THE QUEEN'S GARDEN 
 
 731 
 
 M. E.M.DAVIS 
 
UNDER THE MAN-FIG. i6mo, $1.25. 
 THE WIRE CUTTERS. Crown 8vo, $1.50. 
 THE QUEEN'S GARDEN". i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 

 
 . I 
 
 1 1 W&t Queen's 1 1 
 
 1 1 <gartom 1 1 
 
 - 
 
 ^ 
 
 d 
 
 ^* 
 
 
 
 By M. E. M. DAVIS f f 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 The gate is locked and the key is lost y 
 
 I'm in tbis^ Lady's Garden ^ Q. 
 
 OLD SONG 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^f^W 
 
 
 
 
 "*%521**^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 , , . 
 
 
 
 1900 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright, 1900, by M. E. M. Davis 
 All rights reserved 
 
To 
 MARY PEARL DAVIS 
 
Content^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE LETTER . . . . I 
 
 II. ACROSS THE RIVER ... 9 
 
 III. A CLOSED DOOR . . . 1 6 
 
 IV. WITHIN ..... 23 
 V. APPARITIONS . 34 
 
 VI. MONDAY ... .46 
 
 VII. TUESDAY . . . . ... 57 
 
 VIII. WEDNESDAY . . . . . 68 
 
 IX. THURSDAY . . . . 79 
 
 X. FRIDAY . . . . . 88 
 
 XI. THE FLOWER . . . . .98 
 
 XII. SATURDAY ..... IO8 
 
 XIII. SUNDAY . . . . . 115 
 
 xiv. CLAUDE'S WAY . . . .125 
 
 xv. LOVE'S WAY . . . . '136 
 
The (QUEEN'S 
 GARDEN 
 
 JLettet 
 
 NOEL LEPEYRE sat looking 
 out of the car window. The 
 train rolled almost noiselessly 
 over its smooth road-bed. There were 
 sugar plantations on either side, where 
 the cane waved and glistened under the 
 yellow rays of the setting sun ; and occa- 
 sional groves of orange-trees, whose stiff, 
 round-bunched green threw into bright 
 relief the silvery shining banana-clumps 
 beyond. Long stretches of half-cleared 
 swamp-land, where bearded moss hung 
 motionless from the bare limbs of girdled 
 trees, alternated with fields of artichoke, 
 dust-gray in the hot September haze. 
 Now and then quaint old towns flashed 
 
by, with red roofs, and church spires 
 needle-like against the sky. The land- 
 scape, poetic, semi-tropical, unfamiliar, 
 harmonized, to Noel's dreaming fancy, 
 with the foreign speech of a group of girls 
 over against her. They had entered the 
 car at the last station, and they were chat- 
 tering like young sparrows. She did not 
 understand the musical tongue, but some- 
 thing within her her father's blood 
 responded to its soft accents, its caressing 
 tones and slurring syllables. " Ah, they 
 are Creoles, those girls ; I am sure of it ! " 
 she murmured in a pleased undertone, 
 listening, with her eyes fixed on the flying 
 cane-fields. 
 
 Apparently there was nothing foreign 
 about herself except her name. Her flut- 
 tering neighbors were dark-haired, vel- 
 vet-eyed, plump, bewitching. Noel was 
 tall and slim much too meagre, indeed, 
 for beauty. 
 
 Her limpid eyes were blue-gray ; her 
 
better 
 
 mouth drooped a little at the corners 
 like that of a child who has been crying 
 vainly for its mother. Her hair, coiled 
 in wavy abundance on the nape of her 
 white neck, was ashen-blonde, " sun- 
 lighted," the old gentleman on the seat 
 behind her, who had traveled in the 
 same coach with her for two days, had 
 at length decided. He marveled greatly, 
 Major John Steele, being very old-fash- 
 ioned, that so young a girl, so very 
 beautiful, reminding him so strangely of 
 a girl whom he had loved and lost 
 in his early youth, should be allowed to 
 journey so far without a companion. 
 
 Noel Lepeyre was traveling alone. 
 But that was nothing ! She was used 
 to being alone. Only her heart be- 
 gan to beat, and the blood mounted to 
 her pale cheeks as her thoughts reverted 
 once more to that unknown relative 
 French Creole, like her father to whom 
 the too rapid railway train was convey- 
 

 ing her. Perhaps aunt Margaret 
 "Tante Marguerite " she had called her- 
 self in the letter would speak no Eng- 
 lish ! 
 
 Another aunt ! Noel heaved a dole- 
 ful sigh. For this strange, formidable, 
 foreign aunt was no less than the fourth 
 who had entered, armed with authority, 
 into her life. Already there had been 
 three, all poor, but at least they could 
 speak English ! commented Noel mis- 
 erably. Three, of varying degrees of 
 consanguinity, since Claude Lepeyre and 
 his wife had died, one following the 
 other within a month to the hillside 
 cemetery in west Texas, leaving the lit- 
 tle maid of seven dependent upon the 
 family charity. Noel began to reckon 
 them up and tell them off as usual on 
 her fingers : first, aunt Hester, mam- 
 ma's sister, with her pale face and 
 weary voice ; her slouching husband 
 and her herd of noisy children, no 
 
iUtter 
 
 wonder she died, poor aunt Hester. 
 Then, mamma's great-aunt, who was no- 
 thing short of terrible. Aunt Harlowe, 
 who reckoned crinkly hair one of 
 Claude Lepeyre's many sins visited 
 upon his daughter a shame and a dis- 
 grace. Noel put up a white, ungloved 
 hand, and patted down the flying curls 
 about her ears in retrospective awe of 
 great-aunt Harlowe. Number Two, 
 on a belated deathbed, confided the 
 penniless orphan to step-aunt Mitch- 
 ell. Tears rose to Noel's eyes, and her 
 slender throat swelled. She had loved 
 step-aunt Mitchell despite her scolding 
 tongue oh, in spite of many things 
 besides the little-to-eat and the less-to- 
 wear of her seven years' drudgery with 
 Number Three ! The mourning she 
 wore for this latest guardian was rusty. 
 But this came of having to wear the one 
 gown, day in and day out, in the little 
 country school where she had been 
 
teaching since that rainy day in the cem- 
 etery six months ago. Noel's tears 
 flowed unchecked down her softly-wan 
 cheeks, and fell in a bright shower on 
 the rusty black gown. 
 
 Major John Steele leaned forward and 
 opened his lips to speak. But he drew 
 back, for the girl had taken a letter from 
 her traveling-bag, and was smoothing 
 out its thin crinkly folds on her knee. 
 
 Another aunt. This time at least 
 a real one. Papa's own sister dear, 
 brave, beautiful papa ! Nevertheless 
 she shivered ; the phraseology of the let- 
 ter was so remote, so strange, so unreal. 
 
 I await thy coming with rapture, my 
 child. Where have they hidden thee 
 through all these years, that I have 
 not even known of thy existence ! I 
 learn of it but this instant from thy let- 
 ter. I have been a lonely woman nearly 
 the whole of my life, having left to me 
 
iUttcr 
 
 neither father, nor mother, husband, 
 nor son ; nor helas, my only brother ! 
 Claude, thy father, was used to call me 
 La Reine Margot, in the old days be- 
 fore we quarreled and he went away. 
 Helas, we had quarreled, my brother 
 Claude and I. (I will tell thee about 
 that foolish quarrel, mon enfant.) And 
 I never heard from him again, nor knew 
 whither he had gone ! So, he married, 
 my brother Claude an Americane, 
 n'est ce pas ? And he is dead ! And 
 Margot has been these many years a 
 discrowned queen ! But enough. Come 
 to me without delay, my child. I send 
 money for the journey of thyself and 
 thy maid. (Noel laughed for the hun- 
 dredth time at the mere notion of Noel 
 Lepeyre attended by a maid.) Stay 
 not for any preparation. I am having 
 thy garments made here. Come, Noel, 
 Claude's daughter. I am become old. 
 I am impatient. Marcelle will meet 
 
8 tEPfre flkueen'g 
 
 thee on the further side of the river, 
 and conduct thee to me. Viens, cherie, 
 viens, sans delai, a ta 
 
 TANTE MARGUERITE. 
 
II 
 
 NOEL folded up the letter and 
 returned it to the bag. She 
 was almost, nay, quite sorry 
 that she had adventured the note of in- 
 quiry which had brought this immediate 
 response. But she had been so forlorn 
 the day her school closed ! And step- 
 aunt Mitchell's cousin, Louisa Marsh, 
 had come, in. a lopsided buggy, to take 
 her to a new home, another aunt ! 
 And, quite by accident, at the time 
 it seemed by special decree of Provi- 
 dence, she had found among her fa- 
 ther's treasured papers a memorandum 
 in his own handwriting : 
 
 " For Noel, in case of my death. 
 'The address of my only sister. 
 
 MADAME ANATOLE CHRETIEN, 
 
 No. St., 
 
 New Orleans." 
 
io 
 
 Xante Marguerite's letter was most 
 kind, certainly ; the inclosure had taken 
 her breath away ; a princely sum re- 
 mained even after the lavish parting 
 gifts to nearly everybody in the neigh- 
 borhood ! But, oh, the longing to go 
 back ! to the shock-headed school-chil- 
 dren ! to the leaky shed-room in the 
 country boarding-house ! even to step- 
 aunt Mitchell's cousin, Louisa Marsh ! 
 
 A sudden darkness succeeded to the 
 pale gleam of the fast-falling twilight. 
 Noel looked up. The train had come 
 to a standstill under a vast iron shed. 
 Passengers were hastily collecting their 
 bags and bundles. The vivacious group 
 of dark-eyed girls were already rustling 
 along the aisle, calling gayly to friends 
 without as they crowded to the plat- 
 form. 
 
 The young girl traveling alone stood 
 up, her pulses jumping painfully. Ma- 
 jor John Steele, carrying his battered 
 
tlie Hitler n 
 
 valise, his umbrella, and his gold-headed 
 cane in one hand, picked up her travel- 
 ling-bag with the other. " Let me assist 
 you," he said courteously. " I am told 
 that we take a ferry-boat here to cross 
 the Mississippi River." He walked on 
 without awaiting a reply ; she followed 
 mechanically, a pitiful sort of smile fro- 
 zen on her quivering lips. " Are you 
 expecting any one ? Will your friends 
 meet you ? " he continued, when he had 
 helped her from the car. 
 
 " Yes, sir." She scanned eagerly the 
 faces of the jostling crowd in the sta- 
 tion. " I am expecting Marcelle " 
 She stopped, blushing in a shamefaced 
 way. It had occurred to her for the first 
 time that she did not know whether Mar- 
 celle were old or young, black or white, 
 man or woman! Marcelle sounded, 
 she thought, like a man's name, but 
 Her companion was already hurrying 
 her down the long flight of steps to the 
 
12 qfyt hieen'$ 
 
 ferry - boat which awaited its passen- 
 gers. 
 
 The mighty river lay apparently mo- 
 tionless under the darkening sky. Only 
 a bit of driftwood swirling by, here and 
 there, betrayed the treacherous under- 
 current at that moment gnawing .away 
 the very point upon which the ferry-land- 
 ing was constructed. The long line of 
 electric lights outlining the great crescent 
 of the opposite shore sparkled like a 
 jeweled chain against a vapory sky, and 
 scintillated brokenly in the dark waters 
 below. A few boats moved softly on 
 the stream ; small craft with noiseless in- 
 visible oars, a steamboat or two trailing 
 long plumes of spark-shotten smoke from 
 their tall chimneys ; and one majestic brig, 
 in tow of a puffing tug, making for her 
 berth against the levee. There was a 
 sense of moonlight in the air, though a 
 bank of cloud hid the waxing moon. 
 Noel stood silent at the major's elbow. 
 
Across t\)t ftiber 13 
 
 " My name," he explained, stooping 
 to her, for he was very tall, and affect- 
 ing not to observe her agitation, "my 
 name is John Henry Steele, late a major 
 in the Confederate States Army." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Noel brightening, " my 
 father was in the army, too. Captain 
 Lepeyre Captain Claude Lepeyre. I 
 am Noel Lepeyre." 
 
 tc So ? " said the major, pleased. " All 
 the better. You will allow me to take 
 care of you the daughter of a comrade- 
 in-arms if Mar if " 
 
 " Marcelle," prompted Noel. " Mar- 
 celle was to meet me on the further side 
 of the river." 
 
 " if Marcelle should not be at the 
 landing. Doubtless he she Mar- 
 celle has been delayed." 
 
 At that moment the boat uttered a 
 groaning protest, trembled and stood still. 
 Noel's heart, which under its temporary 
 respite had become almost tranquil, be- 
 gan to throb again. 
 
14 tER&e fluent's Garten 
 
 "Is there a a person here by the 
 name of Marcelle ? " demanded Major 
 John Steele in a loud and somewhat stern 
 voice, when they had reached the crowded 
 waiting-room. A few people paused to 
 stare in his direction, but no one re- 
 sponded. 
 
 " Is there any one here to meet 
 Miss Lepeyre ? Miss Noel Lepeyre ? " 
 he asked after a moment's silence, 
 glaring around the rapidly emptying 
 room. 
 
 The major damned, under his breath, 
 the criminal negligence of Miss Noel 
 Lepeyre's friends. A girl of nineteen 
 a girl like that ! alone at night in a 
 strange, wicked, devouring city ! By Gad, 
 this Marcelle, devil take him, ought to 
 be strung up to the nearest limb ! But 
 he turned a reassuring face to Miss Le- 
 peyre herself. " Do not be worried, my 
 child," he said. " You have the address 
 of your aunt ? Yes ? Then it is a very 
 
tlje Utter 15 
 
 simple matter. Let me have your check 
 first, so that I may send up your trunk ; 
 then, I will conduct you to Madame 
 Chretien." 
 
Ill 
 
 Cloven 
 
 THE swift flight of the electric 
 car through the dim streets, the 
 loud, insistent clang of its bell, 
 its amazing curves and dangerous dou- 
 blings, disquieted Major Steele almost as 
 much at they did his companion. He 
 sat with closed eyes, a valise on either 
 knee, holding Noel's hand ; and he 
 thanked God aloud when the new-fan- 
 gled coach stopped. The conductor, 
 calling out the name of the street, assist- 
 ed the old man and his charge to alight. 
 "A great advance inlocomotion doubt- 
 less," remarked the major as the car 
 darted away. " But for myself, I prefer 
 a buggy and a pair of mules ! I am not 
 familiar with the city of New Orleens," 
 he continued, picking his way across the 
 granite pavement to the sidewalk, with 
 
spoor 17 
 
 Noel's hand on his arm. cc I have in- 
 deed never been here before. This, I 
 take it, from the foreign names I observe 
 on the signs, is the celebrated French 
 Quarter. He looked around with an in- 
 terest which in truth was wholly feigned. 
 For he was old, the major, and very 
 tired. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Noel, appalled by 
 the forbidding strangeness of the narrow 
 side street, whose peaked roofs seemed 
 almost to meet in the strip of sky above. 
 The standing water in the open gutters 
 nauseated her, the unintelligible chatter 
 of the children swarming the pavements 
 confused her wearied senses. cc Let us 
 go back ! I mean oh, I mean, you 
 must not come out of your way with me, 
 dear Major Steele. I am giving you so 
 much trouble ! I I can find the place 
 by myself I am s-s-sure." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " returned the major 
 decidedly. " Do you think I would 
 
allow such a thing ! It is not tlie least 
 trouble. Besides, I have a granddaughter 
 at home about your age," he added, as 
 if to clinch the matter. 
 
