CHAPTER XXX

TRIBUTE TO THE MINOTAUR

The scene of Paul's departure was no worse than many an outbreak in the

ordinary married life of ordinary, quick-tempered, over-tired married

people, for whom an open quarrel brings relief like the clearing of the

air after an electric storm, but to Lydia it was no such surface

manifestation of nerves. The impulse that had made them both break out

into the cruel words came from some long-gathering bitterness, the very

existence of which was like the end of all things to her. A single flash

of lightning had showed her to the edge of what a terrifying precipice

they had strayed, and then had left her in darkness.

That was how it seemed to her; she was in the most impenetrable

blackness, though the little girl played on beside her with a child's

cheerful blindness to its elder's emotion, and Anastasia detected

nothing but that her mistress had a better color than before and stepped

about quite briskly.

It was the restless activity of a tortured animal which drove Lydia from

one household task to another, hurrying her into a trembling physical

exhaustion, which, however, brought with it no instant's cessation of

the tumult in her heart. The night after Paul's departure was like a

black eternity to her turning wildly on her bed, or rising to walk as

wildly about the silent house. "But I can't stand this!--to hate and be

hated! I can not bear it! I must do something--but what? but what?" Once

she feared she had screamed out these ever-recurring words, so audibly

like a cry of agony did they ring in her ears; but, forcing herself to

an instant's immobility, she heard Ariadne's light, regular breathing

continue undisturbed.

She sat down on her bed and told herself that she would go out of her

mind if she could not think something different from this chaos of angry

misery. She fell on her knees, she sent her soul out in a supreme appeal

for help and, still kneeling, she felt the intolerable tension within

her loosen. She began to cry softly. The unnatural strength which had

sustained her gave way; she sank together in a heap, her head leaning

against the bed, her arms thrown out across it. Here Anastasia found her

the next morning, apparently asleep, although upon being called she

seemed to come to herself from a deeper unconsciousness.

Whatever it had been, the hour or two of oblivion that lay back of her

was like a wall between her soul and the worst phase of her suffering.

In answer to her cry for help, perhaps an appeal to the best in her own

nature, there had come a cessation of what was to her the only

unbearable pain--the bitter, blaming anger which had flared up in her,

answering her husband's anger like the reflection of a torch in a

mirror. In that silent hour before dawn, she had seen Paul suddenly as a

victim to forces outside himself quite as much as she was; poor, tired

Paul, with his haggard face, flushed with a wrath that was not his own,

but an involuntary expression of suffering, the scream of a man caught

in the cogs of a great machine. She hung before her mental vision now,

constantly, the picture of Paul as she had seen him when she came

downstairs; Paul leaning his chin on his hands, his jaded face white and

drawn under his thinning, graying hair.

The alleviation which came through this conception of her husband was

tempered by the final disappearance of her old feeling that Paul was

stronger, clearer-headed, than she, and that if she could but once make

him stop and understand the forces in their life which she feared, he

could conquer them as easily as he conquered obstacles in the way of

their material success. She now felt that he was not even as strong as

she, since he could not get even her faint glimpse of their common

enemy, this Minotaur of futile materialism which had devoured the young

years of their marriage and was now threatening to destroy the

possibility of a great, strongly-rooted affection which had lain so

clearly before them. She felt staggered by the responsibility of having

to be strong enough for two; and as another day wore on this new

preoccupation became almost as absorbing an obsession as her anger of

the night before.

But this was steadying in the very velocity with which her mind swept

around the circle of possible courses of action. Her thoughts hummed

with a steady, dizzy speed around and around the central idea that

something must be done and that she was now the only one to do it.

'Stashie thought to herself that she had never seen Mrs. Hollister look

so well, her eyes were so bright, her cheeks so pink.

Lydia had set herself the task of getting down and sorting the curtains

in the house, preparatory to sending them to the cleaner. Above the

piles of dingy drapery, her face shone, as 'Stashie had noted, with a

strange, feverish brightness. Her knees shook under her, but she walked

about quickly. Ariadne ran in and out of the house, chirping away to her

mother of various wonderful discoveries in the world of outdoors. Lydia

heard her as from a distance, although she gave relevant answers to the

child's talk.

"It has come down," she was saying to herself, "to a life-and-death

struggle. It isn't a question now of how much of the best in Paul, in

me, in our life, we can save. It's whether we can save _any_! How dirty

lace curtains get! It must be the soft coal--yes, it is a life and death

struggle--I must see to Ariadne's underwear. It is too warm for these

sunny days.--Oh! Oh! Paul and I have quarreled! And what about! About

such sickeningly trivial things--how badly 'Stashie dusts! There are

rolls of dust under the piano--but I thought people only

quarreled--quarreled terribly--over great things: unfaithfulness,

cruelty, differences in religion! Oh, if I only now had a religion, a

religion which would--Yes, Ariadne; but only to the edge of the driveway

and back. How muddy the driveway is! Paul said it should have more

gravel--_Paul!_ How _can_ he come back to me after such--Madeleine says

married people always quarrel--how can they look into each other's eyes

again! We must escape that sort of life! We must! We _must_!"

The thought of what she had hoped from her marriage and of what she had,

filled her with the most passionate self-reproach. It must be at least

half her fault, since she and Paul made up but one whole. As she helped

'Stashie sort the dingy curtains, she was saying over and over to

herself that she was responsible, responsible as much as for Ariadne's

health. This conception so possessed her now that she felt herself able

to accomplish anything, even the miracle needed.

To have achieved this state of passionate resolution gave her for a

moment the sense of having started upon the straight road to escape from

her nightmare; and for the first time since the door had slammed behind

Paul she drew a long breath and was able to give more than a blind gaze

to the world about her.

She noticed that, though it was after twelve o'clock, Ariadne had not

been told to come to luncheon. When the little girl came running at her

mother's call, her vivid face flushed with happy play, Lydia knew a

throb of that exquisite, unreasoning parent's joy, lying too near the

very springs of life for any sickness of the spirit to affect it. Like

everything else, however, the touch of the child's tight-clinging arms

about her neck brought her back to her preoccupation. Ariadne must not

be allowed to grow up to such a regret as she felt, that she had never

known her father. There were moments, she saw them clearly, when Paul

realized with difficulty the fact of his daughter's existence, and he

never realized it as a fact involving any need for a new attitude on his

part.

"When is Daddy coming back to us _vis_ time?" asked Ariadne over her

egg.

Anastasia paused furtively at the door. She had had a divination of

trouble in the last talk between her master and mistress. The door had

slammed. Mr. Hollister had not called for the tie she was pressing for

him in the kitchen--'Stashie told herself fiercely that "killing wud be

too good for her, makin' trouble like the divil's own!" She listened

anxious for Lydia's answer.

"Daddy's coming back to us as soon as his business is done," said Paul's

wife. At the turn of her phrase she turned cold, and added with a quick

vehemence: "No, no! before that! Long before that!" She went on, to

cover her agitation and get the maid out of the room, "'Stashie, get the

baby a glass of milk."

"The front door bell's ringin'," said 'Stashie, departing in that

direction, with the assurance of her own ability to choose the proper

task for herself, so exasperating to her master.

She came back bringing Miss Burgess in her wake, Miss Burgess

apologizing for "coming right _in_, that way," exclaiming effusively at

the pretty picture made by mother and child,--"She must be such company

for you, Miss Lydia"--Miss Burgess, deferential, sure of her own

position and her hostess', and determinedly pleased with the general

state of things. Lydia repressed a sigh of impatience, but, noting the

tired lines in the little woman's face, told Anastasia to make another

cup of tea for Miss Burgess and cook her an egg.

"Oh, delighted, I'm sure! Quite an honor to have the same lunch with

little Miss Hollister."

Ariadne did not smile at this remark, though from the speaker's accent

it was meant as a pleasantry.

Miss Burgess cast about in her mind for another bit of suitable

badinage, but finding none, she began at once on the object of her

visit.

"Now, my dear, I want you to listen to all I have to say before you make

one objection. It's an idea of my very own. You'll let me get through

without interruption?"

