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THE HAND OF THE MIGHTY AND OTHER STORIES

By Vaughan Rester

Author of The Prodigal Judge. The Just and The Unjust. The Fortunes of
The Landrays, Etc.

With Portrait, And a Sketch of The Author by Paul Kester

Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers

1913

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Acknowledgments are due to Short Stories, Munsey's Magazine, The Century
Magazine, The Bellman and The American Magazine for permission to
reprint certain stories included in this volume.




VAUGHAN KESTER


Vaughan Rester was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but the greater
part of his boyhood was spent in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

Among our earliest and most vivid recollections were the long railway
journeys which we took with our father and mother back and forth between
our home in the East and my grandmother's house in Mount Vernon. It was
in Mount Vernon that my brother contracted the severe cold that resulted
in a hoarseness of speech from which he never entirely recovered, and
that finally developed into the condition which occasioned his most
untimely death.

Despite this difficulty of speech, his boyhood was a very happy one. My
grandmother's house was near the edge of the town and we knew all
the short cuts to the woods and the river. We played games, took long
tramps, and lived healthy and delightful lives. We went barefoot, we
swam and played with all the boys in the town. Indeed, my brother was an
absolute democrat all his life.

We went to a little private school kept by Miss Plummer, a friend of the
family. Miss Plummer had an original method of teaching, and expanded
our minds and won our affection, but I doubt if we were good students.
I know I had great difficulty in learning to read, and Vaughan also had
his struggles.

At home our mother made a practise of reading aloud to us books of all
sorts--ancient history, science, biography, the Bible--anything in which
she was interested. For a long time I think it was the sound of her
voice which held our attention, but soon we followed with more or less
comprehension the words we heard. This formed a most valuable part of
our education.

We were very fortunate, too, in our friendships as little boys. We had
charming friends who exercised a lasting influence upon us.

When a little older we went to a private school kept by Mrs. Charles
Curtis. Here again we had the personal care of a woman of culture. Her
instruction was individual and helpful to us both. Later we attended the
public school for one term.

By this time Vaughan had become a great reader. He read everything and
forgot nothing. All his life he was astonishing us by the things he
knew. At last it came to be a commonplace when any one in the family was
in doubt upon any point in history or general knowledge, to hear some
one say, "Ask Vaughan"--and almost always Vaughan knew.

When Vaughan was about twelve years old our mother, with her friend,
Mrs. Kimball, and others, established the School of Design for
Women--now the School of Art--in Cleveland, Ohio--and for the greater
part of the next seven years we lived in that city. The school was
established on original and useful lines, and its rapid growth was as
interesting to Vaughan and me as it was to Mrs. Kimball and our mother.

Much of this time was spent in Mrs. Kimball's house, 1265 Euclid Avenue.
If we had been at school in Mount Vernon, here in Cleveland was our
university. Everything was discussed before us, and we constantly
visited our mother's school, which soon grew to such proportions that it
occupied half of the top floor of the vast dingy old City Hall. At that
time we attended a private school kept by Mrs. Bierce, and later we had
for tutor a young man to whom we recited at Adelbert College.

I think our mother wished Vaughan to enter Adelbert regularly, but he
became at this time possessed of a great desire to "go west." My uncle
had recently purchased a ranch on the River Platte, near Denver, and
Vaughan was not content until consent was given to his trying the life
there.

I did not go west with my brother, and only know from what he wrote, and
from what he told us on his return, that the plains and mountains and
the Denver of those days made a deep impression upon him. Looking back
now I wish that he might have spent a longer time in Colorado. The West
appealed to him strongly. He had the large elements of the pioneer in
his nature, and a deep and peculiar sympathy with the native American
in any primitive condition. Certain chapters in _The Fortunes of the
Landrays_ are so vivid and so real that one knows how well he used his
opportunities for observation and absorption in the months he spent on
the ranch at the foot of the splendid mountains.

It was while we were living in Cleveland that my brother first developed
a spasmodic and not very deep interest in writing. With a friend he got
out an edition of a highly interesting paper called _The Athlete and
Quirk_, devoted almost wholly to prize fighting. My mother financed
the venture. I doubt if a copy remains in existence. The enterprise was
abandoned not because our mother's faith declined, but because Vaughan
and his fellow editor were too lazy, or too busy with something else,
ever to get out a second copy. I don't think Vaughan's contributions
were of much value. I know he was terribly bored whenever we reminded
him of them.

By this time I was trying to write plays, but it was not for some years
that Vaughan took seriously to writing. When he was nineteen our mother
resigned from her school and we went to Florida, where we spent six
months camping and cruising on the gulf coast, a delectable time for
Vaughan, who especially loved salt water and boats.

We camped for many weeks on Sea Horse Key six miles out in the Gulf of
Mexico from Cedar Keys. Here Parsons Lathrop, and had been breakfasted
by our mother's cousin, William Dean Howells, who then and thenceforth
showed us both the utmost kindness. I think meeting Mr. Howells had much
to do with firing Vaughan's ambitions. From that time on Mr. Howells was
our guide, philosopher and friend, our sponsor and our supporter. We
hoarded our funny stories in the hope--generally successful, for his
good nature is unfailing--of making him laugh, and he lent an equally
willing ear to all our troubles. Two young men never had a kinder
friend, nor a wiser. From the first Mr. Howells had faith in Vaughan,
and Mrs. Howells, whose rare discrimination we learned to value so
highly, and whose generous interest was so unfailing and so helpful, at
once saw qualities in him. Her appreciation of him was immediate and
intuitive. She sensed at once not only what he was, but what he might
become, and I think to her he was always of the stature which he was
just consciously attaining when he died.

During one of Vaughan's long visits to his grandmother in Mount Vernon,
Ohio, he heard a vague report that Dan Emmett, the composer of _Dixie_,
was living north of the town. He hunted up the famous minstrel, and
found him, nearly eighty years old, chopping wood for a living.

Mr. Emmett had been a man of some means, and was well connected, but
he had drifted away from his people and was living a hermit's life in a
little house he had built, unknown for the most part to his townspeople.

This meeting with Emmett was important to both my brother and to the
old composer. They became great friends, and the result was that Vaughan
wrote several articles for the papers--accounts of Emmett's career as a
composer and as one of the Christy Minstrels. _Kate Field's Washington_
printed the first of these articles. These sketches marked the beginning
of Vaughan's career as a writer. It was his first real appearance in
print. The money he received for this work he gave to Mr. Emmett, who
had furnished him with the facts the articles embodied.

I remember very well how distressed Vaughan was at the thought of
leaving Emmett when he should return to Virginia.

He induced me to write to A. M. Palmer, at that time head of the Actors'
Fund, stating Mr. Emmett's case and explaining that Emmett was unwilling
to make any appeal for himself. The response was immediate. Fifty
dollars was telegraphed to my brother for Mr. Emmett, and a letter
followed promising a pension of five dollars a week. This pension--and
one was never better deserved--was paid to the old composer as long as
he lived.

This little success with his pen inspired Vaughan to more serious
effort. It was also the direct means of his meeting with Paul Wilstach,
who was so long and so intimately associated with us, and whom, indeed,
we came to regard as one of our family. Paul Wilstach was collecting
autographs at the time Vaughan's article on Emmett appeared in _Kate
Field's Washington_. He wrote, asking Vaughan to secure an autograph
copy of _Dixie_ for his collection. Vaughan replied that he would obtain
the autograph if Mr. Wilstach would send him a check for five dollars
for Mr. Emmett. The check was sent, a correspondence ensued, and when
Paul Wilstach came east he visited us at Ben Venue, the house above the
Potomac in which he now lives.

Paul Wilstach and my brother wrote some farces together, and aided each
other to keep alive their literary enthusiasms. When a little later we
were living in the big white house on Riverside Drive in New York, Paul
Wilstach frequently made the place his home.

Vaughan was about twenty-three when we went to New York, settling
ourselves on Riverside Drive in The Big White House, as the place came
to be called by our friends. Here my brother and I wrote a two-act play
together--_The Cousin of the King_--which was published in _The
Looker-On_, and afterward played by Walker Whiteside. This was the only
play in which Vaughan had a hand that was ever acted. But he was keenly
interested in the theater and most sympathetically and helpfully
interested in my various ventures as a playwright.

Not long after we settled in New York he wrote a short story, _The Mills
of the Little Tin Gods_, which Mr. Walker accepted for publication
in the _Cosmopolitan_ magazine. Mr. Walker was enthusiastic about the
story, and sent for Vaughan, who returned from Irvington with an offer
to go on the staff of the magazine and the news syndicate which
Mr. Walker was at that time conducting in connection with the
_Cosmopolitan_. Vaughan enjoyed his work at Irvington. It was a novel
experience and it brought him into contact with men of ability. He saw
a magazine in the making and he helped to make it. He also did a great
deal of hard work for the syndicate, and he obtained special articles
from others. For a short time I joined my brother on Mr. Walker's
editorial staff, and we would go up to Irvington together for the early
Monday morning conferences.

After this there was never any doubt as to the career my brother meant
to follow. It was while he was associated with the _Cosmopolitan_ that
he obtained a short leave of absence from his duties and returning to
Mount Vernon, Ohio, was married to Miss Jennings. My brother's wife was
deeply interested in his literary career, and devoted herself to him
and to his work. His marriage was undoubtedly an added incentive to
his ambition and it was at this time, or soon after, that he began the
writing of his first novel.

It was after Vaughan left the _Cosmopolitan_ that he joined me in
promoting a special performance of Ibsen's _Ghosts_, which our friend
John Blair gave at the Carnegie Lyceum. Charles Henry Meltzer was the
other active worker behind the scenes. The whole affair was so
distinguished and interesting that Mr. Blair conceived the idea of
devoting the following winter to a series of modern plays. Vaughan and
I, with Mr. Meltzer, volunteered our services, and we were joined by Mr.
George Eustis, who by his generosity made a rather elaborate program
possible. Performances of each of the five plays were given in New York,
in Boston, and in Washington. The series was brilliantly successful; the
genius of Miss Florence Kahn, now Mrs. Max Beerbohm, quite dazzled the
critics, to Vaughan's great delight. He gave all his time, and did more,
perhaps, than any other single individual to make the season a success.
This was his only experience in actual theatricals. He knew, however,
many noted actors and actresses. Indeed, our house was much frequented
by artists of all sorts.

It was through Mr. Howells' influence that my brother obtained a
position with Harper and Brothers. I have no very definite knowledge of
the work he did for them, except that I know he read many manuscripts
during his association with this publishing house, and that he met
a number of men famous in the literary world. I think his whole
association with the Harpers, though it did not extend over many months,
was a pleasant one for him. It culminated in their acceptance of his
first novel, _The Manager of the B. & A._

In the spring of 1900 we returned to Virginia, taking up our residence
at Woodlawn Mansion, about eight miles distant by road from Gunston
Hall, and three miles from Mount Vernon. Woodlawn was built on what had
been a part of George Washington's plantation. Washington himself drew
the plans for the house, and they were afterward perfected by Doctor
William Thornton, the architect of the Capitol.

Soon after we had established ourselves again in Virginia, _The Manager
of the B. & A_. appeared as one of the American novel series the Harpers
were then issuing. It was very generously received by the critics.

During the five years we lived at Woodlawn my brother was seldom absent
from home. He was deeply interested in the restoration of the house, and
even more interested in bringing up the worn-out farm lands.

He had much of the spirit of the backwoodsman. He was tall and powerful,
standing six feet two without his shoes. He was very fond of wearing
old, easy-fitting clothes--as he was of smoking old pipes. His affection
for his old hats was remarkable. To see him about the place tinkering
at any odd job which proved too much for the ingenuity of others,
delighting in saws and hammers, and pounding his fingers, fond of
gardening, and all the rough industries of a large country place,
the last idea a stranger would have associated with him was that of
authorship.

Vaughan found many types at hand which later offered not a few
suggestions for some of the figures in _The Prodigal Judge_. Bob Yancey
in particular had his prototype in Kelly Dove. Mr. Dove and my brother
were great cronies, and I remember when years later he was reading
the first chapters of _The Prodigal Judge_ to us at Gunston Hall, we
instantly recognized Mr. Dove in the character of Bob Yancey.

Farming the land and restoring the house were fascinating and
time-engrossing occupations, but Vaughan still continued his writing,
and it was at Woodlawn that he wrote his second novel, _The Fortunes of
the Landrays_, which the McClures published.

Always a most deliberate and unhurried worker, he grew even more
deliberate and unhastening as time went on. He worked hard, but did
not work rapidly. There were times when a chapter would seem to write
itself, but I fancy he was a little suspicious of easy composition so
far as it concerned his own work.

He was always at his desk when not engaged in some congenial outdoor
occupation. He wrote a great deal on scraps, throwing much away. He
seldom or never crossed a "t" nor dotted an "i". Often he left great
blank spaces and half pages without a line upon them, covering others
closely with his fine writing. In their externals his methods of
composition seemed rather slovenly, and his manuscripts would have been
the despair of any copyist but his wife; but he knew what he was about,
and it was utterly useless to attempt any reformation in his habits.
He had great patience. He did not satisfy himself easily. He wrote and
rewrote and polished and polished again.

Not infrequently he would put aside his work on a novel to write a short
story. He wrote a dozen or more, all of which found their way into print
except one, _Mollie Darling_, written not long before his death, which
appears in this volume for the first time.

Just before the publication of _The Fortunes of the Landrays_, Woodlawn
Mansion was sold and I bought a place in the north of England. In
England Vaughan met with an understanding a little more complete than
he had known in America, except from Mrs. Howells. He made friends
immediately, and fitted into the easy agreeable country-house life as
perfectly as he had fitted into the different phases of American life
he had known. _The Fortunes of the Landrays_ came out while we were at
Augill Castle.

Vaughan's throat causing him some concern, we went to London, taking
Lady Florence Boyle's little house in Victoria Square, just back of
Buckingham Palace. He had begun a new novel at Augill Castle, but he
did little or no writing in London. Later it was thought best for him to
return to America. Some months were spent at Ben Venue and then we moved
into Gunston Hall, which remained my brother's home until his death.

While we were in Ben Venue, Vaughan wrote his one romantic novel, _John
o' Jamestown_. Contrary to his usual custom he wrote this book rapidly;
but he compensated himself by taking more time than was usual over his
work on a new novel, afterward published under the title of _The Just
and the Unjust_.

He had almost completed this book when he was seized with the idea which
resulted in the writing of his best known and most popular story, _The
Prodigal Judge_. He had submitted the incomplete manuscript of _The Just
and the Unjust_ to one or two friends, who suggested rewriting certain
parts. For this work at the time he had no inclination, so put the book
aside and plunged into his work on _The Prodigal Judge_ with a great
deal of enthusiasm. At last he had hit on a theme in which he could
employ his wonderful sense of humor. His wit was spontaneous; but while
it was a constant delight to those who knew him intimately, he had never
regarded it as an asset of any value. I think at the last he began to
appreciate that it was his best medium, and that with him the line of
least resistance was the safest and wisest to follow.

During the three or four years he lived at Gunston Hall, his work was
constantly interrupted by journeys to Washington for slight operations
upon his throat. He had great singleness of purpose or he could not have
successfully continued his work in the face of such disadvantages.
But there was nothing of the invalid about my brother. He diffused an
atmosphere of wholesome strength, good nature and health, and until the
very last weeks of his life he maintained the attitude of a strong well
man.

We were confident that _The Prodigal Judge_ would meet a ready
acceptance and would find favor with the public. My brother hoped so,
too, but there was sufficient doubt in his mind for him to be relieved
intensely by the very generous words in which the publishers accepted
the book.

The book was well under way and the proofs read, when my brother's
physicians decided that an operation of a somewhat serious character was
necessary. He met the ordeal bravely and came through it well. We had
a pleasant Christmas together at Gunston Hall, and he was recommencing
work on _The Just and the Unjust_, when another very serious operation
was determined upon. Two weeks after the second operation a third
operation was performed. My brother rallied, and in March was able to
return to Gunston Hall. He had the satisfaction of knowing that his book
had achieved all the success he could possibly have hoped for it. He
died at Gunston Hall on the night of the fourth of July, 1911.

Paul Kester.




THE HAND OF THE MIGHTY


SIMPLE and genuine, that's the way Thomas R. Pendagrast impressed the
valley. You really might have felt, after listenin' to his innocent
chatter, that he'd barely got under the wire. He wasn't much to look at,
either. Plain in the face, but comfortable-lookin', as if he was well
fed, and with the winnin'est smile that ever come into the valley. You'd
never have picked him out of any crowd for a millionaire, he was such a
simple soul. That was the key-note of his character as we have read it.
For takin' him all in all, I never seen but one simpler soul, and that
was Silas Quinby.

No, we never called Silas Si. That would have been too much like
intrudin' on his privacy. You see, you felt instinctive Quinby couldn't
stand for no reductions; that he hadn't anything to lose without great
personal sufferin'. Silas lived at the head of the valley. His was a
white frame house with green blinds and a dornick-bordered walk leadin'
down to the front gate. When you knew Silas and seen his house, you
realized he was like that; that if there'd been a way to look into his
soul, you'd have found it was painted white, with green blinds, and had
a straight and narrow path leadin' off to travel in.

We had a heap more respect for Silas than confidence in him. He was a
man who looked like he'd stand indefinite without hitchin'. He was a
lawyer, but he hadn't no practise, because no one in the valley had ever
been able to make up his mind to let Silas practise on him. There was
some reckless characters here, just like there is in every neighborhood,
but none of 'em had ever been that reckless. So at the end of forty
years Silas was still waitin' for his first case.

He done better as a notary public, which ain't a perfession callin'
for much independent judgment. We figured it that havin' been through
college and the law school, Silas's natural parts were sufficiently
improved so as he could witness an oath. But beyond this no one had
ever taken chances. So he kept chickens by way of helpin' out his
professional earnin's. He was successful at that. Even folks who
affected to sneer at him for bein' such a simple soul owned up that he
had hen sense. No, his parts couldn't have appeared brilliant on the
surface when you realize that after livin' all them years elbow to elbow
with him, the most we could find to say was that he had hen sense.

Socially he was of them poor unfortunates that never gets a chance to
finish anything they start to say. About the time folks was willin' to
listen to him somebody changed the subject. He was always bein' broke
off in the middle and serialized. It was as if some one got nervous
waitin', and turned the page.

From what I am sayin' you may gather that Silas was at the tail-end of
the procession. But that was hardly it. He was more like a man who'd
missed the procession entirely. But he was a simple soul all right,
and he never bore malice with folks for bein' short with him or showin'
plain that they didn't care a cuss for what he thought.

But to go back to Thomas R. Pendagrast. He come into the valley in a
great, big, yellow tourin'-car along late one afternoon in dog-days. It
was me seen him first. His car was standin' in the road, and he seemed
to be examinin' a daisy he had in his hand. None of your ox-eyes, but
just one of those ornery white-and-yellow kind same as are such a pest.

"Ain't it wonderful--the white and the deep, deep yellow, like gold?"
he says, smilin' at me kind of shy. "Do you think any artist could paint
such a golden yellow?" he says. "I don't."

"I wish they didn't seed so powerful energetic," I says.

"But who made 'em?" he asks, smilin' quaint.

"Blamed if I know. Burbank didn't; he's got better sense."

"Yes, you know," he says, sinkin' his voice and smilin' awful sweet.

"I know they run out a mowin' meadow mighty quick," I says. "If anybody
made 'em, I wish to blazes they'd been about something useful instead."

"My friend," he says, lookin' pained, "don't say that. God made 'em;
they are His flowers. Are you a church-member?"

"I'm a deacon at the Fork's Meetin'-house," I says.

"My brother!" he says gentle-like, and smilin' winnin' and friendly.

"Here's another simple soul," I thought as we shook hands, "another soft
pedal like Silas Quinby, dotty and rockin' on his base, but well-meanin'
and harmless."

But I misjudged him. You see, he lived his religion; that was it--it was
a part of his everyday life. Most folks go about hidin' their religion
as if it was a private matter; but that wasn't Thomas R. Pendagrast's
style. He was willin' you should know just how good he was.

Just then one of the men in the car spoke his name. Say, you could have
knocked me down with the daisy in his hand, I was that outdone! But I
knew it was him from havin' seen his picture so often in the papers.
Well, he climbed back into his car after we'd shook hands again, and I
took off acrost the fields as hard as I could run. I beat the car down
to the valley and spread the news that Pendagrast, the millionaire, was
comin', that I'd seen him and shook hands with him.

At first folks didn't believe me, but when his big yellow car rolled
in slow over the Fork's road,--the first one that had been seen in the
valley,--people realized that we had uncommon visitors with us. And
later there was his name on the hotel register, good for no tellin' how
many millions. Folks came and looked at it, silent and awed, and then
walked away on tiptoe.

One of the gentlemen of Pendagrast's party gave out a statement that the
financier was seekin' rest and quiet. No wonder, after the way he must
'a' been workin' to pile up all the money he had. The gentleman said,
too, in private conversation with several of us that Mr. Pendagrast
was a much misunderstood man, that his aims and purposes were bein'
constantly misrepresented by his enemies. He said he was merely one of
them Christian business men in whose hands an all-seein' Providence had
seen fit to place the temporal welfare of our country. What you noticed
at once about Pendagrast and his friends was the religious tone of all
their remarks; yet they were cheerful--cheerful without bein' vulgar.

Right from the first Pendagrast liked the valley; and when he seen
we kep' out of his way and didn't try to intrude on him, he got awful
friendly, and to such an extent that he'd stop and speak to any man he
met on the road. He'd ask him his name most likely, how many acres
he farmed, if he was married, and how many children, and was he a
church-member. You could see he was all balm and oil and gentleness and
thoughtfulness. He appeared to overflow with the milk of human kindness.
He was as sweet as a cat with sirup on its paws, always soundin' the
soft note in his talk, and always moral and improvin'.

Well, sir, his friends just seemed to love him. It was beautiful to
watch the way they sort of hung on his words. And when he told a funny
joke, you could see them fix their faces, and then they'd laugh and
laugh, and slap each other on the back.

It wasn't no time at all until we knew he was just such another simple
soul as Silas Quinby. He was simple in his pleasures, in what he et,
and in his thoughts, like Silas was. Folks commented on this. But while
Pendagrast got a chance to finish all his remarks, poor old Silas had
never been trusted with much beside the weather, and even there he had
to be mighty careful not to overstay his time.

But the most astonishin' thing was the way Silas Quinby and Pendagrast
became friends. It was like two streams of molasses flowin' together and
makin' one sweetness. It was because they was both such simple souls,
you see. I doubt if Pendagrast had ever met any one like Silas, which
was sayin' just like himself.

He said Silas was the most genuine man he had ever met with, and that
some day he must come and visit him at his city home. He spent hours
with Silas lookin' over the chickens or drinkin' buttermilk and eatin'
doughnuts Mrs. Quinby fed 'em at the back door like two happy lads.

You bet it made us feel good. There was the master of millions and our
Silas like brothers. Why, we began to talk of runnin' Silas for justice
of the peace. He'd wanted the office for years, but no one had felt
he'd care to have a case tried before Silas. Not that he was not well
meanin'. No; it was his mind we feared, not his heart.

Then Pendagrast and his friends must see the p'ints of interest about
the valley. Silas was their guide. No one knew the country better than
he did, whose land they was on, and all about the folks that owned it.
It was beautiful to see those two simple souls goin' around gatherin'
flowers or pickin' up curious rocks and pebbles. You see, they was both
so genuine anything that was innocent could charm 'em. They'd come home
to the hotel, their arms bulgin' with wild blooms and half a hundred of
broken rock mebby stowed away under their feet in the car. I never knew
a millionaire's pleasures could be so harmless or so inexpensive.

Nights Silas used to fetch him down to Miller Brothers' store so he
could get acquainted with folks. Sociable? The most sociable man I ever
met with. Mebby he'd borrow five cents off one of his friends and lay it
all out in crackers and cheese; then he'd set on the counter and dangle
his legs and talk and munch and munch and talk. He never seemed to carry
no money. I suppose, havin' so many millions, he didn't want to appear
ostentatious; and when he'd ask for the nickel his friends would laugh
and laugh; and it _was_ comical, him having to borrow five cents like
that. Once he brought some picture-cards down to the store he'd had
taken the year before when he was in the Holy Land. There was views
of him at the Tomb, him on the shores of Galilee, him at the Mount of
Olives, but no olives.

The first Sunday he spent in the valley he attended church right there
in the old Fork's Meetin'-house, and after the service the minister
asked him if he wouldn't favor us with a few remarks. Say, I ain't ever
forgot that meetin'. What do you think that simple soul done? He got
up, his eyes shinin' and tears in his voice like he was gettin' ready to
leak, and told us about his early struggles.

Joe Whittaker said afterward he hadn't known whether he was attendin'
divine service or night session of a business college. As we left the
church, I says to Joe:

"How you can bring yourself to criticize a simple soul like that is more
than I can understand."

"All the same," says Joe, "he's got God and mammon confused in his mind.
Savin's and salvation are pretty much one and the same to him. I don't
want to be told how to make twenty-five dollars to start on,---I know
that much,--but I'd be grateful if the old man had told me how to make a
million or two."

"Well, he deserves a lot of credit," I says.

"What for?" asks Joe.

"For bein' successful and sacrificin' himself to make money," I says,
heated.

"Do you respect a hog for taking on fat?" says Joe.

"No, I don't," I says. "That's a hog's nature, to take on fat."

"Well, it's his nature to make money," says Joe. "He ain't never gone
outside of his natural instincts. But where you and me has got various
instincts, like bein' careless in our spendin' and lazy, he's never been
able to let go a dollar once he's got his hands on it. I bet you the
Indian yells with pain when his fingers touch a penny."

Well, Pendagrast stayed ten days in the valley, and then he went away,
promisin' to come back the first chance he got. When he left it was just
like the sun had gone down for good. We'd been thinkin' in the hundred
millions, dreamin' of motor-cars and steam-yachts, and we was suddenly
dumped back on the Miller brothers, our richest family, who mebby
made two thousand dollars a year sellin' groceries and calicoes, and
speculatin' in hoop-poles and shingles.

The night after the big yellow tourin'-car had gone hootin' good-by down
the valley road, Silas Quinby come to see me. I seen he had something
on his mind. Finally he got me out to the woodpile. When a man had
something very private to say to his neighbor, he always got him out to
the wood-pile. It was an old valley custom.

"You're missin' him, Silas?" I says, meanin' Pendagrast.

"Yes," says Silas, sighin', "a wonderful man, simple and genuine, and
all his goodness on the surface, where it counts," he says. "And yet I
don't know as it's so much on the surface as underneath," he adds.

"It's all around," I says.

"And yet he's a terribly misjudged man. Have you read them awful
libelous attacks on his character in the magazines and newspapers? It
makes my heart bleed for him," says Silas, moved.

Then Silas asked me about some wild land I owned. He wanted to know if
I'd ever thought of sellin' it. I'd been tryin' to sell it for thirty
years, but couldn't. There was six hundred acres all told, mostly broke
rock and scrub-timber. I'd been offerin' it for two-fifty an acre.

"Yes," I says. "I'll sell fast enough if I get the chance."

"Well, I've had inquiries," says Silas.

You see, he was a real-estate agent, though he'd never sold any land.
But it's easy to be a real-estate agent. You can start with a sign. And
Silas had started twenty years before.

"I wish you'd put your land in my hands to sell," he kept on. "All I
want is a ten per cent, commission if I make a sale. But you must give
me a year's time."

"Why," I says, "that's an awful long time to take, Silas."

"Well," he says, "you've taken thirty years, ain't you, George? And your
lowest price is two-fifty?"

"That's my askin' price. I'll accept two," I says.

"Or as much more as you can get?" he says, laughin' in his simple way.

"Don't be foolish, Silas. If you got anybody feeble-minded enough to
think he can farm that land, don't you try to dicker with him," I says
getting anxious.

The upshot of it was I signed a paper giving Silas a sort of option, him
to be exclusive agent for one year. Then he handed me a dollar.

"What's this for, Silas?" I asked.

"Why, to bind the bargain," he says, smilin' at me simple.

"Why, that's all right, Silas; I trust you," I says, humorin' his fancy.

He made me promise I'd not tell a soul about the option. But that was
reasonable, because if anybody in the valley could have got hold of his
buyer, first thing they would have done would have been to tell him
he'd starve to death on that land, that it was so thin a turkey-buzzard
didn't make a shadow flyin' over it. Yes, it was some poor as far as
fertility went.

Of course I kept still, but one night as I was walkin' home from the
store with the youngest of the Miller brothers,--we married sisters,--it
sort of come out that Silas had been to him about land, and they'd give
him an option on two thousand acres of cut-over mountainside.

"We'll watch Silas," I said. "He's losin' his mind."

"Well, it ain't much to lose," says Miller. "He's got nothing he'll be
less likely to miss."

"Yes, but he's such a simple soul," I says. "I don't know but we'd ought
to make up a purse and send him off to see a brain specialist. It's a
mania he's sufferin' from, for no man in his health would ever think
he could sell twenty-six hundred acres of this cut-over land," I says,
appalled at the extent of Silas's hallucination.

"We must watch him," says Miller. "He may turn violent any moment. These
manias grow on a man until he ain't any control over himself. We must
watch out for Silas," he says.

The next day Miller took me aside and told me that Joe Whittaker had
told him in confidence that Silas had got an option out of him for his
farm.

"What did I tell you?" says Miller. "He's mad, stark starin' mad."

"That's it, Miller; his poor simple nature has give way at last.
Associating with multi-millionaire's was too much for him. I knew his
brain was thin in spots, and it's let him through at last. That's over
three thousand acres he's goin' to sell--more land than's changed hands
in the valley in eighty years."

"Don't you think we'd ought to get him committed to an asylum right off,
and not wait?" says Miller, anxious. "I got a house full of children,
and he's my nearest neighbor. I've had new strong locks put on my doors
and windows, and I've told my wife if she ever hears Silas give a whoop,
not to wait for nothin', but to go inside and lock all the doors."

Well, we kept on investigatin' Silas, and we got on the track of
something like fifty thousand acres of mountain land he was holdin' on
option! When me and Miller footed it up, Miller turned white as a sheet,
and I felt sick all over.

"Poor, poor Silas!" I says.

"Fifty thousand acres--think of that!" gasps Miller. "Why, you couldn't
give it away in an ordinary lifetime. There's never been any one crazier
than him, and here he is walkin' the roads without a keeper! It's
awful!" The sweat was pourin' off Miller's face. "George," he says,
"with a madman like him, even a strong fellow like you wouldn't be safe.
They have awful unnatural strength, these maniacs. Why, you'd be a child
in his hands. I bet there ain't no twenty men in the valley could handle
him, thin and peaked as he looks. George, it's awful; we're living over
a slumberin' volcano."

"Poor Silas!" I says. "His mind's diseased, all right."

But we could see plain that Silas had all that terrible cunnin' the mad
has. He talked just as rational and simple like he'd always done. He
seemed still to have plenty of hen sense, which was the only kind of
sense we'd ever credited him with havin'. Yet me and Miller was like men
setting over the crater of a volcano,--if that's where you set,--which
we was expectin' any moment to bust wide open.

Then one day a stranger drove into the valley. He was a
lightnin'-rodder, and he came to me to talk rods. I was cold on the
proposition, but he was a clever sociable chap, and one thing led to
another, and before long he says.

"You've got a lovely valley; what's land worth here?"

I told him all the way from two an acre for stumpage up to thirty
for the best valley farms. He seemed to think them figures mighty
reasonable, for he asked me if I had any broke land that 'u'd do to
clear for sheep. The upshot of it was that I told him about that six
hundred acres I'd been tryin' to sell for such a time, and he made me
an offer of two an acre cash out of hand. I wanted to kick myself, for I
remembered that fool option I'd give Silas.

"Wait," said Silas, when I'd hunted him up and explained matters. "Don't
be too hasty."

"Hasty! I can't be half quick enough. I want you to tear up that blame
paper, and let me sell my land now I got the chance, Silas."

He wouldn't do it. He said that wasn't enough for the land, and that I
mustn't think of sellin', for he wouldn't agree to it. Stubborn? I never
knew he could be so downright mulish. Argument and entreaty didn't budge
him.

That same night down to the store Miller took me aside. It seems the
lightnin'-rod man had been soundin' him. It really appeared he was more
anxious to buy land than he was to sell rods. He'd made Miller the
same offer he'd made me, and Miller was crazy to sell. He said he never
expected to get so good an offer again, but that fool paper of Silas's
stood in the way, and he couldn't do a thing with Silas.

"If I only hadn't taken his blame dollar, I'd tell him to whistle!" said
Miller, groanin'.

"Did that simple cuss give you a dollar, too?" I says.

"Simple? Why, George, his option is almost as good as a deed. It's a
contract for sale, him to fix the price at any figure he chooses to name
above two an acre. We've accepted a consideration. I ain't sure he's so
simple, after all."

"What can we do, Miller?" I asked.

"There's only one thing, George, that I know of," says Miller. "We
must get him adjudged insane, and recover them options that way; and
we mustn't lose no time about it, either, or that sucker will buy other
land."

It looked like what Miller feared would happen, for when the
lightnin'-rod man found he couldn't do business with me or Miller, he
went to Whittaker. Naturally Whittaker was wild to sell, but he was up
against Silas.

The lightnin'-rodder was a sport, all right. He said he'd always counted
it a fair test of a man's ability to sell rods, but he was findin' there
was stiffer business propositions, and he couldn't afford to let no
transaction get the better of him. He was goin' to squat right there and
buy his sheep farm if it took all summer. You see he had his nerve with
him.

And through all them days of stress, when it looked like his neighbors
might mob him any minute, Silas preserved the even tenor of his way,
like the fellow says, mindin' his chickens, and goin' around serene and
ca'm, at perfect peace with the world.

But of course things couldn't go on like that long. Something had to be
done. It was Miller thought of what he had ought to do--Miller and his
lightnin'-rod man. They got up a petition and sent it to Pendagrast.
They reminded him how friendly he'd be'n with Silas, and urged him to
join us in sendin' our poor friend to a private asylum for the insane,
where he could have the medical attention he was requirin' so much, and
be restored to such hen sense as the Creator had endowed him with in the
beginnin'.

It showed what a simple genuine soul Pendagrast was when inside of a
week his big yellow car came scootin' into the valley and drawed up in
front of Miller Brothers' store.

"Where's my poor friend?" he says, after we had shook hands all round.
"Yes," he says, wipin' his eyes, "it's best I should take him where he
can be confined and have medical attention."

We sent for Silas. Say, it was touchin' to see them two meet and clasp
hands, each lookin' innocenter and simpler than the other, and like
butter would keep indefinite in their mouths.

"Are you well, Silas?" asks Pendagrast, with his arm thrown acrost
Silas's shoulder. "And how's Mrs. Quinby and her good doughnuts?"
smacking his lips. "And the chickens, and your vegetable garden--all
doin' nicely, I hope. Well, you must make up your mind to leave these
simple joys for a spell; I want you should visit me in my city home.
I've come to fetch you away." And he winks at Miller.

They'd arranged the doctors was to be introduced to Silas there without
his knowin' who they was, so as he wouldn't be on his guard. You see
we hadn't been able to do nothing with old Doctor Smith, the valley
physician; he said Silas had just as many brains as he ever had, and a
heap more than the folks who had put their land in his hands to sell.

But Silas said he couldn't leave home. He was awful firm about stayin'
just where he was. He couldn't think of moving.

"It's that dreadful cunnin' insane folks have," whispers Miller to me.
"He's suspicious of his best friend."

It was just beautiful the way Pendagrast talked with Silas, humorin' him
like a little child, pleadin' with him to visit him in his city home,
where there'd be prayer-meetin' every Thursday night and two regular
services on Sunday. He held out every inducement he could think of,
but Silas was as firm as he was gentle. It was plain he was set against
leavin' the valley. Presently Pendagrast took him by the arm and says:

"Gentlemen, I must go down and pay my respects to Mrs. Quinby, and beg
one of those nice doughnuts off'n her. Me and my friend will return
soon, I hope, to say that he has reconsidered his decision, and will
go with me to pay me the visit I want him to." And they locked arms and
walked off, two as simple-souled men as you'd wish to see.

We owe it to Mrs. Quinby for a knowledge of what happened down to
Silas's. She listened at the keyhole after she'd fed Pendagrast a plate
of doughnuts and some buttermilk.

"You're actin' very wrong, Silas, to keep them folks from sellin' their
land when they got the chance," Pendagrast says, after a little friendly
talk. "Yes, Mr. Miller's told me all about it. They are thinkin' of
havin' you locked up in an asylum somewheres, and you'd better destroy
them papers. I doubt if they are legal--"

"They're legal," says Silas, smilin' his sweetest. "I'd stake my life on
that."

"Have you ever thought of them poor fellows and their bitter
disappointment?" says Pendagrast, his voice tremblin'. "Have you put
yourself in their place, my friend? Have you applied that great moral
test to the situation? Before we go any further, would you like to kneel
down beside me and say your prayers?" he says. "I know the temptations
of greed, that money's the root of all evil. It can do no hurt," he
urged in that gentle winnin' voice of his.

And Mrs. Quinby, beyond the door, covered her head with her apron,
she was that moved by the simple soul's eloquence. She missed Silas's
answer, but she heard Pendagrast go on.

"I tremble for your safety here, Silas--even your temporal safety, my
friend. Every man in the valley's got land to sell, and now it looks
like their opportunity has come, and you're blockin' the deal. It's
cruel of you, Silas," he says. "And they're a rough lot--rough, but
gentle, and they may do you bodily harm, like tarrin' and featherin' you
without meanin' to. I can't bear to think of that, Silas; it hurts me
here," he said, restin' his hand on his wish-bone. "And you can't pray,
my friend. It's a bad sign, Silas, when a man loses the power to pray;
it shows he's walked afar with false gods," he says.

"They don't know what's best for them," says Silas. "I got a buyer for
their land. It'll be sold in good time--"

"What!" gasps Pendagrast, turnin' white.

"I say I've found a purchaser for their land."

"Who, Silas?" says Pendagrast.

And Mrs. Quinby, watchin' through the keyhole, seen that he spoke with
effort.

"It's a group of capitalists in New York. All I got to do is to wire
'em, and their representative will be here on the first train to close
the deal," says Silas.

There was a silence, then Pendagrast says:

"Why didn't you let me know of your havin' this land to sell, my friend?
Suppose we form a partnership, Silas. We'll close your options out at
once at two an acre, and I'll personally guarantee you your commission,
which I understand is ten per cent. That'll be ten thousand dollars for
you."

"No," says Silas, "I must do better than two dollars an acre. These
folks are my neighbors. I want to do the best I can by them."

"You're wrong there, Silas," says Pendagrast. "Business is different
from most other things, and it's a good rule to think of yourself
first."

"Mebby so," says Silas; "but it's foolish any way you look at it to sell
the best coal land in the state for two an acre. And when you get your
railroad built along the line of that old survey that was made twenty
years ago, you'll need the gap on the Whittaker place, or you can't get
your line acrost the mountains without goin' clean around," he says.

Mrs. Quinby said Pendagrast pretty near fell off his chair, hearin'
this, he was that outdone. Presently he commands himself so as he could
speak, and says, sighin' deep:

"I see it's as Mr. Miller said it was, and as I feared, but hoped it was
not. There ain't no railroad, and I never heard of no old survey--nor
coal," he says. "My poor friend, I would gladly have stood between you
and your neighbors, but I see now the law will have to deal with you,
and the sooner the better, so these poor folks can sell their land and
get their money."

"What law?" says Silas.

"A lunacy commission," says Pendagrast.

"Wait a bit," says Silas. "Do you remember that roll of papers you lost
on the mountain? Well, I found it. I don't need to tell you it contained
your plans and a copy of the old survey, as well as the location of the
coal that your engineers, who come here two years ago trout-fishin', had
checked up for you."

"Quinby," says Pendagrast,--he was dealin' now,--"I'll take them options
off your hands and give you a bonus of fifty thousand dollars; but you
must agree to keep still until after I've dealt with these folks--"

"No," says Silas; "I'm askin' two hundred an acre for the land."

Pendagrast groaned.

"Two hundred! Why, that's what it's worth!" he says in a shocked tone.

"Of course," says Silas. "That's what I want to get for these folks--all
their land's worth."

"But that ain't business," urges Pendagrast, almost moved to tears.
"Silas, my friend--" he began, conjurin' back that old winnin' smile.

But Silas shook his head.

"Two hundred, or I wire them New York parties I've been dickerin' with."

And Pendagrast seen that he was like adamant--like adamant covered up
with cotton-batting.

"No," cries Pendagrast, "rather than have you do that, I'll pay what the
land's worth."

"Two hundred," says Silas, gentle but firm.

Mrs. Quinby, looking through the keyhole, says she seen something like
a mortal agony wrench Pendagrast; then he groaned horrid, showin' the
whites of his eyes, and says weak:

"Fetch pen and paper. It's highway robbery, but I'll sign--I got to," he
says.

"I've the papers ready for you," says Silas.

Pendagrast signed them, then he drawed himself up.

"I shudder for your future, Quinby," he says. "No, I won't shake hands
with you; I don't feel cordial."

And he groped his way out to where his big tourin'-car was drawed up
under the maples.

And that was how Silas Quinby saved the valley folks something like ten
million dollars just by bein' such a simple soul.

The lightnin'-rod man? Oh, he was Pendagrast's agent.




THE BAD MAN OF LAS VEGAS


WHEN the Bad Man of Las Vegas left Baker's ranch, taking himself
reluctantly from the midst of the unrighteous revel that was being held
there, day was just breaking.

It was about mid-morning and the sun was high in the heavens when his
horse stepped gingerly over the cactus bushes and into the well worn
trail that led down to Las Vegas.

The Bad Man drew rein. He was having a moment with his conscience;
one of the consequences of the early ride; or it may have been the
unavoidable aftermath of Baker's whisky, which had been not only
abundant but vile.

He recalled how he had come to Las Vegas, a raw lad of twenty. He saw
himself as he was then, lank and wondering, with factory bleached skin.
He had come West to make his fortune. When that was accomplished he was
to return and settle down in the old home where his godly forefathers
had dwelt since Pilgrim times, self-respecting and respected.

Las Vegas had been notorious for its wickedness when he first drifted
there. For a while he had kept clear of it all, then the experience of
a single night had changed the whole after current of his life. Entering
one of the gambling hells in search of a friend, he had found him at
cards with the bully of the place. He had tried to get him from the
room, there had been words, a quarrel, and then all was a blank until
he awoke from the delirium of his fear and anger to find himself in the
center of the room, beneath the flaring kerosene lamps, with the bully
dead in the shadow at his feet.

He lived the years swiftly after that, in a sort of mad, blood-letting
frenzy. Every man has friends, and one killing involves other killings.
It was not enough that he had killed one bad man; he must keep on
killing bad men or else fall himself.

He had preferred to keep on. He speedily acquired a fatal handiness with
his weapons, in a few months growing into the strong alert man capable
of holding his own against all comers.

He knew, though the change came slowly and almost imperceptibly, that he
was none the less surely living toward that day when he would be hunted
out of Las Vegas; when the advancing tide of civilization would touch
and pause there, and his career would culminate with one murder too
many.

He took off his hat to let the wind fan his forehead. It was like the
springs he had known in the East.

He seemed to catch the odor of roses and honeysuckle--he remembered
his first and only love. Their parting came back to him with vivid
minuteness of detail. It had all been infinitely bitter to them, but he
was going where a man had a chance, and he would return.

He had scarcely thought of it in years, and now there was only the scent
of the flowers and her face rising out of the gray plain before him. She
had done her part faithfully and then she had married, to live her days
amid the hard commonplaceness of the little eastern village where she
was born.

The Bad Man gathered up the reins, which had fallen from his hand to
the horn of the saddle, and was about to apply the spur to his horse's
flank, when, glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a wagon coming down
the trail, the center of a moving cloud of dust. Influenced by a sudden
impulse he could not explain, he permitted the reins to fall slack
again.

As the wagon came nearer he saw that it was a homesteader's outfit drawn
by a single horse that was dark with sweat and dust and flecked here and
there with white splotches of foam. A man was driving, and at his back a
woman's face was visible.

As the wagon drew up alongside of the Bad Man the homesteader reined in
his horse. Las Vegas' questionable hero spoke first. He merely remarked
that it was a fine day. The homesteader inspected him narrowly before
answering the greeting, then he said--and his tone was one of surly
reserve, while his manner was neither easy nor gracious--"It is a fine
day."

He was a round-shouldered man of thirty-five with a sallow unhealthy
skin and a scanty ill-kept beard. He had put aside his coat and wore
only a faded, much mended cotton shirt and overalls--once blue, but now
showing white at the seams--tucked carelessly into the tops of heavy
boots.

The woman peered out anxiously and fearfully at the stranger.

The latter said by way of continuing the conversation:

"Where are you bound for, pardner?"

"Sunken River Valley. Got a brother there," was the gruff response.

The Bad Man looked him over carefully and critically, then the wagon,
and last of all the horse. He noted that the wagon showed the effects
of the roads and a long journey. The jingle it sent forth whenever the
horse moved spoke eloquently for repairs. The horse, however, though it
had been driven hard, was comparatively fresh and able. The gentleman
from Las Vegas lived in a community where men were largely judged by
their horses, and he decided that the animal before him was a recent
purchase.

"Where are you from?" he asked, when done with his scrutiny.

"Western Kansas. It's a hell of a country. Grasshoppers one year and no
water the next. About cleaned me out." Then he added surlily: "If you
are done looking me over, I guess I'll be moving."

Meantime the woman had disappeared from view, but she could be heard
speaking to some one inside the wagon. Then a child's voice, fretful and
tired, answered hers.

The homesteader's manner, even more than his words, was an affront to
the Bad Man, who was perhaps unduly sensitive in such matters. He
was debating whether he should not interpose, some objections to his
continuing on his road, when the woman called out querulously: "Do drive
on, Joe. It seems as though we shall never get there!"

The man saluted with his whip. "So long." And the wagon with a creak and
a rattle rolled off, jangling as it went.

The Bad Man touched his horse with the spur. "I'm going your way," he
said.

For a time they rode on in silence. Every now and then the homesteader
stole a glance of doubt and mistrust at his insistent and evidently
unwelcome companion. Clearly he was far from being at ease. Finally he
said:

"You weren't wanting to say anything in particular to me, were you?"

The Bad Man regarded him with mild surprise. "I reckon not," he
answered.

"I didn't know. Only you seemed so all-fired set on stickin' close to
me, that's all; I didn't mean no offense."

There was a pause. The Bad Man turned the matter slowly over in his
wind. He had formed a very unfavorable opinion of the homesteader, and
was wondering whether it was not a duty he owed society to tell him so
frankly. He allowed a certain latitude because of the different sense
of humor different men have, but there was nothing funny about the
homesteader. He was just plain uncivil.

"Yes, sir-ee," said the homesteader, "western Kansas is a hell of a
place. It ain't worth the powder it would take to blow it to blazes.
I wish I'd never seen it. When I made up my mind to come West, my wife
sort of persuaded me to stop there. She didn't want to go any farther.
Sort of wanted to keep somewhere near the folks in old Vermont. Then she
was taken sick; she was ailing before we started West. Then our two boys
up and died, and now the young un's down. It's mighty hard on her ma.
I got a brother in Sunken River Valley, and some of the folks from back
East moved out there while we were in Kansas. My wife will be mighty
well satisfied when she gets among her own sort again. Women get lonely
so darn easy."

They could hear the mother singing softly to the sick child. The Bad Man
jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"What's the matter?"

"Fever," said the other laconically.

"So you are from Vermont?"

"Yes. Wish I was there now, you bet. It's God's own country."

"What part of the state do you come from?"

"Central part. Barrettsville."

The Bad Man started violently, but recovered himself on the instant.

"I suppose you are pretty well acquainted there?" he asked, with studied
indifference.

"I ought to be. Lived there most of my life."

"That's singular. I met a fellow from Vermont just the other day, from
Barrettsville, too."

"Lots of our folks have come West. They're scattered all over out here.
Some of 'em are doing mighty well, too."

"You didn't happen to know the Thomases, did you?"--with elaborate
carelessness. "Which?"

"I guess the man I am asking about had something to do with the mills.
There are mills there, ain't there?"

"Well, I declare! That's funny!" and the homesteader laughed a mirthless
cackle. "Should say I did know the Thomases. My wife was a Thomas--old
French Thomas' daughter. But"--lowering his voice--"the old man's been
dead five years come next May."

The Bad Man turned his face away.

So that was the woman he had loved!

There was silence again, undisturbed save for the clatter of the horses'
hoofs and the rattle of the wagon. The child was asleep, and its mother
no longer sang to it.

The homesteader thrust aside the flaps and glanced in. The woman, with
the child in her arms, was seated on a mattress at the back of the
wagon, looking out at the long dusty streak that wound over the range
and lost itself in the gray distance of the plain.

Craning his neck the Bad Man saw her, and then as her husband dropped
the flaps, he pulled up his horse and drew in behind the wagon. The
woman raised her eyes.

"Is the little one asleep?" he asked, his voice shaking with an awkward
tenderness.

"Yes. She's just pining away for green fields and trees."

He surveyed the woman before him with a certain wonder. He would never
have recognized her, she was so changed, so altered from the likeness he
had carried in his heart; but now, knowing who she was, he could trace
where she had fallen from that likeness. He was quite sure she could not
recognize him, for he had changed, too, but in a different way.

"If he'd drive slower, wouldn't it be easier for her?"

The woman looked into his face in alarm.

"We want to get there as quick as we can. Seems as though we'd never get
there!"

"You can't make it to-day."

"My husband says he'll drive till he gets there if it takes all night."

"There'll be a dead horse between the shafts if he tries it," said the
Bad Man in a tone of calm conviction.

"The horse----" and the woman stopped.

"I don't reckon he sets much value on the brute from the way he drives."

The woman gazed fixedly into his face. "Did he tell you?" she questioned
in a frightened whisper.

In a flash he realized what the trouble was. "He shouldn't have done
it," he said gravely. "I know that," she answered breathlessly. "But
what could he do? Our own horse had died. We had no money, and with the
baby sick we just couldn't stop! If he is found out, what then?" The Bad
Man shook his head dubiously. "I'd rather not say."

"Do they hang men for horse stealing?"

"They have," he answered shortly.

Further conversation was interrupted by the sudden stopping of the
wagon.

"Darnation! Which trail do I take?"

The Bad Man pointed to the right.

"There's your road. You'll find it plain enough."

"Much obliged to you, stranger. I don't reckon you're going over to
Sunken River Valley yourself?"

"Hold on;" and a detaining hand was placed upon the lines the
homesteader held. "That's a good horse you're driving, pardner, but if
you keep this pace you'll take only his hide and bones into Sunken River
Valley with you."

"I've got to get there, horse or no horse," answered the man nervously.

"How'd you like to trade? I've taken a fancy to that animal of yours,
and if you're bent on killing a horse I don't, know but I'd rather have
you kill the one I'm riding."

The homesteader leaped from his seat on the instant.

"I'll do it!" Then he bethought him that perhaps some little display
of reluctance might be seemly and natural. "Your horse is sound, of
course?"

"Sound as a dollar. Look it over if you don't think so."

The woman came to the front of the wagon, listening breathlessly. Now
she put the flaps aside and looked out.

Her husband turned to her. "We're going to swap horses--you don't care,
do you?"

She tried to meet the glance of the Bad Man, but could not.

"It's all right, wife?"

"Yes," she answered in a low voice; "it's all right."

The animal was already free from the shafts, and at her word he led
it out from between them. The Bad Man threw himself astride the stolen
horse.

"I'll say good day to you, pardner--and to--you"--to the woman, and
without a word more he was galloping off down the trail toward Las
Vegas.

"I guess I was darn lucky to get rid of that horse," the homesteader
remarked, as he gazed after the Bad Man.

The woman said nothing. She only wondered.




MOLLIE DARLING


OUT of the warm distance came the song:

               "Do you love me, Mollie darling?

               Say you love none else but me--"

The man seated in the cabin door raised a battered face and listened, as
down the trail came the singer and the song.

"Mollie, sweetest, fairest, dearest;

Look up, darling, tell me this.

               Do you love me, Mollie darling?

               Let your answer be a kiss!"

The dog at the man's feet cocked his head knowingly on one side and
seemed to listen, too. The man addressed the dog.

"Duffer, that's a right sweet old song, ain't it?--a right plaintive
air. When you're fifty odd, Duffer, them old songs dig holes in your
memory." As he spoke he gently caressed the dog. It was yellow and
palpably of uncertain breed, but just as palpably of distinguished
social qualities. "Duffer, I'll bet you what you like he ain't
fifty,--and that his Mollie's within safe walking distance!"

Around a turn in the trail, a winding path that led up and up, and from
behind a big boulder, came the singer in blue work-stained overalls and
blouse. He swung a tin dinner pail with one hand and his cap with the
other. His years were plainly a scanty half of fifty. Catching sight of
the man in the cabin door, he paused, while the song died abruptly on
his lips.

"Hullo!" he said.

"Evening," responded the man. Middle age had put its stamp upon him;
hard-lived years apparently, for he was lean and muscular, with the
brown skin of perpetual sunburn. A long scar slashed the bridge of his
beak-like nose and halved a shaggy iron-gray eyebrow with a white welt.
The eye beneath was fixed and staring, yet it served to mitigate and
soften the somewhat severe expression that lurked across the way, as
it were, on the other side of his face; for his good eye was dark and
piercing, and held a deep spark.

Duffer, wagging his tail, investigated the newcomer. He sniffed at the
blue overalls that kept the rancid odor of smoke and oil and machinery.
The young man clapped his cap on his thick mop of black curls, opened
his dinner pail and found a crust.

"Think he'd like this?" he asked of the dog's master, who nodded. Duffer
made short work of the crust, and then, wise and inquiring, nosed the
bottom of the dinner pail.

"What do you call this place?" inquired the elder man. There were
sixteen houses on the bench below.

"Sunset,--Sunset Limited, some of us calls it. Say, Alvarado's
knocked the spots out of us,--so's Last Pan, so's Buffalo Bend. Sunset
Limited,--yes, sir, and that ain't no joke either!"

"Quiet?"

"You can hear a pin drop during rush hours. This is one of the rush
hours, me going home to supper. That gives you the dimensions of the
rush." The young man laughed pleasantly. "My name's Johnny Severance,"
he added, by way of introduction.

"Mine's Brown."

"Huh," said Johnny. "That's Brown's Peak you're looking at. Brown was
an old-time scout; he stood off a bunch of Apaches here way back in the
early days. They named the mountain after him."

"You'll always meet plenty of Browns wherever you go," said the owner of
that name, in impartial judgment of its merits.

"It is awful common," agreed Johnny. "You prospecting?"

Brown shook his head.

"Health, mebby?"

But Brown's appearance was strongly against this supposition. "I don't
want no more health than I got," he said.

"Well, you do look hearty," admitted Johnny. "But every now and then
they blow in here for their health. That was the way with the last
fellow who had this cabin. He croaked." And young Mr. Severance sank his
voice in decent recognition of the universal tragedy. He continued:
"I'm keeping the pumps up at the Red Bird sucking. The stockholders are
suffering from cold feet. Well, so long, Mr. Brown!" and he moved off in
the direction of the sixteen houses that constituted Sunset.

He passed fifteen of these houses, whose back doors looked boldly out
across an arid valley to a distant line of jagged peaks that saw-toothed
the horizon under flaming bands of color. No one of the fifteen but
breathed an air of dilapidation and neglect, for they sepulchered dead
hopes. The sixteenth was in pleasing contrast; it was newly painted
and two stories high. A sign announced this the Mountain House,--M.
Ferguson, Proprietor.

