"She died and he went away, nobody knows where. What does it mean?"

"I don't know," he admitted, staring at her with his handsome, long-lashed eyes. "Lots of people die and go away." Then, after a pause, in which he dropped his eyes, he added:

"My mother died two years ago."

"Did she?" answered Sheba, wondering why he looked so gloomy again all at once. "I don't think I ever had any mother, but I have Uncle Tom."

He stared at her again, and there was silence for a few minutes. This he broke by asking a question.

"What is your name?" he demanded.

"De Willoughby," she replied, "but I'm called Sheba."

"Why, that's my name," he said, surprisedly. "My name is De Willoughby.

I--Hallo, Neb----"

This last in a tone of proprietorship to a negro servant, who was advancing towards them from a side-door and who hurried up with rather a frightened manner.

"Ye'd best get ready ter start right away, Mars Ralph," he said. "He's wake at las', an' der's de debbil to pay, a-cussin' an' roarin' an'

wantin' opium; an' he wants to know whar ye bin an' what ye mean, an' ses de hosses mus' be at de do' in ten minits. Oh, de cunnel he's in de wustest kin' o' humour, dar's no doin' nuffin right fer him."

"Tell him to go to h----" burst forth the lad, flying into a rage and looking so wickedly passionate in a boyish way that Sheba was frightened again. "Tell him I won't go until I'm ready; I've been dragged round till I'm sick of it, and----"

In the midst of his tempest he checked himself, turned about and walked suddenly into the house, the negro following him in evident trepidation.

His departure was so sudden that Sheba fancied he would return and say something more to her. Angry as he looked, she wished very much that he would, and so stood waiting wistfully.

But she was doomed to disappointment. In a few minutes the negro brought to the front three horses, and almost immediately there appeared at the door a tall, handsome man, who made his way to the finest horse and mounted it with a dashing vault into the saddle.

He had a dark aquiline face like the boy's, and wore a great sweeping mustache which hid his mouth. The boy followed, looking wonderfully like him, as he sprang into his own saddle with the same dare-devil vault.

No one spoke a word, and he did not even look at Sheba, though she watched him with admiring and longing eyes. As soon as they were fairly in their seats the horses, which were fine creatures, needing neither whip nor spur, sprang forward with a light, easy movement, and so cantered down the street towards the high road which stretched itself over a low hill about a quarter of a mile away.

Sheba laid her cheek against the wooden pillar and looked after them with a return of the sense of loneliness she had felt before.

"He went away," she whispered, "nobody knows where--nobody knows where."

She felt Tom's hand laid on her shoulder as she said the words, and turned her face upward with a consciousness of relief, knowing she would not be lonely any longer.

"Have I been gone long?" he asked. "Where's Mrs. Sparkes?"

"She's in there," Sheba answered, eagerly, "and I've been talking to the boy."

"To the boy?" he repeated. "What boy?"

"To the one we saw," she replied, holding his hand and feeling her cheeks flush with the excitement of relating her adventure. "The nice boy. His name is like mine--and his mother died. He said it was De Willoughby, and it is like mine. He has gone away with his father. See them riding."

He dropped her hand and, taking a step forward, stood watching the receding travellers. He watched them until they reached the rising ground. The boy had fallen a few yards behind. Presently the others passed the top of the hill, and, as they did so, he turned in his saddle as if he had suddenly remembered something, and glanced back at the tavern porch.

"He is looking for me," cried Sheba, and ran out into the brightness of the setting sun, happy because he had not quite forgotten her.

He saw her, waved his hand with a careless, boyish gesture and disappeared over the brow of the hill.

Tom sat down suddenly on the porch-step. When Sheba turned to him he was pale and his forehead was damp with sweat. He spoke aloud, but to himself, not to her.

"Good Lord," he said, "it's De Courcy and--and the boy. That was why I knew his face."

When they went in to supper later on, there was a great deal of laughing and talking going on down the long table. Mr. Sparkes was finishing a story as they entered, and he was finishing it in a loud voice.

