YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK

[BEING THE STORY OF A MATRIMONIAL DESERTER]

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 1. 

CONTENTS:

Volume 1. PROEMI. "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS"II. CLOSING THE DOORSIII. THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF ITIV. "STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE"V. A STORY TO BE TOLD

Volume 2. VI. "HERE ENDETH THE FIRST LESSON"VII. A WOMAN'S WAY TO KNOWLEDGEVIII. ALL ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTERIX. NIGHT SHADE AND MORNING GLORYX. "S. O. S. "XI. IN THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER

Volume 3. XII. AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOMXIII. KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAINXIV. AWAITING THE VERDICTXV. "MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM"XVI. "'TWAS FOR YOUR PLEASURE YOU CAME HERE, YOU GO BACK FOR MINE"XVII. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT?EPILOGUE

INTRODUCTION

This volume contains two novels dealing with the life of prairie peoplein the town of Askatoon in the far West. 'The World for Sale' and thelatter portion of 'The Money Master' deal with the same life, and 'TheMoney Master' contained some of the characters to be found in 'WildYouth'. 'The World for Sale' also was a picture of prairie country withstrife between a modern Anglo-Canadian town and a French-Canadian town inthe West. These books are of the same people; but 'You Never Know YourLuck' and 'Wild Youth' have several characters which move prominentlythrough both. 

In the introduction to 'The World for Sale' in this series, I drew adescription of prairie life, and I need not repeat what was said there. 'In You Never Know Your Luck' there is a Proem which describes brieflythe look of the prairie and suggests characteristics of the life of thepeople. The basis of the book has a letter written by a wife to herhusband at a critical time in his career when he had broken his promiseto her. One or two critics said the situation is impossible, because noman would carry a letter unopened for a long number of years. My replyis: that it is exactly what I myself did. I have still a letter writtento me which was delivered at my door sixteen years ago. I have neverread it, and my reason for not reading it was that I realised, as Ithink, what its contents were. I knew that the letter would annoy, andthere it lies. The writer of the letter who was then my enemy is now myfriend. The chief character in the book, Crozier, was an Irishman, withall the Irishman's cleverness, sensitiveness, audacity, and timidity; forboth those latter qualities are characteristic of the Irish race, and asI am half Irish I can understand why I suppressed a letter and whyCrozier did. Crozier is the type of man that comes occasionally to theDominion of Canada; and Kitty Tynan is the sort of girl that the greatWest breeds. She did an immoral thing in opening the letter that Crozierhad suppressed, but she did it in a good cause--for Crozier's sake; shemade his wife write another letter, and she placed it again in theenvelope for Crozier to open and see. Whatever lack of morality therewas in her act was balanced by the good end to the story, though it meantthe sacrifice of Kitty's love for Crozier, and the making of his wifehappy once more. 

As for 'Wild Youth' I make no apology for it. It is still fresh in theminds of the American public, and it is true to the life. Some criticsfrankly called it melodramatic. I do not object to the term. I knownothing more melodramatic than certain of the plots of Shakespeare'splays. Thomas Hardy is melodramatic; Joseph Conrad is melodramatic;Balzac was melodramatic, and so were Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, andSir Walter Scott. The charge of melodrama is not one that shoulddisturb a writer of fiction. The question is, are the charactersmelodramatic. Will anyone suggest to me the marriage of a girl ofseventeen with a man over sixty is melodramatic. It may be, but I thinkit tragical, and so it was in this case. As for Orlando Guise, Idescribe the man as I knew him, and he is still alive. Some commentsupon the story suggested that it was impossible for a man to spend thenight on the prairie with a woman whom he loved without causing her toforget her marriage vows. It is not sentimental to say that is nonsense. It is a prurient mind that only sees evil in a situation of the sort. Why it should be desirable to make a young man and woman commit amisdemeanor to secure the praise of a critic is beyond imagination. Itwould be easy enough to do. I did it in The Right of Way. I did it inothers of my books. What happens to one man and one woman does notnecessarily happen to another. There are men who, for love of a woman, would not take advantage of her insecurity. There are others who would. In my books I have made both classes do their will, and both are true tolife. It does not matter what one book is or is not, but it does matterthat an author writes his book with a sense of the fitting and the true. 

Both these books were written to present that side of life in Canadawhich is not wintry and forbidding. There is warmth of summer in bothtales, and thrilling air and the beauty of the wild countryside. As forthe cold, it is severe in most parts of Canada, but the air is dry, andthe sharpness is not felt as it is in this damper climate of England. Canadians feel the cold of a March or November day in London far morethan the cold of a day in Winnipeg, with the thermometer many degreesbelow zero. Both these books present the summer side of Canada, which isas delightful as that of any climate in the world; both show the modernwestern life which is greatly changed since the days when Pierre roamedthe very fields where these tales take place. It should never beforgotten that British Columbia has a climate like that of England, where, on the Coast, it is never colder than here, and where there israin instead of snow in winter. 

There is much humour and good nature in the West, and this also I triedto bring out in these two books; and Askatoon is as cosmopolitan asLondon. Canada in the West has all races, and it was consistent of me togive a Chinaman of noble birth a part to play in the tragicomedy. I havea great respect for the Chinaman, and he is a good servant and a faithfulfriend. Such a Chinaman as Li Choo I knew in British Columbia, and all Idid was to throw him on the Eastern side of the Rockies, a few miles fromthe border of the farthest Western province. The Chinaman's death wasfaithful in its detail, and it was true to his nature. He had to die, and with the old pagan philosophy, still practised in China and Japan, hechose the better way, to his mind. Princes still destroy themselves inold Japan, as recent history proves. 

YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK

Volume 1. 

PROEMI. "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS"II. CLOSING THE DOORSIII. THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF ITIV. "STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE"V. A STORY TO BE TOLD

PROEM

Have you ever seen it in reaping-time? A sea of gold it is, with gentlebillows telling of sleep and not of storm, which, like regiments afoot, salute the reaper and say, "All is fulfilled in the light of the sun andthe way of the earth; let the sharp knife fall. " The countless millionheads are heavy with fruition, and sun glorifies and breeze cradles themto the hour of harvest. The air-like the tingle of water from amountain-spring in the throat of the worn wayfarer, bringing a sense ofthe dust of the world flushed away. 

Arcady? Look closely. Like islands in the shining yellow sea, arehouses--sometimes in a clump of trees, sometimes only like bare-backeddomesticity or naked industry in the workfield. Also rising here andthere in the expanse, clouds that wind skyward, spreading out in apowdery mist. They look like the rolling smoke of incense, of sacrifice. Sacrifice it is. The vast steam-threshers are mightily devouring whattheir servants, the monster steam-reapers, have gleaned for them. Soon, when September comes, all that waving sea will be still. What was goldwill still be a rusted gold, but near to the earth-the stubble of thecorn now lying in vast garners by the railway lines, awaiting transporteast and west and south and across the seas. 

Not Arcady this, but a land of industry in the grip of industrialists, whose determination to achieve riches is, in spite of themselves, chastened by the magnitude and orderly process of nature's travail whichis not pain. Here Nature hides her internal striving under a smother ofwhite for many months in every year, when what is now gold in the sunwill be a soft--sometimes, too, a hard-shining coverlet like impactedwool. Then, instead of the majestic clouds of incense from thethreshers, will rise blue spiral wreaths of smoke from the lonely home. There the farmer rests till spring, comforting himself in the thoughtthat while he waits, far under the snow the wheat is slowly expanding;and as in April, the white frost flies out of the soil into the sun, itwill push upward and outward, green and vigorous, greeting his eye withthe "What cheer, partner!" of a mate in the scheme of nature. 

Not Arcady; and yet many of the joys of Arcady are here--bright, singingbirds, wide adventurous rivers, innumerable streams, the squirrel in thewood and the bracken, the wildcat stealing through the undergrowth, thelizard glittering by the stone, the fish leaping in the stream, theplaint of the whippoorwill, the call of the bluebird, the golden flash ofthe oriole, the honk of the wild geese overhead, the whirr of the mallardfrom the sedge. And, more than all, a human voice declaring by its joyin song that not only God looks upon the world and finds it very good. 

CHAPTER I

"PIONEERS, O PIONEERS"

If you had stood on the borders of Askatoon, a prairie town, on thepathway to the Rockies one late August day not many years ago, you wouldhave heard a fresh young human voice singing into the morning, as itspossessor looked, from a coat she was brushing, out over the "field ofthe cloth of gold, " which your eye has already been invited to see. Withthe gift of singing for joy at all, you should be able to sing veryjoyously at twenty-two. This morning singer was just that age; and ifyou had looked at the golden carpet of wheat stretching for scores ofmiles, before you looked at her, you would have thought her curiously intone with the scene. She was a symphony in gold--nothing less. Herhair, her cheeks, her eyes, her skin, her laugh, her voice they were allgold. Everything about her was so demonstratively golden that you mighthave had a suspicion it was made and not born; as though it was unreal, and the girl herself a proper subject of suspicion. The eyelashes wereso long and so black, the eyes were so topaz, the hair was so like such acloud of gold as would be found on Joan of Are as seen by a mediaevalpainter, that an air of faint artificiality surrounded what was in everyother way a remarkable effort of nature to give this region, where shewas so very busy, a keynote. 

Poseurs have said that nature is garish or exaggerated more often thannot; but it is a libel. She is aristocratic to the nth degree, and isnever over done; courage she has, but no ostentation. There was, however, just a slight touch of over-emphasis in this singing-girl'spresentation--that you were bound to say, if you considered her quiteapart from her place in this nature-scheme. She was not whollyaristocratic; she was lacking in that high, social refinement which wouldhave made her gold not so golden, her black eyelashes not so black. Being unaristocratic is not always a matter of birth, though it may be amatter of parentage. 

