At this proof of the orator's power the crowd shouted--but stopped suddenly, as the colonel halted before the preacher, and ascended the rostrum beside him. Then taking a slight pose with his gold-headed cane in one hand and the other thrust in the breast of his b.u.t.toned coat, he said in his blandest, forensic voice:--

"If I mistake not, sir, you are advising these ladies and gentlemen to a free and public confession of their sins and a--er--denunciation of their past life--previous to their conversion. If I am mistaken I--er--ask your pardon, and theirs and--er--hold myself responsible--er--personally responsible!"

The preacher glanced uneasily at the colonel, but replied, still in the hysterical intonation of his exordium:--

"Yes! a complete searching of hearts--a casting out of the seven Devils of Pride, Vain Glory"--

"Thank you--that is sufficient," said the colonel blandly. "But might I--er--be permitted to suggest that you--er--er--SET THEM THE EXAMPLE!

The statement of the circ.u.mstances attending your own past life and conversion would be singularly interesting and exemplary."

The preacher turned suddenly and glanced at the colonel with furious eyes set in an ashy face.

"If this is the flouting and jeering of the UnG.o.dly and Dissolute," he screamed, "woe to you! I say--woe to you! What have such as YOU to do with my previous state of unregeneracy?"

"Nothing," said the colonel blandly, "unless that state were also the STATE OF ARKANSAS! Then, sir, as a former member of the Arkansas BAR--I might be able to a.s.sist your memory--and--er--even corroborate your confession."

But here the enthusiastic adherents of the preacher, vaguely conscious of some danger to their idol, gathered threateningly round the platform from which he had promptly leaped into their midst, leaving the colonel alone, to face the sea of angry upturned faces. But that gallant warrior never altered his characteristic pose. Behind him loomed the reputation of the dozen duels he had fought, the gold-headed stick on which he leaned was believed to contain eighteen inches of shining steel--and the people of Laurel Spring had discretion.

He smiled suavely, stepped jauntily down, and made his way to the entrance without molestation.

But here he was met by Blair and Sloc.u.m, and a dozen eager questions:--

"What was it?" "What had he done?" "WHO was he?"

"A blank shyster, who had swindled the widows and orphans in Arkansas and escaped from jail."

"And his name isn't Brown?"

"No," said the colonel curtly.

"What is it?"

"That is a matter which concerns only myself and him, sir," said the colonel loftily; "but for which I am--er--personally responsible."

A wild idea took possession of Blair.

"And you say he was a noted desperado?" he said with nervous hesitation.

The colonel glared.

"Desperado, sir! Never! Blank it all!--a mean, psalm-singing, crawling, sneak thief!"

And Blair felt relieved without knowing exactly why.

The next day it was known that the preacher, Gabriel Brown, had left Laurel Spring on an urgent "Gospel call" elsewhere.

Colonel Starbottle returned that night with his friends to the county town. Strange to say, a majority of the audience had not grasped the full significance of the colonel's unseemly interruption, and those who had, as partisans, kept it quiet. Blair, tortured by doubt, had a new delicacy added to his hesitation, which left him helpless until the widow should take the initiative in explanation.

A sudden summons from his patient at the loggers' camp the next day brought him again to the fateful redwoods. But he was vexed and mystified to find, on arriving at the camp, that he had been made the victim of some stupid blunder, and that no message had been sent from there. He was returning abstractedly through the woods when he was amazed at seeing at a little distance before him the flutter of Mrs.

MacGlowrie's well-known dark green riding habit and the figure of the lady herself. Her dog was not with her, neither was the revival preacher--or he might have thought the whole vision a trick of his memory. But she slackened her pace, and he was obliged to rein up abreast of her in some confusion.

"I hope I won't shock you again by riding alone through the woods with a man," she said with a light laugh.

Nevertheless, she was quite pale as he answered, somewhat coldly, that he had no right to be shocked at anything she might choose to do.

"But you WERE shocked, for you rode away the last time without speaking," she said; "and yet"--she looked up suddenly into his eyes with a smileless face--"that man you saw me with once had a better right to ride alone with me than any other man. He was"--

"Your lover?" said Blair with brutal brevity.

"My husband!" returned Mrs. MacGlowrie slowly.

"Then you are NOT a widow," gasped Blair.

"No. I am only a divorced woman. That is why I have had to live a lie here. That man--that hypocrite--whose secret was only half exposed the other night, was my husband--divorced from me by the law, when, an escaped convict, he fled with another woman from the State three years ago." Her face flushed and whitened again; she put up her hand blindly to her straying hair, and for an instant seemed to sway in the saddle.

But Blair as quickly leaped from his horse, and was beside her. "Let me help you down," he said quickly, "and rest yourself until you are better." Before she could reply, he lifted her tenderly to the ground and placed her on a mossy stump a little distance from the trail. Her color and a faint smile returned to her troubled face.

"Had we not better go on?" she said, looking around. "I never went so far as to sit down in the woods with HIM that day."

"Forgive me," he said pleadingly, "but, of course, I knew nothing. I disliked the man from instinct--I thought he had some power over you."

"He has none--except the secret that would also have exposed himself."

"But others knew it. Colonel Starbottle must have known his name? And yet"--as he remembered he stammered--"he refused to tell me."

"Yes, but not because he knew he was my husband, but because he knew he bore the same name. He thinks, as every one does, that my husband died in San Francisco. The man who died there was my husband's cousin--a desperate man and a noted duelist."

"And YOU a.s.sumed to be HIS widow?" said the astounded Blair.

"Yes, but don't blame me too much," she said pathetically. "It was a wild, a silly deceit, but it was partly forced upon me. For when I first arrived across the plains, at the frontier, I was still bearing my husband's name, and although I was alone and helpless, I found myself strangely welcomed and respected by those rude frontiersmen. It was not long before I saw it was because I was presumed to be the widow of ALLEN MacGlowrie--who had just died in San Francisco. I let them think so, for I knew--what they did not--that Allen's wife had separated from him and married again, and that my taking his name could do no harm. I accepted their kindness; they gave me my first start in business, which brought me here. It was not much of a deceit," she continued, with a slight tremble of her pretty lip, "to prefer to pa.s.s as the widow of a dead desperado than to be known as the divorced wife of a living convict. It has hurt no one, and it has saved me just now."

"You were right! No one could blame you," said Blair eagerly, seizing her hand.

But she disengaged it gently, and went on:--

"And now you wonder why I gave him a meeting here?"

"I wonder at nothing but your courage and patience in all this suffering!" said Blair fervently; "and at your forgiving me for so cruelly misunderstanding you."

"But you must learn all. When I first saw MacGlowrie under his a.s.sumed name, I fainted, for I was terrified and believed he knew I was here and had come to expose me even at his own risk. That was why I hesitated between going away or openly defying him. But it appears he was more frightened than I at finding me here--he had supposed I had changed my name after the divorce, and that Mrs. MacGlowrie, Laurel Spring, was his cousin's widow. When he found out who I was he was eager to see me and agree upon a mutual silence while he was here. He thought only of himself," she added scornfully, "and Colonel Starbottle's recognition of him that night as the convicted swindler was enough to put him to flight."

"And the colonel never suspected that you were his wife?" said Blair.

"Never! He supposed from the name that he was some relation of my husband, and that was why he refused to tell it--for my sake. The colonel is an old fogy--and pompous--but a gentleman--as good as they make them!"

A slightly jealous uneasiness and a greater sense of shame came over Blair.

"I seem to have been the only one who suspected and did not aid you," he said sadly, "and yet G.o.d knows"--