A POOR WISE MAN

By Mary Roberts Rinehart

CHAPTER I

The city turned its dreariest aspect toward the railway on blackenedwalls, irregular and ill-paved streets, gloomy warehouses, and over alla gray, smoke-laden atmosphere which gave it mystery and often beauty. Sometimes the softened towers of the great steel bridges rose above theriver mist like fairy towers suspended between Heaven and earth. Andagain the sun tipped the surrounding hills with gold, while the citylay buried in its smoke shroud, and white ghosts of river boats movedspectrally along. 

Sometimes it was ugly, sometimes beautiful, but always the city waspowerful, significant, important. It was a vast melting pot. Through itsgates came alike the hopeful and the hopeless, the dreamers and thosewho would destroy those dreams. From all over the world there came menwho sought a chance to labor. They came in groups, anxious and dumb, carrying with them their pathetic bundles, and shepherded by men withcunning eyes. 

Raw material, for the crucible of the city, as potentially powerful asthe iron ore which entered the city by the same gate. 

The city took them in, gave them sanctuary, and forgot them. But theshepherds with the cunning eyes remembered. 

Lily Cardew, standing in the train shed one morning early in March, watched such a line go by. She watched it with interest. She haddeveloped a new interest in people during the year she had beenaway. She had seen, in the army camp, similar shuffling lines of men, transformed in a few hours into ranks of uniformed soldiers, beginningalready to be actuated by the same motive. These aliens, going by, wouldbecome citizens. Very soon now they would appear on the streets in newAmerican clothes of extraordinary cut and color, their hair cut withclippers almost to the crown, and surmounted by derby hats always a sizetoo small. 

Lily smiled, and looked out for her mother. She was suddenlyunaccountably glad to be back again. She liked the smoke and the noise, the movement, the sense of things doing. And the sight of her mother, small, faultlessly tailored, wearing a great bunch of violets, andincongruous in that work-a-day atmosphere, set her smiling again. 

How familiar it all was! And heavens, how young she looked! Thelimousine was at the curb, and a footman as immaculately turned out asher mother stood with a folded rug over his arm. On the seat inside laya purple box. Lily had known it would be there. They would be ostensiblyfrom her father, because he had not been able to meet her, but she knewquite well that Grace Cardew had stopped at the florist's on her waydowntown and bought them. 

A little surge of affection for her mother warmed the girl's eyes. Thesmall attentions which in the Cardew household took the place of lovingdemonstrations had always touched her. As a family the Cardews wererather loosely knitted together, but there was something very lovableabout her mother. 

Grace Cardew kissed her, and then held her off and looked at her. 

"Mercy, Lily!" she said, "you look as old as I do. "

"Older, I hope, " Lily retorted. "What a marvel you are, Grace dear. " Nowand then she called her mother "Grace. " It was by way of being a smalljoke between them, but limited to their moments alone. Once old Anthony, her grandfather, had overheard her, and there had been rather a rowabout it. 

"I feel horribly old, but I didn't think I looked it. "

They got into the car and Grace held out the box to her. "From yourfather, dear. He wanted so to come, but things are dreadful at the mill. I suppose you've seen the papers. " Lily opened the box, and smiled ather mother. 

"Yes, I know. But why the subterfuge about the flowers, mother dear?Honestly, did he send them, or did you get them? But never mind aboutthat; I know he's worried, and you're sweet to do it. Have you brokenthe news to grandfather that the last of the Cardews is coming home?"

"He sent you all sorts of messages, and he'll see you at dinner. "

Lily laughed out at that. 

"You darling!" she said. "You know perfectly well that I am nothing ingrandfather's young life, but the Cardew women all have what he likesto call savoir faire. What would they do, father and grandfather, if youdidn't go through life smoothing things for them?"

Grace looked rather stiffly ahead. This young daughter of hers, with herdirectness and her smiling ignoring of the small subterfuges of life, rather frightened her. The terrible honesty of youth! All these years ofironing the wrinkles out of life, of smoothing the difficulties betweenold Anthony and Howard, and now a third generation to contend with. Apitilessly frank and unconsciously cruel generation. She turned and eyedLily uneasily. 

"You look tired, " she said, "and you need attention. I wish you had letme send Castle to you. "

But she thought that lily was even lovelier than she had remembered her. Lovely rather than beautiful, perhaps. Her face was less childish thanwhen she had gone away; there was, in certain of her expressions, analmost alarming maturity. But perhaps that was fatigue. 

"I couldn't have had Castle, mother. I didn't need anything. I've beenvery happy, really, and very busy. "

"You have been very vague lately about your work. "

Lily faced her mother squarely. 

"I didn't think you'd much like having me do it, and I thought it woulddrive grandfather crazy. "

"I thought you were in a canteen. "

"Not lately. I've been looking after girls who had followed soldiers tocamps. Some of them were going to have babies, too. It was rather awful. We married quite a lot of them, however. "

The curious reserve that so often exists between mother and daughterheld Grace Cardew dumb. She nodded, but her eyes had slightly hardened. So this was what war had done to her. She had had no son, and hadthanked God for it during the war, although old Anthony had hatedher all her married life for it. But she had given her daughter, herclear-eyed daughter, and they had shown her the dregs of life. 

Her thoughts went back over the years. To Lily as a child, withMademoiselle always at her elbow, and life painted as a thing of beauty. Love, marriage and birth were divine accidents. Death was a quiet sleep, with heaven just beyond, a sleep which came only to age, which hadwearied and would rest. Then she remembered the day when Elinor Cardew, poor unhappy Elinor, had fled back to Anthony's roof to have a baby, andafter a few rapturous weeks for Lily the baby had died. 

"But the baby isn't old, " Lily had persisted, standing in front of hermother with angry, accusing eyes. 

Grace was not an imaginative woman, but she turned it rather neatly, asshe told Howard later. 

"It was such a nice baby, " she said, feeling for an idea. "I thinkprobably God was lonely without it, and sent an angel for it again. "

"But it is still upstairs, " Lily had insisted. She had had a curiousinstinct for truth, even then. But there Grace's imagination had failedher, and she sent for Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle was a good Catholic, and very clear in her own mind, but what she left in Lily's brain wasa confused conviction that every person was two persons, a body and asoul. Death was simply a split-up, then. One part of you, the part thatbathed every morning and had its toe-nails cut, and went to dancingschool in a white frock and thin black silk stockings and carriage bootsover pumps, that part was buried and would only came up again at theResurrection. But the other part was all the time very happy, and mostlysinging. 

Lily did not like to sing. 

Then there was the matter of tears. People only cried when they hurtthemselves. She had been told that again and again when she threatenedtears over her music lesson. But when Aunt Elinor had gone away she hadfound Mademoiselle, the deadly antagonist of tears, weeping. And hereagain Grace remembered the child's wide, insistent eyes. 

"Why?"

"She is sorry for Aunt Elinor. "

"Because her baby's gone to God? She ought to be glad, oughtn't she?"

"Not that;" said Grace, and had brought a box of chocolates and givenher one, although they were not permitted save one after each meal. 

Then Lily had gone away to school. How carefully the school had beenselected! When she came back, however, there had been no more questions, and Grace had sighed with relief. That bad time was over, anyhow. ButLily was rather difficult those days. She seemed, in some vagueway, resentful. Her mother found her, now and then, in a frowning, half-defiant mood. And once, when Mademoiselle had ventured some jestingremark about young Alston Denslow, she was stupefied to see the girlmarch out of the room, her chin high, not to be seen again for hours. 

Grace's mind was sub-consciously remembering those things even when shespoke. 

"I didn't know you were having to learn about that side of life, " shesaid, after a brief silence. 

"That side of life is life, mother, " Lily said gravely. But Grace didnot reply to that. It was characteristic of her to follow her own lineof thought. 

"I wish you wouldn't tell your grandfather. You know he feels stronglyabout some things. And he hasn't forgiven me yet for letting you go. "

Rather diffidently Lily put her hand on her mother's. She gave her rarecaresses shyly, with averted eyes, and she was always more diffidentwith her mother than with her father. Such spontaneous bursts ofaffection as she sometimes showed had been lavished on Mademoiselle. It was Mademoiselle she had hugged rapturously on her small feast days, Mademoiselle who never demanded affection, and so received it. 

"Poor mother!" she said, "I have made it hard for you, haven't I? Is heas bad as ever?"

She had not pinned on the violets, but sat holding them in her hands, now and then taking a luxurious sniff. She did not seem to expecta reply. Between Grace and herself it was quite understood that oldAnthony Cardew was always as bad as could be. 

"There is some sort of trouble at the mill. Your father is worried. "

And this time it was Lily who did not reply. She said, inconsequentially:

"We're saved, and it's all over. But sometimes I wonder if we were worthsaving. It all seems such a mess, doesn't it?" She glanced out. They were drawing up before the house, and she looked at her motherwhimsically. 

"The last of the Cardews returning from the wars!" she said. "Only sheis unfortunately a she, and she hasn't been any nearer the war than theState of Ohio. "

Her voice was gay enough, but she had a quick vision of the grimold house had she been the son they had wanted to carry on the name, returning from France. 

The Cardews had fighting traditions. They had fought in every war fromthe Revolution on. There had been a Cardew in Mexico in '48, and in thatupper suite of rooms to which her grandfather had retired in wrath onhis son's marriage, she remembered her sense of awe as a child on seeingon the wall the sword he had worn in the Civil War. He was a small man, and the scabbard was badly worn at the end, mute testimony to the longforced marches of his youth. Her father had gone to Cuba in '98, andhad almost died of typhoid fever there, contracted in the marshes ofFlorida. 

Yes, they had been a fighting family. And now--

Her mother was determinedly gay. There were flowers in the dark oldhall, and Grayson, the butler, evidently waiting inside the door, greeted her with the familiarity of the old servant who had slipped hersweets from the pantry after dinner parties in her little-girl years. 

"Welcome home, Miss Lily, " he said. 

Mademoiselle was lurking on the stairway, in a new lace collar over herold black dress. Lily recognized in the collar a great occasion, forMademoiselle was French and thrifty. Suddenly a wave of warmth andgladness flooded her. This was home. Dear, familiar home. She had comeback. She was the only young thing in the house. She would bring themgladness and youth. She would try to make them happy. Always before shehad taken, but now she meant to give. 

Not that she formulated such a thought. It was an emotion, rather. Sheran up the stairs and hugged Mademoiselle wildly. 

"You darling old thing!" she cried. She lapsed into French. "I saw thecollar at once. And think, it is over! It is finished. And all your niceFrench relatives are sitting on the boulevards in the sun, and sippingtheir little glasses of wine, and rising and bowing when a pretty girlpasses. Is it not so?"

"It is so, God and the saints be praised!" said Mademoiselle, huskily. 

Grace Cardew followed them up the staircase. Her French was negligible, and she felt again, as in days gone by, shut from the little world oftwo which held her daughter and governess. Old Anthony's doing, that. He had never forgiven his son his plebeian marriage, and an earlyconversation returned to her. It was on Lily's first birthday and he hadmade one of his rare visits to the nursery. He had brought with him apearl in a velvet case. 

"All our women have their own pearls, " he had said. "She will have hergrandmother's also when she marries. I shall give her one the firstyear, two the second, and so on. " He had stood looking down at the childcritically. "She's a Cardew, " he said at last. "Which means that shewill be obstinate and self-willed. " He had paused there, but Grace hadnot refuted the statement. He had grinned. "As you know, " he added. "Isshe talking yet?"

"A word or two, " Grace had said, with no more warmth in her tone thanwas in his. 

"Very well. Get her a French governess. She ought to speak French beforeshe does English. It is one of the accomplishments of a lady. Get a goodwoman, and for heaven's sake arrange to serve her breakfast in her room. I don't want to have to be pleasant to any chattering French woman ateight in the morning. "

"No, you wouldn't, " Grace had said. 

Anthony had stamped out, but in the hall he smiled grimly. He did notlike Howard's wife, but she was not afraid of him. He respected her forthat. He took good care to see that the Frenchwoman was found, and atdinner, the only meal he took with the family, he would now and thensend for the governess and Lily to come in for dessert. That, ofcourse, was later on, when the child was nearly ten. Then would followa three-cornered conversation in rapid French, Howard and Anthony andLily, with Mademoiselle joining in timidly, and with Grace, at the sideof the table, pretending to eat and feeling cut off, in a middle-classworld of her own, at the side of the table. Anthony Cardew had retainedthe head of his table, and he had never asked her to take his deadwife's place. 

After a time Grace realized the consummate cruelty of those hours, thefact that Lily was sent for, not only because the old man cared tosee her, but to make Grace feel the outsider that she was. She madedesperate efforts to conquer the hated language, but her accent wasatrocious. Anthony would correct her suavely, and Lily would laugh inchildish, unthinking mirth. She gave it up at last. 

She never told Howard about it. He had his own difficulties with hisfather, and she would not add to them. She managed the house, checkedover the bills and sent them to the office, put up a cheerful andcourageous front, and after a time sheathed herself in an armor ofsmiling indifference. But she thanked heaven when the time came tosend Lily away to school. The effort of concealing the armed neutralitybetween Anthony and herself was growing more wearing. The girl wasobservant. And Anthony had been right, she was a Cardew. She would havefought her grandfather out on it, defied him, accused him, hated him. And Grace wanted peace. 

Once again as she followed Lily and Mademoiselle up the stairs she feltthe barrier of language, and back of it the Cardew pride and traditionsthat somehow cut her off. 

But in Lily's rooms she was her sane and cheerful self again. Inside thedoorway the girl was standing, her eyes traveling over her little domainecstatically. 

"How lovely of you not to change a thing, mother!" she said. "I wasso afraid--I know how you hate my stuff. But I might have known youwouldn't. All the time I've been away, sleeping in a dormitory, andtaking turns at the bath, I have thought of my own little place. " Shewandered around, touching her familiar possessions with caressing hands. "I've a good notion, " she declared, "to go to bed immediately, just forthe pleasure of lying in linen sheets again. " Suddenly she turned to hermother. "I'm afraid you'll find I've made some queer friends, mother. "

"What do you mean by 'queer'?"

"People no proper Cardew would care to know. " She smiled. "Where'sEllen? I want to tell her I met somebody she knows out there, the nicestsort of a boy. " She went to the doorway and called lustily: "Ellen!Ellen!" The rustling of starched skirts answered her from down thecorridor. 

"I wish you wouldn't call, dear. " Grace looked anxious. "You know howyour grandfather--there's a bell for Ellen. "

"What we need around here, " said Lily, cheerfully, "is a little morecalling. And if grandfather thinks it is unbefitting the family dignityhe can put cotton in his ears. Come in, Ellen. Ellen, do you know that Imet Willy Cameron in the camp?"

"Willy!" squealed Ellen. "You met Willy? Isn't he a fine boy, MissLily?"

"He's wonderful, " said Lily. "I went to the movies with him everyFriday night. " She turned to her mother. "You would like him, mother. Hecouldn't get into the army. He is a little bit lame. And--" she surveyedGrace with amused eyes, "you needn't think what you are thinking. He istall and thin and not at all good-looking. Is he, Ellen?"

"He is a very fine young man, " Ellen said rather stiffly. "He's veryhighly thought of in the town I come from. His father was a doctor, andhis buggy used to go around day, and night. When he found they wouldn'ttake him as a soldier he was like to break his heart. "

"Lame?" Grace repeated, ignoring Ellen. 

"Just a little. You forget all about it when you know him. Don't you, Ellen?"

But at Grace's tone Ellen had remembered. She stiffened, and becameagain a housemaid in the Anthony Cardew house, a self-effacing, rubber-heeled, pink-uniformed lower servant. She glanced at Mrs. Cardew, whose eyebrows were slightly raised. 

"Thank you, miss, " she said. And went out, leaving Lily rather chilledand openly perplexed. 

"Well!" she said. Then she glanced at her mother. "I do believe you area little shocked, mother, because Ellen and I have a mutual friendin Mr. William Wallace Cameron! Well, if you want the exact truth, hehadn't an atom of use for me until he heard about Ellen. " She put an armaround Grace's shoulders. "Brace up, dear, " she said, smilingly. "Don'tyou cry. I'll be a Cardew bye-and-bye. "

"Did you really go to the moving pictures with him?" Grace asked, ratherunhappily. She had never been inside a moving picture theater. To herthey meant something a step above the corner saloon, and a degree belowthe burlesque houses. They were constituted of bad air and unchaperonedyoung women accompanied by youths who dangled cigarettes from a lowerlip, all obviously of the lower class, including the cigarette; and ofother women, sometimes drab, dragged of breast and carrying childrenwho should have been in bed hours before; or still others, wanderingin pairs, young, painted and predatory. She was not imaginative, or shecould not have lived so long in Anthony Cardew's house. She never saw, in the long line waiting outside even the meanest of the little theatersthat had invaded the once sacred vicinity of the Cardew house, the cryof every human heart for escape from the sordid, the lure of romance, the call of adventure and the open road. 

"I can't believe it, " she added. 

Lily made a little gesture of half-amused despair. 

"Dearest, " she said, "I did. And I liked it. Mother, things have changeda lot in twenty years. Sometimes I think that here, in this house, youdon't realize that--" she struggled for a phrase--"that things havechanged, " she ended, lamely. "The social order, and that sort of thing. You know. Caste. " She hesitated. She was young and inarticulate, andwhen she saw Grace's face, somewhat frightened. But she was not oldAnthony's granddaughter for nothing. "This idea of being a Cardew, " shewent on, "that's ridiculous, you know. I'm only half Cardew, anyhow. Therest is you, dear, and it's got being a Cardew beaten by quite a lot. "

Mademoiselle was deftly opening the girl's dressing case, but she pausednow and turned. It was to Grace that she spoke, however. 

"They come home like that, all of them, " she said. "In France also. Butin time they see the wisdom of the old order, and return. It is one ofthe fruits of war. "

Grace hardly heard her. 

"Lily, " she asked, "you are not in love with this Cameron person, areyou?"

But Lily's easy laugh reassured her. 

"No, indeed, " she said. "I am not. I shall probably marry beneath me, as you would call it, but not William Wallace Cameron. For one thing, hewouldn't have grandfather in his family. "

Some time later Mademoiselle tapped at Grace's door, and entered. Gracewas reclining on a chaise longue, towels tucked about her neck and overher pillows, while Castle, her elderly English maid, was applying icein a soft cloth to her face. Grace sat up. The towel, pinned around herhair like a coif, gave a placid, almost nun-like appearance to her stilllovely face. 

"Well?" she demanded. "Go out for a minute, Castle. "

Mademoiselle waited until the maid had gone. 

"I have spoken to Ellen, " she said, her voice cautious. "A young man whodoes not care for women, a clerk in a country pharmacy. What is that, Mrs. Cardew?"

"It would be so dreadful, Mademoiselle. Her grandfather--"

"But not handsome, " insisted Mademoiselle, "and lame! Also, I know thechild. She is not in love. When that comes to her we shall know it. "

Grace lay back, relieved, but not entirely comforted. 

"She is changed, isn't she, Mademoiselle?"

Mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders. 

"A phase, " she said. She had got the word from old Anthony, who regardedany mental attitude that did not conform with his own as a conditionthat would pass. "A phase, only. Now that she is back among familiarthings, she will become again a daughter of the house. "

"Then you think this talk about marrying beneath her--"

"She 'as had liberty, " said Mademoiselle, who sometimes lost anaspirate. "It is like wine to the young. It intoxicates. But it, too, passes. In my country--"

But Grace had, for a number of years, heard a great deal ofMademoiselle's country. She settled herself on her pillows. 

"Call Castle, please, " she said. "And--do warn her not to voice thoseideas of hers to her grandfather. In a country pharmacy, you say?"

"And lame, and not fond of women, " corroborated Mademoiselle. "Ca nepourrait pas etre mieux, n'est-ce pas?"

CHAPTER II

Shortly after the Civil War Anthony Cardew had left Pittsburgh and spenta year in finding a location for the investment of his small capital. That was in the very beginning of the epoch of steel. The iron businesshad already laid the foundations of its future greatness, but steel wasstill in its infancy. 