Her parentage was honest and respectable and not exalted. Her father hadbeen an engineer, who had lost his life on a new railway of the West. His widow had received a pension from the company insufficient tomaintain her, and so she kept boarders, the coat of one of whom herdaughter was now brushing as she sang. The widow herself was the originof the girl's slight disqualification for being of that higher circle ofselection which nature arranges long before society makes its judicialdecision. The father had been a man of high intelligence, which hisdaughter to a real degree inherited; but the mother, as kind a soul asever lived, was a product of southern English rural life--a littlesumptuous, but wholesome, and for her daughter's sake at least, keepingherself well and safely within the moral pale in the midst of markedtemptations. She was forty-five, and it said a good deal for her amplebut proper graces that at forty-five she had numerous admirers. The girlwas English in appearance, with a touch perhaps of Spanish--why, who cansay? Was it because of those Spanish hidalgoes wrecked on the Irishcoast long since? Her mind and her tongue, however, were Irish like herfather's. You would have liked her, everybody did, --yet you would havethought that nature had failed in self-confidence for once, she was sopointedly designed to express the ancient dame's colour-scheme, even tothe delicate auriferous down on her youthful cheek and the purse-proudlook of her faintly retrousse nose; though in fact she never had had apurse and scarcely needed one. In any case she had an ample pocket inher dress. 

This fairly full description of her is given not because she is the mostimportant person in the story, but because the end of the story wouldhave been entirely different had it not been for her; and because sheherself was one of those who are so much the sport of circumstances orchance that they express the full meaning of the title of this story. As a line beneath the title explains, the tale concerns a matrimonialdeserter. Certainly this girl had never deserted matrimony, though shehad on more than one occasion avoided it; and there had been men mean andlow enough to imagine they might allure her to the conditions ofmatrimony without its status. 

As with her mother the advertisement of her appearance was whollymisleading. A man had once said to her that "she looked too gay to begood, " but in all essentials she was as good as she was gay, and indeedrather better. Her mother had not kept boarders for seven years withoutgetting some useful knowledge of the world, or without imparting usefulknowledge; and there were men who, having paid their bills on demand, turned from her wiser if not better men. Because they had pursued theold but inglorious profession of hunting tame things, Mrs. Tyndall Tynanhad exacted compensation in one way or another--by extras, by occasionaland deliberate omission of table luxuries, and by making them pay fortheir own mending, which she herself only did when her boarders behavedthemselves well. She scored in any contest--in spite of her rather smallbrain, large heart, and ardent appearance. A very clever, shiftlessIrish husband had made her develop shrewdness, and she was so busywatching and fending her daughter that she did not need to watch and fendherself to the same extent as she would have done had she been free andchildless and thirty. The widow Tynan was practical, and she saw none ofthose things which made her daughter stand for minutes at a time and lookinto the distance over the prairie towards the sunset light or the grey-blue foothills. She never sang--she had never sung a note in her life;but this girl of hers, with a man's coat in her hand, and eyes on thejoyous scene before her, was for ever humming or singing. She had evensung in the church choir till she declined to do so any longer, becausestrangers stared at her so; which goes to show that she was not so vainas people of her colouring sometimes are. It was just as bad, however, when she sat in the congregation; for then, too, if she sang, peoplestared at her. So it was that she seldom went to church at all; but itwas not because of this that her ideas of right and wrong were quiteindividual and not conventional, as the tale of the matrimonial deserterwill show. 

This was not church, however, and briskly applying a light whisk-broom tothe coat, she hummed one of the songs her father taught her when he wasin his buoyant or in his sentimental moods, and that was a fairproportion of the time. It used to perplex her the thrilling buoyancyand the creepy melancholy which alternately mastered her father; but as achild she had become so inured to it that she was not surprised at thealternate pensive gaiety and the blazing exhilaration of the particularman whose coat she now dusted long after there remained a speck of dustupon it. This was the song she sang:

 "Whereaway, whereaway goes the lad that once was mine? Hereaway I waited him, hereaway and oft; When I sang my song to him, bright his eyes began to shine-- Hereaway I loved him well, for my heart was soft. 

 "Hereaway my heart was soft; when he kissed my happy eyes, Held my hand, and pressed his cheek warm against my brow, Home I saw upon the earth, heaven stood there in the skies-- 'Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?'"

 "Whereaway goes my lad--tell me, has he gone alone? Never harsh word did I speak, never hurt I gave; Strong he was and beautiful; like a heron he has flown-- Hereaway, hereaway will I make my grave. 

 "When once more the lad I loved hereaway, hereaway, Comes to lay his hand in mine, kiss me on the brow, I will whisper down the wind, he will weep to hear me say-- 'Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?'"

There was a plaintive quality in the voice of this russet maiden inperfect keeping with the music and the words; and though her lips smiled, there was a deep, wistful look in her eyes more in harmony with thecoming autumn than with this gorgeous harvest-time. 

For a moment after she had finished singing she stood motionless, absorbed by the far horizon; then suddenly she gave a little shakeof the body and said in a brisk, playfully chiding way:

"Kitty Tynan, Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!" There was no one near, so far as eye could see, so it was clear that the words were addressedto herself. She was expressing that wonder which so many people feelat discovering in themselves long-concealed characteristics, or findthemselves doing things out of their natural orbit, as they think. Ifany one had told Kitty Tynan that she had rare imagination, she wouldhave wondered what was meant. If anyone had said to her, "What are youdreaming about, Kitty?" she would have understood, however, for she hadhad fits of dreaming ever since she was a child, and they had increasedduring the past few years--since the man came to live with them whosecoat she was brushing. Perhaps this was only imitation, because the manhad a habit of standing or sitting still and looking into space forminutes--and on Sundays for hours--at a time; and often she had watchedhim as he lay on his back in the long grass, head on a hillock, hat downover his eyes, while the smoke from his pipe came curling up from beneaththe rim. Also she had seen him more than once sitting with a letterbefore him and gazing at it for many minutes together. She had alsonoted that it was the same letter on each occasion; that it was a closedletter, and also that it was unstamped. She knew that, because she hadseen it in his desk--the desk once belonging to her father, a slopingthing with a green-baize top. Sometimes he kept it locked, but veryoften he did not; and more than once, when he had asked her to get himsomething from the desk, not out of meanness, but chiefly because hermoral standard had not a multitude of delicate punctilios, she hadexamined the envelope curiously. The envelope bore a woman'shandwriting, and the name on it was not that of the man who owned thecoat--and the letter. The name on the envelope was Shiel Crozier, butthe name of the man who owned the coat was J. G. Kerry--James GathorneKerry, so he said. 

Kitty Tynan had certainly enough imagination to make her cherish amystery. She wondered greatly what it all meant. Never in anything elsehad she been inquisitive or prying where the man was concerned; but shefelt that this letter had the heart of a story, and she had made up fiftystories which she thought would fit the case of J. G. Kerry, who for overfour years had lived in her mother's house. He had become part of herlife, perhaps just because he was a man, --and what home is a real homewithout a man?--perhaps because he always had a kind, quiet, confidentialword for her, or a word of stimulating cheerfulness; indeed, he showed inhis manner occasionally almost a boisterous hilarity. He undoubtedly waswhat her mother called "a queer dick, " but also "a pippin with a perfectcore, " which was her way of saying that he was a man to be trusted withherself and with her daughter; one who would stand loyally by a friend ora woman. He had stood by them both when Augustus Burlingame, the lawyer, who had boarded with them when J. G. Kerry first came, coarsely exceededthe bounds of liberal friendliness which marked the household, and byfurtive attempts at intimacy began to make life impossible for bothmother and daughter. Burlingame took it into his head, when he receivednotice that his rooms were needed for another boarder, that J. G. Kerrywas the cause of it. Perhaps this was not without reason, since Kerryhad seen Kitty Tynan angrily unclasping Burlingame's arm from around herwaist, and had used cutting and decisive words to the sensualistafterwards. 

There had taken the place of Augustus Burlingame a land-agent--JesseBulrush--who came and went like a catapult, now in domicile for threedays together, now gone for three weeks; a voluble, gaseous, humorousfellow, who covered up a well of commercial evasiveness, honesty andadroitness by a perspiring gaiety natural in its origin and convenientfor harmless deceit. He was fifty, and no gallant save in words; and, as a wary bachelor of many years' standing, it was a long time before heshowed a tendency to blandish a good-looking middle-aged nurse named Eganwho also lodged with Mrs. Tynan; though even a plain-faced nurse inuniform has an advantage over a handsome unprofessional woman. JesseBulrush and J. G. Kerry were friends--became indeed such confidentialfriends to all appearance, though their social origin was evidently sodifferent, that Kitty Tynan, when she wished to have a pleasantconversation which gave her a glow for hours afterwards, talked to thefat man of his lean and aristocratic-looking friend. 

"Got his head where it ought to be--on his shoulders; and it ain't forplaying football with, " was the frequent remark of Mr. Bulrush concerningMr. Kerry. This always made Kitty Tynan want to sing, she could not havetold why, save that it seemed to her the equivalent of a long history ofthe man whose past lay in mists that never lifted, and whom even theinquisitive Burlingame had been unable to "discover" when he lived inthe same house. But then Kitty Tynan was as fond of singing as a canary, and relieved her feelings constantly by this virtuous and becoming means, with her good contralto voice. She was indeed a creature ofcontradictions; for if ever any one should have had a soprano voiceit was she. She looked a soprano. 

What she was thinking of as she sang with Kerry's coat in her hand itwould be hard to discover by the process of elimination, as thedetectives say when tracking down a criminal. It is, however, of noconsequence; but it was clear that the song she sang had moved her, forthere was the glint of a tear in her eye as she turned towards the house, the words of the lyric singing themselves over in her brain:

 "Hereaway my heart was soft; when he kissed my happy eyes, Held my hand, and pressed his cheek warm against my brow, Home I saw upon the hearth, heaven stood there in the skies' Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?"'

She knew that no lover had left her; that none was in the habit of layinghis warm cheek against her brow; and perhaps that was why she had saidaloud to herself, "Kitty Tynan, Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!"Perhaps--and perhaps not. 

As she stepped forward towards the door she heard a voice within thehouse, and she quickened her footsteps. The blood in her face, the lookin her eye quickened also. And now a figure appeared in the doorway--afigure in shirt-sleeves, which shook a fist at the hurrying girl. 

"Villain'!" he said gaily, for he was in one of his absurd, ebullientmoods--after a long talk with Jesse Bulrush. "Hither with my coat; myspotless coat in a spotted world, --the unbelievable anomaly--

 "'For the earth of a dusty to-day Is the dust of an earthy to-morrow. '"

When he talked like this she did not understand him, but she thought itwas clever beyond thinking--a heavenly jumble. "If it wasn't for meyou'd be carted for rubbish, " she replied joyously as she helped him onwith his coat, though he had made a motion to take it from her. 

