 CHAPTER XXIX The train was at a standstill somewhere, and the dull, ashen beginnings of daylight had made a first feeble start toward a facing the lamps in the car-roof when the new day opened for Theron. A man who had just come in stopped at the seat upon which he had been stretched through the night, and, tapping him brusquely on the knee, said, I'm afraid I must trouble you, sir. After a moment of sleep-burdened confusion he sat up, and the man took the other half of the seat and opened a newspaper still damp from the press. It was morning then. Theron rubbed a clear space upon the clouded window with his thumb and looked out. There was nothing to be seen but a broad stretch of tracks, and beyond this the shadowed outlines of wagons and machinery in a yard, with a background of factory buildings. The atmosphere in the car was vile beyond belief. He thought of opening the window, but feared that the peremptory-looking man with the paper, who had wakened him and made him sit up, might object. They were the only people in the car who were sitting up. Backwards and forwards, on either side of the narrow aisle, the dim light disclosed recumbent forms curled uncomfortably into corners, or sprawling at difficult angles, which involved the least interference with one another. Here and there an upturned face gave a livid surface for the mingled play of gray dawn and the yellow lamplight. A ceaseless noise of snoring was in the air. He got up and walked to the tank of ice water at the end of the aisle and took a drink from the most inaccessible portion of the common tin-cup's rim. The happy idea of going out to the platform struck him, and he acted upon it. The morning air was deliciously cool and fresh by contrast, and he filled his lungs with it again and again. Standing here, he could discern beyond the buildings to the right the faint purplish outlines of the great rounded hills. Some workmen, one of them bearing a torch, were crouching along the side of the train, pounding upon the resonant wheels with small hammers. He recalled having heard the same sound in the watches of the night, during a prolonged halt. Someone had said it was Albany. He smiled in spite of himself at the thought that Bishop Sanderson would never know about the visit he had missed. Swinging himself to the ground, he bent sidewise and looked forward down the long train. There were five, six, perhaps more, sleeping cars on and front. Which one of them, he wondered? And then there came a sharp all aboard! From the other side, and he bundled up the steps again, and entered the car as the train slowly resumed its progress. He was wide awake now and quite at his ease. He took a seat and diverted himself by winking gravely at a little child facing him on the next seat but one. There were four other children in the family party and camped about the tired and still sleeping mother whose back was turned to Theron. He recalled now having noticed this poor woman last night in the first stage of the journey, how she had fed her brood from one of the numerous baskets piled under their feet, and brought water in a tin dish of her own from the tank to use in washing their faces with a rag, and loosened their clothes to dispose them for the night's sleep. The face of the woman, her manner and slatternly aspect, and the general effect of her belongings, bespoke squalid ignorance and poverty. Watching her, Theron had felt curiously interested in the performance. In one sense it was scarcely more human than the spectacle of a cat licking her kittens, or a cow giving suck to her calf. Yet in another was there anything more human. The child who had wakened before the rest regarded him with placidity, declining to be amused by his winkings, but exhibiting no other emotion. She had been playing by herself with a couple of buttons tied on a string, and after a civil amount of attention to Theron's grimaces, she turned again to the superior attractions of this toy. Her self-possession, her capacity for self-entertainment, the care she took not to arouse the others, all impressed him very much. He felt in his pocket for a small coin, and, reaching forward, offered it to her. She took it calmly, bestowed a tranquil gaze upon him for a moment, and went back to the buttons. Her indifference produced an unpleasant sensation upon him somehow, and he rubbed the steaming window clear again and stared out of it. The wide river lay before him, flanked by a precipitous wall of cliffs, which he knew instantly must be the Palisades. There was an advertisement painted on them, which he tried in vain to read. He was surprised to find they interested him so slightly. He had heard all his life of the Hudson, and especially of it just at this point. The reality seemed to him almost commonplace. His failure to be thrilled depressed him for the moment. I suppose those are the Palisades, he asked his neighbor. The man glanced up from his paper, nodded, and made as if to resume his reading. But as I had caught something in the prospect through the window, which arrested his attention, by George, he exclaimed, and lifted himself to get a clearer view. What is it? asked Theron, peering forth as well. Nothing. Only Barclay Windover's yacht is over there. There's been a hitch of some sort. They were to leave yesterday. Is that it? That long black thing? queried Theron. That can't be a yacht, can it? What do you think it is? answered the other. They were looking at a slim, narrow hull, lying at anchor, silent and motionless on the drab expanse of water. If that ain't a yacht, they haven't begun building any yet. They're taking her over to the Mediterranean for a cruise, you know, around India and Japan for the winter, and home by the South Sea Islands. Friend of mine's in the party. Wouldn't mind the trip myself. But do you mean to say, asked Theron, that that little shell of a thing can sail across the ocean? Why, how many people would she hold? The man laughed. Well, he said. There's room for two sets of quadrills in the chief's saloon, if the rest keep their legs well up on the sofas. And there's only ten or a dozen in the party this time. More than that, rather get in another's way, especially with so many ladies on board. Theron asked no more questions, but bent his head to see the last of this wonderful craft, the sight of it, and what he had heard about it. Suddenly gave point and focus to his thoughts. He knew at last what it was. He knew at last what it was that had lurked, formless, and undesignated, these many days in the background of his dreams. The picture rose in his mind, now of Celia, as the mistress of a yacht. He could see her reclining in a low easy chair upon the polished deck, with the big white sails billowing behind her, and the sun shining upon the deep blue waves, and glistening through the splash of spray in the air, and weaving a halo of glowing gold about her fair head. Ah, how the tender visions crowded now upon him. Eternal summer basked round this enchanted yacht of his fancy. Summer sought now in Scottish Firths, or Norwegian Fjords, now in quaint old Southern harbours, ablaze with the hues of strange costumes, and half-tropical flowers and fruits, now in faraway Oriental bays and lagoons, or among the coral reefs and palm trees of the luxurious Pacific. He dwelt upon these new imaginings with the fervent longing of an inland-born boy. Every vague yearning he had ever felt toward salt water, stirred again in his blood, at the thought of the sea, with Celia. Why not? She had never visited any foreign land. Sometime, she had said, some time, no doubt I will. He could hear again the wistful, musing tone in her voice. The thought had fascinations for her it was clear. How irresistibly would it not appeal to her, presented with the added charm of a roving, vagrant independence on the high seas, free to speed in her snow-winged chariot wherever she willed over the deep, loitering in this place, or up helm in a way to another, with no more care or weight of responsibility than the gulls tossing through the air in her wake. Theron felt, rather than phrased to himself, that there would not be ten or a dozen in the party on that yacht. Without defining anything in his mind, he breathed in fancy the same bold ocean breeze which filled the sails and toyed with Celia's hair. He looked with her as she sat by the rail, and saw the same waves racing past, the same vast dome of cloud and ether, that were mirrored in her brown eyes, and there was no one else anywhere near them. Even the men in sailor's clothes, who would be pulling at ropes or climbing up tarred ladders, kept themselves considerably outside the picture. Only Celia sat there, and at her feet, gazing up again into her face as in the forest, the man whose whole being had been consecrated to her service, her worship, by the kiss. You've passed it now. I was going to point out the Jumel house to you, where Aaron Burr lived, you know. Theron roused himself from his daydream, and nodded with a confused smile at his neighbor. Thanks! he faltered. I didn't hear you. The train makes such a noise, and I must have been dozing. He looked about him. The night aspect, as of a tramp's lodging house, had quite disappeared from the car. Everybody was sitting up, and the more impatient were beginning to collect their bundles and handbags from the racks and floor. An expressman came through, jangling a huge bunch of brass checks on leather and thongs over his arm, and held parlay with passengers along the aisle. Outside, citified streets with stores and factories were alternating in the moving panorama with open fields, and even as he looked these vacant spaces ceased altogether, and successive regular lines of pavement between the two tall rows of houses all alike began to stretch out, wheel to the right, and swing off out of view, for all the world, like the avenues of hot poles he remembered as a boy. Then was a long tunnel, its darkness broken at stated intervals by brief bursts of daylight from overhead, and out of this all at once the train drew up its full length in some vast, vaguely lighted enclosure and stopped. Yes, this is New York, said the man, folding up his paper and springing to his feet. The narrow aisle was filled with many others who had been prompt or still, and therein stood, bag in