do."

She flicked him with her riding-crop, "You're more Irish than French to-day! And where's your horse?"

"Well, old Tom seemed so comfortable and tired, munching away in his stall, that I hadn't the heart—"

"So you walked. Of course you weren't tired! Oh, Phil, Phil, you are your father's own son; too soft-hearted for this 'miserable and naughty world.' It won't be able to resist taking a whack at you."

A little silence fell between them. Both were thinking of a man who was no longer quite of this miserable and naughty world.

"Take my stirrup and trot along beside me, boy," she said. "We'll go faster that way. I wish you were still small enough to climb up behind me as you used to do—remember?"

His face suddenly quivered. "Are you asking me if I remember!—You have never let me tell you how well I remember, nor what your kindness meant to me, in those first days"—He spoke haltingly, yet with a sudden rush, as men speak whose hearts are full. "I was the loneliest little chap in the world, I think. Father and I had always been such friends. They tried to be kind, there at school; but they acted as if I were something strange; they watched me. I knew they were pitying me, remembering father, studying me for signs of inheritance. The son of a 'killer.' It was a dangerous time for a boy to be going through alone.... And then you came and brought me home with you; made me play with those babies of yours, took me with you wherever you went, read with me and discussed things with me as if I were an equal, talked to me about father, too. Do you think I don't know all it meant to you? Do you think I did not realize, even then, what people were saying?"

"I have never been much afraid," said Kate Kildare quietly, "of what people were saying."

"No. And because of you, I dared not be afraid, either. Because of you I knew that I must stay and make my fight here, here where my father had failed. Oh, Kate Kildare, whatever manhood I may have I owe—"

"To your father," she said.

"Perhaps. But whatever good there is in me, you kept alive."

"Dear, dear! And that's why," she cried, with an attempt at lightness, "you feel it your duty to strike attitudes in your pulpit and keep the good alive in the rest of us?"

"That's why," he said, soberly, "But not you, Miss Kate. I do not preach to you. No man alive is good enough to preach to you."

"Good Heavens! When you have just been doing it!" Her laugh was rather tremulous. "What is this—a declaration? Are you making love to me, boy?"

He nodded without speaking.

The flush and the laughter died out of her face, leaving it very pale. "Look here," she said haltingly, "I'd like to accept your hero-worship, dear—it's sweet. But—If I've not been a very good woman, at least I've always been an honest one. You said even at that time you realized what people were saying. Did it never occur to you that what they said—might be true?"

He met her gaze unfalteringly. "I know you," he answered.

Her eyes went dim. Blindly she stooped and drew his head to her and kissed him.

At that moment a plaintive negro voice spoke close at hand. "Gawd sakes, Miss Kate, whar you gwine at wif my prize? Huccom you took'n hit away fum me?"

Unnoticed, an old, shambling negro had approached across the field, and was gazing in wide-eyed dismay at the china vase under her arm.

Mrs. Kildare welcomed the interruption. She did not often encourage her emotions.

"Aha! Well met, Ezekiel," she said dramatically. "Search your heart, search your black heart, I say, and tell me whether a magnificent trophy like this deserves no better resting place than a cabin whose door-yard looks like a pig-sty."

"But ain't I done won it?" insisted the negro. "Ain't I done won it fa'r and squar'? Wan't my do'-yahd de purtiest in de whole Physick League?"

"It was, two weeks ago; and now what is it? A desert, a Sahara strewn with tomato-cans and ashes. No, no, Ezekiel. Winning a prize isn't enough for the Civic League—nor for God," she announced, sententiously. "You've got to keep it won."

She moved on, resistless, like Fate. The negro gazed after her, his month quivering childishly.

"She's a hard 'ooman, the Madam, a mighty hard 'ooman! Huccom she kissin' Mr. Philip Benoix dataway? Him a preacher, too!" Suddenly his eye gleamed with a forgotten memory. "De French doctor's boy—my Lawd! De French doctor's own chile!" He shook his fist after the retreating pair. "White 'ooman, white 'ooman, ain't you got no shame 't all?" he muttered—but very low, for the Madam had good ears.

CHAPTER II

As they jogged along, man and mare at the same easy foot-pace, Benoix said, "Are you sure that vase doesn't really belong to old Zeke, Miss Kate?"

"No, I'm not," she answered frankly. "I suppose it does belong to him, as a matter of fact. But the whole purpose of the Civic League I formed among the village negroes was to keep their quarters decent. If it fails of that—Well, the Madam giveth, and the Madam taketh away." She shot him a mischievous glance. "Evidently you don't approve of me, Philip?"

"Of you. Not of your ethics, perhaps. They 're rather—feminine."

She shrugged. "Oh, well—feminine ethics are enough for Storm village. They have to be," she said, succinctly.

Before them, outlined against the red round of the low sun, stood the rambling gray outlines of a house, topping a small hill. From one of its huge chimneys a pennant of smoke waved hospitably. The mare whinnied, and chafed a little against the bit.

"Clover smells her oats," said Mrs. Kildare, "and I smell Big Liza's ginger-bread. It makes me hungry. Let's go faster."

He did not seem to hear her. She glanced at his preoccupied face, wondering at this unusual indifference to Big Liza's ginger-bread. "What is it, Philip?"

"I have been thinking how to begin," he said slowly. "I've got to talk to you about something disagreeable."

"Surely you can talk to me about anything, without 'beginning'?"

"Well—I want to ask you to do something very unpleasant. To evict a tenant. Mag Henderson."

"That girl? But why?"

"Your agent says she's months behind in her rent."

"Smith talks too much. What if she is? I can afford to be patient with her. The girl has had a hard time. Her father seems to have deserted her. Oh, I know they're a shiftless pair, but half the prejudice against them is that they are strangers. I know what that is," she added bitterly. "I've been a stranger myself in a rural community. You'll have to give me a better reason than that, Philip."

"I can," he said.

She lifted her eyebrows. "There's talk then? I suppose so. There's always talk, if a girl 's pretty enough and unprotected enough. The poor little foolish Mag Hendersons of the world! Oh," she cried, "I wonder that men dare to speak of them!"

"I dare," said Benoix, quietly. "I've my parish to think of. The girl's a plague-spot. Vice is as contagious as any other disease. Besides, it 's a question of her own safety. She's been threatened. That's why the father left."

"What?" cried Mrs. Kildare. "The 'Possum-Hunters'? You mean they are trying to run my affairs again?"

It was several years since men in masks had waged their anonymous warfare against certain tobacco planters whose plans did not accord with the sentiment of the community. The organization of Night Riders was supposed to be repressed. But power without penalty is too heady a draft to be relinquished easily, by men who have once known the taste of it.

Benoix nodded. "She has had warning."

Mrs. Kildare's lips set in a straight line. "Let them come! They'll try that sort of thing once too often."

"Yes—but it might be once too often for Mag, too. She—have you seen her lately?"

The other looked at him quickly. "Oh," she said, "oh! Well, she sha'n't suffer alone. Who's the man?"