diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6305.txt | 6239 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6305.zip | bin | 0 -> 99265 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 6255 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6305.txt b/6305.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d035704 --- /dev/null +++ b/6305.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6239 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fool There Was, by Porter Emerson Browne + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: A Fool There Was + +Author: Porter Emerson Browne + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6305] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 23, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FOOL THERE WAS *** + + + + +Produced by Jason Kwong, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +A FOOL THERE WAS + +BY + +PORTER EMERSON BROWNE + + +"A Fool there was and he made his prayer-- + (Even as you and I.) +To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair-- + ( We called her the woman who did not care) +But the fool he called her his lady fair-- + (Even as you and I.)" + + +ILLUSTRATED BY +EDMUND MAGRATH +AND +W. W. FAWCETT + + +1909 + + + + +TO +ROBERT HILLIARD. + + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter. + +I. Of Certain People +II. Of Certain Other People +III. Two Boys and a Girl +IV. The Child and the Stranger +V. As Time Passes +VI. An Accident +VII. An Incident +VIII. Of Certain Goings +IX. Of Certain Other Goings +X. Two Boys and a Doctor +XI. A Proposal +XII. A Foreign Mission +XIII. The Going +XIV. Parmalee--and The Woman +XV. A Warning +XVI. The Beginning +XVII. In The Night +XVIII. White Roses +XIX. Shadows +XX. A Fairy Story +XXI. A Letter +XXII. Again The Fairy Story +XXIII. Aid +XXIV. The Rescue +XXV. The Return +XXVI. The Red Rose +XXVII. The Red Road +XXVIII. The Battle +XXIX. Defeat +XXX. And Its Consequences +XXXI. That Which Men Said +XXXII. In the Garden +XXXIII. Temptation +XXXIV. The Shroud of a Soul +XXXV. The Thing that was a Man +XXXVI. Again the Battle +XXXVII. The Pity of It All + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS. + +"Beautiful, gloriously beautiful in her strange, + weird dark beauty" + +"Bye little sweetheart" + +"I do forgive--forgive and understand" + +"Can't you find in that dead thing you call a + heart just one shred of pity?" + + + + +CHAPTER ONE. + +OF CERTAIN PEOPLE. + + +To begin a story of this kind at the beginning is hard; for when the +beginning may have been, no man knows. Perhaps it was a hundred years +ago--perhaps a thousand--perhaps ten thousand; and it may well be, yet +longer ago, even, than that. Yet it can be told that John Schuyler came +from a long line of clean-bodied, clean-souled, clear-eyed, clear-headed +ancestors; and from these he had inherited cleanness of body and of soul, +clearness of eye and of head. They had given him all that lay in their +power to give, had these honest, impassive Dutchmen and--women--these +broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped English; they had amalgamated for him +their virtues, and they had eradicated for him their vices; they had +cultivated for him those things of theirs that it were well to cultivate; +and they had plucked ruthlessly from the gardens of heredity the weeds +and tares that might have grown to check his growth. And, doing this, +they had died, one after another, knowing not what they had done--knowing +not why they had done it--knowing not what the result would be--doing +that which they did because it was in them to do it; and for no other +reason save that. For so it is of this world. + +First, then, it is for you to know these things that I have told. +Secondly, it is for you to realize that there are things in this world of +which we know but little; that there are other things of which we may +sometime learn; that there are infinitely more things that not even the +wisest of us may ever begin to understand. God chooses to tell us nothing +of that which comes after; and of that which comes therein He lets us +learn just enough that we may know how much more there is. + +And knowing and realizing these things, we may but go back as far toward +the beginning as it is in our power to see. + + * * * * * + +Before the restless, never-ebbing of the tides of business had +overwhelmed it with a seething flood of watered stocks and liquid +dollars, there stood on a corner of Fifth Avenue and one of its lower +tributaries, a stern, heavy-portalled mansion of brownstone. It was a +house not forbidding, but dignified. Its broad, plate-glass windows gazed +out in silent, impassive tolerance upon the streams of social life that +passed it of pleasant afternoons in Spring and Fall--on sleet-swept +nights of winter when 'bus and brougham brought from theatre and opera +their little groups and pairs of fur-clad women and high-hatted men. It +was a big house--big in size--big in atmosphere--big in manner. + +At its left there was another big house, much like the one that I have +already described. It was possibly a bit more homelike--a bit less +dignified; for, possibly, its windows were a trifle more narrow, and its +portal a little less imposing. And across from that there lay a smaller +house--a house of brick; and this was much more inviting than either of +the others; for one might step from the very sidewalk within the broad +hall, hung with two very, very old portraits and lighted warmly with +shades of dull yellow, and of pink. + +In the first of the big houses there lived a boy; and in the second there +lived another boy; and across, in the little house of brick, there lived +a girl. Of course, in these houses there dwelt, as well, other people. + +Of these was John Stuyvesant Schuyler, who, with his wife Gretchen, lived +in the big house on the corner, was a man silent, serious. He lived +intent, honest, upright. He seldom laughed; though when he did, there +came at the corners of mouth and eye, tiny, tell-tale lines which showed +that beneath seriousness and silence, lay a fund of humor unharmed by +continual drain. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, straight-backed. +And to that which had been left him, he added, in health, in mind, and in +money, and he added wisely and well, and never at unjust expense to +anyone. + +His wife was much as he in trait and habit. She, too, was silent, +serious, intent. Of her time, of her effort, of herself, she gave freely +wherein it were well to give. In her youth, she had been a beautiful +girl; as a woman, she was still beautiful; and her husband and her son +were very proud of her, though the one was fifty-five, and the other but +twelve. + +In the big house next door, there lived Thomas Cathcart Blake. He, too, +had a wife, and one child--a boy. And of John Stuyvesant Schuyler he was +very fond--even as Mrs. Thomas Cathcart Blake was fond of Mrs. John +Stuyvesant Schuyler; and even as Tom Blake, the son of the one, was fond +of Jack Schuyler, the son of the other. Blake, the elder, was a man +rotund of figure, ruddy of complexion, great of heart. He laughed much; +for he enjoyed much. He gave away much more than he could make; and he +laughed about it. His wife laughed with him. And really it made no +difference; for they had more for themselves than they could ever use. Of +course, you know, it is true that many people have more than they can +ever use; but few ever think so. + +In the little, warm house of red brick, across the street, lived Kathryn +Blair, and with her another Kathryn Blair, who was as much like the other +as it is possible for six to be like thirty. They both had wide, violet +eyes and sensitive, red lips, and very white teeth and lithe, slender +bodies. And they were both loved very much by everyone; and everyone said +what a shame it was that he or she hadn't put his or her foot down +_hard_ and made Jimmy Blair stay at home instead of letting him go +down into that unpronounceable Central American place and get killed in +an opera bouffe revolution with which he had absolutely nothing to do +except that he couldn't stand idly by and see women and little children +shot. Still, it was such a blessing to Kate that she had little Kate to +help her bear it all. And she had enough money, too; no one seemed to +know how; for Jimmy Blair was a reckless giver and a poor business men. +But John Stuyvesant Schuyler and Thomas Cathcart Blake had been +executors. And that explained much to those who knew; for once every two +or three months, these two men, so different and yet so alike, would +stalk solemnly, side by side, across the street and, still solemnly, +still side by side, would inform the violet-eyed widow of Jimmy Blair +that the investments that her husband had made for her had been very +fortunate and that there was in the bank for her the sum of many more +hundreds of dollars than poor Jimmy himself could have made in as many +years. And she, deifying the man who had been her husband, endowing him +with the abilities of a Morgan, a Root and a Rothschild, would believe +all that they said; and she would tell the neighbors; and they, being +good neighbors, would nod, seriously, unsmilingly. "Jimmy Blair was a +wonderful, wonderful man," they would say. And the violet eyes would grow +soft and dim, and the sensitive lips tremble a little, and the prettily- +poised head would sink forward upon the rounded breast. And she was less +unhappy; for when others love the one you love, even though that one be +gone, it makes the pain far, far less. Also, it is a great blessing to +have about one those who know enough not to know too much. + +So it was of the three houses, and of those who lived therein. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWO. + +OF CERTAIN OTHER PEOPLE. + + +In the littleness of things, it so happened that at a time when John +Stuyvesant Schuyler and Thomas Cathcart Blake, serious, solemn, side-by- +side, were telling the widow of Jimmy Blair that the Tidewater Southern +Railroad, in which her husband had largely interested himself before his +death, had declared an extra dividend that had enabled them that day to +deposit to her credit in the bank the sum of four thousand two hundred +and eighty-one dollars and seventy-three cents, in a little hut on the +black Breton coast a woman lay dying. + +It was a bare hut, and noisome. In it it were perhaps better to die than +to live; and yet that one might not say. From before it one might gaze +upon league upon league of sullen sea, stretching to where, far in the +dim distance, lay the curve of the horizon upbearing the gray dome of the +sky. + +Inside the hovel there was a smoke-stained fireplace beside which was +strewn an armful of faggots. There was before it a number of broken and +greasy dishes, filled with fragments of food. And all about on the floor +lay the litter of the sick-room. + +The dying woman was stretched inert, moveless, upon a rough bed of rope +and rush. Perhaps she had been pretty once, in an animal way. She was not +now. Lips that doubtless had been red were white and drawn in pain; and +there was blood upon them, where white, even teeth had bitten in the way +that those who suffer have of trying to hide a greater suffering beneath +a lesser. The eyes, deep and dark, were dull and half-hidden by their +blue, transparent lids. And the cheeks were sunken, and ghastly--touched +by the hand of death. + +A heavy, course-featured woman, thin hair streaked with gray, flat- +backed, flat-breasted, sat beside the rude bed, silent, motionless, +awaiting an end that she had so often watched in the sullen ferocity that +is of beast rather than of man. And on her lap lay a little, pink, puling +thing that whimpered and twisted weakly--a little, naked, thing half +covered by roughly-cast sacking. + +The tiny, twisting thing whimpered. The woman beside the bed held it, +waiting. The woman on the bed moaned a little, and the glaze upon the +eyes grew more thick. And that was all. + +There came to the ears that were not too new come or too far gone to +hear, the sound of hoof beats upon the turf. They came nearer.... They +stopped. Came the sound of spurred heels striking upon the trodden dirt +without the door.... There stood in the opening the figure of a man. He +was tall, and well-proportioned, though if anything a bit too slender--a +bit too graceful; and he was, if anything, a bit too well groomed. He had +light hair, and moustache. He had cold eyes that smiled; cold lips that +smiled. He stood in the doorway, trying to accustom his eyes to the gloom +within, the while playing a deft tattoo upon his booted calf with light +crop that he carried in his right hand. + +"Well?" he said, at length, in the French that is of Paris. "Well? ... +What is all this?" + +The tiny thing whimpered. The woman upon the bed moaned a little, weakly. +She, who sat beside it, looked up, eyes aflame. She said no word. + +The man in the doorway took a step forward, entering. He was still +smiling. He looked about him; and then he continued: + +"Sick, eh? ... Dying? ... And that thing that you have in your--_Ma +foi_! A baby, eh?" He laughed, aloud. The broken peals came back to +him from the sodden, smoke-stained rafters. "Strange that I should have +come to-day.... A baby!" He laughed again, modulatedly. And then, with an +air of sympathetic commiseration he said to the gray-haired old woman +with the eyes of fire: + +"Too bad that your daughter is not married--since she, I presume, is the +mother! ... And the happy father?--he is--?" He stopped, waiting, +smilingly. + +The fierce, blazing eyes were set full upon his own. She said, in the +patois that was of her and hers: + +"You ask that? ... You?" + +He answered, evenly. + +"Yes. I ask that. Even I." + +Quickly, with the agility of the brute, she thrust toward him the little, +puling thing that lay upon her lap. + +"Look, then," she said, in deep, grating tones. + +He leaned forward, crossing his hands behind him, and looked. The crop, +held in his right hand, tapped lightly against his booted left leg. The +woman waited. At length he stood erect. He shook his head and smiled. + +"Babies are all alike," he remarked, easily. "Red, dirty, unformed, no +hair.... This is a little redder, a little more dirty, a little more +unformed; it has a little less hair.... Beyond that, _quoi_?" + +The shrunken lips of the old woman set tightly; the eyes flared. + +"You dare--!" she began. And then: "It is your mouth--your chin. The nose +is yours. The eyes they shall be hers." She nodded her head in the +direction of the dying mother upon the bed. "And perhaps, some day--" She +did not finish. She settled the baby back again upon her knees and sat, +waiting. + +The man, still smiling, gazed up the woman on the bed. + +"Dead?" he queried, with a lift of the brows. + +She did not answer. He bent over the prostrate form; then again stood +erect. He shrugged his shoulders. + +He turned again to the shrivelled woman on the chair. + +"You have named it?" he asked. "You have named--our child?" + +Still she did not answer. + +"It were not improper," he continued, smilingly, half-musingly, "for a +father to venture a suggestion anent a name.... _Eh bien_, then. I +should wish that the baby be known as" he stopped for a moment, thinking, +the while lightly tapping booted leg with the tip of his crop. "I should +suggest," he repeated, "calling her Rien. It is an appropriate name, +Rien. It is not a bad name; in fact, it is rather a pretty name.... +Rien.... Rien.... Rien...." He repeated it several times. "Yes, it seems +to me that that is an excellent name.... We will, then, consider her name +Rien." He laughed once more. + +"Because of certain reasons," he went on, "I'm afraid that my paternal +duties must cease with the naming of our child." + +He turned to the dying woman upon the bed. + +"Bon voyage, mam'selle--eh, pardon, madame," he said. He lifted his hat, +bowing. To the old woman he turned. + +"To you--" he began; she interrupted. + +"Her eyes, they will be her mother's," she mumbled, sullenly. + +"Which will be well," he smiled. "Her mother had beautiful eyes-- +wonderful eyes." + +"More wonderful than you knew," muttered the old woman. "Had you come a +day sooner--" + +Still he smiled. + +"But I didn't," he replied; and then nodding toward the whimpering thing +that the woman held: + +"You should guard it well. There is of the best blood of France in its +veins." His lips curled, whimsically. "'Tis strange, that, _n'es-ce +pas_? In that small piece of carrion which you hold there upon your +knees runs the blood of three kings." Again he laughed, musically. He +turned. + +He had not seen her stoop. The long-bladed knife struck him in the arm, +piercing flesh and vein and sinew, sticking there. Slowly he plucked it +forth, and turned to her, still smiling. + +"You are old, madame. Do not apologize; it was not your fault." + +He took the knife delicately by the tip and with a little flip sent it +spinning through the air and over the edge of the cliff. And he was gone. + +The woman, shrivelled, gray-haired, sinking back in her chair, sat +silent. The puling thing upon her knees whimpered. The dying woman upon +the rude bed of rope and rush moaned. And that was all. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THREE. + +TWO BOYS AND A GIRL. + + +To the budding mind of young Jack Schuyler, life was a very pleasant +affair. It began each morning at six thirty; and from then on until eight +at night, there was something to fill each moment. He didn't care for +school, particularly; still, it wasn't difficult enough to cause much +discomfort. The natal pains of study were not by any means unbearable +inasmuch as he was quick to see and to understand; and furthermore, he +was possessed of a retentive memory. In his classes he assumed a position +of about eighth from the fore; and he maintained it with but little +fluctuation. In the out-of-door sports of small boys, he was usually +first--that is, when Tom Blake wasn't. When Tom Blake was, Jack Schuyler +was second. + +He was a sturdy boy, active, quick, strong of limb and of body. He had +earnest, serious eyes of gray-blue, like those of his father. His mouth +and chin were delicate, like his mother's. And he was thoughtful, rather +than impulsive. + +Tom Blake, on the other hand, was impulsive rather than thoughtful. He +had dark eyes and ruddy cheeks; and, at the age of nine, he had learned +to walk on his hands in a manner that caused acute envy to rankle in the +bosom of every boy in the neighborhood. Also, as is most unusual among +boys of whatever station, color or instinct, he was self-sacrificing, and +more than generous, and loyal to a fault. + +Kathryn Blair was all that might have been expected of a daughter of her +father and mother. Had you known them, it were difficult to describe +further. You have been told that she was lithe, and dainty and very +pretty. And she was feminine, very, and yet not unhoydenish; for she +played much with Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake. She was natural, and +unaffected, and whole-souled and buoyant, quick to laughter, quick to +tears, with an inexhaustible fund of merriment, and of sympathy. + +Of an afternoon, in early December, they lay, these three young animals, +sprawling upon the great room in Blake's house--the room that had been +made for play. The gentle rays of the early-setting sun streamed in +through the broad windows upon a tumbled heap of discarded playthings, +and upon a floor strewn with that which might have appeared to be +drifting snow but which in reality was feathers; for there had been a +fierce pillow fight; and one of the pillows, under the pressure of +rolling little bodies, had burst. Its shrunken shape lay in a far corner +of the room, rumpled, empty, a husk of the plump thing that it had been +but a short time before. + +Kathryn Blair, with slender, stockinged legs thrust out before her, was +picking from the tangled masses of her gold-brown hair little clinging +bits of down. Tom Blake, beside her lay flat upon his back; and by him, +was Jack Schuyler, his head resting upon the heaving diaphragm of the +other. + +At length Jack Schuyler sat up, looking about him. + +"Phew!" he whistled. "It looks like a snowslide.... We'll catch it now!" + +Tom Blake rolled over on his stomach. He shook his head. + +"Don't worry about that," he said. "Dad won't care, nor mother.... +Besides, you're my guests, you know.... What shall we do now?" + +Kathryn Blair said: + +"I want to get these feathers off first. They stick terribly.... Every +time I think I've got hold of one, I find it's a hair." She shifted, so +that her back was toward Tom Blake. "Help me, Tom," she commanded. + +Obediently he rose to his knees. Resting his left hand upon her shoulder, +he plucked, with clumsy masculine fingers at the bits of white that +nestled in her hair.... She gave a little cry. + +"Ouch! That hurts, Tom! I guess I'd better wait until I get home and have +Harris do it. Harris isn't pretty, but she's awfully good; and she +doesn't fuss a bit" ... She turned around, suddenly, violet eyes wide +with excitement. "Oh! I forgot to tell you!" she cried. "Doctor DeLancey +said that maybe he'd bring me a baby brother today!" + +Tom Blake and Jack Schuyler both turned to her. + +"He did!" they cried almost together. + +She nodded, profoundly. + +"Yes," she said. "That's why they sent me over here to get all mussed up +with feathers. You know baby brothers are bashful. Dr. DeLancey told me +all about it. They like to be all alone in the house with their mothers, +so that they can get acquainted." + +Jack Schuyler rose up on his elbows. + +"I know a boy," he said, "that was promised a baby brother and all he got +was a sister.... I don't think that was square, do you?" + +Tom Blake looked out the window, thoughtfully. + +"I don't know," he remarked at length, judicially. "It might not have +been the doctor's fault. Sometimes they get 'em mixed, I guess.... And +anyhow, sisters aren't so bad. I wish I had one right now--one like you, +Kathryn." He turned on her eyes in which were the frank liking and +admiration of boyhood. + +She tossed the tumbled braids of her hair back over her shoulders. + +"I'd rather be a boy, myself," she said. "They don't have to wear dresses +and things. And people don't give them dolls when they'd rather have +rocking horses.... I wish they'd hurry and bring that brother. I'm just +wild to see it!" + +Jack Schuyler sat up. + +"Well," he assured her, "They'll send over for you when it comes.... What +shall we do now?" + +He waited patiently for suggestions. Tom Blake and Kathryn Blair sat, +foreheads grooved in thought. At length Jack Schuyler cried suddenly: + +"I know! Let's play leopard shooting! I saw a picture of one in the +geography. It looked just like Fiddles." Fiddles was the plethoric +Maltese member of the Blake family. "We've got those tin guns, and we can +stalk it. What do you say?" + +That which they said was later evidenced; for when Thomas Cathcart Blake +entered the front door of his residence that night and started up the +stairs, he was met by an excited feline, followed by three equally +excited children. And the cat, on seeing him, its cosmogony disrupted to +such an extent that it felt itself no longer able to distinguish friend +from foe, tried to turn back with the result that its first pursuer fell +over it. There was the added result that the next two pursuers tripped +upon the sprawling form of the first. And Thomas Cathcart Blake had great +difficulty in preventing himself from joining the sprawling parade that +tumbled past him to the foot of the stairs, and lay at the bottom, a heap +of tossing legs and arms and ribbons and fur. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER FOUR. + +THE CHILD AND THE STRANGER. + + +It is of necessity that a story such as this should be episodical, +lapsical, disconnected. Its inception lies in two countries, and of +different people. And it is, in its beginnings, a story of contrasts. So +one may be permitted again to say: At a time when pompous, ponderous, +white-whiskered, black-suited old Dr. DeLancey was engaged in bringing to +the daughter of Kathryn Blair a posthumous baby brother that, in the +mystery of things, turned out after all to be a sister, a stranger +chanced to be riding at dusk through the deep shades of the Bois du Nord, +in Brittany. The path was overhung with spreading boughs; it was tumbled +with the wood-litter of a decade. His horse went slowly, lifting each +forefoot daintily and placing it carefully. And the stranger permitted +the animal to take its own time. + +At length he came to a turning. The huge bole of a great oak was at his +left. He rounded it. His horse raised its head, nostrils distended, eyes +alert, and stopped. + +The stranger looked up. It was a strange picture that met his eyes.... + +At first he did not believe that that which he saw was human. It seemed +like some nymph of the wood; for there are nymphs in the Bois du Nord, +you know, many of them. Anyone who lives there will tell you that. + +But then his eyes fell upon a tumbled heap of clothing; and he knew that +it was not a nymph, after all. For nymphs do not wear clothing. + +There was a little woodland pool before him. The sun, straining through +the great, heavy-leafed boughs, specked it with blots and blotches of +gold. Beside it there sat the figure of a girl, naked. She sat there, her +slender legs beneath her, her slender body leaning upon one rounded, +white arm. Great masses of dead-black hair fell about her glowing +shoulders, half covering the arm which supported her. Her other hand +clasped her knee. Her dark eyes were gazing before her toward the trunk +of the oak. The stranger felt that she knew that he was there; and yet +she had not looked at him. + +On the bole of the oak was a squirrel. It was motionless, as though +carved out of the trunk itself. Beneath it lay coiled a snake. Its eyes +were fastened upon those of the squirrel and its flat, ugly head was +moving gently to and fro--to and fro--the while its forked tongue played +back and forth between its fangs. + +They waited there, the stranger and the naked girl. They waited for a +long, long time.... + +By and by the squirrel moved a little. One forefoot crept slowly down the +bark of the oak--and then the other--the one hind foot--and then its +mate.... And the squirrel was nearer to the snake. + +Again they waited, the stranger and the naked girl.... The squirrel crept +yet further down the trunk, toward the slow-shifting venomous head.... + +The horse snorted.... The squirrel raised its head; and darted up the +tree trunk. It was gone. And the snake slid noiselessly off into the +underbrush.... The naked girl turned dark, deep eyes upon the stranger. +She seemed not to mind her nakedness. And to him it seemed not strange +that she should not. The horror of it all was deep within him. He +murmured, beneath his breath: + +"Good God!" + +Then he spoke to her, a muttered word, a meaningless word. She swung her +body over, sinuously, so that she faced him, slender legs half stretched. +The dead black hair rippled over budding breasts. She did not answer. She +merely looked at him. + +The stranger sat there. His eyes blinked a little; he brushed his hand +across them, weakly. Then he looked at her again. + +Came a sudden rustling in the brush, beside him. His horse leaped +forward, almost unseating him.... He had gone far down the trail before +he reined it in. Then he crossed himself. His eyes showed that he was +frightened. + +There was a turning in the path, a turning that led to the main road. The +stranger swung his horse into this turning. He knew that it added to the +length of his journey by a good league and a half. And yet he took that +turning. + +And, later, as he turned into the travelled road, he breathed a deep, +deep sigh; and again he crossed himself. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER FIVE. + +AS TIME PASSES. + + +Time passed on over the heads of young Jack Schuyler and young Tom Blake +and the daughter of Jimmy Blair. They grew in stature, and in intellect. +They grew through the grades of school that lie between nine and fifteen; +and then they separated to go to boarding school. + +Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake went to one; the daughter of Jimmy Blair and +Kathryn Blair to another. And the baby brother that had turned out to be +a sister, and who had been named Elinor, stayed at home with the widow of +Jimmy Blair; and the widow of Jimmy Blair was now hardly as lonely as +were the parents of Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake. + +John Stuyvesant Schuyler had built for himself a place at Larchmont, on +the Sound. "Grey Rocks," he called it. It was a long, low rambling house, +built of stone and of darkened wood. It sat ensconced in a deep phalanx +of great, green trees at the head of a great, green lawn. It was not a +big house, of pretension, of arrogant wealth, of many servants--of +closely-shaven shrubbery and woodeny landscape gardening. It was, rather, +a house that was a home--and there is a distinction--a vast distinction; +for there is many a house that is not a home even as there is many a home +that is not a house. + +Thomas Cathcart Blake built for himself another house, next to it. That +also was a rambling, homelike place, with broad halls and deep windows, +and wide doors. And the doors he kept open most of the time; for he liked +good people, and good people liked him. His big yacht lay during most of +the summer a quarter of a mile from the end of his pier. He lived on it +part of the time, with Mrs. Thomas Cathcart Blake, and their guests; part +of the time he lived on the shore, in the house that he had built. Dr. +DeLancey once asked him if he ever moved the yacht from its moorings, and +wanted to bet that the sail covers were stuffed with hay. Thomas Cathcart +Blake grinned and said that, as for taking the yacht out to sea, he was +afraid of getting it wet; and he wouldn't want to bet as to what the sail +covers were stuffed with because it might be excelsior, or cotton, or any +one of a number of things. + +They always had much company at "The Lawns," which was the name of the +house, and on the "Idlesse," which was the name of the yacht that seldom +sailed; although Dr. DeLancey begged them to rechristen it "The Dock," or +"The Stake Boat," or something of the sort, which he thought would be +much more appropriate. And among this company, was a great deal, the +widow of Jimmy Blair, and her daughter. + +Young Jack Schuyler and young Tom Blake got home from college that year +about the middle of June. Kathryn Blair was a few days later, owing to +certain nonacademic festivities which she didn't want to miss. You can +know, how popular and attractive and altogether charming she was when I +tell you that she was like her mother at her age; and all New York knows +how hard it was even for Jimmy Blair--and there have been very few Jimmy +Blairs, you know--to make any perceptible progress amid the choking +masses of his competing fellows. + +Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake went down to the train, in a trap, to meet +her. They hardly recognized the girl with whom they had pillow-fought and +leopard-stalked in the dainty figure that descended from the dusty train. +A year, with a girl of eighteen, means vast changes; and when that year +has been spent at boarding school, it means changes yet more vast, +infinitely. Thus, it was that Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake stood, jaws +agape, eyes wide-open, and stared--frankly, unequivocally stared.... Then +they went to meet her; and both tried to shake hands at once; then both +tried to pick up her travelling case at once; and they bumped their +heads. + +For the first half mile of the drive to the shore, they sat dumb, +thinking with sore strainings of mind for things to say, and rejecting +each because it didn't seem to be good enough. Finally Tom Blake ventured +a remark anent the weather. No harm came to him. So Jack Schuyler +ventured one about the wind. He also went scatheless. + +At length Tom Blake, looking at the fresh, clean beauty of the girl on +the other seat, forgot himself, and voiced, in the moment of his +temporary aberration, that which was in the two adolescent male minds. + +"Doggone, but you've grown pretty, Kate!" and then blushed. + +She blushed, too, and looked at Jack Schuyler. At which he blushed and +almost carromed the trap against a telegraph pole. Whereat they all +laughed. And from then on, they were themselves. + +They were met by her mother at "The Lawns," and by Dr. DeLancey. Dr. +DeLancey was not bashful. He pinched her glowing cheek and looked her +over, critically. + +"A positive symposium of pulchritude," he declared. "I wish I were fifty +or seventy-five years younger, by Jove! If you two boys let any rank +outsider take her out of the family, you'll have me to reckon with. Yes, +by Jove, you will! And you'll find that while I may be a poor fencer, and +a worse boxer, I'm still a good spanker!" + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER SIX. + +AN ACCIDENT. + + +Dr. DeLancey, sitting under the awning of the after deck of "The +Idlesse," and gazing out upon the sound where Jack Schuyler, Tom Blake +and Kathryn Blair were defying the laws of nature in a thirty foot +knockabout, much to the unspoken anxiety of two fathers and the spoken +fear of three mothers, again voiced this thought on the following +evening. + +"The prettiest, sweetest, finest, loveliest child I ever knew, by Jove," +he declared; then, bowing, "present company, of course, excepted.... Yes, +sir. If you two old ninnies don't force your sons to marry her, I'll take +it into my own hands, damme if I don't, by Jove!" + +"But they can't both marry her," protested the widow of Jimmy Blair, +placing her arm about the baby brother that had turned out to be a +sister. + +The Doctor waved his hand, loftily. + +"A mere detail," he asserted. "As long as one of 'em marries her, that +fixes it, doesn't it? And it doesn't make any difference which one; +they're equally fine boys, both of 'em. Look at 'em. Did you ever see +better shoulders--better shaped heads--better carriages? Mighty dashed +handsome boys, too, they are--get it from their mothers," he bowed +elaborately to Mrs. Jon Stuyvesant Schuyler and to Mrs. Thomas Cathcart +Blake, then added a look of contempt for, and at their husbands. "Yes, +sir," he went on, "they're fine boys, two of 'em--no denying that. And +she--she's the right sort--no frills, or airs, or bluffs. Sensible, +natural. If I'd have had a few more patients like them, I'd have starved +to death long ago. Why, they didn't have even a single measle--not one +whooping cough out of the lot. Disgraceful!" + +In the meanwhile, far out on the sound, the little knockabout was heeling +far over in the playful breath of the summer breeze. Tom Blake, bare- +headed, bare-armed, was at the tiller. Jack Schuyler, also bare-headed +and bare-armed, sat on the after overhang, tending the sheet, and bracing +muscular legs against the swirling seas that, leaping over the low +freeboard, tried to swirl him off among them. Kathryn Blair, leaned +lithely against the weather rail, little, white--canvas-shod feet braced, +skirts whipping about her slender body, rounded arms gripping the wet +edge of the cockpit rail. The gold-brown hair, in loosened strands, +whipped across her tanned cheek; her gown, open at the throat, revealed a +glimpse of straight, perfectly-poised throat; her lips were parted and +her breath came fast in the excitement of it. + +Blake held the knockabout to its course, with the confidence of youth in +his prowess, against them. The little boat leaped forward from crest to +crest, stopping between to shake the water from its deck. Above was the +blue sky--all about them the blue water, white crested. + +The girl, bracing herself against a particularly hard pitch of the boat, +balancing herself lightly, as the craft recovered and again leaped +forward, cried: + +"Isn't this fine!" + +Blake nodded. Schuyler, waist deep in a swooping sea, did not hear... The +Long Island shore was close at hand now. + +Suddenly Blake shouted: "Hard a lee!" and jammed the tiller over; +Schuyler, on the after overhang, scrambled fast to take in the slack of +the sheet. Kathryn Blair bent, to avoid the swinging boom. + +The little boat swung about as though on a pivot. The wind filled the +sail; she sped forward like a hawk unhooded. + +Then something happened. A stay parted; there was a great, grinding +crack, followed by the snapping and whipping of canvas. And the mast +fell. + +Schuyler was knocked over into the water by the boom. It struck him fair +upon the brow. Kathryn, springing to catch him, was hit by the flapping +canvas. She went overboard, too, and under the sail. + +Blake, on the weather side, was free from the wreck. Without even +stopping to turn, he dove backward from the cockpit. Under the cold, +green water he went. He struck out, blindly, frenziedly. His hand felt +something that was not canvas and yet was cloth--struck, and gripped. +Then, holding his breath still until he thought his lungs would burst, he +felt his way out from under the sail. The rail of the boat was at hand; +he gripped it. And he dragged Kathryn to it. + +"Hold on!" he cried in her ear. "Jack's gone!" + +Though but half conscious, she understood. Her firm, white fingers +gripped the cutting edge of the cockpit rail; she nodded. + +Blake struck out again. He had tried to remember where he had seen +Schuyler disappear. Four strokes brought him to the spot; and then he +dove. + +Again his hand struck something. Again he pulled, and tugged, and fought. +At length he was at the surface. It was Schuyler. His eyes were closed. + +The tide, setting down the sound, was carrying the boat from him; he set +his teeth. He caught Schuyler by the neck of his jersey, over his own +shoulder, bringing his head out of water. + +And he struck out, with his free arm, desperately. + +It seemed as though he would never make progress. A dead weight, in the +water, is hard to drag. Every ounce of strength that was in his strong, +young body he threw into those long, quivering strokes. He must get to +the boat! He _must_! The shore was too far away.... He stopped for a +minute, treading water. There was no sail in sight. He flattened out in +the water again, breasting it with all his power. + +Stroke after stroke he took--stroke after stroke--reaching with strong +right arm, thrusting with strong legs. The boat was no nearer.... He kept +on, doggedly.... He could feel that his strokes were getting weaker; his +mouth was under water more than half the time; he had to raise up to +breathe.... But he fought on.... He began to grow dizzy--there was a +ringing in his ears.... + +Suddenly he thought he saw, right before him, the face of Kathryn Blair. +He knew that he did not; he thought he did; that was all. Then, suddenly, +his fingers caught a rope; the face was still there; and the rope that he +held led to where it was caught between white, even teeth. + +A great wave hit him a buffet, full in the face; it cleared his senses, +for a moment; yet perhaps it was more due to the feel of the rope in his +fingers.... Then he knew that it was she--that the face was real, and the +rope.... Went surging through his mind that she, taking the end of the +sheet in her teeth, had swum to him, and to Schuyler--and that to her +they both owed their lives. + +She was beside him, now, swimming strongly. She gripped an arm of the +unconscious Schuyler.... Together, she and Blake, dividing the weight, +slowly, inch by inch, fought their way along the rope. At length they +reached the side of the swamped knockabout.... Blake crawled upon its +slippery deck. He lay for a moment, helpless; she supported Schuyler. +Then he essayed to aid her again; and together they began to lift him out +of the water, and to safety. + +Dr. DeLancey, from the after deck of "The Idlesse," had seen the +accident. A minute later, he, John Stuyvesant Schuyler, Thomas Cathcart +Blake, the captain of "The Idlesse," and two sailors were in the +launch.... They reached the side of the knockabout as Blake and Kathryn +were dragging Jack Schuyler from the water; and they took him into the +other boat. Blake, in his father's clutch, followed. At the same time, +Dr. DeLancey leaned over to grasp Kathryn. But she shook her head, and +smiled, weakly: + +"No," she said. "I--I had to--to take off part of my clothes. I--" + +Dr. DeLancey was an old man; some assert that he fell overboard. However, +be that as it may, when he came to the surface, he had his arm around +Kathryn Blair, and she had his long coat draped around her slender +figure.... And, as they lifted her to the deck, she fainted. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER SEVEN. + +AN INCIDENT. + + +Destiny has a sense of humor; a sense of humor sardonic, it is true, +cruel, sometimes grewsome; and yet it is a sense of humor. Otherwise-- + +There had been in France a man of the nobility--a man in whose veins +flowed the blood of three kings--a man handsome of face, graceful of +figure, debonair--a man who had sinned much, and who had paid for that +sinning only in the sufferings of others; and they had been many. + +That man had many estates--many servants--many horses--much money. He had +been to Brittany twice; and only twice. Yet he went a third time, and +after five years. He went alone. He rode his horse through the narrow, +brush-grown path by which had gone the stranger who had seen the naked +girl, at the edge of the woodland pool, five years before. And he came, +at length, to the edge of the wood, and to the clearing where lay the +little hut, smoky, dirty, littered. + +He dismounted from his horse, there, why, he did not know. He went +forward, to the hut. + +An old woman, bent, white haired, sat on a rude chair, in the sun, beside +the door. She looked up as he approached. She, in no way, heeded the +elaborate bow that he made--a graceful bow, low and sweeping, and yet a +salutation sarcastic. + +"_Bon jour_, madame," he began. "Madame looks well; but Death is +never far from the aged.... It should be a consolation," looking about +him, casually, "for one who lives as madame." + +The shrivelled old woman made no answer. + +The man went on, evenly, the while tapping; with the end of his slender +crop a booted leg: + +"_Eh bien_, I have come, as you see. The paternal passion will not +down in the breast of a man domestically inclined." He laughed. "I have +been going about, seeing my families," he smiled. "It has been +interesting--drolly interesting. _Ma foi_!" Yet again he laughed, +musically. "There have been pleadings, and revilings--tears, and curses-- +bended knees, and unbended arms." He indicated with a graceful gesture a +deep cut upon the back of his left hand. "It was a woman--a very pretty +woman," he explained. "At least, she had been pretty; and she was again +pretty; when she did that. Her eyes--it was like lighting a fire in a +cave. Did you ever light a fire in a cave, madame?" he queried, gently, +graciously; and then: "But, of course not! Women kindle their fires in +stoves--or fireplaces. It is for men to light the fires of caves." Yet +once more he laughed, softly. + +The old woman, with the white, wispy hair, still was silent, motionless; +though her eyes spoke. And that which they spoke, his eyes heard; and +once more he laughed. + +"I had a daughter here," he continued. "Did I not? Or was it a son? _Ma +foi_! It were difficult--ah, yes! I remember now! A daughter. A +little, red, hairless, dirty thing she was. I have a great curiosity-- +the blood of three kings, you know; surely that would overcome the blood +of the good God knows how many peasant swine. She is not red, and +hairless, and dirty now, in faith! She is clean-limbed, and straight, and +white. A thousand louis to a sou, that she is!" ... His brow was creased +in the travail or retrospection. + +"I gave her a name, did I not?" he asked. "It seems to me--ah, yes. Rien, +it was. A very pretty name--yes, an excellent name--meaning much and +little--everything, and yet nothing." He laughed at his own conceit, +softly. "Tell me, where is she now? It might be that she is dead, eh?" He +eyed the old woman, closely; then he shook his head. "No," he went on, +"she is not dead. She--" + +He had seen nothing, that is certain. Yet, suddenly he ceased in his +speech; the smile left his lips; and slowly, very slowly, he turned. + +She was standing there, behind him, her eyes upon him.... She was +straight, and slender, and perfectly formed. A single garment covered +her, running across one shoulder, reaching to her knees. It left one +breast exposed, and the white, slender legs and perfect feet. She stood +in a posture of infinite grace--of infinite poise. She looked at him. + +Then it was that the shrivelled old woman spoke. She said to the girl: + +"_Votre pere_." + +And that was all. + +The child looked at the man; the man looked at the child; and so for a +long, long time they stood eye upon eye.... At length she began to smile +a little, with her lips. But he did not smile.... + +After a long, long time, she took a slow, sinuous step toward him--then +another.... He stepped back, still looking at her, his eyes still on +hers.... He was back to the great cliff--the sheer cliff at the base of +which the huge seas ever beat in sullen, unceasing impotence.... Yet, +another step she took, toward him.... + +His breath came chokingly, gaspingly. Yet another step he took, away from +her.... Yet another.... And then.... + +It was an accident, perhaps. Yes, of course; it must have been an +accident. He had not noticed.... For, as again she advanced, her eyes on +his, his eyes on hers, again he retreated. And suddenly, in utter silence +save for the rending of crumbling earth and uprooted grass, he slid over +the edge of the great rock.... Before the eyes of the girl lay only the +restless, heaving sea. and beyond the dull gray of the horizon and the +cupped sky. + +She turned, slowly, smiling a little. The shrivelled, shrunken old woman +bent her head forward upon her flat breast, thrice. + +"_Bien_," she muttered. And that was all. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER EIGHT. + +OF CERTAIN GOINGS. + + +It so happened that, on the winter after Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake +graduated from college, death came to the big houses on the Avenue. Mrs. +John Stuyvesant Schuyler went first; Mrs. Thomas Cathcart Blake went, +almost, with her; for she had been by the bedside of her friend during +all her illness; and her friend, going, had bestowed upon her its +horrible heritage. And so she went, too. + +Their going left in the two great houses, monstrous voids that might +never be filled. John Stuyvesant Schuyler and Thomas Cathcart Blake loved +their wives; and when a man has loved a woman, and that woman his wife, +as these two had loved, it seems in a way to disrupt the cosmogony of +things. It takes ambition from the brain, and the stamina from the spine; +and the days are very, very long, while the nights are yet infinitely +longer. + +Thomas Cathcart Blake, in the vastness of all that now was not, forgot to +care for himself. He, who had been jovial, became silent. Some times, of +nights, he would walk alone for hours. The weather made no difference--in +fact, he seldom noticed what the weather was. He was an old man now, +close to sixty.... + +Dr. DeLancey, on a night visit, met him one thick, sodden night at the +corner of Thirty-third Street and the Avenue, coming from the club. The +good doctor bumbled out of his brougham, seized him by the arm and drew +him wet and dripping into its protected interior. + +"You fossiliferous-headed old chump," he howled, exasperatedly. "You pin- +headed old amphibian. If your sole and utter ambition is to get pneumonia +and die, I don't know any way in which you can better achieve your +purpose. Sit down in the corner there and drink this," he extracted from +his case a little flask of brandy, "or I'll ask the horse to come in and +bite you!" + +"Turn around there, Mose!" he yelled, "and drive to Mr. Blake's house." + +Mose did so; and once there, the doctor, abusing and bullying his +patient, got him upstairs and into the bed, and then applied to the +protesting man who seldom had known what it was even to have a cold, all +manner of exposurial antidotes. + +"But the patient that you were going to see!" protested Thomas Cathcart +Blake. + +"No friend of mine," returned Dr. DeLancey. "Only a patient. Patients are +plenty, but friends are few. Let him get someone else, or die, as he +chooses. It's none of my business. Here, drink this." And he poured +between the protesting lips of Thomas Cathcart Blake a nauseating draught +of something that was most malodorous; for Dr. DeLancey was an allopath, +and a good one. + +But, good as he was, he was too late. Pneumonia had been before him; and, +two weeks later, in spite of all that the good doctor, and several other +equally good doctors, could do, Thomas Cathcart Blake died. And he didn't +seem sorry at going. + +Before he went, he called to him his son, and to that son he said many +things. Most of the things that he said are neither your business nor +mine. But of the things that he said, we may know one. He wanted his son +to marry the daughter of the widow of Jimmy Blair. + +Young Tom Blake, between the sobs that are becoming a man, answered: + +"I want to, dad. I've always wanted to. And I will, if I can." + +His father counselled, weakly: + +"Get her honestly, boy, or not at all. If you get her, cherish her--give +her everything that there is in you to give--for there's nothing that a +man can give that a good woman doesn't deserve. Now, God bless you, son-- +and--go." + +Tom Blake clung to the sheets. It was hard to lose such a father and such +a mother, and all within a six month. He cried, as you would cry, or I, +and be glad that crying might be.... Dr. DeLancey, at length, managed to +loosen his clenching fingers. Dr. DeLancey was crying, too; the tears ran +down his veined cheeks to lose themselves in the hair of his cheeks. He +tried to fume and fuss and splutter, as was his wont; but he couldn't. He +could just put his hand around Tom Blake's heaving young shoulders, +listen to his choking, broken sobs and say, over and over, and over +again: "There, there, my boy! There, there! There, there!" + +It's pretty hard, you know, to lose a father and a mother like that, and +all within six months. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER NINE. + +OF CERTAIN OTHER GOINGS. + + +John Stuyvesant Schuyler's end was different. He was a man reserved--a +man who thought much and told little. His illness baffled Dr. DeLancey at +first; but then he knew what the disease was; although to it he could +give no polysyllabic name of Latin, and for it he could prescribe no +remedies; for the cure had gone from the hands of man into the hands of +God. And to the hands of God, John Stuyvesant Schuyler went, at length, +to find it; and who shall say that his quest was unsuccessful? + +He, too, on his dying bed called his son to him; and to this son he said +many things; and among these things was that it had ever been the dearest +wish of her that had gone as well as of him that was about to go that +their son should wed the daughter of the widow of Jimmy Blair. + +And Jack Schuyler, sobbing by the side of the great, mahogany bed in the +great, dark room, even as he had sobbed beside the same bed in the same +room so short a time before, promised, as Tom Blake had promised, that +all that he might do to bring to wife the girl his parents desired for +him as wife, he would do; and not from any obeisance to filial reasons, +but because he wanted to--because he loved her--had always loved her. + +It was good old Dr. DeLancey who repeated his offices in this case, as in +the other; and he repeated them in the same way, patting the broad, +throbbing young shoulders--reiterating with twitching lips, his "There, +there, boy! There, there, there!"--reiterating it uselessly--and knowing +that it was uselessly that he reiterated--and yet helpless in the vast +profundity of helplessness that was his. + +And that same year did Dr. DeLancey lose yet another friend that was a +patient--a patient that was a friend. It was the violet-eyed widow of +Jimmy Blair. And all night long, from gray dusk until crimson dawn, Dr. +DeLancey had sat in the darkened parlor of the warm little house of red +brick; he had sat in a rocking chair, and on either old knee he had held +a sob-wracked, grief-torn, motherless girl, the one herself almost old +enough to be a mother. And again he had cried. Some doctors may lose +through oft-recurrence visualized their susceptibility to suffering; but +Dr. DeLancey was not of them. And when he stumbled on stiffened legs out +of the darkened parlor and into the incongruous mellow radiance of the +spring sunshine, his eyes were still wet, and he didn't care who knew it. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TEN. + +TWO BOYS AND A DOCTOR. + + +Young Jack Schuyler and young Blake, a week later, went to see the +doctor in his office. He looked up from his paper. + +"Well?" he said. + +Tom Blake cleared his throat. + +"We wanted to ask you, Doctor," he began, "if--" + +"Eh," assisted Jack Schuyler; "that is, we wanted to know--" + +"--you see, that is--I--" + +"--yes, we thought--" + +"--you know, Mrs. Blair--" + +The doctor rose; he stood between the two broad-shouldered, erect young +men, placing a hand on the arm of each. + +"It's all right," he assured them. "Don't you worry." + +"But," protested Tom Blake, "we've got so much money, and they--Isn't +there some way that you can fix it, doctor? You know how to do these +things; and we're so helpless." + +"And," elaborated Jack Schuyler, "they'd never suspect you, you know." + +"I tell you it's all fixed," returned the doctor, with testiness that +from him was cordiality rampant. "Jimmy Blair left a very comfortable +estate, in trust. They'll have all they want as long as they live." + +He didn't tell them--that is, not then, though later he did--that one of +the last acts of John Stuyvesant Schuyler and Thomas Cathcart Blake had +been to walk solemnly, side by side, across the street and tell the widow +of Jimmy Blair, that, in accordance with the ante-mortem desires of her +late husband, they had devoted a certain portion of the fortune that he +had left to the establishment of a trust fund that would yield her an +annual income of $12,000. He didn't tell them, then. Later he did. He +couldn't help it. But at that time-- + +He slapped them both on the back, and sent them from the room. He stood, +on the top step of the flight that led from sidewalk to front door, and +watched them swing, broad-shouldered, supple, erect, down the bright +Avenue. + +"Now why in thunder," he asked of himself, slowly, "didn't I ever get +married?" And then, "Shut up, you old fool," he soliloquized. And he +turned, and, re-entering the house, slammed the door behind him. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER ELEVEN. + +A PROPOSAL. + + +Blake waited in the embrasure of the window, gazing down upon the Avenue +below, with its confusion of moving vehicles and pedestrians. The June +sun was overhead, warming the earth with gentle, kindly glow. The breath +of summer was in the air; it came to him, brushing the curtains against +him, cooling his brow. It was grateful to his nostrils, and to his lungs; +and he took of it a great, deep breath. His broad shoulders squared; his +deep, full chest heaved. + +An omnibus stopped on the corner. He watched the horses throw themselves +against their collars; he watched the bulky vehicle gather headway, and +move on, with ever increasing momentum, through the maze of brougham and +cab and coach and landau. + +As the coach was lost to view there came steps, light and quick, upon the +stairs; the door opened and there stood before him the daughter of Jimmy +Blair. She had been abroad, under chaperonage, for a year.... + +He did not know that she could be so beautiful--he did not know that +anyone could ever hope to be as beautiful as was she who stood before +him. Violet eyes were no deeper--lips no more red--teeth no whiter--nor +was the perfect oval of her sun-kissed cheek any the more perfect. Yet, +there was something--the indefinable something that marks the transition +of a beautiful girl from beautiful girlhood to glorious womanhood.... He +felt a strange emptiness within him; it was almost as though he were +appalled by so much beauty--so much glory. + +There was a gladness--a natural, unaffected, real gladness in her violet +eyes that glowed in greeting. She thrust forth a tiny white hand.... He +had been wont to kiss her, on meeting and on parting. Now it never +occurred to him. + +"Tom!" she cried. "I'm so, so glad to see you again. It's been terribly +lonely. As fast as I'd begin to learn one language, they'd move me +somewhere else and I'd have to start all over again! And now I hardly +know whether or not I know any language at all! ... Where's Jack? I +expected that, of course, he would come with you." + +"He'll be here bye-and-bye, Kate...." Blake replied. + +She seated herself, crossing one knee above the over, interlocking about +it slender, white fingers. + +"You must have so much to tell me, Tom!" she bubbled, all animation, +gladness, eagerness. "Begin! Please, begin! And then I'll tell you +everything. Oh, isn't it exciting to go away and come back again!" + +"I have a lot to tell you," he said, slowly. + +"Why, you speak so seriously, Tom. Aren't you glad to see me?" + +"I'm afraid nobody but myself knows how glad.... Kate, I hardly know how +to begin what I want to say. I--it's hard; not having seen you so long, +makes it harder. I--" + +She cried, in pretty amazement: "But what in the world is it? Tom! You +almost frighten me! I haven't done anything wrong, have I? Shall I be put +to bed without my supper? ... Do speak, Tom. Tell me what all this mystery +is." + +Still slowly, hands folding and unfolding, dark eyes upon hers of violet, +he continued: + +"Kate, Jack Schuyler loves you; and I lo--" + +He had intended to say more; and what that more was one would but have +had to look into his eyes to tell; but he had been looking into hers; he +had seen the gleam that had leaped there at his words; and that is why he +did not finish. + +"Tom!" she exclaimed, softly.... And then, "Did Jack tell you that-- +himself?" + +He nodded. + +"He was afraid to tell me himself?" + +Again he nodded. It was not so. But he lied; as would you, or I, had we +been as good a man as he. He had come there knowing that a woman loves +but one man. He had come there knowing that, if Schuyler were not the man +she loved, thereby he would be saved, and she would be saved, much +unpleasantness. He had hoped that it was he himself that she loved. Yet +he had feared that it was not. And he had known that whether it were he +who asked, or Schuyler, or any man, it would make no difference; for when +a woman like that loves a man, it is that man alone she loves; and the +rest means nothing. No thought of an unfair advantage was in his mind. In +such a case there could be no such thing as that. It was only whether or +not she loved one of them, and if so, which one; and beyond that there +was nothing--nothing except that he wished to take from Schuyler any +unhappiness that might lie there for him. For he was a friend such as few +men may ever have and, having, may pray to keep. + +And now he knew the answer. It was in the depths of the violet eyes--in +the eagerness of lips and lithe, supple body--it was of her--about her. +Blake's lips became thin; his jaws set; his eyes half shut. To have lost +a father, and a mother, and such a girl as was she, and all within an +eighteen month, was bitter, indeed. + +He heard her say, as from a great distance: + +"It was fine of you to come like this, Tom.... I do love Jack; I thought +once, that I loved you, Tom.... That was strange, wasn't it? It's strange +to sit here now, with you, telling you of it.... Though, of course, you +don't care.... He will come soon, won't he? You don't know how I've +missed him, Tom.... It would be a strange situation, wouldn't it, if we +hadn't known one another so well, and cared for one another, so deeply in +such a friendly, brother-and-sisterly sort of way.... I think, in some +ways, I ought to be angry with Jack for not coming himself.... But it's +as though you were my big brother, Tom.... You know how Jack feels toward +me; and so you are anxious to act as sort of a buffer, in case everything +isn't--eh--as it should be.... It was fine of you, Tom; and you know how +I appreciate it! ..." + +What else she said, he did not know. It seemed a thousand, thousand years +ere he rose to his feet. He was suffering--When a woman loves, her +intuition is dead.... + +At length he found himself on the street. But the sunshine was gone, and +the air was dead.... + +He found Schuyler, and told him.... He watched him leap through the door, +forgetting his hat--heard him pounding down the hall--heard the street +door as it slammed behind him. And then-- + +It's pretty hard, you know, to lose a father, and a mother, and such a +girl as the daughter of Jimmy Blair; and all within an eighteen month. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWELVE. + +A FOREIGN MISSION + + +In the next few years, God was indeed good to John Schuyler. Health he +kept; honors came to him, and the respect of men and of women. There were +those who loved him, many; and of those who hated him there were a few; +which is well, inasmuch as the hatred of some men may be the highest +praise--the highest favor--that they have to bestow. + +A child came to them, at length--to him and to the daughter of Jimmy +Blair; and that child was as like to the daughter of Jimmy Blair as the +daughter had been like her mother. + +A part of the time they lived in the city; but most of their days were +spent out at the Larchmont place, on the Sound, that John Stuyvesant +Schuyler had built so long ago. And there they were very, very happy. + +The quiet, peaceful beauty of "Grey Rocks" more than ever appealed to the +soul of Tom Blake as he stood upon the bridge of his yacht, "The +Vagrant," and watched the ever-enlarging lawn apparently rush toward him. +He closed his eyes, a little. The sun was very bright.... He turned +toward the Long Island shore, hazy and unreal in the mists of the +morning.... When he turned back again, the huge, sea-going craft, a thing +of glistening white and shining brass, was making a wide, graceful sweep +in the churning water, and the house had ceased to rush down upon him. It +now stood inviting, beckoning, as close at hand as it were safe to be. + +A launch was lowered, and the owner's gangway dropped. And in another +moment, Blake stood, balancing himself nicely against the rolling of the +little craft, as it rushed through the blue-gray water toward the landing +pier at the foot of the velvet lawn. + +Like one who, in haste, yet longs to loiter Blake made his way across the +sward to where, jutting out from a corner of the house, a tiny bay window +thrust itself forth among a confusion of tangled nasturtiums, copper- +colored, yellow, crimson son. With the privileged assurance of one long +known and long loved, he thrust open the left hand window, which extended +to the ground, and entered the room. + +There came a little, delighted cry of surprise; a rather uncertain, "Oh, +Mr. Tom!" and in another instant he was enveloped in a tiny cloud of lace +and ribbons and primly starched linen while two bare, brown little legs +waved wildly about his breast, a pair of very sticky lips were set +against his own, and his neck found itself in the clasp of tiny fingers +that had known orange-juice and oat-meal and sugar--and possibly jam-- +since they had had intimate association of water. + +At length he set her down upon the floor, gently. + +"Well, well, little partner," he said, grinning sociably, "that most +surely was a succulent salute.... I perceive from the remainder of your +repast" his eyes had fallen upon the little breakfast table and the over- +turned high-chair which, with infinite dignity unbent, the butler was +rescuing from prostration "that you like a little oatmeal on your sugar." + +"I do," confessed the child, friendly. "But Woberts doesn't. Do you, +Woberts?" Without waiting for the corroboration of the somewhat perturbed +Roberts, she turned again to Blake. "I like heaps and heaps of sugar.... +Woberts gives it to me when there isn't anyone looking, don't you, +Woberts?" And then, very seriously, she added, "I like Woberts" + +Blake laughed, a low, rumbling, ringing laugh. + +"I don't blame you," he said. "I used to have sugar once.... I liked +those who gave it to me." + +He picked her up and set her again in the high-chair, moving it close to +the table with its dainty china and center-piece of pink carnations. + +The child looked up at him, half wondering. She was pretty--very pretty-- +with serious, round violet eyes, sun-kissed cheeks, and hair of the soft +brown that is of kin to gold. + +"Don't you get any sugar now?" she asked, very seriously. + +He shook his head. + +"Not any?" she persisted. "Never?" + +"Not any," he replied, gravely. "Never." + +Swiftly she picked up the little silver sugar jar; she cast an +investigative eye up at the solemn visage of the butler. + +"Mr. Tom can have some of ours, can't he, Woberts?" she inquired, gravely +tendering the bowl to Blake, who accepted it just as gravely. + +"I thank you," he said, very seriously. "It is kind of you.... But, do +you know, I was speaking rather of figurative sugar." + +The child shook her head, perplexedly. + +"I don't think we have that kind," she ventured. "We have powdered sugar, +and loaf sugar, and gran--granulated," she syllablized it, calling it +"gran-u-lat-ed"--"and we have pulverized sugar, too. But I don't believe +we have fig--the kind you said.... I'm sorry." + +He smiled a little--a smile of the lips. + +"It doesn't matter," he said, slowly. "Really it doesn't. You know I +haven't had any for so long that I've quite forgotten the taste of it.... +Where's daddy this morning?" + +"Daddy and mother dear are saying goodbye to Auntie," the child replied, +making in the oatmeal before her a miniature Panama Canal and watching +the thick cream trickle slowly from the Atlantic to the Pacific. + +Blake turned to the butler. + +"How is Mrs. VanVorst this morning, Roberts?" he asked. "Still very ill, +sir," returned the butler. "Very ill indeed." + +"Not dangerously?" + +"We 'opes not, sir. But she's still very low, sir." + +Blake turned one fist in the palm of the other hand. + +"Why, I though from the wireless that Mr. Schuyler sent me that she was +getting along splendidly. I--" + +He stopped, abruptly. There had entered the breakfast room the wife of +John Schuyler. She saw Blake and came forward, hand outstretched, welcome +in her eyes. She had come to be very like her child--her child and +Schuyler's--had the daughter of Jimmy Blair--she was like her child grown +up, glorified into womanhood. Her hair was the same gold-brown, a little +unruly, clinging against her temples, nestling at neck-nape. Her eyes +were the same deep violet--perhaps a little darker--a little softer--a +little less wondering; for years bring knowledge, and when one begins to +know, then one must cease, somewhat, to wonder. She had the soft, brown, +sun-kissed cheeks of her child, too, rounded and smooth, with the red +blood tinting them to a delicate pink. She had the finely-modelled, +cleanly-cut nose, and the expressive, sensitive mouth with its red lips, +and white teeth. And her chin was both beautiful and firm. + +She moved lithely across the room to where Blake stood. He took her hand. + +"Tom," she began, cordially. Her voice was low and deep, and very soft. +"We're so glad to see you.... You got Jack's message, then? We were +afraid you wouldn't." + +Blake nodded. + +"Caught it off Point Judith," he replied. "You should have seen us 'bout +ship and come spattering down the Sound. Those blockade-running persons +could have gained points from us We burned the bulwarks, the cargo and +most of my cigars. It looks as though we did so wisely, too; for we +haven't much time to spare, have we?" + +"We leave in half an hour," she returned. "Sit down, Tom.... Jack will be +here soon." + +"But what's it all about?" he asked. He sank into a chair, elbows on +knees, fingers clasped. + +"Jack's trip abroad?" + +He nodded. + +"It's something at the Court of St. James. I don't know exactly; but it's +very imposing, and important, and epoch-making. Jack spent all day +yesterday with the President and Secretary of State." + +"Well, well, well! That certainly is immense!" She was standing beside +the table. Slowly her fingers plucked a carnation from the cluster before +her. Violet eyes were upon it. + +"Is it?" she asked, slowly. + +"Isn't it?" he queried, surprised. + +She paused a moment; and then, swiftly: + +"Oh, I don't know. I--" + +Blake waited. But she did not go on. At length he spoke: + +"How long will he be gone?" + +"Maybe two months," she returned.... "It will be the first time that +we've been apart for more than a day or two since we were married.... I-- +I suppose that's silly, isn't it? + +"If that's silly, it's too bad anyone ever gets sensible," was his +assuring reply. + +She had risen. Slowly she went around behind the little high chair. +Leaning lithely over, she laid her cheek against that of her child, soft, +rounded arms pressing her close. And then she looked at Blake, eyes to +eyes. + +"I don't like it, Tom," she said, very slowly. + +"But," he protested, "it's a big honor--a great honor--an appointment +like this, from the President." + +"Yes," she answered, thoughtfully. "It is a big honor. And I suppose that +I should be very, very happy--Of course, in a way, I am." Then, suddenly: +"But I'm not. I don't like it, Tom. I try to like it. I tell myself that +I ought to like it. And yet I can't. Happiness is more than honors; and +we are happy here--as happy as it is possible for two people" her eyes, +laden of the mother love, fell upon the child that was hers, "for three +people," she corrected, "to be. We have everything we need--everything we +ought to want. I'd rather have just peace, and quiet and contentment, +than all the honors there are." + +"And yet--" + +"I mustn't stand in the way of his advancement, you mean. I know that; +and I haven't.... You know he left it all to me; and I said, 'Go.' It +hurt, too, Tom.... I didn't want that he should go. I don't know why.... +I--" she stopped. The child had finished her oatmeal. Lithely, the +mother, stooping, lifted her from the chair, held her close for a tiny +minute and then, kissing her, set her down upon the floor. + +"Run along, dearie," she directed. "Tell Mawkins to get you dressed." + +She watched the graceful, pretty child until she vanished through the +door. Slowly she walked to the window. Hands clasped behind her she +stood, gazing across the sunlit lawn--across the dancing, flashing waters +of the Sound. A big, black schooner, a mountain of bellying whiteness +superimposed upon a tiny streak of hull, was standing off for the Long +Island shore. Her eyes followed it. + +Blake, lids half closed, as a man who seeks within the denseness of +masculine brain for something that lieth not therein, considered for a +long moment, eyes upon the perfect figure of perfect womanhood before +him. At length he spoke. + +"It doesn't seem to me," he began, "that it means either very much or +very little." He went on, more lightly: "Two months isn't such a long +time, you know, after all. He'll soon be back, laden with honors. And +then, because he was raised on the seacoast and doesn't know the +difference between a Lima bean and a bole weevil, they'll probably make +him Secretary of Agriculture." + +She was still gazing at the vanishing sail; she had not heard his words. + +He leaned back in his chair, a little, watching her. At length he sighed, +and murmured to himself: + +"To him that hath, shall be given all they can take away from him that +hathn't." + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN. + +THE GOING. + + +John Schuyler had come to be a big man and a broad one--big in the great +things of life that sometimes are so small, big in the small things of +life that sometimes are so great. Broad of mind, as well as broad of +shoulder he was. Forty years of age now, his hair, by the habit of +thought, was tinged with gray at the temples; yet skin and complexion +were as those of a boy. Quick in movement, agile, alert, thrilling with +vitality and virility, his pleasures were, as they had always been, the +pleasures of the great out-of-doors. A yachtsman, his big yawl, the +"Manana," was known in every club port from Gravesend to Bar Harbor. He +motored. He rode. He played tennis, and golf, and squash, and racquets. +He was an expert swimmer, a skilful fencer, a clever boxer. And, more +wonderful than the combination of these things was the fact that he found +time away from his work to do them all, and to enjoy them with the +youthful, contagious, effervescent enthusiasm of a man of half his age. + +It showed in his well-set-up, well-poised body. It showed in the +expression of his clear-cut bronzed features. It showed in every little +shift of pose, every little turn of his well-shaped head, as he stood, +leaning gracefully against the ledge of the bay window, talking with +Blake; for Mrs. Schuyler and Muriel had gone to make ready for the trip +to the city, and to the dock. + +"I don't like to leave it, Tom," he said slowly, his eyes roaming over +the bright, little room. "I don't like to leave it even to hobnob with +crowned heads, and to take tea with dukes, earls, princes and kings, to +say nothing of mere lords. My world is right here; and it's all the world +I want, Tom. It's bounded on the south by the sound, on the north by the +property of the municipality, on the east and west by somebody else's +worlds, and above by eternity." Blake lighted a cigar. + +"Then what are you going for?" he asked, practically. + +Schuyler shrugged his shoulders. + +"I wonder," he replied. + +"Want me to tell you?" queried the other. + +"I should be obliged," he said with a smile. + +"Well," began Blake, placing finger ends to finger ends, judicially. "In +the first place, you're ambitious. You like the plaudits of the populace. +You see here a chance to get about a million per cent on your investment. +Whereby you stick two months time and a little effort into the +proposition and draw down a position that means sitting beside the chief +executive and trying to look as though you knew what he was talking +about. Also a chance to live in Washington and cut figure eights in the +diplomatic circles. All of which is perfectly natural, nothing at all to +your discredit, and furthermore shows whence come the few good men, who, +sticking their heels in, are trying to keep the country from going to the +demnition bow-wows. Am I right?" + +Schuyler watched a little ring of blue smoke rising to the ceiling. + +"No," he answered, slowly, "you're wrong. I care nothing for the plaudits +of the populace. I'm ambitious, in a way; but when that way requires me +to leave the people--the things--that I love, then ambition chameleonizes +and I become ambitious antithetically. Furthermore, I loathe the climate +of Washington; and all the society I want, I can find right in my home-- +with the exception of yourself." + +"Which is not so much of an exception, after all," commented Blake; +"because, when it comes to sticking around, I'm the original young Mr. +Glue." + +"You know, Tom," went on Schuyler, "I don't like to take any chances with +a happiness such as mine.... I wonder, sometimes, if I really know how +happy I am. One can get used to happiness, you know, just as to other +things--except unhappiness." + +"Hum," snorted Blake. "I've got used to that, even. Dad--burn it all, +nothing ever goes right with me--except money; and that's no good without +the rest. Money is merely an agreeable accessory. To have money and +nothing with it is like having an olive and no cocktail to put it in. If +I eat what I like, I get sick. I'm always either forty pounds too heavy +or twenty pounds too light. I'm continually dieting or training and +wondering why in Sam Hill I'm doing either. I have to live alone--to +spend my evening at theatres or clubs--I am a man who would willingly +give up all his clubs for one large pair of pink carpet slippers, and the +theatres for a corpulent, aristocratic Maltese cat, with a baritone +purr." + +Schuyler, immersed in his own thoughts, had not been listening. + +Blake eyed him, whimsically. + +"Ain't I the gabby thing, though?" he remarked, at length. And then: + +"A couple of million dollars for your thoughts, sweet chuck." + +"I was thinking how near I came to turning this all down--and how I'm +sort of sorry that I didn't." + +"Nell's better, isn't she?" queried Blake, suddenly. + +"Better, yes; but not out of danger. Why?" + +"Why," returned Blake, "it just occurred to me--see here, old man, I've +nothing much to do. Can't I stick around here? And then you can take Kate +and Muriel with you." + +"That's good of you, Tom," said Schuyler, smiling a little. "But a +bachelor around a sick room is of about as much use as an elephant at a +pink tea.... No, Kate and I have talked it all over, and, under the +conditions, she has decided to stay at home. It'll be mighty hard, +though--mighty hard.... It must be nearly time to leave." + +Blake looked at his watch. + +"Nine fifty," he said. "What time does the train go?" + +Schuyler did not answer; for just then there entered the room a tall, +clean-cut young fellow of thirty, dressed with quiet immaculacy. It was +Parks, John Schuyler's secretary. + +To him Schuyler turned. + +"Is everything ready, Parks?" he asked. + +"Everything," was the reply. "And the car is waiting." + +"Mrs. Schuyler?" + +"Is in the hall." + +"You have the documents that we selected?" + +"Here, sir." Parks touched with the fingers of his right hand the little +satchel of black seal that he carried beneath his left arm. + +"How much time have we?" + +"We should leave within a very few minutes now." + +"Very well. We'll be right there." + +As Parks left the room, Blake turned to his friend. + +"Jack," he exclaimed, "it makes me sore every time I look at you. Why in +thunder can't I get in once in a while? Nothing would suit me better than +to go over and buy the king a glass of half and half and mix around with +the diplomats and settle the affairs of nations. But they wouldn't let me +send cucumber seeds to the mattress-faced constituency of Skaneateles +county if I should offer to pay for the job. I've got everything I don't +want--except the measles--and everything I do want, I can't get. I want a +home. What have I? A box stall with nobody in it but a man to curry me; +and he's curried me so often that he's lost all respect for me. I want to +stop being merely ornamental and become useful; but when I say so, +everyone hands me the jocose and jibing jeer and proceeds to lock up +anything that seems to have any relation whatsoever to industry, +commerce, or utility of any kind. And the best I can get is the festive +roof garden, the broad speed-way, and the bounding wave. I wish I were +running this universe. I ain't mentioning no names, but there's a certain +svelte party on my left, whose initials are J. S., who wouldn't have a +monopoly on all the good things in this world." + +Schuyler, filling his cigar case from a silver humidor on the sideboard, +laughed. + +"There's nothing the matter with you, Tom," he said, assuringly, "except +that you have too much time and too much money. Stop your kicking." + +Blake grinned. + +"Let me rave if I want to," he requested. "Let me have a good time. You +know as well as I do that I don't mean it, and you know that I'm more +glad for your success and happiness and prosperity than I would be for my +own; and that's being some glad." He crossed to where Schuyler stood and +placed his arm about his shoulders, and continued, "good old Jack. Bully +for you. You deserve everything that you have ever won. I'd say I loved +you like a brother if it weren't for the fact that I never had a brother +yet that I could sit through a meal with without wanting to hit him under +the ear with the side-board." + +[Illustration: "BYE, LITTLE SWEETHEART"] + +The room had become suddenly dark. Came almost without the warning of +preliminary rumble--almost without the precursor of sullen flashing--a +great peal of heavy thunder. Schuyler turned. Blake sprang to his feet. + +Through the bow window, the lawn lay dun and dark. Beyond, the Sound, +flat and heavy, seemed as gray oil. The Long Island shore had been +swallowed in the gloom. Above all was a great, black cloud, rimmed of +silver and of gold, a low cloud, thick and threatening. And yet to one +side and the other--in fact save right in its ominous path, one could see +the sunlight on water and on land. Then came the rain, and the wind, and +with them incessant flashings, incessant bellowings, wild protests of the +outraged God of storms. Trees bent and groaned. Flowers, torn from their +tender stalks, lay prostrate in puling puddles. And quick-born waves +lashed themselves spitefully against the pier and breakwater down beyond +the lawn, unseen in the swirling, screaming wildness of it all. + +Upon one another Schuyler and Blake turned wondering, amazed eyes. In its +suddenness, the storm was unbelievable. They stood, side by side, gazing +out into the storm. + +Suddenly, into the hand of Schuyler stole tiny, frightened fingers. It +was Muriel. + +"I'm frightened, daddy dear," she cried. + +Schuyler gathered her into his arms. + +"Don't be frightened, little sweetheart," he said, soothingly. "It's just +a summer storm.... Where's mother?" + +"Here, Jack." Her voice came from at his very side. "Isn't it terrible! +We can't go in this." + +Holding his child close against his breast, her cheeks against his, her +gold-brown hair mixing with the gray of his temples, he said: + +"Not you and Muriel, of course. But I must. It won't last long; you and +Tom can come on a later train. Parks can come with you. There'll be +plenty of time. It's only that I have urgent business that I must attend +to before sailing." + +In a swirl of wind and rain, Parks stepped into the room, and addressing +Schuyler, said: + +"We should be starting, sir." + +Schuyler nodded. The butler was holding his coat in readiness. He thrust +his arms within the sleeves and, with a shrug of broad shoulders, stood +prepared for departure. + +Lifting the little girl that was his own, and of the woman he loved, he +held her for a brief moment tight to his breast. In her little ear he +whispered: + +"Bye, little sweetheart." + +She clung to him, little hands about his neck.... He set her down again +upon the floor. She ran to Blake, waiting. + +The deep lids of Kathryn were half veiling the violet eyes--eyes moist, +and very soft. There was a little tremor of the sensitive lips. Schuyler +drew her to him, so that she faced him, and whispered: + +"Au revoir, big sweetheart.... Don't you dare to cry.... I know how it +hurts; but be a brave little woman.... I'll make my stay just as short as +possible." + +"You'll cable?" she asked, tremulously. + +"Cable?" he repeated. "I'll keep that wireless snapping all the way +across.... Now let me see you smile." + +She tried. It was a wan, sad little smile--a smile that was close of kin +to a tear. She clung to him for a moment; then her fingers loosened their +hold; she stepped back, white teeth holding nether lip. It was bitterly +hard. + +He looked; and with more understanding than many a man might have, turned +swiftly. + +Parks stepped forward. + +"Shan't I go with you?" he asked. + +Schuyler shook his head. + +"No," he returned. "Come with Mrs. Schuyler--meet me at the boat. I'm +going alone." + +He thrust open the door. Came a wail of wind, a swirl of rain; and then, +as he crossed the threshold, the very heaven itself seemed to be reft +apart with a great, wild flash of lightning--the roar of the thunder was +appalling. + +Schuyler started back. He forced a laugh. + +"Were I a superstitious man," he remarked, "I might take that for an +omen." + +And then he was gone. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN. + +YOUNG PARMALEE--AND THE WOMAN. + + +He came slinking down the deck of the liner, furtive of eye, uneven of +tread. A young man he was--and yet old; for while his body told of youth, +his face bespoke age--the unnatural forced age--the hot-housed growth of +they who live in the froth of life--in the froth that it is hard to tell +from the scum. + +He was tall, and well-set-up. His clothes hung well about his body; they +were of fine texture and make, yet unpressed, uncared for. He had been +handsome; but he was no longer; for the eyes looked forth from hollows in +his face. His cheeks were sunken. His lips were leaden. He was unshaven, +ungroomed, unkempt. + +Looking nervously, this way and that, he made his way among the jostling +throngs to one of the passages. Searching with sunken eyes for a numbered +door, he knocked upon it with the knuckles of his left hand; his right +rested at his side, covered with a handkerchief of white silk.... He +knocked; and stepped back, quickly. There was no answer; the door +remained shut. He stepped forward again, thrusting the door wide open. +The stateroom was empty. He turned. Out upon the deck he strode; then, +starting back, he concealed himself in the passageway that he had just +left. + +Coming down the deck was a woman, a woman darkly beautiful, tall, lithe, +sinuous. Great masses of dead black hair were coiled about her head. Her +cheeks were white; her lips very red. Eyes heavy lidded looked out in +cold, inscrutable hauteur upon the confusion about her. She wore a gown +that clung to her perfectly-modelled figure--that seemed almost a part of +her being. She carried, in her left arm, a great cluster of crimson +roses. + +Down the deck she came, slowly, as a queen going to her throne. She +turned.... + +The man hiding in the passageway confronted her. His eyes were burning as +of a fever; his whole body shook.... She remained calm, cold, unmoved. + +At length, the woman spoke, half smiling: + +"You? ... I thought that we were through." + +His voice was tense, strained, unnaturally pitched. The words came +between clenched teeth. + +"You did, eh? You thought you'd throw me over, as you did Rogers, and Van +Dam, and the rest of them.... But it won't work--you Vampire!" + +Swiftly, he tore from his right hand, the handkerchief that covered it. +There was in it a revolver. The bright mouth of the weapon sprang to the +white forehead of The Woman. + +Yet she did not start--she made no sound, no movement. The smile still +dwelt upon her lips. It was only in the eyes that a difference came--in +the black, inscrutable eyes. They gleamed now, heavy-lidded as before. +Their gaze was fixed straight into the sunken, hate-lit eyes of the man +before her, a man who, but for her, might still have been a boy. She bent +forward a little.... Her forehead, between the eyes, was now touching the +bright muzzle of the weapon. The finger on the trigger trembled-- +trembled but did not pull. + +Came slowly, sibillantly, from between the smiling red lips: + +"Kiss me, My Fool!" + +Her eyes still fixed him.... The hand holding the revolver trembled more +violently. Slowly the mouth of the weapon sank to lips--to chin--to +breast.... It hovered there a moment, just over the heart--the finger +twitched a little--twitched but did not pull. It was a finger governed by +a vanished will in a shrivelled brain. + +Then, suddenly, the revolver leaped--the finger pulled. With a shrill +screech of hopeless, hideous imprecation, a shriek that died still-born, +the bullet pierced flesh and bone and brain; and that which had been a +man that should have been a boy, lurched drunkenly and lay a crumpled +nothing upon the deck. There was blood upon the deck--beside the hem of +the crimson gown, near to the crimson heel of her shoe. And the gown was +caught beneath the body of the boy that was. + +She looked down upon him. The smile not even yet had left her lips. With +a lithe movement, infinitely graceful, she drew away, disengaging the hem +of her crimson garment.... A crimson petal from the great cluster in her +arms fell upon it, to lie upon the hollow whiteness of the upturned +cheek.... And that was all. + +A man--a man that should have been a boy--was gone.... Hurrying, horror- +ridden passengers found him there, alone. The doctor came, and stewards, +and the captain. They lifted him, and bore him away. Of those who live in +the froth of things--the froth that is often the scum--there were +several. One of these knew him. + +"It's Young Parmalee," he informed them. + +And that was all he knew; that, and possibly some other things that are +little. But of the great things, he knew nothing. For of these great +things, God has told us but little. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN. + +A WARNING. + + +The storm that had come hissing across the Sound did not last long. Its +very fierceness, it seemed, was its own undoing. Its frenzy soon passed. +And anon the sun shone; the drooping flowers raised to it pitiful, +bedraggled little faces; and from the fields, rose the burden of incense, +moist, fragrant giving wet thanks of its coming and of its going. + +Schuyler's farewells had been but tentative. It had been understood that, +should the storm abate, Mrs. Schuyler, Muriel and Blake would follow on +the next train; for he himself was forced by the exigency of his mission +to reach the city at least two hours before sailing time. + +The car, returning from the trip to the depot, was again called into +service. Parks, as well, had waited, and went with them. + +Reaching the city, Blake's machine, for which he had telephoned from +Larchmont, was waiting; and in this they made the journey through the +traffic-thronged New York streets, to the dock; a route that leads one +from wealth to poverty, from respectability to license, from well--doing +to ill-doing, and through all that lies between. + +The dock, beside which lay tugging at her cables the huge liner, was +confusion thrice confused. Jolting cabs, rattling taxis, smooth-running +private cars, drays and vans, added to the tumult caused by the hundred-- +the thousands--of hurrying, scurrying humanity. Came the calls of excited +passengers, the rumbling of trucks, the Babel-like voices of emigrants; +and, beyond, the noises of the Great River. + +Alighting from the car at the gangway, they boarded the ship, with its +crowded decks. Schuyler's stateroom was aft, in the center of the ship. +It lay the first door to the right, as one enters the narrow passageway. +To it the little party made its way. + +The door of the room opposite was ajar. Blake noticed that there lay +therein a great mass of crimson roses; scattered amid the toilet articles +and accessories of a woman. Passing through the crowds of the deck, he +had heard, also, The Man Who Knew telling another man, who did not know +of Young Parmalee. It had been but a word. But it had been a word that +had found fructification and meaning in the sight of a deck steward, with +a bucket, mopping up something from the deck, just outside the little +passageway. + +Kathryn and Muriel, seen safely to the room that Schuyler was to occupy, +Blake returned and made his way out upon the deck. He stood for a moment +by the steward, watching him. + +Then very quietly inquired: + +"Where did it happen, Steward?" + +The steward, wringing out the mop into the dark water of his bucket, +looked up. There were beads of sweat upon his bronzed, wrinkled brow. Yet +the day was not warm. + +"Wot, sir?" he queried. + +"Where did it happen?" + +"Wot happen sir?" + +"Young Parmalee's suicide." Blake spoke quietly, calmly. + +The steward's eyes shifted. + +"Suicide, sir?" he said. "Don't know nothink about it, gov'ner." + +Blake pointed to the spot upon the deck. + +"What's that, then?" he demanded. + +The steward moved, uneasily. + +"A spot I just be'n a-cleanin' of, gov'ner." + +Blake pointed to the bucket. + +"And that?" he persisted. + +"Water, sir." + +"And--?" + +The steward slowly drew the back of his hand across dry lips. And then, +in a swift rush of strangled words: + +"Blood, gov'ner. Blood.... Only a boy he was, sir, and she looked down on +him, laying there with his brains spattered on the deck and she laughed, +sir.... God, sir! She laughed...." He struggled to his feet and pulled +his forelock. He said in altered tones: "Beg pardon, sir. But a man can't +be a blime machine all the time, sir." + +There came a call from the state-room. + +"Get that bucket away from here. Quick!" And Blake turned to meet the +wife and child of his friend, as they came from the state-room. + +"Oh, I do hope Jack won't be late," Kathryn remarked, scanning the decks. + +Blake standing between her and the steward, returned with forced +lightness: + +"Oh, he has plenty of time. Half an hour at least. Why, once I lost fifty +thousand in the market, broke my steering gear running over a fat +policeman, was arrested, taken to court and bailed out and all within +twenty minutes. Jack's got time to squander." + +There was sadness in the violet eyes. + +"It will be very lonely when he's gone--very lonely," she mused, slowly. + +"Well, it will be as lonely for him as it will for you," Blake returned; +"which is a doubtful consolation, but one that most women don't have." + +Muriel had wandered to the rail. + +"Oh, I see him!" she cried, suddenly. "There he is! Daddy! Daddy, +dear! ... He's right there on the gangway--right behind that fat lady-- +the one with the red nose. I'm going to meet him." + +Sturdy little legs started to follow the summons of impulsive little +brain. But her mother detained her. + +"No, dearie," she objected. "You'll get lost He'll be here in a moment, +now." + +"Not unless he can get by that lady," protested the child. "He's--he's--" + +"Pocketed is the word you want, Muriel," assisted Blake. He was looking +in the direction which the child had indicated. Suddenly, he exclaimed: + +"I see him now. He doesn't see us, though. Possibly he doesn't know where +his stateroom is. These boats are very confusing. I'll go fetch him." + +Blake disappeared in the throngs upon the deck. Muriel turned to her +mother. + +"Mother," she implored. + +"Yes, dear?" + +"Why can't we go, too, mother dear?" + +"We must stay to care for Aunt Elinor." + +"But she has a doctor and two nurses now," protested the child. + +"But," returned her mother, smiling, "that isn't like one's own family." + +The child was for a moment sunk deep in thought most serious. + +"But why must both of us stay?" she asked, at length. Then, suddenly: + +"Mother, dear!" + +"Yes little sweetheart?" + +"I'll match you to see which one of us goes!" + +Mrs. Schuyler, surprised, smiled. + +"Why, daughter! Wherever did you learn that?" + +"I heard Mr. Tom and daddy the other night. They were sitting in the +library, and Mr. Tom said, 'I'll match you to see who gets the cigars.' +So, mother dear, I thought that you and I might match one another to see +which of us could go with daddy." + +Kathryn placed an arm about her, drawing her to her. + +"Do you want to go with daddy--and leave mother?" she asked. + +The child shook her head, doubtfully. + +"No," she said, "not exactly.... I want to go with daddy. I love daddy. +But I want to stay with you, too, mother dear.... Mother dear," she added +suddenly. + +"Yes, sweetheart?" + +"Wouldn't it be nice if we were both twins! Then half of us could go with +daddy, and the other half of us stay at home with Aunt Elinor." + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN. + +THE BEGINNING. + + +Schuyler came hurrying down the deck, Blake and Parks close behind. +There was on his face the smile of great gladness. He placed one strong +arm about his wife, the other about his child. + +"I've some bully news for you, Kate, dear! The President has so arranged +that I can complete my work and get back to you in less than a month. +Isn't that splendid? Just one little month and I'll be back again with +you and baby." + +The child raised her head in protest. + +"But I'm not a baby, now. I'm six years old. Mother has to pay full fare +for me on the cars. Don't you, mother?" + +Schuyler picked her up from the deck, tossing her in the air. + +"No matter what you may be to conductors, you'll always be baby to daddy, +you little darling," he said, brightly. Then, turning to Blake, with +lightness born of great earnestness: + +"Take good care of them while I'm gone, won't you, old man. By Jove, I'd +like to chuck it all, even at the last minute as it is, and stay at +home--" + +Facing his wife, child and friend, his eyes were up the broad deck. Came +toward him The Woman--The Woman known of The Man Who Knew, and of Young +Parmalee. Schuyler's voice died in his throat. Her eyes were upon him. +His eyes were upon her. She made no movement. She paused not in her +indolent, sinuous walk. Her eyes were upon him; and that was all--dark +eyes, glowing, inscrutable, beautiful with the beauty that was hers. And +his eyes were on hers.... She turned up the narrow passageway in which +lay Schuyler's stateroom.... Blake saw, too. He was not of those who live +in the froth of things--that froth of things that is the scum. But he was +of the world; and they who are of the world have knowledge of all that +that world contains--of all, that is, that it is for such as they to +know. + +Kathryn looked up, at length, anxiously. Schuyler was never abstracted. +She prompted: + +"You were saying, Jack, dear--" + +Schuyler drew his hand, palm out, across his forehead. + +"Why--oh, yes," he floundered, trying to marshal his scattered thoughts. +"I was saying--" He appealed to Blake, half-helplessly, half-whimsically. +"By Jove, that's strange. What was I saying, Tom?" + +Blake replied, shortly: + +"You were asking me to take good care of them." + +Schuyler nodded. + +"Oh, yes," he assented. And then; "I don't understand. I--but you will +take good care of them, won't you, old man? They're all I have; and more, +they're all I want. Guard them, Tom, for me as though they were your +own." + + * * * * * + +Waiting to take farewell of those one loves is indeed a sweetness tinged +with bitterness. And if one loves very, very much, it is sometimes a +bitterness tinged with sweetness. Kathryn, lower lip clenched between +white teeth, herself unhappy would have kept that unhappiness as far as +possible hers alone. There were those on board that she knew. To them she +went; for there was still, since time was short, too much of it. Muriel +she took with her. + +Schuyler, in his eyes all the virile love that such as he feel for +theirs, watched her vanish amid the throngs. Then, sauntering to the +rail, leaned against it.... There came into his eyes a look of +abstraction, of aberration, of puzzlement. Blake stood watching him-- +stood for a long time, silent, unmoving.... At length he moved to +Schuyler's side. + +"Old man," he said, very slowly, very quietly, very earnestly; "old man, +what's up?" + +Schuyler turned, quickly + +"What's up?" he repeated. "What do you mean?" + +Blake said, still slowly: + +"There's something happened to you." + +"Happened," cried Schuyler. "Something happened?" He laughed. "What could +have happened?" + +"Damned if I know. But something has. I've got a hunch." + +Schuyler answered, lightly: + +"Well, you'd better take it to a doctor and have it diagnosed." He half +turned. "It's only my natural nervousness at leaving Kathryn and Muriel-- +and the importance of my mission. By the way," he asked, abruptly, "what +was that crowd doing on the dock as I came up?" + +Blake, selecting a cigarette, lighted it. + +"Suicide," he said, curtly. + +Schuyler started. + +"You say it mighty cold-bloodedly," he asserted. "Where did it happen?" + +"Here, I believe. Almost where we are standing." + +"Good God! Who was it?" + +"Young chap, named Parmalee." + +"What? The boy who's been in the papers so much lately--who disgraced +himself, and his people, for a woman?" + +Blake nodded, and continued: + +"Did you happen to notice the woman who passed a moment ago?--the one +carrying the red roses?" + +Schuyler bent his head. + +"I noticed her," he replied, slowly. "What of her?" + +"The woman." + +"You don't mean Parmalee--?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"Because his love was not returned?" + +"Because," replied Blake, smiling mirthlessly "it _was_ returned.... +Did you ever read that! thing of Kipling's, _The Vampire_?" + +"Why, yes, of course," returned Schuyler. "Almost everyone's read that." + +"Do you remember how it goes?" persisted Blake. + +Schuyler thought a moment. Then, slowly, he recited: + + "A fool there was, and he made his prayer, + (Even as you and I) + To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair. + We called her the woman who did not care. + But the fool, he called her his Lady Fair--" + +He broke off, abruptly. "A weird thing," he said, as though to himself. +"I never thought much about what it meant before...." He turned, +abruptly. "Why did you ask me if I'd read it?" he demanded. + +"Well," said Blake, flicking the ashes from his cigarette, "there's the +fool," he nodded toward the drying spot upon the deck. "And there," he +indicated, with a backward toss of his well-shaped head, the corridor +down which had passed the woman, "is his lady fair. I've even heard," he +went on, "that she used to call him her 'fool,' quoting the poem. Pretty +little conceit, eh?" His jaw, firm, square, set tight. Then, with a touch +of deeper feeling. "She murdered that boy just as surely as if she had +cut his throat; and the worst of it is that she can't be held legally +guilty--morally, yes, guilty as sin; but legally--" He shook his head. +"The laws that man makes for mankind are a joke." + +"As sometimes seem," added Schuyler, slowly, "the laws that God makes for +mankind.... If what you say about that woman be true, she ought to be +taken by the hair of the head and dragged through the hell she has built +for others." His brows were knitted; he was gazing with unseeing eyes +upon the bustle and confusion of the dock below. + +Blake, eyeing him, remarked quietly, but in tones more light: + +"However, that's not your job, nor mine, thank God. It would be an +eminently suitable recreation for a debonair young man with a shattered +reputation, a cast iron stomach, several millions of dollars and no +objections to staying up by the year." He turned a little, toward +Schuyler. "What are you thinking about?" he queried. + +"Only the fool." + +"The generic fool of Kipling, or Young Parmalee?" + +"I was thinking of Young Parmalee, then." + +"And the woman?" + +Schuyler quoted, slowly: + +"A fool there was--" + +"Oh, but," Blake protested, "I wouldn't call him a fool." + +"Why not?" demanded Schuyler. "He was a fool." + +"Yes," returned Blake. "But he's dead, now." + +"Bosh," retorted Schuyler, impatiently. "I've no sympathy with that false +sentiment that forbids one to speak the unpleasant truth of a dead +person. If a man were a fool while alive, his dying doesn't absolve him +of his folly. Young Parmalee's death was a mitigating circumstance, +however. He killed himself; which shows that he had some manhood left. +But he should have had the decency to choose another place for his self +destruction." He was silent for a moment; at length he went on: "A man is +what he is, and he was what he was. His dying can change nothing of his +living." + +He looked up. His wife and child were coming toward him. + +"Say nothing to them about all this, Tom," he urged. + +"Certainly not," acquiesced Blake. + +A steward came down the deck, calling raucously: + +"All ashore that's going ashore!" + +Kathryn turned to Schuyler. + +"And now that the time has really come to say good-bye," she said, +brokenly, "here's something I brought you, Jack." + +She handed him a little box of glazed cardboard. Wonderingly he took it. + +"For me?" he cried, with simulated gaiety. "That's sweet of you, dear +heart--sweeter, even than are these." For he had opened it, and taken +forth the tiny bouquet of forget-me-nots that had nestled in the depths +of the moist cotton, "and these are sweetness itself. But why forget-me- +nots! As though I could ever forget you, even for one little minute!" + +There came again the strident call: + +"All ashore that's going ashor-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-e!!!" +Violet eyes suffused, Kathryn was clinging to him. + +"Jack," she whispered. "Jack, I'm afraid I'm--going--to--cry." + +With infinite tenderness he held her to him. + +"There, there, sweetheart mine," he said, soothingly. "Don't be a +silly.... Now we'll all go down to the gangway, where the big hugs +are.... Then I'll rush back here and we can wave one another good-bye and +try to imagine I'm going only over to Staten Island for the afternoon." + +Came farewells at the gangway--farewells of tears, of heart-aches, of +quivering lips and moist lids--of laughter quavering and smiles unreal-- +of the good hand clasp that good men know--the touch of wet, clinging +lips. + +Schuyler came rushing down the deck, keeping to that part of the ship +that lay nearest to the dock. From the bouquet that had been given him, +he plucked tiny, fragrant blossoms, casting them to those that had given, +and with them sending cheery word of hope, tender word of parting. + +He could see them there, far below, straining against the ropes, waving +to him. He could see the violet eyes, tear laden, the lithe, slender, +figure of his wife in the glory of her perfect womanhood--the sturdy +little body of his child, barelegged, browned, hair tumbled, waving +frantically a tiny little square of muslin and shouting farewells at the +highest pitch of childish treble. He could see his friend--the friend +such as few men may ever have, and, having, may pray to hold--broad +shoulders protecting wife and child from the pressing throngs--he could +hear his voice booming through all the heterogeneous medley of sound. + +His voice choked. Words that he was crying--words lost in all the +confusion of sound and movement--stuck in his throat. Moisture came to +his eyes.... He turned a little.... Came into range of his vision a tiny +streak of shifting crimson. He looked. + +She was sitting there, on the deck--she--The Woman. She lay back in her +chair, long, lithe limbs covered with a rug of crimson and black and +dull, dull green. She was dangling gently, sensuously, the great cluster +of scarlet roses that she held, now and again bringing them to where +their fragrance would reach her delicately-chiseled nose, imperious, +haughty.... They looked startlingly red against her cheek--like blood +upon the snow.... She was looking at him.... There was no movement, save +the even, languorous swing of the crimson blossoms. Lips, vivid red, were +motionless, half parted in a little, inscrutable smile.... She was +looking at him.... He forgot.... The whistle had been blowing, sounding +departure. He had not heard. There was a lull. From afar, shrill, +childish voice brought a drifting, "Bye, bye, daddy, dear!" ... He did +not hear.... Her eyes were on his. His eyes were on hers.... And seemed +to be nothing else.... + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. + +IN THE NIGHT. + + +He had told Parks to come to him as soon as they were under way. There +were certain letters that he wished to get off in time to send them back +on the pilot boat. Parks found him by the rail, gazing at a tall, darkly- +beautiful woman reclining in a steamer chair, eyes only visible above a +great cluster of crimson blossoms. Parks had spoken to him three times +before there was forthcoming a reply. Then, slowly, as a man awakening +from a heavy sleep, Schuyler had gone with him to his room. + +He had tried to dictate his correspondence; had tried, and failed. There +were many mistakes. His thoughts would not seem to coalesce. His mind was +not upon what he was doing, nor could he place it there. And Schuyler's +was a brain that had always been to him an admirably trained servant, +coming when he willed it, doing what he willed and in the way he +willed.... But today it was a servant sullen, rebellious, recalcitrant. +... The letters remained unwritten. Nothing was sent back with the +pilot. And Parks, wondering, puzzled--and, perhaps, a bit perturbed-- +watched the pilot swing down the Jacob's ladder, and make across the +water toward his craft, with wonderment, puzzlement, perturbation no bit +abated. + +Schuyler paced the deck all that day. Lunch he did not touch. Dinner +found him undesirous of food. He was walking--walking--striding up and +down, up and down--deep in thought, it seemed--and yet he had not been +able to dictate his letters. Parks wondered yet more. At length he went +to his employer and asked him if he were not needed. The answer was curt; +it was "no." And never before had Parks been answered without a cordial +nod, or, perhaps, the good smile of good-fellowship.... He could not +understand. + +And Schuyler? His brain was in a tumult. Like us all, there were many +things that he did not know--there were many things that he did not even +know there were to know.... Some of these he was beginning to learn. It +had shaken him--it was shaking him--to his soul. + +He did not see The Woman again that day.... Her room was across the +corridor from his. He heard her voice, directing the steward to bring to +her her dinner.... + +It was dark that night--dark as night seldom gets in the northern +latitudes, in June. The lights of the deck looked like vigorous +glowworms. The stars seemed very far away. Far below, as he paced, he +could see dimly a great blackness that was the sea, and against it the +white of the waves as they broke sullenly against the huge hull.... Later +it became yet more black. The stars vanished.... The ship seemed a world +of its own, hurling through an eternity of utter, deadly space. A wind +sprang up, a wind from the East, wet and vicious, a wind that spat upon +one, that chilled one, that slapped one with clammy fingers. + +Schuyler paced the deck. Coming out of the dim half light of the +promenade into the corner of the rail, by the bow, he thought he saw her. +He was not sure at first.... Then, though his eyes pierced no more +clearly, he was sure.... He went closer. She stood there, white hands +clasping the bare rail, lithe, sinewy, lazy body, tilted a bit backward +as though in the grasp of the spitting wind. Her throat was bare to it, +and her breast. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were deep lidded. Her head +was poised like a tiger lily upon its stalk.... He stood there, enveloped +in the blackness.... For a long time she stood motionless. Then she +stretched her white arms above her head, stretched the long muscles of +her body, as a panther stretches. She was very, very beautiful.... He +stood watching.... The ship lurched. It reeled against a huge wave, +shivering it into roaring spume. The wet fingers of the wind had wrapped +her garments about her, every fold tight against her rounded body. She +stood, arms above her head, lips parted, silhouetted against the foam.... +The ship reeled again, and there came darkness utter.... When again there +was light so that one might see, Schuyler stood alone. + +Six bells had struck ere he went to his room. Then, scourged of body, +scourged of soul, wracked, harassed, torn, he sought his berth. But he +did not sleep. He thought of Parmalee, the boy who was a man. He thought +of The Woman. He thought of himself. He thought of the wife that he +loved. He thought of the child that he loved--the child that had come to +him through that wife. He thought of all these things, and of many more; +and he did not understand; he did not know. For God has shown even the +wisest of us but little of this world in which we live. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. + +WHITE ROSES. + + +It was two months later. In the little garden that lay on the side of +the big, rambling house at Larchmont where the sun best loved to dwell, +roses were in bloom; and roses, even as the sun, seemed to love that +garden. They clustered, great masses of glowing white, against the +latticed arbor--they caught playfully at one's hat as one would walk +through the gate that led to the broad green lawn, and to the Sound +beyond--they snatched at one's clothing as one would walk past the +largest bush--the one that stretched its branches across the French +window. It was a real garden--an out-of-door home--a garden in which one +might live, and in which one might be glad that one was alive. + +At one side of a tiny writing table set upon the thick, carpet-like +sward, sat the mother, pen in hand, before her a half-finished letter. +Across from her the child pressed strong white teeth into the yielding +wood of her pencil; and before her, too, was a half-written letter--a +sprawling, uncertain letter of childhood. + +At length the child looked up. She could see that her mother was not +writing; so if she spoke, she would not be interrupting. + +"Mother, dear?" + +"Yes, honey?" + +"How do you spell love?" + +"Don't you know, dearie?" + +The child shook her head. + +"L," prompted the mother. + +Muriel ventured, dubiously: + +"L-a-?" + +Her mother shook her head. The child ventured again: + +"L-i-?" + +"No, honey." + +The child kicked her brown little legs. + +"Tell me, mother dear," she besought. "Please tell me." + +"L-o-v-e," spelled the mother. + +"Oh, yes! I 'member now.... Mother, dear?" + +"Yes, little sweetheart?" + +"When is a daddy coming home? It's awfully hard to write letters. He's +been gone a long time now, hasn't he, mother dear?" + +"Yes, dearie.... A long, long time." The violet eyes were sad. + +"'Most a year?" persisted the little one. + +Her mother smiled a little, wanly. + +"It seems like it, doesn't it?" she said. "But it's only two months--not +only two months," she corrected; "but two months." + +Came a little pause. It was broken again by Muriel. + +"Mother, dear." + +"Yes?" + +"Can't I make the rest just kisses?" + +With a smile--a smile of infinite love and tenderness, the mother leaned +across and kissed the child that was hers. + +"Of course you may, dearie," she assented, softly. + +"Why don't you write kisses, too, mother, dear?" queried the little one. +"It's lots easier.... Oh, mother, dear! I'll tell you what I wrote if +you'll tell me what you wrote. Will you?" + +Violet eyes gave loving assent. + +"Oh, goody! We won't tell anyone else, will we?" + +"No, dearie." + +"Then," declared Muriel, "I'll read mine." + +She picked up the wrinkled little sheet of sadly irregular chirography. + +"Dear father daddy," she read. "It rained yesterday. Mother and I are +well. We hope you are well and God gave our new cat four kittens." She +looked up into the face of her mother. "God is awfully good to cats, +isn't He, mother dear?" she asked. She went on, then, with the assurance +of childhood: "Please come home. We miss you. I fell in the lake +yesterday, but didn't take cold. I love you.... And the rest is just +kisses." + +She eyed her mother anxiously. + +"Do you think daddy will like that letter?" she asked. + +Her mother's voice was a bit uneven as she answered. + +"I'm sure he will, little sweetheart I'm _sure_ he will." + +"Now," requested the child, "you read yours." + +Kathryn, drawing the child to her, bent forward. There was much in her +heart--much that she might not tell to anyone of all the world save two-- +and one of these was far away; and, even though the other could not +understand, still-- + +She read: + +"My John: You know how we love you, but you don't know how we miss you. +Please, please come back to us. If it weren't for Muriel I don't know +what I'd do, John, dear. I don't want to make you unhappy. I want you to +have all the honors--all the prominence--everything that a man's heart +holds dear. But I can't help being jealous a little of the things that +are keeping you from us...." + +She ceased, turning her head away. A robin, in the roses, lifting its +head, broke into song. The child waited, patiently.... At length she +inquired: + +"Is that all, mother dear?" + +Kathryn nodded. "Yes, honey." + +"Haven't you made any kisses?" + +"No, dearie." + +"But," protested the child, "daddy'll be so disappointed!" + +"Will he, honey? That wouldn't do, would it? ... Very well, then, +mother'll make some kisses." + +With Muriel looking on, the mother made several large, and heavy crosses +at the foot of that which she had written. There were other marks on that +letter--marks that were not kisses--marks that had been made by moisture, +and that had smeared the ink as they had been quickly wiped away. + +These the child did not notice; she was looking toward the house. + +"Here comes Aunt Elinor, mother, dear," she said. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER NINETEEN. + +SHADOWS. + + +Mrs. VanVorst had been very ill. A fever, contracted in South Africa +where she had been with her husband--a fever gained in a futile effort to +save the life of that husband, had sadly fagged a naturally vigorous +constitution. There had been a recurrence soon after her return to +America. Now she was in that condition of indolent convalescence that is +in women so interesting, in men so uninteresting. + +She was an out-of-door woman, tall, lithe, willowy. In the rugged health +that was normally hers, she seemed muscled almost like one of the +opposite sex; yet she lost by it none of the charm of frank femininity +that was hers. She was long-limbed, clean-limbed, quick of mind and of +body.... The forced inaction of illness was irksome to her. It was hard +for her to walk slowly; it was hard for her to sit in silent inaction-- +to lie in indolent unrest. Too, she felt more than anyone save herself +might ever know the loss of the man that had been to her not only husband +but as well friend, companion and comrade. + +She had been of the world, though anything but worldly. She knew perhaps, +more than many another of the Hidden Things. + +She strolled forward through the sun-flecked garden. A magazine, its +leaves still uncut, was in her hand. She sank into a chair, in a spot +from which she might see the Sound and its burden of sails. + +"Tom come yet?" she asked. + +Kathryn shook her head. + +"Not yet." + +"Heard from Jack to-day?" + +Again Kathryn made negation. + +"The foreign mail hasn't come yet," she said. "I told Pierre to stop at +the office for it." + +Elinor, selecting a paper knife, ran it slowly between the pages of her +magazine. + +"That business of his seems to be keeping him a long time," was her +comment. "What did he say in his last letter?" + +"Why, there are several matters of great importance that still remain +unsettled. It's not a little thing, his mission, you know. I don't know +much about such things; but diplomatic questions, it always seemed to me, +take years and years of all manner of serious discussion, and weighty +argument." + +Kathryn tried to speak lightly; yet the heaviness of her heart was +pitifully apparent. Elinor was scanning a colored frontispiece--a thing +of vivid yellows and brilliant blues. + +"You're feeling almost like yourself again, aren't you, Nell?" + +Elinor nodded. + +"Yes," she replied. "Thanks to you." + +"You were very ill." + +"One more doctor would have finished me." + +Of a sudden, there came from the drive the quick honking of an automobile +horn, together with the soft purring of an engine. Muriel leaped to her +feet; brown little legs flashed as she made her way across the garden. + +Kathryn and Elinor watched her going. They heard her cry, "Oh, Mr. Tom!" +Another moment and Blake, carrying the child in his arms, thrust aside +the bending heads of the white roses and made his way into the garden. + +"Hello, folks," was his greeting. "Is God in?" + +"Who?" demanded Elinor. + +"God," he returned. "This is heaven, isn't it? It certainly does seem +like it to anyone who has just come from the fireless cooker that +sometimes rejoices under the name of Manhattan. My old Aunt Maria! But it +is hot there, though." + +"We're very glad to see you, Tom," Kathryn began; "although we do owe you +a scolding." + +"What for?" he demanded, setting the child to the sward and taking off +his hat. + +"You haven't been near us for a fortnight." + +He seated himself, mopping his forehead. + +"Business, Kate. Business," he declared, importantly. + +Elinor laughed in pleasant irony. + +"Business!" she repeated. + +"I said, 'business,'" he retorted. + +"Yes," she rejoined; "but you can't prove it." + +"Can't eh?" he inquired. "Well, you go back to the wicked metropolis and +you'll find that my rent is paid and that a coupon's been cut from one of +my bonds. And who did it, I'd like to know?" + +"Oh, your secretary, or the janitor, or somebody," returned Elinor, +easily. "Not you." + +Tom laughed. + +"I must have a very negligible reputation for industry in this menage. +How do you think I spend all my time?" + +Elinor, arms akimbo, half faced him. + +"Well, Mr. Bones," she asked. "How do you spend all your time?" + +He grinned at her, friendlily. + +"Feeling better, aren't you?" + +"I feel so well," she returned, "that if this doctor of mine weren't such +a Simon Legree, I could play you eighteen holes of golf for a box of +gloves against a box of cigars." + +"Gambler!" he scoffed. "And if I should win, I suppose I'd have to smoke +the cigars." + +"Certainly," she countered, easily, "if I should have to wear the +gloves." + +He sank back in the big chair. + +"Well," he asserted, "it were useless to speculate on that which may +never be. I am at present in that interesting state of a man's career +where golf doesn't belong. A man who is beyond the first flush of +adolescence and not yet in the last pallor of senility, has no business +dallying with golf. He's liable to get sunstruck." + +Muriel, who had been listening with round, wondering eyes, ran to her +mother. + +"What does he mean, mother dear?" she asked. + +Elinor replied instead, laughing. + +"Nobody knows, Muriel. Not even he." + +"Now that's unkind, Nell," protested Blake; "unkind though true." + +The child, eyeing them for a minute in serious non-understanding, +recurred with the facility of the very young to other things. + +"Oh, mother dear!" she cried. "We forgot to stick up our letters to +daddy." + +Taking her mother's hand, she led her to the little table. Elinor, left +alone with Blake, turned to him and queried: + +"Heard from Jack lately?" + +He shook his head. + +"Not lately. Not since I've seen you." + +"Not enjoying himself much, I suppose," she commented. "He always stuck +to this place in summer like a barnacle. Was crazy about it." + +Blake, sitting with left fist in right palm, eyes upon the velvety green +of the lawn, shook his head, slowly. + +"He shouldn't have left a home like this if they'd offered to make him +Queen of Sheba," was his comment. + +Kathryn had turned to him. There was in her eyes a frank gladness--a +sincere welcome. She was glad to see him; how glad, she herself scarcely +knew. She had few friends; for there were but few people for whom she +really cared. She had known Blake for many, many years--known him and +liked him, and liking, had respected. He was of the few men whom money, +and bachelorhood, have no power to spoil. And they are few indeed. The +one has power to spoil, you know, even as has the other; and both +together--unusual indeed is the man who can resist. + +"It's good to see you again, Tom," she declared. "It's been lonely +here.... And I never thought that would happen." + +"It's good to be here," he returned, looking steadily upon her. "It's +good to be here, Kate. It's a perfect place, this--perfect." + +Elinor had risen; plucking a bending blossom, inhaling of its delicate +fragrance, she had wandered through the broad archway of the arbor, +toward the Sound. + +There was a moment of silence. There came from between Blake's lips a +deep sigh. + +Kathryn looked up, quickly. + +"What's the matter, Tom?" + +He shook his head again. + +"I don't know. Sometimes things go all wrong--dead wrong--and no one can +tell why, or how, or what to do." + +"Why, Tom!" she cried. "What do you mean? Has anything--" + +"Mean?" he interrupted. "Oh, nothing. Nothing, of course. I--I guess it's +loneliness. There are a lot of people who think because I have a motor to +smell, a yacht to make my friends seasick and a club window to decorate, +that I'm contented with my lot. But at heart I'm the most domestic +individual that ever desecrated a dinner coat; and sometimes the natural +tendencies of the gregarious male animal will not down. There's too much +of the concentrated quintessence of unadulterated happiness lying around +here. Maybe that's it." + +"We have been happy here, Tom--very, very happy." Then, quickly: "I'm +sorry, Tom.... I understand, and I'm sorry." + +He smiled. + +"It's nothing, Kate," he declared, "nothing at all. You've got to expect +a bachelor to kick every once in a while, you know. They're a peevish lot +of old guys." + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY. + +A FAIRY STORY. + + +Toward the child of his friend, and of his friend's wife, Blake felt not +as men in his place would have felt. The love that he had for the dainty +little thing of gold-brown hair, and gold-brown cheeks, and straight, +sturdy little legs was the love of a man for his own. It seemed to him, +almost, that she was flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, bone of his +bone. It was the "almost" that hurt; for she was the child of the woman +he loved, and of another man.... + +To love the wife of another man is a bitter thing--a bitter thing. To +love with dishonor is not hard; but to love with honor were hard indeed. +To go away, so loving, were to render more easy to bear the thing that +must be borne. To stay--to see day by day the happiness that lieth beyond +hope, were to stand in hell and gaze at heaven. And this were most +bitter, most hard, of all. Yet this was what Blake had done. This was +what Blake would do; and it was what he expected to keep on doing until +there was no such thing as time and the souls of all men were dead. He +did it because all that lay for him in life lay there, even though not +the tiniest bit of it could he claim for his own. And he was a man of +heart, as well as of head, and honor. + +Perhaps it was because he had loved the woman who was the wife of his +friend, since the day when she was as her daughter was now; that his love +for the little one that was of her transcended all else in his being--all +else save the one thing that he never mentioned, not even to himself. SHE +had been like that; a dainty, pretty, loving, simple, naive, sturdy, +rugged little thing, with wind-blown hair, and sun-tanned cheeks and +legs--soft, gentle, infinitely appealing, generous, loving. In the little +one that was of her, he saw her again, violet-eyed, glowing with the +glorious abundance of vigor, building wondrous castles of blue beach +clay, counting the soaring gulls against the soft blue of summer skies, +wandering, laughingly, through daisy fields, rolling, a whirling little +tumult of lace and ribbons and wildly-waving bare legs down the stacks of +fragrant hay. She had been like that. Small wonder that on her child he +lavished all the choked tenderness that cried, sometimes, so, so +piteously for outlet. + +And as for the child--'way, down deep in her little heart, she had +builded of the infinity of her love, three sky-reaching heaps, each one +bigger, and more wonderful than the other. One of these she gave to her +mother; one to her daddy; and one to "Mr. Tom." And she deemed herself +not undutiful, nor lacking in filial amity, for so doing. + +Kathryn had followed her sister into the house. Left alone with Blake, +Muriel ran swiftly to him, bounding to his knee, and clasping around his +neck strong little arms. + +"Mr. Tom," she cried, "you haven't told me a story for most a year!" + +He held her to him. + +"Haven't I, little partner?" he inquired, with infinite tenderness. +"Well, that's a grave omission, isn't it? I'll tell you one now." As she +sank down contentedly in his lap, and settled her outspreading little +skirt primly about her: "What shall it be about?" + +"A fairy story," she suggested. "A fairy story about a little girl." + +He sat for a moment, in thought; at length he began: + +"Well, once upon a time, there was a little girl--a fairy princess." + +"Was she pretty?" + +"Beautiful. Beautiful as she was good, good as she was beautiful. She was +a wonderful, wonderful princess. There was a fairy prince, too," he went +on, "a handsome, dashing--a prince that everyone loved and admired and +honored." + +She nodded, seriously. + +"Yes," she said. "Go on." + +"Now in the part of the country--it was called the Land of the Great +Unrest--there lived a gnome who was a friend of the prince and princess. +Do you know what a gnome is?" + +Little brows were bent deep in mental flagellation. Then, at length, very +eruditely, she ventured: + +"No'm is when you say no to a lady, isn't it?" + +He laughed, a little; then, seriously: + +"That's a different kind of a gnome. The kind of a gnome I mean is a fat +man, with long, thin legs and a big, round body and a funny face." + +"Oh, now I know!" she cried. "There's a picture of one in the book that +you gave me for my birthday. Only this one had whiskers and a funny cap-- +like a cornucopia." + +He nodded. + +"That's the fellow," he agreed. "That's the kind I mean--only all of them +don't have whiskers; and some of them wear yachting caps, or panamas, or +most anything.... Well, the prince and the princess loved one another, +and they got married." + +"That was nice." + +"Yes," he added; "for them. But it wasn't for the gnome. You see, the +gnome loved the princess, too." + +"Did she know it?" + +He shook his head. "No one knew it but the gnome," he returned. "And the +prince and princess were very happy. Then a little princess came to live +with them, and they were happier yet." + +"A little princess like me?" she queried, interestedly. + +"Very much like you," he assented. + +"And what did the gnome do?" + +"Why," he replied, "the gnome just went away and lived in a hole in the +ground, all alone." + +"Didn't he ever come out?" + +"Yes; he used to come out sometimes to tell fairy stories to little +girls. But he had to go back again, all alone." + +She sighed most dismally and said: + +"Poor, old gnome." + +"Poor, old gnome," he repeated. + +"And then--?" she prompted. + +"That's all." + +"Isn't there any more?" + +"No." + +She gazed up at him, disappointedly. + +"I don't think that's a very nice story," she declared. + +"Don't you?" he said; "I'm sorry, little partner. I didn't mean to tell +you that story. I--" + +He ceased speaking. Elinor was beside him. He rose to his feet, hastily, +confused. It was no little thing that he had told; it was a thing that he +had never meant to tell. It had come to his lips, as a parable; because +of the way he felt toward the child that was not his; because to her it +would never have meant anything; and because of the things inside that +had struggled for outlet so long. He wondered if she had heard, and +hearing, had understood.... He could not tell.... + +She spoke to Muriel. + +"Run in to Mawkins, dear," she instructed. Then, as the child, obedient, +scampered from the room, she turned to Blake, thrusting toward him a +letter, and concluded: + +"Read that." + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. + +A LETTER. + + +Blake took the letter. With its taking there came to him a premonition +that the things that he had suspected--the things that he had heard--the +things that to him were as unbelievable, as utterly absurd, and +ridiculous, and impossible, as might be the vainest imaginings of the +vainest, had been proven true. + +Over the first of the letter, he skipped cursorily.... At length he found +John Schuyler's name. The passage relative to the name was brief. He read +it, slowly, word by word. Then he handed back the letter to Elinor. + +She had seated herself, waiting. One knee was crossed over the other; and +over the upper, her hands were clasped. She was eyeing him keenly, +closely, eyes half closed, brows contracted. + +To her Blake turned. + +"Well?" he interrogated. + +"I've known Martha Dale for sixteen years. She, Kathryn, and I were +children together.... I think you knew her, too.... She's not the woman +to make a charge like that unless it's true." + +Blake shrugged his shoulders. A great pain shot through his heart; a +great numbness clamped his brain. He had heard things himself. He had +seen people who themselves had seen, or thought that they had seen. One +man he had knocked down. With two more, his good friends, he had +quarreled irrevocably. And in his own soul, something had told him that +it was he who was wrong. + +He said to Elinor; even as over and over and over he had said to himself: + +"There's some mistake. There must be some mistake. It's impossible." + +She eyed him shrewdly. + +"There's no mistake" she returned. "She talked with him. She saw him with +this woman. They were at the same hotel where Martha stayed. And the +morning after she came, they left.... There's no mistake." + +"But Jack wouldn't do a thing like that," he protested. + +"You're a bad liar, Tom. You knew." + +"No!" he cried. + +"You did. You know you did.... How long have you known this thing and +kept it from those who should be told?" + +"Who should be told?" + +"Kathryn." + +"No!" + +"But I say yes!" She went on, almost fiercely: "Do you think I'll have my +sister--the sister whom I love better than anyone in the whole world-- +fooled and shamed and disgraced and dishonored by a man like that?" + +He raised his hand, protestingly. + +"You wouldn't tell her!" he cried. + +She nodded, jaw set. + +"I would," she declared. + +"It would kill her!" + +"Nearly; but not quite. She has too much of her father in her for that. +And she must know. It is her right." + +"And take away her every chance of happiness--and his of redemption." + +"Her every chance of happiness is gone; as is his for redemption," she +said, bitterly. And then: "He should have thought of these things before +he did what he did.... There's one thing to be done, and only one. I +shall tell her." + +He remarked, slowly: + +"The woman's way: To bring suffering where suffering might be spared." + +She rounded on him, swiftly. + +"The man's way: to stick to the husband, and deceive the wife.... You men +have two codes of ethics--a loose, convenient one for yourselves, a +tight, uncompromising one for us. There are no two codes of ethics. Right +is right, and wrong is wrong; and there can be no compromise. When a man +marries a woman, he owes to that woman every bit as much as she owes to +him.... Suppose," she went on, tensely, "that it were Kathryn who had +done this thing--who had lied and deceived where she had promised to love +and honor. What then? Would you tell the husband, or wouldn't you?" + +He considered; and said, slowly, positively: + +"I'd lie like the devil." + +She whirled about. + +"You would?" + +"I would." + +"Well, I won't. And," she declared, lips tight pressed, jaw tight set, "I +shall tell her." + +Then from the house came Kathryn, happily, gaily. In her hand there was a +letter, a letter with a foreign post-mark, a letter that, from its jagged +end, had been torn open, with eager hands. + +"A note from Jack!" she cried. + +"What does he say?" demanded Elinor, tensely, her lithe fingers +interwoven. + +"Oh, terribly lonely," returned her sister--"trying so hard to finish his +work and get back to us. I'm adding a postscript." She seated herself +before the writing table. "Do you two want to send any messages?" + +For a moment--for a long, long moment--did Mrs. VanVorst stand, silent, +motionless. All that the thing meant that she was about to do, no one +knew better than she. She stood, silent, eyes half closed, hands +clenched. Blake watched her, shrewdly. + +After a long, long time, she took a short step forward. + +"Kate," she began. "Kate, dear. I have something to tell you." + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. + +AGAIN THE FAIRY STORY. + + +Kathryn, busy at her postscript, did not hear. Blake stepped swiftly +forward. + +"No!" he whispered. "No!" + +Elinor put him aside. + +"Kate!" she said again. + +Blake stood for a moment, hesitant. Muriel had come from the house. To +her he called. + +"Come here, little partner." + +Obediently, she came running to him. He seated himself, and took her upon +his lap. + +"Do you remember the story that I told you a little while ago?" he asked. + +She nodded. + +"Well, there's more to that story. Would you like to hear it?" He did not +wait for her answer; he spoke swiftly, surely. Elinor, across the table, +eyed him curiously. Kathryn, still writing, was oblivious quite to all +that was going on around her. + +Blake continued: + +"Well, there came a time when the prince had to go a long, long way off. +The princess was very sorry to see him go, and so was the little +princess; and they cried; but they were brave princesses, so they didn't +cry much; they stayed at home and wrote him letters with kisses in them. + +"And then,--well, the fairy prince met a witch--a wicked, wicked witch-- +and she charmed him, and took him away with her. Now the fairy princess +had a sister. She was a good woman; and, like all good women, she was +hard-headed. The sister heard about the witch, and she wanted to run +right home as fast as she could, and tell all about it. And that would +have made the princess cry, and the prince go away and die, all alone." + +The lids over the violet eyes were blinking; the lips quivered. + +"I want to cry, Mr. Tom," she complained. "That's worse than the other +story!" + +"Ah, but," went on Blake, hurriedly, "the sister didn't tell. She wasn't +hard-headed. She listened to the voice of reason, rather than to that of +intuition--" + +"What's that word you just said, Mr. Tom?" + +"Intuition?" + +She nodded. + +"Eh--ah," he hesitated, then, "why, intuition is a thing that women use +for a brain. And," he continued, "bye and bye the fairy prince managed to +get away from the wicked witch that had charmed him, and he came back +again to the fairy princess, and the little fairy princess; and though of +course he had been very, very bad--very, very wicked--he was forgiven; +and they were almost as happy as they had been before he went away.... Do +you like that story any better, little partner?" + +She was all smiles now. She nodded, brightly. + +"Heaps, and heaps, and heaps!" she cried. + +"That's good," he said, as he set her down. + +Kathryn had raised her head from her writing. + +"Fairy story, Tom?" she queried, in the half-attention of preoccupation. + +"Yes," he replied. + +"Does it end happily?" + +Ere he could have replied, her thoughts were again of her letter. + +Blake walked slowly to where stood Elinor. She was toying with a hanging +blossom of white, fragrant, spreading. Her eyes were moist; her hand +trembled. + +He asked, very softly: + +"Does it end happily, Nell?" + +She turned to him. Her lips quivered. + +"I hope so," she whispered. "Only God Himself knows how I hope so!" And +then she added slowly, "If women were only as loyal to women as men are +to men!" + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. + +AID. + + +Blake had suspected; but he had refused to believe. Now he knew. And +half an hour later, "The Vagrant," under full head of steam, was surging +down the Sound with a great, white bone in her teeth and a great, fan- +like wake spreading huge rollers from her trim stern. + +She anchored off Thirty-Fourth Street. The launch was ready almost as the +chain rattled. Blake's big French car was waiting for him at the pier; +and, with scant regard for the speed ordinances, it bore him swiftly +through the traffic-thronged streets to lower Fifth Avenue, and to the +house of Dr. DeLancey. + +The passing of the years had made but little change in either the good +doctor or his abode. His office looked the same--dry and musty. He looked +the same--shrewd and kindly. + +"Come in," he said, with the testiness that in him was cordiality +concentrated. "Come in. Don't stand there like a gump stretching my bell- +wire all out of shape. Come in. Come in." + +Blake entered. + +"Well," said the doctor, leading the way into his office. "What's the +matter now. Sick? You don't look it. If all my patients were like you and +the Schuylers, I'd starve to death." He fumbled with an old-fashioned +cedar cigar chest. "Smoke?" + +Blake took the cigar, and lighted it. + +"Well," said the doctor, again. "For heaven's sake, what's the matter! +Have you become suddenly dumb? You have a tongue, haven't you? If you +have, for goodness' sake, use it." + +Blake answered, slowly: + +"Doctor, it's about Jack Schuyler." + +The sudden little look of anxiety that sprang to the good old man's eyes +showed how much the statement meant to him. + +"About Jack Schuyler!" he exclaimed. "What about Jack Schuyler? No harm-- +he's not ill?" + +"Very, very ill, I fear," Blake responded. "I don't understand it at all. +I can't comprehend--" + +The doctor brought his old fist down upon the scratched top of his old +desk. + +"Will you stop hemming and hawing and shilly-shallying around and come to +the point!" he fairly howled. + +"It's about Jack Schuyler," repeated Blake, slowly, "and a woman." + +Doctor DeLancey started. He sat erect. + +"What!" he cried. "Jack Schuyler and a woman? You're a fool! It's +ridiculous--impossible--absurd!" + +"That's what I've been telling myself for the past month," rejoined +Blake.... "But it's not ridiculous--it's not impossible--it's not absurd. +Would to God it were!" + +"But Jack Schuyler!" protested the doctor, incredulously. "Why, I've +known him since he was born. And I knew his father, and his mother, and +his grandfather and his grandmother before him! Damme, I don't believe +it. I won't believe it!" + +"Neither did I," returned Blake. "Neither would I--until--" + +He told the doctor of the letter that had come; and of that which it +contained. In silence the doctor listened, and to the end. + +There was a pause; Blake continued: + +"I don't believe I could do anything. I'd lose my head. I want you to go +to him, to see if there isn't something that you can do. I'll pay--" + +The doctor leaped from his chair, waggling an old finger in Blake's face. + +"Pay!" he yelled. "Pay me for going to Jack Schuyler! You keep your +dashed money, my boy. When I want any, I'll ask you for it. D'ye hear me? +I'll ask you for it! When does the first boat sail?" + +"It sails to-night--in half an hour," returned Blake. "It's the +'Vagrant'.... I'm going, too.... I want to be near at hand.... Good God!" +he cried, suddenly. It was almost a wail. "To think of Jack Schuyler-- +our Jack Schuyler!--like that!" + +The doctor came in from the hall whence he had rushed. One arm was in the +sleeve of his coat. His hat was over his ear. He was vainly trying to put +his left glove on his right hand. + +"Well?" he blurted, "what are you standing there for like a bump on a +log? Why don't you get started? What's the matter with you, anyhow? Come +on!" He turned, and shouted up the stairs: "Mary! Mary! Ma-a-a-a-ry, I +say! I'm going away. Don't know when I'll be back. Ask young Dr. +Houghton, across the street, to take care of my patients until I get +home. He'll probably kill a lot of 'em; but I can't help that." + +And still shouting, still fussing with glove and sleeve, he bumbled out +the door, and down the steps to the waiting car. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. + +RESCUE. + + +Blake waited on the yacht, in the harbor of Liverpool. It was hard for +him to sit idly by at such a time; but he felt that it was best. There +was in his soul a great pity, to be sure--a great grief--a great horror-- +yet there was there too a great, deep anger, and a wild resentment; for +he loved the daughter of Jimmy Blair, you know; and it was not alone that +Jack Schuyler was his friend; it was as well that he was her husband, and +the father of her child. So he did not trust himself to go, then; for he +knew that all that he might do, Dr. DeLancey could do, and more. + +Dr. DeLancey went, then, alone. In London he found John Schuyler. He did +not announce himself; he bullied and stormed and finally persuaded those +who stood between him and his quarry, to let him go unannounced. + +He did not knock. Instead he thrust open the door and entered. Schuyler +was standing before the grate with its burden of glowing coals. He looked +up. He started, rubbing his eyes as one who sees but doesn't believe that +which his gaze tells him to be so. + +"It's you!" he cried. + +Dr. DeLancey nodded. + +"Yes," he said, simply. "Jack, I've come to take you home. The yacht's +waiting at Liverpool. Tom's boat, you know. Steam's up. So get your hat." + +Schuyler raised his hand, protestingly. + +"But," he began, "I--" + +The doctor cried, explosively: + +"Don't you try to argue with me, young man. I've neglected my practice +and let everything go to the devil to come over here, and I don't want +any of your dashed _buts_ thrown at me. You get your hat and coat and +you come with me. D'ye hear me?" + +"I can't go," said Schuyler. + +The doctor brought his flat fist down upon the center table. + +"Can't go!" he howled. "In about a split second I'll show you whether you +can't or not. You get your hat and coat! Or," he went on, "come without +'em. It's all the same to me. Parks can pack up your things, and come on +the 'Transitania,' to-morrow. You're coming now. D'ye hear me? You're +coming now--this dashed instant!" + +He advanced upon Schuyler, gripping him by the arm. Schuyler stood for a +brief moment, doggedly. Then suddenly his head dropped forward upon his +breast. + +"Very well," he acquiesced, slowly. Suddenly his voice broke. He almost +whispered: + +"I'm glad you've come, doctor.... I was helpless--utterly helpless." + +They took the train within the hour. And the following morning found the +"Vagrant" at sea, with John Schuyler on board. Yet it was a different +John Schuyler from the one they had known. He had refused to shake hands +with either Blake, or the doctor. He did not mention the woman; nor did +they. They tried to be toward him as they had always been--as though all +that had happened alone in imagination.... He did not sleep; he ate but +little; and he drank, some. + +Blake was heart-sick--soul-sick. To see the man that he had known and +loved as that man was! But Dr. DeLancey assured him: + +"It'll take a year or two. But he'll be all right in the end." + +And yet even Dr. DeLancey did not feel certain that it was the truth that +he spoke. + +In crossing, Schuyler spent much time on a long, long letter--a letter +that required much rewriting. On landing, he mailed that letter to the +daughter of Jimmy Blair. + +As, on the pier, he separated from Blake and Dr. DeLancey, in spite of +the insistent pleas of the one, and the testy commands of the other, that +he come to live with them. He said, only: + +"I shall go to a hotel. I shall stay there a fortnight. Don't come to see +me. Don't let anyone come to see me. Don't even try to find out where I +am. There's one thing, and only one, for me to do. I'm going to try to do +it.... Sometime, I hope that I may shake hands with you, Tom. Sometime I +want to shake hands with Dr. DeLancey. I want to tell you both all there +is in my heart to tell you. But that time is not yet. God bless you for +all that you've done for me." + +And, white-lipped, moist-eyed, he left them. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. + +THE RETURN. + + +The library of John Schuyler's town house was a large room, done in dull +browns and deep greens. All that good taste and a sufficient purse could +do to beautify it--to render it alike pleasing and restful to the eye, +comforting and satisfying to the soul, had been done. Carpeting was deep +and rich. The walls were panelled of mahogany, and the bookshelves sunk +into their dull depths. On either side of the door leading to the hall +hung a painting, the one a Turner, the other a Corregio. There was a +fireplace--a huge fireplace wherein might lie a four-foot log; above it a +mirrored mantel; before it the skin of a jaguar. Across from this, a +narrow flight of stairs led to the private apartments of the owner. + +It was early fall now. The roses in the garden of the Larchmont place had +withered, and fallen. It had been a dun morning, a morning of dull +gray.... Schuyler sat at the big, mahogany desk in the center of his +library. Papers lay spread upon the table before him. A decanter of cut +glass and silver lay there, also. + +The Schuyler that had come was different, very, from the Schuyler that +had gone. He was still quick, agile, alert; but there was gone from his +clean-cut face the expression of cheerful optimism--of confident +happiness--of all-spreading good-fellowship. Little wrinkles had gathered +at eye-corners--deeper were the lines that ran from nostrils to the ends +of his mouth. But these changes one might not have noticed were it not +for the eyes. For, from these the light had gone. They were as lamps +unlit. + +Yet was there one other change apparent; for while before he had +concentrated easily upon that which he had to do, now it was with +difficulty--almost, even, with impossibility. He paused, often, to pour +from the decanter a little brandy into a small glass, and to drink that +which he had poured. He rose from his chair, to stride nervously, up and +down, up and down. He seated himself only to drink again; he drank again +only to rise again; he rose again only to sit again. + +He rapped, at length, upon the little bell that lay upon the table. +Waited; then rapped again. And his brows creased in petulance. + +"Now where the devil is Parks?" he muttered, nervously. + +He waited; and drank while waiting. Then rang again the bell. + +Even as its mellow note pierced the silence of the room, the door opened, +and Parks entered. He crossed to the desk, and laid upon it a bundle of +documents that he had brought. At his clear-cut face Schuyler looked. + +"Well, here you are at last, eh? Anyone would think that I had sent you +to Singapore for those papers instead of merely upstairs." + +"I'm very sorry, sir," was Parks' quiet response. + +Schuyler took the papers, drawing them to him. + +"That's all," he said, curtly. "You may go." + +"But--" + +"I said you might go." + +Parks still hesitated. Schuyler looked at him angrily. + +"I merely wished to say," Parks spoke deferentially, even soothingly, and +possibly a bit reluctantly, "that there is a lady--" + +Schuyler interrupted, quickly. + +Parks nodded. + +"Yes, sir. The lady." + +Schuyler said, eyes closing a little: + +"A lady." + +"Well, send her--" Then, as Parks started to go: "No, tell her I'm not +here." + +"Very well, sir." + +Again Parks started to leave the room; again Schuyler stopped him. + +"Wait. I've changed my mind. I'll see her." + +He reached for the decanter of brandy, and poured into one of the glasses +an even inch of the amber liquor. He raised the glass to his lips; but +set it down again untasted; for Parks had started to speak again. + +"Also there's a van here for your wife's--pardon me, for Mrs. Schuyler's +furniture and trunks." + +Schuyler's brows contracted; there was the slightest suggestion of a +quiver at lip-ends. Then, after a long, long pause, he replied: + +"Well, let them take all that she selected.... And Parks." + +"Yes, sir?" + +"I won't see the lady after all." + +Parks nodded, and quietly withdrew. Left alone, Schuyler for some moments +sat silent and motionless before his desk. But nowadays, he could not sit +motionless for long. There was that inside his brain--inside his soul-- +which would not let him. It kept him moving--moving--moving, without +rest, without cessation; even as he had paced the deck of the liner, on +that other morning, almost until the day had come to claim again from the +night that which was its own. + +Of a sudden he rose from his chair. Swift strides took him across the +room. Quickly, nervously, he drew back the curtain from the window.... He +could see, beneath him in the street, the van that had come for the +belongings of his wife--of the woman who had borne him his child--the +child which he had not seen since, upon the dock, she had waved him +farewell. + +John Schuyler had wandered into the Unknown. Unwillingly, knowing full +well what he was doing, but powerless to help--powerless to prevent--he +had gone.... Sometimes it did not seem real to him. It was a nightmare-- +a horrid, horrible, awful, grewsome, rotten dream, a dream that brought +to his nostrils a stench--to his soul a coldness unutterable--a coldness +beside which that of death might seem a grateful warmth.... He would wake +sometimes from his dreams, a cold sweat enveloping him like a pall, a +scream upon his lips.... And then, again--He did not understand. He could +not understand. It was hopeless, utterly, utterly hopeless.... Why should +such things be? How could such things be? There was a God, presumably. +Presumably, that God was good.... There was no logic in it--no reason in +it.... What did it all mean? "Why?" he asked himself, again and again, +and yet again. "Why?" ... There had been no answer.... + +He watched the van load. He watched the heavy horses throw themselves +into the traces, as the whip fell across their flanks. He watched the van +slowly gather momentum. He watched it rumble heavily down the sodden +asphalt.... At length it turned the corner.... + +John Schuyler swung on his heel. And then he laughed; it was a laugh +that, God grant, you may never laugh, nor I! + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. + +THE RED ROSE. + + +He did not see her enter. He did not hear her enter. Yet he knew that +she was there, although he had left her across an ocean.... Another +sense, it seemed, there was within him.... He knew that she had crossed +the room; that she was leaning, rounded arms all bare, across the back of +the great chair, by the window. He did not know; he had not looked; yet +he could see her, beautiful, gloriously beautiful in her strange, weird, +dark beauty; head poised like a tiger lily upon its stalk; great masses +of dead black hair coiled in the disorder that, of her, was order above +the low, white forehead; vivid lips parted to reveal the gleam of shining +teeth; long, lithe limbs in the easy relaxation that is of the panther, +or the leopard. + +At length he turned.... She was there. She was as he, unseeing, had seen; +as he had known that he should see.... He had ceased to wonder. The +Unknown had taught him so much that of the things it had not taught, he +had ceased to wonder.... + +He looked; and looked away. She laughed, a little, lightly. She turned a +little, lissomely. He could see the muscles of her straight, slender +shape ripple beneath the shimmering black gown. + +At length he spoke, roughly, gruffly: + +"Well?" + +Almost caressingly, she answered: + +"Well?" + +"So you've come to gaze upon the ruin you have wrought, eh?" + +Again she laughed. + +"Upon the ruin _we_ have wrought, My Fool," she corrected. + +"Don't call me that," he muttered. "It hurts. It hurts because it's +true." + +"Most truths hurt," she remarked, smilingly. + +"Now," he mumbled, "yes...." And then: "You're satisfied, I hope. She's +gone." + +"Gone?" It was a pretty inflection--the rising inflection of great +surprise. Her eyes, glowing of merriment, belied her lips. + +"Gone," he repeated, doggedly. "Gone, and taken the child--my child--our +child--with her." + +She glided across to where he sat; she leaned over him. + +"And you're sorry, I suppose," she asked, mockingly. "Heart-broken!" + +"Yes, by God! I am!" he cried, from the soul. + +There came from her lips a peal of merry, musical laughter. + +"The man of it! Every man wants two women--one to love, and one to +respect; one to caress, the other to honor; one to please himself, the +other to please his friends. And you're no different from the rest that I +have known." + +He looked up at her, eye laden of hate, and scorn. + +"The rest that you have known!" he retorted, with bitterness, with +meaning. + +"The rest that I have known," she returned, evenly, lightly. + +"Young Parmalee, and Rogers, and Seward Van Dam--and God knows how many +more!" + +She laughed. + +"Jealous, eh? That is as it should be, My Fool." She laid her hand +lightly on his shoulder. Roughly he took it, casting it from him. + +"Damn you!" he cried. "Let me alone!" + +She drew up, stiffly, but speaking softly, said, + +"So?" + +"I--I didn't mean it that way," he apologized. + +"I wonder if you ever spoke that way to her--the other.... You didn't," +came from her slowly. + +He shook his head. + +"No," he replied. + +The Woman seated herself upon the arm of his chair, lithely. + +"And do you know why?" + +Again he shook his head. + +"Because you never loved her as you love me. A man is as rough sometimes +to the woman he loves as at other times he is sweet." She plucked a +scarlet rose from the great cluster that she wore at her breast, dangling +it in one white hand, lazily, sensuously. + +"You know well of men, don't you," Schuyler remarked, bitterly, + +"Well enough" she replied, lightly. "And that is why, when you said, +'Damn you, let me alone!' that I didn't say, 'Damn you!'" she struck him +lightly across the face with the scarlet blossom, "and go." Then, with +abrupt transition: "That and because I love you." + +He laughed, mirthlessly. + +"Because you love me!" he cried, his voice all scorn. "Because you love +me! Does love then bring disgrace, and ruin, and dishonor upon the object +of its lavishment? Does it? Does it?" + +She had sunk upon the floor at his feet. Her legs were drawn beneath her; +she poised herself upon her supple white arms, looking up at him. + +"Sometimes," she returned, evenly. "Even as it brings joy, and ecstasy +and happiness untold.... And it does bring that," she purred, sibilantly. +"Doesn't it, My Fool?" + +He leaned forward, drawing her to him. + +"You know it," he cried.... "You know it!" + +She saw beginning to glow in the leaden eyes the light that she alone +knew how to kindle.... It pleased her.... It pleased her also to blight +it at her will. She laughed. She knew as well how to blight as how to +kindle. She knew also how to twist a soul in torment; and how to swirl it +to the false heaven of unreal joys. For she, of the Unknown, knew much-- +more, perhaps, than of the known. She said, laughing janglingly: + +"But did you ever think, My Fool, that there are different loves?" + +He sunk back into his chair. The eyes again were leaden. His head bent. +She leaned forward, taking from a vase on the table a nodding white +blossom. + +"One love," she went on, "is like the white rose--pallid, pale, wistful, +weak--a lifeless thing that lies dead against the hand that holds it-- +that wearies the eye and chills the soul.... The other love is like the +red rose--rich, rare, glowing, glorious--that thrills the heart with the +joy of living and quickens the blood in the veins until the very soul +cries out in the frenzy of its fragrance--a pulsing, throbbing love of +body and soul and heart and head, that rushes upon one like a storm at +sea, dashing one hither and thither, impotent in its tearing, tossing +grip.... That is our love--the Red Love--and it is sweet, is it not, My +Fool?" + +She bent over him, watching the light again leap to the heavy eyes as he +answered: + +"Sweet? Sweet as Paradise--a false Paradise, perhaps; but still Paradise! +Those days on the Mediterranean, the sea no bluer than the sky that held +it in its sunlit hand--and Venice--Venice, with the great, round moon +overhead, and the mysterious semi-darkness all about--the splashing of +soft waters there beside us and the silent whisper of the lazy oar--and +just you and I--alone amid all the glories--side by side--heart in heart-- +soul in soul." With a great choking sob: "It was sweet, Lady Fair! +Sweet!" + +The Woman continued: + +"And there are two roads through life even as there are two roses. The +one is a rough road and weary, and on it happiness seldom treads. It is a +plodding road, flat and long; and there you walk with stale and barren +people, through a stale and barren land, until you come to an ending yet +more stale and more barren than are road or people. That is the road of +the White Rose. But the Road of the Red Rose! That's different! On the +Road of the Red Rose there is laughter and light, and happiness and joy! +Flowers bloom; birds sing. There come the soft wash of the sea--the +silent whisper of the breeze--the call of Love!" + +She rose lithely to her feet. In one hand she held the bending white +blossom; in the other the crimson. Suddenly she thrust them toward him, +body bent, lips parted, and cried, sibilantly: + +"Which rose do you choose, My Fool? Which Road?" + +Roughly he struck from her hand the drooping flower of white. That of red +was crushed between them as he seized her in his arms and drew her to +him. + +"The red rose!" he cried. "And the Red Road! And we'll travel to the end, +and beyond!" + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN. + +THE RED ROAD. + + +From across the table she was laughing at him, brightly, merrily-- +laughing to see the havoc that she had wrought in the soul of a man. He +turned to her, almost savagely. + +"You do love me, Lady Fair, don't you?" he almost pleaded. "You must love +me, knowing as you do all that I have given up for you." He pointed to a +heap of carelessly-tossed letters upon desk-top. "Do you see those?" he +demanded. "The first from Washington--the President--demanding my +resignation. Following that, curt requests that I withdraw from positions +of trust that I held. My wife crushed--my child disgraced--my friends +gone--! God in heaven! What haven't I given you, Lady Fair!" + +"I thank you," she responded, most graciously, bending low, "And I have +given you what? Myself. Is that less than a fair exchange?" + +"Not if I may keep that self mine, and mine alone, for all time. But may +I?" + +"Can you doubt it?" she queried, with a lifting of arched brows. + +"There was Parmalee--" + +"A silly boy. I never cared for him!" + +"And Rogers--" + +"Interesting--only interesting--and only at first. Then tiresome!" + +"And Seward Van Dam." + +"Next to you, a man," she cried. "But like you, insanely jealous, and +unreasonable." + +"And in the end, perhaps," he said slowly, very slowly, "I shall be like +him." He sat for a moment, silent. At length he continued: "But if it +were to be I, I alone, for all time, could it last--this Red Love of +ours? Could it? ... Could it?" + +She leaned forward. + +"Why not?" she asked, lightly. "Why not?" + +Leaden eyes were gazing out into nothingness. + +"Age comes," he said. His voice was low, and deep, and dead. "The body +withers. The brain grows dull. The blood becomes thin. The soul gets +weary. And the power to live as once we lived is taken from us. We sit +white-haired, blue-veined, drinking in the sun through shrivelled pores +to drive the chill from our shrunken frames. It will come to you--to me-- +to all of us. And neither man, nor God may stop it." + +There had come to her face an expression as of a great fear. This man who +knew so little, was teaching of that little to her, who knew so much.... +At length she swept that fear from her, as one might brush aside the ugly +web of a sullen spider.... Again she was the woman who did not know the +Known, but only the Unknown. + +She asked, lightly: + +"Why worry over the years to come when the days that are are ours.... +There is happiness in the days that are?" + +Her voice was very soft. Again dull eyes gleamed; he exclaimed: + +"Happiness! I did not dream there could be a happiness like this!" + +Her slender arm was about his neck; he could feel the glow of its warmth. +Her voice was soothing--infinitely soothing, and musical beyond the +telling. + +"Then keep a-dreaming, My Fool," she purred, softly. It was almost a +whisper. "Keep a-dreaming." + +"Would to God I could!" he cried, earnestly. "Would to God I could, +forever! The memories of a thousand joys are with me always. Love? What +is this love? A golden leaf of happiness floating on the summer seas of +life. A silver star of utter joy set in the soft heavens of eternity. A +dream that is a reality; a reality that is a dream.... But the storm +comes upon the sea. Black clouds blot out the stars. And there can be no +dream from which there is no awakening." + +"Yet," she cajoled, "while the sea smiles--while the star shines--while +we dream--there is happiness to pay for all." + +"To pay for all, and more!" Again he turned upon her, swiftly. "Yet in +the golden aura of that happiness, there always stand three sodden souls +pointing stark fingers at me in ghoulish glee.... Parmalee--Rogers-- +VanDam.... If I thought--if I for one moment thought--that I should be as +they, I'd--" + +She stopped him, quickly: + +"You'd what, My Fool?" + +"I'd kill you where you stand!" he replied, savagely. + +She laughed, gaily, clapping soft palms. + +"That's the way I love you best, My Fool. It shows spirit, and manhood, +and good, red blood--red, like our roses!" She plucked from her breast a +handful of scarlet petals, casting them above her head. They fell about +them both, a glowing shower. She went on: "How for a moment you could +have imagined that you love the woman you call wife--a soft, silly, +namby-pamby--" + +He was on his feet now, fierce, primal, brutal--all the manhood that was +left of him straight and rigid. + +"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't you dare say one word against her, or by +God, I'll--" + +She interrupted, rising haughtily before him, and said coldly, +incisively: + +"You forget yourself. You humiliate yourself. You insult me. I'll say +what I please of whom I please." + +"You'll keep your tongue off her, and off the little one!" + +"I'll not if I choose not!" + +"You will!" + +She laughed. He stood for a moment, poised in anger. Then the momentary +flash of righteous wrath was gone. He turned, slowly, from her. + +She remarked, lightly, scornfully: + +"The man of it, and again the fool of it. You would protect her who has +scorned, and flouted, and humiliated you." + +"The fault was mine," he flashed. "And you know it; and I know it." + +"Then why did you do it?" + +He shook his head, eyes again leaden. + +"God knows," he whispered. + +She stood for a moment; then again laughter rippled from the red lips. + +"But why should we quarrel?" she asked, gently. "There are things in life +more sweet." She went to him, leaning toward him, beautiful arms +extended, lissome body bent. + +"A kiss, My Fool," she whispered. + +He turned from her. + +"No," he cried. + +She smiled. + +"I said, 'A kiss, My Fool!'" she repeated. + +"I heard." + +Her eyes were on him.... Slowly he turned.... The set jaw relaxed; the +straight limned lips weakened.... He looked at her. + +Her lips now were almost upon his own; her eyes were very close to his. +Again she whispered; softly, sibilantly, caressingly: + +"A kiss, My Fool!" + + * * * * * + +He thrust her from him. + +"You devil!" he cried. "I love you--and I hate you! You are beautiful-- +and you're ugly! You are sweeter than the last of life--and more bitter +than the sodden shame of a secret sin!" + +She replied, lightly, arranging the masses of her hair with deft, slender +fingers: + +"All of which is quite as it should be, My Fool; for the hate makes the +love but the more poignant; the ugliness is but a fair setting for the +beauty; and sweetness in bitterness is far more sweet than sweetness +alone." + +Her mood was different now. He had sunk into the great chair. She seated +herself upon its arm; her head sunk to his; her cheek against his.... And +again he kissed her, on the lips. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. + +THE BATTLE. + + +The car stopped before the porte-cochere. Blake alighted. He knew well +the way. He did not ring; for the door was unlocked--ajar. Jaw close set-- +lips but a thin straight line, he made his way down the great, dark, +silent hall. He had come to do that which it were hard to do. When one +has been the friend of such a man as John Schuyler was--when one has felt +toward a man as such a man as John Schuyler must be felt toward--when one +has known that man to do the things that he has done--when one has seen +the misery--the suffering unutterable that he has caused--the shame +beyond depth, the grief beyond measurement--and when she upon whom has +been heaped this shame and grief and misery and suffering unutterable is +the woman one loves--then it becomes not a little thing to go to that man +without murder in one's heart and vengeance in one's soul. + +Blake knew where he was most likely to find the man that had been his +friend. There he went, thrusting open the broad door. He paused upon the +threshold.... + +The woman, lifted her head.... She moved away from Schuyler, arranging +the dead black masses of her hair.... She laughed a little. + +Schuyler turned. Eyes again leaden saw Blake. + +"You!" he cried. + +Blake said no word. + +Schuyler laughed, raucously. + +"So you, of all, have not decided to flee from the leper." + +Blake, looking at him, said, slowly: + +"No; I stay behind and stand the stench for the sake of him who was my +friend." + +"Is the stench then so great that it precludes the common courtesy of +announcing your presence?" + +Blake made no answer to this. + +"I wish to see you alone," he said, simply. + +Schuyler half swung from him. + +"You may see me as I am." he returned, doggedly. + +"And a most damnably unpleasant sight it is." + +Schuyler wheeled. + +"You go too far," he said, threateningly. + +"Too far?" repeated Blake. "Impossible.... I wish to see you alone--if +you, and this woman--dare." + +She, smiling, bowed, graciously. + +"By all means," she agreed, easily. + +"No!" cried Schuyler. "Stay where you are." + +She shook her head. + +"Pray pardon me. I'll wait in the morning room." + +Alone, Blake turned and looked at Schuyler. Could it be that this was the +man that had been his friend? ... It must be; and yet how could it be? +There was in his heart a great bitterness. He could not understand.... + +Schuyler had turned to him. + +"Look here, Tom," he began, doggedly, "before you begin, I wish to tell +you that it is useless. Nothing that you can say will change me in the +slightest. I've made up my mind; and my decision is unalterable." + +"Irrevocable, is the word." + +"As you will.... I'm sorry if the course I choose doesn't seem right to +you--to the world--sometimes even to myself--and I'll confess to you that +it doesn't--But, right, or wrong, it's the only one for me, and I must +take it--must, whether I will or not. So, if you've come for a cigar and +a chat, well and good. But if for anything else, go and avoid trouble." + +"I'm looking for trouble," returned Blake, quietly. He advanced to the +table and leaned against it. "Jack," he exclaimed, "you're a damned fool. +There was some excuse for the others. Parmalee was a kid--Rogers an old +fool--Van Dam--well, absinthe and asininity account for him. And they +fell to their fooldom without warning to guard them or precedent to +shield them. But you--open-eyed, knowing everything--forewarned and +forearmed,--walk fatuously to your doom as one sheep follows another over +a precipice. I swear I can't even yet believe that it isn't all a dream. +I keep pinching myself and saying to myself that in the morning I'll wake +up and go around and tell old Jack all about it as being a good joke. +It's an uncanny, filthy sort of a nightmare as it stands, however." He +turned to the other; Schuyler was striding up and down the room. "Old +man," he pleaded, quietly, "what's the answer?" + +Schuyler stopped in his walk. Looking at Blake, he remarked: + +"You've never loved. You couldn't know." + +"Never loved!" cried Blake, scornfully. "Couldn't know! Hell! You make me +tired! What do you mean by debauching and degrading a good, pure word +like love by applying it to this snaky, bestial fascination of yours. +You're a fool!" + +Schuyler advanced upon him, threateningly. + +"Don't you call me that, too," he said, tensely. + +Blake paid no heed. + +"Love!" he cried, disgustedly. "This sordid, sodden passion of yours +love! Love lives only where there is sympathy, and respect, and mutual +understanding. Do you mean to tell me that you have any respect for this +woman? You know well you haven't a bit more respect for her than she has +for you, and that's none. Do you mean to tell me there's any sympathy +between you? No more than there is between a snake and a bird. And you +aren't capable of understanding her any more than she is of understanding +you. Love! It's lust! And you know it!" + +Schuyler had dropped into a chair. Blake finished. He swung toward him. + +"Go on!" he almost hissed, through clenched teeth. "Go on! If you can +tell me anything that I haven't told myself, I'd like to hear it. Tell me +what you think. Tell me what everyone thinks. Put into words the scorn +and contempt that I see in every eye that looks into mine--in every +mirror that I look into. Go on! Tell me something else! But let me tell +you one thing! When Destiny can't get a man any other way, she sends a +woman for him.... And the woman gets him." + +Blake looked at him. + +"'A fool there was';" he quoted. Schuyler interrupted. + +"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't you suppose I know that thing by heart-- +every syllable--every letter of it? Don't you suppose I know what it +means--all that it means--better than you can ever know?" He struck his +forehead with clenched fist. "Tell me the things that lie here!" his +voice was almost a scream. "The things that lie here, and burn, and burn, +and burn! Tell me the things that lie here!" He struck his forehead +again. + +"I'll tell you this," said Blake, voice cold, and ringing. "It was +written for you by a man who knew you; and you'll listen." + +"No!" protested Schuyler. He started to rise from his chair. But Blake, +catching him by the shoulders, thrust him back, holding him pinioned. +"You fool," he remarked, bitterly. "You poor, pitiful, puling fool! +'Honor, and faith, and a sure intent'--a wife, a child, a reputation, a +character. 'Stripped to his foolish hide,' the poem reads. But you're +stripped to your naked, sodden skeleton. If I weren't so sorry for you, I +could cut your throat. When I think of the little girl--calling you +daddy--honoring you--loving you--and of what you've done for her! When I +think of your wife--of the woman who went through the pains of childbirth +for you--who held you sacred in that great, loving, glorious heart of +hers--who gave, and gave, and gave asking only that there might be the +more to give--You say that maybe I don't know what love is. Well, maybe I +don't--and maybe I do. There are some things that a man may not tell his +best friend--there are some things that a man may not even tell himself. +But I'm different from you, thank God, and I love differently." + +He moved back. Schuyler remained seated. Leaden eyes had in them now a +new light--the light of suffering refined. Blake commanded: + +"Stand up. Look me in the eye, as man to man--if you can." + +Swiftly Schuyler rose to his feet. The two men stood face to face, eye to +eye. + +"Now," cried Blake, hope in his heart--hope ringing in his voice, "will +you be a man, or a thing that earth, nor heaven, nor even hell has room +for?" + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. + +DEFEAT. + + +Came from the door of the morning room a light, ringing, musical laugh. +The woman stood there, white arms extended above her head, hands resting +on door sides. + +Schuyler fell back a step. Blake turned. + +Again she laughed, lightly, ripplingly. And then: + +"What a splendid revivalist was lost to the world when your friend became +a mere broker!" And to Blake: "Why once or twice I myself became almost +enthusiastic. Really, sir, you are a most convincing speaker--though if +you will pardon a well-meant criticism, your low tones are a bit harsh." + +There was in Blake's heart a great bitterness. When first he had come to +see the man that had been his friend, there had been in his breast but +little hope. Later, however, he had understood better; and there had +awakened within him an idea that perhaps, after all, it was not too late-- +and then had come confidence, and the desire to fight. And he had +fought. He had almost won. But now, he knew that he had lost; for in +Schuyler's eyes he saw dull, hopeless docility, and in The Woman's, +conscious power and strength beyond measure. + +He turned. He looked at this woman who was his foe--his victor. + +Slowly he said: + +"There is supposed to be honor among thieves. Apparently there is none +among libertines." + +He took his hat from where it lay amid the confusion of the table. He +bowed, first to the woman, then to Schuyler. He was a proud man--a strong +man. It hurt him to lose--and the more because the stake had been so +great.... He passed across the room, and through the door, closing it +behind him. + +Upon the woman, still laughing in the delight of her success, Schuyler +rounded. There was in his heart, too, a great bitterness--a great hurt. +For he, too, realized how near he had been to salvation--and that +realization made the present distance seem yet greater than ever before; +and God alone knew how great that was. + +"I hope you're satisfied," he remarked, dully. "Now even he has gone. +You've broken the last link that bound me to the life that was." + +Again she laughed, ringingly, merrily. + +Then the greatness of his wrath obsessed him. + +"Laugh!" he cried, wildly. "Laugh at your fool!