CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XIVA POTTER'S VESSELBy a great effort Aunt Selina had kept a firm control over herself throughout her narrative, but now, the immediate need of composure being removed, she gave way completely to her natural grief. James, whose attitude toward her had been somewhat as toward a divine visitation, an emissary of Nemesis, suddenly found he had to deal with an old woman suffering under an overwhelming sorrow. This put an end for the present to the possibility of expanding on the Nemesis suggestion. He fetched her some more whisky, reflecting that it must be not unpleasant to have reached the age where grief wore itself out even partially in physical symptoms, to which physical alleviations could be applied. For the first time he found himself considering Aunt Selina as an old woman.He could not help remarking, however, that even in age and even in grief Aunt Selina was rather magnificent. There was about her tears a Sophoclean, almost a Niobesque quality. It struck him that she must have been extremely good-looking in her youth.Of course Aunt Selina, even in that extremity, knew enough to refrain from pointing a moral already sufficiently obvious. She said little after finishing her account, and that little was expressive only of her immediate sense of loss."Oh, James," she moaned, "I had always thought my life went out in a little puff of red flame forty years ago and more, but it seemed to me that if I could use my experience to mend her life I should be well repaid for everything. And now...."They sat silent for the most part, both laboring under the terrific hopelessness of the situation, which certainty and uncertainty, together with the impossibility of action, combined to make intolerable. For a while each found a certain comfort in the other's mute presence, but at last even that wore off."Well, my dear, you don't want to be bothered by ahysterical old woman at this time," said Aunt Selina finally, and James obediently telephoned, for a taxi. Nemesis must be met, sooner or later....Only once, as they sat side by side in the dark cab, did Aunt Selina give utterance to the one idea that animated her thoughts of the future."Well, I've lost my own life and I've lost her, and now you're the only thing I have left. Oh, James, for Heaven's sake don't let me lose you!""No, Aunt Selina, no," he replied, laying his hand on hers and speaking with a promptness and a fervor that surprised himself."One thing," she began just before they drew up at the hotel."Yes?""One thing I've learned in all these years is that there's nothing so bad that it isn't better to face it than dodge it. Nothing!""Yes," said James. "Thank you, Aunt Selina."He walked back to his apartment with a feeling as of straightening his shoulders. His aunt's words rang in his brain. There was need of courage, he saw that. Well, he had never lacked that and would not be found wanting in it now. Not even—the thought flashed on him as he opened his front door—not even if the kind of courage that was now needed implied humiliation. He entered his home with the consciousness of having made a good start.He walked straight into the bedroom."Well, I've done you an injustice," he said aloud. "I misjudged you. I'm sorry.""Oh, you didn't give her credit for being capable of loving YOU, did you?" rang a mocking voice in his brain. A palpable hit for Nemesis."Oh, you know what Imean," he answered petulantly. He thought it was unworthy of her to quibble thus, particularly when he was voluntarily assuming that Beatrice had started from Bar Harbor—well, with the right idea. He had a right to doubt there, which he was willing to waive."I'm sorry," he repeated, "truly sorry. Isn't that enough?" His eyes fell on the photograph of Beatrice which still stood on the dressing table. He turned quickly away again."Not by a long shot," said Nemesis, or words to that effect.No, somehow it wasn't. He realized it himself; even feeling that didn't give him the sense of repletion and calm that he sought. He paced the room for some time in silent anxiety."I really don't know what to do," he admitted at last. "Suppose"—he was appealing to Beatrice now—"suppose you tell me what."He glanced involuntarily at the photograph. Its unchanging half-smile informed him that all help must now come from himself. A sudden access of rage at that photograph seized him."Don't you laugh at me, when I'm trying my best!" he cried.The picture smiled on. In a burst of fury James picked up the frame and hurled it with all his strength into the mirror. There was a crash and a shower of broken glass, amid which the picture bounded lazily back and fell to the floor, face downward.James stood and stared at it, and as he stared a curious revulsion came over him. He stooped slowly down, unaccountably hoping with all his soul that the photograph was not hurt. He scarcely dared to turn it over....The glass was smashed to atoms, but the picture itself was unhurt. No, there was a cut across the face."Oh, I've hurt her, I've hurt Beatrice!" he whispered.Nemesis said something that made him sink into a chair and gaze before him with horror. Cinders, ashes, black coals, some of them still glowing—oh, the mere sight of them then had been unbearable! And now, in view of what he had learned.... He could not face the thought.Yet it was true: if it had not been for him Beatrice would still be alive. Whether she took that train intending to go to him or to Tommy it did not matter; she would not have taken it at all if he had behaved as he should.He turned his attention back to the picture, gently and carefully smoothing out the cut, as though in the hope that reparation to her effigy would make it easier to face the thought of having compassed her destruction.Somehow it did no such thing....Of course what Nemesis wanted was a confession that heloved the woman whose death he was morally responsible for. James realized that himself, almost from the first, but it was not in his nature to admit easily that such an unreasonable change of feeling was possible to him. Long hours of struggle followed, hours of endless pacing, of fruitless internal argument, of blind resistance to the one hope, as he in the bottom of his soul knew it was, of his salvation. Resistance, brave, exhilarating, hopeless, futile, ignoble resistance to whatever happened to him contrary to the dictates of his own will—it was as inevitable to him as feeling itself.From time to time he thought of Tommy, and this, if he did but know it, was the best symptom he could have shown. For though at first he thought of him with little more than his usual contempt, envy soon began to creep in, then frank jealousy and at last a blind hatred that made him clench his hands and wish, as he had seldom wished anything, that Tommy's throat was between them. In fact he ended by hating Tommy quite as though he were his equal. He never stopped to consider that this change was no less revolutionary than the one he was fighting.The hopeless hours dragged on. A sense of physical fatigue grew on him; every muscle in him ached. His brain also staggered under the long strain; it hammered and rang. Certain scraps of sentences he had heard during the day buzzed through it with a curious insistence, taking advantage of his weakened state to torment him. A great chance, a great chance—Uncle James' parting words to him. Sorrow was a great chance—for some. For Aunt Selina, yes; for Beatrice, yes; or Uncle James, frozen and unresponsive as he appeared, yes. But not for him. Oh, no, he must admit it, he was not even worthy to suffer greatly. He was not really suffering now, he supposed; he was merely very tired. Otherwise those words, a great chance, a great chance, would not keep pounding through his head like the sound of loud wheels....Railroad wheels.Then what was it that Aunt Selina had said about finding out something too late? Oh, yes, people found out they loved other people when it was too late. Especially strong people. He was strong.... Could it be thathewas going to discover something too late—that? It was too late for something already, but surely not for that! Justthink—Aunt Selina had found out too late, and Beatrice had found out too late, and now....Yes, if it was horrible it must be true. It was he who was too late. He understood about Aunt Selina, all she must have felt. And Beatrice too; he saw now how strong and noble and warm-hearted she had been, and how she must have suffered. Especially that. And now he had found out it was too late to tell her so!"We can't tell you what we don't know," the man in the station had said that morning. Words spoken mechanically and without thought, but containing the very essence of human tragedy. While there was yet time he had had no knowledge, not the slightest glimmering...."Oh, Beatrice!" he groaned, "if I had only been able to hope! Just a little hope, even at that last minute on the platform! That would be something to be thankful for!"And then in the anguish of his remorse all his fatigue and uncertainty suddenly fell from him. Nothing remained but the thought of her, strong, generous, brave, humble, all that he had professed to admire—dead! And he, false, mean, cowardly, cold-hearted, alive. And the idea of never being able to tell her that at last he understood became so intolerable, so cruel, so contrary to all that was good in life, so blindly unthinkable, that....Well, in a word, it simply ceased to be. Such a life as had been hers could not fade into nothingness, such a heart as hers could not fail to understand, be she dead or alive."God," he whispered, clutching with all his strength at the hope the word now contained, "God, make her understand! I recant, I repent, I believe—anything! Forgive me if you can or punish me as you will, only let her live, let her know...."Then, as the crowning torment, came hope. After all, he knew nothing; he only supposed. Nothing was certain; only probable. Something might have happened; he dared not think what or how, but it was possible, conceivable, at least, that Beatrice was not on that train when it was wrecked. Beatrice might still be alive!... The anguish of the fall back into probability was sharper than anything he had yet known, but every time he found himself struggling painfully up again toward that small spark of light.He fell on his knees beside the bed—her bed—and triedto pray. Nothing came to his lips but the words he had so long disdained to say, uttered now with a fierce sweet jubilation:"Beatrice, I love you. I never did before, but I do now—at least I think I do! I never knew, I never understood, but I do now! Beatrice, I do love you, I do, I do! Beatrice...."But apparently they satisfied the power that has charge of such matters, for even as he stammered the words that saved him a blessed drowsiness stole over him and before long he slept as he knelt. It was morning when he awoke.CHAPTER XVTHE TIDE TURNSA gray morning, wet and