Jennie went away, smiling at her reception. She was not quite so youthful looking as she had been before her recent trouble, but the thinner cheeks and the slightly deeper eyes added to the pensiveness and delicacy of her countenance. She was a model of neatness. Her clothes, all newly cleaned and ironed before leaving home, gave her a fresh and inviting appearance. There was growth coming to her in the matter of height, but already in appearance and intelligence she looked to be a young woman of twenty. Best of all, she was of that naturally sunny disposition, which, in spite of toil and privation, kept her always cheerful. Any one in need of a servant-girl or house companion would have been delighted to have had her.

The second place at which she applied was a large residence in Euclid Avenue; it seemed far too imposing for anything she might have to offer in the way of services, but having come so far she decided to make the attempt. The servant who met her at the door directed her to wait a few moments, and finally ushered her into the boudoir of the mistress of the house on the second floor. The latter, a Mrs. Bracebridge, a prepossessing brunette of the conventionally fashionable type, had a keen eye for feminine values and was impressed rather favorably with Jennie. She talked with her a little while, and finally decided to try her in the general capacity of maid.

"I will give you four dollars a week, and you can sleep here if you wish," said Mrs. Bracebridge.

Jennie explained that she was living with her brother, and would soon have her family with her.

"Oh, very well," replied her mistress. "Do as you like about that. Only I expect you to be here promptly."

She wished her to remain for the day and to begin her duties at once, and Jennie agreed. Mrs. Bracebridge provided her a dainty cap and apron, and then spent some little time in instructing her in her duties. Her principal work would be to wait on her mistress, to brush her hair and to help her dress. She was also to answer the bell, wait on the table if need be, and do any other errand which her mistress might indicate. Mrs. Bracebridge seemed a little hard and formal to her prospective servant, but for all that Jennie admired the dash and go and the obvious executive capacity of her employer.

At eight o'clock that evening Jennie was dismissed for the day. She wondered if she could be of any use in such a household, and marveled that she had got along as well as she had. Her mistress had set her to cleaning her jewelry and boudoir ornaments as an opening task, and though she had worked steadily and diligently, she had not finished by the time she left. She hurried away to her brother's apartment, delighted to be able to report that she had found a situation. Now her mother could come to Cleveland. Now she could have her baby with her. Now they could really begin that new life which was to be so much better and finer and sweeter than anything they had ever had before.

At Bass's suggestion Jennie wrote her mother to come at once, and a week or so later a suitable house was found and rented. Mrs. Gerhardt, with the aid of the children, packed up the simple belongings of the family, including a single vanload of furniture, and at the end of a fortnight they were on their way to the new home.

Mrs. Gerhardt always had had a keen desire for a really comfortable home. Solid furniture, upholstered and trimmed, a thick, soft carpet of some warm, pleasing color, plenty of chairs, settees, pictures, a lounge, and a piano she had wanted these nice things all her life, but her circumstances had never been good enough for her hopes to be realized. Still she did not despair. Some day, maybe, before she died these things would be added to her, and she would be happy. Perhaps her chance was coming now.

Arrived at Cleveland, this feeling of optimism was encouraged by the sight of Jennie's cheerful face. Bass assured her that they would get along all right. He took them out to the house, and George was shown the way to go back to the depot and have the freight looked after. Mrs. Gerhardt had still fifty dollars left out of the money which Senator Brander had sent to Jennie, and with this a way of getting a little extra furniture on the instalment plan was provided. Bass had already paid the first month's rent, and Jennie had spent her evenings for the last few days in washing the windows and floors of this new house and in getting it into a state of perfect cleanliness. Now, when the first night fell, they had two new mattresses and comfortables spread upon a clean floor; a new lamp, purchased from one of the nearby stores, a single box, borrowed by Jennie from a grocery store, for cleaning purposes, upon which Mrs. Gerhardt could sit, and some sausages and bread to stay them until morning. They talked and planned for the future until nine o'clock came, when all but Jennie and her mother retired. These two talked on, the burden of responsibilities resting on the daughter. Mrs. Gerhardt had come to feel in a way dependent upon her.

In the course of a week the entire cottage was in order, with a half-dozen pieces of new furniture, a new carpet, and some necessary kitchen utensils. The most disturbing thing was the need of a new cooking-stove, the cost of which added greatly to the bill. The younger children were entered at the public school, but it was decided that George must find some employment. Both Jennie and her mother felt the injustice of this keenly, but knew no way of preventing the sacrifice.

"We will let him go to school next year if we can," said Jennie.

Auspiciously as the new life seemed to have begun, the closeness with which their expenses were matching their income was an ever-present menace. Bass, originally very generous in his propositions, soon announced that he felt four dollars a week for his room and board to be a sufficient contribution from himself. Jennie gave everything she earned, and protested that she did not stand in need of anything, so long as the baby was properly taken care of. George secured a place as an overgrown cash-boy, and brought in two dollars and fifty cents a week, all of which, at first, he gladly contributed. Later on he was allowed the fifty cents for himself as being meet and just. Gerhardt, from his lonely post of labor, contributed five dollars by mail, always arguing that a little money ought to be saved in order that his honest debts back in Columbus might be paid. Out of this total income of fifteen dollars a week all of these individuals had to be fed and clothed, the rent paid, coal purchased, and the regular monthly instalment of three dollars paid on the outstanding furniture bill of fifty dollars.

How it was done, those comfortable individuals, who frequently discuss the social aspects of poverty, might well trouble to inform themselves. Rent, coal, and light alone consumed the goodly sum of twenty dollars a month; food, another unfortunately necessary item, used up twenty-five more; clothes, instalments, dues, occasional items of medicine and the like, were met out of the remaining eleven dollars—how, the ardent imagination of the comfortable reader can guess. It was done, however, and for a time the hopeful members considered that they were doing fairly well.

During this period the little family presented a picture of honorable and patient toil, which was interesting to contemplate. Every day Mrs. Gerhardt, who worked like a servant and who received absolutely no compensation either in clothes, amusements, or anything else, arose in the morning while the others slept, and built the fire. Then she took up the task of getting the breakfast. Often as she moved about noiselessly in her thin, worn slippers, cushioned with pieces of newspaper to make them fit, she looked in on Jennie, Bass, and George, wrapped in their heavy slumbers, and with that divine sympathy which is born in heaven she wished that they did not need to rise so early or to work so hard. Sometimes she would pause before touching her beloved Jennie, gaze at her white face, so calm in sleep, and lament that life had not dealt more kindly with her. Then she would lay her hand gently upon her shoulder and whisper, "Jennie, Jennie," until the weary sleeper would wake.

When they arose breakfast was always ready. When they returned at night supper was waiting. Each of the children received a due share of Mrs. Gerhardt's attention. The little baby was closely looked after by her. She protested that she needed neither clothes nor shoes so long as one of the children would run errands for her.

Jennie, of all the children, fully understood her mother; she alone strove, with the fullness of a perfect affection, to ease her burden.

"Ma, you let me do this."

"Now, ma, I'll 'tend to that."

"You go sit down, ma."

These were the every-day expressions of the enduring affection that existed between them. Always there was perfect understanding between Jennie and her mother, and as the days passed this naturally widened and deepened. Jennie could not bear to think of her as being always confined to the house. Daily she thought as she worked of that humble home where her mother was watching and waiting. How she longed to give her those comforts which she had always craved!



CHAPTER XIV

The days spent in the employ of the Bracebridge household were of a broadening character. This great house was a school to Jennie, not only in the matter of dress and manners, but as formulating a theory of existence. Mrs. Bracebridge and her husband were the last word in the matter of self-sufficiency, taste in the matter of appointments, care in the matter of dress, good form in the matter of reception, entertainment, and the various usages of social life. Now and then, apropos of nothing save her own mood, Mrs. Bracebridge would indicate her philosophy of life in an epigram.

"Life is a battle, my dear. If you gain anything you will have to fight for it."

"In my judgment it is silly not to take advantage of any aid which will help you to be what you want to be." (This while applying a faint suggestion of rouge.)

"Most people are born silly. They are exactly what they are capable of being. I despise lack of taste; it is the worst crime."

Most of these worldly-wise counsels were not given directly to Jennie. She overheard them, but to her quiet and reflective mind they had their import. Like seeds fallen upon good ground, they took root and grew. She began to get a faint perception of hierarchies and powers. They were not for her, perhaps, but they were in the world, and if fortune were kind one might better one's state. She worked on, wondering, however, just how better fortune might come to her. Who would have her to wife knowing her history? How could she ever explain the existence of her child?

Her child, her child, the one transcendent, gripping theme of joy and fear. If she could only do something for it—sometime, somehow!

For the first winter things went smoothly enough. By the closest economy the children were clothed and kept in school, the rent paid, and the instalments met. Once it looked as though there might be some difficulty about the continuance of the home life, and that was when Gerhardt wrote that he would be home for Christmas. The mill was to close down for a short period at that time. He was naturally anxious to see what the new life of his family at Cleveland was like.

