Kate Beaumont

CHAPTER XXXIII.

BEFORE Kate fairly recovered from her fainting fit, her brother Vincent placed a powerful opiate at her lips and she drank it, so that the first hours of her bereavement passed away in sleep, or rather in disturbed and spasmodic dozing.

Leaving her in the hands of this merciful insensibility, let us see how others were affected by the death of Kershaw. Even previous to that event Peyton Beaumont had made it his duty to exorcise Randolph Armitage from his house. When that high-flung gentleman made his appearance, on the morning after he had been put to bed drunk and with a broken scalp, his father-in-law’s first words to him were, “ Are you able to travel, sir ? ”

“ I suppose I am,” sullenly replied Randolph, with a scowl of mingled pain and anger.

“ Then travel, sir,” growled Peyton, the brown veins in his forehead and the red veins in his cheeks swelling with wrath.

Randolph started, placed one hand to his bandaged head as if to repress its beatings, made an evident effort to recover his self-possession, and seemed about to remonstrate.

“ Don’t you speak, sir,” thundered Beaumont. “You can’t have your wife and children. As a husband and as a father, as well as in every other way, you have been a brute. Get out of my house. Get out of this district. If I find you in the neighborhood to-morrow, I ’ll have you hunted like a wolf. Not one word, sir. Be off!”

With the air of a cowed but savage cur, Armitage walked silently out of the house, and that very day quitted Hartland for parts unknown.

Sadly and heavily, Beaumont now went to find Nellie, and said to her, “ My poor child, I have sent him away.”

Nellie placed her hands on her father’s shoulders, as if for support, and laid her head against his cheek so as to hide her face. She remembered that it was her own husband, once very dear to her, who had thus been driven out, and she remembered also that she could not reasonably say a word against his ignominious expulsion. In that bitter moment she was fully conscious of her loneliness, her degradation as a wife, her failure as a woman. She expressed her wretchedness and her resignation in one brief sentence, “ I have ceased to be a wife.”

“My dear, it was time,” murmured Beaumont, in hoarse, tremulous bass. “ My dear child, no one can blame you,” he presently added in a louder tone. “ I should like to look the man in the face who would dare blame you.”

The next notable event in the household, an event already related, was Kershaw’s death. In the village, in the district, and even in all the midland part of the State, it produced a prodigious excitement. The profound popular respect which had for many years surrounded this “ last of the barons ” (as some men called him) blazed up in a flame of wrath against his murderers. All the fighting men of the region, as well as all the non-fighting men and the women, were for once virtuously indignant at an assassination. Even the intimate friends of the McAlisters found it hard to excuse them, and their numerous enemies were in a state of mind to lynch them gladly, had lynching high-toned gentlemen been ethically permissible.

The Judge, honestly horrified by the tragedy, had moral sense enough to foresee the storm which it would arouse, and to shrink from encountering it. He promptly published a card in the “ Hartland Journal.” In this card he expressed his sincere grief for the death of Colonel Kershaw; he eulogized the old man’s character in a style which strong feeling made eloquent; he flatly denied that his sons were responsible for the homicide, and asked the public to suspend its judgment until further information. Bruce and Wallace also put forth a joint statement, in which they asserted that neither of them had aimed at the deceased, and that their action in the mælée was a justifiable defence of their brother.

But their plea was useless. Nearly all Hartland believed that they had killed Kershaw, and that in so doing they had committed an abominable crime. Even their assertion that they had not aimed at the old man was turned against them by this community of marksmen. John Charles, a fervent adherent of the Beaumonts, be it charitably remembered, expressed very pithily the prevailing opinion.

“ Popped the Colonel by accident, did they?” said Mr. Charles, taking a fresh quid aboard and chewing it vigorously, while he meditated upon the infamy of the confession. “ Sech men no business carryin’ shootin’-irons,” he resumed, in his leisurely way. “ Why, I consider it one of the highest of crimes an’ misdemeanors to pop a man by accident. I ’ll leave it out to all Hartland, if it ain’t. Why, look hyer. Ef I save a man beknownst an’ a purpose, I may hev good reason for it. Anyway, I know what I’m after. I do what I set out to do, an’ nothin’ else. You know how to count on me. You know what I ’ll do next time I put my hand under my jacket. Take the Beaumonts, now,” instanced Mr, Charles, after another prolonged grinding. “ They don’t go round shootin’ the best men in the country by accident. When they pop you, they mean it. They’ve shot as many as any other crowd in the State, an’ never had no damn foolish accident yet, but allays bored the feller they drew bead on, an’ no other. Now thar’s men you can tie to ; thar’s men you can hev a confidence in ; thar’s men you can feel safe with. I tell you, I love an’ respect them Beaumonts, for what they do an’ for what they don’t do, for what they hit an’ for what they miss. A man that’s allays doin’ jest what you reckoned he was gwine to do is the man that John Charles swings his old broadbrim for. That’s so.”

After another stern assault upon his quid, he concluded his virile profession of faith, worthy surely of the heroic age.

“ But as much as I love business, I hate foolin’ round an’ firin’ wild. A feller that goes about killin’ by accident, you can’t tell what he ’ll do nor whar he ’ll stop. He may clean out the whole poppylation by one accident after another. Children an’ niggers an’ stock an’ property at large ain’t safe when sech a feller is loose. He can’t be trusted. A decent community has no use for sech a man. In a general way he oughter be strung up with the nighest grapevine. I don’t want to raise a crowd agin the McAlisters,” added Mr. Charles, remembering that they were high-toned gentlemen and owned hundreds of negroes. “ I’ve allays considered ’em hitherto as straight-shootin’ men an’ tolerably reliable men every way, except in politics. I’m willin’, as the Judge requests in his keerd, to suspend my judgment. But I must say that so fur, accident or no accident, things is agin ’em. Yes, sir, as sure as cotton is white an’ niggers is black, things is powerfully agin ’em.”

Things were so much “agin ’em,” and the Judge was so clearly aware of it, that he persisted in withdrawing his congressional candidature, though dismally uncertain whether Beaumont would now recommend him for the United States Court. In explanation of this step he put forth a second card, which was dictated, like many other political effusions, by a mixture of subtlety and right feeling, but which expressed such admirable sentiments, and expressed them so well, that it regained for him a certain measure of popular consideration.

“ In consequence of the universal horror and grief at the death of the late lamented Colonel John Kershaw,” he wrote, “and in view of the as yet mysterious circumstances which seem to throw the responsibility of the tragedy upon members of my family, I withdraw my name as candidate for the House of Representatives, merely begging my esteemed fellow-citizens, and especially my faithful political friends, to believe that it is not an evil conscience which impels me to this step, but solely respect for, and sympathy with, a community mourning its noblest citizen.”

“At least,” thought the Judge, “I shall have a good excuse to send to Mr. Choke and his committee. And, moreover, I think it must bring people around a little.”

