Coming down the deck was a woman, a woman darkly beautiful, tall, lithe, sinuous. Great masses of dead black hair were coiled about her head. Her cheeks were white; her lips very red. Eyes heavy lidded looked out in cold, inscrutable hauteur upon the confusion about her. She wore a gown that clung to her perfectly-modelled figure—that seemed almost a part of her being. She carried, in her left arm, a great cluster of crimson roses.

Down the deck she came, slowly, as a queen going to her throne. She turned....

The man hiding in the passageway confronted her. His eyes were burning as of a fever; his whole body shook.... She remained calm, cold, unmoved.

At length, the woman spoke, half smiling:

"You? ... I thought that we were through."

His voice was tense, strained, unnaturally pitched. The words came between clenched teeth.

"You did, eh? You thought you'd throw me over, as you did Rogers, and Van Dam, and the rest of them.... But it won't work—you Vampire!"

Swiftly, he tore from his right hand, the handkerchief that covered it. There was in it a revolver. The bright mouth of the weapon sprang to the white forehead of The Woman.

Yet she did not start—she made no sound, no movement. The smile still dwelt upon her lips. It was only in the eyes that a difference came—in the black, inscrutable eyes. They gleamed now, heavy-lidded as before. Their gaze was fixed straight into the sunken, hate-lit eyes of the man before her, a man who, but for her, might still have been a boy. She bent forward a little.... Her forehead, between the eyes, was now touching the bright muzzle of the weapon. The finger on the trigger trembled— trembled but did not pull.

Came slowly, sibillantly, from between the smiling red lips:

"Kiss me, My Fool!"

Her eyes still fixed him.... The hand holding the revolver trembled more violently. Slowly the mouth of the weapon sank to lips—to chin—to breast.... It hovered there a moment, just over the heart—the finger twitched a little—twitched but did not pull. It was a finger governed by a vanished will in a shrivelled brain.

Then, suddenly, the revolver leaped—the finger pulled. With a shrill screech of hopeless, hideous imprecation, a shriek that died still-born, the bullet pierced flesh and bone and brain; and that which had been a man that should have been a boy, lurched drunkenly and lay a crumpled nothing upon the deck. There was blood upon the deck—beside the hem of the crimson gown, near to the crimson heel of her shoe. And the gown was caught beneath the body of the boy that was.

She looked down upon him. The smile not even yet had left her lips. With a lithe movement, infinitely graceful, she drew away, disengaging the hem of her crimson garment.... A crimson petal from the great cluster in her arms fell upon it, to lie upon the hollow whiteness of the upturned cheek.... And that was all.

A man—a man that should have been a boy—was gone.... Hurrying, horror- ridden passengers found him there, alone. The doctor came, and stewards, and the captain. They lifted him, and bore him away. Of those who live in the froth of things—the froth that is often the scum—there were several. One of these knew him.

"It's Young Parmalee," he informed them.

And that was all he knew; that, and possibly some other things that are little. But of the great things, he knew nothing. For of these great things, God has told us but little.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A WARNING.

The storm that had come hissing across the Sound did not last long. Its very fierceness, it seemed, was its own undoing. Its frenzy soon passed. And anon the sun shone; the drooping flowers raised to it pitiful, bedraggled little faces; and from the fields, rose the burden of incense, moist, fragrant giving wet thanks of its coming and of its going.

Schuyler's farewells had been but tentative. It had been understood that, should the storm abate, Mrs. Schuyler, Muriel and Blake would follow on the next train; for he himself was forced by the exigency of his mission to reach the city at least two hours before sailing time.

The car, returning from the trip to the depot, was again called into service. Parks, as well, had waited, and went with them.

Reaching the city, Blake's machine, for which he had telephoned from Larchmont, was waiting; and in this they made the journey through the traffic-thronged New York streets, to the dock; a route that leads one from wealth to poverty, from respectability to license, from well—doing to ill-doing, and through all that lies between.

The dock, beside which lay tugging at her cables the huge liner, was confusion thrice confused. Jolting cabs, rattling taxis, smooth-running private cars, drays and vans, added to the tumult caused by the hundred— the thousands—of hurrying, scurrying humanity. Came the calls of excited passengers, the rumbling of trucks, the Babel-like voices of emigrants; and, beyond, the noises of the Great River.

Alighting from the car at the gangway, they boarded the ship, with its crowded decks. Schuyler's stateroom was aft, in the center of the ship. It lay the first door to the right, as one enters the narrow passageway. To it the little party made its way.

The door of the room opposite was ajar. Blake noticed that there lay therein a great mass of crimson roses; scattered amid the toilet articles and accessories of a woman. Passing through the crowds of the deck, he had heard, also, The Man Who Knew telling another man, who did not know of Young Parmalee. It had been but a word. But it had been a word that had found fructification and meaning in the sight of a deck steward, with a bucket, mopping up something from the deck, just outside the little passageway.

Kathryn and Muriel, seen safely to the room that Schuyler was to occupy, Blake returned and made his way out upon the deck. He stood for a moment by the steward, watching him.

Then very quietly inquired:

"Where did it happen, Steward?"

The steward, wringing out the mop into the dark water of his bucket, looked up. There were beads of sweat upon his bronzed, wrinkled brow. Yet the day was not warm.

"Wot, sir?" he queried.

"Where did it happen?"

"Wot happen sir?"

"Young Parmalee's suicide." Blake spoke quietly, calmly.

The steward's eyes shifted.

"Suicide, sir?" he said. "Don't know nothink about it, gov'ner."

Blake pointed to the spot upon the deck.

"What's that, then?" he demanded.

The steward moved, uneasily.

"A spot I just be'n a-cleanin' of, gov'ner."

Blake pointed to the bucket.

"And that?" he persisted.

"Water, sir."

"And—?"

The steward slowly drew the back of his hand across dry lips. And then, in a swift rush of strangled words:

"Blood, gov'ner. Blood.... Only a boy he was, sir, and she looked down on him, laying there with his brains spattered on the deck and she laughed, sir.... God, sir! She laughed...." He struggled to his feet and pulled his forelock. He said in altered tones: "Beg pardon, sir. But a man can't be a blime machine all the time, sir."

There came a call from the state-room.

"Get that bucket away from here. Quick!" And Blake turned to meet the wife and child of his friend, as they came from the state-room.

"Oh, I do hope Jack won't be late," Kathryn remarked, scanning the decks.

Blake standing between her and the steward, returned with forced lightness:

"Oh, he has plenty of time. Half an hour at least. Why, once I lost fifty thousand in the market, broke my steering gear running over a fat policeman, was arrested, taken to court and bailed out and all within twenty minutes. Jack's got time to squander."

There was sadness in the violet eyes.

"It will be very lonely when he's gone—very lonely," she mused, slowly.

"Well, it will be as lonely for him as it will for you," Blake returned; "which is a doubtful consolation, but one that most women don't have."

Muriel had wandered to the rail.

"Oh, I see him!" she cried, suddenly. "There he is! Daddy! Daddy, dear! ... He's right there on the gangway—right behind that fat lady— the one with the red nose. I'm going to meet him."

Sturdy little legs started to follow the summons of impulsive little brain. But her mother detained her.

"No, dearie," she objected. "You'll get lost He'll be here in a moment, now."

"Not unless he can get by that lady," protested the child. "He's—he's—"

"Pocketed is the word you want, Muriel," assisted Blake. He was looking in the direction which the child had indicated. Suddenly, he exclaimed:

"I see him now. He doesn't see us, though. Possibly he doesn't know where his stateroom is. These boats are very confusing. I'll go fetch him."

Blake disappeared in the throngs upon the deck. Muriel turned to her mother.

"Mother," she implored.

"Yes, dear?"

"Why can't we go, too, mother dear?"

"We must stay to care for Aunt Elinor."

"But she has a doctor and two nurses now," protested the child.

"But," returned her mother, smiling, "that isn't like one's own family."

The child was for a moment sunk deep in thought most serious.

"But why must both of us stay?" she asked, at length. Then, suddenly:

"Mother, dear!"

"Yes little sweetheart?"

"I'll match you to see which one of us goes!"

Mrs. Schuyler, surprised, smiled.

"Why, daughter! Wherever did you learn that?"

"I heard Mr. Tom and daddy the other night. They were sitting in the library, and Mr. Tom said, 'I'll match you to see who gets the cigars.' So, mother dear, I thought that you and I might match one another to see which of us could go with daddy."

Kathryn placed an arm about her, drawing her to her.

"Do you want to go with daddy—and leave mother?" she asked.

The child shook her head, doubtfully.

"No," she said, "not exactly.... I want to go with daddy. I love daddy. But I want to stay with you, too, mother dear.... Mother dear," she added suddenly.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Wouldn't it be nice if we were both twins! Then half of us could go with daddy, and the other half of us stay at home with Aunt Elinor."



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE BEGINNING.

Schuyler came hurrying down the deck, Blake and Parks close behind. There was on his face the smile of great gladness. He placed one strong arm about his wife, the other about his child.

"I've some bully news for you, Kate, dear! The President has so arranged that I can complete my work and get back to you in less than a month. Isn't that splendid? Just one little month and I'll be back again with you and baby."

The child raised her head in protest.

"But I'm not a baby, now. I'm six years old. Mother has to pay full fare for me on the cars. Don't you, mother?"

Schuyler picked her up from the deck, tossing her in the air.

