Later, on going down-stairs, they encountered

Franz and Margaret in the hall, and Philip, glancing at Margaret as she stood just beneath the tempered light falling from the chandelier, decided he had never seen any one so beautiful—except Barbara, who was incomparable. He divined that now to her, life seemed to hold much—to be so fine a gift.

The two young men left the house together. Philip at first tried to talk, but Becker made his replies with such indifference that he soon abandoned the trial as useless.

Franz's elation was scarcely concealed by his silence or his reserve. It spoke in the exultant heaving of his breast, in his quick elastic step, in his every movement. As they came to his door he broke the silence with:

“I shall go on with you, Philip, and see you home.”

“As you like, old fellow,” Philip answered.

No more was said until they bade each other good night.

Franz turned back alone—but not to retrace his steps. Instead he rambled through the streets of the sleeping town—to find himself—he knew not how, a dozen times beneath her window. So he wore out the night, and when at last the day broke, it found him going in the direction of his home.

VIII

Philip was looking from his window out upon the street where the first snows of winter lay slowly melting in the sunshine, when a cab rattled up through the mud and slush. It stopped before the house and his interest became active.

“It's the saintly Anson! This is, indeed, penance for my sins.”

Almost with the thought Anson stepped from the cab and was followed by a gentleman who had no small trouble in wriggling through the narrow door.

Philip, with a groan of disgust, recognized the junior member of the firm employing his brother.

“As if Anson were not affliction enough,” he thought, “he brings Mr. Hale to bore us—especially me, by prosy recitals of his own worth.”

He promptly put himself beyond his brother's range of vision, as he wished to avoid the necessity of going down-stairs until the last moment.

He resumed his work, and for an hour or more wrote steadily on, then he threw down his pen and was resting his eyes, his hands before them, when the door opened and his mother entered the room. He knew who it was without looking up, since she was the only one of all the family who ever invaded his privacy.

“What is it, mother?” he asked.

“May I see you, Philip? Are you very busy?”

There was something in her voice that caused him to glance around quickly. “Why, what is it, mother?”

He left his chair and went to her side. He saw that her face was red and swollen as though from much weeping. “What is it, dear?” He put his arms about her. “Does Anson bring bad news of any sort?”

By a sudden gesture she freed herself from his embrace, covering her face with her apron.

“Oh! Philip, it's awful.” And she began to cry softly.

“But what is it—why don't you tell me?”

He tried to draw the apron away that he might see her face again, but she resisted his gentle force.

“What is it, dear? Is it Anson—is he ill?”

“It's worse than that! Oh! a million times worse!”

At her words the desperate sickening feeling begotten of some great and unknown calamity, the forerunner of actual knowledge, came into his heart.

“You must tell me, mother, or how can I ever help you?”

“I shall, only wait a minute until I am calm, for you must know—and you must save him!”

“I save him! What do you mean? What has happened to him?”

“You won't blame him? Promise me you won't be hard, now before I tell you. That you won't say of think unkind things of him? Promise me, promise me, Philip!” For he had hesitated.

“I promise, mother, for your sake.”

“No! no! for his own.”

“For his sake then. It is all one.”

“It is difficult to tell even you, Philip.”

He put his arms about her once more. “There, you don't mind me, you know,” he said tenderly. “Dear little mother, so brave and good, you really can't mean you mind me?”

It was in a hushed strained voice, as though she feared the shameful secret she had to confide would find a listener in the very air, that she told Philip of his brother's fall from grace.

“He has taken money from the firm. A thousand dollars. It was not stealing.” She was quick to shield him. “He expected—he fully expected to pay it back, down to the last penny, but the amount grew and grew, and soon it was beyond him. He meant to be honest. He has been so good always, no one would dare accuse him of stealing. You know it was not; say it was not! Say you don't think it!”

She had given way utterly to her grief, and to quiet her he said:

“Of course it wasn't stealing.”

“There!” reassured and rendered almost happy. “There, I knew you would understand. Why, even Mr. Hale speaks of it in the kindest way. He knows Anson to be perfectly reliable—he doesn't dare question it. Everybody knows how good he is, he wouldn't think of doing wrong. He has explained it all. At first he took the money as an advance upon his salary and then the indebtedness grew. He was never able to make good what he had borrowed. It was so easy to take what he needed—so easy to think he could repay it. He meant to do what was right: I am sure of this. If I were not it would kill me.” She paused for an instant. “It was unfair to put such a pitfall in any man's path, no matter how honest. It was unjust, and they should suffer, but—but”—looking up appealingly into his face—“we must save Anson, must we not? For if we don't—he will be arrested and then every one will know. The whole town. Think of the disgrace—the awful humiliation! We must save him. He is your brother, and deep in your heart you love him. Say you do!”

Philip, looking at her, bowed, broken, crushed, scarcely daring to raise her eyes to his, answered that he loved his brother, but in his soul he cursed him for the suffering he had caused.

“Mr. Hale assures me that if the money is returned at once, it shall be kept a secret—not even the girls need know. You are the only one who can do this, Philip. It all rests with you. Will you save him?”

“For his own sake and for yours—but, most of all for yours, dear, yes.”

In an instant he remembered what that money was to do for him. More than money ever did before. The thought made him sick with a deadly nausea. He saw his hope sink lower and lower until it entirely ceased to be and despair stood in its place. He had all but won in the struggle, and now to have the fruits snatched from him at the last moment! He had saved for another to scatter.

“What will become of Anson?” he asked. “Where will he go? Of course he can't remain with the firm. It wouldn't be permitted, I suppose, nor pleasant.”

“He has a friend in the West—some place in California—in business there. He has been urging Anson for months to come to him, and now, it is all most fortunate, he has decided to go. He can't very well stay here. If he should there is danger the secret might be discovered: he would have to get a new position and people would wonder, but once he is gone, they will forget all about him and then there will be no talk. No one will ever learn why he left.”

Philip looked at her commiseratingly. With his hand he brushed away the white hair lying in disorder upon her forehead.

“Poor mother, poor mother! and you have been so proud of him!”

“As I shall always be. My poor Anson! As I shall always be—as I am of all of you.” She smiled bravely through her tears.

“I shall go for the money. I'd better go at once or I may find the bank closed.”

He spoke collectedly and his mother did not divine from any words of his that he was preparing to make the greatest sacrifice possible to him. Nor would he have her know. There was misery enough for her as it was. Yet the thought of what he had to do brought him unspeakable agony. It was not the loss of money, for money of itself was nothing to him, but everything in his little world was held in place by what he was giving up.

“I shall get the money,” he repeated quietly. “I shall go for it at once.”

“You are so good!” she cried. “You were always my comfort. I can rely upon you more than on the others.”

She reached up and kissed him again and again. “Though no one ever knows of the sacrifice you make, Anson and I will, and we will honor you for it. Do not think that we undervalue it.” He kissed her softly. No amount of praise could have wrung the money from him, but her tears had been more potent.

“You don't care,” she questioned, “that the girls are not to be told of what you do for Anson?”

“No, dear. Glory of that sort does not in the least appeal to me. I have no objections to being deprived of it. What I do I do quite willingly. I am satisfied with your thanks and the consciousness that I have in a measure eased this burden for you.” He smiled sadly down upon her. “Now I will go,” and unclasping her arms from about his neck, he turned and left the room.

After a few moments' waiting to regain her composure, Mrs. Southard went down to the parlor where Anson and Hale sat, the former crestfallen and not over-confident of Philip's generosity.

To Hale she said: “My son will be back in a few moments with the sum you require. He has just gone for it.”

Anson's face lit up with joy. He was safe! How lucky it was that Philip had kept his money instead of spending it!

They did not have to wait long for Philip's return. His mother, who had been watching from the window, saw him as he came into the yard, and quitting the room, joined him in the hall.

“You have it? You were in time?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes,” he said, placing a bundle of bills in her hand. “It is a thousand dollars you need, is it not?”

“Yes. It is so good of you. How can I ever tell you what it means to me!”

With a heavy step, as if all the vigor had left him, Philip slowly mounted the stairs leading up to the floor above.

“Won't you come in and see Mr. Hale?” his mother called.

“I had rather not, dear,” he answered.

He walked as one in a dream, mechanically closing the door behind him as he entered the room. Then he dropped wearily into his chair beside the table.

He was overwhelmed by the catastrophe. A comprehension of it all, and the probable results, began to come to him. He threw the few hundred dollars remaining of his little fortune on the table. They were worthless, so far as the purpose for which they had been saved was concerned.

Stunned and stupid he gazed at the little heap of paper. Each dollar represented some privation in his daily life.

With savage fervor he brought his clenched hand down on the little heap, while from between his set teeth he ground out curses, for now came a frenzy of disappointment.

It soon subsided, as all violent emotions are bound to do.

Only a dull pain remained. Still he kept his gaze fastened on the money before him. It reminded him of what the sum had once been—and was no longer. He must begin again,—go through the round of petty self-denial, the soul-stunting process of small economy.

“It will be so long—so very long until I get so much again,” he thought. “While I am about it a thousand things may happen to rob me of the inspiration of her love. And all for the theft of a wretched paltry pittance, so small it could have done Anson no good, and yet so large it may be the ruin of my hopes. It is unjust that I should suffer for him! A thousand dollars! Bah! The commonplaceness of it!”

