"Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder." It seemed to the bride that the Rev. George Prentiss laid especially solemn stress on these words, and as she listened to the announcement that, forasmuch as Emil Stuart and Constance Forbes had consented together in holy matrimony, he pronounced them to be man and wife, her nerves quivered with satisfaction at the thought that she was Emil's forever. The deed was done, and she was joyous that the doubt which had harassed her in her weak moments—whether she was ready to renounce her ambition to help in the great work of education for the sake of any man—was solved and merged in the ocean of their love. Doubtless Emil was not perfect, but she adored him. No one had even hinted that he was not perfect, but she had made up her mind not to be ridiculous in her rapture, and to look the probable truth squarely in the face as became an intelligent woman. She knew that until recently he had been only a clerk with Toler & Company, lumber merchants, and that he had just started in business on his own account. He was dependent for support on his individual labors, but she had in her own name the nice little nest-egg of five thousand dollars, realized from the sale of the family homestead at Colton, the country town, ten miles distant, from which, an orphan, she had come to Benham a year previous. She was marrying for love a young man who had his own way to make, just as hundreds of others were doing every day, and she was proud of her part in the compact. A great happiness had come into her life, almost against her will, but now that it had come she recognized that it was nature working in the ordinary way, and that she would not remain single for all the kindergartens in creation. She had known Emil only a year; still that year had been one of courtship, and no one had ever spoken ill of him, though she had been told that Mr. Prentiss, as a rector charged with overseeing the destinies of friendless girls who were members of his parish, had made inquiries. Moreover, Mr. Prentiss had agreed that two young people, situated as they were, whose hearts were united, did well to marry on a small income and trust somewhat to the future. How otherwise, as he sagely remarked, was ideal love to flourish, and were mercenary considerations to be kept at bay? Emil was twenty-five, and she just twenty. Youthful, but still of a proper age, and they were growing older every day. Decidedly it was a prudent love-match, and she had a right to be joyful, for there was nothing to reproach herself with or to regret.

It will thus be observed that Constance Forbes was no happy-go-lucky sort of girl, and that though she was marrying younger than she had expected, she was marrying with her eyes open. She had scrutinized severely the romantic episode which had made her and her lover acquainted, and had even refused him the first time he asked her in order to counterbalance the glamour resulting from that meeting. The episode was a sequel to an accident to the train on which she was travelling from Colton to Benham. The engine ran into the rear of some freight cars, owing to a misplaced switch, and the tracks were strewed with splintered merchandise, so that the train was delayed four hours. The natural thing for passengers with time to kill was to inspect the wreckage, which, besides the dilapidated railroad apparatus, consisted of mangled chairs and tables, and bursted bags of grain, a medley of freight impressive in its disorder. Constance found herself presently discussing with a young man the injuries to the cow-catcher of the engine, which had been twisted ludicrously awry. A moment before two other persons, one of them a woman, had been on the spot, and the conversation had been innocuously general, but they had drifted off. Constance was conscious of having noticed the young man in her car, and of having casually observed that he had an alert expression, and that his hair rose perpendicularly from his brow, suggesting the assertiveness of a king-bird. To allow a young man to scrape acquaintance with her in cold blood would ordinarily have been entirely repugnant to her ideas of maidenly propriety, but she resisted her first impulse to turn her back on him and abruptly close the interview as needlessly harsh. It would surely be prudish to abstain from examining the battered locomotive, which lay on one side, with its nose in the air, as though it had fallen in the act of rearing, merely because a respectable-looking male passenger happened to be equally interested in the results of the catastrophe. So it chanced that after they had exchanged observations concerning the injuries to the overthrown "Vulcan" and speculated as to how long they were likely to be delayed, their conversation became less impersonal. That is, the young man informed her that he was in the employ of Toler & Company, lumber merchants, and was returning to Benham after having made some collections for them in the neighboring country. Then he was familiar with Benham? Familiar? He should say so. He had been settled there for three years, and—(so he gave Constance to understand)—there was absolutely nothing regarding the place which he could not tell her. First of all, Benham was a growing, thriving city. Its population had quadrupled in fifteen years. Think of that! So that now (in 1886) there were upward of three hundred and fifty thousand souls in the city's limits. It was a hustling place. A shrewd, energetic man, who kept his wits active, ought to make his fortune there in ten years, if he were given a proper chance. Was she going to live in Benham?

Constance admitted that she was, and, helped along by friendly inquiries, she told him briefly her story. That she had lost her father and mother within a few months of each other, and that she had decided to come to Benham, of which, of course, she had heard as a progressive city, in order to learn the kindergarten methods of teaching. Subsequently she hoped to obtain an appointment as a school-teacher, and so earn her own living.

"When you've finished your lessons and are ready to teach, let me know. I may be able to help you. I'm a little in politics myself, and a word to the school committee from a free and independent constituent might get you a place."

He spoke jauntily though respectfully; but the offer reminded Constance that the conversation was taking a more intimate turn than she had bargained for. She thanked him, and began to move slowly away, not with any definite idea of direction, but as a maidenly interruption. Mr. Stuart—for he had told her his name—kept pace with her and seemed quite unconscious of her purpose. In the few minutes during which they had been chatting she had observed that he was somewhat above the average height and rather spare, with a short mustache which curled up at the ends and was becoming. Also, that he had small, dark eyes, which he moved rapidly and which gave him, in conjunction with his rising brow and hair, a restless, nervous expression.

As they walked along the track the conductor was coming toward them. He had been to the telegraph office and was returning with a telegram in his hands.

"Well, what are our chances of getting away from here?" Emil asked, with the manner of a man to whom time is precious.

"It'll be a good three hours before the wrecking train arrives and the road is clear."

The youth and the maid looked at each other and laughed at the gloominess of the situation.

"In that case," said Constance, glancing at the sloping banks bordering the railroad tracks, which were bright with white weed and other flora of the early summer time, "we shall have to dine on wild flowers."

"I have some chocolate in my bag."

Constance flushed slightly with embarrassment. Her random remark seemed almost to amount to a premeditated invitation to share his resources.

Emil's gaze had followed hers in her allusion to the wild flowers. "I'll tell you what," he exclaimed, impulsively, "since we have three hours to wait, why shouldn't we escape from this culvert and see what there is to be seen from the top of the bank? I shall be able to show you Benham," he added, noticing, perhaps, that she looked doubtful, "for we are only nine or ten miles away."

This was tempting. Besides it would surely be ridiculous to remain where she was rather than explore the country merely because he was a casual acquaintance and had some chocolate in his travelling bag. The circumstances were harmless and unavoidable, unless she wished to write herself down a prude. The result was the logic of common-sense prevailed, and Constance gave her consent to the proposal. So they climbed the bank presently, pausing on the way to gather some posies, with which the party of the second part proceeded to adorn her hat, after they had established themselves on an eligible fallen tree commanding a pleasing view. The fallen tree was at the edge of a copse of pine wood some two hundred yards from the bank. Thus they were sheltered from the sun. Out of the copse, almost at their feet, ran a bubbling brook, which added a touch of romance to the landscape rolling away in undulating and occasionally wooded farming land, as far as the eye could reach, until it terminated in a stretch of steeples and towers surmounted by a murky cloud. There was Benham.

Although they were too distant to discern more than a confused panorama, Emil essayed a few topographical details. He explained that twenty-five years earlier Benham had comprised merely a cluster of frame houses in the valley of the peaceful river Nye, which still served as an aid to description. Primarily a village on the south side of the stream, it had first developed in a southerly direction, spreading like a bursting seed also laterally to east and west. Its original main street, once bordered by old-fashioned frame houses with grass-plots and shade trees, had evolved into Central Avenue, at first the desirable street for residences, but now, and considerably prior to his advent, the leading retail shopping artery, alive with dry-goods shops, into which the women swarmed like flies. To the west of Central Avenue lay the tide of social fashion culminating two miles distant in the River Drive, a wide avenue of stately private houses, situated where the Nye made a broad bend to the north, and the new district beyond the river, where the mansion of Carleton Howard, the railroad magnate, stood a pioneer among Elysian fields of real estate enterprise, sanctified by immaculate road surfaces and liberal electric light.

Constance listened eagerly. She was interested to know particulars concerning the city where she was to live, and she enjoyed the lively sardonic touches which relieved his description. Though possessing an essentially earnest soul, she was susceptible to humor, and had an aversion for lack of appreciation of true conditions.

To the east of Central Avenue, Stuart further explained, lay first the shops and the business centre, and then the polyglot army of citizens who worked in the mills, oil yards, and pork factories. Across the river to the south, approached by seven bridges of iron, replacing two frail wooden bridges of former days, were the mills and other industrial establishments. Beyond these still further to the north was Poland, so called, a settlement of the Poles, favorite resort of the young ladies of Benham's first families eager to offer the benefits of religion and civilization to the ignorant poor. Following the Nye in its sweep to the north, until it deflected again to the east, so as to run almost parallel to its first course, but in the opposite direction, were the public park, the land bonded for an Art Museum, Wetmore College (the Woman's Academy of learning), and the other more or less ornamental institutions. This region of embryo public buildings, garnished with august spaces, was a sort of boundary line on the north, turning the current of industrial population more to the east. Just as the tide to the west of Central Avenue was one of increasing comfort and fashion, this to the southeast, stretching out as the city spread, and forced constantly forward by the encroachments of trade, was one of common workaday conditions, punctuated (as he phrased it) now and again by poverty and distress.

"I tell you, Miss——"

"Forbes, Constance Forbes is my name."

"Thank you. I tell you, Miss Forbes, Benham is a wideawake city. We have all the modern improvements. But the rich man gets the cream every time. I heard millionaire Carleton Howard, the railroad magnate, say the other day from the platform, that there is no country in the world where the poor man is so well off as in this. Yet it's equally true that the rich are all the time getting richer and the poor poorer. He neglected to state that." He laughed scornfully, and his eyes sought Constance's face for approval. She knew little concerning millionaires or the truth of the proposition he was advancing, but it interested her to perceive that he was evidently on the side of the unfortunate, for she cherished a keen pity for the ignorant poor almost as a heritage. Her father had been a country physician—an energetic, sympathetic man, whose large vitality had been spent in relieving the sufferings of a clientage of small tillers of the soil over an area of fifteen miles. He had often spoken to her with pathos of the patient struggles of the common people. Her own susceptibility to human suffering had been early quickened by the destiny of her mother, who had been thrown from a sleigh shortly after Constance's birth, and had remained a paralytic invalid to the day of her death, requiring incessant care.

"When I run for Congress," he resumed, scowling slightly as he fixed his gaze on the murky cloud surmounting Benham, "it'll be on a platform advocating government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, water-works, electric street cars, and all the other fat things out of which our modern philanthropists with capital squeeze enormous profits at the expense of their fellow-citizens. I'm against all that sort of thing. Buy a gas plant to-day and consolidate it with another to-morrow. Profit to the promoter two hundred per cent., without leaving the office. What does the consumer get? Cheaper gas and greater efficiency. That's the fine-sounding tag; and some of the horny-handed multitude are guileless enough to believe it. It won't be long though now before I make my own pile," he added, not quite relevantly. "I'd have made it before this if they hadn't hindered me."

Constance perceived that he expected her to inquire what this meant, and she was curious to know. So she asked.

"My employers, Toler & Company. If I had had the capital and the opportunities of those people, I should be wearing diamonds. I've tried to point out to them more than once that they were throwing big chances away by being so conservative and old-fashioned in their methods instead of branching out boldly and making a ten strike. One thing is certain, I'm not going to invent ideas for them for a pitiful one thousand dollars a year much longer. If they think they can afford not to raise my salary and give me a chance to show what I can do, I'm going to let them try after January first. It isn't very pleasant, Miss Forbes, to be doing most of the work and see someone else reaping all the profits. They can't help making money, old fogies as they are."

It was certainly a galling situation. Constance, who was young herself, felt that she sympathized with his desire to compel recognition.

"It doesn't seem right at all," she said, "that you should be kept down."

"I've made up my mind to give them notice that I must have an interest in the business after the first of the year, or I quit and start on my own account. I've my eye on a man with five thousand dollars who will go into partnership with me I hope."

Constance thought of her own five thousand dollars. She would almost like to lend it to him, though, of course, that was out of the question. Still, there would be no harm in offering moral support. "If I were a man," she said, "and had faith in my own abilities, I wouldn't remain in a subordinate position a moment longer than was really necessary."

In response to this note of sympathy Emil opened his bag and produced two sticks of chocolate. He broke them apart and presented one to his companion. He also exhibited a compressible metal drinking-cup, which he filled from the bubbling brook. A crow cawed in the pine copse as though to call attention to the idyl, but only the two philosophers on the fallen tree-trunk were within hearing of his note of irony, and they regarded it merely as an added rural charm.

"Would you object to my smoking my pipe?"

"Not in the least. My father was devoted to his pipe."

Another bond of sympathy. Or at least an indication to the swain that here was a maiden who was no spoil-sport and who would not have to be wooed by the sacrifice of personal comfort. Moreover, it was not lost on him that she was an attractive-looking maiden, and that her voice was well modulated and refined. Yet he was not thinking of her, but merely of her sex in general, when he said, "Besides, I hope to be married some day. How could I support a wife in Benham on one thousand dollars a year in the manner in which I should wish her to live?"

Constance could not answer this question, and did not try. It belonged to the category of remarks which were to be treated by a single woman as monologues. But she was keenly interested. One thousand dollars a year did not seem to her a very pitiful sum for a young couple just starting in life. She had heard her father say that when he married her mother he had only a hundred dollars in the world, and no assurance of practice. But that was not in Benham. She had already divined that Benham was to be a land of surprises. At all events she could not help admiring Mr. Stuart's chivalric attitude toward his future wife. His ambition was obviously quickened by the thought of his future sweetheart, whoever she might be; which was an agreeable tribute to her own sex, suggesting susceptibility to sentiment.

"Yes, I'd have been married before this if Toler & Company had not, as you say, kept me down," he continued, pensively, blowing a ring of smoke to emphasize his mood. "When after working hard all day I go to my room at night and take up my violin, I often think that if I could play to the woman I loved, instead of to the blank wall, how much happier I should be. But I suppose some of my friends would declare that I was a fool to desire a yoke around my neck before fate placed it there."

His own readiness to relieve the stress of his confession by a sardonic turn counteracted the constraint which his intimate avowal had aroused. Incredible as it is that a man in his sober senses should offer himself to a woman the first time he beholds her, no woman is altogether unaware that he is liable to do so. A modest and thoughtful young girl shrinks from precipitate progress in affairs of the heart. Obviously the ground was less dangerous than it had for a moment appeared, but Constance sought the avenue of escape which his allusion to music offered. Besides it pleased her to hear that he was æsthetic in his interests.

"You play on the violin, then?" she asked. "I envy anybody who has the talent and the opportunity for anything of that sort. I sing a little, but my voice is uncultivated, for in Colton there was no one to tell us our faults." The earnest gleam in her fine dark eyes seemed to second the fresh enthusiasm of her tone.

The warning scream of the whistle, not the voice of the crow, broke in at this point on their preoccupation with each other. This was the romantic episode from which their acquaintance dated—an episode which might readily have signified nothing. But on the other hand, it naturally supplied to the party of the second part a fair field of memory in which her imagination might wander when stirred by the subsequent attentions of this young knight with sympathy for the unfortunate, resolute confidence in his own abilities, generous views in regard to matrimony and a sensitive, æsthetic soul. For Emil Stuart sought her out at once, visited her at her lodgings and gave unmistakable signs that his purpose was both honorable and definite. Within six months she knew from his own lips that he wished to make her his wife. She took another three in which to conquer her scruples and maidenly disinclination to be won too easily. Why should she not yield? He was her first lover, and she loved him, and he declared with fervor that he adored her. Contact with the conditions of a large city had shown her unmistakably that only after years of struggle could she hope to be more than a mere hand-maiden in the work of education, and that during the early period of her employment, if not indeed for life, the hours of work would be long and confining and her pleasures few. Here was a companion who would provide her with a home, and upon whom the tenderness of her woman's nature could be freely bestowed. It was the old, old story, she said to herself, but was there a better one?

II

The young couple bought a small house on the outskirts of the city, some distance beyond the Nye, where it flows at right angles with its original course, and in the general region of fastidious growth, but in a settlement of inexpensive villas to one side of the trend of fashion. The bridegroom had not forgotten his liberal intention to begin housekeeping on a somewhat more ambitious scale than his salary as a clerk had warranted. He was now the senior partner in the firm of Stuart & Robinson, lumber dealers, which had been in existence six months. He had parted from his employers, Toler & Company, on the first of January, because of their refusal to accede to his demands, and had been able to persuade the comrade with five thousand dollars, to whom he had referred at his first meeting with Constance to enter into a business alliance. Robinson was three years his junior, and without commercial experience, but eager to turn the windfall, which had come to him through the death of an aunt into a cool million. What could be more natural than to take advantage of the experience which Stuart offered him—an experience which gave promise of swift and lucrative operations in the near future?

