CHAPTER XIII.

THE first shock of Glenn Andrews’ absence was a bitter trial to Esther,

who grieved unreasoningly. His going seemed like the end of the world.

It was over, those rare, dear days of smiles and tears, of trifling

quarrels and sweet reconciliations. She wondered how she had ever

thought the sky was so blue, the grass so green.

Through all of her desolation, however, ran the thought that he wished

nothing so much as for her to advance in her art.

Would she let the first rock block her way? Youth can forget its grief.

She was so unconsciously true to him, that before she scarcely realized

it, she was back at work, harder than ever. She began teaching the

kind old German musician English to pay for her instructions.

Heart, brain and soul she gave to her art, not all for its sake nor

hers, but for the man that was the world’s best type to her.

The devotion with which she had worshipped him was for the time

transferred to the violin that became the absorbing and crowning

ambition of her life.

Glenn had been gone nearly a year. The summer, instead of bringing him,

brought a disappointment.

He wrote her:

“Fate or Providence has put in its oar to the exclusion of my own

interesting plans. I didn’t dare really hope that I should see you

this summer, even while I planned the trip. Providence would never

be so kind as that. I am ordered to Athens to do some special work

for our magazine. They have been unearthing some more wonderful

curiosities there. This is the last note I write before going abroad,

for I sail early to-morrow morning. How much easier it is to learn

things than to unlearn them. I used to think differently at college.

Very many times, more than I will admit to myself, I have closed my

eyes and tried to imagine that I should open them upon yours, gazing

disapprovingly at my ‘steenth’ cocktail. Many times I have been glad

when I opened them that it was not so--at others I have been a little

sorry. There is a deliciousness about your not being with me which is

quite a new sensation. I shall never again pity the old Flagellants.

I know now that there was a certain ecstasy of pleasure for them

which we have taken too little account of. There is a pleasure in

not writing to you, too; I am writing now because I know if I don’t

I shall not hear again from you, and I confess that I don’t want my

flagellation to take that shape. You were growing when I left you.

Have you stopped? Don’t stop thinking--don’t stop striving--don’t stop

hoping. You have no lack of imagination, inspiration, but you need

the cold, cruel leaven of fact. Your symphony needs less harp and

more violin. The Jews are clinging to their old ideals. The Gentiles

crucified it, and have a living gospel. Let them die if they won’t

live without nursing. You don’t want them. (I mean the ideals--not the

Jews this time--metaphors always proved too much for me.) And finally

don’t preach to others as I am doing to you. It’s a bad habit and

never does any good. But remember that there are a few misguided and

dreamy creatures who think you may do something one of these days if

you ever get your eyes rubbed open wide enough.

“GLENN ANDREWS”

For the next year his habitual haunts would know him no more. He would

combine with his trip a while in Paris. Casting aside all obligation

he entered into the spirit of the life about him. Paris, with all its

dangers, all its charms, the extraordinary influence of that congenial

life, touched him with a glowing heat of inspiration. He revelled in

his hopes--in his dreams. Here he would write something worthy of him.

His nature was rich in the vivid impressions, intense feelings and fine

thoughts which make life full of real meaning and significance. Here he

saw many sides of it--much of it was meaningless and distasteful, and

repelled all of his finer senses, but “it is in experience that one

sees all that is most vile and all that is most beautiful.” This was an

excellent opportunity. All the while he was maturing--beginning to have

a more tolerant knowledge of his fellow man. His heart was kindlier--the

weight of his judgment lighter.

Half the world away, Esther was sorrowing for him--the memory of the

disappointment he had caused touched deep fibres in her that ached

and ached and ached. Besides this, she could see her old grandfather

growing feebler with the setting of every sun. His small stock of

vitality was slipping away.

He knew that the stalk was withered, and soon must fall, yet he tried

to face the truth in smiling silence. Sometimes--when he thought of the

hands that had so longed to have control of his child--the anguish in

him overflowed. They would soon have her in their grasp.

THE GIRL.

CHAPTER I.

MR. CAMPBELL did not live through the winter.

Esther was left to the care of his nephew, living in a remote part of

the valley.

One morning, when she had rocked one of the children to sleep, she

sat with it in her arms, gazing out on the gloomy day with sad, set

eyes. For the time being she lost all memory of the scene about her.

The laughter of the children, the woman leaning over the bed, cutting

small garments out of coarse cloth. She began to remember all that her

grandfather had meant to her. She recalled his tenderness, the strong

fortress of his great love built between the world and her. It had

crumbled so slowly that she didn’t comprehend that it could ever wear

quite away, until it had crumbled to the ground. True he was dead, but

he had made a defense for her even beyond the gulf. Though stinted in

many things, he had always held to his life insurance. The farm was

worn out--the house old--it would bring little, but the two together

would help her to maintain her independence until she could master

her art. He did not know the years or the money that it required--he

only felt that through the medium of her art she might hold some of

the dignity of position to which she was entitled by right of birth.

Knowing this, Esther yearned with her heart and soul to go forward.

His lofty, beautiful character shone out before her mind without a

flaw. The thought of again taking up the task alone was sweetened and

ennobled by that memory.

The woman glanced at Esther as she laid aside one pattern, put

the pins in her mouth until she could place another. She was a

saffron-faced, stoop-shouldered woman--one who prided herself on

the drudgery she could do, who welcomed, rather than flinched from

hardships.

“What are you studyin’ about now?”

Esther shuddered as she recalled the present.

“You ain’t thinking about startin’ up that fiddlin’ again, are you?”

the other stopped short to ask. A shadow crossed the girl’s face.

“Jenny told me you had got it into your head to take lessons again from

that old Dutchman at the college.”

“I have been thinking about it,” Esther answered calmly.

“Goodness knows I wouldn’t! I always thought the fiddle warn’t for

anybody but men and niggers.” Her high-pitched voice was piercing.

“Georgy got a juice harp somewhere, and I took it away from him and

burnt the fetched thing up. I have always heard: ‘Let your children

learn music if you want ’em to be no ’count.’” She stopped to get

her breath. “Your cousin John thinks it’s an outrage--the idea of

your taking lessons again. He knows nothing t’all about the man--but

foreigners are a bad lot.”

“Did cousin John tell you that he opposed the idea?” Esther interrupted

her to ask.

“He didn’t seem to take to it, any more than your trapsin’ over the

woods by your lone self.”

“Did he tell you he thought that was wrong?”

“Well, not in so many words, but I can tell when a thing goes against

the grain with him. He don’t like to hurt you. I tell him he thinks

more of your feelings than your character. I just took it upon myself

to tell you for your own good.”

The woman’s speech was harsh and to the point. She continued abruptly:

“You might do your own washin’ and ironin’ too, instead of hirin’ it

all the time. You couldn’t do up a pocket-handkerchief.”

Esther got up, and laid the baby in the crib; her arms ached so.

“If you knew how to do anything you might help me with all this

sewin’.” She laid one knotty hand on a heap of it piled beside her.

“I don’t know how, but I will hire that part of it done, which you

think I should do,” she said gently, looking straight at the woman.

“When cousin John wouldn’t take any money for my board, I asked him to

let me work for the worth of it. I didn’t ask him to make it easy for

me. He has a big family. I wanted to earn my way.”

“He does think you try to earn it,” she admitted generously, “but I

think it’s mighty easy for you myself. You ought to be very thankful.

Look at the time you have--the whole blessed evenin’. You have

nothin’ but to help Jenny with the children, and the cookin’ and the

milkin’--what’s three cows to milk? I have seen the day, before the

family was so big, when I could do all the work on the place and not

half try.”

Esther made a brave effort to control the strong spirit within her.

From the start the other had persisted in misinterpreting her emotions,

misunderstanding her ambitions. She kept guard of herself, for this was

her cousin’s wife.

“When do you get the mail out here?” Esther tried to change the subject.

“When do we get the mail?” she repeated with intense disgust.

“Every time we send to mill, that’s four or five times a year too

often, to get those papers that John will take; readin’ those vile

things is the ruination of the country. I keep ’em from the children

the same as if they were scorpions. As for letters, we don’t get many.

Most people we care about live closer to us than the post office. You

lookin’ for any?”

“I’d like to get one.”

“From that college man? I reckon he’s forgot you are in existence.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Esther said, with an indifferent show of pride.

“He was curious looking to me; the way he wore his hair was abominable.”

“He’s my friend. I’d rather not talk of him.”

“That’s no reason he’s too good to be talked about.”

“As you please.” Reaching for her hat Esther started toward the door.

“You’d better let ’lone fightin’ for him and learn some common sense.

You’d never get married if men knew how little account you was. When

I was your age I’d been married three years,” she said, proudly. “If

you don’t want to be an old maid you’d better settle down and marry.”

Esther closed the door as she uttered the last word.

“Marry? What? A plowboy, a pedler, or a washing machine agent?” That

would have been her cousin’s wife’s idea.

She wondered as she said this to herself what had become of all those

people we hear of who “married and lived happily ever afterward.” A sob

caught in her throat, and she almost ran until she was out of sight

and sound of the woman’s voice.

Esther Powel at eighteen, and in her young, fresh beauty--this was the

offering she would immolate on the altar of her limitations.

CHAPTER II.

INSTEAD of resorting to the woods, her old friend, Esther made her way

down to the plum thicket. The honey bees were humming to the heart of

the blossoms.

Throwing herself full length upon the ground, she lay in a white drift

of them. An hour or more was given to heartrending sobs of utter grief

and abandonment of everything in the whole world.

The pathos of her starved, unsympathetic existence, living in isolation

among people as heavy as wet clay. All the sentiment, thought, passion,

of her being had no outlet--none of the cravings of her youth had been

satisfied.

Between her and Glenn Andrews the silence had been unbroken for almost

a year.

As she lay there looking up, with her arms folded under her head,

her heart almost bursting with a sense of her own helplessness, she

pictured herself accepting the knowledge that she would never see

him again. All the unhealthy fancies born of loneliness and sorrow

possessed her. The day was gray. The steel rim of the sky seemed to fit

the woods. She watched it with a stifling sensation. It looked as if it

would soon bend the trees double and close in, shutting down upon the

narrow space in which she lived.

She remembered to have seen her grandfather turn an old, worn pan of

granite down upon his early tomato slips. He did this to keep out

the light, until they could get strength enough to stand the hardier

growth--he did it to force them. The consistence of nature’s laws she

did not understand.

She only knew that to-day for her was very lonely, narrow and dark,

and to-morrow would be another to-day when it came.

She went back to the house with a dull expression of hopelessness in

her eyes.

CHAPTER III.

SO the days passed--the cold, wretched days. Esther was sewing

diligently, making both sleeves for one arm, blundering on everything

she undertook, until it exhausted her teacher’s patience. For some time

she was less a help than a hindrance--yet she was sewing.

One evening she dropped her work and went out to meet her cousin John.

She often met him when he came home. This time she was unusually

anxious. He had been to mill.

“Well, you are back; we’ve missed you,” she said.

Mixed with her love for him was a big proportion of pity. He had such a

hard, stupid kind of life and had never been appreciated.

“Hello, youngster!” he greeted her, with his stout, strident voice.

“What’ll you give me for a letter--a two-pounder?”

“It depends on where it’s from.”

“Paris, France.”

“No? Really?”

Holding a package just above her head, he read: “Mademoiselle Esther

Powel, Etats Unis d’Amerique. He’s sending back all your old letters.

This looks as if it might hold a dozen or two.”

“They are not mine,” she cried, as, laughing, she leaped and snatched

it from his hand.