With his fist hard pressed upon the table and his eyes fixed on vacancy, he sat and thought; thought with a brain mad and drunk with grief. He would have liked to turn his face toward the wall and give up. He was worsted. The props with which he had sustained himself were gone.

How he hated Anson! The fool!—who had lived in a false world of pious frauds; whose manhood had failed at the one test to which he had been put; who had succumbed to temptation at the first opportunity.

To cover up this—to put a patch upon the torn garment of his brother's honesty he must suffer. How he hated him!

He heard Hale leave the house, but dared not look to see him go. He took all his hope, all his aspirations with him. And now how would it all end? Could he ask Barbara to wait much longer? How would he meet her father's exactions? What excuse was there to offer for the sudden vanishing of his savings? Mr. Gerard would think he had been lied to from the start.

Down-stairs the girls and Mrs. Southard were making ready for Anson's departure. It had been arranged that he should leave at once. They moved about noiselessly, talking in whispers, the girls wildly curious, yet not venturing to question their mother. The whole atmosphere was as though some one had died. It pervaded the entire house. Where he sat in his room, Philip felt it. In fancy he saw his mother packing Anson's trunk—saw her tears fall silently as she folded away his clothes—and as his fancy saw it, so he knew it must be in reality.

Despite the load that lay upon him crushing him to earth, he was glad she had been spared the greater humiliation and disgrace that but for him would have come to them. The realization of this lessened the extent of his own anguish somewhat, at least it was a consolation to feel that he had shielded her, no matter at what cost.

It was dark when his mother finally knocked at his door and told him that supper was ready.

“I'm not hungry,” he answered.

She opened the door and came in, saying in some surprise as she did so, for his lamp was unlighted:

“Why, Philip, what's wrong?”

“Nothing, dear, nothing. Why do you ask?”

“You don't begrudge the money that kept us all from shame—you don't regret that?” She put her hand upon his shoulder.

“I regret nothing. For you I would have done a hundred times what I did to-day, and counted it a small recompense for what you have given me all these years.”

“You mean it, Philip?”

“Certainly. I was sitting here in the dusk thinking it over—thinking how glad I am that it was in my power to do this for you—and him. No matter what the outcome may be, I shall not regret it for one instant.”

Her hand caressed his cheek softly: “Won't you come down to supper?”

“What's the use? I couldn't eat now.”

“But you will not see Anson again. It may be years before he comes back to us. Do come down.”

“I shall go with him to the train. Won't that do just as well? I wish to think a while longer, here in the dark by myself.”

“I know he will be delighted to have you,” she said. “Poor Anson! It has been a terrible blow to him.”

Philip smiled queerly to himself. He doubted the delight Anson would derive from his company just then, but he made no response.

“It seems unfair to ask any more of you,” his mother said with reluctance, “but Anson is almost penniless. If you could only help just a little it might make it easier for him.”

Philip gathered up the bills that still lay on the table where he had thrown them. “Here are one or two hundred dollars,” he said, “he may as well have them. They are of no use to me, and you will feel so much better to have him go, if you know he has something to fall back on!”

She took the money gratefully. “He has promised to repay all he has had from you, so don't worry about not getting it back.”

“Ah! dear,” and he laughed, “that does not worry me in the least. I don't bother about what he will or will not do.”

She turned to the door: “I shall call you then when he is ready.” And she left him to his solitude.

Philip wondered when he was once more alone what his mother's action would have been had she known what that money was to do for him. On the whole he concluded it was just as well she did not know. He became reflective. With practise it might be possible for him to acquire a habit which would enable him to derive a melancholy pleasure from being miserable. He laughed aloud.

“I never knew that farce and tragedy touched hands,” he thought.

It was quite late when his mother called from the foot of the stairs: “Anson is ready, Philip. If you will come, he will be so pleased to have you go down to the station with him.”

He went down and found her waiting for him in the hall. “You will be kind,” she whispered anxiously. “You won't say anything hard, when you are alone with him? Poor boy! he feels it so keenly. You will be considerate of him?”

“Yes, dear. Don't distress yourself. I shall be as kind as I know how.”

They went into the sitting-room where Anson was bidding good-by to his sisters. Philip had no wish to witness his mother's farewells. He picked up a valise his brother was to carry with him, saying: “I shall start on ahead, Anson.”

“All right. I shall be along presently,” his brother answered.

Philip escaped into the open air. Soon he heard Anson coming, waited until he caught up, and the two brothers, without a word, set off for the station very much as though they were trying to run away from each other, but had foolishly elected to go in the same direction while about it.

Their destination was reached before either had framed a speech diplomatic enough for the occasion.

Anson went to ascertain how much time he had and returned almost immediately to say that he had ten minutes left.

“But,” he added, “you needn't wait on my account.”

“I'll see you off. I told mother I would.”

“Of course—if you like. I thought you might want to go home.”

They fell to pacing back and forth across the platform, still apparently trying to get away from each other. Neither spoke, and it was only when the train rushed in with a trailing echo of sound from out the darkness, that Anson found courage to say hurriedly from the door of his car:

“Mother told you, didn't she, that I would pay up all I have had from you? I intend to and shall, but I can't do it at once.” The whistle of the engine broke in upon him. “I'll do it sure, Philip, I won't forget.”

“There is no haste,” his brother answered. “Don't sacrifice yourself because of me.”

He extended his hand. “Good-by and good luck to you.”

The train began to move.

“It was awfully good of you. You have done a lot for me. I——”

The train bore him swiftly away, but standing as he did on the rear platform of the last car, the door at his back, Philip saw him wave his handkerchief and he responded in a like fashion, wishing he were certain Anson could see him as plainly as he saw Anson.

And so he stood until long after the train had vanished, a miserable lonely feeling within him.

It was all hopeless—the whole affair.

His mother would never be quite the same again, she could never live beyond the memory of that day. At last he muttered:

“Poor devil! I am positive he didn't mean to harm any one, nor did he mean to be bad. He has not the sense in the first place. What he did, was simply the blundering clumsy conduct of a fool.”

IX

Changes occurred in view of the altered relations between Franz and Margaret.

It came to be Perkins' nightly custom to formulate labored excuses that would enable him to retire to his own apartments, for as he said to Philip: “Just suppose it was one of us!”

Nor did the change stop here. Mrs. Perkins suddenly found it convenient to spend her evenings in the back parlor where the arrangement of lights was more to her taste and where she could sew without straining her eyes.

Perkins was treating himself to a few remarks one evening before taking Philip—who had just come in—up-stairs for a smoke:

“I think I got off a very good thing to-day,” he was saying, “not too amusing, but very bright and to the point. When you take into account that it comes from a fellow who lays no claim to being a wit, why it's not half bad. If you are all dying to hear, I might be induced to repeat it.” He did not wait for their entreaties however. “You see, it was this. It's quite complicated and calls for a lot of explanation. I was at Bessie's this afternoon and a Mrs. Cavendish came in. Philip and Franz know her, but, of course, you don't.” This last was to Margaret. “Well, we were talking about family. Mrs. Cavendish is great on family—she has been separated from her husband—that is part of the story, and it's got to be remembered.” Perkins came to a stand-still. “Now, isn't it strange that only the most gifted intellects can master the intricacies of a funny story. Really, you know, I am getting it all wrong. Oh, yes, this is it. Bessie was speaking of some one—I forget who, luckily that doesn't matter—and Mrs. Cavendish said—'He was a connection of mine by marriage.' And I said—to Bessie of course, 'I suppose she would call him a disconnection by divorce now.'.rdquo;

Philip turned to Margaret: “Have you met Bessie yet?”

“No; Ballard refuses to bring her to the house.”

Perkins shook his head. “My mother and Bessie don't get on.”

“Is it settled, Perkins?” Philip asked laughingly.

“I suppose it is. You see a fellow hasn't a ghost of a chance when a girl and her mother regularly set out to marry him. When that's the case he might just as well beg them to name the day—for they are bound to divide the spoils. Yes,” with placid resignation, “I really suppose I am as good as done for. I know it from the way their cook treats me. When the cook treats you with a deference you suppose she would only bestow on the heavenly host, you may be altogether positive your intentions have been discussed in the kitchen by members of the family.”

Philip turned from Perkins to gaze gloomily into the fire. He was wondering, as he had many times of late, how he would ever summon the resolution to tell Mr. Gerard of his altered fortunes.

Perkins, surveying the faces of his friends with an angelic smile upon his own freckled features, noted his abstraction.

“What's the matter, Philip?” he asked. “Nothing. I am simply in the depths to-night. I fear I am not very desirable to have about in my present mood.”

“Is it the work?” asked Margaret.

“It's everything!” He roused himself with an effort. “Utter and complete dissatisfaction with my surroundings for one thing—the feeling that I am dying with dry rot. I suppose to you it seems fresh and interesting. You can't fancy what it is to those who have to live here. The narrowness and meagerness of it all!”

“It's not so bad,” Perkins said. “The town has lots of intelligent and charming people and if you didn't go about with a chip on your shoulder, you would find them out.”

“I detest intelligence,” Philip retorted. “We have filled up the valleys by pulling down the mountains—when we get a dead level the millennium will be reached. All that will be left for the unfortunates who live then to do, will be to lie down and long for death.”

