n t do it ! " 
 
 " I can t ! I can t ! " he cried. " It s true ! " 
 She gazed at him with eyes of unspeakable reproach ; and 
 he dropped the eyes he had fixed upon hers while she spoke 
 with the fascination of a criminal who hears his sentence. 
 The party in advance had almost disappeared. The wide 
 plain, hemmed in by hills, seemed a world in which he and 
 she alone existed. 
 
364 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 She checked her horse and held out her hand. " Good 
 bye, then." 
 
 " Good-bye ? " he exclaimed, stupefied. 
 
 " Did you think we could go on ? " she asked, sadly. 
 " Did you think it could all be as it was ? No. It is ended 
 for us. Good-bye," she repeated. The tears fell from her 
 eyes in a rain, but there was no relenting in her face. 
 " Give me my ring," she said dully. 
 
 He stared. "Dorothy!" he burst out. "You can t! 
 You won t." 
 
 "I must!" 
 
 " I have wronged Jasper. I confess it. Nothing that he 
 has done excuses it. It makes it worse. I own it. But I 
 can right that. I will. Dorothy ! Surely surely this 
 need not touch us ! " 
 
 " Oh, what do I care for Jasper ? " she cried in misery. 
 "It is for you I care, and you have lost yourself to me. 
 It is n t the wrong to him ! It is the wrong to yourself, to 
 me, to all that we to all that has been. . . . Oh, is it for 
 me to show you such a thing? You have murdered our 
 love ! All the atonements in the world can t change that ! " 
 
 She buried her face in her hands. Her horse stamped 
 an impatient foot, and swung his head free of the rein. 
 
 "You despise me! You hate me! I see that!" 
 exclaimed Philip. " But you sha n t throw me off! You 
 sha n t raise me to such a happiness as you have let me know 
 to cast me back ! You should have thought of that before you 
 stretched out your hand to lift me up. You should have 
 known that I am not made of the stuff that bears. I can t 
 bear this ! I won t ! Dorothy, girl," his voice fell to the 
 note of tenderness " I can t do without you. You have 
 taught me not to be able to do without you. You won t do 
 this thing. Oh, my God, could I live and know that you 
 were lost to me and lost through Jasper? Have you 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT 365 
 
 thought of that? Can you think that I could bear to know 
 that, after all that has gone and passed, it is Jasper who 
 parts us ? You see how it can t be ! " 
 
 " Give me my ring, please," she said, not coldly, or 
 hardly, but resolutely. 
 
 He tore it from his finger. " As you wish ! " he said 
 with blazing eyes. And then, with cold courtesy, " You 
 won t want me to go on with you. I will wait here until I 
 see you with the rest." 
 
 " Oh, Philip," she trembled. She reached out her hand. 
 
 He would not see it. He leaned forward and gave her 
 the reins she had allowed to slip from her. He lifted his 
 sombrero, 
 
 "Good-bye," he said coldly. 
 
 She gave one glance at him. Her mouth twitched 
 pitifully. Then she struck the pony a sharp blow with her 
 quirt. The beast leaped forward. 
 
 Philip watched her steadfastly until she had melted into 
 the dust cloud which indicated the position of the picnic 
 party. He knit his brow upon his straining eyes and bit 
 his lip fiercely as he gazed. When he had seen the last of 
 her he whirled his horse, and dug his spurs into the animal s 
 flanks with a wild sob of pain. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 VERTNER took the picnic party over the entire Iron Mine, 
 inexorably, when they came to it. They watched the drill 
 ing, a blasting was set off for them, they rode in the 
 ore-cars; they clambered down ladders into black pits, 
 where only the candles lighted them, they clambered up 
 again ; they crouched and crawled and stumbled after 
 their guide through galleries and passages which never 
 ended; and four of the party were conscious of it all. 
 Dorothy and Margaret and Ernfield and Cutter were think 
 ing of other things. 
 
 Margaret sat down in her old room, when she was back 
 again that evening, and wrote Deed a long letter, begging 
 him to return ; and tore it up. 
 
 Dorothy, on her return, found her father in his study 
 chair. She curled her arms about him, and asked him 
 without preface if he would not give up his charge at once, 
 and leave Maverick for ever. The blood tingled in his 
 veins, and he drew a long breath. The relief of receiving 
 the proposal at last from her silenced all speech for a 
 moment. He had paltered with the need of breaking it to 
 her, he had postponed the evil day through the forbearance 
 of the Bishop, with the fear of what she must feel, of what 
 she must say ; and while he waited, the difficulty was solved 
 for him. He was too happy in the fact for the instant 
 to question occasions or causes. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 367 
 
 " Why, I don t know, Dorothy," he said, endeavouring 
 to hide his pleasure, " if you don t like Maverick, I dare say 
 I should find reasons for not liking it, too. In fact, now I 
 think of it, I ve been impatient and restless here for some 
 time. Yes, dear," he said, patting her hand, " since you 
 wish it, let us go." 
 
 " How good you are, Papa ! I knew you would say so. 
 And where shall we go ? " 
 
 " Why, that s for you to say, partly, is n t it ? " 
 
 " But I can t call you to a new parish. I m not a vestry 
 or a church committee. I wish I were. You would have 
 ten thousand a year for your salary, and have all the things 
 you have to go without now poor Papa ! and never do 
 anything you did n t want to." 
 
 " What a picture ! But I thought we were all to revel in 
 something of that sort, without the assistance of church 
 vestries, in that fine future of your own that you ve planned. 
 I never consented to it, you know. I never agreed to play 
 the part you ve assigned me in your drama of two happy 
 people and another." 
 
 " Oh, don t speak of that, Papa ! " she cried, stooping 
 over him, and burying her face. " Don t speak of it ! " 
 
 " Why why " he exclaimed, in alarm, " what is the 
 
 matter, my girl ! Have you and Philip been ? What 
 
 is it? Tell me, child?" A stern and impatient note came 
 into his voice. 
 
 " Oh, I can t tell you ! It is n t anything that I can tell." 
 
 " Nonsense, Dorothy ! Don t make all this trouble 
 about a lover s quarrel, child ! Do you suppose two lovers 
 never quarrelled before ? " 
 
 She lifted her tear-stained face from his breast, and 
 looked in her father s eyes, as she said : " This is not a 
 quarrel." A look passed over her face such as she might 
 have given Philip if he had been before her grieving and 
 
368 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 miserable, but proud, self-contained, resolute. Her father 
 did not understand it. 
 
 "Oh," he said, relieved, "Well then, don t let him 
 suppose it is ! " He rose and lit a cigar. Dorothy stared 
 at him from the seat which she kept on the arm of his 
 chair. " Don t play with a man, Dorothy. It is n t nice," 
 he blew out the first slender whiff of smoke contem 
 platively, as he brushed a speck of lint from the new clerical 
 coat to which he had treated himself since he had been at 
 ease about the future, " and it is n t fair. It s even unwise 
 when a girl is making a marriage so fortunate and desirable 
 in every way as yours." He frowned slightly. 
 
 Dorothy raised her eyes and looked into his. "You 
 don t understand, Papa," she said quietly. " I shall never 
 marry Mr. Deed." 
 
 CUTTER went to Ira s, Ernfield s office, the Vertners, and 
 finally to the Maurices on his return, without finding a 
 trace of Philip. He thought the clergyman s replies to his 
 inquiries short. He stabled his horse, and walked about 
 the town, looking for him. 
 
 The shops were still open, and men and women paused 
 before them to price the goods displayed outside, or went 
 into the vividly lighted interiors, where the arc light 
 glowed and glared. Trade was going on listlessly. It 
 was near the end of the month, the pay-car was still 
 to come up from Denver, and the railway employes of all 
 grades awaited the monthly guest. The hands at the 
 mines, and the cow-punchers were paid orf at the same 
 time, in order to keep the festival which followed pay-day, 
 and which disorganized the town in the process of en 
 riching it, within as narrow limits as possible. The lull 
 that precedes a fete therefore lay over Maverick. Only 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 369 
 
 two-thirds of the electric lamps were turned on ; but 
 there was nevertheless more light than noise. Suddenly a 
 clatter of hoofs sounded above the vague and leis 
 urely murmur of the quiet thoroughfare, and those on the 
 sidewalk turned at sight of a horse ridden at a furious 
 pace. No one save Cutter recognized the rider. The 
 hoofs hammered across the bridge leading to the hotel ; 
 and Cutter followed hastily. The whistle of the night train 
 sounded down in the valley at the moment, borne for 
 miles through the clear air. Philip was standing at the 
 bar of the hotel, draining a stiff glass. As Cutter laid his 
 hand upon his arm he raised his eyes and regarded him 
 strangely. He motioned to the bar-tender for another 
 glass. Cutter shook his head; he looked anxiously into 
 his friend s face. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " 
 
 " To the devil to Jasper." His voice was hoarse, and 
 his black eyes stared from his haggard face with the effect of 
 a man long ill. The train whistled again, nearer. Philip 
 swallowed what remained of the spirits in his glass at a 
 gulp. " Come, I m off." He gathered his change from the 
 counter, and made a rush for the door, as the train roared 
 into the station. Cutter caught his arm at the door. 
 " Hold on, man ! You re mad ! " 
 
 Philip turned a weary face upon him. He smiled sadly. 
 "Yes," he said. 
 
 "You re not well. It s crazy to be careering over the 
 country in your state. Come back with me to the Snow 
 Find * and go to bed and behave yourself." 
 
 "Oh, I ll behave myself. That s what I m doing now. 
 I ve dropped the other thing. Come along." He made 
 for the train, Cutter following him. 
 
 " See here. You re not going to take this train. You re 
 a sick man, I tell you." 
 
 B B 
 
370 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 Philip gave him his weary smile again as he put his foot 
 on the first step of the Pullman. " Yes, Cutter, I m a sick 
 man, fast enough, but not in the way you mean. I ve got 
 to go to Pinon. It won t hurt me. Come along if you 
 don t believe me." 
 
 Cutter gazed up at him for a moment, where he stood on 
 the platform above him, in helpless perplexity. Then he 
 said, " You know what you are ? " 
 
 Philip laughed, almost with pleasure. " Yes, I know." 
 
 " Just stay there, then, till I get a ticket." 
 
 The full moon was flooding the valley as the train ran 
 out toward the mountains beaming virginally, in this crys 
 talline atmosphere, through a medium no grosser than its 
 own. The purity of the air gave a new effect of luminosity, 
 of splendour and abundance to the great lamp swinging 
 aloft. It was light distilled ; the air was not conscious of 
 it. It fixed the valley under its cold, bare, hard gaze, etching 
 the circling hills against the sky with a finger dipped in 
 light, which seemed to bound, to outline, to select, and 
 finally, as one looked, to detach it all from neighbouring 
 sky and earth, and catch it away into that strange effect of 
 being a picture which we know in all memorable scenes. 
 
 They began to climb into the recesses of the hills after 
 the swift run through the valley. The opposite range of 
 mountains was behind them, and as the young men looked 
 out in silence from the windows of the compartment they 
 had taken together in the Pullman, a liquid tract of radiance 
 shone on their eyes from time to time far away ; it was the 
 snow, crusted in molten reaches along the mountain sides. 
 Beside the silvery lakes of crust what one knew by day for 
 the wooded hollows of the lower slopes were black mysteries 
 under the light. 
 
 Philip turned from the scene with a heavy sigh. 
 
 " Yon can catch the 9.47 back from Barker s," he said 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 371 
 
 suddenly, catching the eye of Cutter, who faced him from 
 the opposite seat. " You must n t think of coming along 
 with me " 
 
 " I have an errand of my own, over the range. Don t 
 bother about me." 
 
 " Come ! No nonsense ! " 
 
 " I have, I tell you!" 
 
 " Oh, well ! " He dropped the question listlessly. 
 
 " I say, old man, what s the matter? " Cutter laid a hand 
 on his -knee. 
 
 "The devil s the matter," groaned Philip. "What do 
 you suppose ? " 
 
 "I don t know. Jasper?" 
 
 " No, sir. It is n t Jasper. I m sick of that pretence. I 
 cheated myself with the idea that it was Jasper when I let 
 myself do the thing. But it was n t. It was I." 
 
 "I don t believe it." 
 
 " Well, anyway, it s I who suffer for it." 
 
 4 I see that," returned Cutter, gently. " But how? Why? " 
 
 " Because I m not the fine fellow I have liked to think 
 myself not even the fine fellow you think me. I m not a 
 fine fellow at all, Cutter ; and I ve done a low thing." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " 
 
 " Is it lofty to abuse a woman s confidence, then? Is it 
 admirable to rob a man who has trusted you ? " 
 
 " What have you done ? " asked his friend, quietly. 
 
 " I ve taken a mine which does n t belong to me because 
 I could, and because the man to whom it belongs had done 
 me a wrong, and wanted to marry the girl I wanted to marry 
 Is that plain ? " 
 
 " The Little Cipher ? " stammered Cutter. " Jarper ? " 
 
 Philip nodded. 
 
 " But see here " began Cutter. 
 
 " Oh, there s nothing to say ! " cried Philip. " A man is 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 one thing or the other. I m the other. She despises me. 
 She hates me " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why!" 
 
 " Yes, why ? Does she know what Jasper has done ? " 
 
 " Yes. But she knows what I have done. Nothing else 
 makes any difference. It can t to a woman, and probably 
 that shows it should n t to any one." He told him of Maurice s 
 situation ; he explained his temptation, palliating nothing. 
 " I thought the wrong Jasper had done me made my wrong 
 right," he said. " It did n t. It only made a new one with 
 separate consequences. I thought my love for her justified it ; 
 to her that seemed the damning touch. I believe she could 
 have forgiven my villainy ; but not that not that ! I fought 
 it ; I would n t see ; I took my stand upon our love ; I made 
 her suffer as much as I knew how, and parted from her in 
 anger. But all the time I felt her contempt scorching 
 through me. When I got away from her it was more than I 
 could bear. I hunted up Jasper, when I found he was back, 
 and turned over the mine to him, as I ought to have done 
 the first minute I heard of the strike." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " You would n t have had me keep it, I hope ? " 
 
 " I know, Deed. But owning up to Jasper ? " 
 
 " I did n t say I liked it. I was pursued by the thought 
 of her scorn, I tell you. Do you think I could bear to know 
 that she despised me, and that she was right ? I had to do 
 something. If she ever hears of it, she will know that I 
 tried to do what I could." 
 
 "Yes, yes," cried Cutter impatiently. " But the humilia 
 tion ! " 
 
 " Have I deserved to please my pride ? Jasper was a 
 blackguard, as usual ; but there were two of us this time. 
 It seemed to help the business along." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 373 
 
 " And you ve told him ? " 
 
 Philip nodded ; but at Cutter s look, " Oh don t ask me 
 what he said ! " exclaimed he. " It was a damnable scene. 
 The fellow is ill ; coming back from his journey he was 
 caught in a blizzard ; for three days he was under a rock, in 
 the snow ; he s in a bad way. He got up in bed ; he raved. 
 Ernfield came in and I went. I looked back at him at the 
 door ; and he nodded to me with a gloating smile. I know 
 what he means. He has me, now. I ve put myself in the 
 wrong. All that has gone before all that led up to this, 
 is cancelled. He ll take his opportunity. It s all right." 
 
 He buried his face moodily in his hands. Cutter sat 
 silent. He opened his lips to speak once or twice, and 
 found nothing to say. The moon, which had been hidden 
 since they had entered the gorge between the hills, and set 
 out on their climb to the summit, gleamed suddenly upon a 
 field of snow, lying high betwixt the mountains into which 
 they were steaming up. It shone into their windows and 
 filled the dusky compartment with radiance. 
 
 Cutter began to speak in a low voice. He said Jasper 
 would do nothing ; he did n t doubt his will, but nothing 
 was open to him ; and he went on to tell his friend that he 
 exaggerated the enormity of what he had done. " You say 
 that you ve always looked on the Little Cipher as 
 Jasper s," he said. " But we ve only your word for it and 
 your word for a mental process so intangible that even you 
 can t say when or how the Little Cipher became Jasper s 
 mine, or by what process it ceased to be his and became 
 yours." And he added that whatever might be true about 
 this, surely the provocation made a difference ; surely it 
 counted that it was done against one man rather than 
 another. He did n t see why he should concern himself 
 much about anything done against Jasper. 
 
 He believed some of this ; but not enough to enable him 
 
374 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 to face Philip, as he stared at him with a miserable smile a 
 moment before he muttered, " Rot ! rot ! rot ! Very kind of 
 you, Cutter, but no good ! I can t deceive myself with such 
 notions as that. It makes no difference, though. If you 
 want to console me, don t talk about Jasper. I can get 
 over that part of it myself. It s the other Oh, Cutter, 
 can t you see it s the other that matters? It s that I 
 have done it against her ! I thought if she cared for me 
 she would pardon it because I had done it for her. Crazy 
 fool ! Not to see how it abused all her trust in me ; 
 how it must wound her at her tenderest ; how it must 
 profane all our relation. She will never forgive me. She 
 hates me. She despises me." 
 
 He rose with a groan, and took a restless turn within 
 the narrow space of the compartment, throwing his arms 
 wide, and letting them fall again in despair. Suddenly he 
 stood still and faced his friend. " My God, man ! Do you 
 know what that means ? " 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 MARGARET went to call on Dorothy the next morning. 
 She had been thinking a great deal about her since the day 
 before. All forms of misery seemed especially grievous to 
 her just now ; and useless forms of it seemed merely wicked. 
 She had heard nothing from Deed, but there had not been 
 time ; he had telegraphed to let her know of his arrival, 
 and had promised to telegraph again as soon as he had any 
 thing to communicate. The dread in which she awaited 
 this message created in her, for the moment, a need to befriend 
 some one s else sorrow. She felt a certain shyness. She 
 had been conscious in their earlier meetings of the vague 
 hesitation about her which Dorothy had tried to conceal. 
 But she would not allow this to make a difference. 
 
 She found the house upturned when she arrived at the 
 Maurices . Dorothy came into the little parlour after a 
 moment, apologizing for her appearance; she was in the 
 disarray of the house-uniform in which she was accustomed 
 to attack the heavier household problems. She kept on 
 her apron. Margaret, glancing at her, saw the traces of 
 tears on her cheeks. 
 
 " I have come " she began, doubtfully. Her slow 
 eye for such things showed her suddenly the pictures packed 
 and standing in ranks against the wall, the upturned carpet, 
 the dismantled walls, and swathed furniture. " But are you 
 moving ? " 
 
376 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 "Yes; there is no reason why I should not tell you, Mrs. 
 Deed. Papa has sent in his resignation." She met her 
 interlocutor s eyes for the moment as if with the intention 
 of putting some face upon the action. Margaret was the 
 first to whom she had been obliged to make the announce 
 rnent ; put into words it sounded barren ; she saw that she 
 had unconsciously relied on her father to front the inquiring 
 world with an excuse. She found none for herself, and 
 dropped her eyes before Margaret s clear, kind gaze. 
 
 Margaret s own thought leaped to its decision with its 
 habitual certainty where Deed was not concerned. Dorothy 
 was sitting on the sofa ; Margaret rose quickly and came 
 and stood in front of her. " Won t you let me help you ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " About moving ? " asked Dorothy, with troubled eyes. 
 " Oh, there s nothing ! Thank you very much, of course ! 
 But we have so little." 
 
 " I did n t mean about moving, though I should be glad 
 if you would let me do anything for you in that, if you must 
 
 go. But you had better stay. I was thinking about " 
 
 She sat down on the sofa beside her, and stole her hand 
 upon Dorothy s. "Listen," she said, in a low voice, "I am 
 in deep trouble I, too the deepest. Won t you let me 
 help you ? " 
 
 The sudden tears started to Dorothy s eyes. "But 
 how ? " she stammered. " But why ? " 
 
 " He is near to me as well as to you, you know. It 
 seems to give me a sort of right to speak. But perhaps 
 you won t think that. Perhaps it hurts you to have it spoken 
 of. I know trouble is like that ; we wish to keep it to 
 ourselves. But it s better shared, is n t it ? It might be 
 needless ; it so often is. It s hard to be wise, but we may 
 be quite sure of that don t you think so that needless 
 additions to the misery of the world are wrong? And even 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 377 
 
 if it must remain all the trouble it seems to one s self, it is 
 good to let another feel part of the ache with one. It 
 somehow helps." 
 