“Glenn Andrews,” she repeated, breathlessly, holding the writing before

her eyes. Without a word she stole away, to read it alone. He loved

her, this cousin of hers, this practical, unimaginative man, but he

had never understood her. Her ideas were not his ideas, nor her hopes

his hopes, but he was proud of her in an uncomprehending manner and he

smiled at her aspirations as at his boy baby’s ambition to drive the

mules. A thrill crept down to her heart. It was a book exquisitely

bound, bearing Glenn Andrew’s name. She fondled its pages, ran her hand

lovingly over their smooth surface. The book opened to a folded paper,

on which were some notes jotted down for the violin, an accompaniment

to a song that he had written.

Turning the leaves, she came to a card; a line on the back of it read:

“You can learn this. Let me hear at New York address after April.” It

was dropped by a poem, “My Little Love of Long Ago.”

This girl, gifted with all the subtlety of rare natures, understood.

Her face quivered with tenderness as she gazed at it. The world was

full of light--somebody in it took an interest in her. This had fallen

like some faint, soft fragrance in her life. Between laughter and tears

she read the poem:

“My little love of long ago,

(How swiftly fly the tired years!)

She told me solemnly and low

Of all her hopes and all her fears.

She feared the dangers of the way,

The striving and the work-a-day

That waited far across the sea--

The loneliness of missing me.

She never doubted me--ah, no!

My little love of long ago.

“For she had faith in everything,

(How swiftly fly the tired hours!)

A heart that could not help but sing,

And blossomed out amid the flowers.

My loving was its best refrain,

My leaving was its saddest rain.

She sobbed it all upon my knee--

The loneliness of missing me.

I kissed and comforted her so--

My little love of long ago.

“My little love of long ago,

(How swiftly fly the tired days!)

Such little feet to stumble slow

Along the darkest of life’s ways,

While time and distance and the sea,

Or my poor, careless heart, maybe,

Could not have told from spring to spring,

Why we so long went wandering!

Saddest of all is not to know!

My little love of long ago.”

Esther was radiant with joy. She sped over the ground like a wild young

deer, running to the house for her long-forsaken violin. She carried

it to the back of the orchard. She propped the music up in the low fork

of an apple tree, and wrestled with the opening bars. It was written in

a minor key and was the most difficult accompaniment she had ever seen.

Over and over again she tried to bring out the plaintive harmony that

was there. She had to give it up at last--it was beyond her reach--it

challenged her. This caused her flickering ambition to flash up anew.

A new resolve glowed in her eyes. To be thwarted in a thing was

touching upon an acutely sensitive nerve. She would not rest until she

had beaten down every obstacle between her and her hope of attainment.

She would free herself of these maddeningly narrow surroundings.

Glenn Andrews immediately answered her letter, found upon his arrival

in New York. He said:

“You have lived among the flowers, had great grief, and now the

flowers do not console you. And yet, if you only knew it, nature

is a thousand times better at consolation than human beings. I long

ago gave up looking for consolation from people--I can get it from

flowers. Maybe it is because I don’t live among them. In lieu of

flowers, I take work, and the grind I go through takes the edge off

griefs, joys and ambitions. It reduces one to the dead level of

passiveness, which is not ecstatic, but which does not hurt. So I

might say to you: ‘If the flowers do not console you, try work’--but,

doubtless, you have been working. I know that you are capable of it.

Perhaps time has worn off the brunt of your sorrow and you are feeling

the after pain of loneliness--which is even worse to bear, because

less vivid and more constant.

“You ought to do something some day with your art. If you only know

it, you are not unfortunately situated as regards your future. Try

and look at it that way. Lift up your head and throw your shoulders

back. Go and look in the looking-glass and make a face at yourself,

and remember you are not an editor, that your nose is not on the

grind-stone and that you have, after all, something to thank God for.”

Esther had been faithful to the impulse of that day. She slaved with

a resolution painful to see. In that year she had changed, developed

greatly. The kindly old professor regarded her with pride as he sat

listening to her, after she had conquered the music Glenn Andrews had

sent to her. There was a sweep of magnificence in it.

At the last of the year there came a change. The old professor was

leaving for a broader field. He encouraged her to make an effort for

the highest mark; her next step, in his opinion, should be New York.

Of course, it would take self-sacrifice, he told her; “but what is

sacrifice when one is at the center of the world?”

New York, which she had feared, and which had always seemed to her so

great and so far. New York that now stood for all the hope in her

life. After the professor had gone she began turning his advice over

in her mind. She could go no further here. She might there. But the

struggle to keep up the pace in New York while she was doing it, would

probably throttle all the ambition and freshness she had as capital to

begin with. She thought of people she loved who had gone. She could not

turn out ill after all their care. She might accomplish something in

spite of the difficulties. Lots of people had. Her impulse was to dare

until, under the heat of its spell, she wrote a line to Glenn Andrews.

“What do you think of New York for me?”

CHAPTER IV.

“WHAT do I think of New York for you?” Glenn Andrews replied, “frankly

I don’t know. You forget that the one thing necessary to answer your

question is the one thing I don’t possess. That is to say, I don’t

know you as time has made you. What I would have said years ago to the

slip of a girl, I cannot say to the growing woman. You and your art

are the deciding quantities. Have you bodily strength, or only nerve

fibre? Have you real genius, or only mediocrity? Genius, which lives

by self-understanding, can forgive this blunt questioning. New York

takes strength. It is a great monster which grips you by the throat and

shakes you as a dog does a squirrel. The process shakes the life out

of its body and leaves it broken and dead, or else it twists its neck,

bites strong and deep, and is allowed to go. You must draw blood to

make the monster of city life quit--the rich, warm blood of enthusiasm

and applause. And I doubt whether your teeth are strong enough.

“Success means hard work--long, bitter days and nights of it--drab

days of monotony, black nights of disappointment. It means toil and

tears. This is a maelstrom, and only the biggest branches float on the

surface. The little twigs are sucked down. And it is a place of giant

timber. The oak from the country hillside is only a scrub here. You

must remember this. The bigness of it all makes for heartlessness. When

one meets a beggar on every corner, one soon ceases to feel sorry; and

where failures are so common, there is seldom a helping hand or even a

sigh of sympathy. Only the warmest fire can go on burning brightly with

the ice falling so thick around it.

“So much for you yourself, and your own view of yourself. As to your

ability, I mean. Your circumstances I do not know. New York takes

money. In comparison with your own home, it takes a great deal. To

succeed in it requires time--years; and unless you can afford to stay it

through, you would better save yourself the discouragement of failure,

for there is no bitterer failure than that which we feel to be purely

circumstantial.

“I pass over the question of the evil of New York. Evil comes from

inside of us--it is not absorbed. If we are pure, it does not touch us;

it goes by. I believe it would go by you. There are no temptations in

New York any more than there are at home, for those who do not want to

be tempted. You are, no doubt, a far better judge of this matter than

your minister--I am heterodox enough for that.

“There is another side. No one knows genius so well as itself. If you

have it, New York is the place for you. The greater the body, the

greater the attraction for the great centre. I would not counsel you

to disregard its force, for I believe only true motives move you. And

if you know yourself and believe in yourself, you will find a way to

beat down other difficulties. There are ways of living in New York

cheaply. You might essay the purgatorial round of music lessons; your

violin might earn its own halo--who knows?

“I take it you would come alone. There are places where young women,

unattended, are made welcome and cared for; and there are places where

earnest workers congregate where there are ordinary comforts at low

rates--these, if you should decide to try the venture, you must let me

tell you of. I should be glad indeed if what knowledge I have of the

city might be of some service to you.

“In closing this letter, I feel that, after all, I have told you

nothing. You have, no doubt, considered the question in all its

bearings. Such a step is a serious one--far too much so for me to

intrude upon it. Be true to yourself--to your ideas, your judgment,

and your reason. If you do this, you will be true to your art. Do not

hesitate to write me if I can help you, but you must not ask me to

advise you as to coming. ‘What do I think of New York for you?’ I don’t

know!

“Glenn Andrews.”

CHAPTER V.

HERE was a man who had lost the romance of life. Not a shred of

sentiment was left.

Richmond Briarley strode about his den, pulling his smoking jacket from

a pair of vicious-looking antlers above the door, his slippers from the

wings of Cupid poised above the glorious Psyche.

There was a princely abandon in the luxurious den he called “home.”

Looking about it, one would conceive him to be a man quite beyond

the ordinary--if the trophies, pictures, statuary, bespoke his

individuality.

“Don’t wait for me, Andrews, go ahead,” he called out from an alcove.

If his heart was not open to his friends, his finest wines were, and

the one is often mistaken for the other.

Richmond Briarley had ample, irregular features, hair and eyes the

blackest black, and an olive gray complexion. There was something

stoic in the closing of his lips, set around with circular wrinkles,

revealing the traits peculiar to his type. He hadn’t the least regard

for the past, nor fault to find with the future.

Coming out, he poured a glass of wine and drank with Glenn Andrews.

“Have a smoke,” glancing towards a tabourette, strewn with pipes, some

of them disreputable enough to the eye.

“Take any of them, you won’t be smoking any old, dry, dead

memories--these are all ‘bought’ ones.”

“I’ll help myself. I was just reading my mail. The boy handed it to me

as I was leaving the office.”

Folding a sheet of paper on which was written only a name and address,

he took up one of the pipes and began filling it.

So Esther Powel was in town. It was a daring entrance upon life for

this little hard-headed, soft-hearted Southerner. He looked thoughtful;

the soberness of his youth, rather than the labor of his manhood, had

lightly marked his face. A sudden apprehension seized him for the pure,

sweet life he knew so well. It was almost as much as her life was worth

to come here so pretty and so friendless. She needed protection.

This thought took possession of his mind to the exclusion of all else.

In the old days he had been the only one who could bend her wayward

will. Her faith in him was the blind unquestioning faith of a child.

Her own feeling for him she did not reason with. She accepted it as a

fact which was beyond her analysis. Under its spell she had grown and

flourished against great odds. Why should she not continue to do so?

“Briarley,” Glenn went on, filling his pipe, and packing it down with

his thumb. “Suppose you knew a girl who was coming here alone, to study

art, what would you consider the very best way to shield her?”

“By keeping away from her.”

“But, suppose she needed some one to look to--suppose she were young and

knew no one. City life is a fiercely hardening process, you know.”

“I’d get some woman friend to show her all there was to see, and that

might cure her. So-called sin charms because it’s unknown.”

“Don’t you think a girl’s love, if not unappreciated, is a shield and

an inspiration?”

Briarley shook his head.

“Oh! of course, I forgot. You don’t believe in love.”

“I do, as much as I believe in any other hell.”

Andrews was silent.

“Have your fun out, then we’ll be serious.”

Their views were directly opposite, yet the enthusiasm of each made

ground for respect, if not agreement.

“While you now admit such a phantasy, Andrews, you get the credit of

living by the head. It is generally understood that you never let

scruples of the heart stand in the way.”

“I am not a woman; besides, it is a matter of self-denial, and not

unbelief. My love is my profession--long ago I made my choice between

woman and art--if I had chosen woman that love would have ruled my life.

I have given over much for my work; it has demanded sacrifice. I am

just now beginning to prove myself equal to its despotic sovereignty.

Briarley, unless you have tried for one thing all your life, you can’t

conceive how bewildering and sweet a burst of it is for the first time.

Under no conditions whatever would I sacrifice my best aims, my highest

ambitions. It is better to be than to have. That’s my philosophy.”

“Go on. Every man has the right to work out his own destiny.”

Briarley filled his glass again. “The way he can get the most

satisfaction is the way he generally chooses.”

“Satisfaction hurts the soul. There is nothing worse than satiety of

the senses. I would never let myself become thoroughly satisfied.”

“You couldn’t ask for more than the success of that last book. The

critics rendered you distinguished services,” said Briarley. “I

understand the sale was enormous.”

“It has sold very well, but that only forces me to wrestle the harder

to keep up the standard of that reputation. If I cared for a woman, my

heart and soul could be loyal to her, but my time and vitality belong

entirely to my art. ‘Women are born to live and love. They only really

live after they love.’”

