he used to pass at twilight, just to see if he dared, glorying in the cold shivers that crept up and down his back. He loved the ancestral pictures in the parlor and above the winding stairs, where they hung with the corner of each gilt frame touching the one next higher. The faces that smiled and were sweet appealed to him less than did certain portraits wearing a melancholy and sin - stricken look. One, which hung just above the landing by the old clock, always terrified him: it was his wicked great-great-great-grandfather Warren, looking out from the canvas with a dare-devil expression. Alone, in the dark, Paul sometimes felt that scowl close behind him, quite disembodied, and the sharp hairs of the eyebrows seemed to prick his neck as the phantom ancestor stealthily pursued; for the grotesque theories of Uncle Peter had peopled passageway and chamber with a terrible race, all the more real because invisible, forever lying in wait. Under his conjuring tongue old mood and old transgression became again alive and potent to harm, and that which was to him a species of intellectual entertainment, as his imaginative power met the challenge of the child's deep eyes, and fabled further, became the very warp and woof of the boy's thoughts by day, and of his dreams by night.

In time the sheer fascination of story began to mingle with a questioning of good and of ill, and he knew a different fear: that this sensual mouth, that cruel eye, among the painted features, might come to be his own. In one dim face on the library wall supreme terror lay for him in the bulge of the lip and the lines about the eyes; and, dreaming for himself especial cause for stern self-discipline, he grew into a tall lad of morbid fancies, who had early begun to think of himself as cursed by destiny to stand apart.

To stand apart! That had been the keynote of Paul Warren's life, through his school years, through college, through his law study. He had made his mark as a man of wide reading and of literary power, shown chiefly in a fine keenness of

judgment, but his strength of mind and of character had brought him little comfort for the unexplained grief of being; and melancholy, which knows no logic, had early gained a deep hold upon him. Forming for himself an impossibly high ideal of blameless conduct, he lashed himself mercilessly for failure to reach the superhuman, the man's self-criticism being imperceptibly tinged by the boy's belief in awful hereditary impulse that might at any time undo him unaware. Remote ancestral sins and uncommitted sins of his own became, in his long brooding, inextricably confused, and so long had he walked with shadows that the distinction between mist and headland was no longer clear. Only this seemed plain, that the great stream of human life was not for him; birth he had shared with the rest of the race; death he must share; but love and marriage and dreams of happiness were not his portion. Half in fear, half in shyness, he shunned women; and few ventured beyond an interested scrutiny of the dark face with the gleam of fire in the eyes, and the occasional sensitive quiver of the lip. Driven back upon a world of his own creating, he lived with his books and his pen, old ironic sense of things constantly deepening, as smothered passion and imaginative power struggled vainly for expression.

the

That feeling of the profound irony of existence was strong upon him at this moment, as he thought of the quiet companionship with his father by the open fire on winter evenings, or on the veranda under the summer stars, and remembered the mound of earth in the green cemetery, with the knowledge that there was nobody now who could keep silence and understand. Then, vainly brooding over the why and the wherefore of human love and of loss, he grew dimly aware of something tugging at pulse and nerve: an overmastering desire to grasp this profound sense of greatness which he felt throbbing at the heart of pain. Stung to new life by the poignant hurt of grief in a

soul woven in grays out of other people's sorrows and misfortunes, he quivered with a sudden intuition of what it might mean to know and share all the common lot.

His restlessness drew him forth from the library to pace the graveled drive; there drooping leaf and grass blade, and the far murmur of the waves, chimed with his sense of life withdrawn. From the gateway his eyes wandered over the wide sweep of country, and he saw the curling road that led past the gray stone tower of his mother's church, St. Mark's, and the grove of scraggly locusts that marked the home of the Bevannes. The thought of the name startled him, recalling the words of deep hatred that his father had uttered in the solemn moment of dying, and he searched his memory for some incident in the long family quarrel which could explain them. Grave misdeed had there been in the remote past, and tradition told of constant trouble between this impetuous race of the Bevannes, with their strain of French blood, and his own solid English forbears. He was aware that the latter, who were both reticent and proud, had a way of treating offenses up to a certain point as not worth noticing, and beyond that as past forgiveness, but he could remember nothing that could account for so great intensity of present feeling. As he wondered, swift changes of expression flitted across his face shocked, deep pity for the father in whom primitive passion, flaming up at that great hour, had consumed all else; deepened love where he failed to understand; and a humorous compassion for himself as failing to share the elemental feelings of the race, were all written there. What should he do with this heritage? he asked himself whimsically, he who had no quarrel with any man, who did not know the cause of his father's deadly anger, and who, perhaps, did not care strongly enough to hate.

He strolled back in the warm air to the house and out into the garden paths,

full once more of the old weary feeling that he had little use for the world and its puzzles.

"I have a fundamental prejudice against all conundrums," he murmured to himself; then suddenly, and without warning, he walked into a world entirely

new.