"I heard you singing--what was it?" he asked cheerily, while it couldbe seen that his mind was preoccupied. The song she had sung, floatingthrough the air, had seemed familiar to him, while he had been greatlyengaged with a big business thing he had been planning for a long time, with Jesse Bulrush in the background or foreground, as scout or rear-guard or what you will:

 "'Whereaway, whereaway goes the lad that once was mine? Hereaway, I waited him, hereaway and oft--'"

she hummed with an exaggerated gaiety in her voice, for the song hadsaddened her, she knew not why. At the words the flaming exhilaration ofthe man's face vanished and his eyes took on a poignant, distant look. 

"That--oh, that!" he said, and with a little jerk of the head and aclenching of the hand he moved towards the street. 

"Your hat!" she called after him, and ran inside the house. An instantlater she gave it to him. Now his face was clear and his eyes smiledkindly at her. 

"'Whereaway, hereaway' is a wonderful song, " he said. "We used to singit when I was a boy--and after, and after. It's an old song--old as thehills. Well, thanks, Kitty Tynan. What a girl you are--to be so kindto a fellow like--me!"

"Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!"--these were the very words she hadused about herself a little while before. The song--why did it make Mr. Kerry take on such a queer look all at once when he heard it? Kittywatched him striding down the street into the town. 

Now a voice--a rich, quizzical, kindly voice-called out to her:

"Come, come, Miss Tynan, I want to be helped on with my coat, " it said. 

Inside the house a fat, awkward man was struggling, or pretending tostruggle, into his coat. 

"Roll into it, Mr. Rolypoly, " she answered cheerily as she entered. 

"Of course I'm not the star boarder--nothing for me!" he said inaffected protest. 

"A little more to starboard and you'll get it on, " she retorted with aglint of her late father's raillery, and she gave the coat a twitch whichput it right on the ample shoulders. 

"Bully! bully!" he cried. "I'll give you the tip for the Askatoon cup. "

"I'm a Christian. I hate horse-racers and gamblers, " she returnedmockingly. 

"I'll turn Christian--I want to be loved, " he bleated from the doorway. 

"Roll on, proud porpoise!" she rejoined, which shows that herconversation was not quite aristocratic at all times. 

"Golly, but she's a gold dollar in a gold bank, " remarked Jesse Bulrushwarmly as he lurched into the street. 

The girl stood still in the middle of the room looking dreamily down theway the two men had gone. 

The quiet of the late summer day surrounded her. She heard the dizzy dinof the bees, the sleepy grinding of the grass hoppers, the sough of thesolitary pine at the door, and then behind them all a whizzing, machine-like sound. This particular sound went on and on. 

She opened the door of the next room. Her mother sat at a sewing-machineintent upon some work, the needle eating up a spreading piece of cloth. 

"What are you making, mother?" Kitty asked. "New blinds for Mr. Kerry'sbedroom-he likes this green colour, " the widow added with a slight flush, due to leaning over the sewing-machine, no doubt. 

"Everybody does everything for him, " remarked the girl almost pettishly. 

"That's a nice spirit, I must say!" replied her mother reprovingly, themachine almost stopping. 

"If I said it in a different way it would be all right, " the otherreturned with a smile, and she repeated the words with a winning softinflection, like a born actress. 

"Kitty-Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!" declared her mother, and shebent smiling over the machine, which presently buzzed on its devouringway. Three people had said the same thing within a few minutes. A lookof pleasure stole over the girl's face, and her bosom rose and fell witha happy sigh. Somehow it was quite a wonderful day for her. 

CHAPTER II

CLOSING THE DOORS

There are many people who, in some subtle psychological way, are verylike their names; as though some one had whispered to "the parents ofthis child" the name designed for it from the beginning of time. So itwas with Shiel Crozier. Does not the name suggest a man lean and flat, sinewy, angular and isolated like a figure in one of El Greco's picturesin the Prado at Madrid? Does not the name suggest a figure of elongatedhumanity with a touch of ancient mysticism and yet also of thefantastical humour of Don Quixote?

In outward appearance Shiel Crozier, otherwise J. G. Kerry, of Askatoon, was like his name for the greater part of the time. Take him in repose, and he looked a lank ascetic who dreamed of a happy land whereflagellation was a joy and pain a panacea. In action, however, as whenKitty Tynan helped him on with his coat, he was a pure improvisation ofnature. He had a face with a Cromwellian mole, which broke out inemotion like an April day, with eyes changing from a blue-grey to thedeepest ultramarine that ever delighted the soul and made the reputationof an Old Master. Even in the prairie town of Askatoon, where every manis so busy that he scarcely knows his own children when he meets them, and almost requires an introduction to his wife when the door closes onthem at bedtime, people took a second look at him when he passed. Manywho came in much direct contact with him, as Augustus Burlingame thelawyer had done, tried to draw from him all there was to tell abouthimself; which is a friendly custom of the far West. The native-borngreatly desire to tell about themselves. They wear their hearts on theirsleeves, and are childlike in the frank recitals of all they were and areand hope to be. This covers up also a good deal of business acumen, shrewdness, and secretiveness which is not so childlike and bland. 

In this they are in sharp contrast to those not native-born. Thesecome from many places on the earth, and they are seldom garrulouslyhistorical. Some of them go to the prairie country to forget they everlived before, and to begin the world again, having been hurt in lifeundeservingly; some go to bury their mistakes or worse in pioneer workand adventure; some flee from a wrath that would devour them--the law, society, or a woman. 

This much must be said at once for Crozier, that he had no crime tohide. It was not because of crime that "He buckles up his talk like thebellyband on a broncho, " as Malachi Deely, the exile from Tralee, saidof him; and Deely was a man of "horse-sense, " no doubt because he was ahorse-doctor--"a veterenny surgeon, " as his friends called him when theywished to flatter him. Deely supplemented this chaste remark about thebroncho with the observation that, "Same as the broncho, you buckle himtightest when you know the divil is stirring in his underbrush. " And headded further, "'Tis a woman that's put the mumplaster on his tongue, Sibley, and I bet you a hundred it's another man's wife. "

Like many a speculator, Malachi Deely would have made no profit out ofhis bet in the end, for Shiel Crozier had had no trouble with the law, or with another man's wife, nor yet with any single maid--not yet; thoughthere was now Kitty Tynan in his path. Yet he had had trouble. Therewas hint of it in his occasional profound abstraction; but more than allelse in the fact that here he was, a gentleman, having lived his life forover four years past as a sort of horse-expert, overseer, and stud-manager for Terry Brennan, the absentee millionaire. In the opinion ofthe West, "big-bugs" did not come down to this kind of occupation unlessthey had been roughly handled by fate or fortune. 

"Talk? Watch me now, he talks like a testimonial in a frame, " saidMalachi Deely on the day this tale opens, to John Sibley, the gamblingyoung farmer who, strange to say, did well out of both gambling andfarming. 

"Words to him are like nuts to a monkey. He's an artist, that man is. Been in the circles where the band plays good and soft, where the musicsmells--fairly smells like parfumery, " responded Sibley. "I'd like toget at the bottom of him. There's a real good story under his asbestosvest--something that'd make a man call for the oh-be-joyful, same as I donow. "

After they had seen the world through the bottom of a tumbler Deelycontinued the gossip. "Watch me now, been a friend of dukes in England--and Ireland, that Mr. James Gathorne Kerry, as any one can see; and therehe is feelin' the hocks of a filly or openin' the jaws of a stud horse, age-hunting! Why, you needn't tell me--I've had my mind made up eversince the day he broke the temper of Terry Brennan's Inniskillenchestnut, and won the gold cup with her afterwards. He just sort ofappeared out of the mist of the marnin', there bein' a divil's lot ofexcursions and conferences and holy gatherin's in Askatoon that timeback, ostensible for the business which their names denote, like theDioceesan Conference and the Pure White Water Society. That was theirbluff; but they'd come herealong for one good pure white dioceesan thingbefore all, and that was to see the dandiest horse-racing which everinfested the West. Come--he come like that!"--Deely made a motion like aswoop of an aeroplane to earth--"and here he is buckin' about like arough-neck same as you and me; but yet a gent, a swell, a cream dellacream, that's turned his back on a lady--a lady not his own wife, that's my sure and sacred belief. "

"You certainly have got women on the brain, " retorted Sibley. "I ain'tever seen such a man as you. There never was a woman crossing the streeton a muddy day that you didn't sprint to get a look at her ankles. Behind everything you see a woman. Horses is your profession, but womanis your practice. "

"There ain't but one thing worth livin' for, and that's a woman, "remarked Deely. 

"Do you tell Mrs. Deely that?" asked Sibley. 

"Watch me now, she knows. What woman is there don't know when herhusband is what he is! And it's how I know that the trouble with JamesGathorne Kerry is a woman. I know the signs. Divils me own, he's got'em in his face. "

"He's got in his face what don't belong here and what you don't know muchabout--never having kept company with that sort, " rejoined Sibley. 

"The way he lives and talks--'No, thank you, I don't care for annything, ' says he, when you're standin' at the door of a friendly saloon, which is established by law to bespeak peace and goodwill towards men, and you ask him pleasant to step inside. He don't seem to have a singlevice. Haven't we tried him? There was Belle Bingley, all frizzy hairand a kicker; we put her on to him. But he give her ten dollars to buya hat on condition she behaved like a lady in the future--smilin' at her, the divil! And Belle, with temper like dinnemite, took it kneelin' as itwere, and smiled back at him--her! Drink, women--nothin' seems to have ahold on him. What's his vice? Sure, then, that's what I say, what's hisvice? He's got to have one; anny man as is a man has to have one vice. "

"Bosh! Look at me, " rejoined Sibley. "Drink women--nit! Not for me!I've got no vice. I don't even smoke. "

"No vice? Begobs, yours has got you like a tire on a wheel! Vice--whatdo you call gamblin'? It's the biggest vice ever tuk grip of a man. It's like a fever, and it's got you, John, like the nail on your finger. "

"Well, p'r'aps, he's got that vice too. P'r'aps J. G. Kerry's got thatvice same as me. "

"Annyhow, we'll get to know all we want when he goes into the witnessbox at the Logan murder trial next week. That's what I'm waitin' for, "Deely returned, with a grin of anticipation. "That drug-eating GusBurlingame's got a grudge against him somehow, and when a lawyer's gota grudge against you it's just as well to look where y' are goin'. Burlingame don't care what he does to get his way in court. What set himagainst Kerry I ain't sure, but, bedad, I think it's looks. Burlingamegoes in for lookin' like a picture in a frame--gold seals hangin' beyanthis vestpocket, broad silk cord to his eye-glass, loose flowin' tie, andlong hair-makes him look pretentuous and showy. But your 'Mr. Kerry, sir, ' he don't have anny tricks to make him look like a doge from Veenisand all the eyes of the females battin' where'er he goes. Jealousy, JohnSibley, me boy, is a cruil thing. "

"Why is it you ain't jealous of him? There's plenty of women that watchyou go down-town--you got a name for it, anyway, " remarked Sibleymaliciously. 

