asy amble down the wood road, apostrophizing
great nature, as his habit was. "Lawzee! _how_ we pore sinners do tempt
the good Lord at every crook and elbow in the big road, _toe_ be shore!
Now ther's Tom-Jeff, braggin' how he'll be the one to kill the pappy o'
Nan's chillern: he's a-ridin' a mighty shore-footed hawss, but hit do
look like he'd be skeered the Lord might take him at his word and make
that hawss stumble. Hit do, for a fact!"

XXX

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

On the night of the fire, Ardea had remained on the cliff's edge until
the blaze died down and disappeared, which was some little time, she
decided, before Tom could possibly have reached the foot of the
mountain.

When there was nothing more to be seen she went back to the hotel and
called up the Young-Dicksons, whose cottage commanded a short-range view
of the Gordon plant. It was Mrs. Young-Dickson who answered the
telephone. Yes; the fire was one of the foundry buildings--the office,
she believed. Mr. Young-Dickson had gone over, and she would have him
call up when he should return, if Miss Dabney wished.

Ardea said it did not matter, and having exhausted this small vein of
distraction she returned to the music-room and the Bach fugue, as one,
who has had a fall, rises and tries to go on as before, ignoring the
shock and the bruisings. But the shock had been too severe. Tom Gordon
had proved himself a wretch, beyond the power of speech to portray,
and--she loved him! Not all the majestic harmonies of the inspired
_Kapellmeister_ could drown that terrible discord.

The next day it was worse. There was a goodly number of South Tredegar
people summering at the Inn, and hence no lack of companionship. But
the social distractions were powerless in the field where Bach and the
piano had failed, and after luncheon Ardea shut herself in her room,
desperately determined to try what solitude would do.

That failed, too, more pathetically than the other expedients. It was to
no purpose that she went bravely into the torture chamber of opprobrium
and did penance for the sudden lapse into the elemental. It was the
passion of the base-born, she cried bitterly. He was unworthy, unworthy!
Why had he come? Why had she not refused to see him--to speak to him?

Such agonizing questions flung themselves madly on the spear points of
fact and were slain. He had come; she had spoken. Never would she forget
the look in his eyes when he had said, "Good night,