"No matter what you may be to conductors, you'll always be baby to daddy, you little darling," he said, brightly. Then, turning to Blake, with lightness born of great earnestness:

"Take good care of them while I'm gone, won't you, old man. By Jove, I'd like to chuck it all, even at the last minute as it is, and stay at home—"

Facing his wife, child and friend, his eyes were up the broad deck. Came toward him The Woman—The Woman known of The Man Who Knew, and of Young Parmalee. Schuyler's voice died in his throat. Her eyes were upon him. His eyes were upon her. She made no movement. She paused not in her indolent, sinuous walk. Her eyes were upon him; and that was all—dark eyes, glowing, inscrutable, beautiful with the beauty that was hers. And his eyes were on hers.... She turned up the narrow passageway in which lay Schuyler's stateroom.... Blake saw, too. He was not of those who live in the froth of things—that froth of things that is the scum. But he was of the world; and they who are of the world have knowledge of all that that world contains—of all, that is, that it is for such as they to know.

Kathryn looked up, at length, anxiously. Schuyler was never abstracted. She prompted:

"You were saying, Jack, dear—"

Schuyler drew his hand, palm out, across his forehead.

"Why—oh, yes," he floundered, trying to marshal his scattered thoughts. "I was saying—" He appealed to Blake, half-helplessly, half-whimsically. "By Jove, that's strange. What was I saying, Tom?"

Blake replied, shortly:

"You were asking me to take good care of them."

Schuyler nodded.

"Oh, yes," he assented. And then; "I don't understand. I—but you will take good care of them, won't you, old man? They're all I have; and more, they're all I want. Guard them, Tom, for me as though they were your own."

* * * * *

Waiting to take farewell of those one loves is indeed a sweetness tinged with bitterness. And if one loves very, very much, it is sometimes a bitterness tinged with sweetness. Kathryn, lower lip clenched between white teeth, herself unhappy would have kept that unhappiness as far as possible hers alone. There were those on board that she knew. To them she went; for there was still, since time was short, too much of it. Muriel she took with her.

Schuyler, in his eyes all the virile love that such as he feel for theirs, watched her vanish amid the throngs. Then, sauntering to the rail, leaned against it.... There came into his eyes a look of abstraction, of aberration, of puzzlement. Blake stood watching him— stood for a long time, silent, unmoving.... At length he moved to Schuyler's side.

"Old man," he said, very slowly, very quietly, very earnestly; "old man, what's up?"

Schuyler turned, quickly

"What's up?" he repeated. "What do you mean?"

Blake said, still slowly:

"There's something happened to you."

"Happened," cried Schuyler. "Something happened?" He laughed. "What could have happened?"

"Damned if I know. But something has. I've got a hunch."

Schuyler answered, lightly:

"Well, you'd better take it to a doctor and have it diagnosed." He half turned. "It's only my natural nervousness at leaving Kathryn and Muriel— and the importance of my mission. By the way," he asked, abruptly, "what was that crowd doing on the dock as I came up?"

Blake, selecting a cigarette, lighted it.

"Suicide," he said, curtly.

Schuyler started.

"You say it mighty cold-bloodedly," he asserted. "Where did it happen?"

"Here, I believe. Almost where we are standing."

"Good God! Who was it?"

"Young chap, named Parmalee."

"What? The boy who's been in the papers so much lately—who disgraced himself, and his people, for a woman?"

Blake nodded, and continued:

"Did you happen to notice the woman who passed a moment ago?—the one carrying the red roses?"

Schuyler bent his head.

"I noticed her," he replied, slowly. "What of her?"

"The woman."

"You don't mean Parmalee—?"

"Yes, I do."

"Because his love was not returned?"

"Because," replied Blake, smiling mirthlessly "it was returned.... Did you ever read that! thing of Kipling's, The Vampire?"

"Why, yes, of course," returned Schuyler. "Almost everyone's read that."

"Do you remember how it goes?" persisted Blake.

Schuyler thought a moment. Then, slowly, he recited:

"A fool there was, and he made his prayer, (Even as you and I) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair. We called her the woman who did not care. But the fool, he called her his Lady Fair—"

He broke off, abruptly. "A weird thing," he said, as though to himself. "I never thought much about what it meant before...." He turned, abruptly. "Why did you ask me if I'd read it?" he demanded.

"Well," said Blake, flicking the ashes from his cigarette, "there's the fool," he nodded toward the drying spot upon the deck. "And there," he indicated, with a backward toss of his well-shaped head, the corridor down which had passed the woman, "is his lady fair. I've even heard," he went on, "that she used to call him her 'fool,' quoting the poem. Pretty little conceit, eh?" His jaw, firm, square, set tight. Then, with a touch of deeper feeling. "She murdered that boy just as surely as if she had cut his throat; and the worst of it is that she can't be held legally guilty—morally, yes, guilty as sin; but legally—" He shook his head. "The laws that man makes for mankind are a joke."

"As sometimes seem," added Schuyler, slowly, "the laws that God makes for mankind.... If what you say about that woman be true, she ought to be taken by the hair of the head and dragged through the hell she has built for others." His brows were knitted; he was gazing with unseeing eyes upon the bustle and confusion of the dock below.

Blake, eyeing him, remarked quietly, but in tones more light:

"However, that's not your job, nor mine, thank God. It would be an eminently suitable recreation for a debonair young man with a shattered reputation, a cast iron stomach, several millions of dollars and no objections to staying up by the year." He turned a little, toward Schuyler. "What are you thinking about?" he queried.

"Only the fool."

"The generic fool of Kipling, or Young Parmalee?"

"I was thinking of Young Parmalee, then."

"And the woman?"

Schuyler quoted, slowly:

"A fool there was—"

"Oh, but," Blake protested, "I wouldn't call him a fool."

"Why not?" demanded Schuyler. "He was a fool."

"Yes," returned Blake. "But he's dead, now."

"Bosh," retorted Schuyler, impatiently. "I've no sympathy with that false sentiment that forbids one to speak the unpleasant truth of a dead person. If a man were a fool while alive, his dying doesn't absolve him of his folly. Young Parmalee's death was a mitigating circumstance, however. He killed himself; which shows that he had some manhood left. But he should have had the decency to choose another place for his self destruction." He was silent for a moment; at length he went on: "A man is what he is, and he was what he was. His dying can change nothing of his living."

He looked up. His wife and child were coming toward him.

"Say nothing to them about all this, Tom," he urged.

"Certainly not," acquiesced Blake.

A steward came down the deck, calling raucously:

"All ashore that's going ashore!"

Kathryn turned to Schuyler.

"And now that the time has really come to say good-bye," she said, brokenly, "here's something I brought you, Jack."

She handed him a little box of glazed cardboard. Wonderingly he took it.

"For me?" he cried, with simulated gaiety. "That's sweet of you, dear heart—sweeter, even than are these." For he had opened it, and taken forth the tiny bouquet of forget-me-nots that had nestled in the depths of the moist cotton, "and these are sweetness itself. But why forget-me- nots! As though I could ever forget you, even for one little minute!"

There came again the strident call:

"All ashore that's going ashor-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-e!!!" Violet eyes suffused, Kathryn was clinging to him.

"Jack," she whispered. "Jack, I'm afraid I'm—going—to—cry."

With infinite tenderness he held her to him.

"There, there, sweetheart mine," he said, soothingly. "Don't be a silly.... Now we'll all go down to the gangway, where the big hugs are.... Then I'll rush back here and we can wave one another good-bye and try to imagine I'm going only over to Staten Island for the afternoon."

Came farewells at the gangway—farewells of tears, of heart-aches, of quivering lips and moist lids—of laughter quavering and smiles unreal— of the good hand clasp that good men know—the touch of wet, clinging lips.

Schuyler came rushing down the deck, keeping to that part of the ship that lay nearest to the dock. From the bouquet that had been given him, he plucked tiny, fragrant blossoms, casting them to those that had given, and with them sending cheery word of hope, tender word of parting.

He could see them there, far below, straining against the ropes, waving to him. He could see the violet eyes, tear laden, the lithe, slender, figure of his wife in the glory of her perfect womanhood—the sturdy little body of his child, barelegged, browned, hair tumbled, waving frantically a tiny little square of muslin and shouting farewells at the highest pitch of childish treble. He could see his friend—the friend such as few men may ever have, and, having, may pray to hold—broad shoulders protecting wife and child from the pressing throngs—he could hear his voice booming through all the heterogeneous medley of sound.

His voice choked. Words that he was crying—words lost in all the confusion of sound and movement—stuck in his throat. Moisture came to his eyes.... He turned a little.... Came into range of his vision a tiny streak of shifting crimson. He looked.

She was sitting there, on the deck—she—The Woman. She lay back in her chair, long, lithe limbs covered with a rug of crimson and black and dull, dull green. She was dangling gently, sensuously, the great cluster of scarlet roses that she held, now and again bringing them to where their fragrance would reach her delicately-chiseled nose, imperious, haughty.... They looked startlingly red against her cheek—like blood upon the snow.... She was looking at him.... There was no movement, save the even, languorous swing of the crimson blossoms. Lips, vivid red, were motionless, half parted in a little, inscrutable smile.... She was looking at him.... He forgot.... The whistle had been blowing, sounding departure. He had not heard. There was a lull. From afar, shrill, childish voice brought a drifting, "Bye, bye, daddy, dear!" ... He did not hear.... Her eyes were on his. His eyes were on hers.... And seemed to be nothing else....



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN THE NIGHT.

He had told Parks to come to him as soon as they were under way. There were certain letters that he wished to get off in time to send them back on the pilot boat. Parks found him by the rail, gazing at a tall, darkly- beautiful woman reclining in a steamer chair, eyes only visible above a great cluster of crimson blossoms. Parks had spoken to him three times before there was forthcoming a reply. Then, slowly, as a man awakening from a heavy sleep, Schuyler had gone with him to his room.

