d took a hack for
the wharf, from which a boat was due to leave at nine o'clock.

As the hack drove down Front Street, Tryon noted idly the houses that
lined the street. When he reached the sordid district in the lower
part of the town, there was nothing to attract his attention until the
carriage came abreast of a row of cedar-trees, beyond which could be
seen the upper part of a large house with dormer windows. Before the
gate stood a horse and buggy, which Tryon thought he recognized as Dr.
Green's. He leaned forward and addressed the driver.

"Can you tell me who lives there?" Tryon asked, pointing to the house.

"A callud 'oman, suh," the man replied, touching his hat. "Mis' Molly
Walden an' her daughter Rena."

The vivid impression he received of this house, and the spectre that
rose before him of a pale, broken-hearted girl within its gray walls,
weeping for a lost lover and a vanished dream of happiness, did not
argue well for Tryon's future peace of mind. Rena's image was not to
be easily expelled from his heart; for the laws of nature are higher
and more potent than merely human institutions, and upon anything like
a fair field are likely to win in the long ran.

XVII

TWO LETTERS

Warwick awaited events with some calmness and some philosophy,--he
could hardly have had the one without the other; and it required much
philosophy to make him wait a week in patience for information upon a
subject in which he was so vitally interested. The delay pointed to
disaster. Bad news being expected, delay at least put off the evil day.
At the end of the week he received two letters,--one addressed in his
own hand writing and postmarked Patesville, N. C.; the other in the
handwriting of George Tryon. He opened the Patesville letter, which
ran as follows:--

MY DEAR SON,--Frank is writing this letter for me. I am not well, but,
thank the Lord, I am better than I was.

Rena has had a heap of trouble on account of me and my sickness. If I
could of dreamt that I was going to do so much harm, I would of died
and gone to meet my God without writing one word to spoil my girl's
chances in life; but I didn't know what was going to happen, and I hope
the Lord will forgive me.

Frank knows all about it, and so I am having him write this letter for
me, as Rena is not well enough yet. Frank has been very good to me and
to Rena. He was down to your place and saw Rena there, and never said
a word about it to n