"Most people in love are. You've never been desperate." I laughed and took the receiver from him. "Madeleine's courage will be gone after tonight and Tom's afraid to risk waiting. Get up and let me talk."

Over the telephone I could hear Madeleine crying and I told Tom to bring her down. Her two-penny worth of nerve and dash had given out and she was frightened. Incoherently I was told by Tom that Madeleine was being persecuted, and he wouldn't stand for it any longer, and the only thing for them to do was to get married. Hadn't it been for a durned tire—"

"Come on down." I heard a little cry. "And hurry. It's pretty late."

Mrs. Mundy, who had been told of their coming, opened the door for them in dressing-gown and slippers, and piloted them up-stairs and into my sitting-room, where Madeleine, at sight of Selwyn, burst into tears and buried her face on my shoulder. But the ten minutes were not entirely lost which passed before we understood why the venture had been decided upon at this particular time, and how hard luck had prevented its fulfilment. Tears are effective. Selwyn weakened as rapidly as I could have wished.

"I haven't seen Harrie for two weeks. Ever since I've been here he's been writing me he was sick." Madeleine's words came stumblingly, and the corners of her handkerchief were pulled with nervous movements in between the wiping of her pretty brown eyes. "The day after Christmas I wrote him, breaking our engagement. I've never heard from him since. I don't even know that he got my letter." Questioningly she looked at Selwyn, and her face, already colored, crimsoned yet more deeply.

"Neither do I." Selwyn's voice was gentle. Indignation at his and my involvement in what was not an affair of ours seemed to have vanished. "I redirected a number of letters to his new address, but—"

"His new address?" Madeleine looked puzzled. "I didn't know he had a new address."

"He is not living at home just now." The flush in Selwyn's face deepened also. "I have not seen him since Christmas day. But go on. I did not mean to interrupt you."

"Three days ago Madeleine told her mother she'd broken with Harrie and was going to marry me." Tom was no longer to be repressed. "She's had the devil of a time ever since, and yesterday I told her she shouldn't stand it any longer, and neither would I. Harrie has hypnotized her mother. She thinks—"

"I'm unkind and unsympathetic and hard and cruel to give him up because he is not well. It isn't that. You know it isn't that—" Madeleine's fingers twisted in appeal and again her eyes were on Selwyn. "You think it's dreadful in me not to marry your brother—"

"No, I don't. I think it would be much more dreadful in you if you did marry him." Selwyn's hands made gesture. "However, we'll leave that out. You say you told your mother you intended to marry Tom?"

Handkerchief to her lips, she nodded. "I told her, and Tom wrote her, asking her consent. She wouldn't give it, and said I was ungrateful and had no ambition, and that if she had a stroke I'd be the cause. She's never had a stroke and is very healthy, but—"

Bursting into fresh tears, Madeleine this time hid her face in her hands, and Tom, wanting much to comfort, miserably ignorant of how to do it, and consciously awkward and restrained in the presence of witnesses, stood by her side, his hand on her shoulder, and at sight of him I reached swift decision.

"I'm glad you told her. You've been open and square and asked her consent. One can't wait indefinitely for consent to do things." I got up and took Madeleine by the hand. "Come in my room and take off your hat and coat. When we come back we'll talk about what is best to do."

Five minutes later we were back and, eyes bathed and face powdered, Madeleine gave evidence of fresh injections of courage, and quickly we began to plan. The 4 A.M. train was the best to take, but for half an hour we talked of whether Shelby or Claxon was the better town to go to for the marriage ceremony, which at either place could be performed without the consent of parent or guardian, and irrespective of the age of the applicants for the same. Though preferring Shelby, Tom agreed to Claxon on my insisting on the latter place, which was the Mecca for runaway couples from our section of the state. If I were going with them—

"Going with them?" The inflection in Selwyn's voice was hardly polite. "You don't intend—"

"Yes, I do. They've made a mess of the first try and they'll be caught and brought back if somebody isn't there to keep them from being held up. I'm going with them."

"How do you expect to hold off—the holding up?" Selwyn was staring at me and anxiety concerning Harrie was for the time in abeyance. He needed something to distract him. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I don't know—don't have to know until to-morrow—I mean later to-day." I motioned toward the hall and, following me into it, he partly closed the door behind us. "We'll let those children have a chance to say good night, and then please go home. And don't look at me like that! I don't approve of runaway marriages any more than you do. I'd never be a party to one, because I wouldn't marry an angel-man before I was twenty-one. Afterward running away wouldn't be necessary. Tom and Madeleine are not entirely to blame."

"The blame for this will be put on you. Mrs. Swink will credit you with the instigation and carrying out of the whole affair. You mustn't go with them, Danny. It isn't necessary."

"Maybe it isn't, but I'm going. I can't let a girl of Madeleine's age leave the house alone at half past three in the morning, and certainly I cannot let Tom come here for her. We will get to Claxon at ten o'clock and by that time Mrs. Swink will have finished her swooning and be working the wires. They'll certainly be held up at Claxon."

"Then why go there? Why not go on to Shelby?"

I shook my head. "Claxon is the better place. I don't know how it's going to be managed, but if one couldn't outmanoeuver mother Swink—. It doesn't matter about my being blamed for helping them. Long usage has accustomed me to large shares of blame." I held out my hand. "I'll be back to-morrow night. Come Thursday. I think by then—"

"There are few things you will let me share with you, but the blame that will come from this I am going to share whether you let me or not. I've gotten you into it and we'll see it through together. If you are going with them, I am going also. Good night." He dropped the hand he was holding and turned away. "Tell Tom I'm waiting, will you?"



CHAPTER XXIV

Telling Madeleine not to unpack her bags, I gave her one of my kimonos and ordered her to lie down while I slipped down-stairs for a few words with Mrs. Mundy. There was time for only a hurried talk, but during it I told her what I wanted her to do, what she must get Mr. Crimm to do, and also, if inquiry was made for me during the coming day she was to say I was out and she did not know just when I would be in. As Mrs. Swink was unaware that her daughter had made frequent visits to Scarborough Square at the same time Mr. Thomas Cressy happened to be there, she was hardly apt to associate me with their departure from the city; still, with less justice I have been held responsible for things with which I had nothing to do, and, that Mrs. Mundy be prepared for possible questions, I gave her a few instructions concerning them.

She recalled clearly the conversation of which I had heard a few words, but the girl talking to her had not mentioned the name of the girl of whom she talked, or of that of the man who was being nursed by her.

"She spoke of her as a friend who was a fool to care for a man as she cared." Mrs. Mundy put her hand to her mouth to cover a yawn. "She said—"

I got up. It was too late for details. "Find the girl who came to see you, and if the friend of whom she is speaking is Etta Blake, get her address and go to see her, if you can. If not, send Mr. Crimm. Tell the latter he must find Harrie. He may be somewhere under an assumed name. So may Etta Blake. Do you suppose it is possible they—can be together somewhere?"

"Anything is possible." Mrs. Mundy blinked her eyes bravely to prevent my seeing the overpowering sleep in them, and quickly I went to the door.

"It's a shame you have to go to the train with us. You can come right back, however, and sleep as late as you want. The cab will be here at three-thirty. Take a nap until then, and don't look so worried. I'm not committing a crime. I'm helping to keep some one else from committing one. Good night." I kissed the dear soul and, leaving her, hurried up-stairs.

Madeleine was lying down when I came back in the room, and, wanting much to talk, she began to do so, but unfeelingly I made her stop. Getting out the oldest and shabbiest dress I possessed, with a hat to correspond, I took off my party dress and slipped into a warm and worn wrapper. After putting a few things in a bag, without further undressing, I stretched out on the couch near the foot of the bed and in the dark called to Madeleine.

"You won't be a beautiful bride if you don't get some sleep. Shut your eyes." Mine were shut. I wasn't going to be married. I was only a very tired maiden-lady about to do something she had no business doing, and shamelessly I went to sleep and left Madeleine awake.

