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diff --git a/18892.txt b/18892.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e887233 --- /dev/null +++ b/18892.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6069 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Thoughtless Yes, by Helen H. Gardener + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Thoughtless Yes + +Author: Helen H. Gardener + +Release Date: March 13, 2013 [EBook #18892] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A THOUGHTLESS YES *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +A THOUGHTLESS YES + +By Helen H. Gardener + +Author Of + +"Men, Women, and Gods;" "Sex in Brain;" "Pulpit, Pew, and Cradle;" "Is +this Your Son, my Lord?" "Pushed by Unseen Hands," "Pray you, Sir, whose +Daughter?" "An Unofficial Patriot," and "Facts and Fictions of Life." + +Tenth Edition. + +Copyright, 1890, + + + + +Dedication. + +To the many strangers who, after reading such of these stories as have +before been printed, have written me letters that were thoughtful or gay +or sad, I dedicate this volume. + +These letters have come from far and near; from rich and from poor; from +Christian and from unbeliever; from a bishop's palace and from behind +prison walls. + +If this collection of stories shall give to my friends, known and +unknown, as much pleasure and mental stimulus as their letters gave to +me, I shall be content. + +HELEN H. GARDENER. + + +CONTENTS + +A Splendid Judge of a Woman + +The Lady of the Club + +Under Protest + +For the Prosecution + +A Rusty Link in the Chain + +The Boler House Mystery + +The Time-lock of Our Ancestors + +Florence Campbell's Fate + +My Patient's Story + + + + +PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION. + +In issuing a new edition of this book, it has been thought wise to state +that an unauthorized edition is now on the market, and it is desirable +that the public shall know that all copies of this book not bearing the +imprint of the Commonwealth Company are sold against the will and in +violation of the rights of the author. + +Since some persons have been puzzled to make the connection between +the title of the book and the stories themselves, and to apply Colonel +Ingersoll's exquisite autograph sentiment more clearly, a part of "An +Open Letter," which was written in reply to an editorial review of the +book when it first appeared, is here reprinted, in the hope that it may +remove the difficulty for all. + + + + +AN OPEN LETTER. + +I have, this morning, read your review of "A Thoughtless Yes." I wish +to thank you for the pleasant things said and also to make the +connection--which I am surprised to see did not present itself to your +mind--between the title and the burden of the stories or sketches. + +It is not so easy as you may suppose to get a title which shall be +exactly and fully descriptive of a collection of tales or sketches, +each one of which was written to suggest thoughts and questions on some +particular topic or topics to which people usually pay the tribute of a +thoughtless yes. With one--possibly two--exceptions each sketch means to +suggest to the reader that there may be a very large question mark put +after many of the social, religious, economic, medical, journalistic, or +legal fiats of the present civilization. + +You say that "in 'The Lady of the Club' she [meaning me] does not show +how poverty results from a thoughtless yes. Perhaps she does not see +that it does." I had in my mind exactly that point when I wrote the +story and when I decided upon the title for the book. No, I do not +attempt in such sketches to show _how_, but to show _that_, such and +such conditions exist and that it is wrong. I want to suggest a question +of the justice and the right of several things; but I want to leave each +person free to think out, not my conclusion or remedy, but a conclusion +and a remedy, and at all events to make him refuse, henceforth, the +thoughtless yes of timid acquiescence to things as they are simply +because they are. In the "Lady of the Club" I meant to attack the +impudent authority that makes such a condition of poverty possible, +by calling sympathetic attention to its workings. There are one or two +other ideas sustained by authority, to which, to the readers of that +tale, I wished to make a thoughtless yes henceforth impossible. At least +I hoped to arouse a question. One is taxation of church property. I +wished to point out that by shirking their honest debts churches heap +still farther poverty and burden upon the poor. I hoped, too, to +suggest that the idea of "charity," to which most people give a warmly +thoughtless yes, must be an indignity or impossibility where, even they +would say, it was most needed. I wanted to call attention to the fact +that a physician and a man of tender heart and lofty soul were compelled +to make themselves criminals, before the law, to even be kind to the +dead. That conditions are so savage under the present system that such a +case is absolutely hopeless while the victims live and outrageous after +they are dead. To all of these dictates of impudent authority, to which +most story readers pay the tribute of a thoughtless yes, I wanted to +call attention in such a way that henceforth a question must arise in +their minds. I hoped to show, too, that even so lofty a character +as Roland Barker was tied hand and foot--until it made him almost a +madman--by a system of economics and religion and law which so interlace +as to sustain each other and combine to not only crush the poor but to +prevent the rich from helping along even where they desire to do so. + +These were the main points upon which that particular tale was intended +to arouse a mental attitude of thoughtful protest There are other, minor +ones, which I need not trouble you to recall. If you will notice, nearly +all of the tales end (or stop without an end) with an open question for +the reader to settle--to settle his way, not mine. Indeed, I am not yet +convinced that my own ideas of the changes needed and the way to bring +them about are infallible. I am still open to conviction. I have tried +to grasp the Socialist, Communist, Anarchist, Single-tax, Free-land, and +other ideas and to comprehend just what each could be fairly expected +to accomplish if established--to see the _pros_ and _cons_ of these +and other schemes for social improvement. These, and the varying cults +ranged between, each seems to me to have certain strong points and +certain weak ones. Each seems to me to overlook some essential feature; +and yet I have no system to offer that I think would be better or would +work better than some of these. Indeed, I do most earnestly believe that +_the_ inspired way is yet to be struck out, and I do not believe that +I am the one to do it Meanwhile I can do some things. I can suggest +questions, and, sometimes, answers. But I am not a god, and I do not +want all people to answer my way. I do want to help prevent, now and +henceforth, the tribute of a thoughtless yes from being given to a good +many established wrongs. + +Since such able thinkers as you are have--in the main--already refused +such tribute, I am perfectly satisfied to let each of these answer the +questions I have suggested or may suggest in my fiction in the way that +seems most hopeful to him. + +Meantime, the vast majority of story readers have not yet had their +emotions touched by the dramatic presentation of "the other side." +Fiction has--in the main--worked to make them accept without question +all things as authority has presented them. Who knows but that a lofty +discontent may be stirred in some soul who can solve the awful problems +and at the same time reconcile the various cults of warring philosophers +so that they may combine for humanity and cease to divide for +revenue--or personal pique? I do not believe that the province of a +story is to assume to give the solution of philosophical questions that +have puzzled and proved too much for the best and ablest brains. I have +no doubt that fiction may stir and arouse to thought many who cannot +understand and will not heed essays or argument or preaching, while +it may also present the same thoughts in a new light to those who do. +Personally I do not believe in tacking on to fiction a "moral" or an +"in conclusion" which shall switch all such aroused thoughts into one +channel. Clear thinking and right feeling may lead some one, who is new +to such protest, to solutions that I have not reached. So let us each +question "impudent authority," whether it be in its stupid blindness to +heredity or to environment; and I shall be content that you solve the +new order by an appeal to Anarchism _via_ free land; or that Matilda +Joslyn Gage solve it by the ballot for women and hereditary freedom from +slavish instincts stamped upon a race bom of superstitious and subject +mothers. + +Personally I do not believe that all the free land, free money or +freedom in the world, which shall leave the mothers of the race (whether +in or out of marriage) a subject class or in a position to transmit to +their children the vices or weaknesses of a dominated dependent, will +ever succeed in populating the world with self-reliant, self-respecting, +honorable and capable people. + +On the other hand, I do not see how the ballot in the hands of woman +will do for her all that many believe it will. That it is her right +and would go far is clear; but after that, your question of economics +touches her in a way that it does not and cannot touch men, and I am +free to confess that as yet I have heard of no economic or social plan +that would not of necessity, in my opinion, bear heaviest upon those who +are mothers. So you will see that when I suggested the desirability in +"For the Prosecution" of having mothers on the bench and as jurors where +a case touched points no man living does or can understand in all its +phases, I do not think that would right all the wrong nor solve all the +questions suggested by such a trial; but I thought it would help push +the car of right and justice in the direction of light which we all hope +is ahead. + +You believe more in environment than in heredity; I believe in both, and +that both are sadly and awfully awry, largely because too many people +in too many ways pay to impudent authority the tribute of a thoughtless +yes. + +It is one of the saddest things in this world to see the brave and +earnest men who fight so nobly for better and fairer economic conditions +for "Labor," pay, much too often, the tribute of a thoughtless yes to +the absolute pauper status of all womanhood They resent with spirit +the idea that men should labor for a mere subsistence and always be +dependent upon and at the financial mercy of the rich. They do not +appear to see that to one-half of the race even that much economic +independence would be a tremendous improvement upon her present status. +How would Singletax or Free-land help this? You may reply that Anarchism +would solve that problem. Would it? With maternity and physical +disabilities in the scale? To my mind, all the various economic schemes +yet put forward lack an essential feature. They provide for a free +and better manhood, but they pay the tribute of a thoughtless yes to +impudent authority in the case of womanhood, in many things. And so long +as motherhood is serfhood, just so long will this world be populated +with a race easy to subjugate, weak to resist oppression, criminal +in its instincts of cruelty toward those in its power, and humble and +subservient toward authority and domination. Character rises but little +above its source. The mother molds the man. If she have the status, the +instincts, and the spirit of a subordinate, she will transmit these, +and the more enlightened she is the surer is this, because of her +consciousness of her own degradation. + +Look at the Kemmler horror. People all marvel at his "brutish nature +and his desire to kill." No one says anything about the fact, which was +merely mentioned at his trial, that his "father was a butcher and his +mother helped in the business." Did you know that this is also true of +Jesse Pomeroy; the boy who "from infancy tortured animals and killed +whatever he could?" + +Would all this sort of thing mean absolutely nothing to women of the +same social and scientific status enjoyed by the men who assisted at the +trials of these two and at the legal murder of one? In ordinary women, +of course, it would not stir very deep thought But these were not +ordinary men. They were far more than that, Almost all the women who +have spoken or written to me of the Kemmler horror have touched that +thought Have you heard a man discuss it? Is there a reason for this? Do +we pay the tribute of a thoughtless yes to all that clusters about the +present ideas on such subjects and about their criminal medicolegal +aspects? But this letter grows too long. + +With great respect and hearty good wishes, + +I am sincerely, + +Helen H. Gardener. + + + + +A SPLENDID JUDGE OF A WOMAN. + +_"We look at the one little woman's face we lovey as we look at the +face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own +yearnings."_--George Eliot. + + +"But after all it is not fair to blame her as you do, Cuthbert. She is +what she must be. It is not at all strange. Midge--" + +"I am quite out of patience with you, Nora;" exclaimed Cuthbert Wagner, +vehemently. "How can you excuse her? Midge, as you call her, has been no +friend to you. She was deceitful and designing all along. She even tried +in every way she could think of to undermine you in _my_ affections!" He +tossed his head contemptuously and strode to the window where he stood +glaring out into the moonlight in fierce and indignant protest. His wife +had so often spoken well of Margaret Mintem. She did not appear to hold +the least resentment toward the school-friend of her past years, while +Cuthbert could see nothing whatever that was good or deserving of +praise in the character of the young lady in question. He was bitterly +resentful because Margaret Mintem had spoken ill of his wife while she +was only his betrothed, and Cuthbert Wagner did not forgive easily. + +Nora crossed the room with her swift, graceful tread, and the sweep of +her lace gown over the thick rug had not reached her husband's ear as he +stood thumping on the window pane. He started a little, therefore, when +a soft hand was laid upon his arm and a softer face pressed itself close +to his shoulder. + +"It is very sweet of you, dear," she said in her low, gentle voice, +"It is very sweet of you to feel so keenly any thrust made at me; but +darling, you are unfair to Midge, poor girl! My heart used often to +bleed for her. It must be terribly hard for her to fight her own nature, +as she does,--as she _must_,--and lose the battle so often after all." + +"Fight fiddle-sticks!" said Cuthbert, and then went on grumbling in +inarticulate sounds, at which his wife laughed out merrily. + +"Oh, boo, boo, boo," she said, pretending to imitate his unuttered +words. + +"I don't believe a word of it. _I know Margaret Mintern_. Did I not +room with her for three long years? And do I not know that she is a good +girl, and a very noble one, too, in spite of her little weakness of envy +or jealousy? + +"She can't help that. I am sure she must be terribly humiliated by it. +Indeed, indeed, dear, I know that she is; but she cannot master it. It +is a part of her. I do not know whether she was bom with it or not; but +I do know that all of her life since she was a very little girl she has +been so situated that just that particular defect in her character is +the inevitable result. Don't you believe, Cuthbert, that all such things +are natural productions? Why, dearie, it seems to me that you might as +reasonably feel angry with me because my hair is brown as toward Midge +because her envy sometimes overbears her better qualities. The real +fault lies--" + +"O Nora, suppose you take the stump! Lecture on 'Whatever is is right,' +and have done with it." + +"Aha, my dear," laughed his wife, "I have caught you napping again. I do +not say that it is right; but I do say that it is natural for Margaret +to be just what she is. That is just the point people always overlook, +it seems to me. Nature is wrong about half of the time--even inanimate +nature. Just look over there! See those splendid mountains and the +lovely little valley all touched with moonlight; but, oh, how the +eye longs for water! A lake, a splendid river, the ocean in the +distance--something that is water--_anything_ that is water! But no, it +is valley and mountain and mountain and valley, until the most beautiful +spot in the world, when first you see it, grows hateful and tiresome and +lacking in the most important feature." + +Cuthbert laughed. "A lake would look well just over there by McGuire's +barn, now, wouldn't it? And, come to think of it, how a few mountains +would improve things over at Newport or Long Beach." He stopped to thump +a bug from his wife's shoulder. + +"How pretty you look in that black lace, little woman. I don't believe +nature needed any improver once in her life anyhow--when she made you." + +Nora smiled. A pleased, gratified little dimple made itself visible at +one corner of her mouth. Her husband stooped over and kissed it lightly, +just as the portiere was drawn aside and a guest announced by James, the +immaculate butler. + +"We've just been having a quarrel, Bailey," said Mr. Wagner, as he +advanced to greet the visitor, "and now I mean to leave it to you if--" + +"Yes," drawled Mr. Bailey, "I noticed that as I came in. You were just +punctuating your quarrel as James drew back the portiere. That is the +reason I coughed so violently as I stepped inside. Don't be alarmed +about my health. It isn't consumption. It is only assumption, I do +assure you. I assumed that you assumed that you were alone--that there +wasn't an interested spectator; but, great Scott! Bert, I don't blame +you, so don't apologize;" and with a low bow of admiration to his +friend's wife, he joined in the laugh. + +"But what was the row? I'm consumed to hear it," he added, as they were +seated. "I should be charmed to umpire the matter--so long as it ended +that way. Now, go on; but I want to give you fair warning, old man, that +I am on Mrs. Wagner's side to start with, so you fire off your biggest +guns and don't attempt to roll any twisted balls." + +"_Curved_ balls," laughed Nora, "not twisted; and it seems to me you +mixed your games just a wee bit. There isn't any game with guns and +balls both, is there?" + +"Oh, yes, yes indeed," replied Mr. Bailey, promptly. "The old, old game +in which there is brought to bear a battery of eyes." + +"Oh, don't," said Cuthbert. "I am not equal to it! But after all, I +can't see that you are well out of this, Ned. Where do the balls come +in?" + +"What have you against eyeballs that roll in a fine frenzy when a +battery of handsome eyes is trained upon a bashful fellow like me?" he +asked quite gravely, and then all three laughed and Cuthbert pretended +to faint. + +"I shall really have to protest, myself, if you go any farther, Mr. +Bailey," said Nora. + +"You are getting into deep water, and if you are to be on my side in the +coming contest, I want you to have a cool head and--" + +"A clean heart;" put in Cuthbert. + +"Mrs. Wagner never asks for impossibilities, I am sure," said Mr. +Bailey, dryly. + +"But she does. That is just it. She wants to make me believe that a girl +who traduced her and acted like a little fiend generally, is an adorable +creature--a natural production which couldn't help itself--had to behave +that way. We--" + +"I believe I started in by saying that I should be on your side, Mrs. +Wagner," said their guest, assuming a judicial attitude and bracing +himself behind an imaginary pile of accumulated evidence, "but I'm +beginning to wobble already. If Bert makes another home run like that, I +warn you, madam, that while I shall endeavor to be a fair and impartial +judge, I shall decide against you." + +Nora's eyes had a twinkle in their depths for an instant, but her face +had grown grave. + +"Wait. Let me tell you." she said. "Even Cuthbert does not know just +how it was--what went to make my old school-friend's character precisely +what it became. It was like this: When she was a very little girl her +father died, and the poor little mother went back home with her four +young children, and her crushed pride, to be an additional burden to +the already overburdened father, who was growing old and who had small +children of his own still to educate and pilot through society. +He had lost his hold on business when he went into the army; and +although he came home a general, quite covered with glory, a large +family cannot live on glory, you know, and fame will not buy party +dresses for three daughters and a grandchild." + +"I've noticed that," remarked Mr. Bailey, dryly. + +"The added importance of his position and the consequent publicity made +the handsome party gowns all the more necessary, however," said Nora, +not heeding the interruption, "and so the family had to do a great many +things that were not pleasant to make even one end meet, as poor Midge +used to say. The General loved brains and his granddaughter was very +bright." + +Cuthbert gave a low whistle. He would not compromise. If he found one +thing wrong in an acquaintance all things were wrong. It followed, +therefore, in his mind, that since Margaret Min-tern had been guilty of +envy, she was altogether unlikely to possess fine mental capabilities. +He would not even allow that she was stylish and sang well. + +His wife took no notice of his outburst, but her color deepened a little +as she went on. + +"She was the most clever girl mentally that I have ever known and she +was a vast deal of service to me in the years we were together. She +sharpened my wits and stimulated my thoughts in a thousand ways, for +which I am her debtor still. But I am getting ahead of my story. As I +say, the old General worshipped brains, but he also adored beauty; and, +alas, his granddaughter was quite plain--" + +"Ugly as a hedge-fence, and I never could see that she was so +superhumanly brilliant or stylish, as you claim, either," put in +Cuthbert Wagner, as he leaned back in his deep chair with his eyes drawn +to a narrow line. + +"She was almost exactly the same age of her Aunt Julia, the General's +youngest daughter; but Julia was a dream of beauty and of stupidity." + +"Situation is now quite plain," said Mr. Bailey. "The lovely Julie got +there. She always does, and--" + +"Ah, but you must remember that in this case 'there' was the heart of +the father of one and the grandfather of the other," said Nora, smiling. + +Her husband laughed outright and faced Mr. Bailey. + +"I rather think she has got you now, old man. In a case like that +I'm hanged if I know how it would turn out--who would get there. The +elements won't mix. It is not the usual thing. + +"The beautiful stupid and the brilliant but plain are all +right,--regular stage properties, so to speak,--but the grandfather! +I'll wager if we tossed up for it, and you got heads and I got tails +we'd both be wrong. + +"There is something actually uncanny in the aged grandparent ingredient +in a conundrum like that. Now if it were a young fellow,--only the +average donkey,--why of course the lovely Julia would bear off the +palm and leave Midge, as Nora calls her, to pine away. But if it were a +level-headed, middle-aged chap like me, brains would take precedence." +He waved his hand lightly toward his wife, who parted her lips over a +set of little white teeth and a radiant smile burst forth. + +"You are a bold hypocrite, Bert," said Mr. Bailey. "You did not have to +make any such choice, and you are not entitled to the least credit in +the premises. You got both." + +"This is really quite overwhelming," laughed Nora; "but--" + +"Why on earth did you call her attention to it, Ned," exclaimed Mr. +Wagner, with great pretence of annoyance. "She would have swallowed it +whole. I wonder why it is a woman so loves to be told that you married +her for her intellect, when in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out +of eight hundred and forty you did nothing of the kind, and she knows +it perfectly well. You married her because you loved her, brains or no +brains, beauty or no beauty, and that's an end of it. Isn't that so, +Ned?" + +"Well, I'm not prepared to say, yet. I am umpire. I have not made up my +mind which I shall marry--the lovely Julia, or the brilliant niece; but +I think I shall in the long run." + +"God help you if you do!" said Cuthbert, dramatically. "I don't know +Julia, the beautiful; but I'd hate to see you married to a cat with +uncut claws, Ned, much as I think you need dressing down from time to +time." + +"Mrs. Wagner," said Mr. Bailey, turning to her, gravely, "I'm not paying +the least attention to him, and I am eager to hear how the grandfather +got out of it." + +"The _grandfather!_" exclaimed Nora, "why I had no idea of telling his +story. It was the two girls I was interested in--or at least, in one of +them; but that is just like a man. He--" + +She allowed her feather fan to fall in her lap and looked up helplessly. +"But come to think of the other side, his story _would_ be worth +telling, wouldn't it? It must have been a rather trying situation for +him, too." + +She took the fan up again, and waved it before her, thoughtfully. "I +wonder why I never thought of that before. I have always rather blamed +him for developing his granddaughter's one sad defect. I thought he +should have guarded her against it. And--I do wonder if it is because I +am a woman that I never before thought how very difficult it must have +been for him?" + +"No doubt, no doubt," said her husband, dryly. "But now that we have +shed a few tears over our mental shortcomings and lack of breadth of +sympathy in overlooking the sad predicament of the doughty General, +proceed. The umpire sleepeth apace, and I've got to have my shy at the +charming Midge before we've done with her," and he shut his paper-knife +with a wicked little click. + +"You can see how it would be," Nora began again, quite gravely, and the +gentlemen both smiled. "You can see how it would be. The granddaughter +was made to feel that she was in the way--was a burden. Her mother +would urge her to become indispensable to the old General. To read to +him, talk brightly to him, sing and play for him, watch his moods and +meet them cleverly. It was all done as a race for his affections. Julia +raced with her, setting her beauty and the other great fact that she was +the child of his old age over against the entertaining qualities of her +rival." + +Mr. Bailey drew his handkerchief across his brow and looked helplessly +perplexed, while Cuthbert responded with a dreary shake of the head. + +"It is a clear case of 'The Lady or the Tiger,' yet, so far as I can +see," said he. "Who got there, Bailey?" + +Mr. Bailey smiled despairingly, and shook his head, but said nothing. + +"It went on like that day after day, week after week, month after month, +year after year," continued Nora, looking steadily in front of her and +shivering a little, "until they were both young ladies. The General +gave a party to present them both to society at the same time. His +granddaughter tried to make him feel that he was repaid for the +expense and trouble by the display of her exceptional powers as a +conversationalist--Julia, by the display of her neck and shoulders, her +exquisite rose-leaf face, and her childishly pretty manners. This sort +of rivalry would have been well enough, no doubt, if it had not been +for the fact that from childhood up to this culmination there had been +a dash of bitterness in it, an un-der-current of antagonism; and poor +Midge had always been the main sufferer, because she was very sensitive +and she was made to feel that all she received was taken from her aunt +Julia. To stand first with her father, Julia would do almost anything; +and the ingenuity with which she devised cruel little stabs at Midge was +simply phenomenal. To be absolutely necessary to him became almost a +mania with his granddaughter." + +"If this thing goes on much longer, I am going to have a fit," Cuthbert +announced, placidly. + +"The girl you judge so harshly, poor child, had a great many of them," +said Nora, with an inflection in her voice that checked a laugh on Mr. +Bailey's lips. "Fits of depression, fits of anger, fits of sorrow, fits +of shame and of indignation with herself and with others. For there were +times when she stooped to little meannesses which her sensitive soul +abhorred. If intense effort resulted, after all, in failure, envy of +her successful rival grew up in her heart; and, sometimes, if it were +carefully cultivated by the pruning hook of sarcasm or an unkind look of +triumph, she would say or do a mean or underhand thing, and then regret +it passionately when it was too late." + +Cuthbert gave a grunt of utter incredulity. + +"Regretted it so little she'd do it again next day," he grumbled. Nora +went steadily on. + +"It grew to be the one spring and impulse of her whole nature--the +necessity of her existence--to stand _first_ with the ruling spirit +wherever she was, whoever it might be. At school I have known her to +sit up all night to make sure that she would be letter-perfect in her +lessons the following morning. Not because she cared for her studies so +much as because she _must_ feel that she stood first in the estimation +of her teachers. And then, too, her grandfather would know and be proud +of her. It got to be nature with her (I do not know how much of the +tendency may have been born in her) to need to stand on the top wherever +she was. (It has always seemed to me that the conditions surrounding her +were quite enough to explain this characteristic without an appeal to a +possible heredity of which I can know nothing.) Even where we boarded, +although she disliked the women and looked down upon the young men, she +made them all like her, and even went the length of allowing one young +fellow to ask her to marry him simply because she saw that he was +interested in me." + +"Humph! She--" began Cuthbert, but his wife held up her hand to check +him, and did not pause in her story. + +"Up to that time she had not given him a thought, and she was very angry +when he finally asked the great question. She thought that he should +have known that such a girl as she was could not be for a man of his +limitations. She felt insulted. She flew up stairs and cried with +indignation. 'The mere idea!' she said to me. 'How dared he! The common +little biped!' I told her that she had encouraged him, and had brought +unnecessary pain upon him as well as regret upon herself. Then she was +angry with me. By and by she put her hand out in the darkness and +took mine and pressed it. Then she said, 'Nora, it _was_ my +fault; but--but--' and then she began to sob again. 'But, Nora, I +don't--know--why--I--did--it--and,' there was a long pause. 'And, +beside, I _thought_ he was in love with you,'" she sobbed out. + +"That was the whole story," said Cuthbert, resentfully. "She simply +wanted to supplant you and--" + +"Yes, that _was_ the whole story, as you say, dear," said his wife, +gently; "but the poor girl could not help it. And--and she did not +understand it herself at all." + +"You make me provoked, Nora," said Cuthbert, almost sharply. "She wasn't +a fool. She tried the same game on me a year or two later; but that +time it didn't work. She even went the length of talking ill of you to +me--saying little cutting things--when she found I had utterly succumbed +to your attractions. I have to laugh yet when I think of it,--that is, +when it don't make me too angry to laugh,--how I gave her a good round +talking to." He laughed now at the recollection. + +"She must have taken me for her delightful old grandparent the way I +lectured her. But when I remembered how loyal you were to her, it just +made my blood boil and I told her so." + +Mr. Bailey shifted his position and began to contemplate giving a +verdict emphatically against the absent lady, when Nora checked him by a +wave of her fan. + +"Yes, I know she did, Cuthbert, and I know everything you said to her. +You were very cruel--if you had understood, as you did not and do not +yet. She came and told me all about it." Cuthbert Wagner gave a low, +incredulous whistle, and even Mr. Bailey looked sceptical. + +"She came back from that drive with you the most wretched girl you ever +saw. Her humiliation was pitiful to see. Her self-reproach was touching +and real. I believe she would have killed herself if I had seemed to +blame her." + +Cuthbert snapped out: + +"Humph! Very likely; and gone and done the same thing again the next +day." + +"Possibly that is true--if there had been a next day with a new +temptation that was too strong for her on the shore where she landed +after death If--" + +"If the Almighty had shown a preference for some one else, hey?" asked +Mr. Bailey, flippantly. + +"No doubt, no doubt," acquiesced Nora. "But suppose you had a weak leg +and it gave way at a critical moment--say just when you were entering +an opera box to greet a lady. Suppose it dropped you in a ridiculous or +humiliating manner. You would rage and be distressed, and make up your +mind not to let it occur again, except in the seclusion of your own +apartments; but--well, it would be quite as likely to serve you the same +trick the following week, in church." + +"The illustration does not strike me as quite fair," said Mr. Bailey, +judicially. + +"Good, Ned! Don't let her argue you into an interest in that little cat. +She was simply a malicious little--" + +"Wait, then," said Nora, ignoring her husband's outburst and looking +steadily at Margaret Mintem's new judge, who was showing signs of +passing a sentence no less severe than if it were delivered by Cuthbert +Wagner himself. + +"Suppose we take your memory. Are there not some names or dates that +_will_ drop out at times and leave you awkwardly in the lurch?" + +"Well, rather," said Mr. Bailey, disgustedly. This was his weak spot. + +"Now, don't you see that a person who has a perfect memory might be as +unfair to you as you are to my old school friend in her little moral +weakness--if we may call it by so harsh a term as that? That was her one +vulnerable spot. It may have been born in her. That I do not know; but +I insist that it _was_ trained and drilled into her as much as her +arithmetic or her catechism were, and with a result as inevitable. She +loathed her fault, but it was too strong for her. Her resolution to +conquer it dropped just short of success very often, indeed; and oh! how +it did hurt her when she realized it and thought it all over, for her +motives were unusually pure, and her moral sense was really very high +indeed." + +"Moral sense was a little frayed at the edges, I think." + +"Don't, Cuthbert. You are such a cruelly severe judge. I know Mr. Bailey +is on my side, now, and will think you very unfair. He does not mean +to be, I assure you, Mr. Bailey, and if she had not spoken ill of me he +would see the case fairly. But what _are_ you thinking?" + +"That it is a rather big question. That I--that I have overstayed my +time. I just came over to ask you to dine with us next Thursday. My +mother has some friends and wants you to meet them. May I leave my +judicial decision open until then?" + +"Certainly. Pray over it," said Cuthbert, rising; "and if you don't come +out on my side, openly,--as I know you are in your mind,--buy a wire +mask. I won't have any dodging." + +"Come early. There is a secret to tell," laughed Mr. Bailey as he +withdrew, and then he blushed furiously. "Mother's secret," he added, as +he closed the door behind him. + +The evening of the dinner the Wagners were later than they had intended +to be, and Mrs. Bailey took Nora aside and said quite abruptly: + +"I've got to pop it at you rather suddenly. Why didn't you come earlier? +The lady whom Ned is to marry is here, and it is for her I have given +the dinner. Ned went to your house to tell you last week, but his heart +failed him. He said you were all in such a gale of nonsense that he +concluded to wait. It is a very tender subject with him, I assure you. +His case is quite hopeless. He is madly in love, and I am very much +pleased with his choice. She seems as nearly perfect as they ever are, +and she is unusually talented. But here is Ned now. I have told her all +about it, my son, come and be congratulated." + +He came forward shyly enough for a man of his years and experience, and +took Nora's hand in a helpless way. But Cuthbert relieved matters at +once by a hearty "Well, it is splendid, old fellow. I'm delighted. I--" + +"But before the others come down," broke in Mr. Bailey, as if to get +away from the subject, "I want to get my discharge papers in that case +you plead before me last week. It lies heavy on my soul, for I am very +sorry to say, Mrs. Wagner, that