It did bring them around somewhat, but not enough and not soon enough to influence the election, even had the Judge’s adherents still persisted in considering him a candidate. The voting took place the day after Kershaw’s death, and resulted in an overwhelming triumph for Peyton Beaumont, two thirds of the electors supporting him and the other third staying at home. The Judge received the news of his rival’s gigantic success with the calmness of a strong man accustomed to misfortunes.

“ It is what I looked for,” he said to his excellent wife, with whom he consorted much in his times of trouble. “It was inevitable, − once my name withdrawn. Well, the clouds must clear up some day. Heaven,” he added, feeling somehow that, because he was chastened, therefore he was good,− " Heaven will some day see that justice is done me.”

He did not even show petulance to Bruce and Wallace because of the calamity which they had brought upon him.

“ In general I disapprove of rencontres,” he said to them. “If gentlemen must fight, they should fight under the code, in most cases. But this was an exceptional case. It was defence against assassination. You were unquestionably right, you were right in the sight of God and man, in trying to rescue vour brother. The Beaumonts themselves, unreasonable and savage as they are, must see it. I have no doubt that you saved Frank’s life. I approve of your action. Approve ? God bless me, I thank you for it ! As for the death of poor Kershaw, time will show that your statement is correct, and that you are not responsible for it. Alldiscovering time and Heaven’s own justice,” perorated the Judge, trembling eloquently with his faith and piety.

The Judge’s affairs took on brightness quicker than the reader probably sees reason to hope. The public prejudice against his family was destined to receive a prompt and potent shock. There was a grand-jury inquest into the death of Kershaw, and necessarily a post-mortem examination. Then was satisfied a craving curiosity which had kept all Hartland awake of nights. To understand this inquisitiveness, it must be stated that the fighting men of the region frequently marked their bullets, partly perhaps out of a chivalrous feeling that every one ought to take the responsibility of his own shots, and partly that each might be able to vindicate his marksmanship by identifying his proper game. It was a custom which had been introduced by those leaders in chivalry, or, as some few people said, in savagery, the Beaumonts. Of course it was expected by all the enemies of the McAlisters that the fatal bullet would disclose the letter M. What then was their astonishment when the letter was found to be A !

“A!” whispered Vincent, as he handed the tragical bit of lead to his father.

“A!” gasped Peyton Beaumont, after a long stare of amazement and a quick glance at Vincent.

“ It is an ugly hieroglyphic − for us,” observed Poinsett, sombrely.

“What! − was it Armitage?” demanded Tom, blurting out what the rest had shrunk from uttering.

“ He was the man,” responded Beaumont with drooping head. “ The calamity is ten times more dreadful than we knew.”

All four were silent for a time, weighed down by the same terrible reflection, that upon their house rested the responsibility of the death of Kershaw.

“ It must have been a pure accident,” said Poinsett at last. “Armitage had nothing against our old friend.”

“It was a stupid drunken accident of a miserable drunkard and idiot,” muttered Beaumont, dashing tears of grief and rage from his eyes.

“ One thing puzzles me,” resumed Poinsett, whose legal mind was already cross-questioning the circumstances of the tragedy. “Armitage did all his firing before Bruce and Wallace came up. Consequently the Colonel must have known that it was not they who hit him. Now, why did he not state it ?”

“ Wanted to save the honor of our family,” thought Tom.

“ No,” sighed Beaumont, shaking his head. “ Kershaw was our friend, but not to the point of injustice. He was too truthful a man to let the responsibility lie at the wrong door deliberately. It is more likely that he thought the secret would perish with him, and so no one would be punished for his death. That was like Kershaw. He had no spite in him. He was the gentlest-hearted man that ever drew breath.”

But Vincent had a surgeon’s explanation, and it was noticeable that it at once secured the assent of his auditors, so chirurgical in mind had they become through fightings and hearing of fightings.

“ Sometimes a man is not at once aware that he is hit,” he said, “ I have seen a fellow who had lost first blood insist upon going on .with his affair, quite unaware that he was wounded, and smartly wounded at that. I have known a fellow, shot through the shoulder, who complained that the ball had gone down into his thigh, and finally discovered that the pain in the thigh was caused by a second ball which had struck him there, without causing at first any noticeable sensation. It is wonderful what hits a man may take in a moment of excitement, without immediately remarking them. I suspect that Kershaw never really knew when he was wounded. Had he known it, I think he would have told us, he was naturally so straightforward and frank.”

“ You may be right, Vincent,” answered Beaumont. “ I remember something of the sort happening to myself.”

The reminiscence was uttered quietly, and no one looked surprised at it, nor were any questions asked. The Beaumonts never babbled about their combats, and rarely mentioned them, except incidentally or when business demanded it.

“ What are you going to do with that ? ” asked Tom, as Vincent walked away with the proof of Armitage’s homicide.

“ I am going to put it in Mattieson’s hands to exhibit it to the jury,” was the response.

Beaumont gave Tom a grave glance which seemed to ask, “Would you think of concealing it?”

The young fellow dropped his head and made no further remark.

When the story of the ownership of the fatal bullet spread through Hartland, there came a mighty change in public sentiment. The McAlisters were cleared of Kershaw’s blood as if by a hurrah. People wanted Randolph Armitage brought to justice, and were not far from ready to lynch him, gentleman as he was. Peyton Beaumont was freely criticised (behind his back) for having allowed his son-in-law to disappear, and was even charged with having urged him to escape before his guilt should become known. Nor were there wanting low-minded gossips, incapable of appreciating the pugnacious old planter’s unselfishness and strenuous sense of honor, who hinted that he had long been waiting for the Kershaw estate, and had become impatient. Furthermore, the Beaumonts were held accountable for Armitage’s breach of hospitality in attacking Frank under their roof. Bruce and Wallace were justified for defending a brother in danger of assassination. In short, popular feeling and opinion had never before run so strongly in favor of the McAlisters and against their rivals ; and had the election been held after the inquest, instead of before it, the Judge might have gone into Congress by a respectable majority. Of this fact, by the way, he was the first to take notice ; and he groaned over it in a spirit that was natural, though not praiseworthy.

At last, however, all the circumstances of the mêlée became public, and then Hartland settled down to blaming Randolph Armitage alone, considering that the other combatants had done what was right according to their knowledge, and so merited, not reprobation, but eulogy.

Nevertheless, the Beaumonts remained in a state of grief, wrath, and humiliation. Considering themselves responsible in a measure for their relative, Armitage, they were ashamed of his attack upon their father’s guest, and furious at his homicide of their noble Kershaw. The death of the good old man was an awful loss to them in more ways than one. He had been not only their adviser in doing what was right, but their ægis against criticism when they had done what was wrong. On the rare occasions when society dared to condemn them for their battlings and other peccadilloes, they had been able to respond, “But we keep the faith and friendship of Kershaw, and therefore cannot be very culpable.” Without him, they felt less strong than hitherto, and they mourned him on that account, as well as because they had loved him.