Seemingly I had slept but a few minutes when, opening my eyes, I saw Madeleine standing, fully dressed, by the side of my couch, and looking down at me. "It's ten minutes past three," she said. "I hate to wake you, but—"

Springing up, I threw off my wrapper and reached down for my shoes. "If you'd waked me before you put on your dress you wouldn't have to take it off. You're going to wear that dress." I pointed to the one on the chair behind her. "I'm sorry your wedding garments can't be more festive, and that I'll have to wear your good clothes, but we mustn't run risks merely for pride. Take your dress off quickly and give it to me. Don't look at me, but hurry."

Madeleine's mind does not work as quickly as some people's, and a little time was lost in explaining that any description to which she would answer would have to apply to me, not her. In consequence the cab was at the door before she was fully garmented in my plainest clothes and I arrayed in her beautiful ones, and regretfully she looked at me. I am taller and slenderer than Madeleine, but fashion was in my favor, and the absence of fit and shortness of skirt gave emphasis of adherence to its requirements. I looked the part. She didn't.

At the station Tom and Selwyn were waiting and their puzzled incomprehension was even greater than Madeleine's had been. Explanations included a few suggestions as to the wisdom of our separating and, the men agreeing, Selwyn and I went in the Pullman, and poor little rich Madeleine and Tom to a day-coach, where crying babies and peanut-hulls and close air and torn papers would have made them wretchedly unhappy had they not been happily unconscious of them. I was sorry for them, but marriage involves much. As the train pulled out I waved from the window to Mrs. Mundy, who, on the platform, waved back with one hand and with the other wiped her eyes. Mrs. Mundy loves me, but she, too, does not always approve of me.

Travel evidently was light. The sleeper in which we found ourselves had barely two-thirds of the berths made up, and, the rest of the seats being empty, we took ours in a corner where in an undertone we could talk and not disturb others. Taking off Madeleine's handsome fur coat and newest hat I put the latter in its paper bag and gave the former to Selwyn to hang on a hook. Gloves and other things being disposed of, I again sat down and suggested that he, also, make himself comfortable, and at the same time change his expression.

"Later you can smoke, but at present you will have to be in here where I'm compelled to look at you. The photographic injunction to look pleasant oughtn't to apply only to the taking of pictures. For the love of Heaven, sit down, Selwyn, and behave yourself!"

Selwyn hung up his hat and coat and took the seat opposite mine. From him came radiation of endurance, and, objecting to being endured, I spoke impatiently. I did not care to be traveling at four o'clock in the morning any more than he did, but much in life has to be done that isn't preferable. He had invited himself to take the trip. His desire to share any criticism coming to me for my part in it was sincere, but rather than shielding it might subject me to an increased amount. For the first time such a possibility came to me, and, looking up, I saw his eyes were gravely watching me.

"I thought I was behaving. I'm willing to play the part properly if I know the part, but I don't know it. Your intimations have been indefinite."

"There's been no time for any other sort. When Mrs. Swink learns that Madeleine and Tom have run away she will begin to ask where, and somebody will certainly suggest Claxon."

"Then why go to Claxon?"

"They're not going to Claxon. We are going there. Just this side is a little station at which they can take a local for Shelby. They will change at this station and go to Shelby while we keep on to Claxon and get off there."

"But last night you insisted on their going to Claxon." Selwyn's voice implied that a woman's methods of management were beyond a man's understanding.

"Inquiries will be made as to who bought tickets for Claxon. Mrs. Swink will have the whole police department running around for clues and things. I told you not to buy tickets. Did you?"

"I did not. I'm taking orders and doing what I'm told, but, being new at it, I don't work as smoothly as I might. Is there any special reason why I shouldn't have bought tickets?"

"There is." I opened my pocket-book, and, taking out a note, handed it to him. "I'll take breakfast with you but I'll have to pay my railroad fare. I didn't want you to get tickets, because if two couples bought them it would cause confusion and telegrams might be sent to Shelby also. I didn't have time to think it all out last night. I only knew Tom and Madeleine must seemingly go to Claxon and yet not go. I wasn't sure what could be done, but after you decided to come I thought we could play the part and give them time to be married at Shelby."

"You mean you and I are to pretend we are somebody else, mean—"

Selwyn's voice was protestingly puzzled. Impersonation did not appeal.

"There'll be no necessity to pretend. If a sheriff, with orders to do so, takes charge of us he will hardly believe our assertion that we are not the parties wanted. He's used to that. All we will have to do is to wait until Tom and Madeleine come back. When they show as proper a marriage certificate as a dairy-maid and farmer-laddie ever framed he will let us go. You don't look as if playing groom to my bride pleases you. I'm sorry, but—"

Into Selwyn's eyes came that which made me turn mine away and look out of the window. Unthinkingly I had invited what he was going to say. "Playing groom does not interest me. Why play? And stop looking out of the window." He changed his seat and took the one beside me. "Look at me, Danny. Why can't we be married at Claxon? We'll wait for those children to come back and then—"

"Is that exactly fair?" I drew away the hands he was hurting in his tense grip. "I hardly thought you'd take—" I shut my eyes to keep back quick tears for which there was no accounting. Something curious was suddenly possessing me, something that for weeks I had seemed fighting and resisting. An overmastering desire to give in; to surrender, to yield to his love for me, to mine for him, was disarming me, and swift, inexplicable impulse to marry him and give up the thing I was trying to do urged and swept over me. And then I remembered his house with its high walls. And I remembered Scarborough Square. Until there was between them sympathy and understanding there could be no abiding basis on which love could build and find enrichment and fulfilment. Straightening, I sat up, but I was conscious of being very tired.

"Please don't, Selwyn." The hand I had drawn away I held out to him. "We must not think or talk of ourselves to-day. This is not our day."

"But I want my day." His strong fingers twisted into mine with bruising force. "I have waited long for it. For all others you have consideration, but my happiness alone you ignore. You seem to think my endurance is beyond limit. How long are you going to keep this thing up? Some day you are going to marry me. Why not to-day?"

I shook my head. "I cannot marry you today. Take care—" The conductor was coming down the aisle toward us.



CHAPTER XXV

By the time we learn a few of the lessons life teaches we stop living. I should have known it is the unexpected that happens, but I forgot it. What I expected at Claxon did not come to pass.

At a little station a few miles east of the tiny town to which we were going, Tom and Madeleine left our train and waited for a crawling accommodation to Shelby, where, later, they would be married. From the car window I waved to them and tried to transmit a portion of my courage, for which there was no credit, and of my enjoyment, of which I should have been ashamed and was not ashamed. A taste for adventure will ever be a part of me, and I was getting much more pleasure out of an unexpected experience than Madeleine was. The playing of shadow to her substance was not so serious for me as for her, and then, too, I had the joyful irresponsibility of not going to be married. I do not want to be a married person yet.

As we left the car at Claxon I glanced in the mirror at the end of our coach and was pleased. About me was a bridal atmosphere that was unmistakable. Madeleine's clothes were new and lovely and I looked well. So did Selwyn. As we reached the platform I was undecided whether to cling timidly to Selwyn's arm or to walk bravely apart, and the indecision, together with the certainty that some one would put a hand on Selwyn's shoulder and say words I had never before heard, made my heart beat with a rapidity that was as genuine as if I were soon to become a bride in very truth. The sensation was exhilarating. I liked it.

On the platform of the little station a few negroes in overalls, two boys, and five men, having apparently nothing to do, were hanging around, hands in their pockets; and, looking about me, I waited. Nothing happened. Ahead of us and across a muddy road half a dozen stores, hunched together in a row of detached and shabby frame houses, with upper stories seemingly used for residential purposes, comprised the business portion of the little town, and on our right the post-office, telegraph and express offices, and telephone exchange were in the one large building of the place. Out of each window facing us some one was looking, and in the open door a man was standing, hat off and sweater-coated, who, at regular intervals, and with unfailing accuracy of aim, ejected tobacco juice into a puddle of water some distance away. No one but ourselves got off the train, and, its stay at the station being short, the attention of the loungers near by and those resting themselves on boxes and barrels in front of the stores across the road was turned determinatedly to us. I looked at Selwyn. In his face was relief. In mine was anxiety and, I'm afraid, disappointment. The situation was flat.