close, whose very atmosphere was death to hope. James did hope, nevertheless, with all the refreshed energy of his being. Hope came as soon as he started to wake up, before he began to feel the cramps in his limbs, before he had time to rub his eyes and wonder what had happened.A hot bath, and then breakfast. Physical alleviations; he was humiliated to realize they did make a difference, even to him. He shuddered at the thought of how he had patronizingly envied Aunt Selina for being helped by them last night, much as he shuddered at the remembrance of having once dared to pity Beatrice....But the present was also with him, and the present was even harder to face than the past. Hope sprang eternal, but so did certainty. One might have thought that they would have neutralized each other's effects and left a blank, but as a matter of fact they only doubled each other's torments. The moment breakfast was over James started off for the station to set one or the other at rest.He went straight to the press room, which was only just open; he had to wait for the agent to arrive. When he came he was able to tell James nothing new, but he conducted him to a departmental manager. He was no more satisfactory, but he undertook to make every possible inquiry. Leaving James in an outer office he called various people to him, got into telephonic communication with others and ended by calling up Stamford and then Boston. But James could guess the result from his face the moment he reentered the room."Nothing?" he asked."Nothing. But don't give up yet."James walked slowly down the corridor toward the elevator. It was a long corridor, dark and empty; James could not see the end of it when he started. The sound of his feet echoed hollowly along the dim walls. Altogetherit was rather an eerie place, not at all suggestive of a modern office building. Much more, it seemed to James as he walked on, like life.... A blind alley, the end of which was in shadow, where one must walk alone and in almost total darkness. A place where one's footsteps echo with painful exactness—one must walk carefully lest the sound of their irregularity should ring evilly in one's ears and pierce unharmoniously into those mysterious chambers alongside, perhaps even into other corridors, other people's corridors....He roused himself from his reverie with a jerk, but his mood remained on him, translated into a larger meaning. He was alive; no matter what had happened to Beatrice, he was still alive, with a living person's duties and responsibilities—and chances. Beatrice, even though cut off in the bloom of her youth, had succeeded in making a person of herself, justifying her existence, supplying a guiding light to some of those who walked in greater darkness than herself. He had not as yet done that. Well, he must. He would. Beatrice's gift to him should not be wasted. In a flash he felt his strength and his manhood return to him. He looked into the future with a humble yet unflinching gaze; hope and certainty had lost their terrors for him. If Beatrice had died, he would thank God that it had been given him to know her and do his best to translate her spirit into earthly terms. If by any impossible chance she still lived—well, he could do nothing to make himself worthy of such happiness, but he would do his best.He walked out of the elevator into the concourse, the huge unchanging concourse where so much had happened yesterday. It was comparatively empty at this moment, only a few figures waiting patiently before train gates. One of these caught his eye; it took on a bafflingly familiar appearance. He moved curiously nearer to it....Tommy!At last, at last, at last he was going to feel that throat between his fingers, get a chance to exterminate that—that—He sprang forward like a wildcat.He stopped before he had taken two steps, with a feeling of impotence, hopelessness. Who was he, who under the sun was he to teach Tommy anything? Tommy—why, Tommy had loved Beatrice, not after it was too late, but before! Beatrice had preferred Tommy to him.Tommy was a better man than he was; he took a morbid joy in thinking how much better.It was conceivable that Tommy might know something. Perhaps he had even come to this very spot to meet Beatrice.... Well, he would not blame her or offer objections, if it were so. He would accept such a judgment gladly, as a small price for knowing she was alive. He hurried across the concourse."Tommy, can you tell me anything about Beatrice?" James' voice was so matter-of-fact, so strikingly unfitted to a Situation, that Tommy was rather irritated. He flushed."No, of course not. Why should I?""I only thought—seeing you here—""No." The tone was abrupt to the point of rudeness, wholly un-Tommylike. There was an odd moment of silence, which Tommy ended by breaking out: "Why the devil do you have to come here and crow over me? Why can't you let me clear out in peace?"James was so penitent for having hurt Tommy that he did not at first notice the implication in his words."I'm sorry—I meant nothing! I've been out of my head with anxiety.... I only thought she might have gone somewhere else to meet you—it was my last hope....""What?" Tommy cocked his eyebrows incredulously, with a sort of fierceness. "Hope of what?""Why, that Beatrice was still alive.""Still alive? What on earth—! What makes you think she isn't?""Do you mean to say—"Again the two stared at each other in a strained silence. Then Tommy produced a crumpled yellow envelope from his pocket and handed it to James."I got this yesterday morning—that's all I know. I haven't been able to destroy the damned thing...."James took it and opened it. A telegram:—It's all off, Tommy. Please go away and forgive me if you can. Beatrice.He looked at the date at the top. Boston, 8:37A. M.Boston! The Maine Special did not go into Boston; Beatrice had left it before—before...."Tommy," he said faintly, "Tommy, I—" His head swam; he felt himself reeling."All right, old top, all right; easy does it." He felt Tommy's arm about him and heard Tommy's voice in his ears, the voice of the good-hearted Tommy of old. Suddenly the idea of a disappointed lover calling his fainting though successful rival old top and telling him that easy did it struck him as wildly and irresistibly humorous. He laughed, and the sound of his laugh acted like a stimulant. He bit his lip hard."All right now—I'll go up and get into a taxi. You see," he began explanatorily to Tommy as he walked beside him, "I thought—I thought—""I see," supplied Tommy companionably, "you thought she was in the accident, of course. Beastly thing, that accident; no wonder it knocked you up. Knocked me up a bit myself when I heard of it, although I knew she couldn't be in it. Easy up the steps—righto! Everything turned out all right in the end, though, didn't it? Pretty hefty steps, wot? Pretty hefty place altogether—nothing like it in London...."A cab puffed up beside them. James turned with his hand on the door. An unaccountable wave of affection, respect, even, for Tommy surged through him. "Tommy, you're going away now, I take it?""Yes—Chicago." (He pronounced itShickago. That was nothing; when he arrived in the country he had pronounced it with the ch sound. In a few more weeks he would get it correctly; you couldn't expect too much at a time from Tommy.)"Well, Tommy, see here—""Yes?""It may sound silly to you, but—come and see us some time!""Righto. Not now, though—got to see the country—train leaves in two minutes. See America first, wot? Good-by!" and he was off.James sank back into the cab, admiring the other's tact. A thoughtless, brutal proposal; of course he ought never to have made it. It was not in him, though, to deny Tommy any sign of the overwhelming love for the whole world that filled him.When he reached his apartment his physical strengthwas restored, but mentally he seemed paralyzed. There was much to be done, but he had no idea how to go about it. A bright thought struck him; he called up Aunt Selina. He laughed foolishly into the transmitter; Heaven knows how he made her understand at last. The two babbled incoherently at one another for a moment and abruptly rang off, without saying good-by.... Another bright idea—Uncle James. He was more definite, but James had little idea of what he said. He caught something about a Comparatively Simple Matter.... Uncle J. undertook to do everything, whatever it was. A satisfactory person.After that James sat down in an armchair and for a long time remained there, reduced to an inarticulate pulp of joy.An hour or two later Beatrice's telegram arrived. It was dated from an obscure place in the White Mountains. "Quite safe and well; only just heard of the accident," it read. Just ten words. But quite enough! To think of her telegraphinghim!...Immediately he became strong and efficient again. He rushed back to the station, dashed off a telegram and caught up a time table. Confound the trains—nothing till eight-fifteen!When she left Bar Harbor, Beatrice had no very clear idea of what she was going to do. Of one thing she was fairly sure; she was not going to Tommy. Where Aunt Cecilia's tentative suggestions concerning the dangers besetting a young wife had failed, Aunt Selina's uncompromising realism had gone straight to the point. Her eyes were opened; she saw what pitfalls infatuation and pique and obstinacy might lead her into. She was willing to admit that the thing she had planned to do would be equivalent to throwing away her last hold on life—all she read into the word life. No, she would not go to Tommy. Not directly, anyway....Ah, there was the rub. Suppose her imagined scene of confession and appeal turned into one of mutual recrimination and resentment—the old sort. What was more likely, in view of her past experience? Were things so radically changed now that either she or James would be able to understand the other better than before? With the best intentions in the world she could not help rubbinghim the wrong way, and she feared the anger and hopelessness that it was his power to inspire in her. With Tommy at hand, in the same town, could she trust herself to resist the temptation of throwing herself into his ready arms? It was all very well for Aunt Selina to say that she was worth more to Beatrice than Tommy; Beatrice was quite convinced of it, in the calm light of reason. But in the hour of failure, with her pride and her woman's desire for protection and love worked up to white heat, would she still be convinced of it? Could she dare entrust her whole chance of future happiness to the strength of her reason in the moment of its greatest trial?Thoughts like these mingled with the rattle of the train in a sleepless night. In the morning one thing emerged into clarity; she must wait till Tommy was out of the way. If her determination to try to regain James was worth anything, she must give it every possible chance for success. Her hopes for a happy issue out of her dreadful labyrinth were