hand, waiting till this energetic throng should have pushed itself bodily past him forth from the car. Then he himself made his way out, drifting with a sense of helplessness in their resolute wake, there rose in his mind the sudden conviction that he would be too late. All the passengers in the forward sleepers would be gone before he could get there, yet even this terror gave him no new power to get ahead of anybody else in the tightly packed throng. Once on the broad platform the others started off briskly. They all seemed to know just where they wanted to go, and to feel that no instant of time was to be lost in getting there. Therein himself caught some of this urgent spirit, and hurled himself along in the throng with reckless haste, knocking his bag against people's legs, and never pausing for apology or comment until he found himself abreast of the locomotive at the head of the train. He drew aside from the main current here, and began searching the platform far and near, for those he had travelled so far to find. The platform emptied itself. Therein lingered on in puzzled hesitation and looked about him. In the whole immense station, with its acres of tracks and footways, and its incessantly shifting processions of people, there was visible nobody else who seemed also in doubt, or who appeared capable of sympathizing with indecision in any form. Another train came in, some way over to the right, and before it had fairly stopped, swarms of eager men began boiling out of each end of each car. Literally precipitating themselves over one another, it seemed to theran, and their excited dash down the steps. As they caught their footing below, they started racing pel mel down the platform to its end. There he saw them, looking more than ever like clustered bees in the distance, struggling vehemently in a dense mass up a staircase in the remote corner of the building. What are those folks running for? Is there a fire? He asked an amiable-faced young mulatto, in the uniform of the sleeping-car service, who passed him with some light handbags. No, they's Harlem people, I guess. Just catching the elevated, that's all, sir, he answered obligingly. At the moment some passengers emerged slowly from one of the sleeping-cars, and came loitering toward him. Why, are there people still in these cars, he asked eagerly. Haven't they all gone? Some has, some ain't, the porter replied. They most generally take their time about it. They ain't got no hurry, so long as they get out for we'd drawn round to the drill-yard. There was still hope, then. Theron took up his bag and walked forward, intent upon finding some place from which he could watch unobserved, the belated stragglers issuing from the sleeping-cars. He started back all at once, confronted by a semi-circle of violent men with whips and badges, who stunned his hearing by a sudden vociferous outburst of shouts and yells. They made furious gestures at him with their whips and fists to enforce the incoherent babble of their voices. And in these gestures, as in their faces and cries, there seemed a great deal of menace and very little invitation. There was a big policeman sauntering nearby, and Theron got the idea that it was his presence alone which protected him from open violence at the hands of these savage hack men. He tightened his clutch on his valise, and, turning back on them and their uproar, tried to brave it out and stand where he was. But the policeman came lounging slowly toward him, with such authority in his swaying gate, and such urban omniscience written all over his broad, sandy face that he lost heart, and beat an abrupt retreat off to the right, where there were a number of doorways, near which other people had ventured to put down baggage on the floor. Here, somewhat screened from observation, he stood for a long time, watching at odd moments the ceaselessly varying phases of the strange scene about him. But always keeping an eye on the train, he had himself arrived in. It was slow and dispiriting work. A dozen times his heart failed him, and he said to himself mournfully that he had had his journey for nothing. Then some new figure would appear, alighting from the steps of a sleeper, and hope revived in his breast. At last, when over half an hour of expectancy had been marked off by the big clock overhead, his suspense came to an end. He saw Father Forbes erect in substantial form, standing on the carved platform near his deval, balancing himself with his white hands on the rails, waiting for something. Then, after a little, he came down, followed by a black porter, whose arms were burdened by numerous bags and parcels. The two stood, a minute or so more, in hesitation at the side of the steps. Then Celia descended, and the three advanced. The importance of not being discovered was uppermost in Theron's mind. Now that he saw them actually coming toward him, he had avoided this the previous evening in the Octavius depot, with some skill he flattered himself. It gave him a pleasurable sense of being a man of affairs, almost a detective, to be confronted by the necessity now of baffling observation once again. He was still rather without plans for keeping them in view once they left the station. He had supposed he would be able to hear what hotel they directed their driver to take them to, and, failing that, he had fostered a notion, based upon a story he had read when a boy, of throwing himself into another carriage, and bidding his driver to pursue them in hot haste, and on his life not to fail to track them down. These devices seemed somewhat empty, now that the urgent moment was at hand. And as he drew back behind some other loiterers out of view, he sharply wracked his wits, for some way of coping with this most pressing problem. It turned out, however, that there was no difficulty at all. Father Forbes and Celia seemed to have no use for the Hackman, but moved straight forward toward the street, through the doorway, next to that in which Theron cowered. He stole round, and followed them at a safe distance, making Celia's hat, and the portmanteau perched on the shoulder of the porter behind her, his guides. To his surprise they still kept on their course when they had reached the sidewalk, and went over the pavement across an open square which spread itself, directly in front of the station. Hanging as far behind as he dared, he saw them pass to the other sidewalk, diagonally opposite, proceed for a block or so along this, and then separate at a corner. Celia and the Negro lad went down a side street, and entered the door of a vast, tall, red brick building which occupied the whole block. The priest, turning on his heel, came back again, and went boldly up the broad steps of the front entrance to this same structure, which Theron now discovered to be the Murray Hill Hotel. Fortune had indeed favoured him. He not only knew where they were, but he had been himself a witness to the furtive way in which they entered the house by different doors. Nothing in his own limited experience of hotels helped him to comprehend the notion of a separate entrance for ladies and their luggage. He did not feel quite sure about the significance of what he had observed in his own mind, but it was apparent to him that there was something underhanded about it. After lingering on the steps of the hotel, and satisfying himself by peeps through the glass door, that the coast was clear, he ventured inside. The great corridor contained many people coming, going, or standing about, but none of them paid any attention to him. At last he made up his mind, and beckoned a coloured boy to him from a group gathered in the shadows of the big central staircase, explaining that he did not at the moment wish a room, but desired to leave his bag. The boy took him to a cloakroom, and got him a check for the thing. With this in his pocket he felt himself more at ease, and turned to walk away. Then suddenly he wheeled, and, bending his body over the counter of the cloakroom, astonished the attendant inside by the eagerness with which he scrutinized the piled rows of portmanteaus, trunks, overcoats, and bundles in the little enclosure. What is it you want? Here's your bag, if you're looking for that. No thanks, it's nothing, replied Theron, straightening himself again. He had had a narrow escape. Father Forbes and Celia, walking side by side, had come down the small passage in which he stood, and had passed him so closely that he had felt her dress brush against him. Fortunately he had seen them in time, and by throwing himself half into the cloakroom had rendered recognition impossible. He walked now in the direction they had taken, till he came to the polite colored van at an open door on the left, who was bowing people into the breakfast room. Standing in the doorway he looked about him till his eye lighted upon his two friends, seated at a small table by a distant window, with a black waiter card in hand, bending over in consultation with them. Returning to the corridor, he made bold now to march up to the desk and examine the register. The priest's name was not there. He found only the brief entry, Ms. Madden Octavius, written not by her, but by Father Forbes. On the line were two numbers in pencil, with an and between them. An indirect question to one of the clerks helped him to an explanation of this. When there were two numbers, it meant that the guest in question had a parlor as well as a bedroom. Here he drew a long satisfied breath and turned away. The first half of his quest stood completed, and that much more fully and easily than he had dared to hope. He could not but feel a certain new respect for himself as a man of resource and energy. He had demonstrated that people could not fool with him with impunity. It remained to decide what he would do with his discovery, now that it had been so satisfactorily made. As yet he had given this hardly a thought. Even now it did not thrust itself forward as a thing demanding instant attention. It was much more important, first of all, to get a good breakfast. He had learned that there was another and less formal eating-place downstairs in the basement by the bar, with an entrance from the street. He walked down by the inner stairway instead, feeling himself already at home in the big hotel. He ordered an ample