I am compelled to give judgment against +you and your client. I think she was--I'm with Cuthbert this time. She +impresses me as almost without redeeming qualities. I do not wish to +make her acquaintance. I am sure that I could never force myself to take +even a passing interest in that sort of a moral acrobat. Really, the +lovely but selfish Julia would be my choice in a team of vicious little +pacers like that. I'm sure I should detect your friend's fatal weakness +in her every action. I should be unable to see anything but the hideous +green-eyed monster even in the folds of her lace gowns or the coils of +her shining hair. He would appear to me, ghost-like, peering over her +shoulder in the midst of her most fascinating conversation. I should +feel his fangs and see the glitter of his wicked eyes while I tried to +say small nothings to her, and--" + +"Oh, not at all," protested Nora. "You would never detect it at all +unless she happened to be fighting for your esteem or admiration where +she felt that odds were against her. She--" + +"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wagner, but I am quite sure that I should. +Envy is to me the very worst trait in the human character. I could more +easily excuse or be blinded to anything else. I _know_ that I should +detect it at once. I always do--especially in a woman." + +"Certainly. Anybody could. You know very well, Nora, that I saw--" began +Cuthbert quite gleefully; but as a salve to her wounded feelings Mr. +Bailey added in a tone of conciliation to Nora: + +"However, I shall agree to let you test me some day. Present your friend +to me, _incog._, and I'll wager--oh, _anything_ that I shall read her +like a book on sight. I'm a splendid judge of a woman. Always was from +childhood. I'm sure that I should feel creepy the moment I saw the +brilliant but envious granddaughter of the unfortunate old warrior. And +by the way, _he_ continues to be the one for whom you have enlisted my +sympathy. I wonder that he was able to live two weeks in the same house +with such a--" + +"Cat," said Cuthbert, with a vicious jab at a paper-weight which +represented a solemn-looking Chinese god in brocade trousers. He was +just turning to enter into a cheerful and elaborate statement of his +side of the controversy, as Mrs. Bailey swept down the room with her +son's betrothed upon her arm, smiling and happy. + +"Margaret Mintern!" exclaimed Nora, in dismay, and then-- + +"I am so glad to see you again, dear, and to be able to congratulate +you, instead of some fair unknown, upon the fact that you are to have so +dear a friend of ours for a husband. We think everything of Mr. Bailey. +He is Bert's best friend and--" + +Cuthbert had turned half away in utter confusion when he saw the ladies +coming down the room, and feigned an absorption in the rotund Chinese +deity which he had never displayed for the one of his own nation. But he +bowed now, and mumbled some inarticulate sounds as he looked, not at +the future Mrs. Bailey, but at the ridiculously happy face of her lover, +whose usually ready tongue was silent as he hung upon the lightest tone +of the brilliant woman beside him. As they passed into the dining-room, +Nora managed to say to her husband: + +"Thank heaven we did not mention her name to him, and he evidently does +not suspect. Pull yourself together and stumble through your part the +best you can, dear, without attracting his attention. And then you know +that he and you agree perfectly about the--cat," she added wickedly, and +then she smiled quietly as she took her seat next to the blissful lover +and the relentless judge of the school friend of her youth. + + + + +THE LADY OF THE CLUB. + + "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, + That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, + How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, + Your loop'd, and window'd raggedness, defend you + From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en + Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; + Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel; + That thou may'st shake the super flux to them, + Show the heavens more just." + + Shakespeare. + + + + +I. + +The old and somewhat cynical saying, that philosophers and reformers can +bear the griefs and woes of other people with a heroism and resignation +worthy of their creeds, would have fitted the case of Roland Barker only +when shorn of the intentional sting of sarcasm. It is, nevertheless, +true that even his nobly-gifted nature, his tender heart, and his alert +brain sometimes failed to grasp the very pith and point of his own +arguments. + +He was a wealthy man whose sympathies were earnestly with the poor and +unfortunate. He believed that he understood their sufferings, their +ambitions, and their needs; and his voice and pen were no more truly on +the side of charity and brotherly kindness than was his purse. + +It was no unusual thing for him to attend a meeting, address a club, or +take part in a memorial service, where his was the only hand unused to +toil, and where he alone bore all expense, and then--after dressing +himself in the most approved and faultless manner--become the guest +of honor at some fashionable entertainment. Indeed, he was a leader in +fashion as well as in philosophy, and at once a hero in Avenue A and on +Murray Hill. + +On the evening of which I am about to tell you he had addressed a +club of workingmen in their little dingy hall, taking as his subject +"Realities of Life." He had sought to show them that poverty and toil +are not, after all, the worst that can befall a man, and that the most +acute misery dwells in palaces and is robed in purple. + +He spoke with the feeling of one who had himself suffered--as, indeed, +he had--from the unsympathetic associations of an uncongenial marriage. +He portrayed, with deep feeling, the chill atmosphere of a loveless +home, whose wealth and glitter and lustre could never thrill and +enrapture the heart as might the loving hand-clasp in the bare, chill +rooms where sympathy and affection were the companions of poverty. + +I had admired his enthusiasm as he pictured the joy of sacrifice for the +sake of those we love, and I had been deeply touched by his +pathos--a pathos which I knew, alas, too well, sprang from a hungry +heart--whether, as now, it beat beneath a simple coat of tweed or, as +when hours later, it would still be the prisoner of its mighty longing, +though clothed with elegance and seated at a banquet fit for princes. + +The last words fell slowly from his lips, and his eyes were dimmed, as +were the eyes of all about me. His voice, so full of feeling, had hardly +ceased to throb when, far back in the little hall, arose a woman, +thin and worn, and plainly clad, but showing traces of a beauty and +refinement which had held their own and fought their way inch by inch +in spite of poverty, anxiety, and tears. The chairman recognized her and +asked her to the platform. + +"No," she said, in a low, tremulous tone which showed at once her +feeling and her culture--"no, I do not wish to take the platform; but +since you ask for criticism of the kind speech we have just listened to, +it has seemed to me that I might offer one, although I am a stranger to +you all." + +Her voice trembled, and she held firmly to the back of a chair in front +of her. The chairman signified his willingness to extend to her the +privilege of the floor, and there was slight applause. She bowed and +began again slowly: + +"I sometimes think that it is useless to ever try to make the suffering +rich and the suffering poor understand each other. I do not question +that the gentleman has tasted sorrow. All good men have. I do not +question that his heart is warm and true and honest, and that he truly +thinks what he has said; but"--and here her voice broke a little and her +lip trembled--"but he does not know what real suffering is. He cannot. +No rich man can." There was a movement of impatience in the room, and +some one said, loud enough to be heard, "If she thinks money can bring +happiness she is badly left." + +There was a slight ripple of laughter at this, and even the serious face +of Roland Barker grew almost merry for a moment. Then the woman went on, +without appearing to have noticed the interruption: + +"I do not want to seem ungracious, and heaven knows, no one could mean +more kindly what I say; but he has said that money is not needed to make +us happy--only love; and again he quotes that baseless old maxim, 'The +love of money is the root of all evil.'" She paused, then went slowly on +as if feeling her way and fearing to lose her hold upon herself: "I know +it is a sad and cruel world even to the more fortunate, if they have +hearts to feel and brains to think. To the unloving or unloved there +must be little worth; but they at least are spared the agony that sits +where love and poverty have shaken hands with death"--her voice broke, +and there was a painful silence in the room--"where those who love are +wrung and torn by all the thousand fears and apprehensions of ills that +are to come to wife and child and friend. The day has passed when all +this talk of poverty and love--that love makes want an easy thing to +bear--the day has passed, I say, when sane men ought to think, or wise +men speak, such cruel, false, and harmful words. He truly says that +money without love cannot bring happiness; but that is only half the +truth, for love with poverty can bring, does bring, the keenest agony +that mortals ever bore." + +There was a movement of dissent in the hall. She lifted her face a +moment, contracted her lips, drew a long breath, and said: + +"I will explain. Without the love, poverty were light enough to bear. +What does it matter for one's self? It is the love that gives the awful +sting to want, and makes its cruel fingers grip the throat as never vise +or grappling-hook took hold, and torture with a keener zest than fiends +their victims! Love and Poverty! _It is the combination that devils +invented to make a hell on earth._" + +All eyes were fastened on her white face now, and she was rushing on, +her words, hot and impassioned, striking firm on every point she made. + +"Let me give you a case. In a home where comfort is--or wealth--a mother +sits, watching by night and day the awful hand of Death reach nearer, +closer to her precious babe, and nothing that skill or science can +suggest will stay the hand or heal the aching heart; and yet there is +comfort in the thought that all was done that love and wealth and skill +could do, and that it was Nature's way. But take from her the comfort of +that thought. She watches with the same poor, breaking heart, but +with the knowledge, now, to keep her company, that science might, ah! +_could_, push back the end, could even cure her babe if but the means to +pay for skill and change and wholesome food and air were hers. Is that +no added pang? Is poverty no curse to her?--a curse the deeper for +her depth of love? The rich know naught of this. It gives to life its +wildest agony, to love its deepest hurt." + +She paused. There was a slight stir as if some one had thought to offer +applause, and then the silence fell again, and she began anew, with +shining eyes and cheeks aflame. She swayed a little as she spoke and +clutched the chair as for support. Her voice grew hoarse, and trembled, +and she fixed her gaze upon a vacant chair: + +"But let me tell you of another case. A stone's throw from this hall, +where pretty things are said week after week--and kindly meant, I +know--of poverty and love--of the blessedness of these--there is a +living illustration, worth more than all the theories ever spun, to tell +you what 'realities of life' must be where love is great and poverty +holds sway. Picture, with me, the torture and despair of a refined and +cultured woman who watches hour by hour the long months through, and +sees the creeping feet of mental wreck, and physical decay, and knows +the mortal need of care and calm for him who is the whole of life to +her, and for the want of that which others waste and hold as dross he +must work on and on, hastening each day the end _he_ does not see, which +shall deprive him of all of life except the power for ill.... She will +be worse than widowed and alone, for ever by her side sits Want, for +him, tearing at every chord of heart and soul--not for herself--but for +that dearer one, wrecked in the prime of life and left a clod endowed +only with strength for cruel wrong, whose hand would sheath a knife in +her dear heart and laugh with maniac glee at his mad deeds. She saw the +end. She knew long months ago what was to be, if he must toil and strain +his nerve and brain for need of that which goes from knave to knave, and +hoards itself within cathedral walls, where wise men meet to teach +the poor contentment with their lot! She knew _he_ must not know; the +knowledge of the shadow must be kept from _his_ dear brain until the +very end, by smiles, and cheer, and merry jest from her. Who dare tell +_her_ that riches are a curse? and prate of 'dross' and call on heaven +to witness that its loss is only gain of joy and harbinger of higher, +holier things? Who dare call _her_ as witness for the bliss of poverty +with love?" + +She slowly raised her hand and, with a quick-drawn breath, pressed it +against her side, and with her eyes still fastened on the vacant chair, +and tears upon her cheeks, falling unchecked upon her heaving bosom, she +held each listener silent and intent on every word she spoke. The time +allotted anyone was long since overrun; but no one thought of that, and +she went on: + +"'With love!' Ah, there is where the iron can burn and scar and open +every wound afresh each day, make poverty a curse, a blight, a scourge, +a vulture, iron-beaked, with claws of burning steel, that leave no nerve +untouched, no drop of blood unshed. + +"'With love!' 'Tis there the hand of Poverty can deal the deadliest +blows, and show, as nowhere else on earth, the value of that slandered, +hoarded thing called wealth." + +There blazed into her face a fierce, indignant light, her voice swelled +out and struck upon the ear like fire-bells in the dead of night: + +"'The root of evil!'--'poverty with love!' Hypocrisy, in purple velvet +robed, behind stained glass, with strains of music falling on its ears, +with table spread in banquet-hall below, bethought itself to argue thus +to those itself had robbed; while, thoughtless of its meaning and its +birth, the echo of its lying, treacherous words comes from the pallid +lips of many a wretch whose life has been a failure and an agony because +of that which he himself extols. A lie once born contains a thousand +lives, and holds at bay the struggling, feeble truth, if but that lie be +fathered by a priest and mothered by a throne--_as this one was!_ 'The +root of evil' is the spring of joy. Decry it those who will. And those +who do _not_ love, perchance, may laugh at all its need can mean; but +to the loving, suffering poor bring no more cant, and cease to voice the +hollow words of Ignorance and Hypocrisy. It is too cruel, and its deadly +breath has long enough polluted sympathy and frozen up the springs +of healthy thought, while sheathing venomed fangs in breaking hearts. +Recast your heartless creeds! Your theories for the poor are built on +these." + +She sank back into her chair white and exhausted. + +There was a wild burst of applause. A part of the audience, with that +ear for sound and that lack of sense to be found in all such gatherings, +had forgotten that it was not listening to a burst of eloquence which +had been duly written out and committed to memory for the occasion. + +But Roland Barker sprang to his feet, held both his hands up, to command +silence, and said, in a scarcely audible voice, as he trembled from head +to foot: "Hush, hush! She has told the truth! She has told the awful +truth! I never saw it all before. Heaven help you to bear it. It seems +to me I cannot!" + +Several were pale and weeping. I turned to speak to the woman who had +changed an evening's entertainment into a tragic scene; but she had +slipped out during the excitement. I took Barker's arm and we walked +towards the Avenue together. Neither of us spoke until we reached +Madison Square. Here the poor fellow sank into a seat and pulled me down +beside him. + +"Don't talk to me about theories after that," he said. "Great God! I am +more dead than alive. I feel fifty years older than when I went to that +little hall to teach those people how to live by my fine philosophy, +and I truly thought that I had tasted sorrow and found the key to +resignation. Ye gods!" + +"Perhaps you have," I said. + +"Yes, yes," he replied, impatiently; "but suppose I had to face life day +by day, hour by hour, as that woman pictured it--and she was a lady with +as keen a sense of pain as I--what do you suppose my philosophy would do +for me then? Do you think I could endure it? And I went there to teach +those people how to suffer and be strong!" + +"Look here, Barker," I said, "you'd better go home now and go to bed. +You are cold and tired, and this won't help matters any." + +"What will?" he asked. + +I made no reply. When we reached his door he asked again: + +"What will?" + +I shook my head and left him standing in the brilliant hall of his +beautiful home, dazed and puzzled and alone. + + + + +II. + +The next time I met Roland Barker he grasped my hand and said excitedly: +"I have found that woman! What she said is all true. My God! what is +to be done? I feel like a strong man tied hand and foot, while devilish +vultures feed on the flesh of living babes before my eyes!" + +"Stop, Barker," I said; "stop, and go away for a while, or you will go +mad. What have you been doing? Look at your hands; they tremble like the +hands of a palsied man; and your face; why, Barker, your face is haggard +and set, and your hair is actually turning gray! What in the name of all +that's holy have you been doing?" + +"Nothing, absolutely nothing!" he exclaimed "That is the trouble! +What _can_ I do? I tell you something is wrong, Gordon, something is +desperately wrong in this world. Look at that pile of stone over there: +millions of dollars are built into that. It is opened once each week, +aired, cleaned, and put in order for a fashionable audience dressed in +silk and broadcloth. They call it a church, but it is simply a popular +club house, which, unlike other club houses, hasn't the grace to pay +its own taxes. They use that club house, let us say, three hours in all, +each week, for what? To listen to elaborate music and fine-spun theories +about another world. They are asked to, and they give money to send +these same theories to nations far away, who--to put it mildly--are +quite as well off without them. Then that house is closed for a week, +and those who sat there really believe that they have done what is right +by their fellow-men! Their natural consciences, their sense of right +and justice, have been given an anaesthetic. 'The poor ye have with you +always,' they are taught to believe, is not only true, but _right_. I +tell you, Gordon, it is all perfectly damnable, and it seems to me that +I cannot bear it when I remember that woman." + +"She is only one of a great many," I suggested. + +Roland Barker groaned: "My God! that is the trouble--so many that the +thing seems hopeless. And to think that on every one of even these poor +souls is laid another burden that that stone spire may go untaxed!" + +"Barker," I said, laying my hand on his arm, "tell me what has forced +all this upon you with such a terrible weight just now." + +"Not here, not now," he said. "I have written it down just as she told +it to me--you know I learned stenography when I began taking an interest +in public meetings. Well, I've just been copying those notes out. They +are in my pocket," he said, laying his hand on his breast. "They seem to +burn my very soul. I would not dare to trust myself to read them to you +here. Come home with me." + +When we were seated in his magnificent library, he glanced about him, +and with a wave of his hand said, with infinite satire: "You will notice +the striking appropriateness of the surroundings and the subject." + +"No doubt," I said. "I have often noticed that before, especially the +last time I heard a sermon preached to three of the Vanderbilts, +two Astors, five other millionaires, and about sixty more consistent +Christians, all of whom were wealthy. The subject was Christ's advice to +the rich young man, 'Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.' But never +mind; go on; the day has passed when deed and creed are supposed to hold +the slightest relation to each other; and what is a $20,000 salary for +if not to buy sufficient ability to explain it all sweetly away and +administer, at the same time, an anaesthetic to the natural consciences +of men?" + +I settled myself in a large Turkish chair on one side of the splendidly +carved table; he stood on the other side sorting a manuscript. Presently +he began reading it. "'When I married Frank Melville he was strong and +grand and brave; a truer man never lived. He had been educated for the +law. His practice was small, but we were able to live very well on +what he made, and the prospect for the future was bright. We loved each +other--but, ah! there are no words to tell that. We worshipped each +other as only two who have been happily mated can ever understand. We +lived up to his salary. Perhaps you will say that that was not wise. We +thought it was. A good appearance, a fairly good appearance at least, +was all that we could make, and to hold his own in his profession, this +was necessary. You know how that is. A shabby-looking man soon loses his +hold on paying clients. Of course he would not dress well and allow me +to be ill-clad. He--he loved me. We were never able to lay by anything; +but we were young and strong and hopeful--and we loved each other.'" +Barker's voice trembled. He looked at me a moment and then said very +low: "If you could have seen her poor, tired, beautiful eyes when she +said that." + +"I can imagine how she looked," I said. "She had a face one remembers." + +After a little he went on: "We had both been brought up to live well. +Our friends were people of culture, and we--it will sound strange to you +for me to say that our love and devotion were the admiration and talk of +all of them. + +"'By-and-by I was taken ill. My husband could not bear to think of me as +at home alone, suffering He stayed with me a great deal. I did not know +that he was neglecting his business; I think he did not realize it then; +he thought he could make it all up; he was strong and--he loved me. At +last the doctors told him that I should die if he did not take me away; +I ought to have an ocean voyage. It almost killed him that he could not +give me that. We had not the money. He took me away a little while where +I could breathe the salt air, and the good it did me made his heart only +the sadder when he saw that it was true that all I needed was an ocean +voyage. The climate of his home was slowly killing me. We bore it as +long as we dared, and I got so weak that he almost went mad. Then we +moved here, where my health was good. But it was a terrible task to get +business; there were so many others like him, all fighting, as if for +life, for money enough to live on from day to day. The strain was +too much for him, and just as he began to gain a footing he fell ill, +and--and if we had had money enough for him to take a rest then, and +have proper care, good doctors, and be relieved from immediate anxiety, +he would have gotten well, with my care--I loved him so! But as it +was--' Shall I show you the end?" Barker stopped, he was trembling +violently, his eyes were full of tears. I waited. Presently he said, +huskily: "Shall I tell you, Gordon, what I saw? I have not gotten over +it yet. She laid her finger on her lips and motioned me to follow. The +room where we had been was poor and bare. She took a key from her bosom, +opened a door, and went in. I followed. Sitting in the only comfortable +chair--which had been handsome once--was a magnificent-looking man, so +far as mere physical proportions can make one that. + +"'Darling,' she said tenderly, as if talking to a little child. +'Darling, I have brought you a present. Are you glad?' + +"She handed him a withered rose that I had carelessly dropped as I went +in. + +"He arose, bowed to me when she presented me, waved me to his chair, +took the flower, looked at her with infinite love, and said: 'To-morrow, +little wife; wait till to-morrow.' + +"Then he sat down, evidently unconscious of my presence, and gazed +steadily at her for a moment, seeming to forget all else and to struggle +with some thought that constantly eluded him. She patted his hand as if +he were a child, smiling through her heart-break all the while, kissed +him, and motioned me to precede her from the room. + +"When she came out she locked the door carefully behind her, sank into a +chair, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed as if her heart would +break. After a while she said: 'A little money would have saved, him and +now it is too late, too late. Sometimes he is violent, sometimes like +that. The doctors say the end is not far off, and that any moment he +may kill me, and afterwards awake to know it! It is all the result of +poverty _with love!'_ she said. Then, passionately: 'If I did not love +him so I could bear it, but _I cannot, I cannot!_ And how will _he_ bear +it if he ever harms me--and I not there to help him?'" + +Barker stepped to the window to hide his emotion. Presently he said, in +a voice that trembled: "If she did not love him so she could let him +go to some--asylum; but she knows the end is sure, and not far off, +and that the gleams of light he has are when he sees her face. She has +parted with everything that made life attractive to keep food and warmth +for him. She is simply existing now from day to day--one constant agony +of soul and sense--waiting for the end. She allowed me to take a doctor +to see him; I would have come for you, but you were out of town. He only +confirmed what others had told her a year ago. He advised her to have +him put in a safe place before he did some violence; but she refused, +and made us promise not to interfere. She said he would be able to harm +no one but her, if he became violent at the last, and she was ready for +that. It was easier far to live that way and wait for that each day +than to have him taken away where he would be unhappy and perhaps +ill-treated. He needed her care and love beside him every hour, and she +--she needed nothing." + +Here Barker flung himself into a chair and let his head fall on his +folded arms on the table. + +"That is the way love makes poverty easy to bear," he said, bitterly, +after a time, and his trembling hands clinched tight together. + +"Did you give her any money?" I asked. + +He groaned. "Yes, yes, I--that is, I left some on the table under her +sewing. She isn't the kind of woman one can offer charity. She--" + +"No," I said, "she isn't, and beside, for the pain that tortures her it +is too late now for money to help. Only it may relieve her somewhat to +feel sure that she can get what he needs to eat and wear and to keep him +warm and allow her to be free from the necessity of outside work. I am +glad you left the money. But--but--Barker, do you think she will use it, +coming that way and from a stranger?" + +He looked up forlornly. "No, I don't," he said; "and yet she may. I will +hope so; but if she does, what then? The terrible question will still +remain just where it was. That is no way to solve it; we can't bail out +the ocean with a thimble. And what an infamous imposition all this talk +is of 'resignation' to such as she; for her terrible calm, as she talked +to me, had no hint of resignation in it. She is simply, calmly, quietly +desperate now--and she is one of many." He groaned aloud. + +"Will you take me there the next time you go?" I asked. + +"She said I must not come back; she could not be an object of +curiosity--nor allow him to be. She said that she allowed me to come +this time because on the night we first saw her she had stepped into +that little hall to keep herself from freezing in her thin clothes as +she was making her way home, and she saw that I was earnest in what I +said, and she stayed to listen--" his voice broke again. + +Just then the drapery was drawn back, and his wife, superbly robed, +swept in, bringing a bevy of girls. + +"Oh, Mr. Barker," said one, gayly, "you don't know what you missed +to-night by deserting our theatre party; it was all so real--love in +rags, you know, and all that sort of thing; only I really don't like to +see _quite_ so much attention paid to the 'Suffering poor,' with a big +S, and the lower classes generally. I think the stage can do far better +than that, don't you? But it is the new fad, I suppose, and after all I +fancy it doesn't do much harm, only as it makes that sort of people more +insufferably obtrusive about putting their ill-clad, bad-smelling woes +before the rest of us. What a beautiful vase this is, Mrs. Barker! May I +take it to the light?" + +"Certainly, my dear," laughed Mrs. Barker; "and I agree with you, as +usual. I think it is an exquisite vase--and that the stage is becoming +demoralized. It is pandering to the low taste for representations of +low life. I confess I don't like it. That sort of people do not have the +feelings to be hurt--the fine sensibilities and emotions attributed to +them. Those grow up in refined and delicate surroundings. That is what I +often tell Roland when he insists upon making himself unhappy over some +new 'case' of destitution. I tell him to send them five dollars by mail +and not to worry himself, and I won't allow him to worry me with his +Christie-street emotions." + +Barker winced, and I excused myself and withdrew, speculating on certain +phases of delicacy of feeling and fine sensibility. + + + + +III. + +I did not see Barker again for nearly three weeks, when one night my +bell was rung with unusual violence, and I heard an excited voice in my +hall. "Be quick, John; hurry," it said, "and tell the doctor I must see +him at once. Tell him it is Roland Barker." + +John had evidently demurred at calling me at so late an hour. + +"All right, Barker; I'll be down in a moment," I called from above. "No, +come up. You can tell me what is the matter while I dress. Is it for +yourself? There, go in that side room, I can hear you, and I'll be +dressed in a moment." + +"Hurry, hurry," he said, excitedly, "I'll tell you on the way. I have my +carriage. Don't wait to order yours, only hurry, hurry, hurry." + +Once in the carriage, I said: "Barker, you are going to use yourself up, +this way. You can't keep this sort of thing up much longer. You'd better +go abroad." + +"Drive faster," he called, to the man on top. Then to me, "If you are +not the first doctor there? there will be a dreadful scene. They will +most likely arrest her for murder." + +"Whom?" said I. "You have told me nothing, and how can I prevent that if +a murder has been committed?" + +"By giving her a regular death certificate," said he, coolly, "saying +that you attended the case, and that it was a natural death. I depend +upon you, Gordon; it would be simply infamous to make her suffer any +more. I cannot help her now, but you can, you _must_. No one will know +the truth but us, and afterwards we can help her--to forget. She is not +an old woman; there may be something in life for her yet." + +"Is it the Lady of the Club?" I asked. We had always called her that +"What has she done?" + +"Yes," he said, "it is the 'Lady of the Club.' and she has poisoned her +husband." + +"Good God!" exclaimed I; "and you want me to give her a regular death +certificate and say I attended the case?" + +"You must," he said; "it would be infamous not to. She could not bear it +any longer. She found herself breaking down, and she would not leave him +alive without her care and love. He had become almost helpless, except +when short violent spells came on. These left him exhausted. He almost +killed her in the last one. Her terror was that he would do so and +then regain his reason--that he would know it afterwards and perhaps be +dragged through the courts. She had been working in a chemist's office, +it seems, when she was able to do anything. She took some aconitine, and +to-night she put everything in perfect order, gave him the best supper +she could, got him to bed, and then--gave him that. She sent for me and +told me as calmly as--God! it was the calm of absolute desperation. +She sat there when I went in, holding his poor dead hand and kissing it +reverently. She laid it down and told me what I tell you. There was +not a tear, a moan, a sigh. She said: 'Here is the money you left--all +except what I paid for his supper to-night. We had gotten down to that +before I had the chance to steal the poison or the courage to give it to +him. I had not meant to use any of the money; the rest is here. I would +like it used--if you are willing--to bury him decently, not in the +Potter's Field, and I would like--if you will take the trouble--to have +it done absolutely privately. We have borne enough. I cannot bear for +even his ashes to be subjected to any further humiliation.'" + +Roland Barker paused to command himself. "Of course I promised her," he +went on, after a time. "She does not realize that she may be arrested +and have his poor body desecrated to find the cause of death. That would +make her insane--even if-- Drive faster!" he called out again to the +man outside. When we reached the house he said: "Be prepared to see her +perfectly calm. It is frightful to witness, and I tremble for the result +later on." + +When we knocked on her door there was no response. I pushed it open and +entered first. The room was empty. We went to the inner doer and rapped +gently, then louder. There was no sound. Barker opened the door, and +then stepped quickly back and closed it. "She is kneeling there by his +bed," he said; "write the certificate here and give it to me. Then I +will bring an undertaker and--he and I can attend to everything else. I +did want you to see her. I think you should give her something to make +her sleep. That forced calm will make her lose her mind. She is so +shattered you would not recognize her." + +"Stay here, Barker," I said; "I want to see her alone for a moment. I +will tell her who I am and that you brought me--if I need to." + +He eyed me sharply, but I stepped hastily into the inner room. I touched +the shoulder and then the forehead of the kneeling form. It did not +move. "Just as I expected," I muttered, and lifting the lifeless body +in my arms I laid it gently beside her husband. In one hand she held +the vial from which she had taken the last drop of the deadly drug, and +clasped in the other her husband's fingers. She had been dead but a few +moments, and both she and her husband were robed for the grave. + +When I returned to the outer room I found Barker with a note in his +hand, and a shocked and horrified look on his face. He glanced up at me +through his tears. + +"We were too late," he said. "She left this note for me. I found it here +on the table. She meant to do it all along, and that is why she was so +calm and had no fears for herself." + +"I thought so when you told me what she had done," said I. + +"Did you? I did not for a moment, or I would have stayed and tried to +reason her out of it." + +"It is best as it is," said I, "and you could not have reasoned her out +of it. It was inevitable--after the rest. Take this certificate too; you +will need both." + +When all was safely over, as we drove home from the new graves two days +later, Barker said: "Is this the solution?" + +I did not reply. + +Presently he said: "To the dead, who cannot suffer, we can be kind and +shield them even from themselves. Is there no way to help the living? A +few hundred dollars, two short years ago, would have saved all this, and +there was no way for her to get it. She knew it _all_ then, and there +was no help!" + +"Why did she not, in such a case as that, push back her pride and go +to some one? There must be thousands who would have gladly responded to +such a call as that," I argued. + +He buried his face in his hands for a moment and shuddered. At last +he said: "She did--she went to three good men, men who had known, been +friendly with, admired her and her husband. Two of them are worth their +millions, the other one is rich. She only asked to borrow, and promised +to repay it herself if she had to live and work after he were dead to do +it!" + +He paused. + +"You do not mean to tell me that they refused--and they old friends and +rich?" I asked, amazed. + +"I mean to say just this: they one and all made some excuse; they did +not let her have it." + +"She told them what the doctors said, and of her fears?" + +"She did," he answered, sadly. + +"And yet you say they are good men!" I exclaimed, indignantly. + +"Good, benevolent, charitable, every one of them," he answered. + +"Were you one of them, Barker?" I asked, after a moment's pause. + +"Thank God, no!" he replied. "But perhaps in some other case I have done +the same, if I only knew the whole story. Those men do not know this +last, you must remember." + +"And the worst of it is, we dare not tell them," said I, as we parted. + +"No, we dare not," he replied, and left me standing with the copy of the +burial certificate in my hand. + +"Natural causes?" I said to myself, looking at it. "Died of natural +causes--the brutality and selfishness of man--and poverty with love. +_Natural_ causes! Yes." And I closed my office door and turned out the +light. + + + + +UNDER PROTEST. + +_"This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you._ + +_"Much more, perchance, might be said; but I hold him, of all men, most +lightly Who swerves from the truth in his tale."