Chapter XI: Book III: The Bare-Headed Man (2)

Though she rested better and accepted food with less reluctance, (the doctor declaring himself satisfied with the progress of the past six weeks), it had been the hardest period for Helen Quiston. Something was in Betty’s mind that was not confided. Often in the evening she showed a preference for being alone. Helen feared for a time that the other might write a letter without her supervision, but as there was no change in the tenor of Morning’s replies, the outpouring of his thankfulness in no way diminished, the only conclusion was that Betty at least had not mailed such a one. She had taken sudden dislikes to several different nurses in turn. When she wanted anything there was a terrible concentration about it. Helen and the doctor and all concerned were drawn into the vortex.

“It’s the way she used to practice,” her friend said.

“Miss Quiston----” began the doctor.

“Yes.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I was just thinking--are you so real to all your friends?”

“I have no friend like Betty.”

“That eases my mind.”

“Why?”

“A few friends like that and there wouldn’t be any singing teacher.”

Helen Quiston realized fully for the first time that the doctor was exactly a human being, having the various features of the species.

* * * * *

They were startled by a crash in the inner room. The nurse entered quickly to announce that a flower-pot containing a fuchsia had fallen from the window-sill.

“The plant is in ruins,” she said.

Betty rose immediately. _Ruins_--the word was a fiery stimulant to her. In a few moments she ceased her pacing, saying that she was utterly weary. Helen, though leaving for the room she occupied, a flight above, could but remark upon the gleaming intensity of Betty’s eyes, and the restless leaping of her hands....

The nurse came to her. Betty went with her into the inner room. In the next fifteen minutes, the patient was more or less alone, while the studio couch, upon which the nurse was accustomed to rest, was being prepared. Unwatched, her movements quickened, a queer, furtive smile played upon her lips, and certain actions altogether uncommon occupied her concentrated attention. The key was quietly removed from the door between the studio and the living-room; a large bundle was carried from a closet-shelf to the rear window and tossed out. From behind the books in a small case near the reading-lamp a purse was produced; and finally, when the nurse was at the farthest end of the studio, Betty drew a large, sharp knife from the same hiding-place, and with astonishing quiet and force severed the telephone wires just beneath the bell-box, fastened to the wall close to the floor. The knife was returned to its hiding-place. The nurse joined her, and Betty, at the studio door, suddenly sank into a chair with a cry of exhaustion. The other ran to her.

“It is nothing! Bring some water----”

The nurse had not reached the medicine-case in the bath, when the patient sprang up and locked the intervening door of the apartment, leaving the woman inside with a “dead” telephone.

For the first time in half a year, Betty left the studio, carefully closing the main door. Out the back way, she found her parcel, and in the windy darkness put on the rain-coat, traveling hat, veil, gloves and shoes it had contained, departing breathlessly through the alley gate.

For a long time the hammering upon floors and walls could not be located in the studio-building. The outer floor of Betty’s apartment was tried, but found locked; and since there was no response to the bell, nothing came of the offerings of the earlier Samaritans. Much time was occupied by the nurse in trying to call the telephone-exchange. A stranger in the street was finally persuaded, from the upper window, to find the janitor of the building and send him to the Quiston studio. Master keys set the nurse free.

Helen Quiston first notified the Doctor, who came hastily. The story of the nurse was explicit as a hospital report.

“Is your car here, Doctor?” Miss Quiston asked presently.

“Yes.”

“Will you take me down-town? I’ll be ready in a moment.”

“Gladly.”

The Doctor was informed in a tense but controlled voice that the patient was doubtless at this moment upon a certain east-bound train. “Betty left here a few minutes after nine,” Helen added. “The train I’m thinking of left at ten-five. It is now eleven.... Oh, I wonder what she had on? She was dressed when I left her--shirt-waist, black skirt, house-slippers----”

Five minutes’ search and thinking on the part of Miss Quiston uncovered the fact that Betty’s rain-coat and a certain small traveling hat were missing.... Nothing was positively established at the station.

“I must send a telegram, Doctor,” Helen said.