 As they advanced along the street 
 the crowd seemed to thicken. At one 
 corner a barrel-organ, ground by a ragged 
 negro lad, was wheezing forth a melan- 
 choly tune ; a dozen or more children 
 danced gayly to the music ; a few paces 
 further on, a couple of men stationed 
 like sentinels before a closed door which 
 gave directly upon the sidewalk, were 
 good-humoredly returning the jeers and 
 taunts of the gang of gamins, of both 
 sexes and divers colors, surrounding 
 them. A small parti-colored flag flut- 
 tered from the lintel of the door, just 
 above their heads. The old Confeder- 
 ate officer stopped a second to peer at 
 this unknown pennon, which perhaps 
 evoked memories of another, unforgot- 
 ten, rag of bunting ; but at a half whis- 
 
Cloaca s>oor 19 
 
 pered explanation from one of the senti- 
 nels, he uttered a horrified ejaculation 
 and hurried his companion forward. 
 
 The house they sought was but half 
 a square away. The ponderous wooden 
 door was shut. The tall brick building, 
 with its drawn shutters and grilled bal- 
 conies, had the air of a prison. Major 
 * Steele hesitated as he laid a hand upon 
 the huge iron knocker. " I can take you 
 to some friends of my own, Miss Noel," 
 he suggested tentatively, " at least until 
 to-morrow. Would you not prefer 
 this ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, no," she cried hysterically : 
 " See, here is her name on the door-plate. 
 Madame Anatole Chretien. Madame 
 Chretien is my father's sister my own 
 aunt." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know." The reverber- 
 ating echo of the knock, thrice repeated, 
 brought the pack of gamins to the spot. 
 They looked on curiously while Ma- 
 
20 t&ty ^iueen'0 
 
 jor Steele listened and knocked, and 
 knocked and listened again. Noel 
 stared with fascinated eyes at the gro- 
 tesque face which grinned at her from 
 the knocker. 
 
 "This is Sunday, you know, my 
 child," the major remarked at length, 
 desisting and turning to her. " Doubt- 
 less the servants are all out." But, as 
 he spoke, the sound of a falling bar was 
 heard within, a bolt shot aside, the small 
 wicket, set like a trap-door in one of the 
 green batten valves of the portal, was 
 opened cautiously, and a woman's voice 
 demanded querulously, 
 
 " Qu'est-ce que c'est, que 9a ? Qui 
 est la ? " 
 
 " Comment 9a va, Madame la Gro- 
 gneuse ! Ah, ah, Marcelle ! vieille sor- 
 ciere ! Va-t-en ! Va-t-en ! yelled the 
 gamins, dancing in a body to the thresh- 
 old of the door, and rushing back into 
 the street, 
 
3L Closeft Door 21 
 
 " Oh," breathed Noel, with a sigh of 
 relief, hearing the now familiar name. 
 " It is Marcelle " 
 
 " Marcelle, judging by the voice, is a 
 woman," interjected the major, not fully 
 satisfied. 
 
 "It is I, Marcelle! Noel, Noel 
 Lepeyre ; Madame Chretien's niece." 
 
 " Grand Dieu ! Je 1'avais oubliee ! " 
 Marcelle thrust her face through the 
 opening; a wrinkled yellow face, framed 
 in a lofty tignon, with deep-set yellow- 
 brown eyes and overhanging brows. 
 Major Steele's anxious brow cleared ; the 
 respectable old family servant was un- 
 mistakable. Noel was already shaking 
 his hand gayly. " Good-by, Major 
 Steele ; good-by, dear Major Steele. 
 You have been so good to me. I shall 
 never forget you, never ! " 
 
 The major looked at her a little wist- 
 fully over his shoulder, as he trudged 
 away, limping, bent, and travel-worn. 
 
22 
 
 Her light figure was poised, butterfly- 
 like, on the threshold of the wide door. 
 She was gazing with eager eyes before 
 her, and into her own new life. " Even 
 now she has forgotten me ! " he sighed. 
 " Heigho ! it is the way of youth." 
 
 He entered an electric car, too weary 
 to be apprehensive of its rocket-like 
 vagaries, and sank into a corner. 
 
 Marcel] e had drawn back her head. 
 She seemed about to shut the wicket in 
 the intruder's face. But Noel forestalled 
 her by stepping over the high sill into 
 the corridor. 
 
IV 
 
 THE old mulattress closed the 
 door and put the huge iron 
 bar in its place. Meantime, 
 Noel's eyes sought to pierce the gloom 
 about her. The tunnel-like corridor 
 was wide and high ; a small stream, of 
 water ran in a shallow groove along the 
 middle of the stone pavement, glinting 
 like- a silver thread at the farther end 
 where the corridor opened into a gar- 
 den-close filled with pale moonlight. 
 A far-away musical sound as of falling 
 spray echoed along the raftered ceiling 
 and mingled with the confused noises 
 of the street outside. Noel, following 
 her mute conductress, caught, as she 
 drew near the court, a glimmer of star- 
 like blossoms among the sombre masses 
 of foliage there ; and inhaled the subtle 
 
24 W$t flkueen's 
 
 scent of night - blooming jessamine, 
 which pervaded the warm air. 
 
 At the foot of the wide sweep of stair 
 which led into the arched hall, Marcelle 
 paused. " I h'ask the pardon of mam- 
 selle," she said, speaking for the first 
 time in intelligible though quaint and 
 stiff English ; " I have forgot to go to 
 that r-rell-r-road, me. I am desolated. 
 Mon Dieu ! how madame will be en- 
 r-rage ' ! You have voyaged alone in that 
 r-rell-r-road, Mamselle Noel ? Ees eet 
 that you have no femme de chambre ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Noel, smiling, " I came 
 alone ! " 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! Quelle 
 imprudence ! An' me, I have forgot 
 that r-rell-r-road ! " 
 
 cc Oh, it did not matter at all, your 
 not meeting me," interrupted Noel 
 kindly. " I had no trouble getting 
 here ; there was the nicest old gentle- 
 man I will explain to my aunt " 
 
25 
 
 A curious spasm passed over Mar- 
 celle's face. She stepped hastily back ; 
 for a second it seemed to Noel that the 
 old servitor, conscience-stricken perhaps, 
 and dreading the wrath of her mistress, 
 was meditating flight. But after a help- 
 less glance around, she brushed past the 
 young girl and led the way up the stair. 
 In the lighted vestibule she paused 
 again. " You are hongree, Mamselle 
 Noel ? You will come in the salle-a- 
 manger ? " 
 
 "Is my aunt is Madame Chretien 
 there?" Noel frowned slightly as she 
 put the question. A half-formed fear 
 of her guide began to assail her. 
 
 " No, Mamselle Noel, Madame 
 Chretien ees een hair baid " 
 
 Her " 
 
 " Hair baid, mamselle. Since to- 
 day she ees a leetle seeck." 
 
 "Oh ! " Noel's voice was full of dis- 
 may. " My aunt is sick ? She is in 
 
26 
 
 bed ? Then take me to her. At once, 
 Marcelle." 
 
 " Pardon, mamselle. Madame has 
 not yet hear' that you have arrive'. I 
 will tell hair. She will be emotioned. 
 But she has order me al-r-ready to say 
 that she will res-ceive mamselle, hair 
 niece, to-morrow." 
 
 Marcelle' s voice was respectful, but 
 firm. 
 
 Noel's vague fear increased. What 
 if this meagre, weazened, yellow old crea- 
 ture were one of those wicked enchan- 
 tresses of whom she had read? One of 
 those voodoo witches who tole young 
 girls to destruction. She dared not fol- 
 low her impulse to cry out, but she 
 moved slowly, with her eyes fixed warily 
 upon the spare figure before her, ready 
 to turn and flee at the slightest doubtful 
 word or gesture. Marcelle threw open 
 the door of a large brilliantly lighted 
 room, and stood aside, motioning the 
 
Wirijin 27 
 
 guest, or interloper ? to enter. On the 
 threshold, where she halted trembling, 
 Noel's fears instantly vanished. The 
 first object which met her roving glance 
 was a portrait of her own father. It hung, 
 wreathed with fresh flowers, above the 
 carved mantel ; the lighted candelabra 
 below were veiled with softly tinted 
 shades. The dark, delicate face smiled 
 down at her in tender greeting, as from 
 a rosy aureole. 
 
 " Oh, Marcelle ! " breathed the girl, 
 with a quick gush of happy tears. 
 
 The small table, daintily laid for two, 
 was also adorned with roses. cc Madame 
 has h'arrange' those rose hairself," ex- 
 plained Marcelle, her manner beginning 
 to lose something of its studied formal- 
 ity. " Also, madame has had the inten- 
 tion to dine with mamselle ; but thees 
 indisposition, oh, jus' a bagatelle of 
 a migraine, oh, but no'sing to tr-rouble 
 mamselle" 
 
28 
 
 " I am so sorry/' cried Noel. " I wish 
 I might see her. For one moment, Mar- 
 celle?" 
 
 " Non ! Non ! Madame hairself has 
 forbeed mamselle to h'approach hair 
 baid," the mulattress returned hastily. 
 "You will h' excuse me, Mamselle Noel," 
 she added with more composure, " eef I 
 go to breeng yo' dinner ? The domesteek 
 have all depart, since to-day cochons, 
 imbeciles, tetes de choux ! " She re- 
 lapsed suddenly into her native tongue, 
 shaking her turbaned head wrathfully ; 
 the great hoops of gold in her ears beat- 
 ing her cheeks. 
 
 " Do not trouble about me at all, 
 Marcelle," besought Noel, sitting down 
 to her soup. " I am sure my aunt must 
 need you. And I am used to waiting 
 on myself." 
 
 " Merci, mamselle." Marcelle's se- 
 vere face had relaxed, though her eyes 
 were sombre and unsmiling. Neverthe- 
 
Within 29 
 
 less, she remained to serve the appetizing 
 meal with an elaborate ceremony quite 
 startling to Noel's country-bred eyes. 
 Then, with a murmured " Pan/0#," she 
 went away. 
 
 Noel heard, or thought she heard, 
 the sound of voices somewhere in the 
 house ; one raised in surprised expos- 
 tulation, the other humbly explanatory. 
 But these soon died away into silence. 
 She pushed her chair back from the 
 flower-laden table and looked with un- 
 disguised curiosity about the room. 
 She had eaten with the healthy appetite 
 of the young ; not too much disturbed, 
 to say truth, by the slight indisposition 
 of that mysterious unseen Number 
 Four ! 
 
 Ah, here was the portrait of Number 
 Four hanging on the opposite wall, 
 Marguerite Chretien, by the lettered 
 legend on the frame. But, how beau- 
 tiful ! A slender dark-eyed girl, in a stiff 
 
30 
 
 white satin gown with low corsage and 
 full sleeves, heavy with pearl embroidery. 
 A rope of milk-white pearls melted into 
 her white neck ; she had a red rose in 
 her dusky hair. How strange that papa 
 had never spoken to her, Noel, of this 
 beautiful Marguerite Chretien, his only 
 sister ! 
 
 But stay ! Little by little there began 
 to dawn on Noel's memory fragments 
 of the stories he used to tell her the 
 wide-eyed child on his knee. One story 
 in particular, known to father and daugh- 
 ter as the Fairy Story, had in it an old 
 enchanted palace, with vine-hung bal- 
 conies and winding stairs ; and a moon- 
 lit garden-close, where all manner of 
 strange and lovely trees, and shrubs, 
 and flowers grew. And there was a 
 Toung )ueen who glided about the stately 
 Palace and along the gar den walks, beau- 
 tiful, wayward, and fateful, La Reine 
 Margot. 
 
31 
 
 " Claude, thy father, was used to call 
 me La Reine Margot," quoted Noel 
 from Madame Chretien's letter, breath- 
 less with this discovery. " Did you 
 know my father, Marcelle ? " she de- 
 manded of the mulattress who had en- 
 tered noiselessly. 
 
 " Eef I know M'sieu Claude ! But 
 yes, mamselle, from an eenfant. M'sieu 
 Claude has been born in thees 'ouse. 
 He was a joli garon, M'sieu Claude. 
 But me, I have been the bonne of Mam- 
 selle Marguerite. At the cradle ; at the 
 schoolroom ; at the marriage ; at the 
 death of m'sieu, hair husband, at the 
 tomb of hair h'only son oh, but these 
 feefty year, I have been at the side of 
 madame ! " 
 
 The brown shapely hand holding the 
 silver candlestick trembled so that the 
 flame of the lighted candle wavered to 
 and fro. 
 
 " Is is she worse ? Is my aunt 
 
32 
 
 very ill ? " Noel, disturbed by an un- 
 dertone in Marcelle's voice, drew nearer 
 and clasped her arm. 
 
 " Mais, non, non ! Eet ees no'sing, 
 mon Dieu, no'sing at all." She shook 
 off the light clasp almost angrily. " Will 
 you come to yo' chambre a coucher, 
 Mamselle Noel ? " 
 
 She moved rapidly away across the 
 great arched hall and up the broad stair. 
 Noel ran lightly after her. 
 
 The bedchamber on the upper floor 
 was a large one. Noel, left alone in it, 
 looked rather sleepily about her. She 
 was surprised to see her shabby little 
 trunk, unstrapped, in a corner ; and her 
 traveling-bag open on a chair. Her 
 simple toilet articles had been unpacked 
 and arranged on the dressing-table. A 
 dainty night-robe, smelling of dried rose- 
 leaves, lay across the foot of the bed ; 
 a pair of tiny bedroom slippers were 
 placed on the floor below. Noel, comb- 
 
33 
 
 ing out her long hair, experienced a lux- 
 urious sensation quite new to her. cc As 
 if I really possessed that mythical maid 
 that femme de chambre." She laughed, 
 imitating, and not unsuccessfully, Mar- 
 celle's long-drawn accent. She fell half 
 asleep on her knees in an attempt to say 
 her prayers, roused herself to wonder 
 over the carved steps leading up to the 
 stately four-posted, canopied bed, lifted 
 the lace netting, sprang into the white 
 lavendered nest, reached out a hand to 
 extinguish the light on the little table 
 de nuit, and fell instantly into dreamless 
 slumber. 
 
NOEL awoke with a start ; her 
 heart was throbbing unaccount- 
 ably. She sat up in bed and 
 peered with sleep-distraught eyes through 
 the mosquito-bar. Its misty folds con- 
 fused her; the little statuette of the 
 Virgin above the benitier on the wall, 
 seen through them, reminded her vaguely 
 of the heaven of her childish dreams, 
 with its clouds and its harping angels. A 
 tender dawnlight filled the room, and for 
 one moment the silence was profound. 
 Then there came again the sound which 
 had pierced her slumber a smothered 
 wail, half pain, half anger, like the cry of 
 a wounded animal. Noel, accustomed 
 to lend a hand in all family emergencies, 
 threw up the netting and leaped to the 
 floor. She opened the door and ran 
 
35 
 
 along the outer hall, flashing like a white 
 spirit through its gloom ; and descended 
 the stair to the broad landing. There 
 she paused, grasping the balustrade with 
 one hand, and leaned over, gazing down 
 into the vestibule below. The sight 
 which met her eyes fairly froze the blood 
 in her veins. Marcelle was crouched in 
 a kneeling posture against the wall ; 
 her long skinny arms, bare to the shoul- 
 der, were raised above her head ; her 
 face under the dim light of the hall 
 lamp was drawn and distorted. She 
 rocked herself from side to side in a par- 
 oxysm of grief, or anger, uttering from 
 time to time those crieswhich had aroused 
 the sleeping girl. 
 