_ + +Bret Harte. + + +When the new family moved into, and we were told had bought, the cottage +nearest our own, we were naturally interested in finding out what kind +of people they were, and whether we had gained or lost by the change of +neighbors. + +In a summer place like this it makes a good deal of difference just what +kind of people live so near to you that when you are sitting on your +veranda and they are swinging in hammocks on theirs, the most of the +conversation is common property, unless you whisper, and one does not +want to spend three or four months of each year mentally and verbally +tiptoeing about one's own premises. Then, on the other hand, there +are few less agreeable situations to be placed in than to be forced to +listen to confidences or quarrels with which you have nothing whatever +to do, or else be deprived of the comforts and pleasures of out-door +life, to secure which you endure so many other annoyances. + +Our new neighbors were, therefore, as you will admit, of the utmost +interest and importance to us, and I was naturally very much pleased, at +the end of the first week, when I returned one day from a fishing party, +from which my wife's headache had detained her, by the report she gave +me of their attitude toward each other. (From her glowing estimate, I +drew rose-colored pictures of their probable kindliness and generosity +toward others.) Up to this time they had been but seldom outside of +their house, and we had not gathered much information of their doings, +except the fact that a good deal of nice furniture had come, and they +appeared to be greatly taken up in beautifying and arranging their +cottage. This much promised well, so far as it went; but we had not +lived to our time of life not to find out, long ago, that the most +exquisitely appointed houses sometimes lack the one essential feature; +that is, ladies and gentlemen to occupy them. + +"They are lovely!" said my wife, the moment I entered the door, before +I had been able to deposit my fishing-tackle and ask after her headache. +"They are lovely; at least he is," she amended. "I am sure we shall +be pleased with them; or, at least, with him. A man as careful of, and +attentive to, his wife as he is can't help being an agreeable neighbor." + +"Good!" said I. "How did you find out? And how is your headache?--Had +a disgusting time fishing. Glad you did not go. Sun was hot; breeze +was hot; boatman's temper was a hundred and twenty in the shade; bait +wouldn't stay on the hooks, and there weren't any fish any way. But how +did you say your head is?" + +"My head?" said my wife, with that retrospective tone women have, which +seemed to indicate that if she had ever had a head, and if her head had +ever ached, and if headache was a matter of sufficient importance to +remember, in all human probability it had recovered in due time. "My +head? Oh, yes--Oh, it is all right; but you really never did see any one +so tractable as that man. And adaptable! Why, it is a perfect wonder. Of +course I had no business to look or listen; but I did. I just couldn't +help it. The fact is, I thought they were quarrelling at first, and I +almost fainted. I said to myself, 'If they are that kind of people +we will sell out. I will not live under the constant drippings of +ill-temper.' Quarrelling ought to be a penitentiary offence; that is, +I mean the bickerings and naggings most people dignify by that name. I +could endure a good, square, stand-up and knock down quarrel, that had +some character to it; but the eternal differences, often expressed by +the tones of voice only, I can't stand." I smiled an emphatic assent, +and my wife went on. + +"Well, I must confess his tones of voice are, at times, against him; but +I'm not sure that it is not due to the distance. _All_ of his tones may +not carry this far. I'm sure they don't, for when I first heard him, +and made up my mind that it was a horrid, common, plebeian little row, +I went to the west bedroom window--you know it looks directly into their +kitchen--and what do you suppose I saw?" + +The question was so sudden and wholly unexpected, and my mental +apparatus was so taken up with the story that I found myself with no +ideas whatever on the subject Indeed I do not believe that my wife +wanted me to guess what she saw, half so much as she wanted breath; but +I gave the only reply which the circumstances appeared to admit of, and +which, I was pleased to see, in spite of its seeming inadequacy, was +as perfectly satisfactory to the blessed little woman as if it had been +made to order and proven a perfect fit. + +"I can't imagine," said I. + +"Of course you can't," she replied, pushing my crossed legs into +position, and seating herself on my knees. + +"Of course you can't. A man couldn't. Well, it seems their servant left +last night, and that blessed man was washing the dishes this morning. +The difference of opinion had been over which one of them should do it." + +"Why, the confounded brute!" said I. "He is a good deal better able to +do it than she is. She looks sick, and so long as he has no business +to attend to down here, he has as much time as she and a good deal more +strength to do that kind of work." + +"Well, I just knew you'd look at it that way," said my wife, with an +inflection of pride and admiration which indicated that I had made a +ten strike of some kind, of which few men--and not many women--would be +capable. + +"But that was not it at all," continued she. + +I began laboriously to readjust my mental moorings to this seemingly +complicated situation, and was on the verge of wondering why my wife was +so pleased with me for simply making a mistake, when she began again, +after giving me a little pat of unqualified satisfaction and sympathy. + +"They both wanted to do it. She said she wasn't a bit tired and could do +it alone just as well as not, and he'd break the glasses with his funny, +great, big fingers; and he said he'd be careful not to break anything, +and that the dish-water would spoil her hands." + +"Good," said I, "I shall like the fellow. I------" + +"Of course you will," my wife broke in, enthusiastically; "but that +isn't all. I went to sleep after that, and later on was awakened by a +loud--and as I thought at the time--a very angry voice. I went to +the window again only to see a laughing scuffle between them over the +potato-knife. She wanted to scrape them and he wanted to scrape them. Of +course he got the knife, and it really did look too comical to see him +work with those little bulbs. He put his whole mind on them, and he +didn't catch her picking over the berries until she was nearly done. +Then he scolded again. He said he did the potatoes to keep her from +getting her thumb and forefinger black, and here she was with her whole +hand covered with berry stain. He seemed really vexed, and I must say +his voice doesn't carry this far as if he was half as nice as he is. +I think there ought to be a chair of voices attached to every +school-house--so to speak--and the result of the training made one of +the tests of admission to the colleges of the country. Don't you?" + +Again I was wholly unprepared for her sudden question, and was only +slowly clambering around the idea she had suggested, so I said--somewhat +irrelevantly, no doubt--"It may be." + +She looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then said, as she +got up and crossed the room: "You didn't hear a word I said, and you +don't begin to appreciate that man anyway." + +"I did hear you, dear," I protested; "I was listening as hard as I +could--and awfully interested--but a fellow can't skip along at that +rate and have well-matured views on tap without a moment's warning. +You've got to be like the noble ladies in the 'Lay of the Last +Minstrel,' 'and give me heart and give me time.' Now _they_ understood +men. We're slow." + +She laughed and tied the last pink bow in the lace of a coquettish +little white gown and dragged me out on the veranda. + +Our new neighbors were out ahead of us. + +"I don't think so at all, Margaret," we heard him say, as we took our +chairs near the edge of the porch to catch any stray breeze that might +be wandering our way. + +"Sh--," we heard her say; "don't talk so loud. They will think you are +going to scalp me." + +"Oh, don't bother about the neighbors; let 'em hear," said he, "let 'em +think. Who cares? If they haven't got anything better to do than sit +around and think, they'd better move away from our neighborhood." + +"Sh--said she again, looking at him with a good deal of emphasis in her +eyes. + +"Well, it is too bad, isn't it?" acquiesced he, in a much lower voice, +and one from which every vestige of the tone of protest had vanished. + +"It _is_ too bad that these summer cottages are built so close together +that you can't tie your shoes without being overheard by the folks next +door? It makes me nervous. I feel as if I had to sit up straight all +the time and smile like a crocodile, or else run the risk of being +misunderstood." + +"It _is_ trying, dear," she said, "and destroys a good deal of the +comfort and ease of one's outing." + +"Nothing of the kind," began he, so explosively as to make my wife jump. + +"Sh--," whispered the lady next door, but he went on. + +"Nothing of the kind. I don't let it bother me in the least. They can +attend to their own affairs, and I----" + +"Sh--," said his wife; "suppose we walk down to the beach." She began to +adjust her wrap. + +"It is a good deal more comfortable here," he protested, "and besides +I'm tired." + +"So you are, of course," she said, regretfully. "I forgot. Such unusual +work for a man would tire him;" and she loosened the lace veil she had +drawn over her head and reseated herself. + +"Well, are you ready?" questioned he, clapping on his hat and suddenly +starting down the steps. + +"Ready for what?" asked she, in surprise. + +"The deuce, Margaret. I thought you said that you were going to the +beach!" + +She got up, readjusted her veil, took her wrap on her arm, and ran +lightly after him. + +"I wonder if I shall need this wrap?" she said as she passed our gate. + +"Heavens! no," he replied, "and it will heat you all up to carry it. +Here, give it to me. I don't see what on earth you brought it for. I'm +certainly hot enough without loading me up with this." + +"I will carry it," she said, cheerfully; "I don't feel the heat on my +arm as you do--or I'll run back and leave it on the porch. You walk +slowly. I can easily catch up." + +She started; but he took the shawl from her, threw it lightly over his +shoulder, and, pulling her hand through his arm, said gayly, and in the +most compliant tone: "It isn't very warm. I won't notice this little +thing and, besides, you'll need it down there, as like as not." + +When they were out of hearing my wife drew a long breath and said: "I +wonder if we ever sound like that to other people?--and yet, they seem +to be devoted to each other," she added hastily. + +"They are, no doubt," said I, "only he appears to be a chronic kicker." + +"A comic what?" said my wife, in so loud a tone that I involuntarily +exclaimed "Sh--!" + +We both laughed. Then she said: "But really, dear, I didn't understand +what you said he was. There doesn't seem to me to be anything comic +about him, though. And----" + +"Comic! Well, I should think not," said I. "I should think it would be +anything but comic to that little woman to go through that sort of thing +every time she opened her mouth. What I said was that he seems to be +a chronic kicker, and I might add--with some show of fairness--that he +impresses me as the champion of Kicktown at that." + +"Sh--," laughed my wife, "they're coming back." + +"I don't agree with you at all. There is no need to do anything of the +kind," were the first words we heard from a somewhat distant couple, and +my wife concluded that our new neighbors were not very far off. "It +would be no end of trouble for you. You'd get all tired out; and +besides, what do we owe to the Joneses that makes it necessary for you +to disturb all our little comforts to ask them down here?" he continued. +We could not hear her reply; but his protest and evident deep +dissatisfaction with the whole scheme went bravely on. + +She passed into the house and left him on the steps. When she came out +a few moments later he said, sweetly: "As I was just saying, it will be +quite a diversion for you to see the girls, and I'd enjoy the old man +hugely. He's a jolly old coon; and then we owe it to them after all they +did for you." + +"What girls? What old man is a jolly coon?" asked she, in an utterly +bewildered tone. + +"Margaret! The Joneses, of course. Whom have we been talking about for +the last half-hour?" exploded he. + +"Oh," said she, having evidently quite given over asking the Joneses, +and become occupied with other thoughts, "I thought the idea did not +please you. But I'm so glad. It will do you good to have him here, and I +shall be delighted." + +"Do me good!" exploded he. "Do me good! Tiresome old bore, if there ever +was one. Women are queer fish to deal with, but I'm sure I don't care +whom you invite here." + +Our neighbors withdrew for the night and we sighed with relief. About +two o'clock my wife touched me to find if I was asleep. The movement +was so stealthy that I inferred at once that there were burglars in the +house. I was wide awake in an instant. + +"What is it?" I whispered. + +"Well, I'm glad you're awake. I want to know what that was you called +the man next door. I forgot what it was, and I couldn't sleep for trying +to remember." + +I laughed. "I believe I said that he impressed me as one so addicted +to the reprehensible habit of protest--on general principles, as +it were--that it had now become the normal condition of his mental +constitution." + +"You didn't say any such thing," said she. "You--" + +"I believe that at the time of which you speak I allowed myself to be +guilty of a habit you do not wholly admire; but I really had no idea it +would keep you awake. I used slang. I said that he was a chronic kicker, +and--" + +"That's it! That's it!" exclaimed she, with deep satisfaction. "He's a +'chronic kicker.' Well, if you'll believe me, he hasn't stopped kicking +long enough to say his prayers decently since we went to bed. First +about what time it was; then about which room they'd sleep in; then +there was too much cover; then the windows were wrong; then--oh, +heavens!--I wonder if he kicks in his sleep? He always comes around to +reason in time; but if there was ever anything more maddening to meet +than that constant wall of protest--for the sake of protest--I don't +know what it could be." + +"Nor--I," said I, half asleep. + +Presently her hand grasped mine vigorously, and I sprang up startled, +for I had been sound asleep again. "What's the matter?" I said, in a +loud tone. + +"Sh--," whispered my wife. "Don't speak in that tone. I'd rather people +would think you stayed out nights, than to suppose you stayed at home +and nagged me. He's at it again. I'd most gone to sleep and his voice +nearly scared the life out of me. She wanted to close the window. He +objected, of course; said he'd smother--sh--" + +Just then we heard our neighbor's wife ask sleepily: "What are you +doing, dear?" + +"Closing this detestable window. Lets in too much salt air. 'Fraid +you'll get chilled. I am. Where's another blanket?" + +The window went down with a bang, and we heard no more of our neighbors +that night. But the next morning the same thing began again, and I do +not believe that during that entire summer he ever agreed with his wife +the first time she spoke, nor failed to come around to her view after he +took time to think it over. I remember when I was introduced to him, +a week later, his wife said: "This is our nearest neighbor, you know, +Thomas, and--" + +"No, he isn't, Margaret; the people back of us are nearer," he said. +Then to me: "Pleased to meet you. I believe our wives have become quite +good friends. I'm very glad for Margaret's sake, too. It's dull for her +with only an old fellow like me to entertain her, and she not very well. +And then, as she says, you are our nearest neighbor, and we really ought +not to be too ceremonious at such a place as this." + +"I thought, Thomas," suggested his wife, "that you said one could not +be too particular. Why, you quite blustered when I first told you I had +made advances to some of the other--" + +"Nonsense! I did nothing of the kind," broke in he. "What on earth ever +put such an idea into your head, Margaret? You know I always say that +without pleasant neighbors, and friendly relations with them, a summer +cottage is no place for a white man to live." + +My wife hastened to change the subject. Nothing on earth is more +distasteful to her than a family contest, of even a very mild type, +especially when the tones of voice seem to express more of indignation +and a desire to override, than a mere difference of opinion. She thought +the surf a safe subject. + +"Was not the water lovely to-day? You were in, I suppose?" she inquired +of our neighbor's wife. + +"Yes, we were in," she began, enthusiastically. "It was perfect and--" + +"I don't know what you call perfect," broke in he, "I called it beastly. +It was so cold I felt like a frog when I got out, and you looked half +frozen. The fact is, this is too far north to bathe for pleasure in the +surf. It may be good for one's health, but it is anything but pleasant. +Now at Old Point Comfort it is different. I like it there." + +"Why, James," said his wife, "I thought you preferred this because of +the more bracing and exhilarating effect." + +After a little more objection, which he seemed to think firmly +established his independence, he ended his remarks thus: + +"Of course, as you say, it is more bracing. Yes, that's a fact, +Margaret. I couldn't help noticing when I came out this morning that I +felt like a new man, and you--why, 'pon my word, you looked as bright +and rosy as a girl of sixteen. Oh, the surf here is great. It really is. +I like it; don't you?" + +This last he had addressed to me. I was so occupied in a study of, and +so astonished by, the facility with which he took his mental flops, +after enjoying his little "kick," that I was taken off my feet by his +sudden appeal to me, and was quite at a loss for a reply which would do +justice to the occasion, and at the same time put a stop to the contest +between husband and wife. + +But, as usual, my wife hastened to my rescue and covered my confusion by +her gay little laugh and explanation. + +"Ha, ha, ha," she laughed, "you have caught my husband napping already. +I know exactly where he was. He was lumbering along through an elaborate +speculation on, and a comparison of, the relative merits of--" here +she began telling them off on her fingers to the great amusement of our +neighbors--"first, fresh and salt water bathing; second, the method, +time, place, and condition of each as affected by the moon, stars, +and Gulf Stream. He was, most likely, climbing over Norway with +a thermometer, or poking a test-tube of some kind into the +semi-liquefaction which passes itself off as water to those unfortunates +who are stranded along the shores of the Mississippi. Just wait; one of +these days he will get down to our discussion and he'll agree with us +when he gets there. But don't hurry him." + +We all joined in the laugh at my expense; and I remarked that I had +served so long as a target for my wife's fun that even if I could skip +around, mentally, at as lively a rate as she seemed to expect, I would +pretend that I couldn't, in order not to deprive her of her chief source +of amusement. At this point our neighbor's new cook came to the edge +of their porch and asked her mistress if she might speak to her for a +moment. She arose to go. + +"Oh, thunder, Margaret, I hope you don't intend to allow that worthless +girl to call you home every time you go any place. Tell her to wait. It +can't be much she wants," said our neighbor. + +"Jane," said his wife sweetly, reseating herself, "you can wait until I +come home. It won't be long." + +"I wonder if you'd better do that, Margaret," said he, just as our wives +had begun to discuss something relative to housekeeping. "Jane is a +good girl, and she wouldn't call you if it were not something important, +Don't you think we had better go at once?" + +"I did think so," said she, and bidding us goodnight our neighbors +crossed the lawn and re-entered their own door and closed it for the +night. + +After a long pause my wife said, in a stage whisper: "I suppose it is +his way of showing that he is 'boss,' as the boys say--the final +appeal in his own household--his idea of the dignity of the masculine +prerogative." + +A sudden stop. I thought she expected me to say something, so I began: + +"I don't know. I doubt it. It looks to me like a case of--" + +"Don't! don't!" exclaimed my wife, in tragic accents "oh, _don't_ catch +it. I really couldn't live with a chronic objector. Anything else. I +really believe I could stand any other phase of bullying better than +that--to feel that at any minute I am liable to run against a solid wall +of 'I don't agree with you!' If it were _real_ I wouldn't mind it so +much; but to hear that man 'kick,' as you say, just for the sake +of asserting himself, and then come around as he does, is perfectly +maddening. The very first symptom I see in you I shall look upon it as a +danger signal--I'll move." + +At that moment, before our quiet little laugh, at their expense, had +died away, there floated out from the bedroom window of our neighbors' +cottage, this refrain: + +"Well, goodness knows, Margaret, _I_ didn't want to come home. I knew it +was all perfect nonsense. If you--" + +My wife suddenly arose, took me by the hand and said quite seriously: +"Come in the house, dear. This atmosphere is too unwholesome to endure +any longer." + +The next day she said to me, "Let's go to Old Point Comfort next year." + +"All right," said I; "but what shall we do with the cottage? You know we +hold the lease for another year, with the 'refusal' to buy." + +"Rent it to your worst enemy, or, better still, get him to buy it. Just +think of the exquisite revenge you could take that way. Twenty-four +hours every day, for four long months each year, to know that you had +him planted next door to a 'chronic kicker.' Or don't you hate anybody +bad enough for that?" and my wife actually shuddered. + +"I don't believe I do, dear," said I; "but I'll do my level best to +_rent_ it to him for one season. You know I wouldn't care to murder him; +if he's hopelessly maimed I'll be satisfied." + +We both laughed; but the next day I advertised the lease of a cottage +for sale very cheap, and gave as a reason my desire to go where there +were fewer people. I think this will catch my enemy. He likes a crowd, +and he'd enjoy nothing better than to feel that I was forced to pay half +of his rent. So I marked the paper and sent it to him, and confidently +await the result. + + + + +FOR THE PROSECUTION. + +_"So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer +for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human sufferings that +even Justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution +that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited +pain."_--George Eliot. + + + + +I. + +Shortly after Fred Mathews began the practice of law he was elected to +the office of Prosecuting Attorney in the Western town to which he had +gone when first admitted to the bar. + +Of course, every law student becomes familiar with the jests and +gibes cast at the members of the profession as men who are peculiarly +economical of the truth. He smiles with those who hint that a lawyer is +always lavish of advice that leads to litigation. + +That students of Blackstone and Coke hear much merrymaking over and some +serious criticism of the quibbles to which the best of them are +supposed to resort--of making little of real evidence and much +of trivialities--goes without saying. Nor are they unaware of the +fact--alas! sometimes too well founded upon strong evidence--that +the general public appears to be convinced that laws are made for the +purpose of shielding the rich and oppressing the poor or unfortunate. + +No student of average ability enters practice uninformed that there is +a widespread belief that a man of social position or financial power +has little to fear as a result of his misdeeds, while his less fortunate +neighbor could not hope to escape the worst legal consequences of his +most trivial lapse from rectitude. + +Fred Mathews had made up his mind--as many a young fellow had done +before him--that he would do everything in his power to hold the scales +of justice level. + +He determined that such ability as he possessed should be used for the +benefit of society, and that neither bribe nor threat should ever entice +him from the strict performance of his duty to the profession which he +had entered. He would never accept a case in which he did not honestly +believe. No man's money should buy him and no man's wrath intimidate. In +short, he intended to be a lawyer with a conscience as well as a man of +integrity, no matter what the result might be. + +He made so good a beginning in the first two years of his practice that +it was at the end of the third, when he found himself holding the office +of Prosecuting Attorney, with a record clean, and fair sailing ahead, +that a piece of news which came to him caused him to doubt himself for +the first time. + +The shock of that doubt thrilled every fibre in his nature, for with it +came the one fear that is terrible to a brave mind which is aroused for +the first time to its own possibilities--the fear to trust itself--the +dread lest it betray its own higher nature under the pressure of old +habits of thought or new social problems. + +Right and wrong had always seemed to him to have the most decided and +clear-cut outlines. He had never thought of himself as standing before +them unable to distinguish their boundaries. He had felt that he could +answer bravely enough the question: "What would you do if required to +choose between honor and dishonor?" It was a strange thing to him that +his present perplexity should grow out of a simple burglary case. There +did not appear to him, at first, to be more than one side to such a +case. He was the Prosecuting Attorney. A store had been robbed. Among +other things a sealskin sacque was taken. By means of this cloak the +burglary had been traced--it was claimed--to a certain young man high +in social life. The duties of his office had led the State's attorney to +prosecute the investigation with his usual vigor and impartiality until +he had succeeded beyond his fairest hopes. Indeed, the chain of evidence +now in his possession was so strong and complete that he--for the first +time in his career--recognized that he shrank from using the testimony +at his command. + +He felt that it was his duty to cause to be apprehended a young man who +had up to the present time borne a spotless reputation; who had been a +fellow student at college; whose social position was that of a leader, +and who was soon to marry one of the most charming girls in the town. +The situation was painful, but Fred Mathews felt that his own honor was +at stake quite as truly as was that of his old schoolfellow. Here was +his first opportunity to show that he held his duty above his desires. +Here was the first case in which social influence and financial power +were on the side of a criminal whom it was his duty to prosecute to the +end. + +His professional pride, as well as his honor, was enlisted; for this +was the third burglary which had been committed recently, and so far the +"gang"--as the newspapers assumed and the police believed the offenders +to be--had not been caught. + +Fred Mathews now thought he had every reason to believe that the same +hand had executed all three crimes and that the recklessness of +the last--the almost Wanton defiance of perfectly natural means of +precaution and concealment--had led to the discovery of this burglar in +high life. + +After long deliberation, however, the young prosecutor made up his +mind that he would so far compromise with his conscience as to make a +personal, private call upon the young man who was under suspicion and +boldly accuse him of the theft of the tell-tale cloak that had been +traced to him, and take the consequences. + +He was well aware that in case this course should lead to the escape of +the criminal he would be compelled to bear the abuse and suspicion which +would surely follow, for the evidence had passed through other hands +than his own. + +He knew that he was taking a method which would be called in question, +and that he would not take it if the suspected man lived in a less +fashionable street or had the misfortune to be low born. + +All this he knew quite well, and still he argued to himself that it was +the right thing for him to do, or at least that it was the best possible +under the circumstances, and that after giving Walter Banks a private +chance to clear himself--if such a thing were possible--he would still +be in a position to go on with the case, if that should be necessary. + +That night, for the first time in his career, he allowed himself to be +kept awake, not by the fear that he should fail through inexperience in +his duty to his client--as had happened sometimes to trouble him earlier +in his professional life--but by a dread that he should wilfully betray +his trust to the public. At two o'clock he lay staring at the wall, +asking himself if he was becoming corrupt; if he, too, believed in +shielding guilt if only that guilt were dressed in purple and spoke with +a soft and cultured accent. + + + + +II. + +"Mr. Banks will be down in a moment;" the trim maid had said, and left +the library door open as she withdrew. + +The young prosecutor walked about the room uneasily. He had hoped at +the last moment that the object of his call would be from home--that he +would take fright and refuse to be seen--that action had been taken by +the police which would put it out of his power to give the warning that +he now felt he was here to give. But, no. "Mr. Banks will be down in +a moment." He had heard quite distinctly, and there had not been the +slightest accent of fear or annoyance in the voice that spoke. + +In his agitation he had taken up a curiously wrought paper knife which +lay upon the table and had dropped it as if it had burned his fingers. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed. "_He_ was the college thief. It is no new +thing, then." + +He took up the knife again and examined it closely. There could be no +mistake. It was a gold wrought, elaborately engraved blade, set in a +handle which had no duplicate, for the students, who had planned the +gift which had so mysteriously disappeared had devised and caused to be +engraved a secret symbol which was cut deep in the polished surface. + +It was to have been a surprise for one of the favorites in the faculty. +It had disappeared--and here it was! + +"Good morning, Mathews. This is really very kind. I--" + +It was the voice of Walter Banks, but their eyes met over the fallen +paper knife, which had dropped from trembling fingers at the first word. + +A great wave of color rushed into the face of young Banks. The +prosecutor stood mute and pale. Involuntarily he had tried to cover the +knife with a corner of the rug as he turned to meet his host. It vaguely +dawned upon him that he was a guest in a house where he was playing the +part of a detective. His hand was extended in the hearty western fashion +which had become second nature to him, but Walter Banks did not take it. + +"Will you sit down?" said the host in a tone which was hoarse, and quite +unlike the frank, free voice that spoke a moment before. + +As he seated himself he bent forward and took up the bit of tell-tale +gold and ivory. Then he said, slowly in a tone that was scarcely +audible: + +"Yes, I took it. You are right. It _is_ the college knife." + +"Don't! don't!" exclaimed Fred Mathews, rising. "I am-- You forget-- I +am-- My office. Think. I am for the prosecution!" His face was livid. +Young Banks leaned heavily against the table. The color began to die +out of his lips. His hand trembled as he laid the knife upon the table. +Neither spoke. The brain of the young prosecutor found only scraps +and shreds of thought, in which such words as duty, honor, pity, +hospitality, wealth, social order, floated vaguely here and there, +buffeted by the one insistent idea that he should go--go quickly--and +leave this man alone with his shame and humiliation. + +Walter Banks was the first to speak. + +"Come up to my room. Mother might come in here and--I suppose--you have +come about-- I--Is--? You say you are for the prosecution. Have they +traced the cloak to me?" + +The lawyer stepped back again and looked at the man before him. What +could he mean by saying such a thing as that--_to him?