"Yes, oh, yes," murmured Lydia, lifting Ariadne down from her high-chair

and untying the napkin from about her thin little neck.

The introduction of a new element in her surroundings had for a moment

broken the thread of her exalted resolutions. She wondered with a sore

heart, as though it had been a common lovers' quarrel, how she and Paul

could ever get over the first sight of each other again. She was

wondering how, with the most passionate resolve in the world, she could

do anything at all under the leaden garment of physical fatigue which

would weigh her down in the months to come.

Miss Burgess began in her best style, which she so evidently considered

very good indeed, that she could not doubt Lydia's attention. It was all

about a home for working-women she explained; a new charity which had

come from the East, had caught on like anything among the Smart Set of

Columbus, and was about to be introduced into Endbury. The most

exclusive young people in Columbus--the East End Set (Miss Burgess had a

genius for achieving oral capitalization) gave a parlor play for the

first benefit there, in one of the Old Broad Street Homes, and they were

willing to repeat it in Endbury to introduce it there. A Perfectly

splendid crowd was sure to come, tickets could be Any Price, and the

hostess who lent her house to it could have the glory of a most unique

affair. Mrs. Lowder would be overwhelmed with delight to have the pick

of the Society of the Capital at her house, but Miss Burgess had thought

it such an opportunity for Miss Lydia to come out of mourning with,

since it was for charity. She motioned Lydia, about to speak, sternly to

silence: "You said you wouldn't interrupt! And you haven't let me say

_half_ yet! That's your side of it--the side your dear mother would

think of if she were only here; but there's another side that you can't,

you _oughtn't_ to resist!" She finished her tea with a hasty swallow

and, going around the table, sat down by Lydia, laying her hand

impressively on the young matron's slim arm. "You're the sweetest thing

in the world, of course, but, like other people of your fortunate class,

you can't realize how perfectly awfully lucky you are, nor how unlucky

_poor_ people are! Of course it stands to reason that you can't even

imagine the life of a working-woman--you, a woman of entire leisure,

with every want supplied before you speak of it by a husband who adores

you! Why, Miss Lydia, to give you some idea let me tell you just one

little thing. Lots and lots of the working-women of Endbury live with

their families in two or three rooms right on that horrid Main Street

near their work because they can't afford _carfares_!"

Lydia looked at her without speaking. She remembered her futile,

desperate, foolish proposition to Paul to get more time together by

living near his work. With a roar, the flood of her bewilderment,

diverted for a time, broke over her again. She braced herself against

it. Through her companion's dimly-heard exhortations that, from her high

heaven of self-indulgence, she stoop to lend a hand to her less favored

sisters, she repeated to herself, clinging to the phrase as though it

were a magic formula: "If I can only wish hard enough to make things

better, nothing can prevent me."

The telephone bell rang, and Miss Burgess interrupted herself to say:

"It's for me, I know. I told them at the office to call me up here." She

got herself out of the room in her busy way, her voice soon coming in a

faint murmur from the far end of the hall.

Lydia walked to the window to call Ariadne in to put on a wrap, the

thought and action automatic. She had buttoned the garment about the

child's slender body before she responded again to the little living

presence. Then she took her in a close embrace. With the child's breath

on her face, with her curls exhaling the fresh outdoor air, there came

to pass for poor Lydia one of the strange, happy mysteries of the

contradictory tangle that is human nature. She had felt it often with

Paul after one of their long separations--how mere physical presence can

sometimes bring a consolation to the distressed spirit.

As she held her child to her heart, things seemed for a moment quite

plain and possible. Why, Paul was Ariadne's father! As soon as he was

with her again, all would be well. It must be. Nothing could separate

her from the father of her baby! They were one flesh now. There was

still all their lifetime to grow to be one in spirit. She had only to

try harder. They had simply started on a false track. They were so

young. So many years lay before them. There was plenty of time to turn

back and start all over again--there was plenty of time to--

"Oh, my dear! my dear!" Miss Burgess faltered weakly into the room and

sank upon a chair.

Lydia sprang up, Ariadne still in her arms, and faced her for a long

silent instant, searching her face with passion. Then she set the little

girl down gently. "Run out and play, dear," she said, and until the door

had shut on the child she did not stir. Her hand at her throat, "Well?"

she asked.

Miss Burgess began to cry into her handkerchief.

"It's Paul!" said Lydia with certainty. She sat down.

The weeping woman nodded.

"He has left me," Lydia continued in the same dry tone of affirmation.

"I know. We had a quarrel, and he has left me."

Miss Burgess looked up, quite wild with surprise, her sobs cut short,

her face twisted. "Oh, no--no--no!" she cried, running across the room

and putting her arms about the other. "No; it's not that! He--he--the

man who telephoned said they were testing the dynamo, and your husband

insisted on--"

Lydia came to life like a swimmer emerging into the air after a long

dive. "Oh, he's hurt! He's hurt!" she cried, bounding to her feet. "I

must go to him. I must go to him!"

She tore herself away from the reporter and darted toward the door. The

older woman ran after her, stumbling, sobbing, putting hands of

imploring pity on her.

Although no word was spoken, Lydia suddenly screamed out as though she

had been stabbed. "_NO! Not that!_" she cried.

"Yes, yes, my poor darling!" said the other.

Lydia turned slowly around. "Then it is too late. We never can do

better," she said.

Miss Burgess tried helplessly to unburden her kind heart of its aching

sympathy. "You spoke of a little disagreement, but, oh, my dear, don't

let that be the last thought. Think of the years of perfect love and

knowledge you had together."

"We never knew each other," said Lydia. Her voice did not tremble.

"Oh, don't! don't!" pleaded Miss Burgess, alarmed. "You mustn't let it

unhinge you so! Such a perfect marriage!"

"We were never married," said Lydia. She leaned against the wall and

closed her eyes.

"Oh, help! Someone!" called the poor reporter. "Somebody come quick."

Lydia opened her eyes. She spoke still in a low, steady voice, but in it

now was a shocking quality from which the other shrank back terrified.

"_I could have loved him!_" she said.

"Quick--'Stashie--hurry--keep the baby out of the room! Your mistress

has fainted!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BOOK IV

"BUT IT IS NOT TOO LATE FOR ARIADNE"

CHAPTER XXXI

PROTECTION FROM THE MINOTAUR

Dr. Melton burst open the door of the house in the Black Rock woods, and

running to the owner caught hold of his bared brown arm. "Paul Hollister

is dead!" he cried.

"I read the papers," said Rankin, looking down at him without stirring.

"The damn fool!" cried the doctor, his face working. "Just now! There's

another child expected."

Rankin's inscrutable gravity did not waver at this speech. He felt the

hand that rested on his arm tremble, and he was thinking, as Judge Emery

had so often thought, that perhaps one reason for the doctor's success

in treating women was a certain community of too-responsive nerves. "You

can hardly blame a man because the date of his death is inconvenient,"

he said reasonably. He drew up one of his deep chairs and pushed the

doctor into it. "Sit down and get your breath. You look sick. How do you

happen to be up so early? It's hardly daylight."

"Up! You don't suppose I've been to bed! Lydia--" His voice halted.

Rankin's quiet face stirred. "She feels it--terribly?"

"I can't make her out! I can't make her out!" The doctor flung this

confession of failure before him excitedly. "I don't know what's in her

mind, but she's evidently dangerously near--women in her condition

never have a very settled mental poise, anyhow, and this sudden

shock--they _telephoned_ it--and there was nobody there but that fool

Flora--"

"Do you mean that Mrs. Hollister is out of her mind?" asked Rankin

squarely.

"I don't know! I don't know, I tell you! She says strange

things--strange things. When I got there yesterday afternoon, she was

holding Ariadne--you knew, didn't you? that she called their little girl

Ariadne--?"

Rankin sat down, white to the lips. "No," he said, "I didn't know that.

I never heard anything about--about her married life."

