Chapter IV (2)

A Sunday stillness reigned there, and no one was near to see her. She got a piece of bread from the large pantry, and noticed with disgust that the shelves were dusty and the bread-tin full of pieces and crusts. To keep this neat was her work, but she had been excused for the last three days, since she was far too weak to manage it. Out through the last blind-door, and she was in the field behind the barn. She walked feverishly to the little wood close by and sank down exhausted under a large chestnut-tree.

"I'm tired--I'm dead tired out!" she whispered to herself. "I'll just stay here a minute 'fore I go on."

Had Mr. Freeland seen her then he would have been more startled than before, for two red spots burned in her sunken cheeks and her eyes glittered unnaturally. She had not eaten since breakfast, for the boiled dinner had sickened her, and though she was weak for want of food she had not strength to munch the great piece of rye bread. Her head swam a little and strange tunes seemed to sound all about her. Her mother's voice, almost in her ear, sang her to sleep with the Old Hundred Doxology, and for a moment she listened entranced, but as the phantom voice reached the last line she opened her eyes.

"No, no!" she screamed. "No, no! I won't sing to a bird! I won't! I'll go to Sarah's first!"

A stillness that frightened her followed. Something pattered beside her, and she looked apprehensively at the sky through a rift in the branches.

"Don't say it's rain!" she whispered, nervously. "I'm fearful scairt o' thunder-storms!"

The sky was rapidly clouding over, and a growl of thunder answered her. She started up, but fell helplessly back.

"O Lord, I can't move! I can't move a step! I'm too heavy!" she cried in terror. The storm came on fast; the branches shook under a sudden wind, and the birds grew still. She was too weak to realise fully her situation, but what consciousness she owned was swallowed up in terror. A sudden flash, and she shrank together with a moan.

"I'm out o' my head--I'm not really here--I'm in the house--I wouldn't be here f'r anything!" she whispered. A heavy clap, and she screamed with fear. The time when she left the house was far away and misty in her mind. She could not remember coming. The drops struck her in quick succession and the muttering grew more frequent, the flashes brighter. Sick with fright, she cowered under the tree. Her childhood unfolded before her, her girlhood; her poor pinched life assumed a glory and fulness it had never had. So warm, so sheltered, so contented it seemed to her.

A great harsh clap shook the little wood and a vivid glare wrapped her about. With a wail she fell back against the tree-trunk. Her mind was clear again, she recalled everything. She had been led out here to die. She was summoned forth to meet the judgment of God. Heretic, infidel, blasphemer that she was, she was to go before Him that day!

Her clothes were soaked with rain, she shivered with cold, she was too weak to take a step, but she staggered to her knees and folded her hands. The tree swayed above her, the wood was dark as night, the rain to her weak nerves was deafening; the powers of darkness raged about her. She tried to pray for forgiveness, for peace at the last, but in her mind, all too clear, was the remembrance of her life for two weeks past. She set her teeth to keep them from chattering so, and shivering at each clap and gasping at each flash, she prayed:

"O Lord, if you are sendin' this storm to punish me, I can't help it. I've believed in you all my life, and I'm sixty-two and I'm going to die in a thunder-storm. If it'll save me to believe in the Holy Ghost, then I'll have to be damned eternally as the Widder Sheldon says you'll do, for I can't, I can't, I can't! I' been a believer all my life, and I' only been this way two weeks, and if that counts against all the rest, I'll just haf' to go to hell, that's all. Feelin' as I do, you can't expect me to change for a thunder-storm, Lord, scairt as I be. It don't make no difference that I'm scairt, I feel just the same. I' been a sinful woman, an' I pray to be forgiven, but I can't change, Lord, I can't, an' you wouldn't respect me if I was ter. Amen."

A glare that seemed to brighten the wood for minutes and a terrific burst of thunder answered her. With a little gasp she fell backward and lay unconscious. The storm raged about her, but she knew nothing of it. A little withered old woman, she lay in a heap in the lap of all the elements, and they beat upon her like a leaf.

If it were hours or minutes she did not know, but she opened her eyes with pain upon a quiet world. The storm had passed, the leaves were dripping, the sun was just beginning to brighten the blue, the birds were twittering again. She got up heavily, but with a certain fitful strength. She turned around and dragged herself further into the wood. Then, in dread of the thicker foliage, she struck off uncertainly to the right. To her the vengeance of God was only delayed; there was only a momentary escape, but it was precious. She was confused, terrified, beaten. She had no notion in what direction the house lay. She felt her legs tottering and reached painfully down to pick up a large, gnarled, broken bough. The effort all but stretched her beside it. But she leaned on it, and turned her shaking head from one side to another. All was thick, wet, glistening, confusing. Only the twitter of the birds and the drip, drip of the wet leaves broke the deadly stillness. A nameless horror caught her. She felt alone in the world.

"O Lord, O dear Lord, show me the way home!" she prayed. "Let me die at home, Lord; don't let me die out here--a poor old woman like me! Sixty two, Lord, an' a believer all my life! Send me home!"

There was a little rustling noise in the tree near the tiny clearing just before her; a low, soft heavenly sound.

"I know I'm goin' to die, Lord, only let me die at home! Don't do it here! I'm scairt, an' I'm weak, an' I'm too old to die in the woods! Jus' send me home, Lord; show me where the house is!"

