tell Mr. Keene"--even she
stumbled a trifle in naming the so recent dead. "I used to tell him that
he had buried the best years of my life down here in the swamp on the
plantation."

"Pleasant for Mr. Keene," Gordon thought.

"I wanted to live in life," reiterated Mrs. Keene. "What is a glimpse of
New Orleans or the White Sulphur Springs once in a great while!"

"'This world is but a fleeting show,'" quoted Rigdon, with a palpable
effort to laugh off the inappropriate subject.

"Oh, that is what people always tell the restricted, especially when
they are themselves drinking the wine-cup to the bottom."

"And finding the lees bitter," said Rigdon.

The widow gave an offhand gesture. "You learned that argument from
Geraldine--he is nothing but an echo of Geraldine, Mr. Gordon--now,
isn't he, Mamma?" she appealed directly to Mrs. Brinn.

"He seems to have a great respect for Geraldine's opinion," said Mrs.
Brinn primly.

"If I may ask, who is this lady who seems to give the law to the
community?" inquired Gordon, thinking it appropriate to show, and really
beginning to feel, an interest in the personnel of the entourage. "Am I
related to her, as well as to Mr. Keene?"

"No; Geraldine is one of the Norris family--intimate friends of ours,
but not relatives. She often visits here, and in my affliction and
loneliness I begged her to come and stay for several weeks."

Not to be related to the all-powerful Geraldine was something of a
disappointment, for although Gordon had little sentiment or ideality in
his mental and moral system, one of his few emotional susceptibilities
lay in his family pride and clannish spirit He felt for his own, and he
was touched in his chief altruistic possibility in the appeal that had
brought him hither. To his amazement, Mr. Keene, a second cousin whom he
had seldom even seen, had named him executor of his will, without bond,
and in a letter written in the last illness, reaching its destination
indeed after the writer's death, had besought that Gordon would be
gracious enough to act, striking a crafty note in urging the ties of
consanguinity.

But for this plea Gordon would have doubtless declined on the score
of pressure of business of his own. There were no nearer relatives,
however, and with a sense of obligation at war with a restive
indisposition, Gordon had come in person to this remote region to offer
the will for probate, and to take charge of the important papers and
perso