 But the three figures standing near 
 her, menacing her with signs and harsh 
 whispers ! what were they ? To Noel's 
 frightened imagination they had the 
 appearance of spectres, or ghouls ! in 
 their long yellowish white robes ; and 
 
36 
 
 their strange head-coverings, which were 
 drawn across the lower part of their faces, 
 leaving visible only their angry and 
 threatening eyes ; visions of the Holy 
 Inquisition and its terrible emissaries 
 darted through her brain. A sinister 
 silence followed the hoarse whisperings. 
 Noel stared down with distended eyes, 
 her lips parted, her hand pressed against 
 her bosom. Suddenly, the mulattress, 
 glancing up, saw her ; she sprang to her 
 feet and called out, gesticulating with 
 frantic arms. Noel understood neither 
 the words nor the gesture. She con- 
 tinued to stand, paralyzed by terror, on 
 the landing, her slender form in its snowy 
 night-gear trembling from head to foot. 
 But a figure detached itself from the 
 shadows of a recess where the pale dawn 
 struggled with the yellow rays of the 
 hanging lamp the figure of a man, 
 Noel saw his face imperfectly ; she re- 
 membered it afterward the thin, dark, 
 
Apparitions 37 
 
 benignant face with its white beard and 
 gray hair. But at sight of him, a human 
 being like herself, the blood flowed once 
 more to her face, her feet were loosened, 
 and without even hearing his stern order, 
 " Back ! Go back to your room. At 
 once ! " she fled precipitately to her 
 chamber, where she fell half fainting 
 upon her bed. 
 
 A long time after she had hardly 
 dared to breathe, but cowered shivering 
 under the bedclothes there was a 
 knock at her door, peremptorily re- 
 peated ; it was accompanied by a low 
 voice which she recognized as Marcelle's. 
 " It is I, Mamselle Noel. Come." Noel's 
 relief was not unmixed with apprehen- 
 sion. But she arose resolutely and un- 
 bolted and threw open the door. There 
 was no one in sight. As she drew back, 
 Marcelle spoke again ; she was standing 
 some half a dozen paces away, in the 
 embrasure of a hall window. Her face 
 
38 
 
 still showed signs of agitation, but her 
 voice was quite steady. 
 
 " Listen, Mamselle Noel, eef you 
 please," she began without further pre- 
 liminary. " Madame Chretien has that 
 fiev'" la fievre jaune. She was souf- 
 frante yesterday, pauvre enfant ; an' she 
 has been afraid eetwas that yellow fiev'. 
 Eet ees for thees that she has forbeed 
 hairself to see mamselle last night. Ah, 
 but Mamselle Noel, how madame has 
 desire to hold you in hair arm ! How 
 she has thought but of you seense that 
 letter has arrive' ! The flower and the 
 fraicheur everywhere, they are of hair 
 hand. How she is gentille, ce pauvre 
 ange ! " 
 
 Marcelle's hard voice melted with in- 
 describable softness. " Eh bien, Mam- 
 selle Noel, she has that yellow fiev'. 
 Those doctor have arrive'. They have 
 h'examine. They have con-suit'. They 
 have pronounce'. They are imbeciles, 
 
Apparitions? 39 
 
 in those linen duster which make h'every- 
 body afraid. Me, I did not desire those 
 doctor. Have I not nurse that yellow 
 fiev' ? Ees eet that I do not know the 
 tisanes for that fiev' ? But no. They 
 have pronounce*. They have nail a flag 
 on the door; they have place' some 
 guard there, so that nobody may enter 
 in that door, or go out in that street. 
 They have sen' a tr-r-enn-nurse. Yes. 
 As eef Marcelle ees not acquaint' with 
 that yellow fiev' ! As eef m'sieu, the 
 husband of Madame Chretien, has not 
 die of that fiev' in these arm ! Hein ! " 
 
 She stretched out her arms, uttering 
 an indignant snarl. But instantly re- 
 turning to her calmer tone, she pro- 
 ceeded rapidly to indicate the course of 
 conduct prescribed for her young kins- 
 woman by Madame Chretien herself, on 
 reading in the faces of the physicians the 
 confirmation of her own fears. 
 
 Mademoiselle Lepeyre, being, un- 
 
40 tTOfje 
 
 fortunately, already in the house, could 
 not leave it until all danger of infection 
 was past, without incurring the penalty 
 of the law. Neither mistress nor maid 
 had foreseen this in time, though Mar- 
 celle took heaven to witness that she had 
 felt inspired to shut the door in Mam- 
 selle Noel's face ! The other servants 
 had fled at the first suspicion of danger. 
 According to madame's orders, Noel 
 was to remain in that quarter of the 
 house where she now was. This part 
 of the large mansion, separated from the 
 apartment of Madame Chretien by a 
 broad transverse hall, contained, besides 
 Noel's bedchamber, the dining-room, 
 the salon, and the boudoir of the mis- 
 tress of the house. Mamselle Noel 
 might visit these at will ; she could also 
 descend into the garden at her pleasure ; 
 she must, however, beware of the night 
 dews. A trained nurse was in attend- 
 ance upon the patient, but Marcelle 
 
41 
 
 would be permitted pairmeet, mon 
 Dieu ! to go in and out of the sick room. 
 The other domestics having departed, 
 she, Marcelle, would prepare the food of 
 Mamselle Noel and of that tr-r-enn- 
 nurse. But le docteur Grafton had 
 ordered that Mamselle Lepeyre, being 
 totally unacclimated, should come in 
 contact with no one, not even Marcelle, 
 who had had the fever oh, but yaas, 
 in '57, when the fievre jaune was the 
 fiev' ! Therefore mamselle would have 
 the goodness to fix, on the spot, the 
 hours most agreeable for her early coffee, 
 her breakfast, and her dinner. She would 
 find these promptly on the table in the 
 dining-room. Unhappily, mamselle 
 would have to serve herself pigs, im- 
 beciles, cabbage-heads of cooks and 
 maids ! Seven, twelve, and five o'clock ? 
 Tres bien. At the service of mamselle. 
 Also, the chambre a coucher of Mam- 
 selle Noel would be set in order during 
 
42 Wqt fflhieen's fatten 
 
 her temporary absences. All this ma- 
 dame herself had arranged, though burn- 
 ing with fever. It must be carried out 
 au pied de la lettre since madame could 
 no longer 
 
 A dry sob shook the old woman's 
 bosom as she concluded her rapid ha- 
 rangue. She stepped from the window- 
 nook and turned away. 
 
 " But/' cried Noel, running after her, 
 and shrinking back again at Marcelle's 
 stern gesture, " but, Marcelle, wait. 
 Listen. I am not afraid. I have 
 nursed a great many sick people already. 
 One little child, who died on my knee ! 
 I am not afraid ! I must see my aunt. 
 I wish to nurse her myself. Take me 
 to her, now. Now !" 
 
 Marcelle almost smiled at the impe- 
 rious tone. "You are not h'allow', 
 mamselle. Madame has give hair order, 
 they are of iron. You will be h'alone, 
 true. But eet will be but for some 
 
43 
 
 days," she added, rather to herself than 
 to her listener. 
 
 cc I do not mind being alone/ 1 cried 
 Noel. "I am used to that! But 
 surely I may see her! I may at least 
 see her ? " 
 
 " Those order of Madame Chretien, 
 they are of iron," repeated Marcelle 
 monotonously. 
 
 "Then, how am I to know how she 
 is?" 
 
 " With the morning coffee of mam- 
 selle at which, helas, she must serve 
 hairself pigs, imbeciles, cabbage- 
 heads of maids ! she will res-ceive the 
 news of madame. Also, there ees a 
 bell in the salle-a-manger. Mamselle 
 can communicate eef absolument ne- 
 cessary. But not otherwise. I have 
 forgot!" Marcelle turned back once 
 more to add, " Mamselle Noel will find 
 in hair armoire that trousseau which 
 Madame Chretien has prepare'. Ma- 
 
44 Wqt hieen' fatten 
 
 dame Chretien has order' hair niece to 
 wear those robe. C'est tout, mamselle." 
 
 Noel listened to her retreating foot- 
 steps ; they echoed down the long stair- 
 way and died away in the silence below. 
 She did not as yet realize the strangeness 
 of her situation. She even laughed a 
 little, remembering the precise phrase- 
 ology of Madame Chretien's femme de 
 chambre, as she swallowed the cup of 
 fragrant black coffee from the tray be- 
 side her doorsill. Then she felt a pang 
 of remote, intangible pity for the woman 
 lying sick in another part of the house ; 
 then a procession filed swiftly through 
 her brain, and vanished, leaving her 
 heartsick a ghostly procession of 
 guardians and warders, which began with 
 the shadowy figure of her father, and 
 ended with step-aunt Mitchell lying in 
 her coffin-bed, white and placid, and 
 at last still. 
 
 But the heartache passed like the 
 
apparitions? 45 
 
 procession. She felt buoyant in spite 
 of herself. She no longer wished to go 
 back to step-aunt Mitchell's cousin, 
 Louisa Marsh ! 
 
 She crept again into bed, and notwith- 
 standing a ray of sunlight which struck 
 full upon her closed eyelids, she fell 
 asleep once more. 
 
VI 
 
 TO Noel Lepeyre, accustomed to 
 the cramped shed - room to 
 girlhood consecrated in west 
 Texas, her bedchamber in Madame 
 Chretien's city house appeared almost 
 awesomely imposing. The furnishings 
 were quaint and old-fashioned. There 
 was a Psyche dressing-table draped with 
 dotted muslin ; and a cheval glass, much 
 spotted and discolored within its heavy 
 carved frame. A bronze clock, silent 
 and sombre on the mantel, bore the date 
 of the first French Empire. There were 
 a tall rosewood secretary, a claw-footed 
 centre-table, and a high-backed chair 
 with an embroidered footstool before it. 
 A prie-dieu with faded brocade cush- 
 ions occupied one recess ; a spindle- 
 legged lamp-stand stood in another. 
 
47 
 
 Some quite modern silver toilet articles 
 were scattered about the dressing-table, 
 her own, looking quite homely and 
 shamed, among them. These, Noel 
 discovered upon a closer examination, 
 bore her own monogram, surmounted 
 by a small crest. The slender crystal 
 vases on the table were filled with roses ; 
 the white muslin curtains were looped 
 with fresh ribbons. All the repressed 
 girlhood within Noel Lepeyre, with its 
 instinctive love for pretty and dainty 
 things, bubbled to the surface. She 
 danced across the bare polished floor, 
 which reflected her figure like a still 
 mountain-lake, to the swinging cheval 
 glass. She surveyed herself, white from 
 head to foot in an embroidered muslin 
 gown from the overflowing armoire. 
 " Ah, Noel ! Noel ! " she laughed. " No 
 more Black Days, Noel. The White 
 Days are come, Noel, Noel ! " 
 
 She took a peep, in passing, from the 
 
48 Wqt ffllumi'tf 
 
 tall embrasured window in the hall, at 
 the garden, lying dewy-green in the early 
 morning shadows far below, and made 
 her way on down the stair into the break- 
 fast-room. Some quite unknown dishes 
 gave out an appetizing odor from the 
 small table set out with rare china and 
 priceless crystal, and there were strange 
 fruits golden, tropical, shapely 
 heaped on^a silver salver beside her 
 plate. She nibbled at these with tenta- 
 tive tooth, and pushed the mangoes aside 
 with a wry face. " You are laughing at 
 me, M'sieu Claude Lepeyre !" she cried, 
 nodding at her father's portrait ; " and 
 you ought to be ashamed of yourself. 
 Mon Dieu, I have not been born in thees 
 'ouse, like you ! And me, I am not 
 h'acquaint with those yellow fruit ! " 
 And, pleased by her own mimicry of 
 Marcelle's quaint speech, she rose and 
 whirled about the room, humming a 
 waltz tune under her breath, and hold- 
 ing out her diaphanous skirts. 
 
49 
 
 From the region beyond the wide 
 dividing hall, where Madame Chretien 
 lay, already battling for her life, no sound 
 came not a hushed echo, nor a muf- 
 fled footfall. Noel gave hardly so much 
 as a thought to that undiscovered 
 country. The sense of physical well- 
 being a consciousness of luxury, of 
 soft ease, of refinement of surroundings, 
 undreamed of hitherto in her tempest- 
 tossed young life enveloped her like an 
 aura ; airy visions, impalpable yet in- 
 toxicating, wheeled and circled within it. 
 " White Days, oh, Noel, White Days ! " 
 she whispered, slipping daintily, and like 
 a Lady of the Olden Tyme, down the 
 stairway into the garden. 
 
 The large courtyard a veritable gar- 
 den-close lay in the very heart of the 
 city-block, a warrant of the influence of 
 the Lepeyres under the French colonial 
 regime. One passing along the cobble- 
 
50 Wqt &ueen'$ 
 
 stoned street outside would never have 
 suspected its existence ; a stranger enter- 
 ing it unaware from the shadowy corridor 
 must have stood still, as Noel now did, 
 in an ecstasy of amazement and delight 
 at sight of it. The three-storied stuc- 
 coed brick mansion, with innumerable 
 little balconies with wrought-iron railings 
 jutting from its fa9ade, formed the outer 
 barrier of the quadrangle. There were 
 high inclosing brick walls to right and 
 left. A two-storied detached building 
 with wide in-facing galleries ran across 
 the rear end. An enormous wistaria- 
 vine covered the wall on the left, and 
 reaching up a gnarled fist grasped an 
 iron grille which separated the upper 
 gallery of the rear wing from a similar 
 galleried building on the other side of 
 the wall. Save for this building, and a 
 cluster of fantastic purple dormer-win- 
 dowed roofs high up on the right, Noel 
 could see nothing which suggested the 
 
5 1 
 
 teeming ilet surrounding the sheltered 
 garden. A fountain played in the sun- 
 shine near the centre of the court ; two 
 tall moss-grown cisterns with peaked 
 covers stood, one behind the other, in 
 one corner ; a Moorish water-jar with 
 bulging sides was placed in the shade of a 
 clump of bananas near the mouth of the 
 corridor. There were iron benches, 
 painted a vivid green, placed here and 
 there ; one under an orange-tree, another 
 beneath a pillared arcade where a Moor- 
 ish lamp hung, suspended by linked iron 
 chains from the ceiling ; a third almost 
 within the banana clump. The Septem- 
 ber sun flooded the court with dazzling 
 light ; the air was sweet with intermingled 
 perfumes ; there was a hum of drowsy 
 bees, a flutter of darting butterflies, an 
 occasional crooning call from a bird 
 hidden somewhere in the dense foliage. 
 Noel sat down on the bench beneath 
 the orange-tree. She had never seen an 
 
5 2 
 
 orange-tree bearer of bridal blossoms, 
 bringer of luscious fruit ! and she re- 
 mained ignorantly indifferent to the 
 glossy canopy above her head, while her 
 eyes roved eagerly about, taking note of 
 other trees and shrubs. A stately mag- 
 nolia caught and held the sunlight on 
 its broad stiff leaves in a most wonder- 
 ful fashion. There were a couple of 
 scraggy sweet olives, which the stranger 
 disdained, not yet in touch with their 
 insignificant but precious tufts of yel- 
 lowish white flowers ; and an opoponax, 
 with feathery branches tossing lightly in 
 the river breeze. A row of crape myrtle- 
 trees pressed against the south wall their 
 bushy spheres of crinkled white and red. 
 Marvelous ! Noel leaned her head 
 against the scarred trunk of the orange- 
 tree. Narrow walks flagged with stone 
 ran in and out among the luxuriant 
 flower-beds. She saw, in the soft si- 
 lence, with wide open, dreaming eyes, 
 
53 
 
 beautiful ladies in the powder and 
 patches, the hooped petticoats and 
 red-heeled slippers of a past day, 
 gliding about those wandering paths ; 
 they were attended by cavaliers in silken 
 coats, flowered waistcoats, and knee- 
 breeches. La Reine Margot, with white 
 pearls melting into her white neck, came 
 after them, " the most beautiful young 
 Queen that ever was." And with her, 
 why surely, Papa ! She sat up, plea- 
 santly excited. For here, beyond all 
 doubt, was none other than the Queen's 
 Garden of that old Fairy Story which 
 Claude Lepeyre had never wearied of 
 telling to the child upon his knee ; and 
 Noel had never wearied of hearing. 
 