It was a very modest establishment, from the standpoint of affluence. A neat little house of eight rooms supplied with modern improvements, and, though one of a builder's batch, designed with some regard for artistic effect, which indicated that a preference for harmonious beauty was working in the popular mind of Benham against the idols, colorless uniformity and bedizened ugliness. To the bride, whose experience of housekeeping was limited to a country town where colorless uniformity ruled undisturbed and modern improvements were unknown, the expenditure of her nest-egg of five thousand dollars in this complete little home seemed an investment no less enchanting than wise. Five thousand for the house, with a subsequent mortgage upon it of one thousand for the purchase of the furniture and to provide a small bank balance for emergencies. This was her contribution to the domestic partnership, and she rejoiced to think that her ability to help to this extent would leave Emil a free hand for the display of his business talent.

The basis of a newly married woman's peace of soul is trust. She feels that the responsibility is on her husband to make good the manly qualities with which she has endowed him, and because of which she has consented to become his mate. Occasionally during the first few months of her married life Constance laughed to think that all her maidenly eagerness to solve the riddle of life brilliantly, and all her profound searching of the mysteries of the universe should have ended in her becoming an every-day housewife with dustpan and brush, and the wife of one who, to all outward appearances, was an every-day young man. But her laugh savored of gladness. She had given herself to him because she had faith that his energy, self-reliance, fearless humor and sympathetic hatred of shams would distinguish him presently from the common herd of men, and vindicate her infatuation. She had given herself to him, besides, because he loved her—a delightful consciousness. Accordingly, she enclosed herself in the web of happiness which her confidence in him had spun about her, and took up her domestic duties with light-hearted devotion.

Nevertheless, no woman emerges from her honeymoon with exactly the same estimate of her lover as before. If nothing else, she has seen his mental and moral characteristics in their undress, so to speak, and become habituated to their sublimity. We may be no less fond of a person whose anecdotes have grown familiar to us, and analogously a wife does not weary of her husband's qualities merely because they have lost the glamor of novelty. On the contrary she is apt to continue to adore them because they are his. Still she feels free to scrutinize them closely and—unconsciously at least—to submit them to the test of her own silent judgment. She discovers, too, of course, that he has sides and idiosyncrasies the existence of which she never suspected. Ordinarily she finds to her surprise that his attitude in regard to this or that matter has shifted perceptibly since marriage, so that, instead of being lukewarm or ardent, as the case may be, he has become almost strenuous or indifferent in his attitude. Hence she divines that during their courtship some of his real opinions and tendencies have been kept in retreat.

Constance sensibly had decided in advance that Emil was not perfect, so she was prepared to discover a blemish here and there. In spite of her happiness it became obvious to her during the first six months of their married life that the self-confidence which had attracted her verged at times on braggadocio, and moreover that opposition or disappointment made him sour and morose. If his affairs were prospering, his spirits rose, his wits scintillated, and he spoke of the world with a gay, if sardonic, forbearance, which suggested that it was soon to be his foot-ball. But if matters went wrong, he not only became depressed, but was prone to dwell upon his own ill-luck, and inveigh bitterly against the existing conditions of society. She had noticed from the first days of their acquaintance that there appeared to be an inconsistency between his eagerness to grow rich and his enmity toward the capitalists of Benham; but she had gathered that he was merely eager to put himself in a position where his sympathy for the toiling mass could be fortified by the opportunities which wealth would afford. But now that his feverish absorption in business had apparently banished all interest in philanthropic undertakings from his thoughts, the inconsistency was more conspicuous.

Constance spoke to Emil about this at last. Naturally, she broached the topic when he was in one of his sanguine moods. In response he took out his pocket-book and asked her how much she required, having jumped to the conclusion that she was beating around the bush and had some particular object of charity in view.

"You don't understand, exactly, Emil," she answered. "I'm not asking for money; I was merely hoping that having me to provide for isn't going to cut you off from your former associations—to lessen your sympathy with political movements for the protection of the people such as you used to take part in before we were married."

Stuart frowned, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets as he was apt to do when he felt his oats. "You don't seem to realize, Constance, that a man starting in business needs all his energy and watchfulness to avoid having his head thrust under water by the fellows who are on the surface of the commercial whirlpool and who don't want company. When I've got the sharks in my line of trade where I want them, which is, metaphorically speaking, at the bottom of the pond, it'll be time enough to take up politics. You'd like to see me in Congress some day, wouldn't you? Well, that will be plain sailing for me in this district as soon as I control the lumber business of Benham, little saint."

This sounded plausible, and did not seem to admit of argument, provided the consummation of the business supremacy indicated by her husband was not deferred too long. She dismissed the matter from her mind for the time being. It was less easy to dispose of another tendency which had revealed itself in unmistakable guise since their marriage, and this was Emil's indifferent attitude, not merely toward her form of religious faith, but toward all religion. Within a short time after their acquaintance began she had discovered that he was not an Episcopalian, and that his views regarding the spiritual problems of the universe were not those of orthodox Christians. But on the other hand, although he was fond even then of blowing down her card-houses, as he called them, with an occasional blast of scientific truth, he had been ready to accompany her to church and had never seemed lacking in reverence. She had asked herself the question why she should stifle her love for him merely because his conception of the eternal mysteries did not coincide with her own, and she had answered it by the independent assurance that his attitude toward life was the important consideration. She had even been fascinated by his broad outlook on the universe, with his flashing eyes and his righteous contempt for some of the dogmas of the sects. He had seemed to her imagination at such times almost as a reforming archangel purging away the dross of superstition and convention from the essentials of religious faith. He did not believe in the miracles, it is true, because he regarded them as violations of the laws of the universe; but was he not a firm believer in the spirit of Christian conduct?

She had reasoned thus as a maiden, and had never doubted the soundness of her self-justification. But the sequel was disturbing to her peace of mind and to her hopes. It was not Emil's refusal to go to church, nor his dedication of the Sabbath to mere rest and recreation which distressed her, but his scornful tone in regard to any form of religious ceremonial; his scornful tone toward her own reverence for the faith in which she had been educated. Even the term of endearment which he coined for her, "little saint," was a jocose and condescending appellation reflecting on her susceptibility to ideas which clever people had discarded as fatuous. She could have borne without complaint going to church alone had he been willing to respect her opinions as she respected his. But on her return from service he was sure to greet her with some ironical jest which made painfully clear that he regarded her habit of worship as a sign of mental inferiority. His own habit on Sunday was to remain in bed until after the church hour. Then he would establish himself in a loose-fitting woolen garment, which he called his smoking-jacket, on the porch or in the sitting-room and read the Sunday papers, with a pipe in his mouth. Sometimes he played on his violin, and by the time Constance returned he was ready for a short walk, ostensibly for the sake of exercising a small black and white terrier. His wife could not accompany him on this stroll, for she could not neglect their mid-day dinner, and when he sat down at table he was apt, if the weather was fine, to refer pathetically to the sin of having wasted it in the city. "If only you were content, little saint, to worship nature with me," he would say, "we would get away into the country with a luncheon basket the first thing in the morning and make a day of it in the woods."

There was something winsome in this proposition, especially as the inability to enjoy an outing because of her reluctance to renounce church worship seemed to spoil his day in a double sense. For, as a consequence, he ate a huge Sunday dinner, including two bottles of beer, smoked more than his wont, and after a tirade against the evils of monopoly or some kindred topic invariably fell into a heavy slumber on the lounge, from which he did not awaken until nearly sunset.

"Another Sunday wasted," he more than once remarked by way of melancholy comment on this state of affairs.

No wonder that Constance was perplexed as to her duty. Since coming to Benham she had been a member of Rev. George Prentiss's parish. Her mother was of English descent, and Constance had been brought up in the Episcopal faith. At Colton there had been no church of that denomination, and to attend the Episcopal service one had to drive or walk two miles to a neighboring village. It had often seemed to Constance more important to remain at home with her invalid mother than to take this excursion. Consequently, during her girlhood, she had been irregular in her attendance at church. Frequently, in order to be able to return home more speedily, she had worshipped at the Methodist or Unitarian meeting-house in the village. Sometimes she had stayed away altogether; therefore she understood the fascination of communion with books or with spring buds or autumn leaves as a substitute for worship in the sanctuary. Her untrammelled experience had made her open-minded and independent, but on the other hand the difficulty of kneeling at her own shrine had nourished her sentiment for the Episcopal faith, so that she had rejoiced spiritually in the opportunity, which her residence in Benham afforded, to become a regular and devoted member of Mr. Prentiss's flock. Moreover, the vital character of St. Stephen's as a religious body had appealed to her. The little church near Colton had been a peaceful and poetic, but poor and unenterprising establishment. Contrasted with it, St. Stephen's appeared a splendid and powerful influence for righteousness, stirring deeply her æsthetic sensibilities, and at the same time proving its living, practical grasp on human character through its able pastor and active organization. St. Stephen's never slumbered; St. Stephen's prided itself on its ardent faith and essentially modern spirit; and St. Stephen's, by common acceptance, was synonymous with its rector, Rev. George Prentiss.

Mr. Prentiss had grown up with the church. That is, he had been curate to the Rev. Henry Glynn, an Englishman who had selected Benham as a promising pasture for the propagation of the Episcopal faith beyond the pale of the mother country, who had gone forth into the wilderness and had lived to see a goodly flock of sheep browsing beneath his ministrations. Mr. Glynn was a pioneer, and had gone forth in the early seventies when Benham was in the throes of rapid progress and extraordinary development from month to month. His mission had been to spread the tenets of his sect by the zeal and eloquence of his testimony, and to provide a suitable edifice for the human souls attracted by his teachings. In his time the congregation forsook the small and primitive structure, erected in hot haste within a year of his arrival, for a commodious and sufficiently æsthetic building. Before his death, which occurred prematurely, Benham had become a large and important municipality. His successor found himself not only the pastor of the leading Episcopal Church of the city—which had also in the process of social evolution become the most fashionable and probably the richest church in the city—but a shepherd in a wilderness of a different sort. In other words, he was brought suddenly face to face with the problems which confront earnest spirits eager to redeem human nature in a huge industrial community. The former wilderness had blossomed, even with the rose, but the thistles, tares, and rank grass which fought for mastery with the wholesome vegetation had revolutionized the soil. There were scores of saloons in Benham; there was a herd of immoral women on the streets of Benham; and, most perplexing problem of all, perhaps, there were, only a mile apart, the picturesque neighborhood of the Riverside Drive with its imposing, princely, private mansions, and Smith Street, boulevard of unwholesome tenement-houses, garnished with rumshops and squalid lives—contrast repugnant and disconcerting to American ideals, and to him as an American.

But Rev. George Prentiss was not the man to shrink from deep and important responsibilities. On the contrary, it might be said of him that he revelled in them. The consciousness that, in spite of Benham's mushroom-like growth as a proud testimonial to the sacredness of institutions established by the free-born, the city had begun closely to resemble large cities everywhere was sobering, but on the whole, inspiriting to him as a worker. His mission was clearly disclosed to him—a mission worthy of the energies of a clergyman eager to bring his church into closer touch with everyday life and common human conditions. For Mr. Prentiss as an American and a churchman was ambitious for the future of the Episcopal faith. His predecessor and friend had seen in their pastorate only a glorious continuation of English orthodoxy—a spiritual revolt from dissent, transcendentalism and cold, intellectual independence, which would, in the end, gather sixty million people into a Protestant fold, national in its title and dimensions. Mr. Prentiss shared this delectable vision, but he would not have American Episcopacy a mere blind imitation of the mother church or a colonial dependency. He felt that it behooved those of his faith on this side of the Atlantic to gird their loins zealously, and to guide their sheep fearlessly, receiving with respectful attention the interpretations of the spiritual lords of Great Britain regarding dogma, but exercising intelligent discretion in regard to their adoption. This attitude, which might be called patriotism, in some sense reflected the pride which Dante, that stern censor of prelates, condemns. Was the Church of England to prescribe doctrine to the thriving, hardy child of its loins forever? Surely not, now that that child, waxing in size and resources and dignified with power, promised soon to rival its parent. It was agreeable to the rector of St. Stephen's to reflect that the tide of fashion was bearing the children of Unitarian and other indeterminate faiths into the fold of the true and living church of Christ. It was also agreeable to behold in his mind's eye that church—the American church—taking advantage of this splendid opportunity and accepting with fearless and uncompromising zeal the challenge of infidelity and materialism. The people were tired, he believed, of intellectual, spiritual dissipation, in which each soul formed its own conception of God, and defined the terms of its own compact with Him. They were welcoming fervor, passion, color and all the symbols of a faith which beholds in man a miserable sinner redeemed through the blood of Christ. If the people of his nationality had been reluctant in the days of their early history, when population was sparse and sin was kept at bay by primitive economic conditions, to admit that man was a sinner, could they doubt it now? Was not Benham with its bustling, seething, human forces an eloquent testimonial to the reality of evil and the intensity of the struggle between the powers of darkness? The Church's mission—his mission—was to take an active part, in a modern spirit, in the great work of regeneration by bringing light to the blind, sympathy and relief to the down-trodden and protection to the oppressed.

Mr. Prentiss had carried his theories energetically into practice. He had striven to make St. Stephen's a tabernacle for the prosperous and the fortunate and also for the desolate and the friendless. His wish would have been to see them intermingled at morning service without regard to vested rights, but his wardens assured him that the finances of the church could not be conducted successfully except on the basis of inviolable pew ownership until after the morning service had begun. But he was able to throw the church open in the afternoon to the general public, and to reserve in the morning certain gallery and less desirable benches for the accommodation of young men and women students who wished to worship regularly and could not afford to hire seats. If it was at first a tribulation to him that his congregation was rich and fashionable and a little stolid, their liberality on collection days was a great compensation, for it gave him scope for extending his influence along the line of his ambition by the establishment of the mission church, known as the Church of the Redeemer, in the heart of Benham's arid social quarter, as an adjunct to St. Stephen's, and to be maintained by the generosity of that body of Christians. When this undertaking was in full operation, under the direction of a competent curate, Mr. Prentiss experienced fewer qualms as he looked down from his reading-desk at the gay bonnets and costly toilets of his own parishioners. He had been assured by several women active in church work that the independent poor were not fond of worshipping where their clothes would show at a disadvantage. As a Christian who was an American, he deplored the formation of classes in the sheep-fold of the church; yet he reasoned that the preferences of human nature could not be ignored altogether in a matter of this kind, and it was evident that his parishioners preferred to worship God in full possession of their property rights, surrounded by their social acquaintance. There was a zest, too, in the knowledge that he was the rector of the important and powerful people of the city, and that he had the opportunity to denounce the commercial spirit of the age in the presence of men like Carleton Howard, the millionaire, and women like his sister, Mrs. Randolph Wilson, and their friends. If he could reach their hearts, what might he not hope for? Obviously by the support of this class the Church could not fail to increase its revenues and extend its power. The triumph of the Church was after all, for him, the essential thing—the illumination of the souls of men through faith in the Christian ideal. So with this end constantly in view, Rev. George Prentiss ministered to his well-favored congregation in St. Stephen's, and vicariously, and often by personal service, conducted a crusade against ignorance and sin in the Church of the Redeemer and its neighborhood.

III

Constance Forbes had been one of the students who found a haven on the free benches at St. Stephen's. Almost at once Mr. Prentiss noticed her and, struck by her interesting face, he sent the church deaconess, Mrs. Hammond, to visit her at her lodgings. She was invited to join a Bible class of young women of her own age, and welcomed to the social parlor in the vestry provided for girls who, like herself, were strangers in Benham. Here there were magazines, writing materials, and afternoon tea. While availing herself of these privileges, Constance frequently met her rector. He inquired sympathetically concerning her work and aspirations, and showed afterward that he kept her distinctly in mind. She felt that she could freely consult him if she were in need of advice; once or twice she did consult him about her reading; and she was gratified by the interest which he took in her marriage.

