BOOK IV

I

Miss Merrien lived in West Forty-fourth Street, near Broadway. Ten days after her visit to Peele Manor Patience rang the door-bell of the house that was to be her new home, one of a long impersonal row.

The maid that answered her ring handed her a note from Miss Merrien, and conducted her up to a hall room on the third floor. Patience closed the door, and looked about her with the sensation of the shipwrecked. For a moment she was strongly tempted to flee back to Peele Manor. The room was about eight feet square, and furnished with a folding-bed, which was likewise a bureau, and with a washstand, a table, and two chairs. The furniture and carpet were new, and there were pretty blue and white curtains on the window. Nevertheless the tiny room with its modern contrivances was the symbol of poverty and struggle and an entirely new existence. Her second impulse was to sit down on a chair and cry; but she set her teeth, and read Miss Merrien’s note instead.

I am so sorry not to be able to meet you [it read]; but I am a slave, you know. Before I was out of bed this morning I received an assignment to go to a woman’s club meeting at eleven. But I’ll get back in time to go down to the shop with you. Don’t get blue—if you can help it. Remember that every woman feels the same way when she first makes the break for self-support; and that your chances are better than those of most. There’s a little restaurant round the corner—the maid will show you—where you can get your luncheon. _Au revoir._ I’m so glad the sun is out.

ANNA CHETWYNDE MERRIEN.

P. S. Your clothes are in the closet in the hall. The key is in the washstand drawer.

Patience felt in better cheer after reading Miss Merrien’s kindly greeting, but the day dragged along very heavily. She went out and bought all the newspapers, and studied them attentively for hints; but they did not tell her inexperience anything, and after a time she let them fall to the floor and sat staring at the blank windows opposite. For the first time doubts assailed her. She had been so full of young confidence, and pride in her brains and health and courage, that she had not regarded the issue of her struggle with the world in the light of a problem; but face to face with the practical details, she felt short of breath and weak in the knees.

At two o’clock Miss Merrien came in, looking very tired. There were black scoops under her eyes, and the lines about her mouth were strongly accentuated. But she smiled brightly as Patience rose to greet her.

“Well, you are here,” she said. “I changed my mind fifty times about your coming, but on the whole I thought you would. Fortunately I have nothing on hand for this afternoon. I’ll rest, and then go down with you to the shop. Oh, I am so tired, my dear. Can I lie down on your bed awhile?”

“I shall be delighted to learn how to open it,” said Patience, who was wondering if her fair face was to become scooped and lined.

Miss Merrien deftly manipulated the bed, loosened her frock, and flung herself full length.

“I spent all day yesterday and half the night tramping over Brooklyn hunting up facts in the case of that girl who was found dead in a tenement-house bed in a grand ball gown. A great story that, but it has done me up. Tell me—how do you feel?”

“Oh, I’m glad I’m here, but I wish it was six months from now.”

“Of course you do. That’s the way we all feel. But you’ll soon swing into place, and be too busy to think. I do wish you could get work in the office, so that you could keep regular hours and meals, and not lose your good looks; but there’s no berth of that sort. I tell you it is a sad day when a girl under twenty-five sees the lines coming. The Revolting Sisterhood say that the next century is to be ours; but I doubt it. Men lighten our burdens a little now, but I’m afraid they’ll hate us if we worry and supplant them any further. Well, I’m going to take a nap. Wake me promptly at 3.10.”

She closed her eyes and fell asleep immediately. The lines grew fainter as she slept, and the hair fell softly about her face. Patience reflected gratefully that three months of absolute leisure and peace of mind would give back to the girl all her freshness and rounded contours. At ten minutes past three she awakened her. Miss Merrien sat up with a sigh.

“I feel better, though. Cultivate those cat-naps. They refresh you wonderfully. Now, we’ll go.”

II

They went down town on the Elevated, leaving it at Park Row. Patience was so much interested in the great irregular mass of buildings surrounding City Hall Square, at the dense throngs packing the crooked side streets, at the fakirs with their nonsensical wares, at the bewildering array of gilt newspaper names on the rows and stories of polished windows, that she forgot her errand for the moment, and was nearly run over.

“Yes, this is the heart of New York, sure enough,” assented Miss Merrien. “All those big buildings over there are on the famous Newspaper Row. Brooklyn Bridge is just behind. This is the Post Office on the right, and that flat building in the square is the City Hall. I tell you when you get down here, the rest of New York, including all the smart folk, seems pretty insignificant.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Patience, with a sudden sinking of the heart, “there is the ‘Day’ building.”

“That is our shop. Now, brace up.”

Patience needed the admonition. She forgot City Hall Park. All her doubts returned, with others in their wake. She knew something of the snobbery of the world. As Mrs. Beverly Peele she had been an object of respectful interest to Mr. Field. What would she be as an applicant for work? True, he had been kind to her when she was a small nobody, but that might have been merely a caprice.

They climbed up two narrow stairs in an ugly old building, and entered a large gas-lit room full of desks. Many young men were writing or moving about; several were in their shirt sleeves.

“This is the City room,” said Miss Merrien, “and these are the reporters. Those men in that little room there are the editors and editorial writers. Mr. Field’s room is just beyond. Now send your card in by this boy. The Chief’s harder to see than the President of the United States, but I guess he’ll see you.”

Patience gave the boy her card, and at the end of half an hour, during which she was much stared at by some of the men and totally ignored by others, the boy returned and conducted her to Mr. Field’s office.

It was a typical editor’s den of the old-fashioned type. A big desk covered with papers, a revolving chair, and one other chair completed the furniture. A large cat was walking about, switching its tail. The floor was bare. The light straggled down between the tall buildings surrounding, and entered through small windows. It was Mr. Field’s pride to have the greatest newspaper and the most unpretentious “shop” in the United States.

He rose as Patience entered, his eyes twinkling.

“Well,” he said, as he handed her the extra chair, “there’s a mighty row on, isn’t there? Peele has been here, and now we do not speak as we pass by. But we hadn’t had a good woman sensation for a month. I tried to explain that to Peele, but it didn’t seem to impress him. I suppose you’ve come to beg for mercy.”

“No—I haven’t come for that.”

“Why, what is the matter? I never saw you look the least bit rattled before. You are always the young queen with a court of us old fellows at your feet. But tell me; you know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

Patience drew a long breath of relief.

“Oh, you make it easier—I’ve been horribly frightened. But I’ll get to the point—I suppose you’re very busy down here. Can I have ten minutes?”

He laughed. “We are usually what you might call busy in this office, but you may have twenty minutes. Take your time.”

“Well, it’s this: I’ve left Peele Manor for good and all, and I want to be a newspaper woman.”

Mr. Field’s shaggy white brows rushed up his forehead. His black eyes expanded.

“My God! What did you make such a break as that for?”

“There are many reasons. I can’t give them all. But all the same I’ve left, and I’m not going back.”

“Well, your reasons must be good, for you had a delightful position, and you became it. Are you sure you are not acting rashly?”

“I’ve thought and thought and thought about it. I can’t understand why I didn’t leave before. I suppose my ideas and intentions didn’t crystallise until I met Miss Merrien. She has been very kind. I sent my clothes to her by degrees; she engaged a room for me in her house; we are going to cook together; and I have given her what money I have to take care of.”

“Well, well, you have acted deliberately. I don’t know that I am so much surprised, after all, and I’ll say nothing to persuade you to go back. I respect your courage and independence, and I’ll do all I can. I haven’t the slightest idea what you can do, but we’ll find out.” He leaned forward and patted her hand. Patience had one moment of painful misgiving, but again she had misjudged him. “If you get discouraged, just remember that the old man at the helm is your friend and won’t let you go under.”

“I’m sure you’re awfully good,” said Patience, tears of contrition and gratitude in her eyes. “I knew you would.”

Mr. Field touched a bell. A boy entered.

“If Mr. Steele is still in the office ask him to step here,” said the chief.

“Steele is the editor of the Evening ‘Day,’” he explained, “and has a remarkable faculty for discovering other people’s abilities.”

Patience expected to see a man of middle years and business-like demeanour. She stared in amazement as a young man under thirty entered and was presented. He was closely built, but held himself carelessly. His smooth rather square face was very pale, and despite the irregularity of feature, bore an odd resemblance to the Greek fauns. The mouth was large and full, the eyes large, dark blue, and very cold. His fashionable attire accentuated the antiquity of his face and head.

“Mr. Steele,” said Mr. Field, “this is Mrs. Beverly Peele, of whom you have heard so much lately. She has made up her mind to support herself. When she was a little girl I told her that I should one day make a newspaper woman of her, and she has come to hold me to my word—much to my satisfaction. I put her in your hands, and feel confident you will make a success of her.”

Patience expected to see a look of blank surprise cross the young editor’s face, but she did not know the modern newspaper youth. Mr. Steele could not have displayed less emotion had the new-comer been a young woman with letters from Posy County, Illinois. He merely bowed to her, then to his chief. Patience rose at once.

“I won’t keep you,” she said to Mr. Field. “I’ll only thank you again, and promise to work as hard as Miss Merrien.”

“I haven’t the slightest doubt of your success. Always remember that,” said Mr. Field. Patience saw Mr. Steele’s eyebrow give a slight involuntary jerk; but it was immediately controlled, and he bowed her through the door.

“We had better go upstairs to the evening room,” he said. “There is no one there at present.”

Patience followed him up a precipitous stairway into a walled-off section of the composing-room.

“Sit down,” he said politely, but Patience for the first time in her life felt terrified and humble. This young man, of whom she had never heard before, had the air of a superior being, omnipotent in her destiny. His manner conveyed that he was not one whit impressed by the fact that she had stepped down from the Sacred Reservation, took not the faintest interest in her as a pretty woman. She was merely a young person particularly recommended by his chief, and as such it was his duty to give her consideration.

