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Title: Kilmeny of the Orchard
Author: Montgomery, L. M. [Lucy Maud] (1874-1942)
Date of first publication: 1910
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: A. L. Burt, n.d., but between 1921 and 1931
   inclusive
Date first posted: 29 October 2008
Date last updated: 29 October 2008
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #189

This ebook was produced by: David Edwards, Jeannie Howse
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/American Libraries




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    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
    |                                                           |
    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |
    | been preserved.                                           |
    |                                                           |
    +-----------------------------------------------------------+

       *       *       *       *       *




KILMENY OF
THE ORCHARD

By L.M. MONTGOMERY

AUTHOR OF
"Anne's House of Dreams," "Rainbow Valley," "Rilla
of Ingleside," etc.




A.L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with The Page Company
Printed in U.S.A.




_Copyright, 1910_,
BY L.C. PAGE & COMPANY

(INCORPORATED)
_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_

_All rights reserved_

Made in U.S.A.




TO MY COUSIN

Beatrice A. McIntyre

THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED




    "Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
    But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face;
    As still was her look, and as still was her ee,
    As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
    Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

    Such beauty bard may never declare,
    For there was no pride nor passion there;

       *       *       *       *       *

    Her seymar was the lily flower,
    And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
    And her voice like the distant melodye
    That floats along the twilight sea."

                       --The Queen's Wake
                              JAMES HOGG




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                      PAGE

    I. THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH                                    1

   II. A LETTER OF DESTINY                                     18

  III. THE MASTER OF LINDSAY SCHOOL                            31

   IV. A TEA TABLE CONVERSATION                                41

    V. A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT                                    53

   VI. THE STORY OF KILMENY                                    72

  VII. A ROSE OF WOMANHOOD                                     90

 VIII. AT THE GATE OF EDEN                                    106

   IX. THE STRAIGHT SIMPLICITY OF EVE                         115

    X. A TROUBLING OF THE WATERS                              130

   XI. A LOVER AND HIS LASS                                   142

  XII. A PRISONER OF LOVE                                     151

 XIII. A SWEETER WOMAN NE'ER DREW BREATH                      174

  XIV. IN HER SELFLESS MOOD                                   194

   XV. AN OLD, UNHAPPY, FAR-OFF THING                         200

  XVI. DAVID BAKER'S OPINION                                  216

 XVII. A BROKEN FETTER                                        233

XVIII. NEIL GORDON SOLVES HIS OWN PROBLEM                     241

  XIX. VICTOR FROM VANQUISHED ISSUES                          249




KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD




CHAPTER I

THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH


The sunshine of a day in early spring, honey pale and honey sweet, was
showering over the red brick buildings of Queenslea College and the
grounds about them, throwing through the bare, budding maples and
elms, delicate, evasive etchings of gold and brown on the paths, and
coaxing into life the daffodils that were peering greenly and perkily
up under the windows of the co-eds' dressing-room.

A young April wind, as fresh and sweet as if it had been blowing over
the fields of memory instead of through dingy streets, was purring in
the tree-tops and whipping the loose tendrils of the ivy network which
covered the front of the main building. It was a wind that sang of
many things, but what it sang to each listener was only what was in
that listener's heart. To the college students who had just been
capped and diplomad by "Old Charlie," the grave president of
Queenslea, in the presence of an admiring throng of parents and
sisters, sweethearts and friends, it sang, perchance, of glad hope and
shining success and high achievement. It sang of the dreams of youth
that may never be quite fulfilled, but are well worth the dreaming for
all that. God help the man who has never known such dreams--who, as he
leaves his alma mater, is not already rich in aerial castles, the
proprietor of many a spacious estate in Spain. He has missed his
birthright.

The crowd streamed out of the entrance hall and scattered over the
campus, fraying off into the many streets beyond. Eric Marshall and
David Baker walked away together. The former had graduated in Arts
that day at the head of his class; the latter had come to see the
graduation, nearly bursting with pride in Eric's success.

Between these two was an old and tried and enduring friendship,
although David was ten years older than Eric, as the mere tale of
years go, and a hundred years older in knowledge of the struggles and
difficulties of life which age a man far more quickly and effectually
than the passing of time.

Physically the two men bore no resemblance to one another, although
they were second cousins. Eric Marshall, tall, broad-shouldered,
sinewy, walking with a free, easy stride, which was somehow suggestive
of reserve strength and power, was one of those men regarding whom
less-favoured mortals are tempted seriously to wonder why all the
gifts of fortune should be showered on one individual. He was not
only clever and good to look upon, but he possessed that indefinable
charm of personality which is quite independent of physical beauty or
mental ability. He had steady, grayish-blue eyes, dark chestnut hair
with a glint of gold in its waves when the sunlight struck it, and a
chin that gave the world assurance of a chin. He was a rich man's son,
with a clean young manhood behind him and splendid prospects before
him. He was considered a practical sort of fellow, utterly guiltless
of romantic dreams and visions of any sort.

"I am afraid Eric Marshall will never do one quixotic thing," said a
Queenslea professor, who had a habit of uttering rather mysterious
epigrams, "but if he ever does it will supply the one thing lacking in
him."

David Baker was a short, stocky fellow with an ugly, irregular,
charming face; his eyes were brown and keen and secretive; his mouth
had a comical twist which became sarcastic, or teasing, or winning, as
he willed. His voice was generally as soft and musical as a woman's;
but some few who had seen David Baker righteously angry and heard the
tones which then issued from his lips were in no hurry to have the
experience repeated.

He was a doctor--a specialist in troubles of the throat and voice--and
he was beginning to have a national reputation. He was on the staff of
the Queenslea Medical College and it was whispered that before long he
would be called to fill an important vacancy at McGill.

He had won his way to success through difficulties and drawbacks which
would have daunted most men. In the year Eric was born David Baker was
an errand boy in the big department store of Marshall & Company.
Thirteen years later he graduated with high honours from Queenslea
Medical College. Mr. Marshall had given him all the help which
David's sturdy pride could be induced to accept, and now he insisted
on sending the young man abroad for a post-graduate course in London
and Germany. David had eventually repaid every cent Mr. Marshall had
expended on him; but he never ceased to cherish a passionate gratitude
to the kind and generous man; and he loved that man's son with a love
surpassing that of brothers.

He had followed Eric's college course with keen, watchful interest. It
was his wish that Eric should take up the study of law or medicine now
that he was through Arts; and he was greatly disappointed that Eric
should have finally made up his mind to go into business with his
father.

"It's a clean waste of your talents," he grumbled, as they walked home
from the college. "You'd win fame and distinction in law--that glib
tongue of yours was meant for a lawyer and it is sheer flying in the
face of Providence to devote it to commercial uses--a flat crossing
of the purposes of destiny. Where is your ambition, man?"

"In the right place," answered Eric, with his ready laugh. "It is not
your kind, perhaps, but there is room and need for all kinds in this
lusty young country of ours. Yes, I am going into the business. In the
first place, it has been father's cherished desire ever since I was
born, and it would hurt him pretty badly if I backed out now. He
wished me to take an Arts course because he believed that every man
should have as liberal an education as he can afford to get, but now
that I have had it he wants me in the firm."

"He wouldn't oppose you if he thought you really wanted to go in for
something else."

"Not he. But I don't really want to--that's the point, David, man. You
hate a business life so much yourself that you can't get it into your
blessed noddle that another man might like it. There are many lawyers
in the world--too many, perhaps--but there are never too many good
honest men of business, ready to do clean big things for the
betterment of humanity and the upbuilding of their country, to plan
great enterprises and carry them through with brain and courage, to
manage and control, to aim high and strike one's aim. There, I'm
waxing eloquent, so I'd better stop. But ambition, man! Why, I'm full
of it--it's bubbling in every pore of me. I mean to make the
department store of Marshall & Company famous from ocean to ocean.
Father started in life as a poor boy from a Nova Scotian farm. He has
built up a business that has a provincial reputation. I mean to carry
it on. In five years it shall have a maritime reputation, in ten, a
Canadian. I want to make the firm of Marshall & Company stand for
something big in the commercial interests of Canada. Isn't that as
honourable an ambition as trying to make black seem white in a court
of law, or discovering some new disease with a harrowing name to
torment poor creatures who might otherwise die peacefully in blissful
ignorance of what ailed them?"

"When you begin to make poor jokes it is time to stop arguing with
you," said David, with a shrug of his fat shoulders. "Go your own gait
and dree your own weird. I'd as soon expect success in trying to storm
the citadel single-handed as in trying to turn you from any course
about which you had once made up your mind. Whew, this street takes it
out of a fellow! What could have possessed our ancestors to run a town
up the side of a hill? I'm not so slim and active as I was on _my_
graduation day ten years ago. By the way, what a lot of co-eds were in
your class--twenty, if I counted right. When I graduated there were
only two ladies in our class and they were the pioneers of their sex
at Queenslea. They were well past their first youth, very grim and
angular and serious; and they could never have been on speaking terms
with a mirror in their best days. But mark you, they were excellent
females--oh, very excellent. Times have changed with a vengeance,
judging from the line-up of co-eds to-day. There was one girl there
who can't be a day over eighteen--and she looked as if she were made
out of gold and roseleaves and dewdrops."

"The oracle speaks in poetry," laughed Eric. "That was Florence
Percival, who led the class in mathematics, as I'm a living man. By
many she is considered the beauty of her class. I can't say that such
is my opinion. I don't greatly care for that blonde, babyish style of
loveliness--I prefer Agnes Campion. Did you notice her--the tall, dark
girl with the ropes of hair and a sort of crimson, velvety bloom on
her face, who took honours in philosophy?"

"I _did_ notice her," said David emphatically, darting a keen side
glance at his friend. "I noticed her most particularly and
critically--for someone whispered her name behind me and coupled it
with the exceedingly interesting information that Miss Campion was
supposed to be the future Mrs. Eric Marshall. Whereupon I stared at
her with all my eyes."

"There is no truth in that report," said Eric in a tone of annoyance.
"Agnes and I are the best of friends and nothing more. I like and
admire her more than any woman I know; but if the future Mrs. Eric
Marshall exists in the flesh I haven't met her yet. I haven't even
started out to look for her--and don't intend to for some years to
come. I have something else to think of," he concluded, in a tone of
contempt, for which anyone might have known he would be punished
sometime if Cupid were not deaf as well as blind.

"You'll meet the lady of the future some day," said David dryly. "And
in spite of your scorn I venture to predict that if fate doesn't
bring her before long you'll very soon start out to look for her. A
word of advice, oh, son of your mother. When you go courting take your
common sense with you."

"Do you think I shall be likely to leave it behind?" asked Eric
amusedly.

"Well, I mistrust you," said David, sagely wagging his head. "The
Lowland Scotch part of you is all right, but there's a Celtic streak
in you, from that little Highland grandmother of yours, and when a man
has that there's never any knowing where it will break out, or what
dance it will lead him, especially when it comes to this love-making
business. You are just as likely as not to lose your head over some
little fool or shrew for the sake of her outward favour and make
yourself miserable for life. When you pick you a wife please remember
that I shall reserve the right to pass a candid opinion on her."

"Pass all the opinions you like, but it is _my_ opinion, and mine
only, which will matter in the long run," retorted Eric.

"Confound you, yes, you stubborn offshoot of a stubborn breed,"
growled David, looking at him affectionately. "I know that, and that
is why I'll never feel at ease about you until I see you married to
the right sort of a girl. She's not hard to find. Nine out of ten
girls in this country of ours are fit for kings' palaces. But the
tenth always has to be reckoned with."

"You are as bad as _Clever Alice_ in the fairy tale who worried over
the future of her unborn children," protested Eric.

"_Clever Alice_ has been very unjustly laughed at," said David
gravely. "We doctors know that. Perhaps she overdid the worrying
business a little, but she was perfectly right in principle. If people
worried a little more about their unborn children--at least, to the
extent of providing a proper heritage, physically, mentally, and
morally, for them--and then stopped worrying about them after they
_are_ born, this world would be a very much pleasanter place to live
in, and the human race would make more progress in a generation than
it has done in recorded history."

"Oh, if you are going to mount your dearly beloved hobby of heredity I
am not going to argue with you, David, man. But as for the matter of
urging me to hasten and marry me a wife, why don't you"--It was on
Eric's lips to say, "Why don't you get married to a girl of the right
sort yourself and set me a good example?" But he checked himself. He
knew that there was an old sorrow in David Baker's life which was not
to be unduly jarred by the jests even of privileged friendship. He
changed his question to, "Why don't you leave this on the knees of the
gods where it properly belongs? I thought you were a firm believer in
predestination, David."

"Well, so I am, to a certain extent," said David cautiously. "I
believe, as an excellent old aunt of mine used to say, that what is to
be will be and what isn't to be happens sometimes. And it is precisely
such unchancy happenings that make the scheme of things go wrong. I
dare say you think me an old fogy, Eric; but I know something more of
the world than you do, and I believe, with Tennyson's _Arthur_, that
'there's no more subtle master under heaven than is the maiden passion
for a maid.' I want to see you safely anchored to the love of some
good woman as soon as may be, that's all. I'm rather sorry Miss
Campion isn't your lady of the future. I liked her looks, that I did.
She is good and strong and true--and has the eyes of a woman who could
love in a way that would be worth while. Moreover, she's well-born,
well-bred, and well-educated--three very indispensable things when it
comes to choosing a woman to fill your mother's place, friend of
mine!"

"I agree with you," said Eric carelessly. "I could not marry any woman
who did not fulfil those conditions. But, as I have said, I am not in
love with Agnes Campion--and it wouldn't be of any use if I were. She
is as good as engaged to Larry West. You remember West?"

"That thin, leggy fellow you chummed with so much your first two years
in Queenslea? Yes, what has become of him?"

"He had to drop out after his second year for financial reasons. He is
working his own way through college, you know. For the past two years
he has been teaching school in some out-of-the-way place over in
Prince Edward Island. He isn't any too well, poor fellow--never was
very strong and has studied remorselessly. I haven't heard from him
since February. He said then that he was afraid he wasn't going to be
able to stick it out till the end of the school year. I hope Larry
won't break down. He is a fine fellow and worthy even of Agnes
Campion. Well, here we are. Coming in, David?"

"Not this afternoon--haven't got time. I must mosey up to the North
End to see a man who has got a lovely throat. Nobody can find out what
is the matter. He has puzzled all the doctors. He has puzzled me, but
I'll find out what is wrong with him if he'll only live long enough."




CHAPTER II

A LETTER OF DESTINY


Eric, finding that his father had not yet returned from the college,
went into the library and sat down to read a letter he had picked up
from the hall table. It was from Larry West, and after the first few
lines Eric's face lost the absent look it had worn and assumed an
expression of interest.

"I am writing to ask a favour of you, Marshall," wrote West. "The fact
is, I've fallen into the hands of the Philistines--that is to say, the
doctors. I've not been feeling very fit all winter but I've held on,
hoping to finish out the year.

"Last week my landlady--who is a saint in spectacles and
calico--looked at me one morning at the breakfast table and said,
_very_ gently, 'You must go to town to-morrow, Master, and see a
doctor about yourself.'

"I went and did not stand upon the order of my going. Mrs. Williamson
is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. She has an inconvenient habit of making you
realize that she is exactly right, and that you would be all kinds of
a fool if you didn't take her advice. You feel that what she thinks
to-day you will think to-morrow.

"In Charlottetown I consulted a doctor. He punched and pounded me, and
poked things at me and listened at the other end of them; and finally
he said I must stop work 'immejutly and to onct' and hie me
straightway to a climate not afflicted with the north-east winds of
Prince Edward Island in the spring. I am not to be allowed to do any
work until the fall. Such was his dictum and Mrs. Williamson enforces
it.

"I shall teach this week out and then the spring vacation of three
weeks begins. I want you to come over and take my place as pedagogue
in the Lindsay school for the last week in May and the month of June.
The school year ends then and there will be plenty of teachers looking
for the place, but just now I cannot get a suitable substitute. I have
a couple of pupils who are preparing to try the Queen's Academy
entrance examinations, and I don't like to leave them in the lurch or
hand them over to the tender mercies of some third-class teacher who
knows little Latin and less Greek. Come over and take the school till
the end of the term, you petted son of luxury. It will do you a world
of good to learn how rich a man feels when he is earning twenty-five
dollars a month by his own unaided efforts!

"Seriously, Marshall, I hope you can come, for I don't know any other
fellow I can ask. The work isn't hard, though you'll likely find it
monotonous. Of course, this little north-shore farming settlement
isn't a very lively place. The rising and setting of the sun are the
most exciting events of the average day. But the people are very kind
and hospitable; and Prince Edward Island in the month of June is such
a thing as you don't often see except in happy dreams. There are some
trout in the pond and you'll always find an old salt at the harbour
ready and willing to take you out cod-fishing or lobstering.

"I'll bequeath you my boarding house. You'll find it comfortable and
not further from the school than a good constitutional. Mrs.
Williamson is the dearest soul alive; and she is one of those
old-fashioned cooks who feed you on feasts of fat things and whose
price is above rubies.

"Her husband, Robert, or Bob, as he is commonly called despite his
sixty years, is quite a character in his way. He is an amusing old
gossip, with a turn for racy comment and a finger in everybody's pie.
He knows everything about everybody in Lindsay for three generations
back.

"They have no living children, but Old Bob has a black cat which is
his especial pride and darling. The name of this animal is Timothy and
as such he must always be called and referred to. Never, as you value
Robert's good opinion, let him hear you speaking of his pet as 'the
cat,' or even as 'Tim.' You will never be forgiven and he will not
consider you a fit person to have charge of the school.

"You shall have my room, a little place over the kitchen, with a
ceiling that follows the slant of the roof down one side, against
which you will bump your head times innumerable until you learn to
remember that it is there, and a looking glass which will make one of
your eyes as small as a pea and the other as big as an orange.

"But to compensate for these disadvantages the supply of towels is
generous and unexceptionable: and there is a window whence you will
daily behold an occidental view over Lindsay Harbour and the gulf
beyond which is an unspeakable miracle of beauty. The sun is setting
over it as I write and I see such 'a sea of glass mingled with fire'
as might have figured in the visions of the Patmian seer. A vessel is
sailing away into the gold and crimson and pearl of the horizon; the
big revolving light on the tip of the headland beyond the harbour has
just been lighted and is winking and flashing like a beacon,

                "'O'er the foam
    Of perilous seas in faerie lands forlorn.'"

"Wire me if you can come; and if you can, report for duty on the
twenty-third of May."

Mr. Marshall, Senior, came in, just as Eric was thoughtfully folding
up his letter. The former looked more like a benevolent old clergyman
or philanthropist than the keen, shrewd, somewhat hard, although just
and honest, man of business that he really was. He had a round, rosy
face, fringed with white whiskers, a fine head of long white hair, and
a pursed-up mouth. Only in his blue eyes was a twinkle that would have
made any man who designed getting the better of him in a bargain think
twice before he made the attempt.

It was easily seen that Eric must have inherited his personal beauty
and distinction of form from his mother, whose picture hung on the
dark wall between the windows. She had died while still young, when
Eric was a boy of ten. During her lifetime she had been the object of
the passionate devotion of both her husband and son; and the fine,
strong, sweet face of the picture was a testimony that she had been
worthy of their love and reverence. The same face, cast in a masculine
mould, was repeated in Eric; the chestnut hair grew off his forehead
in the same way; his eyes were like hers, and in his grave moods they
held a similar expression, half brooding, half tender, in their
depths.

Mr. Marshall was very proud of his son's success in college, but he
had no intention of letting him see it. He loved this boy of his, with
the dead mother's eyes, better than anything on earth, and all his
hopes and ambitions were bound up in him.

"Well, that fuss is over, thank goodness," he said testily, as he
dropped into his favourite chair.

"Didn't you find the programme interesting?" asked Eric absently.

"Most of it was tommyrot," said his father. "The only things I liked
were Charlie's Latin prayer and those pretty little girls trotting up
to get their diplomas. Latin is the language for praying in, I do
believe,--at least, when a man has a voice like Old Charlie's. There
was such a sonorous roll to the words that the mere sound of them made
me feel like getting down on my marrow bones. And then those girls
were as pretty as pinks, now weren't they? Agnes was the
finest-looking of the lot in my opinion. I hope it's true that you're
courting her, Eric?"

"Confound it, father," said Eric, half irritably, half laughingly,
"have you and David Baker entered into a conspiracy to hound me into
matrimony whether I will or no?"

"I've never said a word to David Baker on such a subject," protested
Mr. Marshall.

"Well, you are just as bad as he is. He hectored me all the way home
from the college on the subject. But why are you in such a hurry to
have me married, dad?"

"Because I want a homemaker in this house as soon as may be. There has
never been one since your mother died. I am tired of housekeepers. And
I want to see your children at my knees before I die, Eric, and I'm an
old man now."

"Well, your wish is natural, father," said Eric gently, with a glance
at his mother's picture. "But I can't rush out and marry somebody
off-hand, can I? And I fear it wouldn't exactly do to advertise for a
wife, even in these days of commercial enterprise."

"Isn't there _anybody_ you're fond of?" queried Mr. Marshall, with the
patient air of a man who overlooks the frivolous jests of youth.

"No. I never yet saw the woman who could make my heart beat any
faster."

"I don't know what you young men are made of nowadays," growled his
father. "I was in love half a dozen times before I was your age."

"You might have been 'in love.' But you never _loved_ any woman until
you met my mother. I know that, father. And it didn't happen till you
were pretty well on in life either."

"You're too hard to please. That's what's the matter, that's what's
the matter!"

"Perhaps I am. When a man has had a mother like mine his standard of
womanly sweetness is apt to be pitched pretty high. Let's drop the
subject, father. Here, I want you to read this letter--it's from
Larry."

"Humph!" grunted Mr. Marshall, when he had finished with it. "So
Larry's knocked out at last--always thought he would be--always
expected it. Sorry, too. He was a decent fellow. Well, are you going?"

"Yes, I think so, if you don't object."

"You'll have a pretty monotonous time of it, judging from his account
of Lindsay."

"Probably. But I am not going over in search of excitement. I'm going
to oblige Larry and have a look at the Island."

"Well, it's worth looking at, some parts of the year," conceded Mr.
Marshall. "When I'm on Prince Edward Island in the summer I always
understand an old Scotch Islander I met once in Winnipeg. He was
always talking of 'the Island.' Somebody once asked him, 'What island
do you mean?' He simply _looked_ at that ignorant man. Then he said,
'Why, Prince Edward Island, mon. _What other island is there?_' Go if
you'd like to. You need a rest after the grind of examinations before
settling down to business. And mind you don't get into any mischief,
young sir."

"Not much likelihood of that in a place like Lindsay, I fancy,"
laughed Eric.

"Probably the devil finds as much mischief for idle hands in Lindsay
as anywhere else. The worst tragedy I ever heard of happened on a
backwoods farm, fifteen miles from a railroad and five from a store.
However, I expect your mother's son to behave himself in the fear of
God and man. In all likelihood the worst thing that will happen to you
over there will be that some misguided woman will put you to sleep in
a spare room bed. And if that does happen may the Lord have mercy on
your soul!"