“I say,” said Perkins interrupting him, “what's wrong with intelligence, anyhow?”

“Everything's wrong with it. I can respect ignorance. As with any deformity it has its own pathetic dignity, but this thin spread of middle-class intelligence, which is one part enlightenment to nine parts of stupid prejudice, goes far to make me an ardent supporter of gaggings, clubbings and burnings at the stake.”

Margaret laughed: “Is intelligence so dreadful as that?”

“I think it is——” then he stopped abruptly, for the door opened and Geoffrey Ballard appeared upon the threshold.

With an attempt at dignity he moved toward his sister's chair. No one spoke. The surprise was too intense. But they observed that he walked as though tired.

Margaret shrank from him, her face paling. Every particle of happy color had fled from it when he entered the room. As Geoff bent and kissed her, Franz came to his feet with what sounded like a smothered oath upon his lips. After the perfunctory greetings with his sister were disposed of, Geoff swung around languidly to the others. First, he shook hands with Perkins with much cordiality. Next he saluted Philip:

“I am very glad to see you again, Mr. Southard,” he said.

“Thanks awfully,” growled Philip. He resented this intrusion. Besides he was not in a good humor. He didn't propose to be decent to a man he disliked. That was asking too much.

Silently and avoiding the danger of words, Franz and Geoff acknowledged each other's existence. They consoled themselves with looking their hate.

While they were thus engaged, Perkins stood on tiptoe at Philip's side and said in a hoarse whisper: “What business has he coming here sticking in and spoiling our fun! Damn him! Why doesn't he stay away? I should like to punch his head for him jolly good and well. That's what I would! I came mighty near doing it, too, when he shook hands with me.” And Perkins bristled pugnaciously.

Such was the prodigal's return and such his welcome.

Not many days elapsed before there dawned upon him a premonition of what had happened during his absence, and a chilly and uncomfortable premonition it was.

Most assuredly an understanding had been established between Margaret and the German. Whether it was love or a deepened friendship, he could not decide and he was reluctant to inquire. Until now he had never felt the least wish to familiarize himself with the emotions that swayed her, and he did not know just how to begin.

Geoff finally hit upon Perkins as a likely source of information. He sought him out and asked to be enlightened as to the relationship between his sister and “that Dutchman,”—and Perkins informed him,—becoming more and more pleased as gloom spread over the face of his questioner. Geoff was seriously alarmed. But if any one thought that after selling his sister at so great an advantage to himself as he had done he was going to sit supinely down and not endeavor to save the purchase money, they did him a rank injustice.

He began to urge upon his sister the advisability of their being domiciled elsewhere. He didn't demand any radical move to start with, simply that they obtain a house. This he urged on the grounds that they were wearing out their welcome at the Perkinses.

“We can't impose upon their good nature much longer, you know,” he said. “And since you are so very well satisfied here, don't you think we had better settle ourselves in some more permanent fashion?”

Margaret demurred, but what he said about the Perkinses made an impression upon her.

“I think,” Geoff continued, “you would enjoy a home of your own, where you could be mistress. Russell could, of course, relieve you of every burden. She is fully competent to order a much more extensive establishment than you will care to maintain. I find there is just such a place as you would fancy. It is furnished and ready for occupancy. The owner is holding some political office in Washington, his family is with him, and their home is for rent, providing a proper tenant can be found.”

He did not think it worth while to explain that he had learned the chief reason why the house stood vacant was that the location was unhealthful, especially during the winter months. He was positive he should experience no ill effects from this and he could afford to take a few risks with his sister.

“I wish you would think it over, Margaret,” he urged.

“Why can't you remain here?” said Margaret. And her glance wandered wistfully over the room. He was asking a great deal. She was very happy.

“I don't begin to have your knack at getting on with people. I trust you will not speak of this until you know what you will do.”

All this while Geoff was wonderfully circumspect. Never before had he been so considerate or kind. He seemed to have undergone a thorough reformation. He knew if he did not accomplish what he was striving for he would find himself face to face with ruin. This steadied him astonishingly. He showed no inclination to leave and for the moment conquered his tendencies to dissipation. He even ceased to be disagreeable to either Perkins or Philip, but he made it his duty to see that the interviews his sister had alone with Becker were few and far between—and as brief as possible.

So it happened, when one afternoon in December Margaret announced she had taken the lease of a house and intended going into it immediately,—that Perkins and his mother listened to her in horror-stricken amazement. They could scarcely believe it.

“What!” cried Perkins: “what! leave us, you know! A house of your own! Why, you can have all of this one if you will only include mother and me in the bargain.”

“What place is it?” Mrs. Perkins asked.

Margaret turned to her brother: “What did you say the name was, Geoff?”

Geoff braced himself mentally as he answered: “The Springer property.”

He was tolerably sure they knew the house and its reputation. Nor was he in error. What people in a town of ten thousand or less don't know of their neighbors' affairs isn't worth mentioning. They knew all there was to know of the house in question.

“Why, look here!” Perkins stuttered, his words falling over one another in their haste for utterance. “You can't go there, you know. It will never do, you see. The house is damp as all get out from cellar to garret, and it's so mildewy in some of the rooms that the paper won't stick to the walls. I have been there lots of times and have seen it. Why, I say, you should just see the Springer children. They are sick all the time. You can't go there. We won't let you.” And he fell to pacing the floor, his thumbs tucked in his waistcoat, as was his wont when nervous or excited.

Geoff watched him from between narrowed lids. There was a steely glitter in the look, and a baleful twitching at the corners of his mouth, as though he had it strong within him to express a good deal more than was policy just then.

“You have been most kind to us,” he said; “you overwhelm us with your goodness. Still I know my sister will be better contented in her own home. As for the dampness of which you speak, I will see to that. It is a small matter and can be readily overcome.”

“Aren't you contented here?” Mrs. Perkins asked quickly, turning to Margaret. “You know we will do anything for you—anything.”

Margaret seized both her hands and clasped them to her breast, then raised them to her lips while her eyes glistened: “I have never been so happy. Not in all my life. Oh, you are so dear and kind! How shall I ever thank you for all you've done for me!”

“We can not possibly add to the sense of gratitude beneath which we are already struggling,” Geoff interposed. He spoke coldly and insolently. He wished to stop this burst of sentiment or else it might go to dangerous lengths. He succeeded in mortally offending Perkins, who said hotly and with the bottled-up acrimony of many days in his tones:

“Why do you cut in when my mother and Margaret are talking! You are always cutting in where you haven't any right to.”

This outburst quieted things down for the moment and no more was said about Madame Dennie's plans for the future, but in two minds at least the thought of her pending departure was uppermost.

When Geoff quitted the library a few minutes later, Mrs. Perkins, excusing herself to Margaret, followed promptly in his wake, and at once returned to the charge with unabated zeal.

“Are you going to take that child there and selfishly jeopardize her health? Are you? Answer me.”

“That's exactly what I am going to do, my dear Mrs. Perkins, and the sooner the better, if you will allow me to say so.”

“Then,” said Mrs. Perkins, “you are the most contemptible—the most thoroughly contemptible of living creatures! That's what I think of you, and I am the easier for having said it!”

“Don't you think, my dear Mrs. Perkins, that you rather strain the case?” Geoff retorted. “After all, one's own business is about the only business one should undertake.”

Mrs. Perkins flushed, but she put a check upon herself. “I positively decline to quarrel with you. I don't, for I see through you. I won't quarrel no matter what you do and you needn't try to make me.”

“Your conception of what constitutes incompatibility would prove entertaining,” Geoff replied. “I have the impression that that stage of disagreement has already been reached. The only course open for my sister is to leave.”

Mrs. Perkins fairly gasped at the deftness with which he made their dislike of him embrace Margaret as well, but being of an emotional temperament she trusted herself to speak no further and retired to her own rooms where she could weep in solitude.

And so it was decided that Margaret should leave the Perkinses.

When the day came—and it came quickly, as Geoff's patience was all but exhausted—she wept as she passed out through the wide doors that had opened so hospitably to receive her.

“We shall see a great deal of each other, shall we not?” she said to Mrs. Perkins. “You will come to me whenever you can? I fear the cold will keep me somewhat confined, but you won't mind it as I shall, and you will come often to see me?”

Perkins and his mother went down to see that she was properly installed in her home, and then sadly took their leave of her just as the night came on. Geoff, being inordinately elated by his success, was absent, celebrating his victory in a spree.

In spite of the fires and a superheated furnace below stairs, the house had a musty odor and the big rooms held a damp chill that could not be warmed out of them.

Finally Geoff came in, with unsteady step and bloodshot eyes, to add what he could to the load resting on the poor little shoulders, which for years had been so weighted down with care and weariness. He found her lonely, miserable and in tears. This exhibition of weakness, as he termed it, he took in very bad part.

The initial dinner was a meal long remembered, with Geoff, stupid and maudlin from too much drink, constantly going to sleep and as constantly waking to growl his complaints.

When it was finished, he took himself from his sister's sight, while Margaret waited for Perkins and Franz to come as they had said they would.

Eight o'clock brought them and the evening was passed pleasantly enough.

