The Capelles were Louisianians, of French descent, and before the war lived in New Orleans, occasionally visiting their plantations on Red River. But Anthony Capelle was killed in the battle of Vicksburg, and after the surrender Mrs. Anthony Capelle sold the Red River plantations for about half their value, placed her New Orleans property in the hands of a lawyer, gathered up some of her household stuffs, books, and other things she prized, and with her little daughter Madeline, and one old negro who had spent his life in the service of the Capelles, removed to Marietta, Georgia. Those were days of change and great confusion, and she disappeared from New Orleans and the knowledge of old friends without calling forth comment or question, and she was received into the social life of Marietta in the same way. It was not the time to sit in judgment on one's neighbors—to probe for secret motives or purposes. A common woe made all akin. From a merchant and planter who wished to sell out and go west to recuperate his broken fortunes, Agnese Capelle bought a house and lot on the northeast side of the town, and with her small family settled quietly down. It was a picturesque old house, built after the colonial fashion, and set back from the street in the seclusion of an oak grove. In the early spring the graveled walks were bordered with jonquils and mountain pink, and from April to December the roses bloomed along the garden fence and around the piazza.

The tumult following the war died away. People ceased to go about with a helpless, bewildered look as they learned to adjust themselves to the new conditions of life, and realized that the negro could no longer be regarded as a slave, but as a free citizen, with all the rights and privileges of citizenship. The laws of the country made white and black equal, but there was some bitter triumph in the consciousness that unwritten social laws would hold them forever apart, two distinct races, one degraded by color and past servitude. On the surface of life the agitations and thrills of the strong undercurrents ceased to make much impression; they had sunk too deep. The country at large settled to outward peace, and from politics and social questions attention turned to commerce and manufacture, to the development of rich mineral resources, and to literature. But the years passed quietly enough over the Capelles. They were so strongly fixed in their pride and prejudices against social equality that they pursued their own gentle, even way, untouched by the convulsions and throes of fierce indignation around them. Their servants were treated with kindness and consideration, and when the old man who had clung to them with unbroken faith through slavery and freedom died, they wept over him, and felt that a noble friend had been lost, though also a negro and a servant. And Madeline developed into womanhood, beginning her education at her mother's knee, and finishing it at a college in Virginia.

She was gifted above the average girl in wit and beauty, and possessed not only fascinating, lovely manners, but the tenderest heart and the finest sympathies. She was a girl of ardent temperament, but refined and delicate in all her tastes, and pure in thought and aspiration. She had strong convictions and opinions of her own, read and reflected more than the ordinary Southern girl, and loved music passionately. The simplest strain could make her eyes kindle, her color come and go, in a sort of silent rapture, and the pathos of a negro song moved her heart deeply. In person she was slightly above medium height, and held her head with an imperial grace not at all unsuitable to her youth and her French ancestry. Her hair was burnished brown, with a crisp wave in it, her eyes blue-gray and brilliant. But she lacked the clear, thin, transparent skin usually accompanying such hair and eyes, the blood pulsing through it pink as a rose. Hers was soft as velvet, with an opaque creamy tint, and the faintest suggestion of color, ordinarily. She had scores of friends, and in her own small family circle was looked upon as the most beautiful and lovable girl in the world. In Agnese Capelle's love for this fair daughter there was a passionate protective tenderness, a subtle quality one would have called pity, had not such a thing seemed absurd in connection with Madeline. While not betraying any undue anxiety over her marriage and settlement in life, she studied each suitor that appeared on the scene, and if eligible, gave him a gracious welcome. But Madeline's heart remained in her own possession until she met Roger Everett.