The great sun suddenly sent a long, bright ray down across the open space, and as she looked at it, there hovered, full in the brightness, a gleaming silver dove. With wings outspread, motionless, too bright to look at with steady eyes, it hovered there. It never fluttered its wings; it made no sound; in a ray from heaven it held its quiet position serenely and glistened from every tiniest feather.

The old woman's knees tottered beneath her. She held with both hands to the gnarled staff, and shuddered as she gazed.

"The Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost!" she panted. The bird's eyes met hers, and she could not take her own away. To her blurred, smarting vision it seemed that an aureole of glory outlined its head. She had no thoughts; only a confused sensation of immediate and inescapable doom. Death, death here, with this grave and moveless vision was her part. She closed her eyes and waited. A second, and she opened them, to see the vision changed; the bird had turned around, and was slowly guiding down the little clearing before her. Just above her head it flew, with steady pace, and with it went all the brightness of the sun.

Her lips moved. She took a step forward, and the bird advanced. "Glory be to God!" she whispered, "It'll show me the way!"

She never took her aching eyes for one second from the wonderful white thing. She scorned to watch the ground. With a magnificent faith she walked, her head lifted, her heart too full to know if she stumbled. In the clear places, always where there were no branches, the white guide flew and Harriet walked after with her staff. A few moments took them out of the wood, but she never looked for the house. In the full glare of day, against the blue, the bird looked only snowier, and to her dazzled, burning eyes the aureole grew only brighter and bigger. She could not see its wings move; it hovered steadily and floated serenely upon the clear air, and the old woman saw it, and it only.

She did not see the anxious crowd on the porch, she did not hear their exclamations, she did not know that her lips were moving, that her voice, low, husky, but distinguishable, repeated over and over, almost mechanically: "Forgive me, Lord! forgive me, Lord! O Lord, forgive me!"

She only followed, followed with all her heart and soul and strength, up the little hill, up the path, up to the porch, a strange, shaking pilgrim, leaning heavily on her staff, guided by the white pigeon.

On the steps they received her, and as she sank on the lowest, they caught her, falling. Her almost sightless eyes were yet uplifted, and while to their view the dove dropped down among its mates, a patch among the white, to her it was mingled with the summer blue, and vanished in the sky whence it came.

Her body was utterly exhausted, but her spirit could not yet lose its consciousness. On the wave of her exaltation she rose higher and higher. She looked at them with a look they had never seen in any human being.

"I'm saved! I'm saved!" she cried.

They watched her, silent, terrified, awed beyond words at this redemption they could only feel but could not understand. But as they stared, her eyes glazed, her head fell back against the matron's arm.

"Pray! pray!" she whispered. The pastor looked at her and steadied himself. Wonder and a sense of strength flowed in on him suddenly. But there was scant time for prayer. Though the light in her face had not yet died away, her breath was scarcely moving. He came near her and repeated gently the hymn she had in the time of her trouble disowned, but which she had always loved:

"_Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host_----"

Her eyes opened and looked wide into the blue; what she saw there they did not know, but she smiled faintly.

"_Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!_"

"Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" the matron guessed that she murmured; and with the cooing and clucking of pigeons sounding through the summer air, she died.

A white, arrow-swift creature whirred through the stillness, up, up, and out in a great proud curve; their eyes were too dim to know if it turned again to the earth.

A BAYARD OF BROADWAY

The younger man--he was only a boy--grinned impishly at the elder, bringing out the two dimples in his flushed, girlish cheeks.

"That's all right enough, Dill," he drawled; he always drawled when he had been drinking. When he was sober the familiar Huntington staccato was very marked in him.

"That's all right, Dilly, my boy, and a grand truth, as old Jim used to tell us at chapel, but maybe little Robert doesn't see your game? Oh, yes, he sees it, fast enough. Sis hands it out to you, and you recite it to Robbie, and Robbie reforms, and you get Sis! How's that for a young fellow who flunks his math? Not bad, eh?"

Dillon flushed and set his teeth, mastering an almost irresistible longing to slap those red cheeks in vicious alternation. To think that this chattering young idiot stood between him and his heart's desire!

Bob drawled on: "Anyhow, Dill, I think it's right queer, you know. Why don't she marry you? She can't love you very much, if it depends on me. You're a man o' the world, you know, man o' world"--he grew absent-minded and stared at the wall. Dillon snapped his fingers nervously, and the speaker began again with a start:

"That's what I say--a man o' world. Tell her it's all bosh worryin' over me, tell her that, Dill, tell her I say so. No use her tryin' to be my mother. Now is there, Dill, as a man, is there? If she got married and had some children of her own----"

"Bob," the older man burst out, "for heaven's sake, shut up, will you, and listen to me! I'm going to tell you the truth. You've got the whole thing in your hands--God knows why, but you have--and I'm going to lay it before you once for all. Then do as you please: make us all happy, or go to the devil your own way--and I'll go mine," he added, lower and quicker.

Bob sat up, blinked rapidly, and smoothed his hair down tight over his ears--sure sign that he was nearly himself.

"Go ahead," he said shortly, "I'll come in."

Dillon bit his lip a moment; he would rather have taken a whipping than say what he had to say. The clock ticked loud in the pause, and Bob, every moment clearer-eyed, heavy sleep a thing of the past, stared at him disconcertingly.

"What I'm going to say to you," Dillon began, "isn't very often said by one man to another, I imagine. Few men are placed in just my position. I've known you all so well, I've seen so much of you all my life----" he paused.

