CHAPTER XI.

LANCE RETURNS.

April, coming to thaw the ice on Northern streams, and to mould the first buds that started out timidly as a young artist's efforts at creation, also dissolved the spell of solitude which had so long encompassed Jessie.

Lance was ready to build the paper-mill, and had written that he would take the rail southward as soon as possible. It had been agreed at Christmas-time that the wedding should come off in May or June. Activity began in the turpentine plantation; the trees were "boxed" and "tapped;" the sap commenced to flow. The air grew milder, the stars shone with a more hazy lustre in the night heavens, and birds renewed their notes in the thickets about the manor, or flew with transient greetings over the lonely land, on their mission of heralding the return of spring to higher latitudes. But Jessie could not rid herself of the mournfulness and the partial lethargy that had so long clung to her. She knew that Lance was coming, and her heart throbbed the more warmly: she waited eagerly to feel his arms clasped round her. Yet a lingering fear persuaded her that the happiness might still be deferred or, in the end, frustrated.

It was in such a mood that she leaned, one evening, on the railing of the old veranda, vaguely musing and inclined to sadness. There was no certainty as to the hour of Lance's advent, for he had not named a time, and into that far-off nook where she lived the lightning of the telegraph never penetrated. But of late Jessie had adopted a custom of straying out upon the veranda, as if she expected to see Lance approaching.

Suddenly she heard the click and crunch of unwonted wheels upon the drive near the house. She started up and listened, in a tremor of incredulous delight. The sounds drew nearer; presently a light flashed across the moist branches of the shade-trees, and the next moment she beheld the lanterns of a carriage, dimly illuminating its battered varnish, the smoking backs of two horses and the muffled torso of a sable driver. Then Lance's young, energetic face appeared in the square of the carriage-door, faintly roseate with the light from the house. He was fumbling at the door-handle before the wheels stopped turning.

The sable driver subsided completely into the depths of his sableness, as the two figures clasped each other at the top of the steps.

"Ah, Ned, I have waited for you so long!"

"And so have I for you, dear."

"Do you know, I felt almost as if I were that poor Gertrude, waiting and waiting still?"

"You _are_, dearest--you are _my_ Gertrude!"

And then the colonel, always discreet, allowed himself to be seen in the hallway, prepared to welcome the wanderer.

Lance barely restrained himself until the next day before seeking an opportunity to tell Jessie about the drawing which Hedson had brought from England.

"You've written me next to nothing about Adela Reefe," he said to her. "But I suppose you have kept on taking charge of her letters for Dennie."

"Oh yes," said Jessie; "he brought them all the way up to me. Poor fellow!"

"Why do you call him that?"

"It seems so severe for him, having her stay away at such a distance, and for so long. He's dreadfully in love with her."

"Yes, I know he is," Lance confessed. "Those times when I was with him so much, and you hardly liked it, I was talking with him about her and trying to console him. He let me into his confidence, and told me how he was afraid he had driven her from him and should never get her back. But Sylv used to send an encouraging message, now and then. Has he sent any more?"

"Sylv has hardly written at all," said Jessie.

Lance mused aloud: "That's strange."

"Yes," responded his sweetheart, in a tone as if she were about to say more; but she did not go on.

At this point Lance thought it best to bring forward his little surprise. Excusing himself, he went to his room and came back with the drawing. "By the way," he began, reseating himself, "I wonder if Adela has changed much in looks, under the influence of education. It would be curious to see her, wouldn't it?"

"I saw her," said Jessie, "just before she went back, after you left us, at Christmas."

"Well, then, you can tell. What do you think of this?" And her lover produced the portrait.

Jessie stared at it in some astonishment. "Where under the sun did that come from?" she exclaimed. "Was it done for you?"

"What do you think of it?" he repeated.

"It isn't perfect," was the answer; "but still, I should know it, I think. Why, Ned, are you cheating me? It isn't meant for Adela, is it? You naughty boy, I could almost think it was an attempt to show how _I_ shall look when I'm stouter! It's a joke."

"Then you think it's like you?" he inquired. "Does it strike you?"

"I won't say another word, until you tell me _what_ it is."

"It is a picture of Gertrude Wylde," Lance returned.

Then there was silence for a moment. Jessie took the drawing and looked at it intently. Her voice was low, and quivered with a sort of frightened tremor when she next spoke. "Why didn't you tell me at first, Ned? And what did you mean by speaking as if it were Adela Reefe? It _is_ like her; and it is like me, too. Oh, what this secret? What is the meaning of it all?"