CHAPTER III

THE MASTER OF LINDSAY SCHOOL


One evening, a month later, Eric Marshall came out of the old,
white-washed schoolhouse at Lindsay, and locked the door--which was
carved over with initials innumerable, and built of double plank in
order that it might withstand all the assaults and batteries to which
it might be subjected.

Eric's pupils had gone home an hour before, but he had stayed to solve
some algebra problems, and correct some Latin exercises for his
advanced students.

The sun was slanting in warm yellow lines through the thick grove of
maples to the west of the building, and the dim green air beneath them
burst into golden bloom. A couple of sheep were nibbling the lush
grass in a far corner of the play-ground; a cow-bell, somewhere in
the maple woods, tinkled faintly and musically, on the still crystal
air, which, in spite of its blandness, still retained a touch of the
wholesome austerity and poignancy of a Canadian spring. The whole
world seemed to have fallen, for the time being, into a pleasant
untroubled dream.

The scene was very peaceful and pastoral--almost too much so, the
young man thought, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he stood on the
worn steps and gazed about him. How was he going to put in a whole
month here, he wondered, with a little smile at his own expense.

"Father would chuckle if he knew I was sick of it already," he
thought, as he walked across the play-ground to the long red road that
ran past the school. "Well, one week is ended, at any rate. I've
earned my own living for five whole days, and that is something I
could never say before in all my twenty-four years of existence. It is
an exhilarating thought. But teaching the Lindsay district school is
distinctly _not_ exhilarating--at least in such a well-behaved school
as this, where the pupils are so painfully good that I haven't even
the traditional excitement of thrashing obstreperous bad boys.
Everything seems to go by clock work in Lindsay educational
institution. Larry must certainly have possessed a marked gift for
organizing and drilling. I feel as if I were merely a big cog in an
orderly machine that ran itself. However, I understand that there are
some pupils who haven't shown up yet, and who, according to all
reports, have not yet had the old Adam totally drilled out of them.
They may make things more interesting. Also a few more compositions,
such as John Reid's, would furnish some spice to professional life."

Eric's laughter wakened the echoes as he swung into the road down the
long sloping hill. He had given his fourth grade pupils their own
choice of subjects in the composition class that morning, and John
Reid, a sober, matter-of-fact little urchin, with not the slightest
embryonic development of a sense of humour, had, acting upon the
whispered suggestion of a roguish desk-mate, elected to write upon
"Courting." His opening sentence made Eric's face twitch mutinously
whenever he recalled it during the day. "Courting is a very pleasant
thing which a great many people go too far with."

The distant hills and wooded uplands were tremulous and aerial in
delicate spring-time gauzes of pearl and purple. The young,
green-leafed maples crowded thickly to the very edge of the road on
either side, but beyond them were emerald fields basking in sunshine,
over which cloud shadows rolled, broadened, and vanished. Far below
the fields a calm ocean slept bluely, and sighed in its sleep, with
the murmur that rings for ever in the ear of those whose good fortune
it is to have been born within the sound of it.

Now and then Eric met some callow, check-shirted, bare-legged lad on
horseback, or a shrewd-faced farmer in a cart, who nodded and called
out cheerily, "Howdy, Master?" A young girl, with a rosy, oval face,
dimpled cheeks, and pretty dark eyes filled with shy coquetry, passed
him, looking as if she would not be at all averse to a better
acquaintance with the new teacher.

Half way down the hill Eric met a shambling, old gray horse drawing an
express wagon which had seen better days. The driver was a woman: she
appeared to be one of those drab-tinted individuals who can never have
felt a rosy emotion in all their lives. She stopped her horse, and
beckoned Eric over to her with the knobby handle of a faded and bony
umbrella.

"Reckon you're the new Master, ain't you?" she asked.

Eric admitted that he was.

"Well, I'm glad to see you," she said, offering him a hand in a much
darned cotton glove that had once been black.

"I was right sorry to see Mr. West go, for he was a right good
teacher, and as harmless, inoffensive a creetur as ever lived. But I
always told him every time I laid eyes on him that he was in
consumption, if ever a man was. _You_ look real healthy--though you
can't always tell by looks, either. I had a brother complected like
you, but he was killed in a railroad accident out west when he was
real young.

"I've got a boy I'll be sending to school to you next week. He'd
oughter gone this week, but I had to keep him home to help me put the
pertaters in; for his father won't work and doesn't work and can't be
made to work.

"Sandy--his full name is Edward Alexander--called after both of his
grand-fathers--hates the idee of going to school worse 'n
pisen--always did. But go he shall, for I'm determined he's got to
have more larning hammered into his head yet. I reckon you'll have
trouble with him, Master, for he's as stupid as an owl, and as
stubborn as Solomon's mule. But mind this, Master, I'll back you up.
You just lick Sandy good and plenty when he needs it, and send me a
scrape of the pen home with him, and I'll give him another dose.

"There's people that always sides in with their young ones when
there's any rumpus kicked up in the school, but I don't hold to that,
and never did. You can depend on Rebecca Reid every time, Master."

"Thank you. I am sure I can," said Eric, in his most winning tones.

He kept his face straight until it was safe to relax, and Mrs. Reid
drove on with a soft feeling in her leathery old heart, which had been
so toughened by long endurance of poverty and toil, and a husband who
wouldn't work and couldn't be made to work, that it was no longer a
very susceptible organ where members of the opposite sex were
concerned.

Mrs. Reid reflected that this young man had a way with him.

Eric already knew most of the Lindsay folks by sight; but at the foot
of the hill he met two people, a man and a boy, whom he did not know.
They were sitting in a shabby, old-fashioned wagon, and were watering
their horse at the brook, which gurgled limpidly under the little
plank bridge in the hollow.

Eric surveyed them with some curiosity. They did not look in the least
like the ordinary run of Lindsay people. The boy, in particular, had a
distinctly foreign appearance, in spite of the gingham shirt and
homespun trousers, which seemed to be the regulation, work-a-day
outfit for the Lindsay farmer lads. He had a lithe, supple body, with
sloping shoulders, and a lean, satiny brown throat above his open
shirt collar. His head was covered with thick, silky, black curls,
and the hand that hung down by the side of the wagon was unusually
long and slender. His face was richly, though somewhat heavily
featured, olive tinted, save for the cheeks, which had a dusky crimson
bloom. His mouth was as red and beguiling as a girl's, and his eyes
were large, bold and black. All in all, he was a strikingly handsome
fellow; but the expression of his face was sullen, and he somehow gave
Eric the impression of a sinuous, feline creature basking in lazy
grace, but ever ready for an unexpected spring.

The other occupant of the wagon was a man between sixty-five and
seventy, with iron-gray hair, a long, full, gray beard, a
harsh-featured face, and deep-set hazel eyes under bushy, bristling
brows. He was evidently tall, with a spare, ungainly figure, and
stooping shoulders. His mouth was close-lipped and relentless, and did
not look as if it had ever smiled. Indeed, the idea of smiling could
not be connected with this man--it was utterly incongruous. Yet there
was nothing repellent about his face; and there was something in it
that compelled Eric's attention.

He rather prided himself on being a student of physiognomy, and he
felt quite sure that this man was no ordinary Lindsay farmer of the
genial, garrulous type with which he was familiar.

Long after the old wagon, with its oddly assorted pair, had gone
lumbering up the hill, Eric found himself thinking of the stern, heavy
browed man and the black-eyed, red-lipped boy.




CHAPTER IV

A TEA TABLE CONVERSATION


The Williamson place, where Eric boarded, was on the crest of the
succeeding hill. He liked it as well as Larry West had prophesied that
he would. The Williamsons, as well as the rest of the Lindsay people,
took it for granted that he was a poor college student working his way
through as Larry West had been doing. Eric did not disturb this
belief, although he said nothing to contribute to it.

The Williamsons were at tea in the kitchen when Eric went in. Mrs.
Williamson was the "saint in spectacles and calico" which Larry West
had termed her. Eric liked her greatly. She was a slight, gray-haired
woman, with a thin, sweet, high-bred face, deeply lined with the
records of outlived pain. She talked little as a rule; but, in the
pungent country phrase she never spoke but she said something. The one
thing that constantly puzzled Eric was how such a woman ever came to
marry Robert Williamson.

She smiled in a motherly fashion at Eric, as he hung his hat on the
white-washed wall and took his place at the table. Outside of the
window behind him was a birch grove which, in the westering sun, was a
tremulous splendour, with a sea of undergrowth wavered into golden
billows by every passing wind.

Old Robert Williamson sat opposite to him, on a bench. He was a small,
lean old man, half lost in loose clothes that seemed far too large for
him. When he spoke his voice was as thin and squeaky as he appeared to
be himself.

The other end of the bench was occupied by Timothy, sleek and
complacent, with a snowy breast and white paws. After old Robert had
taken a mouthful of anything he gave a piece to Timothy, who ate it
daintily and purred resonant gratitude.

"You see we're busy waiting for you, Master," said old Robert. "You're
late this evening. Keep any of the youngsters in? That's a foolish way
of punishing them, as hard on yourself as on them. One teacher we had
four years ago used to lock them in and go home. Then he'd go back in
an hour and let them out--if they were there. They weren't always. Tom
Ferguson kicked the panels out of the old door once and got out that
way. We put a new door of double plank in that they couldn't kick
out."

"I stayed in the schoolroom to do some work," said Eric briefly.

"Well, you've missed Alexander Tracy. He was here to find out if you
could play checkers, and, when I told him you could, he left word for
you to go up and have a game some evening soon. Don't beat him too
often, even if you can. You'll need to stand in with him, I tell you,
Master, for he's got a son that may brew trouble for you when he
starts in to go to school. Seth Tracy's a young imp, and he'd far
sooner be in mischief than eat. He tries to run on every new teacher
and he's run two clean out of the school. But he met his match in Mr.
West. William Tracy's boys now--you won't have a scrap of bother with
_them_. They're always good because their mother tells them every
Sunday that they'll go straight to hell if they don't behave in
school. It's effective. Take some preserve, Master. You know we don't
help things here the way Mrs. Adam Scott does when she has boarders,
'I s'pose you don't want any of this--nor you--nor you?' Mother, Aleck
says old George Wright is having the time of his life. His wife has
gone to Charlottetown to visit her sister and he is his own boss for
the first time since he was married, forty years ago. He's on a
regular orgy, Aleck says. He smokes in the parlour and sits up till
eleven o'clock reading dime novels."

"Perhaps I met Mr. Tracy," said Eric. "Is he a tall man, with gray
hair and a dark, stern face?"

"No, he's a round, jolly fellow, is Aleck, and he stopped growing
pretty much before he'd ever begun. I reckon the man you mean is
Thomas Gordon. I seen him driving down the road too. _He_ won't be
troubling you with invitations up, small fear of it. The Gordons ain't
sociable, to say the least of it. No, sir! Mother, pass the biscuits
to the Master."

"Who was the young fellow he had with him?" asked Eric curiously.

"Neil--Neil Gordon."

"That is a Scotchy name for such a face and eyes. I should rather have
expected Guiseppe or Angelo. The boy looks like an Italian."

"Well, now, you know, Master, I reckon it's likely he does, seeing
that that's exactly what he is. You've hit the nail square on the
head. Italyun, yes, sir! Rather too much so, I'm thinking, for decent
folks' taste."

"How has it happened that an Italian boy with a Scotch name is living
in a place like Lindsay?"

"Well, Master, it was this way. About twenty-two years ago--_was_ it
twenty-two, Mother or twenty-four? Yes, it was twenty-two--'twas the
same year our Jim was born and he'd have been twenty-two if he'd
lived, poor little fellow. Well, Master, twenty-two years ago a couple
of Italian pack peddlers came along and called at the Gordon place.
The country was swarming with them then. I useter set the dog on one
every day on an average.

"Well, these peddlers were man and wife, and the woman took sick up
there at the Gordon place, and Janet Gordon took her in and nursed
her. A baby was born the next day, and the woman died. Then the first
thing anybody knew the father skipped clean out, pack and all, and was
never seen or heard tell of afterwards. The Gordons were left with the
fine youngster on their hands. Folks advised them to send him to the
Orphan Asylum, and 'twould have been the wisest plan, but the Gordons
were never fond of taking advice. Old James Gordon was living then,
Thomas and Janet's father, and he said he would never turn a child out
of his door. He was a masterful old man and liked to be boss. Folks
used to say he had a grudge against the sun 'cause it rose and set
without his say so. Anyhow, they kept the baby. They called him Neil
and had him baptized same as any Christian child. He's always lived
there. They did well enough by him. He was sent to school and taken to
church and treated like one of themselves. Some folks think they made
too much of him. It doesn't always do with that kind, for 'what's
bred in bone is mighty apt to come out in flesh,' if 'taint kept down
pretty well. Neil's smart and a great worker, they tell me. But folks
hereabouts don't like him. They say he ain't to be trusted further'n
you can see him, if as far. It's certain he's awful hot tempered, and
one time when he was going to school he near about killed a boy he'd
took a spite to--choked him till he was black in the face and Neil had
to be dragged off."

"Well now, father, you know they teased him terrible," protested Mrs.
Williamson. "The poor boy had a real hard time when he went to school,
Master. The other children were always casting things up to him and
calling him names."

"Oh, I daresay they tormented him a lot," admitted her husband. "He's
a great hand at the fiddle and likes company. He goes to the harbour a
good deal. But they say he takes sulky spells when he hasn't a word
to throw to a dog. 'Twouldn't be any wonder, living with the Gordons.
They're all as queer as Dick's hat-band."

"Father, you shouldn't talk so about your neighbours," said his wife
rebukingly.

"Well now, Mother, you know they are, if you'd only speak up honest.
But you're like old Aunt Nancy Scott, you never say anything
uncharitable except in the way of business. You know the Gordons ain't
like other people and never were and never will be. They're about the
only queer folks we have in Lindsay, Master, except old Peter Cook,
who keeps twenty-five cats. Lord, Master, think of it! What chanct
would a poor mouse have? None of the rest of us are queer, leastwise,
we hain't found it out if we are. But, then, we're mighty
uninteresting, I'm bound to admit that."

"Where do the Gordons live?" asked Eric, who had grown used to holding
fast to a given point of inquiry through all the bewildering mazes of
old Robert's conversation.

"Away up yander, half a mile in from Radnor road, with a thick spruce
wood atween them and all the rest of the world. They never go away
anywheres, except to church--they never miss that--and nobody goes
there. There's just old Thomas, and his sister Janet, and a niece of
theirs, and this here Neil we've been talking about. They're a queer,
dour, cranky lot, and I _will_ say it, Mother. There, give your old
man a cup of tea and never mind the way his tongue runs on. Speaking
of tea, do you know Mrs. Adam Palmer and Mrs. Jim Martin took tea
together at Foster Reid's last Wednesday afternoon?"

"No, why, I thought they were on bad terms," said Mrs. Williamson,
betraying a little feminine curiosity.

"So they are, so they are. But they both happened to visit Mrs. Foster
the same afternoon and neither would leave because that would be
knuckling down to the other. So they stuck it out, on opposite sides
of the parlour. Mrs. Foster says she never spent such an uncomfortable
afternoon in all her life before. She would talk a spell to one and
then to t'other. And they kept talking _to_ Mrs. Foster and _at_ each
other. Mrs. Foster says she really thought she'd have to keep them all
night, for neither would start to go home afore the other. Finally Jim
Martin came in to look for his wife, 'cause he thought she must have
got stuck in the marsh, and that solved the problem. Master, you ain't
eating anything. Don't mind my stopping; I was at it half an hour
afore you come, and anyway I'm in a hurry. My hired boy went home
to-day. He heard the rooster crow at twelve last night and he's gone
home to see which of his family is dead. He knows one of 'em is. He
heard a rooster crow in the middle of the night onct afore and the
next day he got word that his second cousin down at Souris was dead.
Mother, if the Master don't want any more tea, ain't there some cream
for Timothy?"




CHAPTER V

A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT


Shortly before sunset that evening Eric went for a walk. When he did
not go to the shore he liked to indulge in long tramps through the
Lindsay fields and woods, in the mellowness of "the sweet o' the
year." Most of the Lindsay houses were built along the main road,
which ran parallel to the shore, or about the stores at "The Corner."
The farms ran back from them into solitudes of woods and pasture
lands.

Eric struck southwest from the Williamson homestead, in a direction he
had not hitherto explored, and walked briskly along, enjoying the
witchery of the season all about him in earth and air and sky. He felt
it and loved it and yielded to it, as anyone of clean life and sane
pulses must do.

The spruce wood in which he presently found himself was smitten
through with arrows of ruby light from the setting sun. He went
through it, walking up a long, purple aisle where the wood-floor was
brown and elastic under his feet, and came out beyond it on a scene
which surprised him.

No house was in sight, but he found himself looking into an orchard;
an old orchard, evidently long neglected and forsaken. But an orchard
dies hard; and this one, which must have been a very delightful spot
once, was delightful still, none the less so for the air of gentle
melancholy which seemed to pervade it, the melancholy which invests
all places that have once been the scenes of joy and pleasure and
young life, and are so no longer, places where hearts have throbbed,
and pulses thrilled, and eyes brightened, and merry voices echoed.
The ghosts of these things seem to linger in their old haunts through
many empty years.

The orchard was large and long, enclosed in a tumbledown old fence of
longers bleached to a silvery gray in the suns of many lost summers.
At regular intervals along the fence were tall, gnarled fir trees, and
an evening wind, sweeter than that which blew over the beds of spice
from Lebanon, was singing in their tops, an earth-old song with power
to carry the soul back to the dawn of time.

Eastward, a thick fir wood grew, beginning with tiny treelets just
feathering from the grass, and grading up therefrom to the tall
veterans of the mid-grove, unbrokenly and evenly, giving the effect of
a solid, sloping green wall, so beautifully compact that it looked as
if it had been clipped into its velvet surface by art.

Most of the orchard was grown over lushly with grass; but at the end
where Eric stood there was a square, treeless place which had
evidently once served as a homestead garden. Old paths were still
visible, bordered by stones and large pebbles. There were two clumps
of lilac trees; one blossoming in royal purple, the other in white.
Between them was a bed ablow with the starry spikes of June lilies.
Their penetrating, haunting fragrance distilled on the dewy air in
every soft puff of wind. Along the fence rosebushes grew, but it was
as yet too early in the season for roses.

Beyond was the orchard proper, three long rows of trees with green
avenues between, each tree standing in a wonderful blow of pink and
white.

The charm of the place took sudden possession of Eric as nothing had
ever done before. He was not given to romantic fancies; but the
orchard laid hold of him subtly and drew him to itself, and he was
never to be quite his own man again. He went into it over one of the
broken panels of fence, and so, unknowing, went forward to meet all
that life held for him.

He walked the length of the orchard's middle avenue between long,
sinuous boughs picked out with delicate, rose-hearted bloom. When he
reached its southern boundary he flung himself down in a grassy corner
of the fence where another lilac bush grew, with ferns and wild blue
violets at its roots. From where he now was he got a glimpse of a
house about a quarter of a mile away, its gray gable peering out from
a dark spruce wood. It seemed a dull, gloomy, remote place, and he did
not know who lived there.

He had a wide outlook to the west, over far hazy fields and misty blue
intervales. The sun had just set, and the whole world of green meadows
beyond swam in golden light. Across a long valley brimmed with shadow
were uplands of sunset, and great sky lakes of saffron and rose where
a soul might lose itself in colour. The air was very fragrant with the
baptism of the dew, and the odours of a bed of wild mint upon which
he had trampled. Robins were whistling, clear and sweet and sudden, in
the woods all about him.

"This is a veritable 'haunt of ancient peace,'" quoted Eric, looking
around with delighted eyes. "I could fall asleep here, dream dreams
and see visions. What a sky! Could anything be diviner than that fine
crystal eastern blue, and those frail white clouds that look like
woven lace? What a dizzying, intoxicating fragrance lilacs have! I
wonder if perfume could set a man drunk. Those apple trees now--why,
what is that?"

Eric started up and listened. Across the mellow stillness, mingled
with the croon of the wind in the trees and the flute-like calls of
the robins, came a strain of delicious music, so beautiful and
fantastic that Eric held his breath in astonishment and delight. Was
he dreaming? No, it was real music, the music of a violin played by
some hand inspired with the very spirit of harmony. He had never
heard anything like it; and, somehow, he felt quite sure that nothing
exactly like it ever had been heard before; he believed that that
wonderful music was coming straight from the soul of the unseen
violinist, and translating itself into those most airy and delicate
and exquisite sounds for the first time; the very soul of music, with
all sense and earthliness refined away.

It was an elusive, haunting melody, strangely suited to the time and
place; it had in it the sigh of the wind in the woods, the eerie
whispering of the grasses at dewfall, the white thoughts of the June
lilies, the rejoicing of the apple blossoms; all the soul of all the
old laughter and song and tears and gladness and sobs the orchard had
ever known in the lost years; and besides all this, there was in it a
pitiful, plaintive cry as of some imprisoned thing calling for freedom
and utterance.

At first Eric listened as a man spell-bound, mutely and motionlessly,
lost in wonderment. Then a very natural curiosity overcame him. Who in
Lindsay could play a violin like that? And who was playing so here, in
this deserted old orchard, of all places in the world?

He rose and walked up the long white avenue, going as slowly and
silently as possible, for he did not wish to interrupt the player.
When he reached the open space of the garden he stopped short in new
amazement and was again tempted into thinking he must certainly be
dreaming.

Under the big branching white lilac tree was an old, sagging, wooden
bench; and on this bench a girl was sitting, playing on an old brown
violin. Her eyes were on the faraway horizon and she did not see Eric.
For a few moments he stood there and looked at her. The picture she
made photographed itself on his vision to the finest detail, never to
be blotted from his book of remembrance. To his latest day Eric
Marshall will be able to recall vividly that scene as he saw it
then--the velvet darkness of the spruce woods, the overarching sky of
soft brilliance, the swaying lilac blossoms, and amid it all the girl
on the old bench with the violin under her chin.

He had, in his twenty-four years of life, met hundreds of pretty
women, scores of handsome women, a scant half dozen of really
beautiful women. But he knew at once, beyond all possibility of
question or doubt, that he had never seen or imagined anything so
exquisite as this girl of the orchard. Her loveliness was so perfect
that his breath almost went from him in his first delight of it.