"Well, she was holding Ariadne as close as though she was expecting

kidnapers. I came in and she looked up--God! Rankin, with what a face of

fear! It wasn't grief. It was terror! She said: 'I must save the

children--I mustn't let it get the children, too.' I asked her what she

meant, and she went on in a whisper that fairly turned the blood

backward in my veins, 'The Minotaur! He got Paul--I must hide the

children from him!' And that's all she would say. I managed to put

Ariadne to bed, though Lydia screamed at the idea of having her out of

her sight, and I gave Lydia a bromide and made her lie down. I think she

knew me--oh, yes, I'm sure she did--why, she seemed like herself in

every way but that one--but all night long she has wakened at intervals

with a shriek and would not be quieted until she had felt of Ariadne.

Nothing I said has had the slightest effect. I'm at my wits' end! If she

doesn't get quieted soon--I finally gave her an opiate--enough to drug

her senseless for a time--I don't know what to do! I don't know what to

do!" He dropped his head into his hands and sat silent, shivering.

Rankin was looking at him, motionless, his powerful hands gripping his

knees. He did not seem to breathe at all.

The doctor sprang up and began to trot about, kicking at the legs of

the furniture and biting his nails. "Yes, I can, too! I do blame him for

the date of his death!" He went back angrily to an earlier remark.

"Hollister killed himself as gratuitously as if he had taken a pistol!

And he did it out of sheer, devilish vanity--ambition! He had worked

himself almost insane, anyhow. I'd warned him that he must take it easy,

get all the rest he could. His nerves were like fiddle-strings. And what

did he do? Made a night trip to Evanston to superintend a job entirely

outside his work. The inspector gave the machines the regular test; but

Paul wasn't satisfied. Said they hadn't come up to what he'd guaranteed

to get the contract; took charge of the test himself, ran the speed up

goodness knows how high. The inspector said he warned him, but Paul had

got going and nothing could stop

him--speed-mad--efficiency-mad--whatever you call it. And at last the

fly-wheel on the engine couldn't stand it. It went through four floors

and tore a hole in the roof--they say, in their ghastly phrase, there

isn't enough left of him for a funeral! The other men left widows and

children, too, I suppose--Oh, damn! damn! damn!" He stopped short in the

middle of the floor, his teeth chattering, his hand at his mouth.

Rankin's face showed that he was making a great effort to speak. "Would

I be allowed to see her?" he asked finally.

The doctor spun round on him, amazed. "You? Lydia? Why in the world?"

"Perhaps I could quiet her. I have been able to quiet several delirious

sick people when others couldn't."

"I don't even know she's delirious--that's what puzzles me. She seems--"

"Will you let me try?" asked Rankin again.

* * * * *

When they reached the house in Bellevue, Lydia was still in a heavy

stupor, so Mrs. Sandworth told them, showing no surprise at Rankin's

appearance. The two men sat down outside the door of her room to wait.

It was a long hour they passed there. Rankin sat silent, holding on his

knee little Ariadne, who amused herself quietly with his watch and the

leather strap that held it. He took the back off, and let her see the

little wheel whirring back and forth. His eyes never left the child's

serious, rosy face. Once or twice he laid his large, work-roughened hand

gently on her dark hair.

Dr. Melton fidgeted about, making excursions into the sick room and

downstairs to look after his business by telephone, and, when he sat by

the door, relieving his overburdened heart from time to time in some

sudden exclamation. "Paul hasn't left a penny, of course," one of these

ran, "and he hadn't finished paying for the house. But she'll come

naturally to live with Julia and me." At these last words, in spite of

his painful preoccupation, a tender look of anticipation lighted his

face.

Again, he said: "What crazy notion can it be about the whatever-it-was

getting Paul?" Later, "Was there ever such a characteristic death?"

Finally, with a long sigh: "Poor Paul! Poor Paul! It doesn't seem more

than yesterday that he was a little boy. He was a brave little boy!"

Mrs. Sandworth came to the door. "She's beginning to come to herself, I

think. She stirs, and moves her hands about."

As she spoke, there was a scream from the bedroom: "My baby! My baby!"

Rankin sprang to his feet, holding Ariadne on one arm, and stepped

quickly inside. "Here is the baby," he said in a quiet voice. "I was

holding her all the time you slept. I will not let the Minotaur come

near her."

Lydia looked at him long, with no sign of recognition. The room was

intensely silent. A drop of blood showed on Dr. Melton's lower lip where

his teeth gripped it.

"Nobody else sees it," said Lydia in a hurried, frightened tone. "They

won't believe me when I say it is there. They won't take care of

Ariadne. They can't--"

"I see it," Rankin broke in. He went on steadily: "I will take care

that it does not hurt Ariadne."

"Do you promise?" asked Lydia solemnly.

"I promise," said Rankin.

Lydia looked about her wonderingly, with blank eyes. "I think, then, I

will lie down and rest a little," she said, in a thin, weak voice. "I

feel very tired. I can't seem to remember what makes me so tired." She

sank back on the pillows and closed her eyes. Her face was like a sick

child's in its appealing, patient look of suffering. She looked up at

Rankin again. "You will not go far?" she asked.

"I shall be close at hand," he answered.

"You are very kind," murmured Lydia, closing her eyes again. "I am sorry

to be so much trouble to you--but it is so important about Ariadne. I am

sorry to be so--you are--very--"

Melton touched the other man's arm and motioned him to the door.

CHAPTER XXXII

AS ARIADNE SAW IT

All that day, the tall, ruddy-haired man in working clothes sat in the

hall, within sight, though not within hearing, of the sick room, playing

with the rosy child, and exerting all his ingenuity to invent quiet

games that they could play there "where Muvver tan see us"; Ariadne soon

learned the reason for staying in one place so constantly. She was very

happy that day. Never in her life had she had so enchanting a

playfellow. He showed her a game to play with clothespins and tin plates

from the kitchen--why, it was so much fun that 'Stashie herself had to

join in as she went past. And he told one story after another without a

sign of the usual grown-up fatigue. They had their lunch there at the

end of the hall, on the little sewing-table with two dolls beside them

and the new man made Ariadne laugh by making believe feed the dolls out

of her doll's tea-set.

It was a little queer, of course, to stay right there all the time, and

to have Muvver staring at them from the bedroom at the other end of the

hall, and not to be allowed to do more than tiptoe in once or twice and

kiss her without saying a word; but when Ariadne grew confused with

trying to think this out, and the little eyes drooped heavily, the new

man picked her up and tucked her away in his arms so comfortably that,

though she meant to reach up and feel if his beard felt as red as it

looked, she fell asleep before she could raise her hand.

When she woke up it was twilight, but she was still in his arms. She

stirred sleepily, and he looked down and smiled at her. His face looked

like an old friend's--as though she had always known it. He had a

friendly smile. She was very happy. Uncle Marius came toward them,

teetering on his toes, the way he always did. "I think it's safe to

leave now, Rankin," he said. "She has fallen into a natural sleep."

The new man stood up, still holding Ariadne. How tall he was! She kept

going up and up, and when she peered over his shoulder she found herself

looking down on Uncle Marius' white head.

"How about to-morrow?" asked the new man.

"We'll see. We'll see," said Dr. Melton; and then they all went

downstairs and had toast and boiled eggs for supper. Ariadne informed

her companions, looking up from her egg with a yolky smile, "Daddy told

Muvver the other day that 'Stashie had certainly learned to boil eggs

something _fine_! And he laughed, but Muvver didn't. Was it a joke?"

"They are very good eggs indeed, and well boiled," the new man answered.

She loved the way in which he conversed with her.

"Ought we to give her some idea?" asked the doctor in a low voice.

"I would wait until she asks," said the other.

But Paul's child never asked. Once or twice she remarked that Daddy was

away longer than usual "_vis_ time," but he had never been a very

steadily recurrent phenomenon in her life, and soon her little brain,

filled with new impressions, had forgotten that he ever used to come

back.

There were many new impressions. A great deal was happening nowadays.