It was to Morning at his rural-delivery address. Her heart sank with fear lest the message fail to reach him, until it was finally handled by the post-office.

“There’s nothing further to do,” she said hopelessly.

Night brought no news, nor the early morning. At nine-thirty o’clock, Helen Quiston was leaving the studio for the morning’s work, when she heard a light, swift step on the stairs--someone coming up at least three steps at a time. The hall-door was half-swung. Helen stood waiting.... Now a stranger was at the doorway, hesitating, yet expectant. His brow was tanned, as if he had walked bare-headed in the sun. His gray eyes were remarkably clear and very kind. For a second or two they stood face to face, forgetting to speak.

“Where is Betty Berry?” It was a demand, yet gently spoken.

“Are you--are you John Morning?” “Yes.... Where is she?”

“I think she has gone to you--I do not know, but I think she has gone to the hill-cabin----”

“Are you her friend?”

“Yes--I am Miss Quiston.”

“When did she go?”

“Last night. I telegraphed you----”

He came close to her. His hand upon her shoulder drew her to a chair, and he brought another near. “I will not stop to ask questions,” he said heavily. “You tell me all----”

“What of the play?”

“I don’t know--I left before it was done to come here.... She is ill--go on----”

The story faltered at first, but the gray eyes steadied her. Toward the end she talked swiftly, coherently. She winged over the one certain cause of Betty’s illness.... When she stopped, it seemed to her that some mighty machinery was whirring below, its vibrations in the floor and walls.

He arose, stood beside her--all the light and reason gone from his face. For several seconds he stood there, his left hand swiftly tapping her shoulder. The powers of the man were afar--miles away upon his hill. This was just a tapping blind man in the room....

“I must go. I have no words now.... She is there. It must be nearly ten now. I must hurry to her.”

The engines in the house flagged and were silent.

The woman stood where he had left her, smiling.

7

BETTY held her purse tightly in her hand, and certain thoughts were held as tightly in her brain, as she pressed against the wind.... It was something like going to a distant concert engagement in the night.... Her limbs were uncertain, and there was a constant winging in her breast, as though it were the cage of a frantic bird. She did not mind. She could forget it--if only her eyes remained true. For the first time in months she was on her own strength, her own will. There was a sharp distress in the responsibility, but also an awakening of force.

The wind whipped her breath away, yet she liked the wild freedom of it--if only she could continue to see and remember what to say. The studio was a hideous blackness that drove her from behind. This was a new and consuming hatred. The two squares to the large uptown hotel where a cab was readily obtainable were long as a winter night; and the tension to remember seemed destroying her by the time she found a driver. She told him the station and the train.

“Plenty of time, Ma’am,” he said.

Her eyes filled with tears. It was true, then, that there was such a station, such a train, that there was time, and nothing had betrayed her. “I must not speak; I must not speak,” kept warning in her mind; “but he is so good to me!”

Now she felt the cold, as she rested a moment before the new ordeal at the station--destination, tickets, the Pullman, not to fall, not to speak any but the exact words.... The driver helped her out. Everything was familiar, but miraculously large.... She gave the man extra money, and the faintest, humblest “Thank you!” escaped her. He whistled a porter for her.

“The ticket window,” she said. And now she need only follow. It was warmer. It would be warm in the Pullman.... She took the young colored man’s arm. He turned with good nature.

“I have been ill,” she said. It was frightened from her lips.

“There is plenty of time, Miss. I’ll see you through to the berth--the ten-five--yes’m.”

The quick tears started again, and an aching lump in her throat. She wanted to cry out her thankfulness. She wanted to be told again and again--that all this was not a dream, from which she would awaken in that place of death. The value of her veil awed her; and it was _she_ who had thought of it. Could it really be true that she had forgotten nothing? Would she actually arrive at her journey’s end?

The porter procured berth and tickets, and now he assured her that her train was ready. She followed him through interminable distances, down countless stairs; she watched and listened critically, as he delivered both tickets to the Pullman conductor. All she had to do was to follow, to say nothing and to pay. With what thankfulness did she pay; and with what warming courtesy were her gifts received. Surely the world was changed. It had become so dear and good.... She had a far-off vision of a peremptory Betty Berry of another world, striding to and fro among men and trains and cities, giving her commands, expecting obedience, conferring gratuities according to rigid principle.