Her face was oval, marked in every cameo-like line and feature with
that expression of absolute, flawless purity, found in the angels and
Madonnas of old paintings, a purity that held in it no faintest stain
of earthliness. Her head was bare, and her thick, jet-black hair was
parted above her forehead and hung in two heavy lustrous braids over
her shoulders. Her eyes were of such a blue as Eric had never seen in
eyes before, the tint of the sea in the still, calm light that follows
after a fine sunset; they were as luminous as the stars that came out
over Lindsay Harbour in the afterglow, and were fringed about with
very long, soot-black lashes, and arched over by most delicately
pencilled dark eyebrows. Her skin was as fine and purely tinted as the
heart of a white rose. The collarless dress of pale blue print she
wore revealed her smooth, slender throat; her sleeves were rolled up
above her elbows and the hand which guided the bow of her violin was
perhaps the most beautiful thing about her, perfect in shape and
texture, firm and white, with rosy-nailed taper fingers. One long,
drooping plume of lilac blossom lightly touched her hair and cast a
wavering shadow over the flower-like face beneath it.

There was something very child-like about her, and yet at least
eighteen sweet years must have gone to the making of her. She seemed
to be playing half unconsciously, as if her thoughts were far away in
some fair dreamland of the skies. But presently she looked away from
"the bourne of sunset," and her lovely eyes fell on Eric, standing
motionless before her in the shadow of the apple tree.

The sudden change that swept over her was startling. She sprang to her
feet, the music breaking in mid-strain and the bow slipping from her
hand to the grass. Every hint of colour fled from her face and she
trembled like one of the wind-stirred June lilies.

"I beg your pardon," said Eric hastily. "I am sorry that I have
alarmed you. But your music was so beautiful that I did not remember
you were not aware of my presence here. Please forgive me."

He stopped in dismay, for he suddenly realized that the expression on
the girl's face was one of terror--not merely the startled alarm of a
shy, childlike creature who had thought herself alone, but absolute
terror. It was betrayed in her blanched and quivering lips and in the
widely distended blue eyes that stared back into his with the
expression of some trapped wild thing.

It hurt him that any woman should look at him in such a fashion, at
him who had always held womanhood in such reverence.

"Don't look so frightened," he said gently, thinking only of calming
her fear, and speaking as he would to a child. "I will not hurt you.
You are safe, quite safe."

In his eagerness to reassure her he took an unconscious step forward.
Instantly she turned and, without a sound, fled across the orchard,
through a gap in the northern fence and along what seemed to be a lane
bordering the fir wood beyond and arched over with wild cherry trees
misty white in the gathering gloom. Before Eric could recover his wits
she had vanished from his sight among the firs.

He stooped and picked up the violin bow, feeling slightly foolish and
very much annoyed.

"Well, this is a most mysterious thing," he said, somewhat
impatiently. "Am I bewitched? Who was she? What was she? Can it be
possible that she is a Lindsay girl? And why in the name of all that's
provoking should she be so frightened at the mere sight of me? I have
never thought I was a particularly hideous person, but certainly this
adventure has not increased my vanity to any perceptible extent.
Perhaps I have wandered into an enchanted orchard, and been outwardly
transformed into an ogre. Now that I have come to think of it, there
is something quite uncanny about the place. Anything might happen
here. It is no common orchard for the production of marketable
apples, that is plain to be seen. No, it's a most unwholesome
locality; and the sooner I make my escape from it the better."

He glanced about it with a whimsical smile. The light was fading
rapidly and the orchard was full of soft, creeping shadows and
silences. It seemed to wink sleepy eyes of impish enjoyment at his
perplexity. He laid the violin bow down on the old bench.

"Well, there is no use in my following her, and I have no right to do
so even if it were of use. But I certainly wish she hadn't fled in
such evident terror. Eyes like hers were never meant to express
anything but tenderness and trust. Why--why--_why_ was she so
frightened? And who--who--_who_--can she be?"

All the way home, over fields and pastures that were beginning to be
moonlight silvered, he pondered the mystery.

"Let me see," he reflected. "Mr. Williamson was describing the
Lindsay girls for my benefit the other evening. If I remember rightly
he said that there were four handsome ones in the district. What were
their names? Florrie Woods, Melissa Foster--no, Melissa Palmer--Emma
Scott, and Jennie May Ferguson. Can she be one of them? No, it is a
flagrant waste of time and gray matter supposing it. That girl
couldn't be a Florrie or a Melissa or an Emma, while Jennie May is
completely out of the question. Well, there is some bewitchment in the
affair. Of that I'm convinced. So I'd better forget all about it."

But Eric found that it was impossible to forget all about it. The more
he tried to forget, the more keenly and insistently he remembered. The
girl's exquisite face haunted him and the mystery of her tantalized
him.

True, he knew that, in all likelihood, he might easily solve the
problem by asking the Williamsons about her. But somehow, to his own
surprise, he found that he shrank from doing this. He felt that it
was impossible to ask Robert Williamson and probably have the girl's
name overflowed in a stream of petty gossip concerning her and all her
antecedents and collaterals to the third and fourth generation. If he
had to ask any one it should be Mrs. Williamson; but he meant to find
out the secret for himself if it were at all possible.

He had planned to go to the harbour the next evening. One of the
lobstermen had promised to take him out cod-fishing. But instead he
wandered southwest over the fields again.

He found the orchard easily--he had half expected _not_ to find it. It
was still the same fragrant, grassy, wind-haunted spot. But it had no
occupant and the violin bow was gone from the old bench.

"Perhaps she tiptoed back here for it by the light o' the moon,"
thought Eric, pleasing his fancy by the vision of a lithe girlish
figure stealing with a beating heart through mingled shadow and
moonshine. "I wonder if she will possibly come this evening, or if I
have frightened her away for ever. I'll hide me behind this spruce
copse and wait."

Eric waited until dark, but no music sounded through the orchard and
no one came to it. The keenness of his disappointment surprised him,
nay more, it vexed him. What nonsense to be so worked up because a
little girl he had seen for five minutes failed to appear! Where was
his common sense, his "gumption," as old Robert Williamson would have
said? Naturally a man liked to look at a pretty face. But was that any
reason why he should feel as if life were flat, stale, and
unprofitable simply because he could not look at it? He called himself
a fool and went home in a petulant mood. Arriving there, he plunged
fiercely into solving algebraical equations and working out geometry
exercises, determined to put out of his head forthwith all vain
imaginings of an enchanted orchard, white in the moonshine, with lilts
of elfin music echoing down its long arcades.

The next day was Sunday and Eric went to church twice. The Williamson
pew was one of the side ones at the top of the church and its
occupants practically faced the congregation. Eric looked at every
girl and woman in the audience, but he saw nothing of the face which,
setting will power and common sense flatly at defiance, haunted his
memory like a star.

Thomas Gordon was there, sitting alone in his long, empty pew near the
top of the building; and Neil Gordon sang in the choir which occupied
the front pew of the gallery. He had a powerful and melodious, though
untrained voice, which dominated the singing and took the colour out
of the weaker, more commonplace tones of the other singers. He was
well-dressed in a suit of dark blue serge, with a white collar and
tie. But Eric idly thought it did not become him so well as the
working clothes in which he had first seen him. He was too obviously
dressed up, and he looked coarser and more out of harmony with his
surroundings.

For two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard. Monday
evening he went cod-fishing, and Tuesday evening he went up to play
checkers with Alexander Tracy. Alexander won all the games so easily
that he never had any respect for Eric Marshall again.

"Played like a feller whose thoughts were wool gathering," he
complained to his wife. "Hell never make a checker player--never in
this world."




CHAPTER VI

THE STORY OF KILMENY


Wednesday evening Eric went to the orchard again; and again he was
disappointed. He went home, determined to solve the mystery by open
inquiry. Fortune favoured him, for he found Mrs. Williamson alone,
sitting by the west window of her kitchen and knitting at a long gray
sock. She hummed softly to herself as she knitted, and Timothy slept
blackly at her feet. She looked at Eric with quiet affection in her
large, candid eyes. She had liked Mr. West. But Eric had found his way
into the inner chamber of her heart, by reason that his eyes were so
like those of the little son she had buried in the Lindsay churchyard
many years before.

"Mrs. Williamson," said Eric, with an affectation of carelessness, "I
chanced on an old deserted orchard back behind the woods over there
last week, a charming bit of wilderness. Do you know whose it is?"

"I suppose it must be the old Connors orchard," answered Mrs.
Williamson after a moment's reflection. "I had forgotten all about it.
It must be all of thirty years since Mr. and Mrs. Connors moved away.
Their house and barns were burned down and they sold the land to
Thomas Gordon and went to live in town. They're both dead now. Mr.
Connors used to be very proud of his orchard. There weren't many
orchards in Lindsay then, though almost everybody has one now."

"There was a young girl in it, playing on a violin," said Eric,
annoyed to find that it cost him an effort to speak of her, and that
the blood mounted to his face as he did so. "She ran away in great
alarm as soon as she saw me, although I do not think I did or said
anything to frighten or vex her. I have no idea who she was. Do you
know?"

Mrs. Williamson did not make an immediate reply. She laid down her
knitting and gazed out of the window as if pondering seriously some
question in her own mind. Finally she said, with an intonation of keen
interest in her voice,

"I suppose it must have been Kilmeny Gordon, Master."

"Kilmeny Gordon? Do you mean the niece of Thomas Gordon of whom your
husband spoke?"

"Yes."

"I can hardly believe that the girl I saw can be a member of Thomas
Gordon's family."

"Well, if it wasn't Kilmeny Gordon I don't know who it could have
been. There is no other house near that orchard and I've heard she
plays the violin. If it was Kilmeny you've seen what very few people
in Lindsay have ever seen, Master. And those few have never seen her
close by. I have never laid eyes on her myself. It's no wonder she ran
away, poor girl. She isn't used to seeing strangers."

"I'm rather glad if that was the sole reason of her flight," said
Eric. "I admit I didn't like to see any girl so frightened of me as
she appeared to be. She was as white as paper, and so terrified that
she never uttered a word, but fled like a deer to cover."

"Well, she couldn't have spoken a word in any case," said Mrs.
Williamson quietly. "Kilmeny Gordon is dumb."

Eric sat in dismayed silence for a moment. That beautiful creature
afflicted in such a fashion--why, it was horrible! Mingled with his
dismay was a strange pang of personal regret and disappointment.

"It couldn't have been Kilmeny Gordon, then," he protested at last,
remembering. "The girl I saw played on the violin exquisitely. I never
heard anything like it. It is impossible that a deaf mute could play
like that."

"Oh, she isn't deaf, Master," responded Mrs. Williamson, looking at
Eric keenly through her spectacles. She picked up her knitting and
fell to work again. "That is the strange part of it, if anything about
her can be stranger than another. She can hear as well as anybody and
understands everything that is said to her. But she can't speak a word
and never could, at least, so they say. The truth is, nobody knows
much about her. Janet and Thomas never speak of her, and Neil won't
either. He has been well questioned, too, you can depend on that; but
he won't ever say a word about Kilmeny and he gets mad if folks
persist."

"Why isn't she to be spoken of?" queried Eric impatiently. "What is
the mystery about her?"

"It's a sad story, Master. I suppose the Gordons look on her existence
as a sort of disgrace. For my own part, I think it's terrible, the
way she's been brought up. But the Gordons are very strange people,
Mr. Marshall. I kind of reproved father for saying so, you remember,
but it is true. They have very strange ways. And you've really seen
Kilmeny? What does she look like? I've heard that she was handsome. Is
it true?"

"I thought her very beautiful," said Eric rather curtly. "But _how_
has she been brought up, Mrs. Williamson? And why?"

"Well, I might as well tell you the whole story, Master. Kilmeny is
the niece of Thomas and Janet Gordon. Her mother was Margaret Gordon,
their younger sister. Old James Gordon came out from Scotland. Janet
and Thomas were born in the Old Country and were small children when
they came here. They were never very sociable folks, but still they
used to visit out some then, and people used to go there. They were
kind and honest people, even if they were a little peculiar.

"Mrs. Gordon died a few years after they came out, and four years
later James Gordon went home to Scotland and brought a new wife back
with him. She was a great deal younger than he was and a very pretty
woman, as my mother often told me. She was friendly and gay and liked
social life. The Gordon place was a very different sort of place after
she came there, and even Janet and Thomas got thawed out and softened
down a good bit. They were real fond of their stepmother, I've heard.
Then, six years after she was married, the second Mrs. Gordon died
too. She died when Margaret was born. They say James Gordon almost
broke his heart over it.

"Janet brought Margaret up. She and Thomas just worshipped the child
and so did their father. I knew Margaret Gordon well once. We were
just the same age and we set together in school. We were always good
friends until she turned against all the world.

"She was a strange girl in some ways even then, but I always liked
her, though a great many people didn't. She had some bitter enemies,
but she had some devoted friends too. That was her way. She made folks
either hate or love her. Those who did love her would have gone
through fire and water for her.

"When she grew up she was very pretty--tall and splendid, like a
queen, with great thick braids of black hair and red, red cheeks and
lips. Everybody who saw her looked at her a second time. She was a
little vain of her beauty, I think, Master. And she was proud, oh, she
was very proud. She liked to be first in everything, and she couldn't
bear not to show to good advantage. She was dreadful determined, too.
You couldn't budge her an inch, Master, when she once had made up her
mind on any point. But she was warm-hearted and generous. She could
sing like an angel and she was very clever. She could learn anything
with just one look at it and she was terrible fond of reading.

"When I'm talking about her like this it all comes back to me, just
what she was like and how she looked and spoke and acted, and little
ways she had of moving her hands and head. I declare it almost seems
as if she was right here in this room instead of being over there in
the churchyard. I wish you'd light the lamp, Master. I feel kind of
nervous."

Eric rose and lighted the lamp, rather wondering at Mrs. Williamson's
unusual exhibition of nerves. She was generally so calm and composed.

"Thank you, Master. That's better. I won't be fancying now that
Margaret Gordon's here listening to what I'm saying. I had the feeling
so strong a moment ago.

"I suppose you think I'm a long while getting to Kilmeny, but I'm
coming to that. I didn't mean to talk so much about Margaret, but
somehow my thoughts got taken up with her.

"Well, Margaret passed the Board and went to Queen's Academy and got a
teacher's license. She passed pretty well up when she came out, but
Janet told me she cried all night after the pass list came out because
there were some ahead of her.

"She went to teach school over at Radnor. It was there she met a man
named Ronald Fraser. Margaret had never had a beau before. She could
have had any young man in Lindsay if she had wanted him, but she
wouldn't look at one of them. They said it was because she thought
nobody was good enough for her, but that wasn't the way of it at all,
Master. I knew, because Margaret and I used to talk of those matters,
as girls do. She didn't believe in going with anybody unless it was
somebody she thought everything of. And there was nobody in Lindsay
she cared that much for.

"This Ronald Fraser was a stranger from Nova Scotia and nobody knew
much about him. He was a widower, although he was only a young man. He
had set up store-keeping at Radnor and was doing well. He was real
handsome and had the taking ways women like. It was said that all the
Radnor girls were in love with him, but I don't think his worst enemy
could have said he flirted with them. He never took any notice of
them; but the very first time he saw Margaret Gordon he fell in love
with her and she with him.

"They came over to church in Lindsay together the next Sunday and
everybody said it would be a match. Margaret looked lovely that day,
so gentle and womanly. She had been used to hold her head pretty high,
but that day she held it drooping a little and her black eyes cast
down. Ronald Fraser was very tall and fair, with blue eyes. They made
as handsome a couple as I ever saw.

"But old James Gordon and Thomas and Janet didn't much approve of
him. I saw that plain enough one time I was there and he brought
Margaret home from Radnor Friday night. I guess they wouldn't have
liked anybody, though, who come after Margaret. They thought nobody
was good enough for her.

"But Margaret coaxed them all round in time. She could do pretty near
anything with them, they were so fond and proud of her. Her father
held out the longest, but finally he give in and consented for her to
marry Ronald Fraser.

"They had a big wedding, too--all the neighbours were asked. Margaret
always liked to make a display. I was her bridesmaid, Master. I helped
her dress and nothing would please her, she wanted to look that nice
for Ronald's sake. She was a handsome bride; dressed in white, with
red roses in her hair and at her breast. She wouldn't wear white
flowers; she said they looked too much like funeral flowers. She
looked like a picture. I can see her this minute, as plain as plain,
just as she was that night, blushing and turning pale by turns, and
looking at Ronald with her eyes of love. If ever a girl loved a man
with all her heart Margaret Gordon did. It almost made me feel
frightened. She gave him the worship it isn't right to give anybody
but God, Master, and I think that is always punished.

"They went to live at Radnor and for a little while everything went
well. Margaret had a nice house, and was gay and happy. She dressed
beautiful and entertained a good deal. Then--well, Ronald Fraser's
first wife turned up looking for him! She wasn't dead after all.

"Oh, there was terrible scandal, Master. The talk and gossip was
something dreadful. Every one you met had a different story, and it
was hard to get at the truth. Some said Ronald Fraser had known all
the time that his wife wasn't dead, and had deceived Margaret. But I
don't think he did. He swore he didn't. They hadn't been very happy
together, it seems. Her mother made trouble between them. Then she
went to visit her mother in Montreal, and died in the hospital there,
so the word came to Ronald. Perhaps he believed it a little too
readily, but that he _did_ believe it I never had a doubt. Her story
was that it was another woman of the same name. When she found out
Ronald thought her dead she and her mother agreed to let him think so.
But when she heard he had got married again she thought she'd better
let him know the truth.

"It all sounded like a queer story and I suppose you couldn't blame
people for not believing it too readily. But I've always felt it was
true. Margaret didn't think so, though. She believed that Ronald
Fraser had deceived her, knowing all the time that he couldn't make
her his lawful wife. She turned against him and hated him just as much
as she had loved him before.

"Ronald Fraser went away with his real wife, and in less than a year
word came of his death. They said he just died of a broken heart,
nothing more nor less.

"Margaret came home to her father's house. From the day that she went
over its threshold, she never came out until she was carried out in
her coffin three years ago. Not a soul outside of her own family ever
saw her again. I went to see her, but Janet told me she wouldn't see
me. It was foolish of Margaret to act so. She hadn't done anything
real wrong; and everybody was sorry for her and would have helped her
all they could. But I reckon pity cut her as deep as blame could have
done, and deeper, because you see, Master, she was so proud she
couldn't bear it.

"They say her father was hard on her, too; and that was unjust if it
was true. Janet and Thomas felt the disgrace, too. The people that had
been in the habit of going to the Gordon place soon stopped going,
for they could see they were not welcome.

"Old James Gordon died that winter. He never held his head up again
after the scandal. He had been an elder in the church, but he handed
in his resignation right away and nobody could persuade him to
withdraw it.

"Kilmeny was born in the spring, but nobody ever saw her, except the
minister who baptized her. She was never taken to church or sent to
school. Of course, I suppose there wouldn't have been any use in her
going to school when she couldn't speak, and it's likely Margaret
taught her all she could be taught herself. But it was dreadful that
she was never taken to church, or let go among the children and young
folks. And it was a real shame that nothing was ever done to find out
why she couldn't talk, or if she could be cured.

"Margaret Gordon died three years ago, and everybody in Lindsay went
to the funeral. But they didn't see her. The coffin lid was screwed
down. And they didn't see Kilmeny either. I would have loved to see
_her_ for Margaret's sake, but I didn't want to see poor Margaret. I
had never seen her since the night she was a bride, for I had left
Lindsay on a visit just after that, and when I came home the scandal
had just broken out. I remembered Margaret in all her pride and
beauty, and I couldn't have borne to look at her dead face and see the
awful changes I knew must be there.

"It was thought perhaps Janet and Thomas would take Kilmeny out after
her mother was gone, but they never did, so I suppose they must have
agreed with Margaret about the way she had been brought up. I've often
felt sorry for the poor girl, and I don't think her people did right
by her, even if she was mysteriously afflicted. She must have had a
very sad, lonely life.

"That is the story, Master, and I've been a long time telling it, as
I dare say you think. But the past just seemed to be living again for
me as I talked. If you don't want to be pestered with questions about
Kilmeny Gordon, Master, you'd better not let on you've seen her."

Eric was not likely to. He had heard all he wanted to know and more.

"So this girl is at the core of a tragedy," he reflected, as he went
to his room. "And she is dumb! The pity of it! Kilmeny! The name suits
her. She is as lovely and innocent as the heroine of the old ballad.
'And oh, Kilmeny was fair to see.' But the next line is certainly not
so appropriate, for her eyes were anything but 'still and
steadfast'--after she had seen me, at all events."

He tried to put her out of his thoughts, but he could not. The memory
of her beautiful face drew him with a power he could not resist. The
next evening he went again to the orchard.




CHAPTER VII

A ROSE OF WOMANHOOD


When he emerged from the spruce wood and entered the orchard his heart
gave a sudden leap, and he felt that the blood rushed madly to his
face. She was there, bending over the bed of June lilies in the centre
of the garden plot. He could see only her profile, virginal and white.

He stopped, not wishing to startle her again. When she lifted her head
he expected to see her shrink and flee, but she did not do so; she
only grew a little paler and stood motionless, watching him intently.

Seeing this, he walked slowly towards her, and when he was so close to
her that he could hear the nervous flutter of her breath over her
parted, trembling lips, he said very gently,

"Do not be afraid of me. I am a friend, and I do not wish to disturb
or annoy you in any way."

She seemed to hesitate a moment. Then she lifted a little slate that
hung at her belt, wrote something on it rapidly, and held it out to
him. He read, in a small distinctive handwriting,

"I am not afraid of you now. Mother told me that all strange men were
very wicked and dangerous, but I do not think you can be. I have
thought a great deal about you, and I am sorry I ran away the other
night."

He realized her entire innocence and simplicity. Looking earnestly
into her still troubled eyes he said,

"I would not do you any harm for the world. All men are not wicked,
although it is too true that some are so. My name is Eric Marshall and
I am teaching in the Lindsay school. You, I think, are Kilmeny Gordon.
I thought your music so very lovely the other evening that I have
been wishing ever since that I might hear it again. Won't you play for
me?"

The vague fear had all gone from her eyes by this time, and suddenly
she smiled--a merry, girlish, wholly irresistible smile, which broke
through the calm of her face like a gleam of sunlight rippling over a
placid sea. Then she wrote, "I am very sorry that I cannot play this
evening. I did not bring my violin with me. But I will bring it
to-morrow evening and play for you if you would like to hear me. I
should like to please you."

Again that note of innocent frankness! What a child she was--what a
beautiful, ignorant child, utterly unskilled in the art of hiding her
feelings! But why should she hide them? They were as pure and
beautiful as herself. Eric smiled back at her with equal frankness.

"I should like it more than I can say, and I shall be sure to come
to-morrow evening if it is fine. But if it is at all damp or
unpleasant you must not come. In that case another evening will do.
And now won't you give me some flowers?"

She nodded, with another little smile, and began to pick some of the
June lilies, carefully selecting the most perfect among them. He
watched her lithe, graceful motions with delight; every movement
seemed poetry itself. She looked like a very incarnation of Spring--as
if all the shimmer of young leaves and glow of young mornings and
evanescent sweetness of young blossoms in a thousand springs had been
embodied in her.

When she came to him, radiant, her hands full of the lilies, a couplet
from a favourite poem darted into his head--

    "A blossom vermeil white
    That lightly breaks a faded flower sheath,
    Here, by God's rood, is the one maid for me."

