“I didn’t come by the Cunarder.  I’m from down South,” responded the bronzed man.  “I saw her discharging as we came in.”

Then he ran his eye over the names above his own on the page of the register.  There were only three—­Mrs. General Smith, Miss Smith, Nesbit Thorne.  No one he knew, so he slapped together the covers of the book, and pushed it from him; procured a light for his cigar, pocketed this key of his room, and sauntered out to have a look at the city, and possibly to drop in at one of the theaters later on.

The clerk, in idle curiosity, pulled the register toward him, opened it, and glanced at the name; it was the fourth from the top, just under Nesbit Thorne’s—­James Dabney Byrd, Mexico.

CHAPTER XXIV.

No; Blanche was not a clever woman; that could not be claimed for her; but her essential elements were womanly.  Pain, grief, distress of any sort woke in her heart a longing to give help and comfort.

Since Norma’s marriage, Blanche had drawn much nearer to her cousin.  She had always been fond of him in an abstract way, and had felt a surface sorrow, not unmingled with aesthetic interest, in the dramatic incidents of his life.  She had lived in the same house with him, had associated with him daily, had taken his hand, had kissed him; but she had never known him.  She had never gauged his nature with the understanding born of sympathy, never seen the real man.  Now it was otherwise.  Association with larger, simpler natures had developed the latent capabilities of her own, and the presence of love had made her more observant, more responsive.

Her enlarged sympathies made her yearn over Thorne; her happiness made her long earnestly to help him.  She cast about in her mind what she should do.  She knew the strength of Berkeley’s prejudices, and that his influence with his sister had been—­and still was—­silently but strenuously exerted to hold her back from a course from which, as Blanche suspected, his feelings, more than his conscience, revolted.

Blanche, differently reared, could not see the matter from the Mason standpoint at all.  To her, the past was past; to be deplored, of course, but not to be allowed to cast a baleful shadow on the future.  That, to Blanche, was morbid; she could see no sense in drawing conscientiousness to a point and impaling her own heart, and, worse, other hearts thereon.  Blanche’s creed was simple—­people committed faults, made blunders, sinned, suffered; atoned the sin by the suffering, and should then be kissed and forgiven.

She talked to Berkeley in her gentle, persuasive way (she had not courage yet to talk to Pocahontas) and exerted all her influence in Thorne’s behalf; but she speedily discovered that she made little headway; that while Berkeley listened, he did not assent; that he put down her efforts; mainly, to personal attachment to her cousin, and was therefore inclined to rule out her testimony.  She needed help; pressure must be brought to bear which had no connection with Thorne; some one from the old life must speak, some one who shared the prejudices, and was big enough and generous enough to set them aside and judge of the affair from an unbiased, impersonal standpoint.