Johnny passed about a corner of the Mountain House and paused beside the
kitchen door, where there was a barrel, a bench, a tin basin, a roller
towel, a cake of soap and a sixty-mile view set under the splendid arch
of the heavens. He filled the basin at the barrel, tossed aside his
blouse, and began the removal of such evidences of honest toil as he had
brought away from the Red Bird.

A window overlooked the bench, and he was presently aware that a slender
bit of a girl was gazing down on him with serious blue eyes and smiling
warm red lips; a fresh color the mountain wind had blown there was
in her soft round cheeks, which held a dimple that came and went
tantalizingly, and her hair curled in golden disarray about her pretty
face. Johnny stared up at her through a mist compounded of soap and
water.

"My eyes are chuck-full of suds, but I can see good enough to know
you're the sweetest thing that ever was, Mollie,--honest you are!" he
said.

The girl laughed, disclosing a row of white even teeth.

"Well, will you just get on to them dimples!" cried Johnny.

"Now, Johnny,--honest?"

"Honest, what?"

"The sweetest thing----"

"Wish I may die if you ain't!" said Johnny fervently.

He made great haste with the towel, then he stepped close to the window.
His mop of black curls was raised toward the yellow head, there was a
soft sound and Mr. Severance seemed greatly cheered and refreshed by
something.

"Mollie, you got the sweetest lips to kiss,--honest you have," he said.

The girl laughed shyly.

"You always say that."

"You want I should aways tell you the truth, don't you?" he demanded,
his arm about her shoulders.

"Can't you say something different?" asked Mollie, puckering her brows
and then dimpling at him.

"What's the use of trying? You bet you I don't want to think no
different," and Johnny looked at her with adoring eyes, their faces very
close together. Finally he released her. "Any news, Mollie?" he asked.

"The gentleman that's bought the Pay Streak over at Alvarado was here
for lunch. He come in a big touring-car with his wife and baby, and its
nurse. They seemed awful nice people, Johnny."

"I wish I had his bank roll. They say he's a millionaire all right,"
said Johnny.

"Mollie!" a voice called from within, and Mollie said hastily as she
turned away:

"Supper's on the table; you can come in when you get ready."

M. Ferguson was another Mollie, the younger Mollie's aunt. Years before
while Sunset was still a prosperous mining camp, she had come West to
make her home with her brother and to take charge of his motherless
child. The brother had died in that evil time when the bottom was
dropping out of Sunset. She had given the best years of her life to
her niece; singlehanded she had fought a long fight with adverse
circumstances and had won a modest victory. Now one can not live an
utterly self-sacrificing life to no purpose, so Miss Mollie had a
certain sweet dignity that came of much goodness, and a soul at peace
with itself.

The Mountain House was a part of the niece's heritage. It was kept
alive by chance tourists. Johnny was the regular, the star boarder,
and frequently the only one, and at all times so much at home that he
usually wiped the supper dishes. Mollie washed them. Johnny was the
trusted man up at the Red Bird, the very right hand of a soulless
corporation whose only symptoms of life were in its feet and even they
were undeniably cold. He pulled down seventy dollars a month just as
easy! With all this wealth pouring in upon him every thirty days, with
money saved, too, and Mollie flitting in and out of those big bare rooms
at the Mountain House, why, no wonder he was intent on matrimony!

That night after the dishes had been duly washed and as duly dried in
the intervals between sundry breathless moments when Johnny's black
curls and Mollie's golden head were very close together, they strolled
out upon what had once been Sunset's long main street, past the houses
that still fronted it and up the trail toward the Red Bird.

Miss Mollie sat in the doorway of the Mountain House in the warm
twilight and watched them as they went slowly forward arm in arm. They
brought back the sentiment of youth, and she shared vicariously in its
romance. Yet there was a heartache scarcely stilled in the realization
that the imperceptible gradations of time had swept her away from the
morning world in which youth dwells; that for her, beginning to be
visible down the pathway of the years, were the silences--the solitudes
that she must before long enter alone.

The twilight deepened. The last vestige of color faded from the sky. The
white cap of Brown's Peak sank into the gloom, merged with the blue of
the heavens and was lost to sight. There was a footfall on the path as a
tall shadow detached itself from the night, and Mr. Brown, with his dog
Duffer at his heels, paused on the step. Seeing a woman in the doorway
of the lighted office, he removed his hat.

"Evening," he said.

"Won't you step in?" asked Miss Mollie, slipping aside her chair which
blocked the entrance. "I guess you're Mr. Brown Johnny was telling us
about at supper?" she added.

"Yes, ma'am." Mr. Brown looked severe and even purposeful, but his voice
held a shy deferential note.

"He's not used to women," thought Miss Mollie.

From under the flapping brim of his hat Brown stole a covert glance in
her direction. She was very good to look at, he decided, with her soft
brown hair drawn smoothly back from her comely face, and her dark eyes
that held just the hint of a sorrow lightly borne.

Subsequently he negotiated for one meal a day at the Mountain House. He
elected that this meal should be supper, because he would then have the
moral support of Mr. Severance's presence.

When he had tested it he found that Sunset yielded a superior article
of peace. Save for Johnny, who passed his cabin twice a day, he was
undisturbed. Usually it was Johnny's morning song that brought him
awake,--Johnny on his way toward the gaping hole at the timber line
with Mollie's farewell kiss sweet upon his lips. Yet Mr. Brown did not
succumb to the charms of Sunset without a struggle. He told Duffer each
morning:

"I guess we'll pull out of here to-morrow, old sport!"

But the to-morrows became a respectable division of time, and presently
as a concession to some inherent love of accuracy Mr. Brown changed his
formula.

"I guess we'll be leaving here along about day after to-morrow!"

But the days after to-morrow went to join the to-morrows, and Brown
still lingered in Sunset.

Into this Eden, like another serpent, came Mr. Bunny, his hair slicked
low across his forehead and tastefully roached back over one ear. He
breathed an air of profound sophistication. Johnny and he met at the
bench by the kitchen door where Mr. Bunny was bestowing certain deft
touches to his toilet.

"Say, pardner, this million-dollar palace hotel seems to be mainly in
the hands of the suffragettes, don't it?" he remarked.

Johnny surveyed him without favor.

"Huh!" he said, and scooped up a basin of water from the barrel. Mr.
Bunny, not easily discouraged, waited.

"What's your name, pardner?" he presently asked.

"Severance," said Johnny shortly.

"Say, I knowed a fellow of that name in the Klondike,--I'm a liar if I
didn't. He was a card-player. We was awful intimate--"

"Huh!" said Johnny again. He was not impressed with Mr. Bunny nor Mr.
Bunny's friend.

Mollie appeared at the window, but catching sight of Mr. Bunny she
vanished into the inner regions of the Mountain House.

"Mama! mama!--what was that?" cried Mr. Bunny softly, in admiration.

"Look here!" said Johnny, wheeling on him. "You cut that out!"

"It's the climate, pardner. These here high altitudes braces a man up
most amazin'----"

"The climate's all right, but you can get just as rank here as anywhere
else," warned Johnny. Mr. Bunny gave him a sidelong glance. Johnny
completed his toilet in silence.

"Going in to supper now, Mr. Severance?" asked Mr. Bunny affably.

Johnny nodded, led the way around the building, in through the office,
and on into the diningroom where sat Miss Mollie, inoffensive Mr. Brown
and Mollie at supper. He presented Mr. Bunny with no little formality.

Mr. Bunny's company manners immediately developed one striking merit.
They seemed to afford their fortunate possessor the greatest possible
satisfaction and confidence. Also when you tapped Mr. Bunny you tapped
an unfailing spring. Moreover he had a generous and withal a thoughtful
nature, had Mr. Bunny, especially _was it_ thoughtful.

"Miss Ferguson will try them pickles, Mr. Severance. Just chase the
butter down this way, Mr. Brown,--Miss Mollie's aimin' her eye at it.
Mr. Severance, 'low me to shoot a slice of bread on to your plate..."
This and much more of a similar character in the interval of agreeable
and easy conversation, the burden of which Mr. Bunny lightly sustained.
And while he talked, his small wicked eyes, close-set under their low
brows and of an indeterminable color, slid around in a furtive circle.
They took in everything, but they came back and back to Mollie.

"Say, Denver, Albuquerque, Dawson, 'Frisco,--I've seen 'em all; and say,
I've seen a lot of life, too,--and me only twenty-five. How many fellows
do you reckon have been about as much as me? But I'm giving it to you
straight when I say it's good to hit a place like this where you feel
at home, and where you can wash out of a tin basin at the back door like
you done at mother's!"

Johnny listened abashed to Mr. Bunny's easy flow of words. It might have
occurred to him that this fascinating stranger never spoke of anybody
but himself; that his own moods, emotions, ambitions, thoughts so
called, occupied him entirely and to the exclusion of all else, for he
moved in a world of men rock walled by his own towering egotism. It was
wasted labor to try to change the drift of the conversation. Whatever
was said instantly reminded Mr. Bunny of himself. At the most, one
merely opened up fresh and inviting fields for him to enter and claim
his place in the foreground.

After supper he cornered quiet Mr. Brown in the office. That gentleman's
bad eye had attracted his attention, and he seized the first opportunity
to ask Brown how he came by that scar, thus artfully framing a question
that covered the eye as well.

"Knife slipped while I was picking my teeth," said Brown, regarding him
malevolently.

"Say, I thought you might have bit yourself accidental," responded Mr.
Bunny.

In the kitchen Johnny was talking earnestly with Mollie, as they washed
and dried the supper dishes.

"Don't you have nothing to do with that fellow, Mollie----"

"Why, Johnny?"

"Well, mainly because he's no good. He's the rankest proposition I even
stacked up' against, and I've seen 'em as rank as they make 'em."

Mollie puckered her brows thoughtfully. She was fond of Johnny and
they were engaged, but all the same she had the very human quality of
disliking orders, and Johnny's voice smacked of command.

"I thought he was entertaining, and that he had nice table manners," she
said.

"Well, I didn't notice 'em if he had. I hate these smart geezers!"

"He was awful polite, Johnny." She wished Johnny to be fair to the
stranger; at the same time she felt affronted by his foolish jealousy.

"Fresh," said Johnny, "if you call that being polite."

No more was said then, but somehow when they walked up the trail there
was this between them, and they walked farther apart than usual. They
were silent, too, a good deal of the time. Moreover it was a short
walk; but before they reached the hotel Johnny had returned to the vexed
subject of Mr. Bunny and the treatment Mollie was to accord him.

"Mollie, you are not going to talk to that fellow any more, are you?"

"Certainly I shall talk to him. I am not going to be impolite just
because you are," rejoined Mollie, with a little toss of her head.

Johnny flushed hotly, then the color faded from his face.

"All right then, if you'd rather talk to him than me, you can, but I
won't be here to listen to it--I can tell you that!"

They had reached the door by this time, and Mollie, holding her chin
very high, said coldly:

"Good night, Mr. Severance,--I think I must go in. Thank you for your
company."

Johnny gasped, then he said politely:

"Good night, Miss Ferguson," and turned away, while Mollie went up to
her room with burning cheeks and smarting eyes.

But it was not until she was safe in bed that she shed a few
surreptitious tears.

"He might have known... that I care more for his little finger--than for
all the Mr. Bunnys in the world!" she whispered tremulously to herself
under cover of the friendly darkness.

Mr. Bunny, for reasons of his own, remained in Sunset. He discovered
that M. Ferguson desired to introduce water on her premises. She
designed to have flowers, a kitchen garden and grass. This involved a
half-mile of ditch. He let it be known that for a proper consideration
he might be induced to betake himself to ditching, though he also let it
be known that this was a pursuit he should never look back upon with any
feeling even remotely approaching pride. He further gave M. Ferguson
to understand that he had recently lifted a mortgage on his widowed
mother's quarter-section back in Nebraska. This had taken his last cent.
He drove a much better bargain in consequence, did artless Mr. Bunny.

To Johnny he had already explained that he had impoverished himself
in Albuquerque; his attentions to a handsome brunette having been the
immediate cause of his financial undoing. Later she had proved unworthy
of his generosity. He was hitting the high places now mainly because of
the throw-down she had given him. He indicated that this throw-down had
been cruel and perfidious beyond words. Brown had heard the same story
from Mr. Bunny's own authentic lips, but in his case Mr. Bunny had
added:

"Say, I put my coin on the black. You watch me make my next play on the
red. That ought to fetch a change of luck."

Then one morning Johnny's song failed to rouse Mr. Brown, but its very
absence at the accustomed hour brought him wide awake. He heard Johnny's
step on the path, and looking from his window saw Johnny go by, his
curly head bowed and his shoulders rounded.

Mr. Brown sat in his cabin door and considered the situation over his
morning pipe. Subsequently he sought out Mr. Bunny, peacefully ditching,
gun on hip. Not that Mr. Bunny was actually ditching; truth compels the
statement that he was seated on a flat rock with his spade within easy
reach. Mr. Brown addressed the ditcher:

"Ain't you finding this a mighty sedentary job?" he asked.

"Shucks! I've made big money in my time,--ten a day in the Klondike
tending bar----"

"What you getting here?"

"A dollar fifty, and my board," said Mr. Bunny sheepishly.

"Why, she's doing you--ain't she?" cried Brown. "Robbing you right
along! No wonder you're warming them rocks. A dollar fifty to a
high-priced man like you hardly pays for the trouble of drawing your
wages!"

Mr. Bunny looked off, got up, dug his spade disconsolately into the
bank, threw a couple of shovelfuls from him with disdain; and sat down
once more. Brown regarded him earnestly.

"And your mother back in Nebraska on that quarter-section, like I heard
you tellin' Miss Ferguson at supper last night, looking anxious to you
to remit... and that handsome brunette down in Albuquerque that cost you
such a pot of money.... Say, Mr. Bunny, you got to do some mighty close
figurin', ain't you, to make both ends meet?"

"Just between ourselves, Brown, you can cut out the mother,--but I was
giving it to you straight about the other."

"Well, I see you got all the feelings of a high-priced man; it naturally
fusses you to think how Miss Ferguson's taken advantage of you. Dollar
fifty,--why, that ain't whisky money for an ambitious fellow like you."

"You're right, it ain't," said Mr. Bunny, shaking his head ominously.
"I'm going to pull out of here soon. Say, Brown,--" he continued
confidentially, "I could take her away from him--" and he nodded in the
direction of the Mountain House. Mr. Brown understood he was referring
to Mollie now. "Just as easy as nothing. All I got to do is just to
crook my finger at her,--see?" said Mr. Bunny. "But pshaw! I don't
marry. They none of 'em ketch me. I'll have my fun with a fair-looker,
spend my money on her, but there ain't an ounce of matrimony in my
system." And into Brown's ears he poured a tale of triumphant sin,
giving Mr. Brown to understand that he, Bunny, was a bee among the
flowers.

Brown was viewing the gun on Bunny's manly hip with a wistful eye. It
had been years since he had renounced such vanities. Bunny leaned over
to pick up a stone.

"Say,--what in blazes you up to?" he cried, for Brown had deftly slipped
the gun from its holster. He fell back a step and gave Bunny the benefit
of his good eye. Mr. Bunny was instantly conscious of a cold feeling at
the pit of his stomach. "Say, you give me back my gun!" And he began to
bluster.

"Forget it!" said Mr. Brown softly. "If a man took that trail and kept
moving, he'd be in Alvarado by to-morrow night----"

"Give me back my gun, Mr. Brown----"

"I never did believe in these here private irrigation projects," said
Brown. "And I don't believe you're the man to put this one through." He
drew back the hammer of the gun.

"Say--it's loaded, Mr. Brown--" cried Bunny. "Look out!"

"Of course it's loaded. I wouldn't insult you by thinking you packed an
empty gun. You keep moving at a reasonable rate of speed and you can
be counting the lamp-posts in Alvarado tomorrow night,--seven on Main
Street, and four on Prairie Avenue. You're wasting your time here....
No,--you don't need to go down to the Mountain House--you can start
here!"

"Say, she's owing me money, Mr. Brown. A man wants what lie's earned,
don't he?" said Bunny meekly, but disposed to raise an issue.

"Of course he does,--but he don't want what he ain't earned." Brown
looked at him with weary petulance. "Ain't you open to a hunch?" The
muzzle of the gun menaced Bunny, who fell back a step in consternation,
ducked, turned and fled shamelessly.

Brown returned to his cabin feeling that he had permanently eliminated
the fascinating Mr. Bunny, and evidences of a certain austere pleasure
radiated from his damaged features. But though the hour arrived when
Johnny Severance should have come striding down the path from the Red
Bird, head thrown back and shoulders squared as he swung his cap and
dinner pail, it brought no Johnny; and Brown, disturbed and wondering,
set out alone for the straggle of buildings on the bench.

He found two anxious-faced women at the Mountain House; the eyes of
each were red from much weeping, and he surmised that there had been
a crisis--that his well-intentioned interference had been too long
delayed--and he suffered a moment of intense humiliation. He had figured
creditably in more than one strenuous human drama, but never before
had he to reproach himself with being dilatory. It gave him a unique
sensation.

Supper was eaten in dreary silence. At first Miss Mollie had attempted
to talk to her guest, but her voice was forced and unnatural and now and
again trailed off into what sounded very like a sob, while Mollie's big
blue eyes were misted lakes of sorrow. In the presence of their grief
Brown was stricken into speechless shyness. He felt that the feminine
soul was a curious and an awesome thing; he stood close to it with
trepidation. But he did not lack a certain deep integrity,--he would see
this thing through to a finish.

After supper he hung around the office, where presently Miss Mollie
joined him. He sensed it that his hostess was only anxious to have him
go, yet he lingered, perturbed and ill at ease. At last he cleared his
throat.

"I don't see nothing of Mr. Severance," he remarked with diffidence, as
one who had encroached on a forbidden subject.

The tears swiftly gathered in Miss Mollie's soft brown eyes.

"I'm afraid he's gone," she said.

There was a pause. Brown followed a crack in the floor from the desk to
the wall opposite and back again with his embarrassed glance.

"Anything happened?" he at length asked, and the very bluntness of his
query threw him into a state of intense and painful confusion, but he
gripped himself hard and went on. "She"--he jerked his thumb in the
direction of the diningroom where Mollie could be heard clearing away
the supper dishes--"she's feeling pretty bad," he hazarded, and once
more was stricken dumb.

"Yes, she's feeling awful bad, Mr. Brown. Johnny's gone. He sent down
word--a good-by--from the Red Bird this afternoon, and said he was
going."

Brown considered.

"He should be fetched back," he presently observed with conviction.

"Where is Mr. Bunny?" asked Miss Mollie, and her tone betrayed anxiety.

Brown flushed under his sunburn.

"He's left Sunset. He went sudden."

"Did they--did he and Johnny meet?--was there trouble?" began Miss
Mollie.

"No, ma'am. Bunny had his reasons for going. They looked good to him and
nothing was holding him, so he just went. I seen him when he went.
It looked like it come over him all at once that he had ought to go,"
explained Mr. Brown considerately and at length.

"I am so glad! I was afraid that perhaps they had met."

"Where's Johnny gone?" inquired Brown.

"We think to Alvarado."

Mollie had appeared in the dining-room doorway and was listening, but
Brown's back was turned toward her.

"What's to hinder my going there after him?" asked Brown. "I can produce
an argument he'll listen to." Unconsciously his hand rested on Mr.
Bunny's gun.

"It's awful kind of you to suggest it, but perhaps you shouldn't go;
it may make trouble for you," said Miss Mollie. It was the habit of a
lifetime with her to think of others.

"You're a good kind man!" cried Mollie fervently through her tears,
advancing. "You tell him that I just hate and despise that Bunny.... I
didn't mean anything I said.... I'm sorry--sorry!" She seized one of his
hands in both of hers. "Oh, he must come back!--tell him to come back,
Mr. Brown----"

"I'm aimin' to tell him just that,--and he'll come back all right,"
Brown assured her.

"Do you think he will?--do you... do you?"

"I was never surer of anything in my life."

Mollie relinquished his hand, and throwing her arms about his neck,
kissed him. An instant later and she had buried her face on his shoulder
and was sobbing aloud.

Mr. Brown's unhandsome face flushed scarlet. Never in all his varied
experience had he known anything like this. Then his face grew white,
and he shook as he had never shaken in the presence of danger, violence,
or the risk of sudden death.

Johnny Severance had quitted the Red Bird and turned his face in the
direction of Alvarado. Two years of perfect happiness had vanished in
the cataclysm that had overwhelmed him and Mollie.

A sudden mist swam before his eyes. Well, she hadn't treated him right,
but he hoped she would find peace,--he was man enough to wish no less.
He must shape his own future out of the wreck she had made; though
this didn't matter greatly, since he was sure life held nothing for
him,--indeed, he rather gloated in the thought of an existence, bleak,
purposeless and incomparably lonely,--and again the mist seemed to burn
his very eyeballs, while it sent the gray valley and the line of purple
peaks deep into the distance.

He kept the trail for Alvarado all that day and at nightfall went into
camp. Necessity now drove him to the lunch he had brought away from the
Red Bird. He choked over each mouthful, for Mollie's small deft hands
had been busy here. He reflected bitterly that never again was this to
be.

"It'll be up to some chuck-house cook to fill my dinner pail!" he
murmured sadly. With the final mouthful he felt that he had destroyed
the last link that bound him to the past.

Morning found him sorely tempted to pocket his pride and go back,--back
to Mollie, his pumps at the Red Bird and the Mountain House; but he
sternly repressed this ignoble weakness. No, sir! She had cast him off.
Yet he sat a long time with his head bowed in his hands and watched the
light flood the valley. Then again he took the trail. His steps lagged.
Not that he was tired, but the cataclysm was somehow seeming less
complete than it had seemed the day before.

He went forward, steadily resolute, with his chin sunk on his breast and
his glance lowered. Suddenly he became aware that some one was coming
along the trail toward him and looked to find himself face to face with
Mr. Bunny. There was a strained moment, then Bunny, eying him askance,
put out his hand.

"Why, how are you, pardner?" he said. Johnny ignored the hand.
"Say, what's your grouch?" inquired Mr. Bunny in a tone of affected
astonishment. Johnny gave him a look of scorn. "Oh, that,--well, see
here, Mr. Severance, I ain't no plaster saint, but say, I'm on the
level. Yes, sir,--I didn't interfere none between you and your girl----"

"Who said you did?" demanded Johnny, angry with himself for allowing
such a thought to gain a place in Mr. Bunny's mind.

"Then why don't you shake hands?"

"I'm willing enough to shake hands," responded Johnny sourly.

"You didn't look like you was," said Bunny. There was a moment's
silence. Mr. Bunny's original idea had been that Johnny had followed him
with sinister intent; since this was evidently not the case, what was he
doing here? While he was debating this point, a somewhat similar problem
was occupying Johnny. He had supposed Bunny still at Sunset. "It's
mighty agreeable to meet old friends, ain't it, Mr. Severance? You going
on to Alvarado?"

Johnny signified that this was not unlikely.

"Say, when did you leave Sunset, pardner?" continued Bunny.

"Yesterday," said Johnny briefly.

"Say, if we'd knowed what was in each other's minds we might have come
away together," observed Bunny.

"You going on to Alvarado?" inquired Johnny.

"Not immediate," said Bunny hastily. "Yesterday I run into a old friend
who's been doing a bit of prospecting. He's pulled down a grubstake.
Say, I'm considering a proposition he's made me. He's back yonder a
spell." And Bunny nodded indefinitely.

"Well, so long!" said Johnny.

"So long, pardner," responded Bunny. They shook hands and separated.

Mr. Bunny passed back along the trail and was presently lost to sight
behind a gray fold of the hills. Johnny found a convenient boulder and
sat down to consider this meeting from every point of view.

"I reckon he lied about that grub-stake,--I reckon he's going back to
Sunset!" was his definite conclusion. "Honest, he's the most ambitious
liar I ever listened to!"

He quitted his boulder and went forward, but very slowly now. Memories
of Sunset, memories of Mollie, were tugging at his heart-strings. All at
once, breaking in upon the silence in which he moved, he heard his name
called, and turning, was again gladdened by the sight of Mr. Bunny, who
was coming along the trail at a brisk run.

"Say, pardner," he panted, when he had gained a place at Johnny's side,
"would you be willing to help a fellow creature in distress? Oh, not
me,--a fellow named Graham; a intimate friend of mine, and a fellow in
the hardest sort of luck. It'd make a wooden Indian shed tears to hear
his hard-luck story; and he's met with a accident. Say, you're a western
man,--I reckon you wouldn't turn your back on no fellow being in real
eighteen-carat distress the way Bob Graham is!"

"What's the matter of him?" asked Johnny, with a striking lack of
interest.

"One thing, he's got a hurt leg; spraint it on these here rocks and he's
sufferin' something awful. But what he's sufferin' in his spraint leg
ain't a circumstance to what he's sufferin' in his mind. You bet you,
that's what gets a fellow every time! I know, 'cause I know what I went
through with when that brunette throwed me down in Albuquerque after
getting all my coin. I don't pose as no blighted being, but say, it was
agony--yes, sir, agony!"

"Is this the fellow you were telling me about first? Look here, Bunny,
you began pleasant enough with a grub-stake, and now I'm hearing all
about a spraint leg," said Johnny.

"Well, what's to keep a man from having a grub-stake and a spraint leg
simultaneous? You come with me, and I'll show you Bob Graham who's got
both."

"Huh!" said Johnny.

"I can't tell you all Bob's story, but there's a woman into it, his
wife,--yes, sir. Say, talk about throw-downs! Why, he's got yours and
mine beat to a pulp. Ain't it tough the way women do?--how they show you
the high places and then give you the laugh? Say, Mr. Severance, there
was reasons why I couldn't give it to you straight about Bob without
consulting him. If you feel afraid of anything----"

"What of?" demanded Johnny quickly.

"Durned if I know, but some people are timider than others," said Bunny,
with an oblique glance.

"You show me this friend of yours," said Johnny.

Mr. Bunny led the way back down the trail to the point where Johnny had
previously seen him disappear. They climbed a hill and entered a small
bottom. Here, prone on his back and gazing peacefully up at the hot sky,
was a gentleman of singularly unprepossessing exterior. When aware that
his solitude was being invaded he uttered sundry heartrending groans and
fell to nursing his right leg, which was elaborately bandaged in strips
torn from a blanket.

"Sh--" said Bunny, over his shoulder to Johnny. "Sh--ain't it pitiful?"

The groans were continued with increasing vigor.

"Bob!" whispered Mr. Bunny. "Bob,--old pardner!"

"Is that you, Bunny? I reckon I must have fell asleep," said the
sufferer weakly.

"Say, Bob, I want you should shake hands with Mr. Severance."

Bob raised himself with apparent difficulty on one elbow, and extended
his hand.

"How are you, Bob?" continued Mr. Bunny with anxious solicitude. "But I
can see it's painin' you something awful!"

"Folks, I've spraint my leg,--mebby she's broke--" and Bob groaned.

"You want a doctor--" said Johnny. Mr. Bunny and the sufferer exchanged
significant glances.

"Folks, it ain't my leg that's hurtin' me most,--it's here--" and Bob
rested his hand on the bosom of his shirt.

"Stomach?" said Johnny innocently.

"Sh,--heart!" said Bunny quickly.

"My feelin's are raisin' hell inside of me. This spraint leg ain't
nothin'." But Mr. Graham groaned lustily. "Mebby if you two was to help
me, I could manage to hobble to my shack.... No, stranger"--to Johnny,
as they set out--"I don't want no doctor. He might set my leg, but he
couldn't cure me. Folks, I'm hard hit where no pills can ever get to."

They helped him back into the hills, but had Johnny been a little less
disposed to confidence he might have doubted the integrity of that
sprained leg, for Bob had a curious way of forgetting and then suddenly
remembering it with many groans. If Johnny noticed this at all it only
went to prove Mr. Bunny's statement that the mind of man was capable of
furnishing a very superior article of suffering.

Mr. Graham's retreat was a shack set down in a grove of young pines.
As far as Johnny could see, his grub-stake seemed to be in a convenient
liquid form.

"Put the bottle down beside me, Bunny, where I'll have it handy," said
Bob, when they had helped him to his bed on the floor in a corner of the
room.

"He needs a stimulant," explained fluent Mr. Bunny. "When you're
sufferin' like Bob is, you got to take a stimulant."

"Folks, I've knocked around a heap," said Bob. "I've drunk whatever can
be got through the bung-hole of a barrel or out of the neck of a bottle;
but when a man's really sufferin', whisky's got all the other souse
skinned a mile!"

"What did I tell you?" asked Bunny of Johnny, with a glance of
commiseration.

"Besides, I don't have no doctor from Alvarado,--my enemy's got the
everlasting drop on me, that's why! If my leg's spraint she can stay
spraint--if she's broke she can stay broke!" added Bob with resolute
stoicism.

"You certainly talk like a man, Bob!" said Bunny admiringly.

"If I could only jest see my child--" said Bob, and passed the back of
his hand before his eyes.

"It's them domestic feelin's that's hurtin' him so," whispered Bunny to
Johnny. Aloud he said: "I'm in favor of tellin' Mr. Severance just how
you stand, Bob,--why you can't have no doctor."

"Kin you vouch for Mr. Severance?"

"Of course I can vouch for him. Ain't I told you he was a hundred per
cent, all right?" cried Bunny warmly. He fixed Johnny with his shifty
glance and went on.

"When I first knowed Bob it was in Ogden. He was a residin' snug and
makin' a good livin', ownin' a saloon. There was no business man there
thought higher of. He had a nice trade and plenty of friends because he
was always aimin' to please. He was a married man, was Bob, and had a
wife and kid.... Say, when you know what a woman can do to a man! You
bet you if I get many more throw-downs like I got in Albuquerque I'm
going to cut 'em out! Well, Bob had the happiest home you about ever
see. He owned a piano and a fast-steppin' buggy horse,--and talk about
your family man! I often says to him, I says, 'Say, Bob, this looks
awful good to me and I don't know but you are to be envied, yet it
comes over me, ain't a man takin' long chances when he centers all his
happiness on a woman like this?' I says, 'Say, it's mighty nice to set
here in your parlor and listen to Mrs. Bob hit the hurdy-gurdy, but,'
I says, 'are you sure of her?--as sure of her as you are of yourself?'

"Say, I must have had a hunch,--for along comes a Boston man. Say, she
was fascinated! Here was steady-goin' old Bob doin' a nice business and
never dreamin' that a spider was gettin' ready to drop into his sirup!
Well, one day Mrs. Bob and the kid were missin'. Next Bob heard she was
up at that stylish place in Nevada where the divorces come from. Bob
just sacrificed everything. He wanted his boy back. He was willin' to
pass the mother up if she felt like that, but he wanted the boy. Well,
say, he followed 'em from place to place, and finally the Boston man
come here and bought the Pay Streak over at Alvarado. Bob followed 'em,
but the Boston man had the sheriff fixed. He showed Bob the outside of
the town--that's what he done!"

Johnny had heard of the Boston man and the purchase of the Pay Streak.
He permitted his glance to stray in Bob's direction. He had not liked
Mr. Graham's looks from the first, and he was liking them even less as
time went on.

"I don't care a cuss for nothin' but the boy," said Bob the business
man. "She can stick to her millionaire,--she's throwed me down,--but I
want to see the boy just once and kiss him on his little lips, and say
good-by and get out. Folks, I know when I been hit by the trolley."

"Ain't it pitiful?--and him with his spraint leg?" murmured Mr. Bunny.
"Just wantin' to say good-by to his kid before he fans it on out of
here."

"It ain't much to ask," said Bob gloomily. "And yet I dunno as I shall
ever see him again, or hear his sweet little voice call me daddy like he
done in Ogden. I reckon they've learnt him to call the Boston man that
afore this."

"Ain't that heart-breakin' for you?" cried Mr. Bunny.

"If he could just be fetched out here so I could kiss him good-by, I'd
feel a heap better, folks. But I dassant go into Alvarado. And you don't
go there either--they'd spot you for my friend."

"Ain't that a frame-up for you, pardner?" Bunny appealed to Johnny.
"And yet nothing could be easier according to what Bob's told me than to
fetch the kid out here. His nurse trundles him to the Pay Streak
every morning in his little buggy when his imitation daddy goes up
there,--see? And she trundles him back alone,--it's a good mile.--Say,
Bob, I wished I could help you!"

"I only wants to kiss him just once or mebby twict," said Bob
mournfully.

A brief pause ensued. Johnny moved uneasily in his seat. He felt
curiously committed to Mr. Bunny and his afflicted friend. For some
reason, which he obscurely sensed, it was apparently up to him to
produce the child for that farewell kiss on which Mr. Graham's happiness
seemed so largely to depend.

"I hate to see a western man downed!" resumed Bunny. "Say, Mr.
Severance, when I met Bob last night I told him about you--I'm a liar if
I didn't!--I says to Bob, I says, 'Say, Bob, we don't want no yearlin's
in this.' I says, 'There's a fellow back yonder I'd give a heap to
have with us.' I wouldn't insult you by offerin' money for the job!"
concluded Bunny with generous enthusiasm.

"No," said Johnny hastily. "I ain't lookin' to earn no money that
way." He appeared entirely credulous, since he felt it to be his best
protection, but he was deeply regretting the alacrity with which he had
followed Mr. Bunny.

"There weren't many husbands like Bob here,--that gentle and considerate
and always aimin' to please. Say, pardner, you take it straight from
me,--it ain't the man any more, it's the bank roll the dolls are after!
That Boston man was a ingrate,--I told you so, Bob,--you remember?--I
says, 'Bob, he acts white on the surface, but he's a ingrate all
the same!--and I hate a ingrate!' Say, I suppose it's because I'm a
conservative."

After tying himself up in this verbal knot, Bunny heaved a sigh.

Johnny glanced about him. He was meditating flight. The ideal parent had
sniffed audibly at Bunny's moving peroration.

"Sh--" said Bunny softly. "Ain't it rank, the affection a man feels for
his own child?--how it kin make him suffer and suffer?"

Certain sounds issued from Bob's vexed interior which were supposed to
be indicative of the anguish of soul that shook him.

"Say, Bob," said Bunny, "I'm in favor of lettin' Mr. Severance in on
this with us. I got a heap of confidence in him,--and if it's agreeable
to you I'm willin' he should fetch your child out here. We'll fix it
this way: He'll be on the watch when the nurse and the Boston man
takes the kid up to the Pay Streak, like you say they do every
mornin',--see?--he'll wait until she gets half-way back to Alvarado,
then he meets her strollin' casual along like he was goin' up to the
mine. He snatches the kid out of his little buggy and skips with him,
does Mr. Severance. I'll be hid back in the hills a ways and when he
gets to me I'll take the kid off his hands--see?"

But Johnny did not see. He suddenly placed his veto on this ingenious
scheme.

"What!" cried Mr. Bunny in hurt astonishment. "You mean you ain't with
us, pardner?--after we've took you into our confidence like this... and
you a western man?"

"No," said Johnny. "I never had no luck in pickin' up strange babies.
Seems there's something in the way I take hold of 'em that makes 'em
holler."

"And say, you call yourself a western man?" said Bunny in a tone midway
between pity and contempt.

"I'm awful sorry,--honest! He's been treated tough all right." And
Johnny glanced inquiringly at Bob.

"And you don't put out your hand to help a fellow creature up who's
down?" demanded Bunny. "Here you go wormin' your way into other folk's
confidence and then you give 'em the laugh,--you're a peach of a
fellow!" The glance of his shifty eyes became suddenly wicked and
vindictive. "Say, you'd ought to be beat up some,--a reptile like you!"

"I'm in favor of givin' Mr. Severance another chance to show there's
good stuff in him, Bunny," said Bob. "I'm in favor of offerin' him money
for the job. What's a few dollars to come between a parent and his love
for his child?"

"What's your price, pardner?" asked Bunny.

"No," said Johnny. "If I seen a way open to help Mr. Graham I wouldn't
want money for doin' him a good turn,--honest I wouldn't." He quitted
his seat.

"Say, you set still!" warned Bunny menacingly. "We ain't through with
you. We've took your measure, and your dimensions don't suit!"

Johnny was unarmed, while Mr. Bunny wore a gun on his hip, a spare
weapon he had borrowed from Graham to replace the one of which Brown had
despoiled him. He half drew it, then, changing his mind, he snatched up
a stick of fire-wood. Johnny backed hastily into a corner.

"Shoot his feet out from under him, Bunny!" advised Bob.

"I use a stick on snakes!" Bunny heaved up his club.

But just here a notable interruption occurred. The door of the shack
yielded to a man's hand, and swunk back plainly disclosing Brown's gaunt
figure.

Bob, in the exigencies of the moment, forgetting his sprained leg,
sprang to his feet, while Bunny dropped his stick and reached for his
gun. Indeed, the motion being made nimbly, his fingers even touched it.
They did no more. There was a shot and he emitted a howl of anguish.
Simultaneously with Bunny, Bob had reached for his weapon with
confidence and speed, for in certain select circles he enjoyed something
of a reputation as a gun-fighter; but he was no more fortunate than his
friend. He was quick, but Brown was quicker. His hand traveled with the
speed of light. Apparently he had no use for sights. He pointed his gun
as casually as a man points his finger at an object and with the same
instinctive accuracy. In this particular instance Bob was the object.

"You travel!" said Brown to Johnny, who backed from the shack. Brown
lingered to say a few fervent words. When he was gone, Bunny glanced at
Bob, who was cursing while he nursed a shattered wrist; he himself was
shot in the shoulder.

"Say, it was a man named Brown--" said he weakly.

Johnny and his rescuer moved rapidly off in the direction of the trail.

"It was awful unexpected the way you showed up," said Johnny. He glanced
at Brown, dazed and wondering. "Why, I didn't think you were within
thirty miles of here... you've got the full use of your two hands!
You've been considerable of a man in your day,--and I wouldn't recommend
no one to fool with your remains----"

"Was you hunting trouble, Johnny? I seen that fellow with the tied-up
leg sentenced two years ago for a hold-up he'd pulled off in Alvarado.
Incidental I'd like to ask you did you believe what they told you about
his wife and child? They were aimin' to use you in a kidnaping scheme.
Young man, they say a fool's born every minute. I reckon you arrived
punctual on the clock tick all right."

"You don't think I believed 'em, Mr. Brown--honest?" protested Johnny.

"They weren't taking chances--they were willin' to pass them along to
you. It looked like you'd feed right out of their hands, sonny!"

"I couldn't see no other way out of it. Where are we going now, Mr.
Brown?"

"To Sunset."

"I can't go back there,--honest, I can't!"

"Why not?"

"Well,--just because I can't. She--Mollie--" began Johnny doggedly, and
paused abruptly.

"Naturally she's feeling some annoyed the way you've acted, but if you
go back humble... Look here,--you don't know the first thing about a
woman's love. It don't go by merit. Just look at a woman,--take her as a
mother,--it's a boy, or a girl, or it's twins,--and she's there with her
love. She never makes a kick, not she! That boy, or that girl, or them
twins, suit her apparently down to the ground. It's pretty much the same
when it's a case of man. You come along and you're what she loves;
not because you're any good--which you ain't--but you're what life's
offerin' her and it's up to her to make the best of her chances. Does
she notice any rake-off when she sizes you up? Nope, she don't. It's
her nature to make mistakes and have poor judgment. She just loves you
because you happen to be you. That there's a sixty dollar a month limit
to the game you'll play, don't bother her none, for she's got a heap
more courage than sense; she takes her fightin' chance. She's ready to
believe in the luck you'll never taste, and through it all think you're
a good man but unfortunate."

"I wonder feeling that way about women, you ain't never married," said
Johnny.

"I respect 'em too highly. But if I ever had any idea of that kind, I
wouldn't be like you, young man! I'd never go further than the Mountain
House,--M. Ferguson, Proprietor."

It was a week later. A crescent moon swung low in the heavens and
lighted up the trail that led past Brown's cabin. Its faint radiance
showed Johnny and his Mollie walking very close together, as was their
wont, while they talked in ecstatic whispers in the intervals of tender
silences that brought them dim night sounds from the valley below.

In their wake, but at a discreet distance, for youth was having its
right of way upon the mountainside, came Miss Mollie and inoffensive
Mr. Brown, with Duffer at their heels. Miss Mollie's unaccustomed hand
rested lightly, shyly, on Brown's arm. She was scarcely trusting her
happiness. Those solitudes she had once feared were to be shared with
the man at her side, whom Johnny had not ceased to exalt as a singularly
capable gentleman, and that quick--my!--one who undertook to keep
engagements with him was likely to experience a terrible sense of being
late. Miss Mollie was already realizing this. She moved as one in a
dream. The heart of youth had quickened in her breast, the hard years
were forgotten.

Why, the very mountain seemed to nod a benediction in the half light.

"You're a mighty good woman, Mollie," said Brown. He seemed to expand
with an austere joy. "If there are any crowns in the next world you'll
be wearin' one instead of the sunbonnet you've worn in this."

"You're a good man, too. Just look what you've done for those two
children, Mr. Brown."

"Joseph--" corrected Mr. Brown gently, "or just Joe, when you get more
used to the idea."




THE BLOOD OF HIS ANCESTORS


WHEN he told me his story, prefacing it with a scrap of philosophy,
John Norton assured me it differed from that of scores of other men of
his class but in one or two unimportant particulars. He gave it as his
opinion that one need not necessarily be a genius to get ahead in this
world; there are other qualities almost any man can cultivate which
command opportunity, and in spite of the fact that he spoke with the
authority of a rather conspicuous success, he disclaimed the possession
of any special ability above the average.

To begin with, Norton had much of the cheerful ambition characteristic
of the average American. He had been thoroughly drilled in the idea that
the one thing needful, if one wished to get on, was industry,--given
this, the results were as certain as that two and two make four.

He was a broad-shouldered young fellow, more than commonly
prepossessing, with an utter absence of any ability for sharp practise;
indeed, he was inclined to view his fellows with a gentle kindly
confidence that proved costly until he learned caution, and even then he
was not bitter, only a little hurt.

He came of honest stock and of people in comfortable circumstances,
proud of their traditions and their respectability and rather regretful
of the fortune old General Norton had somehow lost when he emigrated
from Virginia to Ohio in 1814.

Perhaps John would not have felt called upon to make the plunge into
business had his father kept his name off the notes of his neighbors;
as a consequence of his indiscretions the broad acres he had inherited
slipped away piecemeal.

John was the eldest of four boys and the first to leave home. At twenty
he went East. He recognized that he would probably have a good many ups
and downs before he finally got placed, and he was thankful his career
was to be among strangers.

He was not much worried in the beginning over ways and means, for his
father sent him money each week, and small as the sums were they gave
him a pleasing sense of security. He soon discovered that merely to make
a living can be a difficult problem; it also dawned upon him that he
reached the solving of the problem in a roundabout fashion through a
haze of uncertainty.

After his father's death, when it became necessary for him to make his
own way unaided, he brought to the task a sad earnestness. He was, he
felt, without business tact--indeed, the word business comprehended all
of which he was most ignorant. He could never impress people with the
importance of those benefits they would derive from thinking as he
wished them to think, for he was never quite sure about the benefits. He
could feel himself shrink and dwindle and grow limp, when what he needed
was a convincing force. Still it continued part of his faith that there
was some work he could do well, and that sooner or later he would have
the opportunity to do it. He was a little shocked to find that there was
no particular merit in being well-born and well-bred.

He was in rapid succession clerk, traveling salesman, bookkeeper,
advertising solicitor and real-estate agent; he went from place to place
hoping each time he made a change, that now he was nearer success.

Meanwhile his mother died, and the home had been sold to pay his
father's debts. His brothers had scattered,--one was in California, a
clerk in a store, another was a miner in Colorado, a third has gone
to South America, while Tom, the youngest, was editor of a country
newspaper in Texas.

At thirty John married, and wisely concluded that the day for
experiments was past. The idea that he was to acquire riches he put
resolutely aside; if he could make a decent living it was all he dared
expect.

It remained for Mr. Thomas Haviland, of Bliss, Haviland and Company, to
give him his opportunity. When he got with this concern, John felt the
connection to be a really notable one. The position carried a salary of
twenty dollars a week with a fortnight's vacation each summer on full
pay. There was one drawback. The managing director had the reputation
of being exacting and hard to please, with a disagreeable temper and
variable moods, but John was fully prepared to make some sacrifices to
obtain steady employment. He wanted to be thrifty and sensible. One of
the first things he did was to have his life insured. This gave him
a solid and substantial feeling, alike new and comfortable. Later,
perhaps, he would be able to open a bank-account.

He was relieved to find he could do this work, about which he had had
many misgivings, as well as there was any need for it to be done. He was
fortunate in the start in escaping all personal contact with Haviland,
or his satisfaction with himself and his lot might have been less
pronounced. The managing director had a genius for taking the very
marrow out of a man's bones and the hope out of his heart. On principle
he never respected those in his employ. He would probably have explained
his attitude by saying it was impossible to respect men who were content
to earn beggarly salaries of from fifteen to thirty-five dollars a week.
Even at these prices it must be owned he contrived to surround himself
by an uncommonly low grade of business intelligence.

Perhaps he liked the contrast it offered to the vigorous grasp he always
maintained on affairs.

The clerks carried on their work in fear and trembling, conscious that
at any moment Haviland might come out of the private office, purplefaced
and furious over a trifling blunder, to lash them with sarcasms that cut
like a knife,--or even worse, some poor devil would be summoned into the
private office to explain; an utterly hopeless proposition, as Haviland
could not sit quietly through an explanation. He made mistakes himself,
but he refused to recognize the right of others to do so; at least he
would not listen to their excuses. He complained continually that the
clerks wasted his time, which he valued at a fabulous figure, but
he would spend half a morning criticizing the mental equipment of a
shaking, underfed, five-dollar-a-week man, and then dismiss him as if he
were the scum of the earth,--a mere thing.

John saw and heard a good deal that filled him with astonishment the
first few weeks he spent in the office of Bliss, Haviland and Company,
and he decided that Haviland was not a gentleman, and when he discussed
his character with Alice at home of an evening he said a good many hard
and bitter things, for they talked of him incessantly; he was the one
topic in the homes of all the men in the office; he lowered the tone
of their lives, and brought servility and fear into the lives of their
wives and children. That John escaped insult, he attributed to luck;
apparently there was no protection in the fact that he was earnest and
conscientious. Gordon, the old bookkeeper, who had been with the firm
forty years, was a model of industry and exactness, yet he was in
hot water pretty much all the time when he was not in deep water and
trembling for his position.

To be sure Haviland had his own disappointments and his nerves were
on edge most of the time. He was greedy of gain, but more greedy of
fame,--or the irresponsible notoriety which he mistook for fame, and
which was perhaps sweeter to him than a responsible fame would have been
with its obligations, and he hated the directors, who seemed in league
to limit him to a conservative business with reasonable profits.

John, whose ancestors since the days of the Norman Conquest had taken
a hand in almost every war in Anglo-Saxon history, resolved that if
Haviland ever "went for him" as he did for the rest, he would let him
have the ink-well or some similarly convenient missile, but he was more
and more grateful as the days ran into weeks and the weeks into months,
that nothing unpleasant occurred involving him.

He had been with Bliss, Haviland and Company almost a year when one
afternoon, Gordon, the bookkeeper, came out of the private office a dull
tallowy white, with blue-drawn lips. He stopped beside John's desk.

"Mr. Haviland wants to see you," he said. "You are to go in now,--right
away."

As John turned to obey the summons he ran over uneasily all those
matters that had gone wrong in his department and for which he could
possibly be held responsible. As he raised his hand to knock on the door
of the private office he decided that happen what might he could not
afford to lose his temper. He reached this decision quickly, and when he
heard Haviland call "Come in," pushed open the door. Haviland was seated
at his desk, and the expression on his face was not reassuring.

"Oh! It's you, Norton; take a seat,--I want to speak to you."

John closed the door and at a sign from Haviland sat down in the chair
at the managing director's elbow, which one of the clerks who retained
a sense of humor had christened "The Mourners' Bench." Haviland swung
round and faced him squarely.

"I shall have to send Gordon away," he said. "How would you like his
place?"

John knew that the bookkeeper received twenty-five hundred dollars a
year, and he drew in his breath quickly.

"You do your work well," Haviland continued graciously, without giving
John a chance to reply. "I have never had occasion to find any fault
with you; of course, you understand we shan't pay you what we are
paying Gordon,--he has been with the house forty years. It's a very fine
opening for a young man, Norton, and I am glad to be able to offer it to
you. It will mean an advance of two hundred a year at once."

"I shouldn't like to feel I was taking Gordon's place--" John said.

The red line of Haviland's neck with its heavy veins swelled out over
the top of his collar; there was a moment's silence, and then he said
curtly: "You are not taking Gordon's place;--he is to stay on until
the end of the month. That will give him ample time to look up another
place."

"I doubt it," John retorted, unconsciously imitating his employer's tone
and manner. "He's an old man, Mr. Haviland, and I don't think any one
will care to make an opening for him." Haviland frowned.

"I should be sorry to believe that, Norton,--very sorry, indeed. I shall
advise him to take a less responsible position--one more suited to
his years," expanding cheerfully, as though his advice would be of
incalculable value to Gordon. "Will you take the place?"

Norton hesitated. It would have pleased him to tell Haviland just what
he thought of him, but he remembered Alice and said, "Yes," instead,
adding grudgingly, "I shall be glad to accept it."

"At twelve hundred a year?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then,--that's all."

As John went back to his desk he knew that Gordon's glance followed him
from the door of the private office. He mounted his stool and took up
his pen.

The old bookkeeper slunk over to his side and placed a trembling hand on
one corner of the ledger above which John was bending intently.

"What sort of a mood was he in, Norton,--nasty?"

John nodded.

"Did he have anything to say about me?" Without lifting his head John
nodded again. Gordon fingered the corner of the big book nervously.

"I never got such a calling down from him before. But then, you know,
you've got to stand his temper if you want to get along with him, and
what's the odds,--we're paid for it, and it's all in a lifetime." He
studied John's face guardedly. "What did he say, Norton?"

"I am awfully sorry," John began, "but perhaps you'd as soon hear it
from me as from him----"

"He didn't tell you I must go, did he? He didn't say that--I thought he
didn't mean it----"

"That's what he said."

Gordon leaned heavily against the desk.

"I knew he was wanting to get rid of me, but I didn't think it would
come yet a while;--I--I was hoping I could hold on a little longer. Why!
I have been here forty years--I'm not fit for anything else!"

Unconsciously in his excitement he raised his voice, and the last word
was almost a cry. He choked down his emotion. "He'll get his deserts one
of these days! A man can't go on forever, as he's gone on, walking over
people, and prosper, and he'll find it so!"

John stole a glance over the room.

"I wouldn't speak so loud," he cautioned. "They will hear you."

"I don't care!" fiercely. "I don't care what they hear!" but he sank his
voice to a hoarse whisper. "I--it isn't right, Norton,--it isn't right!"
He paused an instant to let his gaze wander about the long bare room
with its rows of desks, and a sudden mist came before his eyes. "Why!
I haven't missed half a dozen days since I started in here. Summer and
winter every morning at eight I've pulled off my coat and hung it with
my hat on that nail over there,--it's been 'Gordon's nail' for forty
years!" Then he broke down completely.

The office grew very hushed and still. The clerks stopped in their work
and took in the scene with eager silent curiosity.

Fifteen minutes later they were working away again as though nothing
unusual had happened. Gordon, at his desk, was trying to add a long
column of figures, while every now and then something fell upon the
pages of the ledger before him that raised a round blister or blurred
the ink.

That day marked the beginning of the change with John Norton. He felt
that this new position of his was held at the expense of manhood and
self-respect. This left its mark on his character. Alertness and energy
seemed to leave him as the ambition faded out of his life. In his
despair he became morbid. His was the uncertainty of a man who feels
he has failed without knowing how or where. He told himself the day was
coming to him just as it had come to Gordon, when his services would no
longer be of value to any one,--his little contribution to the world's
progress having been made he would be discarded, he would drift farther
and farther out of the moving current of things until he finally reached
the great Sargasso of human energy where the wrecks stay, a derelict.

At first he had preferred to look upon the position as temporary, as a
convenience to serve his end until a better offered, but nothing better
did offer and he finally lost all idea of another place. His only fear
was that he might be discharged, and he knew that a week's idleness
would be a calamity.

Try as he would he could not get ahead. It was with difficulty that he
managed to keep up his life insurance, which was the only provision he
was able to make for the future.

It was probable that at this time neither his economies nor his
expenditures were ordered with any particular intelligence or to
any practical ends. His ability was that of the average man and he
sacrificed himself to the average opinion. It was necessary for him to
live in a certain way; his home must be in a respectable neighborhood,
his wife and children must be well dressed. These were the essentials.

Sometimes he talked with Alice of giving up the struggle. He had a vague
notion that if he went into the country, where he could work with his
hands, he would do better and get larger returns for his toil. But it
always ended in talk; nothing ever came of it; his point of view was
the extreme one. He felt that he belonged to another race and time, with
different ideals, different capacities and different aptitudes. The
men he knew were all of the same sort. With the brawn of pioneers and
soldiers wasting in their arms they were clutching pens pathetically
enough, or selling silks and millinery when they had much rather be
felling trees. But the trees are all felled, the worlds work as far as
it can be done by hand is finished, and these primitive natures, who in
a wilderness would have been all sufficient to themselves, retain but a
doubtful utility.

Alice never really knew how difficult it was for him,--he kept that to
himself.

He was held accountable for all the laxity on the part of those under
him, and the office force was habitually indifferent, as men are apt to
be who feel there is nothing to be gained by zeal and conscientiousness.
Scarcely a day passed that he did not smart beneath the weight of
Haviland's displeasure, nor could he rid himself of the terrible
and degrading fear he had of the man. He would stand in dogged
silence--abject, bruised and shaken--whenever Haviland chose to break
the ready vials of wrath upon him. Haviland was not always disagreeable,
however; he had his genial moments when it was wise to enter heartily
into the spirit of his peculiar humor.

Norton's position was nominally at least, confidential. Once each year
he made out a statement that found its way before the directors at their
annual meeting. In preparing this statement it was necessary to go
over the stocks, bonds and securities in the vaults with Haviland; then
together they counted the cash in hand and John signed his name to the
report, a formality having a certain significance in the mind of one of
the directors at least, for he turned in his first statement unsigned,
and had been called before the directors. Mr. Bliss, the largest
individual stockholder in the company, had gravely interrogated him
regarding the matter. The explanation was simple enough. Haviland had
not told him to sign the statement. Upon learning this, Mr. Bliss had
suggested that the managing director immediately inform the bookkeeper
as to the exact nature of his duties. John was greatly impressed by
the incident, so much so that afterward, when making out the annual
statement, he was always troubled by an exaggerated sense of its
importance.

He had been with Bliss, Haviland and Company three years, when he made a
little discovery. Haviland was speculating,--in direct violation of his
agreement with the company.

John had been in possession of this secret about five weeks when one
morning he was summoned into the private office. He found Haviland
looking rather disturbed.

"We'll have to be getting at our annual report," the managing director
said. "Let me see,--this is the eighth of the month; I suppose you
already have it well along."

"I've been at work on the books for the last two weeks."

"Make a full and complete showing, Norton."

"Yes, sir."

At eleven o'clock Haviland left the office hurriedly in response to a
telephone message.

Half an hour later a spruce-looking youth with a small paper parcel
under his arm walked into the business office and inquired for him. John
went over to the railing where he stood.

"Mr. Haviland's out; can I do anything for you?"

"I am from Brown and Kemper," mentioning a well-known firm of brokers.
"I want to leave these bonds for Mr. Haviland." He untied the parcel as
he spoke. "Will you take their numbers and give me a receipt?"