The car-porter was more wonderful than any--an old Southern darkey, with little patches of gray beard, absurdly distributed. A homing gentleness was in his voice, and his smile was from a better world.... There had been another porter like him somewhere.

“She goes clear through,” the station porter said, “and she’s been sick.”

“Ah’ll see the young Miss clar’ through,” the old man drawled. “Just depen’ on me, Miss. Sit right down here--berth’ll be ready right smaht.”

She did not sleep, but she was warm and not uncomfortable. She dared think a little of the end of the journey, but there was so much to do in the morning, so much to keep in mind. She held fast to her purse. In her dependence, the magic of it was like a strange discovery. In the early morning, the porter brought her coffee with some hot milk and toast. The wind had long since been left behind, but a cold rain was falling. She would be cold. The terminal was reached. The old man bore her forth. There was something merciful and restoring in his gentle gratitude. A station porter led her to the Hackensack car.

She thought of breakfast on the way, but forgot it again upon reaching Hackensack, where she was directed to the post-office.

She wrote the address of John Morning and asked shiveringly at the stamp window if there was any way in which she could be delivered there.

The clerk could not see if she were laughing under the veil.

“The rural carrier knows the way,” she added. “I’d be willing to pay well--”

The clerk craned his head back through the office, and called:

“Jethro!”

A large, dusty man came forward with the air of having just breakfasted. He took the slip containing the address from her hand.

“The lady wants to go with you, Jethro----”

The rural carrier tilted his spectacles benignly to regard her.

“Bless me--ever been there?”

“No--but letters go safely----”

“I rather think they do--since I take ’em. Is this your writing?”

The place was darkening, suffocating to her. “Yes ... if you would only take me. Five, ten dollars--oh, I should be so glad to pay anything I have----”

The carrier penetrated the veil.

“Just sit down by the heater, Lady,” he said in a lowered tone. “We’ll get there, and it won’t cost you five or ten dollars, neither. I know where you want to go, and I know who you are, if I’m not mistaken. Lizzie and I will get you there----”

She turned quickly, for the tears were coming.... Could it really be that she had remembered everything? Was she really going to him, and this the last stage of the journey? The heart of the large, dusty man had radiated so suddenly upon her. She was not afraid of him, but she must not faint nor speak until she was away from the others. Very still she sat by the heater, praying for strength, praying that it was not all a dream....

“Miss Betty Berry!”

There was an instant in which the call had but a vague meaning; then shot home to her the hideous fear of being taken back. She was close to screaming, yet it was only the rural-carrier coming.

“Yes?” she said, clearing her throat.

“I thought I couldn’t be wrong,” he said. “I’ve brought a good many letters addressed to you back to town from the place you’re going, and carried a good many out yonder in this writing of yours.... Lizzie and me are ready, Miss.”

As they stepped out the rear door, he touched her arm reflectively, and re-entered to bring a hairy black robe. The vehicle, of a vanished type, was gray even in the rain, and cocked to one side from the sagging of years, where the carrier sat. Betty’s weight did not visibly impress the high side. He tucked the hairy robe about her, the mail-bags at her feet, picked up the lines, and lo! they moved.

“Lizzie ain’t very showy on knee action, Miss Berry,” he said, “but along about half-past eleven, when we get there, you’ll remark she’s stiddy.”

It was only ten now.... Mud and miles and mail-boxes; dragging moments, and miles and cold rain.... She had to talk a little. The journey of the night was nearest, and she told how good the train-men had been to her.

“You haven’t traveled much, Miss, I take it?” he said softly.

“Oh, no.” Then distantly again she remembered a Betty Berry of concert seasons--on the wing from city to city. It was all too remote for speech. At one house a woman came forth with tea and sandwiches. Betty was grateful for the warm drink and wanted to pay, but the carrier pushed back her hand and tucked her in again.