not so good that she could afford to take one unnecessary risk.Well, if she wasn't going to New York she would have to get off the train, obviously. So she alighted outside Boston early in the morning, took a local into town and telegraphed Tommy. Then, as she wandered aimlessly through the station her eye fell on a framed time-table in which occurred the name of a small White Mountain resort of which she had lately heard; a place described to her as remote and quiet and possessed of one fairly good hotel. She noticed that a train was due to leave for there in an hour's time. In a moment her decision was made; she would go up there and wait for Tommy to get safely out of the way, carefully plan out her course of action and—she scarcely dared express the thought, even mentally—give herself a little time to enjoy her newly-awakened love before putting it to the final test.She arrived in the evening, took a room in the hotel and went to bed almost immediately, sleeping soundly for the first time in weeks. About the middle of the next morning the Boston papers arrived. Until then she had no notion that the train she had traveled by had been wrecked.She telegraphed immediately to Aunt Cecilia and then, after some thought, to James. It seemed the thing to do,everything being considered. She wondered if he knew she was safe, how he would take the news, if he had been much disturbed by uncertainty. She was inclined to fear that her escape had not done her cause any particular good....His reply arrived surprisingly soon: "Stay where you are, am coming." She was touched. Apparently the turn of events had had a favorable effect on him; if he cared enough now to come up and see her the opportunity for putting her plea to him must be fairly propitious. There was a fair chance that if she acted wisely all would turn out well. But oh, she must be careful!She knew he must arrive by the morning train and arose betimes so as to be on hand. She was in some doubt about breakfast, whether to get it early or wait for him. Either way might be better or worse; it all depended on the outcome of their meeting. She ended by deciding to wait; she would let him breakfast alone if—if. Small interest she would have in breakfast in that event.She was downstairs long before the train was due to arrive. The weather had cleared during the night and the morning was sunny and cool, a true autumn day. She tried waiting on the verandah, but the wind was so sharp that she soon returned to the warm lobby. She could watch the road equally well from the front windows; there was a long open ascent from the station. At last she saw the hotel wagon appear round a curve. There was only one passenger in it. He, of course. She could recognize the set of his head and shoulders even at that distance. She hoped he had a warm enough overcoat.The wagon reached the steepest part of the incline, and he was out, walking briskly along beside it. Before it, very soon; he went so much faster. How like James, and how unnecessary! He the only passenger, and what were horses made for, anyway? Still perhaps it was better, if he were not warmly dressed....The ascent grew steeper before him and his pace visibly decreased. But the wagon merely crawled, far behind him! He was a furious walker. That hill was enough to phase any one....Presently the sight of him plodding painfully up toward her while she waited calmly at the top grew perfectly intolerable. She could bear it no longer; hatless and coatlessshe rushed out of the hotel and down the road toward him. After a while he raised his face and their eyes met. Nearer and nearer they came, gazing fixedly into each other's eyes and discovering new things there, new lives, new worlds....They did not even kiss. She, looking beyond him, saw the driver of the station wagon peering up at them, and he caught sight over her shoulder of the staring windows of the hotel. They stopped with some embarrassment and immediately began walking up together."It's nice to see you, James; did you have a good journey?""Yes, very, thanks. You comfortable here?"On they walked, in silence. Gradually their embarrassment left them and gave place to a sort of awe. Something was going to happen, something great and wonderful; they no longer doubted it nor felt any fear. But—all in good time!It must be coming soon, though, to judge by the way it kept pressing down on them. Good time? Heavens, there never was any time but the present moment, never would be any...."Beatrice," said James, staring hard at the ground in front of him, "I know now how wicked I've been. Do you think you can ever forgive me?""Why, James," said Beatrice gently, "dear James, there's nothing to forgive."Then he looked up and saw there were tears on her cheeks....Yes, right there in the open road!CHAPTER XVIREINSTATEMENT OF A SCHÖNE SEELEThe sunlight of a golden October afternoon poured down on a little brick terrace running along one side of the farmhouse in the Berkshires Harry had bought and reformed into a summer house. It was not the principal open-air extension of the place; the official verandah was on the other side, commanding a wide view to the east and south. This was just a little private terrace, designed especially for use on afternoons like the present, when for the moment autumn went back on all its promises and in a moment of carelessness poured over a dying landscape the breath of May. The only view to be had from it was up a grassy slope to the west, on the summit of which, according to all standards except those of the New England farmer of one hundred years ago, the house ought to have been built. Not that either Madge or Harry cared particularly. They were fond of pointing out that Tom Ball, or West Stockbridge Mountain, or whatever it was, shut out the view to the west anyway, and that they were lucky enough to find a farmhouse with any view from it at all.On the terrace sat James and Beatrice, who were spending a week-end with their relatives. Madge was with them. Presumably there was current in her mind a polite fiction that she was entertaining her guests, but she did not take her duties of hostess-ship too seriously. It was not even necessary to keep up a conversation; they all got along far too well together for that. They simply sat and enjoyed the fleeting sunshine, making pleasant and unnecessary remarks whenever they felt moved to do so. Probably they also thought, from time to time. Of the general extraordinariness of things, and so forth. If they all spent a little time in admiring the adroitness with which the hands of fate had shuffled them, with the absent member of the pack, into their present satisfactory positions, we should not be at all surprised. But of course none of them made any allusion to it.Harry suddenly burst through the glass door leadingfrom the house and flopped into a chair. His appearance was informal. The others turned toward him with curious nostrils."I know, I know," he sighed. "The only thing is for us all to smoke. You too, Beatrice. Because if you don't you'll smell me, and if you smell me I'll have to go up and wash, and if I go up and wash now I shall miss this last hour of sunshine and that will make you all very, very unhappy.""I am smoking," said Beatrice calmly, "because I want to, and for no other reason.""And I," observed Madge, "because Harry doesn't want me to.""If you want to know what I've been doing since lunch," said Harry, disregarding the insult, "I don't mind telling you that I've mended a wire fence, covered the asparagus bed, conducted several successful bonfires and filled all the grease-cups on the Ford. I have also turned—""Yes," said James, "we've guessed that.""And now only a few trifles such as feeding fowls and swine—or as Madge prefers to put it, chickabiddies and piggywigs—stand between me and a well-deserved repose. Heavens! I don't see how farmers can keep such late hours. Harker, I believe, frequently stays up till nearly nine. I feel as if it ought to be midnight now; nothing but the thought of the piggywigs keeps me out of bed.""Can't Harker feed the piggywigs?" inquired Beatrice."Oh, yes," said Madge, "just as he can do all the other things Harry does a great deal better than he. But it keeps him busy and happy, so we let him go on.""Just as if you didn't cry every night to feed your old pigs!" retorted her husband.Madge laughed. "Yes, I am rather a fool about the poor things, even if they aren't so attractive as they were in June. You should have seen them, so pink and tiny and sweet, standing up on their hind legs and wiggling their noses at you! No one could help wanting to feed them, they were so helpless and confident of receiving a shower of manna from above. I know just how the Almighty felt when he fed the Israelites.""Better manna than manners," murmured Harry, and for a while there was a profound silence."What about a stroll before tea?" presently suggested the happy farmer."I should like to," said James. "We'll have to make it short, though.""Very well. What about the others—the fair swine-herd?""I think not," answered the person referred to, smiling up at him. "I took quite a long walk before lunch, you know.""Oh, yes," said Harry, blushing for no apparent reason. "Beatrice?"Beatrice preferred to stay with Madge."You see," said Harry when the two had gone a little way; "you see, the fact is, Madge—hm. Madge—""You mean," said James, smiling, "there is hope of a new generation of our illustrious house?""Yes! I only learned this morning. If it's a boy we're going to call it James, and if it's a girl we're going to call it Jaqueline.""I wonder," mused James, "how many times you have named it since you first heard.""There have been several suggestions," admitted Harry, laughing. "I really think it will end by that, though.""Jaqueline—quite a pretty name. Much prettier than James—I rather hope it will be a girl.""Yes, I do too," said Harry. And both knew that they would not have troubled to express that wish if they had not really hoped the direct opposite....They walked slowly up the hill and presently turned and stopped to admire the view that the foolish prudence of a dead farmer had prevented them from enjoying from the house. It was a very lovely view, with its tumbled stretches of hills and fields and occasional sheets of blue water bathed in the mellow light of the sun that hung low over the dark mountain wall to the west. Possibly it was its sheer beauty, or the impression it gave of distance from human strife and sordidness, or perhaps the subject last mentioned imparted to their thoughts and impulse away from the trivial and familiar; at any rate when Harry next spoke his words fell neither on James' ears nor his own with the sound of fatuity that they might have held at another time."James," he said, "we're getting on, aren't we? Idon't mean in years, though that's a most extraordinary feeling in itself, but in—in life, in the business of living. If you ask me what I mean by that