Andrews went on as though the other had endorsed his doctrine. “Love

is an uplifting force to genius. A man would be doing a chivalrous act

to win and hold the devotion of a girl in such an instance as I have

cited.”

“It would be a risk.”

“Yes, but in my judgment the advantage is much greater than the risk.”

“It would be a responsibility.”

“I like responsibility; it braces a man to bear it.”

“Well, the fellow who carries out your mad project will settle for his

folly.”

“If he did, I’d stand by him in it.”

“He couldn’t stand by himself. There’d be the trouble--he’d fall.”

Glenn Andrews knocked the ashes from his pipe and got up, straightening

his shoulders and smoothing his hair with his hands. His mind was made

up. He did not expect to fall.

Knowing himself to be his own master, he felt that to lend himself to

anything that would hurt her ideal of him would be impossible.

“Where now?”

“To find somebody looking for trouble,” Glenn said, with a smile.

“Don’t forget the Sunday night concert, Andrews. I’m counting on you.

Here are half the box tickets. Do what you please with them.”

“I shall be there. Thank you.”

CHAPTER VI.

GLENN ANDREWS walked down the street, which had been written on the

sheet of paper in his pocket.

“No. 23.” He looked up and saw that No. 23 was a hospital. There must

be some mistake. No, that was plainly what it said.

He stood looking at the door in an anxious manner.

“Could she be here--ill?”

He had drawn a charming picture of her, a radiant specimen of perfect

health. His pulse quickened. The curtains parted and a girl appeared

at the window. Her eyes were dim, her face ghastly--the look on it was

neither pain nor age--it was a look of hopelessness. The rich, gleaming

hair made a glory about her head, as the light caught its golden sheen.

That was like her hair. A moment she stood there, looking down the

street, then dropped the curtain. He saw her turn and go sorrowfully

upstairs.

The light from the hall chandelier was very brilliant--his face cleared.

A better look satisfied him it was not Esther Powel.

He pondered a minute, then started down the street again. She had

evidently given him the wrong number.

At the corner he stopped a policeman. “I am looking for a boarding

house on this street--No. 23, West.”

“Maybe it’s the next street; that same number is a boarding house. All

in this block are private houses except the hospital.”

Glenn thanked him and went on quickly. She’d made a mistake in the

street maybe. It would soon be too late to call. He did not need to

inquire again, for as he turned the corner he could see Esther Powel on

the steps, looking out upon the square ablaze with light and confusion.

“It is Mr. Glenn.” With the words she sprang three steps at a time to

the pavement. “How glad I am!”

And then she stopped, remembered, and held out her hands.

“How you frightened me. You had me going to the hospital to find you.

That’s the same number on the next street.”

“Well, how do you expect me to get things right when I feel like I’m

flying every way and can’t get myself together to light?”

Glenn always found her startling figures amusing. “You will feel that

for awhile.” He hadn’t taken his eyes away from her as she led the way

into the parlor. “You are stunned by the novelties. You will also be

quickened by them.”

Esther, full-breasted, slender-limbed, rounded. The joy of life was

upon her--the loveliness of full bloom.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said, “but why didn’t you let me help

you get settled?”

“It took enough of your time to write that discouraging letter.”

“You know I didn’t mean it for that. I would do most anything to

further your art. But it is best to do only that for what we are

intended. Nobody could know that as well as yourself. I believed your

decision would be right, whatever it was,” he told her. “Are you

pleased with your advancement so far?”

“Not pleased--buoyed. I hope to do something some day.” As she raised

her eyes to him they expressed something of the wild, delicate,

throbbing pride. “I did not come to fail.”

“I believe that, from the good reports I have heard through our old

friend, your professor.”

“He was very nice to me; it was through him that I knew about the

Frenchman who will instruct me here.”

“So you’ve arranged all that, too.”

“Oh, yes; I begin my lessons next Monday.”

“Smart girl. How are you situated here; are you comfortable?”

“Comfortable!” she laughed. “I have to come downstairs to draw a good

breath. They stow me away in a sort of a garret on the fourth floor. As

Cousin John would say, there isn’t room to ‘cuss’ a cat without turning

sideways.”

“I believe your Southern men are more given to profanity than

Northerners,” he said.

“Oh, but his is so whole-souled that it is only ‘profunity.’”

“Oh, dear; don’t think that I’m opposed to it,” Glenn interrupted. “I

sometimes find relief in a good, wholesome--”

Esther held up a warning forefinger.

“Then you may do mine for me. I shall need it if I stay here long

enough.”

“Boarding house life is a miserable parody on home, I know. But we can

stand most anything for a while if the incentive is great enough.”

“All these looking-glasses keep me tangled. I seem to be going towards

myself, from myself, beside myself, but I have been fortunate a part

of the time. Two young men on the train gave me addresses of nice

places to board when they found that I was alone and a stranger to the

city.”

Instinctively Glenn frowned. “Have you got them?”

“I saved them to show you.” Taking them from her purse, she handed him

the cards.

“You don’t want them,” he said, crushing the cards in his hand.

“Did they ask permission to call?”

“One did. He wanted to come with me from the station. I didn’t care to

be bothered when I was thinking of seeing you. My! how I dreaded to

see you, though I believe if I hadn’t very soon I’d have started back

South,” she said in her effusive way. “I was afraid the change I’d find

in you would be disappointing.”

“Was it?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, because it is for the better. I didn’t want to care as I used to

in the old days.” She was still childish enough to be honest.

“Why, did you find me unworthy?”

“I suppose you were worthy enough, but I have learned it is not well

to let one’s affection wrap their tendrils too close about another; it

hurts so when they are snapped.”

“There is no reason for them to be snapped,” he argued. “The joy of

clinging should make them strong enough to wrap and unwrap, leaving

its sweet effect.” As he was leaving, “Trust men for little and your

instinct for a good deal,” he said. His visit had made him all the more

determined. A profound passion can be displaced only by one greater. He

had had no experience in guiding people, but he had a desperate faith

in his own way of reasoning.

CHAPTER VII.

GLENN ANDREWS took Esther with him to the concert. It was a great

violinist’s last appearance for the season.

She was happily excited, unconsciously holding Glenn by the sleeve.

The glitter and glory of this wonderful, new world was dazzling.

The violinist, with his long hair and big face of rugged strength,

enchained her the moment the music commenced.

With the intensity of her growing enthusiasm, she gripped Glenn’s arm.

He was repeatedly recalled.

“I expect one day to see you sway them like that,” he whispered, as the

curtain went down for the fourth time.

“Don’t! it is impossible,” she said, sighing. “I am just beginning to

feel that my teeth are not strong enough.”

“There was a time when his were not, but he wouldn’t let go,” Glenn

said with emphasis.

Tears stood in her eyes. “Don’t do that, I thought it would inspire you

to see such result, fulfillment; I believe it’s going to depress you.”

She shook her head.

“I rejoice with him, I’m glad to see him win; but three long years

before you are sure of anything--even failure--is hard to look forward

to.”

“Did your teacher say it would take you that long?”

“Yes, but I had thought that I would double it; take twice the lessons

and practice. After all, I may fail in the end.”

“Hush, you are no weakling. Of course it’s work, it’s drudgery; that’s

the bracing part of it. You’ve earned the place when you do get it. An

effortless success is only a crueller word for failure; you must not

be impatient. I used to have to remind you of that.”

Glenn did not know how she would take this; he had had alluring

glimpses of her deeper self, but he must understand her very thoroughly

or he could not hold her, charmed.

She did not make any reply.

He was gazing at a box near them and bowed to a majestically handsome

woman, splendidly gowned. He touched Richmond Briarley’s arm.

“Mrs. Low and Stephen Kent. Kent is an awfully decent chap. He is lucky

to be a protegé of hers. What a lot of good her indorsement has been to

him. I knew him on the other side. I am writing the libretto for his

new opera. You were at the club Tuesday night when he was my guest.

Didn’t you meet him?”

“No, but I heard him play some of his own compositions. Something was

said about us both joining the club. It’s too literary for me.”

“I am his voucher. He sails soon and I don’t think he expects to come

into the club until he returns in the winter.”

Glenn turned to Esther, who was absorbed in the last number on the

programme.

She spoke softly to him. Gathering up her white silk shawl, he folded

it about her shoulders.

“We are going in a minute. The lady you see with white hair in this box

next to us is a leader in artistic circles. I want her to know you.”

The curtain fell as they arose. Linking his little finger in hers

under the fringe, he led her over to the box. There was something in

his manner that expressed beyond question his determination that never

while he had strength should the world darken this child’s soul.

CHAPTER VIII.

GLENN ANDREWS was unwearied in his visits, and held to an abiding faith

in Esther’s future, and stronger and stronger grew his determination to

be steadfastly loyal to her. He seemed to have an exhaustless reserve

fund of nerve power. Stinted in sleep, as he was, and overwhelmed by

his own work, yet he made time to look after her.

With an infinite patience he was cutting a niche for himself, and above

it a name.

His admirable solicitude for Esther was at strange variance with his

desire to wound her, bruise her, make her think and feel.

To her he was a mystery unfathomable. The heart within her was so

delicate, it easily swayed from harmony to discord. She was so

sensitive, she must needs be always responsible to the painful as well

as the ecstatic emotions.

In her habit of telling him everything that happened in her life there

was one thing that she had kept. The nearer it came, the more vivid

grew her prescience of what awaited her. The strain of this fresh

anxiety was consuming her. Would she have strength to hold out?

She was whiter, her cheeks had not quite that rose bloom she had

brought with her out of the air and sunshine. Under this weight she

went steadfastly on, in silence.

Glenn saw this. He had told her she was working too hard. He could see

that her health was not up to the mark. When there was a cloud, or the

shadow of a cloud upon her face, he saw it. She should see a doctor.

He told her that repeatedly. Honest as she was, she could not bring

herself to tell him that she was too poor. Already she had battled

through the heat of the long summer, in need of medical assistance.

She was living up to her income, and found it difficult to furnish the

bare necessities and pay for just half the lessons she had counted on.

There was no hope of shortening the three years except by increasing

her practice. This she determined to do, six hours a day instead of

three.

“I believe you would stay up in that room and mold,” Glenn said one day

as they walked in the sun by the river. “You surely could find time for

an outing once a day for an hour or two.” He was puzzled to know why

she had declined to walk with him of late. It did not occur to him that

lack of time was her excuse.

“You have your lessons but four days in the week,” he said.

“Only two now,” she corrected him.

“Then you have changed your plans!”

“Yes.”

“And how many hours a day do you devote to your practicing?”

“Oh, several; it depends upon my humor and strength.”

“I don’t think you consider the strength,” he said as he looked at her.

“You are tired now, why didn’t you tell me? Sit here and rest a little

before going back.”

As they took a seat on the high edge of the river, there was something

like a sob of exhaustion in her breath.

“Oh, Esther! How could you?” seeing how faint she was. Her cheek fell

in one hand.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were tired?”

“The air was so bracing, I kept thinking I would feel better directly.

How stupid of me to give out so quickly.”

His tender little cares for her comfort, in small things, had often

made her ashamed and afraid she was a burden to him.

“Did the doctor give you a tonic when you saw him?”

“I haven’t been to him yet.”

Glenn Andrews looked away across the blue water. His heart understood.

He knew by her face that the coldest thing on earth was clamping at her

heart. Presently he turned back to her.

“How good a friend do you count me?”

“The best I have in the world.”

“Good enough to ask anything of me--everything?”

She sat in silence, taking her hand softly away from the support of her

face.

“Will you answer me?”

“There are some things that I would ask of nobody that lives.”

Glenn slightly raised his broad shoulders and lowered them with a sigh.

