THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT
 
 The House With a Bad Name
 
 THE HOUSE WITH 
 A BAD NAME 
 
 BY 
 
 PERLEY POORE SHEEHAN 
 
 BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
 BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. 
 
 Printed in (he United States of America
 
 IPS 
 
 ToV.a 
 
 93B832
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 No. 6 CINNAMON STREET i 
 
 GLAMOUR 8 
 
 SET TO Music 15 
 
 UNOFFICIAL 21 
 
 VAMPIRE 27 
 
 "HE DOES NOT KNOW" 33 
 
 THE MASTER 39 
 
 A PORTRAIT BY LA TOUB 45 
 
 OF MME. TYRONE 51 
 
 "!N HER IMAGE" 58 
 
 OUT OF THE PAST 63 
 
 LOVE SONG 69 
 
 To PARADISE 74 
 
 THE NEW QUASIMODO 81 
 
 THE STRANGE WOMAN 89 
 
 THE WOLF COMES Oui 95 
 
 OF BLOOD AND GOLD 101 
 
 WEIRD BLOSSOMS 108 
 
 THE LIGHT AND THE DARK 115 
 
 THE OVERHANGING CLOUD 121 
 
 RETURN OF THE LOVER 127 
 
 THE UNFINISHED STORY 133 
 
 THE NIGHTMARE 138 
 
 THE OTHER MOURNER 143 
 
 OF FLOWERS AND SPECTERS 149 
 
 THE DARK CLAIMANT 155 
 
 A BID FOR CHARITY 161 
 
 A WREATH OF IMMORTELLES 167 
 
 THUS SPAKE THE SPIRIT 173 
 
 "WHERE Dro You GET IT?" 179 
 
 THE GREAT ADVENTURE 185 
 
 vii
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MME. DELILAH AND 190 
 
 THE TEMPTING OF SAMSON 195 
 
 WOMAN! WOMAN! WHO ART THOU? 201 
 
 CROSS-EXAMINED 207 
 
 MME. GENESCO GENERALIZES 213 
 
 "AND ON MY SERVANTS " 219 
 
 As BETWEEN MAN AND MAN ......... 224 
 
 ON THE WINGS OF AN EAGLE 230 
 
 THE LIGHT AT THE WINDOW 236 
 
 Too MANY COOKS 241 
 
 THE CUP OF BITTERNESS 247 
 
 AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT 255 
 
 MR. PARTRIDGE, THIEF! 262 
 
 SUSPENDED JUDGMENT 267 
 
 THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH 271 
 
 DARK o' THE NIGHT 276 
 
 "KILEEVY, O KILEEVY!" 281 
 
 THE SMELL OF LOCUSTS 288 
 
 IN THE MOMENT OF NEED 293 
 
 MR. TANTALUS 299 
 
 THE ONE GREATEST THING 306 
 
 THE WHITE HUNTSMAN 312 
 
 OUT OF THE FULL HEART 320 
 
 BLOOD OF THE LAMB 326 
 
 ONE DAY'S GRACE 33 1 
 
 "MALUME" 337 
 
 So MUC^FOR So MUCH 343 
 
 THE SECRET 34^ 
 
 ERE FADES THE ROSE 353 
 
 "LET HIM FOREVER, ETC." 359 
 
 THE INEVITABLE HOUR 3 66 
 
 THEY VANISH 37? 
 
 Vlll
 
 THE HOUSE WITH A 
 
 BAD NAME 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 JNO. 6 CINNAMON STREET 
 
 THERE was a touch of the grand about No. 6 Cin 
 namon Street a touch of the grand and the 
 mysterious. There was something about it to 
 make you feel as you might feel, say, if you saw a once 
 fine gentleman who had committed a murder, and had 
 been to prison, and who still had distinguished manners 
 and tried to smile it down, but was old and shaky and 
 distrusted an old gentleman who, notwithstanding all 
 that, still wore a flower in the lapel of his coat. 
 
 Cinnamon Street itself was something like that. It 
 was one of the oldest streets in New York far down 
 town on the lower West Side. Once it had been the 
 main street of a village on the outskirts of New York, 
 and all sorts of fashionable people had lived there. Now 
 it was changed. 
 
 The big city had swallowed it up. And hardly any 
 one lived there any more except longshoremen and Italian 
 
 I
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 grocery-keepers people like that. Recently, moreover, 
 a broad new avenue had been cut through this part of 
 town, paved with granite and lined almost instantly with 
 big square factories and warehouses. This alone had 
 wiped out about half a mile of the old residences which 
 once were the main feature of Cinnamon Street, while 
 the other end of the street had been condemned and 
 closed altogether. 
 
 But No. 6 remained intact. 
 
 And there were trees in Cinnamon Street to either 
 side of No. 6, and also a certain air. So that to have 
 stumbled upon it, especially in this part of town, would 
 have been like, say, finding a lace handkerchief in a 
 hardware-shop. 
 
 No. 6 must have been built there while the street was 
 still fashionable. It was so old that you could have 
 imagined General Washington, for example, dropping 
 in there on his way home from church. The church was- 
 next door a little old chapel in a little old graveyard, 
 both closed and long since abandoned. 
 
 Perhaps it was the presence of this graveyard that 
 helped to give No. 6 its bad name. Old Goodenough, who 
 was a driver for Pliny's, a livery-stable down the street, 
 often paused on his way home, especially when he was 
 in his cups, and he was generally like that, and recite a 
 bit of weird verse. Every time that Goodenough ran 
 across a piece of poetry about ghosts and things he would 
 commit it to memory. He had the memory of a genius 
 when it came to haunts and pale brides coming back. 
 Old Goodenough would look across the street at No. 6 
 
 2
 
 No. 6 Cinnamon Street 
 
 standing there next to the graveyard, and he would 
 quote : 
 
 "No one walks there now ; 
 
 Except in the white moonlight 
 The white ghosts walk in a row, 
 If you could see it, an awful sight." 
 
 No. 6 was built of brick. It had green blinds which 
 were almost always closed. And it was all of three 
 stories high, not counting the sunken basement and the 
 dormer-windowed attic a noble house -noble still de 
 spite all those transformations that had taken place in 
 the neighborhood. 
 
 And the people who lived in the house were noble, 
 too noble so far as wealth and tradition were concerned. 
 You could tell this just by looking at them, no matter 
 what might have been said. They had a look of grandeur 
 about them, just as the old house had, whatever the 
 wild, dark stories afloat concerning them. 
 
 You would have had a chance to see them, especially 
 when the weather was fine ; for then, as likely as not, old 
 Goodenough would come driving up to No. 6 in a rattly 
 old victoria which in itself was a signal for every one 
 to stand and stare. 
 
 Then the door of No. 6 would open and a little old 
 man would come nimbly down the steps. He was always 
 dressed in black, always immaculate high, white col 
 lar, open at the front, a flat, white Ascot tie, his snowy 
 white hair brushed forward over his ears. He must 
 have been seventy at least; but spry, as if the greatness 
 
 3
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 \ 
 
 of the occasion inspired him to extra effort. The butler 
 he was. More about him later. And he would take up 
 his station at the side of the victoria, every line and glint 
 of him bespeaking servility and adoration. 
 
 Nor would this attitude of his be without reason ; nor, 
 for the matter of that, the proud way in which Goode- 
 nough he on the driver's seat would draw himself up 
 and try to look like a real coachman, in spite of his face 
 of a vinous old philosopher, and his saggy round back. 
 Reason enough was there, also, that every one should 
 stand and stare Tony Zamboni, who ran the corner 
 grocery, and Mrs. Zamboni, and all the little Zambonis, 
 and such truckmen, loafers, and strangers as happened 
 to be about. 
 
 Among these latter, there happened to be an artist 
 and an architect one day both of them young just 
 out browsing around the city, seeing what they could 
 see; and they had come upon Cinnamon Street quite by 
 accident, and had been charmed by. it, especially by No. 6. 
 They had been standing just across the street, admiring 
 its delicate tints and fine old colonial lines. Then, there 
 came old Goodenough driving up with his ramshackle 
 equipage. 
 
 "By Jove !" said the architect. "Isn't that great, Hal ? 
 Isn't that wonderful? The old house was just about 
 perfect as it was with that colonial doorway and its 
 knocker and everything, and now to have a real old- 
 fashioned victoria come driving up. Jove! It makes 
 me feel as if we were living a century ago." 
 
 4
 
 No. 6 Cinnamon Street 
 
 "Yes," said Hal ; "and it'll be just like New York for 
 some cursed fat banker to come out and spoil it all." 
 
 But they stood there and stared in silence as the old 
 butler appeared and came down the steps and took up 
 his position expectantly. He was so obviously the old 
 butler and yet with a face to remind one of the late 
 Sir Henry Irving. His appearance alone would have been 
 enough to warn the strangers that this was no ordinary 
 spectacle, had such a warning been needed not ordinary 
 for New York, at any rate. And the deduction would 
 have been correct. 
 
 After a brief interval, a gentleman appeared at the 
 top of the tall stoop not just a mere ordinary man; a 
 gentleman ! This gentleman was, say, somewhere around 
 sixty; he was very handsome, very distinguished, stately 
 and tall and gray. His gray hair was long and wavy. 
 He was dressed in gray carried a gray high hat in his 
 hand, wore a gray frock coat, gray spats. A striking 
 figure, albeit a little old-fashioned. Even so it was his 
 face that absorbed most of the attention; straight- 
 featured and bold, yet with a dwelling tragedy in the 
 eyes; something that lurked there and peered out, like 
 a strange, lost animal in the depths of a dark room. 
 
 So much for him ; because, a moment or so later, the 
 girl appeared ; and then there would be no attention for 
 any one else much except for her. 
 
 "Gad !" whispered Hal. 
 
 The young architect that was with him spake no word 
 at all. He merely held his breath. Perhaps his heart 
 stopped beating. That sort of thing does happen when 
 
 5
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 fate reaches out and touches some one with her in 
 visible finger. 
 
 The gentleman had offered the girl his hand, was 
 assisting her down the stoop with a real, old-fashioned 
 courtesy. 
 
 The girl was possibly twenty. She had a delicate face. 
 Even so, it was boldly contoured also, just as the man's 
 face was. She was no weakling. There was a sup 
 pressed fire about her. But also a demureness. The de- 
 mureness was chiefly in her eyes, which were large and 
 dark blue. But her coloring was so fair that her eyes 
 appeared really darker than they were. So it was with 
 her eyelashes and her eyebrows, which were very fine. 
 She was a golden blonde. Her hair was clustered in a 
 lot of short curls on either side of her face, as if the 
 gold of them had been beaten to a foam. 
 
 The most remarkable thing about her, though, was 
 her clothing. Very beautiful clothing it was white silk, 
 old lace, ruffles ; all this just sufficiently touched up with 
 a hint of pastel-shades here and there to supply a sort 
 of opalescent sheen. But the style! a style that must 
 have been out of date at the time the wearer herself 
 was born. 
 
 Nothing grotesque about it. The toque was becom 
 ing. So was the tight little bodice ov^er her modest bosom, 
 nd the long, full skirt. Of the finest material, too, her 
 outfit must have cost a pretty sum. But it was all very 
 touching. 
 
 The girl may have been conscious of this. Maybe this 
 accounted for something of that suppressed fire about 
 
 6
 
 No. 6 Cinnamon Street 
 
 hei. But she gave no other sign. She showed plainly 
 enough how she loved and respected the man in gray 
 showed it in every gesture and inclination of her graceful 
 shape as she descended the steps and entered the waiting 
 carriage.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GLAMOUR 
 
 AND this," breathed the artist, Hal, "in noisy, up-to- 
 date New York." 
 Still the architect was silent. Silence became 
 him, anyway a meditative, thoughtful youth, with a sug 
 gestion of romance and poetry about him. He stirred 
 somewhat as a man might have stirred in his sleep. He 
 merely sighed. 
 
 "A great model, Buck, for a Dolly Madison," Hal 
 developed. 
 
 Buck his full name was Buckhannon was seeing 
 other pictures; so one would have said from the ex 
 pression in his dark eyes. It was an expression that 
 was both avid and reverent; the look of a man who 
 sees holy visions, dimly, not to be talked too much of. 
 
 The girl and her escort by this time had entered the 
 carriage as great people should, without paying too much 
 attention to the old servant standing there. No, the girl 
 was seen to give him a half smile, with a short intake 
 of her breath, as she settled back on the plum-colored 
 cushions of Goodenough's old victoria. The gentleman 
 had taken his place at her side. Goodenough, having held 
 his whip aloft while this was under way, now touched 
 
 8
 
 Glamour 
 
 his roan with the tip of his lash. The butler faded up 
 the stoop and disappeared. 
 
 "A gift from God!" Buckhannon gasped, speaking 
 softly and more as a man would who spoke to himself. 
 "Do you remember," said he, "that thing Lafcadio Hearn 
 says somewhere about there being something ghostly in 
 all great art ?" 
 
 Just back of where they stood and almost opposite to 
 No. 6 there was a small drugstore with a soda-fountain. 
 
 "Let's go in and get a drink," said Hal. 
 
 The customers had seated themselves at the sticky 
 marble-counter near the street door, where they could 
 still command a view of No. 6. A hush had fallen. The 
 old house stood on its bank of the now empty street as 
 one might stand on the bank of a mysterious stream and 
 watch the place where something precious had disap 
 peared. The silence was unbroken as the druggist came 
 forward. He must have been wearing slippers. He 
 bowed his head a little and himself looked across at No. 6 
 as if he were expecting to see something surprising and 
 not very respectable over there. 
 
 Hal and his friend ordered their drinks. 
 
 The druggist served them with an air of knowing just 
 what chemicals the red stuff was made of and what it 
 would do to them. He wiped the marble with a soiled 
 rag. And there he was again letting his eyes stray to 
 the house across the street. 
 
 "That's a fine old house," said Hal. 
 
 The druggist shook his head. He wasn't too sure. 
 
 9
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 But he swallowed the words he would have spoken as he 
 might have swallowed a handful of pills. 
 
 "Who are those folks who live over there?" asked Hal. 
 
 The druggist lingered, as if against his will. He got 
 out something inarticulate. He made his slippered escape. 
 In the silence that followed they could hear him making 
 the small, mysterious noises of his craft back of the 
 prescription-counter. 
 
 "Did you notice how he appeared to be frightened?" 
 asked Hal. "From the way he acted you would have 
 thought that the old house over there had a curse on it." 
 
 Buckhannon smiled, but he did not speak. Still, there 
 was a look on his face that also suggested some uncanny 
 reflection something that he had alluded to when quot 
 ing that remark of Lafcadio Hearn that thing about 
 there being something ghostly in all great art. Wasn't 
 it because there was also something ghostly in life itself 
 something of the old fairy tale, of the knight or thc 
 princess held prisoner by enchantment ? 
 
 But Hal had rapped on the marble with the edge of a 
 coin. At that the druggist came slinking from his re 
 treat again, somewhat as an unwilling earthworm might 
 resoond to the tap of a robin, 
 
 "How much do I owe you ?" the artist asked. 
 
 "Ten cents," the druggist whispered furtively. 
 
 Having thus caught him so that he could not get away, 
 the youth cheerfully continued his quest for information. 
 
 "Who'd you say it was who lived in the brick house 
 across the street?" 
 
 10
 
 Glamour 
 
 The druggist wriggled the end of his nose and cleared 
 his throat. He made an effort. 
 
 "That's the old Tyrone house," he volunteered. 
 
 And his expression was such that it led Hal to his next 
 question. 
 
 "Why? What's the matter with it?" 
 
 The druggist appeared to be uneasy. He didn't want 
 to say. "Would you gentlemen like anything else?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 "Tyrone!" breathed Buckhannon, as if the name had 
 a particular charm for him. 
 
 "Mr. Tyrone and Miss Tyrone," Hal developed pleas 
 antly. 
 
 "Maybe," said the druggist with another tremendous 
 effort, "it was his wife!" 
 
 Buckhannon gave a start. 
 
 "What !" he exclaimed. 
 
 "His wife," whispered the druggist, grinning. "It's 
 her, all right. She's just showed up again." 
 
 "How do you mean just showed up again?" 
 
 The druggist was frightened, but he had committed 
 himself. He had to go on. He had the air of a man 
 who tells a tragic joke. 
 
 "Everybody," he said, "thought she was dead." 
 
 "Oh, I see," said Hal. 'You mean that she was in the 
 hospital or something. She's been sick." 
 
 But he knew well enough that that wasn't what the 
 druggist had meant. The druggist hadn't said it that 
 way. Nor was Buckhannon deceived. 
 
 II
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Explain yourself," said Buckhannon, with sudden 
 vehemence. 
 
 "I'm merely telling you what they say," the druggist 
 affirmed, beginning to defend himself. "Some mighty 
 queer things happen in a town like this. .It may be her 
 or it may not be. It's none of my business. They never 
 came in here to buy anything they hadn't a right to." 
 
 "Why?" Hal asked casually, as he winked at Buck 
 hannon. "Were they ever accused of poisoning any one?" 
 
 "I don't believe in talking about such things," said the 
 druggist. "It isn't professional." 
 
 "Look here," said Hal. "You can trust us. Can't he, 
 Buck? A little while ago you said that everybody 
 thought that this girl we saw coming out of the house 
 was dead " 
 
 "I didn't say anything against them," the druggist af 
 firmed. "They're perfectly all right, so far as I know. 
 It's a good many years now since we saw them bringing 
 the coffin out." 
 
 "Whose coffin !" 
 
 The druggist swallowed another handful of vocal pills. 
 But there was an insistence in the way the others waited. 
 
 "I've got a full line of cigars," said the druggist, will 
 ing to change the subject; "cigarettes, pipe-tobacco, 
 toilet articles " 
 
 "Ah, come on," Buckhannon spoke up, and he moved 
 away. 
 
 But Buckhannon returned to Cinnamon Street alone, 
 this time and was there when the mysterious Tyrones 
 came back from their drive. 
 
 12
 
 Glamour 
 
 So far as the artist named Hal was concerned, the in 
 cident already had probably begun its drift into the limbo 
 of forgotten things. New York was full of beautiful 
 girls for him, and also of persons who, like the druggist, 
 were slightly mad. 
 
 But it was different for the architect, young Buck- 
 hannon. Something had happened to him. He knew 
 this to be the case. He was pervaded by an unrest. Life 
 had suddenly taken on a new quality of wonder and 
 mystery. How fascinating was the world when there 
 was a girl like that in it! Or was she in it? Wasn't she 
 just some fair ghost he had seen? Was it possible that 
 she was real? 
 
 But now, here she was again the Tyrones! the girl 
 of mystery and the man of mystery at her side. 
 
 They returned as they had gone, in Goodenough's old 
 victoria; Goodenough sagging a little on the box, as he 
 always did after the exertions of a drive. But Good- 
 enough again straightened up somewhat as he brought his 
 caravel safely to port in front of No. 6. 
 
 Already the butler had come running down the steps. 
 It was clear that he also had been watching for this re 
 turn. The butler assisted Tyrone and the girl to leave 
 the vehicle, while Goodenough again held his whip aloft 
 in imitation of the grand coachmen of other days. It 
 was the butler who lingered behind to pay Goodenough 
 his fare and his tip as well, no doubt, for Goodenough 
 touched his hat and addressed the butler as "Mr." Par 
 tridge. 
 
 13
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 But all this as an afterthought, a sort of mental echo, 
 so far as Eugene Buckhannon was concerned. 
 
 His eyes and his heart, and his soul had clung to the 
 girl. At the top of the stoop she had paused, she had 
 turned. She had looked at him. 
 
 Their eyes had met.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SET TO MUSIC 
 
 A FLEETING glance, and yet he staggered as if he 
 had received a blow. Mentally he did. Physi 
 cally he was transfixed. He felt that he was scar 
 let. He felt that he had bared his soul to the girl. His 
 soul had been adoring her, in secret, when it had had no 
 right to adore her. Her glance, though swift, had been so 
 calm, so penetrating, so overwhelming, she must have 
 discovered this. 
 
 Then Buckhannon was beginning to get a fresh grip 
 on himself. 
 
 Mr. Tyrone hadn't noticed him. Neither had Part 
 ridge. The former had gravely mounted the high, front 
 stoop and disappeared within the colonial doorway. Par 
 tridge, as before, had glided up the steps like one pur 
 sued by ghosts. All this in a nebulous uncertainty while 
 Buckhannon was recovering from the shock. He felt as 
 if the girl were looking at him still. She seemed to 
 linger there now nothing but a pair of blue eyes even 
 after Goodenough had turned his roan and fled also like 
 one pursued, and the whole street went empty again. 
 
 He did not dare linger there, now that the girl had no 
 ticed him, so he strolled away quite as if nothing had 
 
 15
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 happened and as if this old house were nothing more to 
 him than any old house. But he went with the purpose 
 of returning again as soon as it should be dark. 
 
 "Tyrone! Tyrone!" The name tolled in his brain 
 like an echo of slow bells "Tyrone ! Tyrone !" bring 
 ing with it the same touch of melancholy and also some 
 thing of the sacredness so generally associated with the 
 sound of slowly ringing bells. This name would forever 
 after be a whole litany for him. So he told himself. 
 
 This was to have been his last day in New York 
 for some time to come. On the morrow he was to have 
 sailed for France, there to resume his studies in the 
 cole des Beaux-Arts. But now, should he go or should 
 he stay? He loved France, loved Paris, loved his school, 
 loved the noble and ancient profession that he had chosen 
 to follow architecture: the art of temples and homes! 
 No wonder that Victor Hugo had called it the "king 
 art" But Lord ! Lord ! he had never known such a thrill 
 of love as he experienced now, for the girl he had barely 
 seen, and who had barely looked at him. 
 
 He dined alone in a little restaurant not very far from 
 Cinnamon Street. The restaurant was fairly crowded. 
 The waitress was plump and rosy. In spite of 
 the other calls on her attention, the waitress 
 found time to smile at this dark-eyed youth and to 
 serve him well. But even so, Buckhannon dined in ghostly 
 company. Mr. Tyrone and the Golden Girl were his 
 guests. The plump serving-wench disappeared. Her 
 place was taken by the spectral "Mr. Partridge." 
 
 Darkness had fallen upon Cinnamon Street when he 
 
 16
 
 Set to Music 
 
 again returned. And the darkness was deeper there than 
 in almost any other street. For electricity had evi 
 dently never penetrated to this old road. It still burned 
 gas, and the gas burned dimly. 
 
 There was a gas-lamp about midway between No. 6 
 and the abandoned chapel, and on that same side of the 
 street. But this served merely to bring out the mourn- 
 fulness of No. 6, which stood there like a house deserted. 
 The shutters were closed. It was dark. It was a dwell 
 ing-place of mystery. 
 
 Grateful for the shadows which at least would keep 
 him from being observed, even while they did keep alive 
 the doubts and misgivings of his heart, Buckhannon 
 walked slowly down the street. There appeared to be 
 no one else about. He saw a spectral cat slip silently 
 through the iron palings of the churchyard fence. Ever 
 and again, through the blinking zone of illumination 
 cast by the street-lamp, a bat flickered blackly. 
 
 So some thought flickered blackly in Buckhannon's 
 mind as he gazed across at No. 6. 
 
 He made his way along the street to the abandoned 
 chapel, and he seated himself there on the steps of it. 
 
 All around, in every direction, there sounded the muted 
 surf of the great city's sleepless traffic the thunder of 
 elevated trains, the shrieks of tortured brakes, the mourn 
 ful hootings of ships in the harbor. But here it was as if 
 the night were at home, and the silence and the sweet 
 ness of it. There was a fragrance from the trees and 
 the grass in the churchyard. There was a coolness from 
 the unpaved earth. The stars shone down. 
 
 17
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Buckhannon's mood at last responded to all this. He 
 himself was country-bred. He had always loved the 
 night. 
 
 The silence deepened. 
 
 And then it was as if this silence had been slit, so 
 to speak, by a silver blade of sound. What was it ? The 
 sound had brought him up from the depths of a reverie. 
 He heard the sound again. It was the note of a flute. 
 Some one was playing a flute in No. 6. 
 
 He listened as if his soul were at stake. 
 
 The flute note turned as if into a spray of lesser sound 
 the chord from a harp. 
 
 He heard a voice her voice ! 
 
 He didn't have to be told that the voice was the voice 
 of the girl he had seen. The voice, and the music, called 
 up a vision of her, fair and slender, demure yet full 
 of slumbering fire. Her voice thrilled him as much as the 
 sight of her had done. Again he was breathless. He 
 caught the words : 
 
 "I arise from dreams of thee 
 In the first sweet sleep of night, 
 When the winds are breathing low, 
 And the stars are shining bright." 
 
 There was a gate near the chapel-steps, and this led 
 into the graveyard. He entered the gate. He drew 
 closer to No. 6 as close as he dared; and there he 
 listened again. A warble of notes from the flute ; a spray 
 of harmony from the harp, and once more the hushed 
 vibrancy of a magic voice. 
 
 18
 
 Set to Music 
 
 He found a place in the shadow of a tree. On a root 
 of the tree he huddled down. 
 
 He could hardly have told when the music did come 
 to an end. Even after his coarse physical senses assured 
 him that there was silence in No. 6 it seemed to him that 
 the air about him was still vibrant to a spirit orchestra 
 tion, still shaking to the voice of an angel. He scarcely 
 looked about him, but he was conscious of the gray 
 tombstones some upstanding and some recumbent; and 
 he could almost imagine that the spirits of dead ladies 
 had responded to those quickening harmonies and had 
 come forth to listen as he was listening. 
 
 It was a fancy which was to be strangely fortified. 
 
 While he had been sitting there, unconscious of every 
 thing but of himself and the unseen music-makers, a 
 shadowy figure had come ambling up the street and now 
 stood just outside the graveyard fence almost within 
 arm's reach of him. There, still unnoticed, the night- 
 walker had paused. Presently it spoke, and Buckhannon 
 was hearing a sepulchral voice. It might have been the 
 voice of No. 6 itself: 
 
 "And the socket floats and flares, 
 And the house-beams groan, 
 And a foot unknown 
 Is surmised on the garret stairs. . . ." 
 
 By this time Buckhannon had sufficiently recovered 
 himself to have recognized the source of the voice. He 
 recognized the owner of it also. This was the old coach- 
 
 19
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 man who had taken the Tyrones that afternoon for their 
 drive. 
 
 While he was still meditating on this discovery and 
 trying to catch further verses of the old man's recital, 
 some one else had drawn near and spoken to the coach 
 man. 
 
 "Hello!" 
 
 "Hello yourself!" 
 
 "And how's my old friend Goodenough this night?" 
 
 "As well as I hope I see my old friend Hickcock, of 
 the armed constabulary." 
 
 Buckhannon hadn't quite caught this last allusion and 
 he gave a cautious look. The newcomer was a police 
 man. The policeman made a gaunt figure gaunt and 
 slightly bent. He appeared to be as old as Goodenough, 
 and Goodenough had appeared to be about as old as 
 the white-haird butler of No. 6. All old men every 
 thing aged in Cinnamon Street except that haunting girl. 
 
 The thought brought with it to Buckhannon it did 
 some whiff of a ghostly recollection of the queer things 
 the little mad druggist had said they had thought that 
 she was dead it had been a long, long time since they 
 had brought the coffin out
 
 G 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 UNOFFICIAL 
 
 OODENOUGH had made a remark to the ef 
 fect that he had just learned a new one. And 
 again he had begun to recite 
 
 " 'The body of Judas Iscariot 
 
 Lay stretched along the snow. 
 'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot 
 Ran swiftly to and fro.' " 
 
 Hickcock, the policeman, here broke in rather brutally : 
 
 " 'Tis the soul of old man Tyrone that ought to be 
 runnin' to and fro." 
 
 "It's a pity," said Goodenough, "you don't write poetry 
 yourself." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 "You've got the imagination." 
 
 "It ain't imagination. It's the things I know. IVe 
 been goin' through this street now for seventeen years 
 keepin' my eye on things." 
 
 "No man," said Goodenough, "could watch a burial 
 lot for seventeen years without learning things aye, 
 and seeing them, too also hearing them, maybe. You 
 know the old verses favorites of mine." He intoned: 
 
 21
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "The four boards of the coffin lid 
 Heard all the dead man did." 
 
 "Hist !" went the policeman, Hickcock. 
 
 "What is it now ?" demanded Goodenough. "Are you 
 seeing another ghost in the old house?" 
 
 "There are worse things than ghosts connected with 
 that old house," Hickcock affirmed. "If I had my way 
 about it, the place would have been raided long ago. 
 And did you hear the music a while back ?" 
 
 "I did. I think it must have been the young lady." 
 
 "Mark what I tell you." 
 
 "Mark it I will," said Goodenough, with his air of 
 vinous philosophy. And he would have shambled off 
 into another bit of weird verse : 
 
 f "The blue-eyed vampire, sated at her feast, 
 Smiles bloodily against the leprous moon." 
 
 But Hickcock checked him. 
 
 "Mark what I tell you," said he. "She may be singin' 
 now, but " 
 
 "But?" quoth Goodenough. 
 
 "But," said Hickcock eerily, "she won't be singin' 
 long." 
 
 This was too much for Buckhannon. He crept away 
 from what had been his unpremeditated hiding-place. 
 His heart was pounding. The sinister import of all that 
 he had heard had itself become a ghost. He left the 
 graveyard by way of the chapel steps. His first inten 
 tion had been to leave Cinnamon Street altogether, but 
 
 22
 
 Unofficial 
 
 he saw that he had been observed by the two old cronies 
 of the sidewalk and that some explanation would have 
 to be forthcoming. 
 
 Both were staring at him as he came out of the chapel 
 gate and approached the place where they stood. 
 
 "Good evening," said Buckhannon. 
 
 The others acknowledged his salutation in silence. 
 One would have said that neither Goodenough nor Hick- 
 cock was quite certain yet that Buckhannon was not him 
 self a ghost or a ghoul. Buckhannon saw that he had 
 better begin. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said; "but I just happened 
 to be sitting in there, and I overheard what you said." 
 
 Hickcock took a better grip on his night-stick. 
 
 "What did you say you was doin' in there?" 
 
 "I was just sitting in there," said Buckhannon, "sort 
 of dreaming, meditating." 
 
 The policeman was suspicious. He still gripped his 
 night-stick as if half-persuaded he might have use for 
 it. But he turned his eyes to the coachman in search of 
 advice. Old Goodenough understood. The coachman 
 had regarded Buckhannon like a gentle ogre. His voice 
 was friendly. 
 
 "And what else when you're young," he said. "I was 
 young myself. In there I myself once sort of 
 dreamed." 
 
 The policeman, satisfied on that point, proceeded to 
 the next. 
 
 "And what did you overhear?" 
 
 Buckhannon told not only what he had overheard; 
 
 23
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 he told how the druggist also had dropped his dark 
 hints about the house and the people in it. 
 
 Goodenough was mellow. " 'Twould be a dull place," 
 he said, "the world without its liars." 
 
 But Hickcock remained grim. He was the old police 
 man, with the old policeman's adhesiveness for facts. 
 
 "There's no need for liars here," he declared "The 
 house has got a bad name." 
 
 "But why has it got a bad name ?" asked Buckhannon. 
 
 "If you'd been on the force as long as I have," said 
 Hickcock, "you wouldn't have to ask. Would he, 
 Goodenough ?" 
 
 "The learned professions," said Goodenough, with 
 humorous intent, "are his and mine. What does any 
 professor know as compared with a cabby or a cop?" 
 
 Hickcock took umbrage. He turned on his friend. 
 
 "At that," he declared, "you said a mouthful. I got 
 me education where me old man got his out in the 
 street, where you learn damn quick or you get it in 
 the neck." Softened somewhat he turned to Buck 
 hannon. "If I could raid that dump" and he indicated 
 No. 6 "I'd show yous fast enough." 
 
 "Raid it," crowed Goodenough. "Go ahead and 
 raid it." 
 
 "Yes, I won't/' Hickcock retorted. "I'd as lief go 
 up there and rap with the old brass knocker as to take a 
 rap at his honor, the mayor, with me night-stick." 
 
 "Why?" Buckhannon persisted. 
 
 "I've been on the force for thirty years," said Hick- 
 cock, "and most of the time right in this here street. 
 
 24
 
 Unofficial 
 
 I've learned a thing or two. Why didn't they raid the 
 place when they brought the woman here?" 
 
 "What woman?" 
 
 "They brought her here in the middle of the night. 
 She was drugged or dead. She might have been dead 
 at that. In any case they kept her hid. Was it her, or 
 was it the old man, who was in the black coffin they 
 brought from the old place?" 
 
 "That was years later," said Goodenough. 
 
 "Years later it was," Hickcock admitted. But he was 
 belligerent. "And maybe you will tell me why they was 
 so secret about it." 
 
 "You've got me there," said Goodenough. 
 
 "Why," whispered Hickcock, as his round eyes drilled 
 Buckhannon, "unless there had been foul play? They 
 brought that first woman here, and she disappeared." 
 
 "They all disappear when they're beautiful," Good- 
 enough put in with vinous wit. 
 
 But the policeman, Hickcock, boring Buckhannon with 
 small round eyes, stuck to his narrative : 
 
 "It was because of this first woman that young Tyrone 
 and the old Tyrone had a quarrel. Then the young 
 Tyrone went away. Listen to me well. And when he 
 came back, damn me if he didn't fetch another woman 
 with him a strange woman, a French woman and she 
 disappeared ! Disappeared for twenty years !" 
 
 "How do you mean," asked Buckhannon ; " 'disap 
 peared for twenty years'?" 
 
 "Like I say," Hickcock retorted. "Twenty years ago 
 
 25
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 this coming March she disappeared and now, unchanged 
 unchanged, I tell you she's back again !" 
 "The same?" 
 
 "The same and not a day older !" 
 
 * / 
 
 Goodenough, the coachman, mused aloud: 
 
 "They made her a grave too cold and damp 
 For a soul so warm and true." 
 
 "But I don't understand," gasped Buckhannon. 
 
 "It's like I'm telling you," said Hickcock, fatalist. 
 "She disappeared twenty years ago, and now she's back 
 again, and not a hair of her head older by an hour. 
 Goodenough, am I right or am I wrong?" 
 
 "God knows !" exclaimed Goodenough blandly. 
 
 "Goodenough!" exclaimed Hickcock, nettled, "where 
 is it now you do be takin' 'em drivin' every day the 
 weather is fine?" 
 
 "That," said Goodenough, "is wherever they wish to 
 
 go." 
 
 "You see," said Hickcock to Buckhannon. "He dare 
 not tell:" 
 
 "I dare not tell," Goodenough took him up. "I'd be 
 no coachman if I did. New York'll be a merry place 
 when the drivers and the chauffeurs tell all they know." 
 
 -
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 / 
 
 VAMPIRE 
 
 BUCKHANNON was like the Wedding-Guest in 
 the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He also had 
 an important engagement elsewhere. He was to 
 have left for Paris, but he couldn't go. He was for 
 tunate enough to find a delayed passenger who was 
 willing to relieve him of his reservation. It wouldn't 
 have mattered anyway. He had heard the beginning of 
 a strange tale. His Ancient Mariner was No. 6 Cinna 
 mon Street; and even while No. 6 revealed so little 
 of its mystery, still he felt that the tale would be told. 
 
 To drop the figure, there was a double spell about 
 the place for Buckhannon. In the day the afternoons 
 it was the girl. Almost every day he saw her now 
 coming out for her ride with the Man in Gray, now 
 walking among the tombstones of the old graveyard, 
 now seated in the sunshine of some upper window 
 always in her odd and beautiful old-fashioned clothes. 
 At night, it was the spell of the house she lived in, No. 
 6 itself. 
 
 A week, a fortnight, a month these may be big with 
 consequences for the rest of New York : great buildings 
 torn down, new skyscrapers sent aloft; one reputation 
 
 27
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 evaporated, another crystallized; fortunes gained and 
 fortunes lost. But weeks were as nothing in Cinnamon 
 Street especially when the dusk closed down, and all 
 sounds were muffled, and all the adjacent modernities 
 were blotted out. It was then that Cinnamon Street 
 came into its own as a creature native to gas-lamps and 
 shadows, abandoned chapels and huddled trees, to slink 
 ing cats and flickering bats, and old men who talked 
 to each other of ghostly things. 
 
 At a time like this No. 6 itself emerged from the 
 comparative meanness and the dust and the ignominy 
 of its transformed neighborhood into the stateliness that 
 had once belonged both to it and the street it stood in. 
 
 Goodenough felt this, for Goodenough was a poet 
 had much of the weird poetry of the world by heart. 
 To a lesser extent, even Hickcock felt it this resurgence 
 of No. 6 from mere brick-and-plaster existence into 
 something spiritual. Maybe that was why Hickcock 
 always kept his eye on old No. 6 as he talked about it 
 after dusk had settled down. 
 
 The house looked larger then larger and finer. And 
 there was always that extra touch of something eery 
 added to it by the dim lights that came and went back 
 of its shuttered windows and the gusts of faint music 
 it exhaled. 
 
 This was accentuated when there was a bit of mist in 
 the air just enough to put rainbows around the old 
 gas-lamps, and bring out the smell of grass and trees, 
 and to set the harbor tugs to wailing wailing, as Good- 
 
 28
 
 Vampire 
 
 enough could have quoted it, like "woman wailing for 
 her demon lover!" 
 
 This night it was misty misty and also tepid as 
 Buckhannon turned into the familiar street. It looked 
 more than ever deserted. Not even Goodenough, the 
 cabman, or Hickcock, the policeman of the beat, was 
 in sight. He made his way along the dark and misty 
 sidewalk to a point where the grounds of No. 6 joined 
 those of the deserted chapel, where there was a pleasant 
 smell of vegetation in the moist cool air, and there he 
 stopped. He hankered for a bit of music. He was con 
 scious of a deeper yearning. 
 
 Like that he was standing there when he saw a 
 woman approach. The woman was young. He could 
 tell that, not so much by her dimly seen contour as by 
 the lightness and swing of her walk not fast, but as 
 if there were something feline about her. For the rest 
 she appeared to be well dressed. Then a damp breath 
 of night air coming to him from her direction brought 
 him a faint scent of musk. 
 
 He stood perfectly still and watched her too late, 
 now, to have made his escape, even had he wanted to. 
 What could he have been doing, loitering in a place 
 like this ? 
 
 The woman stopped in front of the stoop of No. 6. 
 She looked up at the house as if undecided whether or 
 not to go in. She put a foot on the lower step of the 
 stoop. She withdrew it. 
 
 Buckhannon struck a match and lighted a cigarette. 
 He started off down the street in the direction of th'e 
 
 29
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 chapel. He didn't want to play the spy. But he heard 
 a light, quick step back of him. The woman was fol 
 lowing him. She came up with him just as he was 
 passing one of the old street-lamps, and he turned 
 slightly to see her as she passed. But she didn't pass. 
 She met his look. He had the impression of a pale and 
 handsome face, of dark eyes that glistened a little, of 
 a large mouth with very red lips. The lips were smiling. 
 He had seen faces like this, on nights like this, both 
 over in Paris and here in New York. Yet he had never 
 been quite so impressed. There came into his thought 
 some quotation from old Goodenough's weird anthology : 
 
 "Not a drop of her blood was human, 
 But she was made like a soft sweet woman . . ." 
 
 "Good evening," the strange woman said. 
 
 "Good evening," said Buckhannon. He didn't care 
 to appear unfriendly, but he was dignified. The smell 
 of musk, faint but disquieting, surrounded him like an 
 emanation that was native to her the natural scent 
 of her smile and the look in her eyes. 
 
 "It's a nice evening," she said. 
 
 "Rather damp," said Buckhannon, and he was for go 
 ing his way. But the woman stopped him. He had an 
 uncomfortable feeling that she had been appraising him. 
 It was evident that she had reached the conclusion that 
 he wasn't dangerous. She touched his arm. She brought 
 her face closer to his. Her smile grew stronger. There 
 was a fascination about her that Buckhannon couldn't 
 
 30
 
 Vampire 
 
 deny. She was disturbing. All his recent dreams and 
 spiritualities were fled. 
 
 "Do you live in this street ?" she asked, 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not in this neighborhood ?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "Do you know who lives in that house?" she asked; 
 and she indicated No. 6. "Do you know Nathan 
 Tyrone?" 
 
 Buckhannon wanted to say that he did. He wanted 
 to ask the woman what concern this was of hers. But 
 again he shook his head. The woman had spoken softly, 
 cast a glance in the direction of No. 6 as if afraid that 
 she be discovered or overheard. No. 6 was dark and 
 silent. Only a dim light from one of the windows toward 
 the back of the house showed that it was occupied. 
 
 "I'll have to be going," said Buckhannon. 
 
 "Wait a minute," said the woman with a gust of en 
 treaty. It was hard to refuse her. She was thirty, per 
 haps, but she appeared younger and very beautiful in this 
 shadowy light. She drew Buckhannon nearer to the 
 chapel fence. "I only want you to do me a little favor," 
 she whispered. Again the smile, and there was a 
 vibrancy in her voice. "You'll do it, for me; won't 
 you?" 
 
 "Do what?" 
 
 "Knock at the door of that house and tell Partridge 1 
 he's the butler there, and he'll answer he always does 
 tell him that I'm here and want to see him. Tell him that 
 Belle is here." 
 
 31
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Why don't you do this yourself?" asked Buckhannon. 
 
 "I can't. I have reasons. It might get me into 
 trouble." 
 
 "But it might get me into trouble," said Buckhannon. 
 
 Her request was preposterous, but he was wavering. 
 Buckhannon knew that he was wavering. The woman 
 was appealing to him not so much by word as by some 
 subtler, more potent call. 
 
 "It won't get you into any trouble/' she said. "The 
 Tyrones are going away " 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "To Paris " 
 
 "Paris !" 
 
 " and I must see the butler, Partridge, before they 
 
 go." Her blandishments went finer, touched with wist- 
 fulness. It was as if back of her smile there emerged a 
 trace of pain ; her glowing eyes might have had the added 
 brightness of tears in them. "I have a right to live in 
 this house," she whispered ; "but they won't let me. Just 
 go and knock at the door " 
 
 Buckhannon had a moment's dizziness. Belle had 
 lightly raised her hands to his shoulders, drawn him 
 toward her. With her eyes burning close to his she had 
 kissed him on the lips.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 "HE DOES NOT KNOW" 
 
 IT was drunken old Goodenough, the cabman, who 
 had saved the situation this night. In the suffoca 
 tion following Belle's action which must have 
 been intended as a sort of retaining fee or payment in 
 advance Buckhannon heard Goodenough's voice. Good- 
 enough, it seems, had been resting on the chapel steps 
 and had now resumed his course toward whatever port 
 it was for which he was steering. 
 
 "Ask him," said Buckhannon, a bit hastily and ashamed 
 of himself. "He'll do it. Honestly he will. I don't want 
 you to think I don't appreciate " 
 
 But the woman showed no ill-will. She merely looked 
 in Goodenough's direction hopefully. She gave a quick 
 smile to Buckhannon. 
 
 "Silly boy," she breathed. "Do you come here often ? 
 Can't we see each other again ?" 
 
 "I I'm off for Paris myself," said Buckhannon. Not 
 untruthfully, for there had suddenly swept over him a 
 sudden nostalgia for far places, for work, for forgetful- 
 ness; as if this dream of his begun here in Cinnamon 
 Street had been spoiled forever. "Good night," he said. 
 
 "Good night," said Belle, with her wistful smile. 
 
 33
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 When he was well beyond No. 6 he looked back and 
 he saw dimly the silhouettes of the woman and Good- 
 enough there by the chapel fence where she had kissed 
 him. Buckhannon was sick, he was excited, he was 
 weary. This time he was going to Paris, and there would 
 be no reprieve. And she was going to Paris the Golden 
 Girl ! But what interest now could he have in that he 
 who had permitted a strange woman to kiss him there 
 in Cinnamon Street under the other's windows? The 
 temple had been profaned ! 
 
 Yet Buckhannon returned to Cinnamon Street, this 
 time to say farewell. It was another night a mild and 
 pleasant night like that first evening he had ever passed in 
 Cinnamon Street; and now as then there was a hum 
 and whisper of music from No. 6. He found Good- 
 enough and Hickock seated on the steps of the chapel, 
 and they greeted him. 
 
 "So you're leavin' f er Paris, France, to-morrow ?" said 
 Hickcock. 
 
 "That's where the weird lady said they were going," 
 Goodenough put in. 
 
 "What lady?" asked Buckhannon. But he guessed 
 who was meant. Once more with the eye of his mind 
 he had a poignant vision of that pale and handsome face 
 with the dark-glowing eyes and wide red mouth. It was 
 almost as if he could smell musk, faintly, and could feel 
 a creep of added warmth in the tepid air. "What lady, 
 Goodenough, old man?" 
 
 Goodenough did not immediately reply; directly, he 
 did not. 
 
 34
 
 "He Does Not Know" 
 
 "Merciful God !" he muttered. "To think that I once 
 held such in my arms ! She was like a ghost of that other 
 come back to claim her love " 
 
 "You're always seein' ghosts," said Hickcock, dis 
 gusted. "And you're drunker'n usual. Where do you 
 get it?" 
 
 Goodenough paid no attention to this. He maundered 
 on, and Buckhannon was interested even if the policeman 
 was not. It appeared that Goodenough had once been 
 a student in college, and had been expelled; and had 
 held good positions, but never for long; and that even 
 when he had become a driver for the original Pliny he 
 was still a fine figure of a man; only, wine and women, 
 women and wine 
 
 "You were telling me about a particular woman," 
 Buckhannon put in. 
 
 "If I'd stuck to her," said Goodenough, disconsolate. 
 "But no, but no " 
 
 "This weird lady," Buckhannon prompted. 
 
 "Weird, weird," said Goodenough, aloud but as if 
 communing with himself. "I was going up the street 
 here the other night, and there she stood in front of me. 
 'And will you ring the bell for me?' she asked. 'What 
 bell?' I said. 'Of No. 6,' she answered. 'And what 
 would you have of No. 6?' 'I want to speak to Par 
 tridge, the butler.' 'A friend of mine/ I said, and I'm 
 looking at her hard. Those eyes, will I ever forget? 
 'You're Goodenough,' she said. 'You're Ernest Good- 
 enough!' And she sort of laughed. 'And now I know 
 you'll do what I ask,' she said; 'and maybe some day- 
 
 35
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 there, go and ring the bell and tell your friend, Partridge, 
 that Belle wants to speak to him.' " 
 
 "And did you?" Buckhannon asked. 
 
 "Not the bell," said Hickcock, the policeman, sourly. 
 "There ain't no bell." 
 
 "I told Partridge," said Goodenough, out of the depths 
 of his thought. 
 
 "And the old crook done it," said Hickcock, seizing 
 upon the narrative. "He comes out all trembly and talks 
 to her don't he, Goodenough ? the dirty old man !" But 
 the policeman suddenly started, was peering up the street 
 with his beady eyes and bony face denoting intense in 
 terest. 
 
 "Don't call him that," Goodenough began; but Hick- 
 cock checked him. Buckhannon also had seen the cause 
 of the policeman's interest. A portly old gentleman had 
 turned into Cinnamon Street and was drawing near. 
 
 "A stranger," breathed Hickcock, "and going into 
 No. 6!" 
 
 "And why not?" Buckhannon whispered. 
 
 Hickcock gave him a glance that was almost a scowl. 
 "In all the years I've been watchin' the place," he said, 
 "there's never been a visitor except that strange skirt 
 Goody was just tellin' about. Come on, now; I think 
 we should have a better look." 
 
 The three of them left the chapel steps. They crossed 
 the street with an elaborate air of carelessness, which 
 Hickcock warned them was essential. They came up 
 into the shadows of the now darkened drug-store and 
 stood looking across at the house of mystery. 
 
 36
 
 "He Does Not Know" 
 
 One would have said that the old house was looking 
 back at them. Its blinded windows were eyes that saw, 
 and its door was an open mouth. The expression of 
 this humanized mask was one of expectancy and stricken 
 awe. So it appeared to Eugene Buckhannon. 
 
 But this could scarcely have been the impression it 
 made on the stranger they were watching. His step was 
 remarkably firm. Even in the dusk of Cinnamon Street 
 it was to be seen that he carried himself with an air of 
 well-being, of dignity and poise. He had given but a 
 glance to the exterior of the old mansion. Then he had 
 mounted the stone steps of the high stoop. 
 
 They heard the hollow, metallic clack as the visitor to 
 No. 6 raised the brass knocker of the colonial door and 
 rapped. He also seemed to know that there was no bell 
 on the door of No. 6. The visitor hadn't sought for one. 
 
 "He knows the place," whispered Hickcock mistrust 
 fully. 
 
 "There were visitors in the old man's time," Good- 
 enough recalled. "This might have been one of them." 
 
 The watchers saw a pale light shine through the fan 
 light over the door. They saw the door swing open and 
 saw old Partridge standing there holding aloft a candle 
 with a fluttering flame. It gave them a flitting glimpse 
 of the stranger's face. He was florid under his white 
 hair. Also he was distinguished. 
 
 "An old man," brooded Hickcock. "And I wonder 
 what it was that brought him, this time of night. They'll 
 all bear watchinV 
 
 37
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Old men are like old houses," said Goodenough. "The 
 less said about what goes on inside of them the better." 
 
 "Hark now!" said Hickcock. "Didn't I tell you?" 
 
 From old No. 6 there came a wraith of music as 
 delicate as a breath of faint perfume, as soft as the trill 
 of a sleeping bird. But Hickcock seemed to regard this 
 as evidence of evil. Not so, Goodenough. 
 
 "Old men old houses," Goodenough philosophized; 
 "they're both haunted. Watch close enough and you'll 
 see the dim lights begin to dance; listen and you'll hear 
 them whispering the old love-songs." 
 
 Oddly enough, there would have been an even greater 
 suggestion of mystery to one who had heard almost the 
 first thing that passed between the stranger and the 
 Tyrone butler. 
 
 "Good evening, Partridge. You're looking uncommon 
 ly fit. You and I are getting on." 
 
 "Ah," quavered the butler. "It is good to see you, 
 Judge Bancroft, sir, if I may be permitted to say so. It 
 is a long time since we have had the honor " 
 
 So much, and then: 
 
 "Does he know?" from the judge. 
 
 This in a whisper, with an all but imperceptible nod to 
 indicate the back of the house. 
 
 And then the judge was hanging, so to speak, on what 
 the other might say. 
 
 And the butler's answer: "He does not know."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MASTER 
 
 ELECTRIC light is like a camera. It is cruel and 
 crude. It reveals everything. It shows no prefer 
 ence as between the important and the non-essen 
 tial. It glares. Often it presents in an ugly aspect that 
 which is not essentially ugly. But candlelight, on thft 
 other hand, is the artist revealing only that which ought 
 to be revealed, accentuating that only which is important 
 to the picture. So it was now as Partridge and Judge 
 Bancroft stood there in the hall of No. 6. 
 
 Partridge had placed the candle on a console. Its 
 flame went up in a quivering cone. Its light suffused 
 the darkness with a mild but sparkling translucency 
 the spacious hall, only dimly defined by the shine of dark 
 mahogany furniture and of woodwork painted white. It 
 limned a striking group of these two old men standing 
 there so different as to the stations of them in the eyes 
 of the world, yet so equal in the candlelight. 
 
 Partridge had taken the visitor's hat, his gloves and 
 umbrella. Partridge stood there slightly stooped. There 
 was a dignity about him though dressed in black, his 
 white hair brushed up over his ears, his pale face shining 
 whitely as if it had been the face of the great dead actor 
 
 39
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 lying in state. But his eyes were alive. His eyes were 
 dark and brilliant. And in them, as well as over his 
 face, there was an expression of something 1 that might 
 have been there when, say, the late Henry Irving opened 
 his eyes on the Judgment Morn. 
 
 As for the judge, he was a choleric type. His shaven 
 face was as pink as a baby's, and his blue eyes were as 
 clear. The candlelight brought out the red tints of his 
 face. It turned the native sparkle of his eyes into a gleam. 
 It gave added bulk to his solid shape. He must have 
 been a terror to any man of evil conscience when he was 
 on the bench or, for the matter of that, to any fresh 
 young lawyer who might have overstepped the bounds. 
 
 Perhaps the judge inspired even now a certain terror 
 in Partridge. It would have been hard to tell. Few 
 old men are ever terror-stricken. Perhaps it's because 
 they know that nothing that can happen to them will 
 matter very much anyway. But there was a tinge of awe 
 in Partridge's look. No one could have questioned that. 
 
 "This way, sir," quoth Partridge. 
 
 And, picking up the tall candlestick and holding it 
 aloft, he lighted the visitor back through the hall to the 
 compartment beyond. 
 
 This was a large room "a stately room" would de 
 scribe it better. The single candle made it appear almost 
 like the interior of a church, for there was a hint of 
 somber furniture and of stained glass and even of high 
 woodwork which might have been a pulpit 
 
 But with an apology for the darkness, Partridge set 
 about lighting other candles. There was a very beautiful 
 
 40
 
 The Master 
 
 branched candlestick on a table in the center of the room 
 old silver, with places for half a dozen candles at least. 
 And Partridge lit all of these. Thus gradually the room 
 emerged from the veiling shadows somewhat like a beau 
 tiful lady laying aside her wraps. 
 
 French oak, with a beautiful waxed surface; mellow 
 tones of garnet brocades ; and the thing that had looked 
 like a pulpit a tall broad fireplace with a dimly seen por 
 trait above it. There were other features that may have 
 met the visitor's casual survey the gilded old harp in a 
 corner of the room at the side of a music-stand, a glazed 
 cabinet with its door carelessly open, and in this a long 
 Morocco case, also open, displaying a silver-mounted 
 flute. 
 
 "Still burning candles," said the judge. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Partridge, with as much of easy good 
 nature as a well-trained servant might display in the 
 presence of a visitor. "The elder Mr. Tyrone preferred 
 them because of his own father's preference for them, 
 and Mr. Nathan Tyrone has never seen fit to change " 
 
 "I see," droned the visitor. "He was expecting me?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir!" Partridge was lighting the last of the 
 candles. "I shall go and announce you, sir." 
 
 Judge Bancroft snorted. 
 
 "Still all the old formalities," he said. 
 
 "The Tyrones have always been conservative, sir," said 
 Partridge. He spoke with perfect respect, yet somewhat 
 as if he were one of the Tyrones himself. The inflection 
 wasn't lost on the judge. The judge was in a mellow 
 mood in keeping with the candlelight. "They have always 
 
 41
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 dreaded change," Partridge had murmured, as he gave a 
 last look about him to assure himself that everything was 
 proper for his master's presence. 
 
 "They've dreaded change," said Judge Bancroft, "but 
 life's a railroad track, Partridge. You've got to hop or 
 you'll get run over." 
 
 "You're right, sir," said Partridge, permittng himself 
 a discreet laugh. 
 
 "Still paying the pension of the harlot?" 
 
 Partridge's laugh went out. "She had the effrontery 
 to come here to the house the other night." 
 
 "My God! She didn't " 
 
 "I saw her myself. She insisted that she needed a 
 special sum a doctor's fee, I believe." 
 
 "And you gave it to hejr?" 
 
 "I I did, sir." 
 
 "Blackmail!" 
 
 Partridge made a despairing gesture. 
 
 "And he never asks for an accounting?" queried the 
 judge. 
 
 "Mr. Nathan, sir? Oh, no, sir! You see, he is so 
 occupied with the epic poem he is writing ; and, even so, 
 he never did occupy himself with financial matters. But 
 I believe he did wish to make various general inquiries 
 of you, sir. You won't tell him you won't hint " 
 
 The judge raised an assuring palm. 
 
 " It would kill him," Partridge whispered. "And 
 
 now, sir, if you'll permit me " 
 
 "Just how long have you been in the family, Par 
 tridge?" the judge inquired. 
 
 42
 
 The Master 
 
 "Mr. Nathan's grandfather first employed me when 
 I was a boy," said Partridge softly, as he raised his face 
 the better to reflect. "We were together with General 
 Grant. Let's see ! Yes, quite sixty years." 
 
 "You've liked it." 
 
 "It has been my life, sir." 
 
 "And life is life." 
 
 "Yes! But it has had its compensations!" 
 
 Again there passed between the judge and the butler 
 the look of two old men who don't have to say all that 
 they think. 
 
 "I'll announce you, sir." And Partridge was gone. 
 
 The judge had sunk into a large square armchair. He 
 looked at the candles. The candles spread their light 
 about them. There were a number of portraits dimly 
 revealed besides the portrait over the mantelpiece. Most 
 of the portraits were those of men previous Ty rones, 
 any one would have said who had once seen the face of 
 the Man in Gray who lived here now. There was a 
 grimness about all the faces, yet a hint of poetry as well 
 a suggestion of poetry and romance. 
 
 There was old Eliphalet Tyrone, who had fought his 
 frigate in the war of 1812. There was Elihu, to whom 
 Edgar Allan Poe had dedicated his first book of poems. 
 There was the Daniel Tyrone who had taken Partridge 
 into his service when Partridge was a boy, and who had 
 been with General Grant throughout all that last slaugh 
 tering campaign against the immortal Lee. Thus it was 
 that the next in line had come to be named Ulysses 
 Ulysses Tyrone, the father of Nathan. 
 
 43
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Ulysses Tyrone looked down at the judge and the 
 judge looked up at Ulysses. The two of them had been 
 friends as much as Ulysses would ever admit any man 
 to his friendship. A recluse he had been, living here in 
 the house where his ancestors had lived before him, dying 
 at last in the chamber where they had died. 
 
 "You dominating old Puritan," Judge Bancroft mut 
 tered softly as he continued to look up at the portrait 
 of his former friend. But there was no harshness back 
 of the words. 
 
