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*Foreword*


"Her Lord and Master," by Martha Morton, was first produced in New York,
during the Spring of 1902.  The play met with great success, and ran for
over one hundred nights at the Manhattan Theatre.

Miss Victoria Morton, the sister of the playwright, now presents "Her
Lord and Master" as a novel.

The play is being produced in the principal cities during this season.




                *CHAPTER I.*

                *A Reunion.*


"Did the ladies arrive, Mr. Stillwater?" inquired the clerk at the
Waldorf Hotel, New York, as a tall, broad-shouldered man, unmistakably
Western in appearance, walked smilingly up to the desk.

"Bag and baggage, bless their hearts!"

A dark, distinguished looking man, who was looking over the register,
glanced at the speaker, then moved slightly to one side as the latter
took up the pen.  Stillwater registered in a quick, bold hand, and
walked away. The dark gentleman turned again to the register and read:

"Horatio Stillwater, Stillwater, Indiana."

"Horatio Stillwater, Stillwater!" he remarked to the clerk with a
cultured English accent.  "A coincidence, I presume?"

"Not at all," answered the clerk laughing.  "That often happens out
West.  You see, Stillwater founded the town.  He owned most of the land,
besides the largest interests in wheat and oil.  It’s a great wheat and
oil centre. Naturally the town is named after him."

"Naturally," acquiesced the Englishman, staring blankly at the clerk.
He lit a cigar and puffed it thoughtfully for about five minutes, then
he exclaimed, "Extraordinary!"

"Beg pardon?" said the clerk.

"I find it most extraordinary."

"What are you referring to, Lord Canning?"

"I was referring to what you were telling me about this gentleman, of
course!"  Lord Canning pointed to Stillwater on the register.

"Oh!" laughed the clerk, amused that the facts he had given were still a
matter for reflection.  "Yes, he’s one of our biggest capitalists out
West.  The family are generally here at this time of the year.  The
ladies have just arrived from Palm Beach."

"Palm Beach?"

"That’s south, you know."

"Oh, a winter resort?"

"Exactly."

Lord Canning recommenced his study of the register.

"Mrs. Horatio Stillwater," he read. "Stillwater, Indiana.  Miss Indiana
Stillwater."  He reflected a moment. "Miss Indiana Stillwater,
Stillwater, Indiana.  Here too, is a similarity of names.  Probably a
coincidence and probably not."  He read on, "Mrs. Chazy Bunker,
Stillwater, Indiana. Bunker, Bunker!"  He pressed his hand to his
forehead.  "Oh, Bunker Hill," he thought, with sudden inspiration.

"Miss Indiana Stillwater, Stillwater, Indiana.  If the town was named
after the father, why should not the State—no, that could not be.  But
the reverse might be possible."  He addressed the clerk.

"Would you mind telling me—oh, I beg your pardon," seeing that the clerk
was very much occupied at that moment—"It doesn’t matter—some other
time."  He turned and lounged easily against the desk, surveying the
people walking about, with the intentness of a person new to his
surroundings, and still pondering the question.

                *      *      *      *      *

"Now," said Stillwater, after his family had been duly installed, "let
me look at you.  I’m mighty glad to see you all again."  He swung his
daughter Indiana up in his arms and kissed her, then set her on his knee
and looked at her with open admiration.

Mr. Horatio Stillwater had never seen any reason why he should be
ashamed of his great pride in his only child. Indiana herself had often
been heard to remark, "Pa has never really recovered from the shock of
my birth.  It was a case of too much joy.  He thinks I’m the greatest
thing on record."

"Well, folks," he said, "I expect you’re all dead tired."

"Not I," said Mrs. Bunker, his mother-in-law.  She was a well-formed
woman, with dark, vivacious eyes and a crown of white hair dressed in
the latest mode.  "I could take the trip all over again."