“I am disappointed in our friendship. It has failed.”

She reflected a moment; “I don’t deserve that from you.”

“Nor do I deserve what you have just put upon me.” It had struck him

like a pang. The sweet sense of her faith--her dependence upon him--had

been the very dearest emotion of his life. It strengthened him, to

feel that she might lean hard upon him. He was not willing that the

pressure should be lessened.

“I don’t want to pass for more than I am worth. If I have fallen short

of what you expected of me, I don’t blame you for putting me down on

the common level with everybody.”

If her sorrow had been his own he could not have felt it more deeply.

“Only I am disappointed, that’s all.”

She was distressed to the soul; his sympathy for her had been so

courageously beautiful, so exquisitely true, that she could not bear

the idea of disappointing him, or allowing him to feel that she

underrated his value.

“I don’t know men very well, but I know you are not like the others.

Nothing could be very hard to bear, because you are my friend. I

welcome the days which bring you to me. You have been my fortification.”

“Then prove it,” the soft answer came back. “I know that something

distresses you. Tell me of it, and let me help you.”

“It’s nothing that you could change.”

“How do you know? Let me judge that.”

“No, not now, sometime I will tell you if you can soften things for me.”

Her keen refinement would not let her talk to him of her poverty.

CHAPTER IX.

RICHMOND BRIARLEY had never asked any questions about Esther Powel; she

was Glenn’s friend, and that was all.

“I saw Miss Powel,” he said, as he and Glenn sat over their lunch. “I

nearly got past before I recognized her. She has changed. She has been

ill?”

“No, I think not,” Glenn answered. “She’s been working hard, and she

hasn’t been used to work. I am going away on my vacation to-morrow.

I’ve been wondering if there wasn’t some nice place, just outside

of town, where she might go. She needs the rest, the change.” Glenn

Andrews made no secret of his kindly interest. He and Richmond Briarley

had long been closely intimate.

“What’s the matter with my yacht? The old thing might sink if it knew

there was a woman aboard, but let it sink. It would give you a chance

to show your heroism.”

“Would you come along?”

“Oh, no; I might not get ashore. Really I have other plans, but it is

easy enough to get a crowd. There’s Mrs. Low and Kent.”

“Both on the other side, won’t be back before winter.” Andrews looked

worried as he spoke.

“Damn it, I couldn’t do it anyhow; I’ve promised to go to the

Adirondacks.”

Briarley glanced at him. “Another woman?”

“Several, Jack and his wife will be along.” Even in the intimacy of

their friendship Richmond Briarley had never asked that much before.

Glenn Andrews alone knew how hard was the sense of finding himself

bound through overwhelming conviction of duty.

“I was out to dinner with Jack last night. You couldn’t look at him and

doubt such a thing as love, yet Marie was always a little tyrant. It

made me wonder, after all, what kind of a wife made a man happiest.”

“I can tell you, a dead one.”

“Honestly I believe he would have gone stark mad if he hadn’t won her.

He worships her.”

“He’d have come out without a scratch. My observation is that a man can

get over not getting a girl easier than he can get over getting her.”

“I believe in marriage--it’s the only decent way to live, but I wouldn’t

care for my wife the way he does; my regard wouldn’t have that

self-sacrifice in it. I’d want a woman to minister to my comfort, put

mustard plasters on me when I was sick.”

“But the wife. What would she get in return?”

“My name, for the sake of which I would sacrifice the most precious

gift that could come into a man’s life--a woman whom I could have loved

and by whom I could have been loved.”

“A pretty theory, but, ye gods! the practice.” Briarley laid down

his napkin and leaned back from the table, staring at the other

contemplatively.

“Andrews, for a man of your logic, you are confoundedly disappointing.

I’d have thought you’d have very fantastic ideals of marriage--of

the woman that was to make your home. You claim that your philosophy

is in straight lines. There are two ways of making a straight line,

horizontal and perpendicular, then they cross. You think it is infamous

to marry for money, and you have tabooed your pet hobby,” he said

with an ironical curl of the lip. “Five years ago, before you had got

your bearings, you might have humored such a whimsical freak of that

individuality of yours, but now you would struggle devilishly before

you would spoil your life.”

“I have theories, not just to talk about, but to live by. My philosophy

is extraordinarily simple. You can’t have the pie and eat it too.”

With a reflective survey of his friend, Briarley commenced with a kind

of confidential frankness.

“If you are to make marriage a commodity, why not be brutally

practical? You are a very decent sort of a chap, and fame, for you,

is on the up grade. You could marry money. A poor married man might

as well be a street-car mule and be done with it. Talk about it being

easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to

go to heaven, why it’s easier for a whole drove of them to get through

than for man to get anywhere without money.”

“You are very good to care anything about it, but I have quite decided

in my mind what I shall do with that problem,” Glenn announced with

resolute calmness. The other lit a cigar, and leaned back in comfort.

“I’ll swear you provoke me, and I don’t know why I should give a hang.

Self-will sometimes degenerates--then it is stubbornness--but I suppose

every fellow has a right to sign his own death warrant if he chooses,

and failure is a death warrant.”

“There are some things you know and some that you don’t know.”

“And a devilish lot that nobody will ever know,” said Briarley, as he

flicked the ashes from his cigar.

There was a tender spot in his iron heart for Glenn Andrews. He was

too noble, too talented, to lose in sacrifice the possibilities of so

brilliant a future.

CHAPTER X.

THEY were strolling together in the art gallery. It was the first

time that Glenn had seen Esther since returning from his vacation. He

stopped to admire a picture, for the second time, pointing out its

beauties for her. She appreciated his interpretations, and her acute

understanding grew more beautiful to him.

“I never look at such work,” he said, “without wondering what it cost

its creator. The gift of art is great, sacred, yet it is one long term

of self-denial.”

“I know that,” Esther assented. She was beginning to realize its

draining demands. She had brightened a trifle to-day in spite of it. A

little of the old impulsive blooming beauty had come back. The brisk

walk through the park, in the keen, sweet autumn weather might have

heightened that--and Glenn’s return doubtless had something to do with

it.

“Mrs. Low has a picture in her gallery by this same artist. She has

one of the finest private galleries in the city. You shall see it, I

believe, now that she’s back. I promised her I’d bring you to one of

her receptions. She’s noted for having people who are amazingly clever,

or beautiful or something of the sort. Fortunately I come under the

class, ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot?’ But you are to do your

turn. She expects it. We will go next Tuesday to her opening night. You

will see a live lord. Her daughter, who married one, brought him home

with her.”

“Will it make me like you any less?”

“I should hope not. Rather more, for he has brutal manners, and you

would never think she held a higher place than his stenographer.

But she doesn’t mind that, she has a title. He draws his allowance

from her and his inspiration from elsewhere. I fancy they are rather

contented.”

“Contented!” Esther lifted a solemn face to him.

“It seems to me that a marriage without love would crush all that was

sweetest and finest in a woman’s nature. Marriage for love is the

dearest gift to any soul--it is the highest ideal of God’s world.” She

was in one of her intense moods.

“But if it be for anything else?” He encouraged her to go on.

“It’s a desecration. Love is not only the holiest thing in the life of

a woman, but it’s life itself for the man. It makes him whatever he

becomes. The righteous altar-vow is a delight and to obey is the cry of

the heart if it speaks the words with the lips.”

“You know we never agreed upon that subject. I consider marriage merely

an incident in life.”

“But the one decisive incident of it all,” she returned.

They had left the gallery and were going through the park. His glance

wandered often from her face to a glad contemplation of the vivid

coloring of the woods.

“Mightn’t a man marry for honor?” finally he asked.

“Give me an example.”

“I am not trying to convert you,” he said, disclaiming all

responsibility.

“Tell me of a case?”

His face contracted nervously. “Let’s talk about something else.”

With a little impatient gesture, “Oh, give me an instance, it will

keep me from imagining things.” She stopped by a rustic seat with an

independent lift of the head and would go no further. She felt that she

deserved his confidence and trust. Upon her face were tears of pained

emotion. She did not know her real place in his life and whenever she

struggled for it her suffering was intense.

There was a pause. Glenn decided to humor her. Taking a seat beside

her, he began in his tone of tranquil philosophy:

“Suppose a man--young--under an infatuation, becomes engaged to a girl.

When he is older, his ideas change; he gets over it, she doesn’t.

Although he has a sincere regard and respect for her, in his heart

there is another ideal. He regrets being bound. What should he do?”

“I hate the word ‘bound.’ Marriage is not to bind, but to privilege.

Without love it would be nothing more than slavery. Every human soul

revolts at that.”

“But an engagement is like a gambling debt; it has no witnesses. It

puts a man upon his honor.”

“Might he not have the nobility to assume his vows, without the

fortitude to endure them manfully? That would make each think nothing

of love and little of life. I believe it is impossible for a man to be

true to his wife with another woman’s image in his heart; in spite of

outward appearances the emptiness is there--convention cannot crush out

nature. If he took a vow like that, he’d be false to it; hypocracy is

dishonor.” She suddenly fronted him.

“What would you do if you were the man?”

“Oh, don’t make an example of me,” he said in a hard voice. “You know

me well enough to guess what I would do.”

She turned her eyes to his face; her expression changed. “You would be

true to what you thought was your honor.”

“I hope I would fulfill any promise I should make.” He had always had

himself in command, yet he was sometimes conscious of a fear that

Esther might have dreamed some touch of heroism in his nature, which

was not there. Her ideal of him had been impressed upon her immaturity.

“I have a story about a man’s honor,” she said after an awkward

silence, lifting a small paper volume in her hand. “The young man on

my floor asked me to take it and read it. He said it was ‘simply

great.’”

“‘Simply great,’ was it?” Glenn said, taking the book. “Certainly he is

bold and unconventional enough to presume to offer you a book when you

have scarcely a speaking acquaintance with him.”

“He brought it to my door one rainy day; I took it as a kindness.”

Reading the French title, Glenn’s eyes took on the glint of steel.

“Have you read it?” he asked.

“No, I thought we might begin it together to-day.”

“Well, we won’t,” he told her, frankly. “It is not the kind for you to

read. When the young man inquires for his book you can send him to me.”

Glenn was never more savagely angry as he doubled the book and thrust

it into his pocket. He would keep from her that part of the world’s

evil at least.

“Have I done anything you don’t like?”

“No, but it maddens me to see anybody try to impose upon you. Don’t

accept any more courtesies from that class; I’ll bring you all the

books that you want to read.”

“You are very good; I’ll try to remember that,” she promised. He hoped

she would. His care of her was like the fond tending of a flower that

has been unwittingly left in a fetid atmosphere.

CHAPTER XI.

MRS. LOW’S receptions were more cordial and less formal than the usual

social affairs. Glenn Andrews and Esther arrived late. The richest

Oriental splendor surrounded them. There were a thousand rare souvenirs

of foreign lands to please the eye. The colors in the tapestries and

rugs were of that exquisitely tender hue that comes only from age. The

largest rug, covered with inscriptions from Saadi, the Persian poet,

seemed to have caught more of the charm and sentiment of the Orient.

Glenn was calling Esther’s attention to it while they waited for a

chance to speak to the hostess. Red lights glowed warmly through the

iron-fretted lanterns swinging low. A hidden harpist was playing

soft, sweeping strains of sound. Mrs. Low caught a glimpse of the late

arrivals. She met them with hands outstretched, a radiant smile of

welcome upon her face.

“Ah, Glenn, Miss Powel; charmed, I assure you. Mr. Kent has been

waiting to have this young lady accompany him,” she said, as that

gentleman joined them.

“You came just in time, Miss Powel. Our friend, Mr. Andrews, has told

me that you have been good enough to take the trouble to learn the

‘Serenade’ that is to be in our new opera. Mrs. Low has out-talked

me and made me feel that my friends should be first to pass judgment

before the critics get a chance.”