Marietta was just attracting the attention of the Northern invalid and also the Northern capitalist. A few delicate, weak-lunged people had found their way to it, and a company of enterprising men had projected a railroad to pass through the north Georgia mountains, across the Blue Ridge, and into North Carolina and Tennessee. Along the line of this road marble quarries were being opened and gold and talc mines discovered; but Marietta still preserved its provincial ways and appearances, its best houses the old colonial mansions, its churches overgrown with ivy, Cherokee-rose hedges bounding the pastures and gardens on the outskirts of the town, and inclosing the neglected-looking graveyard. Its picturesque hills were overshadowed by Kennesaw Mountain, with the solitary peak of Lost Mountain rising far to the south, and the dim, broken outline of the Blue Ridge range bounding the northern horizon. The hills and the mountains are still there, but the town has caught the spirit of progress sweeping with electrical effect over the South. Handsome modern residences are springing up, hotels and boarding-houses are being opened, and on the northeast side of the town a beautiful national cemetery has been laid out, where the union soldiers who fell in the battles around Atlanta lie buried. The public square is still the scene of lively traffic in the fall, when the streets are crowded with wagons heavily loaded with cotton, the farmers, white and black, standing around, clothed in jeans and homespun, while the buyers go about thrusting sampling-hooks into the great bales to test the quality of the cotton and to determine its market value. But these brown, tobacco-chewing countrymen jostle the New Yorker, the Bostonian, and, indeed, people from all parts of the union, seeking health and fortune.

Roger Everett was one of the first New England men to find his way to Marietta, and to invest in the Pickens County Marble Works. He belonged to the Everetts of Massachusetts, a family of strong abolitionists, and possessed his share of the traditional New England reserve and the deeply rooted New England pride. For a year or two he devoted himself almost exclusively to business, making only occasional visits to Marietta; but his circle of acquaintances widened, and, being young and handsome and cultivated, he was at last drawn into the social life of the town, and few parties or picnics were complete without him. He and Madeline met at one of the picnics, danced together once at one of the parties, but their acquaintance really began the day a large party went up the new railroad to the marble works. It fell to Everett to play the part of cicerone, and though Madeline shrieked less and asked fewer questions than the other girls, there was an intelligent comprehension in her eyes when he explained the process of getting out the marble from the quarries, and the machinery used for cutting it into blocks, that made him feel that he was talking directly to her. They lunched on the bank of Long Swamp Creek, with the purple shadows of the mountains falling over them, and mountain laurel in bloom all about them. Then Madeline and the young Northerner strolled away down the stream to look for maidenhair ferns. They talked at first on general topics, and then the girl asked some questions about the North, drawing in her breath with little quivering sighs as he told her of frozen rivers, of snows so deep one could scarcely walk through them, of sleighing and skating.

"And—and is it true what they say about the negroes?" she questioned hesitatingly, curious to hear with her own ears the opinion of one of these rabid abolitionists—at least she had read in the papers that they were rabid.

He smiled, broke off a bit of laurel, pink and fragrant, and offered it to her.

"What do they say, Miss Capelle?"

"That they are equal—that we should recognize them. Oh, I hardly know how to explain it," breaking off with a little laugh, not caring to tread too boldly on delicate ground for fear he should feel wounded.

"We respect them where they deserve it, just as we do all men," he said calmly.

"Regardless of color?"

"Yes. What has the color of a man's skin to do with the question of his worth?"

"Everything, if he is a negro. Could you—I beg your pardon for asking the question—sit at the table with a negro? actually break bread with him as your equal?"

"If he were a gentleman, yes," firmly, his blue eyes meeting hers fearlessly.

"Oh, oh! how could you? I cannot understand it. I am fond of some negroes. I loved Uncle Sam, I like Aunt Dilsey, and I'm sorry for them as a race, but meet them on common ground I could not." And then they drifted away from the dangerous topic.

He walked with her and her mother to the train that evening, and Mrs. Capelle invited him warmly and graciously to call upon them when he came to Marietta again.

"He is interesting," she said to Madeline, with a backward glance through the car window at his tall, slight figure as the train swept them away from the station.

"Do you think so, chérie mama?" indifferently, her eyes looking down upon her lap.

"He is handsome and well-bred."

"Oh, he is a Yankee," maliciously.

"He is a gentleman."

And then they looked at each other and laughed gently, and Madeline held up a little paper-weight of pale pink marble, veined with threads of white, that he had selected and ordered polished for her as a souvenir of the day.