“Guess this is going to be a surprise for the bare-headed man?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s your young man, then?”

“Yes.”

He seemed relieved. “He won’t be staying out here much longer--not likely--though we do have a spell of good weather in November mostly.”

Often she lost every sense of distance and identity. The lapses grew longer toward the end, and when she did not answer, Jethro thought she had fallen asleep.... A long stretch at last, barren of mail-boxes.... When he finally drew up, she followed his eyes to her lover’s name upon the tin by the roadside. Then he pointed beyond the low near trees and hollows. It was all desolate; the Fall tints subdued in the pervading gray. She saw a clump of greater trees in the upper middle distance.

“’Bout a thousand feet straight in. Miss--and up--under them big trees. You’ll see his shanty before you’re half-way. Just keep your eye on them elms. He’d be down here if it was any kind of weather. Guess you’re glad. D’ruther go alone and find him there, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.... And now I want to give you this, please.”

He shook his head.

She could not leave him so. “For Lizzie--she’s so steady. I’m rich ... and I’ll be much happier--going to the bare-headed man. Please--for me----”

“Don’t you take that robe off!” he said suddenly. “I don’t want it--jumpin’ in and out. I never take it out of the office till snow flies. He’ll bring it down to the box, when I’m passin’ to-morrow. Why, you’d get all soaked, Miss--a-goin’ up to him.... Well, I’ll take the money for Lizzie--if you’re rich--but it’s ridiculous much, and I’d have fetched you for nothin’.”

She pressed his hand in both of hers and turned away through the break in the fence.... It seemed darker; and when the grinding of the tires on the wet gravel died away, the dripping silence came home to her, alien and fearful.... She had seen the name; soon she would see his house--but this was no man’s land, an after-death land; this was ‘the hollows and the vagueness of light,’ of which he had written....

She saw the house and faltered on. She had not the strength to call.... On the slope to the great trees the burden of the heavy robe would have borne her to the ground, had she not let it fall from her.... She could not believe the padlock on the door, felt it with her hands, the weight and the brass of it. It was hard for her to understand the cruel cold of it--as for a child that has never been hurt intentionally. She sank to her knees and prayed that it was not there.... But it was. The reality entered her brain, the thick icy metal of it.

* * * * *

“Betty Berry--Betty Berry, I am coming!”

She lifted her head in the rain. His call was like a thought of her own, but sharper, truer. This was his door. He was coming. It was still light. She wanted to sleep again, but the death-like cold warned her. She would die before he came....

She raised herself against the door. The black heap of the fur-robe on the slope held her eyes.... On the way to it she fainted again; again the cold rain roused her.... Always on the borders of the rousing, she heard it:

“Betty Berry--Betty Berry, I am coming!”

She knelt in the wet leaves beside the robe ... her thoughts turned back to the night--the goodness of the men, their tender voices.... There was a calling up in the dusk among the trees. Yes, she must lie at his door. Men were good; the lock alone had hurt her. His Guardian had put it there.... Upward she crawled, dragging the robe.

“Yes, you are coming!” she answered. Always when the cold rain roused her, she would answer, and crawl a little farther with the robe. At the door at last, she lay down beneath it....

Still again his calling roused her. It was darker--but not yet night....

“Betty Berry--Betty Berry, I am coming!”

It was nearer.

“I knew you would let me in,” she tried to say, and then--voices.... It seemed as if the porter of the Old South had come.... His voice lulled her, and his smile was the glow of the home-hearth.

8

SHE was lying upon the single narrow bed.... Something long ago had been premonitive of this. Morning’s mind, too, caught up the remembrance of Moto-san and the Japanese Inn.... He watched. Sometimes he said with all his will that she must not die. She could not die, when his will was dominant, but he was exhausted; his will-power flagged frequently.

All day yesterday in the train he had held her in his mind--sent his calls to her across the miles. From different stations he had telegraphed to Jake at Hackensack, to Jethro at the post-office, and to his neighbor, the dairyman, who had a telephone. Jethro had been the first to reach the cabin, but it was nearly dusk then. The others were quick to appear. Jethro found her at the door, partly covered in the furry robe. That robe crowned him in Morning’s mind. They had broken in the door, and lit the fire. Morning reached the cabin at nine. Jethro spoke of a doctor.