Anthony's father had been an iron-master in a small way, with a monthlypay-roll of a few hundred dollars, and an abiding faith in the future ofiron. But he had never dreamed of steel. But "sixty-five" saw the firststeel rail rolled in America, and Anthony Cardew began to dream. Hewent to Chicago first, and from there to Michigan, to see the firstsuccessful Bessemer converter. When he started east again he knew whathe was to make his life work. 

He was very young and his capital was small. But he had an abidingfaith in the new industry. Not that he dreamed then of floating steelbattleships. But he did foresee steel in new and various uses. Later onhe was experimenting with steel cable at the very time Roebling made ita commercial possibility, and with it the modern suspension bridge andthe elevator. He never quite forgave Roebling. That failure of his, thedifference only of a month or so, was one of the few disappointmentsof his prosperous, self-centered, orderly life. That, and Howard'smarriage. And, at the height of his prosperity, the realization thatHoward's middle-class wife would never bear a son. 

The city he chose was a small city then, yet it already showed signs ofapproaching greatness. On the east side, across the river, he built hisfirst plant, a small one, with the blast heated by passing through castiron pipes, with the furnaceman testing the temperature with strips oflead and zinc, and the skip hoist a patient mule. 

He had ore within easy hauling distance, and he had fuel, and he had, as time went on, a rapidly increasing market. Labor was cheap andplentiful, too, and being American-born, was willing and intelligent. Perhaps Anthony Cardew's sins of later years were due to a vastimpatience that the labor of the early seventies was no longer to behad. 

The Cardew fortune began in the seventies. Up to that time there wasa struggle, but in the seventies Anthony did two things. He went toEngland to see the furnaces there, and brought home a wife, a timid, tall Englishwoman of irreproachable birth, who remained always an alienin the crude, busy new city. And he built himself a house, a brick housein lower East Avenue, a house rather like his tall, quiet wife, and runon English lines. He soon became the leading citizen. He was one of thecommittee to welcome the Prince of Wales to the city, and from the verybeginning he took his place in the social life. 

He found it very raw at times, crude and new. He himself lived withdignity and elegant simplicity. He gave now and then lengthy, ponderousdinners, making out the lists himself, and handing them over to histimid English wife in much the manner in which he gave the wine list andthe key to the wine cellar to the butler. And, at the head of histable, he let other men talk and listened. They talked, those industrialpioneers, especially after the women had gone. They saw the city thecenter of great business and great railroads. They talked of its coal, its river, and the great oil fields not far away which were then intheir infancy. All of them dreamed a dream, saw a vision. But not all ofthem lived to see their dream come true. 

Old Anthony lived to see it. 

In the late eighties, his wife having been by that time decorouslyinterred in one of the first great mausoleums west of the mountains, Anthony Cardew found himself already wealthy. He owned oil wells andcoal mines. His mines supplied his coke ovens with coal, and his ownriver boats, as well as railroads in which he was a director, carriedhis steel. 

He labored ably and well, and not for wealth alone. He was one of agroup of big-visioned men who saw that a nation was only as great as itsindustries. It was only in his later years that he loved power forthe sake of power, and when, having outlived his generation, he haddeveloped a rigidity of mind that made him view the forced compromisesof the new regime as pusillanimous. 

He considered his son Howard's quiet strength weakness. "You have nostamina, " he would say. "You have no moral fiber. For God's sake, make astand, you fellows, and stick to it. "

He had not mellowed with age. He viewed with endless bitterness thepassing of his own day and generation, and the rise to power of youngermen; with their "shilly-shallying, " he would say. He was an aristocrat, an autocrat, and a survival. He tied Howard's hands in the management ofthe now vast mills, and then blamed him for the results. 

But he had been a great man. 

He had had two children, a boy and a girl. The girl had been the tragedyof his middle years, and Howard had been his hope. 

On the heights outside the city and overlooking the river he owned afarm, and now and then, on Sunday afternoons in the eighties, he droveout there, with Howard sitting beside him, a rangy boy in his teens, in the victoria which Anthony considered the proper vehicle forSunday afternoons. The farmhouse was in a hollow, but always on thoseexcursions Anthony, fastidiously dressed, picking his way half-irritablythrough briars and cornfields, would go to the edge of the cliffs andstand there, looking down. Below was the muddy river, sluggish always, but a thing of terror in spring freshets. And across was the east side, already a sordid place, its steel mills belching black smoke that killedthe green of the hillsides, its furnaces dwarfed by distance and height, its rows of unpainted wooden structures which housed the mill laborers. 

Howard would go with him, but Howard dreamed no dreams. He was a sturdy, dependable, unimaginative boy, watching the squirrels or flinging stonesover the palisades. Life for Howard was already a thing determined. Hewould go to college, and then he would come back and go into the milloffices. In time, he would take his father's place. He meant to do itwell and honestly. He had but to follow. Anthony had broken the trail, only by that time it was no longer a trail, but a broad and easy way. 

Only once or twice did Anthony Cardew give voice to his dreams. Once hesaid: "I'll build a house out here some of these days. Good location. Growth of the city is bound to be in this direction. "

What he did not say was that to be there, on that hill, overlooking hisactivities, his very own, the things he had builded with such labor, gave him a sense of power. "This below, " he felt, with more of pridethan arrogance, "this is mine. I have done it. I, Anthony Cardew. "

He felt, looking down, the pride of an artist in his picture, of asculptor who, secure from curious eyes, draws the sheet from the stillmoist clay of his modeling, and now from this angle, now from that, studies, criticizes, and exults. 

But Anthony Cardew never built his house on the cliff. Time was to comewhen great houses stood there, like vast forts, overlooking, almostmenacing, the valley beneath. For, until the nineties, although the citydistended in all directions, huge, ugly, powerful, infinitely rich, andwhile in the direction of Anthony's farm the growth was real and rapid, it was the plain people who lined its rapidly extending avenues withtheir two-story brick houses; little homes of infinite tendernessand quiet, along tree-lined streets, where the children played on thecobble-stones, and at night the horse cars, and later the cable system, brought home tired clerks and storekeepers to small havens, alreadygrowing dingy from the smoke of the distant mills. 

Anthony Cardew did not like the plain people. Yet in the end, it was theplain people, those who neither labored with their hands nor livedby the labor of others--it was the plain people who vanquished him. Vanquished him and tried to protect him. But could not. A smallish man, hard and wiry, he neither saved himself nor saved others. He had onefetish, power. And one pride, his line. The Cardews were iron masters. Howard would be an iron master, and Howard's son. 

But Howard never had a son. 

CHAPTER III

All through her teens Lily had wondered about the mystery concerning herAunt Elinor. There was an oil portrait of her in the library, and one ofthe first things she had been taught was not to speak of it. 

Now and then, at intervals of years, Aunt Elinor came back. Her motherand father would look worried, and Aunt Elinor herself would stay in herrooms, and seldom appeared at meals. Never at dinner. As a child Lilyused to think she had two Aunt Elinors, one the young girl in the giltframe, and the other the quiet, soft-voiced person who slipped aroundthe upper corridors like a ghost. 

But she was not to speak of either of them to her grandfather. 

Lily was not born in the house on lower East Avenue. 

In the late eighties Anthony built himself a home, not on the farm, butin a new residence portion of the city. The old common, grazing groundof family cows, dump and general eye-sore, had become a park by thattime, still only a potentially beautiful thing, with the trees that wereto be its later glory only thin young shoots, and on the streets thatfaced it the wealthy of the city built their homes, brick houses ofsquare solidity, flush with brick pavements, which were carefullyreddened on Saturday mornings. Beyond the pavements were cobble-stonedstreets. Anthony Cardew was the first man in the city to have arubber-tired carriage. The story of Anthony Cardew's new home is thestory of Elinor's tragedy. Nor did it stop there. It carried on to thethird generation, to Lily Cardew, and in the end it involved the cityitself. Because of the ruin of one small home all homes were threatened. One small house, and one undying hatred. 

Yet the matter was small in itself. An Irishman named Doyle owned thesite Anthony coveted. After years of struggle his small grocery hadbegun to put him on his feet, and now the new development of theneighborhood added to his prosperity. He was a dried-up, sentimentallittle man, with two loves, his wife's memory and his wife's garden, which he still tended religiously between customers; and one ambition, his son. With the change from common to park, and the improvement in theneighborhood, he began to flourish, and he, too, like Anthony, dreameda dream. He would make his son a gentleman, and he would get a shopassistant and a horse and wagon. Poverty was still his lot, but therewere good times coming. He saved carefully, and sent Jim Doyle away tocollege. 

He would not sell to Anthony. When he said he could not sell his wife'sgarden, Anthony's agents reported him either mad or deeply scheming. They kept after him, offering much more than the land was worth. Doylebegan by being pugnacious, but in the end he took to brooding. 

"He'll get me yet, " he would mutter, standing among the white phlox ofhis little back garden. "He'll get me. He never quits. "

Anthony Cardew waited a year. Then he had the frame building condemnedas unsafe, and Doyle gave in. Anthony built his house. He put a brickstable where the garden had been, and the night watchman for theproperty complained that a little man, with wild eyes, often spent halfthe night standing across the street, quite still, staring over. IfAnthony gave Doyle a thought, it was that progress and growth had theirinevitable victims. But on the first night of Anthony's occupancy of hisnew house Doyle shot himself beside the stable, where a few stalks ofwhite phlox had survived the building operations. 

It never reached the newspapers, nor did a stable-boy's story of hearingthe dying man curse Anthony and all his works. But nevertheless thestory of the Doyle curse on Anthony Cardew spread. Anthony heard it, andforgot it. But two days later he was dragged from his carriage by youngJim Doyle, returned for the older Doyle's funeral, and beaten insensiblewith the stick of his own carriage whip. 

Young Doyle did not run away. He stood by, a defiant figure full ofhatred, watching Anthony on the cobbles, as though he wanted to see himrevive and suffer. 

"I didn't do it to revenge my father, " he said at the trial. "He wasnothing to me--I did it to show old Cardew that he couldn't get awaywith it. I'd do it again, too. "

Any sentiment in his favor died at that, and he was given five yearsin the penitentiary. He was a demoralizing influence there, already asocialist with anarchical tendencies, and with the gift of influencingmen. A fluent, sneering youth, who lashed the guards to fury with hisunctuous, diabolical tongue. 

The penitentiary had not been moved then. It stood in the park, a grimgray thing of stone. Elinor Cardew, a lonely girl always, used to standin a window of the new house and watch the walls. Inside there were menwho were shut away from all that greenery around them. Men who couldlook up at the sky, or down at the ground, but never out and across, asshe could. 

She was always hoping some of them would get away. She hated thesentries, rifle on shoulder, who walked their monotonous beats, back andforward, along the top of the wall. 

Anthony's house was square and substantial, with high ceilings. It waspaneled with walnut and furnished in walnut, in those days. Its tablesand bureaus were of walnut, with cold white marble tops. And in theparlor was a square walnut piano, which Elinor hated because she hadto sit there three hours each day, slipping on the top of thehorsehair-covered stool, to practice. In cold weather her Germangoverness sat in the frigid room, with a shawl and mittens, waitinguntil the onyx clock on the mantel-piece showed that the three hourswere over. 

Elinor had never heard the story of old Michael Doyle, or of his sonJim. But one night--she was seventeen then, and Jim Doyle had servedthree years of his sentence--sitting at dinner with her father, shesaid:

"Some convicts escaped from the penitentiary today, father. "

"Don't believe it, " said Anthony Cardew. "Nothing about it in thenewspapers. "

"Fraulein saw the hole. "

Elinor had had an Alsatian governess. That was one reason why Elinor'sniece had a French one. 

"Hole? What do you mean by hole?"

Elinor shrank back a little. She had not minded dining with her fatherwhen Howard was at home, but Howard was at college. Howard had a wayof good-naturedly ignoring his father's asperities, but Elinor was asuppressed, shy little thing, romantic, aloof, and filled with undesiredaffections. "She said a hole, " she affirmed, diffidently. "She says theydug a tunnel and got out. Last night. "

"Very probably, " said Anthony Cardew. And he repeated, thoughtfully, "Very probably. "

He did not hear Elinor when she quietly pushed back her chair and said"good-night. " He was sitting at the table, tapping on the cloth withfinger-tips that were slightly cold. That evening Anthony Cardew hada visit from the police, and considerable fiery talk took place in hislibrary. As a result there was a shake-up in city politics, and a changein the penitentiary management, for Anthony Cardew had a heavy handand a bitter memory. And a little cloud on his horizon grew and finallysettled down over his life, turning it gray. Jim Doyle was among thosewho had escaped. For three months Anthony was followed wherever he wentby detectives, and his house was watched at night. But he was a braveman, and the espionage grew hateful. Besides, each day added to hissense of security. There came a time when he impatiently dismissed thepolice, and took up life again as before. 

Then one day he received a note, in a plain white envelope. It said:"There are worse things than death. " And it was signed: "J. Doyle. "

Doyle was not recaptured. Anthony had iron gratings put on the lowerwindows of his house after that, and he hired a special watchman. Butnothing happened, and at last he began to forget. He was building thenew furnaces up the river by that time. The era of structural steel fortall buildings was beginning, and he bought the rights of a process formaking cement out of his furnace slag. He was achieving great wealth, although he did not change his scale of living. 

Now and then Fraulein braved the terrors of the library, smallneatly-written lists in her hands. Miss Elinor needed this or that. Hewould check up the lists, sign his name to them, and Elinor and Frauleinwould have a shopping excursion. He never gave Elinor money. 

On one of the lists one day he found the word, added in Elinor's hand:"Horse. "

"Horse?" he said, scowling up at Fraulein. "There are six horses in thestable now. "

"Miss Elinor thought--a riding horse--"

"Nonsense!" Then he thought a moment. There came back to him a pictureof those English gentlewomen from among whom he had selected his wife, quiet-voiced, hard-riding, high-colored girls, who could hunt all dayand dance all night. Elinor was a pale little thing. Besides, everygentlewoman should ride. 

"She can't ride around here. "

"Miss Elinor thought--there are bridle paths near the riding academy. "

It was odd, but at that moment Anthony Cardew had an odd sort of vision. He saw the little grocer lying stark and huddled among the phlox by thestable, and the group of men that stooped over him. 

"I'll think about it, " was his answer. 

But within a few days Elinor was the owner of a quiet mare, stabled atthe academy, and was riding each day in the tan bark ring between itswhite-washed fences, while a mechanical piano gave an air of festivityto what was otherwise rather a solemn business. 

Within a week of that time the riding academy had a new instructor, atall, thin young man, looking older than he was, with heavy dark hairand a manner of repressed insolence. A man, the grooms said amongthemselves, of furious temper and cold eyes. 

And in less than four months Elinor Cardew ran away from home and wasmarried to Jim Doyle. Anthony received two letters from a distant city, a long, ecstatic but terrified one from his daughter, and one line ona slip of paper from her husband. The one line read: "I always pay mydebts. "

Anthony made a new will, leaving Howard everything, and had Elinor'srooms closed. Fraulein went away, weeping bitterly, and time went on. Now and then Anthony heard indirectly from Doyle. He taught in a boys'school for a time, and was dismissed for his radical views. He didbrilliant editorial work on a Chicago newspaper, but now and then heintruded his slant-eyed personal views, and in the end he lost hisposition. Then he joined the Socialist party, and was making speechescontaining radical statements that made the police of various citieswatchful. But he managed to keep within the letter of the law. 

Howard Cardew married when Elinor had been gone less than a year. Married the daughter of a small hotel-keeper in his college town, apretty, soft-voiced girl, intelligent and gentle, and because Howard wasall old Anthony had left, he took her into his home. But for many yearshe did not forgive her. He had one hope, that she would give Howard ason to carry on the line. Perhaps the happiest months of Grace Cardew'smarried life were those before Lily was born, when her delicate healthwas safeguarded in every way by her grim father-in-law. But Grace borea girl child, and very nearly died in the bearing. Anthony Cardew wouldnever have a grandson. 

He was deeply resentful. The proud fabric of his own weaving woulddescend in the fullness of time to a woman. And Howard himself--oldAnthony was pitilessly hard in his judgments--Howard was not a strongman. A good man. A good son, better than he deserved. But amiable, kindly, without force. 

Once the cloud had lifted, and only once. Elinor had come home to have achild. She came at night, a shabby, worn young woman, with great eyes ina chalk-white face, and Grayson had not recognized her at first. Hegot her some port from the dining-room before he let her go into thelibrary, and stood outside the door, his usually impassive face working, during the interview which followed. Probably that was Grayson's bighour, for if Anthony turned her out he intended to go in himself, andfight for the woman he had petted as a child. 

But Anthony had not turned her out. He took one comprehensive glance ather thin face and distorted figure. Then he said:

"So this is the way you come back. "

"He drove me out, " she said dully. "He sent me here. He knew I had noplace else to go. He knew you wouldn't want me. It's revenge, I suppose. I'm so tired, father. "

Yes, it was revenge, surely. To send back to him this soiled and brokenwoman, bearing the mark he had put upon her--that was deviltry, thoughtout and shrewdly executed. During the next hour Anthony Cardew suffered, and made Elinor suffer, too. But at the end of that time he foundhimself confronting a curious situation. Elinor, ashamed, humbled, wasnot contrite. It began to dawn on Anthony that Jim Doyle's revenge wasnot finished. For--Elinor loved the man. 

She both hated him and loved him. And that leering Irish devil knew it. 

He sent for Grace, finally, and Elinor was established in the house. Grace and little Lily's governess had themselves bathed her and puther to bed, and Mademoiselle had smuggled out of the house the garmentsElinor had worn into it. Grace had gone in the motor--one of the firstin the city--and had sent back all sorts of lovely garments for Elinorto wear, and quantities of fine materials to be made into tiny garments. Grace was a practical woman, and she disliked the brooding look inElinor's eyes. 

"Do you know, " she said to Howard that night, "I believe she is quitemad about him still. "

"He ought to be drawn and quartered, " said Howard, savagely. 

Anthony Cardew gave Elinor sanctuary, but he refused to see her again. Except once. 

"Then, if it is a boy, you want me to leave him with you?" she asked, bending over her sewing. 

"Leave him with me! Do you mean that you intend to go back to thatblackguard?"

"He is my husband. He isn't always cruel. "

"Good God!" shouted Anthony. "How did I ever happen to have such acraven creature for a daughter?"

"Anyhow, " said Elinor, "it will be his child, father. "

"When he turned you out, like any drab of the streets!" bellowed oldAnthony. "He never cared for you. He married you to revenge himself onme. He sent you back here for the same reason. He'll take your child, and break its spirit and ruin its body, for the same reason. The man's amaniac. "

But again, as on the night she came, he found himself helpless againstElinor's quiet impassivity. He knew that, let Jim Doyle so much as raisea beckoning finger, and she would go to him. He did not realize thatElinor had inherited from her quiet mother the dog-like quality oflove in spite of cruelty. To Howard he stormed. He considered Elinor'sinfatuation indecent. She was not a Cardew. The Cardew women had somepride. And Howard, his handsome figure draped negligently against thelibrary mantel, would puzzle over it, too. 

"I'm blessed if I understand it, " he would say. 

Elinor's child had been a boy, and old Anthony found some balm inGilead. Jim Doyle had not raised a finger to beckon, and if he knew ofhis son, he made no sign. Anthony still ignored Elinor, but he saw inher child the third generation of Cardews. Lily he had never counted. Hetook steps to give the child the Cardew name, and the fact was announcedin the newspapers. Then one day Elinor went out, and did not come back. It was something Anthony Cardew had not counted on, that a woman couldlove a man more than her child. 

"I simply had to do it, father, " she wrote. "You won't understand, ofcourse. I love him, father. Terribly. And he loves me in his way, evenwhen he is unfaithful to me. I know he has been that. Perhaps if you hadwanted me at home it would have been different. But it kills me to leavethe baby. The only reason I can bring myself to do it is that, the waythings are, I cannot give him the things he ought to have. And Jim doesnot seem to want him. He has never seen him, for one thing. Besides--Iam being honest--I don't think the atmosphere of the way we live wouldbe good for a boy. "

There was a letter to Grace, too, a wild hysterical document, filledwith instructions for the baby's care. A wet nurse, for one thing. Graceread it with tears in her eyes, but Anthony saw in it only the ravingsof a weak and unbalanced woman. 