It would seem now as if Beaumont ought to have fulfilled his promise to Kershaw to do his best at burying the hatchet. But, instead of sending pacific messages to the McAlisters, he turned his back on them and on Hartland, and went off to Washington. He remained absent some weeks, during which nothing was known of his purposes or his doings, except that he was much seen in political circles. From him, therefore, we turn to his sorrowing daughter, Kate.

This affectionate, sensitive, puissantly sympathetic nature had been bruised to the core by the great calamity which had fallen upon it. Her best and wisest friend, the sweet old man of whom she had made a pet from her infancy, the being toward whose purity her own pure spirit had instinctively inclined, had been torn from her by a hideous accident, a brutal mistake. At first she bad received the blow with an amazement which had the effect of incredulity. This often happens to the afflicted, and it is well that it is so. Sorrow, to use the intelligent phrase of Vincent Beaumont, is thereby distributed over a greater number of heart-beats, and thus permits the heart to beat on.

But day after day passed, and Kershaw did not return. Little by little the girl fully realized her bereavement, and little by little it appeared that she could not well endure it. To those who loved her, and therefore watched her comprehendingly, it was a terrible thing to see the storms of grief which sometimes came upon her, even when she was striving to maintain a sunny countenance. In the midst of a conversation she would be stricken dumb; her head would fall slowly back, and her eyes turn upward as if seeking to pierce other worlds ; then, with a quiver of the throat, she would utter a loud, shuddering sigh. It was only a momentary spasm, for almost immediately she would regain her usual air, and perhaps finish a sentence. But short as the tremor had been, her heart had given forth a portion of its vitality, and there was less for the purposes of living. There are eruptions which at once show the power of the volcano and eat away its case.

Of course her trial was a complicated one, and her grief a legion. In losing her best and dearest friend, she had lost her chances of domestic peace and her hope of being able to live for love. Who, now that Kershaw was gone, would keep quiet those wild broods of Beaumont and McAlister men, always ready to fiy at each other’s throats ? What probability was there that she would ever be able to place her hand in the outreaching hand of him who had won her heart? Her father and brothers, kind as they meant to be to her, were so many causes of anxiety and terror, such was their readiness to expose life and to take it. From her sister, more unfortunate than a widow, a wife whose husband was in peril of the gallows, she had no right to demand consolation. If she looked to the past, it was a series of troubles, billow raging after billow. Its successive shocks had already weakened her, so that she was the less able to withstand the present.

The human being, bodily and spiritual, is a unity. The mind cannot chafe long without causing the strength of the body to fail. Sorrowful brooding by day, and nights of broken, unrefreshing sleep, soon made the girl an invalid, and gave her the air of one. Her rich color faded, her limpid hazel eyes became dull and despondent, and her fine figure lost somewhat of its rounded outlines.

But sadly as the physical languished, the spiritual suffered even more. Before long Kate fell into a melancholy which took an unwholesome theological cast, akin to superstition. In her diseased imagination God became a Moloch, demanding the death of the innocents of her heart. She was possessed by an impression that some great sacrifice was demanded of her. What could it be, except the man whom she now loved, as she was compelled to admit, above all other living beings ?

Heavy laden with this terrible idea, and striving in vain to shake it off by efforts of reason, the girl wandered in deserts of gloom. Restless with an emotion which claimed to be remorse, she went from room to room with such a haggard face and abstracted gaze as to draw wondering stares from her relatives. One whole day she passed alone in her chamber, praying that the intolerable cup might pass from her. But the heavens were of brass; it seemed to her as if the sun refused to shine upon her, as if all nature reproved her for her selfish rebellion.

At last, overcome by the reproaches of her mock conscience, she bowed her will to this supposed duty. Kneeling before her Bible, sobbing forth supplications for resignation, she promised to expel Frank McAlister from her heart, and to think no more of marrying him, no more of loving him.

She had expected that this vow, could she ever utter it, would give her peace. But it did not; something else was now demanded of her ; the cruel Moloch of broken health and shattered nerves was insatiable ; she must still sacrifice, choosing whatever was pleasantest and dearest. She must give up her home, go forth from her own flesh and blood, and labor somehow, suffer somehow, alone.

This new requisition of the mocking spirits of invalidism drove her almost frantic. Unfortunately there was no one in the family to whom she would naturally turn for counsel in such difficulties. Her aunt and brothers were not in any sense spirituallyminded ; even her sister, notwithstanding her puissance of sympathy, could not comprehend her. Once, when she ventured to hint some of her dolorous impressions to Nellie, that healthy woman broke out in sound-minded indignation, telling the girl that her scruples were whimsical, and calling her a silly.

Under such circumstances it is no wonder that Kate began to receive with pleasure the consolatory visits of the Rev. Arthur Gilyard.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

As the Rev. Arthur Gilyard will be of some importance in our story, we must say a word or two concerning his character.

He was a model gentleman, and, making allowance for the narrowness of his moral education, a model Christian. In all those duties of his profession which he clearly saw to be duties, he was faithful in the extreme.

If he had neither public nor private reproof for some of the characteristics of Southern society which other societies denounced as sins, it was because he had not yet been able to decide that they were unmixed evils.

He doubted, for instance, whether duelling were not an instrument for the development of civilization by elevating the sense of honor and polishing manners. As for slavery, if the Bible did not assail it, why should he ? If in these views he was illogical, antiquated, and provincial, he was at least perfectly honest.

These things apart, he was admirable. By nature proud, ambitious, and combative, he had made himself humble, unselfish, and gentle by assiduous self-culture. The best of sons, a fervent friend, a tireless pastor, an earnest preacher, he was loved in private and respected in public.

Notwithstanding his peaceful profession, even bellicose Peyton Beaumont admired him heartily, and said of him, “ He is a gentleman,” sometimes adding, “ Well, of course he is. Good blood, sir ; Huguenot blood. Even a clergyman, sir, can’t be a gentleman without descent.”

Such was the man who now came often to console Kate Beaumont, and who very soon became infatuated with his mission. In spite of her thinness and pallor, the girl was still beautiful; and in spite of her despondency and her fits of silence, she was fascinating.

There are women who charm men because they take the pains to do it, and who take pains because they are themselves interested. They are of the nature of magnets ; they attract potently for the reason that they are attracted ; they are creatures of strong sympathies and therefore of indefatigable activity. They win triumphs, but they pay for them. For every pulsation that they cause, they have given a pulsation. They are admirable for what they do, and for the power which enables them to do it, and for the health of moral and physical constitution which supplies this waste of power.

The life of such a woman is as stormy and as full of exhausting labor, one may almost say, as that of a Napoleon. She can hardly be encountered without subjection, and she cannot be intelligently considered without wonder. Let no one who is not born to do it, who is not furnished by nature with the force to do it, hope to rival her. This power of fascinating, of being fascinated, and still living, is not acquired, but given. It is unconscious. She who possesses it is not aware of the possession. She acts by it, and does not know why she so acts, and does not even see that she so acts. And it is surely one of the mightiest of the gifts that are conferred upon mortals.