high-sounding phrase I can only say it's something like coming out of every experience a little better qualified to meet whatever new experience lies in store for you. Of course we've heard about life being a game and all that facile rot ever since we were old enough to speak, but it's quite different when you come tofeelit. It's a sensation all by itself, isn't it?"James drew a deep breath. "Yes, it is quite by itself," he agreed. "And I'm glad to be able to say that at last I have some idea of what the actual feeling is like. It was atrophied long enough in me, Heaven knows! It's still very slight, very timid and tentative; just a sort of glimmering at times—""That's all it ever is," said Harry. "Just an occasional glimmering. The true feeling, that is. If it's anything more, it isn't really that at all, but just a sort of stuckupness, an idea that I am equal to the worst life can do to Me! I know people that seem to have that attitude—insufferable! Only life is pretty apt to punish them by giving them a great deal more than they bargained for."James was silent a moment, as with a sort of confessional silence. But he knew Harry would not understand its confessional quality, so he said quietly: "That's exactly what happened to me, of course.""Oh, rot! Did you think I meant you?""No, but it's true, for all that. Thank Heaven I have been permitted to live through it!... The truth is, I suppose, I was too successful early in life. In school, in college and afterward it was always the same—I found myself able to do certain things with an ease that surprised and delighted people—no one more than myself. For they weren't things that mattered especially, you see; they were showy, spectacular things that appealed to the public eye, like playing football. I was a good physical specimen, not through any effort or merit of my own, but simply through a natural gift, and a very poor and hollow gift it is, as I've found out. I don't think people quite realize the problem that a man of the athletic type has to face if he's going to make anything out of himself but an athlete. From early boyhood he's conscious of physical superiority; he knows perfectly well that in the last resort he can knock theother fellow down and stamp on him, and that gives him a certain feeling of repose and self-sufficiency that's very pernicious. It usually passes for strength of character, but it's nothing in the world but faith in bone and muscle. And people do worship physical strength so! It's small wonder a man gets his head turned.... Good Lord, the ideas I used to have about myself! Why, in college, if any one had made me say what, in the bottom of my heart, I thought was the greatest possible thing for a man of my years to be, I should have said being a great football player in a great university. That is, I wouldn't have said it, because that would have been like bragging, and it isn't done to brag: but that would have been my secret thought."And then, if the man has any brains or any capacity for feeling, he runs up against some of the big forces of life, and he finds his physical strength no more use to him than a broken reed. It's quite a shock! I've been more severely tried than most people are, I imagine, but Heaven knows I needed it! Everything had gone my way before that; I literally never knew what it was to have to put up a fight against something I recognized as stronger than I and likely to beat me in the end. Well, I'm grateful enough for it now. Thank Heaven for it! Thank Heaven for letting me fight and find out my weakness and come through it somehow, instead of remaining a mere mountain of beef all my days!"Both stood silent for a moment after James had ended this confession, less because they felt embarrassment in the presence of the feeling that lay behind it than because for a short time the past lay on them too heavily for words. After a few seconds they moved as though by a common impulse and walked slowly along the grassy crest of the ridge, and Harry began again."What you say sounds very well coming from you, James, but I have reason to believe that very little, if any of it, is true. It was my privilege to know you during the years you speak of, and I seem to remember you as something more than a mountain of beef. Don't be absurd, James!"He paused a moment and then went on more seriously: "No, James; if there was ever any danger of any of us suffering from cock-sureness it's I, at this moment. Do you realize how ridiculously happy I've been for the lastyear or so? This success of mine—oh, I've worked, but it's been absurdly easy, for all that—and Madge, and everything—it seems sometimes as if there was something strange and sinister about it. It simply can't be good for any one to be so happy! It worries me.""Well, as long as it does, you needn't," said James."Oh, I see! That makes it quite simple, of course!""What I mean," elucidated James, "is that, if you feel that way about it, it's probable that you really deserve what happiness you have. After all, you know, you have paid for some. You have had your times; I don't mind admitting that there have been moments when you weren't quite the archangel which of course you are at present!"Harry laughed. "The prophet Jeremiah once said something about its being good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. If that is equivalent to saying that the earlier a man has his bad times the better, it may be that I got off more easily by having them in college than if they'd held off till later. One does learn certain things easier if one learns them early. But that doesn't mean that your youth has passed without your feeling the yoke, or that your youth has passed yet. You're still in the Jeremiah class! One would hardly say that at thirty—you're not much over thirty, are you?""A few weeks under, I believe.""I'm sorry!—Well, at thirty there are surely years of youth ahead of you, which you, having borne your yoke, may look forward to without fear and with every prospect of enjoying to the fullest extent. Whereas I—well, there's even more time for me to bear yokes in, if necessary. I don't much believe that Jeremiah has done with me yet, somehow!""You're not afraid of the future, though, are you?" asked James after a pause."Oh, no—that would never do. I feel about it as.... One can't say these things without sounding cocksure and insufferable!""You mean you'll do your best under the circumstances?""Yes, or make a good try at it! And then.... Of course I can't be as happy as I am without having a good deal at stake; I've given hostages to fortune—that's Francis Bacon, not me. And if fortune should look upon thosehostages with a covetous eye—if anything, for instance, should happen to Madge in what's coming, why, there are still plenty of things that the worst fortune can't spoil!... Well, you know.""Yes," said James; "I know.""In fact, there are certain things in the past so dear to me that perhaps, if it came to the point, it would be almost a joy to pay heavily for them. But that's only the way I feel about it now, of course. It's easy enough to be brave when there's no danger.""Yes," said James, "but I think you're right in the main. After all, the past is one's own—inalienably, forever! While the future is any man's...."Of course you know," he went on after a pause, "that my past would have been nothing at all to me without you. It sounds funny, but it's true.""Funny is the word," said Harry."But perfectly true. I should never have come through—all this business if it hadn't been for you.""Look here, James, you're not going to thank me for saving your soul, are you? That would be a little forced!""My dear man, I'm not thanking you, I'm telling you! You were the one good thing I held on to; I was false and wicked in about every way I could be, but I did always try, in a sort of blind and blundering way, to be true to you. You've been—unconsciously if you will have it so—the best influence of my life, and I thought it might be well to tell you, that's all.""Well, I won't pretend I'm not glad to hear it," said Harry soberly. "It is rather remarkable when you come to think of it," he went on after a moment, "how our lives have been bound up together. It's rather unusual with brothers, I imagine. Generally they see a good deal too much of each other during their early years and when they grow up they settle down into an acquaintanceship of a more or less cordial nature. But with us it's been different. Being apart during those early years, I suppose, made it necessary for us to rediscover each other when we grew up....""Yes," said James, "and the process of rediscovering had some rather lively passages in it, if I remember right.""It did! But it was a good thing; it gave us a new interest in each other. One reason why people are commonlyso much more enthusiastic about their friends than about their relations is because their relations are an accident, but their friends are a credit to them. It just shows what a selfish thing human nature is, I suppose.""I see; a new way of being a credit to ourselves. Well, most of it's on my side, I imagine."Harry turned gravely toward his brother. "It seems to me, James, you suffer under a tendency to overestimate my virtues. You mustn't, you know; it's extremely bad for me. I should say, if questioned closely, that that was your one fault—if one expects a kindred tendency to shield me from things I ought not to be shielded from.""Oh, rot, man!""You needn't talk—you do. I've felt it, all along, though you've done your job so well that for the most part I never knew what you'd saved me from.""Well.... I might go so far as to say that when I've put you before myself I generally find I'm all right, and when I put myself first I generally find I'm all wrong. But as I've been all wrong most of the time, it doesn't signify much!""Hm. You put it so that I can't insist very hard. It's there, though, for all that. Funny thing. I don't believe it's a bit usual between friends, really, especially between brothers. Whatever started you on it? It must have been more or less conscious."For a moment James thought of telling him. They had lived so long since then; it would be amusing for them to trace together the effects of that one little guiding idea. But he thought of the years ahead, and they seemed to call out to him with warning voices, voices full of a tale of tasks unfinished and the need of a vigilance sharper than before. So he only laughed a little and said:"Oh, it's you that are exaggerating now! You mustn't get ideas about it; it's no more than you'd do for me, or any one for any one else he cares about. But little as it is, don't grudge it to me, for though it may not have done you much good, it's been the saving of me...."So they walked and talked as the sun sank low and the night fell gently from a cloudless sky. To Madge and Beatrice, seeing them silhouetted against that final blaze of glory in the west, they seemed almost as one figure.

