maining, he told her that the next day he would go back to New York to see if there had been any developments during his incapacity. That night, which he had determined to make his last one under her roof, he went down into the library after she had left him. The letter making a clean breast of it must be written, and he would have to devise a way to insure its delivery to her after his departure. It was not a hard letter to write after he was fairly begun. The phraseology of it he had had partially in his head for days. It was necessary only to tell her who he was, of his unpardonable falsification, beg her leniency and assure her that she could go on forever with her fresh air work, with no fear of further interruption from one so unworthy as he. After that he was quite certain. what he should do-back to New York. But whether he could stop thinking of her her face and eyes and arms and voice-long enough to go back to work, he doubted. The letter finished, he leaned his elbow on the writing desk and with his chin in his hand lost himself in bitter reflections. The library door opened softly so softly in fact that he did not hear her until she was well into the room. He rose, rose, pushing the scattered sheets of paper back in the hope that she would not see them. "Let us have it over tonight, Mr. Baker," she said speaking very slowly and softly. "You are leaving Bayshore tomorrow, you say, and before you go I have something to tell you." Deane pushed a chair forward, but she stood nervously fingering its carved walnut top instead of sitting. "I have known, Mr. Baker, from the start that you were not what you pretended to be." Deane felt a guilty flush burning him. His identity was known to her. Yet she called him Mr. Baker. "I have known that you aré Shelby's Deane's attorney," she went on. "I have known that your coming to me was but a ruse to gain my confidence perhaps-ah let us speak plainly," as she saw the effect of her words upon him. "There was a familiar sound in the name of Baker and that first day you came I went through some old papers in Mr. Deane's portfolio and identified you as his nephew's lawyer. Do not think, however, that I would have made this known to you had it not been that I have determined myself, on a course of action. You are no doubt, keen enough to see that you are not the only one who is hunting me-" "Bradley Martin," he said almost fiercely. "But with an entirely different motive. Yet I am tired of all this pursuit for this money, which may or may not be rightfully mine. I have learned that Shelby Deane isn't a half bad man and I have decided to give it up to him—” He put out his arm to stop her, but she would not be interrupted. "As for me it was never ordained that I should have money and I shan't miss it for that reason. I shall take steps at once to have the legacy transferred to Mr. Deane and-" "Miss Corville, are you in your right senses?" Deane managed to say. "Certainly I mean every word," she answered holding up her head proudly. Deane sank back against the ledg- shall do nothing of the kind. Deane ing of the desk. must never know what you have "I won't take it," he said stub- said to me tonight. You must keep bornly. "What?" she said and her sharp tone of inquiry brought him to his scattered wits. "That is," he stammered, "I won't -I won't accept such a sacrifice for my client. I think too much of you to allow that." "Remember it is your duty to accept anything that is of advantage to your client. You have no choice. You have known me but a few days-" - "But in that time I have come to look at you as the perfection of everything womanly of what a man most desires." He halted halted lamely for he did not know how to go on. She ignored his reference to herself. "Remember, Mr. Baker, that only your client's welfare must interest you that only Mr. Deane-" "To the devil with Mr. Deane!" he shocked her by saying. "Tell me-why didn't you marry this man. Bradley Martin?" He startled her with the force of his demand. "I didn't care to-I-couldn't-" "Honestly now?" "Caring for some one else." She must have seen even in the dim light of the library the hopeless despair that her confession brought into his eyes. "Well," he said dropping his arms to his sides, "that being the case, I give up." She puzzled for a moment over what bearing her regard for Bradley Martin could have on the case in his eyes. "And you will communicate my offer to Mr. Deane?" she asked. "No-no!" he almost shouted. "I the property-every inch of it. It is yours by every right and you shall have it." Miss Corville came closer to him and put out her hands appealingly. "You asked me a moment ago," she said, "if I were in my right mind. I must ask that of you now.” "Yes," he answered. "I'm in my right mind—as near it as I've been since I conceived this fool plan of coming to Bayshore. And I mean it. You will oblige me by going to bed and saying no more about it.” "You can't be," she persisted. "Why should you so forcefully reject my offer of capitulation to your principal. He wants the money. I love these children, but I can find another way to care for them perhaps. All I want most now is peace -rest from this continual pursuit on every hand—” "Do you want me to tell you why -absolutely?" he asked. "Yes," she said faintly. "You said something a moment since that almost forbids what I mean to tell you, but I can't help it. Look at me here and tell me that you know I can't. I can't help it if you drive me from your house in anger-I am going anyway. But I love you, and I have always loved you from the moment I saw you on the shore of the bay with those little children. I've loved you, and I've been jealous of you, and I've wished Bradley Martin in perdition because you've been pleasant to him. And I've loved you every minute of every day that I've been here-and-” Shelby Deane suddenly realized that she was not stopping him. In stead of meeting him with protestation and resentment Miss Corville had dropped her gaze to the floor, a charming redness overspreading her face and reaching clear down to her neck. She looked up at him as he hesitated, but he mistook the motion for a sign of faintness, and took a step toward her. She had suddenly gone white and he reproached himself for his bluntness and presumption. It was some time before she made a sound. Then she said softly: "Do as I say. Be honorable-for I want your honor more than any other thing. Let us give him back the property-you are his lawyer. Then we may talk of other things. I didn't hope for this. I didn't even know that you were free to love a woman, but if you love me you must prove it to me by giving it back to him.” Deane moved toward her scarcely taking in her meaning except in a wild vague way. "Look at me," he cried. "You love me. I am the reason you couldn't marry Bradley Martin?" She clutched his arm and turned her face away. But, so suddenly that it