"I needn't say how much I thought of your mother. When your father was--when he broke down so often at the last, of course I saw a great deal of her, and she trusted me a lot--she had to, once she began. When she died, and you weren't there, because you----"

"Don't! please don't, Dill!" the boy's lips contracted; his slim body twisted with a helpless remorse.

"Well, then, when she died she asked me to look out for you, because she knew how I loved her and--and Helena. She knew you had it in you, and she didn't blame you--they never do, I suppose, mothers--but she asked me if I'd try to look out for you. She knew I wasn't perfect myself. That's--that's why she thought I wouldn't do for Helena. Helena was always so wonderful, so high above----"

Again he stopped, and the boy's voice broke in:

"Helena's made of snow and ice-water," he said moodily, "she's too good for this earth. She doesn't know----"

"She knows what her brother should be, and she knows what her husband must be," Dillon interrupted sternly. "No sister could have been more of an angel to you, Bob.

"Now I'll go on. It's going to be necessary just here for me to tell you that I love your sister. You don't know anything about that, of course. You don't for a second of your life realise what it is to love a woman as I've loved her for--for five years, we'll say. I put it five because, though I loved her long before, things happened in between, and I don't count it till five years ago. Heaven knows I'm not worth her shoe-laces. Once or twice--before the five years--I've realised that a little too much, and then--the things happened. But since then I've honestly tried to keep to the mark your mother set me. She said to me once, 'If you would only keep as good as you are at your best, Lawrence, you'd be good enough for Helena,' and--perhaps because that wasn't so very good, after all--I've really been keeping there, after a fashion."

Bob stared at him in unaffected amazement. This clubman, this elegant, this social arbiter was standing before him with tears in his level grey eyes. It dawned upon his reckless young soul that the soul of another man was slowly and painfully stripping itself before him.

"We'll let that part of it go," Dillon went on hurriedly, "you couldn't see. I--I think I could make her happy, Bob. I know her better than she thinks. She almost said she'd have me, and then you went on that spree. You nearly broke her heart--I needn't go over it. Only she made a vow, then--it was when she went into that convent-place in Holy Week, and she's never been the same since--and it was about you."

"About me? What d'you mean?"

"She told me she never could marry till she was certain whether you were just obstinate and wild, or--or like your father; and that in that case----"

"What, in that case?" Bob muttered through his teeth.

"She was going to devote her life to taking care of you."

There was a silence.

"There's no use in going over all the arguments now, Bob--you know what the doctor said. Three months without a drop, and then he'd warrant you. Every day that goes by makes it harder for you. And here's your Uncle Owen promising that the first month you go without a spree he'll send you for a three months' cruise on the yacht with Stebbins--you know what a chance that is."

Bob looked fairly up for the first time.

"Stebbins! Would Stebbins go? I don't believe you!" he cried eagerly.

"He told me he would," said Dillon.

"Why on earth should he?"

"He's a friend of mine," the other answered simply.

Bob twisted his lips together a moment, while the muscles around his mouth worked. Suddenly he gave way and broke into sobbing speech.

"You're a good fellow, Dill--I'm not worth it--truly, I'm not! I've been a beast--and the college and all that--you all despise me--but so do I!"

He gripped the chair, turning his handsome, tear-stained face up to his friend's. How the straight, thin nose, the black-lashed blue eyes, the white forehead reflected Helena! Dillon could have kissed him for the likeness.

"Will you, Bob? Will you? We'll all stand by you!"

"I will, Dillon, I will, so help me--Bob!" he smiled through wet lashes. "You hang on, and I will! But look out for that rector--he's running a close second, and Aunt Sarah's backing him for all she's worth!" He was smiling wisely now; the strain was lifted, and he was almost himself again. Dillon scowled.

"He takes her slumming, you know, and, say, you ought to hear him give it to Aunt Sarah about knowing the condition the poor devils are in before you deal out the tracts, you know. He wants the good ladies and gentlemen to come and see--that way, you know."

"He's right enough there," Dillon said constrainedly, "and I suppose he's better for her than I'd be--no, by George, he's not! Bob, I tell you, I know her better than he does--I tell you I've waited five years--Oh, Lord, I can't talk any more about it!"

They went out arm in arm, the boy warm and friendly, proud of his confidence and full of high resolve, Dillon impassive outwardly, but conscious of great stakes. To say, in four short weeks, to those wide, blue eyes, a little scornful, perhaps, but with so sweet, so pure a scorn! "_The strain is over: he is safe; can you not trust me now?_" His heart leaped and grew large at the thought.

It was so like Helena, this service, half-sacred in her mother's trust, half-shy in maidenly delaying. "She is afraid of me!" he thought exultingly--indeed, she admitted as much.

"You and your set--one knows you, and yet one doesn't," she said to him. "You seem so still, so satisfied, so sure about life--there seems to be so much you don't tell! Do you see what I mean? It frightens me. There is so much we don't think the same about, Lawrence--so much of you I don't know! I wanted, when I married, to come into a--a peace. I wanted it to be--don't laugh--like my Confirmation: do you think it would, if I married you? Do you, Lawrence?"

He turned his head away. A vision of her, those ten short years ago, in white procession down the aisle of Easter lilies, rapt and aloof, flashed before him. For one sweet second he saw her in fancy, again in white, but trembling now, and near him----

"Oh, dearest child," he begged, "I don't know about the peace--how can I? The things are so different! But we could be happy--I know we could! Is peace all you want, sweetheart, all?"