I had read various accounts of runaway marriages which had taken place at Claxon, several of which had only succeeded after eluding the sheriff, waiting under orders from irate parents to arrest them; and feeling confident Mrs. Swink would wire the proper person to prevent the marriage of her daughter, I looked around for the one most likely to do the work. No one appeared. What if my plan had failed and Madeleine, in my un-wedding garments, was to be taken into custody in Shelby? I turned to Selwyn.

"Do you suppose—" My voice was low. A man close to me, with hands in his pockets, hat on the back of his head, and his left cheek lumpy, was looking at us appraisingly. "Do you suppose anything will happen at Shelby? Nothing is happening here."

Selwyn's sigh of relief was long. "If nothing happens here I'll thank God. To keep it out of the papers would have been impossible. Stay here while I see if there is a decent hotel." He looked around speculatively. In the distance a man could be seen on horseback coming down the road which wound from the top of a mountain to the valley below, while at our left a covered ox-cart, a farm wagon, and a Ford car were waiting for their owners. Nothing in which we could ride, however, was seemingly in sight. A sudden desire to go somewhere, do something, possessed me. The day was mild, and the air clean and clear and calling, and the sunshine brilliant. It was a beautiful day. We must go somewhere.

For weeks I had been face to face with cruel conditions of life, had seen hardships and denials and injustices, and dreary monotony of days, and I wanted for a while to get away from it all, to breathe deep of that which would renew and reinforce and revitalize; wanted to be a child again, and, with Selwyn as my playmate, wander along the winding road with faces to the sun, and hearts of hope, and faith that God would not forget, and the world would yet be well. If nobody was going to do anything to us, if we were not needed to play a part, the hours ahead could be ours. The train on which we were to return did not leave until three-thirty. I looked at my watch. It was ten-thirty.

"Get something from somebody." My hand made movement toward the men about us and then in the direction of the shacks and sheds and cabins of the negroes, scattered at wide intervals apart from the village, which consisted of a long, rambling street with a white frame church at one end, a gray one at the other, a court-house in the middle, and a school-house at its back. "Get a buggy and something you can drive and let's have a holiday—just by ourselves. What is that house over there?"

I pointed to a square, old-fashioned red-brick building set well back from the road and surrounded by great oak-trees, and smaller ones of birch and maple and spruce and pine, and shrubs of various kinds. It was Claxon's one redemption. Shading my eyes, I read the tin sign swinging in the wind from a rod nailed at right angles to a sagging post at its gateless yard. "Swan Tavern." The name thrilled. I was no longer a twentieth-century person, but a lady of other days, and if a coach and four with outriders had appeared I would have stepped in it with delight. It did not appear, nor was Selwyn suddenly in knee-breeches and buckles and satin coat and brocaded vest. Not even my imagination could so clothe him. His practicality recalled me.

"I'll go over and find out what sort of place it is, and see if we can get anything to ride in. Perhaps this man can tell me. Wait here." He put out his hand as if to prevent my speaking first to the man. I didn't intend to speak to him.

The man could tell him nothing. He lived seven miles back and had come to the station to meet a friend who had failed to appear. There were teams in the neighborhood that might be gotten. Swan Tavern didn't have any. Used to, but most people nowaday, specially drummers, wanted automobiles, and old Colonel Tavis, who owned the place, wouldn't let an automobile come in his yard. Perhaps Major Bresee might let him have his horse and buggy. The person who gave the information changed his quid of tobacco from his left to his right cheek and, spitting on the ground below the plank-loose platform on which we were standing, pointed to a one-room office-building down the street, then again surveyed us. Two or three men across the road came over, and two or three others hanging around the station drew nearer and nodded to us, while both of the boys, hands in their pants pockets, stared up at Selwyn as if something new had indeed come to town.

From each of the group, now uncomfortably close to us, the impression radiated that the right of explanation was theirs as to why we should appear in Claxon with no apparent purpose for so appearing. Seemingly we were not the sort who usually applied for aid to the minister of the little town, known far and near for his matrimonial activities, and just what we wanted was a matter concerning which they were entitled to enlightenment. They said nothing, but looked much. Frowningly, Selwyn bit his lip. Presently he spoke.

"Can you tell me where I can get a horse and buggy for a few hours?" He looked first at one man and then another. "We have to wait here for friends who will return with us on the three-thirty train, and we'd like to see something of the country round about here while we're waiting. Can we get lunch over there? And what time do they have it?" His hand pointed to Swan Tavern.

"Don't have lunch. Dinner's at twelve o'clock." The man farthest away took his hands from the pockets of his pants and put them in those of his coat. "I reckon you can get Major Bresee's horse and buggy if he ain't using 'em. The horse ain't much, but it moves along. Want me to see if I can get him for you?"

"I would be very much obliged." Selwyn turned to me. "Shall we have the buggy sent over to us while we see about lunch?" he asked, but not waiting for an answer spoke again to the man whose kindly offices he had accepted. "If you can get anything we can ride in comfortably, bring it over, will you? And bring it as soon as you can."

Lifting his hat, he turned from the staring strangers and helped me down the three rickety steps that led to the road across which we had to go before turning in to the tree-lined lane that led to the quaint old tavern; and as we walked we were conscious of being watched with speculation that would become opinion as soon as we were out of hearing.

Picking our way through the mud, we soon reached the house, and at its door an untidy old gentleman, with the grace and courtesy of the days that are no more, greeted us as a gracious host greets warmly welcomed guests, and we were led to a roaring fire and told to make ourselves at home.

As he left the room to call his wife I touched Selwyn's arm and pointed to an open book on an old desk near the window at which travelers were supposed to register. "Ask him if he can't have a lunch fixed for us to take with us. Then you won't have to register or explain. Tell him anything will do, and please to hurry!"

He did not hurry. Nobody hurries in Claxon. It was twelve o'clock before the buggy was at the door, a basket of lunch in it, and good-bys said; and giving a last look around the big, dusty, sunshiny room with cobwebs on its walls and furniture in it that would have made a collector sick with desire, I walked out on the porch, and with me went the three dogs which had been stretched in front of the big log fire. Together we went down the steps.

Tucking a robe around me, the old gentleman nodded to Selwyn. "Don't let your wife get cold, suh, and don't stay out too long. The sun's deceiving and it ain't as warm as it looks." Being deaf, he spoke loudly. "The battlefields are to your left about half a mile from the creek with a water-oak hanging over it, and nigh about two miles from here. You can't miss 'em. Over yonder"—he pointed to the top of a modest mountain—"is where we had a signal station during the war. The view from there can't be beat this side of heaven. I ain't sure the battlements of heaven itself—"

But our horse had started and Selwyn, looking at me, laughed. "Battlefields have their interest, but not to-day. It's nice, isn't it, to be—just by ourselves and all the world away? Are you all right? I have orders to keep my wife warm."

"She's very warm. Where are we going?" I turned from Selwyn's eyes.

"I don't know. Don't care. It is enough that we are to be together."

"Wouldn't you feel better if you said 'I told you so'? Any one would want to say it. It was a pretty long trip to take unnecessarily, and as we haven't been of service we needn't have come. I'm sorry—"

"I'm not." Selwyn, paying no attention to the horse, who had turned into the road leading to the top of the mountain, kept his eyes still on me. "I don't deserve what has come of our venture, but I shall enjoy it the more, perhaps, because of undeserving. It is just 'we two' to-day. I get so mortally tired of people—"

"I don't. I like people. Perhaps if I only knew one sort I would get tired of them. I used to think my people were those I was born among, but I'm beginning to glimpse a little that my family is much larger than I thought, and that all people are my people. Still—" I laughed and drew in a deep breath of pine-scented air.

"Still—?" Selwyn waited.