 Dorothy listened with averted face ; she kept her glisten 
 ing eyes on the opposite wall ; she pressed the kindly hand 
 as Margaret went on. When she finished she seized it, 
 turning to face her, and gazed into her eyes for a moment 
 through a mist of tears. 
 
 " Oh, you are good," she murmured, chokingly. " I am 
 very unhappy ! " 
 
 She sobbed out her story in Margaret s lap. They re 
 mained a long time when she had done in each other s 
 arms. " I see how you feel. It is hard," murmured 
 Margaret, drying her eyes. " But you must forgive him ! " 
 
 The fair head on her shoulder was shaken violently. 
 "Yes, yes," said Margaret, gently, "you must, and you will." 
 She felt herself very old in the presence of this violent 
 young passion ; she felt rich in the abundance of her ex 
 perience, and the richer because it was so recent. " You 
 love him, don t you ? " 
 
 Dorothy raised her head and regarded her in a kind of 
 amazement. 
 
 "Then you will forgive him," said Margaret, quickly. 
 " Things don t matter so much as we think. I have learned 
 that. One thing matters only one ! And you may be 
 sure he has his excuses if you could know them. My 
 husband is suffering from a wrong he believes he did him ; 
 we have been very confident about it ; but since I have 
 seen him I have doubted. We must both wait. Why, you 
 saw him ! You heard him ! His honest eyes, that true 
 voice I don t believe he s false ; not intentionally ; not 
 wickedly; not without excuse." 
 
 "Oh, don t! Don t!" 
 
 <i Yes, I know. If he is false, in spite of all that, it s the 
 
378 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 worse infinitely the worse. But be sure he would have 
 something to say if you would give him his opportunity." 
 
 " He has had it ; it is he who has condemned himself. 
 It was from his own lips. Don t think please don t think 
 that I would believe any one else about him ! " 
 
 Margaret observed her irresolutely, a little dashed. Her 
 will to help her was unaltered, but she had not the habit 
 of quick resource. 
 
 "He said that he had taken his brother s mine? "she 
 repeated. 
 
 " Yes, yes. He said how little men understand ! that 
 he did it for me ! That was his excuse ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Margaret, slowly, " I know what you mean. 
 I can see how that would seem the worst pain of all ; and 
 yet, don t you see, too," she added, meditatively, "how 
 perhaps it is an excuse, and if an excuse at all, the best?" 
 She put this forward doubtfully. 
 
 Dorothy shook her head. " Oh, don t you think I have 
 tried to believe that ? Don t you think I tried to give him 
 opportunities to excuse himself, to make it seem right ? and 
 that I have done my best to excuse him to myself since ? 
 Sometimes I have made myself believe that if I could n t 
 pardon his doing it for me, I ought to pardon him because 
 it was done against his brother ; it was a cruel position. 
 But that makes it only worse a thousand times worse 
 does n t it ? " She asked it as a question. Margaret was 
 silent. " Does n t it ? " she repeated. 
 
 " Yes. No. Perhaps. Do you know what his brother 
 had done to him ? Do you know it all ? " 
 " Oh, yes, yes ! It was very hard. But that s what I 
 mean it was so hard that it was for him all the more to 
 hold his hand. It was his privilege not to strike. It seems 
 to me no one ever had such an opportunity. And to use 
 it as he did ! Oh, there is no excuse none, The 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 379 
 
 excuses only make it more wrong ; they make it impossible 
 to forgive." 
 
 Margaret bit her lip. She did not know what to say. 
 But she reached out her hand suddenly, and said in a low 
 voice, "If you have no excuse for him, think how much less 
 he can have one for himself. Have you thought of that ? 
 Does n t it seem as if it almost forced you to forgive him ? 
 Think how he must be suffering! Remember, he loves 
 you too ! Think how his love must be making it a torture 
 for him that you should think of him as you do, and that 
 you are right." 
 
 " Yes, I have thought of that. I have thought of every 
 thing. But nothing helps. It is done, done ! If he loved 
 me " a sob caught at her throat " if he loved me, it ought 
 to have been a reason for him against this, this that he has 
 done. It s not a reason to forgive him I can t feel it. I 
 
 have prayed to feel it. I have prayed " Her voice 
 
 died away. She avoided her companion s eye. 
 
 Margaret looked at her longingly, tenderly, helplessly ; 
 and Dorothy gave back her gaze. In Margaret s plain, 
 wholesome face, in her genuine eyes, in the wide, clear 
 benignant brow, Dorothy read goodness and strength 
 nothing but goodness and strength. The primness and 
 precision she had been used to fancy in her, seemed resolved 
 into these ; the qualities which she had been used to wish 
 that Margaret would let her like in her seemed somehow to 
 have freed themselves from the old bondage ; she saw that 
 she had in some way misconstrued or wrongly imagined 
 her or perhaps she was changed ; perhaps experience had 
 taught her. Did one come to see things differently, then, 
 in time did one s way of looking at certain matters alter ? 
 Should she ever think differently of Philip ? 
 
 Margaret, on her side, was looking into Dorothy s eyes, 
 thinking how gentle and sweet, and true and right-minded 
 
380 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 she was ; but thinking too, that in a way, a very remote 
 way, she stood where she had once stood ; where one saw 
 the right so clearly, that one was in danger of not seeing all 
 the pity of the wrong ; where it was hard to forgive. The 
 cases were not at all the same : it was the youth that spoke 
 in Dorothy, of course the intense, impulsive, passionately 
 certain youth ; and it was not youth, whatever else it was, 
 that had worked in herself to the same ends. But, at all 
 events, she felt drawn to her by a mysterious bond of 
 sympathy ; she felt that she knew enough of her state of 
 mind to comprehend, to sympathize, and she yearned to say 
 certain things to the young girl beside her; but she found 
 no words for them. Even about Philip s offence itself (a 
 simple and concrete subject) she could not trust herself to 
 speak ; she wished only to say what should be quite, quite 
 true. She could not let herself comfort Dorothy against her 
 own conscience about what Philip had seemingly done ; if he 
 had done it, it was hateful and wicked to her ; yet there was 
 
 another point of view Perhaps Margaret was less 
 
 entirely illumined by her experience than she thought ; 
 perhaps none of us escape out of ourselves, through any 
 experience, beyond recall. 
 
 She rose at last, and Dorothy rose with her. " I don t 
 know what to say," she said. " I m not sure what it would be 
 right to say. I am not sure of anything, any more. But you 
 will let me come to see you again, I hope, and we can talk. 
 
 Oh, come ! Pray come," begged Dorothy, taking her hand. 
 
 " And you won t move, yet. You will wait ? " 
 
 Dorothy seemed to take an inventory of the dismantled 
 room and of the situation in her swift glanee. " I see what 
 you mean," she said, in a moment. " But I dare n t say 
 that. The thought of seeing him again, of meeting him 
 you don t know what it is to me. I know I m not reason 
 able about it. But I feel as if I must go away. I feel as if 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 381 
 
 we should only be happy again father and I and get back 
 to our old good times together before before he came, by 
 going to some place a long way off, and very different from 
 this. And father has sent in his resignation he would n t 
 like to recall it." She pressed her companion s hand. " It 
 is so good of you to come to care. You won t think me 
 ungrateful if I can t see it quite as you see it not yet, at 
 all events." 
 
 Oh, I don t know how I see it ! " exclaimed Margaret 
 hastily. " I am the last person you should trust to ; I make 
 a great many mistakes ; I am not wise. I used to be very 
 certain ; but things have happened to alter that lately. 1 
 am not sure of anything but but perhaps this is true, 
 that, if we have charge of men s ideals, as men say, we 
 must n t be too hard in judging them by them. If we love 
 them we must wish to help them back to them, I think, 
 when they fall ; and, at all events, I don t think it can be 
 wrong for us to remember always that they have to do their 
 good and evil in a different world from ours a world we don t 
 understand, perhaps." She gazed over Dorothy s shoulder, 
 with a far away look in her eyes, in which she seemed to 
 herself to be questioning and resolving her own future. 
 
 " But right and wrong remain surely they are the same 
 in all worlds," said Dorothy, bewildered by this strain of 
 reasoning from Margaret. " And our loving that seems to 
 me just it ! It does n t matter that some one for whom we 
 care nothing does a thing beneath him. When when 
 
 another does it " She did not finish. 
 
 " I don t know I don t know," mused Margaret, with 
 the same far-looking eyes. " It s true, of course ; but it s 
 not all the truth or, at least, there is a better truth, 
 perhaps. Love is better." She bent over and kissed her, 
 " Good-bye ! " she said. 
 
 Dorothy watched her go away with many feelings. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 MARGARET S way home took her by Dr. Ernfield s office, 
 and, as she passed, she heard a rap on the window. 
 Beatrice s face appeared at the pane, and she went in, at 
 her silent gesture. They encountered in the outer office, 
 where Beatrice whispered that Dr. Ernfield was ill. His 
 long ride of the day before, followed by a night of watching 
 at Jasper s bedside had brought on another haemorrhage. 
 
 " Is Jasper back, then ? Is he ill ? " she asked quickly. 
 
 " Yes, he s back, and he s very ill," returned Beatrice ; 
 and in a hushed voice she told her of the blizzard in which 
 he had been caught on his way back over the mountains 
 from Mineral Springs ; how he had spent three days without 
 food or drink under an overhanging rock, dying slowly of 
 exhaustion, cold, and hunger, and how he had at length 
 been found by a lumber team going up Ohkay valley for a 
 load. The men had taken him into the town of Ohkay, and 
 he had been laid up at the hotel there until now. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " exclaimed Margaret. " Poor fellow ! I 
 wish I could go out and nurse him. Is he alone ? " 
 
 "He has his cowboys." 
 
 "Cowboys!" cried she. "No; I must n t," she added 
 after a moment s meditation. " But how like Dr. Ernfield 
 to sit up with him. Tell me," she said, laying a hand on 
 her companion s arm, " he is better? " 
 
 " Yes, he s better ; but he has been very ill. Ned is going 
 to take his place with Jasper, and I m going to ask you to 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 383 
 
 take my place with him for a moment. I left Edward in 
 the irrigating ditch. He will be wet through." 
 
 Margaret was about to say that she could n t stay ; that it 
 v/as impossible ; but this seemed foolish, on reflection. She 
 put off her shawl on a chair in the outer office, and went 
 in to him, while Beatrice silently gathered her wraps in the 
 inner room. Beatrice hushed her entrance into the room 
 where he lay, with her finger on her lip. He was asleep, she 
 saw. So much the better ! 
 
 Beatrice indicated the medicine he was to take next with 
 her finger, whispered one or two further instructions and 
 glided out, saying she would be back immediately. Mar 
 garet gave a quick glance about the untidy, mannish 
 room. This, then, was where he lived. There was an 
 unframed medical print or two, and some stuffed specimens. 
 The walls were almost bare, save in the corners, where 
 they were cobwebbed. Margaret could never have lived 
 for a moment in a dishevelled room. The desolateness of 
 this one gave her a pang of homesickness for him. She 
 saw that the fire was dying down, and looked about for wood. 
 He stirred uneasily as she softly put on a log, and opened 
 his eyes on her. She rose quickly. His bewildered stare 
 broke into a smile. " Have you taken Mrs. Vertner s 
 place ? " he asked. His voice was quite strong. Perhaps, 
 she thought to herself perhaps he would yet live to conquer 
 his disease, and to take his place in life with the others. 
 She knew that this could not be that it was impossible ; 
 but the other seemed too dreadful. They faced each other 
 alone for the first time since the day they had ridden up 
 the Ute Trail together. 
 
 " It is good to see you again, 5 he said, as he put forth his 
 wasted hand. She took it and held it a moment silently, as 
 she gazed out of the window, thinking of many things. The 
 sunlight was pouring into the little space of Mesa Street, on 
 
384 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 which Ernfield s rooms looked. From where she stood she 
 could see the office of the Maverick Sentinel, which she re 
 called as the name of the paper she had cause to remember. 
 The days following Deed s going returned to her, as she 
 stood looking out at the sign and holding his hand, and it 
 came to her that it was Ernfield, in a way, whom she had 
 to thank for her husband and for her happiness. 
 
 The wind hid the office of the newspaper, and " St. Ann s 
 Rest " and the Post Office next door, when it raised, as it 
 did from time to time, a mighty cloud of dust. Women 
 who were walking would sometimes pause before one of 
 these gusts, and turn their backs, burying their faces in their 
 muffs. The men often wore protecting goggles or glasses, 
 and seemed to take the wind and dust as part of the circum 
 stance of the universal Joke. 
 
 As she stole a glance at his face again and saw in his look 
 the illusory brightness and vitality of the consumptive, grave 
 and silent tears started in her eyes. 
 
 " I sha n t be so sorry not to get well, after all," he said, 
 suddenly, observing her from under his half-closed eyes. 
 She looked, he thought, even more than she usually did, 
 the benignant goddess of all right-doing. He was conscious 
 of an absurd wonder whether she must dress her hair in that 
 way because she was herself, or whether she had to be 
 herself, having once brushed those silky brown strands back 
 from her forehead in that severe fashion. He was as much 
 at a loss to say why he liked her way of parting her hair 
 uncompromisingly from forehead to crown, without a decora 
 tion or extrusion of any sort, and smoothing it simply down 
 to the ears, where it curled back in a way that made him 
 long to tell her how utterly nice she was, as he was at a loss 
 to say why he liked her why he loved her, in fine, to his 
 madness, his torment. " I sha n t be so sorry not to get 
 well," he repeated, " because by the time I could get well, 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 385 
 
 Mrs. Vertner and you would have spoiled me past remedy. 
 I should n t be able to resume my place in society, decently. 
 No one would be able to tolerate me. If you really want me to 
 have courage to get well, you d better go before it s too late." 
 She answered him with an indulgent smile only. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " he went on. " It s little matter, either way. 
 The game will soon be up." He put away the instinctive 
 denial that leaped to her lips, with a gestures "Don t 
 say it," he asked her. " There s no need." A whimsical 
 little groan escaped him as he shifted his position. He 
 stared at her in far away thought. She moved uneasily. 
 He caught her hand. " I thought I could die without asking 
 it. But it can t hurt you my question not from a man 
 who has his death-warrant. Tell me are you happy ? " 
 
 She gazed down into his eyes a moment doubtfully. She 
 felt herself choking ; she nodded painfully. 
 
 " Ah, that s good ! " he exclaimed, " good ! And it s 
 true?" he turned a keen glance on her "everything is 
 well with you ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 He regarded her for a moment thoughtfully. " May I 
 guess your trouble ? " he asked, with a deepening of the 
 kindly note in his voice. She said nothing. " Jasper told 
 me a long story when I was called to him last night." 
 
 He told her what she already knew about the origin of 
 Jasper s illness, and how, in the watches of the night, as he 
 sat by his bedside, he had poured into his ears the whole 
 narrative of his relation to his father and Philip. Margaret 
 flushed ; how much did he know ? 
 
 " It must have been very hard for you," she heard him 
 saying. 
 
 " How ? What ? " she asked, startled. 
 
 " All of it. You can t think how it came over me, sitting 
 there in the dark with him what you must have suffered. 
 
 c c 
 
3 86 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 I have never known anything of it all. I have fancied 
 things, now and then, of course, but I have always liked to 
 believe you happy, and I did n t allow myself to fancy much. 
 The truth is worse than my fancies. It must have been very 
 hard for you," he repeated. 
 
 " It hasn t always been easy," she owned. 
 
 "Ah, if I could forget the time I tried to make it 
 harder ! " 
 
 " Don t think that, please. It was you who made every 
 thing plain. It was you who helped me. Why," she 
 hesitated " I don t know why I should n t say it. I owe 
 you my happiness." 
 
 "Do you?" He reached up and took her hand again. 
 " Do you ? " he repeated. " You don t. You must n t. 
 But perhaps you may, too, if you like," he added with his 
 smile. "Leave the idea with me for a while. I sha n t need 
 it long, and it will do me good." " Yes," he said happily to 
 himself, " I could go away with that thought. You d better 
 not stay. You ll take it back." 
 
 " But it s true ! " 
 
 "Is it ? Well, no matter. I like it just as well false. 
 Your seeing it that way that s all that counts. And about 
 the happiness you manage to find it in spite of what we 
 were talking of just now ? If I ve given it to you, I want 
 more than ever to know that I gave you the genuine article." 
 
 " Yes ; in spite of that and some other things, I think 
 1 may say I m happy. Or at least I should n t know how to 
 choose any way to be happier." 
 
 " There are other things ? " 
 
 " Nothing that we shall not solve at once and have done 
 with for ever. Whatever comes we have that comfort, now." 
 
 A shadow passed over his face at that tiny world-inclu 
 ding, world-excluding " we " ; but he repeated fervently 
 " Good ! Good ! " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 387 
 
 He saw her eyes light suddenly with a light that he had 
 not brought into them. She went to the window and rapped 
 briskly upon it. A figure on the other side of the street 
 turned at the sound, and recognizing the face at the window 
 came quickly across the road. 
 
 " Excuse me if I leave you a moment," she said, and 
 turned at the door, with a beaming face, to add, as she 
 nodded toward him, " We shall know now ! " 
 
 When she had opened the office door to Deed she drew 
 him in, and folded him in her arms, and then held him 
 off and questioned his face, reading the good news in 
 his smile with greedy eyes. Ernfield in the next room 
 turned wearily to the wall. She found him so when she ran in 
 for a moment to see that all was well with him. Then she 
 returned and questioned Deed. She saw before he spoke 
 that he was very happy ; his face had taken on a radiant 
 look. It was like the face of the man she had known in 
 the year before their marriage. She was conscious for the 
 first time how old and worn she had grown used to seeing 
 him look ; he was not looking old now ; he was looking 
 young and buoyant. Beatrice came in upon them before 
 he could give her his news, and Deed must greet her, and 
 Margaret must show her the last medicine that Ernfield had 
 taken, and must linger a moment alone by his bedside to 
 say, leaning over him as she buttoned her gloves, " I came to 
 help you, and you have comforted me. It was always the 
 way. Some day you must let me change it : you don t 
 know how much I should like to feel that I had the 
 advantage of you in that, even for a moment. I should 
 like to help you." 
 
 He stretched up his hand to her ; she noted with pain 
 how frail and thin it seemed. " You are my help," he said 
 with a sad, eager smile. " I think you know that. It is 
 you who make things possible for me." 
 
 cc 2 
 
388 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 A sudden flood of compassion filled Margaret s heart as 
 she looked down into his weary eyes. In the great relief 
 which had come to her at sight of her husband s face ; in 
 the joy of having him back, which seemed to give him to 
 her as if for the first time, the thought of this maimed and 
 broken life, so poor in joy of any sort, went through her 
 with an afflicting pain. Her own share in his fate enlarged 
 itself, and seemed to press upon her stiflingly ; myriads 
 of memories went electrically through her brain. So 
 poor so poor he was ! And she so rich ! She stooped 
 with an irresistible impulse, and pressed a fleet kiss on his 
 forehead through her blinding tears. 
 
 She seized Deed s arm passionately when they were out 
 side, and walked swiftly with him toward the main street, 
 with her muff to her face. For a long time neither of them 
 spoke. Then he began in a low voice and told her his news. 
 
 WHEN the servant brought Deed s name to her next 
 morning Dorothy experienced a sinking of the heart ; but 
 she renewed her resolution with a stern word to herself and 
 went down to him. As she took his hand a little shock 
 went through her that was not all pain. " His father ! His 
 father ! " she caught herself murmuring. To him she said in 
 a scarcely audible voice, " I am very glad to see you." Her 
 manner was at once eager and reluctant. 
 
 She suddenly looked up, encountered his kindly eye, and 
 coloured. His eye was at the moment tenderly studious ol 
 her. He saw what Philip perceived in her outward aspect, 
 at least, to like. As she stood before him, a little shyly, 
 taking his hand in her cordial pressure, and lowering her 
 eyes after the first full, frank, pleading meeting with his, she 
 seemed to him very charming. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 389 
 
 " You know why I have come ? " he said, bending over 
 her. 
 