Esther hesitated a moment, smiling.

“That will be charming,” Glenn whispered to her, inclining his head. He

smiled slightly as his eyes met hers.

His approval was what she had waited for--that was plain. The next

moment she had graciously indicated her willingness by taking up her

violin that Mrs. Low had sent for before she came.

The sight of Stephen Kent at the piano and Esther beside him made

the rooms silent in an instant and stilled the unseen harpist. Glenn

Andrews kept close watch upon the crowd as it stood in mute attention.

It was to note how she was received. He had forgotten his share in the

honors. Stephen Kent sang the passionately poetic words; the exquisite

commingling of the voice and violin suddenly awoke in the poet the

thought of what sincerity of the soul there was in those words.

In the heat of the enthusiasm that followed the encore some one grasped

Glenn Andrews’ hands. “And those lines are perfectly exquisite. I am

wild to hear all of your libretto.”

“Oh, indeed!” he answered, staring, and that moment it was the effort

of his life to know what she meant.

“Libretto?” he said to himself. “Oh, when I heard such playing I forgot

I had written anything,” he declared, with a laugh. He was extremely

shocked to discover that he had composed the words.

“Aren’t you a little crazy?” the expression on her face asked, as Mrs.

Low came up and led him away. She had become devotedly attached to him

during their life in Paris.

“If that is a fair sample of your opera, it will be most enchanting.”

The hearty words carried with them something of the sincere interest

she felt.

“You are very kind, Mrs. Low. Your approval is a great compliment to

our poor efforts. You, of course, know its success means a better

future to both of us; the financial part of it being of no slight

importance.”

“It’s going to succeed; it has the merit and the backing. Give yourself

no anxiety. Kent certainly has done his part well. It is his master

effort.”

Mrs. Low sank deep in the gorgeous cushions and looked across to where

Esther stood besieged. She was so unspoiled and direct of manner.

There was something picturesquely Southern in her simple gown.

“Tell me something more about her. Is she in earnest or does she play

with her art for the same reason that a kitten plays with her ball?”

“Oh, she is in dead earnest, Mrs. Low. She is overworking in her

enthusiasm.”

Glenn caught Esther’s eye as he spoke. There was a touch of pathos in

the smile.

“That will never do. You might persuade her to take it more slowly.”

She stopped a moment, looking up with guarded eyes. Glenn Andrews was

not big print to her. The depths of his nature had to be read between

the lines. In her heart she wondered if he would resent the questioning.

He studied her magnificent repose, that matched his.

“She has genius. I have become quite interested in her already,” said

Mrs. Low.

A shade of relief passed over Glenn’s features as he heard this.

“I have known her for years. The poor child has neither parents nor

friends to restrain or aid her. She has not reached that point in her

art where she can earn a dollar. I have been thinking many ways of

trying to help her. It must be some way by which she feels that she is

earning it. I know her so well.”

“It is not often that I ask such close questions, but this time it is

because of my interest. What are you to her?”

Her tone did not imply idle curiosity. He clasped his hands

thoughtfully.

“Honestly, I don’t know how to answer you. I am her friend, brother,

critic--I suppose. If I had to select one word to express my relation to

her, I should say, chaperone.”

“Chaperone,” she repeated, with charming grace. “That is a virgin field

for a man’s possibilities, but since I think of it, I had a great deal

rather trust some men I know to look after a child of mine than most

women.”

“Coming here alone, as Miss Powel did, and with very little capital, it

was hard for her to find herself face to face with the world. But she

has determination. She actually steals hours from her rest. She must

have relief from the strain or it will crush all the life out of her

soul.”

“Oh, yes; something must be done,” answering his intensity with a sweet

interest. “Couldn’t I help you in some way?”

He reflected seriously a moment.

“I believe you could. Suppose you got her to play here four times

during the month and let her believe you had rewarded her by paying

her twenty-five dollars each time. I would give you my check for the

hundred dollars each month.”

“That will be just the thing. Later she will be able to get some good

engagements at drawing room recitals.”

“Would you indeed be willing to let me help her through you, Mrs.

Low?” he asked, with some confusion.

“I am only too happy to be able to add that little to so loyal a

project.”

“Thank you. Your co-operation means more to me than you can possibly

imagine.”

“Your friend has been telling me of your work, and how brave you are,”

Mrs. Low said, as she took Esther’s hand at parting. “I shall come soon

to see you. I think I can add a little sunshine to your life.”

CHAPTER XII.

GLENN saw Esther a few days afterward and found her unusually cheerful.

Her face had a new light, and she had good reason for it. She spoke

with a buoyancy of expression that Glenn had not lately heard. She told

how Mrs. Low had arranged for her to play during the entire winter at

her receptions. This simplified the complex future. She reflected a

little more calmly on her condition. All these months she had tried

to think of some way out of it. She had thought of everything--except

giving up.

She made friends. She was interested in everything. In her appreciation

and confiding ways Mrs. Low found a degree of satisfaction and intense

pleasure in the reflected happiness from Esther’s life. Glenn

encouraged the tonic of social life for her as something needful to

everybody. Under his own eye, he was willing to let her glimpse at it

in all its phases; the soullessness of it, its petty intrigues and

foibles. The flawlessness of her own mind would itself be a shield. Her

contact with such frivolity would be like that of satin and sandpaper.

With intense interest he watched her career during the season. He was

her severest and most unsparing critic, although he sometimes believed

that it hurt him more than her. Their lives were moving along together

with unconscious accord. There was an undercurrent of deeper sympathy

lying dormant. He was making her a part of his life. He would have

denied it, however, had any man put this truth into words and accused

him. A thousand times he had told himself, reassuringly, that he was

commander still. He reasoned that her art would soon be sufficiently

lofty, sufficiently complete for her to hear any decree that fate might

read to her. New friends, fresh scenes, homage to her art--all these

would help to fill her life. This was a conviction born of his own

philosophy. He fancied he could already perceive a more independent

air; a less frequent turning to him for guidance and protection. This

elusive, half-mysterious charm she had acquired, he misinterpreted. It

was largely due to the different lights that had been thrown upon him.

She had been repeatedly stunned by chance-heard remarks of his

betrothal. When Glenn heard that Esther’s name was to figure

prominently in the most brilliant recitals of the season, there was a

buoyant sweetness in the frank radiance of hope, the eager expectancy

and passionate faith in her ability. She had been tasting some of the

fruition of her toil. Of this he was proud.

The night came. It was a fashionable throng that poured into the

Metropolitan. The fascinating twirl of jewelled lorgnettes and the

flashing movement of the vast array of wealth and beauty made the

two wide, innocent eyes that peered out from behind the curtain,

reel--drunk with the wine of enthusiasm; this little atom who was to

win or lose before this great audience of connoisseurs. Win she must.

No girl could shake off the memory of so public a humiliation. The

sight confused her. She trembled a little and slipped back to her

dressing-room. “I feel as though the judgment day were at hand,” she

said. “My heart is bigger than my whole body.”

“You darling, it was always that.” Mrs. Low gathered her proudly in her

arms, as she spoke.

“Where have you been?” Esther left a warm kiss on her throat. “Up to

the very same thing you were, looking for a particular face, I know.”

“I’ll take another survey presently. Of course he will be here. Oh!

what a dream of a gown; you look like a vision from heaven.” Mrs. Low

eyed her closely, fearful lest the misplacement of the slightest detail

might mar the perfect whole.

“This must be the laurel crowning of your season.”

Her delicate face was beaming; she felt it rather than hoped it.

“This ordeal means everything to me. I am not as frightened as I

expected. Honestly, I feel as if I could make music without strings

or bow. Something in the very air charges me with a wild, savage

inspiration. Go, look again, now. I know he is here.”

Several minutes passed and she did not return, so Esther went out to

the wings while the first numbers were being rendered.

“Now, my dear!” whispered Mrs. Low, as the call came for Esther. “Do

your best. Glenn is in the right of the centre aisle, half-way back

with the woman in pink. I know you won’t disappoint him.”

These words came from the gentlest heart in the world, with no idea of

their tragic significance.

Esther stepped to her place on the stage.

The bored faces of the leaders of the orchestra brightened. Every

instrument was ready to respond to the first notes of her obligato.

Even in that surging human sea she was conscious of dumbly searching

for Glenn Andrews. As she stood slightly swaying with the first few

strains, she saw him--his head thrown back with a superb gesture--his

features all alight from the ideal soul within--his dreamy, mystical

eyes full of expectancy. He was in a state of rapturous anticipation.

In the “woman in pink” she recognized as being the one with whom

society had intimately coupled his name.

What a heart-thrust! She blanched at the thought of it. And of all the

nights of her life, this one--her very own--was most cruel.

There was a rush of resentment through her being, stronger, for the

instant, than everything. She could not resist its influence; discord

followed discord until the orchestra was forced to stop.

The scene before her whirled so fast that it made her dizzy. She felt

blindly across the strings for a harmony which she had lost. Glenn

Andrews was conscious of a curious tightening at the throat as he saw

her pitiful struggles. His heart almost stopped. She was failing. This

was maddening. He had had many disappointments in his life, but this

was one he could not face. Abruptly he rose and rushed out into the

aisle. The humiliation was too bitter.

There was a little ripple of excitement. Esther saw him going; but

still did not realize that his seat there had only been a coincidence.

She hated, she adored him. The moment seemed supreme of all the moments

of her life.

A feeling of longing unutterable came over her--longing to recall him--a

feeling that rose to ever fuller power until her whole being vibrated

with the desire. She tightened her grasp of the instrument to steady

her convulsive trembling. Glenn stopped. A new thrill was creeping

through the music. Her eyes evinced a conquering fire born of internal

despair. She was playing now as if inspired by some power above and

beyond all things of earth. Through it all ran the shrill, sweet

strains of her long-pent soul. Glenn stood immovable, with his eyes

fixed upon her.

The sublime passion throbbing through the music was a sound that a

human soul could not resist, as if the player’s whole nature were

speaking to him. It pleaded, commanded, until it smote each tense chord

of his life--compelled completest harmony. He followed with eager looks

every gesture of her bow. His lips broke into a proud smile, revealing

all he felt. It ended in an echo, transcendent, sovereign, supreme. The

violin fell at her feet. The very air was saturated with the incense of

applause.

He awakened as though from a dream to share in it. He grew almost

hysterical as the audience begged for an encore. The curtain rose.

Esther, flushed with her success, almost gasped as she reappeared.

There was a rain of flowers, falling from everywhere. Glenn felt his

heart beat after her in an ecstasy of longing. The curtain rose again

and again. He had never known the height or depth of their natures

before. He adored her--Esther, whose growth in beauty, power, glory he

had watched with boyish tenderness. All that he had admired, and had

not dared to hope for, were united in her. From the depths of his being

there came to him the first over-mastering passion of his life--in a

love that he had forbidden himself.

THE WOMAN.

CHAPTER I.

Glenn sent his congratulations with a lot of flowers. He did not trust

himself to call. That was not indifference, but too much feeling. The

following week he sent her a few lines:

“My dear Esther;

“It will be impossible for me to take you to the musicale, but I have

arranged to have Mr. Kent call for you, and I feel sure that you will

be in good hands.”

This note of mild regret made her a little cross, as it was the first

time he had ever consented to have her go out alone with another man.

There seemed nothing else to do but submit, wash a tear of vexation

from her face, and be ready to go when Mr. Kent called.

From Glenn Andrews’ point of view this privilege was an endorsement

of the man he had selected. She was his treasure and he could never

entrust it to any man in whom he had not the staunchest faith. Later he

learned through Stephen Kent that they had gone together and the affair

had been as pleasant as usual. That was satisfactory. He would have

them go again together.

