Instinct cried out against any such concession on her part, bidding her beware of one who charmed without excellence and convinced without reason.  But compassion urged compliance and compassion won the day.  Though conscious of weakness,—­she, Violet Strange on whom strong men had come to rely in critical hours calling for well-balanced judgment,—­she did not let this concern her, or allow herself to indulge in useless regrets even after the first effect of his presence had passed and she had succeeded in recalling the facts which had cast a cloud about his name.

Roger Upjohn was a widower, and the scandal affecting him was connected with his wife’s death.

Though a degenerate in some respects, lacking the domineering presence, the strong mental qualities, and inflexible character of his progenitors, the wealthy Massachusetts Upjohns whose great place on the coast had a history as old as the State itself, he yet had gifts and attractions of his own which would have made him a worthy representative of his race, if only he had not fixed his affections on a woman so cold and heedless that she would have inspired universal aversion instead of love, had she not been dowered with the beauty and physical fascination which sometimes accompany a hard heart and a scheming brain.  It was this beauty which had caught the lad; and one day, just as the careful father had mapped out a course of study calculated to make a man of his son, that son drove up to the gates with this lady whom he introduced as his wife.

The shock, not of her beauty, though that was of the dazzling quality which catches a man in the throat and makes a slave of him while the first surprise lasts, but of the overthrow of all his hopes and plans, nearly prostrated Homer Upjohn.  He saw, as most men did the moment judgment returned, that for all her satin skin and rosy flush, the wonder of her hair and the smile which pierced like arrows and warmed like wine, she was more likely to bring a curse into the house than a blessing.

And so it proved.  In less than a year the young husband had lost all his ambitions and many of his best impulses.  No longer inclined to study, he spent his days in satisfying his wife’s whims and his evenings in carousing with the friends with which she had provided him.  This in Boston whither they had fled from the old gentleman’s displeasure; but after their little son came the father insisted upon their returning home, which led to great deceptions, and precipitated a tragedy no one ever understood.  They were natural gamblers—­this couple—­as all Boston society knew; and as Homer Upjohn loathed cards, they found life slow in the great house and grew correspondingly restless till they made a discovery—­or shall I say a rediscovery—­of the once famous grotto hidden in the rocks lining their portion of the coast.  Here they found a retreat where they could hide themselves (often when they were thought to be abed and asleep) and play together for money