Madame Dennie had been suffering from a cold for some days, and the next morning she was quite ill. Her brother took no notice of this, and for several days did nothing but press forward to the goal at which he aimed. He pursued his former tactics with the utmost industry, seeing that his sister never had a moment alone with her friends; and wishing to discourage their devotion, was aggressive and rude to such an extent that Philip made just one call on Margaret and then in unmistakable language announced his intention of not repeating the experiment.

“I don't intend to walk half-way across the town simply for the delirious joy of letting that fellow insult me!” And he kept to his word.

To be sure, with Perkins and Franz, it was different. They were blind to affronts and proof against the insufferable. For Margaret's sake they were willing to endure the unendurable, but the ordeal was too much for them to live down without an inward revolt at least.

Franz became habitually morose and sullen. Perkins waxed shockingly profane and his mother spent most of her time on the verge of tears; and all this while Margaret's condition grew rapidly worse.

When brother and sister were alone it was the eternal harping on the one theme. Geoff wished her to go East with him—anywhere. He gave her no peace. Morning, noon and night, he stuck to the dreary round of argument and objection.

This continued for a week. Margaret's cold developed into an alarming cough. She was confined to her room and could see no one but Mrs. Perkins and Russell.

Having space for deliberation, Perkins was seized with a brilliant conception: a project that anticipated nothing less than the getting of Geoff drunk and starting him on what Perkins called “a protracted spree.”

He reasoned that a man of his cousin's inclinations could only hold up so far in combating the unholy charms of a properly presented temptation.

But Perkins was not called upon to assume the tempter's rtle. Geoff accomplished his downfall himself.

There was one fatal quality in all his plotting. He invariably gave out before the final blow was dealt.

He now exemplified this by going away when there was most cause for his remaining. He could not stand the quiet longer. He would have one bout, he told himself,—just one. When it was over with he would return and Margaret should go with him where he pleased. He felt almost safe in leaving: she was so ill.

X

Then,” said Philip shortly, “if I understand you aright, you wish me to discontinue my visits?”

Mr. Gerard was rather taken aback by the directness with which Philip put it. To be sure that was what it amounted to, but—“You see, you keep other men at a distance: you take up most of the leisure she has to devote to society. I don't mean to be hard. I trust you appreciate the delicacy of my position—the peculiarity of it. I want to be fair to you and at the same time just to Barbara. It occurs to me that I can only accomplish this by having you——” He was very much mixed—very red and very miserable.

The cause of all his annoyance stood before him—cool and collected, but it was the calm of desperation.

The comfort of knowing this was, however, denied to Mr. Gerard. He took up the tangled thread of his discourse. “My dear boy, you must know I don't want to seem hard”—getting a fresh start—“I don't want to interfere with your happiness, but where my daughter is concerned I must be just. I can't be remiss in my duty there. Now I leave it to you—to your sense of fairness. You know what I think—do what you consider right.”

“I suppose you can not understand just how I got rid of my money,” Philip said grimly.

“I confess I can't,” Mr. Gerard replied nervously. “Your admission has been a great surprise to me. It was only a month or so ago that you had quite a large sum saved and now you inform me it's all gone, and you don't tell me where.”

“I can not, Mr. Gerard.”

“Of course—of course. That is your business. I appreciate that—I ask for no explanation—and I do like your frankness in coming to me at once,” but there was small favor in the glance he bestowed upon Philip. “If it's gone—why——-” he came to a stop again.

“It is gone. Every penny of it.” Philip said relentlessly.

“It's very unusual, very.”

“And you had rather I slow up on my visits?”

“I leave it entirely with you, as I said before. I don't understand and I am not satisfied. I—really it may be as well for you to keep away. But do whatever you think proper.”

“You put it to me in such shape that there is just one thing I can do, and that is keep away and stay away.”

“My dear boy, I——”

Philip cut him short by turning on his heel. “You have no objection to my calling this afternoon?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. It's right that you should.”

“Thank you,” said Philip, and took himself off, leaving Mr. Gerard puffing and agitated in the door of his office.

Philip was glad that he had carried off the honors of the interview where calmness and dispassion were involved, but he knew that the triumph was a small one, and that Mr. Gerard's turn would come later, when he himself could but compress his lips and suffer.

He was thinking of this and bitter revolt was in his heart when he presented himself to Barbara. His face told plainly what he felt. Indeed, it was so apparent that she silently followed him into the parlor.

He threw his hat down upon a chair and stood in the center of the room looking at her, wondering how it would be possible to exist, deprived of her companionship.

“What is it, Philip? Why don't you tell me?” she at last found courage to ask.

“It's what I have known would happen all along. Your father——”

“What has my father done?” she interrupted him.

“He has told me I must stop coming here.”

Barbara's eyes blazed. Her diminutive figure was drawn wrathfully up to its fullest height. “Has he dared to do that—has he dared!”

“I felt in honor bound to tell him I had been compelled to spend my savings. He said—he was very kind—that a continuation of my attentions would compromise you, and since my future was very uncertain——”

“My life is mine—it belongs to me!” she interposed. “And if I choose to give it to you, it's mine to give. I know what I need better than he does.”

“I wish I could have told him how the money went. He evidently attributes my poverty to wild and reckless extravagance. I could see it completely finished me off in his estimation. I wish I could have told—but I couldn't. I can't even tell you.”

“It's nobody's affair but your own, and if we are satisfied I don't see what it is to him.”

“Just the same, Barbara, he has made it his affair. He is your father, and it is his privilege.” Her little foot tapped the floor angrily. His submission offended her.

“It's all right, Barbara.”

“It's not all right,” she burst out. “Is it all right that our happiness should be wrecked?”

“I don't say that. I refer to his requesting me to cease coming here. He evidently regards me as not the proper sort of person.”

“What are you going to do?”

“There is but one thing I can do.”

“And that?”

“Respect his wishes.”

“If you do, what is going to become of me?”

Philip put his hand to his aching head. That was more than he could tell. He had thought of it, too. His personal pain and anxiety gave him no concern. He had become accustomed to it, but it would be so hard for her. She had not his training in disappointment. What could he do?

“What will become of me?” she repeated, with tears in her eyes.

“As soon as I have the money it will be as it was before. The separation will be but temporary—unless you forget me.”

“I shall never forget you. I love you.”

“Then as soon as I succeed even partially, I shall come back to you. I shall work so hard, it shan't be for long. I will succeed.” And he set his teeth. “I know I shall and it will be no ordinary success when it does come. You have faith in me?”

“Yes! yes! but that's so far off! Think of the time we have already waited.”

“I know, dear, but I am making every effort. I know, too, that despite all his efforts a man may fail—absolutely—and through no fault of his own. He may get down and never rise, though he struggle ever so hard. There is a savage remorseless quality to life, a cruel indifference to work and worth. This risk we are compelled to take. In any business or profession it would be the same. It does not apply alone to one who thinks he can write——”

He was striding back and forth across the room. “Yet I can't bring myself to believe that I am to be one of the failures, all I want is time—time! I know I can do so much. You must have faith in me, Barbara!”

“It has been so long,” she said sadly, going to his side and clasping both her hands about his arm, “and I am afraid. I don't quite know of what—but I am afraid.”

“Can't you be brave just a little longer—just a little longer?”

“I try to be—I really do, but——”

“But what?”

“I am afraid he wants me to marry Mr. Shel-den. He does not say so, but I know.” And she began to cry again, clinging to Philip the while. “I know it! I know it! and unless you save me I shall be forced into it. I can't stand black looks and constant coercion. I shall yield. I know I shall, and my whole life will be ruined.”

“So that's it, is it?” Philip's voice was hoarse and dry. “So that's it? That's what it signifies? He wants to get me out of the road, does he?” And after a brief pause: “Do you like him in the least, Barbara?”

“I hate him.”

“He has money and all that sort of thing.”

“It's nothing to me. I can only care for you.”

“Has your father made any positive statement of his preference, Barbara?”

She shook her head. “Of course he does not speak of it, but I know.”

“Well, I'll go in for work harder than ever, dear—we need not despair, for we are sure of each other.”

“But—but—if I don't see you——”

“Can't you keep your love alive and not see me?”

“I suppose so, but you are so different from me. You don't feel the same.”

“I feel with my whole soul, Barbara. Can I do more?”

“It breaks my heart to think I am not to see you.” She glanced up into his face. “Not to see you at all—why how shall I manage to endure it?” Her eyes grew wide, filled with a pathetic grief that made him desperate. “And now scarcely a day passes, that I do not catch a glimpse of you.”

“It can't be for long, Barbara.”

“It may be forever.” This was said in a stifled voice.

“It's not as if I were going away—not as if I were to leave the town. We shall see each other constantly.”

“It's worse than if you were going away. It's a great deal worse. Then I could make up my mind to it and could, I suppose, bear it somehow.”

“Dear,” he spoke softly, “dearest, please look up. I want to talk to you. Can't you listen to me? Please, dear, it's not so bad. It might be worse.”

“It's bad enough!” without lifting her head from where it rested upon his arm. “It couldn't be worse. I couldn't suffer more.”

“Can't you be hopeful? Can't you try?”

“I do try.”

“It is coming nearer all the while. I am making money—I shall make more. Don't you believe in my ability?”

“It's not that. I am confident of the future, but the present is so horrible, with all manner of doubt. Do you,” looking up and letting her glance meet his for a moment, “do you honestly think it will ever be as we hope?”