"Did you miss us, father?" asked Mrs. Stillwater, a gentle-looking,
pretty woman, with soft, brown hair and dark blue eyes like her child’s,
only Indiana’s were more alert and restless.  "Ma has lovely eyes,"
Indiana was in the habit of remarking.  "She takes them from me."

Mr. Stillwater put Indiana off his knees and sat by his wife.

"Did I miss you?  Not a little bit."

"Your color’s pretty bad, father," she said, "and you look dead tired.
Perhaps," she rose impulsively, "perhaps you’ve been laid up."

"No, ma, no," he placed his big hands on her shoulders, forcing her down
in her chair.  "I haven’t been laid up.  But I’ve been feeling mighty
queer."

He was immediately overwhelmed by a torrent of exclamations and
questions from Mrs. Bunker and Indiana, while his wife sat pale and
quiet, with heaving breast.

"No, I don’t know what’s the matter with me," he answered.  "No, I can’t
describe how I feel.  No, I have not been to a doctor, and I’m not
going. There, you have it straight.  I don’t believe in them."

"Pa!" said Indiana, taking a stand in the centre of the room, "I want to
say a few words to you."

"Oh, Lord!" thought Stillwater, "When Indiana shakes her pompadour and
folds her arms, there’s no telling where she’ll end."

"I want to ask you if the sentiments which you have just expressed are
befitting ones for a man with a family?"

"Mother," said Mrs. Stillwater, "he always takes your advice, tell him
he should consult a doctor."

"Indiana has the floor!" said Mrs. Bunker.

"Is it right that you should make it necessary for me to remind you of a
common duty; that of paying proper attention to your health, in order
that we should have peace of mind?"

Indiana had been chosen to deliver the valedictory at the closing
exercises at her school.  This gave her a reputation for eloquence which
she liked to sustain whenever an occasion presented itself.

"I see your finish," she wound up, not as elegantly as one might have
expected.  "You’ll be a hopeless wreck and we’ll all have insomnia from
lying awake nights, worrying.  When we once get in that state—" she
turned to Mrs. Bunker.

"No cure," said the lady.  "Nothing but time."

Stillwater sat with his hand in his pocket and his eyes closed,
apparently thinking deeply.

"Well, I’ve said all I’m going to say."

She looked at him expectantly.  His eyes remained closed, however, and
he breathed deeply and regularly.

"I have finished, pa.  Have you any remarks to make?"

No answer.

"He’s asleep, Indiana," said Mrs. Bunker, with a peal of laughter.

"He is not," said Indiana indignantly. "He’s only making believe—"  She
bent down and looked in his face. "You’re not asleep, are you, pa?"

"No, of course not; who said I was?"  He sat up rubbing his eyes.  "Did
you get it all off your mind, Indy?"

"You heard what I said, pa?"

"Certainly; it was fine.  You must write it down for me some day, Indy."

"Would you close your ears and eyes to the still, small voice," said
Indiana, jumping upon a chair and declaiming in approved pulpit fashion.
"The voice which says, ’Go not in the by-ways. There are snares and
quick-sands. Follow in the open road, the path of truth and
righteousness.’  I want to know if you’re going to a doctor?"

"Well, I suppose I must, if I want some peace in life."

"No ordinary doctor, you must consult a specialist."  She looked around
triumphantly.

Her mother smiled on her in loving approval.

"A specialist for what, Indy?" Stillwater asked drily.

Indiana met his eyes bent enquiringly upon her, then burst into
laughter.

"Well, you’ve phazed me this time," she said.  Then she installed
herself on his knee.  "Oh, I don’t mean a specialist at all.  I mean a
consulting physician—an authority."

"Now you’re talking," answered Stillwater, with a beaming smile.

Indiana jumped off his knee.  "An ordinary doctor isn’t good enough for
my father!"  She gave a very good imitation of a cowboy’s swagger.  "I’m
hungry, pa."

"Well, where are you going to have lunch?"

"I’d like mine brought up," said Mrs. Stillwater.  "Are the trunks
unlocked, Kitty?" as a young, bright-looking girl appeared at the door.

