The physical fact of his rising to go struck her courage full in the face.

"No—no," she urged hurriedly, "not yet—not just yet—wait a few minutes more—"

"No—I must go—farewell!" And he seated himself beside her, put his arm around her.

She lay still in his arms for a moment, then murmured: "Say it isn't so, Carl—dear!"

"I would say there is hope, heart's darling," he whispered, "but I have no right to blast your young life. And I may never return."

She started up, her face glowing.

"Then you WILL return?"

"It may be that I can," he answered. "But—"

"Then I'll wait—gladly. No matter how long it is, I'll wait. Why didn't you say at first, 'Hilda, something I can't tell you about has happened. I must go away. When I can, I'll come.' That would have been enough, because I—I love you!"

"What have I done to deserve such love as this!" he exclaimed, and for an instant he almost forgot himself in her beauty and sweetness and sincerity.

"Will it be long?" she asked after a while.

"I hope not, bride of my soul. But I can not—dare not say."

"Wherever you go, and no matter what happens, dear," she said softly, "you'll always know that I'm loving you, won't you?" And she looked at him with great, luminous, honest eyes.

He began to be uncomfortable. Her complete trust was producing an effect even upon his nature. The good that evil can never kill out of a man was rousing what was very like a sense of shame. "I must go now," he said with real gentleness in his voice and a look at her that had real longing in it. He went on: "I shall come as soon as the shadow passes—I shall come soon, Herzallerliebste!"

She was cheerful to the last. But after he had left she sat motionless, except for an occasional shiver. From the music-stand came a Waldteufel waltz, with its ecstatic throb and its long, dreamy swing, its mingling of joy with foreboding of sadness. The tears streamed down her cheeks. "He's gone," she said miserably. She rose and went through the crowd, stumbling against people, making the homeward journey by instinct alone. She seemed to be walking in her sleep. She entered the shop—it was crowded with customers, and her father, her mother and August were bustling about behind the counters. "Here, tie this up," said her father, thrusting into her hands a sheet of wrapping paper on which were piled a chicken, some sausages, a bottle of olives and a can of cherries. She laid the paper on the counter and went on through the parlor and up the stairs to her plain, neat, little bedroom. She threw herself on the bed, face downward. She fell at once into a deep sleep. When she awoke it was beginning to dawn. She remembered and began to moan. "He's gone! He's gone! He's gone!" she repeated over and over again. And she lay there, sobbing and calling to him.

When she faced the family there were black circles around her eyes. They were the eyes of a woman grown, and they looked out upon the world with sorrow in them for the first time.



VII

LOVE IN SEVERAL ASPECTS

It was not long before the community was talking of the change in Hilda, the abrupt change to a gentle, serious, silent woman, the sparkle gone from her eyes, pathos there in its stead. But not even her own family knew her secret.

"When is Mr. Feuerstein coming again?" asked her father when a week had passed.

"I don't know just when. Soon," answered Hilda, in a tone which made it impossible for such a man as he to inquire further.

Sophie brought all her cunning to bear in her effort to get at the facts. But Hilda evaded her hints and avoided her traps. After much thinking she decided that Mr. Feuerstein had probably gone for good, that Hilda was hoping when there was nothing to hope for, and that her own affairs were suffering from the cessation of action. She was in the mood to entertain the basest suggestions her craft could put forward for making marriage between Hilda and Otto impossible. But she had not yet reached the stage at which overt acts are deliberately planned upon the surface of the mind.

One of her girl friends ran in to gossip with her late in the afternoon of the eighth day after Mr. Feuerstein's "parting scene" in Tompkins Square. The talk soon drifted to Hilda, whom the other girl did not like.

"I wonder what's become of that lover of hers—that tall fellow from up town?" asked Miss Hunneker.

"I don't know," replied Sophie in a strained, nervous manner. "I always hated to see Hilda go with him. No good ever comes of that sort of thing."

"I supposed she was going to marry him."

Sophie became very uneasy indeed. "It don't often turn out that way," she said in a voice that was evidently concealing something—apparently an ugly rent in the character of her friend.

Walpurga Hunneker opened her eyes wide. "You don't mean—" she exclaimed. And, as Sophie looked still more confused,

"Well, I THOUGHT so! Gracious! Her pride must have had a fall. No wonder she looks so disturbed."

"Poor Hilda!" said Sophie mournfully. Then she looked at Walpurga in a frightened way as if she had been betrayed into saying too much.

Walpurga spent a busy evening among her confidantes, with the result that the next day the neighborhood was agitated by gossip—insinuations that grew bolder and bolder, that had sprung from nowhere, but pointed to Hilda's sad face as proof of their truth. And on the third day they had reached Otto's mother. Not a detail was lacking—even the scene between Hilda and her father was one of the several startling climaxes of the tale. Mrs. Heilig had been bitterly resentful of Hilda's treatment of her son, and she accepted the story—it was in such perfect harmony with her expectations from the moment she heard of Mr. Feuerstein. In the evening, when he came home from the shop, she told him.

"There isn't a word of truth in it, mother," he said. "I don't care who told you, it's a lie."

"Your love makes you blind," answered the mother. "But I can see that her vanity has led her just where vanity always leads—to destruction."

"Who told you?" he demanded.

Mrs. Heilig gave him the names of several women. "It is known to all," she said.

His impulse was to rush out and trace down the lie to its author. But he soon realized the folly of such an attempt. He would only aggravate the gossip and the scandal, give the scandal-mongers a new chapter for their story. Yet he could not rest without doing something.

He went to Hilda—she had been most friendly toward him since the day he helped her with her lover. He asked her to walk with him in the Square. When they were alone, he began: "Hilda, you believe I'm your friend, don't you?"

She looked as if she feared he were about to reopen the old subject.

"No—I'm not going to worry you," he said in answer to the look. "I mean just friend."

"I know you are, Otto," she replied with tears in her eyes. "You are indeed my friend. I've counted on you ever since you—ever since that Sunday."

"Then you won't think wrong of me if I ask you a question? You'll know I wouldn't, if I didn't have a good reason, even though I can't explain?"

"Yes—what is it?"

"Hilda, is—is Mr. Feuerstein coming back?"

Hilda flushed. "Yes, Otto," she said. "I haven't spoken to any one about it, but I can trust you. He's had trouble and it has called him away. But he told me he'd come back." She looked at him appealingly. "You know that I love him, Otto. Some day you will like him, will see what a noble man he is."

"When is he coming back?"

"I didn't ask him. I knew he'd come as soon as he could. I wouldn't pry into his affairs."

"Then you don't know why he went or when he's coming?"

"I trust him, just as you'll want a girl to trust you some day when you love her."

As soon as he could leave her, he went up town, straight to the German Theater. In the box-office sat a young man with hair precisely parted in the middle and sleeked down in two whirls brought low on his forehead.

"I'd like to get Mr. Feuerstein's address," said Otto.

"That dead-beat?" the young man replied contemptuously. "I suppose he got into you like he did into every one else. Yes, you can have his address. And give him one for me when you catch him. He did me out of ten dollars."

Otto went on to the boarding-house in East Sixteenth Street. No, Mr. Feuerstein was not in and it was not known when he would return—he was very uncertain. Otto went to Stuyvesant Square and seated himself where he could see the stoop of the boarding-house. An hour, two hours, two hours and a half passed, and then his patient attitude changed abruptly to action. He saw the soft light hat and the yellow bush coming toward him. Mr. Feuerstein paled slightly as he recognized Otto.

"I'm not going to hurt you," said Otto in a tone which Mr. Feuerstein wished he had the physical strength to punish. "Sit down here—I've got something to say to you."

"I'm in a great hurry. Really, you'll have to come again."

But Otto's look won. Mr. Feuerstein hesitated, seated himself.

"I want to tell you," said Otto quietly, "that as the result of your going away so suddenly and not coming back a wicked lying story is going round about Hilda. She does not know it yet, but it won't be long before something will be said—maybe publicly. And it will break her heart."