_ They had never +been close friends, but now in spite of everything the thought that +he was the prosecutor kept itself steadily in the attorney's mind and +struggled with a pity and reluctance that were seeking to justify him by +a belief in the insanity of young Banks. + +No one but a lunatic would have made that last remark. The thought was a +relief. He grasped at it eagerly and began to fashion his mental outlook +to fit the idea. Then suddenly came to him with overwhelming force all +he had ever heard or read of the failure of justice where criminals of +high degree were concerned. + +He had followed his host to the stairs. Suddenly he turned, caught +up his hat from the stand where he had left it, and passed out of the +street door without a word. Once in the street he glanced involuntarily +up at the house. At the window of the room he had just left stood Walter +Banks. His arm was about his mother's shoulders, and both were very +pale. There was a strange likeness between them. + + + + +III. + +Every conceivable form of pressure to prevent the trial of Walter Banks +was brought to bear in the next few weeks; but Prosecutor Mathews had +pushed the case vigorously in spite of it all. He felt not only that +justice was at stake, but that his own moral fibre was in pawn, as +well. He held aloof from his social friends--who were in many cases the +friends of the accused, also--lest he lose sight of his duty through +some fresh or new form of attack upon his integrity of purpose. + +It had come to his knowledge that even the Judge who was to sit in the +case had been approached by the friends of the defendant, and it was +felt that it would be difficult to impanel a jury that would or could be +fair and impartial. + +If but one man was drawn from the "upper class," the jury would be sure +to hang. On the other hand, if all of the talesmen were chosen from that +social caste which feels that it is usually the victim, it would go hard +with Walter Banks even if he were able--as seemed wholly unlikely--to +show a reasonably clear case in his favor. + +The day came. The court-room held an unusual audience. There were many +ladies present who had never before seen the inside of such a room. They +held their breath and were filled with awe and fear--of they knew not +what. + +Perhaps few men can realize what it is to a woman to face for the first +time the embodiment of all that her strong faith and utter ignorance has +carried to mature years as an ideal of justice and dignity--of solemn +obligation and fearful responsibility. To her there has been no reverse +side to the picture. She believes in courts as courts of justice. She +knows nothing of quibble, of technicality, of precedent. Nothing here +is light or humorous to her. Next to a death chamber the criminal +court-room is fullest of the thoughts which reach beyond mere human +responsibility and import, and all that passes there is freighted for +her with a sense of finality that few men can comprehend. _They_ think +of reversal of judgment. + +The fiat of the court is the closing knell to a woman; and although she +may know the judge in private life to be a fallible or--more incongruous +still--a jovial man, his presence _here_ is overpowering. Of the jury +she feels vaguely, dread. Of the judge, awe. + +The mother of the prisoner sat near him. Her sad, pale, refined face +troubled the young prosecutor sorely and he tugged at his conscience and +spurred on his resolution after each glance at her. + +The case was so plain, the evidence so clear, the defence so weak that +the whole tide of public sentiment swung rapidly from the side of the +prisoner to that of the people. + +The indignation for him which had been felt by the society women who had +come to show themselves as his friends changed into scorn and contempt. +The whole mental atmosphere of the room underwent a revolution. When +court opened few besides the officers believed him guilty. As the +case drew near its close no one believed him innocent. He had not been +allowed by his counsel to take the stand in his own behalf, and this had +told strongly against him in the minds of both jury and spectators. The +prosecuting attorney had made a telling speech, and the charge of the +judge was plainly indicative of his opinion that there was but one +verdict to give. + +The jury had taken but one ballot. They had needed no charge from the +judge at all. + +"Guilty,"--came from the foreman's lips with a decided accent that +indicated a certain satisfaction in pronouncing it. The prisoner's face +grew a shade paler, but the puzzled light in his eyes lost nothing of +that weary, insistent questioning that had marked their depths all day. +Indeed, he seemed to be as much surprised, as the evidence had been +unfolded, as were the friends who were there to see him vindicated. + +During the speech of the prosecutor and the charge of the judge young +Banks; mother had held her son's hand and tears had dropped unheeded +from her eyes. + +The judge had spoken again, but no one moved. The attorney for the +prisoner bent forward and touched him on the shoulder. + +"Stand up for sentence," he said. "The judge"-- + +"Sit still!" It was the woman beside him who spoke. She had dried her +tears. Every face in the room was turned toward her now. She staggered +to her feet. Her voice penetrated every corner of the room. + +"_I_ am the thief, judge. Sentence me. I stole the cloak!" + +"Mother, mother! Great God, it is not true! Mother, sit down! She never +saw the coat. Mother! Mother! Great God, what does it mean?" + +The young fellow had sprung to his feet, but she eluded his grasp, and +before any one knew what she intended to do she passed onto the witness +stand. + +There was a tense silence in the room. No one was prepared for the +scene. It had been so swiftly done--so wholly without warning--that +every one sat dumb. + +She had caught up the Bible as she reached the stand and pressed it +to her lips. She was vaguely aware that this act was looked upon as +affecting the credibility of the witness. She also imagined that it gave +her a right to put in her evidence even at this stage of the trial. She +supposed that a trial was for the purpose of arriving at the facts and +that the Court sat with that object alone in view. She did not know that +it was too late. She was unaware that the case would have to be reopened +to admit her evidence. She did not know that it was possible for the +gate of justice to be swung shut in the face of truth. She supposed +that all trials were for the one purpose of getting at the bottom of the +case; so that it did not occur to her that her action was strange only +in so far as such a confession from such a woman must be so regarded by +all who knew her, and who was there in all the town who did not know and +respect her? + +The young prosecutor sat mute. The eyes of the judge widened in +astonishment. For the moment he was the man and neighbor only. He forgot +his office. She was talking rapidly, and all were listening. + +"I am the thief, judge. Let me tell you. It is not right that he should +suffer for my crime. Poor boy, his life has been a hell on earth for +_me--for me!_ And he has never understood. I could not tell him. I shall +now. He shall understand. _You_ shall, judge. Oh, God, if only a woman +sat where you do--a mother! But let me tell you; I can. I thought I +could not; but I can--even to _these_ gentlemen." She waved her hand +toward the jury and there was a widening of her nostrils as if her +breath and courage were leaving her. "Rather than have him punished, +disgraced, ruined, I can tell it all. He is _not_ guilty. It is I! It is +I!" She put her trembling hands to her temples and her eyes were those +of a hunted creature at bay. + +"Before he came into the world--you'll let me tell you frankly, judge? +_I must_. Before he came into the world I made him what he is--a thief. +Did I or did his father? It was like this. I am ashamed to tell it, but, +oh, judge, I _loved_ him, and I longed to make the pretty things and +buy the dainty ones that would make his soft, white, dimpled flesh +look sweeter when he should lie before me. His father was--you knew his +father, judge. He was a good man, but-- You know how he loved money--and +power. He-- I-- I was the pauper most young wives are. I was too proud +to ask for money, and if I _had_ asked often-- But I was too proud, so, +perhaps, I need not tell about the if. Most women know it, and-- You +could not understand." + +She paused. A panic had overtaken her nerves. She was becoming vaguely +conscious of her position. Her eyes wandered over the room; but when +they fell upon her son, sitting with his wretched face pinched and +startled, with his deep eyes staring at her, her courage came again. + +"At first I had no thought of theft. I used to go each night after my +husband fell asleep and take a little money from his pocket. Only +a little. He never missed it--never. So he used to whip the boy for +stealing afterward and said he would disgrace us and-- I never told +him even then. Life was horrible. The growing certainty maddened me. He +would steal anything, everything about the house, even his own things. +He did not understand himself and he could not help it; but I did not +think it would ever come to _this_--through me--_through me!_" + +She calmed herself again suddenly by a glance at her son. + +"Every night I took only a little money. My motive was a good one. +I knew my husband did not understand how I longed to get the pretty +things. How-- Of course in one sense I had a right to the money. He was +rich even then, but--I _felt_ myself a--pauper--and a thief. + +"I-- Do you think young mothers should be young paupers, judge? I've +sometimes thought that if they were not there might be less use for +courts like this--and prisons. + +"I've sometimes thought if mothers sat on juries they'd know the reasons +why for crime and wrong and, maybe, work to cure the causes of +the crimes rather than simply punish those who have committed them +blindly--_often blindly_. + +"I've sometimes thought the cost--in money--would be less; and then the +cost in love and sorrow! Oh, judge, be patient just a little longer. +Do not let them stop me. It means so much to _us!_ I'll go back to +the point. I'll tell the truth--all of it--all. But it is hard to do +it--here. + +"I bought the little wardrobe; but remember, judge, the months and +months of daily building, bone on bone, fibre within fibre, thought on +thought that is moulded into shape for human beings! + +"I knew your father, judge. Your eyes are like his, but all your mental +life--your temperament--you got from other blood than filled his veins. + +"Your father's mother gave you your character. Your gentle heart is +hers--your patient thoughtfulness. I knew her well. I knew your mother, +too. She was the teacher of my motherhood. It was to her I told the +truth in my boy's childhood--when I first began to realize or fear +what I had done. You owe it all to her that you are strong and true. She +understood in time--and now you sit in judgment on my boy, whose mother +learned from yours too late the meaning and the danger of it all. +She saved my other children. I killed my pride for them. _I asked +for money_. The others may be _beggars_ some day--they never will be +thieves. + +"That boy has never asked a favor. He simply cannot. His pride was +always stronger than anything--anything except his love for me. + +"I knit that in his blood too. I loved him so I made myself a thief for +him. Of course I did not know--I did not understand the awful danger +then; but-- A young mother--I--it is hard to tell it here. You will not +understand--you cannot. Oh, God, for a mother on the jury! A mother on +the bench!" + +She caught at her escaping courage again. The officer whose duty it +was to take her away moved forward a second time, and a second time the +judge motioned him back. She had been his mother's friend ever since +he could remember, and the ordinary discipline of the court was not for +her. He would do his duty, he said to himself, but surely there was no +haste. All this was irregular, of course, but if something should come +of it that gave excuse for a new trial no one would be more thankful +than he. + +"Young mothers are so ignorant. They know so little of all the things of +which they should know much. They are so helpless. Judge, there will +be criminal courts and prisons--oh, so many of both--just as long as +motherhood is ignorant and helpless and swayed by feeling only. Don't +you know it is ignorance and feeling that leads to crime? If people only +understood! If only they were able to think it out to what it means, +crimes would not be--but they cannot, they cannot! Those trembling +lips you see before you are no more truly a copy of mine--the boy is +as responsible for the set and curve of those lips--as he is for his +hopeless fault. He has stolen from his infancy; but I, not he, am the +thief. Now sentence the real criminal, judge. Courts are to punish the +guilty--not to further curse the helpless victims. I am the criminal +here. Sentence me!" + +"Mother! Mother! I never understood my-self before! Oh, mother, mother!" + +It was a wild cry from Walter Banks as his mother had risen asking for +sentence on herself. He sprang forward, forgetting everything and took +her in his arms. There was a great stir in the room. + +"Silence in the court!" + +Mrs. Banks had fainted. Her son helped to carry her into another room. +No one attempted to prevent him. The young prosecutor returned with him +and stood dumb before the court. + +"I am ready for sentence, your Honor. I committed the burglary." It was +the voice of the prisoner. He was standing with his arms folded and his +eyes cast down. Silence fell in the room. The women ceased to sob. There +was an uneasy movement in the jury box. + +"In view of the new evidence--" began the foreman but the voice of the +judge, slow and steady, filled the room. + +"It is the sentence of this court that you, Walter Banks, be confined at +hard labor in the state penitentiary for the term of four years." + +The prisoner bowed and turned a shade paler. + +"Do not tell mother that until she is better," he said to his attorney +and passed out in the custody of the sheriff. + +"And at the end of four years, what!" a lady was saying to the young +prosecutor as the room slowly emptied. + +"The brute!" was hurled after the judge by another, as his form vanished +through the door. + +"Shows that law is not for the poor alone--" + +"Good things for social order and--" + +"Well, yes, I'm rather disappointed; but of course a judge can't go +behind the returns." + +"Evidence all one way if--" + +"Heavens, what a scene!" + +"--my opinion no woman should ever be admitted to a court room except as +a prisoner. It--" + +"Feather in the cap of the prosecutor." + +"--re-election sure enough now." + +"Whole thing in a nutshell--" + +"Simple question. _Did_ he commit the burglary? If so--" + +The young prosecutor hurried away from the sound of these voices and +the congratulations of his political friends. He was mentally sore and +perplexed because he had won his case. + +That night he called upon the prisoner for the second time. + +"I have made up' my mind to resign my office," he said, not looking at +the convict, who had risen to receive him. + +Walter Banks was by far the calmer of the two, but he did not speak. + +"I shall never be able to act for the prosecution again. I thought +this case was so clear. My duty seemed so plain--too plain to admit of +anything but the most vigorous course of action; but--" + +"You did nothing but your duty, Mathews. We are all victims I +suppose--one way or another. You are going to be the victim of your +sensitive conscience. The result will be a course of vacillation that +will ruin your chances of success. I am sorry. You've got all the +elements for a leader--only you've got a conscience. That settles it. A +bit of heredity like that is as fatal as--as mine." He bit his lips. + +"Don't let your part in my case worry you. The game of life has gone +against me. That is all. The dice were loaded before I ever got hold of +them. I did what I could to out-live--out-fight my awful--inheritance. +I wasn't strong enough. It got the best of me. Nature is a terrible +antagonist. Perhaps now that I understand myself better I shall be able +to keep a firmer hold. You did your duty, Mathews; good-by. Be-- Can't +you be a little kind to mother? She suffers so. Her punishment is +double--and her crime was ignorance!" + +This time he took the hand that was held out to him. + +"Only ignorance," he added. "It seems an awful punishment for that." + +"Ignorance--and poverty and love," said the young prosecutor as the +door closed behind him, "and Nature did the rest! What a grip is at +our throats! And how we help blind Nature in her cruel work by laws and +customs and conditions! What a little way we've come from barbarism +yet! How slow we travel. But we are moving," he added with a deep sigh. +"Moving a little. There is light ahead. If not for us, then for those +who come after." + +He heard the bolt slip behind him and shuddered. + +"It might as easily have been I," he mused as he went down the steps, +and shuddered again. + +"I doubt if it was fault of his or virtue of mine that determined which +of us two should be the prosecutor." + + + + +A RUSTY LINK IN THE CHAIN. + + +_"In the brainy that wondrous world with one inhabitant, there are +recesses dim and dark, treacherous sands and dangerous shores, where +seeming sirens tempt and fade; streams that rise in unknown lands from +hidden springs, strange seas with ebb and flow of tides, resistless +billows urged by storms of flame, profound and awful depths hidden +by mist of dreams, obscure and phantom realms where vague and fearful +things are half revealed, jungles where passion's tigers crouch, and +skies of cloud and hue where fancies fly with painted wings that dazzle +and mislead; and the poor sovereign of this pictured world is led by old +desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes of many vanished years, +and pushed by hands that long ago were dust, until he feels like some +bewildered slave that Mockery has throned and crowned."_ + +Ingersoll. + + +When I called, last Sunday afternoon, as was my habit, upon my old +college friend--now a distinguished physician--I found him sitting in +his office holding in his hand a letter. His manner was unusually grave +and, I thought, troubled. I asked him, laughingly, if he had had bad +news from beyond the seas--from his Castle in Spain. + +"No, it is worse than that, I fear," he said gravely. "It looks to +me very much like bad news from beyond the grave--from the Castle of +Heredity in the realm of an Ancestor." + +"I hope, doctor, that you have not had,--that my little jest was not a +cruel touch upon a real hurt." + +"Not at all, not at all, old fellow," he said, smiling a little. + +"It is not my own trouble at all; but--well, it set me to thinking +strange thoughts. Shall I tell you about it? I should really like +to know just how it would impress you--an intelligent man out of the +profession." + +He placed the letter on the table beside him, looked at me steadily for +a moment, and then began: + +"It may be as well to say that I have never before ventured to tell the +story of George Wetherell's curious experience, simply because I have +always felt certain that to a really intelligent and well-in-formed +physician it would be a comparatively familiar, and not specially +startling (although a wholly uncomprehended) phase of human disorder; +while to many, not of the profession, it would appear to involve such +fearful and far-reaching results, that they would either refuse to +believe it possible at all, or else jump to the conclusion that numerous +cases which have only some slight point of similarity are to be classed +with it and explained upon the same basis. + +"In regard to these latter persons, I do not intend to convey +the impression that I am either ambitious to shield them from the +consequences of their own nimble and unguarded reckonings, or that by my +silence in this particular instance I suppose that I have prevented them +from forming quite as erroneous opinions founded upon some other equally +misunderstood and ill-digested scrap of psychological and medical +information. + +"But it has sometimes seemed to me that there were certain features +connected with the case of George Wetherell which, in the hands of the +ignorant or unscrupulous, might easily be used to the disadvantage of +their fellow-beings, and I have therefore hesitated to lay it before any +one who was not, in my opinion, both intelligent and honorable enough +to accept it as one of the strange manifestations in an individual +experience; and to understand, because of the innumerable conditions of +mental and physical heredity--which were not likely ever to occur again +in the same proportions--that therefore the same manifestations were, +not to be looked for in a sufficient number of persons to ever make this +case in any sense a type or a guide. + +"Notwithstanding this, there are, as I said in the first place, certain +features connected with it which many members of the medical profession +will recognize; but they are none the less puzzling symptoms. + +"The matter has been brought back with unusual force to my mind at this +time, by a circumstance connected with one of Wetherell's children, +which is detailed in this letter. It lends a new touch of interest +to the malady of the father. To enable you to obtain even a fairly +comprehensive idea of the strange development, it will be necessary for +me to tell you, first, something about the man and his surroundings. + +"To be as brief as I may, then, he was the son of a merry, whole-souled, +stout, and, withal, mentally alert, Southern gentleman, who had taken +the law into his own hands and duly scandalized the reputable part of +the community in which he lived by giving his slaves (all of whom he or +his wife had inherited) their freedom at a time and under circumstances +which made it necessary for him to betake himself with some considerable +alacrity to a part of the country where it was looked upon as +respectable to pay for the voluntary services of one's fellowmen, rather +than to pay for the man himself with the expectation that the services +were to be thrown in. + +"Of course it was imperative--not only for the peace, but for the safety +of all parties concerned--for him to transport both his family and his +freed-men to a place where it was at once honorable for a white man +to do such a deed and for a black man to own himself. This he did; and +while a number of the negroes remained in the service of the family, the +son (on whose account, and to prevent whom from believing in and being +enervated by the possession of slaves the step had, in great measure, +been taken) had grown to manhood with a curious mingling of Southern +sympathies and Northern reasoning and convictions. + +"The outbreak of the war found the young fellow struggling bravely, with +all the fire and energy of a peculiarly gifted nature, to establish +a newspaper in a border State, and to convince his readers that the +extension of slavery would be a grave calamity, not only for the owned +but for the owner. + +"His two associates were Eastern college-bred men, and it was therefore +deemed wisest to push young Wetherell forward as the special champion +of free soil, under the illusion that his Southern birth and sympathies +would win for him a more ready and kindly hearing on a subject which +at that time was a dangerous one to handle freely, especially in the +border-land then under dispute. + +"But the three young enthusiasts had reckoned, as young people will, +upon a certain degree of reason about, and calm discussion of, a +question which at that time they still recognized as having two very +strong and serious sides; for they had not taken the stand of the +Abolition party at all. They called themselves free-soil Democrats, and +were simply arguing against the extension of an institution which they +were not yet prepared to believe it wise to attempt to abolish where +it was already established, and where there was seemingly no other +peaceable or fair solution than the one of limitation and gradual +emancipation, through the process of mental and moral development of the +ruling race. This position was not an unnatural one, surely, for young +Wetherell, and was only what might have been expected from the son of +a man who had given practical demonstration of the possibility of such +evolution in the slave-holding and slave-dependent class. + +"But, as I have intimated, the confidence and reasonableness of youth +had led to a complete misconception as to the temper of the opposition. +It is quite possible that the frank, passionate, free-soil editorials, +if they had come from either of the Eastern men, might have been +accepted as the delusions of youth, the prejudice of section, or, +at worst, as the arguments of partisans; but from a man of Southern +birth--the son of a law-breaker (you must remember that the +enfranchisement of the slaves had been a serious infraction of the law, +strange as that sounds to the ears of the present generation)--from the +son of such a man they could mean only a malicious desire to stir up +strife and cause bloodshed by making restless slaves dangerous and +dangerous slaves desperate. The result was that one night, after the +issue of a paper containing an article of unusual force and power, young +Wetherell found himself startled from a sound sleep, in the back room of +his office, by the smell of smoke and gleam of flame. + +"He understood their significance at a glance, and knew that escape by +the front door meant a reception by masked men, five minutes for prayer, +and--a rope. + +"Springing from the back window into the river, he swam to the other +shore, and within a few days raised the first regiment of volunteers +that the State sent in response to the call of the President, and cut +adrift at once and forever from all effort to argue the case from an +ethical or a financial outlook. + +"It is more than likely that anger may have had something to do with +his sudden conversion from a 'peace and argument,' to first a 'war +Democrat,' and shortly thereafter to a Republican; but be that as it +may, it is certain that at such crises as these, mental activity is +spurred and radical changes are made with a rapidity and decision +astonishing to contemplate in periods of quiet and peace. + +"So it came about that this lad of twenty-three suddenly found himself +at the head of a regiment of somewhat desperate border men, most of whom +were more than twice his own age, wildly charging a battery in one of +the first battles of the war. + +"He received three wounds, one of which was a slight abrasion of the +scalp, not looked upon as more than a scratch by either the surgeon or +himself; indeed, it would hardly be worth mentioning but for the strange +events which followed. Whether this wound had anything to do with the +condition of which I am about to tell, you will have to decide for +yourself; but I must warn you, in the beginning, that there was nothing +like a fracture of the skull, and the little path made by the bullet +through the scalp healed without trouble, almost without attention, and +never afterward gave the slightest pain. + +"The hair, it is true, did not grow again over the parting, and, as +it was nearly in the middle of his head, it made him an involuntary +follower of the fashion of a certain effeminate type of youths for whom +he had an overwhelming contempt. Neither of the other two wounds was +serious, and after a very short period in the hospital he reported for +duty, was promoted, and given sole charge of a post of considerable +importance. + +"Shortly thereafter his father received a some what discomposing +telegram. He had previously had several more or less lucid despatches +from his son while the patient was still in the hospital; but any +lack of clearness in their wording had been attributed to haste or +to carelessness in the transmission, and as they all indicated rapid +recovery, no undue anxiety had been felt. But the message in question +now produced the impression that there was something wrong. It read: +'Send me one thousand swords immediately.' + +"After a few moments' consultation with the boy's mother, Mr. Wetherell +packed his hand-bag, and, armed with a letter from President Lincoln, +whose personal friend he was, started for the seat of war. + +"Upon arriving at his destination, the son expressed no surprise +whatever, but much pleasure, at seeing his father. He asked, in the most +natural and affectionate way, about each member of the family, and then +suddenly put his hand to his head and appeared to be in deep thought. + +"His eyes contracted in the manner peculiar to some persons when +attempting to recall a long-forgotten event; but in a moment this had +passed away and he appeared to be perfectly clear and natural. + +"He attended to the affairs of his office in a manner which not only +escaped criticism, but won praise from his superiors, and conversed with +great freedom and marked intelligence on the stirring subjects of the +time. + +"He had had some little fever while his wounds were fresh, but in no +degree to cause alarm, and even this had now almost entirely left +him. In short, he appeared to be in nearly perfect mental and physical +health. There was, however, one peculiarity which the father noticed as +unfamiliar in his son; but as it was not at all strange that so young a +man--or any man, indeed, who had suddenly been given control of matters +of such grave importance--should at times be very quiet and appear to be +struggling to recall some matter of moment, the habit was not given more +than passing attention, and it was not sufficiently marked to be noticed +at all by any one except a near relation. At these times young Wetherell +would contract his eyebrows, look steadily at some object near him,--as +the toe of his boot or the palm of his hand,--raise his head suddenly, +gaze at the distant horizon, bite his lip, and then appear to either +give it up or be satisfied with some mental solution of his puzzle. + +"One day his father said: 'What is it, George?' + +"The young fellow turned his eyes quickly upon his father and asked: + +"'Have I forgotten anything? It seems to me there is something I just +fail to recall. I am on the edge of it constantly, but it slips. I can't +get quite enough hold on it to be sure what it is--or to be certain, +indeed, that it is anything. Can you think of anything I ought to do +that I have overlooked?' + +"This all sounded natural enough, and was, seemingly, a condition not +unfamiliar to his father, so they began together going over the duties +pertaining to the son's office to see if, by a mischance, something had +been neglected. Everything was complete and in perfect order; but still +the look returned from time to time, until it became almost habitual. + +"This was ten days after his father had reached camp, and his plan was +to leave for home that afternoon; for, as I said, the boy's wounds +were almost entirely healed, and he appeared to be in need of nothing +whatever. More and more his superior officers called him into their +councils, and more and more his clear judgment was commended by them. + +"He was to walk to the train with his father. The moment they were +outside the limits of the camp George remarked, casually, 'I must stop +on the way and order those swords.' + +"The remark recalled the queer telegram which had caused Mr. Wetherell +to come to his son, the wording of which had been wholly obliterated +from his mind by their meeting. + +"'What swords?' inquired his father, now on the alert again. + +"The young fellow turned and looked at his father for a moment, and then +said: 'I don't know. It is a secret order. Don't mention it. The general +told me to order them. They are to be sent to me.' + +"This all seemed probable enough to Mr. Wetherell, and yet he somehow +felt, rather than saw, a queer change in his son's eyes, which he +thought he had noticed once or twice before. + +"He decided not to return home for the present. + +"When he told his son this, the boy took it quite as a matter of course, +and made no comment whatever on the sudden alteration of purpose. + +"On the way back to camp George stepped into a military supply station +and ordered fourteen hundred swords to be delivered to him immediately. + +"By this time his father had made up his mind that there were short +intervals in which the young colonel did not know exactly what he was +doing--or, rather, that while he did know and act intelligently--from +the outlook of the moment--it was a time wholly disconnected from +the rest of his life, and when the moment was past he had no farther +recollection of it. + +"However, Mr. Wetherell was not sure enough of this to risk compromising +a probably brilliant future by a premature or unnecessarily public +announcement, and he therefore allowed the order to be made, and taken +in good faith, and walked back to camp with his son, who immediately +went about his duties in the most intelligent and scrupulously careful +manner. + +"Mr. Wetherell, however, made a call upon the officer in command the +moment he could do so without attracting attention; and after a long +talk (in which the secret sword order was discovered to be a delusion), +it was decided that the recently recovered invalid should retire +from the field on the sick leave, which he had previously refused to +consider. + +"When he was told of this arrangement, he agreed to it without a murmur, +and began, for the first time for many days, to have his wounds (which +were now past the need of it) dressed with much care. This he continued +every morning, but by the time they reached home he had become possessed +with the belief that his chief wound was in his side, where there had +not been a scratch. + +"To humor him, the family physician applied bandages to the imaginary +injury every day regularly. + +"All this time there was no clearer talker, no more acute reasoner, no +more simple, earnest, gentlemanly fellow to be found than Col. George +Wetherell, whom his townsmen were honoring and inducing to make public +speeches and write clear, firm, inspiring editorials for one of the +leading papers. No one except his own family and physician suspected for +a moment that he was not mentally as bright as he always had been, and +even the younger members of the family were without the least hint of +it. + +"Indeed, his father and the doctor both thought that his only illusion +now was a belief in the wound in his side. Several weeks passed, and +even this indication was losing its force, for he no longer required +medical attention, and was as well and as rational as ever in his life, +so far as any one could perceive, when one day a stranger appeared and +asked for him. Mr. Wetherell requested the gentleman (who was evidently +laboring under great excitement) to be seated, and at the same time made +up his own mind to be present during the interview. + +"Colonel Wetherell was summoned, and, on entering the room, looked in +a startled way at the stranger, smiled vaguely, extended his hand, +contracted his eyes into a long, narrow line, turned white, and throwing +both arms suddenly above his head, exclaimed: 'My God! my God! what have +I done? Where am I? How long has it been? Is she dead? Is she dead?' and +staggered back into his father's arms. + +"His distress was so manifest, that the visitor lost his severity at +once, and said quite gently: 'No, she is not dead; but she is almost +insane with fright, and has been so exhausted with anxiety and tears, +that we had lost all hope for her reason, or even for her life, unless +I could find you. I have been through the lines, was delayed by the loss +of my passport, and it is now five weeks since I saw her. She is alive, +but--' + +"Young Wetherell sprang to his feet, and turned on his father like +a madman. 'How dared you?' he demanded; 'how dared you keep back my +letters? You have killed her. You have murdered her, poor, delicate +girl, with anxiety and doubt of me.' And then with set teeth and white +lips he advanced upon his father, his arm uplifted, as if he held a +sword, and with a sweep which would have severed chords of steel, if the +weapon had really been within his grasp, he brought his arm across his +father's breast and sank upon the floor, senseless and still. + +"Afterward, when he revived, he had no recollection of what had +occurred, except alone the fact that for many weeks previous he had +forgotten utterly the girl who was to be his wife, whose life and +love were all his world. While he had remembered everything else, had +carefully attended to the smallest details of daily life, the link of +memory that held the fact of her existence had been coated with a rust +of absolute oblivion. The single link in all the chain of memory that +had failed him had been the one the nearest to his heart--the dearest +one of all! + +"They were married two months later, and he resumed command of his +regiment. Through an honorable and eventful life no sign of mental lapse +ever returned; but every day he dreaded it, and watched his wife and +children as a man might do who saw a creeping monster back of those he +loved while he stood paralyzed and dumb. He never seemed to fear that +other things might lose their hold upon his consciousness; but the +apprehension that his mind would slip the link which held his wife, and +leave her sick and faint with anxious fears, which he alone could still, +constantly haunted him. + +"His wounds never troubled him again. He died not long ago. His career +was an exceptionally brilliant one. You would know him if I had given +his real name, for it was in the public ear for years. + +"There were but six persons who ever knew the history of his case, and +they are still unable to explain it--its cause, its direction, its cure. +Or is it cured? Will his children be subject to it? Will it take the +same form? Was it caused by the wound? by the fever? Or were hereditary +conditions so grouped as to produce this mental effect, even if there +had been no wound--no illness? If the latter, will it be transmitted? +These questions come to me with renewed force, to-day, as I hold in my +hand this letter, asking me to give the family history of Col. George +Wetherell for the use of physicians in a distant city who are now +treating his son. This son has reached the precise age at which his +father had the strange experience of which I have just told you. + +"There is a hint in the letter which, in the light of the father's +malady, appears to a physician to be of peculiar importance from a +medical outlook. + +"We shall see, we shall see." + +There was a long pause; then he asked: "Should you, a layman, look +to the wound to explain the condition? Or to the Castle of Heredity? +Suppose the son's malady is quite similar--as now appears--what then?" + + + + +THE BOLER HOUSE MYSTERY. + +_"What would you do? what would you say now, if you were in such a +position?"