Chapter X: Part 10

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

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

“Of course it wasn't stealing.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I'm not hungry,” he answered.

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

“Why, Philip, what's wrong?”

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

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

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

“You mean it, Philip?”

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

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

“What's the use? I couldn't eat now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The train began to move.

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

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

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

It was all hopeless—the whole affair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it the work?” asked Margaret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I can not, Mr. Gerard.”

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

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

“It's very unusual, very.”

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

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

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

“My dear boy, I——”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It's all right, Barbara.”

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

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

“What are you going to do?”

“There is but one thing I can do.”

“And that?”

“Respect his wishes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I try to be—I really do, but——”

“But what?”

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

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

“I hate him.”

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

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

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

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

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

“But—but—if I don't see you——”

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

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

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

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

“It can't be for long, Barbara.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I do try.”

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

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

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

“Tell me what papa said.”

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

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

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

“You do—but—”

“I do, but it fails in its mission.”

“Tell me what he said.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am tired. I am tired.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes! yes! but are you going?”

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

She was crying violently.

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

But he moved slowly to the door.

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

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

“You will have to, dearest.”

“Doesn't it make you furious?”

“What, Barbara?”

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

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

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

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

“No—no!”

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

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

“I can not, Barbara.”

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

“You are unjust.”

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

“I love you,” he answered simply.

“And if we drift apart?”

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

“People do.”

“Are we like them?”

“Are we?”

“I thought we were not,” he said.

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

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

“Yes, Barbara.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In proof of which she commenced to weep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well?” Perkins interrogated him.

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

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

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

“Good lord, yes!” Perkins gasped.

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

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

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