jarred the mantle of the study lamp, Deane had her in his arms her cheek against his face. "Good God," he breathed into her ear. "That I should have lived away these years not knowing you were in the world." And then he told her who was the real Shelby Deane, and she read the letter that he had written her. He held her while she cried it outwomanlike. But Shelby Deane was certain he knew enough about the law to tell her that she could never give it back to him, because as he said, if she attempted it he would surely prove her non compos mentis, the probabilis causa litiganda having been removed when he earned the right to serve her with a writ of habeas corpus; and failing in everything else he had the situation in his own hands, for it was a clear case of nolo contendere. The Forest Child By CORA A. MATSON DOLSON The sweet spring blossoms stir and wake; And once again her light steps take, These shadowed wood-ways through? Too long she sleeps! The thrushes sing, And, vacant now, the grape-vine swing, But though, in vain, our spring flowers wait. Their best interpreter: Perhaps there winds, beyond Heaven's gate, Some wildwood path for her! THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE cepted with public laudation of the FOUNDED 1758 giver." It is a case of conscientious adherence to what seems to her obvious duty and she does not seek to influence the opinions of others. She adds, "I know that all cannot see alike. I would not fetter another's conscience even to bind it to that for which I sacrifice so much." Miss Byrd's action is taken with deliberation, without ostentation and seems the logical result oi BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A. bringing a keen and scholarly mind Published monthly at 8 DIX PLACE, to bear upon an actual condition. Once having decided that the money which she was being paid for her services, though well and nobly earned in her own case, was neither well or nobly acquired by its donors, conscience was strong enough to do the rest. The act stands out as a high light amid the shadows of doubt and the obfuscations of sophistry. It has in it the clear seeking after truth of a Sir Galahad, rather than, as has been ascribed to it, the eccentricity of a Don Quixote going forth to erratic battle with the windmills of mental suggestion. Remit by draft on Boston, Express or Post Office Order, payable to NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE. One Noble Example THAT the New England con science is not dead but still thrills the sordid affairs of life with a vital and compelling force has lately been shown by the act of Miss Mary E. Byrd, professor of astronomy at Smith College. Miss Byrd, convinced that the funds from which her salary was drawn, donated in large part to the college by Rockefeller and Carnegie, were accumulated by methods of robbery and oppression rather than honest toil, refuses longer to take the tainted money even though it has passed through other and honorable hands in reaching hers. "It seems to me," she says, "that colleges and churches are accepting hush money that tends to subsidize brain and conscience. Especially is this true when such money is ac It may be that not many college professors have the keen vision, the uncompromising conscience or the courage to follow Miss Byrd's example. It certainly takes all three. Most colleges nowadays are endowed with what many men have declared to be blood money. Many college presidents persistently seek the men who have such money and hold up the cup of endowment opportunity to them as temptingly as possible and consider themselves great presidents in just so far as they are able to turn the stream of boodle into the coffers of their institutions, It will perhaps not be so easy for the self dismissed pro ness' sake into the wilderness, from the church at Northampton, where he had preached twenty-four years. John Huntington, Mr. Byrd's grandfather, was a Revolutionary soldier at the battle of the Brandywine. Miss Byrd's mother, before marriage Elizabeth A. Low, descended from John Endicott, early governor of Massachusetts. She is granddaughter of the Revolutionary soldier, Eliphalet Perley, and greatgrand-daughter of Asa Perley, a member of the provincial Congress. One of her brothers, David Low, in early days a prominent judge in Kansas, served in Congress one term, but did not seek reëlection because he found 'politics and ideal honesty incompatible.' fessor of a noble science to find an opportunity to teach in an institution not thus tainted. Thus far she stands alone and the college which needs the services of true nobility and honesty above all else is yet to be heard from. Old John Brown of Harper's Ferry had the same splendid isolation in his quixotic advocacy of what he believed to be the straightforward demands of simple conscience yet we know to-day that no act did so much for American freedom as did his, insane and foolish as it was called at the time. There are not wanting to-day people who declare that her act is in the same line of simple, heroic self sacrifice to the demands of conscience as was his and may be as far reaching in its results. The New England conscience is still with us. It needs its heroes of expression. Maybe we shall hear and see more of them now that the noble example has been set. There is opportunity for others to answer to their inward questionings,as did Martin Luther, "I cannot do otherwise." Miss Byrd inherits her New England conscience from a long line of noble ancestry as will be seen from the following "appreciation" of her which appears in the Springfield Republican, written by an intimate friend. "Miss Byrd's independence of thought and devotion to principle are what might be expected from her ancestry and early environment. Her father, Rev. John Huntington Byrd, who suffered persecution as an anti-slavery man in Kansas befor the Civil War, was great-greatgrandson of Rev. Timothy Edwards, father of that immortal Edwards who wrote on 'The Freedom of the Will,' when driven for righteous It seems to be one more case of "blood will tell.' Yet there are many college many college professors in this country of equally good blood. Will theirs tell also in the future? Time will show. Green Acre GREEN ACRE, the headquarters of free speech in religion, in ethical and moral culture, in great movements of the day and would-be great movements of the day, in fads and fancies even, is now in open session, in full swing and will so remain for the months of July and August. It is the thirteenth season of this unique organization and seemingly the luckiest yet. Great men and women in plentiful numbers, lesser men and women in perhaps even greater numbers, with that occasional sprinkling of people of undeniably small calibre but large bore, the self fancied great guns, all are in attendance at a beautiful spot, dispensing and receiving large hospitality in matters |