He took a chair opposite her own, and she felt as if those classic guileless eyes were exploring her innermost brain.

“What can you do?” he asked coldly.

“Oh, nothing,” she said desperately, “absolutely nothing. I suppose you feel like remarking that the ‘Day’ is not a kindergarten.”

“Well, it certainly is not. Nevertheless, as Mr. Field thinks that you have ability, and wishes you to write for his paper, I, of course, shall do all I can to abet him. I shall begin by giving you a few words of advice. Have you a good memory; or should you prefer to write them down?”

He spoke very slowly, as if he had a deep respect for the value of words.

“I have read a great deal,” said Patience, proudly, “and my memory is very good indeed.”

There was a faint twitching of one corner of Mr. Steele’s mouth, but he continued in the same business-like tone:—

“Read the ‘Day’ through carefully, morning and evening. Observe the style in which facts are presented, and the general tone and atmosphere of the paper. Cultivate that general style, not your own. Remember that you are not on this newspaper to make an individual reputation, but to become, if possible, a unit of a harmonious whole, and to give the public the best news in the style to which this newspaper has accustomed it. When you are sent on an assignment remember that you are to gather facts—facts. Keep your eyes open, and cultivate the faculty of observation for all it is worth. When you have gathered these facts put them into as picturesque a shape as you choose—or as you can. But no rhetoric, no rhapsodies, no flights, no theories. If the facts admit of being treated humorously, treat them in that way, by all means,—that is, if you can imitate a man’s humour, not a woman’s flippancy. A good many women can. And never forget that it must not be your humour but the inherent humour of the subject. Be concise. When you feel disposed to say a thing in ten words say it in five. That is all I can think of at present. Be here at eight o’clock to-morrow, and I will give you an assignment.”

He rose, and Patience felt herself dismissed. She sat for a minute looking at him with angry eyes. Not even in the early days of her married life had she been so patronised as by this unknown young man. She felt as if he had plucked her individuality out with his thumb and finger and contemptuously tossed it aside.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked indifferently, although one corner of his mouth twitched again.

“No!” Patience sprang to her feet and ran down the stair, at the imminent risk of breaking her neck. Miss Merrien was waiting for her.

“Why, what on earth is the matter?” she exclaimed.

“Oh, let us get out into the air! Come, and then I’ll tell you.”

But they were not able to converse until seated in the Elevated Train. Then Patience exclaimed with an accent of cutting sarcasm,—

“Who, _who_ is Mr. Steele?”

Miss Merrien smiled broadly. “Oh, I see. Did he patronise you? You must get used to editors. Remember they are monarchs in a small way, and love their power—the more because their dominion is confined within four walls. But Morgan Steele is one of the kindest men in the office. I’d rather work for him than for any one. He puts on an extra amount of side on account of his youth, but the reporters all adore him. He won’t keep an incompetent man two days, and during those two days the man’s life is a burden; but he is always doing good turns to the boys he likes. When you know him you’ll like him.”

“I think him an insolent young cub, and if I didn’t hate to bother Mr. Field I’d refuses to write for him. What on earth is a youngster like that in such a responsible position for?”

“Oh, my dear, this is the young man’s epoch. Just cast your eyes over the United States and even England, and think of the men under thirty that are editors and authors and special writers and famous artists and leaders of enterprises. They are burnt out at forty, but they begin to play a brilliant part in their early twenties. I heard a man say the other day of another man who is only twenty-six and supposed to be ambitious: ‘Well, he’d better hump himself. He’s no chicken.’ A man feels a failure nowadays if he hasn’t distinguished himself before thirty.”

“They are certainly distinguished for conceit.”

“Oh, when you get used to newspaper men you’ll like them better than any men you’ve known. What is objectionable is counteracted by their brains and their intimate and wonderfully varied knowledge of life. A newspaper man who is at the same time a gentleman, is charming. It is true they have no respect for anybody nor anything. They believe in no woman’s virtue and no man’s honesty—under stress. Their kindness—like Morgan Steele’s—is half cynical, and they look upon life as a thing to be lived out in twenty years—and then dry rot or suicide. But no men know so well how to enjoy life, know so thoroughly its resources, or have all their senses so keenly developed, particularly the sense of humour, which keeps them from making fools of themselves. No man can feel so strongly for a day, and that after all is the philosophy of life. All this makes them very interesting, although, I must confess, I should hate to marry one. It seems to be a point of honour among them to be unfaithful to their wives; however, I imagine, the real reason is that no one woman has sufficient variety in her to satisfy a man who sees life from so many points of view daily that he becomes a creature of seven heads and seven hearts and seven ideals. Now, tell me all about your interviews with Mr. Field and Morgan Steele.”

Patience told the tale, and Miss Merrien raised her eyebrows at its conclusion. “Well, you need not lie awake nights trembling for the future. You are in for push and no mistake. If the Chief has taken you under his wing in that fashion you can be sure that Morgan Steele will work you for all that is in you, whether he wants to or not.” Suddenly she laughed, and leaning over looked quizzically at Patience. “You vain girl,” she said, “you are piqued because Morgan Steele did not succumb as other men—including Mr. Field—have done to your beauty and charm. But I’ll tell you this, by way of consolation: it is a point of etiquette—or prudence—among editors never to pay the most commonplace attentions to, or manifest the slightest interest in the women of the office. It would not only lead to endless complications, but would impair the lordlings’ dignity: in other words, they would be guyed. So cheer up. You haven’t gone off since this morning. I see three men staring at you in true Elevated style.”

Patience laughed. “Well, I will admit that I have no respect whatever for a man that is unappreciative of the charms of woman. I’d like to give Mr. Steele a lesson, but I won’t. I wouldn’t condescend. I’ll be as business-like as he is. He knew why I was angry to-day, I am afraid, but he won’t see me angry again. Why is Mr. Field so much nicer?”

“Oh, he owns the paper.”

III

Patience’s indignation had worn itself out by bedtime. When Miss Merrien left her for the night she locked her door and spread her arms out with an exultant sense of freedom. She seemed to feel the ugly weight of the past two years fall from her, and to hear it go clattering down the quiet streets. Her sense of humour and the liveliness of her mind had saved her from morbidity at any time, although she had not escaped cynicism. She now felt that she could turn her back squarely on the past, that she was not a woman whose mistakes and dark experiences would corrode the brain and spirit, ruining present and future. She could not make the same mistake again; and it was better to have made it in early youth when the etchery of experience eats the copper of the ego more lightly. The future seemed to her to be full of infinite possibilities. She could be her own fastidious dreaming idealising self again. New friends dotted the dusk like stars. She felt ten years away from the man to whom she had nodded a careless good-bye that morning. A vague pleasurable loneliness assailed her, the instinct of plurality. Then she laughed suddenly and went to bed.

The next morning, at eight o’clock, after a cup of black coffee to stiffen her nerves, she presented herself in the evening room of the “Day.” Two men and a woman were writing at little tables. Mr. Steele in his shirt sleeves was at his desk, reading copy. She sat down, priding herself that her face was as impassive as his own. In a few moments he called her to his desk.

“You have read in the newspapers, I suppose, of this crusade of Dr. Broadhead, the fashionable Presbyterian clergyman, against the voting of Immigrants?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Well, he is doing his best to get the women of New York to help him, and is holding his first meeting this morning in Cooper Union—eleven-thirty. One of our best men will go to report the addresses, but I want you to go and sit in the audience, and observe how many fashionable women are there, what they wear, and what degree of interest they appear to take in the proceedings. Above all, I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for any significant fact which may or may not appear. It usually does. That is all.—Well, what do you want?” This to the office boy.

Patience went slowly downstairs, feeling as if she had been sent out to discover the North Pole with a chart and a row-boat. When she reached Cooper Union, two hours later, and found herself for the moment an integer of one of the many phases of current history, she forgot the agonising travail of the “news sense,” and became so deeply interested that she observed the many familiar faces abstractedly, and, later, “faked” their costumes.

She hurried to her room before the meeting was over and wrote her “story.” It concluded thus:—

“Some four hundred women were present, at half-past eleven in the morning; the hour indicating that they were women of leisure, which in its turn presupposes the large measure of education and refinement, and a general superiority over the toiling millions. They were very enthusiastic. When Dr. Broadhead entered the applause was deafening. They interrupted him every few minutes. When he sat down, and Mr. Lionel Chambers came forward he, too, was warmly welcomed, for his popularity is well established. He smiled, and began something like this:—

“‘Ladies: Dr. Broadhead has left me little to say. I being somewhat versed in politics, however, in other words, in hard fighting with the enemy, he believes that I may be able to give you a little useful advice.’ (Applause and cries of ‘Yes! Yes!’) ‘Now, ladies, there are several points upon which I must ask your attention.’ (No man ever had more serious attention.) ‘I will check them off in detail. First of all, ladies, my advice to you is to—’ (every ear went forward)—‘is—to—pray.’

“He paused. There was an intense and disgusted silence, with the exception of one or two muttered exclamations of impatience. _There were just four hundred women in the city of New York who were beyond that sort of thing._ He saw his mistake at once, blundered on confusedly, recovered himself, and gave them much sound, practical advice which they received with every mark of gratitude.”

She hastened down to the office, her eyes shining with the proud delight of authorship. Steele looked busier than any one she had ever seen, but he asked sharply:

“Got anything?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see it. Skip the descriptive part.”

She handed him the latter part of her story, and he ran his eye hastily over it. A gleam shot from his eyes, but he compressed his lips.

