 CHAPTER XXV. JUNE AGAIN Momma, said Marjorie, pausing at her mother's door, there has been a change of programme. Frank will drive you to Park Place and wait for you if you don't object. I want to go with Leonard to make that promised call at Hill House. It is just the morning for a walk as long as that, and I want to have a quiet talk with Leonard. Very well, said Mrs. Edmonds, in a satisfied tone of voice. Arrange it to suit yourselves. I certainly shall not object to Frank's company if he doesn't to mine. There will have to be considerable waiting for me, I am afraid, this morning, and Frank is more patient than you are, daughter. I know it, with a happy little laugh. Frank is more everything than I am, Mama. You can't make me jealous of him if you try. She ran gaily down the stairs as she spoke and joined Mr. Maxwell in the hall. Mrs. Edmonds had had ample time to grow accustomed to, and satisfied with, Dr. Frank Maxwell. For more than a year he had been her son-in-law. It was quite two years since that evening that they had planned to spend socially together, and had in reality spent much apart. On the following morning they had separated, Dr. Maxwell returning to his work, and the others trying hard to take up life where they had left it on the day of his arrival, every one of them realizing that the old life could never be taken up again. Six weeks had made such radical changes as would tell for all time. Many happy changes to Marjorie. Her face was radiant during those days with her newfound joy in life, and thanks to the watchful guardianship of mother and friend, she was not allowed to know, either then or afterward, that she had shadowed a life. Within a week of his brother's departure Mr. Maxwell also took leave of his summer home. He had not expected to go so soon, at least Marjorie had no idea that he was to go until October. But a letter from his mother, announcing her arrival in this country several weeks earlier than she had at first intended, had changed his supposed plans. So Mrs. Edmonds and her daughter were left to themselves. Marjorie grumbled about it a little. It is ever so lonesome, Mama, without Leonard, isn't it? One expected to have to get on without Frank, but I thought we were sure of Leonard until October. I wonder if his mother thinks any more of him than we do. Dear me, I wonder what the mother is like. I believe I feel half afraid of her. My own little motherie has spoiled me for any other, and she is the only one in the world of that sort. The sentence was frequently interrupted by gay little kisses which Marjorie placed on her mother's eyes, her nose, her chin, on any improbable place. She had gone back in those few days to the light-heartedness of her early girlhood. Mrs. Edmonds, watching her, and noting how entirely the shadows had lifted from her fair face, could not but be happy in her daughter's happiness and hide away her own sore disappointment. Sometimes she feared it was not entirely hidden. For instance, at that moment Marjorie, with her mother's face between her two hands, drew back and scanned it closely, as she said, I believe you are the only one who is not entirely satisfied and happy. You had such an absurd little daydream to be carried out, and we all disappointed you so. Poor motherie, to have failed in your only attempt at matchmaking. You wanted Leonard and me to be lovers, and we would persist in being only the best of friends. Mammy, I warn you, if you give the least little speck more of your heart to Leonard than you do to Frank, I shall be jealous of him. Then with a sudden change of tone, mother dear, doesn't it seem almost too bad that Leonard does not find some strong, sweet woman, who is in every way worthy of his heart, and give it to her? There must be such a woman in the world. Or has she possibly gone to heaven? Perhaps it is the memory of some sweet early friend that has given his face such a different look from other faces. Only, if it were so, I almost think he would have told me, so intimate as we have been. I was tempted to ask Frank confidentially about him, but the brothers have been so separated of late years, that I think perhaps we know Leonard better than does his own family. Isn't it, blessed mama, to have such a brother, and to have found the brother first? That is unusual, isn't it? Mrs. Edmunds kissed the bright face close to hers, and suppressed her sigh, and said, I would not ask Frank about him, daughter, if I were you, since he has not chosen to give you his confidence, would it not be better to respect his reserve? Of course, mother, you are right as usual, but I cannot help wishing there were some angel good enough for Leonard. It seems hard that he should have to be content with only a very faulty sister. Why are not your sympathies drawn out toward Frank, my dear, since you see your fault so plainly? Mrs. Edmunds could not help indulging herself in this little study, to discover, if she might, why the one brother had been so entirely successful, where the other had signally failed. Oh, Frank! Marjorie said, with a rich blush, and the happiest of little laughs, he is not perfect like his brother. I assure you, mama, I shall be much better for him than any angel that was ever created. And the mother could not doubt it. Very swiftly had the fall and winter sped, broken at the holidays by a hurried visit from Dr. Maxwell, who brought his brother's regrets, that gentleman having deemed it advisable to spend Christmas and New Year's Day with his mother in a distant part of the state. In the following June, within two days after Dr. Maxwell was freed from college life, there was a quiet wedding in Mrs. Edmunds's front parlor, no guests not immediately connected with the two families being present save Glyde Douglas Burwell and her husband, and Hannah Bramlett. Nothing more unlike the dreams and fancies of Marjorie's early girlhood could have been imagined than this very simple, very private wedding. I used to think, she said to her mother, as they stood together in the bridal chamber a few minutes before the hour for the ceremony, I used to think, mama, that if ever I married I would have a magnificent church wedding with flowers and ribbons and carriages and point lace and bridesmaids and maid of honour and all the fineries and follies that such an occasion could possibly offer an excuse for. I planned, regardless of expense, precisely as though you were a rich woman you understand. I think girls often do and grow into the idea that such accompaniments are necessities. Positively, I have come to believe that even such trivial matters as these have a great deal to do with the mistaken marriages of which there seem to be so many. Girls, young and thoughtless, become fascinated by the display that surrounds the marriage ceremony, the mere outside show I mean, and accept the husbands as necessary adjuncts to that hour of splendour, with almost no serious thought about their future. Mother, with a sudden little tremble in her voice, I came so near, so very near at one time, to making one of those awful mistakes. Can you think how it makes me feel to remember where he is today? Even Mrs. Edmunds knew that her daughter had gone back to her early girlhood to the time when she had expected to be Ralph Bramlett's bride. Even the mother shivered at the thought, for Ralph Bramlett that day wore a convict's dress. Every effort that had been faithfully and persistently put forth in his behalf had failed, and three months before Marjorie's marriage day he had received his sentence. What if he had been her darling's husband? Daughter, she said, a sudden trembling seizing her as she clung to the beautiful white-robed girl. It frightens me to think of what might have been. Then, after a few moments during which she was caressed and soothed as though she had been the daughter, she said, Dear child, forgive the question I am about to ask. It seems to me that I must. You have so often told me since that early time that you believed you were not like other girls, that you should never marry. Will you tell me? Are you sure, quite, quite sure, that you were mistaken in yourself, and that your highest and holiest needs are met in this marriage? Mother, the girl bent over her and wound the silken robes about her in a tender embrace that was almost maternal. My little mother, do you think I can have you worrying your heart with such questions? I was very much an earnest in what I said, very sincere, and I should have kept my word I am confident if I had not met Frank Maxwell. But that, you see, overturned all my intentions. I am very, very sure that no other man on earth could have done it. And then that all-conquering man had knocked at the door, and they had gone down to the parlor, and in five minutes more the mother's one darling had become Mrs. Frank Maxwell. One bit of gossip that floated afterwards to the ears of the bride had set her into heartiest laughter. I want to know if she is really married! Mrs. Kenyon was reported to have said. Well, now, which one is it? I never could be sure myself, and I don't see how she could be. The professor certainly had the most chance, and she seemed to divide herself equally between them when they were here together. And I didn't know but at the last minute she would change her mind and take him. The doctor had carried his bride away with him that evening, and Mr. Maxwell had lingered, taking possession of his old room and giving the lonely mother much of his time and care, until in September she was ready to join her daughter in her new home. The following June had brought him to the old home again with Mrs. Edmonds, and