Mrs. Gerhardt would have welcomed his return with unalloyed pleasure had it not been for the fear she entertained of his creating a scene. Jennie talked it over with her mother, and Mrs. Gerhardt in turn spoke of it to Bass, whose advice was to brave it out.

"Don't worry," he said; "he won't do anything about it. I'll talk to him if he says anything."

The scene did occur, but it was not so unpleasant as Mrs. Gerhardt had feared. Gerhardt came home during the afternoon, while Bass, Jennie, and George were at work. Two of the younger children went to the train to meet him. When he entered Mrs. Gerhardt greeted him affectionately, but she trembled for the discovery which was sure to come. Her suspense was not for long. Gerhardt opened the front bedroom door only a few minutes after he arrived. On the white counterpane of the bed was a pretty child, sleeping. He could not but know on the instant whose it was, but he pretended ignorance.

"Whose child is that?" he questioned.

"It's Jennie's," said Mrs. Gerhardt, weakly.

"When did that come here?"

"Not so very long ago," answered the mother, nervously.

"I guess she is here, too," he declared, contemptuously, refusing to pronounce her name, a fact which he had already anticipated.

"She's working in a family," returned his wife in a pleading tone. "She's doing so well now. She had no place to go. Let her alone."

Gerhardt had received a light since he had been away. Certain inexplicable thoughts and feelings had come to him in his religious meditations. In his prayers he had admitted to the All-seeing that he might have done differently by his daughter. Yet he could not make up his mind how to treat her for the future. She had committed a great sin; it was impossible to get away from that.

When Jennie came home that night a meeting was unavoidable. Gerhardt saw her coming, and pretended to be deeply engaged in a newspaper. Mrs. Gerhardt, who had begged him not to ignore Jennie entirely, trembled for fear he would say or do something which would hurt her feelings.

"She is coming now," she said, crossing to the door of the front room, where he was sitting; but Gerhardt refused to look up. "Speak to her, anyhow," was her last appeal before the door opened; but he made no reply.

When Jennie came in her mother whispered, "He is in the front room."

Jennie paled, put her thumb to her lip and stood irresolute, not knowing how to meet the situation.

"Has he seen?"

Jennie paused as she realized from her mother's face and nod that Gerhardt knew of the child's existence.

"Go ahead," said Mrs. Gerhardt; "it's all right. He won't say anything."

Jennie finally went to the door, and, seeing her father, his brow wrinkled as if in serious but not unkindly thought, she hesitated, but made her way forward.

"Papa," she said, unable to formulate a definite sentence.

Gerhardt looked up, his grayish-brown eyes a study under their heavy sandy lashes. At the sight of his daughter he weakened internally; but with the self-adjusted armor of resolve about him he showed no sign of pleasure at seeing her. All the forces of his conventional understanding of morality and his naturally sympathetic and fatherly disposition were battling within him, but, as in so many cases where the average mind is concerned, convention was temporarily the victor.

"Yes," he said.

"Won't you forgive me, Papa?"

"I do," he returned grimly.

She hesitated a moment, and then stepped forward, for what purpose he well understood.

"There," he said, pushing her gently away, as her lips barely touched his grizzled cheek.

It had been a frigid meeting.

When Jennie went out into the kitchen after this very trying ordeal she lifted her eyes to her waiting mother and tried to make it seem as though all had been well, but her emotional disposition got the better of her.

"Did he make up to you?" her mother was about to ask; but the words were only half out of her mouth before her daughter sank down into one of the chairs close to the kitchen table and, laying her head on her arm, burst forth into soft, convulsive, inaudible sobs.

"Now, now," said Mrs. Gerhardt. "There now, don't cry. What did he say?"

It was some time before Jennie recovered herself sufficiently to answer. Her mother tried to treat the situation lightly.

"I wouldn't feel bad," she said. "He'll get over it. It's his way."



CHAPTER XV

The return of Gerhardt brought forward the child question in all its bearings. He could not help considering it from the standpoint of a grandparent, particularly since it was a human being possessed of a soul. He wondered if it had been baptized. Then he inquired.

"No, not yet," said his wife, who had not forgotten this duty, but had been uncertain whether the little one would be welcome in the faith.

"No, of course not," sneered Gerhardt, whose opinion of his wife's religious devotion was not any too great. "Such carelessness! Such irreligion! That is a fine thing."

He thought it over a few moments, and felt that this evil should be corrected at once.

"It should be baptized," he said. "Why don't she take it and have it baptized?"

Mrs. Gerhardt reminded him that some one would have to stand godfather to the child, and there was no way to have the ceremony performed without confessing the fact that it was without a legitimate father.

Gerhardt listened to this, and it quieted him for a few moments, but his religion was something which he could not see put in the background by any such difficulty. How would the Lord look upon quibbling like this? It was not Christian, and it was his duty to attend to the matter. It must be taken, forthwith, to the church, Jennie, himself, and his wife accompanying it as sponsors; or, if he did not choose to condescend thus far to his daughter, he must see that it was baptized when she was not present. He brooded over this difficulty, and finally decided that the ceremony should take place on one of these week-days between Christmas and New Year's, when Jennie would be at her work. This proposal he broached to his wife, and, receiving her approval, he made his next announcement. "It has no name," he said.

Jennie and her mother had talked over this very matter, and Jennie had expressed a preference for Vesta. Now her mother made bold to suggest it as her own choice.

"How would Vesta do?"

Gerhardt heard this with indifference. Secretly he had settled the question in his own mind. He had a name in store, left over from the halcyon period of his youth, and never opportunely available in the case of his own children—Wilhelmina. Of course he had no idea of unbending in the least toward his small granddaughter. He merely liked the name, and the child ought to be grateful to get it. With a far-off, gingery air he brought forward this first offering upon the altar of natural affection, for offering it was, after all.

"That is nice," he said, forgetting his indifference. "But how would Wilhelmina do?"

Mrs. Gerhardt did not dare cross him when he was thus unconsciously weakening. Her woman's tact came to the rescue.

"We might give her both names," she compromised.

"It makes no difference to me," he replied, drawing back into the shell of opposition from which he had been inadvertently drawn. "Just so she is baptized."

Jennie heard of this with pleasure, for she was anxious that the child should have every advantage, religious or otherwise, that it was possible to obtain. She took great pains to starch and iron the clothes it was to wear on the appointed day.

Gerhardt sought out the minister of the nearest Lutheran church, a round-headed, thick-set theologian of the most formal type, to whom he stated his errand.

"Your grandchild?" inquired the minister.

"Yes," said Gerhardt, "her father is not here."

"So," replied the minister, looking at him curiously.

Gerhardt was not to be disturbed in his purpose. He explained that he and his wife would bring her. The minister, realizing the probable difficulty, did not question him further.

"The church cannot refuse to baptize her so long as you, as grandparent, are willing to stand sponsor for her," he said.

Gerhardt came away, hurt by the shadow of disgrace in which he felt himself involved, but satisfied that he had done his duty. Now he would take the child and have it baptized, and when that was over his present responsibility would cease.

When it came to the hour of the baptism, however, he found that another influence was working to guide him into greater interest and responsibility. The stern religion with which he was enraptured, its insistence upon a higher law, was there, and he heard again the precepts which had helped to bind him to his own children.

"Is it your intention to educate this child in the knowledge and love of the gospel?" asked the black-gowned minister, as they stood before him in the silent little church whither they had brought the infant; he was reading from the form provided for such occasions. Gerhardt answered "Yes," and Mrs. Gerhardt added her affirmative.

"Do you engage to use all necessary care and diligence, by prayerful instruction, admonition, example, and discipline that this child may renounce and avoid everything that is evil and that she may keep God's will and commandments as declared in His sacred word?"

A thought flashed through Gerhardt's mind as the words were uttered of how it had fared with his own children. They, too, had been thus sponsored. They too, had heard his solemn pledge to care for their spiritual welfare. He was silent.

"We do," prompted the minister.

"We do," repeated Gerhardt and his wife weakly.

"Do you now dedicate this child by the rite of baptism unto the Lord, who brought it?"

"We do."

"And, finally, if you can conscientiously declare before God that the faith to which you have assented is your faith, and that the solemn promises you have made are the serious resolutions of your heart, please to announce the same in the presence of God, by saying 'Yes.'"

"Yes," they replied.

"I baptize thee, Wilhelmina Vesta," concluded the minister, stretching out his hand over her, "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Let us pray."