_--Thackeray. + +_"Thackeray is always protesting that no good is to be done by +blinking the truth. Let us have facts out, and mend what is bad if we +can"_--Trollope. + + +Mr. John Boler had been in the hotel business, as he phrased it, ever +since he was born. Before he could walk he had been the "feature" of his +father's summer hotel, where he was the only baby to be passed around +and hugged into semi-unconsciousness by all the women in the house. +Because of the scarcity of his kind, too, he was subjected to untold +agony by the male guests, most of whom appeared to believe that the +chief desire of his infantile heart was to be tossed skyward from hour +to hour and caught in upstretched hands as he descended with a sickening +sense of insecurity and a wild hysterical laugh. In these later years he +often said that he would like to know who those summer fiends were who +had made his infancy so full of narrow escapes from sudden and violent +death. Finally he thought he had revenge at hand. A benevolent-looking +old gentleman came puffing up to the desk of the Boler House, and, +after registering, proceeded to question the genial proprietor as to his +identity. + +"Dear me, dear me," he puffed, "and so you are the son of old John +Boler, the best hotel-keeper the sun ever shone upon! Why, I remember +tossing you up to the rafters under the porch of your father's house +when you were only the size of a baked apple and mighty nigh as measly +looking. Well, well, to be sure you had grit for a young one. Never got +scared. Always yelled for more. I believe if you had batted your soft +little head against the roof you'd have laughed all the louder and +kicked until you did it again," and the old man chuckled with the +pleasure of age and retrospection. + +"Yes, I remember well," said Mr. Boler, casting about in his own mind +for the form of revenge he should take on this man now that he was to +have the chance for which he had so longed and waited. + +His first thought was to put him in the room next to the three sporting +men who played poker and told questionable stories of their own exploits +after two o'clock every night, but that hardly seemed adequate. The +room adjoining the elevator popped into his head. Every time the old +gentleman fell asleep _bang_ would go that elevator door or _bzzzz_ +would start off the bell so suddenly that it would leave him unnerved +and frantic in the morning. But what was that? What John Boler yearned +for was to make the punishment fit the crime, and, after all these years +of planning and wishing for the chance, here it was, and he felt that he +could think of nothing, absolutely nothing, bad enough. + +So with a fine satire which was wholly lost upon his victim, Mr. Boler +ordered him taken to the very best room in the house, and made up his +mind that after disarming all suspicion in that way he would set about +his revenge, which should take some exquisitely torturous form. + +All this had run through his mind with great rapidity while the old +gentleman talked. Then Mr. Boler turned the register around, wrote "98" +opposite the name. Said he should be delighted to show his own mettle to +one of his father's old guests, called out "Front," and transferred his +attention to a sweet-faced girl who stood waiting her turn to register. + +"A small room, please," she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper. +Mr. Boler knew just what it meant in an instant. He knew that she was +not used to hotels--that she was uncertain what to do, and that she +wanted her living to cost her as little as possible. She was evidently a +lady, and quite as evidently from some small town. + +"Front," he called again. "Show this lady to 96. Step lively." Front +grinned. Ninety-six was a mere closet with no window except one facing a +dark shaft. Indeed, it had once been the dressing-room and clothes press +for the adjoining suite, and so far as Front could remember had never +been used as a sleeping apartment by any one except the valet of a +certain French gentleman who once occupied 98. + +"Took my revenge on the wrong person that time," mused Mr. Boler as he +saw the lady enter the elevator. "Now I wonder why I did that?" But Mr. +John Boler had his little superstition, as most of us have, and whenever +he was moved by a perfectly blind impulse to do a thing, he always +believed that "something would come of it sure," as he expressed it. +"Never knew it to fail. Of course I don't believe in such things; but--" +and then he would laugh and go on believing in it as implicitly as ever. + +All day he brooded over what he should do to old Winkle, as he called +the man in 98, and as surely as his mind grew exhausted and his various +plans fell through, his thoughts would catch a glimpse of the timid +girl in the next room, and he would smilingly wink to himself and say, +"Something will come of it, something will come of it sure. Never put a +guest in that beastly room before, and I had nothing against _her. Must_ +have been him It was after." He always called his blind impulses "It" +when he was utilizing them for superstitious purposes or to quiet his +reason. + +"I'll bet that girl being in that closet will be the means of getting +me even with old Winkle yet, and she is not used to city hotels. She'll +think that it is all right and she will most likely be out all day. It's +not so bad to sleep in after all. Quietest room in the house." + +The next morning Mr. Winkle strolled into the office and harassed Mr. +Boler about his infancy, reminding him that he had possessed a very weak +stomach. "And who wouldn't," thought that gentleman indignantly, "if he +was pitched about like a bale of hay from morning till night by every +fool that got hold of him?" but he smiled pleasantly and said no doubt +he had been very much like other infants, judging from the way he grew +up. He looked upon a baby as the embryonic man, and as he was about an +average adult male biped now, he had most likely been very close to an +average male infant. "I might have been more," he hinted darkly, "but +for certain idiotic people," and then he laughed. For it was not in Mr. +John Boler's nature to be openly unpleasant to any one. This was the +secret of his success as an innkeeper. + +"By the way, Johnnie," said old Mr. Winkle late the next afternoon, "I +thought I heard some one sobbing in the room next to mine last night. +This morning I concluded I was mistaken, but now I'm sure I heard it. +Anybody sick in there? I tried the door that leads into my room but it +was locked. It sounds like a woman's voice. It always did tear the very +heart out of me to hear a woman cry--" He went on talking but Mr. John +Boler heard no more. His heart gave a wild bound of delight. "It" had +given him his revenge. He would let the young woman stay in the hotel +free of charge as long as old Winkle was in the house if only she would +weep and sob pretty steadily. "'Johnnie,' by gad," thought he, resenting +this new indignity to his name. "By George, what luck!" And then he went +about his duties with a new spring in his always elastic step. At the +lunch hour the following day he glanced into the dining-room, and sure +enough, there sat the occupant of 96, and her eyes were swollen and red. +At almost any other time this would have disturbed John Boler, but now +it was a deep delight to him. + +"Had a spat with her lover, no doubt," speculated he, "and, by Jove! it +came at a lucky time for me. I'd pay her lover to keep up the row for +three weeks if I could get at him. 'Weak stomach,' 'Johnnie,' indeed!" +And he went back to the office rubbing his hands in a satisfied way, +thinking that old Winkle would be afraid to go to his room that night, +and that his sleep would be broken by visions of a weeping woman next +door, even if she did not keep him awake half the time sobbing because +Ralph had called her a mean thing or a proud stuck-up flirt, and hinted +darkly that she was in love with his rival. + +Matters had gone on in this way for nearly a week and Mr. Winkle had +fretted and fumed and asked for another room two or three times, but +Mr. Boler told him that the house was full and that there wasn't another +room fit to offer him anyhow. He said that he would change the young +lady's room as soon as he could, but he expected her to leave every day. +She went out a good deal and wrote a large number of letters, and +he felt sure she was going to remain only a day or two longer. He +apologized and explained and planned, and then he would chuckle to +himself the moment "old Winkle's" back was turned to think how "_It_" +had succeeded in getting him even with the old reprobate without the +least overt act on his part. + +But the eighth morning Mr. Winkle rebelled outright. He said that he +would wring the girl's worthless neck if he could get at her, but he +could not and would not bear her sobs any longer. The night before they +had been worse than ever and he had not slept a wink all night long. At +last Mr. Boler promised that he would transfer the girl to another room +that very afternoon if she did not leave, and the old man softened at +once and said if she could not afford to pay for any other room he would +pay the difference and she need never know it. + +John Boler was not mercenary, but this offer gave him keen delight. +For "old Winkle" would have to buy his relief after all. He thought how +willingly a certain infant of his memory would have paid for rest +and quiet too when it was helpless clay in the hands of certain old +imbeciles he knew of. + +At 2 p.m. he told Front to go up to 96 and tell the young lady that he +now had a better room for her that would cost her no more than the one +she now occupied, and to change her and her belongings to 342 forthwith. +In five minutes Front came back as white as a cloth and said that the +young lady's door was unlocked, that there were a number of letters on +the table and that she was dead. + +Mr. John Boler dashed from behind the desk across the street and was +back in an incredibly short space of time, dragging behind him the +dignified and wealthy physician whose office faced the hotel. + +At this stage of the proceedings he cautioned the employees not to say +a word about the matter on pain of instant dismissal. They one and all +promised, and then proceeded to tell the first reporter who dropped in +that a young lady had committed suicide upstairs and that she had +cried out loud for a week. They gave a full description of her and her +effects, all of which appeared in the 5 o'clock edition of the paper, +duly headlined with her name and certain gratuitous speculations in +regard to her motive for self-destruction. In these it was darkly hinted +that she was no better than she should be, but now that she was dead +"we" (the immaculate young gentlemen of the press) felt disposed to draw +a veil of charity over her past and say with the law that her suicide +proved her insanity, and that her mental condition might also account +for her past frailties. + +While these generous young gentlemen were penning their reports the +doctor and Mr. John Boler worked over the poor helpless body of the +unconscious girl in the dark little room upstairs. Between times they +read the letters on the table and learned the old, old story--not of +crime, but of misfortune. No work had offered, and she must work or +starve--or sell the only value she possessed in the sight of men. One or +two of the answers to her advertisement had boldly hinted at this, +and when her little stock of money had run out and the little stock of +misfortune had swelled into a mountain, and the little pile of insults +had increased until she felt that she could endure life no longer, she +had concluded to brave another world where she was taught to believe a +loving Father awaited her because she had been good and true and pure to +the last in spite of storms and disappointments and temptations. So she +made the wild leap in the dark, confident that the hereafter could +hold nothing worse, and believing sincerely that it must hold +something better for Her and her kind, even if that better were only +forgetfulness. + +Up to this point her story was that of thousands of helpless girls who +face the unknown dangers of a great city with the confidence of youth, +and that ill training and ignorance of the world which is supposed to be +a part of the charm of young womanhood. She had not registered her real +name, it is true; but this was because she intended to advertise for +work and have the replies sent to the hotel, and somehow she thought +that it would be easier for her to do that over a name less sacred to +her than her mother's, which was also her own. So instead of registering +as Fannie Ellis Worth of Atlanta, she had written "Miss Kate Jarvis" and +had given no address whatever. This latter fact told strongly against +her with the reporters. They located her in a certain house on +Thirty-first Street and "interviewed" the madam, who gave them a picture +of a girl who had once been there, and a cut of this picture appeared +in two of the morning papers with the fuller account of the suicide. A +beautiful moral was appended to this history of the girl's life +"which had now come to its appropriate ending." But when one of these +enterprising young gentlemen of the press called to get the details of +the funeral for his paper, he was shocked to learn that the young lady +was not dead after all, and that she was now in a fair way to recover. +He was still further disgusted when neither Mr. Boler nor the attending +physician would submit to an interview and declined to allow him to send +his card to the girl's room. + +Then and there he made up his mind that if he had to rewrite that +two-column report to fit the new developments in the case, he would, as +he expressed it, make John Boler and pompous Dr. Ralston wish that they +had never been bom. Incident to this undertaking, he would darkly hint +at a number of things in regard to the girl herself and their relations +with her. This was not at all to make her wish that she had never been +born; but if it should serve that purpose, the young gentleman did not +feel that he would be in the least to blame--if, indeed, he gave the +matter a thought at all, which he very likely did not. + +The article he wrote was certainly very "wide awake" and surprised even +himself in its ingenuity of conjecture as to the motive which could +prompt two such men as John Boler, proprietor of the Boler House, and +Dr. Ralston, "whose reputation had heretofore been above suspicion, to +place themselves in so unenviable, not to say dangerous, a position." +He suggested that although the young woman had taken her case out of +the jurisdiction of the coroner by not actually dying, this fact did +not relieve the affair of certain features which demanded the prompt +attention of the police court. The matter was perfectly clear. Here was +a young woman who had attempted to relieve herself, by rapid means, of +the life which all the social and financial conditions which surrounded +her had combined to take by a slower and more painful process. If she +had succeeded, the law held that she was of unsound mind--that she was, +in short, a lunatic--and treated her case accordingly; but, on the other +hand, if she failed, or if, as in this instance, her effort to place +herself beyond want and pain was thwarted by others, then the law was +equally sure that she was _not_ a lunatic at all, but that she was a +criminal, and that it was the plain duty of the police judge to see +that she was put with those of her class--the enemies and outcasts of +society. + +It was also quite clear that any one who aided, abetted, or shielded a +criminal was _particeps criminis,_ and that unless Mr. John Boler and +Dr. Ralston turned the young offender over to the police at once, there +was a virtuous young reporter on the _Daily Screamer_ who intended to +know the reason why. + +It was this article in the _Screamer_ which first made Mr. Winkle aware +of the condition of affairs in the room adjoining his own. He had been +absent from the hotel for some hours, and had, therefore, known nothing +of the sad happenings so near him. He dashed down into the office with +the paper in his hand and asked for Mr. Boler; but that gentleman was +not visible. It was said that he was in consultation with Dr. Ralston +at the office of the latter, whereupon Mr. Winkle re-read the entire +article aloud to the imperturbable clerk and expressed himself as under +the impression that something was the matter with the law, or else that +a certain reporter for the _Screamer_ was the most dangerous lunatic +at present outside of the legislature. The clerk smiled. A young man +leaning against the desk made a note on a tablet, and then asked Mr. +Winkle what he knew of the case and to state his objections to the law, +first saying _which_ law he so vigorously disapproved. The clerk winked +at Mr. Winkle, but Mr. Winkle either did not see, or else did not regard +the purport of the demonstration, and proceeded to express himself with +a good deal of emphasis in regard to a condition of affairs which made +it possible to elect as lawmakers men capable of framing such idiotic +measures and employing on newspapers others who upheld the enactment. +But before he had gone far in these strictures on public affairs as now +administered he espied John Boler and followed him hastily upstairs. + +That afternoon Mr. Winkle almost fell from his chair when he saw the +evening edition of the _Screamer_ with a three-column "interview" with +himself. It was headed, "_Rank Socialism at the Boler House. A Close +Friend of the Offending Landlord Lets the Cat out of the Bag. A +Dangerous Nest of Law Breakers. John Boler and Dr. Ralston still +Defiant. Backed by a Man Who Ought to Know Better. Shameless Confession +of one of the Arch Conspirators. The Mask torn from Old Silas Winkle Who +Roomed Next to the Would-be Suicide. Will the Police Act Now?_" + +When Mr. Winkle read the article appended to these startling headlines, +he descended hastily to the office floor and proceeded to make some +remarks which it would be safe to assert would not be repeated by any +Sunday-school superintendent--in the presence of his class--in the +confines of the State of New York. John Boler was present at the time +and whispered aside to Mr. Winkle that a reporter for the _Screamer_ and +five others from as many different papers were within hearing, +whereupon Mr. Winkle became more and more excited, and talked with great +volubility to each and every one of the young men as they gathered about +him. "_Adds Blasphemy to His Other Crimes_," wrote one of them as his +headline, and then John Boler interfered. + +"Look here, boys," said he pleasantly, but with a ring of determination +in his voice, "you just let Mr. Winkle alone. This sort of thing is all +new to him, and he had no more to do with that girl than if his room +had been in Texas." (The reporters winked at each other and one of them +wrote, _Connived at by the Proprietor_.) "I put her in the room next to +his. _I_ helped the doctor to resuscitate her. _I_ positively refuse to +give you her real name and present address, although I know both, and +Mr. Winkle does not, and if the police court has any use for me it knows +where to find me. Have a cigar?" Each reporter took a weed, and three of +them went to the office of Dr. Ralston to complete their records as soon +as possible. + +"I'm sorry all this has happened to you in my house, Mr. Winkle," said +John Boler, as they stood alone for a moment. "It is partly my fault, +too," he added, in a sudden burst of contrition. "It" had carried his +revenge further than he had intended. He knew how the old man's sudden +outbreak of righteous indignation would go against him in the newspaper +reports that would follow, and John Boler was kind-hearted as well as +fearless. + +"Good Lord, don't you worry about me, Johnnie!" said the old man, +craning his neck to watch the retreating forms from the window. "But +those young devils have gone over to the doctor's office and they'll +bully him into telling where the girl is, and then they'll bully the +police into dragging her into court yet. Dear me, dear me!" + +"Now, don't you be scared about that, Mr. Winkle. The doctor and I have +made up our minds to fight this thing out. We've found out all about the +girl and that it was simply a case of utter despair. It was a question +of death by slow or by quick means. Society, law, prescribed the slow +method, and the girl herself chose the rapid one. Well, now, as long as +she was to be the sufferer in either case, it strikes me that she had +about as good a right to a voice in the matter as the rest of us. Dr. +Ralston and I checkmated her. (I can't afford to have that kind of thing +happen in the hotel, of course.) But, by gad, we're not going to let +them make a criminal of her. All the circumstances combined to do that +before and she chose death. Well, we stopped her efforts in that line +too, and now the court proposes to put the finishing touches on +society's other inhumanities and send her up for it. Why, good God, man, +just look at it! In substance that girl said, 'I'll die before I'll be +forced into association with criminals,' and the court says, 'You shall +do nothing of the kind. Science shall doctor you up and we will _send_ +you up. Despair is a crime.' That girl tried every way she knew of to +live right. She failed. No work that she could do came her way. Well, +now, will you just tell me what she was to do? You know what any man on +God's earth would do if _he_ had been situated that way and _could_ have +sold his virtue--in the sense we use virtue for women. Well, some women +are not built that way. They prefer to die. Life don't mean enough of +happiness to them to pay for the rest of it--life as it is, I mean. +Well, since women don't have anything to say about what the laws and +social conditions shall be, it strikes me that the situation is a trifle +arbitrary, to put it mildly. We make laws for and demands upon women +that no man on earth would think of complying with, and then we tell 'em +they sha'n't even die to get away from the conditions we impose and +about which they are not allowed a word to say. To tell you the bald +truth _I'm_ ashamed of it. So when we learned that girl's story we just +made up our minds that since we had taken the liberty to keep her from +getting out of the world by a shorter cut than the one usually +prescribed in such cases--starvation--that we'd just take the additional +liberty of keeping her from being hounded to insanity and made a +criminal of by legal verdict." + +Mr. Winkle gave a snort that startled John Boler, for he had been +running on half to himself during the last of his talk and had almost +forgotten that the old man was present. When he heard the explosion he +mistook its meaning and his conscience gave him another smart twinge. + +"Yes, I'm sorry, _very_ sorry, Mr. Winkle, that this trouble has come to +you in my house, but who could have foreseen that--a--that is to say--" + +"Trouble to _me?_" exclaimed Mr. Winkle. "Trouble to _me?_ Who's said +anything about any trouble to me? Do you suppose I care what those young +scamps say about me in the papers? Got to make a living, haven't they? +Well, society doesn't object to their making a living by taking what +does not belong to 'em, if it happens to be a man's reputation or a +woman's chance to ever make an honest living again. Little thefts like +that don't count That is not a crime; but dear me, Johnnie, do you +suppose I care a tinker's dam about that, so for as _I_ go? God bless my +soul, if the dear boys can sell their three columns of rot about me, and +it will keep them off the heels of some poor devil that it might ruin, +why, I'm satisfied. All I've got to say to you is, if they arrest +you I'll go bail, and if they fine you I'll pay it, and if they jail +you--hang it, Johnnie, I'll serve your term, that's all." + +Mr. Boler laughed. "My punishment shall all be vicarious then, hey? Good +idea, only it won't work in every-day life. The law doesn't let other +people serve out your term. But I'm just as much obliged, and--and--to +tell you the truth, Mr. Winkle, I'm--that is to say, I hope you will +forgive me--the fact is, I forgive you freely for the part you took in +helping to addle such brains as I had when I was a child. There is my +hand. 'It' went a little too far this time, and--" + +Mr. Winkle took off his glasses and polished them carefully. Then he +placed them astride his nose and gazed thoughtfully at his old friend's +son for fully a minute before he said a word. Finally he took the +extended hand, shook it solemnly, and walked slowly away, wondering to +himself if it could be possible that hard-headed old John Boler's son +was touched a little in the brain. Mr. Boler noticed his perplexed +expression and laughed merrily to himself as he started toward the +elevator. Before he reached it he turned and beckoned to Mr. Winkle to +follow him. On the third floor they were joined by Dr. Ralston. + +"She is so much better now, Mr. Winkle," explained the genial hotel man, +"and you are an older man than either the doctor or I, so I thought-- It +just struck me that she might feel-- That you might like-- Oh, damn it, +would you like to go up to see her? We are going now. A clergyman has +called, and if she wants to see him we shall not stay but a minute; but +as there is no woman about, as she is so alone, I thought perhaps she +might like to have an older man come with us, for she seems to be a very +sensitive girl. She has been silent about herself so far; but she is +better now, and we want to find out what work she can do, and have a +place ready for her when she is able to get about. Perhaps she will talk +more freely to you." + +The old gentleman looked perplexed, but made no reply until they +were out of the elevator. Then he took Mr. Boler by the arm and said +helplessly, "I--I am a bachelor, you know, Johnnie, and--" + +"No!" laughed Mr. Boler. "Well, confound it, you don't look it. Anybody +would take you for the proud father of a large brood. She will think you +are and it may help her. Come on." + +The old gentleman entered the darkened room last and sat down silently +in the deepest shadow. The doctor stepped to the bed and spoke in a low +tone. A white face on the pillow turned slowly, so that the only band of +light that reached in from the open door fell full upon it. Mr. Winkle +shuddered as he saw for the first time the delicate, pallid, hopeless +face. + +"A priest?" she said feebly, in answer to the doctor. "Oh, no. Why +should I want to see a priest? You've had your way. You've brought me +back to battle with a world wherein I only now acknowledged my defeat." +Her voice trembled with weakness and emotion, but she was looking +steadily at the doctor with great wide eyes, in which there burnt the +intensity of mental suffering and a determination to free her mind even +at the risk of losing the good-will of those who had intended to be kind +to her. "A priest! What could he do? _This_ life is what I fear. His +mission is to deal with other worlds--of which I know already what he +does--and that is _nothing_. Of this life I know, alas! too much. Far +more than he. He cannot help me, for I could tell him much he _cannot_ +know, of suffering and fortitude and hope laid low at last, without a +refuge even in cloistered walls. I know what he would say. His voice +would tremble and he would offer sympathy and good advice--and, maybe, +alms. These are not what I want or need. I am not very old--just +twenty-two--but I have thought and thought until my brain is tired, and +what good could it do for him to sit beside me here and say in gentle +tones that it is very sad? No doubt that he would tell me, too, how +wicked I have been that I should choose to die by my own hand when life +had failed me." + +She smiled a little, and her wan face lit from within was beautiful +still in spite of its pallor. The doctor murmured something about +natural sympathy, and Mr. Boler remarked that men who were fortunate +would gladly help those who were in distress if only they knew in time. +She did not appear to heed them, but presently went on as though her +mind were on the clergymen below waiting to see her. + +"To feel that it is sad is only human; but what is to be done? That is +the question now. What is to be done for suffering in _this_ world? It +is life that is hard to bear, not death. Sympathy with the unfortunate +is good. Kind words and gentle tones as your priest recounts their woes +are touching. Yes, and when they are drawn to fit the truth would melt +a heart of stone; but unless action wings the sympathy and dries the +tears, the object of his tenderness is in no wise bettered--indeed, is +injured. Why? Because he lulls to sleep man's conscience and thereby +gives relief from pangs that otherwise had found an outlet through an +open purse. And when I say an open purse I do not speak of charity, that +double blight which kills the self-respect in its recipient and numbs +the conscience of the 'benevolent' man who grasps the utmost penny +_here_ that he may give with ostentation _there_, wounding the many that +he may heal the few. All this was safe enough, no doubt, while Poverty +was ignorant, for ignorance is helpless always; but now--" There was +a pause. She raised her head a little from the pillow and a frightened +look crept into her eyes--"but now the poor are not so ignorant that +it will long be safe to play at cross purposes with suffering made too +intelligent to drink in patient faith the bitter draughts of life and +wait the crown of gold he promises hereafter--and wears, meanwhile, +himself. A _little_ joy on earth, they think, will not bedim the lustre +of a life that is to come--if such there be. You see I've thought a +little in these wretched days and months just past." She was silent +again for a moment. A bitter smile crossed her face and vanished. The +doctor offered her a powder which she swallowed without a word. John +Boler stepped to the table and poured out a glass of wine, but when he +held it toward her she shook her head and closed her eyes a moment. Then +she spoke again as if no break had checked her thought. "Oh, no; I +do not care to see your priest. The poor no longer fail to note his +willingness to risk the needle's eye with camel's back piled high with +worldly gain. If he may enter thus, why may not they with simpler train +and fewer trappings? The poor are asking this to-day of prince and +priest alike. No answer comes from either. Evasion does not satisfy. +I ask, but no one answers. The day once was when silence passed for +wisdom. That day is gone. To-day we are asking why? and why? and why? no +longer, when? And so the old reply, 'hereafter,' does not fit the query. +Why, not when, is what we urge to-day, and your replies must change to +fit the newer, nearer question. When I say _your_ replies, I do not mean +you, doctor, nor your friend. You two meant kindly by me. Yes, I know. +I am not claiming that you are at fault, nor they--the fortunate--the +prince and priest. I understand. Blind nature took her course and trod +beneath her cruel feet the millions who were born too weak to struggle +with the foes they found within themselves and in their stronger +brothers. I know, I know." + +She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes wearily. Mr. Winkle drew +near and stood behind the doctor's chair, still keeping in the shadow, +but watching her pale face with an intensity born of a simple nature +easy to stir and quick to resolve. The doctor touched her pulse with a +light finger and gravely nodded his head as he glanced at his watch. Her +heavy eyelids did not lift but her voice broke the silence again. There +was a cadence in it that gave a solemn thrill to the three men as they +listened, the doctor watching with professional interest the effect of +the powder he had given; the other two waited, expecting they knew not +what. + +"The ignorance and cruelty of all the past, the superstitious fears, +the cunning prophecies, the greeds and needs of men, joined hands and +marched triumphant. They did not halt to ask the fallen what had borne +them down. They did not silence bugle blasts of joy where new-made +graves were thick. No silken flag was lowered to warm to life the +shivering forms of comrades overcome and fallen by the way. The strong +marched on and called themselves the brave. Sometimes they were. But +other times the bravest had gone down, plucked at, perchance, by wife or +child or friend whose sorrow or distress reached out and twined itself +about the strong but tender heart and held it back until the foot lost +step, and in the end the eye lost sight of those who only now had kept +him company." + +She lifted her small white hand and pointed as if to a distant +battlefield, but her eyes remained closed. The doctor glanced uneasily +at his watch and took her other wrist in his fingers again. + +"The next battalion trampled him. The priest bent low and whispered +'over there, hereafter,' and slipped the treasure of the fallen hero +beneath his ample robe to swell the coffers of the church, since dead +men need no treasures." + +Her voice was infinitely sad but she laughed a little and opened +her eyes. They fixed themselves upon the silvered head of Mr. Winkle +standing behind the doctor's chair. + +"Perhaps I shock you. I do not mean to, but I have thought and thought +these last few wretched months, and looking at the battlefields of life +backward through all the ages, I thought I saw at night, in camp, the +priest and conqueror meet beside the campfire and council for the next +day's march. I thought I heard the monarch say, 'I go before and cleave +my way. You follow me and gather up two things--the spoils I miss and +all the arrows of awakened scorn and wrath embedded in the breasts of +those of our own ranks who fall or are borne down, lest they arise and +overtake us while we sleep and venge themselves on us. Tell them to +wait. Their time will come. Tell them _I_ clear the way for them, and +_you_ forgive a hatred which you see is growing up within their wicked +breasts. Quiet, soothe, and shame them into peace. Assure them that +_hereafter_ they, not we, shall have the better part. Gain time. +Lay blame to me if need be; but always counsel patience, waiting, +acquiescence, peace, submission to the will of God--_your will and +mine_. Your task is easy. No danger lies therein. I take the risk and +share with you the glory and the gain.' I heard the priest disclaim all +greed of gain and go to do his part as loyal subject and as holy man. +I saw all this and more before I took the last resolve you balked. You +meant it kindly, doctor, yes, I know, but I am very tired and what is +there ahead for me, or such as I, on battlefields like these?" + +No one ventured a reply. She closed her eyes and waited. The doctor took +another powder from his case and held it above her lips. She smiled and +swallowed it. + +"We take our powders very docilely," she said, with a bitter little +laugh as the wine-glass left her hand and Mr. Boler's finger touched her +own. He noticed that hers was very cold. + +"They used to make us sleep in the good old days of priest and monarch, +but our nerves are wrong just now. Our powders only make us think the +more and have strange visions." + +Dr. Ralston glanced at Mr. Boler and nodded his head mysteriously. The +powder was beginning to work, he thought, for she had reverted to the +old vision, and talked as if she were in a dream. "That way it was, +another way it is, and still another will be," she was saying. "To-day +the honest poor, the hampered weak, are defeated, dazed, and some of us +are hopeless. Others there are who cling to hope and life and brood on +vengeance. That is your danger, gentlemen, for days that are to come. +You will have to change your powders. The old prescriptions do not make +us sleep. We think, and think, and think. We strain our nerves and break +our hearts, for what? A life as cold and colorless and sad as death +itself--to some of us far sadder--and yet you will not even let us die. +Again we ask you, why? There is no place on earth for such as we, unless +we will be criminals. That is the hinge whereon the future turns. How +many will prefer the crime to want? What dangers lie behind the door +that now is swinging open? Intelligence has taught us scorn for such +a grovelling lot, has multiplied our needs, and turned the knife of +suffering in quivering wounds no longer deadened by the anaesthetics of +ignorant content with life or superstitious fear of death. The door is +swinging on the hinge. The future has to face creatures the past has +made like demons. Some, like myself, behind the door, who do not love +mere life, will turn the sharpened dagger on themselves. But there are +others--" + +Her voice sank. The three men thought that she had fallen asleep at +last. The doctor drew a long satisfied breath and consulted his watch +for the fourth time, making a mental note for future use in giving the +drug whose action he was watching. He started and frowned, therefore, +when her voice broke the silence again. + +"Others there are, in spite of pain and anguish, in spite of woe and +fear, who cling to life--who read in eyes they worship the pangs of +hunger, cold, and mental agony. Where will their vengeance go? Who +knows?" + +She opened her great eyes and looked first at one and then at another, +and repeated, "Who knows?" + +Again there was no reply. After a long pause Mr. Winkle said gently: + +"There is a place in life for girls like you. I shall charge myself +with it. You shall find work and joy yet, my child. Now go to sleep. Be +quiet. We have let you talk too long. Stop thinking sadly now. You think +too much. You _think_ too much." + +She closed her eyes quickly and there was a tightening of the lips that +left them paler than before. Then a tear rolled slowly down her temple. +Before it reached the pillow the doctor bent forward and dried it softly +with his silk handkerchief. She opened her eyes wide at the touch. "'Be +quiet?'" she repeated, "'stop thinking?' Oh, yes; _I_ will be quiet, but +the rest, the others? Those with whom you do not charge yourself, who +find no work, no joy? Will _they_ be quiet, will they stop thinking? Oh, +yes; I can be quiet, very quiet, but the rest, the rest? The others who +think too much--_all, all?