Every morning something different, every day new people going and

coming. Aunt Marietta, Auntie Madeleine, Uncle George from Cleveland,

whom she'd seen only once or twice before, and Great-Aunt Hollister,

whom she knew very well and feared as well as she knew her. After a time

even the husbands began to appear, the husbands she had seen so rarely;

Aunt Marietta's husband, and Aunt Madeleine's--fat, bald Mr. Lowder, who

smelled of tobacco and soap and took her up on his lap--as much as he

had--and gave her a big round dollar and kissed her behind her ear and

smiled at her very kindly and held her very close. He said he liked

little girls, and he wished Auntie Madeleine would get him one some day

for a Christmas present. She informed him, filled with admiration at the

extent of her own knowledge, that he couldn't get a Christmas present

some day, but only just Christmas Day.

Mostly, however, they paid no attention to her, these many aunts and

uncles who came and went. And, oddly enough, Uncle Marius always shut

the door to Muvver's room when they came, and wouldn't let them, no

matter how much they wanted to, go in and see Muvver, who was, she

gathered, very sick. Ariadne didn't see, really, why they came at all,

since they couldn't see Muvver and they certainly never so much as

looked at 'Stashie, dear darling 'Stashie--more of a comfort these queer

days than ever before--and they never, never spoke to the new man, who

came and went as though nobody knew he was there. They would look right

at him and never see him. Everything was very hard for a little girl to

understand, and she dared ask no questions.

Everybody seemed to be very angry, and yet not at her. Indeed, she took

the most prodigious care to avoid doing anything naughty lest she

concentrate on herself this now widely diffused disapprobation. Never in

her life had she tried so hard to be good, but nobody paid the least

attention to her--nobody but the new man and 'Stashie, and they weren't

the angry ones. The others stood about in groups in corners, talking in

voices that started in to be low and always got loud before they

stopped. Ariadne added several new words to her vocabulary at this time,

from hearing them so constantly repeated. When her dolls were bad now,

she shook them and called them "Indecent! indecent!" and asked them,

with as close an imitation as she could manage, of Great-Aunt

Hollister's tone, "What _do_ you suppose people are thinking! What _do_

you suppose people are thinking!" Or she knocked them into a corner and

said "Shocking! Shocking!"

One day she stopped Uncle Marius, hurrying past her up the stairs, and

asked him: "What are you thinking of, Uncle Marius?"

"What am I thinking of? What do you mean?" he repeated, his face and

eyes twitching the way they did when he couldn't understand something

right off.

"Why, Auntie Madeleine keeps asking everybody all the time, 'What _can_

the doctor be thinking of?' I just wondered."

He bent to kiss her raspingly--there were stiff little stubby white

hairs coming out all over his face--and he said, as he trotted on up the

stairs, "I am thinking of making sure that you have a mother, my poor

dear."

And then there was a bigger change one day. She went to bed in her own

little crib, and when she woke up she wasn't there at all, but in a big

bed in a room at Aunt Julia's; and Aunt Julia was smiling at her, and

hugging her, and saying she was so glad she had come to live with her

and Uncle Marius for a while. Ariadne found out that Uncle Marius had

brought her and Muvver the night before in a carriage all the way from

Bellevue. She regretted excessively that she had not been awake to enjoy

the adventure.

At Aunt Julia's, things were quieter. All at once the other people, the

other uncles and aunts, had disappeared. That, of course, was because

she and Muvver were at Aunt Julia's. She conceived of the house in

Bellevue as still filled with their angry faces and voices, still

echoing to "Indecent! indecent!" and "What _do_ you suppose people

are saying?"

There was a long, long time after this when nothing special happened.

The new man continued to come here, and his visits were the only events

in Ariadne's quiet days. Apparently he came to see Ariadne, for he never

went to see Muvver at all, as he used to do in Bellevue. He took Ariadne

out in the back yard as the weather began to get warmer, and showed her

lots of outdoor plays. He was as nice as ever, only a good deal whiter;

and that was odd, for they were now in May, and from playing outdoors

all the time Ariadne herself was as brown as a berry. At least, that was

what Aunt Julia said. Ariadne accepted it with her usual patient

indulgence of grown-ups' mistakes. There was not, of course, a single

berry that was anything but red or black, or at least a sort of blue,

like huckleberries in milk. She and 'Stashie had gone over them, one by

one; they knew.

Uncle Marius remembered to shave himself nowadays. In fact, everything

was more normal. Ariadne began to forget about the exciting time in

Bellevue. Muvver wasn't in bed all the time now, but sat up in a chair

for part of the day and even, if one were ever so quiet, could listen to

accounts of what happened in Ariadne's world and could be told how Aunt

Julia said that 'Stashie was quite a help as second girl if you just

remembered to put away the best china, and that they had had eight new

cooks since Ariadne had been there, but the second _would_ have stayed,

only her mother got sick. The others just left. But Aunt Julia didn't

mind. When there wasn't any cook, if it happened to be 'Stashie's day

off, they all had bread and milk for supper, just as she had, and they

let her set the table, and she could do it ever so well only she forgot

_some_ things, of course, and Uncle Marius never got mad. He just said

he hoped eating bread and milk like her would make him as good as she

was--and she _was_ good--oh, Muvver, she was trying ever so hard to be

good--

"Come, dear," said Aunt Julia, "Mother's getting tired. We'd better go."

It was only after she went away, sometimes only when she lay awake in

her strange big bed, that Ariadne remembered that Muvver never said a

word, but only smoothed her hair and kissed her.

She and the new man used to play out in the old grape-arbor in the back

yard, and it was there, one day in mid-May, that Uncle Marius came

teetering out and called the new man to one side, only Ariadne could

hear what they said. Uncle Marius said: "It's no use, Rankin. It's a

fixed idea with her. She isn't violent any more, but she hasn't changed.

She is certainly a little deranged, but not enough for legal restraint.

She could take Ariadne and disappear any day. I'm in terror lest she do

that. I've no authority to prevent her. She won't talk to me freely

about what she is afraid of. She doesn't seem to trust me--_me_!"

Ariadne found the conversation as dull as all overheard grown-ups' talk,

and tried to busy herself with a corn-cob house the new man had been

showing her how to build. Two or three times lately he had taken her out

to his little house in the woods and showed her a lot of tools, and told

her what they were for, and said if she were older he would teach her

how to use them. Ariadne's head was full of the happy excitement of

those visits. Corn-cob houses were for babies, she thought now.

After a time, Uncle Marius went away, slamming the front gate after him

and stamping away up the street as though he were angry, only he did all

kinds of queer things without being angry. In fact, she had never seen

him angry. Perhaps he and Muvver were different from other people and

never were.

She looked up with a start. The new man had come back to the arbor, but

he did not look like play. He looked queer, so queer that Ariadne's

sensitive lower lip began to tremble and the corners of her mouth to

draw down. She could _not_ remember having done anything naughty. She

was frightened by the way he looked. And yet, he picked her up quite

gently, and held her on his knee, and asked her if Muvver could walk

about the house yet.

"Oh, yes," she told him, "and came down to dinner last night."

The new man put her down, and asked her with a "please" and "I'd be much

obliged" as though she were a grown-up herself, if she would do

something for him--go to Muvver and ask her if she felt strong enough to

come down into the grape-arbor to see him. Tell her he had something

very special to say to her.

Ariadne went, skipping and hopping in pleasurable excitement at her own

importance, and returned triumphantly to say that Muvver said she would

come. She wondered if he felt too grown-up for cob houses himself. He

hadn't built it any higher when she was gone. He looked as if he hadn't

even winked. While she stood wondering at his silence, his face got very

white. He stood up looking toward the house. Muvver was coming out, very

slowly, leaning on the railing to the steps--Muvver in the nightgowny

dress Aunt Julia had made her, only it wasn't really nightgowny, because

it was all over lace--Muvver with her hair in two braids over her

shoulders and all mussed up where she'd been lying down. Ariadne

wondered that she hadn't smoothed it a little. She knew what people

would say to _her_ if she came around with her hair looking like that.