"It is nice to get away from everybody now and then, and be with just you. I mean—" Certainly I had not meant to say what I had said, and, provoked at my thoughtless revealing, at the chance it would give Selwyn to say what I did not want him to say, I stopped abruptly, then quickly spoke again. "Why don't you make the horse go faster? We'll never get to Signal Hill at this rate. He's crawling."

"What difference does it make whether we get anywhere or not? I don't want to get anywhere. To be going with you is enough. You are a cruel person, Danny, or you would not make me go so long a way alone."

"I am not making you go alone. It is you who are making me. I am much more alone than you." Again I stopped and stared ahead. What was the matter with me that I should be saying things I must not say? In the silence of earth and air I wondered if Selwyn could hear the quick, thick beating of my heart.

On the winding road no one was in sight, and from our elevation a view of the tiny town below could be glimpsed through the bare branches of the trees of the little mountain we were ascending; and about us was no sound save the crunch of the buggy-wheels on the gravel road, and the tread of the slow-moving horse. It was a new world we were in—a kindly, simple, strifeless world of peace and plenty, and calm and content, and the crowded quarters close to Scarborough Square, with their poignant problems of sin and suffering, of scant beauty and weary joy, seemed a life apart and very far away. And the world of the Avenue, the world of handsome homes and deadening luxuries, of social exactions and selfish indulgence, of much waste and unused power, seemed also far away, and just Selwyn and I were together in a little world of our own.

"We might as well have this out, Danny." An arm on the back of the buggy, Selwyn looked at me, and in his eyes was that which made me understand he was right. We might as well have it out. "For three years you have refused to marry me, and now you say you are more alone than I. We've been beating the air, been evading something; refusing to face the thing that is keeping us apart. What is it? You know my love for you. But yours for me— You have never told me that you loved me. Look at me, Danny." He turned my face toward him. "Tell me. Is it because you do not love me that you will not marry me?"

"No." A bird on a bough ahead of us piped to another across the road, and as mate to mate was answered. "It is not because I do not love you—Selwyn. I do—love you." The crushing of my hands hurt, but he said nothing. "I shall never marry unless I marry you—but I am not sure—we should be happy."

"Why not? Is there anything that man could do I would not do to make you happy? All that I am or may be, all that I have to give—and of love I have much—is for you. What is it, then, you fear? Your freedom? I should never interfere with that."

I shook my head. "It is not my freedom. What I fear is our lack of sympathy with, our lack of understanding of, certain points of view. We look at life so differently."

"But certainly a woman doesn't expect a man to think just as she thinks, to feel as she feels, to see as she sees, nor does he expect her to see and feel and think his way in all things. As individuals they—"

"Of course I wouldn't expect, wouldn't want my husband to feel toward all things as I feel. I would not want a stupid husband with no mind of his own! You know very well it is nothing of that sort. If, however, we cared not at all for the same sort of books; if we saw little alike in art and literature, in music or morals, in science or religion; if the same interests did not appeal; if to the same impulse there was no response—we could hardly hope for genuine comradeship. In most of those things we are together, but life is so much bigger than things, and in our ideas of life and what to do with it we are pretty far apart."

"Are we? Are you very sure? Are you perfectly sure, Danny, that we are so very far apart?"

Something warm and sweet, so tempestuously sweet that it terrified, for a moment surged, and, half-blinded, I looked up at him. "Do you mean—?" My fingers interlocked with his.

"That I would like to live in Scarborough Square?" He smiled unsteadily and shook his head. "No, I wouldn't know how to live there. I wouldn't fit in. I am just myself. You are a dozen selves in one. But I am beginning to see dimly what you see clearly. Concerning my selfishness there is certainly nothing hazy. The walls around my house have been pretty high, and perhaps they should come down. You have much to teach me. I have a habit of questioning—"

"So have I. All thinking people question. But in spite of my questioning, perhaps because of it, I know now that my life—must count. It isn't mine to use just for myself, or in the easiest way. If there's anything to it, I've got to share it. Down in Scarborough Square I've been seeing myself in the old life, and when I go back to it I cannot—keep silent concerning what I have learned. I think perhaps we've failed—the men and women of our world even more discouragingly than the men and women of the worlds I've learned to know. As your wife you might not care to have me say—"

I stopped, silenced by the view which lay revealed before us, then I gave a little cry. Peak after peak of tree-filled mountains raised their heads to a sky of brilliant blue whose foam-clouds curled and tumbled in fantastic shapes, and in the valley below was the silence and peace of a place unpeopled. I turned to Selwyn, and long resistance yielding to that for which there was no words, I let him see the fulness of surrender. For a long moment we did not speak, then I drew away from his arms. "We must get out. It is a heavenly vision. I want—"

Getting down from the high, old-fashioned buggy, Selwyn held his arms out to me, lifted me in them to the ground. "I, too, want here—my heavenly vision." It was difficult to hear him. Drawing my face to his, he kissed me again. "You have told me that you loved me. You are mine and I am going to marry you."

He turned his head and listened, in his face something of the old impatience. The soft whir of an automobile broke the silence of the sun-filled, breeze-blown air, and I made effort to draw away from Selwyn's arms. "Some one is coming," I said, under my breath. "Shall we go on or stay here?"

"Stay here. Why not?" Frowningly, Selwyn for a moment waited, then, with his hand holding mine, we walked nearer the edge of the mountain's plateau and looked at the ribbon-like road that wound up to its top. The noise of the engine was more distinct than the car, but gradually the latter could be seen clearly, and presently three figures were distinguished in it.

"They'll have to pass us. There's no other way." Words not utterable were smothered under Selwyn's breath. "A few more minutes and they'll be going down the mountain, however, and will soon be out of sight. Are you cold? Do you mind staying up here for a little while—with all the world away?"

"No. I want to stay." I leaned forward. In the machine, now near enough to see that two people were in its back seat and the driver alone in front, there was also leaning forward; then hurried movement, then the man behind got up and waved his hat, and the girl beside him got up also.

Slowly Selwyn turned to me, in his eyes rebellious protest. "It is Mr. and Mrs. Cressy, and there's no way of getting rid of them. They've motored over instead of waiting for the train. Have they no sense, no understanding?"

"And they think they've been so considerate in hurrying to us!" The tone of my voice was that of Selwyn's. "Is there nothing we can do?"

"Nothing—unless we tell them to wait here while we go over to Shelby. The reward of virtue was never to my taste! Our one day together—"

He turned away, but quickly I followed him; in his hand slipped mine. "I'm sorry, Selwyn—but there will be another day—be many days."



CHAPTER XXVI

Many undeserved blessings have come to me in life and have made me temporarily meek and humble, but when punishments come which are unwarranted, meekness and humility (of which I have never possessed a sufficient amount, inasmuch as I am a person without money) disappear, and I am not a lowly-minded lady. I was punished for my part in helping Tom and Madeleine get married by action of Mrs. Swink that was as astounding as it was unexpected. Mrs. Swink is a wily woman. She has little education and large understanding of human nature. She knows when she is beaten. In a woman such knowledge is unusual.

The day after our return from Claxon she appeared in my sitting-room in Scarborough Square and, throwing her arms around me, kissed me three times. She attempted a fourth kiss, which I prevented, and followed the kisses with an outburst of tears that was proportionate to her person in volume and abundance. Feeling as one does who is overtaken by a shower when the sun is shining, I made effort to draw away, but my head was again pressed on her broad bosom, and with fresh tears I was thanked for my kindness in chaperoning her daughter on her matrimonial adventure; an adventure which would have subjected her to much criticism had I not been along. Also Mr. Thorne. The unexpectedness of these thanks was disconcerting and, with an expression that was hardly appreciative of the pose she was assuming, I finally rescued myself from her arms and, drawing off, looked at her for explanation. Mrs. Swink is not a person I care to have kiss me.

"Oh, my dear, you do not know the anguish of a mother's heart! You couldn't know it unless you were a mother, and when you are one I hope your heart won't be wrung as mine has been wrung! But poor, dear Mr. Swink always said bygones ought to be bygones, and now they're married I suppose it's a bygone and I ought not to let my heart be wrung; but it is, and I've been thinking about poor, dear Mr. Swink all day." She took her seat and, wiping her eyes and nose, began to cry again. "Oh, my dear, you don't know the anguish of a mother's heart!"