A POTTER'S VESSEL

By a great effort Aunt Selina had kept a firm control over herself throughout her narrative, but now, the immediate need of composure being removed, she gave way completely to her natural grief. James, whose attitude toward her had been somewhat as toward a divine visitation, an emissary of Nemesis, suddenly found he had to deal with an old woman suffering under an overwhelming sorrow. This put an end for the present to the possibility of expanding on the Nemesis suggestion. He fetched her some more whisky, reflecting that it must be not unpleasant to have reached the age where grief wore itself out even partially in physical symptoms, to which physical alleviations could be applied. For the first time he found himself considering Aunt Selina as an old woman.

He could not help remarking, however, that even in age and even in grief Aunt Selina was rather magnificent. There was about her tears a Sophoclean, almost a Niobesque quality. It struck him that she must have been extremely good-looking in her youth.

Of course Aunt Selina, even in that extremity, knew enough to refrain from pointing a moral already sufficiently obvious. She said little after finishing her account, and that little was expressive only of her immediate sense of loss.

"Oh, James," she moaned, "I had always thought my life went out in a little puff of red flame forty years ago and more, but it seemed to me that if I could use my experience to mend her life I should be well repaid for everything. And now...."

They sat silent for the most part, both laboring under the terrific hopelessness of the situation, which certainty and uncertainty, together with the impossibility of action, combined to make intolerable. For a while each found a certain comfort in the other's mute presence, but at last even that wore off.

"Well, my dear, you don't want to be bothered by ahysterical old woman at this time," said Aunt Selina finally, and James obediently telephoned, for a taxi. Nemesis must be met, sooner or later....

Only once, as they sat side by side in the dark cab, did Aunt Selina give utterance to the one idea that animated her thoughts of the future.

"Well, I've lost my own life and I've lost her, and now you're the only thing I have left. Oh, James, for Heaven's sake don't let me lose you!"

"No, Aunt Selina, no," he replied, laying his hand on hers and speaking with a promptness and a fervor that surprised himself.

"One thing," she began just before they drew up at the hotel.

"Yes?"

"One thing I've learned in all these years is that there's nothing so bad that it isn't better to face it than dodge it. Nothing!"

"Yes," said James. "Thank you, Aunt Selina."

He walked back to his apartment with a feeling as of straightening his shoulders. His aunt's words rang in his brain. There was need of courage, he saw that. Well, he had never lacked that and would not be found wanting in it now. Not even—the thought flashed on him as he opened his front door—not even if the kind of courage that was now needed implied humiliation. He entered his home with the consciousness of having made a good start.

He walked straight into the bedroom.

"Well, I've done you an injustice," he said aloud. "I misjudged you. I'm sorry."

"Oh, you didn't give her credit for being capable of loving YOU, did you?" rang a mocking voice in his brain. A palpable hit for Nemesis.

"Oh, you know what Imean," he answered petulantly. He thought it was unworthy of her to quibble thus, particularly when he was voluntarily assuming that Beatrice had started from Bar Harbor—well, with the right idea. He had a right to doubt there, which he was willing to waive.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "truly sorry. Isn't that enough?" His eyes fell on the photograph of Beatrice which still stood on the dressing table. He turned quickly away again.

"Not by a long shot," said Nemesis, or words to that effect.

No, somehow it wasn't. He realized it himself; even feeling that didn't give him the sense of repletion and calm that he sought. He paced the room for some time in silent anxiety.

"I really don't know what to do," he admitted at last. "Suppose"—he was appealing to Beatrice now—"suppose you tell me what."

He glanced involuntarily at the photograph. Its unchanging half-smile informed him that all help must now come from himself. A sudden access of rage at that photograph seized him.

"Don't you laugh at me, when I'm trying my best!" he cried.

The picture smiled on. In a burst of fury James picked up the frame and hurled it with all his strength into the mirror. There was a crash and a shower of broken glass, amid which the picture bounded lazily back and fell to the floor, face downward.

James stood and stared at it, and as he stared a curious revulsion came over him. He stooped slowly down, unaccountably hoping with all his soul that the photograph was not hurt. He scarcely dared to turn it over....

The glass was smashed to atoms, but the picture itself was unhurt. No, there was a cut across the face.

"Oh, I've hurt her, I've hurt Beatrice!" he whispered.

Nemesis said something that made him sink into a chair and gaze before him with horror. Cinders, ashes, black coals, some of them still glowing—oh, the mere sight of them then had been unbearable! And now, in view of what he had learned.... He could not face the thought.

Yet it was true: if it had not been for him Beatrice would still be alive. Whether she took that train intending to go to him or to Tommy it did not matter; she would not have taken it at all if he had behaved as he should.

He turned his attention back to the picture, gently and carefully smoothing out the cut, as though in the hope that reparation to her effigy would make it easier to face the thought of having compassed her destruction.

Somehow it did no such thing....

Of course what Nemesis wanted was a confession that heloved the woman whose death he was morally responsible for. James realized that himself, almost from the first, but it was not in his nature to admit easily that such an unreasonable change of feeling was possible to him. Long hours of struggle followed, hours of endless pacing, of fruitless internal argument, of blind resistance to the one hope, as he in the bottom of his soul knew it was, of his salvation. Resistance, brave, exhilarating, hopeless, futile, ignoble resistance to whatever happened to him contrary to the dictates of his own will—it was as inevitable to him as feeling itself.

From time to time he thought of Tommy, and this, if he did but know it, was the best symptom he could have shown. For though at first he thought of him with little more than his usual contempt, envy soon began to creep in, then frank jealousy and at last a blind hatred that made him clench his hands and wish, as he had seldom wished anything, that Tommy's throat was between them. In fact he ended by hating Tommy quite as though he were his equal. He never stopped to consider that this change was no less revolutionary than the one he was fighting.

The hopeless hours dragged on. A sense of physical fatigue grew on him; every muscle in him ached. His brain also staggered under the long strain; it hammered and rang. Certain scraps of sentences he had heard during the day buzzed through it with a curious insistence, taking advantage of his weakened state to torment him. A great chance, a great chance—Uncle James' parting words to him. Sorrow was a great chance—for some. For Aunt Selina, yes; for Beatrice, yes; or Uncle James, frozen and unresponsive as he appeared, yes. But not for him. Oh, no, he must admit it, he was not even worthy to suffer greatly. He was not really suffering now, he supposed; he was merely very tired. Otherwise those words, a great chance, a great chance, would not keep pounding through his head like the sound of loud wheels....

Railroad wheels.

Then what was it that Aunt Selina had said about finding out something too late? Oh, yes, people found out they loved other people when it was too late. Especially strong people. He was strong.... Could it be thathewas going to discover something too late—that? It was too late for something already, but surely not for that! Justthink—Aunt Selina had found out too late, and Beatrice had found out too late, and now....

Yes, if it was horrible it must be true. It was he who was too late. He understood about Aunt Selina, all she must have felt. And Beatrice too; he saw now how strong and noble and warm-hearted she had been, and how she must have suffered. Especially that. And now he had found out it was too late to tell her so!

"We can't tell you what we don't know," the man in the station had said that morning. Words spoken mechanically and without thought, but containing the very essence of human tragedy. While there was yet time he had had no knowledge, not the slightest glimmering....

"Oh, Beatrice!" he groaned, "if I had only been able to hope! Just a little hope, even at that last minute on the platform! That would be something to be thankful for!"

And then in the anguish of his remorse all his fatigue and uncertainty suddenly fell from him. Nothing remained but the thought of her, strong, generous, brave, humble, all that he had professed to admire—dead! And he, false, mean, cowardly, cold-hearted, alive. And the idea of never being able to tell her that at last he understood became so intolerable, so cruel, so contrary to all that was good in life, so blindly unthinkable, that....

Well, in a word, it simply ceased to be. Such a life as had been hers could not fade into nothingness, such a heart as hers could not fail to understand, be she dead or alive.

"God," he whispered, clutching with all his strength at the hope the word now contained, "God, make her understand! I recant, I repent, I believe—anything! Forgive me if you can or punish me as you will, only let her live, let her know...."

Then, as the crowning torment, came hope. After all, he knew nothing; he only supposed. Nothing was certain; only probable. Something might have happened; he dared not think what or how, but it was possible, conceivable, at least, that Beatrice was not on that train when it was wrecked. Beatrice might still be alive!... The anguish of the fall back into probability was sharper than anything he had yet known, but every time he found himself struggling painfully up again toward that small spark of light.

He fell on his knees beside the bed—her bed—and triedto pray. Nothing came to his lips but the words he had so long disdained to say, uttered now with a fierce sweet jubilation:

"Beatrice, I love you. I never did before, but I do now—at least I think I do! I never knew, I never understood, but I do now! Beatrice, I do love you, I do, I do! Beatrice...."

But apparently they satisfied the power that has charge of such matters, for even as he stammered the words that saved him a blessed drowsiness stole over him and before long he slept as he knelt. It was morning when he awoke.

THE TIDE TURNS

A gray morning, wet and close, whose very atmosphere was death to hope. James did hope, nevertheless, with all the refreshed energy of his being. Hope came as soon as he started to wake up, before he began to feel the cramps in his limbs, before he had time to rub his eyes and wonder what had happened.