The man went forward to meet Muvver, and gave her his hand, and they

neither of them smiled or said how do you do, but came back together

toward the arbor. And when they got there Muvver sat down quick, as

though she were tired, and laid her head back against the chair. The man

lifted Ariadne up and kissed her--he had never done that before. Now she

knew how his beard felt--very soft. She felt it against her face for a

long time. And he told her to go into the house to 'Stashie.

So she went. Ariadne always did as she was told. 'Stashie was trying to

make some ginger cookies, and the oven "jist would _not_ bake thim," she

said. They were all doughy when they came out, very much as they were

when they went in; but the dough was deliciously sweet and spicy.

'Stashie and Ariadne ate a great deal of it, because 'Stashie knew very

well from experience that the grown-ups have an ineradicable prejudice

against food that comes out of the oven "prezackly" the way it went in.

After that they had to wash their hands, all sticky with dough, and

after that 'Stashie took Ariadne on her lap and told her Irish fairy

stories, all about Cap O'Rushes and the Leprechaun, till they were

startled by the boiling over of the milk 'Stashie had put on the stove

to start a pudding. 'Stashie certainly did have bad luck with her

cooking, as she herself frequently sadly admitted.

But, oh! wasn't she darling to Ariadne! It made the lonely little girl

warm all over to be loved the way 'Stashie loved her. Sometimes when

Ariadne woke up with a bad dream it was 'Stashie who came to quiet her,

and she just hugged her up close, close, so that she could feel her

heart go thump, thump, thump. And she always, always had time to explain

things. It was wonderful how much time 'Stashie had for that--or

anything else Ariadne needed.

She was putting more milk on the stove when in dashed Uncle Marius, his

mouth wide open and his hands jumping around. "Where's your mother?

Where's Mrs. Hollister?" he cried.

"Out in the arbor," said Ariadne.

"Alone?"

"Oh, no--" Ariadne began to explain, but the doctor had darted to the

window. You could see the grape-arbor plainly from there--Muvver sitting

with her hair all mussed up around her face, listening to the new man,

who sat across the table from her and talked and talked and talked, and

never moved a finger. Uncle Marius put his hand up quick to his side and

said something Ariadne couldn't catch. She looked up, saw his face, and

ran away, terrified, to hide her face in 'Stashie's dirty apron. Now she

knew how Uncle Marius looked when he was angry. She heard him go out and

down the steps, and went fearfully to watch him. He went across the

grass to the arbor. The others looked toward him without moving, and

when he came close and leaned against the table, Muvver looked up at him

and said something, and then leaned back again, her head resting against

the chair, her eyes closed, her hands dropped down. How tired Muvver

always looked!

And just then 'Stashie spilled all the cocoa she was going to use to

flavor the pudding with. She spilled it on the stove, and it smoked and

stinked--there was nobody nowadays to forbid Ariadne to use 'Stashie's

words--and 'Stashie said there wasn't any more and they'd have to go off

to the grocery-store to get some, and if Ariadne knew where that nickel

was Mis' Sandworth give her, they could get a soda-water on the way, and

with two straws it would do for both.

CHAPTER XXXIII

WHAT IS BEST FOR THE CHILDREN?

Lydia lifted her face, white under the shadow of her disordered hair,

and said: "It is Mr. Rankin who must take care of the children--Ariadne,

and the baby if it lives."

She spoke in a low, expressionless voice, as though she had no strength

to spare. Dr. Melton's hand on the table began to shake. He answered: "I

have told you before, my dear, that there is no reason for your fixed

belief that you will not live after the baby's birth. You must not dwell

on that so steadily."

Lydia raised her heavy eyes once more to his. "I want him to have the

children," she said.

The doctor took a step or two away from the table. He was now shaking

from head to foot, and when he came back to the silent couple and took a

chair between them he made two or three attempts at speech before he

could command his voice. "It is very hard on me, Lydia, to--to have you

turn from me to a--to a stranger." His voice had grotesque quavers.

Lydia raised a thin, trembling hand, and laid it on her godfather's

sinewy fingers. She tried to smile into his face. "Dear Godfather," she

said wistfully, "if it were only myself--but the children--"

"What do you mean, Lydia? What do you mean?" he demanded with tremulous

indignation.

She dropped her eyes again and drew a long, sighing breath. "I haven't

strength to explain to you all I mean," she said gently, "and I think

you know without my telling you. You have always known what is in my

heart."

"I had thought there was some affection for me in your heart," said the

doctor, thrusting out his lips to keep them from trembling.

Lydia's drooping position changed slightly. She lifted her hands and

folded them together on the table, leaning forward, and bending full on

the doctor the somber intensity of her dark, deep-sunken eyes. "Dear

Godfather, I have no time or strength to waste." The slowness with which

she chose her words gave them a solemn weight. "I cannot choose. If it

hurts you to have me speak truth, you must be hurt. You know what a

failure I have made of my life, how I have missed everything worth

having--"

Dr. Melton, driven hard by some overmastering emotion, drew back, and

threw aside precipitately the tacit understanding he and Lydia had

always kept. "Lydia, what are you talking about! You have been more than

usually favored--you have been loved and cherished as few women--" His

voice died away under Lydia's honest, tragic eyes.

She went on as though he had not spoken. "My children must know

something different. My children must have a chance at the real things.

If I die, who can give it to them? Even if I live, shall I be wise

enough to give them what I had not wisdom or strength enough to get for

myself?"

"You speak as though I were not in the world, Lydia," the doctor broke

in bitterly, "or as though you hated and mistrusted me. Why do you look

to a stranger to--"

"Could you do for my children what you have not done for yourself?" she

asked him earnestly. "How much would you see of them? How much would you

know of them? How much of your time would you be willing to sacrifice to

learn patiently the inner lives of two little children? You would be

busy all day, like the other people I know, making money for them to

dress like other well-to-do children, for them to live in this fine, big

house, for them to go to expensive private schools with the children of

the people you know socially--for them to be as much as possible like

the fatherless child I was."

Lydia clenched her thin hands and went on passionately: "I would rather

my children went ragged and hungry than to be starved of real

companionship."

The doctor made a shocked gesture. "But, Lydia, someone must earn the

livings. You are--"

Lydia broke in fiercely: "They are not earning livings--they are earning

more dresses and furniture and delicate food than their families need.

They are earning a satisfaction for their own ambitions. They are

willing to give their families anything but time and themselves."

"Lydia! Lydia! I never knew you to be cruel before! They can not help

it--the way their lives are run. It's not that they wish to--they can

not help it! It is against an economic law you are protesting."

"That economic law has been broken by _one_ person I know," said Lydia,

"and that is the reason I--"

The doctor flushed darkly. The tears rose to his eyes. "Lydia, oh, my

dear! trust me--trust me! I, too, will--I swear I will do all that you

wish--don't turn away from me--trust me--!"

Lydia's mouth began to quiver. "Ah! don't make me say what must sound so

cruel!"

The doctor stared at her hard. "Make you say, you mean, that you _don't_

trust me."

She drew a little, pitiful breath, and turned away her head. "Yes; that

is what I mean," she said. She went on hurriedly, putting up appealing

hands to soften her words, "You see--it's the children--I _must_ do what

is best for them. It must be done once for all. Suppose you found you

couldn't now, after all these years, turn about and be different?

Suppose you found you couldn't arrange a life that the children could be

a part of, and help in, and really do their share and live with you. You

_mean_ to--I'm sure you mean to! But you never _have_ yet! How dare I

let you try if you are not sure? I can't come back if I am dead, you

know, and make a new arrangement. Mr. Rankin has proved that he can--"

At the name, the doctor's face darkened. He shot a black look at the

younger man sitting beside him in his strange silence. "What has Rankin

done?" he asked bitterly. "I should say the very point about him is that

he has done nothing."

"He has tried, he has tried, he is trying," cried Lydia, beating her

hands on the table. "Think! Of all the people I know, he is the only one

who is even trying. That was all I wanted myself. That is all I dare ask

for my children--a chance to try."

"To try what?" asked the doctor challengingly.

"To try not to have life make them worse instead of better. That's not

much to ask--but nobody I know, but one only has--"

"Simplicity and right living don't come from camping out in a shed,"

said the doctor angrily. "Externals are nothing. If the heart is right

and simple--"

"If the heart is right and simple, nothing else matters. That is what I

say," answered Lydia.