breakfast, and came out while it was being served to wash and have his boots blacked, and he gave the man a quarter of a dollar. His pockets were filled with silver quarters, half-dollars, and dollars, almost to a burdensome point, and in his valise was a bag full of smaller change, including many rolls of copper scents which Alice always counted and packed up on Mondays. In the hurry of leaving he had brought with him the church collections for the past two weeks. It occurred to him that he must keep a strict account of his expenditure. Meanwhile he gave ten cents to another man in a silk-sleeved cardigan jacket, who had merely stood by and looked at him while his boots were being polished. There was a sense of metropolitan affluence in the very atmosphere. The little table in the adjoining room, on which Theron found his meal in waiting for him, seemed a vision of delicate nappery and refined appointments in the eyes. He was wolfishly hungry, and the dishes he looked upon gave him back assurances by sight and smell that he was very happy as well. The servant in attendance had an extremely white apron and a kindly black face. He bowed when Theron looked at him with the air of a lifelong admirer and humble friend. I suppose you'll have clear it with your breakfast, sir. He remarked, as if it were a matter of course, why, certainly, answered Theron. Stretching his legs contentedly under the table and tucking the corner of his napkin in his neck-band, certainly, my good man. End of Chapter 29 Chapter 30 OF THE DAMNATION OF THEREN WHERE This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. THE DAMNATION OF THEREN WHERE by Harold Frederick Chapter 30 At ten o'clock, Theron, loitering near the bookstore in the corridor, saw Father Forbes come downstairs, pass out through the big front doors, get into a carriage, and drive away. This relieved him of a certain sense of responsibility, and he retired to a corner sofa and sat down. The detective side of him, being off duty, so to speak, there was leisure at last for reflection upon the other aspects of his mission. Yes, it was high time for him to consider what he should do next. It was easier to recognize this fact, however, than to act upon it. His mind was full of tricksy devices for eluding this task of serious thought, which he sought to impose upon it. It seemed so much pleasanter not to think at all, but just to drift. He found himself watching with envy the men who, as they came out from their breakfast, walked over to the bookstore, and bought cigars from the row of boxes nestling there among the newspaper piles. They had such evident delight in the work of selection. They took off the ends of the cigars so carefully, and lighted them with such meditative attention. He could see that he was woefully handicapped by not knowing how to smoke. He had had the most wonderful breakfast of his life, but even in the consciousness of comfortable repletion which pervaded his being there was an obstinate sense of something lacking. No doubt a good cigar was the thing needed to round out the perfection of such a breakfast. He half rose once, fired by a sudden resolution to go over and get one, but of course that was nonsense. It would only make him sick. He sat down and determinately set himself to thinking. The effort finally brought fruit, and of a kind which gave him a very unhappy quarter of an hour. The lover part of him was uppermost now, insistently exposing all its raw surfaces to the stings and scalds of jealousy. Up to this moment his brain had always evaded the direct question of how he and the priest relatively stood in Celia's estimation. It forced itself remorselessly upon him now, and his thoughts, so far from shirking the subject, seemed to rise up to meet it. It was extremely unpleasant, all this. But then a calmer view asserted itself. Why go out of his way to invent anguish for himself? The relations between Celia and the priest, whatever they might be, were certainly of old standing. They had begun before his time. His own romance was a more recent affair, and must take its place, of course, subject to existing conditions. It was all right for him to come to New York and satisfy his legitimate curiosity as to the exact character and scope of these conditions. But it was foolish to pretend to be amazed or dismayed at the discovery of their existence. They were a part of the situation which he, with his eyes wide open, had accepted. It was his function to triumph over them, to supplant them, to rear the edifice of his own victorious passion upon their ruins. It was to this that Celia's kiss had invited him. It was for this that he had come to New York. To let his purpose be hampered or thwarted now by childish doubts and jealousies would be ridiculous. He rose and, holding himself very erect, walked with measured deliberation across the corridor and up the broad staircase. There was an elevator near at hand, he had noticed, but he preferred the stairs. One or two of the colored boys, clustered about the foot of the stairs, looked at him, and he had a moment of dreadful apprehension, lest they should stop his progress. Nothing was said, and he went on. The numbers on the first floor were not what he wanted, and after some wandering about he ascended to the next and then to the third. Every now and then he encountered attendance, but intuitively he bore himself with an air of knowing what he was about, which protected him from inquiry. Finally he came upon the hallway he sought. Passing along he found the doors bearing the numbers he had memorized so well. They were quite close together, and there was nothing to help him guess which belonged to the parlor. He hesitated, gazing wistfully from one to the other. In the instant of indecision, even while his alert ear caught the sound of feet coming along the passage in which he stood, a thought came to quicken his resolve. It became apparent to him that his discovery gave him a certain new measure of freedom with Celia, a sort of right to take things more for granted than heretofore. He chose a door at random and wrapped distinctly on the panel. Come! The voice he knew for Celia's, the single word, however, recalled the usage of Father Forbes, which he had noted more than once at the pastorate when Maggie had knocked. He straightened his shoulders, took his hat off, and pushed open the door. It was the parlor, a room of sofas, pianos, big easy chairs, and luxurious bric-a-brac. A tall woman was walking up and down in it with bowed head. Her back was at the moment toward him, and he looked at her, saying to himself that this was the lady of his dreams, the enchantress of the kiss, the woman who loved him, but somehow it did not seem to his senses to be Celia. She turned and moved a step or two in his direction, before she mechanically lifted her eyes and saw who was standing in the doorway. She stopped short and regarded him. Her face was in the shadow, and he could make out nothing of its expression, save that there was a general effect of gravity about it. I cannot receive you, she said. You must go away. You have no business to come like this without sending up your card. Therein smiled at her. The notion of taking in Ernest, her inhospitable words, did not at all occur to him. He could see now that her face had vexed and saddened lines upon it, and the sharpness of her tone remained in his ears. But he smiled again gently to reassure her. I ought to have sent up my name, I know, he said, but I couldn't bear to wait. I just saw your name on the register and—you will forgive me, won't you? I ran to you at once. I know you won't have the heart to send me away. She stood where she had halted, her arms behind her, looking him fixedly in the face. He had made a movement to advance and offered his hand in greeting, but her posture checked the impulse. His courage began to falter under her inspection. Must I really go down again? he pleaded. It's a crushing penalty to suffer for such a little indiscretion. I was so excited to find you were here, I never stopped to think. Don't send me away, please don't. Celia raised her head. Well, shut the door then, she said, since you were so anxious to stay. You would have done much better, though, very much better indeed, to have taken the hint and gone away. Will you shake hands with me, Celia? he asked, softly, as he came near her. Sit there, please, she made answer, indicating a chair in the middle of the room. He obeyed her, but to his surprise, instead of seating herself as well, she began walking up and down the length of the floor again. After a turn or two, she stopped in front of him and looked him full in the eye. The light from the windows was on her countenance now, and its revelations vaguely troubled him. It was a Celia he had never seen before who confronted him. I am much occupied with other matters, she said, speaking with cold impassivity, but still I find myself curious to know just what limits you set to your dishonesty. Theron stared up at her. His lips quivered, but no speech came to them. If this was all merely fond playfulness, it was being carried to a heart-aking point. I saw you hiding about in the depot at home last evening, she went on. You come up here, pretending to have discovered me by accident, but I saw you following me from the Grand Central this morning. Yes, I did both these things, said Theron boldly. A fine bravery tingled in his veins all at once. He looked into her face and found the spirit to disregard its frowning aspect. Yes, I did them, he repeated defiantly. That is not the hundredth part or the thousandth part of what I would do for your sake. I have got way beyond caring for any consequences. Position, reputation, the good opinion of fools. What are they? Life itself. What does it amount to? Nothing at all, with you in the balance. Yes, but I am not in the balance. Observed Celia quietly. That is where you have made your mistake. Theron laid aside his hat. Women were curious creatures, he reflected. Some were susceptible to one line of treatment, some to another. His own reading of Celia had always been that she liked opposition of a smart, rattling, almost cheeky sort. One got on best with her by saying bright things. He searched his brain now for some clever quip that would strike sparks from the adamantine