From that day it was a clear case of strong mutual attraction. What though they had been differently trained, and their opinions clashed on some points? They came out of wordy controversies firmer friends than ever. There was never-ending interest in their combats, and the lightest jest or banter held a fascination keen as the brightest wit. He called Madeline a narrow-minded, illiberal provincial, for holding such fierce prejudices against the colored people, and she retorted that the negro had become a sentiment to the North, and that if they, the Yankees, would give some of their attention and pity to the poor white people crowding their large cities, the South would solve its own great problem. Sometimes they parted in anger; but it was short-lived, for love drew them with irresistible force, and if they disagreed on a few questions, how many hopes, thoughts, and desires they had in common! what taste and sympathy!

Mrs. Capelle looked on, sighed, and smiled, but waited in silence for Madeline's confidence. And one evening she came in, knelt at her mother's feet, put her arms around her, and pressed her flushed, tremulous, radiant face against her bosom. Mrs. Capelle flushed and trembled herself, and gathered that proud young head closer to her heart.

"You have promised to marry him," she said in a whisper.

"He asked me again this evening. I could not put him off," Madeline confessed, also in a whisper.

"Coquette! Did you want to put him off?"

"N—no."

"Oh, oh! he is a Yankee."

"I love him."

"He may take you away to his hard, his cold New England."

"We are to live here with you."

"Without consulting me? Fie! what aggressive children!"

"You are glad, mama. Why are you so glad I'm to be married?"

"I am longing to see you safe, my darling," dropping her teasing tone, and speaking with sudden agitation.

"Am I not safe with you?" lifting her head, and looking tenderly into the delicate face above her.

"But I am not strong, sweet, and I may be called suddenly from you some day, and it is not good for girls to be alone. It will be comforting to leave you in such hands. He is noble, he is good, and will love you faithfully. Ah, Madeline, he is strong and firm; he will rule my wilful girl."

"I should not love him if I could rule him," said Madeline, proudly.

Mrs. Capelle laughed and kissed her. "Tell me all about it," she said softly. They talked until the hand of the clock pointed to twelve, and only the barking of a dog or two pierced the silence resting upon the town.

"We have no secrets—no secrets from each other, have we, mama?" said Madeline with a happy laugh.

"No secrets, sweet? No, no; there should be no secrets between mother and child," said the elder woman; but her eyes fell; a paleness swept over her face. It was a swift, subtle change, unnoticed by the girl in the delicious absorption of her thoughts.

That was a winter to live in the memory of those lovers as long as they lived. Every one of the swiftly flying days seemed to have its own special joy, its own sweet experiences. When apart, there were long letters written out of the fullness of their hearts; when together, long talks, or delicious silences in which it seemed enough that they could be together.

And there were letters from his New England home to her, one from his mother, as sweet and gentle as her own mother could have written.

"She must be lovely, Roger," she said to him.

"She is," he replied with proud loyalty. "I am longing for you to see her."

"I shrink from it, for if she should not be pleased with me—"

"She must; she cannot help it, dearest. Ah! you know that you'll charm her," putting his hand under her chin, and turning her face upward to his eyes, its palpitant color, proud, shy eyes, and lovely tremulousness, a tacit confession of his power.

Before she could elude him—for with all her caressing ways and Southern temperament, lending itself so naturally to demonstrativeness, she was very chary of her favors—he drew her into his arms against his heart, and kissed her.

Mrs. Capelle spent those winter days sewing on fine linen, cambric, sheer muslin, and lace, stitching many loving thoughts into the dainty garments intended for Madeline's wardrobe. Imperceptibly, as it were, she had grown very fragile, and the least excitement caused her to palpitate and tremble, with flushed face and hand pressed upon her heart.

She had been a devout Catholic in her youth, and though removed from her church, she still occasionally attended mass in Atlanta, and went to confession. But as the winter passed, her thoughts turned longingly to Father Vincent, her old father confessor, and one day in the early spring she received a letter from him. He would in a short time pass through Marietta on his way to the North. Could he stop for a day with them? It seemed such a direct answer to her secret desire for his counsel that she joyfully hastened to reply, telling him how she needed his advice and his blessing.