"Yes ma’am.  Come right in and I’ll make you comfortable."

"I’ll have my lunch up here with ma," said Mr. Stillwater.  "What’s the
rest of you going to do?"

"Oh, we’ll go down and hear the band play," said Mrs. Bunker with
exuberant spirits.  "Come along, Indiana!"

Stillwater was one of the men who had risen rapidly in the West.  He had
married at a boyish age, a very young, gentle girl, and had emigrated
from the East soon after marriage, with his wife and her mother, Mrs.
Chazy Bunker. He built a house on government land in Indiana.  The first
seven years meant hard and incessant toil, but in that time he and the
two women saw some very happy days.  His marriage had been a boy and
girl affair, dating from the village school.  One of those lucky unions,
built neither upon calculation or judgment, which terminate happily for
all concerned.  Stillwater was only aware that the eyes of Mary Bunker
were blue and sweet as the wild violets that he picked and presented to
her, and that she never spelt above him.  His manliness won her respect,
and his gentleness her love.  Their immature natures thus thoughtlessly
and happily united, like a pair of birds at nesting time, grew together
as the years went on until they became one.  After seven years of
unremitting work, Stillwater could stand and look proudly as far as the
eye could reach, on acre after acre of golden wheat tossing blithely in
the breeze. He had been helped to this result by the women who had lived
with the greatest economy and thrift putting everything into the land.
His young and inexperienced wife acted under the direction of her
mother, a splendid manager and a woman of great shrewdness and sense.
He could look, also, on the low, red-painted house, which could boast
now of many additions, and realize that his marriage had been a success.
In that low red house Indiana first saw the light, and, simultaneously,
oil was struck on the land.  The child became the prospective heiress of
millions.

The birth of a daughter opened the source of the deepest joy Stillwater
had ever known.  When Mrs. Bunker laid the infant swathed in new
flannels in his arms, he was assailed by indescribable feelings,
altogether new to him.  She watched him curiously as he held the tiny
bundle with the greatest timidity in his big brawny hands.  Feeling her
bright eyes on his face he flushed with embarrassment.  Mrs. Bunker
pushed back the flannel and showed him a wee fist, like a crumpled
roseleaf, which she opened by force, clasping it again around
Stillwater’s finger.  As he felt that tiny and helpless clasp tears
welled into his honest brown eyes.

"There isn’t anything she shan’t have," he said.  And these words held
good through all the years that Indiana lived under his roof.  In a
spirit of patriotism, Stillwater named his daughter Indiana.

"She was born right here in Indiana," he declared.  "She’s a prairie
flower, so we named her after the State."

The birth of a daughter appealed to Stillwater as a most beautiful and
wonderful thing.  It awakened all the latent chivalry and tenderness of
his character. As he remarked to his friend Masters, "A girl kinder
brings out the soft spots in man’s nature."

This feeling is a foreign one to the European who always longs for a son
to perpetuate his name and possessions, and after all it is a natural
egotism when there is a long and honorable line of ancestry, but in all
ranks and conditions the cry is the same, "A son, oh Lord, give me a
son!"

After the boom which followed the discovery of oil-gushers on the land,
and Stillwater looked steadily in the face, with that level head which
no amount of success could turn, the enormous prospects of the future,
he thought,  "It’s just come in time for Indiana."  His imagination
pictured another Mary Bunker, another soft and clinging creature to
nestle against his heart, another image of his wife to wind her arms
about his neck and look up into his face with trusting love.  Instead,
he had a little whirlwind of a creature, a combination of tempests and
sunshine, with eyes like the skies of Indiana, and hair the color of the
ripe wheat, upon which his wife used to gaze as she sat on her porch
sewing little garments, nothing as far as the eyes could strain but that
harmony of golden color, joining the blue of the sky at the rim of the
horizon. The peace and happiness of the Stillwater household fluctuated
according to the moods of Indiana.  These conditions commenced when she
was a child, and grew as she developed.  The family regarded her storms
as inevitable, and nothing could be more beautiful than her serenity
when they passed, nothing could equal the tenderness of her love for
them all.