John was too dazed to speak. Not only was Haviland speculating, but he
was speculating with the funds of the company. He was vainly endeavoring
to collect his scattered wits when Haviland came in, panting and in hot
haste. He gave the broker's clerk a shove that sent him spinning toward
the wall, then with a single furious ejaculation he snatched up the
bonds and disappeared into the private office.

During the next two or three days John in fancy lived through all the
agony of an unsuccessful search for another position, and at last awoke
to a proper understanding of the case. Haviland was afraid to dismiss
him.

The directors' meeting was called for the twenty-ninth, and late in the
afternoon of the twenty-fourth, as John was closing his desk, Haviland
came out of the private office and strode to his side.

"I want you to come up to my house to-night, Norton; it's about that
statement I want to see you. Can you come?"

John did not look at Haviland; he felt embarrassed and ill at ease. They
had avoided each other for days.

"I am sorry to bother you, Norton. Won't you come up to dinner? I am all
alone."

"No," hastily. "I guess I'd better not; my wife will be expecting me."

"Just as you like. I can look for you about eight?"

"Yes."

Haviland moved away a step. He was mopping his face with his
handkerchief. He seemed old and broken. His aggressive arrogance of
manner had entirely deserted him.

"Everything was all right to-day?" he inquired aimlessly.

"I think so."

"Then I'll look for you at eight." Haviland turned and went slowly into
the private office. As John passed the door on his way out he caught a
glimpse of the managing director; he was sitting with his elbows resting
on his desk and his chin sunk in his hands.

When John mounted the steps at Haviland's that night, it was with a
good deal of reluctance. The butler admitted him and showed him into the
library, where Haviland welcomed him with an effusive cordiality that
only served to increase his desire to escape from the house. A table
stood in the center of the room, with cigars and decanters on it.
Haviland had evidently been drinking; his face was flushed and his
manner confident. John put aside the glass he pushed toward him.

"I'll have a cigar, if you don't mind--thanks."

Haviland leaned back in his chair.

"Well, how's the statement coming on? The business makes a pretty good
showing, eh?"

"It's been the biggest year in the history of the house."

"If they'd let me alone, I'd make Bliss, Haviland and Company a power,"
with something of his old self-assertiveness. "But they don't see it my
way."

John looked his assent. Haviland filled his glass.

"You won't join me?"

"No, I thank you."

"I am going to have your salary put back to the old figure, Norton. I'll
have to get the directors' consent, but you can tell your wife when
you go home that you have a raise to twenty-five hundred." He
turned expectantly toward his bookkeeper; he was counting on
enthusiasm--gratitude, even, but he saw no trace of either on John's
face.

Their relations had undergone a great change. Haviland was no longer the
despot John had known in the private office; he no longer inspired
fear; he never could again. He was simply a redfaced vulgar man who was
seeking to bribe an employee to betray his business associates. John had
brooded over the possibilities of this interview; he had thought of
the sarcasms he would hurl in his tyrant's face--but the tyrant was no
longer a tyrant, he was only a guilty man, more or less pathetic to look
upon, as guilty men are apt to be when retribution is in sight.

To cover his losses, Haviland had taken almost half a million dollars
from the company, consequently the necessity for a statement that would
satisfy the directors and leave no room for inconvenient questioning
was imperative. Provided it was forthcoming, it would give him a year in
which to return all the securities he had hypothecated. Personally, he
felt quite safe; he had gone deep enough into the funds of the company
while he was about it to protect himself effectually,--at the worst
he could always effect a compromise. He could turn over his property;
carefully handled, it would easily reach half a million, and there was
his stock in the concern besides. But he had no notion of compromising
if he could help it, for what would he do without money, his credit and
reputation gone! He grew sick. It all rested with the bookkeeper, who
promised to be difficult to manipulate. He silently added five thousand
dollars to the sum he was willing to offer as a last recourse. He
cleared his throat.

"Now about that report, Norton; I suppose you will want my help
to-morrow."

John looked distressed.

Haviland hitched his chair nearer and dropped his voice to a
confidential whisper.

"You know how busy I am,--you are ready to sign that statement--what's
the use--"

With a calmness he was conscious he did not feel, John took the cigar
from between his teeth and said slowly:

"I am not so sure about that."

Haviland looked at him blankly for a moment. He laughed shortly, and
remarked: "I guess you are not such a fool, after all."

He drew his check book from his pocket, took a pen from the table, and
dipping it in the ink, dated a check and signed it.

"For what amount shall I make it, Norton?" The pen hovered above the
blank space on the check.

John shook his head.

"No," doggedly. "I can't do it,--I'm sorry for you, but I can't. What's
the use?--it will be about as hard on me as on you,--I'll lose my
place."

But Haviland was not heeding him.

"If I make it ten thousand, will that satisfy you?"

It was John's turn to look blank. Ten thousand dollars! He turned faint
and giddy; he tried to speak; he saw the pen circle and then sweep down
toward the check. He put out his hand and caught Haviland by the wrist.

"No, don't!" he gasped.

"Shall I make it fifteen thousand?"

"No." And this time there was no irresolution.

Haviland groaned aloud; the sweat clung in beads to his forehead. He
rose from his chair.

"I am offering you fifteen thousand dollars for the stroke of your
pen,--if it is not enough, name your own price," he added hoarsely.

"I can't do it."

"Do you mean you won't come to terms?"

"Yes."

"Why?" His face was livid.

"Because I can't do what you ask of me,--I can't shield you, and I can't
take your money. I don't suppose you understand,--it wouldn't do me any
good--I should feel as though I had robbed some one--I could never tell
my wife how I got the money; there would always be that between us.
I'll finish what I can of the statement to-morrow and hand in my
resignation."

As he spoke he came slowly to his feet.

Haviland only half heard what John said. He was standing with his hands
resting on the table, staring straight ahead into vacancy. The whole
world would know! This stupidly honest fool, whose intelligence he had
always put at zero, was the Nemesis in his path. For the first time in
his life he was cowed. He turned to John with a dumb fear in his eyes.

"For God's sake, Norton--do you realize what this means?" he cried
brokenly. "You must stand by me; I'll come out all right! Don't go over
to them--they will never do for you what I will!"

"I hadn't thought of them, or what they'll do."

"No!" with something of his old explosive manner. "You are looking to
them for your reward when you have betrayed me! But what will it amount
to? A few hundred a year, perhaps!"

"That was what you offered me first."

"Oh, you'll get it from them! It's easy enough to see what your game
is!" Then, as a last appeal, he cried: "You know nothing positively. All
I ask you to do is to take your money--the money I am willing to give
you, no matter why--and clear out--go where you choose--do as you
please--"

But John moved toward the door, and Haviland read in the tense set lines
of his face his decision.

John went down the steps slowly, like a man in a daze. It had been the
most dramatic moment of his life; it left him confused and stunned, and
with an inexplicable fear of the future.

Soon this fear took a definite form. He quickened his pace. He must
hurry home and tell Alice the whole circumstance and ask her advice.
Perhaps he had already committed himself by going to see Haviland! He
revolved the matter in his mind. What could Haviland do--would he
dare accuse _him?_ He could run no risks--he owed it to Alice and the
children to take every precaution. But how was he to protect himself?

John turned sharply, with a new idea. Above all other claims, above the
consideration of self, he owed a duty to the stockholders. They had
a right to know what he knew; he could not shield Haviland with his
silence. He must see one of the directors. He paused uncertainly on a
street corner. To whom should he go? At the board meetings he had been
impressed with Mr. Bliss' kindliness of manner; he would go to him
rather than to any of the others, and tell him what he knew of the
situation, and resign. He was sick of the whole business and felt
himself unequal to it. He glanced around, hoping he might see a belated
cab, but the street was silent and deserted.

It was three o'clock when he reached Mr. Bliss'. Four times he halted
doubtfully before the door; four times he felt his courage ebb and flow,
and four times he wandered aimlessly down the block. The fifth time he
mounted the steps; there was a momentary irresolution, and then he rang
the bell with a firm hand. He felt like a criminal, a conspirator, as
he stood there, for, after all, Haviland had his good points--only one
would never have supposed it merely from associating with him. He was
on the point of abandoning his project, when the sickening fear returned
that in some way he might be implicated. He thought of Alice and the
children, and set his lips in grim determination; he dared not do less
than protect himself. At last a sleepy half-dressed footman opened the
door.

"What do you want?" he asked crossly.

"I must see Mr. Bliss," and John pushed past him into the hall.

"Come in the morning."

"I must see him now."

"Well, you can't! He's in bed."

At that moment Mr. Bliss himself appeared at the head of the stairs,
dimly visible in a long white sexless garment.

"What is it, Martin?" he asked. "A telegram?"

"It's I, Mr. Bliss,--Norton--the bookkeeper from Bliss, Haviland and
Company. I must see you! It's a matter of the utmost importance," he
said earnestly.

"Martin, light the gas in the library. I'll be down in a moment, Mr.
Norton."

Ten minutes later he joined John down-stairs in the library.

"Now, what is it, Mr. Norton?" he asked cheerfully.

"It's about the directors' statement," said John with a troubled air.

"Well?" his companion interrogated, while he bent upon the young man
a shrewd glance. He wondered if the bookkeeper had been purloining the
funds of the company.

"I have just come from Mr. Haviland," John explained. "I want to
resign. He expects me to make up the statement without going over the
securities. He has offered me fifteen thousand dollars for the kind of a
statement he wants."

He paused uncertainly, and then went on hurriedly: "Last week securities
to the value of thirty thousand dollars, which I supposed were in the
safe and which should have been there, were returned from a broker's
office. Mr. Haviland has been speculating. I have known this for some
time, but I did not know that it was with the funds of the company until
these securities were handed me by mistake."

"You are quite sure of what you say, Norton?" the director asked. "These
are very grave charges you are making."

"I am quite sure, Mr. Bliss. I suppose he expects to return every dollar
he has taken," John added. It was a comfort to be able to say a good
word for Haviland.

"No doubt,--every man who speculates with money not his own intends
to do that. Haviland will be called on to make good within twenty-four
hours, and if he can't--why--" The pause was eloquent. He was silent for
a moment; then he said: "Tell me as nearly as you can just what passed
between you to-night."

Slowly and carefully John gave the substance of his interview with
Haviland, while Mr. Bliss watched him narrowly.

"And you want to resign, Norton?" he asked at length.

"Yes."

Bliss laughed shortly.

"Why don't you ask for an increase of salary,--you'll be more apt to get
that."

"I haven't told you what I have with any hope of that sort, Mr. Bliss,"
said John a little stiffly.

"No--of course not. But put the notion that you are to resign out of
your head. More likely you'll be asked to help reorganize the company
under my direction,--for Bliss, Haviland and Company can't go under, no
matter what ducks and drakes Haviland has made of our money."

John came slowly to his feet.

"I must go home to my wife now," he said, "she will be wondering what
has kept me so late."

"Wait a moment," said Bliss. "I'll go with you. Let me call a cab," and
he summoned the footman.

"It is very kind of you," said John. "But is there any reason for it?"

"It's just as well. We must see the directors before nine o'clock."

As John leaned back in his seat in the cab, Bliss said kindly:

"You look worn out, Norton."

"I am tired," he admitted; but beyond his fatigue and weariness he was
feeling a sense of peace, security and hope. His old ambition, long
dead, as he told himself, stirred within him. After all,--after all
the waiting and doubt and fear, success had come at last when he least
expected it. The cab drew up before the dingy flat-house where he lived,
and John sprang lightly to the pavement. They entered the building.
It was still quite dark in the narrow halls, but as they came to the
landing before his own door John gave a start. Two men were standing
there; one was Haviland, and the other a stranger. Over their shoulders
he caught a glimpse of Alice's white scared face. Hearing his steps,
Haviland turned with a hungry wolfish look.

"This is the man," he said shortly. "Arrest him."

The stranger moved forward, but Bliss, coming slowly up the dark stairs,
said gently:

"It's too late. It's no use--I wouldn't do that!"

He took the warrant from the detective's hand and tore it into long
strips, while he and Haviland gazed into each other's eyes.




WHEN WE HAVE WAITED


OH! I beg your pardon," some one said politely from before me in the
darkness.

This I thought was remarkably handsome, as I must have all but knocked
the speaker off his feet.

Then, in an instant, I was wondering who had spoken.

If it were Jackson he would have said--I knew, for I had heard him more
than once on occasions when I was endeavoring to mount the narrow stairs
at the identical moment he was trying to descend them--"Get out of the
way, you beast! What the devil do you mean by walking all over me?"

Therefore, being vastly amazed at the politeness emanating from the
blackness in front of me, I put up my hand to find the gas-jet--we were
on the second-floor landing--and having found it, fumbled in my pocket
for a match and lighted the gas.

This enabled me to see who had ventured to introduce civility into the
atmosphere of mild ruffianism that prevailed among the outcasts at Mrs.
Tauton's.

Standing jammed rather close against the wall, where he had evidently
considered it safe and expedient to withdraw in view of my hurried
ascent of the steps, was a young man with a round boyish face.

"I really beg your pardon," he repeated. I was so astonished at his
continued politeness that, with the mistaken intention of turning on the
gas still farther, I turned it out altogether, and we were a part of
the surrounding gloom again. But in the momentary brightness lent by the
flickering flame I saw Gavan for the first time.

From this not entirely favorable beginning there came about a speaking
acquaintance that soon ripened into friendship.

I was a clerk in a down-town office, and had by a series of misfortunes
gravitated from the outskirts of cheap respectability to the dingy
apartments that Mrs. Tauton kept for the exclusive use of single
gentlemen of uniformly large hopes and small means, and I took my
meals--they had a marked tendency to cast a cloud over any sunniness of
temper I might have originally possessed--with wretches of my kind at
the same low-priced resort just around the corner.

In after years some of us will remember the dyspepsia, there acquired,
particularly young Tompkins, who ruined a fine constitution in a vain
endeavor to subsist on a diet of pie interspersed with milk.

Tompkins subsequently made a million or two by a singularly soulless
operation in railway shares. I have never blamed him for his
consciousless greed, as I attribute it to the food his early poverty
compelled him to live on in the effort to keep body and soul together.

I simply think he failed in his object.

It was on the steps at Mrs. Tauton's that I first met Gavan. It was not
long until he gave me his complete confidence and I was permitted to
know his aims and ambitions.

He desired to write plays and to dispose of those he had already
written.

It soon became his custom to make nightly reports to me, giving me
detailed accounts of his doings, and I came to know what actor or
manager had promised to read his work.

His appearance was so youthful, I do not question but that it condemned
him unheard in the minds of most. I think it prevented his being taken
seriously.

When the people he wished to reach were kind and considerate, it was
because they were amused and regarded the whole thing as a joke.

In any event his plays were being returned to him with almost every
mail, accompanied by letters more or less encouraging, as they reflected
various degrees of kindliness on the writer's part.

I had not known him for many months before I was aware of a change. His
face wore an anxious look, but he retained his cheerfulness, which was,
however, more a habit than a condition of thought. I knew that he was
wretchedly lonely and that disappointment came to end each hope he dared
indulge in.

It was a mighty step from the sleepy little southern town where he had
lived, to New York, with its supreme indifference to so small a unit in
the struggling mass.

With his grave earnest eyes, which were almost pathetic in their
seriousness, and the face, that the days of waiting had stamped with
lines--markings of the hand that was empty for him--he was only one of
many.

His mother was an invalid, his father had long been dead, and they
were very poor. This bit of information he imparted with the utmost
reluctance. I guessed at it without the telling, as no one, unless there
was the grim incentive of pressing poverty, ever braved the terrors of
life at Mrs. Tauton's.

Little by little he told me of his mother, and I saw that love for
her was the one strong passion of his heart. She lived--none too
happily--with relatives in the town that had been the home of his family
for a great many generations.

He seldom or never spoke of what he would do for himself when he should
achieve success; it was his mother who was to profit by it.

One night he came into my room and dropped dejectedly down on the edge
of the bed, that answered all the purposes of a chair when not in actual
use as a couch.

"What is it, Gavan?" I asked.

"Nothing much. Only my first year in New York is about at an end, and
there is no gain of any sort to show for it. The whole thing has been
miserably discouraging."

"Why, Gavan, you are making important acquaintances all the time, who
will aid you on to what you want."

"It is deadly slow. It's forever and eternally to-morrow."

He made a troubled little gesture with his hand.

"They say my work is good, that it is eminently clever--sometimes even
that it's great; but that is not enough, and I try again. Try to be more
like--not myself--but some one else; for it seems they don't want me on
any terms. I wonder if there is such a thing as a man's being absolutely
unavailable in the world--being of such an odd size and shape of both
soul and mind that there is no niche he can fill. Do you know, I am
beginning to think it of myself, that I don't fit--just don't fit
anywhere."

And he looked at me questioningly. I had never seen him so despondent
before.

He must have understood my thought, for he continued:

"I am ashamed to burden you with my woes. If I were the only one
concerned it wouldn't be so bad,--I could stand it."

A wistful far-away look came into his eyes as he said softly:

"But there's my mother. It's for her I am working much more than for
myself. Her life is so hard, with poverty and the contemptible pettiness
of those about her."

He turned from me to hide the tears that would gather against his will.

"And there she sits," his voice sank to a whisper, "counting the days
till I shall come and take her away. And what if I never can,--what if
I end in failure! We wouldn't require much for perfect happiness, but
small as the sum needed is, I can't make it. I shan't stay here much
longer. I'll go home and settle down at something else."

"You wouldn't give up your work!" I cried.

"I can't keep her on the ragged side of uncertainty. I'll go back;
unless soon there is a change for the better in my prospects." There was
an abrupt pause. His voice had broken on the last word.

For a time we sat in silence, and when he spoke again it was cheerfully
and of other things.

A few days later Gavan left the shelter of Mrs. Tauton's roof and went
farther down-town, where he had rooms with an old shoemaker and his
wife, who were "just as good and kind as could be," he informed me; and
I think they were, but the apartments he had quitted were palatial by
comparison with those he now had.

About the same time I made a move in the opposite direction toward my
former mild respectability.

One Sunday he came to my lodgings, his face radiant. At last a play was
accepted. There were only a few minor changes to be made; he could do
them in a week or so, and then the company would begin to get up in
their parts.

"I shan't have to quit and go home after all," he said. "I've written
mother all about it. I'd give a good deal to be there and enjoy it with
her. It would be such fun! Perhaps it isn't many months off till she can
join me here, and then, old fellow, you are to come and live with us."

This last was one of his favorite ideas for the future. When he felt
elated or particularly hopeful it was always broached, and it was
characteristic of his general goodness that he wished to share all he
had, or was to have, with his friends.

When I saw him a week later his work was progressing and the play would
surely go on before the season ended. But by our next meeting his hope
had evidently moderated, for he looked downcast and troubled as he
explained the production had to be deferred. "They haven't the money it
will take. A heavy outlay for scenery is involved, you know. It will
go on the first of the coming season, and that's about the most I can
expect under the circumstances. In the meantime there's a lot of work I
wish to do, so it doesn't much matter. I can wait, only"--and his glance
became tender--"it will go hard with mother. She won't understand why
it's not as I said it was going to be."

Unfortunately, when the manager returned from his summer trip abroad, he
brought with him from Paris the success of a thousand nights.

"He will do that at once, and then try mine. He really prefers my work,
but thinks that more immediate profits are to be expected from the
French piece," Gavan told me, and this was all he had to say.

The imported play had a long run in New York, half the winter and
better. Then it was taken on tour.

"They can't drop a sure thing," he explained nervously when he informed
me of the new arrangement. "However, the very first opening is to belong
to me; no telling or guessing when it will come, but scarcely until next
year. I'll have to do what I can meanwhile to drag out an existence. I
can't give up. I've done so much it would be foolish even to think of
stopping. If there is only a decent bit of luck in the end, a few months
will pay up for the two years of misery. Of course, it's tiresome, this
everlasting putting off, but if I wait long enough and don't starve, I
am sure to see the play go on. The manager has said over and over that
he wanted to stage it, and I think he does. It wouldn't be so rough if
I were the only one concerned, but there's my mother. I know she is
feeling it keenly, though she tries not to show it."

He was still brave, but the deep secret joy was gone from his eyes. He
was slowly drifting back to the despondency that had marked the last
weeks of his stay at Mrs. Tauton's.

"I don't suppose," he added, "that mother can comprehend how slow a
matter it is, and I don't know that I make it clear to her."

How he lived through the winter and the spring that followed, I never
knew.

When summer came I tried to induce him to go into the country with me
for an outing.

He was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, but felt that he must
remain in the city. The season was almost over and soon everybody would
be there. It was his opportunity.

"I don't know why it is," he wound up reflectively, "but I seem to have
a harder pull of it than most do. I wish I didn't look so young. Then,
too, my work is original, and I find originality is an offense to most
people. I can't do clever trifles."

No, his work was not clever; I appreciated that. It was only great.

On my return from the country he met me in Jersey City.

"I didn't write you about it, old fellow," he said, as we crossed on
the ferry. "My time comes in a month. Everything is in shape for the
production--scenery painted and costumes made. I've hung around for
three years, but my day has come at last!"

He took my congratulations with the graciousness that was characteristic
of him.

"It isn't unmitigated bliss," he remarked. "I have had to all but ruin
the piece to get it on. I guess it will pass muster and that's all I
care for now. Three years such as I have spent are warranted to take the
pride out of any man's soul."

Lightly as he spoke, I knew he was staking all his future on the event.

"Drop in for the first night," he said, as he left me at my lodgings.
"I want your opinion. I have great faith in your judgment," he added
politely.

I knew he hadn't, but he was invariably kind, even at the expense of
truth.

During the month, the last one of waiting, I saw him frequently. The
many interests relating to the presentation went forward with unexpected
smoothness, and there was but one drop of bitterness in Gavan's cup. His
mother was unwell. He had observed a decided change in the tone of her
letters, something that was deeper than mere sorrow at his absence. One
of his relatives (for like a true Southerner he had a surpassingly large
number of them) had written that it was his duty to come home at his
earliest possible convenience.

When Gavan told me this, he said:

"And it's the truth; I have been away a long while. Once the first
night's over with, I turn my back on New York. My mother needs me."

I could see that he was very much exercised about his mother's
condition.

"You know she may be a lot worse than they say. I have no idea that
they would go into detail even if it were a serious matter, and mother
herself would be the last person in the world to expect information of
that sort from."

The eventful night came. I was late, having been detained at my office,
and the first act was ended when I reached the theater, but I was in
time to see Gavan bow his thanks to those in front from the stage. This
I saw through the blur of lights and the mist that swam before my eyes.

The curtain had gone down on the last act when I made my way around back
and joined him.

"Come," he said, as I took his hand. "Come, let's go home. I am
tired--and I am satisfied."

He was silent until we reached his door.

"Come in,--don't leave me yet."

And I followed him up to his room.

He had again relapsed into silence, but I could see that he was happy.
Finally he roused himself from his reverie to say:

"You don't mind if I go to bed, do you?--and stay a little longer; I
want to talk to you. It's such a comfort to have you here."

I said I would stay all night if he desired it. I was too excited to
sleep.

He was soon in bed, and I drew up a chair close beside him.

Then he began to talk of his mother, to tell me of what he would do
for her. "For I fancy the turning point is past," he said. "I signed
contracts to-night for more work, and now money goes to bind the
bargain. They are not the barren formality they were when I put my
name to the first one two years ago. I'll go home and see how mother
is before I do anything else, and take a rest of a month or so. I can
afford it, for the play's a big hit. There can be no mistake about it.
Now that success has come, somehow it's not quite all I anticipated. A
part of the satisfaction has been lost in the struggle, and a part of my
ambition as well. I've served my apprenticeship to art. I have starved,
hoping against hope, for three years, and now I'll be content with the
money it will mean. After all, it narrows down to this: We begin with
different aims before we have exhausted ourselves in trying to overcome
the ignorance and prejudice of others."

When I left him he was sleeping with his head upon his arm. The boyish
roundness seemed to have returned to his face and the anxious look was
gone. He was as I remembered him in the old days at Mrs. Tauton's.

The night was at an end when I went into the street. Boys were calling
the morning papers and the city was wide awake. I made a collection of
the various papers and left them with the old shoemaker, who was already
at work in his little basement shop, to give Gavan when he should have
had out his sleep. Then I went uptown to breakfast in my own rooms.

It was late in the afternoon when I started back to see him, and as I
reached the house the old shoemaker met me at the street-door. I saw his
kind face was grave and serious, with lines of grief upon it.

"Is he sick?" I asked.

The old man motioned me to follow and without a word we went up
the stairs. In the bare desolate hall above, with its unpalliated
hideousness now garishly alight with day and sun, stood a policeman, the
center of a group of curious men and women.

Still I did not comprehend.

I entered the room. Gavan was lying upon the bed just as I had left him.
In his hand was clutched a crushed and torn scrap of yellow paper.

As I paused, looking stupidly down at the bed and its burden, I became
dimly conscious that the old man was standing at my side speaking to me,
telling me how it had happened.

"He got a message from home. His mother died last night. It's that he's
holding so tight in his hand. Poor lad! a power of promise and real
goodness went out of the world with him."

There were dark stains upon the bed-clothes, and he lay in the midst of
the papers that told him of his triumph.




THE DESERTER


PRIVATE AUSTIN sat languidly upon his cot and slowly raised a cloud
above his head from the disreputable black pipe firmly clenched between
his teeth. His eyes, wandering aimlessly, finally rested upon a shotgun
leaning against the opposite wall,--one of two furnished by a kind and
benignant government for the sole and exclusive use of the sportively
inclined members of Company A--and his vague unrest took form in a
desire to spend the day with that gun upon the prairie in a search for
solitude and game.

To gain this privilege, the consent of the officer on duty was
indispensable, and Private Austin who had seen much pack-drill and who
had acquired a valuable familiarity with the inside of the guard-house,
knew that this consent was not for him. However he arose, giving himself
a vigorous shake, and his attire, previously wrinkled into a thousand
twists and creases, became the undress uniform of a private of
remarkably neat appearance.

Passing along the narrow gangway between the long line of cots, taking
care in doing so not to awaken the sweltering tossing figures slumbering
uneasily upon them, he reached the door and stepped out into the open
air.

For an instant as he inhaled the fresh morning air and gazed upon the
blue hills rising from the level stretch of plain, their dusky outlines
now tipped as with gold by the sun, his own mean life--his rough
companions--were forgotten. Then as slowly and reluctantly his eyes
turned from their distant point of vision and roamed around the circle
of accustomed objects,--the white frame cottages of the officers'
quarters, the bleak, stern, uncompromising walls of the too familiar
guardhouse, the well beaten earth of the abhorred parade ground, the
very stunted trees that seemed to have lost all graceful form and to
stand in stiff unbending ranks as though nature itself felt the control
of a military despotism,--he was once more a soldier, common and
unclean, with an unquenchable thirst for beer and a loathing for all
discipline.

As he stood alone with his disgust, his attention centered itself upon
Lieutenant Parsons who was returning at breakneck speed from his morning
canter. As the lieutenant drew near the post he reined in his horse.
This gave Private Austin an opportunity to approach and make his
petition.

Lieutenant Parsons turned in his saddle and looked at the soldier in
utter and unmitigated contempt. To the disciplined well-trained West
Pointer the general conduct of Private Austin could only be accounted
for by a moral turpitude and a state of original sin shocking to all
well-ordered minds, and his present highly audacious request was but one
of those constitutional aberrations arising from that condition.

A prompt and vigorous expression of his opinion was on his tongue's
end, but contenting himself with a brief answer in the negative, half
deadened by the bugle-call which rang out at the moment, he continued on
his way to headquarters.

Private Austin followed with his glance the figure of his superior until
he had reached a distance that made comment safe and pleasant, when he
proceeded to express himself in such crisp and belligerent English as
only the resident of a military post would be able to appreciate. He
continued as he reentered the barracks to voice his indignation in
a fashion both edifying and pleasing to the aroused soldiers. Then
suddenly he picked up a shotgun and made his way to the rear of the
room, heedless alike of the sergeant's sharp command to stop his noise
and fall in line and the wondering gaze of his fellows. With a vicious
jerk he tossed open a window and carefully deposited the gun without,
immediately following with other government property, namely, Private
Austin, of Company A.

As the others emerged upon the open space before the barracks, he
shouldered his gun and walked off in a deliberate and unconcerned
manner, taking care, however, to maneuver a course that brought the
barracks between himself and the rapidly assembling regiment upon the
parade ground. But the deliberateness of his march was pure bravado,
for no sooner had he reached a sheltering cluster of trees that offered
concealment from the curious eyes of any of his comrades who might be
watching his movements, than bending low he started on a swift run.

At last his breath failed him and he threw himself down at full length
upon the scant verdure of the prairie. And now he thought for the first
time of the penalty of his act. There were two courses open to him:
either to obtain all the pleasure that could be obtained from his
unwonted liberty and then return to the post, there to spend many a day
in the guard-house as a consequence of having been absent without leave;
or he might attempt to make his way across the plains and there lose
himself. But this was an almost impossible project as he knew, since
the reward the government offers for the return of each of her straying
defenders keeps the border sheriffs on the alert. No, it would be wiser
to return and face the consequences at the post, than to risk spending
the next five years of his life in the military prison at Leavenworth.
He would surrender within the specified twelve hours, beyond which
time the comparatively innocent "absent without leave" would become the
dreaded "deserter".

Having now recovered his breath and his customary spirits, which had
been rather damped by his reflections, he started to made a wide circuit
with the mingled determination' of spilling the blood of every living
thing that should be so unfortunate as to come within the range of his
gun, and of arriving at the post before nightfall.

A prairie schooner, drawn by a pair of meager oxen and driven by a
sad-faced woman, was toiling over the sandy ridges. A half-grown boy,
barefoot and ragged, led the way, shading his eyes from time to time
with his sunburnt hands, and gazing eagerly on all sides in a vain
hope that each moment might bring to view the longed-for haven of their
march. On the seat beside the woman two children crouched, so weary of
it all that they seemed involuntarily to avoid looking at anything save
their own brown feet. Within the wagon among the poor belongings of
the family was a rude bed and on this bed lay a man, gaunt and
hollow-cheeked. By his side a young girl watched.

The man turned feebly toward her.

"The post?" he asked fretfully, reiterating the question that never left
his lips. "Can you see it yet?" There was an age of suffering, endurance
and longing in his voice.

"Not yet, father," replied the girl soothingly. "But we will surely
reach it before night."

"If we have not already passed it," said the man. "It is impossible that
Frank has kept the trail."

"He has done his best, father."

Without replying the man turned away, and in a few moments either slept
or had sunk into a stupor.

The stretch of prairie was at last broken to the west by a strip of
timber. The oxen turned toward it longingly. Instinct told them that
where there were trees there must be water. Even the stolid lad in front
quickened his pace, and disappeared in the undergrowth that skirted the
edge of the grove. Close following came the oxen.

The woman's face had not changed, but the children's, before so
indifferent, now seemed alive with cheerfulness and expectation. Then
suddenly they heard the boy give a shout of warning. But all too late,
for like a streak of gray light a skulking coyote went flying past. The
report of a gun sounded, and one of the sad-eyed oxen breathed a sigh of
relief, bowed its knees and then fell gently forward upon its side.

At the sight of this great calamity all else was forgotten. The woman
moaned dismally, while the girl looked over her shoulder so stupefied
that she paid no attention to the sick man who in querulous tones
demanded the cause of the excitement.

This was the scene that presented itself to Private Austin's astonished
gaze, when, gun in hand, he emerged from the thicket in the hope of
getting another shot at the coyote. He saw the dying ox, the dismayed
faces, the tearful eyes, and he wished devoutly from the bottom of his
heart that Private Austin, heavily ironed, was again within the walls of
the most dismal prison that in his varied life he had ever known.

Approaching slowly he spoke a few words half apologetic, half sullen. He
would have been glad to arouse a fury, more easy to meet than their calm
despair. Stepping forward he unhitched the remaining ox, and promised a
prompt and sufficient recompense for their loss. The night was closing
in upon them, the distance to the post was great, they must make their
camp where they were, and in the morning he and the boy could go for
assistance.

A busy man that night was Private Austin. He brought a smile to the
woman's worn face, he caused the children's merry voices to ring out in
the darkness as they drew round the camp-fire. His arms gently shifted
the sick man from his hard bed in the wagon to one of gathered leaves
and grass that was as down to his tired limbs. He made the girl smile
and blush and turn away, only to come again. But a change came over
him when all was hushed and silent, when he alone kept watch beside the
smoldering campfire. Three times he arose and strode off into the night
with his face toward the east, and then turned back.

It was well toward morning and the boy Frank lay sleeping beneath the
protecting shelter of the wagon-bed, when a heavy hand was placed upon
his shoulder and he awoke. Crimson streaks of light told that the day
was near. With a finger on his lips as a sign not to disturb the others,
Private Austin motioned the lad to follow him.

"A reward is offered by the government for the return of Private Austin,
deserter, late of Company A," read the placard nailed upon the barrack
walls. "A reward is offered by the government for the return of Private
Austin, deserter, late of Company A," read the telegrams that sent out a
thrill of greed through the veins of half a score of sleepy sheriffs.
"A reward is offered by the government for the return of Private Austin,
deserter, late of Company A," read the colonel in front of the gathered
regiment. And then a strange thing happened: across the open space came
Private Austin, his hands tied behind him with his own belt, and by his
side a half-grown boy with Private Austin's shotgun held in his grasp.
To the waiting colonel came the pair.

"Colonel, the boy took me. He gets the reward," said Private Austin.




WHAT REARTON SAW


REARTON dropped down in the chair I pushed forward.

"Can you give me a moment or two?" he asked.

"As many as you like," I answered. "Just wait till I put my name to
this--" and I signed the letter before me.

He watched me fold and slip it into an envelope, then he said:

"I want your opinion on certain matters."

"Come now, Rearton," I entreated. "Let me off if it's to be another talk
on spiritualism!"

"Confound it! Why will you persist in calling my beliefs by what to
me is the most offensive of names? I recognize the existence of the
supernatural. Every intelligent man must."

"Then, praise heaven, I am not intelligent."

"I want to ask you this. How much more than you actually see would you
be willing to believe?"

"A great deal less,--and even then I question not I'd be pretty well
deceived. The evidences of the senses are no evidences at all. They
are a cheat ninety-nine times out of a hundred. The testimony of no
two witnesses ever tallied exactly, even though they stood side by side
looking on the same event."

"Come, that's a broad statement," he objected. "Of a very general
truth," I supplemented. "And it holds good from the crucifixion down
to the present day, whether the occasion was most momentous or most
trivial."

I was aware that my friend was dabbling in the occult, and if any thing
I could say would throw discredit on it I was anxious it should not be
left unsaid.

"Look here," he continued, "supposing I should state to you as a fact
susceptible of positive proof, that the future can be made visible to a
man."

"Oh, come!" I interposed. "Let's drop this."

"No, I can't." He had become suddenly grave. "I want you to promise
me that if I send for you during the next week you will respond to the
summons."

"See here, Rearton,--what folly are you about to engage in?"

"My dear boy, it's not folly! If what I expect happens, I shall be able
to gratify a rational desire to read the future,--my own particularly."

"When you do," I burst out, "I hope I'll be there to see how the thing's
done!"

"That's exactly the favor I'm asking."

We sat silently looking at each other for a moment. I felt vaguely that
my friend was not the man for such experiments. He was far too likely to
be the dupe of another's cunning, being sensitive almost to the verge of
weakness, essentially a dreamer with all a dreamer's love of the unreal.

"What does Miss Kent say?--does she know?" I asked.

"Miss Kent is quite willing."

"Probably she agrees with me that it's all a pack of nonsense."

"There you're mistaken," he said quickly.

"Faith,--supreme faith,--must be dominant in her character then. Few
women would care to have the man they expect to marry forestall time in
the fashion you propose."

"Miss Kent is not the ordinary woman. Her willingness shows sublime
faith in our affection."

"Quite so,--that is if she really thinks it possible."

"I assure you"--and his pale face flushed--"I assure you she shares my
beliefs fully. Why shouldn't the future be as plain as the past?"

"Now see here, Rearton," I said, "I'm not especially fond of argument,
and if I can't swear my way through a dispute it is rather apt to
languish as far as I am concerned. One thing I am sure of,--if bare
one-half of your good fortune was mine I'd be amply satisfied with the
present. Nothing so remote as the future would trouble me."

Rearton, seeing that I was not inclined to discuss the question he had
propounded, took his leave of me.

A day or so later I received a note from him requesting my immediate
presence at his apartments. I hastened there. He opened the door himself
in response to my knock and I followed him into his room. I could see he
was laboring under some great excitement. His first words were evidently
intended to explain matters.

"He will be here in a moment." He spoke hurriedly and in a low voice as
though he feared a listener. "The reason I sent for you is because of
all my friends I think you are the least likely to be imposed on. I have
the uneasy feeling that many of my investigations were not conducted
with absolute fairness,--an uncomfortable sensation of having been
tricked. Understand me, my faith in the great principle remains
unaltered, but the methods used in its demonstration have been
unworthy."

I made a gesture of ridicule and dissent, and he added:

"Your unbelief and doubt are my mainstay. I trust to you to see that
what is to follow is carried out in the spirit of truth that prompts the
undertaking."

I was about to make a reply when some one said in a voice of marvelous
sweetness and culture:

"If you are ready, gentlemen."

I turned hastily. Standing beside the door that gave access to my
friend's dressing-room was a man in a loose robe of dark and curious
fabric. Not the habit, but the man, riveted my attention. I saw a
colorless face devoid of beard or mustache, a face incontestably perfect
as to feature and outline, but the very antithesis of handsome. The
mouth was fine and cruel, the forehead serene and broad, with wonderful
eyes that burned and glowed with a peculiar lusterless fire as they met
mine. The whole effect was distinctly unpleasant. The man was of the
kind that one might imagine murdered from love of crime as an art, to
whom profit was secondary to pleasure. I instinctively knew that the
quality of his mind, though incomparably acute, was debased and diseased
far beyond the limits of the rational, yet nothing could be further
removed from insanity nor madness.

Rearton said, "This is my friend," placing his hand on my arm as he
spoke.

The man, having advanced to the center of the room, and acknowledged
the introduction by an inclination of the head, said, "Let us begin." I
observed the same quality in his speech that had arrested my attention
in his face. Soft and sweet as the tones of his voice were, they were
entirely divorced from feeling. It was a soulless perfection.

In the center of the room was a table with three chairs drawn about it.
Rearton took the one at the head, and in response to his bidding I
seated myself at the foot. The man--medium or whatever he might
be--dividing the space between us.

For a moment or two I kept my glance fastened upon him, then I turned to
Rearton. A marked change had taken place in his appearance. He had
sunk down in his chair in a heap like a drunken man or an imbecile in
a period of bodily degeneracy corresponding to the mental. The white of
his eyes showed through their half opened lids a dull lead color. His
skin was splotched and yellow. He seemed scarcely to breathe. It was
altogether horrible!

As I gazed, slowly he straightened up, the lids rolled back, and with a
convulsive motion--a nervous tremor--he sat erect, staring at the man.
The latter began to sway from side to side, and as the needle follows
the magnet, so Rearton's body moved in unison. He was dumbly obedient.

All this while I was far from being unaffected. I don't know that I
can better describe my sensations than by saying that flashes of cold
coursed through my veins. I had an uncomfortable and cowardly desire to
turn and see who was behind me. This continued until I was absolutely
chilled and shivering. My head began to swim, a sickening nausea lay
hold of me, and still those wonderful eyes against my will and reason
held me spellbound. I could not draw away my own from them. I followed
their search into futurity.

At last, in desperation, placing my hands upon the table, I sought with
the aid of the support it gave to rise. It was all folly! I must throw
off this influence--it was a cheat--a swindle... strange that I should
be powerless to resist.

Suddenly as I struggled to retain the mastery over my senses a cry of
pain escaped my lips. I had received a shock as though the base of my
brain had been seared with a red-hot iron. I felt my head go down upon
my breast, and then another mind than mine swayed me.

Without any effort on my part, uninfluenced by will or force
self-expressed, I turned to Rear-ton; and as I looked at him he grew
indistinct--far removed and distant--and yet I knew that by putting out
my hand I could touch him. There began to be strange faces that peered
on me from out the mist that had fallen on us. They came and went like
passing shadows.

This phase of my experience ceased abruptly. Once more I saw Rearton,
his glance fixed and unwavering, his lips moving as if in speech. It was
the vision of his future that he saw, and what he saw was shown me.

I seemed to know that he was married, and to Miss Kent. This I knew, not
as an onlooker, but as his second self; and yet in what was to follow
I suffered simply as one suffers with those whom he loves, who bears a
portion of their grief through sympathy.

He was living in the rapture of his joy, and obedient to his deep
desire, her presence stole from among the shadows that surrounded us and
came so near that she stood beside his chair. She was so beautiful with
youth and innocence that I heard him murmur her name in an ecstacy of
love and tenderness, putting forth his arms as though to take her into
his embrace.

Vagueness closed in, shutting out the picture, but only for an instant.
It was cleared away, and Rearton was seen kneeling at the foot of a low
bed. Hers was the pale face on the pillow. My first thought was that she
would die; but it was the beginning, not the end, of life.

As the days came that were made manifest to us, the story was carried
on. We saw the child against her breast, she softly singing it to sleep.
A thousand gracious things we beheld in those glad days of love.

By slow degrees a change came into their lives. The note of harmony that
had been struck, sounded for the last time, and was silent. It was the
gradual decay of affection, but so insidious was the transition--so
covert the difference--that neither could have said, "Here the evil
started." Soon neglect mounted up and stood for wrong. Again and again
they parted, she in tears--he angry and dissatisfied.

Staining the cheeks of Rearton's real self were tears, too. He strove
to speak--to contradict the false evidence, to say it should not be as
foretold--to comfort her, but his lips refused him utterance.

Slow growing came the change until at last they had drifted far apart,
each with separate interests; the only bond between them, the child.

With startling rapidity the pictures flashed back and forth in front
of me. She was seated alone before a window that opened out upon a
vine-covered balcony. The sweet odor of honeysuckle filled the air. She
was a mature woman now,--no longer the girl, no longer the young mother,
but the matron whose ripened charms had reached their full perfection.
Yet in the gain of years and experience there was plainly evinced a loss
to her. She had gained the bitter wisdom that hardens the heart and soul
of its possessor.

A man appeared at the window. He seemed to speak her name, for she arose
and went to him. At first I thought it might be Rearton, for his head
was turned from me, but it was not. It was one whom I had never seen. I
did not have to wonder much what brought him there. They were lovers. By
gesture and the visible semblance of speech I knew that he entreated
her to go with him. She half yielded, only to hesitate. Something held
her--some memory--the thought of some duty--not love for her husband.
That was dead,--long dead.

At my side the real Rearton sat with hands resting on the table, staring
wildly into vacancy. Great drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and
the muscles of his throat were knotted as from the mighty but unavailing
effort he was making to speak. With merciless strength and cruelty he
was chained down to the sight.

He saw the woman he adored, through his neglect and indifference, about
to cast away her life. She had all but yielded, when she ran back into
the room and paused beneath a picture that hung on the wall. It was of
herself when she was a bride. She compared herself with it. They were
the same in look and feature,--and yet she had lost so much! Standing
on tiptoe, with her small white hand she struck the canvas until it
was torn and marred. She would leave no record of the past to mock at
her--to tell what she had been!

A few moments sufficed for the work of destruction, and she rejoined the
man who had waited for her the while by the window. Together they were
advancing toward it, when a figure glided from behind the curtains that
closed an inner door. It was Rearton's future self. A polished bit of
steel glittered in his hand. He came between them and the balcony.

Thus confronted, the woman sank into a chair, bowing her head in her
hands; but more from shame than fright. The two men gazed sternly at
each other. Slowly, steadily, Rearton raised the gleaming piece of
metal, there was a puff of smoke--another--and another--

With the first one the woman had sprung to her feet and darted forward,
throwing herself before the man she loved. With the last puff of smoke
she slipped from his arms--for she had sought a refuge there,--falling
swiftly to the floor with a little sob of mingled pain and relief that
compassed all contentment, for it was distinctly audible, stealing
through the silence of the unborn years. A spot of purple darkened the
whiteness of her breast.

Seeing what he had done, Rearton fell on his knees beside her and took
the heavy head on his shoulder, trying to call her back to life and
love. When he saw that all hope was vain, he covered his face with his
hands.

Once more the shadows came. Once more the faces filled the air, and the
scene had shifted. The signs of unspeakable suffering were stamped upon
Rearton's brow when I again saw distinctly. He stood on the deck of a
ship, his son at his side. I divined that he had escaped punishment, and
was seeking forgetfulness--the unfound--in wanderings to the far ends of
the earth. Hiding in his cabin aboard the same ship, they unconscious
of his presence, but he conscious of theirs, was the man who had loved
Rearton's wife. By what chance they were brought so near was unknown to
me. For an instant I observed the three and then they were gone. Space
swallowed them up, and only the ocean lay climbing to the moon.

Then came wind and storm, and the waters throbbed against the night,
beating its black bosom; but the first streaks of dawn showed both sea
and shore,--the sea still vexed by memory of the gale,--and a mighty
stretch of sand that rolled before the wind as did the waves. The sun
rose red, and showed dark on its crimson rim the solitary figure of
a man edging the desert. It was Rearton. He was alone. I saw that his
dress was torn and discolored, stained and wet.

All day long, beginning with the dawn, he paced the shores of a little
land-locked bay, never taking his eyes from its glassy surface save to
search among the wreckage that littered the beach. All day he came and
went. All day,--searching,--always searching. Day gave place to night,
and the day was born again, and still he passed back and forth scanning
the bay with intent glance that sought no relief from the hot reflection
of sky and water.

Finally thirst drove him inland to where the starved stream, that
gave the greater part of its moisture to the dry and hungry earth, was
untainted by the ocean's salt. Across the hot sands each day at evening
he made his lonely pilgrimage for the means whereby he might sustain
life.

When the waters of the bay were quiet and untroubled, huge bubbles could
be seen to rise and break, bursting when the air was reached. Whenever
this happened, the watcher would mark the spot with his eye and swim
out, diving repeatedly as though seeking for something that lay in the
slime at the bottom. But on each occasion he came back empty-handed.
Still he waited, making no effort to leave the desolation of which he
had become a part.

Many days passed in this manner. One evening when he had gone to the
stream, a black and bloated object rose with a single bubble on the bay.
And then one by one up came the dead, until a hundred floated on the
slack of the tide, or moved lightly, influenced by the imperceptible
current. They were the bodies of men and women, with streaming knotted
hair to which the seaweed clung. As the tide came in, they drifted to
and fro,--ever faster with its increasing flow. Each seemed to hurry in
itself,--a silly parody on life and haste. Lashed by the wind, the surf
disturbed the smoothness of their resting place. Then a strange thing
happened. As the bodies followed back and forth, they smote one against
the other, darting from spot to spot, bobbing up and down, or rolling
from side to side. At one point when the tide boiled over a sunken ledge
of rocks, they had a wild fashion of making the pass so close together
that the hindmost would strike those before them with such force in the
swiftening current that they would leap their length from the water,
or come erect, standing knee-deep in the waves with much waving of
stiffened arms. It was the dead at play.

The wind and the waves were going down, sinking with the sun. Still the
bodies kept up the chase in the swirling rush of the waters. The moon
came up. The tide reached its fulness and stood spreading out on the
beach, and the dead were at rest.

Rearton returned and saw the dark things that were black in the shadows
of the shore. He waded in among them, pushing his way through
the rotting mass that seemed to sob and sigh as they struck one
another,--for his progress in their midst created movement. Hours he
searched, turning over those that floated face down that he might see
their features and miss none. All through the night, aided by the moon's
rays, he continued his ghastly quest until it was day.

He, himself, was changing rapidly. The wild light of delirium and
madness shone in his bloodshot eyes. As he thrust the drowned bodies
from him, I could see him laugh with a foolish hanging of the lip from
which the saliva dripped and frothed.

At last when he was on the point of abandoning the search, one body
drifted out from the shore until it was fair beneath the moon, and he
saw, within the circle of mildew that clung to hair and garment, his
son's face. A white film covered the open eyes, the flesh was blue and
horribly swollen. Without hesitation he took the hideous reeking mass
into his arms and carried it ashore.

I looked again to see the waters, the moon and all beneath the night the
bodies of the dead, but they were blotted out. I could see Rearton alone
where he had taken the body back from the beach. He had placed it upon
the ground and covered it with his coat. Not far off he was on his
knees, digging in the loose earth. This was all I saw in the somber
grayness of the dawn. Skulking in the gloom that foretold the day came a
shape across the waste. It paused upon a hill of sand that the wind had
blown together, and with head erect and ears drawn up, sniffed the air.
Then it followed the scent.

It came near where Rearton dug with bare hands and a fragment of plank
from the wreck. Came near, and squatting down, watched him for a space
as he labored. Then with stealthy tread it went forward.

A growl of greedy satisfaction attracted Rear-ton's notice. He looked
up and saw the hyena tearing at his son. Snatching up the piece of plank
with which he had been digging, he rushed at it. Man and beast met with
a shock, and I saw the animal leap repeatedly at Rearton's throat, its
teeth tearing and lacerating his face and throat. With the desperate
strength born of peril and his madness, he wielded his weapon and
succeeded in beating off his furious antagonist. Then a single blow
dealt with savage fervor stretched it lifeless at his feet. Without
stopping to tie up his wounds he resumed his work upon the grave.

Soon the hole was sufficiently deep, and he placed the body in it
and covered it with earth. To make sure that the grave would not be
molested, he brought what portions of twisted beams he could carry away
from the wreckage that strewed the beach and piled upon it until a great
heap marked the place of burial.

Twice the sun sank, and twice it made radiant the heavens before the
task was completed to his liking.

He had been mad, crazed by grief and misery, before he found the body
of his son. He was further poisoned by the wounds he had received, and
because of them he had gone mad as a beast and not as a man. Flakes of
foam were thick and white upon his beard; he had a frightful manner of
swinging his head from side to side, snapping with his teeth at whatever
came within reach.

It was the third day since he had been so. He remained in the vicinity
of the solitary grave, not even leaving it to go for water,--that he no
longer needed. The grave continued to hold a meaning, though he was far
beyond the saying or the knowing why he stayed. It was blind obedience
to an impulse or an emotion that survived the extinction of the last
spark of human intelligence, in him quenched forever.

His roving glance that shifted constantly, happened to see a cloud of
smoke that ascended from a point a mile or so farther up the coast than
he had yet gone. For a space this wonder fixed his vacillating interest.
A dulled intelligence stirred within him. It drew him in that direction.
He went slowly at first, on hands and feet, then standing, he hurried
forward at a run almost.

On a tongue of land that projected out boldly into the ocean, a great
bonfire had been built and set alight. As the maniac approached, he saw
the builder of the fire where he stood between it and the sea, his eyes
fastened upon a passing ship. At first the maniac paid no heed to him,
but walked around and around the blazing pile. He was unseen, for the
man had no thought but for the ship that drew in, guided by flame and
smoke. Finally he became aware that he was not alone. He moved back to
the fire and Rear-ton saw his face,--the face he had seen last when he
had bent over his dead wife where she had fallen. He gazed at his former
friend stolidly for a time with unwavering insistence, but by degrees a
partial capacity for reason dawned upon him and with it came a measure
of memory and hate.

Meanwhile the man was frozen to the spot, horror-stricken by fright of
what was revealed to him.

It may have been a minute, it may have been ten, that the maniac and man
stood staring at each other; the former with foaming lips that sweated
drops of blood; the latter with cheeks that blanched and paled. The man
turned toward the ship. Its coming promised safety, should it come in
season; and while he did so Rearton advanced a single step, pausing when
the man faced him again.

There was power in sanity. It exercised a certain mastery over him.
Man and beast stood looking fixedly each at the other, but he could not
resist the desire to turn and see from time to time the movements of the
ship, and whenever he did so Rearton, crouching low, came closer. For an
hour this was the fashion of his advance, and in that hour the man had
looked at the approaching ship just thirty times. The maniac had made
just thirty forward steps that counted thirty yards. Perhaps there
remained ten that separated them.

The ship was stationary, and a boat had left its side and started in.
Strong as was his temptation the man dared not look. He kept his face
turned to the maniac. He put one foot behind him and fell back in the
direction of the beach, moving with the utmost caution. With equal
caution the maniac followed.

They had almost reached the water. They heard the distant splash of oars
disturb the stillness,--and giving way to weakness, the man withdrew
his eyes that he might see the boat. Instantly, with a bound, the maniac
darted at him. He gave a smothered cry of rage as he hurled himself on
the man, bearing him to earth. There was a short terrific struggle as
they wrenched to and fro, his teeth were buried in the man's throat, and
mouthing closer with vise-like grips he strangled him to death.

As this was doing the sailors landed, and armed with their oars came
near the place where the two men were. Rearton relaxed his hold on the
dead man's throat and with an angry snarl sprang at the foremost. With
their oars the sailors beat him off and hastily retreating to the boat
pushed afloat, still defending themselves against his mad attacks.

When sufficient space was between them, they paused to look and marvel.
They could see him alone now in the desert, down on his hands and feet,
chasing and biting at the cloud shadows that drifted over the waste and
sandy plain and fruitless earth.

Slowly, lurching forward by stealth and cunning across the table, came
Rearton's actual self. He was frothing at the mouth, his face showed red
with livid scars. Nearer--nearer he came, until I felt his hot breath
touch me. I could not move... but fear gave me power... by a mighty
effort I sprang to my feet, breaking the spell. Still he followed me
on hands and knees over the table. It was no fancy. I saw him with
unclouded senses. I could see the flakes of foam upon his lips,--for
there they were!--I could see the livid cuts and bloodshot eyes. He was
mad. The vision had become the reality. So bestial was he, so awful and
inhuman, that without a thought of pity for him I snatched up the chair
in which I had been sitting, and swung it up above my head. He crept
nearer in his hideousness. The chair quivered in my clutch, ready to
fall. It was his life or mine,--and he was mad.

But I was saved the after pain and remorse that would have been mine had
he taken hurt or harm at my hands. 'The man who had done this thing, who
was destined to answer for this sin of his committing, glided in between
us. Rearton, where he crouched in readiness to spring at me, glanced up,
his interest diverted for the moment, and his eyes met those that were
so strangely dark and luminous. He wavered beneath the compelling force
they exercised,--wavered for one brief instant and then with a whine
like a dog's for mercy, fell down at the man's feet, licking the floor
with his black and swollen tongue.

I waited to see no more, but rushed from the room out in the street. I
had no conception of the time we had spent together, but it must have
been hours and hours, for the streets were deserted and empty. I judged
it to be long after midnight.

For a while I walked aimlessly about, seeking to calm and rid myself
of a portion of my horror. Eventually pride and a sense of affectionate
pity for Rearton returned. Maybe it was all a vision,--the last as false
and unreal as the first! Though I tried to convince myself of this, it
was only by the strongest exertion of will that I was enabled to mount
the flight of stairs that led to my friend's apartments.

I listened in front of the door for an instant. No sound came from
within. With a hand that trembled violently, I pushed it open and
entered the room. There on the floor were Rearton and the man,--now the
victim of his victim. Rear-ton's teeth had torn his face and breast in
a shocking manner, and their last fatal hold was at his throat, on
which they were firmly set. Both were dead. About the room the broken
furniture gave every evidence of a frightful and prolonged struggle.




HOW MR. RATHBURN WAS BROUGHT IN


RATHBURN paced the room with noiseless tread, now and then stopping to
look at the tossing figure of the boy upon the cot or to listen to the
words he spoke in his delirium.