Gerhardt bent his gray head and followed with humble reverence the beautiful invocation which followed:

"Almighty and everlasting God! we adore Thee as the great Parent of the children of men, as the Father of our spirits and the Former of our bodies. We praise Thee for giving existence to this infant and for preserving her until this day. We bless Thee that she is called to virtue and glory, that she has now been dedicated to Thee, and brought within-the pale of the Christian Church. We thank Thee that by the Gospel of the Son she is furnished with everything necessary to her spiritual happiness; that it supplies light for her mind and comfort for her heart, encouragement and power to discharge her duty, and the precious hope of mercy and immortality to sustain and make her faithful. And we beseech Thee, O most merciful God, that this child may be enlightened and sanctified from her early years by the Holy Spirit, and be everlastingly saved by Thy mercy. Direct and bless Thy servants who are intrusted with the care of her in the momentous work of her education. Inspire them with just conception of the absolute necessity of religious instruction and principles. Forbid that they should ever forget that this offspring belongs to Thee, and that, if through their criminal neglect or bad example Thy reasonable creature be lost, Thou wilt require it at their hands. Give them a deep sense of the divinity of her nature, of the worth of her soul, of the dangers to which she will be exposed, of the honor and felicity to which she is capable of ascending with Thy blessing, and of the ruin in this world and the misery in the world to come which springs from wicked passion and conduct. Give them grace to check the first risings of forbidden inclinations in her breast, to be her defense against the temptations incident to childhood and youth, and, as she grows up, to enlarge her understanding and to lead her to an acquaintance with Thee and with Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. Give them grace to cultivate in her heart a supreme reverence and love for Thee, a grateful attachment to the Gospel of Thy Son, her Saviour, a due regard for all its ordinances and institutions, a temper of kindness and goodwill to all mankind, and an invincible love of sincerity and truth. Help them to watch continually over her with tender solicitude, to be studious, that by their conversation and deportment her heart may not be corrupted, and at all times to set before her such an example that she may safely tread in their footsteps. If it please Thee to prolong her days on earth, grant that she may prove an honor and a comfort to her parents and friends, be useful in the world, and find in Thy Providence an unfailing defense and support. Whether she live, let her live to Thee; or whether she die, let her die to Thee. And, at the great day of account, may she and her parents meet each other with rapture and rejoice together in Thy redeeming love, through Jesus Christ, forever and ever, Amen."

As this solemn admonition was read a feeling of obligation descended upon the grandfather of this little outcast; a feeling that he was bound to give the tiny creature lying on his wife's arm the care and attention which God in His sacrament had commanded. He bowed his head in utmost reverence, and when the service was concluded and they left the silent church he was without words to express his feelings. Religion was a consuming thing with him. God was a person, a dominant reality. Religion was not a thing of mere words or of interesting ideas to be listened to on Sunday, but a strong, vital expression of the Divine Will handed down from a time when men were in personal contact with God. Its fulfilment was a matter of joy and salvation with him, the one consolation of a creature sent to wander in a vale whose explanation was not here but in heaven. Slowly Gerhardt walked on, and as he brooded on the words and the duties which the sacrament involved the shade of lingering disgust that had possessed him when he had taken the child to church disappeared and a feeling of natural affection took its place. However much the daughter had sinned, the infant was not to blame. It was a helpless, puling, tender thing, demanding his sympathy and his love. Gerhardt felt his heart go out to the little child, and yet he could not yield his position all in a moment.

"That is a nice man," he said of the minister to his wife as they walked along, rapidly softening in his conception of his duty.

"Yes, he was," agreed Mrs. Gerhardt timidly.

"It's a good-sized little church," he continued.

"Yes."

Gerhardt looked around him, at the street, the houses, the show of brisk life on this sunshiny, winter's day, and then finally at the child that his wife was carrying.

"She must be heavy," he said, in his characteristic German. "Let me take her."

Mrs. Gerhardt, who was rather weary, did not refuse.

"There!" he said, as he looked at her and then fixed her comfortably upon his shoulder. "Let us hope she proves worthy of all that has been done to-day."

Mrs. Gerhardt listened, and the meaning in his voice interpreted itself plainly enough. The presence of the child in the house might be the cause of recurring spells of depression and unkind words, but there would be another and greater influence restraining him. There would always be her soul to consider. He would never again be utterly unconscious of her soul.



CHAPTER XVI

During the remainder of Gerhardt's stay he was shy in Jennie's presence and endeavored to act as though he were unconscious of her existence. When the time came for parting he even went away without bidding her good-by, telling his wife she might do that for him; but after he was actually on his way back to Youngstown he regretted the omission. "I might have bade her good-by," he thought to himself as the train rumbled heavily along. But it was too late.

For the time being the affairs of the Gerhardt family drifted. Jennie continued her work with Mrs. Bracebridge. Sebastian fixed himself firmly in his clerkship in the cigar store. George was promoted to the noble sum of three dollars, and then three-fifty. It was a narrow, humdrum life the family led. Coal, groceries, shoes, and clothing were the uppermost topics of their conversation; every one felt the stress and strain of trying to make ends meet.

That which worried Jennie most, and there were many things which weighed upon her sensitive soul, was the outcome of her own life—not so much for herself as for her baby and the family. She could not really see where she fitted in. "Who would have me?" she asked herself over and over. "How was she to dispose of Vesta in the event of a new love affair?" Such a contingency was quite possible. She was young, good-looking, and men were inclined to flirt with her, or rather to attempt it. The Bracebridges entertained many masculine guests, and some of them had made unpleasant overtures to her.

"My dear, you're a very pretty girl," said one old rake of fifty-odd when she knocked at his door one morning to give him a message from his hostess.

"I beg your pardon," she said, confusedly, and colored.

"Indeed, you're quite sweet. And you needn't beg my pardon. I'd like to talk to you some time."

He attempted to chuck her under the chin, but Jennie hurried away. She would have reported the matter to her mistress but a nervous shame deterred her. "Why would men always be doing this?" she thought. Could it be because there was something innately bad about her, an inward corruption that attracted its like?

It is a curious characteristic of the non-defensive disposition that it is like a honey-jar to flies. Nothing is brought to it and much is taken away. Around a soft, yielding, unselfish disposition men swarm naturally. They sense this generosity, this non-protective attitude from afar. A girl like Jennie is like a comfortable fire to the average masculine mind; they gravitate to it, seek its sympathy, yearn to possess it. Hence she was annoyed by many unwelcome attentions.

One day there arrived from Cincinnati a certain Lester Kane, the son of a wholesale carriage builder of great trade distinction in that city and elsewhere throughout the country, who was wont to visit this house frequently in a social way. He was a friend of Mrs. Bracebridge more than of her husband, for the former had been raised in Cincinnati and as a girl had visited at his father's house. She knew his mother, his brother and sisters and to all intents and purposes socially had always been considered one of the family.

"Lester's coming to-morrow, Henry," Jennie heard Mrs. Bracebridge tell her husband. "I had a wire from him this noon. He's such a scamp. I'm going to give him the big east front room up-stairs. Be sociable and pay him some attention. His father was so good to me."

"I know it," said her husband calmly. "I like Lester. He's the biggest one in that family. But he's too indifferent. He doesn't care enough."

"I know; but he's so nice. I do think he's one of the nicest men I ever knew."

"I'll be decent to him. Don't I always do pretty well by your people?"

"Yes, pretty well."

"Oh, I don't know about that," he replied, dryly.

When this notable person arrived Jennie was prepared to see some one of more than ordinary importance, and she was not disappointed. There came into the reception-hall to greet her mistress a man of perhaps thirty-six years of age, above the medium in height, clear-eyed, firm-jawed, athletic, direct, and vigorous. He had a deep, resonant voice that carried clearly everywhere; people somehow used to stop and listen whether they knew him or not. He was simple and abrupt in his speech.

"Oh, there you are," he began. "I'm glad to see you again. How's Mr. Bracebridge? How's Fannie?"

He asked his questions forcefully, whole-heartedly, and his hostess answered with an equal warmth. "I'm glad to see you, Lester," she said. "George will take your things up-stairs. Come up into my room. It's more comfy. How are grandpa and Louise?"

He followed her up the stairs, and Jennie, who had been standing at the head of the stairs listening, felt the magnetic charm of his personality. It seemed, why she could hardly say, that a real personage had arrived. The house was cheerier. The attitude of her mistress was much more complaisant. Everybody seemed to feel that something must be done for this man.

Jennie went about her work, but the impression persisted; his name ran in her mind. Lester Kane. And he was from Cincinnati. She looked at him now and then on the sly, and felt, for the first time in her life, an interest in a man on his own account. He was so big, so handsome, so forceful. She wondered what his business was. At the same time she felt a little dread of him. Once she caught him looking at her with a steady, incisive stare. She quailed inwardly, and took the first opportunity to get out of his presence. Another time he tried to address a few remarks to her, but she pretended that her duties called her away. She knew that often his eyes were on her when her back was turned, and it made her nervous. She wanted to run away from him, although there was no very definite reason why she should do so.