Ever since the concert Glenn had tried to think only of his work. His

calmness at such a crisis at first led him into the belief that it

would be easy to hold himself in check. The revelation that had come

to him upon that night had been the work of a strong thing but for a

moment. What he was now he would remain. How little did he dream of

what a sharp conflict he would have in the strife to conquer himself.

He could not stay away too long--he looked upon it in a measure as his

duty to see how the infrequent visits were affecting her.

It was not until he was taking up his hat to leave that he approached

the subject of Stephen Kent as her escort to the next musicale.

“He will be very glad to have you go with him.” Glenn pressed her hand

in his and he saw tears in her eyes.

“Esther!” He laid aside his hat, drew her down beside him on the divan.

He could not leave until he had traced those tears to their source.

“What does this mean, tell me?”

“Oh, don’t ask me that!” She folded her hands before her as if in mute

emphasis.

He was not suspicious, but this made him afraid--he felt as if something

had struck him.

“Did Stephen Kent dare to hurt you. If so, it’s my fault--I introduced

you to him.”

“Oh, Mr. Glenn, let it go, but nothing would induce me to go with him

again.” She felt the color go out of her face as she became conscious

of his fixed gaze.

“Where has your frankness and freedom gone?” He drew her toward him and

compelled her to meet his eyes.

His voice was full of power.

“You must tell me what Stephen Kent has done.”

“You like him; I am afraid you will be angry, disappointed.” She made

no effort to free herself.

He could not draw a confession from her as he sat some minutes waiting.

“Have you that little confidence in my friendship?”

“I don’t want to make you feel that you have not the friendship of that

man.”

“Then you know that I haven’t.”

“I know that he told me horrid, false things of your life abroad, and

tried to make me lean upon him instead of you. He tried to persuade

me to do all the things and go to all the places that you had warned

me of. If I had known by nothing else that would have made me know it

would be wrong--wickedly wrong.”

“Wolf!” He could scarcely hold his grasp for the trembling of his hands.

“I’ll settle with Stephen Kent,” he said, aloud. “He must answer to me

for this.”

Glenn Andrews’ face looked manlier than ever in its rage.

Esther’s heart stood still for a moment, then beat wildly in its fear.

“Don’t risk yourself for me. I’m so sorry I told you.”

“Now I shall take care of myself and of him also. Don’t be fretting

about the outcome. This is the last time you need be annoyed with it.”

He stroked her hair, and there was a calming tenderness in the way he

did it.

She could have borne the indignity alone if only Glenn had not brought

the subject up. She had never meant to tell it to anyone.

Glenn left the house and went at once, only to find that Mr. Kent was

not at home. Several days in succession he called with the same result.

He wondered what impulse would lead him to if he should meet him by

chance. Delay could scarcely weaken his determination to even up this

score.

When Glenn went to the regular meeting of the club a few days later, it

was a little shock of surprise that the name of Stephen Kent was up for

membership. With a delicate tact he avoided any part of the proceedings

that was not forced upon him. When it came his turn to cast his ballot

for the man of whom he could have said a week ago he was all honor, he

started, trembling violently as he let fall from his hand--a black ball.

The results of the ballot came as a great surprise to every man of

them except the one who had turned the course. Questioning, no doubt,

went round the room and there was a ripple of comment passing among

the groups after the meeting was over and the members were going out.

At the foot of the stairs one man met Stephen Kent and told him the

result, which he had come over to learn. The disappointment in his

face was intense as he took a few steps more, taking out his penknife

to cut his cigar, and met Glenn Andrews.

“Look here, Andrews, what does this mean? They tell me I am

blackballed.”

“They told you the truth,” he said, coolly.

“Well! that’s damned strange.” Kent’s answer had in it the sting of

humiliation.

“If I knew the man who did it, I would thrash him within an inch of his

life. The sneak!”

Glenn Andrews’ eyes were dilated and flashing.

“Stephen Kent, you don’t have to go very far to find him. I am the man.”

“You; and may I ask why?”

“Because your dishonorable conduct to Miss Powel proved to me that you

are not a gentleman.”

He was fearless in speech and action. His exultant manliness made the

other cower.

“A man generally knows the lay of the land. She is pretty free.”

“Free, my God!” Glenn Andrews’ face flashed fire. “You are a liar!”

The next moment the two grappled. A crowd gathered around in wild

excitement. Before they could be parted the battle had been fought.

With the first lift of his hand, Stephen Kent’s penknife had slipped

across and cut the radial artery of Glenn Andrews’ wrist. Regardless

of the flow of blood, he had dealt the blow that laid the other at his

feet.

CHAPTER II.

IT was several days before Glenn felt able to resume his work. He kept

away from Esther until he could give himself a chance to recover from

the acute anaemia from which he suffered. Finally, when he called, he

found that she had left that place, and her address could not be given

him.

He was worried and bitterly wounded.

This girl, wild of heart, full of all sorts of emotions, full of

unreasoning impulses who had once been easy for him to understand, had

gained a complexity and subtlety new to him.

Yet he could do nothing now but treat it as a recurrence of her old

fits of childish petulance. If, by some unaccountable chance, there

was any finality in this step of hers, and her motive was to break

off their old blameless intimacy, he would watch over her from afar.

There was no malice in his heart for her. Nobody could make him believe

a story, the truth of which would be unworthy of her. Yet the dim,

persistent sense of dissatisfaction which he tried so hard to stifle,

under a rush of work and recreation, would not vanish. Time, which he

filled with the fever of his literary passion, together with keeping

in touch with a few old friends, had become so strained, so intense,

that in spite of the firm strength he had, the inordinate will, sheer

physical weariness conquered, the tense nerves for a time relaxed.

It was in the latter part of April that Richmond Briarley happened to

stop in a flower store to order a palm for some friend. At the counter

stood a slender girl. There was something very unusual about her or he

would not have given her a moment’s thought, nor the second look.

Her hair swept back in deep waves from her brow, under the wide, soft

hat. The dark blue of her eyes seemed to gently motion as she looked at

the delicate orchids the clerk held across to her.

“That’s what I want.”

Then she turned away as he went to wrap them for her. She felt a sudden

swelling of the heart, as she faced Richmond Briarley.

“How do you do, Miss Powel,” he said in acknowledgment of her

recognition.

“I have quite lost track of you since our friend Andrews has been ill.

You’ll be glad to know his doctor now thinks he may pull through.”

“Mr. Glenn ill--dangerously ill?” She was white to the lips.

The look on her face he would never forget while he lived.

“Where? Where?” she said, eagerly clasping her hands. “Let me go to

him.”

“He has someone--you can do nothing. She does everything.”

He said very little beyond the bare statement, but his answer added to

the pain of her wound.

There was nothing she could do. This was the bitterest, cruelest

thought--she was not needed--she who would have died to spare him pain.

Richmond Briarley knew what it meant; his heart was touched for her.

“I’m going to see him now, if you care to send him a word.”

“Tell him how sorry I am, and would you take these flowers to

him--orchids are his favorite flowers. I was going to wear them to a

musicale to-night.”

“Certainly I will take them.”

“Wait just a minute.”

She took the pencil of her chatelaine and wrote her new address on the

box; her fingers were trembling, so she doubted if he would recognize

her signature.

She smiled a little as he lifted his hat, when he bade her good-by.

Pride was a matter of principle with her.

What she suffered in the days that came after could not be told.

It was early in May before Glenn was able to be out again.

To see Esther was one of his first visits. She greeted him with a

grave, solicitous face.

“I am glad you are better. I didn’t even know it until you had passed

the crisis.”

“Whose fault was it?” That old perversity had not been subdued by

suffering.

“Oh, don’t; not to-day, anyhow.” She put her hands up and gently turned

down the collar of his coat. “Come, now; lie down on the divan. You’ve

overdone your strength.”

His fingers in her folded grasp were trembling.

“I’m not equal to my work yet,” he said, as he stretched out among the

pillows, closing his eyes wearily.

“I wouldn’t have come if it had not been your birthday,” turning his

head, revealing the painful clearness of his profile.

“I remembered you had someone who loved you; to think of it always

before--now there’s nobody.”

Sitting beside him she stroked his forehead very tenderly.

“You were always thoughtful of me.”

They were silent for a time.

“Sometimes I longed for the warm, sweet touch of your hand on my head,”

he said at last; “it throbbed so, and ached.”

“Oh, dear, why didn’t you send for me?”

“You forget, I didn’t know where to send.”

She paled under the answer. “But you had someone you wanted more.” She

said this with an impulsive touch of resentment.

“She was the best one I ever had. Professional nurses are not always as

solicitous or as kind.”

“Professional,” Esther repeated to herself, betraying no sign of the

relief it gave her.

The soft wind moved the curtains and let a flash of sunlight in. Glenn

looked out; the air was full of spring.

He could not but think of the old days, the paths upon which they had

strolled now lay green and solitary through field and woods.

For a man who loved to steep himself in the sunshine and open air, he

but seldom indulged himself.

“Esther, get your hat; it’s too fine a day to be indoors. I’ll take you

away, out to Van Cortlandt Park.”

“Are you able to stand the trip? Don’t go just for my pleasure.”

“I shall enjoy it more than you will,” he said. “It’s what I need.

Haven’t I always told you how selfish I was.”

Without another word she obeyed him, delighted at the prospect. Van

Cortlandt was beautiful. They took a little boat and went out on the

lake. So precious was the silence--the solitude--the shadow of the

willows, that Glenn allowed Esther to take the oars he had taught her

to handle and stretched himself full length in the boat. The water

trembled under the sweet wind that blew fresh upon him.

Esther was in one of her rapturous moods, gazing with wide, dilated

eyes upon the spring woods opening out to screen the unresponsive

world--leaving them alone together. She could see it all reviving him

like wine.

“Esther?” The name and touch thrilled her.

“When they told me I might not get well, I thought of you--I had

something to tell you.”

“Tell me now.”

“That was if I had to die.”

“Oh, don’t speak of your death!” Her voice thrilled with a passion she

herself did not understand.

“What I said as a child is still true. Life could not be sweet to me

with you out of it.”

“Nonsense! With a great future flashing before you.”

“Could any fortune be sweet, or any gift it brought a woman be worth

having, if the one for whom she cared were not there to share it with

her?”

“A woman’s love is essentially spiritual in its nature. It does not

depend so much upon sight,” he said.

She had dropped the oars. They were drifting dreamily.

The sun had gone down below the horizon, leaving purple shadows on its

rim. The willows sent their seductive motions across the face of the

waters.

She looked at him as though to draw him nearer and enfold him in her

stretched-out arms. The warm impulses of her heart were warring in

their wild effort to be free. Silence was the language of youth and

love to him--they needed no words.

The force and the sweetness, the purity and power of his nature as she

interpreted it, was the complete realization of her beautiful dreams.

“Have you ever forgiven me for spilling your blood and leaving a scar?”

Her thrillingly delicate touch on his knee swept him with a swift,

vigorous delight.

“Forgiven! I’ve blessed you. That is something from you that I shall

carry with me through life. And there’s another I want--a memory. You

never have called me by my name.”

Looking into his fine, clear face, she felt the love flowing softly

like a fountain in her heart. “Glenn,” she whispered his beloved name.

“Esther! dearest!” Drawing her toward him, he kissed her on her lips as

he held her close in the clasp of his arms with the intensity of his

commanding love. Her hat had fallen off; he caught the dank fragrance

of her hair.

Something fluttered in her breast--something new and strange and strong.

She did not understand that she had left girlhood behind and become a

woman. All the woman in her was quickened by his kiss.

“Oh, how I love to feel your heart beating against mine.”

Her words, her kiss, touched his soul to its depths. He was startled

at the depths he had stirred.