Dr. Melton gave a gesture of cutting the question short. "Well, of

course it's quite impossible! Rankin can't possibly have any claim on

your children in the event of your death. Think of all your family, who

would be--"

"_I think of them_," said Lydia with an accent so strange that the

doctor was halted. "Oh, I have thought of them!" she said again. She put

her hands over her eyes. "Could I not make a will, and appoint as

guardian--" she began to ask.

Dr. Melton cut her short with a sound like a laugh, although his face

was savage. "Did you never hear of wills being contested? How long do

you suppose a will you make under the present circumstances would stand

against an attack on it by your family and the Hollisters, with their

money and influence!"

"Oh! Oh!" moaned Lydia, "and I shall not be here to--"

Rankin stirred throughout all his great height and broke his silence.

He said to Lydia: "There is some way--there must be some way. I will

find it."

Lydia took down her hands and showed a face so ravaged by the emotions

of the colloquy that the physician in her godfather sprang up through

the wounded jealousy of the man. "Lydia, my dear, you must stop--this is

idiotic of me to allow you--not another word. You must go into the house

this instant and lie down and rest--"

He bent over her with his old, anxious, exasperated, protecting air.

Lydia seized his hands. Her own were hot and burning. "Rest! I can't

rest with all this unsettled! I go over and over it--how can I sleep!

How can you think that your little opiates will make me forget that my

children may be helpless, with no one to protect them--" She looked

about her wildly. "Why, little Ariadne may be given to _Madeleine_!" Her

horrified eyes rested again on her godfather. She drew him to her. "Oh,

help me! You've always been kind to me. Help me now!"

There was a silence, the two exchanging a long gaze. The man's forehead

was glistening wet. Finally, his breath coming short, he said: "Yes; I

will help you," and, his eyes still on hers, put out a hand toward

Rankin.

The younger man was beside them in a stride. He took the hand offered

him, but his gaze also was on the white face of the woman between them.

"We will do it together," he told her. "Rest assured. It shall be done."

The corners of Lydia's mouth twitched nervously. "You are a good man,"

she said to her godfather. She looked at Rankin for a moment without

speaking, and then turned toward the house, wavering. "Will you help me

back?" she said to the doctor, her voice quite flat and toneless; "I am

horribly tired."

* * * * *

When the doctor came back again to the arbor, Mrs. Sandworth was with

him, her bearing, like his, that of a person in the midst of some

cataclysmic upheaval. It was evident that her brother had told her.

Without greeting Rankin, she sat down and fixed her eyes on his face.

She did not remove them during the talk that followed.

The doctor stood by the table, drumming with his fingers and grimacing.

"You must know," he finally made a beginning with difficulty, "I don't

know whether you realize, not being a physician, that she is really not

herself. She has for the present a mania for providing as she thinks

best for her children's future. Of course no one not a monomaniac would

so entirely ignore your side, would conceive so strange an idea. She is

so absorbed in her own need that she does not realize what an unheard-of

request she is making. To burden yourself with two young children--to

mortgage all your future--"

Rankin broke in with a shaking voice and a face of exultation: "Good

God, Doctor! Don't grudge me this one chance of my life!"

The doctor stared, bewildered. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"About myself. I don't do it often--let me now. Do you think I haven't

realized all along that what you said of me is true--that I have done

nothing? Done nothing but succeed smugly in keeping myself in comfort

outside the modern economic treadmill! What else could I do? I'm no

orator, to convince other people. I haven't any universal panacea to

offer! I'm only an inarticulate countryman, a farmer's son, with the

education the state gives everyone--who am I, to try to lead? Apparently

there was nothing for me to do but ignobly to take care of myself--but

now, God be thanked! I have my chance. Someone has been hurt in their

infernal squirrel-cage, and I can help--"

The older man was looking at him piercingly, as though struck by a

sudden thought. He now cut him short with, "You're not deceiving

yourself with any notion that she--"

The other answered quickly, with a smile of bitter humility: "You have

seen her look at me. She does not know whether I am a human being or

not--I am to her any strong animal, a horse, an ox--any force that can

carry Ariadne safely!" He added, in another tone, his infinitely gentle

tone: "I see in that the extremity of her anxiety."

The doctor put his hand on the other man's powerful arm. "Do you realize

what you are proposing to yourself? You are human. You are a young man.

Are you strong enough to keep to it?"

Rankin looked at him. Mrs. Sandworth leaned forward.

"I am," said Rankin finally.

The words echoed in a long silence.

The younger man stood up. "I am going to see a lawyer," he announced in

a quiet voice of return to an everyday level. "Until then, we have all

more to think over than to talk about, it seems to me."

* * * * *

After he had left them the brother and sister did not speak for a time.

Then the doctor said, irritably: "Julia, say something, for Heaven's

sake. What did you think of what he said?"

"I didn't hear what he said," answered Mrs. Sandworth; "I was looking at

him."

"Well?" urged her brother.

"He is a good man," she said.

A sense that she was holding something in reserve kept him silent,

gazing expectantly at her.

"How awfully he's in love with her!" she brought out finally. "That's

the whole point. He's in love with her! All this talk about 'ways of

living' and theories and things that they make so much of--it just

amounts to nothing but that he's in love with her."

"Oh, you sentimental idiot!" cried the doctor. "I hoped to get some

sense out of you."

"That's sense," said Mrs. Sandworth.

"It hasn't anything to do with the point! Why, as for that, Paul was in

love with--"

"He was _not_!" cried Mrs. Sandworth, with a sudden loud certainty.

The doctor caught her meaning and considered it frowningly. When he

spoke, it was to burst out pathetically: "_I_ have loved her all her

life."

"Oh, you!" retorted his sister, with a sad conclusiveness.

Ariadne came running out to them. "I just went to look into Muvver's

room, and she was sound asleep! Honest! She was!"

The child had heard enough of the doctor's long futile struggles with

the horrors of Lydia's sleepless nights to divine that her news was

important. She was rewarded with a startled look from her elders.

"Come!" said the doctor.

They went into the house, and silently to Lydia's half-open door. She

lay across the bed as she had dropped down when she came in, one long

dark braid hanging to the floor. They stood looking at her almost with

awe, as though they were observing for the first time the merciful

miracle of sleep. Her bosom rose and fell in long, regular breaths. The

drawn, haggard mask that had overlain her face so many months was

dissolved away in an utter unconsciousness. Her eyelashes lay on a cheek

like a child's; her mouth, relaxed and drooping, fell again into the

lines they had loved in her when she was a little girl. She looked like

a little girl again to them.

Mrs. Sandworth's hand went to her throat. She looked at her brother

through misty eyes. He closed the door gently, and drew her away, making

the gesture of a man who admits his own ignorance of a mystery.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT

"They must have gone crazy, simply crazy!" said Madeleine, making quick,

excited gestures. "Mrs. Sandworth, of course--a person can hardly blame

her for anything! She's a cipher with the rim off when the doctor has

made up his mind. But, even so, shouldn't you think in common decency

she'd have let us know what they were up to in time to prevent it? _I_

never heard a word of this sickening business of Ariadne's adoption till

day before yesterday. Did _you_?" she ended half-suspiciously.

Mrs. Mortimer stopped her restless pace up and down the old-fashioned,

high-ceilinged room, and made a gesture for silence. "I thought I heard

something--up there," she explained, motioning to the upper part of the

house. "I wonder what made Lydia so sure beforehand that she wouldn't

live through this?"

"Well, I guess from what the nurse told me there _isn't_ much chance for

her," said Madeleine in a hard voice. Her color was not so high as

usual, her beautiful face looked grim, and she spoke in a bitter tone of

seriousness that made her seem quite another person. Marietta's thin,

dark countenance gave less indication of her mood, whatever it was. She

looked sallow and worn, and only her black eyes, hot and gloomy, showed

emotion.