now for two happy weeks Dr. and Mrs. Frank Maxwell had been there also. It was Dr. Maxwell's first vacation of any extent since that six weeks one in which he had accomplished so much, and he was enjoying it with all the abandon that had characterized his earlier days. Many were the rides and walks and visits the four had already enjoyed together. Quite like old times! Dr. Frank was fond of saying, though at least one of the party felt distinctly the sharp contrast between the present and the past. On the particular morning with which this chapter opens, Marjorie Maxwell had elected, for reasons best known to herself, to divide the company and kept her brother-in-law to herself. There was certainly a strong flavor of the past in this leisurely walk together through the familiar streets. They could scarcely help talking of old times, or at least of old friends, as they passed houses and corners that recalled them vividly. Especially was this the case when they passed the house where Ralph Bramlett's brief and stormy married life had been spent, and noted that windows and doors were thrown open to the morning, and the voices of happy children at play floated to them from the little side-yard. You see him occasionally still, inquired Mr. Maxwell, as they both looked earnestly at the house where they had been so often guests. He had no need to use names. Occasionally, yes. Frank tries to see him regularly every two weeks, and Glide, I think, never misses a visiting day, though she is crowded with work and care. Hasn't she been a faithful sister-in-law? And is Frank as well pleased with the change in him as ever? There has been so much to talk about since we met that I haven't asked particularly concerning him. Oh, Frank is more than pleased. He says that people who have not seen him since that time would not recognize him. There is such a radical change in looks as well as manner. And I, who see him less often, probably notice it even more. Besides, his record there shows for itself. Mr. Adams told Frank that everyone in the house respected him. Isn't it strange that he should have had to go through such an ordeal before finding the right road, or at least before being willing to walk in it? Yet the change came before the legal punishment began. I know! Did Frank tell you about it? That second night beside his father's coffin. I hope the father knew it right away. Frank says it is very touching to hear him tell it. Has he told you the particulars? Ralph wrote to me. Said Mr. Maxwell, speaking with evident effort after a moment's hesitation. It seems he had an old grudge or prejudice against me. I am sure I did not know it. And felt that he wanted to apologize. There was no need, but he wrote an earnest manly letter. Such a one I confess as I had not thought he could write. And among other things he told me the story of that night. In his extremity, he said, the Lord Jesus Christ came and held out his hand. How many witnesses he has to a like experience with like results. Does it not seem strange sometimes that there should be any doubters? There is no better attested fact in all history than that personal contact with Jesus Christ transforms lives. Does Mrs. Burwell ever hear from her sister in the West? Not at all. Doesn't it seem too sad? She has alienated herself from them all. Now that her mother is gone, there is apparently no link between them. The eldest sister is with Glide, you know, but she never hears either. The uncle with whom Estelle is writes occasionally to Glide, but he was never given to letter writing Glide says. And if they do not hear from him once in six months, they are not surprised. He mentions Estelle only in the most casual and fragmentary way. I am afraid that such mention tells too much. For the uncle is very fond of Glide. Why, he is the uncle Anthony about whom she used to talk so much. And if there were anything cheering to say, he would be sure to say it. However, he is evidently very good to Estelle. If she had not had such a refuge, I do not know what would have become of her. Father and mother both gone. Nothing any sadder than those two wrecked lives has come to my knowledge. There are times when it seems as though I could not have it so. Now that Ralph is a changed man, I feel as though something ought to be done to bring them together. Only think of it, he has never seen his little boy. And if this continues, is not likely to. Yet, if she is not a changed woman, could there coming back together work out anything but misery? That she is utterly silent toward her husband augurs very ill for her. I have old fashion notions about marriage vows, Marjorie. Thus they talked of old acquaintances and new experiences, and moralized after a fashion that belonged to them, moving slowly the while toward Hill House, as the building on the hill above the factories had come to be known. The Maxwell Brothers had continued its rental since that month when Mrs. Miller and her sick child had been removed there. Many others had since enjoyed a week or a month, or on occasion three months respite from their hard lives by a soldier in there. Among the initiated in Factoryville they called the place not Hill House, but Heaven, speaking the word reverently. A few other rooms had been furnished in simple and sanitary fashion, and it was well understood that Hannah Bramlett and her mother had the general supervision of the entire house. No great expenditures in any direction had been necessary. There was nowhere any lavish display of funds, and yet the necessary money for doing what manifestly ought to be done seemed always to be forthcoming. Altogether Hill House was a very unique and interesting mystery to many curious people. Mrs. Marjorie, though undoubtedly enjoying her talk, had all the while to those who knew her well the manner of one who has something more important in reserve that he means to reach when the set time shall arrive. At last she reached it by the question, How is Hannah prospering? CHAPTER 26. HALF THE STORY Hannah, said Mr. Maxwell, is a comfort in many ways and a success. She is in her element in managing Hill House. I think you would be surprised to see how wisely she administers affairs there. Her talents ought to be utilized in a much larger way. At present, however, she owes her first duty, of course, to her mother. But the dear old lady grows feeble. Hannah will wait alone for Ralph's homecoming, I fear. It was too good of you to plan to let her stay at the old farm, said Marjorie, gratefully. I heard the story of the mortgage all over again from Hannah's eager lips. She could not tell me enough about it. Hannah is very generous to her friends. Do the gossips let her alone nowadays? Was the next question asked a little timidly. The reply was prompt and free. Ah, that reminds me. I have great news for you. I hope you remember Bill Sieber and the trouble he used to give Miss Hannah by paying too much attention to her pretty pupil, Susie Miller. She was so trite about it that she enlisted Jack Taylor in Susie's behalf. Jack, you know, always enters into things with a vim. And he prosecuted his duties as protector of Susie with such vigor and success that the girl forgot Bill Sieber entirely and gave her allegiance to Jack. Result? A charming little wedding that is in prospect. I fancy it is to be held at Hill House. And if I am not greatly mistaken, you and Dr. Frank will be honored with invitations. Great excitement prevails in regard to the minutest details. You will be glad to know, as an instance of what may perhaps be called poetic justice, that Bill Sieber seems to be chief man. Does that story answer your question? Even the Gossips have discovered that Jack Taylor is otherwise engaged. And as for Miss Hannah, I believe she has learned the lesson that diffusive helpfulness is the best and truest kind. She has not selected any substitute for Jack, but has any number of special protégés now, and is certainly one of the most helpful workers they have at the mission or the evening school. Don't you remember Frank used to say when he first met her that she was an illustration of energy run to waste? And then Mrs. Marjorie resolved to make her opportunity without waiting for a more favourable time. Leonard, she began, a touch of timidity in her voice, I am just the same as your truly sister, am I not? And may I speak to you quite as plainly as a real sister might? Assuredly I cannot conceive of any words from you that I should consider too plain. I think you must know how I appreciate my place on your list of relatives. She laughed lightly. Do not take me too seriously, Leonard, or I shall be afraid to proceed. I'm going to criticize you if you do not frighten me out of it. And it is a line of criticism to which I am certain you are not used. Do you remember speaking very plain words to me once about poor Ralph and the mistakes I made in trying to help him? Has it never occurred to you that possibly you might be making a mistake in the same direction? That it had not was evidenced at once by his look of utter bewilderment. This is worse than a conundrum, he said cheerily, and I was never known to guess one of those creations. Speak plainly, my dear sister. I assure you I am quite prepared for the worst. It was impossible not to laugh, and several more minutes were wasted in fun. Then Marjorie grew suddenly grave. Seriously, Leonard, there is something that I very much want to say to you and to say it with delicacy and dignity. But the subject matter is so foreign to you that I do not know how to set about it. Let me put it in plain language. I do not like circumlocution. I am afraid that