But there is another enchanter, very different from this one, yet equally wonderful. She is not gifted for effort, and she puts forth none. She waits, like a deity, for the worship which is due her, not even perceiving that it is due. She is as calm in appearance as Greek art, and as sure of admiration. She may be called the Washington of women, as the other is the Napoleon. Her purity and nobility of soul, obvious to every worthy beholder, are what draw adorers. The more unconscious she is of worship and the more indifferent to it, the more she commands it.

In sorrow, in the sublime forgetfulness of self which grief brings, she is especially irresistible. Whoever sees her wishes to comfort her, and brings offerings of pity and then of love. She inspires the respectful, the solemnly reverential affection which a true Catholic feels in gazing upon a Mater Dolorosa. A maiden, perhaps, yet already a mother of sorrows, she is at once fascinating and imposing. Men long to sound her sombre mystery, and are willing to use their lives to dispel it.

Such at this time was Kate Beaumont. Her face, of that sweet and dignified aquiline which we call Oriental, was both tender and grand with trouble. Her profound, imploring hazel eyes demanded the pity which she never or rarely asked for in words. No man of refined feeling could look on her without querying, what is the matter with her, and what can I do for her ?

How could a clergyman, whose profession it is to utter the mercy of Heaven, fail to be urgent in proffering consolation ? Arthur Gilyard performed his duty with emotion, and he suffered the penalty of so performing it. We have not space to show how sympathy grew in his heart from one form into another; we must compress the whole of this passionate evolution into one phrase, − he fell in love.

Now imagine Kate Beaumont in daily intercourse with this pitying, worshipping young man, and receiving from him the only ideas that could give her any semblance of peace or joy. What wonder if an impression should come upon her, like a message delivered by some invisible archangel, commanding her to revere her comforter, to imitate his beautiful life, to renounce like him a dying world, and like him devote herself to the good of others ? She had thoughts of entering a hospital as a nurse, or of going abroad as a teacher of the heathen. But, womanlike with all her self-abnegation, she felt that she needed in these labors a fellow-apostle, who should be her support and guide. So also felt and thought the Rev. Arthur Gilyard, remembering meanwhile that his people had been urgent with him to take a wife, and trusting that Heaven had shown him one who was worthy to share his mission.

But this strange courtship, this courtship which strove to be unconscious of its own real nature and purpose, must have the go-by for the present. We are called upon to turn to an unpleasant figure in our drama. Mrs. Chester is about to make trouble, and must be watched.

Notwithstanding a certain constant jealousy of Kate, notwithstanding that it always annoyed her to see another woman admired, Aunt Marian’s first feeling with regard to the Gilyard courtship was mainly gratification. The harebrained, spiteful old flirt had not yet forgiven Frank McAlister for preferring a niece to an aunt; frivolous as she seemed, she had sincerity and earnestness enough to hate him heartily and to want him to be miserable. “ If Kate takes this stick of a minister,” she said to her unamiable self, “it will plague that tall brute properly.”

But we must be more serious than usual with Mrs. Chester. A singular change, capable of germinating ugly consequences, had come over this always sufficiently singular woman. Whether it was that the late startling events in the family life had shaken her nervous system, or whether it was that some constitutional transition or some occult decay of health had suddenly diminished her power of selfcontrol, at all events she was in an uncommonly excitable state. She was as restless, dissatisfied, and fretful as a teething baby. Always troubled with plans and wants, she had them now by scores, and had them dreadfully. Every day some new project for being happy was proposed, advocated with pettish eagerness, and dropped for another. She was as agitated in body as in spirit. She could not sit still; into a room, and out of it ; changing from sofa to settee ; always in movement. At last people began to notice how she buzzed about, how incessantly and eagerly she talked, how oddly her black eyes sparkled.

“ What the doose is the matter with Aunt Marian ? ” grumbled Tom, annoyed by her humming-bird activity. “ I’d as lieve have a basket of hornbugs in the house. If she should bang against the ceiling and come down kicking on the floor, I should n’t be astonished.”

“ She is only a good deal more like herself than usual,” observed the philosophic Poinsett. “ We are all of us annoying when we are excessively in character.”

“ She is behaving queerly, even for her,” judged Vincent, the semiphysician.

Well, among her numerous projects, Mrs. Chester conceived that of going to Washington with Representative Beaumont, keeping house for him during session time, giving grand receptions, having members of the Cabinet to dinner, coquetting with mustached secretaries of legation, and becoming nationally famous as a queen of society. A judicious portion of this enchanting prospect, that is to say, such part of it as included having one’s own nice bed and excellent cookery in a capital not famous for such things, she had set before the mind’s eye of her brother just previous to his leaving Hartland.

“ I would take a house there, if I could have my daughters with me,” replied Beaumont, always a father.

Mrs. Chester frowned : she did not want the daughters along ; they would be rivals with the secretaries.

“Do you think I could n’t take care of you, Peyton?” she asked, reproachfully ; “ an old housekeeper like me ! ”

“ That is n’t it,” answered Peyton, who nevertheless had his doubts. “ I don't want the expense of a Washington house, and Washington hospitalities, of course, unless my children, my girls at least, can share the pleasure with me. You are very kind, Marian,” he added, with judgment. “ But, you see, I am an old fool of a father.”

“ I know you are,” retorted Mrs. Chester, snappishly. But in another instant this versatile gadfly changed her direction and decided to accept her nieces.

“ Let the girls come, if they wish it,” she said. “ We shall be all the gayer.”

“ Gayer ! ” almost growled Beaumont. “ How can they be gay ? How can they go into society at all ? You know what a row Armitage has made, and that he has disappeared.”

“ O, certainly, Nellie can’t go,” admitted Mrs. Chester, thinking, so much the better.

“Nor will Kate, I am sure,” added Beaumont.

“ Why not ? He was only her grandfather.”

Peyton gave his sister rather a black look, and replied, “ That is a good deal, especially when he was the man he was. My God, we let the dead slip out of mind soon enough. Would you have us hurry up our forgetting ? ”

“ You are always snapping at me,” said the lady, with a violent gesture which showed how slight was her self-command. “ You are very hardhearted.”

Beaumont stared in amazement and indignation. Then, for the first time perhaps, he noticed the unusual brilliancy and unsteadiness of his sister’s eye, and wondered whether she were as well as usual. Deciding that she was not fit for controversy, and that lie as a man ought to show forbearance, he made no answer to her attack. She will discover on reflection, he said to himself, who it is that has been hardhearted.

He ought to have known his sister better; she was not a person to see herself as others saw her ; she was as incapable of introspection as a cat. It is worthy of note, by the way, as an instance of her versatility, that she had promptly dismissed her interest in the Gilyard courtship, on discovering that it might interfere with her Washington whimwham.