Consequently, the idea of not attending morning service was distressing to her. She felt sure that Mr. Prentiss would notice it and be disappointed. Yet, what were Mr. Prentiss and his feelings in comparison with her obligation to her husband? Emil's Sundays were spoiled because she would not accompany him to the country instead of going to church. His attitude was unreasonable and absurd, but the fact remained that he did not go alone, and lounged at home instead. After all, she was no longer a girl, and her religious faith would not be imperilled were she to miss church now and then. Moreover, though she held fast to her creed and deplored Emil's radical views, she knew in her heart that she was more critical than formerly of what she heard in church, and that she was sometimes driven by her doubts as to the possibility of supernatural happenings to seek refuge behind the impenetrable fortress of a righteous life. There she was safe and happy, and free, it seemed to her, from the responsibility of harassing her young housewife's brains with non-essentials. Might it not be for her own advantage to take a respite from religious functions? Certainly her companionship to Emil seemed more important at the moment than her own habit of public worship.

She began by staying away from church occasionally. Emil expressed delight at her reasonableness and carried out with zest his plan of a Sunday outing. It was a simple matter on their bicycles, or by a few minutes in the train, to reach country air and sylvan scenes, and he was entirely satisfied to spend the day in tramping through the woods and fields, stopping to fish or to lie in the sun as the humor seized him. The working-man's Sabbath, he termed it. The programme was restful and alluring to Constance also. Her husband on these occasions seemed less at odds with the world, and willing to enjoy himself without rancor or argument. After their luncheon he would smoke complacently for awhile and then take up his fiddle and practise upon it with genuine content for an hour or more, while she sat with her back against a tree or a bank, reading. He still drank his bottles of beer, but if he slumbered, it was only for a brief period. He never neglected his fiddle, and its influence appeared, as it were, to soothe his savage breast, and to make him good-humored and agreeably philosophic. He was too fond of theorizing to neglect altogether these opportunities for the enunciation of his grievances against civilization, but he was lively instead of bitter, a distinction which meant much to his wife.

When their first baby was born, these Sunday excursions were temporarily discontinued; but Constance was eager to renew them, for Emil, after going alone a few times, relapsed into his old habits. Accordingly, as soon as the little one was able to toddle, a child's wagon was procured, which Emil was ready to draw, and by avoiding fences and other barriers, the difficulties presented by this new tie were overcome. By the time the child was a year and a half old, Constance realized that she had been to church but once in the last twelve months.

This had been partly due to the action of the rector of St. Stephen's, for Constance knew within a few weeks of her first absences from church that her conduct had been noticed. The curate, Mr. Starkworth, inquired at the door if there had been illness in the family. Later the deaconess made a call of friendly observation, in the course of which it transpired that Mr. Prentiss had observed that Mrs. Stuart no longer occupied her seat. The culprit did not attempt to explain, and within a fortnight she received a visit from the rector himself. No one could have been more affable and reassuring. He established himself in an easy chair and accepted graciously the cigar which Emil proffered him. He was a large man of dignified mien and commanding person, clerical as to his dress and visage, but with a manner of conversation approximating that of men of the world—an individual manifestation which was intended to reveal a modern spirit. He was clearly a person with whom liberties could not be taken, and yet evidently one who desired to divest his point of view of cant, and to put religion on a man to man, business basis so far as was consistent with his sacred calling. He asked genial questions concerning their domestic welfare, and the progress of the new lumber firm, spoke shrewdly of local politics in which he supposed that Stuart was engaged, and sought obviously to give the impression that he was an all-round man in his sympathies, and that he took an active interest in temporal matters. When at last there was a favorable pause in the current of this secular conversation, Mr. Prentiss laid his hands on his knees, and, bending forward and looking from one to the other in a friendly way, said with decision:

"I have missed you two young people at church lately."

"I have missed you two young people at church lately."

Constance winced at the inquiry, and her eyes fell beneath the clergyman's searching gaze. She could not deny the impeachment, which was embarrassing. At the same time the color had scarcely mounted to her cheeks before she felt the force of her defence rising to her support, and she looked up. She appreciated that it was incumbent on her, as the active church member, to respond, and she became suddenly solicitous lest Emil might, and so make matters worse. In truth, Emil's first impulse had been toward anger. It was one of his maxims not to submit to browbeating. But what he regarded as the humor of the proceeding changed his wrath into scorn, and he closed his teeth on his pipe with the dogged air of a master of the situation willing to be amused withal. Mr. Prentiss divined in a flash, from the insolence of this expression, that he had to deal with a hopeless case—so far as the human soul can ever seem hopeless to the missionary—a contemptuous materialist, and his own countenance grew grave as he turned back to the wife.

"Yes, we have been very little, Mr. Prentiss. My husband, you know, does not belong to your church. He went with me while we were engaged, but—but now I think I can help him best by staying away for the present."

"You go elsewhere, then?"

"No. We do not go to church. We spend our Sundays in the country—in the fresh air, walking and resting. We take our luncheon, and my husband brings his fiddle and his fishing rod."

Constance marvelled at her own boldness, and at the ardor with which she delivered her plea of justification.

"I understand," said Mr. Prentiss. His tone was sober, but not impatient. The argument for a day of rest and recreation for the tired man of affairs was nothing new to him. Nor was Mr. Prentiss ignorant of its plausible value. He wished to meet it without temper, as one rational being discussing with another, notwithstanding eternal verities were concerned.

"Supposing, Mrs. Stuart, that everyone were to reason in the same way, what would become of our churches?"

"They would have to go out of commission," muttered Emil with delighted brusqueness.

The rector saw fit to bear this brutality without offence. He ignored the commentator with his eyes, as though to indicate that his mission was solely to the wife, but he answered,

"They would, and the Christian faith would perish in the process. Are you, Mrs. Stuart," he continued, "prepared to do without the offices of religion, and to substitute for them a pagan holiday?"

"We pass the day very quietly and simply," said Constance. "We disturb no one and interfere with no one."

"But you become pagans, utterly."

"I try to think that God hears my prayers in the open air no less than in church, while I am keeping my husband company." It wounded her to oppose her rector, yet the need of a champion for her husband's cause supplied her with speech, and gave to her countenance quiet determination. Constance possessed one of those lithe, nervous personalities, so frequently to be met with in American women of every class, the signal attribute of which is bodily and mental refinement. Her hair was dark, her face thin, her eyes brown and wistful, her figure tall and elastic; her pretty countenance had the charm of temperament rather than mere flesh and blood, and its sympathetic, intelligent comeliness suggested spiritual vigor.

Mr. Prentiss was not blind to these qualities. They had attracted him at the beginning of their acquaintance, and he was the more solicitous on account of them to reclaim her from error.

"God hears your prayers wherever you utter them, be assured of that. But I ask you to consider whether the habit of neglecting public worship is not a failure in reverence to the Christ who listens to our supplications and without whose aid we are helpless to overcome sin."

Emil had been delighted by his wife's sturdy attitude. Now that a question of doctrine was brought into the discussion, he felt that the time had come for him to intervene again. "We who worship in the presence of nature are not hampered by dogmas of that kind," he said. "Temptation is temptation, and I for one have never been able to understand why the man who gets the better of it isn't entitled to the credit of his strength and sense. My wife looks at such things very much as I do."

"Not altogether, Emil. You know I miss not going to church."

"I have never prevented you from going."

"But you have discountenanced it, man. It is to please you, and to humor your views that your wife is sacrificing her most sacred convictions," Mr. Prentiss exclaimed with a touch of sternness.

"You think church-going of the utmost importance; I do not. There's where we differ. Everyone must decide those questions for himself—or herself."

The rector resented the smug assurance of the retort by a frown and a twist of his shoulders, as though he were sorry that he had condescended to bandy words with this irreverent person.

"Yes, we all must," he said, addressing Constance. "'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.'"

He regretted the next instant having indulged in this clerical formula, which was foreign to his usual method.

Constance flushed at the words of Scripture, then she drew herself up slightly and said:

"I am very sorry, indeed, to disappoint you, Mr. Prentiss, but I can't promise to attend church regularly at present. Perhaps it is true, as my husband says, that my opinions have changed somewhat in regard to points of faith. I hope—I shall pray that after a time we may both come back to you."

There was no mistaking the finality of this unequivocal but gently uttered speech, and Mr. Prentiss knew that one of the signs of a man of the world is the capacity to take a hint. Though it galled him to leave this attractive member of his flock in the clutches of one so apparently unfit to appreciate her bodily or spiritual graces, he recognized that to press the situation at this point could result only in separating her still further from the influence of the church. "You shall have my prayers, too—both of you," he said, fervently. Then he arose and resumed the demeanor of a friendly caller.

But Emil, now that he had shown clearly that he had the courage of his convictions, felt the need of vindicating his character as a host. He said jauntily, "I hope there's no offence in standing up for what one believes to be true. It's one of the greatest poets, you know, who wrote

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds."

"You young whipper snapper!" was Mr. Prentiss's unuttered comment, but he did not relax his lay serenity of manner save by the slight vein of sarcasm which his words contained. "No offence, certainly. But you should also bear in mind, young man, that others no less mentally qualified than yourself have pondered the problems of the universe and come to very different conclusions. A man takes large responsibilities upon himself in deciding to deprive his wife and children of the comforts of religion."

"I am anxious that my children when they grow up may not be obliged, as I was, to unlearn what they were taught to believe in their youth," Emil retorted with smiling effrontery. He was pleased with his wife and with himself and he was glad to get in a final body blow on the person of this officious slummer, as he subsequently described their visitor.

"I am not unfamiliar with that line of argument," said Mr. Prentiss, in the act of departure. "But I invite you to consider whether your children, when they are old enough to think for themselves, will be grateful for the substitute which you offer for doctrine. They ask for bread, and what do you give them? A stone."

Emil laughed. He was content to let the parson have the last word. He stood for a moment on the door-step watching him march down the street. He felt that he had turned the tables on him completely and had thereby won a victory for clear thinking and freedom of thought. He exclaimed exultantly as he re-entered the parlor, "I guess that'll teach the old duck to stay in his own barn-yard and not come waddling down here to try to get us to believe that the world was made in seven days and Jonah was swallowed by the whale."

Constance, who had fallen into troubled reverie, looked up and exclaimed with emphasis, "Mr. Prentiss is a very reasonable man about such matters, Emil. He used particularly to tell his Bible class that the language of the Old Testament is sometimes metaphorical."

"Yes, I know how the clergy jump and change feet to avoid being cornered. I'm aware they explain that the seven days were not our days of twenty-four hours, but were symbolic terms for geological stretches of time. Do you call that ingenuous?"

Constance winced. It happened that Mr. Prentiss had offered just this explanation of holy writ, and somehow, now that Emil held it up to scorn, the rector's commentary appeared flimsy. She sighed, then with emotion said, "Emil, I wish you would tell me what you really do believe."

"Believe?" He smiled indulgently as he echoed his wife's inquiry, but his eyes snapped and his shock of hair seemed to stand up straighter. His manner expressed a mixture of amused condescension and the tartness of a dogged spirit suspicious of attack. "I believe, for one thing, that the laws of nature are never violated, and that their integrity is a grander attribute of divinity than the various sensational devices which the orthodox maintain that an all-wise God employs to attract the attention of men to Himself. I believe also that you in your secret soul entirely agree with me."

Constance was silent a moment. "And yet you haven't answered my question, Emil. You haven't told me what you do believe. Why isn't religion just as real and true a part of man as any other instinct of his being? It has been a constantly growing attribute."

"And the nonsense is being gradually squeezed out of it. Why should I accept the dogma of that reverend father in God that a man can do nothing by his own efforts? Isn't it a finer thought that we grow by virtue of our struggles and that the free and independent soul wins the battle of life by making the most of itself?"

Emil spoke with fierce rhetoric. To his wife's ear he seemed to be pointing out besides that his own soul was fighting this battle and that he was willing to be judged by the results regardless of doctrine. Constance had long ago convinced herself that his bark was worse than his bite; that he believed more than he really admitted of the essentials of religion; that he acknowledged his responsibility to God and was devoting his days to advancing the useful work of the world, and incidentally providing for her happiness at the same time. His plea for credit to the independent soul which overcame temptation and obstacles was, at least, manly, and a sign of courage. She scarcely heeded the quotation from the "Rubaiyat," which he was murmuring as a corollary to his apostrophe to free and noble endeavor.

O thou who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the path I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with predestined evil round
Enmesh and then impute my fall to sin?

She had heard him quote these lines and others of like import before, and she had learned some of them by rote. She recognized their charm and cleverness and to a certain extent their plausibility; but she had not the slightest impulse to revolutionize her own faith. Her absorbing thought, for the moment, was how to be true to her husband without being false to the church. Mr. Prentiss, in spite of his appeal, had left her conscience unconvinced, and now her clear-headed, fearless Emil had suddenly given her soul the cue to expression. Her brown eyes kindled rapturously and trustfully as she said:

"It's the life after all which counts, isn't it? Everything else is of secondary importance."

"Of course," said Emil. "And when it comes to that," he added, "there's no one in the world who can pick a flaw in yours, you little saint."

"You mustn't say things like that," Constance murmured. Nevertheless, so far as it was a manifestation of confidence from the man she loved, it was pleasant to hear.

From this time her attendance at church was very infrequent. She did not cease to go altogether, but almost every Sunday was spent in expeditions in the open air. The cares resulting from the birth of two children necessarily interfered with her going regularly to service while they were infants, and as soon as they were able to walk, the Sunday outings were resumed with the little boy and girl as companions. Mr. Prentiss did not revisit the house, but on each of the two or three occasions when Constance occupied her old seat in St. Stephen's, she felt that the rector had noticed her. He had apparently left her to her devices, but his glance told her that she was not forgotten.

IV

It is fitting and fortunate that a young woman in a large city, who has given her happiness into the keeping of a man with his own way to make, should be ignorant of her peril, and that charmed by love she should take for granted that he will succeed. But the rest of the world has no excuse for being equally blind, since the rest of the world is aware that there is no recipe by which a girl of twenty can secure a guaranty either of domestic happiness or ability on the part of her lover to hold his own in the competition for a livelihood. It is easy for the moralist of society, writing at his desk, to utter the solemn truth that young people should not rush hastily into matrimony. Assuredly they should not. But after all, is it to be wondered at that so many of them do? Love is the law of life. The renewal of the race through the union of the sexes is an instinct which asserts itself in spite of code and thesis, and the institution of lawful wedlock is the bit by which civilization regulates it. Let us, says the modern scientist, isolate the degenerate members of society, the diseased, the vicious, and the improvident, and prevent them from having offspring. But still the priest of Rome, eager for fresh converts, but wise, too, in his knowledge of the law of sex, whispers to his flock "marry early," and adds under his breath, "lest ye sin." It is a part of religion, perhaps, for the daughters of the well-to-do, who have been screened from contact with the rough world, and who sit in judgment on several lovers in the paternal drawing-room, to weigh and ponder and to call in the brain to assist, or if needs be, silence the heart. Yet even they sometimes elope instead with the wrong man against whom they have been warned, and are unhappy—or happy—ever afterward. But when we turn from these privileged young persons—the pretty, daintily dressed young women in their Easter bonnets, who worship at our fashionable churches—and from some height look out over wide stretches of streets with every house alike, the homes of the average working population, and reflect that every house shelters the consequences of a marriage, shall we ask pitilessly, "How came ye so?" And if the answer of some be "we met and loved and married, and now we are miserable," shall we draw ourselves up and tell them that the fault is theirs, that marriages are (or should be) made in heaven, and that they ought to have discovered before they plighted their troth that John would be a rascal or Mary a slattern? Is it not the privilege and the blessing of the young to trust? Shall we blame them if, in the ignorance of youth and under the spell of the law of their beings, they mistake unworthy souls for their ideals?

The firm of Stuart & Robinson, dealers in lumber, had started with a small capital, but the senior partner had confidence in his capacity to do a large business. His late employers, Toler & Company, according to his opinion, had been old fogies in their methods. To adopt his own metaphor, instead of getting up early and shaking the trees, they expected to have ripe peaches served to them on Sevrès china, or, in other words, they let great opportunities slip through their fingers. He proceeded during the first year to carry out several enterprises which he had vainly called to their attention while in their service, and he had the satisfaction of proving his wisdom and of doubling the firm's assets at the same time. Emil's plans were essentially on a large scale, and he was confessedly cramped even after this success. He explained to his wife that if only he had the necessary capital, he would be able at one fell swoop to control the lumber yards and lumber market of Benham. As it was, he must wait and probably see others appropriate ideas which he had suggested by his novel and brilliant operations. The prophecy indeed proved true, and Emil saw with a morose eye what he called his harvest gleaned by others. This vindictive attitude toward the successful was the invariable frame of mind into which he relapsed when he was not carrying everything before him, and as a result those in the trade presently began to speak of him as a crank. His quick comprehension was admitted, but his associates shook their heads when his name was mentioned, and hinted that he was a dangerous man, who would bear watching. It was almost inevitable that a lean period should follow Emil's series of clever undertakings. Toward the end of the second year, he found himself in a position where he had not the means to enlarge the scope of his operations. His working capital was locked up in sundry purchases which he had expected would show quick profits, but which hung fire. If he liquidated, it must be at a loss, and the idea of a loss was always bitter to him. During a number of months he was obliged to renounce certain plans which he had in view and to remain inactive. A falling lumber market added to his complications. Prompt to act when he was convinced of error, he sold out at last his accumulated stock at a loss, which would have been much greater had he delayed a week longer. But he was left almost in the same position as when he started; the previous profits had been cut in two. This was wormwood to his restless soul. It made him moody and cynical at home, where one child and the near advent of another foreshadowed increasing expenses. He had expected by this time to be on the high road to fortune, and to be imitating the swift progress of certain individuals in Benham, who even in the short period since he had been a citizen, had risen by their superior wits from poverty to affluence and power.