He had tried to dictate his correspondence; had tried, and failed. There were many mistakes. His thoughts would not seem to coalesce. His mind was not upon what he was doing, nor could he place it there. And Schuyler's was a brain that had always been to him an admirably trained servant, coming when he willed it, doing what he willed and in the way he willed.... But today it was a servant sullen, rebellious, recalcitrant. ... The letters remained unwritten. Nothing was sent back with the pilot. And Parks, wondering, puzzled—and, perhaps, a bit perturbed— watched the pilot swing down the Jacob's ladder, and make across the water toward his craft, with wonderment, puzzlement, perturbation no bit abated.

Schuyler paced the deck all that day. Lunch he did not touch. Dinner found him undesirous of food. He was walking—walking—striding up and down, up and down—deep in thought, it seemed—and yet he had not been able to dictate his letters. Parks wondered yet more. At length he went to his employer and asked him if he were not needed. The answer was curt; it was "no." And never before had Parks been answered without a cordial nod, or, perhaps, the good smile of good-fellowship.... He could not understand.

And Schuyler? His brain was in a tumult. Like us all, there were many things that he did not know—there were many things that he did not even know there were to know.... Some of these he was beginning to learn. It had shaken him—it was shaking him—to his soul.

He did not see The Woman again that day.... Her room was across the corridor from his. He heard her voice, directing the steward to bring to her her dinner....

It was dark that night—dark as night seldom gets in the northern latitudes, in June. The lights of the deck looked like vigorous glowworms. The stars seemed very far away. Far below, as he paced, he could see dimly a great blackness that was the sea, and against it the white of the waves as they broke sullenly against the huge hull.... Later it became yet more black. The stars vanished.... The ship seemed a world of its own, hurling through an eternity of utter, deadly space. A wind sprang up, a wind from the East, wet and vicious, a wind that spat upon one, that chilled one, that slapped one with clammy fingers.

Schuyler paced the deck. Coming out of the dim half light of the promenade into the corner of the rail, by the bow, he thought he saw her. He was not sure at first.... Then, though his eyes pierced no more clearly, he was sure.... He went closer. She stood there, white hands clasping the bare rail, lithe, sinewy, lazy body, tilted a bit backward as though in the grasp of the spitting wind. Her throat was bare to it, and her breast. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were deep lidded. Her head was poised like a tiger lily upon its stalk.... He stood there, enveloped in the blackness.... For a long time she stood motionless. Then she stretched her white arms above her head, stretched the long muscles of her body, as a panther stretches. She was very, very beautiful.... He stood watching.... The ship lurched. It reeled against a huge wave, shivering it into roaring spume. The wet fingers of the wind had wrapped her garments about her, every fold tight against her rounded body. She stood, arms above her head, lips parted, silhouetted against the foam.... The ship reeled again, and there came darkness utter.... When again there was light so that one might see, Schuyler stood alone.

Six bells had struck ere he went to his room. Then, scourged of body, scourged of soul, wracked, harassed, torn, he sought his berth. But he did not sleep. He thought of Parmalee, the boy who was a man. He thought of The Woman. He thought of himself. He thought of the wife that he loved. He thought of the child that he loved—the child that had come to him through that wife. He thought of all these things, and of many more; and he did not understand; he did not know. For God has shown even the wisest of us but little of this world in which we live.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

WHITE ROSES.

It was two months later. In the little garden that lay on the side of the big, rambling house at Larchmont where the sun best loved to dwell, roses were in bloom; and roses, even as the sun, seemed to love that garden. They clustered, great masses of glowing white, against the latticed arbor—they caught playfully at one's hat as one would walk through the gate that led to the broad green lawn, and to the Sound beyond—they snatched at one's clothing as one would walk past the largest bush—the one that stretched its branches across the French window. It was a real garden—an out-of-door home—a garden in which one might live, and in which one might be glad that one was alive.

At one side of a tiny writing table set upon the thick, carpet-like sward, sat the mother, pen in hand, before her a half-finished letter. Across from her the child pressed strong white teeth into the yielding wood of her pencil; and before her, too, was a half-written letter—a sprawling, uncertain letter of childhood.

At length the child looked up. She could see that her mother was not writing; so if she spoke, she would not be interrupting.

"Mother, dear?"

"Yes, honey?"

"How do you spell love?"

"Don't you know, dearie?"

The child shook her head.

"L," prompted the mother.

Muriel ventured, dubiously:

"L-a-?"

Her mother shook her head. The child ventured again:

"L-i-?"

"No, honey."

The child kicked her brown little legs.

"Tell me, mother dear," she besought. "Please tell me."

"L-o-v-e," spelled the mother.

"Oh, yes! I 'member now.... Mother, dear?"

"Yes, little sweetheart?"

"When is a daddy coming home? It's awfully hard to write letters. He's been gone a long time now, hasn't he, mother dear?"

"Yes, dearie.... A long, long time." The violet eyes were sad.

"'Most a year?" persisted the little one.

Her mother smiled a little, wanly.

"It seems like it, doesn't it?" she said. "But it's only two months—not only two months," she corrected; "but two months."

Came a little pause. It was broken again by Muriel.

"Mother, dear."

"Yes?"

"Can't I make the rest just kisses?"

With a smile—a smile of infinite love and tenderness, the mother leaned across and kissed the child that was hers.

"Of course you may, dearie," she assented, softly.

"Why don't you write kisses, too, mother, dear?" queried the little one. "It's lots easier.... Oh, mother, dear! I'll tell you what I wrote if you'll tell me what you wrote. Will you?"

Violet eyes gave loving assent.

"Oh, goody! We won't tell anyone else, will we?"

"No, dearie."

"Then," declared Muriel, "I'll read mine."

She picked up the wrinkled little sheet of sadly irregular chirography.

"Dear father daddy," she read. "It rained yesterday. Mother and I are well. We hope you are well and God gave our new cat four kittens." She looked up into the face of her mother. "God is awfully good to cats, isn't He, mother dear?" she asked. She went on, then, with the assurance of childhood: "Please come home. We miss you. I fell in the lake yesterday, but didn't take cold. I love you.... And the rest is just kisses."

She eyed her mother anxiously.

"Do you think daddy will like that letter?" she asked.

Her mother's voice was a bit uneven as she answered.

"I'm sure he will, little sweetheart I'm sure he will."

"Now," requested the child, "you read yours."

Kathryn, drawing the child to her, bent forward. There was much in her heart—much that she might not tell to anyone of all the world save two— and one of these was far away; and, even though the other could not understand, still—

She read:

"My John: You know how we love you, but you don't know how we miss you. Please, please come back to us. If it weren't for Muriel I don't know what I'd do, John, dear. I don't want to make you unhappy. I want you to have all the honors—all the prominence—everything that a man's heart holds dear. But I can't help being jealous a little of the things that are keeping you from us...."

She ceased, turning her head away. A robin, in the roses, lifting its head, broke into song. The child waited, patiently.... At length she inquired:

"Is that all, mother dear?"

Kathryn nodded. "Yes, honey."

"Haven't you made any kisses?"

"No, dearie."

"But," protested the child, "daddy'll be so disappointed!"

"Will he, honey? That wouldn't do, would it? ... Very well, then, mother'll make some kisses."

With Muriel looking on, the mother made several large, and heavy crosses at the foot of that which she had written. There were other marks on that letter—marks that were not kisses—marks that had been made by moisture, and that had smeared the ink as they had been quickly wiped away.

These the child did not notice; she was looking toward the house.

"Here comes Aunt Elinor, mother, dear," she said.



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

SHADOWS.

Mrs. VanVorst had been very ill. A fever, contracted in South Africa where she had been with her husband—a fever gained in a futile effort to save the life of that husband, had sadly fagged a naturally vigorous constitution. There had been a recurrence soon after her return to America. Now she was in that condition of indolent convalescence that is in women so interesting, in men so uninteresting.

She was an out-of-door woman, tall, lithe, willowy. In the rugged health that was normally hers, she seemed muscled almost like one of the opposite sex; yet she lost by it none of the charm of frank femininity that was hers. She was long-limbed, clean-limbed, quick of mind and of body.... The forced inaction of illness was irksome to her. It was hard for her to walk slowly; it was hard for her to sit in silent inaction— to lie in indolent unrest. Too, she felt more than anyone save herself might ever know the loss of the man that had been to her not only husband but as well friend, companion and comrade.

She had been of the world, though anything but worldly. She knew perhaps, more than many another of the Hidden Things.

She strolled forward through the sun-flecked garden. A magazine, its leaves still uncut, was in her hand. She sank into a chair, in a spot from which she might see the Sound and its burden of sails.

"Tom come yet?" she asked.

Kathryn shook her head.

"Not yet."

"Heard from Jack to-day?"

Again Kathryn made negation.

"The foreign mail hasn't come yet," she said. "I told Pierre to stop at the office for it."

Elinor, selecting a paper knife, ran it slowly between the pages of her magazine.

"That business of his seems to be keeping him a long time," was her comment. "What did he say in his last letter?"

"Why, there are several matters of great importance that still remain unsettled. It's not a little thing, his mission, you know. I don't know much about such things; but diplomatic questions, it always seemed to me, take years and years of all manner of serious discussion, and weighty argument."

Kathryn tried to speak lightly; yet the heaviness of her heart was pitifully apparent. Elinor was scanning a colored frontispiece—a thing of vivid yellows and brilliant blues.

"You're feeling almost like yourself again, aren't you, Nell?"

Elinor nodded.

"Yes," she replied. "Thanks to you."

"You were very ill."

"One more doctor would have finished me."

Of a sudden, there came from the drive the quick honking of an automobile horn, together with the soft purring of an engine. Muriel leaped to her feet; brown little legs flashed as she made her way across the garden.

Kathryn and Elinor watched her going. They heard her cry, "Oh, Mr. Tom!" Another moment and Blake, carrying the child in his arms, thrust aside the bending heads of the white roses and made his way into the garden.

