"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. "You can easily satisfy yourself on that point by consulting my parish records."

"And her mother is the lady you advertised for!" cried Luther. The boy was red with excitement. It was just as Alice said--a story-book. And they could get married right away! For it would be a lot of money--perhaps $5000; people in England didn't advertise for information of a person dead for twenty-two years for any small amount; well, even if it were $4000, they could get married; even if it were $3000. "How m--" he began, and stopped; of course that was not a proper question. "Alice's mother is the lady you advertised about," he said, lamely.

"Well, that does not follow, young gentleman; but the coincidence of the name was of sufficient interest for our firm to feel that I might, perhaps, just look into it. There may be dozens of Alys Wintons, you know."

"Oh," said Luther, so blankly that Dr. Lavendar laughed.

"Perhaps before beginning at the beginning you might save time by looking at the end," he said to the lawyer. "If you will step over to my church, you will see that our little Alice here is the daughter of Mr. Robert Gray and a lady named Alys Winton."

"A very good idea, sir. You, I infer, are a clergyman in this place?

Ah, yes; just so. Lavendar? Ah, yes. I shall be pleased to look at the records, as you suggest, sir."

Luther, rather abashed, longing to accompany them, stood waiting for an invitation. But none came. Dr. Lavendar went pounding down the stairs, followed by Mr. Carter, and Lute heard them talking about the roughness of the road from Mercer over which Mr. Carter had come on the morning stage.

"Confound the road!" said Lute to himself. "Hi! Davidson! I'm going out. The first page is all made up; you can close up the fourth."

Then he dashed down the creaking stairs and out into the hot sunshine.

He had a glimpse up the street of the church, and Dr. Lavendar bending down fumbling with the key of the vestry door; it was evident that Luther's presence was not considered necessary. "I don't care," the boy said to himself, joyously, and started at a swinging pace out over the hill. "I'll be the one to tell her, anyhow!" His face was all aglow. As he hurried along he made calculations as to the rent of the little house. To be sure, he was reckoning on Alice's money; but the boy was so honest, and so in love, that he had no mean self-consciousness of that kind. "_We can get married!_" He had no room for any other thought.

Mrs. Gray was sitting on the back porch sh.e.l.ling pease; there was a grape trellis running out from the porch roof, and under it the shadows lay cool and pleasant on the damp flagstones. Rebecca, absorbed in the lulling snap of pods, looked up, frowning, at the noisy interruption, for the young man burst in, breathless, swinging his cap, his eyes shining.

"Oh, Mrs. Gray, where's Alice? Oh, my, such news! I never was so excited in my life!"

"That is not saying much," Rebecca told him; "you've not had a very exciting life. Alice is in the dining-room. Alice! come out here.

Here's Luther. He says he never was so excited in his life; and I hope he won't be again, for he has upset my bucket of pods."

Luther, full of apologies, began to pick them up. "I'm so sorry, but I was so dreadfully excited--"

"Dreadful is a large word," Rebecca said. "I doubt whether either you or I have ever seen anything 'dreadful' in our lives. Don't exaggerate, Luther."

"Yes, ma'am," Lute said. "Oh, there's Alice! _Alice!_" He stood up, his hands full of pods, his face red. "Oh, Alice, what do you suppose has happened? You'll never guess!"

"The advertis.e.m.e.nt man!" cried Alice. Luther's face fell a little, and he laughed.

"Well, you're pretty smart. Yes, it is--"

"_What?_" said Rebecca Gray. As for Alice, she whirled out on the cool flags and jumped up and down.

"Oh, Lute, tell us--tell us! What does he say? Has he sent some money? Oh, how much is it? Oh, Lute, we'll pay for the press. Lute, is it--is it $1000? Tell us; hurry, hurry!"

Upon which Lute began to subside. "Well, it isn't quite--I mean, he didn't--he hasn't said just exactly how much. I mean, of course, I suppose, it isn't certain; but I'm sure there isn't a particle of doubt; only--"

"Now, Lute, begin at the beginning and tell us." Alice sat down breathlessly beside her step-mother, and began mechanically to sh.e.l.l the pease.