“That’s not bad—but I don’t know that I dare print it. The religious hypocrisy of this country beats that of England, strange as it may appear. However, I’ll think it over. Come down to-morrow morning.”

The article was printed, and the result was a shower of protesting letters from clergymen and religious women. Patience was sent to interview a number of representative women, of various spheres of life, on the subject, and found herself fairly launched. She hardly had time to realise whether she liked the work or not, but when she was not too tired, concluded that she did. As this phase wore off, she developed considerable enthusiasm, and felt her bump of curiosity enlarge.

She practically forgot the past, except to wonder occasionally that she heard nothing from the Peeles. Upon her arrival in New York, on the morning of her departure from Peele Manor, she had mailed a note to Beverly, which merely announced that she had left him, never to return. He was the sort of a man to put the matter in the hands of a detective, but so far—and the weeks were growing into a month—he had given no sign of any kind. She cared little for the cause of his silence, however; she was too thankful for the fact. Occasionally Steele gave her a brief word of praise, and she was more delighted than she had ever been at the admiration of man.

IV

Patience sprang out of bed, full of the mere joy of living. She felt as happy as a wild creature of the woods, and for no reason whatever. She longed for Rosita’s voice that she might carol, and wondered if it were possible that she had ever thought herself the most miserable of women. The small room would not hold her, and she went out and took a long walk in the sharp white air; it was Sunday, and she was not obliged to go to the office.

When she returned, the servant told her that a gentleman awaited her in the parlour. She turned cold, but went defiantly in. The visitor was Mr. Field, and the revulsion of feeling was so great, and her exuberance of spirits so undiminished, that she ran forward, threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him.

“I am so happy I must kiss some one,” she said, “and after all you are the right person, for it is owing to you that I am happy.”

“Well! well!” he said laughing, “I am delighted; and also relieved that you did not take it into your head to do that down at the office. I’ve just dropped in to ask after your health and to say good-bye. How do you stand it?”

“Oh, I am well. I never felt so well. I get tired, but I sleep it off. I made twenty-five dollars last week, and I celebrated the occasion by coming home in a cab. Oh, I can tell you I feel all made over, and Peele Manor seems prehistoric.”

“You always did live at a galloping rate mentally. You are doing first rate—not but what you’ll do better a year from now. There’s pulse in your stuff. Keep your enthusiasm as long as you can. Nothing takes its place. Here’s something for you.”

A messenger boy had entered with a note.

“For me?”

“For Mrs. Beverly Peele.”

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, “it has come. This is from Mr. Peele. Do let me read it—I can’t wait.”

She tore the envelope open and read hastily:—

DEAR PATIENCE,—On the night of the day of your departure from Peele Manor, my son came up to us in a distracted condition. He had also contracted the grippe. The combination of disorders produced delirium and serious illness. For that reason and others we have not endeavoured to communicate with you. In fact, I only ascertained yesterday that you were working for Mr. Field, who I consider has further betrayed my friendship in associating himself with you in your insubordination.

Of course you are at liberty to act as you choose. The laws of this country are wretchedly inadequate regarding the authority of the husband. But one thing I insist upon: that you call upon us and make a definite statement of what you purpose to do. If you have repented and wish to return to us, we will overlook this wretched mistake. If you intend definitely to leave your husband and to follow the disgraceful life of a reporter on a sensational newspaper, you owe it to us to come here in person and define your position. The family with which you have allied yourself, my dear young woman, is not one to be dismissed with a note of three lines.

I particularly request that you call at three o’clock this afternoon.

Yours truly GARDINER PEELE.

Patience handed the note to Mr. Field, who read it with much interest.

“Go by all means,” he said; “otherwise they will annoy you with petty persecutions, and Beverly will haunt the ‘Day.’ Keep up all your pluck, and remember that this is a free country, and that they can compel you to do nothing you do not wish to do. You are mistress of the situation, and can call upon me for proof that you are supporting yourself adequately.”

“Oh, I don’t want to go. I never want to look at one of them again. I’d just managed to forget them all.”

“But you must go. It would look cowardly if you didn’t; and, when you come to think of it, you certainly do owe them some sort of explanation. Poor Peele! he must have actually suffered at being treated in such cavalier fashion.”

“Oh, well, I’ll go! I’ll go! But I wish I’d never seen them.”

“You don’t look at all pretty with that face, and I shall run. By the way, I came to tell you that I start for Paris to-morrow to join my wife, who has been on the other side for some months. Otherwise she would have called before this. Steele will take care of you.”

V

When Patience went up to her room she slammed the door, closed the window violently, then sat down and beat a tattoo on the floor with her heels. Her spirits were still high, but cyclonic. She would willingly have smashed things, and felt no disposition to sing.

Nevertheless she rang the bell of the house in Eleventh Street at three o’clock. The butler bowed solemnly, and announced that the family awaited her in the library. Patience, piqued that they were assured of her coming, was half inclined to turn back, then shrugged her shoulders, walked down the hall, and through the dining-room to the library in the annex.

The afternoon sun irradiated the cheerful room, but Beverly, with sunken eyes and pallid face, sat huddled by the fire. He sprang to his feet as Patience entered, then turned away with a scowl and sank back in his chair. His mother sat opposite. She merely bent her head to Patience, then turned her solicitous eyes to her son’s face. Honora came forward and kissed her sweetly. Mr. Peele did not shake hands with her, but offered her a chair by the long table. Patience took it, and experienced a desire to laugh immoderately. They had the air of a Court of Inquiry, and appeared to regard her as a delinquent at the bar.

Mr. Peele sat in his revolving chair, tipped a little back. He had crossed his legs and leaned his elbows on the arms of the chair, pressing his finger tips lightly together.

“Now,” he said coldly, “we are ready to hear you.”

“I have nothing in particular to say. I gave you fair warning, and you refused to listen, or to let me go abroad and so avoid publicity. I therefore took the matter in my own hands and went.”

“You ignore your duty to your husband; your marriage vows?”

“There is only one law for a woman to acknowledge, and that is her self respect.”

“The husband that loves you is entitled to no consideration?”

“Not when he exercises none himself. I refuse to admit that any human being has the right to control me unless I voluntarily submit myself to that control.”

“Are you aware that you are uttering the principles of anarchy?”

“Well, the true anarchists of this world are not the bomb throwers. When a man and woman are properly married there is no question of authority or disobedience; but a woman is a common harlot who lives with a man that makes her curse the whole scheme of creation.”

Honora lifted a screen and hid her face. Beverly muttered inaudible remarks. Mrs. Peele lifted her eyebrows and curled her mouth. Mr. Peele moved his head slowly back and forth.

“I shall not attempt to contradict any of your remarkable theories,” he said. “It is apparent that you are imbued with all the pernicious thought of the time. I am thankful that it is not my destiny to live among the next generation of women. Will you kindly tell me how you should have acted in this matter if you had had children?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I have thought of that. No woman should have a child until she has been married three years. By that time she would know whether or not she had made a mistake.”

“And what shall you do if you are unable to support yourself?”

“Starve. No one has a right to live that the world has no use for, that can give the world nothing. Man’s chief end is not bread and butter. If I can give the world anything it will be glad to give me a living in return. If I am a failure I’ll walk out of existence as quietly as I altered my life. But I haven’t the slightest doubt of my ability to take care of myself.”

Mr. Peele pressed his lips together. The old man and the young woman regarded each other steadily, the one with malevolence in his eye, the other with defiance in hers. In that moment Mr. Peele hated her, and she knew it. She had made him feel old and a component part of the decaying order of things, while she represented the insolent confidence of youth in the future.

“Women make too much fuss,” continued Patience. “If they don’t like their life why don’t they alter it quietly, without taking it to the lecture platform or the polemical novel? If they don’t like the way man governs why don’t they educate their sons differently? They can do anything with the plastic mind. I am sure it could be proved that most corrupt politicians and bad husbands had weak or careless mothers. If the men of a country are bad you can be sure the women are worse—”

Beverly sprang to his feet, overturning his chair. “Damn it!” he cried. “You can talk all you like, but you are mine and I’ll have you.”

Patience turned and fixed her angry eyes on his face. “Oh, no, you will not. Your father will tell you that I am quite free.”

Mr. Peele gave a short dry laugh. “She has the best of it,” he said. “You cannot compel her to return to you, and she has the air of one who has tasted of the independence of making money—”

“Then I’ll dog her steps. I’ll make life hell for her—”

“You will do nothing of the sort, sir. Much as I disapprove of this young woman’s course, she has in me an unwilling abettor. I shall not have my domestic affairs made food for the newspapers and their hordes of vulgar readers. Field would take up her cause and hound me to my grave. You will keep quiet, and in the course of time get a divorce of which no one will be the wiser until you marry again. If the gossip does not get into the papers it will not rise above a murmur. If you add to my annoyance I shall turn you out of Peele Manor and cut you off without a cent. You will not pretend that you can support yourself.”

Patience rose. “If you have nothing more to ask I shall go,” she said. “Beverly can bring his suit as soon as he chooses. It will go by default.”

Beverly flung off his mother’s restraining arm and rushed forward. “You shall not go!” he cried.

“Don’t touch me!” cried Patience; but before she could reach the door Beverly had caught her in his arms. Excitement gave him strength. He held her with hard muscles and kissed her many times.

The ugly temper she had kept under control broke loose. She lifted her hand and struck him violently on the mouth. Her face too was convulsed, but with another passion. She felt as if the past month had been annihilated.

“Will you let me go?” she gasped. “Oh, how I hate you!” Then as he kissed her again, “I could kill you! I could kill you!” She flung herself free, and shaking with passion faced the scandalised family.

“You had better keep him out of the way,” she said. “Do you know that once I nearly killed my own mother?”