"Hello, folks," was his greeting. "Is God in?"

"Who?" demanded Elinor.

"God," he returned. "This is heaven, isn't it? It certainly does seem like it to anyone who has just come from the fireless cooker that sometimes rejoices under the name of Manhattan. My old Aunt Maria! But it is hot there, though."

"We're very glad to see you, Tom," Kathryn began; "although we do owe you a scolding."

"What for?" he demanded, setting the child to the sward and taking off his hat.

"You haven't been near us for a fortnight."

He seated himself, mopping his forehead.

"Business, Kate. Business," he declared, importantly.

Elinor laughed in pleasant irony.

"Business!" she repeated.

"I said, 'business,'" he retorted.

"Yes," she rejoined; "but you can't prove it."

"Can't eh?" he inquired. "Well, you go back to the wicked metropolis and you'll find that my rent is paid and that a coupon's been cut from one of my bonds. And who did it, I'd like to know?"

"Oh, your secretary, or the janitor, or somebody," returned Elinor, easily. "Not you."

Tom laughed.

"I must have a very negligible reputation for industry in this menage. How do you think I spend all my time?"

Elinor, arms akimbo, half faced him.

"Well, Mr. Bones," she asked. "How do you spend all your time?"

He grinned at her, friendlily.

"Feeling better, aren't you?"

"I feel so well," she returned, "that if this doctor of mine weren't such a Simon Legree, I could play you eighteen holes of golf for a box of gloves against a box of cigars."

"Gambler!" he scoffed. "And if I should win, I suppose I'd have to smoke the cigars."

"Certainly," she countered, easily, "if I should have to wear the gloves."

He sank back in the big chair.

"Well," he asserted, "it were useless to speculate on that which may never be. I am at present in that interesting state of a man's career where golf doesn't belong. A man who is beyond the first flush of adolescence and not yet in the last pallor of senility, has no business dallying with golf. He's liable to get sunstruck."

Muriel, who had been listening with round, wondering eyes, ran to her mother.

"What does he mean, mother dear?" she asked.

Elinor replied instead, laughing.

"Nobody knows, Muriel. Not even he."

"Now that's unkind, Nell," protested Blake; "unkind though true."

The child, eyeing them for a minute in serious non-understanding, recurred with the facility of the very young to other things.

"Oh, mother dear!" she cried. "We forgot to stick up our letters to daddy."

Taking her mother's hand, she led her to the little table. Elinor, left alone with Blake, turned to him and queried:

"Heard from Jack lately?"

He shook his head.

"Not lately. Not since I've seen you."

"Not enjoying himself much, I suppose," she commented. "He always stuck to this place in summer like a barnacle. Was crazy about it."

Blake, sitting with left fist in right palm, eyes upon the velvety green of the lawn, shook his head, slowly.

"He shouldn't have left a home like this if they'd offered to make him Queen of Sheba," was his comment.

Kathryn had turned to him. There was in her eyes a frank gladness—a sincere welcome. She was glad to see him; how glad, she herself scarcely knew. She had few friends; for there were but few people for whom she really cared. She had known Blake for many, many years—known him and liked him, and liking, had respected. He was of the few men whom money, and bachelorhood, have no power to spoil. And they are few indeed. The one has power to spoil, you know, even as has the other; and both together—unusual indeed is the man who can resist.

"It's good to see you again, Tom," she declared. "It's been lonely here.... And I never thought that would happen."

"It's good to be here," he returned, looking steadily upon her. "It's good to be here, Kate. It's a perfect place, this—perfect."

Elinor had risen; plucking a bending blossom, inhaling of its delicate fragrance, she had wandered through the broad archway of the arbor, toward the Sound.

There was a moment of silence. There came from between Blake's lips a deep sigh.

Kathryn looked up, quickly.

"What's the matter, Tom?"

He shook his head again.

"I don't know. Sometimes things go all wrong—dead wrong—and no one can tell why, or how, or what to do."

"Why, Tom!" she cried. "What do you mean? Has anything—"

"Mean?" he interrupted. "Oh, nothing. Nothing, of course. I—I guess it's loneliness. There are a lot of people who think because I have a motor to smell, a yacht to make my friends seasick and a club window to decorate, that I'm contented with my lot. But at heart I'm the most domestic individual that ever desecrated a dinner coat; and sometimes the natural tendencies of the gregarious male animal will not down. There's too much of the concentrated quintessence of unadulterated happiness lying around here. Maybe that's it."

"We have been happy here, Tom—very, very happy." Then, quickly: "I'm sorry, Tom.... I understand, and I'm sorry."

He smiled.

"It's nothing, Kate," he declared, "nothing at all. You've got to expect a bachelor to kick every once in a while, you know. They're a peevish lot of old guys."



CHAPTER TWENTY.

A FAIRY STORY.

Toward the child of his friend, and of his friend's wife, Blake felt not as men in his place would have felt. The love that he had for the dainty little thing of gold-brown hair, and gold-brown cheeks, and straight, sturdy little legs was the love of a man for his own. It seemed to him, almost, that she was flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, bone of his bone. It was the "almost" that hurt; for she was the child of the woman he loved, and of another man....

To love the wife of another man is a bitter thing—a bitter thing. To love with dishonor is not hard; but to love with honor were hard indeed. To go away, so loving, were to render more easy to bear the thing that must be borne. To stay—to see day by day the happiness that lieth beyond hope, were to stand in hell and gaze at heaven. And this were most bitter, most hard, of all. Yet this was what Blake had done. This was what Blake would do; and it was what he expected to keep on doing until there was no such thing as time and the souls of all men were dead. He did it because all that lay for him in life lay there, even though not the tiniest bit of it could he claim for his own. And he was a man of heart, as well as of head, and honor.

Perhaps it was because he had loved the woman who was the wife of his friend, since the day when she was as her daughter was now; that his love for the little one that was of her transcended all else in his being—all else save the one thing that he never mentioned, not even to himself. SHE had been like that; a dainty, pretty, loving, simple, naive, sturdy, rugged little thing, with wind-blown hair, and sun-tanned cheeks and legs—soft, gentle, infinitely appealing, generous, loving. In the little one that was of her, he saw her again, violet-eyed, glowing with the glorious abundance of vigor, building wondrous castles of blue beach clay, counting the soaring gulls against the soft blue of summer skies, wandering, laughingly, through daisy fields, rolling, a whirling little tumult of lace and ribbons and wildly-waving bare legs down the stacks of fragrant hay. She had been like that. Small wonder that on her child he lavished all the choked tenderness that cried, sometimes, so, so piteously for outlet.

And as for the child—'way, down deep in her little heart, she had builded of the infinity of her love, three sky-reaching heaps, each one bigger, and more wonderful than the other. One of these she gave to her mother; one to her daddy; and one to "Mr. Tom." And she deemed herself not undutiful, nor lacking in filial amity, for so doing.

Kathryn had followed her sister into the house. Left alone with Blake, Muriel ran swiftly to him, bounding to his knee, and clasping around his neck strong little arms.

"Mr. Tom," she cried, "you haven't told me a story for most a year!"

He held her to him.

"Haven't I, little partner?" he inquired, with infinite tenderness. "Well, that's a grave omission, isn't it? I'll tell you one now." As she sank down contentedly in his lap, and settled her outspreading little skirt primly about her: "What shall it be about?"

"A fairy story," she suggested. "A fairy story about a little girl."

He sat for a moment, in thought; at length he began:

"Well, once upon a time, there was a little girl—a fairy princess."

"Was she pretty?"

"Beautiful. Beautiful as she was good, good as she was beautiful. She was a wonderful, wonderful princess. There was a fairy prince, too," he went on, "a handsome, dashing—a prince that everyone loved and admired and honored."

She nodded, seriously.

"Yes," she said. "Go on."

"Now in the part of the country—it was called the Land of the Great Unrest—there lived a gnome who was a friend of the prince and princess. Do you know what a gnome is?"

Little brows were bent deep in mental flagellation. Then, at length, very eruditely, she ventured:

"No'm is when you say no to a lady, isn't it?"

He laughed, a little; then, seriously:

"That's a different kind of a gnome. The kind of a gnome I mean is a fat man, with long, thin legs and a big, round body and a funny face."

"Oh, now I know!" she cried. "There's a picture of one in the book that you gave me for my birthday. Only this one had whiskers and a funny cap— like a cornucopia."

He nodded.

"That's the fellow," he agreed. "That's the kind I mean—only all of them don't have whiskers; and some of them wear yachting caps, or panamas, or most anything.... Well, the prince and the princess loved one another, and they got married."

"That was nice."

"Yes," he added; "for them. But it wasn't for the gnome. You see, the gnome loved the princess, too."

"Did she know it?"

He shook his head. "No one knew it but the gnome," he returned. "And the prince and princess were very happy. Then a little princess came to live with them, and they were happier yet."

"A little princess like me?" she queried, interestedly.

"Very much like you," he assented.

"And what did the gnome do?"

"Why," he replied, "the gnome just went away and lived in a hole in the ground, all alone."

"Didn't he ever come out?"

"Yes; he used to come out sometimes to tell fairy stories to little girls. But he had to go back again, all alone."

She sighed most dismally and said:

"Poor, old gnome."

"Poor, old gnome," he repeated.

"And then—?" she prompted.

"That's all."

"Isn't there any more?"

"No."

She gazed up at him, disappointedly.

"I don't think that's a very nice story," she declared.

"Don't you?" he said; "I'm sorry, little partner. I didn't mean to tell you that story. I—"

He ceased speaking. Elinor was beside him. He rose to his feet, hastily, confused. It was no little thing that he had told; it was a thing that he had never meant to tell. It had come to his lips, as a parable; because of the way he felt toward the child that was not his; because to her it would never have meant anything; and because of the things inside that had struggled for outlet so long. He wondered if she had heard, and hearing, had understood.... He could not tell....

