,--she did not let this concern her, or allow herself to indulge
in useless regrets even after the first effect of his presence had
passed and she had succeeded in recalling the facts which had cast a
cloud about his name.

Roger Upjohn was a widower, and the scandal affecting him was connected
with his wife's death.

Though a degenerate in some respects, lacking the domineering
presence, the strong mental qualities, and inflexible character of his
progenitors, the wealthy Massachusetts Upjohns whose great place on the
coast had a history as old as the State itself, he yet had gifts and
attractions of his own which would have made him a worthy representative
of his race, if only he had not fixed his affections on a woman so cold
and heedless that she would have inspired universal aversion instead of
love, had she not been dowered with the beauty and physical fascination
which sometimes accompany a hard heart and a scheming brain. It was this
beauty which had caught the lad; and one day, just as the careful father
had mapped out a course of study calculated to make a man of his son,
that son drove up to the gates with this lady whom he introduced as his
wife.

The shock, not of her beauty, though that was of the dazzling quality
which catches a man in the throat and makes a slave of him while the
first surprise lasts, but of the overthrow of all his hopes and plans,
nearly prostrated Homer Upjohn. He saw, as most men did the moment
judgment returned, that for all her satin skin and rosy flush, the
wonder of her hair and the smile which pierced like arrows and warmed
like wine, she was more likely to bring a curse into the house than a
blessing.

And so it proved. In less than a year the young husband had lost all his
ambitions and many of his best impulses. No longer inclined to study,
he spent his days in satisfying his wife's whims and his evenings in
carousing with the friends with which she had provided him. This in
Boston whither they had fled from the old gentleman's displeasure; but
after their little son came the father insisted upon their returning
home, which led to great deceptions, and precipitated a tragedy no one
ever understood. They were natural gamblers--this couple--as all Boston
society knew; and as Homer Upjohn loathed cards, they found life slow
in the great house and grew correspondingly restless till they made
a discovery--or shall I say a rediscovery--of the once famous grotto
hidden in the r