He never forgave Elinor, and once more the little grocer's cursethwarted his ambitions. For, deprived of its mother's milk, the babydied. Old Anthony sometimes wondered if that, too, had been calculated, a part of the Doyle revenge. 

CHAPTER IV

While Grace rested that afternoon of Lily's return, Lily ranged overthe house. In twenty odd years the neighborhood had changed, and onlya handful of the old families remained. Many of the other large houseswere prostituted to base uses. Dingy curtains hung at their windows, dingy because of the smoke from the great furnaces and railroads. Theold Osgood residence, nearby, had been turned into apartments, withbottles of milk and paper bags on its fire-escapes, and a pharmacy onthe street floor. The Methodist Church, following its congregation tothe vicinity of old Anthony's farm, which was now cut up into city lots, had abandoned the building, and it had become a garage. The penitentiaryhad been moved outside the city limits, and near its old site was asmall cement-lined lake, the cheerful rendezvous in summer of bathingchildren and thirsty dogs. 

Lily was idle, for the first time in months. She wandered about, evenpenetrating to those upper rooms sacred to her grandfather, to which hehad retired on Howard's marriage. How strangely commonplace they werenow, in the full light of day, and yet, when he was in them, the doorsclosed and only Burton, his valet, in attendance, how mysterious theybecame!

Increasingly, in later years, Lily had felt and resented the dominationof the old man. She resented her father's acquiescence in thatdomination, her mother's good-humored tolerance of it. She herself hadaccepted it, although unwillingly, but she knew, rather vaguely, thatthe Lily Cardew who had gone away to the camp and the Lily Cardew whostood that day before her grandfather's throne-like chair under itslamp, were two entirely different people. 

She was uneasy rather than defiant. She meant to keep the peace. Shehad been brought up to the theory that no price was too great to pay forpeace. But she wondered, as she stood there, if that were entirely true. She remembered something Willy Cameron had said about that very thing. 

"What's wrong with your grandfather, " he had said, truculently, andwaving his pipe, "is that everybody gets down and lets him walk on them. If everybody lets a man use them as doormats, you can't blame him forwiping his feet on them. Tell him that sometime, and see what happens. "

"Tell him yourself!" said Lily. 

He had smiled cheerfully. He had an engaging sort of smile. 

"Maybe I will, " he said. "I am a rising young man, and my voice may someday be heard in the land. Sometimes I feel the elements of greatness inme, sweet child. You haven't happened to notice it yourself, have you?"

He had gazed at her with solemn anxiety through the smoke of his pipe, and had grinned when she remained silent. 

Lily drew a long breath. All that delightful fooling was over; the hardwork was over. The nights were gone when they would wander like childrenacross the parade grounds, or past the bayonet school, with its rows oftripods upholding imitation enemies made of sacks stuffed with hay, andshowing signs of mortal injury with their greasy entrails protruding. Gone, too, were the hours when Willy sank into the lowest abyss ofdepression over his failure to be a fighting man. 

"But you are doing your best for your country, " she would say. 

"I'm not fighting for it, or getting smashed up for it. I don't wantto be a hero, but I'd like to have had one good bang at them before Iquit. "

Once she had found him in the hut, with his head on a table. He said hehad a toothache. 

Well, that was all over. She was back in her grandfather's house, and--

"He'll get me too, probably, " she reflected, as she went down thestairs, "just as he's got all the others. "

Mademoiselle was in Lily's small sitting room, while Castle wasunpacking under her supervision. The sight of her uniforms made Lilysuddenly restless. 

"How you could wear these things!" cried Mademoiselle. "You, who havealways dressed like a princess!"

"I liked them, " said Lily, briefly. "Mademoiselle, what am I going to dowith myself, now?"

"Do?" Mademoiselle smiled. "Play, as you deserve, Cherie. Dance, andmeet nice young men. You are to make your debut this fall. Then a verycharming young man, and marriage. "

"Oh!" said Lily, rather blankly. "I've got to come out, have I? I'dforgotten people did such things. Please run along and do somethingelse, Castle. I'll unpack. "

"That is very bad for discipline, " Mademoiselle objected when themaid had gone. "And it is not necessary for Mr. Anthony Cardew'sgranddaughter. "

"It's awfully necessary for her, " Lily observed, cheerfully. "I've beenbuttoning my own shoes for some time, and I haven't developed a spinalcurvature yet. " She kissed Mademoiselle's perplexed face lightly. "Don'tget to worrying about me, " she added. "I'll shake down in time, and bejust as useless as ever. But I wish you'd lend me your sewing basket. "

"Why?" asked Mademoiselle, suspiciously. 

"Because I am possessed with a mad desire to sew on some buttons. "

A little later Lily looked up from her rather awkward but industriouslabors with a needle, and fixed her keen young eyes on Mademoiselle. 

"Is there any news about Aunt Elinor?" she asked. 

"She is with him, " said Mademoiselle, shortly. "They are here now, inthe city. How he dared to come back!"

"Does mother see her?"

"No. Certainly not. "

"Why 'certainly' not? He is Aunt Elinor's husband. She isn't doinganything wicked. "

"A woman who would leave a home like this, " said Mademoiselle, "and adistinguished family. Position. Wealth. For a brute who beats her. Anddesert her child also!"

"Does he really beat her? I don't quite believe that, Mademoiselle. "

"It is not a subject for a young girl. "

"Because really, " Lily went on, "there is something awfully big about awoman who will stick to one man like that. I am quite sure I would bitea man who struck me, but--suppose I loved him terribly--" her voicetrailed off. "You see, dear, I have seen a lot of brutality lately. Anarmy camp isn't a Sunday school picnic. And I like strong men, even ifthey are brutal sometimes. "

Mademoiselle carefully cut a thread. 

"This--you were speaking to Ellen of a young man. Is he a--what you termbrutal?"

Suddenly Lily laughed. 

"You poor dear!" she said. "And mother, too, of course! You're afraidI'm in love with Willy Cameron. Don't you know that if I were, I'dprobably never even mention his name?"

"But is he brutal?" persisted Mademoiselle. 

"I'll tell you about him. He is a thin, blond young man, tall and a bitlame. He has curly hair, and he puts pomade on it to take the curl out. He is frightfully sensitive about not getting in the army, and he isperfectly sweet and kind, and as brutal as a June breeze. You'd bettertell mother. And you can tell her he isn't in love with me, or I withhim. You see, I represent what he would call the monied aristocracy ofAmerica, and he has the most fearful ideas about us. "

"An anarchist, then?" asked. Mademoiselle, extremely comforted. 

"Not at all. He says he belongs to the plain people. The people inbetween. He is rather oratorical about them. He calls them the backboneof the country. "

Mademoiselle relaxed. She had been too long in old Anthony's houseto consider very seriously the plain people. Her world, like AnthonyCardew's, consisted of the financial aristocracy, which invested moneyin industries and drew out rich returns, while providing employment forthe many; and of the employees of the magnates, who had recently shownstrong tendencies toward upsetting the peace of the land, and had givenold Anthony one or two attacks of irritability when it was better to goup a rear staircase if he were coming down the main one. 

"Wait a moment, " said Lily, suddenly. "I have a picture of himsomewhere. "

She disappeared, and Mademoiselle heard her rummaging through thedrawers of her dressing table. She came back with a small photograph inher hand. 

It showed a young man, in a large apron over a Red Cross uniform, bending over a low field range with a long-handled fork in his hand. 

"Frying doughnuts, " Lily explained. "I was in this hut at first, and Imixed them and cut them, and he fried them. We made thousands of them. We used to talk about opening a shop somewhere, Cardew and Cameron. Hesaid my name would be fine for business. He'd fry them in the window, and I'd sell them. And a coffee machine--coffee and doughnuts, youknow. "

"Not--seriously?"

At the expression on Mademoiselle's face Lily laughed joyously. 

"Why not?" she demanded. "And you could be the cashier, like the ones inFrance, and sit behind a high desk and count money all day. I'd ratherdo that than come out, " she added. 

"You are going to be a good girl, Lily, aren't you?"

"If that means letting grandfather use me for a doormat, I don't know. "

"Lily!"

"He's old, and I intend to be careful. But he doesn't own me, body andsoul. And it may be hard to make him understand that. "

Many times in the next few months Mademoiselle was to remember thatconversation, and turn it over in her shrewd, troubled mind. Was thereanything she could have done, outside of warning old Anthony himself?Suppose she had gone to Mr. Howard Cardew?

"And how, " said Mademoiselle, trying to smile, "do you propose to assertthis new independence of spirit?"

"I am going to see Aunt Elinor, " observed Lily. "There, that's elevenbuttons on, and I feel I've earned my dinner. And I'm going to ask WillyCameron to come here to see me. To dinner. And as he is sure not to haveany evening clothes, for one night in their lives the Cardew men aregoing to dine in mufti. Which is military, you dear old thing, forthe everyday clothing that the plain people eat in, without apparentsuffering!"

Mademoiselle got up. She felt that Grace should be warned at once. Andthere was a look in Lily's face when she mentioned this Cameron creaturethat made Mademoiselle nervous. 

"I thought he lived in the country. "

"Then prepare yourself for a blow, " said Lily Cardew, cheerfully. "Heis here in the city, earning twenty-five dollars a week in the EaglePharmacy, and serving the plain people perfectly preposterous patentpotions--which is his own alliteration, and pretty good, I say. "

Mademoiselle went out into the hall. Over the house, always silent, there had come a death-like hush. In the lower hall the footman washanging up his master's hat and overcoat. Anthony Cardew had come homefor dinner. 

CHAPTER V

Mr. William Wallace Cameron, that evening of Lily's return, took a walk. From his boarding house near the Eagle Pharmacy to the Cardew residencewas a half-hour's walk. There were a number of things he had meant to dothat evening, with a view to improving his mind, but instead he took awalk. He had made up a schedule for those evenings when he was offduty, thinking it out very carefully on the train to the city. And theschedule ran something like this:

Monday: 8-11. Read History. Wednesday: 8-11. Read Politics andEconomics. Friday: 8-9:30. Travel. 9:30-11. French. Sunday: Hear variousprominent divines. 

He had cut down on the travel rather severely, because travel was withhim an indulgence rather than a study. The longest journey he had evertaken in his life was to Washington. That was early in the war, whenit did not seem possible that his country would not use him, a boy whocould tramp incredible miles in spite of his lameness and who couldshoot a frightened rabbit at almost any distance, by allowing for aslight deflection to the right in the barrel of his old rifle. 

But they had refused him. 

"They won't use me, mother, " he had said when he got home, home beinga small neat house on a tidy street of a little country town. "I triedevery branch, but the only training I've had--well, some smart kid saidthey weren't planning to serve soda water to the army. They didn't wantcripples, you see. "

"I wish you wouldn't, Willy. "

He had been frightfully sorry then and had comforted her at some length, but the fact remained. 

"And you the very best they've ever had for mixing prescriptions!" shehad said at last. "And a graduate in chemistry!"

"Well, " he said, "that's that, and we won't worry about it. There's morethan one way of killing a cat. "

"What do you mean, Willy? More than one way?"

There was no light of prophecy in William Wallace Cameron's gray eyes, however, when he replied: "More than one way of serving my country. Don't you worry. I'll find something. "

So he had, and he had come out of his Red Cross work in the camp withone or two things in his heart that had not been there before. One wasa knowledge of men. He could not have put into words what he felt aboutmen. It was something about the fundamental simplicity of them, for onething. You got pretty close to them at night sometimes, especially whenthe homesick ones had gone to bed, and the phonograph was playing in acorner of the long, dim room. There were some shame-faced tears hiddenunder army blankets those nights, and Willy Cameron did some blinking onhis own account. 

Then, under all the blasphemy, the talk about women, the surfacesordidness of their daily lives and thoughts, there was one instinctcommon to all, one love, one hidden purity. And the keyword to thosedepths was "home. "

"Home, " he said one day to Lily Cardew. "Mostly it's the home they'veleft, and maybe they didn't think so much of it then. But they do now. And if it isn't that, it's the home they want to have some day. " Helooked at Lily. Sometimes she smiled at things he said, and if she hadnot been grave he would not have gone on. "You know, " he continued, "there's mostly a girl some place. All this talk about the nation, now--" He settled himself on the edge of the pine table where oldAnthony Cardew's granddaughter had been figuring up her week's accounts, and lighted his pipe, "the nation's too big for us to understand. Butwhat is the nation, but a bunch of homes?"

"Willy dear, " said Lily Cardew, "did you take any money out of the cigarbox for anything this week?"

"Dollar sixty-five for lard, " replied Willy dear. "As I was saying, we've got to think of this country in terms of homes. Not palaces likeyours--"

"Good gracious!" said Lily, "I don't live in a palace. Get mypocket-book, will you? I'm out three dollars somehow, and I'd rathermake it up myself than add these figures over again. Go on and talk, Willy. I love hearing you. "

"Not palaces like yours, " repeated Mr. Cameron, "and not hovels. Butmostly self-respecting houses, the homes of the plain people. The middleclass, Miss Cardew. My class. The people who never say anything, butare squeezed between capital, represented by your grandfather, with itsparasites, represented by you, and--"

"You represent the people who never say anything, " observed the slightlyflushed parasite of capital, "about as adequately as I represent theidle rich. "

Yet not even old Anthony could have resented the actual relationshipbetween them. Lily Cardew, working alone in her hut among hundreds ofmen, was as without sex consciousness as a child. Even then her flaminginterest was in the private soldiers. The officers were able to amusethemselves; they had money and opportunity. It was the doughboys sheloved and mothered. For them she organized her little entertainments. For them she played and sang in the evenings, when the field range inthe kitchen was cold, and her blistered fingers stumbled sometimes overthe keys of the jingling camp piano. 

Gradually, out of the chaos of her early impressions, she began todivide the men in the army into three parts. There were the Americanborn; they took the war and their part in it as a job to be done, withas few words as possible. And there were the foreigners to whom Americawas a religion, a dream come true, whose flaming love for their newmother inspired them to stuttering eloquence and awkward gestures. Andthen there was a third division, small and mostly foreign born, butwith a certain percentage of native malcontents, who hated the war andsneered among themselves at the other dupes who believed that it was awar for freedom. It was a capitalists' war. They considered the state asan instrument of oppression, as a bungling interference with libertyand labor; they felt that wealth inevitably brought depravity. Theycommitted both open and overt acts against discipline, and found intheir arrest and imprisonment renewed grievances, additional oppression, tyranny. And one day a handful of them, having learned Lily's identity, came into her hut and attempted to bait her. 

"Gentlemen, " said one of them, "we have here an example of one of theidle rich, sacrificing herself to make us happy. Now, boys, be happy. Are we all happy?" He surveyed the group. "Here, you, " he addressed asullen-eyed squat Hungarian. "Smile when I tell you. You're a slave inone of old Cardew's mills, aren't you? Well, aren't you grateful to him?Here he goes and sends his granddaughter--"

Willy Cameron had entered the room with a platter of doughnuts in hishand, and stood watching, his face going pale. Quite suddenly therewas a crash, and the gang leader went down in a welter of porcelain andfried pastry. Willy Cameron was badly beaten up, in the end, and thebeaters were court-martialed. But something of Lily's fine faith inhumanity was gone. 

"But, " she said to him, visiting him one day in the base hospital, wherehe was still an aching, mass of bruises, "there must be something behindit. They didn't hate me. They only hated my--well, my family. "

"My dear child, " said Willy Cameron, feeling very old and experienced, and, it must be confessed, extremely happy, "of course there's somethingbehind it. But the most that's behind it is a lot of fellows who wantwithout working what the other fellow's worked to get. "

It was about that time that Lily was exchanged into the town near thecamp, and Willy Cameron suddenly found life a stale thing, and ashes inthe mouth. He finally decided that he had not been such a hopeless foolas to fall in love with her, but that it would be as well not to see hertoo much. 

"The thing to do, " he reasoned to himself, "is, first of all, not tosee her. Or only on Friday nights, because she likes the movies, and itwould look queer to stop. " Thus Willy Cameron speciously to himself, anddeliberately ignoring the fact that some twenty-odd officers stood readyto seize those Friday nights. "And then to work hard, so I'll sleepbetter, and not lie awake making a fool of myself. And when I get a bitof idiocy in the daytime, I'd better just walk it off. Because I've gotto live with myself a long time, probably, and I'm no love-sick Romeo. "

Which excellent practical advice had cost him considerable shoe-leatherat first. In a month or two, however, he considered himself quite cured, and pretended to himself that he was surprised to find it Friday again. But when, after retreat, the band marched back again to its quartersplaying, for instance, "There's a Long, Long Trail, " there was somethinginside him that insisted on seeing the years ahead as a long, longtrail, and that the trail did not lead to the lands of his dreams. 

He got to know that very well indeed during the winter that followed thearmistice. Because there was work to do he stayed and finished up, asdid Lily Cardew. But the hut was closed and she was working in the town, and although they kept up their Friday evenings, the old intimacy wasgone. And one night she said:

"Isn't it amazing, when you are busy, how soon Friday night comesalong?"

And on each day of the preceding week he had wakened and said tohimself: "This is Monday--"--or whatever it might be--"and in four moredays it will be Friday. "

In February he was sent home. Lily stayed on until the end of March. Hewent back to his little village of plain people, and took up life againas best he could. But sometimes it seemed to him that from behind everyfire-lit window in the evenings--he was still wearing out shoe-leather, particularly at nights--somebody with a mandolin was wailing about thelong, long trail. 

His mother watched him anxiously. He was thinner than ever, and oddlyolder, and there was a hollow look about his eyes that hurt her. 

"Why don't you bring home a bottle of tonic from the store, Willy, " shesaid, one evening when he had been feverishly running through the citynewspaper. He put the paper aside hastily. 

"Tonic!" he said. "Why, I'm all right, mother. Anyhow, I wouldn't takeany of that stuff. " He caught her eye and looked away. "It takes alittle time to get settled again, that's all, mother. "

"The Young People's Society is having an entertainment at the churchto-night, Willy. "

"Well, maybe I'll go, " he agreed to her unspoken suggestion. "If youinsist on making me a society man--"

But some time later he came downstairs with a book. 

"Thought I'd rather read, " he explained. "Got a book here on the historyof steel. Talk about romances! Let me read some of it to you. You sitthere and close your eyes and just listen to this: 'The first Cardewfurnace was built in 1868. At that time--'"

Some time later he glanced up. His mother was quietly sleeping, herhands folded in her lap. He closed the book and sat there, fightingagain his patient battle with himself. The book on his knee seemed tosymbolize the gulf between Lily Cardew and himself. But the real gulf, the unbridgeable chasm, between Lily and himself, was neither social norfinancial. 

"As if that counted, in America, " he reflected scornfully. 

No. It was not that. The war had temporarily broken down the old socialbarriers. Some of them would never be erected again, although it was thetendency of civilization for men to divide themselves, rather than tobe divided, into the high, the middle and the low. But in his generationyoung Cameron knew that there would be no uncrossable bridge between oldAnthony's granddaughter and himself, were it not for one thing. 

She did not love him. It hurt his pride to realize that she had neverthought of him in any terms but that of a pleasant comradeship. Hardlyeven as a man. Men fought, in war time. They did not fry doughnuts andwrite letters home for the illiterate. Any one of those boys in theranks was a better man than he was. All this talk about a man's soulbeing greater than his body, that was rot. A man was as good as theweakest part of him, and no more. 

His sensitive face in the lamplight was etched with lines of tragedy. He put the book on the table, and suddenly flinging his arms across it, dropped his head on them. The slight movement wakened his mother. 

"Why, Willy!" she said. 

After a moment he looked up. "I was almost asleep, " he explained, moreto protect her than himself. "I--I wish that fool Nelson kid would breakhis mandolin--or his neck, " he said irritably. He kissed her and wentupstairs. From across the quiet street there came thin, plaintive, occasionally inaccurate, the strains of the long, long trail. 

There was the blood of Covenanters in Willy Cameron's mother, a highcourage of sacrifice, and an exceedingly shrewd brain. She lay awakethat night, carefully planning, and when everything was arranged inorderly fashion in her mind, she lighted her lamp and carried it to thedoor of Willy's room. He lay diagonally across his golden-oak bed, forhe was very long, and sleep had rubbed away the tragic lines about hismouth. She closed his door and went back to her bed. 