 The portrait on the wall looked back at him without 
 change of its grim expression, and so the original of 
 it had often enough looked back at the judge in life. 
 
 Then the visitor heard Partridge clear his throat, and 
 the judge turned in his chair to see Partridge at the 
 door holding back the damask curtain. Judge Bancroft 
 was not in the habit of doing reverence to any man, but 
 he arose to his feet and remained standing as Nathan 
 Tyrone came in,
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A PORTRAIT BY LA TOUR 
 
 HE made a striking figure, did Mr. Nathan Tyrone. 
 He would have made a striking figure anywhere 
 and at any time graceful, erect, proud. His 
 abundant hair was long and wavy, in perfect order but 
 tossed back from his white forehead rather in the style 
 of some other century than the present one. 
 
 His face was as finely chiseled as a cameo, but it was 
 as strong as the face of a Greek statue. Of the por 
 traits on the wall he most resembled that of Elihu, who 
 had been the friend of Poe. 
 
 Nathan himself had a face that would have inspired 
 that melancholy poet's love. Nathan himself might have 
 written "The Raven," or "Ulalume," or "Annabel Lee" 
 especially "Annabel Lee." So one would have said 
 even while still uninformed concerning his history. 
 
 In spite of his pride, there was no slightest trace of 
 condescension as he greeted his visitor. Most of the 
 Tyrones had run to sternness and melancholy, but they 
 had all been gracious. 
 
 "This is indeed a pleasure," said this Tyrone. 
 
 His voice was soft, well modulated, soothing. His 
 whole presence was that. His costume was inclined to 
 
 45
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 the Byronic a roll-collar, a flowing tie of plum-colored 
 silk, a velvet house-jacket of a darker shade. He offered 
 his hand. His hand was long and slender. 
 
 "And a pleasure for me," said the judge. 
 
 But the judge, one would have said, was not perfectly 
 at ease. It was that uneasiness which always exists be 
 tween men of a different type when they find themselves 
 alone together and possibly something more than that. 
 
 Not that they were altogether alone Partridge was 
 there. 
 
 It would have been a lesson in deportment to any 
 young servant to have observed the way that Partridge 
 occupied himself about his master's business. Partridge 
 had silently produced a heavy chair from a shadowy cor 
 ner, had placed it with such exquisite precision as to 
 time and position that Tyrone was enabled to seat him 
 self without so much as a glance. 
 
 "The weather continues mild," said Tyrone, as he fell 
 into a graceful position. "I was fearful of calling you 
 out in the rain." 
 
 Judge Bancroft smiled, but he remained a trifle stiff. 
 
 "Many a rainy night I used to come here in your 
 father's time," he said heartily, but instantly recognized 
 the fact that perhaps the allusion was not altogether a 
 happy one. "No," he added, with a trace of confusion, 
 "there is a little mist, but no rain, and the weather is 
 mild " 
 
 Tyrone was instantly for putting his visitor at his ease 
 on this score also. 
 
 "I remember well your visits to my father," he said 
 
 46
 
 A Portrait by La Tour 
 
 affably. "And I remember how fond you were of my 
 grandfather's port I believe it was some that his grand 
 father had grown on some estate or other he held for 
 a number of years in the Alto Douro. Oh, Partridge !" 
 
 He hadn't raised his voice. He hadn't turned to see 
 whether or not the butler was there. But there the butler 
 was. 
 
 "Yes, sir," Partridge had replied softly. "Immediately, 
 sir." 
 
 And Partridge was gone one shadow less in the room. 
 
 "You wished to inquire concerning the present condi 
 tion of the estate," said Judge Bancroft, when the servant 
 was gone. 
 
 Tyrone smiled. 
 
 "You know that I do not usually occupy myself with 
 such matters," he said. "I suppose that you would 
 think better of me if I did." He lifted one of his fine 
 white hands in deprecation as the visitor would have 
 made a protest. "I should think better of myself ! But 
 in view of my approaching visit to France " 
 
 He completed what he had to say by an explanatory 
 gesture full of grace. 
 
 "I have the figures" and Judge Bancroft made a 
 move to draw certain papers from the breast pocket of 
 his coat. 
 
 "Quite unnecessary, my dear sir," said Tyrone. "I 
 am quite incompetent. I never could understand figures 
 especially when they have to do with money. Just a 
 general statement will be quite sufficient." 
 
 "The estate has shrunk none since your father's time," 
 
 47
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 said the judge, still fumbling with his papers. "Certain 
 holdings, of course, have gone the way of all flesh. These 
 concern chiefly, however" he adjusted his glasses, scrut 
 inized one of his papers. "Let's see! There was the 
 company for refining whale oil the New Home Spin 
 ning-Wheel Factory passenger-packets on the Erie 
 
 Canal " The judge droned through a number of 
 
 others. "But other properties have appreciated in pro 
 portion the farm on East Twenty-third Street, the ware 
 house in Coenties Slip " 
 
 When the judge paused, however, he saw that his client 
 had ceased to listen. Tyrone had fallen into a reverie. 
 His head was thrown back. He was gazing at the por 
 trait that hung over the fireplace. It was the portrait 
 of a woman a portrait still dimly seen, for the light was 
 unfavorable. There was a momentary silence. 
 
 Then Partridge came in bearing a silver tray. On 
 the tray there was a bottle with two glasses. Silently, 
 Partridge placed his tray on the old table-desk beside 
 which his master sat. 
 
 Partridge deftly pulled the cork, decanted the dark-red 
 wine into the sparkling crystal. 
 
 "It was chiefly on my daughter's account," said Tyrone, 
 coming out of his reverie. 
 
 As he said this it was almost as if the red light of the 
 old port had cast a reflection to his pale face. 
 
 "Is that her portrait?" inquired the judge with refer 
 ence to the picture above the fireplace. He had returned 
 the useless papers to his pocket. 
 
 "That," Tyrone replied, with a flush of interest also 
 
 48
 
 A Portrait by La Tawr 
 
 manifest in his voice, "is La Tour's famous portrait of 
 Mile, de la Valliere." He pronounced the French name 
 with a caress. The caress lingered there as he repeated 
 the name and amplified it: "Mile. Melissine de la Val 
 liere." 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the judge. He was not altogether un 
 informed in art matters. "La Tour eighteenth century 
 one of the greatest!" 
 
 "The very greatest, I love to consider him," said Ty 
 rone ; "the very greatest of the greatest century of the 
 country I have always loved next to America. You may 
 know of course, you must have known that it cost 
 quite a small fortune to acquire it." 
 
 "Yes," intoned the judge, reminiscent. "And if you 
 will permit me of course, I know that it is very beauti 
 ful " 
 
 Anticipating his master's wishes, Partridge betimes had 
 taken a candle from the music-cabinet and approached the 
 portrait. To either side of it were triple brackets holding 
 other candles. These Partridge lit with the candle he 
 carried. He did this with a certain reverence, somewhat 
 as if he were an officiating priest at the shrine of a saint. 
 
 Softly, magically, the portrait revealed itself the face 
 of a girl who had been exceedingly fair. Her eyes were 
 darkly fringed. Her eyebrows were delicate and dark. 
 But her hair was the color of pale-gold fluffily light and 
 almost straight on top and at her white temples but a 
 cluster of brief curls over her ears and about her delicate 
 throat. 
 
 The judge had risen the better to see. 
 
 49
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Ah!" he breathed. 
 
 Tyrone also had risen. He and his visitor stood there 
 side by side. Back of them stood the butler, Partridge; 
 and even on the butler's face there was a look of wistful- 
 ness and constrained reverence, odd in the face of a man 
 in his position. 
 
 "I always knew that you were a poet that you were 
 an artist," said the judge. 
 
 Tyrone was silent. His melancholy eyes rested on the 
 portrait. He lifted himself from his reverie and spoke 
 with a preliminary sigh : 
 
 "Let us raise our glasses to her memory!"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 OF MME. TYRONE 
 
 YOU never saw Mme. Tyrone," said the master of 
 the house, when he and the visitor had gallantly 
 completed this little ceremony. They had drunk 
 their toast in silence. They still remained standing in 
 front of the portrait. The portrait looked down at them 
 a face that was demure, yet filled with a slumbering 
 fire. 
 
 "I never had that honor," said the judge. 
 
 "When she died," said Tyrone, with nothing of sadness 
 about his voice except possibly in the undertone of it, 
 "I was particularly distressed by the thought that I had 
 no portrait of her. It was strange, too, in view of the 
 fact that she had already appeared for a season or two 
 at the Paris Odeon. But she had never wanted to be 
 photographed, and she was the despair of all the artists 
 who had tried to paint her." 
 
 "I dare say," said the judge, with his eyes on the 
 portrait. 
 
 "For a long time/' Tyrone pursued, "I was inconsol 
 able. It was as if she had vanished utterly. She was 
 like no other woman in the world not in the present 
 world. She was a woman a spirit out of the eight- 
 Si
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 eenth century. Even her clothing much of it had been 
 inspired by the eighteenth century." Tyrone was re 
 counting all this with a certain gayety, almost; but this 
 was merely a froth, so to speak, to disguise the depths of 
 his feeling. "It was during this period, immediately fol 
 lowing her death, while I was roaming about France 
 pretty much as a mad man, that I came upon this old 
 portrait by La Tour. It looked so much like Mme. Tyrone 
 let us be seated." 
 
 They resumed their chairs. There for a time Judge 
 Bancroft may have believed that his host had finished this 
 part of his tale. The judge watched Partridge go about 
 his business of arranging the curtains, straightening a 
 chair here and there all this unobtrusively, yet possibly 
 with the air of one who listens and has the right to listen. 
 An observer would have said that the judge, as well as 
 Partridge, was on his guard against some surprise 
 against any revelation, at any rate, of that secret knowl 
 edge he and the butler shared. 
 
 "So you will forgive me," said Tyrone, emerging from 
 one of his reveries, "for putting you to the inconvenience 
 of finding such sums of money as were necessary to 
 secure the picture." 
 
 Partridge had turned. He and the visitor exchanged a 
 glance. 
 
 "Certainly," said the judge. 
 
 "It was a spiritual resemblance," said Tyrone. "Ah, 
 the women who have been the glory that is France ! the 
 charm! the intelligence! the sympathy! the wit! 
 the fire ! the devotion !" 
 
 52
 
 Of Mme. Tyrone 
 
 "'And the beauty!" breathed the judge. 
 
 "And the beauty," Tyrone echoed. "All this was in 
 carnate in La Tour's model, up there. Incarnate again 
 in her who became Mme. Tyrone! If my father had 
 only understood!" 
 
 "Your father thought " 
 
 "He thought," cried Tyrone softly, "that because I had 
 married a lady of the theater I had again let romance 
 get the better of me. He compared her to that un 
 fortunate I had merely rescued out of a perhaps mis 
 taken sense of charity. You are familiar with that that 
 adventure, of course." 
 
 "Your father had told me you will excuse my fashion 
 of putting it that you had brought here a woman of the 
 streets, that you had concealed her here in the house, to 
 the scandal of the neighborhood." 
 
 Tyrone laughed without mirth. 
 
 "I know that I have lived that I am living now in a 
 house with a bad name," he said. "Oh, I hear the whis 
 pers : 'The house with a bad name !' 'What is the mys 
 tery?' 'The house is haunted!' 'It's the house with a 
 bad name !' " He got to his feet and strode about a bit 
 He paused at the music-cabinet. He picked up his flute 
 and breathed a note from it. He let his delicate hands 
 brush the strings of the harp. A chord or two responded. 
 He abruptly turned. "I vowed I would never explain," 
 he cried. "But I will explain now that it's too late." 
 
 "No explanation is necessary," said the visitor. 
 
 "Which would be the one thing to make me want to 
 explain," said Tyrone. "I dreamed of bringing beauty 
 
 53
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 into the world making still more beautiful whatever was 
 already beautiful. One night, while I was still nothing 
 much more than a boy, I found a creature a girl a 
 woman huddled in the snow a dark and lonely street 
 sinister neighborhood Christmas Eve. Drugs and 
 starvation, or both she looked as if she might be suf 
 fering from both. She was thin and white. But she 
 might have been beautiful. She was still beautiful, in a 
 way with her hollow, flaming eyes. 
 
 "And what touched me most was that she had tried 
 to make herself still more beautiful had painted her lips, 
 put on a set of tawdry furs, pitiful little blouse of red 
 satin ; not the make-up for a shroud ! So I brought her 
 home, smuggled her into the house, bull-dozed Partridge 
 into caring for her. Oh, we both knew what my father 
 would say ! He wouldn't believe in my innocence." 
 
 "He was a Tyrone," said the judge. "He was merely 
 sensitive about the good name of his house." 
 
 It was clear that by this time both the visitor and the 
 butler were satisfied that Tyrone had no surprises in 
 store. Some such assurance passed between them in an 
 other glance. 
 
 Still Partridge lingered for a while. He had an eye 
 for the glasses. He had taken away the glasses that 
 had already been used, had replaced them with others 
 that sparkled clean in the candlelight. And he had lis 
 tened, head down and humbly, yet with a sorrowful judg 
 ment on his waxen face, to all that the others had said. 
 But now, having remained as long as he decently could, 
 
 54
 
 Of Mme. Tyrone 
 
 or having bethought himself of some duty elsewhere, he 
 quietly withdrew. 
 
 "You were speaking about some voyage you intended 
 to make," Judge Bancroft intimated, willing to turn the 
 conversation into a less emotional strain. "You were 
 going abroad?" 
 
 "To France," said Tyrone, resuming his chair. 
 
 "For a long time?" 
 
 "Possibly for a year." 
 
 "And you were thinking about the finances ?" 
 
 Tyrone tossed up his hands. "I've never given finances 
 a thought since let's see since I cabled for funds to 
 buy the portrait I've always left such concerns to 
 you " 
 
 "And Partridge." 
 
 "Yes, without disrespect to yourself." 
 
 "There is no disrespect in associating me with Par 
 tridge," Judge Bancroft affirmed. "I consider it rather 
 an honor." 
 
 "He has been devoted," Tyrone assented with genuine 
 feeling. "He performed the difficult feat of being loyal 
 to both my father and myself during the period of our 
 estrangement. He alone seemed to be capable of com 
 prehending all the facts the facts of that first romantic 
 charity of mine, and then again the facts concerning 
 my marriage and my subsequent bereavement." 
 
 "Your double bereavement," said the judge. 
 
 "My double bereavement, indeed. It was Partridge 
 who told me that my father was sinking. It was another 
 struggle of the Tyrone pride. But I came here to the 
 
 5S
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 old house to make my peace with him." Tyrone let his 
 eyes dwell for a moment on the portrait of his father 
 which hung on the wall to his right. Tyrone himself 
 smiled, but the face of his father looked back at him 
 without compromise haughty and sensitive. "Unfortu 
 nately, he was unable to see us. He died. I fully ex 
 pected to be disinherited. It would have been like him 
 if he had disinherited me." 
 
 The judge used his handkerchief. He made some 
 remark about having caught a slight cold. 
 
 "But they were absurd," said Tyrone, "those rumors 
 that we had had a death-bed quarrel, or anything like 
 that. Partridge knows. Partridge was there. Partridge 
 assured me then, and has assured me since, that my 
 father died with but one regret that he had declined to 
 see the lady who had consented to be my wife." 
 
 The judge gave a slight lurch. 
 
 "I was under the impression," he said, "that Mme. 
 Tyrone had left you a daughter." 
 
 "She did" and there was a rekindling of fervor about 
 Tyrone as he made his declaration. "It was concerning 
 her, chiefly, that I wished to speak to you to-night. You 
 shall see her presently. You will pardon me if I speak 
 of her with rather more than the usual feeling that fa 
 thers display in speaking about their daughters. But 
 first, should anything happen to me, you will, of course, 
 see that she is protected, that the family estates pass on 
 to her without annoyance to her in any way. I am as 
 poor a lawyer as I am a financier. And, I fancy, so is 
 she." 
 
 56
 
 Of Mme. Tyrone 
 
 "You should be alive for a good many years," the 
 visitor said. 
 
 "I am not so sure," said Tyrone. "You know how it 
 is when a man suddenly finds his life's work complete." 
 
 "You refer to your epic poem?" 
 
 "Not to the one I have been writing," Tyrone replied. 
 "I refer to the greater work a work that has been like 
 the fulfillment of all those early dreams of mine a 
 work like God's a work of living creation."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 "IN HER IMAGE'* 
 
 THERE for a time it was as if there were, indeed, 
 some work of magic under discussion here in this 
 house to which the neighbors ascribed magic. Ty 
 rone could cast that magical atmosphere about him an 
 effect subtly aided by the candlelight, by the old furni 
 ture, by the portraits staring down. The portraits were 
 not so much like painted pictures as they were like ghosts 
 present, albeit long since dead ; passive, albeit actively 
 interested. 
 
 They seemed to say : "We had a share in this." 
 
 It was not black magic, though, such as the neighbors 
 would have suspected. White magic, according to the 
 testimony of Tyrone pure white. 
 
 "When Mme. Tyrone died," Tyrone said, "I was mad 
 enough to consider this child of mine as the cause of her 
 death. She died, you know, at the time the child was 
 born." 
 
 "There is a consolation," the judge began slowly. 
 
 "There is," Tyrone put in; "but I did not know it. I 
 was blind. I was dead to everything except my loss. 
 When she was dead the world was dead. There was 
 nothing left of the world but a shadow and a voice. The 
 
 58
 
 "In Her Image" 
 
 voice said : 'She is dead/ There was no laughter. THere 
 was no music. Oh, I tried hard enough to get my sanity 
 back. I went to the places we had loved the woods of 
 St. Cloud, the banks of the Marne. It was always the 
 same the ripples on the river and the breeze in the 
 poplars, they said the same thing : 'She is dead !' " 
 
 Tyrone turned slightly in his chair and raised his eyes 
 to the La Tour portrait. He studied it while his mood 
 underwent a subtle change. 
 
 "The first gleam of hope, and the first time that voice 
 lost something of its force," he said, "was when I saw 
 this. Until then I had been hopeless. The portrait gave 
 me a vision. I was no longer so blind. It somehow told 
 me that death is not the end and that it cannot be the 
 end. Mile, de la Valliere, the subject of this portrait, 
 had breathed her lovely last two centuries ago. But 
 there she still was. There she still is. What is the loved 
 one, after all, but a vision ? So I argued." 
 
 "When we grow old," said the judge, "death itself 
 becomes a hope and a beautiful thing. What had become 
 of the child?" 
 
 "I had hardly known had hardly cared," said Tyrone. 
 "I had entrusted her to the care of the nurse who had 
 been with Mme. Tyrone at the last. My only com 
 munication with this woman since had been to send her 
 occasional funds." 
 
 "Partridge went over to France at about this time, I 
 believe," said the judge. 
 
 "He sought me out," said Tyrone. "I had done all 
 
 59
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 I could to avoid him. But he found me, in spite of my 
 self found me in more ways than one." 
 
 "I do not quite get the allusion." 
 
 "He found me in the hotel on the Quai des Orfevres, 
 where Mme. Tyrone and I had lived on our return to 
 Paris. It was he who coaxed me to go and see my 
 daughter." 
 
 "And you did so?" 
 
 "No! I was still obdurate. But Partridge insisted, 
 one day, that I take the air in the Luxembourg Gardens. 
 It was there that I had first seen my wife under the 
 chestnut-trees with the gold sunlight and the blue 
 shadows making it a picture world, and making every 
 thing that was beautiful twice as beautiful still. A day 
 like that!" 
 
 Tyrone broke off in his poetic flight, brought the focus 
 of his attention back to Judge Bancroft. 
 
 "I bore you," said Tyrone. "I forget myself." 
 
 "You interest me greatly," the judge rejoined soberly. 
 "And so Partridge showed you your child?" 
 
 "He managed it as if it were an accident," said Tyrone. 
 "While I was seated there under the trees a woman 
 the old nurse went by with a child a little girl a little 
 girl that had pale-gold hair and tiny dark eyebrows and 
 eyes that were also dark, but large and blue. It was 
 when she turned to look at me that I saw her eyes." 
 
 Tyrone paused in his recountal. He smiled. But he 
 was breathing heavily. 
 
 "And it was she?" droned the judge. 
 
 "Not only she my living daughter but that other." 
 
 60
 
 "In Her Image 3 
 
 "You mean- 
 
 "Her mother! The vision was there again. The 
 mother lived again in the child. For me, it was vertigo 
 it was swoon. I was Lazarus coming out of the tomb." 
 
 "Yes/' said the judge. 
 
 "I was like that," said Tyrone. "I suppose that I 
 made an absurdity of myself. At least, it would have 
 been absurd anywhere else than in Paris. But in Paris 
 people are bolder to be themselves and others are less 
 prone to criticise. I went to my knees, there in the 
 dust of the walk. But no one laughed. No one stared 
 not very long. It was a father who had found his child. 
 Perhaps they even guessed that it was more than that." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Then then I began to live again. I think that she 
 was a little afraid of me, at first. It would have been a 
 wonder if she hadn't been. I couldn't allow her out of 
 my sight, day or night. It was as if I had found her 
 mother again as if her mother were there " 
 
 "I have watched my own daughters grow," said the 
 judge. 
 
 "She grew. She had looked on this portrait, from the 
 first, as the portrait of her mother. Even myself, I had 
 come to regard it as such. Day by day I saw the child 
 develop. It was like watching the growth of that other 
 from childhood, with all the beauty and fragrance of 
 her future compressed into her little white soul and 
 then, one day, I caught her reflection in a mirror. She 
 smiled at me. Do you believe in ghosts?" 
 
 "Certain kinds," the judge confessed. 
 
 61
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "The old miracle of the first Easter was a ghost-story," 
 said Tyrone, reverently, yet joyously. "This also was a 
 resurrection. There she stood ! There she stood ! There 
 was only one other thing to render the illusion no, the 
 reality! perfect, and I had the means. Mme. Tyrone 
 had always loved beautiful clothes. They were still there, 
 laid away. When my daughter dressed herself in her 
 mother's clothes ah, me!" 
 
 And Tyrone put his hand on his heart. 
 
 "We're going to France together," said Tyrone ; "over 
 the same course her mother and I followed. He seemed 
 to be touched by a premonition. His breath failed him. 
 He whispered: "But, God! God! should something 
 happen to her should anything come between us " 
 
 Tyrone did not complete his statement. He glanced 
 toward the door, remained transfixed. Partridge had 
 appeared at the door. Partridge held the damask cur 
 tains back. He announced: 
 
 "Miss Tyrone!"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 OUT OF THE PAST 
 
 IN spite of all that had been said, the judge seemed 
 to have been taken somewhat unawares. He looked 
 at the girl who entered. He gave a hasty glance at 
 the portrait above the fireplace. He was looking at the 
 girl again. He was the old lawyer, the old man of the 
 world. He had come into contact with many women, 
 some of them beautiful. Some of these had drawn upon 
 all that they possessed of art and instinct and on the 
 wardrobes of Fifth Avenue shops as well to sway him. 
 But he found himself, mentally at least, catching his 
 breath. All this while he was making his bow. 
 "And this," Tyrone was saying, "is Melissine." 
 Her dress was a pale pink velvet that had silver re 
 flections in it. The simple bodice was cut round and low 
 in front. The sleeves came barely to the elbow, there 
 flaring wide. At throat and elbow there appeared the 
 frills of what appeared to be an undergarment of foamy 
 cambric, this against the pearl-like luster of her skin. 
 The skirt was long and full and yet it was as obedient 
 to the movement and grace of the wearer as the plumage 
 of a bird. 
 
 She had entered modestly, with a queer mingling of 
 
 63
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 pride arjd timidity. This had dissolved at once into mere 
 brightness and affection at sight of her father. To him 
 she had fluttered, rather than walked, and kissed him 
 fondly on the cheek holding both of his hands in hers 
 as she did so, as unaffectedly as a child. 
 
 In all she did there was such a deft mixture of art and 
 artlessness that there was no telling which was which. 
 
 For a moment or longer the judge was aware of the 
 mother-of-pearl quality of her cheek and throat, of the 
 surf of color and perfume that beat about him, and of 
 the knowledge that he was almost like a boy of eighteen 
 in this presence. Then Melissine Tyrone was smiling at 
 him her pink lips parted over small and dazzling teeth. 
 For the first time he perceived adequately the pansy 
 quality of her eyes, the dark, fine strength of her eye 
 brows, and also that one touch of black a beauty spot 
 as ever was at the upper curve of her right cheek. Then 
 her warm, delicate fingers were pressing his own. 
 
 The contact the whole contact had taken the judge 
 himself right back a century or two. He himself was a 
 Virginian, sir, by descent. And no gentleman of old 
 Virginia was ever more gallant than the judge was now. 
 
 He bowed low. He brought the lady's fingers to his 
 lips. It was natural. The girl cast this sort of an atmos 
 phere about her an atmosphere of courts and gallantry. 
 
 "My dear," said the judge, "could your grandfather 
 but have lived to see you " 
 
 There had been no formal introduction. The girl now 
 responded with a slight curtsy full of grace. And the 
 
 64
 
 judge saw that her eyes could be tender as well as hu 
 morous and wise. 
 
 "He bequeathed me his friendship," she said. She 
 gave a smiling glance to her father. She returned to 
 the slightly baffled but wholly pleased visitor. "I have 
 so long wished to tell you so to thank you." Another 
 dazzling smile. 
 
 "Thank me?" 
 
 "Oh, for innumerable hours." 
 
 The judge's mind was a flood of comment. What 
 art ! What artlessness ! And he had considered himself 
 wise in the ways of the world; very, very wise in the 
 ways of women. To him had come mothers to plead for 
 their sons. To him had come daughters of sin to plead 
 on their own account. He had reared daughters of his 
 own. 
 
 "You mean?" he demanded, refusing to believe. 
 
 "Yes ! The books you gave to grandfather ; wonder 
 ful books !" 
 
 "Dear, dear!" cried the judge. "Not my work on 
 Torts'!" 
 
 "More particularly," she answered lightly and gravely, 
 "your work on 'Comparative Jurisprudence' although 
 there were some things I confess I didn't understand in 
 your chapter" her voice took on a rising inflection, and 
 was it art or artlessness? "your chapter on the primi 
 tive history of marriage." 
 
 "Why, er " 
 
 "Pray be seated," she said. 
 
 Partridge was there with a chair, just as he had been 
 
 65
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 when her father had first seated himself. And Melissine 
 also seated herself with the same perfect ease. She was 
 a child. She was a woman two centuries old. That was 
 her portrait on the wall. She would have been beautiful 
 in almost any light. She was a vision in the candlelight. 
 
 As she turned her graceful back after requesting the 
 guest to resume his chair the polished texture of her skin 
 was finer than that of the stuff she wore. On one of 
 her delicate shoulders also was a tiny round spot that 
 showed almost black through her transparent cambric. 
 Another beauty-spot, surely, but whether real or artificial 
 the judge could not have told. The judge sighed. 
 
 Her yellow hair was so fine it was almost opalescent 
 where the light struck it. Her eyes loomed shadowy. In 
 repose her face was touched with melancholy a hint of 
 reproach. But it was never in repose when either she 
 spoke to her guest or looked at her father. 
 
 She looked at her father now. She put out a hand 
 impulsively and let it rest on his. Her playfulness re 
 asserted itself. 
 
 "Am I too late," she inquired, "to share in the fes 
 tivities ?" 
 
 Tyrone, his whole being absorbed in his fond con 
 templation of her, caught the allusion to the empty 
 glasses. 
 
 "We've already drunk to your good health," he an 
 swered. "I dare say you would like to drink to the 
 health of your favorite author." 
 
 Melissine paused long enough to give the judge a 
 sparkling look. She languidly gave her attention to Par- 
 
 66
 
 Out of the Past 
 
 tridge. The butler had kept his eyes upon her. There 
 was a passion of service in the butler's face. It was 
 evident to all who might behold that to serve this mis 
 tress was for him a beautiful and holy thing. 
 
 "Partridge," said Melissine, "I think that you may 
 prepare me a cup of camomile." 
 
 "Perfectly, Miss Tyrone." 
 
 Judge Bancroft was still in the daze where the girl's 
 comment on his law-books had left him. Into his mind, 
 like ships seen through a golden mist, there floated the 
 stories he had heard or read about the women of the 
 Golden Age of France Mme. Roland, Ninon de Lenclos, 
 Adrienne Lecouvreur, the beautiful and spiritual Reca- 
 mier, and Melissine herself ! 
 
 "While we are waiting for your camomile," Tyrone 
 suggested, "perhaps you will favor us with music." 
 
 "Do !" begged the judge. 
 
 Again that sparkling look with which she had favored 
 him before. With perfect obedience and self-possession 
 she arose and went over to her harp. 
 
 The judge had gone his way as haunted an old man 
 as ever was, to borrow from the language of Good- 
 enough. This night Nathan Tyrone had consulted him 
 for the first time since the elder Tyrone's death. And 
 many an odd and mysterious state of affairs had de 
 veloped itself within the judge's capacious mind in the 
 years he had served his fellow men, but there had never 
 been a state of affairs like this. 
 
 He had thought himself hardened. It was not so. 
 
 67
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 His heart was as tender as a boy's. As a boy's heart 
 might have quivered and as one boy's heart was quiver 
 ing now, no doubt so quivered his heart responsive to 
 the memory of the girl who had sung and played for 
 him, and who had praised his terrible old law-books, and 
 who wore the manners as well as the clothing and spoke 
 the speech of another century. 
 
 And there was Partridge, the old butler, with his whis 
 pered assurance : "He does not know!" 
 
 No wonder the judge had given Partridge a silent 
 embrace in the dusky hall as Partridge the perfect 
 servant always passed him his hat, his umbrella, and 
 his gloves.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LOVE SONG 
 
 THIS day Paris was as Tyrone had described it in 
 his talk with Judge Bancroft a city of gold sun 
 light and blue shadows. The Tyrones had been 
 there for two weeks. They had taken a boat at Boston 
 for Tyrone had insisted on sailing in the same ship that 
 had carried him and his bride back to France these 
 twenty years agone. He and Melissine had followed the 
 old itinerary that Tyrone and Melissine's mother had 
 followed then loitering through Normandie at old- 
 fashioned inns; traveling by diligence to villages that 
 tourists never heard of ; coming at last to Paris and there 
 putting up in the little old hotel on the Quai des 
 Orfevres. 
 
 A spirit honeymoon all this was for Nathan Tyrone. 
 
 This daughter of his represented the dreams and 
 aspirations of a lifetime. It was worth it, all the tragic 
 cost. Of her mother, Melissine was the perfect image, 
 body, heart, and soul. It was a reincarnation. Melissine 
 was dead; yet here was Melissine alive. For Melissine 
 he had mourned ; yet now again he felt the touch of her 
 hand, he saw her bosom rise and fall, he saw the light 
 in her eyes, heard her voice, heard the frou-frou of her 
 
 69
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 unforgetable garments. For Melissine this Melissine 
 was even now wearing the things that had constituted 
 her mother's very elaborate trousseau at the time of her 
 marriage. 
 
 It made the French people stare, but they stared with 
 a tenderness, with an admiration ! 
 
 "Let's go up to the Luxembourg," Tyrone proposed. 
 
 "Oh, let's !" said Melissine. 
 
 Tyrone was confronted by some devil of dread and 
 misgiving which he couldn't quite see, but which he was 
 trying to overcome by reason. He had life and he had 
 love, he asserted through the silent megaphone of his 
 thought. He was living a love-story more tender and 
 spiritual than any man had ever lived before. It was 
 as if his original love-story had died and gone to heaven 
 and that this was the angel of it come back to him. 
 , "You're fooling yourself," the devil sneered. 
 
 Maybe it was the autumn that cast such melancholy 
 about him. This was autumn. The chestnut trees were 
 brown and red except where some of them were putting 
 out a second blooming just as Tyrone himself was do 
 ing a flash of spring-time green very fresh and beauti 
 ful, but rather touching to one who reflected on the com 
 ing snows. 
 
 The glamour which is Paris was never stronger. It 
 peopled the streets and places with the rabble and the 
 knights and the ladies of forgotten centuries, with trou- 
 badors and gallant beauties. Francois Villon was afoot 
 again ; and Trilby, and Mimi Pinson. 
 
 70
 
 Love Song 
 
 They came up into the gardens Tyrone and his 
 daughter and walked away under the chestnut trees. 
 
 The daughter understood the father's mood. She 
 didn't speak. Let him sail the bark of his dreams where 
 he would ! She had a shallop of her own. 
 
 She had never spoken to her father about that young 
 man she had noticed in Cinnamon Street the young 
 man with the dark eyes he who had looked at her so 
 often with such an unforgetable expression but she had 
 thought about him. She thought of him now. She 
 thought of how it was of him she was thinking every 
 time she sang the serenade: 
 
 "I arise from dreams of thee 
 In the first sweet sleep of night . . .** 
 
 It was a song her mother had sung so her father 
 had told her and she had always loved it. She would 
 have loved it anyway. 
 
 Tyrone was leaning by this time on one of the stone 
 balustrades looking out over the sunken gardens. Melis- 
 sine saw an unoccupied chair under a neighboring tree. 
 She went over to it and sat down. 
 
 When the winds are breathing low 
 And the stars are shining bright . . . 
 
 The words curiously persisted in her thought; so did 
 the memory of the young man she had noticed. She 
 remembered his eyes particularly. They were so dark 
 and glowing. Although there had been the whole wide 
 
 71
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 street between herself and the owner of the eyes that first 
 time she saw him, she remembered it now, she had been 
 rather frightened. 
 
 And now, here she was feeling frightened again. It 
 was a rather delicious sensation. 
 
 Tyrone continued to stare out across the sunken 
 gardens absorbed in his broodings. The wide flower 
 beds shimmered underneath his gaze. Over there, at a 
 little distance, there was a wide basin in which children 
 were sailing their toy yachts. There was one particular 
 ly gorgeous boat with a bright-red hull and a snowy sail. 
 There came a gust of air a little too strong, and the 
 yacht capsized. 
 
 Lord of the Inscrutable ! 
 
 Men also sailed their toy boats gorgeous craft some 
 times fabricated out of brilliant dreams. An extra 
 breath out of heaven and the things capsized! Tyrone 
 continued to lean there, musing. 
 
 Melissine had taken off the small, limp, finely woven 
 straw hat she had worn this day. Both the wind and 
 the light were at work in the cobweb filaments of her 
 hair fluffily straight on top and over her temples, gath 
 ered in so many natural curls over the alabaster of her 
 neck and shoulders. Over her shoulders was the sheerest 
 of opalescent veils. No wonder the artists among the 
 students turned and stared. 
 
 Perhaps it was this that gave her that delicious thrill 
 of vague disquiet just as if she had been back in Cin 
 namon Street again and that youth looking at her so 
 absurdly. She raised her eyes. She felt a creep of 
 
 72
 
 Love Song 
 
 blood-red warmth coming to the surface from her pal 
 pitant heart. 
 
 There was the youth himself. 
 
 No, it couldn't be he. That would be altogether too 
 absurd, altogether too wonderful. This as she cast an 
 agitated glance in the direction of her father. But her 
 father was still leaning on the balustrade, looking out 
 across the flower-beds. She wished he were here at her 
 side. She was grateful that he wasn't. She looked down 
 into her lap. It couldn't couldn't possibly be the 
 youth she had seen in Cinnamon Street. 
 
 Yet she was in an agony. She would have to look up 
 again. She did so, soberly quite as if nothing had hap 
 pened or as if nothing could happen. 
 
 It was he. 
 
 Their eyes had met. 
 
 He appeared to be even more frightened than she was. 
 
 At sight of Melissine he had just about been able to 
 keep his feet. But his soul had swooned. 
 
 Now he was recovering himself a little bit. There was 
 an appeal in his eyes. Ought he to smile? Ought he 
 to bow? Ought he to stroll away, thus showing her 
 what a perfect gentleman he was ? Then he had dropped 
 into a chair, some twenty feet from Melissine. 
 
 All this in that fourth dimension of dreams, where 
 seconds expand to hours and days and lifetimes. The 
 youth of the dark eyes over there had been looking at 
 Melissine for hours; for hours she had been looking at 
 him. Yet a butterfly that had lighted on a near-by flower 
 when the incident began had not yet drunk its fill. 
 
 73
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TO PARADISE 
 
 NOW there appeared another figure in this cosmic 
 drama a person of consequence to subsequent 
 developments, but carefully disguised. To all 
 outward appearance, this was merely one of those wom 
 en, sharp-eyed and ruddy, who go about collecting two 
 sous from the chair-users. She was neat, dressed in 
 homely black, even to her black apron and her black 
 straw hat. At her generous waist there was an open 
 black satchel containing a weight of jingling coins. 
 
 "Merci, mademoiselle!" 
 
 Melissine looked up a trifle startled at the apparition 
 at her side. The woman smiled at her. And Melissine 
 smiled back, but Melissine was without a cent. She 
 started to say so. Would madame kindly ask her father 
 over there ? 
 
 But before she could get this out in her pretty, falter 
 ing French, there was the woman on her way again, and 
 there was the young man standing where the woman 
 had stood. 
 
 "I took the liberty," he said. 
 
 He said this as if he had a halter about his 
 neck. There were beads of perspiration on his fore- 
 
 74
 
 To Paradise 
 
 head. He was smiling, but there was agony in his eyes. 
 
 "Oh, thank you," murmured Melissine, looking up at 
 him; "father " 
 
 She found the boy rather touching now. She felt 
 sorry for him. Also she admired him greatly. And 
 yet he did look so absurdly miserable that she had to 
 laugh at him, just a little. She went instantly sober 
 again. 
 
 He had pronounced her name. 
 
 "It is nothing Miss Tyrone!" 
 
 "I I " said Melissine. 
 
 "My name," he floundered, "is Buckhannon." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Buckhannon. You were very kind." 
 
 "Did you" and Buckhannon had the frenzied courage 
 of a man, not very strong and not very expert, but as 
 brave as can be, who fights a mob "did you bring your 
 harp with you?" 
 
 "How ridiculous !" laughed Melissine, while her color 
 came and went in ineffable waves. "How did you know 
 that I played the harp?" 
 
 "I heard you." 
 
 Hitherto Melissine had felt herself to be the perfect 
 mistress of the situation. It was true that Buckhannon 
 was the first young man she had ever spoken to. But 
 he had been so obviously at her mercy. Now suddenly 
 her poise was gone. 
 
 "I don't see don't see why you should have thought 
 it was I." 
 
 "I knew it was when I heard you sing." 
 
 "Sing?" 
 
 75
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 " 7 arise from dreams of thee ' " 
 
 Perhaps he hadn't intended to put so much meaning 
 into his brief quotation, hadn't forseen that their eyes 
 would meet at the very moment that the words were 
 tumbling forth like a message of his own. 
 
 "And so you are acquainted with Cinnamon Street!" 
 said Melissine, seeking a parry. 
 
 "And dear old Partridge!" 
 
 "You know Partridge?" 
 
 "I love him. I think he's great!" 
 
 "Why, where did you ever get acquainted with Par 
 tridge?" 
 
 "Well, to tell the truth, I never did." 
 
 They both laughed, a bit embarrassed. And then: 
 "Oh, father! Will you please come here?" 
 
 There had been a rather perfunctory introduction such 
 as might have occurred among any travelers abroad 
 cast together momentarily by some trifling incident. And 
 that was all for the moment. Tyrone had bowed and 
 amplified his daughter's thanks. Buckhannon had bowed 
 and repeated that it was nothing. Melissine had smiled 
 and taken her father's arm. Buckhannon had remained 
 standing there. The Tyrones had moved away. 
 
 Full three days before Buckhannon saw the Tyrones 
 again days full of agony, nights that were sleepless or 
 haunted with nightmare. Yet this blackness shot through 
 with gleams of gold when he told himself that to love 
 a girl like this, though she be a Lilith, or a vampire, or 
 a Lorelei, would make him a knight and a troubadour. 
 
 Who was she ? 
 
 76
 
 To Paradise 
 
 What was she? 
 
 What was wrong? 
 
 All sorts of old foolish statements kept ringing in his 
 brain, like "Where there's smoke there's fire," and the 
 druggist's "Maybe it was his wife," and the policeman's 
 " Tis the soul of old man Tyrone that ought to be run- 
 nin' to and fro.' " 
 
 Then, one afternoon Buckhannon had dropped over 
 for his hundredth visit to Notre Dame. First he had 
 stood there in the open square looking up at its old 
 facade. He was moved to speech : 
 
 "Let little man squirm and argue as he will and let 
 him in his heart say there is no God ; or, for the matter 
 of that, let him curse God and die, if he wants to; old 
 Notre Dame understands. They have said bad things 
 about you, Notre Dame. You also have been a house 
 with a bad name. But there you are, serene and beautiful 
 and everlasting!" 
 
 Thus having purified himself, so to speak, he entered 
 the one of the three doors that was open. It was dark 
 inside or it seemed so, as it always does to one who 
 enters from the outer daylight. It was darkness which 
 at first was only slightly relieved by the twinkle of 
 candles as of stars too small in a void too vast. 
 
 Then there was a slant of shadowy light from the 
 heights above him, this light dissolving into the luminous 
 blue dusk. It was a place of receding distances, the 
 gleams, the depths, and the perspectives of which made 
 these distances seem measureless. 
 
 He had the familiar sensation that here was a house 
 77
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 not built with hands. He had the feeling that this was 
 not a building constructed of lead and stone so much 
 as it was a structure reared of the solid stuff of prayers 
 and songs. This was the footstool of the Almighty. The 
 Almighty was there an Infinite Presence, a Thinker, 
 nebulous but real and very great. 
 
 Then, without any conscious change, or without any 
 conscious loss in his feeling of reverence, he was aware 
 that he was contemplating another sort of presence. The 
 thought even occurred to him in a glimpsing sort of way 
 that even the Almighty at times has been known to as 
 sume a small and concrete form. Maybe it was some 
 thing like that in the present instance. There, some dis 
 tance ahead of him, almost in the exact center of the 
 nave, he saw the figure of a girl. 
 
 She seemed to be a supplicant. She seemed to be at 
 prayer. She was kneeling on a prie-Dieu one of those 
 cathedral chairs with a low seat and a high back. She 
 was very graceful. She was dressed in white. 
 
 All this was in Buckhannon's first impression. Then 
 he found himself pervaded by a slow, a tingling, a stead 
 ily mounting surge of emotion. 
 
 He had noticed that this fair supplicant also had a 
 crown of fine gold hair; that she was wearing the same 
 sort of clothes that Miss Tyrone would have worn. Still, 
 the thing seemed too good to be true. He felt as one 
 might feel who had possibly hoped for a miracle, but 
 hadn't dared to ask for it, and had suddenly found that 
 he had been granted the miracle none the less. 
 
 But he went forward up the center of the nave. There 
 78
 
 To Paradise 
 
 was no one else there. It was as if he and this other had 
 the cathedral to themselves, had the world to themselves, 
 had the universe to themselves, had all time, all space. 
 
 There was a vacant prie-Dieu at the fair supplicant's 
 side. Tremulous, Buckhannon knelt there. He looked 
 at the girl. He had known it. There had been no doubt. 
 It was Melissine. 
 
 She gave him a slightly startled glance. Their eyes 
 met. He did not smile. Nor did she. There was no 
 levity in either of them. So far as Buckhannon was con 
 cerned he had never felt so solemn in his life. There 
 was that in Melissine's face to indicate that it was the 
 same with her. 
 
 For a moment she had turned her face straight for 
 ward again, looking up. She closed her eyes. Her dark 
 eyelashes were very soft and fine. They rested on the 
 greater softness and fineness of her skin, while this took 
 on the faintest tinge of added color. 
 
 Her white throat swelled a little. And not until then 
 was there even a hint of a smile on her lips. If Melis 
 sine could have been translated into a song just then, the 
 words of it would have been : "Oh, joy divine !" 
 
 Then she opened her eyes again and slowly looked at 
 Buckhannon. He had been watching her with a rapt 
 and fearful attentiveness his own lips closed tight, his 
 breast heaving. 
 
 For a measureless time now they were looking into 
 each other's eyes. It was the final clearing up of the 
 clouds and the vapors incident to this new Day of Cre 
 ation. 
 
 79
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Buckhannon, no longer fearful of anything, and still 
 just as reverent as he had been, put out his hand and 
 let it rest on one of Melissine's hands. It was smooth 
 and soft and yet it was strong, that hand of Melissine's. 
 He could tell that, even before she turned it over so that 
 the back of it was resting on the back of the prie-Dieu 
 and her fingers were closing over his own. 
 
 "Eugene," she breathed. 
 
 He had told her his first name. 
 
 "Melissine," he breathed. 
 
 He had heard her father call her that. 
 
 Their language, such as it was, consisted of mere 
 breaths and wordless telepathies. 
 
 "Do you know what I was praying for?" asked Melis 
 sine. 
 
 "Yes no." 
 
 "I was praying that we might find each other again." 
 
 He bowed his head over her hand. He held her hand 
 for a long, long time to his lips. And neither of them 
 noticed that shadowy figure of a man who had come up 
 and was standing there just at the side of them. 
 
 The newcomer made as if to speak. He put out a hand 
 as if to touch the girl. He hesitated. He drew back.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE NEW QUASIMODO 
 
 THE other day when Nathan Tyrone had seen this 
 youth speak to his daughter in the Gardens of the 
 Luxembourg, it hadn't occurred to him that any 
 thing of importance had happened. There had been no 
 premonition. There had been no misgivings afterward. 
 Apparently everything had been as it had been before. 
 So he had felt. So he had believed. 
 
 If anything, his spirit had attained to even some higher 
 level of happiness. There had been a new tenderness 
 about Melissine, also a new beauty. 
 
 Tyrone surveyed all this in the first hasty glance of his 
 mind as he stood there now. He was like a man who 
 had received a bolt in his chest in the course of a prome 
 nade on a tranquil afternoon, and who turns and looks 
 about him over the sunlit landscape, aware that he has 
 received his death wound and wondering whence it came. 
 
 What met his mental vision was that thing he had seen 
 in the park the marble basin where the children had 
 been sailing their yachts. He saw the one particularly 
 gorgeous craft the one with the tall white sail and 
 crimson hull the one that had been capsized by that 
 gentle breath of air. Such a gentle breath of air tepid, 
 
 81
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 smelling of geraniums! And he had likened it to the 
 dream-craft of some older person. 
 
 Hadn't the thing been a sign for himself? Absurd 1 
 The thing could not be. He put out his hand and had 
 almost touched Melissine's shoulder, but a palsy took 
 him and he drew his hand away. 
 
 He took a survey of nearer incidents. To-day he 
 hadn't been feeling so well. Melissine had been all de 
 voted attention for him just as her mother would have 
 been had made him a pot of camomile after their stroll 
 along the Seine. He had intended taking a nap. It was 
 he who had suggested that she go over to Notre Dame. 
 She loved the cathedral as much as he did. It wasn't 
 very far away. But he had found the loneliness un 
 bearable. It was always like that when Melissine was 
 away from him for any length of time. 
 
 She was all he had. She was all he loved. She was 
 all that held him to this earth. 
 
 But he had his premonition now. 
 
 It was when he started to pronounce her name and 
 his voice failed him. He hadn't been able to get out a 
 syllable. 
 
 There knelt Melissine. There knelt this young man 
 named Buckhannon. And the young man had taken 
 Melissine's hand. She had let him. She had let him 
 bring her fingers to his lips. 
 
 Tyrone's breast began to heave. 
 
 Even yet he was perhaps unaware of the magnitude of 
 this thing that had befallen him. But he was torn by 
 some agony of grief such as he had believed he would 
 
 82
 
 The New Quasimodo 
 
 never know again. There may have been a jealousy in 
 this. There certainly was a sense of deprivation a feel 
 ing that he was no longer essential to the life and the 
 movement of the world. 
 
 For the first time in her life Melissine had failed to 
 respond to his presence. She had always been very sensi 
 tive in this respect. She had always seemed to know. 
 If he came into a room where she was, her eyes had been 
 on the door. Had she been reading a book, his approach 
 had always been more interesting than the story. 
 
 A slow rage came into Tyrone's heart. It beat there 
 like the waves on the shore of a channel after a large 
 ship has gone by. Something had passed by in the channel 
 of his heart. Something was leaving him leaving him 
 forever. 
 
 The music of the organ penetrated his consciousness. 
 
 He had been a Latinist in his day. He caught the 
 words of a chant: "Miserere vnei, Domine!" "Have 
 mercy upon me, O Lord !" 
 
 All the pride and the strength of the long line of the 
 Tyrones was in him, but his heart responded to that old 
 cry. He whispered it to himself. And he who had 
 been stricken to the heart because Melissine had not 
 turned to look at him was now afraid that she would. 
 
 He drew back a step. He stood there dazed. 
 
 f 'Non est in morte." "For in death there is no re 
 membrance of Thee." 
 
 Tyrone turned. He faltered. He did not see very 
 clearly. But he wanted to get away. He wanted to 
 
 83
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 think. He wanted to find out the mystery of this new 
 thing that had befallen him. 
 
 There came into his thought smoky memories of Vic 
 tor Hugo's story of Notre Dame the vaporous presence 
 of Quasimodo, the hunchback, who had loved the Es- 
 meralda; and the memory became a parody of himself 
 and Melissine. He was the hunchback. He was old 
 and deformed and despised of the world, and he had 
 loved this creature of another order of creation. 
 
 The cathedral was a gallery of whispers Latin most 
 ly, sometimes murmured, sometimes intoned but each 
 whisper was a message for him out of the crystallized 
 experience of a suffering world: "And being in agony 
 He prayed more earnestly." Tyrone pursued the quota 
 tion through his groping mind : "And His sweat was as 
 it were great drops of blood." 
 
 While all this was going on there had drawn up in 
 front of Notre Dame a shabby little open hearse followed 
 by a dismal little procession of a few poor people dressed 
 in black. The coffin was nothing but a pine box covered 
 by a black cloth hired for the occasion. They were 
 paying the last honors to some one who must have been 
 the poorest of the poor. 
 
 Yet, nevertheless, they carried him into this temple 
 which had witnessed the funerals of cardinals and kings. 
 They bore him to one of the chapels near the great altar. 
 For him the organ rolled, the Psalmist of old Israel was 
 heard again: "I will sing of the mercies' of the Lord 
 forever" 
 
 So the dead man may have been singing in his sleep. 
 
 84
 
 The New Quasimodo 
 
 And Nathan Tyrone not physically stumbling, pre 
 cisely, yet stumbling all the same came to a faltering 
 stop at the chapel where the funeral was in progress. 
 That was himself lying there. He put out a hand and 
 touched a pillar that had been polished by many another 
 hand that had groped in pain. He slid to his knees. 
 
 He had no more control over himself so he felt 
 than if he himself had been lying there, the silent hero 
 of all this ancient pomp. Internally he was sobbing. 
 Outwardly he was calm. Gradually he was the center of 
 a small silence. It was as if this silence emanated from 
 himself from his hushed heart outward into space a 
 stillness whence anything might emerge. This stillness, 
 this hush, was penetrated through by a slow, low-pitched 
 throb that was lingering and tonal, but was scarcely 
 sound. 
 
 Again there was the hush. Again that tonal shake 
 in the stillness. It was as if the cathedral itself were 
 sobbing internally with him and for him. 
 
 Then he recognized the sound. They were tolling the 
 bell for the dead one of the great bells in the high 
 square tower. The tower was gray as he was gray, and 
 this was the voice in it. So it had tolled when his bride 
 was dead. So had it tolled generation after generation. 
 And he had thought to conquer death ! He in his feeble 
 ness had thought to cheat death by making a counterfeit 
 of life and calling it life itself ! 
 
 He abased himself. Then he was forgetting himself 
 altogether. A voice so clear and sweet it might have been 
 Melissine's own had begun to sing "O Blessed Light !" 
 
 85
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 And a light was struggling with the darkness in Ty 
 rone's inner self. 
 
 "Lord ! Lord !" he cried in silence. "May she be 
 happy! May this new love this only love that she has 
 ever known be a holy light for her !" 
 
 Tyrone yearned more deeply still as he thought of the 
 youth he had seen at his daughter's side. He said : 
 
 "Him also bless that he be worthy!" 
 
 Buckhannon and Melissine had also become aware that 
 there was music about them. It was as if fiat were fol 
 lowing fiat in some new order of creation: 
 
 "Let there be light!" 
 
 "Let there be love!" 
 
 "Let there be song!" 
 
 "Let there be incense!" 
 
 Out of the void all these things had come. 
 
 This wasn't the Garden of Eden they were in. This 
 was Paradise itself. 
 
 They made a round of the church. Tyrone saw them 
 pass. He was still kneeling at the side of the pillar. 
 They hadn't noticed him. 
 
 It was sunset by the time that Buckhannon and Me 
 lissine came out into the square the ancient Parvis 
 which must have been saturated deep with blood and 
 tears. But the young people could see nothing but 
 beauty. The western sky lay ahead of them. It was 
 flaming with melted gold. The gold vapor out of that 
 great crucible filled the air. It overflowed into the Seine. 
 It coated the very asphalt, so that it was not asphalt 
 
 86
 
 The New Quasimodo 
 
 over which they walked but a cloth of gold spread there 
 in honor of this day. 
 
 Melissine raised her eyes to Buckhannon's with a 
 modesty that was all the greater in that she was so glad. 
 
 He himself was exalted. 
 
 The great bell in the cathedral tower was still tolling, 
 but it tolled in vain. There was no more mourning in 
 the world. 
 
 They followed the Seine. They came to the door 
 of that obscure hotel on the Quai des Orfevres. The 
 spirits of dead goldsmiths had plenty of raw material to 
 work with this night. Nevertheless it would have seemed 
 strange to persons less possessed that a man of Tyrone's 
 standing in the world should have come with his daugh 
 ter to seek lodgment in a place like this. It all seemed 
 natural and right to Buckhannon, though. Any other girl 
 than Melissine might have apologized, might have ex 
 plained. Not she. 
 
 The only thing that occurred to Buckhannon was that 
 Fate with a continuance of her matchless generosity had 
 now revealed to him Melissine's address. Hereafter 
 there would be no more heart-breaking vigils on the 
 Pont Neuf. The only thing that occurred to Melissine 
 was that now had come the moment for adieu. 
 
 The hotel was one of those with its first floor given 
 over to a shop, the office of the hotel being one flight up. 
 The hallway was deep and narrow. It was sheltered 
 from the vulgar scrutiny of the street by a curtained 
 doorway. Through the doorway Buckhannon followed 
 Melissine. 
 
 87
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 And there they paused, looking into each other's eyes. 
 
 "Good-by," she whispered. 
 
 Her eyes were sober, but there was a lingering sug 
 gestion of the flaming sunset in both her eyes and her 
 face. 
 
 "Good-by," he breathed. 
 
 She stood perfectly submissive like a little girl and 
 the world stood still as he leaned forward, sacredly, 
 and touched her forehead with his lips.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE STRANGE WOMAN 
 
 SOMETHING of all this of the joy of life, and 
 of the hope that springs eternal, and of the glory 
 everlasting was reflected in No. 6 Cinnamon 
 Street. 
 
 The autumn deepened. The trees in the chapel yard 
 next door shed their leaves just as the trees in the 
 Luxembourg Gardens shed theirs. The first cold winds 
 and drizzles were succeeded both in Paris and New York 
 by the melancholy glow of an Indian summer. Winter 
 came. But the love story that made Paris indifferent to 
 the seasons also had its counterpart in old No. 6. 
 
 Since the Tyrones went away Mr. Partridge had con 
 tinued to live there alone as much as any old man is 
 ever alone. And the butler was rather the type to find 
 society in ghosts than even most old men are so inclined. 
 
 He had the family portraits to keep him company. 
 Keep him company they did. They had their eyes upon 
 him as he pottered about the darkened house at his vari 
 ous occupations. He had plenty to do. He was keeping 
 the house in perfect order. 
 
 And Melissine was there. First of all, she smiled at 
 him every time he came into the music-room from her 
 
 89
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 balcony over the fireplace, demure and sympathetic, in 
 fused with a latent fire. Often at night old Partridge 
 would light the candles that illuminated La Tour's por 
 trait and light no others. Then Partridge would bring 
 down from up-stairs a flute of his own a flute he had 
 learned to play in the days of his youth in emulation of 
 his earlier master. And Partridge would play tune 
 after tune to the great delight of the lady hanging on the 
 wall: "How Can I Leave Thee?" "Nancy Lee," "Old 
 Black Joe," "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Drink 
 to Me Only with Thine Eyes." 
 
 And after this concert for two he would elaborately 
 blow his nose and touch his eyes and do a little rever 
 ence to the dear dead Mile, de la Valliere of the eight 
 eenth century. Then one by one he would extinguish 
 the tapers and retire for the night. 
 
 A man of fine sentiment of very fine sentiment. AJ 
 young tree is beautiful, but an old tree may be more 
 beautiful still. 
 
 But most of all was Melissine present in spirit when 
 Partridge consulted a certain calendar she had given 
 him "to remember me by" just before her going away. 
 It was called a "Scripture Text Calendar," with 
 "Thoughts for Daily Meditation." He had the calendar 
 hanging on the wall of his small bedroom at the top of 
 the house. 
 
 "Let's see ! This is the twenty-sixth !" 
 
 And he would adjust his glasses and turn his head 
 at the proper angle for reading, all this with a pleasur- 
 
 90
 
 The Strange Woman 
 
 able quaver of anticipation. And he would find some 
 thing like this : 
 
 "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall 
 find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." 
 
 This always did good to Partridge. 
 
 He had a way of saying to himself: "Old men need 
 such food as that. It is strengthening." 
 
 And he would meditate the meaning of the text all 
 day, and continue to draw nourishment from it, ever 
 with an underglow of gratitude for Melissine. He 
 would often say to himself: "It is good to have young 
 people in the world." 
 