"Would you like a fresh handkerchief?" I asked. The one in Mrs. Swink's hand was too wet for further use. I started toward my bedroom door, but she shook her head.

"I've got two or three, I think. I'm so easily affected when my heart is wrung that I have to keep a good many on hand. But I had to come and thank you. It would have been so dreadful for them to have gone off alone. It makes it very different to have had you and Mr. Thorne along. Yes, indeed—a mother's heart—"

What was she up to? Fearing that my face would indicate too clearly that I was not deceived by her change of tactics, I shielded it from the fire by the screen, close to the chair in which I sat, and made effort to wait politely, if not with inward patience, for what I would discover if I only gave her time. Something had happened I did not understand. I had forgotten the letter Selwyn had sent her.

"They went away an hour ago on their wedding-trip." A fresh handkerchief was drawn from the heaving bosom for the fresh tears which again flowed. "My poor head is all in a whirl. So many things had to be done, though Madeleine wouldn't take but one trunk and no maid, though I told her she could have Freda, and there are so many things that have got to be attended to before they get back that I don't know where to begin, and I had to come down here right away and thank you the first thing. And of course she will have to have a trousseau, for her poor, dear father wouldn't like it if she didn't have one, and the best that could be bought. He was very particular, her father was, and I know he would thank you, too, if he could. And there will have to be a reception, and it's about that, and a few other things, I felt I must talk to you this morning, being you are responsible, in a way, for the marriage—"

"I am nothing of the sort. You are responsible for its being the sort of marriage it was. I went with them because—"

"Yes, indeed, I understand! Tom says it was splendid in you and I had to come and thank you. Everybody will take it so differently when they know you and Mr. Thorne were along. I think it was noble in Mr. Thorne when his poor brother wanted so much to marry Madeleine. I feel it was such a narrow escape—her not marrying him. I've been hearing all sorts of sad things about him lately. Real sad. I was deceived in him."

"Who deceived you?"

I might as well not have asked the question. No attention was paid to it.

"He was such a dear boy, Harrie was. So handsome and his family so well known, and he was so in love with Madeleine that I was deceived in him. Yes indeed, I was deceived. A woman is so helpless where men are concerned."

"She isn't a bit helpless unless she prefers to be. A great many women do. Had you made any inquiries concerning Harrie's character?"

"In my day it wasn't expected of a woman to make inquiries." Mrs. Swink's voice was that of righteous reserve. "It's very hard on a mother to ask questions about character and things like that. I knew of the Thorne family very well, and of the Thorne house, which I thought Harrie would live in until he and Madeleine could build a moderner one, and— Oh no, my child, you don't know the anguish of a mother's heart! You don't know!" Tears not of anguish, but of blighted ambition, caused the flow of words to cease temporarily, and light came to me. Selwyn's letter had done the work.

Harrie being eliminated, the fat old hypocrite was trimming her sails with hands hardened from long experience. Her embraces and gratitude were a veer in a new direction. In a measure I was to be held to account for the present situation; in a sense to be social sponsor for Mrs. Thomas Cressy. A homeless Harrie, disapproved of by family and friends, would not have made a desirable son-in-law, and I had been seized upon as the most available opportunity within reach to bring her daughter's marriage desirably before the public. Mrs. Swink had seemingly little understanding of the little use society has for people who do not entertain. I do not entertain.

Nothing was due her, but hoping if I promised help she might go away, I suggested the possibility of Kitty's entertaining Tom and Madeleine on their return from their wedding-trip, and at the suggestion the beady little eyes brightened, and immediately I was deluged with details of the reception she had determined to give the bride and groom, implored for help in making out the list of guests to be invited, and begged to be one of the receiving party. The last I declined.

When at last she was safely gone I locked the door and sprayed myself with a preparation that is purifying. I was dispirited. There are times when the world seems a weary place and certain of its people beyond hope or pardon.

Last night I had a talk with Mrs. Mundy. She had seen the girl I overheard speaking of an ill man who was being nursed by some one she knew, and this girl had admitted that the "some one" was Etta Blake. By another name she had been living in Lillie Pierce's world. For the past two weeks, however, she had been away from it. When Mrs. Mundy told me, something within gave way, and my head went down in my arms, which fell upon the table, and I held them back no longer—the aching tears which came at last without restraint. "The pity—oh, the pity of it!" was all that I could say, and wisely Mrs. Mundy let me cry it out—the pain and horror which were obsessing me. Hand on my head, she smoothed my hair as does one's mother when her child is greatly troubled, and for a while neither of us spoke.

I had feared for some time what I knew now was true, and it was not for Etta alone that pity possessed me. Somehow, for all young girlhood, for the weak and wayward, the bold and brazen, the unprotected and helpless, I seemed somehow responsible, I and other women like me, who were shielded from their temptations and ignorant of the dangers to which they were exposed; and Etta was but one of many who had gone wrong, perhaps, because I had not done right. Something was so wrong with life when such things could happen, as through all ages had happened; things which men said were impossible to prevent. Perhaps they are, but women are different from men in that they attempt the impossible. When they understand, this, too, must be attempted—

After a while Mrs. Mundy began to tell me what she had learned. It was an old story. The girl who told her of Etta was a friend of the latter's and had been a waitress in the same restaurant in which Etta was cashier. It was at this restaurant that Harrie met her.

"She was crazy to think he meant to marry her," the girl had told Mrs. Mundy, "but at first she did think it. For some time he was just nice to her, taking her to ride in his automobile, and out to places where he was not apt to meet any one he knew, and then—then—"

"She doesn't blame Harrie, though. That is, at first she didn't. She was that dead in love with him she would have gone with him anywhere, but after a while, when she found out the sort he was, she—cursed him. It was about the child they had a split."

"Was it born here?" I was cold and moved closer to the fire.

Mrs. Mundy shook her head. "He sent her to a hospital out of town, but when she came back with the child he told her she would have to send it away somewhere, put it in some place, or he'd quit her. He seemed to hate the sight of it. It was on account of the child they had a fuss. Etta wouldn't give it up. She can be a little fury when she's mad, the girl said, and they had an awful row and he went off somewhere and stayed four months. She tried to get work, but each time some one told about her and she was turned off because—of the child. At one place one of the bosses tried to take some liberty with her and she threw an ink-bottle at him and he drove her away. She knew there wasn't any straight way left to her after that unless she starved or went in a rescue place. She tried to get in one and take the baby with her, but it was full, and then, too, she kept hoping she could get work. Then the baby got sick and needed what she couldn't give it, and after a while she gave up. She got a woman to look after the child, promised to pay her well, and went down into Lillie Pierce's world. Since the day she went she has never been out except to see the baby, until two weeks ago, when she moved into a decent place and took two rooms. Harrie had come back to her."

"How old is the child?"

"Ten months. She never intended it to know anything of its mother. She hoped she would die before it was old enough to understand. It's a little girl. Etta is eighteen."

The room grew still and, getting up, Mrs. Mundy put more coal on the fire, made blaze spring from it, warm and red. I waited for her to go on.

"It seems like Mr. Harrie can't stay away from her, the girl says. He never sees the child, though. The other woman, who's married and has children of her own, still keeps it for her. She's named Banch." Mrs. Mundy looked up. "I've found where the Banches live. It's only two squares from where Etta is now living."

"But Harrie?" I turned off the light behind me.

"He is with Etta. He was taken ill on Christmas night. Except the doctor, no one knows he is with her. He would have been dead by now had it not been for Etta, the doctor says. He had pneumonia. Mr. Guard and Mr. Crimm have gone to see him to-night, to see when he can be moved away."

"And Etta—what will become of her?"

Mrs. Mundy looked into the fire. "What can become of any girl like that but to go back to the old life? She's an outcast forever."