She spoke to Muriel.

"Run in to Mawkins, dear," she instructed. Then, as the child, obedient, scampered from the room, she turned to Blake, thrusting toward him a letter, and concluded:

"Read that."



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

A LETTER.

Blake took the letter. With its taking there came to him a premonition that the things that he had suspected—the things that he had heard—the things that to him were as unbelievable, as utterly absurd, and ridiculous, and impossible, as might be the vainest imaginings of the vainest, had been proven true.

Over the first of the letter, he skipped cursorily.... At length he found John Schuyler's name. The passage relative to the name was brief. He read it, slowly, word by word. Then he handed back the letter to Elinor.

She had seated herself, waiting. One knee was crossed over the other; and over the upper, her hands were clasped. She was eyeing him keenly, closely, eyes half closed, brows contracted.

To her Blake turned.

"Well?" he interrogated.

"I've known Martha Dale for sixteen years. She, Kathryn, and I were children together.... I think you knew her, too.... She's not the woman to make a charge like that unless it's true."

Blake shrugged his shoulders. A great pain shot through his heart; a great numbness clamped his brain. He had heard things himself. He had seen people who themselves had seen, or thought that they had seen. One man he had knocked down. With two more, his good friends, he had quarreled irrevocably. And in his own soul, something had told him that it was he who was wrong.

He said to Elinor; even as over and over and over he had said to himself:

"There's some mistake. There must be some mistake. It's impossible."

She eyed him shrewdly.

"There's no mistake" she returned. "She talked with him. She saw him with this woman. They were at the same hotel where Martha stayed. And the morning after she came, they left.... There's no mistake."

"But Jack wouldn't do a thing like that," he protested.

"You're a bad liar, Tom. You knew."

"No!" he cried.

"You did. You know you did.... How long have you known this thing and kept it from those who should be told?"

"Who should be told?"

"Kathryn."

"No!"

"But I say yes!" She went on, almost fiercely: "Do you think I'll have my sister—the sister whom I love better than anyone in the whole world— fooled and shamed and disgraced and dishonored by a man like that?"

He raised his hand, protestingly.

"You wouldn't tell her!" he cried.

She nodded, jaw set.

"I would," she declared.

"It would kill her!"

"Nearly; but not quite. She has too much of her father in her for that. And she must know. It is her right."

"And take away her every chance of happiness—and his of redemption."

"Her every chance of happiness is gone; as is his for redemption," she said, bitterly. And then: "He should have thought of these things before he did what he did.... There's one thing to be done, and only one. I shall tell her."

He remarked, slowly:

"The woman's way: To bring suffering where suffering might be spared."

She rounded on him, swiftly.

"The man's way: to stick to the husband, and deceive the wife.... You men have two codes of ethics—a loose, convenient one for yourselves, a tight, uncompromising one for us. There are no two codes of ethics. Right is right, and wrong is wrong; and there can be no compromise. When a man marries a woman, he owes to that woman every bit as much as she owes to him.... Suppose," she went on, tensely, "that it were Kathryn who had done this thing—who had lied and deceived where she had promised to love and honor. What then? Would you tell the husband, or wouldn't you?"

He considered; and said, slowly, positively:

"I'd lie like the devil."

She whirled about.

"You would?"

"I would."

"Well, I won't. And," she declared, lips tight pressed, jaw tight set, "I shall tell her."

Then from the house came Kathryn, happily, gaily. In her hand there was a letter, a letter with a foreign post-mark, a letter that, from its jagged end, had been torn open, with eager hands.

"A note from Jack!" she cried.

"What does he say?" demanded Elinor, tensely, her lithe fingers interwoven.

"Oh, terribly lonely," returned her sister—"trying so hard to finish his work and get back to us. I'm adding a postscript." She seated herself before the writing table. "Do you two want to send any messages?"

For a moment—for a long, long moment—did Mrs. VanVorst stand, silent, motionless. All that the thing meant that she was about to do, no one knew better than she. She stood, silent, eyes half closed, hands clenched. Blake watched her, shrewdly.

After a long, long time, she took a short step forward.

"Kate," she began. "Kate, dear. I have something to tell you."



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

AGAIN THE FAIRY STORY.

Kathryn, busy at her postscript, did not hear. Blake stepped swiftly forward.

"No!" he whispered. "No!"

Elinor put him aside.

"Kate!" she said again.

Blake stood for a moment, hesitant. Muriel had come from the house. To her he called.

"Come here, little partner."

Obediently, she came running to him. He seated himself, and took her upon his lap.

"Do you remember the story that I told you a little while ago?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Well, there's more to that story. Would you like to hear it?" He did not wait for her answer; he spoke swiftly, surely. Elinor, across the table, eyed him curiously. Kathryn, still writing, was oblivious quite to all that was going on around her.

Blake continued:

"Well, there came a time when the prince had to go a long, long way off. The princess was very sorry to see him go, and so was the little princess; and they cried; but they were brave princesses, so they didn't cry much; they stayed at home and wrote him letters with kisses in them.

"And then,—well, the fairy prince met a witch—a wicked, wicked witch— and she charmed him, and took him away with her. Now the fairy princess had a sister. She was a good woman; and, like all good women, she was hard-headed. The sister heard about the witch, and she wanted to run right home as fast as she could, and tell all about it. And that would have made the princess cry, and the prince go away and die, all alone."

The lids over the violet eyes were blinking; the lips quivered.

"I want to cry, Mr. Tom," she complained. "That's worse than the other story!"

"Ah, but," went on Blake, hurriedly, "the sister didn't tell. She wasn't hard-headed. She listened to the voice of reason, rather than to that of intuition—"

"What's that word you just said, Mr. Tom?"

"Intuition?"

She nodded.

"Eh—ah," he hesitated, then, "why, intuition is a thing that women use for a brain. And," he continued, "bye and bye the fairy prince managed to get away from the wicked witch that had charmed him, and he came back again to the fairy princess, and the little fairy princess; and though of course he had been very, very bad—very, very wicked—he was forgiven; and they were almost as happy as they had been before he went away.... Do you like that story any better, little partner?"

She was all smiles now. She nodded, brightly.

"Heaps, and heaps, and heaps!" she cried.

"That's good," he said, as he set her down.

Kathryn had raised her head from her writing.

"Fairy story, Tom?" she queried, in the half-attention of preoccupation.

"Yes," he replied.

"Does it end happily?"

Ere he could have replied, her thoughts were again of her letter.

Blake walked slowly to where stood Elinor. She was toying with a hanging blossom of white, fragrant, spreading. Her eyes were moist; her hand trembled.

He asked, very softly:

"Does it end happily, Nell?"

She turned to him. Her lips quivered.

"I hope so," she whispered. "Only God Himself knows how I hope so!" And then she added slowly, "If women were only as loyal to women as men are to men!"



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

AID.

Blake had suspected; but he had refused to believe. Now he knew. And half an hour later, "The Vagrant," under full head of steam, was surging down the Sound with a great, white bone in her teeth and a great, fan- like wake spreading huge rollers from her trim stern.

She anchored off Thirty-Fourth Street. The launch was ready almost as the chain rattled. Blake's big French car was waiting for him at the pier; and, with scant regard for the speed ordinances, it bore him swiftly through the traffic-thronged streets to lower Fifth Avenue, and to the house of Dr. DeLancey.

The passing of the years had made but little change in either the good doctor or his abode. His office looked the same—dry and musty. He looked the same—shrewd and kindly.

"Come in," he said, with the testiness that in him was cordiality concentrated. "Come in. Don't stand there like a gump stretching my bell- wire all out of shape. Come in. Come in."

Blake entered.

"Well," said the doctor, leading the way into his office. "What's the matter now. Sick? You don't look it. If all my patients were like you and the Schuylers, I'd starve to death." He fumbled with an old-fashioned cedar cigar chest. "Smoke?"

Blake took the cigar, and lighted it.

"Well," said the doctor, again. "For heaven's sake, what's the matter! Have you become suddenly dumb? You have a tongue, haven't you? If you have, for goodness' sake, use it."

Blake answered, slowly:

"Doctor, it's about Jack Schuyler."

The sudden little look of anxiety that sprang to the good old man's eyes showed how much the statement meant to him.

"About Jack Schuyler!" he exclaimed. "What about Jack Schuyler? No harm— he's not ill?"

"Very, very ill, I fear," Blake responded. "I don't understand it at all. I can't comprehend—"

The doctor brought his old fist down upon the scratched top of his old desk.

"Will you stop hemming and hawing and shilly-shallying around and come to the point!" he fairly howled.

"It's about Jack Schuyler," repeated Blake, slowly, "and a woman."

Doctor DeLancey started. He sat erect.

"What!" he cried. "Jack Schuyler and a woman? You're a fool! It's ridiculous—impossible—absurd!"

"That's what I've been telling myself for the past month," rejoined Blake.... "But it's not ridiculous—it's not impossible—it's not absurd. Would to God it were!"

"But Jack Schuyler!" protested the doctor, incredulously. "Why, I've known him since he was born. And I knew his father, and his mother, and his grandfather and his grandmother before him! Damme, I don't believe it. I won't believe it!"

"Neither did I," returned Blake. "Neither would I—until—"

He told the doctor of the letter that had come; and of that which it contained. In silence the doctor listened, and to the end.

There was a pause; Blake continued:

"I don't believe I could do anything. I'd lose my head. I want you to go to him, to see if there isn't something that you can do. I'll pay—"

The doctor leaped from his chair, waggling an old finger in Blake's face.

"Pay!" he yelled. "Pay me for going to Jack Schuyler! You keep your dashed money, my boy. When I want any, I'll ask you for it. D'ye hear me? I'll ask you for it! When does the first boat sail?"