Deely nodded sagely. "Watch me now, that's right, me boy. I got a namefor it, but I want the game without the name, and that's why I ain'tputtin' on anny airs--none at all. I depend on me tongue, not on melooks, which goes against me. I like Mr. J. G. Kerry. I've plentydealin's with him, naturally, both of us being in the horse business, and I say he's right as a minted dollar as he goes now. Also, andbehold, I'd take my oath he never done annything to blush for. Histouble's been a woman--wayward woman what stoops to folly! I give uptryin' to pump him just as soon as I made up my mind it was a woman. That shuts a man's mouth like a poor-box. 

"Next week's fixed for the Logan killin' case, is it?"

"Monday comin', for sure. I wouldn't like to be in Mr. Kerry's shoes. Watch me now, if he gives the, evidence they say he can give--theprasecution say it--that M'Mahon Gang behind Logan 'll get him sure asguns, one way or another. "

"Some one ought to give Mr. Kerry the tip to get out and not giveevidence, " remarked Sibley sagely. Deely shook his head vigorously. "Begobs, he's had the tip all right, but he's not goin'. He's got asmuch fear as a canary has whiskers. He doesn't want to give evidence, he says, but he wants to see the "law do its work. Burlingame 'll try tomake it out manslaughter; but there's a widow with children to suffer forthe manslaughter, just as much as though it was murder, and there isn't aman that doesn't think murder was the game, and the grand joory had thatidea too. 

"Between Gus Burlingame and that M'Mahon bunch of horse-thieves, thestranger in a strange land 'll have to keep his eyes open, I'm thinkin'. "

"Divils me darlin', his eyes are open all right, " returned Deely. 

"Still, I'd like to jog his elbow, " Sibley answered reflectively. "It couldn't do any harm, and it might do good. "

Deely nodded good-naturedly. "If you want to so bad as that, John, you've got the chance, for he's up at the Sovereign Bank now. I seen himleave the Great Overland Railway Bureau ten minutes ago and get awayquick to the bank. "

"What's he got on at the bank and the railway?"

"Some big deal, I guess. I've seen him with Studd Bradley. "

"The Great North Trust Company boss?"

"On it, my boy, on it--the other day as thick as thieves. Studd Bradleydoesn't knit up with an outsider from the old country unless there'sreason for it--good gold-currency reasons. "

"A land deal, eh?" ventured Sibley. "What did I say--speculation, that's his vice, same as mine! P'r'aps that's what ruined him. Cards, speculation, what's the difference? And he's got a quiet look, same asme. "

Deely laughed loudly. "And bursts out same as you! Quiet one hour likea mill-pond or a well, and then--swhish, he's blazin'! He's a volcano inharness, that spalpeen. "

"He's a volcano that doesn't erupt when there's danger, " respondedSibley. "It's when there's just fun on that his volcano gets loose. I'll go wait for him at the bank. I got a fellow-feeling for Mr. Kerry. I'd like to whisper in his ear that he'd better be lookin' sharp for theM'Mahon Gang, and that if he's a man of peace he'd best take a holidaytill after next week, or get smallpox or something. "

The two friends lounged slowly up the street, and presently parted nearthe door of the bank. As Sibley waited, his attention was drawn to awindow on the opposite side of the street at an angle from themselves. The light was such that the room was revealed to its farthest corners, and Sibley noted that three men were evidently carefully watching thebank, and that one of the men was Studd Bradley, the so-called boss. Theothers were local men of some position commercially and financially inthe town. Sibley did not give any sign that he noticed the three men, but he watched carefully from under the rim of his hat. His imagination, however, read a story of consequence in the secretive vigilance of thethree, who evidently thought that, standing far back in the room, theycould not be seen. 

Presently the door of the bank opened, and Sibley saw Studd Bradley leanforward eagerly, then draw back and speak hurriedly to his companions, using a gesture of satisfaction. 

"Something damn funny there!" Sibley said to himself, and steppedforward to Crozier with a friendly exclamation. Crozier turned ratherimpatiently, for his face was aflame with some exciting reflection. Atthis moment his eyes were the deepest blue that could be imagined--analmost impossible colour, like that of the Mediterranean when it reflectsthe perfect sapphire of the sky. There was something almost wonderfulin their expression. A woman once said as she looked at a picture ofHerschel, whose eyes had the unworldly gaze of the great dreamer lookingbeyond this sphere, "The stars startled him. " Such a look was inCrozier's eyes now, as though he was seeing the bright end of along road, the desire of his soul. 

That, indeed, was what he saw. After two years of secret negotiation hehad (inspired by information dropped by Jesse Bulrush, his fellow-boarder) made definite arrangements for a big land-deal in connectionwith the route of a new railway and a town-site, which would mean moreto him than any one could know. If it went through, he would, for aninvestment of ten thousand dollars, have a hundred and fifty thousanddollars; and that would solve an everlasting problem for him. 

He had reached a critical point in his enterprise. All that was wantednow was ten thousand dollars in cash to enable him to close the greatbargain and make his hundred and fifty thousand. But to want tenthousand dollars and to get it in a given space of time, when you haveneither securities, cash, nor real estate, is enough to keep you awake atnight. Crozier had been so busy with the delicate and difficultnegotiations that he had not deeply concerned himself with the absence ofthe necessary ten thousand dollars. He thought he could get the money atany time, so good was the proposition; and it was best to deferraising it to the last moment lest some one learning the secret shouldforestall him. He must first have the stake to be played for before hemoved to get the cash with which to make the throw. This is notgenerally thought a good way, but it was his way, and it had yet to betested. 

There was no cloud of apprehension, however, in Crozier's eyes as theymet those of Sibley. He liked Sibley. At this point it is not necessaryto say why. The reason will appear in due time. Sibley's face hadalways something of that immobility and gravity which Crozier's face hadpart of the time-paler, less intelligent, with dark lines and secretshadows absent from Crozier's face; but still with some of the El Grecocharacteristics which marked so powerfully that of the man who passed asJ. G. Kerry. 

"Ah, Sibley, " he said, "glad to see you! Anything I can do for you?"

"It's the other way if there's any doing at all, " was the quick response. 

"Well, let's walk along together, " remarked Crozier a littleabstractedly, for he was thinking hard about his great enterprise. 

"We might be seen, " said Sibley, with an obvious undermeaning meant toprovoke a question. 

Crozier caught the undertone of suggestion. "Being about to burgle thebank, it's well not to be seen together--eh?"

"No, I'm not in on that business, Mr. Kerry. I'm for breaking banks, not burgling 'em, " was the cheerful reply. 

They laughed, but Crozier knew that the observant gambling farmer was nottalking at haphazard. They had met on the highway, as it were, manytimes since Crozier had come to Askatoon, and Crozier knew his man. 

"Well, what are we going to do, and who will see us if we do it?"Crozier asked briskly. 

"Studd Bradley and his secret-service corps have got their eyes on thisstreet--and on you, " returned Sibley dryly. 

Crozier's face sobered and his eyes became less emotional. "I don't seethem anywhere, " he answered, but looking nowhere. 

"They're in Gus Burlingame's office. They had you under observationwhile you were in the bank. "

"I couldn't run off with the land, could I?" Crozier remarked dryly, yetsuggestively, in his desire to see how much Sibley knew. 

"Well, you said it was a bank. I've no more idea what it is you'retryin' to run off with than I know what an ace is goin' to do whenthere's a joker in the pack, " remarked Sibley; "but I thought I'd tellyou that Bradley and his lot are watchin' you gettin' ready to run. "Then he hastily told what he had seen. 

Crozier was reassured. It was natural that Bradley & Co. Should take aninterest in his movements. They would make a pile of money if he pulledoff the deal-far more than he would. It was not strange that they shouldwatch his invasion of the bank. They knew he wanted money, and a bankwas the place to get it. That was the way he viewed the matter on theinstant. He replied to Sibley cheerfully. "A hundred to one is a lotwhen you win it, " he said enigmatically. 

"It depends on how much you have on, " was Sibley's quiet reply--"a dollaror a thousand dollars. 

"If you've got a big thing on, and you've got an outsider that you thinkis goin' to win and beat the favourite, it's just as well to run norisks. Believe me, Mr. Kerry, if you've got anything on that asks foryour attention, it'd be sense and saving if you didn't give evidence atthe Logan Trial next week. It's pretty well-guessed what you're goin'to say and what you know, and you take it from me, the M'Mahon mob that'sbehind Logan 'll have it in for you. They're terrors when they getgoin', and if your evidence puts one of that lot away, ther'll be troublefor you. I wouldn't do it--honest, I wouldn't. I've been out West herea good many years, and I know the place and the people. It's a goodplace, and there's lots of first-class people here, but there's a fewoffscourings that hang like wolves on the edge of the sheepfold, ready tomurder and git. "

"That was what you wanted to see me about, wasn't it?" Crozier askedquietly. 