Once he thought he caught the sound of hoofs upon the trail and he
halted abruptly as his hand stole beneath the tails of his long English
coat.

Mr. Rathburn's nerves were unstrung by the strain imposed upon them
by recent and painful events. As he had expressed it to himself half a
hundred times that day, "The gentleman who brings me in, whether it's
afoot or in a pine box, goes just five thousand dollars to the good,"
and each time his thoughts reverted to the powerful inducement the
general public had to "bring him in," his hand had stolen beneath the
tails of his long English coat; and the comfort he derived from so doing
had enabled him to say, "It won't be the first who tries nor the first
six who try, but the seventh gets the pot."

Mr. Rathburn had left Denver the morning previous in great and pressing
haste, and with a careful avoidance of human kind. He had never been a
social man and the reward of five thousand dollars that was "out" for
the man who would bring him in only served to intensify the natural
austerity of his character.

The difficulties that beset Mr. Rathburn arose indirectly out of a quiet
little game of poker when the stakes had been high, and when the game
had ended (two gentlemen going broke), the tempers of all concerned had
been even higher than the stakes.

Mr. Rathburn's honor had been called into question. Certain remarks,
chiefly notable because of their extreme brevity and almost brutal
frankness, had been directed at him.

What followed was hasty and unpremeditated.

Now that time had given opportunity for reflection, Mr. Rathburn
consoled himself with the thought that it was in self-defense. In his
view of the matter he stood at variance with that of the public, which
was "wilful murder".

Fear of public sentiment had, however, never been a potent factor in
Mr. Rathburn's career, but now, for the first time in his life, this
sentiment of disapproval was backed by money, and he was aware that
several bands of men were patrolling the country and that the various
individuals composing those bands were anxious to get within speaking,
or, to be more exact, shooting distance of him.

Rathburn had been making the best of his way over the range that
afternoon in the usual unostentatious manner of a man fleeing from
justice, when young Gordon saw him from his ranch near the trail and
rushed in pursuit. Young Gordon will never know how near he was to
death, for Mr. Rathburn turned and faced him, his hand beneath the
tails of his long English coat. As a general thing, when people saw Mr.
Rathburn's hand disappear behind him, they left precipitately, for that
motion and the one that followed it were known to be singularly fatal to
human life.

Young Gordon, in ignorance of this fact, had continued his approach,
which, after all, was the best and safest thing he could have done,
for Rathburn got a view of his face, and being a student of faces, he
instantly decided that young Gordon was not looking for trouble.

The news of Mr. Rathburn's latest shooting affray had not reached the
Foot Hill Ranch, and young Gordon did not know that the governor of
Colorado had deemed it expedient to offer a large reward to the man who
would put a check upon Mr. Rathburn's further independent action and
hand him over to the proper authorities in Denver. Whether or not Mr.
Rathburn was to be turned in alive or dead was left to the taste
and judgment of his captor; the prevailing tone of the proclamation
suggested, however, that Mr. Rathburn dead was easier to handle than
Mr. Rathburn alive, and at present there were bets pending as to the
probable appearance Mr. Rathburn would present to the community when on
view at the undertaker's shop; for the opinion that he was "a goner" was
strong.

Young Gordon's face, white and drawn with sorrow and apprehension, was
more eloquent than any words. His brother was sick--dying for all he
knew. Would Rathburn remain at the ranch while he went for a doctor? He
dared not leave his brother alone. Would Rathburn remain until morning?

Mr. Rathburn had looked down the trail. He was quite sure that somewhere
behind him were a number of enterprising gentlemen, and that the reward
of five thousand dollars had stimulated a degree of activity that would
be his ruin if he lingered. He looked at the mountains beyond, which,
when reached, promised safety, and they were very near.

An elevation and generosity of conception characterized many of Mr.
Rathburn's acts. Outside of his profession, and when removed from the
unworthy and corrupting influence of the flesh, he was not without a
certain nobility of soul.

He cast one longing look at the mountains, wavered and was lost.

Just ten minutes later young Gordon was galloping down the trail at
breakneck speed, while Mr. Rathburn remained in attendance upon the sick
boy.

As long as there was light in the sky he had turned frequently to the
window and followed with his eyes the dusty streak of gray across
the range that marked the windings of the trail, but from without the
distance there came neither sound nor sight of life.

By turns, as the night wore on, Mr. Rathburn was nervous and reflective,
now sitting in a chair beside the cot, now pacing the floor restlessly.
The present experience was a new one for him. To be sure, at various
periods of his eventful and not entirely blameless life he had found it
both safe and necessary to deprive certain localities of his presence.
Perhaps the necessity would again occur if he succeeded in spite of the
delay in making good his escape; but he was not prying into the future,
the present was enough for him, quite enough.

It was not long before he had forgotten his own troubles in his interest
in the boy upon the cot, and it was borne upon his consciousness that
the boy was very sick indeed, that his fever had reached a crisis and
that unless a change for the better came before morning he would no
longer need the doctor's aid.

The boy was very young, sixteen or seventeen at most.

Mr. Rathburn smoothed his pillow with gentle touch, and seating himself
beside the cot, took the boy's hand in his own. The boy tossed to and
fro, his eyes open and glassy, his skin hot and burning. Mr. Rathburn
placed his disengaged hand upon the boy's brow and set himself to work
to control and quiet his ravings by his own force of will.

The hours wore on. One, two, three. The little clock on the shelf beside
the door ticked them off; still the boy tossed from side to side. But
the watcher noticed that from time to time there came moments of quiet
to the sufferer. They grew in length and frequency as the hours passed.

"We are getting the better of it," murmured Rathburn hopefully. "On the
whole I am not sorry I stayed."

The hands of the clock were pointing to four, and the cold gray of dawn
was stealing over the range, shot with rays of light in the east, when
Mr. Rathburn pushed back his chair.

The boy was sleeping peacefully, his breath coming soft and regular. For
the first time that night Mr. Rathburn discovered that he himself was
both tired and sleepy.

He pushed back his chair until he reached the center of the room, then
bringing his feet to an equal elevation with his head by means of a
table, he, too, slept.

The sunlight was streaming into the room when sounds on the trail
aroused him. He awoke with a start. His first glance was at the boy who
was still sleeping. Then he arose and walked to the door.

Four men were cautiously approaching the house, while a fifth held the
horses of the party.

Mr. Rathburn recognized the sheriff of Arapahoe County and his deputies,
and his hand stole beneath the tails of his long English coat.

Then he remembered the sleeping boy upon the cot.

Mr. Rathburn stepped into the yard.

"Don't shoot," he said softly, "I give myself up."




MISS CAXTON'S FATHER


IF Miss Caxton's father had been called on to give a detailed account
of Miss Caxton's life, he would have described it as a perpetual
round of gaiety. By what process of reasoning he arrived at any such
conclusion is known only to himself; but from out the depths of his
ignorance this belief had sprung, and it bore fruit in an inclination to
curtail any pleasure other than the purely domestic in which Miss Caxton
might have desired to indulge.

It was his custom to observe that if one had a good home, that home was
decidedly the best place for one, and on occasions when he knew Miss
Caxton was desirous of spending an evening out, it was his wont to
introduce this statement at the supper table, as the moral to sundry
fables.

Likewise he manufactured numerous fictitious conversations supposed to
have taken place between himself and others, in which Miss Caxton was
held up as a shining example of domesticity; then he would light his
cigar and saunter downtown to play at whist until a late hour of the
night.

That there was anything incongruous in his conduct or any discrepancy
between his words and his acts never occurred to him.

Once, when Miss Caxton ventured to point out this apparent difference
in word and deed, he had explained that the noise the children made wore
upon his nerves--but he was quite sure that no man loved his home more
than he did, and that when Thaddeus, Roderick and Leander, the twin,
grew up and attained a decent age, he would greatly enjoy spending an
evening now and then with his family. Nothing could have induced him to
believe that the noise wore upon Miss Caxton's nerves. He knew very well
that women liked that sort of thing immensely.

He was not a man of imaginative temperament, or he might have wondered
what he would have done had there been no elder sister to look after the
children when Miss Caxton's mother followed the youthful Leander's mate
out of this world. If this thought ever gained a place in his mind,
he had put it aside with the convincing argument that in supplying the
little boys with an elder sister he had placed himself beyond reproach.
Miss Caxton was a living proof of that forethought that marked the
serious operations of his life; nor was Miss Caxton overlooked in this
happy adjustment; she had Thaddeus and Roderick, not to mention the
twin--and even half a twin was better than no twin at all.

This satisfactory arrangement had continued for some years, when the
advent of The Fool upon the scene disturbed the serenity of the Caxton
household. Of course The Fool was not the name bestowed upon him by his
sponsors in baptism; it was an appellation conferred by Miss Caxton's
indignant parent, and he only made use of it in his daughter's hearing.
That any one else should slip in and supplant him in his daughter's
affection--while he was away playing whist, filled him with indignation.
He also was astonished that his daughter should seem to care for The
Fool. Though he seldom saw him, he was aware that most of his unoccupied
time was spent in Miss Caxton's society, and he also knew that each
night, as he came in at one door The Fool was taking his leave of Miss
Caxton at another. But the young man's departure was so nicely timed
with reference to the charms of whist that he had never actually set
eyes upon him in Miss Caxton's presence.

Never before having come in contact with the inevitable, Miss Caxton's
father had a poor opinion of it. He began a vigorous campaign, in which
he was uniformly worsted. They had Bunker Hill for breakfast, Miss
Caxton triumphantly crossed the Delaware for dinner and Cornwallis
surrendered at supper time, and withdrew to play whist, leaving Miss
Caxton and The Fool in possession of the field.

Miss Caxton's ability to keep her temper and preserve that equanimity
which was her most marked characteristic, gave her undoubted eminence in
this species of warfare--for the cloud of battle hung forever over the
house. Her calmness exasperated her father more than any words could
have done.

Under these trying circumstances a man of less fixed habits would
have taken to drink as a means of relief--Miss Caxton's father took to
abusing the children. The little boys and the twin began to lead a dog's
life, particularly the youthful Leander, who seemed to possess a great
though unconscious power of enraging his parent far in excess of all
endurance. At dinner and supper, the only meals they took with their
father, they were barely permitted to speak in whispers, and then only
to make known their wants in the most direct English at their command.
This had a repressing tendency on youthful spirit.

How long it would have been possible for this happy state of affairs
to have continued there is no telling. Miss Caxton saw fit to firing
matters to a crisis. One day, in company with The Fool, she left the
paternal roof; at the same time she despatched a communication to her
father, requesting his immediate presence at home. When he received the
summons it had a mystifying effect upon him, but in obedience to the
request, he repaired to the scene of his domestic joys. He had no
sooner crossed the threshold than something within him corresponding to
intuition made manifest to his mind's eye that all was not right. The
little boys were not visible; even Leander's voice was hushed. Most
assuredly something was wrong.

But what?

Miss Caxton's father inspected the various rooms comprising his
establishment. In his own room he found, conspicuously tucked in one
corner of his looking-glass, a neatly folded note, directed to himself
in Miss Caxton's familiar hand. This evidently was meant to explain the
mystery. He tore it open. He read it. Then he read it over.

That the contents of the note were exercising a powerful and not wholly
pacifying influence upon him was easy to be seen. Miss Caxton had eloped
with The Fool.

She asked him to look after the children until she should return, which
would be as soon as she was married. Miss Caxton's father held the note
out toward his angry reflection in the glass:

"Here's gratitude for you! Well, she needn't come back home,--I'm done
with her!"

Then, being only a man, he swore; and while he swore he made up his mind
to a course of action that he intended should very much astonish Miss
Caxton, when that young lady returned as Mrs. Some-body-else.

"Does she think I'll stand this? I see myself forgiving her. If I lay my
hands on The Fool he'll spend his honeymoon with broken bones!"

Suddenly he bethought him of the little boys. They no doubt had availed
themselves of the absence of all restraining force to do as they
pleased. As this flashed through his mind he turned a trifle pale.
He rather regretted that he had been so severe with Leander, for
supposing--

He ran down-stairs and into the yard, only stopping to glance at the
kitchen stove with a vague dread lest Leander had crawled into it
and been cremated. On reaching the yard he examined the well, and was
greatly relieved to find it empty of everything except water.

Then he espied the little boys with the twin between them perched upon
the roof of a convenient coal shed in the rear of the house, whither
they had withdrawn, knowing that something unusual was about to happen.
The instant his eyes fell upon him his habitual acrimony for the twin
asserted itself:

"Come down off of that! Do you want to break your necks?" he gasped.
"Come down, I say!"

This the little boys were reluctant to do. They knew their father as an
exceedingly irate gentleman. Therefore, when they caught sight of him,
it begot no special joy in their hearts. Roderick and Thaddeus started
to descend from the roof, while the twin, lifting up his voice, howled
forth his dismay.

"Hold on to the twin!" called Miss Caxton's father. "Do you wish him to
fall?"

What activity the little boys possessed was dispelled by their father's
evident anger. They sat upon the ridge of the roof, motionless and
speechless. Their parent inspected the premises.

"How in the name of sense did you get up there?"

A sob from Leander was the only answer. Thaddeus and Roderick maintained
a discreet silence.

Miss Caxton's father was a very busy man for the next fifteen minutes.
He obtained a long pole and poked the little boys off the roof, one at a
time, beginning with the twin; then as they rolled from the shed he
ran and caught them. A good deal of physical energy was required in
the operation, and when Roderick was dislodged, he being the last, Miss
Caxton's parent was hot and exhausted; there was also a baleful gleam in
his eyes, suggestive of the wrath to come.

He picked up the twin, whose small lungs seemed to distil shrieks, and
followed by the little boys who sulked at his side, entered the house.
During the next hour or two he gained a larger experience in the pure
joys of domestic life than are usually crowded into so brief a period.

He gave Roderick and Thaddeus their supper--and something else as
well--and put them to bed. Then he took Leander in hand, and tried to
get his faculties into a condition for sleep.

The twin refused to be comforted; he wanted Miss Caxton, and Miss Caxton
only. It was the burden of his woes. His father looked at him. In his
glance paternal love seemed to be in abeyance.

"You'd better make up your mind to going to bed without her, for she's
put you to sleep for the last time."

Whereat Leander howled afresh.

"If you don't stop and let me have a moment's quiet, I shall punish you.
You hear?"

Leander choked down a sob and was silent.

"There," said his father approvingly, "I guess we can get along all
right. Now, you go to sleep--right off."

Leander's sobs broke forth again.

"What's the matter now?"

More sobs and a howl.

"I thought I told you to keep still. Why don't you?"

Then he grew persuasive.

"Don't you love your papa?"

The twin looked at him with wide eyes.

"I am appealing to his better self," reflected Miss Caxton's parent.
"The instinct of affection that a child has is a most wonderful thing, a
wonderful thing."

Leander dissolved into tears.

"Hang the brat! What's got into him now?"

Miss Caxton's parent arose and paced the floor. Leander's grief
continued unchecked. His father regarded him in amazement; the twin's
capacity for sorrow was very astonishing; and his anger merged into
something akin to wonder.

"He must be very wet inside," he thought

He addressed the twin in conciliatory tones.

"See here, Leander, do you think it safe to cry like that?"

But Leander, unheeding him, wept on, in a highly original manner. His
father grew uneasy.

"Why doesn't he stop? Hush! There! There! To please papa, who loves you
so much. Confound you! How long is this going to last--will it be all
night?" he asked himself.

His resentment was weakening. Each sob of the twin lessened the enormity
of Miss Caxton's crime. Her father was willing to take her back at any
price--and The Fool into the bargain. In desperation he brought the
sugar bowl and placed it as an offering of peace at Leander's feet.

"That should stop him," he muttered.

But it didn't. With a guilty blush he went down upon his knees in a vain
effort to seduce the twin in the belief that he was a horse. He was in
this interesting position when Miss Caxton opened the door and entered,
smiling and serene. The Fool was with her, but he was by no means so
serene as he could have wished to be and his smile was not an easy one.

Miss Caxton mastered the situation at a glance. Without a word she
possessed herself of the twin's small person.

"I am sorry, papa, that you missed your game of whist, but it won't
occur again," she said, as she walked from the room.

When she returned twenty minutes later, after having put Leander to bed,
she found her father peacefully drinking cold tea--"to restore the
tone to his nervous system," as he explained--while he gave The Fool a
detailed and truthful account of his adventure with the twin.




THE HALF-BREED


JOHN LE BO YEN was an Indian half-breed; the son of a whisky-drinking
white man and a slovenly whisky-drinking squaw. Fate, which decreed
he should have a copper skin, lifted him into temporary and unsavory
prominence only as the perpetrator of certain vulgar atrocities, yet
because there had been peace on sea and land for a decade, history once
paused to give him a brief paragraph. Balancing the books, after another
decade, she dropped him out of her record of events.

As a boy, Le Boyen had been taken in hand by the government and sent
to school, where he mastered a little reading and less spelling with
infinite difficulty. Later he was turned back on his reservation, given
land, together with a yearly allowance in supplies, and told to shift
for himself.

Now the grazing lands of Le Boyen's reservation were particularly fine
and the neighborhood ranchmen rented the range from the Indians for
their cattle. All went well until the stockmen sent in a petition to
Congress praying that virtuous body to remove the Indians, as they
interfered materially with the cattle business. Congress despatched a
commission to inquire into the matter.

The tribe had been given their land just fifteen years previous, with
the solemn assurance that they should not be molested. They had before
that been moved exactly three times. These moves had each involved
a little war, and the government had shot a few of the rebellious
tribesmen at a cost of several thousand dollars apiece, which was
expensive, but had proved profitable in the long run, for, once dead,
they cost nothing to maintain. This was indeed the cheapest mode of
procedure.

The commissioners came upon the scene and they found the Indian very
much in the way. He was dirty, wasteful and not to be tolerated. When
they had seen these things, they returned to Washington to deliberate.
This last consisted mainly in discussing the next election--the true
essence of statesmanship. A month or so later the Indians were informed
that the great white father, who had his home toward the rising sun
and who was chiefly notable because of his insatiate appetite for land,
desired their reservation. The tribe voiced a feeble protest, but the
pressure brought to bear upon the white father was rather more than he
had the moral backbone to withstand. Troops were massed in the vicinity
preparatory to a summary dumping of the Indians farther west.

The threatened calamity had brought the savages together in one corner
of the reservation. They buzzed like a swarm of angry bees. The young
men danced strange dances, and chanted songs their fathers had chanted
when there were buffaloes on the plains; but the old men, the men who
had gone out in seventy-three with Captain Jack, shook their heads. They
had known the white father to devour whole tribes, simply that he might
call a few rods of sage brush and buffalo grass his own.

When night settled down the chiefs gathered around the council fire.
After the weak and ineffectual manner of savages, they wished to test
the forbearance of the dominant race; they might make a harmless little
dash into the cow country and then, before the troops were fairly on
their trail, slip back to the agency. Under similar circumstances the
white father had been known to display a prodigal generosity in the
matter of lean contract steers, which were turned out to be slaughtered
and gorged on.

In the midst of these deliberations, a man strode into the circle of
light. It was Le Boyen, who silently raised his arm high above his head.
The reeking trophies his hand held brought the shadowy figures pressing
close about him, while a sullen murmur grew up out of the tense
stillness that had fallen on the tribe. The half-breed had precipitated
an unexpected crisis. Already mounted men were spurring over the range
spreading the news of another Indian outrage. As this sure knowledge
took hold of the savages, the murmur swelled into a roar.

All in a second the group resolved itself into a sea of tossing arms
and waving hands, and a portion of the straining mob became detached,
wrenching and tearing itself away from the rest. In the center of the
detached band was Le Boyen. About him were twenty or thirty men who were
ready to put their fortunes to the hazard of war, and following them
came their wives and children. These fell back unhindered upon the
tents, struck camp, got together their horses and rode away. To state
the case exactly, Le Boyen, with perhaps thirty men and an equal number
of women and children, had taken preliminary steps to declaring war
against the United States of America.

During the next ten days he and his followers were a fruitful source of
newspaper interest. His experience had taught him, among other things
worth remembering, that if you kill a man he is done for. Had his
education taught him proportion he would have known it was wasted labor
on his part to begin the extermination of sixty odd millions of human
beings with the means and men he had at hand. Not appreciating this, he
began his ambitious undertaking at once, moving across the plains with
no fixed plan or destination, gathering in the settlers along his line
of march; and the gathering in was attended by horrors not to be told.
Then he took himself off toward the mountains with the most complete and
extensive collection of scalps made in many years.

Through all these days of success his interest in the total destruction
of the white race never flagged; but certain of his followers were not
so constituted that they cherished a lofty ideal purely for the ideal's
sake. These, after the first flush of war had paled its glow for them,
began to think sadly of consequences. The hard life, the thirst and
starvation of the foray, grew stale and tedious; they longed for the
ease and sloth of the reservation, where water was plenty and rations
had the noble quality of regularity.

Two Indians in particular wished to be taken back into the fold; and as
the days came full of effort and hunger, this wish thrived apace, and
they agreed that the white father would doubtless pay well for a little
information as to Le Boyen's whereabouts. To furnish him with the
coveted knowledge it would be necessary for one to remain with the band,
while the other deserted. Their plan was no sooner perfected than it was
acted upon, and Le Boyen, suspecting the meaning though not the extent
of the disaffection, put his people on forced marches. For four days
they toiled into the mountains, while the traitor in their midst left
his fatal marks on every rod of land they crossed. On the fourth day the
band went into camp, that Le Boyen might have time in which to mature
plans for the future.

Day had scarcely dawned again when the traitor stole out to inspect his
surroundings. All the warriors slept, even to the guards, who, as they
sat about the ashes of the fires, nodded over the guns in their laps.
The only ones astir were a few Indian mothers, who were already lashing
their babies to the travaux strapped to their lean dogs. The traitor had
mounted a rugged bluff that overhung the canyon leading back into the
valley where the temporary encampment was made, and straining his eyes
to the farthest distance he saw what he yearned to see, a long line of
mounted men. Rations were destined to be regular and his heart was glad.
Without a backward glance toward the camp he started on a run in the
direction of the approaching horsemen.

In the valley the band slumbered on. The fagged ponies nipped the grass.
The squaws moved quickly to and fro among the tents. Then one of the
dozing sentries awoke with a start and stood erect. Black against the
crimson disk of the rising sun he saw the solitary figure of a man; and
even as he gazed another and another filed into view. He knew they were
mounted men, though a rise in the ground hid the horses from his sight.
While he stood looking at them in stupid and speechless amazement, they
wheeled over the intervening hillock with the sharp clang of steel on
stirrup iron, and with a wild hurrah raced down the hill upon the camp.
What the savages first knew, roused from their sleep, was that a hundred
men were riding furiously among the tents with blazing carbines. The
surprise was so complete that the Indians offered no resistance; those
who could, men, women and children, rushed toward the ponies, stimulated
by a vague hope that they might escape; and as they ran they were shot
down.

Foremost among those who strove to reach the horses was Le Boyen. His
war pony, saddled and bridled in constant readiness for alarms, grazed
apart from the tired mounts of his party. He reached and threw himself
astride of it, and with a yell whirled through the ranks of the
slaughtering whites. In the stupendous strain of the few short seconds
while he was flying through their midst he was absolute master of
himself, and in a cloud of dust and smoke, a score of men firing at
his half-naked figure, he dashed up the trail unscathed, away from the
horror of total annihilation that lurked in the valley.

Ahead of him the trail dipped into a narrow bottom. Crossing this it
wound up a steep ascent and disappeared in a rocky gorge. Le Boyen
gained the bottom and the partial cover of its timber, when his
horse stumbled. He drew it up with a savage jerk. The next instant it
collapsed in a heap under him. He cleared his feet from the stirrups and
leaped from the saddle, and with his cartridge belt in one hand and his
rifle in the other, plunged through the brush toward the ascent. At his
back the mounted men came crashing through the timber, and as Le Boyen
sprang out of the cover and bounded up the ascent, the bullets of his
pursuers flecked up the earth at his feet; but he gained the entrance
of the gorge in safety, and threw himself down behind the first shelter
that offered, a great square of granite.

He had his revolvers to fall back upon, so he emptied the magazine of
his repeater. When the smoke cleared away he saw that his fire had been
eminently successful. Two men lay dead at the base of the ascent, and
a third, wounded, was endeavoring to crawl away. Le Boyen knew that
his case was hopeless. He wondered what was back of him, if it were
not possible to enter the gorge farther along. In fancy he saw his own
hurried rush for a fresh cover. It would be the last episode in the
clenching of a victory destined in point of conclusiveness to be little
short of a massacre.

A medley of sounds came from the camp. He heard the voices of the white
men; an occasional order given; the piteous yelping of the dogs; now and
then a stray shot. A glance in the direction of the valley told him what
this last meant: the soldiers were shooting the dogs, who, faithful to
their tiny charges, would not allow the white men to approach them.
Wary and thoroughly frightened, they circled about the camp, stopping
at intervals to howl dismally. An officer had suggested the expedient of
shooting the dogs as the only means of saving the babies; but this was
not proving successful, for sometimes the dogs moved at the wrong moment
or the soldier's aim would prove uncertain, and the baby and not the dog
would be shot.

In the timbered bottom a gray-haired colonel was listening to the
reports of several soldiers, who, according to the fertility of their
imagination, variously estimated that there were from ten to twenty
Indians secreted among the rocks.

"Then they are very saving of their ammunition," commented the colonel
dryly. He turned to the-officer at his side: "What do the scouts say,
Captain? Is there any way of getting at the rear of the redskins?"

"Yes, Colonel."

"How long will it take?"

"About two hours."

"Very well. Detail Lieutenant Brookes and twenty of our men to make the
détour. We'll keep the volunteers here." The colonel looked annoyed. "I
don't like this, Gordon," he said. "I wish it might have come six months
hence, when I shall be retired and growing roses in California with my
wife on that bit of a ranch I've told you of.... Do be careful about
those dogs; detail two or three of the best shots for that work."

A bullet from Le Boyen's Winchester cut a leaf from just over the
colonel's head.

"Better fall back, Colonel," suggested Gordon, on the point of turning
away.

There was another report from among the rocks, and the colonel sat down
very stiffly on the trunk of a fallen tree, the expression of his face
one of utter astonishment.

"Are you hit?" cried Gordon.

"I believe I am," said the colonel in a whisper. He raised his hand to
his breast as he spoke; then he coughed, and Gordon saw that there was
blood on his lips. Before he could reach him, the colonel had fallen and
lay quite still among the tangled underbrush.

They made a place for him on the edge of the timber, and Gordon covered
him with his own coat.

"Poor old colonel!" he said sadly to his lieutenant. "He always wanted
to grow a garden, poor fellow, and in six months he would have been free
to amuse himself in his own way." There was a pause. "Well, make up the
détour party and get it started; I'll give those redskins something to
think of while Brookes is getting to their rear."

During the next half-hour, from his place of concealment, the half-breed
did much excellent shooting, now and again changing his position, while
the bullets of the command flattened themselves on the rocks that hid
him.

When the lieutenant rejoined his superior after Brookes' departure,
he found that Gordon had taken up his station near the spot where the
colonel had been killed. It overlooked the edge of the timber where he
had stationed his men. The lieutenant, who was fresh from the East, was
palpably nervous; while the captain's manner indicated long familiarity
with just such affairs as the one in hand.

"Brookes has gone?" he queried, without waiting for the lieutenant to
speak.

"Yes, half an hour ago."

"And there's nothing stirring in the camp back of us? That was a pretty
clean sweep. How about Sergeant Porter and the dogs?"

"He thinks he's got them all, sir."

"That's good; that's very good!"

Gordon took the young man by the arm, and side by side they fell to
pacing back and forth. The captain was well pleased with the situation.

"Brookes and his party will soon be behind the redskins," he observed;
"and when they break for fresh cover we shall have a good chance to test
the new guns and ammunition."

The lieutenant smiled. It was not a mirthful smile; but then he was
between the captain and the gorge, and anything like enthusiasm over
gunshot wounds was beyond him.

"Do you count on the home talent standing if the Indians try for this
cover?" he asked.

"Certainly. The cowboys don't have much of an open season in which to
shoot Indians. We'll wind 'em up in the open." Levelling his field-glass,
the captain took a hasty survey of the gorge. "I guess they are coming
now. Yes, it's Brookes and his men!"

Le Boyen, among the rocks, was also aware of the approach of Brookes.
He was also aware that the captain was getting his men in hand. He had
found time to roll a boulder or two to the rear of the position he had
originally assumed, and now, on the top of one of these, he placed his
two revolvers. On the whole, he was not particularly desirous of living
since the destruction of his band; but he was desirous of doing as much
hurt to his enemies as he could.

The volleys of the men from below and the volleys of the men in his rear
now swept his hiding-place. It would have been fatal to expose a hand or
an arm even. He would wait until the two parties had advanced so close
that they must discontinue their fire, then there would be a brief
second or two in which one who was really indifferent about living could
do much harm. And so it happened that Brookes and his men were face to
face with the rest of the command, scarcely fifty yards separating them,
when Le Boyen picked up a revolver in each hand and rose from his lair.
Before the startled troopers knew what he meant to do, he was emptying
them in their faces.

The captain had been the last man up the ascent, owing to the shortness
of his legs. He found Brookes and his men clustered about a solitary
figure on the ground, a figure riddled and torn with bullets.

"Humph!" with a glance at the half-breed. "Where are the rest, men?" he
added.

"That's all, sir," said Brookes.

"Nonsense; you don't mean that he stood us off alone?"

The lieutenant looked at the figure on the ground.

"It's just about the right proportion, don't you think?" he ventured.

"Well, I wouldn't say that for the credit of the race," said the
captain. "Poor old colonel; think of getting shot in an affair of this
kind!"




WILLIE

THEY say The Pines is a great place to feed. I thought you'd be
tickled to death with the assignment!" said Chisholm.

Bentley Ames' glance came back from the dome of the capitol, seen now
through the closing mists of a rainy day and the falling twilight, to
rest on his chief's face with a lurking suspicion of disfavor.

"I supposed you'd let me cover the convention," he said. "What's Carveth
going down to Little Mountain for?--if he wants the nomination why
doesn't he get busy?"

"He's made his canvass. You see, Ames, he runs a factory in one of the
western counties,--makes shirts,--the business office gets a thousand
a year out of him and the News has got to treat him right." And the
following morning, Ames, the expression of whose face told of the
spirit of resignation that possessed him, boarded the train for Little
Mountain.

He expected to reach his destination by ten o'clock, but there was a
freight wreck on the road. As a result he spent five hours at a sad
little way station, and when the line resumed its functions as a common
carrier, he took the afternoon train that had just pulled in. He first
sought the parlor-car, which he found occupied by three ladies; then in
rather low spirits, his mind divided between thoughts of the luncheon he
had not had and the dinner he would order at The Pines, he wandered on
into the smoker. Near the door were four men playing cards. There next
fell under his scrutiny a young fellow of five or six and twenty, who
was reading a shabby volume of Emerson. Three seats farther on was the
only other passenger in the car, a solidly built man of sixty with a
pleasant ruddy face; he was dressed in black broadcloth and wore a high
silk hat, and as Ames dropped into the seat opposite him he gave the
News man a half smile of friendly recognition. There was something so
genial and winning in his very air that Ames smiled in return.

"Sightly, ain't it?" and the silk hat dipped in the direction of
the autumn landscape, where the brown fields yielded at intervals to
gorgeous reds and russets set in a murky haze. Ames admitted the beauty,
and the stranger took the cigar from between his strong even teeth.
"Fond of nature?" he inquired.

In a general way Mr. Ames was, but he was not enthusiastic about it;
indeed, he was so profoundly sophisticated that sensation of any sort
reached him in a very diluted form. The elder man scanned the younger;
then he drew from the region of his hip a flat leather pocketbook. It
yielded up a square of pasteboard which he passed across the aisle
to Ames, who read: "Jeremiah Carveth. Originator Plymouth Rock Dollar
Shirt. 'Made on Honor.'"

"By Jove!" cried Ames. "You're just the man I want to see, Mr. Carveth.
I'm from the News."

"Are you now?" Mr. Carveth was frankly pleased. "What's your name?"

"Ames--Bentley Ames."

"Excuse me--" and Mr. Carveth turned in his seat. "Willie, step here!"
he called, and the reader of Emerson put aside his book. "Mr. Ames, I
want you should know my secretary, W. C. B. McPherson, William Cullen
Bryant McPherson," said Mr. Carveth, when the secretary stood at his
elbow. "He's a newspaper boy, too--does the locals on the Marysville
Clarion. Mr. Ames, of the Capital City News, Willie."

W. G. B. McPherson gave Ames an embarrassed smile.

"Not a newspaper man in the sense that Mr. Ames is." It was evident he
stood in awe of this more metropolitan member of the craft.

"I don't know about that," said Mr. Carveth. "I've always considered the
_Clarion_ a mighty clean sheet."

Ames smiled enigmatically. He was thinking of Mr. Carveth's rival,
General Pogue, "Slippery Dick, who lived with his ear next the ground,"
and of James Cartwright Smith, who was back of the general. Carveth
resumed the conversation.

"Ever been to Marysville? It's named after my wife; my factory's there."

Ames had not been to Marysville; he admitted, however, that he had heard
of the place.

The landscape beyond the car windows had changed its characteristic
aspect. The fields had grown smaller, the goldenrod and immortelles
waved over heaps of stones in the fence-rows, while the russets and reds
and browns had given place to the somber green of pine and hemlock. And
now the train drew up at a tiny ornate station. The three men climbed
into the coach that was waiting for them and were soon toiling up a
winding road, from which they presently emerged upon the single street
of a sleepy village. Beyond the village and crowning the mountain's
summit they could distinguish the long stone and timber façade of The
Pines in the shadow of the sinking sun.

Ames dined with the candidate and his secretary; afterward he
interviewed Mr. Carveth. His story off his hands, he was lounging
about the office with only the night clerk for company, when suddenly
McPherson appeared; he was in his shirt-sleeves, while his feet were
thrust into worsted bed-slippers; in his hand he carried a pitcher. It
was evident he did not see the two men in the corner by the news-stand,
for after glancing about to get his bearings he disappeared down the
corridor leading to the dining-room. A moment later they heard him
rattle a locked door, then again the patter of his slippered feet
sounded on the tessellated pavement, and he reappeared in the lobby.
Ames heard him say "Dang it!" but rather in disappointment than
in anger; and then the clerk emitted a shrill cackle of mirth, and
McPherson, being thus made aware of the presence of the two men, faced
them.

"Excuse me," he said. "But will you kindly tell me where I'll find the
pump?"

Gray shadows invaded the darkness of the pines that clothed the slopes
of Little Mountain, and through the open, eastward looking window of his
room the morning sun shone in upon the News man. Perhaps he missed the
clang of the trolley's gong, the early milk wagon's clatter on the paved
street; perhaps it was the silence, scarce disturbed by the song of
birds and the murmur of the wind in the pines, that roused him; but
Bentley Ames emerged from his slumber and without changing his position,
looked from his window into the red eye of the sun. He dressed and
slipping out into the hall, tapped on McPherson's door.

"Come in," called the secretary, and Ames entered the room. McPherson
was seated at his table, writing. "Oh, Mr. Ames--" he said. He seemed
both pleased and embarrassed.

"Don't get up;" and Ames, establishing himself on the edge of
McPherson's bed, began to roll a cigarette. "Suppose you tell me how Mr.
Carveth broke into politics," he suggested.

McPherson's face lighted instantly with enthusiasm.

"There's a wonderful man, Mr. Ames; a splendid type of the American
business man! You should go through his factory; you should see the
hundreds of busy operators. You would understand then what Mr. Carveth
means to Marysville. Marysville," added the secretary, "is pledged to
Mr. Carveth."

"I dare say." But Ames was not impressed by the loyalty of Marysville.

"You don't think much of his chances?" ventured McPherson.

"What I think of them wouldn't be fit to print," said Ames candidly.
"Dick Pogue's rather a hot proposition for your man to stack up against,
and back of Pogue is J. C. Smith." Ames slipped off the edge of the bed
and took a turn about the room.

"You must admit, Mr. Ames, that nobody has any confidence in either
General Pogue or Mr. Smith," said McPherson.

"They can get along without it," said Ames with calm cynicism.

"I shouldn't like to think that any public man could go far without the
trust of his fellow citizens," observed McPherson.

"With those ideas you should keep clear of politics. You and Mr. Carveth
may as well retire to the classic regions of Susansville."

"Marysville," corrected McPherson mildly.

"Marysville, then," said Ames. He paused by the corner of McPherson's
desk. "Well, the occasion will be interesting as a souvenir of public
life, eh, McPherson?" and he smiled down pityingly on the top of the
secretary's slightly bald head, for McPherson was looking into the
pictured face of a young girl whose photograph, framed in red plush,
decorated his desk. Ames extended his hand and possessed himself of
the photograph, which he proceeded to examine. "Your sister?" he asked,
after a moment's silence.

"Miss Carveth," said W. C. B. McPherson, but his voice had lost much of
its agreeable quality.

"I beg your pardon," said Ames, flushing as he hastily returned the
photograph to its place on the desk. McPherson quitted his chair.

"I think we had better go down-stairs," he observed stiffly.

They found Carveth waiting for them in the office.

"I been lookin' over the paper," he told Ames, as they seated themselves
at the breakfast table. He turned to his secretary. "I can't see that we
occupy so darn much space, Willie. The world seems unaware of the fact
that Jeremiah Carveth and W. C. B. McPherson are willing to act as a
kind providence in shaping the destiny of a freeborn people. I'm getting
a sickenin' consciousness that there's tall timber growing for me." He
laughed in McPherson's face, which had gone from white to red. "Cheer
up, Willie, cheer up. It's good to be alive, and the rest is dividends.
You mayn't land me in office, but what's the odds? Crisp and bright,
Willie, crisp and bright!" he urged with kindly concern.

But the thought of defeat was a bitter thing to McPherson, and presently
he excused himself and quitted the table.

"I want a meetin'-house talk with you, Ames," said Carveth, the moment
the secretary was out of hearing. "I was all for private life, the
privater the better, until Willie smoked me out. It's this way, I got
a daughter--" Mr. Carveth paused; in spite of his habitual frankness he
was struggling with a sudden sense of diffidence. "We got only the one
child, and naturally her mother and I center everything on her; and
we've been fortunate, for we've been able to give her a good many
advantages. Now Willie's interested in Nellie; and Nellie's interested
in Willie. It's a match her ma and I desire; but Willie's chuck-full of
pride. He's got nothing but a salary of fifteen dollars a week, and he
says he can't regard marriage as a commercial asset; and there you
are." Mr. Carveth gave Ames an expressive smile. "I don't say but what
Willie's right. He says if he can get me elected governor he'll feel
that he ain't just an experiment. I guess you gather, from what I say,
that I'm in politics to oblige Willie; and that's the situation."

The state convention met on the tenth of the month, and when the morning
of the tenth dawned Ames was conscious of a feeling of disquietude. He
rather took it out on Mr. Carveth's secretary.

"You'll see what a gilt-edged snap does for a man, Mr. McPherson," he
observed. "Your little delegation and all the other little delegations
will be given their little say, then Smith will quietly proceed to
nominate his bunch; and it will dawn on a few enlightened minds that the
business could have been transacted by just getting him on the phone in
the first place." And having eased himself of this depressing prophecy,
Ames began a perusal of the News.

Some two hours later the secretary hurried into the hotel office.

"In strict confidence, Mr. Ames," he said, and thrust a telegram into
Ames' hand. It proved to be from James Cartwright Smith, and requested
an immediate interview with Mr. Carveth.

"He'll take the first train to town?" asked Ames.

"I have just sent Mr. Carveth's answer. He will see Mr. Smith--here,"
said McPherson.

The next morning, when Smith descended from his car, Ames was on the
platform, but as the _News_ man advanced toward him the party leader
shook his head.

"Nothing doing, Ames," he said.

"I didn't know but you'd come down to see Carveth," insinuated Ames.

"Carveth, Carveth? Oh, yes--merely a coincidence;" and he turned away to
enter the coach.

"Interesting, but not true," murmured Ames. He let the coach drive off
and then set out briskly in pursuit.

Reaching the hotel, he hurried up-stairs to a room on the second floor
that immediately adjoined the one occupied by Mr. Carveth. There was a
connecting door. Over this door was a transom and below the transom Ames
had placed a table, on the table a rug, and on the rug a chair.

"I interpreted your wire as signifying your willingness to accept the
nomination at the hands of the party organization," Smith was saying as
Ames mounted to his post.

"Well--yes," answered the creator of the Plymouth Rock Dollar Shirt
cautiously.

"We're going to read Dick Pogue out of meeting, Mr. Carveth; he's been
fed from the public crib about long enough. I suppose you've seen in the
Washington despatches that Senator Burke is ill? One of the first jobs
the next governor will have will be to appoint his successor."

"That's so; but you ain't told me where the hitch comes in."

"Ain't I?" rasped out the boss. "It's just here: Pogue's got his eye on
his brother for the place, yet when Burke was made senator it was agreed
I was to follow him. Isn't it plain to you why I came down here? I want
your word that I'm to succeed Burke; then I'll shake hands with the next
governor."

"When it's business I'll dicker for anything I can swap, use myself, or
give away; but I got a different feeling about politics," remarked Mr.
Carveth.

This came with such a shock to Ames that he almost fell off his seat.

"Quite right, Mr. Carveth," said Smith pleasantly. "But a few
pledges----"

"I won't promise nothin'," said Jeremiah Carveth with sudden
stubbornness. "If I go to office I'm going there a free man. Otherwise
Marysville's good enough for me."

"Not pledged in any offensive sense, Mr. Carveth," Smith urged. "We
would never attempt to dictate a course of action to you----"

"I guess you wouldn't--more than once," said Carveth shortly.

Mr. Smith gasped audibly, and Ames surmised he was hearing the distant
roar of the convention, the first rumble of that landslide he had
prematurely set going, which was to bury Slippery Dick while it
uncovered Jeremiah Carveth.

"I'm offering you the place at the head of the ticket," began Smith
quietly. "That's tantamount to election; all I want is your promise that
if Burke dies you'll appoint me to fill out his term----"

"Ain't you read any of my speeches?" asked Carveth. "Haven't you noticed
that I take pretty firm ground in the matter of boss rule? Mr. Smith,
you're the last man I'd ever think of making senator. I don't want to
seem rude, but, well, I've told you Marysville's good enough for me."

"Don't worry;" said Smith. "I had determined to support you; I could not
imagine that you would be so blind to your own interests as not to meet
me half-way; but a dozen telegrams will change the program--you'll go
back to Marysville all right."

McPherson had slipped from the room, and Ames abandoned his post and
hurried in pursuit. He was just in time to see the secretary's long
legs vanishing around a turn in the corridor. Keeping them in sight he
descended to the office floor. McPherson was now speaking directly to
the clerk.

"Will you go personally to Mr. Carveth's room and interrupt the
conference there between him and Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith wishes
particularly to catch the eleven-ten train."

Ames retired to the check-room. As the clerk's footsteps died out in the
hall overhead, he heard a chair dragged across the tessellated floor,
and peering out from his place of hiding, he saw McPherson by the aid
of this chair reach the office clock and resolutely turn the hands back
twenty minutes. This accomplished, McPherson took himself into the open
air. He raced down the road toward the telegraph office. Here Ames
found him fifteen minutes later scribbling away at one corner of the
operator's deal table. He glanced up as Ames entered the room.

"Oh, Mr. Ames," he said, "look from the window and tell me when the
coach from the hotel arrives." Even as he spoke they heard the shriek of
the engine's whistle. McPherson sighed softly. "I'm afraid Mr. Smith has
missed his train," he said. "And I think he was quite anxious to catch
it."

Twenty minutes slipped by and there was a hasty step upon the threshold,
and James Cartwright Smith burst into the room.

"Here, rush these telegrams!" he roared, and tossed a dozen sheets of
paper in front of the operator.

"The wire's busy, Mr. Smith," said McPherson mildly, so mildly there was
almost a touch of sadness in his tone.

The great man turned to the operator.

"Throw this stuff out of the window, or I will, and send those wires."

McPherson measured the politician with a large prominent eye, then he
said in a tone that would have carried conviction to a less excited man
than Smith:

"If you do that, you'll go after it, and it's twenty feet to the
ground."

For answer Smith made a grab at the pile of copy in front of the
operator. McPherson shot up to his full height of six feet, and
extending a long arm, seized him by the wrist.

"It's twenty feet to the ground, Mr. Smith," he remonstrated. Smith
swung about on his heel.

"How can I get away from here, Ames?" he asked.

"You'll have to wait until eleven-ten to-morrow," said Ames cheerfully.
The leader groaned aloud. "Come," Ames added, "you go to the hotel with
me, and we'll be back here after lunch." But once he had coaxed Smith
back to The Pines, he abandoned him and hurried again to the telegraph
office.

"See here, McPherson," he expostulated, "it's all right where Smith is
concerned, but how about me?"

"I'd love to oblige you, Mr. Ames; later, perhaps."

"But that won't do any good," urged Ames impatiently.

"No, I suppose not, since the News is an evening paper."

"And what's the _Clarion?_"

"Semi-weekly," said the secretary pleasantly.

The secretary wrote telegrams to the _Clarion_ until he wearied of
that pastime; then he began to tear pages out of his copy of Emerson.
Incidentally he and Ames had passed to a state of siege. It became
necessary to spike the office door fast to the jamb to keep out James
Cartwright Smith, who, supported by a bell boy and the night watchman
from The Pines, had established himself in the narrow hall, where he
kept the air thick with threats and curses.

Six o'clock came and McPherson was still flashing the Concord sage's
wisdom into Marysville. Mr. Smith was still on the stairs, but the boss
no longer swore nor threatened; his tone was one of entreaty, his words
abject. Two hours later and he was offering McPherson any sum he chose
to name for five minutes' use of the wire. At ten o'clock he was heard
to descend the stairs and pass up the road in the direction of The
Pines; whereupon Ames knocked the spikes out of the jamb and opened the
office door on a sleeping world; then he turned to McPherson.

"I suppose you are going to hold on to your end of the wire until the
convention adjourns?" he observed. The secretary nodded and flipped a
fresh page of Emerson across the table.

"Wait a bit, boss," said the operator. "I got to take off a message for
you."

The message was from the leader of the Carveth delegation. As McPherson
slowly absorbed its meaning a smile of intense satisfaction overspread
his features. He passed it on to Ames, who read: "Carveth nominated.
Hip--hip--hurrah!"

"This means a great deal to me, Mr. Ames," said McPherson softly.
"Indeed, it means everything." Quite unconsciously he had slipped his
hand into the breast pocket of his coat, and Ames caught sight of the
plush frame that held Miss Carveth's picture.




MR. FEENY'S SOCIAL EXPERIMENT


ON the street some one had handed Mike Feeny an oblong of pasteboard.
Mr. Feeny stoked with the Gulf and Mexican Transportation Line.

"Is it a ticket to a show?" he asked, removing his pipe.

"It is; go on in and enjoy yourself." And the donor laughed. He was
a pleasant-looking young fellow in evening dress, much like the young
fellows Mr. Feeny sometimes saw on the awning-covered promenade deck.

"I'm beholden to you," said he, being a person of manners when sober.

And pocketing his blackened pipe, he strode into the brilliant foyer
of the Music Hall where the many lights fully disclosed him as
a stoop-shouldered man of large muscular development, clothed in
respectable shore-going garments recently purchased at a bargain of a
Jewish gentleman on the river-front. A great shock of violently red hair
formed an aureole about his long sad face, and the drooping ends of a
blond mustache reached well back toward the freckled lobes of his ears.
Mr. Feeny was strictly Irish, with the large potentialities of his race.

Now Mr. Feeny did not know that the International Congress of Economics
had assembled there to give expert testimony, and charting a careful
course in new shoes that pinched somewhat, he followed the trickle of
well-dressed humanity into the building, where an usher showed him to
an aisle seat in the last row of orchestra chairs. The orchestra was
finishing a classic prelude. This first attracted Mr. Feeny's attention.
It was displeasing to his musical tastes, and he remarked in a husky
whisper to the gentleman on his left:

"Say, buddy, them fiddles is on the bum----"

"Hush!" said the gentleman, raising a warning finger.

"What for should I hush?" demanded Mr. Feeny. "Cheese it yourself!"

Feeling the incident closed, Mr. Feeny's glance shifted in the direction
of the stage, where a number of men and women were seated in a wide half
circle.

"'Tis a white-faced minstrel show! But, oh, heavens, ain't them girls
the hard-featured huzzies?" thought Mr. Feeny.

A gentleman had risen and was making a few introductory remarks, the
exact drift of which was lost on Mr. Feeny, but as he subsided, his
place was taken by another gentleman who smilingly acknowledged the
decorous ripple of applause his name had evoked. He commenced to speak
and Mr. Feeny gave him his undivided attention.

"He's a grand flow of words. I wonder he don't choke," was his mental
comment.

Eventually he became aware that he was listening to an account of the
decay of the cottage industries of France. Laboriously following the
speaker he possessed himself of this concrete fact in segments and was
moved to instant contempt of the speaker's conclusions. He had never
noticed this decay in industry; his personal observations led him to
believe that while jobs were sometimes hard to obtain, there was always
plenty of work after you got them.

He prepared to quit that spot with expedition, since he felt that any
more economics would constitute a surfeit. But as he slid from his
chair, the first gentleman advanced again to the center of the stage,
and Mr. Feeny caught a name he knew, the magical name of MacCandlish.

"I'll see the next turn," he told himself, as amidst a perfect storm
of applause a cheerful little man of a portly presence approached the
footlights.

"It's him all right, I seen him onct through the bull's-eye window of
the smoking-room afore the mate cussed me out forward,--and him worth
his hundred millions!" Mr. Feeny breathed hard.

There was the hush of expectancy. The little man smiled kindly,
tolerantly, while the lights seemed to cast a golden halo about him.

"It is my privilege to appear before this congress to speak on the uses
of wealth," he began in a soft purring voice. "And I only regret that I
have not had the leisure in which to prepare a paper on so interesting a
theme. However--a few thoughts occur to me----"

Mr. MacCandlish paused for a brief space, and then once more that kindly
voice flowed across the footlights. "It has always been my conviction
that those who have lacked the opportunity to examine the operations
of wealth are frequently led astray. In the first place, riches are
invariably the direct result of great economic services undertaken for
the good of mankind!"--and thus launched, Mr. MacCandlish began to deal
not with the dead and dry of theories and panaceas, but with the living
actualities of trade and production.

"Ain't it grand what the likes of him does for the likes of me!" thought
Mr. Feeny in a pause, and then again that soft voice opened up fresh
regions for him.

He saw that what Mr. MacCandlish called the law of supply and
demand--which he seemed to hold in the very tenderest regard--regulated
things. He saw, too, that millionaires were only far-sighted individuals
who had mastered the fact that what the world tossed aside to-day it
would urgently need to-morrow, and garnered this waste, exacting a small
margin of profit for the service.

"It's great!" Mr. Feeny told himself in a spent whisper. "I go somewhere
as far as I can get, and raise things--no matter what--and then one of
these here capitalists comes along and says: 'Feeny, me boy, how are
your crops? I've one end of a thousand miles of railroad track at your
front gate for to haul 'em away with.' No wonder they're well paid...
'tis right they should be,--I begrudge 'em nothing."

"And after all"--it was Mr. MacCandlish speaking--"let us see what
actual advantages the millionaire has, what does his money buy him in
excess of what another may have? A little better shelter perhaps, more
costly clothes, and his three meals a day!"

"'Tis true," thought Mr. Feeny. "They'd bust if they et oftener, the
way they feed; and as for clothes, I've seen their lady friends with far
less on than a workin' man's wife'd think decent."

Mr. Feeny had entered that building a rather heedless person who got
drunk at every port of call, and who knew the inside of every calaboose
in every flea-bitten center of civilization along the Caribbean, but
he was to quit it a groping intellectualist with a germ lodged in his
brain that was to fructify.

Mr. Feeny boarded the _Orinoco_ of the Gulf and Mexican Transportation
Line a chastened spirit. His last hours ashore, and the last of his
wages, had been spent in a second-hand book-shop where he had acquired
three books that, under various titles, dealt with the burning question
of why the other fellow happens to have it all; a condition that is much
older than political economy, just as language is older than grammar.
Now the _Orinoco_, newly scraped and painted as to staterooms and gilded
saloons where the eye and foot of Mr. Feeny never penetrated, had been
chartered for a mid-winter cruise. Mr. Feeny heard this directly from
one of his mates, Tom Murphy, who had it from an oiler, who had it from
the second assistant engineer.

"It's a party of magnates," he explained. "We're to have close on to a
billion dollars aboard,--live weight, you understand. MacCandlish, the
big railroad man--you've heard of him in the papers, Feeny--is one of
the bunch, and they've got a Protestant bishop along,--but I don't think
much of the likes of him!" In theory, at least, Mr. Murphy was an ardent
churchman.

"For what are they usin' this old hooker?" demanded Feeny.

"They're goin' down to have a look at mines in Mexico," said Murphy.

Mr. Feeny's first keen lust for wisdom survived the days of heavy toil
that were his portion.

"But I've read hotter stuff," he told himself one black night when he
had been at sea ten days. He lay in his bunk and listened to the heavy
seas break under the _Orinoco's_ quarter. This was varied by mighty
shivers when the racing screw fanned the air. And then suddenly it was
as if tons and tons of water with the weight of lead, and driven by
some vast power, had dropped on the _Orinoco_. Mr. Feeny sprang from his
bunk. His first instinct was to rush for the deck, but thoughts of his
mates in the stoke-hole sent him down the iron ladders that gave access
to the vitals of the ship. As he gained the engine-room, the stokers
burst out of their steel-walled pen, and after them came a rush of
steam.

"All out?" roared Feeny.

"All out," some one bellowed in return, and they began swarming up the
ladders, Feeny leaping from round to round in advance. At last, spent
and breathless, they issued into the black night.

Then came a second shock. A mighty sea lifted the _Orinoco_, three
thousand tons of steel and wood, and tossed her like a cork against
something that did not yield to the terrific impact. Mr. Feeny picked
himself up from among his fellows.

"She's aground,--and no thanks to her!" he bawled.

"The crew's gone with the boats!" said some one in his ear.

"Is that you, Tom Murphy? Let's see what's come of the millionaires!"

Mr. Feeny, chastely garmented in an undershirt, and with a wind-blown
halo of red hair, invaded the smoking-room. His mates, naked to the
waist and grimy from their toil, but showing patches of white skin here
and there where the waves had touched them, slouched at his heels. They
found that Capital was just getting on its feet. MacCandlish, his ruddy
cheeks the color of Carrara marble, was crawling out from under a
table where he had been thrown; the others of his party were variously
scattered about the room.

"Yer left," said Feeny dispassionately. "Like us, yer left,--for
the captain's gone with his crew. I'd recommend you lifted the large
armchair off the stomach of the fat gentleman on the floor in the
corner, he's breathing hard and quite purple," and Mr. Feeny having thus
delivered himself, withdrew with his mates.

"'Twas a shame for the captain to leave 'em. I hope he drowns..." said
Feeny. "For duty's duty,--which reminds me that I'm the oldest man in
the stoke-hole with more tons of coal to my credit than you'll equal
even if you're given length of days, so I'll serve notice on ye, one and
all,--I'm skipper!"

A wan light was lifting out of the east. It spread over the tossing seas
and under the low ragged clouds that the gale sent hurrying into the
south.

"There's land!" cried Mr. Feeny. Peering through the saline reek of
the storm, they saw first a narrow spit of land, and here and there a
stunted palmetto. Then as the light spread, higher ground, dense with a
tropic growth; while beyond was the sea again, a long restless line of
blue that backed against the horizon.