As a matter of fact, this man, so superior to Jennie in wealth, education, and social position, felt an instinctive interest in her unusual personality. Like the others, he was attracted by the peculiar softness of her disposition and her pre-eminent femininity. There was that about her which suggested the luxury of love. He felt as if somehow she could be reached why, he could not have said. She did not bear any outward marks of her previous experience. There were no evidences of coquetry about her, but still he "felt that he might." He was inclined to make the venture on his first visit, but business called him away; he left after four days and was absent from Cleveland for three weeks. Jennie thought he was gone for good, and she experienced a queer sense of relief as well as of regret. Then, suddenly, he returned. He came apparently unexpectedly, explaining to Mrs. Bracebridge that business interests again demanded his presence in Cleveland. As he spoke he looked at Jennie sharply, and she felt as if somehow his presence might also concern her a little.

On this second visit she had various opportunities of seeing him, at breakfast, where she sometimes served, at dinner, when she could see the guests at the table from the parlor or sitting-room, and at odd times when he came to Mrs. Bracebridge's boudoir to talk things over. They were very friendly.

"Why don't you settle down, Lester, and get married?" Jennie heard her say to him the second day he was there. "You know it's time."

"I know," he replied, "but I'm in no mood for that. I want to browse around a little while yet."

"Yes, I know about your browsing. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your father is really worried."

He chuckled amusedly. "Father doesn't worry much about me. He has got all he can attend to to look after the business."

Jennie looked at him curiously. She scarcely understood what she was thinking, but this man drew her. If she had realized in what way she would have fled his presence then and there.

Now he was more insistent in his observation of her—addressed an occasional remark to her—engaged her in brief, magnetic conversations. She could not help answering him—he was pleasing to her. Once he came across her in the hall on the second floor searching in a locker for some linen. They were all alone, Mrs. Bracebridge having gone out to do some morning shopping and the other servants being below stairs. On this occasion he made short work of the business. He approached her in a commanding, unhesitating, and thoroughly determined way.

"I want to talk to you," he said. "Where do you live?"

"I—I—" she stammered, and blanched perceptibly. "I live out on Lorrie Street."

"What number?" he questioned, as though she were compelled to tell him.

She quailed and shook inwardly. "Thirteen fourteen," she replied mechanically.

He looked into her big, soft-blue eyes with his dark, vigorous brown ones. A flash that was hypnotic, significant, insistent passed between them.

"You belong to me," he said. "I've been looking for you. When can I see you?"

"Oh, you mustn't," she said, her fingers going nervously to her lips. "I can't see you—I—I—"

"Oh, I mustn't, mustn't I? Look here"—he took her arm and drew her slightly closer—"you and I might as well understand each other right now. I like you. Do you like me? Say?"

She looked at him, her eyes wide, filled with wonder, with fear, with a growing terror.

"I don't know," she gasped, her lips dry.

"Do you?" He fixed her grimly, firmly with his eyes.

"I don't know."

"Look at me," he said.

"Yes," she replied.

He pulled her to him quickly. "I'll talk to you later," he said, and put his lips masterfully to hers.

She was horrified, stunned, like a bird in the grasp of a cat; but through it all something tremendously vital and insistent was speaking to her. He released her with a short laugh. "We won't do any more of this here, but, remember, you belong to me," he said, as he turned and walked nonchalantly down the hall. Jennie, in sheer panic, ran to her mistress's room and locked the door behind her.



CHAPTER XVII

The shock of this sudden encounter was so great to Jennie that she was hours in recovering herself. At first she did not understand clearly just what had happened. Out of clear sky, as it were, this astonishing thing had taken place. She had yielded herself to another man. Why? Why? she asked herself, and yet within her own consciousness there was an answer. Though she could not explain her own emotions, she belonged to him temperamentally and he belonged to her.

There is a fate in love and a fate in fight. This strong, intellectual bear of a man, son of a wealthy manufacturer, stationed, so far as material conditions were concerned, in a world immensely superior to that in which Jennie moved, was, nevertheless, instinctively, magnetically, and chemically drawn to this poor serving-maid. She was his natural affinity, though he did not know it—the one woman who answered somehow the biggest need of his nature. Lester Kane had known all sorts of women, rich and poor, the highly bred maidens of his own class, the daughters of the proletariat, but he had never yet found one who seemed to combine for him the traits of an ideal woman—sympathy, kindliness of judgment, youth, and beauty. Yet this ideal remained fixedly seated in the back of his brain—when the right woman appeared he intended to take her. He had the notion that, for purposes of marriage, he ought perhaps to find this woman on his own plane. For purposes of temporary happiness he might take her from anywhere, leaving marriage, of course, out of the question. He had no idea of making anything like a serious proposal to a servant-girl. But Jennie was different. He had never seen a servant quite like her. And she was lady-like and lovely without appearing to know it. Why, this girl was a rare flower. Why shouldn't he try to seize her? Let us be just to Lester Kane; let us try to understand him and his position. Not every mind is to be estimated by the weight of a single folly; not every personality is to be judged by the drag of a single passion. We live in an age in which the impact of materialized forces is well-nigh irresistible; the spiritual nature is overwhelmed by the shock. The tremendous and complicated development of our material civilization, the multiplicity, and variety of our social forms, the depth, subtlety, and sophistry of our imaginative impressions, gathered, remultiplied, and disseminated by such agencies as the railroad, the express and the post-office, the telephone, the telegraph, the newspaper, and, in short, the whole machinery of social intercourse—these elements of existence combine to produce what may be termed a kaleidoscopic glitter, a dazzling and confusing phantasmagoria of life that wearies and stultifies the mental and moral nature. It induces a sort of intellectual fatigue through which we see the ranks of the victims of insomnia, melancholia, and insanity constantly recruited. Our modern brain-pan does not seem capable as yet of receiving, sorting, and storing the vast army of facts and impressions which present themselves daily. The white light of publicity is too white. We are weighed upon by too many things. It is as if the wisdom of the infinite were struggling to beat itself into finite and cup-big minds.

Lester Kane was the natural product of these untoward conditions. His was a naturally observing mind, Rabelaisian in its strength and tendencies, but confused by the multiplicity of things, the vastness of the panorama of life, the glitter of its details, the unsubstantial nature of its forms, the uncertainty of their justification. Born a Catholic, he was no longer a believer in the divine inspiration of Catholicism; raised a member of the social elect, he had ceased to accept the fetish that birth and station presuppose any innate superiority; brought up as the heir to a comfortable fortune and expected to marry in his own sphere, he was by no means sure that he wanted marriage on any terms. Of course the conjugal state was an institution. It was established. Yes, certainly. But what of it? The whole nation believed in it. True, but other nations believed in polygamy. There were other questions that bothered him—such questions as the belief in a single deity or ruler of the universe, and whether a republican, monarchial, or aristocratic form of government were best. In short, the whole body of things material, social, and spiritual had come under the knife of his mental surgery and been left but half dissected. Life was not proved to him. Not a single idea of his, unless it were the need of being honest, was finally settled. In all other things he wavered, questioned, procrastinated, leaving to time and to the powers back of the universe the solution of the problems that vexed him. Yes, Lester Kane was the natural product of a combination of elements—religious, commercial, social—modified by that pervading atmosphere of liberty in our national life which is productive of almost uncounted freedom of thought and action. Thirty-six years of age, and apparently a man of vigorous, aggressive, and sound personality, he was, nevertheless, an essentially animal-man, pleasantly veneered by education and environment. Like the hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who in his father's day had worked on the railroad tracks, dug in the mines, picked and shoveled in the ditches, and carried up bricks and mortar on the endless structures of a new land, he was strong, hairy, axiomatic, and witty.

"Do you want me to come back here next year?" he had asked of Brother Ambrose, when, in his seventeenth year, that ecclesiastical member was about to chastise him for some school-boy misdemeanor.

The other stared at him in astonishment. "Your father will have to look after that," he replied.

"Well, my father won't look after it," Lester returned. "If you touch me with that whip I'll take things into my own hands. I'm not committing any punishable offenses, and I'm not going to be knocked around any more."

Words, unfortunately, did not avail in this case, but a good, vigorous Irish-American wrestle did, in which the whip was broken and the discipline of the school so far impaired that he was compelled to take his clothes and leave. After that he looked his father in the eye and told him that he was not going to school any more.

"I'm perfectly willing to jump in and work," he explained. "There's nothing in a classical education for me. Let me go into the office, and I guess I'll pick up enough to carry me through."

Old Archibald Kane, keen, single-minded, of unsullied commercial honor, admired his son's determination, and did not attempt to coerce him.

"Come down to the office," he said; "perhaps there is something you can do."

Entering upon a business life at the age of eighteen, Lester had worked faithfully, rising in his father's estimation, until now he had come to be, in a way, his personal representative. Whenever there was a contract to be entered upon, an important move to be decided, or a representative of the manufactory to be sent anywhere to consummate a deal, Lester was the agent selected. His father trusted him implicitly, and so diplomatic and earnest was he in the fulfilment of his duties that this trust had never been impaired.

"Business is business," was a favorite axiom with him and the very tone in which he pronounced the words was a reflex of his character and personality.