because of your kindness and thoughtfulness and perfect courtesy toward one woman, you are awakening, not expectations perhaps, but feelings that you would not like to arouse and making wounds that will be hard to heal. Remember, I am sure before you tell me so, that you have not had such an idea. Perhaps you will even find it hard to believe that I am right, but I know I am. Her listener's face expressed only amazement. I was never at a more utter loss to understand one's meaning. He said, speaking gravely enough, but yet with that cheerful air which said, you are evidently laboring under some sort of mistake that I can set right in two minutes, if you will be so kind as to enlighten me with regard to it. Marjorie hesitated and almost wished that she had not begun. It was so at war with all her ideas of friendship, this laying bare the sacred secrets of others. Has it never occurred to you, she said slowly, choosing her words with great care, that Hannah, being a woman and having a warm true heart, might be giving it unawares in a direction that could cause her only pain? And then she felt a sudden irritation against this brother, who had heretofore seemed all but perfect. His face expressed only sincere perplexity. Why need he be so absurdly obtuse? Because he was superior, apparently, to the weakness of an absorbing human affection, need he therefore forget that he was surrounded by people who were very human indeed? My dear Marjorie, he said gently, I must be very stupid. No such thought has for a moment occurred to me. I cannot think. Indeed I am sure that you do not refer to Jack Taylor. I assure you she is simply delighted with his approaching marriage. Her whole heart is in it. Jack Taylor, indeed! Marjorie could not help an outburst of laughter, though feeling very much inclined to cry instead, with something akin to vexation. Oh, Leonard, of all absurd creatures, a man under certain circumstances can be the most so. I am talking, or trying to talk, about you. Don't you know that you have been very especially kind to Hannah of late, and that she has not had many friends, and that she has a great, true, appreciative heart? Can you not step down from your heights of superiority long enough to conceive of the mischief you might do? He was silent for so long that she began to fear she had offended him, and glanced timidly at his face. It expressed only distress. I hope and believe that you are mistaken. He said at last. It would give me deeper pain than I could express in words to cause Miss Hannah, or, for that matter, any other lady, a moment's suffering, or to be the means of any misunderstanding. I cannot think it possible that a woman who has shown herself to be so sensible could. However, I need not pursue the subject further. It were discurtecy to her to do so. I need hardly tell you, that I appreciate your motive, and have to thank you as usual. It may be that in my preoccupation I have been sufficiently careless to set those gossiping tongues of which you used to stand in such fear at work again. If so, I am truly mortified. Part of my creed has been that no gentleman should so conduct himself with a lady as to make her the subject of unpleasant remark. He began immediately to talk of other matters, and held margarities so closely after that to interests connected with Hillhouse, that neither then, nor on their return trip, was their opportunity to add another word. She felt a trifle soar over it. The interview had not been what she had planned. She had believed that this man, who had shown her a brother's kindness always, would be frank and communicative with her, instead of closing her mouth almost as he might have done Mrs. Kenyans. She said something of the kind to her husband at the first moment of privacy, and he had soothed her with the reminder that Leonard was not like any other man living, and must not be judged by the same rules. "'He lives in the clouds,' said that wise brother, and always did. Just the warmest human love that he knows anything about, he gives to mother and you, and it simply bewilders him to suppose that anyone could imagine him as having more to give. But he will do the wise thing by your friend Hannah in some way, see if he doesn't.' Feeling that at least she had done her best, and vaguely fearing less in some way it should prove to be, nevertheless, her worst, Marjorie tried to dismiss the matter from her thoughts with ill success. Mr. Maxwell she saw little love during the afternoon. He remained in his room at work on his everlasting book, her husband reported, and the evening gathering was therefore looked forward to with something like solicitude on Marjorie's part. But directly after tea Mr. Maxwell went out without explanation to anybody. When he returned it was late, and Marjorie and her husband had been long in their own room. After that life went on much as usual. Not even Marjorie could detect the slightest shade of difference in her brother-in-law's manner toward her, and it was not until years afterward that she learned how he spent that evening. As a matter of fact the textbook that he was preparing received very little of Mr. Maxwell's attention that summer afternoon. Instead he gave himself to thought and prayer as to his present duty in view of the revelation that Marjorie had made to him. The more carefully he considered it the more sure he was that she was right, and that he had been culpably blind and careless. By evening his way seemed clear, and he took himself as earliest propriety would admit out to the bramlet farm and sat down in the large old-fashioned parlor near Hannah whose grave face had brightened visibly at the sound of his voice. There were matters of interest to talk about as there always were connected with Hill House, especially so in view of the approaching marriage ceremony to take place there. After duly considering various questions of expedience that had arisen since their last talk Mr. Maxwell deliberately made the conversation personal by saying, This planning marriage festivities and housekeeping details is queer work perhaps for a confirmed bachelor like myself, is it not? But I assure you I enjoy it. I do not think that even you can take a stronger interest in this young couple than I do. I fancy that some of the pleasure of my life will be found in watching others set sail on the stream that I shall never by experience know anything about. I like to give a little pull now and then with the oars, as by your kindness I am permitted to do in this case. The hand visibly trembled that was turning over the papers on which the names of guests to be invited to Hill House had been written, and Hannah's voice was constrained as she tried to say lightly, I should think you were young to talk about being a confirmed bachelor. You'll be setting sail yourself some day. He shook his head and spoke with exceeding gravity. No, Miss Hannah, possibly I am peculiar. I do not profess to know other men very well, but I believe I know myself. It is possible, no doubt, for a man to meet two women who, at different stages of his matured life, he might desire to marry. For me there was only one. Her I have lost, and I am as sure as though the grave had already closed over me that no woman will ever share my name and work. Did she die? It was after some minutes of ominous silence that Hannah trusted her voice to ask, speaking very low that simple question. No, she lived and married, and is a happy and honored wife, and never knew, and will never know what she was to me. You, my friend, are the only person to whom I have ever deliberately told my story. You know, of course, that I have a reason for thus laying bare my heart. Let me tell you briefly what it is. I have plans connected with this scheme of ours that will involve a much greater money outlay than we have had thus far. You have managed admirably with what there was. But, of course, you know that Hillhouse has been trampled in many ways for want of an assured financial basis. My salary as a teacher is more than sufficient for my personal wishes, and entirely separate from that there is a small fortune that I inherited with unlimited rights. My mother and brother are both so situated as to money that there is not a reasonable fear of their ever needing any of mine. Such being the case, I have determined to make Hillhouse a permanent place where we can at leisure experiment on some of our ideas. I say we in connection with it all, because I fully realize that, while some of us have furnished the money, it is really your patient and persistent thought and care that have made it the success that it is. I know your heart must be truly committed to the enterprise. I have intruded my personal affairs upon you because I foresaw that you would have criticisms to answer with regard to what some people will consider a lavish use of means. And I feared that your own thoughtful heart might be troubled about a possible future. So I determined to make very plain to you that no future ties of mine would ever call in question my right to thus dispose of my stewardship. Am I not right, Miss Hannah, in committing you unreservedly to this enterprise, and believing that you will give it all the time and strength that you can spare from higher duties? He did not make a very long tarry after that, believing that neither Hannah nor himself were in the mood for common places. Neither was he ready for his room and bed. Instead he walked away beyond the bramelet farm, out into the quiet country. The night was warm and still, and the moonlight brilliant. It all brought vividly back to Mr. Maxwell's mind a walk that he had taken