"I can't discuss her with you," said Mr. Feuerstein. "Doubtless you mean well. I'm obliged to you for coming. I'll see." He rose.

"Is that all?" said Otto.

"What more can I say?"

"But what are you going to DO?"

"I don't see how I can prevent a lot of ignorant people from gossiping."

"Then you're not going straight down there? You're not going to do what a man'd do if he had the decency of a dog?"

"You are insulting! But because I believe you mean well, I shall tell you that it is impossible for me to go for several days at least. As soon as I honorably can, I shall come and the scandal will vanish like smoke."

Otto let him go. "I mustn't thrash him, and I can't compel him to be a man." He returned to the German Theater; he must learn all he could about this Feuerstein.

"Did you see him?" asked the ticket-seller.

"Yes, but I didn't get anything."

Otto looked so down that the ticket-seller was moved to pity, to generosity.

"Well, I'll give you a tip. Keep after him; keep your eye on him. He's got a rich father-in-law."

Otto leaned heavily on the sill of the little window. "Father-in-law?" A sickening suspicion peered into his mind.

"He was full the other night and he told one of our people he was married to a rich man's daughter."

"Was the name Brauner?" asked Otto.

"He didn't name any names. But—let me think—they say it's a daughter of a brewer, away up town. Yes, Ganser—I think that was the name."

"Oh!" Otto's face brightened. "Where is Ganser's place?" he asked.

"I don't know—look in the directory. But the tip is to wait a few days. He hasn't got hold of any of the old man's money yet—there's some hitch. There'll be plenty for all when it comes, so you needn't fret."

Otto went to the brewery, but Peter had gone home. Otto went on to the house and Peter came down to the brilliant parlor, where the battle of hostile shades and colors was raging with undiminished fury. In answer to Peter's look of inquiry, he said: "I came about your son-in-law, Mr. Feuerstein."

"Who are you? Who told you?" asked Peter, wilting into a chair.

"They told me at the theater."

Peter gave a sort of groan. "It's out!" he cried, throwing up his thick, short arms. "Everybody knows!"

Shrewd Otto saw the opening. "I don't think so," he replied, "at least not yet. He has a bad reputation—I see you know that already. But it's nothing to what he will have when it comes out that he's been trying to marry a young lady down town since he married your daughter."

"But it mustn't come out!" exclaimed Ganser. "I won't have it. This scandal has disgraced me enough."

"That's what I came to see you about," said Otto. "The young lady and her friends don't know about his marriage. It isn't necessary that any of them should know, except her. But she must be put on her guard. He might induce her to run away with him."

"Rindsvieh!" muttered Ganser, his hair and whiskers bristling. "Dreck!"

"I want to ask you, as a man and a father, to see that this young lady is warned. She'll be anxious enough to keep quiet. If you do, there won't be any scandal—at least not from there."

"I'll go down and warn her. Where is she? I'll speak to her father."

"And have him make a row? No, there's only one way. Send your daughter to her."

"But you don't know my daughter. She's a born—" Just in time Ganser remembered that he was talking to a stranger and talking about his daughter. "She wouldn't do it right," he finished.

"She can go in and see the young lady alone and come out without speaking to anybody else. I'll promise you there'll be no risk."

Ganser thought it over and decided to take Otto's advice. They discussed Mr. Feuerstein for several minutes, and when Otto left, Ganser followed him part of the way down the stoop, shaking hands with him. It was a profound pleasure to the brewer to be able to speak his mind on the subject of his son-in-law to an intelligent, appreciative person. He talked nothing else to his wife and Lena, but he had the feeling that he might as well talk aloud to himself.

After supper—the Gansers still had supper in the evening, their fashionable progress in that direction having reached only the stage at which dinner is called luncheon—he put Lena into the carriage and they drove to Avenue A. On the way he told her exactly what to say and do. He stayed in the carriage. "Be quick," he said, "and no foolishness!"

Lena, swelling and rustling with finery and homelier than before her troubles, little though they disturbed her, marched into the shop and up to the end counter, where Hilda was standing.

"You are Miss Hilda Brauner?" she said. "I want to see you alone."

Hilda looked her surprise but showed Lena into the living-room, which happened to be vacant. Lena could not begin, so intent was she upon examining her rival. "How plain she's dressed," she thought, "and how thin and black she is!" But it was in vain; she could not deceive her rising jealousy. It made her forget her father's instructions, forget that she was supposed to hate Feuerstein and was getting rid of him.

"I am Mrs. Carl Feuerstein," she cried, her face red and her voice shrill with anger and excitement. "And I want you to stop flirting with my husband!"

Hilda stood petrified. Lena caught sight of a photograph on the mantelpiece behind Hilda. She gave a scream of fury and darted for it. "How dare you!" she shrieked. "You impudent THING!" She snatched the frame, tore it away from the photograph and flung it upon the floor. As she gazed at that hair like a halo of light, at those romantic features and upturned eyes, she fell to crying and kissing them.

Hilda slowly turned and watched the spectacle—the swollen, pudgy face, tear-stained, silly, ugly, the tears and kisses falling upon the likeness of HER lover. She suddenly sprang at Lena, her face like a thunder-storm, her black brows straight and her great eyes flashing. "You lie!" she exclaimed. And she tore the photograph from Lena's hands and clasped it to her bosom.

Lena shrank in physical fear from this aroused lioness. "He's my husband," she whined. "You haven't got any right to his picture."

"You lie!" repeated Hilda, throwing back her head.

"It's the truth," said Lena, beginning to cry. "I swear to God it's so. You can ask pa if it ain't. He's Mr. Ganser, the brewer."

"Who sent you here to lie about him to me?"

"Oh, you needn't put on. You knew he was married. I don't wonder you're mad. He's MY husband, while he's only been making a fool of YOU. You haven't got any shame." Lena's eyes were on the photograph again and her jealousy over-balanced fear. She laughed tauntingly.

"Of course you're trying to brazen it out. Give me that picture! He's my husband!"

Just then Ganser appeared in the doorway—he did not trust his daughter and had followed her when he thought she was staying too long. At sight of him she began to weep again. "She won't believe me, pa," she said. "Look at her standing there hugging his picture."

Ganser scowled at his daughter and addressed himself to Hilda, "It's true, Miss," he said. "The man is a scoundrel. I sent my daughter to warn you."

Hilda looked at him haughtily. "I don't know you," she said, "and I do know him. I don't know why you've come here to slander him. But I do know that I'd trust him against the whole world." She glanced from father to daughter. "You haven't done him any harm and you might as well go."

Peter eyed her in disgust. "You're as big a fool as my Lena," he said. "Come on, Lena."

As Lena was leaving the room, she gave Hilda a malignant glance. "He's MY husband," she said spitefully, "and you're—well, I wouldn't want to say what you are."

"Move!" shouted Ganser, pushing her out of the room. His parting shot at Hilda was: "Ask him."

Hilda, still holding the photograph, stared at the doorway through which they had disappeared. "You lie!" she repeated, as if they were still there. Then again, a little catch in her voice: "You lie!" And after a longer interval, a third time, with a sob in her throat: "You lie! I know you lie!" She sat at the table and held the photograph before her. She kissed it passionately, gazed long at it, seeing in those bold handsome features all that her heart's love believed of him.

Suddenly she started up, went rapidly down the side hall and out into the street. Battling with her doubts, denouncing herself as disloyal to him, she hurried up the Avenue and across the Square and on until she came to his lodgings. When she asked for him the maid opened the parlor door and called through the crack: "Mr. Feuerstein, a lady wants to see you."

As the maid disappeared down the basement stairs, Mr. Feuerstein appeared. At sight of her he started back. "Hilda!" he exclaimed theatrically, and frowned.

"Don't be angry with me," she said humbly. "I wouldn't have come, only—"

"You must go at once!" His tone was abrupt, irritated.

"Yes—I will. I just wanted to warn you—" She raised her eyes appealingly toward his face. "Two people came to see me to-night—Mr. Ganser and his daughter—"

Feuerstein fell back a step and she saw that he was shaking and that his face had become greenish white. "It's false!" he blustered. "False as hell!—"

And she knew that it was true.