But Emil's fits of depression were invariably succeeded by intervals of buoyancy. Though he still talked bitterly at home of the methods by which cold-hearted capital squeezed the small man to the wall and robbed him of his gains, he began to scheme anew, and to argue that the assets in his control were still ample for a great success if shrewdly handled. The lumber market was in the doldrums, dull and drooping. It began to look as though some of the industries of Benham had been developed too rapidly, and as though a halt, or what financiers call a healthy reaction in values, were in order. Could it be possible that all prices in Benham were inflated? The idea occurred to Emil one day, and he jumped at it eagerly. It took possession of him. He feverishly began to examine statistics, and found that Benham had experienced only one period of depression since its birth as a city at the close of the Civil War. It was time for another, and the men who were clever enough to anticipate it would reap the reward of their sagacity. What were the staples of Benham? Oil, pork, and manufactured iron. These were the industries which had given the chief impetus to the city's growth, and were its great source of wealth. Emil pondered the situation and decided to sell pork short. If a general shrinkage in values was impending, the price of pork was certain to decline. He had hitherto felt so confident of making money in his own line of business that he had never done more than cast sheep's eyes at the stock market or the markets in grain, oil, and pork futures. It had been his expectation to try ventures of this sort as soon as his capital was large enough for important transactions. It was a favorite notion of his that after he had acquired the first one hundred thousand dollars, he would be able to quadruple it in a very short time by bold dealings in stocks or commodities. He knew now that he had merely to step into a broker's office and sell pork in Chicago by wire. It was a simple thing to do and the shrewd thing, considering his own business offered no opportunity at the moment for brilliancy.

To speak to his partner seemed to Emil unnecessary. He promised himself that after he had put the firm on its feet again he would deal generously with Robinson. Since their late reverses the partnership was not borrowing much money, so its credit was not exhausted. Emil obtained from his bank as large a loan as he dared to ask for, and began to sell pork short on the strength of the proceeds. It was a process which requires small capital at the outset. That is, he had simply to keep his margin good in case the pork which he sold rose in value. To begin with he sold only a few hundred barrels, and within a fortnight the price fell smartly. Not only the price of pork, but of stocks, grain, and merchandise. Emil congratulated himself. Evidently he was correct in his judgment that a period of lower speculative values was at hand. The proper thing would be to sell everything and reap a huge fortune before the dull general public awoke to the truth. His own limited resources forbade this, which was irritating. Still, he could go on selling pork short, and this he continued to do.

The proceeding elated him, for the sudden and large profit was in a sense a revelation. He regretted that he had never before tried this method of demonstrating his business shrewdness. He felt that it suited him admirably. He would be no rash-headed fool; he would sell boldly, but intelligently; he would keep his eye on the general market, and not cover his shorts until the general situation changed. If a serious decline in the prices of everything were in store for Benham—and the indications of this were multiplying from week to week—the price of pork might drop out of sight, so to speak, and he win a fortune as a consequence. It was the chance of a lifetime. He reasoned that he would keep cool and make a big thing of it; that a small fellow would be content with a few thousands and run to cover, but he intended to be one of the big fellows. Why take his profit when the whole financial horizon was ominous with clouds, and money was becoming tighter every day?

Emil's reasoning was perfect. The course of prices was exactly as he had predicted; that is, the price of everything except pork. The unexpected happened there, and this from a cause which no shrewd person could have foreseen. One day when, in the parlance of trade, the bottom seemed to be dropping out of all the markets, a despatch appeared in the newspapers stating that a peculiar disease had broken out among the hogs in Western Illinois. The pork market stiffened, but became flat at the advance after somebody declared the story to be a canard invented by the bulls to bolster up their holdings. Emil, adopting this explanation, and certain that this cunning stratagem to check the decline would prove unavailing, sold more pork.

A week later—one Saturday preceding a Monday which was to be a holiday—there were rumors in Chicago, just before the close of the Exchange, that the disease among the hogs was no mere local manifestation; that it was spreading rapidly, and had already shown itself in Indiana and Ohio. Pork in the last fifteen minutes bounded upward and closed ominously strong. Before the market opened on the following Tuesday it was definitely known that the hogs of the country were in the grasp of an epidemic, the precise character of which, to quote the press, was not yet determined, but which, in the opinion of those most competent to judge, would render the flesh of the animals attacked by the dread disease unfit for food, and their lard unwholesome. When the market opened, the price of pork was so high that Emil's margin of protection was wiped out as thoroughly as the tide wipes out the sand dyke which a child erects upon the beach. He was unable to respond to the demand made on him for money to keep his account with his broker good, and was sold out before night at a loss—a loss which left him in debt. He went home knowing that he was bankrupt, and that his firm must fail the moment his note at the bank became due, even if the broker to whom he owed five thousand dollars over and above his margins did not press him. There was no escape from ruin and humiliation.

He disclosed the truth to Constance with the repressed bitterness of a Prometheus. He explained to her with the mien of a wounded animal at bay the cruelty of the trick of destiny which had crushed him. How had he been at fault? He had been shrewd, far-seeing and prompt to act. The wisdom of his course had been demonstrated by the fall in prices. He was on the high road to fortune, and fate had stabbed him in the back. Could any intelligent man have foreseen that the hogs of the country would be stricken with disease? And more galling still, why had luck played him false by singling out the only possible combination of events which could have done him harm?

"An all-wise Providence!" he ejaculated with a scornful laugh. "A man looks the ground over, uses his wits and is reaping the benefit of his intelligence when he is struck in the head with a brick from behind a hedge, and is then expected to glorify the hand which smote him. How could it have been helped? How was I to blame?" he reiterated with a fierce look at his wife.

Constance could not answer the question. The details of business were a sealed book to her. The brief account of the disaster in pork, which he had just given, was confusing to her, and had left her with no conviction save pity for her husband. She was ready to take his word, and to believe that this overwhelming misfortune was the result of ill-luck which could not have been guarded against. What was uppermost in her mind was the impulse to help and comfort him. It pained her that he should inveigh against fate, though she recognized that the provocation was severe. But he needed her now more than ever. She would be brave and let him see that her love was at his command.

"You mustn't mind too much, Emil," she said. "We have to start again, that's all. I can economize in lots of ways, and we shall manage somehow, I'm sure. We have the house, you know. If it's necessary—in order to set you up in business—we can mortgage that. We've always had that to fall back on."

She knew as she spoke that from the standpoint of prudence the offer of the house was unwise. If that were gone, what would become of her children? Yet she felt a joy in tendering it. Why did her husband look at her with that malevolent gaze as though she had contributed to his distress?

"If you had put a mortgage on the house when I first started in business, and had given me the benefit of a larger capital, then we shouldn't be where we are to-day. I wanted it at the time, but you didn't offer it."

"Oh, Emil. I never dreamt that you wished it. To mortgage our home then would have been rash, surely. Besides, if I had given it to you, wouldn't it have been lost with the rest now?"

"Don't you understand," he said, roughly, "that if I had not been hampered at the start by my small capital, I should never have been forced to go outside the lumber business in order to support my family? Another five thousand dollars would have made all the difference."

His glowering look seemed to suggest that he had persuaded himself that she was partly to blame for what had happened. Constance was ready to make every allowance for him, but his mood offered fresh evidence of the crankiness of his disposition, a revelation to which her devotion could not altogether blind her.

"I don't understand anything about the business part," she answered, putting her arm around his neck. "Oh, Emil, Emil, I'm so sorry for you! I wish to do everything I can to help you and show my love for you. This is a dreadful sorrow for you to bear—for us both to bear. But it has come to us, and we mustn't be discouraged. God will give us strength to bear it if we let him."

"God?" he blurted. "You may leave God out of the question so far as I am concerned."

"Oh, Emil, it grieves me to hear you talk like that."

"And it grieves me that you should aggravate my trouble by cant which I thought you had outgrown."

"I shall never outgrow that," she murmured, appreciating suddenly that the substitute which he offered her for spiritual resignation was a cell bounded by four stone walls. She had reached the limit of her apostacy, and she shrank irrevocably from the final step.

"Of course the rich and the powerful and the fortunate," he was saying, "encourage the delusion that if a man's knocked out as I am he ought to believe it's for the best, because rubbish of that sort keeps together the social system on which they fatten. Do the poor in the tenements in Smith Street over there," he asked with a wave of his hand, "believe it's for the best that they should go hungry and in rags while Carleton Howard and his peers imitate Antony and Cleopatra? Ask the operatives in the factories across the river what they think of the justice of the millionaire's God? The time has passed when you can fool the self-respecting workingman with a basket of coals and a tract on the kingdom of heaven. They may have their heaven, if they'll give us a fair share of this earth." Emil folded his arms as one issuing an ultimatum.

Constance realized that he was in no mood to be reasoned with. She had made clear that she could not subscribe to his doctrine of despair, and save in that respect she was eager to be sympathetic. She could not deny the inequalities and apparent injustice of civilization, and Emil's plea that he had been crushed by an accident which he could not have avoided not only wrung her heart, but filled it with a sense of hostility to an industrial system which permitted its deserving members to be crushed without fault of their own. But she felt instinctively that the best sort of succor which she could bring was of the practical kind. To-morrow was before them, God or no God, and they must adjust themselves to their altered circumstances, take thought and build their hopes anew.

She put her arm around his neck again and kissed him silently. Then she began with quiet briskness to make preparations for the evening meal. It was the maid's afternoon out, and Constance moved as though she were glorying in the occupation. Presently she said:

"Of course I'll dismiss Sophy to-morrow. I am proud to be a workingman's wife, Emil. We'll soon be on our feet again, never fear."

The suggestion of the servant's dismissal deepened the gloom on Emil's face. "I've half a mind to pull up stakes and move to New York," he muttered.

"And give up our home?"

He frowned at the involuntary concern in her voice. "What use is a home in a place where a man is cramped and circumvented in every big thing he attempts? I ought to have moved long ago."

"I am ready to live wherever you think best, Emil. And you mustn't forget, dear, that my trust and faith in you are as great as ever."

Despondent as he was, his habit of buoyancy was already groping for some clue to a brighter vision, to which his wife's words of encouragement now helped him. He was sitting with his elbows resting on the table and his head clasped between his hands. "I'll make a fresh start—here," he said. "They've got me down, but, damn them, I'll show them that they can't keep me there."

Presently he arose, and walking out to the kitchen reappeared with a goblet and two bottles of beer. One of these he uncorked and poured the contents ostentatiously so that the froth gathered. Raising the glass he buried his mouth in the beer and eagerly drank it off. He set down the goblet with a sigh of satisfaction.

"And what's more," he said, "they can't deprive me of that."

Constance watched him with a troubled look. She shrank at this time of his distress from intimating that she regarded the indulgence of this appetite as a poor sort of solace. Besides, a glass of beer was in itself nothing, and he might well take offence at her solicitude as an invasion of his reasonable comfort. Yet observation had taught her that he was becoming more and more fond of seeking a respite from care in liberal potations of this sort.

She restrained her inclination to interfere, but she saw him with concern consume four bottles in the course of the evening. The serenity of temper which this produced—the almost indifferent calm following the storm—was by no means encouraging. To be sure his ugly side seemed entirely in abeyance. Indeed, he took down his fiddle and played on it seductively until he went to bed, as though there were no such things as business troubles. But somehow the very mildness of his mood, gratifying as it was to her from the momentary personal standpoint, disturbed her. Was this good nature the manly, Christian resignation of the victim of misfortune putting aside his grief until the morrow? It suggested to her rather the relaxation of a baffled soul exchanging ambition for a nepenthe of forgetfulness—a fuddled agitator's paradise—and her heart was wrung with dread.

V

The firm of Stuart & Robinson, lumber dealers, was hopelessly insolvent and did not attempt to resume business. The partners separated with sentiments of mutual disdain. To the junior—the dummy—the failure had come as a cruel surprise. He refused to regard Emil's conduct as reasonable or honorable, despite the assurance that the speculation in pork had been for their common benefit, and that, but for an untoward accident, the result would have been a fortune for the firm. On the other hand, Emil expressed scorn for a nature so pusillanimous that it saw only the outcome and failed utterly to appreciate the brilliancy of his undertaking. As Emil explained to his wife, the decision of the partners in regard to the future was typical of their respective dispositions; Robinson, having lost his money, was soliciting a clerkship—a return to servitude; whereas Emil intended to strike out for himself again.

In what field of energy were his talents to be exercised next? This was for Emil the first and most important consideration. His new employment must be of a kind which would provide him with bread and butter until he was on his feet again, but would not deprive him of scope and independence. It must be something which would not require capital. Yet this did not mean that his talent for speculation was to be neglected, but merely to be kept in abeyance until he saw just the opportunity to use to advantage the three thousand dollars which he promptly raised by a second mortgage on his wife's house. His failure had left him more than ever confident of his ability to achieve success by bold and comprehensive methods. But in the meantime, while he was spinning the web of fresh enterprises which were to make him prosperous, he must support his family somehow.

He concluded to become a newspaper reporter and writer of articles for the press. This would provide an immediate income and would not interfere unduly with other projects. Besides it would enable him to give public expression to some of his opinions, which would be an æsthetic satisfaction. He also engaged desk-room in an office shared by four men independent of one another and interchangeably petty lawyers, traders and dealers in mortgages and land. On the glass door one read "Real Estate and Mortgages—Investments—Collections—Loans—Notary Public." Below were the names of the occupants, followed by the titles of several wildcat companies, the dregs of oil and mining ventures in the neighborhood of Benham, of which one of them was the promoter and treasurer. It seemed to Emil a location where he, hampered by circumstances from jostling elbows with men of means, might use his wits profitably until he could see his way to more imposing quarters. Here he would be unobserved and yet not wholly out of touch with what was going on. On the same floor of the building, which was a hive of small concerns, there was a broker's office which had a wire to Chicago and knowing correspondents in New York. That it was described as a "bucket shop" by more prosperous banking firms prejudiced Emil in its favor; he ascribed the stigma to capitalistic envy and social ostracism. He became friendly with the proprietor, discussed with him the merits of the wares on his counter, and presently, acting on "tips" obtained from this source, captured on several occasions sums ranging from ten to fifty dollars by the purchase of ten shares of stock or an equivalent amount of grain, requiring an advance on his own part of not more than three per cent. of the purchase price—a mere bagatelle. This as a beginning was satisfactory. It eked out his journalistic income; and the skill with which he plied the process, contrasted with the folly displayed by most of the customers, flattered the faith which he had in his sound judgment. This broker's shop was the resort of scores of people of small means, trades-folk, clerks, salaried dependents and some women, keen to acquire from the fluctuations of the speculative markets a few crumbs of the huge gains garnered by the magnates of Wall Street, of which they read emulously in the newspapers. To put up one's thirty dollars, and to have one's margin of venture or profit wiped out within twenty-four hours, was the normal experience, sooner or later, of ninety per cent. of these unfortunates. The remainder were shrewder and longer lived, and to this remnant Emil indisputably belonged.