mood, which for the moment it was her whim to assume. To cover the process he smiled a little. Then her beauty as she stood before him, her queenly form clad in a more stiffly fashionable dress than he had seen her wearing before, appealed afresh and overwhelmingly to him, he rose to his feet. Have you forgot our talk in the woods? He murmured with a wooing note. Have you forgotten the kiss? She shook her head calmly. I have forgotten nothing. Then why play with me so cruelly now, he went on, in a voice of tender deprecation. I know you don't mean it, but all the same it bruises my heart a little. I build myself so wholly upon you, I have made existence itself depend so completely upon your smile, upon a soft glance in your eyes, that when they are not there why I suffer, I don't know how to live at all. So be kinder to me, Celia. I was kinder, as you call it, when you came in, she replied, I told you to go away. That was pure kindness, more kindness than you deserved. Theron looked at his hat, where it stood on the carpet by his feet. He felt tears coming into his eyes. You tell me that you remember, he said, in depressed tones. And yet you treat me like this, perhaps I am wrong, though doubt it is my fault. I suppose I ought not to have come down here at all. Celia nodded her head in ascent to this view. But I swear that I was helpless in the matter, he burst forth. I had to come. It would have been literally impossible for me to have stayed at home, knowing that you were here, and knowing also that—that— Go on, said Celia, thrusting forth her underlip a trifle, and hardening still further the gleam in her eye, as he stumbled over his sentence and left it unfinished. What was the other thing that you were knowing? Knowing, he took up the word, hesitatingly, knowing that life would be insupportable to me if I could not be near you. She curled her lip at him. You skated over the thin spot very well, she commented. It was on the tip of your tongue to mention the fact that Father Forbes came with me. Oh, I can read you through and through, Mr. Ware. In a misty way therein felt things slipping from his grasp. The rising moisture blurred his eyes as their gaze clung to Celia. Then if you do read me, he protested, you must know how utterly my heart and brain are filled with you. No other man in all the world can yield himself so absolutely to the woman he worships as I can. You have taken possession of me so wholly. I am not in the least master of myself any more. I don't know what I say or what I do. I am not worthy of you, I know. No man alive could be that. But no one else will idolize you and reverence you as I do. Believe me when I say that, Celia. And how can you blame me, in your heart, for following you? Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou dyest, will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. Celia shrugged her shoulders and moved a few steps away from him. Something like despair seized upon him. Surely, he urged with passion, surely I have a right to remind you of the kiss. She turned. The kiss, she said, meditatively. Yes, you have a right to remind me of it. Oh yes, an undoubted right. You have another right, too, the right to have the kiss explained to you. It was of the goodbye order. It signified that we weren't to meet again, and that for just one little moment I permitted myself to be sorry for you. That was all. He held himself erect under the incredible words, and gazed blankly at her. The magnitude of what he confronted bewildered him. His mind was incapable of taking it in. You mean, he started to say, and then stopped, helplessly staring into her face, with a dropped jaw. It was too much to try to think what she meant. A little side-thought sprouted in the confusion of his brain. It grew until it spread a bitter smile over his face. I know so little about kisses, he said. I am such a greenhorn at that sort of thing. You should have had pity on my inexperience, and told me just what brand of kiss it was I was getting. Probably I ought to have been able to distinguish, but you see I was brought up in the country on a farm. They don't have kisses in assorted varieties there. She bowed her head slightly. Yes, you are entitled to say that, she assented. I was to blame, and it is quite fair that you should tell me so. You spoke of your inexperience, your innocence. That was why I kissed you in saying goodbye. It was in memory of that innocence of yours, to which you yourself had been busy saying goodbye, ever since I first saw you. The idea seemed to me to mean something at the moment. I see now that it was too subtle. I do not usually err on that side. Theron kept his hold upon her gaze, as if it afforded him bodily support. He felt that he ought to stoop and take up his hat, but he dared not look away from her. Do you not err now on the side of cruelty? he asked her piteously. It seemed for the instant, as if she were wavering. And he swiftly thrust forth, other please. I admit that I did wrong to follow you to New York. I see that now. But it was an offense committed in entire good faith. Think of it, Celia. I have never seen you since that day, that day in the woods. I have waited and waited, with no sign from you, no chance of seeing you at all. Think what that meant to me. Everything in the world had been altered for me, torn up by the roots. I was a new being, plunged into a new existence. The kiss had done that. But until I saw you again, I could not tell whether this vast change in me in my life was for good or for bad. Whether the kiss had come to me as a blessing or a curse. The suspense was killing me, Celia. That is why, when I learned that you were coming here, I threw everything to the winds and followed you. You blame me for it, and I bow my head and accept the blame. But are you justified in punishing me so terribly? In going on after I have confessed my error, and cutting my heart into little strips, putting me to death by torture. Sit down, said Celia, with a softened weariness in her voice. She seated herself in front of him, as he sank into his chair again. I don't want to give you unnecessary pain. But you have insisted on forcing yourself into a position where there isn't anything else but pain. I warned you to go away, but you wouldn't. No matter how gently I may try to explain things to you, you were bound to get nothing but suffering out of the explanation. Now shall I still go on? He inclined his head in token of assent, but did not lift it again. But raised toward her a disconsolate gaze, from a pallid, drooping face. It is all in a single word, Mr. Ware, she proceeded, in low tones. I speak for others as well as myself, mind you. We find that you are a bore. There in stiffened countenance remained immovable. He continued to stare unblinkingly into her eyes. We were disposed to like you very much when we first knew you, Celia went on. You impressed us all as an innocent, simple, genuine young character, full of mother's milk. It was like the smell of early spring in the country to come in contact with you. Your honesty of nature, your sincerity in that absurd religion of yours, your general naivete of mental and spiritual get-up, all pleased us a great deal. We thought you were going to be a real acquisition. Just a moment. Whom do you mean by we? He asked the question, calmly enough, but in a voice with an effect of distance in it. It may not be necessary to enter into that, she replied. Let me go on. But then it became apparent, little by little, that we had misjudged you. We liked you, as I have said, because you were unsophisticated and delightfully fresh and natural. Somehow we took it for granted that you would stay so. But that is just what you didn't do. Just what you hadn't the sense to try to do. Instead we found you inflating yourself with all sorts of egotisms and vanities. We found you presuming upon the friendships which had been mistakenly extended to you. Do you want instances? You went to Dr. Ledzmar's house that very day after I had been with you to get a piano at Thurston's and tried to inveigle him into talking scandal about me. You came to me with tales about him. You went to Father Forbes, and sought to get him to gossip about us both. Neither of those men will ever ask you inside his house again. But that is only one part of it. Your whole mind became an unpleasant thing to contemplate. You thought it would amuse and impress us to hear you ridiculing and reviling the people of your church, whose money supports you, and making a mock of the things they believe in, and which you, for your life, wouldn't dare let them know you didn't believe in. You talked to us slidingly about your wife. What were you thinking of, not to comprehend that that would disgust us? You showed me once, do you remember, a life of George Saund you had just bought, bought because you had just discovered that she had an unclean side to her life. You chuckled as you spoke to me about it. And you were for all the world like a nasty little boy, giggling over something dirty that older people had learned not to notice. These are merely random incidents. They are just samples, picked haphazard, of the things in you which have been opening our eyes little by little to our mistake. I can understand that all the while you really fancied that you were expanding, growing in all directions. What you took to be improvement was degeneration. When you thought that you were impressing us most by your smart sayings and doings, you were reminding us most of the fable about the donkey trying to play lap dog. And it wasn't even an honest, straightforward donkey at that. She uttered these last words sorrowfully, her hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes sinking to the floor. A silence ensued. Then Theron reached a groping hand out for his hat, and, rising, walked with a lifeless automatic step to the door. He had it half open, when the impossibility of leaving in this way towered suddenly in his path and overwhelmed him. He slammed the door too, and turned as if he had been world round by some mighty wind. He came toward her with something almost menacing in the vigor of his movements, and in the wild look upon his white, set face. Halting before her, he covered the tailor-clad figure, the coiled red hair, the upturned face with