She had rejoiced over Madeline's engagement, but as the time set for her marriage drew near, some secret trouble seemed to wear upon her, much to the girl's distress.

"What is it, mama?" she asked, sitting at her feet, and taking her hand and laying it against her cheek.

"What can it be but the loss of you, sweet?" she replied quickly. "You must allow me to be jealous and foolish."

"But you are not going to lose me, dearest mama, and are you sure—I have fancied there must be something else troubling you."

"Indeed you must not think so; I am selfish to—"

"Selfish! You, the best and sweetest woman in the world, selfish! I'll not believe that." Still she did not feel satisfied, and was greatly relieved when Father Vincent came, and she saw her mother brighten and look like her old self. It was about two weeks before the wedding that he came, and was persuaded to stop with them two days instead of one. He was an old man, small, slender, and ascetic looking, with clear, calm eyes, and a sweet voice.

It was the afternoon of his arrival that Madeline went out to make some calls, but after one visit changed her mind, and returned home. She did not at once go to her mother, knowing that she and Father Vincent would probably have much to say to each other, but turned into the parlor, cool, dusky, and deserted, and went to the little alcove, where she had left her embroidery and the last letter from her lover. It was simply a corner of the big room, furnished with a lounge and a small table, and shut in by soft silk curtains. How long she had been there, re-reading that letter, dreaming over her work, she could not tell, when roused by footsteps and voices in the room—her mother and the priest.

"You hinted at some special cause for trouble in your letter," he said, as they sat down in close proximity to those curtains and Madeline's retreat.

"Yes; it concerns Madeline."

"What of her? I thought her future had been settled. Is she not to be married in a short time?"

"Yes; but, Father, she is not my child, and I am growing doubtful of the honor of my course in regard to this marriage."

"Not your child!" exclaimed Father Vincent in surprise, for he thought that he knew all the Capelle secrets.

"No. I would to God that she were!" she said with deep emotion, "for I love her so well that I'd gladly give my life to know that pure, unmixed blood flowed in her veins."

His chair creaked as he drew it a little nearer her; his voice sank to a low key:

"You do not mean—"

"Yes; her mother was a quadroon," in a trembling whisper.

Did he hear that strange gasping sigh, as of a dumb creature struck by a mortal blow, that he so quickly and abruptly exclaimed:

"Where is she now?"

"Out calling. I did not dare speak of this while she was in the house, for fear the very walls would betray the secret. She must never know it, never! It would ruin her life, kill her, my poor, proud child!"

Her voice broke in tears.

"Tell me the whole story," said the priest gently, but with authority.

"Yes, yes; that is what I am longing to do. The secret has become a burden to me: I want to be assured that I have acted rightly about her marriage. You remember my husband's brother, Lawrence Capelle?"

"Well, very well; a handsome young fellow, but rather wild."

"And lovable with it all. He died while my husband and I were in France—we were there three years—and before his death he wrote to Anthony, begging him to look after the welfare of a child, a baby, and giving the history of his attachment to a beautiful quadroon in New Orleans. Her mother had been a slave, but this girl had been born free, received a very good education, and grew up superior to her class. She had loved him with rare faith and tenderness, and died at the birth of the child."

"They were not married, of course?"

"Married? Oh, no; but he had really been quite fond of her, and he dwelt at length upon the beauty and intelligence of the child. We came home very quietly, and before going to our own house, or betraying our presence to even intimate friends, we sought her out, and the moment I took her in my arms, looked into her eyes—Lawrence's own beautiful gray eyes, smiling with innocent fearlessness straight into my own—my heart went out to her in such a gush of love, pity, tenderness, I did not feel that I could ever be parted from her. Father, she was the loveliest, most lovable child I ever saw. We adopted her, we made her our very own, and no one knew that she had not really been born to us abroad. Not even to you, Father, did we confess the truth. The war came then, and Anthony died at Vicksburg; but I could not feel utterly alone, utterly bereft, while I had Madeline. I made plans for her; I said that she should never know that she was not truly my own child. Her training, her education, became the absorbing interest of my life. After the close of the war I thought it best for her sake to leave New Orleans, to seek a new and more obscure home, away from old friends, old ties. If we remained there she might in some way learn the truth. We came here, you and my lawyer alone knowing where to find us. I have brought her up most carefully. She is refined, beautiful, accomplished, and innocent as a young girl should be, but you can see for yourself what she is. I instilled the strongest race prejudices into her mind. I impressed it upon her that the negro is an inferior creature, a servant of servants, to be treated with kindness, but never to be considered an equal; for a morbid fear that her mother's blood would betray itself in some coarse or degraded taste, haunted me. But I am no longer afraid for her. Have I acted with wisdom? Have I done well to lift her up?"