There were molten forces in him, flames which burst forth now and then in spite of the fact that he was sure that he had them under control. One of these impulses was a taste for liquor, of which he was perfectly sure he had the upper hand. He drank but very little, he thought, and only, in a social way, among friends; never to excess. Another weakness lay in his sensual nature; but here again he believed that he was the master. If he chose to have irregular relations with women, he was capable of deciding where the danger point lay. If men were only guided by a sense of the brevity inherent in all such relationships there would not be so many troublesome consequences growing out of them. Finally, he flattered himself that he had a grasp upon a right method of living, a method which was nothing more than a quiet acceptance of social conditions as they were, tempered by a little personal judgment as to the right and wrong of individual conduct. Not to fuss and fume, not to cry out about anything, not to be mawkishly sentimental; to be vigorous and sustain your personality intact—such was his theory of life, and he was satisfied that it was a good one.

As to Jennie, his original object in approaching her had been purely selfish. But now that he had asserted his masculine prerogatives, and she had yielded, at least in part, he began to realize that she was no common girl, no toy of the passing hour.

There is a time in some men's lives when they unconsciously begin to view feminine youth and beauty not so much in relation to the ideal of happiness, but rather with regard to the social conventions by which they are environed.

"Must it be?" they ask themselves, in speculating concerning the possibility of taking a maiden to wife, "that I shall be compelled to swallow the whole social code, make a covenant with society, sign a pledge of abstinence, and give to another a life interest in all my affairs, when I know too well that I am but taking to my arms a variable creature like myself, whose wishes are apt to become insistent and burdensome in proportion to the decrease of her beauty and interest?" These are the men, who, unwilling to risk the manifold contingencies of an authorized connection, are led to consider the advantages of a less-binding union, a temporary companionship. They seek to seize the happiness of life without paying the cost of their indulgence. Later on, they think, the more definite and conventional relationship may be established without reproach or the necessity of radical readjustment.

Lester Kane was past the youthful love period, and he knew it. The innocence and unsophistication of younger ideals had gone. He wanted the comfort of feminine companionship, but he was more and more disinclined to give up his personal liberty in order to obtain it. He would not wear the social shackles if it were possible to satisfy the needs of his heart and nature and still remain free and unfettered. Of course he must find the right woman, and in Jennie he believed that he had discovered her. She appealed to him on every side; he had never known anybody quite like her. Marriage was not only impossible but unnecessary. He had only to say "Come" and she must obey; it was her destiny.

Lester thought the matter over calmly, dispassionately. He strolled out to the shabby street where she lived; he looked at the humble roof that sheltered her. Her poverty, her narrow and straitened environment touched his heart. Ought he not to treat her generously, fairly, honorably? Then the remembrance of her marvelous beauty swept over him and changed his mood. No, he must possess her if he could—to-day, quickly, as soon as possible. It was in that frame of mind that he returned to Mrs. Bracebridge's home from his visit to Lorrie Street.



CHAPTER XVIII

Jennie was now going through the agony of one who has a varied and complicated problem to confront. Her baby, her father, her brothers, and sisters all rose up to confront her. What was this thing that she was doing? Was she allowing herself to slip into another wretched, unsanctified relationship? How was she to explain to her family about this man? He would not marry her, that was sure, if he knew all about her. He would not marry her, anyhow, a man of his station and position. Yet here she was parleying with him. What ought she to do? She pondered over the problem until evening, deciding first that it was best to run away, but remembering painfully that she had told him where she lived. Then she resolved that she would summon up her courage and refuse him—tell him she couldn't, wouldn't have anything to do with him. This last solution of the difficulty seemed simple enough—in his absence. And she would find work where he could not follow her up so easily. It all seemed simple enough as she put on her things in the evening to go home.

Her aggressive lover, however, was not without his own conclusion in this matter. Since leaving Jennie he had thought concisely and to the point. He came to the decision that he must act at once. She might tell her family, she might tell Mrs. Bracebridge, she might leave the city. He wanted to know more of the conditions which surrounded her, and there was only one way to do that—talk to her. He must persuade her to come and live with him. She would, he thought. She admitted that she liked him. That soft, yielding note in her character which had originally attracted him seemed to presage that he could win her without much difficulty, if he wished to try. He decided to do so, anyhow, for truly he desired her greatly.

At half-past five he returned to the Bracebridge home to see if she were still there. At six he had an opportunity to say to her, unobserved, "I am going to walk home with you. Wait for me at the next corner, will you?"

"Yes," she said, a sense of compulsion to do his bidding seizing her. She explained to herself afterward that she ought to talk to him, that she must tell him finally of her decision not to see him again, and this was as good an opportunity as any. At half-past six he left the house on a pretext—a forgotten engagement—and a little after seven he was waiting for her in a closed carriage near the appointed spot. He was calm, absolutely satisfied as to the result, and curiously elated beneath a sturdy, shock-proof exterior. It was as if he breathed some fragrant perfume, soft, grateful, entrancing.

A few minutes after eight he saw Jennie coming along. The flare of the gas-lamp was not strong, but it gave sufficient light for his eyes to make her out. A wave of sympathy passed over him, for there was a great appeal in her personality. He stepped out as she neared the corner and confronted her. "Come," he said, "and get in this carriage with me. I'll take you home."

"No," she replied. "I don't think I ought to."

"Come with me. I'll take you home. It's a better way to talk."

Once more that sense of dominance on his part, that power of compulsion. She yielded, feeling all the time that she should not; he called out to the cabman, "Anywhere for a little while." When she was seated beside him he began at once.

"Listen to me, Jennie, I want you. Tell me something about yourself."

"I have to talk to you," she replied, trying to stick to her original line of defense.

"About what?" he inquired, seeking to fathom her expression in the half light.

"I can't go on this way," she murmured nervously. "I can't act this way. You don't know how it all is. I shouldn't have done what I did this morning. I mustn't see you any more. Really I mustn't."

"You didn't do what you did this morning," he remarked, paradoxically, seizing on that one particular expression. "I did that. And as for seeing me any more, I'm going to see you." He seized her hand. "You don't know me, but I like you. I'm crazy about you, that's all. You belong to me. Now listen. I'm going to have you. Are you going to come to me?"

"No, no, no!" she replied in an agonized voice, "I can't do anything like that, Mr. Kane. Please listen to me. It can't be. You don't know. Oh, you don't know. I can't do what you want. I don't want to. I couldn't, even if I wanted to. You don't know how things are. But I don't want to do anything wrong. I mustn't. I can't. I won't. Oh, no! no!! no!!! Please let me go home."

He listened to this troubled, feverish outburst with sympathy, with even a little pity.

"What do you mean by you can't?" he asked, curiously.

"Oh, I can't tell you," she replied. "Please don't ask me. You oughtn't to know. But I mustn't see you any more. It won't do any good."

"But you like me," he retorted.

"Oh yes, yes, I do. I can't help that. But you mustn't come near me any more. Please don't."

He turned his proposition over in his mind with the solemnity of a judge. He knew that this girl liked him—loved him really, brief as their contact had been. And he was drawn to her, perhaps not irrevocably, but with exceeding strength. What prevented her from yielding, especially since she wanted to? He was curious.

"See here, Jennie," he replied. "I hear what you say. I don't know what you mean by 'can't' if you want to. You say you like me. Why can't you come to me? You're my sort. We will get along beautifully together. You're suited to me temperamentally. I'd like to have you with me. What makes you say you can't come?"

"I can't," she replied. "I can't. I don't want to. I oughtn't. Oh, please don't ask me any more. You don't know. I can't tell you why." She was thinking of her baby.

The man had a keen sense of justice and fair play. Above all things he wanted to be decent in his treatment of people. In this case he intended to be tender and considerate, and yet he must win her. He turned this over in his mind.

"Listen to me," he said finally, still holding her hand. "I may not want you to do anything immediately. I want you to think it over. But you belong to me. You say you care for me. You admitted that this morning. I know you do. Now why should you stand out against me? I like you, and I can do a lot of things for you. Why not let us be good friends now? Then we can talk the rest of this over later."

"But I mustn't do anything wrong," she insisted. "I don't want to. Please don't come near me any more. I can't do what you want."

"Now, look here," he said. "You don't mean that. Why did you say you liked me? Have you changed your mind? Look at me." (She had lowered her eyes.) "Look at me! You haven't, have you?"

"Oh no, no, no," she half sobbed, swept by some force beyond her control.

"Well, then, why stand out against me? I love you, I tell you—I'm crazy about you. That's why I came back this time. It was to see you!"

"Was it?" asked Jennie, surprised.

"Yes, it was. And I would have come again and again if necessary. I tell you I'm crazy about you. I've got to have you. Now tell me you'll come with me."

"No, no, no," she pleaded. "I can't. I must work. I want to work. I don't want to do anything wrong. Please don't ask me. You mustn't. You must let me go. Really you must. I can't do what you want."