_" + +There was a wild look in her dry eyes. The doctor touched her wrist +again and said softly to the men beside him, "It is working now. She +will sleep. But the shock of all her trouble has left her mind unhinged, +poor child. 'The rest? the others?' _We_ cannot care for all the +countless poor. Her brain is surely touched, poor child, poor child. How +can we tell whether the others will stop thinking, or how, or when? Her +mind was wandering, and now she sleeps, poor child. Come out. She is +best alone." + +They closed the door gently behind them and stood a moment in awkward +silence outside, each one afraid to speak and yet ashamed of his own +tender helplessness. At last Mr. Winkle looking steadily in the crown of +his hat, said huskily, "By gad, boys, there is something rotten in the +state of Denmark." They all three laughed with an effort, but kept their +eyes averted. + +"It is a rat in the wainscoting of the storeroom," said John Boler, with +a desperate attempt to regain his old manner and tone, "and I've got +to go and look after it or there'll be the devil to pay with the Boler +House." And he ran down the stairs three steps at a time heartily +ashamed of his own remark, but determined not to allow the tears to show +themselves either in his eyes or voice, and feeling that his only safety +was in flight. + +But Mr. Winkle had not stood silently behind the doctor's chair all that +time for nothing, and if his nature was somewhat light, and if he had +taken life so far as something of a jest, he was by no means without +a heart. He did not now trouble himself very greatly about the tangled +problems of existence, but he felt quite equal to dealing with any given +case effectively and on short notice. With systems he was helpless, +with individuals he could deal promptly. Therefore he, in common with +the doctor and Mr. Boler, and, indeed, with most of us, occupied himself +with the girl he saw suffering and in need. + +When she had cried out, "But the rest, the others, what of them?" he had +said nothing, because he had nothing to say. He was vaguely aware that +when the smallpox broke out on one of Dr. Ralston's patients that astute +practitioner did not essay to treat each individual pustule separately +as the whole of the disease and so devote his entire skill and mind to +each in turn until it was cured. But then he could not undertake to cure +the whole human race of its various social ailments any more than Dr. +Ralston could hope to look after all of its physical pains. So Mr. +Winkle took this one little social pustule upstairs as his particular +charge, and in his own peculiar way went about securing better +conditions for her, leaving the "others who think too much" to somebody +else, or to fate, as the case might be. Therefore, when Mr. Winkle +reached the street door and met an officer of the law who had come +prepared to learn the whereabouts of the would-be suicide or else take +Mr. John Boler and Dr. Ralston into custody, the old gentleman made up +his mind to begin his part in the future proceedings without further +delay. + +Unknown to Mr. Winkle himself, literature had lost a great novelist when +he had gone into the mercantile business, and the surprises which he now +sprang upon the policeman were no less astonishing and interesting to +himself than they were to that astute guardian of the public morals. + +"Want to know where she is, do you? Well, don't worry Johnnie Boler any +more. They've already got him so his mind is a little affected. I'll +tell you all about that girl. Her name is Estelle Morris. She worked for +me for nine years as a nursery governess. Last month my youngest child +died, and it upset Estelle so that she has been out of her head ever +since. I thought if I'd bring her to the city maybe she might get over +it, but she didn't, and the doctor gave her some stuff and she took +a double dose by mistake, and all the row came from that and the +long tongues of the servants, pieced out by the long pencils of the +reporters. See!" + +"Is that so?" exclaimed the officer. "Where is she now?" + +Mr. Winkle had not thought of that, and he did not know exactly what to +say; but he agreed to produce her in court on the following day if so +ordered, and there the matter dropped for the moment. + +That evening there appeared in a paper this "want:" "A good-looking +young woman who is willing to lie like a pirate for the space of +one hour for the sum of $50. May have to go to court." The number of +handsome girls who were anxious to lend the activity of their tongues +for the purpose named and the amount stipulated was quite wonderful. One +particularly bright young miss remarked that she had been in training +for just that position for years. She was confidential correspondent for +a broker. Mr. Winkle accepted her on the spot. + +"Now," said he, "look solemn and sad. That is right. You do it first +rate. Whatever I tell about you you are to stick to. Understand that?" + +"Perfectly. Years of practice," she responded, with entire simplicity +and without a suspicion of humor. + +"Your name is Estelle Morris, and you have been the governess of my +children for nine years. How old are you?" + +"Nineteen," said Estelle Morris demurely. + +"Good gracious, girl, what could you teach at ten years of age? You've +got to be older. Take the curl out of your hair in front and put on a +bonnet with strings. I heard my niece say that made her look ten years +older. Mind you, you are not a day under twenty-six. Not a day." + +"All right," said Estelle Morris thoughtfully. + +"You are to look sick, too, and--" + +"Oh, I can fix _that_ easy enough. I'll--" + +"Well, then fix it and come back here at exactly two o'clock this +afternoon." + +At the appointed hour, Mr. Winkle met Miss Estelle Morris and took her +with great dignity and care to the Boler House, where he was joined +by another gentleman--an officer of the law--and the three started out +together. + +"The examination was strictly private in deference to the wishes of the +parties first implicated, John Boler and Dr. Ralston, and because it is +now believed that the girl is more sinned against than sinning," wrote +the reporter for the morning rival of the _Screamer_. "It is the object +of justice to help the erring to start anew in life wherever that line +of action is consonant with the stern necessities of the blind goddess. +Neither of the male accomplices appeared in the case, but Mr. +Silas Winkle--whose name has figured somewhat conspicuously in the +matter--produced the principal, who, it must be confessed, is pretty +enough to account for all the chivalry which has been displayed in +her behalf. She confessed to twenty-six years of single wretchedness, +although she could easily pass for a year or two younger. It would +appear that she had lived in Mr. Winkle's family for nine years as +governess to his children and came to the city with him about two weeks +ago. The justice accepted this explanation of the relations existing +between them, and that there was no attempt at suicide at all, but only +an accidental overdose of a remedy prescribed by Dr. Ralston, which +explained satisfactorily the doctor's connection with the unsavory +case, and places him once more in the honorable position from which this +unfortunate affair so nearly hurled him. In short, the justice said in +substance, 'not guilty, and don't do it any more.' The young woman bowed +modestly, and Silas Winkle led her from the court-room a sadder, and, +let us hope, a wiser woman. Such as she must have much to live for. Many +a man has braved death for a face less lovely than hers. This ends the +'Boler House Mystery,' which, after all, turns out to be only a tempest +in a teapot, with a respectable father of a family and his children's +governess for _dramatis persono_ and a fresh young reporter on a certain +sensational morning contemporary as general misinformer of the public +as usual." This was headlined, "_Exploded--Another Fake by Our Esteemed +Contemporary_." + +That night John Boler rubbed his eyes when he read the report. "I +thought you were a bachelor, Mr. Winkle," said he, "and here you produce +in court a governess--" + +"I am," said Mr. Winkle, laughing, and then he showed his "want" +advertisement. "That is the whole case, Johnnie, my boy, but it is all +over now. Don't you worry; it might go to your head again. You saved the +girl and I saved you, and it only cost me $50. I'd pay that any time +to get ahead of the _Screamer_, and I rather think I salted that +enterprising sheet down this time, don't you? But what is to become of +that girl?" added he, without waiting for a reply to his first question. +"You've taken the liberty to save her life, which she had decided she +did not want under existing circumstances. Has she simply got to go over +the same thing again? I told her that I'd look after her, but I don't +see how in thunder I'm going to do it. She won't take money from me and +_I've_ got nothing for her to do. Is there nothing ahead of her but a +coffin or a police court?" + +"For this individual girl, yes. Dr. Ralston has already secured work +for her; but for all the thou-sands of her kind--" John Boler's voice +trembled a little and he stopped speaking to hide it. He in common with +most men was heartily ashamed of his better nature. + +"For all the thousands of her kind," broke in Mr. Winkle, "there are +just exactly three roads open--starvation, suicide, or shame, with the +courts, the legislature, and the newspapers on the side of the latter. +I just tell you, Johnnie, it makes my blood boil. I--I don't see any way +out of it--none at all. That is the worst of it." + +"I do," said Mr. Boler. + +"_You do!_" exclaimed Mr. Winkle excitedly, and then looked hard at his +old friend's son to see if he had gone crazy again. + +"Yes, I do. Those same newspapers you are so down on will do it. They're +bound to. The boys go wrong sometimes, as they did in this case; but +that only makes sensible people indignant, and, after all, it called +attention to the law that makes such things possible. _More light on +the laws_. That's the first thing we want, and no matter which side of +a question the papers take, we are bound to get that in the long run. +Silence is the worst danger. We get pretty mad at the boys if they write +what we don't like, but that isn't half so dangerous as if they didn't +write at all. See?" + +Mr. Winkle turned slowly away and shook his head as he murmured to +himself: "Who would have believed that old John Boler would have been +the father of a lunatic? Dear me, dear me. I'm going back to Meadville +before I get touched in the head myself." And he started to his room to +pack his valise. John Boler followed him to the elevator. + +"I don't blame you for feeling pretty mad about all the stuff they put +in the _Screamer_ about you; but--oh, the boys _mean_ all right--" + +"So does the devil," broke in the old man. But Mr. Boler gave no +evidence of noticing the interruption nor of observing the irascibility +of his guest. + +"The trouble is with the system," he went on, entering the elevator +after Mr. Winkle. "Why, just look at it, man. What I say or do, if it is +of a public nature, I'm responsible for _to_ the public. What you write +you put your name to; but it's a pretty big temptation to a young fellow +who knows he has got the swing in a newspaper and doesn't have to sign +his name to what he says, to make an effort to 'scoop' his rivals at +whatever cost. The boys don't mean any harm, but irresponsible power is +a mighty dangerous weapon to handle. Not many older men can be trusted +to use it wisely. Then why should we expect it of those young fellows +who don't know yet any of the deeper meanings of life? Great Scott, man! +_I_ think they do pretty well under the circumstances. I'm afraid I'd do +worse." + +Mr. Winkle stroked his chin reflectively. + +"No doubt, no doubt," he said abstractedly, as they stepped out of the +elevator. + +John Boler looked at him for a brief space of time to see if he had +intended the thrust and then went on: + +"That girl's life or death just meant an item to the boys, and it didn't +mean much more to you or me until--until we stood and heard her talk and +saw her suffer, and were made personally uncomfortable by it. Yet we are +old enough to know all about it for her and others. We _do_ know it, and +go right along as if we didn't. We are a pretty bad lot, don't you think +so?" + +Silas Winkle unlocked his door before he spoke. Then he turned to his +old friend's son and shook his hand warmly. + +"Good-bye," he said, looking at him steadily. "Good-bye, Johnnie. I see +it only comes on you at odd spells. Come up to Meadville for a while +and I think you will get over it altogether. Your father was the +clearest-headed man I ever saw and you seem to have lucid intervals. +Those last remarks of yours were worthy of your father, my boy," and the +old man patted him softly on the back. + +John Boler whistled all the way downstairs. Then he laughed. + +"I wonder if old Winkle really does think I am off my base," said he, +as he took down his hat. "I suppose we are all more or less crazy. He +thinks I am and I know he is. It is a crazy world. Only lunatics could +plan or conduct it on its present lines." And he laughed again and then +sighed and passed out into the human stream on Broadway. + + + + +THE TIME LOCK OF OUR ANCESTORS. + +_"Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third +and fourth generation._"--Bible. + + +"Don't be so hard on yourself, Nellie. I am sure it can be no great +wrong you have done. Girls like you are too apt to be morbid. No doubt +we all do it, whatever it is. I'm sure I shall not blame you when you +tell me. Perhaps I shall say you are quite right--that is, if there is +any right and wrong to it, and provided I know which is which, after I +hear the whole story--as most likely I shall not. Right--" + +And here the elder woman smiled a little satirically, and looked out +of the window with a far-away gaze, as if she were retravelling through +vast spaces of time and experience far beyond anything her friend could +comprehend. + +The evening shadows had gathered, and cast, as they will, a spell of +gravity and exchange of confidences over the two. + +Presently the older woman began speaking again: + +"Do you know, Nell, I was always a little surprised that Lord Byron, of +all people, should have put it that way: + + "I know the right, and I approve it too; + Condemn the wrong--and yet the wrong pursue. + +"_The_ right '--why, it is like a woman to say that. As if there were +but one 'right,' and it were dressed in purple and fine linen, and +seated on a throne in sight of the assembled multitude! '_The right._' +indeed! Yes, it sounds like a woman--and a very young woman at that, +Nellie." + +The girl looked with large, troubled, passionate eyes at her friend, and +then broke out into hot, indignant words--words that would have offended +many a woman; but Florence Campbell only laughed, a light, queer little +peal; tipped her chair a trifle farther back, put her daintily slippered +feet on the satin cushion of the low window-seat, and looked at her +friend, through the gathering darkness, from under half-closed eyelids. + +Presently--this woman was always deliberate in her conversation; long +silences were a part of her power in interesting and keeping the full +attention of her listeners--presently she said: + +"Of course you think so. Why shouldn't you? So did I--once. And do you +know, Nellie, that sort of sentiment dies hard--_very_ hard--in a woman. +At your age--" Florence Campbell always spoke as if she were very old, +although to look at her one would say that she was not twenty-eight. + +These delicately formed Dresden-china women often carry their age +with such an easy grace--it sits upon them so lightly--in spite of +ill-health, mental storms, and moral defeats, that while their more +robust sisters grow haggard and worn, and hard of feature and tone, +under weights less terrible and with feelings less intense, they keep +their grace and gentleness of tone in the teeth of every blast. + +"At your age, dear, I would have scorned a woman who talked as I do now; +and more than that, I would have suspected her, as you do not suspect +me, of being a very dangerous and not unlikely a very bad person +indeed--simply from choice. While you--you generous little soul--think +that I am better than I talk." + +She laughed again, and shifted her position as if she were not wholly +comfortable under the troubled gaze of the great eyes she knew were +fastened upon her. + +"You think I am better than my opinions. I know exactly what you tell +yourself about me when you are having it out with yourself upstairs. +Oh, I know! You excuse me for saying this on the theory that it was not +deliberate--was an oversight. You account for that by the belief that I +am not well--my nerves are shaken. You are perfectly certain that _I_ am +all right, no matter what I do, or say, or think." She took her little +friend's soft hand as it twisted nervously a ribbon in her lap, and held +the back of it against her cheek, as she often did. "But just suppose it +were some one else--some other woman, Nellie, you would suspect her +(no doubt quite unfairly) of all the crimes in the statute-books. Oh, I +know, I know, child! I did--at your age--and, sad to relate, _I_ had no +Florence Campbell to soften my judgments on even one of my sex." + +She had grown serious as she talked, and her voice almost trembled. The +instant she recognized this herself, she laughed again, and said gayly: + +"Oh, I was a very severe judge--once--I do assure you, though you may +not think so now." She dropped her voice to a tone of mocking solemnity, +not uncommon with her, and added: "If you won't tell on me, I'll make a +little confession to you, dear;" and she took both of the girl's hands +firmly in her own and waited until the promise was given. + +"I wouldn't have it get out for the world, but the fact is, Nell, I +sometimes strongly suspect that, at your age, I was--a most unmitigated, +self-righteous little prig." + +Nellie's hands gave a disappointed little jerk: but her friend held them +firmly, laughed gayly at her discomfiture--for she recognized fully +that the girl was attuned to tragedy--buried her face in them! for an +instant, and then deliberately kissed in turn each pink little palm--not +omitting her own. Then she dropped those of her friend, and leaned back +against her cushions and sighed. + +Nellie was puzzled and annoyed. She was on the verge of tears. + +"Florence, darling," she said presently, "if I did not know you to be +the best woman in the world, I shouldn't know what to make of your dark +hints, and of--and of you. You are always a riddle to me--a beautiful +riddle, with a good answer, if only I could guess it. You talk like a +fiend, sometimes, and you act like--an angel, always." + +"Give me up. You can't guess me. Fact is, I haven't got any answer," +laughed Florence. + +But the girl went steadily on without seeming to hear her: "Do you know, +there are times when I wonder if it would be possible to be insane and +vicious, mentally and _verbally_, as it were, and perfectly sane and +exaltedly good morally." + +Florence Campbell threw herself back on her cushions and laughed gayly, +albeit a trifle hysterically. "Photograph taken by an experienced +artist!" she exclaimed. "You've hit me! Oh, you've hit me, Nell." Then +sitting suddenly bolt-upright, she looked the girl searchingly in the +face, and said slowly: "Do you know, Nellie, that I am sometimes tempted +to tell the truth? About myself, I mean--and to _you_. Never on any +other subject, nor to anybody else, of course," she added dryly, in +comedy tones, strangely contrasting with the almost tragic accents as +she went on. "But I can't. '_The_ truth!' Why, it is like _the_ right; +I'm sure I don't know what it is; and it has been so long--oh, so +cruelly long--since I told it, by word or action, that I have lost its +very likeness from my mind. I have told lies and acted lies so long--" +Her friend's eyes grew indignant and she began to protest, but Florence +ran on: "I have evaded facts--not only to others, but to myself, +until--until I'd have to swear out a search-warrant and have it served +on my mental belongings to find out myself what I _do_ think or feel or +want on any given subject." + +It was characteristic of the woman to use this flippant method of +expression, even in her most intense moments. + +"I change so, Nell; sometimes suddenly--all in a flash." + +There was a long silence. Then she began again, quite seriously: + +"There is a theory, you know, that we inherit traits and conditions from +our remote ancestors as well as from our immediate ones. I sometimes +fancy that they descend to some people with a Time Lock attachment. A +child is born"--she held out her hands as if a baby lay on them--"he +is like his mother, we will say, gentle, sweet, kind, truthful, for +years--let us say seven. Suddenly the Time Lock turns, and the traits of +his father (modified, of course, by the acquired habits of seven years) +show themselves strongly--take possession, in fact. Another seven years, +and the priggishness of a great-uncle, the stinginess of an aunt, or the +dullness, in books, of a rural grandfather. Then, in keeping with the +next two turns of the Lock, he falls in love with every new face he +sees, marries early and indulges himself recklessly in a large family. +He is an exemplary husband and father, as men go, an ideal business man, +and a general favorite in society." + +She was running on now as if her words had the whip-hand of her. + +"Everybody remarks upon the favorable change since his stupid, priggish +college days. All this time, through every change, he has been honorable +and upright in his dealings with his fellows. Suddenly the Time Lock +of a Thievish Ancestor is turned on; he finds temptation too strong +for even that greatly under-estimated power--the force of habit of +a lifetime--and the trust funds in his keeping disappear with him to +Canada. Everybody is surprised, shocked, pained--and he, no doubt, +more so than any one else. Emotional insanity is offered as a possible +explanation by the charitable; longheaded, calculating, intentional +rascality, by the severe or self-righteous. And he? Well, he is wholly +unable to account for it at all. He _knows_ that he had not lived all +these years as a conscious, self-controlled thief. He _knows_ that the +temptations of his past life had never before taken that particular +form. He _knows_ that the impulse was sudden, blinding, overwhelming; +but he does not know why and how. It was like an awful dream. He seemed +to be powerless to overcome it. The Time Lock had turned without his +knowledge, and in spite of himself. The unknown, unheard-of Thievish +Ancestor took possession, as it were, through force of superior strength +and ability--and then it was his hour. The hereditary shadow on the dial +had come around to him. The great-uncle's hour was past. _He_, no doubt, +was 'turned on' to some other dazed automaton--in Maine or Texas--who +had fallen heir to a drop too much of his blood, and she, poor thing, if +it happened to be a girl this time, forthwith proceeded to fall in love +with her friend's husband--seeing he was the only man at hand at the +time; while the Thievish Ancestor left--in shame and contrition--a +small but light-fingered boy in Georgia, to keep his engagement with +our respectable, highly honored, and heretofore highly honorable man of +affairs in Wall street. The Time Lock of heredity had been set for this +hour, and the machinery of circumstances oiled the wheels and silently +moved the dial." There was absolute silence when Florence Camp-bell's +voice ceased. The heavy curtains made the shadows in the struggling +moonlight deep and solemn. Two great eyes looked out into the darkness +and a shudder passed over her frame. She thought her little friend +had fallen asleep, she lay so still and quiet on the rug at her feet. +Florence sighed, and thought how quickly youth forgot its troubles and +how lightly Care sat on her throne. Then suddenly a passionate sobbing +broke the silence, and two arms, covered with lace and jewels, flung +themselves around the older woman's knees. + +"O my God! Florence; O my God! is there no way to stop the wheels? +Must they go blindly on? Can we _never_ know who or what we shall be +to-morrow? It is awful, Florence, awful; and--it--is _true!_ O God! it +is _true!_" + +Florence Campbell had been very serious when she stopped her little +harangue. There had been a quality in her voice which, while it was not +wholly new to her friend, _would_ have been unknown to many who thought +they knew her well. To them she was a beautiful, fashionable, rather +light woman, with a gay nature, who either did not know, or did not care +to investigate too closely, the career of her husband, to whom she was +devotedly attached. + +She had been quite serious, I say, when she stopped her little +philosophical speculation; but she was greatly surprised at the storm +she had raised in the breast of her little friend. + +Florence bent down quickly, and putting her arms about the girl tried to +raise her up; but she only sobbed the harder, and clung to her friend's +knees as a desperate, frightened creature might cling to its only +refuge. + +"Why, Nellie, little kitten," said the older woman, using a term of +endearment common with her in talking with the girl--"why, Nellie, +little kitten, what in the world is the matter? Did I scare the life out +of you with my Time Locks and my gruesome ancestors?" and she tried to +laugh a little; but the sound of her voice was not altogether pleasant +to the ear. "I'll ring for a light. I had no business to talk such stuff +to you when you were blue and in the dark too. I guess, Nell, that the +Time Lock of _my_ remote ancestor, who was a fool, must have been turned +on me shortly after sundown to-day, don't you think?" And this time her +laugh lacked the note of bitterness it had held before. + +She ran on, still caressing the weeping girl at her feet: + +"Yes, undoubtedly, my Remote Ancestor--the fool--has now moved in. Do +you think you can stand seven years of him, kitten, if you live with +me that long? But you won't. You'll go and marry some horrid man, and I +shall be so jealous that my hair will curl at sight of him." + +But the girl would not laugh. She refused to be cheered, nor would she +have a light. She raised herself until her head rested on her friend's +bosom, and clung to her, sobbing as if her heart would break. Florence +stroked her hair and sat silent for a while, wondering just what had +so shaken the child. She knew full well that it was _not_ what she had +hinted of the darkness and her gruesome story. Presently Nellie drew her +friend's face down, and whispered between her sobs: + +"Darling, I must have had some dreadful ancestor, a wicked--_wicked_ +woman. I--" + +Florence Campbell shrieked with laughter. She felt relieved of--she did +not know what. She had blamed herself for even unconsciously touching +the secret spring of sorrow in the girl's heart. It was a strange +sight, the two women clinging to each other, the one sobbing, the other +laughing, each trying in vain to check the other. + +At last Nellie said, still almost in a whisper: "But, Florence, you do +not know. You do not understand. You are too good to know. It is you +who will scorn and hate me when I tell you. O Florence, Florence, I +can never _dare_ to tell you!" Her friend, still laughing, made +little ejaculations of satirical import as the girl grew more and more +hysterical. + +"O thou wicked wretch!" laughed she. "No doubt you've killed your man, +as they say out West. Oh, dear--oh, dear! Nell, this is really quite +delicious! Did it step on a bug? Or was it a great big spider? And does +it think it ought to be hanged for the crime? A peal of laughter from +the one, a shudder from the other, was the only reply to these efforts +to break the force of the girl's self-reproach. Florence clinched her +small fist in mock heroics and began again: + +"Your crimes have found you out! And mine--_mine_--has been the avenging +hand! Really, this is too good, kitten. I shall tell, let me see--I +shall tell--_Tom!_" + +The girl was on her feet in a flash. + +"Not that! _not that_, Florence! Anything but that! I will tell you +myself first--_he_ shall not?" Florence grew suddenly silent and grave. +The girl slipped down at her knees again, and clasping her hand, went +hoarsely on: + +"O Florence, darling, I did not mean to wrong you! Truly, truly, I did +not--and I do not believe _he_ did--not at--first. We--oh, it was--" +she sank on the floor, at the feet of her astonished friend, and with +upstretched arms in the darkness whispered: "Florence, Florence--O my +God! I _cannot_ tell you! I must go away! _I must go away!_" The older +woman did not touch the outstretched hands and they sank to the floor, +and on them rested a tear-stained, wretched face. + +A moment later Tom Campbell entered the room. To eyes unaccustomed to +the darkness nothing was visible. He did not see his wife, who arose as +he entered, and stood with bated breath over the form of the girl on the +floor. + +"By Jove!" he muttered, "this room is as dark as Egypt, and then +some--Wonder where Florence is. Those damned servants ought to be shot! +Whole house like a confounded coal-pit! Didn't expect me for hours yet, +I suppose! That's no reason for living like a lot of damned bats! 'Fraid +of musquitoes, I suppose. Where are those matches? _Florence!_ She's +evidently gone out--or to bed. Wonder where her little 'kitten' is? +Umm--wonder how much longer Florence means to keep her here? Don't see +how the thing's going to go on much longer this way, with a girl with a +conscience like that. Perfectly abnormal! Perfectly ridiculous! Umm--no +more tact than--" + +Nellie moaned aloud. Florence had held her breath, hoping he would +go. He had almost reached the door leading to the hall, after his vain +search for matches. + +"Hello! what was that?" said Campbell, turning again into the room. + +His wife knew that escape was not now possible. "Nothing, Tom," she +said, in a voice that trembled a little. "Go upstairs. I will come up +soon." + +"Why, hello, Florence, that you? What are you sitting here in the dark +for, all alone? Why didn't you speak to me when I came in? What did you +let me--" + +Nellie sat up, and in doing so overturned a chair. + +Tom's eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. He saw the two women +outlined before him, and he saw that Nellie had been on the floor, and +that his wife stood over her. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. "What's up?" + +He came toward them. Nellie sprang to her feet, with flashing eyes and +outstretched, imploring hands to wave him back. She was about to rush +into a painful explanation. Florence stepped toward her, put both arms +about her, and drew her onto the cushioned window-seat at their side. +She knew she must cover the girl's agitation from her husband, and +somehow gain time to think. + +"Sit down, dear," she said softly. "Sit down here by me. You have been +asleep. He frightened you coming in so suddenly. You have been dreaming; +you talked in your sleep--but it was all nonsense--about an ancestor, +whom you blamed very bitterly." + +The girl began to speak impulsively, but Florence checked her. + +"Yes, I know. You told me. It was all the greatest stuff. But the part +that was true--I doubt if she was to blame. I think, from all I know +of--of her, and of the gentleman you mentioned, the one she--seemed to +care for--that--oh, no, kitten! I am _sure she_ was not to blame." + +Nellie was trembling violently, clinging to her friend in shame and +remorse. Tom stood perfectly quiet in the deeper darkness, back from +the window, with a smile on his cheerful face and a puzzled light in his +handsome eyes. + +"Go upstairs, Tom," said Florence again, this time in a steadier tone. +"Nellie's head aches; you waked her up too suddenly. We don't want more +light--do we, Nellie? Not just now. We have quite light enough for the +present. I assure you we are better off just now in the dark. You would +think so yourself if you could see us as we see ourselves. We are +quite battered and out at elbow, I assure you, and not at all fit for +fastidious masculine eyes." + +She was pulling herself up well. "To-morrow we will spruce up our bangs, +put on fresh gowns, and not know ourselves for the wretches we are +tonight. Until then, Sir Knight, no masculine eye shall rest upon our +dilapidation. Go!" + +Tom Campbell had seen his wife in this mood before. He went. + +All the way upstairs he wondered what had happened. "Never could make +women out anyway," he muttered; "least of all, Florence. Women are a +queer lot. More you live with 'em, more you don't know what they'll do +next. Wonder what in thunder's up. 'Kitten' never said a word; but I'm +damned if I did't hear her groan! Guess the little goose feels kind +of--queer--with me and the old lady both present. Wonder--whew!--wonder +how much I said aloud, and how much they heard when I first went in! +Confounded habit, talking aloud to myself! Got to stop it, old boy; must +be done--get you into trouble yet!" + +Then he turned off the gas, and was sleeping as peacefully as an infant +before the two women below stairs had parted for the night. + +When Tom left the room, Nellie began to sob again, and Florence stroked +her hair with her icy hands and waited for the girl to speak--or grow +calm. And for herself--she hardly knew what she waited for in herself; +but she felt that she needed time. + +After a long silence she said, quite gently; "Nellie, little girl, we +will go upstairs now; you will go to bed. If you ever feel like it, +after you take time to think it over, and your nerves are quiet--if +you ever feel like it, you may tell just what trick your troublesome +ancestor has tried to play you; but I want to say now, dear, don't feel +that you _must_ tell me, nor that I do not know perfectly well that +my little kitten is all right, ancestors or no ancestors, and that we, +together can somehow find the combination to that Time Lock that so +distresses you, and turn it off again. Meantime, little girl _no one_ +shall harm you. You shall be let alone; you are all right! Be _sure_ of +that. I am. Now, good-night;" and she kissed the still sobbing girl on +the forehead and hands, in spite, of her protests and self-accusations. + +Suddenly Nellie sank on her knees again, and grasped Florence's dress as +she had turned to go: + +"O Florence! O Florence! are you human? How _can_ you? You are not like +other women! O my God! if I could only be like you; but you frighten me! +You are so calm. How cold your hands are! oh--" + +"Are they? I did not notice. Oh well, no matter; it is an old trick of +theirs, you know." + +Florence Campbell's voice was very steady now. Her words were slow and +deliberate--they sounded as if she was very tired; and her step, as she +climbed the stairs, had lost its spring and lightness. + +The next morning Nellie's breakfast was carried to her room, with a +message from Florence not to get up until she came to her at their usual +hour for reading together. + +About noon, as the girl lay thinking for the hundredth time that she +must get up and face life again--that she must somehow stop this +blinding headache, and go away--that she must die--Florence swept into +the room, trailing her soft, long gown behind her, and gently closed the +door. She had put on a gay pink tea-gown, with masses of white lace and +smart little bows in unexpected places. + +"Feel better, dear?" she asked, gayly. "Griggs told me your head ached, +and that you had not slept well. I confess I did not either--not very. +Tom and I talked rather late; you know he sails for Liverpool at noon. +Sure enough, you didn't know. Well, no matter. The vessel is just about +sailing now. Yes, it is _rather_ sudden. We talked so much of it last +night that it seems quite an old story to me to-day, though. You know +he was to go in two weeks, anyway. It seemed best to go earlier, so I +helped him pack, and saw him to the steamer two hours ago. You know a +man doesn't have to take anything but a tooth-brush and a smoking-cap. +We thought it would be best for his health to go at once. Tom has not +seemed quite himself of late." She did not look at her friend as she +talked and her white face was turned from the light. She talked so fast, +it seemed as if she had rehearsed and was repeating a part with a desire +to have it over as soon as might be. "His Travelling Ancestor, the one +who wants change--change--change in all things, has had hold of him of +late. I'm sure you have noticed how restless he was." + +The girl sat up and listened with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. She had +known many unexpected and unexplained things to be done in the house of +this friend, who had given her a home and a warm welcome a year before, +when she had left school, an orphan and homeless. But this sudden +departure she had not heard even mentioned before. She thought she +understood it. + +"O Florence! Florence!" she cried, passionately. "It is _my_ fault! I +have separated you! I have brought sorrow to you! You, who are so good, +_so good;_ and I--oh, how _can_ you be so kind to me? _Hate_ me! _Hate +me!