He obtained a position on the Star, a sensational, popular one-cent paper. The Star was read both by the workingmen in the manufacturing plants, of whose interests it was a zealous champion, and by a large class of business men and trades-people, who found its crisp paragraphs and exaggerated, inaccurate reports of current horrors and scandals an agreeable form of excitement. Emil's employment was to make the round of the dealers in grain, lumber, wool and other staples and report trade prices and gossip, which under the control of the financial editor he was allowed to expand into commercial prognostications or advice. To the Sunday edition he began to contribute special articles exploiting the grievances of the proletariat, which the management of the Star accepted and presently invited as a weekly feature. They were written with a sardonic acerbity of touch, which afforded him an outlet for his disgruntled frame of mind and free scope for his favorite theories. He also renewed his attendance at the Socialistic Club which he had frequented before his marriage, and became one of the orators there. It occurred to him that a political office would be acceptable while he was husbanding his resources. Why not become alderman on the workingman's ticket? There was a salary of five hundred dollars attached, and as a city father he would have opportunities to know what was going on in municipal affairs, and to get an inkling of some of the big schemes projected by capitalists, for the furtherance of which his vote would be required. He would be able also—and this was an exhilarating consideration—to hold the whip-hand over the arrogant moneyed men seeking franchises for next to nothing, by which to extort millions from the guileless common people. While Emil, with recovered buoyancy, readjusted his plans to meet his circumstances and set his wits to work, his wife met the necessity of strict economy with absorbed devotion. She signed the mortgage with a pang, but without hesitancy. She appreciated the necessity of the contribution. Without ready money Emil would be powerless—must become a mere clerk or subordinate, and his ambition would be crushed. She would have preferred perhaps that he should resign himself to the situation, and without imperilling their home, support his family on a modest footing by a salary or by the journalistic work for which he had an aptitude. But she recognized that his heart was set on independent success on a large scale, and that Emil thwarted or repressed would become an irritable and despondent malcontent. His shrewdness had nearly gained him a fortune, and apparently a cruel freak of chance had been solely responsible for his discomfiture. She did not pretend to criticise the nature of his business dealings. He had explained to her that capital was indispensable to the realization of his aims. She must trust him. She did suggest that he should use the proceeds of the mortgage for the payment of his debts. The thought of doing so was bitter, and she was thankful when Emil assured her with a protesting scoff that such a proceeding would be Utopian. "What," he asked, "was the sense of insolvent laws, if, when a man failed in business, his wife was to cast her little all, her own patrimony, into the common pot for the enrichment of his creditors? Business people understood that they were taking business chances, and did not expect to gobble up the home of a wife bought with her own genuine means. If she were rich, generosity might be honesty, but in the present instance, it would be sentimental folly." This was convincing to Constance, for she felt instinctively that her children must have rights as well as the creditors. A woman's whimsical conception of business honor might well be at fault. She had made her offer, and she was glad to abide by her husband's superior knowledge.

Her duty obviously was to reduce the scale of family living without interfering with Emil's reasonable comfort or wounding his self-respect. She gave herself up to her work of domestic economy with fresh zeal, doing the manual labor of the household with enthusiasm. By steady industry and thoughtful care, she was able not only to minimize expenses, but to produce presentable results from a small outlay. Her heart was in it; for was not Emil at work again and hopeful? She was proud of his newspaper articles and regarded his small gains from shrewd speculations as new proof of his capacity for financial undertakings.

The end of a year found Emil rather more than holding his own pecuniarily. He had obtained commissions as a broker from the successful negotiation of a few small real-estate transactions, his ventures on a cautious scale in the stock market had been almost invariably fortunate, and his earnings as a newspaper writer had been sufficient with these accretions to cover his household expenses, pay the interest on the mortgage, and add slightly to his capital. He felt that he was on his feet again, and was correspondingly bumptious; yet he realized that his recuperation regarded as progress was a snail's pace, which must be greatly accelerated if he would attain wealth and importance. In this connection the idea of becoming an alderman kept recurring to him with increasing attraction. At present he was nobody. His name was unfamiliar and his position obscure. This irritated him, for he craved recognition and publicity. To be sure, while capital was at his disposal, he had seen fit to address his efforts solely to the accumulation of a fortune as the passport to power, but even then he had been at heart a sworn enemy of the moneyed class. And now that he had resumed his old associations, his theories had developed fresh vitality and aroused in him the desire to vindicate them by action. Since fate had condemned him to attain financial prominence slowly, why should he not secure recognition in the best way he could? As an alderman he would be a local power, and once in the arena of politics and given the opportunity to make himself felt, why might he not aspire to political prosperity?

He proceeded to seek the nomination. But he found that there were other aspirants, and that he must be stirring. In Benham the district system of election was in vogue. That is, the city was divided into municipal districts, and each district chose its own alderman. In that where Emil lived the workingman's candidate, so called, was almost invariably successful against the representative of the more conservative element of the two wards concerned, and a nomination was regarded as equivalent to election. Now there were two factions of voters belonging to the dominant party in the district, one in each ward, and for three successive years the alderman had come from the ward other than that in which Emil dwelt. This was a plausible argument why the next candidate should be selected from his ward. The faction which Emil hoped to represent contained a considerable number of Germans with socialistic affiliations, and it was agreed by a conference of the rival cliques on the eve of the canvass that their turn had come to nominate a candidate. This was fortunate for Emil, as some of the members of the social debating club to which he belonged were of this body. He had already been prominent at the meetings of the club, prompt and aggressive in the expression of his opinions on his feet, and prone to linger over his beer until late at night agitating the grievances of the under dogs of industrial competition. The suggestion of his name, backed by a vote of his associates, received respectful consideration from the political managers, and he at once became a prominent candidate. The last three aldermen from the district had been of Irish extraction, and he was an American. His grandfather on his mother's side had been a German; hence his name Emil. He was an undoubted advocate of the rights of the laboring class, and a foe of capitalistic jobbing. These were signal points in his favor. But the victory would remain to the aspirant who could obtain a majority of the delegates to the aldermanic convention, and the battle would be fought out at the preliminary caucus where the delegates were chosen by the voters of the two wards. Accordingly the contest became a house-to-house canvass of the district by the respective candidates, each of whom had an organization and lieutenants. There was speech-making at halls hired for the occasion, and some treating incident to these rallies. Poster pictures of the candidates were requisite for use in saloons and on bill-boards. All this demanded expenditure. Emil realized presently that, if he wished to succeed, he could not be niggardly with his money. Men would not work for nothing, and spontaneous enthusiasm was only to be had for remuneration. He drew upon his funds, exhausting the little he had saved the previous year, and trenching slightly on the mortgage money. He hoped to win. The contest practically was between him and a German beer manufacturer, who happened also to be the president of a small bank. The third candidate was already out of the running. Emil in his capacity as tribune of the people made the most of his opponent's connection with the moneyed interests. His satire on this score offset the advantage which his rival received from his trade as a brewer, and turned the scale. On the night of the caucus, the voting booths were crowded to repletion. A stream of excited citizens struggled to the rail to deposit their ballots. There was imprecation and several resorts to fisticuffs. Not until after midnight was the result known. Emil won by a liberal margin in both wards, and his nomination was assured. He was escorted home jubilant and beery by a detachment of his followers, whose cat-calls of triumph thrilled the listening ears of Constance. She met him at the door, and when he was safely inside she threw her arms about his neck and exclaimed, "Oh, Emil. I'm so glad!"

His small dark eyes were scintillating, his hair stood up from his brow like a bird's crest, the curl of his short mustache, odorous of malt, bristled awry, his speech was thick.

"Didn't I tell you they couldn't keep me down? I shall get now where I belong," he exclaimed as he strode into the sitting-room and dropped into a chair with the air of a fuddled but victorious field-marshal.

Constance recognized that he was exhilarated by drink. The associations of the last few weeks had awakened in her vague doubts as to the sort of influence which the career of an alderman was likely to exercise upon him. But she shrank from harboring criticism. She yearned to be happy, and her happiness was to see her husband successful and prosperous. So she put away the consciousness that his breath was tainted, his manner boastful and jarring, and gave herself up to the joy which sprang from beholding him a self-satisfied victor.

Emil's self-satisfaction was short lived. It chanced that some of the wealthy citizens of Benham were interested in the establishment of an electric street-car system for the city and its suburbs, and were laying their wires to secure the co-operation of the Board of Aldermen. The project had been kept concealed, and not until the campaign for the city election was well under way were the machinations of those interested apparent. First as an underground rumor, then as a well-credited report from diverse sources, the news reached Emil that the nominee of the other party had the backing of a powerful syndicate. The true explanation of this mystery followed, and with it the statement that Emil's radical utterances had drawn upon his head the ire of the capitalists with a mission, who were giving their moral and financial support in every district to the one of the two candidates best suited to their necessities regardless of party. In place of the walk-over he had expected, Emil found himself in the midst of a contest of the fiercest description. He was furious, and his exultation was turned to gall. Why had he not discovered the street-car company projects in advance and made friends with the promoters? This was his first and secret reflection, which added rancor to his public declaration that he would bury at the polls the candidate of these plunderers. But how? Where were his funds to come from? There had been plenty of offers of ready money when it was supposed that his election was assured. But now the tone of his supporters was less confident, and ugly rumors reached him of defections among the Irish in the other ward. He was in the fight to stay. So he declared on the stump and in his home. He could not afford to be defeated. It was a case of hit or miss, win or lose. Maddened, desperate, and excited, he threw prudence to the winds and scattered dollars freely for proselytizing expenses until the morning of the election. Each side claimed the victory until the polls were closed. The result was close—a matter of one hundred and fifty ballots—but Emil proved to be the loser, and at a cost of over three thousand dollars. The fund which he had borrowed from his wife was exhausted, and he had incurred, besides, a batch of unpaid bills for refreshments, carriages, and other incidental expenses.

He awoke at dawn from a nap at a table in a saloon from which the last of his followers had slipped away. Slouching into his kitchen, where his wife was kindling the fire, he tossed his hat on the table and said with a malignant sneer:

"The jig's up."

Constance was pale. She had been watching for him all night, and had heard from a neighbor the dismal result. Her heart was wrung with pity and distress, but she perceived that it was no time for consolatory words. She busied herself in preparing a cup of coffee, which presently she placed before him, stooping as she did so to kiss him softly on the forehead. He was sitting by the table with his legs thrust out and his hands sunk in his trousers pockets, chewing an unlighted cigar, one of those left from the supply he had bought for political hospitality. His wife's action seemed to remind him of her presence. He looked up at her viciously, showing the white of his eye like a surly dog.

"What do you want?"

"Your coffee, Emil."

He glared at the smoking cup, then with a sweep of his arm dashed it away:

"To hell with you and your messes, you—you fool!"

The crash of the crockery was followed by silence. It seemed to Constance that she had been struck by a bullet, so confounding were his words. Her husband address her like that? What did it mean?

"Emil," she gasped—"you are ill!"

"Not ill, but tired of you."

"Of me? Your wife? What have I done?"

"Why didn't you consent to move to New York when I wished to go?" he snapped. "If you had, I wouldn't be in this fix, sold out by a pack of filthy Hibernian cut-throats."

"I was ready to go if you wished it, Emil. We will go now—if only you do not speak to me so unkindly."

"It's too late," he replied with a sneer. "What use would it be, anyway? We look at everything differently. We always have."

"You do not realize what you are saying. You do not know what you are saying."

"Crazy, am I? The best thing for you to do is to ask some of your church philanthropists to supply you with laundry work. You're likely to need it. The jig's up, I tell you. We haven't a dollar left."

"Very well."

"The mortgage money with the rest." He threw the chewed cigar on the floor and ground it with his foot.

"Very well. I can bear anything except that you should speak to me so cruelly. Have I been afraid of work? Whatever has happened we mustn't forget the children, Emil. We must keep up our courage on their account at least."

He scowled at the reference. "I'll look out for the children. Is there any beer in the house?"

"No." Then after a moment's hesitation she added, "May I ask you something, Emil? Won't you give up beer? It is hurting your life. I am sure of it. I have felt so for some time, and you have known that I have hated your fondness for it. Give it up altogether and—and we will go to New York or anywhere you wish and make a fresh start."

In her dismay at his brutality she was eager and thankful to throw the responsibility for his conduct on his propensity for drink. She felt the obligation to speak fearlessly on this score, even though she irritated him. Her gentle remonstrances had been of no avail, and she must struggle with him now against himself or lose him altogether.

Emil heard her appeal with a deepening scowl. For a moment it seemed as though he were about to strike her. Then, as what he evidently considered the audacity of her expostulation worked on his mind, self-pity was mingled with his anger.

"You'd deprive me of my beer, would you? The only solace I've got. Why don't you go smash my fiddle, too? That's the way with you pious women; a man gets down on his luck and you stop his comforts and drive him into the street. Very well, then, if I can't get beer in this house, little saint, there's lots of places I can. This

VI

Constance did not see her husband again for twenty-four hours. He returned at supper-time and took his place at the table without a word of apology or explanation. He was in a state of great depression, morose and uncommunicative. On previous occasions when misfortune had befallen him, he had taken his wife into his confidence, but now it seemed either that he had lost his grip on life so completely that words failed him, or that the resentment which he had expressed toward her was still dominant. When the meal was over, he went out and did not return until late. He was boozy with drink, and threw himself on his bed with the air of a man who would fain dispel consciousness by the luxury of sleep.

Emil's mode of life for the next few weeks was substantially a repetition of this programme. Glum, sour, and listless he went his way in the morning; fuddled, indifferent, and sleepy he returned at night. Concerning his circumstances and plans he said nothing to Constance. She was left totally in the dark as to the extent and the effect of his reverses. He had told her that they were ruined, yet he continued to go down-town as though nothing had happened. Trusting that he would enlighten her of his own accord, at first she asked no questions. Then as he did not speak, she requested him one morning to tell her how his affairs stood, urging her solicitude and affection. He listened frowningly and put her off with the disconcerting utterance "You'll know soon enough. It's just as well to let a drowning man grasp at straws while there are any to grasp at."

His half-scornful, half-desperate manner forbade further inquiry at the moment if she did not wish to widen the breach between them. Constance was in deep distress. She yearned to comfort and help him, but this wifely, loving impulse was haunted by the consciousness now forced upon her with painful clearness that she had misjudged his nature and was mated to a crank. How otherwise could she interpret his hostile attitude toward herself? To what but a cross-grained perversity of soul could she ascribe his disposition to blame her for his misfortunes? Her duty was plain, to make the best of the situation, and to ignore, so far as self-respect would permit, his laceration of her feelings, trusting to time to restore his sense of justice and renew concord between them. But what hope was there for the future? Hope for the realization of that blissful, ennobling married state to which she had looked forward as a bride and had believed in store for her? Here was the thought which tormented her and gave poignancy to the dismay and anxiety of the moment. Even if their immediate circumstances were less serious than Emil had declared, was there any reason to believe that his next experiment would be more successful? She had accepted hitherto without question his declaration that ill-luck had been responsible for all his troubles, but that consolation was hers no longer. She found herself listening to the voice of criticism to which until now she had turned a deaf ear. In a new spirit, without bitterness, but in the assertion of her right as a wife to judge the man to whom she had committed her happiness, she recalled the incidents of their married life—his theories, arguments, and point of view. He had declared her to blame for his misfortunes. Surely if she had failed in her duty it had not been toward him. She had sacrificed her opinions to his, and for his sake abnegated her most precious predilections in order to make the union of their lives sweeter and more complete. If she were guilty, was it not of treason to her own instincts and her own conscience?

Emil indeed had persuaded himself not merely that fortune had betrayed him, and the hand of the prosperous world was against him, but that his wife was partly to blame for it. Looking back on his last fiasco, he conjured up the circumstance that she had not fallen in with his suggestion of an exodus to New York, and this he had promptly distorted into a grievance, which grew the more he nursed it. To the notion that she had thwarted him in everything and that their relations as husband and wife had been wholly unsympathetic was only another step. It suited him to feel that he was the injured party, for he was face to face with the responsibility of supporting his family, which must be met or avoided. The question of immediate funds was already pressing. His last reverse had discouraged and angered him, but it had not diminished his confidence that he would succeed in the right place. It had only convinced him that Benham was not the right place; that Benham was too small and provincial; too unappreciative of real ability. He was unpleasantly in debt, but the bills which he had contracted for political expenses could be disregarded for the present. He had no property with which to meet them, and if he were pressed, he had merely to go into insolvency in order to rid himself of them altogether. Nor need he worry about the mortgage for the present. It would not be due for two years, and, provided the interest were paid, they could not be molested. These redeeming features of his plight were clear to him after the first days of mental agitation, but his spirit did not reassert its wonted elasticity. Analyzing the cause, he perceived that his whole surroundings were repugnant to him, and that he shrank from recommencing life at the foot of the ladder under the conditions in which he found himself. He was determined to leave Benham, and he was determined that his family, if they came with him, should toe the mark. What this phrase meant precisely he did not formulate, but it suited his mood. "Toe the mark." He kept repeating it to himself, as though it promised relief from domestic insubordination. Yes, if his wife did not choose to adopt his theories and abet him in his undertakings, she could go her own way for all he cared. It was only on account of the children that he did not put an end to their contract of marriage to-morrow by leaving her. Except for them it were surely folly for a man and woman whose ideas were utterly at variance to continue a partnership the only fruit of which could be discord and recriminations. So he argued, and it was only the thought of his children which restrained him from precipitate action and caused him to continue to go down-town every day seeking a bare livelihood. Since the night of his defeat at the polls, Constance had not asked him for money. Presumably she had some laid by, and was living on that, but by the first of the month she must have recourse to him or starve, and then would be the time for his ultimatum. The terms of this, beyond a declaration of general discontent, were still hazy in his brain, befogged by malt liquor and inflamed by hatred of the world, but a glowing conviction that their marriage had been a failure through her fault was a satisfactory substitute for definiteness. Brooding like a spider in its web, secretive, hoping that something would turn up to put him on his feet again, yet almost reckless in his attitude, and drinking assiduously, he drifted on without aim. His evenings were spent at his workingmen's club, where he continued as an outlet to his feelings to deliver virulent philippics, which he realized as he uttered them were a sorry equivalent for personal success.

