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been the terms, heretofore, on which Reginald and Beatrice had stood, they could find nothing in past experience at all like their present intimacy. They took frequent walks and horseback rides together; sometimes he would spend a whole morning in reading aloud to her. Mrs. Ross had noticed, too, certain unmistakable symptoms of contentment in Reginald's bearing while he was with Beatrice (if no more emphatic term should be applied), which seemed like the happiest sort of augury.

But in Beatrice's manner, as days lapsed along, she could read nothing. Nothing, too, in the girl's composed and power-suggesting face, over whose broad-moulded forehead the low-growing hair, somewhat coarse of texture, made full black ripples. It was a face whose every feature she had learned dearly to love, but most of all its limpid gray eyes, energetic, sympathetic, intellectual. More than once had a steadfast gaze into those eyes made Mrs. Ross tell herself that here was the woman of women whom it would delight her to have her son Reginald

marry.

Reginald is not a weak man,' she had once told Beatrice. 'Instead of this he is a sort of maimed, half-incapable giant. In numberless ways he baffles analysis, because every trait, with him, takes its force from a fragmentary spring of action-what his mental life needs is its missing halfhe is like a tall, perfect tree snapped in the middle. Does this seem wild fancy?'

Naturally Beatrice had been mystified at the time these strange words were uttered; but an explanation had followed them which astonished her deeply. She learned from Mrs. Ross that Reginald had been the eldest of twin brothers. The two boys were five years old when the younger brother, Julian, was seized with scarlet fever in its most malignant form, and died after an illness of a few hours, having been till now in a condition of

perfect health. veloped in Reginald almost simultaneously, but by what seemed a miracle he was saved.

The disease was de

During those five years before Julian's death, Mrs. Ross had often watched with singular interest what close bonds of mutual similarity, both in nature and in temperament, bound the two little brothers together. The way in which outward objects or new ideas impressed them; their respective tendencies of affection or prejudice toward certain people; their trivial likes and dislikes in matters of amusement, food, and the commoner impulses of sense; their susceptibility to the forces of humour, compassion, anger, disgust; all these, and many more embryo or full-developed characteristics bore, each with each, an element of resemblance startlingly salient. Persons before whom she mentioned, however, what seemed to her questions of such curious import, laughed at her wonder and assured her that every pair of twins was thus reciprocally constituted. But as time passed she became fonder of her illusion, and used to tell herself that in some strange way one soul had become divided between two bodies.

Nor did this illusion, with Mrs. Ross, possess a single morbid touch, a single shadow of discomfort. She never watched the children when they played together without a secret gladness at their charming interchangeable traits. She sometimes used to wonder whether between their very physical motions there was not a subtle concordance, and repeatedly she had assured herself that many thoughts occurred to both of them at one and the same moment. pearance they were so alike that she, their own mother, even up to the time of Julian's death, would often omit to make use of the few slight signs by which she told them apart. And, as previously has been said, her strange idea regarding them dealt her no pain. Even if for a moment she calmly ad

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mitted its grotesque, fantastic truth, the thought of two lives thus indissolubly twined, brought with it not a pang of anxiety or dread. Indeed, whenever it took the serious colours of an actual thought and ceased to float like a bodiless influence through the atmosphere of feeling only, she would ask herself whether the future of these two boys, if thus peculiarly viewed, did not teem with beautiful suggestion, did not differ from ordinary living with a rich positiveness of variation; and whether, at the same time, their case might not as definitely place itself outside the uncanny limits of nature's caprices, as the lowergraded example of two fruits mellowing to maturity on the same twig.

But when Julian's death occurred, and the terrible threat failed to fulfil itself under which Reginald's life seemed for days to quiver, then this poor lady found that her grief-stricken soul and her shattered nerves were eager to turn what had once been a pleasant, poetic vagary into a distressingly doleful fear.