_ Thrust me from your house, and tell the world I tried to steal your +husband! Tell that I am vile and wicked! Tell--and now I have sent him +away from you, who love him--whom he loves! Why do you not blame me? Why +do you never blame anyone? Why--" + +There was a pause; the girl sobbed bitterly, while the older woman +seemed afraid to trust her voice. After a while in a tired, solemn tone, +Nellie went on: + +"Do you think you can believe a word I say, Florence? Is there any use +for me to tell you the truth?" + +Her friend nodded slowly, looking her steadily in the eyes. Her lips +were tightly drawn together, and her hands were cold and trembling. + +"Then, Florence, I will tell you, truly--truly--truly, as I hope for--" +She was going to say "your forgiveness," but it seemed too cruel to ask +for that just now. "I did not understand, not at first, either him or +myself. I thought he was like you"--she felt Florence shudder--"and +loved me, as he said, as you did. I was so glad and proud, +until--until--O Florence! how can I tell you that I let him _beg_ me to +go away with him! After I understood what he meant, my heart _did_ leap, +even in its utter self-abasement and wretchedness. I let him beg me +twice, and kiss me, _after_ I understood! It must have been my fault; +he said it was"--Florence took her friend's hand in hers--"and he said +that no one else had ever taken his thoughts away from you." + +The girl thought she saw the drawn lips before her curl; but she must +free her whole heart now, and lay bare her very soul. + +"He said that he had always been true to you, Florence, even in thought, +until I--O Florence! I must be worse than anyone one earth. I--he said--" + +Florence Campbell sprang to her feet. "Yes, I know, I know!" she +exclaimed, breathlessly, "and you _believed_ him! Poor little fool! +Women do. Sometimes a second time, but not a third time, dear--not a +third time! Do not blame yourself any more." She stopped, then hurried +on as one will do when danger threatens from within. "If it had not been +you, it would, it might--my God! it might have been worse! Some poor +girl--" + +She stopped again as if choking. The two women looked at each other; +the younger one gave a long, shuddering moan, and buried her face in her +hands. + +Presently Florence said slowly: "All ancestors were not thieves. Some +were simply fickle, and light, and faithless." + +Nellie raised a face full of passionate suffering: "Florence! Florence! +how can you excuse either of us? How _can--_" + +Suddenly, with a great sob, Florence Campbell threw herself into the +girl's outstretched arms, and with a wail of utter desolation cried: +"Hush, Nellie, hush! Never speak of it again, never! Only _love_ me, +_love me--love me!_ I need it so! And _no_ one--no one in all the world +has ever loved me truly!" It was the only time Nellie ever saw Florence +Campbell lose her self-control. + + + + +FLORENCE CAMPBELL'S FATE. + +_"'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read +amiss; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides +hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear...._" + +_"Every man has a history worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we +could draw it from him."_--Ralph Waldo Emerson. + + +I was sitting in my office, with my head in my hands, and with both +elbows resting on my desk. I was tired in every nerve of my body; +more than that, I was greatly puzzled over the strange conduct of my +predecessor in the college, whose assistant I had been, and whose place +I was appointed to fill during the unexpired term for which he had been +elected lecturer on anatomy. + +That morning he was to introduce me to the class formally as his +successor, deliver his last lecture, and then retire from active +connection with anatomical instruction. + +Everything appeared to be perfectly arranged, and, indeed, some of the +younger men--under my direction--had taken special pains to provide our +outgoing and much admired professor with rather unusual facilities for a +brilliant close to his career as our instructor. + +I was feeling particularly pleased with the arrangements, when, after a +neat little speech on his part, commendatory of me, and when we supposed +him to be about to begin his lecture, he suddenly turned to me and +said, bluntly: "You will be so good as to take the class to-day. Young +gentlemen, I bid you good morning," and abruptly took up his hat and +left. I sat facing an expectant and surprised class of shrewd young +fellows, and I was quite unprepared to proceed. + +I had intended my first lecture to be a great success. It was ready +for the following day; but my notes were at home, and my position can, +therefore, be better imagined than described. + +I was thinking over this and the strange behavior of my generally +punctilious predecessor, when he entered my office, unannounced, and, +after the ordinary salutations and apologies for having placed me in so +undesirable a position in the morning, he told me the following episode +from his history. I will give it in his own words, omitting, as far as +possible, all comment made by me at the time, thus endeavoring to leave +you alone with him and his story, as I was that night. This will better +enable me to impart the effect to you as it was conveyed to me at the +time. It greatly interested me then, but the more I think it over, +the less am I able to decide, in my own mind, all of the psychological +questions which it aroused then and which it has since called up. This +is the story. + + + + +I. + +I am, as you know, not a young man, and in the practice of my +profession, which has extended over a period of nearly thirty years, I +have learned to diagnose the cases that come under my care very slowly +and by degrees. Every year has taught me, what you will undoubtedly +learn--for I have great hopes for your future career--that physical +symptoms are often the results of mental ailments, and that, while +cordials and powders are sometimes very useful aids, the first and +all-important thing is to understand fully the _true_ history of my +patient. + +I have laid stress upon the word true, simply because while _a_ history +is easy enough to get, about the most difficult matter in this world to +secure is _the_ history of one who comes to a physician ailing in body +or in mind. It is easy enough to treat a broken leg, a gunshot wound, or +even that ghastliest of physical foes, diphtheria, if it is one of these +and nothing more. + +But if it is a broken leg as to outward sign, and a broken heart as an +inward fact, then the case is quite another matter, and the treatment +involves skill of a different kind. + +If the bullet that tore its way through the body was poisoned with the +bitterness of disappointment, anxiety, terror, or remorse, something +more is needed than bandages and beef-tea. + +If diphtheria was contracted solely from a defective sewage-pipe, it +will, no doubt, yield to remedies and pure air. But if long years of +nervous and mental prostration have made ready its reception, the work +to be done is of a much more serious nature. + +So when I was first called to see Florence Campbell, the message +conveyed to me threw no light on the case, beyond what the most ordinary +observer would have detected at a glance. + +The note read thus: + +"Dr. H. Hamilton. + +"Dear Sir: Although I have been in your city for several months, it +is the first time since I came that I have myself felt that I needed +medical attention. I have, therefore, not sent you the enclosed note +(the history of which you no doubt know) until now. If you will read it, +it will explain that the time has now come when, if you will come to me, +I need your care. + +"Yours respectfully, + +"Florence Campbell." + +"Parlor 13, F------ Ave. Hotel." + +The note enclosed was from a physician in Chicago whom I had known +intimately many years before, but with whom, contrary to the hint given +by the lady, I had held no communication for a long time past. It said: + +"My Dear Doctor: One of my patients is about to visit your city. The +length of her stay is uncertain, and, as she is often ailing, she has +asked me to give her a note to one whom I believe to be skilful and to +possess the qualities which she requires in a physician. In thinking +over the list of those known to me in New York, I have decided to give +her this note to you. I need not commend her to you; she will do that +for herself. You will see at a glance that she is a charming woman, and +you will learn in five minutes' conversation with her, that she is a +brilliant one. She is also one of those rare patients to whom you +can afford to tell the unvarnished truth--an old hobby of yours, I +remember--and from whom you can expect it. She has had no serious +illness recently, but is rather subject to slight colds and sick +headache. I give her sulph. 12. She always responds to that in time. + +"Yours, as ever, + +"Thomas C. Griswold." + +I folded the note and laid it on my desk and took up a pen. Then, +on second thought, I turned to the messenger and said, "Say to Miss +Campbell that I will call at four o'clock this afternoon." + +Before I had finished the sentence he was gone, and I laid down the pen +and sat thinking. + +How like Tom Griswold that was--the old Tom of college days--to write +such a note as that and give it to a patient! "Sulph. 12"--and then +I laughed outright at his interpretation of my desire for veracious +relations between patient and practitioner, and re-read his note from +end to end. + +Then I read hers again. Neither of them indicated the slightest need of +haste on my part. + +I pictured a pretty little blonde--I knew Tom's taste. He had been +betrothed to three different girls during the old days, and they had all +been of that type; small, blue-eyed, Dresden-china sort of girls, +who had each pouted--and married someone else in due time, after a +"misunderstanding" with Tom. + +One of these misunderstandings had been over some roses, I remember. +They did not "match" her dress in color, and she was wretched. She told +him he should have known better than to get that shade, when he knew +very well that she never wore anything that would "go with" it. + +He had naturally felt a little hurt, since he had bought the finest +and highest-priced roses to be had, and expected ecstatic praise of his +taste and extravagance. The "misunderstanding" was final, and, after a +wretched evening and several days of tragic grief, five tinted notes of +sorrow, reproach, and pride, they each began to flirt with some one else +and to talk of the inconstancy of the other sex. They vowed, of course, +that they would never marry anybody on earth, and finally engaged +themselves to marry some one else, who perhaps, had just passed through +a similar harrowing experience and was yearning to be consoled. + +I remember that Tom smoked a great deal during this tragic period, that +he looked gloomy, wore only black neckties, and allowed a cold to run on +until it became thoroughly settled and had to be nursed all the rest of +the winter. + +He knew that smoking injured him, and he doubtless had an idea that he +would end his misery by means of this cold, supplemented by nicotine +poison. How near he might have approached to success it would be +difficult to tell, if he had not met my sister Nellie at Christmas-time, +and, after having told his woes to her, promised her, "as a friend," not +to smoke again for three days and then to report to her. The report was +satisfactory, and she then confessed that she had forsworn bonbons for +the same length of time, as a sort of companionship in sacrifice. + +This, of course, impressed Tom as a truly remarkable test of friendship +and sympathy, and,--well, what is the use to tell the rest? + +You will know it. It had no new features, so far as I can now recall, +and I believe that they had been betrothed six months before Nellie +met grave old Professor Menlo and began the study of Greek roots and +mythology. + +I think that, perhaps, Tom would have been all right if it had not been +for the mythology. But Nellie was romantic, and the professor was an +enthusiast in this branch of knowledge, and so, by and by, Tom, poor +devil, took to smoking again--this time it was a pipe--and local +papers were filled with notices of the romantic marriage of "Wisdom and +Beauty," and poor little Nellie wrote a pathetic note to Tom, and sent +it by me, with frantic directions not to allow him to kill himself +because she had not understood her own heart; but that she loved +him truly--as a friend--still, and he must come to see her and _her_ +professor in their new home on the hill. And, dear, dear, what a time +I had with Tom! It is funny enough now; but even I felt sorry for him +then, and shielded him from the least unnecessary pain by telling +the boys that they absolutely must not congratulate me on my sister's +marriage, nor mention it in any way whatever, when Tom was present, +unless they wanted to have trouble with me personally. + +And to think that Tom married Kittie Johnson before he had fairly +finished his first year in the hospital service; and had to take her +home for his father to support! Since then I had seen him from time to +time, and heard of his large practice, his numerous children, and his +elegant home; but he never talked of his wife, although I believed him +to be perfectly satisfied with her. He seemed content, was prosperous +beyond expectation, and had grown fat and gouty, when I last saw him at +a medical convention. He attributed his too great flesh and his gout +to the climate of his Western home, and was constantly threatening to +retire from practice, and said that he should ultimately come to New +York to live. + +Yes, undoubtedly Florence Campbell is a petite blonde, with little white +teeth and a roseleaf cheek, thought I, and I laughed, and rang for my +carriage. + + + + +II. + +I do not know that I ever entered a more delicately perfumed room--and +I am very sensitive to perfumes--than the one in which Florence Campbell +sat. + +She arose from her deep arm-chair as I entered, and, extending her hand, +grasped mine with a vigor unusual in a woman, even when she is well. + +"This is Dr. Hamilton?" she said, in a clear voice, which told nothing +of pain, and was wholly free from the usually querulous note struck by +women who are ill, or who think that they are. "This is Dr. Hamilton? I +am very glad to see you, doctor. I am Florence Campbell. You received a +note from your friend, Dr. Griswold, of Chicago, and one telling how +I came to send it to you--how I came into possession of it." Direct of +speech, clear of voice, hand feverish, but firm in grasp, I commented +mentally, as she spoke. + +This is not what I had expected. This is not the limp little blonde that +I had pictured, on a lounge, in tears, with the light fluffy hair in +disorder, and a tone of voice which plead for sympathy. This is not the +figure I had expected to see. + +She stood with her back to the light, very erect and well poised. + +"Come to the window," I said. "Does your head ache?" That is always a +safe question to ask, you know. + +She laughed. "Oh, I don't know that it does--not particularly. I fancy +there is not enough inside of it to ache much. Mere bone and vacuity +could not do a great deal in that line, could it, doctor?" Then +she laughed again. She looked me in the eyes, and I fancied she was +diagnosing _me_. + +Her eyes were deep, large, and brown, or a dark gray; her complexion +was dark and clear--almost too transparent; her cheeks were flushed a +little; and the light in her eyes was unnaturally intense. + +She was evidently trying to gain time--to take my measure. + +"It is always a rather trying thing to get a new doctor; don't you think +so?" she asked, with another little laugh. "I always feel so foolish to +think I have called him to come for so trifling a matter as my ailments +are. I am never really ill, you know," she said with nervous haste; "but +I am not very strong, and so I often feel--rather--under the weather, +and I always fancy that a doctor can prevent, or cure it; but I suppose +he cannot. I shall really not expect a great deal of you, in that line, +doctor. I cannot expect you to furnish me with robust ancestors, can I? +Just so you keep me out of bed"--and here, for the first time, I noticed +a slight tremor in her voice--"just keep me so that I can read, +and--so that I shall not need to sit alone, and--think--I shall be quite +satisfied--quite." She had turned her face away, as she said the last; +but I saw that she was having a hard struggle to keep back the tears, +notwithstanding the little laugh that followed. + +I had felt her pulse; it was hardly perceptible, and fluttered rather +than beat; and I had watched her closely as she spoke; but whenever she +came near the verge of showing deeper than the surface she broke in with +that non-committal little laugh, or turned her face, or half closed her +great eyes, and I was foiled. Her pulse and the faint blue veins told me +one story; she tried to tell me quite another. + +"How are you suffering to-day," I asked. + +She looked steadily at me a moment, then lowered her eyes, raised her +left hand (upon which I remember noticing there was a handsome ring), +looked at its palm a moment, held her lips tightly closed, and then, +with a sudden glance at me, again as if on the defensive said: + +"I hardly know; I am only a little under the weather; I am weak. I +am losing my--grip--on myself; I am--losing my grip--on my--nerves. I +cannot afford to do that." The last was said with more emotion than she +cared to display. So she arose, walked swiftly to the dressing-case, +took up a lace handkerchief, glanced at herself in the mirror, moved a +picture (I noticed that it was a likeness of an old gentleman, perhaps +her father), and returned to a chair which stood in the shadow, and +then, with a merry little peal of laughter, said: "Well, I don't wonder, +doctor, that you are unable to diagnose that case. It would require a +barometer to do that I fancy, from the amount of weather I got into it. +But really, now, how am _I_ to know what is the matter with me? That is +for you to say; I am not the doctor. If you tell me it is malaria, as +all of you do, I shall be perfectly satisfied--and take your powders +with the docility of an infant in arms. I suppose it _is_ malaria, don't +you?" + +I wanted to gain time--to study her a little. I saw that she was, or had +been really ill; ill, that is, in mind if not in body. I fancied that +she had succeeded in deceiving Griswold into treating her for some +physical trouble which she did not have, or, if she had it, only as a +result of a much graver malady. + +The right branch may have been found and nipped off from time time +when it grew uncomfortably long, but the root, I believed, had not +been touched, and, I thought, had not been even suspected by her former +physician. + +We of the profession, as you very well know, do not always possess that +abiding faith in the knowledge and skill of our brethren that we demand +and expect from outsiders. + +We claim our right to guess over after our associates, and not always to +guess the same thing. + +I believed that Griswold had not fully understood his former patient. +"Sulph. 12," indeed! Then I smiled, and said aloud: + +"Dr. Griswold writes me that in such cases as yours he advises sulph. +12--that it has given relief. Do you call yourself a sulphur patient?" I +watched her narrowly, and if she did not smile in a satirical way, I was +deceived. "Are you out of that remedy? and do you want more of it?" I +asked with a serious face. + +She did not reply at once. There seemed to be a struggle in her mind as +to how much she would let me know. Then she looked at me attentively +for a moment, with a puzzled expression, I thought; an unutterably weary +look crossed her face. She said, slowly, deliberately: "I have no doubt +sulphur will do as well as anything else. Oh! yes--I am decidedly a +sulphur patient, no doubt I suppose I have taken several pints of that +innocent remedy in my time. A number of physicians have given it to +me from time to time. Your friend is not its only devotee. Sulphur and +nux--nux and sulphur! I believe they cure anything short of a broken +heart, or actual imbecility, do they not, doctor?" She laughed, not +altogether pleasantly. + +How far would she go and how far would she let me go, with this +humbuggery? I looked gravely into her eyes, and said, "Certainly they +will do all that, and more. They sometimes hold a patient until a doctor +can decide which of those two interesting complaints is the particular +one to be treated. In _your_ case I am inclined to suspect--the--that it +is--_not_ imbecility. I shall therefore begin by asking you to be good +enough to tell me what it is that affects your heart." + +I had taken her wrist in my hand, as I began to speak. My finger was on +her pulse. It gave a great bound, and then beat rapidly; and although +her face grew a shade paler and her eyes wavered as they tried to look +into mine, I knew that I had both surprised and impressed her. + +She recovered herself instantly, and made up her mind to hedge still +further. "If there is anything the matter with my heart, you are the +first to suspect it. My father, however, died of heart disease, and I +have--always--hoped that I should--die as suddenly. But I shall not! I +shall not! I am so--wiry--so all-enduring. I recover! I always recover!" + +She said this passionately, and as if it were a grave misfortune--as if +she were very old. I pretended to take it humorously. + +"Perhaps at your advanced age your father might have said the same." + +She laughed. She saw a loophole, and immediately took it. "Oh, you think +I am very young, doctor, but I am not. People always think me younger +than I am--at first. I look older when you get used to me. I am nearly +thirty." + +I was surprised; I had taken her to be about twenty-three. + +"In years or in experience?" I said. "Which way do you count your age?" + +She got up suddenly again and walked to the dressing-case, then to the +window. In doing so she raised her hand to her eyes. It was the hand +with the lace handkerchief in it. + +"Experience!" she exclaimed; and then, checking herself. "No, people +never think me so old--not at first," she said, returning to her chair. +"But I suppose I am not too old to be cured with sulph. 12, am I?" Then +she laughed her little nervous, quick laugh, and added: "Dear old Dr. +Griswold, what faith he must have in 'sulph. 12.' and in his patients. +He seems to think that they were made for each other, as it were; +and--of course, I am not a doctor--how do I know they were not?" + +"Miss Campbell," I said, stepping quickly to her side and surprising +her, "you do not need sulphur. You need to be relieved of this strain +on your nerves. Make up your mind to tell me your history to-morrow +morning--to tell it all; I do not want some fairy-tale. Until then, take +these drops to quiet your nerves." + +There were tears in her eyes. She did not attempt to hide them. They +ran down her cheeks, and she simply closed the lids and let them flow. +I took her lace handkerchief and wiped her cheeks. Then I dropped it in +her lap, placed the phial on her stand, took up my hat, and left. + + + + +III. + +But I did not get her story the next day, nor the next, nor the next. + +Her tact was perfectly mystifying in its intricacy; her power of evasion +marvellous, and her study of me amusing. She grew weaker and more +languid every day; but insisted that she had no pain--"nothing upon +which to hang a symptom," she would say. + +I suggested that refuge of all puzzled doctors--a change. + +"A change!" she said, wearily. "A change! Let me see, I have been here +nearly five months. I stayed two months in the last place. I was nine +days in San Francisco, one year doing the whole of Europe, and seven +months in Asia. Yes, decidedly, I must need a change. There are three +places left for me to try, which one do you advise?" There was a bitter +little laugh, but her expression was sweet, and her eyes twinkled as she +glanced at me. + +"I am glad I have three places to choose from," I said. "I was afraid +you were not going to leave so many as that, and had already begun to +plan 'electric treatment' as a final refuge." + +She laughed nervously, but I thought I saw signs of a mental change. + +I had always found that I could do most with her by falling into her +own moods of humor or merry satire upon her own condition or upon the +various stages of medical ignorance and pretence into which we are often +driven. + +"Where are these three unhappy places that you have so shamelessly +neglected? Was it done in malice? I sincerely hope, for their sakes, +that it was not so bad as that--that it was a mere oversight on your +part," I went on. + +"Australia has been spared my presence so far through malice; the other +two, through defective theology. I dislike the idea of one of them +on account of the climate, and of the other, because of the stupid +company," she said, with a droll assumption of perplexity; "so, you +see, I can't even hope for a pleasant change after death. Oh, my case is +quite hopeless, I assure you, doctor; _quite!_" She laughed again. + +I had her where I wanted her now. I thought by a little adroitness I +might get, at least, a part of the truth. + +"So you are really afraid to die, and yet think that you must," I said, +bluntly. + +She turned her great luminous eyes on me, and her lip curled slightly, +with real scorn, before she forced upon her face her usual mask of +good-hum-ored sarcasm. + +"Afraid!" she exclaimed, "afraid to die! afraid of what, pray? I cannot +imagine being afraid to die. It is _life_ I am afraid of. If I could +only--" This last passionately. She checked herself abruptly, and with +an evident effort resumed her usual light air and tone. "But it does +always seem so absurdly impossible to me, doctor, to hear grownup people +talk about being afraid to die. It almost surprised me into talking +seriously, a reprehensive habit I never allow myself. A luxury few can +afford, you know. It skirts too closely the banks of Tragedy. One is +safer on the high seas of Frivolity--don't you think?" + +"Much safer, no doubt, my child," said I, taking her hand, which was +almost as cold and white as marble; "much safer from those deceived and +confiding persons who prescribe 'sulph. 12' for the broken heart and +overwrought nerves of a little woman who tries bravely to fly her gay +colors in the face of defeat and to whistle a tune at a grave." + +I had called late, and we were sitting in the twilight, but I saw tears +fall on her lap, and she did not withdraw her hand, which trembled +violently. + +I had touched the wound roughly--as I had determined to do--but, old man +as I was, and used to the sight of suffering as I had been for years, I +could restrain myself only by an effort from taking her in my arms and +asking her to forget what I had said. She seemed so utterly shaken. We +sat for some moment in perfect silence, except for her quick, smothered +little sobs, and then she said, passionately: + +"Oh, my God! doctor, how did you know?" And then, with a flash of fear in +her voice, "Who told you? No one has talked me over to you? No one has +written to you?" + +"I know nothing, except what I have seen of your brave fight, my child. +All the information I have had about you, from outside, was contained in +that valuable little note of introduction from Griswold." + +In spite of her tears and agitation she smiled, but looked puzzled, as I +afterward recalled she always did when I mentioned his name, or spoke as +if she knew him well. + +"I have not watched you for nothing. And I never treat a patient without +first diagnosing his case. I do not say that I am _always_ right. I am +not vain of the methods nor of the progress of my profession; but I am, +at least, not blind, and I have always been interested in you. I should +like to help you, if you will let me. I can do nothing for you in the +dark." Then dropping my voice, significantly: "Does _he_ know where you +are? Does _he_ know you are ill?" + +There was a long silence. I did not know but that she was offended. She +was struggling for command of her voice, and for courage. Presently she +said, in a hoarse whisper, which evidently shocked her as much as it +startled me, so unnatural did it sound: + +"Who? My husband?" + +"Your _husband!_" I exclaimed. "Are you--is there--I did not know you +were married. Why did you always allow me to call you _Miss_ Campbell?" + +"I do not know," she said, wearily. "It made no difference to me, and it +seemed to please your fancy to treat me as a child.. But I never really +noticed that you did always call me Miss. If I had, I should not have +cared. What difference could it make to me--or to you--what prefix you +put to my name?" + +"But I did not know you were married," I said almost sharply. + +She looked up, startled for a moment; but recovering, as from some vague +suspicion, in an instant she said, smiling a little, and with evident +relief, plunging into a new opening: + +"That had nothing to do with my case. There was no need to discuss +family relations. I never thought of whether _you_ were married or +not. You were my doctor--I your patient. What our family relations, +wardrobes, or political affiliations might be seem to me quite aside +from that. We may choose to talk of them together, or we may not, as +the case may be. And in my case, it would not be--edifying." There was +a moment's pause, then she said, rather impatiently, but as if the new +topic were a relief to her: "The idea that a woman must be ticketed as +married or unmarried, to every chance acquaintance, is repellent to me. +Men are not so ticketed--and that is right. It is vulgar to suppose a +sign is needed to prevent trespass, or to tempt approach. 'Miss Jones, +this is Mr. Smith.' What does it tell?" She was talking very rapidly +now--nervously. "It tells her, 'Here is a gentleman to whom I wish to +introduce you. If you find him agreeable you will doubtless learn more +of him later on.' It tells him, 'Here is a lady. _She is not married._ +Her family relations--her most private affairs--are thrust in his face +before she has even said good evening to him. I think it is vulgar, +and it is certainly an unnecessary personality. What his or her marital +relations may be would seem to come a good deal later in the stage of +acquaintance, don't you think so, doctor?" She laughed, but it was not +like herself. Even the laugh had changed. She was fighting for time. + +"It is a new idea to me," I said, "and I confess I like it. Come to +think of it, it _is_ a trifle premature--this thrusting a title intended +to indicate private relations onto a name used on all public occasions. +By Jove! it is absurd. I never thought of it before; but it is _never_ +done with men, is it? 'General,' 'Mr.' 'Dr.'--none of them. All relate +to him as an individual, leaving vast fields of possibilities all about +him. 'Mrs.' 'Miss'--they tell one thing, and one only. That is of a +private nature--a personal association. You have started me on a new +line of thought, and," said I, taking her hand again, "you have given +me so much that is new to think of to-night that I will go home to +look over the budget. You are tired out. Go to bed now. Order your tea +brought up. Here is an order to see to anything you may ask, promptly. +Beesley, the manager, is an old friend of mine. Any order you may give, +if you send it down with this note from me, will be obeyed at once. I +shall come to-morrow. Good-night." + +I put the order on the table, at her side. I know my voice was husky. +It startled me, as I heard it. She sat perfectly still, but she laid her +other hand on top of mine, with a light pressure, and her voice sounded +tired and full of tears. + +"Good-night. You are very kind--very thoughtful. I will be brave +to-morrow. Good-night." That night I drove past and saw a light in her +window at one o'clock. "Poor child!" I said; "will she be brave enough +to tell me to-morrow, or will she die with her burden, and her gay +little laugh on her lips?" + + + + +IV. + +The next day I called earlier than usual. I had spent an almost +sleepless night, wondering what I could do for this beautiful, lovable +woman, who seemed to be all alone in the world, and who evidently felt +that she must remain apart and desolate. + +What had caused her to leave her husband? Or had he left her? What for? +What kind of a man was he? Did she love him, and was she breaking her +heart for him? or did he stand between her and some other love? Had she +married young, and made a mistake that was eating her life out? Whose +fault was it? How could I help her? + +All these and a thousand other questions forced themselves upon me, and +none of the answers came to fit the case. Answers there were in plenty, +but they were not for these questions nor for this woman--not for this +delicate flower of her race. + +As I stepped into the hotel office to send my card to "Parlor 13," as +was my custom, the clerk looked up with his perfunctory smile and said, +"Go' morning, doctor. Got so in the habit 'coming here lately, s'pose +it'll take quite a while to taper off. That about the size of it?" + +I stared at the young man in utter bewilderment. + +"Ha! ha! ha! I believe you'd really forgot already she'd gone;" +and then, with a quick flash of surprise and intelligent, detective +shrewdness, "You knew she was going, doctor? She did not skip her little +bill, did she? Of course not. Her husband was in such a deuce of a hurry +to catch the early train, the night-clerk said he was ringing his bell +the blessed night for fear they'd get left. Front! take water to 273. +You hadn't been gone five minutes last night, when he came skipping down +here with your check and order, and we just had to make things hum to +get cash enough together to meet it for her; but we made it, and so they +got off all right." + +"Have you got my check here yet?" asked I, in in a tone that arrested +the attention of the other clerk, who looked up in surprise. + +"Good heavens! no. Do you think we're made of ready money, just because +you are? That check was in the bank and part of the cash in that desk +the first thing after banking hours," said he, opening out the register +and reaching for a bunch of pens behind him. "You see it cleaned us out +last night. I couldn't change two dollars for a man this morning. I told +Campbell last night that you must think hotels were run queer, to +expect us to cash a five-thousand dollar check on five minutes' notice. +Couldn't 'a' done it at all if 't hadn't been pay-night for servants and +the rest of us. We all had to wait till to-day. But the old man'll tell +you. Here he comes." + +"Why, hello! doctor, old boy," said Beesley, coming up from behind and +clapping me vigorously on the shoulder. "Didn't expect to see the light +of your countenance around here again so soon. Thought we owed it all +to your professional ardor for that charming patient of yours up in 13. +They got off all right, but if any other man but you had sent that order +and check down here for us to cash last night I'd have told him to +make tracks. Of course, I understood that they were called away +suddenly--unexpectedly, and all that. He told me all about it, and that +you did not finish the trade till the last minute; but--" + +"_Trade?