 Then, where was that Spanish dag- 
 ger-tree upon whose spiked leaves the 
 Prince from Beyond the Wall wrote his 
 name with the point of his sword 
 for a token to La Reine Margot ? She 
 sprang up and looked around. The 
 
54 tEItye iuem'$ Garten 
 
 dagger-tree, which in the Fairy Story 
 "stood every which way for Sunday" was 
 huddled up against the crooked stair 
 leading up the galleried wing ! She flew 
 to it. It was in bloom out of season 
 as often happens with the dagger- 
 tree. A great cone of white bells 
 topped one of the bayoneted branches. 
 The sunlight filtering through the trans- 
 lucent bells gave them a cool water- 
 green look from below. Noel searched 
 breathlessly among the sharp-pointed 
 spikes, hoping to find pricked upon one 
 of them, with the point of the Prince's 
 sword, his token to the Queen. There 
 were letters upon two or three old 
 rusty initials, whose owners, Noel 
 thought, must long ago have perished 
 from the earth. She made out, on one 
 thick, stiff pike, the letters, A. G. 
 They had spread with the growth of 
 the leaf into grotesque caricatures of 
 letters. And they seemed to have 
 
55 
 
 been pricked with a blacksmith's nail, 
 rather than with the point of a Damas- 
 cus blade ! 
 
 Noel abandoned the quest. She 
 would have plucked one of the waxen 
 green-white blossoms, but the spears 
 rose formidably about them. " The 
 dagger guards his treasures/' she said 
 aloud, nodding her head wisely. At 
 that moment a pape whirred past her 
 shoulder and darted into the thicket of 
 spears to join his crooning mate there. 
 
 " Ah, Love has found out the way ! " 
 she cried lightly, as one who has as yet 
 no knowledge or fear of the great 
 Mystery ; " Love has found out the 
 way ! " 
 
 She returned to her seat on the iron 
 bench. Wonderful ! the old garden- 
 close ! its light and shade and color, the 
 fall of its fountain spray, its silence and 
 repose. 
 
 ff The Gate is locked and the key is lost, 
 I 'm in this Lady's Garden ! " 
 
56 
 
 Noel sang the snatch of an old danse 
 en ronde at the top of her clear young 
 voice ; but checked herself with a re- 
 morseful glance at an upper window of 
 the mansion, where she had caught a 
 fleeting glimpse of a nurse's white cap, 
 " Poor Tante Marguerite ! " she sighed 
 carelessly. 
 
 " It is like Beauty and the Beast," 
 she mused that night, standing before 
 the cheval glass again, and again smiling 
 at her own white-robed image there. 
 " This is the enchanted Palace. There 
 must be a Prince commanding the in- 
 visible spirits who cook my food, gather 
 flowers for my room, let down the lace- 
 netting over my bed, and lay out lovely 
 new garments for my wearing ! I should 
 like to tell my school-children at home 
 about it all ! Some night I shall lay my 
 ring on the dressing-table. But not 
 yet ; oh, not yet ! " 
 
VII 
 
 THERE was a slip of thin rustly 
 paper tucked in the bunch of 
 white roses beside Noel's plate 
 the next morning. She read the mes- 
 sage it contained, while she sipped her 
 coffee : " Madame Chretien finds herself 
 better." 
 
 " Then I sfiall see her soon/' she 
 thought, with a distinct pang of disap- 
 pointment. She was glad, certainly, 
 that Madame Chretien found herself 
 better. But she could not define the 
 source of that but which all at once made 
 her dejected and disquieted. Her ap- 
 petite vanished. She leaned her head 
 on her hand and stared moodily at the 
 dewy roses. 
 
 She arose impetuously. " Can it be 
 that I am not glad that Tante Marguer- 
 
5 8 
 
 ite is getting well ? Surely, it is not 
 that I do not wish to see my dear father's 
 only sister ! Tante Marguerite, who 
 has come like an angel into my starved 
 life ! It is not that she is stern ; that 
 her orders are of iron ! Have I not 
 had great-aunt Harlowe ? " She laughed 
 whimsically in spite of her distress. 
 " What is it ? what is it ? " She almost 
 wrung her hands as she asked herself 
 these questions which she was quite un- 
 able to answer. One more experienced 
 in the psychology of the emotions would 
 have found the solution readily enough. 
 The dragon-fly just escaped from the 
 chrysalis would have served as an illus- 
 tration trying its wings for the first 
 time, giddy with a sense of freedom, and 
 loath to alight ! But Noel had never 
 studied the emotions. She had had 
 so few herself hardly any, in fact, ex- 
 cept a dumb acquiescence in the loss of 
 one benefactor, and a dread of the next ; 
 
59 
 
 an uncomplaining self-adjustment to 
 new drudgeries ; a brave acceptance of 
 new phases of poverty. Her escape 
 from the chrysalis-shell had been too 
 sudden for instant realization. What 
 she desired unconsciously was a 
 short hour in which to breathe and ex- 
 pand a little before creeping back into 
 the cramped envelope for of course 
 she must creep back the moment an- 
 other aunt appeared in bodily form ! 
 
 "It is because I am selfish pig, 
 imbecile, cabbage-head of a Noel that I 
 am ! But I will go to her. Oh, at 
 once ! I will go to her at once." 
 
 She rushed across the hall and turned 
 the knob of the door which barred the 
 way to Madame Chretien's apartment. 
 Her face expressed involuntary relief. 
 The door was locked. 
 
 She returned to the dining-room and 
 breakfasted gayly. " At any rate it is 
 not for to-day," she exclaimed, with 
 reckless philosophy. 
 
6o tflfre flkueen'g 
 
 A door, hitherto closed, leading from 
 the salle-a-manger into a stately drawing- 
 room stood open. It had evidently 
 been left open purposely. Noel stepped 
 over the threshold and halted for some 
 seconds trying to accustom her eyes to 
 the semi-obscurity within. Then she 
 looked around eagerly expecting, she 
 knew not what. A funereal atmosphere 
 pervaded the dim vastness. The an- 
 tique furniture, cumbrous, obsolete, and 
 handsome, which would have made the 
 mouth of a collector water with longing 
 desire, repelled the country-bred young 
 girl. The priceless pictures on the walls 
 were wellnigh meaningless to her un- 
 educated eyes ; great dark forest land- 
 scapes, peopled with fleeing nymphs 
 and pursuing gods ; Greek temples once 
 white, now fallen yellow and cracked on 
 their wooded heights; sallow martyrs, 
 blue-mantled virgins, sombre cruci- 
 fixions. 
 
6 1 
 
 A rumble of street noises the rattle 
 of wheels over uneven stones, the cries 
 of street venders, shrill laughter, the 
 echo of high-keyed voices came in 
 through the closed front windows. 
 Noel essayed to throw up a sash and 
 look out, but all the sashes were im- 
 movable in their frames. She desisted 
 and brushed the dust from her white 
 gown. She felt, indeed, but a mild cu- 
 riosity concerning the street as she re- 
 membered it close, narrow, swarming 
 with strange peoples. How long ago 
 it seemed, that Sunday night ! How 
 remote her association with Major John 
 Steele, dear old man ! 
 
 Besides, the garden was calling her, 
 drawing her, wooing her to its perfumed 
 silence, its sunlighted repose ! She 
 picked up a book which was lying on 
 one of the dust-clad buhl tables, and 
 went down the stair. 
 
 She chose the bench, this time, which 
 
62 {Elje ffliueen'g 
 
 was shaded by the clump of bananas ; 
 and abutted on the Moorish jar. The 
 jar, crossed by a shaft of sunlight, 
 glistened many colored ; there were 
 splotches of emerald green on its rounded 
 sides, purple streaks around its wide 
 throat, yellow and red and velvety- 
 brown stains blending into each other 
 about its huge shoulders. 
 
 The banana leaves whispered to the 
 invisible wind which stirred their fringed 
 edges. One perfect blade, broad, 
 shapely, and tenderly green, curled over 
 the mouth of the water-jar ; one closely 
 furled, like a banner on its staff, stood 
 up, stiff and motionless, pointing to 
 the blue sky. 
 
 Noel opened the small gilt-edged 
 volume she held in her hand. It was a 
 copy of Moore's cc Melodies." On the 
 fly-leaf she found Madame Chretien's 
 maiden name, Marguerite Lepeyre ; 
 beneath, the initials, A. G. ; and the 
 quotation, faded and almost illegible : 
 
63 
 
 " Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming 
 
 bowers, 
 And the bee banquets on through a whole year of 
 
 flowers!" 
 
 She read the lines with eyes and senses 
 drifting about the quiet courtyard. 
 " Why, I remember that ! " she mur- 
 mured, suddenly seizing a gossamer 
 thread of memory. "In the Fairy 
 Story ! It is from the song the Prince 
 used to sing to La Reine Margot ! 
 And there was a big-bellied jar in which 
 the Queens Henchman used to hide, and 
 spring up at her, and frighten her, when 
 she was but a teensy-weensy Princess like 
 you. I know this is that jar ! " She 
 jumped up, letting Moore's " Melo- 
 dies " tumble to the ground, and peeped 
 cautiously into the disused jar, stand- 
 ing on tiptoe to do so. A little dark 
 pool of water in the bottom within gave 
 back a reflection of her face surrounded 
 by its aureole of sunny hair. A spider's 
 
64 
 
 web, spun across the top, held the light 
 with its airy filaments and seemed a 
 mesh of silver. 
 
 " I suspect that the Queen's Hench- 
 man was my father himself," Noel 
 mused, drawing back, with a finger on 
 her lip. The discovery pleased her, 
 lending an added charm to the garden 
 and the half-remembered Fairy Story. 
 But who was the Prince ? 
 
 " Oh, and The Prince one day threw a 
 red rose over the wall. And the rose fell 
 at the Queens feet" 
 
 A rose vine clambered up a pillar of 
 the gallery on the rear wing ; it reached 
 the second story, and threw out long 
 swaying branches with reckless prodi- 
 gality ; but there was only one blossom 
 in sight a great red rose, half-blown, 
 which swung in the breeze ; so red, so 
 high, so challenging, so beautiful ! 
 
 Noel ran breathlessly across the 
 garden up the crooked outer stair to the 
 
65 
 
 upper gallery, and stretched out a 
 masterful hand. But even as her fingers 
 closed around the coveted prize, they 
 relaxed their grasp, her arm dropped 
 nerveless to her side. She drew back. 
 Something had stirred the air quite near 
 her. Something ? A sigh ! Not a 
 mere animal exhalation. Not a half- 
 groan of weariness, as a sigh often is, not 
 a satisfied inspiration ; not the voiceless 
 expression of despair none of these ! 
 A longing, passionate, murmurous vital 
 breath, a breath to be felt and under- 
 stood, but not described. Noel felt it 
 to the core of her being. The doors 
 behind her were shut. The batten 
 window blinds were fastened. There 
 was no more movement or sound 
 within them than in the great silent 
 mansion on the farther side of the 
 garden, where the sick woman lay, and 
 her nurses and doctors came and went, 
 incessantly, noiselessly, anxiously. 
 
66 
 
 Noel listened. The sigh was not 
 repeated. But she turned and sped 
 down the crooked stair, leaving the red 
 rose on its stem. 
 
 " It must have been the Beast ! " she 
 laughed, with her hand on her heart. 
 
 She returned to her garden seat. But 
 a change a change mysterious, inscru- 
 table, undefinable, had come over the 
 garden ; into the sunshine, upon the 
 flower-beds, the trees, the whispering 
 banana leaves, the falling spray of the 
 fountain ! She felt herself suddenly 
 alone ; a desire for companionship pos- 
 sessed her; a sick longing seized her 
 which seemed to turn all her body, now 
 hot, now cold. 
 
 All night long she tossed on her bed 
 enveloped in fevered dreams, strange, 
 unaccountable dreams. She awoke 
 from time to time, trembling and shiver- 
 ing, yet smiling vaguely. Once, she 
 started up half asleep, stretching out her 
 
67 
 
 white arms to the white moonlight which 
 fell across her pillow, and murmuring : 
 
 The Prince threw a red rose over the 
 wall. 
 
 And it fell at the Queens feet. 
 
VIII 
 
 MADAME Chretien finds her- 
 self better." 
 Noel laid down the little 
 slip of rustly paper ; then took it up 
 again thoughtfully. Precisely the same 
 message as that of yesterday ; the same 
 measured bit of paper ; the same fine, 
 old-fashioned handwriting. How was 
 it possible that she had not sooner re- 
 cognized that handwriting ? Yes, Tante 
 Marguerite must have written these 
 messages herself when she felt the fever 
 creeping into her veins. She had given 
 them to Marcelle with the other mi- 
 nute instructions to be laid before 
 her, Noel, daily ! She divined it all in 
 one of those flashes which illuminate the 
 dark places. Something had sharpened 
 her spiritual insight ; a sigh had blown 
 
69 
 
 open her soul as the wind lays bare the 
 core of a rose ! 
 
 A wave of tenderness overwhelmed 
 her. She flew again to the forbidding 
 door, and rapped upon it, softly, en- 
 treatingly ; then louder, insistently. 
 She wept when no response came ex- 
 cept an echo which was like a ghostly 
 groan. She no longer wished to delay 
 her meeting with that dear sister of her 
 dead father. She was impatient to kneel 
 by the bedside, to lay the beloved head 
 against her own strong, young shoulders. 
 The yellow fever? But why should 
 she be afraid ? She, who had never 
 known an ache or a pain in her life ! 
 " Marcelle ! Marcelle ! " she called 
 vainly. " Let me in." 
 
 She returned to the dining-room to 
 scan the message yet again. " Madame 
 Chretien finds herself better/' " Per- 
 haps, after all, she has written it this 
 morning," she suggested to herself 
 
70 tEM)e ^ueen'tf Garten 
 
 hopefully. " She is better ; I shall see 
 her soon. I shall see her to-morrow ! " 
 She clung nervously to this hope. 
 She was used indeed, since her father's 
 death, to being much alone. She could 
 remember long days at great-aunt 
 Harlowe's, when she played ladies, 
 alone, afraid to whisper in a corner of 
 the musty old house, lest the gray-faced 
 old woman, dozing in an armchair up- 
 stairs should awake to scold. Under 
 the reign of step-aunt Mitchell, she had 
 dwelt, inwardly at least, in a world apart 
 from her dull surroundings. Until now 
 there had somehow seemed nothing 
 strange or unnatural in her present iso- 
 lation. Nay, she had reveled in it ; 
 she had desired a moment since to pro- 
 long it ! But she was all at once op- 
 pressed by the loneliness, the solitude 
 and silence. This was the third day 
 since she had looked into a human face. 
 Hardly a sound of human life during 
 
that time had fallen upon her ears. 
 Afterward she learned that there was a 
 side court with a separate entrance from 
 the street to the other part of the house; 
 a small stairway by which the physicians 
 came and went. Old Marcelle slipped 
 in and out of the infected apartment 
 like a shadow ; choosing the hours when 
 Noel was sleeping, or sitting in the gar- 
 den, to fulfill the charge imposed upon 
 her of caring for the physical comfort 
 of Madame Chretien's new-found trea- 
 sure. Doctor Grafton, lifelong friend 
 and family physician, took note of the 
 young stranger from the windows of the 
 sick-room ; it was he indeed who had 
 warned her from the stair-landing the 
 morning after her arrival. His patient, 
 through his watchful eyes, had followed 
 her movements from time to time about 
 the sunny close below " Claude's 
 daughter ! Claude's daughter ! " The 
 cry was ever upon the sick woman's lips. 
 