"Yes; the other was just a shot on the chance. I don't like to see mensneakin' about and watching. If they do, you can bet there's somethingwrong. But the other thing, the Logan Trial business, is a deadcertainty. You're only a new-comer, in a kind of way, and you don't needto have the same responsibility as the rest. The Law'll get what itwants whether you chip in or not. Let it alone. What's the Law everdone for you that you should run risks for it? It's straight talk, Mr. Kerry. Have a cancer in the bowels next week or go off to see a dyin'brother, but don't give evidence at the Logan Trial--don't do it. I gota feeling--I'm superstitious--all sportsmen are. By following myinstincts I've saved myself a whole lot in my time. "

"Yes; all men that run chances have their superstitions, and they're notto be sneered at, " replied Crozier thoughtfully. "If you see black, don't play white; if you see a chestnut crumpled up, put your money onthe bay even when the chestnut is a favourite. Of course you'resuperstitious, Sibley. The tan and the green baize are covered withghosts that want to help you, if you'll let them. "

Sibley's mouth opened in amazement. Crozier was speaking with the lookof the man who hypnotises himself, who "sees things, " who dreams as onlythe gambler and the plunger on the turf do dream, not even excepting thelatter-day Irish poets. 

"Say, I was right what I said to Deely--I was right, " remarked Sibleyalmost huskily, for it seemed to him as though he had found a long-lostbrother. No man except one who had staked all he had again and againcould have looked or spoken like that. 

Crozier looked at the other thoughtfully for a moment, then he said:

"I don't know what you said to Deely, but I do know that I'm going tothe Logan Trial in spite of the M'Mahon mob. I don't feel about it asyou do. I've got a different feeling, Sibley. I'll play the game out. I shall not hedge. I shall not play for safety. It's everything on thefavourite this time. "

"You'll excuse me, but Gus Burlingame is for the defence, and he's gothis knife into you, " returned Sibley. 

"Not yet. " Crozier smiled sardonically. 

"Well, I apologise, but what I've said, Mr. Kerry, is said as man to man. You're ridin' game in a tough place, as any man has to do who starts withonly his pants and his head on. That's the way you begun here, I guess;and I don't want to see your horse tumble because some one throws afence-rail at its legs. Your class has enemies always in a new country--jealousy, envy. "

The lean, aristocratic, angular Crozier, with a musing look on his longface, grown ascetic again, as he held out his hand and gripped that ofthe other, said warmly: "I'm just as much obliged to you as though I tookyour advice, Sibley. I am not taking it, but I am taking a pledge toreturn the compliment to you if ever I get the chance. "

"Well, most men get chances of that kind, " was the gratified reply of thegambling farmer, and then Crozier turned quickly and entered the doorwayof the British Bank, the rival of that from which he had turned in bravedisappointment a little while before. 

Left alone in the street, Sibley looked back with the instinct of thehunter. As he expected, he saw a head thrust out from the window whereStudd Bradley and his friends had been. There was an hotel opposite theBritish Bank. He entered and waited. Bradley and one of his companionspresently came in and seated themselves far back in the shadow, wherethey could watch the doorway of the bank. 

It was quite a half-hour before Shiel Crozier emerged from the bank. Hisface was set and pale. For an instant he stood as though wondering whichway to go, then he moved up the street the way he had come. 

Sibley heard a low, poisonous laugh of triumph rankle through the hoteloffice. He turned round. Bradley, the over-fed, over-confident, over-estimated financier, laid a hand on the shoulder of his companion as theymoved towards the door. 

"That's another gate shut, " he said. "I guess we can close 'em all witha little care. It's working all right. He's got no chance of raisingthe cash, " he added, as the two passed the chair where Sibley sat--withhis hat over his eyes, chewing an unlighted cigar. 

"I don't know what it is, but it's dirt--and muck at that, " John Sibleyremarked as he rose from his chair and followed the two into the street. 

Bradley and his friends were trying steadily to close up the avenues ofcredit to the man to whom the success of his enterprise meant so much. To crowd him out would mean an extra hundred and fifty thousand dollarsfor themselves. 

CHAPTER III

THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF IT

What the case was in which Shiel Crozier was to give evidence is notimportant; what came from the giving of his testimony is all thatmatters; and this story would never have been written if he had notentered the witness-box. 

A court-room at any time seems a little warmer than any other spot to allexcept the prisoner; but on a July day it is likely to be a punishmentfor both innocent and guilty. A man had been killed by one of the groupof toughs called locally the M'Mahon Gang, and against the charge ofmurder that of manslaughter had been set up in defence; and manslaughtermight mean jail for a year or two or no jail at all. Any evidence whichjustified the charge of murder would mean not jail, but the rope in duecourse; for this was not Montana or Idaho, where the law's delaysoutlasted even the memory of the crime committed. 

The court-room of Askatoon was crowded to suffocation, for theM'Mahons were detested, and the murdered man had a good reputation inthe district. Besides, a widow and three children mourned their loss, and the widow was in court. Also Crozier's evidence was expected to besensational, and to prove the swivel on which the fate of the accused manwould hang. Among those on the inside it was also known that the cleverbut dissipated Augustus Burlingame, the counsel for the prisoner, had agrudge against Crozier, --no one quite knew why except Kitty Tynan and hermother, and that cross-examination would be pressed mercilessly whenCrozier entered the witness-box. As Burlingame came into the court-roomhe said to the Young Doctor--he was always spoken of as the Young Doctorin Askatoon, though he had been there a good many years and he was nolonger as young as he looked--who was also called as a witness, "We'llknow more about Mr. J. G. Kerry when this trial is over than will suithis book. " It did not occur to Augustus Burlingame that in Crozier, whoknew why he had fled the house of the showy but virtuous Mrs. Tynan, hemight find a witness of a mental and moral calibre with bafflingqualities and some gift of riposte. 

Crozier entered the witness-box at a stage when excitement was at feverheight; for the M'Mahon Gang had given evidence which every one believedto be perjured; and the widow of the slain man was weeping bitterly inher seat because of noxious falsehoods sworn against her honest husband. 

There was certainly someting credible and prepossessing in the look ofCrozier. He might be this or that, but he carried no evil or vice ofcharacter in his face. He was in his grave mood this summer afternoon. There he stood with his long face and the very heavy eyebrows, clean-shaven, hard-bitten, as though by wind and weather, composed andforceful, the mole on his chin a kind of challenge to the vertical dimplein his cheek, his high forehead more benevolent than intellectual, hisbrown hair faintly sprinkled with grey and a bit unmanageable, hisfathomless eyes shining. "No man ought to have such eyes, " remarked awoman present to the Young Doctor, who abstractedly nodded assent, for, like Malachi Deely and John Sibley, he himself had a theory aboutCrozier; and he had a fear of what the savage enmity of the morallydiseased Burlingame might do. He had made up his mind that so intense ascrupulousness as Crozier had shown since coming to Askatoon had behindit not only character, but the rigidity of a set purpose; and that viewwas supported by the stern economy of Crozier's daily life, broken onlyby sudden bursts of generosity for those in need. 

In the box Crozier kept his eye on the crown attorney, who prosecuted, and on the judge. He appeared not to see any one in the court-room, though Kitty Tynan had so placed herself that he must see her if helooked at the audience at all. Kitty thought him magnificent as he toldhis story with a simple parsimony but a careful choice of words whichmade every syllable poignant with effect. She liked him in his gravemood even better than when he was aflame with an internal fire of hisown creation, when he was almost wildly vivid with life. 

"He's two men, " she had often said to herself; and she said it now as shelooked at him in the witness-box, measuring out his words and measuringoff at the same time the span of a murderer's life; for when the crownattorney said to the judge that he had concluded his examination therewas no one in the room--not even the graceless Burlingame--who did notthink the prisoner guilty. 

"That is all, " the crown attorney said to Crozier as he sank into hischair, greatly pleased with one of the best witnesses who had ever beenthrough his hands--lucid, concentrated, exact, knowing just wherehe was going and reaching his goal without meandering. Crozier was aboutto step down when Burlingame rose. 

"I wish to ask a few questions, " he said. 

Crozier bowed and turned, again grasping the rail of the witness-box withone hand, while with an air of cogitation and suspense he stroked hischin with the long fingers of the other hand. 

"What is your name?" asked Burlingame in a tone a little louder than hehad used hitherto in the trial, indeed even louder than lawyers generallyuse when they want to bully a witness. In this case it was as though hewished to summon the attention of the court. 

For a second Crozier's fingers caught his chin almost spasmodically. Thereal meaning of the question, what lay behind it, flashed to his mind. He saw in lightning illumination the course Burlingame meant to pursue. For a moment his heart seemed to stand still, and he turned slightlypale, but the blue of his eyes took on a new steely look--a look alsoof striking watchfulness, as of an animal conscious of its danger, yetconscious too of its power when at bay. 

"What is your name?" Burlingame asked again in a somewhat louder tone, and turned to look at the jury, as if bidding them note the hesitation ofthe witness; though, indeed, the waiting was so slight that none but atrickster like Burlingame would have taken advantage of it, and only thenwhen there was much behind. 

For a moment longer Crozier remained silent, getting strength, as itwere, and saying to himself, "What does he know?" and then, with acomposed look of inquiry at the judge, who appeared to take no notice, he said: "I have already, in evidence, given my name to the court. "

"Witness, what is your name?" again almost shouted the lawyer, with anote of indignation in his voice, as though here was a dangerous fellowcommitting a misdemeanour in their very presence. He spread out hishands to the jury, as though bidding them observe, if they would, thiswitness hesitating in answer to a simple, primary question--a witness whohad just sworn a man's life away!

"What is your name?"

"James Gathorne Kerry, as I have already given it to the court, " was thecalm reply. 

"Where do you live?"

"In Askatoon, as I have already said in evidence; and if it is necessaryto give my domicile, I live at the house of Mrs. Tyndall Tynan, PearlStreet--as you know so well. "

The tone in which he uttered the last few words was such that even thejudge pricked up his ears. 

A look of hatred came into the decadent but able lawyer's face. 

"Where do you live when you are at home?"

"Mrs. Tynan's house is the only home I have at present. "

He was outwitting the pursuer so far, but it only gained him time, as heknew; and he knew also that no suggestive hint concerning the episode atMrs. Tynan's, when Burlingame was asked to leave her house, would be ofany avail now. 

"Where were you born?"

"In Ireland. "

"What part of Ireland?"

"County Kerry. "

"What place--what town or city or village in County Kerry?"

"In neither. "

"What house, then--what estate?" Burlingame was more than nettled; andhe sharpened his sword. 

"The estate of Castlegarry. "

"What was your name in Ireland?"