"As well as I can make it out," said Lance, "the meaning is that Adela is a direct descendant of Gertrude Wylde, and a kinswoman of yours. The only thing remaining, in my mind, is to find out whether her father or his family came from Croatan. If that is proved--"

"And if that is proved, what then?"

"I know of nothing to follow, except that we should recognize her as a relative."

"Never!" cried Jessie. "This is a mere dream. It's impossible to prove her descent from our stock. I can have nothing to do with her."

Her vehemence was such that another man might have suspected some underlying motive of feminine jealousy. But Lance merely laughed. "Oh, there's no legal claim involved," said he, lightly. "Of course, I don't expect that anything tremendous is going to happen, even if she does turn out to be of your blood. But suppose we appoint your father arbitrator as to this portrait?"

Jessie consented, and they referred the picture to Colonel Floyd.

"If this is a well-authenticated reproduction," said the colonel, deploying his finest hand-book manner, "the appearances would seem to indicate some connection. 'Pon my soul, I never noticed any resemblance till now; but while the similarity to our Jessie is perceptible, it is not nearly so pronounced as the likeness to this Adela Reefe. Is it possible that an inherited type of countenance should last so long, under such conditions? Very singular; very strange!"

He did not evince enthusiasm, and he paced the room restlessly.

"What we want is to go and see old Mr. Reefe," suggested Lance, "and ask him about Croatan."

The colonel fell in with this proposition; and on the morrow they rode down to Hunting Quarters. It was not an easy matter to draw Reefe into conversation; but they at last succeeded in pinning him down to facts, and, without discovering their purpose, he assured them that, to the best of his knowledge, his predecessors had lived in the region of Croatan, until the time of his father, who crossed Pamlico Sound and settled near Hunting Quarters. To make a clean breast of it, he also admitted that his stock probably contained Indian blood; but of this he was rather proud than otherwise.

"It is settled," said Lance, when he came to tell Jessie the result of the inquiry. "There can be no reasonable doubt now. I must go up and let Adela and Sylv know about it at once."

Jessie leaned back in her chair and fixed her mild gray eyes upon him. She had never looked more captivating than at that instant, the side-part in her hair giving an accent of dainty self-reliance to her whole pose and demeanor. "Let me ask you a question," she said.

"Willingly."

"About poor Dennie. Has it ever occurred to you, Ned, that you may be doing him a great injury by sending Adela off in this way, and throwing her with Sylv?"

"No, of course not," answered Lance, somewhat nettled. "Would I have been a party to it if I had thought so?" But the mention of Sylv in this sort of way caused him an inward shudder. If there were any peril of Dennie's losing Adela, why should it be Sylv who should win her?

"I think you are helping to separate them," Jessie continued, "and you ought to reflect, and stop. Besides, why should you go on so, mixing yourself up in her affairs?"

"I'm not. I ought at least to see her and tell her my discovery."

Jessie suddenly rose. "I _hate_ that woman!" she cried, sharply. And, at the same instant, Lance saw his engagement ring flashing upon her finger.

"You shall not hate her," he declared, with passion. "She is your kinswoman--one of us. It isn't right that you should say that, and I won't endure it."

"Never mind whether you will endure it or not," Jessie retorted. "She has occupied enough of your attention already."

"My dear child," Lance remonstrated, "it's impossible that you should be jealous of that girl! But what else can you mean? What do you demand?"

"I think that you ought to just drop her, from this time on," said Jessie, closing her lips decisively.

There are scientific thinkers who tell us that the will is not a cause, but merely a state of consciousness resulting from previous conditions of the nerves and the emotions. However this may be, Lance's will asserted itself in strong opposition to Jessie's. The probability that Adela was a lineal descendant of Gertrude Wylde appealed strongly to his imagination. Now that his theory seemed so well established, he was resolved to have her kinship acknowledged; and, further, he experienced a strong attraction toward her, the stress of which he did not fully comprehend. He himself represented the man who had loved Gertrude, who had vainly searched for and lost her. Was it not fair that he should have some hand in the destiny of the girl thus reclaimed, after the lapse of centuries, from the oblivion which had overtaken Gertrude's life?

"I will not drop her," he said, unyieldingly. "And, what's more, Jessie, I am going to see her, and shall stand by her."