72 {ro&e ^uem'tf Garten 
 
 But Noel could not know this ; nor 
 that the city itself, girdled by a fast 
 narrowing cordon of quarantine, was 
 scorching in the breath of the pestilence ; 
 she felt only the unbroken solitude ; 
 she heard only a sigh ! 
 
 She picked up the fat little Moore 
 from the flagstones where it had lain 
 forgotten through the night. The 
 crumpled leaves were soaked with dew ; 
 the covers were swollen and distorted. 
 She regarded it remorsefully a moment, 
 then hastened to the bench beneath 
 the orange-tree, and placed it, open, in 
 the warm sunshine to dry. " Care- 
 less Noel," she apostrophized herself 
 sternly. 
 
 But her remorse dissolved in the 
 transport of a new sensation. Looking 
 idly up into the thick boughs above her 
 head, she saw oranges ! They hung 
 among the clustering leaves like so many 
 
73 
 
 green and gold lanterns. She touched 
 one with the tip of an up-stretched 
 finger, thus putting herself into com- 
 munication with far-off islands of citron 
 and spice, of lithe brown lads and 
 slender, large-hipped girls, the land 
 of the pomegranate and the nightingale, 
 the land of the Thousand and One 
 Nights, the land of the wonderful Fairy 
 Story. 
 
 Another touch transformed her into 
 an inquisitive Eve. She looked cau- 
 tiously around, up at the window which 
 she had rightly divined to be the win- 
 dow of Madame Chretien's bedchamber, 
 and over toward the vine-clad gallery 
 of the wing, where a single full-blown 
 red rose swayed in the breeze ; then she 
 detached one of the green and gold 
 lanterns, quickly and stealthily. It 
 smelled divinely ; but alas, it was fright- 
 fully sour. She hastened with puckered 
 lips to the fountain to wash the green 
 
74 Wqt 
 
 stain of the rind from her fingers, and 
 the unripe flavor of the pulp from her 
 lips. 
 
 The circular basin was ringed with 
 wide-leaved caladiums ; water hyacinths 
 grew in the pool, their pale blue pyra- 
 mids of blossom reflected on its glassy 
 surface. Some goldfish swam lazily in 
 and out among their tangled roots. 
 
 A marble Cupid, a-tiptoe on a broad 
 pedestal, guarded the fountain. His 
 wings were partly folded ; his chubby 
 hands, outstretched, held the fluted 
 shell from which the water leaped in the 
 air and fell in a musical rainbow shower 
 into the basin below. Noel regarded 
 him critically, as she dried her hands on 
 her pocket handkerchief. " You were 
 not in the Fairy Story," she said finally, 
 addressing him gravely ; " therefore I 
 question your right to be in this garden 
 at all. But you must have been here a 
 long time, or led a very disreputable 
 
75 
 
 life. For you look as forlorn and be- 
 draggled as a prairie tramp. Your face 
 is dirty. How dare you have a dirty 
 face, sir ? " 
 
 Cupid's outblown cheeks were green 
 with mould and mildew. Dust had 
 settled in his eyes and in the corners of 
 his mouth ; the spray blown across his 
 head had made a muddy paste there 
 which plastered his breezy curls ; a 
 slimy moss hung pendent, like an at- 
 tenuated beard, from his dimpled chin. 
 "You are disgraceful, positively dis- 
 graceful," continued Noel, stepping 
 back to admonish him with uplifted 
 forefinger. "You have no business in 
 this garden. But, since you are here, 
 why I am going to wash your face." 
 
 She dipped her handkerchief in the 
 water, and steadying herself on the stone 
 coping of the basin, she tubbed the 
 marble figure with the Saturday night 
 vigor of an. ebon materfamilias. It was 
 
76 tEfo flkueen'g flaroen 
 
 a labor of some moments ; and she was 
 quite red in the face when she had 
 finished her self-appointed task, and 
 held her victim at arm's length, proudly 
 surveying the effect. He returned her 
 look with such merry cocksure eyes, 
 his fresh cheeks were so fat, his mouth 
 so roguish, his clean curls so jaunty, his 
 half-folded wings so jimp, his whole 
 bearing so saucily impudent, that she 
 burst into an involuntary laugh. 
 
 The laughter, gay, girlish, and infec- 
 tious, rang through the court. It blended 
 unexpectedly with another laugh which 
 was irrepressibly responsive and mas- 
 culine. Noel looked hastily up, and then 
 as quickly down, startled and abashed. 
 
 A young man was standing on the 
 upper gallery of the building adjoining 
 the rear wing and on the other side of 
 the brick wall. His figure was partly 
 concealed by the leafy sprays of the 
 wistaria, but Noel, in one swift glance, 
 
77 
 
 had remarked that the curls clustering 
 on his white forehead were dark. His 
 eyes were also dark ; the slight mustache 
 shading his upper lip was brown. His 
 face was young and frank, with a hint 
 of authority in the square chin and firm 
 lips. 
 
 Noel stumbled rather than stepped 
 from her perch, barely escaping a tumble 
 into the pool ; and tossing her bare head 
 in sign of contempt, or indifference, 
 marched off into the house without 
 vouchsafing a second glance at the in- 
 truder ; for she so characterized him, al- 
 though he stood on his own side of the 
 iron grille and merely looked and 
 laughed ! down into his neighbor's 
 garden. 
 
 Was she really contemptuous ? Was 
 she really indifferent ? She did not her- 
 self know. She sat down in the high- 
 backed chair in her own room ; her 
 knees trembling from the hurry of her 
 
78 
 
 flight up the stair. But she got up im- 
 mediately and stole to the arched window 
 in the hall whence she could see the 
 courtyard far below, aglow with the 
 afternoon sunshine. Alas, a small oc- 
 tagonal tower-like bay-window with coni- 
 cal roof, which clung to the lower hall, 
 heretofore an object of unmeasured ad- 
 miration, hid the corner of the gallery 
 over the way where the laugher had 
 stood. " Ugly, useless, ridiculous little 
 turret ! " pouted Noel, returning, baffled, 
 to her high-backed chair. " Besides, 
 how dared he laugh ! Impudent crea- 
 ture ! I will never go into the garden 
 again. No. Never ! 
 
IX 
 
 I WILL never go into the garden 
 again/' she repeated the next 
 day. 
 
 The slip of rustly paper, neatly folded 
 as usual and bearing the same cheerful 
 message, was in its accustomed place. 
 She read it, listening for the messenger 
 who should summon her to the writer. 
 " For, I shall see her to-day, I know," 
 she thought, adding irrelevantly, " I 
 wonder if the Prince had dark hair ! " 
 
 But no messenger appeared, and the 
 morning wore slowly away. In an ac- 
 cess of impatience, she pushed open a 
 door within the curtained alcove, fancy- 
 ing it might lead somewhere, to some- 
 body ! to something which might re- 
 lieve the monotony of waiting ; or bring 
 forgetfulness of the wooing garden ! 
 
8o tElje iiueen^ Garten 
 
 She found herself in a small room, 
 quite evidently the boudoir of Madame 
 Chretien. There was a lounge, an easy- 
 chair, a carved work-table with twisted 
 legs. A bit of embroidery, with the 
 needle trailing from it by a strand of 
 purple silk, was lying on the table as if 
 the worker had just laid it down. The 
 femininity of the place appealed to 
 Noel. " Oh, I shall love her ! I shall 
 love her ! " she exclaimed aloud passion- 
 ately. 
 
 There were several portraits on the 
 walls. One of these was Madame 
 Chretien herself, a few years older than 
 when she sat, Mademoiselle Marguerite 
 Lepeyre, in white satin and pearls, to a 
 great French painter. She wore the 
 same cordon of pearls around her beau- 
 tiful bare neck. Her slender arm en- 
 circled the shoulders of a child, a little 
 boy whose golden locks glistened like 
 sunbeams against the wine red of her 
 
8t 
 
 velvet gown. Her dark eyes were 
 fixed with brooding tenderness upon the 
 glowing young face lifted to hers. Her 
 son ! Noel's heart stirred as she re- 
 membered old Marcelle's words, " At 
 the cradle, at the schoolroom, at the 
 marriage, at the death of M'sieu, her 
 husband, at the tomb of her only son ! " 
 
 And the high-featured, hook-nosed 
 old gentleman opposite, blue-eyed, gray- 
 haired, stern, and imperious ? " Anatole 
 Thierry Chretien de la Vigne," declared 
 the lettering carved on the foot of the 
 costly frame. Was that the husband of 
 La Reine Margot ? Oh, impossible ! 
 
 " But, who then was the Prince ? " 
 demanded Noel of La Reine Margot 
 herself, returning to the dining-room to 
 put the question to the pictured Queen 
 there. Mademoiselle Lepeyre smiled 
 down at her significantly, guarding her 
 secret. 
 
 " I shall never go into the garden 
 
82 Wqt fflluem'g 
 
 again/' reiterated Noel, turning discon- 
 solately away. And immediately went. 
 A furtive examination assured her 
 that there was no one beyond the vine- 
 hung grille. She paced sedately about 
 the walks, stopping to pick up Moore, 
 forgotten (again !) upon the bench. He 
 was now swollen out of all proportion. 
 " How could I be so forgetful ! But it 
 was not my fault. Insolent person ! " 
 The last words referred, not to the 
 puffed-up Poet, but to the Man who 
 Laughed. She spread the limp pages 
 once more to the sun ; they had fallen 
 apart, as if recovering some long-gone 
 habit, at the place, margin-marked, 
 whence A. G. had drawn his quotation : 
 
 " Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming 
 
 bowers, 
 And the bee banquets on through a whole year o 
 
 flowers." 
 
 " How could I do it ! " repeated 
 Noel tenderly. 
 
8 3 
 
 She strolled to the fountain to inspect 
 her work of the day before. She had 
 hardly begun, however, when some ob-. 
 ject came flying through the air with a 
 whizzing sound and lighted plump on 
 Cupid's head. The aim was well taken. 
 The wreath of red roses, awkwardly 
 made and somewhat wilted, rested grace- 
 fully on the god's breezy curls. One 
 drooping bud hung over his forehead ; 
 he peered out from beneath it with 
 laughter-brimmed eyes. A rose petal 
 or two had blown into Noel's face ; 
 they fluttered gently down and rested 
 on her bosom. 
 
 The audacious young man, standing 
 in the galleried nook where she had 
 first seen him, grasped a bar of the iron 
 grille and leaned forward. " My name," 
 he said in a low but distinct voice, with 
 his eyes fixed on Cupid, as if he ad- 
 dressed that chubby deity, " my name 
 is Richard Strong. I have no need to 
 
84 Wqt Rueen^ Garten 
 
 ask the young lady's name. It is Noel 
 Lepeyre." 
 
 She had not deigned to lift her 
 bowed head since her first swift stealthy 
 glance. Now, she stared up at the 
 speaker in frowning surprise. He had 
 drawn back into the shadow of the 
 sheltering wistaria ; she stood irresolute ; 
 but her curiosity got the better of her 
 indignation. She had to walk around 
 a rose-covered lattice, in order to see 
 him. " How did you find out my 
 name ? " she demanded in a tone which 
 struggled between haughty reproof and 
 childish wonder. 
 
 In reply he held up her pocket 
 handkerchief the flimsy square of 
 lawn with which she had polished 
 Cupid's face. It had her name in full 
 in one corner, wrought, perhaps, by 
 Madame Chretien's loving fingers. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " how did you get 
 it ? How dare you keep it ! " 
 
85 
 
 " Has not Cupid wings ? " he laughed, 
 nodding down at the rose-crowned Boy. 
 "And does he not fly by moonlight? 
 As to keeping what he brings I have 
 had until this moment no conscience ; 
 but if Miss Lepeyre wishes her pro- 
 perty" He made as though he would 
 cast it at her feet, contriving to flaunt its 
 ragged folds, for the scrubbing process 
 had been exacting. 
 
 Upon this, Noel laughed, though 
 still pouting a little. "Oh, keep it!" 
 she said carelessly. "It is not worth re- 
 turning." 
 
 Richard thrust it into his vest pocket 
 with alacrity. " Thank you. Oh, stay ! " 
 he entreated, for she was walking 
 away. "That wreath of roses, you 
 know " 
 
 " Did you make it yourself? " she 
 paused to inquire with a peep around 
 the lattice at Cupid, and a little girlish 
 le. 
 
86 Slie Queen's Garten 
 
 "Yes. And I pricked my fingers 
 well into the bargain. Is it not a work 
 of art ? You see I wished to celebrate 
 Love's " 
 
 " Scrubbing," suggested Noel 
 promptly. 
 
 " We-11, the word will suffice for 
 the moment," he answered with a smile 
 which brought a flaming red into her 
 cheeks. She turned her back resolutely. 
 But oh, it was so heavenly to hear the 
 sound of a human voice once more ; 
 any voice ! She lingered still, screened 
 by the high rose-lattice, to ask over her 
 shoulder, "Is there a garden there, on 
 your side of the wall ? " 
 
 He made a grimace. " Not much ! 
 There may have been, once on a time, 
 now that you mention it. There is a 
 fountain in the court which does not 
 play ; and a broken-nosed cherub watch- 
 ing over its rusty pipes. By Jove, I 'd 
 like to see the daring mortal who would 
 
8 7 
 
 undertake to get the dust and grime of 
 ages off his face ! " He laughed, look- 
 ing contemptuously down at the figure 
 in question. " And there are some 
 forlorn patches which may once have 
 been flower-beds. But it is mostly a 
 dumping-ground for dirt and rubbish, 
 this courtyard on my side of the wall. 
 That is why I love to look over on 
 your side I mean that is partly why." 
 
 " Marchez, mes enfants ! Br-r-r ! 
 Comment a va ! Git out ! " shouted a 
 hoarse, abrupt voice. It was only a red- 
 headed parrot sitting in a dormer-win- 
 dow high up among the purple roofs. 
 But Noel dipped her head and flew 
 along the paths, up the stairway and 
 into her room, frightened and mystified. 
 
 Richard shook his fist at the red- 
 headed parrot, with whose tricks he was 
 already acquainted, and withdrew slowly 
 from the vine-hung corner. 
 
