In the radiant moonlight I saw the lithe muscles of the Jaguar grow taut

and stiff, and I felt rather than saw his long, strong hands clench

themselves. I was about to stretch out my arms and ward off something

that seemed like danger to Nickols, standing down at the bottom of the

steps, smiling up at us in the moonlight with his mocking, fascinating

smile, when suddenly the anger seemed to flow away from the body of the

parson and he smiled down into the upturned eyes with great gentleness

as we started down the steps together.

"I didn't interrupt the salvation of Charlotte's soul, did I?" Nickols

asked, as he took my outstretched hand in his left hand and raised it to

his lips as he held out his right to the Reverend Mr. Goodloe. So real

had been that fraction of an instant when I had stood between the two

men that I almost felt the sensation of alarm a second time as I saw

Nickols' slender, magical, artist's fingers laid in the slim, powerful

hand of the Reverend Mr. Goodloe, but the gentle voice reassured me as

the Harpeth Jaguar answered the intruder, or what he must have felt to

be the intruder, for I had something of that feeling myself at the

advent of my lover at the moment he had chosen for his arrival.

"The trouble began about apple dumplings and hard sauce," I said, as

quickly as my wits would act.

"How are you, Nickols Powers, since we separated 'somewhere in France,'

you with your sketch books and I with my hospital stretchers? I got a

dandy lung clip; did you bring away any lead?" And the parson's voice

was gentle and cordial and full of a laughing reminiscence.

"Didn't smell powder after I left you," answered Nickols, as we all

ascended the steps and stood in a group before the door. "I got my books

full of sketches of bits of treasures that the war might destroy, and

beat it back to civilization. Did the Madonna of the Red Cross you had

in tow come across as sentimentally as was threatened?" Nickols' voice

was as cordial as the Reverend Goodloe's, but something in me made me

resent the question and the manner it was asked.

"She was killed in a field hospital just a few weeks after we left

her--'somewhere in France.' She got God's welcome!" was the answer that

came to the laughing question in a quiet, reverent voice. And as he

spoke the parson started down the steps, then turned for his farewell.

"That--or sweet oblivion," said Nickols, as he came to the edge of the

steps and looked down at the Harpeth Jaguar coolly. I again got the

sense of danger from the tall, lithe figure that stood in the moonlight,

radiant before us in the shadow. "We'll contest that point warmly while

we contest the meeting house Charlotte writes me that you planted in our

garden--of Eden."




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