Stillwater, under high pressure from his family, went to consult a noted
New York medical authority; a gaunt, spare-looking man, who, after the
usual preliminaries, leaned back in his chair and regarded Stillwater
fixedly.

"Your liver’s torpid, your digestion is all wrong, and you are on the
verge of a nervous collapse."

"Well, doctor, what do you advise?"

"Complete change."

"Well, don’t send me too far.  I have big interests on hand just now."

"Cessation of all business."

"Don’t know how I can manage that."

"Get on a sailing vessel.  Stay on it for three months."

"I should die for want of an interest in life."

"Take my advice in time, Mr. Stillwater. It will save future trouble."

"I wonder how Indiana would like a sailing trip," thought Stillwater.
"If the folks were along I guess we’d manage to whoop it up, all right.
Well, I’ll think it over, Doctor.  Of course, I couldn’t do anything
without consulting the ladies."

Stillwater smiled in a confidential way, as much as to say, "You know
how it is yourself."  The noted authority answered by a look of
contemptuous pity.

"See you again, Doctor."

As he arrived at the hotel he was hailed by Indiana, driving up in a
hansom.

"Been to see the doctor?"

"Yes; I’ve got lots to tell."

"Jump in and we’ll drive around the park.  The others won’t be home
yet."

Stillwater made a feint of hesitating. "Perhaps I’d better wait till
we’re all together."

"Well, you can jump in anyway, and come for a drive," said Indiana.
"I’ll give him five minutes," she thought, "before he tells me all he
knows."

"The air will do me a whole lot of good," remarked Stillwater, acting on
her advice.

It was a clear cold day, in the latter part of February, and the wind
blew keenly in their faces as they bowled leisurely up Fifth Avenue.

"Say, Indiana," after three minutes perusal of the promenaders.

"Yes, pa—it’s coming," she thought.

"How would you like to go on a sailing trip for three months; the whole
kit and crew of us?  We’d have everything our own way; I’d see to that.
We’d run the whole show.  On the water for three months.  What do you
think of it—eh?"

"Bully!" shouted Indiana, throwing her muff up in the air, and catching
it deftly.

"I thought you’d like it," said Stillwater, chuckling.

"What did the doctor say, pa?" said Indiana breathlessly.  "What did he
say was the matter with you?  Tell me—you must tell me."

"Now, Indiana, give me a chance. I’m going to tell you.  Didn’t I start
to give away the whole snap?"

"But you’re taking such a long time, pa," she said, tapping the floor of
the hansom nervously.

"Well, when it comes down to it, there isn’t much the matter with me,"
answered Stillwater reassuringly.  "He said something about a torpid
liver."

"Torpid liver!" echoed Indiana, looking as if she were just brought face
to face with the great calamity of her life.

"Now, that’s what I was afraid of," said Stillwater.  "Please don’t go
on like that before your ma, Indiana.  It’s not serious."

"No?" echoed Indiana helplessly.

"Why, it’s nothing at all," Stillwater laughed hilariously.  "Torpid
livers—people have them every day."

"Well, what else?" said Indiana.

"Oh, lots," answered Stillwater confidentially.

"Tell me this minute; I must know. Don’t you try and keep anything from
me, pa."

"Indiana, will you give me a chance? Sit down!  You’ll be out of this
hansom in a minute.  Something about digestion. _That_ don’t amount to
_anything_."

Indiana sank back with a sigh of relief.

"And something about nerves—says I must throw up business, that’s all it
amounts to, for a few months."

"Then you’ll be cured?"

"Positively."

"Then you shall, pop—you shall; do you hear me?"

"Now, Indiana, what’s the use of your taking the reins and whipping up
like that?  I’ve told you what I reckon to do.  Didn’t I broach the
subject of a sailing trip?"