X 
 
 THERE were no flowers on the 
 breakfast-table Friday morning, 
 though Madame Chretien con- 
 tinued in her precise handwriting to 
 find herself better. Noel was vaguely 
 alarmed. She was sure she heard hur- 
 ried tramplings and uneasy whispering 
 beyond the inexorable partition-wall. 
 She put out her hand more than once 
 to grasp the old-fashioned tasseled bell- 
 rope which hung near her chair. But 
 she was sufficiently experienced in nurs- 
 ing the sick to know that any sudden 
 sound might be fatal to the patient, and 
 she refrained. She roamed restlessly 
 about the sombre parlors and lingered 
 a while in the boudoir pathetic in its 
 smiling solitude. She reproached her- 
 self for having talked lightly, and with 
 
jfrfrag 89 
 
 a stranger ! while her aunt was lying 
 yonder ill perhaps, even unto death. 
 She blushed guiltily at the remembrance 
 of her hurried visit at midnight to the 
 moonlighted court, to snatch the fading 
 chaplet from Cupid's head, and creep 
 stealthily back to her bedchamber, hid- 
 ing it in her arms. " I will throw those 
 dreadful roses away ! How dared he 
 keep my handkerchief! How dared he 
 insult me with his absurd stories about 
 about Cupid ! . . . I will never go 
 into that garden again ! " 
 
 She held to this resolution fiercely, 
 until late in the afternoon, sitting ob- 
 stinately in her high-backed chair with 
 an illuminated " Livre d'Heures" on 
 her knee, her hands clasped idly upon 
 the open page. 
 
 At nightfall she descended the stair. 
 She found a seat in an angle of the 
 garden-wall, whence she could not see 
 the reproachful window of the sick- 
 
90 Wqt hiem's 
 
 room, and where the wistaria shut off 
 a view of the grille and the obnoxious 
 gallery-nook. She sat with her elbow 
 on her knee and her chin in her palm, 
 staring absently at an ugly, odd-looking, 
 angular plant growing in a bed near by. 
 There was a single monster flower-bud 
 on the plant, set upon a pink up-curved 
 stem ; a sheath-like calyx of soft pinky 
 spikes enveloped the bud, the points 
 pressed flat against its shapely oval. 
 Noel gradually became conscious that 
 some change was taking place within 
 this sheath ; she leaned forward, instantly 
 alert. As she looked, the unfolding 
 points lifted themselves one by one, and 
 curled slowly outward, until from apex 
 to base the bud was guarded by a pha- 
 lanx of rosy spears. Then an almost 
 imperceptible movement, a trembling 
 as of some divine forecast, passed over 
 the bud ; the calyx parted a little, and a 
 snow-white gleam appeared, just visible 
 
jfrtoag 91 
 
 in the moonlight, which suddenly filled 
 the close. And then, for a long time 
 or so it seemed to Noel, brooding over 
 the bud nothing happened. The 
 thick, clumsy leaves of the plant stirred 
 sluggishly in the night breeze, but the 
 bud remained motionless on its up- 
 curved, luminous stem. 
 
 " I wonder what it is ! " murmured 
 the absorbed watcher at length. 
 
 " It is a night-blooming cereus," 
 said a voice close to her ear. " And we 
 shall see the miracle of its blooming to- 
 gether, Noe Miss Lepeyre." 
 
 Noel started violently at the touch of 
 his hand on hers, but she did not cry 
 out affrighted, as he doubtless had feared 
 she might. 
 
 " How did you come ? " she asked 
 gravely, standing up and facing him in 
 the white moonlight. 
 
 " c Love found out the way/ ' he 
 quoted lightly. 
 
92 tTOtie Hueen'S 
 
 " But you, at least, have no wings," 
 she objected, shaking her head, and 
 smiling. 
 
 " Well, I at least did not need them," 
 he returned gayly. " It would be better 
 indeed if Master Cupid did not have 
 wings," he added, as an afterthought. 
 "In that case he could not fly away, 
 as they say he sometimes does, though 
 I for one do not believe it." 
 
 " Never mind about Cupid," she said 
 hastily. " Tell me truly how you came. 
 Not by the great street-door with the 
 grinning knocker upon it ? That, I 
 know, is barred and bolted and double- 
 locked. For I have been down the 
 corridor to see." 
 
 " No ; not by that door. Not by 
 any door. The truth is Look 
 yonder, where the wistaria-vine catches 
 and clasps the iron grille." He drew her 
 a few paces forward. "It must be a 
 hundred years old, that wistaria ! The 
 
jfritmg 93 
 
 vine has the girth of my body. Well, 
 I stepped up on the railing of my gallery, 
 caught the grille with one hand, set a 
 foot out upon the gnarled twist of that 
 old vine, swung myself around, and 
 dropped down upon your gallery the 
 gallery where you came, once on a time, 
 to pluck a rose, and did not ! Why did 
 you run away from that rose ? " 
 
 " And then ? " demanded Noel, ignor- 
 ing the question. 
 
 "Then I slipped down the stair, 
 glided across the court, and found you. 
 Is that exact enough, Miss Noel Le- 
 peyre?" 
 
 " So ! " cried Noel, clasping her hands 
 in sudden excitement; "you came by 
 Claude's Way ! " 
 
 Richard looked mystified. " Claude's 
 Way," he echoed. 
 
 " Yes. That is the way, you know, 
 by which the Prince used to come. I 
 remember now ! To see La Reine 
 
94 Wqt farm's Garten 
 
 Margot, in her garden this garden ! 
 They called it c Claude's Way/ I do 
 not know why. But my father was the 
 Queen's Henchman." Richard listened 
 with but indifferent interest to this in- 
 coherent outburst. He was devouring 
 her face with his eyes, the beautiful, 
 pale, sensitive face ! When she ceased 
 speaking, he repeated mechanically, 
 "The Queen's Henchman ! " 
 
 But when she began to tell him the 
 Fairy Story the story of the young 
 Queen, and of the Prince who was for- 
 bidden under pain of death to speak to 
 his Love ; or even so much as to look 
 at her, with all the world, when she 
 rode abroad, lovely and gracious, in her 
 state coach ; or when she danced with 
 her royal partners at the court balls 
 Richard led Noel back to her seat and 
 placed himself beside her to listen. 
 "He was forbidden ever to approach 
 La Reine Margot, the Prince was," 
 
95 
 
 said Noel, " but he came by c Claude's 
 Way ' into her garden/' 
 
 " Like myself," interrupted Richard. 
 
 " But the Prince came many times," 
 cried Noel ; and bethinking herself, 
 flushed rosy red in the moonshine. 
 
 " True," said Richard boldly ; " and 
 so shall I come many times ! And the 
 Prince and the Queen lived happily 
 ever after, of course ? " 
 
 " No," she faltered, " I fear that they 
 did not. Something happened. My 
 father never told me what happened. 
 But the Prince ceased to come by 
 c Claude's Way ; ' and the Queen mar- 
 ried a wicked and hard old King with 
 blue eyes. And the Henchman quitted 
 her service and went away ; and he 
 never saw her again, though he loved 
 her always." 
 
 "And the Prince?" 
 
 " I do not know what became of the 
 Prince." She sighed unconsciously. 
 
96 Wqt 
 
 " I know/' said Richard in a very 
 low voice. "He died. That is what 
 I should do, if" 
 
 " The Henchman was my father/' 
 Noel went on hurriedly, " and he is 
 dead. And La Reine Margot is my 
 aunt. She is ill yonder in her room ; 
 and I have never seen her," she con- 
 cluded forlornly. 
 
 " The white-haired old lady who lives 
 here ? " asked Richard. 
 
 " But ! She is not old ! " cried Noel 
 indignant. " How can you say that ! " 
 
 " I saw you/' he said, putting the 
 criticism aside, " the day you first came 
 into this court. You came along the 
 walk just as I looked over the grille. I 
 have looked over here for many months, 
 you know, every morning." 
 
 " Because of the dreariness and the 
 ugliness of the courtyard on your side 
 of the wall/' she interpolated. 
 
 " Because of my mother/' he said 
 softly, " who used to love flowers, and 
 
97 
 
 tended them in our old plantation rose- 
 garden up the river ; and who is dead." 
 
 " Oh ! " breathed Noel in a tender 
 voice. 
 
 " I used to watch the white-haired 
 old lady who is not old ! walk- 
 ing about this garden, leaning upon 
 the arm of a high-turbaned old negro 
 woman " 
 
 " Marcelle," murmured Noel. 
 
 " or sitting on a bench in the shade. 
 Lately, she has held a letter in her hand 
 which she has kissed many times and 
 read over and over to her old servant." 
 
 " Could that be my letter ? " queried 
 Noel under her breath. 
 
 " One day she did not come into the 
 courtyard at the usual hour; perhaps 
 she did not come at all. But the next 
 morning you came." 
 
 He was silent a moment. " Oh, oh, 
 the bud is quivering ! " cried Noel as 
 he opened his lips to speak again. 
 " What is going to happen ? " 
 
XI 
 
 e tflotoet 
 
 THEY bent forward together, 
 their locks the dark and the 
 blond intermingling, and 
 watched the bud. An almost imper- 
 ceptible quiver ran along the stem ; the 
 invisible bonds about the calyx loosened 
 yet more ; the tiny spear-points curled 
 outward and fell away, revealing a glim- 
 mer as of gold in an ivory chalice. 
 
 " It is about to come into bloom," 
 Noel said in an awed whisper. 
 
 " You had on a white frock, as you 
 have now," Strong continued, turning 
 to her again. cc Your head was bare ; 
 your hair shimmered like sunlight under 
 sunlight. You trod the paths lightly, 
 as if your feet scarcely touched the 
 ground. I held my breath looking at 
 you, for I feared from moment to mo- 
 
IFiotoer 99 
 
 ment, that you might vanish from my 
 sight. I could not see your face at 
 first; but you looked up at the yucca 
 bells, and I saw it ! I wonder, Noel, if 
 you know how beautiful you are ! I 
 heard your voice when the pape flew 
 into the dagger-tree. c Love has found 
 out the way/ you said. You have the 
 sweetest voice, Noel, that I have ever 
 heard ! I have been watching you from 
 behind that grille ever since. Why 
 have you delayed so long your coming ? 
 Where were you before ? And why are 
 you always alone ? " 
 
 She told him of herself, orphaned and 
 lonely for so many years ; of the pale, 
 frail young mother who died ; of the 
 passionately loved father who died ; 
 the guardians who had come into and 
 passed out of her life. She described 
 the little country school and the shock- 
 headed school-children ; and second 
 cousin Louisa, with her lopsided buggy ! 
 
ioo Wqt &uem'$ Garten 
 
 of her own timid letter to the hitherto 
 undreamed-of sister of her father, and 
 of Madame Chretien's letter in reply. 
 
 " And so I came at last to this house 
 where my father was born ; and to this 
 garden where he used to play when he 
 was a little boy. He has described it 
 to me a thousand times over in that old 
 Fairy Story which we both loved so. 
 Is it not wonderful ? But I have not 
 even seen my aunt Marguerite. She is 
 ill, very ill, I fear. She has the yellow 
 fever " 
 
 " What ! " the interruption was a 
 hoarse cry of alarm ; he threw out an 
 arm as if to shield her from some tan- 
 gible danger. " Madame Chretien has 
 the fever ! Oh, you must go away. 
 You must not approach her room. 
 Promise me, promise me ! " 
 
 " But, indeed, I would see her ! I 
 would nurse her if they would allow 
 me. I long to go to her ! " 
 
Wqt jflotoer 101 
 
 " Promise me," he insisted. 
 
 "Is it then so terrible, the yellow 
 fever? " she asked, incredulous. 
 
 "It is very terrible," he replied. 
 " There is a great deal of it in the city. 
 There are flags everywhere, marking 
 the infected houses, and guards are 
 placed at the doors to prevent people 
 from entering or coming out. The en- 
 trance to my own quarters is from an 
 alley, so I have not seen the flags on 
 this house-door. I did not know there 
 was fever here. Many people are dying. 
 The dead are buried almost before 
 Oh, promise me that you will not enter 
 Madame Chretien's room, no matter 
 what may happen. Promise ! " 
 
 " But you, are you then keeping quite 
 out of the reach of danger ? " 
 
 " Oh, I ! That does not matter. I 
 have lived here a long time. I have 
 never had the fever ; but I am not 
 afraid" 
 
102 W$t Queen's 
 
 " Neither am I afraid ! " interrupted 
 Noel proudly. 
 
 " But I am afraid for you. Promise ! " 
 
 She would not promise. However, 
 when she related her experience of the 
 past few days, and the extraordinary 
 precautions taken by Madame Chretien 
 to insure her, Noel's, isolation and 
 safety, his fears subsided. 
 
 " But what a dreary home-coming for 
 you ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "That is nothing. I have been 
 dreary and alone nearly all my life ! " 
 she said. And quite unexpectedly to 
 herself she burst into tears. The tears, 
 she afterward remembered, were sweet; 
 they were shed upon Richard's breast. 
 
 cc Dear Heart," he answered, " dear 
 little Heart ! I love you. I will never 
 let you be lonely again." 
 
 " Look ! Look ! " she cried raptur- 
 ously, lifting her head. " The flower 
 has come into bloom ! " 
 
Wqt jflotoer 103 
 
 Snow-white and lovely, like a bride 
 awaiting her bridegroom, the exquisite 
 blossom, wide open, a radiant wheel, 
 swayed as if to spirit music on the 
 up-curved bracket-like stem ; the slender 
 petals whispered to some invisible Pre- 
 sence ; the golden heart quivered as if 
 under the caress of an unseen lover. 
 
 They hovered over it, hand in hand, 
 breathing the subtle sweetness of its 
 perfume. " The Flower has come into 
 bloom, Noel, oh my Beloved," he 
 murmured, drawing her to his breast. 
 
 The moon, full and round, a disk of 
 burnished silver, sailed high up in the 
 deep azure sky, bathing them in tender 
 light. Down in the famous old Place 
 d'Armes the cathedral clock rang out 
 the hour : Nine. 
 
 " Oh," he ejaculated in a tone of dis- 
 may. " Why have I permitted you to 
 linger so long in the night air ! Go into 
 the house ; at once, my Noel." 
 
104 Ww Uteen' 
 
 She clung to him. 
 
 " Besides, I must hurry off to my 
 work." 
 
 " Work ? " she echoed. " At night ? " 
 
 " Yes. I help to turn the world over 
 every night. I am a reporter." See- 
 ing that she did not understand, " I 
 gather news for a great daily newspaper," 
 he explained. 
 
 " Oh ! " she regarded him with rever- 
 ence. 
 
 " And I come home long after you 
 have had your beauty sleep, sweetheart." 
 
 " And the people in the house, there 
 where you live " 
 
 "There are none," he interrupted, 
 laughing. " I am the sole inhabitant of 
 that old rookery. The others lodgers, 
 proprietors, servants it was a lodging- 
 house, you know all decamped when 
 the first red and yellow flag appeared on 
 our street like the pigs, imbeciles, cab- 
 bage-heads of your old Marcelle ! " 
 
 " Then you are lonely too, Richard." 
 
W$t jfiotoer 105 
 
 The sound of his name on her lips 
 filled him with rapture. " I was lonely," 
 he said, gazing into the shining eyes 
 lifted to. his in the moonlight. " But I 
 will never be lonely again ! " 
 
 " You will come back to-morrow 
 night ? " she entreated, as he urged her 
 toward the house. 
 
 "The Prince came many times to 
 the Queen in her garden," he quoted 
 jestingly. " Yes, Noel. I will come. 
 When the guards are removed from 
 Madame Chretien's street-door, I will 
 come by that door though, like the 
 Prince, I were a thousand times for- 
 bidden and claim you for my wife. 
 Until then I will come by c Claude's 
 Way/ " 
 
 " I am a very poor man, Noel," he 
 turned back to say after he had taken 
 leave of her at the foot of the stair. 
 
 " Are you ? " Her laughter rippled 
 musically on the moonlit stillness. " I 
 am so glad ! So am I. Oh, but poorer 
 
io6 
 
 than you can imagine ! Do you know, 
 Richard, I have done much harder 
 scrubbing than upon Cupid's face." 
 