 "About ?" 
 
 " Yes. I want you to save him." 
 
 She motioned her visitor to the couch, taking a chair her 
 self. " Save him ? " she repeated. She clasped her hands 
 in her lap and drew herself slightly together in unconscious 
 resistance. She had instinctively pushed her chair back a 
 little as she sat down ; she found the mere potency of his 
 presence, his individuality, vaguely controlling. 
 
 " I want you to let him make it right with you, I want 
 you to let me bring you together again ; and I want you to 
 do this not for his sake, but for mine. When I tell you, you 
 will understand ; and you won t think, I hope, that I ask as 
 much as I must seem to. Last night, Miss Maurice, I came 
 back from Leadville happier than men often are. I had 
 heard great news of him news that changed all I had 
 been base and cruel enough to think of him. I wanted 
 to hug him. Instead I found him gone, and this for news of 
 him first what he had done, and then that you had broken 
 with him. You were right. You could do no less. I un 
 derstand all your feeling. But, Miss Maurice, you must 
 take him back. It was I who took Jasper s mine." 
 
 " You ! " she cried. She smiled nervously. 
 
 " Yes, I. Not by the outward rules of things. That was 
 Philip s part to seem to do it. But the real doer of an 
 act is the one behind it all who is responsible for it. I was 
 responsible for this. You know what I did against Jasper. 
 This is one of the fruits of it. If I had not done that this 
 could not have happened. I made the situation. He had 
 to act in it as he did. The blame s mine. Lift it from him ! 
 It s that I want to ask you." 
 
 She was bewildered ; she did not know what to say. She 
 stole a glance at him where he sat, and perceived the look 
 
390 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 like Philip s look ; it was about the mouth, perhaps ; it 
 was his smile that was like Philip s. He was more hand 
 some than his son ; as she whipped another furtive glance 
 at him, she found herself trusting him ; his sturdy frame, 
 the clear-cut, powerful face, the alert and genial eye, had all 
 an effect of gentle force, on which she instinctively reposed. 
 To her it seemed that he looked very right. He went on 
 in a moment to tell her what he had learned at Leadville 
 beginning with his quarrel with Philip, and taking pleasure 
 in condemning himself. He said that he had made an 
 egregious and wicked mistake. And then he made her see 
 (he told the story with glistening eyes) how this precious 
 boy of his, whom he had dared to cast off for a fancied 
 baseness, and against whom he had hardened his heart, had 
 all the time been sheltering and righting and saving him 
 behind his back, by the most shameless trick. . . . He 
 broke down in the midst of it. Tears of pride filled his eyes. 
 
 " That was good, that was noble of him ! " said Dorothy 
 quickly. 
 
 " And you will forgive him ? You will pardon him ? 
 You will take him back ? " 
 
 " Oh, don t you think I want to ? Don t you suppose 
 I long to ? I can t ! " 
 
 She did not know how she said these things. It seemed 
 easy to talk to him ; but difficult impossible not to do 
 what he wished. The effect of his presence grew upon hei 
 rather than diminished ; and a kind of diffidence lingered in 
 all she said. She felt keenly how much he had put aside to 
 come to her ; that gave authority to all he said that, and 
 the sense that he was older than she, that he was his father, 
 that he was in trouble ; and she felt her own young girl s 
 feelings, opinions, judgments, shrinking in the balance by 
 the operation of an instinct almost like one of decorum. 
 
 But she called upon her resolution. In the time which 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 391 
 
 had passed since Margaret had left her she had gone over the 
 question between herself and Philip with all the honesty she 
 could find in herself. She had forced herself to face it 
 with absolute pitilessness for her own pride, and for all 
 that might be merely extraneous or selfish in her feeling. 
 She had rehearsed it all, as well, with the tenderness for 
 him which, alas, she did not need to force ; and she 
 believed that she had taken her resolve. It was taken 
 in bitterness and tears ; but it was fixed. 
 
 Deed leaned over from his place on the couch, and 
 took her hand. "You won t punish him for what began 
 with me," he said. 
 
 " I see what you mean," she said, in a dry voice, out of 
 which she kept her feeling as she could, " but I fear that 
 can t be true for me. I can perceive it ; but I can t feel it. 
 I have thought a great deal of what you speak of, though, 
 since he since Philip told me of it ; I have thought of 
 what the punishment you found for your son must have 
 cost you, I mean, and of his ingratitude ; and I ve been 
 very sorry for you. May I say that ? " 
 
 "I am very glad to have you say it. I see that you re 
 good, that you re kind." 
 
 " No, don t think that, please, " murmured Dorothy, 
 painfully. " I am hard ; I must be hard." 
 
 He regarded her for a moment as he withdrew his hand. 
 "Then we shall understand each other, Miss Maurice," he 
 said. " I am hard. It is that which has brought me here. 
 If I had n t been hard, I should never have got myself and 
 Philip into this miserable mess with Jasper, which has led 
 Philip to do, now, what you see." 
 
 " But what you did, and what he has done they are very 
 different. What you did do you mind my saying that may 
 not have been right, perhaps, but it was splendid." 
 
 His face confessed his pleasure in her praise, but he said 
 
392 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 quickly. " Are you quite sure, Miss Maurice, that if you 
 knew all Philip s motives, you would n t find something 
 heroic about them, too? What I did used to seem 
 to me fine, too ; it does n t now. But it makes no 
 difference ; I had to do it, and every one near to me has 
 had to pay for it. It s taken its revenge," he said sadly. " I 
 was right, perhaps, but I was not right to take my right. 
 An injury began with that which has gone on ever since. 
 There was no injury until I did it to Jasper, for his was what 
 I made it. If I had not resisted it I see that, now it must 
 have stopped there, I was not wise enough. I answered 
 his villainy, and the penalty has been brought home to me 
 since in every form through which I could be made to feel. 
 It has not always been myself; it has been Margaret s fate 
 to surfer for it, too, and now it s Philip s. Don t force him 
 to suffer more for it than you must. That s what I ve come 
 to beg of you." 
 
 The dignity and reality of his trouble affected her deeply, 
 as she listened. Her generous instinct to rush to the aid of 
 any one in pain or difficulty came over her. But what seemed 
 a final obstacle rose to withhold her. She did not know 
 how to explain it. She lowered her eyes to her lap. " Mrs. 
 Deed came to see me ; she has been more than good. She 
 will have told you how I what I feel," she said huskily. 
 
 " I know. It s not only the wrong he has done Jasper 
 culpable, strange, and mistaken as that is. There is more 
 to forgive." 
 
 " Oh, if it were only to forgive ! That would be easy ; 
 
 I suppose I have forgiven now. When one gets over the 
 first pain and shock, one forgives if one loves, instinctively. 
 But that is nothing a form of words. He would not care 
 for that ; and I could n t offer it to him. What he wishes is 
 something else. The only thing I could do that would do 
 any good would be to bring it all back, our old relation 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 393 
 
 as if this had never been. I can wish it back, and I do. 
 But I can t bring it back, Nothing, it seems to me, can 
 do that ! Nothing ! " 
 
 "You mean that you can t bring it back for his own sake 
 or for yours? I know that. Won t you try it, then, for 
 the sake of some one outside of it all some one who has 
 no claim ? " 
 
 " You mean ? " she began. 
 
 "Yes," he answered eagerly. " Will you do it for me ?" 
 A flush mounted to her face. " I have told you how I 
 wronged and misunderstood him," he went on. " You know 
 how he has rewarded me. You see I m sure it s 
 natural to you to see such things how I must long to do 
 something for him : how I can t bear to think, however 
 much he has deserved it, that he should be unhappy." 
 
 Dorothy looked over at him compassionately. " I see 
 that ! " she breathed. 
 
 He leaned forward and took her hand again. " He will 
 pardon me ; he will run to do it. But I can t take his pardon 
 on those terms. You understand. He has humiliated me : 
 he has heaped burning coals of fire on my head. I can t 
 face him in his trouble empty-handed." 
 
 "No," she murmured. She was much shaken. 
 
 " Listen, my dear girl," he went on. " Do you think that 
 what he has done is less a pain and trouble to me than to 
 you ? Have you thought how he is repeating my experience ? 
 In attacking Jasper, after all his forbearance, he is beginning 
 as I began, and must go on as I have gone on. You see 
 that. It does n t make what he has done seem less wrong 
 (though it must have excuses of which we know nothing) 
 but, to me, it makes it more pitiful. You understand how 
 I can t look on, and see that happening, and do nothing to 
 stop it. I must stop it. Oh, Miss Maurice, I m sure you 
 can t have the heart to let him stumble on into the mire 
 
394 BENEFITS FORGO?. 
 
 where I ve been struggling these last months you won t 
 let him do that for lack of a word. I m sure you will 
 help me ! " 
 
 He stopped, and a great pity for the man into whose eyes 
 she was looking, for Philip, and for the situation Philip had 
 made common to both of them, came over her. It was 
 almost impossible to her not to try to help them. " Oh, if 
 it were a question of pity, of tenderness, of love, of anything 
 but what it is ! " she burst out. 
 
 " But finally that is the question how much you love him, 
 is n t it. And is anything impossible to love ? " He leaned 
 forward suddenly. " My dear girl, will you let me tell you of 
 something which has come very close to me?" She was gazing 
 at him in absorption ; she nodded tremulously. " You will 
 understand, if I tell you this, that it is necessary necessary to 
 me that you should take him back ; you will see that I 
 couldn t speak of it for a light reason. You have heard 
 how I abandoned Margaret on her wedding day ? " 
 
 " Oh, don t speak of that ! Don t make me feel that I 
 have forced you to speak of that," she exclaimed in a kind 
 of panic. She was not sure of what she was saying. 
 
 He silenced her with a sad and gentle gesture, and 
 sketched the occasion of his difference with Margaret 
 quickly. " You see," he said, at the end, " I had no 
 excuse. It was simply a monstrous humouring of my 
 passion. I forced her to pretend, if she would unselfishly 
 save me from myself, and then savagely punished her for it. 
 I left her as if I had never had an obligation to her. It was 
 an insult, and not a brave one. To desert a woman on her 
 wedding day could never be a handsome thing to do ; in this 
 case, where her only crime was caring for me too well, it was 
 an abominable cruelty. And how did she reward me ? Ah, 
 my dear girl, you know ! I could never come back to her ; 
 she knew it. She knew that I had shut the gates of Para- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 395 
 
 disc behind me, and that, except for the chance of her mercy, 
 I must remain at the decent distance I had chosen for 
 myself, cursing my folly, and longing vainly for her. It was 
 her right never to suffer me to so much as see her again a 
 thousand times her right. I had outraged her pride ; I had 
 wounded her at a woman s tenderest and dearest. And she 
 forgave me ! Don t ask me how. She found a way." He 
 got up, abruptly, and looked down for a moment in silence 
 at the stooping figure in the chair before him. Dorothy s 
 head was in her hands. She was weeping bitterly. " My 
 dear girl," he asked with grave tenderness, " won t you find 
 a way ? " 
 
 She rose, and put her hands in his. 
 
 " I will try," she said, lifting her tear-stained face to his, 
 bravely. 
 
 "And I may tell him ?" 
 
 "Tell him I will see him." 
 
 He looked at her long and questioningly, while he held 
 her hands. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 " BUT you did n t tell him that there was any difficulty 
 between Miss Maurice and Philip, I hope. You were n t 
 such a dunce as that, Ned ? " 
 
 It was two days later, and they were seated at dinner. 
 Margaret had secured rooms at the Centropolis House 
 against Deed s return from Pifion (with Philip she hoped), 
 and had taken up her own residence there, though she was 
 much at the Vertners. She had said that she felt that they 
 she and Deed must begin to think of settling down, like 
 sensible people (she had begun to make plans from the hour 
 in which she heard Deed s good news about the Leadville 
 business) ; and though she did not pretend that apartments 
 at a hotel were even by way of gratifying this ambition, she 
 said that they at least did not constitute a step in the other 
 direction, like staying with one s friends. 
 
 Vertner arrested the carving knife with which he had been 
 inquiring his way to the joint of the fowl before him, and 
 levelled a glance of scorn at his wife in response to her 
 question. 
 
 " Well, I should hope not," she rejoined to this disclaimer, 
 as he busied himself about the fowl again. And then after 
 a pause, " I shall always say it was very good of you to go 
 out to the Triangle to see what you could do for him, Ned." 
 
 "Shall you? Well, I should think more of it myself if 
 Jasper interested me less. I did n t go to nurse him ; I went 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 397 
 
 to take a look at him. He has a special effect on me ; I m 
 curious about him ; I m always wondering what he will do 
 next." 
 
 " Well, you see what he has done next." 
 
 " Yes, but just before he did it, I thought he was going to 
 do something else." Vertner asked Edward to hand him 
 the cranberries, as he finished cutting some of the fowl for 
 himself, and settled himself at the table, with the conscious 
 pleasure of the carver who has earned his contentment. " I 
 had got his next move all planned out in my mind ; I thought 
 I saw that he had seen a point which dawned on me while 
 I was sitting with him ; perhaps he has seen it indeed I m 
 pretty sure he has but he has n t acted on it. He has done 
 something even more brilliant." 
 
 " Do you call it brilliant to go after Mr. Maurice and 
 Dorothy by the next train ? " 
 
 " From his point of view certainly. Do you suppose 
 Jasper could sit still under the thought that, after all that 
 has happened, it should be his brother who succeeds with 
 her. He will know how to reconcile himself to it if it happens ; 
 but he is n t going to let it happen if he can help himself. 
 The first news that reached him when he was brought back 
 to Maverick was that they were engaged ; and if I know 
 Jasper he wanted to break something in celebration of that 
 news. But then along comes Philip and puts a weapon into 
 his hands, and he rages, but chirks up. He sees the op 
 portunity his brother has given him. And then he hears 
 that the engagement is broken on account of the same affair, 
 and that pleases him down to the ground." 
 
 "But how did he hear that? And how do you sup 
 pose he knew that Mr. Maurice and Dorothy were going 
 yesterday afternoon, when no one else knew it?" 
 
 " Well, I think I could imagine. Who has always been 
 his friend here ? " 
 
398 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Maurice, but " 
 
 "There is no but. Maurice was angry when she broke 
 the engagement, of course ; he supposed Philip was the rich 
 one then. But the transfer of the Little Cipher to Jasper 
 changed his mind, just as she was beginning to change her 
 mind back again. I don t believe he was very sorry that, 
 if the Sentinel had to copy that article from the Laughing 
 Valley paper about his doings over there, it should choose 
 this time for it. Perhaps she gave him more definite reason 
 to believe that she would forgive Philip than she gave 
 Deed. At all events, he would n t care to keep her where 
 Philip would certainly find her within a day or two and 
 make it up with her. He decided to take an early train, 
 for various reasons ; but first he let Jasper know where he 
 was going." 
 
 " I wish we knew. I begged her to telegraph. I knew 
 Margaret would never forgive me if I did n t. But I wanted 
 to know for myself. I am very sorry for her." 
 
 "So am I. But I am still more sorry for Deed and 
 Philip. Think of Deed bringing him back here to find her 
 gone ! He s set his heart on this thing. He is in such a 
 position that his peace of mind depends on his success in it. 
 I sha n t forget for a while the after-dinner cigar I smoked 
 with Deed the day before he called on Dorothy. I ve seen 
 men crushed before ; but not like that. Well, of course it 
 tore him up to have to feel that Phil had turned round 
 and been his salvation after all ! After quarrelling with him, 
 and casting him off because he thought he was unfaithful to 
 him, it was pretty rough. He could have stood it to know 
 that he had been in the wrong, and that he had accused Philip 
 without any too much excuse ; but this was another matter. 
 It s awful for a generous man to have to see that he has 
 done a nasty thing. From the hour when he faced the fact 
 that his son had really been fixing things up for him at 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 399 
 
 Leadville doing his best to stop the boomerang Deed had 
 started on its cheerful career before he left Leadville ; using 
 the $50,000 he had flung at him to save him, and generally 
 toeing the mark, and doing his duty like a little man from 
 that hour he has been the happiest and the most miserable 
 man going. To know that Phil was all right tickled him to 
 death, but it shocked him to think how he had used him. 
 His going to Dorothy yesterday did n t surprise me. He 
 did n t say he was going ; but it was the only thing left to 
 him. When Margaret told him about it, I guess he felt that 
 this little rumpus between Miss Maurice and Phil was a 
 kind of providence. It gave him a show. He could n t 
 take Philip s hand again, until he had made it right with 
 him, somehow. That was his chance. He took it and won 
 or at least, if Maurice had let things alone, he stood a 
 first-rate chance to win. And now he will be bringing Phil 
 back with him to-morrow morning, both of them all ready to 
 be mighty happy, and I don t know which the gladdest to 
 be friends with the other again, and they will find her gone. 
 It makes me tired ! " exclaimed Vertner, pressing his hand 
 kerchief nervously to his brow, and ejaculating the slang as 
 if it had the force of a phrase sacred to grief. 
 
 " I m not sure whether Philip deserves much pity," said 
 Beatrice after a moment. " Of course I m sorry for him ; 
 but, as Margaret would say, I m not sure that I ought to 
 be. She couldn t do anything but give him up after he 
 had done such a thing." 
 
 "Perhaps she couldn t. I m not sure that another 
 woman (a little different, or a little older woman : say a 
 woman of thirty, instead of a girl of twenty-one) might 
 not have found that she could do something else in her 
 situation, though dodge around a bit, and find her feelings 
 coming up in unexpected places to square things with her 
 conscience or her other feelings." 
 
400 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " It s easy for men to say such things ; and perhaps you 
 are right about some women," responded his wife, after a 
 moment. "But you can t judge, Ned. You can t feel as 
 a woman must in such a case. The circumstances were 
 peculiar." 
 
 " Peculiar mainly in his not being so all-firedly guilty as 
 her treatment of him makes out. Of course it is n t proper 
 to take your brother s mine ; but that is n t the question. 
 The actual question is surrounded by a thousand reasons 
 for thinking that it is just right to take your brother s mine, 
 and that it might be a hallowed duty. Besides, he did n t 
 do that he merely failed to let on that he had once thought 
 the Little Cipher would be a good mine to give to his 
 brother." 
 
 " Pshaw, Ned ! You exaggerate ! " 
 
 "Well, I m stating the case for the defence. You don t 
 expect me to stick to absolutely undecorated facts, do you ? 
 Still, I stand by that. That s the gist of it. You get into 
 a hair-splitting region when you try to say whose mine that 
 actually was. My mind is too gross for it. And, at all 
 events, you must admit that she has been pretty hard on 
 him ; she s too clear-headed. Women are that way when it 
 comes to the wrong doings of the man nearest to them ; 
 and especially if it touches them, directly. I see it in you 
 sometimes, Trix; but Dorothy is much worse." 
 
 " Oh, she sees things," owned Beatrice. 
 
 " Sees things ! Well, I should remark outside and 
 inside, and underneath and all around. That s what makes 
 me pity Phil. No man can stand that kind of soul- 
 plumbing, straight in the eye, unforgiving, undiscounting, 
 heavenly stare. We re not built that way and Phil, poor 
 fellow, less than most of us. Phil makes allowances for 
 himself; he knows where he needs them, and he puts them 
 where they will do the most good. It has got him into the 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 401 
 
 habit of thinking that other people will be making the 
 same for him ; and some of us crude sinners, who know 
 how it is ourselves, make them right along, and glad of the 
 chance, with one of the best fellows in the world. But, 
 bless my soul, is that the way she takes him ! Is that the 
 way any woman takes a man? Not much ! She takes him 
 on the ground of the fellow she s dreamed, and he has 
 to live up not only to the man she thinks him, but to the 
 kind of man she thinks all good men. It s the sort of 
 thing to do a man good. I don t deny it. It puts stuff 
 into him ; it s a tonic and a stimulant and a bracer. But 
 it s hard, constant, ticklish work. And the worst of it is, 
 it don t count, not for what it is. Women, dear things, 
 fancy it as the every-day attitude of the sex ; and when, 
 some fine morning, you relax a bit, you re punished not 
 on the basis of what you are, but on the basis of what she s 
 all along been thinking you." 
 