"Ma and I are good sailors," remarked Indiana meditatively, "but Grandma
Chazy don’t like the water."

"Oh, we’ll jolly her along her all right," said Stillwater easily.
"Say, Indiana," he put his mouth to her ear, "Grandma Chazy wouldn’t
miss a trick."

Indiana laughed loudly.

"Well, this is what I call a wild and exciting time, Indiana.  If you
took me on many of these drives I think I’d get rid of that ’slight
nervous derangement’ the doctor was talking about.  Sort of a
rest-cure—eh?"

"Oh, if I could only get on that horse’s back!" cried Indiana, "I’d make
him go."

"Not that horse, Indiana," said Stillwater chuckling.  "All the sporting
spirit in you wouldn’t make _that_ horse go.  Suppose we think about
getting home?"

"Back to the hotel," he shouted to the driver.

"I can’t help thinking of Circus," said Indiana sentimentally.  "I
wonder if he misses me."

"You think more of that horse than all your beaux, don’t you, Indiana?"

Indiana nodded and smiled.

"I’ll have my hands full for a few weeks before I go on that sailing
trip. I don’t know how I’m going to manage it."

"Well, you just _must_!"

"Suppose we don’t say anything to the others till I make sure I can go.
I’ve got some big things on now, Indiana—"

"You won’t go after you’ve worked me all up about it—you’ll keep on
grinding until you’re past curing, until one day you’ll just drop down
and die. What do you care—and ma and Grandma Chazy and—and I’ll be left
with no one to look after us."  She buried her face in her  muff, making
piteous little gulps.

"I’m a fool," thought Stillwater, patting her on the back.  "The idea of
that little thing takin’ it so to heart.  I didn’t think she was old
enough to realize things like that.  None of us know how much there is
in Indiana."  His heart swelled with gratitude at this proof of devotion
from his only child.

"Now, Indiana, don’t lose your grip like this.  I’m going, I tell you.
I’m going on this trip.  There isn’t anything on earth that’ll stop me.
Hi!  Driver! Just run through and stop at Thorley’s!"

As the hansom dashed up to Thorley’s Indiana gave a clear jump to the
curb, disdaining the hand her father held out.

"American beauties!" said Stillwater.

The salesman showed them a gorgeous long-stemmed cluster.

"That’s the ticket," said Stillwater. "My, they’re fresh, Indiana."  She
selected one and fastened it in her furs. "I’ll carry the rest for you.
Now what would the others like?"

Indiana flitted about selecting flowers.

"Would you like them sent?" inquired the salesman.

"No," said Indiana, "we’ll take them right along."

"Why," exclaimed Stillwater as they were leaving the store, "I was just
about forgetting you were all going to the opera to-night.  Now, what
flowers do you want to wear, Indiana?"

"Well, my dress is white.  Hyacinths, white hyacinths.  Corsage bouquet,
Miss Stillwater."

"And ma, she likes the sweet-smelling ones."

"Well, violets for ma.  Violets, Mrs. Stillwater."

"Shall we say violets for Grandma Chazy?"

"I think Grandma Chazy would like something brighter," said Indiana.

"Carnations?" suggested the salesman.

"Yes," said Indiana.  "Pink carnations, Mrs. Chazy Bunker.  Send to the
Waldorf Hotel for this evening. Don’t make any mistake, please!"

"Duplicate the order to-morrow, same time," added Stillwater.

Indiana hummed gaily to herself as they drove off with their flowers.

"She’s forgotten all about it now," thought Stillwater, with a satisfied
glance at her happy face.

Lord Canning noticed them when they entered the hotel.

He was standing in the lobby through which they passed, lighting a cigar
preparatory to going out.  He recognized Stillwater immediately, and
stared curiously at Indiana.

"I suppose that is the daughter," he thought, "Indiana."  He smiled as
he puffed his cigar.