There, by the tall white summer lilies, whose fragrance made sweet the summer air, stood a tall, white girl with a branch of spiræa in her hand, her dark hair bare in the sunlight, and her dark eyes full of dreams. When she heard his step, she looked up but did not move. Paul Hollis Warren swiftly removed his hat and introduced himself: when brought to bay, he was a young man of complete selfpossession and fine courtesy.

"You are my mother's friend, Miss Wilmot," he said, holding out his hand. "May I present myself as my mother's

son ?"

The girl took his offered hand, but did not speak.

"If it is not impertinent," said Paul, "I should like to ask why you look so surprised."

"Because," answered the stranger, half seriously, "I had not the slightest idea that you were real."

"I'm not, altogether," confessed the host. "None of us are, I presume. But what did you think me?" "I thought that you were part of this enchanted garden, and of the past." "Indeed?"

"I thought that you belonged with Mr. Peter's phantom ancestors, the wicked one, and great grandmother Anne. I thought that the ghosts about this spot needed a jeune premier, and that you had been invented for the purpose and named Mr. Paul Hollis Warren." "But my mother".

"I thought that you were just a Delusion of a Son that the dear lady had fashioned out of dreams for her comfort. You will admit that you have the property of being invisible?"

"I admit that I have it at times," an

swered Paul, with a smile of unwonted gayety. "Do you believe in nothing but what you see?"

"But I have been here so many times, and you have not deigned to put on flesh and blood."

"Oh, I will promise, if you are serious," he said hastily.

His mind was full of a bit of old story which he had read on some serious page, - his knowledge of myth was strictly confined to footnotes, of a maiden who

The gravity in the girl's face broke, her dimple quivered, and her eyes danced.

"If I may give you a suggestion, you do not manage your exits and your entrances as well as they did in the Arabian Nights. There is just a minute at the transformation when you are visible. Once it was at the end of the garden walk that the change came; once it was in the library, and you left so hastily that the door was still in motion. A genuine ghost goes through the keyhole!"

"I find the door a very comfortable means of exit, thank you.'

"It may all be comfortable for you," said the girl severely, "but it is very uncomfortable for me. Mrs. Warren insists that she finds comfort in my presence, and that she likes to have me with her. But it is not quite pleasant to think that I have driven the master of the house to play the part of castle spectre."

"I assure you that I have been absorbed in other things. It would grieve me deeply, Miss Wilmot, if you should take back one minute of the time that you might give my mother."

"Will you make a compact with me?" asked Frances Wilmot, noting the softened look that came into the young man's face as he spoke of his mother. "I should be very sorry to deprive Mrs. Warren of anything that may give her the slightest pleasure. If you will stay in your accustomed places, so that Mrs. Warren may still realize that she has a son, I will promise to treat you as if you were invisible. I will pretend that you are n't there, and will never see you!"

"I am not quite ready to agree to that," said Paul, laughing outright, and looking at her curiously.

"Then I shall stay away."

beyond the edge of things with a spray of white blossoms in her hand, and had witched a mortal man away with her to live forever and a day in fairyland. She must have looked like this girl before him, and, when she stepped into the world of every-day, must have wrought some such change on grass and tree and flower.

VII

The little gray stone church of St. Mark's stood well within the hearing of the tide, near a shingly beach where long, gentle breakers were rolling monotonously in on this June morning. Frances Wilmot, reverent and rebellious, sad, and again at peace, as the words of the long service smote now this chord and now that, closed her eyes again and again, only for the pleasure of opening them suddenly to steal a long glance through the window near, where, beyond the encircling green ivy leaves, she could look out across the shining water of palest blue. Word and phrase from old romance drifted back to her, and it seemed as if she too, like the wandering knight, had found a little chapel by the side of the "leaved wood;" and as if across the waves might come the ship that moved without sail or oar, carrying Perceval on his quest of the Holy Grail. Sweet from the sea stole in the breeze to creep about the altar, and the ivy leaves trembled against it as it came. Murmur of water and murmur of organ blended into one soft music; then suddenly out of the low melody sprang splendid power of sound, bringing a swift sense of glory walking on the water.

Her friends from the Inn were all there, and, in the pauses of their own devotions,

they stole involuntary glances now and then toward the girl who had become the centre of their thoughts, to see how she was performing hers. But the music won them all, and swept them out from thoughts like these to moods as great as the encircling horizon line, and for a moment the sweep of the sea and of the winds of God was in their souls.

With a sudden beat as of triumph the recessional ceased, and the moment set to melody was over. The members of the congregation of St. Mark's realized that they were out upon the green in front of the little church, the music to which they had been stepping still keeping rhythm in their feet. Even Paul Warren, who cared more for the harmony of high thoughts than for beaten measures, was conscious that the air about him was more exquisitely attuned than was its wont, and no sooner was he aware of this than there came a sudden breaking of its perfectness. He was waiting while his mother stopped to speak to Miss Wilmot, when a stranger came forward to meet him, a stranger with a face that he knew. It was a man of his own age, slender and supple, with an ingratiating air in his bright blue eyes and about his smiling mouth. There was a touch of hesitancy in the newcomer's manner as he held out his hand.