Mr. MacCandlish and his friends issued from the saloon and worked their
way along the bulwark to the group of stokers.

"Well?" said the millionaire, and he addressed himself to Feeny.

"I'm thinking, sir, we'd best leave the old hooker when the sea ca'ms
down a bit. Yonder's one of the life-boats hanging to its davits.
Presently we'll h'ist it over the side and go ashore," said Feeny.

"Then you don't think we are in any imminent peril?" asked Mr.
MacCandlish.

"That feelin' you got comes mainly from an empty stomach," said Mr.
Feeny soothingly. "Here, Tom Murphy! you see if you can get these
gentlemen their breakfast." He himself went below and accumulated a pair
of trousers.

Then under his immediate direction breakfast was served in the saloon,
while the stokers browsed about the forward deck. With hot coffee life
took on a changed aspect; also Mr. Feeny's assured manner and the close
proximity of the island combined to contribute their measure of hope
to the minds and hearts of all. It was mid-morning, however, before Mr.
Feeny declared it was not too great a hazard to attempt a landing, and
to his "Easy, Murphy... easy, I say, Tom Murphy... Easy!" in a rising
crescendo, the boat dropped into the water.

"Hurroar!" cried Mr. Feeny.

"Well done, my men!--very well done, indeed!" said Mr. MacCandlish.

"Splendid, true lads,--all of them!" murmured the bishop.

"If you'll step lively, sir, we'll have you dry shod on terry-firmy in a
jiffy!" said Feeny.

Within an hour after they had effected a landing it had been definitely
ascertained that the island was not inhabited.

"That bein' the case," said Mr. Feeny, "I think I would best put the
b'ys to work fetchin' off supplies. What do you think, sir?"

"Oh, by all means." It was Mr. MacCandlish who answered him. He and his
friends were peacefully resting in the shade of a group of palms.
"And will you have an eye to our personal belongings? Our trunks and
hand-bags, I mean?"

"I'll have them fetched off immediate," said Mr. Feeny.

All that afternoon he and his mates tugged at boxes and bales, or
sweated at the oars. At dusk they stopped for a bite to eat, and to rig
up a shelter of awnings for the millionaires.

"I'm doubtful about the weather," Mr. Feeny explained as he came up
from the boat, his shoulders piled high with mattresses. "And bein'
as there's a full moon to-night, we'll just bring off what more of the
stores we can."

And at midnight when Mr. MacCandlish strolled out under the tropic moon
for a last look about before turning in, he heard the voice of Feeny and
the voices of Feeny's mates as they raged at their work. If the stokers
slept that night, none of the millionaires could have told the space of
time Mr. Feeny allotted to them for repose; for in the rosy dawn,
when they ran down to the shore for a plunge in the surf, there midway
between the wreck and the island was the life-boat piled high with
stores. And all that day the work went on without pause. Only Murphy,
with frying pan and coffee pot, snatched a few moments from his toil to
minister to the comfort of the party under the awnings.

That night the wind slued round to the south and blew a gale; and when
morning broke, the _Orinoco_ had vanished finally from the sight of men.

"'Tis organization I'm teachin' the b'ys," explained Mr. Feeny.

"Ah!... organization," said Mr. MacCandlish.

"I've knowed about it since that night in New York when I heard you give
'em the talk in the theayter. It was great!"

"Were you there, Feeny?" asked MacCandlish.

This was the most subtle flattery he had ever known.

"Was I there? Drunk or sober, it was Mike Feeny's best day ashore! I
been a understandin', reasonin' man ever since I listened to you.
Supply and demand,--the problem of civilization, the problem of
distribution,--bearin' this in mind I've divided the work. Tom Murphy's
something of a cook, so I've app'inted him to the grub division, with
Sullivan and the Portuguese to help. Corrigan, and Pete, the Swede, will
bring our supplies up as we need 'em from the point where the salvage is
stored. And I've put O'Hara to oysterin' for the good of the community.
The other lads will work as comes handiest."

"You are showing excellent judgment, my man," said MacCandlish warmly.

Just at dusk that night, Mr. Feeny, in the presence of the stokers,
hoisted a queer-looking flag down by the camp where he and his mates
lived. Then standing with bared head beneath the fluttering pennant, he
said:

"I pronounce these here the United States of Ireland!... In conference
with Mister Murphy, I've decided on a Declaration of Independence and
a Constitution which you can ask about if you're at all curious. If you
ain't--I'll say this much for it,--we're opposed to anarchy, communism
and socialism. We believe in the sacred rights of property--which is
only another name for salvage. We believe, too, that the law of supply
and demand is a great law, and well adapted for to take healthy root in
this climate. We will now proceed to vote for Mike Feeny for president;
Tom Murphy, police judge; Jack Corrigan, alderman; and Pete, the Swede,
cop. 'Tis right the foreigners we have should hold some of the jobs.
And now the elections bein' happily over, we'll just leave the public at
large to discover what's been done for to make life brighter and easier
for it."

Knowing nothing of those vicissitudes through which the island was
passing, the public slept soundly, and after a refreshing plunge in the
sea was ready for breakfast. But no smiling Murphy appeared. No Sullivan
and no Portuguese came to do its bidding. Presently Mr. Feeny hove in
sight swinging along the sands.

"Hurroar!" he cried. "We're organized,--completely organized! The law
of supply and demand had adjusted herself to her surroundings, and Mike
Feeny's the student of political economy what's done it!"

"Eh? What's all this, Feeny? And what's become of that loafer Murphy?"
demanded Mr. MacCandlish.

"You go down with me to the new hotel tent, the St. Murphy-Feeny we
call it, to typify the spiritual as well as the spirituous needs of man.
Cooks is scarce,--they perform a necessary and useful function. So do
waiters,--pickin' up food in the kitchen and distributin' it under the
pa'ms. I hope you have your wads handy, for Mister Murphy's now doin' a
cash business. Says he: 'We're a prosperous people. Things is naturally
high; they'll be higher yet, by the grace of Heaven!'"

"What is this crazy drivel?" said MacCandlish petulantly.

"Why hasn't breakfast been served us?" inquired the bishop, with marked
asperity of manner. Feeny had fallen in his esteem.

"I am telling you what Mister Murphy says down at the Murphy-Feeny.
Says he: 'Them great staples, Scotch whisky and bottled beer, is scarce,
while such luxuries as bread and tinned stuff is reasonably abundant but
firm in price, with every indication of a sharp advance. But,' says
he, 'the per capita wealth of this nation's phenomenal, and it's evenly
distributed--or will be in the near future.'"

Mr. MacCandlish's brother-in-law laughed aloud at this. Since his
marriage to the millionaire's sister, prices had not greatly troubled
him; the cost of living could soar or sink, it was all one, and this
cheerful optimism had packed the fat on his ample frame. But Mr.
MacCandlish's business associates were built on more meager lines, and
were of sterner stuff. They had, when expedient, ordered shut-downs and
lock-outs with entire composure; and they had not scorned to profit by
short crops to boost the price of bread. But MacCandlish shook his head.
Feeny continued:

"I've vaccinated this coal-heavin' bunch with this here political
economy serum, and it's took with every mother's son of 'em. They
were ignorant cusses five days back, but now they are practical men of
affairs."

"If this is a joke--" began Mr. MacCandlish.

"Do I look like I'd joke?" demanded Mr. Feeny. "It's system I'm telling
you about,--the elimination of haphazard methods of distribution, for
one thing. Now there's Corrigan, a husky lad with a good back and a
strong pair of arms, him and Pete, the Swede, has become common
carriers for the good of all,--you'll find none commoner anywhere.
The Portuguese's buildin' a fence about the bananas and cocoanuts
preparatory to puttin' a price on 'em. He's a taste for farmin' and
is aimin' to develop the natural resources of this island. By the same
token, Corrigan's gone into the poultry business with them turtles, and
O'Hara's adopted the oyster beds. He says there's a future in oysters.
He looks for a short crop, as he's got no gum boots and is timid about
gettin' his feet wet,--but with prices fair, and constantly tendin'
higher round the R in February."

They had reached what Mr. Feeny called the hotel tent. The _Orinoco's_
awnings had been used with admirable effect, and across the front of
the canvas edifice was displayed a sign with letters two feet high, "St.
Murphy-Feeny. European Plan." The humor of the situation seemed lost on
Mr. MacCandlish and his party; only the stout brother-in-law laughed,
but a hostile glance from the eye of a friend caused him to repress his
mirth.

"Mister Murphy's prepared to cater for you at them prices that has the
indorsement of the Hotel Trust," said Mr. Feeny.

"I denounce this as an iniquitous outrage! It's downright piracy!"
sputtered Mr. MacCandlish, very red in the face.

"Easy," said Mr. Feeny soothingly. "We made a fair split with the
salvage, but feelin' that you'd prefer to have the whole of your
personal belongin's we let 'em offset the ship's stores. Now do you be
reasonable! Mr. Murphy says he'll have no rough-house for his. Any man
that's white and willin' to behave himself can feed here. For such
as can't conform to these simple rules, Pete, the Swede, will do the
bouncin'; 'twill be one, two, three and out ye go to the inquest. I
little thought, Mr. MacCandlish, sir, I'd have to p'int out to you of
all men the fairness of this arrangement," continued Mr. Feeny severely.
"Ain't it highly necessary you should be fed and looked after? You can't
well do that for yourself, havin' outgrowed the habit; and you're too
busy playing poker, when you ain't eatin' and sleepin', to rightly know
what you do need----"

"Bridge!" snapped Mr. MacCandlish.

"It's cards, ain't it? Well, the b'ys and me have agreed to take the job
of caring for you off your hands. Having saved the salvage from the sea,
we are minded to turn an honest penny with it, but owin' to the scarcity
of the necessities of life and bein' aware that none know better than
yourselves that the value of a thing depends on how hard it is to get,
the St. Murphy-Feeny will adopt a scale of prices that will compare
favorably with what you're used to in New York, at them places that's
run for the millionaire trade. I've heard in the papers of your eatin'
meals costin' twenty dollars a plate, and that sometimes your lady
friends dissolves pearls and di'monds in the apple vinegar for to take
away that cheap taste; we can't give you di'monds and pearls, nor yet
'lectric lights, but we can give you prices--" Mr. Feeny rested a
long forefinger against the side of his nose. "Maybe we can go 'em one
better--Mister Murphy, how is it with ham and eggs this day?"

"With two eggs?" asked Murphy.

"With two eggs," said Mr. Feeny.

"To be served one person?"

"To be served one person. I hope you'd have too much self-respect for to
let a customer split his order!" said Mr. Feeny.

"I would,--I'd bust his crust," said Murphy. "Twenty dollars if the eggs
is fried on one side, thirty dollars if they're fried on both sides. The
extra labor makes this slight difference in price. I would mention, too,
that the privilege of shakin' the pepper castor onced on your vittles is
five dollars. Rates for more extended service on application."

"Well, no one has to eat here unless he wants to," said Mr. Feeny.

"You never said a truer word, Mike Feeny. They can go hungry if they
like."

Now finance is a big subject, but Mr. Feeny and his mates attacked
it' with the same energy they would have attacked a bunker of coal,
consequently prices performed miracles in the way of change; but as
Mr. Feeny had prophesied, they constantly tended higher; also their
prevalence was wide-spread; for that red-headed student of political
economy resolutely fixed a value to each service and to every necessity.

At first MacCandlish had been disposed to negotiate checks, with the
disingenuous intention of later stopping payment on them, but Feeny held
out firmly for cash.

"When that's all gone, we'll take over your paper," he said. "I'm
thinkin' of starting a bank for to accommodate it; but as long as your
money lasts we'll just keep on doin' a nice cash business."

And MacCandlish submitted, but with a very bad grace, to what he
regarded as the iniquitous exactions of the stokers. Always before when
prices had been high, he had directly benefited; indeed, high prices and
good times had been synonymous terms with him.

It was an added strain that the castaways were his guests. Under the
circumstances it required all that decision of character for which he
was rightly famous to suggest that they stop eating. But he pointed out
that if they did this, there must come inevitable collapse to Feeny's
elaborate commercial system; it was merely a matter of principle, he
explained; and early one morning he led his friends to the far end
of the island, where they would be remote from temptation and the
allurements of the St. Murphy-Feeny.

"We'll presently bring those scoundrels to their senses," he said.
"We'll freeze 'em out and dictate our own terms."

"I think you've managed this all wrong!" said his brother-in-law
gloomily.

"How so?" snapped the great man.

"I'd have started the boycott after breakfast. If we must starve for
a principle, I for one should prefer not to do it on an empty stomach.
I've always regarded breakfast as a most important meal--the keystone of
the day, as it were. No, certainly I should not think of beginning to go
hungry until after I had breakfasted,--it's an awful handicap!"

The bishop spoke dreamily of lunch. He made it clear that he rather
sided with the brother-inlaw. He admitted that he had frequently gone
without lunch; it could be managed where one had anticipated such a
contingency--but breakfast and dinner--the good man sighed deeply.

"You'll probably have an opportunity to try going without both," said
MacCandlish tartly.

The bishop groaned outright at this, and fell to gathering wild flowers
for his herbarium. He wandered farther and farther afield in his quest.
After a time the brother-in-law observed that he had disappeared along
the sands. A gleam of quiet intelligence flashed from his eyes. He rose
languidly from the fallen log on which he had been sitting and sauntered
off without so much as a glance at MacCandlish.

"Where are you going?" demanded MacCandlish sharply.

"I am going to look for the bishop," said his brother-in-law with
dignity, and he, too, vanished along the sands.

The sun soared higher and higher above the palms and burned splendidly
in the blue western arch of the heavens. MacCandlish, watching its
flight, reflected grimly but with satisfaction that he had shepherded
his little flock safely past the luncheon hour. Presently one of the
castaways expressed great anxiety concerning the bishop, and declared
his purpose of going immediately in search of him. Two others of
the party were quickened to sympathetic interest in this project and
announced their willingness to share in it.

The sun sank toward the heaving restless blue of the ocean. In distant
peaceful centers of life, happy millionaires were beginning to think of
dinner. Realizing this, Mr. MacCandlish experienced a poignant moment,
and felt his Spartan fortitude go from him. He turned to speak to one
of his friends, and discovered that he was entirely alone. He glanced
warily about him, and then stole off through the jungle in the direction
of the St. Murphy-Feeny.

He was not wholly surprised when he found that his friends had preceded
him thither. They were clustered sadly about Mr. Feeny, who was
explaining that the St. Murphy-Feeny was temporarily closed to the
public.

"They've gone on a strike, the b'ys have. Capital's in the kitchen and
labor's out under the pa'ms, both full of principle and strong drink.
It's a private matter between the two, only it's my belief you'll get no
dinner this day. 'Compromise,' says I to Murphy. 'Compromise--nothin'!'
says Murphy to me. 'I'll teach them dogs they can't run my
business,--it's me private affair.' 'Think of your public,' says I. 'The
public be damned!' says he. And there you are! It's the conflict of two
opposin' ideas,--as they say in one of me books. Just like it is when
the trolley's tied up and you have to walk five miles to get home."

Mr. Feeny sighed. "I'm thinkin' Mister Murphy will have to h'ist his
prices to make good this day's loss. 'Tis wonderful how easy political
economy is to learn when you put your mind to it... but dinner's got a
black eye."

"What's the row about, Feeny?" asked Mr. MacCandlish. Hunger tempered
the visible manifestations of his indignation, but a hard steely glitter
lurked in the corners of his eyes. It boded ill for Mr. Feeny when they
left that island.

"You upset the delicate balance holdin' supply and demand steady on
their jobs, when you quit eatin' this mornin', Mr. MacCandlish. It
immejiately provoked hard feelin's between Mister Murphy of the Hotel
Trust and Mr. Sullivan and the Portuguese of the Labor Combine. As I've
just been explainin' to your friends,--I hate these strikes,--there's
the loss in wages to labor, and the cripplin' effect on capital. The
Portuguese and Mister O'Hara of the Oyster Trust are figuring up what
it's cost them, and Mister Corrigan of the Poultry Trust is hoppin' mad.
Eggs is a natural breakfast food, he says, and he's the heaviest loser.
They tell me, too, that he so far forgot himself as to put his foot in
the Swede's face, closin' one eye and giving his nose a strong list to
starboard. Just why he done so I ain't rightly learned, but it must
have been along of feelin' peevish about the outlook for the poultry
business. You see, _I_ can do nothing,--and, anyhow, I'm thinkin' of
foundin' a library where you can go for to improve your minds.... 'The
Feeny Foundation,--Established by Michael Feeny, 1910. A University
of the People, endowed by Michael Feeny.' Can you think where the name
could be introduced again without seemin' a mere repetition? Mister
Murphy's decided to have a 'Ospital for his. 'What's a Captain of
Industry without his little fad?' says he. 'Vittles may cost a trifle
more, but I'll have my 'Ospital,' he says."

Mr. MacCandlish had forsaken the group that clustered about Feeny, and
stolen to the back door of the St. Murphy-Feeny with burglarious intent;
but he heard the voices of men within and the clink of glasses, and
turned mournfully away. As he hid so his glance fell on Mister Murphy's
garbage can. In that instant hunger overcame him. He snatched up the
can and fled with it. He had almost reached a sheltering growth of palms
when Feeny caught sight of him and raised the alarm.

Mr. MacCandlish's Marathon was soon run, for as he bounded into the
bush he heard Feeny close at his heels, and a second later the stoker's
muscular hand seized him by the collar of his coat.

"No violence!" panted the bishop, as, purplefaced, he gained a place at
Feeny's side.

Mr. Feeny surveyed the millionaire with a glance of scornful pity.

"I little thought that you'd be the first to ignore the sacred rights of
property, Mr. Mac-Candlish, sir," he said. "'Tis no excuse that you're
hungry. What's moral on a full stomach remains moral on a empty stomach.
The eternal principles of right and wrong ain't made to fit the shape
of a man's belly,--and the likes of you... the friend of presidents and
kings... to swipe a garbage can!" concluded Feeny, but more in sorrow
than in anger.

In the golden dawn a week later, a rapturous shout from Mr. MacCandlish
called his friends from their tent. He was standing on the beach, frozen
into a tense and rigid attitude.

"Look!" he gasped, pointing.

There, anchored off the end of the island, was a small and dingy-looking
steamer, but the sight of it gladdened the hearts of the castaways.
Pajama clad, they cavorted along the sands, whooping gleefully. Then,
as they rounded a wooded point, they came on the stokers. Near at hand a
ship's boat was beached, and two barelegged sailors were hunting turtle
eggs; while a third stranger was engaged in earnest conversation with
Feeny. Mr. MacCandlish swore.

"My dear friend...," admonished the bishop, greatly shocked.

"It's an English tramp--the _Nairn_," said Feeny pleasantly, as he
turned toward them. "We sighted her along afore day and h'isted signals.
This gentleman's her skipper. He was bound for Para, but he's taken a
fresh charter and'll land us in New York inside of two weeks, barring
the risk of the high seas and the acts of Providence--No, no, Mr.
MacCandlish," as the millionaire edged toward the _Nairn's_ skipper,
"a bargain's a bargain,--and the contract's signed. The ship's already
under charter. But you'll find Mike Feeny always ready for to do
business when he sees a chance to turn an honest dollar. I'm as willin'
to speculate in transportation as in vittles. The _Nairn_ ain't a
Cunarder,--far from it,--but she'll land you in New York at two thousand
a head; which gives us a nice profit."

Two hours later the _Nairn_ was steaming north, and Feeny was watching
the island as it merged with the blue obscurity of sky and sea; while
from the after deck Mr. MacCandlish cast menacing glances in his
direction. It was evident that his feelings toward that self-taught
political economist were unbenevolent in the extreme. Somewhere about
him was concealed much cash, and those many, many checks, which he
intended to recover when they reached New York and he could invoke the
aid of the law.

Now Mr. Feeny cherished no illusions on this point; and one night, as
the _Nairn_ was steaming up the Jersey coast, he called his mates about
him.

"I misdoubt me philantrophic friend, Mr. Mac-Candlish. He's showin'
a peevish spirit, I'm thinkin'. After all, he's no real political
economist, but just a cheap skate who's played a sure thing so long he's
got no sportin' blood left. If we put them bits of paper in at the bank
for to take our money out, we'll get pinched instead,--he told me as
much."

"What might you have it in your mind to suggest, Mister Feeny?" asked
Mr. Corrigan.

"Go to some tall buildin' on Broadway, and have a talk with one of them
big lawyers."

Thus it came about that as Mr. Hargrew, whose specialty was corporation
law, was glancing over his mail the next morning, a low-voiced clerk
informed him that one Feeny earnestly desired speech with him.

"He's Irish, and has a couple of men with him. It looks like the
executive council of some labor union," the clerk added.

"Show them in," said the lawyer.

"Mornin'," said Mr. Feeny.

"Good morning," said the lawyer.

"Feeny's me name, and I'm a retired Captain of Industry from the United
States of Ireland. If you've read the mornin' papers you've seen how
that other great Captain of Industry, Mr. MacCandlish, and a party of
friends was picked up off an island in the Gulf of Mexico."

The lawyer nodded.

"Yes, I've read about that," he said.

"We was the _Orinoco's_ coal heavers. It's us that saved the lives of
them babes of millionaires. We stood by them when the sailors had quit
the ship, we salvaged the wreck, and fed and tended 'em. We done all the
hard work, and organized a government, and made that island so homelike
you couldn't have told it from New York. Everything was legal, and I ask
you if the rise in the price of staples wasn't a natural rise, owin' to
the law of supply and demand?"

The lawyer laughed and shook his head. "Wait!" said Mr. Feeny. "I'll
say nothin' of the trouble it was to care for 'em, nor the spirit they
showed,--how Mr. MacCandlish was caught escapin' into the pa'ms with a
can from the back door of the St. Murphy-Feeny, where Mister Murphy of
the Hotel Trust chucked his broken vittles--you might call it garbage
and not misname it. When he was captured and fetched back penitent, I
said to him: 'Mr. MacCandlish, I never thought you'd be one of the first
to ignore the sacred rights of property,' and what he answered would be
a case for libel if I had the mind to push it. Now, if stealin' isn't
stealin', what is it?" The lawyer appeared to consider.

"I got a roll of their checks as big round as a strong man's arm, and
I'm lookin' for a way to get 'em cashed without gettin' pinched meself,"
said Mr. Feeny.

"And you wish me to arrange this if possible?" said the lawyer, smiling.
"I am not sure I can, but if you like you may leave those checks with
me and I'll see what I can do; wait a moment until I run them over, and
give you an acknowledgment." When he had done so, he looked up into Mr.
Feeny's long sad face and whistled softly. Then he looked again at the
bundle of checks and again at Mr. Feeny, who seemed to understand.

"We was a prosperous people," he said.

"You were, indeed. Is this all, Mr. Feeny?"

"There was some cash... all they had, I remember to have heard them
say," answered Mr. Feeny.

"You may come this afternoon somewhere about four."

And that afternoon when Mr. Feeny, punctual to the second, presented
himself with Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Murphy, the first thing his sad eyes
saw was a neat pile of bills on the corner of Mr. Hargrew's desk.

"The full amount is here, Mr. Feeny," said the lawyer. "That incident of
the garbage can was an important point in the adjustment of your claim.
Yours must have been a profoundly interesting social experiment."

"I dunno as I should call it that," said Mr. Feeny modestly. "For it's
my opinion there's nothin' easier than political economy. The mistake
most people makes is in havin' the demands instead of the supply," and
Mr. Feeny permitted himself to smile.




ALL THAT A MAN HATH


I


THE pen slipped from Philip's fingers and unheeded rolled across the
table, while with a sigh of weariness he abandoned himself to idleness.
Resting his elbows upon the table, he sunk his chin into the palms of
his hands and gazed listlessly out of the window on the street below.
The cold gray light of the dull October afternoon was almost at an end;
already the street-lamps were beginning to flare forth redly in bold
relief against the gathering gloom of the coming night.

To Philip it was a dispiriting and cheerless prospect, heightened by the
winter's first chill breath. He had seen it all so often; if he could
only see the last of it. Each year brought back those same dull days,
with their leaden skies to fit into his worst mood of despair
and longing and unfulfillment. He felt himself starved in mind and
experience. He was conscious always of a fierce desire for something
different--that broader life to which he could not go, and which would
not come to him.

*Written at the age of 20.

Slowly his eyes came back to the table and a settled seriousness stole
into them as he looked at the manuscript lying upon it.

"I fancy it will be a go this time," he thought, "but"--a bit sadly--"I
have thought that so many times, and somehow I am just where I was in
the start. No nearer success, no nearer anything--except perhaps the end
of my hope and faith in myself."

He had risen and now stood looking down at the table with its litter of
paper, pens and letters... and rising from the midst of the disorder--a
mountain of hope--the pile of manuscript. It had meant days and weeks
of labor: days when he had striven with enthusiasm for its completion;
days, too, that had been given up to the savage denying of his mistrust
and doubt. Through these and his varying moods he had toiled, and at
last his task was approaching its end.

Turning, Philip left the room and descended to the narrow hall below.
Here it was already quite dark. He fumbled about until he found his hat
and overcoat, and after getting into them made his way back through
the parlor and sitting-room to the dining-room where his mother was
arranging the supper table.

"Oh, it is you, Philip," she said, glancing up from her work. "I heard
you in the hall and thought it must be the girls returning."

Mrs. Southard was a woman of fifty with a strong placid face that had
taken comparatively few lines. Her dress was of the simplest black, and
severely plain. It had been black ever since Philip could remember, for
his father had died when he was a baby.

While Philip was conscious that his small world had changed much in
the years that marked the limits of his memory, his mother was still
precisely the same as he recalled her, returning to his first vague
impression of people and things. She was not and had never been an
intellectual woman perhaps, but to him she stood for that which was
most steadfast and purposeful. Nor was she hard with all her splendid
strength. Her judgments were infinitely more generous than those of most
women.

"You are not going out, Philip?" his mother asked, observing that he was
ready for the street. "It's almost supper-time."

"I won't keep you waiting, mother; I am just going down-town to post
some letters."

"Yes, dear, but do be here for supper."

"I shall be."

He turned back into the sitting-room, intending to leave the house by
the side door. His mother followed him, and on the threshold he faced
her again.

"What is it?" he asked, "anything you want from down-town?"

"No, dear, only I haven't told you, and I wish to now. I expect Anson
home to-night. He will remain over Sunday. Do be nice to him."

She spoke appealingly, for Philip's face darkened at the news.

"Am I not always nice to him? I mean to be for your sake."

"Yes, but you seem so far apart, and you are brothers."

"Oh, it's all right, mother, and we get along peaceably enough,
considering how we hate each other. There, dear, you can't reconcile the
utterly unreconcilable, so don't spend your precious strength in trying
to."

And Philip, closing the door after him, went down the steps and into
the street. "So," he muttered, "Anson will be here to-morrow and I shall
have to endure his presence for at least a part of one penitential day."

The one cordial emotion that the brothers shared in common was hatred
one for the other. As children they had eased this rancor by a frequent
exchange of blows, but now, unhappily for their peace of mind, they were
past that sort of thing.

The street Philip was following took him straight to the center of the
town and into the midst of Saturday's crowd. It was such a gathering as
one might see in almost any country town on the last day of the week:
self-conscious and uncomfortable, in ugly ill-fitting "best clothes".
The business of the day was over, and the crowd paraded up and down the
main street, or back and forth across the Square. Philip pushed his way
into it with assertive elbows. He crossed the squalid Square with its
soldier's monument and its few stunted trees that stubbornly declined to
grow and as stubbornly refused to die. From the Square he turned into
a side street that led past the post-office. Here he posted his letters
and paused in front of the building, undecided where next to go. As
he stood there a man who had been leaning against an iron railing that
surrounded an area way left his position and slouched up to Philip's
side. The latter scanned the shabby figure with some uncertainty, then
he said: "Oh, it's you, Lester?"--and held out his hand. His greeting
was so lacking in cordiality, however, that Lester ignored the proffered
hand.

"If you prefer to be alone," he growled, "why don't you say so?"

Where they stood the lamplight fell upon his face--the face of a lad
of twenty-two or three--stupid and sullen and debased. But Philip saw
a look of such abject loneliness in his eyes that he placed his hand on
the boy's shoulder: "Come on, Lester," he said, and together they went
down the street and away from the town. "What are you doing?" Philip
asked presently.

"What I have always done--nothing."

"When one hasn't anything else to do it's about the most agreeable
of all occupations," Philip observed. He noticed that his companion's
unsteady gait indicated a recent debauch, but this did not prejudice him
since he attributed all moral delinquencies to a lack of sense, and so
readily condoned them on the grounds of inferior judgment.

A boyish friendship, almost forgotten, was all they had in common.
Philip searched his mind for some topic of conversation that might
interest his companion, but finally gave it up and they trudged along in
silence.

They reached the outskirts of the town in this manner and Philip was
about to turn back.

"Let's go on to the end of the road," said Lester with sudden interest.
"It isn't far," he added, for his companion hesitated.

"Oh, all right, only I hope you don't take this walk often, Lester,"
Philip said with a laugh, for the road ended at the graveyard.

Five minutes later and they were standing before the cemetery gates.
The pale light of the October moon fell among the naked trees, while
the dead leaves rustled in the wind. There was the ghostly white of
tombstone and monument and the dismal black of contrasting pine trees.
Philip leaned against the fence and surveyed it all critically. He owned
that he was grateful to Lester for having brought him there. It gave him
a distinct sensation.

"I am rather set against graveyards as a rule, but this is nice and
curious and lonely," he said. Lester did not answer him and Philip
continued: "I haven't been out here in years. I guess not since we
buried Mr. Benedict. Do you remember when we buried Mr. Benedict,
Lester? I recall it as one of the most gratifying events of my
childhood. I got a whole day from school in honor of the affair." Philip
raised himself on tiptoe and peered over the fence.

Lester paid no heed to Philip nor to what he was saying. He leaned
silent and sullen against a tree that stood by the path, and gazed
off into the frosty distance in the direction of the town. Out of this
distance there floated a confusion of sounds--harmonized and softened by
time and place; while through it all, clinging to the heavy atmosphere,
drifted the odor of burning leaves and the musty scent of dying
vegetation. There was a touch of sad regret in the night as though
something that had been beautiful was ended. The boy felt this in its
kinship to the ruin he had wrought in his own life.

"You are no doubt wondering why I spoke to you," he said at last.

Philip nodded his head: "You know, Lester, we haven't had much to do
with each other in some while."

"I want to talk with you."

"Well, go ahead, for it has just occurred to me that I promised to be
home in time for supper."

Lester turned a pair of bloodshot eyes full on Philip and asked: "You
think I have been a fool, don't you?"

Philip shifted his feet uneasily. He felt that truth played such an
insignificant part in the exercise of civility.

"You think I have been a fool?" Lester repeated.

"Before I answer that I'd like to know why you ask. You see the reason
that prompts an inquiry is more than apt to determine its answer with
me. I always wish to give satisfaction."

"I ask because I'd like to know what you think of me. I don't suppose
you have any sort of use for me. You don't know, Philip, how bad I have
wanted some one to talk to for days and days--some one who is not like
myself. And when I saw you to-night, I made up my mind that you should
hear what I have to say. I can't keep it any longer--my head will burst
if I do--can you listen?"

"Go ahead,--I'm listening."

"For the most part it's nothing but what you know. It's just about my
being such a fool. Yes, yes--and it's more than that!"

Philip saw that he was powerfully excited, that there were tears in the
eyes of this boy, with a man's heavy burden of sin on his shoulders.

"You know about the money I got when I came of age; the money my father
left me when he died. I--you know what a circus I made of myself. How
every last cent of it is gone?"

"Yes, it's the gossip--and I hear it."

Lester paced back and forth in front of Philip for a moment, and then
leaned dejectedly against a tree.

"When you talked about how it used to be when we were boys, I could
have choked you. I wish I were back to it, with these last years to live
over!" He paused, trembling with excitement and sorrow. "When I got hold
of my money you shook me off and would have nothing more to do with me."

"I hadn't the time, Lester. I was busy and you were not. Our tastes had
ceased to be the same, that was all. You should not bear me a grudge on
that score."

"I don't--I like you the better for it--you are the only fellow I can
talk to. I know if you have any sympathy for me it rests on what I was
when we tramped around the country in vacation time. How I wish I might
go back to it and be a boy once more--once more!"

With a gesture of anguish he drew his hand across his face. Perhaps he
sought to hide some part of the pain that was plainly stamped upon his
woebegone visage. He had been so proud of his very misdeeds--and now----

"I have a lot of sympathy for you, Lester; just a lot, and I am sorry
for you, too."

"Thank you, Philip; I suppose I deserve all I get. I have been such a
cad!--such a cub! I spent in two years and less what it took my father
all his life to save. It will be a long while before I get hold of such
a lump again, and if I have to make it, probably never. You know how,
when I came of age, I was taken up by fellows much older than myself. My
head was completely turned by my popularity--well, it lasted for a while
then quite suddenly I found myself with empty pockets and no friends.
People discovered all at once that I was shockingly immoral. They might
have known it all along if they had cared to. I never made any bones
about it. I was no better and no worse than those I went with. Now I am
an outcast. The fellows who helped me on to this don't see me any more.
I have the road to myself when I go down-town: everybody gets out of
my way, but this is nothing--if it were no more than this I should not
mind."

"What else is it that's wrong?" said Philip, beginning to find the boy's
confession interesting.

He was feeling a certain solicitude for the harvester of wild oats.
They had been close friends once, and at not so very long ago either.
Lester's plunge into folly had terminated their intimacy--the friendship
had become irksome to both--for months they had scarcely exchanged more
than greetings when they chanced to meet, and all in an instant Lester
was sweeping him back to the years when they had been inseparable. With
a palpable effort Lester continued:

"I've got all sorts of habits that are ruining me, as sure as I stand
here--they are--and I can't stop. If I can get the money I am going
away. Maybe it will be better then."

"Come, come--brace up! There is no good in running away. I doubt if it
will improve matters."

"No, I can't stay."

"I should if I were you. I should wait for a fitting opportunity and get
even with all my former acquaintances in some dazzling fashion."

Philip spoke cheerfully enough, but the tone of his voice was pleasantly
suggestive of manslaughter as the method he would recommend.

"What do I care for the damned Judases!" Lester burst out. "All I want
is to see the last of them." Then suddenly he relapsed into sullenness;
"I don't know that it's worth the trouble," he said. "I might just as
well finish it off and be done with the whole thing one time as another.
I have thrown my money to the dogs and my chances with it. I may as well
let the rest follow."

"Nonsense! You don't mean what you're saying. Stop drinking and behave
yourself and you'll discover that you have plenty of friends left.
It won't benefit you to whine about it. That you have played the fool
concerns you alone. You can't make the town responsible for what you've
done yourself."

Philip being the older, had always in a manner dominated Lester. Even
in the days of their youth Lester had required a large amount of
encouragement to keep within the wide limits of what Philip had
marked off as the straight and narrow path in the field of his moral
perceptions. For Philip had never aspired to any close companionship
with the sterner virtues and he was consistent in advising no lines of
conduct he was not himself willing to follow.

"Damn the town and everybody in it! There is not another such spot on
the face of the earth."

Evidently Lester did not find being an outcast agreeable, and he viewed
himself as an injured individual, since his behavior had offended no
one, until his riches were gone. Philip passed his hand through Lester's
arm and led him down the path.

"You go home and when morning comes, bringing with it a clear head,
think it over and arrive at the only sensible conclusion within your
reach... to go it straight and steady."

"Do you think I am soft to unburden myself to you like this?" Lester
asked.

"My dear boy, I regard you as the opposite of soft."

On their entering the town, Lester reverted to his former silence
and Philip, commenting on the change, thought: "It was the enlivening
associations of the tomb that made him talkative." Neither spoke until
they separated in front of Lester's home. Then Philip said: "Good night,
don't worry, it won't help you in the least."

"Good night."

"If you should happen to want some one to discuss your affairs with,
look me up. I shall always be at your service."

"Thanks,--I will."

Lester turned from the gate by which he had been standing and went
toward the house. Philip followed him with a sympathetic glance.

"Poor boy," he thought, "he's in hard luck, and though there is no one
to blame but himself, it doesn't make it easier to bear."

Then he called aloud: "Good night. I'll expect to see you soon."

Lester waved his hand as he paused in the sudden burst of light from
the opened door. Then the door closed, and Philip stood alone, staring
thoughtfully at the darkness where but a moment before the streaming
light had been: "I am sorry for him--but, suppose he avails himself of
the proffer of companionship I was rash enough to make and eats up hours
and hours of my precious time--what's going to become of my work? This
won't do. A wretched creature who has squandered his fortune in riotous
living comes along, makes a brutal assault on my feelings, and I weakly
succumb--amiable ass that I am!"

There never was a bridge Philip did not cross in advance of his coming
to it--never a bridge he did not go back to and recross after he was
once safely over. So he stood thinking of the hours he was no doubt
destined to waste on the unhappy Lester. At last he went his way
reproaching himself with the unwisdom of having displayed a tender and
susceptible nature.

He reached home while still engaged in abusing himself; with his hand
upon the knob he halted a moment before opening the door. He wished to
put his faculties in a state of repose so that he could meet his brother
pleasantly and with no outward sign that he desired to kick him. This
generally demanded a previous arrangement with himself. Assured that it
was accomplished, he pushed open the door. The sitting-room was empty,
but the noise coming from the dining-room told him that the family was
at supper. His mother, hearing him enter, called: "Is it you, Philip?"

"Yes, mother. I'm late. I really meant to be back long ago." Then
to Anson as he passed from one room to the other: "How are you, old
fellow?"

Their mother's eye was upon them and the brothers exchanged greetings in
a friendly enough fashion. Anson even declared himself as delighted to
see Philip:--a gratuitous bit of lying for which the latter thanked him
profusely as he took his seat. About the table was grouped the entire
Southard family. Philip, his mother, Anson and the two girls--Katherine
and Florence. The "inharmonious whole"--as Philip was wont to call them.
Anson was the eldest--his brother's senior by five or six years and
verging close on thirty--handsome, too, in his way, by all odds the most
prepossessing member of the family. But his original advantages were
somewhat marred by his unfortunate mannerisms, the result in part of his
occupation--that of confidential clerk in the office of a manufacturing
concern. His every act, serious or the reverse, was performed with a
petty and aggravating secrecy. It was displayed in everything he did. He
even ate in a confidential manner, seeming to tell a business secret
to each mouthful he swallowed. Philip, stealing covert glances at him,
decided that he had never seen him quite so abominable. Yet, it struck
him for the first time that Anson was a disappointed man--the world had
not yielded him all that he had been coached to think it would. He
had been brought up in the belief that he was a marvel of human
perfectibility. As a child, he had been so precocious in pursuit of the
virtues, great and small, that much had been predicted of him. Now
when the glamour of youthful goodness was changing into the fixity of a
shining light, he was held to be a model worthy of prayerful emulation
by all right-minded people--and so he was. If he had been stuffed with
straw, he could not have been freer from flesh-begotten sin.

Despite this he was a disappointed man. He had been such a remarkable
boy that when he reached maturity he was in much the same unhappy plight
as a little Alexander with no more worlds to conquer. That which had
been so astonishing in the child, that uncanny goodness that caused
elderly females to throw up their hands at the mere mention of his name
and launch forth in praise of him, excited no especial comment in the
man. It never occurred to him that he had been nourished on thin air.
His whole education was such a mistake--such an injustice--How could any
one thrive beneath the load of useless rectitude he had set out to carry
like a fool,--mainly because it placed him in the ranks of other highly
proper monstrosities.

Philip, slowly eating his supper, came to a realization of this and
something not unlike pity stole into his heart.

It was such a remote chance, so removed from the realm of the possible
that Anson would ever succeed in distinguishing himself more than he had
done, and what would become of him?

As he speculated on the outcome, the two girls and Anson talked back and
forth across the table, and he stopped thinking to listen.

It was the usual discussion of ways and means they carried on. This
bill to be met--its fellow to be evaded until the end of the month. The
evidences of a not over-lovely existence, but hard and precarious--close
to the ragged edge of want. The much spent on the worthless shams--the
little on the solid comforts of a good living.

"As if any one is deceived or thinks us richer than we are," Philip
thought. "We are more or less like our neighbors and they estimate our
income to the last penny, just as we do theirs." There was something so
hopeless about the aspect life took on, something so perilously near to
the perpetual grind of downright poverty, that it made him revolt and
he burst out angrily: "Why, in heaven's name, don't you find some more
cheerful subject to discuss! Must it forever be debts and bills, as
if there was only the one purpose in living--to squirm through somehow
until the end of the month!"

"I guess," Katherine, the elder of the girls, said, her eyes snapping
viciously, "that some one has to think of such matters, though I am sure
no one wants to; and Anson is here so seldom and he is the----"

"Katherine!" Her mother spoke sharply, warning her not to finish the
sentence.

Philip looked down at his plate and bit his lips. He knew what his
sister would have said had their mother not interfered--that Anson was
the family's mainstay--but her mother's warning stopped her.

It was by no means a loving family, nor was there any special
graciousness in their intercourse. Philip barely tolerated his sisters.
Katherine was undeniably mean and spiteful. To her natural tendencies
she had added an exceedingly bigoted habit of thought which she referred
to as "her faith".

Its acquirement, if she was to be credited with telling the truth,
had cost her many sleepless nights and great self-sacrifice. It was
exercised chiefly in a rabid criticism of her species in which she
recently delighted.

Florence was rather better in sweetness of temper and disposition, but
to hear her talk was maddening torture to him. She had all a woman's
misplaced and indiscriminate adjectives. Everything was "grand" to her,
from hot pop-corn to a clap of thunder.

The connecting link holding the four together was Mrs. Southard, whose
force of will kept them united after love and affection had ceased to
exist.

The first strong emotion they had known had been hate, one for the
other. They were so different in every quality of soul and body; they
saw and were on the opposite side of every conceivable question. But
one thing they had in common, an admirable tenacity, which rendered them
insensible to either courtesy or reason where their prejudices were at
stake.

The home, such as it was, existed only by grace of Mrs. Southard's
strength of character. For while their mutual dislike reached a degree
of bitterness hard to comprehend, they all loved her, each in his or her
own way.

"What detained you, Philip?" his mother asked when Katherine was
restored to composure.

"I took a walk with Lester Royal."

"I don't think him a very good person to be seen with," Katherine
interposed. She felt bound to raise a disturbance on moral grounds.

"Don't you?--why not?" Then as a happy after thought: "There are certain
people who should be restrained from thinking."

Katherine ignored his remark and returned to the charge.

"What sort of a reputation has he, I should like to know! But of course
you are superior to a trifle like that."

"I fancy it's what it should be."

"You know very well he has no reputation at all. But I suppose you don't
mind--you are so liberal."

"Then I am sure there is nothing wrong with it since it doesn't exist."

"It does exist and is most unsavory!"

"Well, even an unsavory reputation is a decided improvement on no
reputation at all."

"I don't think----" Katherine began.

"I am glad you don't, Kate; it was never intended you should," Philip
made haste to say.

At this point Florence took up the cudgels against Philip:

"I should think you would have been ashamed to let people see you with
him--he's simply horrid!"

"I wasn't seen with him, so don't distress your conscience with the idea
that I was."

"No thanks to you that you weren't," said Katherine.

"Your penetration does you credit, Kate. I don't happen to possess your
inordinate respect for appearances." He was waiting to make a telling
retort. This always stimulated him.

"I suppose you can't select men of good character for your friends,"
Katherine snapped.

"Freedom from vice is more a question of ignorance than anything else."
Unconsciously he glanced at Anson as he spoke.

"I should be ashamed to think it," said Katherine.

"Perhaps my spiritual insight has become blunted by my unfavorable
surroundings."

"I suppose that's a covert slur at me and my religion," with heat. "The
things you say are disgraceful!"

"I don't see how mother can permit it," Florence said, bent on being in
the row.

"For pity's sake, girls, can't you let Philip finish his supper in
peace, without going out of your way to complain of what is no affair of
yours?" It was Mrs. Southard who spoke.

Philip pushed back his plate. "I am through and will take myself off,"
he said. He kissed his mother, and with an indifferent good night to the
rest, left the room. A moment later the street door closed with a bang.

"I wish to gracious he was already married to Barbara. I'll bet he'd
know pretty quick he wasn't any better off," said Florence.

"There--there," Mrs. Southard objected wearily. "Can't you find
something else to talk about?"


II


The Southard's belonged to that great division of the human family--the
eminently respectable. As far as they went they were above reproach--nor
were they without a certain prestige. As Katherine was wont to remark:
"They knew the best."

Furthermore, it was tradition that once upon a time they had been very
rich, or rather their remote ancestors had been so blessed, and vouching
for this former grandeur, there remained to them a considerable and
distinguished connection.

These distinguished relatives, whom Philip hated cordially, were much
addicted to the habit--while on their periodic gyrations about the
country--of stopping with his mother, when by so doing they could break
long and possibly fatiguing trips.

On these occasions the relatives spent most of their time in curl-papers
or smoking jackets. Whenever Mrs. Southard ventured to suggest some mild
festivity in their honor they refused to be entertained, with: "We beg
you won't, Cousin Jane. We are here simply for a nice quiet visit with
you and the children. Later on we shall be forced to be so very gay, you
know...." On these occasions when the guests divided their time about
equally between eating and sleeping, their entertainers' mode of living
was ordered on such a scale of magnificence and reckless extravagance
that they were almost invariably brought to the verge of ruin, and they
generally atoned for the temporary burst of luxury by months of close
economy. Then when the rich and distinguished relatives had taken
their leave, the Southards would cut down expenses and try to convince
themselves that the departed guests were the most charming people
imaginable. Some little fiction of the kind was positively indispensable
when the grocery bill came in.

One member of this contingent happening to die--the only disinterested
action of a singularly selfish career--had bethought him of the
Southards in his last moments and had strangely enough remembered them
in his will with a legacy for each of the children. It was a matter of
some hundreds apiece and the two girls and Anson had straightway spent
their portions.

Philip, at the time of this windfall, was in business: it gave him the
opportunity he had long coveted. He planned three years of liberty in
which to follow up his inclination to write.

No one appreciated the courage this involved and Philip went his course
without help from any one. He told himself that if he came to grief
there would be but scant loss--a little money and the waste of days.

He had been by no means a success in commercial pursuits, and if he
failed with his pen, why, it was no more than he was apt to do in
other things. For a year his labors in the field of literature went
unrewarded, and many times he was tempted to give up the struggle in
disgust. Then at last, when his small legacy was all but gone, the first
meager returns filled him with renewed hope and energy.

Slowly, very slowly, he saw his tiny bank balance swell until it reached
the grand total of a thousand dollars. Upon that day there came to him
the satisfying though distant vision of success.

It was not to be a selfish success he told himself: he would shirk no
obligation when it came--all should profit by it. But he could do so
much with a different environment. The appreciation his brother and
sisters gave him was so tainted by an indiscriminate disapproval of his
aims, and their recognition of his poor triumphs so niggardly, as though
any reference to them was an acknowledgment of superiority on his part.
In spite of this he would do what he could for them--when he could. Most
of all would he do for his mother. She should have the thousand things,
big and little, women loved and wanted. She had done so much for
him--for all of them. She had brought them up unaided, through a
struggle against poverty, the hardness of which he could only dimly
divine. He would have counted it the blackest treachery not to have
thought of her.

Then when the girls were married--and marry they must--he intended to
get husbands for them, even if they had to be bought--she would come and
live with him.

They had talked it over a hundred times--he and Barbara--and knew just
how it was to be arranged.

He never questioned his ability to do all this, for his faith had become
perfect and abiding.

In the kindly benevolence of his castle-building he even wished well to
Anson. After all, they were brothers. Anson had a fondness for
travel; he would give him the means to indulge that taste, he _should_
travel--more than this, he should travel always--the farther away the
better.

When he left home, Philip betook himself into the presence of his
betrothed. As he entered the parlor where Barbara sat--idly turning the
leaves of a book, she looked up at him and smiled.

"I am glad you came," she said. "I was just beginning to think I
shouldn't see you to-night." Philip drew a chair near to hers as he
answered. "So am I, but I should be at work."

"Guess who has called this afternoon?"

"Why do you make me exert myself--why don't you tell me at once if I am
to know?"

"Mr. Shelden."

"Well, and what had he to say? Do you know, Barbara, I object, for it
just occurs to me that he is without a wife... having already disposed
of one. Truly I object to his calling on you."

"But he is papa's friend----"

"Oh, is he? Well, he is a precious old fool--that's my opinion of him."

Philip, conscious of the slightness of the claim he had upon her,
dreaded a possible rival. He knew the sanction to his suit was
only passive--the least thing might bring about the most pronounced
opposition.

"He is not so very old: he is only forty-five. He regards himself as
still youthful, for he assured me this was the age of the young man,"
said Barbara.

"It's the age of the damn fool," Philip grunted savagely, and then
penitently: "That was a case of justifiable damn: it was wrung from me,
Barbara. It's so exasperating to hear such twaddle."

"I believe you're jealous, Philip. I really believe you are!"

"Of course I am! I am no better than a pauper--and he----"

"How inconsistent of you. The other evening you said you should never
care whom I saw. Do be consistent."

"Consistency is the last refuge of an idiot. Because I say or do a thing
once, am I to be tied to it for the rest of my days?"

"But it is quite impossible to keep track of your beliefs."

"Pardon me, I have opinions, but no beliefs. What else did he say?"

"You mean Mr. Shelden?"

"Yes. What other shoddy nineteenth century-ism did he repeat?"

"He said any number of things. He spoke about you."

"Old gossip! What did he find to say about me?"

"He asked what you were doing."

"I hope you had the courage to tell him it was none of his business."

"I didn't do anything so rude. I told him you were writing. He seemed
deeply impressed and said he had always liked you."

"Humph! He's a startling novelty."

"I thought it very lovely of him to be so sympathetic, for of course he
knows. I have an idea papa tells him everything."

"What else, Barbara? Can't you tell me all?"

"I told him about your book--and then we discussed books in general. He
reads a great deal, so he told me."

"Probably--_Thoughts for a Christian on Losing his Hair_--for I have
observed he is getting bald."

"How mean of you!"

"Oh, Barbara, what in heaven's name is going to happen if some one comes
between us--some one who has money and all that's worth while?"

"You know there is something that no one can have but you."

She leaned forward, holding out her hand for him to take. "I have given
you so much love that you must have it all, or I shall keep it for you
untouched forever."

And Philip, looking into the face so close to his, saw that she meant
the words she spoke. But beyond the words he seemed to see that a cloud
could not rest long upon her. She was created for love and brightness,
and in his heart he knew that they must be together soon or he would
lose her.

"What is it, Philip?" she asked after a short silence. "What are you
thinking?"

"That I am happy," he answered, smiling. "Only that?"

"Could it be more? How glad I am that you are as you are. I would not
have you changed."

"It's not because I am so good, is it? For you know I am not."

Before he could answer a door opened and closed in the adjoining room.
The sound had an instantaneous effect on Philip.

"Here is your father, Barbara; we'll speak of the weather. It is a
matter upon which I am disposed to agree with any one--always excepting
the pious Anson."

"Why do you pretend to dislike your brother? I think him very
nice,--very fine-looking."

"Hate is as essential to certain natures as love--and much more
satisfying."

"But you can't _hate_ him. You are far from honest."

"People form such queer notions of me. They are eternally thinking I am
not sincere, and yet, Barbara, I mean all I say--while I am saying it.
Could integrity carry me to greater lengths?" She looked at him with
knitted brows. He was unlike any one she had ever known.

"Are you really afraid of him?--of papa?" she asked.

"The relations existing between us are strained; he may at any moment
send me from the house for good and all."

Barbara laughed. "I am quite sure he is guiltless of any such
intention."

"I regret to say that I am not."

Philip regarded Mr. Gerard as a person of one idea, and that invariably
a wrong one. It was neither safe nor agreeable to be so at his mercy,
for he held Philip's happiness in the hollow of his hand, and that young
gentleman was much oppressed by the suspicion that he was not popular
with Barbara's parent. When he questioned her she always assured him
that her father respected him most thoroughly, but Philip doubted this.

It must be admitted that now and then he detected a pugnacious quality
in Mr. Gerard's manner toward him, which he stubbornly declined to
notice or take exception to, as every other consideration was minor to
the great one of gaining time in which to place himself beyond the reach
of interference, so he put his pride in his pocket and strove to prevent
a clash.

Mr. Gerard appeared suddenly in the doorway.

"I wish you would come with me into the library, Philip," he said.
"There is a little matter I should like to discuss with you. Barbara
will, I am sure, excuse you for a few moments."

Philip came to his feet on the instant. The parable of the spider and
the fly presented itself to him.

"How do you do," he said. He was not at his best when Mr. Gerard was
about.

"Just follow me into the library, if you please." For Philip was gazing
stupidly at him.

"Oh, certainly." From the door he glanced back at Barbara, and she saw
that his face was clouded with apprehension.

While she was wondering what it all meant, and what her father could
have to say to Philip, there drifted in to her the murmur of their
lowered voices, coming from the room that had conferred upon it the name
of library in recognition of the fact that its furniture consisted in
the main of a desk, some leather-covered chairs given over to decay,
and a bookcase, containing an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and by actual
count ninety-six novels. The room was also adorned--as the complete
triumph of intellectuality--by a bust of Shakespeare.

Here Mr. Gerard was supposed to do his thinking.

Barbara's mother was an invalid and seldom left her room. This was
another tangle in the snarled arrangement of Philip's hopes, for
Barbara's father had severe Spartan ideas on the duties of children to
their parents. And Mrs. Gerard was so busy with her symptoms, real or
imaginary, that she never concerned herself in domestic matters. She
left all that to her husband, who ran things with a high and often heavy
hand.

Barbara controlled her curiosity as best she could. Finally the
conference was at an end. She heard her father remark in his ordinary
strident tones:

"You appreciate the justice of my course, Philip."

A few minutes later, Philip reentered the parlor.

"What is it?" she asked quickly.

He crossed the room and stood leaning against the mantel, looking down
at her in silence.

"What is it, Philip?" she repeated.

"Your father says that I must be ready to marry you within a year or
else----" he paused.

"Or else what?" she asked anxiously.

"The worst. I shall have to give you up."

Philip saw her face pale. She arose and stood at his side, her hand upon
his shoulder, her head tilted so that she could look into his face.

"It shall be only you, Philip. If it is not you it shall be no other."

He gazed at her in silence, trying to read the depth of her faith in
her eyes. The thought that she was beautiful and that he loved her came
strongly to him.

"You believe in me, Philip; you trust me?"

"As I do no one else--as I never shall another. It is you and only you.
Everything is centered or ends forever in you." And then he laughed
lightly. "After all, it is not so bad. Perhaps this will force our
happiness upon us sooner than we have dared anticipate."

"How long did he say?"

"Within a year, and it is so short a time," he said, with a deep breath.

"Within a year," she repeated slowly. "But I can't be forced away from
you. He can't make me give you up." And she shook her head in defiance.

"Can't he, Barbara? Can't he, dear?" And Philip bent toward her,
speaking softly.

"I belong to you."

Philip straightened up, saying somewhat grimly: "I must work. I shall be
forced to see you less often."

"Must you?"

"Yes. This admits of no delay. And no matter how hard I work... even
then it's all doubt and uncertainty."

"Why do we have to wait?"--with a sigh. "I could help you so much if I
were with you. I know I could."

Philip ground out between his set teeth the one word, "Money," and
Barbara was silent.