“ I think you don’t sufficiently consider Kate’s interests,” she resumed. “ Her health, poor child, is suffering. She ought to be taken away from a place where she has met with such affliction. She needs amusement. You ought to have her with you, whether she wants to go or not. She need n’t be very gay, you know,” explained Mrs. Chester, thinking that she would receive the mustached secretaries while Kate should sit up stairs and read her Bible. “ I could take the heaviest part of the entertaining off her hands. She could just drive about and see the sights and recover her cheerfulness.”

Beaumont grinned, almost audibly. His sister had already set up a carriage at his expense in Washington. He said to himself, How like her !

“You are right about Kate,” he observed, aloud. “ She does need change of scene and air. Well, when session opens, if she feels disposed to go with me, I will set up a house.”

The next morning he departed for the capital on the mysterious business of which we have already spoken.

Mrs. Chester now turned her mind to bringing Kate into the Washington project. Taking advantage of a moment when the girl seemed more cheerful than usual, she went at her with the smile of an angel, that is, of a fallen one.

“ Your father is very anxious to keep house this coming session,” she began. “ He is sick of those wretched hotels, and wants his own bed and his own table. His plan is to take you and me with him, and have a comfortable home, you know, and give a few dinners and receptions, and be somebody in society there. It will be so much for his interest, and so much for his comfort too ! I am so glad he has settled upon it.”

Now this was stating the matter pretty strongly, was it not ? Did Mrs. Chester mean to lie or to exaggerate ? Well, not exactly ; she did not see that she was lying or exaggerating much ; perhaps she did not see that she was doing so at all. She was one of those persons who desire so impulsively and passionately, that they easily impute their desires to other people. She stretched the truth and annexed what was not the truth almost unconsciously. No doubt, also, her present abnormal nervousness may account for somewhat of her audacity of invention.

“ Receptions in Washington ! ” murmured Kate. The sorrowing soul shrank from gayeties as an invalid might shrink from a voyage among the chilly glitter of icebergs.

“ O, I will see to them mainly,” offered Mrs. Chester, that child of fortyfive. “You could be in or out, as you wished.”

“ I don’t see how I could well avoid them, if I were in the house.”

“ Well, why should you avoid them ? ” demanded Mrs. Chester, with shocking cheerfulness.

“But, dear aunt, I cannot think of it,” replied the girl, piteously. “ How can I think of it ? ”

“O, don’t be so weak-minded,” exhorted the dear aunt. “ Do try to think of somebody besides yourself,” she added, finding one of the most sympathetic beings in the world guilty of egotism. “ You ought to get at your sewing at once,” she continued, remembering perhaps what a fascinating business dressmaking is to women, and how quickly it can give them a fresh zest for life.

“ If my father really wishes me to go to Washington, I must go,” said Kate, sadly.

But during the day she wrote to her father ; and before long she received a reply, leaving the matter entirely to her choice ; and, armed with this letter, she once more faced her aunt.

“ There, you have spoiled all,” snapped Mrs. Chester. “ You went and cried to him, and melted him as usual. You are the most selfish, the slyest, the − ”

“Aunt Marian,you do me injustice,” interrupted Kate, her eyes opening wide with the astonishment of maligned innocence.

“O, do I? I should think I did. Ha, ha. Well, I suppose so,” replied Aunt Marian with incoherent irony. “ Perhaps I do the young man injustice, too,” she added more intelligibly.

Kate, however, did not understand. A blush slightly tinted her cheek, but it did not refer to the Reverend Gilyard. She simply saw that she was attacked, and she flushed under the outrage.

“ But I understand, miss,” proceeded Mrs. Chester, in a truly irrational passion. “ A young minister, a sweetvoiced young minister, with solemn, saintly blue ey ’s, is a great consolation. O, I have seen many young girls comforted that way before now! I am not a fool, miss. I know my own sex.”

The coarse insult pierced even through Kate’s incredulity that an insult could be meant. Without a word she put her hands to her ears and escaped from her denaturalized tormentor.

“ She will tell her father of me,” thought Mrs. Chester, with a transitory terror. But after a minute of reflection, or rather of certain emotions which served her in place of it, she burst out violently, “ I ’ll stop this courting.”

Her next notable dialogue on this subject was with Mrs. Devine, the mother of our little coquette, Jenny. Mrs. Devine was one of those mild, soft-spoken women who have no mind nor will of their own, but who, in carrying out the desires of some adored being, can show the unexpected persistence and pluck of a setting hen. Unlike Mrs. Chester in character and much disapproving her worldly ways, she nevertheless consorted with her a good deal, because of old fellowship in the langsyne of boarding-school, and because of the intimacy between Jenny and Kate.

Now Mrs. Devine’s heart was bent on getting her darling minister married, and she had settled upon Kate Beaumont as the best match attainable for him. Such a dear, good, lovely girl was surely a very proper prize for such a dear, good, lovely man. There was money there, too, and Mr. Gilyard undoubtedly ought to have money, he was so indifferent to it and knew so little how to keep it. There had been a time when Mrs. Devine had pinched and saved on his account, thinking that perchance he might become the steward of Jenny’s moderate fortune. But he had not been so guided ; and the mother had finally had the grace to see that her daughter was unfit to be a minister’s wife, − had acknowledged with humility that she was much too thoughtless and gay. And surely Providence was in it; for, if her idol had married Jenny, he could not have married Kate ; and Kate was just the girl to be able to appreciate the idol and make him comfortable on his altar.

Well, Mrs. Devine had prayed for this match, had intrigued for it, had prophesied it. Accordingly Mrs. Chester, who did not desire the match lest it should prevent her from going to Washington, had a bone to pick with Mrs. Devine.

“ I hear that you want your minister to marry my niece,” was the opening attack of this energetic, though desultory woman.

The setting hen struck out promptly and gallantly in defence of the eggs which she was hatching.

“ I am sure she could not find a better husband,” she replied. “ I am sure it is better to marry a man like Mr. Gilyard than to plunge into the dissipations of Washington.”

Mrs. Chester was very excitable in these days, remember ; and this attack upon her favorite project touched her where she was most sensitive.

“ It seems to me, Mrs. Devine, that you trouble yourself too much about other people’s girls,” she replied with flashing eyes. “ I should say that you had quite enough to do with keeping your own duckling out of puddles.”

“ What have you got now to say against Jenny ? ” demanded Mrs. Devine, forgetting even her minister in defending her daughter.

Mrs. Chester had nothing special to say against Jenny ; so she changed her front once more.

“ And what have you got to say against Kate’s going to Washington ? ” she asked.

“ I have much to say against it,” replied Mrs. Devine, with the bland but annoying firmness of people who know that they are doing their duty. “ I think it would be very wrong to take her into the gay world just when her heart has been softened by the death of dear, good old Colonel Kershaw. I think that I am bound, as her friend and as one who wishes her highest good, to bear my testimony against any such step.”