While thus limp and embittered, a final mishap impelled Emil to action. It happened that the broker on the same floor as the office where he had desk-room, and with whom he was on familiar terms, let him in for a disastrous tip and put the screws on when the market went the other way. The sum involved was three hundred dollars, the total residue of Emil's capital, which he had allowed to remain untouched with this false friend in order not to be entirely without the means to speculate. The advice offered had seemed to be friendly and disinterested. When the result proved disastrous the victim promptly suspected guile. Certainly he encountered a flinty demeanor, as though the proprietor of the "bucket-shop" were cognizant of the impecuniosity of his customer and had decided to squeeze him dry and break with him. This from the man whose social status on the street he had championed seemed to Emil rank ingratitude. Yet the broker was making no more than ordinary business demands upon him. His margin was exhausted, and the transaction would be closed unless he supplied additional security. This was business-like, but not friendly, as it seemed to Emil, especially as the ingrate, who had been so confident of the value of the tip, chose now to be sphinx-like as to what the next day's price of the stock would be. All he would vouchsafe was that it would go up sooner or later.

Since it was necessary to act at once, and to sell meant the loss of the remnant of his capital, Emil concluded to give himself a chance by making use of five hundred dollars which had just been paid over to him for a client in redemption of a mortgage. He argued that the stock, having fallen in price contrary to expectation, was not likely to decline further at once, and that if he protected his account, he would be able to make inquiries and form a more intelligent opinion by the end of a few days as to what he had best do. Besides, there was lurking in his mind the bitter argument, which he chose to believe sound, that the world owed every man a living, and assuredly owed it to a man like himself. Since the hand of society seemed to be against him, why should he not take advantage of the resources at his disposal and save himself? He was simply borrowing; if he were not able to return the money at once, he would do so later with interest. The consequences of this performance were disastrous. As Emil had predicted, the stock in question remained stationary for three days, but by the end of them he felt no clearer regarding which course to pursue. Estimates as to its value were contradictory; yet since a sale at the market price meant the safety of the five hundred dollars at the cost of his own financial obliteration, he remained hopeful. On the fourth day the stock broke sharply, and again on the day after. His holding was only one hundred shares—a paltry transaction from a capitalistic point of view—yet it was rashness for him. Adversity and his pressing needs had tempted him to disregard his meditated prudence and to venture on thin ice. He perceived himself ruined and a defaulter. The obliquity of his peculation was mitigated in his mind by the conviction that fortune had been signally cruel to him. As for the borrowed money, he would give his note and pay it presently when he was on his feet again. Yet he appreciated that his opportunities for making a living in Benham were at an end, and that if he remained, he might find difficulty in inducing the owner of the five hundred dollars to accept him as a creditor without demur. Clearly the simplest course was to come to terms by post. To shake the dust of Benham from his feet was his dearest wish, and the time had arrived for its fulfilment. There was still one hundred dollars belonging to his client in his hands which he had not used. This he drew to provide himself with travelling expenses, arguing that the sooner he were able to reach New York, the quicker the loan would be repaid, and slipped from the city without a word to anyone. He had decided to cut adrift from all his past associations, and an indispensable portion of his plan was to sever forever his relations with his wife.

A week later he wrote this letter to her from New York:

Constance:

This is to let you know what has become of me. You may have guessed the truth, but it's woman's way to worry, weep, and raise a hue and cry, though she knows in her heart that she's mismated, and that it would be a godsend to her if "hubby" had really blown his brains out or were safely at the bottom of a well. I'm not dead yet, nor am I contemplating suicide at present. Though if the time ever does come when I think the game is played out, it will be one-two-three-go! without any pause between the numbers. But I'm as good as dead now, so far as you are concerned. You won't be troubled by me further. You've seen the last of me. I told you I was strapped. I'm cleaned out to the last dollar. But that doesn't phaze me except for the moment. I'm going to make a fresh start and a clean sweep at the same time. You know as well as I that our marriage has not been a glittering success. In short, we've made a mess of it. We thought we were suited to each other, and we find we're not. That's all. I don't approve of you any more than you do of me, and what's the use of making each other miserable by protracting the relation until death do us part? It's up to me to undo the Gordian-knot, and I've cut it.

You'll shed some tears, I suppose, over the situation, and your friends will call me a brute. But when the shock is past and sentimental considerations have evaporated, just ask yourself if I'm not doing the sensible thing for us both. We don't look at life in the same way and never will. I'm a radical, and you're a conservative, and we were misled before marriage by the affinities of flesh to suppose that oil and water would harmonize. From the point of view of law I'm the offending party, and you'll be a free woman to sue for divorce on the ground of desertion, by the end of three years. In the meantime, you can go back to your kindergarten work or whatever you see fit. You have your health, and your philanthropic church friends will enable you to support yourself.

The only hitch is the children. If you had been ready to follow me to New York when I first suggested it, we might not be separating now. I expect and am anxious to provide for them. If you will send them on to me, they shall want for nothing. But if you are bent on keeping them, as I foresee may be the case, the responsibility is yours. I should like one at least—preferably the boy. If you insist on keeping them both, I can't help myself. There's where you have the whip-hand over me. But don't delude yourself with the notion that I don't love my own flesh and blood because I'm not willing to live with their mother.

There will be no use in your coming on here or trying to find me. I have made up my mind. We could never be happy together, so the fewer words said about parting the better. Send your answer regarding the children to the New York post-office. I shall expect it for a week. The money you loaned me is gone with the rest, but they can't turn you out of your house until the mortgage is due, if you pay the interest. Some day I shall pay it back to you. I wish you well, and consider I'm doing us both a service in cutting loose from you.

Good-by, EMIL.

It seemed to Constance when she had finished this letter as though her heart would stop. Was this reality? Could it be that her husband was abandoning her and her children in cold blood, treating the sacred ties of marriage as lightly as though they were straws? Alas! his cruel words stared her in the face, freezing her soul, which had been sick for days over his unexplained absence; sick from dread. Yes, she had guessed; but she had put the horror from her as impossible, despite his hints. Unbalanced and embittered as he was, he could not be so unkind. Now she was face to face with certainty; there was no room for hope. It was true; so cruelly inhumanly true that her brain felt dazed and numb. She gazed at his writing stony-eyed and appalled, limp with dismay and forlornness. To avoid falling she put out her hand to the table, and the contact of her own flesh served to readjust her consciousness. Seating herself she swept her fingers across her brow to rally her senses, and read the letter again slowly. Then mortification succeeded dismay, and resentment followed close on mortification. The wounded pride of the wife, the indignation of the mother protesting for her children asserted themselves, causing her to flush to the roots of her hair and her pulses to tingle. Coward! Unnatural father! What had she done to deserve this? What had they done, helpless innocents? Give them up to him? Her children, now the only joy of her life? Never. They could not both have them. Why should he who had left them in the lurch have either? She could hear their prattle in the adjoining room, poor little souls, unconscious of their misery. Then her sense of wounded pride and her anger were forgotten in the agony of a possible separation from her offspring, and in the loss of her husband's love, and her tense nerves gave way. "Oh, Emil, my husband, how could you?" she moaned, and burying her face in her hands she let sorrow have full sway.

"Oh, Emil, my husband, how could you?" she moaned

When she had dried her eyes she was prepared to face the situation and to think more calmly. Certain points were now clear. Emil was right; since he had ceased to love her, they could never be happy together. So far as she could see, she had not been at fault, though he had persuaded himself that she was to blame. She would never have left him; but now that he had deserted her, she could dare to admit that their souls were not in accord, and that her love and respect for him had been waning in spite of herself for many months. She would not attempt to follow him, and she desired to retain both the children. Was it her duty to let Emil have one of them? Here was the only harassing point in the plans for the future which she was formulating. Would it be fair to the children to separate them? Would she be justified in keeping them both, in view of the affection which their father had professed for his own flesh and blood? As Emil had declared, he and she had made a mess of their marriage, and they were to separate. Was it fair to him to keep both the boy and the girl? Ah, but she could not bear the thought of giving up either. She felt the need of counsel. To whom could she turn? Who were her friends? She thought of Mr. Prentiss, and she remembered her husband's taunt concerning her philanthropic church friends with a sense of shrinking. The church offered itself as a refuge to all in the hour of distress, but it seemed to her as though she would rather starve than apply to Mr. Prentiss. Not that she was afraid of starving. That side of the situation had no terrors for her. She was almost glad at the idea of supporting herself and her darlings, and she had entire confidence in her ability to do so, even though she were forced to scrub floors. But she yearned for the sympathy and advice of a friend. How lonely she had suddenly become in this large, busy city! Emil had evinced little desire, especially of late, to make friends in the neighborhood, and she had been so absorbed in her home and her husband's interest that she had disregarded her social opportunities. He had been apt to speak slightingly of their acquaintances as people whom he would soon outstrip in the struggle of life. And now she was the poorest of the poor, the saddest of the sad, one of the lowly common people for whom her doctor father's heart had ever cherished fond and patient sympathy. She was one of them now herself. How different had been her dreams and her ambition. To think that she, Constance Forbes, had come to this—a wife abandoned by her husband, alone and friendless, with only the semblance of a roof to shelter her and her children. But all this was nothing if only she need not part with either of her babies. She would be able to support them, never fear, and with them to support she could be brave, even happy. But without them? No, no, Emil had forsaken her, she had lost her faith in him, he was not worthy of the sacrifice; she dared not trust him; he had no right to either. She could not, she would not let either go.

When the morning came she was more firmly of the same opinion, and she composed this reply to her husband:

Emil:

I have your letter and my heart is filled with sorrow. I cannot compel you to live with me against your will. God knows I have tried to be a loving, dutiful, and sympathetic wife, but it seems I have failed to please you. It is true that our ideas of how to live and what is right are very different. I have been aware of that in my secret soul, but for your sake I did my best to adopt your point of view. Now I shall be free to follow my own. Since you no longer love me, I am not sorry that we are to live apart, for I can see now that I have suffered much on your account. But I do not choose to reproach you. What good would it do? Besides you are the father of my children—poor little things. I do not think that I should have written to you at all if it were not for the question what is to become of them.

I am trying to do what is best for them and to be just; just to you and to myself. I have decided to keep both the children. They are babies still, and need a mother's love. A father's too, but it seems they cannot have both. Let God judge between us, Emil. They are my flesh and blood too, and it is you who are forsaking us, not we you. As you say, I have my health and we shall not starve. I am not afraid. There is nothing more to say, is there? It has all been a dreadful mistake—and we thought we should be so happy. Good-by. In spite of everything I shall always think of you kindly.

CONSTANCE.

Having despatched this she felt as though she would be glad to die. Life seemed so flat, and her condition so humiliating. Her love for Emil was dead; the union of their souls was broken; what was there to look forward to? Yet she knew that she must not stop to repine or to indulge in self-pity. The stern necessity of winning bread for her children confronted her and must be faced at once and resolutely. In this she must find happiness and fresh inspiration. It was her duty to close the ears and eyes of her soul to the voices and visions of the past. Hard work would save her brain from giving way, and hard work only. What should that work be? What was she to do? In the first glow of her pride, revolting at the slight which her husband had put upon her, the way had seemed easy, but viewed in the sober light of reality it bristled with difficulties. Yet now, as she pondered and realized what failure would mean, her spirit rose to meet them, and immediate needs forced sorrow to the background.

Where was she to find work? Since the receipt of her husband's letter everything outside her own emotions had been a blank to her; her gaze had been solely introspective. Conscious now of the need of action and of renewing her contact with the world, she took up the newspaper, yesterday's issue of which lay unopened on the table, and began to examine the page of advertisements for employment. She must find at once something which would provide her with ready money. Only through friends and only after delay could she hope to obtain a kindergarten position; it would take time and instruction to learn typewriting; she was not sufficiently proficient in languages or music to offer herself as a teacher. She could become a domestic servant or a shopgirl. In the former case it would be necessary to board out her children, to give them to some institution, perhaps, a prospect which wrung her heart; in the latter she could be with them at night, but who would look after and guard them during the day? What did other women do whose husbands ran away and left them? The long list of people out of work was appalling, and few of the opportunities offered seemed to fit her circumstances. Someone was seeking employment as a seamstress. She might take in sewing. This perhaps was the most feasible suggestion. She was handy at plain sewing, and a little practice would doubtless render her skilful. Yes, she would try this, and in order to obtain a start would solicit work from some of the neighbors, if needs be. The neighbors? They did not know as yet of her misfortune—her disgrace, for it was a disgrace to be forsaken by her husband. It would be necessary to tell them. What should she say? Entertaining sadly this necessity of an avowal, she glanced over the rest of the newspaper, and came suddenly upon a paragraph which informed her that her misfortune was already public. Prefaced by offensive headlines, "Emil Stuart disappears from Benham! What has become of Mrs. Morgan's mortgage money?" the wretched story stood exploited to the world. Constance read and the cup of her distress and humiliation overflowed. It needed only this insinuation of dishonesty to complete her misery. Her husband an embezzler? Where should she hide her head? Nor was there comfort in the reporter's closing effort at euphemism: "One or two acquaintances of the late candidate for aldermanic honors, when apprised of his mysterious disappearance, expressed the belief that his seeming irregularities would be explained to the satisfaction of all concerned; but a gentleman, whose name we are not at liberty to disclose, hazards an opinion, based on personal observation, that Mr. Stuart has been premeditating this step for several weeks, and is a fugitive from justice. The circumstance that his wife and two children have been left behind in Benham invites the further inquiry whether he has also abandoned his family. There are rumors that Mr. Stuart's domestic relations were not altogether harmonious."

Constance let the newspaper slip from her hands. Her cheeks burned with shame. This was the last straw. Her husband a defaulter, and her relations with him the subject of common newspaper gossip. As she stood spell-bound by this new phase of misfortune the door-bell rang. A visitor. Who could it be? Some sympathetic or curious neighbor who had read of her calamities. Or more probably the writer of the newspaper article coming to probe into her misery in search of fresh copy. For a moment she thought that she would not answer the call, and she waited hoping that whoever it was would go away. Again the bell rang, this time sharply. It might be something important, even a telegram from Emil to clear himself. Picking up the newspaper she concealed it hastily, then stepped into the passage and opened the door slightly.

"May I come in?" asked a strong, friendly voice.

"Oh yes, Mr. Prentiss; excuse me," she faltered. She had recognized at once who her visitor was, but so many bewildering things had happened that she stood for a moment irresolute, refusing to credit her own senses. As she opened wide the door, the clergyman strode in fearlessly as though he realized that the situation must be carried by storm. Entering the parlor, he put out his hand and said with manly effusion:

"I have come to ask you to let me help you, Mrs. Stuart."

"Sit down, please. You are very kind. I——"

Her words choked her, and she stopped.

"I saw by the newspaper yesterday that you were in trouble. I do not wish to pry into your affairs, but I thought that you might be glad of the counsel of a friend."

His visit was precious balm to her spirit, but, despite her gratitude, the knowledge that he was heaping the traditional coals of fire on her head made her uncomfortable. She had choked from mingled relief and mortification. But now her finer instinct responded to the kindness of his words and she said with simple directness: "I should like to tell you everything, Mr. Prentiss. My husband left a week ago. He does not intend to return. I have a letter from him, and he—he does not wish to live with me any longer. He was willing to support the children, but I could not make up my mind to let them go. Our money is all gone and this house is mortgaged. If you will help me to find work so that I can support them and myself, I shall be very grateful. It was very good of you to come to see me."