In the short silence that followed, the quick-drawn breath of manyexcited and some agitated people could be heard. Among the latter wereMrs. Tynan and her daughter and Malachi Deely; among those who held theirbreath in suspence were John Sibley, Studd Bradley the financier, and theYoung Doctor. The swish of a skirt seemed ridiculously loud in the hush, and the scratching of the judge's quill pen was noisily irritating. 

"My name in Ireland was James Shiel Gathorne Crozier, commonly calledShiel Crozier, " came the even reply from the witness-box. 

"James Shiel Gathorne Crozier in Ireland, but James Gathorne Kerry here!"Burlingame turned to the jury significantly. "What other name have youbeen known by in or out of Ireland?" he added sharply to Crozier. "Noother name so far as I know. "

"No other name so far as you know, " repeated the lawyer in a sarcastictone intended to impress the court. 

"Who was your father?"

"John Gathorne Crozier. "

"Any title?"

"He was a baronet. "

"What was his business?"

"He had no profession, though he had business, of course. "

"Ah, he lived by his wits?"

"No, he was not a lawyer! I have said he had no profession. He lived onhis money on his estate. "

The judge waved down the laughter at Burlingame's expense. 

"In official documents what was his description?" snarled Burlingame. 

"'Gentleman' was his designation in official documents. "

"You, then, were the son of a gentleman?" There was a hateful suggestionin the tone. 

"I was. "

"A legitimate son?"

Nothing in Crozier's face showed what he felt, except his eyes, and theyhad a look in them which might well have made his questioner shrink. Heturned calmly to the judge. 

"Your honour, does this bear upon the case? Must I answer this legallibertine?"

At the word libertine, the judge, the whole court, and the audiencestarted; but it was presently clear the witness meant that the questionerwas abusing his legal privileges, though the people present interpretedit another way, and quite rightly. 

The reply of the judge was in favour of the lawyer. "I do not quite seethe full significance of the line of defence, but I think I must allowthe question, " was the judge's gentle and reluctant reply, for he wasgreatly impressed by this witness, by his transparent honesty andstraightforwardness. 

"Were you a legitimate son of John Gathorne Crozier and his wife?" askedBurlingame. 

"Yes, a legitimate son, " answered Crozier in an even voice. 

"Is John Gathorne Crozier still living?"

"I said that gentleman was his designation in official documents. Isupposed that would convey the fact that he was not living, but I see youdo not quickly grasp a point. "

Burlingame was stung by the laughter in the court and ventured a riposte. 

"But is once a gentleman always a gentleman an infallible rule?"

"I suppose not; I did not mean to convey that; but once a rogue always abad lawyer holds good in every country, " was Crozier's comment in a low, quiet voice which stirred and amused the audience again. 

"I must ask counsel to put questions which have some relevance even tohis own line of defence, " remarked the judge sternly. "This is not acorner grocery. "

Burlingame bowed. He had had a facer, but he had also shown the witnessto have been living under an assumed name. That was a good start. Hehoped to add to the discredit. He had absolutely no knowledge ofCrozier's origin and past; but he was in a position to find it out ifCrozier told the truth on oath, and he was sure he would. 

"Where was your domicile in the old country?" Burlingame asked. 

"In County Kerry--with a flat in London. "

"An estate in County Kerry?"

"A house and two thousand acres. "

"Is it your property still?"

"It is not. "

"You sold it?"

"No. "

"If you did not sell, how is it that you do not own it?"

"It was sold for me--in spite of me. "

The judge smiled, the people smiled, the jury smiled. Truly, though alife-history was being exposed with incredible slowness--"like pullingteeth, " as the Young Doctor said--it was being touched off with laughter. 

"You were in debt?"

"Quite. "

"How did you get into debt?"

"By spending more than my income. "

If Askatoon had been proud of its legal talent in the past it had nowreason for revising its opinion. Burlingame was frittering away theeffect of his inquiry by elaboration of details. What he gained by themain startling fact he lost in the details by which the witness scored. He asked another main question. 

"Why did you leave Ireland?"

"To make money. "

"You couldn't do it there?"

"They were too many for me over there, so I thought I'd come here, " slylyanswered Crozier, and with a grave face; at which the solemn scene of aprisoner being tried for his life was shaken by a broad smiling, which insome cases became laughter haughtily suppressed by the court attendant. 

"Have you made money here?"

"A little--with expectations. "

"What was your income in Ireland?"

"It began with three thousand pounds--"

"Fifteen thousand dollars about?"

"About that--about a lawyer's fee for one whisper to a client less thanthat. It began with that and ended with nothing. "

"Then you escaped?"

"From creditors, lawyers, and other such? No, I found you here. "

The judge intervened again almost harshly on the laughter of the court, with the remark that a man was being tried for his life; that ribaldrywas out of place; and that, unless the course pursued by the counsel wasto discredit the reliability of the character of the witness, theexamination was in excess of the privilege of counsel. 

"Your honour has rightly apprehended what my purpose is, " Burlingame saiddeprecatingly. He then turned to Crozier again, and his voice rose as itdid when he began the examination. It was as though he was starting allover again. 

"What was it compelled" (he was boldly venturing) "you to leave Irelandat last? What was the incident which drove you out from the land whereyou were born--from being the owner of two thousand acres"--

"Partly bog, " interposed Crozier. 

"--From being the owner of two thousand acres to becoming a kind of head-groom on a ranch? What was the cause of your flight?"

"Flight! I came in one of the steamers of the Company for which yourfirm are the agents. Eleven days it took to come from Glasgow toQuebec. "

Again the court rippled, again the attendant intervened. 

Burlingame was nonplussed this time, but he gathered himself together. 

"What was the process of law which forced you to leave your own land?"

"None at all. "

"What were your debts when you left?"

"None at all. "

"How much was the last debt you paid?"

"Two thousand five hundred pounds. "

"What was its nature?"

"It was a debt of honour--do you understand?" The subtle challenge ofthe voice, the sarcasm, was not lost. Again there was a struggle on thepart of the audience not to laugh outright, and so be driven from thecourt as had been threatened. 

The judge interposed again with the remark, not very severe in tone, that the witness was not in the box to ask questions, but to answer them. At the same time he must remind counsel that the examination mustdiscontinue unless something more relevant immediately appeared in theevidence. 

There was silence again for a moment, and even Crozier himself seemed tosteel himself for a question he felt was coming. 

"Are you married or single?" asked Burlingame, and he did not need toraise his voice to summon the interest of the court. 

"I was married. "

One person in the audience nearly cried out. It was Kitty Tynan. Shehad never allowed herself to think of that, but even if she had, whatdifference could it make whether he was married or single, since he wasout of her star?

"Are you not married now?"

"I do not know. "

"You mean you do not know if you have been divorced?"

"No. "

"You mean your wife is dead?"

"No. "

"What do you mean? That you do not know whether your wife is living ordead?"

"Quite so. "

"Have you heard from her since you saw her last?"

"I had one letter. "

Kitty Tynan thought of the unopened letter in a woman's handwriting inthe green baize desk in her mother's house. 

"No more?"

"No more. "

"Are we to understand that you do not know whether your wife is living ordead?"

"I have no information that she is dead. "

"Why did you leave her?"

"I have not said that I left her. Primarily I left Ireland. "

"Assuming that she is alive, your wife will not live with you?"

"Ah, what information have you to that effect?" The judge informedCrozier that he must not ask questions of counsel. 

"Why is she not with you here?"

"As you said, I am only picking up a living here, and even the passageby your own second-class steamship line is expensive. "

The judge suppressed a smile. He greatly liked the witness. 

"Do you deny that you parted from your wife in anger?"

"When I am asked that question I will try to answer it. Meanwhile, I donot deny what has not been put before me in the usual way. "

Here the judge sternly rebuked the counsel, who ventured upon one lastquestion. 

"Have you any children?"

"None. "

"Has your brother, who inherited, any children?"

"None that I know of. "

"Are you the heir-presumptive to the baronetcy?"

"I am. "

"Yet your wife will not live with you?"

"Call Mrs. Crozier as a witness and see. Meanwhile, I am not upon mytrial. "

He turned to the judge, who promptly called upon Burlingame to concludehis examination. 

Burlingame asked two questions more. 

"Why did you change your name when you came here?"

"I wanted to obliterate myself. "

"I put it to you, that what you want is to avoid the outraged law of yourown country. "

"No--I want to avoid the outrageous lawyers of yours. "

Again there was a pause in the proceedings, and on a protest from thecrown attorney the judge put an end to the cross-examination with thesolemn reminder that a man was being tried for his life, and that thepresent proceedings were a lamentable reflection on the levity of humannature--in Askatoon. Turning with friendly scrutiny to Crozier, he said:

"In the early stage of his examination the witness informed the courtthat he had made a heavy loss through a debt of honour immediately beforeleaving England. Will he say in what way he incurred the obligation?Are we to assume that it was through gambling-card-playing, or othergames of chance?"

"Through backing the wrong horse, " was Crozier's instant reply. 

"That phrase is often applied to mining or other unreal flights forfortune, " said the judge, with a dry smile. 

"This was a real horse on a real flight to the winning-post, " addedCrozier, with a quirk at the corner of his mouth. 

"Honest contest with man or horse is no crime, but it is tragedy tostake all on the contest and lose, " was the judge's grave and pedagogiccomment. "We shall now hear from the counsel for defence his reason forconducting his cross-examination on such unusual lines. Latitude of thiskind is only permissible if it opens up any weakness in the case againstthe prisoner. "

The judge thus did Burlingame a good turn as well as Crozier, by creatingan atmosphere of gravity, even of tragedy, in which Burlingame could makehis speech in defence of the prisoner. 

Burlingame started hesitatingly, got into his stride, assembled thepoints of his defence with the skill of which he really was capable. Hemade a strong appeal for acquittal, but if not acquittal, then a verdictof manslaughter. He showed that the only real evidence which couldconvict his man of murder was that of the witness Crozier. If he hadbeen content to discredit evidence of the witness by an adroit butguarded misuse of the facts he had brought out regarding Crozier's past, to emphasise the fact that he was living under an assumed name and thathis bona fides was doubtful, he might have impressed the jury to someslight degree. He could not, however, control the malice he felt, and hewas smarting from Crozier's retorts. He had a vanity easily lacerated, and he was now too savage to abate the ferocity of his forensic attack. He sat down, however, with a sure sense of failure. Every orator knowswhen he is beating the air, even when his audience is quiet andapparently attentive. 