"And he—" I got up. All the repression of past ages was breaking into revolt. "He will go home and feed on the leaven of Pharisees and hypocrites, and later he will marry a girl of his world, and the world that will give him welcome will keep Etta in her hell. I wonder sometimes that God doesn't give us up—we who call ourselves clean and good! We are a lot of cowards, most of us women, of 'fraid-cats and cowards!"

My hands made gesture, and, going to the window, I looked out, ashamed of my outburst. Beating one's head against the walls of custom and convention accomplished nothing. All sane people agreed concerning the injustice of one person paying the price of the sin of two people; all normal ones admitted that what was wicked in a woman was wicked in a man, but agreement and admission were terms of speech. Translation into action would have meant a bigger price than even sane and normal and righteous people were willing to pay. Men could hardly be blamed, but women should be, for the continuance of old points of view. Women are no longer ignorant or dependent, and the time for silence and acceptance is past. Perhaps the women of Lillie Pierce's world are not so much to be despaired of as some of mine and other sheltered worlds; the soulless, spineless, selfish ones who cannot always justly draw their skirts aside, and yet do draw them with eyebrows raised, and curling lips, and gesture that means much. I, too, have been a coward. I, too, have been long asleep. But there were other women who had been making splendid fight while I was wasting time, and at thought of them came courage, and under my breath I prayed God to make it grow.

"You must bring Etta here." I turned from the window. "I want to talk to her, to see if something can't be done. Surely something can be done! She might get some rooms not far from here and take the child to live with her. Mr. Thorne will doubtless make his brother go away. Can you see her to-morrow and bring her here?"

Mrs. Mundy got up. "You are dead tired and ought to go to bed. Night before last you didn't sleep two hours, and I heard you up late last night. You mustn't take things too hard, Miss Dandridge." She put her warm hands on my cold ones. "You're young, but for over thirty years I have been looking life in the face, and I've learned a lot that nothing but time can teach. One of the things is that we all ain't made in the same mold, and our minds and hearts ain't any more alike than our bodies. Every day we live we have to get in a new supply of patience and politeness to keep from hitting out, at times, at folks who don't see our way. Some people ain't ever going to look at things they don't want to see, or to listen to what they don't want to hear, but there ain't as many people like that as you think. There's many a woman in this world to-day that God is proud of; in the Homes and places what they're the head of, and on their boards and things they are learning that all women are their kin, and after a while they'll make other women understand. I'll see Etta to-morrow, and if she will come I will bring her to see you. But until Mr. Harrie is gone she won't come—won't leave him. Sometimes it seems a pity he didn't die. Go to bed, Miss Dandridge! you are all tired out."



CHAPTER XXVII

For two weeks Etta Blake refused to come to Mrs. Mundy's, refused to see the latter when she went to see her, to see me when I went; but yesterday she came to both of us. Ten days ago Harrie was taken to Selwyn's home and is now practically well. Mr. Guard tells me he is going away; going West.

I have seen Selwyn but twice since he learned where Harrie was found, and then not alone. Both times some one was here and he stayed but a short while. He has bitten dust of late and even with me he is incased in a reserve that is impenetrable. There has been no chance to mention Harrie's name had he wished to do so. I do not know that he will ever mention it again. Selwyn is the sort of person who rarely speaks of painful or disgraceful things.

I was in my sitting-room when Mrs. Mundy came up with Etta. As the latter stood in the doorway prayer sprang in my heart that I would not shrink, but the heritage of the ages was upon me, and for a half-minute I could only think of her as one is taught to think—as a depraved, polluted creature, hardly human, and then I saw she was a suffering, sinful child, and I took her hands in mine and led her to the fire.

To see clearly, see without confusion, and with no blinding of sentimental sympathy, but as woman should see woman, I had been trying to face life frankly for some months past; yet when I saw Etta I realized I had gone but a little way on the long and lonely road awaiting if I were to do my part. And then I remembered Harrie. He had gone back to the proudest, haughtiest home in town; and Etta—where could Etta go?

Hatless, and in a shabby dress, with her short, dark, curly hair parted on the side, she looked even younger than when I had first seen her, but about her twisting mouth were lines that hardened it, and in her opalescent eyes, which now shot flame and fire and now paled with weariness, I saw that which made me know in bitter knowledge she was old and could never again be young. Youth and its rights for her were gone beyond returning.

She would not sit down; grew rigid when I tried to make her. "You want to see me?" She looked from me to Mrs. Mundy and back again to me. "What do you want to see me about? Why did you want me to come here?"

"We want to talk to you, to see what is best for you to do." I spoke haltingly. It was difficult to speak at all with her eyes upon me. They were strange eyes for a girl of eighteen.

"Best for me to do?" She laughed witheringly and turned from the fire, her hands twisting in nervous movements. "There are only two things ahead of me. Death—or worse. Which would you advise me—to do?"

Without waiting for answer the slight shoulders straightened and went back. Scorn, hate, bitterness were in her unconscious pose, and from her eyes came fire. "If you sent for me to preach you can quit before you start. There ain't anything you can do for me. I'm done for. What do people like you care what becomes of girls like us? Maybe we send ourselves to hell, but you see to it that we stay there. You're good at your job all right. I hate you—you good women! Hate you!"

I heard Mrs. Mundy's indrawn breath, saw her quick glance of shock and distress, then I went over to Etta. She was trembling with hot emotion long repressed, and, as one at bay, she drew back, reckless, defiant, and breathing unsteadily.

"I do not wonder that you hate us. I am sorry—so sorry for you, Etta."

For a full minute she stared at me as if she had not heard aright and the dull color in her face deepened into crimson, then with a spring she was at the door, her face buried in her arms. Leaning heavily against it, she made convulsive effort to keep back sound.

"Sorry—oh, my God!" In a heap she crumpled on the floor, her face still hidden in her hands. "I did not know—in all the world—anybody was sorry. You can't be sorry—I'm a—"

I motioned Mrs. Mundy to go out. "Leave her with me," I said. "Come back presently, but leave her awhile with me."

Going over to the window, I stood beside it until the choking sobs grew fainter and fainter, and then, turning away, I drew two chairs close to the fire and told Etta to come and sit by me. For a while neither of us spoke, and when at last she tried to speak it was difficult to hear her.

"I didn't mean to let go like that. I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't said—you were sorry. You've no cause to be sorry for me. I'm not worth it. I was crazy—to care as I cared. I ought to have known gentlemen like him don't marry girls like me, but I didn't have the strength to—to make him leave me, or to go away myself. And then one day he told me it had to be a choice between him and the baby. He seemed to hate the sight of the baby. He said I must send it away." Swaying slightly, she caught herself against the side of the table close to her, and again I waited. "She's a delicate little thing, and I couldn't put her in a place where I didn't know how they'd treat her. He told me it had to be one or the other—and I'd rather he'd killed me than made me say which one. But I couldn't give the baby up. She needed me."

"And then—" My voice, too, was low.

"He got mad and went away. I thought I hated him, but I can't hate him. I've tried and I can't. When he came back and found where I was living—" A long, low shiver came from the twisting lips. "About five weeks ago I moved to where he was taken sick. And now—now he has gone home again and I—" She got up as if the torment of her soul made it impossible for her to sit still, and again she faced me. "It doesn't matter what becomes of me. What do rich people and good people and people who could change things care about us? And neither do they care what we think of them, and specially of good women. Do you suppose we think you really believe in the Christ who did not stone us? We don't. We laugh at most Christians, spit at them. We know you don't believe in Him or you'd remember what He said."

She turned sharply. Mrs. Mundy with Kitty behind her was at the door. The latter hesitated, and, seeing it, Etta nodded to her. "Come in. I won't hurt you. You need not be afraid."

Speaking first to Etta, Kitty kissed me, and I saw she had come up-stairs because she, too, was wondering if there was something she could do. Kitty is no longer the child she once was. She is going, some day, to be a brave and big and splendid woman. At the window she sat down, and as though she were not in the room Etta turned toward me.