A hot bath, and then breakfast. Physical alleviations; he was humiliated to realize they did make a difference, even to him. He shuddered at the thought of how he had patronizingly envied Aunt Selina for being helped by them last night, much as he shuddered at the remembrance of having once dared to pity Beatrice....

But the present was also with him, and the present was even harder to face than the past. Hope sprang eternal, but so did certainty. One might have thought that they would have neutralized each other's effects and left a blank, but as a matter of fact they only doubled each other's torments. The moment breakfast was over James started off for the station to set one or the other at rest.

He went straight to the press room, which was only just open; he had to wait for the agent to arrive. When he came he was able to tell James nothing new, but he conducted him to a departmental manager. He was no more satisfactory, but he undertook to make every possible inquiry. Leaving James in an outer office he called various people to him, got into telephonic communication with others and ended by calling up Stamford and then Boston. But James could guess the result from his face the moment he reentered the room.

"Nothing?" he asked.

"Nothing. But don't give up yet."

James walked slowly down the corridor toward the elevator. It was a long corridor, dark and empty; James could not see the end of it when he started. The sound of his feet echoed hollowly along the dim walls. Altogetherit was rather an eerie place, not at all suggestive of a modern office building. Much more, it seemed to James as he walked on, like life.... A blind alley, the end of which was in shadow, where one must walk alone and in almost total darkness. A place where one's footsteps echo with painful exactness—one must walk carefully lest the sound of their irregularity should ring evilly in one's ears and pierce unharmoniously into those mysterious chambers alongside, perhaps even into other corridors, other people's corridors....

He roused himself from his reverie with a jerk, but his mood remained on him, translated into a larger meaning. He was alive; no matter what had happened to Beatrice, he was still alive, with a living person's duties and responsibilities—and chances. Beatrice, even though cut off in the bloom of her youth, had succeeded in making a person of herself, justifying her existence, supplying a guiding light to some of those who walked in greater darkness than herself. He had not as yet done that. Well, he must. He would. Beatrice's gift to him should not be wasted. In a flash he felt his strength and his manhood return to him. He looked into the future with a humble yet unflinching gaze; hope and certainty had lost their terrors for him. If Beatrice had died, he would thank God that it had been given him to know her and do his best to translate her spirit into earthly terms. If by any impossible chance she still lived—well, he could do nothing to make himself worthy of such happiness, but he would do his best.

He walked out of the elevator into the concourse, the huge unchanging concourse where so much had happened yesterday. It was comparatively empty at this moment, only a few figures waiting patiently before train gates. One of these caught his eye; it took on a bafflingly familiar appearance. He moved curiously nearer to it....

Tommy!

At last, at last, at last he was going to feel that throat between his fingers, get a chance to exterminate that—that—He sprang forward like a wildcat.

He stopped before he had taken two steps, with a feeling of impotence, hopelessness. Who was he, who under the sun was he to teach Tommy anything? Tommy—why, Tommy had loved Beatrice, not after it was too late, but before! Beatrice had preferred Tommy to him.Tommy was a better man than he was; he took a morbid joy in thinking how much better.

It was conceivable that Tommy might know something. Perhaps he had even come to this very spot to meet Beatrice.... Well, he would not blame her or offer objections, if it were so. He would accept such a judgment gladly, as a small price for knowing she was alive. He hurried across the concourse.

"Tommy, can you tell me anything about Beatrice?" James' voice was so matter-of-fact, so strikingly unfitted to a Situation, that Tommy was rather irritated. He flushed.

"No, of course not. Why should I?"

"I only thought—seeing you here—"

"No." The tone was abrupt to the point of rudeness, wholly un-Tommylike. There was an odd moment of silence, which Tommy ended by breaking out: "Why the devil do you have to come here and crow over me? Why can't you let me clear out in peace?"

James was so penitent for having hurt Tommy that he did not at first notice the implication in his words.

"I'm sorry—I meant nothing! I've been out of my head with anxiety.... I only thought she might have gone somewhere else to meet you—it was my last hope...."

"What?" Tommy cocked his eyebrows incredulously, with a sort of fierceness. "Hope of what?"

"Why, that Beatrice was still alive."

"Still alive? What on earth—! What makes you think she isn't?"

"Do you mean to say—"

Again the two stared at each other in a strained silence. Then Tommy produced a crumpled yellow envelope from his pocket and handed it to James.

"I got this yesterday morning—that's all I know. I haven't been able to destroy the damned thing...."

James took it and opened it. A telegram:—

It's all off, Tommy. Please go away and forgive me if you can. Beatrice.

It's all off, Tommy. Please go away and forgive me if you can. Beatrice.

He looked at the date at the top. Boston, 8:37A. M.Boston! The Maine Special did not go into Boston; Beatrice had left it before—before....

"Tommy," he said faintly, "Tommy, I—" His head swam; he felt himself reeling.

"All right, old top, all right; easy does it." He felt Tommy's arm about him and heard Tommy's voice in his ears, the voice of the good-hearted Tommy of old. Suddenly the idea of a disappointed lover calling his fainting though successful rival old top and telling him that easy did it struck him as wildly and irresistibly humorous. He laughed, and the sound of his laugh acted like a stimulant. He bit his lip hard.

"All right now—I'll go up and get into a taxi. You see," he began explanatorily to Tommy as he walked beside him, "I thought—I thought—"

"I see," supplied Tommy companionably, "you thought she was in the accident, of course. Beastly thing, that accident; no wonder it knocked you up. Knocked me up a bit myself when I heard of it, although I knew she couldn't be in it. Easy up the steps—righto! Everything turned out all right in the end, though, didn't it? Pretty hefty steps, wot? Pretty hefty place altogether—nothing like it in London...."

A cab puffed up beside them. James turned with his hand on the door. An unaccountable wave of affection, respect, even, for Tommy surged through him. "Tommy, you're going away now, I take it?"

"Yes—Chicago." (He pronounced itShickago. That was nothing; when he arrived in the country he had pronounced it with the ch sound. In a few more weeks he would get it correctly; you couldn't expect too much at a time from Tommy.)

"Well, Tommy, see here—"

"Yes?"

"It may sound silly to you, but—come and see us some time!"

"Righto. Not now, though—got to see the country—train leaves in two minutes. See America first, wot? Good-by!" and he was off.

James sank back into the cab, admiring the other's tact. A thoughtless, brutal proposal; of course he ought never to have made it. It was not in him, though, to deny Tommy any sign of the overwhelming love for the whole world that filled him.

When he reached his apartment his physical strengthwas restored, but mentally he seemed paralyzed. There was much to be done, but he had no idea how to go about it. A bright thought struck him; he called up Aunt Selina. He laughed foolishly into the transmitter; Heaven knows how he made her understand at last. The two babbled incoherently at one another for a moment and abruptly rang off, without saying good-by.... Another bright idea—Uncle James. He was more definite, but James had little idea of what he said. He caught something about a Comparatively Simple Matter.... Uncle J. undertook to do everything, whatever it was. A satisfactory person.

After that James sat down in an armchair and for a long time remained there, reduced to an inarticulate pulp of joy.

An hour or two later Beatrice's telegram arrived. It was dated from an obscure place in the White Mountains. "Quite safe and well; only just heard of the accident," it read. Just ten words. But quite enough! To think of her telegraphinghim!...

Immediately he became strong and efficient again. He rushed back to the station, dashed off a telegram and caught up a time table. Confound the trains—nothing till eight-fifteen!

When she left Bar Harbor, Beatrice had no very clear idea of what she was going to do. Of one thing she was fairly sure; she was not going to Tommy. Where Aunt Cecilia's tentative suggestions concerning the dangers besetting a young wife had failed, Aunt Selina's uncompromising realism had gone straight to the point. Her eyes were opened; she saw what pitfalls infatuation and pique and obstinacy might lead her into. She was willing to admit that the thing she had planned to do would be equivalent to throwing away her last hold on life—all she read into the word life. No, she would not go to Tommy. Not directly, anyway....

Ah, there was the rub. Suppose her imagined scene of confession and appeal turned into one of mutual recrimination and resentment—the old sort. What was more likely, in view of her past experience? Were things so radically changed now that either she or James would be able to understand the other better than before? With the best intentions in the world she could not help rubbinghim the wrong way, and she feared the anger and hopelessness that it was his power to inspire in her. With Tommy at hand, in the same town, could she trust herself to resist the temptation of throwing herself into his ready arms? It was all very well for Aunt Selina to say that she was worth more to Beatrice than Tommy; Beatrice was quite convinced of it, in the calm light of reason. But in the hour of failure, with her pride and her woman's desire for protection and love worked up to white heat, would she still be convinced of it? Could she dare entrust her whole chance of future happiness to the strength of her reason in the moment of its greatest trial?