The next moment he was angry with himself for his folly. She was,
after all, nothing but a child--and a child set apart from her fellow
creatures by her sad defect. He must not let himself think nonsense.

"Thank you. These June lilies are the sweetest flowers the spring
brings us. Do you know that their real name is the white narcissus?"
She looked pleased and interested.

"No, I did not know," she wrote. "I have often read of the white
narcissus and wondered what it was like. I never thought of it being
the same as my dear June lilies. I am glad you told me. I love flowers
very much. They are my very good friends."

"You couldn't help being friends with the lilies. Like always takes to
like," said Eric. "Come and sit down on the old bench--here, where you
were sitting that night I frightened you so badly. I could not imagine
who or what you were. Sometimes I thought I had dreamed you--only," he
added under his breath and unheard by her, "I could never have
dreamed anything half so lovely."

She sat down beside him on the old bench and looked unshrinkingly in
his face. There was no boldness in her glance--nothing but the most
perfect, childlike trust and confidence. If there had been any evil in
his heart--any skulking thought, he was afraid to acknowledge--those
eyes must have searched it out and shamed it. But he could meet them
unafraid. Then she wrote,

"I was very much frightened. You must have thought me very silly, but
I had never seen any man except Uncle Thomas and Neil and the egg
peddler. And you are different from them--oh, very, very different. I
was afraid to come back here the next evening. And yet, somehow, I
wanted to come. I did not want you to think I did not know how to
behave. I sent Neil back for my bow in the morning. I could not do
without it. I cannot speak, you know. Are you sorry?"

"I am very sorry for your sake."

"Yes, but what I mean is, would you like me better if I could speak
like other people?"

"No, it does not make any difference in that way, Kilmeny. By the way,
do you mind my calling you Kilmeny?"

She looked puzzled and wrote, "What else should you call me? That is
my name. Everybody calls me that."

"But I am such a stranger to you that perhaps you would wish me to
call you Miss Gordon."

"Oh, no, I would not like that," she wrote quickly, with a distressed
look on her face. "Nobody ever calls me that. It would make me feel as
if I were not myself but somebody else. And you do not seem like a
stranger to me. Is there any reason why you should not call me
Kilmeny?"

"No reason whatever, if you will allow me the privilege. You have a
very lovely name--the very name you ought to have."

"I am glad you like it. Do you know that I was called after my
grandmother and she was called after a girl in a poem? Aunt Janet has
never liked my name, although she liked my grandmother. But I am glad
you like both my name and me. I was afraid you would not like me
because I cannot speak."

"You can speak through your music, Kilmeny."

She looked pleased. "How well you understand," she wrote. "Yes, I
cannot speak or sing as other people can, but I can make my violin say
things for me."

"Do you compose your own music?" he asked. But he saw she did not
understand him. "I mean, did any one ever teach you the music you
played here that evening?"

"Oh, no. It just came as I thought. It has always been that way. When
I was very little Neil taught me to hold the violin and the bow, and
the rest all came of itself. My violin once belonged to Neil, but he
gave it to me. Neil is very good and kind to me, but I like you
better. Tell me about yourself."

The wonder of her grew upon him with every passing moment. How lovely
she was! What dear little ways and gestures she had--ways and gestures
as artless and unstudied as they were effective. And how strangely
little her dumbness seemed to matter after all! She wrote so quickly
and easily, her eyes and smile gave such expression to her mobile
face, that voice was hardly missed.

They lingered in the orchard until the long, languid shadows of the
trees crept to their feet. It was just after sunset and the distant
hills were purple against the melting saffron of the sky in the west
and the crystalline blue of the sky in the south. Eastward, just over
the fir woods, were clouds, white and high heaped like snow mountains,
and the westernmost of them shone with a rosy glow as of sunset on an
Alpine height.

The higher worlds of air were still full of light--perfect, stainless
light, unmarred of earth shadow; but down in the orchard and under the
spruces the light had almost gone, giving place to a green, dewy dusk,
made passionately sweet with the breath of the apple blossoms and
mint, and the balsamic odours that rained down upon them from the
firs.

Eric told her of his life, and the life in the great outer world, in
which she was girlishly and eagerly interested. She asked him many
questions about it--direct and incisive questions which showed that
she had already formed decided opinions and views about it. Yet it was
plain to be seen that she did not regard it as anything she might ever
share herself. Hers was the dispassionate interest with which she
might have listened to a tale of the land of fairy or of some great
empire long passed away from earth.

Eric discovered that she had read a great deal of poetry and history,
and a few books of biography and travel. She did not know what a
novel meant and had never heard of one. Curiously enough, she was well
informed regarding politics and current events, from the weekly paper
for which her uncle subscribed.

"I never read the newspaper while mother was alive," she wrote, "nor
any poetry either. She taught me to read and write and I read the
Bible all through many times and some of the histories. After mother
died Aunt Janet gave me all her books. She had a great many. Most of
them had been given to her as prizes when she was a girl at school,
and some of them had been given to her by my father. Do you know the
story of my father and mother?"

Eric nodded.

"Yes, Mrs. Williamson told me all about it. She was a friend of your
mother."

"I am glad you have heard it. It is so sad that I would not like to
tell it, but you will understand everything better because you know.
I never heard it until just before mother died. Then she told me all.
I think she had thought father was to blame for the trouble; but
before she died she told me she believed that she had been unjust to
him and that he had not known. She said that when people were dying
they saw things more clearly and she saw she had made a mistake about
father. She said she had many more things she wanted to tell me, but
she did not have time to tell them because she died that night. It was
a long while before I had the heart to read her books. But when I did
I thought them so beautiful. They were poetry and it was like music
put into words."

"I will bring you some books to read, if you would like them," said
Eric.

Her great blue eyes gleamed with interest and delight.

"Oh, thank you, I would like it very much. I have read mine over so
often that I know them nearly all by heart. One cannot get tired of
really beautiful things, but sometimes I feel that I would like some
new books."

"Are you never lonely, Kilmeny?"

"Oh no, how could I be? There is always plenty for me to do, helping
Aunt Janet about the house. I can do a great many things"--she glanced
up at him with a pretty pride as her flying pencil traced the words.
"I can cook and sew. Aunt Janet says I am a very good housekeeper, and
she does not praise people very often or very much. And then, when I
am not helping her, I have my dear, dear violin. That is all the
company I want. But I like to read and hear of the big world so far
away and the people who live there and the things that are done. It
must be a very wonderful place."

"Wouldn't you like to go out into it and see its wonders and meet
those people yourself?" he asked, smiling at her.

At once he saw that, in some way he could not understand, he had hurt
her. She snatched her pencil and wrote, with such swiftness of motion
and energy of expression that it almost seemed as if she had
passionately exclaimed the words aloud,

"No, no, no. I do not want to go anywhere away from home. I do not
want ever to see strangers or have them see me. I could not bear it."

He thought that possibly the consciousness of her defect accounted for
this. Yet she did not seem sensitive about her dumbness and made
frequent casual references to it in her written remarks. Or perhaps it
was the shadow on her birth. Yet she was so innocent that it seemed
unlikely she could realize or understand the existence of such a
shadow. Eric finally decided that it was merely the rather morbid
shrinking of a sensitive child who had been brought up in an
unwholesome and unnatural way. At last the lengthening shadows warned
him that it was time to go.

"You won't forget to come to-morrow evening and play for me," he said,
rising reluctantly. She answered by a quick little shake of her sleek,
dark head, and a smile that was eloquent. He watched her as she walked
across the orchard,

    "With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace,"

and along the wild cherry lane. At the corner of the firs she paused
and waved her hand to him before turning it.

When Eric reached home old Robert Williamson was having a lunch of
bread and milk in the kitchen. He looked up, with a friendly grin, as
Eric strode in, whistling.

"Been having a walk, Master?" he queried.

"Yes," said Eric.

Unconsciously and involuntarily he infused so much triumph into the
simple monosyllable that even old Robert felt it. Mrs. Williamson,
who was cutting bread at the end of the table, laid down her knife and
loaf, and looked at the young man with a softly troubled expression in
her eyes. She wondered if he had been back to the Connors orchard--and
if he could have seen Kilmeny Gordon again.

"You didn't discover a gold mine, I s'pose?" said old Robert, dryly.
"You look as if you might have."




CHAPTER VIII

AT THE GATE OF EDEN


When Eric went to the old Connors orchard the next evening he found
Kilmeny waiting for him on the bench under the white lilac tree, with
the violin in her lap. As soon as she saw him she caught it up and
began to play an airy delicate little melody that sounded like the
laughter of daisies.

When it was finished she dropped her bow, and looked up at him with
flushed cheeks and questioning eyes.

"What did that say to you?" she wrote.

"It said something like this," answered Eric, falling into her humour
smilingly. "Welcome, my friend. It is a very beautiful evening. The
sky is so blue and the apple blossoms so sweet. The wind and I have
been here alone together and the wind is a good companion, but still I
am glad to see you. It is an evening on which it is good to be alive
and to wander in an orchard that is fine and white. Welcome, my
friend."

She clapped her hands, looking like a pleased child.

"You are very quick to understand," she wrote. "That was just what I
meant. Of course I did not think it in just those words, but that was
the _feeling_ of it. I felt that I was so glad I was alive, and that
the apple blossoms and the white lilacs and the trees and I were all
pleased together to see you come. You are quicker than Neil. He is
almost always puzzled to understand my music, and I am puzzled to
understand his. Sometimes it frightens me. It seems as if there were
something in it trying to take hold of me--something I do not like and
want to run away from."

Somehow Eric did not like her references to Neil. The idea of that
handsome, low-born boy seeing Kilmeny every day, talking to her,
sitting at the same table with her, dwelling under the same roof,
meeting her in the hundred intimacies of daily life, was distasteful
to him. He put the thought away from him, and flung himself down on
the long grass at her feet.

"Now play for me, please," he said. "I want to lie here and listen to
you."

"And look at you," he might have added. He could not tell which was
the greater pleasure. Her beauty, more wonderful than any pictured
loveliness he had ever seen, delighted him. Every tint and curve and
outline of her face was flawless. Her music enthralled him. This
child, he told himself as he listened, had genius. But it was being
wholly wasted. He found himself thinking resentfully of the people who
were her guardians, and who were responsible for her strange life.
They had done her a great and irremediable wrong. How dared they doom
her to such an existence? If her defect of utterance had been attended
to in time, who knew but that it might have been cured? Now it was
probably too late. Nature had given her a royal birthright of beauty
and talent, but their selfish and unpardonable neglect had made it of
no account.

What divine music she lured out of the old violin--merry and sad, gay
and sorrowful by turns, music such as the stars of morning might have
made singing together, music that the fairies might have danced to in
their revels among the green hills or on yellow sands, music that
might have mourned over the grave of a dead hope. Then she drifted
into a still sweeter strain. As he listened to it he realized that the
whole soul and nature of the girl were revealing themselves to him
through her music--the beauty and purity of her thoughts, her
childhood dreams and her maiden reveries. There was no thought of
concealment about her; she could not help the revelation she was
unconscious of making.

At last she laid her violin aside and wrote,

"I have done my best to give you pleasure. It is your turn now. Do you
remember a promise you made me last night? Have you kept it?"

He gave her the two books he had brought for her--a modern novel and a
volume of poetry unknown to her. He had hesitated a little over the
former; but the book was so fine and full of beauty that he thought it
could not bruise the bloom of her innocence ever so slightly. He had
no doubts about the poetry. It was the utterance of one of those great
inspired souls whose passing tread has made the kingdom of their birth
and labour a veritable Holy Land.

He read her some of the poems. Then he talked to her of his college
days and friends. The minutes passed very swiftly. There was just then
no world for him outside of that old orchard with its falling
blossoms and its shadows and its crooning winds.

Once, when he told her the story of some college pranks wherein the
endless feuds of freshmen and sophomores figured, she clapped her
hands together according to her habit, and laughed aloud--a clear,
musical, silvery peal. It fell on Eric's ear with a shock of surprise.
He thought it strange that she could laugh like that when she could
not speak. Wherein lay the defect that closed for her the gates of
speech? Was it possible that it could be removed?

"Kilmeny," he said gravely after a moment's reflection, during which
he had looked up at her as she sat with the ruddy sunlight falling
through the lilac branches on her bare, silky head like a shower of
red jewels, "do you mind if I ask you something about your inability
to speak? Will it hurt you to talk of the matter with me?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, no," she wrote, "I do not mind at all. Of course I am sorry I
cannot speak, but I am quite used to the thought and it never hurts me
at all."

"Then, Kilmeny, tell me this. Do you know why it is that you are
unable to speak, when all your other faculties are so perfect?"

"No, I do not know at all why I cannot speak. I asked mother once and
she told me it was a judgment on her for a great sin she had
committed, and she looked so strangely that I was frightened, and I
never spoke of it to her or any one else again."

"Were you ever taken to a doctor to have your tongue and organs of
speech examined?"

"No. I remember when I was a very little girl that Uncle Thomas wanted
to take me to a doctor in Charlottetown and see if anything could be
done for me, but mother would not let him. She said it would be no
use. And I do not think Uncle Thomas thought it would be, either."

"You can laugh very naturally. Can you make any other sound?"

"Yes, sometimes. When I am pleased or frightened I have made little
cries. But it is only when I am not thinking of it at all that I can
do that. If I _try_ to make a sound I cannot do it at all."

This seemed to Eric more mysterious than ever.

"Do you ever try to speak--to utter words?" he persisted.

"Oh, yes, very often. All the time I am saying the words in my head,
just as I hear other people saying them, but I never can make my
tongue say them. Do not look so sorry, my friend. I am very happy and
I do not mind so very much not being able to speak--only sometimes
when I have so many thoughts and it seems so slow to write them out,
some of them get away from me. I must play to you again. You look too
sober."

She laughed again, picked up her violin, and played a tinkling,
roguish little melody as if she were trying to tease him, looking at
Eric over her violin with luminous eyes that dared him to be merry.

Eric smiled; but the puzzled look returned to his face many times that
evening. He walked home in a brown study. Kilmeny's case certainly
seemed a strange one, and the more he thought of it the stranger it
seemed.

"It strikes me as something very peculiar that she should be able to
make sounds only when she is not thinking about it," he reflected. "I
wish David Baker could examine her. But I suppose that is out of the
question. That grim pair who have charge of her would never consent."




CHAPTER IX

THE STRAIGHT SIMPLICITY OF EVE


For the next three weeks Eric Marshall seemed to himself to be living
two lives, as distinct from each other as if he possessed a double
personality. In one, he taught the Lindsay district school diligently
and painstakingly; solved problems; argued on theology with Robert
Williamson; called at the homes of his pupils and took tea in state
with their parents; went to a rustic dance or two and played havoc,
all unwittingly, with the hearts of the Lindsay maidens.

But this life was as a dream of workaday. He only _lived_ in the
other, which was spent in an old orchard, grassy and overgrown, where
the minutes seemed to lag for sheer love of the spot and the June
winds made wild harping in the old spruces.

Here every evening he met Kilmeny; in that old orchard they garnered
hours of quiet happiness together; together they went wandering in the
fair fields of old romance; together they read many books and talked
of many things; and, when they were tired of all else, Kilmeny played
to him and the old orchard echoed with her lovely, fantastic melodies.

At every meeting her beauty came home afresh to him with the old
thrill of glad surprise. In the intervals of absence it seemed to him
that she could not possibly be as beautiful as he remembered her; and
then when they met she seemed even more so. He learned to watch for
the undisguised light of welcome that always leaped into her eyes at
the sound of his footsteps. She was nearly always there before him and
she always showed that she was glad to see him with the frank delight
of a child watching for a dear comrade.

She was never in the same mood twice. Now she was grave, now gay, now
stately, now pensive. But she was always charming. Thrawn and twisted
the old Gordon stock might be, but it had at least this one offshoot
of perfect grace and symmetry. Her mind and heart, utterly unspoiled
of the world, were as beautiful as her face. All the ugliness of
existence had passed her by, shrined in her double solitude of
upbringing and muteness.

She was naturally quick and clever. Delightful little flashes of wit
and humour sparkled out occasionally. She could be whimsical--even
charmingly capricious. Sometimes innocent mischief glimmered out in
the unfathomable deeps of her blue eyes. Sarcasm, even, was not
unknown to her. Now and then she punctured some harmless bubble of a
young man's conceit or masculine superiority with a biting little line
of daintily written script.

She assimilated the ideas in the books they read, speedily, eagerly,
and thoroughly, always seizing on the best and truest, and rejecting
the false and spurious and weak with an unfailing intuition at which
Eric marvelled. Hers was the spear of Ithuriel, trying out the dross
of everything and leaving only the pure gold.

In manner and outlook she was still a child. Yet now and again she was
as old as Eve. An expression would leap into her laughing face, a
subtle meaning reveal itself in her smile, that held all the lore of
womanhood and all the wisdom of the ages.

Her way of smiling enchanted him. The smile always began far down in
her eyes and flowed outward to her face like a sparkling brook
stealing out of shadow into sunshine.

He knew everything about her life. She told him her simple history
freely. She often mentioned her uncle and aunt and seemed to regard
them with deep affection. She rarely spoke of her mother. Eric came
somehow to understand, less from what she said than from what she did
not say, that Kilmeny, though she had loved her mother, had always
been rather afraid of her. There had not been between them the natural
beautiful confidence of mother and child.

Of Neil, she wrote frequently at first, and seemed very fond of him.
Later she ceased to mention him. Perhaps--for she was marvellously
quick to catch and interpret every fleeting change of expression in
his voice and face--she discerned what Eric did not know himself--that
his eyes clouded and grew moody at the mention of Neil's name.

Once she asked him navely,

"Are there many people like you out in the world?"

"Thousands of them," said Eric, laughing.

She looked gravely at him. Then she gave her head a quick decided
little shake.

"I do not think so," she wrote. "I do not know much of the world, but
I do not think there are many people like you in it."

One evening, when the far-away hills and fields were scarfed in gauzy
purples, and the intervales were brimming with golden mists, Eric
carried to the old orchard a little limp, worn volume that held a love
story. It was the first thing of the kind he had ever read to her, for
in the first novel he had lent her the love interest had been very
slight and subordinate. This was a beautiful, passionate idyl
exquisitely told.

He read it to her, lying in the grass at her feet; she listened with
her hands clasped over her knee and her eyes cast down. It was not a
long story; and when he had finished it he shut the book and looked up
at her questioningly.

"Do you like it, Kilmeny?" he asked.

Very slowly she took her slate and wrote,

"Yes, I like it. But it hurt me, too. I did not know that a person
could like anything that hurt her. I do not know why it hurt me. I
felt as if I had lost something that I never had. That was a very
silly feeling, was it not? But I did not understand the book very
well, you see. It is about love and I do not know anything about love.
Mother told me once that love is a curse, and that I must pray that it
would never enter into my life. She said it very earnestly, and so I
believed her. But your book teaches that it is a blessing. It says
that it is the most splendid and wonderful thing in life. Which am I
to believe?"

"Love--real love--is never a curse, Kilmeny," said Eric gravely.
"There is a false love which is a curse. Perhaps your mother believed
it was that which had entered her life and ruined it; and so she made
the mistake. There is nothing in the world--or in heaven either, as I
believe--so truly beautiful and wonderful and blessed as love."

"Have you ever loved?" asked Kilmeny, with the directness of phrasing
necessitated by her mode of communication which was sometimes a little
terrible. She asked the question simply and without any embarrassment.
She knew of no reason why love might not be discussed with Eric as
other matters--music and books and travel--might be.

"No," said Eric--honestly, as he thought, "but every one has an ideal
of love whom he hopes to meet some day--'the ideal woman of a young
man's dream.' I suppose I have mine, in some sealed, secret chamber of
my heart."

"I suppose your ideal woman would be beautiful, like the woman in your
book?"

"Oh, yes, I am sure I could never care for an ugly woman," said Eric,
laughing a little as he sat up. "Our ideals are always beautiful,
whether they so translate themselves into realities or not. But the
sun is going down. Time does certainly fly in this enchanted orchard.
I believe you bewitch the moments away, Kilmeny. Your namesake of the
poem was a somewhat uncanny maid, if I recollect aright, and thought
as little of seven years in elfland as ordinary folk do of half an
hour on upper earth. Some day I shall waken from a supposed hour's
lingering here and find myself an old man with white hair and ragged
coat, as in that fairy tale we read the other night. Will you let me
give you this book? I should never commit the sacrilege of reading it
in any other place than this. It is an old book, Kilmeny. A new book,
savouring of the shop and market-place, however beautiful it might be,
would not do for you. This was one of my mother's books. She read it
and loved it. See--the faded rose leaves she placed in it one day are
there still. I'll write your name in it--that quaint, pretty name of
yours which always sounds as if it had been specially invented for
you--'Kilmeny of the Orchard'--and the date of this perfect June day
on which we read it together. Then when you look at it you will
always remember me, and the white buds opening on that rosebush beside
you, and the rush and murmur of the wind in the tops of those old
spruces."

He held out the book to her, but, to his surprise, she shook her head,
with a deeper flush on her face.

"Won't you take the book, Kilmeny? Why not?"

She took her pencil and wrote slowly, unlike her usual quick movement.

"Do not be offended with me. I shall not need anything to make me
remember you because I can never forget you. But I would rather not
take the book. I do not want to read it again. It is about love, and
there is no use in my learning about love, even if it is all you say.
Nobody will ever love me. I am too ugly."

"You! Ugly!" exclaimed Eric. He was on the point of going off into a
peal of laughter at the idea when a glimpse of her half averted face
sobered him. On it was a hurt, bitter look, such as he remembered
seeing once before, when he had asked her if she would not like to see
the world for herself.

"Kilmeny," he said in astonishment, "you don't really think yourself
ugly, do you?"

She nodded, without looking at him, and then wrote,

"Oh, yes, I know that I am. I have known it for a long time. Mother
told me that I was very ugly and that nobody would ever like to look
at me. I am sorry. It hurts me much worse to know I am ugly than it
does to know I cannot speak. I suppose you will think that is very
foolish of me, but it is true. That was why I did not come back to the
orchard for such a long time, even after I had got over my fright. I
hated to think that _you_ would think me ugly. And that is why I do
not want to go out into the world and meet people. They would look at
me as the egg peddler did one day when I went out with Aunt Janet to
his wagon the spring after mother died. He stared at me so. I knew it
was because he thought me so ugly, and I have always hidden when he
came ever since."

Eric's lips twitched. In spite of his pity for the real suffering
displayed in her eyes, he could not help feeling amused over the
absurd idea of this beautiful girl believing herself in all
seriousness to be ugly.

"But, Kilmeny, do you think yourself ugly when you look in a mirror?"
he asked smiling.