Mrs. Chester would hear no more. She was quite unable to restrain the nervous irritability which of late perpetually gnawed her, and set her flying not only at her fellow “ humans,” but also at cats and dogs, and even at things inanimate. She broke out in such a fit of passion as one seldom sees in a lady outside of a lunatic asylum.

“ I know what you mean by your pious talk, Sally Devine,” she chattered. “You want to keep Kate here so that your stick of a minister can court her. You are stark crazy about that palefaced, white-eyed, white-livered creature. You know that Kate Beaumont is the best match in the district, and you want her money and niggers to support him. O, you need n’t make eyes at me as if I were breaking all the Ten Commandments at once. I don’t care if he is a clergyman. I don’t like him. I don’t like his looks. He has a white liver. He’s just that kind of a man that the niggers call a white-livered man. And he’s a poor stick of a minister. When he looks at the daughter of Peyton Beaumont, he looks altogether too high for him. Kate Beaumont is for his betters. She is fit for any planter or any politician in the State. When you put up your little man to jumping for her, you put him up to making himself ridiculous.”

Mrs. Devine was dumbfounded with horror and amazement. Mrs. Chester was talking with a violence which even in her was extraordinary. Not only was her language violent, but her manner also. Her gestures, her flashing eyes, and her loudness of tone all showed an unwomanly and abnormal excitement. Mrs. Devine even thought, just for one moment, “ Is she crazy ?”

“ I want you to let our Beaumont affairs entirely alone,” resumed Mrs. Chester, who had merely paused to catch her breath. “ We are able to take care of our own young lady. Do you take care of yours.” At this point, remembering how much Jenny had made of Frank McAlister some time previous, her anger received a fresh accession, and she added, “ She needs it enough, — the little flirt! ”

Even sense of duty and of martrydom in a just cause could not enable Mrs. Devine to hear more. Insulted through her daughter, and with a sense of degradation in being made the butt of such glarings and such language, she rose and hurried out of the room, crying with vexation.

We beg that the reader will not be equally shocked, and shut his eyes upon the very name of Mrs. Chester hereafter. Sooner or later he will learn the true cause of her unwomanly outbreak, and will probably in a measure pardon her for it.

It so happened that while hastening across the yard, Mrs. Devine met Kate Beaumont. In the weakness of abused femininity, suffering from instant outrage, and remembering also how Mrs. Chester had formerly abused Jenny to her face, the injured woman did not wisely conceal the cause of her weeping.

“ I have been insulted by your aunt,” she sobbed. “ Insulted because I thought it my duty to protest against your being dragged into the vanities and follies of Washington. I have done my duty in this house for the last time. I am sorry, but I can’t help it.”

With these words she tore away, rushed into her carriage, and was driven off. It will be observed that she said nothing about the Rev. Mr. Gilyard, either because she thought it was right so to do, or because she thought it was wise. Even conscientious people, when of the illogical turn of Mrs. Devine, are apt to indulge in such concealments, regarded by stronger heads as prevarications.

Kate, although a hater of duelling, rencontres, and the like, had what may be called gentlemanly ideas of hospitality and of honor. The fact that a Beaumont had insulted a guest under the Beaumont roof-tree, roused in her such indignation that she forgot her sorrows, forgot her melancholies, and lost somewhat of her singular gentleness. As she entered the house and advanced upon Mrs. Chester, with a marble face and the step of a Juno, she looked much more like her spirited sister than like herself. For the first time in this whole story she was angry. We regret to use the word in connection with her, it has such ugly associations; and yet her anger was just, honorable, and becoming.

“ Aunt Marian,” she said, “ I hear that you have been attacking Mrs. Devine, and because of my affairs.”

“ I did not,” asserted Aunt Marian.

“ I do not know what to make of this,” replied Kate, steadily gazing into Mrs. Chester’s wandering eyes. “ Mrs. Devine tells me that you had words with her about my going to Washington.”

Mrs. Chester had at first been strangely afraid of her niece. But as she stood there calling her to account, she became suddenly very angry with her, so angry as to lose all her self-control and to forget her cunning.

“Yes, I did have words with her,” she broke out. “ I let her know her place here. She wants to prevent our going to Washington, and to marry you to that white-livered minister. I let her know that she was an interfering gossip. I did, and I will again.”

“ Aunt Marian, this cannot be,” said Kate, speaking with the steadiness of a Fate. “This is my father’s house, and guests cannot be insulted in it. If you do not write an apology to Mrs. Devine, I shall lay the whole matter before him.”

“ Will you go to Washington ? ” was Mrs. Chester’s only answer.

“ I am not going to Washington,, decreed Kate.

“Then I won’t stay here another day,” declared Mrs. Chester in loud anger. “ I won’t stay here to be ground down and insulted. I ’ll go and keep house for Bent Armitage.”

Kate did not believe her. She was mainly occupied in wondering at the woman’s unusual excitement. She decided that time would be the best medicine for it, and that for the present she would say nothing more to irritate her. When Mrs. Chester should come to herself, and should get over her disappointment about the collapse of the Washington project, she would probably have a mild turn and send an apology to Mrs. Devine. So trusting, Kate left her.

But the next morning Mrs. Chester slyly set off for Saxonburg with bag and baggage, alighting upon the hospitality of the astonished Bentley Armitage, who was keeping bachelor' s hall in his brother’s house. And there, inspired perhaps by a bee in her bonnet, she commenced making fresh trouble for Beaumonts and McAlisters.

CHAPTER XXXV.

“WHAT is up now?” were Bent Armitage’s first words to Mrs. Chester when she rustled suddenly into his lonely lodgings.

Puzzled by her unexpected advent, he supposed that she could only have come to bring him some startling news of Randolph, still a fugitive from such justice as homicidal high-flung gentlemen had in those days to fear in South Carolina.

“ I am driven from my brother’s house by my brother’s children,” answered Mrs. Chester in an excited, tragical way which struck him as both singular and ludicrous. “ Have you a place where I can hide my head ? ”

“ Lots of places to hide heads in,” answered the reassured Bentley, his queer smile, a smile indescribably and perhaps unintentionally quizzical, curling up into one cheek. “ This old rookery is just the spot for hiding heads, or bodies either, for that matter. Any number of handy closets for skeletons.”

Mrs. Chester dropped various bundles on the floor, and then dropped herself with equal helplessness into an arm-chair, gasping as if she had run all the way from Hartland.

“ So the boys have been turning up rusty ? ” inquired Bent, after picking up the fallen packages and seeing otherwise to his visitor’s baggage.

“ It’s the girls,” said Mrs. Chester. “ I can get along with men.”

Bentley smiled again ; she was about right there.

“ I had hoped, or rather I was afraid, that you brought news of Randolph,” he added, turning grave.

Starting off suddenly, like a turbinewheel when the water is let on, Mrs. Chester told the whole story of the killing of Colonel Kershaw. Her distinctness of memory was wonderful ; she related every incident of the tragedy with amazing minuteness, picturesqueness, and fluency ; she was extremely interesting and even amusing. Another noteworthy circumstance was that she talked with such rapidity as to throw off a slight spattering of foam from her lips.