 Every time he thought of Melissine it was as if he 
 heard a transcript with words and music of that old 
 hymn that had brought dawn out of darkness to Nathan 
 Tyrone as he knelt there in Notre Dame : 
 
 "O lux BeataO Blessed Light!" 
 
 He clung to this light because he knew as well as any 
 one could have known that there were days of darkness 
 ahead when some such light would be necessary else the 
 whole world should go down in gloom. Old men know 
 such things better than any one else old men and old 
 women ; and Partridge was something of both, he had 
 seen so much, reflected so much. Moreover, he had all 
 the delicacy of a woman, both inside and out, as he 
 thought and thought and went about his housework. 
 
 The house continued to be merely the house with a 
 bad name, though, for those who looked at it from the 
 outside. It was a ghostly old place in the haunted In- 
 
 91
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 dian summer when the dead leaves were gusting about 
 the tombstones next door. There were times when the 
 trees seemed to talk to each other first one of them 
 sending down a drift of leaves, then another one 
 sending down a similar drift as if in answer. And it 
 was always very silent in Cinnamon Street when these 
 interchanges took place. 
 
 Old Goodenough continued to come and go. 
 
 Hickcock found Goodenough staring through the 
 pickets of the chapel yard one night. 
 
 "And why do you stare like that, Goodenough?" the 
 policeman inquired. 
 
 Goodenough turned and contemplated his friend for 
 a long time and made no answer except for the answer 
 that might have been read in the haggard gloom of his 
 vinous old face. 
 
 "Were you ever in love?" inquired Goodenough in 
 turn. "I ask you, Hickcock, did you ever know the love 
 of woman?" 
 
 Said Hickcock: "Me and my old woman have been 
 married now for forty years." 
 
 "Answer my question," said Goodenough. 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "Tut! Tut!" said Goodenough. "Love is a hunger. 
 Men don't love what they've got but what they've not." 
 
 "You dirty old rascal!" said Hickcock playfully. 
 "Well, neither of us is as young as we used to be." He 
 had a second thought. "At that, though," he said, 
 "there's many a dame who would fall for me uniform. 
 Ask any cop. What was you startin' out to say?" 
 
 92
 
 The Strange Woman 
 
 "Once I was handsome," Goodenough affirmed with 
 remorse. "This nose wasn't always swelled up and 
 blue. Once I had all my teeth. You wouldn't believe 
 it, to look at this cheek all wrinkled and stubbly gray 
 that a woman should have touched it with the fingers 
 of love." 
 
 "Sure I would," said Hickcock. "I've seen many an 
 old rummy and him not in uniform, neither cut out 
 a good one." 
 
 "And now she is dead," Goodenough pursued, without 
 heeding the interruption; "and the best part of me is 
 dead as with all old men who die like old trees, 
 branch by branch, hope by hope." 
 
 "What happened to her?" Hickcock demanded. His 
 thoughts always lagged behind when Goodenough talked. 
 
 "She went to the dogs," said Goodenough, "and I 
 helped to send her there." 
 
 "How long ago was that?" 
 
 "Full thirty years ago." Goodenough looked at his 
 friend. His next statement came like a quotation from 
 one of those poems he loved. "She used to walk in 
 the graveyard here, and we were young together." 
 
 Hickcock turned, cautiously, and looked toward No. 
 6. There was a dim light in one of the upper windows. 
 Then Hickcock saw the black shadow of a woman's 
 shape slant across the street toward No. 6 from the 
 direction of the drug-store. 
 
 "Look-it !" he cried. "There's that queer Jane comin' 
 back the same you knocked on the door for that other 
 time." 
 
 93
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "She was like a ghost " 
 
 "Fergit it!" said the policeman. "I bet she's got a 
 elate with that lousy old hypocrite up there." He indi 
 cated the dim light at Partridge's window. "Lay low, 
 and you'll see him come down and let her in." 
 
 There is always a mystery about a light burning 
 dimly in a house late at night. Some one revels. Some 
 one mourns. Some one does his bit of creation that 
 may change the face of the world. But as often as not, 
 if the truth be known, some one is up there calling on 
 the Lord for help. 
 
 It was that way with Partridge now in this room he 
 called his own a small chaste room, very plain but 
 perfectly kept. It was lit by a single candle. And 
 Partridge, still fully dressed except that he had laid 
 aside his coat, and thus quite the picture of the old 
 gentleman despite the fact that he was nothing but a 
 butler, had knelt at the side of his narrow bed. 
 
 He was praying hard. 
 
 "Grant that neither of them find it out, O Lord," he 
 labored. "And her move her heart to make it pure 
 and 
 
 Here he stopped short. The dead silence of the house 
 had been shattered by a light staccato rapping from the 
 direction of the lower hall. Some one was knocking at 
 the door.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE WOLF COMES OUT 
 
 IT is to be doubted that Partridge would have done 
 otherwise even if he had known who it was down 
 there. He may even have suspected who it was. 
 He was a bit nervous as he got into his coat. The candle 
 flickered and flared in his hand. There was another 
 knock and yet another before he got to the bottom of the 
 lower flight, and his nervousness increased. But this 
 may have been merely from the distress that he felt at 
 having caused a caller at the Tyrone house to wait so 
 long. 
 
 Arrived at the bottom of the stairs he set the candle 
 on the console. He straightened his coat. He hastily 
 unlocked the door and opened it. 
 
 No, he could scarcely have expected this caller after 
 all. 
 
 "Mme. Jenesco/' he began. He had intended to make 
 his voice sound authoritative but instead it faltered. 
 
 The caller he had addressed as Mme. Jenesco brushed 
 past him. It was the woman who had told Buckhannon 
 her name was Belle. Into the hall she had brought 
 something of chill, also of dampness, also of that faunal 
 taint of musk. 
 
 95
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Shut the door," she said. "It's beginning to snow." 
 
 Partridge did not instantly shut the door not alto 
 gether; just enough to keep the draught from the candle 
 and also to keep any one who happened to be passing 
 from looking in. He stood with his hand on the knob. 
 He looked at the woman with a distracted face. 
 
 "I warned you I begged you," he said, "not to come 
 here again." 
 
 "You should worry," she said. "The family's not 
 here." 
 
 "It is late." 
 
 "Late!" she laughed. "The night's young yet. It's 
 only ten." 
 
 There was nothing particularly brutal about all this, 
 in spite of the coarseness of her speech and the way she 
 had forced her way into the house. She was inclined 
 to smile upon Partridge, treat him with a degree of 
 good-natured contempt. 
 
 "May I ask you to state " 
 
 " what I came for? You ought to be able to 
 guess." 
 
 "If it's money " 
 
 "You said it. I want money. I'm tired of living 
 on air." 
 
 "Madam " 
 
 "I haven't any objection to sitting down," said Belle, 
 and she seated herself. She made a striking but sin 
 ister picture there in the candle-flare, surrounded by 
 deep shadows. She was dressed in black. Her face 
 appeared to be very white, her lips very red, her eyes 
 
 96
 
 The Wolf Comes Out 
 
 abnormally dark. She seemed to be a little thinner. 
 This may have been mere imagination, but there ap 
 peared also to be a wolflike line of hunger and appetite 
 in the contour of her cheek. 
 
 "Your regular allowance was sent you at the first of 
 the month," Partridge affirmed. He was stifling his re 
 proach, but he was greatly distressed. 
 
 "A rotten hundred dollars !" she scorned. "Go ahead 
 and shut the door. No use advertising our family trou 
 bles to the whole neighborhood." 
 
 Partridge shut the door. But he stiffened. 
 
 "Madam," he said, "I should not be forced to re 
 mind you that you are a recipient of charity, and that 
 this charity is most generous." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco lost some of her smiling indifference. 
 
 "I want another hundred," she said; "and I want it 
 now." 
 
 "You cannot have it." 
 
 "Not so fast! I didn't come here to beg. I didn't 
 come here to get insulted either. It would help me a 
 lot if you offered me a glass of wine or something. I 
 got a chill. I feel feverish." 
 
 Partridge wavered. 
 
 "I am very sorry if you are ill, but you must see how 
 irregular this is. I I really must ask you to transact 
 your further business through Judge Bancroft. I keep 
 no funds here in the house." 
 
 "You came across easily enough that other time." 
 
 "That was when the family was here." 
 
 "And what has Judge Bancroft got to do with it?" 
 
 97
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "He is, I may say, the family lawyer." 
 
 "Oh! So that's it! Lawyer! Why didn't I ever 
 think of that myself! Say, I bet I could get one of 
 those little shysters who hang around the Criminal 
 Courts Building who'd make you come across. What 
 are you shaking so much about ? Are you going to give 
 me that glass of wine? I need it." 
 
 Partridge, sure enough, had begun to shake at Mme. 
 Jenesco's mention of a lawyer. He had tried to pro 
 test. All he could do was to lift a hand. The hand 
 trembled. She saw that she had won some sort of a 
 triumph. She was almost amiable again. 
 
 "Come on," she said; "I'll carry the candle for you." 
 
 "I must beg you to leave," said Partridge. 
 
 "I don't intend to leave." 
 
 "I must order you to." 
 
 "And if I don't." 
 
 "There's an officer in the street " 
 
 Mme. Jenesco, who had risen, came a little closer to 
 Partridge, looked at him from the corners of her eyes, 
 and smiled for a moment without saying a word. 
 
 "All right," she said, softly. "Go as far as you want. 
 Do you suppose I don't know that there's some secret 
 about this house that you don't want advertised? Do 
 you suppose I'm not next to the stories that all your 
 neighbors tell about this place? Do you suppose I didn't 
 hear certain things from my mother? Do you suppose 
 that I don't know you're holding out something on Mr. 
 Tyrone?" She waited for perhaps a half-dozen sec 
 onds just long enough to see that each of her ques- 
 
 98
 
 The Wolf Comes Out 
 i 
 
 tions had been a shot and that each shot had gon6 
 home. "It's really that I wanted to talk to you about," 
 she said with a change of tone. "Come on; we can 
 talk better after we've had something to drink." 
 
 Partridge, shaken too shaken for thought, and also, 
 perhaps, obedient to the habits of a lifetime picked up 
 the candle and led the way back through the hall. He 
 was so shaken that his step could have been described 
 as tottering. But there was a degree of formality, even 
 so, in the way he ushered Mme. Jenesco into the room 
 where Judge Bancroft had been entertained. There he 
 lit more candles, as he had done on that former occa 
 sion. With a murmured word of apology he with 
 drew leaving Mme. Jenesco to look about her at the 
 twilit, impressive richness of the place. 
 
 Partridge was long so long that Mme. Jenesco be 
 came a bit suspicious. With her feline speed and softness 
 she went to the door through which Partridge had dis 
 appeared. She peered. She listened. Then, satisfied, 
 she came back and seated herself in the chair that had 
 been Tyrone's on the night the judge was there. And 
 at her, also, the old portraits looked down grimly, but 
 she was as indifferent to their staring as a cat would 
 have been. 
 
 "I'm glad you didn't pull the cork till you got here," 
 she smiled, when Partridge had at last returned. He 
 merely gave her a troubled look. "I'm not sure yet you 
 haven't slipped some dope in it," she explained. "I sup 
 pose it'd break you all up if I was to die !" 
 
 99
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Partridge did not speak until he had decanted a glass 
 of the red wine. He poured none for himself. 
 
 "I wish you no ill, madam," he said, soberly. "What 
 was it you wished to propose?" 
 
 Mme. Jenesco sipped her wine guardedly to make 
 sure that it was good. It stood the test. She emptied 
 her glass and passed it back to be refilled. 
 
 "I was wondering," she said, "why you and I 
 shouldn't get together right."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OF BLOOD AND GOLD 
 
 GET together, madam?" queried Partridge, with 
 cold dignity. "I I don't understand." 
 "There's no use making bones about it," said 
 Mme. Jenesco, reaching for the glass that Partridge had 
 scarcely had the time to fill; "when the druggist across 
 the street told me that Tyrone and the little blonde had 
 gone away and left you here all alone it made me feel 
 real sore." 
 
 Partridge waited. His silence was rather trying for 
 the caller. 
 
 "Sit down," she urged. "You don't have to be so 
 stiff with me. Why don't you pour a glass of wine for 
 yourself? It'll do you good. This place's about as 
 cheerful as a morgue." 
 
 "I beg pardon, madam ; but " 
 
 "Oh, cut it; come on; be friendly." 
 
 "You were about to say " 
 
 "Well, why should they be off enjoying themselves, 
 and seeing all the sights, when you and I haven't got 
 anything? For that matter, why should they have a 
 house like this, and put on such airs " 
 
 "I cannot discuss, madam, subjects that concern my 
 master alone." 
 
 101
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Your master!'* 
 
 "My master, madam." 
 
 "You seem to be proud of him." 
 
 "I am I have always been proud " 
 
 "Were you proud of him when he killed his own 
 father?" 
 
 "That is a damnable, a most preposterous lie." 
 
 "Oh, it is! And I suppose it's a lie that they buried 
 a woman from this house a woman that had been kept 
 here in secret!" 
 
 Partridge closed his eyes the better to get a grip on 
 himself. Maybe he was fishing into his thought for 
 some sustaining text from Melissine's calendar. A 
 moment later he looked as if this might have been the 
 case, and his voice supported the theory, too, when he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Madam," he said gently, "I am aware of the wicked 
 gossip that has afflicted us for so many years. It all 
 had its origin all our troubles had their origin with 
 this woman who, as you state, had been kept here in 
 secret. The woman was your mother. She was 
 brought here sick; she was dying. I suppose that we 
 should not blame outsiders for imputing evil to Mr. 
 Nathan Tyrone's kind act when his own father failed 
 to comprehend it. Indeed, it was this misapprehension 
 on the elder Mr. Tyrone's part that hastened his end." 
 
 "But that burial at night," said Belle, partly per 
 suaded. 
 
 "Not at night, but at twilight," said Partridge; and, 
 forgetful of his dignity, he touched his eyes with his 
 
 1 02
 
 Of Blood and Gold 
 
 handkerchief and blew his nose. "That was the hour at 
 which the elder Mr. Tyrone wished to be buried as his 
 father had been buried before him whom I also served." 
 
 "Well, there's something wrong, somewhere." 
 
 "I I deny it." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco laughed softly, sipped her wine. Par 
 tridge's eyes were fugitive, as one might say. Hers were 
 bold. 
 
 "Then, why," she asked lightly, "are you always so 
 scared when I threaten to come here and speak to Mr. 
 Tyrone? Why were you so leary just now when I 
 talked about calling in a lawyer ? I could see right away 
 that you had made a bad break and you knew it, too! 
 when you pulled that bluff about me seeing Judge 
 Bancroft. I bet I could hire a lawyer that'd have Judge 
 Bancroft himself running for cover, too. I know some 
 of these heavy respectables. I bet a clever lawyer could 
 hang something on every last one of 'em enough to 
 send 'em all to jail." 
 
 "Is there anything else?" asked Partridge. 
 
 "You haven't heard yet what my proposition is," said 
 Mme. Jenesco. She had been taking her time about 
 studying Partridge. She was increasingly sure of her 
 self. "Just how much have you made all these years 
 you've been serving these extra fine people?" she asked. 
 
 "I am a poor man," Partridge hastily replied. 
 
 "A poor goat," said Mme. Jenesco. "Here you've 
 been slaving for them for God knows how long; and 
 you're still poor, and they're rich." 
 
 "Their fortune is limited." 
 103
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "How much ?" 
 
 "I have I cannot- 
 
 "Don't be a fool," said Mme. Jenesco. "You write 
 all the checks. I was cashing mine in the bank one 
 day when you came in. I saw you draw out a roll that'd 
 've choked a horse. Why don't you take some of this 
 money and make your getaway? Why don't you go on 
 a trip to Europe? Listen! You and me! We could 
 go down to Palm Beach together. I'm sick of this rot 
 ten town. You're young yet " 
 
 "My God, madam!" Partridge exploded. 
 
 "Take a glass of wine ; it'll brace you up." 
 
 "Will you please go?" 
 
 Mme. Jenesco was not offended. She got to her 
 feet slowly, with a sort of writhing grace. But instead 
 of taking the direction of the door she came to Par 
 tridge's side. 
 
 "Why should I go, on a night like this?" she asked, 
 softly. "It's cold and wet outside. I live a mile from 
 here. The streets in this part of town are enough to 
 frighten a second-story man. And I suppose you know 
 that my husband died last month in San Francisco." 
 
 "You have my sympathy," said Partridge in a strained 
 voice. 
 
 "You needn't feel any worse about it than I do," she 
 replied, in her most lulling voice. "He was no good. 
 My real reason for seeing you to-night was that I was 
 feeling lonely." 
 
 Partridge did not move from her so much as, it ap 
 peared, he shrank into himself. 
 
 104
 
 Of Blood and Gold 
 
 "I will ask you to listen to me," he said. 
 
 "I'm listening." 
 
 "I have served the Tyrones from boyhood. I am 
 going to serve them still." . 
 
 "Have your own way." 
 
 "But you may remain here if you wish as your 
 mother did before you were born. You may even 
 sleep in her bed, if you care to. No one has slept in it 
 since. I've kept it pretty much as she left it. Would 
 you like to see it?" 
 
 "That kind of stuff wouldn't worry me," said Belle; 
 "not if the room was aired." Then her mouth went 
 bitter. "I came here to-night in need," she said im 
 pulsively, "and looking for a friend the only place I 
 had to turn to in New York." There was an involun 
 tary sob in her voice. "And this is the sort of treatment 
 I get!" 
 
 Partridge melted. 
 
 "I didn't know I thought " 
 
 "Because I had to have a little money! But I know 
 where I can get it out in the streets !" 
 
 "No, no !" said Partridge. "There ! for the sake of 
 kind Heaven, madam!" He went over to a panel of 
 woodwork at the side of the fireplace and there, by a 
 manipulation that Belle could not follow, revealed a 
 safe built into the wall. He opened this quite carelessly 
 and took out a number of bills. "Take these," he said, 
 coming back to Belle; "and God see you safely home!" 
 
 Belle's inscrutable eyes met his. Without shifting her 
 gaze she put the money into some hiding-place of her 
 
 105
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 own. The bitterness had left her mouth. She slowly 
 smiled. 
 
 "You're a good old soul," she said, with just a hint 
 of friendly mockery. "But I'll not forget this night, and 
 I don't think you will, either. You and I are going to 
 see each other again." 
 
 Up in his room, long, long after the woman was gone, 
 Partridge sought relief in prayer again. But no great 
 relief was to be had. He was distrait. He couldn't con 
 centrate. All that he could say was to repeat over and 
 over again what he had already started to say earlier 
 in the night : 
 
 "Grant that neither of them find it out! Move her 
 heart to make it pure and gentle!" 
 
 There could have been no doubt that the first part of 
 this petition referred to the master and mistress of the 
 house; nor that the second part of it referred to her 
 who now walked away, through the damp snow, slowly 
 and unafraid thinking, thinking toward her own 
 abode. 
 
 Belle Jenesco had plenty to think about. A vague 
 ambition was revolving in her mind revolving with such 
 flashes of bright possibility that it made her dizzy almost. 
 Here a man accosted her. She dismissed him with a 
 look. An old beggar whined at her from a doorstep. 
 She stopped and gave him a coin "For luck !" she told 
 herself. She wondered what was that secret that Par 
 tridge guarded. She began to guess. She was not with- 
 
 106
 
 out intuition not without imagination not without, 
 most of all, a stark and naked knowledge of sex. 
 
 The winter deepened. The snow came. The sounds 
 of the great city were more muffled than ever. More 
 than ever was Cinnamon Street sequestered. More than 
 ever was No. 6 a container ol mysterious life, frozen 
 now, but whence weird flowers might blossom in the 
 spring.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WEIRD BLOSSOMS 
 
 THERE were weird blossoms enough already inside 
 of No. 6 as the flowers may be supposed to exist 
 already in the heart of the frost-bound rose-bush. 
 It was a haunted garden, so to speak, through which 
 might walk almost any sort of specter. 
 
 Tyrone had come back with his daughter from Paris. 
 Tyrone had fallen into a sort of lethargy. He who had 
 always been 'so indifferent to the world was now more 
 indifferent than ever to the actual world, that is. And 
 he who had always lived in a world of his own fashion 
 ing ever since he was a young man painting pictures 
 in the graveyard next door and attending spirit worship 
 in the abandoned chapel now lived altogether in such 
 a world. It was a world all his own. It was a world 
 that had but the vaguest rapport with the world in 
 general. 
 
 And this world was the garden wherein the weird 
 blossoms grew. It was the world of his mind. 
 
 "Partridge !" 
 
 "Yes, sir; I am here, sir!" 
 
 The master of No. 6 was seated in his music-room 
 the room he favored most because of the portrait that 
 
 108
 
 Weird Blossoms 
 
 hung over the fireplace. He was seated before the fire 
 place. He lounged there rather limp and graceful. He 
 wore his velvet coat and his flowing tie. His hair was 
 long and wavily disheveled. The firelight rose and fell. 
 At times this made of him a picture of shadowy depres 
 sion. At times it made him a picture of Satanic life. 
 
 "Is it not almost Christmas, Partridge?" 
 
 "This is the nineteenth, sir." 
 
 Partridge kept track of dates. No day went past now 
 but that he consulted Melissine's calendar. The motto 
 for this day had been: "Be thou faithful unto death, 
 and I will give thee a crown of life." And a supple 
 mental whisper had come to Partridge: "Be faithful 
 unto the death of Mr. Tyrone, for Mr. Tyrone is not 
 long for this earth." 
 
 "The nineteenth," said Tyrone. "I shall have to be 
 looking to my charity." 
 
 "I have been sending the usual remittance, sir," Part 
 ridge said with an undoubted nervousness." 
 
 "How much was that?" 
 
 "One hundred dollars a month, sir." 
 
 Tyrone reflected. 
 
 "I think that I shall give her a year's allowance in 
 advance." 
 
 "That would be a great deal of money, sir." 
 
 "The estate will bear it?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir." 
 
 "And after I am dead and Melissine has everything 
 perhaps circumstances will arise that will prevent fu 
 ture payments." 
 
 109
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Partridge clasped his hands. He unclasped them. 
 He was standing where Tyrone could not see his face. 
 He glanced up at the portrait above the fireplace. The 
 lady up there smiled at him deliciously. Somehow this 
 encouraged Partridge. It was as if he were taking her 
 part against the Woman in Black. 
 
 "You will pardon me, sir, if I venture to make a sug 
 gestion." 
 
 "I know what it will be," droned Tyrone. "I know 
 what you're going to say, Partridge. You're going to 
 say that the creature has no claim upon me and that 
 this continual gift of money will cause talk." 
 
 "Not quite that, sir." 
 
 "Yes it is. I know your thought. And I remember 
 what you said when I brought that unfortunate home 
 
 with me How long ago was it? Thirty years! 
 
 Thirty years ago, come Christmas! I found her drunk 
 or drugged in the snow. Remember?" 
 
 "I remember, sir." 
 
 "Remember how you helped me to smuggle her into 
 one of the vacant rooms up-stairs, and care for her there, 
 and feed her, without my father knowing anything 
 about it ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir ! And how you took all the blame when 
 your father did find out." 
 
 "Blame! There was no blame! There was a mis 
 understanding ! Men have been blamed for many things 
 in this world that will win them the congratulations of 
 the angels. How long ago did she die?" 
 
 "It was fifteen years ago, sir." 
 
 no
 
 Weird Blossoms 
 
 "That's right. And we've been keeping up the pay 
 ments to her daughter?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. It was as you directed." 
 
 "She must be quite a big girl now." 
 
 "She is a woman of thirty, sir.'* 
 
 "Ever see her?" 
 
 "I have, sir." 
 
 "A good woman?" 
 
 "I hardly know " 
 
 Tyrone laughed mournfully. While Partridge still 
 stood there back of him clasping and unclasping his 
 hands, Tyrone let his attention revert to the portrait 
 above the fireplace. 
 
 "It is odd," said Tyrone, softly, as he looked up at 
 her, "that I should have clung to life as if it were sweet 
 when only in death is there sweetness. Love is sweet. 
 But love is nothing but the prelude to death. 
 
 "I dreamed last night that I was in a thick garden of 
 poppies, and the poppies grew so lush and thick that they 
 swooned of their own fragrance, and she was there, and 
 so was I, and that was death. Oh, Partridge!" 
 
 "I am here, sir." 
 
 "Did you ever love a woman, Partridge?" 
 
 "I suppose you may say, sir" and Partridge, nervous, 
 had also let his old eyes lift to the portrait over the 
 mantelpiece "that I did, sir." 
 
 "Was she beautiful, Partridge?" 
 
 "She was, sir." 
 
 "And is she still living, Partridge?" 
 
 "She's dead, sir." 
 
 in
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "More and more," sad Tyrone, drifting back into his 
 musings; "more and more, it is the dead who call to 
 the quick, the quick who respond to the dead. It is the 
 dead girl who calls to her lover he who has remained 
 on earth and is growing old and is thought to have out 
 lived romance. It is the dead lover, young and fair, 
 who calls to the aging matron. Now I am old, but she 
 whom I love is young and fair " 
 
 One would have said that his soliloquy had served 
 as an incantation. The door had softly opened. Into 
 the dusk of the room there had come a vision of the 
 spirit to whom Tyrone had called young and fair, 
 clad in the garments of another generation. 
 
 It was Melissine. 
 
 There was a lace cap on her head. She wore a light- 
 blue sack, soft and loose, of silk, richly laced, and 
 embroidered with countless little flowers and garlands 
 that ran through the whole gamut of colors from black 
 to white. Under the sack was one of those diaphanous, 
 classic one-piece robes, girdled high up, such as the 
 painter David designed at the outbreak of the French 
 Revolution. This was white. It clung and floated to 
 her slightest curve and movement. It revealed that her 
 pink feet wore nothing but light gold sandals. 
 
 Tyrone watched her enthralled. She raised her hand 
 slightly in goodfellowship-greeting to Partridge. She 
 kissed her father on the forehead, fondly, with the deli 
 cate concentration of a butterfly. 
 
 "And what has my darling been about this morning?" 
 he asked. 
 
 112
 
 Weird Blossoms 
 
 "I've sewed. I've embroidered." Did she suspect 
 what ailed her father? She caressed him. "I've copied 
 another ten pages of your beautiful poem." 
 
 "Oh, Partridge !" 
 
 "Yes, sir!" 
 
 "I think you may serve our luncheon here." 
 
 "Perfectly, sir." 
 
 And Partridge silently withdrew. 
 
 Partridge knew what it was that ailed Tyrone. Par 
 tridge had served three generations of Tyrones. He 
 knew them as he would have known them had he been 
 the mother of the race. 
 
 In the first place, Melissine had told Partridge all 
 about what had happened in France what had hap 
 pened to herself. She had met Eugene Buckhannon 
 there. That was the sum and substance of it. In the 
 second place, Partridge had understood perfectly what 
 this had meant to Nathan Tyrone. 
 
 Tyrone had embarked on a spirit honeymoon with a 
 spirit bride. He had seen a younger man come and 
 claim this spirit-bride for his own. And of this Tyrone 
 was dying. 
 
 "You will want other clothes," Tyrone had said. 
 
 He would never have suggested that to Melissine be 
 fore the voyage. Then Melissine had not been the 
 daughter. She had been the bride of twenty years ago 
 come back to inhabit the earth a bride who, herself, 
 had already had that touch of unearthliness about her 
 because of the eighteenth-century clothes she had pre 
 ferred to wear. You get those old types in old civiliza-
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 tions. Paris is full of types like that disconcerting and 
 sometimes beautiful characters straight out of the Middle 
 SAges, even. 
 
 And Tyrone himself was the product of an older civili 
 zation of America. He came from a family that had 
 clung to candles, for whom newspapers did not exist, 
 who led cloistral lives, who mated with women who died 
 young. 
 
 Tyrone should have been reading an illumined manu 
 script as he sat there in front of his fire.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE LIGHT AND THE DARK 
 
 SO, one day when there was not very much snow in 
 Cinnamon Street, Goodenough had come driving 
 up to No. 6 with a closed cab, this time, instead 
 of an open one and those who watched saw Partridge 
 come out of the door. They noticed that he was dressed 
 for an excursion. This meant that he was muffled up. 
 He wore an overcoat. This really suggested the better 
 but old-fashioned name of "greatcoat" it was so big 
 and thick in every way. And Partridge carried a plug 
 hat that was a genuine "beaver," the nap of it was so 
 thick and soft. 
 
 He was followed by the lady of the house (Melissine), 
 who might have suggested a little marquise to any one 
 who knew about such things with her tricorn hat, and 
 her long dark cloak enveloping her from head to heel. 
 But Tyrone did not appear. 
 
 It was Partridge himself who assisted his mistress 
 down the stoop and through the door of the cab while 
 Goodenough, also muffled, held his whip aloft. 
 
 There had followed a brief colloquy that the watchers 
 could not catch, although they tried hard enough to do 
 so. But they could see that she who was in the cab 
 
 "5
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 was indicating that there was plenty of room there at 
 her side. They could see that the old butler was pro 
 testing. And the butler apparently had his way. Final 
 ly he had climbed up to the seat at the side of Good- 
 enough. And thus the equipage rolled away. 
 
 There were always mysterious happenings like that 
 going on about No'. 6. 
 
 Had they only known it the watchers this tour was 
 more wonderful than they thought. It certainly was 
 very wonderful for Melissine. She was going shopping. 
 She was not only going to buy some Christmas presents, 
 she was going to buy all the clothing she wanted for 
 herself. Everything that she saw and really wanted she 
 could have. 
 
 Such had been her father's orders to Partridge when 
 they were setting forth. 
 
 Goodenough knew the stores the older and better 
 ones. He drove them to store after store. The stores 
 were crowded with Christmas shoppers. Sometimes the 
 service wksn't very good customers impatient, sales 
 people overworked ; but Melissine didn't jnind she was 
 having the time of her life ; and no one minded when 
 Melissine was served before her turn. 
 
 They wondered who she was. They looked after her, 
 and as they did so they forgot that they were hurried 
 and worried. She looked very beautiful and foreign. 
 They could see how happy she was. She smiled at 
 every one. But most of all she smiled at the old gentle 
 man who accompanied her and insisted on carrying all 
 the packages. They wondered who the old gentleman 
 
 116
 
 The Light and the Dark 
 
 was. He must have been her grandfather. They 
 seemed so devoted. And they must have been very rich, 
 to judge from the money they spent. Nothing cost too 
 much. 
 
 They had come into one of the largest and finest 
 shops of all. It was very warm, and Melissine tossed 
 off her heavy cloak. 
 
 "Lined with sable," a woman whispered to another. 
 "It must have cost a fortune." 
 
 "Look at her dress," said the other. 
 
 "Who can she be?" 
 
 "What a style! Is it something new?" 
 
 Melissine had merely chosen one of the best winter 
 dresses in her mother's trousseau. It was a dress she 
 had always loved, yet one she had never worn before. 
 Not even the dead, dear Mme. Tyrone could have worn 
 it very often. 
 
 It was a heavy silk of dark blue a very full skirt, a 
 stiff bodice rather low at the throat where it was trimmed 
 with a jeweled bar of Russian design. There were 
 bands of sable fur across her shoulders, and nothing 
 could have been more alluring than the contrast of this 
 fur and Melissine's nacred skin. 
 
 -"Look at that designer sketching her sleeves," said 
 one of the women. 
 
 "I don't blame him," said the other. 
 
 The sleeves were full to the elbow, where there was 
 an undersleeve of old lace caught up in the angle of 
 the elbow with a jewel. 
 
 Other designers were furtively following now Irish, 
 117
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 French, and Russian Jew, artists all, responsive to an 
 inspiration, wondering what nameless genius had robed 
 this girl. 
 
 "Cest magnifique!" 
 
 "She must be a Rooshin! Some creation!" 
 
 ''Where did she get it? You can't buy silk like that 
 any more." , 
 
 Did Melissine notice? Perhaps. She enjoyed it if 
 she did. And of all the people whom she so obviously 
 interested, one there was whom she apparently inter 
 ested most of all. This was also a woman, and the 
 woman herself was worthy of some note. 
 
 She was of a type that subtly suggested a wild animal ; 
 it was hard to tell just why. It was a little in the ex 
 pression of her face an expression that somehow meant 
 that the owner of the face had a good appetite. There 
 was an animal beauty in her face. There was an animal 
 grace in the lines of her shape and in her sinuosities 
 when she walked. But all this so subtle and unpro- 
 nounced that the observation might have been as much 
 of the imagination as of mere sight. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco ! 
 
 Partridge had seen her and his heart was tripping. 
 He went very rigid under the packages he carried. 
 
 It is doubtful if at first Mme. Jenesco had recognized 
 the girl in the gorgeous dress. She had been impressed, 
 as had the others, merely by Melissine's general appear 
 ance. It may have struck her as interesting also that 
 Melissine should have been engaged in buying a gold 
 cigarette-case. Mme. Jenesco herself had been engaged 
 
 118
 
 The Light and the Darti 
 
 in looking over the stock of cigarette-cases. It was 
 Melissine's idea that such a bauble might serve as her 
 present for Buckhannon. 
 
 "Is he rich or poor?" asked Partridge, when she had 
 sought his advice. 
 
 "I don't know," said Melissine. "I imagine that he's 
 poor. He's a student and lives in the Latin Quarter." 
 
 "That would be rather elaborate for a poor young 
 man," Partridge counseled gently. "Er eh " 
 
 Then Mme. Jenesco had seen who It was with Melis 
 sine and she was no longer in any doubt at all who 
 Melissine was. Mme. Jenesco had given Partridge a 
 gloating look, then had ignored him. There was a 
 pleasure in the woman's face. But a psychologist per 
 haps would have said that it was a pleasure tinged with 
 a killing desire. The killing desire deftly became the 
 dawning purpose. She saw that Partridge was restless. 
 She caught her breath. She shifted her position. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco had drawn so close to Melissine that 
 she was almost touching her. She seemed to* take a 
 certain luxury in this. She picked up another cigarette- 
 case like the one that Melissine had been admiring. She 
 spoke to the saleswoman. 
 
 "How much is this?" 
 
 But even while she was not looking at Melissine, one 
 could see that every fiber of her was concentrated on 
 contact with the girl at her side. She watched her 
 chance and smoothly spoke to Melissine. 
 
 "Everything is so dear!" 
 
 Melissine gave her a brief smile. For a second their 
 
 119
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 eyes met. There was a look in Mme. Jenesco's eyes 
 that apparently startled Melissine slightly, for she turned 
 her smile swiftly to Partridge. Did she surprise that 
 look of grim anguish in the old man's face ? She glanced 
 again at Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 "I don't know anything about prices," she said. "This 
 is the first time that I've ever been shopping. Which 
 one would you select?" 
 
 "Is it for yourself?" Mme. Jenesco asked. 
 
 Melissine colored ever so slightly. 
 
 "It is for a friend. He's in Paris. He's not coming 
 home until the spring." 
 
 "How much can you spend?" 
 
 "As much as I wish, I suppose anything within rea 
 son. That is what father said." 
 
 Partridge broke in. He cleared his throat. He spoke 
 more roughly than he generally did: "I beg pardon, 
 but we should be getting on !" 
 
 Melissine turned sharply. Mme. Jenesco, breathing 
 deeply, watched them go. She hesitated yet a moment 
 longer. She started in pursuit.
 
 THE OVERHANGING CLOUD 
 
 SHE would dearly have loved to talk to Melissine 
 again. The girl rilled her with curiosity and envy. 
 But it was to Partridge she decided to speak. 
 Through the crowds she followed them without the ap 
 pearance of doing so. But a store-detective saw some 
 thing in Mme. Jenesco's appearance that was odd and 
 trailed her, in turn, for a little while. Not for long. 
 Whatever she was, she was no shoplifter. With so 
 much he was satisfied. All women were a little crazy 
 at this time of the year. So the store-detective re 
 flected. He had troubles enough of his own. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco followed Partridge and his lady to an 
 upper floor where dresses were sold, and here Mme. 
 Jenesco had her opportunity; for Melissine was soon 
 the center of a group of shopgirls, and Partridge, em 
 barrassed and in need of rest, sat down in a secluded 
 place to rest. 
 
 "How do yourdo ?" came Mme. Jenesco's lulling voice. 
 "Don't get up and don't get excited. I'll forgive you 
 the look you gave me down-stairs. Why didn't you 
 introduce me?" 
 
 Partridge cast anguished eyes in the direction that 
 Melissine had taken. 
 
 121
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Don't alarm yourself," said Belle. "She's gone into 
 One of the fitting-rooms. I saw her. She's good for 
 half an hour, with that bunch around her, and the 
 clothes she already had on." She calmly pulled a chair 
 closer to the one Partridge occupied. "Stay where you 
 are, I tell you. I'm not going to give you the small 
 pox." 
 r "This unwarranted " 
 
 He choked up so that he couldn't go on. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco spent the next few moments examining 
 the cloak that Melissine had allowed Partridge to carry. 
 
 "It's worth more than I'll ever get," she pronounced, 
 with no great spleen. "Just look at the old rag I have 
 to wear." 
 
 Partridge saw what he considered a chance. "You 
 ate very well dressed, indeed," he assured her. 
 
 "Yes, I am not," she replied, with her customary non 
 chalance. "But I'm going to be better dressed. I de 
 cided on that when I saw the way you were spending 
 tnoney, down there you and the little blonde. What's 
 her name?" 
 
 "You are referring to Miss Tyrone." 
 
 "Miss Tyrone!" She laughed lightly. "That's what 
 I might have thought, myself, until I saw her saw the 
 things she had on, heard her make that break about 
 spending as much as she wanted to. I might have 
 guessed." 
 
 "Guessed what?" 
 
 "What are you trying to do? pose as an innocent? 
 Do men spend money like that on their daughterst* 
 
 122
 
 The Overhanging Cloud 
 
 when they live in an old brick house down in Cinanmon 
 Street?" Belle drew back from him slightly the better 
 to laugh, but she was keeping her liquid eyes on him. 
 She saw the old gentleman's nostrils expand, saw the 
 flush that crept up under the shriveled pallor of his 
 cheek. "Who's to blame if I feel a little sore?" 
 
 Partridge closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. 
 He remained silent. 
 
 "I've got a message I want you to take to Mr. Tyrone," 
 said Belle; "and if you don't want to take it, why say 
 so, and I'll take it myself." 
 
 Partridge spoke mournfully with his eyes still closed. 
 
 "Mr. Tyrone is very ill. Any disturbance might prove 
 rapidly fatal." 
 
 "That's news," said Belle; "and who's going to in 
 herit the family fortune? Her, I suppose." 
 
 "The fortune is limited." 
 
 "I know all about that, especially after this morning. 
 But I'll break the good news to you, anyway. I want 
 ten thousand dollars." She was glad that Partridge had 
 his eyes closed. Like that he wouldn't know how 
 closely she was watching him. And she didn't have to 
 see his eyes. His face was as sensitive as the surface 
 of a lake. But now Partridge slowly opened his eyes. 
 He was almost unperturbed. 
 
 "When you signed your last receipt," he said, "you 
 also signed an agreement that you had no claim whatso 
 ever on either Mr. Tyrone or his daughter." 
 
 "Some of Judge Bancroft's work!" 
 123
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "In any case, a paper to which you could take no ex 
 ception." 
 
 "I love to hear you men talk," said Belle. "You're 
 all alike. Grab everything you can so long as a woman's 
 young, get her to sign a paper, and good night ! I have 
 half a notion, at that, to warn the little blonde. She's 
 a silly little thing, but she has the looks, and I'm sure 
 we'd like each other." 
 
 Partridge shuddered. Belle noticed his shudder but 
 merely smiled. She reflected, not unhappily, for a space, 
 then spoke aloud as if to herself: 
 
 "I wonder what the kid would think if I was to tell 
 her." 
 
 Partridge was off his guard. "Tell her what?" 
 
 "Who I am!" 
 
 "Why should you " 
 
 Mme. Jenesco gave Partridge her warmest smile. 
 She was hastily preparing to leave. "I'm sorry I can't 
 stay," she said. "There comes Miss Tyrone !" She was 
 still smiling when she purred a threat : "But you get me 
 that ten thousand, and get it quick before the end of 
 the month! Are you wise? or I'll be around to the 
 house to get it myself." 
 
 Partridge said nothing to Nathan Tyrone about this 
 encounter in the store, although he was burning to do 
 so. There were certain assurances that Partridge 
 craved, one question most of all that had scare-crowed 
 up in his brain. If he could only ask ! If he could only 
 
 124
 
 The Overhanging Cloud 
 
 ask ! Several times Partridge was on the verge of doing 
 so. But, after all, there was a limit to the things that 
 servant could say to master and master say to servant, 
 even when relations were such as theirs had always 
 been. 
 
 And did Partridge have the right to ask this certain 
 question in any case? Youth must be served. Let the 
 dead past bury its dead ! Judge not ! Judge not ! 
 
 What if Mr. Nathan had been guilty of an indiscre 
 tion in his youth? 
 
 Not that Partridge believed him to have been guilty! 
 He ascribed to Tyrone that beautiful innocence that 
 most mothers will, in spite of all, ascribe to their sons. 
 But this wasn't the reason that Partridge could not come 
 right out and ask Tyrone: "Was this woman's mother, 
 or was she not, anything to you other than an object of 
 charity?" 
 
 The greater reason was that Partridge himself had 
 that secret in his own breast the secret that he shared 
 with Judge Bancroft alone, the secret that, not for his 
 life's sake, would he have imparted to Tyrone or the 
 daughter of Tyrone, these two whom he so greatly 
 loved. 
 
 So Partridge held his peace. But he felt that there 
 was a blow impending. He could only hope and pray. 
 
 Partly at least could Melissine aid him, and she did. 
 But Partridge quaked quaked in spite of his faith, in 
 spite of such consolation as he could derive from that 
 calendar that Melissine had given him, and also from the 
 presence of Melissine herself. Melissine and Partridge 
 
 125
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 were each, as a matter of fact, of great service to each 
 other at this time. 
 
 For Nathan Tyrone was slipping, each day a little fur 
 ther from this world into the next.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 RETURN OF THE LOVER 
 
 HE was like one of those men old Goodenough 
 had mentioned a part of him dead already. 
 More correctly, he had found himself alone. 
 For every man is more or less the captain of a troop 
 during the better years with his loves, expectations, his 
 greeds and his follies and his fine aspirations, all keep 
 ing step with him. But these die, get shot to pieces, or 
 desert. And then the captain knows that he is old, has 
 nothing more to live for, that his own time has come. 
 
 Taps! Sound them for me when you will! 
 
 And now it was like that for Nathan Tyrone. The 
 last of his phantom command had faded away. He also 
 had been left alone. 
 
 That was what had happened to him that day in 
 Notre Dame. It had happened to him even earlier. It 
 had happened to him when he had seen Melissine and 
 Buckhannon talking together to each other in the Gar 
 dens of the Luxembourg. Only he hadn't known it. 
 But he had known it when he saw them together in 
 Notre Dame. 
 
 That day, the last of his spirit-companions "went 
 West," beckoning him to follow. 
 
 127
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Before that he had still been poet and lover, father 
 and bridegroom, youth and old man. Suddenly, all these 
 spirit-companions had winged away to the music of 
 the Miserere and the tolling of the bell and he had been 
 left deserted. His heart still beat. He could walk about 
 in the world. His eyes could see. He could eat and 
 drink. But he was a mere imitation of a live man. 
 
 All this was the way he put it to himself. He had that 
 sort of mind. Without Melissine there was no life. 
 There was no necessity for life. Once there had been 
 such a necessity. This was no longer so. He had been 
 supplanted. 
 
 Melissine attended him with a purity of devotion that 
 was perfect and beautiful. Even so, Tyrone could see 
 that she awaited but one thing the day that would 
 bring her Eugene back to her. 
 
 The snows of Cinnamon Street melted. The sparrows 
 twittered in the eaves. There came a premonitory wind 
 out of the south. Winter came back and slashed about 
 in March. But the enemy was beaten. Again the south 
 wind came up with all the reserves of the exhaustless 
 tropics. 
 
 There was grass in the chapel-yard, and this went 
 green. Here and there a crocus appeared in the grass. 
 It was like the first note of a fairy orchestra. There 
 was an old rose-vine against the side of No. 6. This 
 also burst into floral music. 
 
 And then, one day, Buckhannon himself rushed into 
 the street like the impatient lover that he was. He ran 
 
 128
 
 Heturn of 'the Lover 
 
 up the steps of No. 6. He rapped out his summons on 
 the knocker of the white Colonial door. 
 
 The birds all sang. A butterfly drifted about to his 
 honor like an attendant airplane. The flowers all 
 cheered that is, they sent up their perfume. Any one 
 could have seen that this was a great event that this 
 was what the world had been waiting for. 
 
 However, there was a longish delay. 
 
 And, in the course of this longish delay, there arrived 
 over the spring-time heart of Buckhannon a touch of cold 
 somewhat as if a breath of winter had come back to 
 wither the blossoms a bit, burn the young verdure of the 
 trees. 
 
 He cast a look back of him. There was the druggist 
 across the street. The druggist had hinted at queer 
 tales. Down there by the chapel fence he saw the police 
 man, Hitchcock, and Goodenough. He caught a whiff 
 of ghoulish verse and dark whispers. This was the 
 house with a bad name ! This was the house with a bad 
 name! 
 
 But he bethought himself of Notre Dame. He was 
 shot through with a poignant yearning that brought its 
 own relief. Notre Dame or New York, they were one. 
 They spoke with the same voice. To this voice he 
 listened: complex, a little lugubrious, richly chorded 
 the voice of the ten millions and the instruments of 
 these. For bass notes of the organ he heard the 
 muffled thunder of the ceaseless traffic, he heard the 
 hootings and the meanings of the harbor-craft, the sirens 
 of outgoing liners and incoming battleships; but most 
 
 129
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 of all he heard the plaintive trebles of those who sweated 
 and strove, whimpered and prayed. 
 
 Then he was back in Cinnamon Street again his 
 spirit was. Once more he stood there in the presence 
 of old No. 6. This, the voice of New York and of 
 Notre Dame, became the voice of the house with the bad 
 name. Hear it moan! Hear it appeal to the judgment 
 of God ! Hear it say : 
 
 "Grace! Grace! Since I have given you this one 
 beautiful thing, this girl who will walk at your side !" 
 
 And what could the whole world say but that ? What 
 could any human life say but that? 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 Buckhannon would have sprung forward with a cry 
 of joy, expecting Melissine. Instead, it was Partridge 
 who opened for him. Partridge was not the flute-player 
 when he opened the Tyrone door to receive a guest for 
 his masters. He was the perfect servant. Even so, he 
 couldn't conceal something of chill, something of dread, 
 something of mystery about him. 
 
 Had he said : "Pause, young man ! There is mystery 
 here !" his impression on Buckhannon's sensitive imagina 
 tion would have been about the same. The bourdon of 
 Notre Dame began to toll. 
 
 Said Buckhannon : "Is Miss is Mr. Tyrone at home?" 
 
 This instead of the burst of song, figuratively speak 
 ing, that he had prepared. Were Notre Dame and 
 Melissine mere hallucinations? 
 
 There was a mystery about this house. There was 
 no delusion about. that. Goodenough was right that 
 
 130
 
 time he had said that all old houses and all old men are 
 haunted. He was literally right. 
 
 One would have said that Partridge himself was 
 haunted right now he the perfect servant, the butler 
 par excellence, the immaculate gentleman who'd loved a 
 lady, sir. 
 
 Quite by accident, Partridge had let his eyes travel 
 across the street. It was a habit of his, that rather back 
 ward tilt of the head and a glance into the distance. 
 And Partridge was old. His eyes saw rather better at 
 a distance than they saw things close by. There was 
 the drug-store across the street. The drug-store occu 
 pied the street-floor of a little two-story frame building. 
 There were living quarters on the upper floor, and 
 almost always at the door of the hallway at the side of 
 the drug-store there hung a card announcing that up 
 stairs there was a room to rent. 
 
 To-day the card wasn't there. 
 
 One of the upper windows was open. 
 
 At this window Partridge had seen a face a calm and 
 watchful face a pale face with dark, dark eyes and 
 red, red lips. 
 
 It all happened in an instant. 
 
 "Mr. Tyrone is ill, sir," Partridge heard his own 
 gentle and well-modulated voice informing the visitor. 
 
 He heard the visitor say: "That is too bad. Will you 
 announce me, please? I am Mr. Buckhannon Mr. 
 Eugene Buckhannon. I have just arrived from Paris. 
 They were expecting me." 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir!" said Partridge aloud. To himself he
 
 The Hmise With a Bad Name 
 
 said : "The Lord is our shield." And again aloud : "They 
 were indeed expecting you, sir." 
 
 He bowed the visitor in. 
 
 And also in Buckhannon's self there was a sort of 
 riot an election-riot; two rival factions in there, each 
 clamoring for the election of its candidate. And one 
 of the candidates was Courage. And the other candidate 
 was Fear.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE UNFINISHED STORY 
 
 THERE was a drawing-room at the left of the 
 hall, and at the door of this Melissine met him. 
 She was dressed as the original model of the 
 great La Tour might have been dressed away back in 
 the eighteenth century. And she was looking at him 
 as the model may have looked at the painter so modest, 
 so demure, so filled with a divine and mysterious fire. 
 
 Her hair was brilliant and bright. It was almost an 
 illumination in this dusky interior a pale shimmer of 
 gold "like a rose upside-down," as the poet said a 
 yellow rose. Her throat and her shoulders were bare 
 except for the semi-transparent scarf she had drawn 
 about them. So far as color went, she was a symphony 
 of pale yellows and pale blues. Her pink lips were 
 tightly shut so tightly shut that one would have said 
 she was having difficulty to control the emotion that 
 made her young breast rise and fall like that and which 
 gave a visible vibrancy to her whole presence. 
 
 But there was no controlling the look in her dark-blue 
 eyes. Something was dawning there a dawn of flame. 
 
 And just the sight of her, and the flash of a thought 
 that the whole universe had been organized since the 
 
 133
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 dawn of time to the end that a girl like this should be 
 waiting for him, Eugene Buckhannon, here and now, 
 made Buckhannon feel like a prince in a fairy-tale. A 
 thrill went through him that was like the casting off of 
 all weight, all worry. He was taller, stronger, more 
 magnificent than any one else in the world. He stepped 
 forward with a gasp of thanksgiving. 
 
 "Do not disturb father just yet," said Melissine. 
 
 She had spoken to Partridge. She had risen to the 
 height of the occasion. She was perfectly self-possessed. 
 
 As for Partridge, he had disappeared. 
 
 And there were the two of them together Melissine 
 and Eugene in the ancient drawing-room. It was a 
 beautiful room with the selected beauty that had sur 
 vived for a century or so; and all the Tyrones had been 
 sensitive to beauty. It was an eighteenth-century room, 
 paneled in old French walnut. There were panels either 
 by or after Boucher on the wall. There was a Beauvais 
 carpet on the floor. The furniture, of the period, was up 
 holstered with Gobelin tapestry. 
 
 "Oh, Melissine," breathed Buckhannon. 
 
 For a moment he had paused. He was artist as well 
 as lover. Both personalities within him had fused and 
 made him swoon almost as if he had been in Tyrone's 
 garden of poppies. 
 
 "Oh, Eugene," she answered him, playfully. 
 
 "I thought I had been with you always since you 
 went away," said Buckhannon. "I have, in spirit. But 
 this transcends the spirit." 
 
 134
 
 The Unfinished Story 
 
 She said nothing now. But she thrust out her hands. 
 Her knees may have failed her, somewhat. 
 
 "You are so wonderful," he informed her, after a 
 long interval. "You would be wonderful anyway. But 
 you are so wonderful in that dress." 
 
 "It was my mother's," she told him, stroking his head. 
 
 She was enthroned in one of the Gobelin chairs. He 
 was seated on the Beauvais carpet at her feet. 
 
 "What a pity it was," he said, "that she ever died." 
 
 "I shall never believe in the thing that people call 
 death," she informed him gently. "That would be too 
 terrible. It would mean that soon father also would 
 be dead." 
 
 He looked up at her, searching for her meaning. "I 
 was sorry to hear that he was ill," he murmured. 
 
 Her blue eyes went liquid, but she smiled. "By and 
 by, n she said, "it will be just as it was with you and 
 me when we said good-by to each other over there in 
 Notre Dame. He will be in one place and I in another. 
 But I don't want to think of that as death. I don't see 
 why people should call that death, and why they should 
 dress themselves in black. See ! We are together again. 
 I didn't put on black when you and I were separated 
 for a while." 
 
 "You are altogether beautiful," said Buckhannon. 
 
 "I wear these," Melissine informed him and she in 
 dicated the clothes she wore "because he has always 
 wanted to see me like this." 
 
 "Can you blame him ?" 
 
 335
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "But now he has given me permission to dress myself 
 as other girls do." 
 
 And thus the conversation drifted from death to dress 
 as lightly as a butterfly might have drifted from poppy 
 to rose, from rose to poppy. 
 
 But underneath all that they said and thought was the 
 solid earth of rocks and hidden rivers. They loved each 
 other. Life was dark and sometimes mysterious, but 
 on the whole life was very beautiful. And also 
 Melissine had said life was everlasting. Everlasting 
 though it be, back there in the music-room sat Nathan 
 Tyrone at the threshold of the brighter chamber men 
 have always called death. 
 
 It was Melissine herself who announced Buckhannon's 
 advent to her father. 
 
 "He wishes to speak to you alone," said Melissine to 
 Buckhannon. 
 
 Hastily, tenderly, she allowed Buckhannon to touch 
 her lips with his own. And thus anointed and purified, 
 so to speak, Buckhannon came into the presence of; 
 Melissine's father. 
 
 "I had been wanting to talk to you," said Tyrone. 
 
 He sat nerveless in his chair in front of the fireplace. 
 The air was mild but there was a fire on the hearth. 
 There was a rug over the sick man's knees. It smote 
 Buckhannon to the heart to think that in a presence 
 like this Melissine had greeted him as bravely as she 
 had, and had spoken her brave words. 
 
 "Yes, sir," this with a fervor. 
 136
 
 The Unfinished Story 
 
 "Melissine has told me," said Tyrone, "that you and 
 she are devoted." 
 
 "There is nothing I wouldn't do " 
 
 "She tells me that you have plighted your troth." 
 
 "God grant" 
 
 The conversation was too momentous for Buckhannon. 
 He could only falter his broken sentences. 
 
 "There was something" Tyrone also was speaking 
 with an effort ; his breath and possibly his mind were 
 wavering "there was something that I felt I must tell 
 you and win your assent before I could approve." 
 
 "If it concerns me or my family," Buckhannon be 
 gan. 
 
 "It concerns Melissine," said Tyrone. 
 
 Buckhannon remained silent, eager, assenting already 
 in his heart. There was nothing in his heart but the 
 vision of Melissine as he had seen her just now, and the 
 love and the reverence that this vision inspired. 
 
 But it wasn't to be always so. 
 
 They say that the higher a man goes on the path the 
 more killing are the tests he has to endure. It was some 
 what like that now. 
 
 Tyrone murmured something about the necessity of 
 telling Buckhannon more about Melissine, else he 
 couldn't die in peace. Buckhannon waited. The silence 
 had become a crisping silence now. And there was 
 Tyrone, gasping for breath, unable for the present to 
 say anything more. 
 
 Partridge omniscient to his master's needs, came in. 
 
 "I'll come back to-morrow," Buckhannon whispered. 
 137
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE NIGHTMARE 
 
 THERE was a Swedish lyric that Buckhannon had 
 run across somewhere. It was one that well 
 might have had a place in old Goodenough's 
 anthology of weird verse. It went like this : 
 
 I in a vision 
 
 Saw my lost sweetheart, 
 
 Fearlessly toward me 
 
 I saw her stray. 
 
 So pale! I thought then; 
 
 She smiled her answer: 
 
 "My heart, my spirit, 
 
 I've kissed away." * 
 
 Melissine's vision hovered wan about Eugene Buck 
 hannon all that night as he tossed sleepless in his bed. 
 Not all night, for late into the night he had walked, 
 and walked, and walked from Washington Square to 
 Union Square, from Union Square to Madison Square, 
 from Madison Square to Central Park, from Central 
 Park to Riverside Drive. Even so, the vision had kept 
 him company. There were no people in the squares or 
 
 * "Anders Oesterling's "Meeting of Phantoms" (in C. W. 
 Stork's Anthology of Swedish Lyrics from 1750 to 1915). 
 
 138
 
 The Nightmare 
 
 streets. These were phantoms whom he saw. The 
 realities were these others. 
 
 Melissine ! 
 
 Nathan Tyrone! 
 
 Old Partridge of the Waxen Face! 
 
 Now that he thought of it, what a weird, weird per 
 son was Melissine! half child, half woman! a thing 
 of exquisite life, dressed with the habiliments of the 
 dead! 
 
 And what was the thing that her father had started 
 to say to him ? Was it merely that his daughter was an 
 angel and that he, Buckhannon, should treat her as such ? 
 This would have been the natural thing. That's what 
 he would have said if he, Buckhannon, had been her 
 father ! 
 
 But if this were the case, why should the butler, Part 
 ridge, have acted so strangely at the door? Why had he 
 started like that, and stared, as would have started and 
 stared one who suddenly realized some dreadful truth, 
 or saw something dreadful that was invisible to other 
 men? Was Partridge a poisoner? He didn't look like 
 one. But wasn't it possible that Partridge had poisoned 
 his master? with his master's consent? for some good 
 purpose? because of some benefit that this would bring 
 to Melissine? 
 