its simulated calm, the big brown eyes, the rings upon the clasped fingers, with a sweeping, comprehensive glare of passion. This is what you have done to me then. His voice was unrecognizable in his own ears, hoarse and broken, but with a fright compelling something in it, which stimulated his rage. The horrible notion of killing her, there where she sat, spread over the chaos of his mind with an effect of unearthly light, red and abnormally evil. It was like that first devilish radiance ushering in creation, of which the first fruit was cane. Why should he not kill her? In all ages women had been slain for less, yes, and men had been hanged. Something rose and stuck in his dry throat, and as he swallowed it down, the sinister flair of murderous fascination died suddenly away into darkness. The world was all black again, plunged in the Egyptian night, which lay upon the face of the deep, while the earth was yet without form and void. He was alone in it, alone among awful, planetary solitudes which crushed him. The sight of Celia, sitting motionless only a pace in front of him, was plain enough to his eyes. It was an illusion. She was really a star, many millions of miles away. These things were hard to understand, but they were true, none the less. People seemed to be about him, but in fact he was alone. He recalled that even the little child in the car, playing with those two buttons on a string, would have nothing to do with him. Take his money, yes. Take all he would give her, but not smile at him, not come within reach of him. Men closed the doors of their houses against him. The universe held him at arm's length as a nuisance. He was standing with one knee upon a sofa. Unconsciously he had moved round to the side of Celia, and as he caught the effect of her face now in profile, memory pictures began all at once building themselves in his brain. Pictures of her standing in the darkened room of the cottage of death, declaiming the confeder, of her seated at the piano under the pure, mellowed candlelight, of her leaning her chin on her hands and gazing meditatively at the leafy background of the woods they were in, of her lying back, indolently content in the deck chair of the yacht of his fancy, that yacht which a few hours before had seemed so brilliantly and bewitchingly real to him, and now, now, he sank in a heap upon the couch and, burying his face among its cushions, wept and groaned aloud. His collapse was absolute. He sobbed with the abandonment of one who, in the veritable presence of death, lets go all sense of relation to life. Presently someone was touching him on the shoulder, an incisive, pointed touch, and he checked himself and lifted his face. You will have to get up and present some sort of an appearance and go away at once. Celia said to him in low, rapid tones, some gentlemen are at the door whom I have been waiting for. As he stupidly sat up and tried to collect his faculties, Celia had opened the door and admitted two visitors. The foremost was Father Forbes, and he, with some whispered, smiling words, presented to her his companion, a tall, robust, florid man of middle age, with a frock coat and a gray mustache, sharply waxed. The three spoke for a moment together. Then, the priest's wandering eye suddenly lighted upon the figure on the sofa. He stared, knitted his brows, and then lifted them in inquiry as he turned to Celia. Poor man, she said readily, in tones loud enough to reach Theron. It is our neighbor father, the Reverend Mr. Ware. He hid upon my name in the register quite unexpectedly, and I had him come up. He is in sore distress, a great and sudden bereavement. He is going now. Won't you speak to him in the hall, a few words, Father? It would please him. He is terribly depressed. The words had drawn Theron to his feet, as by some mechanical process. He took up his hat and moved dumbly to the door. It seemed to him that Celia intended offering to shake hands, but he went past her with only some confused exchange of glances and a murmured word or two. The tall stranger, who drew aside to let him pass, had acted as if he expected to be introduced. Theron, emerging into the hall, leaned against the wall and looked dreamily at the priest, who had stepped out with him. I am very sorry to learn that you were in trouble, Mr. Ware. Father Forbes said, gently enough, but in hurried tones. Miss Madden is also in trouble. I mentioned to you that her brother had got into a serious scrape. I have brought my old friend, General Brady, to consult with her about the matter. He knows all the parties concerned, and he could set things right if anybody can. It's a mistake about me. I'm not in any trouble at all, said Theron. I just dropped in to make a friendly call. The priest glanced sharply at him, noting with a swift, informed scrutiny how he sprawled against the wall and what vacuity his eyes and loosened lips expressed. Then you have a talent for the inopportune amounting to positive genius, said Father Forbes with a stormy smile. Tell me this, Father Forbes, the other demanded, with impulsive suddenness, is it true that you don't want me in your house again? Is that the truth or not? The truth is always relative, Mr. Ware, replied the priest, turning away and closing the door of the parlor behind him with a decisive sound. Left alone Theron started to make his way downstairs. He found his legs wavering under him and making zigzag movements of their own in a bewildering fashion. He referred this at first in an outburst of fresh despair to the effects of his great grief. Then, as he held tight to the banister and governed his descent step by step, it occurred to him that it must be the wine he had had for breakfast. Upon examination he was not so unhappy, after all. At the second peel of the doorbell, brother Solesby sat up in bed. It was still pitch dark, and the memory of the first ringing fluttered musically in his awakening consciousness, as a part of some dream he had been having. Who the deuce can that be, he mused aloud, in quarrelous resentment at the interruption. Put your head out the window and ask, suggested his wife drowsily. The bell-pole scraped violently in its socket, and a third outburst of shrill reverberations clamored through the silent house. Whatever you do, I'd do it before he yanked the whole thing to pieces, added the wife with more decision. Brother Solesby was wide awake now. He sprang to the floor and, groping about in the obscurity, began drawing on some of his clothes. He wrapped on the window during the process to show that the house was a stir, and a minute afterward made his way out of the room and down the stairs, the boards creaking under his stocking feet as he went. Nearly a quarter of an hour passed before he returned. Sister Solesby, lying in sleepy quiescence, heard vague sounds of voices at the front door, and did not feel interested enough to lift her head and listen. A noise of footsteps on the sidewalk followed, first receding from the door, then turning toward it, the second time marking the presence of more than one person. There seemed in this the implication of a guest, and she shook off the dozing impulses which enveloped her faculties and waited to hear more. There came up, after further muttering of male voices, the undeniable chink of coins striking against one another. Then more footsteps, the resonant slam of a carriage door out in the street, the grinding of wheels turning on the frosty road, and the racket of a vehicle and horses going off at a smart pace into the night. Someone had come then. She yawned at the thought, but remained well awake, tracing idly in her mind, as various slight sounds rose from the lower floor. The different things Soulsby was probably doing. Their spare room was down there, directly underneath, but curiously enough no one seemed to enter it. The faint murmur of conversation which from time to time reached her came from the parlor instead. At last she heard her husband's soft tread coming up the staircase, and still there had been no hint of employing the guest chamber. What could he be about, she wondered. Brother Soulsby came in, bearing a small lamp in his hand, the reddish light of which, flaring upward, revealed an unlooked-for display of amusement on his thin, beardless face. He advanced to the bedside, shading the glare from her blinking eyes with his palm, and grinned. A thousand guesses old lady, he said, with a dry chuckle, and you wouldn't have a ghost of a chance. You might guess till Hades froze over seven feet thick, and still you wouldn't hit it. She sat up in turn, good gracious man, she began, you don't mean. Here the cheerful gleam in his small eyes reassured her, and she sighed relief, then smiled, confusedly. I have thought just for the minute, she explained. It might be some bounder who'd come east to try to blackmail me. But know who is it, and what on earth have you done with him? Brother Soulsby cackled in merriment. It's Brother Ware of Octavius, out on a little bat all by himself. He says he's been on the loose only two days, but it looks like a fortnight. Our Brother Ware? She regarded him with open-eyed surprise. Well, yes, I suppose he's our Brother Ware, some, returned Soulsby genially. He seems to think so anyway. But tell me about it, she urged eagerly. What's the matter with him? How does he explain it? Well, he explains it pretty badly if you ask me, said Soulsby, with a droll, joking eye, and a mock serious voice. He seated himself on the side of the bed, facing her, and still considerably shielding her from the light of the lamp he held. But don't think I suggested any explanations. I've been a mother myself. He's merely filled himself up to the neck with rum, in the simple ordinary good old fashioned way. That's all. What is there to explain about that? She looked meditatively at him for a time, shaking her head. No, Soulsby. She said gravely, at last. This isn't any laughing matter. You may be sure something bad has happened to set him off like that. I'm going to get up and dress right now. What time is it? Now don't you do anything of the sort, he urged persuasively. It isn't five o'clock. It'll be dark for nearly an hour yet. Just you turn over and have another nap. He's all right. I put him on the sofa, with the buffalo robe round him. You'll