Since she had lost Julian, must not Reginald soon follow him? Would their living apart be a possibility Ought she not to expect with certainty the crushing stroke of a second blow, now that the first had fallen. But as months passed, making themselves into a year, the sword over Reginald's head seemed to gain much stouter means of suspension. By degrees Mrs. Ross's wretched disquietude died a natural death; the boy continued healthful and vigorous. If the old fancy visited her now and then, it was summoned by something in Reginald's conduct, for whose singularity this visionary explanation sometimes offered its imaginative aid. Later on in her son's life she had incessantly caught herself clinging to that old dogma of mysticism, and interpreting his oddest actions by its convenient, insubstantial kind of glossary.

'I think that you and Beatrice have never been better friends than

just now,' Mrs. Ross made bold enough to say, on a special afternoon when Reginald, having learned that he must take a solitary horseback ride because his usual companion had a prostrating headache, manifested some wholly unconcealed disappointment.

'I don't know of any particular reason for such change,' he rather lightly answered, provided it really

has taken place. Unless it is because we are thrown more than usual upon each other's mutual resources of entertainment,' he added, in a less careless tone, and after a slightly reflective look.

This reply disappointed his mother, but the remark which had called it forth dwelt with Reginald some time after he had begun his solitary ride. It seemed to the man as if every fibre of his spiritual being tingled with pleasant self-gratification while he told himself that he was indeed better friends with Beatrice Sedgwick now than ever before. She had always seemed to him, in comparison with the other women whom he had met and known, intellectually to overtop them all; but he silently admitted this afternoon (while riding his free-gaited fiveyear-old along country whose rich greeneries of meadow and foliage had been brightly freshened by recent rains), that Beatrice blended in a marvellous degree logic and intuition, sympathy and pure reason, poetry and sober sense. It is doubtful, indeed, whether plain admiration of man toward woman ever goes noticeably beyond the limits of Reginald's present feeling; the sort of admiration, let it be added, whose least and greatest thrill emanates from no such emotional vagueness that we cannot satisfactorily name for ourselves its exact source. He could look back over the past fortnight through the most accurate and unblurred glasses of retrospect. He could account to himself, with a kind of arithmetical tenderness, for each separate occasion when he had felt what a potent attraction

her presence exerted. He even assured his own thought, with something like creditable success, that a regard which thus yielded to the analytic attempts of him who entertained it, must be a regard based upon the most lasting, safe and efficient foundations.

There was something, too, in the wholesome breeziness of the afternoon that presented to him, through the medium of sense, a clearly-realized analogy between its own bracing force or cheering radiance, and the atmosphere of vigorous mental hardihood, healthful womanly judgment, and fresh, large-souled charity surrounding his present estimate of Beatrice's character. Not unnaturally at such a moment, moreover, he recalled his mother's evident and often-hinted longing. Reginald was by instinct what his biographer owes him the justice of naming-a dutiful son, and to reflect upon the almost sacred importance of so marked a maternal wish, was an act that now linked itself in admirably proper sequence to the convictions which had just preceded it.

The most radiant mood has its solar spots of gloom; but if Reginald was so troubled this afternoon, while he spurred his good-blooded animal briskly down more than one agreeable slope of road, the gloom took its darkness from reminiscence rather than actuality. He had been, during his eight-and-twenty years of lifetime, the occasional prey to a certain sinister spasm of feeling which far rather merited the name of a nervous sensation than even to be placed on the list of half-reasonable impressions. It was a monster, informe, ingens, to which his imagination occasionally opened a door of sardonic mental hospitality; and the guest would now and then resist every method of ejection except, perhaps, that of the stoutest exorcising cudgel which common sense possesses within her armory. If he remembered, just now, the uncomfortable hours passed in this aggravating sort

of hostship, it was only to smile at the recollection of a nightmare which, at the present hour, seemed as incapable of molesting him by any grim assault as the very landscape through which he journeyed, green in its soft, leafy splendour, seemed inviolate against winter's disfeaturing rigours.

