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"THE LADY EROM ALABAMA”
"Sy Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne, Authors of "Psyche”,"Limit of the Line”, "Plission Girl”, Etc.
XXII.
INCE it had been decreed, by the Board
of Mill Directors, that Schiller was not
to return immediately to her work, she
was glad to accept the cordially empha
sized invitation of her host and hostess
to finish the week at “Solitude,” espe
cially as June Churchill was also so re
main for that length of time.
She knew that she was holding in abey-
S
ance, in consequence, some things that she would be
obliged to face later on, in order to put them on a
basis that would accord better with her ideas of the
principles of righteousness. Among those things was
her unpaid bill at the Sanatorium, and her some
what strained relations with the only surviving mem
bers of her father’s family. She had written to her
Aunt Alma Morris occasionally, but she had never
been able to summon up sufficient courage to call at
the cottage in Hampton place, since her dramatic
expulsion. But, all the same, she could not escape
from the conviction that Burwood Morris had two •
selves, and that both were emphasized in away
which seemed to eclipse both the virtues and the
vices of the average man.
In his best moods Burwood had been more than
lovable; he was indeed generous and kind to a
fault, sometimes, to the inmates of his home. His
college training, his stored up culture of the years,
when her father had been his friend and companion,
had not been without effect. For, on those rare
evenings when his higher nature held sway, she
remembered the brilliant charm of his conversations,
in the plain little sitting room at Hampton place,
with a thrill of pride in the marvelous range of his
gifts. For not even Von Bulow Churchill or Carrol
Hall could eclipse him, intellectually, when he cared
to make the necessary effort to shine. His indul
gence in the liquor habit and his consequent defeat
in business had, to judge from her aunt’s last letter,
overwhelmed him, but she believed in her heart ol
hearts that he could be saved —yet.
And, while before her auto accident she had been
content to forgive and pray for him, since then her
compassion had perhaps naturally taken on a di
viner phase. For after all he was really the only one
who had ever filled a brother’s place in her life, and
in the old college days in Alabama, in her father’s
house, he had not only been considerate, but loyal
to her interests. That she had any part in the
redemption of her cousin after she left the cottage
at Hampton Place, except a passive one, had never
occurred to Schiller until the leisure had been granted
her to think it out, as she lay weak and helpless on
•the little white iron bed in the corner room at the
Sanatorium.
But suffering had given her a new point of view.
And if she had really never forgiven Burwood
Morris before, she learned how, during the dark
crises of her own illness, not only to forgive him,
but to think of him with something of the old-time
tenderness and affection.
Schiller was looking over her spiritual assets this
morning, as it were, and-mapping out away to
escape with them to the high lands of a clear con
science. She was apparently taking the matter under
consideration normally, though, as she sat in a big
red swing on the lawn at “Solitude,” which was
placed near the Temple of the Winds. She wore a
blue and white muslin gown of dainty attractiveness
that made her look in harmony with the loveliness
of her surroundings; but she was surprised into a
nervous start when a masculine voice broke sud
denly into her meditations.
“Miss Wilkins,” Carrol Hall declared, as he came
around a corner of the Wind Temple, “I was tempted
to believe that the Ghost of Solitude had conde
scended to descend and materialize in the daytime,
when I first caught sight of you—you looked so
ethereal.
“Own up,” he continued, as he placed his hand on
one of the red upright posts of the wooden swing
and looked down on her admiringly, “you arranged
this artistic tableau with malice aforethought?”
“I did nothing of the kind,” Schiller replied, as he
The Golden Age for June 16, 1910.
rocked her gently to and fro. “How could I, when I
supposed that you and Mr. Churchill had gone to
the city?”
“Von Bulow has,” he said, as he sat down in one
end of the long seat of the red swing. “He acknowl
edges sometimes the claims of business, which J
have the hardihood to successfully ignore. It is
delightful, you know,” he added, with an incisive
glance at the thoughtful face of his companion, “to
be an idler, when you understand how to appropriate
the goods that the high gods provide with which to
fill up the measure of the days.”
“Is such an appropriation the best that you are
capable of, Mr. Hall?” Schiller inquired, as she lifted
her eyes serenely to meet the young mill owner’s
glance.
“Why not, on such a perfect day as this, Miss
Wilkins?” he answered lightly.
After a time he stretched out his arm on the back
of the seat and asked, in a tone of veiled interest:
“Haven’t you any curiosity about the place I wish
to consign you to, after you shall have given up your
position as assistant bookkeeper in the cotton mills?”
“Why, certainly I have, Mr. Hall; hut since you
told me not to worry over the matter I have been
doing my best to obey you literally.”
Carrol Hall’s face became suddenly illuminated.
His tone was half tender as he leaned toward her
and affirmed;
“But you have found it difficult?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Then suppose I cut the Gordian knot and end
your suspense now, and with it my own. I have
never supposed,” he resumed, with a quick move
ment of his handsome blond head, as if he were
getting rid of a mental weight of some sort, “that I
was the possessor of a very vivid imagination, until
I began to plan, Miss Wilkins, about changing your
occupation. But, to my own surprise, since then 1
have been haunted by visions innumerable of you
in your new position.”