Caught by his eyes, her own wavered and dropped; a flood of red rose to her hair.

"Don't, Lawrence, you frighten me! When you look like that--Oh, wait a month, only this month, Lawrence, till Bob has gone and we're sure!"

"You want that more than anything else, don't you? You'd give up anything----"

Her eyes grew soft, then stern, and looked clearly into his.

"Anything in the world," she said instantly, "so that mamma could see he was--safe. I am all Bob has. Oh, if he can only----"

"He shall," Dillon assured her stoutly, "he shall, this time!"

And indeed it seemed that he would. He seemed awakened to the strongest effort they had known him to make. His uncle's offer, grimly set for one month from its date, or never, took on for him a superstitious colour of finality. He was convinced that it was his last chance.

"If I'm downed this time, Dill, it's all up," he would say, wearily, as they paced the endless city blocks together, arm in arm, under the night. "If I can keep up till the yacht--how long is it, a week?--then, something tells me I'm all right. I swear it's so. I never felt that before. But if I don't"--he paused ominously. "There's always one way out," he added.

"You will break Helena's heart, then."

"Heart? I don't think she has one. If she had, you'd have had her long ago. Oh, no, I sha'n't. She'll go into that beastly retreat for a while, and then she'll marry that crazy rector-man and go about saving souls. You'll see."

The week was nearly up. The yacht was ready in the harbour. The boy, though, showed the strain, and Dillon, fearful of too much dogging him, and warned by his furtive eyes and narrowed lips, called in Stebbins to the rescue.

"I can't have him hate me, Steb," he explained. "We're both of us worn pretty thin. If you could give up to-day and to-night----"

They shook hands.

"It's every minute, practically, you know, Steb," he added doubtfully, "it's a good deal."

"Oh, get on!" the other broke in, with a good-natured shoulder clap.

As he swung the glass door of the club behind him, Dillon ran down a messenger-boy, bulging with yellow envelopes. The boy glanced at him questioningly.

"Mist' Wardwell, Adams, Stebbins, 'r Waite?" he inquired, holding out four telegrams as he slipped in.

Dillon shook his head, and walked down the steps.

One more night and she would be all to win, no promise between, no scruple that a lover might not smother. Shame on him if he could not woo more persuasively than a mystical evangelist! In the evening he would see her; the precious little note lay warm over his heart.

He dined alone, he could not have said where, and an idle impulse for the lights and bustle of the great thoroughfare sent him strolling down Broadway. It was too early for the crowd, and he found himself guessing vaguely as to the characteristics of the couples that met and passed him. That tall, slender lad, for instance, with such a hint of Bob--poor, troublesome Bob!--in his loose, telltale swagger, what had led him to the dark-eyed creature that tapped her high heels beside him? As she came under the light, one saw better; her flashing smile, her careless carriage of the head, her broad sweep of shoulder, had a certain charm--great heavens, it was Bob steadying himself on her arm! A moment, and the familiar drawl reached his ear:

"An' so you always want to choose mos' prom'nent place, every time, an' you're safe's a church. No chance to meet y'r dear frien's----"

Dillon strode to his side, raising his hat to the surprised woman.

"I beg your pardon, Bob, but had you forgotten your engagement this evening?" he said smoothly. Bob stopped, glared a moment uncertainly, but the scrupulous courtesy of Dillon's bearing had its intended effect.

"What--what engagement?" he inquired suspiciously. "Friend o' mine," he added to his companion.

"Haven't you met Stebbins? He--he was expecting you." Lawrence felt his heart sink. Where was Stebbins? Oh, fool, to have lost hold at the eleventh hour!

"Stebbins? Stebbins?" Bob murmured to himself. "Ah, yes; the beastly boat got afire, and he had to go down; I'm going too, after a while--too early yet--take a little walk, first, with Miss--Miss----" He paused, and stared thoughtfully at the woman. "I don't seem to just recall your name," he said pleasantly. "Would you mind telling me, so that I can introduce you? Bad form, his poking in, though, terribly bad form."

Dillon noted with anger that Bob was at his most argumentative, obstinate stage; at this point, if he felt the necessity, he could speak most correctly and clearly, by giving some thought to the matter, and it was almost impossible to alter his determinations.

"My name is Williams," said the woman. Dillon bowed.

"What have you had, Bob?" he inquired, moving along with them.

"Oh, only a cocktail--here and there--Miss--Miss Willis likes 'em as well as anything. About time we had another?" he suggested, eyeing Lawrence combatively.

The older man stopped dead. A weary despair of the whole business seized him. It was all up, then. Even if he went about with the boy, which Bob would hardly allow, his condition next morning would be all too apparent. And then Uncle Owen would wash his hands of it all. Aunt Sarah would never consent to any institutional cure. Helena would never marry while Bob needed her--thank God, she had never suspected the woman!

As if in answer to his thoughts, Bob complained loudly:

"I say it's a blamed shame, the first time I go out with a girl to enjoy the evening, to have you pokin' in, Dill! Always stuck with the fellows before; and now I get a girl, like anybody else, and here you come! Why don't you get out? Two's company."

Dillon caught his arm.