 " I will become rich for your sake ! 
 I will make you a Queen ! " he cried 
 fiercely. " I will crown you with jewels ; 
 I will build you a palace such as no 
 Fairy Story ever imagined ! " 
 
 " Noel ! " Again he returned to her 
 side. This time his voice was shaken 
 with boyish glee. " You need not trouble 
 any more about the fat little book of 
 poems. Careless Noel ! I have him 
 drying over an oil lamp in my room. 
 He has escaped, you see, though you 
 cannot ! " 
 
 Upon this, they caught hands and 
 danced like a couple of children in the 
 scented darkness of the corridor, singing 
 softly : 
 
 " I 'm in this Lady's Garden ! 
 The Gate is locked and the key is lost. 
 I 'm in this Lady's Garden." 
 
Wyt jFlotaer 107 
 
 She watched him spring up the stair- 
 way of the wing, and swing himself 
 around the grille to his own gallery. 
 She waved her hand in answer to his 
 parting signal. Then, after a last 
 glance at the flower, white and myste- 
 rious on its shining stem, she went into 
 the house. 
 
 All was silent there ; silent as sleep, 
 she thought. She stole to the barred 
 door and laid her cheek lovingly against 
 the unheeding panel. " I love you La 
 Reine Margot," she whispered. " I long 
 to see you. I long to tell you about 
 him about Richard. You will under- 
 stand. You know. You remember ! " 
 
 And before ascending to her own 
 room, she penned, by the light of the 
 vestibule lamp, a line of loving remem- 
 brance to Madame Chretien and laid it 
 on the breakfast-table where it could 
 not fail to meet Marcelle's eye$. 
 
XII 
 
 THERE were not only no flowers, 
 but the table had not its usual 
 well-ordered appearance. The 
 breakfast itself showed signs of hasty 
 preparation. Noel's own little note had 
 been picked up and dropped, or thrown 
 aside. It was lying on the floor, and 
 near it Madame Chretien's daily bulle- 
 tin, crumpled and torn in half as by 
 some one in a sudden outburst of rage 
 or despair. 
 
 At another time these indications 
 might have frightened the girl, who was 
 not unacquainted with the disorder 
 which accompanies alarm in cases of ex- 
 treme illness. But her eyes were still 
 dazzled by the glory of last night's 
 moon. She barely tasted the lukewarm 
 food ; she was in haste to behold once 
 
109 
 
 more the golden-hearted, white-bloom- 
 ing wonder in the garden ; and by a 
 sight of it to assure herself that the rest 
 of the beautiful dream was true. 
 
 She wished to fly down the stair; 
 she found herself, instead, descending 
 slowly, as if a leaden weight were at- 
 tached to her ankles. It struck her, 
 too, as she crossed the garden, that the 
 sunshine was too bright ; it gave her 
 a slight sensation of pain about the 
 temples ; the vivid yellow of the nastur- 
 tiums in their round bed, the scarlet of 
 the geraniums against the house-wall 
 irritated her nerves. She reached the 
 low brick ledge which the night before 
 had served her and Richard fora 
 seat. But she started back, horror- 
 stricken, as she sank upon it. The 
 flower ! An unsightly semblance of a 
 refolded bud drooped upon an inert, 
 discolored stem. A few limp, yellowish 
 white petals straggled from the inclosing 
 
no 
 
 sheath ; a sickly odor exhaled from 
 them. It was like a corpse from which 
 even the still beauty of death had de- 
 parted. Noel touched it caressingly, 
 pityingly, but shrank away, repelled by 
 the cold, damp lifelessness of the thing 
 but yesternight resplendent with vital- 
 ity. 
 
 " Perhaps it is an emblem of " She 
 shuddered, leaving the sentence unfin- 
 ished ; and rising, moved across the close 
 to look up at the vine-clad gallery cor- 
 ner. There was no one behind the 
 drapery of leaves. " But of course he 
 must be sleeping, if he has been turning 
 the world over all night ! " she reflected, 
 her spirits rising again. " And I shall 
 see him to-night." 
 
 It was a long day. She spent it, now 
 in the house, chilled by the motionless 
 shadows there ; now in the garden, 
 burned by the blinding sun. Her im- 
 patience took away her appetite. She 
 
could not eat the ill-cooked food hud- 
 dled in unseemly disarray on the din- 
 ner-table. And she could not drink, 
 though her throat was dry and parched. 
 
 " Will night never come ! " she ex- 
 claimed petulantly into the face of the 
 lingering day. No sound disturbed the 
 silence of house or court except an 
 occasional croak from the parrot in his 
 window up among the purple roofs, " La 
 morte ! La morte !" Noel did not un- 
 derstand the words, but their sinister 
 echoes vaguely disturbed her peace. 
 
 Nightfall found her seated on the 
 bench beneath the orange-tree. She 
 had wished to await Richard's coming 
 by the brick ledge where he had first 
 found her. But she felt a superstitious 
 dread of that hideous bud. From where 
 she sat, moreover, she could see Claude's 
 Way in the dim starlight, for the 
 moon had not yet arisen, and she 
 could also see the pale night-light in the 
 
sick-chamber. There, she presently 
 became aware of moving shadows, form- 
 less and indistinct, passing and repass- 
 ing, hurried and silent. She stood up 
 and strained her eyes by trying to re- 
 cognize Marcelle's turbaned head ; or 
 the nurse in her white cap. But even 
 the shadows had fled. 
 
 She reseated herself, and waited. 
 
 A broad ray of moonlight fell, after a 
 time, across her lap. She stifled a cry 
 of terror ! Her white gown was alive 
 with crawling beetles, black, heavy- 
 winged, and tenacious. She tried to 
 brush them off; but they were creeping 
 up her sleeves, clinging to her throat, 
 caught in the meshes of her hair, alight- 
 ing with whirring wings on her bosom, 
 falling upon her face. She fought them 
 with frantic hands, running about the 
 court, yet forbearing, even in her fright, 
 to utter a sound, lest Richard lest 
 Richard 
 
113 
 
 They were everywhere, loathsome, 
 horrible; crawling along the walks, 
 dashing themselves clumsily against 
 lattices, swinging to flower-buds, drop- 
 ping heavily upon benches and into 
 jardinieres darkening the very air 
 and filling it with a ghastly, corpse-like 
 odor. Outside, in the streets, there were 
 millions of them yellow fever beetles ', 
 superstitious folk called them ; brought 
 into being, they declared, by the first 
 fetid breath of the pestilence. 
 
 Noel lifted white imploring arms 
 toward Claude's Way ; but there was 
 no sound there, or anywhere. Only 
 the nauseous beetles, and the echo of the 
 Cathedral bell down in the old Place 
 d'Armes booming out the passing hours. 
 
 At midnight Noel reentered the 
 house. She dragged herself up the 
 steps, pale and exhausted by her solitary 
 vigil. Her garments were dank with 
 the noisome night dews ; their folds 
 
H4 
 
 were heavy with the sluggish black 
 creatures whose presence she had long 
 ceased to note. 
 
 She moved like a ghost to the closed 
 door and fell upon its threshold. The 
 silence beyond it, she thought, was like 
 the silence of death. " If I could but see 
 you, La Reine Margot," she sobbed. 
 " To tell you ! You know. You 
 understand. You remember. For the 
 Prince ceased to come to you also, in 
 your garden." 
 
XIII 
 
 THE Sunday stillness was the 
 most terrifying yet. But stay, 
 was it Sunday ? Noel leaned 
 her head back against the orange-tree 
 and tried to think. A dull pain gnawed 
 at her heart, and the throbbing of her 
 temples confused all her outer and inner 
 senses. Last night, with its long fruit- 
 less watch, seemed as remote as the be- 
 ginning of the world. And Friday 
 night ; and the blooming of the flower ; 
 and Richard Nay, but all this was a 
 dream ! 
 
 She had come straight to the garden 
 from her bedchamber, not entering 
 the breakfast room. The very thought 
 of food was sickening/ Besides, what 
 might she not find there to add certainty 
 to her growing apprehensions ! And 
 
n6 
 
 she longed to sit in the sunshine and 
 get warm. She was cold cold to the 
 very marrow of her bones. The life- 
 blood seemed to have congealed in her 
 veins. 
 
 She looked around with bloodshot 
 eyes, whose luminous gray was faded to 
 a wan yellow. The unkempt walks 
 were thick with dead beetles ; the foun- 
 tain, choked with them, had stopped 
 playing. The stagnant pool at Cupid's 
 feet held a distorted reflection of his 
 nude, winged figure; he leered at the 
 girl from under dust-begrimed brows. 
 Rank incense from the triple-horned 
 datura shading his shoulders hung in 
 the air. 
 
 Madame Chretien's window blinds 
 were flung wide open. The wistaria 
 branches along the south wall rose and 
 fell monotonously in a hot wind which 
 seemed to Noel to blow down from the 
 north pole. The sun beating upon her 
 
uncovered head drove an ice-cold spike 
 into her brain. 
 
 Her head drooped to her breast. She 
 slept, or at least she dreamed. 
 
 She dreamed that great-aunt Harlowe 
 had thrust her out of the musty old 
 house at home, and that she was 
 wandering, wandering, wandering, over 
 the deserted prairie wide and bare as 
 eternity barefoot, shivering, in her 
 little muslin slip, and calling, calling, 
 calling for Papa. Only Papa's name 
 was not Claude but Richard. And 
 Richard would not answer. . . . The 
 heavens opened ; Judgment Day was 
 come ; blood-red and awful as her 
 black mammy had always foretold. A 
 mighty thunderbolt rent the world in 
 twain ; the dead came forth from their 
 graves ; gibbering in their long shrouds, 
 and pointing. . . . She opened dazed 
 eyes. The knocker on the street door 
 was clanging loudly. Its echoes rever- 
 
berated up and down the corridor. She 
 heard a falling bar, the pushing aside of 
 a bolt, and the opening of the door; 
 then a noise as of feet on the pavement 
 within feet that advanced shuffling 
 slowly and heavily. She started up, 
 fell back dizzy and weak, and started 
 up again. A frightful premonition 
 came to her of the meaning of those 
 shuffling feet. Men's voices in hoarse 
 whisperings mingled with the approach- 
 ing sound. 
 
 A terrible fascination drew her gaze 
 toward the corridor ; the echoing tread 
 came nearer; and now the heavy feet 
 were on the uncarpeted steps. The 
 men were hidden from view by an angle 
 of the wall, but the thing they carried 
 dipped, with their ascent, toward the 
 ground, and she saw the end of a 
 coffin. 
 
 She opened her blue lips, but no 
 sound issued from them. She tried to 
 
119 
 
 lift her hands ; they fell helpless and 
 inanimate in her lap. She wished to fly 
 from the court and hide herself in her 
 room ; her feet refused to move. 
 
 Only after an eternity it was in 
 reality but a few moments when she 
 heard those heavy feet descending the 
 stair again, slowly, carefully, as if bearing 
 a heavier burden, she crept, stooping, 
 to the rose-lattice and crouched behind 
 it, shutting her eyes lest she should see 
 the Black Thing again. 
 
 As the street door opened once more, 
 a wild wail broke the Sunday stillness. 
 Noel recognized Marcelle's voice. She 
 heard her forsaken, heart-rending cry, 
 muffled and far away, long after the 
 ponderous door was shut and barred. 
 The faithful old bonne, then, was fol- 
 lowing her mistress to the tomb, as she 
 had followed La Reine Margot's only 
 son! "She is dead! She is dead! 
 And I shall never see her ! " whispered 
 
120 tEt^e ffliueen^ Garten 
 
 the half-crazed girl, staring through the 
 lattice with dry eyes. She dared not 
 move, but cowered in her hiding-place, 
 while the sun sank in a sea of sulphur- 
 colored cloud. For one instant a flame- 
 like haze filled the court; then night 
 fell suddenly, dark, mysterious, and 
 ghostly. The beetles, which had seemed 
 dead, lifted their shell-like wings and 
 flew aimlessly hither and thither, thicken- 
 ing the air ; and a poisonous smell stole 
 down on the vapory air from the infected 
 mansion, and mingled shamelessly with 
 the pure scent of the night-blooming 
 jessamine, and the rank breath of the 
 triple-horned datura. 
 
 " I dare not stir," Noel muttered. 
 cc They will see me and make me go in. 
 I cannot go in. I am afraid. And I 
 am too tired to climb that stair. It is 
 so high ! So high ! " 
 
 She need not have feared spying eyes, 
 poor child. There was no one in the 
 
great dark house, except Marcelle, re- 
 turned from the hasty burial of her 
 adored mistress. And old Marcelle 
 had forgotten Noel's existence ! 
 
 " I am so lonely," she sighed. " And 
 so tired. And I ache so horribly. But 
 I dare not move. I cannot climb that 
 dreadful stair ! " 
 
 But she did at length start to her 
 feet. She stood, heedless of the flying 
 beetles, her head thrown back, her ear 
 attentive, her hands clasped as if in 
 supplication, her heart beating violently. 
 The sound fell again upon the unnat- 
 ural silence of the night a groan, and 
 then something like a muffled call, or 
 cry. 
 
 Her ankles were no longer weighted 
 with lead ! A stair as high as that which 
 once led to Babel's Tower would not 
 have daunted her. She flew with the 
 speed of a woodland fawn, not into the 
 mansion, but up the wing-stairway, and 
 
122 tEHje flkumt'tf 
 
 along the upper gallery, to the grille. 
 His voice ! Her name ! Noel. Noel. 
 She distinctly heard him call her name. 
 
 " Ah, I might have known ! " she 
 murmured in a tone of self-reproach. 
 " He is sick, my Richard. He is call- 
 ing me. I am coming Richard. It is 
 I. Noel ! " she called in a clear silvery 
 voice. She stepped upon the low rail- 
 ing, grasped an iron bar of the grille 
 with a firm hand, set one foot upon the 
 gnarled twist of the wistaria-vine, swung 
 herself out into mid-air, and dropped, 
 light as a bit of thistle-down, upon 
 Richard's balcony. 
 
 He was lying, half dressed, upon a 
 low couch in the small gallery room. 
 His light burned dimly in the smoking 
 student-lamp on the table. A litter of 
 loose sheets of scribbled writing-paper 
 was scattered over the table and on 
 the floor beside the couch. The flower 
 she had pinned on his coat a bit of 
 
123 
 
 sweet olive was in a tumbler of water 
 beside the discolored copy of Moore. 
 
 This was all that Noel saw as she 
 paused timidly on the threshold. His 
 face against the pillow was ghastly pale. 
 His eyes were fixed and glassy. But 
 some intuition drew them in her direc- 
 tion, and he started up, stretching out 
 his arms. " Noel ! Noel ! " he called 
 ecstatically. 
 
 A spasm of pain contracted his brows ; 
 it seemed to awaken him sharply to a 
 sense of her danger. " Do not come in, 
 Noel ! You shall not touch me, I tell 
 you ! Go away, Noel, I command you ! 
 Do you not see that I have the fever 
 the yellow fever" he shrieked frantically. 
 " Go away, Noel." 
 
 He fell back upon his pillows and 
 delirium seized him once more. " She 
 was in the garden," he muttered. " I 
 saw her, white like a white dove. But 
 she would not stay. She has the sweet- 
 
124 
 
 est voice I ever heard. And we saw 
 the flower come into bloom together. 
 Max ! " he cried with a sudden change 
 of tone. " You have cut off my hand ! 
 Why did you cut off my hand ? My 
 copy will never be ready ! " He 
 struggled up again and stared wildly 
 around. But Noel had come swiftly 
 across the bare floor to lay her hand on 
 his breast. She forced him gently back- 
 ward. He breathed her name again 
 softly. She fell to her knees beside the 
 couch and took his burning hands in 
 hers. 
 
