hope, joy, all the things which go to make life full and, in a measure, satisfying, as set against the devil's grind of poverty and dependence; and for a woman physically incapacitated for holding her own in the

scramble."

Royal put the rejected opiate aside, and did as the patient requested. Then he drew a chair to the bedside and composed himself to listen. There would be no rest for the bruised body, he knew, until the mind should be at liberty to rest also. He must get the load, whatever it might be, transferred to his own shoulders, or the case would be beyond his skill. It must be done quietly, too, for excitement might bring on internal hemorrhage, of which there was imminent danger.

"Take it easy," he said, gently. "I'm going to help you. Put what you've got to say in as few words as possible, and then leave the matter to me. You've overtaxed your strength already; but there isn't any hurry now. We've got eight hours before that train goes. But first I want to suggest something. Wouldn't a will set the matter right for the young lady?"

The patient shook his head.

"Not mine," he answered. "I'm worth nothing outside of my profession. It's a worse tangle than you think. Listen. This is how the affair stands."

Divested of all superfluity of detail, for which there was neither time nor strength, the facts of the case were these. Some fifty years before, there had been a quarrel in one branch of the Royal family over the disposition of certain property vested in Northern securities. The family consisted of two brothers and a sister, and the property belonged to a maiden aunt who made her home with them. The aunt's affections had seemed pretty equally divided between nephews and niece, and, without overt declaration to that effect on her part, the family feeling had been that the young people would share and share alike in the property. When therefore, on the old lady's death, it had been discovered that the entire estate had been willed to the niece without reservation, the nephews not unnaturally suspected, and, what is more, being men of choleric temper, proclaimed aloud, that there had been undue influence.

It is true that, while the men disported themselves according to their pleasure, the woman had nursed and tended her relative with loving care and patience. But this did not strike the brothers as affording sufficient reason for the will being made so unequivocally in their sister's favor, since anxiety and care and household pains and troubles fell naturally within a woman's province. Perhaps they recognized the family foible, too, and the fact that to those who love dominion the possession of wealth is apt to secure it. They forbore from suit to break the will, first because the family lawyer assured them that they had not a leg to stand on, and furthermore because their very souls abhorred a public scandal. They made evident their sense of wrong in forcible and intemperate language, giving their sister to understand that they were distinctly disappointed in her, and then leaving her to her conscience.

For many years family relations were somewhat strained, and then the war broke out and all smaller fires were extinguished in the national conflagration. Miss Royal, by that time a woman past her first youth, and saddened by a dead romance, retired to a lonely plantation in the mountains of Virginia, where she led an isolated life, filled only with old books, old influences, and old imaginings. Such neighbors of her own caste as were accessible were people with views as primitive and experience but little larger than her own. Her life and environment interplayed to foster conceptions of duty and of moral obligation such as to the world at large would be untenable, and, as time went on, her views became more and more unpractical, conservative, and romantic. She was a woman of sturdy will and domineering spirit, and, while kind of heart by nature, prone to let that kindness flow only along channels of her own making. Her Northern property, safely invested and well cared for, suffered no change by the chances of war, and gave her, in her own eyes and those of other people, a fictitious but readily-admitted value.

Whether her conscience smote her about the money or not, the family feeling, so strong in the South, throve, in spite of wrong and insult, and when the war brought troubles and financial straits to the brothers the sister rallied to them, helping them through many a tight place, and only stipulating that she should have her own way in regard to time and method. Her influence in her family increased in ratio proportionate to her ability to play Providence to them, and playing Providence, ordering the procession for other people in accordance with her own ideas of that which would be best, was, as has been stated, the role for which the self-willed lady considered herself peculiarly adapted.