 Melissine was one to inspire men to heroic sacrifices 
 like that. Himself, Buckhannon, wouldn't he commit 
 murder or suicide, on her account? 
 
 And through all these meditations, reveries, mad flights 
 of fancy, the vision of Melissine hovering there like the 
 
 139
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 pale sweetheart of the lyric he remembered. Lost? 
 Would she ever be lost to him? His heart shuddered 
 at the thought. And yet, such things had been. 
 
 He himself was like a lost soul in a haunted forest. 
 Through this figurative forest he groped his way to a 
 solid oak-tree he could trust, and about this he flung his 
 arms ; and he clung to it, until he fell into at least some 
 thing that resembled sleep. 
 
 The oak-tree was Faith. 
 
 He loved Melissine. She loved him. God Himself 
 had given her to him. In Notre Dame, God had given 
 
 her him. 
 
 / 
 
 But Buckhannon knocked softly nevertheless when he 
 came to the door of the old house in Cinnamon Street on 
 the following afternoon. He had forced himself to 
 wait until afternoon because he had so ardently wished 
 to come at daybreak. He believed in discipline. 
 
 Softly the door was opened, and there stood Par 
 tridge. It struck Buckhannon that there was a greater 
 air of mystery about Partridge than ever. Why? 
 
 Buckhannon hesitated. He swallowed. There was a 
 little catch in his voice that he didn't like as he asked: 
 
 "May I see him?" 
 
 "This way, sir," said Partridge faintly. 
 
 And Partridge led Buckhannon into the music-room, 
 whither Buckhannon had gone the day before. 
 
 But the room was changed. The fireplace was dark 
 and hidden by a screen. From above it the portrait that 
 so resembled a portrait of Melissine looked down 
 
 140
 
 The Nightmare 
 
 through a sparkling haze of candlelight. It was curious 
 that so many candles should have been lit in mid- 
 afternoon. 
 
 The light of them constituted a bedazzlement. 
 
 Buckhannon heard a ghostly whisper: "He did not 
 know! He did not know!" It was the voice of the 
 old butler. 
 
 "Know what?" Buckhannon asked. 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 Then Buckhannon saw that the candles stood at the 
 head and the foot of a sort of lofty couch and that on 
 this couch lay the man he had come to see. 
 
 "He is dead !" gasped Buckhannon. 
 
 All Partridge could do was to bow his head. Part 
 ridge was strangled. Partridge was inarticulate. 
 
 Not so Melissine. 
 
 When Melissine came in, it was almost as if Buck 
 hannon was seeing again his phantoms of the night. For 
 she was pale. But she was dressed with as much light 
 ness and beauty as she had shown the day before. Had 
 she read the look in Buckhannon's eyes? If she had, she 
 had answered it : 
 
 "This is the way he would harve had me be," she 
 whispered. 
 
 Buckhannon took her hand and pressed it to his lips. 
 He was as strangled and inarticulate now as Partridge 
 was. Then, after a while Melissine spoke again. Her 
 voice had taken a childish quality because of its tendency 
 to break. But she was as brave as a little Jeanne d'Arc. 
 
 141
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 It was as if she were fighting the fight alone and for 
 all of them : 
 
 "He's merely gone away," she said. "He's merely 
 gone where some day all of us will join him. It will be 
 beautiful there. He will love it. He will love it better 
 than France." Each sentence had its little gasp, its ris 
 ing accent. "And why should we have faith," she quer 
 ied gently, "if we can't have it at a time like this?" 
 
 Buckhannon looked into her eyes. She closed her eyes 
 and two tears trickled out. He caught her in his arms 
 and held her there. 
 
 The neighbors must have been watching, watching. 
 This night they had seen No. 6 become a center of sin 
 ister excitement. They had seen a sable wagon come 
 and go. They had seen men dressed in black enter the 
 house and go away again. Was somebody sick? Was 
 somebody dead? One would have thought so and yet 
 there was no badge of mourning on the door. 
 
 They saw no sign of mourning about the house what 
 soever until some time after they had seen the young 
 man (Buckhannon) go into the house. But then they 
 were rewarded. 
 
 It was just as if here, in front of their eyes, was 
 "happening the thing they had waited for all these years. 
 
 A woman had crossed the street from the direction of, 
 the druggist's shop. She was the Woman in Black. 
 She was veiled in black. But they guessed that she was 
 beautiful from her graceful lines and her slightly sinu 
 ous walk as she mounted the stoop of No. 6 and lifted 
 the knocker. 
 
 142
 
 BUCKHANNON had a highly intelligent eye. It 
 was not only the well-trained physical eye of his 
 profession. It was the sympathetic eye of the inter 
 preter back of this physical eye the eye of the dreamer 
 and the imaginer. It was this eye, fine and complex, 
 with which he had observed Partridge that first time 
 Partridge had opened the door for him. It was the eye 
 with which he now observed not Partridge only, but the 
 Woman in Black, and Melissine. 
 
 Buckhannon and Melissine had come into the- hall on 
 their way to the drawing-room. They lingered when 
 they heard the rap on the door. Partridge had wafted 
 past them on his way to open. 
 
 When the Woman in Black came in it was as if, for 
 the first time, death had entered. 
 
 This figure was like an incarnation of death. She was 
 a personification of mourning, at any rate a character 
 out of one of those old powerful pictures by Dore. It 
 rather heightened the effect that her bearing and her 
 lines were those of youth, not age. All the more it 
 made her the Dark Angel. It was just as if Partridge 
 had opened the door and then the Dark Angel had 
 come in. 
 
 143
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 And there wa% something about the appearance of 
 Partridge to indicate that this was the way he felt about 
 it, too. There was a touch of terror about Partridge, 
 certainly of distress. 
 
 Or was this merely something that he had brought 
 with him from the room back there, where his master 
 lay? 
 
 Buckhannon was not to be left long in doubt. 
 
 The strange visitor had entered with an indefinable 
 gust of haste and satisfaction. It was just as if she 
 had said: "At last! At last!" had said this with an 
 inaudible voice that none the less was capable of shaking 
 the souls of all of them. But once inside the door and 
 the door closed behind her, she paused. 
 
 Buckhannon heard her whisper: "You know who I 
 am." 
 
 It wasn't a whisper precisely, but her voice had been 
 very soft. She had spoken to Partridge. Her words 
 had carried with them a suggestion of authority. 
 
 Partridge wavered. She waited. 
 
 Partridge said: "Yes, madam." 
 
 In the meantime the woman had looked in Buckhan- 
 non's direction had looked at him and Melissine. Buck- 
 liannon felt a slight tremor at his side ; he felt Melissine's 
 light hand creep into the hollow of his arm as if she 
 were seeking for protection. 
 
 "I'd protect you, heart and soul, against all the fiends 
 of hell," Buckhannon silently assured the owner of the 
 hand. 
 
 There was an uncanniness about it that veiled 
 
 144
 
 The Other Mourner 
 
 scrutiny of the unknown. The veil was black. The vis 
 itor's face was invisible through it, but her eyes glowed, 
 only dimly discernible. 
 
 "Introduce me," the visitor had next demanded. 
 
 "You have come to see Mr. Tyrone," quavered Part 
 ridge. "You know of the misfortune." 
 
 It was manifest to Buckhannon that Partridge was 
 seeking time manifest that Partridge was up against a 
 situation that was all dark confusion for him. Buck 
 hannon felt sorry for the old man. And his heart fairly 
 yearned over Melissine. All the same, this was a con 
 tinuation of his nightmare. Not that there was any 
 thing horrible about it. There had been nothing hor 
 rible about the nightmare itself. It had been just a 
 vague drift of doubts and melancholies. That was all. 
 Had there been bristles on his spine, as there doubtless 
 had been on the spine of some remote ancestor, these 
 bristles would have been drawn erect. 
 
 "Introduce me," the woman ordered softly, but with 
 a note of finality. 
 
 And thereupon she threw back her veil.- 
 
 It was Buckhannon's turn to start. The sight of the 
 woman's face recalled that other face he had seen fhe 
 woman who had kissed him at the side of the chapel 
 fence. Buckhannon felt an ache at his solar-plexus 
 there where some say is the real center of the intellect 
 and this pain of his was intellectual as much as it was 
 physical. There could be no mistake. This was she. 
 Her face had become the face of a hag in his dreams, 
 and yet it was beautiful. 
 
 145
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Her face was very pale. It wasn't a dead white. 
 She had a fine complexion, but all of the one tone ivory 
 white. This accentuated the rest of her coloring her 
 dark red hair, her bright red lips, and her brilliant large 
 eyes which were almost black. It wouldn't have taken 
 a trained observer to decide that her eyes were penciled 
 and that her lips had likewise been sagaciously enhanced. 
 
 But only a trained observer would have noted per 
 haps that mixture of boldness and caution she radiated 
 about her. It was something to remind one of a power 
 ful wild animal, furtive and alert, which finds itself in 
 the midst of strange surroundings, yet still in a situation 
 where it has long wanted to be. 
 
 But also Melissine had recognized her. This was the 
 strange woman who had spoken to her in the store. 
 Perhaps neither had Melissine been wholly without her 
 haunt since then. 
 
 Buckhannon and Melissine had not been standing still. 
 They had advanced somewhat. All that had transpired 
 thus far had developed deftly, without apparent let or 
 lapse of time. 
 
 "Madame " 
 
 Partridge had quavered this. 
 
 The visitor turned from him with a certain contempt. 
 She had again cast her eyes on Buckhannon and Melis 
 sine. They came back to Buckhannon. For what 
 seemed to him like a long, long time, the woman was 
 looking at him and he was looking at her. In her turn 
 she had given a little gasp. 
 
 "An unfortunate come to atone," said Buckhannon 
 146
 
 The Other Mourner 
 
 to himself; and he felt a quiver of pity. This may have 
 revealed itself in his look. 
 
 Anyway, the woman rewarded him with a smile. The 
 smile was like the flash of recognition a wild animal 
 would have shown veiled and enigmatic. 
 
 Whereupon Buckhannon's pity became a vague little 
 whiff of terror. It was a terror compounded of all 
 the things he had heard, or which had reached him by 
 way of suggestion from the druggist, from Hickcock, 
 the policeman, and Goodenough, the coachman. 
 
 Buckhannon had given a hasty glance at Melissine. 
 There was an impulse in his mind to tell Melissine not to 
 worry, not to be frightened. But Melissine herself was 
 looking at the strange woman with a blossoming 
 sympathy. 
 
 It was evident that Melissine, moreover, was conscious 
 of her duties as hostess. 
 
 "Do you wish to see father ?" Melissine inquired gently, 
 stepping forward. 
 
 The visitor smiled at Melissine. 
 
 She had paused just long enough to give a look at 
 Partridge. To any one who would have cared to in 
 terpret, it was a look that said: "And that's enough for 
 you, servant!" 
 
 She approached Melissine with her swift and sinuous 
 movement, shaking out as she did so a perfume of the 
 Lord knows what from her sable garments something 
 musky and Oriental. She put her arm around Melis 
 sine Buckhannon drawing back respectfully, not to say 
 
 147
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 distrustfully, to give her room and she planted her red 
 lips to Melissine's white temple. 
 
 "I am Mme. Jenesco," she announced in her warm, 
 soft voice. "But you may call me Belle. I am sure 
 that we are going to love each other."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 OF FLOWERS AND SPECTERS 
 
 PARTRIDGE had remained near the door where 
 the woman had left him. Partridge was making 
 a pretense that the fastening of the door was out 
 of order. But when Buckhannon came up and spoke 
 to the old man, Partridge turned and reeled slightly until 
 his back was against the door. He looked as if he needed 
 the support. He looked as if he were being strangled 
 by a set of invisible fingers. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco and Melissine were for the moment out 
 of hearing. They had gone into the music-room. 
 
 "Who is she?" Buckhannon demanded. 
 
 "She is Mme. Jenesco," Partridge gasped. 
 
 "1 know that," said Buckhannon steadily. "I was just 
 introduced to her." He looked at his hand, as if Mme. 
 Jenesco's fingers might have left their trace there. His 
 fingers were still consciou^ of the contact. He raised 
 his hand nearer his face. The perfume also lingered. 
 
 "She was married, I believe, to a M. Jenesco," said 
 Partridge. "A Rumanian, sir, if I remember correctly." 
 
 Buckhannon put out his hands and let them rest lightly 
 on the old man's shoulders. Buckhannon had the feel 
 ing in his arms that he could have grappled with a giant 
 
 149
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 that he would have grappled with anything that he 
 could see or get hold of. But his hands were gentle. 
 Partridge was fragile, he was in misery; and Buckhan- 
 non knew by this time how Melissine loved him. 
 
 "I want you to understand now and always," Buck- 
 hannon said, "that I am your friend." 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
 "There seems to be some sort of a mystery here." 
 
 It was a phrase that had become familiar in his 
 thought, but which never before had he spoken aloud. 
 The look that Partridge returned to him was a con 
 firmation. 
 
 "If there is anything that concerns your welfare or 
 the welfare of Miss Tyrone," Buckhannon hurried on, 
 "I want you to tell me what it is. I want you to let me 
 help you." 
 
 "I dare not!" 
 
 "Dare not?" 
 
 "I dare not ! Do not ask me, sir." 
 
 "Why should you try to hide it? I'm your friend. 
 Can't you trust me? God knows I'm asking a greater 
 trust from Melissine !" 
 
 "God bless you, sir!" 
 
 "Tell me," Buckhannon pleaded. 
 
 "I I never thought, sir that it would come to this," 
 said Partridge. 
 
 And any one could have told that Partridge was not 
 confronting the immediate incident so much as he was 
 regarding the whole vast landscape of the past. 
 
 "Well, what has this woman to do with it?"
 
 Of Flowers and Specters 
 
 "I must ask you to be patient. So would Mr. Tyrone 
 have wished." 
 
 "She's a bad woman." 
 
 "She looks it I have suspected " 
 
 "Have her thrown out of the house," said Buckhan- 
 non, whose only thought was to save Melissine from con 
 tamination. An electric needle was plucking at his mind. 
 It buzzed and burnt with George Sterling's line: 
 
 Smiles bloodily against the leprous moon ! 
 
 . . . sated at her feast, 
 
 Smiles bloodily against the leprous moon . . . 
 
 "No ! No !" cried Partridge. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I we can arrange " 
 
 "By God," said Buckhannon, and he was declaring 
 this to himself as much as he was to Partridge, "before 
 I allow anything or any one to touch Melissine's happi 
 ness " He stopped. 
 
 When men say something to some one else, they often 
 listen to themselves. Buckhannon was now haunted by 
 the thought that what he said had sounded false even 
 to his own ears. He knew that, while he started to make 
 his declaration, and was listening to it, he was also hear 
 ing the voice of Tyrone Tyrone trying to tell him 
 something; and now Tyrone was dead; and he, Buck 
 hannon, was in .a panic of doubt. 
 
 In his own extremity, Partridge was casting about 
 hither and yon, seeking for something that he could 
 cling to. Curiously enough it was something he had
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 read a long time ago. He controlled himself. He was 
 getting back his strength. His mild eyes met Buckhan- 
 non's squarely. 
 
 "Let us not strive," he said. "Let us be gentle." 
 
 "But this" Buckhannon began. "Tell me: Is it 
 anything that impinges on the honor of Melissine?" 
 
 "She need never know." 
 
 "She need never know what?" 
 
 "If you lack faith if you are afraid," said Partridge, 
 "it were better that you go." 
 
 "I'll not go," said Buckhannon. "I'll never go but 
 that she goes with me." 
 
 "God bless you, sir. Pardon me, but we'll need you. 
 The Lord has sent you in this the hour of our need." 
 
 Partridge had permitted himself no sleep since twenty- 
 four hours at least. Old men require less sleep than 
 young ones do. Still, he was much wrought up. He 
 wasn't very robust. 
 
 "What do you want me to do ?" queried Buckhannon, 
 after an interval. 
 
 "Should you care to, sir, I would suggest that you take 
 Miss Tyrone into the garden for a breath of air. She 
 needs it. She wouldn't go alone. She would go with 
 you." 
 
 "And her!" 
 
 It was a reference to the Woman in Black. 
 
 Partridge drew himself up. "Leave her to me, sir. 
 I shall try to do whatever is best." 
 
 There was the gate between the Tyrone property and 
 the yard of the abandoned chapel. Through this gate 
 
 152
 
 Of Flowers and Specters 
 
 Melissine and Buckhannon made their way. The early 
 spring twilight was in the air, also a smell of grass and 
 trees and flowers. The hour and the place were such 
 as Buckhannon had yearned for many and many a 
 time while he was still in Paris and Melissine was in 
 New York. Thus had he walked with her in his thought, 
 and he had been certain that not heaven itself could have 
 been otherwise. 
 
 Yet here he was, miserable, miserable and haunted! 
 
 He turned to Melissine. He concealed all that he 
 could of the doubt that was assailing him. 
 
 "Who was that woman?" he asked. 
 
 "I never saw her before in my life, except once," 
 Melissine replied. She told of the meeting in the store. 
 "She is a curious creature. It is very strange." 
 
 "What is very strange?" 
 
 "She said that she was glad that at last we had been 
 brought together. She spoke as if she were intending 
 to come here to live. I think that it was about this she 
 wanted to speak to Partridge." 
 
 Partridge was in there speaking to her now. 
 
 "Don't worry," said Buckhannon. "It will turn out 
 all right." 
 
 "But oh," cried Melissine; "I do wish I knew what it 
 was all about !" 
 
 Buckhannon held his peace. It would have to be as 
 Partridge said. He would have to be patient. But he 
 was sad. 
 
 Melissine, feeling the sadness that was upon him, 
 paused and made him pause, with a gentle pressure on 
 
 IS3
 
 The House With a Ttad Name 
 
 his arm and she held up a rose that he might smell 
 it. But as Buckhannon inhaled the fragrance of the 
 flower and closed his eyes with a hope of shutting out 
 everything else, all that he could think of was Nathan 
 Tyrone, and Partridge, and the Woman in Black, and 
 their ghostly confrontation. 
 
 The shadows deepened. The candlelight glimmered 
 through the windows of the music-room. There for a 
 time Melissine and Buckhannon could hear a murmur 
 of voices as if the three who were in there arranged 
 some new edict of fate.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE DARK CLAIMANT 
 
 IT was a ghostly confrontation, indeed, that which 
 was taking place now in old No. 6 Cinnamon Street. 
 For a time Mme. Jenesco and Partridge had lingered 
 there in the silent music-room with Nathan Tyrone 
 and all the other Tyrones looking down from the walls. 
 
 "I hope," said Partridge, "that you said nothing to 
 Miss Tyrone." 
 
 For a while longer the visitor continued to look at 
 the pictures on the wall. She looked at them with a 
 certain satisfaction. From her bearing it might have 
 been doubtful whether she had heard Partridge at all. 
 
 "Not, of course," Partridge pursued, "that there was 
 anything you could have said anything to disturb hen 
 peace of mind, I mean." 
 
 He was stumbling. The woman turned and surveyed 
 him with a degree of amused contempt. She took her 
 time about her survey. But if she intended to squelch 
 Partridge, reduce him to a further confusion, she missed 
 her guess. Partridge was gradually getting still more 
 of his strength back, reassuming the poise that had be 
 come native to him during his years of service. 
 
 "Your coming here," he reminded her, "was very ir 
 regular." 
 
 155
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 She raised a shoulder slightly. She said: "Indeed!" 
 
 "I have always counseled you not to come here," 
 Partridge continued softly. Partridge was stooped, but 
 this was the stoop of age rather than of any humility 
 supposed to attach to his station. His face and his 
 voice were dignified. 
 
 "I am not sure," the woman retorted slowly, "that you 
 haven't taken a good deal upon yourself." 
 
 "I was constrained to," Partridge informed her. "Mr. 
 Tyrone honored me with his confidence in so many ways. 
 I dare say I did not misjudge his own wishes in the 
 matter." 
 
 The woman reflected. She had the air of one who 
 listens to the mind rather than the heart. But she took 
 a handkerchief, in a leisurely way, from the black bag 
 she carried. The handkerchief had a black border. With 
 this handkerchief she touched her eyes. 
 
 "There is no occasion for showing yourself so heart 
 less," she announced. 
 
 Partridge also meditated, a trifle wonderstruck. 
 
 "If I have seemed heartless," he said, "I beg of you 
 to accept my apology. I assure you that I am not heart 
 less. Anything that I have said was merely dictated by 
 my devotion to Mr. Tyrone and to Miss Tyrone. He had 
 never informed her of his difference with his father. 
 At least, I am quite certain that he never told her -of 
 the causes of that difference. Miss Tyrone has an in 
 quiring mind. Your coming here now, and your as 
 sumption again I shall have to ask your pardon if what 
 
 156
 
 The Dark Claimant 
 
 I say should wound you your assumption of friend 
 ship not to say familiarity " 
 
 "That's enough!" the woman broke in upon him. 
 "You've said quite enough!" 
 
 There was no appearance of grief about her, real or 
 assumed. There was something beginning to simmer in 
 side of her something that may have been latent when 
 she came here. She jammed her mourning handkerchief 
 into her bag. 
 
 "True," said Partridge. "We shall consider the in 
 terview at an end." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco didn't move, except for the sort of 
 tense vibrancy about her. She looked at Partridge. 
 
 "Perhaps," she said softly, "I have decided to re 
 main this time for good." 
 
 "I am getting a little old," said Partridge. "My hear 
 ing is not what it should be. I must have misunder 
 stood." 
 
 "You heard what I said." 
 
 "And I beg to remind you that you heard what I said. 
 I desire that we bring this interview to a close before 
 Miss Tyrone returns. I shall further suggest, finally, 
 that you do not return here again." 
 
 The sultriness about the woman increased, but out 
 wardly she maintained a perfect control of herself she 
 did except for the purring note that came into her voice. 
 There was a purr about the entirety of her. She sug 
 gested a panther a black panther in the presence of 
 some new but fascinating prey. 
 
 157
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Do you still think that you are expressing Mr. Ty 
 rone's wishes when you talk to me like that?" 
 
 "Not only his, madam," said Partridge quietly, "but 
 also Mr. Buckhannon's Miss Tyrone's affianced hus 
 band." Partridge was happier when he could ascribe 
 authority to some one else. 
 
 It took Belle several seconds to catch this allusion. 
 
 "Oh," she said; "you mean him!" She laughed. "I 
 should worry about him! Why, you'll find that he's one 
 of the best friends I've got." She meditated the coup, 
 like a cat playing with a mouse. "We think so much 
 of each other that he kissed ine the very first time 
 we met." 
 
 Partridge believed that she was lying, but tears came 
 into his eyes. This was a blow aimed not at him but at 
 Melissine. It gave him some hint of what might follow. 
 
 "But he's a nice boy," said Belle. "He's no worse 
 than any other man than Mr. Tyrone was in his rela 
 tions with my mother." 
 
 There followed another silence while Partridge stood 
 there now at a loss and with his mouth open trying to 
 imagine what she meant, trying to stifle his oWn mis 
 givings, and while Mme. Jenesco looked at him from 
 her side of the room with her red-lipped smile. 
 
 "Since you refer," said Partridge, softly, "to your un 
 fortunate mother^ " 
 
 "Unfortunate's the word !" 
 
 "It is the word. God pity you that you should have 
 forced me to refer to her as such. Is it possible that 
 you have forgotten all that he did for her and you?" 
 
 158
 
 The Dark Claimant 
 
 Belle still smiled at him. Her lips were parted now, 
 and her breast was rising and falling as if she were a 
 little short of breath. 
 
 "I remember," she said. "I was fifteen years old 
 when my mother died. Brought up the way I was a 
 girl knows a lot and can guess a lot by the time that 
 she's fifteen. I wasn't brought up like that little blonde, 
 out there. I suppose you know that, too, don't you?" 
 
 "I request you to leave the house." 
 
 "You can save your stage stuff," she mocked him. 
 "You'll need all of it a little later." Her voice took on 
 an ugly drawl. "Say! What do you think I am, any 
 way? Do you think that just because he" she tossed 
 her head to indicate Nathan Tyrone lying there "put 
 something over on my mother that you can keep on put 
 ting the same stuff over on me? Why, you're nothing 
 but a servant ! You're nothing but a poor old man I 
 I was feeling sorry for you. I came here to-day with 
 the best intentions in the world. What do you mean 
 by insulting my mother's memory just because she was 
 unfortunate?" 
 
 "God forbid!" cried Partridge. "And this in hit 
 presence !" 
 
 "And where else?" Mme. Jenesco demanded, with a 
 slow lash of passion. "Why not?" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean !" 
 
 "You lie!" 
 
 Partridge raised a groping hand. He forgot what 
 he had raised it for. He let it fall again. 
 
 "You lie," the woman repeated, "and you know you 
 159
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 lie. You've known it all along. You knew it as well 
 as he knew it himself and you stand there ready to deny 
 it. Don't you dare to deny it." 
 
 Partridge's voice came in a gasp : 
 
 "Deny what?" 
 
 "That Nathan Tyrone was my father!"
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 A BID FOR CHARITY 
 
 PERHAPS it was Melissine's calendar that Par 
 tridge saw through his closed eyes. Perhaps it 
 was that very quotation that he had recalled a 
 little earlier in the hall when he was talking to Buck- 
 hannon. That sort of an expression came into his face : 
 
 "And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be 
 gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient." 
 
 He would cease to strive. He was going to be gentle 
 and patient. He was going to try to teach. The woman 
 watched his change of expression. Something of her 
 own passion diminished. 
 
 "You started me," she said, as if almost in apology. 
 "I'm just as eager to be a lady as any one. God knows 
 I'm tired enough of being the other thing." 
 
 It was a sincere note. It sufficed to cause Partridge 
 to look at her again with a shade of fresh courage. 
 
 "I trust that you will believe," he said, still shakily, 
 "that I have acted and spoken, hastily perhaps, but with 
 out malice. Your mother was brought to this house by 
 Mr. Tyrone when she was sick and friendless. He was 
 chivalrous. He was her friend." 
 
 The woman cut in on him. But one would have said 
 
 161
 
 The House With a 'Bad Name 
 
 that the bitterness in her tone was drawn from the bit 
 terness of her own experience. 
 
 "Bah!" she exclaimed. "Men always say that I" 
 
 But Partridge persisted patient, eager to teach. 
 
 "You could not have known Mr. Tyrone," he said 
 gently, "thus to classify him with other men not in re 
 spect to his relations with women. He was a man of 
 the purest life." 
 
 "How do you know?" 
 
 "I knew him from the time he was born. I knew 
 him you might say almost long before he was born. I 
 knew his grandfather. He and I were together with 
 General Grant. I was with his father many years. They 
 were like that. Oh, they were too proud to have sullied 
 themselves !" 
 
 Again the woman interrupted him. She fortified her 
 self with a declaration. 
 
 "I'm not saying anything against him. I'm not say 
 ing that he wasn't better than most men. But he was 
 a man. I love him. I honor him " 
 
 "I knew," sobbed Partridge "knew that you would 
 see the light." 
 
 " honor him," the woman pursued, disregarding the 
 interruption, "as a daughter should." 
 
 Partridge collapsed. 
 
 "If it's a matter of money " he faltered. 
 
 The woman stuck to her line of argument. "He was 
 a man like any other man, though, when it came to that," 
 she persisted. "You'll admit yourself that my mother 
 was young and that she was beautiful." 
 
 162
 
 A Bid for Chanty 
 
 "I do admit it," said Partridge, with a gust of ferVof. 
 "It was her beauty that moved him to commit this act 
 of folly. He always loved beauty so! He could never 
 love anything ugly, either in word, or thought, or action." 
 
 "Then what are you trying for to make him out as 
 the other kind ?" 
 
 "I am not." 
 
 "You are. He brought her here to this house, didn't 
 he? You say so yourself that he did. And he kept her 
 here, didn't he? You admit that, too. And I suppose 
 that you expect me to believe, and that you would have 
 the world to believe, that he did it" her voice became 
 a taunt "all for charity !" 
 
 "I do. It was charity. He was a poet. He was a 
 gentleman." 
 
 She was bitter again. 
 
 "Oh, I know your gentlemen !" 
 
 "He was all that the word implies." 
 
 "That's right! They do that sort of thing when a 
 girl happens to be beautiful and happens to be poor. 
 What do you know of what passed between them? You 
 weren't sitting there watching them all the time. Com 
 promised her! Kept her here until he was tired of 
 her " 
 
 She was saying other things, not all of which Par 
 tridge heard. It was a voice inside of himself that 
 Partridge heard the voice of that earlier doubt. Was 
 the woman right? Had Nathan Tyrone's own father 
 been right? It was a searing, darkening, damning doubt, 
 and one that Partridge prayed against with all the fervor 
 
 163
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 of his soul. Yet it was there. He recognized it for some 
 thing that he had heard and seen before a specter with 
 a voice. Why not? What would there have been so 
 strange if Nathan Tyrone had succumbed first pity, then 
 sympathy, then love, then a flame of passion when he, 
 Mr. Nathan, was still so young and inexperienced ? 
 
 None the less, Partridge pleaded. 
 
 "It is not so! It is not so!" and Partridge cast his 
 two hands into the air. But he was not pleading to the 
 woman. He was pleading to his own momentary loss of 
 faith. Again he told the old tale of his master's good 
 ness, gentleness, pride of soul, love of beauty. He even 
 referred to that one and only and most beautiful passion 
 in his life for Mme. Tyrone and Melissine. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco let him talk. Now he was on familiar 
 ground. She let him get rid of some of his emotion in 
 this safe way. 
 
 "And me! What was he doing for me all this time?" 
 
 "He was generous " 
 
 "With money !" 
 
 "No man would have done more." 
 
 "What good did money do me? It wasn't money that 
 I needed. It was love ! It was real love ! It was a 
 father's love ! Instead of that it was money money 
 nothing but money ! It's always been that when I wanted 
 something else. They stuck me in a school that I didn't 
 want to go to. They gave me an education that I didn't 
 want. And when I ran away from it, looking for some 
 thing that my heart craved you know what happened 
 to me and what always happens to girls like that and 
 
 164
 
 A Bid for Charity 
 
 they offered me money more money ! Damn you, stand 
 ing there and talking about money !" 
 
 She had advanced on Partridge almost as if she could 
 have struck him. But it wouldn't have been him that 
 she would have struck so much as it would have been 
 the symbol of what she had learned to hate. She had 
 been speaking with a subdued intensity. But at the very 
 climax of her denunciation she stopped, her voice broke 
 into a little sob. This time there were real tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 There, for a moment, Partridge looked as if he were 
 sorely tempted to take her into his arms and console 
 her. He started to console her a broken, inarticulate 
 word. 
 
 But the woman broke out, tearful, but still furious : 
 
 "I tell you I'm going to claim my own! I'm coming 
 to this house to live. I'm here and I'm going to stay. 
 I'm tired of living like a beggar now that I'm getting 
 to be too old to be anything else." 
 
 Partridge had turned. He walked with a tottering 
 step, uncertain of his destination. Mechanically he 
 straightened a chair. For a while he was standing with 
 his face to the wall. He raised his hand to his fore 
 head. He raised it a little higher and straightened the 
 portrait of Mr. Eliphalet Tyrone. 
 
 The woman took advantage of the lull to regain con 
 trol of herself. She opened her hand-bag. She looked 
 at herself in the small mirror it contained. She straight 
 ened her mourning toque. She touched up her dark red 
 
 165
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 hair where it curled out from under her toque over her 
 temples. 
 
 But she must have appreciated that her battle was far 
 from won as she closed her bag and turned to look after 
 Partridge again. She gave a slight start. Maybe she 
 felt that she was in the presence of something she did 
 not altogether comprehend. 
 
 Partridge had been standing at the side of Nathan 
 Tyrone looking down into his master's face. He was 
 as if unconscious Partridge was of any other presence 
 in the room. While the woman was still looking at him, 
 Partridge slipped down to one knee. He folded his 
 hands. He bowed his head. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco didn't care to look too much. She 
 strolled over to the open but shuttered window. She 
 tilted the slats of one of the shutters. She looked out. 
 The long spring twilight had begun. Through the dusk 
 she could see Melissine Tyrone and Eugene Buckhannon 
 slowly walking through one of the paths of the old grave 
 yard. They were arm in arm. Buckhannon's head was 
 bowed. 
 
 Beyond them, in the street, leaning against the iron 
 pickets of the graveyard fence, like the figure of one 
 who would have entered there to rest even as she sought 
 rest in this forbidden house she saw some one whom 
 she recognized as old Goodenough, the familiar coach 
 man of the street.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 IT is curious how silent and peaceful all the surround 
 ings can be when a life and death struggle is in 
 progress. This struggle that was taking place be 
 tween Partridge and Mme. Jenesco was a life and death 
 struggle in a way. It may not have been his or her par 
 ticular life for which each struggled. But, if anything, 
 it was a fiercer struggle precisely because of that as if 
 each had been fighting for something dearer than life > 
 each fighting to preserve the life of a child : Mme. Jenesco 
 trying to keep the breath of life in this baby imp of a 
 hope she had conceived ; Partridge trying to conserve the 
 spiritual thing he had created out of his own spirit and 
 flesh during all the years of his service. Yet, outside this 
 house, outside this room, there was no sign of all this. 
 
 You couldn't have expected old New York to give 
 any token of interest. 
 
 It meant nothing to New York what happened to a 
 person or even a group of persons in an obscure old 
 house. New York had crawled with dramas little and 
 big ever since the first occupation by the Dutch. 
 
 Nowadays more than a thousand of her little men 
 and women died every week of the year, and that was 
 
 167
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 normal. Every day of the week a hundred or two of 
 atoms who had called themselves New Yorkers, and who 
 most likely had come to the big city from distant farms 
 and villages, far coasts and mountain valleys consumed 
 with ambition, inspired with a divine belief in them 
 selves and in their own divinity choked out their lives 
 in this or that dusty kennel while the tears and prayers 
 of relatives made each passing a drama of its own. 
 
 But old New York didn't mind. Hurdy-gurdies for 
 New York, and the latest song, and the latest thing in 
 reforms ! 
 
 On this particular day there was no such street as 
 Cinnamon, so far as any one would have noticed. 
 
 Through the broad, new avenue, paved with granite 
 and lined with new factories and warehouses, raw and 
 square, the big trucks thundered, and the iron-shod horses 
 struck fire. Along the big docks the ships blew off steam 
 and swallowed and disgorged their thousands of tons of 
 freight. Out in the broad North River and around in 
 the harbor generally, the little tugs scurried about like 
 ants, and the big Sound and river boats churned their 
 way for Albany or Boston ; or a battle-ship came in like 
 a floating mountain, or a floating skyscraper of a liner 
 headed out for Europe. 
 
 Little difference it made to New York, or the world 
 at large, these births, deaths, and other poignant acci 
 dents that never ceased under the ragged sky-line. 
 
 More curious yet, though, the quiet and the peace of 
 the immediate vicinity. 
 
 Cinnamon Street itself was like that. Cinnamon Street 
 168
 
 A Wreath of Immortelles 
 
 may have been watching everything from under half- 
 closed lids like a drowsy dog drowsy all the way from 
 Tony Zamboni's, on the corner of the avenue, right on 
 down to Pliny's which made of Cinnamon Street a 
 cul-de-sac. 
 
 The spring twilight thickened. A few nighthawk spar 
 rows still twittered in the vines of the chapel. A few 
 bats were out policing the insect noctambules. 
 
 And up and down the gravelly, grass-grown path at 
 the back of the chapel-yard, Buckhannon and Melissine 
 had continued to walk like two of Goodenough's ghostly 
 lovers : 
 
 No one walks there now; 
 Except in the white of moonlight. 
 
 "That old man is still over there by the fence," said 
 Melissine. 
 
 "That is old Goodenough, the coachman," said Buck 
 hannon. 
 
 "Dear old soul!" said Melissine. 
 
 "He looks as if he had been to market," Buckhannon 
 remarked, speaking idly as one will whose real thought 
 is elsewhere and too deeply planted for a blossom of 
 words. 
 
 But Melissine had continued to look in Goodenough's 
 direction, a glow of interest and sympathy in her face. 
 
 "I do believe," she said, "that he has been trying to 
 attract our attention. Let us go over. We will pretend 
 to be talking about something else so as not to embarrass 
 him if he didn't want to speak to us." 
 
 169
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "All right," said Buckhannon. "I always did feel 
 grateful to the old fellow for taking you out driving 
 the first time that I ever came into Cinnamon Street. If 
 it hadn't been for him I might never have seen you." 
 
 They were in a solemn and gentle mood. Most of the 
 time they had been silent. They had no suspicion as to 
 what turn of events might have developed between Par 
 tridge and the Woman in Black. But each may have 
 prayed in a way that nothing was amiss. This with no 
 certitude that everything was not right. Anyway, it must 
 have been that to each one of them an answer to his 
 and her prayer had come. Each was at peace a peace 
 so perfect that it would have been hard for any one, 
 seeing them, to imagine that there, in that old house, 
 right at the side of them, such a struggle was taking 
 place and such a drama was being played as we have 
 seen. 
 
 They hadn't gone very far before they became aware 
 that Melissine's guess had been correct. Old Goodenough 
 had been making signals to them, sure enough. 
 
 Old Goodenough, outside the rusty palings, leaned 
 against them and peered through them as he had so often 
 done. Now, as ever, moreover, there was a look of poetic 
 and melancholic aspiration on the old cabby's vinous 
 face. He carried something on or under, or both on 
 and under, his arm. 
 
 His whisper reached them but at first only as a 
 murmur, something that they could not understand. 
 
 "Oh!" Melissine exclaimed, and she had run toward 
 Goodenough through the grass. 
 
 170
 
 A Wreath of Immortelles 
 
 Melissine was intuitive. 
 
 It was a wreath of immortelles that Goodenough had 
 brought; it was something that would have looked very 
 old-fashioned anywhere except in Goodenough's posses 
 sion or outside of Cinnamon Street. But there was 
 something exquisitely proper about it here like a thing 
 that only a poet could have thought of. 
 
 And what Goodenough had been trying to whisper 
 to them was that he had brought this wreath for the 
 late master of No. 6. 
 
 "It is beautiful," cried Melissine softly. "Won't you 
 come in?" 
 
 Goodenough shook his head, but there was a courtlier 
 refusal in his seamed and discolored face. 
 
 "Come on in, Mr. Goodenough," Buckhannon supple 
 mented. 
 
 Goodenough stole a furtive look about him. 
 
 "I would," he said, "if I could come in without any 
 one seeing me. But this is a street of evil rumors. I've 
 done enough evil in my day without giving rise to more 
 talk." 
 
 Melissine probably was at a loss to understand this 
 cryptic utterance, but Buckhannon got the sense of it 
 or thought he did. Goodenough was thinking about the 
 druggist. He was thinking about old Hickcock. Good- 
 enough had an imagination. He could imagine some of 
 the tales they would invent if they saw him going into 
 the house of mystery. 
 
 "And I am not clean enough," Goodenough was pro 
 claiming with gentle frankness. He couldn't keep his
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 eyes away from Melissine. But his eyes were reveren 
 tial as one might surmise the eyes of a poet to be when 
 they first glimpse the magic beauty of an as yet un 
 written verse. "I once was clean," said Goodenough. 
 "I once was considered attractive. A man doesn't have 
 to be beautiful for that. The mind is enough if fate 
 leads him to the woman who knows what a mind is." 
 
 "Your wreath is beautiful," said Melissine again. 
 "Won't you bring it in to him ? I am sure that he would 
 love to have you." 
 
 Goodenough pondered. His face was very expressive 
 there in the twilight. It was not so much like an old, 
 old cabby peering through a rusty iron fence, as it was 
 a young, young poet peering through the cabby's rusty 
 face. 
 
 "It may be that I could come in by the back door," 
 said Goodenough. 
 
 "You'll come in by the front door," gusted Melissine, 
 "and we'll go with you. Won't we, Eugene?" 
 
 "That we will," Buckhannon answered. 
 
 So they left the graveyard by way of the gate at the 
 side of the chapel, and they rejoined Goodenough there, 
 where he had awaited them, and they brought him to 
 the stoop of No. 6, and up the stoop and through the 
 door which they entered without knocking just in 
 time to perceive that something of importance must have 
 been transacting there.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THUS SPAKE THE SPIRIT 
 
 WHEN Partridge resumed his feet and turned to 
 confront the visitor after having knelt at his 
 master's side, he was somewhat like Moses when 
 that prophet came down from Sinai with the tables of 
 testimony in his hand, and he "wist not that the skin of 
 his face shone. Partridge was calm. He was strong. 
 He also shone with an inner light. 
 
 "I have listened to you with the utmost sympathy," 
 Partridge said. "You will forgive me if I may have 
 allowed it to appear otherwise. We must all of us for 
 give in this world, as we hope for forgiveness. We 
 all have so much to forgive so much to be forgiven." 
 
 The woman was on her guard. She watched him nar 
 rowly. However, she murmured an assent. 
 
 "I believe that you came here in response to a per 
 fectly natural and praiseworthy motive," Partridge pur 
 sued; "one that bears testimony to your goodness of 
 heart." 
 
 "Of course I did," the woman said; but she was still 
 wondering what he was leading up to. She drew back 
 from him a little as he passed her. She followed him 
 into the hall and over into the drawing-room. 
 
 173
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Pray be seated," Partridge said, with his new calm 
 strong upon him. 
 
 She sank into one of the Gobelin chairs. She quietly 
 watched the butler as he lit a small wax taper, then 
 went about lighting other candles here and there. But 
 presently the woman wasn't watching Partridge any 
 longer. She had fallen into a contemplation of the beau 
 ties of the room. She sensed the richness of it. The 
 Boucher pictures might have been nameless for her, but 
 she must have guessed the value of them and the value 
 of furniture like this, the value of the Beauvais carpet 
 beneath her feet. 
 
 Who knows'? It may have occurred to her that all 
 this might become hers might already be hers by nat 
 ural right. 
 
 Partridge was taking his time, as if he were not un 
 willing to profit by the occasion for extra thought. He 
 paused and listened as an Ormolu clock chirred heavily, 
 then struck softly with a golden tone. Partridge turned 
 and looked at the visitor as note followed note. 
 
 "He loved that chime," he said. 
 
 The woman's mood was out of harmony. 
 
 "When I think of the way my mother lived, and the 
 way I've lived !" she exclaimed. 
 
 "I have often wondered," Partridge countered softly. 
 "It is one of the mysteries of this world why there 
 should be rich and poor: why one is master and one 
 is servant. Not that I have ever regretted my own situa 
 tion in life. It isn't one's place in the world. Sooner 
 or later we are all driven to measure ourselves and 
 
 174
 
 Thus Spake the Spirit 
 
 those about us, by spiritual values. There is a spirit 
 in us that sometimes maketh us different from what the 
 world judges us to be." 
 
 "To get your rights in this world you've got to stand 
 up for them," said the woman. "That's what I'm talk 
 ing about. And that's what I came here for. When 
 I'm dead I'll be dead. But now I'm alive, and I won't 
 be cast off any longer." 
 
 "You shall not be cast off any longer," said Partridge, 
 with perfect patience. "That was what I had started 
 out to say when you turned the conversation into spir 
 itual channels." 
 
 "What were you going to say?" 
 
 "I was going to say that we could resume the allow 
 ance I am certain that Mr. Tyrone would agree to this 
 if he could speak just as if you had not received the 
 check for a year's allowance." 
 
 "What are you trying to do?" demanded the woman. 
 "Are you trying to put me right back where I was? A 
 miserly hundred a month! A lot of good that would 
 do me." 
 
 "We might increase it." 
 
 "It isn't that. It isn't that at all," the woman cried. 
 She forgot something of her education, reverted to some 
 thing of her savage and untutored drawl. "Won't you 
 ever see? You got me wrong. I'm just as good as that 
 other girl. Look at her. Out there walking around 
 with her sweetheart. Not a care in the world. This 
 is a good house, even if it has got a bad name. And 
 I'm going to live here." 
 
 175
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "I^ave you no pity for Mr. Tyrone's daughter?" 
 
 "Has she got any for me?" 
 
 "She has always had pity for every one." 
 
 "I don't want any of it." 
 
 "You said a little while ago," Partridge reminded her, 
 "that your mother was beautiful. She was beautiful. 
 And she had some beautiful qualities. Have you over 
 looked the fact that I was here when she was here? 
 Hasn't it occurred to you that possibly I was thinking 
 of her as well as of yourself when I made the proposal 
 to have the allowance resumed? I am proposing that 
 it be doubled. But it can only be if you are as con 
 siderate as your mother was." 
 
 "She wasn't considerate," said Mme. Jenesco. "She 
 was a mark!" 
 
 "Those who are genuinely good often are the vic 
 tims in the eyes of the world," said Partridge. "But 
 I dare say that they are not always such in the final 
 judgment. I shall ask you, therefore, to return quietly 
 to your old address; it seemed quiet and respectable." 
 
 "It was all of that," the woman jeered. "It was an 
 old ladies' home!" 
 
 "I shall call to see you there immediately after the 
 funeral." 
 
 "So you don't even want me in the same street." 
 
 "The rumors that were started when your mother was 
 here, unhappily, still persist and give rise to other 
 rumors " 
 
 Partridge moved over to the doorway and held the 
 176
 
 Thus Spake the Spirit 
 
 curtains back. Unfortunately, the action seemed to re 
 vive all of th woman's resentment and fire. 
 
 "I'm going to stay here," she said in a voice that 
 had gone hoarse and ugly. "Get me ? I'm going to stay 
 here where I belong. And I'm going to be the mistress 
 of this house. I'm going to run it and you and her!" 
 
 A tinge of fire came into Partridge's pale cheeks. 
 
 "It is getting late," he said. 
 
 "I'm going to discharge you," said the visitor with 
 slow decision. "You can go up and begin to pack right 
 now." 
 
 Now Partridge met her eyes. 
 
 "Have you," he asked, "no sense of reverence?" 
 
 "Get!" 
 
 "I deny your authority." 
 
 "Do you deny that I am Nathan Tyrone's daughter.?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Oh, you do ! So it's a scandal you're looking for 1" 
 
 "There shall be no scandal." 
 
 "No, I suppose not, when I tell the whole world how 
 Nathan Tyrone brought my mother here to this house 
 and kept her here until the old man interfered and put 
 her out." 
 
 "That is no proof." 
 
 "No. I suppose not. And it wasn't proof, either, that 
 Nathan Tyrone kept putting up for us all these years, 
 and spending money on my education and all that " 
 
 "He did it out of the kindness of his heart," said 
 Partridge. 
 
 <T Because he knew that he was my father." 
 177
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Not he," gasped Partridge. "He led a life of abso 
 lute purity. He wasn't your father." 
 
 "Oh, he wasn't!" 
 
 "No!" Partridge was at bay. 
 
 "Then who was?" 
 
 Partridge drew the curtains about him. He was waxen 
 white. His eyes burned bright. His breath came in little 
 gasps. 
 
 "It was I!"
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 "WHERE DID YOU GET IT?" 
 
 THE hall-door had opened and shut say ten sec 
 onds ago. Buckhannon and Melissine and old 
 Goodenough were there in the hall now. They 
 had entered and made no sound, filled with the reverent 
 tenderness proper to the occasion. Goodenough had his 
 wreath of immortelles on his arm. He had laboriously 
 taken off his hat which had always seemed a part of 
 himself and this had taken a little time ; and then Buck 
 hannon, kindly and anxious to serve, had taken Good- 
 enough's hat and hung it up for him. 
 
 But now all of them had been at rest long enough to 
 hear the last part of the altercation : 
 
 "... He wasn't your father!" 
 
 "... Who was?" 
 
 "It was I!" 
 
 They had been startled. They hadn't wanted to hear. 
 They could neither retreat very well nor go ahead. And 
 then, before they could join in a common movement, 
 Partridge himself had drawn the curtains aside and there 
 they were. 
 
 Old Goodenough was the center of the group in the 
 hall. He was like a gnome, an elemental come up out of 
 
 179
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 the earth. His bold and discolored features were cast 
 into strong relief by the flickering light. His stiff gray 
 hair was like a whorl of wind-blown wheat. Back of 
 him, a mere white shadow, was Melissine, mostly eyes. 
 Buckhannon was the picture of a man taken by surprise 
 as he was. But it was he who saved the situation, as 
 much as it could be saved. 
 
 "We didn't wish to disturb you," he said to Partridge. 
 "Our friend, Mr. Goodenough " 
 
 He let his explanation, such as it was, run out in a 
 gesture. Melissine, quick to understand the needs of 
 the situation if not the full purport of it, had come to 
 Buckhannon's support. Her method of doing this was 
 to shrink to his side so close that he could take her hand 
 without the action being too apparent to the others. 
 
 "He wanted to see father," said Melissine. 
 
 But if they had expected Goodenough to respond with 
 an equal promptness to this manifest cue they were de 
 ceived. Goodenough, apparently, had forgotten all about 
 them forgotten all about the wreath of immortelles 
 so that the wreath now appeared to be a decoration in 
 tended for himself, like the wreaths they hang on statues 
 such days as the Fourth of July. Goodenough stood 
 there' and looked and looked, and it was at Belle Jenesco, 
 as if she were the only one present. His lips moved 
 as if he were saying things, but no sound came. 
 
 Then Melissine, aware that the moment of escape was 
 gone anyway and that Partridge, just then, was the one 
 most in need of consolation, stepped over to Partridge 
 
 180
 
 "Where Did You Get 
 
 with her face up. She drew Partridge toward her and 
 kissed him on the temple. 
 
 "This way," said Buckhannon softly, and he had 
 taken Goodenough by the arm. Melissine had joined 
 them. She also touched Goodenough lightly, as if she 
 and Buckhannon were Goodenough's sponsors at his ini 
 tiation into some holy order. And Goodenough looked 
 the part. He was deep in thought. He walked like one 
 in a dream, and it could have been surmised that his 
 dream was back there where Mme. Jenesco stood, and 
 where she and Partridge were once again alone. 
 
 Partridge had been unable to keep back a few tears. 
 It was Melissine's kiss that had started them, no mere 
 weakness. 
 
 Now that the whole world as he reckoned it had 
 heard that declaration of his, Partridge, at that, might 
 have been pardoned some small display of weakness. 
 
 It was quite obvious or would have been to the un- 
 impassioned observer had there been such present that 
 that declaration Partridge had made was altogether as 
 upsetting for him as it could possibly have been for the 
 Jenesco woman. 
 
 Partridge was an old gentleman of delicate feeling, 
 of a perfect modesty. To him the mother of this woman 
 who stood there now had always symbolized the world, 
 the flesh, and the devil. She was the scarlet woman of 
 Revelations. She was that to him now as he stood there 
 with his eyes all misty, and this was her emissary who 
 confronted him here. He had claimed this emissary as 
 his own daughter flesh of his flesh, spirit of his spirit. 
 
 181
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 There crept into Partridge's pallid cheek a tinge of 
 red. 
 
 The woman stared at him. She at once perceived the 
 absurdity of his claim, and yet the cunning force of it. 
 She knew well enough that what Partridge was now he 
 had always been. Fundamentally no man changes. 
 What he is in youth that he remains on through middle 
 age, over the crest and into the world beyond. 
 
 She didn't have to be told that Partridge, for all his 
 seeming simplicity, had shot her little scheme all to 
 pieces. She knew as well as any one that if it came 
 to court not one man in a thousand would refuse to be 
 lieve Partridge, would consent to believe her. Didn't 
 he have everything to lose by making a claim like that? 
 Didn't she have everything to gain if her own claim 
 went through ? 
 
 And ranged against her, as she also knew, would be 
 the accumulated, piled-up discredit the world has always 
 had for women like herself and like her mother ! 
 
 She was desperate. She oozed red like a cuttlefish 
 oozing ink. 
 
 But this merely served to heighten the effect when her 
 reaction came. This reaction came as if her surround 
 ing sultriness had let out a quiver of white lightning. 
 
 "You, my father!" she panted. 
 
 No response from Partridge. None was needed. 
 
 There had been no thunder as yet ; just those premoni 
 tory glitterings of electric energy. The air was very still. 
 But even so, every now and then a shiver ran through 
 the standing flames of the candles in the room as if 
 
 182
 
 "Where Did Tern Get It?" 
 
 they had been shaken by a common breath of eery 
 anticipation. 
 
 "So it was you, was it, who sent me and my mothetf 
 all that money?" 
 
 "We will not go into that," said Partridge, trying to 
 dominate the situation. 
 
 "Oh, won't we !" the woman sneered. 
 
 "Mr. Tyrone knew nothing about money, cared noth 
 ing about it," said Partridge. "It was I who had the 
 handling of all funds. I was free to handle these funds 
 as I saw fit." 
 
 "Well, tell me this," said the woman, with a com 
 placency which indicated how strong she knew her posi 
 tion to be. "Did Mr. Tyrone or did he not know that 
 you was handing us this money handing this money 
 to my mother and me. If he did know it, and let you 
 do it, that means that he was my father. If he didn't 
 know it, and you handed this money to us all on your 
 own, that means well, maybe that can be settled in the 
 courts." 
 
 "Surely," Partridge began, "you do not think you 
 do not really believe " 
 
 "Oh, don't I?" 
 
 "My God, madam ." 
 
 "It's just like I say/' Belle elucidated. "If Nathan 
 Tyrone gave us all that money, then I can prove that I 
 have a natural right to his property; and if you gave 
 it to us, without him knowing about it, why it means 
 that you've been looting the estate. That's all. You can 
 take your choice. And you can go to Sing Sing and rot, 
 
 183
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 too, for all I'll care" her voice went bitter and ironical 
 "even if you are my father !" 
 
 "Oh oh, for God's sake," whispered Partridge, short 
 of breath. He panted for a few moments in compara 
 tive silence. "I beg of you to defer this discussion. All 
 will be made clear; but not now not now. There is 
 something that I can't tell you; something that must 
 never come to the knowledge of Miss Tyrone. Surely 
 you would not like to see her suffer. She is an inno 
 cent creature, a most lovable character " 
 
 He cut himself off short as he heard Buckhannon, 
 Melissine, and Goodenough returning through the hall. 
 He straightened up and enjoined silence with a gesture. 
 Mme. Jenesco, however, didn't care who heard her, or 
 what they heard. She started to speak. 
 
 "Silence!" 
 
 Partridge had dominated the situation at last. So far 
 as securing silence, he had. For the moment, that is, 
 he had.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE GREAT ADVENTURE 
 
 FOR a long time Mme. Jenesco had been living in 
 a lodging-house, up a side street off Eighth Ave 
 nue, in a drab and squalid neighborhood. When 
 she went there, she had intended it to be a mere make 
 shift and temporary. Up until that time she had always 
 managed to put on a certain amount of style. Jenesco, 
 altogether undesirable as a husband in most respects, had 
 at least been lavish now and then with his money; 
 or rather with other people's money. Then Jenesco had 
 left her their married life, at the best, had been sketchy; 
 but this time he had gone to prison. It was there that 
 he died. So much for him. The point is that the 
 lodging-house up the mean street had ceased to be the 
 makeshift, had been threatening to become Belle's per 
 manent abode. 
 
 She hated it. She feared it. In her moments of clear 
 and detached self-analysis she did. 
 
 "This is you this is a part of yourself," she would 
 say to herself. "These people you see out there in the 
 street, ugly and unwashed, the misfits and the has-beens, 
 they're your sort; otherwise you wouldn't hive with 
 them." And at her fate she'd rage: "Never! Never I 
 
 185
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 I'll kill myself first. I'm not meant to live like this. I 
 want something better, and I'll have it." 
 
 The children in the street liked her well enough, and 
 she liked them. She was always buying things for them. 
 It was a species of luxury she allowed herself; it satis 
 fied her hankering for admiration, sympathy, beauty 
 for happiness, in short. 
 
 But more and more she felt the lodging-house getting 
 its grip on her. She left it for occasional ventures else 
 where a visit to Atlantic City, a sojourn with a friend 
 in some flat or other far up-town, a winter at Palm 
 Beach. But these had been mere reprieves, each re 
 prieve a little less attractive than the last. The old hap 
 hazard life was beginning to pall. 
 
 And the children of the street would see her again, 
 day after day, month after month, and stare at her with 
 frank admiration. She was not like the elders they 
 knew at home bitter and violent, generally ugly, jeal 
 ously watchful of their privileges. 
 
 There were a dozen of these minor friends now in 
 the street as she left the lodging-house for what she des 
 perately hoped would be the last time. The children 
 had seen the trunk brought down to the taxi-cab and 
 had lingered about to see what might follow. 
 
 "Good-by, Gertie; I'm off," said Belle. "Good-bye, 
 Lizzie. Good-by, Jo." 
 
 They smiled and twisted and said nothing in reply; 
 but there was obviously a sincere regret back of their 
 speechlessness. A bit of color was going out of their 
 
 186
 
 lives, a source of candy and sodas, a certain warmth 
 of vague but pleasing fellowship. This lady had been 
 good to smell and good to touch, good to hear and good 
 to look at, and even satisfying in some dim way to the 
 very souls of them. 
 
 Lizzie shrilled out: "Aincha never comin' back any 
 more?" 
 
 Belle sang out: "Sure, sweethearts, I'll come back 
 and look you up. Be good !" 
 
 The taxi grunted and sputtered for the start. She 
 waved her hand, and now all of the human sparrows 
 were chirping good-by. 
 
 "God," she muttered to herself, "if they only knew 
 what I'm trying to pull ! Poor little tikes ! I will come 
 back and see 'em if I only get away with this. I swear 
 to God I will. I hope it brings me luck." 
 
 She was launched on the great adventure. She was 
 going to live for a while she was at No. 6 Cinnamon 
 Street. Perhaps the house would be hers. A house like 
 that! No more of that dingy parlor and alcove-bed 
 room that smelled of onions no matter how many sticks 
 of Chinese punk she burned that was getting so thread 
 bare she no longer dared turn the light on full when she 
 entertained a friend where she met so many freaks 
 and back-numbers on the stairs. 
 