"We are most unfortunate," he continued. "We both belong to what are
called prosperous and well-to-do families and yet beyond a well defined
point there is not an extra penny, every cent being swallowed up in the
wretched sham of appearances. I own frankly I am poor, and as if
this were not misfortune enough in itself, my poverty is allied to a
worthless sneaking respectability that is maintained at the cost of
constant sacrifice. I have the added ignominy of knowing that the very
appearances on which is squandered everything, deceive no one. How
destructive to self-respect to live a lie unbelieved even by the most
credulous! If it accomplished its beneficent mission, there would be a
worthy excuse for it, but to run the risk of damnation for the sake of a
lot of unsuccessful deceits makes my soul sick."

"What do we care for people? If we are happy what does it matter?" She
pressed close to his side. "What do we care?"

"Do you mean you would marry me now, if you could, and disregard the
doubtfulness of the future?"

"But you haven't asked me yet... how can I tell?"

"Would you, dear?"... tenderly.

"Try me. It would be such fun to live just as we could, and not have to
make believe. I imagine the worst of poverty is in the thought that some
one else knows. Tell me what father said."

"I have already told you, Barbara."

"But tell me how it came about. How he led up to it and what you said."

Philip thought for a moment. When he spoke his manner suggested
weariness, as if the recent ordeal had been too much for him.

"Really I am quite collapsed, quite annihilated. What a stunning
advantage a young woman's father has over his daughter's 'young man.'"

"Won't you answer me?--what was it papa said?"

"Well, we kept clear of sentiment from the start--we canvassed the
situation from a purely business basis."

"But you know nothing about business."

"I talk intelligently enough on a good many subjects of which I know
nothing."

"What else did he say?"

"Oh, that I was a very proper young man, and all that sort of thing."

"And then what?"

"After an exchange of compliments he gave me to understand that business
was business. Then, Barbara, with startling brevity and great solemnity,
tempered with severity, he informed me that this waiting was unjust to
you, that it unduly compromised you, to all of which I agreed. He again
alluded to my virtues; during their enumeration, my feelings were of
the ghastly jolly order, for I thought that this formed the prelude to a
blessing and dismissal--but it didn't. He wound up by asking me what my
resources were. Of course I shuffled about and tried to daze him by a
complicated explanation, filled with glittering generalities, though I
own they did not glitter, for he held me to the subject in hand and I
marshaled up my prospects for his inspection. I confess I was governed
by no intention to be honest. I lied outright wherever I could and where
I couldn't I maimed or strangled the facts. If I had only had
warning--a little time for preparation, and the memorizing of imaginary
statistics--I should have made a better showing. I simply could not
stick to the truth; but it stuck to me in fragments. I felt as though I
were pasted all over with it."

"But what did you say to papa?"

"I told him what my income was--I had to name a sum so small I am sure
he believed me at once. Lastly I told him of my expectations,--and there
was where I lied. With the result that, providing I shall increase my
earnings sufficiently to warrant such a course, I am to marry you within
a year,--otherwise I don't."

And Philip dropped into a chair dejected in body and mind.

"Now, what the dickens does he expect? I can't become famous on twelve
months' notice. However, I must work morning, noon and night with no
let-up whatever."

"And what's going to become of me then?" asked Barbara.

"You know, dear, we can't sacrifice the future for the present. It's a
beastly short time in which I am to make a substantial addition to my
earn ings, and your father most expressly stipulates that I bring them
up to some appropriate figure. In the event of my being able to do this
he will entrust your happiness to my care, feeling assured I am and will
continue to be worthy of the trust he reposes in me--and so on and so
forth through the easy let-down that he gave me. On the whole he was
fair... most fair."

Philip was silent for a moment, then he said:

"That I have a thousand dollars and better in the bank was a point in my
favor--if it had not been for that the chances for a respectful hearing
would have been slim."

"It is quite a sum," Barbara said. "Lots of people here, nice people,
too, live on small salaries and never get anything ahead. Of course
there are others, like the Perkinses, who are rich."

"It's pitifully small!" said Philip, and looked his disgust.

"I don't know--one can do lots with a thousand dollars. You can buy a
very pretty little home here for that," said Barbara practically.

"Of course your father knows the money was left me and that I didn't
make it. He hinted that it was about time that I got into something
certain. He even said that as soon as I did we might marry. It's awfully
lucky about that money. I hope to goodness nothing will happen to the
bank, for if there should, I might just as well quit."

Both laughed at the idea.

"Isn't it absurd!" said Barbara dolefully.

"No, it's very serious, dear. Let's think what I can do to get a salary
out of the town. I wish I could go away, but I simply can't do that. I
must stay and help out at home. I suppose I'd better try and bone the
papers for more work. That's the only sure thing in sight. I can always
get that in small doses, because it helps the sale. My friends are
willing to pay something for the opportunity to criticize the
drivel--it's about the only opportunity they have had yet. It's a great
thing to be a literary man in a small town, Barbara!"

"I hate to think I am to be bought," Barbara said angrily. "That it all
rests on money, as though love were valueless."

"It's a commercial age."

"You seem to believe in nothing." There was marked disfavor in her
glance.

Philip raised his eyes to hers. "I believe in your happiness and mine if
I succeed. I have every confidence in myself."

"But not in me--you never speak of that!"

"Yes, dear, in you, too!"

"You don't say it as if you meant it!"

"I am not accustomed to saying things I mean seriously."

"I wish you would pay me the compliment of being serious."

"I do."

And truly beneath all the flippancy his heart-was heavy--and as lead.


III


It was Sunday morning. Philip pushed into the church as the
congregation streamed out through the wide doors. He made his way up
to the choir loft where a man had just risen from his seat before the
organ. This was Franz Becker.

"You are late, Franz," he observed.

"It is Communion Sunday," Becker said in a deep beautiful voice. "That
makes it late."

"See here," said Philip, "I wish you would ask me to dinner with you.
Anson's home and I want to avoid him if possible."

"Certainly," answered Becker,--"by all means come with me."

They went down and out of the church: Philip, light and active in all
his movements; Becker, ponderous and slow--but masterful always, a man
for the big things of his art. A warm friendship existed between the
two. Philip had an intense admiration for the musician, who seemed to
dwell in a state pretty evenly divided between abject despondency and
settled rage. He respected this temperamental constancy. They were
both friendless in a marked degree, neither of them being calculated to
invite an extensive or varied acquaintance. Few people enjoyed Philip's
conversation. Indeed, it was a special point with him that they should
not. Nor did Becker rejoice in any great popularity. He was wholly
repellent in his attitude toward the small world in which he moved--with
a savage pride that was ever on the alert. He might have been in a
primitive sort of way something of a social lion, but his taming was
too imperfect to admit of it. His rudeness and barbarities comprised
the most interesting anecdotes the town could furnish. Becker came of a
class where poverty was the unvarying rule--meanness and commonness
had been his earliest companions and in a moderated form these two kept
their place at his side, chaining and crippling him, running him to the
earth where he would have soared--a clog upon his steps forever.

Just how he had acquired his mastery of music none could tell. It was
part instinct--part study--that in its feverish intensity was all but
incomprehensible. His father had been a musician of more than passing
note in the little German capital where he had lived, hoped and died,
leaving the promise of his genius unfulfilled. There, his mother, after
a brief widowhood, had married again, a man much beneath her in every
respect. The marriage was followed by a speedy emigration to America,
where a brother of her second husband had settled. Franz's stepfather
was a shoemaker and had wished Franz to follow his trade; but as the boy
grew and as inclination became purpose, and purpose in turn work, that
which was locked up within him found expression. He could think and feel
and dream. Best of all, perhaps, he discovered that his rare talent had
a moneyed value that he was quick to profit by--then came the rush of
ambition that was to carry him on and place him with the masters. It
spent itself and he was left where it had found him--exhausted and
wearied by the fruitless effort he had made. He could only go so far and
no farther--circumstances drew in like a narrow circle about him. He
was a giant set to do a dwarf's labor. From the start his mother and
stepfather had strenuously opposed him on every hand.

However, when he had proved that music possessed a money value that
he turned readily to account, they ceased to object--for money, like
religion, is sacred, and not to be made light of.

But his determination to rise above the dependent and precarious
position of an instructor they persistently combated. Enough to live on
comfortably to them represented enough for soul and body alike. That his
art meant to him expression and development, they never guessed and he
never sought to explain. He was very patient with them and forgiving.

So, silently and without complaint, he drudged away as teacher and
organist, his burden made heavy by innumerable younger brothers and
sisters whom he was pushing with him into humble respectability.

Going back into the past he could recall the hard bitter season that
came in his childhood and youth: there were things done then, want
endured and privation, that even in the comparative luxury of
his success made his heart sick with a deadly sense of shame and
humiliation.

He could remember the death of a little baby sister that happened
shortly after the family's arrival in the town. The memory of that event
stood forth distinct and minute down to the least particular. It was one
of those hopelessly miserable experiences he would have liked to forget,
but could not.

There were many little ones then and they were very poor, indeed.
His stepfather had not been able to pay for the assistance which is
customary at such times, but had shaped a coffin with his own hands for
the little body, and when all was ready, borrowing a horse and wagon
from a neighbor, had driven to the graveyard, holding the pine box
across his knees. As his mother was ill, and could not go, Franz had
ridden alone with the shoemaker, who, even then, to all appearances was
an old man bent and gray from much confinement to his bench. The small
boy rode crouching in the bottom of the wagon, for there was not room
for him upon the seat. He was long haunted by the vision, ineffaceable
and clear, of his father, as he drove along, bending sadly over the
burden in his lap, gray and somber, with the poor dignity of grief.

Their way took them past his uncle's store, for in a squalid fashion the
brother was well-to-do. As they passed his place the child who huddled
drearily in the bed of the cart, oppressed by an indefinite sense
of sorrow, saw his uncle standing beside his open door in his
shirt-sleeves--the center of a lounging group of idlers--and when the
man became conscious of the nearness of the two, the wide-eyed child and
the father, driving the horse, the coffin in his lap, he laughed aloud.

It was years afterward, when his uncle had quitted the town for a larger
field somewhere in the West that the brooding solitary boy comprehended
the full meaning of that day's ride, and it gave him an insight into the
quality of human sympathy that one can safely rely upon receiving in
the hour of need, far beyond his age. It served to augment a peculiar
harshness of belief--a wish to keep to himself and from contact with
others.

The family's poverty, which was beyond denial or subterfuge, only
intensified this characteristic. His pride was like a raw sore;--the
kindest touch was positive pain for him. Anything that savored of
patronage or of condescension met with an instant and rude rebuff.

The Beckers--for the family was known by this name--a tacit recognition
of Franz's importance and the family's unimportance that offended no one
more than it did Franz--were extremely imposing as to numbers, with a
majority in favor of the sterner sex, and the old shoemaker's patriotism
had been evinced in the naming of his numerous offspring.

On the particular Sunday in question the midday meal was rendered more
cheerful than otherwise by Bismarck and Von Molke, the two most youthful
of Franz's half-brothers, who upset divers mugs of milk as well as
pretty thoroughly smearing their small features with chicken gravy.
Bismarck was finally ordered from the table by his father in very broken
English because of some flagrant breach of good manners.

His exodus was shortly followed by that of his brothers and sisters who
were in transit through that state of physical incompleteness, the sign
of which is seen in the combining of long legs with diffidence.

These had eaten as though on a wager and one by one as they finished
their meal slipped from their seats and took themselves off, the last
mouthful in process of mastication.

Soon there remained only the old shoemaker, his wife, Franz, Philip
and Von Molke--who still toiled manfully, albeit wearily, with a spoon
tight-clutched in his chubby fist at whatever came within reach.

Bismarck had reappeared upon the scene. Into his small soul neither
modesty nor diffidence had ever seeped even in microscopic quantities
and he skirmished noiselessly about the room, always heedful of his
father's guttural command to "go away"--promptly exiting at one door to
appear as promptly at another with recriminations hoarse upon his lips
against Von Molke, whose appetite, generaled with a nice knowledge of
its capacity, bade fair to outlast the pudding.

With cold malignancy the latter's periodic cry of, "More, please,"
would sound, and up would go his plate in spite of his brother's muffled
entreaties that he should desist. In this manner Bismarck saw the last
fragment of the pudding disposed of, which sight so maddened him that
he forgot all caution and darted at Von Molke intent upon wresting the
coveted prize from his possession.

In the moment of victory the strong arm of paternal law was interposed
between the combatants and the assailant, hotly pursued by the assailed,
was borne from the room in his father's arms to meet his punishment in
the back yard.

"Come," Franz said, rising. "Come, let us go to my room."

And Philip followed him, hearing him mutter as he went: "Can he not wait
when my friend is here?"

It was a large bare apartment they entered, carpetless and curtainless,
with an iron bedstead at one side and a hideously ornate stove at the
other.

Philip lounged down into a chair, searching in his pocket for pipe and
tobacco.

Without--for the room overlooked the back yard--they could hear
Bismarck and his father. The former was crying, while his parent was
expostulating with him in mixed German and English, but the sounds of
grief continued with no show of abatement.

"He has a vile temper," Franz said, "when he is angry. The little boys
are not bad as such little beasts go."

"I think them amusing," Philip responded. "The way in which a child
profits by the presence of guests to gorge himself on dainties is a fair
example of uncontrolled human nature."

Just then they heard the patter of small feet beyond the door and a
faint voice saying: "I want in!"

It was Bismarck, and he waited for no answer, but inserted himself
ingratiatingly into the room, presenting a countenance whereon grief and
gravy had combined with disastrous results.

He was still sobbing but managed to gasp:

"I ain't hurt. It ain't that--but I do hate to have a darned old
foreigner bang me about--it hurts my feelings!"

And he made a dive into Franz's lap, burying his head against his breast
where for exactly three minutes he remained with wriggling legs a victim
of keen despair.

"There is Americanism for you with a vengeance, Franz," said Philip.

The three minutes having expired and native depravity having usurped
the place of anguish, Bismarck was forcibly expelled from the room and
withdrew to more congenial fellowship with his brothers.

Philip broke the silence that succeeded Bismarck's expulsion in which
they had both been actively engaged.

"Well," he said, "I haven't seen you for a whole week, Franz. However,
I don't suppose you have anything good to tell me." Franz made a savage
gesture that fully expressed a large disgust.

"Do you know, Franz," Philip continued, "we haven't originated much
over here except the Declaration of Independence and a beastly
bargain-counter spirit in relation to the arts." He paused a moment,
then added laughingly: "One knows so much at twenty-four. I am
frequently astonished at the scope of my critical capacity. It must be
hereditary with me,--you know my father was a minister. They are the
only class of men who enjoy the delightful privilege of unrestricted
judgment. In that profession simple ignorance is not a hindrance, but
rather a help."

Franz was in no mood for frivolity. "You are more than apt to offend
people by what you say. Of course with me it makes no difference. You
should be more thoughtful."

"I offend people, my dear fellow; that's what I am living for."

Becker voiced the thought that was uppermost in his mind: "My father
and mother think I am as successful as any man need be. They do not
comprehend that what I am doing now is drudgery, a present makeshift
only--that my career is all before me. The only opportunity I have had,
and I should scarcely call it that, was five years ago when I went
to New York, thinking, for I knew no better, that I might accomplish
something there. I tramped the streets for days in my effort to get a
hearing. I offered my manuscripts to any one who would print them, as a
gift. Bah! it was the same always--native work had no value. If I could
only get to Europe--there they know what is music and what is rubbish.
My father and mother do not wish to be unkind but they are not informed
in these matters, and when I came back beaten and more humiliated than
I can say, I saw they were glad of my failure. Their thought was that I
should have been satisfied, and their one regret was for the money I had
expended in so vain an undertaking."

His strong face showed plainly the pain that was his--the hunger and the
longing.

Philip thought of those innumerable younger brothers. It would be years
before any of them could come to the front and ease the load that kept
Franz's shoulder to the wheel; meanwhile he was chained to a spot that
could only give him suffering. There was danger, too, in the waiting. He
might lose the very power to utilize his liberty when it did come. Men
sometimes survive their inspiration and their genius.

Becker threw himself back in his chair: "We spend years in toiling for
a little money that we may purchase opportunity and then--then, we die.
Bah! what a fool one is to hope when the chances are all against him."

"Did you ever speculate on the final adjustment? God's apology to man?"

Franz shook his head: "What presumption, to suppose God keeps any record
of us--such atoms as we are!"

"Not at all. My religion holds the splendid comfort of conceit and is
based on the thought that man--and by man I mean primarily myself--is
all, that my work, my good resolutions--which are a source of constant
annoyance and distress to me--entitle me to certain favors in this world
and the world to come. To be sure, opposition to the divine will is
rather useless--at best we can but squirm like very small fish over a
hot fire. Still, I shall make reparation for the absurdity of my beliefs
by the dignity and persistency of my revolt, on much the same principle
that prompts me to swear when I hurt myself by a foolish attempt to walk
through an obstructed doorway in the dark, not that it does any good,
but just to express my contempt for the inexorable."

Franz smoked his pipe thoughtfully. Philip occasionally shocked even his
liberal ideas of propriety. They sat looking at the hideous little stove
for a space and neither spoke. At last Philip said:

"Why, I say, haven't you a sort of a half-uncle in the West who could
help you if he would? Can't you bone him for a start?"

Franz's brow darkened instantly: "You mean my step-father's brother?
Don't speak of him."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," Philip made haste to say. "The fact is, I
can stand almost anything in the shape of misfortune myself, except my
relatives, but I thought it might be different with you."

"You do not comprehend. This person I loathe. It is nothing to him, of
course. He is a rich man. I wonder what good money can do a brute like
that?"

He looked out of the window, watching the dead leaves the wind was
blowing into drifts against the fence in the yard below, and added
almost sadly: "I think hate has been a more potent factor in my growth
than love--at least it has stirred my heart the deepest."

"So your uncle is out of the question even though he should be willing
to aid you?"

Becker struck the ashes from his pipe, remarking as he did so: "What
can I do that will give me the longed-for opportunity? You are usually
prolific in good advice."

"You might marry money."

"Never!" Franz interposed quickly. His friend's love-affair met with his
strongest disapproval.

Philip ignored the interruption: "Now there is Mrs. Monroe. I have young
Perkins' word for it that she admires you immensely. I am creditably
informed she enjoys a fair income and she is still handsome and
shapely--thanks to God and her tailor! Even the tooth of time has been
dulled on her hardy anatomy. Franz, there is your chance."

"Don't be a fool! Do you think I----"

Franz was interrupted by the sound of an exceedingly pleasant voice
that arose from the hall below. The voice was assuring some one that
its owner was perfectly familiar with the way to Franz's room and was
declining all proffers of assistance in finding it, with profuse thanks.

Becker and Philip had paused to listen, and now the latter said: "I
rather fancy it's Perkins." A moment after a gentle tap sounded on the
door, accompanied by, "May I come in?"

In response to Becker's bidding the door opened and Perkins stood before
them.

Now there are awful depths of oblivion that may be sounded in a small
town, and not to know the Perkinses was one of these depths, for that
was to argue yourself unknown. Yet, to his credit be it said that
Perkins was a modest youth, despite his temptation to gloat in the fact
that his family represented two generations of riches; which was by far
the most splendid incident in their history.

Young Perkins was not adapted to gloating. He was a youth with a
supersensitive conscience and sandy side-whiskers, which grew out
stubbily from an equally sandy complexion, and he would be polite to
everybody, which was a sheer weakness on his part and not to be excused
on any plea whatever.

What Perkins did not do his mother in nowise remedied, for she quarreled
with her kind on a footing of perfect equality charming to behold,
setting herself up for no better than the rest.

Perkins stood before his friends, breathless from his run up the stairs,
his whole appearance indicating unusual excitement. He dropped down into
the chair Franz pushed toward him, saying:

"Wait a minute till I get my wind. I am quite floored because of several
things that have taken place to-day."

He wiped his florid face vigorously with his handkerchief.

"I--you see--that is, my mother received word yesterday from Madame
Dennée, of Paris--Paris, France, you know--that she is in America.
In New York, I think. Madame Dennée is the widow of Gabrielle Honore
Dennée, who was a very distinguished man in France, prior to his death.
I am sure I don't know what he did and my mother has never told me, but
whatever it was I am certain he did it and it was uncommon. There was a
stack of money in it. He was a banker, you know."

"Look here, Perkins," Philip remonstrated. "What is this all about?"

"But, you don't catch what I am driving at," Perkins cried eagerly; "he
married my mother's cousin."

"Who did?" Philip asked.

"Monsieur Dennée."

"Oh,--well, go ahead."

"That's exactly what I am trying to do. He married Miss Ballard, my
mother's cousin. That was before he died, of course. My mother was a
Ballard and as you are both aware, that's my first name, and they were
very celebrated people."

Perkins was still polishing his freckled features till they fairly
glistened. He finally tucked his handkerchief resolutely into his pocket
and folded his hands.

"I must get this straight, I am quite excited. Permit me to get my
breath."

And he gazed benignantly at his friends from under his white lashes, a
beaming smile playing over his countenance and dying away in the stubby
growth of his side-whiskers.

"You fellows must have mercy upon me a moment longer. What I wish to
tell you is this: On Saturday Madame Dennée is supposed to have left New
York for this place. I assure you we were completely overwhelmed by the
news, for while we--my mother that is--is her only living relative in
America, the family connection has been allowed to languish. Heretofore
my mother has made it a point to fight industriously with every Ballard
with whom she came in contact. That's a distinctly Ballard trait, and in
addition to the inherited and warlike instincts of her race, my mother's
element is hot water. Very hot, you know, and I must admit it is seldom
you find a person who spends less time out of her element than my
mother. However, she has told me it will be the proudest moment of her
life when Madame Dennée enters her house, so I am hopeful the hatchet
will be buried blade down." With a stifled gasp, Perkins came to a
pause.

"See here, Perkins," Philip said, "what is it you are trying to tell us?
Come, don't keep it all to yourself. Let us into the secret. That's a
good fellow."

"My dear Philip, I pledge you my sacred word of honor my one wish is to
enlighten you, but I appear little better than a candle whose light is
placed under a bushel." He looked pathetically from one to the other
of his auditors. "Allow me to get started right. I trust I have made
it clear to you that I have a cousin, Madame Dennée and she is a widow
lady."

"Widow alone is sufficient. It establishes her sex beyond dispute. Don't
use the word lady when you can possibly avoid doing so. It's a hard
worked word these days," Philip advised.

"Oh, pardon me. Well, Madame Dennée, who is a widow, has announced her
intention of coming to us and we are overwhelmed by the honor, for of
course my cousin is a woman of the greatest elegance and culture. Must
be, you know. But what"--and his voice rose in a quaver of nervous
objection--"but what have we to offer her either in our mode of living
or in a social way that will please her? It will all seem so stupid here
after what she has been accustomed to."

"Don't abuse the town," Franz said. "It will be a liberal education to
her."

"Along a very illiberal line," Philip added.

"Oh, hang the town! It's how we are going to entertain her that gets
me."

"You are a host in yourself, Perkins, and very funny," Becker remarked
laughingly.

"When is she coming?" Philip asked.

"Oh, yes, I didn't tell you that, did I?" Perkins shook off his
dejection. "The letter was received yesterday. In it she simply said
she would like to visit us if convenient and be our guest for a little
while. We were to wire our answer and our answer was, 'Come.' What the
dickens else could we have said even if we had wanted to? All this that
I have told you took place yesterday and since then consternation has
reigned supreme. My mother's hair has been done up in curl-papers for
the last thirty-six hours, tight twisted, and has given her a raging
headache. The house is no better than a howling wilderness. I pledge
you my sacred word of honor that I ate my supper last night on the
back-stairs off a sewing-board held in my lap and I was mighty thankful
to get it then. This morning I went without breakfast. Dinner I ate
from a shelf in the back pantry with a soup ladle and all because Madame
Dennée is somewhere between here and New York contemplating a descent
upon us. I have taken curlpapers out of the water pitcher, and as I hope
for mercy hereafter there was one in the cold soup forming the bulk of
my dinner to-day."

Perkins became pensive for just the briefest space possible and a rather
melancholy smile overspread his face.

"I say, did you fellows ever eat soup--cold soup--with curl-papers?
Because if you never did--don't. It's about the most thoroughly
revolutionary thing a man can do."

"You haven't told us yet when she is coming," Philip remarked. "When
will it be, to-morrow?"

"That's what we are looking forward to."

"How old is she, anyhow?" And Philip propounded one of the inquiries a
young man is almost sure to make sooner or later concerning a woman.

"Oh, dear me, I can't tell. Forty or fifty though, I should say at a
guess."

Philip yawned. Madame's age made the whole affair seem very tame and
unattractive to him. Perkins rambled on:

"That's the deuce of it. She will be old enough to take an interest in
me. Women are forever taking an interest in me--a controlling interest
you know--forever thinking I should be at work at something or other,
just to keep me out of scrapes. And that's all bosh! I don't think
there's any use for me to work, except perhaps to kill time, and I
really couldn't do that, for in the end time will kill me and I shall be
laid out stiff you know, quite dead, with tuberoses--"

"Limp you mean," growled Franz correctively. "Where the devil did you
ever get the notion that you could be stiff?"

"I hope I didn't seem vain when I said women were interested in me, you
know I mean those who are old enough to know better," Perkins ventured
with much meekness, folding his hands over a stomach of which Philip was
wont to remark, much to its owner's agony, that it was coming rapidly to
the front.

"Of course you will invite us up to the house when your cousin comes,"
the latter said. "Franz and I shall be immensely happy to call."

Perkins brightened visibly. "I thought you rather slumped when I told
you her age. To be sure you are to call. Did I ever speak of her brother
to you--Geoffrey Ballard? I know a good deal more about him than I do
about her. He has been in America frequently. In fact, as far as France
goes, he is an exile: got into some difficulty and was forced to leave
the country."

This was said with studied carelessness; nevertheless it was plainly
discernible that Perkins was accessible to the mild glow of pride which
a perfectly respectable and well conducted youth usually feels in those
of his family who have won their laurels in the shaded realms of the
disreputable.

"I guess he is a very bad lot. Once my father chanced to meet him in New
York. My father was fascinated by him and on the strength of the good
impression he had made, Ballard borrowed several hundred dollars. He
told a very plausible tale about a remittance from home that he was
expecting. No sooner had he obtained an advance on what was coming than
he got out of the way and it was the last father ever saw of him. He
must have been very clever though, because you know my father was never
a very great hand to lend money."

His friends were too courteous to inform him of their perfect
acquaintance with his father's posthumous reputation for
close-fistedness, but Philip could not resist saying casually:

"I can readily believe that Ballard must be a very remarkable fellow."

"Oh, no," Perkins responded innocently, delighted that he was commanding
Philip's attention; "we heard afterward he was a wild one--that he
gambled and did all sorts of dishonorable things. Of course I wouldn't
like to have either of you mention it, but once he pretty nearly killed
a man in a duel. It was over a woman, you know."

And he looked highly scandalized--proud and happy, too, for it's not
every day one can tell of a cousin who fights duels.

It was getting dark; the afternoon was drawing to an end and while
Perkins was still giving the details of which he was master, that
related to Geoffrey Ballard's career, Philip had arisen from his chair.

"I shall say good night," he remarked. "It is time I was on my way
home."


IV


That afternoon while Perkins was busy discussing with his two friends
the expected arrival of his mother's cousin, the Perkins' home, some
six blocks distant, was the scene of violent Sabbath-breaking. It is but
fair to state that the house-cleaning was done with a careful regard for
the moral sentiment of the community, being of a secretive nature. In
the house, in the midst of the disorder she had created, moved Mrs.
Perkins, appareled in a gown decidedly the worse for wear and whose
frayed train was momentarily collecting deposits of dust on its under
edge.

Mrs. Perkins had been a beauty of the magnificent order. Perkins'
sandy hair, complexion and freckles, were the gift of his father.
The curlpapers to which her son had made honorable reference were
conspicuous objects in her disordered costume, while her face was
embellished with sundry dabs of dirt.

The Perkins' home was the finest in the town, but now it was in a state
of wild confusion. The furnishings from the numerous rooms had been
dragged into the halls where they accumulated in defiant heaps. Mrs.
Perkins surveyed the ruin. "Where, where did it all come from?" she
asked tragically.

At that moment had Mrs. Perkins lent a listening ear she might have
heard, disturbing the Sunday quiet that filled the broad street outside
with its peaceful repose, the distant rumble of wheels, foretelling the
approach of some heavy vehicle.

"I think, Anna," and she addressed herself to her principal assistant,
"I think, Anna, this will be a lesson to me!--a lesson I shall not soon
forget. What are you looking at?" For Anna was staring fixedly out of
the window paying no heed to her mistress' remarks.

Even as she spoke Mrs. Perkins caught the sound of wheels as they rolled
over the hard gravel of the carriageway below the window.

"I believe they have come," Anna said, her nose against the glass.
"I declare it looks like them. There are two of them and both are in
black."

At the news Mrs. Perkins sank down upon a chair completely overcome.
"No, you can't mean it, Anna! For heaven's sake, look again!"

"There's two of them," Anna answered triumphantly. "They're both getting
out. It's them."

Whereat Mrs. Perkins let fall two tears which plowed their way through
the dust upon her cheek and fell with a muddy splash to the folded hands
in her lap.

"That I should have lived to see this day!" she moaned.

"Shan't I go down and let them in?" asked Anna.

"No. I shall go myself."

Mrs. Perkins arose, summoning up all the majesty of bearing at her
command, and surveyed the faded silk wrapper that hung limply and
dustily to her figure with profound disgust.

"I suppose I must--but, what an impression I shall give her. Run to her
room and make sure all is right there. Thank heaven! I had the wisdom to
see to that, and there is a quiet spot to which she can retire."

So speaking Mrs. Perkins hurried down-stairs in response to the bell
that was sounding for the second time. With a final desperate clutch at
the curl-papers, a hasty adjusting of her skirts together with a last
shake to free them from dust and lint, she opened the door. Mrs. Perkins
afterward described her sensations as startling.

In common with her son she had anticipated welcoming a woman of mature
years: instead she saw two women. Both were in black, but one wore the
especial garments custom has made the sign of widowhood. The heavy veil
was thrown back, revealing a face at once youthful and beautiful but
of an extremely pallid coloring though it was touched with just the
faintest glow, born perhaps of expectancy and excitement.

This was all Mrs. Perkins' bewildered faculties had time to grasp for
the stranger said with a sweet little dignity that became her well,
advancing a step as she did so: "I am Margaret Dennée."

Her voice was beautifully soft, and in its enunciation suggestive of her
foreign birth and education.

"I was expecting some one twice your age," Mrs. Perkins said, laughing
in sheer surprise. Her astonishment had so much the better of any
reserve she had decided to show in the company of her distinguished
kinswoman, that she simply used the words that came most readily to her
tongue.

"Why, you are nothing but a child, a mere child, and you are Madame
Dennée?" As she spoke she held out her hand. "But do come in; the man
wants to get by with your baggage." And she drew her into the hall, the
maid following, leaving the steps to the driver and the trunks.

That evening was destined to remain forever more or less of a blank
in Madame Dennée's memory. She was conscious only of the warmth of her
welcome and an overpowering sense of fatigue.

Her real comprehension of events commenced on Monday morning when she
was aroused from her sleep by the pelting of rain against the west
windows of her room, accompanied by the steady and persistent drip,
drip, of the water-spout's overflow beneath the eaves to the sodden
ground below.

She had been in America ten days and in all that time had seen but one
streak of murky sunshine stealing from behind the masses of vapor that
drifted above the wet earth. Wind and rain had seemed to pursue her with
absolute ill will as though the weather itself was determined to drive
her out of the country and compel her to seek her usual winter's asylum
in the south of France.

Raising her head from the pillows, she surveyed the room. A fire was
burning brightly upon the hearth, the curtains at the windows were
drawn, shutting out all evidences of the season's inclemency, save the
steady and unceasing sound made by the storm.

Staying in bed offered superior advantages to getting up. With a sigh
of contentment she nestled down drawing the covering about her, then
closing her eyes and soothed by the contrast between the storm from
without and the cheerful crackling of the fire upon the hearth, she gave
herself up to thought.

The look upon the small face resting pallid and white against the
whiteness of the pillows was far from happy, for madame dwelt much upon
the unprofitableness of her past.

There were many reasons that might have induced the young girl to marry
a man fifty years her senior--many reasons--and yet all of them were
far removed from the realm of the affections. This Margaret Dennée knew
well, and to her sorrow.

She would have liked to forget it all--indeed, the wish had extended
over the last three years and resulted only in the positive knowledge
that one can forget anything provided one wishes to remember it, or it
is useful. Bitterness alone is defiant in the presence of forgetfulness.

She had at nineteen married Monsieur Dennée and had endured two years as
his wife, then, mercifully for her, he had died.

A woman differently constituted would have thanked God for the release
and set about enjoying herself, making merry with her late lord's
wealth. In her case, however, three years had been spent in a vain
effort to rid herself of some portion of the horror begotten in her soul
by the sacrifice she had made. There had been but one governing motive
in the ill-omened marriage--to get money for her brother.

Monsieur Dennée had promised to pay well for her charms and had kept
his word with the result that Goeffrey Ballard had been freed from
his pressing debts and given a new start and another chance to wreck
himself--a chance of which he had availed himself most speedily, so that
six months after the marriage no mortal could have said wherein lay the
profits or where his condition was any better than before the crime had
been consummated.

Margaret wondered often how she had survived those years of misery,--not
that Monsieur Dennée was unkind; he had simply never succeeded in
inspiring his young wife with one single spark of love. It had resolved
itself from the first into dumb and uncomplaining sufferance on her
part.

Nearness to him had caused her but one feeling--a dreadful repulsion--a
horrible desire almost exceeding her control to cry out as if in pain,
whenever he had touched her.

Under this strain she had lived for two long years, then came freedom;
but the iron had entered her soul. Her whole nature was saddened and
embittered beyond forgetfulness.

A morbid dread that she had confided to no one had taken possession of
her; she was completely at the mercy of her own distressing fancies
and had come to regard her marriage as a sin unpardonable, as something
unforgivable in the eyes of God.

At best, marriage is an ordeal for any woman, and a loveless marriage is
an abominable institution of torture. Not content with what could not be
banished, try as she might to live away from it, she had some vague
idea of a recompense to be made, an indefinite conception of earthly
punishment which she was to inflict upon herself.

It was this conviction that prompted her to wear the deepest mourning
as a matter of penance, for it reminded her of the awfulness of those
years, accenting and keeping the recollection always before her as a sin
she must not condone.

This was what drifted through her mind while she was in the drowsy state
that is neither sleeping nor waking. With something like a sob she came
to herself at last.

"Russell!" she called.

Her maid came from the adjoining apartment where for the last hour she
had been busy unpacking trunks and arranging her mistress' wardrobe. She
was a plain featured English woman who had served Margaret faithfully in
the two capacities of nurse and maid.

"Will Madame dress?" she asked.

"Is it late?"

"The family has breakfasted."

"I hope you told them I did not care for anything before luncheon?"

"Yes, Madame."

"And it is raining again. It has done nothing but rain since we landed."

While they were speaking Margaret had got into a long loose gown and
moved to the fire, where Russell had already placed an easy chair for
her. Wrapped in the voluminous folds of the garment she had donned she
seemed quite small and very slight. Her face was wholly lacking in color
except for a faint flush that at times burned on either cheek. Her hair,
in two massive braids that fell below her waist, was a rich warm brown
in the shadow, and golden where the light touched it. Her hands were
small and beautifully shaped.

Most apparent was a fragile quality of face and form as if a breath
might wither her.

Sitting in the great armchair and shrinking down toward the fire for
warmth, shivering too, in unison with every gust of wind or rain that
spent its force against the window, one could but marvel that she had
known so much of life.

Russell brushed her hair gently, taking care the strain should not rest
upon the dainty little head.

Margaret gazed thoughtfully into the fire. A certain sad aloofness was
expressed in her manner as though all her sorrows had been borne without
friend or confidante.

"I wonder if it's like this every day--without sunshine or clear skies,"
she murmured.

Russell did not respond to the direct question, but finished dressing
her hair and stepped to the door, saying:

"There is some one knocking. Perhaps ma-dame's cousin."

As she spoke, she opened it and Mrs. Perkins asked from the threshold:
"May I come in?"

For answer Margaret, turning in her chair, extended her hand, a smile
upon her lips: "If you don't mind my dressing. I fear you will think me
lazy. It must be late."

Mrs. Perkins bustled to her side. A very becoming morning toilet
contributed its due proportion to that lady's ease and comfort. "Really,
my dear, I never felt so strongly drawn to any one as I am to you."
As she spoke she bent and kissed Margaret with great stateliness and
ceremony. "You are not at all like the Ballards who were military people
and much given to combativeness. Your poor dear mother and I used to
hold most violent controversies. We had such a capacity for differences;
it always came to the surface when we were thrown much together. But
then it was a family trait and I suppose I should revere it accordingly.
To be sure, your mother was a Ballard only by marriage, but she was
an active partaker in the traditional characteristics. Dear! dear! how
antagonistic we were, and yet, a real affection existed between us. Now,
can't you tell me something about yourself?"

Mrs. Perkins drew up a chair and Margaret took one of her hands
caressingly in her own: "But what shall I tell you?"

"About yourself, my dear. About yourself, by all means."

"Ah!"--and she made a little depreciative gesture--"I am such an
ordinary person. There is nothing more to tell."

Mrs. Perkins shifted her position: "You can't fancy how amazed I was
when I saw you. I had understood always that Monsieur Dennée, your late
husband, was a man of very--what shall I say?"--she paused looking into
Margaret's eyes, seeking earnestly for the right word, but the allusion
to Monsieur Dennée did not stimulate any great burst of animation on the
part of his widow, and she was forced to finish her incomplete sentence
with, "a man of very advanced age."

"He was seventy years old when we were married," Margaret said quietly.

Mrs. Perkins elevated her eyebrows. "Why, you are young enough to be his
granddaughter!"

"I was nineteen." Her face had hardened perceptibly when Mrs. Perkins
spoke her husband's name, and at the mention of her marriage this
changed to a look of the keenest distress. Mrs. Perkins surmised that it
had not been an occurrence of the utmost happiness to the girl-wife.

Intent upon getting away from what she conceived to be a disagreeable
subject, though still with subdued inquisitiveness, she said:

"You have not been a widow then so very long?"

"Three years." With unmistakable relief--"I have lived in the south
of France during that time, but my home is in Paris. Since Monsieur
Dennée's death I have not cared to return to it." A pause followed.

Mrs. Perkins tapped the floor with her foot. She knew that any more
questions would be in very bad form, as Margaret had shown that she was
adverse to constituting herself the sole center of interest. Truth to
tell, Mrs. Perkins was rather abashed. As a rule she had no compunctions
when it came to catechising newcomers in the town as to their past and
possible future. Her position, which was unassailable, made it quite
safe to seek to put at rest all uncertainty under which she might be
laboring. But Madame Dennée was distinctly of another world. Suddenly
she bethought herself of her son. He was, as she knew, in the library
engaged in stroking his immature side-whiskers and wondering if,--"she
would like him, anyhow."

Sunday evening had been spent in the society of his friend Becker and
when he had presented himself at his own door shortly after ten,
he found his mother waiting for him, with a glowing account of the
splendor, beauty and culture of their young relative who had just
withdrawn for the night.

"I think I have not told you of Ballard, my son, you know," said Mrs.
Perkins. "May I?"

Madame Dennée inclined her head by way of response, and Mrs. Perkins
continued: "He is wild to meet you. For of course when he came in last
evening, I had so much to tell him about you. He so regrets that he
should have been absent. If we had only known when to look for you he
would have been waiting for you at the train." Margaret entreated her to
make no excuses. The kindness she had met with all but overwhelmed her
as it was, she said, but Mrs. Perkins was not to be turned aside now
that she had got a fresh start with plain sailing ahead of her.

"My dear, he so regrets he did not know of your coming in season to meet
you. Not to have done so seems to us so very inhospitable."

Margaret pressed her hand gently. "You are most kind. I am sure I shall
love you dearly and perhaps," wistfully, "perhaps, you will grow to like
me."

"My dear, I do that already. I am drawn to you as I never was before to
a--"

"A stranger you would say?"

"Yes, and no--for, after all, you are my cousin's child and that means
much to me."

Madame Dennée appeared a trifle helpless and as though she was incapable
of meeting these advances. A repellent feeling--a wish to keep from
close friendships had grown up in her heart--springing from the sure
consciousness that she stood in need of sympathy and love and would be
weakly dependent upon it once it was hers; but fearing always that
she might tell those things her mind most fed upon, she shrank from
intimacies.

Mrs. Perkins vacated her chair, and said with a trace of self-denial in
her voice: "I shall let you dress now."

With this she quitted the room and joined young Perkins in the
library. She found him standing on a corner of the hearth-rug, lost in
meditation.

"I hope she is all right, mother," he said.

"Oh, yes--she will be down presently."

"Is she much of a stunner by daylight?" he inquired.

"I wish you would be more select in your expressions, Ballard. She is a
woman of the greatest elegance."

"You like her, don't you, a lot?"

"I confess I do. There is something indescribably winning in her manner.
I think her marriage was not at all a happy one."

Perkins shook his head wisely: "He must have been too old for her, you
know."

"He was fifty years her senior, she has told me."

Perkins was expressing his amazement at such a marriage, when the door
opened and Margaret appeared on the scene. An embarrassed silence fell
upon him at once. He barely managed to answer the greeting she gave him.

Long before that Monday was ended Ballard's interest in his cousin'
had become tremendous. When night came he was her abject slave,--her
worshipful admirer who demanded but one privilege, that he might still
be allowed to worship--yet no one could have asked for less than she.
She was almost timidly sensitive about being a care or burden to him
or to his mother. Despite her habitual shrinking from nearer contact or
sympathy, Perkins sat for the most of the day on a small corner of his
chair, his knees tight together and his toes turned most resolutely in,
like a plump little saffron-headed Trojan, heroically resolved on her
amusement. The tension under which he put himself, was so stupendous
that he absent-mindedly twisted every available button from his coat. He
talked on innumerable topics: told her all about himself, "Not because
I think myself at all unusual," he had been careful to explain, "but
because I am so perfectly acquainted with the subject."

He racked his brain for fluent descriptions concerning his loftier
emotions--told her his most cherished ambitions--"things I should never
dream of telling any one else," he said very truthfully. "But don't you
know, I guess you call for the best that is in me."

He launched forth in quest of miscellaneous data and was soon telling
her of Franz Becker and Philip Southard. When he told her Becker was a
musician and Margaret told him that music was the one thing she loved
above all else, he felt as happy as though he had discovered a gold
mine in the coal scuttle. So fascinated was he that during the ensuing
half-hour he talked a good deal more music than he knew, and at last,
in answer to a question she asked, he found himself manfully seeking to
formulate a concise history of the United States.

In short, Perkins did much that day that a Solomon would have feared to
undertake. Late in the afternoon the wind died down and the rain ceased.
The clouds drifted from before the slowly sinking sun, and his crimson
flames burned in the red west.

Together they went into the yard. It had become quite warm with the
approach of the evening, but Margaret was folded in a great fur wrap. "I
am always cold," she had said.

For a time they had strolled about the grounds, which were very
extensive, and Ballard had taken her into the conservatory where
the gardener--who with the rest fell immediately under her gentle
sway--picked for her a bunch of lilies-of-the-val-ley. Then they
had gone into the house again where she shared her bouquet with
Ballard--giving him a spray of white for his buttonhole. Much to his
sorrow Perkins found it necessary to leave her and go down-town. With
his departure Margaret was left quite to herself. The repairing of the
preceding days' havoc demanding Mrs. Perkins' supervision, and tempted
by the outer brightness, she summoned Russell and wandered into the
grounds about the house and from the grounds into the street. Both found
much to wonder at in the little western city. It was so different from
anything they had either of them ever known. As they passed down the
street they came to a church--the door stood open and there came from
within a burst of melody. Perhaps some service was in progress. Margaret
turned, and followed by Russell, entered the building. They found it
empty save for one man who was just visible as he sat with bowed head
before the organ, his hands upon the keys.

Madame Dennée was no mean judge of music. She had heard the greatest
masters of the world and she knew that this player, whoever he might be,
was not one of the least. He was improvising and from his own fancies
drifted into Bach's first prelude. While his fingers were wandering
through the opening bars, a sound stole out of the vacancy behind him.

The player turned and saw her standing in the aisle--the little gloved
hands folded in unconscious devotion--the head thrown back with its
delicate halo of golden hair, while through a stained glass window, high
up beneath the arched roof, a single beam of light came to touch and
transform the upturned face that stood forth boldly outlined against the
surrounding shadows and the darkness that was gathering swiftly.

The final note was dying away, lingering out its sweetness lovingly upon
the silence and the expression of rapt intenseness was fading from
her face, when for the first time her eyes met his to be withdrawn
instantly. A moment later and Margaret with her companion stole
noiselessly from the church. Within the organ was sounding again,
throbbing like a great heart that had awakened from its sleep to life
and love.


V


Madame Dennée had expressed the hope of avoiding all social
obligations. And Perkins had barely ventured to ask her meekly if he
might not invite his two most intimate friends to the house--he was
"morally certain" she would like them immensely, they were such charming
fellows. So in due season he had presented Franz and Philip, and to them
Margaret was most gracious.

After their first meeting with Madame Dennée, the young men had walked
home in a subdued frame of mind. They stopped at the Beckers' to smoke
a farewell pipe and while under the stimulating influence of the
weed Philip proceeded to analyze his emotions and indulge in critical
comment.

"Didn't it strike you that Perkins was just a bit sappy to-night? How
his tongue did rattle along and always about himself." Philip meditated
for a moment. "Perhaps I am uncharitable. I think my main grudge against
him rests on this--I wanted to talk about myself."

Franz was smoking his pipe. There was a faraway look in his eyes and he
was paying little attention to what his companion said.

Philip continued: "How did you like Madame Dennée? She is very
beautiful, don't you think? A woman of culture and great spirituality."
Franz was still silent. "There is something about her that impressed
me as being touchingly sad and pathetic--I can't describe it, but it's
there. I should say though she had an infinite capacity for happiness."

Becker removed the pipe from his mouth. "I have seen her before," he
said simply.

"Oh!" Philip regarded him curiously.

"It was at church. In the evening while I was at my practise." He paused
abruptly.

"I am afraid Perkins is in a fair way to make a precious ass of
himself," Philip observed. "He is at the beginning of a bad business
and ought to saw off. Perkins is all right, you know, but even his own
mother would have to admit that he is freckled and fat. If he goes to
falling in love with his cousin--"

By a sharp decisive blow Franz knocked the ashes from his pipe: "I shall
have to say good night, Philip. I don't propose to send you home but--"

"Oh, that's all right. What's wrong? Have I said anything I shouldn't?"

"Shall I go down or will you be able to find your way out by yourself?"
Franz asked.

He held open the door and Philip passed from the room. At the foot of
the stairs he turned and called back his good night. Becker answered him
cordially enough. When he found himself in the street Philip came to a
stand.

"I declare he fairly put me out. As I live," he finally cried, "as I
live he is in love with her himself."

During the succeeding weeks they both saw much of Madame Dennée.

Usually Philip prided himself on his ability to shock people, but with
her he carefully eschewed all levity. Nothing could have induced him
to advance the sacrilegious theories with which he delighted to offend.
Such was his unblushing apostasy that Mrs. Perkins, who had long viewed
him as one of the lost sheep, (chiefly by reason of the fact that for
some years her son had at intervals favored her with scattered gems
from his friend's remarks as well as with his scandalously unorthodox
criticisms of vital questions) presented him with a volume of sermons.

Philip accepted this token of unexpectedly kindled solicitude with a
stately gravity far surpassing the donor's, while Ballard went off into
a series of convulsions that brought with them unworthy prominence and
attendant disgrace. Furthermore, he was detected by his mother in the
shameless act of winking at Becker.

Philip derived great good from those sermons. They gave him a convenient
supply of paper for the lighting of fires in his room.

Those were delightful evenings they spent together when Philip would
drop in on his way home from Barbara,--for the Perkinses were nothing if
not fashionable and kept later hours than any other family in the town.

The young men would form a half-circle about Madame Dennée, where she
nestled in an easy chair beside the fire for the warmth she loved and
needed, and they would stand, looking down at the slight black-robed
figure and sweet pure face, talking the while very boyishly of their
hopes and their aims. Philip and Perkins especially had much to say of
themselves. Indeed, there existed at first a very pronounced rivalry as
to who should say the more.

They told her their desires, their ambitions--everything, and to
their confessions she listened with a certain quaint little display of
friendliness and affection that completely captivated them.

There was this peculiar feature noticeable in the devotion she
inspired,--it was unselfish always for it was possible to love her in a
manner that exacted nothing in return; possible to lay all at her feet,
and ask but the joy of giving.

The fall and early winter were unusually inclement and a troublesome
cough kept Margaret confined within doors. Perhaps resulting from this
and the anxious care Russell took of her, they divined that she was not
strong. It was solely by indirection they came to know that the frail
little body had worn itself out to the verge of exhaustion. But the
undisturbed quietness in which her days were spent pleased her fancy
vastly better than any gaiety could have done. The latter she had known
to the point of surfeiting while her husband lived and she recalled it
as something to be avoided.

Thus it came that the weeks covering her stay in the small western city
were the happiest she had ever known.

She enjoyed her companionship with Perkins and Philip,--she could like
them unreservedly and in return be treated to a sincere admiration not
without its gratification to the starved little heart.

She stood more in awe of Franz, and he kept his thoughts of her a
secret. She could not guess that they lay too close against his very
soul for utterance; but there was a remarkable gentleness in his bearing
when in her presence--a reverent quality far removed from his customary
brusk-ness.

Cling as she would to the past, Margaret was slowly growing away from
it. She was almost happy. In course of time she might have been entirely
so, but for the existence of her brother Geoff, who skulked on the
outskirts of decency--and who only indicated that he thought of her when
he showered her with begging letters.

In all the mad indulgence of his worthless career he had done no
generous deed. He had burdened some one always, taking to himself the
lion's share of the fruits and shirking all the toil.

It was to pay his debts, to give him a fresh start, that Margaret had
been coerced by her mother into marrying Monsieur Dennée. That sin
occurred at a day when Geoffrey had squandered the last of his patrimony
and had embarrassed his mother's and sister's fortune besides.

Then it was that Margaret, but little more than a child, was taken from
the school near Brussels and brought to Paris that Geoff might play her
as his last card in the losing game of chance that was swallowing up
their possessions.

He had cast about that he might effect a suitable alliance (to him
a suitable alliance meant one that should not be scant of profit to
himself) and had fastened upon Monsieur Dennée, who yielded up the price
of purchase with the utmost readiness. More than this, while he
lived, Geoff' was well provided for and if he had not been a chronic
spendthrift could have thrived exceedingly. Unfortunately, he had no
intention to be on easy terms with his good luck, but was forever making
unreasonable demands upon his elderly brother-in-law for money, and for
yet more money. The result was that when the old banker came to die he
put his property in such shape that by no scheming could Geoff get his
hands upon it.

Monsieur Dennée's methodical bestowing of his worldly belongings did not
stop there. He arranged that an annuity should be paid Geoffrey and
his mother. It was further stipulated that in the event of the latter's
death Geoff should also have her portion.

Mrs. Ballard had not long survived her son-inlaw, and though Geoff had
availed himself of the addition to his means her death gave him, the
doubled amount was as insufficient as had been his previous lesser
allowance.

After her husband's death Margaret was left to live her lonely life
without interference from her brother. He went his course and she hers,
though it was his habit to appear from time to time a seedy, shabby
beggar and take from her every cent she could get together. Then he
would vanish, no one knew where, until he again needed money. Nor was
this all. He had married--much as he did everything else--to gratify
some vacillating whim, and when the novelty of the relation wore off he
had forsaken his family with never a regret, leaving the broken home for
his sister to maintain.

For years Margaret had cared for his wife and children--"Kate and
the three boys" were always in difficulties, more or less pressing,
difficulties of the sort only money--blessed balm that it is--could
alleviate. In short, there were more drains, more attacks made upon the
wealth of Monsieur Dennée, deceased, than one could enumerate in a
long talk. These just referred to were of the unceasing, never-ending
variety, that came clamorously with each month, came again until they
were satisfied.

But of all, Geoffrey Ballard was much the worst. He was seldom
stationary or confined to any place by tie or occupation. He came and
went at will; there was never any getting away from him.

Had it not been for Russell, Margaret would have been utterly
defenseless, but the maid was a strong and reliable character, who
strenuously resisted the wholesale absorption of her mistress' property.
When madame's bankers remitted her income, Russell would take into her
keeping the sum she deemed adequate for their proper support, and no one
could take this from her.

With the bulk of what remained Geoff generally made off.

One evening while Margaret was alone in the library at early dusk, the
room unlighted by other flame than the glowing of coals upon the hearth,
there came a tapping at a long French window opening upon the porch. She
looked up quickly, startled by the sound, and saw a man standing in the
half shadow.

One glance sufficed,--it was Geoff.

Frightened and trembling, she arose and went to the window, pushing it
aside that he might enter. Without a word, he stepped into the room.

"How damnably cold it is," he grumbled. "Throw another lump of coal on
the fire, will you? What a beastly climate--rough on a man who does
not boast an overcoat. Thanks." For Margaret mutely complied with his
bidding.

The flames leaped up, disclosing a man of nearly forty, shabbily dressed
in garments once of the greatest elegance, but which from hard usage
were now nearly ragged.

He was of fine physique with a handsome countenance that, like his
clothes, showed unmistakable symptoms of wear, for a record of the
degrading course he had pursued so assiduously was stamped upon it.

He glanced around the room, taking in its appointments. They met with
his approval, for he said:

"This is not at all bad. You do get your share of the good gifts of
this world while I spend most of my time standing in the rain waiting
to gather up the crumbs you scatter. Here I traveled from New Orleans
to New York, thinking of course I should find you there. Imagine my
predicament. All I had went to the pawn-shops, and I just managed to
scrape through."

This was said with an aggrieved air as though the fault was hers. "Now,
what can you do for me?" he continued; "I want money. I think my dress
bears out the statement--" And he took a disgusted survey of himself in
a small mirror hanging above the chimneypiece.

On her deathbed, at the close of a very foolish life, Mrs. Ballard had
wrung from her daughter the promise that she would never abandon her
brother, and Margaret, who was the victim of sentimentality where her
mother's last wish was concerned, had carried it out blindly without
stopping to consider its injustice. The profligate brother now spread
out his hands behind his back to catch the heat from the fire, and
ensconced himself contentedly on the hearth-rug.

As his sister had vouchsafed him no response he returned to the charge.
"I don't wish to force my needs upon you," he said. "You must know it's
hard for a man of my age to get down on his knees for the money to keep
himself going." Margaret raised her eyes to his, and stared at him,
silent and miserable for a moment.

"Well?" Geoff asked impatiently, "what are you going to do for me--what
may I count on?"

"When I saw you in New York, I told you distinctly what you were to
expect, Geoff."

Her tone while not unkind was positive. Gentle as she was and tender in
all her dealings and judgments, a show of firmness had to be maintained
in her relationship with this spendthrift, and too, she felt as bitter
a sense of injury as her forgiving nature could harbor for the wreck he
had made of her girlhood. She added almost hesitatingly:

"I--I am so sorry you have followed me here." To him this seemed to
denote such outrageous treachery that he was really hurt--and showed
it. She went to his side, and placing an arm caressingly about his neck,
said, "Forgive me, Geoff. I did not mean quite that, but I have been so
happy here. If you could only be as I am then you would like it too, but
you know you are so restless. That is what I meant."

He shook off her arm rudely. "I understand, this sort of thing is
useless--I'm not deceived." She looked at him pityingly. How mistaken he
was in every impulse and ideal.