"Tell me, Jennie," he said, changing the subject. "What does your father do?"

"He's a glass-blower."

"Here in Cleveland?"

"No, he works in Youngstown."

"Is your mother alive?"

"Yes, sir."

"You live with her?"

"Yes, sir."

He smiled at the "sir." "Don't say 'sir' to me, sweet!" he pleaded in his gruff way. "And don't insist on the Mr. Kane. I'm not 'mister' to you any more. You belong to me, little girl, me." And he pulled her close to him.

"Please don't, Mr. Kane," she pleaded. "Oh, please don't. I can't! I can't! You mustn't."

But he sealed her lips with his own.

"Listen to me, Jennie," he repeated, using his favorite expression. "I tell you you belong to me. I like you better every moment. I haven't had a chance to know you. I'm not going to give you up. You've got to come to me eventually. And I'm not going to have you working as a lady's maid. You can't stay in that place except for a little while. I'm going to take you somewhere else. And I'm going to leave you some money, do you hear? You have to take it."

At the word money she quailed and withdrew her hand.

"No, no, no!" she repeated. "No, I won't take it."

"Yes, you will. Give it to your mother. I'm not trying to buy you. I know what you think. But I'm not. I want to help you. I want to help your family. I know where you live. I saw the place to-day. How many are there of you?"

"Six," she answered faintly.

"The families of the poor," he thought.

"Well, you take this from me," he insisted, drawing a purse from his coat. "And I'll see you very soon again. There's no escape, sweet."

"No, no," she protested. "I won't. I don't need it. No, you mustn't ask me."

He insisted further, but she was firm, and finally he put the money away.

"One thing is sure, Jennie, you're not going to escape me," he said soberly. "You'll have to come to me eventually. Don't you know you will? Your own attitude shows that. I'm not going to leave you alone."

"Oh, if you knew the trouble you're causing me."

"I'm not causing you any real trouble, am I?" he asked. "Surely not."

"Yes. I can never do what you want."

"You will! You will!" he exclaimed eagerly, the bare thought of this prize escaping him heightening his passion. "You'll come to me." And he drew her close in spite of all her protests.

"There," he said when, after the struggle, that mystic something between them spoke again, and she relaxed. Tears were in her eyes, but he did not see them. "Don't you see how it is? You like me too."

"I can't," she repeated, with a sob.

Her evident distress touched him. "You're not crying, little girl, are you?" he asked.

She made no answer.

"I'm sorry," he went on. "I'll not say anything more to-night. We're almost at your home. I'm leaving to-morrow, but I'll see you again. Yes, I will, sweet. I can't give you up now. I'll do anything in reason to make it easy for you, but I can't, do you hear?"

She shook her head.

"Here's where you get out," he said, as the carriage drew up near the corner. He could see the evening lamp gleaming behind the Gerhardt cottage curtains.

"Good-by," he said as she stepped out.

"Good-by," she murmured.

"Remember," he said, "this is just the beginning."

"Oh no, no!" she pleaded.

He looked after her as she walked away.

"The beauty!" he exclaimed.

Jennie stepped into the house weary, discouraged, ashamed. What had she done? There was no denying that she had compromised herself irretrievably. He would come back.

He would come back. And he had offered her money. That was the worst of all.



CHAPTER XIX

The inconclusive nature of this interview, exciting as it was, did not leave any doubt in either Lester Kane's or Jennie's mind; certainly this was not the end of the affair. Kane knew that he was deeply fascinated. This girl was lovely. She was sweeter than he had had any idea of. Her hesitancy, her repeated protests, her gentle "no, no, no" moved him as music might. Depend upon it, this girl was for him, and he would get her. She was too sweet to let go. What did he care about what his family or the world might think?

It was curious that Kane held the well-founded idea that in time Jennie would yield to him physically, as she had already done spiritually. Just why he could not say. Something about her—a warm womanhood, a guileless expression of countenance—intimated a sympathy toward sex relationship which had nothing to do with hard, brutal immorality. She was the kind of a woman who was made for a man—one man. All her attitude toward sex was bound up with love, tenderness, service. When the one man arrived she would love him and she would go to him. That was Jennie as Lester understood her. He felt it. She would yield to him because he was the one man.

On Jennie's part there was a great sense of complication and of possible disaster. If he followed her of course he would learn all. She had not told him about Brander, because she was still under the vague illusion that, in the end, she might escape. When she left him she knew that he would come back. She knew, in spite of herself that she wanted him to do so. Yet she felt that she must not yield, she must go on leading her straitened, humdrum life. This was her punishment for having made a mistake. She had made her bed, and she must lie on it.

The Kane family mansion at Cincinnati to which Lester returned after leaving Jennie was an imposing establishment, which contrasted strangely with the Gerhardt home. It was a great, rambling, two-story affair, done after the manner of the French chateaux, but in red brick and brownstone. It was set down, among flowers and trees, in an almost park-like inclosure, and its very stones spoke of a splendid dignity and of a refined luxury. Old Archibald Kane, the father, had amassed a tremendous fortune, not by grabbing and brow-beating and unfair methods, but by seeing a big need and filling it. Early in life he had realized that America was a growing country. There was going to be a big demand for vehicles—wagons, carriages, drays—and he knew that some one would have to supply them. Having founded a small wagon industry, he had built it up into a great business; he made good wagons, and he sold them at a good profit. It was his theory that most men were honest; he believed that at bottom they wanted honest things, and if you gave them these they would buy of you, and come back and buy again and again, until you were an influential and rich man. He believed in the measure "heaped full and running over." All through his life and now in his old age he enjoyed the respect and approval of every one who knew him. "Archibald Kane," you would hear his competitors say, "Ah, there is a fine man. Shrewd, but honest. He's a big man."

This man was the father of two sons and three daughters, all healthy, all good-looking, all blessed with exceptional minds, but none of them so generous and forceful as their long-living and big-hearted sire. Robert, the eldest, a man forty years of age, was his father's right-hand man in financial matters, having a certain hard incisiveness which fitted him for the somewhat sordid details of business life. He was of medium height, of a rather spare build, with a high forehead, slightly inclined to baldness, bright, liquid-blue eyes, an eagle nose, and thin, firm, even lips. He was a man of few words, rather slow to action and of deep thought. He sat close to his father as vice-president of the big company which occupied two whole blocks in an outlying section of the city. He was a strong man—a coming man, as his father well knew.

Lester, the second boy, was his father's favorite. He was not by any means the financier that Robert was, but he had a larger vision of the subtleties that underlie life. He was softer, more human, more good-natured about everything. And, strangely enough, old Archibald admired and trusted him. He knew he had the bigger vision. Perhaps he turned to Robert when it was a question of some intricate financial problem, but Lester was the most loved as a son.

Then there was Amy, thirty-two years of age, married, handsome, the mother of one child—a boy; Imogene, twenty-eight, also married, but as yet without children, and Louise, twenty-five, single, the best-looking of the girls, but also the coldest and most critical. She was the most eager of all for social distinction, the most vigorous of all in her love of family prestige, the most desirous that the Kane family should outshine every other. She was proud to think that the family was so well placed socially, and carried herself with an air and a hauteur which was sometimes amusing, sometimes irritating to Lester! He liked her—in a way she was his favorite sister—but he thought she might take herself with a little less seriousness and not do the family standing any harm.

Mrs. Kane, the mother, was a quiet, refined woman, sixty years of age, who, having come up from comparative poverty with her husband, cared but little for social life. But she loved her children and her husband, and was naively proud of their position and attainments. It was enough for her to shine only in their reflected glory. A good woman, a good wife, and a good mother.

Lester arrived at Cincinnati early in the evening, and drove at once to his home. An old Irish servitor met him at the door.

"Ah, Mr. Lester," he began, joyously, "sure I'm glad to see you back. I'll take your coat. Yes, yes, it's been fine weather we're having. Yes, yes, the family's all well. Sure your sister Amy is just after leavin' the house with the boy. Your mother's up-stairs in her room. Yes, yes."

Lester smiled cheerily and went up to his mother's room. In this, which was done in white and gold and overlooked the garden to the south and east, sat Mrs. Kane, a subdued, graceful, quiet woman, with smoothly laid gray hair. She looked up when the door opened, laid down the volume that she had been reading, and rose to greet him.

"There you are, Mother," he said, putting his arms around her and kissing her. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm just about the same, Lester. How have you been?"

"Fine. I was up with the Bracebridges for a few days again. I had to stop off in Cleveland to see Parsons. They all asked after you."

"How is Minnie?"

"Just the same. She doesn't change any that I can see. She's just as interested in entertaining as she ever was."

"She's a bright girl," remarked his mother, recalling Mrs. Bracebridge as a girl in Cincinnati. "I always liked her. She's so sensible."