Thoughts like these mingled with the rattle of the train in a sleepless night. In the morning one thing emerged into clarity; she must wait till Tommy was out of the way. If her determination to try to regain James was worth anything, she must give it every possible chance for success. Her hopes for a happy issue out of her dreadful labyrinth were not so good that she could afford to take one unnecessary risk.

Well, if she wasn't going to New York she would have to get off the train, obviously. So she alighted outside Boston early in the morning, took a local into town and telegraphed Tommy. Then, as she wandered aimlessly through the station her eye fell on a framed time-table in which occurred the name of a small White Mountain resort of which she had lately heard; a place described to her as remote and quiet and possessed of one fairly good hotel. She noticed that a train was due to leave for there in an hour's time. In a moment her decision was made; she would go up there and wait for Tommy to get safely out of the way, carefully plan out her course of action and—she scarcely dared express the thought, even mentally—give herself a little time to enjoy her newly-awakened love before putting it to the final test.

She arrived in the evening, took a room in the hotel and went to bed almost immediately, sleeping soundly for the first time in weeks. About the middle of the next morning the Boston papers arrived. Until then she had no notion that the train she had traveled by had been wrecked.

She telegraphed immediately to Aunt Cecilia and then, after some thought, to James. It seemed the thing to do,everything being considered. She wondered if he knew she was safe, how he would take the news, if he had been much disturbed by uncertainty. She was inclined to fear that her escape had not done her cause any particular good....

His reply arrived surprisingly soon: "Stay where you are, am coming." She was touched. Apparently the turn of events had had a favorable effect on him; if he cared enough now to come up and see her the opportunity for putting her plea to him must be fairly propitious. There was a fair chance that if she acted wisely all would turn out well. But oh, she must be careful!

She knew he must arrive by the morning train and arose betimes so as to be on hand. She was in some doubt about breakfast, whether to get it early or wait for him. Either way might be better or worse; it all depended on the outcome of their meeting. She ended by deciding to wait; she would let him breakfast alone if—if. Small interest she would have in breakfast in that event.

She was downstairs long before the train was due to arrive. The weather had cleared during the night and the morning was sunny and cool, a true autumn day. She tried waiting on the verandah, but the wind was so sharp that she soon returned to the warm lobby. She could watch the road equally well from the front windows; there was a long open ascent from the station. At last she saw the hotel wagon appear round a curve. There was only one passenger in it. He, of course. She could recognize the set of his head and shoulders even at that distance. She hoped he had a warm enough overcoat.

The wagon reached the steepest part of the incline, and he was out, walking briskly along beside it. Before it, very soon; he went so much faster. How like James, and how unnecessary! He the only passenger, and what were horses made for, anyway? Still perhaps it was better, if he were not warmly dressed....

The ascent grew steeper before him and his pace visibly decreased. But the wagon merely crawled, far behind him! He was a furious walker. That hill was enough to phase any one....

Presently the sight of him plodding painfully up toward her while she waited calmly at the top grew perfectly intolerable. She could bear it no longer; hatless and coatlessshe rushed out of the hotel and down the road toward him. After a while he raised his face and their eyes met. Nearer and nearer they came, gazing fixedly into each other's eyes and discovering new things there, new lives, new worlds....

They did not even kiss. She, looking beyond him, saw the driver of the station wagon peering up at them, and he caught sight over her shoulder of the staring windows of the hotel. They stopped with some embarrassment and immediately began walking up together.

"It's nice to see you, James; did you have a good journey?"

"Yes, very, thanks. You comfortable here?"

On they walked, in silence. Gradually their embarrassment left them and gave place to a sort of awe. Something was going to happen, something great and wonderful; they no longer doubted it nor felt any fear. But—all in good time!

It must be coming soon, though, to judge by the way it kept pressing down on them. Good time? Heavens, there never was any time but the present moment, never would be any....

"Beatrice," said James, staring hard at the ground in front of him, "I know now how wicked I've been. Do you think you can ever forgive me?"

"Why, James," said Beatrice gently, "dear James, there's nothing to forgive."

Then he looked up and saw there were tears on her cheeks....

Yes, right there in the open road!

REINSTATEMENT OF A SCHÖNE SEELE

The sunlight of a golden October afternoon poured down on a little brick terrace running along one side of the farmhouse in the Berkshires Harry had bought and reformed into a summer house. It was not the principal open-air extension of the place; the official verandah was on the other side, commanding a wide view to the east and south. This was just a little private terrace, designed especially for use on afternoons like the present, when for the moment autumn went back on all its promises and in a moment of carelessness poured over a dying landscape the breath of May. The only view to be had from it was up a grassy slope to the west, on the summit of which, according to all standards except those of the New England farmer of one hundred years ago, the house ought to have been built. Not that either Madge or Harry cared particularly. They were fond of pointing out that Tom Ball, or West Stockbridge Mountain, or whatever it was, shut out the view to the west anyway, and that they were lucky enough to find a farmhouse with any view from it at all.

On the terrace sat James and Beatrice, who were spending a week-end with their relatives. Madge was with them. Presumably there was current in her mind a polite fiction that she was entertaining her guests, but she did not take her duties of hostess-ship too seriously. It was not even necessary to keep up a conversation; they all got along far too well together for that. They simply sat and enjoyed the fleeting sunshine, making pleasant and unnecessary remarks whenever they felt moved to do so. Probably they also thought, from time to time. Of the general extraordinariness of things, and so forth. If they all spent a little time in admiring the adroitness with which the hands of fate had shuffled them, with the absent member of the pack, into their present satisfactory positions, we should not be at all surprised. But of course none of them made any allusion to it.

Harry suddenly burst through the glass door leadingfrom the house and flopped into a chair. His appearance was informal. The others turned toward him with curious nostrils.

"I know, I know," he sighed. "The only thing is for us all to smoke. You too, Beatrice. Because if you don't you'll smell me, and if you smell me I'll have to go up and wash, and if I go up and wash now I shall miss this last hour of sunshine and that will make you all very, very unhappy."

"I am smoking," said Beatrice calmly, "because I want to, and for no other reason."

"And I," observed Madge, "because Harry doesn't want me to."

"If you want to know what I've been doing since lunch," said Harry, disregarding the insult, "I don't mind telling you that I've mended a wire fence, covered the asparagus bed, conducted several successful bonfires and filled all the grease-cups on the Ford. I have also turned—"

"Yes," said James, "we've guessed that."

"And now only a few trifles such as feeding fowls and swine—or as Madge prefers to put it, chickabiddies and piggywigs—stand between me and a well-deserved repose. Heavens! I don't see how farmers can keep such late hours. Harker, I believe, frequently stays up till nearly nine. I feel as if it ought to be midnight now; nothing but the thought of the piggywigs keeps me out of bed."

"Can't Harker feed the piggywigs?" inquired Beatrice.

"Oh, yes," said Madge, "just as he can do all the other things Harry does a great deal better than he. But it keeps him busy and happy, so we let him go on."

"Just as if you didn't cry every night to feed your old pigs!" retorted her husband.

Madge laughed. "Yes, I am rather a fool about the poor things, even if they aren't so attractive as they were in June. You should have seen them, so pink and tiny and sweet, standing up on their hind legs and wiggling their noses at you! No one could help wanting to feed them, they were so helpless and confident of receiving a shower of manna from above. I know just how the Almighty felt when he fed the Israelites."

"Better manna than manners," murmured Harry, and for a while there was a profound silence.

"What about a stroll before tea?" presently suggested the happy farmer.

"I should like to," said James. "We'll have to make it short, though."

"Very well. What about the others—the fair swine-herd?"

"I think not," answered the person referred to, smiling up at him. "I took quite a long walk before lunch, you know."

"Oh, yes," said Harry, blushing for no apparent reason. "Beatrice?"

Beatrice preferred to stay with Madge.

"You see," said Harry when the two had gone a little way; "you see, the fact is, Madge—hm. Madge—"

"You mean," said James, smiling, "there is hope of a new generation of our illustrious house?"

"Yes! I only learned this morning. If it's a boy we're going to call it James, and if it's a girl we're going to call it Jaqueline."

"I wonder," mused James, "how many times you have named it since you first heard."

"There have been several suggestions," admitted Harry, laughing. "I really think it will end by that, though."

"Jaqueline—quite a pretty name. Much prettier than James—I rather hope it will be a girl."

"Yes, I do too," said Harry. And both knew that they would not have troubled to express that wish if they had not really hoped the direct opposite....

They walked slowly up the hill and presently turned and stopped to admire the view that the foolish prudence of a dead farmer had prevented them from enjoying from the house. It was a very lovely view, with its tumbled stretches of hills and fields and occasional sheets of blue water bathed in the mellow light of the sun that hung low over the dark mountain wall to the west. Possibly it was its sheer beauty, or the impression it gave of distance from human strife and sordidness, or perhaps the subject last mentioned imparted to their thoughts and impulse away from the trivial and familiar; at any rate when Harry next spoke his words fell neither on James' ears nor his own with the sound of fatuity that they might have held at another time.