VI

Patience slept little that night. Her head ached violently. When she presented herself at the office Steele sent her to report a morning lecture. It was dull, and she fell asleep. When she returned to the office Steele happened to be alone.

“I have no report,” she said. “I fell asleep. That is all I have to say.”

For a few seconds he stared at her, then turned on his heel. In a moment he came back. “The next time you do that,” he said, “hunt up the reporter of some other newspaper and get points from him. First-class reporters always stand in together. Here’s a good story badly written that has come up from Honduras. Take it home and revamp it, and let me have it to-morrow.”

“You are awfully good. I thought you would tell me to go, and I certainly deserve to.”

“You certainly do, but we won’t discuss the matter further.”

That was an unhappy week for Patience, and she lost faith in her star. A great foreign actress, whom she was sent to interview, haughtily refused to be seen, and the next morning capriciously sent for a reporter of the “Eye,” the hated rival of the “Day.” She was put on the trail of a fashionable scandal and failed to gather any facts. She was sent to interview a strange old woman, supposed to have a history, who lived on a canal boat, and became so interested in the creature that she forgot all about the “Day,” and did not appear at Mr. Steele’s desk for three days. When she did he looked sternly at her guilty face, although the corners of his mouth twitched.

“I’m delighted to see you have not forsaken us,” he said sarcastically. “May I ask if the canal boat woman quite slipped your memory?”

“N-o-o. I have been there ever since.”

“Indeed?” His ears visibly twitched. “That alters the case. Did you get the story out of her?”

Patience looked at him steadily for a moment, then dropped her eyes.

“There is nothing to tell,” she answered.

Steele sprang to his feet.

“Come out here,” he said. He led her into a corner of the composing-room, and they sat down on a bench.

“Now tell me,” he said peremptorily. “What have you heard? You have news in your eye. I see it.”

“I have nothing to tell.”

“Suppose you tell the truth. You have the story, and you won’t give it up. Why not?”

“Well—you see—she confided in me—she said I was the only woman who had given her a decent word in twenty years; and if I told the story she would be in jail to-morrow night. Do you think I’d be so low as to tell it?”

“Sentimentality, my dear young woman, is fatal to a newspaper reporter. Suppose the entire staff should go silly; where would the ‘Day’ be?”

“It might possibly be a good deal more admirable than it is now.”

“We won’t go into a discussion of theory _v._ practice. I want that story.”

“You won’t get it.”

“Indeed.” He looked at her with cold angry eyes. “The trouble is that you have not been made to feel what the discipline of a newspaper office is—”

Patience leaned forward and smiled up audaciously into his face. “You would do exactly the same thing yourself,” she said; “so don’t scold any more. I admit that you frighten me half to death, but all the same I know that you would never send a poor old woman to prison—not to be made editor-in-chief.”

He reddened, and looked anything but pleased at the compliment. “Do you know that you have just said that I am a jay newspaper man?” he asked.

But Patience only continued to smile, and in a moment he smiled back at her, then, with an impatient exclamation, left her and returned to his desk.

VII

Two months later Steele asked her to come to the office at six o’clock, an hour at which the evening room was empty, and suggested that she should give up reporting, and start a column of paragraphs.

“I should like it better, of course,” said Patience, after he had fully explained the requirements of the new department. “I was going to tell you that I _would not_ go to that Morgue again.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t? Well, you stood it rather longer than I thought you would.”

“And I’m tired of interviewing insolent conceited people. Oh, by the way, I should thank you for all these nice things you’ve just said to me.”

He dropped his business-like manner suddenly. “How do you stand it?” he asked. Then in reply to her look of surprise: “Oh, you know, the Chief, when he went away, told me to look out for you.”

Patience immediately became the charming woman accustomed to the homage of man. Steele’s pre-eminence was gone from that moment.

“I am remarkably well, thank you, considering how you have bullied me—and I can tell you that I did not fancy at all being ordered about by such an infant.”

“Oh! Thanks! But when a man’s too polite he doesn’t get anything done for him—not in this business. And is it a crime to be an editor before you are thirty?”

“Oh, you have reason to be proud of yourself.”

“You mean that I have the big head. Well, that is the disease of the age, you know. It would never do for a newspaper man to get a reputation for eccentricity. You’ll have it yourself inside of six months if these paragraphs are a success.”

“Never! I scorn to be so unoriginal.”

“Well, we’ll encourage your sentiments, and keep you as the office curio; but I didn’t really bully you, did I?”

“Oh, I’ll admit that you were kinder than I deserved, once in a while: when I fell asleep at the lecture, for instance.”

He laughed heartily. “That was the richest joke. There was absolutely nothing to say to you. If you only stood at the end of a long perspective of this business and could fully appreciate the humour of that situation! An experienced reporter, if he couldn’t have lied out of it, or borrowed news, would never have shown up. You looked like a naughty child expecting to have its ears boxed.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Merrien guyed me for a whole week; I know all about that now. And now that you’ve come down off your pedestal I’ll thank you for all your patience and good training. If I’ve learned to write I owe it to your blue pencil; and I don’t need to be told by Miss Merrien that you’ve saved me from a great deal of hard work.”

He smiled charmingly. There were times when he looked like an old man with the mask of youth; to-day he looked a mere boy. “Oh, any one would do as much for you, even if the Chief hadn’t given orders. You are an unusual woman, you know. You proved that—but, of course, I have no right to speak to you of that.” He stood up suddenly and held out his hand. “Well, be good to yourself,” he said. “If you feel yourself breaking, take a rest.”

“I wonder,” she thought, as she went downstairs, “if that young man knows he betrayed the fact that he has been thinking a good deal about me? He certainly is an interesting youth, and I should like to know him better.”

Patience did not find her paragraphs as easy as she expected. It was one thing to work on a given idea, and another to supply idea and execution both; but after a time her sharpened brain grew more magnetic and life fuller of ideas than of lay figures. The men in the office frequently gave her tips, and one clever young reporter, who worshipped her from afar, fell into the daily habit of presenting her with a slip of suggestions.

Her choicest paragraphs were usually edited by Steele’s ruthless hand, and now and again she was moved to wrath. Upon such occasions Mr. Steele merely smiled, and she was forced to smile in return or retire with the sulks.

VIII

Patience was writing busily in her little bedroom. The March winds were howling down the street. Her door opened, and a very elegant young woman entered.

“Hal!” cried Patience.

“You dear bad girl!”

They kissed a half dozen times, then sat down and looked at each other. Hal had quite the young married woman air, and held herself with a mien of conscious importance, entirely removed from conceit: she was _grande dame_, and the late object of attentions from smart folks abroad.

“Well, how are you?” asked Patience. “Oh, but I am glad to see you. Tell me all about yourself. When did you get back?”

“Day before yesterday. I’ve returned with thirty-two trunks, the loveliest jewels you ever saw, and quite a slave of a husband. I must say I never thought Latimer would keep up such a prolonged bluff, but he fills the rôle as if he’d been husbanding all his life. Oh, no. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve forgotten it, and I’ve no regrets. _Mon Dieu!_ To think that I might be in Boston on four hundred a month! I shall be a leader, my dear. You can do as much with a hundred and fifty thousand a year as you can with a million, for you can only spend just so much money anyhow. All that the big millionaires get out of their wealth is notoriety. Nobody’d remember about them if it wasn’t for the newspapers. But you bad bad girl! What have you been and gone and done? Why didn’t you wait for me? I would have rescued you.”

“Oh, you couldn’t, Hal dear. I didn’t want to be rescued for a day or a month. I’ve run away for good and all.”

“But, Patience, what an alternative! Do you mean to say you live in this cubby-hole?”

“I’m mighty happy in this cubby-hole, I can tell you; happier than I ever was at Peele Manor.”

“That certainly was the mistake of my life. However, you’ve solved the problem more promptly than most women do. The celerity with which you untied that knot when you set about it moved me to admiration. By the way, do you know that Bev is ill?”

“Is he? What is the matter?”

“I don’t know exactly,—one of those organic afflictions that men are always getting. How uninteresting men are when their interior decorations get out of gear. And they always will talk about them. Latimer is ever groaning with his liver; but no wonder. I’ve had to eat so much rich stuff to keep him from feeling lonesome that I’ve actually grown fat. Well, we don’t know what is the matter with Bev, yet. The doctor says it’s a result of the influenza. He has some pain, and makes an awful fuss, like all men.”

“Where are you going to stay, now?”

“I am at the Holland, but will spend the summer at the Manor and the fall at Newport. Our house on the Avenue—opposite the park, you know—will be finished by winter. That house will be a jewel. I got the most beautiful things abroad for it. Then you will come and live with me.”

Patience shook her head.

“It wouldn’t do, and you will see it. I belong to another sphere now; but I can see you sometimes.”

“Well, put up that stuff, and come to the Holland and dine with me. You can finish up to-night. I have yards and yards to talk to you about. I’ll never give you up,—remember that.”

IX

When the hot days and nights of summer came Patience did not find routine and the hunt as fascinating sport as when the electric thrill of cooler seasons was in the air. Her paragraphs acquired some reputation, and her mind grew tense in the effort to keep them up to a high standard, and to prepare at least one surprise a day. She grew thin and nervous, and began to wonder what life and herself would be like five years hence. Mr. Field and Steele helped her as much as they dared, and she managed to make about fifty dollars a week: her success gave Mr. Field the excuse to pay her special rates. It never occurred to her to give up, and she assured Hal that she would have nervous prostration four times a year before she would return to Peele Manor.