“ I knew all that,” said Bentley, when he found a chance to speak. “But where is he now? That’s the point.”

“ I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Chester with curious dryness and indifference. “ Give me some writing-materials. I want to write a letter.”

Pen and paper being furnished, she commenced writing with singular slowness and hesitation, using first her right hand and then her left.

“ I am disguising my hand,” she presently explained. “ It is an anonymous letter.”

Before Bentley could fairly say, “ The dickens it is ! ” she added, her eyes flashing spitefully, “ It is to Frank McAlister.”

Bentley was astonished, but amused. He had heard somewhat of the woman’s fancy for the young giant. Was she going, at her respectable age, to send him a valentine ?

“ I want to make him miserable,” she continued.

“ I’ve no objection,” observed Bent, lighting a cigar, and watching her through the smoke. “ Sock it to him.”

“ I am going to tell him,” went on Mrs. Chester, with a sullen, absentminded air, − “ I am going to tell him that Kate is engaged to Arthur Gilyard.”

Bentley turned pale and dropped his cigar.

“ He ’ll believe, it and he ’ll be miserable, − he ’ll believe it, and he ’ll be miserable,” repeated Mrs. Chester, with an air of savage pleasure in the iteration.

“ But it is n’t true ? ” asked, or rather implored, Bentley.

“It is,” answered Mrs. Chester. “And O, ain’t I glad of it? I hate those McAlisters ! ”

The unhappy youngster rose and left the room. When he returned, a few minutes later, he had the look of a man who has risen from an illness. Mrs. Chester, who had by this time finished and directed her letter, went on talking about the McAlisters precisely as if she had been talking about them all the while, unconscious of his absence.

“ The feud has lasted seventy years now,” she said. “ There have been three generations in it. There have been fourteen Beaumonts killed in it and thirteen McAlisters. We still owe them one. Just think of it: Peyton is the only one left of seven brothers ; all the rest died in their boots, as the saying is. Until three years ago, our family has never been out of mourning since I can remember. And now Kate is in mourning for her grandfather.”

Bentley softly whistled a plaintive Methodist tune which recalled a chorus commencing, “ O, there will be mourning,− mourning, mourning, mourning.”

“ Yes, there has been mourning,” said Mrs. Chester, recognizing the air; “and there will be more. It can’t stop here. We owe them one, and we must pay the debt. I don’t know who will do it, but somebody will. Your brother missed his mark. He fired at a McAlister, and hit Colonel Kershaw. Perhaps you ’ll be the next one to take up the old quarrel. Ain’t you Beaumont enough ?”

“ Scarcely,” was Bent’s dry answer.

“ O well. You are not married into the family ; but you may be. I thought at one time you were going to take Kate. Why did n’t you ? ”

“ Did n’t hear any loud call to do so,” said Bent. His words were jocose, but his manner was tragic.

“ O, I know,” went on Mrs. Chester. “ That Frank McAlister got in your way. He stopped it.”

“ Did he ?” asked Bentley.

You could have got her, if it had n’t been for him.”

False as this undoubtedly was, Bentley had himself supposed it to be true, unwilling to believe that his love had been declined simply on account of his own demerits.

“ Of course he slandered you,” said Mrs. Chester.

“ O no,” protested Bentley, who, notwithstanding the credulity of anxiety, found this hard to credit.

“ He began it with his eyes,” continued Mrs. Chester. “ He used to look at you and then look at her in a way that was the same thing as a warning. She understood him. I could see that she did. After one of those looks, she used to avoid you. O, you don’t know how quick women are at taking hints ! I know them. A hint goes further with them than a long argument. They think it over by themselves and make ever so much out of it. It is the best way to lead them, to give them little hints and winks. I have found out a thousand things that way. But Frank McAlister did n’t stop there. After a while he went on to talk to her about you. He said you were a drunkard and would make her miserable.”

Mrs. Chester’s disordered imagination invented so rapidly, that her tongue could hardly keep up with it. She talked so volubly and by moments so indistinctly, that Bentley found some difficulty in following her. It may seem singular that he should have credited her babble ; but it must be remembered that she had him upon a subject where his wits were at a disadvantage ; that in talking to him of Kate Beaumont she used a spell which paralyzed his judgment.

“ Look here, this is too much,” he exclaimed at last, starting up and striding about, his partially disabled foot slapping the floor more paralytically than usual.

“ Of course it is too much,” replied Mrs. Chester, eagerly. “ I don’t see how you can endure it.”

“ I can’t,” said Bentley, rushing out of the room.

It was evening when this conversation took place. Before bedtime Bent was under the influence of the hereditary devil of his family. In trouble as well as in joy, in seasons of wrath as well as in seasons of conviviality, in all times of excitement and too often in times of dulness, it was the custom of the Armitages to betake themselves to whiskey. As certain peoples in a state of revolution elevate a tyrant to power, so this breed, when distracted by emotions, enthroned alcohol.

In the morning, rising from the irritation of evil slumbers, Bentley resumed his drinking before breakfast, keeping it up all day and for days following. There were some strange scenes of carousal in the lonely mansion. Mrs. Chester, we remember, was an ardent admirer of men, and especially of young men ; and even in her present excitement she did not forget her old predilection. She took to flattering and petting Bent Armitage, as she had once flattered and petted Frank McAlister. She was so thankful for what little attention she got from him, that she did not mind his semi-intoxication, and indeed ministered unto it. She mixed his liquor and set it before him in a coquettish, hoydenish, juvenile way, sincerely gratified to serve him. She was a cracked old Cleopatra waiting on a young rough of an Antony. It was a spectacle which could be painted as ludicrous, but which I can only paint as woful and horrible.

The more Bent drank, and the more irrational and savage he became with his long debauch, the more completely he credited Mrs. Chester’s tales concerning Frank McAlister’s slanders of himself. For the feud he cared nothing ; even in his present wild state, he knew that he had nothing to do with it; his native clearness of head asserted itself thus far. But he did believe that Frank had injured him, and he did want to shoot the fellow. He used to go to sleep muttering, “ Hang Frank McAlister ! Hang all the McAlisters ! Hang Frank McAlister particularly! Hang him particularly ! ” Only, in place of the word “ hang,” he used a stronger objurgation.

Alcohol is a magician. It tears down a man’s natural character in an hour, and builds him a new one. It accomplishes miracles which remind one of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Under its enchantment your body is forsaken by the spirit which belongs to it, and entered upon by a spirit which you knew not of, any more than if it came from another world. Bentley Armitage, a far better fellow than Randolph, and also furnished with more common sense, was presently on his way to Hartland to fight Frank McAlister, following precisely in the steps of his addle-pated brother, under the same frenzying influence. It was the stupid iteration of that stupidest of possessing demons, “ rum-madness.”