"Bob," he said beseechingly, "you don't know what you're doing. Surely you know what this means! Don't you remember that the Eider-duck sails to-morrow at nine? Don't you realise that by this night's folly you're losing your last chance? Your last chance, Bob! Think how you called it that yourself! If this lady realised all this meant to you, she'd excuse you, I'm sure. Don't be a fool, Bob! Let me put you in a cab and go right to Stebbins--old Steb'll put you up, and nobody will ever know! You can sleep it off--it's only eight o'clock."

To his unexpected delight Bob yawned sleepily. His eyes were dull, his mouth drooped.

"Sleep it off," he murmured. "I wish I was in bed this minute. Lord, I'm tired. And I know why, too. I told her bromo-seltzer would settle me. Always puts me to sleep--no good at all. Fool to drink it. Told her so...."

Dillon's spirits rose.

"That's so," he assented, "it always acts that way with you, doesn't it? Especially with cocktails. Now, you be a wise man, Bob," he urged, "and get into this cab----"

"And where do I come in?" said the woman sharply. "I call this a little queer, if you don't mind my saying so."

Bob roused himself for a moment.

"Just so," he declared heavily, "just so. Where does Miss Willard come in? You must think I'm a terrible cad, Dill, to ask a lady out for the evening, and leave her like that! Not a bit of it! You go on! Sorry, but can't leave the lady."

Lawrence moved toward his pocket involuntarily. The woman struck his arm lightly.

"That'll do," she said sullenly. "I don't want your money. You think I'm a kind of a bundle, do you? Pick me up and drop me. Well, that's where you make a mistake. Why don't you let your friend alone?"

"Helen--she'll know. You say nobody will," Bob broke in suddenly. "She won't lie, if you will. She'll tell Uncle Owen. What's the use?"

"I won't tell her," Lawrence returned quickly, "and nobody else knows."

"Well, then," Bob faced him cunningly, walking backwards through the comparatively empty cross-street they had turned down, "I think maybe I'll do it. I want to go with Stebbins, all right. But"--his obstinacy rose again, suddenly--"I swear I won't go back on a lady! Nobody offer a lady money in my presence! 'Twon't do, Dill! Get out!"

"Bob," Lawrence urged, despairingly, "if I take Miss Williams wherever she wants to go, and she will accept my escort"--he half turned to her, but his doubt was not evident, if he had it--"will you go to Stebbins?"

Bob stopped short, nearly falling backwards.

"Great head!" he cried. "Never thought old Dilly had it in him! I'll--I'll consider the prop--the prop--the plan." He yawned widely. "I certainly am sleepy," he observed, sinking on a convenient step.

Dillon shook him and dragged him up.

"Come," he said, shortly, "will you?"

Bob pointed a theatrical finger at them.

"Do you, Dilly, being of sound mind, body, or estate, give me your solemn word of honour as a gentleman to escort Miss Willins wherever she wants to go? Do you?"

"And drop me when your back's turned," interposed the woman, laconically, but not angrily. Her interest was awakened, perhaps her sense of humour, too, and she awaited developments philosophically.

"Never a bit," Bob returned. "You don't know old Dill. If he says it, he'll do it, if there were what-do-you-call-'ems in the way."

"I give you my word of honour," said Lawrence, steadily.

"And you'll never tell Helen? Because if you do, she tells Uncle Owen, and it's all up with Robbie."

"I will never tell her."

"On your word of honour?"

"On my word of honour."

"Then call your cab and tuck me in my little bed. My eyes will crack if I prop 'em up any longer."

"Miss--Miss--I can't recall your name, but you don't object?..."

"Oh, no, I don't object in the least," said Miss Williams satirically, with a wondering glance at the tall, immaculate gentleman at her side, his face stern in the electric-light, his evening clothes in marked contrast to Bob's negligée. "In fact, I rather----"

Dillon whistled a cab and gave the driver whispered directions. A bill fluttered as he passed it up. The man nodded, respectful.

"And now I am at your service," said Dillon, standing tall and straight before her. "Where did you wish to go?"

Not for one moment did it occur to him to evade his duty, and not for one moment did she intend that he should. Where they went, through all that nightmare evening, he could never afterward tell. From dance-hall to concert-hall they wandered, sat awhile, and departed. Nor were they silent on the way. What they spoke of he could not have told for his life, but they talked, fairly steadily at first, less and less as the night wore on, and the woman grew dreamily content with the lights, the warmth, and the liquor. Dillon was imperturbably polite, gravely attentive to her wishes, curiously conscious of one life with her and another distinct existence at Helena's home. Now he was waiting, waiting, waiting in front of the close-shaded windows to see if she had left the house or if she still sat in surprised idleness expecting him. Now he was at Stebbins's house watching Bob as he lay asleep there.

He remembered afterward thinking that the woman must have been a Southerner, for, as she drank, her tongue turned to those softer tones, slurred vowels and quaint idioms.

"It seems like you're having a good time, after all," she said once. He bowed gravely.

By eleven they were well down-town, he was not quite certain where. They stayed but little time in any one place. It seemed as if they had been on this endless journey for years. Now and then he saw a man he knew. In one place he wakened, with a shock of remembrance, to the fact that he had been there before: there, and at the place opposite, too. How little it had changed! It was before the five years....