with Marjorie years before. She had been frightened at finding herself alone on the lonely street, and his coming had relieved her fears. She had clung to his arm all in a tremble for a minute, and he had felt then and there the mysterious thrill of soul that comes sometimes to link another soul to one's own. He put the thought quietly from him. Marjorie was his sister, God bless her. All the past had been lived through and put away. He thought of Hannah, and walked back past the bramelet farm. A light still burned in the room that he chanced to have discovered was Hannah's own. Poor Hannah! He had done the best that he knew to cover over a mistake that Marjorie believed he had made. There was a dull pain at his heart, as the belief thrust itself upon him that Marjorie was right. How could he have been so careless and cruel? There was but one thing left for him to do for Hannah. He walked slowly back along the country road, praying. Hannah bramelet sat in her little, low-backed rocker, bolt upright, hands clasped in her lap, no tears on her face nor in her eyes. This was not the time for tears. She had her own heart's secret to struggle with and bury. How glad she was that it was all her own. It seemed to her that she must have died had anybody known. She had not realized what had happened to her until Mr. Maxwell's own words had revealed herself to herself. How good he had been, and unselfish and true just as he always was, to think of any one preferring anybody to him! Hannah tried to be true to her friends even in her thoughts. Well for her that she was not, and knew that she was not, at the mercy of a hopeless love, so that her life must be ruined and the lives of others marred in consequence. She must rise above this thing as a matter of course. She must remember first of all that she had given her heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, and was his, body and soul, for time and for eternity. Even before she went to her knees she had settled it. She would live her life, the busy, helpful life that Mr. Maxwell's generosity made possible, and prove to herself as well as to others that grace was sufficient. When Mr. Maxwell found that the small light in the eastern window of the Bramlett farmhouse had disappeared, he went home. I was so astonished the other night over what you planned to do that I did not answer you very clearly, I think. I'll help at Hill House in any way that you think I can, and be glad of the chance. I will give my life to it. This was what Hannah Bramlett said to Mr. Maxwell the next time she met him. After a moment, during which she had flushed and paled, and cleared her voice, as though she had more to say when she could trust herself to say it, she had interrupted the kindly common places with which Mr. Maxwell was answering her to add, And Mr. Maxwell, I thank you for telling me what you did the other night. It was kind of you. I won't ever forget it. This was the only reference that either of the two persons concerned ever made to that important evening in their lives. OVERRULLED BY PANZIE Mrs. Frank Maxwell was in her nursery, where a small marjorie was being prepared to abdicate her throne for a few hours and give herself to sleep. This was holiday time for both father and mother. No trivial thing was allowed to interfere with that half-hour alone with their little girl. Dr. Maxwell had just departed in response to a call from his office, not without a few grumbling words to the effect that a doctor never had time to even kiss his baby, when the mother, too, was summoned. A lady was waiting in the parlor who would not give her name, but said that she must see Mrs. Maxwell immediately. That lady arose with a sigh. This looked suspiciously like one of the numerous calls that came to her in the name of a need that had been reached through devious windings along the paths of sin. Mrs. Maxwell had found that the Christian wife of a Christian physician in large practice in a large city had need for the grace of patience not only, but must become, in the most important sense of that phrase, a careful student of human nature. She lingered to give a few more good-night kisses to little Marjorie, with a thought of prayer in her heart, not only for the baby, but for what might await her downstairs. Then she went. The parlor was dimly lighted, and her collar stood in shadow, a tall woman dressed in black with a veil that partly obscured her face. Will you not be seated? said the hostess, advancing. What can I do for you? The lady turned and threw back her veil, stepping forward toward the light as she did so. Instantly Marjorie exclaimed, Estelle Bramlett! You know me then? I did not feel sure that you would. The years have made such changes. Yes, I am Estelle Bramlett. I have not been half an hour in your city and have come to you at the very first. You can do everything for me, perhaps? Marjorie, I want to see my husband. I feel that I must see him. I do not know whether I ought or not. But I think I have borne this life just as long as I can. Will you help me? She had changed very greatly. It was not strange that she should have been in doubt as to whether her old acquaintance would know her. The abundant hair of so darker brown that it would almost have been called black, was now so abundantly streaked with white that, in connection with the deathly pallor of her face and the dark rings under her eyes, it made her look almost like an old woman. Yet Marjorie, though she struggled to speak quietly, had only aversion for the woman she felt had been heartless and cruel. I do not know of any reason why you should not have seen your husband at any time during these long years, she said. Your sister has constantly done so, and other and newer friends than she have been faithful. I know it! Oh, I know it all! Marjorie, do not look at me so coldly. You who are a happy wife and mother, have a little pity on me. Do you think I have not suffered? Don't you know why I have kept away from him all these years, kept myself from writing to him, or hearing from him, save now and then through others? May I sit down near you, Marjorie, and tell you the whole story? Of course she must be heard. Mrs. Maxwell carried her to her own room, gave peremptory orders that she was engaged and could see no one, then closed and locked the door, and sat down opposite the hollow-eyed woman who had dropped into the nearest chair. It was a long, sad story. During the days immediately following the knowledge of her husband's disgrace and ruin, Estelle admitted that she had been hard and cruel. She believed she was insane. She did not know what spirit possessed her. She tried at times and could not make herself do other than she did. For a while she believed that she hated her husband, hated her sister, hated even her poor mother who bore with her and tried in pitiful ways to help her. If it were not insanity what could it be called? For certainly she had always loved her mother. More than that she hated it seemed to her every one who bore the name Christian, everything that had to do with Christianity. In her wildness she dated the beginning of Ralph's downfall to that time when he joined the church and professed to be interested in such matters, and did so many things that she did not understand and that were not like him. When he was convicted and sentenced to state's prison she had felt for a time that she must take her life to get rid of the horror of it all. Then suddenly she had remembered her uncle Anthony, whose favorite she once had been. She knew that he lived alone with only a housekeeper to care for him, and she knew that he had repudiated all interest in religious things long before. If he would but take her in and shield her from the hateful world, from everybody who had ever known or seen her, above all from church members and ministers and all the dreadful people who had awakened at the eleventh hour to try to do her good, she believed that she might possibly keep, for a time at least, from that last awful crime of suicide. So she went away in the night, unknown even to her mother, and made her way to uncle Anthony's western home. He had received her and cared for her like a father, but she had not been in his home for twenty-four hours before she made a discovery that filled her insane soul with a kind of terror. Uncle Anthony had become a man of prayer, a churchgoer, a church member, identified with all the interests from which she had run away. She told her story well and briefly how, by degrees, uncle Anthony gained an influence over her, calmed her strange fears, and made her see that that from which she had shrunk as from an enemy contained the only hope or help for her in this world. Until there came a time when she would have gone home, only then it was too late. Mother and father were gone, and she had no home. Up to that point she had talked unsteadily with a kind of suppressed intensity, controlling with firm will any expression of emotion. But when she spoke of her father and mother and the broken home, there came a burst of tears, and she buried her face in her hands. Only for a moment, then she brushed the tears away and continued her story. By degrees, what she had supposed to be the faith of her childhood, or rather such faith as her childhood had ever known, came to her, such a sense of the power not only but of the goodness of God, and such a realization of the fact that he called upon her to be his child and trust him fully, as she had not known was possible, filled her soul. From that hour she began to order her life to the best of her ability as she believed God would have her. At this point