"It sails to-night—in half an hour," returned Blake. "It's the 'Vagrant'.... I'm going, too.... I want to be near at hand.... Good God!" he cried, suddenly. It was almost a wail. "To think of Jack Schuyler— our Jack Schuyler!—like that!"

The doctor came in from the hall whence he had rushed. One arm was in the sleeve of his coat. His hat was over his ear. He was vainly trying to put his left glove on his right hand.

"Well?" he blurted, "what are you standing there for like a bump on a log? Why don't you get started? What's the matter with you, anyhow? Come on!" He turned, and shouted up the stairs: "Mary! Mary! Ma-a-a-a-ry, I say! I'm going away. Don't know when I'll be back. Ask young Dr. Houghton, across the street, to take care of my patients until I get home. He'll probably kill a lot of 'em; but I can't help that."

And still shouting, still fussing with glove and sleeve, he bumbled out the door, and down the steps to the waiting car.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

RESCUE.

Blake waited on the yacht, in the harbor of Liverpool. It was hard for him to sit idly by at such a time; but he felt that it was best. There was in his soul a great pity, to be sure—a great grief—a great horror— yet there was there too a great, deep anger, and a wild resentment; for he loved the daughter of Jimmy Blair, you know; and it was not alone that Jack Schuyler was his friend; it was as well that he was her husband, and the father of her child. So he did not trust himself to go, then; for he knew that all that he might do, Dr. DeLancey could do, and more.

Dr. DeLancey went, then, alone. In London he found John Schuyler. He did not announce himself; he bullied and stormed and finally persuaded those who stood between him and his quarry, to let him go unannounced.

He did not knock. Instead he thrust open the door and entered. Schuyler was standing before the grate with its burden of glowing coals. He looked up. He started, rubbing his eyes as one who sees but doesn't believe that which his gaze tells him to be so.

"It's you!" he cried.

Dr. DeLancey nodded.

"Yes," he said, simply. "Jack, I've come to take you home. The yacht's waiting at Liverpool. Tom's boat, you know. Steam's up. So get your hat."

Schuyler raised his hand, protestingly.

"But," he began, "I—"

The doctor cried, explosively:

"Don't you try to argue with me, young man. I've neglected my practice and let everything go to the devil to come over here, and I don't want any of your dashed buts thrown at me. You get your hat and coat and you come with me. D'ye hear me?"

"I can't go," said Schuyler.

The doctor brought his flat fist down upon the center table.

"Can't go!" he howled. "In about a split second I'll show you whether you can't or not. You get your hat and coat! Or," he went on, "come without 'em. It's all the same to me. Parks can pack up your things, and come on the 'Transitania,' to-morrow. You're coming now. D'ye hear me? You're coming now—this dashed instant!"

He advanced upon Schuyler, gripping him by the arm. Schuyler stood for a brief moment, doggedly. Then suddenly his head dropped forward upon his breast.

"Very well," he acquiesced, slowly. Suddenly his voice broke. He almost whispered:

"I'm glad you've come, doctor.... I was helpless—utterly helpless."

They took the train within the hour. And the following morning found the "Vagrant" at sea, with John Schuyler on board. Yet it was a different John Schuyler from the one they had known. He had refused to shake hands with either Blake, or the doctor. He did not mention the woman; nor did they. They tried to be toward him as they had always been—as though all that had happened alone in imagination.... He did not sleep; he ate but little; and he drank, some.

Blake was heart-sick—soul-sick. To see the man that he had known and loved as that man was! But Dr. DeLancey assured him:

"It'll take a year or two. But he'll be all right in the end."

And yet even Dr. DeLancey did not feel certain that it was the truth that he spoke.

In crossing, Schuyler spent much time on a long, long letter—a letter that required much rewriting. On landing, he mailed that letter to the daughter of Jimmy Blair.

As, on the pier, he separated from Blake and Dr. DeLancey, in spite of the insistent pleas of the one, and the testy commands of the other, that he come to live with them. He said, only:

"I shall go to a hotel. I shall stay there a fortnight. Don't come to see me. Don't let anyone come to see me. Don't even try to find out where I am. There's one thing, and only one, for me to do. I'm going to try to do it.... Sometime, I hope that I may shake hands with you, Tom. Sometime I want to shake hands with Dr. DeLancey. I want to tell you both all there is in my heart to tell you. But that time is not yet. God bless you for all that you've done for me."

And, white-lipped, moist-eyed, he left them.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

THE RETURN.

The library of John Schuyler's town house was a large room, done in dull browns and deep greens. All that good taste and a sufficient purse could do to beautify it—to render it alike pleasing and restful to the eye, comforting and satisfying to the soul, had been done. Carpeting was deep and rich. The walls were panelled of mahogany, and the bookshelves sunk into their dull depths. On either side of the door leading to the hall hung a painting, the one a Turner, the other a Corregio. There was a fireplace—a huge fireplace wherein might lie a four-foot log; above it a mirrored mantel; before it the skin of a jaguar. Across from this, a narrow flight of stairs led to the private apartments of the owner.

It was early fall now. The roses in the garden of the Larchmont place had withered, and fallen. It had been a dun morning, a morning of dull gray.... Schuyler sat at the big, mahogany desk in the center of his library. Papers lay spread upon the table before him. A decanter of cut glass and silver lay there, also.

The Schuyler that had come was different, very, from the Schuyler that had gone. He was still quick, agile, alert; but there was gone from his clean-cut face the expression of cheerful optimism—of confident happiness—of all-spreading good-fellowship. Little wrinkles had gathered at eye-corners—deeper were the lines that ran from nostrils to the ends of his mouth. But these changes one might not have noticed were it not for the eyes. For, from these the light had gone. They were as lamps unlit.

Yet was there one other change apparent; for while before he had concentrated easily upon that which he had to do, now it was with difficulty—almost, even, with impossibility. He paused, often, to pour from the decanter a little brandy into a small glass, and to drink that which he had poured. He rose from his chair, to stride nervously, up and down, up and down. He seated himself only to drink again; he drank again only to rise again; he rose again only to sit again.

He rapped, at length, upon the little bell that lay upon the table. Waited; then rapped again. And his brows creased in petulance.

"Now where the devil is Parks?" he muttered, nervously.

He waited; and drank while waiting. Then rang again the bell.

Even as its mellow note pierced the silence of the room, the door opened, and Parks entered. He crossed to the desk, and laid upon it a bundle of documents that he had brought. At his clear-cut face Schuyler looked.

"Well, here you are at last, eh? Anyone would think that I had sent you to Singapore for those papers instead of merely upstairs."

"I'm very sorry, sir," was Parks' quiet response.

Schuyler took the papers, drawing them to him.

"That's all," he said, curtly. "You may go."

"But—"

"I said you might go."

Parks still hesitated. Schuyler looked at him angrily.

"I merely wished to say," Parks spoke deferentially, even soothingly, and possibly a bit reluctantly, "that there is a lady—"

Schuyler interrupted, quickly.

Parks nodded.

"Yes, sir. The lady."

Schuyler said, eyes closing a little:

"A lady."

"Well, send her—" Then, as Parks started to go: "No, tell her I'm not here."

"Very well, sir."

Again Parks started to leave the room; again Schuyler stopped him.

"Wait. I've changed my mind. I'll see her."

He reached for the decanter of brandy, and poured into one of the glasses an even inch of the amber liquor. He raised the glass to his lips; but set it down again untasted; for Parks had started to speak again.

"Also there's a van here for your wife's—pardon me, for Mrs. Schuyler's furniture and trunks."

Schuyler's brows contracted; there was the slightest suggestion of a quiver at lip-ends. Then, after a long, long pause, he replied:

"Well, let them take all that she selected.... And Parks."

"Yes, sir?"

"I won't see the lady after all."

Parks nodded, and quietly withdrew. Left alone, Schuyler for some moments sat silent and motionless before his desk. But nowadays, he could not sit motionless for long. There was that inside his brain—inside his soul— which would not let him. It kept him moving—moving—moving, without rest, without cessation; even as he had paced the deck of the liner, on that other morning, almost until the day had come to claim again from the night that which was its own.

Of a sudden he rose from his chair. Swift strides took him across the room. Quickly, nervously, he drew back the curtain from the window.... He could see, beneath him in the street, the van that had come for the belongings of his wife—of the woman who had borne him his child—the child which he had not seen since, upon the dock, she had waved him farewell.

John Schuyler had wandered into the Unknown. Unwillingly, knowing full well what he was doing, but powerless to help—powerless to prevent—he had gone.... Sometimes it did not seem real to him. It was a nightmare— a horrid, horrible, awful, grewsome, rotten dream, a dream that brought to his nostrils a stench—to his soul a coldness unutterable—a coldness beside which that of death might seem a grateful warmth.... He would wake sometimes from his dreams, a cold sweat enveloping him like a pall, a scream upon his lips.... And then, again—He did not understand. He could not understand. It was hopeless, utterly, utterly hopeless.... Why should such things be? How could such things be? There was a God, presumably. Presumably, that God was good.... There was no logic in it—no reason in it.... What did it all mean? "Why?" he asked himself, again and again, and yet again. "Why?" ... There had been no answer....

He watched the van load. He watched the heavy horses throw themselves into the traces, as the whip fell across their flanks. He watched the van slowly gather momentum. He watched it rumble heavily down the sodden asphalt.... At length it turned the corner....

John Schuyler swung on his heel. And then he laughed; it was a laugh that, God grant, you may never laugh, nor I!



CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

THE RED ROSE.