 "Oh, you don t get any more than you deserve," laughed 
 Beatrice. 
 
 " It s all right. I don t say it isn t. I only say that we re 
 entitled to warning ; it s like playing poker, without notice 
 that you are playing straights. I like to be familiar with 
 the rules, myself, before I risk my money." 
 
 " The rules are perfectly simple. You ve only got to be 
 good." 
 
 " You call that simple ! I fancy Phil would n t agree with 
 you. Shut up, son," he said, in an aside to the young 
 man who was strumming on his plate with his spoon. 
 
 D D 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 IN the late afternoon of the following day Dorothy 
 was sitting on the piazza of one of the smaller hotels at 
 Colorado Springs watching the sun go down behind Pike s 
 Peak. The little city of invalids and tourists, which has 
 easily one of the loveliest situations in the world, was at one 
 of its best moments. The sun had not gone ; the clear air 
 seemed more clear for the tinge of rosiness, and the splendid 
 bulk of the Peak, cut crisply against the dying light, looked 
 down on a cluster of villas and hotels, in which each struc 
 ture seemed to stencil its Queen Anne jaggedness, or Late 
 Colorado vagaries of outline against a sky which invited 
 stencilling. 
 
 She was alone on the piazza.. Some of the other people 
 staying at the hotel (there were not many) had made up 
 a party and driven over to the Garden of the Gods and 
 Manitou; two or three young men had gone on a walk 
 to Cheyenne Cafion ; some ladies, left behind, were in 
 their rooms. It was just before the supper hour, and the 
 excursionists would soon be returning. Her father had left 
 her half an hour before, saying that he wanted a walk ; he had 
 not suggested that she should come with him, and she had 
 made no movement to accompany him. She was glad to 
 be quiet and think. 
 
 She sat thus, for a long time, meditating about many 
 things, and working at some embroidery in her hands in- 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 403 
 
 termittently, until suddenly she felt rather than saw a 
 shadow fall between her and the sun, and, looking up, she 
 perceived Jasper. She rose instantly. A shock went 
 through her. She felt herself gazing at him defiantly ; 
 and then she saw how very ill he looked. His face was almost 
 spectral ; its old firmness was gone. His hollow cheeks 
 and cavernous eyes gave her a start. Her glance roved 
 hastily over him ; she saw that his clothes, which had been 
 used to set so trimly on his figure, hung on him with an 
 almost shambling looseness. In her surprise she remained 
 motionless, arrested half-way in her intention to go in and 
 leave him standing there. He perceived his advantage and 
 said, in the thin and wasted voice which had replaced his 
 former manly tones, 
 
 "You are wondering at the change. Did n t you know 
 that I had been ill?" 
 
 She made " Yes " with her lips. 
 
 4 But you did n t think it was so bad? It was a close 
 call." 
 
 " You ought not to be out. You ought not to be up," 
 she said. She forgot that she had not meant to speak 
 to him. A ball of worsted with which she had been 
 working fell from her arms, and rolled out on the piazza. 
 He stooped with his old precise courtesy, and restored it 
 to her. 
 
 " I had a very good reason for getting up," he said. " 1 
 heard that you had gone away that you were leaving 
 Maverick for good. I had meant to wait until I could 
 come to see you in the usual way ; I should have managed 
 it in a day or two. But your going made everything 
 different." 
 
 " Excuse me," rejoined Dorothy hastily. " I can t allow 
 you to include me in your plans." 
 
 He smiled tolerantly. " You remember our last meeting, 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 do you not ? You remember your promise. I have been 
 waiting for your answer." 
 
 In all the reflections which had contemned Jasper and 
 put him for ever out of the case for her, she had not thought 
 of this ; that, in form, he was entitled to some word from 
 her. She saw that it put her for the moment in the wrong 
 with him. But she said with disdain, 
 
 " I did n t think it necessary to tell you that I had found 
 you out. I supposed you would guess that." 
 
 Jasper bit his lip, and waited a moment before replying. He 
 had determined, in seeking this interview, to keep his temper. 
 "I knew that you had resolved to break faith with me 
 when I heard of your engagement to my brother. I don t 
 see why I was bound to suppose that your reason was one 
 discreditable to me." 
 
 " Break faith with you ? " she repeated scornfully. 
 " You won t say that you had n t as good as promised rne ; 
 you won t pretend that if you had never said a word, you 
 had not still given me the right to believe that I was some 
 thing more to you than another. You distinguished me, 
 you encouraged me ; it might not have meant great things 
 in another case. But you have n t forgotten that we were 
 once betrothed ; a woman does n t single out for favour a 
 man who has once occupied that relation to her unless she 
 means something in particular." 
 
 The truth of this came over Dorothy helplessly. She 
 gathered herself to confute it, but before she spoke she 
 knew that he had, in a sense, the right of it. It was not in 
 her to lessen a fault because it was hers ; rather it pressed 
 on her the more closely. But she saw that if she let Jasper 
 make this point, it must be the end of everything. 
 
 " Does it really seem to you that you have a right to 
 expect the same consideration as other men ? " she asked, 
 looking into his eyes. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 405 
 
 " Why not ? You give it to him." 
 
 Dorothy caught her breath, as he said this not bitterly 
 or heatedly, but with the quiet manner of stating a con 
 sideration which she had omitted. She saw all that he 
 meant ; it quelled and beat her down. She glanced at him 
 where he stood with his back to the sun, supporting himself 
 lightly against a pillar, and fixing her with a glimmering 
 smile. She opened her lips to speak and closed them again, 
 thinking better of what she had been going to say. But 
 in a moment she raised her head, and said quickly : 
 
 " I can t discuss that with you ; " and made a motion to 
 pass him. 
 
 He put out a gentle hand to stay her. " Please don t 
 go yet, Miss Maurice. I ve left a sick bed and come a long 
 way to see you. I m sure you won t refuse to hear me. 
 You have not been fair." He did not strike this note at 
 hazard ; she stopped ; he had known she must stop. u If 
 you don t think me worthy of ordinary usage because of my 
 treatment of him, what do you think of his treatment of me?" 
 
 The question sent a chill through her: she knew what 
 she had thought of it. Was that still her thought ? Con 
 fronted with her own sense of Philip s act, balanced in this 
 sort against her sense of Jasper s, she had suddenly the 
 need to take refuge in any denial of her old feeling. She 
 could not bear to think, even for that passing moment, that 
 a feeling of hers was sanctioning his comparison. For a 
 moment no answer befriended her ; it was because from one 
 point of view there was no answer, she saw. But the neces 
 sity to defend him, to cry out against this odious grouping, 
 brought her the certainty the sudden, illuminating certainty 
 that hers was the other point of view. She saw surely, for 
 the first time, that the mood of her talk with Deed was a 
 finality ; that love had conquered in her. It was her love 
 that spoke now. 
 
406 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " And have you the courage to think the two cases in any 
 way alike? " she said. 
 
 He had counted on her inward assent to the soundness of 
 his position. He had it ; but he was dealing with another 
 force which he could not measure. He was shaken by the 
 assurance with which she answered. Was he mistaken, 
 then : had she not thrown Philip over because she hated the 
 injury he had done him ? He had reckoned on this and on 
 the revulsion of feeling toward the injured one which he 
 had imagined in her generous nature. Taking his own act 
 for a moment from what he supposed to be her standpoint, 
 and putting it at its worst (he knew what to think of it him 
 self, but he could fancy her ignorant objections to it readily 
 enough), in what way could she in justice feel it to 
 be more heinous than Philip s ? Jasper was, of course, 
 better at almost anything than in estimating the moral 
 value of his own actions ; his sincerity in believing them 
 "all right" from the standpoint of a man who didn t 
 pretend to the priggishness of being better than his neigh 
 bours disabled his usual cleverness at this point. But he saw 
 his mistake and manoeuvred an inward retreat and brought 
 himself into line at another place, before he answered. 
 
 " Suppose I say I have that courage ? " He stroked his 
 moustache lightly. Its rich, bright abundance made the 
 cheek behind it seem more pale. 
 
 She met his eye fearlessly. " I should ask you if you 
 had given your brother back the share in the ranch you took 
 from him if I believed you. 
 
 "Why should I? 1 
 
 " Why should you ? " 
 
 " Yes. It is mine for one thing, but that apart, he has n t 
 done as much for me." 
 
 " But he has restored the mine to you he has surrend 
 ered everything." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 407 
 
 " The mine yes ; but not everything. There is a matter 
 of $5,000." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " She swept a thousand possi 
 bilities with her mental vision while she waited for his 
 answer, and rejected them one after another. 
 
 " My precious brother negotiated the loan of that sum on 
 the security of the mine, I find. That was one of the first 
 things he did with his borrowed claim." 
 
 " It is not true," said Dorothy simply. 
 
 " You might ask your father ! " 
 
 " My father ? " exclaimed she. 
 
 <; Philip borrowed it for him. It was at a time when 
 your father found it inconvenient to owe me as much as 
 that." He smiled with intention. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that that ? " she gasped. 
 
 " That I had the presumption to lend your father as much 
 money as that ? Yes. I suppose I must n t expect you to 
 like it, but I did it." 
 
 "And he he, took it from him to pay you ?" 
 
 Jasper nodded. She gave a little moan, and sank into 
 one of the seats on the piazza. 
 
 The young men who had gone for a walk to Cheyenne 
 Canon were visible on the road before the hotel. Their 
 woollen stockings and knee breeches were covered with dust ; 
 they came along at a swinging pace, laughing and talking. 
 They passed into the house through the wide entrance, 
 casting a glance of polite curiosity at the intent group at the 
 further end of the piazza. 
 
 " Will you do me a kindness ? " she asked in a husky voice, 
 as he dropped into the seat beside her. He protested his 
 eagerness. "Go away, please ! " she entreated. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," exclaimed Jasper, as if he had not 
 understood. 
 
 " Please go away. You have made me hear it. I could n t 
 
4o8 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 help that. But you won t stay, now ! " She paused, and 
 clasped her hands before her. A wretched sigh escaped her. 
 " Oh, how could he ? " she cried to herself, in the words she 
 had once used for Philip. 
 
 " You are not fair, Miss Maurice," he said, rising with 
 dignity. " Am I to blame because my brother has chosen 
 to borrow money on my mine and has failed to return it to 
 me ; am I to blame because your father chooses, for reasons 
 of his own, to make such an arrangement with your affianced 
 husband?" 
 
 " Oh, don t ! Don t ! Have you no manliness ? " She 
 felt her cheeks burning with the horror of the ideas that 
 were coming to her ; she turned away to hide their shameful 
 confession. She was trying not to hate her father ; she was 
 searching for excuses for him. Was it to this, then, that 
 Mr. Deed s allusion to Philip s motives pointed? Was it 
 her father that she must blame for what Philip had done ? 
 
 " Is the truth so hard, then ? " Jasper was asking. 
 " Would you rather believe what you wish to believe ; would 
 you rather think well of certain persons, even if you knew it 
 was not the truth ? But I need n t ask. You take the side 
 toward which you are drawn for the moment like a woman, 
 and everything is indifferent to you but the illusions by 
 which you make yourself think that the right side at all 
 hazards. The truth does n t matter to you nor justice, 
 nor fairness. You need n t tell me that ; I know it," he said. 
 
 She winced ; the stroke was well aimed. " You know 
 much better than that," she answered feebly. 
 
 " Say rather that I used to know better. But I knew it 
 of another woman, I think. The woman I used to know, 
 Miss Maurice, could n t be so resolved to think badly of a 
 man who has openly taken his right, and so determined, at 
 all costs to think well of a man who trades on his brother s 
 ignorance to cheat him out of his property." She shrank 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 409 
 
 where she sat, and he pressed home his advantage. " Is it 
 the motive that makes the difference ? Is it so wrong, then, 
 to take what belongs to one, without malice, or double 
 thoughts, or hope of any gain but the plain one ; and is it 
 so right to take what does not belong to one with the ad 
 mirable motive of revenge, and the other admirable motive 
 of winning a sneaking advantage with a woman? Ah," 
 cried he bitterly, "it makes a difference who does such 
 things, and even more it makes a difference for whom they 
 are done ! " 
 
 " Oh no, no ! " she began vehemently. But she sank 
 back in her chair helplessly. She shook her head. " You 
 would not understand," she said. 
 
 His voice took a note of tenderness, as he dropped again 
 into the seat beside her, and said in low tones, " Are you 
 sure of that, Miss Maurice ? I think I know what you have 
 been thinking of me these last few weeks, since we met. 
 You have heard things about me which could n t make you 
 think well of me. But I want you to do me the justice to 
 remember that they were not told you by my friends. There 
 are always two sides. It would be fair to hear mine, before 
 judging. But I don t ask you to do that. Suppose I admit 
 all that you are thinking, suppose I say that I see it, in a 
 degree, from your own point of view, suppose I agree to 
 make it right with my father, to restore what he thinks I 
 came by unfairly ; suppose, in other words, I agree to take 
 your view would you care, would it make a difference 
 to you ? " 
 
 She glanced up at him in bewilderment. <l I m not sure 
 that I know what you mean," she said quickly. " I could n t 
 care that you should agree with me, merely to agree. 
 
 You must know that. But the other " She paused a 
 
 moment. "You must be equally sure that I should be glad 
 of anything that made you think it right to do that," she 
 
410 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 said gravely. It was difficult to think of anything but the 
 near and personal trouble which was gnawing at her heart ; 
 but his suggestion opened vistas ; it stimulated and en 
 gaged her. 
 
 " Would you care so much then ? " he asked, regarding 
 her curiously. 
 
 She hesitated a moment. " Yes, very much," she said 
 heartily. " I have seen your father. Knowing him has 
 given me a great wish to help him. If you could see how 
 what you did has wounded and broken him you would wish 
 to do what you say even more than I could wish to have 
 you do it." 
 
 " He has n t treated me well," said Jasper laconically. 
 
 " No," rejoined Dorothy, eagerly. " It was only what you 
 might have expected him to do : it was only what he had a 
 right to do by the code most of us live by, but he, too, feels 
 that it was a mistake. Or perhaps I ought to say that he 
 feels it was n t as right as it seemed to him at the time." 
 
 " Well, that s a step," admitted Jasper. And he added, 
 " He did me a beastly injury." 
 
 " And what had you done to him ? " 
 
 " I had taken my rights." 
 
 " Yes," said Dorothy, with intention. 
 
 " Do you mean that they were not my rights ? He had 
 given them to me himself." 
 
 "No, I don t mean that," said she quietly. Her assent 
 maddened him more than any denial could have done. It 
 gave him a feeling of helplessness absolutely singular in his 
 experience. 
 
 " Oh, I know what you mean," he retorted bitterly. " You 
 mean that you despise me ! " Philip s words came back to 
 her, and she wondered how she had ever borne to hear them 
 from him, and allowed him to go from her feeling that what 
 he said was true. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 411 
 
 " No," she said gently. 
 
 "It s the same thing. I don t thank you for the differ 
 ence. But you shall think differently of me ! " He rose 
 quickly and stood before her. " Listen. I have passed 
 three days face to face with death since we met last. Per 
 haps I am not the same man you have known in all 
 respects." His husky, inadequate voice gave the statement 
 meaning ; almost gave it reality. " Would you believe me 
 changed if I were to say so ? " He looked closely at her. 
 
 "I don t know," she said, looking up at him doubt 
 fully. A new light came into her eyes. " Such things do 
 change a man." 
 
 ( You imply a doubt whether they would change me. 
 But you shall^ believe it," he said fiercely. "I will go on 
 to Maverick to-day and withdraw from the suit against my 
 father which is to come on to-morrow, I will give up to 
 my brother the share in the ranch which my father claims 
 for him." 
 
 "You will ! " exclaimed she. Oh, I shall be glad for 
 your father." Her eyes left him musingly, in a happy look. 
 
 "And for me?" 
 
 She glanced inquiringly at him. She brought herself 
 back to the consideration of his relation to his proposal 
 with an effort. " Oh, I shall be very glad for you, too, of 
 course." 
 
 His face fell. " Is that what you mean ? " he asked. " Is 
 that all you mean ? " 
 
 " I shall feel it is good of you from your point of view ; 
 yes, very good." 
 
 He bit his lip. It was hardly this measured approbation 
 that he had sought. She saw the defeated look on his face, 
 and with a movement of compassion and self-accusal, she 
 rose, holding out her hand to him. " I shall think better of 
 you, if that is what you mean. It is generous ; it is right." 
 
412 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 He held her hand firmly, searching her eyes with a 
 piercing gaze. " How much better?" he asked. 
 
 She withdrew her hand. " What do you mean ? " she 
 asked, in confusion. 
 
 " I am ready to do all that there is to do to show my 
 sincerity." 
 
 " Yes," assented she bewildered ; " that is true." 
 
 " Will you do nothing for me ? " 
 
 "What do you wish?" 
 
 " Believe in me again." He stooped over her. 
 
 " I will. I do." She withdrew herself from him a little, 
 vaguely alarmed by his manner. 
 
 " You know very well what I wish, Dorothy. Believe in 
 me as you used to." 
 
 " I can t do that," she said, looking into his eyes unfalter 
 ingly. Her breath came quickly. 
 
 " Would it be such a miracle, then ? " 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Ah," cried he, " you can work it for him ! " 
 
 " It is not the same," she stammered. 
 
 "No," he rejoined, "it is not the same. It should be 
 much more difficult. He won you from me through this 
 mine." 
 
 " Oh, don t say it," begged Dorothy. 
 
 " and he has not scorned to take a more material 
 
 profit from that villainy. What is he giving up? You 
 made that the test a little while ago. By that measure do 
 I show so badly ? " 
 
 " He will pay you the money," she said desperately. 
 
 "Perhaps. I don t know. It would n t be unlike him, 
 you must own, if he did n t. But can he give me back what 
 else he has taken from me ? " 
 
 " What ? " she asked in a half whisper, though she knew 
 what he must say. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 413 
 
 " You ! Can he pay that debt ? Can he give you back 
 to me ? " Dorothy dropped her eyes. He took her hand 
 and bent over her tenderly. She seemed suddenly stricken 
 powerless ; she could prevent nothing. " It is only you 
 who can pay that debt for him," he said. 
 
 His weakened voice had a winning note in its ineffective 
 ness. For the space of an instant, while she stood there 
 arraigning Philip, as he meant her to, and liking his own 
 surrender as he had hoped, something in her an effect of 
 nerves rather than of impulses, even the most trivial, 
 responded to him. The plea was ingenious ; it addressed 
 itself with overwhelming force to a whole side of her nature ; 
 for a moment she felt as if she was about to be carried off 
 her feet toward what she knew not. Not away from 
 Philip, certainly ; but at least toward the man by her side. 
 She felt the dangerous stirrings of pity at her heart. But a 
 moment later she glanced up and saw him watching her, 
 and another thought came into her mind. 
 
 Then she spoke. " It does not seem to me a debt ; but 
 if it were, you must know that I could not pay it," she said, 
 steadily. 
 
 A look of bitter disappointment crossed his countenance. 
 
 " Do you mean that?" he asked, scanning her face. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Yet you expect me to pay my debt," he said bitingly, 
 " what you regard as mine: You expect me to restore 
 to my father and to him ! " It was a question, though he 
 put it forth as a statement. 
 
 " I expect nothing. You wish that for yourself, do you 
 not ? " 
 
 Jasper smiled sardonically. " Do you suppose that I can 
 wish for anything apart from my wish for you. You don t 
 know how I love you you have never known. Say that we 
 may be again as we once were, and you will see what I 
 
4H BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 would be strong enough for. You could do what you 
 would with me." 
 
 Her eyes blazed with sudden intelligence. " Do you 
 mean to say do you dare to say," she asked shakenly, 
 " that you would only do what you have been proposing to 
 
 do, if that you would not do it unless Oh ! Oh ! And 
 
 you offered it as a bribe ! Oh, go, go ! " 
 
 He caught her hands, and prisoning them in his, looked 
 down steadfastly into her eyes, with a long, intent, hungry 
 look. An expression of acute misery came over his face. 
 " Ah," he cried desperately, " now you do despise me ! " 
 
 She lowered her eyes. She did not answer. He dashed 
 his hand to his face, and without a word walked quickly 
 away from her side, and out into the roadway before the 
 hotel, with the uncertain steps of a sick man. 
 
