At least I was not so much coward as to turn about. So presently I rode up the little pitch from the trough road and pulled the gate latch with my riding crop. And then, as though it were by appointment, precisely as I saw her that morning last spring--a hundred years ago it seemed to me--I saw Grace Sheraton coming down the walk toward me, tall, thin.

Alas! she did not fill my eye. She was elegantly clad, as usual. I had liefer seen dress of skins. Her dainty boots clicked on the gravel. A moccasin would not.

I threw my rein over the hook at the iron arm of the stone gate pillar and, hat in hand, I went to meet her. I was an older man now. I was done with roystering and fighting, and the kissing of country girls all across the land. I did not prison Grace Sheraton against the stone gate pillar now, and kiss her against her will until she became willing. All I did was to lift her hand and kiss her finger tips.

She was changed. I felt that rather than saw it. If anything, she was thinner, her face had a deeper olive tint, her eyes were darker. Her expression was gay, feverish, yet not natural, as she approached. What was it that sat upon her face--melancholy, or fear, or sorrow, or resentment? I was never very bright of mind. I do not know.

"I am glad to see you," she said to me at length, awkwardly.

"And I to see you, of course." I mis...o...b.. we both lied.

"It is very sad, your home-coming thus," she added; at which clue I caught gladly.

"Yes, matters could hardly be worse for us."

"Your mother would not come to us. We asked her. We feel deeply mortified. But now--we hope you both will come."

"We are beggars now, Miss Grace," I said. "I need time to look around, to hit upon some plan of life. I must make another home for myself, and for--"

"For me?" She faced me squarely now, eye to eye. A smile was on her lips, and it seemed to me a bitter one, but I could not guess what was hidden in her mind. I saw her cheek flush slowly, deeper than was usual with a Sheraton girl.

"For my wife, as soon as that may be," I answered, as red as she.

"I learn that you did not see Colonel Meriwether," she went on politely.

"How did you know it?"

"Through Captain Orme."

"Yes," said I, quietly, "I have heard of Captain Orme--much of him--very much." Still I could not read her face.

"He was with us a long time this summer," she resumed, presently. "Some two weeks ago he left, for Charleston, I think. He has much business about the country."

"Much business," I a.s.sented, "in many parts of the country. But most of all with men of the Army. So Captain Orme--since we must call him Captain and not minister--was so good as to inform you of my private matters."

"Yes." Again she looked at me squarely, with defiance. "I know all about it. I know all about that girl."

So there it was! But I kept myself under whip hand still. "I am very glad. It will save me telling you of myself. It is not always that one has the good fortune of such early messengers."

"Go on," she said bitterly, "tell me about her."

"I have no praises to sound for her. I do not wish to speak of this, if you prefer to hear it from others than myself."

She only smiled enigmatically, her mouth crooking in some confidence she held with herself, but not with me. "It was natural," she said at last, slowly. "Doubtless I would have done as she did. Doubtless any other man would have done precisely as you did. That is the way with men. After all, I suppose the world is the world, and that we are as we are. The girl who is closest to a man has the best chance with him. Opportunity is much, very much. Secrecy is everything."

I found nothing which suited me to say; but presently she went on, again leaning on the ivy-covered stone pillar of the gate, her hat held by its strings at her side, her body not imprisoned by my arms.

"Why should you not both have done so?" she resumed, bitterly. "We are all human."

"Why should we not have done what--what is it that you mean?" I demanded of her.

"Why, there was she, engaged to Mr. Belknap, as I am told; and there were you, engaged to a certain young lady by the name of Grace Sheraton, very far away. And you were conveniently lost--very conveniently--and you found each other's society agreeable. You kept away for some weeks or months, both of you forgetting. It was idyllic--ideal. You were not precisely babes in the woods. You were a man and a woman. I presume you enjoyed yourselves, after a very possible little fashion--I do not blame you--I say I might have done the same. I should like to know it for a time myself--freedom! I do not blame you. Only," she said slowly, "in society we do not have freedom. Here it is different. I suppose different laws apply, different customs!"