find him there, safe and sound, when it's time for white folks to get up. You know how it breaks you up all day, not to get your full sleep. I don't care if it makes me look as old as the everlasting hills, she said. Can't you understand, Soulsby? The thing worries me, gets on my nerves. I couldn't close an eye if I tried. I took a great fancy to that young man, I told you so at the time. Soulsby nodded and turned down the wick of his lamp, a trifle. Yes, I know you did, he remarked, in placidly non-contentious tones. I can't say I saw much in him myself, but I dare say you're right. There followed a moment's silence, during which he experimented in turning the wick up again. But anyway, he went on. There isn't anything you can do, he'll sleep it off, and the longer he's left alone the better. It isn't as if we had a hired girl, who'd come down and find him there, and give the whole thing away. He's fixed up there perfectly comfortable, and when he's had his sleep out and wakes up on his own account, he'll be feeling a heap better. The argument might have carried conviction, but on the instant the sound of footsteps came to them from the room below, the subdued noise rose regularly, as of one pacing to and fro. No, Soulsby, you come back to bed and get your sleep, I'm going downstairs, it's no good talking, I'm going. Brother Soulsby offered no further opposition, either by talk or demeanor, but returned contentedly to bed, pulling the comforter over his ears, and falling into the slow, measured respiration of tranquil slumber before his wife was ready to leave the room. The dim, cold gray of twilight was sifting furtively through the lace curtains of the front windows when Mrs. Soulsby, lamp in hand, entered the parlor. She confronted a figure she would have hardly recognized. The man seemed to have been submerged in a bath of disgrace. From the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, everything about him was altered, distorted, smeared with an intangible effect of shame. In the vague gloom of the middle distance between lamp and window, she noticed that his shoulders were crouched, like those of some shambling tramp. The frowsy shadows of a stubble beard lay on his jaw and throat. His clothes were crumpled and hung awry. His boots were stained with mud. The silk hat on the piano told its battered story with dumb eloquence. Lifting the lamp she moved forward a step and threw its light upon his face. A little groan sounded involuntarily upon her lips. Out of a mask of unpleasant features, swollen with drink and weighted by the physical craving for rest and sleep, there stared at her two bloodshot eyes, shining with the wild light of hysteria. The effect of disheveled hair, relaxed muscles, and rough, half-bearded lower face lint to these eyes as she caught their first glance an unnatural glare. The lamp shook in her hand for an instant. Then, ashamed of herself, she held out her other hand fearlessly to him. Tell me all about it, Theron, she said calmly, and with a soothing motherly intonation in her voice. He did not take the hand she offered, but suddenly, with a wailing moan, cast himself on his knees at her feet. He was so tall a man that the movement could have no grace. He abased his head awkwardly to bury it among the folds of the skirts at her ankles. She stood still a moment, looking down upon him. Then, blowing out the light, she reached over and set the smoking lamp on the piano nearby. The daylight made things distinguishable in a wan, uncertain way, throughout the room. I have come out of hell for the sake of hearing some human being speak to me like that. The thick utterance proceeded in a muffled fashion from where his face groveled against her dress. Its despairing accents appealed to her, but even more was she touched by the ungainly figure he made, sprawling on the carpet. Well, since you are out, stay out, she answered, as reassuringly as she could. But get up and take a seat here beside me, like a sensible man, and tell me all about it. Come, I insist. In obedience to her tone and the sharp tug at his shoulder, with which she emphasized it, he got slowly to his feet, and listlessly seated himself on the sofa to which she pointed. He hung his head and began catching his breath with a periodical gasp, half hiccup, half sob. First of all, she said, in her brisk, matter-of-fact manner, don't you want to lie down there again and have me tuck you up snug with the buffalo robe and go to sleep? That would be the best thing you could do. He shook his head disconsolently, from side to side. I can't, he groaned, with a swifter recurrence of the sob-like convulsions. I'm dying for sleep, but I'm too frightened. Come, I'll sit beside you till you drop off, she said, with masterful decision. He suffered himself to be pushed into recumbency on the couch, and put his head with facility on the pillow she brought from the spare room. When she had spread the fur over him, and pushed her chair close to the sofa, she stood by it for a little, looking down in meditation at his demoralized face. Under the painful surface blur of wretchedness and fatigued debauchery, she traced reflectively the lineaments of the younger and cleaner countenance she had seen a few months before. Nothing essential had been taken away. There was only this pestiferous overlying of shame and cowardice to be removed. The face underneath was still all right. With a soft maternal touch, she smoothed the hair from his forehead into order. Then she seated herself, and, when he got his hand out from under the robe and thrust it forth timidly, she took it in hers, and held it in a warm sympathetic grasp. He closed his eyes at this, and gradually the paroxysmal catch in his breathing lapsed. The daylight strengthened, until at last tiny flecks of sunshine twinkled in the meshes of the further curtains at the window. She fancied him asleep, and gently sought to disengage her hand. But his fingers clutched at it with vehemence, and his eyes were wide open. I can't sleep at all, he murmured. I want to talk. There's nothing in the world to hinder you, she commented smilingly. I tell you the solemn truth, he said, lifting his voice in dogged assertion. The best sermon I ever preached in my life I preached only three weeks ago at the camp meeting. It was admitted by everybody to be far and away my finest effort. They will tell you the same. It's quite likely, assented Sister Soulsby, I quite believe it. Then how can anybody say I've degenerated, that I've become a fool, he demanded. I haven't heard anybody hint at such a thing, she answered quietly. No, no, of course you haven't heard them, he cried. I heard them, though. Then, forcing himself to a sitting posture against the restraint of her hand, he flung back the covering. I'm burning hot already. Yes, those were the identical words. I haven't improved, I've degenerated. People hate me. They won't have me in their houses. They say I'm a nuisance and a bore. I'm like a nasty little boy. That's what they say. Even a young man who was dying. Lying right on the edge of his open grave, told me solemnly that I reminded him of a saint once, but I was only fit for a barkeeper now. They say I really don't know anything at all. And I'm not only a fool, they say, I'm a dishonest fool into the bargain. But who says such twaddle is that? she returned consolingly. The violence of his emotion disturbed her. You mustn't imagine such things. You are among friends here. Other people are your friends, too. They have the very highest opinion of you. I haven't a friend on earth but you, he declared solemnly. His eyes glowed fiercely, and his voice sank into a grave intensity of tone. I was going to kill myself. I went on to the big bridge to throw myself off, and a policeman saw me trying to climb over the railing, and he grabbed me and marched me away. Then he threw me out at the entrance, and said he would club my head off if I came there again. And then I went and stood and let the cable cars pass close by me, and twenty times I thought I had the nerve to throw myself under the next one, and then I waited for the next, and I was afraid. And then I was in a crowd somewhere, and the warning came to me that I was going to die. The fool neededn't go kill himself. God will take care of that. It was my heart, you know. I've had that terrible fluttering once before. It seized me this time, and I fell down in the crowd, and some people walked over me. But someone else helped me up, and let me sit down in a big lighted hallway, the entrance to some theatre, and someone brought me some brandy. But somebody else said I was drunk, and they took it away again, and put me out. They could see I was a fool, that I hadn't a friend on earth. And when I went out there was a big picture of a woman in tights, and the word Amazons overhead. And then I remembered you. I knew you were my friend, the only one I have on earth. It is very flattering to be remembered like that, said Sister Soldby gently. The disposition to laugh was smothered by a pained perception of the suffering he was undergoing. His face had grown drawn and haggard under the burden of his memories as he rambled on. So I came straight to you, he began again. I had just money enough left to pay my fare. The rest is in my valise at the hotel, the Murray Hill Hotel. It belongs to the church. I stole it from the church. When I am dead they can get it back again. Sister Soldby forced a smile to her lips. What nonsense you talk about dying! she exclaimed. Why, man alive, you'll sleep all this off like a top. If you'll only lie down and give yourself a chance, come now. You must do as you're told. With a resolute hand she made him lie down again, and once more covered him with the fur. He submitted, and did not even offer to put out his arm this time. But looked in piteous dumbness at her for a long time. While she sat thus in silence, the sound of brother's souls be moving about upstairs became audible. Farron heard it, and the importance of hurrying on some further disclosure seemed to suggest itself. I can see you think I'm just drunk, he said in low somber tones. Of course that's what he thought. The Hackman thought so, and so did the conductor and everybody. But I hoped you would know better. I was sure you would see that it was something