“Yes. It can not be otherwise. It only means patience—only a little waiting.”

“Tell me what papa said.”

“He asked me to stop coming here until such time as I am in a position to be accepted formally as your intended husband.”

“And when will that be?” shaking her head.

“It can't be so very far off and it comes closer with every day. If I could only give you some of my hope—if I only could!”

“You do—but—”

“I do, but it fails in its mission.”

“Tell me what he said.”

“It all amounted to this. I must forego the pleasure of seeing you, except very infrequently.”

“Is it good-by you are saying to me? Is it? Is it?”

“I fear it is. You must forgive me, but I have to show some little pride, and there is but one course open to me. It's not choice, but necessity that influences me in my decision.”

“Does he want to make me hate him! I shall.” She gave way utterly to her emotions and Philip did the best he could to soothe her as she stood within the protecting circle of his arms.

“I have exhausted my patience. I am tired—tired. How do I know it will ever come. It has been years already,” she said at last.

“It is no more doubtful than anything else would be. I am putting forth all my energy.”

“I am tired. I am tired.”

“I have this to reproach myself with. I thought in the beginning success would come sooner. I have kept on and on, and now I am as far from it as ever. It has been four years, Barbara, four years. I am so sorry, dear, so sorry.”

“If you go I shall never see you again. Something will happen. I shall be driven into something dreadful. I shall be at papa's mercy, and I haven't any strength of character. He can do what he likes when you are gone, and I shall give in. I always do.”

Her whole attitude was one of weak complaint. It was fast forcing Philip to the verge of madness. As if she divined what his thoughts were, she said: “You don't respect me. You think I don't amount to anything.”

“I love you!” he said gravely. “And now I must go.”

“You are not going!—not yet!—not yet!”

“I shall write you every day when I don't happen to see you, so you will know how I get on.”

“Yes! yes! but are you going?”

“I must go sometime and it's better over with. We shall write each other and we shall meet quite often at various places. I shall go where I know you will be.”

She was crying violently.

“You must not leave me! You must not, Philip!”

But he moved slowly to the door.

“I can't tell you how hard I shall work. Just be brave and good as you have been from the start and it will come out all right.”

“I can't wait forever—and I need you now.”

“You will have to, dearest.”

“Doesn't it make you furious?”

“What, Barbara?”

“Furious, that he can interfere with us. It's our life—our love. We only ask to be left alone. Oh—I can't bear it!”

“I'm afraid we must bear it for a while. We won't be altogether separated—we will see each other now and then!”

“No! no! what will such meetings be—with people about—people who will stare at us with silly senseless curiosity!”

“Good-by for the present, dear—for to-day.”

“No—no!”

“We shall meet often. Try to think of that.”

“I am not brave and I invariably give in. He knows it. I shall have no peace if you go like this. Promise me you will come back!”

“I can not, Barbara.”

“Then the blame for whatever follows falls on you. You go willingly.”

“You are unjust.”

“You go willingly,” she insisted. “You desert me. You leave me for him to torture into doing what he wants! Is it nothing to you?”

“I love you,” he answered simply.

“And if we drift apart?”

“I don't know what you mean. How can we drift apart?”

“People do.”

“Are we like them?”

“Are we?”

“I thought we were not,” he said.

“Why should you think that?” she answered. “I don't know. Perhaps we are the same as the rest. Perhaps I only imagine the difference.”

“You are going?” she said in alarm as he moved toward the door.

“Yes, Barbara.”

But Barbara threw herself down into a chair and commenced to cry afresh. This drew Philip back to her side in an instant.

“Won't you say good-by, Barbara, just for the present? Won't you say good-by, dear?” He sought to remove the hand she held before her face.

She gave him no answer and he turned from her, at first irresolute and then with more decision, for his mind was made up. After all, her sense of resentment would lighten her grief for the moment. It would be easier to bear because of it.

He stepped into the hall, the door closed, and Barbara heard his footsteps growing fainter. He was gone!

Curled up in the easy chair she sobbed out her sorrow and anger, for it was a mingling of both. At last she raised her head and looked about. She was still sobbing brokenly.

Suddenly she sat erect. It was growing late. She remembered that her father was to bring Mr. Shelden home with him to tea.

“I hate him!” she thought. “I hate everybody, but I shall have to see him and be agreeable, and I suppose I look like a perfect fright with my eyes all red. Of course while he is here, I shall have to pretend that I am enjoying myself, and my head hurts and I am miserable. I want Philip, and no one else!”

In proof of which she commenced to weep.

And so for an hour or more she lay curled up in the chair, a doleful little heap.

XI

I told them they must have a doctor,” Perkins explained to Franz, “and in spite of my mother's objections I called one in. Mother has been dosing her for a week now.”

Young Perkins and his mother practically lived with Margaret, now that Geoff was gone, and it was on the second day of their installment as members of her household, when Perkins, asserting himself in defiance of the paternal mandate, announced his intention of summoning a physician—“Right off, and with no more dependence on luck,” by which it is to be inferred that his mother's remedies did not inspire him with much confidence.

“He is with her?” Franz inquired, having just come in.

“Yes, if it hadn't been for my interference, I am certain my mother would have kept on dosing Margaret with her nasty home-made concoctions until doomsday. Poor Margaret would never have rebelled: she would have swallowed the stuff until it killed her rather than wound my mother by showing lack of faith.”

At this juncture they were joined by the doctor, a gray puffy man, reeking of stale tobacco smoke and staler drugs, who took the ills flesh is heir to as a personal grievance.

“Well?” Perkins interrogated him.

The doctor emitted a sound that could have been either a grunt or groan: “It won't do,” he said gloomily; “she must be sent South. She has not the stamina for this climate. It's using her up. Unless something is done she will not live through the winter, I'll stake my reputation.”

“Then she should go to Florida?” Perkins questioned.

“I said she must be sent South,—if you are interested in keeping her alive—and I suppose you are.”

“Good lord, yes!” Perkins gasped.

“I don't say her illness is critical at its present stage, but if you are going to do what I recommend, don't put it off. I don't want to be blamed. Good night.”

He snorted angrily at the inoffensive Perkins, picked up his hat and medicine-case and departed, leaving the young men staring apprehensively at each other.

Perkins jerked his head in the direction the doctor had gone. “He's a confounded fool! That's what he is. If he had waited a minute, I'd have said so. He doesn't have to scare us to death.”

Franz was busy with his thoughts. How could she go and how could she stay threatened by danger? The problem swung between the two alternatives and refused to be solved.

Suddenly Perkins cried joyously: “I've got it, Franz! You must marry her right off and take her South yourself—otherwise she will be left to the mercy of her brother. You love her,—I know all about it, old fellow. I saw it by accident and I take just stacks of interest in you young people.”

He put his hand on Franz's shoulder. His demeanor was both patronizing and affectionate. He looked as cupid might, grown to sturdy manhood, so thrilled was he by his purpose.

“If you are the least diffident, I'll adjust it. I'd. dearly love to, and won't it be a jolly little earthquake for Mr. Geoffrey Ballard,—won't it?” And he hopped around gleefully, proving there can be two good and sufficient reasons for a man's acts, namely—to please himself, and to annoy his fellow: and who shall determine which is sweeter?

Franz had felt his heart leap at the suggestion, but what would Margaret say?

Perkins plunged ahead vigorously: “What will you do; will you wait for Geoff to come and spoil it all?”

Before Franz could answer Margaret herself entered the room, accompanied by Mrs. Perkins. Instinctively they turned to her. Never had she looked so slight and fragile.

With an anxious throb of his heart Franz started toward her with outstretched hands. Perkins was no fool. He stepped into the hall, motioning his mother to follow. Then he shut the door, remarking: “I guess they would appreciate being by themselves,” and he winked with peculiar emphasis.

Left with Margaret, Franz arranged a chair for her. She watched his rather clumsy placing of wraps and pillows with an amused smile.

“You will make a baby of me, and I shall be a bother always,” she said. She was pathetically grateful for the slightest display of love or devotion.

“How do you feel, Margaret?” Franz asked.

Margaret reclined languidly in her seat. The excitement of getting down-stairs had passed and she felt tired and weak.

“Tell me about yourself, Franz,” she said. “I haven't seen you in days. To-night I insisted that they should let me dress, I wished to see you so much.”

“What did the doctor tell you, Margaret?”

“That I must go South, but”—hastily—“I can not do that—I can not leave you!”

“But, if it is for the best, dear?”

“Surely it can not be best for me to be cut off from my friends, when they are so few—” She spoke in a frightened voice, as if appalled at the idea. “I should simply die of loneliness.” She glanced up at him appealingly, her lips quivering. “You would not have me go, would you, Franz? I am such a coward. What would become of me, without you?”

“I shall go with you, Margaret, if I may,” he said softly. “It all rests with you, dear. The grief of your going, if you went alone, would be quite as hard for me to bear as for you.”

For a space she was silent, then her reserve gave way entirely.

“If I go, Franz, it must be with you. I can not leave myself open to my brother's persecutions—I can not endure them! The doctor said—but he told you, too?”

“Yes.”

“I wish to live”—clasping and unclasping her hands nervously. “I never before minded what happened to me, life is so hard—but your love has changed everything. I wish to live for your sake—not for mine.”

“Are you willing to trust yourself to me?” Franz gently interposed.