 Dorothy stood where he had left her. She heard his 
 retreating steps, but did not look round. Her eyes were 
 fixed on the rosy summit of the peak. As she looked the 
 sun suddenly went down. A chill was borne to her through 
 the air, and she started. She perceived that she must have 
 been standing so a long time. She put her hand to her 
 face. There were tears in her eyes, too. She saw her 
 father coming toward the hotel from the direction opposite 
 to that which Jasper had taken. A chill went through her 
 for another reason. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 MARGARET stood in the window of her sitting-room at the 
 Centropolis House, which commanded a view of the arrival 
 platform of the railway, and exchanged signals with Deed as 
 he alighted from his train, on his return from Pinon. She 
 saw Philip follow him, with their hand luggage, and as he set 
 it down on the platform, he too glanced up at her window, 
 and catching her eye, waved his hat toward her, with a smile 
 of greeting. Then Vertner seized upon them, and she saw 
 him going through the hopeless struggle to tell them only so 
 much of the truth as he thought they would like ; with a 
 beating heart she saw her husband pressing, insisting, and 
 finally pinning him, and Vertner going through the stages of 
 impotent yielding, burlesquing his helplessness with desperate 
 gestures. She saw her husband cowed and dazed, as she 
 had feared, by his news, and saw Philip fall upon Vertner 
 with questions ; then it was Vertner who took the initiative, 
 and he forcibly pulled into the conference the conductor of 
 the train, who was passing them, left them for a moment 
 to dash into the hotel, bestirred himself, bustled about, and 
 finally pushed Philip on the train again, handed his valise up 
 to him, and waved a gay and cheering hand to him, as the 
 train pulled out of the station. Deed, when he had seen the 
 last of the train, turned and challenged Vertner again, and 
 they talked soberly for some moments. 
 
 They were palpitating moments to Margaret. Since 
 Dorothy had so suddenly left Maverick with her father, she 
 had been in a distracted state. It seemed as if she was 
 
416 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 almost to blame for it, as if she could have prevented it if 
 she had not gone at Mrs. Felton s invitation for a long drive, 
 on that day, to Loredano ; and returned only to find them 
 both gone, leaving no trace save a confused and hurried note 
 from Dorothy, which told her nothing. She quailed before the 
 thought of what this failure of his hope must be to herhusband. 
 
 She heard his quick step in the passage and ran to admit 
 him. When she had kissed him she searched his face, and 
 withdrew herself from his embrace in alarm, recognizing the 
 set look of resolve she remembered from the fatal day on 
 which he had left her to go and right himself with Jasper. 
 
 He went to the window, while she watched him anxiously, 
 and cast a glance up and down the track. Then he dropped 
 restlessly into a seat, and fixed his eyes dejectedly on the 
 carpet. She took a seat opposite him ; when he glanced up 
 she was shocked by his haggard and desperate face. Again 
 she saw in it that look of a man whose fight is done. 
 
 " I ve got to stop this," he said briefly. 
 
 "What, James?" 
 
 " The whole of it. Have things been going so well with 
 us for the last six months that I need say? You know 
 what s happened?" 
 
 She nodded, with her eyes intent upon him. 
 
 "She s gone; Jasper s with her; I ve failed. That s the 
 end of it. I say I ve got to stop it." 
 
 " Oh I shall be glad glad ! " she whispered, trying to 
 trust him because she had learned that lesson, but inwardly 
 filled with anguishing doubt. 
 
 " I ve been a fool. Since Jasper paid us his visit at 
 Mineral Springs I ve known that ; you showed it to me ; and 
 instead of owning up on the spot, and doing what was left 
 to redeem you and me from the consequences of my folly, 
 I ve been blundering on since, trying to deny it to myself, 
 and trying hard to believe that I could invent some new way 
 to whip the devil around the stump, and avoid what I what 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 417 
 
 I didn t want to do," he ended huskily. "It would have 
 worked if it had only been a question of myself, or you : I 
 dare say I could have found obstinacy and pride and reckless 
 selfishness enough for that." He sighed. "But Philip 
 makes all the difference ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret, still in a whisper. 
 
 " Even with him, I thought I could help him to dodge the 
 penalty ; I thought I could hoax, or blind or buy off fate in 
 his case. But Jasper has got in his blow in return already ; 
 the infernal business of give and take has begun. The boy 
 
 has got to repeat my experience, unless unless ! He s 
 
 paid ; he s restored ; it makes no difference. There is a sore 
 underneath. We must cure that first. My fault is so hope 
 lessly mixed up with his that nothing he can do can really 
 help him. It s I who have to do ! " 
 
 "But what, James?" cried Margaret in an alarm she 
 could no longer hide. " But what ? " 
 
 He returned her frightened look with a tender one. 
 "Jasper s suit against me comes on to-morrow." 
 
 " Yes," she assented breathlessly. 
 
 "If it is decided in my favour the fight merely shifts; it 
 doesn t end. If it s decided against me, am I likely to bear 
 it well ? Do you think I could resist striking back ? That is 
 the way it has been with me ; that is the way it will be with 
 me. It s endless. Ah, Margaret, we know that don t we? 
 Resistance can t stop it ; it piles it up. And if that is true 
 for us, how much more it will be true for Philip ! The fight 
 must be between brothers, there, with none of the habit of 
 forbearance on either side that makes certain things impossible 
 between father and son ! I can t see him marching helplessly 
 into that miserable maze, and involving an innocent girl as 
 I involved you, and him. I can t. I ve got to stop it." 
 
 " But how ? Fighting only makes it worse. You say so 
 yourself," she said tentatively. 
 
 He stared into her eyes a moment. 
 
 
 
4 i8 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 "I m not going to fight," he said. He drew a long breath 
 as he rose. She got up and came to him and slipping her 
 arm in his, looked up into his face. He glanced down at 
 her; his eyes gleamed with the exaltation of his resolve 
 "I m going to surrender." 
 
 A joyous light dawned in her eyes. 
 
 " Do you mean that you will give him back the ranch, 
 that you will restore everything as it was before, before ?" 
 
 "Before I took what belonged to me? Yes, Margaret, 
 I m going to try your remedy, whatever you like to call it. 
 I ve used up all my own. Don t think I like it. I loathe 
 it. But I m going to do it. I shall sell the Lady Bounti 
 ful as soon as Spring opens, and buy the range back from 
 Snell at once (it will be easy enough this bluffing suit of 
 Jasper s frightens him, though his title is perfectly good) ; 
 and I shall let Jasper know immediately before the trial." 
 
 " Oh, James ! " she murmured, clutching his arm, and 
 looking up into his face, lovingly, admiringly, happily. 
 
 "Don t praise it, Margaret," he cried, turning hastily 
 from her shining look, as from something to which he had 
 no claim, " or I sha n t have the heart to do it. And God 
 knows I don t want to do it." He walked away from her 
 to the window, and went on with his back to her. " It s 
 right ; you needn t say it ; I know it. It s right, and it s the 
 only thing to do, just as it was the only thing to do in the 
 beginning. I see the folly and error of fighting evil, fast 
 enough, if that s what you want me to see the way to conquer 
 it is to yield to it, to give it more than it asks." He turned 
 toward her with his hands in his pockets. " The mistaken 
 way is to strike back, and to that mistake there is no end. I ve 
 learned that. But it s hard, and if I knew a decent way to 
 dodge it I should n t be a hero about it. Don t imagine it." 
 
 For answer to this she simply put her arms about his 
 neck, and drew his lips to hers. 
 
 " You are hero enough for me ! " she said. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 DOROTHY drew back a pace as her father came up to her 
 on the piazza, while Jasper walked away in the other 
 direction. Maurice was smiling, and wiping his brow with 
 one hand ; in the other he held his parson s wide-awake. 
 
 * It s warm walking," he said. " Who was it who just left 
 you ? I thought his back looked like Jasper s." 
 
 " It was Mr. Deed," she said, trying to find her voice. 
 
 "Ah, well, he will be coming back then. But I m sorry 
 you did not keep him." 
 
 " He is not coming back," said Dorothy, in the same still, 
 controlled voice. " I want to ask you something, father," 
 she added with an effort. 
 
 He looked at her inquiringly. 
 
 " Well, my dear, what is it ? " He turned half about, 
 pursuing Jasper s retreating figure absently. "I m sorry 
 you did not keep him," he said. 
 
 " Listen, father." She laid a hand on his arm, and he 
 looked around at her, surprised by her tone. " Did you 
 borrow a large sum from him from this Mr. Deed ? " 
 
 He started. 
 
 "He has been telling you that? " exclaimed he. 
 
 She went on, intent upon her purpose. fi Is it true ? " 
 
 He bit his lip. " Yes, it s true." 
 
 " And did you make Philip take his brother s mine to pay 
 that debt for you, when when ? " 
 
 He gazed at her sternly ; he seized her wrist. " What is 
 the matter with you, Dorothy? Are you mad? Don t let 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 one of your impulsive ideas get the better of you ! They 
 make you absurd ; they are very young." 
 
 " Is it true ? " she repeated in a dry, estranged voice. 
 
 " No," returned he doggedly, "of course it is n t true." 
 
 " But you took the money from him to pay him ? " 
 
 He released his hold on her wrist, and shuffled his hands 
 into his pockets. He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 She stared at him irresolutely. " Will you answer me, 
 father ? " A cold terror crept about her heart. "Did you?" 
 
 He forced his vagrant eye to face her. " Excuse me, 
 Dorothy. There are matters which I have always reserved 
 to myself. They are not a part of your province. Please 
 understand that this is one of them." 
 
 She put this away with a gesture. " Answer me, please, 
 father," she said coldly. " Did you ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you must know," he jerked out at last. "But " 
 
 Her face grew very white and rigid. u That is all I want to 
 know," she said. She clutched the work in her hands against 
 her breast, and went quickly past him, and into the hotel. 
 
 She rose early the next morning, and taking her breakfast 
 in her room, to avoid meeting her father (it must come, but 
 she did not feel strong enough for it yet), she walked out in 
 the early morning sunshine to the Garden of the Gods. As 
 she went through the splendid gateway, the two towering 
 masses of rock caught up her thought to the level of their 
 lonely summits ; they seemed to swim up there in the air, in 
 the isolation of a serene and immemorial past ; they made 
 human troubles appear small and fleeting. She walked on, 
 finding a kind of medicine in the sweet, stimulating air, and 
 the bright sunshine. 
 
 In the first moments of her humiliation she had thought 
 that she must seek refuge from her father somewhere ; and 
 Margaret had occurred to her as a resource. Her shame for 
 him and for herself seemed in the beginning a feeling she 
 could never face by his side. Their life together was toe 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 421 
 
 close to leave an opening for compromise ; if she was to 
 remain with him she knew that it must be as his daughter, 
 with all that the word had meant for her since her mother s 
 death ; and she did not see how that could be ; it implied 
 a perfect trust and understanding between them which no 
 longer existed. But she had seen immediately that she 
 could not go away from him even for the moment ; her per 
 manent feeling of loyalty, which she had never allowed to 
 falter, would not suffer it ; if she could find it in her heart 
 to leave him upon one impulse, she saw that she must 
 straightway return to him upon another. The protecting, 
 almost motherly instinct which had taught her the thousand 
 cares for his happiness that had so long compassed him 
 about, would not let her forego her place by his side. Her 
 eyes were opened (even if they were not so widely opened 
 as she supposed), and she seemed to be seeing her father 
 through a new and loathly medium which distorted all that 
 she had trusted and loved in him ; but the love and trust 
 were actually stronger than all newer feelings. She saw this 
 almost at first, and afterward it was borne in upon her : she 
 took strength from the belief to face the prospect of the 
 days lived by his side which seemed now to stretch in a 
 dismal procession far into an unlovely future. 
 
 She had thought of going to Margaret at first, as I have 
 said, but that resort presented difficulties even if she had 
 been resolved to go somewhere, or to some one. She could 
 not tell her about her father ; and if she could she was not 
 sure that Margaret, with all her fineness of perception in 
 certain directions, would understand. 
 
 No, it was not Margaret for whom something in her 
 seemed to cry out. She felt bruised, disheartened, dis 
 illusioned ; she longed to lean herself on a different kind of 
 strength. She perceived, in a moment, that she was think 
 ing of Philip ; and, the moment after, faced the fact with all 
 its consequences, without disquiet. She saw him suddenly 
 
422 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 as her only refuge ; and rejoiced, after a tremulous thought, 
 in seeing him so. 
 
 His blundering force not sharpened to a point, like his 
 brother s, but so sure, large, restful seemed to her, as her 
 heart went oat to him in the exile to which she had con 
 demned him, the most excellent thing in the world. She 
 wondered where he was ; she had said that she would see 
 him ; he would have come back with his father to Maverick. 
 But when he found her gone, which way would he turn ? 
 The thought came to her that he would fancy she had fled 
 from Maverick, of her own motion, to avoid the consequences 
 of her rash yielding to his father s entreaty ; it was suddenly 
 intolerable to her that he should think that, and she thought 
 she would walk on through the Garden of the Gods to 
 Manitou, and send a telegram to Beatrice at Maverick to 
 say where she was ; she had promised her that much, and 
 had not kept her promise because her father, for his own 
 reasons, had asked her not to. 
 
 The unquestioning obedience which had gone with her 
 unquestioning trust was broken down by her new vision of 
 her father, and the knowledge that he would not wish a 
 thing was not the final hindrance it had seemed yesterday. 
 She quickened her pace believing for a moment that her 
 strong desire that Philip should not think what she 
 fancied him thinking alone controlled her ; but the need for 
 him the need for his strength, his unconscious manliness, 
 for that open-air quality in him which seemed to annul diffi 
 culties and anxieties, for his wholesomeness and genuineness, 
 came over her in an irresistible flood. And when she had 
 recognized this she did not deny its meaning to herself in 
 any way ; she knew that it was he whom she wished ; and 
 not for any reason but one obvious and sufficient one. 
 
 She had imagined, altogether afresh, while she lay awake 
 during the night, the persuading causes which had led him 
 to the act that had separated them, and saw her father in 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 423 
 
 them all. In her passionate wish to exculpate Philip she 
 perhaps implicated her father, in fancy, more deeply than 
 she could have alleged any solid warrant for. But, indeed, 
 in the strenuous swing to the opposite point of view which 
 had been operated within her with the swiftness and cer 
 tainty of her woman s processes, she now found it as abun 
 dantly easy to discover excuses for him as she had before 
 found it abundantly hard. And the knowledge that her 
 father had injured him in injuring her was not the reason it 
 should have been for wishing that she might never have to 
 face him again. On the contrary. 
 
 The rattle of a horse s hoofs echoed behind her on the 
 hard road along which she was walking, and she turned and 
 saw Philip coming toward her. He reined in his horse, as 
 he came near. Her limbs trembled under her, and she 
 experienced an inconsequent impulse to flight; but she 
 walked on until his voice behind her brought her to a halt, 
 and she forced herself to turn and look toward him. He 
 raised his sombrero as he drew in his animal by her side, 
 and with the same motion threw himself off, and stood be 
 side her. He put out his hand silently, and she slipped hers 
 into his waiting clasp, shyly and limply at first, and then, as 
 her little hand was swallowed up in the embrace of his big 
 one, and she felt him bending over her inquiringly, anxiously, 
 tenderly, she surrendered it to him, wholly, giving back his 
 firm grip with her own quick, warm, vigorous clasp. Then 
 she looked up at him, and read the suffering through which 
 she had caused him to pass in the drawn lines of his strong, 
 browned, honest face. 
 
 " Your father told me I should find you here," he said. 
 
 Yes," she answered, dropping her eyes. 
 
 " You are not angry with me for coming ? " 
 
 She glanced up at him again, her eyes filling perilously, 
 helplessly. In that flashing gaze he saw himself forgiven, 
 and blessed. He took her in his arms. 
 
424 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " But you must tell me something first," she said some 
 moments later, when they had settled everything. 
 
 " How much I love you ? " He shook his head, with a 
 smile. " I can t." 
 
 " No, no. This is something serious." 
 
 " Ah ! " returned he, prolonging the intonation. 
 
 " Oh, you know what I mean," she cried, answering the 
 laughing look in his eyes. " This is a different kind of 
 seriousness. I want to ask you something." 
 
 " Well ? " inquired he, trying to be as sober as the occasion 
 appeared to demand. 
 
 " How much did my father have to do with with what 
 you did?" 
 
 It was a dangerous moment. He temporized, as was his 
 habit. " How your father? he asked. "I don t under 
 stand, Dorothy." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you do. I know that he had something to do 
 with it. He has owned that to me. It is shameful ; but I 
 must ask you. I can t let you go on, I can t go on myself, 
 not knowing what his actual share was in in what you did." 
 
 " But you have forgiven me. What difference can anything 
 else make ? " 
 
 " Does it make no difference if he really did what I have 
 been accusing you of and did it without even the courage to 
 do it for himself? Does it make no difference if he did it, in 
 fact, and chose you you, Philip, to do it for him : that it s his 
 wrong and that he s let me make you suffer for it? No, if 
 that s true, we have wronged you too deeply. I could n t " 
 
 " Don t say it, Dorothy ! You are mad. The wrong, what 
 ever it was, was all mine." 
 
 " My father profited by it. You found a large sum for him. 
 I know that. How can I know that he did not instigate it ?" 
 she asked desperately. 
 
 He did not answer for a moment. He felt himself halted. 
 For a single instant he felt a kind of impatience stealing 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 425 
 
 upon his easy-going nature ; but surely he could grant her 
 this last barrier against full and actual surrender, this little 
 withholding of herself from him. She doubtless took it for 
 a sincere objection. The reflection lent him a patience which 
 taught him a defence stronger in its weakness than any 
 other could have been in its strength. "Rubbish, Dorothy! " 
 he said. " Rubbish ! No one had anything to do with 
 what I did, except myself unless it was some devil in me. 
 Your father was entirely outside of the matter, and the money 
 you are thinking of was paid back to Jasper long ago." 
 " Oh, was it ? I am so glad ! " 
 
 " Well, I was glad to pay it," he rejoined soberly. He 
 heaved a deep sigh of relief as she turned away, and forgave 
 himself for so much of untruth as there was in his statement 
 about her father s complicity, as he caught sight of the glad 
 smile on her face, and remembered how hard it would be to 
 say exactly what the truth was about that. He knew that she 
 could not always rest content with this ; but for the moment 
 it served, and if it came to another moment he hoped to be 
 strong enough for it. 
 
 " He must pay you," she said. 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " Papa. It is his debt. Doubly his." 
 " Of course," assented Philip unfalteringly, turning the 
 sharp corner with the quick command of resource which this 
 conversation was teaching him. "I have his notes : he is 
 to pay me interest on them, and take them up as fast as he 
 has the money." He said this without smiling, though a 
 humorous memory of a long list of such arrangements made 
 by himself on his own behalf mingled in his mind with the 
 absurdity of the idea that Maurice would redeem his obliga 
 tions. " It is simply transferring a debt from a hard creditor 
 to an easy one," he said. 
 
 She wondered if he did not see how this, which looked so 
 innocent in his phrase, had involved her how the transac- 
 
426 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 tion had simply used her : how she had been bandied about 
 in it by her father like a negotiable security. She did not 
 blame Philip for his share in it ; she felt sure too sure of 
 the absolute generosity of his motives ; but she turned scarlet 
 with a new sense of shame for her father. 
 
 " And you will let him pay you ? " 
 
 His candid, good-natured eyes did not quail, as she clung 
 on him studying his face. 
 
 " Let him ! I 11 sue him if you like ! " retorted he fondly. 
 And it occurred to him that this might not be from every 
 point of view an event without its rewards. The talk which 
 he had had with Maurice before coming on to her had made 
 several things plain to him ; none of them increased his 
 fondness for Maurice. 
 
 Dorothy had to laugh. "You needn t do that," she 
 said. They turned their faces toward Colorado Springs, and 
 walked on through the rock-strewn park as empty at this 
 hour as that other park in which they had lately parted so 
 definitely, so finally. They found a number of things to say 
 to each other which it would not be fair to repeat. Philip led 
 his horse with his arm through the bridle, and Dorothy 
 retraced by his side the steps she had lately taken alone. 
 