But, though playing Randolph’s part after him, he did it with another port and mask. Even in his inebriety he kept his knowing look and quizzical smile, rather exaggerating them than otherwise. Moreover, instead of improvidently depending for drink on station bar-rooms and on the bottles of wayfarers, he carried with him a full demijohn. In his slangy way he called this his “ wine-press,” and when he treated his fellow-travellers, which he did often and liberally, he always said with tiresome repetition, “Won’t you have some of the wine of astonishment ? ” It must be understood that he was not in a helpless state ; that he did not reel and stammer and hiccough and talk incoherencies. He was simply in an exasperated nervous state because of a long spree.

Arrived in Hartland, he had sense enough not to go to the Beaumont house, knowing to a certain extent what his condition was, and not wishing to present himself thus before Kate. He took the one hack of the little town and drove to the one hotel with his valise and demijohn. After tea he thought himself sober enough to face his relatives, the Devines, and repaired to their house with the hope of learning that the Gilyard engagement was a fiction. The moment that Jenny laid eyes on him, she detected his status ; for being a student of men, she knew him thoroughly, habits, expression, and all.

“ What are you here for, Bent ? ” she asked at once, with not a little tartness.

“ O, I am around,” he replied, trying to smile naturally. “ I am going to and fro in the earth, like Satan, you know.”

“ Exactly,” said Jenny. “What are you going on in this way for ? You ’ll be doing something to worry us. Where is your baggage ? Why did n’t you come here at once ? You had better go up stairs and take a nap.”

“ Come, don’t jump on a man the minute you see him,” protested Bentley, with a momentary sense of humiliation at being so quickly guessed out and so sharply lectured. “ I am a two-legged creature without feathers, I believe. I don’t need a coop.”

“ I wish you would come here and let us take care of you,” insisted Jenny. “ You are not fit to be about alone. Shame on you, you great baby ! There, you sha’ n’t go,” she added, running to the door, shutting it upon him and placing her plump shoulders against it. “ Now I want to know what you are in Hartland for.”

“ How you do jockey me ! ” he said, with the magnanimous smile of a man who feels that he could resist if he would. “ See here, Jenny,” he added, after a scowl of trouble. “Is − is Kate Beaumont − is she engaged ? Mrs. Chester tells me that she is engaged to the minister, Gilyard. Is it true ?”

Jenny hesitated ; a flash passed through her hazel eyes ; it was a gleam of mingled reflection and decision.

“ He has been very attentive to her,” she replied. “ And, if Mrs. Chester told you so, why, of course, Mrs. Chester knows.”

Bentley, his face sobered and ennobled at once by intense grief, advanced to the door and seized the knob firmly.

“Where are you going ? ” demanded Jenny, without giving way,

“ I am going back to Saxonburg,” he whispered.

“ Right,” she said, letting him out. “ I am sorry for you, Bentley ; I am indeed. But you had better go.”

Unfortunately there was no train up country till the next day. During the evening a number of Bentley’s boon companions found him at the hotel, and beguiled him into a carouse which lasted till near morning. When he awoke from a brief and feverish sleep, he had lost the gentle sentiments which Jenny’s feminine magnetism had instilled into him, and was ready in his semi-delirium to fight the first creature which approached him, whether it were a man, or a royal Bengal tiger, or a turtle-dove. He resolved to stay in Hartland and do battle with Frank McAlister. Part of the day passed in wandering about the streets, heavy laden with bowie-knife, pistols, and ammunition, including whiskey, waiting for the appearance of his slanderer. But after dinner, meeting with that martial young lawyer, Jobson, he communicated his griefs to him, and under his dictation drew up a challenge in the approved style of old General Johnson, the document being as rhetorical and almost as voluminous as Cicero’s Orations against Verres. This “ flight of eloquence ” was despatched to its destination by the hands of that most bloodthirsty paradox, invented by the code of honor, and ironically denominated “ a friend.”

We must see now how the cartel was received at the McAlister residence.

Perhaps, however, we ought first to note what was the general state of mind of the challenged party, and what had been his moral history, since we left him retiring from the mêlée in which Colonel Kershaw had fallen.

His moral history referred solely to Kate Beaumont; he thought of nothing else, and as it were knew nothing else. But while he thus lived solely for her, he believed that she could never live for him. It was not her heirship to a large estate which put her beyond his reach. He was not ashamed to sue for her because she had become rich ; he respected himself too much to entertain that kind of shame, loved her too much to suffer it to trammel him. Besides, he would one day be rich himself, at least sufficiently so to live like a gentleman. In his magnanimous and manly opinion, the match would be an equal one, only for this, that Kate was individually far his superior, as she was far the superior of any man.

But the perpetual conflicts and tragedies,−that last degrading mêlée and that last horrible tragedy, − how could he bridge them over so as to reach her ? It seemed impossible ; a sea of blood blown upon by winds of hate lay between them, −a sea which grew wider and stormier at every attempt to span it. Fate had been so long and violently against him, that it had almost wearied him out and stripped him of hope. But not of desire : he still longed passionately for her; all the more passionately because of disappointments and barriers.

While he was thus fighting weakly with despair (as a man fights who only receives blows and cannot return them) he received Mrs. Chester’s anonymous gossip as to the Gilyard engagement. At first he declared to himself with angry contempt that he would not believe it ; and then, comparing it with what he knew of the young clergyman’s visits to the Beaumont place, he did believe it. It may be supposed that life had very little value in his eyes when, a few days later, he opened Bent Armitage’s challenge.

He read the challenge with amazement, and it was surely an amazing paper. It was as full of specifications as an old-time indictment ; it charged him with calumniating Bentley and Randolph Armitage at divers times and in sundry places ; in short, it contained the whole substance of Mrs. Chester’s malicious or crazy inventions.

“ I wonder he did n’t add, and for kicking up a blamed fuss generally,” remarked Wallace, to whom Frank handed the three or four sheets of foolscap. “ But I say, old fellow, for a man who pretends to be peaceable, you get into an awful number of squabbles.”

“ I know nothing about these things,” said Frank. “ He must be insane.”

“ I ’ll fight him myself,” offered Wallace, who had lately been rejected by Jenny Devine, and did not feel that life was worth keeping.

“It is not your business,” replied Frank, remembering the story about Gilyard, and feeling also that life was a burden.

“ Well, what do you mean to do, with your notions about duelling ? ” asked Wallace.

“ I shall deny these ridiculous charges. Then, if he persists in picking a quarrel with me,−and I suppose that is his object, − I shall defend myself.”

“ You mean a rencontre ? ”

“ I hate the word,” said Frank. “ But poor as life is, I have a right to defend it, and I shall do so.”

“ Of course, you might put him underbonds to keep the peace,” suggested Wallace, doubtfully.

“ O, is it worth while ? ” groaned Frank, almost wishing for a bullet in his brains.

“No,” said Wallace. “We gentlemen don’t do it. We gentlemen are like necessity ; we know no law. Law is for our inferiors.”

“ Or for our betters,” said Frank.

J. W. DeForest.