The crown attorney was a man of the serenest method and of cold, unforensic logic. He had a deadly precision of speech, a very remarkablememory, and a great power of organising and assembling his facts. Therewas little left of Burlingame's appeal when he sat down. He declaredthat to discredit Crozier's evidence because he chose to use anothername than his own, because he was parted from his wife, because he leftEngland practically penniless to earn an honest living--no one had shownit was not--was the last resort of legal desperation. It was anindefensible thing to endeavour to create prejudice against a man becauseof his own evidence given with great frankness. Not one single word ofevidence had the defence brought to discredit Crozier, save by Crozier'sown word of mouth; and if Crozier had cared to commit perjury, thedefence could not have proved him guilty of it. Even if Crozier had nottold the truth as it was, counsel for the defence would have found itimpossible to convict him of falsehood. But even if Crozier was aperjurer, justice demanded that his evidence should be weighed as truthfrom its own inherent probability and supported by surrounding facts. In a long experience he had never seen animus against a witness sorecklessly exhibited as by counsel in this case. 

The judge was not quite so severe in his summing up, but he did say ofCrozier that his direct replies to Burlingame's questions, intended toprejudice him in the eyes of the community into which he had come astranger, bore undoubted evidence of truth; for if he had chosen to saywhat might have saved him from the suspicions, ill or well founded, ofhis present fellow-citizens, he might have done so with impunity, savefor the reproach of his own conscience. On the whole, the judge summedup powerfully against the prisoner Logan, with the result that the jurywere not out for more than a half-hour. Their verdict was, guilty ofmurder. 

In the scene which followed, Crozier dropped his head into his hand andsat immovable as the judge put on the black cap and delivered sentence. When the prisoner left the dock, and the crowd began to disperse, satisfied that justice had been done--save in that small circle where theM'Mahons were supreme--Crozier rose with other witnesses to leave. As helooked ahead of him the first face he saw was that of Kitty Tynan, andsomething in it startled him. Where had he seen that look before? Yes, he remembered. It was when he was twenty-one and had been sent away toAlgiers because he was falling in love with a farmer's daughter. As hedrove down a lane with his father towards the railway station, those longyears ago, he had seen the girl's face looking at him from the window ofa labourer's cottage at the crossroads; and its stupefied desolationhaunted him for many years, even after the girl had married and gone tolive in Scotland--that place of torment for an Irish soul. 

The look in Kitty Tynan's face reminded him of that farmer's lass in hisboyhood's history. He was to blame then--was he to blame now? Certainlynot consciously, not by any intended word or act. Now he met her eyesand smiled at her, not gaily, not gravely, but with a kind of whimsicalhelplessness; for she was the first to remind him that he was leaving thecourt-room in a different position (if not a different man) from that inwhich he entered it. He had entered the court-room as James GathorneKerry, and he was leaving it as Shiel Crozier; and somehow James GathorneKerry had always been to himself a different man from Shiel Crozier, withdifferent views, different feelings, if not different characteristics. 

He saw faces turned to him, a few with intense curiosity, fewerstill with a little furtiveness, some with amusement, and many withunmistakable approval; for one thing was clear, if his own evidence wascorrect: he was the son of a baronet, he was heir-presumptive to abaronetcy, and he had scored off Augustus Burlingame in a way whichdelighted a naturally humorous people. He noted, however, that the nodwhich Studd Bradley, the financier, gave him had in it an enigmaticsomething which puzzled him. Surely Bradley could not be prejudicedagainst him because of the evidence he had given. There was nothingcriminal in living under an assumed name, which, anyhow, was his own namein three-fourths of it, and in the other part was the name of the countywhere he was born. 

"Divils me own, I told you he was up among the dukes, " said Malachi Deelyto John Sibley as they came out. "And he's from me own county, and Iknow the name well enough; an' a damn good name it is. The bulls ofCastlegarry was famous in the south of Ireland. "

"I've a warm spot for him. I was right, you see. Backing horses ruinedhim, " said Sibley in reply; and he looked at Crozier admiringly. 

There is the communion of saints, but nearer and dearer is the communionof sinners; for a common danger is their bond, and that is even more thana common hope. 

CHAPTER IV

"STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE"

On the evening of the day of the trial, Mrs. Tynan, having fixed the newblind to the window of Shiel Crozier's room, which was on the ground-floor front, was lowering and raising it to see if it worked properly, when out in the moonlit street she saw a wagon approaching her housesurrounded and followed by obviously excited men. Once before she hadseen just such a group nearing her door. That was when her husband wasbrought home to die in her arms. She had a sudden conviction, as, holding the blind in her hand, she looked out into the night, that againtragedy was to cross her threshold. Standing for an instant under thefascination of terror, she recovered herself with a shiver, and, steppingdown from the chair where she had been fixing the blind, with theinstinct of real woman, she ran to the bed of the room where she was, andmade it ready. Why did she feel that it was Shiel Crozier's bed whichshould be made ready? Or did she not feel it? Was it only a dazed, automatic act, not connected with the person who was to lie in the bed?Was she then a fatalist? Were trouble and sorrow so much her portionthat to her mind this tragedy, whatever it was, must touch the mannearest to her--and certainly Shiel Crozier was far nearer than JesseBulrush. Quite apart from wealth or position, personality plays a partmore powerful than all else in the eyes of every woman who has a soulwhich has substance enough to exist at all. Such men as Crozier havecompensations for "whate'er they lack. " It never occurred to Mrs. Tynanto go to Jesse Bulrush's room or the room of middle-aged, comely NurseEgan. She did the instinctive thing, as did the woman who sent a man arope as a gift, on the ground that the fortune in his hand said that hewas born not to be drowned. 

Mrs. Tynan's instinct was right. By the time she had put the bed intoshape, got a bowl of water ready, lighted a lamp, and drawn the bed outfrom the wall, there was a knocking at the door. In a moment she hadopened it, and was faced by John Sibley, whose hat was off as though hewere in the presence of death. This gave her a shock, and her eyesstrove painfully to see the figure which was being borne feet foremostover her threshold. 

"It's Mr. Crozier?" she asked. 

"He was shot coming home here--by the M'Mahon mob, I guess, " returnedSibley huskily. 

"Is--is he dead?" she asked tremblingly. "No. Hurt bad. "

"The kindest man--it'd break Kitty's heart--and mine, " she added hastily, for she might be misunderstood; and John Sibley had shown signs ofinterest in her daughter. 

"Where's the Young Doctor?" she asked, catching sight of Crozier's faceas they laid him on the bed. "He's done the first aid, and he's offgetting what's needed for the operation. He'll be here in a minute orso, " said a banker who, a few days before, had refused Crozier credit. 

"Gently, gently--don't do it that way, " said Mrs. Tynan in sharp reproofas they began to take off Crozier's clothes. 

"Are you going to stay while we do it?" asked a maker of mineral waters, who whined at the prayer meetings of a soul saved and roared at hisemployees like a soul damned. 

"Oh, don't be a fool!" was the impatient reply. "I've a grown-up girland I've had a husband. Don't pull at his vest like that. Go away. Youdon't know how. I've had experience--my husband . . . There, waittill I cut it away with the scissors. Cover him with the quilt. Now, then, catch hold of his trousers under the quilt, and draw them offslowly. . . . There you are--and nothing to shock the modesty of agrown-up woman or any other when a life's at stake. What does the YoungDoctor say?"

"Hush! He's coming to, " interposed the banker. It was as though thequiet that followed the removal of his clothes and the touch of Mrs. Tynan's hand on his head had called Crozier back from unconsciousness. 

The first face he saw was that of the banker. In spite of the loss ofblood and his pitiable condition, a whimsical expression came to hiseyes. "Lucky for you you didn't lend me the money, " he said feebly. 

The banker shook his head. "I'm not thinking of that, Mr. Crozier. Godknows, I'm not!"

Crozier caught sight of Mrs. Tynan. "It's hard on you to have me broughthere, " he murmured as she took his hand. 

"Not so hard as if they hadn't, " she replied. "That's what a home's for--not just a place for eating and drinking and sleeping. "

"It wasn't part of the bargain, " he said weakly. 

"It was my part of the bargain. "

"Here's Kitty, " said the maker of mineral waters, as there was the swishof a skirt at the door. 

"Who are you calling 'Kitty'?" asked the girl indignantly, as theymotioned her back from the bedside. "There's too many people here, " sheadded abruptly to her mother. "We can take care of him"--she noddedtowards the bed. "We don't want any help except--except from JohnSibley, if he will stay, and you too, " she added to the banker. 

She had not yet looked at the figure on the bed. She felt she could notdo so while all these people were in the room. She needed time to adjustherself to the situation. It was as though she was the authority in thehousehold and took control even of her mother. Mrs. Tynan understood. She had a great belief in her daughter and admired her cleverness, andshe was always ready to be ruled by her; it was like being "bossed" bythe man she had lost. 

"Yes, you'd all better go, " Mrs. Tynan said. "He wants all the airhe can get, and I can't make things ready with all of you in the room. Go outdoors for a while, anyway. It's summer and you'll not take cold!The Young Doctor has work to do, and my girl and I and these two willhelp him plenty. " She motioned towards the banker and the gamblingfarmer. 

In a moment the room was cleared of all save the four and Crozier, whoknew that upon the coming operation depended his life. He had beenconscious when the Young Doctor said this was so, and he was thinking, ashe lay there watching these two women out of his nearly closed eyes, thathe would like to be back in Ireland at Castlegarry with the girl he hadmarried and had left without a good-bye near five years gone. If he hadto die he would like to die at home; and that could not be. 

Kitty had the courage to turn towards him now. As she caught sight ofhis face for the first time--she had so far kept her head turned away--she became very pale. Then, suddenly, she gathered herself together. Going over to the bed, she took the limp hand lying on the coverlet. 

"Courage, soldier, " she said in the colloquialism her father often used, and she smiled at Crozier a great-hearted, helpful smile. 

"You are a brick of bricks, Kitty Tynan, " he whispered, and smiled. 