 The shining of the sun had seemed very good to her a 
 few moments before ; but it was a dull radiance compared to 
 that which fell upon them as they walked together walking, 
 as she felt,into a new life, into an unexplored but happy future, 
 into a future made up out of the most airy but the most 
 substantial materials : a future guided and guarded by love. 
 
 She told him that she knew she could not guess how she 
 had made him suffer ; but if anything could teach her it 
 would be her own suffering in giving him that pain. It was 
 foolish to talk of that ; but how were they to be properly 
 happy if they did not let themselves remember a time when 
 they had n t been ? 
 
 But they were, in fact, too happy in having found each 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 427 
 
 other again by any means to study very minutely the process 
 by which they had re-discovered that they were necessary to 
 each other. Only Philip must sometimes say, for mere 
 uneasiness in his restoration to her trust, 
 
 " You d better say again that you forgive me. Or perhaps 
 you d better say you don t. If you say you do, it makes 
 me happy of course ; but that is n t the point. You d better 
 harden your heart for your own sake." 
 
 She merely smiled at him. 
 
 "Dorothy," he went on more seriously, "I m really all 
 that you thought me. Your pardon is heaven to me ; one 
 must have known the other thing to know the sweetness of 
 your trust ; but I must n t abuse it. I did exactly what you 
 said : I took the Little Cipher from Jasper knowing it to 
 be his by all the laws that make right, right, and wrong, 
 wrong for men anywhere ; and I saw long ago how it was all 
 you said and more than you said as it touched you and me 
 and our love. You d better take back your forgiveness." 
 
 She shook her head. " I can t take back what I never gave. 
 If I were to forgive you, I should have to judge first ; and " 
 with a little lift of her eyes " I can t judge you Philip 
 any more." And then, in a moment, to turn him from this 
 difficult subject, "How did you leave your father ? "she asked. 
 
 "Ah, it s to him I owe you ! " he cried. " He never said 
 it ; he merely brought me your message. But I know it well 
 enough. It s from him you ve taken a picturesque version 
 of the facts which enables you to think well of me. If you 
 had known him, Dorothy, you would have been on your 
 guard ; you would have understood that he never sees quite 
 straight ; he sees too heartily, too warmly and too hot- 
 headedly to be a safe witness especially where he cares. 
 He cares so much that splendid, downright father of mine!" 
 
 " Oh, he s good ! I have been so sorry for him. It was 
 being sorry for him that first helped me to be a little sorry 
 for you, you know." 
 
428 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 11 Yes, I know," he answered vaguely to her roguish smile, 
 rather than to her words (it is difficult to confine one s 
 replies altogether to the theme of actual discourse in these 
 situations ; there are interruptions). He added in a moment, 
 You couldn t have minded about me for any one else s 
 sake so safely. It is always safe to do a thing because you 
 like father." 
 
 " Oh, I don t know for whose sake I sent that message," 
 she declared ambiguously. She flashed a look at him, and 
 challenged his smile with, " I didn t say it was for yours." 
 
 " No," laughed Philip. 
 
 " No ; I think it was for my own," she assured herself. 
 " I wanted to make sure that I had been right ! " 
 
 She joined in his smile. " Well, you re sure now," he said. 
 
 " Am I ? But now you see I don t know whether I am 
 right to be sure." They could laugh at anything and they 
 laughed at this. 
 
 " That you were wrong ? " queried he. " No, I shouldn t 
 like you to be sure of that. You were altogether in the right, 
 Dorothy," he told her more seriously. " Your only mistake 
 is in pardoning me. Take it back while there is time ! " 
 
 "I ll see about it," rejoined she with a baffling glance at 
 him which temporarily put an end to the discussion. " But 
 how did you find us ? How did you know where we were ? " 
 she asked suddenly, as she disengaged herself. This simple 
 question had not occurred to either of them hitherto. 
 
 "Why, I didn t find you exactly; I partly stumbled on 
 you. But the finding, such as it was, is Vertner s. His 
 acquaintance with the whole fraternity of railway conductors 
 was a blessing for once. One of them remembered that you 
 had travelled with him this far. After that I had to hunt 
 you up, or rather your father, and he sent me on." 
 
 " It wasn t fair of the conductor to tell," she remarked. 
 
 "No," said Philip, with equal seriousness, "that s what 
 I thought." 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 429 
 
 Nonsense like this floated on the current of their mood, 
 and they welcomed it as a defence against more serious 
 things. There was so much to be said between them that 
 by a common impulse they avoided trying to say any of it, 
 except as they said it in the interchange of silent glances. 
 They seemed to themselves to have plenty of time before 
 them : they best realized their happiness for the moment 
 through a sense of the leisure which allowed them to feel 
 that they could play with it. 
 
 Long silences fell between them, and they would walk on, 
 hearing no sound but their own footsteps, and those of the 
 horse following them ; and at these times they let the sun 
 shine, the gay, brisk, bright morning, which seemed made 
 for them, and the massive beauty of the park, express their 
 bliss for them in their various voices. But they had to talk, 
 too, and they spoke a good deal, in a fragmentary, unserious 
 way, of their future ; they speculated luxuriously about it, they 
 made and unmade plans, they warned each other affectionately 
 that neither must build too much on the virtue and solidity 
 of the other s character in scheming this life together. But 
 they said they would be constant and that must be their sure 
 armour against all doubts and differences the certainty that 
 they were all in all to each other. They owned soberly the 
 differences of character existing between them, but they agreed 
 that it was largely these which had drawn them together, and 
 they promised each other to respect them always, if for no 
 other reason ; they said that they should rejoice in them. 
 
 Philip told her that he should not even be jealous of her 
 having all the sense in the family ; every one had been telling 
 him, since he had been old enough to make mistakes, that 
 what he needed was a " balance-wheel " ; he should have 
 one now, and nothing could be more useless than a balance- 
 wheel that kept quiet. He said he should be rid, now, of 
 the left-handed compliment that he had excellent " works," 
 but no contrivance for keeping them in running order, and 
 
430 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 making them perform their functions. It appeared that 
 their functions would be brilliant if the lack were supplied. 
 Now they should see ! If they were n t it would be her fault. 
 
 " Oh, I sha n t be strict with you, if that s what you are 
 hoping for," she declared. "I ve had enough of that." 
 
 "But I haven t. It s the only thing for me. I shall 
 never be of any use without it. And you must remember 
 I ve got to earn our living. When you see that, perhaps 
 sternness will come easier to you." 
 
 " I don t know. Shall I never have a holiday ? " 
 
 " Well, you 11 have to spend a good deal of your time 
 forgiving me for the daily assortment of folly and reckless, 
 ness. You might lay off for that." 
 
 "Ah, that s all very well. But, as Mr. Vertner says, 
 Where do I come in? " 
 
 " Dear old Vertner ! " exclaimed Philip in the overflow 
 of his liking for the world. " What a first-rate, unprincipled, 
 warm-hearted, loyal good fellow he is! He wouldn t like 
 your not coming in handsomely. But where don t you come 
 in ? I don t see but you ve got your work cut out for you." 
 
 " My work yes ! But my pleasure. How about that? If 
 I m to spend all my time correcting your faults, how shall I 
 sver find a moment to enjoy them." 
 
 "Enjoy them?" 
 
 " Well, of course I like them. How should I like you if 
 I did n t?" 
 
 11 Yes," admitted Philip, meditatively, " they do cover 
 most of the territory in sight." 
 
 She laid a silencing hand on his lips. " Hush ! " she 
 said. " It is I who am all faults. You will find it all you 
 can do to get along with me." 
 
 He stopped short in the road along which they were going, 
 and took her in his arms. He looked down into her face 
 for a long moment tenderly. 
 
 "I 11 risk it! "he said. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 "WELL, that s over ! " exclaimed Vertner, as he opened 
 the door of their house for his wife, one afternoon a month 
 later, and followed her in. " I must say I don t feel like 
 coming back home and settling down to the old humdrum 
 routine after an event like this. Can t we have some 
 champagne ? " 
 
 " In the middle of the afternoon ? " 
 
 " No, I suppose not. But I feel the need of some ex 
 citement. Perhaps we have reached the climax, though. 
 They looked very happy going away, didn t they?" 
 
 Beatrice seated herself provisionally in her wedding 
 finery, stooping first to pick up one of Edward s toys from 
 the floor. They had drifted into the room in which 
 Margaret had borne to see Deed go from her in anger on 
 another wedding day. The iron pyrites still winked from 
 the " what-not " ; the Navajo blanket continued to do duty 
 as a portiere ; the rag carpet was on the floor, the stained 
 glass window, through which the sun was shining at the 
 moment, continued to take itself without seriousness. 
 
 "Yes," said Beatrice, smoothing her silk thoughtfully, 
 with long, ruminating fingers, "they did look very happy 
 going away. Do you suppose they will be able to keep 
 it up ? " 
 
 Vertner hovered restlessly about, without sitting down. 
 What makes you think they won t ? " he asked. 
 
432 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 11 1 didn t say they wouldn t. I was only wondering." 
 
 Vertner sighed and gave an absent touch to the lavender 
 tie of festal effect, which he had worn in honour of the 
 occasion. 
 
 "It s a large field for speculation any marriage," he 
 said. " Perhaps this is a little extra large. But then 
 they re both extra nice. I guess it will go." 
 
 "You wouldn t say that ?" began Beatrice doubt 
 fully. 
 
 " Yes, I would. There are a lot of things of that kind 
 that I could say ; but there are answers to all of them. 
 Yes," he repeated meditatively, after a moment, " all of 
 them. You see they are interested in each other. They 
 won t get tired of each other s conversation right away, and 
 by the time they begin to, well, I shouldn t wonder if 
 Dorothy were a little older." 
 
 " Oh ! " gasped Mrs. Vertner, as if she had been 
 surprised in a covert thought. " Do you think that, too, 
 Ned ? " 
 
 " I have thought it ; but only at moments. In the other 
 moments, " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I Ve thought that Phil might be something of a trial 
 to a woman at any age." 
 
 "I don t believe you think any such thing," declared 
 his wife promptly. "Why, there s something almost 
 likeable even about his faults." 
 
 " Yes. Have you noticed that is what every one says ? 
 I say it myself, and I stick to it. But hasn t it occurred 
 to you that in some situations like a wife s, for example 
 a man s faults can t be the perennial joy that they are to an 
 impartial outsider like you, who doesn t have to breakfast 
 with them ? " 
 
 "Oh, I know, Ned. But Philip is so good ! " 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 433 
 
 "Ah, now you ve hit it! He s a good fellow: that s 
 exactly what he is the best ! And if his need to be a 
 good fellow sometimes makes him a good fellow at some 
 one else s expense, why that s only what you mean by his 
 faults being likeable. If he has the sense to avoid being 
 some time or other a good fellow at his wife s expense or 
 what she will think her expense : that s the real trouble I 
 don t see why she shouldn t continue to admire him for 
 the manly and charming fellow he is, to the end of the 
 chapter. She starts in with one great advantage : she is 
 acquainted with him." 
 
 " And with another," added the practical Beatrice, " 
 
 that they are not to live with her father." 
 
 "Yes; that s almost the pleasantest thing about the 
 marriage that it sets her free of her father." He seated 
 himself in the chair before the fire where he sat in the 
 evenings to read the Denver papers, and, after piling on a 
 couple of logs, stretched out his feet cosily to the ciackling 
 blaze. "I don t see any harm in his new field of labour 
 being $60 or $70 to the Eastward. I should n t be sorry 
 to see the fare raised if I could always be sure of a pass. 
 I believe you 11 see great changes in her : she will be just 
 as nice, but differently nice. Come to think of it she will 
 have to be rather nice to really be worthy of Phil. That 
 little piece of business of his at Pifion just before his father 
 found him, and he went down to Colorado Springs to look 
 her up, is the kind of thing that might help a woman to 
 like him exclusively for his virtues if she knew about it." 
 
 " You mean his selling the Pay Ore to pay Jasper back 
 $5,000 when he found that those Ryan people had opened 
 a paying vein in his own mine ? Yes, that was strong in him." 
 
 " Strong ! Well, if you d ever opened a true fissure vein 
 that showed all the symptoms of making an income of 
 83,000 a month for you, for four or five years to come, and 
 
 F F 
 
434 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 had sold your claim to raise ready money, you would think 
 it strong. It s the sort of thing to make any one who 
 ever owned a mine think Phil about right. When I re 
 member that, I have to believe that if they are not happy 
 it will be her fault. Think of the rascal never having told 
 her about it ! " 
 
 " Oh, I shouldn t wonder if she had a good many things 
 to learn." 
 
 "About her father yes. But she ll never learn them 
 from him. And Maurice s being so far away will prevent 
 the question from coming up, I hope, for her sake. Talk 
 about aproposity ! " this was one of Vertner s words 
 "what do you say to Maurice finding that position in New 
 York ! I always said he had a manner. Now, he s found 
 a place where he can use it. To be assistant rector of a 
 fashionable city congregation, where the people demand a 
 certain distinction, and don t haggle too much about the 
 salary they give for it, or the sincerity they get back for it, 
 is a position in which Maurice can t help shining if he tries. 
 A place like that, where too much earnestness would imply 
 a criticism on the congregation and be in a man s way, 
 would have been a great thing for him if it had come to him 
 younger; he might never have found himself out. And 
 even as it is (if he can keep the place if this story does n t 
 rise to plague him), imagine his parish visits ! He will 
 raise them to the dignity of a career. And how he will 
 manage the music ! " 
 
 "I don t care," said Beatrice, coming over and standing 
 near him by the fire, with her elbow on the mantel. " I m 
 sorry for him. Did you see him this afternoon, after the 
 service, when Dorothy said goodbye to him in the vestry ? 
 He really cares for her ; I shall always say that for him." 
 
 "Oh, don t tell me that he has his good points, 
 retorted Vertner, rising. "I m his consistent admirer. 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 435 
 
 Have n t I praised him since the first day I saw him ? 
 I hope I know what is due to an editor who has had the 
 discretion to relieve me of an inconvenient reputation, and 
 ^oes n t mind leaving his money in the business." 
 
 " I wish you d give up that wretched paper, Ned ! " 
 
 " Why, the Salvation Army people were around yesterday 
 suggesting that very idea. I think I will." 
 
 " Yes ; I suppose they are afraid of its influence," said 
 Beatrice. 
 
 Her husband stared at her for a moment ; then he snatched 
 her down upon his knee with a howl of delight. 
 
 "Yes ; that s it," he agreed. " They are frightened at the 
 way I m spreading churchly ideas among my two hundred 
 and thirty-four subscribers. They want to buy me off! " 
 
 " No, but seriously, Ned ? " 
 
 " Well, they want a paper of their own, under another 
 name, and they see that the Calendar has the plant, and all 
 that ready for them. They heard that I knew when I had 
 had enough, and they made me an offer." 
 
 " And you ve accepted it ? " 
 
 " Yes ; at a loss of a hundred thousand dollars." 
 
 "Absurd!" 
 
 " Didn t I expect to make that out of the paper when I 
 started it ? " 
 
 <l I suppose so," admitted Beatrice with a smile. 
 
 "Well, then ! " challenged her husband. " And that isn t 
 the only thing I ve lost, either. I ve lost my confidence in 
 human nature. I supposed you could give people anything." 
 
 " And can t you ? " 
 
 " Not the Kalendar, with Rev. George Maurice as editor. 
 Heigho ! I was sorry Deed was so cold to him." 
 
 "Oh, I think he feels very sore about Mr. Maurice s 
 connection with what Philip did with that matter of 
 Jasper s mine." 
 
136 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " Don t call it Jasper s mine, please, Trix." 
 
 " But what shall I call it ? It is his mine, isn t it ? " 
 
 "Well, it s become so by a fluke ; but it isn t ladylike 
 to press the point." 
 
 He regarded her with a quizzical smile, and Beatrice 
 burst into a little rejoicing laugh. "You are trying to set 
 me a standard for Dorothy s behaviour, I think," she said. 
 
 " If she falls below the standard I shall punish you for 
 it. I don t mind letting you know that. Well, I don t 
 care," he declared warmly, after a moment. " It would be 
 mean to take a man back, and forgive him handsomely, 
 and persuade him that there was a new deal, and then to 
 twit him at appropriate moments about the old hand, in 
 the face of it." 
 
 " Of course it would," assented Beatrice with equal 
 warmth, "but Dorothy isn t like that." 
 
 "No; women are," returned Vertner reflectively; "but 
 probably Dorothy is n t. It s really a kind of generosity 
 that has made her hard with him, when you come to think 
 of it ; I shouldn t wonder if she knew how to be at least 
 as generous in forgiving as in condemning. I guess we 
 can trust her. But it would be a temptation for some 
 women living next door to the subject of discussion." 
 
 " Yes, yes, Ned, but you will see. To Dorothy that mine 
 in sight from her door will be like a sacred pledge a 
 guarantee, if you can think she needs one. His having 
 done that his having sold the mine to meet that debt to 
 Jasper, and then having taken the position of superintendent 
 of his own mine under the new owners " 
 
 " Yes, it does rather force her to cast a benevolent eye 
 on the Little Cipher as a part of the view from their cabin 
 window. But it will make it embarrassing for Jasper if he 
 should want to look after the Little Cipher himself when 
 the Ryans lease is up, won t it?" 
 
BENEFITS FORGOT. 437 
 
 " Oh, Jasper ! " exclaimed Beatrice impatiently, u I don t 
 care about Jasper ! " She drew off her long white wedding 
 gloves, and, rising from his knee, began slowly to smooth 
 them out upon the mantel. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed her husband from the window, " that s 
 the limitation of your sex your not caring about Jasper. 
 You have to like people to be interested in them. Where s 
 your miscellaneous human interest ? " he asked, turning 
 upon her. 
 
 " It is n t centred in Jasper," replied Beatrice with a smile. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that the spectacle of that successful 
 young man s first defeat doesn t move you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I enjoyed that on Mr. Deed s account ! " 
 
 " I should hope you did ! If I were Deed and had a 
 friend who didn t enjoy that up to the hilt, I d disown 
 him. It was sublime." 
 
 " It was effective," admitted Beatrice. 
 
 " Effective ? It was a ten-strike. It bowled Jasper out. 
 And it was the only thing that could have done it. At a 
 casual glance that is to say, at a fool glance it looks 
 weak. When you come to your senses you see how weak 
 it was. If I had enough of that sort of weakness I d take 
 a contract to twist the earth backwards ! " 
 
 " You need n t do that, Ned, to prove that Mr. Deed did 
 the best and bravest thing. I m ready enough to admit 
 that anything that humiliates Jasper as much as that must 
 have a good deal of some kind of force." 
 
 "Ah yes," cried Vertner, in sober joy; "it did weary 
 him, did n t it ! Taken with Dorothy s dismissal, it seems as 
 if it might also save you the trouble of disliking him. My 
 word for it, he is disliking himself." 
 
 " And yet he has the ranch back ; he is to have it under 
 his sole charge for the rest of the partnership term ; he 
 has all that he has claimed." 
 
433 BENEFITS FORGOT. 
 
 " Yes, yes," assented Vertner heartily, with emphatic nods 
 of his small, shrewd, blonde head ; "that s just the pesky 
 part of it. He was safe against every chance but that ; and 
 if it had happened to be anybody but Deed, he would have 
 been safer against that chance than any. But it did happen 
 to be Deed, you see. Jasper had a perfect position. The 
 incalculable has happened and left him with no position at 
 all. It makes the poor fellow feel foolish." 
 
 " But I don t believe that was Mr. Deed s object." 
 
 " No, and that s the other pretty and excellent point about 
 it. He has accomplished exactly what he has been after from 
 the beginning, by giving it up and turning his back on it." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose he has won, as we should say. But 
 now he does n t seem to care. He seems to have got past 
 that." 
 
 "Ah," cried Vertner, as he seated himself in his chair 
 before the fire, and held out his hands contentedly to 
 the blaze, "that w winning ! It s a good thing to win. 
 But I shouldn t wonder if the best thing was not to need 
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. 
 