 But she was safe. She was playing a safe game. 
 
 Didn't she really believe that the late Nathan Tyrone 
 was her father? And wasn't she merely trying to pro 
 tect herself? and her property? and doing now what 
 
 187
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 her mother on her deathbed had made her promise she 
 would do? 
 
 But all the time that she thus consciously or uncon 
 sciously rehearsed some role she might be called upon to 
 play it was Partridge who mostly occupied her thought. 
 She had seen him falter, quail, had heard him beg for 
 mercy, every time she had mentioned the possibility of 
 bringing him and the affairs of the Tyrones to court. 
 Why should this have been so unless Partridge was a 
 crook? And yet Partridge did not strike her as a crook. 
 She drew on all her extensive knowledge of crooks the 
 late Jenesco and his friends, and certain friends of her 
 own. No, Partridge had nothing in common with any 
 of them. 
 
 And yet, he must be a crook. If he wasn't a crook, 
 why was he letting her come to live in No. 6 when it 
 would have been so easy to call a cop or lock the door ? 
 Why had he made that funny crack about his being her 
 father ? when he wasn't ! Was it merely to save Nathan 
 Tyrone's reputation? Hardly! That didn't have 
 to be saved not that way. Was it to save Melissine's 
 feelings ? 
 
 Belle's thought gave a lurch. It was as if something 
 back of her thought had given it a prod. Funny that 
 she hadn't thought of this before ! Who was Melissine's 
 mother? Belle had a vague recollection that it had been 
 some French woman. That was it some French actress ! 
 And since her own (Belle's) descent had been called 
 into question, how about that of the little blonde? she 
 who had been getting the best of it all along? living in 
 
 188
 
 the big house? getting all the money she wanted to 
 spend? under the guardianship of Mr. Partridge? 
 
 "My God!" Belle exclaimed. 
 
 And there rushed into her mind without further bid 
 ding the way Partridge had always sought to protect 
 Melissine above all others, the things that Partridge had 
 said about the secret he could not reveal "something 
 that must never come to the knowledge of Miss Tyrone!" 
 Those were his words. "Surely you would not like to 
 see her suffer!" 
 
 "Nobody gave a damn, so long as it was me who suf 
 fered," said Belle, and not without truth. 
 
 The cab suddenly began to jolt and she was reminded 
 that she was already traversing the ancient cobbles of 
 Cinnamon Street. The cab came up in front of No. 6 
 her home! 
 
 There was a tumult inside of her. There was -a voice 
 in there clamoring that she had a right to be here, that 
 she had a right to this place, that the world owed it 
 to her and that now, at last, the world was going to 
 pay its debt. 
 
 Outwardly, though, there was no sign of this excite 
 ment. She got down from the cab with a perfect poise 
 so far as the watchers could see. She glanced up at 
 the house. The door was closed. She felt a momentary 
 panic lest it should be locked against her, after all. But 
 she paid the cabman and gave him a generous fee. 
 
 "And," she said, "I may have to ask you to give the 
 servant a hand with the trunk."
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 MME. DELILAH AND 
 
 IT was not Partridge, however, who opened the door. 
 It was Eugene Buckhannon. At first sight of him, 
 Belle's heart sank. She remembered something that 
 Partridge had said to indicate that henceforward this 
 boy was by way of becoming the master of the house. 
 But this sinking of the heart Belle also overcame, so 
 far as appearances went. She smiled at him, as Buck 
 hannon came trotting down the steps. He was sober, 
 but he was most polite. Moreover, his very first words 
 were assuring. 
 
 "I'll help you," he offered. 
 
 And he did. He and the cabman carried the trunk 
 up the high stoop and through the front door, Belle fol 
 lowing, and there Buckhannon gave the driver another 
 fee one that sent the fellow off trying to hide his smile. 
 The door closed. 
 
 "You knew that I was coming?" asked Belle. Now 
 she was altogether mistress of herself. 
 
 "Yes. Partridge Mr. Partridge " 
 
 Through the twilight of the hall Buckhannon and Mme. 
 Jenesco interchanged a friendly smile of their own. 
 Buckhannon believed that the woman actually was Par- 
 
 190 
 "
 
 Mme. DeKlah and 
 
 tridge's daughter and was determined to honor her and 
 show his friendliness for her for Partridge's sake. But 
 there was a quality in Mme. Jenesco's smile that made 
 Buckhannon wince a little, made him color a little with 
 a shame that happily she could not see. Was she smil 
 ing because of that time that she had kissed him and 
 he had let her kiss him out there by the chapel fence? 
 
 "Mr. Partridge said you were coming," he said. "He 
 and Miss Tyrone had to go away something to do with 
 Mr. Tyrone " He skipped all details. "So I offered 
 to stay and watch the house." 
 
 "Did Mr. Partridge" and Belle stressed the "Mr." 
 by her pause "make any reference to what room I 
 was to occupy?" She was going to watch her language. 
 Hereafter she was going to speak like a lady. She knew 
 how. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Buckhannon. "By Jove! I should 
 have got the chauffeur to give us a lift up the stairs." 
 
 "I'm strong," said Belle. "Maybe you and me I hate 
 to bother you " 
 
 "No bother at all. I'm thinking about you. I bet I 
 could carry it up myself." 
 
 "You'll do no such thing." 
 
 "Watch" and before Belle could interfere, Buckhan 
 non had caught the trunk by a strap on the end and had 
 lifted it to his knees. 
 
 "You'll hurt yourself," cried Belle. 
 
 "Wait till I rest it on the stairs," said Buckhannon. 
 There he had intended getting it onto his back in the 
 way that he had seen expressmen handle such cargo. 
 
 191
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 But disaster almost overtook him. The trunk was heavy. 
 It was beginning to slip. 
 
 "Oh, see," said Belle with real alarm. She was alarmed 
 for Buckhannon, not for the trunk. 
 
 She tried to pass him so that she could get a hold on 
 the trunk at the forward end; but she was so rushed 
 that she struck a corner of the trunk. It swung round. 
 Without such a jolt Buckhannon had been having all he 
 could do to keep his balance. He toppled. The front 
 end of the trunk came to the carpet. The end he held 
 leaned against him. And he would have fallen with 
 the trunk on top of him, most likely if Belle hadn't 
 been where she was. She caught both Buckhannon and 
 the trunk; they tripped, they whirled, and were caught 
 by the stairs. 
 
 It was all involuntary. Nature plays such tricks. But 
 Buckhannon was aware of the lithe and supple body 
 that half-supported him, of its strength and heat and 
 fragrance. He was trained to plastic apprehension 
 contour, shadow, and mass. 
 
 "You foolish boy !" breathed Mme. Janesco, and there 
 was a vibrancy back of the breath very slow, like one 
 of those tones too deep for the human ear to register. 
 "You might have killed yourself !" But she was making 
 no effort to release herself. 
 
 "Are you hurt?" asked Buckhannon. He was pant 
 ing a little. Unless she did help him, he would be unable 
 to release himself, or her, without further involuntary 
 but violent contact. He and the trunk and the newel- 
 
 192
 
 Mme. Delilah and 
 
 post and Mme. Jenesco and the lower step all appeared 
 to be tangled up together. 
 
 "I'm not hurt," laughed Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 He made an effort but he had to press against her 
 to make it and managed to set the trunk on end. In 
 a moment he was free. 
 
 Now he was very sober. He was all the more sober 
 in that some instinct was telling him that he had en 
 joyed this accident and that so had Mme. Jenesco and 
 that the two of them were glad of the enjoyment. 
 
 "I think that, after all," he said, "if you were to take 
 the front end and I took this, most of the weight would 
 be down." 
 
 She also tried to be sober, but she smiled. She caught 
 her end of the trunk. He saw the curve and resiliency 
 of her hips as she lifted the weight as easily as any 
 man could have done it. And after that they were plod 
 ding up the stairs. 
 
 "What if Melissine what if Melissine " 
 
 But not even in the privacy of his own thought would 
 Buckhannon complete the accusation that his half-formed 
 question implied. They went through the dusk of the 
 upper hall to the front room on the second floor. There 
 was no mistaking it. This was the room of honor. 
 
 "Miss Tyrone wanted you to have this room," said 
 Buckhannon, and he was ready to retreat. 
 
 "Sit down and catch your breath," she said. "You 
 don't have to run away." 
 
 Now he felt like a prig. It would have been worse 
 yet to obey that priggish instinct to run away. So he 
 
 193
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 sat down and looked about him. It was a lovely room. 
 There was a four-poster in it to win the admiration of 
 any budding architect, and the measurements of the room 
 were as if balanced to this, the decorations as if in 
 spired by it a sampler, a few French colored prints, 
 a rare and beautiful old wall-paper of delicate hues and 
 widely flowing composition. There was much to look 
 at. It gave Buckhannon an excuse to keep his eyes di 
 verted from Belle for the few moments he intended to 
 remain. 
 
 But again nature had her way. 
 
 Without thought or consciousness even of any dis 
 comfort he had started to rub his elbow. 
 
 "You hurt yourself," said Belle. 
 
 "No, no!" 
 
 "I'm sure that you did. Let me see !" 
 
 And then there was nothing for it but that he take 
 off his coat and roll up his sleeve to show her that noth 
 ing was wrong. The skin had been rubbed from his 
 elbow for a square inch or so, and he had never sus 
 pected it. Now he couldn't go! 
 
 Belle had her trunk open in a jiffy. She found a 
 bottle she sought. What she needed was something 
 that could be used as a bandage. She tossed her lingerie 
 about all lace and pale little ribbons and gauzy tissues, 
 exquisitely fine and clean and this also exhaled a per 
 fume through the room. 
 
 "I'll get this boy," Mme. Jenesco whispered to herself. 
 "I'll have him for myself."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE TEMPTING OF SAMSON 
 
 AH, no !" Buckhannon exclaimed, as Belle gripped 
 some garment or other and tore a strip from it. 
 His exclamation seemed to amuse her. She con 
 fronted him with a smile. "It was an old thing any 
 way," she said. And there was a quite evident tender 
 ness in her smile as she considered his slightly damaged 
 arm. Buckhannon had got to his feet and had thrust his 
 arm forward, honestly anxious to have the ordeal over 
 with as soon as might be. But Belle would not have 
 it this way. 
 
 "Sit down again," she said, and she lightly pushed him 
 into the chair. In an instant she was kneeling in front 
 of him. 
 
 This day was warm. Belle was as diaphanously clad 
 as any woman had a right to be. She had tossed her 
 hat and her gloves aside at once on entering the room. 
 
 Buckhannon looked down on her darkly russet hair, 
 her rounded shoulder. He had never noticed before how 
 clean she was and how perfect physically. Her arms 
 and hands were very fine. He found all this touching, 
 for he guessed that she had been poor and that there 
 had been more tragedy in her life than happiness. He 
 
 195
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 admired her. He felt sorry for her. It gave him a 
 queer mingling of remorse and desire when he thought 
 that this woman had kissed him, and that now she was 
 for want of a better expression "binding up his 
 wounds." 
 
 She was very attentive about her task. She poured 
 peroxide on the injured place, then deftly bandaged it 
 with the thin stuff of the torn garment. 
 
 "This is too kind of you," he said. 
 
 "It's you who are kind, and was kind," she said, 
 frankly clinging to his bare forearm with her soft, strong 
 fingers. She looked at him, and her smile had as if re 
 treated. "If every one was as kind as you " 
 
 "Oh, you mean about the trunk. Why you " 
 
 "That isn't what I mean." 
 
 "Then what?" 
 
 "You never told them," she said. 
 
 "Never told them what?" 
 
 "About that first time we saw each other. You 
 know !" Now she smiled a little, but her mood con 
 tinued sober. "You won't ever tell them, will you, dear?" 
 
 There was just a touch of the motherly in her use 
 of the "dear," enough to let it pass without suspicion, 
 and yet with an after-flavor to it of something else. 
 
 "Of course I won't," said Buckhannon. 
 
 "I couldn't help it," said Belle, softly. "I sort of felt 
 that you were going to get yourself in bad." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 She didn't answer at once. There were no tears in 
 her deep eyes, but there was an expression of tears 
 
 196
 
 The Tempting of Samson 
 
 about her highly expressive mouth. She gave a single 
 slight toss of her head as if she and her own griefs 
 were not worth considering. 
 
 "I wouldn't have you undergo all that I've suffered 
 on account of this house" her voice began to break a 
 little "not for a thousand no, nor for a million dol 
 lars I wouldn't," she said. And she put her cheek against 
 Buckhannon's arm, hiding her head against his knees. 
 Her shoulders began to shake in spite of her manifest 
 efforts to keep them still. 
 
 "Belle," said Buckhannon. 
 
 She did not reply. 
 
 "Belle, listen ! Everything's going to be all right now. 
 I know a little of what you've been up against. But 
 that's all over now. I heard Melissine talking about it 
 to to Mr. Partridge. He's just like a member of the 
 family, you know, and he's as good as anybody. He's 
 a darn sight better than most people I've ever met. And 
 you're all going to live here together." 
 
 "But it's on your account," said Belle. 
 
 "How, on my account?" 
 
 "That's just it. You're so young, and innocent, and 
 everything, and you don't know what you're up against." 
 
 "I'm not so young, and I'm not so innocent," Buck 
 hannon began. 
 
 "But you are." 
 
 "What makes you say that? And what is it that I'm 
 up against ? Go on, tell me !" 
 
 Belle turned slightly, but she drew Buckhannon's bare 
 arm with her, over her shoulder, against her neck. She 
 
 197
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 appeared lost in reflection, she was debating with 
 herself. 
 
 "I suppose you've heard some of the things that have 
 been said about this house," she said, wistfully. "You 
 must have heard enough to warn any ordinary man. 
 But you're not ordinary. You're so young, and roman 
 tic, and generous. You're an artist. I suppose nothing 
 would make any difference to you, anyway; and after 
 all " 
 
 She paused again to reflect. 
 
 "I want you to go ahead and tell me what you know, 5 * 
 said Buckhannon. "I tell you, I'm no kid." He tried 
 to make her smile again. "What's the matter? Can't 
 you trust me ?" 
 
 "I can't trust myself," she murmured. "I can't trust 
 others." She turned. She was on her knees again. Her 
 face was close to his. All her movements were so smooth 
 and quick that there was never time to parry, even where 
 there was a will to parry. "It's you who are too trust 
 ful," she said. "Do you really believe that thing about 
 Partridge being my father?" 
 
 "Why since you speak about it," he stammered. 
 
 "You don't believe it. Tell me you don't." 
 
 "Why, no; of course not." 
 
 She whispered, but her voice continued warmly vibrant 
 -^-like notes on the d-str'mg of a violin. 
 
 "Hasn't Partridge ever told you about some mystery 
 some mystery that he wouldn't have poor little Melis- 
 sine learn about not for worlds?" 
 
 "Something like that," said Buckhannon softly. 
 198
 
 The Tempting of Samson 
 
 "Haven't you guessed what it is?" 
 
 "No; I didn't care." 
 
 Something in his tone warned her to plead, so she 
 pleaded. "Oh," she said, "I know that you think I 
 shouldn't say anything about it. And I suppose I hadn't 
 ought to. But you know don't you, dear? that I 
 wouldn't be doing it if I didn't care for you so much. 
 But I do care for you. You know that. Don't you, 
 dear? I've cared for you from the very first time that 
 I ever saw you. And I've wanted so to shield you, and 
 protect you from pain. H 
 
 She put her hand against his cheek and caressed him, 
 and Buckhannon, feeling guilty but doing it anyway, 
 put his free hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "I appreciate it," he said. "I'm just as grateful as I 
 can be. I think you're mighty beautiful and good." 
 
 "You're nothing but a child," she said ; "a dear, sweet, 
 innocent child, who wouldn't think bad of anybody no 
 matter what they did." She playfully pressed his face 
 against her own. She murmured that he was a darling. 
 
 "What was that thing you were going to tell me?" 
 Buckhannon asked. There was an obsession of anxiety 
 in his mind that blurred all else. What was she hinting 
 at? He was ashamed of himself for wanting to know. 
 He felt that he must know. He would make her tell. 
 
 But Belle was again deep in reflection. At any rate, 
 she was silent. 
 
 "Tell me," he said. 
 
 She still took her time. Her breath traveled lightly 
 199
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 over Buckhannon's cheek and neck, giving him tiny re 
 current spasms of gooseflesh. 
 
 "Did Partridge ever tell you?" she asked, almost in- 
 audibly, "anything about Melissine's mother?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You knew that she was a French actress ?" 
 
 "Yes, but " 
 
 "There, I've hurt you," said Mme. Jenesco. She 
 clasped him about the neck, not savagely, but tenderly. 
 Her eyes were very close to his. Her lips were almost 
 touching his lips. "Do you suppose," she said, "that I 
 could talk to you like this and take all this risk if I 
 didn't love you so?" 
 
 "I don't know yet what it's all about," said Buckhan- 
 non, desperately. 
 
 "That's because you you don't know yet the meaning 
 of passion," said Mme. Jenesco; "just plain, old-fash 
 ioned passion, the greatest thing in the world when it's 
 real. You darling, when it is real, why, it'd even change 
 a thing like Partridge into a man. It would've twenty 
 years ago. Can't you understand?" 
 
 Buckhannon got to his feet. His mind was in a daze. 
 He couldn't he wouldn't understand.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 WOMAN ! WOMAN ! WHO ART THOU ? 
 
 EVENTS were to carry Eugene Buckhannon to his 
 home in Tennessee. He had to go out there to 
 see his people. He wasn't the boy to do anything 
 in secret. Neither was he, for the matter of that, one 
 to let his family interfere in an affair of heart and con 
 science. But he wanted to see his family. He had to 
 see them. He had to withdraw as one might to a 
 monastery or any other retreat where it would be pos 
 sible to meditate, meditate with his feet sound-planted 
 on familiar rock. 
 
 It was a long ride to Tennessee twenty- four hours in 
 the fastest express he could get out of New York and 
 ordinarily this interval would have served the purposes 
 of reflection as a preliminary to wider breedings later 
 on. 
 
 But it was not to be so for him. Through the long 
 ride his brain was feverish. He was haunted by fever 
 ish broodings. Visions came to keep him company. 
 
 He sat by his window. He spoke to no one. He heard 
 no thing that was said about him. His optic nerve 
 did respond to the mountains, the rivers, the fat farms, 
 and the smoking cities that constituted his own, his na- 
 
 2OI
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 tive land. The ears of his head did record an occa 
 sional request for tickets, or a call to the dining-car 
 things like that. But these were not really the things 
 that he saw and heard. 
 
 Almost all the time it was Cinnamon Street that 
 stretched its vista away before the eyes of his mind, 
 and old No. 6, and the dark mysteries of it Partridge 
 and Belle and the late Nathan Tyrone, the chapel in the 
 graveyard next door; these, and then Paris especially 
 Paris aswoon in the gold and blue of an autumn sunset, 
 Seine all shimmering, Notre Dame rearing aloft like 
 God's own footstool! or the interior of Notre Dame 
 dim and sonorous with holy light and sound, where he 
 and Melissine held silent, enchanted conversation. And 
 Melissine was the greatest mystery of all. 
 
 The marvel of Melissine was strong upon him. Eyes 
 open or eyes closed, he could see her. She was a pres 
 ence even in his sleep; for he had reached that state 
 of concentrated interest where the mind refuses to let 
 go. A very dangerous state of mind one accountable 
 for obsessions, genius, and lunacy but happily in most 
 cases soon ended. 
 
 But there was obsession here for Buckhannon now. 
 There often is when a youth is very much in love. The 
 wild elk that runs across vast stretches of savage moun 
 tain to seek his mate and gives no thought to drink 
 and food has his human counterpart. There is the same 
 fierceness, the same readiness to fight anything under 
 heaven, the same frantic unrest. 
 
 Buckhannon felt this frantic unrest. He had a tor.- 
 202
 
 Woman! Woman! Who Art Thou? 
 
 turing sense that the world was wrong and that he would 
 have to set it right. It couldn't be right until he was 
 happily married to Melissine and settled down. But 
 could this ever be? Wasn't love and marriage a ter 
 rible adventure under even the most favorable condi 
 tions, when there was no temperament to speak of? 
 
 No, not always. 
 
 Just across the aisle from where he sat there was a 
 dowdy, placid couple, fat and middle-aged, with a fat 
 and sticky child who squirmed and whined and made 
 life a misery for all about him except the parents them 
 selves. How fortunate these people were, Buckhannon 
 opined. What mystery had ever beset this woman? 
 What fiery torment had ever driven this man to a wild- 
 stag charge across untamed mountains? 
 
 But, now that he thought of it, there were quite a 
 few Buckhannons living in the home county who them 
 selves were married. Subconsciously he knew that these 
 were men and women like himself, too fighters and 
 marauders, lovers of beautiful mates, dreamers of 
 dreams, takers of chances. They were not like this 
 couple across the aisle. And yet they also were happily 
 married. They also were substantial, placid to a de 
 gree. They had weathered the storm of marriage, what 
 ever it was. Nothing had happened to them either, seem 
 ingly, but parenthood. 
 
 The thought consoled him to some extent. Some off 
 these relatives of his had traveled far for wife or hus 
 band. There had been romance all right. And physical 
 beauty graded high in the Buckhannon clan. 
 
 203
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Time enough that he should get into the sure sanity 
 of the home of his youth. His mother was there to 
 greet him. It struck him with a species of wonder that 
 once she had been a girl and that his father had come 
 courting her. Here were the other Buckhannons. All 
 of these loved him as simply and naturally, and as deeply, 
 as they loved America and God. But to none of these 
 good people, whom Buckhannon himself so deeply loved, 
 could he say a word about the tremendous adventure 
 upon which he was embarked. 
 
 Even when his mother reflected aloud on the fine 
 qualities of this or that girl of the neighborhood he had 
 nothing to say. Not along those lines. He talked about 
 his career. He wanted to become the greatest architect 
 that the world had ever known. He had a great ten 
 derness for his mother. But he was not the kind to 
 consult her on a question like this. Anyway, he would 
 not have troubled her for anything in the world. And 
 this story of his would have troubled her. She could 
 not have understood. He himself could not understand. 
 
 He walked. He fished. He rode a little. He drove 
 his brother's second-best car over many a lonely mile. 
 Here were grass and trees whose very smell was a lan 
 guage that spoke of old hopes and ambitions and revived 
 the splendid, tender mysteries of adolescence. Here were 
 the roads and the dreams he had followed in his earlier 
 day, when all of life that lay ahead of him was dimly 
 visioned as the thing that life had become for him now 
 haunted, beautiful, full of undefined perils. 
 
 What were these perils ? 
 
 204
 
 Woman! Woman! Who Art Thou? 
 
 He tried to tell himself that there were none. But 
 the conviction persisted. Perils there were. 
 
 More and more insistently his mind reverted to the 
 time when he had come into the hall of No. 6 Cinnamon 
 Street with Melissine and old Goodenough Goodenough 
 bringing with him, as from one poet to another, that 
 touching and beautiful tribute of his, the wreath of 
 immortelles. 
 
 One would have said that there couldn't have been an 
 occasion more provocative of peace and good-will. 
 
 And yet there was the scene he had witnessed : 
 
 Partridge standing there with a clinging hand on the 
 draperies, looking like a man who had been frozen to 
 death in a moment of alarm; and then Mme. Jenesco 
 standing over there, distilling from her presence a he- 
 knew-not-what of red mirth, a sort of scarlet merriment. 
 
 The scene had subtly shifted: 
 
 There was Mme. Jenesco staring at old Goodenough, 
 and old Goodenough staring at Mme. Jenesco. A quaver 
 of candle-light, a coagulation of shadows these crea 
 tures themselves a mere quaver of candle-light and 
 coagulation of shadows. There was something about it 
 all to remind him of Amy Lowell's description in "The 
 Crossroads" : 
 
 "He wavers like smoke in the buffeting wind. His 
 fingers blow out like smoke, his head ripples in the gale 
 ... he stands, and watches another quavering figure 
 drifting down the Wayfleet road . . ." 
 
 There had been that tense moment only a moment, 
 but sufficient to furnish a memory that might be ever- 
 
 205
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 lasting; then he and Melissine and Goodenough had gone 
 through the hall to the place where Goodenough had de 
 posited his wreath and also a tear or two. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco, like a sable ambassadress from some 
 Court of Shadows, was there for the funeral. She was 
 there like Delilah like Lilith before he left for Ten 
 nessee. Always flitting, always mysterious, seductive, 
 vicious, sympathetic, always suggestive of dark and lurid 
 secrets, unexplained except possibly to Partridge. Who 
 was she ? What was she ? Where did she come from ? 
 and why ? and, God in heaven ! what had she meant 
 when she spoke with reference to Melissine?
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 CROSS-EXAMINED 
 
 BUCKHANNON might have been more troubled 
 yet had he known how events at No. 6 Cinnamon 
 Street were shaping themselves. More than ever 
 No. 6 had become the house of a bad name. For now 
 the Woman in Black had come to live there. Almost 
 every day they could see her come and go the druggist 
 could, and Jerome Hickcock the Cop, and Tony Zam- 
 boni and his people, they who believed in the Evil Eye. 
 Only for Goodenough, the poetic cabby, did the old 
 place appear to have become something finer, something 
 gentler. Or, perhaps, the old place had always been 
 something fine and gentle for Goodenough for that 
 part of Goodenough, at least, which did not drink the 
 part of him that loved weird verse and mooned over the 
 moss-grown tombstones in the chapel-yard. 
 
 "For the love of Mike," says Hickcock, "and what's 
 this I hear?" 
 
 "And what is it that you have heard ?" demands Good- 
 enough. 
 
 "Your goin' into that place." 
 
 "It was to honor the dead." 
 
 "If I'd have thought of it, I'd have tried it myself/" 
 and Hickcock displays a glint of cunning envy. 
 
 207
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "It's not too late. I'll show you where he was buried." 
 
 "I'm not talkin' about that. It's about gettin' into the 
 house I'm talkin' about. I've been lookin' for the chance 
 these seventeen years. Go on. Slip me an earful." 
 
 "I'll slip you an earful a dead man with a smile on 
 his face, the picture hanging on the wall of a woman 
 who smiles back at him. And isn't that the end of all 
 life, no matter how full of trouble it has been?" 
 
 "Go on, you old rummy ; tell me about the little blonde 
 and the Woman in Black." 
 
 "They're both women mortal women who yesterday 
 were angels unsullied and unborn and who to-morrow 
 will return to the bright ethereal region whence they 
 came." 
 
 All of this is above Hickcock's head. 
 
 "I know this," he says. "If I had my way, I'd back 
 up the wagon to the front door of the old dump and 
 I'd give them all a ride. There has been somethin' 
 crooked about that bird-cage all along. It's gettin' worse." 
 
 Which shows that even men like Jerome Hickcock 
 may be partly right. Even Partridge would have agreed 
 with him in one respect : 
 
 Things were getting worse. 
 
 "Do you love me? Will you love me always?" 
 This from Mme. Jenesco, one day after Buckhannon 
 had disappeared on his visit home. Into this sudden 
 and chasmic void in Melissine's life Mme. Jenesco had 
 come. Melissine had happened on Mme. Jenesco and 
 Partridge in the drawing-room of No. 6 quite by acci- 
 
 208
 
 Cross-Examined 
 
 dent. It was evident to Melissine that they had been 
 talking again about serious things, just as they had 
 been the first time that she had seen them together 
 Partridge pale and troubled, Mme. Jenesco somehow 
 appearing now as a consoler. Melissine had asked Par 
 tridge what the trouble was, but Partridge couldn't or 
 wouldn't tell. 
 
 "You may leave us," said Mme. Jenesco to Partridge. 
 
 Partridge bowed his head and left, with one linger 
 ing glance at Melissine. And this time Melissine had 
 remained there alone alone for the first time with the 
 Woman in Black. She wasn't the Woman in Black 
 for Melissine, but she nonetheless was a creature of mys 
 tery, alluring as all mysteries are. Also there was a 
 fragrance about Mme. Jenesco, and a warmth, and that 
 lithe animal beauty that made her attractive from a 
 purely physical standpoint an attraction that Melissine 
 couldn't have explained at all, any more than a child 
 could explain the attractiveness of a strong, lithe cat; 
 any more than a woman, perhaps, could explain the 
 fascination of smooth, animal-tainted furs. Atavism, 
 maybe. 
 
 So far as Melissine was concerned, this fascination 
 was immeasurably increased when she felt Mme. Jenes- 
 co's arms about her, when she became conscious, vividly 
 and immediately, of Mme. Jenesco's softness, warmth, 
 perfume, strength, her tingling magnetism; also some 
 thing of her greater maturity, her possession of secret 
 wisdom, her familiarity with the world as the world 
 existed outside of No. 6 and Melissine's ken. 
 
 209
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Do you love me? Will you love me always?" Mme. 
 Jenesco asked. 
 
 Melissine's first answer had been merely an answer of 
 the eyes. With Mme. Jenesco's arms about her she had 
 looked up into Mme. Jenesco's face. Like Little Red 
 Riding Hood, Melissine might have said: "How black 
 your eyes are! How red your mouth is!" But of this 
 no hint in Melissine's eyes. 
 
 "I do love you," said Melissine. "I am sure that I 
 shall love you always." 
 
 For a moment or longer, Mme. Jenesco's red, red lips 
 breathed on Melissine's temple a hot and agitated breath 
 that blew into Melissine's innermost being a vague 
 trouble. 
 
 "Has Partridge told you anything about why I had 
 decided to come here to live?" Belle asked. 
 
 "No." But Melissine colored slightly. 
 
 "You've guessed." 
 
 "I understood but this would make me love you if 
 nothing else did that you were his daughter." 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 "You're very fond of Partridge, ain't you, dear?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Has Partridge talked very much to Mr. Buckhan- 
 non?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 "Told him everything?" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean." 
 
 "Haven't you ever wondered why you were brought 
 210
 
 Cross-Examined 
 
 up so strange? You know not like other girls kept 
 to yourself, and everything like that." 
 
 "I never did wonder about it. I supposed it was be 
 cause father wished it that way. He kept to himself 
 never went with other men. We were happy together. 
 He was always so kind, so considerate. For a while we 
 lived in a house in the country, over in France; and 
 after that I was in a convent for a good many years. 
 So I never had the chance to go about very much. I 
 was happy. I've been happiest of all while I was liv 
 ing here, and he was alive." 
 
 "And Partridge; where was he all this time?" 
 
 "Always there," said Melissine; "even more than my 
 father was, for Partridge didn't have any literary work 
 to think about. Dear old Partridge! Why, I even 
 knew him and loved him before I loved my father. I 
 can remember yet, when I was a little, little girl, and old 
 Partridge would come to see me so tender, so kind" 
 
 "Did he ever tell you about your mother?" 
 
 "Who? Partridge? Oh, yes! He used to tell me 
 how much I was like her, everything like that." 
 
 "He told you that he was in love with her? I mean 
 that he loved her very much ?" 
 
 "I know that he must have been devoted. He couldn't 
 have been anything else. Why do you ask ?" 
 
 Belle devoted several seconds to thought. Melissine 
 stirred uneasily. Melissine got up and went over to the 
 dodr. She listened there perhaps as a pretense to 
 cover some thinking of her own. "I thought I heard 
 
 211
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 him call," she said. Her eyes sought Mme. Jenesco's, 
 but Mme. Jenesco looked away. 
 
 "We were talking about Partridge being my father," 
 said Mme. Jenesco, guardedly. "How would you feel 
 if he were yours ?" 
 
 "How would I feel if Partridge were my father?" 
 
 "Yes !" 
 
 "How absurd!" 
 
 "Well, how would you feel about it?" 
 
 That was a poser, and Melissine had to think ; but not 
 for long. "I'd feel that I had one of the finest fathers 
 in the world," she said, without reservation. 
 
 "Even if he is a servant?" 
 
 "That's no disgrace. He's been a good servant. More 
 than that, he's been a trusted friend." 
 
 "I know," said Belle. "That sounds good. But what 
 would Mr. Buckhannon think about it? And what 
 would that swell family of his think about it? How 
 would they like to have him marry the daughter of a 
 servant? And do you think it'd be fair to him to let 
 him do it?"
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 MME. JENESCO GENERALIZES 
 
 THEY went over and sat down together on a high- 
 backed sofa. Mme. Jenesco appeared to be as 
 deeply fascinated with Melissine as Melissine was 
 with Mme. Jenesco. The elder woman couldn't keep 
 her eyes from Melissine's face, now her hair, her cloth 
 ing; or her hands either, for that matter. All the time 
 that they were sitting there together Mme. Jenesco was 
 stroking Melissine's floss of curls, embracing Melissine's 
 tender shoulders, partaking of Melissine's special at 
 mosphere much as a lioness in the desert might savor 
 for the first time the soul-upsetting spoor of a man. 
 There was that same suggestion of a luxurious delight 
 of a delight hued with a curious wonder of aroused 
 appetite, or call it ambition, that the creature of a lower 
 order may feel on the trail of something higher. 
 
 "I don't know about Mr. Buckhannon's family," said 
 Melissine; "but I don't think it would make any dif 
 ference with Mr. Buckhannon himself. He thinks as 
 much of Partridge as I do. And, anyway, what differ 
 ence do such things make so long as people love each 
 other?" 
 
 She spoke with a sort of panting effort. 
 213
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Is he the first one you were ever in love with ?" Mme. 
 Jenesco inquired. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I thought so." 
 
 "What do you mean?" Melissine interpreted the look 
 in her eyes. "How could I have loved any one else? 
 There is only one of him. How could there ever be any 
 other than a first? No girl could love a boy, and then 
 love some other boy afterward." 
 
 'TPoor little goose," Mme. Jenesco exclaimed. She 
 was so deeply moved that she was half-way between 
 laughter and tears. "Poor little goose ! For God's sake, 
 where did you get that ? You make me think I was just 
 about due. Why, something terrible might have hap 
 pened to you. Don't you know anything at all?" 
 
 "I know that love is a power for good," said Melis 
 sine steadily. 
 
 "Who told you that, this young Buckhannon?" 
 
 "I didn't have to be told. It's in every book I've 
 ever read. And now I have felt it in myselfoh, a 
 power to perform miracles." 
 
 "Don't you believe it," said Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 "Oh, you mean that it isn't so ?" 
 
 "You said it." 
 
 "But you couldn't have known cannot know what 
 love is." 
 
 "Isn't she the sketch?" demanded Mme. Jenesco of 
 an unseen audience. "Listen, silly! There's nothing in 
 all this love-talk. Not know what love is? No woman 
 knows better. Oh, I know it's sweet to be in love with 
 
 214
 
 Mme. Jenesco Generalizes 
 
 some nice, handsome boy especially when it's the first 
 time, like you say it is with you. But even that sort of 
 love is just an accident. When it isn't Dick, it's Ed; 
 and when it isn't Ed, it's Jim one at a time, or even 
 all together. I know what I'm talking about, dearest." 
 
 And there was something like real affection in the 
 way Mme. Jenesco pressed Melissine's head to her 
 bosom. 
 
 "No! No! No!" panted Melissine, but she left her 
 head where it was the better to hide her troubled face. 
 
 "They're all alike," said Mme. Jenesco soothingly. 
 "Mind you, I'm not saying anything against this Buck- 
 hannon boy of yours. Money isn't everything. Looks 
 count for something. But it's money in the long run. 
 It is for us girls. That's all we ever get out of it. Un 
 derstand me, sweetheart. I know what I'm talking 
 about. It's the good old coin that counts. I know! I 
 know! You're young. I was young like you myself, 
 once. I had the same sort of ideas. And I'm not say 
 ing now that a little love doesn't help." 
 
 Melissine drew back a little. "Helps!" she exclaimed 
 soberly. "Love's everything." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco tossed her head. She saw that it was 
 no use arguing with the child not along this line. But 
 she undertook a fresh line. 
 
 "Do you suppose," she said, "that Mr. Buckhannon 
 what's his name, Eugene? do you suppose that 'Gene 
 feels the same way as you do about it ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And that he's never loved any girl but you?" 
 215
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And do you think that all men are pure and straight, 
 and all that sort of bunk ?" 
 
 "I don't think that you should call it 'bunk.' " 
 
 "Well, call it by any name you want to, sweetheart. 
 Don't you think that men are men, and have their little 
 love affairs on the side, and like a little change now and 
 then?" 
 
 Melissine didn't shift her position immediately, but 
 she was freezing. 
 
 "I know they used to be like that," she said, in a 
 small but steady voice. "And I suppose that some still 
 are like that. I've read a lot. Judge Bancroft, even, 
 has said something like that in a book a law-book that 
 he wrote and gave to grandfather." Melissine said this, 
 apparently, in some vague effort to justify Mme. Jenes- 
 co's speech in her own judgment. "But all men are not 
 like that." 
 
 "Oh, ain't they!" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, I'd like to hear of one who wasn't." 
 
 "There's my father," said Melissine. "And there's 
 Partridge." Her lip was quivering. She desisted. It 
 was painful for her to discuss such matters. She would 
 have liked to add the name of Buckhannon to her calen 
 dar of saints. But Melissine had said enough. 
 
 "Your father," said Belle; "and Partridge!" She 
 paused on the point of saying something, changed her 
 mind. "Did you ever wonder," she asked, "why this 
 old house has a bad name in the neighborhood ?" 
 
 216
 
 Mme. Jenesco Generalize* 
 
 "Has it got a bad name?" 
 
 "I'll say it has! You never noticed how everybody 
 stares ?" 
 
 "I thought," said Melissine, "it was just because 
 just because we were different." 
 
 "Maybe," said Belle, "it was because you weren't so 
 different the men, I mean. That's what I've been talk 
 ing about. Listen, sweetheart, I wouldn't hurt you for 
 the world. I love you just as much as if I was you and 
 you was me if you get what I mean." 
 
 "But I don't get what you mean," said Melissine, get 
 ting to her feet and moving away. But she was care 
 ful to make her withdrawal appear unconscious, unpre 
 meditated. "I've scarcely understood a word of all the 
 things you've said since we were here together. I don't 
 want to talk about people, and to say that they're bad 
 when they're not. I'm just as glad to have you here 
 as I can be. I love Partridge and I want you both 
 to be happy. That was why I was so glad to have you 
 come here to live; but I want to be glad on my own 
 account, too " 
 
 "You'll learn," said Mme. Jenesco, complacently. 
 
 "There are things that I don't want to learn," Melis 
 sine retorted, warmly. 
 
 "But there are things that we all have to learn," Mme. 
 Jenesco replied without heat. "We all have times when 
 we dream. Sooner or later we all have to get waked 
 up. And it does hurt, sometimes. I'll say it does. I 
 know. But the sooner we're waked up the sooner we 
 get wise, and there's something in that." 
 
 217
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Partridge appeared just then at the door. Partridge 
 was white and tremulous. 
 
 "Luncheon is served," he said. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco smiled. She hummed a tune. She 
 arose gracefully and slipped her arm about Melissine's 
 slim waist.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 "AND ON MY SERVANTS " 
 
 1HAD thought/' said Partridge, when he and 
 Melissine were alone that evening, "that possibly 
 you would like to go away to a school a finishing 
 school. I have heard of such where young ladies go 
 chiefly, I believe, to profit by the society of other young 
 ladies." 
 
 "And leave you?" cried Melissine. Her voice was as 
 soft and warm as the candle-light, and had the same 
 sort of flicker in it. 
 
 "Yes. I am used to that." 
 
 "And you really wish me to?" 
 
 "I think, if you will permit me " 
 
 Partridge wavered. He brought a water carafe and 
 would have filled Melissine's glass. But Melissine caught 
 him by the wrist. Their eyes met. A most extraordi 
 nary scene for one not aware of all the circumstances 
 Melissine at her dinner, alone; Partridge, the old butler, 
 waiting on her with all formality. Partridge had cooked 
 this omelet as well as served it. Partridge had bought 
 the milk that filled Melissine's other glass. A great 
 stickler for form was Partridge. Not for the world 
 would he have seated himself at table with Miss Tyrone 
 not during the formal dinner hour. 
 
 219
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Now, here was his mistress, great-grand-child of the 
 first Tyrone he had ever served, holding him by the 
 wrist, flaming affection up at him. 
 
 "Don't you believe in me any more? Don't you want 
 to have me with you any more? Don't you like me any 
 more?" 
 
 Partridge waited with mellow patience until she loosed 
 him. So would he have waited had she been six, or 
 twenty-six. She released his wrist. He filled her water- 
 glass. 
 
 "I think, if you will permit me," he proceeded, "it 
 would be better if you were to have a change." 
 
 "It looks," she said whimsically, "as if I were to get 
 about all the change I need right here now that we 
 have Mme. Jenesco. She wanted me to go out with 
 her to-night to dinner and a theater. That zvould have 
 been a change." She was aware that Partridge wasn't 
 happy. She wished to console and encourage him. 
 "She's a fine woman. Why didn't you ever tell me that 
 you had such a daughter? Why didn't you bring her 
 here before ?" 
 
 "I there are certain things " 
 
 "Certain things that make you unhappy?" asked 
 Melissine. 
 
 "Your father's death " Partridge evaded. 
 
 Melissine may not have known any part of what was 
 troubling Partridge, but she knew pretty well how to 
 behave. She left her place. She walked around abrupt 
 ly to the other side of the table whither Partridge had 
 retired. She put her hands on his shoulders. At that 
 
 220
 
 "And on My Servants " 
 
 Partridge looked so shrunken that Melissine 
 loomed almost large. Very large she may have loomed 
 to Partridge. 
 
 "Whatever troubles you troubles me," she said. "Do 
 you suppose that there is anything that could ever de 
 stroy my love for you, or my faith in you, or for the 
 things that have always had my love and my faith, and 
 those things that shall have them always ?" 
 
 Partridge would have spoken, but his effort was too 
 weak to stem Melissine's impetuosity. 
 
 "Do you suppose I didn't notice don't fib how dis 
 tressed you have been of late? Don't tell me what it 
 is, unless you want to. I don't care. Not unless caring 
 can help you. Can it?" 
 
 "What, miss?' 
 
 "What, my little Melissine? Say it!" 
 
 "What " 
 
 "My little Melissine," Melissine commanded. "Shall 
 I ever be anything but your little Melissine for you? 
 Will you ever be anything but my dear old Grandy? 
 Now, say it!" 
 
 "Ah," said Partridge, "I wish you were still little." 
 
 "I am," she said. "If you don't look out I'll begin 
 to cry. And then, you know that you will be the only 
 one who can make me stop. Will it help you any to tell 
 me v/hat it is that worries you so?" 
 
 "It is nothing," said Partridge. "Only, I was of the 
 opinion that it would be better were you to seek one 
 of these finishing schools or perchance to travel " 
 
 Melissine studied him with calm and searching eyes. 
 
 221
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 She had a knack of reading the general lines of Par 
 tridge's thought if not the complex detail of it. 
 
 "You want to get me away from here?" 
 
 "I thought " 
 
 "Is it because of some danger that threatens me?" 
 
 "A change " 
 
 "Or you?" 
 
 She was so close to his thought that Partridge could 
 neither deny nor evade. 
 
 "Is this connected with Mme. Jenesco?" 
 
 Partridge was in a misery, physical and mental, as he 
 made his confession : 
 
 "I suppose you might say it is." 
 
 "It is because of something she is or knows ?" 
 
 Partridge shook slightly. To him there was nothing 
 uncanny in the girl's close guessing. She knew him well. 
 She was a Tyrone as well. 
 
 "And you're afraid of her?" Melissine pursued. 
 
 "This," said Partridge, with the will to deny, "is most 
 distressing." 
 
 "Oh, don't be frightened," Melissine pleaded; "and 
 don't be worried. Listen! I'll tell you a secret. I've 
 known for years that this dear old home of ours has been 
 looked at with suspicion by every one in the neighbor 
 hood that they think it is haunted, or something, or 
 worse than that something. Yet we know, don't we ?" 
 
 In Partridge's eyes there for a quavering second or 
 two was the message that there were things that there 
 was one thing, above all that Melissine did not know. 
 He seemed to be on the verge of telling her what it was. 
 
 v 222
 
 "And on 'My Servants " 
 
 And this was something that did not have to do with 
 Mme. 'Jenesco, or Mme. Jenesco's threats at all. 
 
 But could he tell her this thing that he had kept from 
 her father? Could he tell her this thing that would 
 humble her pride make Nathan Tyrone himself even 
 now turn in his grave? There arose before those 
 troubled, groping eyes of the old butler the spectral 
 effigies of the Tyrones he had served proud, reserved. 
 Melissine ah, Melissine was all tenderness, affection, 
 and faith. But she also was proud. No! He would 
 rather die than tell even her. 
 
 "Let Mme. Jenesco stay here if she wants to," said 
 Melissine. "She fascinates me. She says that there is 
 some sort of a bond between us. Maybe there is. But 
 this is what I feel. I feel, somehow, as if Mme. Jenesco, 
 herself, were secretly unhappy, that she needs us." 
 
 All this without other knowledge than the knowledge 
 of the heart. It made Partridge recall something he had 
 read of a time when servants and handmaidens should re 
 ceive of the spirit of prophecy. 
 
 But there was a fighting strain in Partridge, neverthe 
 less something perhaps that had come to him in the 
 days of Grant and Lee and which he had never lost.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 AS BETWEEN MAN AND MAN 
 
 JUDGE BANCROFT was familiar with the secret 
 which was at once the strength and the weakness 
 of the Tyrone butler. Judge Bancroft was the 
 one person on earth who did know it other than Par 
 tridge's self. The judge had shared it with Partridge 
 from the first, and abetted him in it even, albeit the judge 
 had shaken his head, looked forward with his shrewd 
 old-lawyer eye to the time when the whole thing would 
 have to come out. 
 
 "I've seen them try to keep their secrets," said the 
 judge. "I've seen them struggle to take their secrets 
 with them to the grave. No use. Even if they did take 
 their secrets with them to the grave, the grave spoke 
 a little later on. It all comes out this man has been 
 in jail, that man's first wife committed suicide, that one 
 cheated his aunt, these twain were never united in holy 
 wedlock, such another made his money defrauding Uncle 
 Sam while Sam was fighting for his life. God have 
 mercy on us all! Not that I am putting you in a class 
 with the ordinary crooks, Partridge not with the or 
 dinary crooks!" 
 
 Judge Bancroft had another sort of eye than that 
 224
 
 As Between Mem and Man 
 
 old-lawyer eye of his. It was an eye for dahlias, and 
 pansies, and landscapes. He had ceased to practice law 
 these many years, and to indulge this other eye of his 
 had gone to live in rustic splendor far out in a little- 
 advertised section of Long Island. 
 
 Hither, after elaborate premeditation, Partridge made 
 his way. Partridge had known the judge for the mat 
 ter of half a century, just about, but nonetheless Par 
 tridge went in fear and trembling. He hated to intrude. 
 He hoped that the judge would not be offended. He 
 was tortured by the fear that the judge would refuse 
 to see him at all; or would give him a curt dismissal 
 after reminding him that years ago he, the judge, had 
 told him, Partridge, that the truth would come out; or 
 that the judge would merely give him a letter to some 
 preen young lawyer in town. 
 
 Oh, the situation was so delicate! It so impinged 
 on the family honor! It was so hard to explain! To 
 the world it never could be explained ! The very soul 
 of Partridge blushed when he thought of what Mme. 
 Jenesco had threatened to do with regard to the Sunday 
 newspapers ! 
 
 And now what if the judge should rebuff him? 
 
 Partridge's fears in the latter respect were rather 
 increased than lessened when he finally came in sight 
 of the Judge's home lonely neighborhood, expansive 
 lawns, big houses set dimly far back from the street, 
 a sense of wealth, of a privacy bought and paid for at 
 high figures and not to be tampered with. 
 
 225
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 *Are you sure that that is where Judge Bancroft 
 lives?" 
 
 Partridge had made his inquiry of a whistling boy, 
 and the boy was so simple and friendly that Partridge 
 was stringing out the conversation for his own encour 
 agement. 
 
 "Sure, he lives there," the boy replied. "I see him 
 there myself to-day, arworkin' on his lawn." 
 
 That was encouraging. Now that Partridge remem 
 bered it, the judge always had professed a certain ten 
 derness for grass and things. But so, as a matter of 
 fact, had many an old man who could show himself 
 fierce and cruel for human creatures. 
 
 Partridge went up the long walk toward the big house 
 glimmering in the early night. He crossed a terror- 
 inspiring expanse of dark porch. He rang the bell. 
 
 A neat maid had opened the door. She had smiled 
 at him, and inquired his name, and Partridge had entered 
 a roomy hall. And then, quite before he knew what 
 was happening, there was the judge himself. 
 
 "God bless my eyes ! Partridge ! This is good ! Give 
 me your things ! Come on in here where we can make 
 ourselves at home !" 
 
 Partridge lost his breath. There was a distressful 
 tightening about his throat. He faltered. He trembled. 
 He laughed a little. He was so dazed that he would 
 have started off in the wrong direction following the 
 maid to the kitchen, perhaps; but the judge was steer 
 ing him right, his arm clasping Partridge's shoulders. 
 
 The judge conducted Partridge into an expansive 
 226
 
 As Between Mem and Marl 
 
 room part library, part living-room, well-lighted, maga 
 zines and papers lying about in a mere surface disorder 
 amid what was obviously a very rich and very well- 
 ordered home. The judge, stout, ruddy, strong, despite 
 his age, busied himself at hauling two easy-chairs into 
 position at the side of the large central table. 
 
 "Sit down !" he cried. "Sit down !" And he himself 
 dropped into one of the chairs. 
 
 But Partridge remained standing. Partridge was frail. 
 He looked very fine in his best black coat, black stock, 
 his immaculate collar flaring well up under his ears, 
 and over his ears his silken white hair brushed forward 
 in the style of another generation. But Partridge was 
 the old servant, sir. He teetered a little. He clasped 
 his hands. He had the air of saying : "Can I bring you 
 anything else, sir?" 
 
 "Sit down, you old sinner!" softly roared the judge, 
 and there was such authority, as of the court-room, in 
 his voice that Partridge had to obey. 
 
 Partridge, however, sat on the edge of his chair. It 
 was thus seated that he explained the purpose of his 
 call sketchily, uneasily after the manner of his sit 
 ting down. 
 
 "There's always one way out of the situation," the 
 judge exploded at last; "and that is for you to come 
 out with the whole truth. And why shouldn't you? 
 You've played your part. Confound it! You've held 
 your peace now upward of twenty years. What if it 
 does come out? It's nothing for you to be ashamed 
 of nothing for any one to be ashamed of. On the con- 
 
 227
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 trary! Good Lord! When I think of some of the 
 things that are being concealed ! Why not out with it ?" 
 
 "But Miss Tyrone, sir ! She would have to know !" 
 
 The judge caught the quaver in Partridge's voice. 
 His mood underwent a perceptible change. 
 
 "Partridge," he said, starting forward slightly, "sup 
 pose, before we go any further, we have a little nip." 
 He clapped a hand on one of Partridge's knees. I've 
 got something here I want you to try. Friend just sent 
 it to me from the other side a colleague of the wool 
 sack, Partridge a good judge of other things than the 
 British constitution, by George!" 
 
 Without waiting for Partridge's yes or no, the judge 
 got up and went over to a remote corner of the room. 
 When he returned he was bringing with him a small 
 blue jug and two glasses. 
 
 "Rare stuff, Partridge," said the judge. He raised 
 the jug to the light and read what was printed on it 
 under the blue glaze: 
 
 " 'Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary 
 June 22, 1911.'" 
 
 The judge tenderly extracted the crowned cork and 
 decanted the liquor with reverent but cheerful concen 
 tration. He recorked the jug. Without a word he 
 toddled off again, and this time when he returned he 
 was opening a box of cigars. 
 
 Partridge had started to rise to his feet a number 
 of times, but the judge had somehow held him where 
 he was. This time Partridge was almost half-way to 
 his feet. 
 
 228
 
 A s Between Man and Man 
 
 "Don't get up," said the judge. "Try one of these." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, sir. I can't permit you " 
 
 "Would you like a smaller cigar?" bubbled the judge. 
 
 "These are mild. Maybe you'd prefer a panetela." 
 "These appear to be most excellent," said Partridge 
 
 weakly. 
 
 But for him, Partridge, to be served like this by a 
 
 gentleman by a gentleman of the position of Judge 
 
 Bancroft ! No wonder that Partridge was overcome !
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 ON THE WINGS OF AN EAGLE 
 
 BUT the judge good-naturedly forced Partridge to 
 accept a cigar. He insisted on holding the match 
 while Partridge made a show of lighting it. The 
 faint strands of blue smoke were as the vapors of magic 
 for Partridge. He had come into a new world. When 
 this world gradually adjusted itself about him he found 
 that he was on a higher plane. The talk had reverted 
 to the secret. Partridge found that he had the strength 
 to maintain his view, even in the presence of such a 
 personage, such a friend, as Judge Bancroft. 
 
 "I cannot cannot let her know," said Partridge. 
 
 Judge Bancroft's cigar was drawing well. He had 
 sipped his coronation liquor. He was settled deep in his 
 chair. He was the judge again, "in chambers," mellow 
 and human. 
 
 "In all the circumstances," he said slowly, "I hardly 
 see how it could be avoided. It becomes a choice of 
 two evils call them evils. Either we must advise Miss 
 Tyrone of the facts of the case or put up with this 
 species of blackmail by the Jenesco woman. Mr. Nathan 
 Tyrone, as you are aware, never took me into his con 
 fidence. What this Mme. Jenesco says about him and 
 
 230
 
 On the Wings of an Eagle 
 
 her mother may be so. She may be his daughter. Such 
 instances are rather common. An ugly situation might 
 develop if we took the matter into the courts. I speak, 
 of course, of the way the situation might develop for 
 what is her name?" 
 
 "Melissine, sir." 
 
 "Oh, yes! Melissine! I remember now. She had 
 read some of my law-books as I recollect some old 
 first editions that I had given to her grandfather. She 
 struck me as an intelligent sort of person." 
 
 "She is, sir !" gasped Partridge fervently. 
 
 "Well, can't you take her into your confidence tefl 
 her this secret of yours? She is fond of you." 
 
 "She has always been that, sir." 
 
 "She shouldn't have any objection to living on jusf 
 as she has been. The truth won't hurt her." 
 
 "It would kill her, sir!" quavered Partridge. 
 
 Partridge's cigar had gone out long ago, but he raised 
 it shakily to his lips and took it away again. He had 
 raised his glass when the judge was drinking his health 
 his very good health but he hadn't tasted the con 
 tents of it. The liquor was slowly evaporating, filling 
 the air with a spicy sweetness. The judge grunted. 
 Partridge pursued : 
 
 "It would kill her if she knew as it would have killed 
 her father. She also is a Tyrone. The Tyrones they 
 have been proud, they have been sensitive." 
 
 "The Tyrone pride!" the judge mused. "The Tyrone 
 pride! The pride that goeth before a downfall. True, 
 I had almost forgotten. It was this pride the pride of 
 
 231
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 my friend, Ulysses and you remember how proud he 
 was too proud to mention the wound that was killing 
 him his pride that caused all the trouble in the first 
 place. And Nathan had it that pride. Otherwise I 
 might have arranged matters while he was yet alive. 
 And now " 
 
 He blew a slow puff of smoke into the air. Partridge, 
 bowed, studied his extinguished cigar with unseeing 
 eyes. 
 
 "You say," resumed the judge, "that Melissine appears 
 to be happy in spite of the presence of this other woman 
 in the house?" 
 
 "Oh, yes sir!" cried Partridge softly. "She is the 
 kind to shed happiness about her. I I suppose that I 
 should be grateful. I am grateful. She is Faith ! She 
 is Hope! She is Charity!" 
 
 "Very beautiful!" intoned the judge. It is possible 
 that Partridge's tribute inspired the judge himself to 
 think on a higher plane. 
 
 "Partridge, old friend," he said, even more gently 
 than he had hitherto spoken, "in the course of my long 
 career in the course of my own long career as a servant 
 that's what we all long to be in the sight of the Lord, 
 Partridge good servants " 
 
 "Yes, sir," Partridge agreed with a touch of emotion. 
 
 "Ever and again occasions have arisen," the judge 
 went on, "where neither law nor worldly wisdom would 
 suffice. You might say that such is ever the case in 
 affairs that really matter affairs of the heart and af 
 fairs of the spirit. This is one of those times. The law 
 
 232
 
 On the Wings of an Eagle 
 
 can't help us. The law is powerful. The law is su 
 preme. But it is human. It is human in that it can do 
 many things that it cannot undo." 
 
 Partridge got to his feet, feeling perhaps that he 
 would be more comfortable like that ; feeling also, per 
 haps, that he had taken enough of the judge's time. The 
 judge also arose. He had tossed his cigar into an ash 
 tray. He looked at Partridge with a kindling smile. He 
 put a hand on Partridge's shoulder. 
 
 "You and I are getting old, Partridge," he said. "We 
 are about at an age when we can see the futility of much 
 of human effort, the unnecessity of so much of the 
 world's business, its scamperings, its worries, its strife. 
 By and by, Partridge, you and I are going to step down 
 and out or up and out " 
 
 "I have considered that, sir/' said Partridge with a 
 certain majesty. 
 
 "We know that when that does happen everything will 
 be well not only before the Lord but in the eyes of 
 the world." 
 
 "What more could we ask?" demanded Partridge 
 softly. 
 
 "What more could we ask?" the judge echoed. "So 
 let us simply bear with the situation for a while. It 
 can hardly become worse unless we make it so. You 
 say yourself that the situation is not altogether unbear 
 able, either for yourself or for Miss Tyrone. It will 
 be time enough to take more decisive steps should the 
 Jenesco woman become recalcitrant." 
 