There were times when she passionately longed for the isolation of a mountain top. Nature had been part of her very individuality for all the years of her life until this last, and a forested mountain top alone was the antithesis of Park Row. She sometimes had a whimsical idea that her grey matter was becoming slowly modelled into a semblance of that famous precinct. She loved it loyally; but the isolation of high altitudes sent their magnetism to another side of her nature. She was getting farther and farther away from herself in the jealous absorption of her work,—the skurrying practical details of her life. She felt that she could no longer forecast what she should do under given circumstances, that something in her was slowly changing. What the result would be she could not predict; and she craved solitude and the opportunity to study herself out.

In August Mrs. Field took her to her house in the Berkshire hills. Although she had no solitude there, she returned much refreshed, and did good work all winter. Steele she never saw outside of the office, but he managed to treat her with a certain knightliness, and she lay awake, occasionally, thinking about him. Hard work and the practical side of life had disposed of a good deal of her romance, but she was still given to vagaries. Steele’s modernity fascinated her. No other epoch but this extraordinary last quarter of the nineteenth century could have produced him.

She was a great favourite in the office. Again a thaw had succeeded a second glacier period, induced by entire change of environment, and she liked nearly everybody she knew, and became a most genial and expansive young woman. She often laughed at herself, and concluded that she would never strike the proper balance until she fell in love (if she ever did), when the large and restless currents of her nature would unite and find their proper destination. She had no “weird experiences.” Her abounding feminity appealed to the chivalry of the gentlemen among whom she was thrown, and she was clever enough not to flirt with them, to treat them impartially as good comrades. The second-class men detested her, and were not conciliated: the underbred newspaper man touches a lower notch of vulgarity than any person of similar social degree the world over.

* * * * *

One morning she awoke about four o’clock,—that is, her mind awoke; her body was still too full of sleep to move to the right or left. It was one of her favourite sensations, and she lay for a time meditating upon the various pleasures, great and small, which are part of man’s inheritance.

Suddenly she became conscious that it was raining. She had moved into a back room on the second floor. Beside one window was a tin roof upon which the rain poured with heavy reiterance. In the back yard was a large ailanthus tree which lifted itself past her windows to the floor above. A light wind rustled it. The rain pattered monotonously upon its wide leaves, producing a certain sweet volume of sound.

It was long since she had listened to rain in the night. It was associated in her mind with the vague sweet dreams of girlhood and with her life in Carmel Valley. She had loved to wander through the pine woods when the winter rains were beating through the uplifted arms, swirling and splashing in the dark fragrant depths. It said something to her then, she hardly knew what, nor when it roared upon the roof of the old farmhouse, or flung itself through the windows of Carmel tower, as she and Solomon huddled close to the wall.

But when it had beaten upon the roof of her little room in Miss Tremont’s house it had sung the loneliness of youth into her soul, murmured of the great joy to which every woman looks forward as her birthright. Hard worked and absorbed as she may have been during the day, if the rain awoke her in the night, it was to dreams of love and of nothing else, and of the time when she should no longer be alone.

This morning she listened to the rain for a time, then moved suddenly to her side, her eyes opening more widely in the dark. The rain said nothing to her. She listened to it without a thrill, with no longing, with no loneliness of soul, and no vague tremor of passion.

Nothing in her unhappy experience had so forcibly brought home to her the changes which her inner self had undergone in the last few years. Life was a hard clear-cut fact; she could no longer dream. Imagination had taken itself out of her and gone elsewhere, into some brain whose dear privilege it was to have a long future and a brief past.

The tears scalded her eyes. She cursed Beverly Peele. She wished she had remained in Monterey. There, at least, she would never have married any one, for there was no one to marry.

“Even if my life had been a success,” she thought, “if Beverly Peele had been less objectionable, or had died, and I had had the world at my feet, it would be too high a price to pay. Not even to care that one is alone when the rain is sweeping about with that hollow song! To think and dream of nothing beyond the moment! To have accepted life with cynical philosophy, and feel no desire to shake the Universe with a great passion! To be beyond the spell of the rain is to be a thousand years old, and a thousand centuries away from the cosmic sense. I wish I were dead.”

And there were other moods. Sometimes the devil which is an integral part of all strong natures—of woman’s as well as of man’s, and no matter what her creed—awoke and clamoured. There were four or five men in the office whom she liked well enough when absent, and in whom the lightning of her glance would have changed friendship to passion. Why she resisted the temptation which so fiercely assailed her at times she never knew. Conventions did not exist for her impatient mind excepting in so far as they made life more comfortable; she had in full measure youth’s power to know and to give joy, and she owed no one loyalty. And at this time she imaged no future: she had lost faith in ideals. It was only at brief intervals that there came a sudden passionate desire—almost a flash of prophetic insight—for the one man who must exist for her among the millions of men. And this, if anything, took the place of her lost ideals and conquered the primal impulses of her nature. Or was it a mere matter of destiny? Woman is a strange and complex instrument. She is as she was made, and it is not well to condemn her even after elaborate analysis.

X

One morning in May, Hal came in before Patience was out of bed. She sat down on a chair and tapped the floor with her foot.

“I come charged with a message, a special mission, as it were,” she said. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“Well?”

“Don’t look at me like that, or I’ll never have the courage to go on. Bev is desperately ill,—not in bed, but he has the most frightful pains: his disease, which has been threatening for a year, has developed. It may or may not be fatal. The doctor says it certainly will be unless he has peace of mind, and he is fretting after you like a big baby. The grippe seems to have broken the back of his temper, and he is simply a great calf bleating for its parent. It would be ridiculous if it were not serious. You’d better come back to us, Patience.”

“I won’t.”

“I knew you would say exactly that; but when you think it over you will come. Remember that the doctor practically says that you can either save or prolong his life. Mamma is simply distracted. You know she adores Bev, and she broke down completely last night and told me to come and beg you to return. You know what that means: you’ll have nothing to fear from her.”

“Oh, I can’t go back! I can’t! I think I should die if I went back.”

“We don’t die so easily, my dear. Now, I’ll go and let you think it over,” and the diplomat kissed Patience and retired.

Patience endeavoured to put the matter out of her mind, but it harassed her through her day’s duties, and her work was bad. Steele told her as much the next afternoon when she came into the office late, intending to write there instead of at home. Her room was haunted by Beverly’s pallid face and sunken eyes.

“Oh, well,” she said, flinging herself down before a table, “perhaps it’s the last, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Why? What do you mean? You do look pale. Are you ill?”

Patience hesitated a moment, then told him of the complication. He listened, without comment, looking down upon the skurrying throngs.

“I suppose I must go,” she said in conclusion. “Anyway I feel that I shall go, whether I want to or not.”

He came over to the table and regarded her with his preternatural seriousness.

“Yes,” he said, “you will go. It will be like you.”

“Oh, I am no angel. It’s not that—please! It’s—don’t you know there are some good acts you can’t help? Not only do traditions and conventions drive you into them, but your own selfishness—I haven’t the courage to be lashed by my conscience. If I could give that morphine, do you think I’d go?”

He smiled. “Do you analyse everything like that? However, I choose to keep to my illusions. I think that you have magnificent theories, but act very much like other people. Can I go up and see you sometimes? I may have a chance to know you, now.”

She put up her hand and took his impulsively. “Yes, come,” she said. “That is the only thing that will make life supportable.”

XI

She went home and wrote the following letter to Beverly Peele:—

“I will return to Peele Manor and remain while you are seriously ill, under the following conditions: (1) That you pay me what you would be obliged to pay a trained nurse; (2) That you will treat me on that basis absolutely. My feeling toward you has undergone no change. I am not your wife. But as your physician holds me responsible for your life, I will be your nurse on the terms stated above.”

The next day she received this telegram:—

Come. Terms agreed to.

BEVERLY PEELE.

She was received by the various members of the household with infinite tact. Mrs. Peele’s cold blue eyes sheltered an angry spark, but she behaved to her errant daughter-in-law exactly as if matrimonial vacations were orthodox and inevitable. Honora kissed her sweetly, and asked her if the roses were not beautiful. When Mr. Peele came home he said, “Ah, good-evening.” Beverly, who had evidently been coached, did not offer to kiss her, but immediately explained every detail of his disease. Hal and her husband were in the North Carolina mountains.

Beverly was not a good actor, and his eyes followed his wife with kaleidoscopic expression. She frequently encountered hungry admiration and angry resentment; and if he had made up his mind to abide by her decree he as clearly evidenced that he considered her his salaried property: he demanded her constant attendance. He looked so wan and hopeless that Patience was moved to pity, and even to tenderness, and devoted herself to his care.

For the first two weeks she felt hourly as if she must pack her trunk and flit back to the “Day.” She longed for a very glimpse of the grimy men in the composing-room, and felt that the sight of Morgan Steele in his shirt sleeves would give more spiritual satisfaction than the green and grey of the Palisades.

The life at Peele Manor seemed doubly flat after her emancipation. At the breakfast table, Mrs. Peele and Honora discussed their small interests. At luncheon, Beverly—who arose late—gave the details of his night. At dinner there was little conversation of any sort. The mornings, and the afternoons from four to six—when Beverly drove with his mother and Honora—were Patience’s own. Although discontented, she was by no means unhappy: she was out of bondage forever. If Beverly grew better she could return to the “Day” after a reasonable time had elapsed.

She spent most of her leisure rambling over the hills in idle reverie or meditating upon her checkered life. She gave a good deal of thought to the many phases of life which had flashed before her startled eyes in the last year, but was too young not to be more interested in herself than in problems, however momentous. Still, she did not feel much more intimate with herself than she had felt in Park Row.