"Don't," Rebecca said; "I will do my own work. You'd better get your table-cloth and finish that darning." Her face had grown quite pale; she saw the fabric of her life crumbling at the base; if, through that first wife, money should come into the family, what use for her patient economies? What use for her existence? That first wife, yet more perfect, would crowd her further from her husband's life. In her heart, used to the long, dull ache of unloved years, rose up a murderous hatred of the dead woman. At first she hardly heard Luther's story, but as it went on she began to listen and the pain in her tightened throat of unshed tears lessened. It might not be. As this Mr. Carter said, there might be dozens of Alys Wintons. Her hands, motionless after the first shock, went at their work again.

"You're the daughter of a lady of that name," she said, coldly; "but she may not be the lady they want. Better not count on it." Alice looked rather blank for a moment; and then she burst into even more than Luther's confidence.

"Do you suppose it will be $2000? Oh, Lute, just think, we'll pay for the new press right down!"

"No, we won't, either," Lute said, stoutly. "I'm not going to let you spend your money on printing-presses."

"Nonsense!" Alice cried, laughing and stamping her foot.

Rebecca frowned and looked at her over her gla.s.ses. "Don't be unlady-like, Alice."

"No, 'm," Alice said; and then she laughed at her own excitement; "it may be only $100."

"It may be nothing at all," Rebecca Gray said, and got up and took her pan and bucket and went into the house. It seemed to her that if she had to hear any more of Alys Winton she would speak out and say some dreadful thing about her. But what could she say with any kind of truth? What could she say ill of that poor creature, so beloved and so harmless? For, after all, though a woman ought to see that a man's b.u.t.tons are sewed on, you can't say that mere shiftlessness is a sin.

Besides, she was sick for those few months. "Perhaps if my health hadn't been good, I would have been careless myself," Rebecca thought, with painful justice. But she went up-stairs to her own room and locked the door. She felt sure that it was as Alice and Luther said: there would be money, and she would be of still less consequence to her husband; for what did Robert Gray, nervously polite, really care for her economies and her good housekeeping?

"Not _that_!" she said to herself, bitterly.

IV

"You will stay and have dinner with me," Dr. Lavendar had told the lawyer, hospitably, "and then Goliath and I will take you up the hill to Mr. Gray's house."

And so, in the early afternoon, Goliath brought Mr. Carter to the Grays' door. Alice, who was on the porch, insisted that Dr. Lavendar should come in, too; she leaned into the buggy to whisper, joyously, "If it is anything nice, I want you to hear it."

But for once Dr. Lavendar did not laugh and give her a kiss and call her his good-for-nothing; he got out silently, and followed Mr. Carter into the parlor, where Luther and Mrs. Gray were awaiting them. There was a tense feeling of expectation in the air. The two young people were together on the sofa, smiling and laughing, with small, whispered jokes of presses and diamond-rings and mortgages. Rebecca sat by the table, her worn hands in a trembling grip in her lap; she sat very upright, and was briefer and curter than ever, and she looked most of the time at the floor.

"You have been informed of my errand, madam?" said Mr. Carter. "It is unfortunate that Mr. Gray is not at home, but perhaps you may be able to give us some information on certain points, which will at least instruct me as to whether the facts in the case warrant further reference to him for confirmation. I will ask a few questions, if you please?"

"Go on," Rebecca said.

"The late Mrs. Gray, the mother of this young lady," said Mr.

Carter--"do you happen to know her nationality?"

"English."

"Ah, yes. Just so. And do you know the date of her marriage to Mr.

Gray?"

Rebecca gave it.

"If any facts in regard to her occur to you--" the lawyer began.

"I've heard Mr. Gray say that she was a governess in the family of a Mr. Urquhart," Rebecca said; and added, "They discharged her in Berlin."

Mr. Carter, glancing at a memorandum, his face keen with interest, said, eagerly, "Pray proceed, madam."

"I don't know much more; Mr. Gray met her in Interlaken. They were married three weeks afterwards."

"Ah, Switzerland? That explains; there was no record of a marriage at the Emba.s.sy. Can you tell me anything of the parentage of the lady?"

"Her father's name was George Winton," Alice broke in, "and they lived in a place called Medfield. He was a clergyman. Her mother's name was Alys, too. Father has a prayer-book belonging to my grandmother; it has her name in it, and my mother's. Would you like to see it, sir?",