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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

JUSTINE SHERROD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

"IN A SECOND CRAWLEY WAS ROLLING UP HIS SLEEVES"

"YOU MUST LET ME PAY YOU FOR IT"

"HIS EYES TOOK IN THE PICTURE"

"'YOU'RE A LIAR—YOU'RE ALL LIARS'"

"'IT IS NOT TRUE,' HALF SHRIEKED CELESTE"

THE SHERRODS

CHAPTER I.

THE SOFT SUMMER NIGHT.

Through the soft summer night came the sounds of the silence that is heard only when nature sleeps, imperceptible except as one feels it behind the breath he draws or perhaps realizes it in the touch of an unexpected branch or flower. The stillness of a silence that is not silent; a stillness so dead that the croaking of frogs, the chirping of crickets, the barking of dogs, the hooting of owls, the rustling of leaves are not heard, although the air is heavy with those voices of the night—the stillness of a night in the country. All human activity apparently at an end, all sign of life lost in somber shadows. The ceaseless croaking, the chirping, the hooting, the rustling themselves make up this unspeakable silence—this sweet, unconscious solitude.

A country lane, dark and gloomy, awaited the moon from the clouded east. Lighted only here and there by the twinkling windows in roadside homes, it lay asleep in its bed of dust. Far off it straggled into a village, but out there in the country it was lost to the world with the setting of the sun.

The faint glow from the window of a cottage poured its feeble but willing self into the night as if seeking to dispel the gloom, dimly conscious that its efforts were unappreciated and undesired. Down at the rickety front gate, cloaked in blackness, stood two persons. Darkness could not hide the world from them, for the whole world dwelt within the confines of a love-lit garden gate. For them there was no sound of life except their tender voices, no evidence that a world existed beyond the posts between which they stood, his arm about her, her head upon his breast. They spoke softly in the silence about them.

"And to-morrow night at this time you will be mine—all mine," he murmured. She looked again into his face, indistinct in the night.

"To-morrow night! Oh, Jud, it does not seem possible. We are both so young and so—so—"

"So foolish!" he smiled.

"So poor," she finished plaintively.

"But, Justine, you don't feel afraid to marry me because I am poor, do you?" he asked.

"Do you think I have been poor only to be afraid of it? We love each other, dear, and we are rich. To-morrow night I shall be the richest girl in the world," she sighed tremulously.

"To-morrow night," he whispered. His arm tightened about her, his head dropped until his lips met hers and clung to them until the world was forgotten.

Far away in the night sounded the steady beat of a galloping horse's hoofs. Louder and nearer grew the pounding on the dry roadway until at last the rollicking whistle of the rider could be heard. Standing in the gateway, the silent lovers, their happy young hearts beating as one, listened dreamily to the approach.

"He has been in the village," said she, at length breaking the silence that had followed their passionate kiss. Her slender body trembled slightly in his arms.

"And he is going home drunk, as usual," added the youth sententiously. "Has he annoyed you lately?"

"We must pay no attention to what he says or does," she answered evasively.

"Then he has said or done something?"

"He came to the schoolhouse yesterday morning, dear—just for a moment—and he was not so very rude," she pleaded hurriedly.

"What did he say to you; what did he want?" persisted her lover.

"Oh, nothing—nothing, Jud. Just the same old thing. He wanted me to give you up and—and—" She hesitated.

"And wait for him, eh? If he bothers you again I'll kill him. You're mine, and he knows it, and he's got to let you alone."

"But it will all be over to-morrow night, dear. I'll be yours, and he'll have to give up. He's crazy now, and you must not mind what he does. When I'm your wife he'll quit—maybe he'll go away. I've told him I don't love him. Don't you see, Jud, he has hope now, because I am not married. Just as soon as the wedding's over he'll see that it's no use and—and he'll let us alone."

"The drunken hound! The idea of him daring to love you! Justine, I could kill him!"

The horseman swept past the gate, a swift black shadow amid the thunder of hoof-beats, and the lovers drew closer together. Just as he roared past them his whistling ceased and a strong, bold voice shouted:

"Hello, Justine!" He was saluting, in drunken gallantry, the girl whom he believed to be asleep beneath a counterpane near some black window in the little house. The horse shied, his whip swished through the air and cut across the animal's flank; the ugly snort of the beast mingled with oaths from the rider.

The girl shuddered and placed her hands over her ears; her companion set his teeth and muttered:

"The dog! I wish that horse would throw him and break his neck! He's not fit to live. Justine, if there is a man who will go to hell when he dies, that man is 'Gene Crawley. And he wants you—the hound! The sweetest, gentlest, purest girl in the world! He wants you!"

They forgot the rider, and the clatter of the horse's hoofs died away in the night. The lovers turned slowly toward the house. At the door he stooped and kissed her.

"The last night we are to part like this," he whispered.

She laid both hands upon his face.

"Let us pray to-night, dear, that we may be always as happy as we now are," she said softly.

She opened the door, and the two stood for a moment in the fair light from the cottage lamp. From above him on the door-sill, she laid her fingers in his curly brown hair, and said, half timidly, half joyfully:

"The last night we shall say good-bye like this."

Then she kissed him suddenly and was gone, blushing and trembling. He looked at the closed door for an instant, and then dropped to his knees and kissed the step on which she had