She frequently wondered with some pique and much disapproval that she heard nothing from Morgan Steele. The few glimpses she had caught of the nature behind the mask tempted her to idealise him, and she finally succumbed. One night she awoke to the fact that she had been walking the stars with him, discussing the mysteries of the Universe. She pictured the smile with which he would regard the workings of her imagination, were they revealed to him, and recalled his business-like demeanour, his shirt sleeves, his Park Row vocabulary, and his impatient scorn of “damned slush.”

It happened to be midnight when these later thoughts arrived, and she laughed aloud.

“What are you laughing at?” demanded a querulous voice from the next room.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Do you suppose I’m an idiot? Tell me what you were laughing at.”

“Go to sleep, go to sleep.”

“I can’t go to sleep. You lie there and laugh while I lie here and suffer.”

“Why didn’t you say you were suffering? Do you want the morphine?”

“No, I don’t.”

An hour later Patience was roused from her first heavy sleep.

“Patience! Patience! Oh, my God! My God! My God!”

Patience stumbled out of bed and into her dressing-gown and slippers, shaking her head vigorously to dispel the vapours in her brain.

“Yes, yes!” she said. “I’m coming. Do please don’t make such a fuss. You’ll wake up everybody—”

“Not make a fuss! Oh, I wish you had it for a minute—”

Patience ran into the lavatory and turned up the gas. The night was very warm, and the door leading into Honora’s room stood wide. The light fell full on her face. Patience saw that her eyes were open.

“I hope Beverly didn’t wake you up,” she said. “He does make such a noise.”

“I was awake. I never sleep well in warm weather. I don’t envy you, though.”

“Oh, I don’t mind if only I don’t make a terrible mistake some night and give him an overdose. He takes particular pains to wait until I am in my first sleep and then I hardly know what I am doing. There! this is the third time I have dropped the wretched stuff. What is the good of drop bottles, anyway?”

“Why don’t you use the hypodermic?”

“I can’t. It would make me ill to puncture people. And this does him as much good.” She set the bottle down impatiently, drew a basin full of cold water, dashed it over her face, then dropped the dose and took it to Beverly.

“Stay with me,” he commanded. “You know it doesn’t take effect at once, and I feel better if I hold your hand.” She sat down beside him and nodded sleepily until the morphine did its work.

XII

The next afternoon, a few moments after Beverly had gone for his drive, Morgan Steele’s card was brought up to Patience. She had imagined that this first call would induce a mild thrill of nerve, but she merely remarked to the butler: “Tell him I will be down in a moment,” walked to the long mirror in the corner, and shook out her violet and white organdie skirts. Her long hair was braided and tied with a lavender ribbon.

“I look very well,” she thought, and went downstairs.

Steele awaited her in the drawing-room, and, as she entered, was standing with his head thrown back, regarding the medallion of Whyte Peele. She noted anew how well he dressed and carried his clothes. He looked quite at home in the drawing-room of Peele Manor. Her first remark followed in natural sequence,—

“How odd not to see you in your shirt sleeves.”

He turned with a start and a sudden warmth in his face.

“Oh, well, I hope you’ll never see me that way again. How charming you look in that frock and with your hair in that braid! _I_ always imagine _you_ in prim tailor things, with your hair tucked out of sight under a stiff turban. This is lovely. You look like a little girl. Those awful dress reformers should see you.”

“It’s a comfort to think that the She-males cannot exterminate the artistic sense. Let us go into the library.”

“Is there a large comfortable chair there? These are impressive but unpleasant. Perhaps you would not suspect it, but I love a comfortable chair and a cigar better than anything in life.”

“One thing I do suspect—that we shall have to become acquainted all over again. You are not exactly like a fallen angel outside of the office, but you certainly have not patronised me for five minutes.”

“Oh, you can take your revenge now and patronise me. Hang the shop! I don’t want to think about it.”

In the library he critically inspected every chair, selected one that pleased him, and drawing it to the open window sank into it with a deep sigh of content. Patience gave him permission to smoke, and a moment later he looked so happy that she laughed aloud.

“You may laugh,” he said plaintively, “but you have less imagination than I thought if you don’t understand what this is to a man after Park Row. After an hour of that water and your muslin frock, I shall go back as refreshed as if my brain had taken a cold bath.”

“I’d fly back to the office this minute if I could. I’ve felt like a bottle of over-charged champagne for two weeks.”

“You have the enthusiasm of youth. When you are my age—sixty-five—you will be thankful for the _dolce far niente_ of a colonial manor. This sort of life suits you—you are a born châtelaine. You have lost your tired expression, and are actually stouter. Besides, I want to come up here to see you.”

“Will you come often?”

“As often as you will let me. I am free every afternoon, you know, and if I followed my tactless inclination I’d come seven times a week. However, don’t look alarmed; I’m only coming once a week—” He sat up suddenly, his eyes sparkling. “By Jove!” he exclaimed. “What a beauty!”

Patience followed his eyes, which were directed ardently upon a sail-boat skimming up the river.

“Are you fond of sailing?” she asked.

“Am I? I could live in a boat. I’d rather be in a boat than—than even talking to you.”

“Well, you shall be inside of a boat in five minutes,” she said good-naturedly. “Wait until I get my hat and gloves!”

“Being only the nurse,” she said, as they walked down the wooded slope to the boathouse, “I don’t know that I have any right to take liberties, but I will, all the same. I feel that it is an act of charity.”

“It certainly is, and you really are an angel.—She’s a good boat,” he said approvingly, a few moments later, as he unreefed the sail.

Patience arranged the cushions and made herself comfortable, and they shot up the river in a stiff breeze. She watched Steele curiously. He looked as happy as a schoolboy. His hat was on the back of his head, his eyes shone. Once as he threw back his head and laughed, he bore an extraordinary resemblance to the Laughing Faun.

“I’ve lived in a boat for a whole summer,” he said, “and never seen a woman nor wanted to, nor a man neither, for that matter. There are three months in the year when I want nothing better in life than this.” His large cool eyes moved slowly to hers. “Still,” he added, “I do believe it’s an improvement to have you here. What fun if we had a little yacht and could sail like this all summer! I think we’d hit it off, don’t you? We shouldn’t either of us talk too much.”

Patience laughed. It was impossible to coquet with Steele. He took no notice of it. “I should be afraid you’d tip me over if you got tired of me.”

“I shouldn’t get tired of you,” he said seriously. “I never met a woman I liked half as much. You’re lovely to look at, and your mind is so interesting to study. Guess I’d better come about.”

They sailed for two hours. The wind fell, and they talked in a desultory fashion. They discovered that they had the same literary gods, and occasionally Steele waxed enthusiastic. He had read more than most men of forty; nor was there anything youthful about the fixity of his opinions.

“Oh, dear!” said Patience, suddenly, “why did we never meet before? I like you better than any one I ever knew. I’ve been hunting all my life for a mental companion.”

“So have I,” he said, smiling at her in his half cynical way, “and now I’ve found you I don’t propose to let you go; not even next winter.”

He confided to her that he had written a good deal, although he had published nothing. Patience wondered where he had found time to accomplish so much.

“I’m going to bring up some of my stuff and read it to you,” he said. “You can take that as a compliment if you like, for I’ve only shown it to one other person—a man.”

“Now, I know why you like me! You are going to study me.”

“Well, it’s partly that,” he replied coolly. “You are a new type—to me at any rate, and I shall probably know a good deal more after I have known you a year or so than I do now. Who is that? What an amiable-looking person!”

Patience followed his glance. Beverly stood at the foot of the slope, with distorted face.

“Oh, dear,” she said, “that is Mr. Peele. I am afraid he is going to be disagreeable. Of course I am not obliged to stay—but in a way I am.”

Steele ran the boat into the dock, handed her out, and reefed the sail before he spoke. Then he turned and looked at her squarely.

“Would you rather I did not come?” he asked.

“No! No! I want you to come. I’ll think it over and write you—or—I wonder if you are horrid like most men and would misunderstand me if I asked you always to come on a certain day and meet me in that wood up there, instead of going to the house?”

“Look here,” he said in his old business-like tone, “just let me set your mind at rest. I haven’t the slightest intention of making love to you. In the first place I am just now tired and sick of that sort of thing—a state a man does get into occasionally, although a woman will never believe it. In the second place I like to think of you as _sui generis_; a woman on a pedestal. It is very refreshing. A week from to-day I’ll be in that wood, and I’ll stay there from four to six whether you come or not. There comes my train.”

“You must flag it. Hurry. I’ll expect you Thursday.”

XIII

“Who is that man?” thundered Beverly, as she crossed the track behind the train.

Patience raised her eyebrows. “What have you to do with my visitors?”

“You sha’n’t receive men, and you sha’n’t sail in my boat.”

“Of course the boat is yours. I shall not use it again.”

“You are my nurse.”

“Your nurse is always ready to be dismissed,” and she walked up the slope, taking no further notice of him.

Hal returned the following week; and, as Beverly improved steadily, the house was filled with company once more. Whenever Patience hinted that she was no longer required, Beverly immediately went to bed and rent the air; but as a matter of fact his attacks were growing less and less frequent.

Patience, in the circumstances, was not impatient to return to work until the hot weather was over. Her position was very pleasant, Hal was ever her loyal friend, and she saw Morgan Steele once a week.

The wood was a wild place on a slope of the bluff some distance above the house. Its underbrush made it unpopular with the guests of Peele Manor. Steele left the train at the regular station a mile up the road and walked back without encounter. In the heart of the dark cool little wood Patience swung two hammocks and filled them with pillows. Steele lay full length in his and looked comfortable and happy, a cigar ever between his lips. Patience, in hers, sat in as dignified an attitude as she could assume.

“Does it make you feel romantic?” he said one day, looking at her quizzically.

“What do you mean?” she asked, flushing a little.