"I've seen too much of it, " she reflected, without bitterness. Shestared around the room. "Too much of it, " she repeated. And crawledheavily back into bed, a determined little figure, rather chilled. 

The next morning she expressed a desire to spend a few months with herbrother in California. 

"I coughed all last winter, after I had the flu, " she explained, "andJames has been wanting me this long time. I don't want to leave you, that's all, Willy. If you were in the city it would be different. "

He was frankly bewildered and a little hurt, to tell the truth. He nomore suspected her of design than of crime. 

"Of course you are going, " he said, heartily. "It's the very thing. ButI like the way you desert your little son!"

"I've been thinking about that, too, " she said, pouring his coffee. "I--if you were in the city, now, there would always be something todo. "

He shot her a suspicious glance, but her face was without evidence ofguile. 

"What would I do in the city?"

"They use chemists in the mills, don't they?"

"A fat chance I'd have for that sort of job, " he scoffed. "No city forme, mother. "

But she knew. She read his hesitation accurately, the incredulous pauseof the bird whose cage door is suddenly opened. He would go. 

"I'd think about it, anyhow, Willy. "

But for a long time after he had gone she sat quietly rocking in herrocking chair in the bay window of the sitting room. It was a familiarattitude of hers, homely, middle-class, and in a way symbolic. Had oldAnthony Cardew ever visualized so imaginative a thing as a Nemesis, he would probably have summoned a vision of a huddled figure in hisstable-yard, dying, and cursing him as he died. Had Jim Doyle, cunninglyplotting the overthrow of law and order, been able in his arroganceto conceive of such a thing, it might have been Anthony Cardew hesaw. Neither of them, for a moment, dreamed of it as an elderly ScotchCovenanter, a plain little womanly figure, rocking in a cane-seatedrocking chair, and making the great sacrifice of her life. 

All of which simply explains how, on a March Wednesday evening of thegreat year of peace after much tribulation, Mr. William Wallace Cameron, now a clerk at the Eagle Pharmacy, after an hour of Politics, and noEconomics at all, happened to be taking a walk toward the Cardewhouse. Such pilgrimages has love taken for many years, small uncertainramblings where the fancy leads the feet and far outstrips them, andwhere heart-hunger hides under various flimsy pretexts; a fine night, apaper to be bought, a dog to be exercised. 

Not that Willy Cameron made any excuses to himself. He had a sort ofidea that if he saw the magnificence that housed her, it would throughher sheer remoteness kill the misery in him. But he regarded himselfwith a sort of humorous pity, and having picked up a stray dog, headdressed it now and then. 

"Even a cat can look at a king, " he said once. And again, following somevague train of thought, on a crowded street: "The People's voice isa queer thing. 'It is, and it is not, the voice of God. ' The people'svoice, old man. Only the ones that count haven't got a voice. "

There were, he felt, two Lily Cardews. One lived in an army camp, and wore plain clothes, and got a bath by means of calculation andpersistency, and went to the movies on Friday nights, and was quiteapt to eat peanuts at those times, carefully putting the shells in herpocket. 

And another one lived inside this great pile of brick, --he was standingacross from it, by the park railing, by that time--where motor cars drewup, and a footman with an umbrella against a light rain ushered to theirlimousines draped women and men in evening clothes, their strong blacksand whites revealed in the light of the street door. And this LilyCardew lived in state, bowed to by flunkeys in livery, dressed andundressed--his Scotch sense of decorum resented this--by serving women. This Lily Cardew would wear frivolous ball-gowns, such things as he sawin the shop windows, considered money only as a thing of exchange, andhad traveled all over Europe a number of times. 

He took his station against the park railings and reflected that it wasa good thing he had come, after all. Because it was the first Lily whomhe loved, and she was gone, with the camp and the rest, including war. What had he in common with those lighted windows, with their heavy lacesand draperies?

"Nothing at all, old man, " he said cheerfully to the dog, "nothing atall. "

But although the ache was gone when he turned homeward, the dog still athis heels, he felt strangely lonely without it. He considered that verydefinitely he had put love out of his life. Hereafter he would travelthe trail alone. Or accompanied only by History, Politics, Economics, and various divines on Sunday evenings. 

CHAPTER VI

"Well, grandfather, " said Lily Cardew, "the last of the Cardews is homefrom the wars. "

"So I presume, " observed old Anthony. "Owing, however, to your mother'sdetermination to shroud this room in impenetrable gloom, I can onlypresume. I cannot see you. "

His tone was less unpleasant than his words, however. He was in one ofthe rare moods of what passed with him for geniality. For one thing, hehad won at the club that afternoon, where every day from four to six heplayed bridge with his own little group, reactionaries like himself, men who viewed the difficulties of the younger employers of labor withamused contempt. For another, he and Howard had had a difference ofopinion, and he had, for a wonder, made Howard angry. 

"Well, Lily, " he inquired, "how does it seem to be at home?"

Lily eyed him almost warily. He was sometimes most dangerous in thesemoods. 

"I'm not sure, grandfather. "

"Not sure about what?"

"Well, I am glad to see everybody, of course. But what am I to do withmyself?"

"Tut. " He had an air of benignantly forgiving her. "You'll find plenty. What did you do before you went away?"

"That was different, grandfather. "

"I'm blessed, " said old Anthony, truculently, "if I understand whathas come over this country, anyhow. What is different? We've had a war. We've had other wars, and we didn't think it necessary to change theConstitution after them. But everything that was right before thiswar is wrong after it. Lot of young idiots coming back and refusing tosettle down. Set of young Bolshevists!"

He had always managed to arouse a controversial spirit in the girl. 

"Maybe, if it isn't right now, it wasn't right before. " Having said it, Lily immediately believed it. She felt suddenly fired with an intensedislike of anything that her grandfather advocated. 

"Meaning what?" He fixed her with cold but attentive eyes. 

"Oh--conditions, " she said vaguely. She was not at all sure what shemeant. And old Anthony realized it, and gave a sardonic chuckle. 

"I advise you to get a few arguments from your father, Lily. He is fullof them. If he had his way I'd have a board of my workmen running mymills, while I played golf in Florida. "

Dinner was a relatively pleasant meal. In her gradual rehabilitationof the house Grace had finally succeeded in doing over the dining room. Over the old walnut paneling she had hung loose folds of faded blueItalian velvet, with old silver candle sconces at irregular intervalsalong the walls. The great table and high-backed chairs were likewiseItalian, and the old-fashioned white marble fireplace had been given anover-mantel, also white, enclosing an old tapestry. For warmth of colorthere were always flowers, and that night there were red roses. 

Lily liked the luxury of it. She liked the immaculate dinner dress ofthe two men; she liked her mother's beautiful neck and arms; she likedthe quiet service once more; she even liked herself, moderately, in alight frock and slippers. But she watched it all with a new interest anda certain detachment. She felt strange and aloof, not entirely one ofthem. She felt very keenly that no one of them was vitally interestedin this wonder-year of hers. They asked her perfunctory questions, butGrace's watchful eyes were on the service, Anthony was engrossed withhis food, and her father--

Her father was changed. He looked older and care-worn. For the firsttime she began to wonder about her father. What was he, really, underthat calm, fastidiously dressed, handsome exterior? Did he mind thelittle man with the sardonic smile and the swift unpleasant humor, whoseglance reduced the men who served into terrified menials? Her big, blond father, with his rather slow speech, his honest eyes, his slighthesitation before he grasped some of the finer nuances of his father'swit. No, he was not brilliant, but he was real, real and kindly. Perhapshe was strong, too. He looked strong. 

With the same pitiless judgment she watched her mother. Either Gracewas very big, or very indifferent to the sting of old Anthony's tongue. Sometimes women suffered much in silence, because they loved greatly. Like Aunt Elinor. Aunt Elinor had loved her husband more than she hadloved her child. Quite calmly Lily decided that, as between her husbandand herself, her mother loved her husband. Perhaps that was as it shouldbe, but it added to her sense of aloofness. And she wondered, too, aboutthese great loves that seemed to feed on sacrifice. 

Anthony, who had a most unpleasant faculty of remembering things, suddenly bent forward and observed to her, across the table:

"I should be interested to know, since you regard present conditions aswrong, and, I inferred, wrong because of my mishandling of them, justwhat you would propose to do to right them. "

"But I didn't say they were wrong, did I?"

"Don't answer a question with a question. It's a feminine form ofevasion, because you have no answer and no remedy. Yet, heaven save thecountry, women are going to vote!" He pushed his plate away and glancedat Grace. "Is that the new chef's work?"

"Yes. Isn't it right?"

"Right? The food is impossible. "

"He came from the club. "

"Send him back, " ordered Anthony. And when Grace observed that it wasdifficult to get servants, he broke into a cold fury. What had come overthe world, anyhow? Time was when a gentleman's servants stayed withthe family until they became pensioners, and their children took theirplaces. Now--!

Grace said nothing. Her eyes sought Howard's, and seemed to find somecomfort there. And Lily, sorry for her mother, said the first thing thatcame into her head. 

"The old days of caste are gone, grandfather. And service, in your senseof the word, went with them. "

"Really?" he eyed her. "Who said that? Because I daresay it is notoriginal. "

"A man I knew at camp. "

"What man?"

"His name was Willy Cameron. "

"Willy Cameron! Was this--er--person qualified to speak? Does he knowanything about what he chooses to call caste?"

"He thinks a lot about things. "

"A little less thinking and more working wouldn't hurt the country any, "observed old Anthony. He bent forward. "As my granddaughter, and thelast of the Cardews, " he said, "I have a certain interest in the sourcesof your political opinions. They will probably, like your father's, differ from mine. You may not know that your father has not onlyopinions, but ambitions. " She saw Grace stiffen, and Howard's warningglance at her. But she saw, too, the look in her mother's eyes, infinitely loving and compassionate. "Dear little mother, " she thought, "he is her baby, really. Not I. "

She felt a vague stirring of what married love at its best must be for awoman, its strange complex of passion and maternity. She wondered ifit would ever come to her. She rather thought not. But she was alsoconscious of a new attitude among the three at the table, her mother'stense watchfulness, her father's slightly squared shoulders, and acrossfrom her her grandfather, fingering the stem of his wineglass andfaintly smiling. 

"It's time somebody went into city politics for some purpose other thangraft, " said Howard. "I am going to run for mayor, Lily. I probablywon't get it. "

"You can see, " said old Anthony, "why I am interested in your views, orperhaps I should say, in Willy Cameron's. Does your father's passion foruplift, for instance, extend to you?"

"Why won't you be elected, father?"

"Partly because my name is Cardew. "

Old Anthony chuckled. 

"What!" he exclaimed, "after the bath-house and gymnasium you have builtat the mill? And the laundries for the women--which I believe theydo not use. Surely, Howard, you would not accuse the dear people ofingratitude?"

"They are beginning to use them, sir. " Howard, in his forties, stilladdressed his father as "Sir!"

"Then you admit your defeat beforehand. "

"You are rather a formidable antagonist. "

"Antagonist!" Anthony repeated in mock protest. "I am a quiet onlookerat the game. I am amused, naturally. You must understand, " he saidto Lily, "that this is a matter of a principle with your father. Hebelieves that he should serve. My whole contention is that the peopledon't want to be served. They want to be bossed. They like it; it's allthey know. And they're suspicious of a man who puts his hand into hisown pocket instead of into theirs. "

He smiled and sipped his wine. 

"Good wine, this, " he observed. "I'm buying all I can lay my hands on, against the approaching drought. "

Lily's old distrust of her grandfather revived. Why did people sharpenlike that with age? Age should be mellow, like old wine. And--what wasshe going to do with herself? Already the atmosphere of the house beganto depress and worry her; she felt a new, almost violent impatience withit. It was so unnecessary. 

She went to the pipe organ which filled the space behind the staircase, and played a little, but she had never been very proficient, and herown awkwardness annoyed her. In the dining room she could hear the mentalking, Howard quietly, his father in short staccato barks. She leftthe organ and wandered into her mother's morning room, behind thedrawing room, where Grace sat with the coffee tray before her. 

"I'm afraid I'm going to be terribly on your hands, mother, " she said, "I don't know what to do with myself, so how can you know what to dowith me?"

"It is going to be rather stupid for you at first, of course, " Gracesaid. "Lent, and then so many of the men are not at home. Would you liketo go South?"

"Why, I've just come home!"

"We can have some luncheons, of course. Just informal ones. And therewill be small dinners. You'll have to get some clothes. I saw Suzetteyesterday. She has some adorable things. "

"I'd love them. Mother, why doesn't he want father to go into politics?"

Grace hesitated. 

"He doesn't like change, for one thing. But I don't know anything aboutpolitics. Suzette says--"

"Will he try to keep him from being elected?"

"He won't support him. Of course I hardly think he would oppose him. Ireally don't understand about those things. "

"You mean you don't understand him. Well, I do, mother. He has runeverything, including father, for so long--"

"Lily!"

"I must, mother. Why, out at the camp--" She checked herself. "All thepapers say the city is badly governed, and that he is responsible. Andnow he is going to fight his own son! The more I think about it, themore I understand about Aunt Elinor. Mother, where do they live?"

Grace looked apprehensively toward the door. "You are not allowed tovisit her. "

"You do. "

"That's different. And I only go once or twice a year. "

"Just because she married a poor man, a man whose father--"

"Not at all. That is all dead and buried. He is a very dangerous man. Heis running a Socialist newspaper, and now he is inciting the mill mento strike. He is preaching terrible things. I haven't been there formonths. "

"What do you mean by terrible things, mother?"

"Your father says it amounts to a revolution. I believe he calls it ageneral strike. I don't really know much about it. "

Lily pondered that. 

"Socialism isn't revolution, mother, is it? But even then--is all thisbecause grandfather drove his father to--"

"I wish you wouldn't, Lily. Of course it is not that. I daresay hebelieves what he preaches. He ought to be put into jail. Why the countrylets such men go around, preaching sedition, I don't understand. "

Lily remembered something else Willy Cameron had said, and promptlyrepeated it. 

"We had a muzzled press during the war, " she said, "and now we've gotfree speech. And one's as bad as the other. She must love him terribly, mother, " she added. 

But Grace harked back to Suzette, and the last of the Cardews harkedwith her. Later on people dropped in, and Lily made a real attempt toget back into her old groove, but that night, when she went upstairsto her bedroom, with its bright fire, its bed neatly turned down, herdressing gown and slippers laid out, the shaded lamps shining on thegold and ivory of her dressing table, she was conscious of a suddenhomesickness. Homesickness for her bare little room in the campbarracks, for other young lives, noisy, chattering, often rather silly, occasionally unpleasant, but young. Radiantly, vitally young. The greathouse, with its stillness and decorum, oppressed her. There was no youthin it, save hers. 

She went to her window and looked out. Years ago, like Elinor, she hadwatched the penitentiary walls from that window, with their endlesslypacing sentries, and had grieved for those men who might look up at thesky, or down at the earth, but never out and across, to see thespring trees, for instance, or the children playing on the grass. She remembered the story about Jim Doyle's escape, too. He had duga perilous way to freedom. Vaguely she wondered if he were not againdigging a perilous way to freedom. 

Men seemed always to be wanting freedom, only they had so many differentideas of what freedom was. At the camp it had meant breaking bounds, balking the Military Police, doing forbidden things generally. Was that, after all, what freedom meant, to do the forbidden thing? Those peoplein Russia, for instance, who stole and burned and appropriated women, in the name of freedom. Were law and order, then, irreconcilable withfreedom?

After she had undressed she rang her bell, and Castle answered it. 

"Please find out if Ellen has gone to bed, " she said. "If she has not, Iwould like to talk to her. "

The maid looked slightly surprised. 

"If it's your hair, Miss Lily, Mrs. Cardew has asked me to look afteryou until she has engaged a maid for you. "

"Not my hair, " said Lily, cheerfully. "I rather like doing it myself. Ijust want to talk to Ellen. "

It was a bewildered and rather scandalized Castle who conveyed themessage to Ellen. 

CHAPTER VII

"I wish you'd stop whistling that thing, " said Miss Boyd, irritably. "Itmakes me low in my mind. "

"Sorry, " said Willy Cameron. "I do it because I'm low in my mind. "

"What are you low about?" Miss Boyd had turned toward the rear of thecounter, where a mirror was pasted to a card above a box of chewing gum, and was carefully adjusting her hair net. "Lady friend turned you down?"

Willy Cameron glanced at her. 

"I'm low because I haven't got a lady friend, Miss Boyd. " He held upa sheet of prescription paper and squinted at it. "Also becausethe medical profession writes with its feet, apparently. I've doneeverything to this but dip it in acid. I've had it pinned to the wall, and tried glancing at it as I went past. Sometimes you can surprise themthat way. But it does no good. I'm going to take it home and dream onit, like bride's cake. "

"They're awful, aren't they?"

"When I get into the Legislature, " said Willy Cameron, "I'm going tohave a bill passed compelling doctors to use typewriters. Take this now. Read upside down, its horse liniment. Read right side up, it's poison. And it's for internal use. "

"What d'you mean you haven't got a lady friend?"

"The exact and cruel truth. " He smiled at her, and had Miss Boyd beenmore discerning she might have seen that the smile was slightly forced. Also that his eyes were somewhat sunken in his head. Which might, ofcourse, have been due to too much political economy and history, andthe eminent divines on Sunday evenings. Miss Boyd, however, was notdiscerning, and moreover, she was summoning her courage to a certainpoint. 

"Why don't you ask me to go to the movies some night?" she said. "I likethe movies, and I get sick of going alone. "

"My dear child, " observed Willy Cameron, "if that young man in the sacksuit who comes in to see you every day were three inches shorter andtwenty pounds lighter, I'd ask you this minute. "

"Oh, him!" said Miss Boyd, with a self-conscious smile. "I'm throughwith him. He's a Bolshevik!"

"He has the Bolshevist possessive eye, " agreed Willy Cameron, readily. "Does he know you are through with him? Because that's important, too. You may know it, and I may know it, but if he doesn't know it--"

"Why don't you say right out you don't want to take me?" Willy Cameron'schivalrous soul was suddenly shocked. To his horror he saw tears in MissBoyd's eyes. 

"I'm just a plain idiot, Miss Edith, " he said. "I was only fooling. Itwill mean a lot to me to have a nice girl go with me to the movies, oranywhere else. We'll make it to-night, if that suits you, and I'll takea look through the neighborhood at noon and see what's worth while. "

The Eagle Pharmacy was a small one in a quiet neighborhood. During theentire day, and for three evenings a week, Mr. William Wallace Cameronran it almost single-handed, having only the preoccupied assistance ofMiss Boyd in the candy and fancy goods. At the noon and dinner hours, and four evenings a week, he was relieved by the owner, Mr. Davis, atired little man with large projecting ears and worried, child-likeeyes, who was nursing an invalid wife at home. A pathetic little man, carrying home with unbounded faith day after day bottles of liquid foodsand beef capsules, and making wistful comments on them when he returned. 

"She couldn't seem to keep that last stuff down, Mr. Cameron, " he wouldsay. "I'll try something else. "

And he would stand before his shelves, eyes upturned, searching, eliminating, choosing. 

Miss Boyd attended to the general merchandise, sold stationery andperfumes, candy and fancy soaps, and in the intervals surveyed the worldthat lay beyond the plate glass windows with shrewd, sophisticated youngeyes. 

"That new doctor across the street is getting busier, " she would say. Or, "The people in 42 have got a Ford. They haven't got room for agarage, either. Probably have to leave it out at nights. "

Her sophistication was kindly in the main. She combined it with an easytolerance of weakness, and an invincible and cheery romanticism, asWilly Cameron discovered the night they first went to a moving picturetheater together. She frankly wept and joyously laughed, and now andthen, delighted at catching some film subtlety and fearful that he wouldmiss it, she would nudge him with her elbow. 

"What d'you think of that?" she would say. "D'you get it? He thinks he'sgetting her--Alice Joyce, you know--on the telephone, and it's a privatewire to the gang. " She was rather quiet after that particular speech. Then she added: "I know a place that's got a secret telephone. " But hewas absorbed in the picture, and made no comment on that. She seemedrather relieved. 