“I’m the doctor,” Morning said. The three had left him.

It was now after midnight. She had not aroused. Old scenes quivered across the surface of her consciousness, starting a faintly mumbled sentence now and then: The Armory, the first kiss, the road to Baltimore, letters, hurried journeys, the Guardian; and much about the latest journey--from cab to station, from porter to Pullman, from car to clerk to carrier. He saw how the night and the day had used her final strength. Always the Guardian intervened to break her will, and Morning did not understand. There were other enemies; the studio, the nurse, the padlock, and the rain. After brief hushes, she would speak of his coming, or answer his calling.

It was the one theme of his life even now--the great thing Betty Berry had done. It awed and chilled him to realize how coarse-fibered he had been, so utterly impervious, not to sense the nature of the force that had upheld him, nor the quality of the bestowals.... There was a rending about it, and yet it was all so quiet now. It seemed to him that a man’s life is husk after husk of illusion, that the illusions are endless. He had torn them away, one after another, thinking each time that he had come to the grain.... And what was the sum of his finding so far? That good is eternal; that man loves God best by serving men; that greatness is in the working, not in the result; that a man who has found his work has found the soul’s sunlight, and that service for men is its rain. Surely, these are not husks.... It had been a hard, weary way. He was like a tired child now, and here was the little mother--wearied with him unto death.... He had been so perverse and headstrong. She had given him her love and guidance until her last strength was spent. He must be the man now.... He wondered if his heart would break, when he realized fully his own evil and her unfathomable sweetness?... Must a woman always fall spent and near to death--before a man can be finished? Or is it because her work is done that she falls?

He knelt beside her. Sometimes, in the lamplight, she looked as he had seen her at the Armory; again, as if she were playing; now, it was as she had been to him in the dark of the Pullman seat.... Who was the Guardian?

... And this was what had come to her from teaching him the miracle of listening alone.... It was true. He belonged to that life, as Duke Fallows had always said. She had made him see it by going from him. He would never be the same, after having tasted the greater love, in which man and woman are one in the spirit of service, having renounced the emblem of it. And with all her vision and leading--the glory of it had not come to her as to him. It had all but killed her. She had come to him--a forgotten purpose, a broken vessel.

He would love her back to life. That was his work now. Everything must stop for that--even truth.... He halted. If he loved her back to full and perfect health again, would she not be the same as she had been? Would she not take up her Cross again?... No, he would not let her. He would destroy the results of his work if necessary. He would force himself to forget, even in the spirit--this taste of the mystic oneness that had come to him. He would show his need for her every hour. That would make her happy--his leaning upon her word and thought and action. He would show her his need of her presence in the long, excellent forenoons, in the very processes of his task--and in the evenings, her hands, her kisses, her step, her voice; he would make her see that these were his perfect essentials.

“I’ve talked and written a lot about how a man should live--in the past six months,” he said grimly. “I’ve got to do a bit of real living in the world now. God knows I love her--as I used to. That seemed enough then!”

He looked up from her face. The ghost of day had come softly to the South. He arose, took the lamp across the room and blew it out. Then he opened the door. The mingled night and dawn came in, a cool dimness, but the rain had ceased. He replenished the fire, left the door open, and returned to her. She had become quiet since the lamp had been taken away.... A sense of the man and woman together, and of her strength returning crept upon him. He welcomed it, though the deeps cried out.