"Assuredly; only"—he reflected a moment—"only your extreme course in regard to color prejudice would make the truth a hundredfold harder to bear should she discover it."

"But she shall not discover it. In two weeks she will be married to this young Northerner, her life merged into his, her very name lost. Is it right, is it cheating him?"

"If you cannot tell her, then you must not tell him, for it would only be to raise a barrier of secrecy between them."

"Tell me there is no dishonesty, no sin in it, and my heart will be at rest."

"According to my understanding, Agnese Capelle, there is none, but the highest human understanding is at best but poor authority. You have rescued this child from the common fate of her class, elevated her, thrown around her love, protection, the honor of a good name. You save her from the consequences of her father's sin. Be contented with your work. For marriage will be the crowning of it, and if she is noble, neither origin nor birth can make her less precious to her husband. I only wish there were more women like you in this country."

She drew a long breath of relief, but humbly said:

"Do not credit me with being a humanitarian. It was simply for love of her I did it all, and lately I have craved your blessing on it, Father Vincent, for I have developed the heart-disease hereditary in my family, and look any hour to be called hence."

A little longer they talked, and then went away, Mrs. Capelle to seek some repose after the excitement of the interview, and the priest to stroll about the grounds in prayer or meditation.

When the last sound of their footsteps and voices died away, the curtains were drawn aside, and Madeline came out of her retreat. She looked wan and ghastly, and groped her way across the room and up to her own apartment as though stricken with sudden blindness.

She closed and locked the door, then flung herself prone upon the floor. She felt like writhing and screaming aloud instead of lying there like a senseless log, only her tongue seemed paralyzed, her body numbed. And yet she could think—think with burning, agonizing intensity. Could it be true, or only a hideous nightmare out of which she would presently wake? Her mother a quadroon, her grandmother a slave! She wondered that the very thought of it did not kill her. Her name, her pride, everything that she had cherished, had been torn from her, and she—she had been hurled down into a black abyss where she must grovel and suffer until death set her free. Strange visions seemed to come before her out of the remote past—visions of African jungles, of black, half-naked savages borne across the seas to be bought and sold, to pine and fret in bondage, longing for the freedom which never came to them.

They were her ancestors; their blood, degraded by generations of slavery, flowed in her veins. Her education, her refinement, her prejudices would only be instruments of torture now, with that secret consciousness of shame and degradation underlying them. It was as cruel, as complete, as if it had been planned with Machiavellian art to this ending; and through the confused misery of her thoughts ran a sensation of pity for her mother, that she had so unconsciously spoiled her work. Presently the stunned feeling passed, and she rose to her feet again, and walked about the room. On the bed and chairs were strewed the pretty things belonging to her wedding outfit. Half unconsciously she folded and put them away. She would not need them now. Once she went to the mirror, and, leaning close to it, looked at herself, seeking for traces of that race she had been taught to regard as the lowest on earth. Did that soft fullness of lip, that crisp wave in her hair, that velvety, opaque skin come from her mother? A momentary savage rage thrilled her. She struck the glass so fierce a blow with her closed hand that it cracked from bottom to top. Then her eyes fell on her lover's picture, placed in an open velvet frame, and she paled and shuddered. She did not touch it, though a hundred times it had been pressed to heart and lip, but gazed at it with that intense parting look we give the dead before they are hidden forever from us; then she leaned over the bureau, her head bowed upon her folded arms.