Once or twice she placed an excited hand on his knee. He was veryuncomfortable until she removed it, because he had a helpless sort ofimpression that she was not quite so unconscious of it as she appeared. Time had been, and not so long ago, when he might have reciprocated herlittle advance in the spirit in which it was offered, might have takenthe hand and held it, out of the sheer joy of youth and proximity. Butthere was nothing of the philanderer in the Willy Cameron who sat besideEdith Boyd that night in body, while in spirit he was in another state, walking with his slight limp over crisp snow and sodden mud, but throughmagic lands, to the little moving picture theater at the camp. 

Would he ever see her again? Ever again? And if he did, what good wouldit be? He roused himself when they started toward her home. The girl waschattering happily. She adored Douglas Fairbanks. She knew a girl whohad written for his picture but who didn't get one. She wouldn't doa thing like that. "Did they really say things when they moved theirlips?"

"I think they do, " said Willy Cameron. "When that chap was talking overthe telephone I could tell what he was saying by--Look here, what didyou mean when you said you knew of a place that has a secret telephone?"

"I was only talking. "

"No house has any business with a secret telephone, " he said virtuously. 

"Oh, forget it. I say a lot of things I don't mean. " He was a littlepuzzled and rather curious, but not at all disturbed. 

"Well, how did you get to know about it?"

"I tell you I was only talking. "

He let it drop at that. The street crowds held and interested him. Heliked to speculate about them; what life meant to them, in work and loveand play; to what they were going on such hurrying feet. A country boy, the haste of the city impressed him. 

"Why do they hurry so?" he demanded, almost irritably. 

"Hurrying home, most of them, because they've got to get up in themorning and go to work. "

"Do you ever wonder about the homes they are hurrying to?"

"Me? I don't wonder. I know. Most of them have to move fast to keep upwith the rent. "

"I don't mean houses, " he explained, patiently. "I mean--A house isn't ahome. "

"You bet it isn't. "

"It's the families I'm talking about. In a small town you know all aboutpeople, who they live with, and all that. " He was laboriously talkingdown to her. "But here--"

He saw that she was not interested. Something he had said started anunpleasant train of thought in her mind. She was walking faster, andfrowning slightly. To cheer her he said:

"I am keeping an eye out for the large young man in the sack suit, youknow. If he jumps me, just yell for the police, will you? Because I'llprobably not be able to. "

"I wish you'd let me forget him. "

"I will. The question is, will he?" But he saw that the subject wasunpleasant. 

"We'll have to do this again. It's been mighty nice of you to come. "

"You'll have to ask me, the next time. "

"I certainly will. But I think I'd better let your family look me overfirst, just so they'll know that I don't customarily steal the silverspoons when I'm asked out to dinner. Or anything like that. "

"We're just--folks. "

"So am I, awfully--folks! And pretty lonely folks at that. Somethinglike that pup that has adopted me, only worse. He's got me, but Ihaven't anybody. "

"You'll not be lonely long. " She glanced up at him. 

"That's cheering. Why?"

"Well, you are the sort that makes friends, " she said, rathervaguely. "That crowd that drops into the shop on the evenings you'rethere--they're crazy about you. They like to hear you talk. "

"Great Scott! I suppose I've been orating all over the place!"

"No, but you've got ideas. You give them something to think about whenthey go home. I wish I had a mind like yours. "

He was so astonished that he stopped dead on the pavement. "My Scottishblood, " he said despondently. "A Scot is always a reformer and apreacher, in his heart. I used to orate to my mother, but she likedit. She is a Scot, too. Besides, it put her to sleep. But I thought I'doutgrown it. "

"You don't make speeches. I didn't mean that. "

But he was very crestfallen during the remainder of the way, and rathersilent. He wondered, that night before he went to bed, if he had beendidactic to Lily Cardew. He had aired his opinions to her at length, heknew. He groaned as he took off his coat in his cold little room at theboarding house which lodged and fed him, both indifferently, for the sumof twelve dollars per week. 

Jinx, the little hybrid dog, occupied the seat of his one comfortablechair. He eyed the animal somberly. 

"Hereafter, old man, " he said, "when I feel a spell of oratory comingon, you will have to be the audience. " He took his dressing gown froma nail behind the door, and commenced to put it on. Then he took it offagain and wrapped the dog in it. 

"I can read in bed, which you can't, " he observed. "Only, I can't helpthinking, with all this town to pick from, you might have chosen afellow with two dressing gowns and two chairs. "

 * * * * *

He was extremely quiet all the next day. Miss Boyd could hear him, behind the partition with its "Please Keep Out" sign, fussing withbottles and occasionally whistling to himself. Once it was the "Long, Long Trail, " and a moment later he appeared in his doorway, grinning. 

"Sorry, " he said. "I've got in the habit of thinking to the fool thing. Won't do it again. "

"You must be thinking hard. "

"I am, " he replied, grimly, and disappeared. She could hear the slightunevenness of his steps as he moved about, but there was no morewhistling. Edith Boyd leaned both elbows on the top of a showcase andfell into a profound and troubled thought. Mostly her thoughts were ofWilly Cameron, but some of them were for herself. Up dreary and sordidby-paths her mind wandered; she was facing ugly facts for the firsttime, and a little shudder of disgust shook her. He wanted to meet herfamily. He was a gentleman and he wanted to meet her family. Well, hecould meet them all right, and maybe he would understand then that shehad never had a chance. In all her young life no man had ever proposedletting her family look him over. Hardly ever had they visited her athome, and when they did they seemed always glad to get away. She had metthem on street corners, and slipped back alone, fearful of every creakof the old staircase, and her mother's querulous voice calling to her:

"Edie, where've you been all this time?" And she had lied. How she hadlied!

"I'm through with all that, " she resolved. "It wasn't any fun anyhow. I'm sick of hating myself. "

Some time later Willy Cameron heard the telephone ring, and takingpad and pencil started forward. But Miss Boyd was at the telephone, conducting a personal conversation. 

"No. .. . No, I think not. .. . Look here, Lou, I've said no twice. "

There was a rather lengthy silence while she listened. Then: "You mightas well have it straight, Lou. I'm through. .. . No, I'm not sick. I'mjust through. .. . I wouldn't. .. . What's the use?"

Willy Cameron, retreating into his lair, was unhappily conscious thatthe girl was on the verge of tears. He puzzled over the situation forsome time. His immediate instinct was to help any troubled creature, and it had dawned on him that this composed young lady who manicured hernails out of a pasteboard box during the slack portion of every day wastroubled. In his abstraction he commenced again his melancholy refrain, and a moment later she appeared in the doorway:

"Oh, for mercy's sake, stop, " she said. She was very pale. 

"Look here, Miss Edith, you come in here and tell me what's wrong. Here's a chair. Now sit down and talk it out. It helps a lot to getthings off your chest. "

"There's nothing the matter with me. And if the boss comes in here andfinds me--"

Quite suddenly she put her head down on the back of the chair and beganto cry. He was frightfully distressed. He poured some aromatic ammoniainto a medicine glass and picking up her limp hand, closed her fingersaround it. 

"Drink that, " he ordered. 

She shook her head. 

"I'm not sick, " she said. "I'm only a fool. "

"If that fellow said anything over the telephone--!"

She looked up drearily. 

"It wasn't him. He doesn't matter. It's just--I got to hating myself. "She stood up and carefully dabbed her eyes. "Heavens, I must be a sight. Now don't you get to thinking things, Mr. Cameron. Girls can't go outand fight off a temper, or get full and sleep it off. So they cry. "

Some time later he glanced out at her. She was standing before thelittle mirror above the chewing gum, carefully rubbing her cheeks with asmall red pad. After that she reached into the show case, got out a lippencil and touched her lips. 

"You're pretty enough without all that, Miss Edith. "

"You mind your own business, " she retorted acidly. 

CHAPTER VIII

Lily had known Alston Denslow most of her life. The children of thatgroup of families which formed the monied aristocracy of the cityknew only their own small circle. They met at dancing classes, wheregovernesses and occasionally mothers sat around the walls, while thelittle girls, in handmade white frocks of exquisite simplicity, theirshining hair drawn back and held by ribbon bows, made their prim littledip at the door before entering, and the boys, in white Eton collars andgleaming pumps, bowed from the waist and then dived for the masculinecorner of the long room. 

No little girl ever intruded on that corner, although now and then abrave spirit among the boys would wander, with assumed unconsciousnessbut ears rather pink, to the opposite corner where the little girls weregrouped like white butterflies milling in the sun. 

The pianist struck a chord, and the children lined up, the girls on oneside, the boys on the other, a long line, with Mrs. Van Buren in thecenter. Another chord, rather a long one. Mrs. Van Buren curtsied tothe girls. The line dipped, wavered, recovered itself. Mrs. Van Burenturned. Another chord. The boys bent, rather too much, from the waist, while Mrs. Van Buren swept another deep curtsey. The music now, verydefinite as to time. Glide and short step to the right. Glide and shortstep to the left. Dancing school had commenced. Outside were long linesof motors waiting. The governesses chatted, and sometimes embroidered. Mademoiselle tatted. 

Alton Denslow was generally known as Pink, but the origin of the namewas shrouded in mystery. As "Pink" he had learned to waltz at thedancing class, at a time when he was more attentive to the step than tothe music that accompanied it. As Pink Denslow he had played on a scrubteam at Harvard, and got two broken ribs for his trouble, and as Pinkhe now paid intermittent visits to the Denslow Bank, between the huntingseason in October and polo at eastern fields and in California. Attwenty-three he was still the boy of the dancing class, very careful atparties to ask his hostess to dance, and not noticeably upset when shedid, having arranged to be cut in on at the end of the second round. 

Pink could not remember when he had not been in love with Lily Cardew. There had been other girls, of course, times when Lily seemed far awayfrom Cambridge, and some other fair charmer was near. But he had alwaysknown there was only Lily. Once or twice he would have becomeengaged, had it not been for that. He was a blond boy, squarely built, good-looking without being handsome, and on rainy Sundays when therewas no golf he went quite cheerfully to St. Peter's with his mother, andwatched a pretty girl in the choir. 

He wished at those times that he could sing. 

A pleasant cumberer of the earth, he had wrapped his talents in a napkinand buried them by the wayside, and promptly forgotten where they were. He was to find them later on, however, not particularly rusty, and heincreased them rather considerably before he got through. 

It was this pleasant cumberer of the earth, then, who on the morningafter Lily's return, stopped his car before the Cardew house and gotout. Immediately following his descent he turned, took a square whitebox from the car, ascended the steps, settled his neck in his collar andhis tie around it, and rang the bell. 

The second man, hastily buttoned into his coat and with a faint odorof silver polish about him, opened the door. Pink gave him his hat, butretained the box firmly. 

"Mrs. Cardew and Miss Cardew at home?" he asked. "Yes? Then you mighttell Grayson I'm here to luncheon--unless the family is lunching out. "

"Yes, sir, " said the footman. "No, sir, they are lunching at home. "

Pink sauntered into the library. He was not so easy as his mannerindicated. One never knew about Lily. Sometimes she was in a mood whenshe seemed to think a man funny, and not to be taken seriously. Andwhen she was serious, which was the way he liked her--he rather lackedhumor--she was never serious about him or herself. It had been religiononce, he remembered. She had wanted to know if he believed in thethirty-nine articles, and because he had seen them in the back ofthe prayer-book, where they certainly would not be if there was notauthority for them, he had said he did. 

"Well, I don't, " said Lily. And there had been rather a bad half-hour, because he had felt that he had to stick to his thirty-nine guns, whatever they were. He had finished on a rather desperate note ofappeal. 

"See here, Lily, " he had said. "Why do you bother your head about suchthings, anyhow?"

"Because I've got a head, and I want to use it. "

"Life's too short. "

"Eternity's pretty long. Do you believe in eternity?" And there theywere, off again, and of course old Anthony had come in after that, andhad wanted to know about his Aunt Marcia, and otherwise had shown everyindication of taking root on the hearth rug. 

Pink was afraid of Anthony. He felt like a stammering fool when Anthonywas around. That was why he had invited himself to luncheon. Old Anthonylunched at his club. 

When he heard Lily coming down the stairs, Pink's honest heart beatsomewhat faster. A good many times in France, but particularly on theship coming back, he had thought about this meeting. In France a fellowhad a lot of distractions, and Lily had seemed as dear as ever, butextremely remote. But once turned toward home, and she had filledthe entire western horizon. The other men had seen sunsets there, andsometimes a ship, or a school of porpoises. But Pink had seen only Lily. 

She came in. The dear old girl! The beautiful, wonderful, dear old girl!The--

"Pink!"

"H--hello, Lily. "

"Why, Pink--you're a man!"

"What'd you think I'd be? A girl?"

"You've grown. "

"Oh, now see here, Lily. I quit growing years ago. "

"And to think you are back all right. I was so worried, Pink. "

He flushed at that. 

"Needn't have worried, " he said, rather thickly. "Didn't get to thefront until just before the end. My show was made a labor division inthe south of France. If you laugh, I'll take my flowers and go home. "

"Why, Pink dear, I wouldn't laugh for anything. And it was the manbehind the lines who--"

"Won the war, " he finished for her, rather grimly. "All right, Lily. We've heard it before. Anyhow, it's all done and over, and--I broughtgardenias and violets. You used to like 'em. "

"It was dear of you to remember. "

"Couldn't help remembering. No credit to me. I--you were always in mymind. "

She was busily unwrapping the box. 

"Always, " he repeated, unsteadily. 

"What gorgeous things!" she buried her face in them. 

"Did you hear what I said, Lily?"

"Yes, and it's sweet of you. Now sit down and tell me about things. I'vegot a lot to tell you, too. "

He had a sort of quiet obstinacy, however, and he did not sit down. Whenshe had done so he stood in front of her, looking down at her. 

"You've been in a camp. I know that. I heard it over there. AnneDevereaux wrote me. It worried me because--we had girls in the campsover there, and every one of them had a string of suitors a mile long. "

"Well, I didn't, " said Lily, spiritedly. Then she laughed. He had beenafraid she would laugh. "Oh, Pink, how dear and funny and masculine youare! I have a perfectly uncontrollable desire to kiss you. "

Which she did, to his amazement and consternation. Nothing she couldhave done would more effectually have shown him the hopelessness of hissituation than that sisterly impulse. 

"Good Lord, " he gasped, "Grayson's in the hall. "

"If he comes in I shall probably do it again. Pink, you darling child, you are still the little boy at Mrs. Van Buren's and if you would onlypurse your lips and count one--two--three--Are you staying to luncheon?"

He was suffering terribly. Also he felt strangely empty inside, becausesomething that he had carried around with him for a long time seemed tohave suddenly moved out and left a vacancy. 

"Thanks. I think not, Lily; I've got a lot to do to-day. "

She sat very still. She had had to do it, had had to show him, somehow, that she loved him without loving him as he wanted her to. She had actedon impulse, on an impulse born of intention, but she had hurt him. Itwas in every line of his rigid body and set face. 

"You're not angry, Pink dear?"

"There's nothing to be angry about, " he said, stolidly. "Things havebeen going on, with me, and staying where they've always been, withyou. That's all. I'm not very keen, you know, and I used to think--Yourpeople like me. I mean, they wouldn't--"

"Everybody likes you, Pink. "

"Well, I'll trot along. " He moved a step, hesitated. "Is there anybodyelse, Lily?"

"Nobody. "

"You won't mind if I hang around a bit, then? You can always send me offwhen you are sick of me. Which you couldn't if you were fool enough tomarry me. "

"Whoever does marry you, dear, will be a lucky woman. "

In the end he stayed to luncheon, and managed to eat a very fair one. But he had little lapses into silence, and Grace Cardew drew her ownshrewd conclusions. 

"He's such a nice boy, Lily, " she said, after he had gone. "And yourgrandfather would like it. In a way I think he expects it. "

"I'm not going to marry to please him, mother. "

"But you are fond of Alston. "

"I want to marry a man, mother. Pink is a boy. He will always be a boy. He doesn't think; he just feels. He is fine and loyal and honest, but Iwould loathe him in a month. "

"I wish, " said Grace Cardew unhappily, "I wish you had never gone tothat camp. "

All afternoon Lily and Grace shopped. Lily was fitted into shiningevening gowns, into bright little afternoon frocks, into Paris wraps. The Cardew name was whispered through the shops, and great piles ofexotic things were brought in for Grace's critical eye. Lily's ownattitude was joyously carefree. Long lines of models walked by, drapedin furs, in satins and velvet and chiffon, tall girls, most of them, with hair carefully dressed, faces delicately tinted and that curiousforward thrust at the waist and slight advancement of one shoulder thatgave them an air of languorous indifference. 

"The only way I could get that twist, " Lily confided to her mother, "would be to stand that way and be done up in plaster of paris. It isthe most abandoned thing I ever saw. "

Grace was shocked, and said so. 

Sometimes, during the few hours since her arrival, Lily had wondered ifher year's experiences had coarsened her. There were so many times whenher mother raised her eyebrows. She knew that she had changed, that thegranddaughter of old Anthony Cardew who had come back from the war wasnot the girl who had gone away. She had gone away amazingly ignorant;what little she had known of life she had learned away at school. Buteven there she had not realized the possibility of wickedness and vicein the world. One of the girls had run away with a music master whowas married, and her name was forbidden to be mentioned. That waswickedness, like blasphemy, and a crime against the Holy Ghost. 

She had never heard of prostitution. Near the camp there was a districtwith a bad name, and the girls of her organization were forbidden to somuch as walk in that direction. It took her a long time to understand, and she suffered horribly when she did. There were depths of wickedness, then, and of abasement like that in the world. It was a bad world, acruel, sordid world. She did not want to live in it. 

She had had to reorganize all her ideas of life after that. At first shewas flamingly indignant. God had made His world clean and beautiful, andcovered it with flowers and trees that grew, cleanly begotten, from theearth. Why had He not stopped there? Why had He soiled it with passionand lust?

It was a little Red Cross nurse who helped her, finally. 

"Very well, " she said. "I see what you mean. But trees and flowers arenot God's most beautiful gift to the world. "

"I think they are. "

"No. It is love. "

"I am not talking about love, " said Lily, flushing. 

"Oh, yes, you are. You have never loved, have you? You are talking ofone of the many things that go to make up love, and out of that onephase of love comes the most wonderful thing in the world. He gives usthe child. "

And again:

"All bodies are not whole, and not all souls. It is wrong to judge lifeby its exceptions, or love by its perversions, Lily. "

It had been the little nurse finally who cured her, for she securedLily's removal to that shady house on a by-street, where the tragediesof unwise love and youth sought sanctuary. There were prayers there, morning and evening. They knelt, those girls, in front of their littlewooden chairs, and by far the great majority of them quite simply laidtheir burdens before God, and with an equal simplicity, felt that Hewould help them out. 

"We have erred, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We havefollowed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We haveoffended against Thy holy laws. .. . Restore Thou those who are penitent, according to Thy promises. .. . And grant, Oh most merciful Father, thatwe may hereafter live a godly, righteous and sober life. "

After a time Lily learned something that helped her. The soul wasgreater and stronger than the body and than the mind. The body failed. It sinned, but that did not touch the unassailable purity and simplicityof the soul. The soul, which lived on, was always clean. For that reasonthere was no hell. 

Lily rose and buttoned her coat. Grace was fastening her sables, andmaking a delayed decision in satins. 

"Mother, I've been thinking it over. I am going to see Aunt Elinor. "

Grace waited until the saleswoman had moved away. 

"I don't like it, Lily. "

"I was thinking, while we were ordering all that stuff. She is a Cardew, mother. She ought to be having that sort of thing. And just becausegrandfather hates her husband, she hasn't anything. "

"That is rather silly, dear. They are not in want. I believe he is quiteflourishing. "

"She is father's sister. And she is a good woman. We treat her like aleper. "

Grace was weakening. "If you take the car, your grandfather may hear ofit. "

"I'll take a taxi. "

Grace followed her with uneasy eyes. For years she paid a price forpeace, and not a small price. She had placed her pride on the domesticaltar, and had counted it a worthy sacrifice for Howard's sake. And shehad succeeded. She knew Anthony Cardew had never forgiven her and wouldnever like her, but he gave her, now and then, the tribute of a grudgingadmiration. 