She continued to look at him and he did not try to meet her eyes. "What did they tell you?" he said, after a long pause, remembering that he had denied before a charge had been made.

She was looking away from him now. She seemed not to have heard him. "I must go," she murmured, and began slowly to descend the stoop.

He followed her, laid his hand upon her arm. "Hilda!" he pleaded. "Let me explain!"

"Don't touch me!" She snatched her arm away from him. She ran down the rest of the steps and fled along the street. She kept close to the shadow of the houses. She went through Avenue A with hanging head, feeling that the eyes of all were upon her, condemning, scorning. She hid herself in her little room, locking the door. Down beside the bed she sank and buried her face in the covers. And there she lay, racked with the pain of her gaping wounds—wounds to love, to trust, to pride, to self-respect. "Oh, God, let me die," she moaned. "I can't ever look anybody in the face again."



VIII

A SHEEP WIELDS THE SHEARS

A few days later Peter Ganser appeared before Beck, triumph flaunting from his stupid features. Beck instantly scented bad news.

"Stop the case," said Peter with a vulgar insolence that grated upon the lawyer. "It's no good."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ganser. I don't follow you."

"But I follow myself. Stop the case. I pay you off now."

"You can't deal with courts as you can with your employees, Mr. Ganser. There are legal forms to be gone through. Of course, if you're reconciled to your son-in-law, why—"

Peter laughed. "Son-in-law! That scoundrel—he's a bigamist. I got the proofs from Germany this morning."

Beck became blue round the edges of his mouth and his eyes snapped. "So you've been taking steps in this case without consulting me, Mr. Ganser?"

"I don't trust lawyers. Anyway, what I hire you for? To try my case. It's none of your business what I do outside. I pay you off, and I don't pay for any dirty works I don't get." He had wrought himself into a fury. Experience had taught him that that was the best mood in which to conduct an argument about money.

"We'll send you your bill," said Beck, in a huge, calm rage against this dull man who had outwitted him. "If you wish to make a scene, will you kindly go elsewhere?"

"I want to pay you off—right away quick. I think you and Loeb in cahoots. My detective, he says you both must have known about Feuerstein. He says you two were partners and knew his record. I'll expose you, if you don't settle now. Give me my bill."

"It is impossible." Beck's tone was mild and persuasive. "All the items are not in."

Ganser took out a roll of notes. "I pay you five hundred dollars. Take it or fight. I want a full receipt. I discharge you now."

"My dear sir, we do not give our services for any such sum as that."

"Yes you do. And you don't get a cent more. If I go out of here without my full receipt, I fight. I expose you, you swindler."

Peter was shouting at the top of his lusty lungs. Beck wrote a receipt and handed it to him. Peter read it and handed it back. "I'm not as big a fool as I look," he said. "That ain't a full receipt."

Beck wrote again. "Anything to get you out of the office," he said, as he tossed the five hundred dollars into a drawer. "And when your family gets you into trouble again—"

Peter snorted. "Shut up!" he shouted, banging his fist on the desk. "And don't you tell the papers. If anything come out, I expose you. My lawyer, Mr. Windisch, say he can have you put out of court." And Peter bustled and slammed his way out.

Beck telephoned Loeb, and they took lunch together. "Ganser has found out about Feuerstein's wife," was Beck's opening remark.

Loeb drew his lip back over his teeth.

"I wish I'd known it two hours sooner. I let Feuerstein have ten dollars more."

"More?"

"More. He's had ninety-five on account. I relied on you to handle the brewer."

"And we're out our expenses in getting ready for trial."

"Well—you'll send Ganser a heavy bill."

Beck shook his head dismally. "That's the worst of it. He called me a swindler, said he'd show that you and I were in a conspiracy, and dared me to send him a bill. And in the circumstances I don't think I will."

Loeb gave Beck a long and searching look which Beck bore without flinching.

"No, I don't think you will send him a bill," said Loeb slowly. "But how much did he pay you?"

"Not a cent—nothing but insults."

Loeb finished his luncheon in silence. But he and Beck separated on the friendliest terms. Loeb was too practical a philosopher to hate another man for doing that which he would have done himself if he had had the chance. At his office he told a clerk to send Feuerstein a note, asking him to call the next morning. When Feuerstein came into the anteroom the gimlet-eyed office boy disappeared through one of the doors in the partition and reappeared after a longer absence than usual. He looked at Feuerstein with a cynical, contemptuous smile in his eyes.

"Mr. Loeb asks me to tell you," he said, "with his compliments, that you are a bigamist and a swindler, and that if you ever show your face here again he'll have you locked up."

Feuerstein staggered and paled—there was no staginess in his manner. Then without a word he slunk away. He had not gone far up Center Street before a hand was laid upon his shoulder from behind. He stopped as if he had been shot; he shivered; he slowly, and with a look of fascinated horror, turned to see whose hand had arrested him.

He was looking into the laughing face of a man who was obviously a detective.

"You don't seem glad to see me, old boy," said the detective with contemptuous familiarity.

"I don't know you, sir." Feuerstein made a miserable attempt at haughtiness.

"Of course you don't. But I know YOU—all about you. Come in here and let's sit down a minute."

They went into a saloon and the detective ordered two glasses of beer. "Now listen to me, young fellow," he said.

"You're played out in this town. You've got to get a move on you, see? We've been looking you up, and you're wanted for bigamy. But if you clear out, you won't be followed. You've got to leave today, understand? If you're here to-morrow morning, up the road you go." The detective winked and waggled his thumb meaningly in a northerly direction.

Feuerstein was utterly crushed. He gulped down the beer and sat wiping the sweat from his face. "I have done nothing," he protested in tragic tones. "Why am I persecuted—I, poor, friendless, helpless?"

"Pity about you," said the detective.

"You'd better go west and start again. Why not try honest work? It's not so bad, they say, once you get broke in." He rose and shook hands with Feuerstein. "So long," he said. "Good luck! Don't forget!" And again he winked and waggled his thumb in the direction of the penitentiary.

Feuerstein went to his lodgings, put on all the clothes he could wear without danger of attracting his landlady's attention, filled his pockets and the crown of his hat with small articles, and fled to Hoboken.



IX

AN IDYL OF PLAIN PEOPLE

Hilda had not spent her nineteen years in the glare of the Spartan publicity in which the masses live without establishing a character. Just as she knew all the good points and bad in all the people of that community, so they knew all hers, and therefore knew what it was possible for her to do and what impossible. And if a baseless lie is swift of foot where everybody minutely scrutinizes everybody else, it is also scant of breath. Sophie's scandal soon dwindled to a whisper and expired, and the kindlier and probable explanation of Hilda's wan face and downcast eyes was generally accepted.

Her code of morals and her method of dealing with moral questions were those of all the people about her—strict, severe, primitive. Feuerstein was a cheat, a traitor. She cast him out of her heart—cast him out at once and utterly and for ever. She could think of him only with shame. And it seemed to her that she was herself no longer pure—she had touched pitch; how could she be undefiled?

She accepted these conclusions and went about her work, too busy to indulge in hysteria of remorse, repining, self-examination.

She avoided Otto, taking care not to be left alone with him when he called on Sundays, and putting Sophie between him and her when he came up to them in the Square. But Otto was awaiting his chance, and when it came, plunged boldly into his heart-subject and floundered bravely about. "I don't like to see you so sad, Hilda. Isn't there any chance for me? Can't things be as they used to be?"

Hilda shook her head sadly. "I'm never going to marry," she said. "You must find some one else."

"It's you or nobody. I said that when we were in school together and—I'll stick to it." His eyes confirmed his words.

"You mustn't, Otto. You make me feel as if I were spoiling your life. And if you knew, you wouldn't want to marry me."

"I don't care. I always have, and I always will."

"I suppose I ought to tell you," she said, half to herself. She turned to him suddenly, and, with flushed cheeks and eyes that shifted, burst out: "Otto, he was a married man!"