“Heart! dear heart of mine!” She was in a fit of adoring fury. Her lips

met his, again and again. She loved him so humanly and yet there was

only the tender throb and thrill of the sensitive nature in all its

refinement. Sweet emotions shot through her breast.

“Love me, no matter what comes, Esther, love me.”

He too felt some hurting power bound through his blood, and wrestle

with his reserve--his equilibrium.

His low voice, his soft eyes, held her; not a tone, not a look but it

caressed her.

The soft shadows, the limpid waters, the open air--with it altogether he

felt a strange softening.

“You never said sweet words straight from your heart to me before.”

“Why words? Instinct, nature, tells us when a thing is true. That great

silent power often stands between the soul and what it loves. It is

too deep for speech. Did you ever drop a pebble into a well to sound

its depth? If it is shallow, you hear it when it strikes the bottom.

But if you wait and never hear a sound, you know it is very deep.”

Her sweet, low laugh rippled out over the waters.

“Your laugh is like that of a child in a happy dream. I hope it will

always keep that sound.”

Straining her to him a moment, he then put his hands to his face to

shut out the dangerous sweetness.

“Nobody but you will ever understand what my nature is, because they

have never so nearly felt it.”

“That’s true,” he said, “the only difference is that I know what is

best for us and what is not.”

“To make music, one must have genuine feeling for it; that is true of

love. There has always been a sympathy between us, but never before so

deep as now. The greater the love, you know, the stronger the sympathy.

Natures so well tempered, so sympathetically adapted, very seldom can

endure; neither can afford to indulge in the beauty of one he loves,

for he may lose his own seekings in sharing hers. Ideal love is not to

be satisfied.”

He said this with such an expression of grief and sentiment that no one

could doubt his belief in his own philosophy.

This was life indeed. If he could only hold it forever. He wanted to--he

longed to--might he not desecrate this beautiful soul, by intruding his

upon it for so short a time?

A sudden chill went through him. The horror of their ideals being

endangered made him draw back. He had never entirely lost sight of the

delicacy and nobility of the relation. He was her friend--her protector.

Slightly moving his position, he said: “Esther, what is sweeter than

comprehensive sympathy? Each knows the other’s highest aims and hopes,

and each tries to help the other reach and preserve those ideals. There

is something beautiful, noble in the endeavor to sustain the ideals of

one we love, even though they should not always succeed.”

“I believe that. The desire, the effort--shouldn’t that go for

something?”

“I think so, but will you always think it?”

“I hope I shall.”

As they anchored alongside the bank, Glenn held out his hand to help

her; her cheeks were in bloom with life, and he was going home rested,

with all his senses and passions much keener and many degrees finer in

their possibilities.

“We have had a day of delicious happiness, we should be thankful for

that,” he said. “In a whole life there are but a few days in which we

really live--we only exist most of the time,” lowering his voice and

looking into her sweet eyes.

“To be wholly happy is to forget the world and one’s obligations

to it.” There was almost a caress in the way Glenn took out his

handkerchief and lightly brushed the drops of water from her skirt. In

putting the handkerchief back he touched the pretty trifle--a souvenir

to recall her twenty-first birthday. Twirling it between his fingers he

said:

“This is for you. Wear it for the sake of the man who became a boy and

learned what May meant.”

CHAPTER III.

GLENN knew now that he had been mistaken. The heart he had tended drew

all its life still from him. His knowledge of men and women was great.

He could not deceive himself. Nature demanded a climax. He must advance

or retreat. He realized that he was coming to love her too well--in a

sweeter, nearer way. They were to each other now more of a necessity

than an inspirational force. He must go away--it was best: for their

art, for their peace of mind. It was some time before he could tell

her this. He could no longer trust himself to be tender with her. He

dared not risk himself; he was not equal to it. It seemed to him their

companionship was never so beautiful as now when he was about to break

it. He was testing his strength and asking his own soul if it were fit

for the work and the awful sacrifice. It was during a short interview

that he found courage to tell her how his doctor had advised a change

of scene and air. A sea voyage, with perhaps a year abroad; possibly

Egypt--personally he hardly expected to get beyond the old yellow city

of his youthful escapades--Paris, where the aromatic breath of absinthe

had tinged the air. There would be no strain then. She knew what it

meant. She knew it was not for his health alone that he was putting the

sea between them.

“It may be just what you need to strengthen you. In travel I fancy you

will find oceans of material for penwork and gulfs of inspiration. And

in Paris, that you have learned to love, you might know real life and

real joy.” The words cost her an effort, but they were bravely said.

Richmond Briarley sat in his office alone that night. He had just

opened his safe and from a package of legal documents drawn a paper

which he unfolded and read, a note secured by mortgage, now past due.

At the bottom it was signed by the husband and wife. “Albert Winston

and Mildred Hughes Winston.” His lips clamped, the circular wrinkles

deepened round his mouth. When he first knew Mildred Hughes he was very

young and poorer than he was young. He had gone away and left her to

this man, who was well launched, expecting her to escape the hardships

of the poor. In time he would forget her. He remembered how he had told

her so and left her--that day was more to him than all the rest of his

life. It was full of her. “Forgetfulness!” He had never learned the

meaning of the word. With one swift survey of the room, he slowly tore

off the woman’s signature--this was the last remnant of a life that had

been lived. As someone opened the door his dream faded with the sound.

The next minute Glenn Andrews had come in, and was standing behind him.

He rose abruptly, closed the safe door, and hid the small paper in his

hand. “Hello, Andrews.” He held himself down to a semblance of calm.

“I thought it was about time that you blew in. What are you doing with

that grip?”

“Taking it up to pack it,” he said, as he took out cigars for both.

“Indeed! Are you really off? Are you romancing?”

“Most of my romancing is set to the same notes--bank notes. It serves

that purpose well enough. I sail day after to-morrow,” he added,

carelessly.

“So you are going to kick over the traces, eh? It’s lucky not to be

tied so that you couldn’t break away.”

“New York becomes more and more intolerable every day, and I feel

that I must get out of it for awhile. I will still do some work on

the magazine, of course. Wait; give me a light.” Andrews took the

paper that Briarley had twisted and touched it to the gas jet above

his head. It went out before it reached the cigar. With a gesture of

impatience he looked around and found the matches.

They smoked on, talking together for some time, Glenn toying with

the paper in his hand, carelessly rolling and unrolling it. He got a

glimpse of it, and said, quickly: “Look here,” passing it over. “Is

this of much importance? Maybe you have burned the wrong thing.”

“Oh, no! That’s nothing,” Briarley answered, with an indifferent

gesture. “Albert Winston, the poor devil, is dead, and he died beaten.

One man has no business to take a mortgage on another’s home, anyhow. I

may be an unresponsive brute, but I couldn’t turn a woman and children

into the street.” His throat was dry as he turned his back and laid the

scorched paper over the flames. “We might as well finish it--let the

ashes settle it.”

“Do you mean to say that Winston died in poverty?” Andrews asked, as he

got up to leave.

“He hadn’t a dollar.”

“Let me see; whom did he marry?”

“Mildred Hughes,” Briarley hazarded, repeating her name calmly.

“Oh, that’s so; I do remember her. Half the fellows at college were

daft about her. Winston’s money won her, they thought.”

“Where are you off to, now?” asked Briarley.

Andrews turned. “I’ve got the ends of a million threads to wind up

before I start.”

“And some to break, no doubt.”

“Let me hear from you occasionally,” Glenn said, as he grasped the

other’s hand, and felt like adding, “I have guessed your secret,

Briarley, my friend. Some men are heroes simply because they didn’t

marry.”

“I’ll try to come down to see you off. But if I shouldn’t make it,

remember to get all you can out of life, my boy, and I wish you the

best of good luck.”

Andrews looked worn, overworked. Richmond Briarley had hoped that

the returns from the opera would take some of the strain off of the

ambitious fellow--but the unfortunate affair with Stephen Kent had ended

that hope.

CHAPTER IV.

FOR two weeks Esther had been at the seaside. She had grown pale and

tired from the ceaseless round of work and social play. This life

had glamour, had charm, but no contentment. Her pleasure in it was

not real. She entered it with the belief that it was sweet to love,

natural to trust. There was nothing in life but faith and love. She

was now in the midst of people who talked with a sceptical contempt of

all that she had held sacred. They laughed at her simple faith in the

old-fashioned morality taught her by cherished lips.

Glenn Andrews could not leave without seeing her again. He had sent

her a message. In the afternoon of the last day he went down to the

seaside where she was stopping. The expression on his face was one of

unrelenting yet melancholy determination. She was not in, so he struck

across the sand and strolled along the beach until he found her. In

spite of the pain in her heart, her sensitive, proud face denied it.

There was a smile on her pale lips.

“You’re about as hard to reach as the bag of gold at the rainbow’s

end,” Glenn said, “but I am glad to find that the other hunters have

not reached here. From stories that came back to town, you don’t often

escape all of your admirers at once. I am fortunate to find you alone.”

“They are fairy stories that every girl has a right to be a heroine of

during the season.”

“I ventured to ask you to be so good as to give me an hour, only

because I am going away so soon, and I may not see you again.”

“Your ‘so’ is femininely unsatisfactory. That is the speech of a woman.

How soon is that?”

He pointed across the water. “You see that ship? Just about this time

to-morrow, when the Majestic sails that way, you may know I am aboard

of her. I will wave you a farewell.”

Esther felt a tremor run over her. She looked past him at the baffled

surf, as, white with rage, it sprang against the pier, retreating with

a roar, leaving a glimpse of the green sea stones beneath.

“So soon as that?” she said, her eyes opening and closing convulsively.

“I must have been asleep; I didn’t realize that the time was so near.”

“Time is a mule; it always takes the opposite gait from that which you

want it to take. This month has taken wings.” He gave a swift glance at

her. “And I expect the next one to crawl--that is, after the voyage. I

love the water.”

“As the doctor thinks the sea air so good for you, why don’t you cruise

along the shores of France?”

“I may,” hesitatingly he answered; a sense of guilt came over him at

the thought of his deception.

“How long do you expect to be gone?”

“I don’t know,” he said, absently; he knew this was not curiosity, but

personal concern; “it may be three months, or three years.”

“Which do you expect it to be?”

“I do not expect, because to do that is to rob one’s self of the

emotion of surprise, without which there is little pleasure in living.”

“I don’t believe I could be surprised any more. I know how little there

is ahead. I have been arranging it all in my mind.”

He looked seaward. “How’s that?”

“Well, Mrs. Low goes home with her daughter.” Here she touched her

hands together impulsively.

“You both are going; that leaves me alone.”

“If thoughts count for anything, you will never be alone.”

“How am I to know that?”

“You have the word of Glenn Andrews,” he said quickly; “besides you

have a glorious future to look forward to. You have attained! What

happiness is there like unto it? Among the many desires of my heart,

the first is of your happiness, which I believe lies through your art.

I am proud for you. Let me have one comfort before we part. Promise me

that you will not disappoint me in my hopes for you. Your success has

come high.”

“Well, your future, tell me of that and what your art has cost you.”

“What I have suffered is too late to discuss. One can rate truly only

as far as one has gone. I cannot see as far ahead for myself as for my

friends.”

“I can see for you.” She spoke slowly, and with difficulty. “Not only

perfect health, but laurels. I hope my little spot in your heart may

not be entirely shadowed by the lustre of that hour.” Her composure was

returning. “I shall miss you; I want you to know that I appreciate the

value of your friendship, of which I stood in need. You have helped me

by your fond belief in me.”

He didn’t raise his head, but his hand.

“Oh, I have done so little; don’t shame me. You have been taking care

of me instead. You have made my life richer--deeper--brought back some

of the old faith in my own ideals that was gradually being crushed out.

I can understand how men can be forced to such a height that falling

would seem too far and hard. I wish I could feel that I had brought

half the sunlight into your life as you have into mine.”