THE MANXMAN 
 
 BY HALL CAINE 
 
 /;/ One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. With the exception of The Scapegoat, this is unquestion 
 ably the finest and most dramatic of Mr. Hall Caine s novels . . . The 
 Manxman goes very straight to the roots of human passion and emotion. It 
 is a remarkable book, throbbing with human interest. 
 
 The Guardian. A story of exceptional power and thorough originality. 
 The greater portion of it is like a Greek tragic drama, in the intensity of its 
 interest, and the depth of its overshadowing gloom. . . . But this tragedy is 
 merely a telling background for a series of brilliant sketches of men and 
 manners, of old-world customs, and forgotten ways of speech which still 
 linger in the Isle of Man. 
 
 The Standard. A singularly powerful and picturesque piece of work, 
 extraordinarily dramatic. . . . Taken altogether, The Manxman cannot fail 
 to enhance Mr. Hall Caine s reputation. It is a most powerful book. 
 
 The Morning Post If possible, Mr. Hall Caine s work, The Manx 
 man, is more marked by passion, power, and brilliant local colouring than its 
 predecessors. ... It has a grandeur as well as strength, and the picturesque 
 features and customs of a delightful country are vividly painted. 
 
 The World. Over and above the absorbing interest of the story, which 
 never flags, the book is full of strength, of vivid character sketches, and 
 powerful word-painting, all told with a force and knowledge of local colour. 
 
 The Queen. * The Manxman is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable 
 books of the century. It will be read and re-read, and take its place in the 
 literary inheritance of the English-speaking nations. 
 
 The St. James s Gazette. The Manxman is a contribution to litera 
 ture, and the most fastidious critic would give in exchange for it a wilderness 
 of that deciduous trash which our publishers call fiction. ... It is not possible 
 to part from The Manxman with anything but a warm tribute of approval. 
 EDMUND GOSSE. 
 
 The Christian World. There is a great fascination in being present, 
 as it were, at the birth of a classic ; and a classic undoubtedly The Manxman 
 is ... He who reads The Manxman feels that he is reading a book which 
 will be read and re-read by very many thousands with human tears and 
 human laughter. 
 
 Mr. T. P. O Connor, in the Sun. This is a very fine and great 
 story one of the finest and greatest of our time. . . . Mr. Hall Caine reaches 
 heights which are attained only by the greatest masters of fiction. ... I think 
 of the great French writer, Stendhal, at the same moment as the great 
 English writer. ... In short, you feel what Mr. Howells said of Tolstoi, 
 "This is not like life ; it is life." . . . He belongs to that small minority of 
 the Great Elect of Literature. 
 
 The Scotsman. It is not too much to say that it is the most powerful 
 story that has been written in the present generation. . . . The love of Pete, 
 his simple-mindedness, his sufferings when he has lost Kate, are painted with 
 a master-hand. ... It is a work of genius. 
 
 LONDON ; WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C, 
 
THE BONDMAN 
 
 BY HALL CAINE 
 
 With a Photogravure Portrait of the Author. 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. The Bondman is a work of which I recognise the 
 freshness, vigour, and sustained interest, no less than its integrity of aim. 
 
 The Times. It is impossible to deny originality and rude power to this 
 saga, impossible not to admire its forceful directness, and the colossal 
 grandeur of its leading characters. 
 
 The Academy. The language of The Bondman is full of nervous, 
 graphic, and poetical English; its interest never flags, and its situations and 
 descriptions are magnificent. It is a splendid novel. 
 
 The Speaker. This is the best book that Mr. Hall Caine has yet 
 written, and it reaches a level to which fiction very rarely attains. . . . We 
 are, in fact, so loth to let such good work be degraded by the title of 
 "novel" that we are almost tempted to consider its claim to rank as a prose 
 epic. 
 
 The Scotsman. Mr. Hall Caine has in this work placed himself 
 beyond the front rank of the novelists of the day. He has produced a story 
 which, for the ingenuity of its plot, for its literary excellence, for its delinea 
 tions of human passions, and for its intensely powerful dramatic scenes, is 
 distinctly ahead of all the fictional literature of our time, and fit to rank with 
 the most powerful fictional writing of the past century. 
 
 The Athenaeum. Crowded with incidents. 
 
 The Observer. Many of the descriptions are picturesque and power 
 ful. ... As fine in their way as anything in modern literature. 
 
 The Liverpool Mercury. A story which will be read, not by his con 
 temporaries alone, but by later generations, so long as its chief features high 
 emotion, deep passion, exquisite poetry, and true pathos have power to 
 delight and to touch the heart. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. It is the product of a strenuous and sustained 
 imaginative effort far beyond the power of any every-day story-teller. 
 
 The Scots Observer. In none of his previous works has he approached 
 the splendour of idealism which flows through The Bondman. 
 
 The Manchester Guardian. A remarkable story, painted with vigour 
 and brilliant effect. 
 
 The St. James s Gazette. A striking and highly dramatic piece of 
 fiction. 
 
 The Literary World. The book abounds in pages of great force and 
 beauty, and there is a touch of almost Homeric power in its massive and 
 grand simplicity, 
 
 The Liverpool Post. Graphic, dramatic, pathetic, heroic, full of 
 detail, crowded with incident and inspired by a noble purpose. 
 
 The Yorkshire Post A book of lasting interest. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
THE SCAPEGOAT 
 
 BY HALL CAINE 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone writes: I congratulate you upon The Scapegoat as a work 
 of art, and especially upon the noble and skilfully drawn character of Israel. 
 
 Mr. Walter Besant, in The Author. Nearly every year there stands 
 out a head and shoulders above its companions one work which promises to 
 make the year memorable. This year a promise of lasting vitality is distinctly 
 made by Mr. Hall Caine s Scapegoat, it is a great book, great in conception 
 and in execution ; a strong book, strong in situation and in character ; and 
 a human book, human in its pathos, its terror, and its passion. 
 
 The Times. In our judgment it excels in dramatic force all the Author s 
 previous efforts. For grace and touching pathos Naomi is a character which 
 any romancist in the world might be proud to have created, and the tale of 
 her parents despair and hopes, and of her own development, confers upon 
 The Scapegoat a distinction which is matchless of its kind. 
 
 The Guardian. Mr. Hall Caine is undoubtedly master of a style which 
 is peculiarly his own. He is in a way a Rembrandt among novelists. His 
 figures, striking and powerful rather than beautiful, stand out, with the 
 ruggedness of their features developed and accentuated, from a background 
 of the deepest gloom. . . . Every sentence contains a thought, and every word 
 of it is balanced and arranged to accumulate the intensity of its force. 
 
 The Athenaeum. It is a delightful story to read. 
 
 The Academy. Israel ben Oliel is the third of a series of the most 
 profoundly conceived characters in modern fiction. 3 
 
 The Saturday Review. This is the best novel which Mr. Caine has 
 yet produced. 
 
 The Literary World. The lifelike renderings of the varied situations, 
 the gradual changes in a noble character, hardened and lowered by the 
 world s cruel usage, and returning at last to its original grandeur, can only 
 be fully appreciated by a perusal of the book as a whole. 
 
 The Anti-Jacobin. It is, in truth, a romance of fine poetic quality. 
 Israel Ben Oliel, the central figure of the tale, is sculptured rather than drawn : 
 a character of grand outline. A nobler piece of prose than the death of 
 Ruth we have seldom met with. 
 
 The Scotsman. The new story will rank with Mr. Hall Caine s previous 
 productions. Nay, it will in some respects rank above them. It will take 
 its place by the side of the Hebrew histories in the Apocrypha. It is nobly 
 and manfully written. It stirs the blood and kindles the imagination. 
 
 The Scottish Leader. The Scapegoat is a masterpiece. 
 
 Truth. Mr. Hall Caine has been winning his way slowly, but surely, 
 
 and securely, I think also, to fame. You must by all means read his 
 
 absorbing Moorish romance, The Scapegoat. 
 
 The Jewish World. Only one who had studied Moses could have 
 
 drawn that grand portrait of Israel ben Oliel. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
THE HEAVENLY TWINS 
 
 BY SARAH GRAND 
 In One Volume^ price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. It is so full of interest, and the characters are so 
 eccentrically humorous yet true, that one feels inclined to pardon all its 
 faults, and give oneself up to unreserved enjoyment of it. ... The twins 
 Angelica and Diavolo, young barbarians, utterly devoid of all respect, con 
 ventionality, or decency, are among the most delightful and amusing children 
 in fiction. 
 
 The Academy. The adventures of Diavolo and Angelica the 
 "heavenly twins" are delightfully funny. No more original children were 
 ever put into a book. Their audacity, unmanageableness, and genius for 
 mischief in none of which qualities, as they are here shown, is there any 
 taint of vice are refreshing ; and it is impossible not to follow, with very 
 keen interest, the progress of these youngsters. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. Everybody ought to read it, for it is an inex 
 haustible source of refreshing and highly stimulating entertainment. 
 
 The World. There is much powerful and some beautiful writing in 
 this strange book. 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. Sarah Grand . . . has put enough obser 
 vation, humour, and thought into this book to furnish forth half-a-dozen 
 ordinary novels. 
 
 Punch. The Twins themselves are a creation : the epithet "Heavenly" 
 for these two mischievous little fiends is admirable. 
 
 The Queen. There is a touch of real genius in The Heavenly Twins. 
 
 The Guardian. Exceptionally brilliant in dialogue, and dealing with 
 modern society life, this book has a purpose to draw out and emancipate 
 women. 
 
 The Lady. Apart from its more serious interest, the book should take 
 high rank on its literary merits alone. Its pages are brimful of good things, 
 and more than one passage, notably the episode of "The Boy and the 
 Tenor," is a poem complete in itself, and worthy of separate publication. 
 
 The Manchester Examiner. As surely as Tess of the cC Urbervilles 
 swept all before it last year, so surely has Sarah Grand s Heavenly Twins 
 provoked the greatest attention and comment this season. It is a most 
 daringly original work. . . . Sarah Grand is a notable Woman s Righter, 
 but her book is the one asked for at Mudie s, suburban, and seaside libraries, 
 and discussed at every hotel table in the kingdom. The episode of the 
 " Tenor and the Boy" is of rare beauty, and is singularly delicate and at the 
 same time un-English in treatment. 
 
 The New York Critic. It is written in an epigrammatic style, and, 
 besides its cleverness, has the great charm of freshness, enthusiasm, and 
 poetic feeling. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
IDEALA 
 
 A STUDY FROM LIFE 
 BY SARAH GRAND 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Morning Post. Sarah Grand s IdeaJa. ... A clever book in 
 itself, is especially interesting when read in the light of her later works. 
 Standing alone, it is remarkable as the outcome of an earnest mind seeking 
 in good laith the solution of a difficult and ever present problem. . . . Ideala 
 is original and somewhat daring. . . . The story is in many ways delightful 
 and thought-suggesting. 
 
 The Literary World. When Sarah Grand came before the public in 
 1888 with Ideala, she consciously and firmly laid her finger on one of the 
 keynotes of the age. . . . We welcome an edition that will place this minute 
 and careful study of an interesting question within reach of a wider circle of 
 readers. 
 
 The Liverpool Mercury. The book is a wonderful one an evangel 
 for the fair sex, and at once an inspiration and a comforting companion, to 
 which thoughtful womanhood will recur again and again. 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. Ideala has attained the honour of a fifth 
 edition. . . . The stir created by 7he Heavenly Twins, the more recent 
 work by the same authoress, Madame Sarah Grand, would justify this step. 
 Ideala can, however, stand on its own merits. 
 
 The Yorkshire Post. As a psychological study the book cannot fail to 
 be of interest to many readers. 
 
 The Birmingham Gazette. Madame Sarah Grand thoroughly deserves 
 her success. Ideala, the heroine, is a splendid conception, and her opinions 
 are noble. . . . The book is not one to be forgotten. 
 
 The Woman s Herald. One naturally wishes to Know something of 
 the woman for whose sake Lord Downe remained a bachelor. It must be 
 confessed that at first Ideala is a little disappointing. She is strikingly 
 original. ... As the story advances one forgets these peculiarities, and can 
 find little but sympathy and admiration for the many noble qualities of a 
 very complex character. 
 
 The Englishman. Madame Sarah Grand s work is far from being a 
 common work. Ideala is a clever young woman of great capabilities and 
 noble purposes. . . . The orginality of the book does not lie in the plot, but 
 in the authoress s power to see and to describe the finer shades of a character 
 which is erratic and impetuous, but above all things truly womanly. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM" TIEINEM ANN 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
OUR MANIFOLD NATURE 
 
 BY SARAH GRAND 
 In One Volume, price 6*. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph.- Six stories by the gifted writer who still chooses 
 to be known to the public at large by the pseudonym of Sarah Grand. 
 In regard to them it is sufficient to say that they display all the qualities, 
 stylistic, humorous, and pathetic, that have placed the author of Ideala and 
 The Heavenly Twins in the very front rank of contemporary novelists. 
 
 The Globe. Brief studies of character, sympathetic, and suggesting that 
 " Sarah Grand " can do something more .than startle by her unconventionally 
 and boldness. 
 
 The Ladies Pictorial. If the volume does not achieve even greater 
 popularity than Sarah Grand s former works, it will be a proof that fashion, 
 and not intrinsic merit, has a great deal to do with the success of a book. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. All are eminently entertaining. 
 
 The Spectator. Insight into, and general sympathy with ^widely 
 differing phases of humanity, coupled with power to reproduce what is seen, 
 with vivid distinct strokes, that rivet the attention, are qualifications for 
 work of the kind contained in Our Manifold Nature which Sarah Grand 
 evidently possesses in a high degree ---- All these studies, male and female 
 alike are marked by humour, pathos, fidelity to life, and power to recognise 
 in human nature the frequent recurrence of some apparently incongruous 
 and remote trait, which, when at last U becomes visible, helps to a com 
 prehension of what might otherwise be inexplicable. 
 
 The Soeaker. In Our Manifold Nature Sarah Grand is seen at her 
 best How eood that is can only be known by those who read for them 
 selves this admirable little volume. In freshness of conception and originality 
 of treatment these stories are delightful, full of force and piquancy, whilst 
 the studies of character are carried out with equal firmness and delicacy. 
 
 The Guardian. Our Manifold Nature is a clever book. Sarah Grand 
 has the power of touching common things, which, if it fails to make them 
 rise to touch the spheres," renders them exceedingly interesting. 
 
 The Morning Post Unstinted praise is deserved by the Irish story, 
 "Boomellen," a tale remarkable both for power and pathos. 
 
 The Court Journal. Our Manifold Nature is simply full of good things, 
 and it is essentially a book to buy as well as to read. 
 
 one of her strongest points. The book is one to be read, studied, and acted 
 upon. 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
THE EBB-TIDE 
 
 BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 AND 
 
 LLOYD OSBOURNE 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. This is a novel of sensation. But the episodes and 
 incidents, although thrilling enough, are consistently subordinated to sensa 
 tionalism of character. . . . There is just enough of the coral reef and the 
 palm groves, of cerulean sky and pellucid water, to indicate rather than to 
 present the local colouring. Yet when he dashes in a sketch it is done to 
 perfection. . . . We see the scene vividly unrolled before us. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. The story is full of strong scenes, depicted 
 with a somewhat lavish use of violet pigments, such as, perhaps, the stirring 
 situations demand. Here and there, however, are purple patches, in which 
 Mr. Stevenson shows all his cunning literary art the description of the 
 coral island, for instance. . . , Some intensely graphic and dramatic pages 
 delineate the struggle which causes, and a final scene . . . concludes this 
 strange fragment from the wild life of the South Sea. 
 
 The St. James s Gazette. The book takes your imagination and 
 attention captive from the first chapter nay, from the first paragraph and it 
 does not set them free till the last word has been read. 
 
 The Standard. Mr. Stevenson gives such vitality to his characters, 
 and so clear an outlook upon the strange quarter of the world to which he 
 takes us, that when we reach the end of the story, we come back to civilisa 
 tion with a start of surprise, and a moment s difficulty in realising that we 
 have not been actually away from it. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. We are swept along without a pause on the 
 current of the animated and vigorous narrative. Each incident and adven 
 ture is told with that incomparable keenness of vision which is Mr. Stevenson s 
 greatest charm as a story-teller. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. It is brilliantly invented, and it is not less 
 brilliantly told. There is not a dull sentence in the whole run of it. And 
 the style is fresh, alert, full of surprises in fact, is very good latter-day 
 Stevenson indeed. 
 
 The World. It is amazingly clever, full of that extraordinary know 
 ledge of human nature which makes certain creations of Mr. Stevenson s pen 
 far more real to us than persons we have met in the flesh. Grisly the book 
 undoubtedly is, with a strength and a vigour of description hardly to be 
 matched in the language. . . . But it is just because the book is so extra 
 ordinarily good that it ought to be better, ought to be more of a serious whole 
 than a mere brilliant display of fireworks, though each firework display has 
 more genius in it than is to be found in ninety-nine out of every hundred 
 books supposed to contain that rare quality. 
 
 The Morning Post. Boldly conceived, probing some of the darkest 
 depths of the human soul, the tale has a vigour and breadth of touch which 
 have been surpassed in none of Mr. Stevenson s previous works. . . . We 
 do not, of course, know how much Mr. Osbourne has contributed to the tale, 
 but there is no chapter in it which any author need be unwilling to acknow 
 ledge, or which is wanting in vivid interest. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
A VICTIM OF GOOD LUCK 
 
 BY W. E. NORRIS 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Speaker. A Victim of Good Luck is one of those breezy stones of 
 his in which the reader finds himself moving in good society, among men 
 or women who are neither better nor worse than average humanity, but who 
 always show good manners and good breeding. . . . Suffice it to say that the 
 story is as readable as any we have yet had from the same pen. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. A Victim of Good Luck is one of the brightest 
 novels of the year, which cannot but enhance its gifted author s well-deserved 
 fame and popularity. 
 
 The World. Here is Mr. Norris in his best form again, giving us an 
 impossible story with such imperturbable composure, such quiet humour, 
 easy polish, and irresistible persuasiveness, that he makes us read A Victim 
 of Good Luck right through with eager interest and unflagging amusement 
 without being aware, until we regretfully reach the end, that it is just a 
 farcical comedy in two delightful volumes. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. It has not a dull page from first to last. Any 
 one with normal health and taste can read a book like this with real pleasure. 
 
 The Globe. Mr. W. E. Norris is a writer who always keeps us on 
 good terms with ourselves. We can pick up or lay down his books at will, 
 but they are so pleasant in style and equable in tone that we do not usually 
 lay them down till we have mastered them ; A Victim of Good Luck is a 
 more agreeable novel than most of this author s. 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. A Victim of Good Luck is in Mr. Norris s 
 best vein, which means that it is urbane, delicate, lively, and flavoured 
 with a high quality of refined humour. Altogether a most refreshing book, 
 and we take it as a pleasant reminder that Mr. Norris is still very near 
 his highwater mark. 
 
 The Spectator. Mr. Norris displays to the full his general command of 
 narrative expedients which are at once happily invented and yet quite natural 
 which seem to belong to their place in the book, just as a keystone belongs 
 to its place in the arch. . . . The brightest and cleverest book which Mr. 
 Norris has given us since he wrote The Rogiie. 11 
 
 The Saturday Review. Novels which are neither dull, unwholesome, 
 morbid, nor disagreeable, are so rare in these days, that A Victim of Good 
 Luck . . . ought to find a place in a book-box filled for the most part with 
 light literature. . . . We think it will increase the reputation of an already 
 very popular author. 
 
 The Scotsman. A Victim of Good Luck, like others of this author s 
 books, depends little on incident and much on the conception and drawing of 
 character, on clever yet natural conversation, and on the working out, with 
 masterly ease, of a novel problem of right and inclination. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
 
THE COUNTESS RADNA 
 
 BY W. E. NORRIS 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. He is a remarkably even writer. And this novel is almost 
 as good a medium as any other for studying the delicacy and dexterity of 
 his workmanship. 
 
 The National Observer. Interesting and well written, as all Mr. 
 Norris s stories are. 
 
 The Morning Post The fidelity of his portraiture is remarkable, and 
 it has rarely appeared to so much advantage as in this brilliant novel. 
 