The afternoon passed; twilight crept into the room. Faint sounds of life came up from the lower part of the house; the tea-bell rang; at last some one came slowly, heavily up the stairs, shuffled across the hall, and knocked on her door.

"Miss Mad'line, Miss Mad'line." She opened the door, and found Aunt Dilsey standing there, a big, coffee-colored mulatto woman, panting from the exertion of mounting the stairs, the wrinkles in her fat neck filled with little streams of perspiration. "Miss Agnese an' de priest man air waitin' fo' yo' to come down to supper, honey, an' Miss Agnese say hurry, de cakes gwine git cold," she said in a full rich voice; but Madeline only caught her by the shoulder, and stared at her thick brown skin, her coarse crinkled hair, her protruding lips, and broad figure. So her grandmother might have looked. "Fo' mercy's sake, honey, what's de matter? Air yo' sick?" cried Aunt Dilsey in a frightened, anxious tone; but the girl only turned from her, and fell upon the bed with a moan of despair.

She heard the old negress hurrying downstairs, and then her mother's light swift steps, and tried to compose herself.

"My darling, what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Capelle, bending tenderly, anxiously over her.

"It is only a—a—headache," said Madeline, glad that the twilight hid her face from those loving, searching eyes.

"Are you sure? Dilsey frightened me so."

"Dilsey is a foolish old creature."

Mrs. Capelle felt of her hands, her face.

"You are feverish. You were in the hot sun too much this afternoon."

"Yes; that was it—the sun. Don't be anxious, mama. It is nothing. Go back to Father Vincent, and I'll sleep, and be well to-morrow."

"But I do not like to leave you."

"You must, chérie. Remember your guest."

"Yes, yes; so I must. I will come up again presently."

She stooped to arrange a pillow, and to kiss her, and Madeline raised herself up, threw her arms around her.

"My own good, sweet mama, my dear, lovely one!" she murmured. "You do everything for my comfort and happiness. You would not hurt me for the world, would you?"

"Hurt you, sweet?"

"I know you would not. I—I like to tease you a little. Kiss me good-night, and go. Poor mama!" she murmured under her breath, as they held each other, in a love no bond of flesh and blood could have made stronger.

"How can I tell her that I know! How can I!" Madeline moaned when left again alone.

But she did not have that cruel task, for sometime during that night, while she turned wakefully on her bed, or paced softly about the room, Agnese Capelle received the summons she had been so long expecting. Next morning only her fragile body lay between the white sheets of her bed, the life, the spirit gone.

Madeline was strangely calm through all the excitement and confusion following, and went herself to select a sunny open spot in the neglected little cemetery for her mother's grave.

"She loved sunshine," she said to Everett and Father Vincent, "and she wished to be buried here."

She preserved the same stony quiet through the funeral and burial, and friends commented and wondered, and Roger watched her anxiously. He felt an indefinable change in her, but attributed it to the shock of her mother's sudden death. Father Vincent studied him with keen eyes, but could find no fault. He was a manly man, and a tender, considerate lover.

It was the third evening after her mother's burial that Madeline called Father Vincent into the little study adjoining the parlor. The New Orleans lawyer had come up, held a private interview with her, and had gone away again, and she had sent off her wedding trousseau to a young girl in a distant town, and certain things belonging to her mother she had carefully collected and put together. So much Aunt Dilsey, the priest, and a kind old lady who proposed to stay with her a few days knew; but she offered no explanation, and gave no clue to her plans for the future.

"She acts for all the world like she didn't expect to get married, herself," the old lady confided to a friend or two. "I can't understand what she intends to do."

Father Vincent felt some curiosity too, and went into the little room rather eagerly. She sat before her mother's desk with a lot of papers open before her. It came upon him with the force of surprise that she had changed greatly in a few days. Her features were sharpened, her eyes had purplish hollows under them, and the dull black gown she wore only brought out the intense pallor of her face.

"My child, where did you get those papers? You must let me examine them. There are some your mother wished destroyed," said the priest, hastily.

"I know, Father, I know," she said in a dull tone.

"Have you—"

"Read them? No; but I heard all that she told you that day."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, understanding why she looked so changed, and his eyes rested pityingly upon her. A fiery blush burned her throat and face for a moment, leaving her paler than ever when it receded.