"I have never looked in a mirror," she wrote. "I never knew there was
such a thing until after mother died, and I read about it in a book.
Then I asked Aunt Janet and she said mother had broken all the looking
glasses in the house when I was a baby. But I have seen my face
reflected in the spoons, and in a little silver sugar bowl Aunt Janet
has. And it is ugly--very ugly."

Eric's face went down into the grass. For his life he could not help
laughing; and for his life he would not let Kilmeny see him laughing.
A certain little whimsical wish took possession of him and he did not
hasten to tell her the truth, as had been his first impulse. Instead,
when he dared to look up he said slowly,

"I don't think you are ugly, Kilmeny."

"Oh, but I am sure you must," she wrote protestingly. "Even Neil does.
He tells me I am kind and nice, but one day I asked him if he thought
me very ugly, and he looked away and would not speak, so I knew what
he thought about it, too. Do not let us speak of this again. It makes
me feel sorry and spoils everything. I forget it at other times. Let
me play you some good-bye music, and do not feel vexed because I would
not take your book. It would only make me unhappy to read it."

"I am not vexed," said Eric, "and I think you will take it some day
yet--after I have shown you something I want you to see. Never mind
about your looks, Kilmeny. Beauty isn't everything."

"Oh, it is a great deal," she wrote navely. "But you do like me, even
though I am so ugly, don't you? You like me because of my beautiful
music, don't you?"

"I like you very much, Kilmeny," answered Eric, laughing a little; but
there was in his voice a tender note of which he was unconscious.
Kilmeny was aware of it, however, and she picked up her violin with a
pleased smile.

He left her playing there, and all the way through the dim resinous
spruce wood her music followed him like an invisible guardian spirit.

"Kilmeny the Beautiful!" he murmured, "and yet, good heavens, the
child thinks she is ugly--she with a face more lovely than ever an
artist dreamed of! A girl of eighteen who has never looked in a
mirror! I wonder if there is another such in any civilized country in
the world. What could have possessed her mother to tell her such a
falsehood? I wonder if Margaret Gordon could have been quite sane. It
is strange that Neil has never told her the truth. Perhaps he doesn't
want her to find out."

Eric had met Neil Gordon a few evenings before this, at a country
dance where Neil had played the violin for the dancers. Influenced by
curiosity he had sought the lad's acquaintance. Neil was friendly and
talkative at first; but at the first hint concerning the Gordons which
Eric threw out skilfully his face and manner changed. He looked
secretive and suspicious, almost sinister. A sullen look crept into
his big black eyes and he drew his bow across the violin strings with
a discordant screech, as if to terminate the conversation. Plainly
nothing was to be found out from him about Kilmeny and her grim
guardians.




CHAPTER X

A TROUBLING OF THE WATERS


One evening in late June Mrs. Williamson was sitting by her kitchen
window. Her knitting lay unheeded in her lap, and Timothy, though he
nestled ingratiatingly against her foot as he lay on the rug and
purred his loudest, was unregarded. She rested her face on her hand
and looked out of the window, across the distant harbour, with
troubled eyes.

"I guess I must speak," she thought wistfully. "I hate to do it. I
always did hate meddling. My mother always used to say that
ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler and
them she meddled with was worse than the first. But I guess it's my
duty. I was Margaret's friend, and it is my duty to protect her child
any way I can. If the Master does go back across there to meet her I
must tell him what I think about it."

Overhead in his room, Eric was walking about whistling. Presently he
came downstairs, thinking of the orchard, and the girl who would be
waiting for him there.

As he crossed the little front entry he heard Mrs. Williamson's voice
calling to him.

"Mr. Marshall, will you please come here a moment?"

He went out to the kitchen. Mrs. Williamson looked at him
deprecatingly. There was a flush on her faded cheek and her voice
trembled.

"Mr. Marshall, I want to ask you a question. Perhaps you will think it
isn't any of my business. But it isn't because I want to meddle. No,
no. It is only because I think I ought to speak. I have thought it
over for a long time, and it seems to me that I ought to speak. I
hope you won't be angry, but even if you are I must say what I have to
say. Are you going back to the old Connors orchard to meet Kilmeny
Gordon?"

For a moment an angry flush burned in Eric's face. It was more Mrs.
Williamson's tone than her words which startled and annoyed him.

"Yes, I am, Mrs. Williamson," he said coldly. "What of it?"

"Then, sir," said Mrs. Williamson with more firmness, "I have got to
tell you that I don't think you are doing right. I have been
suspecting all along that that was where you went every evening, but I
haven't said a word to any one about it. Even my husband doesn't know.
But tell me this, Master. Do Kilmeny's uncle and aunt know that you
are meeting her there?"

"Why," said Eric, in some confusion, "I--I do not know whether they do
or not. But Mrs. Williamson, surely you do not suspect me of meaning
any harm or wrong to Kilmeny Gordon?"

"No, I don't, Master. I might think it of some men, but never of you.
I don't for a minute think that you would do her or any woman any
wilful wrong. But you may do her great harm for all that. I want you
to stop and think about it. I guess you haven't thought. Kilmeny can't
know anything about the world or about men, and she may get to
thinking too much of you. That might break her heart, because you
couldn't ever marry a dumb girl like her. So I don't think you ought
to be meeting her so often in this fashion. It isn't right, Master.
Don't go to the orchard again."

Without a word Eric turned away, and went upstairs to his room. Mrs.
Williamson picked up her knitting with a sigh.

"That's done, Timothy, and I'm real thankful," she said. "I guess
there'll be no need of saying anything more. Mr. Marshall is a fine
young man, only a little thoughtless. Now that he's got his eyes
opened I'm sure he'll do what is right. I don't want Margaret's child
made unhappy."

Her husband came to the kitchen door and sat down on the steps to
enjoy his evening smoke, talking between whiffs to his wife of Elder
Tracy's church row, and Mary Alice Martin's beau, the price Jake
Crosby was giving for eggs, the quantity of hay yielded by the hill
meadow, the trouble he was having with old Molly's calf, and the
respective merits of Plymouth Rock and Brahma roosters. Mrs.
Williamson answered at random, and heard not one word in ten.

"What's got the Master, Mother?" inquired old Robert, presently. "I
hear him striding up and down in his room 'sif he was caged. Sure you
didn't lock him in by mistake?"

"Maybe he's worried over the way Seth Tracy's acting in school,"
suggested Mrs. Williamson, who did not choose that her gossipy
husband should suspect the truth about Eric and Kilmeny Gordon.

"Shucks, he needn't worry a morsel over that. Seth'll quiet down as
soon as he finds he can't run the Master. He's a rare good
teacher--better'n Mr. West was even, and that's saying something. The
trustees are hoping he'll stay for another term. They're going to ask
him at the school meeting to-morrow, and offer him a raise of
supplement."

Upstairs, in his little room under the eaves, Eric Marshall was in the
grip of the most intense and overwhelming emotion he had ever
experienced.

Up and down, to and fro, he walked, with set lips and clenched hands.
When he was wearied out he flung himself on a chair by the window and
wrestled with the flood of feeling.

Mrs. Williamson's words had torn away the delusive veil with which he
had bound his eyes. He was face to face with the knowledge that he
loved Kilmeny Gordon with the love that comes but once, and is for
all time. He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it. He
knew that he must have loved her ever since their first meeting that
May evening in the old orchard.

And he knew that he must choose between two alternatives--either he
must never go to the orchard again, or he must go as an avowed lover
to woo him a wife.

Worldly prudence, his inheritance from a long line of thrifty,
cool-headed ancestors, was strong in Eric, and he did not yield easily
or speedily to the dictates of his passion. All night he struggled
against the new emotions that threatened to sweep away the "common
sense" which David Baker had bade him take with him when he went
a-wooing. Would not a marriage with Kilmeny Gordon be an unwise thing
from any standpoint?

Then something stronger and greater and more vital than wisdom or
unwisdom rose up in him and mastered him. Kilmeny, beautiful, dumb
Kilmeny was, as he had once involuntarily thought, "the one maid" for
him. Nothing should part them. The mere idea of never seeing her again
was so unbearable that he laughed at himself for having counted it a
possible alternative.

"If I can win Kilmeny's love I shall ask her to be my wife," he said,
looking out of the window to the dark, southwestern hill beyond which
lay his orchard.

The velvet sky over it was still starry; but the water of the harbour
was beginning to grow silvery in the reflection of the dawn that was
breaking in the east.

"Her misfortune will only make her dearer to me. I cannot realize that
a month ago I did not know her. It seems to me that she has been a
part of my life for ever. I wonder if she was grieved that I did not
go to the orchard last night--if she waited for me. I wonder if she
cares for me. If she does, she does not know it herself yet. It will
be my sweet task to teach her what love means, and no man has ever
had a lovelier, purer, pupil."

At the annual school meeting, the next afternoon, the trustees asked
Eric to take the Lindsay school for the following year. He consented
unhesitatingly.

That evening he went to Mrs. Williamson, as she washed her tea dishes
in the kitchen.

"Mrs. Williamson, I am going back to the old Connors orchard to see
Kilmeny again to-night."

She looked at him reproachfully.

"Well, Master, I have no more to say. I suppose it wouldn't be of any
use if I had. But you know what I think of it."

"I intend to marry Kilmeny Gordon if I can win her."

An expression of amazement came into the good woman's face. She looked
scrutinizingly at the firm mouth and steady gray eyes for a moment.
Then she said in a troubled voice,

"Do you think that is wise, Master? I suppose Kilmeny is pretty; the
egg peddler told me she was; and no doubt she is a good, nice girl.
But she wouldn't be a suitable wife for you--a girl that can't speak."

"That doesn't make any difference to me."

"But what will your people say?"

"I have no 'people' except my father. When he sees Kilmeny he will
understand. She is all the world to me, Mrs. Williamson."

"As long as you believe that there is nothing more to be said," was
the quiet answer, "I'd be a little bit afraid if I was you, though.
But young people never think of those things."

"My only fear is that she won't care for me," said Eric soberly.

Mrs. Williamson surveyed the handsome, broad-shouldered young man
shrewdly.

"I don't think there are many women would say you 'no,' Master. I wish
you well in your wooing, though I can't help thinking you're doing a
daft-like thing. I hope you won't have any trouble with Thomas and
Janet. They are so different from other folks there is no knowing. But
take my advice, Master, and go and see them about it right off. Don't
go on meeting Kilmeny unbeknownst to them."

"I shall certainly take your advice," said Eric, gravely. "I should
have gone to them before. It was merely thoughtlessness on my part.
Possibly they do know already. Kilmeny may have told them."

Mrs. Williamson shook her head decidedly.

"No, no, Master, she hasn't. They'd never have let her go on meeting
you there if they had known. I know them too well to think of that for
a moment. Go you straight to them and say to them just what you have
said to me. That is your best plan, Master. And take care of Neil.
People say he has a notion of Kilmeny himself. He'll do you a bad
turn if he can, I've no doubt. Them foreigners can't be trusted--and
he's just as much a foreigner as his parents before him--though he
_has_ been brought up on oatmeal and the shorter catechism, as the old
saying has it. I feel that somehow--I always feel it when I look at
him singing in the choir."

"Oh, I am not afraid of Neil," said Eric carelessly. "He couldn't help
loving Kilmeny--nobody could."

"I suppose every young man thinks that about his girl--if he's the
right sort of young man," said Mrs. Williamson with a little sigh.

She watched Eric out of sight anxiously.

"I hope it'll all come out right," she thought. "I hope he ain't
making an awful mistake--but--I'm afraid. Kilmeny must be very pretty
to have bewitched him so. Well, I suppose there is no use in my
worrying over it. But I do wish he had never gone back to that old
orchard and seen her."




CHAPTER XI

A LOVER AND HIS LASS


Kilmeny was in the orchard when Eric reached it, and he lingered for a
moment in the shadow of the spruce wood to dream over her beauty.

The orchard had lately overflowed in waves of old-fashioned caraway,
and she was standing in the midst of its sea of bloom, with the
lace-like blossoms swaying around her in the wind. She wore the simple
dress of pale blue print in which he had first seen her; silk attire
could not better have become her loveliness. She had woven herself a
chaplet of half open white rosebuds and placed it on her dark hair,
where the delicate blossoms seemed less wonderful than her face.

When Eric stepped through the gap she ran to meet him with
outstretched hands, smiling. He took her hands and looked into her
eyes with an expression before which hers for the first time faltered.
She looked down, and a warm blush stained the ivory curves of her
cheek and throat. His heart bounded, for in that blush he recognized
the banner of love's vanguard.

"Are you glad to see me, Kilmeny?" he asked, in a low significant
tone.

She nodded, and wrote in a somewhat embarrassed fashion,

"Yes. Why do you ask? You know I am always glad to see you. I was
afraid you would not come. You did not come last night and I was so
sorry. Nothing in the orchard seemed nice any longer. I couldn't even
play. I tried to, and my violin only cried. I waited until it was dark
and then I went home."

"I am sorry you were disappointed, Kilmeny. I couldn't come last
night. Some day I shall tell you why. I stayed home to learn a new
lesson. I am sorry you missed me--no, I am glad. Can you understand
how a person may be glad and sorry for the same thing?"

She nodded again, with a return of her usual sweet composure.

"Yes, I could not have understood once, but I can now. Did you learn
your new lesson?"

"Yes, very thoroughly. It was a delightful lesson when I once
understood it. I must try to teach it to you some day. Come over to
the old bench, Kilmeny. There is something I want to say to you. But
first, will you give me a rose?"

She ran to the bush, and, after careful deliberation, selected a
perfect half-open bud and brought it to him--a white bud with a faint,
sunrise flush about its golden heart.

"Thank you. It is as beautiful as--as a woman I know," Eric said.

A wistful look came into her face at his words, and she walked with a
drooping head across the orchard to the bench.

"Kilmeny," he said, seriously, "I am going to ask you to do something
for me. I want you to take me home with you and introduce me to your
uncle and aunt."

She lifted her head and stared at him incredulously, as if he had
asked her to do something wildly impossible. Understanding from his
grave face that he meant what he said, a look of dismay dawned in her
eyes. She shook her head almost violently and seemed to be making a
passionate, instinctive effort to speak. Then she caught up her pencil
and wrote with feverish haste:

"I cannot do that. Do not ask me to. You do not understand. They would
be very angry. They do not want to see any one coming to the house.
And they would never let me come here again. Oh, you do not mean it?"

He pitied her for the pain and bewilderment in her eyes; but he took
her slender hands in his and said firmly,

"Yes, Kilmeny, I do mean it. It is not quite right for us to be
meeting each other here as we have been doing, without the knowledge
and consent of your friends. You cannot now understand this,
but--believe me--it is so."

She looked questioningly, pityingly into his eyes. What she read there
seemed to convince her, for she turned very pale and an expression of
hopelessness came into her face. Releasing her hands, she wrote
slowly,

"If you say it is wrong I must believe it. I did not know anything so
pleasant could be wrong. But if it is wrong we must not meet here any
more. Mother told me I must never do anything that was wrong. But I
did not know this was wrong."

"It was not wrong for you, Kilmeny. But it was a little wrong for me,
because I knew better--or rather, should have known better. I didn't
stop to think, as the children say. Some day you will understand
fully. Now, you will take me to your uncle and aunt, and after I have
said to them what I want to say it will be all right for us to meet
here or anywhere."

She shook her head.

"No," she wrote, "Uncle Thomas and Aunt Janet will tell you to go away
and never come back. And they will never let me come here any more.
Since it is not right to meet you I will not come, but it is no use to
think of going to them. I did not tell them about you because I knew
that they would forbid me to see you, but I am sorry, since it is so
wrong."

"You must take me to them," said Eric firmly. "I am quite sure that
things will not be as you fear when they hear what I have to say."

Uncomforted, she wrote forlornly,

"I must do it, since you insist, but I am sure it will be no use. I
cannot take you to-night because they are away. They went to the store
at Radnor. But I will take you to-morrow night; and after that I shall
not see you any more."

Two great tears brimmed over in her big blue eyes and splashed down
on her slate. Her lips quivered like a hurt child's. Eric put his arm
impulsively about her and drew her head down upon his shoulder. As she
cried there, softly, miserably, he pressed his lips to the silky black
hair with its coronal of rosebuds. He did not see two burning eyes
which were looking at him over the old fence behind him with hatred
and mad passion blazing in their depths. Neil Gordon was crouched
there, with clenched hands and heaving breast, watching them.

"Kilmeny, dear, don't cry," said Eric tenderly. "You shall see me
again. I promise you that, whatever happens. I do not think your uncle
and aunt will be as unreasonable as you fear, but even if they are
they shall not prevent me from meeting you somehow."

Kilmeny lifted her head, and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"You do not know what they are like," she wrote. "They will lock me
into my room. That is the way they always punished me when I was a
little girl. And once, not so very long ago, when I was a big girl,
they did it."

"If they do I'll get you out somehow," said Eric, laughing a little.

She allowed herself to smile, but it was a rather forlorn little
effort. She did not cry any more, but her spirits did not come back to
her. Eric talked gaily, but she only listened in a pensive, absent
way, as if she scarcely heard him. When he asked her to play she shook
her head.

"I cannot think any music to-night," she wrote. "I must go home, for
my head aches and I feel very stupid."

"Very well, Kilmeny. Now, don't worry, little girl. It will all come
out all right."

Evidently she did not share his confidence, for her head drooped again
as they walked together across the orchard. At the entrance of the
wild cherry lane she paused and looked at him half reproachfully, her
eyes filling again. She seemed to be bidding him a mute farewell. With
an impulse of tenderness which he could not control, Eric put his arm
about her and kissed her red, trembling mouth. She started back with a
little cry. A burning colour swept over her face, and the next moment
she fled swiftly up the darkening lane.

The sweetness of that involuntary kiss clung to Eric's lips as he went
homeward, half-intoxicating him. He knew that it had opened the gates
of womanhood to Kilmeny. Never again, he felt, would her eyes meet his
with their old unclouded frankness. When next he looked into them he
knew that he should see there the consciousness of his kiss. Behind
her in the orchard that night Kilmeny had left her childhood.




CHAPTER XII

A PRISONER OF LOVE


When Eric betook himself to the orchard the next evening he had to
admit that he felt rather nervous. He did not know how the Gordons
would receive him and certainly the reports he had heard of them were
not encouraging, to say the least of it. Even Mrs. Williamson, when he
had told her where he was going, seemed to look upon him as one bent
on bearding a lion in his den.

"I do hope they won't be very uncivil to you, Master," was the best
she could say.

He expected Kilmeny to be in the orchard before him, for he had been
delayed by a call from one of the trustees; but she was nowhere to be
seen. He walked across it to the wild cherry lane; but at its
entrance he stopped short in sudden dismay.

Neil Gordon had stepped from behind the trees and stood confronting
him, with blazing eyes, and lips which writhed in emotion so great
that at first it prevented him from speaking.

With a thrill of dismay Eric instantly understood what must have taken
place. Neil had discovered that he and Kilmeny had been meeting in the
orchard, and beyond doubt had carried the tale to Janet and Thomas
Gordon. He realized how unfortunate it was that this should have
happened before he had had time to make his own explanation. It would
probably prejudice Kilmeny's guardians still further against him. At
this point in his thoughts Neil's pent up passion suddenly found vent
in a burst of wild words.

"So you've come to meet her again. But she isn't here--you'll never
see her again! I hate you--I hate you--I hate you!"

His voice rose to a shrill scream. He took a furious step nearer Eric
as if he would attack him. Eric looked steadily in his eyes with a
calm defiance, before which his wild passion broke like foam on a
rock.

"So you have been making trouble for Kilmeny, Neil, have you?" said
Eric contemptuously. "I suppose you have been playing the spy. And I
suppose that you have told her uncle and aunt that she has been
meeting me here. Well, you have saved me the trouble of doing it, that
is all. I was going to tell them myself, to-night. I don't know what
your motive in doing this has been. Was it jealousy of me? Or have you
done it out of malice to Kilmeny?"

His contempt cowed Neil more effectually than any display of anger
could have done.

"Never you mind why I did it," he muttered sullenly. "What I did or
why I did it is no business of yours. And you have no business to
come sneaking around here either. Kilmeny won't meet you here again."

"She will meet me in her own home then," said Eric sternly. "Neil, in
behaving as you have done you have shown yourself to be a very
foolish, undisciplined boy. I am going straightway to Kilmeny's uncle
and aunt to explain everything."

Neil sprang forward in his path.

"No--no--go away," he implored wildly. "Oh, sir--oh, Mr. Marshall,
please go away. I'll do anything for you if you will. I love Kilmeny.
I've loved her all my life. I'd give my life for her. I can't have you
coming here to steal her from me. If you do--I'll kill you! I wanted
to kill you last night when I saw you kiss her. Oh, yes, I saw you. I
was watching--spying, if you like. I don't care what you call it. I
had followed her--I suspected something. She was so different--so
changed. She never would wear the flowers I picked for her any more.
She seemed to forget I was there. I knew something had come between
us. And it was you, curse you! Oh, I'll make you sorry for it."

He was working himself up into a fury again--the untamed fury of the
Italian peasant thwarted in his heart's desire. It overrode all the
restraint of his training and environment. Eric, amid all his anger
and annoyance, felt a thrill of pity for him. Neil Gordon was only a
boy still; and he was miserable and beside himself.

"Neil, listen to me," he said quietly. "You are talking very
foolishly. It is not for you to say who shall or shall not be
Kilmeny's friend. Now, you may just as well control yourself and go
home like a decent fellow. I am not at all frightened by your threats,
and I shall know how to deal with you if you persist in interfering
with me or persecuting Kilmeny. I am not the sort of person to put up
with that, my lad."

The restrained power in his tone and look cowed Neil. The latter
turned sullenly away, with another muttered curse, and plunged into
the shadow of the firs.

Eric, not a little ruffled under all his external composure by this
most unexpected and unpleasant encounter, pursued his way along the
lane which wound on by the belt of woodland in twist and curve to the
Gordon homestead. His heart beat as he thought of Kilmeny. What might
she not be suffering? Doubtless Neil had given a very exaggerated and
distorted account of what he had seen, and probably her dour relations
were very angry with her, poor child. Anxious to avert their wrath as
soon as might be, he hurried on, almost forgetting his meeting with
Neil. The threats of the latter did not trouble him at all. He thought
the angry outburst of a jealous boy mattered but little. What did
matter was that Kilmeny was in trouble which his heedlessness had
brought upon her.

Presently he found himself before the Gordon house. It was an old
building with sharp eaves and dormer windows, its shingles stained a
dark gray by long exposure to wind and weather. Faded green shutters
hung on the windows of the lower story. Behind it grew a thick wood of
spruces. The little yard in front of it was grassy and prim and
flowerless; but over the low front door a luxuriant early-flowering
rose vine clambered, in a riot of blood-red blossom which contrasted
strangely with the general bareness of its surroundings. It seemed to
fling itself over the grim old house as if intent on bombarding it
with an alien life and joyousness.