He did not see her enter. He did not hear her enter. Yet he knew that she was there, although he had left her across an ocean.... Another sense, it seemed, there was within him.... He knew that she had crossed the room; that she was leaning, rounded arms all bare, across the back of the great chair, by the window. He did not know; he had not looked; yet he could see her, beautiful, gloriously beautiful in her strange, weird, dark beauty; head poised like a tiger lily upon its stalk; great masses of dead black hair coiled in the disorder that, of her, was order above the low, white forehead; vivid lips parted to reveal the gleam of shining teeth; long, lithe limbs in the easy relaxation that is of the panther, or the leopard.

At length he turned.... She was there. She was as he, unseeing, had seen; as he had known that he should see.... He had ceased to wonder. The Unknown had taught him so much that of the things it had not taught, he had ceased to wonder....

He looked; and looked away. She laughed, a little, lightly. She turned a little, lissomely. He could see the muscles of her straight, slender shape ripple beneath the shimmering black gown.

At length he spoke, roughly, gruffly:

"Well?"

Almost caressingly, she answered:

"Well?"

"So you've come to gaze upon the ruin you have wrought, eh?"

Again she laughed.

"Upon the ruin we have wrought, My Fool," she corrected.

"Don't call me that," he muttered. "It hurts. It hurts because it's true."

"Most truths hurt," she remarked, smilingly.

"Now," he mumbled, "yes...." And then: "You're satisfied, I hope. She's gone."

"Gone?" It was a pretty inflection—the rising inflection of great surprise. Her eyes, glowing of merriment, belied her lips.

"Gone," he repeated, doggedly. "Gone, and taken the child—my child—our child—with her."

She glided across to where he sat; she leaned over him.

"And you're sorry, I suppose," she asked, mockingly. "Heart-broken!"

"Yes, by God! I am!" he cried, from the soul.

There came from her lips a peal of merry, musical laughter.

"The man of it! Every man wants two women—one to love, and one to respect; one to caress, the other to honor; one to please himself, the other to please his friends. And you're no different from the rest that I have known."

He looked up at her, eye laden of hate, and scorn.

"The rest that you have known!" he retorted, with bitterness, with meaning.

"The rest that I have known," she returned, evenly, lightly.

"Young Parmalee, and Rogers, and Seward Van Dam—and God knows how many more!"

She laughed.

"Jealous, eh? That is as it should be, My Fool." She laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. Roughly he took it, casting it from him.

"Damn you!" he cried. "Let me alone!"

She drew up, stiffly, but speaking softly, said,

"So?"

"I—I didn't mean it that way," he apologized.

"I wonder if you ever spoke that way to her—the other.... You didn't," came from her slowly.

He shook his head.

"No," he replied.

The Woman seated herself upon the arm of his chair, lithely.

"And do you know why?"

Again he shook his head.

"Because you never loved her as you love me. A man is as rough sometimes to the woman he loves as at other times he is sweet." She plucked a scarlet rose from the great cluster that she wore at her breast, dangling it in one white hand, lazily, sensuously.

"You know well of men, don't you," Schuyler remarked, bitterly,

"Well enough" she replied, lightly. "And that is why, when you said, 'Damn you, let me alone!' that I didn't say, 'Damn you!'" she struck him lightly across the face with the scarlet blossom, "and go." Then, with abrupt transition: "That and because I love you."

He laughed, mirthlessly.

"Because you love me!" he cried, his voice all scorn. "Because you love me! Does love then bring disgrace, and ruin, and dishonor upon the object of its lavishment? Does it? Does it?"

She had sunk upon the floor at his feet. Her legs were drawn beneath her; she poised herself upon her supple white arms, looking up at him.

"Sometimes," she returned, evenly. "Even as it brings joy, and ecstasy and happiness untold.... And it does bring that," she purred, sibilantly. "Doesn't it, My Fool?"

He leaned forward, drawing her to him.

"You know it," he cried.... "You know it!"

She saw beginning to glow in the leaden eyes the light that she alone knew how to kindle.... It pleased her.... It pleased her also to blight it at her will. She laughed. She knew as well how to blight as how to kindle. She knew also how to twist a soul in torment; and how to swirl it to the false heaven of unreal joys. For she, of the Unknown, knew much— more, perhaps, than of the known. She said, laughing janglingly:

"But did you ever think, My Fool, that there are different loves?"

He sunk back into his chair. The eyes again were leaden. His head bent. She leaned forward, taking from a vase on the table a nodding white blossom.

"One love," she went on, "is like the white rose—pallid, pale, wistful, weak—a lifeless thing that lies dead against the hand that holds it— that wearies the eye and chills the soul.... The other love is like the red rose—rich, rare, glowing, glorious—that thrills the heart with the joy of living and quickens the blood in the veins until the very soul cries out in the frenzy of its fragrance—a pulsing, throbbing love of body and soul and heart and head, that rushes upon one like a storm at sea, dashing one hither and thither, impotent in its tearing, tossing grip.... That is our love—the Red Love—and it is sweet, is it not, My Fool?"

She bent over him, watching the light again leap to the heavy eyes as he answered:

"Sweet? Sweet as Paradise—a false Paradise, perhaps; but still Paradise! Those days on the Mediterranean, the sea no bluer than the sky that held it in its sunlit hand—and Venice—Venice, with the great, round moon overhead, and the mysterious semi-darkness all about—the splashing of soft waters there beside us and the silent whisper of the lazy oar—and just you and I—alone amid all the glories—side by side—heart in heart— soul in soul." With a great choking sob: "It was sweet, Lady Fair! Sweet!"

The Woman continued:

"And there are two roads through life even as there are two roses. The one is a rough road and weary, and on it happiness seldom treads. It is a plodding road, flat and long; and there you walk with stale and barren people, through a stale and barren land, until you come to an ending yet more stale and more barren than are road or people. That is the road of the White Rose. But the Road of the Red Rose! That's different! On the Road of the Red Rose there is laughter and light, and happiness and joy! Flowers bloom; birds sing. There come the soft wash of the sea—the silent whisper of the breeze—the call of Love!"

She rose lithely to her feet. In one hand she held the bending white blossom; in the other the crimson. Suddenly she thrust them toward him, body bent, lips parted, and cried, sibilantly:

"Which rose do you choose, My Fool? Which Road?"

Roughly he struck from her hand the drooping flower of white. That of red was crushed between them as he seized her in his arms and drew her to him.

"The red rose!" he cried. "And the Red Road! And we'll travel to the end, and beyond!"



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

THE RED ROAD.

From across the table she was laughing at him, brightly, merrily— laughing to see the havoc that she had wrought in the soul of a man. He turned to her, almost savagely.

"You do love me, Lady Fair, don't you?" he almost pleaded. "You must love me, knowing as you do all that I have given up for you." He pointed to a heap of carelessly-tossed letters upon desk-top. "Do you see those?" he demanded. "The first from Washington—the President—demanding my resignation. Following that, curt requests that I withdraw from positions of trust that I held. My wife crushed—my child disgraced—my friends gone—! God in heaven! What haven't I given you, Lady Fair!"

"I thank you," she responded, most graciously, bending low, "And I have given you what? Myself. Is that less than a fair exchange?"

"Not if I may keep that self mine, and mine alone, for all time. But may I?"

"Can you doubt it?" she queried, with a lifting of arched brows.

"There was Parmalee—"

"A silly boy. I never cared for him!"

"And Rogers—"

"Interesting—only interesting—and only at first. Then tiresome!"

"And Seward Van Dam."

"Next to you, a man," she cried. "But like you, insanely jealous, and unreasonable."

"And in the end, perhaps," he said slowly, very slowly, "I shall be like him." He sat for a moment, silent. At length he continued: "But if it were to be I, I alone, for all time, could it last—this Red Love of ours? Could it? ... Could it?"

She leaned forward.

"Why not?" she asked, lightly. "Why not?"

Leaden eyes were gazing out into nothingness.

"Age comes," he said. His voice was low, and deep, and dead. "The body withers. The brain grows dull. The blood becomes thin. The soul gets weary. And the power to live as once we lived is taken from us. We sit white-haired, blue-veined, drinking in the sun through shrivelled pores to drive the chill from our shrunken frames. It will come to you—to me— to all of us. And neither man, nor God may stop it."

There had come to her face an expression as of a great fear. This man who knew so little, was teaching of that little to her, who knew so much.... At length she swept that fear from her, as one might brush aside the ugly web of a sullen spider.... Again she was the woman who did not know the Known, but only the Unknown.

She asked, lightly:

"Why worry over the years to come when the days that are are ours.... There is happiness in the days that are?"

Her voice was very soft. Again dull eyes gleamed; he exclaimed:

"Happiness! I did not dream there could be a happiness like this!"

Her slender arm was about his neck; he could feel the glow of its warmth. Her voice was soothing—infinitely soothing, and musical beyond the telling.

"Then keep a-dreaming, My Fool," she purred, softly. It was almost a whisper. "Keep a-dreaming."

"Would to God I could!" he cried, earnestly. "Would to God I could, forever! The memories of a thousand joys are with me always. Love? What is this love? A golden leaf of happiness floating on the summer seas of life. A silver star of utter joy set in the soft heavens of eternity. A dream that is a reality; a reality that is a dream.... But the storm comes upon the sea. Black clouds blot out the stars. And there can be no dream from which there is no awakening."

"Yet," she cajoled, "while the sea smiles—while the star shines—while we dream—there is happiness to pay for all."

"To pay for all, and more!" Again he turned upon her, swiftly. "Yet in the golden aura of that happiness, there always stand three sodden souls pointing stark fingers at me in ghoulish glee.... Parmalee—Rogers— VanDam.... If I thought—if I for one moment thought—that I should be as they, I'd—"

She stopped him, quickly:

"You'd what, My Fool?"

"I'd kill you where you stand!" he replied, savagely.

She laughed, gaily, clapping soft palms.