When one brother died, leaving behind him a motherless and only daughter of tender years, Miss Royal adopted his child and brought her up as her own. She also displayed vivid interest in the son of her other brother, not only because he was a lad of parts and promise, but also because he had been called "John Hart," after a beloved firstcousin whose untimely death had caused her to pass mateless through life. She had the boy with her continually, and charged herself with his education and establishment in a profession. That the idea of a marriage between the cousins should develop in her mind was only to be expected. Consanguinity was not considered an objection to marriage in the Virginia of her day, and she had contemplated such a union for herself. This nephew and niece formed her strongest emotional outlet, and she was not willing to let their lives diverge from hers or from each other's. She wanted to blend her past with their future so that, in some occult way, they might live out the life she had pictured for herself ere John Hart had passed into the infinite. Her motive was the highest of which she was capable. She yearned for happiness for them, and it never occurred to her that it could be secured in better ways than those of her own devising. Her idiosyncrasy is not remarkable: human love in its manifestations is apt to be compelling and coercive.

Matters went smoothly, for the boy's choice of a profession fell in

with her wishes for him. There had always been physicians in the Royal family, some distinguished ones. The love of healing might be said to run in the blood.

At one-and-twenty John Royal returned from Philadelphia with his diploma in his pocket, and further fulfilled his destiny by falling in love with his cousin Phyllis, then a girl of sixteen. A boy-and-girl marriage was no part of Miss Royal's plan for the young people. She wanted John to become a distinguished surgeon; and, as his whole heart-or rather mind-was set on his profession, she yielded readily to his wish for a few years in the Vienna and Paris hospitals. An engagement between the cousins was sanctioned, and the understanding was that the marriage should take place as soon as, in her aunt's opinion, Phyllis should be old enough.

Of the reasons for six years' delay of his marriage, and of his residence during that time abroad, John Royal did not speak: they were not germane to the matter in hand. His wish was to present the main facts of the case and to force upon his listener the necessity for immediate action.

At the end of the six years, news had come of his aunt's sudden death, and with it a letter from her executor informing him of the terms of her will. These were a little singular, and more than a little arbitrary, which, however, was in accordance with the character of the testatrix. The property, of considerable value and duly enumerated, with the exception of a small legacy or two, was left absolutely to John Hart Royal and Phyllis Royal as a marriage-gift, provided their marriage to each other should take place between the hours of eleven and twelve o'clock on the 28th of December, 18-. In the event of the marriage not taking place on the day and during the hour appointed, there were restrictions laid upon the property which would prove a serious annoyance to the legatees; and in the further event of the marriage not taking place at all, the entire property was to be converted into money and divided, share and share alike, among her kindred of Royal blood from the first to the third degree, Phyllis and John to have an equal portion with the rest, but not a stiver more on behalf of nearer kinship.

The story was given in short sentences, with rests between to spare the patient's strength. The energetic brain of the listener grasped the situation in its entirety, and his sympathies were more than ever aroused. To him it appeared a terribly mean advantage to take of the power which the possession of wealth confers. His first restive impulse was to say, "Let the money go to the devil, and marry the young lady to suit yourself;" but a glance at the face before him sent back the words unspoken. A well man, hale and strong, could afford to assert his independence, to take his own life and that of another into his own hands. But when a man lay dying the case was different: he must do that which he could, not that which he would, to secure the future. of the woman thrown so absolutely upon his honor and protection. Royal's pity for the pair grew apace, and he felt that there was not much he would stick at to circumvent the misery entailed by that "iniquitous will," as he styled it in his thought.

"Are there many kindred ?" he queried, forgetful that his own name might entitle him to a position as residuary legatee.

"Legions of 'em," John Royal responded, irritably. "My aunt had forty-five first-cousins, and the bulk of them of Royal blood. I've heard her say so scores of times. In the second count, God and the census-taker alone know what the tally may be. 'Tisn't worth while even to wonder about the third. It's a good property; but the sands of Egypt wouldn't divide up handsomely among the Royal clan."

After a moment he went on: "I feel like the veriest scoundrel that ever drew breath! But for her determination to bring about this marriage, my aunt would have left her money to Phyllis. The only thing I can do for her now is to marry her before twelve o'clock tomorrow; and God only knows how it's to be managed! That cursed accident!" His eyes were filled with yearning pain.