worse than that. See here, I'll tell you. Then you'll understand. I've been drinking for two days and one whole night, on my feet all the while, wandering alone in that big strange New York, going through places where they murdered men for ten cents. Mixing myself up with the worst people in low bar rooms and dance houses. And they saw I had money in my pocket, too, and yet nobody touched me, or offered to lay a finger on me. Do you know why? They understood that I wanted to get drunk, and couldn't. The Indians won't harm an idiot or lunatic, you know. Well, it was the same with these vilest of the vile. They saw that I was a fool whom God had taken hold of, to break his heart first, and then to craze his brain, and then to fling him on a dung-hill to die like a dog. They believe in God, these people. They're the ones who do, it seems to me. And they wouldn't interfere when they saw what he was doing to me. But I tell you, I wasn't drunk. I haven't been drunk. I'm only heartbroken, and crushed out of shape and life, that's all. And I've crawled here just to have a friend buy me when—when I come to the end. You're not talking very sensibly, or very bravely either there and where, remarked his companion. It's cowardly to give way to notions like that. Oh, I'm not afraid to die. Don't think that. He remonstrated, wearily. If there is a judgment, it has hit me as hard as it can already. There can't be any hell worse than what I've gone through. Here I am, talking about hell, he continued, with a pained contraction of the muscles about his mouth, a still-born, malformed smile, as if I believed in one. I've got way through all my beliefs, you know. I tell you that, frankly. It's none of my business, she reassured him. I'm not your bishop or your confessor. I'm just your friend, your pal, that's all. Look here, he broke in, with some animation and a new intensity of glance and voice. If I was going to live, I'd have some funny things to tell. Six months ago I was a good man. I not only seemed to be good, to others and to myself, but I was good. I had a soul, I had a conscience. I was going along, doing my duty, and I was happy in it. We were poor, Alice and I, and people behaved rather hard toward us. And sometimes we were a little down in the mouth about it. But that was all. We really were happy. And I, I really was a good man. Here's the kind of joke God plays. You see me here, six months after. Look at me. I haven't got an honest hair in my head. I'm a bad man, through and through, that's what I am. I look all around at myself, and there isn't an atom left anywhere of the good man I used to be. And, mind you, I never lifted a finger to prevent the change. I didn't resist once. I didn't make any fight. I just walked deliberately downhill with my eyes wide open. I told myself all the while that I was climbing uphill instead. But I knew in my heart that it was a lie. Everything about me was a lie. I wouldn't be telling the truth even now if, if I hadn't come to the end of my rope. Now, how do you explain that? How can it be explained? Was I really rotten to the core all the time, years ago, when I seemed to everybody, myself and the rest, to be good and straight and sincere? Was it all a sham? Or does God take a good man and turn him into an out and out bad one in just a few months? In the time that it takes an ear of corn to form and ripen and go off with mildew? Or isn't there any God at all but only men who live and die like animals? And that would explain my case, wouldn't it? I got bitten and went vicious and crazy. And they've had to chase me out and hunt me to my death like a mad dog. Yes, that makes it all very simple. It isn't worthwhile to discuss me at all as if I had a soul, is it? I'm just one more mongrel-cur that's gone mad and must be put out of the way. That's all. See here, said Sister Solesby, alertly. I have believed that a good cuffing is what you really stand in need of. Now you stop all this nonsense and lie quiet and keep still. Do you hear me? The jacosh sternness which she assumed, in words and manner, seemed to soothe him. He almost smiled up at her in a melancholy way and sighed profoundly. I've told you my religion before, she went on, with gentleness. The sheep and the goats are to be separated on Judgment Day, but not a minute sooner. In other words, as long as human life lasts, good, bad and indifferent are all braided up together in every man's nature and every woman's too. You weren't altogether good a year ago, any more than you're altogether bad now. You were some of both then, you're some of both now. If you've been making an extra sort of fool of yourself lately, why? Now that you recognize it, the only thing to do is to slow steam, pull up, and back engine in the other direction. In that way you'll find things will even themselves up. It's a seesaw with all of us there and where, sometimes up, sometimes down. But nobody has rotten clear to the core. He closed his eyes and lay in silence for a time. This is what day of the week, he asked at last. Friday the nineteenth. Wednesday that would be the seventeenth. That was the day ordained for my slaughter. On that morning I was the happiest man in the world. No king could have been so proud and confident as I was. A wonderful romance had come to me. The most beautiful young woman in the world, the most talented too, was waiting for me. An express train was carrying me to her, and it couldn't go fast enough to keep up with my eagerness. She was very rich, and she loved me, and we were to live in eternal summer, wherever we liked, on a big beautiful yacht. No one else had had such a life before him as that. It seemed almost too good for me, but I thought I had grown and developed so much that perhaps I would be worthy of it. Oh, how happy I was! I tell you this because—because you are not like the others, you will understand. Yes, I understand, she said patiently. Well, you were being so happy. That was in the morning, Wednesday the seventeenth, early in the morning. There was a little girl in the car, playing with some buttons, and when I tried to make friends with her, she looked at me, and she saw, right at a glance, that I was a fool, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, you know. She was the first to find it out. It began like that, early in the morning. But then after that everybody knew it. They had only to look at me, and they said, Why, this is a fool, like a nasty little boy, we won't let him into our houses, we find him a bore. That is what they said. Did she say it? Sister Solesby permitted herself to ask. For answer therein bit his lips, and drew his chin under the fur, and pushed his scowling face into the pillow. The spasmodic, sob-like gasp, began to shake him again. She laid a compassionate hand upon his hot brow. That is why I made my way here to you, he groaned piteously. I knew you would sympathize. I could tell it all to you, and it was so awful, to die there alone in a strange city. I couldn't do it. With nobody near me who liked me, or thought well of me, Alice would hate me. There was no one but you. I wanted to be with you, at the last. His quavering voice broke off in a gust of weeping, and his face frankly surrendered itself to the distortions of a crying child's countenance, wide-mouthed, and tragically grotesque in its abandonment of control. Sister Solesby, as her husband's boots were heard descending the stairs, rose, and drew the robe up to half-cover his agonized visage. She padded the sufferer softly on the head, and then went to the stair-door. I think he'll go to sleep now, she said, lifting her voice to the newcomer, and with a backward nod toward the couch. Come out into the kitchen while I get breakfast, or into the sitting-room, or somewhere, so as not to disturb him. He's promised me to lie perfectly quiet and try to sleep. When they had passed together out of the room, she turned. Solesby, she said, with half-playful asperity. I'm disappointed in you. For a man who's knocked about as much as you have, I must say you've picked up an astonishingly small outfit of gumption. That poor creature in there is no more drunk than I am. He's been drinking, yes, drinking like a fish, but it wasn't able to make him drunk. He's past being drunk. He's grief-crazy. It's a case of woman. Some girl has made a fool of him, and decoyed him up in a balloon, and let him drop. He's been hurt bad, too. We have all been hurt in our day and generation, responded Brother Solesby, genially. Don't you worry, he'll sleep that off, too. It takes longer than drink, and it doesn't begin to be so pleasant, but it can be slept off. Take my word for it. He'll be a different man by noon. When noon came, however, Brother Solesby was on his way to summon one of the village doctors. Toward nightfall he went out again to telegraph for Alice. The snow went off as by magic. The trees budded and leave before their time. The birds came and set up their chorus in the elms, while winter seemed still a thing of yesterday. Alice, clad gravely and black, stood again upon a kitchen stoop, and looked across an intervening space of backyards and fences, to where the tall bowels, fresh in their new verger, were silhouetted against the pure blue sky. The prospect recalled to her irresistibly another sunlit morning a year ago, when she had stood in the doorway of her own kitchen and surveyed a scene not unlike this. It might have been with the same caroling robins, the same trees, the same azure segment of the tranquil, speckless dome. Then she was looking out upon Surrounding's novel and strange to her, among which she must make herself at home as best she could. But at least the ground was secure under her feet, at least she had a home, and a word from her lips could summon her husband out to stand beside her with his arm around her and share her buoyant, hopeful joy in the promises of spring, to think that that was only one little year ago the mere revolution of four brief seasons and now. Sister Solesby, wiping her hands upon her apron, came briskly out upon the stoop. Some cheerful commonplace was on her tongue, but a glance at Alice's wistful face kept it back. She passed an arm around her waist instead, and stood in silence, looking at the elms. It brings back memories to me, all this, said Alice, nodding