And now Lily had come home, a new and different Lily, with her father'slovableness and his father's obstinacy. Already Grace saw in the girlthe beginning of a passionate protest against things as they were. Perhaps, had Grace given to Lily the great love of her life, instead ofto Howard, she might have understood her less clearly. As it was, sheshivered slightly as she got into the limousine. 

CHAPTER IX

Lily Cardew inspected curiously the east side neighborhood through whichthe taxi was passing. She knew vaguely that she was in the vicinity ofone of the Cardew mills, but she had never visited any of the Cardewplants. She had never been permitted to do so. Perhaps the neighborhoodwould have impressed her more had she not seen, in the camp, that lifecan be stripped sometimes to its essentials, and still have lost verylittle. But the dinginess depressed her. Smoke was in the atmosphere, like a heavy fog. Soot lay on the window-sills, and mingled with streetdust to form little black whirlpools in the wind. Even the white riversteamers, guiding their heavy laden coal barges with the current, weregray with soft coal smoke. The foam of the river falling in brokencataracts from their stern wheels was oddly white in contrast. 

Everywhere she began to see her own name. "Cardew" was on the ore hoppercars that were moving slowly along a railroad spur. One of the steamersbore "Anthony Cardew" in tall black letters on its side. There was anarrow street called "Cardew Way. "

Aunt Elinor lived on Cardew Way. She wondered if Aunt Elinor found thatcurious, as she did. Did she resent these ever-present reminders of herlost family? Did she have any bitterness because the very grayness ofher skies was making her hard old father richer and more powerful?

Yet there was comfort, stability and a certain dignity about AuntElinor's house when she reached it. It stood in the district, but notof it, withdrawn from the street in a small open space which gaveindication of being a flower garden in summer. There were two largegaunt trees on either side of a brick walk, and that walk had been sweptto the last degree of neatness. The steps were freshly scoured, and asmall brass door-plate, like a doctor's sign, was as bright as rubbingcould make it. "James Doyle, " she read. 

Suddenly she was glad she had come. The little brick house lookedanything but tragic, with its shining windows, its white curtainsand its evenly drawn shades. Through the windows on the right came aflickering light, warm and rosy. There must be a coal fire there. Sheloved a coal fire. 

She had braced herself to meet Aunt Elinor at the door, but an elderlywoman opened it. 

"Mrs. Doyle is in, " she said; "just step inside. "

She did not ask Lily's name, but left her in the dark little hall andcreaked up the stairs. Lily hesitated. Then, feeling that Aunt Elinormight not like to find her so unceremoniously received, she pushed opena door which was only partly closed, and made a step into the room. Onlythen did she see that it was occupied. A man sat by the fire, reading. He was holding his book low, to get the light from the fire, and heturned slowly to glance at Lily. He had clearly expected some one else. Elinor, probably. 

"I beg your pardon, " Lily said. "I am calling on Mrs. Doyle, and when Isaw the firelight--"

He stood up then, a tall, thin man, with close-cropped gray mustache andheavy gray hair above a high, bulging forehead. She had never seen JimDoyle, but Mademoiselle had once said that he had pointed ears, like asatyr. She had immediately recanted, on finding Lily searching in a bookfor a picture of a satyr. This man had ears pointed at the top. Lily wastoo startled then to analyze his face, but later on she was to knowwell the high, intellectual forehead, the keen sunken eyes, the fullbut firmly held mouth and pointed, satyr-like ears of that brilliantIrishman, cynic and arch scoundrel, Jim Doyle. 

He was inspecting her intently. 

"Please come in, " he said. "Did the maid take your name?"

"No. I am Lily Cardew. "

"I see. " He stood quite still, eyeing her. "You are Anthony'sgranddaughter?"

"Yes. "

"Just a moment. " He went out, closing the door behind him, and sheheard him going quickly up the stairs. A door closed above, and a weightsettled down on the girl's heart. He was not going to let her see AuntElinor. She was frightened, but she was angry, too. She would not runaway. She would wait until he came down, and if he was insolent, well, she could be haughty. She moved to the fire and stood there, slightlyflushed, but very straight. 

She heard him coming down again almost immediately. He was outside thedoor. But he did not come in at once. She had a sudden impression thathe was standing there, his hand on the knob, outlining what he meantto say to her when he showed the door to a hated Cardew. Afterwards shecame to know how right that impression was. He was never spontaneous. Hewas a man who debated everything, calculated everything beforehand. 

When he came in it was slowly, and with his head bent, as though hestill debated within himself. Then:

"I think I have a right to ask what Anthony Cardew's granddaughter isdoing in my house. "

"Your wife's niece has come to call on her, Mr. Doyle. "

"Are you quite sure that is all?"

"I assure you that is all, " Lily said haughtily. "It had not occurred tome that you would be here. "

"I dare say. Still, strangely enough, I do spend a certain amount oftime in my home. "

Lily picked up her muff. 

"If you have forbidden her to come down, I shall go. "

"Wait, " he said slowly. "I haven't forbidden her to see you. I asked herto wait. I wanted a few moments. You see, it is not often that I have aCardew in my house, and I am a selfish man. "

She hated him. She loathed his cold eyes, his long, slim white hands. She hated him until he fascinated her. 

"Sit down, and I will call Mrs. Doyle. "

He went out again, but this time it was the elderly maid who went up thestairs. Doyle himself came back, and stood before her on the hearth rug. He was slightly smiling, and the look of uncertainty was gone. 

"Now that you've seen me, I'm not absolutely poisonous, am I, Miss Lily?You don't mind my calling you that, do you? You are my niece. You havebeen taught to hate me, of course. "

"Yes, " said Lily, coldly. 

"By Jove, the truth from a Cardew!" Then: "That's an old habit of mine, damning the Cardews. I'll have to try to get over it, if they are goingto reestablish family relations. " He was laughing at her, Lily knew, andshe flushed somewhat. 

"I wouldn't make too great an effort, then, " she said. 

He smiled again, this time not unpleasantly, and suddenly he threw intohis rich Irish voice an unexpected softness. No one knew better than JimDoyle the uses of the human voice. 

"You mustn't mind me, Miss Lily. I have no reason to love your family, but I am very happy that you came here to-day. My wife has missed herpeople. If you'll run in like this now and then it will do her worlds ofgood. And if my being here is going to keep you away I can clear out. "

She rather liked him for that speech. He was totally unlike what she hadbeen led to expect, and she felt a sort of resentment toward her familyfor misleading her. He was a gentleman, on the surface at least. Hehad not been over-cordial at first, but then who could have expectedcordiality under the circumstances? In Lily's defense it should be saidthat the vicissitudes of Elinor's life with Doyle had been kept from heralways. She had but two facts to go on: he had beaten her grandfather asa young man, for a cause, and he held views as to labor which conflictedwith those of her family. 

Months later, when she learned all the truth, it was too late. 

"Of course you're being here won't keep me away, if you care to have mecome. "

He was all dignity and charm then. They needed youth in that quietplace. They ought all to be able to forget the past, which was donewith, anyhow. He showed the first genuine interest she had found in herwork at the camp, and before his unexpected geniality the girl openedlike a flower. 

And all the time he was watching her with calculating eyes. He was agambler with life, and he rather suspected that he had just drawn avaluable card. 

"Thank you, " he said gravely, when she had finished. "You have done alot to bridge the gulf that lies--I am sure you have noticed it--betweenthe people who saw service in this war and those who stayed at home. "

Suddenly Lily saw that the gulf between her family and herself was justthat, which was what he had intended. 

When Elinor came in they were absorbed in conversation, Lily flushed andeager, and her husband smiling, urbane, and genial. 

To Lily, Elinor Doyle had been for years a figure of mystery. She hadnot seen her for many years, and she had, remembered a thin, girlishfigure, tragic-eyed, which eternally stood by a window in her room, looking out. But here was a matronly woman, her face framed with soft, dark hair, with eyes like her father's, with Howard Cardew's ease ofmanner, too, but with a strange passivity, either of repression or offires early burned out and never renewed. 

Lily was vaguely disappointed. Aunt Elinor, in soft gray silk, matronly, assured, unenthusiastically pleased to see her; Doyle himself, cheerfuland suave; the neat servant; the fire lit, comfortable room, --there wasno drama in all that, no hint of mystery or tragedy. All the hatred athome for an impulsive assault of years ago, and--this!

"Lily, dear!" Elinor said, and kissed her. "Why, Lily, you are a woman!"

"I am twenty, Aunt Elinor. "

"Yes, of course. I keep forgetting. I live so quietly here that the daysgo by faster than I know. " She put Lily back in her chair, and glancedat her husband. 

"Is Louis coming to dinner, Jim?"

"Yes. "

"I suppose you cannot stay, Lily?"

"I ought to tell you, Aunt Elinor. Only mother knows that I am here. "

Aunt Elinor smiled her quiet smile. 

"I understand, dear. How are they all?"

"Grandfather is very well. Father looks tired. There is some trouble atthe mill, I think. "

Elinor glanced at Doyle, but he said nothing. 

"And your mother?"

"She is well. "

Lily was commencing to have an odd conviction, which was that her AuntElinor was less glad to have her there than was Jim Doyle. He seemedinclined to make up for Elinor's lack of enthusiasm by his own. He builtup a larger fire, and moved her chair near it. 

"Weather's raw, " he said. "Sure you are comfortable now? And why nothave dinner here? We have an interesting man coming, and we don't oftenhave the chance to offer our guests a charming young lady. "

"Lily only came home yesterday, Jim, " Elinor observed. "Her own peoplewill want to see something of her. Besides, they do no know she ishere. "

Lily felt slightly chilled. For years she had espoused her AuntElinor's cause; in the early days she had painfully hemstitched a smallhandkerchief each fall and had sent it, with much secrecy, to AuntElinor's varying addresses at Christmas. She had felt a childishresentment of Elinor Doyle's martyrdom. And now--

"Her father and grandfather are dining out to-night. " Had Lily looked upshe would have seen Doyle's eyes fixed on his wife, ugly and menacing. 

"Dining out?" Lily glanced at him in surprise. 

"There is a dinner to-night, for the--" He checked himself "The steelmanufacturers are having a meeting, " he finished. "I believe to discussme, among other things. Amazing the amount of discussion my simpleopinions bring about. "

Elinor Doyle, unseen, made a little gesture of despair and surrender. 

"I hope you will stay, Lily, " she said. "You can telephone, if you like. I don't see you often, and there is so much I want to ask you. "

In the end Lily agreed. She would find out from Grayson if the men werereally dining out, and if they were Grayson would notify her mother thatshe was staying. She did not quite know herself why she had accepted, unless it was because she was bored and restless at home. Perhaps, too, the lure of doing a forbidden thing influenced her sub-consciously, thethought that her grandfather would detest it. She had not forgiven himfor the night before. 

Jim Doyle left her in the back hall at the telephone, and returnedto the sitting room, dosing the door behind him. His face was set andangry. 

"I thought I told you to be pleasant. "

"I tried, Jim. You must remember I hardly know her. " She got up andplaced her hand on his arm, but he shook it off. "I don't understand, Jim, and I wish you wouldn't. What good is it?"

"I've told you what I want. I want that girl to come here, and to likecoming here. That's plain, isn't it? But if you're going to sit with afrozen face--She'll be useful. Useful as hell to a preacher. "

"I can't use my family that way. "

"You and your family! Now listen, Elinor. This isn't a matter o theCardews and me. It may be nothing, but it may be a big thing. I hardlyknow yet--" His voice trailed off; he stood with his head bent, lost inthose eternal calculations with which Elinor Doyle was so familiar. 

The doorbell rang, and was immediately followed by the opening andclosing of the front door. 

From her station at the telephone Lily Cardew saw a man come in, littlemore than a huge black shadow, which placed a hat on the stand and then, striking a match, lighted the gas overhead. In the illumination he stoodbefore the mirror, smoothing back his shining black hair. Then he sawher, stared and retreated into the sitting room. 

"Got company, I see. "

"My niece, Lily Cardew, " said Doyle, dryly. 

The gentleman seemed highly amused. Evidently he considered Lily'spresence in the house in the nature of a huge joke. He was conveyingthis by pantomime, in deference to the open door, when Doyle noddedtoward Elinor. 

"It's customary to greet your hostess, Louis. "

"Easiest thing I do, " boasted the new arrival cheerily. "'Lo, Mrs. Doyle. Is our niece going to dine with us?"

"I don't know yet, Mr. Akers, " she said, without warmth. Louis Akersknew quite well that Elinor did not like him, and the thought amusedhim, the more so since as a rule women liked him rather too well. Deepin his heart he respected Jim Doyle's wife, and sometimes feared her. Herespected her because she had behind her traditions of birth and wealth, things he professed to despise but secretly envied. He feared herbecause he trusted no woman, and she knew too much. 

She loved Jim Doyle, but he had watched her, and he knew that sometimesshe hated Doyle also. He knew that could be, because there had beenwomen he had both loved and hated himself. 

Elinor had gone out, and Akers sat down. 

"Well, " he said, in a lowered tone. "I've written it. "

Doyle closed the door, and stood again with his head lowered, considering. 

"You'd better look over it, " continued Lou. "I don't want to be jailed. You're better at skating over thin ice than I am. And I've been thinkingover the Prohibition matter, Jim. In a sense you're right. It will makethem sullen and angry. But they won't go the limit without booze. I'dadvise cache-ing a lot of it somewhere, to be administered when needed. "

Doyle returned to his old place on the hearth-rug, still thoughtful. Hehad paid no attention to Aker's views on Prohibition, nor to the paperlaid upon the desk in the center of the room. 

"Do you know that that girl in the hall will be worth forty milliondollars some day?"

"Some money, " said Akers, calmly. "Which reminds me, Jim, that I've gotto have a raise. And pretty soon. "

"You get plenty, if you'd leave women alone. "

"Tell them to leave me alone, then, " said Akers, stretching out his longlegs. "All right. We'll talk about that, after dinner. What about thisforty millions?"

Doyle looked at him quickly. Akers' speech about women had crystallizedthe vague plans which Lily's arrival had suddenly given rise to. He gavethe young man a careful scrutiny, from his handsome head to his feet, and smiled. It had occurred to him that the Cardew family would loathe aman of Louis Akers' type with an entire and whole-hearted loathing. 

"You might try to make her have a pleasant evening, " he suggested dryly. "And, to do that, it might be as well to remember a number of things, one of which is that she is accustomed to the society of gentlemen. "

"All right, old dear, " said Akers, without resentment. 

"She hates her grandfather like poison, " Doyle went on. "She doesn'tknow it, but she does. A little education, and it is just possible--"

"Get Olga. I'm no kindergarten teacher. "

"You haven't seen her in the light yet. "

Louis Akers smiled and carefully settled his tie. 

Like Doyle, Akers loved the game of life, and he liked playing for highstakes. He had joined forces with Doyle because the game was dangerousand exciting, rather than because of any real conviction. Doyle hada fanatic faith, with all his calculation, but Louis Akers hadonly calculation and ambition. A practicing attorney in the city, aspecialist in union law openly, a Red in secret, he played his triplegame shrewdly and with zest. 

Doyle turned to go, then stopped and came back. "I was forgettingsomething, " he said, slowly. "What possessed you to take that Boyd girlto the Searing Building the other night?"

"Who told you that?"

"Woslosky saw you coming out. "

"I had left something there, " Akers said sullenly. "That's the truth, whether you believe it or not. I wasn't there two minutes. "

"You're a fool, Louis, " Doyle said coldly. "You'll play that game oncetoo often. What happens to you is your own concern, but what may happento me is mine. And I'll take mighty good care it doesn't happen. "

Doyle was all unction and hospitality when he met Lily in the hall. Atdinner he was brilliant, witty, the gracious host. Akers played up tohim. At the foot of the table Elinor sat, outwardly passive, inwardlypuzzled, and watched Lily. She knew the contrast the girl must bedrawing, between the bright little meal, with its simple service andclever talk, and those dreary formal dinners at home when old Anthonysometimes never spoke at all, or again used his caustic tongue like ascourge. Elinor did not hate her father; he was simply no longer herfather. As for Howard, she had had a childish affection for him, but hehad gone away early to school, and she hardly knew him. But she didnot want his child here, drinking in as she was, without clearlyunderstanding what they meant, Doyle's theories of unrest andrevolution. 

"You will find that I am an idealist, in a way, " he was saying. "Thatis, if you come often. I hope you will, by the way. I am perpetuallydissatisfied with things as they are, and wanting them changed. Withthe single exception of my wife"--he bowed to Elinor, "and this littleparty, which is delightful. "

"Are you a Socialist?" Lily demanded, in her direct way. 

"Well, you might call it that. I go a bit further. "

"Don't talk politics, Jim, " Elinor hastily interposed. He caught her eyeand grinned. 

"I'm not talking politics, my dear. " He turned to Lily, smiling. 

"For one thing, I don't believe that any one should have a lot ofmoney, so that a taxicab could remain ticking away fabulous sums while acharming young lady dines at her leisure. " He smiled again. 

"Will it be a lot?" Lily asked. "I thought I'd better keep him, because--" She hesitated. 

"Because this neighborhood is unlikely to have a cab stand? Youwere entirely right. But I can see that you won't like my idealisticcommunity. You see, in it everybody will have enough, and nobody willhave too much. "

"Don't take him too seriously, Miss Cardew, " said Akers, bendingforward. "You and I know that there isn't such a thing as too much. "

Elinor changed the subject; as a girl she had drawn rather well, and shehad retained her interest in that form of art. There was an exhibitionin town of colored drawings. Lily should see them. But Jim Doylecountered her move. 

"I forgot to mention, " he said, "that in this ideal world we werediscussing the arts will flourish. Not at once, of course, because theartists will be fighting--"

"Fighting?"

"Per aspera ad astra, " put in Louis Akers. "You cannot change a world ina day, without revolution--"

"But you don't believe that revolution is ever worth while, do you?"

"If it would drive starvation and wretchedness from the world, yes. "

Lily found Louis Akers interesting. Certainly he was very handsome. Andafter all, why should there be misery and hunger in the world? Theremust be enough for all. It was hardly fair, for instance, that sheshould have so much, and others scarcely anything. Only it was likethinking about religion; you didn't get anywhere with it. You wanted tobe good, and tried to be. And you wanted to love God, only He seemed sofar away, mostly. And even that was confusing, because you prayed to Godto be forgiven for wickedness, but it was to His Son our Lord one wentfor help in trouble. 

One could be sorry for the poor, and even give away all one had, butthat would only help a few. It would have to be that every one who hadtoo much would give up all but what he needed. 

Lily tried to put that into words. 

"Exactly, " said Jim Doyle. "Only in my new world we realize that therewould be a few craven spirits who might not willingly give up what theyhave. In that case it would be taken from them. "

"And that is what you call revolution?"

"Precisely. "

"But that's not revolution. It is a sort of justice, isn't it?"

"You think very straight, young lady, " said Jim Doyle. 

He had a fascinating theory of individualism, too; no man should imposehis will and no community its laws, on the individual. Laws were forslaves. Ethics were better than laws, to control. 

"Although, " he added, urbanely, "I daresay it might be difficult toconvert Mr. Anthony Cardew to such a belief. "

While Louis Akers saw Lily to her taxicab that night Doyle stood in thehall, waiting. He was very content with his evening's work. 

"Well?" he said, when Akers returned. 

"Merry as a marriage bell. I'm to show her the Brunelleschi drawingsto-morrow. "

Slightly flushed, he smoothed his hair in front of the mirror over thestand. 

"She's a nice child, " he said. In his eyes was the look of the huntinganimal that scents food. 

CHAPTER X

Lily did not sleep very well that night. She was repentant, for onething, for her mother's evening alone, and for the anxiety in her facewhen she arrived. 

"I've been so worried, " she said, "I was afraid your grandfather wouldget back before you did. "

"I'm sorry, mother dear. I know it was selfish. But I've had a wonderfulevening. "

"Wonderful?"