 "And in the meantime " 
 
 233
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Hold fast in the Faith," said the judge. "Hold fast 
 in the Faith, as you have always done." 
 
 He himself saw Partridge to the front door helping 
 Partridge on with his coat, and handing Partridge his 
 hat, his umbrella, and his gloves, even as Partridge might 
 have done for the judge had the judge been the depart 
 ing guest. The judge could have done no greater honor 
 to any man. He invited Partridge to come out in the 
 daytime so that he could show Partridge his new dahlia 
 beds. And the judge's limousine was at the door, not 
 merely to carry Partridge over to the station but all the 
 way back to Cinnamon Street. 
 
 Curiously enough the motto on Melissine's calendar 
 for this day had been one of joy. And in the midst 
 of his sorrow, Partridge had repeated it, and had tried 
 to get into the spirit of it, and had failed. Now he re 
 peated it again, and found that, after a fashion, the 
 motto had been a prophecy. Over and over again he 
 repeated it to himself while the big limousine spun away 
 the swift, luxurious miles: 
 
 "Rejoice in the Lord always ; and again I say, Rejoice. 
 Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is 
 at hand." 
 
 The movement of the limousine was so joyously soft 
 and swift that it was almost as if he, Partridge, were 
 mounted on the back of an eagle; and it was almost 
 as if the eagle were bearing him up as well as on, higher 
 
 234
 
 On the Wings of an Eagle 
 
 and higher, above the clouds of fear and distress, until 
 he was among the stars, and the prophecy of the morn 
 ing had become a present conviction: 
 "Rejoice in the Lord the Lord is at hand."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE LIGHT AT THE WINDOW 
 
 IT wasn't very late when the judge's limousine brought 
 Partridge back to Cinnamon Street. It was at an 
 hour when the rest of New York was asquirm and 
 asquall and ashine almost as if it were noon unwashed 
 children still playing in the streets, shop-workers gad 
 ding about, theaters and restaurants, cheap and other 
 wise, each a human ant-heap. 
 
 But Cinnamon Street was dark. Tony Zamboni's gro 
 cery store gave off no other sign of human possession 
 than a smell of cheese and faded fruit. The drug store 
 was dark, except for a dim light that burned back of 
 the blue-glass prescription counter where one could 
 imagine the druggist still furtively at work, doing things 
 that he ought not to do. Elsewhere, gloom complete, 
 even under the shuddering and frightened gas-lamps. 
 The gas-lamps seemed to be ashamed. A lean cat slanted 
 across the street. 
 
 And there, along the chapel fence where the shadows 
 were deepest, stood Jerome Hickcock, the policeman, 
 conversing with that other night-prowler, Goodenough. 
 
 A shake of subdued thunder, a majestic flood of light, 
 and there was the big black limousine stopping in front 
 of No. 6. 
 
 236
 
 The Light at the Window 
 
 "And look at that !" cried Hickcock. "Now would you 
 look at that. An auto! A closed one! A big one! 
 Stopping in front of No. 6!" 
 
 Goodenough blinked. Said he: 
 
 " 'The night was lown and the stars sat still ' " 
 
 "For the love of Mike," breathed Hickcock. "It's 
 him." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 Hickcock had eyes that not only looked like the eyes 
 of an owl. He had spent so much time in this street 
 at night that his eyes were also like an owl's in that 
 they could see in the dark. 
 
 "The dirty old sneak," he exclaimed. "At first," said 
 he, "I was for thinkin' that it was Tyrone himself come 
 back. You're to blame for that, you old rummy, with 
 your talk of the spooks." He stared a little longer to 
 make sure. He saw that the limousine had brought a 
 single passenger, that this passenger now was saluting 
 the chauffeur, thanking him, bidding him a good night 
 and a safe return. "The dirty old sneak," breathed 
 Hickcock again. "Who was it? And who else but 
 Partridge?" 
 
 "You could hardly have expected him to call out me 
 and the old roan at this time of night," said Goodenough. 
 
 "Three sixes three zeros a New York license," and 
 Hickcock pawed out his note-book and entered the num 
 ber of the strange car. It was while the auto filled the 
 street with a subdued uproar as it backed and turned. 
 "I'll put it over on them yet," said Hickcock. "But at that 
 
 237
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 it would be my rotten luck for somethin' big to happen 
 here the day they bury me. It's always been like that. 
 When I was new on the force I watches a dock for 
 three weeks steady. I gets a transfer. The very next 
 day two children falls overboard there and McGuffy 
 gets the medal. Can you beat it?" 
 
 "That may have been a doctor's auto he came back 
 in," said Goodenough. It is possible that Goodenough 
 was a little hurt, all the same, he had been furnishing 
 the rolling-stock for this house so many years. 
 
 "Sure !" said Hickcock. "That's what I'm tellin' you. 
 One of these days it'll be a murder in that old menagerie, 
 and who will get the credit for it? You can damn well 
 have the education, and you can damn well be faithful 
 on your beat " 
 
 "Like " interposed Goodenough. 
 
 "Like me!" ground Hickcock. "Where has my edu 
 cation got me? What good has it done me to keep 
 my eye on this old den of thieves and worse for close 
 on to twenty years?" 
 
 "Aye," said Goodenough ; "and you spoke a true word 
 there." 
 
 "That's what I'm tellin' you. About the time that the 
 coroner gets his case in there it'll be about the day after 
 Jerome Hickcock's name appears on the pension-roll. 
 Say, if they ever pull that on me, I'll come around here 
 and clean up the place, sure enough, even if it gets me 
 broke." 
 
 For the first time in his life Goodenough experienced 
 a stir of interest in what Hickcock was saying to him. 
 
 238
 
 The Light at the Window 
 
 "Just what is it/' Goodenough inquired, "that you've 
 got against the old place?" 
 
 "It's got a bad name," said Hickcock. 
 
 "I know it has; but why?" 
 
 "You ought to know." 
 
 "But I don't. Nobody knows. Nobody knows what 
 has happened in there what is happening now." 
 
 "What more do you want?" glowered Hickcock, taking 
 a fresh grip on his nightstick as if he intended to beat 
 Goodenough to death. As a matter of fact, Hickcock 
 was as fond of Goodenough as he could be fond of any 
 man. "The place is a secret. And tell me this : Do you 
 see any neighbors runnin' in and out? You've been 
 around them for years. What's their politics? Tell 
 me that What's their business ? Who's the little blonde ? 
 Who's this Woman in Black?" 
 
 "I don't know," Goodenough reflected aloud. "But for 
 less they've burned witches." 
 
 "That's what I'm tellin' you," said Hickcock. "There's 
 something worse than witches the matter with that old 
 kennel. Look now! Look at the candlelight goin' to 
 the upper floor, and I bet it'll still be there when the sun 
 comes up." 
 
 "Tut, tut!" said Goodenough. "Maybe he's merely 
 praying late." 
 
 Old Goodenough, with his eye of a poet, his eye of 
 the imagination, had discerned the truth. Up there 
 where the dim light burned Partridge prayed. But even 
 to one who saw him there with the physical eye would 
 
 239
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 the fact have been concealed to some extent. For Par 
 tridge sat on the edge of his couch, face up, eyes wide 
 his face was strangely like that of an interested and 
 attentive child. He was giving an account of himself 
 apparently ; also of his friends. 
 
 "Now, behold," said he, "nothing ill can happen to 
 me. I was in need of a friend, and Judge Bancroft 
 bless him, I beg of Thee was moved to receive me in 
 friendship. O God, thus receive Thou me, also!"
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 TOO MANY COOKS 
 
 LIKE that, Partridge slept for a number of hours 
 as a child might sleep, with nothing in his con 
 sciousness but a knowledge of good and a vague 
 dream of pleasant landscapes bathed in a celestial light. 
 As often happens, it was with a slight shock when he 
 awoke when he found himself back on earth, in Cin 
 namon Street, in old No. 6, with all the earthly problems 
 that were concentrated there. 
 
 Yesterday had been the eighteenth. Melissine's cal 
 endar to-day reminded him that "the prayer of faith 
 shall save the sick." 
 
 There was no immediate response from the depth of 
 his heart. The depth of his heart was very deep like 
 a secret, hidden valley, with forested steeps about it 
 not a place for the early dawn to strike. But gradually, 
 as he bathed and shaved and dressed himself, meditat 
 ing betimes on the motto for the day, the sun must 
 have climbed, so to speak; for, finally, there was a shaft 
 of light striking down into that depth of gloom and 
 darkness which was the bottom of the heart of an old 
 man. 
 
 "The prayer of faith !" 
 
 241
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 He had been feeling sick. He had a premonition that 
 he was going to be healed. 
 
 He went down through the dark and silent house and 
 back toward the kitchen. He paused in the butler's 
 pantry when certain noises and a smell of coffee that 
 reached him from the kitchen apprised him that some 
 one had preceded him there. 
 
 Partridge almost wished that he had put on his coat 
 instead of the apron he wore. He knew who was in 
 there. He pushed open the swinging door in silence. 
 He permitted himself a look a long look. And to have 
 seen him, one would have said that the sun was now 
 altogether up, making the depths of his hidden valley 
 of a heart to shine like the mountaintops. 
 
 Melissine was there, housewifely in blue gingham. 
 Her back was turned. Her blond curls were clustered 
 over the back of her neck. She was arranging some 
 breakfast things on a, tray. 
 
 "Miss Melissine!" called Partridge softly. 
 
 The girl whirled with a smile. 
 
 "Good morning, Grandy," she saluted him. 
 
 When Melissine was a very small child she had fallen 
 into the error of considering Partridge a grandfather 
 a grandfather of sorts, if not her own because of 
 his resemblance to a bonafide grandfather she had once 
 seen, either in life or in a picture-book, no one remem 
 bered which. Hence the grand-daddy hence the 
 Grandy. Partridge loved the title. It had never ceased 
 to touch softly some lute-string of his make-up. 
 
 242
 
 Too Many Cooks 
 
 "You promised to let me get the breakfast this morn 
 ing," Partridge said. 
 
 "I couldn't sleep any longer, and I couldn't stay in 
 bed any longer," Melissine confessed with joyous com 
 placency. "Life is so wonderful, I almost hate to go 
 to sleep at all. And I just can't miss anything of the 
 day. I wonder if Belle is up." 
 
 "Belle?" 
 
 "Mme. Jenesco! She told me that she wanted me to 
 call her that." 
 
 "And what else did she tell you?" Partridge inquired 
 softly, as he paid an apparent attention to the fire that 
 Melissine herself had started in the range and to the 
 coffee-pot on the back of the range. 
 
 "She said that she was going to be a sister to me," 
 said Melissine, joyously. "No one no one in the wide 
 world could do so well with a sister. Not just now." 
 
 "And why just now?" Partridge was bringing other 
 porcelain from the closet. 
 
 "A sister to talk to a woman to talk to ! Dear 
 Grandy! You were never a girl. You were never a 
 girl engaged to be married ! And a girl can't show her 
 letters to another man can she? Even if the other man 
 is Grandy." 
 
 There was a lovely flush on Melissine's face. It con 
 trasted with the shadow that had fallen across Partridge's 
 heart. There had been a mistake somewhere in Nathan 
 Tyrone's upbringing of Melissine. In her recent years 
 she had been deprived almost entirely of feminine so 
 ciety of any kind. Never in her life had she had a girl 
 
 243
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 friend. Partridge had never read Freud, but, nonethe 
 less, Partridge had an instinctive knowledge of the ac 
 cumulated force of suppressed desires. It must have 
 been so that through the years of her life Melissine had 
 desired such companionship. Here, at last, was Mme. 
 Jenesco to supply the vacancy. 
 
 A delicate situation ! One to make Partridge grope 
 but grope upward like a man who drowns and can look 
 to no earthly aid. 
 
 "So she said that she was going to be a sister to you," 
 said Partridge. There was a little relief in that. She 
 hadn't said yet definitely that she was Melissine's sister 
 or that Melissine's family name was Partridge either. 
 
 "I feel so grateful to her," said Melissine. "I knew 
 that I was right the other day when I said that it would 
 be better to have her live with us a mystery ! but such 
 a charming mystery !" 
 
 Partridge was noncommittal. 
 
 Melissine surveyed her breakfast tray, forgot it for 
 a moment. She stepped lightly over to Partridge, rested 
 her two hands on his shoulders in a gesture that had 
 become dear and familiar to him. She sought to look 
 into his eyes, but Partridge looked at the ceiling. 
 
 "It was perfectly dear of you to think of my going 
 to a finishing school," she said. "But this is better yet. 
 She knows so many things !" Partridge was uneasy, but 
 he did not speak. "And I can talk to her about so 
 many things that I could not possibly talk to you about 
 even if you are the dearest person in the world." 
 
 "What, for example," queried Partridge hoarsely. 
 244
 
 Too Many Cooks 
 
 A lovely flush overspread Melissine's upturned face. 
 
 "Marriage," she whispered. "You couldn't tell me 
 very much about marriage ; could you, Grandy dear ? I 
 love Eugene. He loves me. And I am just sure that 
 he is going to be a perfectly wonderful architect some 
 day an Inigo Jones a Viollet-le-Duc !" 
 
 Melissine was prone to these digressions whenever 
 Buckhannon's name came up. 
 
 "You were saying," Partridge reminded her, with his 
 pale eyes now on the kitchen window. 
 
 "But everything everything has made me" think again 
 and again of that first day you don't mind my coming 
 back to it, do you and making me wish that you would 
 tell me what it was all about." 
 
 Partridge was silent. Melissine's voice took on a 
 still deeper vibrancy of sympathy, not to say downright 
 love. Partridge felt a tear creeping to the corner of 
 his left eye, and he wished that he could have wiped 
 it away ; but he couldn't- not without betraying himself. 
 
 "Why," queried Melissine, "why did you look so 
 sad? Why did you look so white?" 
 
 She herself detected the telltale tear that Partridge 
 would have suppressed. She reached down and got 
 her own little cambric handkerchief, and she touched it 
 to Partridge's eye with a species of wonder. 
 
 "Why," said Partridge with a lurch, "it must have 
 been on account of your father." 
 
 Rather dazedly he confronted Melissine's pure-blue 
 gaze. 
 
 "Grandy!" 
 
 245
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Yes?" And Partridge managed a smile. 
 
 "I think that you are fibbing to me, Grandy." 
 
 "Oh, gracious !" And Partridge even managed some 
 thing of the old-time playfulness that had been his when 
 Melissine had used him in a variety of zoological roles: 
 horse, bear, roaring lion, et cetera. "Oh, gracious !" said 
 Partridge, "and you don't think that I'd be guilty of 
 that." 
 
 "It wouldn't be the first time" seriously. 
 
 "And when was any other time?" 
 
 "The time that I asked you who Mme. Jenesco really 
 was." 
 
 It looked as if the crisis had come. For all he knew, 
 Partridge may have considered this as all in the divine 
 plan; somewhat as if the prayer of faith had saved the 
 sick, but that it was still necessary for the patient to 
 swallow one more bitter dose. 
 
 But just when Partridge was calling on his soul for 
 strength sufficient to the ordeal, he heard the voice of 
 Mme. Jenesco herself. It must have been that Mme. 
 Jenesco had heard at least a portion of the conversa 
 tion inadvertently, let us hope. 
 
 "And what did Grandy tell you when you asked him 
 that?"
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 THE CUP OF BITTERNESS 
 
 BUT the crisis was again deferred for a time. This 
 wasn't one of those spring thunder showers that 
 come up in a minute and in a minute are gone 
 all to the accompaniment of a flood of sunshine and a 
 singing of birds. This was one of those storms which, 
 so to speak, have their origin in the spots on the sun 
 barometer falling day after day, small black cloud on the 
 horizon getting constantly bigger, ground-swell under a 
 glassy sea, air getting darker and darker, a few fright 
 ened gulls hurtling past. 
 
 "He didn't tell me anything," Melissine answered the 
 question that Mme. Jenesco had asked. She left Par 
 tridge and ran over to where Mme. Jenesco stood at 
 the door. It showed how well established Mme. Jenesco 
 was in the house that she should have appeared like 
 this unannounced especially in that most intimate 
 quarter of the house, the kitchen. Melissine kissed 
 Mme. Jenesco on the cheek and allowed herself to be 
 kissed. "He didn't tell me anything except that you 
 were here for private reasons that had something to do 
 with the family. You don't mind my having asked? I 
 am so glad that you are here." 
 
 247
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 There was a truthfulness about this, a limpidity and 
 a warmth, that mere words cannot possibly convey. And 
 there was almost a truce in the way that Mme. Jenesco 
 looked at Partridge from beyond Melissine's shoulder. 
 Almost as if the sun had managed to show itself in 
 one last effort while the storm was piling up. 
 
 "If you will permit me," Partridge spoke up, "I shall 
 serve breakfast immediately." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco was still the Woman in Black to some 
 extent. Her kimono had a body of black, even if it 
 was embroidered with blue and purple flowers of Jap 
 anese design. The kimono was useful. It commanded 
 Melissine's interest an interest which Mme. Jenesco 
 herself perforce must share. The clothes that Melissine 
 usually wore were almost as captivating to Mme. Jenesco 
 as Mme. Jenesco's clothes were to Melissine. 
 
 Partridge's suggestion won. Breakfast was served 
 in a small bay, or sun-parlor, at the back of the house. 
 The old man served. The lull lasted. 
 
 And then Melissine, partly in response to the dic 
 tates of her own conscience, or her heart, and partly 
 also in response to the suggestion of the mysterious 
 friend who had come into her life and who understood 
 so perfectly how Melissine felt Melissine ran off to 
 write a line to Buckhannon. That meant that Melissine 
 was going to be gone long enough for a good deal of 
 serious discussion among her elders, should her elders 
 desire it. 
 
 Belle and Partridge were alone. 
 
 Partridge was not sure that he desired such a dis- 
 248
 
 The Cup of Bitterness 
 
 cussion. He felt a little shaky in the legs. So must 
 the Christian martyrs have felt in the arena at Rome. 
 You may have all the spiritual strength in the world, 
 but the flesh will shrink when the lions begin to roar 
 and when the pitch-fire begins to smoke. 
 
 The latter figure is not entirely out of place. Mme. 
 Jenesco had begun to smoke. She had lit a cigarette. 
 Even apart from this suggestive detail, she had the sug 
 gestion of a pitch-fire about her in the lazy, veiled 
 attention she devoted to Partridge as this model servant 
 made to clear away the breakfast things. 
 
 "So she asked you again, did she, who I was ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," she corrected him. 
 
 "Yes, madam," Partridge accepted with dignity, thus 
 in turn correcting her. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco, full-fed and slumbrous, was willing 
 to take a little time for thought and to amuse herself 
 during the interval by playing with her victim. She con 
 tinued to be a very feline person in certain of her moods. 
 
 "Just because you're my father," she remarked with 
 gentle irony, "is no reason why you should not show 
 me proper respect." 
 
 Partridge was silent. 
 
 So was Mme. Jenesco for a while. Her cigarette 
 smoke coiled in the sunlight. She lazily extinguished 
 her cigarette in a finger-bowl. 
 
 "Melissine tried her first cigarette yesterday," she 
 said. "She is a bright little thing." 
 
 Partridge turned from the side-table where he had 
 249
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 placed the breakfast-tray. He looked at her with a 
 resurgence of the strength that was concealed in this 
 feeble-looking package that was his physical self. And 
 Mme. Jenesco, aware of the nature of his look, pretended 
 to ignore it. 
 
 "I've promised to take her to a musical show as soon 
 as she can get some decent street clothes. Those ready- 
 mades you and she bought are a sketch." 
 
 Partridge was still silent. Mme. Jenesco, taking her 
 time about it, resumed her monologue. 
 
 "She tells me that you've always handled the money. 
 I have decided to change all that. Now don't fly off 
 the handle." She finally consented to look at him. "I'm 
 not going to blame you for doing what you did. But 
 there's got to be an accounting between you and me. 
 We can keep it in the family" another gentle allusion 
 to Partridge's claim to parenthood. 
 
 "I have given the matter considerable thought," said 
 Partridge, speaking at last but still weakly, and only at 
 the cost of an effort. "I have thought of it in all its 
 phases." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco heard him with the tolerant air of 
 one who might have said : "Suppose you let me do your 
 thinking for you!" 
 
 "I am convinced," said Partridge, with a degree of 
 detachment, "that this will prove to be a blessing to all 
 of us in the long run. Sometimes it is hard to perceive. 
 It is hard to adjust our idea of what should be, with 
 the facts as they are. But, of course, any other theory 
 than that all is for the best would be wrong. That way 
 
 250
 
 The Cup of Bitterness 
 
 madness lies. We must have faith. We must have 
 charity." 
 
 "I never wanted to treat you rough," Mme. Jenesco 
 confessed with a certain indulgence. "I like you. I 
 always have liked you. God knows you're different 
 enough from most old men you meet in New York. 
 Now that you're beginning to wake up, we'll get along 
 all right together." 
 
 Partridge seemed to know that this was merely the 
 storm-wind disguised as a breeze. 
 
 "I am appealing to your better nature," he said sim 
 ply and gently. "I want you to go away from here." 
 
 "You want what ?" 
 
 "I want you to go away from here," said Partridge, 
 a little less gently. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco measured him for a space. 
 
 "We settled all that." 
 
 Partridge wasn't going to be turned aside. He con 
 sulted his spiritual records of the night before as a 
 lawyer might have consulted his law books. 
 
 "I am sure," he said although clearly he was not 
 sure "that you will not care to remain here when you 
 see that your staying here may harm Miss Tyrone. Let 
 me continue" this to quiet a stir of impatience on the 
 part of the Jenesco woman. "How will it be when Mr. 
 Buckhannon who is a most refined young man, and 
 one of excellent family returns to find that his fiancee 
 smokes cigarettes, and goes to musical shows " 
 
 He was interrupted by Mme. Jenesco's amused laugh. 
 
 "I beg of you," Partridge flared urgently, "to consult 
 251
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 your own conscience. God watches you, hears you " 
 
 "You're a nice one to preach," said Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 "God pity me, I am!" Partridge confessed. "But I 
 stand ready to sacrifice myself for Miss Tyrone's sake. 
 I have been long in the family. It has been the only 
 family I have." 
 
 "Say!" said Mme. Jenesco. "I've heard enough of 
 this. You make me sick. I give you an inch and you 
 take an ell. That's the sort you are. Just because I 
 consented to humoi you when you insulted my mother's 
 memory by claiming to be my father, you think that 
 I'm a ninny. Why don't you treat me like a Tyrone, 
 since you're so devoted to the Tyrones. I'm a Tyrone. 
 And I'm ready to go to court any time you are, and 
 prove it. You're not so crazy as all that. I give you 
 credit for the brains you have. You must have had 
 some brains to get your hands on the Tyrone fortune. 
 But you've had it long enough. It's mine. My mother 
 was the only real wife Nathan Tyrone ever had, if it 
 comes to that. Who's this Melissine? She's nothing 
 but a " 
 
 "Hush! before God!" shuddered Partridge. 
 
 "What's the big idea?" cried Mme. Jenesco. "Why 
 should I hush? Why should one girl get all the pro 
 tection and another girl get none? It wasn't my fault 
 was it that my mother didn't want to stay in this 
 rotten old house. I don't blame her. It wasn't her 
 that gave the house the bad name it's got. She had 
 some refinement. She had some sense of decency. She 
 knew what sort of a dump this was. She knew what 
 
 252
 
 The Cup of Bitterness 
 
 sort of a reputation you'd given it you and your Nathan 
 Tyrone. I say it, even if he was my father." 
 
 This latter statement of hers, and the spectacle ofc 
 Partridge's present helplessness, stirred her courage to a 
 fresh display. 
 
 "I know now why you claimed to be my father. I 
 know. I know who your real sweetheart was. I've seen 
 the way you looked at the portrait of that little French 
 actress in the other room. I noticed it the very first 
 time I came here. But I didn't say anything about it 
 then. I was trying to be decent. But you! You don't 
 know what decency is. Who was she this French doll 
 that you claim Tyrone married in Paris? I'll tell you. 
 She was a little demi-mon daine ! That's what she was. 
 Ah, I knew that'd get you! Sure! It's all right to 
 insult my mother. But insult her! That's a different 
 story !" 
 
 "I beg of you/' said Partridge. "I appeal to your 
 better nature !" 
 
 But Mme. Jenesco clung to her inspiration. 
 
 "And shall I tell you why? I'll tell you why. It was 
 because my mother was above letting a servant make 
 love to her " 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" cried Partridge softly, striking the air 
 with his fists. 
 
 "And because this French woman," said Mme. Jenesco, 
 with a sudden, sultry impressiveness, "was not!" 
 
 "Woman! Woman!" gasped Partridge. "This is 
 blasphemy !" 
 
 And there was such a look about him that even Mme. 
 253
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Jenesco had a moment of recoil. Partridge had cast 
 his eyes about him. A little more and he might have 
 seized one of the heavy silver candlesticks that stood 
 near, and have used it as a club. 
 
 But, just then, Partridge saw something that Mme. 
 Jenesco hadn't seen and which made his terror greater 
 than his rage. Where he stood he could see through 
 the length of the house. He had caught a glimpse of 
 Melissine coming slowly down the stairs. He clapped 
 a hand to his heart. He tried to speak. His face went 
 haggard. His knees sagged. 
 
 Apparently he had intended merely to approach Mme. 
 Jenesco somewhat to warn her to be more careful, to 
 keep her voice down. But his step was shambling. A 
 carpet interfered with the movement of his feet. 
 
 He stumbled. He went to his knees.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT 
 
 SEE," said Partridge. "I humble myself before you." 
 His voice was a little more than a croaking 
 whisper. 
 
 "It isn't on my own account. It is on your account 
 as much as any one's. God on His throne knows that 
 I wish nothing but good to you and every one. Forgive 
 me the wrath I have shown. I have been over-zealous. 
 But say nothing more. Say nothing more. Say nothing 
 more." 
 
 Nothing that Partridge could have said would have 
 been more eloquent than that triple appeal of his to say 
 nothing more. 
 
 "I knew it!" said Mme. Jenesco. She had drawn 
 back a little at Partridge's sudden collapse. She looked 
 down at him. But she was now moved most of all by 
 what seemed to be proof of her amazing charge. "I 
 knew that there was something crooked somewhere and 
 that my own mother wasn't mixed up in it in any way. 
 So it was this French woman, was it?" 
 
 "No! No! What you say is blasphemy!" 
 
 "It wasn't so long as you were saying it about my 
 mother. Was it?" 
 
 2 55
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "I beseech you- 
 
 "I don't blame you for getting excited. It would 
 sound fine coming out before a judge and jury how you 
 and Tyrone had robbed an American lady of her rights 
 all on account of some rotten little chorus-girl from 
 Paris." 
 
 Partridge's beseechment was now principally of his 
 eyes. He had an ear for the things that Mme. Jenesco 
 was saying, but one would have said that his whole 
 body had become an ear for the sound of something 
 else. What was that shadow he had seen or thought 
 he had seen on the stairs ? He looked at the doorway. 
 He looked at Mme. Jenesco. Himself, and the position 
 he was in on his knees before this pagan goddess, so 
 to speak he seemed to have forgotten utterly. 
 
 "You wouldn't ruin her young life," said Partridge. 
 
 "Her! Her! Always her 1" 
 
 "She loves you !" 
 
 Mme. Jenesco began to laugh. From sheer nervous 
 ness and a touch of hysteria she picked up a glass and 
 suddenly hurled it against a corner of the window- frame. 
 
 "I don't know whether to fire you or to keep you 
 here," she said, "fire Melissine or keep her here ! What 
 are you croaking about? Haven't I been fond of the 
 little thing myself?" 
 
 She was smitten .by a sort of silence that had fallen 
 upon the room the sort of silence that one feels when 
 suddenly discovering that something unguessed, some 
 thing unforeseen, has come to pass. Or perhaps it was 
 the fact that Partridge was again staring toward the 
 
 256
 
 After TMs the Judgment 
 
 Doorway that led into the hall. She turned lazily to see 
 what it was that Partridge was looking at. 
 
 And there stood Melissine. 
 
 This, and absolute silence Melissine standing there 
 at the shadowy doorway, dressed in white, a white 
 solemnity about her, a calm that had a touch of the awe- 
 inspiring about it, a touch of the terror-inspiring, even; 
 and then Mme. Jenesco, robed in her black and em 
 broidered kimono, coiling herself into some sort of readi 
 ness for action, whether a spring or a caress none could 
 have said; and then Partridge, still on his knees, fum 
 bling, broken, yet with a look in his face that here was 
 judgment. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco was the first to speak. 
 
 "What a turn you gave me !" she cried. She tittered. 
 She turned to Partridge. "Be careful not to cut your 
 fingers." She turned again to Melissine. "I dropped 
 a glass. Why, what's come over you, child ? Come here 
 and kiss me, silly." 
 
 Partridge, though, was beyond such acting. So was 
 Melissine. Melissine watched Partridge getting slowly 
 to his feet. Partridge retired a little like an old man 
 dazed from a fall; his knees were bent; his white hair 
 was slightly disordered. And then Melissine was look 
 ing at Mme. Jenesco again. Several times Melissine 
 had trembled on the brink of speech, then seemed to 
 have sought words that would be more sufficient for 
 what she wanted to say. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco, drawing her kimono about her, was 
 for acting, still. She kicked a piece of the broken 
 
 257
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 tumbler under the table with her slippered foot. She 
 arose. She seemed to entertain the purpose of taking 
 Melissine into her arms. 
 
 But Melissine retired a step. 
 
 On Melissine's face there had appeared what for 
 want of a better name will have to be called a smile, 
 but which was really no smile at all. A real smile is a 
 smile of the eyes. In Melissine's blue eyes there was 
 no smile at all. There was no smile in her gentle voice 
 ' just that profundity of interest. 
 
 "Was that my mother you were talking about?" she 
 inquired. 
 
 "Listen to the child !" 
 
 "Do you really mean that father and mother were 
 not what they call legally married ?" 
 
 "Why, where in the world did you get that?" splut 
 tered the Woman in Black. 
 
 Now that a question had been asked by Mme. Jenesco 
 herself Melissine was perfectly willing to answer. May 
 be, like that, Mme. Jenesco also would begin to answer 
 questions. 
 
 "I got it," answered Melissine, with just enough ac 
 cent on the "got" to make Mme. Jenesco wince, "from 
 what you were just saying to Mr. Partridge." 
 
 Here was Mme. Jenesco's chance to counter. Still 
 she tried to rescue the situation by remaining playful. 
 
 "Little eavesdroppers often overhear things that they 
 don't understand." An arch observation. 
 
 "I wasn't eavesdropping," said Melissine quite steadily 
 and with no semblance of heat. "Your voice was so 
 
 258
 
 After This the Judgment 
 
 loud that it could have been heard through the house." 
 
 "I like that/' remarked Mme. Jenesco, meaning that 
 she didn't. 
 
 For the first time since she began to speak, Melissine 
 directed her attention to Partridge. 
 
 "It appears," she said and she spoke with that form 
 alism of another century which her father had always 
 loved and encouraged "it appears, from what Mme. 
 Jenesco just said, that there is a blot on the family 
 escutcheon." 
 
 "There is none," quoth Partridge. 
 
 "Quoth" expresses Partridge's tone -of voice, although 
 it was little more than a whisper. 
 
 Melissine's attention returned to Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 "There is absolutely no occasion for half truths or 
 evasions," Melissine proclaimed. "I have read a good 
 deal on the subject from a purely legal standpoint in 
 one of Judge Bancroft's works. I share his opinion 
 that stultification of the child through a lack of legal 
 formality in the relations of the parents is justified 
 in the eyes of man if not in the eyes of God." 
 
 "Dearie!" exclaimed Mme. Jenesco, "I don't know 
 what you're talking about." And again that movement 
 indicated a readiness to receive Melissine into her arms. 
 
 "Was it true," demanded Melissine with a slight rise 
 in her temperature, "that my father had a former wife ?" 
 
 Partridge shouted. He shouted, "No!" But his open 
 mouth gave out no sound. It was something like that 
 so far as Mme. Jenesco was concerned. A gasp from 
 
 259
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 h'er. Though this might have been intended for an af 
 firmative. 
 
 ^And that you were his daughter and hers?" 
 
 Melissine had spoken very slowly so slowly that it 
 had given both Partridge and Mme. Jenesco the chance 
 to summon the power of speech they saw they were go 
 ing to need. 
 
 "No! No!" clamored Partridge, in a voice that was 
 big, but which was husky and not very loud. "It's all 
 a damnable lie. It is not true!" 
 
 Mme. Jenesco whirled on him with the sure instinct 
 that it would be easier far to fight this old man whom 
 she had already vanquished than it would be to fight 
 Melissine. She understood Partridge. But for the sec 
 ond or third time since coming to this house she was 
 aware that there was something about Melissine that she 
 did not understand. It was something that frightened 
 her a little. The girl, especially now, wasn't a girl so 
 much as she was a shaft of light a daylight ghost, so 
 to speak. 
 
 "If I was you," said Belle to Partridge, "I wouldn't 
 talk about lies and liars. I'd keep my mouth shut." 
 
 But Melissine wouldn't be ignored. She gave an odd 
 little cry so sharp that it commanded silence. But when 
 she did speak her voice was not so very loud just cold 
 and final. 
 
 "Stop it !" she said. "I won't let anyone speak to him 
 like that. He's " 
 
 And then Belle broke in on her. 
 260
 
 'After This the Judgment 
 
 "That's it; stand up for him," she bawled. "You 
 ought to. That's what I'm tellin' you. Nathan Tyrone 
 wasn't your father. You've been fooled long enough. 
 That's him ! that's your father standin' over there !"
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 MR. PARTRIDGE, THIEF ! 
 
 MELISSINE may have given a slight gasp, as of 
 pain, but she remained motionless, flaming white, 
 listening. 
 
 "It's a lie !" 
 
 This from Partridge, in a breathless, husky whisper. 
 He was no longer the supplicant. He was anything but 
 that. His slightly ruffled hair and disordered clothing 
 gave him an added touch. He was fighting-mad. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco may have suspected that her sheep 
 had become wolves. She was controlling her temper 
 by this time. 
 
 "How do you dare to deny it ?" she began with scorn. 
 
 But Partridge was back at her in an instant: 
 
 "Hold your tongue and let me finish ! I say that 
 when you suggest such a thing you suggest an outrageous 
 and sacrilegious lie. I say that you have no right in 
 this house whatsoever except as the guest of my mis 
 tress of her you seek to traduce." 
 
 "So you're going to force the issue!" said Mme. 
 Jenesco. 
 
 "I have stated the issue." 
 
 "Oh, you have !" 
 
 262
 
 Mr. Partridge, Thief! 
 
 "The only issue is Miss Tyrone's good name and 
 happiness." , 
 
 Somehow or other Partridge was not so much the 
 butler as he was the high priest. Even about him there 
 was a measure of that quality that Mme. Jenesco had 
 discovered in Melissine. For a moment she may have 
 been debating a flood of tears. She felt as if she might 
 have wept wept real tears. No, this would have been 
 mere weakness. And she recalled that terror that had 
 come over Partridge the very first day of her advent 
 in this house. 
 
 "One would say so," said Mme. Jenesco, with a tone 
 that she meant to be finely ironic. "You have shown 
 yourself to be a very good friend of Melissine's ; haven't 
 you?" Partridge knew what was coming. "Oh, very 
 well," Mme. Jenesco essayed again. "I wanted to be 
 decent. I wanted to shield Melissine, even if she wasn't 
 anything but but " She didn't complete the phrase. 
 
 Partridge dominated her with his new-found author 
 ity. He had drawn himself up. He spoke direct to 
 Melissine. And his eyes were on Melissine. But there 
 was that about him to indicate that it was not Melissine 
 at all to whom he spoke or at whom he looked. It was 
 just as if Partridge were addressing his own conscience 
 standing there in front of him, that or a ghost. 
 
 "This woman," said Partridge, "began with the claim 
 that Mr. Tyrone was her father God save the mark! 
 She pretended that this would be sufficient collateral 
 evidence, if brought before the courts (Partridge was 
 quoting as best he could from Judge Bancroft) to sub- 
 
 263
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 stantiate her claim the fact that certain moneys had 
 been paid through a period of years, first to her mother 
 and then to herself. This has become the basis of a 
 blackmail " 
 
 "Don't you dare to call me a blackmailer," Mme. 
 Jenesco interjected. A mere scramble on her part to 
 get to the top of the heap. 
 
 But Partridge remained dominant. 
 
 "I have already informed her," he continued, "that 
 I accept full responsibility." Partridge was winging 
 like an eagle now very high up, sure of himself, poised, 
 making no effort. "I have told her that it was I who 
 was her father, that it was I who made the payments 
 of money." 
 
 "Without Mr. Tyrone knowing anything about it?" 
 this from Mme. Jenesco in a seducing softness. 
 
 "Without Mr. Tyrone knowing anything about it," he 
 averred. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco turned to Melissine. "That makes him 
 out to be a thief, at any rate," she said. "The money 
 wasn't his. He took it. He stole it." 
 
 "No, no !" said Melissine. 
 
 "But I say yes ! Stole it ! Ask him if he didn't ! He 
 ought to go to prison !" 
 
 "No! No!" protested Melissine again. She cast a 
 desperate look at Partridge. She confronted Mme. 
 Jenesco with a flaming face. "And, after all, what if he 
 did take any money? What's that? It wasn't for him 
 self. It must have been because he loved you so. It 
 was because he loved your mother so. Why, if I thought 
 
 264
 
 Mr. Partridge, Thief! 
 
 that that Mr. Buckhannon needed money and I knew 
 where some was that no one else really needed " 
 
 She came to a faltering stop, on the verge of tears. 
 It was Mme. Jenesco's attitude that stopped her. 
 
 "There are things about this that you don't under 
 stand at all," Mme. Jenesco said tensely. "Maybe, after 
 you know all the facts, you won't be so ready to defend 
 this thief !" 
 
 "Mr. Tyrone was not a party to the payments," said 
 Partridge. "Mr. Tyrone never concerned himself with 
 money matters. It was I who was entrusted with the 
 handling of his funds." 
 
 All right. Mme. Jenesco had him either way. 
 
 "So you did steal the money you gave us!" 
 
 "Yes," said Partridge; "I did!" 
 
 Saying which, Partridge must have discovered that 
 he had said everything that he had to say just then 
 to his conscience, at least. He wavered for a moment 
 or so longer just long enough to become quite sure of 
 this. Then he seemed to recognize that he was no longer 
 the soaring eagle that he had been. He was just the 
 old man who had been a servant in this house so long 
 a man old, decrepit, beginning to dodder. 
 
 Abruptly, in order to save his dignity and he saved 
 it he turned and picked up the forgotten breakfast-tray 
 and carried it out of the room. 
 
 Melissine had barely stirred. Possibly she hadn't 
 stirred at all. She had an appearance of arrested move 
 ment, of arrested something finer than movement flush 
 
 265
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 on her face, eyes liquid with blue fire, lips parted, and 
 her breast had ceased to rise and fall. Then she sighed. 
 
 But that seemed to be a long time after Partridge had 
 made his exit. 
 
 The interval had been long enough for Mme. Jenesco 
 to collapse "collapse" expresses it into the chair she 
 had vacated about a hundred years ago. It seemed like 
 a hundred years ago. Mme. Jenesco was flabbergasted. 
 She didn't know what to do. She wanted to laugh. She 
 wanted to cry. It was all too ridiculous. And yet it 
 wasn't funny at all. The old fool had put himself into 
 her power. He had confessed to a crime that could 
 send him up the river for the rest of his natural. (The 
 phrasing is Mme. Jenesco's.) And yet she didn't feel 
 that she had him in her power at all. 
 
 She looked up and found that Melissine was looking 
 at her, and the expression in Melissine's face made 
 Mme. Jenesco feel more uncomfortable still.
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 SUSPENDED JUDGMENT 
 
 WHAT was that thing you were saying about Par 
 tridge and my mother?" Melissine asked softly. 
 "It was nothing." 
 
 "But what I heard was more than nothing." 
 
 "I must have lost my temper we all say things that 
 we don't mean when we're excited." 
 
 "This was so much like something that you hinted 
 the other day that I was too stupid or ignorant then 
 to understand. It was when you spoke of passion. Don't 
 you remember?" 
 
 "Darling," said Belle. "Come to me! Come to my 
 arms !" 
 
 Instead of accepting the invitation, Melissine walked 
 over to the window and looked out. She did not smile. 
 Yet she showed no anger. Except for a certain pallor 
 there was no evidence of any great emotion about her 
 at all. 
 
 "I am so unhappy," said Belle, and she began to 
 weep. 
 
 Melissine remained at the window. She didn't turn. 
 But finally she spoke: 
 
 "Maybe you'd feel better if you let me go to Partridge 
 267
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 and tell him that you want to beg his pardon tell him 
 that you didn't mean all you said and that you know 
 he isn't a thief." 
 
 "No thank you," said Belle. "I'm going to my room." 
 And she got up, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth. 
 
 But Melissine turned now, and they faced each other. 
 
 "Are you going to remain with us, or are you going 
 away?" Melissine asked with perfect politeness. 
 
 This gave Belle pause. She had had enough of right 
 ing for the moment. She loved luxury more than strife. 
 But she couldn't let the great adventure die like this. 
 
 "What do you mean ?" she asked. 
 
 Melissine's answer was indirect. Melissine was show 
 ing a sharper sign of grief. But she was strong 
 with a strength that Belle found disconcerting. 
 
 "The house has a bad name/' said Melissine, with a 
 dejected little laugh; "and so have I, and father, and 
 mother, and Partridge. Surely you can't want to re 
 main in such a place, with people like Partridge and 
 me." 
 
 "What would you like to see me do?" Belle asked. 
 
 Melissine took time to think. She walked about the 
 room a bit, looking at this thing and that, while Mme. 
 Jenesco watched her, furtively, using the time to do 
 some thinking of her own. When Melissine turned their 
 eyes met. They were not so far apart. There was some 
 sort of a silent conflict between them before Melissine 
 spoke. 
 
 "I want you to stay." 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 268
 
 Suspended Judgment 
 
 "Yes; I'm sure." 
 
 "After all that's been said?" 
 
 "Because of what's been said," Melissine stated, strug 
 gling to express her thought. "You're wrong. You're 
 all wrong. It's because I know that you're all wrong 
 about me, and father, and mother, and Partridge, just 
 as the people of this street are wrong about this house 
 that I want you to stay here and find out the truth." 
 
 "Maybe this truth, when it does come out, will make 
 you wish it hadn't," said Belle. There was no menace 
 in her words; rather it was .meant as a friendly warn 
 ing. "You know as well as I do that Partridge has been 
 holding out something. Whether it's this money he 
 stole " 
 
 "He never stole!" 
 
 "Are you so sure?" 
 
 "I'd go into court and swear it," said Melissine. "If 
 it were necessary I'd swear that the money was all his." 
 
 "But what if it was mine?" 
 
 "I believe you'd do the same," Melissine answered 
 slowly. "You would if you'd stay here long enough. 
 Stay here long enough and you'll love him as much as 
 I do almost. Stay here long enough and you'll under 
 stand how I trust him even if there is something that 
 he can't tell. You ought to wish he was your father !" 
 
 All this, as if Melissine were under a spell, the spell 
 of a recent vision. And then she had emerged from 
 the spell somewhat. There was a lessening of the ten 
 sion. She made a confession of her own. The confes 
 sion was a plea for sympathy. 
 
 269
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "You know," she said softly, "that it does make a 
 difference when your father is dead. I've tried to pre 
 tend that it didn't. But it does. It wasn't like it was 
 with mother. I couldn't remember her. At least, my 
 eyes, and my hands, and my arms couldn't remember 
 her. But it's different now. They have been empty 
 since father went away." 
 
 And suddenly, yet without obvious transition, this 
 recent figure of light had become a tearful girl, very 
 lonely, very much in need of human consolation. 
 
 Ascribe Mme. Jenesco's action to any motive that you 
 will. Perhaps that lady was looking for something to 
 cling to quite as much as Melissine was. Or possibly 
 Mme. Jenesco wasn't willing to submit herself even to 
 Melissine's tearful scrutiny just then. There were tears 
 in Melissine's eyes. And Melissine's arms were out as 
 if to substantiate what she had to say about their 
 emptiness. 
 
 In any case, there was Mme. Jenesco with Melissine 
 huddled against her knees, and Mme. Jenesco's own arms 
 about Melissine. There had been nothing strained about 
 this reception Mme. Jenesco had given the girl, either. 
 One would have said that Mme. Jenesco's arms, just 
 then, were satisfying some craving of her own some 
 hunger also born of emptiness.
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH 
 
 THEY remained there for a rather long time, neither 
 of them mentioning again that singular confes 
 sion that Partridge had made. Neither of them 
 had said anything for a while except as tears and silence 
 may be said to be a sort of language. 
 
 As for Melissine, it was clear that she was thinking 
 of nothing except of the father that she had lost and 
 also of the father this other woman had rejected. The 
 Lord only knows what Mme. Jenesco may have been 
 thinking about thinking of those very matters, perhaps, 
 she would think about when she stood in the presence 
 of the Lord in an old-fashioned Judgment Day. 
 
 It was Melissine who first broke the silence. Melis 
 sine was an intuitional type. Possibly she had caught 
 some strand of the older woman's thought, felt that in 
 some odd way Mme. Jenesco was really the one who 
 stood in the greater need of sympathy. 
 
 "I've thought a lot about the things that people do 
 that they should not do," said Melissine. 
 
 "Have you" from Mme. Jenesco, with a species of 
 wonder. 
 
 "About sin!" 
 
 271
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "You don't know anything about sin." 
 
 Melissine nodded her head. But she wiped her eyes 
 before she looked up. Mme. Jenesco met her gaze, try 
 ing to read the riddle of the girl's train of thought. 
 
 "I know that it must be the most important thing in 
 the world," Melissine announced with calm judgment. 
 
 "For the love of " Mme. Jenesco checked herself. 
 She took a fresh turn. Maybe there was something 
 about this girl that she wouldn't have believed. Her 
 continuation was more in the nature of a leading ques 
 tion: "Why, you've never been out of the house after 
 dark in your life." 
 
 "I never have not when it was very dark." 
 
 "Then what are you talking about?" 
 
 "The whole Bible was written about sin and for the 
 sake of sinners," Melissine began. 
 
 "Oh !" and Mme. Jenesco breathed more easily. 
 
 "And all the law books," Melissine continued. "No 
 preacher ever talks about anything else at least, not 
 in any of the books of sermons I've ever run across. 
 Suppose you yourself were a sinner." 
 
 "Suppose I was," breathed Mme. Jenesco, cautiously. 
 
 "Don't you suppose that the world would at once feel 
 a greater interest in you and a greater love for you 
 than if you were just an ordinary, nice woman?" 
 
 "What gives you that idea?" Mme. Jenesco coun 
 tered. 
 
 "Everything," said Melissine. "That's just what I've 
 been talking about. The whole world the whole civil 
 ized world that part of the world that has ever written 
 
 272
 
 The Bridegroom Cometh 
 
 books, at least, has had the sinner's interest at heart 
 you know: 'The joy over one sinner,' and all that sort 
 of thing." 
 
 Melissine was patient, but it is to be feared that 
 Melissine was finding Mme. Jenesco a bit obtuse. She 
 waited when she saw that Mme. Jenesco was trying to 
 see a light. 
 
 "That's a new one on me," said Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 "Maybe that's because you were never a sinner your 
 self," said Melissine. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco suppressed an expression that had been 
 on the tip of her tongue. "Oh, I see what you're driv 
 ing at," she said. "You mean the reformers! Sure, 
 dearie ! I know what you mean. You won't get mad if 
 I tell you something!" 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 "I never cared much for these reformers. As a rule, 
 you'll find that they're just as rotten as the rest of 
 them." 
 
 Melissine studied Mme. Jenesco for a time, not sure 
 that she had seized Mme. Jenesco's meaning. But she 
 saw that she had. She said so. 
 
 "You mean the Philistines the holier-thah-thou kind." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco took a chance and said, "Yes." 
 
 "I don't blame you." 
 
 "Then we're of one mind," said Mme. Jenesco with 
 almost her first smile. This dipping into the waters of 
 transgression hadn't pleased her any too much. 
 
 "Are we of one mind?" queried Melissine. 
 
 "Of course we are." 
 
 273
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Then why were you so hard on poor Partridge? I 
 call him Grandy. He used to play horse for me when 
 I was little ! He taught me how to read and spell ! If 
 I was thirsty or frightened in the night, he was there. 
 His voice was so soft and his face was so gentle ! When 
 I used to say 'Now-I-lay-me' I used to think of God 
 Himself as a sort of great white Grandy there leaning 
 over me, and I'd feel happy and willing to go to sleep." 
 
 "I didn't want to be hard on the old man," Mme. 
 Jenesco whispered. 
 
 Melissine reached up and touched her cheek with soft 
 fingers. 
 
 "And I know," said Melissine, "that you really didn't 
 mean what you said about your mother and my mother." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco's answer was premeditated. 
 
 "No," she said, after brief but serious thought; "I 
 swear to God that I didn't mean it, and that I shall 
 never say such a thing again." 
 
 "I love you," said Melissine. She gave a tart flavor 
 to the otherwise rather tame assertion by adding: "So 
 does Grandy." 
 
 "How do you know ?" 
 
 "Because I had my doubts, for a while, and I made 
 him come right out and say that he did. And now I 
 think that both of us must love him more than ever 
 if that is dearly possible." (Melissine's rendition of 
 the French Dieu possible.} 
 
 This may have been a little too much for Mme. Jenesco 
 right away. She was from a part of the world where 
 such things were not done. 
 
 274
 
 The Bridegroom Cometh 
 
 She changed the conversation to what she knew would 
 be pleasanter lines. "And when," she asked, "is that 
 young Mr. Buckhannon coming back?" 
 
 "Next week." 
 
 "Listen," said Belle. "If I was you, sweetheart, I 
 wouldn't tell him anything about all this. You know; 
 it'd only worry him. And, as a rule, the less you tell 
 men the better you are off anyway."
 
 DARK O' THE NIGHT 
 
 WHEN Eugene Buckhannon came back to Cinna 
 mon Street it was with an almost painful sense 
 of loss. At the same time he couldn't tell whether 
 he should be grateful for this loss or whether he should 
 go and drown himself because of it. 
 
 Young men are often subject to these contrary reac 
 tions, while life is still fluid, and while they are still 
 confined to this fluid condition like the larva of certain 
 insects, condemned at first to a purely aquatic existence, 
 but destined later to the development of wings and a 
 life in the immeasurable air. 
 
 Buckhannon's sense of loss came down to this: 
 
 He had been through a wonderful experience. It had 
 been a species of dream. He had thought it was real. 
 But it couldn't have been real. Nothing real could have 
 been so wonderful. Now he was waked up. He had 
 his feet on the earth. He was altogether sane. It was 
 the old glamour that he was to find missing the old 
 dream quality the poetic touch of madness. He had lost 
 all this in Tennessee. 
 
 And what was that thing Lafcadio Hearn had said 
 about there being a touch of ghostliness about all great 
 
 276
 
 Dark o f the Night 
 
 art? Didn't the same apply equally well to all great 
 living? Life would be brutal, life would be swinish, 
 without its tinge of unearthliness, its occasional mist 
 of hallucination. 
 
 Yet now he was going to find that Melissine was just 
 an ordinary girl; lovely, doubtless, but no lovelier than 
 many of the many, many lovely creatures of his native 
 State. 
 
 To bring him back to the larva or wriggler figure of 
 speech, said wriggler had wriggled to the surface of its 
 fluid habitat and glimpsed a wider world. Then, as 
 wrigglers will, when not obedient to any higher im 
 pulse, he had settled down again. 
 
 But straightway he was back in Cinnamon Street 
 again, once more the spell was upon him. 
 
 It had so happened that his train had brought him 
 into New York late. It was far too late to call. It 
 was going on eleven o'clock. Naturally, the best thing 
 he could do was to go straight to his hotel and get 
 his clothes unpacked and take a good bath and then 
 go to bed and get a good night's sleep so as to be fresh 
 in the morning. That was the sensible thing. He had 
 it all reasoned out. 
 
 But if there is one thing in the world that youth will 
 not do that thing is to be obedient to the dictates of the 
 sensible. 
 
 Buckhannon did go to his usual hotel a small one, 
 far down-town in the neighborhood of Washington 
 Square not so very far from Cinnamon Street. And 
 he took his bath. But long before the water was drawn 
 
 277
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 he knew that it wasn't going to be bed right afterward. 
 Already Cinnamon Street was calling to him with a 
 thousand siren voices. 
 
 Out into the street he went, no lonper feeling tired, 
 wondering how he could have stayed away so long 
 two weeks and he had almost decided to make it three 
 on the petition of his mother! 
 
 Almost midnight when he rounded Cape Tony Zam- 
 boni and made the dark roadstead of the familiar har 
 bor. The very atmosphere of the street, to drop the 
 figure, was different from any street through which he 
 had passed. To one side of No. 6 was an abandoned 
 smithy over which there hung an ailanthus tree or so- 
 called tree-of-heaven and this was in full flower, thus 
 shedding about it a faint, sweet perfume something like 
 the perfume of the petunias in his mother's garden. But 
 those were locusts in the graveyard and these also were 
 in bloom a redolence of young summer a fragrance 
 like that of wild grape and wild honeysuckle. 
 
 When afflicted by spring- fever in his early boyhood, 
 and the vague 1 seasonal yearnings of the primitive man, 
 and he had wandered along lonely streams, back in old 
 Carroll County, it had been a fragrance like this that 
 had inspired his breedings and found lodgment in the 
 back of his brain. It all returned to him now. He was 
 the primitive man. This was the lonely wilderness. He 
 was seeking his mate. This perfume was the sign of 
 her presence. 
 
 Thus the very air of Cinnamon Street had brought 
 back, in a measure, what he thought he had lost. 
 
 278
 
 Dark o' the Night 
 
 He had taken the other side of the street. He came 
 to a pause just opposite to No. 6. He looked at it as 
 a recently disembodied spirit may be supposed to take 
 its first look at some familiar marble mansion in the 
 sky. The same touch of awe! The same stir of fear 
 ful expectancy ! The same assurance of joy to come ! 
 And possibly the same sort of recognition as of some 
 thing seen and deeply loved before if there be any 
 thing in the theory of reincarnations ! 
 
 To all ordinary eyes No. 6 would have appeared as 
 merely a once noble dwelling, still with a touch of the 
 grand about it, also with that touch of tragic mystery 
 possessed by all old houses that stand apart in the dark 
 ness and silence of a deserted street. But to Buckhan- 
 / 
 
 non the house was filled as with an inner light. This 
 light was radiated from Melissine. With the eyes of 
 his soul he could see her lying there asleep in an upper 
 chamber undisturbed and as if native to the radiance 
 about her, as if she had been a creature of the sun. 
 
 Was it possible that he had aspired to make a crea 
 ture like this his bride ! Would God and the angels 
 ever forgive him for such an effrontery! Would he 
 ever be clean enough and otherwise worthy enough! 
 
 These weren't questions. These were exclamations. 
 Each exclamation was in the nature of a prayer. 
 
 For the matter of that, there was the same sort of 
 feeling about him as he might have experienced had he 
 been back in Notre Dame. And his senses abetted him 
 in this. The mingled perfume of the locusts and the 
 heaven- tree became the pale blue smoke of the swinging 
 
 279
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 censers. Once more the muffled, muted sounds of the 
 great city fell into the majestic "cadences and harmonies 
 of a mighty organ. This was a Miserere that was being 
 played over a city of the dead five million sleepers 
 who to-morrow would rise in the glory of the Lord. 
 
 Buckhannon's thought, but a thought developed by his 
 thought of Melissine. No wonder that the philosophers 
 say that all great poems, temples, songs, and battles, 
 even, have their origin in some man's thought of some 
 one woman! 
 
 But various philosophers have also pointed out that 
 just as a man attains his highest flight something is al 
 most bound to happen to him "pride goeth before a 
 fall," and so on. 
 
 While Buckhannon still stood there seeing things 
 otherwise invisible seeing them with the eyes of his 
 soul the eyes of his body recovered their vision, re 
 covered their ascendancy. 
 
 At first he could not persuade himself that his eyes 
 were not deceiving him. This was a hallucination sure 
 enough. This was something spun from the incanta 
 tions of those three he-witches : the druggist, the coach 
 man, and the policeman. 
 
 But what he saw or thought that he saw was this : 
 
 The unlighted door of No. 6 had opened. From the 
 inner darkness a figure had emerged. The figure was 
 that of a woman. The woman was dressed in black.
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII 
 "KILLEEVY, o KILLEEVY 1" 
 
 BUT it wasn't very long before he had identified 
 this sinister shape. This was the Jenesco woman 
 Belle ! and there in the dark there was a 
 tingling in his body that his soul spurned. The skin of 
 his neck was as if gifted with a memory of her torrid 
 breath, and his sense of smell with a souvenir of musk. 
 This was night, and the night was warm, with a dark 
 ness and a solitude about it like that of mating-places 
 when the world was young. 
 
 What was she doing? Where was she going? What 
 errand had brought "her from the house like this? 
 
 There was no mistaking her. There was a movement 
 about her, a grace and a sinuosity, that was as unmis 
 takable as a glimpse of her face would have been. Her 
 face came back to his memory also the red lips and 
 the dark-burning eyes, the pearl-white skin all of one 
 tone that made her coppery hair so warmly rich. 
 
