Leaning free from his saddle he caught her in his arms, held her, looked into her eyes.
"You?"
"Yes," she gasped, "the Special Messenger--noncombatant!"
"The Special Messenger? _You?_ Good God!"
A dull tattoo of hoofs along the halted column, nearer, nearer, clattering toward them from the front, and:
"Good-by!" she sobbed; "they're coming for me! Oh--do you love me? Do you? Life was so dark and dreadful without you! I--I never forgot--never, never! I----"
Her gloved hands crept higher around the neck of the man who held her crushed in his arms.
"If I return," she sighed, "will you love me? Don't--don't look at me that way. I will return--I promise. I love you so! I love you!"
Their lips clung for a second in the darkness, then she swung her horse, tearing herself free of his arms; and, bared head lifted to the skies, she turned south, riding all alone out into the starlit waste.
THE END
OTHER BOOKS
BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
Mr. Chambers is unquestionably the most popular of American novelists to-day. He is the author of some thirty books of extraordinary variety in fiction. He was born in New York, and studied in the studios of Paris to become an artist. While working at painting he took up writing as a pastime, and had such immediate success that he soon gave up art and turned to literature as his life work. Always, as a part of this interest, he has studied and worked in the field of natural history, so that to-day he is something of an authority on birds and butterflies, a confirmed fisherman, and a good shot. All these qualities--the study of art, the experience with nature, both in the line of sport and as an entomologist--have put their stamp upon his work, as will be seen by a glance at his books, for only a few of which there is space here available.
THE FIRING LINE
The most recent of his works is the third in a group of studies in American society life. It is full of the swing of good romance, behind which lies the bright philosophy that the saving quality in our American families is to come with the injection of fresh blood into each new generation. The story itself deals with the adopted daughter of a multimillionaire, who does not even know her own parentage--a girl from nowhere, with all the charm and beauty which a bringing up in the midst of wealth can give her. The hero is a young American of good family who first meets her at Palm Beach, Florida. Here is a background that Mr.
Chambers loves--the outdoor life of exotic Florida, the everglades, the hunting, the shooting, and the sea--all in the midst of that other exotic life which goes with a winter resort and a large group of the idle rich. The story--already in its 150th thousand--is, perhaps, the author's favorite piece of work.
THE YOUNGER SET
is also of the social _comedie humaine_ of America, with its scenes laid in New York and on Long Island. Here again, behind a romance of love and of society complications, Mr.
Chambers conceals his philosophic suggestions that may be gathered from the title. The younger set comes into our society fresh and unspoiled with each generation, and in its way contributes something of freshness, something of vigor to keep the social world from going down hill on a grade of decadence.
The story deals with a man who, although still young, feels that his life is practically over because his marriage, through no fault of his own, has proved a failure and ended in divorce. He meets a young girl just introduced into society, whose wholesome youth charms him and leads him back to optimism and life. The character of _Eileen_ is perhaps one of Mr. Chambers's most real and most successful creations. The fact that this novel, after one year, is in its 200th thousand is sufficient proof of its popularity. In
THE FIGHTING CHANCE
the author still deals with American society, but here his background is the consideration of the evil influences of inheritance in old families. The scene is still New York and Long Island, full of the charm of outdoor life and hunting episodes. The principal male character _Siward_ is cursed with the inheritance of drink. _Siward's_ struggles to conquer his Enemy, and the fighting chance he sees at last in the affection of a girl, carry on the story to a hopeful finish.
The novel has been published two years and a few months and more than 250,000 copies have been sold, so that its claims to success are undeniable.
THE RECKONING
The varied interests of the author which have been suggested above are sustained in this novel. It is a story of a side light of the American Revolution, and it makes the fourth novel in a series of books telling in fiction of the scenes and invoking the characters in the Mohawk Valley during the war for American Independence. The first novel of the series was "Cardigan"; the second, "The Maid-at-Arms"; the third is still to be written, when the distinguished author can find time; while "The Reckoning" is the last.
IOLE
Another splendid example of the author's versatility is this farcical, humorous satire on the _art nouveau_ of to-day.
Mr. Chambers, with all his knowledge of the artistic jargon, has in this little novel created a pious fraud of a father, who brings up his eight lovely daughters in the Adirondacks, where they wear pink pajamas and eat nuts and fruit, and listen to him while he lectures them and everybody else on art. It is easy to imagine what happens when several rich and practical young New Yorkers stumble upon this group. Everybody is happy in the end.
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Here again is a totally different vein of half humor and half seriousness. Mr. Chambers selects a firm of detectives (based, by the way, on fact) who guarantee to find lost persons, missing heirs, etc. In this case the author's fancy and humor suggest to a young bachelor, who has always had an ideal girl in mind, that he go and describe her as a real person to _Mr. Keen_, the Tracer of Lost Persons. He gives his description, and, as may be supposed, _Mr. Keen_ finds the girl, but after such a series of episodes, escapes, discoveries and denouements that it takes a full-grown novel to accomplish the task.
THE TREE OF HEAVEN
Half in fancy, half in fact, the thread of an occult idea runs through this weird theme. You cannot, even at the end, be quite sure whether the author has been making fun of you or not.
Perhaps, if the truth were told, he could not quite tell you himself. The tale all hangs about one of a group of friends who lives for years in the Far East and gathers some of the occult knowledge of that far-off land. Into the woof of an Eastern rug is woven the soul of a woman. Into the glisten of a scarab is polished the prophecy of a life. Into the whole charming romance of the book is woven the thread of an intangible, "creepy,"
mysterious force. What is it? Is it a joke? Who knows?
SOME LADIES IN HASTE
This novel is as widely different from all the others as if another hand had written it and another mind conceived it. This time, too, it is impossible to say whether the author is quizzing our new thought transference and telepathic friends, or whether he is half inclined to suggest that "there may be something in it." Here is a character who suddenly discovers that by concentrating his mind on certain ideas he can inject or project them into others. And forthwith he sets half a dozen couples making love to each other in most grotesque surroundings.
They climb trees and become engaged. They put on strange Panlike costumes and prance about the woods--always charming, always well bred, always with a touch of romance that makes the reader read on to the end and finally lay the book down with a smile of pleasure and a little sigh that it is over so soon.
One might run on for twenty books more, but there is not space enough even to mention Mr. Chambers's delightful nature books for children, telling how _Geraldine_ and _Peter_ go wandering through "Outdoor-land,"
"Mountain-Land," "Orchard-Land," "River-Land," "Forest-Land," and "Garden-Land." They, in turn, are as different from his novels in fancy and conception as each of his novels from the other. No living writer has given to the public so varied a list of books with such extraordinary popularity in all of them as Mr. Robert W. Chambers.