"They're pretty well known," he said; "an' the Colonel's the worst o' the lot. The nigger told me thar'd been a reg'lar flare-up at the Springs.

Thar was a ball an' he got on a tear an' got away from 'em an' bust right into the ballroom an' played Hail Columby. He's a pop'lar man among the ladies, is the Colonel, but a mixtry of whiskey an' opium is apt to spile his manners. Nigger says he's the drunkest man when he is drunk that the Lord ever let live. Ye cayn't do nothin' with him. The boy was thar, an'

they say 'twas a sight ter see him. He's his daddy's son, an' a bigger young devil never lived, they tell me. He's not got to the whiskey an'

opium yet, an' he jes' takes his'n out in pride an' temper. Nigger said he jest raved an' tore that night--went into the Colonel's room an'

cussed an' dashed round like he was gone mad. Kinder shamed, I reckin.

But Lord, he'll be at it himself in ten years from now. It's in the blood."

"Who's that you're talking of?" asked Tom from his end of the table. He had not recovered his colour yet and looked pale as he put the question.

"Colonel De Willoughby of Delisleville," answered Mr. Sparkes. "Any kin o' your'n? Name's sorter like. He jest left here this evenin' with his boy an' nigger. They've ben to Whitebriar, an' they're on their way home."

"I saw them ride over the hill," said Tom. "I thought I wasn't mistaken in the man. I've seen him before."

But he made a very poor supper, and a shadow seemed to have fallen upon his cheery mood of the morning. Sheba recognised this and knew, too, that her new friend and his father were in some vague way responsible for it, and the knowledge oppressed her so that when they sat out upon the porch together after the meal was over, she in her accustomed place on his knee, she grew sad under it herself and, instead of talking as usual, leaned her small head against his coat and watched the few stars whose brightness the moon had not shut out.

She went to bed early, but did not sleep well, dreaming dreary dreams of watching the travellers riding away towards the sunset, and of hearing the woman talk again. One of the talkers seemed at last to waken her with her voice, and she sat up in bed suddenly and found that it was Tom, who had roused her by speaking to himself in a low tone as he stood in a flood of moonlight before the window.

"She died," he was saying; "she died."

Sheba burst into a little sob, stretching out her hands to him without comprehending her own emotion.

"And he went away," she cried, "nobody knows where--nobody knows where--"

And even when he came to her hurriedly and sat down on the bedside, soothing her and taking her in his arms to sink back into slumber, she sobbed drearily two or three times, though, once in his clasp, she felt, as she had always done, the full sense of comfort, safety, and rest.

CHAPTER XII

The New England town of Willowfield was a place of great importance. Its importance--religious, intellectual, and social--was its strong point. It took the liberty of asserting this with unflinching dignity. Other towns might endeavour to struggle to the front, and, indeed, did so endeavour, but Willowfield calmly held its place and remained unmoved. Its place always had been at the front from the first, and there it took its stand.

It had, perhaps, been hinted that its sole title to this position lay in its own stately assumption: but this, it may be argued, was sheer envy and entirely unworthy of notice.

"Willowfield is not very large or very rich," its leading old lady said, "but it is important and has always been considered so."

There was society in Willowfield, society which had taken up its abiding-place in three or four streets and confined itself to developing its importance in half a dozen families--old families. They were always spoken of as the "old families," and, to be a member of one of them, even a second or third cousin of weak mind and feeble understanding, was to be enclosed within the magic circle outside of which was darkness, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. There were the Stornaways, who had owned the button factory for nearly a generation and a half--which was a long time; the Downings, who had kept the feed-store for quite thirty years, and the Burtons, who had been doctors for almost as long, not to mention the Larkins, who had actually founded the Willowfield _Times_, and kept it going, which had scarcely been expected of them at the outset.

Their moral, mental, and social gifts notwithstanding, there was nothing connected with the Stornaways, the Downings, the Burtons, and the Larkins of such importance as their antiquity. The uninformed outsider, on hearing it descanted upon, might naturally have been betrayed into the momentary weakness of expecting to see Mr. Downing moulder away, and little old Doctor Burton crumble into dust.