"I have not tried to deceive you, Geoff. Why should I attempt to? But
it is so sad that we should waste our lives, when there are such
possibilities within us if we would only consent to make the most of
them. We have both lived so untrue to what is best."

This elicited only a contemptuous shrug from Geoff.

Margaret clasped her hands, while a spot of red burned in each cheek.
"Why can't we go back?--back into the past so far we shall forget the
wretched years we have wasted so wickedly?"

Geoff was excessively bored.

"I presume you are referring to your marriage." He retorted angrily:
"The utter thanklessness in which you hold that piece of luck amazes me.
I should like to know what the devil would become of us if it wasn't
for Dennée's money. Of course the old fool tied it up with such nasty
restrictions one can just get at the income, but I am pleased to be able
to assert that I am not ungrateful. I regard your marriage as the very
best thing that could have fallen to your lot, and I consider that I
did what was honorable. Therefore--your evident dissatisfaction rather
astonishes me. Under the circumstances, I scarcely anticipated it."

He settled himself in a chair, stretching out his feet toward the
fender. His handsome head, fine as to shape and size, was thrown back
and the firelight fell upon the beautiful evil face. About the eyes were
heavy circles. These were the visible traces dissipation had left. A few
gray hairs showed among the profusion of dark curls.

"I don't intend to reproach you," Margaret said.

"I should think not, when you reflect what I have done for you," he
answered coldly.

"But at what a cost--at what a dreadful cost!" she cried quickly, and
her voice vibrated with the intensity of her grief.

Geoff was deeply resentful, but offered no further interruption. She
would be more pliable with such treatment. He centered his rather
sleepy vision earnestly upon the carpet and endeavored to gain relief in
partial abstraction.

Margaret crouched on the floor beside his chair, watching the warm glow
turn to ashes as in her own heart the gold had turned to gray. There was
nothing left.

"I don't mean to reproach you, Geoff," she said at last. "I have never
even told you how hard and unbearable it has been for me--the horror
or the haunting sense of sin and shame. Perhaps you did mean it for
the best. I hope you did for your own sake, not for mine; I hope you
did!--but I have suffered so.

"There has been such a stain upon my soul since the days of my loveless
marriage, it would not wear away, it has only grown less since I came
here. I wish to forget--I wish to begin again and there is no one
who should be so near as you, no one to whom I can so justly look for
protection. Shall we not begin again, Geoff? I am so sure we may be
happy if we only will, and the life you lead, dear, is such an awful
mistake--it can bring you nothing but pain, and to have you come to
me worn and jaded, drags me down more than I can tell. I am constantly
fearing that serious trouble may overtake you, I live in continual
apprehension about you. Is it right that I, who have so much to make
amends for, should support this load, too? Can I not grow back into some
measure of innocence, without having sin and evil brought forever to
me--Geoff--Geoff!"

She looked up appealingly.

His eyes were closed and his breathing proclaimed him to be half asleep.

With a sudden uncontrollable feeling of repulsion she shrank away from
his side; then she stood erect.

Her movement aroused him. With a yawn he opened his eyes and glanced
about stupidly as though he could not quite remember where he was.

"Really, I beg your pardon," he said with lazy politeness. "But the heat
made me drowsy. Positively I could not keep my eyes open."

He thought it about time to bring matters to a crisis. He drew himself
together and made ready to terminate the interview.

"How much can you let me have? I am aware that your bankers won't remit
for a while yet, but can't you do something for me temporarily? As you
see, I am abominably shabby and it's no way for a gentleman to appear."

"How much do you need?" Margaret asked.

Geoff promptly dropped the whine in which he had previously spoken,
becoming suddenly and wonderfully buoyant.

"Oh! a few hundreds. I'll spend them well, and I'll agree not to bother
you again until your money gets here. I'll hang about quietly until it
comes, then you can fix me up and I will bolt the place. Now I call
that fair--and you would better"--he grew strangely sinister--"you would
better do as I ask or you may get let in for more than the mere loss of
cash."

"I will go to Russell and learn what can be spared."

"The old cat!"

Margaret left the room. In the hall she encountered Perkins.

"I was coming to find you," he said. "It's nearly dinner-time and dark
as the deuce. I say," in surprise, "is anything the matter?"

For Madame Dennée's face was more than unusually pale--more than
unusually sad.

"Where are you going, Ballard?"

"Into the library. That is I was going there, but if you don't mind,
I'll just go along with you."

"Instead will you do me a service?"

Perkins instantly made a gesture of assent. "Whatever you ask," he said
eagerly.

"It's very little. Please don't be curious, and don't allow your mother
or the servants to enter the library while I am up-stairs." Perkins
seemed mystified and she added: "Some one is there, some one I would
rather not have you see."

At this his face cleared. He made haste to say, "I shall do exactly as
you ask. Nobody shall enter the library until you are willing that they
should."

"Thank you so very much." And she vanished up the stairs.

Perkins glared fixedly at the library door, his freckled features
assuming a belligerent expression.

Margaret returned immediately and came down the stairs quite breathless.

"Shall I stay here and keep the rest away until he goes, you know?" he
asked.

She gave him a thankful glance, and he added:

"There, don't you worry. No one shall disturb you."

He held open the door as he spoke and shut it carefully after her, so
that no portion of a conversation clearly not for him should find its
way to his ears.

Ten minutes later when Geoff had taken his leave Margaret found Perkins
still at his post, pacing the hall with dignified step. Something akin
to intuition informed him it would be well not to allude to recent
happenings, so he remarked:

"I think dinner is waiting for us. Suppose we go see."

It was after dinner when Margaret was alone with Perkins and his mother
that she crept close to the latter saying: "I think I shall have to go
away."

Mrs. Perkins let fall her sewing and gazed at Margaret in blank
astonishment.

"My dear, you surely don't mean it!" she cried at last.

Whatever traits Mrs. Perkins had inherited from her military ancestors,
to Margaret she had been womanly and loving, and the friendless little
wanderer had received from her more motherly care than she had ever
before known.

"I think," she began again timidly, and her voice was perilously near to
the point of breaking, "I think it is much better for me to go at once."

"But do you wish to go--that is--must you?" Mrs. Perkins insisted:
"Dear! dear! I had never even thought of your leaving us, and yet it is
scarcely probable you will be content to remain here always."

"I fear it is better for me to leave you, but I do not wish to go--it's
not that--believe me it's not!"

"Then, my dear, Ballard and I will never hear to it."

It was then Margaret broke down entirely, and not knowing what else to
do sought refuge in Mrs. Perkins' arms and from that safe vantage told
of her brother.

"And he is coming back. I--I had hoped he would not, unkind and
ungenerous as it may seem!"

"Very well. He shall come here," Mrs. Perkins said.

"Oh, no! oh, no! you must know--I must tell you that his actions may be
hard to explain. They are often reckless in the extreme. I can not make
my burden yours. You would grow to hate me if I did."

"Indeed we shan't," Perkins burst out. "I'll look after him when he
comes. I can handle him. You have no idea how clever I am. You just turn
him over to me--I'll manage him." And he shook his head knowingly, while
under his breath he whispered: "If he cuts up and annoys her I'll punch
his damned nose!"--which was very violent language for him.

"I so regret--" Margaret began again, but Mrs. Perkins would hear no
more.

"There, my dear, we understand perfectly, so don't distress yourself at
all about it. You are going to remain here, whatever happens."

"Of course you are!" Perkins chimed in. "We want you to feel that this
is your home and that you are to stay here as long as ever you wish to.
The idea!--the very idea--"

"You are so good," Madame Dennée murmured gratefully. "So kind! It is
beautiful to be so loved."

"It is more beautiful to have you with us, you know," Perkins remarked,
"and to be permitted to love you."

"If I remain you must grant me one favor in advance." And she looked at
Perkins, seeing in him a victim for the wily Geoff.

"A million if you like," he answered rashly.

"You are not to lend my brother money. You must promise me this."

"I shall be guided wholly by you," Perkins assured her.

This ended all mention of Geoff, but late in the night when they had
all retired, Mrs. Perkins was aroused by Russell rapping on her door and
entreating her to come at once to Madame Dennée; who was very ill.

Mrs. Perkins found the poor persecuted one crouching down in her bed
frightened and shivering, though her head burned as with a fever.

She had had a dreadful dream, and she could not free herself from the
nameless fear.

While his mother was soothing Margaret, young Perkins in a disordered
state as to costume, but even more so as to mind, skirmished about
the hall demanding half-minute bulletins through the keyhole. He was
eventually induced to withdraw when it was announced that his cousin was
resting easily, and reluctantly sought his room, while his mother and
Russell, sitting by Margaret's bedside, discussed the situation in
muffled tones.

"It is nervousness," the maid said. "When you know her brother you will
not wonder in the least why seeing him should so work upon madame." And
needing sympathy herself she proceeded to give Geoff a character that
made Mrs. Perkins shudder.

Russell was as sure as her mistress had been that he would come back,
arguing that the remittance from Paris would prevent his removing
himself to any distance until he had his grasp, "his greedy and
rapacious grasp," as she termed it melodramatically, on the money. She
also, warming up to her theme, repeated every disreputable anecdote,
every questionable transaction with which his name had ever been
associated. These, if properly compiled and edited, would have filled a
large book and the contents would have been extremely spicy.

So startling was the narrative that Mrs. Perkins reproached herself
because of the fatal promptitude with which she had undertaken his
lodgment.

At such times, however, she had but to look at the slight figure tossing
restlessly upon the bed to feel that for Margaret's sake she would
gladly assume any risk.


VI


Philip had the street to himself as he walked up-town from the
Perkins', where he had been spending the evening, but as he came to his
own gate, he saw a man lounging beside it.

It was Lester Royal.

Since the night when they had met for the first time in months, Philip
had not seen him, and he had ceased to command any portion of his
thoughts in the pressure of work and newer interests, but the sight of
the boy leaning dejectedly against the fence revived the memory of their
former interview.

"Why, Lester, it's you, is it?" he said with a marked display of
cordiality for he was not averse to a little human intercourse at that
particular moment. "Beastly cold, isn't it?" he added.

"I am frozen," Lester said, and he shivered. "I have been waiting to see
you for an hour or more. Take me indoors, will you, where it's warm?"

Philip took his hand. It was like ice. "I should say you are frozen.
Come along with me!"

They turned into the yard and Philip with his night-key unlocked the
house door and led the way up to his room where a bright fire burned in
the grate--his one luxury. He pushed Lester down into a chair before it
and said:

"Now what's up?"

He saw that his visitor was pale and worn, with dark haggard lines
about his eyes, and the hands he held out toward the blaze were thin and
tremulous.

"Have you been ill?" he questioned.

The younger boy shook his head.

"What's wrong then?"

For answer Lester cried hoarsely in a voice choked with emotion and
grief, "I am done for, Philip--done for! I am dying by inches--I!--and a
year ago I thought I should live forever."

He buried his face in his hands, sobbing like a child.

The spectacle of a man in tears was not at all soothing to Philip.
Perhaps there might have been times when he would have done the same
thing, but that was no excuse for Lester.

He had done and probably would continue to do a great many things that
he could not pardon in another.

"Come! come! this won't do. Be a man," he said coldly.

He was really very sorry for the boy, but Lester had no earthly right to
make such a violent assault upon his feelings; besides he had a lurking
suspicion that he was harrowing up his sensibilities with the sole
object of asking for a loan. Whatever his object, Lester paid no heed to
him, and Philip, after taking a turn about the room, halted at his side.

"I say what's the matter, anyhow?"

"You think I am a baby as well as a fool!" came in stifled accents from
the sufferer.

"Oh, no!" Philip remarked politely, "only it's rather unconventional,
you know. Just a bit surprising--not to say startling. I am hardly
prepared for it. If you could manage to slow up a little I should be
very grateful."

Lester raised his head and looked up into his friend's face.

The suffering that Philip saw in the face before him caused him to push
a chair close to the boy's and seat himself. Then with one hand half
clasping Lester's, half resting on the arm of the chair, he said kindly:
"Tell me, old fellow, what it is?"

"I can't! I can't! You will know some day. You will find out for
yourself when--" He broke off abruptly, leaving the sentence unfinished.

"Very well, don't say more than you wish," Philip answered. It was
too serious for any display of curiosity on his part he felt. He gazed
pityingly at Lester who looked pale and wan. Thus for a time they sat,
neither speaking. At last Lester said:

"I've got to talk with some one--my brain swims with it--for the one
idea whirls and whirls till I am dizzy and blind. I am wretched, Philip,
wretched; and there is no help for it. I've brought it all on myself. Do
you think it very hard to die?"

"Easy, but not agreeable. Why do you ask such infernally gruesome
questions?"

"I've got to die."

"I can't see where you are an exception to the rule. It's expected of
everybody--the nasty act of termination. What a vulgar thing death is!"

Lester stood erect--the firelight flashing over his worn countenance.
"It's different with me. I've got to die now--now!" With a groan of
anguish he flung himself back into the chair while Philip looked at him
in astonishment.

"See here. What morbid fancy has hold of you?" he asked. "I must admit I
don't like this sort of talk."

But Lester's face was buried in his hands, only his dry hard gaspings
were audible. He gained a degree of control over himself and again faced
his companion, saying: "Don't you know what I mean?"

"No, I don't, and that's a fact."

Lester was silent. Some sentiment of reserve stood between him and the
confession he was seeking to make.

"Have you been drinking lately?" Philip questioned gravely.

"Yes--but not to-day."

"You shouldn't do it. It's anything but good for you."

"Do you think I am fool enough not to know that?" Lester replied with
almost savage earnestness.

"Then why in the name of sense don't you keep straight?"

"I resolve to, and then go and get drunk against my will. You don't know
what it's like."

Philip regarded him sadly. There was a heavy melancholy in the boy's
whole attitude that distressed him--a spirit as of dumb submission to
the inevitable. It was only lifted when he indulged in his wild bursts
of grief.

"What's the good!" Lester continued. "I can keep up for a day or two,
but I go back to it every time."

Philip shrugged his shoulders, saying with a poor attempt at lightness:
"I suppose one should not resist the flesh. Our most virtuous moments
are those which come when we have tired the devil out within us and
are basking in the splendor of the good resolutions that tread upon the
heels of satiety." He would have given anything to recall the words once
they were spoken, for Lester shrank from him.

"I didn't think you would talk to me so--not now," he said.

There was the dull glint of anger in his lack-luster eyes, but it faded
away almost immediately. Once more he became stupidly quiet.

"Forgive me," Philip ventured penitently. "I didn't mean to wound you."

"It's all right," Lester said indifferently. "It's all right. I presume
you are thoroughly sick of me.

"No, I am not. I'd like to help you if I knew how, but you don't tell me
what your trouble is. It's blind guessing with me. I don't know how to
give you a lift."

"It's too late, I tell you. I'm done for."

"Do you mind explaining just what you mean?"

"I've squandered what should have lasted me a lifetime. I am a bankrupt
in brain, body and purse. My God!"--with a gesture eloquent of despair
and misery--"I've ruined myself! There is nothing left for me but
death."

And Philip, understanding something of the other's need, said: "It's not
so bad as that. You can pull yourself around, but if it's as you declare
it to be, you can't be too quick about it."

"The doctors say not. It's all up with me according to them."

"Damn the doctors! What do they know?"

"They say it's too late."

"Siuff. They lie! It's never too late."

"There, Philip, don't--don't let's discuss it. I am not afraid, but it's
terrible. I have thought I had years and years before me, and they were
all wasted in a day."

To his horror Philip saw that his friend was in a measure reconciled to
death. This to a pagan like Philip, was incomprehensible.

Now that he had talked more freely, Lester was calmer and his dejection
was not so pronounced as at first. Silence had fallen on them and they
sat looking into the fire, each busy with his own thoughts.

"Let's talk about when we were boys," Lester finally said. "You do the
talking just as you did when I saw you last. Do you know if I can't
sleep nights--and I can't most of the time--I like to think about it:
the past that stops where my folly began. In all the years since I came
of age, there is nothing I want to remember--it's all agony to me. Talk
about when we were boys, Philip--about what we did in vacation. You were
always such a good old chap!"

He put his hand on Philip's arm and let it rest there affectionately
while Philip in a low voice began to speak of the past,--and at the
telling much that was hard in his own nature grew soft. A strange
gentleness came into the hearts of both, as Philip talked of their
boyhood. When the winding country roads knew the marks of their bare
feet in the dust; when, stripped of clothing and shame, they lay lazily
upon the hot sand by the river's brim, and afterward took the long walk
for home through the scented dusk. Back to the days when they were dirty
and happy--when respectability knew them not at all--Philip carried
them. And Lester saw in the fire, the red of the sunshine; in the smoke,
the darkness of night,--the warm summer nights that were filled with
peace and sleep.

Surely, it was better then--and as he listened his head fell over on his
shoulder, his eyes closed, while still as in a dream he heard the murmur
of Philip's voice, saw the pictures he drew, and then he slept.

Philip moved noiselessly to the table where the lamp burned. This he
blew out so that only the firelight filled the room, the firelight and
the colder brightness the moon sent stealing in through the windows.

As the hours wore on, he kept his watch at the sleeper's side, thinking
and wondering what it all meant and what the end would be.

It was almost day when Lester woke.

"Better, Lester?" he asked.

"Yes. I wish I were back to it. I wish I were a boy again. I am sick of
the present, and the future has nothing for me. You know I can't keep
from the very things that are killing me. I try and try and then I
fail."

"You must keep from them if you are ever to be all you were, all you
promised to be."

Lester shook his head.

"It will never be, Philip. It is too late--I am done for."

"That's absurd, Lester. There! I can tolerate any one except the man who
differs from me in his opinions. For him I have the heartiest contempt."

"It's not all cowardice with me," Lester said miserably. "Now that the
time has gone forever, I want what I have never had. I am desperately
sick of myself."

He looked at Philip wistfully, and the remembrance was torture to Philip
long afterward. "Did you ever want to be good? Can you imagine what this
desire is in a fellow like me?"

"Why do you stir me up on these lines of sloppy sentiment?" Philip
retorted. "No, I never want to be good. My digestion is perfect. Piety
does very well for children and invalids."

Lester made no response to this and his friend added in an injured but
more temperate tone: "You talk like a man on his death-bed. I can only
give you temporal consolation. I can only tell you what seems to me the
wisest course to pursue."

"Perhaps I am nearer that than you think for--nearer my death-bed," the
boy answered, helplessly, drearily.

"Stuff!" Philip cried hotly.

Lester seemed to take small comfort from his words, but Philip made a
last attempt to cheer him up. "As to the doctors," he said, "you can't
depend on them; and that about your dying is rank nonsense. If folly and
sin were so fatal, our race would have become extinct long ago. You may
be in a very bad way--I don't say you are not, but anything is possible
in this world. You are more apt to get well than to die. You made a
mistake, though, when you consulted a doctor. As long as a man can
remain in ignorance of those operations that are going on inside of him,
he is in the enjoyment of a very considerable blessing."

Lester turned away.

"Well, I shall go home now if you will let me out," he said drearily.

"Are you going to keep clear of those indulgences that are, as you
think, killing you?"

"If I can I shall."

"If you can--you must!" Lester's glance checked him:--"I'll walk home
with you," he said gently, and as he saw Lester was going to protest, he
made haste to add:

"It's no odds to me that it's late."

And together they left the house.

A week later it occurred to Philip that Lester had not lived up to the
assurance he had given him at parting, that he would come around soon
and report upon his troubles.

"Now I suppose I should go look him up," he thought, "and find out why
he has dodged the agreement in this fashion. It's just my misfortune to
be of an abominably conscientious temperament which causes me to feel
morally responsible for his well-being. I really am conscientious,--even
stupidity can not be urged in extenuation. In the present instance I
know perfectly well what I should do: I should dismiss Lester from my
mind. But I am too much of a conscientious ass."

In support of the truth of this Philip started at once in search of
Lester.

First he visited his home, and found that he had not been there in
several days, but it occasioned no alarm, as the boy's habits were
decidedly those of a vagabond.

This was in the morning. At noon Philip was in such a state of
preoccupation that he got through his dinner without an exchange of
hostilities with either of his sisters.

In his search that morning he had encountered no one who seemed to
remember having seen Lester recently.

He could not free himself from the belief that his disappearance was
a serious matter. The recollection of their last meeting oppressed him
with an unpleasant distinctness all at once. He roused himself from his
abstraction to say to his mother: "Do you know, I am worried about poor
Lester Royal."

Katherine sniffed aloud at this: "Lester Royal, indeed!"

"I've been looking for him all the morning and I can't get track of
him," he continued.

"Perhaps he is too drunk to be seen. It would be no new thing if he
were," said Katherine.

Philip was using such a character as his sister in some work he was
doing, and he was interested in examining her capacity for abusive
speech when spurred by anger. Here was an opportunity: "Well, if he
wants to get drunk it's his privilege."

"He should be locked up instead of being allowed to disgrace himself and
everybody else."

"Oh, no, Kate--you would be too severe. What you foolishly take to be a
religious conviction is simply a woman's prejudice at seeing a man enjoy
himself."

"Of course you call intoxication enjoyment. Your views are so broad."

"Are they?"

"You think they are, but if I were in your place I should exercise some
selection in the choosing of my associates."

"Would you really? How nice!"

"My friends should be my equals. Neither low Germans nor drunkards."

"But men are only equal when they are drunk." From her seat at the head
of the table, Mrs. Southard sent him a look of mute entreaty, and it
struck him for the thousandth time that the wrangling in which he
and Katherine indulged was hard for his mother to bear. He promptly
abandoned the attack, finished his dinner in grim silence, and started
out again, bent on finding Lester, but grumbling as he went that he
should be so weak as to care about the boy.

He devoted an hour or so to investigating the various resorts Lester
was known to frequent, and eventually learned that he had been seen very
much the worse for drink on the day following the night they had spent
together. Since then no one knew what had become of him. The opinion
of the loafer who furnished the information was that he had gone off
somewhere to sober up.

"The ass!" thought Philip bitterly. "The brainless ass! Here I get into
a pretty state over his woes and this is the extent of his reformation.
He goes and gets drunk, which is a good reason for his not going home or
caring to see me."

It was a bright fall afternoon--brisk and bracing--with touches of
winter in the air. Philip turned his back on the town. It was just the
season for a tramp into the country, and since the greater part of the
day had been wasted as far as writing was concerned he proposed to amuse
himself.

As he strode along thoughts of Lester would come to him, and in the end
pity had replaced his momentary bitterness toward him.

"Poor fellow!" he muttered. "Maybe he can't help it, after all. Unless
one has ambition or hope there isn't much to keep one up. I wish I knew
where he has hidden himself. If I just knew that, I wouldn't bother."

He crossed from the road he had followed since leaving the town and
kept his way by the river's bank. In the gaunt leafless weeds and bushes
choking the narrow path he seemed to see flitting on before him Lester's
tragic face.

Soon the town was far in the distance behind him, only the smoke rolling
up from the factory chimneys could be seen, and still he tramped on and
on, going to the many favorite haunts where he fished or swam as a boy.
Each turn in the road marked some event especially prominent in his
memory.

In spite of the chilliness in the air he strolled slowly forward for
a mile or two, when the yelping of a dog attracted his attention,
suggesting possibilities of companionship. He went in the direction from
which the sound came. The passing of a bend in the river brought the dog
into view, a small yellow creature crouching on its haunches on the bank
and howling dismally. When it saw Philip this was changed to short jerky
barks and it bounded down the bank and began to tug at a dark object
that lay in a thin scum of ice formed about it in the still water near
the shore.

From where Philip stood, a little farther down the stream, a curve in
the line of its flow placed him almost opposite the object.

"It's a bit of old clothing," he told himself. And he called aloud:
"Bring it out, sir! Fetch it here!"

The dog, stimulated by his voice and presence, barked more furiously
than ever, while Philip fell to throwing stones at the thing in the
water with the double idea of encouraging the dog and cutting the ice
that held it.

All at once the dog, as though frightened, put its tail between its legs
and ran up the bank, where it squatted on its haunches and resumed its
yelping.

"I wonder," thought Philip, "if it's my duty to go tear the thing loose,
for my esteemed acquaintance, the yellow dog."

He armed himself with a stick. Thus prepared he made a circuit of the
shore. The dog testified to its appreciation of his evident intention in
a most unmistakable manner.

"Glad of a little help, are you?" said Philip aloud to the yellow dog as
he went toward the object in the water.

"It has a funny look," he thought, "a very funny look."

With his stick he poked at it.

The object with a light silly motion bobbed up and down in the water.
Philip poked more vigorously. "Come loose!" he insisted. "Come loose!"

Then all in an instant the stick slid from his grasp into the water and
glided away 'beyond his reach.

The thing had turned--'turned with a ghastly sickening semblance
of life, disclosing a blue discolored hand so poised that it was
outstretched straight and stiff. As it swept past it touched Philip.

"It's a man!" he cried, shrinking away. "As I live it's a man!"

The object, turning farther, floated free upon its back and lay so, and
he saw the bloated, hideously swollen face of Lester Royal. There was no
mistaking it.

Philip uncovered his head and leaned back upon the shelving bank. The
dog crept to his side, and he caressed it silently.

There was no sound save that of the river where it fretted against its
gravelly bed and the call of crows from the deserted corn-fields.

"It's all up with him now," unconsciously Philip spoke aloud.

He paused and gazed down upon the body of his friend. The dog crept
closer and would have licked his face. This roused Philip from his
reverie.

There yet remained for him to summon aid,--men and a wagon, and
accompanied by the idle throng that gathers at such times, to go back
into the town.


VII


Geoff spent exactly a week in the East, where the money Margaret gave
to him was judiciously used as the basis for certain operations of a
shady nature, and he took to himself several large sums on which he had
no shadow of a claim, viewed even from the broad latitudes of sport.

With this influx of wealth he had proceeded to enjoy himself, which duty
discharged, he did what his sister had feared he would do, he came
and overran the Perkins' household. He brought with him a valet, an
accomplished rascal meagerly patterned on his master's more splendid
dimensions. This, coupled to the many airs he gave himself, sufficed for
a local sensation and Geoff's vanity was pleased in the supremest degree.
To be stared at and to excite wide-eyed admiration and envy was one of
the pinnacles of bliss he liked to scale when luck was with him. When it
was not, he was more than content to slink through several grades of
shabby genteel ruffianism, attracting just as little notice as possible.
There were four people, however, who refused to accept him at the
current valuation, and Perkins led the list--Perkins, who watched him as
a cat does a mouse, and who fell foul of him innumerable times each day:
while Mrs. Perkins, mindful of Russell's revelations, tried hard, but
failed miserably, to be hospitable.

Nor did Philip and the prodigal prove congenial. They amused themselves
by a frequent interchange of scantily veiled insults, staying
perpetually and perilously near downright trouble of the head-breaking
sort.

But the most pronounced ill will was felt by Franz.

No man fancies seeing the woman he loves controlled and commanded, with
scant appreciation of her rights, by another, even when that other
is her brother. This Franz had to witness, and his soul was not
particularly prolific in patience either.

Just how often in the course of an evening he would have liked to take
Geoff by the throat rose nightly into a handsome aggregate, for the
impulse flourished mightily.

As for Geoff, his selfishness was on the alert. His sister had
never known young men and here were three, and of the three, one was
unmistakably in love with her, and supposing she should marry again.
The thought was like a chilly devil. It gave him the shivers. Clearly
Margaret must be removed from the Perkins' home and the Perkins'
influence.

Fortunately, at this juncture, Madame Dennée's bankers in Paris
forwarded a considerable sum of money, and notwithstanding his many
resolutions to the contrary he permitted his habits to get the better
of his purpose and with the major portion of the remittance in his
possession, vanished from the quiet he had threatened to disturb.

Then was experienced a sense of relief by all. They had been happy
until he came. Margaret had imparted to their intercourse the charm
of refinement--the gentlest of companionship, and this is the best of
friendship and the best of love.

It was a night or so after Geoff's departure. Perkins and Franz were in
the library waiting for Margaret to join them. The former was worthily
engaged in an attempt to improve the passing moments by vitriolic
comments upon the morals of the profligate, a singularly congenial theme
with him. He had aired his grievance against Geoff, and was basking in
the agreeable glow of Franz's approval, when the door opened and
Margaret entered the room. On seeing her he cried as if in astonishment:

"Why! What-------"

For Margaret was gowned entirely in some soft white fabric. He had never
seen her in anything but black.

"Why!--I say--" It was Perkins who spoke, surveying her with the
greatest admiration. "I say, you never looked half so dear or
beautiful!"

Perkins was a privileged character, and said a good deal the rest could
not but wish they might.

"Now," he began again plaintively, "I call this rough--very rough,
indeed. I've got to go to the Monroes' and say good-by to Bessie's
sister and her two young ones... but, I'll be back in three-quarters of
an hour. You see, to-night her sister and the two young ones go home
and I have rashly agreed to see that they get safely started on their
journey. I don't and didn't want to do this, but Bessie's mother said it
would be a nice thing for me to do, and she is a woman you can't say no
to. One of these days I must tell you about Bessie's mother, as she is
the most remarkable lady of my acquaintance. She is always wanting
a franchise. When it isn't a franchise it's an amendment and that's
something you add to something else to make it different. She is
interested in abolishing whatever she disapproves of, which I think
myself would be a fine way to get rid of what you don't like. She is
a member of more societies than I can recall, and she won't wear
song-birds in her hat--you simply couldn't induce her to. I think if
she could she would manage everybody's business except her own, which
doesn't interest her. It is currently reported that she talked Mr.
Monroe, who was a very superior man with a cork leg, straight into his
coffin--from all accounts the place for him, because he drank like a
fish. I assure you it's with the utmost difficulty that I keep her from
calling on you. I don't think I ever mentioned it, but where Bessie and
her mother are concerned I am but little better than ripened fruit. Now
I must go."

And before Margaret could reply to his outburst, Perkins was gone.

Franz had seated himself at the piano, idly fingering the keys. Margaret
had taken her place beside the fire. She was rather wishing that Mrs.
Perkins, who had slipped out an hour before, "to be gone five minutes,"
would return.

All at once, Franz turning from the piano, looked at her as if trying to
solve some problem.

Was she still absorbed by thoughts of the past, or did the present speak
louder to her? Did her change of dress bear any significance... could
she possibly forget the social barriers that stood between them? What a
fool he was not to know more of woman's ways. All the locked secrets of
her heart were hidden from him, he could but guess and wonder.

"Won't you play for me?" Margaret asked.

It was a new experience, that of being left alone with Becker; she was
not quite easy in it. Franz turned to the keyboard. "What would you like
to have me play?" he asked.

"Whatever you are in the mood for."

Franz's fingers rested caressingly upon the keys. "I shall improvise for
you."

Then low and soft, as though each note was a love word, he began--his
fingers shaping into sound his thoughts. As he played these changed from
doubt to certainty and the blood rushed tingling through his veins.

The all but imperceptible rustle of Margaret's dress caused him to look
up. The song of doubt, entreaty and of triumph stopped abruptly. She was
standing at his side, pale and breathless, as though drawn there by a
spell.

Then the red burned upon her cheeks--she would have turned away.

"Don't go! Don't leave me--you must not! Not until I know!"

He caught one of her hands into his own and held it firmly, but she
offered no resistance.

"You must tell me now--now," he said. "I can wait no longer,
Margaret!--Margaret!"

"What shall I tell you?" she asked in tones so low he could scarcely
hear. It gave him courage as hers seemed to ebb, for she was pale and
trembling.

"That you love me!" he cried, "that you love me, Margaret! That you
love me and will be my wife." And he drew her into his arms. "Margaret!
Margaret!" repeating her name in an ecstacy of delight. "Is it so? Do
you love me, dear?"

She put up her hand appealingly as if she entreated him to say no more.

Slowly he loosed his arms from about her and she sank down into a chair,
while Franz regarded her with a troubled brow.

"Let me think!" she gasped. "Oh! let me think!" Then sadly: "I have lost
my friend. I am so sorry--so sorry."

"Yes," Franz answered steadily, "you must choose now and forever between
your friend and your lover."

On the table beside Margaret's chair lay the book she had been reading
that afternoon. A black bordered handkerchief was visible where it
rested in the leaves of the half-opened volume marking her place. In
their nervous wanderings her eyes fell upon it and their roving glance
was instantly arrested.

The memory of what had been fell like a cloud, blotting out the present.

Franz saw the handkerchief, too, saw that she shrank from it. He
stretched forth his hand and took up the bit of black and white. He held
it in his tightened grasp until it was a crushed and crumpled heap
in his broad palm, then it was dropped to be whirled up in momentary
brightness by the fire.

Margaret gave a little cry. What it meant he knew, for it was glad, free
and bouyant, as if a load had been lifted from her by the single act.

She put out her arms and Franz sank down on his knees before her. A
new feeling surged into his heart. He had felt a man's desire for
possession--now, when the victory was won, this was changed to infinite
tenderness. He looked up into her face and saw what a woman's love was
like, and he was well content.

"Margaret," he said, "Margaret, has it all ended--the past? Has the new
day dawned for us--for both of us?"

And Margaret, her hand resting on his shoulder, answered, "Yes."

How long they were together after that neither of them knew. The happy
moments are those that are never counted. Only misery has time to note
the flight of time and to curse its slowness, grumbling at the lagging
seconds.

But she had space to tell him of the life she had lived, the life that
took its place that night with the things to be forgotten.

Perkins, returning from seeing his friends started on their journey,
chanced to open the library door quietly and saw something which he
subsequently described to Philip as "paralyzing."

His face grew very red--so red, that the freckles on it looked white and
sickly by comparison.

He closed the door softly and tiptoed to the opposite side of the hall
where he stood for a long time lost in profound thought. He might have
stood there for an indefinite period had he not heard some one come up
the steps and fumble around in the outer darkness for the bell.

It was Philip, and before he succeeded in finding what he was searching
for, the door was opened by young Perkins who, seizing him by the neck,
whispered hoarsely in his ear:

"Don't utter a sound! Don't!--or I shall strangle you on the spot."

With no further explanation Philip was dragged back through the
hall--Perkins executing a wild dance the while--and up to Perkins'
apartments. Here he was relinquished from his friend's forceful grasp,
becoming once more a free agent.

"What's got into you, Perkins?" he asked, adjusting his collar and
cravat.

"It's settled!" Perkins said excitedly; "they have arranged it--and here
I figured all along that I should have to do it for them, which just
shows what a billy-goat I am. Aren't you glad, old fellow?"

"Look here, Perkins," Philip remonstrated reproachfully, "why don't you
tell me what you are talking about?"

"You fool! Haven't you got any sense?--Franz has gone and done it!"

Whereat, instead of being offended at such unusual language as applied
to himself, Philip clutched Perkins much as Perkins had previously
clutched him and they danced madly back and forth across the room.

"I pledge you my sacred word of honor," Perkins managed to gasp in the
midst of their careering, "I pledge you my sacred word of honor I felt
as though I should faint--actually faint. I was paralyzed."

"Why, see here!" and Philip came to a stand, struck by an idea he had
long cherished but had lost sight of for the moment--"I thought you were
in love with her yourself."

"So I am. I adore her! positively adore her, you know, but what's a
fellow to do when he feels himself thoroughly unworthy, like the dust
beneath her feet?"

He folded his fat hands resignedly over the central region of his plump
person--their favorite resting-place.

"You see, Philip, I could never satisfy her as Franz can and will;
besides it's the most monstrous presumption to imagine even that she
could care for a badly freckled specimen like myself. Dear old Franz!
he will have his opportunity now, for you know she is very rich, has
something tremendous a year, and she will gain a defender who will
protect her from that blackguard of a brother of hers. Altogether, it is
too lovely for words--quite ideal, you know."

Philip looked at him admiringly. "I declare you are a good little
beggar!"

Perkins winced at the adjective "little". He did not like it applied to
himself. He shook his head reflectively.

"My dear fellow, it could never have been me--and, too, there is
Bessie. It has become solely a question of ripened fruit between us.
Besides"--manfully--"I have from the first considered Margaret as so far
above me that I have never wearied in my affection for Bessie--or her
mother," he made haste to add.

Philip laughed.

"Particularly her mother."

"I simply include Mrs. Monroe, because it is impossible to leave her
out. She is so accustomed to mixing in things."

"I suppose they will live abroad pretty much," Philip said. "It's the
place for Franz."

"I say," Perkins burst out blankly, "that's so, isn't it? You know she
thinks him a great composer."

"And so he is," Philip replied.

Perkins gazed at him mournfully, blinking his eyes, and when he spoke it
was in gloomy accents.

"He will take her away, won't he? Having her here forever is all up. Do
you know I hadn't thought of that--not till this minute. Really, it very
much distresses me, just the mere thought." Vouching for the truth of
what he said, a tear trickled languidly down his nose, and after hanging
reluctant upon its very tip as though undecided as to its ultimate
course, fell to his clasped hands where it glistened like a dewdrop in
May.

"I--this is very overpowering. I had lost sight of the future entirely
in my great pleasure at what has taken place. Bless me! I never
speculated on the results--never once."

He raised his glance pathetically to his friend's face. "It's a damn
poor showing for cousins, isn't it?"

The round face with its stubby fringe and blinking eyes shaded by their
colorless lashes destroyed Philip's gravity.

"Why don't you get them to adopt you?" he said.

"Do you fancy they would?"--with a gleam of hope. Then as he saw the
smile playing about the corners of Philip's mouth: "You are jollying.
Please don't, old fellow--not now."

"We shall have to get our comfort from the belief that this is for their
great good," Philip said.

"So we must," Perkins acquiesced cheerfully. "What a disgusting pig I am
to think of myself when they are so happy."

Later, on going down-stairs, they encountered

Franz and Margaret in the hall, and Philip, glancing at Margaret as
she stood just beneath the tempered light falling from the chandelier,
decided he had never seen any one so beautiful--except Barbara, who was
incomparable. He divined that now to her, life seemed to hold much--to
be so fine a gift.

The two young men left the house together. Philip at first tried to
talk, but Becker made his replies with such indifference that he soon
abandoned the trial as useless.

Franz's elation was scarcely concealed by his silence or his reserve. It
spoke in the exultant heaving of his breast, in his quick elastic step,
in his every movement. As they came to his door he broke the silence
with:

"I shall go on with you, Philip, and see you home."

"As you like, old fellow," Philip answered.

No more was said until they bade each other good night.

Franz turned back alone--but not to retrace his steps. Instead he
rambled through the streets of the sleeping town--to find himself--he
knew not how, a dozen times beneath her window. So he wore out the
night, and when at last the day broke, it found him going in the
direction of his home.


VIII


Philip was looking from his window out upon the street where the first
snows of winter lay slowly melting in the sunshine, when a cab rattled
up through the mud and slush. It stopped before the house and his
interest became active.

"It's the saintly Anson! This is, indeed, penance for my sins."

Almost with the thought Anson stepped from the cab and was followed by a
gentleman who had no small trouble in wriggling through the narrow door.

Philip, with a groan of disgust, recognized the junior member of the
firm employing his brother.

"As if Anson were not affliction enough," he thought, "he brings Mr.
Hale to bore us--especially me, by prosy recitals of his own worth."

He promptly put himself beyond his brother's range of vision, as he
wished to avoid the necessity of going down-stairs until the last
moment.

He resumed his work, and for an hour or more wrote steadily on, then he
threw down his pen and was resting his eyes, his hands before them,
when the door opened and his mother entered the room. He knew who it
was without looking up, since she was the only one of all the family who
ever invaded his privacy.

"What is it, mother?" he asked.

"May I see you, Philip? Are you very busy?"

There was something in her voice that caused him to glance around
quickly. "Why, what is it, mother?"

He left his chair and went to her side. He saw that her face was red and
swollen as though from much weeping. "What is it, dear?" He put his arms
about her. "Does Anson bring bad news of any sort?"

By a sudden gesture she freed herself from his embrace, covering her
face with her apron.

"Oh! Philip, it's awful." And she began to cry softly.

"But what is it--why don't you tell me?"

He tried to draw the apron away that he might see her face again, but
she resisted his gentle force.

"What is it, dear? Is it Anson--is he ill?"

"It's worse than that! Oh! a million times worse!"

At her words the desperate sickening feeling begotten of some great
and unknown calamity, the forerunner of actual knowledge, came into his
heart.

"You must tell me, mother, or how can I ever help you?"

"I shall, only wait a minute until I am calm, for you must know--and you
must save him!"

"I save him! What do you mean? What has happened to him?"

"You won't blame him? Promise me you won't be hard, now before I tell
you. That you won't say of think unkind things of him? Promise me,
promise me, Philip!" For he had hesitated.

"I promise, mother, for your sake."

"No! no! for his own."

"For his sake then. It is all one."

"It is difficult to tell even you, Philip."

He put his arms about her once more. "There, you don't mind me, you
know," he said tenderly. "Dear little mother, so brave and good, you
really can't mean you mind me?"

It was in a hushed strained voice, as though she feared the shameful
secret she had to confide would find a listener in the very air, that
she told Philip of his brother's fall from grace.

"He has taken money from the firm. A thousand dollars. It was not
stealing." She was quick to shield him. "He expected--he fully expected
to pay it back, down to the last penny, but the amount grew and grew,
and soon it was beyond him. He meant to be honest. He has been so good
always, no one would dare accuse him of stealing. You know it was not;
say it was not! Say you don't think it!"

She had given way utterly to her grief, and to quiet her he said:

"Of course it wasn't stealing."

"There!" reassured and rendered almost happy. "There, I knew you would
understand. Why, even Mr. Hale speaks of it in the kindest way. He knows
Anson to be perfectly reliable--he doesn't dare question it. Everybody
knows how good he is, he wouldn't think of doing wrong. He has explained
it all. At first he took the money as an advance upon his salary and
then the indebtedness grew. He was never able to make good what he had
borrowed. It was so easy to take what he needed--so easy to think he
could repay it. He meant to do what was right: I am sure of this. If I
were not it would kill me." She paused for an instant. "It was unfair
to put such a pitfall in any man's path, no matter how honest. It was
unjust, and they should suffer, but--but"--looking up appealingly into
his face--"we must save Anson, must we not? For if we don't--he will
be arrested and then every one will know. The whole town. Think of the
disgrace--the awful humiliation! We must save him. He is your brother,
and deep in your heart you love him. Say you do!"

Philip, looking at her, bowed, broken, crushed, scarcely daring to raise
her eyes to his, answered that he loved his brother, but in his soul he
cursed him for the suffering he had caused.

"Mr. Hale assures me that if the money is returned at once, it shall be
kept a secret--not even the girls need know. You are the only one who
can do this, Philip. It all rests with you. Will you save him?"

"For his own sake and for yours--but, most of all for yours, dear, yes."

In an instant he remembered what that money was to do for him. More than
money ever did before. The thought made him sick with a deadly nausea.
He saw his hope sink lower and lower until it entirely ceased to be and
despair stood in its place. He had all but won in the struggle, and now
to have the fruits snatched from him at the last moment! _He had saved
for another to scatter_.

"What will become of Anson?" he asked. "Where will he go? Of course he
can't remain with the firm. It wouldn't be permitted, I suppose, nor
pleasant."

"He has a friend in the West--some place in California--in business
there. He has been urging Anson for months to come to him, and now, it
is all most fortunate, he has decided to go. He can't very well stay
here. If he should there is danger the secret might be discovered: he
would have to get a new position and people would wonder, but once he is
gone, they will forget all about him and then there will be no talk. No
one will ever learn why he left."

Philip looked at her commiseratingly. With his hand he brushed away the
white hair lying in disorder upon her forehead.

"Poor mother, poor mother! and you have been so proud of him!"

"As I shall always be. My poor Anson! As I shall always be--as I am of
all of you." She smiled bravely through her tears.

"I shall go for the money. I'd better go at once or I may find the bank
closed."

He spoke collectedly and his mother did not divine from any words of his
that he was preparing to make the greatest sacrifice possible to him.
Nor would he have her know. There was misery enough for her as it was.
Yet the thought of what he had to do brought him unspeakable agony. It
was not the loss of money, for money of itself was nothing to him, but
everything in his little world was held in place by what he was giving
up.

"I shall get the money," he repeated quietly. "I shall go for it at
once."

"You are so good!" she cried. "You were always my comfort. I can rely
upon you more than on the others."

She reached up and kissed him again and again. "Though no one ever knows
of the sacrifice you make, Anson and I will, and we will honor you for
it. Do not think that we undervalue it." He kissed her softly. No amount
of praise could have wrung the money from him, but her tears had been
more potent.

"You don't care," she questioned, "that the girls are not to be told of
what you do for Anson?"

"No, dear. Glory of that sort does not in the least appeal to me.
I have no objections to being deprived of it. What I do I do quite
willingly. I am satisfied with your thanks and the consciousness that I
have in a measure eased this burden for you." He smiled sadly down upon
her. "Now I will go," and unclasping her arms from about his neck, he
turned and left the room.

After a few moments' waiting to regain her composure, Mrs. Southard went
down to the parlor where Anson and Hale sat, the former crestfallen and
not over-confident of Philip's generosity.

To Hale she said: "My son will be back in a few moments with the sum you
require. He has just gone for it."

Anson's face lit up with joy. He was safe! How lucky it was that Philip
had kept his money instead of spending it!

They did not have to wait long for Philip's return. His mother, who had
been watching from the window, saw him as he came into the yard, and
quitting the room, joined him in the hall.

"You have it? You were in time?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes," he said, placing a bundle of bills in her hand. "It is a thousand
dollars you need, is it not?"

"Yes. It is so good of you. How can I ever tell you what it means to
me!"

With a heavy step, as if all the vigor had left him, Philip slowly
mounted the stairs leading up to the floor above.

"Won't you come in and see Mr. Hale?" his mother called.

"I had rather not, dear," he answered.

He walked as one in a dream, mechanically closing the door behind him as
he entered the room. Then he dropped wearily into his chair beside the
table.

He was overwhelmed by the catastrophe. A comprehension of it all, and
the probable results, began to come to him. He threw the few hundred
dollars remaining of his little fortune on the table. They were
worthless, so far as the purpose for which they had been saved was
concerned.

Stunned and stupid he gazed at the little heap of paper. Each dollar
represented some privation in his daily life.

With savage fervor he brought his clenched hand down on the little heap,
while from between his set teeth he ground out curses, for now came a
frenzy of disappointment.

It soon subsided, as all violent emotions are bound to do.

Only a dull pain remained. Still he kept his gaze fastened on the money
before him. It reminded him of what the sum had once been--and was no
longer. He must begin again,--go through the round of petty self-denial,
the soul-stunting process of small economy.

"It will be so long--so very long until I get so much again," he
thought. "While I am about it a thousand things may happen to rob me of
the inspiration of her love. And all for the theft of a wretched paltry
pittance, so small it could have done Anson no good, and yet so large it
may be the ruin of my hopes. It is unjust that I should suffer for him!
A thousand dollars! Bah! The commonplaceness of it!"

With his fist hard pressed upon the table and his eyes fixed on vacancy,
he sat and thought; thought with a brain mad and drunk with grief. He
would have liked to turn his face toward the wall and give up. He was
worsted. The props with which he had sustained himself were gone.

How he hated Anson! The fool!--who had lived in a false world of pious
frauds; whose manhood had failed at the one test to which he had been
put; who had succumbed to temptation at the first opportunity.

To cover up this--to put a patch upon the torn garment of his brother's
honesty he must suffer. How he hated him!

He heard Hale leave the house, but dared not look to see him go. He took
all his hope, all his aspirations with him. And now how would it all
end? Could he ask Barbara to wait much longer? How would he meet her
father's exactions? What excuse was there to offer for the sudden
vanishing of his savings? Mr. Gerard would think he had been lied to
from the start.

Down-stairs the girls and Mrs. Southard were making ready for Anson's
departure. It had been arranged that he should leave at once. They moved
about noiselessly, talking in whispers, the girls wildly curious, yet
not venturing to question their mother. The whole atmosphere was as
though some one had died. It pervaded the entire house. Where he sat
in his room, Philip felt it. In fancy he saw his mother packing Anson's
trunk--saw her tears fall silently as she folded away his clothes--and
as his fancy saw it, so he knew it must be in reality.

Despite the load that lay upon him crushing him to earth, he was glad
she had been spared the greater humiliation and disgrace that but for
him would have come to them. The realization of this lessened the extent
of his own anguish somewhat, at least it was a consolation to feel that
he had shielded her, no matter at what cost.

It was dark when his mother finally knocked at his door and told him
that supper was ready.

"I'm not hungry," he answered.

She opened the door and came in, saying in some surprise as she did so,
for his lamp was unlighted:

"Why, Philip, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, dear, nothing. Why do you ask?"

"You don't begrudge the money that kept us all from shame--you don't
regret that?" She put her hand upon his shoulder.

"I regret nothing. For you I would have done a hundred times what I did
to-day, and counted it a small recompense for what you have given me all
these years."

"You mean it, Philip?"

"Certainly. I was sitting here in the dusk thinking it over--thinking
how glad I am that it was in my power to do this for you--and him. No
matter what the outcome may be, I shall not regret it for one instant."

Her hand caressed his cheek softly: "Won't you come down to supper?"

"What's the use? I couldn't eat now."

"But you will not see Anson again. It may be years before he comes back
to us. Do come down."

"I shall go with him to the train. Won't that do just as well? I wish to
think a while longer, here in the dark by myself."

"I know he will be delighted to have you," she said. "Poor Anson! It has
been a terrible blow to him."

Philip smiled queerly to himself. He doubted the delight Anson would
derive from his company just then, but he made no response.

"It seems unfair to ask any more of you," his mother said with
reluctance, "but Anson is almost penniless. If you could only help just
a little it might make it easier for him."

Philip gathered up the bills that still lay on the table where he had
thrown them. "Here are one or two hundred dollars," he said, "he may
as well have them. They are of no use to me, and you will feel so much
better to have him go, if you know he has something to fall back on!"

She took the money gratefully. "He has promised to repay all he has had
from you, so don't worry about not getting it back."

"Ah! dear," and he laughed, "that does not worry me in the least. I
don't bother about what he will or will not do."

She turned to the door: "I shall call you then when he is ready." And
she left him to his solitude.

Philip wondered when he was once more alone what his mother's action
would have been had she known what that money was to do for him. On
the whole he concluded it was just as well she did not know. He became
reflective. With practise it might be possible for him to acquire a
habit which would enable him to derive a melancholy pleasure from being
miserable. He laughed aloud.

"I never knew that farce and tragedy touched hands," he thought.

It was quite late when his mother called from the foot of the stairs:
"Anson is ready, Philip. If you will come, he will be so pleased to have
you go down to the station with him."

He went down and found her waiting for him in the hall. "You will be
kind," she whispered anxiously. "You won't say anything hard, when
you are alone with him? Poor boy! he feels it so keenly. You will be
considerate of him?"

"Yes, dear. Don't distress yourself. I shall be as kind as I know how."

They went into the sitting-room where Anson was bidding good-by to his
sisters. Philip had no wish to witness his mother's farewells. He picked
up a valise his brother was to carry with him, saying: "I shall start on
ahead, Anson."

"All right. I shall be along presently," his brother answered.

Philip escaped into the open air. Soon he heard Anson coming, waited
until he caught up, and the two brothers, without a word, set off for
the station very much as though they were trying to run away from each
other, but had foolishly elected to go in the same direction while about
it.

Their destination was reached before either had framed a speech
diplomatic enough for the occasion.

Anson went to ascertain how much time he had and returned almost
immediately to say that he had ten minutes left.

"But," he added, "you needn't wait on my account."

"I'll see you off. I told mother I would."

"Of course--if you like. I thought you might want to go home."

They fell to pacing back and forth across the platform, still apparently
trying to get away from each other. Neither spoke, and it was only when
the train rushed in with a trailing echo of sound from out the darkness,
that Anson found courage to say hurriedly from the door of his car:

"Mother told you, didn't she, that I would pay up all I have had from
you? I intend to and shall, but I can't do it at once." The whistle of
the engine broke in upon him. "I'll do it sure, Philip, I won't forget."

"There is no haste," his brother answered. "Don't sacrifice yourself
because of me."

He extended his hand. "Good-by and good luck to you."

The train began to move.

"It was awfully good of you. You have done a lot for me. I----"

The train bore him swiftly away, but standing as he did on the rear
platform of the last car, the door at his back, Philip saw him wave his
handkerchief and he responded in a like fashion, wishing he were certain
Anson could see him as plainly as he saw Anson.

And so he stood until long after the train had vanished, a miserable
lonely feeling within him.

It was all hopeless--the whole affair.

His mother would never be quite the same again, she could never live
beyond the memory of that day. At last he muttered:

"Poor devil! I am positive he didn't mean to harm any one, nor did he
mean to be bad. He has not the sense in the first place. What he did,
was simply the blundering clumsy conduct of a fool."


IX


Changes occurred in view of the altered relations between Franz and
Margaret.

It came to be Perkins' nightly custom to formulate labored excuses that
would enable him to retire to his own apartments, for as he said to
Philip: "Just suppose it was one of us!"

Nor did the change stop here. Mrs. Perkins suddenly found it convenient
to spend her evenings in the back parlor where the arrangement of lights
was more to her taste and where she could sew without straining her
eyes.

Perkins was treating himself to a few remarks one evening before taking
Philip--who had just come in--up-stairs for a smoke:

"I think I got off a very good thing to-day," he was saying, "not too
amusing, but very bright and to the point. When you take into account
that it comes from a fellow who lays no claim to being a wit, why it's
not half bad. If you are all dying to hear, I might be induced to repeat
it." He did not wait for their entreaties however. "You see, it was
this. It's quite complicated and calls for a lot of explanation. I was
at Bessie's this afternoon and a Mrs. Cavendish came in. Philip and
Franz know her, but, of course, you don't." This last was to Margaret.
"Well, we were talking about family. Mrs. Cavendish is great on
family--she has been separated from her husband--that is part of the
story, and it's got to be remembered." Perkins came to a stand-still.
"Now, isn't it strange that only the most gifted intellects can master
the intricacies of a funny story. Really, you know, I am getting it all
wrong. Oh, yes, this is it. Bessie was speaking of some one--I forget
who, luckily that doesn't matter--and Mrs. Cavendish said--'He was a
connection of mine by marriage.' And I said--to Bessie of course, 'I
suppose she would call him a disconnection by divorce now.'"

Philip turned to Margaret: "Have you met Bessie yet?"

"No; Ballard refuses to bring her to the house."

Perkins shook his head. "My mother and Bessie don't get on."

"Is it settled, Perkins?" Philip asked laughingly.

"I suppose it is. You see a fellow hasn't a ghost of a chance when a
girl and her mother regularly set out to marry him. When that's the case
he might just as well beg them to name the day--for they are bound to
divide the spoils. Yes," with placid resignation, "I really suppose
I am as good as done for. I know it from the way their cook treats me.
When the cook treats you with a deference you suppose she would only
bestow on the heavenly host, you may be altogether positive your
intentions have been discussed in the kitchen by members of the family."

Philip turned from Perkins to gaze gloomily into the fire. He was
wondering, as he had many times of late, how he would ever summon the
resolution to tell Mr. Gerard of his altered fortunes.

Perkins, surveying the faces of his friends with an angelic smile upon
his own freckled features, noted his abstraction.

"What's the matter, Philip?" he asked. "Nothing. I am simply in the
depths to-night. I fear I am not very desirable to have about in my
present mood."

"Is it the work?" asked Margaret.

"It's everything!" He roused himself with an effort. "Utter and complete
dissatisfaction with my surroundings for one thing--the feeling that I
am dying with dry rot. I suppose to you it seems fresh and interesting.
You can't fancy what it is to those who have to live here. The
narrowness and meagerness of it all!"