They were at a corner table, he with his back to the room, the woman facing it. On a platform opposite a young fellow sat before a piano, striking desultory chords. Presently he began to sing, in a sweet, piercing tenor:

"_Oh, promise me that some day you and I_----"

There was a moved silence through the room; his voice had a quality that reached for the heart:

"_Those first sweet violets of early spring_----"

Dillon glanced at the woman; her large, dark eyes were brimmed with tears. A great pity surged over him: he would have given anything he owned to be able to offer her her life to live again. Tenderly, as over a dusty, broken bird, he laid his hand over her clasped ones on the table. They sat in awed silence; the song swelled on. He did not hear the door open behind him, nor turn as a new party of four entered quietly. Directly behind his chair a man's voice spoke softly.

"This is a fair sample. Not very bad, you think? But every man in this room is a confirmed opium-eater, and the women----"

The two at the table hardly heard.

"Oh, the women!" said a woman's voice in a rough whisper. "I cannot bear to think----"

"Oh, it isn't the women, Aunty! You sha'n't say that--they are heart-breaking. It's the men, the men I bl----"

Swiftly, hopelessly, as the steel turns to the magnet, Dillon turned and faced Helena Huntington.

As her eyes met his all the rose colour in her soft cheeks seemed to sweep into his and burn dully there, leaving her whiter than bone. For one fiery second her eyes rested on the table, the half-emptied glasses, the clasped hands of the pair, the tear-stained cheeks of the handsome girl. For one breath two groups of stone confronted each other. Then, with no sign of recognition, she swept from her seat, her hand on the rector's arm, her aunt and an older man behind them. Her aunt looked at Dillon as if he were the chair he sat in.

The door swung behind them.

"_No life so perfect as a life with thee,
Oh, promise me; oh, promise me!_"

the tenor shrilled. Lawrence burst into jangling laughter.

"The evening is over," he said, still red and shaking. "Allow me to escort you home."

He never remembered the time between this speech and the moment when she asked him to step in for a while, and he laughed in her face. Then there was another time, and he was at his rooms at the club. But that was early morning. He was lame and his shoes hurt his feet--he must have walked a great deal.

At eight o'clock Stebbins dashed into the room.

"Well, of all the fellows! What's the matter with you?"

He was fresh and rosy; a faint, wholesome aroma of cigars and eau-de-cologne swept in with him.

"Why the deuce aren't you down to see us off? They're all there. Got my telegram yesterday? Fire didn't amount to much, but the fools hadn't half the stuff I ordered. I was down there all the afternoon seeing to it. I sent Bob right around to you. You must have walked him well. Stevens said he came in at eight and tumbled straight to bed. He's fresh as paint this morning. Asked him where he'd been, and I swear he didn't know. Says you told him to go to bed, and he went. Drove home, he says. Actually doesn't remember a living thing but that, since dinner. When you said he'd be that way sometimes I didn't really believe you, but I do now. Where were you?"

Dillon faced him.

"For God's sake, Lawrence, what is it? Are you sick? She said you wouldn't be there----"

"She? Who?"

"The old one--the aunt. Bob was wondering about it, and she says directly, 'No, he won't be here this morning,' so I slipped off. Bob said if you were tired, never mind.

"I say, Lawrence, that's an awfully attractive boy. You can't help liking him. He called me aside, and, 'Look here,' says he, 'Uncle Owen says there's to be no wine packed for you. Now I can't have that, Stebbins, it won't do. It's awfully bully of you to come, and you must have everything you want.' I told him that would be all right and what a fine vacation it was going to be for me----"

Lawrence turned the water into the tub and began to pull at his shoes. Never had he felt so grateful for Stebbins's constant chatter.

"I don't believe I'll come down," he heard himself say. "I have a beastly headache. I didn't get much sleep----"

"Well, for heaven's sake get some, if it makes you look like that! Where'd you go, anyway, after you put Bob to bed?"

Lawrence pulled off his coat.

"Parson's down there, you know. He and uncle seem to be hand in glove. He's pretty well fixed with most of the family, I shouldn't wonder."

"How much time have you got?" said Lawrence's voice.

"George, not much! Cab's waiting outside. I won't mention how you look, then--just tell 'em good-bye."

"That's all. Just tell 'em good-bye."

Lawrence was in the bath-room as Stebbins hurried out. He sat down on the porcelain rim of the tub, his face drawn and grey above his white shirt.

"It seems to be pretty well settled up," he said quietly. "I hope his mother's pleased!"

A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BOOKS

The new librarian entered upon her duties bright and early Monday morning. She closed with a quick snap the little wicket-gate that separated the books from the outer vestibule, briskly arranged her paste-tube, her dated stamp, and her box of slips, and summoned her young assistant sharply. The assistant was reading _Molly Bawn_ and eating caramels, and she shut book and bag quickly, wiping her mouth as she hurried to her superior.

"Now, Miss Mather, I expect to get fifty books properly labelled and shelved before noon," said the new librarian, "and there must be no time wasted. If anyone wants me, I shall be in Section K," and she turned to go.

Section K was only a few feet from the registering-table, but it pleased the new librarian to assume the existence of long corridors of volumes, with dumb-waiters and gongs and bustling, basket-laden attendants. So much majesty did she throw into her sentence, indeed, that the young assistant, who had always, under the old régime, privately referred to Section K as "those old religious books," and advised the few persons interested in them to "go right in behind and see if the book you refer to is there," was staggered for a moment, and involuntarily glanced behind her, to see if there had been a recent addition to the building.

The new librarian strode down between the cases, glancing quickly from side to side to detect mislaid or hastily shoved-in volumes. Suddenly she stopped.

"What are you doing in here, little boy?" she said abruptly.

