He ended with a wide, sweeping gesture, showing just how he would inscribe it.

"Really!" the father laughed.

"That's how I feel!" he cried, springing to his feet with an emphatic gesture, a smile playing about his firm mouth.

The father slipped his arm around him:

"Well, if you should happen to do it, be sure to stand in the ocean, because otherwise, you know, if the gra.s.s should be dry you might set the world on fire."

The boy broke into a hearty laugh, crossed to the table, and threw his leg carelessly over the corner, a habit he had gotten from his father. When the laugh had died away, he picked up a magazine and said carelessly:

"I guess there's no danger, after all. I'm afraid that the big thing poets sing about is only a myth after all"--he paused, raised his eyes and they rested on his mother's portrait, and his voice became a reverent whisper--"except your love for my mother, Dad--that was the real thing!"

He was looking the other way and couldn't see the cloud of anguish that suddenly darkened his father's face.

"You'll know its meaning some day, my son," was the even reply that came after a pause, "and I only demand of you one thing----"

He laid his hand on the boy's shoulder:

"That the woman you ask to be your wife bear a name without shadow. Good blood is the n.o.blest inheritance that any father or mother ever gave to a child."

"I'm proud of mine, sir!" the boy said, drawing his form erect.

The father's arm stole around the young shoulders and his voice was very low:

"Fools sometimes say, my son, that a man can sow his wild oats and be all the better for it. It's a lie. The smallest deed takes hold on eternity for it may start a train of events that even G.o.d can't stop----"

He paused and fought back a cry from the depths of his soul.

"I did something that hurt your mother once"--his voice dropped--"and for twenty years my soul in anguish has begged for forgiveness----"

The boy looked at him in startled sympathy and his own arm instinctively slipped around his father's form as he lifted his face to the shining figure over the mantel:

"But you believe that she sees and understands now?"

Norton turned his head away to hide the mists that clouded his eyes. His answer was uttered with the reverence of a prayer:

"Yes! I've seen her in dreams sometimes so vividly and heard her voice so plainly, I couldn't believe that I was asleep"--his voice stopped before it broke, his arm tightening its hold--"and I know that her spirit broods and watches over you----"

And then he suddenly decided to do the most cruel thing to which his mind had ever given a.s.sent. But he believed it necessary and did not hesitate.

Only the vague intensity of his eyes showed his deep feeling as he said evenly:

"Ask Miss Helen to come here. You'll find her on the lawn with Cleo."

The boy left the room to summon Helen, and Norton seated himself with grim determination.

CHAPTER XII

THE FIRST WHISPER

When Tom reached the lawn Helen was nowhere to be seen. He searched every nook and corner which they had been accustomed to haunt, looked through the rose garden and finally knocked timidly on the door of her room. He was sure at first that he heard a sound within. He dared not open her door and so hurried down town to see if he could find her in one of the stores.

Helen shivering inside had held her breath until his his footsteps died away on the stairs.

With heavy heart but swift hands she was packing her trunk. In spite of Cleo's a.s.surances she had been startled and frightened beyond measure by the certainty that Norton had purposely avoided her. She had expected the most hearty welcome. Her keen intuition had scented his hostility though not a word had been spoken.

Cleo, who had avoided Tom, again rapped on her door:

"Just a minute, Miss Helen!"

There was no answer and the woman strained her ear to hear what was happening inside. It couldn't be possible that the girl was really going to leave! Such an act of madness would upset her plans just as they were coming out exactly as she had hoped.

"She can't mean it!" Cleo muttered under her breath. "It's only a fit of petulance!" She didn't dare to give Helen a hint of her clouded birth. That might send her flying. Yet if necessary she must excite her curiosity by a whisper about her parentage. She had already guessed from hints the girl had dropped that her one pa.s.sionate desire was to know the names of her father and mother. She would be careful, but it was necessary to hold her at all hazards.

She rapped again:

"Please, Miss Helen, may I come in just a minute?"

Her voice was full of pleading. A step was heard, a pause and the door opened. Cleo quickly entered, turned the key and in earnest tones, her eyes dancing excitedly, asked:

"You are really packing your trunk?"

"It's already packed," was the firm answer.

"But you can't mean this----"

"I do."

"I tell you, child, the major didn't see you----"

"He did see me. I caught his eye in a straight, clear look. And he turned quickly to avoid me."

"You have his letter of invitation. You can't think it a forgery?" she asked with impatience.

The girl's color deepened:

"He has evidently changed his mind for some reason."

"Nonsense!"

"I was just ready to rush to meet him and thank him with the deepest grat.i.tude for his invitation. The look on his face when he turned was like a blow."

"It's only your imagination!" Cleo urged eagerly. "He's worried over politics."

"I'm not in politics. No, it's something else--I must go."