Marjorie interrupted her for the first time. But Estelle, under those circumstances, how is it possible for you to maintain such utter silence toward all your old friends, toward your husband especially, when you must have known something of what it would add to his misery? A sudden change came over her guest's face. The hands clasped on her black dress trembled visibly, and her entire attitude was that of one trying to hold some intense feeling in check. You do not know what you are talking about, she said at last, not passionately, but with an air of hopeless conviction. I knew only too well that for my husband to hear from me, or even to hear of me, with the feeling that I was holding him in any way, would but add another drop to his cup of misery, a very large drop. I came to know, long before I took that last step, which I meant should separate me from my home and all my old associations, that my husband had made a fatal mistake, that he did not love me and never had, and that for me to go away from him so far that he need never hear from me again, nor have to do with me in any way, would be the best effort I could make toward fulfilling the spirit of my marriage vows. A soft light broke over Mrs. Maxwell's face. This confession, made an abject sorrowfulness, was a revelation to her. It explained much that had been terrible in the conduct of this friend of her girlhood. She even began to understand the processes of reasoning by which this half-insane woman had reached her strange conclusions. She asked another question, her tone much more sympathetic than it had been. Have your ideas or feelings changed in any degree of late Estelle? The look of abject misery on Mrs. Bramlett's face lifted, and she turned eager eyes on her hostess. Yes, they have. That is, my ideas of what is right have changed very greatly. I have come to feel that in isolating myself from my past, or trying to do so, I was wrong as I have been in almost every act of my life. I have come to realize that when I made that resolve I took counsel of wounded feeling instead of looking to my father in heaven for direction. I have come to understand better what marriage vows mean, and to feel that, bitter as the mistake may have been, and hard as the result may be, there is nothing for me, nothing for him, but to abide by those vows. You see, Marjorie, he is the father of my child, and has duties toward him which he cannot lay aside at will. And for the sake of him, as well as for the sake of truth and honor, we must together do the utmost that we can with what life we have left. Is not that so? Am I not right this time? I have not arrived at such a conclusion hastily. Indeed, there is a sense in which I may say that I did not reach it at all. The feeling came to me. I have thought over it and prayed over it until at last it seems to me a conviction. But I have as yet taken no step to disturb Ralph. I came directly to you. It seemed to me that you would be sure to know what was right better than any other person to whom I could appeal. What do you want to do, Estelle, aside from this conviction of what is right? I mean, if you could have your choice and feel that either course would have God's approval, which would be yours. For the first time the pallor on the worn face before her disappeared, and a deep crimson took its place. You are afraid I am taking counsel of feeling instead of duty, she exclaimed. I have been afraid of it myself, so afraid that it has made me hesitate long. Yet it seems to me now that I am going in the direction pointed out. But I will be very frank with you and leave you to decide. I want, above all things else in this world, to make what atonement I can to my husband for his wrecked life. He ought not to have married me, Marjorie, knowing that he did not love me. I cannot close my eyes to the facts. But after that almost everything that has happened since has been, I think, my own fault. I was so exacting, so hard, so cruel. Oh, you have no conception of the life I led him. It is no wonder that it ended as it did. I goaded him to it. I think there is no other word that could describe the condition of things. And I have a consuming desire to tell him that, and to beg him on my knees to forgive me and let me try again. I have forgiven him utterly. But what I had to forgive, the real sin against me, was when he asked me a way back there to be his wife. So far as my own marriage vows were concerned, I have nothing to confess. I meant them fully. That I have failed ignominiously in keeping them I do confess in shame and bitterness of soul. But when I took them upon me, my whole heart went with them. I loved him, Marjorie, and I love him now. I love him so much that if it is the right thing to do, I am willing to keep away from him forever and live my life alone. Yes, I am even willing. But then there came a look of inexpressible agony into the dark, sad eyes. To give up my little boy, his little boy, to his care and love, if God directs me to do so. But, oh, I do not see it so now. I cannot but feel that together we might cover over some of the mistakes and bring up our child for God. And I cannot but feel that he means we shall try to keep the solemn vows which we called him to witness were made until death parted us. Oh, Marjorie, can you help me? How does it seem to you? Am I right or wrong? She must have noticed the change in Marjorie's face, for her eyes shone with a tender light, and her voice was tenderness itself. My dear friend, she said, my sympathies and hopes are with you. I believe you are being led by the Spirit of God, and that you are to be given such an opportunity as perhaps does not come to many for redeeming the past. Have you heard anything about Ralph of Laid? Nothing, said Mrs. Bramlett eagerly. I would not allow myself to question Glide. I thought it was not being true to my resolve to let him be entirely freed from me. I thought it was due to him, after the way in which I had treated him, that I should not even mention his name. I lived up to my resolve, literally. I might have been trying to do so still if I had not been taught by my boy. When he began to ask questions, to say, Where is my Papa? Has my Papa gone to heaven, like Robbie Stewart's? Then I felt that there was another life to be considered. There was an innocent boy who ought not to be deprived of his father's love and care because of his mother's sins, and I resolved to come and ask Ralph if we could not begin again. But in order to be utterly sure that I was doing what was right, and not simply what I wanted to do, I resolved, as I told you, to come first to you. We did not even go to Glide's. We stopped at a hotel, Uncle Anthony and my little Ralph and I. Uncle Anthony has been good to me through it all. He took me home to his heart at once, and bore with all my miseries and follies almost as an angel might. I believe he thinks I am doing right at last, although he has not said one word to influence me in any direction. He said he was afraid to interfere, that he had interfered in lives before, and done mischief, and he wanted God to lead me. But he himself proposed to come east with me, and when I told him I wanted to see you at once, he ordered a carriage as soon as my little boy was asleep, and promised to watch beside him until I returned, and let me come away quite alone, as I wanted to. Why did you ask me if I had heard from Ralph lately? She broke off abruptly to inquire, her face pailing over a sudden fear. Oh, Marjorie, is he not ill? No, said Marjorie, with quiet promptness. He is quite well. My husband saw him only yesterday. I will help you, Estelle, be sure of that. I am glad that I can. My husband goes so frequently to see Ralph, and understands so fully what is necessary, that he will be able to make all arrangements for you to meet him. Can you come? Wait, let me think. I shall talk to Dr. Maxwell tonight, of course, as soon as he comes in. And can you wait one day more, Estelle, until five o'clock tomorrow? I am afraid it cannot be managed before that hour. I will do whatever you tell me, said this curious shadow of Estelle Douglas, who was so like, and yet so utterly unlike, her former self, that there were moments when Marjorie almost asked herself if she were not dreaming. She went herself to the door to see her guest to her carriage, then awaited with feverish impatience her husband's return. CHAPTER XXVIII. A crisis. A wonderful bit of news she could have given her collar had she been sure as to the wisdom of doing so. From the wife's point of view Ralph Bramlett had still another full year of servitude before he could go out into the world again, and he must go always thereafter, she believed, with the prison staying upon him. But, as a matter of fact, in less than twenty-four hours from that time Marjorie expected to receive Ralph Bramlett as her guest, with the assurance that those terrible iron doors had opened to him for the last time. Very earnest efforts had been made during these years, both by Mr. Burwell and the Maxwell's, to secure the young man's pardon, and each time they had been unsuccessful. The Governor, owing to certain recent experiences, was more than usually difficult to move, and though almost everything possible was in the prisoner's favour, most of his friends had finally despaired. It was almost against the judgment of his brother that Mr. Leonard Maxwell made another effort, so that all were prepared to be not only joyful, but astonished over his success. It had been arranged that Dr. Maxwell should go the next day at the appointed hour in his carriage to bring Ralph Bramlett, citizen, home with him