Both women were silent a moment, listening to the sound of footsteps

overhead. "It seems as though it _must_ be over soon now!" cried the

childless one of the two, drawing in her breath sharply. "It makes me

furious to think of women suffering so. Bertha Williamson was telling me

the other day about when her little Walter was born--it made me _sick_!"

The matron looked at her and shivered a little, but made no response.

"The nurse says Lydia is mostly unconscious now. Perhaps the worst is

over for her! Poor Lyd! What do you suppose made her act so?" went on

Madeleine, moving about restlessly, her voice uncertain. She went to the

window, and drew aside the shade to look out into the blackness. "Oh, I

wish the men would come! What time is it, do you suppose? Yes, I see;

half-past three. Oh, it _must_ be over soon! I wish they'd come! You

telegraphed George, didn't you? Heavens! how it rains!"

"He was to come on the midnight train. Is your husband--"

"Oh, he was horrid about it--wanted me to do it all myself. He's in the

midst of some big deal or other. But I told him he'd _have_ to come and

help out, or I'd--I'd _kill_ him! He'll bring the lawyer."

"Where do you suppose?" began Marietta, looking over her shoulder.

"Out in his shanty in the Black Rock woods," said Madeleine harshly,

"with no idea of what's going on. Just before you came, the doctor sent

out for a messenger to take him word, and you'd better believe I got

hold of that messenger!"

"Of course that'll make things easier," said Marietta.

"Oh, it won't be hard at all," Madeleine assured her; "the lawyer'll be

right at hand; it'll be over in a minute."

Marietta's face altered. She drew back from the other woman. "Oh,

Madeleine! you act as though--you were counting on Lydia's--"

"No; I'm not. I used to think a lot of Lydia before she disgraced poor

Paul's memory in this way! But you see it'll be easy to do, one way or

the other. If she--if she doesn't--why, Marietta, you know Lydia! She

never can hold out against you and George, the nearest she has in the

world. I should think you'd feel awfully about what people are

saying--her letting Ariadne be adopted in that scandalous way when she

had brothers and sisters. I should think you'd feel like asserting

yourselves. _I_ do, certainly! I'm just as near to Ariadne as you are!

And I know George is perfectly furious about the whole business!"

"But maybe the doctor won't let us go in, right in to her--"

A long-cherished grudge rose to the surface in Mrs. Lowder's energetic

reply: "Well, I guess this is one time when the high-and-mighty Dr.

Melton'll have to be shoved on one side, and if necessary I'll do the

shoving!"

"You feel justified?"

"Justified! I should think I do! Justified in keeping my brother's child

out of the clutches of that--and if my husband and your brother together

can't raise the cash and the pull to get Ariadne away from him, too, I

miss my guess. They will; of course they will, or what's the use of

having money when you go to law!"

Marietta was silent. Madeleine took her lack of responsiveness as due to

the resentment of a poor person to her remarks as to the value of wealth

in a democracy. She frowned, regretting a false step, and went on

conciliatorily: "Of course we're only doing what any decent family is

bound to do--protecting the children. It's what Lydia herself would want

if she were in her right mind."

She fell silent now, restless, fidgeting about, picking up small objects

and setting them down unseeingly, and occasionally going to the window

to look out at the hot, rainy night. She was in mourning for Paul, and

above her black draperies her face was now like marble.

Mrs. Mortimer, also in black, sat in a determinedly passive silence.

Finally, the younger woman broke out: "Oh, I'll go crazy if I just stay

here! I'm going upstairs to see the nurse again."

In an instant she was back, her face whiter than before.

"It's a boy--alive, all right--half an hour ago. Would you think they'd

let us sit here and never tell us--" Her voice changed. "A little boy--"

She sat down.

"How is Lydia?" asked Lydia's sister.

"--a little boy," said Madeleine. She addressed the other woman

peremptorily. "I want him! You can have Ariadne!" She flushed as she

spoke, and added defiantly: "I know I always said I didn't want

children!"

"How is Lydia?" Marietta broke in with an angry impatience.

"Very low, the nurse said; Dr. Melton wouldn't give any hope."

Marietta's face twitched. Her large white hands clasped each other hard.

"I'm going into the doctor's office to telephone my husband," went on

Madeleine; "there's not a minute to lose."

After she was alone, Mrs. Mortimer's thin, dark face settled into tragic

repose. She leaned back her head and closed her eyes, from which a slow

tear ran down over her sallow cheeks. There was no sound but the patter

of summer rain on the porch roof outside.

Firm, light steps came hastily to the outer door, the door clicked open

and shut, the steps came down the hall. Mrs. Mortimer sat up and opened

her eyes. She saw a tall man in rough clothes, hatless, with raindrops

glistening on his bright, close-cropped hair and beard. He was

hesitating at the foot of the stairs, but at her slight movement he

caught sight of her and rushed toward her. "Has she--is there--" he

began.

Mrs. Mortimer gazed intently into his quivering face. "My sister has

given birth to a son, and lies at the point of death," she said with her

unsparing conciseness, but not harshly.

The man she addressed threw up one hand as though she had struck him,

and took an aimless, unsteady step. Mrs. Mortimer did not turn away her

eyes from the revelation of his face. Her own grew sterner. She was

trying to bring herself to speak again. She put her hand on his arm to

attract his attention, and looked with a fierce earnestness into his

face. "Listen," she said. "We were wrong, all of us, about Lydia. We

were wrong about everything. You were right. I wanted to tell you. If my

sister had lived--she is so young--I hoped--" She turned away to hide

the sudden break-up of her rigid calm. "Little Lydia!" she cried. "Oh,

misery! misery!"

Behind them was the sound of a shutting door and a key turned in the

lock. They both spun about and saw Mrs. Lowder slip the key into the

bosom of her dress. Her aspect of white determination suited this

theatrical gesture, as she placed herself quickly before the door. "If

you will promise me solemnly that you will leave the house at once, I

will let you out," she said, in a high, shaking voice.

Rankin did not answer. He looked at her as though he did not see her.

"What business have you here, anyhow?" she went on fiercely.

"I am here to adopt Mrs. Hollister's second child," stated Rankin,

collecting himself with an effort.

Mrs. Lowder's pale face flushed. "You'll do nothing of the sort. I shall

adopt my brother's child myself! How _dare_ you--a perfect stranger--"

"Mrs. Hollister wishes it," said Rankin.

"Lydia is out of her mind--if she is alive!" said Madeleine, trembling

excitedly, "and the child's own relatives are the proper--you needn't

think you are going to keep Ariadne, either! It can be proved in any

court that Lydia was crazy, and that her family are the ones that ought

to--"

"That will be decided in the future," said Rankin. "For the present I

have a legal right to Ariadne, and I shall have to the boy!"

"Do you mean you would dare to lay hands on a woman?" cried Madeleine,

extending her arms across the door.

Rankin turned, and in one stride had reached the window, which stood

open to the hot, rainy summer night. He was gone in an instant.

"Quick! quick! Lock the front door!" cried Madeleine, fumbling with the

key. She turned it and darted into the hallway, and fell back, crying

angrily: "Oh, no! there's the back door--and the doctor's office and all

the windows. It's no use! It's no use!" She broke into a storm of sobs.

"You didn't help a bit!" she cried furiously to the other woman. "You

didn't even try to help!"

It was an accusation against which Marietta did not attempt to defend

herself.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE SWAYING BALANCE

Dr. Melton was at the top of the stairs as the other man came bounding

up. "Where in God's name have you been?" he demanded. "Did you start as

soon as my messenger--"

"No messenger came--only 'Stashie just now. I started the instant she--"

"Have you the paper--the contract--whatever it--"

Rankin showed a flash of white in his pocket. "Is she able to sign it?"

"Oh, she _must_! She won't have an instant's peace until she does. She

has been wild because you were so late in--"

Their hurried, broken colloquy was cut short by a nurse who came to Dr.

Melton, saying, "The patient is always asking if the gentleman who is

to--"

"Yes, yes; he is here." The doctor motioned her to precede them. "Go in;

you're needed as a witness."