--the helpless, spineless, +soulless fool who does your bidding even to the depths of hell! Laugh! ... +Laugh! ..." Suddenly, his body seemed to wither. He leaned weakly against +the back of the great chair.... His head sunk slowly upon his arms.... + +There came suddenly from the stairway a little, delighted, cry in +childish treble. + +"Daddy! Daddy, dear!" + +Schuyler, head buried, thought at first that it was but within himself +that he heard--that it was that other sense--that unknown sense--that had +called him.... The cry came again.... Slowly he raised his head, and +looked.... + +A great, cold clutch tore his heart. His veins stiffened. His head +reeled. He staggered, back, clutching for support, at the chair. Even +this had come to him! + +It was she--his daughter--the child of his wife, and of himself--the +child that had been his to love when still he had been man. + +The little one was scampering down the stairs, tiny feet pattering upon +thick carpet. Her eyes were dancing; her lips smiling; there was in her +the great, unequivocating, unquestioning gladness of the young. + +"Daddy!" she cried, again, all delight. "Daddy, dear!" + +He hesitated.... Then swiftly he ran to her, seizing her in eager, +thrilling arms, hiding her face against his breast, that she might not +see--Yet was it too late. + +"Oh, what a beautiful lady, daddy!" cried the little one. "Who is she?" + +He gasped. He choked. He could not answer.... The woman stood looking on, +smiling--still smiling. + +At length he found words: + +"How did you come here, little sweetheart?" he asked. + +"I runned away," she returned. "I was in the Park, with Mawkins. I left +her while she was talking to a p'liceman.... Oh, daddy, dear! When are we +coming home? I miss you so much!" + +The woman moved forward, eyes upon the kneeling, soul-torn man; and upon +the little child that was his. + +"Another advocate!" she said. "It has been skilfully planned." + +"What does she mean, daddy?" queried the child. + +He answered, quickly: + +"Nothing, dearie." + +The woman stepped forward. He hurriedly drew the child from her.... Again +she smiled, a little.... There were some things that she understood, that +were of the Known. + +The child was speaking: + +"And, daddy," she said, "mother dear isn't a bit well. Mawkins and I are +dreadfully worried about her." + +"What's the matter with mother?" he asked, quickly. "Tell me!" + +The child shook her head. + +"She cries most all the time," she replied. "And when I ask her what the +matter is, she just shakes her head and says, 'Nothing, dearie. Mother's +tired.' But people don't cry because they're tired, do they, daddy?" + +He did not answer. Head sunk in hands, the bitterness of it all--the +awful, ghastly, horror of the things that he had done--was obsessing him +body and soul and brain and heart. The fires of the uttermost hell were +flaring through his very being. + +Then it was that the woman beckoned to the child of the man that belonged +to her. + +"Come here, dear," she said, voice modulated. The man might not hear yet. + +The child hesitated. + +"I'd rather not," she replied. + +The woman bent forward, swiftly, undulatingly, as a snake strikes. She +seized the child, clasping her to her. And once, twice, thrice, she +kissed her, on the lips.... The man awoke. He staggered to his feet.... +Through the door came Blake. He, too, saw; and while he did not +understand all, he understood enough. + +Across the room he sprang. He tore the child from the now yielding arms +of the woman! Holding tight against him the little one that he loved as +his own, he turned savagely upon the man who had once been his friend. + +"To think that any human thing could sink so low!" he almost hissed.... +And he was gone, taking with him the child he loved. + +It is safe to play with a soul just so far--sometimes it is safe to play +even farther, when one really knows one's strength.... The woman had +possibly overestimated her prowess--and yet possibly she had not--it were +hard to tell of one who knows the things that we do not--who does not +know the things that we do. There was manhood, and honor, and decency in +Schuyler yet--a little, of a sort. He struck her in the face--full upon +the vivid, crimson lips--and a little of their crimson seemed to leave +its lair. It trickled down upon the dead whiteness of her skin.... But +she still smiled. Her white arms went forth languorously. Her lithe, +slender, beautiful body undulated. Her eyes were on his.... She still +smiled.... + +Again he struck her.... Still she smiled.... Her eyes looked into his. + +He raised his hand to strike again.... The hand did not fall.... Her eyes +were on his; and she still smiled.... She gauged her power well. Perhaps, +at times, she flattered it, a little--but never much.... She still +smiled.... Perhaps, it was that which she desired. It were hard to tell. +For, after all.... + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY. + +AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. + + +Blake, leaving the house, lifted Muriel into the big, French car and got +in beside her. Her little mind was in great puzzlement; and of Blake she +began to ask the countless questions that flew to her lips. "Why was +daddy living there, when mother dear and she were with Aunt Elinor?" "Who +was the lady that she had seen, and did he know her?" "Was daddy living +there all alone, and when was he coming to live with them, as he used?" +and many, many more. + +Some of them Blake answered as best he could; others he evaded. His heart +ached within him sorely.... Almost he wished that he were a woman; the +relief of tears would have meant much. + +With childish, wondering question stinging deeper and yet more deep, he +watched the stream of traffic swirl past--car and cab, brougham and 'bus. +They were on the Avenue--Fifth Avenue, like which there is no other +street in our land. + +On they went, past great club, past rows of magnificent residences, past +towering church and staid old dwelling. They came at length to the Plaza, +with its hotels, and glistening statue. The Park lay to the left, a thing +of green, with its arching trees. Uniformed nurses were wheeling little +perambulators; others were watching active, tousled-headed little +charges. Anon there flashed past a group of galloping riders. + +At length they turned into a side street. The car stopped before a house +of brick and stone, with wrought-iron lattices. Blake got out, lifting +the child. + +The butler admitted them. Mrs. VanVorst was in, he said, in response to +Blake's query; Mrs. Schuyler was out.... + +It had been some time since Blake had seen Kathryn. She had been very +ill, very ill--ill almost unto death. This had followed the receipt of a +letter from John Schuyler--a letter which made futile all their efforts +to spare her suffering--a letter in which he had been condemned of his +own hand. Dr. DeLancey had labored hard, and well. In the end she was +saved. But Dr. DeLancey was an old man--a very old man; and, when he had +seen that she was saved, he himself had passed away. Possibly it was as +well; for he was a lonely old man, you know; and those few whom he loved +had brought him much suffering. It was a strange letter, that letter that +had wrought so much--a letter utterly unlike the man who wrote it. It +was, in part: + +"... God himself only knows how I feel. I can scarce believe that it is +I who write. And yet it must be I. There is no such thing as redemption-- +no such thing as hope--no such thing as palliation, or excuse. It is +simply an end of me that is not death. Would to God it were. Death would +be welcome--even a death of torture refined. There is nothing that I +could say that you would understand for nothing that I could say would I +myself understand. It is simply the end.... I hope I am insane. Yet I +fear that I am not.... I am a ship without a rudder. My will is gone from +me; I have no volition of my own--no soul--nothing. All that is left of +me is a body, and the power still to suffer, and for the rest, only a +great emptiness, and a greater pain." + +Kathryn had fainted, when she received that letter. Then fever had come, +and with it, delirium. Which was merciful. For weeks she lay closer to +death than to life.... Now she was better; and yet far from well. Violet +eyes were sad--dull. Brown-gold flesh was pallid. She moved with languor. + +For weeks no word of all that meant so much was spoken; it was a topic +carefully avoided. + +One day Kathryn had said that she must go to see Schuyler. They had tried +to dissuade her; without success. This was to have been the day. So Blake +himself had gone, eager to bear for her the shock, should there be a +shock to be borne; and if not, to render easy her going. + +Elinor met him as he entered the drawing room. He set the child down, +bidding her go find her nurse; then he turned to Mrs. VanVorst. + +"I have seen him," he said, simply. + +She looked the query that there was no need for lips to speak. + +He shook his head. + +"It is impossible," he declared. "Quite impossible. She was there." + +"We must dissuade Kathryn from going, then," said Elinor. + +He smiled, grimly, sadly. + +"It will not be hard, I fear. Muriel was there, too." + +And that was why Kathryn Schuyler did not go, then, to John Schuyler. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. + +THAT WHICH MEN SAID. + + +A winter had come, and gone. It had been a bitter winter, and a cold. +For Kathryn Schuyler had it been a bitter winter, indeed. Sick of heart, +sick of body, she had stayed in the city, going out not at all, seeing of +all her friends only Blake, trying with all her pride, with all her +strength, to adjust herself to the new order of things. It had been a +weary winter--a winter that dragged along on laggard feet, loitering, +waiting. + +The love of Muriel, the sympathy of Elinor, the devotion of Blake were in +it the only bits of brightness. She felt strange--lost--astray. By day, +she was dull, listless. At night sometimes, she slept a little; at others +she would bury her face in her tumbled pillow, and her lithe body would +heave with the wracking of her sobs; for the entire structure of her life +had been ruthlessly torn down by the hand of one man. It seemed to her +that from its ruin nothing might ever be erected. + +She told this to Blake, one day. Side by side, they had been sitting by +the window, gazing out into a sleet-swept street where horses slipped and +slid, and hurrying foot-passengers passed with heads buried in collars, +or furs. + +He had said but little in reply--merely that there are things in this +world that we do not know, and that happiness sometimes come whence we +least expect it. He did not say these things with any great degree of +confidence. In his own life, there had been but little save longing +unsatisfied, prayers ungranted. But she took from it comfort--even though +there seemed in it so pitifully little from which comfort might be +derived. Perhaps it was the way in which he said it; or perhaps it was +because it was he who said it. + +However, winter at length dragged out its weary life to its weary end. +Spring came, and with it the soft green of the new born grass, and the +lighter shoots of crocus, and lily, and the buds of the trees. Spring +grew; and the stolid phalanx of city homes began to don their summer +armor of boards, and blinds and shaded windows. + +And then the Larchmont place was opened. John Schuyler had sent to +Kathryn the deed of it; the one request that he had made was that she +continue to live there--that she take Muriel there. + +During all this time no word of him had come to her. Blake had heard. But +no word had he said to Kathryn, because of the things that he had heard. +A man of the breadth of acquaintance, of the breadth of interests, that +was John Schuyler's may not fall to desuetude unwatchful. And Blake +heard, at clubs, at theatres, wherever men congregate, of Schuyler, and +of the life that was his. And he, as little as they, could explain. + +Schuyler was drinking, they told him--drinking hard. The woman? Was she +still in New York? Yes; she had been seen at the opera; she had been seen +driving in the Mall. A damnable strange case, the whole thing. Grewsome! +And, save Blake, they would wash the taste of it all from their mouths +with liquor. Devilishly good fellow, Schuyler. Brainy, too. He would have +been one of the big men of the country, if it hadn't been for this. + +A chance to save him? They shook their heads, and smiled, grimly. You +know how it is, yourself. When a man gets into the hands of a woman like +that, what can you do? Say anything against her, and you have to fight +him. Tell him he's a fool and he tells you to mind your own business. Try +to reason with him, then? If the man had any reason left in him, there +would be no occasion to reason. It's hard, true. But your hands are tied. +It's just, "Good-bye," and a prayer for the next man.... So they +reasoned. And could Blake say that they were wrong? ... Could you? + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO. + +IN THE GARDEN. + + +Kathryn stood beside the blossom-laden arbor, culling fragrant tender +blossoms from the wealth before her. Beside her, Muriel, little skirt +upheld, received them. + +"Mother, dear," said the child, at length. + +"Yes, honey?" + +"Does God make roses?" + +"Yes, dearie." + +"Who made God?" + +Her mother smiled. "He made Himself. God makes everything, dearie." + +With troubled brows the little one asked: + +"Did God sit down when He made His feet?" + +Came from the house Elinor. She moved lithely, swiftly, now. The old tan +had come back to her cheek; she was no longer an invalid. + +"More roses, Kate?" she asked, brightly. + +Kathryn nodded. + +"Yes," she said. "It seems almost brutal to cut them, doesn't it? But I +love them in my room; and they won't grow there." + +"Then sleep out here. It's quite the thing, nowadays." + +Kathryn smiled a little. + +"You're so frightfully lacking in sensibilities, Nell." + +"And," returned her practical sister, "a lot more comfortable because I +am." She seated herself. "Tom's back," she announced. + +A quick little gleam of gladness sprang to the violet eyes. + +"Is he?" + +Elinor nodded, nonchalantly. + +"Yes, that floating palace of his dropped anchor about ten minutes ago. +They were lowering a launch as I came downstairs." + +"Oh!" cried Muriel, excitedly dropping the roses to the lawn. "There he +is now! I can hear him winding up his boat!" + +She rang at headlong speed through that arbor way. Another moment and +Blake had entered, carrying her in his arms. Kathryn extended her hand to +him; he took it in warm, firm, friendly clasp. Elinor nodded. + +"'Lo, Tom," was her salutation. + +"'Lo, Nell," he returned. "You're getting fat." + +"The same to you, and many of 'em," she replied. "Have a good time?" + +"Oh, the same old sea-saw." He shrugged broad shoulders. "This running a +sailors' boarding house isn't what it's cracked up to be. We hit a three- +day executive session of a northeast storm off the Banks that kept us +exceedingly busy. Everyone on board was seasick--except the cook." + +"Tom," interrupted Kathryn, "I wish you'd come into the library a moment. +My lawyers have sent me some papers to sign and return, and I can't make +head nor tail of them." + +"Of course you can't," he said, assuringly. "I never know what my lawyers +are doing. If I did, I'd fire them and do it myself. And they realize it. +A lawyer can order a fried egg, cooked on one side only, and make it +sound like a royal proclamation announcing a total change of the currency +system. They're like doctors and clairvoyants. Their graft lies in being +mysterious. Why does a doctor call pink eye _muco puerpural +conjunctivitis_? Because pink eye is not worth more than a dollar at +the outside; but when he hands you _muco puerpural conjunctivitis_, +he can get twenty-five at least before you wake up and say, 'Where am +I?'" + +His humor, perhaps, was forced; possibly there was nothing funny in what +he said; but they laughed. There was always a tension at "Grey Rocks," +now--always a strain. It needed little to relieve it; it needed that +little badly. Blake gave to that little all that he could. + +Even the child felt the tension, and the strain of it. She could not have +told what it was; but she missed something beside her daddy, infinite was +her longing for him, and her loneliness without him. + +At times she used to beg the dignified Roberts to play buck-jump, and +tag, with her, as "daddy used to do." And this she did while Blake and +her mother and her Aunt Elinor were in the library, going over the +troublesome papers with their imposing seals and undecipherable writing. + +"I've been looking for you everyw'ere, Miss Muriel," the butler +announced, impressively. Everything that Roberts did was impressive. + +"Were you, Woberts?" she queried. "You didn't want to play hide-and-go +seek, did you, Woberts? Because if you did, I'd like to heaps and heaps." + +He opened his lips in protest; but she interrupted: + +"I'll be it, Woberts, and you can run and hide. Oh! Will you?" + +What could he say? It hurt his dignity--it was a distinct prostitution of +pride--and yet, what could he say? What could he do? For he, too, loved, +pitied, and was sorry. + +Thus it was that, returning from the library, Kathryn, Elinor and Blake +came upon a red-faced and puffing butler engaged in giving a most +realistic imitation of a bear, while a delighted little girl, clapping +tiny hands in glee, adjured him to growl as bears growl, not as cows +growl. + +It was another welcome little break in the tension. And for that it was +welcome; welcome, that is, to all but him of the outraged dignity. And +even he, though he puffed and huffed below stairs, deep down in his heart +was glad that he had sacrificed his most precious possession in such a +cause. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE. + +TEMPTATION. + + +Elinor VanVorst swung around in her chair, and eyed her sister. + +"Well, Kate?" she asked. + +Kate raised violet eyes in protest. + +"Please, Nell, don't insist," she begged. "I don't want to talk about +it." + +Her sister continued, firmly: + +"It must be talked of.... You must divorce him, Kate." + +"No!" + +"But I say, 'Yes!' You should hear what people are saying about you." + +"What do I care what people are saying about me? It's what I think of +myself that counts." + +"That may be true," her sister retorted; "but it's too idealistic for +this world.... Moreover, you're not consistent." + +Kathryn looked up, quickly. + +"What do you mean?" she demanded. + +Elinor shrugged her shoulders, a little and answered: + +"You're compromising. You're hedging. If he isn't good enough to live +with, he isn't good to be married to." + +"But," Kathryn protested. "I can't live with him, Nell! You know as well +as I how impossible that is." + +"Then," returned Elinor, rising, "divorce him." + +Kathryn shook her head, wearily. + +"I can't do that, either." + +The other turned. + +"Then what are you going to do?" she demanded. "Are you going on forever +being honest neither with him nor with yourself--compromising on the one +hand with your womanhood, on the other with your selfishness? How long +has it been since you made the slightest effort to see him, or to send +anyone to him?" + +Kathryn answered, slowly: + +"Not since the time I tried to go, and Tom went before me. I--I have +thought, often, of going.... But, somehow, I've been--afraid." In almost +a whisper, she repeated, "Yes.... Afraid!" + +Elinor VanVorst raised her shoulders in an expressive gesture. It +conveyed more plainly than could words that her end of the argument was +done--her case was rested. + +Kathryn considered long, earnestly, in silence. Divorce him! Divorce John +Schuyler! It had occurred to her--it had occurred to her in the long +silences of the night--in the thousands of aeons that had lain, ofttimes, +between the setting of the sun and the rising thereof.... Divorce him! ... +It was a thought that stung. He had been to her all that any man could +have been. He had been a man of whom her head was proud and her heart +fond with the great love that lies in the heart of a good woman. He it +was, and God, who had given her the little child that she could see from +where she sat, rolling, a tumbled little heap of white lace and whirling +brown legs on the broad expanse of the green lawn. He it was who had +taken the first of her life--who had shown her what it was to live.... + +And then this thing had come--this awful, hideous thing that had +stretched even her very life to the breaking point, and drained from it +the wealth of sweetness to the uttermost drop.... She felt resentment, +yes, and horror, and disgust. Yet there were other things, she knew, +though she could not have told how she knew. There was something that was +hidden--something unknown and unknowable.... + +Long, she thought, and earnestly--as she had thought so many, many times +before--times without end.... At length she rose. Firm little chin was +set; violet eyes were firm. + +She said, slowly: + +"I think I see your point, Nell. You're right.' + +"And you'll divorce him?" + +Kathryn shook her head. + +"No," she replied softly, "I'll go to him." + +Elinor started. + +"What!" she cried, untrustful of her own ears. + +"I have failed in my duty; you have shown me wherein I have failed. I'll +go to him." + +Elinor caught her hand. + +"Kate!" she pleaded. "Kate, dear, listen to me! I haven't shown you your +duty if that's what you consider your duty.... I'll tell you something +that you haven't thought of.... Muriel." + +In almost a gasp, her sister cried: + +"Muriel! ... Muriel!" + +"Can you take her with you?" demanded Elinor. + +Kathryn shook her head. + +"No," she replied. "Of course not. I shall leave her here, with you." + +Her sister shook her head. + +"Do you see?" she queried. "Can you go to him, and live with him, as +wife?" Kathryn made no answer. Again Elinor shook her head, gently. +"Don't you understand," she asked. "It's compromise on compromise-- +hedging on hedging. Can't you see how impossible it all is? ... how +utterly impossible?" + +Torn of anguish, of inability to solve the problems that God had laid +before her, Kathryn turned beseeching eyes to her sister. + +"But what shall I do, Nell?" she asked, beseechingly. "What can I do.... +Wasn't it hard enough, even that way?" + +Elinor replied, gently: + +"Too hard. I want to make it easier. I want you to leave him irrevocably. +Then you can forget him; but not until then." + +Kathryn was silent. + +"What does Tom say?" she asked, at length. She had learned to depend much +upon the big-bodied, big-hearted, big-minded friend of late. + +"I haven't asked him," returned her sister. "But I will, now." + +She rose, quickly, and went to the rose-strewn arbor-way. She could see +Blake, out upon the broad lawn, playing with the child that he loved, +boyish, natural, whole-souled, with all the enthusiasm unspoiled that God +gives not to many who are grown. + +"Tom!" she called. + +"Yes?" he answered. + +"Will you come here, to us, for a moment? Let Muriel stay with Mawkins." + +"Right, oh!" he called, cheerily. In another moment he stood in the +opening of the arbor, hair rumpled, clothing awry. + +"Well?" he asked, inquiringly. + +Elinor began, slowly: + +"Tom, Kate and I have been talking, seriously. I want her to leave John +Schuyler--legally leave him--leave him for all time. It's the only fair-- +the only right--thing to do. I'm not going to argue. It is all +sufficiently plain. She can't live with him; and yet, as long as she is +his wife, she has no right to be away from him. And she can never go to +him." + +"She wants your opinion, Tom," she went on. "She's always respected your +judgment more than mine--more than that of anyone save the man upon whom +she may never depend again." + +Kathryn had wandered to where the white blooms clustered thickest. She +was thinking--thinking deeply, bitterly. Elinor drew closer to Blake. + +"I like you, Tom," she said, softly. "You're a good man--a decent man--a +clean man--and they're mighty scarce these days.... All that Kate may +have owed to John Schuyler, she long since paid to the last sad penny.... +All your life you have been paying the things that you did not owe.... +There is happiness, somewhere; a happiness that can be found." She thrust +out her hand. "Tell her what to do," she said. "Tell her the right thing +to do--the thing that should be done." And she turned on her heel, and +went away. + +For a long, long time Blake stood motionless. Of that which was going on +within his soul, no one might know. The expression of his face remained +the same, and of his body. Only his hands clenched, and unclenched, and +clenched again. It was a difficult position in which he found himself-- +how difficult only he might know. There lay before him a vast, spreading +vista of golden possibility--a possibility of which he had never dared to +think--even to dream. Possibly it were but a possibility--and yet surely +it was that. A word from him would so make it. That he knew. On the other +hand-- + +For yet a longer time, he stood, hands clenching, unclenching, +clenching.... Slowly he went to where the woman he loved stood, slender +white fingers plucking nervously at bending blossoms of fragrant +whiteness. + +She turned, a little. Violet eyes slowly lifted.... He looked into their +depths.... His hands clenched, and unclenched more swiftly. + +"Kate," he said, at length, slowly, very slowly, "do you want me to tell +you what to do?" + +She answered, with infinite weariness: + +"I--I don't know, Tom.... I'm tired--so, so tired...." And then, +abruptly: "Tell me.... Yes, tell me. What shall I do?" + +She waited, deep eyes lifted, little head poised wearily upon white, +rounded throat. + +He answered, very slowly--with effort that even he could not conceal: + +"Kate, do you remember that day in June, eight years ago, when you walked +down the aisle of Old Trinity. Do you remember how the sun shone in at +the windows, flecking the darkness of the old pews with golden motes? +John Schuyler met you at the altar; and to him you said, 'For better or +for worse, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.'" + +Gently he laid his hand upon her shoulder, with great tenderness. + +"Stick, Kate," he advised, softly. "Stick." + +And that was all. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR. + +THE SHROUD OF A SOUL. + + +It had been arranged that Blake, again, was to go to him first. Little +had been heard of John Schuyler, of late. A drop to desuetude may of its +last half be far more silent than of its first. One gathers momentum, as +one descends, whether the descent be physical, or moral. At the inception +comes the gradual slipping--the vast, frantic effort to stay that +slipping--the exertion, the hysteria, the fright, the remorse, the +stretching out of hands to aid and of souls to help.... Then, things +become different. There comes a vast silence. The hands draw back; the +souls are hidden; and when Hope itself lifts its pinions and soars away, +then there be little left indeed. + +John Schuyler, deserted of friends, deprived of all usefulness in the +life that he had loved, found it to be so; and, finding, tried to think +no more.... If only the Great God would take from him his brain! ... But +He did not.... + +All were gone from him now save She--The Woman. The doctor came +occasionally when summoned by Parks--Parks who had known and loved in +other days. And the coming of the doctor, and of Her, were the only +things that marked the beginning of the days, and the ending thereof. He +lived in the study a part of the time, a part of the time in his rooms. +The rest of the house knew him not; and the great out-of-doors, even in +its warrenated streets of the city, but seldom. And from the study, at +least, all save She were excluded. + +He had been worse that day--much worse. Parks had stayed indoors all day, +listening. As night came on, he had become frightened. The telephone in +the hall had been out of order; and he had taken upon himself the liberty +of entering the forbidden demesne; for the doctor must be called. + +The door of the library-study creaked as he opened it.... He stopped upon +the threshold, aghast. + +This could not be the same room that he had seen so short a time before. +He looked about him, in horrified disbelief. Before him there lay the +very essence of dirt and disorder. Furniture was broken, overturned. Rugs +were askew, wrinkled. The desk, upbearing broken bottles and a cluttered +mess of paper, letter and debris of all description, was scratched and +dented. Pictures sagged drunkenly upon the walls; hangings were torn, and +draggled, and over all lay a pall of dust, dank, choking. + +Slowly, dreadingly, horror gripping his heart, Parks crossed the room to +the desk. He picked up the telephone from where it rested amid the litter +and placed the receiver to his ear. The voice of the operator came to him +across the wire. + +"Hello," he called, "Give me 2290 Plaza, please." + +At length there came to him an answer. He inquired: + +"Is this Dr. Grenelle's office?" It was the doctor himself. "This is +Parks--Mr. Schuyler's secretary.... He is worse--much worse.... You had +better send someone to take care of him. I am going away.... Yes, that's +all. Goodbye." + +Hanging up the receiver, Parks sought amid the confusion of the desk for +a sheet of paper, and envelope. At length he found them; but the pens on +the desk were beyond use, and the ink-stands dried and dusty. + +It had taken Parks a long time to come to the decision that he should +leave this house. Long, and faithfully, and well had he served John +Schuyler. He had served him gladly, and given of his best. And, until It +had come, had he received besides generous pecuniary rewards, the more +grateful compensation of pleasant treatment, consideration, good- +fellowship, friendliness. He could not have cared more for John Schuyler +had he been of kin to him.... But the disintegration of a man's soul, and +brain, and body, is not a pleasant thing to watch. It had come to a place +where Parks, in his heart, felt that he could do no more. For the rest, +there was nothing to detain him longer. + +At first Parks, as most, had come to think that the man was innately a +libertine, awaiting but the right one to strike the hidden flint and set +the tinder aglow--the tinder that would burn, and consume, and destroy. +He had known of men like that--of men who went the even pathway of their +lives until there crossed it another who tore them from it; and that one +they followed, leaving soul and morals and decency and cleanliness +forever behind them. This, at first, he had thought to be John Schuyler. +For the woman was beautiful--beautiful as an animal is beautiful.... But +then he had not been so sure. His confidence had been shaken; for she had +looked into his eyes, too, playfully; and he had felt his very being rock +upon its foundation, and he had slunk away, chilled, helpless, horror- +ridden.... After that he had avoided her. She had paid no attention to +him.... + +So the anger--the disgust--the resentment that at first he had felt had +at length been altered to sorrow, and grief, and pity beyond utterance +.... Yet there had been nothing that he could do--nothing.... He could +not sleep, of nights.... It was killing him, too.... + +Upon the soiled, rumpled sheet he wrote.... Came a noise behind him. He +looked up, quickly, frightenedly.... It was Blake; and quick relief +sprang to the clean-cut face. + +But the horror of it was in Blake's. Even as had Parks', his eyes +wandered dreadingly about the room. The horror of it all was in his soul, +too.... For a long time he said no word. He only looked. He thrust the +curtains aside.... The dust, impalpable, strangling, fell about him .... + +"Good God!" he muttered. "Good God in heaven!" + +He saw Parks. + +"Has it been like this for long?" he asked. + +Parks shook his head. + +"I don't know," he answered.... And then: "It must have been. The +servants are all gone." + +"Servants gone?" + +"Yes; there's been no one below stairs for a fortnight. They irritated +him, and he discharged them, one and all." + +"His valet?" + +"Went last night. I go to-morrow.... To have known him as he was--and +then to see him as he is--I couldn't stand it any longer." + +There was a pause. Blake looked about him. At length he spoke: + +"Does--she come here, now?" + +"Seldom. No one else ever comes. It's a lonely place, sir--frightfully +lonely." + +"And he?" + +"Drink, if you will pardon me--and remorse. He seems bent only upon +forgetting everything. Try as I will I can't keep the brandy from him. +All day--all night--he drinks, and drinks, and tries to forget." + +Blake nodded. "I see." + +Parks continued: + +"At first it made him drunk, and he slept. But now it seems only to numb +his senses. I hear him all through the night muttering--muttering. I hear +him cursing himself--cursing everything, everybody--cursing her--that +woman--then calling to her--calling--calling--It's horrible!" + +Blake again nodded. + +"I had heard," he said. "But I didn't dream it was as bad as this.... It +is too late, then, you think--too late to do anything? I had thought that +if we should wait--until she was tired--as such as she must tire sooner +or later--" + +"Too late?" repeated Park. "It has always been too late. It was too late +from the first. I was with him, you know." + +"Yes--abroad. I had forgotten." + +Parks exclaimed, almost fiercely: + +"I wish to God I could! He was a man, sir--a man!" Then, in quick +transition: "I beg your pardon. But I was very fond of him." He placed +the resignation that he had written fair in the center of the desk. He +turned to go. + +Blake called after him: + +"You are leaving?" + +Parks nodded. + +"Don't you think you'd better stay a little longer? You can help him." + +Parks shook his head; there was in his voice a great sadness. + +"No one can help him now. It is too late.... Too late." + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE. + +THE THING THAT WAS A MAN. + + +Schuyler came down the stairs slowly, leaning heavily against the broken +balustrade. He laughed a little, wildly, with the mirthless chill that is +of a maniac. His knees bent; he staggered.... And he laughed again.... + +At first Blake did not know him.... Then, knowing, he could not believe +that his eyes brought to his brain the truth.... This was not John +Schuyler. It could not be John Schuyler. It was not possible. John +Schuyler was at least a man--not a palsied, pallid, shrunken, shriveled +caricature of something that had once been human.... John Schuyler had +hands--not nerveless, shaking talons.... This sunken-eyed, sunken- +cheeked, wrinkled thing was not John Schuyler--this thing that crawled, +quiveringly--from the loose, pendulous lips of which came mirth that was +more bitter to hear than the sobs of a soul condemned. + +Blake's soul was curdled; his senses were numbed; but still his eyes +could look. + +The ghastly figure stopped in the moonlight, at the landing of the +stairs. White, claw-like hand clutched at the drunken curtain and ripped +it from its fastenings. The pale light of the moon fell harsh upon it.... +Blake shut his eyes.... + +When again he looked, the figure was at the desk, fumbling with a key.... +A drawer screeched in protest. Came from it a rattling as a cadaverous +hand drew forth a bottle.... And the thing that had been John Schuyler +guzzled. + +It laughed again, then, in hollow, mad glee. It staggered forward. Its +hollow eyes fell upon the letter that Parks had left. Clutching fingers +unsteadily tore end from envelope--drew letter from covering, and hollow, +leaden eyes gazed. + +Came another wild burst of laughter gone mad. A voice, thick, weak, +muffled, weird, said: + +"Another enveloped insult. From Parks, the good and faithful Parks." Dull +eyes read. "Your employment has become impossible." The letter fell to +the floor; the voice cried: "The rats desert the sinking ship!" It +chuckled: "Wise rats. Sensible rats!" And then dead eyes saw the man who +stood before him. + +"You?" They peered, like those of a fish. "Good! I'm glad to see you, +even though you have come to scorn, and abuse, and hate. It's a lonely +hell, this--lonely." + +Blake answered, bitterness in his soul: + +"I did not come because I wanted to. It was to prevent her coming--the +wife who loved you, and who, God help her, loves you still. She would +make one last effort to save you." + +Schuyler laughed again. + +"There's nothing left to save," he chuckled. + +"I know; but I'll try for her sake." + +Schuyler lurched into a chair. In ghastly playfulness he looked upon the +other. + +"Try, then," he cackled. "You did so well last time, that you've come to +try again, eh? Well, you've come too late. Do you remember Parmalee--the +boy who killed himself? The boy that I called a fool?" He laughed, +sardonically. "He's got me now--he, and Van Dam, and Rogers--three damned +fools scorching in a hole in hell.... 