"You said just now you wanted to help. Wanting won't do that!" She snapped her fingers. "You've got to stop wanting and will to do something. Men laugh at the laws men make, but we don't blame men like we blame women who let their men be bad and then smile on them, marry them, and pretend they do not know. They do not want to know. If you made men pay the price you make us pay, the world would be a safer place to live in. Men don't do what women won't stand for."

Kitty leaned forward, and Etta, with twisting hands, looked at her and then at Mrs. Mundy and then at me, and in her eyes was piteous appeal. "There's no chance for me, but I've got a little baby girl. What's going to become of her? In God's name, can't you do something to make good women understand? Make them know the awfulness—awfulness—"

Again the room grew still and presently, with dragging steps, Etta turned toward the door. Quickly I followed her. She must not go. I had said nothing, gotten nowhere, and there was much that must be said that something might be done. To have her leave without some plan to work toward would be loss of time. She was but one of thousands of bits of human wreckage, in danger herself and of danger to others, and somebody must do something for her. I put my hand on her shoulder to draw her back and as I did so the door, half ajar, opened more widely. Motionless, and as one transfixed, she stared at it wide-eyed, and into her face crept the pallor of death.

Selwyn and Harrie were standing in the doorway.



CHAPTER XXVIII

Stumbling back as if struck, Harrie leaned against the door-frame, and the hat in his hand dropped to the floor. Selwyn, too, for a half-minute drew back, then he came inside and spoke to Etta, and to me, and to Mrs. Mundy, and to Kitty. Pushing a chair close to the fire, he took Harrie by the arm and led him to it.

"Sit down," he said, quietly. "You'll be better in a minute."

Harrie had given Etta no sign of recognition, but the horror in his once-handsome face, now white and drawn, told of his shock at finding her with me, and fear and recoil weakened him to the point of faintness. In his effort to recover himself, to resist what might be coming, he struggled as one for breath, but from him came no word, no sound.

Infinite pity for Selwyn made it impossible for me to speak for a moment, and before words would come Mrs. Mundy and Kitty had gone out of the room and Selwyn had turned to Etta.

With shoulders again drawn back, and eyes dark with fear and defiance, she looked at him. "Why have you come here?" she asked. "What are you going to do? You've taken him home and left me to go back to where he drove me. Isn't that enough? Why have you brought him here?"

"To ask Miss Heath to say what he must do. That is why I have come." Pushing the trembling girl in a chair behind Harrie's, Selwyn looked up at me. "You must decide what is to be done, Dandridge. This is a matter beyond a man's judgment. I do not seem able to think clearly. You must tell me what to do."

"I? Oh no! It is not for me. Surely you cannot mean that I must tell you—" The blood in my body surged thickly, and I drew back, appalled that such decision should be laid upon me, such responsibility be mine. "What is it you want—of me?"

"To tell me—what Harrie must do." In Selwyn's face was the whiteness of death, but his voice was quiet. "I did not know, until David Guard told me, that there was a child, and that Harrie was its father, and that because of the child Etta would not go away as I had tried to make her. I did not know she had no father or brother to see that, as far as possible, her wrong is righted. I want you to forget that Harrie is my brother and remember the girl, and tell me—what he must do."

From the chair in which Harrie sat came a lurching movement, and I saw his body bend forward, saw his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands, and then I heard a sudden sob, a soft, little cry that stabbed, and Etta was on the floor beside him, crouching at his feet, holding his hands to her heart, and uttering broken, foolish words and begging him to speak to her, to tell her that he would marry her—that he would marry her and take her away.

"Harrie—oh, Harrie!" Faintly we could hear the words that came stumblingly. "Could we be married, Harrie, and go away, oh, far away, where nobody knows? I will work for you—live for you—die for you, if need be, Harrie! We could be happy. I would try—oh, I would try so hard to make you happy, and the baby would have a name. You would not hate her if we were married. She was never to know she had a mother, she was to think her real mother was dead and that I was just some one who loved her. But if we were married I would not have to die to her. Tell me—oh, tell me, Harrie, that we can be married—and go away—where nobody knows!"

But he would tell her nothing. With twitching shoulders and head turned from her he tried to draw his hands from those which held his in piteous appeal, and presently she seemed to understand, and into her face came a ghastly, shuddering smile, and slowly she got up and drew a deep breath.

As she stood aside Harrie, with a sudden movement, was on his feet and at the door. His hand was on the knob and he tried to open the door, but instantly Selwyn was by him, and with hold none too gentle he was thrust back into the room.

"You damned coward!" Selwyn's voice was low. "She is the mother of your child, and you want to quit her; to run, rather than pay your price! By God! I'll see you dead before you do!"

Again the room grew still. The ticking of the clock and the beat of raindrops on the windowpanes mingled with the soft purring of the fire's flames, and each waited, we knew not for what; and then Etta spoke.

"But you, too, would have to pay—if he were made to pay—the price." She looked at Selwyn. "It is not fair that you should pay. I will go away—somewhere. It does not matter about the baby or me. Thank you, but— Good-by. I'm going—away."

Before I could reach her, hold her back, she was out of the room and running down the steps and the front door had closed. Mrs. Mundy looked up as I leaned over the banister. "It is better to leave her alone to-day," she said, and I saw that she was crying. "We can see her to-morrow. She had better be by herself for a while."

Back in the room Selwyn and I looked at each other with white and troubled faces. We had bungled badly and nothing had been done.

"Come to-morrow night. I must see David Guard, must see Etta again, before I— Come to-morrow and I will tell you. I must be sure." I turned toward Harrie, but he had gone into the hall. Quickly my hands went out to Selwyn, and for a long moment he held them in his, then, without speaking, he turned and left me.



CHAPTER XXIX

I know I should not think too constantly about it. I try not to, but I cannot shake off the shock, the horror of Etta's death. Selwyn inclosed the note she wrote him in the letter he sent me just before leaving with Harrie for the West, but he did not come to see me before he left.

When I try to sleep the words of Etta's note pass before me like frightened children, crying—crying, and then again these children sing a dreary chant, and still again the chant becomes a chorus which repeats itself until I am unnerved; and they seem to be calling me, these little children, and begging me to help make clean and safe the paths that they must tread. I am just one woman. What can I do?

I knew Etta was dead before Selwyn received her note. Mrs. Banch, the woman who kept the child for her, came running to Mrs. Mundy the day after Etta had been to see me, and incoherently, sobbingly, with hands twisting under her apron, she told us of finding Etta, with the baby in her arms, lying on her bed, as she thought, asleep. But she was not asleep. She was dead.

"She had done it as deliberate as getting ready to go on a long journey," the woman had sobbed. "Everything was fixed and in its place, and after bathing and dressing the baby in a clean gown, she wrote on a piece of paper that all of its clothes were for my little girl, and that she wouldn't do what she was doing if there was any other way."

With a fresh outburst of tears, the woman handed me a half-sheet of note-paper. "Bury us as we are," it read. "I am taking the baby with me.—Etta."

"We will come with you." Mrs. Mundy, who had gotten out her hat and coat to go to see Etta before Mrs. Banch came in, hurriedly put them on, while I went for mine, and together we followed the woman to the small and shabby house in the upper part of which Etta had been living for some weeks past; the lower part being occupied by an old shoemaker and his wife who had been kind to her; and as we entered the room where the little mother and her baby lay I did not try to keep them back—the tears that were too late.