 The Saturday Review. The Countess Radna^ which its author not 
 unjustly describes as " an unpretending tale," avoids, by the grace of its style 
 and the pleasant accuracy of its characterisation, any suspicion of boredom. 
 
 The Daily News. The Countess Radna contains many of the qualities 
 that make a story by this writer welcome to the critic. It is caustic in style, 
 the character drawing is clear, the talk natural ; the pages are strewn with 
 good things worth quoting. 
 
 The Speaker. In style, skill in construction, and general "go," it is 
 worth a dozen ordinary novels. 
 
 The Academy. As a whole, the book is decidedly well written, while 
 it is undeniably interesting. It is bright and wholesome : the work in fact 
 of a gentleman and a man who knows the world about which he writes. 
 
 Black and White. The novel, like all Mr. Norris s work is an ex 
 cessively clever piece of work, and the author never for a moment allows his 
 grasp of his plot and his characters to slacken. 
 
 The Gentlewoman. Mr. Norris is a practised hand at his craft. He 
 can write bright dialogue and clear English, too. 
 
 The Literary World. His last novel, The Countess Radna, is an ex- 
 cellent sample of his style. The plot is simple enough. But the story 
 holds the attention and insists upon being read ; and it is scarcely possible 
 to say anything more favourable of a work of fiction. 
 
 The Scotsman. The story, in which there is more than a spice of 
 modern life romance, is an excellent study of the problem of mixed marriage. 
 The book is one of good healthy reading, and reveals a fine broad view of life 
 and human nature. 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. This is an unusually fresh and well-written 
 story. The tone is thoroughly healthy ; and Mr. Norris, without being in 
 the least old-fashioned, manages to get along without the aid of pessimism, 
 psychology, naturalism, or what is known as frank treatment of the relations 
 between the sexes. 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. Mr. Norris writes throughout with much 
 liveliness and force, saying now and then something that is worth remember 
 ing. And he sketches his minor characters with a firm touch. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO 
 
 A Study of a Peculiar People 
 BY I. ZANGWILL 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. From whatever point of view we regard it, it is a remark 
 able book. 
 
 The Athenaeum. The chief interest of the book lies in the wonderful 
 description of the Whitechapel Jews. The vividness and force with which 
 Mr. Zangwill brings before us the strange and uncouth characters with which 
 he has peopled his book are truly admirable. . . . Admirers of Mr. Zangwill s 
 fecund wit will not fail to find flashes of it in these pages. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. Altogether we are not aware of any such minute, 
 graphic, and seemingly faithful picture of the Israel of nineteenth century 
 London. . . . The book has taken hold of us. 
 
 The Spectator. Esther Ansell, Raphael Leon, Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, 
 Reb Shemuel, and the rest, are living creations. 3 
 
 The Speaker. A strong and remarkable book. 
 
 The National Observer. To ignore this book is not to know the East 
 End Jew. 
 
 The Guardian. A novel such as only our own day could produce. A 
 masterly study of a complicated psychological problem in which every factor 
 is handled with such astonishing dexterity and intelligence that again and 
 again we are tempted to think a really good book has come into our hands. 
 
 The Graphic. Absolutely fascinating. Teaches how closely akin are 
 laughter and tears. 
 
 Black and White. A moving panorama of Jewish life, full of truth, full 
 of sympathy, vivid in the setting forth, and occasionally most brilliant. Such 
 a book as this has the germs of a dozen novels. A book to read, to keep, to 
 ponder over, to remember. 
 
 W. Archer in The World. The most powerful and fascinating book 
 I have read for many a long day. 
 
 Land and Water. The most wonderful multi-coloured and brilliant 
 description. Dickens has never drawn characters of more abiding indi 
 viduality. An exceeding beautiful chapter is the honeymoon of the Hyams. 
 Charles Kingsley in one of his books makes for something of the same sort. 
 But his idea is not half so tender and faithful, nor his handling anything like 
 so delicate and natural. 
 
 Andrew Lang in Longman s Magazine. Almost every kind of 
 reader will find Children of the Ghetto interesting. 
 
 T. P. O Connor in The Weekly Sun. Apart altogether from its 
 great artistic merits, from its clear portraits, its subtle and skilful analysis of 
 character, its pathos and its humour, this book has, in my mind, an immense 
 interest as a record of a generation that has passed and of struggles that are 
 yet going on. 
 
 The Manchester Guardian. The best Jewish novel ever written. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
THE KING OF SCHNORRERS 
 
 Grotesques and Fantasies 
 BY I. ZANGWILL 
 
 With over Ninety Illustrations by PHIL MAY and Others 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. Several of Mr. Zangwill s contemporary Ghetto char 
 acters have already become almost classical ; but in The King of Schnorrers 
 he goes back to the Jewish community of the eighteenth century for the 
 hero of his principal story ; and he is indeed a stupendous hero . . . anyhow, 
 he is well named the king of beggars. The frustrations, by Phil May, add 
 greatly to the attraction of the book. 
 
 The Saturday Review. Mr. Zangwill has created a new figure in 
 fiction, and a new type of humour. The entire series of adventures is a 
 triumphant progress. . . . Humour of a rich and active character pervades 
 the delightful history of Manasses. Mr. Zangwill s book is altogether very 
 good reading. It is also very cleverly illustrated by Phil May and other 
 artists. 
 
 The Literary World. Of Mr. Zangwill s versatility there is ample 
 proof in this new volume of stories. . . . More noticeable and welcome to 
 us, as well as more characteristic of the author, are the fresh additions he has 
 made to his long series of studies of Jewish life. 
 
 The St. James s Gazette. * The King of Schnorrers is a very fascinating 
 story. Mr. Zangwill returns to the Ghetto, and gives us a quaint old-world 
 picture as a most appropriate setting for his picturesque hero, the beggar- 
 king. . . . Good as the story of the arch-schnorrer is, there is perhaps an 
 even better "Yiddish" tale in this book. This is "Flutter-Duck." . . . 
 Let us call attention to the excellence, as mere realistic vivid description, of 
 the picture of the room and atmosphere and conditions in which Flutter-Duck 
 and her circle dwelt ; there is something of Dickens in this. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. The King of Schnorrers, like Children of the 
 Ghetto, depicts the habits and characteristics of Israel in London with pains 
 taking elaborateness and apparent verisimilitude. The King of Schnorrers is 
 a character-sketch which deals with the manners and customs of native and 
 foreign Jews as they "lived and had their being" in the London of a century 
 and a quarter ago. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. It is a beautiful story. The King of Schnorrers 
 is that great rarity an entirely new thing, that is as good as it is new. 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. On the whole, the book does justice to Mr. 
 Zangwill s rapidly-growing reputation, and the character of Manasseh ought 
 to live. 
 
 The World. The exuberant and even occasionally overpowering 
 humour of Mr. Zangwill is at his highest mark in his new volume, The 
 King of Schnorrers 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
THE PREMIER AND THE PAINTER 
 
 BY I. ZANGWILL AND LOUIS COWEN 
 
 In One Volume^ price 6s. 
 
 The Cambridge (University) Review. That the book will have 
 readers in a future generation we do not doubt, for there is much in it that is 
 of lasting merit. 
 
 The Graphic. It might be worth the while of some industrious and 
 capable person with plenty of leisure to reproduce in a volume of reasonable 
 size the epigrams and other good things witty and serious which The Premier 
 and the Painter contains. There are plenty of them, and many are worth 
 noting and remembering. 
 
 St. James s Gazette. The satire hits all round with much impartiality ; 
 while one striking situation succeeds another till the reader is altogether 
 dazzled. The story is full of life and "go" and brightness, and will well 
 repay perusal. 
 
 The Athenaeum. In spite of its close print and its five hundred pages 
 The Premier and the Painter is not very difficult to read. To speak of it, 
 however, is difficult. It is the sort of book that demands yet defies quotation 
 for one thing ; and for another it is the sort of book the description of which 
 as " very clever " is at once inevitable and inadequate. In some ways it is 
 original enough to be a law unto itself, and withal as attractive in its 
 whimsical, wrong-headed way, as at times it is tantalising, bewildering, even 
 tedious. The theme is politics and politicians, and the treatment, while for 
 the most part satirical and prosaic, is often touched with sentiment, and 
 sometimes even with a fantastic kind of poetry. The several episodes of the 
 story are wildly fanciful in themselves and are clumsily connected ; but the 
 streak of humorous cynicism which shows through all of them is both curious 
 and pleasing. Again, it has to be claimed for the author that as is shown 
 to admiration by his presentation of the excellent Mrs. Dawe and her cook- 
 shop he is capable, when he pleases, of insight and observation of a high 
 order, and therewith of a masterly sobriety of tone. But he cannot be 
 depended upon for the length of a single page ; he seeks his effects and his 
 material when and where he pleases. In some respects his method is not, 
 perhaps, altogether unlike Lord Beaconsfield s. To our thinking, however, 
 he is strong enough to go alone, and to go far. 
 
 The World. Undeniably clever, though with a somewhat mixed and 
 eccentric cleverness. 
 
 The Morning Post. The story is described as a "fantastic romance," 
 and, indeed, fantasy reigns supreme from the first to the last of its pages. It 
 relates the history of our time with humour and well-aimed sarcasm. All the 
 most prominent characters of the day, whether political or otherwise, come in 
 for notice. The identity of the leading politicians is but thinly veiled, while 
 many celebrities appear in propria persond. Both the "Premier" and 
 "Painter" now and again find themselves in the most critical situations. 
 Certainly this is not a story that he who runs may read, but it is cleverly 
 original, and often lightened by bright flashes of wit. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
THE POTTER S THUMB 
 
 BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume^ price 6s. 
 
 The Pall Mall Budget. For this week the only novel worth mentioning 
 is Mrs. Steel s The Potter s Thumb. Her admirable From the Five Rivers, 
 since it dealt with native Indian life, was naturally compared with Mr. 
 Kipling s stories. In The Potter s Thiimb the charm which came from the 
 freshness of them still remains. Almost every character is convincing, and 
 some of them excellent to a degree. 
 
 The Globe. This is a brilliant story a story that fascinates, tingling 
 with life, steeped in sympathy with all that is best and saddest. 
 
 The Manchester Guardian. * The impression left upon one after reading 
 The Potter s Thtimb is that a new literary artist, of very great and unusual 
 gifts, has arisen. ... In short, Mrs. Steel must be congratulated upon having 
 achieved a very genuine and amply deserved success. 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. A clever story which, in many respects, brings 
 India very near to its readers. The novel is certainly one interesting alike to 
 the Anglo-Indian and to those untravelled travellers who make their only 
 voyages in novelists romantic company. 
 
 The Scotsman. It is a capital story, full of variety and movement, which, 
 brings with great vividness before the reader one of the phases of Anglo- 
 Indian life. Mrs. Steel writes forcibly and sympathetically, and much of the 
 charm of the picture which she draws lies in the force with which she brings 
 out the contrast between the Asiatic and European world. The Potter s 
 71iumb is very good reading, with its mingling of the tragedy and comedy 
 of life. Its evil woman par excellence . . , is a finished study. 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. A very powerful and tragic story. Mrs. 
 Steel gives us again, but with greater elaboration than before, one of those 
 strong, vivid, and subtle pictures of Indian life which we have learnt to expect 
 from her. To a reader who has not been in India her books seem to get 
 deeper below the native crust, and to have more of the instinct for the Oriental 
 than almost anything that has been written in this time. 
 
 The Leeds Mercury. The Potter s Thumb is a powerful story of the 
 mystical kind, and one which makes an instant appeal to the imagination of 
 the reader. . . . There is an intensity of vision in this story which is as re 
 markable as it is rare, and the book, in its vivid and fascinating revelations of 
 life, and some of its limitations, is at once brilliant and, in the deepest and 
 therefore least demonstrative sense, impassioned. 
 
 The National Observer. A romance of East and West, in which the 
 glamour, intrigue, and superstition of India are cunningly interwoven and 
 artfully contrasted with the bright and changeable aspects of modern European 
 society. " Love stories," as Mr. Andrew Lang once observed, "are best done 
 by women" ; and Mrs. Steel s treatment of Rose Tweedie s love affair with 
 Lewis Gordon is a brilliant instance in point. So sane and delightful an 
 episode is rare in fiction now-a-days. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
FROM THE FIVE RIVERS 
 
 BY FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume^ price 6s. 
 
 The Times. Time was when these sketches of native Punjabi society 
 would have been considered a curiosity in literature. They are sufficiently 
 remarkable, even in these days, when interest in the "dumb millions" of 
 India is thoroughly alive, and writers, great and small, vie in ministering to it. 
 They are the more notable as being the work of a woman. Mrs. Steel has 
 evidently been brought into close contact with the domestic life of all classes, 
 Hindu and Mahomedan, in city and village, and has steeped herself in their 
 customs and superstitions. . . . Mrs. Steel s book is of exceptional merit 
 and freshness. 
 
 Vanity Fair. Stones of the Punjaub evidently the work of one who 
 has an intimate knowledge of, and a kindly sympathy for, its people. It is 
 to be hoped that this is not the last book of Indian stories that Mrs. Steel 
 will give us. 
 
 The Spectator. Merit, graphic force, and excellent local colouring are 
 conspicuous in Mrs. Steel s From the Five Rivers, and the short stories of which 
 the volume is composed are evidently the work of a lady who knows what 
 she is writing about. 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. This is a collection of sketches of Hindu life, full 
 for the most part of brilliant colouring and cleverly wrought in dialect. The 
 writer evidently knows her subject, and she writes about it with unusual 
 skill. 
 
 The North British Daily Mail. In at least two of the sketches in Mrs. 
 Steel s book we have a thoroughly descriptive delineation of life in Indian, or 
 rather, Hindoo, villages. " Ganesh Chunel" is little short of a masterpiece, 
 and the same might be said of " Shah Sujah s Mouse." In both we are made 
 the spectator of the conditions of existence in rural India. The stories are 
 told with an art that conceals the art of story-telling. 
 
 The Athenaeum. They possess this great merit, that they reflect the 
 habits, modes of life, and ideas of the middle and lower classes of the popula 
 tion of Northern India better than do systematic and more pretentious works. 
 
 The Leeds Mercury. By no means a book to neglect. . . . It is written 
 with brains. . . . Mrs. Steel understands the life which she describes, and she 
 has sufficient literary art to describe it uncommonly well. These short 
 stories of Indian life are, in fact, quite above the average of stories long or 
 short. . . . There is originality, insight, sympathy, and a certain dramatic 
 instinct in the portrayal of character about the book. 
 
 The Globe. She puts before us the natives of our Empire in the East as 
 they live and move and speak, with their pitiful superstitions, their strange 
 fancies, their melancholy ignorance of what poses with us for knowledge and 
 civilisation, their doubt of the new ways, the new laws, the new people. 
 " Shah Sujah s Mouse," the gem of the collection a touching tale of 
 unreasoning fidelity towards an English "Sinny Baba" is a tiny bit of 
 perfect writing. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C 
 
THE LAST SENTENCE 
 
 BY MAXWELL GRAY 
 
 Author of The Silence of Dean Maitland, etc. 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Standard. The Last Sentence is a remarkable story; it abounds 
 with dramatic situations, the interest never for a moment flags, and the 
 characters are well drawn and consistent. 
 
 The Saturday Review. There is a great deal as well as a great variety 
 of incident in the story, and more than twenty years are apportioned to it ; but 
 it never seems over-crowded, nor has it the appearance of several stones rolled 
 into one. The Last Sentence is a remarkable novel, and the more so because 
 its strong situations are produced without recourse to the grosser forms of 
 immorality. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. One of the most powerful and adroitly- worked- 
 out plots embodied in any modern work of fiction runs through The Last 
 Sentence. . . . This terrible tale of retribution is told with well-sustained force 
 and picturesqueness, and abounds in light as well as shade. 
 
 The Morning Post. Maxwell Gray has the advantage of manner that is 
 both cultured and picturesque, and while avoiding even the appearance of the 
 melodramatic, makes coming events cast a shadow before them so as to excite 
 and entertain expectation. ... It required the imagination of an artist to 
 select the kind of Nemesis which finally overtakes this successful evil-doer, and 
 which affords an affecting climax to a rather fascinating tale. 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. This is a very strong story. ... It contains much 
 rich colouring, some striking situations, and plenty of thoroughly living 
 characters. The .interest is of a varied kind, and, though the hero is an 
 aristocrat, the pictures of human life are by no means confined to the upper 
 circles. 
 
 The Leeds Mercury. It shows a command of the resources of the 
 novelist s art which is by no means common, and it has other qualities which 
 lift it far above the average level of the circulating library. It is written with 
 a literary grace and a moral insight which are seldom at fault, and from first 
 to last it is pervaded with deep human interest. 
 
 The Queen. Maxwell Gray has a certain charm and delicacy of style. 
 She has mastered the subtleties of a particular type of weak character until 
 she may be almost called its prophet. 
 
 The Lady s Pictorial. The book is a clever and powerful one. . . . 
 Cynthia Marlowe will live in our memories as a sweet and noble woman ; one 
 of whom it is a pleasure to think of beside some of the emancipated heroines 
 so common in the fiction of the day. 
 
 The Manchester Courier. The author of The Silence of Dean Maitland 
 gives to the reading world another sound and magnificent work. ... In both 
 these works Maxwell Gray has taken " Nemesis " as his grand motif. In each 
 work there sits behind the hero that atra cura which poisons the wholesome 
 draught of human joy. In each is present the corroding blight that comes 
 of evil done and not discovered. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
THE NAULAHKA 
 
 A Tale of West and East 
 
 BY RUDYARD KIPLING AND WOLCOTT BALESTIER 
 In One Volume^ price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. There is no one but Mr. Kipling who can make his 
 readers taste and smell, as well as see and hear, the East ; and in this book 
 (if we except the description of Tarvin s adventures in the deserted city of 
 Gunvaur, which is perhaps less clear-cut than usual) he has surely surpassed 
 himself. In his faculty for getting inside the Eastern mind and showing its 
 queer workings Mr. Kipling stands alone. 
 
 The Academy. The Naulahka contains passages of great merit. 
 There are descriptions scattered through its pages which no one but Mr. 
 Kipling could have written. . . Whoever reads this novel will find much of 
 it hard to forget . . . and the story of the exodus from the hospital will rank 
 among the best passages in modern fiction. 
 
 The Times. A happy idea, well adapted to utilize the respective ex 
 perience of the joint authors. . . . An excellent story. . . . The dramatic train 
 of incident, the climax of which is certainly the interview between Sitabhai 
 and Tarvin, the alternate crudeness and ferocity of the girl-queen, the 
 susceptibility of the full-blooded American, hardly kept in subjection by his 
 alertness and keen eye to business, the anxious eunuch waiting in the distance 
 with the horses, and fretting as the stars grow paler and paler, the cough of 
 the tiger slinking home at the dawn after a fruitless night s hunt the whole 
 forms a scene not easily effaced from the memory. 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. An entrancing story beyond doubt. . . . The 
 design is admirable to bring into violent contrast and opposition the widely 
 differing forces of the Old World and the New and while, of course, it 
 could have been done without the use of Americanese, yet that gives a 
 wonderful freshness and realism to the story. The design is a bold one, and 
 it has been boldly carried out. . . . The interest is not only sustained through 
 out, it is at times breathless. . . . The Maharajah, the rival queens, the 
 pomp and peril of Rhatore, are clearly Mr. Kipling s own, and some of the 
 Indian chapters are in his best style. 
 
 The Speaker. In the presentation of Rhatore there is something of the 
 old Kiplingesque glamour ; it is to the pages of Mr. Kipling that one must 
 go for the strange people and incidents of the royal household at Rhatore. 
 ... It is enough to say that the plotting of that most beautiful and most 
 wicked gipsy, Sitabhai is interesting ; that Sitabhai is well created ; and that 
 the chapter which describes her secret meeting with Tarvin is probably the 
 finest and the most impressive in the book. 
 
 The Bookman. The real interest of the book is in the life behind the 
 curtains of the Maharajah s palace. The child Kunwar, his mother, the 
 forsaken Zulu queen, the gipsy with her wicked arts, are pictures of Indian 
 life, which even Mr. Kipling has not surpassed. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
I