Margaret's head half rested on the chair-back, half upon his shoulder. Her eyes were closed and the hands he held within his own burned feverishly. At last she whispered:

“Take me with you. It is best we go together. I am sick—sick—and he is killing me. If you would have me, you must take me now....”

The next day as Philip was at work, Franz entered his room unannounced. Seeing who it was, Philip put down his pen, turning from the pile of manuscript over which he had been toiling.

“Are you busy, Philip?” Franz asked.

“Not very. Why?”

“Because I should like a moment's talk with you.”

Philip nodded.

“Just knock those books off a corner of the bed and sit down—dump them on the floor. What is it, old fellow?”

Franz, having complied with the suggestion, said: “You know that Margaret is ill?”

“I knew she had a cold. I hope it's not serious.”

“Her physician advises that she spend the remainder of the winter in the South. This she will do as soon as she recovers sufficiently.”

Again Philip nodded.

“It's very unexpected, isn't it? I should consider it risky.”

“She is not to go alone.”

“Oh, I presume Mrs. Perkins is to go with her?”

“It would not be paying much of a compliment to your intelligence if I thought to surprise you by saying that I love Margaret.”

“Precious little,” Philip admitted laconically.

“Well, I shall surprise you. We are to be married immediately. The situation is so grave as to permit of no delay. Her health and the probable reappearance of her brother make it necessary.”

“Bless mel I never figured on this.” Philip looked his amazement. “What will you do then, Franz?”

“When she is able to travel, I suppose it means Florida, or the Bermudas.”

Philip had risen and gathered himself together while making the circuit of the room.

“I declare, I didn't congratulate you, did I? To be sure, old fellow, the thought of losing you is not agreeable.”

“If you will, Philip, you can be of great service to me.”

“I was about to volunteer,” said Philip heartily, “but you swept me squarely off my feet.”

On the authority of Perkins—“It was a mighty jolly wedding.”

The ceremony was performed in Margaret's own room and during its progress she lay upon a lounge, looking as fair as the lilies-of-the-valley in her hands, which Perkins had given her, after liberally bedewing them with his tears dropped in sentimental secrecy.

The sun was sinking far across the white fields, and the gold of its dying flames stole in through the windows, lighting up the room, as Franz, standing at Margaret's side, gave her his name and the protection of his love.

Mrs. Perkins and Franz's mother wept profusely, and Perkins disgraced himself in his own estimation by sobbing aloud in stifled tones be vainly sought to suppress on peril of choking. He finally retreated to the hall, where he encountered Russell with a limp handkerchief—“making an ass of herself, too.”

A little later Philip drew the curtains in front of the windows to exclude the darkening sky and Perkins said, “When you get screwed up to it a wedding is really more festive than a funeral, though they seem to have much in common. Now I am in a measure familiar with the ordeal, I venture to predict this has been the most blissful day I shall ever know—when one of my dearest friends is married to another of my dearest friends.”

Here he had difficulty with his words.

“Doubtless you all think me a driveling idiot, but I feel like I don't know what—and I can't really help it.”

Everybody laughed at this and Philip shook hands with him, saying he was the finest fellow in the world, while Margaret bestowed upon him a generous share of her bouquet. The gift bore with it a grateful little speech that caused him to weep afresh.

It was very late, indeed, when they separated.

“I assure you,” Perkins informed Philip when they had reached the Perkins home, “I assure you, it has been the most satisfactory event in my life, and it's a source of stupendous joy for me to reflect that my dear cousin Geoff is destined to undergo a severe mental shock in consequence. I think I am entitled to all the comfort I can get.”

Philip smiled appreciatively.

“What a funny little fellow you are! Such a good chap, too,” he added.

“Well, I am glad she has Franz to look after her, and he will have the means to go on with his studies,” continued Perkins.

“He is fortunate,” Philip replied. “We so seldom get what we want—generally it's what we don't want that comes to us.”

Perkins looked at him curiously, his head well to one side and his chubby hands buried in the depths of his trousers pockets.

“I say—what's up? Aren't you happy?”

“I am blue, and not so decent as I should be. I am always and everlastingly thinking of myself. I am wretched—but you know what's wrong with me, so don't discuss it. I can't stand it.”

“As you prefer, Philip. Still, don't you believe it will be all right in the end?”

“It's not the future that troubles me. It's what may occur while I am flat on my back. I am fairly desperate!”

Perkins gazed at him sorrowfully. Philip added:

“I can't seem very generous to you when I flop into the dumps on no greater provocation than seeing those who are contented and at peace. My nature is not sweetened by adversity, it's being pickled in it.” He struck the floor savagely with the heel of his shoe. “I feel like running off from everything, and if I could include my miserable self among what I left behind, I'd not remain undecided.”

“I hope you won't go any place, Philip!” Perkins said in alarm. “What the dickens will become of me? It will be absolutely forsaken when Franz and Margaret go.”

“You will see all you want of me. I shall unquestionably stay for a time at least.”

“Why—have you been actually thinking of leaving?”

Philip smiled grimly.

“Don't distress yourself; you can safely depend on having all you desire of my cheerful company. And now if you'll help me into my overcoat, I'll start home.”

No sooner was Philip gone than Perkins took from his waistcoat pocket, where he had secreted them, the lilies-of-the-valley Margaret had given him. As he gazed at them a telltale moisture mounted to his eyes. He could only shake his head mournfully and deposit them again—not next his heart—but near an equally important organ and one he knew more of, even though he was in doubt as to its exact location.

Poor Perkins! He was learning that a disinterested love has its griefs. It's not unmitigated bliss to witness another's rapture.

XII

Time jogged forward. The year grew to its fullest age and died—the old giving birth to the new, and as the days went on Philip worked at his task, worked and struggled with what courage he could find.

He had at first seen Barbara quite often, but the frequency of their meetings gradually lessened. This, he knew, was the result of her father's interference.

Had his ears been open to the current gossip of the town, he might have been shocked by a rumor that even his mother forbore to tell him. He toiled away through the days, running his race with chance and fate, and when hope was once more beginning to burn within him, the blow fell. Spread out on the table before him was her letter. For the hundredth time he read it.

“You will hate me, but I told you how it would be. My father is determined that I marry Mr. Shelden. He is determined, and I have decided to do as he wishes. You will despise me, but I have tried to be hopeful and true to you—I have tried so hard, so very hard, Philip. I can only see that the future is doubtful and uncertain. Perhaps it is best as it is. If you achieve the success you deserve, I am unworthy to enjoy it with you. If you fail—you know I am not suited to poverty. I believe in your goodness, in your generosity, most firmly, as I have from the start, and I feel it will comfort you, when I say that the thought of marrying Mr. Shelden does not distress me in the least. I am not altogether unhappy that I am so soon to be his wife.”

Again and again Philip read it, until the words were jumbled together in meaningless confusion.

“No, she is not entirely unhappy—I can see that,” he thought. “What will she gain? A house on the best street; a man twice her age, and her father's blessing. Bah! It isn't much, though it counts for more than I.”

He turned and gazed out of the window. How many times he had done so when his day's work was finished and he was happy, tired, satisfied. He was looking on a different world—a world he had never viewed before. The coldness was only cold. There was no contrasting thought of warmth and cheer. It was bleak and lonely—only that!

He raised the letter to his lips suddenly and kissed it.

“I loved her!” he thought. “I still love her—and I hope she is happy.” He drew forward a sheet of note-paper, took up his pen, and dipping it in the ink, began to write an answer to her letter—his farewell to her and love, and the hope born and created of love.

When the letter was written, he put her letter—the last he should ever receive—with others of hers that he had kept.

“When she is his wife, I shall burn them,” he muttered. “Till then, I shall keep them here. It can do no harm.”

He marveled how he got through the days that followed. They came and found him, unable to write, wretched, but so composed his mother imagined his grief less than it was. But he was madly restless. There was no peace for him save in movement. Night after night he tramped the streets. Day after day, with a gun on his shoulder, he roamed the woods, about the town and by the river. The gun served for an excuse. It was never fired. In fact it was never even loaded.

He could not work—and work was usually his refuge in periods of distress. Now it was changed. He could only await the day she would marry Shelden.

“When it is over with it will be the same as if I had not loved her,” he assured himself.

One afternoon as he was going toward his home, he came on Geoffrey Ballard face to face. Not the splendid creature to whom he had been accustomed, but Geoff, the seedy and disreputable.

Geoff had just arrived. He had been wandering through back streets and alleyways for an hour or more, waiting until the darkness of evening should settle down that he might slink unobserved into his sister's presence and demand money sufficient to make himself presentable.

There was a moment of defiant silence on the part of the prodigal met by a contemptuous indifference from Philip. Then Geoff spoke:

“I am glad to see you, Mr. Southard.”

“Are you? Well, you don't look it.”

Geoff would have passed, but Philip detained him.

“Hold on! I have something to tell you.” Geoff came to a stand. “Have you heard from your sister during your absence? If you haven't there is a surprise in store for you. She has been dangerously ill and she is married to Becker. That was two or three weeks ago. They are preparing to go South, as soon as she is able to take the journey. Hold on!”—but Geoff moved rapidly away.

His sister married—and to the German! It put all other considerations out of his mind.