"She hasn't lost any of that, I can tell you," replied Lester significantly. Mrs. Kane smiled and went on to speak of various family happenings. Imogene's husband was leaving for St. Louis on some errand. Robert's wife was sick with a cold. Old Zwingle, the yard watchman at the factory, who had been with Mr. Kane for over forty years, had died. Her husband was going to the funeral. Lester listened dutifully, albeit a trifle absently.

Lester, as he walked down the hall, encountered Louise. "Smart" was the word for her. She was dressed in a beaded black silk dress, fitting close to her form, with a burst of rubies at her throat which contrasted effectively with her dark complexion and black hair. Her eyes were black and piercing.

"Oh, there you are, Lester," she exclaimed. "When did you get in? Be careful how you kiss me. I'm going out, and I'm all fixed, even to the powder on my nose. Oh, you bear!" Lester had gripped her firmly and kissed her soundly. She pushed him away with her strong hands.

"I didn't brush much of it off," he said. "You can always dust more on with that puff of yours." He passed on to his own room to dress for dinner. Dressing for dinner was a custom that had been adopted by the Kane family in the last few years. Guests had become so common that in a way it was a necessity, and Louise, in particular, made a point of it. To-night Robert was coming, and a Mr. and Mrs. Burnett, old friends of his father and mother, and so, of course, the meal would be a formal one. Lester knew that his father was around somewhere, but he did not trouble to look him up now. He was thinking of his last two days in Cleveland and wondering when he would see Jennie again.



CHAPTER XX

As Lester came down-stairs after making his toilet he found his father in the library reading.

"Hello, Lester," he said, looking up from his paper over the top of his glasses and extending his hand. "Where do you come from?"

"Cleveland," replied his son, shaking hands heartily, and smiling.

"Robert tells me you've been to New York."

"Yes, I was there."

"How did you find my old friend Arnold?"

"Just about the same," returned Lester. "He doesn't look any older."

"I suppose not," said Archibald Kane genially, as if the report were a compliment to his own hardy condition. "He's been a temperate man. A fine old gentleman."

He led the way back to the sitting-room where they chatted over business and home news until the chime of the clock in the hall warned the guests up-stairs that dinner had been served.

Lester sat down in great comfort amid the splendors of the great Louis Quinze dining-room. He liked this homey home atmosphere—his mother and father and his sisters—the old family friends. So he smiled and was exceedingly genial.

Louise announced that the Leverings were going to give a dance on Tuesday, and inquired whether he intended to go.

"You know I don't dance," he returned dryly. "Why should I go?"

"Don't dance? Won't dance, you mean. You're getting too lazy to move. If Robert is willing to dance occasionally I think you might."

"Robert's got it on me in lightness," Lester replied, airily.

"And politeness," retorted Louise.

"Be that as it may," said Lester.

"Don't try to stir up a fight, Louise," observed Robert, sagely.

After dinner they adjourned to the library, and Robert talked with his brother a little on business. There were some contracts coming up for revision. He wanted to see what suggestions Lester had to make. Louise was going to a party, and the carriage was now announced. "So you are not coming?" she asked, a trifle complainingly.

"Too tired," said Lester lightly. "Make my excuses to Mrs. Knowles."

"Letty Pace asked about you the other night," Louise called back from the door.

"Kind," replied Lester. "I'm greatly obliged."

"She's a nice girl, Lester," put in his father, who was standing near the open fire. "I only wish you would marry her and settle down. You'd have a good wife in her."

"She's charming," testified Mrs. Kane.

"What is this?" asked Lester jocularly—"a conspiracy? You know I'm not strong on the matrimonial business."

"And I well know it," replied his mother semi-seriously. "I wish you were."

Lester changed the subject. He really could not stand for this sort of thing any more, he told himself. And as he thought his mind wandered back to Jennie and her peculiar "Oh no, no!" There was someone that appealed to him. That was a type of womanhood worth while. Not sophisticated, not self-seeking, not watched over and set like a man-trap in the path of men, but a sweet little girl—sweet as a flower, who was without anybody, apparently, to watch over her. That night in his room he composed a letter, which he dated a week later, because he did not want to appear too urgent and because he could not again leave Cincinnati for at least two weeks.

"MY DEAR JENNIE, Although it has been a week, and I have said nothing, I have not forgotten you—believe me. Was the impression I gave of myself very bad? I will make it better from now on, for I love you, little girl—I really do. There is a flower on my table which reminds me of you very much—white, delicate, beautiful. Your personality, lingering with me, is just that. You are the essence of everything beautiful to me. It is in your power to strew flowers in my path if you will.

"But what I want to say here is that I shall be in Cleveland on the 18th, and I shall expect to see you. I arrive Thursday night, and I want you to meet me in the ladies' parlor of the Dornton at noon Friday. Will you? You can lunch with me.

"You see, I respect your suggestion that I should not call. (I will not—on condition.) These separations are dangerous to good friendship. Write me that you will. I throw myself on your generosity. But I can't take "no" for an answer, not now.

"With a world of affection.

"LESTER KANE."

He sealed the letter and addressed it. "She's a remarkable girl in her way," he thought. "She really is."



CHAPTER XXI

The arrival of this letter, coming after a week of silence and after she had had a chance to think, moved Jennie deeply. What did she want to do? What ought she to do? How did she truly feel about this man? Did she sincerely wish to answer his letter? If she did so, what should she say? Heretofore all her movements, even the one in which she had sought to sacrifice herself for the sake of Bass in Columbus, had not seemed to involve any one but herself. Now, there seemed to be others to consider—her family, above all, her child. The little Vesta was now eighteen months of age; she was an interesting child; her large, blue eyes and light hair giving promise of a comeliness which would closely approximate that of her mother, while her mential traits indicated a clear and intelligent mind. Mrs. Gerhardt had become very fond of her. Gerhardt had unbended so gradually that his interest was not even yet clearly discernible, but he had a distinct feeling of kindliness toward her. And this readjustment of her father's attitude had aroused in Jennie an ardent desire to so conduct herself that no pain should ever come to him again. Any new folly on her part would not only be base ingratitude to her father, but would tend to injure the prospects of her little one. Her life was a failure, she fancied, but Vesta's was a thing apart; she must do nothing to spoil it. She wondered whether it would not be better to write Lester and explain everything. She had told him that she did not wish to do wrong. Suppose she went on to inform him that she had a child, and beg him to leave her in peace. Would he obey her? She doubted it. Did she really want him to take her at her word?

The need of making this confession was a painful thing to Jennie. It caused her to hesitate, to start a letter in which she tried to explain, and then to tear it up. Finally, fate intervened in the sudden home-coming of her father, who had been seriously injured by an accident at the glass-works in Youngstown where he worked.

It was on a Wednesday afternoon, in the latter part of August, when a letter came from Gerhardt. But instead of the customary fatherly communication, written in German and inclosing the regular weekly remittance of five dollars, there was only a brief note, written by another hand, and explaining that the day before Gerhardt had received a severe burn on both hands, due to the accidental overturning of a dipper of molten glass. The letter added that he would be home the next morning.

"What do you think of that?" exclaimed William, his mouth wide open.

"Poor papa!" said Veronica, tears welling up in her eyes.

Mrs. Gerhardt sat down, clasped her hands in her lap, and stared at the floor. "Now, what to do?" she nervously exclaimed. The possibility that Gerhardt was disabled for life opened long vistas of difficulties which she had not the courage to contemplate.

Bass came home at half-past six and Jennie at eight. The former heard the news with an astonished face.

"Gee! that's tough, isn't it?" he exclaimed. "Did the letter say how bad he was hurt?"

"No," replied Mrs. Gerhardt.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it," said Bass easily. "It won't do any good. We'll get along somehow. I wouldn't worry like that if I were you."

The truth was, he wouldn't, because his nature was wholly different. Life did not rest heavily upon his shoulders. His brain was not large enough to grasp the significance and weigh the results of things.

"I know," said Mrs. Gerhardt, endeavoring to recover herself. "I can't help it, though. To think that just when we were getting along fairly well this new calamity should be added. It seems sometimes as if we were under a curse. We have so much bad luck."

When Jennie came her mother turned to her instinctively; here was her one stay.

"What's the matter, ma?" asked Jennie as she opened the door and observed her mother's face. "What have you been crying about?"

Mrs. Gerhardt looked at her, and then turned half away.

"Pa's had his hands burned," put in Bass solemnly. "He'll be home to-morrow."

Jennie turned and stared at him. "His hands burned!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," said Bass.

"How did it happen?"

"A pot of glass was turned over."

Jennie looked at her mother, and her eyes dimmed with tears. Instinctively she ran to her and put her arms around her.

