--shall the servant rule his lord?

"We are much alarmed by the few words in Judge Abercrombie's letter (received this morning) concerning our darling Cicely, and we beg you to send us a line daily. Or perhaps Miss Bruce would do it, knowing our anxiety? I pray that the dear child, whom we all so fondly love, may be better very soon; but I will be anxious until I hear.

"As I sent a long letter to the judge last evening, I will not add more to this. Our sympathy, dear Mr. Tennant, with your irreparable loss is heartfelt; you do not need our a.s.surances of that, I know.

"Mr. Singleton desires me to present his respects. And I beg to remain your obedient servant, N. SINGLETON."

XXIV.

Midsummer at Port aux Pins. The day was very hot; there was no feeling of dampness, such as belongs sometimes to the lower-lake towns in the dog-days, up here the air remained dry and clear and pure; but the splendid sunshine had almost the temperature of flame; it seemed as if the miles of forest must take fire, as from a burning-gla.s.s.

Eve stood at the open window of Paul's little parlor. A figure pa.s.sed in the road outside, but she did not notice it. Reappearing, it opened the gate and came in. "Many happy returns--of cooler weather! We ought to pity the Eyetalians; what must their sufferings be on such a day as this!"

Eve gazed at the speaker unseeingly. Then recognition arrived;--"Oh, Mr.

Hollis."

Hollis came into the house; he joined her in the parlor. "My best respects. Can't help thinking of the miserable Eyetalians." Eve made no reply. "Just heard a piece of news," Hollis went on. "Paul has sold his Clay County iron. He would have made five times as much by holding on.

But he has been so jammed lately by unexpected demands made upon him that he had no other course; all his brother's South American speculations have come to grief, and the creditors have come down on _him_ like a thousand of brick!"

"Will he have to pay much?" asked Eve, her la.s.situde gone.

"More than he's got," answered Hollis, putting his hands still more deeply into his trousers pockets, his long, lean, fish-like figure projecting itself forward into s.p.a.ce from the sixth rib. "I don't get this from Paul, you may depend; _he_ don't blab. But the law sharks who came up here to get hold of whatever they could (for you see Paul has always been a partner in his brother's enterprises, so that gives 'em a chance), these scamps talked to me some. So I know. But even the sale of his Clay County iron won't clear Paul--he will have to guarantee other debts; it will take him years to clear it all off, unless he has something better than his present salary to do it with."

"You ought to have told me. I have money."

"I guess he wouldn't take it. He's had pretty hard lines all round; he wanted terribly bad to go straight to Ferdie, as soon as he heard he was shot. But Mrs. Morrison--she had come here, you know; and he had all Ferdie's expenses to think of too, so that kept him grinding along. But he wanted awfully to go; he thought the world and all of Ferdie."

"I know he did," said Eve. And now her face was like a tragic mask--deadly white, with a frown, the eyes under her straight brows looking at him fixedly.

"Oh, eheu!" thought Hollis distressfully, disgustedly. "You screw yourself up to tell her all these things about him, because you think it will please her; and _this_ is the way she takes 'em!"

He looked at her again; she gave no sign. Feeling painfully insignificant and helpless, he turned and left the room.

A few minutes later Paul came in. "You have sold your Clay County iron!"

said Eve.

"I have always intended to sell it."

"Not at a sacrifice."

"One does as one can--a business transaction."

"How much money have you sent to your brother all these years?"

"I don't know that it is--I don't know what interest you can have in it," Paul answered.

"You mean that it is not my business. Oh, don't be so hard! Say three words just for once."

"Why, I'll say as many as you like, Eve. Ferdie was one of the most brilliant fellows in the world; if he had lived, all his investments would have turned out finely, he was sure of a fortune some time."

"And, in the meanwhile, you supported him; you have always done it."

"You are mistaken. I advanced him money now and then when he happened to be short, but it was always for the time being only; he would have paid me back if he had lived."

The door opened, and the judge came in. "I'm glad you're here," said Paul; "now we can decide, we three, upon what is best to be done. The doctor says that while this heat is very bad for Cicely, travel would be still worse; she cannot go anywhere by train, and hardly by steamer--though that is better; there would be no use, then, in trying to take her south."

"It's ten times hotter here to-day than I ever saw it at Romney,"

interposed the judge. "It's a tophet--this town of yours!"

"I was thinking also of Miss Abercrombie's illness," Paul went on.

"Though her fever is light, her room is still a sick-room, and that would depress Cicely, I feel sure. But, meanwhile, the poor girl is hourly growing weaker, and so this is what I have thought of: we will go into camp in the pines near Jupiter Light. Don't you remember how much good camp-life did her before?"

Six days later they were living in the pine woods at Jupiter. This time lodges had been built; the nurse accompanied Cicely; they were a party of eight, without counting the cook and the Indians.

At first Cicely remained in much the same state, she recognized no one but Jack.

Jack continued to be his mother's most constant adorer; he climbed often into her lap, and, putting his arms round her neck, "loved" her with his cheek against hers, and with all his little heart; he came trotting up many times a day, to stroke her face with his dimpled hand. Cicely looked at him, but did not answer. After ten days in the beneficent forest, however, her strength began to revive, and their immediate fears were calmed. One evening she asked for her grandfather, and when he came hastily in and bent over her couch, she smiled and kissed him. He sat down beside her, holding her hand; after a while she fell into a sleep.

The old man went softly out, he went to the camp-fire, and made it blaze, throwing on fresh pine-cones recklessly.

"Sixty-five in the shade," remarked Hollis.

"This Northern air is always abominable. Will you make me a taste of something spicy? I feel the need of it. Miss Bruce,--Eve--Cicely knows me!"

Eve looked at his brightened face, at the blazing fire, the rough table with the tumblers, the flask, and the lemons. Hollis had gone to the kitchen to get hot water.

"She knows me," repeated the judge, triumphantly. "She sent for me herself."

Paul now appeared, and the good news was again told. Paul had just come from Port aux Pins. After establishing them at Jupiter, he had been obliged to return to town immediately, and he had remained there closely occupied for more than a week. He sat down, refusing Hollis's proffered gla.s.s. The nurse came out, and walked to and fro before Cicely's lodge, breathing the aromatic air; this meant that Cicely still slept. Eve had seated herself a little apart from the fire; her figure was in the shadow. Her mind was filled with but one thought: "Cicely better? Then must I tell her?" By-and-by the conversation of the others came to her.

"Hanging is too good for them," said the judge.

"But wasn't it supposed to be a chance shot?" remarked Hollis. "Not intentional, exactly?"

"That makes no difference. You may call it absolute chance, if you like; but the negro who dares to lift a pistol against a white man should not be left alive five minutes afterwards," declared the old planter, implacably.

"You'd ought to have lived in the days of religious wars," drawled Hollis. "I don't know anything else carnivorous enough to suit you."

"You must be a Quaker, sir! Tennant feels as I do, he'd shoot at sight."

"Oh no, he wouldn't," said Hollis. "He ain't a Southerner."

"Tennant can speak for himself," said the judge, confidently.

"I'd shoot the man who shot my brother," answered Paul. "I'd go down there to-morrow--I should have gone long ago--if I thought there was the least chance of finding him." A dark flush rose in his face. "I'm afraid--even if it was an unintentional shot--that I should want to _kill_ that man just the same; I should be a regular savage!"