The children, attracted by the voice of a stranger, had run in and stood one on either side of their mother staring at him shyly with cherubic eyes. The clergyman said to himself that here was a veritable Madonna of distress—this lithe, nervous-looking woman with her slim figure and soulful face. How pretty and neat she looked in spite of her misery! How engaging were the tones in which she had set forth her calamity! He had always admired her, and it had been a disappointment to him that she had strayed. There was almost jubilation in his heart as he heard that she was free from the wretch who had pulled her down; and though he intended to temper the ardor of the priest by the tact of a man of the world, he could not entirely restrain his impulse to stigmatize her husband. "I see," he said. "You are much to be pitied. It is a cruel wrong; the act of a coward. But you must not take your trouble too much to heart, Mrs. Stuart, for the man who will leave a sweet wife and tender children from mere caprice is no real husband and father."

"Mr. Stuart has had much to worry him of late. He has lost money, and been unfortunate in politics." Her impulse was to apologize for her husband even then. "I cannot understand though how he could leave us," she added. After all why should she a second time on Emil's account set her face against the truth in the presence of this true friend? Emil was a coward, and his act was a cruel wrong.

But Mr. Prentiss had recovered his aplomb. "I will not distress you by talking about him; he has gone. The matter with which I am concerned is how to help you. We must find you employment at once."

Constance regarded him gratefully. "That is my great requirement just now, Mr. Prentiss. I need work to keep my children from starving and to help me to forget. I am not afraid of work. I shall be glad to do anything for which I am fit."

"I understand, I understand. It is the pride of my church to help just such women as you to help themselves. You need give yourself no concern as to your immediate pecuniary needs. They will be provided for. I will send the Deaconess to you at once."

The directness of his bounty, the plain intimation that she was a subject for charity brought a flush to her cheeks. But she knew in an instant that it would be false pride to protest. There was no food or money in the house.

"Thank you," she said simply.

Mr. Prentiss divined her reluctance and appreciated the delicacy of her submission. He recognized that this woman with wistful brown eyes and nervous, intelligent face was no ordinary person—was even more deserving than he had supposed, and his thoughts were already busy with the problem of her future. He must find just the right thing for her. "I know, of course, that you wish to become self-supporting as soon as possible," he said. "Will you tell me a little more about yourself and your capabilities? You came to Benham a few months before your marriage to fit yourself to be a kindergarten teacher, if I remember aright?"

During the momentary pause which preceded this inquiry her conscience had been reasserting itself. She had longed for counsel and here it was. If she had erred, there was yet time to repair her fault. "Before we talk of that, may I ask you one question, Mr. Prentiss? I wish to know if you think it was selfish of me to keep both the children. I desire to do what is right this time, whatever it cost me." She clasped her hands resolutely in her lap as though she were nerving herself for a sacrifice. "I hope you will tell me exactly what you think."

The clergyman's heart warmed at this revelation of spiritual vigor. "Here is a soul worth helping," he reflected. Then, in answer to her appeal, he exclaimed with righteous emphasis: "Ask your own heart, my dear woman. Would you dare trust these babies to your husband's keeping? This is a problem of right and wrong, and demands a severing of the sheep from the goats. You may banish that doubt forever."

Constance dropped her eyes to hide the tears of satisfaction which had sprung into them at his words. Her children were safe. The counsel given was the very echo of the test by which she had justified herself toward Emil. "Excuse me," she said in apology for her emotion. Then looking up she added with tremulous brightness, "I felt that I must be sure before anything else was decided. And now to answer your question as to my own capabilities: I have none. I am eager to learn, and I have had some education—my father was fond of books and had a library—but I tell you frankly that there is nothing but the simplest manual work for which I am fitted at the present time. I have thought that all over."

"So far so good. Much of the trouble of this world proceeds from the inability of people to discern for what they are not fitted. Can you sew?"

"I can do plain sewing satisfactorily."

"We will begin with that then. It will keep you busy for the time being. Meanwhile I shall have an opportunity to consider what you had best undertake." He rose and put out his hand with spontaneous friendliness. "Good-by. God bless you. You are a brave soul, and He will not desert you or leave you comfortless."

Constance quickened at the firm pressure, and her own fingers acknowledged the interest which it expressed. She looked into his eyes with frank confidence. "You have come to me at a time when I needed someone more than ever before in my life. I shall never forget it."

Mr. Prentiss nodded and turned to go as though he would disclaim this expression of everlasting obligation. He felt that he was about his Master's business, and was seeking neither thanks nor praise. Yet, while he deprecated her gratitude, her entire mental attitude caused him ethical and æsthetic satisfaction. The conviction that this ward of the church was worth saving and helping gave elasticity to his step and erectness to his large figure as he strode up the street, knocking now and again some bit of orange peel or other refuse from the sidewalk with a sweep of his cane, which suggested a spirit eager to do battle in behalf of righteousness.

VII

Two days later the Rev. George Prentiss dined at the house of another of his parishioners, Mrs. Randolph Wilson. She was a widow of about forty-five, the sister of Carleton Howard, reputedly the wealthiest and most sagacious of Benham's financial magnates, and a generous benefactress of St. Stephen's. Her bounty had enabled the rector from time to time to carry out his cherished plans for the æsthetic adornment of the church property. The reredos, two stained-glass windows, and the baptismal font in the enlarged edifice had been provided by her; and in the matter of charity she never failed to respond by munificent subscriptions to the various causes in aid of which he appealed to his congregation. They were friends and allies; interested mutually in St. Stephen's, and interested also, as they both liked to feel, in promoting American civilization outside of church work. Her house, or palace, as it should more properly be termed, a counterpart to that of her brother's which adjoined it, stood in the van of progress, in Benham's fashionable new quarter beyond the River Drive. No pains or expense had been spared to make these mansions impressive and magnificent. Architects of repute had been employed to superintend their construction, and their decorations and furnishings had been chosen in consultation with persons whose business it was to know the whereabouts of admirable objects of art, and to tempt impecunious noble families abroad to exchange their unique treasures for dazzling round sums of American gold.

Mrs. Wilson could fairly be termed the leader of social activity in Benham, if such a term be compatible with the institutions of a country where every women is supposed to be a law unto herself. Fashions, in the narrow sense of clothes, are in America set by the dressmakers, but what Mrs. Wilson wore was always a matter of moment to women who wished to be in style. She dressed elegantly, and she was able to take liberties with the dressmakers, doing daring things with colors and materials which justified themselves, yet were so individual that they were liable to make guys of those who copied her. Consequently, her wardrobe had a distinction of its own which proclaimed fashion yet defied it. Yet her clothes, striking and superb as they often were, constituted only a small part of her social effectiveness. Her gracious finished manners, and quick, tactful intelligence were the agents of a spirit perpetually eager to be occupied and to lead, and which had found a labor of love in directing what may well be called Benham's æsthetic renaissance.

For Benham's evolution had been no mere growth of bricks and mortar, and no mere triumph in census figures over other centres of population. Even more remarkable and swift than its physical changes had been the transformation in the point of view of its citizens. Twenty years earlier—in 1870, when Mr. Prentiss was a young man just starting in the ministry—he had been one of a small group of earnest souls interested in awakening the public to a consciousness of the paucity of their æsthetic interests, and to the value of color as a stimulating factor in the every-day life of the community, and as such he had often deplored the aridity of Benham's point of view. In those days the city was virtually a hot-bed of republican simplicity and contempt for social refinements so far as all but a very small percentage of the inhabitants was concerned. Those who built houses larger and finer than their neighbors were few in number and were stigmatized, if not as enemies of the institutions of the country, as purse-proud and frivolous. Hotels were conducted on the theory that what was good enough for the landlord was good enough for the guest, and that malcontents could go elsewhere. In matters appertaining to art, hygiene, education or municipal management, one man's opinion was regarded as equal to any other's, provided he could get the job. Special knowledge was sneered at, and the best patriots in the public estimation were those who did not distrust the ability of the average citizen to produce masterpieces in the line of his or her employment by dint of raw genius untrammelled or unpolluted by the experience of older civilizations. Though solid business men wore solemn-looking black frock-coats and black wisp ties in business hours, to dress again in the evening was looked at askance as undemocratic. It would have been considered an invasion of the rights of the free-born citizen to forbid expectoration in the street cars. Suggestions that the vicious and unregenerate adult pauper poor should not be herded with the young, that busy physicians should cleanse a lancet before probing a wound, and that sewage should not be emptied into a river used as a source of water supply, were still sniffed at by those in charge of public affairs as aristocratic innovations unworthy the attention of a sovereign people. Architectural beauty both within and without the house was disregarded in favor of monotonous sober hues and solid effects, which were deemed to be suggestive of the seriousness of the national character.

While deploring some of these civic manifestations, Mr. Prentiss had appreciated that the basis of this æsthetic sterility was ethical. When less discerning persons had attributed it solely to ignorance and self-righteous superficiality he had maintained that a puritanical, yet moral and sincere, hostility to extravagance and display was responsible for the preference for ugly architecture and homely upholstery and decoration, and that conscience was the most formidable obstacle to progress. As a priest of a church which fostered beauty and favored rational enjoyment of the fruits of the earth, he had never sympathized with this public attitude, but he had understood and, as an American, respected it.

Now, in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, all was changed, and Benham was in the throes of a revival; a revival which during the last ten years had revolutionized Benham's architecture and Benham's point of view. The public had become possessed by the conviction that they had outgrown their associations and that the standards hitherto revered were out of date and unworthy of a nation and a city pledged to enlighten the world, upon whom prosperity had been bestowed in large measure. The group of earnest souls who had dared to criticise seemed suddenly to have become a phalanx—numerically unimportant, still, when compared with the whole population, that seething army of industrial wage-earners—but assertive and energetic out of proportion to their numbers. The city had become a hive of reforming activities. Specialists in the arts and humanities were no longer classed as traitors, but were welcomed by a growing clientage as safeguards against bumptious individualism. Though a cheerful optimism in regard to the city's architectural merits still prevailed at large, a silent censorship was at work; substituting, in the business quarter, new mammoth structures adapted to modern industrial needs, erecting in the fashionable quarter, by the aid of American architects trained in Paris, well-built and individual-looking residences. Instead of three or four cheerless, barrack-like caravansaries with sodden cookery, there was a score of modern hotels, the proprietors of which vied with one another in their endeavors to lure patronage by costly and sumptuous innovations. There were comfortable and inviting restaurants. The slap-dash luncheon counter, with its display of pallid pie and one cadaverous chicken, was waning in the popular esteem, in favor of neat spas, at which the rush of patronage was alleviated by clean service and wholesome fare. There were eight theatres, each more spacious and splendid than its predecessor. A frowsy black coat, worn in the forenoon, had ceased to be a badge of patriotism or moral worth, and the community had become alive to the values of spruceness, color, and comfort in matters of dress. Not only this, but on the streets of Benham there were many stylish equipages with liveried grooms, and in the superb homes which the wealthy citizens had established, there were grand entertainments, where rivalry was rampant and money flowed like champagne. And last, but not least, there was Mrs. Randolph Wilson, the quintessence in her own person of all that was best in this revival in favor of the beautiful things of life, the living embodiment of this newly directed and freshly inspired energy. For well-to-do Benham and Mr. Prentiss liked to believe that the impulse behind these materialistic manifestations was conscience and aspiration, a reaching out for a greater human happiness and a wider human usefulness than had been possible under the old dispensation. This access of lavish philanthropy and study of charitable methods, this zeal of committees promoting new and more thorough methods in hygiene and education, and all the phases of this new awakening in quest of Christian beauty signified to him Benham's—and hence American—originality and fervor refined and spiritualized; Benham's enterprise and independence informed, chastened, and fortified.

And yet there was another side to this whole matter which had haunted Mr. Prentiss much of late, and which was in his thoughts to-night as he sat smoking his cigar after dinner. He had dined sumptuously. Cool oysters, soup of mushrooms, fish smothered in a luscious sauce, cutlets of venison with French beans, little pyramids of paté de foie gras encased in jelly, butter-ball ducks with a salad richly dressed, and a confection of fruit, cream, and pastry, which was evidently a gastronomic specialty of Mrs. Wilson's French cook. He had tasted everything; he had drunk two glasses of champagne, and been pleasantly aware that the cup of black coffee, served after dinner, was an entrancing concoction which his own kitchen did not afford; and he felt that his repast had done him good. It was for him an occasion. Obviously it was for Mrs. Wilson an every-day affair. Moreover, this rich, delicious dinner, served by noiseless servants on choice china, was in harmony with the rest of the magnificent establishment, in harmony with the artistic scheme of color, the soft lustrous draperies, the striking pictures and other masterpieces of art purchased for large sums abroad, and Mrs. Wilson's beautiful toilette and exquisite personality. Here was luxury triumphant and compelling, yet unappeased and seeking fresh opportunities for æsthetic delight; as witness a Millet, an inlaid table, and a Japanese idol in the room in which he sat, all new since he had dined there last.

What a vivid contrast all this to the cheerless often squalid homes which he was accustomed to visit as a rector of Christ's church! The thought which haunted him was that one result of the city's marvellous growth and development had been the accentuation of the distinctions between rich and poor, between class and class in a community where, until lately, there had been theoretically no classes. To be sure he had Mr. Carleton Howard's assertion that there was no country in the world where the poor man was so well off. This was very likely true, but it did not affect the proposition that the rich were daily growing richer and more self-indulgent. What was to be the limit—the outcome of this renaissance of beauty and comfort, which he had welcomed? Had not the æsthetic reaction almost reached the point where, both as a priest of God and as a good American, it behooved him to cry halt against luxury and extravagance? He frowned at this last reflection for the reason that he was painfully aware that he had fulminated against this sort of thing from the pulpit for years, formerly as part of the clerical formula championing the cause of the spirit against the flesh, and latterly because the Aladdin-like growth of great fortunes all over the land, and conspicuously in his own community, had often suggested the comparison between the passage of a camel through the eye of a needle and the rich man's entrance into the kingdom of heaven as an appropriate text. He had spoken with fervor and sincerity concerning the responsibilities of those having great possessions, and sometimes with living pictures in his mind. Neither Mrs. Wilson nor her brother had ever been among those for whom these admonitions were intended. They had opened their purse-strings liberally to every meritorious cause. The goodly size of their cheques was to him a constant source both of satisfaction and astonishment—astonishment at the new possibilities open to those interested in God's kingdom.

Yet, though he put from him as ungenerous and unnecessary any positive criticism of his hostess, in the teeth of her many benefactions and her personal activity in social undertakings, he could not help realizing that, in spite of his utterances, the evil which he deprecated was proceeding at a pace which suggested the course of wild-fire. And the worst of it was that he—the church—was so helpless. Great fortunes had been accumulated with a zeal which suggested the inevitable march of destiny—a law which seemed almost to mock the spirit of Christ—and, even while he was musing, the city had become a theatre of industrial contrasts, with the pomp and pride of life in the centre of the stage and poverty and distress in the ample background. There recurred to him the traditional image of the curate of his faith—the Church of England—cringing before or patronized by the titled worshippers of Mammon. This, at least, he could resent as impossible in his case—he had never hesitated to speak his mind to any of his parishioners, however important—still, the reminder was disconcerting and a challenge to his conscience. Nor was the reflection that this wave of luxury, this more and more exacting reverence for material comforts, was a part of the movement of the century, and was common to all civilized countries, a solace. He was an American, but first of all, he was a servant of the church, and the church was the beacon of civilization. Was she doing her work, if these terrible inequalities were to continue? What was to be the outcome of this zest for luxurious personal comfort?

To what extent the church ought to take part in the economic regeneration of the world was one of the questions which Mr. Prentiss had always found perplexing. He was well aware that his parishioners as a body were not fond of hearing him preach on what they called secular subjects. So long as he confined himself to enumerating spiritual truths, they were not averse to his illustrating his stigmas upon sin by generalizations from current worldly abuses; but he knew that many shook their heads and declared that the cobbler should stick to his last when he ventured to discourse on political topics or the relations of labor and capital. Mr. Prentiss was not aware, however, that some of this prejudice proceeded from the circumstance that he was apt to lose his head on such occasions; but, on the other hand, much of it was genuine disinclination for advice from the pulpit on subjects which, to quote the women parishioners, were not spiritual, and, to quote the men, were none of his business. His congregation was almost entirely composed of pew owners, people with vested rights, among which appeared to be the right not to be harrowed by socialistic doctrines. They were ready to help the poor in any way which he would suggest, and they had supplied him with a mission church where he could reach the ignorant and needy more effectively, but they argued that he had better leave to the politicians all suggestions tending to disturb the existing industrial order.