"But you didn't know."

"It doesn't change the way I feel. You might—any man might—throw it up to me. And sooner or later, everybody'll know. No man would want a girl that had had a scandal like that on her."

"I would," he said, "and I do. And it isn't a scandal."

Some one joined them and he had no chance to continue until the following Sunday, when Heiligs and Brauners went together to the Bronx for a half-holiday. They could not set out until their shops closed, at half-past twelve, and they had to be back at five to reopen for the Sunday supper customers. They lunched under the trees in the yard of a German inn, and a merry party they were.

Hilda forgot to keep up her pretense that her healing wounds were not healing and never would heal. She teased Otto and even flirted with him. This elevated her father and his mother to hilarity. They were two very sensible young-old people, with a keen sense of humor—the experience of age added to the simplicity and gaiety of youth.

You would have paused to admire and envy had you passed that way and looked in under the trees, as they clinked glasses and called one to another and went off into gales of mirth over nothing at all. What laughter is so gay as laughter at nothing at all? Any one must laugh when there is something to laugh at; but to laugh just because one must have an outlet for bubbling spirits there's the test of happiness!

After luncheon they wandered into the woods and soon Otto and Hilda found themselves alone, seated by a little waterfall, which in a quiet, sentimental voice suggested that low tones were the proper tones to use in that place.

"We've known each other always, Hilda," said Otto. "And we know all about each other. Why not—dear?"

She did not speak for several minutes.

"You know I haven't any heart to give you," she answered at last.

Otto did not know anything of the kind, but he knew she thought so, and he was too intelligent to dispute, when time would settle the question—and, he felt sure, would settle it right. So he reached out and took her hand and said: "I'll risk that."

And they sat watching the waterfall and listening to it, and they were happy in a serious, tranquil way. It filled him with awe to think that he had at last won her. As for her, she was looking forward, without illusions, without regrets, to a life of work and content beside this strong, loyal, manly man who protested little, but never failed her or any one else.

On the way home in the train she told her mother, and her mother told her father. He, then and there, to the great delight and pleasure of the others in the car, rose up and embraced and kissed first his daughter, then Otto and then Otto's mother. And every once in a while he beamed down the line of his party and said: "This is a happy day!"

And he made them all come into the sitting-room back of the shop. "Wait here," he commanded. "No one must move!"

He went down to the cellar, presently to reappear with a dusty bottle of Johannisberger Cabinet. He pointed proudly to the seal. "Bronze!" he exclaimed. "It is wine like gold. It must be drunk slowly." He drew the cork and poured the wine with great ceremony, and they all drank with much touching of glasses and bowing and exchanging of good wishes, now in German, now in English, again in both. And the last toast, the one drunk with the greatest enthusiasm, was Brauner's favorite famous "Arbeit und Liebe und Heim!"

From that time forth Hilda began to look at Otto from a different point of view. And everything depends on point of view.

Then—the house in which Schwartz and Heilig had their shop was burned. And when their safe was drawn from the ruins, they found that their insurance had expired four days before the fire. It was Schwartz's business to look after the insurance, but Otto had never before failed to oversee. His mind had been in such confusion that he had forgotten.

He stared at the papers, stunned by the disaster. Schwartz wrung his hands and burst into tears. "I saw that you were in trouble," he wailed, "and that upset me. It's my fault. I've ruined us both."

There was nothing left of their business or capital, nothing but seven hundred dollars in debts to the importers of whom they bought.

Heilig shook off his stupor after a few minutes. "No matter," he said. "What's past is past."

He went straightway over to Second Avenue to the shop of Geishener, the largest delicatessen dealer in New York.

"I've been burned out," he explained. "I must get something to do."

Geishener offered him a place at eleven dollars a week. "I'll begin in the morning," said Otto. Then he went to Paul Brauner.

"When will you open up again?" asked Brauner.

"Not for a long time, several years. Everything's gone and I've taken a place with Geishener. I came to say that—that I can't marry your daughter."

Brauner did not know what answer to make. He liked Otto and had confidence in him. But the masses of the people build their little fortunes as coral insects build their islands. And Hilda was getting along—why, she would be twenty in four months. "I don't know. I don't know." Brauner rubbed his head in embarrassment and perplexity. "It's bad—very bad. And everything was running so smoothly."

Hilda came in. Both men looked at her guiltily. "What is it?" she asked. And if they had not been mere men they would have noticed a change in her face, a great change, very wonderful and beautiful to see.

"I came to release you," said Otto.

"I've got nothing left—and a lot of debts. I—"

"Yes—I know," interrupted Hilda. She went up to him and put her arm round his neck. "We'll have to begin at the bottom," she said with a gentle, cheerful smile.

Brauner pretended that he heard some one calling him from the shop. "Yes right away!" he shouted. And when he was alone in the shop he wiped his eyes, not before a large tear had blistered the top sheet of a pile of wrapping paper.

"I know you don't care for me as—as"—Otto was standing uneasily, his eyes down and his face red. "It was hard enough for you before. Now—I couldn't let you do it—dear."

"You can't get rid of me so easily," she said. "I know I'm getting along and I won't be an old maid."

He paid no attention to her raillery. "I haven't got anything to ask you to share," he went on. "I've been working ever since I was eleven—and that's fourteen years—to get what I had. And it's all gone. It'll take several years to pay off my debts, and mother must be supported. No—I've got to give it up."

"Won't you marry me, Otto?" She put her arms round his neck.

His lips trembled and his voice broke. "I can't—let you do it, Hilda."

"Very well." She pretended to sigh.

"But you must come back this evening. I want to ask you again."

"Yes, I'll come. But you can't change me."

He went, and she sat at the table, with her elbows on it and her face between her hands, until her father came in. Then she said: "We're going to be married next week. And I want two thousand dollars. We'll give you our note."

Brauner rubbed his face violently.

"We're going to start a delicatessen," she continued, "in the empty store where Bischoff was. It'll take two thousand dollars to start right."

"That's a good deal of money," objected her father.

"You only get three and a half per cent. in the savings bank," replied Hilda. "We'll give you six. You know it'll be safe—Otto and I together can't fail to do well."

Brauner reflected. "You can have the money," he said.

She went up the Avenue humming softly one of Heine's love songs, still with that wonderful, beautiful look in her eyes. She stopped at the tenement with the vacant store. The owner, old man Schulte, was sweeping the sidewalk. He had an income of fifteen thousand a year; but he held that he needed exercise, that sweeping was good exercise, and that it was stupid for a man, simply because he was rich, to stop taking exercise or to take it only in some form which had no useful side.

"Good morning," said Hilda. "What rent do you ask for this store?"

"Sixty dollars a month," answered the old man, continuing his sweeping. "Taxes are up, but rents are down."

"Not with you, I guess. Otto Heilig and I are going to get married and open a delicatessen. But sixty dollars a month is too much. Good morning." And she went on.

Schulte leaned on his broom. "What's your hurry?" he called. "You can't get as good a location as this."

Hilda turned, but seemed to be listening from politeness rather than from interest.

"We can't pay more than forty," she answered, starting on her way again.

"I might let you have it for fifty," Schulte called after her, "if you didn't want any fixing up."

"It'd have to be fixed up," said Hilda, halting again. "But I don't care much for the neighborhood. There are too many delicatessens here now."

She went on more rapidly and the old man resumed his sweeping, muttering crossly into his long, white beard. As she came down the other side of the street half an hour later, she was watching Schulte from the corner of her eye. He was leaning on his broom, watching her. Seeing that she was going to pass without stopping he called to her and went slowly across the street. "You would make good tenants," he said. "I had to sue Bischoff. You can have it for forty—if you'll pay for the changes you want—you really won't want any."

"I was looking at it early this morning," replied Hilda. "There'll have to be at least two hundred dollars spent. But then I've my eye on another place."

"Forty's no rent at all," grumbled the old man, pulling at his whiskers.

"I can get a store round in Seventh Street for thirty-five and that includes three rooms at the back. You've got only one room at the back."