Beatrice, on this same afternoon, had complained of a sad headache. Mrs. Ross had mildly insisted upon perfect retirement, and at least an attempt to secure slumber. No slumber came for a long time, but the headache began to beat surely yet sure retreat before the powers of silence and repose. It was about six o'clock when Mrs. Ross softly stole into the chamber for a fourth time, and seated herself at the bedside with a book. Beatrice at last had fallen into a peaceful and even-breathed sleep, and Mrs. Ross watched her clear, strong profile against the whiter background of the pillow, with that radical satisfaction felt when those whom we love are at length delivered from physical pain. If any deity of sleep had occupied a place in Mrs. Ross's theology, there is no doubt that more than one domestic tripod would now have been gratefully set smoking. These being the lady's feelings, it is not strange that an expression, almost like one of anger should have filled her face, when her maid suddenly burst into the room with the loud voiced and seemingly pointless observation :

'Oh, Mrs. Ross, are you here, ma'am?'

Stern thoughts of giving her maid summary discharge held brief sway in even this gentle mistress's bosom. The rare sparkle of indignation was in the mild darkness of her eyes, as Beatrice, roused by the rude tones, lifted her head with a great nervous start from the pillow.

'Oh, ma'am, Mr. Reginald,' the maid now said, in whimpering tones. . . 'I'm afraid he's hurt very bad. . . they're bringing him into the house now . . .' The maid went on with her distress

ing intelligence, and of the two ladies who heard it, Mrs. Ross, doubtless, only took into consciousness, after this, a stray word here and there, such as 'horse,' or 'fainted away;' while Beatrice, on the other hand, clearly comprehending the full sense of the intelligence, very soon had fast hold of both her friend's hands and was saying rapidly, yet with excellent composure:

'Don't be so alarmed until you know just what it is. Perhaps, after all, the accident may not prove a serious one.'

Nearly fainting with fright, Mrs. Ross presently stood at her son's side, where they had laid him on a lounge, in one of the lower rooms. Reginald's eyes were closed and he was extremely pale; but he soon gave signs of not having swooned, opening his eyes for a moment and pointing with a suppressed groan toward his right leg. The real truth was that excessive pain in the ankle of this limb had temporarily nullified all the man's nervous energy. As soon as the locality of his injury had been discovered, the ankle was bared, and already its bluish swollen look gave serious import of future trouble. Meanwhile Beatrice had despatched one servant for a doctor, and learned from the head-gardener, Haslitt, who was an eye-witness of the accident, just how appallingly narrow an escape Reginald had sustained. Haslitt was himself near one of the main lawn-gates at the moment that a bulky-looking peddler's waggon was about to enterit. At the same moment his master appeared near the gate, riding briskly. Reginald's horse, terrified by the uncouth vehicle, reared unmanageably once, and his rider, as though irritated by such an unforeseen procedure, then promptly spurred him forward. But rearing a second time, the horse lost his balance and fell back ward. 'I don't know whatever saved Mr. Reginald from bein' crushed,' Haslitt proceeded, when that thing happened. The fence hid him, Miss, an' I says to myself, "he's killed," says I, "sure." But when I got through the gate, there was the horse,

scamperin' like mad down the road, and Mr. Reginald lyin' white as a sheet, with his right leg a-doubled up straight under him. I knew quick enough, Miss, he'd somehow got clear o' the horse, but I'm afraid o' my life his ankle's broke, and very bad broke, too.'