"Now, don't you cry, ma," she said, barely able to control herself. "Don't you worry. I know how you feel, but we'll get along. Don't cry now." Then her own lips lost their evenness, and she struggled long before she could pluck up courage to contemplate this new disaster. And now without volition upon her part there leaped into her consciousness a new and subtly persistent thought. What about Lester's offer of assistance now? What about his declaration of love? Somehow it came back to her—his affection, his personality, his desire to help her, his sympathy, so like that which Brander had shown when Bass was in jail. Was she doomed to a second sacrifice? Did it really make any difference? Wasn't her life a failure already? She thought this over as she looked at her mother sitting there so silent, haggard, and distraught. "What a pity," she thought, "that her mother must always suffer! Wasn't it a shame that she could never have any real happiness?"

"I wouldn't feel so badly," she said, after a time. "Maybe pa isn't burned so badly as we think. Did the letter say he'd be home in the morning?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Gerhardt, recovering herself.

They talked more quietly from now on, and gradually, as the details were exhausted, a kind of dumb peace settled down upon the household.

"One of us ought to go to the train to meet him in the morning," said Jennie to Bass. "I will. I guess Mrs. Bracebridge won't mind."

"No," said Bass gloomily, "you mustn't. I can go."

He was sour at this new fling of fate, and he looked his feelings; he stalked off gloomily to his room and shut himself in. Jennie and her mother saw the others off to bed, and then sat out in the kitchen talking.

"I don't see what's to become of us now," said Mrs. Gerhardt at last, completely overcome by the financial complications which this new calamity had brought about. She looked so weak and helpless that Jennie could hardly contain herself.

"Don't worry, mamma dear," she said, softly, a peculiar resolve coming into her heart. The world was wide. There was comfort and ease in it scattered by others with a lavish hand. Surely, surely misfortune could not press so sharply but that they could live!

She sat down with her mother, the difficulties of the future seeming to approach with audible and ghastly steps.

"What do you suppose will become of us now?" repeated her mother, who saw how her fanciful conception of this Cleveland home had crumbled before her eyes.

"Why," said Jennie, who saw clearly and knew what could be done, "it will be all right. I wouldn't worry about it. Something will happen. We'll get something."

She realized, as she sat there, that fate had shifted the burden of the situation to her. She must sacrifice herself; there was no other way.

Bass met his father at the railway station in the morning. He looked very pale, and seemed to have suffered a great deal. His cheeks were slightly sunken and his bony profile appeared rather gaunt. His hands were heavily bandaged, and altogether he presented such a picture of distress that many stopped to look at him on the way home from the station.

"By chops," he said to Bass, "that was a burn I got. I thought once I couldn't stand the pain any longer. Such pain I had! Such pain! By chops! I will never forget it."

He related just how the accident had occurred, and said that he did not know whether he would ever be able to use his hands again. The thumb on his right hand and the first two fingers on the left had been burned to the bone. The latter had been amputated at the first joint—the thumb he might save, but his hands would be in danger of being stiff.

"By chops!" he added, "just at the time when I needed the money most. Too bad! Too bad!"

When they reached the house, and Mrs. Gerhardt opened the door, the old mill-worker, conscious of her voiceless sympathy, began to cry. Mrs. Gerhardt sobbed also. Even Bass lost control of himself for a moment or two, but quickly recovered. The other children wept, until Bass called a halt on all of them.

"Don't cry now," he said cheeringly. "What's the use of crying? It isn't so bad as all that. You'll be all right again. We can get along."

Bass's words had a soothing effect, temporarily, and, now that her husband was home, Mrs. Gerhardt recovered her composure. Though his hands were bandaged, the mere fact that he could walk and was not otherwise injured was some consolation. He might recover the use of his hands and be able to undertake light work again. Anyway, they would hope for the best.

When Jennie came home that night she wanted to run to her father and lay the treasury of her services and affection at his feet, but she trembled lest he might be as cold to her as formerly.

Gerhardt, too, was troubled. Never had he completely recovered from the shame which his daughter had brought upon him. Although he wanted to be kindly, his feelings were so tangled that he hardly knew what to say or do.

"Papa," said Jennie, approaching him timidly.

Gerhardt looked confused and tried to say something natural, but it was unavailing. The thought of his helplessness, the knowledge of her sorrow and of his own responsiveness to her affection—it was all too much for him; he broke down again and cried helplessly.

"Forgive me, papa," she pleaded, "I'm so sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry."

He did not attempt to look at her, but in the swirl of feeling that their meeting created he thought that he could forgive, and he did.

"I have prayed," he said brokenly. "It is all right."

When he recovered himself he felt ashamed of his emotion, but a new relationship of sympathy and of understanding had been established. From that time, although there was always a great reserve between them, Gerhardt tried not to ignore her completely, and she endeavored to show him the simple affection of a daughter, just as in the old days.

But while the household was again at peace, there were other cares and burdens to be faced. How were they to get along now with five dollars taken from the weekly budget, and with the cost of Gerhardt's presence added? Bass might have contributed more of his weekly earnings, but he did not feel called upon to do it. And so the small sum of nine dollars weekly must meet as best it could the current expenses of rent, food, and coal, to say nothing of incidentals, which now began to press very heavily. Gerhardt had to go to a doctor to have his hands dressed daily. George needed a new pair of shoes. Either more money must come from some source or the family must beg for credit and suffer the old tortures of want. The situation crystallized the half-formed resolve in Jennie's mind.

Lester's letter had been left unanswered. The day was drawing near. Should she write? He would help them. Had he not tried to force money on her? She finally decided that it was her duty to avail herself of this proffered assistance. She sat down and wrote him a brief note. She would meet him as he had requested, but he would please not come to the house. She mailed the letter, and then waited, with mingled feelings of trepidation and thrilling expectancy, the arrival of the fateful day.



CHAPTER XXII

The fatal Friday came, and Jennie stood face to face with this new and overwhelming complication in her modest scheme of existence. There was really no alternative, she thought. Her own life was a failure. Why go on fighting? If she could make her family happy, if she could give Vesta a good education, if she could conceal the true nature of this older story and keep Vesta in the background perhaps, perhaps—well, rich men had married poor girls before this, and Lester was very kind, he certainly liked her. At seven o'clock she went to Mrs. Bracebridge's; at noon she excused herself on the pretext of some work for her mother and left the house for the hotel.

Lester, leaving Cincinnati a few days earlier than he expected, had failed to receive her reply; he arrived at Cleveland feeling sadly out of tune with the world. He had a lingering hope that a letter from Jennie might be awaiting him at the hotel, but there was no word from her. He was a man not easily wrought up, but to-night he felt depressed, and so went gloomily up to his room and changed his linen. After supper he proceeded to drown his dissatisfaction in a game of billiards with some friends, from whom he did not part until he had taken very much more than his usual amount of alcoholic stimulant. The next morning he arose with a vague idea of abandoning the whole affair, but as the hours elapsed and the time of his appointment drew near he decided that it might not be unwise to give her one last chance. She might come. Accordingly, when it still lacked a quarter of an hour of the time, he went down into the parlor. Great was his delight when he beheld her sitting in a chair and waiting—the outcome of her acquiescence. He walked briskly up, a satisfied, gratified smile on his face.

"So you did come after all," he said, gazing at her with the look of one who has lost and recovered a prize. "What do you mean by not writing me? I thought from the way you neglected me that you had made up your mind not to come at all."

"I did write," she replied.

"Where?"

"To the address you gave me. I wrote three days ago."

"That explains it. It came too late. You should have written me before. How have you been?"

"Oh, all right," she replied.

"You don't look it!" he said. "You look worried. What's the trouble, Jennie? Nothing gone wrong out at your house, has there?"

It was a fortuitous question. He hardly knew why lie had asked it. Yet it opened the door to what she wanted to say.

"My father's sick," she replied.

"What's happened to him?"

"He burned his hands at the glass-works. We've been terribly worried. It looks as though he would not be able to use them any more."

She paused, looking the distress she felt, and he saw plainly that she was facing a crisis.

"That's too bad," he said. "That certainly is. When did this happen?"

"Oh, almost three weeks ago now."

"It certainly is bad. Come in to lunch, though. I want to talk with you. I've been wanting to get a better understanding of your family affairs ever since I left." He led the way into the dining-room and selected a secluded table. He tried to divert her mind by asking her to order the luncheon, but she was too worried and too shy to do so and he had to make out the menu by himself. Then he turned to her with a cheering air. "Now, Jennie," he said, "I want you to tell me all about your family. I got a little something of it last time, but I want to get it straight. Your father, you said, was a glass-blower by trade. Now he can't work any more at that, that's obvious."

"Yes," she said.

"How many other children are there?"

"Six."

"Are you the oldest?"

"No, my brother Sebastian is. He's twenty-two."

"And what does he do?"

"He's a clerk in a cigar store."

"Do you know how much he makes?"

"I think it's twelve dollars," she replied thoughtfully.

"And the other children?"

"Martha and Veronica don't do anything yet. They're too young. My brother George works at Wilson's. He's a cash-boy. He gets three dollars and a half."

"And how much do you make?"

"I make four."

He stopped, figuring up mentally just what they had to live on. "How much rent do you pay?" he continued.