"There's a kitchen, too," said Schulte.

"A kitchen? Oh, you mean that closet."

"I'll let you have it for forty, with fifty the second year."

"No, forty for two years. We can't pay more. We're just starting, and expenses must be kept down."

"Well, forty then. You are nice people—hard workers. I want to see you get on." The philanthropic old man returned to his sweeping. "Always the way, dealing with a woman," he growled into his beard. "They don't know the value of anything. Well, I'll get my money anyway, and that's a point."

She spent the day shopping and by half-past five had her arrangements almost completed. And she told every one about the coming marriage and the new shop and asked them to spread the news.

"We'll be open for business next Saturday a week," she said. "Give us a trial."

By nightfall Otto was receiving congratulations. He protested, denied, but people only smiled and winked. "You're not so sly as you think," they said. "No doubt she promised to keep it quiet, but you know how it is with a woman."

When he called at Brauner's at seven he was timid about going in. "They've heard the story," he said to himself, "and they must think I went crazy and told it."

She had been bold enough all day, but she was shy, now that the time had come to face him and confess—she had been a little shy with him underneath ever since she had suddenly awakened to the fact that he was a real hero—in spite of his keeping a shop just like everybody else and making no pretenses. He listened without a word.

"You can't back out now," she ended.

Still he was silent. "Are you angry at me?" she asked timidly.

He could not speak. He put his arms round her and pressed his face into her waving black hair. "MY Hilda," he said in a low voice. And she felt his blood beating very fast, and she understood.

"Arbeit und Liebe und Heim," she quoted slowly and softly.



X

MR. FEUERSTEIN IS CONSISTENT

The next day Mr. Feuerstein returned from exile. It is always disillusioning to inspect the unheroic details of the life of that favorite figure with romancers—the soldier of fortune. Of Mr. Feuerstein's six weeks in Hoboken it is enough to say that they were weeks of storm and stress—wretched lodgments in low boarding-houses, odd jobs at giving recitations in beer halls, undignified ejectments for drunkenness and failure to pay, borrowings which were removed from frank street-begging only in his imagination. He sank very low indeed, but it must be recorded to the credit of his consistency that he never even contemplated the idea of working for a living. And now here he was, back in New York, with Hoboken an exhausted field, with no resources, no hopes, no future that his brandy-soaked brain could discern.

His mane was still golden and bushy; but it was ragged and too long in front of the ears and also on his neck. His face still expressed insolence and vanity; but it had a certain tragic bitterness, as if it were trying to portray the emotions of a lofty spirit flinging defiance at destiny from a slough of despair. It was plain that he had been drinking heavily—the whites of his eyes were yellow and bloodshot, the muscles of his eyelids and mouth twitched disagreeably. His romantic hat and collar and graceful suit could endure with good countenance only the most casual glance of the eye.

Mr. Feuerstein had come to New York to perform a carefully-planned last act in his life-drama, one that would send the curtain down amid tears and plaudits for Mr. Feuerstein, the central figure, enwrapped in a somber and baleful blaze of glory. He had arranged everything except such details as must be left to the inspiration of the moment. He was impatient for the curtain to rise—besides, he had empty pockets and might be prevented from his climax by a vulgar arrest for vagrancy.

At one o'clock Hilda was in her father's shop alone. The rest of the family were at the midday dinner. As she bent over the counter, near the door, she was filling a sheet of wrapping paper with figures—calculations in connection with the new business. A shadow fell across her paper and she looked up. She shrank and clasped her hands tightly against her bosom. "Mr. Feuerstein!" she exclaimed in a low, agitated voice.

He stood silent, his face ghastly as if he were very ill. His eyes, sunk deep in blue-black sockets, burned into hers with an intensity that terrified her. She began slowly to retreat.

"Do not fly from me," he said in a hollow voice, leaning against the counter weakly. "I have come only for a moment. Then—you will see me never again!"

She paused and watched him. His expression, his tone, his words filled her with pity for him.

"You hate me," he went on. "You abhor me. It is just—just! Yet"—he looked at her with passionate sadness—"it was because I loved you that I deceived you. Because—I—loved you!"

"You must go away," said Hilda, pleading rather than commanding. "You've done me enough harm."

"I shall harm you no more." He drew himself up in gloomy majesty. "I have finished my life. I am bowing my farewell. Another instant, and I shall vanish into the everlasting night."

"That would be cowardly!" exclaimed Hilda. She was profoundly moved. "You have plenty to live for."

"Do you forgive me, Hilda?" He gave her one of his looks of tragic eloquence.

"Yes—I forgive you."

He misunderstood the gentleness of her voice. "She loves me still!" he said to himself. "We shall die together and our names will echo down the ages." He looked burningly at her and said: "I was mad—mad with love for you. And when I realized that I had lost you, I went down, down, down. God! What have I not suffered for your sake, Hilda!" As he talked he convinced himself, pictured himself to himself as having been drawn on by a passion such as had ruined many others of the great of earth.

"That's all past now." She spoke impatiently, irritated against herself because she was not hating him. "I don't care to hear any more of that kind of talk."

A customer came in, and while Hilda was busy Mr. Feuerstein went to the rear counter. On a chopping block lay a knife with a long, thin blade, ground to a fine edge and a sharp point. He began to play with it, and presently, with a sly, almost insane glance to assure himself that she was not seeing, slipped it into the right outside pocket of his coat. The customer left and he returned to the front of the shop and stood with just the breadth of the end of the narrow counter between him and her.

"It's all over for me," he began. "Your love has failed me. There is nothing left. I shall fling myself through the gates of death. I shall be forgotten. And you will live on and laugh and not remember that you ever had such love as mine."

Another customer entered. Mr. Feuerstein again went to the rear of the space outside the counters. "She loves me. She will gladly die with me," he muttered. "First into HER heart, then into mine, and we shall be at peace, dead, as lovers and heroes die!"

When they were again alone, he advanced and began to edge round the end of the counter. She was no longer looking at him, did not note his excitement, was thinking only of how to induce him to go. "Hilda," he said, "I have one last request—a dying man's request—"

The counter was no longer between them. He was within three feet of her. His right hand was in his coat pocket, grasping the knife. His eyes began to blaze and he nerved himself to seize her—

Both heard her father's voice in the hall leading to the sitting-room. "You must go," she cried, hastily retreating.

"Hilda," he pleaded rapidly, "there is something I must say to you. I can not say it here. Come over to Meinert's as soon as you can. I shall be in the sitting-room. Just for a moment, Hilda. It might save my life. If not that, it certainly would make my death happier."

Brauner was advancing into the shop and his lowering face warned Mr. Feuerstein not to linger. With a last, appealing look at Hilda he departed.

"What was HE doing here?" growled Brauner.

"He'd just come in," answered Hilda absently. "He won't bother us any more."

"If he comes again, don't speak to him," said Brauner in the commanding voice that sounded so fierce and meant so little. "Just call me or August."

Hilda could not thrust him out of her mind. His looks, his tones, his dramatic melancholy saddened her; and his last words rang in her ears. She no longer loved him; but she HAD loved him. She could not think of him as a stranger and an enemy—there might be truth in his plea that he had in some mysterious way fallen through love for her. She might be able to save him.

Almost mechanically she left the shop, went to Sixth Street and to the "family entrance" of Meinert's beer-garden. She went into the little anteroom and, with her hand on the swinging door leading to the sitting-room, paused like one waking from a dream.

"I must be crazy," she said half aloud. "He's a scoundrel and no good can come of my seeing him. What would Otto think of me? What am I doing here?" And she hastened away, hoping that no one had seen her.

Mr. Feuerstein was seated at a table a few feet from where she had paused and turned back. He had come in half an hour before and had ordered and drunk three glasses of cheap, fiery brandy. As the moments passed his mood grew wilder and more somber. "She has failed me!" he exclaimed. He called for pen, ink and paper. He wrote rapidly and, when he had finished, declaimed his production, punctuating the sentences with looks and gestures. His voice gradually broke, and he uttered the last words with sobs and with the tears streaming down his cheeks. He signed his name with a flourish, added a postscript. He took a stamped envelope from his pocket, sealed the letter, addressed it and laid it before him on the table. "The presence of death inspired me," he said, looking at his production with tragic pride. And he called for another drink.