In the angle of the case marked "Books of Travel, Adventure, etc.," seated upon a pile of encyclopædias, with his head leaning against _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_, was a small boy. He was dark of eyes and hair, palely sallow, ten or eleven years old, to appearance. By his side leaned a crutch, and a clumsy wooden boot, built up several inches from the sole, explained the need of this. A heavy, much-worn book was spread across his little knees.

He looked up vaguely, hardly seeming to see the librarian.

"What are you doing here? How did you get in?" she repeated.

"I'm reading," he replied, not offering to rise, "I just came in."

"But this isn't the place to read. You must go in the reading-room," she admonished him.

"I always read here. I'd rather," he said, pleasantly enough, dropping his eyes to his book, as if the matter were closed.

Now the new librarian thoroughly disapproved of the ancient custom that penned the books away from all handling, and fully intended to throw them open to the public in a few months' time, when she should have them properly systematised; but she resented this anticipation of what she intended for a much-appreciated future privilege.

"But why should you read in here, when none of the other children can?" she demanded.

The boy raised his eyes again.

"Mr. Littlejohn lets me--I always do," he repeated.

The new librarian pressed her lips together with an air of highly creditable restraint.

"Mr. Littlejohn allowed a great many irregularities which have been stopped," she announced, "and as there is no reason why you should do what the other children cannot, you will have to go. So hurry up, for I'm very busy this morning."

She did not speak unkindly, but there was an unmistakable decision in her tone, and the boy got up awkwardly, tucked his crutch under his arm, and laying the big book down with care, went out in silence, his heavy boot echoing unevenly on the hardwood floor. The librarian went on to Section K.

Presently the young assistant, who had been accustomed to keep her crocheted lace-work on the Philosophical shelf, directly behind the _Critique of Pure Reason_, recollected that it would in all human probability be discovered, on the removal of that epoch-making treatise, and came hastily down to get it. Having concealed it safely in her pocket, she paused.

"That was Jimmy Reese you sent out--did you know it?" she asked.

"No, what of it?"

"Why, nothing, only he's always read in here ever since I came. Mr. Littlejohn was very fond of him. He helped pick out some of the books. He----"

"Picked out the books--that child? Great heavens!"

"Well, he's read a good deal, Jimmy has," the assistant contended. "It's all he does. He can't play like the other children, he's so lame. He seems real old, anyhow. And he's always been here. He helps giving out the books, and helps the children pick out. He was very convenient when Mr. Littlejohn didn't like to be waked up."

"Great heavens!" the librarian cried again.

"I think you'll find he'll be missed, you being so new," the assistant persevered.

"I think I can manage to carry on the library, Miss Mather," replied her superior coldly, "without any assistance from the children of the town. Will you begin on that Fiction, please?"

She walked on again, but paused to put away the brown book, which lay where the intruder had left it, a mute witness to the untidiness of the laity. Opening it briskly, she glanced at the title:

The
AGE OF FABLE

or

BEAUTIES OF MYTHOLOGY

by

THOMAS BULFINCH

Below was a verse of poetry in very fine print; she read it mechanically.

_O, ye delicious fables! where the wave
And woods were peopled, and the air, with things
So lovely! why, ah! why has science grave
Scattered afar your sweet imaginings?_

BARRY CORNWALL.

It flashed into her mind that an absolutely shameless subscriber had retained Miss Proctor's collected poems for three weeks now, and she made a hasty note of the fact on a small pad that hung from her belt. Then she set the _Age of Fable_ in its place and went on about her work, the incident dismissed.

The next afternoon as she was sorting out from the department labelled, "Poetry, Miscellaneous Matter, etc.," such books as Mr. Littlejohn had found himself unable or unwilling to classify further, shaking down much dust on the further side of the shelves in the process, she was startled by a faint sneeze. Her assistant was compiling a list of fines at the desk, and this sneeze came from her very elbow, it seemed, so she hastily dismounted from her little ladder and peered around the rack. There sat the little boy of yesterday, the same brown book spread across his knees. She looked severe.

"Is this Jimmy Reese?" she inquired stiffly.

"Yes'm," he answered, with a polite smile. He had an air of absolute unconsciousness of any offence.

"Well, don't you remember what I told you yesterday, Jimmy? This is not the reading-room. Why don't you go there?"

"I like it better here."

The librarian sighed despairingly.

"Perhaps you don't know who I am," she explained, not crossly, but with that air of detachment and finality that many people assume in talking with children. "I am Miss Watkins, the new librarian, and when I give an order here it must be obeyed. When I tell any one to do anything, I expect them to do it, because--because they must," she concluded lamely, a little disconcerted by the placid stare of the brown eyes. "You see, if all the little boys came in here, there would be no room for us to work."

"But they don't--nobody comes but me," he reminded her.

"Suppose," she demanded, "that someone should call for that book you are reading. I shouldn't know where to look for it."

"Nobody ever wants it but me," he assured her again.

"I have no time to argue," she said irritably, "you must do as I tell you. Put the book up and run away."

Without another word he laid the book on the broad base-shelf, picked up his crutch, and went out. As she watched his retreating figure, a little uneasy feeling troubled her usual calm. He seemed so small, so harmless a person.

A little later it occurred to her to see how he had entered the library, and stepping through the two smaller rooms at the back, choked and dusty with neglected piles of old magazines, she noticed a door ajar. Picking her way through the chaos, she pulled the knob, and saw that it gave on a tiny back porch. On the steps sat the janitor, as incompetent, from the librarian's point of view, as his late employer.