 " I shall never be lonely again as long 
 as I live," she sighed, laying her head 
 beside his on the damp pillow. 
 
XIV 
 
 DOCTOR Andrew Grafton was 
 sitting alone in his office that 
 Sunday night. The famous 
 physician was a tall, spare man, with a 
 look of great strength and vigor about 
 his person, despite his sixty-odd years. 
 His hair and beard were gray. The 
 square under jaw and the set lips gave 
 a stern expression to his face ; but his 
 dark eyes were mild and benignant. 
 
 A bundle of letters tied with a faded 
 ribbon lay on the desk at his elbow ; 
 he held in the palm of his hand the 
 miniature of a young girl. He gazed 
 steadily at her pictured face ; and her 
 red lips smiled innocently back at him ; 
 her white satin gown was stiff with em- 
 broidery of pearls, and a string of milk- 
 white pearls melted into her beautiful 
 neck. 
 
fatten 
 
 " I loved you, Marguerite," he whis- 
 pered. " I have loved you, and none 
 but you, my whole life long. You 
 were torn away from me in life ; and in 
 death you are farther away from me 
 than ever ! For you are lying in your 
 stately tomb beside the husband they 
 chose for you, with your little golden- 
 haired son at your feet. And Claude, 
 who quarreled with you for my sake, 
 and went away, we knew not whither 
 he, too, is gone. And I only am left " 
 
 A step sounded in the outer room. 
 He closed the locket with a snap, and 
 swept it with the bundle of letters into 
 an open drawer. 
 
 " Doctor," called the fresh-faced med- 
 ical student from the doorway, shading 
 his eyes with his hand ; " are you 
 there ? " 
 
 " Yes," returned the doctor, with un- 
 accustomed curtness. " I am here. 
 What do you want ? " 
 
"7 
 
 Max Warren drew a step nearer. 
 cc Are you going down to see Madame 
 Chretien again to-night, doctor ? " 
 
 " Madame Chretien died this after- 
 noon. I have just returned from her 
 funeral." 
 
 His tone awed the younger man. 
 " Oh, I beg pardon, Doctor Grafton. I 
 did not know ; " he lifted his hat rev- 
 erently. " I will get some one else." 
 He turned to go. 
 
 " Stay, Max," called the doctor, 
 mastering himself instantly. " What 
 was it you wanted, my boy ? " 
 
 " Nothing ; that is I have to go 
 to the hospital myself, and I thought 
 if you were in Madame in that neigh- 
 borhood, you know, you might see if 
 anything is wrong with Dick Strong." 
 
 " Why, has he the " 
 
 " No, no ; I trust not," interrupted 
 Max hastily. " But he did not show 
 up at all at his office last night ; and he 
 
128 W$t Queen's 
 
 has not been to the c Pen and Pencil ' to- 
 day. So I thought Dick is such a 
 regular old chap Don't trouble your- 
 self, doctor. We are all apt to forget 
 how tired you must be. I '11 go myself, 
 later." 
 
 " No." Doctor Grafton had already 
 put on his hat and was looking around 
 for his cane. cc Now that you speak of 
 of Madame Chretien, I remember 
 that I did intend to go there to-night. 
 I had forgotten." A ghost of a sigh 
 escaped his lips. " A young girl the 
 niece of Madame Chretien, her only 
 brother's child, arrived at her house a 
 week ago. She has been kept out of 
 the reach of danger. But I must look 
 after her at once. I will see Dick as I 
 go down. I hope the lad is all right." 
 
 "Thank you, doctor. A gallery 
 room in the wing of the old lodging- 
 house, just this side of of Madame 
 Chretien's." 
 
Clause's? OTag 129 
 
 " Claude's little girl/' mused the old 
 doctor, striding along the hushed street. 
 " How Marguerite clung to the life for 
 which she had long ceased to care, in 
 the hope of seeing Claude's daughter ! 
 And I, in my selfish desolation, had 
 quite forgotten the child ! " 
 
 He forgot her again, although he was 
 now her guardian and the trustee of the 
 large property devised by Madame 
 Chretien to her sole heir " my be- 
 loved niece and adopted daughter, Noel 
 Lepeyre." His thoughts were again 
 busy with the past ; so busy that it was 
 by instinct, and not through any recol- 
 lection of Richard Strong, that he shoved 
 open a heavy batten door which was 
 unlocked and sagged a little on its giant 
 hinges ; and passed along a familiar but 
 long unvisited corridor. As he entered 
 the dilapidated court he paused and 
 stared uncertainly around, like one 
 awakening from a dream. Here was 
 
130 
 
 the close, once a blooming Paradise, 
 like the one just over the mossy brick 
 wall, where he had played as a boy, and 
 dreamed the flattering dreams of youth 
 and early manhood. It was filled with 
 the accumulated debris of successive 
 occupants ; a huge rat lumbered across 
 his feet and loped away to the shelter 
 of a tangled thicket of weeds under a 
 jutting balcony. A dreary, monotonous 
 drip-drop echoed from the corner where 
 a leaking cistern huddled against the 
 wall. The house where he was born 
 reared its gloomy facade, dark and silent, 
 against the misty sky. How many 
 years since he had followed his mother's 
 coffin down the corridor, and the last 
 of his race quitted the old mansion 
 forever ! Its gradual decay into a 
 common lodging-house had not been 
 unknown to him, but he had never real- 
 ized it until now. Faugh I He stum- 
 bled across the cluttered court feeling 
 
Clauds Way is 1 
 
 his way with careful outstretched cane. 
 cc Gallery room ? Ah, that must be the 
 room yonder, where a light is burning. 
 By Jove, my own old fencing quarters ! 
 I wish the boy had not elected to lodge 
 in this particular house. Well, well, I 
 will see him first ; and then for my little 
 ward. Heigh-ho ! " 
 
 The crooked stair creaked under his 
 feet as he climbed it. Halfway up, the 
 soft murmur of a voice a woman's 
 voice reached his ear. He turned, 
 half inclined to retreat. " The lad has 
 visitors," he said to himself, with a grim 
 smile. " A visitor ! Evidently I am 
 not needed here ! " 
 
 Nevertheless he strode on. 
 
 " My God ! " He stood rooted to 
 the sill of the open door. Richard's 
 face, from pale had become livid ; his 
 eyes were closed, the damp hair clung 
 to his forehead, and heavy beads of per- 
 spiration stood on his temples. He lay 
 
132 
 
 quite still, like one dead. But Noel, 
 kneeling beside his couch with her 
 golden head against his shoulder, and 
 his hands in hers, was babbling volubly. 
 A bright spot burned scarlet in either 
 cheek ; her eyes rolled wildly ; she 
 moistened her parched lips incessantly 
 with a red tongue. 
 
 The lamp gave out a stifling smell. 
 The heavy atmosphere reeked with con- 
 tagion. 
 
 " My God ! " repeated Doctor Graf- 
 ton. 
 
 Noel looked up, a gleam of con- 
 sciousness dawning into her eyes. fc I 
 heard him call," she whispered. " And 
 I came to him. Hush ! You must 
 not awaken him. He is very sick. 
 He has the yellow fever. And La 
 Reine M argot is dead, and I will never 
 see her." 
 
 " Noel ! " Doctor Grafton spoke 
 sharply, seeking to arrest the fleeting 
 
ClauDe'0 OTap 133 
 
 intelligence. " How did you get out 
 how did you come here ? " 
 
 I i ? s he smiled. " I came by 
 Claude's Way. And I will never be 
 lonely again as long as I live. Ah-h-h. 
 See ! The end of a coffin ! Judgment 
 Day has come ! " 
 
 He did not hear her shuddering 
 shriek. " Claude s Way." Even as he 
 advanced rapidly toward the two forlorn 
 young creatures thus thrown together 
 by the strangest of chances, his heart 
 was swelling with poignant emotion. 
 "Claude's Way." The " Course Peril- 
 ous," so named by Claude Lepeyre 
 and himself when they were boys ; the 
 way by which they came and went 
 stealthily, secure from stern, forbidding 
 eyes. The way by which he, Andrew 
 Grafton, sometime called the Prince, 
 grown to manhood, was used to enter 
 by night the garden of his father's life- 
 long enemy nay, the pleasaunce of 
 
134 
 
 his Lady, the garden of La Reine Mar- 
 got ! The way so long untrodden by a 
 dispossessed Prince. " Claude's Way/' 
 Love's way ! 
 
 With these memories whirling through 
 his brain, the old doctor had caught up 
 a woolen shawl from the foot of the 
 couch, and was wrapping Noel in its 
 folds. He paused to lay a professional 
 hand on Richard's clammy forehead, 
 and to touch the inert wrist. cc I will 
 come back in a few moments, Dick," 
 he said in the ear of the unconscious 
 sleeper, " but I fear it is too late. 
 Much too late. Poor boy." 
 
 He lifted the girl from the floor. 
 She made no resistance ; her hot head 
 fell against his neck ; her fevered breath 
 burned his cheek. He clasped the light 
 burden with one powerful arm, as he 
 came out into Richard's leafy watching- 
 place. He seized the iron bar with his 
 right hand, and a second later he was 
 
Map 135 
 
 passing along the well-remembered 
 gallery beyond. 
 
 Noel, cradled on his breast, was croon- 
 ing dreamily : 
 
 " The Gate is locked and the key is lost ! 
 I 'm in this Lady's Garden.' 
 
 The parrot, wakeful on his lofty perch, 
 croaked dismally back, 
 "LaMortel LaMorte!" 
 
XV 
 
 THE late October sunshine, a lit- 
 tle hazy and a trifle less daz- 
 zling than the sunshine which 
 had first greeted Noel into the Queen's 
 garden-close, fell full upon her one 
 morning, sitting on the bench under the 
 orange-tree. The fountain was play- 
 ing briskly ; Cupid received the light 
 spray on his shining shoulders with a 
 chastened smile ; the yellow butterflies 
 hovered like golden motes above the 
 blue cones of the water-hyacinths in the 
 basin. All about was a riot of leaf, ten- 
 dril, and blossom. It was as if a new 
 summer had entered the close, treading 
 out with beneficent feet all vestiges of 
 that brief and awful moment when de- 
 cay and death had dwelt there. 
 
 Doctor Grafton had fetched a garden 
 
137 
 
 chair for himself from the pillared arcade, 
 and placed it in the walk facing his 
 young ward. He had been telling her 
 of her father's boyhood and his own : of 
 the bitter family feud between the Graf- 
 tons and the Lepeyres, once, long ago, 
 bound together by ties of closest bro- 
 therhood ; of the beautiful young girl 
 whom he had loved and lost ; thus 
 piecing out for her the old Fairy Story, 
 making it whole, and more lovely 
 and oh, how past conceit more sad ! 
 Then there was a long silence. 
 
 " She is an ugly little creature, my 
 ward," thought the doctor, looking at 
 her through half-closed eyes. She wore 
 the rusty black frock in which, in com- 
 pany with Major John Steele, she had 
 arrived weeks ago at the gate of the 
 Queen's Garden. Her illness had left 
 her frightfully emaciated and pale al- 
 most to deathliness. Her gray blue 
 eyes were heavy ; her lips had lost their 
 
i3 8 
 
 rosy bloom ; the corners of her mouth 
 drooped pitifully. " Yes, she is ugly, 
 Claude's daughter. And yet she re- 
 minds me, somehow, of Marguerite ! " 
 
 " I smell violets," he said aloud. 
 
 " You will find them," said Noel lan- 
 guidly, "growing over beyond the cistern 
 under the edge of the wall." 
 
 He went and plucked a few blossoms, 
 kneeling on the moist flagstones. 
 
 cc How well you know this garden," 
 he observed, coming back and handing 
 her the violets. 
 
 " Oh," she returned, letting the 
 flowers slip through her transparent fin- 
 gers, " I lived in this garden a hundred 
 years - once." 
 
 Again there was a silence. 
 
 " The gate was locked and the key was 
 lost" she half sang, half chanted, smiling 
 sadly at him. 
 
 It was a sweet voice. Doctor Graf- 
 ton, the great musical connoisseur, was 
 
139 
 
 surprised by its underlying strength and 
 timbre. 
 
 " By the way, it is yours, you know, 
 Noel the garden," he said suddenly. 
 
 " I do not want it," she interrupted 
 quickly. " I am going home back 
 to second cousin Louisa Marsh. She 
 will die of course. Everybody dies." 
 
 " Not everybody ! " the doctor ob- 
 jected lightly. "You, for example. 
 You " 
 
 " Oh, I ! " Noel's lip curled disdain- 
 fully. " I mean everybody who means 
 anything ; everybody, above all, who has 
 anything to do with me. I am like 
 that tree, you know " 
 
 " The upas," suggested the doctor 
 indulgently. 
 
 "The upas. My mother first, and 
 then my father." She told them off, 
 according to wont, on her fingers. 
 " Aunt Hester, and great-aunt Har- 
 lowe. Step-aunt Mitchell. And then 
 
tEEfte tibnttn'8 
 
 my Tante Marguerite, whom I never 
 saw. Then " the last word was spo- 
 ken under her breath. She glanced 
 furtively up at Claude's Way and the 
 bit of shaded gallery beyond. Her eyes 
 clouded and drooped. 
 
 " Old ! " cried the doctor. " Old, all 
 of them ! And quite ready to creep 
 out of life. Or else careworn, and dis- 
 appointed, and miserable. Or too pure 
 and lovely to linger in a world like this." 
 He bared his head and glanced in his 
 turn at the window of the room where 
 Madame Chretien died. " But when 
 one is young and strong and passion- 
 ately in love with love and life ! That 
 you will admit, Noel, that is different." 
 
 She looked at him with suddenly di- 
 lated eyes. " Doctor ! " she cried, clasp- 
 ing imploring hands. " Doctor Grafton, 
 do you mean that he that one so very 
 near death can could " She leaped 
 to her feet. " How dare you treat me 
 
ILobe'0 
 
 so ! " she burst out angrily, her hands 
 pressed to her breast, her breast heaving 
 painfully ? " Why do you not tell me. 
 Do you know him? Have you seen 
 him ? But I know it is not true. He 
 everybody is dead. Everybody." 
 
 She sank back to her seat panting and 
 sobbing, her face hidden in her folded 
 arms. Doctor Grafton had started for- 
 ward alarmed. But he halted, listening 
 to a footstep that came hurrying down 
 the corridor. 
 
 He laid his hand on the young man's 
 shoulder and drew him silently along 
 the walk. 
 
 " Miss Lepeyre," he said with a great 
 affectation of ceremony, " allow me to 
 present my friend, Mr. Richard Strong." 
 
 " Noel ! " cried Richard, bending ten- 
 derly over her and touching her bowed 
 head with a timid, entreating hand. 
 
 He was as colorless and wraith-like 
 as herself. They might have been, in 
 
their pale ethereal beauty, two disem- 
 bodied spirits, meeting, after their re- 
 lease from earthly life, in some divinely 
 sheltered bower of Paradise ! 
 
 But as she looked up, a vivid blush 
 dyed her cheeks ; a radiant smile parted 
 her lips. 
 
 " O Richard, d mon roi ! " murmured 
 the old doctor, stealing a glance at them 
 and turning away. " She is beautiful, 
 Claude's daughter," he added, looking 
 up at Claude's Way. " She is like Mar- 
 got." 
 
 Like Margot! Like Youth ! Like 
 Love ! 
 
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON & CO. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
 
 U. S. A. 
 
YB 74383