When the waiter brought it, he lifted it high and, standing up, bowed as if some one were opposite him at the table. "I drink to you, Death!" he said. The waiter stared in open-mouthed astonishment, and with a muttered, "He's luny!" backed from the room.

He sat again and drew the knife from his pocket and slid his finger along the edge. "The key to my sleeping-room," he muttered, half imagining that a vast audience was watching with bated breath.

The waiter entered and he hid the knife.

"Away!" he exclaimed, frowning heavily. "I wish to be alone."

"Mr. Meinert says you must pay," said the waiter. "Four drinks—sixty cents."

Mr. Feuerstein laughed sardonically.

"Pay! Ha—ha! Always pay! Another drink, wretch, and I shall pay for all—for all!" He laughed, with much shaking of the shoulders and rolling of the eyes.

When the waiter had disappeared he muttered: "I can wait no longer." He took the knife, held it at arm's length, blade down. He turned his head to the left and closed his eyes. Then with a sudden tremendous drive he sent the long, narrow blade deep into his neck. The blood spurted out, his breath escaped from between his lips with long, shuddering, subsiding hisses. His body stiffened, collapsed, rolled to the floor.

Mr. Feuerstein was dead—with empty pockets and the drinks unpaid for.



XI

MR. FEUERSTEIN'S CLIMAX

When Otto came to see Hilda that evening she was guiltily effusive in her greeting and made up her mind that, as soon as they were alone, she must tell him what she had all but done. But first there was the game of pinochle which Otto must lose to her father. As they sat at their game she was at the zither-table, dreamily playing May Breezes as she watched Otto and thought how much more comfortable she was in his strong, loyal love than in the unnatural strain of Mr. Feuerstein's ecstasies. "'Work and love and home,'" she murmured, in time to her music. "Yes, father is right. They ARE the best."

August came in and said: "Hilda, here are two men who want to see you."

As he spoke, he was pushed aside and she, her father and Otto sat staring at the two callers. They were obviously detectives—"plain clothes men" from the Fifth-Street Station House. There could be no chance of mistake about those police mustaches and jaws, those wide, square-toed, police shoes.

"My name is Casey and this is my side-partner, Mr. O'Rourke," said the shorter and fatter of the two as they seated themselves without waiting to be asked. Casey took off his hat; O'Rourke's hand hesitated at the brim, then drew his hat more firmly down upon his forehead. "Sorry to break in on your little party," Casey went on, "but the Cap'n sent us to ask the young lady a few questions."

Hilda grew pale and her father and Otto looked frightened.

"Do you know an actor named Feuerstein?" asked Casey.

Hilda trembled. She could not speak. She nodded assent.

"Did you see him to-day?"

"Yes," almost whispered Hilda.

Casey looked triumphantly at O'Rourke. Otto half rose, then sank back again. "Where did you see him?" asked Casey.

"Here."

"Where else?"

Hilda nervously laced and unlaced her fingers. "Only here," she answered after a pause.

"Ah, yes you did. Come now, lady. Speak the truth. You saw him at Meinert's."

Hilda started violently. The detectives exchanged significant glances. "No," she protested. "I saw him only here."

"Were you out of the store this afternoon?"

A long pause, then a faint "Yes."

"Where did you go?" Casey added.

The blood flew to Hilda's face, then left it. "To Meinert's," she answered. "But only as far as the door."

"Oh!" said Casey sarcastically, and O'Rourke laughed. "It's no use to hold back, lady," continued Casey. "We know all about your movements. You went in Meinert's—in at the family entrance."

"Yes," replied Hilda. She was shaking as if she were having a chill. "But just to the door, then home again."

"Now, that won't do," said Casey roughly. "You'd better tell the whole story."

"Tell them all about it, Hilda," interposed her father in an agonized tone.

"Don't hold back anything."

"Oh—father—Otto—it was nothing. I didn't go in. He—Mr. Feuerstein—came here, and he looked so sick, and he begged me to come over to Meinert's for a minute. He said he had something to say to me. And then I went. But at the door I got to thinking about all he'd done, and I wouldn't go in. I just came back home."

"What was it that he had done, lady?" asked O'Rourke.

"I won't tell," Hilda flashed out, and she started up. "It's nobody's business. Why do you ask me all these questions? I won't answer any more."

"Now, now, lady," said Casey. "Just keep cool. When you went, what did you take a knife from the counter for?"

"A knife!" Hilda gasped, and she would have fallen to the floor had not Otto caught her.

"That settles it!" said Casey, in an undertone to O'Rourke. "She's it, all right. I guess she's told us enough?"

O'Rourke nodded. "The Cap'n'll get the rest out of her when he puts her through the third degree."

They rose and Casey said, with the roughness of one who is afraid of his inward impulses to gentleness: "Come, lady, get on your things. You're going along with us."

"No! No!" she cried in terror, flinging herself into her father's arms.

Brauner blazed up. "What do you mean?" he demanded, facing the detectives.

"You'll find out soon enough," said Casey in a blustering tone. "The less fuss you make, the better it'll be for you. She's got to go, and that's all there is to it."

"This is an outrage," interrupted Otto, rushing between Hilda and the detectives.

"You daren't take her without telling her why. You can't treat us like dogs."

"Drop it!" said Casey contemptuously. "Drop it, Dutchy. I guess we know what we're about."

"Yes—and I know what I'm about," exclaimed Otto. "Do you know Riordan, the district leader here? Well, he's a friend of mine. If we haven't got any rights you police are bound to respect, thank God, we've got a 'pull'."

"That's a bluff," said Casey, but his tone was less insolent. "Well, if you must know, she's wanted for the murder of Carl Feuerstein."

Hilda flung her arms high above her head and sank into a chair and buried her face. "It's a dream!" she moaned. "Wake me—wake me!"

Otto and Brauner looked each at the other in horror. "Murder!" whispered Brauner hoarsely. "My Hilda—murder!"

Otto went to Hilda and put his arms about her tightly and kissed her.

"She's got to come," said Casey angrily. "Now, will she go quietly or shall I call the wagon?"

This threat threw them into a panic. "You'd better go," said Otto in an undertone to Hilda. "Don't be frightened, dear. You're innocent and they can't prove you guilty. You're not poor and friendless."

At the pressure of his arms Hilda lifted her face, her eyes shining at him through her tears. And her heart went out to him as never before. From that moment it was his, all his. "My love, my dear love," she said. She went to the closet and took out her hat. She put it on before the mirror over the mantelpiece. "I'm ready," she said quietly.

In the street, she walked beside Casey; her father and Otto were close behind with O'Rourke. They turned into Sixth Street. Half a block down, in front of Meinert's, a crowd was surging, was filling sidewalk and street. When they came to the edge of it, Casey suddenly said "In here" and took her by the arm. All went down a long and winding passage, across an open court to a back door where a policeman in uniform was on guard.

"Did you get her, Mike?" said the policeman to Casey.

"Here she is," replied Casey. "She didn't give no trouble."

The policeman opened the door. He let Casey, Hilda and O'Rourke pass. He thrust back Brauner and Otto. "No, you don't," he said.

"Let us in!" commanded Otto, beside himself with rage.

"Not much! Get back!" He had closed the door and was standing between it and them, one hand meaningly upon the handle of his sheathed club.

"I am her father," half-pleaded, half-protested Brauner.

"Cap'n's orders," said the policeman in a gentler voice. "The best thing you can do is to go to the station house and wait there. You won't get to see her here."