"Yes; I know," she said, and clasped her hands together on her lap. "Father, will you tell Mr. Everett?"

"But—"

"I cannot do it; help me, will you?"

It was a piteous appeal, and his heart melted at the sight of her anguished eyes.

"You think he ought to know it?"

"He must, of course," she said, and he felt satisfied that she had not, for a moment even, been tempted to keep the truth from him. "He is in the parlor," she continued after a slight pause; "tell him all, spare nothing," her tensely drawn lips quivering, her hands tightly clenched.

"My child, you take it too hard," laying his hand on her head. "I am grieved for you, but do not let it spoil your peace."

"How can I help it, Father, with the training I have had? I cannot change my beliefs in a day. Oh, you know how my friends would shrink from me if they knew the truth, and I—I cannot blame them. I should do the same. There is no help, no comfort, for me anywhere."

"There is the comfort of the Church, the help of Heaven."

"Ah, yes; I forget—I forget."

"But hear your lover before you decide your future. He has a right to it, remember."

"Tell him, Father, tell him."

He went away, and, turning the light a little lower, she waited. He made the story short, for in a few minutes the door opened again and her lover entered. She rose to meet him, determined to be brave and self-possessed, but that new, bitter sense of shame again overpowered her. She seemed to shrink and shrivel under his tender eyes, and sank down with bowed head. But he knelt by her chair with his arms around her, and drew that proud, averted face against him.

"Dearest, dearest," he whispered, the very tone of his voice carrying to her his sympathy, his unshaken love.

"I thank God that I learned the truth in time," she said faintly.

"In time for what, Madeline?"

"To save you."

He raised her face, forced her to look at him.

"Do you believe my love has changed?"

"It has an element of pity now."

"But pity for your suffering, and not because I hold you less noble. I can take care of myself and you also, my darling. Father Vincent and I agree that it will be best for you to go North, get away from old associations, old ideas; so we'll be married quietly, and leave here at once." He rose, and she stood up also, facing him, looking straight into his eyes.

"Did Father Vincent tell you all? Do you realize just what I am?"

"Yes; you are the woman I love—my promised wife. Can I hold you blamable, dearest, or unlove you simply because—come, Madeline, put all the past behind you, and we will never speak of this again."

"Impossible, Roger. You are generous, and I'm not afraid that you would ever reproach me, but it is not worth while for us to argue the matter. We cannot marry. In my own sight I have been humbled into the dust, and as your wife I should always have a cringing, cowardly feeling of unworthiness. I could not be happy myself, and my misery would only overshadow you. Don't think me unreasonable or lacking in love. Love! It fills all my heart, pervades every atom of my being. I loved you at once—the first moment, I think, that my eyes rested upon you. The prejudices which seemed so foolish, so false, are interwoven, blended with life itself. We, here, call them instincts, holding us apart from the lower order of man, and my education only fostered, developed them to the utmost in me."

"If your mother had only—"

"Don't think hardly of her, my dearest. She is not to blame. She brought me up as she believed best, and implanted the principles and beliefs she thought would be my surest safeguards. As she grew weak and ill the secret burdened her, and for fear that she might be wronging you she sought Father Vincent's advice. How I thanked God that she died without knowing that her work was all undone!" She flung herself again into the chair, and he saw that she was too excited, too overwrought, to be reasoned with.

She looked up at him.

"Had you known my birth, my parentage, from the first, could you have loved me?"

"I do not know," he said candidly; "I only know that I do love you, and that I will not give you up." His face flushed, his eyes kindled. "You must, you shall, be my wife. But we will not talk of it any more to-night: you need rest, and time to recover from the double shock which has come upon you. To-morrow—every day, I shall come, until you learn to look at this as I do. Good-night, Madeline. Think wisely, reasonably, dear."

"I will try; and you will know my decision to-morrow, Roger."

He bent over her, kissed the bright waves of her hair; but she started up, and clasped her arms about him, drawing his lips down to hers in an abandonment of love she had never shown before. Tears rained from her eyes, the stony curves of her mouth melted, and he felt that it was a tacit surrender.