Perhaps Philip had lied. This was the meager hope with which he endeavored to sustain himself. He entered the house, and brushing past Russell, whom he encountered on the stairs, ran up to his sister's room. She was in bed and alone.

“Geoff!” she cried in alarm.

His face was purple with rage; he could not control his voice as he poured forth a volley of incoherent abuse, from which she shrank, frightened and shuddering.

“Is it so? Are you married?” He was a trifle calmer when he asked the question.

“Yes, Geoff.”

She answered steadily, but her cheeks were colorless. She feared him more than she even admitted to herself. Still it was well to have it over with. Franz was not by.... If he would only stay away until Geoff was through was her prayer.

“This is the advantage you took of my absence!”

“Oh, hush, Geoff,—” she implored. “He will hear you! It will be the same as it has always been—you have the claim on me you have always had—there is no change. I've only got a little happiness,—surely you don't begrudge me that!” Perhaps she appreciated the weakness of her plea, for she continued with dignity. “You forget yourself,—and what is due me—-”

As she spoke, Franz entered. He had caught the sound of Geoff's high-pitched voice in the room below.

“You don't seem to realize that your sister is ill,” he said coldly. For Margaret's sake he was prepared to endure much. “If you have any reproaches to make you must choose another occasion. She is not in condition to listen to you at present.”

The German's quiet demeanor sobered Geoff on the instant. “I have nothing to do with you,” he answered sullenly. “You have only done what any man would in your position, I suppose. It was an opportunity and you made the most of it. I am not blaming you, but”—turning hotly to the bed where Margaret lay—“I blame her for having no better sense than to do a thing like this without consulting me. It was my right, as her brother, to know!”

“But you were not here,” Margaret interposed. She was anxious to draw all the trouble that was brewing upon herself. Geoff's mood boded harm.

He paid no heed to her. He twirled a cane of flexible rattan he carried between thumb and forefinger, and glared at Becker. Stupidity, anger and partial drunkenness were in the glance.

“I say to you,” Franz began evenly and quietly, “I say to you that your sister is sick, and I insist upon your leaving the room.”

“I have nothing to do with you, Becker, though you did sneak into my place. For a fellow such as you it was a chance not apt to come again.” Franz flushed scarlet, but he managed to speak without perceptible emotion. “Whatever you may wish to tell your sister must be deferred. This is not the time.”

He deliberately pushed Geoff from the room, closing the door after them.

In the hall they confronted each other. Franz was sternly self-possessed. He would exercise all the tolerance at his command, at no matter what cost to his pride.

Within the room they had just quitted, Margaret lay breathless and listening, but when there penetrated to her ears the echo of Geoff's insulting speech, she arose with a dizzy aching head and with trembling fingers began to dress.

The two men were standing at the head of the stairs. Geoff was saying sneeringly: “For a fellow of your stamp you have done well. I can congratulate you even if I can't my sister.”

Franz was silent. He simply looked from underneath straight brows at his tormentor, biting his lips.

“You have done a fine thing for yourself. My sister's money will find more uses than ever. Of course, it was the main attraction.”

Still Franz was silent.

“Why don't you deny the truth of what I say?” Geoff insisted. “Why don't you tell me I lie, you fool?”

“If you speak to me like that again, I'll not be responsible for what I do,” said Franz evenly.

“I congratulate you—you have done a fine thing for yourself. It means ease and plenty.” He stretched out his hand mockingly.

Franz struck the extended hand roughly with his fist. “What you insinuate is a lie! You are a coward to get behind the advantage you have of me—a coward!”

Geoff dropped back a step. With his cane he hit Franz lightly at first, and then made as if to repeat the blow.

Forgetting everything but his hate for the man before him, Franz put out his hand to take Geoff by the throat. It was then the cane descended, striking him across the temples. Instantly foot and hand alike were stayed. He reeled as though he would fall,—putting up both hands to his eyes.

Geoff saw the door of his sister's room swing open, and turning with an oath from Franz, who stood swaying unsteadily, he ran down the stairs.

In the hall Franz lurched from side to side, his hands to his face. “Franz,” Margaret called, “Franz, dear! what did he do?”

With staggering uncertain steps he started toward her.

“Franz!” she called. “Dear Franz! what is it?”

He gave no answer. He only groped his way nearer, and she saw the cruel red welts just above his eyes. He had come almost to her, when he sank to his knees at her feet.

“Franz, dear!” she cried, “what is it? Are you hurt, my love? Are you hurt?”

She put her cool palm against his forehead, and kneeling beside him slipped an arm around his neck. She felt him tremble as though every nerve and muscle in his body were wrenched and torn.

As she clung to him a chill stole into her own heart. She, too, could only crouch and cower and shudder.

Finally he spoke in strange hushed accents. “Margaret, I can't see! It is all black—black as night in front of me!”

She pressed close in his arms, and with her little hand she chafed his brow where the red line burned and stung.

He stood erect once more and slowly turned about as if in quest of something.

“Margaret, how does the light come? Is it there?” He faced the wall—the window at his back.

She had moved with him, her glance fastened upon his eyes.

They were fixed in a stony glare.

“Where is the window?” he asked appealingly.

She was sobbing now.

“Margaret, I can't see—I am blind—blind!”

He felt her fall lax in his embrace. The sobs ceased abruptly.

She was unconscious.

XIII

Franz knew that Margaret must die.

She weakened visibly with the moments that had the single mission—to kill.

He knew but too well what passed before him in his darkened world. He knew that since his blindness, she had sunk through stupor to stupor, each to drag her farther and farther from him.

There were intervals—seconds that might have been ages, when she would sit erect and call his name, but there were no conscious periods.

She was sinking by slow degrees, and the blind man held a dark vigil.

In the still room the other watchers came and went noiselessly, with the question continually on their lips: “Is she better?”

During those long days, when it was neither life nor death, Philip came frequently to make his inquiries, to be confronted by the vision of Mrs. Perkins' tear-stained countenance or, what was worse—to encounter Perkins.

He would wander in their company aimlessly from room to room, or with them listen at her door, seeing in his fancy Franz sitting, a blind sentinel, counting the minutes that stole up out of the lap of time to bear her away.

It was the evening of the fourth day. The doctor had just left the sick chamber to be met at the foot of the stairs by the three anxious friends.

“What are the chances?” Philip asked.

He shook his head. Then addressing Philip: “It may be well for you to stay here to-night. She is failing rapidly.”

Philip looked at him stupidly.

Perkins seized the doctor by the shoulder almost savagely: “Why don't you save her?” he demanded. “Why don't you?”

“I am doing all I can. The cure should have commenced weeks ago. I said then what should be done.”

He pushed past them, glad of the opportunity to escape that their momentary panic afforded; but Philip followed him from the house, and as the doctor turned—a lighted match between his fingers, for he was arranging to make his walk home comfortable with a cigar, Philip said, “Do you mean she will die? Is there no hope?”

“None whatever.”

“How soon will it be?” Philip questioned with a stolid curiosity which was a source of astonishment to himself.

“In an hour or so, I think.”

Philip twice essayed to speak and failed. The doctor puffed reflectively at his cigar. He added: “She was never strong, and the shock of Becker's blindness will prove too much for her. She was in no condition to meet it.”

Philip mopped his brow. It was damp and clammy. Of a sudden he dripped at every pore. “What do you mean to do?” he asked.

“I'll drop in later. I would remain if it wasn't for an old party up on the edge of town who can't last. His folks have sent for me a dozen times to-day. He insists he won't die unless I come to help him off, and I guess the family's afraid he will stick to his word.” And the man of pills laughed softly at his modest little joke. “I am of no use here. All has been done that can be—only keep an eye on Becker. He doesn't take it right. He is too undemonstrative. Good night.”

And he strode up the street, leaving an odor of tobacco smoke in his wake.

Philip went into the house, shutting the door quietly behind him. It was all like a hideous nightmare, and he felt himself as unreal as all the rest. He found Perkins seated on the lowest step of the stairs. His face was buried in his hands.

“What else did he say?” Perkins asked, shifting his position, and looking up.

“It was merely a repetition of his former statement.”

“I wish it were I!” Perkins blurted out. “I wish it were! Why can't we do something for her—for him! You love her, too, don't you?”

“Yes, I love her; maybe not with your unselfish devotion, but I have your desire to be of service.”

Perkins shook his head. “It's all up,” he sobbed. “Think of it—Margaret dying!”

Philip regarded his friend pityingly, and took to pacing back and forth in front of him.

Imperceptibly he moderated his step until he no more than tiptoed up and down the hall.

Perkins, worn and wretched with four nights of sleeplessness, slumbered against the newel post, his hands idly folded in his lap, his hair roughened and disordered, his dress creased and crumpled, his whole attitude one of utter dejection.

The solitary gas-jet in the center of the hall burned feebly.

The light, stealing through the colored globe, imparted to Perkins' features a semblance of shrunken ghastliness. More than once Philip had a compelling impulse to turn it up, and had stepped to the chandelier to do so only to be resisted by an invisible force that possessed him, a chilling apathy that revolted at any change.

The least noise had a powerful fascination for him. The ticking of a clock—and numberless clocks appeared to be ticking with jarring clangor, some close by, some far off in the distance—or the footfall of an occasional belated wayfarer on the street without, would cause him to pause and listen breathlessly with a vague unexplainable fear. His sensations were so distressing that for the sake of personal contact he wedged in at Perkins' elbow on the steps. In spite of his care he aroused his companion, who stirred fretfully to ask sleepily: “What is it? Do they want me?”