Eric knocked at the door, wondering if it might be possible that
Kilmeny should come to it. But a moment later it was opened by an
elderly woman--a woman of rigid lines from the hem of her lank, dark
print dress to the crown of her head, covered with black hair which,
despite its few gray threads, was still thick and luxuriant. She had
a long, pale face somewhat worn and wrinkled, but possessing a certain
harsh comeliness of feature which neither age nor wrinkles had quite
destroyed; and her deep-set, light gray eyes were not devoid of
suggested kindliness, although they now surveyed Eric with an
unconcealed hostility. Her figure, in its merciless dress, was very
angular; yet there was about her a dignity of carriage and manner
which Eric liked. In any case, he preferred her unsmiling dourness to
vulgar garrulity.

He lifted his hat.

"Have I the honour of speaking to Miss Gordon?" he asked.

"I am Janet Gordon," said the woman stiffly.

"Then I wish to talk with you and with your brother."

"Come in."

She stepped aside and motioned him to a low brown door opening on the
right.

"Go in and sit down. I'll call Thomas," she said coldly, as she walked
out through the hall.

Eric walked into the parlour and sat down as bidden. He found himself
in the most old-fashioned room he had ever seen. The solidly made
chairs and tables, of some wood grown dark and polished with age, made
even Mrs. Williamson's "parlour set" of horsehair seem extravagantly
modern by contrast. The painted floor was covered with round braided
rugs. On the centre table was a lamp, a Bible and some theological
volumes contemporary with the square-runged furniture. The walls,
wainscoted half way up in wood and covered for the rest with a dark,
diamond-patterned paper, were hung with faded engravings, mostly of
clerical-looking, bewigged personages in gowns and bands.

But over the high, undecorated black mantel-piece, in a ruddy glow of
sunset light striking through the window, hung one which caught and
held Eric's attention to the exclusion of everything else. It was the
enlarged "crayon" photograph of a young girl, and, in spite of the
crudity of execution, it was easily the centre of interest in the
room.

Eric at once guessed that this must be the picture of Margaret Gordon,
for, although quite unlike Kilmeny's sensitive, spirited face in
general, there was a subtle, unmistakable resemblance about brow and
chin.

The pictured face was a very handsome one, suggestive of velvety dark
eyes and vivid colouring; but it was its expression rather than its
beauty which fascinated Eric. Never had he seen a countenance
indicative of more intense and stubborn will power. Margaret Gordon
was dead and buried; the picture was a cheap and inartistic production
in an impossible frame of gilt and plush; yet the vitality in that
face dominated its surroundings still. What then must have been the
power of such a personality in life?

Eric realized that this woman could and would have done whatsoever she
willed, unflinchingly and unrelentingly. She could stamp her desire on
everything and everybody about her, moulding them to her wish and
will, in their own despite and in defiance of all the resistance they
might make. Many things in Kilmeny's upbringing and temperament became
clear to him.

"If that woman had told me I was ugly I should have believed her," he
thought. "Ay, even though I had a mirror to contradict her. I should
never have dreamed of disputing or questioning anything she might have
said. The strange power in her face is almost uncanny, peering out as
it does from a mask of beauty and youthful curves. Pride and
stubbornness are its salient characteristics. Well, Kilmeny does not
at all resemble her mother in expression and only very slightly in
feature."

His reflections were interrupted by the entrance of Thomas and Janet
Gordon. The latter had evidently been called from his work. He nodded
without speaking, and the two sat gravely down before Eric.

"I have come to see you with regard to your niece, Mr. Gordon," he
said abruptly, realizing that there would be small use in beating
about the bush with this grim pair. "I met your--I met Neil Gordon in
the Connors orchard, and I found that he has told you that I have been
meeting Kilmeny there."

He paused. Thomas Gordon nodded again; but he did not speak, and he
did not remove his steady, piercing eyes from the young man's flushed
countenance. Janet still sat in a sort of expectant immovability.

"I fear that you have formed an unfavourable opinion of me on this
account, Mr. Gordon," Eric went on. "But I hardly think I deserve it.
I can explain the matter if you will allow me. I met your niece
accidentally in the orchard three weeks ago and heard her play. I
thought her music very wonderful and I fell into the habit of coming
to the orchard in the evenings to hear it. I had no thought of harming
her in any way, Mr. Gordon. I thought of her as a mere child, and a
child who was doubly sacred because of her affliction. But recently
I--I--it occurred to me that I was not behaving quite honourably in
encouraging her to meet me thus. Yesterday evening I asked her to
bring me here and introduce me to you and her aunt. We would have come
then if you had been at home. As you were not we arranged to come
to-night."

"Yes, she told us so," said Thomas Gordon slowly, speaking in a
strong, vibrant voice. "We did not believe her. But your story agrees
with hers, and I begin to think that we were too harsh with her. But
Neil's tale had an ugly sound and made us very angry. We have no
reason to be over-trustful in the case of strange men, Master. Perhaps
you meant no harm. I am willing to believe that, sir. But there must
be no more of it."

"I hope you will not refuse me the privilege of seeing your niece, Mr.
Gordon," said Eric eagerly. "I ask you to allow me to visit her here.
But I do not ask you to receive me as a friend on my own
recommendations only. I will give you references--men of standing in
Charlottetown and Queenslea. If you refer to them--"

"I don't need to do that," said Thomas Gordon, quietly. "I know more
of you than you think, Master. I know your father well by reputation
and I have seen him. I know you are a rich man's son, whatever your
whim in teaching a country school may be. Since you have kept your own
counsel about your affairs I supposed you didn't want your true
position generally known, and so I have held my tongue about you. I
know no ill of you, Master, and I think none, now that I believe you
were not beguiling Kilmeny to meet you unknown to her friends of set
purpose. But all this doesn't make you a suitable friend for her,
sir--it makes you all the more unsuitable. The less she sees of you
the better."

Eric almost started to his feet in an indignant protest; but he
swiftly remembered that his only hope of winning Kilmeny lay in
bringing Thomas Gordon to another way of thinking. He had got on
better than he had expected so far; he must not now jeopardize what he
had gained by rashness or impatience.

"Why do you think so, Mr. Gordon?" he asked, regaining his
self-control with an effort.

"Well, plain speaking is best, Master. If you were to come here and
see Kilmeny often she'd most likely come to think too much of you. I
mistrust there's some mischief done in that direction already. Then
when you went away she might break her heart--for she is one of those
who feel things deeply. She has been happy enough. I know folks
condemn us for the way she has been brought up, but they don't know
everything. It was the best way for her, all things considered. And we
don't want her made unhappy, Master."

"But I love your niece and I want to marry her if I can win her love,"
said Eric steadily.

He surprised them out of their self possession at last. Both started,
and looked at him as if they could not believe the evidence of their
ears.

"Marry her! Marry Kilmeny!" exclaimed Thomas Gordon incredulously.
"You can't mean it, sir. Why, she is dumb--Kilmeny is dumb."

"That makes no difference in my love for her, although I deeply regret
it for her own sake," answered Eric. "I can only repeat what I have
already said, Mr. Gordon. I want Kilmeny for my wife."

The older man leaned forward and looked at the floor in a troubled
fashion, drawing his bushy eyebrows down and tapping the calloused
tips of his fingers together uneasily. He was evidently puzzled by
this unexpected turn of the conversation, and in grave doubt what to
say.

"What would your father say to all this, Master?" he queried at last.

"I have often heard my father say that a man must marry to please
himself," said Eric, with a smile. "If he felt tempted to go back on
that opinion I think the sight of Kilmeny would convert him. But,
after all, it is what I say that matters in this case, isn't it, Mr.
Gordon? I am well educated and not afraid of work. I can make a home
for Kilmeny in a few years even if I have to depend entirely on my own
resources. Only give me the chance to win her--that is all I ask."

"I don't think it would do, Master," said Thomas Gordon, shaking his
head. "Of course, I dare say you--you"--he tried to say "love," but
Scotch reserve balked stubbornly at the terrible word--"you think you
like Kilmeny now, but you are only a lad--and lads' fancies change."

"Mine will not," Eric broke in vehemently. "It is not a fancy, Mr.
Gordon. It is the love that comes once in a lifetime and once only. I
may be but a lad, but I know that Kilmeny is the one woman in the
world for me. There can never be any other. Oh, I'm not speaking
rashly or inconsiderately. I have weighed the matter well and looked
at it from every aspect. And it all comes to this--I love Kilmeny and
I want what any decent man who loves a woman truly has the right to
have--the chance to win her love in return."

"Well!" Thomas Gordon drew a long breath that was almost a sigh.
"Maybe--if you feel like that, Master--I don't know--there are some
things it isn't right to cross. Perhaps we oughtn't--Janet, woman,
what shall we say to him?"

Janet Gordon had hitherto spoken no word. She had sat rigidly upright
on one of the old chairs under Margaret Gordon's insistent picture,
with her knotted, toil-worn hands grasping the carved arms tightly,
and her eyes fastened on Eric's face. At first their expression had
been guarded and hostile, but as the conversation proceeded they lost
this gradually and became almost kindly. Now, when her brother
appealed to her, she leaned forward and said eagerly,

"Do you know that there is a stain on Kilmeny's birth, Master?"

"I know that her mother was the innocent victim of a very sad mistake,
Miss Gordon. I admit no real stain where there was no conscious wrong
doing. Though, for that matter, even if there were, it would be no
fault of Kilmeny's and would make no difference to me as far as she
is concerned."

A sudden change swept over Janet Gordon's face, quite marvellous in
the transformation it wrought. Her grim mouth softened and a flood of
repressed tenderness glorified her cold gray eyes.

"Well, then," she said almost triumphantly, "since neither that nor
her dumbness seems to be any drawback in your eyes I don't see why you
should not have the chance you want. Perhaps your world will say she
is not good enough for you, but she is--she is"--this half defiantly.
"She is a sweet and innocent and true-hearted lassie. She is bright
and clever and she is not ill looking. Thomas, I say let the young man
have his will."

Thomas Gordon stood up, as if he considered the responsibility off his
shoulders and the interview at an end.

"Very well, Janet, woman, since you think it is wise. And may God deal
with him as he deals with her. Good evening, Master. I'll see you
again, and you are free to come and go as suits you. But I must go to
my work now. I left my horses standing in the field."

"I will go up and send Kilmeny down," said Janet quietly.

She lighted the lamp on the table and left the room. A few minutes
later Kilmeny came down. Eric rose and went to meet her eagerly, but
she only put out her right hand with a pretty dignity and, while she
looked into his face, she did not look into his eyes.

"You see I was right after all, Kilmeny," he said, smiling. "Your
uncle and aunt haven't driven me away. On the contrary they have been
very kind to me, and they say I may see you whenever and wherever I
like."

She smiled, and went over to the table to write on her slate.

"But they were very angry last night, and said dreadful things to me.
I felt very frightened and unhappy. They seemed to think I had done
something terribly wrong. Uncle Thomas said he would never trust me
out of his sight again. I could hardly believe it when Aunt Janet came
up and told me you were here and that I might come down. She looked at
me very strangely as she spoke, but I could see that all the anger had
gone out of her face. She seemed pleased and yet sad. But I am glad
they have forgiven us."

She did not tell him how glad she was, and how unhappy she had been
over the thought that she was never to see him again. Yesterday she
would have told him all frankly and fully; but for her yesterday was a
lifetime away--a lifetime in which she had come into her heritage of
womanly dignity and reserve. The kiss which Eric had left on her lips,
the words her uncle and aunt had said to her, the tears she had shed
for the first time on a sleepless pillow--all had conspired to reveal
her to herself. She did not yet dream that she loved Eric Marshall,
or that he loved her. But she was no longer the child to be made a
dear comrade of. She was, though quite unconsciously, the woman to be
wooed and won, exacting, with sweet, innate pride, her dues of
allegiance.




CHAPTER XIII

A SWEETER WOMAN NE'ER DREW BREATH


Thenceforward Eric Marshall was a constant visitor at the Gordon
homestead. He soon became a favourite with Thomas and Janet,
especially the latter. He liked them both, discovering under all their
outward peculiarities sterling worth and fineness of character. Thomas
Gordon was surprisingly well read and could floor Eric any time in
argument, once he became sufficiently warmed up to attain to fluency
of words. Eric hardly recognized him the first time he saw him thus
animated. His bent form straightened, his sunken eyes flashed, his
face flushed, his voice rang like a trumpet, and he poured out a flood
of eloquence which swept Eric's smart, up-to-date arguments away like
straws in the rush of a mountain torrent. Eric enjoyed his own defeat
enormously, but Thomas Gordon was ashamed of being thus drawn out of
himself, and for a week afterwards confined his remarks to "Yes" and
"No," or, at the outside, to a brief statement that a change in the
weather was brewing.

Janet never talked on matters of church and state; such she plainly
considered to be far beyond a woman's province. But she listened with
lurking interest in her eyes while Thomas and Eric pelted each other
with facts and statistics and opinions, and on the rare occasions when
Eric scored a point she permitted herself a sly little smile at her
brother's expense.

Of Neil, Eric saw but little. The Italian boy avoided him, or if they
chanced to meet passed him by with sullen, downcast eyes. Eric did not
trouble himself greatly about Neil; but Thomas Gordon, understanding
the motive which had led Neil to betray his discovery of the orchard
trysts, bluntly told Kilmeny that she must not make such an equal of
Neil as she had done.

"You have been too kind to the lad, lassie, and he's got presumptuous.
He must be taught his place. I mistrust we have all made more of him
than we should."

But most of the idyllic hours of Eric's wooing were spent in the old
orchard; the garden end of it was now a wilderness of roses--roses red
as the heart of a sunset, roses pink as the early flush of dawn, roses
white as the snows on mountain peaks, roses full blown, and roses in
buds that were sweeter than anything on earth except Kilmeny's face.
Their petals fell in silken heaps along the old paths or clung to the
lush grasses among which Eric lay and dreamed, while Kilmeny played to
him on her violin.

Eric promised himself that when she was his wife her wonderful gift
for music should be cultivated to the utmost. Her powers of
expression seemed to deepen and develop every day, growing as her soul
grew, taking on new colour and richness from her ripening heart.

To Eric, the days were all pages in an inspired idyl. He had never
dreamed that love could be so mighty or the world so beautiful. He
wondered if the universe were big enough to hold his joy or eternity
long enough to live it out. His whole existence was, for the time
being, bounded by that orchard where he wooed his sweetheart. All
other ambitions and plans and hopes were set aside in the pursuit of
this one aim, the attainment of which would enhance all others a
thousand fold, the loss of which would rob all others of their reason
for existence. His own world seemed very far away and the things of
that world forgotten.

His father, on hearing that he had taken the Lindsay school for a
year, had written him a testy, amazed letter, asking him if he were
demented.

"Or is there a girl in the case?" he wrote. "There must be, to tie you
down to a place like Lindsay for a year. Take care, master Eric;
you've been too sensible all your life. A man is bound to make a fool
of himself at least once, and when you didn't get through with that in
your teens it may be attacking you now."

David also wrote, expostulating more gravely; but he did not express
the suspicions Eric knew he must entertain.

"Good old David! He is quaking with fear that I am up to something he
can't approve of, but he won't say a word by way of attempting to
force my confidence."

It could not long remain a secret in Lindsay that "the Master" was
going to the Gordon place on courting thoughts intent. Mrs. Williamson
kept her own and Eric's counsel; the Gordons said nothing; but the
secret leaked out and great was the surprise and gossip and wonder.
One or two incautious people ventured to express their opinion of the
Master's wisdom to the Master himself; but they never repeated the
experiment. Curiosity was rife. A hundred stories were circulated
about Kilmeny, all greatly exaggerated in the circulation. Wise heads
were shaken and the majority opined that it was a great pity. The
Master was a likely young fellow; he could have his pick of almost
anybody, you might think; it was too bad that he should go and take up
with that queer, dumb niece of the Gordons who had been brought up in
such a heathenish way. But then you never could guess what way a man's
fancy would jump when he set out to pick him a wife. They guessed Neil
Gordon didn't like it much. He seemed to have got dreadful moody and
sulky of late and wouldn't sing in the choir any more. Thus the buzz
of comment and gossip ran.

To those two in the old orchard it mattered not a whit. Kilmeny knew
nothing of gossip. To her, Lindsay was as much of an unknown world as
the city of Eric's home. Her thoughts strayed far and wide in the
realm of fancy, but they never wandered out to the little realities
that hedged her strange life around. In that life she had blossomed
out, a fair, unique thing. There were times when Eric almost regretted
that one day he must take her out of her white solitude to a world
that, in the last analysis, was only Lindsay on a larger scale, with
just the same pettiness of thought and feeling and opinion at the
bottom of it. He wished he might keep her to himself for ever, in that
old, spruce-hidden orchard where the roses fell.

One day he indulged himself in the fulfilment of the whim he had
formed when Kilmeny had told him she thought herself ugly. He went to
Janet and asked her permission to bring a mirror to the house that he
might have the privilege of being the first to reveal Kilmeny to
herself exteriorly. Janet was somewhat dubious at first.

"There hasn't been such a thing in the house for sixteen years,
Master. There never was but three--one in the spare room, and a little
one in the kitchen, and Margaret's own. She broke them all the day it
first struck her that Kilmeny was going to be bonny. I might have got
one after she died maybe. But I didn't think of it; and there's no
need of lasses to be always prinking at their looking glasses."

But Eric pleaded and argued skilfully, and finally Janet said,

"Well, well, have your own way. You'd have it anyway I think, lad. You
are one of those men who always get their own way. But that is
different from the men who _take_ their own way--and that's a mercy,"
she added under her breath.

Eric went to town the next Saturday and picked out a mirror that
pleased him. He had it shipped to Radnor and Thomas Gordon brought it
home, not knowing what it was, for Janet had thought it just as well
he should not know.

"It's a present the Master is making Kilmeny," she told him.

She sent Kilmeny off to the orchard after tea, and Eric slipped around
to the house by way of the main road and lane. He and Janet together
unpacked the mirror and hung it on the parlour wall.

"I never saw such a big one, Master," said Janet rather doubtfully, as
if, after all, she distrusted its gleaming, pearly depth and richly
ornamented frame. "I hope it won't make her vain. She is very bonny,
but it may not do her any good to know it."

"It won't harm her," said Eric confidently. "When a belief in her
ugliness hasn't spoiled a girl a belief in her beauty won't."

But Janet did not understand epigrams. She carefully removed a little
dust from the polished surface, and frowned meditatively at the by no
means beautiful reflection she saw therein.

"I cannot think what made Kilmeny suppose she was ugly, Master."

"Her mother told her she was," said Eric, rather bitterly.

"Ah!" Janet shot a quick glance at the picture of her sister. "Was
that it? Margaret was a strange woman, Master. I suppose she thought
her own beauty had been a snare to her. She _was_ bonny. That picture
doesn't do her justice. I never liked it. It was taken before she
was--before she met Ronald Fraser. We none of us thought it very like
her at the time. But, Master, three years later it was like her--oh,
it was like her then! That very look came in her face."

"Kilmeny doesn't resemble her mother," remarked Eric, glancing at the
picture with the same feeling of mingled fascination and distaste with
which he always regarded it. "Does she look like her father?"

"No, not a great deal, though some of her ways are very like his. She
looks like her grandmother--Margaret's mother, Master. Her name was
Kilmeny too, and she was a handsome, sweet woman. I was very fond of
my stepmother, Master. When she died she gave her baby to me, and
asked me to be a mother to it. Ah well, I tried; but I couldn't fence
the sorrow out of Margaret's life, and it sometimes comes to my mind
that maybe I'll not be able to fence it out of Kilmeny's either."

"That will be my task," said Eric.

"You'll do your best, I do not doubt. But maybe it will be through you
that sorrow will come to her after all."

"Not through any fault of mine, Aunt Janet."

"No, no, I'm not saying it will be your fault. But my heart misgives
me at times. Oh, I dare say I am only a foolish old woman, Master. Go
your ways and bring your lass here to look at your plaything when you
like. I'll not make or meddle with it."

Janet betook herself to the kitchen and Eric went to look for Kilmeny.
She was not in the orchard and it was not until he had searched for
some time that he found her. She was standing under a beech tree in a
field beyond the orchard, leaning on the longer fence, with her hands
clasped against her cheek. In them she held a white Mary-lily from the
orchard. She did not run to meet him while he was crossing the
pasture, as she would once have done. She waited motionless until he
was close to her. Eric began, half laughingly, half tenderly, to quote
some lines from her namesake ballad:

    "'Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
    Long hae we sought baith holt and den,--
    By linn, by ford, and greenwood tree!
    Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
    Where got you that joup o' the lily sheen?
    That bonny snood o' the birk sae green,
    And those roses, the fairest that ever was seen?
    Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?'

"Only it's a lily and not a rose you are carrying. I might go on and
quote the next couplet too--

    "'Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
    But there was nae smile on Kilmeny's face.'

Why are you looking so sober?"

Kilmeny did not have her slate with her and could not answer; but Eric
guessed from something in her eyes that she was bitterly contrasting
the beauty of the ballad's heroine with her own supposed ugliness.

"Come down to the house, Kilmeny. I have something there to show
you--something lovelier than you have ever seen before," he said, with
boyish pleasure shining in his eyes. "I want you to go and put on that
muslin dress you wore last Sunday evening, and pin up your hair the
same way you did then. Run along--don't wait for me. But you are not
to go into the parlour until I come. I want to pick some of those
Mary-lilies up in the orchard."

When Eric returned to the house with an armful of the long stemmed,
white Madonna lilies that bloomed in the orchard Kilmeny was just
coming down the steep, narrow staircase with its striped carpeting of
homespun drugget. Her marvellous loveliness was brought out into
brilliant relief by the dark wood work and shadows of the dim old
hall.

She wore a trailing, clinging dress of some creamy tinted fabric that
had been her mother's. It had not been altered in any respect, for
fashion held no sway at the Gordon homestead, and Kilmeny thought that
the dress left nothing to be desired. Its quaint style suited her
admirably; the neck was slightly cut away to show the round white
throat, and the sleeves were long, full "bishops," out of which her
beautiful, slender hands slipped like flowers from their sheaths. She
had crossed her long braids at the back and pinned them about her
head like a coronet; a late white rose was fastened low down on the
left side.

    "'A man had given all other bliss
    And all his worldly wealth for this--
    To waste his whole heart in one kiss
    Upon her perfect lips,'"

quoted Eric in a whisper as he watched her descend. Aloud he said,

"Take these lilies on your arm, letting their bloom fall against your
shoulder--so. Now, give me your hand and shut your eyes. Don't open
them until I say you may."

He led her into the parlour and up to the mirror.

"Look," he cried, gayly.

Kilmeny opened her eyes and looked straight into the mirror where,
like a lovely picture in a golden frame, she saw herself reflected.
For a moment she was bewildered. Then she realized what it meant. The
lilies fell from her arm to the floor and she turned pale. With a
little low, involuntary cry she put her hands over her face.

Eric pulled them boyishly away.

"Kilmeny, do you think you are ugly now? This is a truer mirror than
Aunt Janet's silver sugar bowl! Look--look--look! Did you ever imagine
anything fairer than yourself, dainty Kilmeny?"