Mr. Prentiss sometimes sighed over these limitations, but he had become used to them, and in a measure, with advancing years, he had, in his endeavor to be a man of the world in order to remain a more useful Christian, accepted the doctrine that he had no plan to substitute for the present economic system, and that he must make the best of the existing situation. So, in practical, daily life, he exhorted the rich to give their money and themselves to the advancement of their fellow men, and the poor to shun vice and bear their privations with patience, while he held forth the promise of the church of an existence hereafter for the pure in heart where all the seeming inconsistencies of this mortal life would be explained and justified. Not being endowed with much sense of humor, Mr. Prentiss, as he waxed in years, and St. Stephen's became the fashionable church of the city, had found less and less difficulty in accommodating himself to this point of view, and in devoting all his ardor to reclaiming souls for Christ. After all, was not his mission to help men and women as he found them? First of all to minister to their souls, and in the name of Christianity to lift them from the slough of human suffering and misfortune that he might expound to them the loving mercies of the Lord? The things of the earth were not the things of the spirit, and he was more tenacious than in his youth of the prerogatives of the church as an institution controlling human consciences by standards of its own, founded on the teachings of the Prince of Peace. Nevertheless, being reasonably clear-headed and fearless, he was not without the suspicion at times that this reasoning was mystical, and in the face of facts he had every now and then his unpleasant quarters of an hour.

This was one of them to-night. His hostess, when the dinner was over, had left him to a cigar and his own devices in the library. He was to join her presently and be shown her daughter's wedding presents. He had been invited to dine in order that he might see them, but Mrs. Wilson and he both knew that this was an excuse for a quiet evening together in which they might compare notes concerning their mutual interests. Reaching out to knock off the ash of his cigar into a dainty porcelain wheelbarrow, he noticed a new photograph on the mantel-piece and rose to examine it. He recognized it as one of Clarence Waldo, the New Yorker to whom Miss Lucille Wilson was betrothed. The sight of this young man's countenance did not serve to restore Mr. Prentiss's serenity. On the contrary, he stood gazing at the photograph with an expression which suggested that his soul was still perturbed. The face was that of a man of twenty-seven or eight with delicate features—thin lips, a long nose and an indefinable haughtiness of expression which was made up of weariness and disdain. He had large eyes which lacked lustre, and his sparse hair gave the effect of having been carefully brushed. The clergyman had met him only a few times, and Mr. Prentiss had never forgotten the first occasion, which was at Lucille's coming-out ball three years before. He had happened to find himself in Mr. Waldo's path when the young man was in the act of carrying everything before him with a plate of salad for his partner, and he had never forgotten the cold impertinence of the New Yorker's stare. Paul Howard, Lucille's cousin, who witnessed the encounter, said afterward that Clarence had given Mr. Prentiss the dead eye, which was a telling description of the stoniness of the fashionable New Yorker's gaze. Mr. Prentiss had never heard this diagnosis, but he had remembered the episode. He regarded it, however, merely as additional evidence of the lack of reverence on the part of the young men of the day—and the young women, too, for the matter of that—not merely for sacred things, but for everything and everybody which were in their way or did not happen to appeal to their fancy. But though he considered this absence of social politeness as one of the cardinal failings of the age, his present thoughts regarding Lucille's future husband were not concerned with it.

Since the engagement had been announced four months ago he had been making inquiries, and the information which he had received was in his mind and troubled his soul as a corollary of the other problems which had just been haunting him. It was not of a character to justify him in forbidding the bans—not even in remonstrating with Mrs. Wilson, unless she were to ask his advice or provide him with an opportunity. But he deplored sincerely that this young man was to marry his friend's daughter. Was this to be the outcome, the crowning of the wealth of love and solicitude which had been lavished on this only child—a child brought up in his church? Was it for this that Lucille had been made the central figure of costly entertainments for the last three years, in the hope that she might make a brilliant match? Decidedly, it was a puzzling world, and circumstances seemed to be conspiring to cloud his horizon and disturb his digestion at a time when he ought to be enjoying himself and taking his ease.

"What does he offer her?" he said to himself. "Twelve months of sporting life—American sporting life. A superb stable, a four-in-hand coach and steam yacht, polo, golf, the horse show, cards, six months every third year in Europe, their summers at Newport, their winters at Palm Beach. The fortune which she will bring him will enable them to live in the lap of luxury all the year round, and he will teach her to regard those who are not rich and who do not imitate their manner of life as beneath their notice. I know the kind—I know the kind."

Soft footsteps interrupted his mental soliloquy. "No, thank you," he exclaimed in a tone which was almost militant to the waiters who approached him with a tray. Mr. Prentiss supposed that another form of stimulant was being offered him, for Madeira, liqueurs and coffee had been successively brought in and solemnly presented to him by the two men servants, one of whom seemed to him as superfluous as a plumber's helper. Then as his gaze, which had been inward, appreciated that the silver gilt tumbler contained apollinaris water, he called them back and emptied the glass. He had finished his cigar and it was time to rejoin his hostess.

VIII

Mr. Prentiss continued his monologue on his way to the drawing-room. He imagined himself saying to Mrs. Wilson, "You know that I believe in toleration, and that I would not set or preach an ascetic standard of life. I believe—my church believes—that it is not profitable to the human soul to mortify the flesh in every-day life or refuse to enjoy the comforts of civilization. But the set of people to which this young man belongs are cumberers of the soil and a menace to society. It is not merely a question of taste, but of Christian morals. We have nothing to do with other nations; our concern is with the social life of this nation and whether we are to foster and encourage a pleasure-loving, self-indulgent, and purposeless leisure class."

Yet though his thoughts thus shaped themselves in fervent words, he was conscious that in the absence of a cue his lips must remain sealed. There was a limit imposed by society on the priestly office which he could not overstep without appearing officious, and thus weakening his influence. Were it a case of notorious dissipation or some palpable fault or blemish, it would be his duty to speak. But he had no such data at his command. Clarence Waldo was simply a fastidious idler, pretentious, and indifferent to the vital interests of life. It could not even be charged that he was marrying Lucille for her money, as he had a competency of his own. They would be able to buy all the dogs and horses in the country if they saw fit. But his own tongue was tied. To all appearances Mrs. Wilson was content. At the time she had announced her daughter's engagement to him, she had said, in response to his earnest inquiry if she were satisfied—said it with a blithe smile, as though, on the whole, the best had happened—"I should have been glad of course, if Lucille had chosen a man of conspicuous talent, a future United States Senator or successful artist or author. If she had loved her lord, I should not have objected to a title, because, after all, even to a free-born American, there is a certain compensation in becoming the mother of dukes and regenerating an ancient line. But Clarence is well connected, and the child is in love with him. So long as she is happy, that is the essential thing."

Since then he had become better informed as to the young man's tendencies. But if Lucille was in love with him and her mother acquiescent, what was there to do? The church could not interfere beyond a certain point without giving offence.

Mrs. Wilson was not in the drawing-room, but Mr. Prentiss caught a glimpse of her at her desk in a smaller room which led out of it. She called to him that she was answering a note and would join him presently. The clergyman seated himself and picking up from a low teak table beside him a paper-cutter fashioned on a Japanese sword hilt he compressed his fingers on the handle as an outlet to his perplexity. Had he been walking in the fields, he would have cut off the heads of the dandelions with his cane. Marriage was a sacrament, the most solemn undertaking in life, yet how impossible it was to regulate matrimony for others. He glanced around the room admiringly. Already the musical notes of his hostess's voice had served to dissipate partially the miasma of doubt which had been assailing him. This main apartment was one of a series of drawing-rooms, each furnished with an exquisite magnificence suggestive of the salons of France in the days of Louis XIV, save that there was a superabundance of artistic furnishings; hence the sight was confused by the array of costly tapestries, marbles, bronzes, china, and gilt or otherwise illuminated ornaments which almost contended for space with one another, though the rooms were of large proportions. One feature of Benham's renaissance was the ambition to outdo the past in size and gorgeousness, but Mrs. Wilson's advisers had been animated also by the desire for artistic success, and it was only in its wealth of material that their and her—for she had been the leading spirit after all—performance was open to criticism. Here in Benham, where twenty years before the horse-hair sofa was still an object of admiring regard in the homes of the well-to-do, the desert had blossomed with the rose, and a veritable palace had been established. And, as Mr. Prentiss reflected, joining his finger-tips across his waist-band, all this lavish expenditure meant the return by the rich of accumulated wealth into circulation for the benefit of those who labored for their bread, which was another of Mr. Carleton Howard's telling truths.

The swift, animated, but noiseless glide of Mrs. Wilson into the room and onto a sofa, from which she flashed at him a gracious, electric look of attention with the words, "And now, my friend, I am entirely at your disposal. It was a note which had to be answered at once"—restored Mr. Prentiss's serenity. She was one of those pleasant persons in whose presence the world seems justified. When she entered a room people were apt to pay tribute by a pause in whatever they were doing, and she became the focus of attention. The effect of her graceful energy was largely responsible for this, suggesting the forceful but silent sweep of a ship. She had lost the figure and the countenance of youth, but though her abundant crinkly hair was grizzled no one ever thought of her age except to observe that she was handsomer than as a younger woman. She had never been a beauty; she was now a distinguished looking, comely, and effective matron. She was tall and rather willowy, but not thin, with a proud, resolutely carried head, an agreeable straight nose, short rather than long (her best feature) a spirited, sympathetic smile, eyes fundamentally gray, which changed as her thoughts changed, and ingratiating but elegant manners. Her face, notably the cheeks and lips, was a trifle full, suggesting dimples, and possibly to the critical a too-manifest desire to please. Her obvious pose—which, though deliberate was entirely genuine—was to be exquisite, sympathetic, and intellectual, and for the expression of this range of qualities she had serviceable allies in her musical voice, a bewitching way of showing just enough of her teeth, when she became vivacious, and her ornamental clothes, which always suited her. On this evening she wore an old-gold gown with jet and lace accompaniments, an aigrette of crimson gauze with which the plumage of her fan was in harmony, a band of magnificent pearls around her neck, and on her breast, though such ornaments were not strictly in fashion, a large brooch of fine workmanship containing a miniature of two children of tender age. Of these children one had died shortly after the miniature was painted, the other was her daughter Lucille. Her soul was dedicated to two interests, her joy and ambition as a mother, and to the cause of social human progress.

Mrs. Wilson had been for fifteen years a widow, and, though her husband held a hallowed place in her heart, even she was conscious that the broad scope of her present life dated from the period when, seeking a refuge from her own grief and loneliness, she had welcomed diverse social employment. Her husband, Randolph, a hero and a colonel of the Civil War, had claimed her on his return as a bride. They were ardent lovers, and they had never ceased to be so, certainly not in theory. Some of Mrs. Wilson's knowing friends were fond of insinuating, when the humor for gossip prevailed, that he had died just in time, which was their way of intimating that she had outgrown him. But these dissectors of hearts did not perhaps sufficiently remember that her own blossoming forth into the woman she now was had been subsequent to her husband's death. Nor did they take sufficiently into account the bewildering course of events which had attended her progress. Colonel Wilson, a man of small means at the time of their marriage, had become her brother's partner. The properties in which he was interested at the time of his death had subsequently proved so valuable that she had found herself presently the possessor of a million, a sum which had quadrupled in the keeping of her brother, Carleton Howard, one of the most powerful financiers in the country. Opportunity surely had waited on her widening aspirations, enabling her finally to establish herself in this magnificent home surrounded by all the æsthetic attractions and many of the treasures of modern civilization.

Probably Mrs. Wilson herself had never sought to analyze the past by the light of the present, realizing, as we all do, that life unbeknown to us has halting-places which become, as we look back, the dividing lines between what are almost separate existences. Though at her husband's death she had made no resolutions regarding the future, she had never felt the impulse to marry again, so engrossing were the concerns of motherhood and social responsibility.

"You spoke at dinner of wishing my assistance in some case in which you are interested. Will you tell me about it now before we look at the presents?" Mrs. Wilson continued with smiling interest.

"Ah, yes." Mr. Prentiss was glad to have this recalled to his mind. There was no chance here for doubt or perplexity. "It is rather out of the usual run of charity cases. The personality of the woman, I mean. The circumstance that her husband has run away and left her penniless, with two young children to support is, alas! only too common."

"Poor thing! How can I be of service?"

"The woman—her name is Mrs. Stuart—notwithstanding her disastrous marriage, seems to me distinctly superior. She came to Benham some six or seven years ago, and I knew her a little at St. Stephen's before she was a wife. Indeed, I married them, and made some inquiries at the time concerning the husband's circumstances, but learned nothing to his discredit. She has found him to be a godless, unscrupulous person with drinking habits, and recently he has deserted her on the grandiose plea that they would be happier apart. She will be happier; I am sure of that; but I have been exercised as to how to enable her to become self-supporting. She is called to higher usefulness than scrubbing or plain sewing, but though I have discerned in her capabilities and refinement, she is not at present equipped for any active employment."

"Which only tends to show, my friend, that every woman"—Mrs. Wilson paused an instant—"every woman who has not independent means of her own, I mean, should be educated to be self-supporting—should have some definite bread-winning occupation which would render her independent of the man she marries in case he dies or misbehaves. I was thinking the other day that a society formed to advocate this doctrine before clubs of girls as a condition of marriage would prove efficacious."

Mr. Prentiss nodded. "It is certainly the duty of Christian society to provide additional safeguards against the consequences of improvident wedlock. In this particular instance, the young woman plighted her troth while she was studying to become a kindergarten teacher. She was a country doctor's daughter, and is gentle and refined, as well as intelligent in appearance—one of those lithe, tense American personalities in which the spirit appears to burn at the expense of the body, but which, like the willow, bend but do not break under the stress of life."

"She sounds interesting, and I do not see that she has been to blame. We must raise a fund for her. With how large a subscription shall I head the list?" Though Mrs. Wilson gave freely on merely charitable grounds, she gave with more enthusiasm when the objects of her bounty had not offended her sense of the social fitness of things.

The clergyman put out his hand. "That wouldn't do exactly, I think. She is not too proud to let us help her for a few weeks with coal and groceries until she can earn for herself. She realizes that she must be sensible, if only for the children's sake. She has an independent simplicity of nature and clearness of perception which would stand in the way, I fear, of her accepting a donation such as you have in mind; though I should dearly love to allow you to pay off the encumbrances on their house, which, owing to her husband's rascalities have eaten up her little home—her patrimony. But I am sure she would refuse."

"I see. We should think less of her if she allowed herself to be pauperized, much as I should enjoy giving her a deed of her home free and clear—the mere thought of it causes me a thrill of pleasure. But the worst of such tragedies is that we are most powerless to aid those who are most deserving." Mrs. Wilson leaned back among her cushions, and, drawing a pale pink rose from a bunch in a vase at her elbow, laid it along her cheek and inhaled its fragrance. "If she were an undiscerning, common spirit with workaday sensibilities, as so many of them are, she would not refuse, but—half the pleasure of giving would be lost. It is a privilege and the fashion to be charitable, but so much of our charity consists in filling the mouths and clothing the bodies of the wretched who will never be appreciably different or strive to be different from what they are."

"The poor we have always with us," murmured the clergyman.

"Always. The shiftless, dirty, unaspiring, unæsthetic poor. The dregs and lees of human endeavor. We must feed and clothe them, of course, and help them to help themselves, but sometimes I forget the pathos of it all in the ugliness and squalor. Consequently, when the chance to do real good comes, it is a pity not to be able to lift the burden completely. What, then, can I do for this young person?"

"I have thought over her case for the last forty-eight hours, and have come to the conclusion that, as she has no special training, her best chance for employment is to learn short-hand and to use the typewriter. I understand that women proficient in this vocation can usually secure steady work at a fair wage. Though Mrs. Stuart would be unwilling to accept a direct gift of money, I feel confident that she would not refuse to let us put her in the position to become self-supporting—that is, defray the cost of the lessons necessary to make her a competent stenographer or office clerk. And I thought you might be glad to pay for these lessons—a matter of six months or so."

Mr. Prentiss had taken up the paper-cutter again, and he passed the flat of the metal blade across his palm as though he were smoothing out his plan as well as the creases.

"Gladly," she responded. "For as long as you desire. And, perhaps, when she has learned what is necessary, my brother may know of some opening for her down-town."

"Very likely," answered Mr. Prentiss, with resonant acquiescence. "The same thought had occurred to me."

"And, in the meantime, since you tell me that she is competent and refined, my secretary, who will have her hands full with the details of the wedding, may be able to give her occasional errands to do. You may tell her to call when her plans are adjusted and to ask for me."

"Excellent. And we shall both be your debtors."

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