"James," he said, "we're getting on, aren't we? Idon't mean in years, though that's a most extraordinary feeling in itself, but in—in life, in the business of living. If you ask me what I mean by that high-sounding phrase I can only say it's something like coming out of every experience a little better qualified to meet whatever new experience lies in store for you. Of course we've heard about life being a game and all that facile rot ever since we were old enough to speak, but it's quite different when you come tofeelit. It's a sensation all by itself, isn't it?"

James drew a deep breath. "Yes, it is quite by itself," he agreed. "And I'm glad to be able to say that at last I have some idea of what the actual feeling is like. It was atrophied long enough in me, Heaven knows! It's still very slight, very timid and tentative; just a sort of glimmering at times—"

"That's all it ever is," said Harry. "Just an occasional glimmering. The true feeling, that is. If it's anything more, it isn't really that at all, but just a sort of stuckupness, an idea that I am equal to the worst life can do to Me! I know people that seem to have that attitude—insufferable! Only life is pretty apt to punish them by giving them a great deal more than they bargained for."

James was silent a moment, as with a sort of confessional silence. But he knew Harry would not understand its confessional quality, so he said quietly: "That's exactly what happened to me, of course."

"Oh, rot! Did you think I meant you?"

"No, but it's true, for all that. Thank Heaven I have been permitted to live through it!... The truth is, I suppose, I was too successful early in life. In school, in college and afterward it was always the same—I found myself able to do certain things with an ease that surprised and delighted people—no one more than myself. For they weren't things that mattered especially, you see; they were showy, spectacular things that appealed to the public eye, like playing football. I was a good physical specimen, not through any effort or merit of my own, but simply through a natural gift, and a very poor and hollow gift it is, as I've found out. I don't think people quite realize the problem that a man of the athletic type has to face if he's going to make anything out of himself but an athlete. From early boyhood he's conscious of physical superiority; he knows perfectly well that in the last resort he can knock theother fellow down and stamp on him, and that gives him a certain feeling of repose and self-sufficiency that's very pernicious. It usually passes for strength of character, but it's nothing in the world but faith in bone and muscle. And people do worship physical strength so! It's small wonder a man gets his head turned.... Good Lord, the ideas I used to have about myself! Why, in college, if any one had made me say what, in the bottom of my heart, I thought was the greatest possible thing for a man of my years to be, I should have said being a great football player in a great university. That is, I wouldn't have said it, because that would have been like bragging, and it isn't done to brag: but that would have been my secret thought.

"And then, if the man has any brains or any capacity for feeling, he runs up against some of the big forces of life, and he finds his physical strength no more use to him than a broken reed. It's quite a shock! I've been more severely tried than most people are, I imagine, but Heaven knows I needed it! Everything had gone my way before that; I literally never knew what it was to have to put up a fight against something I recognized as stronger than I and likely to beat me in the end. Well, I'm grateful enough for it now. Thank Heaven for it! Thank Heaven for letting me fight and find out my weakness and come through it somehow, instead of remaining a mere mountain of beef all my days!"

Both stood silent for a moment after James had ended this confession, less because they felt embarrassment in the presence of the feeling that lay behind it than because for a short time the past lay on them too heavily for words. After a few seconds they moved as though by a common impulse and walked slowly along the grassy crest of the ridge, and Harry began again.

"What you say sounds very well coming from you, James, but I have reason to believe that very little, if any of it, is true. It was my privilege to know you during the years you speak of, and I seem to remember you as something more than a mountain of beef. Don't be absurd, James!"

He paused a moment and then went on more seriously: "No, James; if there was ever any danger of any of us suffering from cock-sureness it's I, at this moment. Do you realize how ridiculously happy I've been for the lastyear or so? This success of mine—oh, I've worked, but it's been absurdly easy, for all that—and Madge, and everything—it seems sometimes as if there was something strange and sinister about it. It simply can't be good for any one to be so happy! It worries me."

"Well, as long as it does, you needn't," said James.

"Oh, I see! That makes it quite simple, of course!"

"What I mean," elucidated James, "is that, if you feel that way about it, it's probable that you really deserve what happiness you have. After all, you know, you have paid for some. You have had your times; I don't mind admitting that there have been moments when you weren't quite the archangel which of course you are at present!"

Harry laughed. "The prophet Jeremiah once said something about its being good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. If that is equivalent to saying that the earlier a man has his bad times the better, it may be that I got off more easily by having them in college than if they'd held off till later. One does learn certain things easier if one learns them early. But that doesn't mean that your youth has passed without your feeling the yoke, or that your youth has passed yet. You're still in the Jeremiah class! One would hardly say that at thirty—you're not much over thirty, are you?"

"A few weeks under, I believe."

"I'm sorry!—Well, at thirty there are surely years of youth ahead of you, which you, having borne your yoke, may look forward to without fear and with every prospect of enjoying to the fullest extent. Whereas I—well, there's even more time for me to bear yokes in, if necessary. I don't much believe that Jeremiah has done with me yet, somehow!"

"You're not afraid of the future, though, are you?" asked James after a pause.

"Oh, no—that would never do. I feel about it as.... One can't say these things without sounding cocksure and insufferable!"

"You mean you'll do your best under the circumstances?"

"Yes, or make a good try at it! And then.... Of course I can't be as happy as I am without having a good deal at stake; I've given hostages to fortune—that's Francis Bacon, not me. And if fortune should look upon thosehostages with a covetous eye—if anything, for instance, should happen to Madge in what's coming, why, there are still plenty of things that the worst fortune can't spoil!... Well, you know."

"Yes," said James; "I know."

"In fact, there are certain things in the past so dear to me that perhaps, if it came to the point, it would be almost a joy to pay heavily for them. But that's only the way I feel about it now, of course. It's easy enough to be brave when there's no danger."

"Yes," said James, "but I think you're right in the main. After all, the past is one's own—inalienably, forever! While the future is any man's....

"Of course you know," he went on after a pause, "that my past would have been nothing at all to me without you. It sounds funny, but it's true."

"Funny is the word," said Harry.

"But perfectly true. I should never have come through—all this business if it hadn't been for you."

"Look here, James, you're not going to thank me for saving your soul, are you? That would be a little forced!"

"My dear man, I'm not thanking you, I'm telling you! You were the one good thing I held on to; I was false and wicked in about every way I could be, but I did always try, in a sort of blind and blundering way, to be true to you. You've been—unconsciously if you will have it so—the best influence of my life, and I thought it might be well to tell you, that's all."

"Well, I won't pretend I'm not glad to hear it," said Harry soberly. "It is rather remarkable when you come to think of it," he went on after a moment, "how our lives have been bound up together. It's rather unusual with brothers, I imagine. Generally they see a good deal too much of each other during their early years and when they grow up they settle down into an acquaintanceship of a more or less cordial nature. But with us it's been different. Being apart during those early years, I suppose, made it necessary for us to rediscover each other when we grew up...."

"Yes," said James, "and the process of rediscovering had some rather lively passages in it, if I remember right."

"It did! But it was a good thing; it gave us a new interest in each other. One reason why people are commonlyso much more enthusiastic about their friends than about their relations is because their relations are an accident, but their friends are a credit to them. It just shows what a selfish thing human nature is, I suppose."

"I see; a new way of being a credit to ourselves. Well, most of it's on my side, I imagine."

Harry turned gravely toward his brother. "It seems to me, James, you suffer under a tendency to overestimate my virtues. You mustn't, you know; it's extremely bad for me. I should say, if questioned closely, that that was your one fault—if one expects a kindred tendency to shield me from things I ought not to be shielded from."

"Oh, rot, man!"

"You needn't talk—you do. I've felt it, all along, though you've done your job so well that for the most part I never knew what you'd saved me from."

"Well.... I might go so far as to say that when I've put you before myself I generally find I'm all right, and when I put myself first I generally find I'm all wrong. But as I've been all wrong most of the time, it doesn't signify much!"

"Hm. You put it so that I can't insist very hard. It's there, though, for all that. Funny thing. I don't believe it's a bit usual between friends, really, especially between brothers. Whatever started you on it? It must have been more or less conscious."

For a moment James thought of telling him. They had lived so long since then; it would be amusing for them to trace together the effects of that one little guiding idea. But he thought of the years ahead, and they seemed to call out to him with warning voices, voices full of a tale of tasks unfinished and the need of a vigilance sharper than before. So he only laughed a little and said:

"Oh, it's you that are exaggerating now! You mustn't get ideas about it; it's no more than you'd do for me, or any one for any one else he cares about. But little as it is, don't grudge it to me, for though it may not have done you much good, it's been the saving of me...."

So they walked and talked as the sun sank low and the night fell gently from a cloudless sky. To Madge and Beatrice, seeing them silhouetted against that final blaze of glory in the west, they seemed almost as one figure.

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