as his guest. Glide and her husband were to come for the day, and Hannah Bramlett had been telegraphed for, and was expected to arrive by the late train that evening. Be sure to bring the baby, Marjorie had admonished Glide, and I will keep little Marjorie awake for the occasion. We must have everything as cheerful and unembarrassing as possible, and the children will help toward that end. Estelle's unexpected advent had disarranged the program. Mrs. Maxwell's quick brain saw a certain tableau that could be arranged, the viewing of which, she believed, would do more to welcome Ralph Bramlett back to the world than most of them realized. She knew certain facts that the others did not. More than one earnest talk had she held with the friend of her youth during the intervening years. They had not talked very much about the past. It had not seemed to her wise. Instead, she had striven to help the repentant man to think of the duties and responsibilities of his future. But one day he had begun to speak to her quite as though they had been talking about Estelle. I do not want you to blame my poor wife over much, Mrs. Maxwell. He had said, I made her life anything but a happy one, even from the first. It is probably the very best that she can do for her future happiness to free herself entirely from me as she has. She has a legal right to do this, you remember, and I certainly should be the last to blame her for taking advantage of it. Yet, if I had my chance again, I think I could make her life at least a peaceful one. Sometimes in my dreams I go through some of the scenes that might have been. I have my boy in my arms and can feel his kisses on my face and hear him call me Papa. Can you imagine what it is to me to awaken from such dreams to the reality? Marjorie had gone away from that talk with her heart swelling with indignation against Estelle, feeling that she had done a monstrous thing in thus utterly repudiating her marriage vows. Now her heart throbbed with sympathy as she thought of the surprise in store for both. Surely the desire of her life in being instrumental in bringing these two together again, under changed relations, seemed about to be realized. Hurry! she said to Dr. Maxwell, two hours later, as she waited at the head of the stairs for him to ascend. How very late you are! Yes, Hannah has come and gone to bed hours ago. Do hurry, Frank! Never mind the mail. I have something wonderful to tell you, something that will not wait. Who do you think has been with me this evening? The President of the United States and all his cabinet at the very least to judge from your excitement, he said, smiling as he bent to greet her. It is a much more important event than that. Frank, Estelle was with me for an hour or more. Mrs. Bramlett, he said with lifted eyebrows. I did not know that it would give you very special delight to have a visit from her. You are not to talk in that horrid way nor put on your superior look. I have a wonderful story to tell you. Estelle is so changed that you would hardly think she could be the same person. I am glad to hear it, the greatest good that Mrs. Bramlett's old acquaintances could wish for her would be that she would become utterly unlike herself. Hush! said Marjorie with pretty imperiousness. Save your sarcasms! Wait until you hear what I have to tell. The talk that followed lasted away into the night, into the early morning rather, and before all the details of the coming day were arranged to their satisfaction, the doctor was called to a patient. However, he left his wife quite satisfied with the interest he had shown and the enthusiasm with which he had entered into her altered plans. It is probably useless to try to picture, even to ourselves, the tumult of feeling that surged through the soul of Ralph Bramlett as he sat alone in Dr. Maxwell's library on that afternoon which marked another solemn crisis in his life. One may be deeply sympathetic with certain experiences, and yet be unable to imagine their depth and power on the heart of another. Such ordinarily trivial things help at times to swell the tide of feeling. Take the mere matter of dress for instance. Consider what it was for this man to find himself attired in citizens' dress once more, the hated garb of prison life put away from him. How strange and new, and yet how old and familiar must have been the sensation as he sank into the depths of that richly upholstered chair, and felt, rather than realized, that his feet gave back no sound as he made his way to it. Once more he was in a home, once more he was surrounded, enveloped as it were, in an atmosphere of refinement and quiet. It was such a spot as he had planned once to call his own. It might have been his own. The years that had wrought such changes upon others had by no means passed him by. His pale face was paler and thinner than it used to be, and his hair, that had been intensely black, was now so plentifully streaked with gray as to give one an impression of many more years belonging to him than he needed to claim. This idea was intensified by the heavy lines on his face, made generally by years. Of course it was not strange that under such experiences as his he should have aged rapidly. But there was another change, subtle, indefinable in words, yet unmistakable. He had been in a strange school, certainly, to acquire the look, yet, for the first time in his life, a student of human nature would probably have said of him, this is a man to be trusted. Such is the tribute which men of the world often unconsciously make to the power of the Holy Spirit. For with Ralph Bramlett it was simply the old story. His was the face of one who had sinned and suffered, and yet had come off conqueror through him that loved him. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! Nevertheless it was of necessity a sad face, and there was abundant reason for the shadows. Only a few weeks before this Ralph Bramlett had shed perhaps the bitterest tears that will ever fall from his eyes over a few penciled words written by his mother's worn-out hand, a hand that was at rest now. Very simple the message had been, there was not the slightest reference to the heart-sick longing that she had had to see his face and hear his voice on earth once more. She had reached the place where she could sink her own desires and fully understand his. Oh, the longing that there had been in his heart to hear his mother's voice say, I forgive you. Dear boy, she had written, how could you ask your mother if she had truly forgiven you? There is a verse in the Bible for you, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. God could not have told me anything better about himself than that. Dear Ralph, I long so to comfort you. I am going in a few more hours to see your father. Think what blessed news I have to tell him. Oh, I make no doubt that he knows it already. But still he will like to hear me say, Ralph is coming too. He will be here in a little while. Then together we will watch for you. There had been not the shadow of a doubt expressed as to what his future would be. The little mother who had feared and trembled and worn an anxious face all her days at that hour spoke exultantly of the strong, brave life her boy would henceforth live, even a happy life. She assured him that that was what his mother and father desired for him, a happy life. She even rose to the heights of human self-abnegation and spoke a tender word for the wife who, she believed in her heart, had led him astray and then utterly repudiated him. She, the mother, had forgiven her and hoped that he would forgive her and pity and pray for her. The poor young man, still young, though looking middle-aged, thought of this letter as he waited in the library for what was to come next, a blessed letter, a comforting one. He believed that in the years to come he could read it over and get comfort from it as she had meant he should. But just then he felt only a longing for the touch of the vanished hand. She had breathed out her life without him, and he might have been at her bedside and held her hand and gone with her tenderly to the very verge of death's river. He had thought to do so if, in the natural order of events, he should outlive her. Oh, that awful it might have been! Was he never to get away from its horror? He sat there waiting for what was to come next, and whatever it was, he dreaded it. How, for instance, was he to meet his sister Hannah fresh from her solitary following of their mother to the grave? He shrank from the thought of Hannah. He shrank from everything, from life itself. Oh, if a merciful God had only heard his cry and permitted him to get away out of the flesh to that other world where his mother was, where God was. For just then, at that frightened moment when the flesh shrank away and said, I cannot, O God, I cannot meet the reward of my own doings, there came to his soul, like the undertone of a wondrous oratorio, the memory of some words he had learned in his childhood, and thought not of them. I, even I, am he that blotted out thy transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember thy sins. For the first time he noted that potent phrase, for my own sake. Why should he want to? Strange and almost terrible as the thought was, it must be that God loved him, loved him. There was no one left on earth who did, but in the strength of such a love as that which God in Christ offered him, could he not live after all? Then the door opened softly, and slippered, noiseless feet came in hesitatingly, and advanced with slow, shy steps. Midway in the room they paused, and their owner gazed earnestly at the