“Oh, I think you have a queer romantic sentimental streak through your modernity—or had. I’ve been wondering if there was any of it left.”

“I never told you.”

“No, but you suggest it. Tell me: didn’t you once have ideals and that sort of thing?”

“I don’t see how you can even guess it, for I have none now.”

“Oh, yes, you have. You won’t when you’re thirty, but you have all sorts of kiddish notions stored away yet in that brain of yours.” He had seen Peele a few days before in the train, and knew the history of their courtship quite as well as if she had related it to him, but he was curious to know what she had been before. He drew her on until she told him the story of the tower and the owl.

That little picture pleased his artistic sense, but when she described her girlish ideals and dreams he threw back his head and laughed loud and long.

“What would I have done with you if I had met you then?” he said, looking with intense amusement at her half angry face. “I should have run, I expect. You are a thousand times more interesting now.”

“Not to myself.”

“Of course not, because you are less of an egoist, and draw a larger measure of your individuality from your environment. But you are real now, where before you were unreal—you were a sort of waxwork with numerous dents. The two extremes in this world are nature and civilisation. Children belong by right to nature, and she holds on to them as long as possible. When civilisation gets hold of them she proceeds to pick out with a pair of tweezers all but the primal passions; and the result is the only human variety capable of enjoying life.”

“Don’t you believe in ideals?” asked Patience, rather wistfully.

“Of course not,” he said contemptuously. “Life is what it is, and you can’t alter it. And as we are only just so big and have only just so many years in which to get over a limited surface of this mighty complication called Life, all we can do is to keep our eyes open, and pick out here and there what appeals to our taste most strongly, swallowing the disagreeable majority as philosophically as possible. When you know the world—and yourself—you can’t have ideals, and the sooner you quit wasting time thinking about them the sooner you begin to enjoy life. And remember that we live but from day to day—we may be a cold cadaver to-morrow. Life is a game of chance. To set up ideals is as purposeless as to waste this life preparing for an impossible next. Omar expressed it better than I can when he said:—

“‘To-morrow? Why, to-morrow I myself may be With yesterday’s seven thousand years.’”

“You have certain ideals though,” said Patience. “You are intellectually ambitious; and you say that you never run after a merely pretty face, and never wasted time on any sort of woman unless she had brains; and the men at the office say that you are scrupulously square in money matters. So that I can’t see that you are altogether without ideals.”

“Those are mere matters of taste and worldly sense. I aim for nothing that is impossible. When I think I want a thing I set about to accomplish it. If I find that it is impossible I quit without further loss of time. You don’t suppose I have an ideal woman, do you? How can any man that knows women?—although he may often succumb to a happy combination. When I was exactly twelve my Sunday School teacher forestalled any inclination I might have developed to idealise woman. I met her once after I was grown, by the way, and it did me good to tell her what I thought of her. That is where you women have the advantage of us. It is so long before you know man at all that after you do it is hard work making him over as he is. The woman never lived that understood man by intuition. That is the reason a woman so seldom has any fascination but that of mere youth until she’s pretty well on to thirty. You, of course, have had an exceptional experience, but you are a good deal of a kid yet.”

XIV

Morgan Steele was a type of the precocious young United States newspaper man which only this end of the century has evolved: Preternaturally wise in the way of the world and the nature of woman; with young blood and cold judgment; wary, deliberate, calculating; full of kind impulses; generous with his money, yet careful of it; ready to make cold-blooded use of a man to-day and offer him a free lodging to-morrow; possessed of more self-control than the Club man of forty; without sentimentality, yet with a certain limited power of loving; having a thorough appreciation of the finer as of the coarser shades of woman; incapable of a blind supreme rush of feeling, through the habit of eternal analysis; placidly and philosophically content with the present, and fully expecting to be laid away in the past at forty; _blasé_, yet full of boyish delight in outdoor sport; having faith in no woman, yet treating the lowest with a cynical kindness and consideration which was part of his philosophy.

One night he faced the question of his relationship to Patience with his usual deliberation.

He lay on a divan in his bachelor quarters: a long room with bedroom and bath attached. The walls of the living-room were covered with red paper, the doors and windows hung with Smyrna cloth. A rug half covered the stained floor. Between the windows was a large desk covered with papers. A long table was strewn thick with magazines. Small bookcases were filled with the works of Omar, Whitman, Emerson, Hugo, Heine, Dumas, Maupassant, Bourget, Pater, Dobson, Herrick, Ibsen, Zola, Landor, Rabelais, Stevenson, Kipling. On the mantel there was a number of photographs and a notable absence of legs. The walls were covered with artists’ sketches.

“The summer will pass harmlessly enough,” he thought. “I only see her once a week, and her husband is likely to be hidden in the brush; but when she returns to town in the winter I shall find myself calling on her every night. I’m not stuck on matrimony, but I certainly should like her for a companion in a little house or double apartment where there would be plenty of elbow room and some chance of keeping up the illusions. I think it would be some years before I should tire of her, and I think I could love her a good deal. Why in thunder doesn’t the man die? She’s too good for anything else. It would be a terrible pity—the details smirch so. A novelist would remark at this point, ‘And yet he never thought of sparing her.’ No, my dear fictionist, we don’t, nor if she loved me would she thank me for sparing her. And yet it would be a pity. She is like some delicate wild-flower that has been transplanted. I should like to offer her the best one can, instead of practically remarking: ‘My dear, this brain racket is worked out for the present. We’ll return to it later, or not at all.’

“It is often a clever thing for those that love and cannot marry to part when the shock comes: they coddle the misery and have a glorious time suffering. But that would not do for us. We live in the thick and rush of life, and have no time to sit down with memories, hardly time enough to realise an ache. We must have our day in fact or not at all; and afterward, thank God, there is again no time for memories. Well, this is only the eighth of July. By winter that intolerable nuisance may be in the family vault.”

XV

People remarked that summer that Patience looked unusually well. At times her eyes had a certain liquid softness, at others they sparkled wickedly. Her colour was beautiful and her manner and conversation full of animation.

It was on a hot August afternoon that Patience and Steele, in the green shades of their wood, suddenly met each other’s eyes and burst out laughing.

“We are in love,” said Patience.

“Well—yes—I suppose we are.”

“I feel very light-minded over this unexpected _dénouement_. I had imagined all sorts of dramatic climaxes; but the unexpected always will happen in this life—more’s the pity.”

“Did you expect we should not fall in love?”

“I did not think about it at all for a time—just drifted. But as the situation is so serious it is as well to take it humourously. What are we going to do about it?”

He had removed his cigar, and was regarding her with his contemplative stare. “I have thanked your complicated ancestors more than once for your large variety of moods. I am glad and sorry that you have spoken: sorry, because this was very pleasant; glad that the discussion of ways and means should take place here instead of in town. I shall be brutally frank. How long is your husband likely to live?”

“He may live for twenty years. I heard the doctors—they have a consultation every once in a while—tell Mrs. Peele so the other day. He is much better. On the other hand, he might take a turn for the worse any day.”

“Then you must persuade him to give you a divorce.”

“Oh, dear, I am afraid that is out of the question. I’ve thought of it; but—you don’t know him.”

“You are a clever woman: now look up your resources. Enlist the family on your side. Tell them that you are about to leave, never to return, and that you are on the road to become a famous newspaper woman; that if they will persuade your husband to give you a divorce you will drop their name; otherwise that it will be dinned in their ears for the next twenty years. Tell them that we intend to let you sign hereafter. That ought to fetch them, as they appear to look upon the newspaper business with shuddering horror. And persuade them that Beverly needs a good domestic little wife who would gladden his declining years.”

“I’m sorry I feel in this mood,” said Patience, abruptly. “I should far rather it had been the other way—the usual way. I suppose I am possessed with what Poe calls The Imp of the Perverse.”

“My dear girl, I need not remind you that it is just as well and a good deal better. You need a shaking to wake you up, though. You imagine that you are awake already, but you are not—not by a long sight. You have buried your nature five fathoms deep. Well, time is up. I must be off. Think over what I have said. Good-bye.”

XVI

On the following Thursday morning Patience walked slowly over to where Beverly sat under a tree on one of the lawns, reading a newspaper. She had made up her mind to adopt Steele’s advice, but had deferred the evil moment as long as possible.

“Beverly,” she said abruptly, sitting down in front of him, “I want to speak to you.”

He laid down the newspaper and regarded her with eager admiration. She had carefully selected the most unbecoming frock she possessed, a sickly green, and twisted her hair in a fashion to distort the fine lines of her head. Nevertheless, she looked as fresh as the morning, and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“What is it?” he asked. “Oh, why—why—”

“Never mind! I am going to have a business talk with you, and please don’t get excited. If you do, you’ll be sure to have a pain, you know.”

“Well, what is it? It doesn’t do a fellow any good to keep him in suspense.”

“On the first of November I am going away—”

“You are not!”

“And I shall not come back—not in any circumstances. You have proved that your attacks are more or less under your own control. A sojourn at some foreign baths will probably cure you. I have given you all of my life that I intend to give you. I know that self-sacrifice is the ideal of happiness of some women, but it is not mine. When I leave here on the first of November it will be forever. There is no inducement, material nor sentimental, that will bring me back. Do you understand that much clearly?”

He burst into a volley of oaths, and beat his knees with his fists. Patience continued as soon as she could be heard:—

“Now, it can do you no possible good to retain a legal hold on me, nor can you care to hear of your name becoming familiar in Park Row. Give me my freedom, and I will take my own name—”

“You’ll get no divorce,” he roared, “now nor ever. Do you understand that? I’ll brace up and live until I’m ninety—by God I will! I’ll go abroad and live at a water cure. You’ll never be the wife of any other man. Do you understand that?”