"All sorts of talk, " Lily said, and hesitated. After all, her motherwould not understand, and it would only make her uneasy. "I suppose itis rank hearsay to say it, but I like Mr. Doyle. "

"I detest him. "

"But you don't know him, do you?"

"I know he is stirring up all sorts of trouble for us. Lily, I want youto promise not to go back there. "

There was a little silence. A small feeling of rebellion was rising inthe girl's heart. 

"I don't see why. She is my own aunt. "

"Will you promise?"

"Please don't ask me, mother. I--oh, don't you understand? It isinteresting there, that's all. It isn't wrong to go. And the moment youforbid it you make me want to go back. "

"Were there any other people there to dinner?" Grace asked, with suddensuspicion. 

"Only one man. A lawyer named Akers. "

The name meant nothing to Grace Cardew. 

"A young man?"

"Not very young. In his thirties, I should think, " Lily hesitated again. She had meant to tell her mother of the engagement for the next day, butGrace's attitude made it difficult. To be absolutely forbidden to meetLouis Akers at the gallery, and to be able to give no reason beyond thefact that she had met him at the Doyle house, seemed absurd. 

"A gentleman?"

"I hardly know, " Lily said frankly. "In your sense of the word, perhapsnot, mother. But he is very clever. "

Grace Cardew sighed and picked up her book. She never retired untilHoward came in. And Lily went upstairs, uneasy and a little defiant. She must live her own life, somehow; have her own friends; think her ownthoughts. The quiet tyranny of the family was again closing down onher. It would squeeze her dry, in the end, as it had her mother and AuntElinor. 

She stood for a time by her window, looking out at the city. Behind herwas her warm, luxurious room, her deep, soft bed. Yet all throughthe city there were those who did not sleep warm and soft. Close by, perhaps, in that deteriorated neighborhood, there were children thatvery night going to bed hungry. 

Because things had always been like that, should they always be so?Wasn't Mr. Doyle right, after all? Only he went very far. You couldn't, for instance, take from a man the thing he had earned. What about thepeople who did not try to earn?

She rather thought she would be clearer about it if she talked to WillyCameron. 

She went to bed at last, a troubled young thing in a soft whitenight-gown, passionately in revolt against the injustice which gave toher so much and to others so little. And against that quiet domestictyranny which was forcing her to her first deceit. 

Yet the visit to the gallery was innocuous enough. Louis Akers met herthere, and carefully made the rounds with her. Then he suggested tea, and chose a quiet tea-room, and a corner. 

"I'll tell you something, now it's over, " he said, his bold eyes fixedon hers. "I loathe galleries and pictures. I wanted to see you again. That's all. You see, I am starting in by being honest with you. "

She was rather uncomfortable. 

"Why don't you like pictures?"

"Because they are only imitations of life. I like life. " He pushedhis teacup away. "I don't want tea either. Tea was an excuse, too. " Hesmiled at her. "Perhaps you don't like honesty, " he said. "If you don'tyou won't care for me. "

She was too inexperienced to recognize the gulf between frankness andeffrontery, but he made her vaguely uneasy. He knew so many things, andyet he was so obviously not quite a gentleman, in her family's sense ofthe word. He had a curious effect on her, too, one that she resented. Hemade her insistently conscious of her sex. 

And of his. His very deference had something of restraint about it. Shethought, trying to drink her tea quietly, that he might be very terribleif he loved any one. There was a sort of repressed fierceness behind hissuavity. 

But he interested her, and he was undeniably handsome, not in herfather's way but with high-colored, almost dramatic good looks. Therecould be no doubt, too, that he was interested in her. He rarely tookhis eyes off hers. Afterwards she was to know well that bold possessivelook of his. 

It was just before they left that he said:

"I am going to see you again, you know. May I come in some afternoon?"

Lily had been foreseeing that for some moments, and she raised frankeyes to his. 

"I am afraid not, " she said. "You see, you are a friend of Mr. Doyle's, and you must know that my people and Aunt Elinor's husband are on badterms. "

"What has that got to do with you and me?" Then he laughed. "Might beunpleasant, I suppose. But you go to the Doyles'. "

She was very earnest. 

"My mother knows, but my grandfather wouldn't permit it if he knew. "

"And you put up with that sort of thing?" He leaned closer to her. "Youare not a baby, you know. But I will say you are a good sport to do it, anyhow. "

"I'm not very comfortable about it. "

"Bosh, " he said, abruptly. "You go there as often as you can. ElinorDoyle's a lonely woman, and Jim is all right. You pick your own friends, my child, and live your own life. Every human being has that right. "

He helped her into a taxi at the door of the tea shop, giving her rathermore assistance than she required, and then standing bare-headed inthe March wind until the car had moved away. Lily, sitting back in hercorner, was both repelled and thrilled. He was totally unlike the menshe knew, those carefully repressed, conventional clean-cut boys, likePink Denslow. He was raw, vigorous and possibly brutal. She did notquite like him, but she found herself thinking about him a great deal. 

The old life was reaching out its friendly, idle hands toward her. Thenext day Grace gave a luncheon for her at the house, a gay little affairof color, chatter and movement. But Lily found herself with littleto say. Her year away had separated her from the small community ofinterest that bound the others together, and she wondered, listening tothem in her sitting room later, what they would all talk about when theyhad exchanged their bits of gossip, their news of this man and that. Itwould all be said so soon. And what then?

Here they were, and here they would always be, their own small circle, carefully guarded. They belonged together, they and the men wholikewise belonged. Now and then there would be changes. A new man, ofirreproachable family connections would come to live in the city, andcause a small flurry. Then in time he would be appropriated. Or a girlwould come to visit, and by the same system of appropriation would comeback later, permanently. Always the same faces, the same small talk. Orchids or violets at luncheons, white or rose or blue or yellow frocksat dinners and dances. Golf at the country club. Travel, in the Cardewprivate car, cut off from fellow travelers who might prove interesting. Winter at Palm Beach, and a bit of a thrill at seeing moving picturestars and theatrical celebrities playing on the sand. One never had achance to meet them. 

And, in quiet intervals, this still house, and grandfather shut awayin his upstairs room, but holding the threads of all their lives as aspider clutches the diverging filaments of its web. 

"Get in on this, Lily, " said a clear young voice. "We're talking aboutthe most interesting men we met in our war work. You ought to have knowna lot of them. "

"I knew a lot of men. They were not so very interesting. There was alittle nurse--"

"Men, Lily dear. "

"There was one awfully nice boy. He wasn't a soldier, but he was verykind to the men. They adored him. "

"Did he fall in love with your?"

"Not a particle. "

"Why wasn't he a soldier?"

"He is a little bit lame. But he is awfully nice. "

"But what is extraordinary about him, then?"

"Not a thing, except his niceness. "

But they were surfeited with nice young men. They wanted somethingdramatic, and Willy Cameron was essentially undramatic. Besides, it wasquite plain that, with unconscious cruelty, his physical handicap madehim unacceptable to them. 

"Don't be ridiculous, Lily. You're hiding some one behind this kindperson. You must have met somebody worth while. "

"Not in the camp. I know a perfectly nice Socialist, but he was not inthe army. Not a Socialist, really. Much worse. He believes in having arevolution. "

That stirred them somewhat. She saw their interested faces turned towardher. 

"With a bomb under his coat, of course, Lily. "

"He didn't bulge. "

"Good-looking?"

"Well, rather. "

"How old is he, Lily?" one of them asked, suspiciously. 

"Almost fifty, I should say. "

"Good heavens!"

Their interest died. She could have revived it, she knew, if shementioned Louis Akers; he would have answered to their prime requisitein an interesting man. He was both handsome and young. But she feltcuriously disinclined to mention him. 

The party broke up. By ones and twos luxuriously dressed little figureswent down the great staircase, where Grayson stood in the hall and thefootman on the doorstep signaled to the waiting cars. Mademoiselle, watching from a point of vantage in the upper hall, felt a sense ofcomfort and well-being after they had all gone. This was as it shouldbe. Lily would take up life again where she had left it off, and allwould be well. 

It was now the sixth day, and she had not yet carried out that absurdidea of asking Ellen's friend to dinner. 

Lily was, however, at that exact moment in process of carrying it out. 

"Telephone for you, Mr. Cameron. "

"Thanks. Coming, " sang out Willy Cameron. 

Edith Boyd sauntered toward his doorway. 

"It's a lady. "

"Woman, " corrected Willy Cameron. "The word 'lady' is now obsolete, since your sex has entered the economic world. " He put on his coat. 

"I said 'lady' and that's what I mean, " said Edith. "'May I speak to Mr. Cameron?'" she mimicked. "Regular Newport accent. "

Suddenly Willy Cameron went rather pale. If it should be LilyCardew--but then of course it wouldn't be. She had been home for sixdays, and if she had meant to call--

"Hello, " he said. 

It was Lily. Something that had been like a band around his heartsuddenly loosened, to fasten about his throat. His voice soundedstrangled and strange. 

"Why, yes, " he said, in the unfamiliar voice. "I'd like to come, ofcourse. "

Edith Boyd watched and listened, with a slightly strained look in hereyes. 

"To dinner? But--I don't think I'd better come to dinner. "

"Why not, Willy?"

Mr. William Wallace Cameron glanced around. There was no one about saveMiss Boyd, who was polishing the nails of one hand on the palm of theother. 

"May I come in a business suit?"

"Why, of course. Why not?"

"I didn't know, " said Willy Cameron. "I didn't know what your peoplewould think. That's all. To-morrow at eight, then. Thanks. "

He hung up the receiver and walked to the door, where he stood lookingout and seeing nothing. She had not forgotten. He was going to see her. Instead of standing across the street by the park fence, waiting fora glimpse of her which never came, he was to sit in the room with her. There would be--eight from eleven was three--three hours of her. 

What a wonderful day it was! Spring was surely near. He would like to beable to go and pick up Jinx, and then take a long walk through the park. He needed movement. He needed to walk off his excitement or he felt thathe might burst with it. 

"Eight o'clock!" said Edith. "I wish you joy, waiting until eight forsupper. "

He had to come back a long, long way to her. 

"'May I come in a business suit?'" she mimicked him. "My evening clotheshave not arrived yet. My valet's bringing them up to town to-morrow. "

Even through the radiant happiness that surrounded him like a mist, hecaught the bitterness under her raillery. It puzzled him. 

"It's a young lady I knew at camp. I was in an army camp, you know. "

"Is her name a secret?"

"Why, no. It is Cardew. Miss Lily Cardew. "

"I believe you--not. "

"But it is, " he said, genuinely concerned. "Why in the world should Igive you a wrong name?"

Her eyes were fixed on his face. 

"No. You wouldn't. But it makes me laugh, because--well, it was crazy, anyhow. "

"What was crazy?"

"Something I had in my mind. Just forget it. I'll tell you what willhappen, Mr. Cameron. You'll stay here about six weeks. Then you'll get ajob at the Cardew Mills. They use chemists there, and you will be--"

She lifted her finger-tips and blew along them delicately. 

"Gone--like that, " she finished. 

Sometimes Willy Cameron wondered about Miss Boyd. The large young man, for instance, whose name he had learned was Louis Akers, did notcome any more. Not since that telephone conversation. But he had beendistinctly a grade above that competent young person, Edith Boyd, ifthere were such grades these days; fluent and prosperous-looking, andprobably able to offer a girl a good home. But she had thrown him over. He had heard her doing it, and when he had once ventured to ask herabout Akers she had cut him off curtly. 

"I was sick to death of him. That's all, " she had said. 

But on the night of Lily's invitation he was to hear more of LouisAkers. 

It was his evening in the shop. One day he came on at seven-thirty inthe morning and was off at six, and the next he came at ten and stayeduntil eleven at night. The evening business was oddly increasing. Menwandered in, bought a tube of shaving cream or a tooth-brush, and sator stood around for an hour or so; clerks whose families had gone to themovies, bachelors who found their lodging houses dreary, a young doctoror two, coming in after evening office hours to leave a prescription, and remaining to talk and listen. Thus they satisfied their gregariousinstinct while within easy call of home. 

The wealthy had their clubs. The workmen of the city had their balls andsometimes their saloons. But in between was that vast, unorganized maleelement which was neither, and had neither. To them the neighborhoodpharmacy, open in the evening, warm and bright, gave them a rendezvous. They gathered there in thousands, the country over. During the war theyfought their daily battles there, with newspaper maps. After the war theLeague of Nations, local politics, a bit of neighborhood scandal, washeddown with soft drinks from the soda fountain, furnished the evening'sentertainment. 

The Eagle Pharmacy had always been the neighborhood club, but with theadvent of Willy Cameron it was attaining a new popularity. The roundsmanon the beat dropped in, the political boss of the ward, named Hendricks, Doctor Smalley, the young physician who lived across the street, andothers. Back of the store proper was a room, with the prescription deskat one side and reserve stock on shelves around the other three. Herewere a table and a half dozen old chairs, a war map, still showing withcolored pins the last positions before the great allied advance, and anancient hat-rack, which had held from time immemorial an umbrella withthree broken ribs and a pair of arctics of unknown ownership. 

"Going to watch this boy, " Hendricks confided to Doctor Smalley a nightor two after Lily's return, meeting him outside. "He sure can talk. "

Doctor Smalley grinned. 

"He can read my writing, too, which is more than I can do myself. Whatdo you mean, watch him?"

But whatever his purposes Mr. Hendricks kept them to himself. A big, burly man, with a fund of practical good sense a keen knowledge ofmen, he had gained a small but loyal following. He was a retired masterplumber, with a small income from careful investments, and he had acurious, almost fanatic love for the city. 

"I was born here, " he would say, boastfully. "And I've seen it grow fromfifty thousand to what it's got now. Some folks say it's dirty, but it'shome to me, all right. "

But on the evening of Lily's invitation the drug store forum found WillyCameron extremely silent. He had been going over his weaknesses, for thethought of Lily always made him humble, and one of them was that he gotcarried away by things and talked too much. He did not intend to do thatthe next night, at the Cardew's. 

"Something's scared him off, " said Mr. Hendricks to Doctor Smalley, after a half hour of almost taciturnity, while Willy Cameron smoked hispipe and listened. "Watch him rise to this, though. " And aloud:

"Why don't you fellows drop the League of Nations, which none of youknows a damn about anyhow, and get to the thing that's coming in thiscountry?"

"I'll bite, " said Mr. Clarey, who sold life insurance in the daytime andsometimes utilized his evenings in a similar manner. "What's coming tothis country?"

"Revolution. "

The crowd laughed. 

"All right, " said Mr. Hendricks. "Laugh while you can. I saw the Chiefof Police to-day, and he's got a line of conversation that makes a manfeel like taking his savings out of the bank and burying them in theback yard. "

Willy Cameron took his pipe out of his mouth, but remained dumb. 

Mr. Hendricks nudged Doctor Smalley, who rose manfully to the occasion. "What does he say?"

"Says the Russians have got a lot of paid agents here. Not all Russianseither. Some of our Americans are in it. It's to begin with a generalstrike. "

"In this town?"

"All over the country. But this is a good field for them. The crust'spretty thin here, and where that's the case there is likely to beearthquakes and eruptions. The Chief says they're bringing in a bunch ofgunmen, wobblies and Bolshevists from every industrial town on the map. Did you get that, Cameron? Gunmen!"

"Any of you men here dissatisfied with this form of government?"inquired Willy, rather truculently. 

"Not so you could notice it, " said Mr. Clarey. "And once the Republicanparty gets in--"

"Then there will never be a revolution. "

"Why?"

"That's why, " said Willy Cameron. "Of course you are worthless now. Youaren't organized. You don't know how many you are or how strong youare. You can't talk. You sit back and listen until you believe that thiscountry is only capital and labor. You get squeezed in between them. Yousee labor getting more money than you, and howling for still more. Yousee both capital and labor raising prices until you can't live on whatyou get. There are a hundred times as many of you as represent capitaland labor combined, and all you do is loaf here and growl about thingsbeing wrong. Why don't you do something? You ought to be running thiscountry, but you aren't. You're lazy. You don't even vote. You leaverunning the country to men like Mr. Hendricks here. "

Mr. Hendricks was cheerfully unirritated. 

"All right, son, " he said, "I do my bit and like it. Go on. Don't stopto insult me. You can do that any time. "

"I've been buying a seditious weekly since I came, " said Willy Cameron. "It's preaching a revolution, all right. I'd like to see its foreignlanguage copies. They'll never overthrow the government, but they maytry. Why don't you fellows combine to fight them? Why don't you learnhow strong you are? Nine-tenths of the country, and milling like sheepwith a wolf around!"

Mr. Hendricks winked at the doctor. 

"What'd I tell you?" whispered Hendricks. "Got them, hasn't he? Ifhe'd suggest arming them with pop bottles and attacking that gang ofanarchists at the cobbler's down the street, they'd do it this minute. "

"All right, son, " he offered. "We'll combine. Anything you say goes. And we'll get the Jim Doyle-Woslosky-Louis Akers outfit first. I know afirst-class brick wall--"

"Akers?" said Willy Cameron. "Do you know him?"

"I do, " said Hendricks. "But that needn't prejudice you against me any. He's a bad actor, and as smooth as butter. D'you know what their planis? They expect to take the city. This city! The--" Mr. Hendrick's voicewas lost in fury. 

"Talk!" said the roundsman. "Where'd the police be, I'm asking?"

"The police, " said Mr. Hendricks, evidently quoting, "are as filled withsedition as a whale with corset bones. Also the army. Also the stateconstabulary. "

"The hell they are, " said the roundsman aggressively. But Willy Cameronwas staring through the smoke from his pipe at the crowd. 

"They might do it, for a while, " he said thoughtfully. "There's atremendous foreign population in the mill towns around, isn't there?Does anybody in the crowd own a revolver? Or know how to use it if hehas one. "

"I've got one, " said the insurance agent. "Don't know how it would work. Found my wife nailing oilcloth with it the other day. "

"Very well. If we're a representative group, they wouldn't need abattery of eight-inch guns, would they?"

A little silence fell on the group. Around them the city went about itsbusiness; the roar of the day had softened to muffled night sounds, asthough one said: "The city sleeps. Be still. " The red glare of the millswas the fire on the hearth. The hills were its four protecting walls. And the night mist covered it like a blanket. 

"Here's one representative of the plain people, " said Mr. Hendricks, "who is going home to get some sleep. And tomorrow I'll buy me a gun, and if I can keep the children out of the yard I'll learn to use it. "

For a long time after he went home that night Willy Cameron paced thefloor of his upper room, paced it until an irate boarder below hammeredon his chandelier. Jinx followed him, moving sedately back and forth, now and then glancing up with idolatrous eyes. Willy Cameron's mind wasactive and not particularly coordinate. The Cardews and Lily; Edith Boydand Louis Akers; the plain people; an army marching to the city to lootand burn and rape, and another army meeting it, saying: "You shall notpass"; Abraham Lincoln, Russia, Lily. 

His last thought, of course, was of Lily Cardew. He had neglected tocover Jinx, and at last the dog leaped on the bed and snuggled close tohim. He threw an end of the blanket over him and lay there, staring intothe darkness. He was frightfully lonely. At last he fell asleep, andthe March wind, coming in through the open window, overturned a paperleaning against his collar box, on which he had carefully written:

 Have suit pressed. Buy new tie. Shirts from laundry. 

CHAPTER XI

Going home that night Mr. Hendricks met Edith Boyd, and accompanied herfor a block or two. At his corner he stopped. 

"How's your mother, Edith?"

It was Mr. Hendricks' business to know his ward thoroughly. 

"About the same. She isn't really sick, Mr. Hendricks. She's just lowspirited, but that's enough. I hate to go home. "

Hendricks hesitated. 

"Still, home's a pretty good place, " he said. "Especially for a prettygirl. " There was unmistakable meaning in his tone, and she threw up herhead. 

"I've got to get some pleasure out of life, Mr. Hendricks. "

"Sure you have, " he agreed affably. "But playing around with Louis Akersis like playing with a hand-grenade, Edith. " She said nothing. "I'd cuthim out, little girl. He's poor stuff. Mind, I'm not saying he's a fool, but he's a bad actor. Now if I was a pretty girl, and there was a nicefellow around like this Cameron, I'd be likely to think he was allright. He's got brains. " Mr. Hendricks had a great admiration forbrains. 