 And she had kissed him. She had put her arms about 
 him. She had told him that she loved him. She was a 
 keeper of secrets that would be his for the asking. He 
 could go over there now, if he wanted to, and call her 
 by her first name. He could embrace her if he wanted 
 
 281
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 to and she would tell him everything he wanted to know. 
 And maybe, at the same time, he would be doing a 
 good deed be saving her from something saving her 
 from some one she was now going to meet. 
 
 His conscience spoke to him : "You're a hog. You're 
 filled with lust. You're not thinking of saving her from 
 anything. You merely hanker for the flesh." 
 
 He answered : "I know I am." 
 
 But the inner voice had given him pause. It had 
 made him think of Melissine. Wasn't she dwelling in 
 mystery too? Wasn't she innocent? unaware of what 
 was going on ? accepting all with a perfect faith ? Yea, 
 Lord ! There was a white majesty about Melissine just 
 now that made him ashamed of himself, gave him an 
 ascendency over his lower self. 
 
 But he still lingered there. He saw Mme. Jenesco 
 turn to the left along Cinnamon Street, in the direction 
 of the abandoned chapel. He saw her swallowed up in 
 the shadows that lay so thick along the chapel fence. 
 Once more she appeared a fleeting shadow, disquiet 
 ing, enigmatic, under the pale shine of a gas-lamp and 
 then she was gone. 
 
 It all made him feel a trifle sick, a bit desperate. He 
 made no effort to follow her, though. For one night he 
 had seen enough. He returned to his hotel and there 
 fell into troubled dreams. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Mme. Jenesco had gone to keep 
 a rendezvous. She was cautious about it. Once well 
 within the shadows of the locust trees she paused and 
 
 282
 
 "Killeevy, O Killeevy!" 
 
 looked. She was half persuaded to turn back. She 
 went forward again. She had seen a darker shadow 
 huddled on the stone coping at the base of the fence 
 a little farther along. This darker shadow resolved 
 itself into the familiar semblance of old Goodenough, 
 the coachman. 
 
 "So you've come," said Goodenough softly. 
 
 He had pulled himself to his feet, partly by aid of 
 the iron picket to w hich he clung. He stood there waver 
 ing like something the substance of which was a mere 
 coagulation of shadow. 
 
 "What did you want?" queried Mme. Jenesco with a 
 mingling of resentment and interest. 
 
 "I wanted to feast these eyes upon you," spake the 
 poet. 
 
 "You've been doing that ever since I came to this 
 street," Mme. Jenesco replied. "That first day, there 
 in the house, when you came with your wreath, you 
 stared at me as if I was a ghost. Ever since then 
 you've kept it up every time you've seen Miss Tyrone 
 and me out for a walk, every time we hired you for a 
 drive." 
 
 "You've got a warm heart," said Goodenough, staring 
 at her. 
 
 "If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. Asking me to meet 
 you like this ! And me agreeing to it ! Most women 
 would have called a cop!" 
 
 "It was my only chance," Goodenough replied softly. 
 "The cop on this beat is an old owl named Hickcock. 
 This is the only time of night while he is eating his 
 
 283
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 supper around at the Dutchman's that he isn't spying 
 about. And in the daytime it's the druggist. And I 
 did want to see you to speak to you. Twice now I've 
 dreamed of the Angel of Death up in the haymow 
 where I sleep and the third time you know !" 
 
 A weird smile appeared on old Goodenough's mask 
 of a face. Here where they stood the shadows were 
 such that Goodenough's face was transformed to a de 
 gree transfigured even; he was the semblance of a man 
 with deep-set eyes under a broad forehead, a straight 
 nose, a mouth expressive of controlled but passionate 
 feeling. He had become the figure of Goodenough as 
 Goodenough might have looked had he developed into 
 a poet sure enough, or as Goodenough might have looked, 
 say, thjrty years ago. 
 
 His allusion to the Dark Angel was sufficient to hold 
 Mme. Jenesco where she was, further to arouse her 
 curiosity and her sympathy also, perhaps. 
 
 "You said that you had something to tell me," she 
 said. 
 
 "I did." But Goodenough was hesitant. 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 "I have already told you a part of it," Goodenough 
 replied. "I asked the favor of your presence here as 
 one might who is condemned to die. There was a woman 
 who came to this house upward of thirty years ago. 
 The young Tyrone brought her. She was beautiful. 
 No woman was more correctly named. Her name was 
 Belle." 
 
 "Belle!" whispered Mme. Jenesco. 
 284
 
 "Killeevy, O Killeevyr 
 
 "Tell me," pleaded Goodenough. His own voice was 
 but little more than a murmur. "Did you ever know 
 any one named that?" 
 
 "That was my mother's name," Mme. Jenesco an 
 swered with bated breath, so to speak. 
 
 "She was very beautiful," said Goodenough. "She 
 was very beautiful, but she was not for Nathan Tyrone 
 this woman this other woman named Belle. It was 
 because you looked like her oh, it was something in 
 your eyes, and it was something in the sound of your 
 voice and it was in the way your head was balanced 
 on your shoulders when you walked that made me 
 want to see you here made me crave this as the one 
 last thing the earth could give me except the resting 
 place for this broken and misused old body of mine." 
 
 Again Mme. Jenesco spoke in her bated whisper : 
 
 "What was this woman to you ?" 
 
 "Everything!" 
 
 "You?" 
 
 "My gray hair was black and curly then," replied 
 Goodenough softly. "My shoulders were the shoulders 
 of old John L. Sullivan and him in his prime. I was 
 a wine-drinker then, and ah the old familiar juice 
 made a Greek god of me a god of poetry and love ! 
 There were fast horses then poems in horseflesh the 
 one- footed horses of the Greek urns Centaurs and I 
 drove them for the elder Pliny, wherever and whenever 
 I would up through the bosky glens of Central Park 
 a stop at the old tavern on the top of McGowan's Pass 
 and on to the rocks and romance of the sparkling 
 
 285
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Harlem. The Harlem was a river then, and the banks 
 of it were like the Elysian Fields for such as sought 
 solitude and the delights of Hymen." 
 
 "All that's changed," breathed Mme. Jenesco irrele 
 vantly. 
 
 "All that is changed," Goodenough echoed solemnly. 
 "She was my bride for a week. Often I come now at 
 night to look into this old acre of green. It was here 
 that I saw her last. It was here that she kissed me 
 good-by 'Killeevy, O Killeevy !' " 
 
 "What does 'Killeevy' mean?" 
 
 " Tis a reference to a poem," said Goodenough. 
 
 "What poem?" Mme. Jenesco was speaking as one 
 will to cast a mantle, so to speak, over her naked and 
 shivering thought. 
 
 "A poem that has been the story of my life," said 
 Goodenough. "It's called The Churchyard Bride.'" 
 And he quoted as much for his own delectation, one 
 would have said, as for that of the woman who gazed 
 and listened: 
 
 " 'He pressed her lips as the words were spoken, 
 
 Killeevy, O Killeevy ! 
 
 And his banshee's wail now far and broken 
 Murmured "Death" as he gave the token . . .' " 
 
 "And was that all that you wanted to say to me?" 
 asked Mme. Jenesco with a little shiver. 
 
 "I wanted to know what became of her," said Good- 
 enough, strangled. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 286
 
 "Killeevy, O Kitteevy!" 
 
 "Of the Belle who had eyes like yours." 
 
 There was a long, long silence the comparative silence 
 of lower Manhattan late at night. But there were all 
 of those subdued sounds which Buckhannon had heard 
 a while ago. And perhaps for these others, standing 
 here now in Cinnamon Street, the hoots and the moans 
 and the multiple chorus of small human voices trans 
 lated themselves into organ music. 
 
 "My mother died fifteen years ago/' said Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 "Happy?" 
 
 "Unhappy!" 
 
 Goodenough shed a tear. 
 
 "There is only one more thing that I would ask," he 
 announced in his halting whisper. "Before she died 
 perchance in the last moments did she mention any 
 one name in particular?" 
 
 "She mentioned some one by the name of Ernest. She 
 wouldn't tell me who he was. Tell me ; was "it you she 
 meant ?" 
 
 Goodenough breathed slowly. His eyes were no longer 
 held so steadily on her who stood here in front of him. 
 When he spoke it was as if to himself, but he spoke with 
 a species of satisfaction that had commendation in it 
 as if he had intended some one else besides Mme. Jenesco 
 to overhear. 
 
 "That will remain our secret hers and mine !"
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 THE SMELL OF LOCUSTS 
 
 THE house in Cinnamon Street, old No. 6, had 
 become the whole world for Eugene Buckhan- 
 non. All his earthly life was centered there. Did 
 it cease to exist, then he would himself have become a 
 mere errant spirit in space. 
 
 So he reflected, feverish, on his sleepless pillow. 
 
 His uneasy imagination took a wider flight. For No. 
 6 revealed itself as the world in a wider sense. It was 
 a symbol of the universe, a symbol of life, and of the 
 Creator of life! This house with a bad name held 
 within it the whole story of creation, from the First 
 Book of Moses to St. John the Divine and his Apoca 
 lypse! This house had appeared when the part of New 
 York in which it stood was a garden. Then had come 
 death, and God knew why. And since then death and 
 misery and mystery had taken it for their dwelling- 
 place, along with the descendants of the original Adam 
 and the original Eve just as these things had made a 
 dwelling-place of the world at large. 
 
 Buckhannon turned his pillow over and cooled his 
 temples. s 
 
 But why, since these things had ever abided in the 
 288
 
 The Smell of Locusts 
 
 world, did people care to go on with the burden of 
 living? Why the fretful, mortal fascinations of this 
 greater house with a bad name which was the world? 
 
 Ah and an inspiration came to him as he now lay 
 there staring wide-eyed up into the darkness it was be 
 cause even in this cursed world there had always been 
 a memory and an expectation. There had always been 
 that golden glint of love as of something experienced, 
 as of something yet to come! 
 
 It was still early in the morning when Buckhannon 
 returned to Cinnamon Street. The sun was shining. 
 The sun and the birds, as well, were in the locust trees, 
 and the smell of these were in the air recalling every 
 thing that he had ever felt of romance and aspiration. 
 It was like the breath of Melissine herself. So his de 
 voted mind was telling him. He ran up the steps of the 
 high stoop. His hand trembled at the knocker. 
 
 This was why life was worth living. 
 
 And scarcely had the knocker fallen than the door 
 swung open. Buckhannon stepped forward a light in 
 his eyes, a song in his heart. It was Mme. Jenesco who 
 was there. It was she who had opened the door. It 
 was she who stood in front of him now. And it would 
 have been hard to say which one of them was the more 
 surprised, the more confused. 
 
 "I I beg your pardon," Buckhannon faltered. 
 
 "Oh, it's you!" said Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 And her own embrassment was such that it constituted 
 a delicious shiver something that she had almost for- 
 
 289
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 gotten as a relic of her remote past, something that she 
 had never expected to experience again in the presence 
 of any man. 
 
 She would have looked for such an experience in the 
 presence of Buckhannon least of all. She had thought 
 quite a little concerning Buckhannon, had talked not a 
 little about him to Melissine. Mme. Jenesco had never 
 approved of Buckhannon : Instinctively she had felt that 
 this boy this farmer would he her enemy. And, any 
 way, what was he as a possible husband for Melissine? 
 Mme. Jenesco had visioned something else as a husband 
 for Melissine possibly a rich old man some one who 
 was rich at any rate and familiar to Broadway, familiar 
 to Fifth Avenue, even. 
 
 Why not? Didn't every girl have a right to be am 
 bitious? And Mme. Jenesco herself might become a girl 
 again, with a foil like Melissine. 
 
 But here and now, Mme. Jenesco had felt a thrill in 
 the very center of her being, a shiver, a yearning, a 
 panic. All at once she was aware again that this boy was 
 beautiful. This was youth. This was pure young 
 strength. This was a passion of love. 
 
 Buckhannon himself must have felt a curious reaction. 
 
 This was not Melissine who stood in front of him. 
 It was Woman. 
 
 He hadn't noticed it before, how beautiful this 
 woman was. For the matter of that he had never seen her 
 with this look in her face, not even that time she told 
 him she loved him. Nor had he ever seen her dressed like 
 this. She didn't seem to be wearing much else than some 
 
 290
 
 The Smell of Locusts 
 
 sort of a silk dressing-gown black, lined with coral 
 pink something that left her very lithe and supple and 
 soft. Her dark red hair fell heavily about her ivory 
 face. This gave an added depth to her eyes. 
 
 "How do you do?" Buckhannon stammered. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco gave him a mysterious smile. She 
 put out her left hand her smooth round arm bare to 
 above the elbow. As an act of simple politeness, Buck 
 hannon would have shaken hands with her. Perhaps that 
 was all that she had intended. He thought that it was. 
 But her hand clung to his. Her hand was hot and 
 moist. A sort of electricity came from it a dynamic 
 force that made Buckhannon's heart beat faster. Her 
 perfume reached him musty, suggestive of sandalwood, 
 suggestive of deep tropic forests. 
 
 "How do you do ?" she murmured. 
 
 "I am well. I hope " 
 
 Her smile checked him. Her smile was equivalent 
 to the slight magnetic drag of her hand. 
 
 "Come in and tell me about it," she said. 
 
 And she was leading him helpless, but unconscious of 
 his helplessness conscious only of a certain trouble 
 his delayed meeting with Melissine, his physical unrest 
 in the presence of this woman. He couldn't be brusk. 
 He couldn't be impolite. She gave him no opportunity to 
 speak until they were in the shadowy drawing-room. 
 
 "How is Miss Tyrone?" Buckhannon inquired. 
 
 "Silly boy!" said Mme. Jenesco, with a warm, but 
 rather sad little laugh. "How impetuous you are! 
 Haven't you time for a single word with any of the 
 
 291
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 others who may be fond of you?" She led him, con 
 fused, to a sofa. She lessened his confusion by telling 
 him that Melissine would doubtless be down shortly. She 
 added to it by telling him that she wanted to talk to 
 him about Melissine. 
 
 They were still standing there at the side of the sofa. 
 Mme. Jenesco turned and confronted Buckhannon with 
 her face very close to his. He had thought that she was 
 taller that she was. Her face was as if directly under his 
 own. Her two vibrant hands were on his arms. He was 
 more conscious than ever of her animal heat, her jungle 
 perfume. He was dazzled by her eyes and her mouth. 
 
 All this while his whole heart, his soul, and his con 
 science, were rioting in a perfect frenzy of fidelity for 
 Melissine. 
 
 "You're both so very young," said Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 And she drew him down to a place at her side on the 
 sofa.
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 IN THE MOMENT OF NEED 
 
 1 DON'T quite understand you." said Buckhannon, 
 lamely. 
 "Life has so many wonderful opportunities," said 
 Mme. Jenesco, with the sure instinct that she was utter 
 ing a thought to which Buckhannon could subscribe. Her 
 voice was warm and soothing. Again she smiled into 
 his face, this time with her eyes half closed. 
 
 "That's right," said Buckhannon. 
 
 "No boy should rush into marriage," said Mme. 
 Jenesco, "until he knows something of the world. And 
 you're such a boy so full of ideals so ready to trust 
 every one!" 
 
 "What makes you say that?" demanded Buckhannon, 
 embarrassed. 
 
 Mme. Jenesco didn't answer immediately. She kept 
 her eyes on his. She laughed softly. 
 
 "Why, you're nothing but a child," she teased him. 
 "You have been thinking about marriage when you 
 haven't the slightest conception even of the most funda 
 mental facts of marriage." 
 
 Quite abruptly she got to her feet, leaning for a 
 lingering moment or two on Buckhannon as she did so. 
 
 293
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 She murmured something about making sure of their 
 privacy. She brushed past him and went over to the 
 door leading into the hall. She listened there an instant. 
 She closed the door and locked it. She went to the other 
 door at the back of the room. She listened there an in 
 stant also, then made sure that this was closed and 
 fastened. 
 
 Buckhannon watched her. 
 
 He was well enough aware of some impending dan 
 ger a sort of a growl in his breast, such as a hound 
 might feel in the forest at night when it scents the pre 
 sence of a strange wild taint in the air. And yet there 
 was a fascination about this as well. The room was 
 shadowy. The room was very silent. The room was 
 redolent of tropic breaths and fragrances. The room 
 itself was become a jungle. 
 
 It was more of the jungle than ever as Mme. Jenesco 
 turned swiftly from the second door and came back to 
 ward Buckhannon with her eyes fixed upon him and a 
 smile on her lips. Her hair had become a mane. The 
 robe she wore had slipped from one of her shoulders. It 
 looked as if it would have fallen altogether if she 
 hadn't clutched it about her waist. There was a sinuous 
 grace about her. There was a sort of panting eagerness. 
 
 "Partridge is in the kitchen," she announced without 
 other explanation. "You won't be able to see Melissine 
 for half an hour yet, anyway. When you came she was 
 just preparing to take her bath." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco leaned over Buckhannon, presumably 
 to straighten a taper in one of the wall brackets. She 
 
 294
 
 In the Moment of Need 
 
 couldn't quite reach it. She had to kneel on the sofa, 
 again lean on Buckhannon for support. She slid down 
 beside him, one of her legs doubled up beneath her, the 
 black silk gown in disarray, the pink lining of it falling 
 away from the clear and solid whiteness of her throat 
 and shoulders. Her hands were on him. 
 
 "There is so much I've wanted to tell you," she whis 
 pered, and she wasn't smiling any more. "There is so 
 much that I could save you from. I know that no 
 thought of evil would ever come into your dear head. 
 You're so innocent!" 
 
 "What did you want to tell me?" asked Buckhannon. 
 
 "Oh, why should you have come back to this old house 
 of the bad name!" she exclaimed by way of answer. 
 "You deserve something better. It can only mean suffer 
 ing for you. It has meant so much suffering to me! 
 I've thought so much about you since that other talk we 
 had. I feel that I hadn't ought to have said anything to 
 you about it. But I had to. I couldn't let you throw 
 yourself away. And I've had no one no man I could 
 talk to since my husband left me " 
 
 "I'm sorry " 
 
 "No, be glad ! He was a dirty little mutt ! If I could 
 think of any way I could pay him back !" She brought 
 one of Buckhannon's hands to her bare breast and held 
 it there. "See? My heart doesn't beat. He broke it. 
 So I've brought it here where my mother lived with her 
 broken heart." 
 
 "Your mother?" 
 
 "Didn't you know?" 
 
 295
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 'Know what?" 
 "That Mr. Tyrone kept my mother here- 
 
 She broke off. She took Buckhannon's other hand 
 and brought that one also to her breast. 
 
 "I didn't know " Buckhannon faltered. 
 
 "Ah, poor boy, it's an outrage for them to try and 
 make a sucker of you ! But there !" cried Mme. Jenesco, 
 in consternation. "Perhaps I hadn't ought to have men 
 tioned it. I ought to have guessed " 
 
 "Guessed what?" 
 
 "Nothing ; but you were so fine, so trusting !" 
 
 She held his two hands where they were with one 
 of hers. She coiled her free hand about his face and 
 neck. Inexplicably her bare arm had slipped about his 
 head and she had drawn his head forward. She kissed 
 him. 
 
 Buckhannon hated himself. There was death in his 
 heart. Half of his heart was dead. But the other half 
 was riotous, hot. It was that way through the whole of 
 his being. One part of him was dead. One part of him 
 was surging. 
 
 There was even time for a leisurely survey of this 
 situation. In the Metropolitan Museum he had often 
 paused to look at a piece of statuary there, although it 
 had always struck him as crude and ugly the effigy of 
 two naked figures engaged in a death struggle and in 
 tended to represent man's higher self fighting against his 
 lower. In the statue it was the better self that rose 
 triumphant. Here and now with himself the contrary 
 was true. 
 
 296
 
 In the Moment of Need 
 
 But even while he recognized this truth, and recog 
 nized that the truth was damnation, he couldn't lift a 
 finger to intervene. His will his higher, civilized will 
 was in abeyance, utterly. 
 
 What was the higher will, anyway, compared with that 
 other the older, the primordial will, the will of Adam 
 this force that had turned the first protoplasmic cell into 
 the squirming life of the planet that had developed 
 gnats and elephants that had kept the generations of 
 women and men unbroken in the world in spite of wars, 
 famines, plagues, slavery, griefs, disillusionments ? 
 
 So he argued with himself even while he was telling 
 himself that he was base, foul, unspeakable, that hence 
 forward he should know Melissine no more. 
 
 Yet, curiously enough, he was the victim of another 
 obsession. He was afraid that Mme. Jenesco would 
 think that he lacked appreciation, that he wasn't grate 
 ful for the really enormous favor that she was conferring 
 upon him. 
 
 He was haunted by the phrase : "All that a woman has 
 to give!" 
 
 And what if he should spurn this offering of hers! 
 Then he would be a cad ! The worst of it was that even 
 here his conscience was bothering him accusing him of 
 this ingratitude! He denied the accusation aloud. 
 
 "I want you to know how wonderful I think you are," 
 he said. "I want you to know how grateful I am !" 
 
 This when his heart was breaking a part of his heart. 
 No ; that part of his heart was already dead. Melissine 
 was dead. That part of him that had ever loved Melis- 
 
 297
 
 The HoU'Se With a Bad Name 
 
 sine was dead. Would it be the right thing now for him 
 to marry Mme. Jenesco? Could he do anything less? 
 
 Mme. Jenesco had pressed his head to her bosom. 
 Her fingers were playing in his hair. 
 
 Then, in a moment of silence, he heard the sound of 
 a harp. It was Melissine, in the adjoining room, unsus 
 picious of his presence, and she was playing an air that 
 had become very dear to him. The "Indian Serenade" 
 
 t 
 
 I arise from dreams of thee! 
 
 He managed to get to his feet. Without a word he 
 went out into the hall. There he stood dizzily for a 
 space. He left the house.
 
 CHAPTER LI 
 
 MR. TANTALUS 
 
 HE was still dizzy when he reached the sidewalk. 
 If such a thing were possible, he was feeling as 
 a man might feel after having his head cut off. 
 Figuratively speaking, he was like that. All that was best 
 of him had been severed. The proud head was gone 
 that part of the human anatomy upon which so many mil 
 lions of years had been devoted in the slow work of 
 evolution. Nothing was left but his body the part of 
 him that was vile. 
 
 He would have walked away altogether, but he felt 
 incapable of even a prolonged physical life. Besides, 
 what was left to him of an intelligence that part of his 
 intelligence that resided like that of an alligator in his 
 backbone warned him that he was a spectacle. Even 
 the street-sweepers would see how vile he was. 
 
 He had a touch of derisive humor. The street- 
 sweepers would want to sweep him up and carry him 
 off in their dust-bins. 
 
 The peace and the melancholy, and also the unworld- 
 liness of the old churchyard called to him. It had been 
 a place of inspirations before a place of cleanliness, 
 fragrance, fresh young hope in spite of all those good 
 
 299
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 old folks a moldering in their graves. He wished that 
 he was in his grave. He went around by the familiar 
 gate at the side of the abandoned chapel. He went into 
 the depths of the yard where the lilac and the syringa 
 bushes would shield him from the idle curiosity of the 
 street. When there he ventured yet closer to No. 6 
 so close that he could hear Melissine still busy with her 
 harp. He could hear her sing. 
 
 He was Tantalus. Here he was dying of thirst. There 
 were the life-saving waters up to his chin yet out of 
 reach yet out of reach! He dropped down to one of 
 the moss grown old stone benches of the place. He 
 dropped his head into his hands. 
 
 He didn't notice it when the elderly Mr. Partridge, 
 very clean and proper, but with a long blue apron pro 
 tecting most of his clothes, came from the back garden 
 of No. 6 and into the churchyard. Also Partridge wore a 
 pair of heavy old gloves. He carried a trowel and a 
 sickle. It may be mentioned that it was also part of 
 Partridge's work a duty purely self-imposed to keep 
 this graveyard looking neat. He was still butler, so to 
 speak, to some of the earlier Tyrones who had been 
 buried here. 
 
 And Partridge had already uprooted a number of 
 weeds, had already cut quite a little grass communing 
 with himself betimes, as old folks will when thus en 
 gaged, on the sweetness of sleeping in the good 
 brown earth with a tidy bit of lawn for coverlet, old 
 trees standing guard, the gentle sky overhead with its 
 
 300
 
 Mr. Tantalum 
 
 perpetual promise of an everlasting heaven when he be 
 came aware of that pensive figure on the stone bench. 
 
 The stranger was exceedingly pensive, as Partridge 
 could see bowed low, as if crushed down by the burden 
 on his shoulders ; face hidden in his hands, as if he 
 wished never again to confront the light of day. Par 
 tridge's sympathy was moved. He knew, however, that 
 at times like this there was no better cure than silence 
 and solitude no better cure except one. But Partridge 
 kept looking in the stranger's direction, perhaps struck by 
 the thought that there was something familiar about him. 
 Then Partridge made out who it was. 
 
 "Mr. Buckhannon !" he muttered. 
 
 What ailed him? Why did he sit here like this while 
 Melissine awaited him? What was wrong? Partridge 
 did not know, but he suspected, as a mother might have 
 done, how much these two young people loved each 
 other. 
 
 Partridge sought council from the grass, from the 
 trees, from the sky, even from the dead Tyrones. He 
 turned and hurried back into the house. 
 
 "Eugene!" 
 
 "Melissine !" 
 
 Buckhannon had lifted his head to find Melissine there. 
 
 "What's the matter?" she asked. 
 
 She had remained hesitant a dozen paces from him, 
 fear and sympathy, love and doubt, joy and pain all 
 rippling on the surface of her. 
 
 "Oh, Melissine!" was all he could say. 
 301
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 He got to his feet. There was an added eloquence 
 in his dark eyes, the way he put his hand to her in ap 
 peal. 
 
 "I've been waiting for you so," she said. And this fact 
 was momentarily larger than any other. Just for the 
 moment it was. It brought her closer to him, ready to be 
 taken into his arms. 
 
 More than ever was Buckhannon the Tantalus. 
 
 So he had dreamed of taking her into his arms as a 
 man dying of thirst might have dreamed of plunging his 
 face into the waters of a pure and sparkling spring. 
 
 "You are my life ! You are my hope of heaven !" he 
 said. 
 
 How could he ever tell her about that scene through 
 which he had just now passed with Mme. Jenesco? Why 
 should be tell her? It would only cause her pain. And 
 yet, how could he lie to her to the extent of acting as 
 it nothing had happened as if he were clean as if he 
 were fit? 
 
 Melissine was sparkling clean and pure a very well- 
 spring of cleansing and life-giving spirit sure enough. 
 With a contrite heart, a prayer for forgiveness, Buckhan 
 non proclaimed the truth to himself as he tenderly em 
 braced her. 
 
 They were hidden from the street. They were hidden 
 from the houses back of the churchyard. So they were 
 all alone. They were hidden even from the tombstones 
 not that these mattered very much; for these were like 
 bent old men and women, blind and deaf, who had noth 
 ing to do with this world of the young any more. And 
 
 302
 
 Mr. Tantalus 
 
 the locust-trees shed down their special perfume like 
 a benediction. 
 
 "Do you love me?" gasped Buckhannon at last. 
 
 As if every look and gesture of Melissine hadn't 
 answered the question a thousand times ! 
 
 "You know I do." 
 
 "Say it!" 
 
 "I do" 
 
 "Say: Eugene, I love you!" 
 
 This was a ritual. She made the response in a sacred 
 whisper : "Eugene, I love you." 
 
 She turned her head away. Her lips were parted, smil 
 ing. Her eyes were moist. He had taken her hand. 
 
 "Oh, tell me," he urged, "that you love me so much 
 that you are ready to make this wonderful sacrifice on 
 my account." 
 
 This brought her face around, startled. 
 
 "I'd die for you. You know I would." She panted 
 it. And she saw such a look of humility and quivering 
 suspense in his face that she was frightened. She drew 
 him down to the old stone bench. They sat there looking 
 into each other's eyes. "Why why do you look like 
 that?" she asked. 
 
 "It's because," he began, "I don't feel that I have 
 any right to marry you," he stumbled on. "I'm not 
 worthy." 
 
 "Wait," Melissine said. 
 
 "Why should I wait? Ever since that day in Notre 
 Dame " 
 
 303
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Buckhannon had broken off in response to something 
 that he in turn had seen in Melissine's face. 
 
 "Wait ! Wait !" she said again. "There is so much that 
 I shall have to tell you. I have wanted to tell you but 
 I couldn't tell you before." 
 
 "Nothing that you could tell me would ever make any 
 difference," he said. 
 
 "But it would." 
 
 "No. Listen! I was going to beg of you to marry 
 me to marry me now now to save my .life and to 
 save my soul even if I am the vilest person in the 
 world. But I haven't wanted to be vile. I've wanted to 
 be everything that you inspired me to be ever since that 
 I first looked at you from across the street don't you 
 remember me standing in front of the drug-store " 
 
 "Ah, yes! I remember!" 
 
 " but most of all, what I have aspired to be since that 
 day you and I were together in Notre Dame. You don't 
 know what that day did for me. That has become my 
 new birthday, Melissine. I wasn't alive before that day. 
 I had merely dreamed of life like one of the Maeter 
 linck's babies in the 'Blue Bird.' Don't you remember?" 
 
 "I've never seen it." 
 
 "But you will with me! We'll go and see every 
 thing." 
 
 "But we can't ! We can't !" cried Melissine. "I can't 
 marry you. I don't know why, but I can't. There is 
 something I can't understand a whole cloud of things I 
 can't understand. Mysteries! Dreadful, dark mys 
 teries P 
 
 304
 
 Mr. Tantalus 
 
 It would never be an easy thing for Melissine to weep. 
 She was not that kind too deep, too clear, too much 
 with a heavenly poise about her as well as her own modi 
 cum of that stern old Tyrone pride. But Melissine wept 
 now.
 
 CHAPTER LIT 
 
 THE ONE GREATEST THING 
 i , 
 
 I'LL go into the house and I'll clear all this up for 
 you," said Buckhannon. 
 Melissine had told him all she knew. What was the 
 mystery of this old house? Why did it have a bad name? 
 Who was Mme. Jenesco, anyway? What was all this 
 about Melissine's father and Mme. Jenesco's mother? 
 Why should Partridge have said that he was a thief when 
 anybody would know that he wasn't a thief? Why 
 should he have claimed that he was Mme. Jenesco's 
 father when anybody could be equally certain that he 
 was not? 
 
 "I'll go into the house and clear all this up for you." 
 A pretty big order; but Buckhannon felt equal to it. 
 Didn't he, though! Good Lord, had there only been a 
 dragon to fight something like that! So he would 
 right himself with his conscience. So he could purify 
 himself. No, it wasn't on his own account at all. He 
 was going to do this for Melissine. If, afterward, when 
 he had made his own confession, she should still deign 
 to consider him No! He wouldn't think of that part 
 of it at all. 
 
 Not that Melissine's own confession of bafflement and 
 
 306
 
 The One Greatest Thing 
 
 possible unworthiness had been put quite so clearly as the 
 above questions may have implied. Half she said. 
 Half she didn't say. Buckhannon's own riotious and re 
 bellious thought supplied whatever was missing. 
 
 He felt the necessity for something that he could fight. 
 That was all. And the main object of his antagonism 
 was a very dragon indeed to his inflamed imagination: 
 
 "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet 
 color . . . And upon her forehead was a name written: 
 Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and 
 Abominations of the Earth !" 
 
 If the truth be told, Mme. Jenesco would have sug 
 gested this description at this very moment. To the eye 
 of the imagination she would have had there been any one 
 there other than herself to behold. 
 
 She had greatly enjoyed that interview of hers with 
 Buckhannon, even if it had not -lasted so long as she 
 might have desired. She was content. She was filled 
 with memories memories remote and memories recent. 
 Some of these memories were running away back to her 
 earliest dreams of love. She had been romantic then. 
 She had then believed that love was a wonderful thing. 
 Then she had known nothing of the deceptions of it, the 
 brutal reactions of it, the limits. Limits which had been 
 well defined ; for Mme. Jenesco although nothing at all 
 of a philosopher in a theoretical sense had always been 
 a materialist. Nothing spiritual about her at all not so 
 far as she would ever confess. When you are dead, you 
 
 307
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 are dead. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow 
 you die." 
 
 Nor was she any more spiritual at this present mo 
 ment than she had ever been. Quite the contrary. Never 
 theless, she was thinking once more how beautiful love 
 was, how sweet it was, how different and better it was 
 compared to the other pleasures, so called, in this world 
 of bitterness and disillusion. 
 
 She had prowled about a little after Buckhannon had 
 left her. She had recoiled her hair, luxuriously, in front 
 of a wall-mirror. She had perfumed her hands and her 
 breast. But she had remained dressed as she was. She 
 had returned to the place where Buckhannon had left 
 her. The sofa was luxurious. She made it more so 
 with additional cushions. She loved luxury loved it 
 as a spider, or a snake, or a panther in the jungle loves 
 luxury with a complete abandonment to self and the 
 interests of self. 
 
 She coiled up amid her cushions. The room was 
 shadowy. The air of it tepid as if warmed of her own 
 warmth; fragrant as if perfumed of her own faunal 
 fragrance. 
 
 And Buckhannon would return. He was nothing but 
 a child nothing but a boy so crude, so impulsive, so 
 unable to take care of himself but such a lover ! Love 
 with him would be very sweet. There would be some 
 thing about it to make up for all the pleasure that had 
 been hers in the pleasure she had sought. 
 
 She was lying there half dreaming in her sultry 
 patience visioning jungle vistas, thinking jungle 
 
 308
 
 The One Greatest Thmg 
 
 thoughts when she was aroused by the sound of a 
 voice. Buckhannon's voice! Had he returned so soon? 
 She listened. Then a glint of rage, as keen and deadly as 
 a red-hot needle, penetrated her heart as she caught the 
 vibrations of another voice and became aware that Buck- 
 hannon was in the company of Melissine. The rage went 
 out. It had been a mere glint. But it had left its pain. 
 She would get even with Melissine for this. Even so, it 
 was the Jenesco's interest in Buckhannon that over 
 whelmed her, even now. 
 
 She had that passionate interest in him. She savored 
 him with whatever she had of imagination. So sure she 
 was of what the future held that she could even take a 
 species of yearning, premeditated joy in seeing him now 
 with this other woman. 
 
 Hardly a woman, at that! What did Melissine know 
 about men ! 
 
 It would be amusing to watch them. They hadn't seen 
 her lying there amid her cushions in the depths of the 
 room where the shadows were deep. It was lighter 
 where they stood. And Buckhannon's interest was so 
 concentrated on Meslissine; Melissine' s interest so con 
 centrated on him! They had come into the drawing- 
 room from the nail had paused there as if for a final 
 consultation. 
 
 "So far as I am concerned," said Buckhannon, "I tell 
 you that you are the only fact in the universe that counts. 
 ,You are a fact." He caught his breath a little. He con 
 fronted her. He caught her hands in his. He spoke as 
 a man speaks when it is the heart that speaks what 
 
 309
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Emerson would have called the Over Soul. "You are a 
 fact." 
 
 It was evident that Melissine did not grasp his mean 
 ing. For that matter, it was evident that Buckhannon 
 himself was groping for some meaning which as yet 
 eluded him, a meaning too great for his powers of ex 
 pression. Melissine smiled up at him shyly. There was 
 a sparkling moment when she held her breath. 
 
 "If God had never made anything else but you/' he 
 said, "it would have been enough. He would have been 
 .God would have been the Creator." 
 
 "You shouldn't say that," said Melissine, touched with 
 awe. 
 
 "I do say it," Buckhannon returned, all devotion de 
 votion for Melissine and the subject of his discourse. 
 "God put you in the world so that we shouldn't forget 
 so that we shouldn't think that everything was wrong 
 
 bad " He broke off. His declaration became more 
 
 personal. "Oh, Melissine! I was like that. I am like 
 that still. But when I am here in your presence, I want 
 to take all that is vile in me crucify it 
 
 There were tears in his voice, but his voice, while soft, 
 was passionate and clear. His eyes were brilliant. They 
 burned. They burned with a quality that took the color 
 from Melissine's face, gave her a sort of unearthly 
 quality that justified the nature of his tribute. She fal 
 tered a struggling sentence: 
 
 "All that you say I am to you, you are to me!" 
 
 There was no discordance in Buckhannon's action as 
 310
 
 The One Greatest Thing 
 
 he slid down to one knee this was all devotional and 
 apostolic and hid his face against her dress and hand. 
 He was the sinner demanding pardon. 
 On Melissine's face was a mystical light.
 
 CHAPTER LIII 
 
 THE WHITE HUNTSMAN 
 
 MME. JENESCO lay perfectly still. One would 
 have said that even her thought lay still. No 
 formula of words came into her mind at all. 
 Even her passions were in abeyance. They say that cer 
 tain wild creatures of the forest contain themselves like 
 that in the presence of the Unknown. There are even 
 those who say that these brute things have the power of 
 seeing ambassadors from the Unknown invisible to men 
 that most animals see ghosts and gods. Mme. Jenesco 
 was like that now although she may not have known it 
 herself. 
 
 The chances were that she was not thinking of her 
 self. Sentient, warmed, coiled, furred, and as capable of 
 swift physical brutalities as any animal, she lay there 
 fascinated as might have been a coiled black tiger on the 
 edge of a moonlit glade where a pair of strange white 
 birds were mating. 
 
 It was only by degrees that her own sense of the situa 
 tion developed into something else. 
 
 It was only by degrees that she could get the nature 
 and the purpose of what Buckhannon was trying to ex 
 press. For this also was weird to the dominant strain in 
 Mme. Jenesco's make-up. 
 
 312
 
 The White Huntsman 
 
 Love! She thought that she had known all about love. 
 What she had taken to be love had been the chief 
 occupation of her life. She had heard all sorts of men 
 and women, too talk about it. She had watched their 
 reactions when they were dominated by it. She had 
 always known that it was complex that some it rendered 
 mean, some it rendered generous! 1 some mild, some 
 murderous. 
 
 But she had never suspected anything like this. She 
 had never heard anything like this. 
 
 "You are so small and so frail," said Buckhannon; 
 "but you are the one indestructible thing. You are 
 greater than kings or armies. You are beauty. You 
 are perfection. The Lord of Hosts knew what he was 
 doing when He made you the keeper of life. You are 
 the vestal the keeper of the flame." 
 
 Melissine laughed softly for sheer happiness. She 
 said: 
 
 "If all men were so noble!" 
 
 "They would be if all women were like you." 
 
 "I am no better than any one else." 
 
 "You are not only the keeper of the flame," said 
 Buckhannon, pursuing his thought, "you are the temple 
 itself. You are the Holy of Holies." 
 
 He was still on one knee. But he was no longer hiding 
 his face. His arms rested lightly around Melissine's 
 waist. He was looking up at her. His eyes glowed. She 
 was yielding to his embrace. She was smiling down at 
 him. One of her hands was on his shoulder. With the 
 other she lightly brushed his temple, his head. , 
 
 313
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "I have dreamed of becoming such a wonderful archi 
 tect," he said. 
 
 "You will become one of the greatest you will become 
 the greatest architect in the world," said Melissine. 
 
 "But even if I become the greatest architect in the 
 world," he perused with reverent contemplation, "I shall 
 still be crude. What is the work of any architect com 
 pared to you? Where is there a foundation so miracu 
 lous as your feet or a tower of a million rooms that can 
 sway to music like your body, and crowned with a capital 
 like your head?" 
 
 He collected his thought while Melissine smiled, 
 while Mme. Jenesco, unseen, groveled, so to speak, in her 
 lair. He went on : 
 
 "When I look at you I see the Taj Mahal. I see 
 it white, reflected in the lake, between the cypress-trees. 
 I see it blue in the moonlight. I see it pink in the dawn. 
 They were trying for a perfection like yours when they 
 laid out the Halls of Karnak, when they built the palace 
 of Sennacherib, when they planted the hanging gardens 
 of Babylon." 
 
 The words brought recurrent stabs to Mme. Jenesco ly 
 ing there. To her no man had ever talked like this. At 
 times she couldn't see very distinctly, and it was as if her 
 sight was beclouded with a sort of bloody mist. At times 
 she no longer heard what Buckhannon was saying. This 
 was when a whispering roar deafened her to all else 
 then when she was hearing again the things that men had 
 said to her when she held them in leash when they
 
 The WMte Huntsman 
 
 knelt at her feet when they put their passion in words 
 words to make the very soul of her to blush. 
 
 "You are the perfect idea," said Buckhannon with re 
 pressed fire; "the idea that the Greeks worshiped when 
 they reared their temples on the Acropolis." 
 
 "I want to be," said Melissine. 
 
 "When they built St. Mark's in Venice they went every 
 where looking for beautiful things with which to decorate 
 it. God Himself did the same for you !" 
 
 "You're so wonderful," said Melissine. 
 
 "He experimented with flowers and waterfalls, dawns, 
 and sunsets," said Buckhannon. "He made a billion, 
 billion lilies and roses, then fairies and saints. Then 
 you, O my Melissine!" 
 
 "If I were only worthy of such love," breathed 
 Melissine. 
 
 Her words were a mere faint echo of the wonder in 
 her eyes, her heightened color, her parted lips. She 
 seemed to be yielding more and more to the magnetic 
 coil of the arms that held her. Her body curved like the 
 stem of one of those lilies Buckhannon had mentioned. 
 
 "I love you," whispered Buckhannon." 
 
 "And I love you I love you so !" 
 
 Melissine was curving lower. 
 
 For some time now a certain chill had been creeping 
 .p about Mme. Jenesco there, where she lay and 
 watched this scene. A certain fear had begun to play 
 about her like an impish light, cool and uncanny. She 
 had tried to twitch the feeling away. She had tried to 
 
 315
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 call her familiar resources to her aid. This was a comedy 
 she was looking at. She ought to laugh. But she did 
 not laugh. The actors were amateurs. She ought to 
 hiss and boo. But she did not hiss or boo. Instead, 
 something like a sob came up from her breast. She 
 called this rage, and knew that it was not. 
 
 It was grief a poignant grief. That was what it was. 
 But a grief for what? 
 
 And while she was still trying to get this curious 
 question adjusted in her brain, she felt a stab of pain, 
 and the pain brought fear. 
 
 She was still the jungle beast. She was still the black 
 panther. To some extent she was. But she was no 
 longer lying in ambush, slumbrous, luxurious, with her 
 lust for fresh blood. She felt that she was trapped. 
 She wanted to get away from where she was but she 
 could not. Here she was being thrust at. She was being 
 killed by inches. 
 
 She was not only trapped. 
 
 But right over there back of this boy and this girl 
 back of this jungle pair of sacred white birds she had 
 watched at their mating it was as if a great white hunts 
 man had appeared; it was as if this huntsman were 
 armed with bow and arrows. He was shooting her with 
 his arrows. Each arrow was barbed. 
 
 "You thought you knew men!" 
 
 "You thought you knew love!" 
 
 "You thought you knew beauty!" 
 
 "You thought to defile what was pure!" 
 
 But she didn't move until Buckhannon and Melissine 
 316
 
 The White Huntsman 
 
 were gone not until what seemed to be a long time after 
 they were gone. Then she sat up, somehow aware that 
 her hurts were no mere matter of a passing fancy. She 
 felt feverish. She felt disfigured and scarred. 
 
 Just what had happened to her? She didn't know. 
 
 She only knew that these cushions that had been so soft 
 and tepid a little while ago were now become as hot 
 cinders to her touch. The silk of her robe clawed at 
 her skin like camel's hair. The perfume had become a 
 stench. 
 
 She had difficulty with her breathing. 
 
 "God! God!" she gasped. 
 
 And she snatched at her robe with fingers like talons. 
 She snatched it apart. This at least was an element of 
 the self-expression she sought. She hated herself. She 
 hated everything about herself. She clutched the silken 
 stuff again. She wrenched it. She ripped it. She tore 
 it. 
 
 As she started to her feet obedient to this same need of 
 violence, she caught a reflection of herself in the mirror 
 across the room. She had thought that she was beauti 
 ful. She had thought that she had made herself beautiful. 
 
 "Oh ! Oh !" 
 
 Even her voice was ugly. 
 
 She beat at her face with her fists. She tore at her hair 
 as she had torn at her dress. She called herself vile 
 names. She was possessed with a frenzy of self-de 
 struction. And all the time there were running in her 
 brain the lava-streams of thought incident to this erup- 
 
 317
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 tion. They were as logical, these thoughts of hers, as all 
 primal things in nature. 
 
 She had sought love. She had sought beauty. It was 
 these things that she had depended on that had betrayed 
 her. She had betrayed herself. Sometime, somewhere, 
 she had heard that there was such a thing as a sin 
 against the Holy Ghost, and that this was the one un 
 pardonable sin. And this she had never understood. 
 But now she understood. This sin, she had committed it. 
 
 "God! God!" she cried again. 
 
 But this time her accent was different. 
 
 She had hurled herself at last to the floor half re 
 cumbent against the sofa, still hurt and unappeased. But 
 the paroxysm had passed. She was mute and still, even 
 to the heart of her. 
 
 There Partridge found her. 
 
 Partridge had come into the room silently. He had 
 been looking for her. Here she was. But Partridge 
 looked and looked before he gave any sign of his pres 
 ence. Even then he approached so softly that he was 
 standing just over her before he spoke. 
 
 There may have occurred many thoughts to Partridge. 
 It may have occurred to him that here was the daughter 
 of that girl that Nathan Tyrone had found crushed and 
 desperate one night more than thirty years ago. It 
 may have occurred to him that this present girl was not 
 to blame oh, not to blame for anything ! No one was to 
 blame for anything, perhaps, if all the facts were only 
 to be known. Of course, there were things that people
 
 The White Huntsman 
 
 didn't like things that people should try to correct. But 
 surely there was no place in the world for blame. 
 
 Judge not ! Judge not ! Sympathy and knowledge were 
 better. 
 
 "There, there," said Partridge. 
 
 And it was almost as if he were speaking to Melissine, 
 and Melissine a little girl again having hurt herself.
 
 CHAPTER LIV 
 
 OUT OF THE FULL HEART 
 
 WHAT Partridge had come to tell Mme. Jenesco 
 was that Mr. Buckhannon wished to speak to her. 
 And Partridge gently urged her to do this. Not 
 a word from Partridge as to what might have happened 
 to her. 
 
 "I'm a nice one to see any one," said Mme. Jenesco. 
 "I look like a freak." 8fek 
 
 The eruption had left her calm. 
 
 "Put a little cold water on your face/' said Partridge, 
 "and nothing will be noticed. You can go up to your 
 room by the back way. They won't see you. I'll tell 
 them that you are changing your dress." 
 
 "What does he want to see me about?" 
 
 "I don't know. I imagine he desires to question 
 you." 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 Partridge was apologetic. His voice was kind. But 
 he came out with the salutary truth. 
 
 "I imagine it is concerning your status and mine." 
 
 "Yours!" 
 
 "I believe that Miss Tyrone has informed him of my 
 use or misuse of Miss Tyrone's money." 
 
 320
 
 Mme. Jenesco laughed a harsh little laugh, devoid, 
 however, of either humor or offense. 
 
 "Well, what shall I tell him?" 
 
 "I don't presume to give you advice," said Partridge 
 humbly. 
 
 "Give it anyway," said Mme. Jenesco. "I'd about as 
 lief take your advice as the advice of any man I know." 
 
 "Thank you" and there was no mistaking the fact 
 that Partridge's gratitude was sincere. 
 
 "Go on!" Mme Jenesco urged. "What do you ad 
 vise?" 
 
 Partridge's voice was still apologetic to a degree. His 
 whole attitude was apologetic and gentle. 
 
 "My advice," he said, "is merely to obey your con 
 science say what your conscience dictates, and do what 
 it tells you to do. And and don't be unhappy. If I 
 can be of service to you in any way " 
 
 "All right," said Mme. Jenesco, without apparent 
 emotion. "Tell him I'll be down I'll see him here in 
 fifteen minutes." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco was an entirely different woman from 
 the one that Buckhannon had seen earlier in the day. She 
 appeared to be. So she was in fact, most likely. There 
 may be no such thing as a sudden conversion, but there 
 are most certainly sudden changes of personality. 
 Sometimes these changes are permanent one personality 
 being submerged as if drowned and henceforth dead; 
 some other personality coming up to play the dominant 
 role in this theater which is the human body. 
 
 321
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 The tiger, the jungle-thing, had disappeared from 
 Mme. Jenesco. For the time being it had, at any rate 
 slain by the white arrows of that mystical huntsman, 
 possibly. 
 
 She was dressed differently dressed in her favorite 
 black, but decently and soberly. 
 
 Buckhannon had been the more embarrassed of the 
 two. He had been expecting almost anything almost 
 anything but this. She greeted him almost as a stranger 
 would have greeted him; but even this attitude was not 
 exaggerated. She was neither friendly nor unfriendly. 
 She was polite but not too polite. 
 
 There at first an impertinent small voice kept dinging 
 at his brain : "A little while ago you were making love to 
 this woman, and she was making love to you. You even 
 thought that you might have to marry her. Didn't you? 
 You were a fool. Weren't you? You thought that the 
 whole universe had gone to blazes. Didn't you? This 
 shows you how important you are." 
 
 "Sit down," said Mme. Jenesco. And she herself 
 sat down. "What do you wish to ask me?" 
 
 "I wanted to ask you so many things," said Buckhan 
 non. "They are things that concern Miss Tyrone's 
 happiness." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco, in spite of her new poise, was too 
 restless to remain seated. She seemed to be undecided 
 as to just what to say. She was still undecided ap 
 parently as she turned and slowly walked to the end of 
 the room and back again. During this slow promenade 
 she did not once look at Buckhannon. There was no 
 
 322
 
 Out of the Full Heart 
 
 doubt but that she was doing some hard thinking. Both 
 her voice and her bearing were changed when she next 
 spoke. She had come to a stand in front of Buckhannon. 
 She faced him rather as a man would face him. She 
 was through with her role of enchantress. 
 
 "I'm going to talk straight to you," she said, then 
 paused. 
 
 "I wish you would," he affirmed. 
 
 "I may be a fool," she continued, "but I'm going to 
 trust you." There was a touch of grim humor about it' 
 when she added : "I swore I would never trust any man 
 again. Many a woman has sworn the same thing but 
 they go on trusting them." 
 
 Buckhannon spoke up : "I don't want you to say any 
 thing that you'll regret later. I'm thinking of Miss 
 Tyrone." 
 
 "So am I," she answered, with slow thoughtfulness. 
 "You love her all right. I don't have to be told. And she 
 loves you. That ought to be enough, God knows ! But 
 it isn't. It never is. If it was, this earth wouldn't be 
 such a rotten place to live on. I suppose I'll have to 
 speak out. Otherwise, even if you and her do get mar 
 ried and go on loving each other you'll always have some 
 doubt in your mind, and it'll get worse and worse ; then, 
 some day, there'll come some little quarrel or other, and 
 the doubt will start you to saying things." 
 
 "Oh, no," Buckhannon began; "that " 
 
 But Mme. Jenesco stopped him with a gesture. Her 
 attitude took on a tinge of challenge. 
 
 "When I first came here," she said, "I did have some 
 
 323
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 vague idea that Nathan Tyrone was my father. At least, 
 I pretended that I believed it pretended even to myself. 
 But it isn't so. I knew it wasn't so. I was bluffing 
 myself. Do you want to know what brought me here? 
 I'll tell you. Partridge said it : blackmail ! That's what 
 it was." 
 
 Buckhannon had sunk back in his chair. "What makes 
 you tell me this?" he asked. He had chosen at random 
 merely one of the many questions buzzing in his thought. 
 
 "It's on my own account," Mme. Jenesco replied, with 
 almost her first gust of real feeling. "It's for my own 
 sake. I'm making it as ugly as I can so I won't try 
 it again." 
 
 "Do you mean that you might have tried it again?" 
 Buckhannon queried. He had been hearing about black 
 mail all his life, but now that he found it here right in 
 front of him, so to speak, he was rather dazed. 
 
 "I don't know," the woman responded, desperately. 
 "I might slip back. Good God! Ain't we all apt to 
 be tempted ?" 
 
 Buckhannon winced. "Yes," he said; "we are." 
 
 "I've always laughed at this reformation stuff," she 
 went on. And she tried to laugh, but she didn't succeed 
 very well. "I can tell you this, though, that I've been 
 up against something too big for me ever since I came 
 here. It's got me. I'm not myself. I'm not my old self. 
 I'm changed. Just now, when we came in here together, 
 I thought that I could con you. I thought that I could 
 jolly you along. And I could have done it just a few 
 hours ago. Oh, it wouldn't have been anything against 
 
 324
 
 Out of the Full Heart 
 
 you. I know men, even when they are in love with a 
 decent girl!" 
 
 She was on the point of tears, but she was too strong 
 to give in. Still, she was willing to be helped. 
 
 "What made you change?" Buckhannon asked. 
 
 Buckhannon felt that he had been groping in the dark 
 hitherto. He felt now that over this darkness there had 
 come a flush of red light. But whether this flush pre 
 saged the dawn of a better day or a fresh impending 
 catastrophe he was still unable to say. He sat there 
 silent while Mme. Jenesco sought in her own mind 
 that her answer might be just.
 
 CHAPTER LV 
 
 BLOOD OF THE LAMB 
 
 THE girl was partly responsible," said Mme. 
 Jenesco, as she resumed her pacing. "Any one 
 else would have called the police. She didn't. 
 She would have stood for anything. She was that kind. 
 It would have been easier for me if she hadn't been 
 such a saint. Oh, the world can say what it wants to 
 about the clever ones, the cunning ones, the wise ones, 
 the sort who never trust and who never believe. They're 
 the marks. The really wise ones are the so-called 
 suckers." 
 
 All this disjointed, a bit tumultuous, while Mme. 
 Jenesco kept up her restless pacing. 
 
 "I agree with you there," Buckhannon assented. 
 
 "But she wasn't everything," flashed Mme. Jenesco, 
 turning upon him as if for fear that he were already 
 giving too much credit where the credit was not due. 
 She drew up a chair in front of him and plumped her 
 self into it. She had forgotten herself by this time. 
 "After all," she said, "it was the old man." 
 
 "Mr. Partridge?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Partridge." 
 
 She tried to sound Buckhannon's innermost thought 
 
 326
 
 Blood of the Lamb 
 
 with her eyes. Buckhannon perceived her concern. 
 
 "I've always felt that his intentions were good," Buck 
 hannon affirmed. 
 
 "Say," Mme. Jenesco demanded, softly, "what do you 
 know about him claiming to be my father?" 
 
 "Well, wasn't he?" 
 
 "If he was," said Mme. Jenesco with real reverence, 
 "I'd get down on my knees and thank God and also 
 to ask His pardon for having led the kind of life I 
 have led." 
 
 "I don't understand," said Buckhannon not alto 
 gether truthfully ; but he was baffled by her tone. 
 
 There was a touch of scorn in Mme. Jenesco's answer. 
 
 "You've lived here in New York, haven't you? And 
 you've lived in Paris. You know something of the world. 
 [You don't think for a minute, do you, that a man like 
 him could be my father ?" 
 
 Buckhannon was a bit stifled. 
 
 "All sorts of women have had fine fathers," he said. 
 "All sorts of women have fine qualities in them." 
 
 "It's because you're a boy who can say things like 
 that," Mme. Jenesco returned, "that I'm talking to you 
 like this now. But it's the old gentleman, I tell you, who 
 has made me feel ashamed of myself. I'm not staying 
 here now on my own account; I've lost my nerve, I tell 
 you. You're going to think I'm lying, aren't you ? You're 
 going to say: 'Why, just now she was trying to vamp 
 me, and now listen at her! Trying to work the old 
 reform! Pulling the sob stuff!'" 
 
 "Not at all," Buckhannon declared. 
 
 327
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "I'm glad of that," said Mme. Jenesco, "because I 
 was never more earnest in my life. Even if that dear 
 old soul wasn't my father I feel as if he was I feel 
 as I would feel if he had been." 
 
 "But if he isn't your father, why did he say he was ?" 
 Buckhannon was at a loss. 
 
 "Because he was sacrificing himself. That was why. 
 He said that he was my father so that no suspicion 
 could fall on Melissine's father or on Melissine herself. 
 He was sacrificing himself, I tell you. Do you know 
 what that means? Most men don't." 
 
 "I'd be willing to sacrifice myself for Melissine," said 
 Buckhannon, flushing slightly under Mme. Jenesco's 
 gaze. 
 
 "I hope it's the truth/' she said, without sarcasm. 
 "They all say that and some of them believe it before 
 they're married; but God pity most of the girls later on 
 when they are married, when they're not so good- 
 looking, or when they're sick, or when they begin to get 
 gray. I'm not knocking you, you understand. I'm 
 merely saying that there are mighty few Partridges in 
 this world." 
 
 "And you mean," Buckhannon demanded, "that he 
 also sacrificed himself on your and your mother's ac 
 count?" 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "By stealing all that money." 
 
 "Him? I bet he never stole a nickel in his life." 
 
 "But he said he did." 
 
 "There's a mystery there," Mme. Jenesco confessed. 
 
 328
 
 Blood of the Lamb 
 
 "1 believe that he lied when he said that he stole that 
 money. My idea is that Mr. Tyrone sent us the money 
 himself and that Partridge wouldn't admit it so that I 
 wouldn't have even that leg to stand on if the thing 
 came into the courts. I know that Mr. Tyrone was that 
 sort of a man. He was that sort or he wouldn't have 
 brought my mother here in the first place. And Par 
 tridge merely lied about himself to frame an alibi. Talk 
 about your sacrifice ! He would have let me send him 
 to prison before he would have given me the chance to 
 hang anything on the man whose servant he had been." 
 
 "But surely," Buckhannon said, "there was some other 
 way. Partridge must have known that there was noth 
 ing to fear from the truth." 
 
 Mme. Jenesco shook her head. 
 