'A fool there was'" he quoted; +then, stopping, suddenly, he half rose, weakly, to his feet. + +"Listen!" he cried. + +There came utter silence. + +"Did you hear?" he queried, triumphantly. "Did you hear her calling?" + +It was more than Blake could bear. + +"Jack!" he cried, tensely. "Jack!" + +Schuyler rounded on him. "Don't call me that!" he said, petulantly. "Call +me _the Fool_." + +Blake shook his head, in the gripping horror of it all. + +"It makes me sick," he murmured, to himself, "sick at heart!" + +Schuyler had heard. + +"It makes me sick, too," he cackled. He pointed to the shattered mirror, +above the mantel. "Do you see that?" he demanded. "There isn't a whole +one in the house. I don't dare to look at myself." + +Came to Blake's mind now, stricken and wracked as it had been, by that +which he had seen, a glimmer of hope. He had heard of men like this who +had come back to life--to reason. It might be fever--fever and drink; and +it might be that the fever could be stayed--the drink conquered. John +Schuyler had been a strong man. Surely it could not be that in so short a +time he had been dragged to the grave's very edge. Lack of attention, +lack of care, lack of medicine and nursing and discipline were probably +largely responsible. The man might be awakened--brought to himself. It +might be possible-- + +Speculatively, not realizing that he spoke aloud, he asked of himself: + +"Is there a chance left? Is there one little chance left, to save him?" + +Again Schuyler had heard. + +"What would be the use?" he queried, dully. The liquor was passing. "What +is there left of me to save? I'm a husk--squeezed dry. I'm a memory--a +nightmare. They are calling me--Young Parmalee, Rogers, Seward Van Dam. I +drink to them, now, even as they drink to me--scorching in their hole in +hell!" He rose weakly to his feet, raising a dirty glass in which +splashed a little amber liquor. + +Came to Blake the thought that, even though Schuyler could not be +redeemed to manhood, he might at least, be saved from death, or worse. He +might at least be made again into the semblance of that which he had +been. He started forward, hands gripping the edge of the desk, face close +to Schuyler's own. + +"Jack!" he cried, commandingly. "Look here! I want to talk to you!" + +Schuyler slumped again into the depths of his chair. He looked up, dully. + +"Yes?" + +"Listen!" Blake demanded. "Listen closely. There's a chance for you yet! +We'll take you away somewhere--for a year--five years--ten years. You can +change your name--make a new start--build yourself a new character--a new +honor. There's still happiness for you, Jack! We'll go and find it! Come! +Shall we?" + +Schuyler answered, dully, with the petulance of the mentally unfit: + +"It's too late, I tell you--too late!" + +"It's not too late! You'll try! Come!" + +"It's too late, I say!" insisted Schuyler, thickly. "She's torn from me +everything that makes life worth living. She's taken honor and manhood +and self-respect--wife and child and friends--everything--everything but-- +this!" He patted the bare bottle before him. And then: "Let's drink," he +muttered. + +Blake sprang forward, desperation overwhelming him. + +"My God, this is awful!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you a spark of manhood +left? no brains? no bowels? nothing a man can appeal to?" + +Schuyler repeated, dully: + +"Give me that bottle!" + +It was then that Blake came to that which he had mentally intended to be +a last resort. Deliberately, not in anger, but in the desperation of a +strong man who plays his last card for his ultimate stake, he leaned +across the table and deliberately struck Schuyler in the face. It was a +hard thing to do; but there are things that so demand. Blake knew that if +this time he failed to arouse whatever of latent, atrophied manhood there +might be in the breast of the other, that never again, probably, would +the shrivelling brain come within call. So he struck; and, following the +staggering form, struck again, flat on the face, with open hand, hard, +stinging blows. And with these blows he cried, tensely: + +"If there's any spirit left in you, I'll arouse it. You pitiful thing +that was once a man! You made in God's image? Why, there isn't a swine +that wouldn't be ashamed to roll in the same gutter with you!" + +With stinging words and stinging blows, he pursued the stumbling figure +across the room. Schuyler fell. Blake kicked him, sending foot against +body, heavily. + +"Get up, you beast!" he ordered. And then, in the horror of it all--in +the awful of horror of the hurt of the thing that he was doing: "Great +God! Will nothing awaken you?" + +Schuyler was scrambling weakly to his feet. In dulled eyes there was a +little gleam--the little gleam that Blake had tried so hard, so horribly, +to bring. The slobbering lip had set a little and the loose, lax jaw.... +There was there the shadow of the John Schuyler that was.... Blake +stepped back, gladness in his heart. + +He had called him back so far. He would call him back the rest! + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX. + +AGAIN THE BATTLE. + + +Schuyler staggered, stumbled to his feet, thin hands clutching for +support at chair arm. + +"You struck me!" he mumbled, savagely. "You struck me. You'll fight me-- +fight me!" + +He lifted weakly, balancing himself upon unsteady, weakened legs. Blake, +stepping back, found his hand against a glass of water. He seized it-- +advanced a step--and cast the contents of the glass full into Schuyler's +contorting face.... + +Schuyler slowly came to himself. The shock of the blows--of the words-- +and finally of the water against his head, sent the blood to his brain-- +banished the liquor, and the dementia, from it.... A weakened, miserable, +pitiful imitation he was of the John Schuyler that had been. Yet it was +John Schuyler that sat slumped into the chair, gazing up at the friend +who had proven his friendship so often and so well. + +Schuyler sat for a moment, eyes blinking. At length his hand went forth, +slowly. + +"Hello, Tom," he said. "I'm glad to see you." Puzzled eyes went about the +room, eyes expanding, contracting, like those of a man who, having been +long asleep, awakens to find himself in a place unfamiliar. + +Blake went to him, leaning over him. + +"You can understand me now?" he asked, tensely. + +Schuyler looked up. + +"Why, yes," he replied. "Of course, Tom. Of course I can understand you." +Eyes again sought to solve the mystery of the room; for from the mind +cleared had fled all memories of the mind uncleared. + +Blake cried: + +"You are coming away with us, Jack--away from this hell-snake of yours! +You're coming today--now! Do you understand?" + +Schuyler nodded. + +"Yes," he said. "I understand." In his mind the real and the unreal were +clarifying into an accurate whole. He nodded again. + +"There's still a chance for you, Jack." Blake continued, earnestly, all +his force in his words. "There's still a chance for you. You're going to +be strong, and become a man again! Tell me that you will!" + +"It's too late, Tom," he replied. There was in the words sadness, +despair, hopelessness unutterable. "It's too late. Body, mind, soul are +wasted, gone. There's no chance, Tom. It's too late!" + +"No!" cried Blake! "There is happiness for you--real happiness--the right +happiness! Your wife--your child--" + +"Don't speak of them," Schuyler moaned. "Don't! ... Don't!" + +"You must think of them, Jack. It's there that salvation lies. Think of +the true woman--the wife who loves you. Think of the little one who used +to put baby hands around your neck and try to tell you all the beautiful +things that only children know. That is what will save you now, Jack--and +only that! Think.... Think!" + +"It's too late, Tom!" + +"It's not too late!" + +"You're sure? Quite, quite sure?" + +"I'm sure, Jack!" + +There was a pause. Schuyler rose. He thrust forth his hand. Blake took +it, gripping it in his own. + +"I'll go, Tom. I'll go." Came to him a touch of that from which he had +been able to withdraw so pitifully little. + +"We'll fool her yet, won't we?" he asked, breathlessly. "We'll fool her, +and Young Parmalee, and Rogers, and Van Dam and the rest of them. Let's +go now, Tom. Take me away! For the love of God who has forsaken me--whom +I have forsaken--take me away! Save me from her--from myself--My blood +has turned to water, and my bones to chalk! My brain has withered! Good +God! What has come over me! To think that I, who could once look in the +eye all men, all women, all little children, should have come to this. +Look at me! A fool in his drunken Palace of Folly! Dust, dirt, grime, +filth all about me--in my home--in my soul! ... I thought it was too late, +Tom. I thought from the beginning it was too late. The shame, the +disgrace, the loss of honor--of everything, were new to me. I couldn't +understand. Then I cursed myself. I swore to God that I wouldn't become +the thing I am. But He didn't help me; and I couldn't help myself. I +tried! Ah, how I tried! But there was something--her eyes, it was--eyes +that burnt and seared!--I tried to kill myself, as Parmalee did. I +couldn't.... And the only forgetfulness lay in drink--drink that sapped +my strength and drained my veins and shrivelled my brain. Tell me it's a +dream, Tom--that it's all but a vile, horrible, grewsome dream! Tell me +that I'm the kind of a man you are! the kind of a man I once was! And +don't hate me, Tom. Don't loathe, and despise me, all; but pity me a +little--just a little!" + +He had sunk in a huddled heap to the floor, weak, hysterical--a half- +crazed soul in the white-hot crucible of suffering. Blake leaned over +him, gently, and lifting him, helped him to the great chair. There was a +great, unselfish gladness in his heart. But that gladness had changed +swiftly to horror. He stood back aghast. For there had entered the room +Kathryn, and Muriel. + +The horror of it all did not show in the eyes of the wife. She would not +let it. The child, all gladness, ran to her father; she did not notice. + +"Daddy! Oh, daddy!" she called. + +Schuyler, a huddled heap by the desk, straightened, weakly. + +"You!" he cried, brokenly. Tears welled to his eyes. He seized--the little +form in his arms, clutching it to him. + +Blake turned to Kathryn. + +"You should not have come," he said. He was sorry for the hurt he knew +she suffered. + +"My place is here." She went to Schuyler, stooping over him. + +"Jack, dear." She spoke, very quietly. + +He lifted his eyes, dim, moist. His lips worked. + +"Oh, daddy!" exclaimed the child. "You've been ill! You look awful!" He +bent his head. + +"Yes, little sweetheart," he answered, in shaking tone, "very ill. God +grant you may never know how ill." + +"But you're most well, now, aren't you daddy?" she asked, brightly. + +"I hope so," he replied. "Ah, how I hope so." Lips and voice both +quivered, now. + +"And we can play horsie?" she asked. + +"Yes," he assented. He essayed to lift her; but even the tiny weight of +the little form was too much for his shattered strength. His head sunk +upon the table, arm-buried. His body shook. + +The child did not see; which was well. She was looking at her mother. + +"Mother, dear," she said reproachfully. "You forgot to kiss daddy." + +"Did I? I'm sorry." + +Willingly Kathryn went to him. He raised thin, white hand in protest. + +"Not now," he murmured, brokenly. "It's not fair--not right!" + +The situation was hard--hard for all--no less hard for her than for him-- +no less hard for Blake than for either. He stepped forward, forcing a +lightness of tone and of word that lay farthest from his thought. He laid +his hand lightly on Schuyler's shoulder. + +"Come, Jack," he said crisply. "It's quite all right. There's no cause +for anything but gladness. I'll see them to the hotel, and come back for +you." + +Schuyler clutched at his strong fingers. + +"Don't be long, Tom," he begged, whispering. + +"Only a moment," returned Blake, so low that only he might hear. Blake +knew that he needed time to regain his self-command. He took Muriel by +the hand. "Come, Kate," he suggested. + +Kathryn shook her head. + +"Leave us for a moment," she urged. + +"Do you think it best?" + +She bent her head. Taking the child, Blake left the room. And slowly +Kathryn again went to Schuyler's side. + +"John, dear," she said, softly. + +His head fell again to his hands. + +"I can bear no more, Kathryn," he whispered, weakly. "Oh, God, how great +is Thy goodness! The shame of it all! The shame! The utter, utter +shame! ... And you, Kathryn, can forgive!" + +"I can forgive, John, dear. I do forgive. It was not your fault. Is it +the fault of the bird that he goes to his death when the eyes of the +snake are upon him? It was not that you were weak, even; it was that-- +she was strong, strong in the one way in which she leads. I do forgive-- +forgive and understand." + +[Illustration: I DO FORGIVE--FORGIVE AND UNDERSTAND] + +"You are good beyond all goodness," he murmured, voice low, vibrant. + +"No," she said. She smiled a smile that was no smile. And then: "It's +been a dream, John--a bitter, bitter dream. But we are awake, now--awake +at last. And we'll never dream again--never." + +She rose. Violet eyes were moist. She turned away, a little, that he +might not see. Her voice was lighter as she asked: + +"John, dear. Don't you want me to stay and help you?" + +He shook his head. + +"Go, Kathryn," he requested. "Go with Tom. It will be more merciful to +both of us. And I want to be alone--to try to realize that the chance is +mine to redeem myself. I want to ask God to try to forgive me, and, in +His infinite mercy, to help me atone for all the wrong I've done you." + +She bent her head. It was bitterly hard for her, as for him. She knew, as +he said, it would be more merciful to them both that she should go. +Gently she bent. Her lips touched his bowed head. Slowly she turned. +Slowly she walked across the dirty, disordered room. She looked back, +once. He was still sitting there, head buried deep in hands.... She was +glad, glad unselfishly. She could give him happiness. Would there ever be +happiness for her? She was afraid.... Yet she was glad--glad as Blake was +glad--Still there was in her a great, great emptiness. + + + + +[Illustration] + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN. + +THE PITY OF IT ALL. + + +Left alone, John Schuyler sat for long, never-ending moments. He was +weak--weak unto the weakness of death. His soul was torn and tossed and +twitched within him. At length he rose, slowly, to his feet. A dizziness-- +a nausea--overmastered him. He reached for the bottle on the table top. +As he did so, his foot touched some object upon the floor.... He looked +down. It was a bit of broken mirror.... He stooped and picked it up. The +light upon the table was on. He turned it so that it might illumine with +its merciless rays the last cruel line upon his face.... Slowly, holding +the mirror so that eyes might see, he looked.... He fell to his knees.... +This thing that he saw was he! He! John Schuyler! + +Came to him at length strength to rise. Came to his heart great resolves. +He would make atonement to the woman whom he had forsaken--the woman who +had not forsaken him. He would make atonement in as far as it lay within +possibility--and to the child that was of him and of her he would make +atonement. He was but a young man; many years of life should lie before +him; and of these years he would give, give all, and ask nothing. It was +the sad wreck of a life that lay before him--a stinking, noisome wreck-- +yet there must be something in it that was neither foul nor unsightly. +That thing he would find. He set his jaw. Leaden eyes became bright.... +Then, he was near to being a man.... + +He had started toward the door, to leave forever the scene of his moral, +mental, spiritual death--he was almost to the portal--another step would +carry him through, and beyond-- + +She stood there. Red lips were parted in a little, inscrutable smile. +White shoulders shimmered. Lithe muscles rippled beneath her gown with +every movement of her delicate body. She was beautiful--beautiful as an +animal is beautiful. And her eyes were upon his. + +He staggered back, clutching at the door jamb for support. + +She laughed a little, lightly: + +"Just in time. You're going away. Bien. I trust you may have a very +pleasant journey." + +She swung into the room, lithely, eyes upon him, vivid lips smiling. +Rounded arms were clasped behind lissome back. + +"And if I hadn't gone," he inquired, "you were about to go?" + +She nodded. + +"To another fool?" + +She shook her head, merrily. + +"Oh, no," she replied, red lips pursed. "To a man--this time." + +He shrunk a little. The madness was not far behind. + +"Well, squeeze him dry," he muttered. "Squeeze the honor and the manhood +and the life and the soul out of him, won't you? And then Parmalee, and +Rogers, and Van Dam will laugh at him from their hole in hell. And I'll +laugh at all of you; for I'll be safe from you all. So squeeze him dry, +won't you, you Vampire!" + +Again she laughed, gaily. He was very amusing, at times--this thing that +had been a man. She slid to the desk, seating herself upon it, swinging +small, perfectly shod feet with slender silk-clad ankles. + +"So it's all over," she remarked, musingly. "Yet it was sweet while it +lasted, wasn't it, My Fool?--sometimes." She tossed at him contemptuously +a glowing crimson blossom which she ripped from the great mass at her +rounded breast. She went on: + +"Those days on the Mediterranean, under the blue skies. And Venice, with +the dim silence all about, and the soft night breezes whispering their +strange secrets to us as we lay side by side under the rustling canopy-- +very romantic, for dreamers--and we did dream--didn't we, My Fool?--at +least, you did." She laughed again; again she cast at him a crimson +blossom, maliciously, tantalizingly. "And Paris. That was good, too-- +differently. The gay crowds on the Bois, and the races at Longchamps, and +the little place in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs--and Saint Antoine, in +the Norman hills--and the fuss they made over the newly-wedded couple! It +was while we were there, if you will remember, Fool," she went on, in +voice caressing but words that stung, "on the morning that we first had +breakfast under the grape arbor, with its young green leaves and nodding +promises of luscious yield, that there came the letter from your wife." + +She laughed, long and merrily. He cried, hoarsely: + +"Stop! Damn you, stop! You've tortured me enough!" + +"Amedee served us that morning," she continued, unmindful; "or was it +Francois?--no, Amedee. He spilt the coffee upon the table cloth twice, in +his anxiety lest he embarrass us. And when you kissed me," with a little +ripple of mirth, "he looked the other way, covering his lips with his +hand. Oh, admirable Amedee! ... The breeze was stirring that morning, +Fool--do you remember?--and the dead leaves of yester-year fell about us-- +so!" She plucked a great handful of crimson petals from her breast and +cast them above her head. They fell about him, and about her. "And I +dipped sugar in my coffee and fed it to you, and you let me read your +wife's letter." Again she laughed. + +Through his clenched teeth came a muttered curse. + +"It was interesting, drolly interesting.... that letter." she continued. +"She couldn't understand why your mission detained you so long!" + +Yet again she laughed, merrily, ringingly. Suddenly she shifted, lithely, +the poise of her body. + +"Bah! I weary of this, and of you.... But before I go," she leaned far +forward, eyes on his, vivid lips curved, bare breast shimmering, "a kiss, +My Fool!" + +"Why do you come here?" he cried, piteously. "Have you not done enough? +Is there no pity in your heart--no sympathy--no human feeling of any +kind?" + +"I've heard you say so, in other days," she smiled. + +"Let me go," he begged. "Haven't you done enough? There is no misery that +I have not suffered--no degradation that I have not reached--no depths to +which I have not sunk--no dishonor that I have not felt. Great God! What +more do you want of me?" + +He was a pitiful object, sunken, shrivelled, abject. She looked on him +with eyes that revealed only amusement--amusement, and power. + +She asked, lightly: + +"What more could I want of you? What more have you to give, My Fool?" + +"There's a chance for me," he pleaded, hysterically; "a little, pitiful +chance. Can't you find in that dead thing you call a heart just one shred +of pity that I may have that chance that is held out to me? I don't ask +much in return for all that I have given--just to be let alone.... Ah, +go! Go! Please, please go!" + +He was on his knees now, thin hands raised in beseeching. She looked down +on him from where she sat, upon the desk, little feet swinging. She +raised delicate, arched brows. + +"Anyone would think," she declared, "that I had done wrong by you." + +He struggled erect. + +"By God, I'll have my chance!" he cried. "I'll have it in spite of you! +Do you hear? Go!" + +"In good time, My Fool," she returned, easily. "When you shall have +ceased to amuse me." + +"You'll go now," he insisted, frenziedly. "Now!" + +He stumbled forward, to grasp the white, rounded arms. She caught his +wrists, holding him easily. + +"You're not so strong as you were, you know," she said, lightly. Suddenly +she thrust him from her, reeling. Her eyes flashed; her lips curved, in +scorn. + +"You sicken me." And then: "You asked me if I had had all I wanted of +you. I have, and more. And now I'll go, and leave you to your 'chance!' +But not until--" + +She had risen, and gone to the great chair. Into it she sank. He was +before her.... She leaned forward, eyes heavy lidded, white arms +extended, white teeth glowing, white shoulders shimmering. She hissed, +sibilantly: + +"A kiss, My Fool!" + +He turned from her.... Turned half back again.... + +"No!" he gasped, weakly.... "No." + +She hissed again: + +"Kiss me, My Fool!" + +The scarlet roses at her breast moved a little. Her lips were parted.... +Her eyes were on his.... + +He cried, thickly, agonizedly: + +"I'm free of you! Free, I tell you! I'm going back to wife--to child--to +home--to honor! I'm free!" + +Her lips curved. Her breast heaved. Her arms glowed. And her eyes were on +his.... He came a step nearer--another step--yet another.... He was +nearer, now.... She leaned back a little, in the great chair.... + +He was not a man, now. He was a Thing, and that Thing was of her. Hands +hung slack, loose, at his sides; jaw drooped; lips were pendulous. Only, +in his eyes was that light that she, and she alone, knew how to +kindle.... He was hers, soul, and body, and brain.... + +Then, suddenly, came of the things that are Unknown. Perhaps came to his +ears a voice--to his heart an aid unknown.... His hands stiffened a +little.... And then he leaped upon her. + +She saw; she had half risen.... Back they went over the great chair, his +body on hers, his fingers clutching at her rounded throat. For a moment, +they writhed. She screamed, once.... Then, suddenly, his twisted fingers +relaxed.... His head fell back. His body, inert, rolled from hers, turned +again as it struck the chair, and fell, a thing crushed and dead, at her +feet.... + +She rose, breathing hoarsely from between red, parted lips. There were +marks upon her throat.... Perhaps, again, she had overestimated her +power.... And yet it were not to be sure of this.... + +Her skirt-hem lay beneath his body. She stooped, lithely, disengaging it. +His fingers clutched torn petals of crimson roses.... She looked.... Then +vivid lips parted, and she laughed, a little. + +Of that which is known, she knew but little; of that which is unknown, +she knew much. Perhaps it is a small thing, after all, to wreck a life. + + * * * * * + +When they came back, they found him there, alone. He lay prone, on the +rug, before the great chair. The moonlight was upon his face; which was +not well. Crimson petals, like drops of blood, were upon it; and the +redness was crushed between his clutching fingers. + +Muriel did not see; for the friend such as few men may ever hope to have +and, having, may pray to keep, had thrust the child behind him. + +For a long, long time they stood there.... Then slowly, the woman that +had been wife turned--her head sunk forward.... She had suffered much, +and yet there was in her still the power to suffer; but it was now the +suffering of pity--of utter, utter pity.... Head sunk forward, she reeled +a little. The man, standing beside her, caught her in strong arm, that +she might not fall.... For a tiny moment she rested there--the only rest +that she had known since It had come into her life. And who shall say +that she was wrong? or he? + +Side by side they stood, and gazed upon their dead. They held the little +child that she might not see.... Then slowly they turned, and left.... +And in the end, perhaps, came to them of God the happiness that they +deserved from Him. Perhaps, even it was a happiness refined of the +suffering through which they both had passed; for, to know great +happiness one must have known great sorrow. + +Upon the Altar of Things are made, oft-times, strange sacrifices-- +sacrifices that we cannot understand, made in a way that we do not +comprehend. For God has shown us, even the wisest of us, but little of +the world in which we live. + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Fool There Was, by Porter Emerson Browne + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FOOL THERE WAS *** + +This file should be named 6305.txt or 6305.zip + +Produced by Jason Kwong, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +https://gutenberg.org or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/6305.zip b/6305.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..59819e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/6305.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..562d89a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #6305 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6305) |