_" gasped I, in spite of my determination to hear all before +disclosing anything. "Trade?" + +"Oh, come off. Don't be so consumedly skittish about the use of English, +I suppose you want me to say that the 'transaction between you was not +concluded,' etc., etc. Oh, you're a droll one, doctor." He appeared +to notice a change on my face, which he evidently misconstrued, and he +added, gayly. "Oh, it was all right, my boy, as long as it was you--glad +to do you a good turn any day; but what a queer idea for that little +woman to marry such a man! How did it happen? I'd like to know the +history! Every time I saw him come swelling around I made up mind to ask +you about them, and then I always forgot it when I saw you. When he told +me you had been his wife's guardian I thought some of kicking you the +next good chance I got, for allowing the match, and for not telling me +you had such a pretty ward. You always were a deep rascal--go off!" He +rattled on. + +Several times I had decided to speak, but as often restrained myself. My +blank face and unsettled manner appeared to touch his sense of humor. +He concluded that it was good acting. I decided to confirm the mistake, +until I had time to think it all over. Finally, I said, as carelessly as +I could: + +"How long had this--a--husband been here? That is--when did he get +back?" + +"Been here! get back! Been here all the time; smoked more good cigars +and surrounded more wine than any other one man in the house. Oh, he was +a Jim-dandy of a fellow for a hotel!" Then, with sudden suspicion: "Why? +Had he told you he'd go away before? Oh! I--see! _That_ was the trade? +Paid him to skip, hey? M--m--m--yes! I think I begin to catch on." He +could hardly restrain his mirth, and winked at me in sheer ecstasy. + +I went slowly out. When I arrived at the house I directed the servant to +say to anyone who might call that the doctor was not at home. I went +to my room and wrote to Dr. Griswold, asking him for information about +Florence Campbell, the fair patient he had sent me. "Who was she? What +did he know of her? Where were her friends?" I told him nothing of this +last development, but asked for an immediately reply, adding--"for an +important reason." + +Three days later a telegram was handed to me as I drove up to my office. +It was this: + +"Never heard of her. Why? Griswold?" + +I did not sleep that night. For the first time my faith in Florence +Campbell wavered. Up to that time I had blamed her husband for +everything. I had woven around her a web of plausible circumstances +which made her the unwilling victim of a designing villain--an expert +forger, no doubt, who used her, without her own knowledge, as a decoy--a +man of whom she was both ashamed and afraid, but from whom she could not +escape. + +But how was all that to be reconciled with this revelation? Griswold did +not know her. How about his introduction and that "sulph. 12"? I looked +through my desk for Griswold's note. It was certainly his handwriting; +but I noticed, for the first time, that it did not mention her name. + +Perhaps this was a loop-hole through which I might bring my fair +patient--in whom I was beginning to fear I had taken too deep an +interest--without discredit to herself. + +Might she not have changed her name since Griswold treated her? I +determined to give her the benefit of this doubt until I could be sure +that it had no foundation. + +I felt relieved by this respite, and, heartily ashamed of the unjust +suspicion of the moment before, I gave no hint of it in the letter I now +wrote Griswold, describing the lady, and in which I enclosed his letter +of introduction to me. + +The next few days I went about my practice in a dream, and it was no +doubt due to fortuitous circumstances rather than to my skill that +several of my patients still live to tell the tale of their suffering +and of my phenomenal ability to cope with disease in all its malignant +power. + + + + +V. + +In due time Griswold's letter came. I went into my office to read it. I +told myself that I had no fears for the good name of Florence Campbell. +I knew that some explanation would be made that would confirm me in my +opinion of her; but, for all that, I locked the door, and my hand was +less steady than I liked to see it, as I tore the end of the envelope. + +I even remember thinking vaguely that I usually took time to open my +letters with more precision and with less disregard for the untidy +appearance of their outer covering afterward. I hesitated to read beyond +the first line, although I had so hastened to get that far. I read: "My +dear old friend," and then turned the letter over to see how long it +was--how much probable information it contained. There were four closely +written pages. I wondered if it could all be about Florence Campbell, +and was vaguely afraid that it was--and that it was _not_. I remembered +looking at the clock when I came into the office. It was nearly six +o'clock. I laid the letter down and went to the cooler and got out +a bottle of Vichy. I sat it and (placed) some wine by my elbow on the +desk, and took up the letter. + +"I never heard of anyone by the name of Florence Campbell, so far as I +can recall. I certainly never had a patient by that name. Some months +ago I gave the letter you enclose--which I certainly did write--to a +patient of mine who was on her way to Europe and expected to stay some +time in New York on her way through. + +"She, however, was in no way like the lady you describe. Her name was +Kittie Hatfield, and she was small, with dreamy blue eyes and flaxen +hair--a _perfect_ woman, in fact." Oh! Tom! Tom! thought I--true to your +record, to the last! I had long since ceased to wonder at the lapse, +however, for Florence Campbell herself was surely sufficient explanation +of all that. "I understood"--the letter went on--"that Kittie did not +stop but a few days in New York, when she was joined by the party with +which she was to travel. She stayed at the F------ Avenue Hotel, I have +learned, and became intimate with some queer people there--much to the +indignation of her brother, when he learned of it." + +I laid the letter down and put my head on my arms, folded as they were +on the desk. I was dizzy and tired. When I raised my head it was dark. +I got up, lighted the gas, and found myself stiff and as if I had been +long in a forced and unnatural position. I recalled that I had been +indignant. + +This brother of the silly-pated, blue-eyed girl had not liked her +to know Florence Campbell, indeed! He was, no doubt, a precious +fool--naturally would be, with such a sister, I commented mentally. +What else, I wondered, had Griswold found out? Was the rest of this old +fool's letter about her? I began where I had left off. + +"I have since learned from him that the man--whose name _was_ +Campbell--was a foreigner of some kind, with a decidedly vague, not +to say, hazy reputation, and that his wife, who was supposed to be an +invalid, and an American of good family, never appeared in public, and +so was never seen by him--that is by Will Hatfield--but was only known +to him through Kittie's enraptured eyes. She was said to be bright and +pretty. Kittie is the most generous child alive in her estimate of other +women; however, he thinks it possible that Kittie either gave her the +letter from me to you, and asked her to have proper medical care, or +else that the woman, or her husband, got hold of it in a less legitimate +way; which I think quite likely. Kittie thought the Campbell woman was +charming." The "Campbell woman," indeed! I felt like a thief, even +to read such rubbish, and I should have enjoyed throttling the whole +ill-natured gossipping set--not omitting flaxen-haired Kittie herself. + +I determined to finish the letter, however. + +"Hatfield is so ashamed of his sister's friendship for the woman that +I had the utmost difficulty in making him tell me the whole truth, but, +from what I gathered yesterday, he thinks them most likely the head of a +gang of counterfeiters or forgers and--" + +I read no further, or, if I did, I can recall only that. It was burned +into my brain, and when a loud pounding on my office-door aroused me, I +found the letter twisted and torn into a hundred pieces, the Vichy and +wine-bottles at my side half-empty, and the hands of the clock pointing +to half-past ten. + +"Doctor, doctor," called my lackey; "oh, doctor! Oh, lord, I'm afraid +something's wrong with the doctor, but I'm afraid to break in the door." + +I went to the door to prevent a scene. One of my best patients stood +there, with Morgan, the man. Both of them were pale and full of +suppressed excitement. + +"Heavens and earth, doctor, we were afraid you were dead. I've been +waiting here a good hour for you to come home. No one knew you were in, +till Morgan peeped over the transom. What in the devil is the matter?" +said my patient. + +"Tired out, went to sleep," said I; but I did not know my own voice as I +spoke. It sounded distant, and its tones were strange. + +They both looked at me suspiciously, and with evident anxiety as to my +mental condition. I caught at the means of escape. + +"I am too tired to see anyone to-night. In fact, I am not well. You will +have to let me off this time. Get Dr. Talbott, next door, if anyone is +sick; I am going to bed. Good-night." + +There was a long pause. Then he said, wearily: "You are a young man, +doctor. You have taken the chair I left vacant at the college. I would +never have told the story to you, perhaps, only I wanted you to know why +I left the class in your care so suddenly this morning, when I uncovered +the beautiful face of the 'subject' you had brought from the morgue for +me to give my closing lecture upon. That class of shallow-pated fellows +have not learned yet that doctors--even old fellows like me--know a +good deal less than they think they do about the human race--themselves +included." + +I stammered some explanation of the circumstances, and again there was a +long silence. + +Then he said: + +"Found drowned, was she? Poor girl! Do you believe, with that face, she +was ever a bad woman? Or that she had anything to do with the rascality +of her husband, even if he were consciously a rascal? and who is to +judge of that, knowing so little of him? Did I ever recover the five +thousand dollars? Did I attempt to recover it? Oh, no. All this happened +nearly ten years ago now; and if that were all it had cost me I should +not mind. The hotel people never knew. Why should they? This is the +first time I have told the story. You think I am an old fool? Well, +well, perhaps I am--perhaps I am; who can say what any of us are, or +what we are not? Thirty years ago I knew that I understood myself and +everybody else perfectly. To-day I know equally well that I understand +neither the one nor the other. We learn that fact, and then we die--and +that is about all we do learn. You wonder, after what I tell you, if the +beautiful face at the demonstration class this morning was really hers, +or whether a strong likeness led my eyes and nerves astray You wonder if +she drowned herself, and why? Was it an accident? Did _he_ do it? This +last will be decided by each one according as he judges of Florence +Campbell and her husband--of who and what they were. Perhaps I shall +try to find him now. Not for the money, but to learn why she married the +man he seemed to be. It is hard to tell what I should learn. It is not +even easy to know just what I should _like_ to learn; and perhaps, after +all, it is better not to know more--who shall say?" + +And the doctor bade me good-night and bowed himself out to his carriage +with his old courtesy, and left me alone with the strange, sad story of +the beautiful girl whose lifeless form had furnished the subject of my +first lecture to a class of medical students. + + + + +MY PATIENTS STORY. + + _"Things are cruel and blind; their strength detains and deforms: + And the wearying wings of the mind still beat up the stream of their storms. + Still, as one swimming up stream, they strike out blind in the blast. + In thunders of vision and dream, and lightning of future and past. + We are baffled and caught in the current, and bruised upon edges of shoals; + As weeds or as reeds in the torrent of things are the wind-shaken souls."_ + + Algernon Charles Swinburne. + + + + +I. + +Perhaps I may have told you before, that at the time of which I speak, +my Summer home--where I preferred to spend much more than half of the +year--was on a sandy beach a few miles out of New York, and also that I +had retired from active practice as a physician, even when I was in the +city. + +Notwithstanding these two facts, I was often called in consultation, +both in and out of the city; and was occasionally compelled to take a +case entirely into my own hands, through some accident or unforeseen +circumstance. + +It was one of these accidents which brought the patient whose story I am +about to tell you, under my care. + +I can hardly say now, why I retained the case instead of turning it over +to some brother practitioner, as was my almost invariable habit; but for +some reason I kept it in my own hands, and, as it was the only one for +which I was solely responsible at the time, I naturally took more than +ordinary interest in and paid more than usual attention to all that +seemed to me to bear upon it. + +As you know I am an "old school" or "regular" physician, although that +did not prevent me from consulting with, and appreciating the strong +points of many of those who were of other, and younger branches of the +profession. + +This peculiarity had subjected me, in times gone by, to much adverse +criticism from some of my colleagues who belonged to that rigidly +orthodox faction which appears to feel that it is a much better thing +to allow a patient to die "regularly"--as it were--than it is to join +forces with one, who, being of us, is still not with us in theory and +practice. + +Recognizing that we were all purblind at best, and that there was and +still is, much to learn in every department of medicine, it did not +always seem to me that it was absolutely necessary to reject, without +due consideration, the guesses of other earnest and careful men, even +though they might differ from me in the prefix to the "pathy" which +forms the basis of the conjecture. + +We are all wrong so often that it has never appeared to be a matter +of the first importance--it does not present itself to my mind as +absolutely imperative--that it should be invariably the same wrong, or +that all of the mistakes should necessarily follow the beaten track of +the "old school." + +I had arrived at that state of beatitude where I was not unwilling for +a life to be saved--or even for pain to be alleviated, by other methods +than my own. + +I do not pretend that this exalted ethical status came to me all at +once, nor at a very early stage of my career; but it came, and I had +reaped the whirlwind of wrath, as I have just hinted to you. + +So when my patient let me know, after a time, that he had been used to +homeopathic treatment, I at once suggested that he send for some one of +that school to take charge of his case. + +He declined--somewhat reluctantly, I thought, still, quite positively. +But, in the course of events, when I felt that a consultation was due +to him as well as to myself, I asked him if he would not prefer that the +consulting physician should be of that school. + +He admitted that he would, and I assured him that I should be pleased to +send for any one he might name. + +He knew no doctor here, he said, and left it to me to send for the one +in whom I had the greatest confidence. + +It is at this point my story really begins. + +I stopped on my way uptown to arrange, with Dr. Hamilton, of Madison +Avenue, a consultation that afternoon, at three o'clock. I told the +doctor all that I, myself, knew at that time, of my patient's history. +Three weeks before I had been in a Fifth Avenue stage; a gentleman had +politely arisen to offer his seat to a lady at the moment that the stage +gave a sudden lurch which threw them both violently against each other +and against the end of the stage. + +He broke the fall for her; but he received a blow on the head, +which member came in contact with the money-box, with a sharp crack. +Accustomed to the sight of pain and suffering as I was, the sound of the +blow and his suddenly livid face gave me a feeling of sickness which did +not wholly leave me for an hour afterward. Involuntarily I caught him in +my arms--he was a slightly built man--and directed the driver to stop +at the first hotel. + +The gentleman was unconscious and I feared he had sustained a serious +fracture of the skull. He was evidently a man of culture, and I thought +not an American. I therefore wished, if possible, to save him a police +or hospital experience. + +By taking him into the first hotel I reasoned, we could examine him; +learn who and what he was, where he lived, and, after reviving him, send +him home in a carriage. + +The process of bringing him back to consciousness was slow, and as the +papers on his person, which we felt at liberty to examine, gave no clue +to his residence, we concluded to put him to bed and trust to farther +developments to show us what to do in the matter of removal. The lady +on whose account he had received the injury had given me her card, which +bore a name well known on the Avenue, and had stated that she would, if +necessary, be responsible for all expense at the hotel. + +It was deemed best, therefore, to put him to bed, as I said before, and +wait for him to indicate, for himself, the next move. I placed in the +safe of the hotel his pocketbook, which contained a large sum of money +(large that is, for a man to carry on his person in these days of +cheques and exchanges) and his watch, which was a handsome one, with +this inscription on the inside cover, "T. C. from Florence." + +The cards in his pocket bore different names and addresses, mostly +foreign, but the ones I took for his own were finely engraved, and +read "Mr. T. C. Lathro," nothing more. No address, no business; simply +calling cards, of a fashionable size, and of the finest quality. + +This, as I say, was about three weeks before I concluded to call Dr. +Hamilton in consultation; and I had really learned very little more of +my patient's affairs than these facts taken from his pocket that first +day while he was still unconscious. + +He was silent about himself, and while he had slowly grown better his +progress toward health did not satisfy me, nor do I think that he was +wholly of opinion, that I was doing quite all that should be done to +hasten his recovery. + +He was always courteous, self-poised, and able to bear pain bravely; but +I thought he watched me narrowly, and I several times detected him in +a weary sigh and an impatient movement of the eyebrows, which did not +tally with his assumption of cheerful indifference and hospitality. + +I use the word hospitality advisedly, for his effort always seemed to +be to treat me as a guest whom he must entertain, and distract from +observing his ailments, rather than as a physician whose business it was +to discover and remedy them. + +He had declined to be moved; said he was a stranger; had no preferences +as to hotels; felt sure this one was as comfortable as any; thanked me +over and over for having taken him there, and changed the subject. +He would talk as long as I would allow him on any subject, airily, +brightly, readily. On any subject, that is, except himself; yet from his +conversation I had gathered that he had travelled a great deal; was a +man of wealth and culture, whether French, Italian or Russian, I could +not decide. He spoke all of these languages, and words from each fitted +easily into place when for a better English one, he hesitated or was at +a loss. + +Indeed, he seemed to have seen much of every country and to have +observed impartially--without national prejudice. He knew men well, too +well to praise recklessly; and he sometimes gave me the impression, I +can hardly say how, that blame was a word whose meaning he did not know. + +He spoke of having seen deeds of the most appalling nature in Russia, +and talked of their perpetrators sometimes, as good and brave men. He +never appeared to measure men by their exceptional acts. + +Occasionally I contested these points with him, and I am not sure but +that it may have been the interest I took in his conversation that held +me as his physician; for as I said, I was well aware that he did not +improve as he should have done after the first few days. + +But I liked to hear him talk. He was a revelation to me. I greatly +enjoyed his breath and charity--if I may so express the mental attitude +which recognized neither the possession of, nor the need for, either +quality in his judgments of his fellow-men. + +He had evidently not been able to pass through life under the impression +that character, like cloth, is cut to fit a certain outline, and that +after the basting-threads are once in, no farther variation need be +looked for. Indeed, I question if he would have been able to comprehend +the mental condition of those grown-up "educated" children who are +never able to outgrow the comfortable belief that words and acts have +a definite, inflexible, par-value--that an unabridged dictionary, so to +speak, is an infallible appeal; who, in short, expect their villains to +be consistently and invariably villainous, in the regulation orthodox +fashion. + +Individual shades of meaning, whether of language or of character, +do not enter into their simple philosophy. Mankind suffers, in their +pennyweight scales, a shrinkage that is none the less real because +they never suspect that the dwarfage may be due to themselves--to their +system of weights and measures. All variations from their standard +indicate an unvarying tendency to mendacity. He whom they once detect in +a quibble, or in an attempt to acquire the large end of a bargain, never +recovers (what is perhaps only his rightful heritage, in spite of an +occasional lapse) the respect and confidence of these primer students +who are inflexible judges of all mental and moral manifestations. + +I repeat that this comfortable and regular philosophy was foreign to my +patient's mental habits, and I began to consider, the more I talked +with him, that it did not agree with my own personal observations. I +reflected that I was not very greatly surprised, nor did I lose faith +in a man necessarily, when I discovered him in a single mean or +questionable action. + +Why, then, should I be surprised to find those of whom I had known only +ill-engaged in deeds of the most unselfish nature? Deeds of heroism and +generosity such as he often recounted as a part of the life of some of +these same terrible Russian officials. There seems, however, to be that +in us which finds it far easier to reconcile a single mean or immoral +action with an otherwise upright life, than to believe it likely, or +even possible, for a depraved nature to perform, upon occasion, deeds of +exalted or unusual purity. Yet so common is the latter, that its failure +of recognition by humanity in general can be due it seems to me, only to +a wrong teaching or to a stupidity beyond even normal bounds. + +For, after all, the bad man who is all bad, is really a less frequent +product than that much talked of, but rare creature, a perfect woman. +Perhaps one could count the specimens of either of these to be met with +in a life time, on the fingers of one hand. + +But to return to my patient and his story. + +It was of these things that he and I had often talked, and I had come +to greatly respect the self-poise and acute observation, as well as the +broad human sympathy of this reserved and evidently sad-hearted man. +Sad-hearted I knew, in spite of his keen sense of humor, and his firm +grasp of philosophy. + +I gave Dr. Hamilton a brief outline of all this, as well as of the +physical condition of the man whom he was to see; for I believe it to be +quite as important for a physician to understand and diagnose the mental +as the physical conditions of those who come under his care before he +can prescribe intelligently for other than very trifling ailments. + +You can imagine my surprise when I tell you that the moment Dr. Hamilton +stepped into the room, and I mentioned his name, my patient, this +self-poised man of the world, whose nerves had often seemed to me to be +of tempered steel, looked up suddenly as you have seen a timid child do +when it is sharply reproved, and fainted dead away. + + + + +II. + +I confess that I expected a scene. + +I glanced at the doctor, but he showed no sign of ever having seen my +patient before, and went to work with me in the most methodical and +indifferent way possible to revive him. + +"You did not mention that this was one of his symptoms--a peculiarity +of his. Has he been subject to this sort of thing? Did he say he was +subject to it before he hurt his head, or has it developed since?" the +doctor inquired quietly as we worked. + +I bit my lip. His tone was so exasperatingly cool, while, knowing my +patient as I did, his startled manner and sudden fainting had impressed +me deeply. + +"It is the first time," I said, "since he was hurt--that is, since +he recovered consciousness after the blow--that he has exhibited the +slightest tendency to anything of the kind." + +I hesitated, then I said: "Doctor, if you know him; if this is the +result of seeing you suddenly (for he did not know who was to come) +don't you think--would it be well?--Do you think it best for you to be +where he will see you when he begins to revive?" + +The doctor stared at me, then at my patient. "I don't know him--never +saw him before in my life so far as I know. What did you say his name +is? Mum--oh, yes, Lathro--first and only time I ever heard it. Oh, no, +I suppose his nerves are weak. The excitement of seeing me--the idea +of--a--er--consultation." I smiled, involuntarily. "You don't know the +man, doctor," said I. "He is bomb proof as to nerves in that sense of +the word. He--a--There must be some other reason. He must have mistaken +you for some one else. I am sorry to trouble you, doctor, but would you +kindly step into the other room? He will open his eyes now, you see." + +When, a moment later, my patient regained consciousuess, he glanced +about him furtively, like a hunted man. He did not look like himself. + +He examined my face closely--suspiciously, I thought--for a moment. Then +I laughed lightly, and said: "Well, old fellow, you've been trying your +hand at a faint. That's a pretty way to treat a friend. I come in to see +you; you step out to nobody knows where--to no man's land--and give me +no end of trouble rowing you back to our shore. What did you eat for +dinner that served you that kind of a trick?" + +He looked all about the room again, examined my face, and then smiled, +for the first time since I had known him, nervously, and said: + +"I think my digestion must be pretty badly out of order. I'll declare +I saw double when you came in. I thought there were two of you; and the +other one--wasn't you." + +I laughed; "That is good. Two of me, but the other one wasn't me. Well, +thank heaven there is only one of me up to date." + +He smiled, but seemed disturbed still. I decided to ask him a direct +question: + +"Well now, just suppose there had been two of me--is that an excuse for +you to faint? Does associating with one of me try you to that extent +that two of me would prostrate you?" + +He did not take me up with his old manner. He was listless and absent. +I said that I would go down to the office and order some wine and return +at once. I slipped into the other room, and with my finger on my lips +motioned to Dr. Hamilton to pass out quietly before me. + +I followed him. "There is something wrong, Doctor," I said: "I am sorry, +but I shall have to ask you to go without seeing him again. I can't +tell you why yet, but I'll try to find out and let you know. Order some +champagne sent up to me, please, as you go out, and I will see you as +soon as I can." + +The moment I re-entered the room, my patient, whose restless eyes met +mine as I opened the door, said: "I thought you were talking to some +one." + +"I was," said I carelessly; a bell-boy, "I ordered wine. It will be up +soon." Then I changed the subject; but he was nervous and unlike himself +and none of the old topics interested him. + +When the door opened for the boy with the wine an expression of actual +terror passed over my patient's face. When I left him a half hour later +I was puzzled and anxious. + + + + +III. + +The moment I entered his room on the following day he said: "I +thought you had planned to have another doctor come and look me over, +yesterday." He was watching me closely as he spoke: "Did I hear you +mention his name?" + +Ah, thought I, here _is_ a mystery in spite of Dr. Hamilton's denial. I +will try him. + +"Yes," I said, "I had decided to ask the best Homeopathic doctor I know, +a skilful man, especially successful in diagnosing cases, to overhaul +you and see if he agrees with me that you ought to be on your feet this +blessed minute, if my diagnosis of your case is entirely right. I +don't see why you are still so weak. He may find the spring that I have +missed. Why?" + +"Did you--I am not acquainted with the doctors here,--I think you said +his name is--?" + +"I have not mentioned his name to you," I said, "but the one I had in +mind is Dr. Hamilton of---- Madison Avenue." + +There was no doubt about it, the color rose slowly to his face, and he +was struggling for self-control. At length he said: "No, I do not +wish to see another doctor. I am perfectly satisfied with you. I am--I +say--no, positively do not ask him; that is, do not ask anyone to come +unless I know and definitely agree to it. And I certainly shall want to +know who he is first." + +All this was wholly foreign to the man, to his nature and habit. + +"Tell me," I said, "what you have against Dr. Hamilton, for I cannot +fail to see that there is something behind all this." + +He did not reply for some time; then he said wearily, but with great +depth of feeling. + +"I suppose I may as well tell you. I cannot forgive him for an injury I +did him long ago." + +I did not say anything nor did I look at him. Presently he went on +hoarsely; "If I had only injured him, perhaps I could get over it but +I took a mean advantage of--I did it through a woman who liked him--and +whom he--loved and trusted." There was another long silence; then I +said; "You were right to tell me, Lathro. You need not fear that I will +betray you to him, and he does not know you. He did not recognize you +either before or after you fainted. Of course I knew there was something +wrong. He will not come again." + +He sprang to his feet, and a wave of red surged into his face. "I knew +it! I knew I had seen him! I was sure it was not a delusion," he said. +"He was here. No, he would not know me. He never saw me. I did not +injure him like a man, I struck from behind a woman. A woman who cared +for his respect, and I let him blame her. I suppose I could get over it +if it were not for that. I came back here partly to let him know, if +I could some way, that she was not to blame"--there was another +long silence--"and partly to get rid of myself. Russia did not do +it,--Turkey,--France--none of them. I thought perhaps he would--I had +some sort of a wild idea that he might settle with me some way. I have +carried that forged cheque in my brain, until--" + +I started visibly. I had had no idea that it was so bad as this. I +changed my position to hide or cover the involuntary movement I had +made, but he had seen it and the color died out of his face. He +forced himself to begin again. "I carried that forged check," he was +articulating now with horrible distinctness, "wherever I went. She never +knew anything about it. She knew I was--she thought, or feared, that I +might be somewhat--what you Americans call crooked; but she did not know +the truth, not until the very last. She knew that I had been unreliable +in some ways long ago; but she did not dream of the worst. At +last,--sometimes I think I was a fool to have done it,--but I told her. +I told her the whole truth, and--she left me. She had borne everything +till then. I think she came here. Before long I followed. She told me +not to, and I said I would not; but of course I did. I could not help +it. I knew then, and I know now, that I am putting myself into the +clutches of the law; but I do not care--not now-- since I cannot find +Florence Campbell." + +He pronounced the name as if it were a treasure wrung from him by force. +"It is the only really criminal thing I ever did. I do not know why +I did it. They say that crime--a taste for it, develops slowly, by +degrees. Maybe so; but not with me, not with me. + +"I had money enough; but--oh, my God! how I hated him. I saw that he +was growing to love her without knowing it. I often heard them talking +together. They did not know it, and if they had it could not have been +more innocent; but I was madly jealous, for the first time in my life. +I determined to make him think ill of her, and yet I said just now that +forgery was my only crime. That was worse, by far, but I believe it is +not a crime in law." + +He smiled scornfully. "I have outgrown all that now. The storm has +left me the wreck you see; but I thought it all out last night, and +determined to tell you. You are to tell--him--for her sake," he said +between his set teeth. + +"He may see her yet some day. She will never return to me--God bless +her! God help us both!" + +"No, she will never return to you nor to anyone else," I said, as gently +as I could. + +He sprang up with the energy of a maniac. "How do you know? What do you +know?" he demanded. + +"I only know that she is dead, my friend," I said, placing my hand on +his arm, "and that Dr. Hamilton does not wish to punish you. I heard it +all; the story of the forgery of his name, and that a Florence Campbell +was in some way connected with it. I heard it from him long, long ago; +but he does not know that you are Tom Campbell. You are safe." + +"Does not wish to punish me! I am safe! Great God, no one could punish +me. I do that. Safe! Oh, the irony of language!" + +There was a long pause. He had gone to the window and was staring out +into the darkness. + +Presently the sound of convulsive sobbing filled the room; I thought +best to remain near the door and make no effort to check his grief with +words. + +At last the storm spent itself. He came slowly into the middle of the +room and stood facing me. At length he said: + +"One of the greatest punishments is gone, thank God. Florence Campbell +is dead, you say. Do you know what it is, Doctor, to wish that one you +loved was dead?" + +"Yes, yes." I said; "but it is best for you not to talk any more--nor +think, just now--not of that--not of that." + +He broke in impatiently--"Don't you know me well enough yet to know that +that sort of thing--that sort of professional humbug is useless? Must +not talk more of that--nor think of it, indeed! What else do you suppose +I ever think of? The good men who are bad and the bad ones who are +good--the puppets of our recent conversations? Suppose we boil it down a +little. Am I a bad man? That is a question that puzzles me. Am I a good +one? At least I can answer _that_--and yet I never did but one criminal +deed in my whole life, and I have done a great many so-called good ones +to set over against it." + +"Then you can answer neither question with a single word," I said. He +took my hand and pressed it with the frenzy of a new hope. + +"At least one man's philosophy is not all words," he said. "You act upon +your theories. You are the only one I ever knew who did." + +"Perhaps I am the only one you ever gave the chance," I replied, still +holding his hand. + +We stood thus silent for a moment, then he said with an inexpressible +accent of satire: "Would you advise me to try it, doctor, with anyone +else?" I deliberated some time before I replied. Then I said: "No, I am +sorry to say that I fear it would not be safe. There is still so much +tiger in the human race. No, do not tell your story again to any one; it +can do no good. Most certainly I would advise you _not_ to try it ever +again." + +As I left the room he said: "True, true. It can do no good, none +whatever." + +The next day he left. I never saw him again. Two years later I received +a kind letter from him in which he greatly over-estimated all I had done +for him. The letter came from St. Petersburg and was signed "T. Lathro +Campbell, Col. Imperial Guard." + +I fancied, in spite of his letter, that he would rather sever all +connection with this country, and feel that he had no ties nor past; so +I never answered his letter. + +Sometimes I wonder if he misunderstood my silence, and accepted it as a +token of unfriendliness--and yet--well, I have never been able to decide +just what would be least painful to him; so I let it drift into years of +silence, and perhaps, after all, these very good intentions of mine may +be only cobble-stones added to the paving of the streets of a certain +dread, but very populous city which is, in these days of agnosticism +quite a matter of jest in polite society. + +Who shall say? Which would he prefer, friendly communication or silence +and forgetfulness? + + +THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Thoughtless Yes, by Helen H. 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