"Here comes the Young Doctor, " said Mrs. Tynan as the door openedunceremoniously. 

"Well, I have to make an excursion, " Crozier said, "and I mayn't comeback. If I don't, au revoir, Kitty. "

"You are coming back all right, " she answered firmly. "It'll take morethan a horse-thief's bullet to kill you. You've got to come back. You're as tough as nails. And I'll hold your hand all through it--yes, I will!" she added to the Young Doctor, who had patted her shoulder andtold her to go to another room. 

"I'm going to help you, doctor-man, if you please, " she said, as heturned to the box of instruments which his assistant held. 

"There's another--one of my colleagues--coming I hope, " the Young Doctorreplied. 

"That's all right, but I am staying to see Mr. Crozier through. I saidI'd hold his hand, and I'm going to do it, " she added firmly. 

"Very well; put on a big apron, and see that you go through with us ifyou start. No nonsense. "

"There'll be no nonsense from me, " she answered quietly. 

"I want the bed in the middle of the room, " the Young Doctor said, andthe others gently moved it. 

CHAPTER V

A STORY TO BE TOLD

A great surgeon said a few years ago that he was never nervous whenperforming an operation, though there was sometimes a moment when everyresource of character, skill, and brain came into play. That was when, having diagnosed correctly and operated, a new and unexpected seat oftrouble and peril was exposed, and instant action had to be taken. Thegreat man naturally rose to the situation and dealt with it coolly; buthe paid the price afterwards in his sleep when, night after night, heperformed the operation over and over again with the same strain on hissubconscious self. 

So it was with Kitty Tynan in her small way. She had insisted on beingallowed to help at the operation, and the Young Doctor, who had a goodknowledge of life and knew the stuff in her, consented; and so far as theoperation was concerned she justified his faith in her. When the bankerhad to leave the room at the sight of the carnage, she remained, and sheand John Sibley were as cool as the Young Doctor and his fellow-anatomist, till it was all over, and Shiel Crozier was started again on asafe journey back to health. Then a thing, which would have been amusingif it had not been so deeply human, happened. She and John Sibley wentout of the house together into the moonlit night, and the reaction seizedthem both at the same moment. She gave a gulp and burst into tears, andhe, though as tall as Crozier, also broke down, and they sat on the stumpof a tree together, her hand in his, and cried like two children. 

"Never since I was a little runt--did I--never cried in thirty years--and here I am-leaking like a pail!" Thus spoke John Sibley in gasps andsqueezing Kitty's hand all the time unconsciously, but spontaneously, andas part of what he felt. He would not, however, have dared to hold herhand on any other occasion, while always wanting to hold it, and wantingher also to share his not wholly reputed, though far from precarious, existence. He had never got so far as to tell her that; but if she hadunderstanding she would realise after to-night what he had in his mind. She, feeling her arm thrill with the magnetism of his very vital palm, had her turn at explanation. "I wouldn't have broke down myself--it wasall your fault, " she said. "I saw it--yes--in your face as we left thehouse. I'm so glad it's over safe--no one belonging to him here, and notknowing if he'd wake up alive or not--I just was swamped. "

He took up the misty excuse and explanation. "I had a feeling for himfrom the start; and then that Logan Trial to-day, and the way he talkedout straight, and told the truth to shame the devil--it's what does a mangood! And going bung over a horserace--that's what got me too, where Iwas young and tender. Swatted that Burlingame every time--one eye, twoeyes all black, teeth out, nose flattened--called him an 'outrageouslawyer'--my, that last clip was a good one! You bet he's a sport--Crozier. "

Kitty nodded eagerly while still wiping her red eyes. "He made the judgesmile--I saw it, not ten minutes before his honour put on the black cap. You couldn't have believed it, if you hadn't seen it--

"Here, let go my hand, " she added, suddenly conscious of the enormityJohn Sibley was committing by squeezing it now. 

It is perfectly true that she did not quite realise that he had takenher hand--that he had taken her hand. She was conscious in a nice, sympathetic way that her hand had been taken, but it was lost in theabstraction of her emotion. 

"Oh, here, let it go quick!" she added--"and not because mother'scoming, either, " she added as the door opened and her mother came out--not to spy, not to reproach her daughter for sitting with a man in themoonlight at ten o'clock at night, but--good, practical soul--to bringthem each a cup of beef-tea. 

"Here, you two, " she said as she hurried to them. "You need somethingafter that business in there, and there isn't time to get supper ready. It's as good for you as supper, anyway. I don't believe in underfeeding. Nothing's too good to swallow. "

She watched them sip the tea slowly like two schoolchildren. 

"And when you've drunk it you must go right to bed, Kitty, " she addedpresently. "You've had your own way, and you saw the thing through; butthere's always a reaction, and you'll pay for it. It wasn't fit work fora girl of your age; but I'm proud of your nerve, and I'm glad you showedthe Young Doctor what you can do. You've got your father's brains and mygrit, " she added with a sigh of satisfaction. "Come along--bed now, Kitty. If you get too tired you'll have bad dreams. "

Perhaps she was too tired. In any case she had dreams. Just as thegreat surgeon performed his operation over and over in his sleep, soKitty Tynan, through long hours that night, and for many nightsafterwards, saw the swift knives, helped to staunch the blood, held thebasin, disinfected the instruments which had made an attack on the manof men in her eyes, and saw the wound stitched up--the last act of thebusiness before the Young Doctor turned to her and said, "You'll dowherever you're put in life, Miss Kitty Tynan. You're a great girl. And now get some fresh air and forget all about it. "

Forget all about it! So, the Young Doctor knew what happened after aterrific experience like that! In truth, he knew only too well. Greatsurgeons do surgery only and have innumerable operations to give themskill; but a country physician and surgeon must be a sane being to keephis nerve when called on to use the knife, and he must have a more thanusual gift for such business. That is what the Young Doctor had; but heknew it was not easy to forget those scenes in which man carved the bodyof fellow-man, laying bare the very vitals of existence, seeing "thewheels go round. "

It haunted Kitty Tynan in the night-time, and perhaps it was that whichtoned down a little the colour of her face--the kind of difference ofcolouring there is between natural gold and 14-carat. But in the daytimeshe was quite happy, and though there was haunting, it was Shiel Crozierwho, first helpless, then convalescent, was haunted by her presence. Itgave him pleasure, but it was a pleasure which brought pain. He was notso blind that he had not caught at her romance, in which he was thecentral figure--a romance which had not vanished since the day hedeclared in the court-room that he was married, or had been married. Kitty's eyes told their own story, and it made him uneasy and remorseful. Yet he could not remember when, even for an instant, he had played withher. She had always seemed part of a simple family life for which he andJesse Bulrush and her mother and the nurse-Nurse Egan-were responsible. What a blessing Nurse Egan had been! Otherwise, all the nursing wouldhave been performed by Kitty and her mother, and it might well havebroken them down, for they were determined to nurse him themselves. 

When, however, Nurse Egan came back, two days after the operation wasperformed, they included her in the responsibility, as one of the family;and as she had no other important case on at the time, fortunately shecould give Crozier almost undivided attention. She had been at firstdisposed to keep Kitty out of the sick-chamber, as no place for a girl, but she soon abandoned that position, for Kitty was not the girl ever tothink of impropriety. She was primitive and she had rather a before-the-flood nature, but she had not the faintest vulgar strain in her. Hermind was essentially pure; nothing material in her had been awakened. Her greatest joy was to do the many things for the patient which a nursemust do--prepare his food, give him drink, adjust his pillows, bathe hisface and hands, take his temperature; and on his part he tried hard todisguise from her the apprehension he felt, and to avoid any hint by wordor look that he saw anything save the actions of a kind heart. True, herviews as to what was proper and improper might possibly be on a differentplane from his own. For instance, he had seen girls of her station inthe West kiss young men freely--men whom they had no thought of marrying;and that was not the custom of his own class in his home-country. 

As he got well slowly, and life opened out before him again, he felt hehad to pursue a new course, and in that course he must take account ofKitty Tynan, though he could not decide how. He had a deep confidence inthe Young Doctor, in his judgment and his character; and it was almostinevitable that he should tell his life-story to the man whose skill hadsaved him from death in a strange land, with all undone he wanted to doere he returned to a land which was not strange. 

The thing happened, as such things do happen, in a quite natural way oneday when he and the Young Doctor were discussing the probable verdictagainst the man who had shot him--the trial was to come on soon, and onceagain Augustus Burlingame was to be counsel for the defence, and onceagain Crozier would have to appear in a witness-box. 

"I think you ought to know, Crozier, that, in view of the trial, Burlingame has written to a firm of lawyers in Kerry to get fullinformation about your past, " the Young Doctor said. 

Crozier gave one of those little jerks of the head characteristic ofhim and said: "Why, of course; I knew he would do that after I gave myevidence in the Logan Trial. " He raised himself on his elbow. "I oweyou a great deal, " he added feelingly, "and I can't repay you in cash orkindness for what you have done; but it is due you to tell you my wholestory, and that is what I propose to do now. "

"If you think--"

"I do think; and also I want both Mrs. Tynan and her daughter to hear mystory. Better, truer friends a man could not have; and I want them toknow the worst and the best there is, if there is any best. They and youhave trusted me, been too good to me, and what I said at the trial is notenough. I want to do what I've never done before. I want to telleverything. It will do me good; and perhaps as I tell it I'll see myselfand everything else in a truer light than I've yet seen it all. "

"You are sure you want Mrs. Tynan and her daughter to hear?"

"Absolutely sure. "

"They are not in your rank in life, you know. "

"They are my friends, and I owe them more than I can say. There isnothing they cannot or should not hear. I can say that at least. "

"Shall I ask them to come?"

"Yes. Give me a swig of water first. It won't be easy, but--"

He held out his hand, and the Young Doctor grasped it. 

Suddenly the latter said: "You are sure you will not be sorry? That itis not a mood of the moment due to physical weakness?"

"Quite sure. I determined on it the day I was shot--and before I wasshot. "

"All right. " The Young Doctor disappeared. 

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Anny man as is a man has to have one viceHer moral standard had not a multitude of delicate punctiliosLaw's delays outlasted even the memory of the crime committedShe looked too gay to be goodThey had seen the world through the bottom of a tumbler