He held Rankin back an instant at the door. "Remember! No heroics! Just

have the signing done as quickly as possible and get out!" His little

wizened face looked ghastly in the dim light of the hall, but his voice

was firm, and his hand did not tremble.

Rankin followed him into the bedroom, which was filled with a strong

odor of antiseptics. The nurse turned on the electric light, shading it

with her hand so that the light fell only on the lower part of the bed,

leaving Lydia's head in the shadow.

She lay very straight and stark, as though, thought Rankin despairingly,

she were already dead. Her right arm was out over the sheet, her thin

hand nerveless. Her face was very white, her lips swollen and bleeding

as though she had bitten them repeatedly. She was absolutely motionless,

lying on her back with closed eyes. At the slight sound made by the men

in entering, she opened her eyes and looked at them. Every vestige of

color dropped out of Rankin's face. Her eyes were alive, sane,

exalted--Lydia's own eyes again.

He was holding the paper open in his hand, and without a word knelt down

by the bed, offering it to her mutely. Their eyes met in a long gaze.

The doctor and nurse looked away from this mute communion. Rankin put a

pen in Lydia's fingers and held up the paper. With, a faint, sighing

breath, loud in the silent room, she raised her hand. It fell to the bed

again. Dr. Melton then knelt beside her, put his own sinewy, corded

fingers around it and guided it to the paper. The few lines were traced.

Lydia's hand dropped and her eyes closed. Rankin stood up to go.

The nurse turned off the light and the room was again in a half

obscurity, the deep, steady voice of the rain coming in through the open

windows, the sweet summer-night smells mingling with the acrid odor of

chemicals, Lydia lying straight and stark under the sheet--but now her

eyes were open, shining, fixed on Rankin. Their light was the last he

saw as he closed the door behind him.

After a time the doctor came out and joined Rankin waiting at the head

of the stairs. He looked very old and tired, but the ghastly expression

of strain was replaced with a flickering restlessness. He came up to

Rankin, blinking rapidly, and touched him on the arm. "Look here!" he

whispered. "Her pulse has gone down from a hundred and fifty to a

hundred and thirty."

He sat down on the top step, clasped his hands about his knees, and

leaned his white head against the balustrade. He looked like some small,

weary, excited old child. "Lord, Rankin! Sit down when you get a

chance!" he whispered. "If you'd been through what I have! And you

needn't try to get me to add another word to what I've just told you. I

don't dare! It may mean nothing, you know. It may very likely mean

nothing. Good Heavens! The mental sensitiveness of women at this time!

It's beyond belief. I never get used to the miracle of it. Everything

turns on it--everything! If the pulse should go down ten more now, I

should--Oh, Heaven bless that crazy Celt for getting you here! Good

Lord! If you hadn't come when you did! I don't see what could have

become of the messenger I sent--why, hours ago--I knew that nothing

could go right if you weren't--is that the door?" He sprang up and sank

back again--"I told the nurse to report as soon as there was any

change--I was afraid if I stayed in the room she would feel the

twitching of my damned nerves--yes, really--it's so--she's in a state

when a feather's weight--suppose 'Stashie hadn't brought you! I couldn't

have kept Madeleine off much longer--God! if _Madeleine_ had gone into

that room, I--Lydia--but nobody told 'Stashie to go! It must have been

an inspiration. I thought of course my messenger--I was expecting you

every instant. She's been crouching out here in the hall all night, not

venturing even to ask a question, until I caught sight of her eyes--she

loves Lydia too! I told her then the baby had come and that her mistress

had no chance unless you were here. She must have--when did she--"

Rankin gave a sound like a sob, and leaned against the wall. He had not

stirred before since the doctor's first words. "You don't mean there's

_hope_?" he whispered, "any hope at all?"

The doctor sprang at him and clapped his hand over his mouth. "I didn't

say it! I didn't say it!"

The door behind them opened, and the nurse stepped out with a noiseless

briskness. The doctor walked toward her steadily and listened to her

quick, low-toned report. Then he nodded, and she stepped back into the

bedroom and shut the door. He stood staring at the floor, one hand at

his lips.

Rankin made an inarticulate murmur of appeal. His face glared white

through the obscurity of the hall.

The older man went back to him, and looked up earnestly into his eyes.

"Yes; there's every hope," he said. He added, with a brave smile: "For

you and Lydia there's every hope in the world. For me, there's the usual

lot of fathers."

CHAPTER XXXVI

ANOTHER DAY BEGINS

They started. From below came a wail of fright. As they listened the

sound came nearer and nearer. "That's Ariadne--a bad dream--get her

quiet, for the Lord's sake."

"Where is she sleeping?"

"In the room next the parlor."

Rankin gave an exclamation, and leaped down the stairs. At the foot he

was met by a little figure in sleeping-drawers. "Favver! Favver!" she

sobbed, holding up her arms.

Rankin caught her up and held her close. "You promised you wouldn't get

so afraid of dreams, little daughter," he said in a low, tender voice of

reproach.

"But this was a nawful one!" wept Ariadne. "I fought I heard a lot of

voices, men's and ladies' as mad--Oh! awful mad--and loud!" She went on

incoherently that she had been too frightened to stir, even though after

a while she dreamed that the front door slammed and they all went away.

But then she was _too_ frightened, and came out to find Favver.

Rankin took her back to her bed, and sat down beside it, keeping one big

hand about the trembling child's cold little fingers. "It was only a bad

dream, Ariadne. Just go to sleep now. Father'll sit here till you do."

"You won't let them come back?" asked the child, drawing long, shaken

breaths.

"No," he said quietly.

"You'll always be close, to take care of me?"

"Yes, dear."

"And of Muvver and 'Stashie?"

There was a pause.

Ariadne spoke in grieved astonishment. "Why, of _course_ of Muvver and

'Stashie, Favver."

Rankin took a sudden great breath. "I hope so, Ariadne."

"Well, you _can_ if you want to," the child gravely gave her assent.

She said no more for a time, clutching tightly to his hand. Then,

"Favver."

"Yes, dear."

"I fink I could go to sleep better if I had my bunny."

"Yes, dear," said the man patiently; "where is he?"

"I fink he's under ve chair where my clothes are--ve _big_ chair.

'Stashie lets me put my clothes on ve biggest chair."

The man fumbled about in the dark. Then, "Here's your bunny, Ariadne."

The child murmured something drowsily unintelligible. The man took his

seat again by the bed. There was a pause. The child's breathing grew

long and regular. The rain sounded loud in the silence.

In the distance a street-car rattled noisily by. Ariadne started up with

a scream: "Favver! Favver!"

"Right here, dear. Just the trolley-car."

"It 'minded me of ve mad ladies' voices," explained Ariadne

apologetically, breathing quickly. She added: "Vat was such a _nawful_

dream, Favver. I wonder could I have your watch to hear tick in my hand

to go me to sleep."

"Yes, dear; but only for to-night because of the bad dream."

There were little nestling noises, gradually quieting down. Then,

sleepily:

"Favver, please."

"Yes, dear."

"I fink I could go _all_ to sleep if you'd pit your head down on my

pillow next my bunny."

A stir in the darkness, and an instant's quiet, followed by, "Why,

Favver, what makes your face all over water?"

There was no answer.

"And your beard is as wet as--" She broke off to explain to herself:

"Oh, it's rain, of tourse. I forgot it's raining. _Now_ I remember how

to _really_ go all to sleep. I did before. I listen to it going patter,

patter, patter, patter--" The little voice died away.

There was no sound at all in the room but the swift, light voice of the

watch calling out that Time, Time, Time can cure all, can cure all, can

cure all--and outside the brooding murmur of the rain.

A faint, clear gray began to show at the windows.

THE END

------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROMAIN ROLLAND'S

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE

DAWN . MORNING . YOUTH . REVOLT

Translated by GILBERT CANNAN.

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WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE

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SIXTH EDITION, ENLARGED AND WITH PORTRAITS

HALE'S DRAMATISTS OF TO-DAY

ROSTAND, HAUPTMANN, SUDERMANN,

PINERO, SHAW, PHILLIPS, MAETERLINCK

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