She was blushing now, and stealing shy radiant glances at the mirror.
With a smile she took her slate and wrote navely,

"I think I am pleasant to look upon. I cannot tell you how glad I am.
It is so dreadful to believe one is ugly. You can get used to
everything else, but you never get used to that. It hurts just the
same every time you remember it. But why did mother tell me I was
ugly? Could she really have thought so? Perhaps I have become better
looking since I grew up."

"I think perhaps your mother had found that beauty is not always a
blessing, Kilmeny, and thought it wiser not to let you know you
possessed it. Come, let us go back to the orchard now. We mustn't
waste this rare evening in the house. There is going to be a sunset
that we shall remember all our lives. The mirror will hang here. It is
yours. Don't look into it too often, though, or Aunt Janet will
disapprove. She is afraid it will make you vain."

Kilmeny gave one of her rare, musical laughs, which Eric never heard
without a recurrence of the old wonder that she could laugh so when
she could not speak. She blew an airy little kiss at her mirrored face
and turned from it, smiling happily.

On their way to the orchard they met Neil. He went by them with an
averted face, but Kilmeny shivered and involuntarily drew nearer to
Eric.

"I don't understand Neil at all now," she wrote nervously. "He is not
nice, as he used to be, and sometimes he will not answer when I speak
to him. And he looks so strangely at me, too. Besides, he is surly and
impertinent to Uncle and Aunt."

"Don't mind Neil," said Eric lightly. "He is probably sulky because of
some things I said to him when I found he had spied on us."

That night before she went up stairs Kilmeny stole into the parlour
for another glimpse of herself in that wonderful mirror by the light
of a dim little candle she carried. She was still lingering there
dreamily when Aunt Janet's grim face appeared in the shadows of the
doorway.

"Are you thinking about your own good looks, lassie? Ay, but remember
that handsome is as handsome does," she said, with grudging
admiration--for the girl with her flushed cheeks and shining eyes was
something that even dour Janet Gordon could not look upon unmoved.

Kilmeny smiled softly.

"I'll try to remember," she wrote, "but oh, Aunt Janet, I am so glad I
am not ugly. It is not wrong to be glad of that, is it?"

The older woman's face softened.

"No, I don't suppose it is, lassie," she conceded. "A comely face is
something to be thankful for--as none know better than those who have
never possessed it. I remember well when I was a girl--but that is
neither here nor there. The Master thinks you are wonderful bonny,
Kilmeny," she added, looking keenly at the girl.

Kilmeny started and a scarlet blush scorched her face. That, and the
expression that flashed into her eyes, told Janet Gordon all she
wished to know. With a stifled sigh she bade her niece good night and
went away.

Kilmeny ran fleetly up the stairs to her dim little room, that looked
out into the spruces, and flung herself on her bed, burying her
burning face in the pillow. Her aunt's words had revealed to her the
hidden secret of her heart. She knew that she loved Eric Marshall--and
the knowledge brought with it a strange anguish. For was she not dumb?
All night she lay staring wide-eyed through the darkness till the
dawn.




CHAPTER XIV

IN HER SELFLESS MOOD


Eric noticed a change in Kilmeny at their next meeting--a change that
troubled him. She seemed aloof, abstracted, almost ill at ease. When
he proposed an excursion to the orchard he thought she was reluctant
to go. The days that followed convinced him of the change. Something
had come between them. Kilmeny seemed as far away from him as if she
had in truth, like her namesake of the ballad, sojourned for seven
years in the land "where the rain never fell and the wind never blew,"
and had come back washed clean from all the affections of earth.

Eric had a bad week of it; but he determined to put an end to it by
plain speaking. One evening in the orchard he told her of his love.

It was an evening in August, with wheat fields ripening to their
harvestry--a soft violet night made for love, with the distant murmur
of an unquiet sea on a rocky shore sounding through it. Kilmeny was
sitting on the old bench where he had first seen her. She had been
playing for him, but her music did not please her and she laid aside
the violin with a little frown.

It might be that she was afraid to play--afraid that her new emotions
might escape her and reveal themselves in music. It was difficult to
prevent this, so long had she been accustomed to pour out all her
feelings in harmony. The necessity for restraint irked her and made of
her bow a clumsy thing which no longer obeyed her wishes. More than
ever at that instant did she long for speech--speech that would
conceal and protect where dangerous silence might betray.

In a low voice that trembled with earnestness Eric told her that he
loved her--that he had loved her from the first time he had seen her
in that old orchard. He spoke humbly but not fearfully, for he
believed that she loved him, and he had little expectation of any
rebuff.

"Kilmeny, will you be my wife?" he asked finally, taking her hands in
his.

Kilmeny had listened with averted face. At first she had blushed
painfully but now she had grown very pale. When he had finished
speaking and was waiting for her answer, she suddenly pulled her hands
away, and, putting them over her face, burst into tears and noiseless
sobs.

"Kilmeny, dearest, have I alarmed you? Surely you knew before that I
loved you. Don't you care for me?" Eric said, putting his arm about
her and trying to draw her to him. But she shook her head sorrowfully,
and wrote with compressed lips,

"Yes, I do love you, but I will never marry you, because I cannot
speak."

"Oh, Kilmeny," said Eric smiling, for he believed his victory won,
"that doesn't make any difference to me--you know it doesn't,
sweetest. If you love me that is enough."

But Kilmeny only shook her head again. There was a very determined
look on her pale face. She wrote,

"No, it is not enough. It would be doing you a great wrong to marry
you when I cannot speak, and I will not do it because I love you too
much to do anything that would harm you. Your world would think you
had done a very foolish thing and it would be right. I have thought it
all over many times since something Aunt Janet said made me
understand, and I know I am doing right. I am sorry I did not
understand sooner, before you had learned to care so much."

"Kilmeny, darling, you have taken a very absurd fancy into that dear
black head of yours. Don't you know that you will make me miserably
unhappy all my life if you will not be my wife?"

"No, you think so now; and I know you will feel very badly for a time.
Then you will go away and after awhile you will forget me; and then
you will see that I was right. I shall be very unhappy, too, but that
is better than spoiling your life. Do not plead or coax because I
shall not change my mind."

Eric did plead and coax, however--at first patiently and smilingly, as
one might argue with a dear foolish child; then with vehement and
distracted earnestness, as he began to realize that Kilmeny meant what
she said. It was all in vain. Kilmeny grew paler and paler, and her
eyes revealed how keenly she was suffering. She did not even try to
argue with him, but only listened patiently and sadly, and shook her
head. Say what he would, entreat and implore as he might, he could not
move her resolution a hairs-breadth.

Yet he did not despair; he could not believe that she would adhere to
such a resolution; he felt sure that her love for him would
eventually conquer, and he went home not unhappily after all. He did
not understand that it was the very intensity of her love which gave
her the strength to resist his pleading, where a more shallow
affection might have yielded. It held her back unflinchingly from
doing him what she believed to be a wrong.




CHAPTER XV

AN OLD, UNHAPPY, FAR-OFF THING


The next day Eric sought Kilmeny again and renewed his pleadings, but
again in vain. Nothing he could say, no argument which he could
advance, was of any avail against her sad determination. When he was
finally compelled to realize that her resolution was not to be shaken,
he went in his despair to Janet Gordon. Janet listened to his story
with concern and disappointment plainly visible on her face. When he
had finished she shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Master. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I had hoped for
something very different. _Hoped!_ I have _prayed_ for it. Thomas and
I are getting old and it has weighed on my mind for years--what was to
become of Kilmeny when we would be gone. Since you came I had hoped
she would have a protector in you. But if Kilmeny says she will not
marry you I am afraid she'll stick to it."

"But she loves me," cried the young man, "and if you and her uncle
speak to her--urge her--perhaps you can influence her--"

"No, Master, it wouldn't be any use. Oh, we will, of course, but it
will not be any use. Kilmeny is as determined as her mother when once
she makes up her mind. She has always been good and obedient for the
most part, but once or twice we have found out that there is no moving
her if she does resolve upon anything. When her mother died Thomas and
I wanted to take her to church. We could not prevail on her to go. We
did not know why then, but now I suppose it was because she believed
she was so very ugly. It is because she thinks so much of you that she
will not marry you. She is afraid you would come to repent having
married a dumb girl. Maybe she is right--maybe she is right."

"I cannot give her up," said Eric stubbornly. "Something must be done.
Perhaps her defect can be remedied even yet. Have you ever thought of
that? You have never had her examined by a doctor qualified to
pronounce on her case, have you?"

"No, Master, we never took her to anyone. When we first began to fear
that she was never going to talk Thomas wanted to take her to
Charlottetown and have her looked to. He thought so much of the child
and he felt terrible about it. But her mother wouldn't hear of it
being done. There was no use trying to argue with her. She said that
it would be no use--that it was her sin that was visited on her child
and it could never be taken away."

"And did you give in meekly to a morbid whim like that?" asked Eric
impatiently.

"Master, you didn't know my sister. We _had_ to give in--nobody could
hold out against her. She was a strange woman--and a terrible woman in
many ways--after her trouble. We were afraid to cross her for fear she
would go out of her mind."

"But, could you not have taken Kilmeny to a doctor unknown to her
mother?"

"No, that was not possible. Margaret never let her out of her sight,
not even when she was grown up. Besides, to tell you the whole truth,
Master, we didn't think ourselves that it would be much use to try to
cure Kilmeny. It _was_ a sin that made her as she is."

"Aunt Janet, how can you talk such nonsense? Where was there any sin?
Your sister thought herself a lawful wife. If Ronald Fraser thought
otherwise--and there is no proof that he did--_he_ committed a sin,
but you surely do not believe that it was visited in this fashion on
his innocent child!"

"No, I am not meaning that, Master. That wasn't where Margaret did
wrong; and though I never liked Ronald Fraser over much, I must say
this in his defence--I believe he thought himself a free man when he
married Margaret. No, it's something else--something far worse. It
gives me a shiver whenever I think of it. Oh, Master, the Good Book is
right when it says the sins of the parents are visited on the
children. There isn't a truer word in it than that from cover to
cover."

"What, in heaven's name, is the meaning of all this?" exclaimed Eric.
"Tell me what it is. I must know the whole truth about Kilmeny. Do not
torment me."

"I am going to tell you the story, Master, though it will be like
opening an old wound. No living person knows it but Thomas and me.
When you hear it you will understand why Kilmeny can't speak, and why
it isn't likely that there can ever be anything done for her. She
doesn't know the truth and you must never tell her. It isn't a fit
story for her ears, especially when it is about her mother. Promise me
that you will never tell her, no matter what may happen."

"I promise. Go on--go on," said the young man feverishly.

Janet Gordon locked her hands together in her lap, like a woman who
nerves herself to some hateful task. She looked very old; the lines on
her face seemed doubly deep and harsh.

"My sister Margaret was a very proud, high-spirited girl, Master. But
I would not have you think she was unlovable. No, no, that would be
doing a great injustice to her memory. She had her faults as we all
have; but she was bright and merry and warm-hearted. We all loved her.
She was the light and life of this house. Yes, Master, before the
trouble that came on her Margaret was a winsome lass, singing like a
lark from morning till night. Maybe we spoiled her a little--maybe we
gave her too much of her own way.

"Well, Master, you have heard the story of her marriage to Ronald
Fraser and what came after, so I need not go into that. I know, or
used to know Elizabeth Williamson well, and I know that whatever she
told you would be the truth and nothing more or less than the truth.

"Our father was a very proud man. Oh, Master, if Margaret was too
proud she got it from no stranger. And her misfortune cut him to the
heart. He never spoke a word to us here for more than three days after
he heard of it. He sat in the corner there with bowed head and would
not touch bite or sup. He had not been very willing for her to marry
Ronald Fraser; and when she came home in disgrace she had not set foot
over the threshold before he broke out railing at her. Oh, I can see
her there at the door this very minute, Master, pale and trembling,
clinging to Thomas' arm, her great eyes changing from sorrow and shame
to wrath. It was just at sunset and a red ray came in at the window
and fell right across her breast like a stain of blood.

"Father called her a hard name, Master. Oh, he was too hard--even
though he was my father I must say he was too hard on her,
broken-hearted as she was, and guilty of nothing more after all than a
little wilfulness in the matter of her marriage.

"And father was sorry for it--Oh, Master, the word wasn't out of his
mouth before he was sorry for it. But the mischief was done. Oh, I'll
never forget Margaret's face, Master! It haunts me yet in the black of
the night. It was full of anger and rebellion and defiance. But she
never answered him back. She clenched her hands and went up to her old
room without saying a word, all those mad feelings surging in her
soul, and being held back from speech by her sheer, stubborn will.
And, Master, never a word did Margaret say from that day until after
Kilmeny was born--not one word, Master. Nothing we could do for her
softened her. And we were kind to her, Master, and gentle with her,
and never reproached her by so much as a look. But she would not speak
to anyone. She just sat in her room most of the time and stared at the
wall with such awful eyes. Father implored her to speak and forgive
him, but she never gave any sign that she heard him.

"I haven't come to the worst yet, Master. Father sickened and took to
his bed. Margaret would not go in to see him. Then one night Thomas
and I were watching by him; it was about eleven o'clock. All at once
he said,

"'Janet, go up and tell the lass'--he always called Margaret that--it
was a kind of pet name he had for her--'that I'm deein' and ask her
to come down and speak to me afore I'm gone.'

"Master, I went. Margaret was sitting in her room all alone in the
cold and dark, staring at the wall. I told her what our father had
said. She never let on she heard me. I pleaded and wept, Master. I did
what I had never done to any human creature--I kneeled to her and
begged her, as she hoped for mercy herself, to come down and see our
dying father. Master, she wouldn't! She never moved or looked at me. I
had to get up and go downstairs and tell that old man she would not
come."

Janet Gordon lifted her hands and struck them together in her agony of
remembrance.

"When I told father he only said, oh, so gently,

"'Poor lass, I was too hard on her. She isna to blame. But I canna go
to meet her mother till our little lass has forgie'n me for the name I
called her. Thomas, help me up. Since she winna come to me I must
e'en go to her.'

"There was no crossing him--we saw that. He got up from his deathbed
and Thomas helped him out into the hall and up the stair. I walked
behind with the candle. Oh, Master, I'll never forget it--the awful
shadows and the storm wind wailing outside, and father's gasping
breath. But we got him to Margaret's room and he stood before her,
trembling, with his white hairs falling about his sunken face. And he
prayed Margaret to forgive him--to forgive him and speak just one word
to him before he went to meet her mother. Master"--Janet's voice rose
almost to a shriek--"she would not--she would not! And yet she
_wanted_ to speak--afterwards she confessed to me that she wanted to
speak. But her stubbornness wouldn't let her. It was like some evil
power that had gripped hold of her and wouldn't let go. Father might
as well have pleaded with a graven image. Oh, it was hard and
dreadful! She saw her father die and she never spoke the word he
prayed for to him. _That_ was her sin, Master,--and for that sin the
curse fell on her unborn child. When father understood that she would
not speak he closed his eyes and was like to have fallen if Thomas had
not caught him.

"'Oh, lass, you're a hard woman,' was all he said. And they were his
last words. Thomas and I carried him back to his room, but the breath
was gone from him before we ever got him there.

"Well, Master, Kilmeny was born a month afterwards, and when Margaret
felt her baby at her breast the evil thing that had held her soul in
its bondage lost its power. She spoke and wept and was herself again.
Oh, how she wept! She implored us to forgive her and we did freely and
fully. But the one against whom she had sinned most grievously was
gone, and no word of forgiveness could come to her from the grave. My
poor sister never knew peace of conscience again, Master. But she was
gentle and kind and humble until--until she began to fear that Kilmeny
was never going to speak. We thought then that she would go out of her
mind. Indeed, Master, she never was quite right again.

"But that is the story and it's a thankful woman I am that the telling
of it is done. Kilmeny can't speak because her mother wouldn't."

Eric had listened with a gray horror on his face to the gruesome tale.
The black tragedy of it appalled him--the tragedy of that merciless
law, the most cruel and mysterious thing in God's universe, which
ordains that the sin of the guilty shall be visited on the innocent.
Fight against it as he would, the miserable conviction stole into his
heart that Kilmeny's case was indeed beyond the reach of any human
skill.

"It is a dreadful tale," he said moodily, getting up and walking
restlessly to and fro in the dim spruce-shadowed old kitchen where
they were. "And if it is true that her mother's wilful silence caused
Kilmeny's dumbness, I fear, as you say, that we cannot help her. But
you may be mistaken. It may have been nothing more than a strange
coincidence. Possibly something may be done for her. At all events, we
must try. I have a friend in Queenslea who is a physician. His name is
David Baker, and he is a very skilful specialist in regard to the
throat and voice. I shall have him come here and see Kilmeny."

"Have your way," assented Janet in the hopeless tone which she might
have used in giving him permission to attempt any impossible thing.

"It will be necessary to tell Dr. Baker why Kilmeny cannot speak--or
why you think she cannot."

Janet's face twitched.

"Must that be, Master? Oh, it's a bitter tale to tell a stranger."

"Don't be afraid. I shall tell him nothing that is not strictly
necessary to his proper understanding of the case. It will be quite
enough to say that Kilmeny may be dumb because for several months
before her birth her mother's mind was in a very morbid condition, and
she preserved a stubborn and unbroken silence because of a certain
bitter personal resentment."

"Well, do as you think best, Master."

Janet plainly had no faith in the possibility of anything being done
for Kilmeny. But a rosy glow of hope flashed over Kilmeny's face when
Eric told her what he meant to do.

"Oh, do you think he can make me speak?" she wrote eagerly.

"I don't know, Kilmeny. I hope that he can, and I know he will do all
that mortal skill can do. If he can remove your defect will you
promise to marry me, dearest?"

She nodded. The grave little motion had the solemnity of a sacred
promise.

"Yes," she wrote, "when I can speak like other women I will marry
you."




CHAPTER XVI

DAVID BAKER'S OPINION


The next week David Baker came to Lindsay. He arrived in the
afternoon when Eric was in school. When the latter came home he found
that David had, in the space of an hour, captured Mrs. Williamson's
heart, wormed himself into the good graces of Timothy, and become
hail-fellow-well-met with old Robert. But he looked curiously at Eric
when the two young men found themselves alone in the upstairs room.

"Now, Eric, I want to know what all this is about. What scrape have
you got into? You write me a letter, entreating me in the name of
friendship to come to you at once. Accordingly I come post haste. You
seem to be in excellent health yourself. Explain why you have
inveigled me hither."

"I want you to do me a service which only you can do, David," said
Eric quietly. "I didn't care to go into the details by letter. I have
met in Lindsay a young girl whom I have learned to love. I have asked
her to marry me, but, although she cares for me, she refuses to do so
because she is dumb. I wish you to examine her and find out the cause
of her defect, and if it can be cured. She can hear perfectly and all
her other faculties are entirely normal. In order that you may better
understand the case I must tell you the main facts of her history."

This Eric proceeded to do. David Baker listened with grave attention,
his eyes fastened on his friend's face. He did not betray the surprise
and dismay he felt at learning that Eric had fallen in love with a
dumb girl of doubtful antecedents; and the strange case enlisted his
professional interest. When he had heard the whole story he thrust his
hands into his pockets and strode up and down the room several times
in silence. Finally he halted before Eric.

"So you have done what I foreboded all along you would do--left your
common sense behind you when you went courting."

"If I did," said Eric quietly, "I took with me something better and
nobler than common sense."

David shrugged his shoulders.

"You'll have hard work to convince me of that, Eric."

"No, it will not be difficult at all. I have one argument that will
convince you speedily--and that is Kilmeny Gordon herself. But we will
not discuss the matter of my wisdom or lack of it just now. What I
want to know is this--what do you think of the case as I have stated
it to you?"

David frowned thoughtfully.

"I hardly know what to think. It is very curious and unusual, but it
is not totally unprecedented. There have been cases on record where
pre-natal influences have produced a like result. I cannot just now
remember whether any were ever cured. Well, I'll see if anything can
be done for this girl. I cannot express any further opinion until I
have examined her."

The next morning Eric took David up to the Gordon homestead. As they
approached the old orchard a strain of music came floating through the
resinous morning arcades of the spruce wood--a wild, sorrowful,
appealing cry, full of indescribable pathos, yet marvellously sweet.

"What is that?" exclaimed David, starting.

"That is Kilmeny playing on her violin," answered Eric. "She has great
talent in that respect and improvises wonderful melodies."

When they reached the orchard Kilmeny rose from the old bench to meet
them, her lovely luminous eyes distended, her face flushed with the
excitement of mingled hope and fear.

"Oh, ye gods!" muttered David helplessly.

He could not hide his amazement and Eric smiled to see it. The latter
had not failed to perceive that his friend had until now considered
him as little better than a lunatic.

"Kilmeny, this is my friend, Dr. Baker," he said.

Kilmeny held out her hand with a smile. Her beauty, as she stood there
in the fresh morning sunshine beside a clump of her sister lilies, was
something to take away a man's breath. David, who was by no means
lacking in confidence and generally had a ready tongue where women
were concerned, found himself as mute and awkward as a school boy, as
he bowed over her hand.

But Kilmeny was charmingly at ease. There was not a trace of
embarrassment in her manner, though there was a pretty shyness. Eric
smiled as he recalled _his_ first meeting with her. He suddenly
realized how far Kilmeny had come since then and how much she had
developed.

With a little gesture of invitation Kilmeny led the way through the
orchard to the wild cherry lane, and the two men followed.

"Eric, she is simply unutterable!" said David in an undertone. "Last
night, to tell you the truth, I had a rather poor opinion of your
sanity. But now I am consumed with a fierce envy. She is the loveliest
creature I ever saw."

Eric introduced David to the Gordons and then hurried away to his
school. On his way down the Gordon lane he met Neil and was half
startled by the glare of hatred in the Italian boy's eyes. Pity
succeeded the momentary alarm. Neil's face had grown thin and haggard;
his eyes were sunken and feverishly bright; he looked years older than
on the day when Eric had first seen him in the brook hollow.

Prompted by a sudden compassionate impulse Eric stopped and held out
his hand.

"Neil, can't we be friends?" he said. "I am sorry if I have been the
cause of inflicting pain on you."

"Friends! Never!" said Neil passionately. "You have taken Kilmeny from
me. I shall hate you always. And I'll be even with you yet."

He strode fiercely up the lane, and Eric, with a shrug of his
shoulders, went on his way, dismissing the meeting from his mind.

The day seemed interminably long to him. David had not returned when
he went home to dinner; but when he went to his room in the evening he
found his friend there, staring out of the window.

"Well," he said, impatiently, as David wheeled around but still kept
silence, "What have you to say to me? Don't keep me in suspense any
longer, David. I have endured all I can. To-day has seemed like a
thousand years. Have you discovered what is the matter with Kilmeny?"

"There is nothing the matter with her," answered David slowly,
flinging himself into a chair by the window.