"Don't fret,"

The doctor smiled cheerily and looked at his watch. he said: "it's bad for you. The marriage is the main thing, and we can secure that. I'll take that 4.30 train and go after the young lady, and you can be married at once. The conditions, whatever they may be, must be put up with. It's a case of half a loaf or no bread. By the way, what are the conditions?" He rose as he put the question. "That neither Phyllis nor myself shall touch one cent of the money for ten years, dating from mid-day to-morrow."

"The devil!"

"You may well exclaim!"-speaking fast and bitterly. "The marriage before twelve o'clock to-morrow would leave my poor girl comfortable and cared for; after twelve, as good as a pauper. And she's helpless,-helpless- His voice broke, and he turned his

head away.

Royal felt something hot and stinging rush into his own eyes; his heart ached for the pain he could not mitigate.

The head on the pillow turned again; the eyes sought Royal's appealingly, coercively:

"Man, have you no help for me? Haven't you science or skill enough to put vitality into this miserable carcass sufficient to enable me to drag it a few miles further? Can't you do anything for me?" The sense of impotence was strong upon him; his voice was hoarse and feeble, his eyes showed that he knew beforehand what the answer must be.

Royal put out his hand to him pitifully, but shook his head :

"My poor fellow, God himself couldn't help you that way. Stop a minute and let me think. There ought to be a way out of it,-there must be a way out of it, if only I were smart enough to see it. Don't fret, please. It exhausts vitality and does no good. Try to rest."

The closing phrases were born of professional instinct and delivered mechanically. His mind was busy with the problem he had set himself to solve. He was a man quick to trust his own judgment and to form new plans. Emphatically a man of action, prompt in conception, prompt also and untiring in execution, Dr. Royal's mind worked habitually along positive lines. To rush at a difficulty and carry it by assault was the method which most recommended itself to him, and the active

practical life of the frontier had fostered his natural proclivities. There was little of the "shivering and shaking on the bank," so condemned of the English wit, about Hart Royal: to "jump in and scramble through" as well as he could, might be reckoned his rule of conduct.

The plan he elaborated within the next half-hour might, as a legal measure, be open to question, but it possessed the merit of tangibility and could be put into immediate execution. It was, in brief, that John Royal, flat on his back on that which might well be his dying bed, in Matoacca, should at the appointed hour on the following day marry his cousin, on the other side of the mountains, by proxy.

"I don't know how the law stands," the originator of the scheme admitted, "and there isn't time to look it up. I never heard of a marriage by proxy, outside of a novel, to be sure; but if a man can marry by telephone I don't see why he can't be married by proxy. To me it looks as though it would give a fighting chance for immediate possession of the money. You can have the marriage re-celebrated, if the lady should prefer it. She will join you at once, of course."

The sick man caught at the plan. His own knowledge of the laws of the commonwealth in regard to marriage was nebulous, but to him also the scheme proposed seemed to offer a fighting chance; and even that appeared of priceless value. His eagerness was pitiful, his insistence almost aggressive. The poor fellow, drifting into the shadow of the inevitable, yet holding back with terrible earnestness, with yearning tenderness, not for his own sake, but for that of the woman left to his care, the pathos of it dimmed Royal's gray eyes more than once, and acted as a spur to his helpful, sympathetic nature.

There was no question in the mind of either man as to who should be the representative. The bond of the Order had done away with all strangeness or sense of obligation between them, even before the recognition of the deeper, human brotherhood had come. Royal made the necessary arrangements for the care of the sick man during his absence, and also provided himself with the wedding-ring which he found in his namesake's pocket. The license would be waiting at the other end of the line, John Royal said: he had written about it from the hospital to the gentleman in whose family his cousin had lived since their aunt's death.

In the urgent need of haste it occurred to neither man that Dr. Royal, being a stranger, should have some sort of credentials, or that it might be necessary for a proxy to have a written power of representation, as it were, from his principal. Nor did the thought that the similarity of name might cause a complication suggest itself. The sick man was unaware of the coincidence, and the mind of the other was filled with weightier matters. There was little time for detail.

CHAPTER III.

WHETHER or not malevolent spirits have power of interference in human affairs is an open question; but certain it is that, to prima facie view, events can at times arrange themselves with a malignant disregard

VOL. XLIV.-2