"Miss Grace," said I, "I do not in the least understand you. You are not the same girl I left."

"No, I am not. But that is not my fault. Can not a woman be free as much as a man? Have I not right as much as you? Have you not been free?"

"One thing only I want to say," I rejoined, "and it is this, which I ought not to say at all. If you mean anything regarding Ellen Meriwether, I have to tell you, or any one, that she is clean--mind, body, soul, heart--as clean as when I saw her first."

"Do you know, I like you for saying that!" she retorted. "I would never marry a man who knew nothing of other women--I don't want a milksop; and I would not marry a man who would not lie for the sake of a sweetheart.

You lie beautifully! Do you know, Jack, I believe you are a bit of a gentleman, after all!

"But tell me, when is the wedding to be?" This last with obvious effort.

"You have not advised me."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. I meant your marriage with Ellen Meriwether. I supposed of course you had quite forgotten me!"

"Ellen Meriwether is already married," I said to her, with a calmness which surprised myself. But what surprised me most was the change which came upon her face at the words--the flush--the gleam of triumph, of satisfaction. I guessed this much and no more--that she had had certain plans, and that now she had other plans, changed with lightning swiftness, and by reason of my words.

"Lieutenant Lawrence Belknap and Miss Ellen Meriwether were married, I presume, some time after I started for the East," I went on. "But they were never engaged before our return to the settlements. It was all very suddenly arranged."

"How like a story-book! So he forgot her little incidents with you--all summer--side by side--day and night! How romantic! I don't know that I could have done so much, had I been a man, and myself not guilty of the same incidents. At least, he kept his promise."

"There had never been any promise at all between them."

"Then Captain Orme was quite mistaken?"

"Captain Orme does not trouble himself always to be accurate."

"At least, then, you are unmarried, Jack?"

"Yes, and likely to be for some years."

Now her face changed once more. Whether by plan of her own or not, I cannot say, but it softened to a more gentle--shall I say a more beseeching look? Was it that I again was at her side, that old a.s.sociations awakened? Or was it because she was keen, shrewd and in control of herself, able to make plans to her own advantage? I cannot tell as to that. But I saw her face soften, and her voice was gentle when she spoke.

"What do you mean, Jack?" she asked.

If there was not love and caress in her tones, then I could not detect the counterfeit. I reiterate, if I should live a thousand years, I should know nothing of women, nothing. We men are but toys with them. As in life and in s.e.x man is in nature's plan no master, no chooser, but merely an incident; so, indeed, I believe that he is thus always with a woman--only an incident. With women we are toys. They play with us. We never read them. They are the mystery of the world. When they would deceive us it is beyond all our art to read them. Never shall man, even the wisest, fathom the shallowest depths of a woman's heart. Their superiors? G.o.d! we are their slaves, and the stronger we are as men, the more are we enslaved.

Had it been left to my judgment to p.r.o.nounce, I should have called her emotion now a genuine one. Mocking, cynical, contemptuous she might have been, and it would have suited my own mood. But what was it now on the face of Grace Sheraton, girl of a proud family, woman I once had kissed here at this very place until she blushed--kissed until she warmed--until she--

But now I know she changed once again, and I know that this time I read her look aright. It was pathos on her face, and terror. Her eye was that of the stricken antelope in dread of the pursuer.

"Jack," she whispered, "don't leave me! Jack, _I shall need you!_"

Before I could resolve any questions in my mind, I heard behind us the sound of approaching hoofs, and there rode up to the gate her brother, Harry Sheraton, who dismounted and hitched his horse near mine, saluting me as he pushed open the great gate. It was the first time I had seen him since my return.

"Am I intruding?" he asked. "I'm awfully glad to see you, Cowles--I heard below you were home. You've had a long journey."