“Oh, Beverly,” she said, breaking suddenly, “don’t be cruel,—don’t! What good can it do you? Give me my freedom.”

He grasped her wrists. His eyes were full of rage and malevolence. “Do you want to marry some one else?” he asked. “Some damned newspaper man, I suppose.”

Patience stood up and shook him off. “If ever I do marry another man,” she said cuttingly, “you may be sure he will have brains this time, and that he will also be a gentleman. The most vulgar persons I have ever known have been socially the most highly placed.”

As she moved away he sprang after her and caught her arm. “Now look here,” he said hoarsely, “you’ll neither marry, nor will you have a lover, unless you want all New York to know it. The moment you leave this place a detective goes after you. You’ll do nothing that I don’t know. I may not have brains, but I’ll get the best of you all the same.”

Patience flung him off and went straight to Mrs. Peele. Her mother-in-law watched her with narrowed eyes until she had finished, then remarked unexpectedly: “I shall do my best to make my son divorce you. If you intend to leave us I prefer that the rupture should be complete. As you suggest, I have no desire to see the name of Peele signed to newspaper articles. Moreover, I believe I can persuade my son to marry again,—a woman of his own station, who will not desecrate the name of wife; and who,” with sudden violence, “will give this house an heir.” She paused a moment to recover herself, then continued more calmly: “I have talked the matter over with my husband, and he agrees with me. Of course, you will expect no alimony.”

“I don’t want alimony. I make more with my pen than Beverly ever allowed me.”

The red came into Mrs. Peele’s face. “My son was quite as generous as was to be expected. Moreover, he had the right to demand that his wife should not come to him empty handed. I shall speak to Beverly.”

An hour later Patience met Mrs. Peele in the side hall. The older woman looked flushed and excited. “I have had a most terrible interview with Beverly,” she exclaimed. “I can do nothing with him. You little fool, why didn’t you swear that you did not want to marry another man? Heaven knows I should prefer to have you take another name as soon as possible; but you have ruined your chances by letting Beverly suspect the truth.”

Patience sank upon a chair, and sat for a long while staring straight before her. She felt the incarnation of rage and hate. Her lovely face was set and repellent. She came to herself with a start, and wondered if she had ever had any womanly impulses.

She had never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted to marry Morgan Steele. His very unlikeness to all her old ideals fascinated her, and she was convinced that she was profoundly in love. She could hardly imagine what life with him would be like, and was the more curious to ascertain; and the obstacles enraged her impatient spirit.

The butler left the dining-room to announce luncheon.

“Send mine up to my room,” she said. As she reached the first landing of the stair she turned to him suddenly. “Tell John to go to New York this afternoon, and have Mr. Beverly’s morphine bottle filled. He took the last last night and he may need it again before I go down myself. Don’t fail to tell him. The bottle is in the lavatory.”

That afternoon she met Steele at the edge of the wood.

“I could not keep still,” she said. “My brain feels on fire.”

He drew her hand through his arm and held it tenderly. “What is it?” he asked. “Did you speak, and was it disagreeable?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Just now it is enough to feel you here.”

“I can only stay an hour. I should not have come at all, but I could not stay away.”

When they reached the hammocks Patience flung herself into hers and told the story of the morning with dramatic indignation. Then, insensibly, she drifted into the story of her married life, and described her intense hatred and loathing of her husband.

“It was all my own fault,” she said in conclusion. “I married him with my eyes open; but all the same I hate him. Sometimes I felt, and feel yet, fairly murderous. I seem to have a terrible nature—does it make you hate me?”

He laughed. “No, I don’t hate you, and you know it quite as well as I do. You have wonderful possibilities—but I can’t quite make up my mind that I am the man—”

“Oh, yes, you are. I could love you as much as I hate Beverly Peele.”

“Well, if you think so it amounts to the same thing, for a while at least. I shall come again in a few days. I’ll write you. If your husband cannot be induced to change his mind I’ll talk to you about a paper that has been offered to me in Texas; but if you prefer it the other way, I’ll leave you alone without a word.”

“Oh, I don’t know! There are some words I hate,—the words free-love and adultery. I don’t want to be exploited in the newspapers, and I don’t want to be insulted by my landlord. After all, expediency is the source of all morality. My life with you would be a thousand times better than it was with Beverly Peele; but I suspect that we can’t violate certain moral laws that heredity has made part of our brain fibre, without ultimate regret, even when we keep the world in ignorance. I suffered horribly once, although I had not defied the conventions. But I think we must have everything, or the large share of herself that Nature has given each of us rebels,—in other words, the ideal is not complete.”

“When you are very much in love,” he said dryly, “you won’t analyse.”

Contrary to her habit, she remained in the wood for some time after he left her. Suddenly she was aroused from her reverie by a peculiar heavy sound, as of a man crawling. She listened intently, her hair stiffening: the house was a quarter of a mile away. The sound continued steadily. She sprang to her feet and fled from the wood. As she ran up the hill beyond, she glanced fearfully over her shoulder. A man shot from the lower edge of the wood and ran toward the stables.

XVII

An hour after midnight Patience ran into Honora’s room and shook her violently.

“Honora! Honora!” she cried, “something is the matter with Beverly. I can’t wake him up.”

Honora stretched herself languidly. Her eyelids fluttered a moment, then lifted. She said sleepily:

“What is it, Patience?”

“Beverly! Go to him—quick—while I wake up Mr. and Mrs. Peele, and send for the doctor. He dropped his own morphine to-night, and he must have taken too much.”

A few moments later there was an alarmed group of people at Beverly Peele’s bedside, and the butler could be heard at the telephone demanding the doctor.

Mr. Peele was in his pyjamas, and Patience struggled with an importunate desire to tell him that his hair stood on end. Mrs. Peele’s back hair was in a scant braid; the front locks were on pins. Her skin looked pallid and old. Honora, as usual, looked like a vision from heaven. Hal and her husband were in Newport, and there were no guests at Peele Manor.

“Are you sure,” asked Mr. Peele, as precisely as if his hair was parted in the middle and plastered on each side, “that anything is the matter? Does not the morphine always put him to sleep?”

“Not at once. You see he takes it internally, and it’s twenty minutes or half an hour before it takes effect. During that time he always groans, for he never takes it until the last minute. I heard him get up and return to bed; and then I knew something must be the matter because he was so quiet—”

“How could you let him drop it himself?” exclaimed Mrs. Peele, passionately. “How could you? What are you here for?”

“I offered to drop it for him, but he wouldn’t let me. I didn’t insist, as he always put it off—and we had had a quarrel—”

“My poor son!”

“Well, something’s got to be done,” said Mr. Peele. “I don’t like the way he’s beginning to breathe. There are one or two things we can do until the doctor comes.”

He raised Beverly’s arms above the head, brought them down and pressed them into the chest, repeating the act twenty or thirty times. Beverly meanwhile was breathing stertorously.

“Can’t I do something?” cried his mother, distractedly.

“I think we had better walk him,” said Mr. Peele, whose mouth was tightening. “Call Hickman.”

The butler was waiting in the hall, and came at once. He helped Mr. Peele to lift the young man from the bed. The stalwart figure hung limply between them: he was as collapsed as the new dead. Mr. Peele and Hickman walked him up and down the long line of rooms, shaking him vigorously from time to time; but they would have produced as much effect upon the bolster. Mrs. Peele had sunk into a chair. She sat with compressed lips, and dilating eyes fixed upon Patience. Honora knelt beside her, patting her hand. After a time she arose, liberated Mrs. Peele’s hair from its braid and steels, and arranged it with deft hands, fetching some of her own amber pins.

Patience sat on the edge of the bed. She was beginning to feel hopelessly sleepy. The day’s excitement had sapped her nerves. It was now nearly two o’clock, and she had not slept. Beverly had been ill the night before and given her little rest. She felt bitterly ashamed of herself; but every few moments she was obliged to cover her face with her handkerchief to conceal a yawn. Once or twice her head dropped suddenly.

The last time she sat up with a gasp. Mrs. Peele groaned. The two men had entered with their burden. Beverly’s face was blue, and he breathed infrequently.

“His body is bathed in a cold perspiration,” said Mr. Peele. “Will that doctor never come?”

“O my God!” murmured Mrs. Peele.

Patience left the bed and sat on the sill of the window. The night was very hot and still. A shuddering horror took possession of her. A palpable presence seemed skimming the dark gulf under the window. She sat with distended eyes, half expecting to see a long arm reach past her and pluck the soul from the unconscious man on the bed. She closed her eyes and put her fingers in her ears. When she removed them she drew a long breath.

“The doctor is coming,” she said. “I hear the wheels.”

“Did you make him understand what was the matter?” asked Mr. Peele of the butler.

“Yes, sir. He said he would bring everything necessary.”

When the doctor came in he bent over the sick man and lifted his eyelids.

“It is morphine poisoning, sure enough,” he said. “Have some black coffee made. I shall use the electricity meanwhile. Better telegraph to New York. I don’t like this case, and don’t want it alone.”

Patience watched them mechanically for an hour, then slipped into her own room and into her bed. Nature had conquered her. Another moment, and she would have fallen to the floor in sleep.

Four hours later she was awakened by a vigorous shaking of her shoulder.

She sat upright and glanced about wildly. “What is it? What is the matter?” she cried. “I had such a horrible dream. I thought Beverly was drowning me—holding me down under the water—”

“Your husband is dead,” said the doctor. “Do you wish to go to him?”

Patience shrank under the bedclothes, pulling them about her head. After the doctor had gone she ran over to a spare room, opened all the windows to admit light, then went to bed and slept until late in the day.