"What do you mean?"

"Just exactly what I say. Her vocal organs are all perfect. As far as
they are concerned, there is absolutely no reason why she should not
speak."

"Then why can't she speak? Do you think--do you think--"

"I think that I cannot express my conclusion in any better words than
Janet Gordon used when she said that Kilmeny cannot speak because her
mother wouldn't. That is all there is to it. The trouble is
psychological, not physical. Medical skill is helpless before it.
There are greater men than I in my profession; but it is my honest
belief, Eric, that if you were to consult them they would tell you
just what I have told you, neither more nor less."

"Then there is no hope," said Eric in a tone of despair. "You can do
nothing for her?"

David took from the back of his chair a crochet antimacassar with a
lion rampant in the centre and spread it over his knee.

"_I_ can do nothing for her," he said, scowling at that work of art.
"I do not believe any living man can do anything for her. But I do not
say--exactly--that there is no hope."

"Come, David, I am in no mood for guessing riddles. Speak plainly,
man, and don't torment me."

David frowned dubiously and poked his finger through the hole which
represented the eye of the king of beasts.

"I don't know that I can make it plain to you. It isn't very plain to
myself. And it is only a vague theory of mine, of course. I cannot
substantiate it by any facts. In short, Eric, I think it is possible
that Kilmeny may speak sometime--if she ever wants to badly enough."

"Wants to! why, man, she wants to as badly as it is possible for any
one to want anything. She loves me with all her heart and she won't
marry me because she can't speak. Don't you suppose that a girl under
such circumstances would 'want' to speak as much as any one could?"

"Yes, but I do not mean that sort of wanting, no matter how strong the
wish may be. What I do mean is--a sudden, vehement, passionate inrush
of desire, physical, psychical, mental, all in one, mighty enough to
rend asunder the invisible fetters that hold her speech in bondage. If
any occasion should arise to evoke such a desire I believe that
Kilmeny would speak--and having once spoken would thenceforth be
normal in that respect--ay, if she spoke but the one word."

"All this sounds like great nonsense to me," said Erie restlessly. "I
suppose you have an idea what you are talking about, but I haven't.
And, in any case, it practically means that there is no hope for
her--or me. Even if your theory is correct it is not likely such an
occasion as you speak of will ever arise. And Kilmeny will never marry
me."

"Don't give up so easily, old fellow. There _have_ been cases on
record where women have changed their minds."

"Not women like Kilmeny," said Eric miserably. "I tell you she has all
her mother's unfaltering will and tenacity of purpose, although she is
free from any taint of pride or selfishness. I thank you for your
sympathy and interest, David. You have done all you could--but,
heavens, what it would have meant to me if you could have helped her!"

With a groan Eric flung himself on a chair and buried his face in his
hands. It was a moment which held for him all the bitterness of death.
He had thought that he was prepared for disappointment; he had not
known how strong his hope had really been until that hope was utterly
taken from him.

David, with a sigh, returned the crochet antimacassar carefully to its
place on the chair back.

"Eric, last night, to be honest, I thought that, if I found I could
not help this girl, it would be the best thing that could happen, as
far as you were concerned. But since I have seen her--well, I would
give my right hand if I could do anything for her. She is the wife for
you, if we could make her speak: yes, and by the memory of your
mother"--David brought his fist down on the window sill with a force
that shook the casement,--"she is the wife for you, speech or no
speech, if we could only convince her of it."

"She cannot be convinced of that. No, David, I have lost her. Did you
tell her you have told me?"

"I told her I could not help her. I did not say anything to her of my
theory--that would have done no good."

"How did she take it?"

"Very bravely and quietly--'like a winsome lady.' But the look in her
eyes--Eric, I felt as if I had murdered something. She bade me a mute
good-bye with a pitiful smile and went upstairs. I did not see her
again, although I stayed to dinner at her uncle's request. Those old
Gordons are a queer pair. I liked them, though. They are strong and
staunch--good friends, bitter enemies. They were sorry that I could
not help Kilmeny, but I saw plainly that old Thomas Gordon thought
that I had been meddling with predestination in attempting it."

Eric smiled mechanically.

"I must go up and see Kilmeny. You'll excuse me, won't you, David? My
books are there--help yourself."

But when Eric reached the Gordon house he saw only old Janet, who told
him that Kilmeny was in her room and refused to see him.

"She thought you would come up, and she left this with me to give you,
Master."

Janet handed him a little note. It was very brief and blotted with
tears.

          "Do not come any more, Eric," it ran. "I must not
          see you, because it would only make it harder for
          us both. You must go away and forget me. You will
          be thankful for this some day. I shall always
          love and pray for you.

                                             "KILMENY."

"I _must_ see her," said Eric desperately. "Aunt Janet, be my friend.
Tell her she must see me for a little while at least."

Janet shook her head but went upstairs. She soon returned.

"She says she cannot come down. You know she means it, Master, and it
is of no use to coax her. And I must say I think she is right. Since
she will not marry you it is better for her not to see you."

Eric was compelled to go home with no better comfort than this. In the
morning, as it was Saturday, he drove David Baker to the station. He
had not slept and he looked so miserable and reckless that David felt
anxious about him. David would have stayed in Lindsay for a few days,
but a certain critical case in Queenslea demanded his speedy return.
He shook hands with Eric on the station platform.

"Eric, give up that school and come home at once. You can do no good
in Lindsay now, and you'll only eat your heart out here."

"I must see Kilmeny once more before I leave," was all Eric's answer.

That afternoon he went again to the Gordon homestead. But the result
was the same; Kilmeny refused to see him, and Thomas Gordon said
gravely,

"Master, you know I like you and I am sorry Kilmeny thinks as she
does, though maybe she is right. I would be glad to see you often for
your own sake and I'll miss you much; but as things are I tell you
plainly you'd better not come here any more. It will do no good, and
the sooner you and she get over thinking about each other the better
for you both. Go now, lad, and God bless you."

"Do you know what it is you are asking of me?" said Eric hoarsely.

"I know I am asking a hard thing for your own good, Master. It is not
as if Kilmeny would ever change her mind. We have had some experience
with a woman's will ere this. Tush, Janet, woman, don't be weeping.
You women are foolish creatures. Do you think tears can wash such
things away? No, they cannot blot out sin, or the consequences of sin.
It's awful how one sin can spread out and broaden, till it eats into
innocent lives, sometimes long after the sinner has gone to his own
accounting. Master, if you take my advice, you'll give up the Lindsay
school and go back to your own world as soon as may be."




CHAPTER XVII

A BROKEN FETTER


Eric went home with a white, haggard face. He had never thought it
possible for a man to suffer as he suffered then. What was he to do?
It seemed impossible to go on with life--there was _no_ life apart
from Kilmeny. Anguish wrung his soul until his strength went from him
and youth and hope turned to gall and bitterness in his heart.

He never afterwards could tell how he lived through the following
Sunday or how he taught school as usual on Monday. He found out how
much a man may suffer and yet go on living and working. His body
seemed to him an automaton that moved and spoke mechanically, while
his tortured spirit, pent-up within, endured pain that left its
impress on him for ever. Out of that fiery furnace of agony Eric
Marshall was to go forth a man who had put boyhood behind him for ever
and looked out on life with eyes that saw into it and beyond.

On Tuesday afternoon there was a funeral in the district and,
according to custom, the school was closed. Eric went again to the old
orchard. He had no expectation of seeing Kilmeny there, for he thought
she would avoid the spot lest she might meet him. But he could not
keep away from it, although the thought of it was an added torment,
and he vibrated between a wild wish that he might never see it again,
and a sick wonder how he could possibly go away and leave it--that
strange old orchard where he had met and wooed his sweetheart,
watching her develop and blossom under his eyes, like some rare
flower, until in the space of three short months she had passed from
exquisite childhood into still more exquisite womanhood.

As he crossed the pasture field before the spruce wood he came upon
Neil Gordon, building a longer fence. Neil did not look up as Eric
passed, but sullenly went on driving poles. Before this Eric had
pitied Neil; now he was conscious of feeling sympathy with him. Had
Neil suffered as he was suffering? Eric had entered into a new
fellowship whereof the passport was pain.

The orchard was very silent and dreamy in the thick, deep tinted
sunshine of the September afternoon, a sunshine which seemed to
possess the power of extracting the very essence of all the odours
which summer has stored up in wood and field. There were few flowers
now; most of the lilies, which had queened it so bravely along the
central path a few days before, were withered. The grass had become
ragged and sere and unkempt. But in the corners the torches of the
goldenrod were kindling and a few misty purple asters nodded here and
there. The orchard kept its own strange attractiveness, as some women
with youth long passed still preserve an atmosphere of remembered
beauty and innate, indestructible charm.

Eric walked drearily and carelessly about it, and finally sat down on
a half fallen fence panel in the shadow of the overhanging spruce
boughs. There he gave himself up to a reverie, poignant and bitter
sweet, in which he lived over again everything that had passed in the
orchard since his first meeting there with Kilmeny.

So deep was his abstraction, that he was conscious of nothing around
him. He did not hear stealthy footsteps behind him in the dim spruce
wood. He did not even see Kilmeny as she came slowly around the curve
of the wild cherry lane.

Kilmeny had sought the old orchard for the healing of her heartbreak,
if healing were possible for her. She had no fear of encountering Eric
there at that time of the day, for she did not know that it was the
district custom to close the school for a funeral. She would never
have gone to it in the evening, but she longed for it continually; it,
and her memories, were all that was left her now.

Years seemed to have passed over the girl in those few days. She had
drunk of pain and broken bread with sorrow. Her face was pale and
strained, with bluish, transparent shadows under her large wistful
eyes, out of which the dream and laughter of girlhood had gone, but
into which had come the potent charm of grief and patience. Thomas
Gordon had shaken his head bodingly when he had looked at her that
morning at the breakfast table.

"She won't stand it," he thought. "She isn't long for this world.
Maybe it is all for the best, poor lass. But I wish that young Master
had never set foot in the Connors orchard, or in this house. Margaret,
Margaret, it's hard that your child should have to be paying the
reckoning of a sin that was sinned before her birth."

Kilmeny walked through the lane slowly and absently like a woman in a
dream. When she came to the gap in the fence where the lane ran into
the orchard she lifted her wan, drooping face and saw Eric, sitting in
the shadow of the wood at the other side of the orchard with his bowed
head in his hands. She stopped quickly and the blood rushed wildly
over her face.

The next moment it ebbed, leaving her white as marble. Horror filled
her eyes,--blank, deadly horror, as the livid shadow of a cloud might
fill two blue pools.

Behind Eric Neil Gordon was standing tense, crouched, murderous. Even
at that distance Kilmeny saw the look on his face, saw what he held in
his hand, and realized in one agonized flash of comprehension what it
meant.

All this photographed itself in her brain in an instant. She knew
that by the time she could run across the orchard to warn Eric by a
touch it would be too late. Yet she must warn him--she _must_--she
MUST! A mighty surge of desire seemed to rise up within her and
overwhelm her like a wave of the sea,--a surge that swept everything
before it in an irresistible flood. As Neil Gordon swiftly and
vindictively, with the face of a demon, lifted the axe he held in his
hand, Kilmeny sprang forward through the gap.

"_Eric, Eric, look behind you--look behind you!_"

Eric started up, confused, bewildered, as the voice came shrieking
across the orchard. He did not in the least realize that it was
Kilmeny who had called to him, but he instinctively obeyed the
command.

He wheeled around and saw Neil Gordon, who was looking, not at him,
but past him at Kilmeny. The Italian boy's face was ashen and his eyes
were filled with terror and incredulity, as if he had been checked in
his murderous purpose by some supernatural interposition. The axe,
lying at his feet where he had dropped it in his unutterable
consternation on hearing Kilmeny's cry, told the whole tale. But
before Eric could utter a word Neil turned, with a cry more like that
of an animal than a human being, and fled like a hunted creature into
the shadow of the spruce wood.

A moment later Kilmeny, her lovely face dewed with tears and sunned
over with smiles, flung herself on Eric's breast.

"Oh, Eric, I can speak,--I can speak! Oh, it is so wonderful! Eric, I
love you--I love you!"




CHAPTER XVIII

NEIL GORDON SOLVES HIS OWN PROBLEM


"It is a miracle!" said Thomas Gordon in an awed tone.

It was the first time he had spoken since Eric and Kilmeny had rushed
in, hand in hand, like two children intoxicated with joy and wonder,
and gasped out their story together to him and Janet.

"Oh, no, it is very wonderful, but it is not a miracle," said Eric.
"David told me it might happen. I had no hope that it would. He could
explain it all to you if he were here."

Thomas Gordon shook his head. "I doubt if he could, Master--he, or any
one else. It is near enough to a miracle for me. Let us thank God
reverently and humbly that he has seen fit to remove his curse from
the innocent. Your doctors may explain it as they like, lad, but I'm
thinking they won't get much nearer to it than that. It is awesome,
that is what it is. Janet, woman, I feel as if I were in a dream. Can
Kilmeny really speak?"

"Indeed I can, Uncle," said Kilmeny, with a rapturous glance at Eric.
"Oh, I don't know how it came to me--I felt that I _must_ speak--and I
did. And it is so easy now--it seems to me as if I could always have
done it."

She spoke naturally and easily. The only difficulty which she seemed
to experience was in the proper modulation of her voice. Occasionally
she pitched it too high--again, too low. But it was evident that she
would soon acquire perfect control of it. It was a beautiful
voice--very clear and soft and musical.

"Oh, I am so glad that the first word I said was your name, dearest,"
she murmured to Eric.

"What about Neil?" asked Thomas Gordon gravely, rousing himself with
an effort from his abstraction of wonder. "What are we to do with him
when he returns? In one way this is a sad business."

Eric had almost forgotten about Neil in his overwhelming amazement and
joy. The realization of his escape from sudden and violent death had
not yet had any opportunity to take possession of his thoughts.

"We must forgive him, Mr. Gordon. I know how I should feel towards a
man who took Kilmeny from me. It was an evil impulse to which he gave
way in his suffering--and think of the good which has resulted from
it."

"That is true, Master, but it does not alter the terrible fact that
the boy had murder in his heart,--that he would have killed you. An
over-ruling Providence has saved him from the actual commission of the
crime and brought good out of evil; but he is guilty in thought and
purpose. And we have cared for him and instructed him as our own--with
all his faults we have loved him! It is a hard thing, and I do not
see what we are to do. We cannot act as if nothing had happened. We
can never trust him again."

But Neil Gordon solved the problem himself. When Eric returned that
night he found old Robert Williamson in the pantry regaling himself
with a lunch of bread and cheese after a trip to the station. Timothy
sat on the dresser in black velvet state and gravely addressed himself
to the disposal of various tid-bits that came his way.

"Good night, Master. Glad to see you're looking more like yourself. I
told the wife it was only a lover's quarrel most like. She's been
worrying about you; but she didn't like to ask you what was the
trouble. She ain't one of them unfortunate folks who can't be happy
athout they're everlasting poking their noses into other people's
business. But what kind of a rumpus was kicked up at the Gordon place,
to-night, Master?"

Eric looked amazed. What could Robert Williamson have heard so soon?

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Why, us folks at the station knew there must have been a to-do of
some kind when Neil Gordon went off on the harvest excursion the way
he did."

"Neil gone! On the harvest excursion!" exclaimed Eric.

"Yes, sir. You know this was the night the excursion train left. They
cross on the boat to-night--special trip. There was a dozen or so
fellows from hereabouts went. We was all standing around chatting when
Lincoln Frame drove up full speed and Neil jumped out of his rig. Just
bolted into the office, got his ticket and out again, and on to the
train without a word to any one, and as black looking as the Old
Scratch himself. We was all too surprised to speak till he was gone.
Lincoln couldn't give us much information. He said Neil had rushed up
to their place about dark, looking as if the constable was after him,
and offered to sell that black filly of his to Lincoln for sixty
dollars if Lincoln would drive him to the station in time to catch the
excursion train. The filly was Neil's own, and Lincoln had been
wanting to buy her but Neil would never hear to it afore. Lincoln
jumped at the chance. Neil had brought the filly with him, and Lincoln
hitched right up and took him to the station. Neil hadn't no luggage
of any kind and wouldn't open his mouth the whole way up, Lincoln
says. We concluded him and old Thomas must have had a row. D'ye know
anything about it? Or was you so wrapped up in sweethearting that you
didn't hear or see nothing else?"

Eric reflected rapidly. He was greatly relieved to find that Neil had
gone. He would never return and this was best for all concerned. Old
Robert must be told a part of the truth at least, since it would soon
become known that Kilmeny could speak.

"There was some trouble at the Gordon place to-night, Mr. Williamson,"
he said quietly. "Neil Gordon behaved rather badly and frightened
Kilmeny terribly,--so terribly that a very surprising thing has
happened. She has found herself able to speak, and can speak
perfectly."

Old Robert laid down the piece of cheese he was conveying to his mouth
on the point of a knife and stared at Eric in blank amazement.

"God bless my soul, Master, what an extraordinary thing!" he
ejaculated. "Are you in earnest? Or are you trying to see how much of
a fool you can make of the old man?"

"No, Mr. Williamson, I assure you it is no more than the simple truth.
Dr. Baker told me that a shock might cure her,--and it has. As for
Neil, he has gone, no doubt for good, and I think it well that he
has."

Not caring to discuss the matter further, Eric left the kitchen. But
as he mounted the stairs to his room he heard old Robert muttering,
like a man in hopeless bewilderment,

"Well, I never heard anything like this in all my born
days--never--never. Timothy, did _you_ ever hear the like? Them
Gordons are an unaccountable lot and no mistake. They couldn't act
like other people if they tried. I must wake mother up and tell her
about this, or I'll never be able to sleep."




CHAPTER XIX

VICTOR FROM VANQUISHED ISSUES


Now that everything was settled Eric wished to give up teaching and go
back to his own place. True, he had "signed papers" to teach the
school for a year; but he knew that the trustees would let him off if
he procured a suitable substitute. He resolved to teach until the fall
vacation, which came in October, and then go. Kilmeny had promised
that their marriage should take place in the following spring. Eric
had pleaded for an earlier date, but Kilmeny was sweetly resolute, and
Thomas and Janet agreed with her.

"There are so many things that I must learn yet before I shall be
ready to be married," Kilmeny had said. "And I want to get accustomed
to seeing people. I feel a little frightened yet whenever I see any
one I don't know, although I don't think I show it. I am going to
church with Uncle and Aunt after this, and to the Missionary Society
meetings. And Uncle Thomas says that he will send me to a boarding
school in town this winter if you think it advisable."

Eric vetoed this promptly. The idea of Kilmeny in a boarding school
was something that could not be thought about without laughter.

"I can't see why she can't learn all she needs to learn after she is
married to me, just as well as before," he grumbled to her uncle and
aunt.

"But we want to keep her with us for another winter yet," explained
Thomas Gordon patiently. "We are going to miss her terrible when she
does go, Master. She has never been away from us for a day--she is all
the brightness there is in our lives. It is very kind of you to say
that she can come home whenever she likes, but there will be a great
difference. She will belong to your world and not to ours. That is
for the best--and we wouldn't have it otherwise. But let us keep her
as our own for this one winter yet."

Eric yielded with the best grace he could muster. After all, he
reflected, Lindsay was not so far from Queenslea, and there were such
things as boats and trains.

"Have you told your father about all this yet?" asked Janet anxiously.

No, he had not. But he went home and wrote a full account of his
summer to old Mr. Marshall that night.

Mr. Marshall, Senior, answered the letter in person. A few days later,
Eric, coming home from school, found his father sitting in Mrs.
Williamson's prim, fleckless parlour. Nothing was said about Eric's
letter, however, until after tea. When they found themselves alone,
Mr. Marshall said abruptly,

"Eric, what about this girl? I hope you haven't gone and made a fool
of yourself. It sound's remarkably like it. A girl that has been dumb
all her life--a girl with no right to her father's name--a country
girl brought up in a place like Lindsay! Your wife will have to fill
your mother's place,--and your mother was a pearl among women. Do you
think this girl is worthy of it? It isn't possible! You've been led
away by a pretty face and dairy maid freshness. I expected some
trouble out of this freak of yours coming over here to teach school."

"Wait until you see Kilmeny, father," said Eric, smiling.

"Humph! That's just exactly what David Baker said. I went straight to
him when I got your letter, for I knew that there was some connection
between it and that mysterious visit of his over here, concerning
which I never could drag a word out of him by hook or crook. And all
_he_ said was, 'Wait until you see Kilmeny Gordon, sir.' Well, I
_will_ wait till I see her, but I shall look at her with the eyes of
sixty-five, mind you, not the eyes of twenty-four. And if she isn't
what your wife ought to be, sir, you give her up or paddle your own
canoe. I shall not aid or abet you in making a fool of yourself and
spoiling your life."

Eric bit his lip, but only said quietly,

"Come with me, father. We will go to see her now."

They went around by way of the main road and the Gordon lane. Kilmeny
was not in when they reached the house.

"She is up in the old orchard, Master," said Janet. "She loves that
place so much she spends all her spare time there. She likes to go
there to study."

They sat down and talked awhile with Thomas and Janet. When they left,
Mr. Marshall said,

"I like those people. If Thomas Gordon had been a man like Robert
Williamson I shouldn't have waited to see your Kilmeny. But they are
all right--rugged and grim, but of good stock and pith--native
refinement and strong character. But I must say candidly that I hope
your young lady hasn't got her aunt's mouth."

"Kilmeny's mouth is like a love-song made incarnate in sweet flesh,"
said Eric enthusiastically.

"Humph!" said Mr. Marshall. "Well," he added more tolerantly, a moment
later, "I was a poet, too, for six months in my life, when I was
courting your mother."

Kilmeny was reading on the bench under the lilac trees when they
reached the orchard. She stood up and came shyly forward to meet them,
guessing who the tall, white-haired old gentleman with Eric must be.
As she approached Eric saw with a thrill of exultation that she had
never looked lovelier. She wore a dress of her favourite blue, simply
and quaintly made, as all her gowns were, revealing the perfect lines
of her lithe, slender figure. Her glossy black hair was wound about
her head in a braided coronet, against which a spray of wild asters
shone like pale purple stars. Her face was flushed delicately with
excitement. She looked like a young princess, crowned with a ruddy
splash of sunlight that fell through the old trees.

"Father, this is Kilmeny," said Eric proudly.

Kilmeny held out her hand with a shyly murmured greeting. Mr. Marshall
took it and held it in his, looking so steadily and piercingly into
her face that even her frank gaze wavered before the intensity of his
keen old eyes. Then he drew her to him and kissed her gravely and
gently on her white forehead.

"My dear," he said, "I am glad and proud that you have consented to be
my son's wife--and my very dear and honoured daughter."

Eric turned abruptly away to hide his emotion and on his face was a
light as of one who sees a great glory widening and deepening down the
vista of his future.


THE END.




[End of _Kilmeny of the Orchard_ by Lucy Maud Montgomery]