Meanwhile Casey, still holding Hilda by the arm, was guiding her along a dark hall. When they touched a door he threw it open. He pushed her roughly into the room. For a few seconds the sudden blaze of light blinded her. Then—

Before her, stretched upon a table, was—Mr. Feuerstein. She shrank back and gazed at him with wide, fascinated eyes. His face was turned toward her, his eyes half-open; he seemed to be regarding her with a glassy, hateful stare—the "curse in a dead man's eye." His chin was fallen back and down, and his lips exposed his teeth in a hideous grin. And then she saw— Sticking upright from his throat was a knife, the knife from their counter. It seemed to her to be trembling as if still agitated from the hand that had fiercely struck out his life.

"My God!" moaned Hilda, sinking down to the floor and hiding her face.

As she crouched there, Casey said cheerfully to Captain Hanlon, "You see she's guilty all right, Cap'n."

Hanlon took his cigar from between his teeth and nodded. At this a man sitting near him burst out laughing. Hanlon scowled at him.

The man—Doctor Wharton, a deputy coroner—laughed again. "I suppose you think she acts guilty," he said to Hanlon.

"Any fool could see that," retorted Hanlon.

"Any fool would see it, you'd better say," said Doctor Wharton. "No matter how she took it, you fellows would wag your heads and say 'Guilty.'"

Hanlon looked uneasily at Hilda, fearing she would draw encouragement from Wharton's words. But Hilda was still moaning. "Lift her up and set her in a chair," he said to Casey.

Hilda recovered herself somewhat and sat before the captain, her eyes down, her fluttering hands loose in her lap. "What was the trouble between you and him?" Hanlon asked her presently in a not unkindly tone.

"Must I tell?" pleaded Hilda, looking piteously at the captain. "I don't know anything about this except that he came into our store and told me he was going to—to—"

She looked at Feuerstein's dead face and shivered. And as she looked, memories flooded her, drowning resentment and fear. She rose, went slowly up to him; she laid her hand softly upon his brow, pushed back his long, yellow hair. The touch of her fingers seemed to smooth the wild, horrible look from his features. As she gazed down at him the tears welled into her eyes. "I won't talk against him," she said simply. "He's dead—it's all over and past."

"She ought to go on the stage," growled Casey.

But Wharton said in an unsteady voice, "That's right, Miss. They can't force you to talk. Don't say a word until you get a lawyer."

Hanlon gave him a furious look. "Don't you meddle in this," he said threateningly.

Wharton laughed. "The man killed himself," he replied. "I can tell by the slant of the wound. And I don't propose to stand by and see you giving your third degree to this little girl."

"We've got the proof, I tell you," said Hanlon. "We've got a witness who saw her do it—or at least saw her here when she says she wasn't here."

Wharton shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't say a word," he said to Hilda. "Get a lawyer."

"I don't want a lawyer," she answered.

"I'm not guilty. Why should I get a lawyer?"

"Well, at any rate, do all your talking in court. These fellows will twist everything you say."

"Take her to the station house," interrupted Hanlon.

"But I'm innocent," said Hilda, clasping her hands on her heart and looking appealingly at the captain.

"Take her along, Casey."

Casey laid hold of her arm, but she shook him off. They went through the sitting-room of the saloon and out at the side door. When Hilda saw the great crowd she covered her face with her hands and shrank back. "There she is! There she is! They're taking her to the station house!" shouted the crowd.

Casey closed the door. "We'll have to get the wagon," he said.

They sat waiting until the patrol wagon came. Then Hilda, half-carried by Casey, crossed the sidewalk through a double line of blue coats who fought back the frantically curious, pushed on by those behind. In the wagon she revived and by the time they reached the station house, seemed calm. Another great crowd was pressing in; she heard cries of "There's the girl that killed him!" She drew herself up haughtily, looked round with defiance, with indignation.

Her father and Otto rushed forward as soon as she entered the doors. She broke down again. "Take me home! Take me home!" she sobbed. "I've not done anything." The men forgot that they had promised each the other to be calm, and cursed and cried alternately. The matron came, spoke to her gently.

"You'll have to go now, child," she said.

Hilda kissed her father, then she and Otto clasped each the other closely. "It'll turn out all right, dear," he said. "We're having a streak of bad luck. But our good luck'll be all the better when it comes."

Strength and hope seemed to pass from him into her. She walked away firmly and the last glimpse they had of her sad sweet young face was a glimpse of a brave little smile trying to break through its gray gloom. But alone in her cell, seated upon the board that was her bed, her disgrace and loneliness and danger took possession of her. She was a child of the people, brought up to courage and self-reliance. She could be brave and calm before false accusers, before staring crowds. But here, with a dim gas-jet revealing the horror of grated bars and iron ceiling, walls and floor—

She sat there, hour after hour, sleepless, tearless, her brain burning, the cries of drunken prisoners in adjoining cells sounding in her ears like the shrieks of the damned. Seconds seemed moments, moments hours. "I'm dreaming," she said aloud at last. She started up and hurled herself against the bars, beating them with her hands. "I must wake or I'll die. Oh, the disgrace! Oh! the shame!"

And she flung herself into a corner of the bench, to dread the time when the darkness and the loneliness would cease to hide her.



XII

EXIT MR. FEUERSTEIN

The matron brought her up into the front room of the station house at eight in the morning. Casey looked at her haggard face with an expression of satisfaction. "Her nerve's going," he said to the sergeant. "I guess she'll break down and confess to-day."

They drove her to court in a Black Maria, packed among thieves, drunkards and disorderly characters. Upon her right side pressed a slant-faced youth with a huge nose and wafer-thin, flapping ears, who had snatched a purse in Houston Street. On her left, lolling against her, was an old woman in dirty calico, with a faded black bonnet ludicrously awry upon scant white hair—a drunkard released from the Island three days before and certain to be back there by noon.

"So you killed him," the old woman said to her with a leer of sympathy and admiration.

At this the other prisoners regarded her with curiosity and deference. Hilda made no answer, seemed not to have heard. Her eyes were closed and her face was rigid and gray as stone.

"She needn't be afraid at all," declared a young woman in black satin, addressing the company at large. "No jury'd ever convict as good-looking a girl as her."

"Good business!" continued the old woman. "I'd 'a' killed mine if I could 'a' got at him—forty years ago." She nodded vigorously and cackled. Her cackle rose into a laugh, the laugh into a maudlin howl, the howl changing into a kind of song—

"My love, my love, my love and I—we had to part, to part! And it broke, it broke, it broke my heart —it broke my heart!"

"Cork up in there!" shouted the policeman from the seat beside the driver.

The old woman became abruptly silent. Hilda moaned and quivered. Her lips moved. She was murmuring, "I can't stand it much longer—I can't. I'll wake soon and see Aunt Greta's picture looking down at me from the wall and hear mother in the kitchen—"

"Step lively now!" They were at the Essex Market police court; they were filing into the waiting-pen. A lawyer, engaged by her father, came there, and Hilda was sent with him into a little consultation room. He argued with her in vain. "I'll speak for myself," she said. "If I had a lawyer they'd think I was guilty."

After an hour the petty offenders had been heard and judged. A court officer came to the door and called: "Hilda Brauner!"

Hilda rose. She seemed unconcerned, so calm was she. Her nerves had reached the point at which nerves refuse to writhe, or even to record sensations of pain. As she came into the dingy, stuffy little courtroom she didn't note the throng which filled it to the last crowded inch of standing-room; did not note the scores of sympathetic faces of her anxious, loyal friends and neighbors; did not even see her father and Otto standing inside the railing, faith and courage in their eyes as they saw her advancing.

The magistrate studied her over the tops of his glasses, and his look became more and more gentle and kindly. "Come up here on the platform in front of me," he said.

Hilda took her stand with only the high desk between him and her. The magistrate's tone and his kind, honest, old face reassured her. And just then she felt a pressure at her elbow and heard in Otto's voice: "We're all here. Don't be afraid."

"Have you counsel—a lawyer?" asked the magistrate.

"No," replied Hilda. "I haven't done anything wrong. I don't need a lawyer."

The magistrate's eyes twinkled, but he sobered instantly to say, "I warn you that the case against you looks grave. You had better have legal help."

Hilda looked at him bravely. "I've only the truth to tell," she insisted. "I don't want a lawyer."