man sitting with bowed head and covered eyes. Evidently he had heard no sound. The steps advanced again, a small hand rested with velvet touch upon his arm, and a soft voice said, Papa, are you my Papa? Ralph Bramlett started as though an angel's tones had arrested him, and looked at the expectant little face before him. Are you my Papa? said the soft voice again, whose strains stirred some tender yet undefined memory in the listener's heart. This could not be Marjorie's child. He leaned forward and gathered the vision to his arms while he answered the earnest question. Oh no, my darling, what put such a strange thought into your mind? What is your name? Why, yes you are. My name is Ralph Douglas Bramlett, and she said my Papa would be here. Who did? The man was trembling so that he could hardly hold the little form in his arms. The child looked at him with great wondering eyes as he replied, Mama did. She told me that my Papa was in here, and that I might come in and climb into your arms and say, Papa, I love you. You are my Papa, aren't you? I knew you would come because I asked Jesus to let you. He is the one to ask when you want things very much, and I wanted you to come. I missed you. Harry Williams has a Papa, and he kisses him. Don't you want to kiss me? A less courageous child might have been frightened over the convulsive clasp in which he felt himself drawn to that hungry father's breast, and the rain of passionate kisses that covered his face, but he laughed gleefully, kissing back with energy and saying between the breaths, I guess you love me as much as Harry's Papa loves him. Mama said you would. Papa, have you come home to stay and take care of Mama and me like Harry's Papa does? Poor Ralph, what waking dreams he had had about that boy of his who was away off somewhere in the west and who would never be taught to call him father. He had tried to school his heart to bear that as a part of the cross that he had made for himself. This sudden surprise almost bewildered him. For a moment it seemed as though God must have heard some of his despairing cries, and this was heaven. Here's Mama, exclaimed the child, giving a sudden spring forward. Oh Mama, I found him and he loves me. He has kissed and kissed me more than twenty-eleven times. Ralph said a voice at his elbow in tones that trembled with feeling. Won't you forgive me and let me come to and try again? Keep away all of you for a while, said Dr. Maxwell in the hall outside, speaking in what Marjorie called his voice of authority. There is time enough for the rest of us. Let the man have his wife and boy entirely to himself for a while. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 The Final Chapter of Overruled by Pansy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 29 For Me, Heaven. June again, and as so often before, the Edmunds family and their friends were gathered at the old home. Each summer since Marjorie's new home had been established, they had managed to come together to this old resting place away from the weight of work and care that lay upon each. Marjorie Maxwell in her new home had found work for others that taxed her energy and strength to there at most. Sheltered as her life had been, she had not known before the awful need for work as it is revealed to the city physician who toils with a constant acceptance of Christ as his master. Mrs. Edmunds, too, had thrown her whole heart into the new service that this changed life opened before her, so that their few weeks of rest had come to be looked upon as a necessity. Great was the joy of the young people of various connections who had fallen into the habit of coming to the country with them when Dr. Maxwell was able to announce the date of his vacation. At this particular time the house was fuller than usual, as some who had not been in the habit of gathering with them were among their guests. The Bramlett Homestead was closed, and Hannah was staying at Hill House until other arrangements could be made. Thither went also Mr. and Mrs. Burwell as her guests, but Ralph Bramlett and his wife and boy were staying with Mrs. Edmunds. The house was thrown open as usual to all the influences of the summer day, and the merry voices of children could be heard on the lawn, but within, unusual quiet rained. Although it was nearing the hour when, according to custom, various members of the family would be gathering in the pretty back parlor that Dr. Maxwell's young cousins called the Home Room, it was still quite deserted. The chamber doors were all closed, and only a low murmur of voices could be heard within. In short, the whole house was pervaded by that indefinable atmosphere which marks a special day, a day set apart by some great joy or sorrow from the commonalities of everyday life. The story, as is so frequently the case, could be compressed into a single sentence, and it is so often the same sentence. They had but just returned the occupants of this house and their friends from a newly made grave. They had left sleeping therein one of their number. Perhaps Ralph Bramlett was the only one who could be said to have been prepared for the news. To the rest of them it had come as a shock, from which even now they seemed unable to rally enough to fully realize that it had come. Immediately following the reunion of Ralph Bramlett's wrecked family, before he had had time to consider what was best to be done next, and while they were still Dr. Maxwell's guests, there had come a summons from Professor Maxwell. Since he was unable to leave at present, would Mr. Bramlett run down to him for a day or two? He had some very special matters of business to talk over with him. Dr. Maxwell heard this bit of news with hearty satisfaction. I knew Leonard would have some scheme, he said to Marjorie, and it is sure to be the best that could be devised. I have been holding on to hear from him. The wife and boy would better stay with us, would they not, until Bramlett returns? It was finally arranged in that way, and they watched Ralph depart with a sense of great comfort. Leonard would know just what to say to him, and it was actually better to have him away for a few days to give them time to get used to the new order of things. I grumbled over the idea that Leonard could not get away from college to be with us when Ralph should come, Marjorie said to her mother, but see how nicely it has all been overruled, and it is much better to have Ralph go to him, and Leonard is sure to know what ought to be done next. There had been some fear lest Ralph Bramlett would not be willing to obey the summons, but he was found to be not only willing, but eager to do whatever Leonard Maxwell might suggest. On his arrival at the college town he found, to his surprise, that Professor Maxwell had not been out of his room for several days. Layed aside for a little while, that gentleman said, smiling, in answer to Ralph's earnest inquiries, nothing new, only a more marked visitation from an old friend of mine. Never mind me, let us talk now about more important matters while there is time. I am glad you came to me so promptly, my friend. There had followed a great deal of talk, some of it of a character, to almost overpower Ralph Bramlett. During these last hard years of his life he thought he had come to know this man of God very intimately, but there were revelations made in connection with those talks that sent him to his knees in almost pitiable self-humiliation and gratitude. In the light of the unselfish greatness of that other life perhaps he saw his own smallness as never before. Between times he had many anxious thoughts about Mr. Maxwell's state. He made light of his illness as something that was so slight as not to be worthy of note. Yet Ralph Bramlett believed that he recognized increasing weakness and besought him to send for Dr. Maxwell. There came a morning when, the moment he entered Professor Maxwell's room, he recognized that there had been a change. Yes, said the Professor, smiling quietly in response to Ralph's look of consternation. You are right. I have had a night of suffering, but I am much better now, quite free from pain indeed. I believe now that the time has come for me to tell you something. I thought I should rally from this attack as I have from others, and that there would be no occasion for causing my friend's anxiety. I believe I was mistaken. My promotion is coming earlier than I had any reason to expect or hope. Why should you be so distressed? Surely, my friend, you can rejoice with me. I thought I was perfectly willing to stay here and serve. But I will confess that the thought of soon serving in his visible presence has set all my pulses to throbbing with a new strange joy. It is different with me than it is with most men. I have strong family ties, but no duties or responsibilities. And my mother, for whom I meant to live, is waiting for me to come to her on the other side. Why should I not be glad? There had been much talk after that, Ralph at his own request being installed beside the sick man with permission to stay until the end. Mr. Maxwell agreed at last to having his brother and margarie sent for, but had believed that there was no occasion for startling them with a telegram. A letter would reach them in 24 hours, and there was really no immediate haste. Indeed, the doctor had said that he might linger for several weeks. But it came to pass that within 24 hours of the time that Ralph had written at Mr. Maxwell's dictation a letter that taxed all the writer's power of self-control, he had followed it with a swifter messenger, and an hour afterwards had sent another with the astounding