"To-morrow you will listen to me, Madeline," he said with the certainty of conviction.

"Yes; to-morrow," she replied, and turned, weeping, from him.

But when he came next morning Father Vincent met him at the door, while the old lady and Aunt Dilsey hovered in the hall with frightened, excited faces. Fear, vague, indefinite, but chilling, fell upon him. He had spent half the night in thinking and planning; he had felt assured that it needed only time and change of scene to restore Madeline to her former brightness; but even if a cloud should always hang over her, he wished to share its gloom. He could not fully appreciate her position, because he could not look at it from her standpoint. He could understand that it had been a cruel blow to her, but he could not understand how tragical. He felt very hopeful as he walked over to her home, but the face of the priest, those women in the background, startled him.

"What is the matter?" he cried sharply.

"She is gone," said Father Vincent.

"Gone!" he echoed, paling suddenly, and half reeling.

"Yes."

"Where? In God's name, where?"

"That is what we do not know. She must have gone away on the early train this morning."

The blood came back to the young man's face, a hideous fear lifted from his mind.

"You do not think then—"

"No; a Capelle would never seek self-destruction."

Everett stood still and looked about the hall and through the open doors into the silent rooms, yesterday filled with the sweet influence of her presence, to-day empty, desolate, and a terrible sense of loss swept over him. Her words, "You will know my decision to-morrow," came back to his memory with crushing significance.

"Fool, fool that I have been!" he groaned aloud, and the priest took him by the arm and led him into the parlor.

"The women think her mind has been upset by her mother's sudden death. It is well; let all her friends think so. But we must find her, Mr. Everett."

"Yes; I will go at once," said Roger, rousing himself. "It is to hide from me that she has gone away; but I shall find her, I shall certainly find her."

He spoke firmly and quietly, but the task before him proved very hard, for she had left no written message, no clue to her plans or destination.

It was a spring day in the year 1886 that Roger Everett turned aside from the beaten track of the tourist in New Orleans to visit a school in the old quarter of the city—a school maintained by a few New England philanthropists for colored children exclusively. He lost his bearings in the narrow streets among the quaint old-fashioned houses, and stopped to make inquiries at a small building opening on the street. He rapped on the half-closed wooden shutter with his stick, his eyes meanwhile wandering up and down the silent, sunny street, absently noting the scant, picturesque attire of some brown-faced children at play on the sidewalk and the pathetic figure of an old negro sitting on a doorstep. His failure to find Madeline Capelle had left its traces upon his face. Five years had elapsed since her disappearance, and though he had not ceased to look into every woman's face he met, he had given up hope of finding her. A serene-eyed woman in a black gown and cap came to the door, and he instantly recognized the dress as the uniform of some religious order or sisterhood.

"Come in," she said in a gentle, subdued tone.

"I beg your pardon. I merely wished to—"

"It will not be an intrusion. Many have already come to-day to see her, for you know many love her. This way, please," she said, and without waiting for him to speak again, she turned and walked through two rather bare, dusky rooms into a small one opening on a green, magnolia-shaded court. He followed her, puzzled, but with a touch of curiosity, wondering how he should explain himself; but the moment he crossed the threshold he understood the mistake that she had made, for in the centre of the room stood a white-draped bier, and through the unfolded linen he could trace the outline of a rigid human form.

"See the flowers," his conductress whispered, pointing to the masses of cape jasmines, roses, and smaller flowers. "Sister Christiana loved them, but she loved all things beautiful and good. They were brought this morning by negroes she has been kind to. To teach, to elevate, and to nurse them has been her mission. No service seemed too humble, no duty too hard for her. She did indeed 'belong to Christ.'"

Her mild eyes kindled, her hand instinctively sought the cross at her side.

"She died calmly and with joy, and knew us until the last moment."

He followed her across the room, treading softly, as we always do in the presence of death. With reverent hand she laid aside the shielding linen, and he leaned forward—the past once more a vivid reality and not a memory, not a dream vanishing from him, for the face he looked down upon was the face of Madeline Capelle.