"It is a long time since we have met, but you have not forgotten Alec Bevanne, I hope?"

"Of course not," said Paul Warren, returning the handshake, "though it must be a matter of fifteen years or so since I've seen you."

"Odd that we should have missed each other constantly. You've been back at the old place now and then?"

...

associated in his mind with prisoner's base and marbles, and wondering how that headlong nature, given to quick deed and quick repenting, in flashes of emotion or of momentary conviction, could adapt itself to the routine of academic life, there came suddenly into his mind an echo of the words his father had uttered as he lay dying: "Fight, fight Bevanne . . . look out for the young one then young rattlesnakes are as poisonous as old ones." The memory of John Warren's expression as he had spoken these words fell like a shadow on the peaceful picture of sunlight shining on women's faces and on children's curls, and a sense of more vivid curiosity than he had ever before felt concerning the long mystery that had clung to the relationship of his family with the Bevannes swept over Paul Warren: what had caused that look of frozen anger on his father's face when chance placed any member of that family in his way? What had he to do with vendetta directed against this smiling, harmless enemy, whose eager friendliness seemed to have back of it the same puzzled feeling that he had himself? The moment wrapped him round in a sort of humorous sadness; after all, you were bidden to love your enemy, as well as to obey your parents, and perhaps the former command was the more cogent of the two.

His state of mind was certainly pacific, when, following the glance of Alec Bevanne's eyes, a flash of illumination came, and he fancied that he understood the sudden cordiality. It was not for the sake of the old days when the two had been playmates that the young man had stopped to speak with him: it was because of this Southern girl who was talking with his

The young man nodded, smiling. "Digging, yes. I've done a lot of it, Paris mostly. Now it's my turn to set other youngsters at it."

As Paul Warren looked at his old playmate, thinking how oddly the new halfserious look sat upon the face which was

drooping black hat were worn with such unwonted grace. Paul Warren involuntarily turned away, refusing the unspoken request, then paused in amusement at his own action and the touch of irritation that had led to it. Understanding his neighbor perfectly at that moment, he was aware that he failed to understand

himself and his assumption of protective rights.

"Won't you stop to see my sister Alice?' asked Bevanne, whose quick eyes had divined the other's action, but still beamed friendliness; there was never in them reproach for any one. "You remember her? She used to cry because she could not play baseball with us."

Paul lifted his eyes and saw her. She had grown from a slender child into a slender woman: her pale yellow hair had not darkened by a shade, but her eyes, which were of light hazel with extraordinarily large pupils, had gained a world of meaning and of expression. As he greeted her they were fixed upon him with a gaze so intense that they made him uneasy. She had heard her brother's remark, but she did not speak nor smile, and it was left to Paul to face the occasion. Meeting one who mastered him in silence was something of a shock, and the polite remark he had intended to make slipped

away.

"But you used to be the swiftest at tag," he said, going back at one bound over many years.

Now a slow smile came like color into the girl's face, touching eyes and cheeks with added expression, where almost too much had been before.

ished pointed beard. "I am there - for the present."

It occurred to Paul Warren as he heard this remark that he was in the presence of a man with whom he should be glad to differ in matters of opinion and of taste, and he smiled with satisfaction as Miss Wilmot carelessly changed the subject, tacitly refusing to discuss the young professor's career.

One by one the people about them departed, white gown and yellow and blue drifting past against the background of cool green leaf and grass; Paul led his mother to her carriage, while the Southern girl waited for her companions from the Inn. Together they walked home through the fragrant, dust-flecked air, the petals of pink wild roses falling along their path, and, overhead, the leaves of silver poplars trembling in gray-green against the sky.

The ladies of the Emerson Inn had adopted this girl with no mental reserves; the Warren carriage had waited for her too often at the door to leave any doubt of her desirability as an acquaintance. With not only Respectability but Tradition bending thus obsequiously over her, they whispered to one another that her strange arrival was mere accident: she had come North to visit Mrs. Warren,

Mrs. Warren turned suddenly, and her pleasure at seeing her son talking with the children of the family enemy left a flush upon her face. It was she who, after a cordial greeting, presented them to the girl at her side, and she stood beaming over them all with an expression which was the peace of the moment made vis

ible.

"It is very jolly to meet some one from the South, Miss Wilmot," Alec Bevanne was saying. "I am a Southerner myself now."

"Indeed?"

"Do you know Alabama University ?" he asked, stroking his smooth-shaven chin with a gesture which recalled the vanVOL. 95 - NO. 4

sudden illness and death. Moreover, they liked her: it was as if some tropical bird of brilliant plumage and vivid eyes had dropped down among them. There was always about her an air of expectancy, for she was one to whom the kaleidoscopic shifting of things constantly presented new shades of beauty and of significance, and she ever kept an alert eye on the flashing, changing stuff of life. Something of her sense of wonder and romance walking still the paths of everyday began to hover like a rosy cloud about each gray head.

It was not only the guests who were touched by it: every inhabitant of the Inn, from Mr. Phipps to the schoolmistress-maid, felt a touch of indefinable