Medical authority, however, when it arrived soon afterward, gave scientific disproof of Haslitt's theory. Reginald was suffering from a violent and rather complicated sprain of the right ankle, but beyond the unavoidable discomforts of tedious recovery he had no reason for future anxiety. During all the period between her first appearance at the sufferer's side and the subsequent arrival of the doctor, an interval, which intensified sensation on at least her own and Mrs. Ross's part, must have made twice its actual length. Beatrice's self-possession, tranquillity, and knowledge of soothative if not curative applications, brought to bear upon the whole group surrounding poor agonized Reginald something like the commandant, distributive capability which is to be found in judicious generalship. Once or twice, even amid the excitement preceding the doctor's appearance, Mrs. Ross felt a dreary pang of realization break through her anxiety, as she observed Beatrice's unruffled presence of mind. Admirable though it might be under the given circumstances, a demeanour so collected spoke i for her own newly-roused hopes. For where, in this courageous benignity, was there one gleam of anything like actual passion.

Those same hopes, however, were fed with a fresh force during the after days of Reginald's illness. Never was a tenderer, more considerate or more accomplished nurse than Beatrice now proved herself. A vigorous young fellow of active temperament is not always dowered with the sort of endurance which makes him murmurless under a martyrdom like this of Reginald's; but it is certain that the effect of Beatrice's continual attend

ance, her unfailing interest, and her softly genial manner presented powerful inducements toward resignation.

A fortnight of absolute inability to walk left Reginald, at its end, equal to occasional hobbling peregrinations about the house, with the aid of a stout cane. And what, now, were his feelings toward the woman whose many kind offices had so lessened the acuteness of past pain and the tedium of enforced inaction? It would have been scarcely possible for his esteem of her character by any noteworthy degree to deepen ; but in so far as concerned his less rational and reflective valuation of her excellences, he was very willing to assure himself that a marked change had taken place. Nothing is more difficult to trace with accurate precision than are the shadowy boundaries between an excess of devout spiritual respect, as in a case like Reginald's, and that warmer unreasonable state of sexual attraction which dispenses with self-inquiry and lapses away into the bland heedlessness of rosy sentiment. Reginald felt sure that he had passed these boundaries, and was repeatedly on the verge of telling Beatrice so, in appropriately ardent words. Indeed, it happened, on a certain morning, that, after Beatrice had read aloud for more than an hour from Browning's Men and Women,' and then left him upon the lounge in the sitting-room, the man took himself severely to task for useless procrastination.

It was about mid-day, and the windows were shaded coolly from the somewhat fierce July sunshine outside; a dreamy veil of dusk covered the lightly elegant appointments of the room-its pale matting; its softblue rugs, scattered over the floor; its slender bamboo furniture, and its many tasteful ornaments of statuette or book-rack or flower-filled vase. Reginald's self-reproaches, vehement for a slight while, soon took the form of a gently comfortable resolution, much

in accordance with the tranquil ease of his surroundings. Yes, at the next opportunity-which would doubtless occur that same afternoon, when Beatrice had promised to renew her reading he would end all further needless delay. It even occurred to him that a certain graceful relativity and sequence might be made to surround the words which he contemplated speaking, if he should suggest that she read from the latter passages of the 'Princess,' where, though small resemblance exists between the position of Ida toward her wounded lover and that of Beatrice toward himself, there would still be an almost exquisite fund of suggestiveness in those lovely lines which describe how two wedded souls, each with its separate yet similar lofty aim, each with its reciprocal tribute of respect, affection and trust, may in the end reach that sweet triumph of

'The single pure and perfect animal, The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke, Life.'

Shortly after this dilettante piece of meditation, Reginald fell into a pleasant doze. His ankle had rather murdered sleep on the previous evening, and doubtless for this reason his nap was a somewhat sound one. Awaking about a half-hour later, he was straightway conscious of having been roused from sleep by some sharply disturbing agency. His lounge was close against one of the side windows of the room. Loud cries, as though from a terrified child, were sounding somewhere near, and he soon discovered that they seemed to emanate from a portion of the lawn just beyond this window. With but slight effort he was able to throw back the blinds. There was no piazza against this portion of the house, and a green sweep of sunlit lawn was immediately brought to view. At a distance of perhaps fifty yards away, he perceived two figures, one that of a little girl, the daughter of the head gardener, Haslitt, while the other figure was plainly that of Bea

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