"I thought you were sweeping off the walks, Thomas," she suggested, coughing as the wreaths from his pipe reached her.

"Well, yes, Miss Watkins, so I was. I just stopped a minute to rest, you see," he explained, eyeing her distrustfully. Since her advent life had changed greatly for the janitor.

"I see Thomas, does that little lame boy come in this way?"

"Jimmy? Yes, ma'am. 'Most always he does. In fact, that's why I keep the door unlocked."

"Well, after this I prefer that you should keep it locked. There is no reason why he should have a private entrance to the library that I can see; and anyway it's not safe. Some one might----"

"Oh, Lord, Miss Watkins, don't you worry. Nobody ever came in here yet, and I've been here eight years. Jimmy's all right. He's careful and still's a mouse, and he won't do a mite of harm. He comes in regular after school's out, and it's just like a home to him, you may say. He's all right."

Miss Watkins frowned.

"I have no doubt that he is a very estimable little boy," she said; "but you will please see that no one enters the library by this door. I see no reason for favouritism. You understand me, I hope."

And she returned to her work. The assistant, weary of her unprecedented labour, had laid aside the list of fines, and was openly crocheting. No sound of broom or lawn-mower proclaimed Thomas worthy of his hire, and Miss Watkins, vexed beyond the necessity of the case, labelled Fiction angrily, wondering why such a town as this needed a library, anyway.

Two little old ladies, plump and deprecatory, entered in a swish of fresh, cambric morning-dresses. One of them fumbled in her black-silk bag for a book, and leaning on the little gate, coughed lightly to attract the assistant's attention.

"Yes, indeed, Miss Mather, a lovely day. Sister and I enjoyed this very much. I don't know about what we'll take, exactly; it's so hard to tell. I always look and look, and the more I look the more anxious I get. It always seems as if everything was going to be too long, or else we've read it. You see we read a good deal. I wonder--do you know where the little boy is?"

Miss Mather smiled triumphantly. "You'll have to ask Miss Watkins," she said.

"The new librarian, my dear? Oh, I hardly like to disturb her. They say she's very strict. My cousin told me she charged her nine cents for a book that was out too long. You ask her, my dear!"

"Miss Watkins," said the assistant meekly, "there is a lady here would like to see Jimmy. Do you know where he is?"

"I do not," the librarian returned briefly. "Anything I can do----"

"Oh, no, not at all!" cried the flushed old lady, "not for the world! Don't disturb yourself, please--Miss--Miss--I'll just wait till he gets in. He picked this out for me. You see, he knows pretty well what we want. I always like something with a little travel in it, and sister won't hear of a book unless it ends well. And it spoils it so to look ahead. So the little fellow looks at the end, and sees if it's all right for sister, and then he assures me as to the travel--I like European travel best--and then we know it's all right. I'll just wait for him."

"I have no reason to suppose that he will be here," Miss Watkins said crossly.

"Oh, yes, he'll be here," the old lady returned comfortably. "He'll be here soon. We can wait."

The librarian pressed her lips together and retired into her work. The minutes passed. Presently the outer door opened softly, and the irregular tap of a crutch was heard. Jimmy's head peered around the partition into the ante-room. The old ladies uttered a chirp of delight, and slipped out into the hall for a brief, whispered consultation, returning with a modest request for "_Griffith Gaunt_, by Charles Reade." The elder of the two shut it carefully into her bag, remarking sociably, "I wanted to read the _Cloister and the Hearth_, by the same author, I'd heard there was so much travel in it, but he said sister never could bear the ending."

Going into the reading-room later, on some errand, the librarian was surprised to find the magazines neatly laid out in piles, the chairs straightened, the shades pulled level, and a fresh bunch of lilacs in the jar under the window. She guessed who had done it, but Jimmy was not to be seen. Once, during the next afternoon, she thought she saw a small, grey jacket disappearing into the waste-room, but much to her own surprise, forbore to make certain of it. During the next few days, when her time was entirely taken up with the catalogue in the front of the library, and the assistant transacted all business among the shelves, she was perfectly convinced that somewhere between sections A and K a little boy with a brown book was concealed, but found herself too busy to rout him out.

Even when a red-faced, liveried coachman presented her with a note, directed in a sprawling, childish hand to "Mr. Jimmy Reese, Esq.," she only coughed and said severely, "There is no such official in the library."

"It's just the little boy, ma'am, that's meant," the man explained deferentially. "Master Clarence is back for the summer--Mrs. Clarence Vanderhoof, ma'am--and he always sends a note to the little fellow. There was some book he mentioned to him last year as likely that he would enjoy, and Master Clarence wants it, if it's in. I was to give him the note."

"I will send a list of our juveniles to Mrs. Vanderhoof," said the librarian, in her most business-like manner, "and I will give you, for Master Clarence, the new Henty book. He will probably like that."

"I beg pardon, ma'am," persisted the coachman, "but Master Clarence says that there was a book that the little boy particularly recommended to him, and I was to be very special about it. He goes a good deal by the little fellow's judgment. I'll call in again when he's here, after my other errands."

Miss Watkins sighed, and gave way. "Will you see, Miss Mather, if Jimmy Reese is in the library?" she inquired, and Miss Mather, smiling, obeyed her.