“You have brought the most that will ever be there.”

“Oh, don’t say that just as I am going; that kind of sun shines not

only through the senses, but through the soul. It will always shine if

you will only think so.”

She bowed her head, the wide fringe of brown seaweed trembled under the

waves that ran up on the warm-hued sand.

“And I am glad that we have had this year. With all its pain--it is

ours. Think of me sometimes when I am gone, Esther. Be good--by that I

mean, brave.”

His voice broke.

The tense strain of the moment was ended, as he bent forward. His heart

was in the kiss he left on her hair. He turned and walked quickly away

without looking back.

In the darkness of her room, a young figure lay stricken with grief

across her bed, mourning the vision of her ideals that seemed gone

without fulfillment. In the morning when she heard the happy sound

of laughing voices the hopelessness of her bereavement came over her

afresh. She was alone in her sorrow and memories. She was so weak that

her body felt bruised, and her arms lay like a dead weight at her

side. Was her courage broken? She prayed a passionate prayer for the

poor, heartless women who had kept faith with virtue, and had not been

rewarded--who had scattered their broken ideals along the road that they

went, that all who followed must bleed and suffer. She reached out for

her violin; for a while she lay still with it in her arms. It was not

sufficient. She needed some human thing for companionship. Her soul

hated its bodily enthrallment--she would fly out of it--she must. With a

supreme effort she raised herself, and faced the mirror. Her wide, dim

eyes looked out at her in pity. Then from her window she saw a steamer

going out. It was time for the Majestic that was to take Glenn Andrews

out of New York--out of her life. The two loves of her life--they must

die together. Suddenly grasping the neck of her violin, she struck it

against the side of the bed and shattered the exquisite thing. She fell

back prostrate, and there for weeks she lay between this life and the

eternal.

CHAPTER V.

GLENN ANDREWS went to France, to Moret-sur-Loing, an old cathedral

town, thinly peopled, on the skirts of the forest of Fontainbleu.

It was secluded and out of the way. Here he would lead a quiet life

of study and work. This was his delight. A poet-soul living in the

pursuit, not possession of the ideal. He had taken up his abode in

a little, old inn. Away from the world and yet so near it. This was

a beautiful country; the sight of it did his spirit good. He loved

the hills and valleys and streams. On one side the ruins of an old

Keep belting him, and on the other, the mills with long rows of deep

windows, from which the workers looked out upon the sunshine and their

homes. The small mill-houses nestled low in the leaves.

One day, returning late from a long walk, Glenn passed a peasant

mother, poorly clothed, seated in her doorway; her child was sitting by

with its hands about its knees. She kept pointing to the path that led

to the mill. She was evidently looking for some one. Soon a man came in

sight. A glow lit in the sombre eyes of the mother, and a smile leaped

from her haggard face to the weary man, who suddenly straightened his

drooping shoulders. There was something besides pain and work in the

world, and they had found it. He took the child in his arms, tossing it

up and letting it fall back again--this human miniature of their love

and youth. Many a day, Glenn strolled at evening to see their meeting

when the father came home from the mill. It rested him. He became

absorbed in his work, reading the proof of the third book that was to

add something to, or take from, the name of the lyrical poet.

It was not long until he heard of Esther’s illness. It gave him a stab

of remorse and distressed him sorely. Had he, who had nurtured her soul

so carefully, injured it more deeply than the careless world? He who

had enthralled her childhood, steadfastly guided her girlhood--in whose

woman’s destiny he had played so fatal a part. Here the pathos and the

irony were strangely interwoven. Would it have been better had she

never known the broader, fuller world? Had she now been living away her

life contentedly in the dark? These questions came between him and his

work. As he gazed dreamily out, the leaves were swaying carelessly. A

vision of the dependent, lovely girl overwhelmed him. In the wind he

seemed to hear Esther’s voice--all the youth and laughter gone out of

it. It was not like that day when he held her face between his hands

and gave her the kiss of love. He sighed for the virginal softness of

her tremulous lips. The wind went wandering along the wood’s green

edge, like a miserable thing, offering no consolation. From his

meditation came like an accusing ghost the realization that there is

but one true aim in life--to seek and find the soul’s complement. He had

sought. He had found, but he had sacrificed. The spiritual need of his

soul had been set aside. For what? An agony of yearning welled up in

his heart--a yearning for the sense of her sweet presence which thrilled

him with a joy of pain. The best of love they had missed--the supreme

surrender.

CHAPTER VI.

ESTHER’S health was returning, and with it her strength. Her pride

and her spirit, both, were fired. There was one thing left to her in

her grief--concealment. She bound this thought to her heart, and held

it close--so close. She was a soldier’s daughter, and came of a stock

whose fortitude in defeat had been even more splendid than their valor

in war. To her the secret of love had been harshly told, but she would

hear it with courage. In the swiftest current of destiny, she would

show her womanly strength.

CHAPTER VII.

“YOU will wonder at seeing this letter from me,” Glenn wrote to Esther,

“for it will not be a usual one--not at all the sort of letter you

have been accustomed to receiving from me. Perhaps it is that I have

changed--greatly changed from that old self you knew--most of all

changed from what I used to be to you. I can see you now as you looked

to me that afternoon at Indian Well, when I first spoke to you. You

touched me so closely then--so nearly--and you were such a child.

“All through that first year I think you could never have guessed

how much the blossoming of that little wild heart of yours meant to

me. I watched it from day to day, from month to month, so closely.

Maybe I watered it some, and pulled some of the weeds that might have

crowded its roots. I hope so. You were a child then and I a man, yet

I had been a man without a passion. I thought much in those days, and

dreamed that I knew myself. Achievement was my god. I told myself that

my interest in you was the interest of the philosopher--the master--and

I watched your mind unfold with a curious delight. I know now, dear,

that it was a far different feeling from that--one that went far deeper

and meant much more to me, even when I would not admit it to myself. It

is to his own heart last of all that a man admits his own error. And

yet, as I look back at it now, I think that I meant to be honest with

myself. When you came to the city and I saw the wondrous woman that

had grown--when I saw your flower heart--still the heart of the child in

all that was sweet and innocent--turning more and more towards me for

its sun--it waked something new within me. I saw the problem. I felt

your dependence grow each day stronger. You leaned upon me so that

I thought sometimes I could feel every throb of your heart. You were

achieving. Your art was growing. Your genius was lifting. You were

coming nearer and nearer to the ideal that I had imagined for you.

When such a development has become the great and absorbing passion of

a man’s life, I cannot express to you how haunting becomes the fear

of disappointment, how terrible the jealousy of circumstance that may

step between him and its fulfillment. You had beautiful ideals--such as

I have had--and they had grown a part of you. To lose them would have

ashed the ember; it would have deadened the quick sensibilities and

wounded that soul-instinct of yours in which your music lived. And when

I saw these ideals dependent upon me--upon my presence--upon the

sympathy of mine, which I could not have denied if I had tried--I stood

by them and you. Dear, the soul of a woman is a wonderful thing. It will

not bear experiment. Yours was like a sensitive plant that cannot bear

the light, and sheds its loveliest perfume in the dark. So I tried to

give it the darkness--to cloud the glare of hollowness that was in our

world--to let the light in slowly and only when the leaves were strong

enough to bear it. All this time I could not help but see that when I

went from you the shock would be great. My philosophy taught me the

penalty of emotion, and I thought I had much to do in the world. I

dreamed of work that would absorb me utterly--that would take the best

that was in me, of feeling and of effort. All my life I had denied

myself the passion that my eyes told me was growing in you. I had grown

to consider myself apart from others--a mental solitary who had locked

the door of his heart because he had work to do. It had not occurred

to me that the Juggernaut whose rumbling wheels I would not hear might

crush you. It was the concert at the Metropolitan that opened my

eyes. I knew then that your art and your heart had twined together so

intimately that if one were cut, the other would bleed. I knew then

that I must either go or stay, that if I became a stronger part of you

my going would be fatal to your own achievement and to mine. Dear, it

was not all selfishness--this resolve of mine. You will never know what

it meant to me to tear up the roots that had grown in spite of me: it

was like tearing the flesh and leaving it quivering. But that I could

have borne if it left you better able to go on. I did not know then

what I know now. I blame myself that I did not read truer. The news of

your breakdown and the giving up of your music came to me like a blow

in the dark. In showing me yours, it has shown me my own heart. The

depths of my self-condemnation have taught me myself. It has taught me

that achievement is a pitiful thing compared with a woman’s love--that

your happiness means more to me--a thousand times more--than success:

that I love you--I love you--utterly and wholly--and that I want you to

be my wife. The future is impossible to me without you. Each day since

I saw you, your step has been in every sound. Each night your face

has been my vision. Here from my window I can see a little knoll on

which is a cross, where the peasants go to pray to the patron saint of

the village. It is ugly, and battered, and old, but it has come to be

beautiful to me, for I know now what they are praying for. The hills

are gold with the grain, and a little winding path runs down toward my

eyrie. I can almost imagine you coming down it now to meet me, with

your dear face raised to my window--”

As Glenn finished the page, the boy tapped at the little door with

the daily mail, and he reached out an indifferent hand to take it. A

familiar flourish caught his eye, and, recognizing Richmond Briarley’s

penmanship, he opened a bulky envelope. A card, closely written, and a

small book met his gaze.

CHAPTER VIII.

“MY young Idealist, I send you a clever story, one which shows

remarkable talent, and which you really must read. There is, or was,

once upon a time in this town, another consummate young Idealist like

yourself, but of the female persuasion; a protegé of yours who

fiddled. She, I remember, believed in a few things; among others,

that there was a little to be considered besides art, and that she

had a lump somewhere which she called a heart. You have always been

troubled with the same feature, I believe.

“The lady has just issued a story, which I send you to-day. Just take

a look at it and find me that lump, will you? Cold as an icicle! By

the way, I understand that the lady in question was quite a social

success here in our city, and very much sought after in drawing rooms,

in which she earned about her own price. She has come to the

philosophical conclusion that you used to uphold: which is, that as

long as a person _does_, it don’t much matter what a person _feels_.

Anyway, she is doing it; and I take it from this novel that she is

not feeling much either.

“Yours, Briarley.”

Glenn read the letter with a curious shock, and opened the novelette.

As he finished the last page and laid it down on the table beside

him--this story with the heart of a stone--he sat looking out the window

with a daze of anguish in his eyes. His hands were supporting his

bearded chin. Without, the splendid sunset, the gilding flame of which

caused his features to shine resplendently. His sad, wistful face,

convulsed with emotion. What a tumult of silent, unspeakable memories;

what feelings of regret and longing! Instinct does not always point the

truth. No suspicion of the brave ruse of Esther came to him now--no

apprehension of the hurt pride whose strain of revolt forced from her

this literary lie. He had been driven blindly on by his yearning for

the more perfect art. He didn’t care for laurels now, nor for that art

for whose sake he had destroyed the best thing in his life. Was ever

heart-break more cruel? He sat for an hour in silence. The sunset had

lost its beauty. The grain on the hills had lost its gold. He took

the letter he had been writing to Esther, tore it up, and flung the

fragments of what, if he had known, was the best of his life, out the

window. A lazy breeze caught them up and scattered them. A single one

with the word “love” on it was blown back and settled slowly in his

hat. A bell was ringing for compline. He saw the peasants in their

simple devotion going slowly to worship. He took his hat and walked

across the street to the little café. There two comrades called him

over to have a bottle of wine with them.

“Ah, poet!” one said, laughing as he reached over and took the stray

bit of paper that lay on his hair. “Still the philosopher! Making love

with your head?”

“You’re wrong, this time, it was from the heart,” and Glenn Andrews

forced the shadow of a smile into his lips.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters’ errors in

spelling and punctuation.

No changes have been made to dialect.

Some variant spellings have been retained.