news that Mr. Maxwell had gone to the other country. In accordance with his distinctly expressed desire, they had brought his body to the town where so many of his rest hours had been spent, and where his brother had a family lot. Their mother had died abroad the year before, and been buried there beside her father and mother and the friends of her youth. The first violence of the shock was over, and as they lingered in their several rooms that June afternoon, they talked together tenderly of their friend who was gone, and of the effect that his going would have upon the living. Poor Mama, said Marjorie. I think, Frank, it is almost harder for her than it is for us, because you know we have each other. You cannot think how deeply attached Mama has been to Leonard from the very first of their acquaintance. I have always fancied that she saw in him some mysterious soul likeness to the little boy who went to heaven before I was born. At least the tie between them has been peculiar and strong. What a strange influence he had over people. I could but think of it today when I saw the crowds from the factory and from the mission, and noticed that there were tears on almost every face. And yet this was not his home, only the place where he spent his resting time. Such rests as he took must make very bright crowns, must they not? In Estelle Bramlett's room Ralph sat by an open window which overlooked the lawn where his boy played, and Estelle, with her head on his shoulder and her hand firmly clasped in his, talked rambly and tenderly of that part of the past on which it would do to touch. Do you know, Ralph, I used to fear and almost hate Mr. Maxwell? He is altogether too good for this world. I used to say contemptuously to Glide when she would try to tell me something that he had said. I told her that I did not believe in such perfect men, that they were nearly always hypocrites. But, oh, Ralph, I came to know him in a way that I have not been able as yet to tell you about. I have some letters to show you written during that dreadful time. I cannot tell you what they were to me. They seemed almost like the voice of God. I can imagine, he said tremulously, I had letters too, and talks, and deeds. He added, with a peculiar emphasis, after a moment's silence, something that I have not yet told you, Estelle, we will go over it by and by after the boy is asleep. We must go down to him soon. When you know all, you will understand, even more than you now do, what we owe to him. We must see to it, my wife, that our lives are, after this, what he planned they should be, else I can almost conceive of his being disappointed, even in heaven. I am sorry for so many people. Estelle began again, breaking the tender silence. Did you notice the crowds from the factory? Poor Jack Taylor, the tears just rolled down his face, and that Bill Sieber was almost as much affected. Then there is poor Hannah. Oh, Ralph, do you suppose Hill House will have to be given up, or did he make some provision for it? I almost feel as though it would break Hannah's heart if her work there could not go on. I do not certainly know, said her husband, but I do not believe Mr. Maxwell forgot Hill House. I think he thought of everything and everybody. Poor Hannah. At that moment she was shut and bolted into the utmost privacy of the neat little room that she occupied at Hill House, and was on her knees, trying to get strength to look her future in the face, and take in the probabilities of the life that stretched before her. The old home gone, Hill House gone, for Mr. Maxwell had died suddenly, and probably did not even remember that the lease would expire in another month. Ralph had his wife and boy. Everybody had ties and plans and hopes save herself. This one friend of hers, with whom God had let her work for a few precious years, gone like the rest. What should she do to earn her living? What would the poor girls do, whose faithful friend and helper she had been during these years? Prosaic thoughts? Yes, some of them. Hannah had reached the years when she knew she must meet and face the common realities of life. She did not touch, even with her thoughts, that other deeper wound. She had given that part of her life entirely to God. Meantime, locked also into the privacy of her own room, sat Mrs. Edmonds, and opened letter in her hand, the tears quietly following each other down her face. Ralph Bramlett had handed the letter to her as soon as he arrived. It was sealed, and bore, beside her name, this direction, to be read in some quiet hour after my body has been laid to rest. Thus it read. My very dear friend, a precious bit of knowledge has come to me within the last few hours. It is that I am quite soon to be permitted to go home, to the home toward which I have been so long turning my thoughts. I had planned for a vacation with you all as usual, but instead I am to need no vacation, and am to enter upon my work for eternity. Isn't that a wonderful thought? I think I need hardly attempt to tell you how glad I am. I have been at peace in my work here, and interested in it all. But, well, how can I be expected to tell you what it feels like to think of being there? Meantime, there are some matters to set in order before I go. At least I think I have them arranged, and would like to tell you about them in detail, that you may be able to advise intelligently without waiting for the regular processes of law. It is known to you, I believe, that I have been entrusted with an important stewardship, and it is perhaps a peculiar fact that I have not a relative in the world who seems likely to need a penny of it for himself. There are not many of our family left on this side, you know. Well, I have told Ralph Bramlett that I think he ought to carry out the desires and hopes of his early years and become a law student, and I told him that I had arranged matters so that he could care for his family and do so. I hope, my friend, you will think I have done right. I have left him twenty thousand dollars, not as I once heard a censorious person say in a similar case as a premium on dishonesty, but because I believe him to be the Lord's freed man. And when the Lord puts a man's past behind his back, what are we? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? I have one deep regret, had I tried to help him earlier, much that his past might not have been. Yet God in his mercy has overruled all our mistakes. About Hill House. My heart is very much in that enterprise. I believe that our friend Hannah has a work before her there, where at the angels rejoice now, and over which we may have joy together through the ages. Therefore, after a few gifts have been made to kind friends, and a few tokens offered as memorials to some who have been more than friends to me, I have left the remainder of my property, amounting, I believe, to something more than seventy-five thousand dollars, in trust to Hannah Bramlett, to be used according to the plan of which she and I have often talked. There are trustees, of course, and advisers. I have taken the liberty of naming you as one, and my brother Frank, and his wife, and others whom you can trust. I think it has been all arranged in correct business form. It is by no means a hasty step. For although my summons has come earlier than I had expected, it is proper that you should know that I have, for a year or two, been aware that my life was strung on a very uncertain thread. I have been able to do with my means just what I desired to do. To you, my dear friend, I must say one thing more, a word that will not be spoken elsewhere. My joy in doing this is, I hope and believe, first because it is the master's thought, what he would have me do in his name. But, secondly, stands the conviction that I am doing what my sister Marjorie would do if she could, and what she will be grateful to me for doing. It is too late for me to hide, if I would, that she has been the human mainspring of my life, my one love. How strange it all seemed to us years ago, to you and me, that our plans should miscarry as they did. And yet, cannot you see today the overruling hand? For her, not early widowhood, but a strong, true heart to lean upon through the long, happy years I trust. And for me, heaven. One more favor I ask of you, my dear friend. I do not suppose it is in the least necessary, yet I will mention it. Let my carefully guarded secret be buried with me. Do not, for any possible reason, shadow Marjorie's life by the knowledge of what she has been to me. I know her so well that I am sure it would cast a shadow for a time. She would immediately begin to accuse herself to mourn over some things that she might or might not have done. And I love her so well that I would have no shadow touch her life, save those of the masters' sending. There is much more that I would like to say, but my strength is failing. I can only wait to add an earnest goodbye for your own dear self. When you read this I shall have been for some days as we count time at home. I remember with pleasure while I write that the years are falling fast upon you and that it may soon be my privilege to welcome you. Until then, dear trusted friend, goodbye, Leonard Maxwell. Are we to see the letter, Mama? Marjorie asked a few days afterwards when they had been talking over that and other matters connected with their loss. No, dear, said Mrs. Edmonds, brushing away a quiet tear. There is a bit of privacy connected with it for my eyes alone. You know I had to be his mother after she went away. Poor Leonard, said Marjorie with a little sigh. I always knew there was a lost chord in his life. I hope he has found it now.