"That's the way I love you best, My Fool. It shows spirit, and manhood, and good, red blood—red, like our roses!" She plucked from her breast a handful of scarlet petals, casting them above her head. They fell about them both, a glowing shower. She went on: "How for a moment you could have imagined that you love the woman you call wife—a soft, silly, namby-pamby—"

He was on his feet now, fierce, primal, brutal—all the manhood that was left of him straight and rigid.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't you dare say one word against her, or by God, I'll—"

She interrupted, rising haughtily before him, and said coldly, incisively:

"You forget yourself. You humiliate yourself. You insult me. I'll say what I please of whom I please."

"You'll keep your tongue off her, and off the little one!"

"I'll not if I choose not!"

"You will!"

She laughed. He stood for a moment, poised in anger. Then the momentary flash of righteous wrath was gone. He turned, slowly, from her.

She remarked, lightly, scornfully:

"The man of it, and again the fool of it. You would protect her who has scorned, and flouted, and humiliated you."

"The fault was mine," he flashed. "And you know it; and I know it."

"Then why did you do it?"

He shook his head, eyes again leaden.

"God knows," he whispered.

She stood for a moment; then again laughter rippled from the red lips.

"But why should we quarrel?" she asked, gently. "There are things in life more sweet." She went to him, leaning toward him, beautiful arms extended, lissome body bent.

"A kiss, My Fool," she whispered.

He turned from her.

"No," he cried.

She smiled.

"I said, 'A kiss, My Fool!'" she repeated.

"I heard."

Her eyes were on him.... Slowly he turned.... The set jaw relaxed; the straight limned lips weakened.... He looked at her.

Her lips now were almost upon his own; her eyes were very close to his. Again she whispered; softly, sibilantly, caressingly:

"A kiss, My Fool!"

* * * * *

He thrust her from him.

"You devil!" he cried. "I love you—and I hate you! You are beautiful— and you're ugly! You are sweeter than the last of life—and more bitter than the sodden shame of a secret sin!"

She replied, lightly, arranging the masses of her hair with deft, slender fingers:

"All of which is quite as it should be, My Fool; for the hate makes the love but the more poignant; the ugliness is but a fair setting for the beauty; and sweetness in bitterness is far more sweet than sweetness alone."

Her mood was different now. He had sunk into the great chair. She seated herself upon its arm; her head sunk to his; her cheek against his.... And again he kissed her, on the lips.



CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

THE BATTLE.

The car stopped before the porte-cochere. Blake alighted. He knew well the way. He did not ring; for the door was unlocked—ajar. Jaw close set— lips but a thin straight line, he made his way down the great, dark, silent hall. He had come to do that which it were hard to do. When one has been the friend of such a man as John Schuyler was—when one has felt toward a man as such a man as John Schuyler must be felt toward—when one has known that man to do the things that he has done—when one has seen the misery—the suffering unutterable that he has caused—the shame beyond depth, the grief beyond measurement—and when she upon whom has been heaped this shame and grief and misery and suffering unutterable is the woman one loves—then it becomes not a little thing to go to that man without murder in one's heart and vengeance in one's soul.

Blake knew where he was most likely to find the man that had been his friend. There he went, thrusting open the broad door. He paused upon the threshold....

The woman, lifted her head.... She moved away from Schuyler, arranging the dead black masses of her hair.... She laughed a little.

Schuyler turned. Eyes again leaden saw Blake.

"You!" he cried.

Blake said no word.

Schuyler laughed, raucously.

"So you, of all, have not decided to flee from the leper."

Blake, looking at him, said, slowly:

"No; I stay behind and stand the stench for the sake of him who was my friend."

"Is the stench then so great that it precludes the common courtesy of announcing your presence?"

Blake made no answer to this.

"I wish to see you alone," he said, simply.

Schuyler half swung from him.

"You may see me as I am." he returned, doggedly.

"And a most damnably unpleasant sight it is."

Schuyler wheeled.

"You go too far," he said, threateningly.

"Too far?" repeated Blake. "Impossible.... I wish to see you alone—if you, and this woman—dare."

She, smiling, bowed, graciously.

"By all means," she agreed, easily.

"No!" cried Schuyler. "Stay where you are."

She shook her head.

"Pray pardon me. I'll wait in the morning room."

Alone, Blake turned and looked at Schuyler. Could it be that this was the man that had been his friend? ... It must be; and yet how could it be? There was in his heart a great bitterness. He could not understand....

Schuyler had turned to him.

"Look here, Tom," he began, doggedly, "before you begin, I wish to tell you that it is useless. Nothing that you can say will change me in the slightest. I've made up my mind; and my decision is unalterable."

"Irrevocable, is the word."

"As you will.... I'm sorry if the course I choose doesn't seem right to you—to the world—sometimes even to myself—and I'll confess to you that it doesn't—But, right, or wrong, it's the only one for me, and I must take it—must, whether I will or not. So, if you've come for a cigar and a chat, well and good. But if for anything else, go and avoid trouble."

"I'm looking for trouble," returned Blake, quietly. He advanced to the table and leaned against it. "Jack," he exclaimed, "you're a damned fool. There was some excuse for the others. Parmalee was a kid—Rogers an old fool—Van Dam—well, absinthe and asininity account for him. And they fell to their fooldom without warning to guard them or precedent to shield them. But you—open-eyed, knowing everything—forewarned and forearmed,—walk fatuously to your doom as one sheep follows another over a precipice. I swear I can't even yet believe that it isn't all a dream. I keep pinching myself and saying to myself that in the morning I'll wake up and go around and tell old Jack all about it as being a good joke. It's an uncanny, filthy sort of a nightmare as it stands, however." He turned to the other; Schuyler was striding up and down the room. "Old man," he pleaded, quietly, "what's the answer?"

Schuyler stopped in his walk. Looking at Blake, he remarked:

"You've never loved. You couldn't know."

"Never loved!" cried Blake, scornfully. "Couldn't know! Hell! You make me tired! What do you mean by debauching and degrading a good, pure word like love by applying it to this snaky, bestial fascination of yours. You're a fool!"

Schuyler advanced upon him, threateningly.

"Don't you call me that, too," he said, tensely.

Blake paid no heed.

"Love!" he cried, disgustedly. "This sordid, sodden passion of yours love! Love lives only where there is sympathy, and respect, and mutual understanding. Do you mean to tell me that you have any respect for this woman? You know well you haven't a bit more respect for her than she has for you, and that's none. Do you mean to tell me there's any sympathy between you? No more than there is between a snake and a bird. And you aren't capable of understanding her any more than she is of understanding you. Love! It's lust! And you know it!"

Schuyler had dropped into a chair. Blake finished. He swung toward him.

"Go on!" he almost hissed, through clenched teeth. "Go on! If you can tell me anything that I haven't told myself, I'd like to hear it. Tell me what you think. Tell me what everyone thinks. Put into words the scorn and contempt that I see in every eye that looks into mine—in every mirror that I look into. Go on! Tell me something else! But let me tell you one thing! When Destiny can't get a man any other way, she sends a woman for him.... And the woman gets him."

Blake looked at him.

"'A fool there was';" he quoted. Schuyler interrupted.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't you suppose I know that thing by heart— every syllable—every letter of it? Don't you suppose I know what it means—all that it means—better than you can ever know?" He struck his forehead with clenched fist. "Tell me the things that lie here!" his voice was almost a scream. "The things that lie here, and burn, and burn, and burn! Tell me the things that lie here!" He struck his forehead again.

"I'll tell you this," said Blake, voice cold, and ringing. "It was written for you by a man who knew you; and you'll listen."

"No!" protested Schuyler. He started to rise from his chair. But Blake, catching him by the shoulders, thrust him back, holding him pinioned. "You fool," he remarked, bitterly. "You poor, pitiful, puling fool! 'Honor, and faith, and a sure intent'—a wife, a child, a reputation, a character. 'Stripped to his foolish hide,' the poem reads. But you're stripped to your naked, sodden skeleton. If I weren't so sorry for you, I could cut your throat. When I think of the little girl—calling you daddy—honoring you—loving you—and of what you've done for her! When I think of your wife—of the woman who went through the pains of childbirth for you—who held you sacred in that great, loving, glorious heart of hers—who gave, and gave, and gave asking only that there might be the more to give—You say that maybe I don't know what love is. Well, maybe I don't—and maybe I do. There are some things that a man may not tell his best friend—there are some things that a man may not even tell himself. But I'm different from you, thank God, and I love differently."

He moved back. Schuyler remained seated. Leaden eyes had in them now a new light—the light of suffering refined. Blake commanded:

"Stand up. Look me in the eye, as man to man—if you can."

Swiftly Schuyler rose to his feet. The two men stood face to face, eye to eye.

"Now," cried Blake, hope in his heart—hope ringing in his voice, "will you be a man, or a thing that earth, nor heaven, nor even hell has room for?"



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

DEFEAT.

Came from the door of the morning room a light, ringing, musical laugh. The woman stood there, white arms extended above her head, hands resting on door sides.

Schuyler fell back a step. Blake turned.

Again she laughed, lightly, ripplingly. And then:

"What a splendid revivalist was lost to the world when your friend became a mere broker!" And to Blake: "Why once or twice I myself became almost enthusiastic. Really, sir, you are a most convincing speaker—though if you will pardon a well-meant criticism, your low tones are a bit harsh."

There was in Blake's heart a great bitterness. When first he had come to see the man that had been his friend, there had been in his breast but little hope. Later, however, he had understood better; and there had awakened within him an idea that perhaps, after all, it was not too late— and then had come confidence, and the desire to fight. And he had fought. He had almost won. But now, he knew that he had lost; for in Schuyler's eyes he saw dull, hopeless docility, and in The Woman's, conscious power and strength beyond measure.