"Last night I was standing in the door when she came by with a letter in her hand." As Mrs. Banch talked, she was still quivering from the shock of her discovery, and her words came brokenly. "On her way back from mailing it I asked her to come in and set with me, but she wouldn't do it; she said she was going to take the baby with her to spend the night, as she didn't want to be by herself; and, going up-stairs, she wrapped her up good and took her away with her. I don't know why, but I felt worried all last night, and this morning I couldn't get down to nothing 'til I ran around to see how she was and how the baby was, and when I went up in her room—" The woman's work-worn hands were pressed to her breast. "God—this world is a hard place for girls who sin! It don't seem to matter about men, but women—" Presently she raised her head and looked at us. "I never seen a human being what had her spirit for enduring. She paid her price without whining, but something must have happened what she couldn't stand. She had a heart if she was—if she was—"

Two days later, as quietly as her life had ended, Etta's body, with her baby on its breast, was put into the ground, and mingled with David Guard's voice as he read the service for the dead was the far-off murmur of city noises, the soft rise and fall of city sounds. With Mrs. Mundy and Mrs. Banch, the old shoemaker and his wife, I stood at the open grave and watched the earth piled into a mound that marked a resting-place at last for a broken body and a soul no one had tried to reach that it might save, but I did not hear the beating of the clods of clay, nor the twittering of the birds in the trees, nor the wind in their tops. I heard instead Etta's cry to Kitty and to me: "In God's name, can't somebody do something to make good women understand!"

It is these words that beat into my brain at night; these and the words I did not speak in time and which, on the next day, were too late. The note she sent Selwyn also keeps me awake.

"I am going," she wrote, "so the thought of me will not make you afraid. You tried to help me, but there isn't any help for girls like me. I am taking the baby with me. I want to be sure she will be safe. It would be too hard for her, the fight she'd have to make. I can't leave her here alone. ETTA."

Last night David Guard came in for a few minutes. Leaning back in a big chair, he half closed his eyes and in silence watched the flames of the fire, and, seeing he was far away in thought, I went on with the writing of the letter I had put aside when he came in. I always know when he is tired and worn, and I have learned to say nothing, to be as silent as he when I see that the day's work has so wearied him he does not wish to talk. At other times we talk much—talk of life and its possibilities, of old cults and new philosophies, of books and places; of the endless struggles of men like himself to be intellectually honest and spiritually free. But oftenest we speak of the people around us, the people on whom the injustices of a selfish social system fall most heavily; and among them, sharing their hardships, understanding their burdens, recognizing their limitations and weaknesses, leading and directing them, he has found life in losing it, and it now has meaning for him that is bigger and finer than the best that earth can give.

Presently he stirred, drew a long breath as one awaking, but when he spoke he did not turn toward me.

"I saw Mr. Thorne the night before he left with Harrie for his friend's ranch in Arizona. He is going to give him another chance, and it's pretty big of him to do it, but I doubt if anything will come of it. Harrie belongs to a type of humanity beyond awakening to a realization of moral degeneracy; a type that believes so confidently in the divine right of class privilege that it believes little else. Harrie's failure to appreciate the hideousness of certain recent experiences has made them all the more keenly felt by his brother. I have rarely seen a man suffer as the latter has suffered in the past few days, but unless I am mistaken—"

The pen in my hand dropped upon the desk, and for a while I did not speak. Then I got up and went toward David Guard, who had also risen. "You mean—" The words died in my throat.

"That he is beginning to understand why you came to Scarborough Square; to grasp the necessity of human contact for human interpretation. He, too, is seeing himself, his life, his world, from the viewpoint of Scarborough Square, and what he sees gives neither peace nor pride nor satisfaction. He will never see so clearly as you, perhaps, but certain cynicisms, certain intolerances, certain indifferences and endurances will yield to keener perception of the necessity for new purposes in life." He held out his hand. "He needs you very much. I've got to go. Good-by."

For a long time I sat by the fire and watched it die. Was David Guard right, or had it been in vain, the venture that had brought me to Scarborough Square? I had told Selwyn I had come that I might see from its vantage-ground the sort of person I was and what I was doing with life; but it was also in the secret hope that he, too, might see the kindred of all men to men, the need of each for each, that I had come. If together we could stand between those of high and low degree, between the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, with hands outstretched to both, and so standing bring about, perhaps, a better understanding of each other, then my coming would have been worth while. But would we ever so stand? All that I had hoped for seemed as dead as the ashes on the hearth. I had brought him pain and humiliation, drawn back, without intention, curtains that hid ugly, cruel things, and for him Scarborough Square would mean forever bitter memories of bitter revealing. I had failed. I had tried, and I had failed, and I could hold out no longer.

Getting up, I pressed my hands to my heart to still triumphant throbbing. It had won, I did not hate his house. I hated its walls. But I could no longer live without him. I would marry him when he came back.



CHAPTER XXX

My hands in his, Selwyn looked long at me, then again drew me to him, again raised my face to his. "A thousand times I've asked. A thousand times could give myself no answer. Why did you wire me to come back, Danny?"

"You were staying too long."

He smiled. "No; it was not that. There was something else. What was it?"

"I wanted to see you."

He shook his head. "What was it? Why did you send for me?"

"To—tell you I would marry you whenever you wish me to—"

His face whitened and the grip of his hands hurt. Presently he spoke again. "But there was something else. You had other reasons. Surely between us there is to be complete and perfect understanding. What is it, Danny?"

I drew away and motioned him to sit beside me on the sofa. In the firelit room faint fragrance of the flowers with which he kept it filled crept to us, and around it we both glanced as if its spirit were not intangible; and at unspoken thought his hands again held mine.

"You sent for me—" He leaned toward me.

"Because I heard—an unbelievable thing. David Guard tells me—you have sold—your house. I can think of nothing else. Tell me it is not true, Selwyn! Surely it is not true!"

"It is true."

With a little cry my fingers interlaced with his and words died on my lips. As quietly as if no fight had been fought, no sleepless nights endured, no surrender made at cost of pride beyond computing, he answered me, but in his face was that which made me turn my face away, and in silence I clung to him. The room grew still, so still we could hear each other's breathing, quick and unsteady, then again I looked up at him.

"But why, Selwyn? Why did you sell your house?"

"You would not be happy in it. You do not care for it. I am ready now to live—wherever you wish."

"But I am ready, too, to live—where you wish. Don't you see it does not matter where one lives? What matters is one must be very sure—one cannot live apart, and that one's spirit must have chance. Why did you not tell me, Selwyn? Why did you do this without letting me know?"

"You would have told me not to do it; would not have consented. There was no other way to be sure that I was willing—to do my part. I know now there is something to be done, know I must no longer live behind high walls."

"But the house will be needed when the walls come down! It is not where one lives, but how, that counts. You must not sell your house."

"But I have sold it—" Something of the old impatience was in his voice, then the frown faded. "There was no other way—to be sure. Were the walls down— I did not think, perhaps, that walls could be anywhere. It is too late now. The house was sold while I was away. The papers will be signed next week."

Again the room grew still and I made effort to think quickly, definitely. I was not willing that Selwyn should make such sacrifice for me. I would let the sunshine into his house and love it when its cold aloofness became friendly warmth, and together we could learn in it what life would teach. The house must not be sold, but how prevent? I bent my head down to the violets on my breast, drew in deep breath. Suddenly a thought came to me. I looked up.

"When a man sells a piece of property doesn't his wife have to sign the papers as well as himself?"

"She does." Selwyn smiled.

"And the sale couldn't be consummated unless she signed them?"

"It could not. You know the law." Again he smiled. "Not having a wife—"

"But you will have—before those papers are ready to be signed. I am not going to sign them. I mean— Don't you see what I mean?"

"I'm not quite sure I do." Selwyn's voice was grave, uncertain. "Is it that—"

"We will have to be married next week and then you can tell the party who wants your house that your wife does not wish it to be sold. Put the blame on me. It would be disappointing to many people if there was not something, even about my marriage, for which they could criticize me. You mustn't sell the house, Selwyn. That is why I wired you to come. I was afraid it might be too late—if I waited."

Still doubting, Selwyn looked at me as if it could not be true, that which I was saying, and again the room grew still. Then—

Presently, and after a long and understanding while, he broke its stillness, though when he spoke it was difficult to hear him. "We will always keep them, these rooms in Scarborough Square. We will need them as well as the house without its walls. And I— You must have patience with me, Danny. Are you sure you have enough?" "I have not quite as much as you will need for me. And yet—when there is love enough there is enough of all things else. We have waited long to be sure. Surely—oh, surely now—"

"We know?" He bent lower. "Yes, I think now—we know."

THE END