“I wished to sit down. I didn't intend to disturb you.”

“Oh! that's all right.” And almost immediately Perkins was dozing as before.

In the room above, the watcher and watched kept their place.

Franz clasped her hands fast in both of his, as though through sheer physical strength he would keep her with him. As yet she had indicated by no sign that she understood what was going on about her. It was always the same tired tossing, but with greater weakness there slowly succeeded greater calm.

With a fixed rapt look Franz's gaze sought her face and never wavered; it preserved its direction as steadily from beneath his broad straight brows as though he really saw.

She turned restlessly for the thousandth time, and as he had a thousand times already, he whispered softly, “Margaret.”

Hitherto his words had fallen on deaf ears, now the head moved upon the pillow—the sweet wan face was raised to his.

“Margaret,” he said, “Margaret, do you hear me? My little wife! My little wife!” As he spoke her eyes opened.

The room was unlighted save for the night-lamp burning on the table, and peering at her in the gloom with those sunken sightless eyes of his, was her husband.

She remembered all. “Franz! Franz!” she cried, in a voice so faint as scarcely to be audible. “It was not a dream? I meant you should have so much,—say you forgive me!”

“You must not grieve, dear,” he said tenderly. “You must not think of me now.”

“It was all so beautiful until he came,” she said dreamily; “I have been so happy with you, dear, so happy.”

There was infinite regret and infinite tenderness in her all but inarticulate speech.

They were silent for a while, then Margaret said: “It is good-by we are saying, Franz. Who would imagine there would be so little to say?”

Franz bent over her, desolation in his soul.

“What was that?” she asked, her voice fainter than before.

“I thought it very quiet, dear,” he answered. “Perhaps it is the wind.”

“How many days ago was it?” she questioned.

“You mean when you were taken ill, dear? It was four days ago.”

“So many days ago as that? Where are the others?”

“They are here. My mother, Mrs. Perkins, Ballard and Philip. Would you like to see them, dear?”

“Only you, Franz. Take my love to them.”

Her voice had become the gentlest of murmurs, but the small white hand continued to stroke his face, though with a faltering movement. Then the soft caress stopped; a sigh escaped her; she appeared to slip from his grasp—to shrink within his arms.

“Margaret!” he said. “Margaret!” and his lips were ashen and tremulous.

He allowed her to fall limply to the pillow.

He waited a moment, then springing to his feet he started for the door. And as he groped his way, there burst from his quivering lips a great cry. “Margaret! Margaret!”

XIV

It was the second evening after Margaret's death, and the night of Barbara's marriage to Shelden.

To Philip the day had come, as all days must, where one exists for them alone, with no other interest in their passing than that they go swiftly. What was in store for him he wondered. Even supposing he eventually succeeded, it would be the bitter satire of success. What could fame or money give him!—he was robbed of every inspiration. At least he could turn to his work for forgetfulness. That was something, even if it yielded him no further recompense. He looked at his watch. “It must soon be over with. They must soon be married,” he thought, and slipping into his hat and coat started down-stairs. His mother heard him and came into the hall.

“Are you going out, Philip?” she asked.

“Yes, dear. I want to see Franz. I haven't been there to-day. I'll not be out late.”

“It's very cold.”

“I shall not care.”

She put up her lips to kiss him, then pressed her cheek to his. “I'm so sorry, Philip!” she whispered. It was the only expression of pity she had ventured.

“Don't, mother. I can't endure it. Not now—not yet.”

With a hasty good-by he hurried off.

Ten minutes later and he stood with Perkins before the door leading into the room where Margaret lay.

“Where is Franz?” Philip asked.

Perkins nodded toward the door. “We can't induce him to leave her,” he said.

“Why should you seek to? Poor fellow!”

They were silent, gazing at each other, a depth of sorrow in their glance. Finally Perkins said, with a show of control:

“Have you seen her, Philip?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I had decided to keep the memory I have of her unchanged. It is as I saw her when they were married. She was so happy, poor little thing!”

“There is more than happiness in her face now,” Perkins observed thoughtfully. “Do you believe in a hereafter?”

“What odds can it be? It's in the present our lot is cast.”

“Don't you like to think you are destined to meet those you love again?”

Philip placed his hand irresolutely upon the knob.

“I shall go in. Perhaps I shall be able to determine what I do believe.”

As he entered the room, a rush of cold air met him, for the windows were partially raised—the outer shutters only being closed. The dim light filled the apartment with shadowy indistinctness.

Slowly and overpoweringly objects became plain in the somberness of his surroundings.

Margaret lay upon a couch in the center of the room. She might have been asleep.

At her side sat Franz, regardless of the stinging gusts of wind that came in between the shutters.

Philip stepped to the couch and looked down upon the beautiful face, then he moved back quietly, and would have quitted the room, but Franz detained him by saying: “Is it you, Perkins?”

“It is I,” Philip answered.

Franz arose instantly, putting out his hand, and Philip clasped it eagerly.

Without the wind sighed drearily. The sound was depressing.

The naked branches of a tree growing in a corner of the yard lashed the house incessantly. The single lamp burned with a flickering flame.

“What is it?” Franz questioned, for twice Philip had essayed to speak.

“I am so sorry, Franz. So sorry,” he cried in broken tones.

“I know you are,” Franz answered simply.

“There is this that I want to tell you, Franz, if I may,” Philip continued.

“Yes?”

“Barbara is to be married to-night.” He came to an abrupt stop. “I have determined to go East,” he went on presently. “It will mean greater opportunity. A garbled version of that affair of Anson's has got abroad and my mother is equally anxious to break up here. What I wished to ask you is, won't you join me, dear old fellow?”

“And allow my blindness to be your affliction?”

“You are more to me than I can express. First my mother—then you, and after you—Perkins.”

Franz swept his hand across his forehead.

“Wait! How can I think of the future? My very world is ended! Wait.”

Philip stole out of the room and from the house. It was snowing heavily. The ground was already covered. It had been bare at supper-time. He kept on up the street until he was opposite the Gerards.

The house was brilliantly lighted, but the wedding party was still absent at the church. He must see her once more!

So he waited in the cold, half hidden by the falling snow that clung to him and that drifted about the quiet and empty streets.

Yes, Franz should live with him and his mother. Comfort was possible with favoring circumstances where happiness was not.

Presently, disturbing his reverie, the dull rumble of wheels was audible, muffled and deadened by the fall of snow.

The carriages rolled into view.

He saw the many figures moving about, as the guests streamed into the house, and straining his eyes he saw Barbara. She stood in the open door, and as she turned to answer some one who had spoken on the walk—her voice reached him, gay and bright.

The guests had disappeared, yet he waited. He would wait until she entered her carriage to be driven to the station. It could not be very long, and then he, too, would forget.

Suddenly the doors swung back. He saw her, attended by her friends, clinging to her husband's arm, and then—she was whirled away and it was over.

Turning he went directly home and to his room, and took from the drawer the bundle of letters. One by one he burned them—and as the last letter left his hand, far off in the distance pealed the shrill shriek of the whistle that announced the approach of the train.

The sound drew him to the window. He opened it and leaned upon the ledge.

He heard the shrill whistle once again, the creaking of the wheels upon the frosted rails, the ringing of a bell—and she was gone! gone!

A desperate sense of wrong and injury—of pain and grief swept over him.

He turned from the white night and threw himself upon the bed,—abject, lonely, miserable! If he could only die—if he only could! but it was the sickness not of death, but of life, that was on him.

For a time he was unable to think or to throw off the stupor possessing him.

His mother came into the room, but he did not look up.

She closed the window, saying: “Philip, if you intend to lie there, you must be wrapped up, or you will take cold.”

He did not speak, and she added: “It's late. It's almost midnight. Won't you go to bed?”

He shook his head.

“My poor boy! my poor boy!—I am so sorry!”

“The worst is over with,” he said.

“Can't I help you? It hurts me to see you so. I wish——”

“Please go. You can't help me—nothing can. Please go!” His voice was full of entreaty.

“How could she treat you so, Philip!”

“It wasn't her fault. It was mine. I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust her. I was a coward! She would have taken any risk had I asked it of her, but I was afraid, and this is my punishment.”

“Won't you let me spread a blanket over you?”

“No, no. I'll get up in a few moments.” He lifted his white drawn face to hers: “Please go, mother. Please go. I—I—can't talk about it.” Reluctantly his mother left him to his solitude. For a while he rested motionless on the bed, then he came to his feet and went to the table, taking his seat beside it, his elbows propped upon its blotted and discolored top. He pictured his altered life. There remained to him one solace if he willed it. He could cheat time by work, and so, perhaps, win fame to fill the place of love, and for the rest—the world could go hang!

So he pictured his future, a future vastly less successful than the reality was destined to be, and when he had built his new ideal—buttressed it with hope and courage—he picked up his pen, cleared it of the black rust that had gathered on its point, and commenced to write—to finish the work he had abandoned when the blow fell.

All through the night and into the dawn, to and fro across the long pages, with a cheerful little murmur of approval, the pen scratched and labored.

THE END