“I believe I can guess what it is,” Schiller haz
arded.
“Try it, by all means,” Carrol importuned, with
amused emphasis.
“You are going to use your influence to secure me
a place as an assistant in the city library?”
“No, on my honor,” he replied, dropping all banter
from his voice as he took her hand; “I never once
thought of it. The placb I want you to fill might be
considered, by some, as a very desirable situation.
But I happen to know that you are the only one,” he
added, in a voice grown rich with restrained feeling,
“who will please the fastidious requirements of the
president of the corporation.”
“I do not understand you,” Schiller pleaded, as she
attempted unavailingly to withdraw her hand from
his strong clasp.
“Yes, you do, Schiller,” he returned quietly. “You
know that I am asking you to be my wife.”
“Impossible!”
“What is?”
“That you should ask mei”
“No,” he said with an indulgent smile, “I have
already achieved that desirable result. But, you
meant, perhaps, something else?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Schiller tnrew back her head and looked at him
and, in the illimitable splendor of her dark gray
eyes, he thought he read the desire of his heart.
But before he had time to more than grasp the
glorious message Schiller said very quietly, in a
voice as sweet as it was low and decisive:
“Why, by your own confession, Mr. Hall, I am
debarred from accepting the position which you
have honored me by asking me to fill.”
“You mean, perhaps, that I am an idler?” he re
torted quickly.
“Oh, Carrol, forgive me! ' Schiller cried, using his
name in this intimate way to soften the blow, “but
isn’t it true?”
“Absolutely. But all the same, you will not deny
that you care for me?”
And then, as her silence seemed to confirm the
message he had read in her eyes a moment before,
he asked very humbly, “Then, what do yo upurpose
for me to do?”
“Prove your manhood,” she answered gently, just
as June Churchill and her sister came down the
marble steps of the old porch toward the big red
swing.
“How long is my probation to last?” Carrol in
quired, measuring the distance between the approach
ing white figures and the swing with scientific
accuracy.
“How can I tell?”‘Schiller said, with a soft little
sigh. “It may be for years, and I may have slipped
out of'your life entirely. But what does that mat
ter?” she added, with a triumphant inflexion in her'
voice, “so that your manhood is proved and assured
on victorious lines.”
“Apparently it would not matter in the least to
you/’ he said bitterly, just as the young ladies came
within hearing distance.
Schiller looked at him appealingly and. angry as
he was, he took in the full charm of her, the high
bred face, with the shadow of a shocked reproach
across its fairness, as well as the girlish grace of
the figure in the soft muslin dress, so clearly out
lined in the red-barred swing. But, for all that, he
left her without another word, and meeting the sis
ters, he talked with them gaily a few moments and
then disappeared into the house.
“The mill prince is going away,” Rose called out,
as she came by the swing on her way with June to
a favorite resort near the sun dial.
But Schiller did not reply. She only made a little
despairing gesture which nobody saw but the rain
bow-necked pigeon perched on a corner of the Wind
Temple, who cooed mournfully as if in sympathy.
iji h’ 'i*
Burwood Morris watched the great evening star,
Arcturus, burn its way to the purple zenith. He
stood before the heavy iron gates of “Solitude.” The
Southern sky was sown thick with the milky dust
of stars, but only the Great Bear, low down on the
pansy-black horizon, kept watch to the north, while
in the northwest was cenotaphed faintly the phantom
of a comet. The stars of the Little Lion were in
visible.
Presently his eyes left their star-gazing, and he
became conscious of the iron gates, the heavy brick
supporting pillars and the globed entrance lights
that burned in white, pearl blurs before him.
The gates were ajar.
He flicked the ashes from his cigar, entered and
strolled carelessly down the winding avenue. On
the last night of a man’s life he can afford to be as
nonchalant as Prince Rimanez. To his left a black
bulk grew into shape, and he caught the yellow glint
of a new bronze urn, as the light of a star trailed
across it. The scent of roses struck him with sub
tle, occult fragrance. He touched the bronze urn
curiously with his night stick. It gave forth a boom
ing sound. He bent over it, wondering. It puzzled
him. This was out of the natural order of things.
It was filled with a tangled mass of red roses. The
roses should have been planted in the orthodox way,
in black earth, but here they were loose, lying in
crushed masses of fragrance.
“Gad! how sweet,” he said, drinking in the Arabic
fragrance.
But why were they here? He tried to reason it
out. Some one had been gathering roses in this
sultan-like garden, and had been called away hur
riedly. This train of thought did not appeal to him.
Someone, just before sunset, he would imagine, had
been clipping roses in this rich place of profusion,
and, carried away by the soft, seductive beauty of
the scene, had laid them down —to dream.
Ah! that was better. It. suited his fancy.
If that SOMEONE was Rose Churchill, of what
had she been dreaming? He swung his night stick
thoughtfully and examined the crimson end of his
cigar meditatively. He would be the complete
romanticist tonight. Tomorrow?
“Tomorrow! —why, tomorrow I may be
Myself with yesterday’s sev’n thousand years.”
(Continued on Page Fourteen.)