“When you are yourself, you will want to go away again--the long, blinding ways of the sun,” he whispered. “But I will say, ‘I cannot spare you, Betty Berry. This is the place for two to be. We will begin again----’”

His thought of what she would answer brought back to mind the play, _Compassion_, and the Book of John Morning.... He smiled. He had almost forgotten. Night before last, at the beginning of the third act, he had left the _Markheim_. He had given way suddenly to the thought that had pulled at him all day--to take the train to Betty Berry that night.... The play had seemed good. Even to him there had been moments of thrilling joy. It had been surprisingly different, sitting in front with the audience, from the rehearsals. Of yesterday’s notices he had not seen a single one. It was a far thought to him even now of the play’s failure, but if it did fail, how easy to say to Betty Berry, “You see, how mad I was alone--how mad in my exaltation--how terribly out of tune? I needed you here. I need you now----”

Then he thought of the bigger thing--the Book. There wasn’t a chance for that to fail. It would find its own. What would he say about that?... He would say, “I love you, Betty Berry. It was loving you that made the book. And when it was done--how I longed for you!”

That was true--true now.... He kissed her shut eyelids. There was blessedness in her being here--even shattered and so close to death--blessedness and a dreadful fear. That fear was ever winging around, but did not come home to him and fold its wings. He was not himself.... “My God!” he cried out, “what folds upon folds and phases upon phases of experience a man must pass to learn to live----”

For an instant it all came back--that taste of the open road and larger dimension of man--the listening, the labor, the sharpened senses, scant diet, tireless service, ‘the great companions’--love of the world and unfailing compassion.... It was as they had said. He had belonged everywhere but in a woman’s arms....

It came clear as a vision, and he put it from him as an evil thing--and all the voices. The red dawn was staring into his eyes, and afar off a horse nickered. He held his hands against the light, as if to destroy it.

“I have said it in the Book, ‘We have all eternity to play in,’ and if that is not a lie--this Call will come to me again!”

And this was his renunciation.

* * * * *

Her stillness troubled him.

“I am your lover,” he whispered. “I will not let you go, Betty Berry. Don’t you hear--I love you?”

He lifted her, walked to and fro between the fire and the cot. She was so very little.... The day came up with a mystic shining, and the warmth returned. These were the first hours of that fleeting Indian summer, the year’s illumination--the serene and conscious death of Summer.... The door was wide open to the light.... Morning put down his burden, but could not be still. He brought water and scrubbed the floor and door-step. The wood shone white as it dried--white as the square table which was an attraction of daylight. He tossed the water away down the hollow, drew more and washed as the countrymen do, lifting handfuls to his head. Then he brought basin, soap, and towels--bathed her face and hands, afterward carrying her forth to the sunlight. The thin shade of the elms was far down the meadow, for the day was not high.

“I love you, Betty Berry,” he continued to repeat, as he turned again and again to the cot. There was an hypnotic effect in the words; and there was a certain numbed surface in his brain that refused to cope with the immediate stresses in the room.

Jethro came early, and was not content to leave the mail at the box. He brought letters, a paper, and a large package. Jethro looked at the face on the cot and at the bare-headed man. Words failed him to whom words were so easy. He ventured to mention the name of a doctor, and was answered furiously:

“I am the doctor.”

Jethro lingered. Morning turned suddenly to look at the cot, and it seemed to the carrier that his eyes would have frightened away death.... Morning caught him by the shoulders:

“You’re a good man, Jethro,” he said hastily. “When I think of that fur robe--it seems as if I’ve got to do something for you with my hands.”

The carrier went his way.

* * * * *

This he found in the newspaper--a “follow” paragraph apparently to the dramatic notice of the day before:

“The second performance of _Compassion_ last night to a
fairly filled house is interesting in its relation to the fear
frankly expressed in this column yesterday, to the effect that
_Compassion_ is too good a play to get on well. The fear was well
founded upon experience; and yet we may have before us an exception--a
quality of excellence that will not be subdued. It is too much to hope
for, that at any other time this season we will be equally glad to
find our fear for a play’s future ill-founded.”

Morning had not known of the doubt; and this was the rise of the tide again from the doubt.... He glanced at the package. There was a spreading cold in his vitals. It was from the publisher he had chosen--the Book of John Morning returned.

He was hostile for an instant--an old vindictive self resenting this touch upon his gift of self-revelation. The protecting thought followed quickly that the book was in no way changed by this accident of encountering the wrong publisher. The really important part of the incident followed these insignificant thoughts: Above all things, this letter would help to prove to Betty Berry his need for her. He would not send it out again at once. This refusal would weigh more than anything he could say, to prove that loneliness had been too much, too strong for him--that it had thrown his work out of reality, instead of into it.... He was bending over her. A step at the door, and he turned to find Helen Quiston there.