 "Take it from me," she declared, "the truth is the 
 only thing that he is afraid of. It's that way with a 
 lot of the good ones. That's nothing against them, you 
 understand. It only means that we all got a lot in com 
 mon. What makes the difference, after all? It's the 
 heart. It's what you stand ready to do for some one 
 else. It's willingness to be the goat. That's what puts 
 old man Partridge above the level. That's what has 
 made me ashamed of myself, and that's what keeps me 
 here." 
 
 "How so keeps you here?" 
 
 "Because" she let her voice drop to a whisper "this 
 time he is getting ready to pull something that he hadn't 
 ought to." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 329
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 She looked at him meaningly, but Buckhannon couldn't 
 grasp what her meaning was. He said so. 
 
 "You've told me this much," he said. "You might as 
 well tell me all that there is to tell. I'm your friend. 
 I'm Partridge's friend." 
 
 "I believe you are," she admitted, seriously. "I haven't 
 found anything but friendship since I got into this house. 
 Maybe that would be the case with the whole world 
 if we only got next to each other better. There must 
 be many an old grouch walking around with a broken 
 heart. Many a tough girl has times, believe me, when 
 she says her prayers just like the other kind." This 
 was an autobiographical touch perhaps. She hastily 
 ended the digression. She asked: "Do you know that 
 little druggist across the street?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "So do I. He told me. He's a liar about a lot of 
 things, but I know he told the truth this time. I could 
 tell it from the way that Partridge has been acting 
 Partridge had an old prescription. He's had it filled." 
 
 But before Mme. Jenesco could complete her revela 
 tion, whatever it was, they heard a door click at the 
 back of the hall a gentle, almost imperceptible click. 
 It was Partridge who closed a door like that. They 
 heard his light, but rather dragging footfall the foot 
 fall of an old man and they knew that he was ap 
 proaching. 
 
 Neither Buckhannon nor Mme. Jenesco spoke they 
 sat there rather guiltily as Partridge appeared at the 
 door and entered. 
 
 330
 
 CHAPTER LVI 
 ONE DAY'S GRACE 
 
 PARTRIDGE seemed to be absorbed in his own 
 thoughts. His eyes were downcast. His back 
 was bowed. Still he was not forgetful of his serv 
 ice. He went over to the windows and adjusted the 
 shades, making sure that none of them varied by so 
 much as an inch from the elevation of its neighbors. 
 By the last window he stood for a longish spell looking 
 out. The shutters of the old house were no longer kept 
 so tightly closed now that Nathan Tyrone was no 
 longer there following the family tradition. Those closed 
 shutters had meant "not at home" to purely theoretical 
 callers, when Nathan Tyrone, and his father, and his 
 grandfather, had been alive. 
 
 Buckhannon cleared his throat. 
 
 Partridge was so absorbed he did not hear. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Partridge!" Buckhannon called. 
 
 "I am here, sir!" and then Partridge recognized his 
 mistake. There for a moment he must have thought 
 that it was Nathan Tyrone who called him, in spite of 
 that preliminary "Mr." 
 
 "Mr. Buckhannon, sir!" 
 
 He seemed to be relieved when he saw Mme. Jenesco'3 
 smile.
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "I I beg pardon," he apologized. "I thought the 
 room was unoccupied." He himself smiled. And he 
 would have retired at once, after the manner of a well- 
 trained servant. 
 
 But Buckhannon stayed him. "I should like to speak 
 to you also if I may," Buckhannon said. 
 
 Buckhannon had risen to his feet. Buckhannon was 
 deferential and intended to show that he was deferential. 
 But so was Partridge deferential. Partridge murmured 
 something about always being at your service, sir. 
 
 "I wanted to tell you first of all," said Buckhannon, 
 "that I have asked Miss Tyrone to to confer the honor 
 upon me I know that I am not good enough but never 
 theless you will understand " 
 
 "Perfectly, sir." 
 
 Partridge was as calm as Buckhannon was agitated. 
 
 "I've asked her to marry me," Buckhannon plunged. 
 He was really announcing this to Mme. Jenesco. 
 
 "Permit me, sir, to offer my profound congratula 
 tions." 
 
 This was straight from the heart. Partridge's voice 
 was tremulous with emotion when he said it. But he 
 wasn't all emotion. At the same time any one could 
 have seen that he was thinking. Buckhannon wanted 
 to say something about the possibility that it was not 
 yet time for congratulations, but Partridge had reached 
 the end of at least one train of thought. He put in 
 with: 
 
 "Will you permit me, sir?" 
 
 Buckhannon nodded. 
 
 332
 
 One Day's Grace 
 
 "But the late Mr. Tyrone started to tell you some 
 thing, I believe, when the progress of his malady made 
 it impossible for him to proceed." 
 
 "Yes," Buckhannon whispered. At least this item of 
 the general mystery was to be cleared. 
 
 Still it was a second or two before Partridge could 
 proceed. Partridge begged pardon. He used his hand 
 kerchief. He ventured an appealing look at both Buck 
 hannon and Mme. Jenesco. A sense of delicacy caused 
 Mme. Jenesco to stroll away and look at a picture. 
 
 "Mr. Tyrone spoke about it on the night of his death," 
 said Partridge. "He commissioned me to 1 give you his 
 message should occasion arise. I dare say that it would 
 be proper to do so now." 
 
 Buckhannon spoke urgently: 
 
 "You may tell me. I confess that I have often won 
 dered what it was. But whatever it is, it will make no 
 difference." 
 
 Partridge regarded him with an added shade of dis 
 tress. 
 
 "I shouldn't say that, sir," Partridge quavered. 
 
 "But it's the truth." After all, this was no mere serv 
 ant to whom he was speaking. This was Melissine's 
 friend her best and oldest friend. "Do you think," 
 he demanded, "that anything that ony one could tell me 
 about Miss Tyrone would make me think the less of 
 her?" 
 
 He would have said more, but words failed him to 
 convey his idea of such a monstrous suggestion. Be 
 sides, Partridge was speaking again. 
 
 333
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" Partridge had exclaimed. "So that was 
 it! You are worthy, sir if you will permit me to say 
 it; doubly worthy! And Mr. Tyrone, his spirit, will 
 know, will bless you. That was the very nature of his 
 message." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "He wished to tell you that his daughter was not as 
 other young ladies that she was an angel that only 
 through a proper sense of this, and a proper devotion 
 I am but quoting what he would have said to you, sir 
 could any man, even you, sir and you will under 
 stand could be worthy of her. That was what he 
 wanted to say." 
 
 "And that was all?" Buckhannon succeeded in get 
 ting the question out after one long breath. There had 
 come to him even the glint of hope that so would all 
 darkness fade when the truth came out. "There was 
 nothing else?" 
 
 "Nothing else, sir except that Mr. Tyrone seemed 
 to be convinced that you would show yourself to be 
 worthy." Partridge met Buckhannon's eye. What he 
 saw there was a confusion of thought, a sympathy for 
 himself perhaps and yet a glint of pain. "Did you think 
 that there was something else ?" 
 
 "You know that I did," Buckhannon answered quietly. 
 "You know that I must have thought so." I 
 
 "There was nothing, sir. Perhaps you will permit me, 
 as one so long associated with the family and honor 
 ably, I trust at least as one who has always had Miss 
 Tyrone's welfare deeply oh, most deeply at heart" 
 
 334
 
 One Day's Grace 
 
 Partridge cast a glance in the direction whither Mme. 
 Jenesco had retreated. She was out of earshot. He 
 brought his distressed old eyes back to Buckhannon's 
 young and friendly ones. 
 
 "I wish to tell you, sir " 
 
 Partridge spoke quaveringly, in a hurried, broken 
 whisper, as one might who cons a full volume with but 
 a limited time to do it in. And it did not help him at 
 all, so far as coherence of statement was concerned, 
 that just then various strands of music, silvery and faint, 
 came drifting into the room. Melissine, left to her own 
 devices, had again turned to her harp. There were 
 the first few preliminary chords, just to see that the 
 instrument was in tune. But her mood must have been 
 solemn. The chords became unmistakable. An old 
 hymn: 
 
 "Nearer My God to Thee." 
 
 "I am aware," said Partridge, "that this has been a 
 house with a bad name. But if there have been grounds 
 for the tradition, the tradition has been no> less essen 
 tially false. Oh, sir; there has been grief here, misun 
 derstanding, heartache; but in what house has there 
 not been such? And nothing vile! nothing vile in the 
 sight of the Lord ! Yes, there has been pride ! But it 
 has been an honorable pride. It was a pride I shared. 
 I also suffered. But I have tried to keep the faith." 
 
 It was as if an angelic refrain furnished the overtone : 
 
 E'en tho' it be a cross 
 That raiseth me . . . 
 
 335
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "Mr. Partridge," Buckhannon began. 
 
 "Just Partridge, sir." 
 
 "Comrade," said Buckhannon. "Tell me what it -is 
 this secret that has been bearing down on you so 
 hard." 
 
 "There was none " 
 
 "Yes there was, and is. Let me share it." 
 
 There was negation on Partridge's lips, but his eyes 
 could not lie. His eyes spoke now. His eyes were say 
 ing that there was something oh, that there had been 
 something all along; that not for anything in the world 
 would he reveal to her who played the harp back there. 
 But so were there words in Buckhannon's steady look. 
 The words constituted a demand that Partridge yield 
 his secret. 
 
 Just then the music stopped. The harpist let out 
 a hail: 
 
 "Where is every one? May I come in?" 
 
 "Not a word, sir. Not now," Partridge implored. 
 
 "When then?" Buckhannon demanded. 
 
 "To-morrow," said Partridge. "Yes; I think that I 
 may tell you, sir; that by to-morrow everything will be 
 cleared up." 
 
 "No foolishness," said Buckhannon soberly. 
 
 "Ah, no, sir," Partridge promised; "the Lord be my 
 witness I"
 
 CHAPTER LVII 
 
 "ULALUME" 
 
 THIS was the eve of the second day of June a 
 date important in the history of many a New 
 York family, but no more important than other 
 dates to other families; a date important enough to the 
 denizens of Cinnamon Street, however; more important 
 than they presently suspected. 
 
 Still, one would have said that old Mr. Partridge 
 knew, seated up there in that chaste and somewhat 
 monkish room of his on the top floor of No. 6. For 
 Partridge, even more than ' usual, was meditating on 
 the respective blessings of life and death, his eyes fixed 
 on that calendar that Melissine had given him. His eyes 
 were on the date, and, although he was long past seeing 
 either date or motto, he had the date by memory: 
 
 June 2: "Mark the perfect man, and behold the up 
 right ; for the end of that man is peace !" 
 
 "The end of that man is peace," Partridge repeated 
 to himself; "the end of that man is peace. Ah, blessed 
 promise! How many toil and sweat and tremble; how 
 many strive, how many hunger, how many soothe a sick 
 child or hunt the child that is lost! And yet their ends 
 shall be peace." 
 
 337
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 But all this part of the old gentleman's thought was 
 like the quivering end of a search-light : soaring high, 
 picking out clouds no human eye could see, losing itself 
 in infinities ; while all the time the director of this search 
 light had his feet on earth, and he himself preoccupied 
 with earthly problems. "Even if I told Mr. Buckhan- 
 non no, I cannot tell him. But I have promised." 
 
 The problem was difficult. 
 
 "He is the soul of honor," said Partridge. "He is 
 a gentleman. I know that he would never mention the 
 matter to Melissine were I to ask him not to do so. 
 But have I the right to put a secret between them at 
 the very outset of their nuptial career put a serpent, 
 belikes, in their garden ? Guidance, O Lord !" 
 
 And ever that answer from the other part of his 
 brain : 
 
 "The end of that man is peace!" 
 
 T( I am far from perfect," said Partridge; but some 
 thing of the Tyrone pride apoke up within him, and 
 he added : "and yet have I tried. It is not too late. It 
 is never too late. Grant that I be perfect just this 
 once that I may know peace, and give peace." 
 
 To the highly imaginative had there been such fa 
 miliar with all the circumstances it would have seemed 
 that the dark angel was in Cinnamon Street this night 
 undecided as to which of two old men he should choose ; 
 the dark angel, Azrael, who hovers over the dying al 
 though many of these do not know that they are such 
 and helps the soul to quit the body; undecided and 
 
 338
 
 "UMume" 
 
 hesitant, although to-night he will be busy as usual. To 
 night, in New York alone, from fifty to a hundred will 
 require his presence, mostly old people, like these cer 
 tain two old men of Cinnamon Street, or the very, very 
 young. 
 
 The other old man is Goodenough, the poetic cabby. 
 
 Early this night he had come weaving into Cinnamon 
 Street, "with vine-leaves in his hair," as the poet said. 
 He had been on his way to the hay-mow that was his 
 home; he who had been so gallant these thirty years 
 agone. But the churchyard had called him. Perhaps it 
 was the fragrance of the locust-bloom. Perhaps it was 
 the memory of the young people he had seen loitering 
 there earlier in the day. Perhaps it was an earlier 
 recollection. 
 
 In any case he had watched with vinous cunning to 
 make sure that the policeman, Hickcock, was not on 
 this part of his beat. He was in no mood for such an 
 audience as Hickcock even might give him, although 
 talking to Hickcock was like talking to a tree or a 
 troll. 
 
 Goodenough passed, therefore, unperceived through 
 the gate by the chapel and found himself in the fragrant 
 depths of a seclusion such as the churchyard furnished 
 him. He found a place where the grass was deep. 
 There he composed himself to rest and meditate. He 
 was in one of his most poetic states; lulled, body and 
 brain, by the wine he had taken; but that inner self of 
 his awake, upstanding, with alabaster fingers ready set 
 to the strings of a golden lyre. 
 
 339
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 So he perceived himself. 
 
 So he had often perceived himself before. 
 
 But this night it was altogether different, and he dis 
 covered this with a thrill of happiness. 
 
 Hitherto there had always been the sub- feeling that 
 presently the fumes of the wine would pass, and that he 
 would wake up again, and that once more he would be 
 Goodenough the sodden, Goodenough the cabby, old 
 Goodenough, the man with the face he was ashamed 
 to look at. But now he was the poet of the golden 
 lyre. He saw himself standing slim and graceful, an 
 Apollo, with smooth, round arms and legs, curly hair 
 crowned with laurel. The lyre was solid to his touch. 
 He smote the strings. He heard a quaver of melody 
 so rich that it brought the tears to his eyes tears of 
 gratitude that there should be such music. 
 
 Then a queer thing happened to Goodenough a very 
 queer thing. It was something he wished he could set 
 down in immortal verse for the instruction and solace 
 of all such as he. 
 
 He was in two places at once. He was two persons 
 at once. Nay, three ! One of him was the Goodenough 
 he had stretched on the grass. The other of him con 
 tinued to be the godlike creature of the lyre. And some 
 sort of a struggle was going on between the two, with 
 himself aware of the fact, somewhat as a third person 
 ality, but unable to intercede except by a sort of mute 
 desire. He wanted the godlike creature to win. And 
 this hadn't been going on very long before another spec 
 tator had joined the group subsequent events proved 
 
 340
 
 "UlalvmeT 
 
 that this may have been Hickcock. And to him the 
 Goodenough who was godlike cried out : 
 
 "Friend Azrael?" 
 
 "Come along," said Azrael. "I will give you a hand." 
 
 "I have loved you; I have sung to you," said Good- 
 enough the godlike. "I knew that you would not fail 
 me now." 
 
 "Why came ye here?" asked Azrael. 
 
 "I sought her: 
 
 By the door of a legended tomb; 
 'Ulalume Ulalume 
 " were stopped by the door of a tomb 
 Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume.' " 
 
 Then Goodenough experienced a slight shock, a dis 
 solution of all that had kept him uncertain, and he had 
 become merged utterly with the godlike one, so that he 
 himself was the godlike one and the godlike one was 
 he. Suddenly his limbs were light. His back was supple 
 and strong. His soul was music. 
 
 He felt nothing but joy even when he heard the 
 angel Azrael or was it Hickcock? cry out that he 
 was dead, that Goodenough was dead. For Goodenough 
 himself knew better. He, the real Goodenough, was 
 never so much alive. This was youth. This was of the 
 very essence of life life everlasting. He smote his lyre 
 again, and this time there was the stirring of a thou 
 sand musical echoes; like the free concert of the choral 
 society he had once attended: "Glory to God in the 
 highest!" 
 
 341
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 But right in the midst of this joy unspeakable he 
 felt the pang of a yearning. He would seek her now 
 the one he had come to seek. Caparisoned like this 
 he would show himself to her. 
 
 And all this time, there at a darkened window in No. 
 6, a window that overlooked the chapel-yard, was Mme. 
 Jenesco, the woman who was the daughter of her whom 
 Goodenough had loved and who may have been, most 
 likely was, Goodenough's own daughter. No wonder 
 some sort of an extra pang came to her, although she 
 knew nothing of what was going on there under the 
 locust-trees and among the tombstones; no wonder she 
 felt an extra pang of loneliness ! 
 
 To whom could she turn? There was only one. And 
 yet she thought of him with a sudden start, for she had 
 thought again of that prescription that Partridge had 
 had filled. 
 
 "What if, after all " 
 
 Terror winged her feet as she fled through the dark 
 and silent old house in the direction of Partridge's room. 
 She sped up the dark stairs a mere ghost of a woman ; 
 a mere ghost of her former self.
 
 CHAPTER LVIII 
 
 SO MUCH FOR SO MUCH 
 
 IT may be mentioned here and now that Goodenough 
 the earthly part of him at any rate did die this 
 night. Late in the night he had been discovered by 
 his friend, the policeman of this beat, Jerome Hickcock 
 by name. 
 
 "At first," said Hickcock, "I was for thinkin' him 
 drunk again, especially when he begins to pull the old 
 poetry on me again, and to talk about the dame he was 
 stuck on once. 'Come along,' I says, 'I'll bed you down/ 
 I says. You know, sort o' jokin'. And with his hand 
 in mine a dom fine man ; a man wit' a heart." 
 
 A great funeral they gave to Goodenough. Hickcock 
 was for paying for it himself, but Pliny saw to that 
 Pliny the younger. "He was no good any more," said 
 Pliny; "but he was a friend of my old man's." 
 
 Epitaph enough for any old gentleman. 
 
 Partridge was forgetful of all else when he heard a 
 knock on his door. It reminded him of old times 
 when Nathan Tyrone was young and sought his conn 
 pany, or when Melissine was a little girl. He raised 
 himself from the edge of his couch with surprising agil- 
 
 343
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 ity. He was at the door in a moment, had flung it open. 
 The candle flickered in the sudden gust of air. For 
 a moment he was seeing no one. Then he saw her. 
 
 "Mme. Jenesco !" 
 
 "I I wanted to talk to you," she said. 
 
 She had undressed herself for the night, but she had 
 drawn a peignoir over her night-dress. There was no 
 paint on her face. 
 
 "Pray come in," said Partridge. He stood aside to 
 let her pass. 
 
 She looked about her the one candle flickering in its 
 porcelain candlestick, the open but shuttered window 
 where a scant and worn but perfectly clean chintz cur 
 tain fluttered on its cotton string, the small white dresser, 
 the solitary wooden chair, the narrow white cot. 
 
 "You were still up," she said. 
 
 It was an allusion to the fact that Partridge was still 
 fully dressed. 
 
 "I seldom retire early," he said. "And" he hoped 
 she would not think that he was blaming her in any 
 way "here lately I have not been sleeping very well." 
 
 "Oh, it wasn't for that " 
 
 "Won't you be seated?" 
 
 She sat down. "I was worried about you," she said, 
 changing the current but not the purport of what she 
 had started to say. "I've seen enough of the world 
 where such things happen. I knew about your buying 
 that chloral." 
 
 "Oh !" said Partridge. He looked at her a little more 
 intently. 
 
 344
 
 So Much for So Much 
 
 She had seated herself. She sought for a time to 
 avoid his eyes, but finally she faced him as he resumed 
 his place on the edge of his cot. A little color came 
 into her pale face. 
 
 "I've been pretty rotten," she said, "but I didn't want 
 that on my conscience." 
 
 "Want what on your conscience?" 
 
 "Wasn't it for that you bought the chloral?" 
 
 "You mean to destroy myself?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Partridge closed his eyes. He bowed his head. He 
 seemed to realize as for the first time just what his in 
 tentions really had been with regard to the chloral. Then 
 he let his old eyes drift to Melissine's calendar. 
 
 "I've known a girl or two who took it for the same 
 reason," said Mme. Jenesco. "They took it because 
 they wanted to be rid of it all." 
 
 "Girls? When they had youth " 
 
 "That's what got their nerve," Mme. Jenesco enlight 
 ened. "It wouldn't have mattered so much if they were 
 old. Then it would have been over for them before 
 long anyway. But, being young, and knowing that they 
 might go on getting the rotten end of it for another 
 fifty years or so oh! I don't blame them! I don't 
 blame them!" 
 
 Partridge reflected. 
 
 "I know that there is suffering in the world," he 
 said. "I know that there are so many things that we 
 do not understand, that it does seem at times as if life 
 were in vain, times when we say: 'What does it all 
 
 345
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 amount to?' But, even when the world is darkest, there 
 is a candle lighted somewhere in the depths of us " 
 
 His thought became so spiritual that his voice was 
 insufficient and flickered into silence. 
 
 "There are a lot of things you don't know about," 
 said Mme. Jenesco, not without sympathy. 
 
 "True," said Partridge. "I have been spared many 
 things. I have been granted many blessings. I seem 
 to have forgotten them here of late. I have tried ; there 
 
 has been something " He bowed his head, again, 
 
 suddenly tired and weak. 
 
 The spectacle of his bowed head, so clean and glis 
 tening white in the candle-light, seemed to move Mme. 
 Jenesco greatly. 
 
 "Listen," she said. "I'm sorry that I ever said what 
 I did. I'd rather die myself than make you any trouble. 
 I'll go away to-morrow, and you'll never hear of me 
 again. I swear I will. Don't be so broken up. I can't 
 stand it to see you like that. I'll go back to the old 
 life, I will, and take what's coming to me. It's all I'm 
 fit for. I didn't know that there were people like you 
 in the world. I merely thought that there were the 
 rich and the poor, the lucky and the unlucky, God's 
 favorites and the Godforsaken. I was tired of being 
 one of the goats. I wanted peace!" 
 
 "Peace, peace !" he murmured. 
 
 Partridge did not yet look up. Perhaps she thought 
 that he hadn't heard her. She kneeled down in front 
 of him and tried to lift his face. 
 
 "Old man," she coaxed. 
 
 346
 
 So Much for 'So Much 
 
 "What is it?" Partridge's voice was thick but mild. 
 
 "Think of me" she said. "I've come nearer to loving 
 you than I've ever loved any one in the world before. 
 My mother was no good. They were a joke to me 
 all these mother-songs." 
 
 "You shouldn't say that, my child," Partridge gently 
 reproved. 
 
 But she pursued her line of thought. 
 
 "And as for a father ! Wouldn't I be proud, though, 
 if I had a father like you! I'd tell the world I would. 
 And I'd show the world by being decent, I would. God, 
 when I think how I treated you the things I said to 
 you ! But you'll forgive me, won't you?" 
 
 "I forgive you ; and I dare say so will He." 
 
 This latter statement, and some train of associated 
 thought, seemed to move Mme. Jenesco* more even than 
 she had already been moved. 
 
 "You've made me think," she said; then there was a 
 catch in her voice. "You've made me think that the 
 world wasn't so bad and that I wasn't so bad " 
 
 Without visible transition it was now she who was the 
 comforted, and it was Partridge who< was the com 
 forter. She had put her face on his knee, while her 
 shoulders shook ; he had put his hand on her head. 
 
 "I I never had a father," she said. 
 
 Partridge looked at the calendar. When he spoke 
 his words were a declaration: 
 
 "You have now," he said.
 
 CHAPTER LIX 
 
 THE SECRET 
 
 THEY let this little storm of emotion through which 
 both of them had passed subside into peace. 
 They let this peace take possession of them. For 
 Partridge, at least, the cheap calendar on the wall was 
 become as the sun, and the light of it was on his face. 
 
 ". . . for the end of that man is peace!" 
 
 For the time being, even New York seemed to slum 
 ber. A fitful breeze stirred the scant white curtain, and 
 the curtain went gayly playful. The breeze brought with 
 it a fragrance of grass and locust-bloom. No ; this soiled 
 child had said it. The world wasn't so bad. 
 
 "What is your real name?" asked Partridge. "What 
 is your real Christian name? Mary? Susan?" 
 
 "My name is Belle," Mme. Jenesco replied. 
 
 "Belle !" said Partridge. "The word for beautiful. It 
 is a beautiful name. You'll be my child, Belle. I I 
 never thought that I should be so fortunate. I dare 
 say that you will be provided for. There must be some 
 way." 
 
 Belle took Partridge's hands in hers. She looked up 
 into his face. She studied him with rapt devotion. 
 
 348
 
 The Secret 
 
 "You never stole that money," she said slowly. 
 
 Partridge closed his lips and his eyes. He let his 
 chin sink on his breast. He meditated. But when he 
 opened his eyes again he was calm and strong. 
 
 "We shall trust each other now," he said. "It would 
 have been better had I trusted you all along." 
 
 She went into a little panic. The panic misled her. 
 
 "Don't you worry," she said. "Even if you did take 
 a little money, that won't make any difference. They 
 shouldn't have kept you working here all these years at 
 a servant's salary." 
 
 "Oh, no !" said Partridge gently. "The Tyrones were 
 ever generous. Just shortly before Mr. Nathan Tyrone 
 undertook his last voyage to Europe he told me to in 
 crease my salary to double it, in fact." 
 
 "I shouldn't say anything," Belle assented softly, re 
 membering favors received. 
 
 "Neither of us should say anything," Partridge pur 
 sued. "He was a proud man and a reserved man. He 
 had no more idea of the value of money than a little 
 child would have had. When he was little, his father 
 placed a hundred dollars to his credit in the bank. 
 He drew but one check against this sum. This was a 
 check for the entire amount that he gave to a blind 
 man a blind man who, it developed, could see." 
 
 "No wonder you were tempted !" 
 
 "I was tempted. You see, Mr. Nathan's father was 
 aware of his son's weakness. And there had been that 
 unfortunate estrangement. They were both proud men. 
 When the elder Tyrone was near death he called me 
 
 349
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 to his bedside. He was still bitter against his son. He 
 was bitter against the foreign woman Nathan had taken 
 to be his wife, although the elder Tyrone had never 
 seen her had always refused to see her. There, I sup 
 pose that they have met in heaven, now, and entered 
 into the truce. But it was hard upon me. Yes, I con 
 fess that the door was opened to temptation to pride, 
 to worldliness. Had Nathan ever suspected the facts, 
 that would have been an end of it." 
 
 "You mean that he would have driven you out." 
 
 "It would have driven him out." 
 
 "Driven him out! Why?" 
 
 Partridge hung his head. 
 
 "But Melissine she loved you," Mme. Jenesco 
 prompted, softly. 
 
 "No more than her father did, perhaps. But I had 
 to keep the secret keep it all these years. Was it not 
 this that cast its shadow over the house? It was a 
 darkness a mystery and I couldn't explain couldn't 
 take it into the courts could only wait for death. Is 
 it strange that the house came to have a bad name?" 
 
 "Tell me what it was," said Belle. 
 
 But now that Partridge was launched on this theme 
 that had kept him silent for years he had to develop 
 it further. 
 
 "What could I say? The least hint would have been 
 fatal. Judge Bancroft, a man of the utmost probity 
 as well as learning, had fallen in with my plan long ago. 
 It was simple. I was old. I expected that my own demise 
 would precede that of Mr. Nathan by many years. Even 
 
 350
 
 The Secret 
 
 now it would have helped this night for to-morrow 
 I have promised to reveal the secret to Mr. Buckhannon." 
 
 "What is the secret?" 
 
 "You shall know." 
 
 "But you don't want to tell ?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 There followed a long silence. Belle studied the old 
 man's face as an earnest scholar might have studied the 
 white parchment of an ancient manuscript. He did not 
 try to avoid her scrutiny. Neither of them smiled. There 
 was a sadness, and a knowledge of the world, in the 
 face of each of them. 
 
 "Did you mean it just now," she whispered, "when 
 you said that you would be a father to me?" 
 
 "I did though poor and unworthy " 
 
 "You're neither," she said. "You're one of God's 
 own noblemen. Listen ! You won't get mad, will you ? 
 You said you would be my father. You said that you 
 meant it. You've got to let me be a daughter to you. 
 You will, Won't you? Don't say you won't. You're 
 the first person I really ever wanted to do anything 
 for." 
 
 "Why, God bless you!" said Partridge. 
 
 "But I've got a little money," Belle hurried on. "It 
 ain't much. But it'll be enough for you and me. It 
 don't matter where I got it. It don't matter how I got 
 it. Not if I put it to a good use. Tell me that it don't. 
 I want to be good. I want to be good for the rest of 
 my life. Oh, honest to God, I do!" 
 
 She checked a sob. The better to check it she got to 
 
 351
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 her feet. She tried to smile. But the things that Par 
 tridge was trying to tell her with his eyes as much as 
 by word of mouth merely made matters worse. 
 
 She had crossed the little room to where the calendar 
 hung. It was mere chance that she rested her head 
 against the calendar. The shadow of her head dark red, 
 like that of one of Heller's Magdalenes blotted out the 
 text of the day, but another text gleamed out : 
 
 "Knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and pa* 
 tience, experience; and experience, hope."
 
 CHAPTER LXV 
 
 ERE FADES THE ROSE! 
 
 PERHAPS something of all this came to Eugene 
 Buckhannon in his sleep. Such things must hap 
 pen. There must be some system whereby in 
 telligences react on intelligences in ways unguessed and 
 undevised of man else whence come all the poems of 
 the world, the prophecies, the loves at first sight, the 
 sudden fads, fervors, and contagions? 
 
 In any case, Buckhannon arose from a sleep that 
 was sound and dreamless, so far as he was aware 
 but knew straightway that he had gained wisdom. "The 
 night brings counsel," says the Frenchman; which is 
 but another way of saying, "After darkness, dawn!" 
 
 So Buckhannon reflected. 
 
 Why worry ? Why not seize the present good ? Why 
 search for gloom when the sun was shining? Why dig 
 up trouble? Wasn't the world constantly letting the 
 gifts of the gods go to waste through anxiety as to 
 what might be coming next? Useless anxieties! Vain 
 fears ! Idiotic glooms ! 
 
 There was that thing that old Mr. Partridge was going 
 to tell him, for example. What in the devil did it 
 amount to, anyway so long as Melissine lived and 
 
 353
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 loved him him Buckhannon! All this while he was 
 making his toilet with more than the usual care bath, 
 shave, immaculate silk and linen. 
 
 It didn't occur to him, except subconsciously, perhaps ; 
 but he believed in the Lochinvar type ; so had all of his 
 clan to ride in and carry off the delectable bride and 
 to meditate on the consequences thereof afterward. As 
 good a way as any, to judge by the consequences as 
 manifested by the family thus far. There was happi 
 ness as well as beauty in those various old homes of 
 Tennessee known as this or that Buckhannon place. 
 
 Buckhannon visualized such a place now the place 
 that would be all his own some day: big old Colonial 
 house, lofty white pillars, three or four acres of door- 
 yard filled with grass and ancient trees, two hundred 
 acres more or less of rich farmland swelling away to 
 meet the acreage of other Buckhannons; then, most 
 of all, Melissine the mistress of this domain. He saw 
 her garbed in white out under the trees. He saw her 
 presiding over the family table when there should be 
 guests gallant men and other beautiful women. He 
 saw her at her harp in the old-fashioned parlor heard 
 her music, strings and voice, as he smoked his cigar in 
 the moonlight out on the porch. 
 
 The suite of reveries had brought his enthusiasm to 
 its highest pitch, and himself to Cinnamon Street, at just 
 about the time that Melissine had finished breakfast. 
 Once more it had been Melissine who had answered 
 to his knock. She hadn't been expecting him so early, 
 but she had experienced a lurch of hope hope for what 
 
 354
 
 Ere Fades the Rose! 
 
 she couldn't have told. Only, she had been feeling 
 blue. There had been an anxiety upon her not the less 
 disquieting because it was vague. 
 
 For, what was that thing that Partridge had been 
 keeping to himself? Why was he going to impart this 
 secret to Eugene and not to herself? Was it a family 
 disgrace? Was it something that was going to make 
 her a figure of scorn? What if Eugene should go away 
 and leave her and never see her again? 
 
 She had wrestled with her soul and had come to the 
 decision : 
 
 Yet it would be better that she should suffer such a 
 fate, even if it killed her, than that she should bring 
 upon him some disgrace. 
 
 All this in Melissine's head and in her breathless 
 bosom as she sped through the hall to open the door. 
 And something else: 
 
 She would not kiss him! 
 
 Ah, no! All that was over and done for until Eugene 
 and Grandy had had their talk. She would be reserved. 
 She would hold herself aloof. She would do nothing 
 to embarrass him. 
 
 And there, almost before she knew it, Buckhannon 
 had sprung into the hall, had slammed the door back 
 of him. One of his arms was about her waist, one of 
 his hands was back of her head. He had crushed her 
 to him. There was no escape. Oh, she wouldn't have 
 had enough strength to escape anyway even if he had 
 held her with nothing but cobwebs. 
 
 "Eugene! Oh, my Eugene!" 
 
 355
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 She had just enough strength to pant his name. 
 
 But into this cry of hers she was throwing all the 
 hope that this world held for her. 
 
 And what was this that he was telling her? 
 
 "Get your hat! Get your hat and come along!" 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "To City Hall!" 
 
 She was so innocent of worldly affairs that she had 
 to ask what for. As a matter of fact, he was almost 
 as breathless as she was and inclined to be incoherent. 
 
 "That's where we have to go to get the license," he 
 told her. 
 
 "What license?" 
 
 "We're going to get married !" he gusted. 
 
 They escaped from the house Heaven knows how 
 Melissine so excited that she could hardly get her hat 
 on, Buckhannon urging her to come along hat or no 
 hat. Melissine had flung the message over her shoulder 
 to such as might hear that she would be right back. 
 But Buckhannon would stand for no further delay. 
 Buckhannon was Lochinvar. 
 
 And it thrilled Melissine to the very marrow to be 
 ordered about like this. It would have been fine to be 
 dignified and aloof; but this was infinitely finer yet! 
 Her surrender was complete. Who wouldn't have sur 
 rendered in the face of such overwhelming force? 
 
 But she did become a little frightened once they were 
 down in the License Bureau. Perhaps this was because 
 Buckhannon was a little frightened himself. He tried 
 to conceal this; and then, when he couldn't conceal it, 
 
 356
 
 Ere Fades the Rose! 
 
 to pass it off with a joke to the effect that he had never 
 been here before. But he soon stiffened up. And so 
 did Melissine. 
 
 There were so many people there to look at them ! 
 And all these people had to be encouraged. 
 
 One would have said that the business of getting mar 
 ried had suddenly become the principal occupation of 
 New York colored folks down from Harlem, gay with 
 grins and Sunday clothes; Italians, Hunkies, Russian 
 Jews, Armenians, Japanese. 
 
 "You can't blame them for looking at us," Buckhan- 
 non whispered. "We're the only Americans present." 
 
 "But the girls all look as if they felt just like I do," 
 Melissine returned, smiling up at him whitely. 
 
 "Cheer up," he comforted. "It isn't as bad as it 
 seems." 
 
 But Buckhannon's own heart and his new-found 
 sense of authority failed him when he and Melissine 
 arrived in that upper chamber where the actual cere 
 monies were being performed. Here the couples were 
 lined up two by two like animal candidates for some 
 new Noah's Ark of Matrimony while the grinning and 
 tearful relatives looked on and a brace of aldermen went 
 through the formula from "You-Sam-Brown-an'-you- 
 Alice- Jones" on down to "Kiss-your-bride." 
 
 Buckhannon could feel Melissine tremble at his side. 
 It was a tremor that had a response within his own 
 anatomy, from crown to heel, with the center of the 
 disturbance, so to speak, in the pit of his stomach. 
 
 His condition became such that he turned to Melissine 
 
 357
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 for consolation. It spoke well for the future of both 
 of them perhaps that it was she who was ready with her 
 consolation now not only ready with that but with a 
 solution for the thing that was troubling him. 
 
 She caught his hand in hers. There was no one 
 looking. She pressed his hand to her breast. 
 
 "We'll not get married here," she said. "I know a 
 better way."
 
 CHAPTER LXI 
 "LET HIM FOREVER, ETC." 
 
 IT must have been a test of faith and courage, too, 
 for Melissine, this proposal of hers. Back there 
 in the old house which, in a way, was as much 
 a house of mystery for her as it had always been for 
 the other dwellers in Cinnamon Street was Partridge, 
 with that secret of his, whatever it was. Would Par 
 tridge speak now? And when he did speak, was what 
 he would say be something that might still make this 
 Heaven-Selected mate of hers draw back? 
 
 To Melissine it was as if they were married already, 
 she and her Eugene. It hadn't been so while they were 
 awaiting their turn in the License Bureau. It hadn't 
 been so even after the license had been handed over 
 to them. The feeling that they were married had come 
 to her only when he had turned to her, just now, with 
 that look of distress and appeal in his eyes. 
 
 She felt almost as if she were a mother to him. 
 Wouldn't she always shield him, though? Wouldn't she 
 fight for him slave for him pray for him yield her 
 self to him heart and soul ? But not that, O Lord ! Not 
 that! "It would kill me should anything happen now 
 to keep me from giving him my life!" 
 
 359
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 Her proposal was this : 
 
 The old pastor of the abandoned chapel next door 
 to No. 6 was still alive. For years he had been a pen 
 sioner of the Tyrones. It was he who had read the 
 burial service over Melissine's father, and over her 
 grandfather. Wouldn't it be fine to go and get him 
 to marry them? 
 
 Buckhannon thought that it would. 
 
 And wouldn't it be fine to get the old gentleman to 
 come to No. 6, so that the wedding could be celebrated 
 there ? 
 
 Buckhannon was sure of it. He was feeling safer 
 now that he had the license in his pocket. 
 
 "And it will be just as if father were there," thrilled 
 Melissine softly; "and mama, and Grandy, and poor, 
 dear Mme. Jenesco !" 
 
 Buckhannon was already beginning to feel as any 
 bridegroom might feel on the eve of a fashionable wed 
 ding. The women control such events. But he arose 
 to the occasion. 
 
 "And you could put on one of those Valliere dresses," 
 he said; "such as your father loved and I love." 
 
 "Mother's wedding-dress," cried Melissine. 
 
 "And we could put up a lot of flowers make a floral 
 chapel," Buckhannon proposed, his mind running back 
 to something of that nature that he had seen out home 
 in his childhood. Not that it mattered very much. Not 
 for him. Nothing mattered for him except that they 
 should be married, and that he should make Melissine 
 
 360
 
 "Let Him Forever, Etc." 
 
 happy for the rest of her days. (People in the street 
 looked after them and smiled.) 
 
 He was making her happy now. There was hardly 
 a ghost of a cloud left on her horizon, even if there 
 was that much. She had her Eugene to thank for that. 
 And she did thank him from the bottom of her heart 
 to the top of her soul. And her soul soared heaven 
 ward. 
 
 "I suppose that the time has come to tell you, sir," 
 said Partridge. 
 
 This was the first moment that he and Buckhannon 
 had been alone together since Buckhannon returned to 
 the house with Melissine from the City Hall. There 
 had been much to do. There had been a stress of emo 
 tion quite apart from these external activities. 
 
 "Tell me nothing," said Buckhannon, clapping an arm 
 about Partridge's shoulders. 
 
 "It has to do with certain financial arrangements, sir," 
 said Partridge. "You may know that I have been en 
 trusted for a number of years with the stewardship of 
 the Tyrone fortune." 
 
 "Listen !" Buckhannon commanded. 
 
 He and Partridge were in the drawing-room. All the 
 doors were open. There came a froth of music, a clash 
 of feminine voices, then music again. That was Meles- 
 sine making her first attempt at the "Wedding March" 
 from "Lohengrin." The wedding was to be celebrated 
 in the music-room where all the Tyrones could bear 
 witness. In there they had constructed the floral arch 
 
 361
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 pink roses, chiefly, from the climbing vines at the side 
 of the house. It seemed as if the music and the voices 
 constituted a breeze, and as if this breeze blew into the 
 drawing-room now, bringing the fragrance of the flowers 
 along. 
 
 But presently these sounds ceased, and Partridge was 
 for speaking again. 
 
 "I feel that it is my duty," he began. 
 
 "Tell me this," Buckhannon interrupted. "Is is some 
 thing that concerns Melissine?" 
 
 "It is, sir." 
 
 "Does she know anything about it?" 
 
 "No, sir. It was something that I never even com 
 municated to her father." 
 
 "I see. It's some secret that you have been keeping 
 to yourself all these years." 
 
 "It was because " 
 
 "Never mind! Don't tell me anything unless I ask," 
 Btockhannon ordered with friendly 'authority. "And 
 would it disturb Melissine's happiness if she knew any 
 thing about it?" 
 
 Partridge nodded an affirmation that was a signal 
 of distress. 
 
 "Well, then," said Buckhannon, "why, for the love 
 of Mike, do you want to say anything at all for ? You're 
 devoted to her, aren't you you're her Grandy, aren't 
 you you want to see her happy for all the rest of her 
 days, don't you?" 
 
 "Heaven grant it !" 
 
 "Shake hands," said Buckhannon. They shook. But 
 
 362
 
 "Let Him Forever, Etc.* 9 
 
 Euckhannon could see that Partridge was still far from 
 being convinced that all was well. 
 
 It was with the purpose of further persuading him 
 that Buckhannon said: 
 
 "Whatever it is, keep it dark until after the wedding. 
 I had a grandfather once who used to say that secrets 
 and mystery and things like that were all that kept folks 
 from committing suicide. It makes life like a story. 
 We go on reading, or living, just to see how it's going 
 to end." 
 
 And that was all of what Partridge might have had 
 to say. It was, until later in the day, when the old 
 preacher arrived he who had been a pensioner of the 
 Tyrones for so many years and Melissine, tremulous, 
 was dressed in the bridal gown that had been her 
 mother's ; all this, and so on down through the ceremony 
 to that part of it where the old preacher said that if 
 there was any one who had something to say why the 
 marriage should not take place, let him say it now or 
 forever afterward hold his peace 
 
 The preacher was very old. He had lost his place. 
 Perhaps there, for a moment or so, he had even for 
 gotten what he was quite about. Was this a marriage 
 or a funeral a christening or an examination of candi 
 dates for admission to the church? 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 Under the floral arch that had been constructed where 
 Nathan Tyrone had lain, Melissine and Eugene were 
 kneeling side by side. His head was down like the head 
 
 363
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 of a young knight about to be accepted into the com 
 panionship; but Melissine's face was uplifted, seraphic. 
 So might her mother have looked twenty years ago 
 the blond curls, the same tender curves that made a 
 profile of strength and grace, and that expression in 
 her eyes that most brides have the look of him who 
 stood on a peak in Darien and saw the Pacific that 
 other ocean of mystery and enchanted islands. 
 
 Just back of them the two living witnesses old Par 
 tridge, very white, appareled in his best, and then, the 
 Woman in Black. 
 
 Partridge was so moved that every now and then a 
 little click came into his throat that was almost audible. 
 His face was the face of age, long-suffering and holy, 
 the physical part of it burned away, nothing left but the 
 transparent spirit, so that to look at him made you 
 imagine that he was there merely as the envoy of some 
 foreign court, and that once the ceremony was over he 
 would soon be gone. 
 
 But was Partridge going to speak? He knew every 
 thing. Was there something he had to say why this 
 marriage should not be? 
 
 Again, there was Mme. Jenesco still the Woman in 
 Black, but no longer the Woman of Babylon. Steadily, 
 steadily, at fixed intervals -like the flow of certain 
 geysers two tears overflowed from those well-deep eyes 
 of hers. 
 
 Wasn't she going to have something to say ? She also 
 was deeply versed in the accumulated wisdom of the 
 world. Was she going to say the preventive words? 
 
 364
 
 "Let Him Forever, Etc:' 
 
 "Stop! Marriage is a fraud! Run wild, my sisters! 
 Look at me! What is purity old-fashioned goodness 
 ' mothers and grandmothers ! Behold this bride ! Cor 
 rupt her send her to the streets the brothel the jail 
 the hospital and the morgue else she nourish chil 
 dren who will be clean and strong, teach them love and 
 reverence, make men and women of them to serve the 
 State. 
 
 But Mme. Jenesco merely touched her tears away at 
 intervals. 
 
 Then Partridge spoke just a whisper, though, and 
 a single word. "Belle," he said. And he passed Mme. 
 Jenesco's arm under his own. 
 
 And as if this were the signal he had been waiting 
 for or the inspiration the preacher spoke the conclud 
 ing words. 
 
 "Amen! Amen!" 
 
 And several of the pink roses let their petals fall 
 like a blessing with perfect generosity giving all they 
 had.
 
 CHAPTER LXII 
 
 THE INEVITABLE HOUR 
 
 PARTRIDGE had given some sort of an inde 
 cisive rendezvous to Buckhannon ; or was it Buck- 
 hannon who lacked decision? Wasn't it just pos 
 sible that Buckhannon himself had come to fear any 
 revelation that the old butler might make as much as 
 Partridge himself dreaded it? 
 
 Partridge came into the music room of No. 6 there 
 where Nathan Tyrone had lain in state, where Melissine 
 herself had in some way been translated, and where 
 the portrait of that earlier Melissine smiled down at 
 death and marriage as if, after all, these both were 
 happy incidents. Partridge lit the candles at the side 
 of the portrait. He raised his eyes to it. Here was 
 the symbol of his earthly faith. 
 
 "Hello!" and there was Buckhannon. 
 
 "Why," said Partridge; "I wasn't expecting you so 
 soon." 
 
 "Melissine's asleep," said Buckhannon, guardedly. "I 
 thought that we two " 
 
 He put his arm about the old man's shoulders, pressed 
 him into a chair, himself drew another chair closer. 
 Partridge accepted the chair like one who is very tired, 
 
 366
 
 The Inevitable Hour 
 
 had gone a long race, had done all he could, and was 
 ready to forego further effort. He leaned back. His 
 white face was up. 
 
 "I have no right to keep the truth from you longer," 
 the old man said. "I've tried to do my duty. If I have 
 erred, God and, I believe, you, sir will understand." 
 
 "Trust me," said Buckhannon, with fervor. 
 
 "I couldn't tell before," said Partridge; "it would have 
 brought such shame on Mr. Tyrone, likewise on Melis- 
 sine." 
 
 "Trust me," said Buckhannon again; but now he was 
 not quite so cocksure. He was very alert. 
 
 "May I ask, sir," Partridge asked, "if you are a man 
 of means?" 
 
 "My family is considered rich," said Buckhannon. "I 
 inherited something from my grandmother plenty to 
 live on. But I could raise a pretty big amount. You 
 bet I could, old man. How much do you need?" 
 
 "Oh, it wasn't that, sir; only, it does simplify the 
 matter." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "After my death, Melis Mrs. Buckhannon, sir " 
 
 "She'll always be Melissine for you !" 
 
 " will inherit everything. But until then " 
 
 "After your death?" 
 
 "After my death," whispered Partridge. "Oh, sir, 
 there have been times when I would gladly have passed 
 over, as they say. It would so have simplified matters !" 
 
 "What? How?" 
 
 "The elder Mr. Tyrone, Nathan's father, saw to that. 
 
 367
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 He employed Judge Bancroft who, as you doubtless 
 know, was a very able man. Both of them seemed to 
 foresee and forestall any possible weakness on my 
 part. I was bound hand and foot. There was no es 
 cape. And yet, can't you see how it was? Had the 
 slightest breath of suspicion reached them it would have 
 been shipwreck, of their lives, not to mention my own." 
 
 "You mean, that there was something about the woman 
 or girl that Mr. Nathan Tyrone, Melissine's father, 
 brought here to the house?" 
 
 "That was it. That was the beginning of it all. That 
 was thirty years ago. That was the cause of the estrange 
 ment between Mr. Nathan and his father. They were 
 both proud men sensitive, as unyielding as unyield 
 ing as General Grant, sir and yet as gentle, as gentle 
 as gentle as the lady that Mr. Nathan brought back 
 with him from Paris, Melissine's mother. And, nat 
 urally, when the elder Mr. Tyrone refused to see her, 
 why, Mr. Nathan, who had been willing to make peace, 
 again rebelled." 
 
 "But after the elder Mr. Tyrone died ?" 
 
 "That was when my trouble if I may so speak of it 
 became acute," said Partridge. "Not immediately! 
 Mr. Nathan was then in Paris. He was greatly pre 
 occupied by the health of Mme. Tyrone. Later, when! 
 she died, leaving Melissine, I was forced to tell him 
 my first lie. After that, my life became a lie." 
 
 "Impossible! You were always so devoted." 
 
 "I lied to him. I lied to Melissine." 
 
 Buckhannon heard a half-stifled breath at the door. 
 
 368
 
 The Inevitable 
 
 He turned. There was a white shadow there in the 
 candlelight. It was Melissine herself. Evidently, she 
 had awaked and, not finding Buckhannon, had come to 
 look for him. She had heard that last declaration of 
 Partridge, had started forward. But Buckhannon 
 stopped her with a gesture. Partridge was oblivious 
 of everything except his own thought. 
 
 "Lied to her! I don't believe it. That is, I don't 
 believe it was a bad lie." 
 
 "Not a bad lie, I hope. No, it was meant to save them 
 pain. It has lasted now for almost twenty years." 
 
 Buckhannon thought. He had an eye and an ear 
 for Melissine. It was almost as if she were standing in 
 front of him and speaking to him, he was that much 
 aware of all she felt. 
 
 "Get it off your mind," he said. "Melissine loves 
 
 you " He would have liked to add that it wasn't 
 
 otherwise with himself. He brought the sentiment out 
 in another way. "You're a sort of a father to us both," 
 he said. "We have a right to share your trouble. Do 
 you suppose that anything you could tell us now or 
 anything that you may have done in the past would 
 change our feeling for you?" 
 
 This made Partridge weep, silently, with fine repres 
 sion. 
 
 Buckhannon now reached out back of him and found 
 a hold on Melissine's fingers, for Melissine had come 
 creeping close, eager to sympathize and console. 
 
 "Or do you think," Buckhannon pursued, "that any- 
 
 369
 
 The House- With a Bad Name 
 
 thing anything! could make me less proud of having 
 married Melissine, or make me love her less ?" 
 
 "It was for her sake," said Partridge. 
 
 "I believe you." 
 
 "And. her father's." 
 
 "Tell me what it was." 
 
 Partridge let himself go in silent prayer. It was so 
 still in Cinnamon Street that the organ-notes of the city 
 tided in, softly a De Profundis for all the martyrs 
 otherwise unsung. What was coming? What would it 
 be, the cry of this old man? And what would their cry 
 be the two who waited? 
 
 "They were disinherited," Partridge whispered. 
 
 "Disinherited! Is that all?" 
 
 "All! All!" 
 
 "Why, that's happened a thousand times." 
 
 "Not like this. Suppose that Mr. Nathan or Melis 
 sine had known that they were living in a house not 
 legally their own spending money that was not legally 
 their own!" 
 
 "Whose was it?" 
 
 "Theirs, in the sight of God." 
 
 "But in fact? in the eyes of the law?" 
 
 "Mine!" 
 
 "Yours! And you never told?" 
 
 "I lied about it. I told Mr. Nathan that his father 
 had died without making a will that I would arrange 
 all the details with Judge Bancroft. There was no legal 
 recourse." 
 
 "And it was that " 
 
 370
 
 The Inevitable Hvwr 
 
 "That, for the past twenty years when Mr. Nathan 
 required funds to buy this blessed picture, when he 
 generously doubled my salary. Oh, it was an answer to 
 my prayers that he would never occupy himself with 
 worldly details. If the matter had ever come into the 
 courts if a question had ever arisen as to my right 
 to draw on the family funds " 
 
 Melissine gave an audible little gasp. She had been 
 standing there wavering. 
 
 "Grandy !" 
 
 She came around and put her arms about Partridge's 
 head. She kneeled in front of him. 
 
 "My darling Grandy!" 
 
 "Eh! Eh!" went Partridge. 
 
 And he sank a little lower in his chair, gazing at 
 Melissine as long as he could, so that he could read the 
 look in. her face, before his eyes should fill again.
 
 CHAPTER LXIII 
 
 THEY VANISH 
 
 1AM sure that it was that way with him always," 
 said Melissine. 
 This was years afterward. Melissine was the 
 matron now. She was mature. But she was more beau 
 tiful than ever. She would keep on getting more beau 
 tiful than ever as is the way with women of heart and 
 understanding. 
 
 "I am sure that when the dear Lord spoke to Par 
 tridge there was nothing that He could have said that 
 would have pleased Partridge better than: 'Well done, 
 thou good and faithful servant !' " 
 
 A lovely look of tender recollection had come into 
 Melissine's face. Buckhannon pressed her hand. They 
 had driven down from their up-town place for a look 
 at Cinnamon Street. But Cinnamon Street was changed. 
 Gone was Tony Zamboni's ; gone the druggist ; gone the 
 chapel and the churchyard; gone old No. 6! There 
 were warehouses there, and a new garage. It must have 
 been a spirit-picture that brought that look into Melis 
 sine's face. 
 
 "He was the perfect gentleman," said Melissine fondly. 
 
 "He was all of that," Buckhannon agreed. "I'm glad 
 
 372
 
 They Vanish 
 
 that he lived to influence Mme. Jenesco, permanently, 
 as he influenced us. Where is she now?" 
 
 "Still running the day-nursery, and happy! I saw 
 her only yesterday." 
 
 They relapsed into silence for a while. 
 
 They were still standing there they had left their 
 car around the corner in the granite-paved avenue 
 when two very old men came hobbling down the street, 
 side by side. Both of these old men were shrunken, but 
 one had been large and the other had been small. He 
 who had been large had a bony shaven face out of which 
 stared a pair of fixed and owlish eyes. He who had 
 been small and was now smaller yet had a furtive 
 look about him. He had a scraggly gray beard on his 
 chin, but for all that he looked like a decrepit old rat 
 "a rat that had seen a cat." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Buckhannon, saluting them. 
 
 "Eh?" said the rat. 
 
 The rat's companion merely stared. 
 
 "We were looking for Cinnamon Street," said Buck- 
 hannon. 
 
 "Eugene!" Melissine chided him softly. 
 
 But Buckhannon took her arm under his. 
 
 "We were looking for Cinnamon Street," he said ; "No. 
 6 Cinnamon Street." 
 
 "That's the garage over yonder," said he of the bony 
 face. 
 
 "There must have been some mistake," said Buckhan 
 non. "This No. 6 was a fine old house a beautiful old 
 house in which some beautiful people lived." 
 
 373
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 The human rat now began to giggle. He stamped the 
 sidewalk with his cane. The other didn't smile. He 
 merely stared. It was he who spoke. 
 
 "You mean the old No. 6," said he. 
 
 "It must have been," said Buckhannon. 
 
 "It couldn't have been," said the Owl, "because the 
 house I mean wasn't beautiful. Neither was the people 
 who lived in it." 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 "For upward of thirty years I was the policeman on 
 this beat," said he who had now revealed himself to be 
 Hickcock. "It was a house with a bad name such a 
 hen-coop as even New York might be leary about !" 
 
 "But why did it have a bad name?" asked Buckhannon. 
 
 "Ask my friend here," Hickcock said dispassionately. 
 "He ought to know. He kept the drug-store here right 
 across from it." 
 
 The druggist, thus appealed to, stopped giggling and 
 became cautious. He glanced about as if afraid of eaves 
 droppers. 
 
 "They say it was haunted," he confided. 
 
 "Haunted?" 
 
 "Some queer things take place in a city like this," said 
 Hickcock, with the air of one who means more than his 
 words imply. 
 
 "That's right," the druggist giggled. 
 
 Hickcock turned his owlish eyes on the druggist, 
 brought them back to Buckhannon. Hickcock soberly 
 pointed a finger at his head, meaning that the druggist 
 was not quite responsible, then said: 
 
 374
 
 They Vanish 
 
 "I once had a friend who said that old men and old 
 houses are all haunted. I don't know what he meant. 
 But I know that he spoke the truth. He was that kind 
 except when he was sober." 
 
 "Thank you," said Buckhannon, meaning that the inter 
 view was closed. And the two old cronies continued 
 their way. "There goes the world in general," said Buck 
 hannon, pressing the tender arm that was under his 
 own. 
 
 "Just ignorance," Melissine forgave them, with a tear 
 ful little laugh. 
 
 "Just ignorance," Buckhannon agreed; "and the lack 
 of charity that ignorance breeds. Houses and hearts 
 we've got to know what goes on inside of them before 
 we can judge." 
 
 Melissine returned the pressure of his arm. 
 
 There for a fleeting moment, it was as if all that had 
 vanished had returned again old No. 6, of the green 
 blinds and the Colonial door ; the smithy to one side, with 
 its ailanthus-tree ; and the churchyard on the other, with 
 its abandoned chapel and its flowering locusts. A still 
 ness gathered in the street. Once more the air was per 
 fumed. Then, down the stoop of No. 6 the spectral 
 presence of it there came for Buckhannon, at least 
 the nimble old servant who was Cartridge, followed by 
 the stately Nathan Tyrone and his fair, old-fashioned 
 daughter. 
 
 Melissine sighed. She had followed his thought. 
 
 "They vanish," said Buckhannon. 
 
 375
 
 The House With a Bad Name 
 
 "But we love them still," said Melissine, "and shall 
 love them always." 
 
 They turned and slowly walked away, themselves thus 
 vanishing from Cinnamon Street forever. 
 
 .THE END!
 
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