"We'll see," said the magistrate, giving her an encouraging smile. "If it is as you say, you certainly won't need counsel. Your rights are secure here." He looked at Captain Hanlon, who was also on the platform. "Captain," said he, "your first witness—the man who found the body."

"Meinert," said the captain in a low tone to a court officer, who called loudly, "Meinert! Meinert!"

A man stood up in the crowd. "You don't want me!" he shouted, as if he were trying to make himself heard through a great distance instead of a few feet.

"You want—"

"Come forward!" commanded the magistrate sharply, and when Meinert stood before him and beside Hilda and had been sworn, he said, "Now, tell your story."

"The man—Feuerstein," began Meinert, "came into my place about half-past one yesterday. He looked a little wild—as if he'd been drinking or was in trouble. He went back into the sitting-room and I sent in to him and—"

"Did you go in?"

"No, your Honor."

"When did you see him again?"

"Not till the police came."

"Stand down. I want evidence, not gossip. Captain Hanlon, who found the body? Do you know?"

"Your Honor, I understood that Mr. Meinert found it."

The magistrate frowned at him. Then he said, raising his voice, "Does ANY ONE know who found the body?"

"My man Wielert did," spoke up Meinert.

A bleached German boy with a cowlick in the center of his head just above his forehead came up beside Hilda and was sworn.

"You found the body?"

"Yes," said Wielert. He was blinking stupidly and his throat was expanding and contracting with fright.

"Tell us all you saw and heard and did."

"I take him the brandy in. And he sit and talk to himself. And he ask for paper and ink. And then he write and look round like crazy. And he make luny talk I don't understand. And he speak what he write—"

Captain Hanlon was red and was looking at Wielert in blank amazement.

"What did he write?" asked the magistrate.

"A letter," answered Wielert. "He put it in a envelope with a stamp on it and he write on the back and make it all ready. And then I watch him, and he take out a knife and feel it and speak with it. And I go in and ask him for money."

"Your Honor, this witness told us nothing of that before," interrupted Hanlon. "I understood that the knife—"

"Did you question him?" asked the magistrate.

"No," replied the captain humbly. And Casey and O'Rourke shook their big, hard-looking heads to indicate that they had not questioned him.

"I am curious to know what you HAVE done in this case," said the magistrate sternly. "It is a serious matter to take a young girl like this into custody. You police seem unable to learn that you are not the rulers, but the servants of the people."

"Your Honor—" began Hanlon.

"Silence!" interrupted the magistrate, rapping on the desk with his gavel. "Proceed, Wielert. What kind of knife was it?"

"The knife in his throat afterward," answered Wielert. "And I hear a sound like steam out a pipe—and I go in and see a lady at the street door. She peep through the crack and her face all yellow and her eye big. And she go away."

Hilda was looking at him calmly. She was the only person in the room who was not intensely agitated. All eyes were upon her. There was absolute silence.

"Is that lady here?" asked the magistrate. His voice seemed loud and strained.

"Yes," said Wielert. "I see her."

Otto instinctively put his arm about Hilda. Her father was like a leaf in the wind.

Wielert looked at Hilda earnestly, then let his glance wander over the still courtroom. He was most deliberate. At last he said, "I see her again."

"Point her out," said the magistrate—it was evidently with an effort that he broke that straining silence.

"That lady there." Wielert pointed at a woman sitting just outside the inclosure, with her face half-hid by her hand.

A sigh of relief swelled from the crowd. Paul Brauner sobbed.

"Why, she's our witness!" exclaimed Hanlon, forgetting himself.

The magistrate rapped sharply, and, looking toward the woman, said, "Stand up, Madam. Officer, assist her!"

The court officer lifted her to her feet. Her hand dropped and revealed the drawn, twitching face of Sophie Liebers.

"Your Honor," said Hanlon hurriedly, "that is the woman upon whose statement we made our case. She told us she saw Hilda Brauner coming from the family entrance just before the alarm was given."

"Are you sure she's the woman you saw?" said the magistrate to Wielert. "Be careful what you say."

"That's her," answered Wielert. "I see her often. She live across the street from Meinert's."

"Officer, bring the woman forward," commanded the magistrate.

Sophie, blue with terror, was almost dragged to the platform beside Hilda. Hilda looked stunned, dazed.

"Speak out!" ordered the magistrate.

"You have heard what this witness testified."

Sophie was weeping violently. "It's all a mistake," she cried in a low, choked voice. "I was scared. I didn't mean to tell the police Hilda was there. I was afraid they'd think I did it if I didn't say something."

"Tell us what you saw." The magistrate's voice was severe. "We want the whole truth."

"I was at our window. And I saw Hilda come along and go in at the family entrance over at Meinert's. And I'd seen Mr. Feuerstein go in the front door about an hour before. Hilda came out and went away. She looked so queer that I wanted to see. I ran across the street and looked in. Mr. Feuerstein was sitting there with a knife in his hand. And all at once he stood up and stabbed himself in the neck—and there was blood—and he fell—and—I ran away."

"And did the police come to you and threaten you?" asked the magistrate.

"Your Honor," protested Captain Hanlon with an injured air, "SHE came to US."

"Is that true?" asked the magistrate of Sophie.

Sophie wept loudly. "Your Honor," Hanlon went on, "she came to me and said it was her duty to tell me, though it involved her friend. She said positively that this girl went in, stayed several minutes, then came out looking very strange, and that immediately afterward there was the excitement. Of course, we believed her."

"Of course," echoed the magistrate ironically. "It gave you an opportunity for an act of oppression."

"I didn't mean to get Hilda into trouble. I swear I didn't," Sophie exclaimed. "I was scared. I didn't know what I was doing. I swear I didn't!"

Hilda's look was pity, not anger. "Oh, Sophie," she said brokenly.

"What did your men do with the letter Feuerstein wrote?" asked the magistrate of Hanlon suspiciously.

"Your Honor, we—" Hanlon looked round nervously.

Wielert, who had been gradually rising in his own estimation, as he realized the importance of his part in the proceedings, now pushed forward, his face flushed with triumph. "I know where it is," he said eagerly. "When I ran for the police I mail it."

There was a tumult of hysterical laughter, everybody seeking relief from the strain of what had gone before. The magistrate rapped down the noise and called for Doctor Wharton. While he was giving his technical explanation a note was handed up to the bench. The magistrate read:

GERMAN THEATER, 3 September.

YOUR HONOR—I hasten to send you the inclosed letter which I found in my mail this morning. It seems to have an important bearing on the hearing in the Feuerstein case, which I see by the papers comes up before you to-day.

Very truly yours, WILLIAM KONIGSMARCK, Manager.

The magistrate handed the inclosure to a clerk, who was a German. "Read it aloud," he said. And the clerk, after a few moments' preparation, slowly read in English:

To the Public:

Before oblivion swallows me—one second, I beg!

I have sinned, but I have expiated. I have lived bravely, fighting adversity and the malice which my superior gifts from nature provoked. I can live no longer with dignity. So, proud and fearless to the last, I accept defeat and pass out.

I forgive my friends. I forget my enemies.

Exit Carl Feuerstein, soldier of fortune, man of the world. A sensitive heart that was crushed by the cruelty of men and the kindness of women has ceased to beat.

CARL FEUERSTEIN.

P. S. DEAR. MR. KONIGSMARCK—Please send a copy of the above to the newspapers, English as well as German. C. F.

The magistrate beamed his kindliest upon Hilda. "The charge against you is absurd. Your arrest was a crime. You are free."

Hilda put her hand on Otto's arm. "Let us go," she murmured wearily.

As they went up the aisle hand in hand the crowd stood and cheered again and again; the magistrate did not touch his gavel—he was nodding vigorous approval. Hilda held Otto's hand more closely and looked all round. And her face was bright indeed.

Thus the shadow of Mr. Feuerstein—of vanity and false emotion, of pose and pretense, passed from her life. Straight and serene before her lay the pathway of "work and love and home."

THE END