9

SHE entered and went to the cot, without words, but pressed his hand as she passed....

“You were there--and you let her get so low as this.”

Helen turned to search his face. “Yes,” she said.

“Who is this--Guardian?”

“Some angel that came to her, I think.”

“He seems very real to her----”

“Angels are real.”

“Angels do not make saints suffer----”

“On the contrary, that appears to be the life-business of saints----”

“She will never go back to that!” he said with low vehemence.

Helen regarded her old comrade for a moment, kissed her reverently, and then turned to the man.

“You poor boy,” she said.

There was something cold and rock-like about this slave of the future, looking over and beyond the imminent tragedy. He was helpless, maddened....

“She always said you loved her--that you were the one woman absolutely true. How could you let her destroy herself?”

“I knew her before you came, and loved her. I gave her my house. I waited upon her night and morning. I love Betty Berry. You are torn and tortured, but you will see----”

“She will not be away from me again!... Bah! what is work--to this?”

Helen smiled. “Do you think she would have come if she had been the real Betty Berry?”

“Do you think I would have been duped--had I been the real John Morning?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a man is mad when he is doing a book. He may call it happiness, but it is a kind of devil’s madness. He is open for anything to rush in.... I am a common man. I do not belong to that visionary thing----”

“You are caught in your emotions. I know your work----”

He drew her to the door, saying excitedly:

“_Compassion_ threatens to fail. My book has come back,” he said triumphantly. “Look at this----”

He gave her the publisher’s letter.

“Your play has not failed,” she said.... “And this--why, this is just a bit of the world. John Morning at thirty-three--talks of failure. Let us talk over this day, when you are fifty-three.... What an empty victory for her--if you failed now----”

She was looking back at the cot. Morning whispered his reiteration:

“I love her. I shall have her here. I shall make her see that I love her. _That_ is my service. You are all mad conspirators against us. We are man and woman. Our world is each other. She shall see and believe this--if I write drivel----”

Helen did not seem quite to hear him. She drew away from him as if called in a trance to the bedside.

“My little dearest--oh, Betty Berry--you have done so well. You have paid the price for a World-Man----”

Morning followed her.... Betty’s eyes were opened--fixed upon Helen Quiston.

“What did you say?” she questioned wonderingly.

“God love you, Betty. I said you had paid the price for a World-Man----”

She raised on her elbow alone, her eyes now looking beyond the woman to Morning.

“He is there,” she whispered. “He is there. He has come.”

Her hand stretched toward him, and sank slowly to his brow as he knelt.

“My love,” she said.... “It is all right. I see it all once more. It is so good and right--just as your Guardian told me.... It was only the birth-pangs I suffered. They were hard.... Birth is hard, but death is easy. Don’t you see, Helen, he was my little baby?... Oh, you came so hard, John Morning--and, oh, I love you so!”

He saw the fact of her passing, but the deeper realization was slow. It was much to him, for the instant, that she spoke and looked into his eyes.

“I love you, Betty Berry,” he said, his voice lifting. “I love you as a saint, as a mother--as a child!”

“But not as a woman,” she whispered.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

--On page 9, oustide has been changed to outside. --On page 28, redouts has been changed to redoubts. --On page 43, foxtails has been changed to fox-tails. --On page 60, Koupangtze has been changed to Koupangtse. --On page 91, Nagaski has been changed to Nagasaki. --On page 110, story--idea has been changed to story-idea. --On page 126, “the the” has eliminated the second word. --On page 191, altar has been changed to alter. --On page 206, sorows has been changed to sorrows. --On page 245, settle has been changed to settled. --On page 246, wordly has been changed to worldly. --On page 274, even has been changed to ever. --On page 276, elums has been changed to elms. --On page 279, cousciousness has been changed to consciousness. --All other hyphenation and spelling has been retained.