her head, and not seeking to disassemble the tears which sprang to her eyes. The men will be down in a minute, dear, the other reminded her. They'd nearly finished packing before I put the biscuits in the oven. We mustn't wear long faces before, folks, you know. Yes, I know, murmured Alice. Then, with a sudden impulse, she turned to her companion. Candice, she said fervently. We're alone here for the moment. I must tell you that if I don't talk gratitude to you, it's simply and solely because I don't know where to begin or what to say. I'm just dumbfounded at your goodness. It takes my speech away. I only know this, Candice. God will be very good to you. Tut, tut! replied Sister Solesby. That's all right, you dear thing. I know just how you feel. Don't dream of being under obligation to explain it to me, or to thank us at all. We've had all sorts of comfort out of the thing, Solesby and I. We used to get downright lonesome, here all by ourselves. And we've simply had a winter of pleasant company instead, that's all. Besides, there's a solid satisfaction in knowing that at last, for once in our lives, we've had a chance to be of some real use to somebody who truly needed it. You can't imagine how stuck up that makes us in our own conceit. We feel as if we were George Peabody and Lady Burnett Coutts, and several other philanthropists thrown in. No, seriously, don't think of it again. We're glad to have been able to do it all. And if you only go ahead now, and prosper and be happy, why, that will be the only reward we want. I hope we shall do well, said Alice. Only tell me this, Candice. You do think I was right, don't you, and insisting on Therans leaving the ministry altogether. He seems convinced enough now that it was the right thing to do, but I grow nervous sometimes, lest he should find it harder than he thought to get along in business, and regret the change, and blame me. I think you may rest easy in your mind about that, the other responded. Whatever else he does, he will never want to come within gunshot of a pulpit again. It came too near murdering him for that. Alice looked at her doubtfully. Something came near murdering him, I know, but it doesn't seem to me that I would say it was the ministry. And I guess you know pretty well yourself what it was. Of course, I've never asked any questions, and I've hushed up everybody at Octavius who tried to quiz me about it, his disappearance and my packing up and leaving and all that, and I've never discussed the question with you, but— No, there's no good going into it now, put in Sister Soulsby, with amiable decisiveness. It's all in the past and gone. In fact, I hardly remember much about it myself. He simply got into deep water, poor soul, and we floated him out again, safe and sound, that's all. But all the same. I was right in what I said. He was a mistake in the ministry. But if you'd known him in previous years, urged Alice plaintively, before we were sent to that awful Octavius, he was the very ideal of all a young minister should be. People used to simply worship him. He was such a perfect preacher, and so pure-minded and friendly with everybody, and threw himself into his work so. It was all that miserable, contemptible Octavius that did the mischief. Sister Soulsby slowly shook her head. If there hadn't been a screw loose somewhere, she said gently. Octavius wouldn't have heard him. No. Take my word for it. He never was the right man for the place. He seemed to be, no doubt, but he wasn't. When pressure was put on him, it found out his weak spot like a shot, and pushed on it, and—well, it came near smashing him, that's all. And do you think he'll always be a backslider? mourned Alice. For mercy's sake, don't ever try to have him pretend to be anything else, exclaimed the other. The last state of that man would be worse than the first. You must make up your mind to that, and you mustn't show that you're nervous about it. You mustn't get nervous. You mustn't be afraid of things. Just you keep a stiff upper lip, and say you will get along, you will be happy. That's your only chance, Alice. He isn't going to be an angel of light, or a saint, or anything of that sort, and it's no good expecting it. But he'll be just an average kind of man, a little sore about some things, a little wiser than he was about some others. You can get along perfectly with him, if you only keep your courage up, and don't show the white feather. Yes, I know, but I've had it pretty well taken out of me, commented Alice. It used to come easy to me to be cheerful and resolute and all that, but it's different now. Sister Solesby stole a swift glance at the unsuspecting face of her companion, which was not all admiration, but her voice remained patiently affectionate. Oh, that's all come back to you right enough. You'll have your hands full, you know, finding a house, and unpacking all your old furniture and buying new things, and getting your home settled. It'll keep you so busy you won't have time to feel strange or lonesome, one bit. You'll see how it'll tone you up. In a year's time you won't know yourself in the looking-glass. Oh, my health is good enough, said Alice, but I can't help thinking. Suppose Theron should be taken sick again, away out there among strangers. You know he's never appeared to me to have quite got his strength back. These long illnesses, you know, they always leave a mark on a man. Nonsense, he's strong as an ox. Insisted Sister Soulsby, you mark my word. He'll thrive in Seattle like a green bay tree. Seattle, echoed Alice, meditatively. It sounds like the other end of the world, doesn't it? The noise of feet in the house broke upon the colloquy, and the women went indoors to join the breakfast party. During the meal it was Brother Soulsby who bore the burden of the conversation. He was full of the future of Seattle and the magnificent impending development of that Pacific section. He had been out there, years ago, when it was next door to uninhabited. He had visited the district twice since, and the changes discoverable each new time were more wonderful than anything Aladdin's lamp had ever wrought. He had secured for Theron, through some friends of his in Portland, the superintendency of a land and real estate company, which had its headquarters in Seattle, but ambitiously linked its affairs with the future of all Washington Territory. In an hour's time the hack would come to take the wares and their baggage to the depot, the first stage in their long journey across the continent to their new home. Brother Soulsby amiably filled the interval with reminiscences of the Oregon of twenty years back, with instructive dissertations upon the soil, climate and seasons of Puget Sound and the Columbia Valley, and above all, with helpful characterizations of the social life which had begun to take form in this remotest west. He had nothing but confidence to all appearances in the success of his young friend now embarking on this new career. He seemed so sanguine about it that the whole atmosphere of the breakfast room lightened up, and the parting meal surrounded by so many temptations to distraught broodings and silences as it was, became almost jovial in its spirit. At last it was time to look for the carriage, the trunks and handbags were ready in the hall, and Sister Soulsby was tying up a package of sandwiches for Alice to keep by her in the train. Theron, with hat in hand, and overcoat on arm, loitered restlessly into the kitchen, and watched this proceeding for a moment. Then he sauntered out upon the stoop, and, lifting his head and drawing as long a breath as he could, looked over at the elms. Perhaps the face was older and graver, it was hard to tell. The long winter's illness, with its recurring crises and sustained confinement, had bleached his skin and reduced his figure to gauntness. But there was nonetheless an air of restored and secure good health about him. Only in the eyes themselves, as they rested briefly upon the prospect, did a substantial change suggest itself. They did not dwell fondly upon the picture of the lofty spreading boughs, with their waves of sap green leafage stirring against the blue. They did not soften and glow this time, at the thought of how holy one felt sure of God's goodness in these wonderful new mornings of spring. They looked instead straight through the fairest and most moving spectacle in nature's processional, and saw a far off, in conjectural vision, a formless sort of place which was Seattle. They surveyed its impalpable outlines, its undefined dimensions, with a certain cool glitter of hard and fast resolve. There rose before his fancy, out of the chaos of these shapeless imaginings, some faces of men, then more behind them, then a great concourse of uplifted countenances, crowded close together, as far as the eye could reach. They were attentive faces, all wrapped, eager, credulous to a degree. Their eyes were admiringly bent upon a common object of excited interest. They were looking at him. They strained their ears to miss no cadence of his voice. Involuntarily, he straightened himself, stretched forth his hand with the pale, thin fingers, gracefully disposed, and passed it slowly before him from side to side, in a comprehensive, stately gesture. The audience rose at him, as he dropped his hand, and filled his daydream with a mighty roar of applause, in volume like an ocean tempest, yet pitched for his hearing alone. He smiled, shook himself with a little delighted trimmer, and turned on the stoop to the open door. What Solesby said about politics out there interested me enormously, he remarked to the two women. I shouldn't be surprised if I found myself doing something in that line. I can speak, you know, if I can't do anything else. Talk is what tells, these days. Who knows? I may turn up in Washington a full-blown senator before I am forty. Stranger things have happened than that, out west. We'll come down and visit you then, Solesby and I, said sister Solesby, cheerfully. You shall take us to the White House, Alice, and introduce us. Oh, it isn't likely I would come east, said Alice, pensively. Most probably I'd be left to amuse myself in Seattle. But there, I think that's the carriage driving up to the door. End of Chapter 32 The End of The Damnation of Theran Ware by Harold Frederick