"It's not so bad," Perkins said. "The town has lots of intelligent and
charming people and if you didn't go about with a chip on your shoulder,
you would find them out."

"I detest intelligence," Philip retorted. "We have filled up the valleys
by pulling down the mountains--when we get a dead level the millennium
will be reached. All that will be left for the unfortunates who live
then to do, will be to lie down and long for death."

"I say," said Perkins interrupting him, "what's wrong with intelligence,
anyhow?"

"Everything's wrong with it. I can respect ignorance. As with any
deformity it has its own pathetic dignity, but this thin spread of
middle-class intelligence, which is one part enlightenment to nine
parts of stupid prejudice, goes far to make me an ardent supporter of
gaggings, clubbings and burnings at the stake."

Margaret laughed: "Is intelligence so dreadful as that?"

"I think it is----" then he stopped abruptly, for the door opened and
Geoffrey Ballard appeared upon the threshold.

With an attempt at dignity he moved toward his sister's chair. No one
spoke. The surprise was too intense. But they observed that he walked as
though tired.

Margaret shrank from him, her face paling. Every particle of happy color
had fled from it when he entered the room. As Geoff bent and kissed her,
Franz came to his feet with what sounded like a smothered oath upon his
lips. After the perfunctory greetings with his sister were disposed of,
Geoff swung around languidly to the others. First, he shook hands with
Perkins with much cordiality. Next he saluted Philip:

"I am very glad to see you again, Mr. Southard," he said.

"Thanks awfully," growled Philip. He resented this intrusion. Besides
he was not in a good humor. He didn't propose to be decent to a man he
disliked. That was asking too much.

Silently and avoiding the danger of words, Franz and Geoff acknowledged
each other's existence. They consoled themselves with looking their
hate.

While they were thus engaged, Perkins stood on tiptoe at Philip's side
and said in a hoarse whisper: "What business has he coming here sticking
in and spoiling our fun! Damn him! Why doesn't he stay away? I should
like to punch his head for him jolly good and well. That's what I would!
I came mighty near doing it, too, when he shook hands with me." And
Perkins bristled pugnaciously.

Such was the prodigal's return and such his welcome.

Not many days elapsed before there dawned upon him a premonition of
what had happened during his absence, and a chilly and uncomfortable
premonition it was.

Most assuredly an understanding had been established between Margaret
and the German. Whether it was love or a deepened friendship, he could
not decide and he was reluctant to inquire. Until now he had never felt
the least wish to familiarize himself with the emotions that swayed her,
and he did not know just how to begin.

Geoff finally hit upon Perkins as a likely source of information.
He sought him out and asked to be enlightened as to the relationship
between his sister and "that Dutchman,"--and Perkins informed
him,--becoming more and more pleased as gloom spread over the face of
his questioner. Geoff was seriously alarmed. But if any one thought that
after selling his sister at so great an advantage to himself as he had
done he was going to sit supinely down and not endeavor to save the
purchase money, they did him a rank injustice.

He began to urge upon his sister the advisability of their being
domiciled elsewhere. He didn't demand any radical move to start with,
simply that they obtain a house. This he urged on the grounds that they
were wearing out their welcome at the Perkinses.

"We can't impose upon their good nature much longer, you know," he said.
"And since you are so very well satisfied here, don't you think we had
better settle ourselves in some more permanent fashion?"

Margaret demurred, but what he said about the Perkinses made an
impression upon her.

"I think," Geoff continued, "you would enjoy a home of your own, where
you could be mistress. Russell could, of course, relieve you of
every burden. She is fully competent to order a much more extensive
establishment than you will care to maintain. I find there is just such
a place as you would fancy. It is furnished and ready for occupancy. The
owner is holding some political office in Washington, his family is
with him, and their home is for rent, providing a proper tenant can be
found."

He did not think it worth while to explain that he had learned the chief
reason why the house stood vacant was that the location was unhealthful,
especially during the winter months. He was positive he should
experience no ill effects from this and he could afford to take a few
risks with his sister.

"I wish you would think it over, Margaret," he urged.

"Why can't you remain here?" said Margaret. And her glance wandered
wistfully over the room. He was asking a great deal. She was very happy.

"I don't begin to have your knack at getting on with people. I trust you
will not speak of this until you know what you will do."

All this while Geoff was wonderfully circumspect. Never before had he
been so considerate or kind. He seemed to have undergone a thorough
reformation. He knew if he did not accomplish what he was striving
for he would find himself face to face with ruin. This steadied him
astonishingly. He showed no inclination to leave and for the moment
conquered his tendencies to dissipation. He even ceased to be
disagreeable to either Perkins or Philip, but he made it his duty to see
that the interviews his sister had alone with Becker were few and far
between--and as brief as possible.

So it happened, when one afternoon in December Margaret announced
she had taken the lease of a house and intended going into it
immediately,--that Perkins and his mother listened to her in
horror-stricken amazement. They could scarcely believe it.

"What!" cried Perkins: "what! leave us, you know! A house of your own!
Why, you can have all of this one if you will only include mother and me
in the bargain."

"What place is it?" Mrs. Perkins asked.

Margaret turned to her brother: "What did you say the name was, Geoff?"

Geoff braced himself mentally as he answered: "The Springer property."

He was tolerably sure they knew the house and its reputation. Nor was
he in error. What people in a town of ten thousand or less don't know of
their neighbors' affairs isn't worth mentioning. They knew all there was
to know of the house in question.

"Why, look here!" Perkins stuttered, his words falling over one another
in their haste for utterance. "You can't go there, you know. It will
never do, you see. The house is damp as all get out from cellar to
garret, and it's so mildewy in some of the rooms that the paper won't
stick to the walls. I have been there lots of times and have seen it.
Why, I say, you should just see the Springer children. They are sick all
the time. You can't go there. We won't let you." And he fell to pacing
the floor, his thumbs tucked in his waistcoat, as was his wont when
nervous or excited.

Geoff watched him from between narrowed lids. There was a steely glitter
in the look, and a baleful twitching at the corners of his mouth, as
though he had it strong within him to express a good deal more than was
policy just then.

"You have been most kind to us," he said; "you overwhelm us with your
goodness. Still I know my sister will be better contented in her own
home. As for the dampness of which you speak, I will see to that. It is
a small matter and can be readily overcome."

"Aren't you contented here?" Mrs. Perkins asked quickly, turning to
Margaret. "You know we will do anything for you--anything."

Margaret seized both her hands and clasped them to her breast, then
raised them to her lips while her eyes glistened: "I have never been
so happy. Not in all my life. Oh, you are so dear and kind! How shall I
ever thank you for all you've done for me!"

"We can not possibly add to the sense of gratitude beneath which we are
already struggling," Geoff interposed. He spoke coldly and insolently.
He wished to stop this burst of sentiment or else it might go to
dangerous lengths. He succeeded in mortally offending Perkins, who said
hotly and with the bottled-up acrimony of many days in his tones:

"Why do you cut in when my mother and Margaret are talking! You are
always cutting in where you haven't any right to."

This outburst quieted things down for the moment and no more was said
about Madame Dennée's plans for the future, but in two minds at least
the thought of her pending departure was uppermost.

When Geoff quitted the library a few minutes later, Mrs. Perkins,
excusing herself to Margaret, followed promptly in his wake, and at once
returned to the charge with unabated zeal.

"Are you going to take that child there and selfishly jeopardize her
health? Are you? Answer me."

"That's exactly what I am going to do, my dear Mrs. Perkins, and the
sooner the better, if you will allow me to say so."

"Then," said Mrs. Perkins, "you are the most contemptible--the most
thoroughly contemptible of living creatures! That's what I think of you,
and I am the easier for having said it!"

"Don't you think, my dear Mrs. Perkins, that you rather strain the
case?" Geoff retorted. "After all, one's own business is about the only
business one should undertake."

Mrs. Perkins flushed, but she put a check upon herself. "I positively
decline to quarrel with you. I don't, for I see through you. I won't
quarrel no matter what you do and you needn't try to make me."

"Your conception of what constitutes incompatibility would prove
entertaining," Geoff replied. "I have the impression that that stage
of disagreement has already been reached. The only course open for my
sister is to leave."

Mrs. Perkins fairly gasped at the deftness with which he made their
dislike of him embrace Margaret as well, but being of an emotional
temperament she trusted herself to speak no further and retired to her
own rooms where she could weep in solitude.

And so it was decided that Margaret should leave the Perkinses.

When the day came--and it came quickly, as Geoff's patience was all but
exhausted--she wept as she passed out through the wide doors that had
opened so hospitably to receive her.

"We shall see a great deal of each other, shall we not?" she said to
Mrs. Perkins. "You will come to me whenever you can? I fear the cold
will keep me somewhat confined, but you won't mind it as I shall, and
you will come often to see me?"

Perkins and his mother went down to see that she was properly installed
in her home, and then sadly took their leave of her just as the night
came on. Geoff, being inordinately elated by his success, was absent,
celebrating his victory in a spree.

In spite of the fires and a superheated furnace below stairs, the house
had a musty odor and the big rooms held a damp chill that could not be
warmed out of them.

Finally Geoff came in, with unsteady step and bloodshot eyes, to add
what he could to the load resting on the poor little shoulders, which
for years had been so weighted down with care and weariness. He found
her lonely, miserable and in tears. This exhibition of weakness, as he
termed it, he took in very bad part.

The initial dinner was a meal long remembered, with Geoff, stupid and
maudlin from too much drink, constantly going to sleep and as constantly
waking to growl his complaints.

When it was finished, he took himself from his sister's sight, while
Margaret waited for Perkins and Franz to come as they had said they
would.

Eight o'clock brought them and the evening was passed pleasantly enough.

Madame Dennée had been suffering from a cold for some days, and the next
morning she was quite ill. Her brother took no notice of this, and
for several days did nothing but press forward to the goal at which he
aimed. He pursued his former tactics with the utmost industry, seeing
that his sister never had a moment alone with her friends; and wishing
to discourage their devotion, was aggressive and rude to such an extent
that Philip made just one call on Margaret and then in unmistakable
language announced his intention of not repeating the experiment.

"I don't intend to walk half-way across the town simply for the
delirious joy of letting that fellow insult me!" And he kept to his
word.

To be sure, with Perkins and Franz, it was different. They were blind
to affronts and proof against the insufferable. For Margaret's sake they
were willing to endure the unendurable, but the ordeal was too much for
them to live down without an inward revolt at least.

Franz became habitually morose and sullen. Perkins waxed shockingly
profane and his mother spent most of her time on the verge of tears; and
all this while Margaret's condition grew rapidly worse.

When brother and sister were alone it was the eternal harping on the one
theme. Geoff wished her to go East with him--anywhere. He gave her no
peace. Morning, noon and night, he stuck to the dreary round of argument
and objection.

This continued for a week. Margaret's cold developed into an alarming
cough. She was confined to her room and could see no one but Mrs.
Perkins and Russell.

Having space for deliberation, Perkins was seized with a brilliant
conception: a project that anticipated nothing less than the getting
of Geoff drunk and starting him on what Perkins called "a protracted
spree."

He reasoned that a man of his cousin's inclinations could only hold
up so far in combating the unholy charms of a properly presented
temptation.

But Perkins was not called upon to assume the tempter's rôle. Geoff
accomplished his downfall himself.

There was one fatal quality in all his plotting. He invariably gave out
before the final blow was dealt.

He now exemplified this by going away when there was most cause for his
remaining. He could not stand the quiet longer. He would have one bout,
he told himself,--just one. When it was over with he would return and
Margaret should go with him where he pleased. He felt almost safe in
leaving: she was so ill.


X


Then," said Philip shortly, "if I understand you aright, you wish me to
discontinue my visits?"

Mr. Gerard was rather taken aback by the directness with which Philip
put it. To be sure that was what it amounted to, but--"You see, you
keep other men at a distance: you take up most of the leisure she has to
devote to society. I don't mean to be hard. I trust you appreciate the
delicacy of my position--the peculiarity of it. I want to be fair to you
and at the same time just to Barbara. It occurs to me that I can only
accomplish this by having you----" He was very much mixed--very red and
very miserable.

The cause of all his annoyance stood before him--cool and collected, but
it was the calm of desperation.

The comfort of knowing this was, however, denied to Mr. Gerard. He took
up the tangled thread of his discourse. "My dear boy, you must know
I don't want to seem hard"--getting a fresh start--"I don't want to
interfere with your happiness, but where my daughter is concerned I must
be just. I can't be remiss in my duty there. Now I leave it to you--to
your sense of fairness. You know what I think--do what you consider
right."

"I suppose you can not understand just how I got rid of my money,"
Philip said grimly.

"I confess I can't," Mr. Gerard replied nervously. "Your admission has
been a great surprise to me. It was only a month or so ago that you had
quite a large sum saved and now you inform me it's all gone, and you
don't tell me where."

"I can not, Mr. Gerard."

"Of course--of course. That is your business. I appreciate that--I ask
for no explanation--and I do like your frankness in coming to me at
once," but there was small favor in the glance he bestowed upon Philip.
"If it's gone--why-----" he came to a stop again.

"It is gone. Every penny of it." Philip said relentlessly.

"It's very unusual, very."

"And you had rather I slow up on my visits?"

"I leave it entirely with you, as I said before. I don't understand and
I am not satisfied. I--really it may be as well for you to keep away.
But do whatever you think proper."

"You put it to me in such shape that there is just one thing I can do,
and that is keep away and stay away."

"My dear boy, I----"

Philip cut him short by turning on his heel. "You have no objection to
my calling this afternoon?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. It's right that you should."

"Thank you," said Philip, and took himself off, leaving Mr. Gerard
puffing and agitated in the door of his office.

Philip was glad that he had carried off the honors of the interview
where calmness and dispassion were involved, but he knew that the
triumph was a small one, and that Mr. Gerard's turn would come later,
when he himself could but compress his lips and suffer.

He was thinking of this and bitter revolt was in his heart when he
presented himself to Barbara. His face told plainly what he felt.
Indeed, it was so apparent that she silently followed him into the
parlor.

He threw his hat down upon a chair and stood in the center of the room
looking at her, wondering how it would be possible to exist, deprived of
her companionship.

"What is it, Philip? Why don't you tell me?" she at last found courage
to ask.

"It's what I have known would happen all along. Your father----"

"What has my father done?" she interrupted him.

"He has told me I must stop coming here."

Barbara's eyes blazed. Her diminutive figure was drawn wrathfully up to
its fullest height. "Has he dared to do that--has he dared!"

"I felt in honor bound to tell him I had been compelled to spend my
savings. He said--he was very kind--that a continuation of my attentions
would compromise you, and since my future was very uncertain----"

"My life is mine--it belongs to me!" she interposed. "And if I choose
to give it to you, it's mine to give. I know what I need better than he
does."

"I wish I could have told him how the money went. He evidently
attributes my poverty to wild and reckless extravagance. I could see
it completely finished me off in his estimation. I wish I could have
told--but I couldn't. I can't even tell you."

"It's nobody's affair but your own, and if we are satisfied I don't see
what it is to him."

"Just the same, Barbara, he has made it his affair. He is your father,
and it is his privilege." Her little foot tapped the floor angrily. His
submission offended her.

"It's all right, Barbara."

"It's not all right," she burst out. "Is it all right that our happiness
should be wrecked?"

"I don't say that. I refer to his requesting me to cease coming here. He
evidently regards me as not the proper sort of person."

"What are you going to do?"

"There is but one thing I can do."

"And that?"

"Respect his wishes."

"If you do, what is going to become of me?"

Philip put his hand to his aching head. That was more than he could
tell. He had thought of it, too. His personal pain and anxiety gave him
no concern. He had become accustomed to it, but it would be so hard for
her. She had not his training in disappointment. What could he do?

"What will become of me?" she repeated, with tears in her eyes.

"As soon as I have the money it will be as it was before. The separation
will be but temporary--unless you forget me."

"I shall never forget you. I love you."

"Then as soon as I succeed even partially, I shall come back to you. I
shall work so hard, it shan't be for long. I _will_ succeed." And he set
his teeth. "I know I shall and it will be no ordinary success when it
does come. You have faith in me?"

"Yes! yes! but that's so far off! Think of the time we have already
waited."

"I know, dear, but I am making every effort. I know, too, that despite
all his efforts a man may fail--absolutely--and through no fault of his
own. He may get down and never rise, though he struggle ever so hard.
There is a savage remorseless quality to life, a cruel indifference to
work and worth. This risk we are compelled to take. In any business
or profession it would be the same. It does not apply alone to one who
thinks he can write----"

He was striding back and forth across the room. "Yet I can't bring
myself to believe that I am to be one of the failures, all I want
is time--time! I know I can do so much. You must have faith in me,
Barbara!"

"It has been so long," she said sadly, going to his side and clasping
both her hands about his arm, "and I am afraid. I don't quite know of
what--but I am afraid."

"Can't you be brave just a little longer--just a little longer?"

"I try to be--I really do, but----"

"But what?"

"I am afraid he wants me to marry Mr. Shel-den. He does not say so, but
I know." And she began to cry again, clinging to Philip the while. "I
know it! I know it! and unless you save me I shall be forced into it. I
can't stand black looks and constant coercion. I shall yield. I know I
shall, and my whole life will be ruined."

"So that's it, is it?" Philip's voice was hoarse and dry. "So that's it?
That's what it signifies? He wants to get me out of the road, does he?"
And after a brief pause: "Do you like him in the least, Barbara?"

"I hate him."

"He has money and all that sort of thing."

"It's nothing to me. I can only care for you."

"Has your father made any positive statement of his preference,
Barbara?"

She shook her head. "Of course he does not speak of it, but I know."

"Well, I'll go in for work harder than ever, dear--we need not despair,
for we are sure of each other."

"But--but--if I don't see you----"

"Can't you keep your love alive and not see me?"

"I suppose so, but you are so different from me. You don't feel the
same."

"I feel with my whole soul, Barbara. Can I do more?"

"It breaks my heart to think I am not to see you." She glanced up into
his face. "Not to see you at all--why how shall I manage to endure
it?" Her eyes grew wide, filled with a pathetic grief that made him
desperate. "And now scarcely a day passes, that I do not catch a glimpse
of you."

"It can't be for long, Barbara."

"It may be forever." This was said in a stifled voice.

"It's not as if I were going away--not as if I were to leave the town.
We shall see each other constantly."

"It's worse than if you were going away. It's a great deal worse. Then I
could make up my mind to it and could, I suppose, bear it somehow."

"Dear," he spoke softly, "dearest, please look up. I want to talk to
you. Can't you listen to me? Please, dear, it's not so bad. It might be
worse."

"It's bad enough!" without lifting her head from where it rested upon
his arm. "It couldn't be worse. I couldn't suffer more."

"Can't you be hopeful? Can't you try?"

"I do try."

"It is coming nearer all the while. I am making money--I shall make
more. Don't you believe in my ability?"

"It's not that. I am confident of the future, but the present is so
horrible, with all manner of doubt. Do you," looking up and letting her
glance meet his for a moment, "do you honestly think it will ever be as
we hope?"

"Yes. It can not be otherwise. It only means patience--only a little
waiting."

"Tell me what papa said."

"He asked me to stop coming here until such time as I am in a position
to be accepted formally as your intended husband."

"And when will that be?" shaking her head.

"It can't be so very far off and it comes closer with every day. If I
could only give you some of my hope--if I only could!"

"You do--but--"

"I do, but it fails in its mission."

"Tell me what he said."

"It all amounted to this. I must forego the pleasure of seeing you,
except very infrequently."

"Is it good-by you are saying to me? Is it? Is it?"

"I fear it is. You must forgive me, but I have to show some little
pride, and there is but one course open to me. It's not choice, but
necessity that influences me in my decision."

"Does he want to make me hate him! I shall." She gave way utterly to
her emotions and Philip did the best he could to soothe her as she stood
within the protecting circle of his arms.

"I have exhausted my patience. I am tired--tired. How do I know it will
ever come. It has been years already," she said at last.

"It is no more doubtful than anything else would be. I am putting forth
all my energy."

"I am tired. I am tired."

"I have this to reproach myself with. I thought in the beginning success
would come sooner. I have kept on and on, and now I am as far from it as
ever. It has been four years, Barbara, four years. I am so sorry, dear,
so sorry."

"If you go I shall never see you again. Something will happen. I shall
be driven into something dreadful. I shall be at papa's mercy, and I
haven't any strength of character. He can do what he likes when you are
gone, and I shall give in. I always do."

Her whole attitude was one of weak complaint. It was fast forcing Philip
to the verge of madness. As if she divined what his thoughts were, she
said: "You don't respect me. You think I don't amount to anything."

"I love you!" he said gravely. "And now I must go."

"You are not going!--not yet!--not yet!"

"I shall write you every day when I don't happen to see you, so you will
know how I get on."

"Yes! yes! but are you going?"

"I must go sometime and it's better over with. We shall write each other
and we shall meet quite often at various places. I shall go where I know
you will be."

She was crying violently.

"You must not leave me! You must not, Philip!"

But he moved slowly to the door.

"I can't tell you how hard I shall work. Just be brave and good as you
have been from the start and it will come out all right."

"I can't wait forever--and I need you now."

"You will have to, dearest."

"Doesn't it make you furious?"

"What, Barbara?"

"Furious, that he can interfere with us. It's our life--our love. We
only ask to be left alone. Oh--I can't bear it!"

"I'm afraid we must bear it for a while. We won't be altogether
separated--we will see each other now and then!"

"No! no! what will such meetings be--with people about--people who will
stare at us with silly senseless curiosity!"

"Good-by for the present, dear--for to-day."

"No--no!"

"We shall meet often. Try to think of that."

"I am not brave and I invariably give in. He knows it. I shall have no
peace if you go like this. Promise me you will come back!"

"I can not, Barbara."

"Then the blame for whatever follows falls on you. You go willingly."

"You are unjust."

"You go willingly," she insisted. "You desert me. You leave me for him
to torture into doing what he wants! Is it nothing to you?"

"I love you," he answered simply.

"And if we drift apart?"

"I don't know what you mean. How can we drift apart?"

"People do."

"Are we like them?"

"Are we?"

"I thought we were not," he said.

"Why should you think that?" she answered. "I don't know. Perhaps we are
the same as the rest. Perhaps I only imagine the difference."

"You are going?" she said in alarm as he moved toward the door.

"Yes, Barbara."

But Barbara threw herself down into a chair and commenced to cry afresh.
This drew Philip back to her side in an instant.

"Won't you say good-by, Barbara, just for the present? Won't you say
good-by, dear?" He sought to remove the hand she held before her face.

She gave him no answer and he turned from her, at first irresolute and
then with more decision, for his mind was made up. After all, her sense
of resentment would lighten her grief for the moment. It would be easier
to bear because of it.

He stepped into the hall, the door closed, and Barbara heard his
footsteps growing fainter. He was gone!

Curled up in the easy chair she sobbed out her sorrow and anger, for it
was a mingling of both. At last she raised her head and looked about.
She was still sobbing brokenly.

Suddenly she sat erect. It was growing late. She remembered that her
father was to bring Mr. Shelden home with him to tea.

"I hate him!" she thought. "I hate everybody, but I shall have to see
him and be agreeable, and I suppose I look like a perfect fright with my
eyes all red. Of course while he is here, I shall have to pretend that I
am enjoying myself, and my head hurts and I am miserable. I want Philip,
and no one else!"

In proof of which she commenced to weep.

And so for an hour or more she lay curled up in the chair, a doleful
little heap.


XI


I told them they must have a doctor," Perkins explained to Franz, "and
in spite of my mother's objections I called one in. Mother has been
dosing her for a week now."

Young Perkins and his mother practically lived with Margaret, now that
Geoff was gone, and it was on the second day of their installment as
members of her household, when Perkins, asserting himself in defiance
of the paternal mandate, announced his intention of summoning a
physician--"Right off, and with no more dependence on luck," by which
it is to be inferred that his mother's remedies did not inspire him with
much confidence.

"He is with her?" Franz inquired, having just come in.

"Yes, if it hadn't been for my interference, I am certain my mother
would have kept on dosing Margaret with her nasty home-made concoctions
until doomsday. Poor Margaret would never have rebelled: she would have
swallowed the stuff until it killed her rather than wound my mother by
showing lack of faith."

At this juncture they were joined by the doctor, a gray puffy man,
reeking of stale tobacco smoke and staler drugs, who took the ills flesh
is heir to as a personal grievance.

"Well?" Perkins interrogated him.

The doctor emitted a sound that could have been either a grunt or groan:
"It won't do," he said gloomily; "she must be sent South. She has not
the stamina for this climate. It's using her up. Unless something is
done she will not live through the winter, I'll stake my reputation."

"Then she should go to Florida?" Perkins questioned.

"I said she must be sent South,--if you are interested in keeping her
alive--and I suppose you are."

"Good lord, yes!" Perkins gasped.

"I don't say her illness is critical at its present stage, but if you
are going to do what I recommend, don't put it off. I don't want to be
blamed. Good night."

He snorted angrily at the inoffensive Perkins, picked up his hat and
medicine-case and departed, leaving the young men staring apprehensively
at each other.

Perkins jerked his head in the direction the doctor had gone. "He's a
confounded fool! That's what he is. If he had waited a minute, I'd have
said so. He doesn't have to scare us to death."

Franz was busy with his thoughts. How could she go and how could
she stay threatened by danger? The problem swung between the two
alternatives and refused to be solved.

Suddenly Perkins cried joyously: "I've got it, Franz! You must marry her
right off and take her South yourself--otherwise she will be left to the
mercy of her brother. You love her,--I know all about it, old fellow.
I saw it by accident and I take just stacks of interest in you young
people."

He put his hand on Franz's shoulder. His demeanor was both patronizing
and affectionate. He looked as cupid might, grown to sturdy manhood, so
thrilled was he by his purpose.

"If you are the least diffident, I'll adjust it. I'd. dearly love
to, and won't it be a jolly little earthquake for Mr. Geoffrey
Ballard,--won't it?" And he hopped around gleefully, proving there can
be two good and sufficient reasons for a man's acts, namely--to please
himself, and to annoy his fellow: and who shall determine which is
sweeter?

Franz had felt his heart leap at the suggestion, but what would Margaret
say?

Perkins plunged ahead vigorously: "What will you do; will you wait for
Geoff to come and spoil it all?"

Before Franz could answer Margaret herself entered the room, accompanied
by Mrs. Perkins. Instinctively they turned to her. Never had she looked
so slight and fragile.

With an anxious throb of his heart Franz started toward her with
outstretched hands. Perkins was no fool. He stepped into the hall,
motioning his mother to follow. Then he shut the door, remarking: "I
guess they would appreciate being by themselves," and he winked with
peculiar emphasis.

Left with Margaret, Franz arranged a chair for her. She watched his
rather clumsy placing of wraps and pillows with an amused smile.

"You will make a baby of me, and I shall be a bother always," she said.
She was pathetically grateful for the slightest display of love or
devotion.

"How do you feel, Margaret?" Franz asked.

Margaret reclined languidly in her seat. The excitement of getting
down-stairs had passed and she felt tired and weak.

"Tell me about yourself, Franz," she said. "I haven't seen you in days.
To-night I insisted that they should let me dress, I wished to see you
so much."

"What did the doctor tell you, Margaret?"

"That I must go South, but"--hastily--"I can not do that--I can not
leave you!"

"But, if it is for the best, dear?"

"Surely it can not be best for me to be cut off from my friends, when
they are so few--" She spoke in a frightened voice, as if appalled at
the idea. "I should simply die of loneliness." She glanced up at him
appealingly, her lips quivering. "You would not have me go, would you,
Franz? I am such a coward. What would become of me, without you?"

"I shall go with you, Margaret, if I may," he said softly. "It all rests
with you, dear. The grief of your going, if you went alone, would be
quite as hard for me to bear as for you."

For a space she was silent, then her reserve gave way entirely.

"If I go, Franz, it must be with you. I can not leave myself open to my
brother's persecutions--I can not endure them! The doctor said--but he
told you, too?"

"Yes."

"I wish to live"--clasping and unclasping her hands nervously. "I never
before minded what happened to me, life is so hard--but your love has
changed everything. I wish to live for your sake--not for mine."

"Are you willing to trust yourself to me?" Franz gently interposed.

Margaret's head half rested on the chair-back, half upon his shoulder.
Her eyes were closed and the hands he held within his own burned
feverishly. At last she whispered:

"Take me with you. It is best we go together. I am sick--sick--and he is
killing me. If you would have me, you must take me now...."

The next day as Philip was at work, Franz entered his room unannounced.
Seeing who it was, Philip put down his pen, turning from the pile of
manuscript over which he had been toiling.

"Are you busy, Philip?" Franz asked.

"Not very. Why?"

"Because I should like a moment's talk with you."

Philip nodded.

"Just knock those books off a corner of the bed and sit down--dump them
on the floor. What is it, old fellow?"

Franz, having complied with the suggestion, said: "You know that
Margaret is ill?"

"I knew she had a cold. I hope it's not serious."

"Her physician advises that she spend the remainder of the winter in the
South. This she will do as soon as she recovers sufficiently."

Again Philip nodded.

"It's very unexpected, isn't it? I should consider it risky."

"She is not to go alone."

"Oh, I presume Mrs. Perkins is to go with her?"

"It would not be paying much of a compliment to your intelligence if I
thought to surprise you by saying that I love Margaret."

"Precious little," Philip admitted laconically.

"Well, I shall surprise you. We are to be married immediately. The
situation is so grave as to permit of no delay. Her health and the
probable reappearance of her brother make it necessary."

"Bless mel I never figured on this." Philip looked his amazement. "What
will you do then, Franz?"

"When she is able to travel, I suppose it means Florida, or the
Bermudas."

Philip had risen and gathered himself together while making the circuit
of the room.

"I declare, I didn't congratulate you, did I? To be sure, old fellow,
the thought of losing you is not agreeable."

"If you will, Philip, you can be of great service to me."

"I was about to volunteer," said Philip heartily, "but you swept me
squarely off my feet."

On the authority of Perkins--"It was a mighty jolly wedding."

The ceremony was performed in Margaret's own room and during
its progress she lay upon a lounge, looking as fair as the
lilies-of-the-valley in her hands, which Perkins had given her, after
liberally bedewing them with his tears dropped in sentimental secrecy.

The sun was sinking far across the white fields, and the gold of its
dying flames stole in through the windows, lighting up the room, as
Franz, standing at Margaret's side, gave her his name and the protection
of his love.

Mrs. Perkins and Franz's mother wept profusely, and Perkins disgraced
himself in his own estimation by sobbing aloud in stifled tones be
vainly sought to suppress on peril of choking. He finally retreated to
the hall, where he encountered Russell with a limp handkerchief--"making
an ass of herself, too."

A little later Philip drew the curtains in front of the windows to
exclude the darkening sky and Perkins said, "When you get screwed up to
it a wedding is really more festive than a funeral, though they seem to
have much in common. Now I am in a measure familiar with the ordeal,
I venture to predict this has been the most blissful day I shall ever
know--when one of my dearest friends is married to another of my dearest
friends."

Here he had difficulty with his words.

"Doubtless you all think me a driveling idiot, but I feel like I don't
know what--and I can't really help it."

Everybody laughed at this and Philip shook hands with him, saying he
was the finest fellow in the world, while Margaret bestowed upon him a
generous share of her bouquet. The gift bore with it a grateful little
speech that caused him to weep afresh.

It was very late, indeed, when they separated.

"I assure you," Perkins informed Philip when they had reached the
Perkins home, "I assure you, it has been the most satisfactory event in
my life, and it's a source of stupendous joy for me to reflect that
my dear cousin Geoff is destined to undergo a severe mental shock in
consequence. I think I am entitled to all the comfort I can get."

Philip smiled appreciatively.

"What a funny little fellow you are! Such a good chap, too," he added.

"Well, I am glad she has Franz to look after her, and he will have the
means to go on with his studies," continued Perkins.

"He is fortunate," Philip replied. "We so seldom get what we
want--generally it's what we don't want that comes to us."

Perkins looked at him curiously, his head well to one side and his
chubby hands buried in the depths of his trousers pockets.

"I say--what's up? Aren't you happy?"

"I am blue, and not so decent as I should be. I am always and
everlastingly thinking of myself. I am wretched--but you know what's
wrong with me, so don't discuss it. I can't stand it."

"As you prefer, Philip. Still, don't you believe it will be all right in
the end?"

"It's not the future that troubles me. It's what may occur while I am
flat on my back. I am fairly desperate!"

Perkins gazed at him sorrowfully. Philip added:

"I can't seem very generous to you when I flop into the dumps on no
greater provocation than seeing those who are contented and at peace.
My nature is not sweetened by adversity, it's being pickled in it."
He struck the floor savagely with the heel of his shoe. "I feel like
running off from everything, and if I could include my miserable self
among what I left behind, I'd not remain undecided."

"I hope you won't go any place, Philip!" Perkins said in alarm. "What
the dickens will become of me? It will be absolutely forsaken when Franz
and Margaret go."

"You will see all you want of me. I shall unquestionably stay for a time
at least."

"Why--have you been actually thinking of leaving?"

Philip smiled grimly.

"Don't distress yourself; you can safely depend on having all you desire
of my cheerful company. And now if you'll help me into my overcoat, I'll
start home."

No sooner was Philip gone than Perkins took from his waistcoat pocket,
where he had secreted them, the lilies-of-the-valley Margaret had given
him. As he gazed at them a telltale moisture mounted to his eyes. He
could only shake his head mournfully and deposit them again--not next
his heart--but near an equally important organ and one he knew more of,
even though he was in doubt as to its exact location.

Poor Perkins! He was learning that a disinterested love has its griefs.
It's not unmitigated bliss to witness another's rapture.


XII


Time jogged forward. The year grew to its fullest age and died--the old
giving birth to the new, and as the days went on Philip worked at his
task, worked and struggled with what courage he could find.

He had at first seen Barbara quite often, but the frequency of their
meetings gradually lessened. This, he knew, was the result of her
father's interference.

Had his ears been open to the current gossip of the town, he might have
been shocked by a rumor that even his mother forbore to tell him. He
toiled away through the days, running his race with chance and fate,
and when hope was once more beginning to burn within him, the blow fell.
Spread out on the table before him was her letter. For the hundredth
time he read it.

"You will hate me, but I told you how it would be. My father is
determined that I marry Mr. Shelden. He is determined, and I have
decided to do as he wishes. You will despise me, but I have tried to be
hopeful and true to you--I have tried so hard, so very hard, Philip. I
can only see that the future is doubtful and uncertain. Perhaps it is
best as it is. If you achieve the success you deserve, I am unworthy to
enjoy it with you. If you fail--you know I am not suited to poverty.
I believe in your goodness, in your generosity, most firmly, as I have
from the start, and I feel it will comfort you, when I say that the
thought of marrying Mr. Shelden does not distress me in the least. I am
not altogether unhappy that I am so soon to be his wife."

Again and again Philip read it, until the words were jumbled together in
meaningless confusion.

"No, she is not entirely unhappy--I can see that," he thought. "What
will she gain? A house on the best street; a man twice her age, and her
father's blessing. Bah! It isn't much, though it counts for more than
I."

He turned and gazed out of the window. How many times he had done so
when his day's work was finished and he was happy, tired, satisfied. He
was looking on a different world--a world he had never viewed before.
The coldness was only cold. There was no contrasting thought of warmth
and cheer. It was bleak and lonely--only that!

He raised the letter to his lips suddenly and kissed it.

"I loved her!" he thought. "I still love her--and I hope she is happy."
He drew forward a sheet of note-paper, took up his pen, and dipping it
in the ink, began to write an answer to her letter--his farewell to her
and love, and the hope born and created of love.

When the letter was written, he put her letter--the last he should ever
receive--with others of hers that he had kept.

"When she is his wife, I shall burn them," he muttered. "Till then, I
shall keep them here. It can do no harm."

He marveled how he got through the days that followed. They came
and found him, unable to write, wretched, but so composed his mother
imagined his grief less than it was. But he was madly restless. There
was no peace for him save in movement. Night after night he tramped the
streets. Day after day, with a gun on his shoulder, he roamed the woods,
about the town and by the river. The gun served for an excuse. It was
never fired. In fact it was never even loaded.

He could not work--and work was usually his refuge in periods of
distress. Now it was changed. He could only await the day she would
marry Shelden.

"When it is over with it will be the same as if I had not loved her," he
assured himself.

One afternoon as he was going toward his home, he came on Geoffrey
Ballard face to face. Not the splendid creature to whom he had been
accustomed, but Geoff, the seedy and disreputable.

Geoff had just arrived. He had been wandering through back streets and
alleyways for an hour or more, waiting until the darkness of evening
should settle down that he might slink unobserved into his sister's
presence and demand money sufficient to make himself presentable.

There was a moment of defiant silence on the part of the prodigal met by
a contemptuous indifference from Philip. Then Geoff spoke:

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Southard."

"Are you? Well, you don't look it."

Geoff would have passed, but Philip detained him.

"Hold on! I have something to tell you." Geoff came to a stand. "Have
you heard from your sister during your absence? If you haven't there
is a surprise in store for you. She has been dangerously ill and she is
married to Becker. That was two or three weeks ago. They are preparing
to go South, as soon as she is able to take the journey. Hold on!"--but
Geoff moved rapidly away.

His sister married--and to the German! It put all other considerations
out of his mind.

Perhaps Philip had lied. This was the meager hope with which he
endeavored to sustain himself. He entered the house, and brushing past
Russell, whom he encountered on the stairs, ran up to his sister's room.
She was in bed and alone.

"Geoff!" she cried in alarm.

His face was purple with rage; he could not control his voice as he
poured forth a volley of incoherent abuse, from which she shrank,
frightened and shuddering.

"Is it so? Are you married?" He was a trifle calmer when he asked the
question.

"Yes, Geoff."

She answered steadily, but her cheeks were colorless. She feared him
more than she even admitted to herself. Still it was well to have it
over with. Franz was not by.... If he would only stay away until Geoff
was through was her prayer.

"This is the advantage you took of my absence!"

"Oh, hush, Geoff,--" she implored. "He will hear you! It will be the
same as it has always been--you have the claim on me you have always
had--there is no change. I've only got a little happiness,--surely you
don't begrudge me that!" Perhaps she appreciated the weakness of her
plea, for she continued with dignity. "You forget yourself,--and what is
due me---"

As she spoke, Franz entered. He had caught the sound of Geoff's
high-pitched voice in the room below.

"You don't seem to realize that your sister is ill," he said coldly.
For Margaret's sake he was prepared to endure much. "If you have any
reproaches to make you must choose another occasion. She is not in
condition to listen to you at present."

The German's quiet demeanor sobered Geoff on the instant. "I have
nothing to do with you," he answered sullenly. "You have only done what
any man would in your position, I suppose. It was an opportunity and you
made the most of it. I am not blaming you, but"--turning hotly to the
bed where Margaret lay--"I blame her for having no better sense than
to do a thing like this without consulting me. It was my right, as her
brother, to know!"

"But you were not here," Margaret interposed. She was anxious to draw
all the trouble that was brewing upon herself. Geoff's mood boded harm.

He paid no heed to her. He twirled a cane of flexible rattan he carried
between thumb and forefinger, and glared at Becker. Stupidity, anger and
partial drunkenness were in the glance.

"I say to you," Franz began evenly and quietly, "I say to you that your
sister is sick, and I insist upon your leaving the room."

"I have nothing to do with you, Becker, though you did sneak into my
place. For a fellow such as you it was a chance not apt to come again."
Franz flushed scarlet, but he managed to speak without perceptible
emotion. "Whatever you may wish to tell your sister must be deferred.
This is not the time."

He deliberately pushed Geoff from the room, closing the door after them.

In the hall they confronted each other. Franz was sternly
self-possessed. He would exercise all the tolerance at his command, at
no matter what cost to his pride.

Within the room they had just quitted, Margaret lay breathless and
listening, but when there penetrated to her ears the echo of Geoff's
insulting speech, she arose with a dizzy aching head and with trembling
fingers began to dress.

The two men were standing at the head of the stairs. Geoff was saying
sneeringly: "For a fellow of your stamp you have done well. I can
congratulate you even if I can't my sister."

Franz was silent. He simply looked from underneath straight brows at his
tormentor, biting his lips.

"You have done a fine thing for yourself. My sister's money will find
more uses than ever. Of course, it was the main attraction."

Still Franz was silent.

"Why don't you deny the truth of what I say?" Geoff insisted. "Why don't
you tell me I lie, you fool?"

"If you speak to me like that again, I'll not be responsible for what I
do," said Franz evenly.

"I congratulate you--you have done a fine thing for yourself. It means
ease and plenty." He stretched out his hand mockingly.

Franz struck the extended hand roughly with his fist. "What you
insinuate is a lie! You are a coward to get behind the advantage you
have of me--a coward!"

Geoff dropped back a step. With his cane he hit Franz lightly at first,
and then made as if to repeat the blow.

Forgetting everything but his hate for the man before him, Franz put out
his hand to take Geoff by the throat. It was then the cane descended,
striking him across the temples. Instantly foot and hand alike were
stayed. He reeled as though he would fall,--putting up both hands to his
eyes.

Geoff saw the door of his sister's room swing open, and turning with an
oath from Franz, who stood swaying unsteadily, he ran down the stairs.

In the hall Franz lurched from side to side, his hands to his face.
"Franz," Margaret called, "Franz, dear! what did he do?"

With staggering uncertain steps he started toward her.

"Franz!" she called. "Dear Franz! what is it?"

He gave no answer. He only groped his way nearer, and she saw the cruel
red welts just above his eyes. He had come almost to her, when he sank
to his knees at her feet.

"Franz, dear!" she cried, "what is it? Are you hurt, my love? Are you
hurt?"

She put her cool palm against his forehead, and kneeling beside him
slipped an arm around his neck. She felt him tremble as though every
nerve and muscle in his body were wrenched and torn.

As she clung to him a chill stole into her own heart. She, too, could
only crouch and cower and shudder.

Finally he spoke in strange hushed accents. "Margaret, I can't see! It
is all black--black as night in front of me!"

She pressed close in his arms, and with her little hand she chafed his
brow where the red line burned and stung.

He stood erect once more and slowly turned about as if in quest of
something.

"Margaret, how does the light come? Is it there?" He faced the wall--the
window at his back.

She had moved with him, her glance fastened upon his eyes.

They were fixed in a stony glare.

"Where is the window?" he asked appealingly.

She was sobbing now.

"Margaret, I can't see--I am blind--blind!"

He felt her fall lax in his embrace. The sobs ceased abruptly.

She was unconscious.


XIII


Franz knew that Margaret must die.

She weakened visibly with the moments that had the single mission--to
kill.

He knew but too well what passed before him in his darkened world. He
knew that since his blindness, she had sunk through stupor to stupor,
each to drag her farther and farther from him.

There were intervals--seconds that might have been ages, when she would
sit erect and call his name, but there were no conscious periods.

She was sinking by slow degrees, and the blind man held a dark vigil.

In the still room the other watchers came and went noiselessly, with the
question continually on their lips: "Is she better?"

During those long days, when it was neither life nor death, Philip came
frequently to make his inquiries, to be confronted by the vision of
Mrs. Perkins' tear-stained countenance or, what was worse--to encounter
Perkins.

He would wander in their company aimlessly from room to room, or with
them listen at her door, seeing in his fancy Franz sitting, a blind
sentinel, counting the minutes that stole up out of the lap of time to
bear her away.

It was the evening of the fourth day. The doctor had just left the
sick chamber to be met at the foot of the stairs by the three anxious
friends.

"What are the chances?" Philip asked.

He shook his head. Then addressing Philip: "It may be well for you to
stay here to-night. She is failing rapidly."

Philip looked at him stupidly.

Perkins seized the doctor by the shoulder almost savagely: "Why don't
you save her?" he demanded. "Why don't you?"

"I am doing all I can. The cure should have commenced weeks ago. I said
then what should be done."

He pushed past them, glad of the opportunity to escape that their
momentary panic afforded; but Philip followed him from the house, and
as the doctor turned--a lighted match between his fingers, for he was
arranging to make his walk home comfortable with a cigar, Philip said,
"Do you mean she will die? Is there no hope?"

"None whatever."

"How soon will it be?" Philip questioned with a stolid curiosity which
was a source of astonishment to himself.

"In an hour or so, I think."

Philip twice essayed to speak and failed. The doctor puffed reflectively
at his cigar. He added: "She was never strong, and the shock of Becker's
blindness will prove too much for her. She was in no condition to meet
it."

Philip mopped his brow. It was damp and clammy. Of a sudden he dripped
at every pore. "What do you mean to do?" he asked.

"I'll drop in later. I would remain if it wasn't for an old party up on
the edge of town who can't last. His folks have sent for me a dozen
times to-day. He insists he won't die unless I come to help him off, and
I guess the family's afraid he will stick to his word." And the man of
pills laughed softly at his modest little joke. "I am of no use here.
All has been done that can be--only keep an eye on Becker. He doesn't
take it right. He is too undemonstrative. Good night."

And he strode up the street, leaving an odor of tobacco smoke in his
wake.

Philip went into the house, shutting the door quietly behind him. It was
all like a hideous nightmare, and he felt himself as unreal as all the
rest. He found Perkins seated on the lowest step of the stairs. His face
was buried in his hands.

"What else did he say?" Perkins asked, shifting his position, and
looking up.

"It was merely a repetition of his former statement."

"I wish it were I!" Perkins blurted out. "I wish it were! Why can't we
do something for her--for him! You love her, too, don't you?"

"Yes, I love her; maybe not with your unselfish devotion, but I have
your desire to be of service."

Perkins shook his head. "It's all up," he sobbed. "Think of it--Margaret
dying!"

Philip regarded his friend pityingly, and took to pacing back and forth
in front of him.

Imperceptibly he moderated his step until he no more than tiptoed up and
down the hall.

Perkins, worn and wretched with four nights of sleeplessness, slumbered
against the newel post, his hands idly folded in his lap, his hair
roughened and disordered, his dress creased and crumpled, his whole
attitude one of utter dejection.

The solitary gas-jet in the center of the hall burned feebly.

The light, stealing through the colored globe, imparted to Perkins'
features a semblance of shrunken ghastliness. More than once Philip had
a compelling impulse to turn it up, and had stepped to the chandelier
to do so only to be resisted by an invisible force that possessed him, a
chilling apathy that revolted at any change.

The least noise had a powerful fascination for him. The ticking of
a clock--and numberless clocks appeared to be ticking with jarring
clangor, some close by, some far off in the distance--or the footfall of
an occasional belated wayfarer on the street without, would cause him
to pause and listen breathlessly with a vague unexplainable fear. His
sensations were so distressing that for the sake of personal contact
he wedged in at Perkins' elbow on the steps. In spite of his care he
aroused his companion, who stirred fretfully to ask sleepily: "What is
it? Do they want me?"

"I wished to sit down. I didn't intend to disturb you."

"Oh! that's all right." And almost immediately Perkins was dozing as
before.

In the room above, the watcher and watched kept their place.

Franz clasped her hands fast in both of his, as though through sheer
physical strength he would keep her with him. As yet she had indicated
by no sign that she understood what was going on about her. It was
always the same tired tossing, but with greater weakness there slowly
succeeded greater calm.

With a fixed rapt look Franz's gaze sought her face and never wavered;
it preserved its direction as steadily from beneath his broad straight
brows as though he really saw.

She turned restlessly for the thousandth time, and as he had a thousand
times already, he whispered softly, "Margaret."

Hitherto his words had fallen on deaf ears, now the head moved upon the
pillow--the sweet wan face was raised to his.

"Margaret," he said, "Margaret, do you hear me? My little wife! My
little wife!" As he spoke her eyes opened.

The room was unlighted save for the night-lamp burning on the table, and
peering at her in the gloom with those sunken sightless eyes of his, was
her husband.

She remembered all. "Franz! Franz!" she cried, in a voice so faint as
scarcely to be audible. "It was not a dream? I meant you should have so
much,--say you forgive me!"

"You must not grieve, dear," he said tenderly. "You must not think of me
now."

"It was all so beautiful until he came," she said dreamily; "I have been
so happy with you, dear, so happy."

There was infinite regret and infinite tenderness in her all but
inarticulate speech.

They were silent for a while, then Margaret said: "It is good-by we are
saying, Franz. Who would imagine there would be so little to say?"

Franz bent over her, desolation in his soul.

"What was that?" she asked, her voice fainter than before.

"I thought it very quiet, dear," he answered. "Perhaps it is the wind."

"How many days ago was it?" she questioned.

"You mean when you were taken ill, dear? It was four days ago."

"So many days ago as that? Where are the others?"

"They are here. My mother, Mrs. Perkins, Ballard and Philip. Would you
like to see them, dear?"

"Only you, Franz. Take my love to them."

Her voice had become the gentlest of murmurs, but the small white hand
continued to stroke his face, though with a faltering movement. Then the
soft caress stopped; a sigh escaped her; she appeared to slip from his
grasp--to shrink within his arms.

"Margaret!" he said. "Margaret!" and his lips were ashen and tremulous.

He allowed her to fall limply to the pillow.

He waited a moment, then springing to his feet he started for the door.
And as he groped his way, there burst from his quivering lips a great
cry. "Margaret! Margaret!"


XIV


It was the second evening after Margaret's death, and the night of
Barbara's marriage to Shelden.

To Philip the day had come, as all days must, where one exists for
them alone, with no other interest in their passing than that they
go swiftly. What was in store for him he wondered. Even supposing he
eventually succeeded, it would be the bitter satire of success. What
could fame or money give him!--he was robbed of every inspiration. At
least he could turn to his work for forgetfulness. That was something,
even if it yielded him no further recompense. He looked at his watch.
"It must soon be over with. They must soon be married," he thought, and
slipping into his hat and coat started down-stairs. His mother heard him
and came into the hall.

"Are you going out, Philip?" she asked.

"Yes, dear. I want to see Franz. I haven't been there to-day. I'll not
be out late."

"It's very cold."

"I shall not care."

She put up her lips to kiss him, then pressed her cheek to his. "I'm so
sorry, Philip!" she whispered. It was the only expression of pity she
had ventured.

"Don't, mother. I can't endure it. Not now--not yet."

With a hasty good-by he hurried off.

Ten minutes later and he stood with Perkins before the door leading into
the room where Margaret lay.

"Where is Franz?" Philip asked.

Perkins nodded toward the door. "We can't induce him to leave her," he
said.

"Why should you seek to? Poor fellow!"

They were silent, gazing at each other, a depth of sorrow in their
glance. Finally Perkins said, with a show of control:

"Have you seen her, Philip?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I had decided to keep the memory I have of her unchanged. It is as I
saw her when they were married. She was so happy, poor little thing!"

"There is more than happiness in her face now," Perkins observed
thoughtfully. "Do you believe in a hereafter?"

"What odds can it be? It's in the present our lot is cast."

"Don't you like to think you are destined to meet those you love again?"

Philip placed his hand irresolutely upon the knob.

"I shall go in. Perhaps I shall be able to determine what I do
believe."

As he entered the room, a rush of cold air met him, for the windows were
partially raised--the outer shutters only being closed. The dim light
filled the apartment with shadowy indistinctness.

Slowly and overpoweringly objects became plain in the somberness of his
surroundings.

Margaret lay upon a couch in the center of the room. She might have been
asleep.

At her side sat Franz, regardless of the stinging gusts of wind that
came in between the shutters.

Philip stepped to the couch and looked down upon the beautiful face,
then he moved back quietly, and would have quitted the room, but Franz
detained him by saying: "Is it you, Perkins?"

"It is I," Philip answered.

Franz arose instantly, putting out his hand, and Philip clasped it
eagerly.

Without the wind sighed drearily. The sound was depressing.

The naked branches of a tree growing in a corner of the yard lashed the
house incessantly. The single lamp burned with a flickering flame.

"What is it?" Franz questioned, for twice Philip had essayed to speak.

"I am so sorry, Franz. So sorry," he cried in broken tones.

"I know you are," Franz answered simply.

"There is this that I want to tell you, Franz, if I may," Philip
continued.

"Yes?"

"Barbara is to be married to-night." He came to an abrupt stop. "I have
determined to go East," he went on presently. "It will mean greater
opportunity. A garbled version of that affair of Anson's has got abroad
and my mother is equally anxious to break up here. What I wished to ask
you is, won't you join me, dear old fellow?"

"And allow my blindness to be your affliction?"

"You are more to me than I can express. First my mother--then you, and
after you--Perkins."

Franz swept his hand across his forehead.

"Wait! How can I think of the future? My very world is ended! Wait."

Philip stole out of the room and from the house. It was snowing heavily.
The ground was already covered. It had been bare at supper-time. He kept
on up the street until he was opposite the Gerards.

The house was brilliantly lighted, but the wedding party was still
absent at the church. He must see her once more!

So he waited in the cold, half hidden by the falling snow that clung to
him and that drifted about the quiet and empty streets.

Yes, Franz should live with him and his mother. Comfort was possible
with favoring circumstances where happiness was not.

Presently, disturbing his reverie, the dull rumble of wheels was
audible, muffled and deadened by the fall of snow.

The carriages rolled into view.

He saw the many figures moving about, as the guests streamed into the
house, and straining his eyes he saw Barbara. She stood in the open
door, and as she turned to answer some one who had spoken on the
walk--her voice reached him, gay and bright.

The guests had disappeared, yet he waited. He would wait until she
entered her carriage to be driven to the station. It could not be very
long, and then he, too, would forget.

Suddenly the doors swung back. He saw her, attended by her friends,
clinging to her husband's arm, and then--she was whirled away and it was
over.

Turning he went directly home and to his room, and took from the drawer
the bundle of letters. One by one he burned them--and as the last letter
left his hand, far off in the distance pealed the shrill shriek of the
whistle that announced the approach of the train.

The sound drew him to the window. He opened it and leaned upon the
ledge.

He heard the shrill whistle once again, the creaking of the wheels upon
the frosted rails, the ringing of a bell--and she was gone! gone!

A desperate sense of wrong and injury--of pain and grief swept over him.

He turned from the white night and threw himself upon the
bed,--abject, lonely, miserable! If he could only die--if he only could!
but it was the sickness not of death, but of life, that was on him.

For a time he was unable to think or to throw off the stupor possessing
him.

His mother came into the room, but he did not look up.

She closed the window, saying: "Philip, if you intend to lie there, you
must be wrapped up, or you will take cold."

He did not speak, and she added: "It's late. It's almost midnight. Won't
you go to bed?"

He shook his head.

"My poor boy! my poor boy!--I am so sorry!"

"The worst is over with," he said.

"Can't I help you? It hurts me to see you so. I wish----"

"Please go. You can't help me--nothing can. Please go!" His voice was
full of entreaty.

"How could she treat you so, Philip!"

"It wasn't her fault. It was mine. I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust
her. I was a coward! She would have taken any risk had I asked it of
her, but I was afraid, and this is my punishment."

"Won't you let me spread a blanket over you?"

"No, no. I'll get up in a few moments." He lifted his white drawn face
to hers: "Please go, mother. Please go. I--I--can't talk about it."
Reluctantly his mother left him to his solitude. For a while he rested
motionless on the bed, then he came to his feet and went to the table,
taking his seat beside it, his elbows propped upon its blotted and
discolored top. He pictured his altered life. There remained to him one
solace if he willed it. He could cheat time by work, and so, perhaps,
win fame to fill the place of love, and for the rest--the world could go
hang!

So he pictured his future, a future vastly less successful than
the reality was destined to be, and when he had built his new
ideal--buttressed it with hope and courage--he picked up his pen,
cleared it of the black rust that had gathered on its point, and
commenced to write--to finish the work he had abandoned when the blow
fell.

All through the night and into the dawn, to and fro across the long
pages, with a cheerful little murmur of approval, the pen scratched and
labored.


THE END