"I'm sick of men. "

He turned at her tone and eyed her sharply. 

"Well, don't judge them all by Akers. This is my corner. Good-night. Notafraid to go on by yourself, are you?"

"If I ever was I've had a good many chances to get over it. "

He turned the corner, but stopped and called after her. 

"Tell Dan I'll be in to see him soon, Edith. Haven't seen him since hecame back from France. "

"All right. "

She went on, her steps lagging. She hated going home. When she reachedthe little house she did not go in at once. The March night was notcold, and she sat the step, hoping to see her mother's light go out inthe second-story front windows. But it continued to burn steadily, andat last, with a gesture of despair, she rose and unlocked the door. 

Almost at once she heard footsteps above, and a peevish voice. 

"That you, Edie?"

"Yes. "

"D'you mind bringing up the chloroform liniment and rubbing my back?"

"I'll bring it, mother. "

She found it on the wainscoting in the untidy kitchen. She could hearthe faint scurrying of water beetles over the oilcloth-covered floor, and then silence. She fancied myriads of tiny, watchful eyes on her, and something crunched under her foot. She felt like screaming. That newclerk at the store was always talking about homes. What did he knowof squalid city houses, with their insects and rats, their damp, moldycellars, their hateful plumbing? A thought struck her. She lighted thegas and stared around. It was as she had expected. The dishes had notbeen washed. They were piled in the sink, and a soiled dish-towel hadbeen thrown over them. 

She lowered the gas and went upstairs. The hardness had, somehow, goneout of her when she thought of Willy Cameron. 

"Back bad again, is it?" she asked. 

"It's always bad. But I've got a pain in my left shoulder and down myarm that's driving me crazy. I couldn't wash the dishes. "

"Never mind the dishes. I'm not tired. Now crawl into bed and let me rubyou. "

Mrs. Boyd complied. She was a small, thin woman in her early fifties, who had set out to conquer life and had been conquered by it. Thehopeless drab of her days stretched behind her, broken only by theincident of her widowhood, and stretched ahead hopelessly. She hadaccepted Dan's going to France resignedly, with neither protest norundue anxiety. She had never been very close to Dan, although sheloved him more than she did Edith. She was the sort of woman who hasno fundamental knowledge of men. They had to be fed and mended for, andthey had strange physical wants that made a great deal of trouble in theworld. But mostly they ate and slept and went to work in the morning, and came home at night smelling of sweat and beer. 

There had been one little rift in the gray fog of her daily life, however. And through it she had seen Edith well married, with perhapsa girl to do the house work, and a room where Edith's mother could foldher hands and sit in the long silences without thought that were hersanctuary against life. 

"Is that the place, mother?"

"Yes. " Edith's unwonted solicitude gave her courage. 

"Edie, I want to ask you something. "

"Well?" But the girl stiffened. 

"Lou hasn't been round, lately. "

"That's all over, mother. "

"You mean you've quarreled? Oh, Edie, and me planning you'd have a nicehome and everything. "

"He never meant to marry me, if that's what you mean. "

Mrs. Boyd turned on her back impatiently. 

"You could have had him. He was crazy about you. Trouble is with you, you think you've got a fellow hard and fast, and you begin acting up. Then, first thing you know--"

Some of that strange new tolerance persisted in the girl. "Listen, mother, " she said. "I give you my word, Lou'd run a mile if he thoughtany girl wanted to marry him. I know him better than you do. If any oneever does rope him in, he'll stick about three months, and then beatit. "

"I don't know why we have to have men, anyhow. Put out the gas, Edie. No, don't open the window. The night air makes me cough. "

Edith started downstairs and set to work in the kitchen. Somethingwould have to be done about the house. Dan was taking to staying outat nights, because the untidy rooms repelled him. And there was thequestion of food. Her mother had never learned to cook, and recentlymore and more of the food had been something warmed out of a tin. Ifonly they could keep a girl, one who would scrub and wash dishes. Therewas a room on the third floor, an attic, full now of her mother's untidyharborings of years, that might be used for a servant. Or she could moveup there, and they could get a roomer. The rent would pay a woman tocome in now and then to clean up. 

She had played with that thought before, and the roomer she had had inmind was Willy Cameron. But the knowledge that he knew the Cardewshad somehow changed all that. She couldn't picture him going from thissordid house to the Cardew mansion, and worse still, returning to itafterwards. She saw him there, at the Cardews, surrounded by bowingflunkies--a picture of wealth gained from the movies--and by womenwho moved indolently, trailing through long vistas of ball room andconservatory in low gowns without sleeves, and draped with ropes ofpearls. Women who smoked cigarettes after dinner and played bridge formoney. 

She hated the Cardews. 

On her way to her room she paused at her mother's door. 

"Asleep yet, mother?"

"No. Feel like I'm not going to sleep at all. "

"Mother, " she said, with a desperate catch in her voice, "we've got tochange things around here. It isn't fair to Dan, for one thing. We'vegot to get a girl to do the work. And to do that we'll have to rent aroom. "

She heard the thin figure twist impatiently. 

"I've never yet been reduced to taking roomers, and I'm not going to letthe neighbors begin looking down on me now. "

"Now, listen, mother--"

"Go on away, Edie. "

"But suppose we could get a young man, a gentleman, who would be out allbut three evenings a week. I don't know, but Mr. Cameron at the storeisn't satisfied where he is. He's got a dog, and they haven't any yard. We've got a yard. "

"I won't be bothered with any dog, " said the querulous voice, from thedarkness. 

With a gesture of despair the girl turned away. What was the use, anyhow? Let them go on, then, her mother and Dan. Only let them let hergo on, too. She had tried her best to change herself, the house, thewhole rotten mess. But they wouldn't let her. 

Her mood of disgust continued the next morning. When, at eleven o'clock, Louis Akers sauntered in for the first time in days, she looked at himsomberly but without disdain. Lou or somebody else, what did itmatter? So long as something took her for a little while away fromthe sordidness of home, its stale odors, its untidiness, its querulousinmates. 

"What's got into you lately, Edith?" he inquired, lowering his voice. "You used to be the best little pal ever. Now the other day, when Icalled up--"

"Had the headache, " she said laconically. "Well?"

"Want to play around this evening?"

She hesitated. Then she remembered where Willy Cameron would be thatnight, and her face hardened. Had any one told Edith that she wasbeginning to care for the lame young man in the rear room, withhis exaggerated chivalry toward women, his belief in home, and hissentimental whistling, she would have laughed. But he gave her somethingthat the other men she knew robbed her of, a sort of self-respect. Itwas perhaps not so much that she cared for him, as that he enabled herto care more for herself. 

But he was going to dinner with Lily Cardew. 

"I might, depending on what you've got to offer. "

"I've got a car now, Edith. I'm not joking. There was a lot of outsidework, and the organization came over. I've been after it for six months. We can have a ride, and supper somewhere. How's the young man with thewooden leg?"

"If you want to know I'll call him out and let him tell you. "

"Quick, aren't you?" He smiled down at where she stood, firmlyentrenched behind a show case. "Well, don't fall in love with him. That's all. I'm a bad man when I'm jealous. "

He sauntered out, leaving Edith gazing thoughtfully after him. He didnot know, nor would have cared had he known, that her acceptance of hisinvitation was a complex of disgust of home, of the call of youth, andof the fact that Willy Cameron was dining at the Cardews that night. 

CHAPTER XII

Howard Cardew was in his dressing room, sitting before the fire. Hisman had put out his dinner clothes and retired, and Howard was siftingbefore the fire rather listlessly. 

In Grace's room, adjoining, he could hear movements and low voices. Before Lily's return, now and then when he was tired Grace and he haddined by the fire in her boudoir. It had been very restful. He was stillin love with his wife, although, as in most marriages, there was one whogave more than the other. In this case it was Grace who gave, and Howardwho received. But he loved her. He never thought of other women. Onlyhis father had never let him forget her weaknesses. 

Sometimes he was afraid that he was looking at Grace with his father'seyes, rather than his own. 

He had put up a hard fight with his father. Not about Grace. That wasover and done with, although it had been bad while it lasted. But hisreal struggle had been to preserve himself, to keep his faiths and hisideals, and even his personality. In the inessentials he had yieldedeasily, and so bought peace. Or perhaps a truce, of a sort. But for theessentials he was standing with a sort of dogged conviction that if helowered his flag it would precipitate a crisis. He was not brilliant, but he was intelligent, progressive and kindly. He knew that his fatherconsidered him both stupid and obstinate. 

There was going to be a strike. The quarrel now was between Anthony'scurt "Let them strike, " and his own conviction that a strike at thistime might lead to even worse things. The men's demands were exorbitant. No business, no matter how big, could concede them and live. But Howardwas debating another phase of the situation. 

Not all the mills would go down. A careful canvass of some of the otherindependent concerns had shown the men eighty, ninety, even one hundredper cent, loyal. Those were the smaller plants, where there had alwaysbeen a reciprocal good feeling between the owners and the men; there themen knew the owners, and the owners knew the men, who had been with themfor years. 

But the Cardew Mills would go down. There had been no liaison betweenthe Cardews and the workmen. The very magnitude of the business forbadethat. And for many years, too, the Cardews had shown a gross callousnessto the welfare of the laborers. Long ago he had urged on his father theprogressive attitude of other steel men, but Anthony had jeered, andwhen Howard had forced the issue and gained concessions, it was toolate. The old grievances remained in too many minds. To hate the Cardewsbad become a habit. Their past sins would damn them now. The strike waswrong, a wicked thing. It was without reason and without aim. The menwere knocking a hole in the boat that floated them. But--

There was a tap at his door, and he called "Come in. " From her babyhoodLily had had her own peculiar method of signaling that she stoodwithout, a delicate rapid tattoo of finger nails on the panel. Hewatched smilingly for her entrance. 

"Well!" she said. "Thank goodness you haven't started to dress. I triedto get here earlier, but my hair wouldn't go up, I want to make a goodimpression to-night. "

"Is there a dinner on? I didn't know it. "

"Not a dinner. A young man. I came to see what you are going to wear. "

"Really! Well, I haven't a great variety. The ordinary dinner dress of agentleman doesn't lend itself to any extraordinary ornamentation. Ifyou like, I'll pin on that medal from the Iron and Steel--Who's coming, Lily?"

"Grayson says grandfather's dining out. "

"I believe so. "

"What a piece of luck! I mean--you know what he'd say if I asked him notto dress for dinner. "

"Am I to gather that you are asking me?"

"You wouldn't mind, would you? He hasn't any evening clothes. "

"Look here, Lily, " said her father, sitting upright. "Who is coming hereto-night? And why should he upset the habits of the entire family?"

"Willy Cameron. You know, father. And he has the queerest ideas aboutus. Honestly. And I want him to like us, and it's such a good chance, with grandfather out. "

He ignored that. 

"How about our liking him?"

"Oh, you'll like him. Everybody does. You will try to make a goodimpression, won't you, father?"

He got up, and resting his hands on her shoulders, smiled down into herupturned face. "I will, " he said. "But I think I should tell you thatyour anxiety arouses deep and black suspicions in my mind. Am I tounderstand that you have fixed your young affections on this WillyCameron, and that you want your family to help you in your darkdesigns?"

Lily laughed. 

"I love him, " she said. "I really do. I could listen to him for hours. But people don't want to marry Willy Cameron. They just love him. "

There was born in Howard's mind a vision of a nice pink and white youngman, quite sexless, whom people loved but did not dream of marrying. 

"I see, " he said slowly. "Like a puppy. "

"Not at all like a puppy. "

"I'm afraid I'm not subtle, my dear. Well, ring for Adams, and--youthink he wouldn't care for the medal?"

"I think he'd love it. He'd probably think some king gave it to you. I'msure he believes that you and grandfather habitually hobnob with kings. "She turned to go out. "He doesn't approve of kings. "

"You are making me extremely uneasy, " was her father's shot. "I onlyhope I acquit myself well. "

"Hurry, then. He is sure to be exactly on the hour. " Howard was stillsmiling slightly to himself when, a half-hour later, he descendedthe staircase. But he had some difficulty first in reconciling hispreconceived idea of Willy with the tall young man, with the faintunevenness of step, who responded to his greeting so calmly and soeasily. "We are always glad to see any of Lily's friends. "

"It is very good of you to let me come, sir. "

Why, the girl was blind. This was a man, a fine, up-standing fellow, with a clean-cut, sensitive face, and honest, almost beautiful eyes. Howdid women judge men, anyhow?

And, try as he would, Howard Cardew could find no fault with WillyCameron that night. He tried him out on a number of things. In religion, for instance, he was orthodox, although he felt that the church had notcome up fully during the war. 

"Religion isn't a matter only of churches any more, " said Mr. Cameron. "It has to go out into the streets, I think, sir. It's a-well, Christleft the tabernacle, you remember. "

That was all right. Howard felt that himself sometimes. He was avestryman at Saint Peter's, and although he felt very devout during theservice, especially during the offertory, when the music filled the fineold building, he was often conscious that he shed his spirituality atthe door, when he glanced at the sky to see what were the prospects foran afternoon's golf. 

In politics Willy Cameron was less satisfactory. 

"I haven't decided, yet, " he said. "I voted for Mr. Wilson in 1916, butalthough I suppose parties are necessary, I don't like to feel that I amparty-bound. Anyhow, the old party lines are gone. I rather look--"

He stopped. That terrible speech of Edith Boyd's still rankled. 

"Go on, Willy, " said Lily. "I told them they'd love to you talk. "

"That's really all, sir, " said Willy Cameron, unhappily. "I am a Scot, and to start a Scot on reform is fatal. "

"Ah, you believe in reform?"

"We are not doing very well as we are, sir. "

"I should like extremely to know how you feel about things, " saidHoward, gravely. 

"Only this: So long as one party is, or is considered, therepresentative of capital, the vested interests, and the other of labor, the great mass of the people who are neither the one nor the othercannot be adequately represented. "

"And the solution?"

"Perhaps a new party. Or better still, a liberalizing of theRepublican. "

"Before long, " said Lily suddenly, "there will be no state. There willbe enough for everybody, and nobody will have too much. "

Howard smiled at her indulgently. 

"How do you expect to accomplish this ideal condition?"

"That's the difficulty about it, " said Lily, thoughtfully. "It means arevolution. It would be peaceful, though. The thing to do is to convincepeople that it is simple justice, and then they will divide what theyhave. "

"Why, Lily!" Grace's voice was anxious. "That's Socialism. "

But Howard only smiled tolerantly, and changed the subject. Everyone had these attacks of idealism in youth. They were the exaggeratedaltruism of adolescence; a part of its dreams and aspirations. Hechanged the subject. 

"I like the boy, " he said to Grace, later, over the cribbage board inthe morning room. "He has character, and a queer sort of magnetism. Itmightn't be a bad thing--"

Grace was counting. 

"I forgot to tell you; I think she refused Pink Denslow the other day. "

"I rather gathered, from the way she spoke of young Cameron, that sheisn't interested there either. "

"Not a bit, " said Grace, complacently. "You needn't worry about him. "

Howard smiled. He was often conscious that after all the years of theircommon life, his wife's mind and his traveled along parallel lines thatnever met. 

Willy Cameron was extremely happy. He had brought his pipe along, although without much hope, but the moment they were settled by thelibrary fire Lily had suggested it. 

"You know you can't talk unless you have it in your hand to wavearound, " she said. "And I want to know such a lot of things. Where youlive, and all that. "

"I live in a boarding house. More house than board, really. And thework's all right. I'm going to study metallurgy some day. There arenight courses at the college, only I haven't many nights. "

He had lighted his pipe, and kept his eyes on it mostly, or on the fire. He was afraid to look at Lily, because there was something he could notkeep out of his eyes, but must keep from her. It had been both betterand worse than he had anticipated, seeing her in her home. Lily herselfhad not changed. She was her wonderful self, in spite of her frock andher surroundings. But the house, her people, with their ease of wealthand position, Grace's slight condescension, the elaborate simplicity ofdining, the matter-of-course-ness of the service. It was not that Lilywas above him. That was ridiculous. But she was far removed from him. 

"There is something wrong with you, Willy, " she said unexpectedly. "Youare not happy, or you are not well. Which is it? You are awfully thin, for one thing. "

"I'm all right, " he said, evading her eyes. 

"Are you lonely? I don't mean now, of course. "

"Well, I've got a dog. That helps. He's a helpless sort of mutt. I carryhis meat home from the shop in my pocket, and I feel like a butcher'swagon, sometimes. But he's taken a queer sort of liking to me, and he issomething to talk to. "

"Why didn't you bring him along?"

Dogs were forbidden in the Cardew house, by old Anthony's order, as werepipes, especially old and beloved ones, but Lily was entirely reckless. 

"He did follow me. He's probably sitting on the doorstep now. I tried tosend him back, but he's an obstinate little beast. "

Lily got up. 

"I am going to bring him in, " she said. "And if you'll ring that bellwe'll get him some dinner. "

"I'll get him, while you ring. "

Half an hour later Anthony Cardew entered his house. He had spent amiserable evening. Some young whipper snapper who employed a handful ofmen had undertaken to show him where he, Anthony Cardew, was a clog inthe wheel of progress. Not in so many words, but he had said: "Temporamutantur, Mr. Cardew. And the wise employer meets those changeshalf-way. "

"You young fools want to go all the way. "

"Not at all. We'll meet them half-way, and stop. "

"Bah!" said Anthony Cardew, and had left the club in a temper. The clubwas going to the dogs, along with the rest of the world. There was onlya handful of straight-thinking men like himself left in it. Lot of youngcravens, letting their men dominate them and intimidate them. 

So he slammed into his house, threw off his coat and hat, and--sniffed. A pungent, acrid odor was floating through a partly closed door. AnthonyCardew flung open the door and entered. 

Before the fire, on a deep velvet couch, sat his granddaughter. Besideher was a thin young man in a gray suit, and the thin young man waswaving an old pipe about, and saying:

"Tempora mutantur, Lily. The wise employer--"

"I am afraid, sir, " said Anthony, in a terrible voice, "that you arenot acquainted with the rules of my house. I object to pipes. There arecigars in the humidor behind you. "

"Very sorry, Mr. Cardew, " Willy Cameron explained. "I didn't know. I'llput it away, sir. "

But Anthony was not listening. His eyes had traveled from an emptyplatter on the hearth-rug to a deep chair where Jinx, both warm andfed at the same time, and extremely distended with meat, lay sleeping. Anthony put out a hand and pressed the bell beside him. 

"I want you to meet Mr. Cameron, grandfather. " Lily was rather pale, butshe had the Cardew poise. "He was in the camp when I was. "

Grayson entered on that, however, and Anthony pointed to Jinx. 

"Put that dog out, " he said, and left the room, his figure rigid anduncompromising. 

"Grayson, " Lily said, white to the lips, "that dog is to remain here. He's perfectly quiet. And, will you find Ellen and ask her to comehere?"

"Haven't I made enough trouble?" asked Willy Cameron, unhappily. "I cansee her again, you know. "

"She's crazy to see you, Willy. And besides--"

Grayson had gone, after a moment's hesitation. 

"Don't you see?" she said. "The others have always submitted. I did, too. But I can't keep it up, Willy. I can't live here and let him treatme like that. Or my friends. I know what will happen. I'll run away, like Aunt Elinor. "

"You must not do that, Lily. " He was very grave. 

"Why not? They think she is unhappy. She isn't. She ran away and marrieda man she cared about. I may call you up some day and ask you to marryme!" she added, less tensely. "You would be an awfully good husband, youknow. "

She looked up at him, still angry, but rather amused with this newconceit. 

"Don't!"

She was startled by the look on his face. 

"You see, " he said painfully, "what only amuses you in that ideais--well, it doesn't amuse me, Lily. "

"I only meant--" she was very uncomfortable. "You are so real anddependable and kind, and I--"

"I know what you mean. Like Jinx, there. I'm sorry! I didn't mean that. But you must not talk about marrying me unless you mean it. You see, Ihappen to care. "

"Willy!"

"It won't hurt you to know, although I hadn't meant to tell you. And ofcourse, you know, I am not asking you to marry me. Only I'd like you tofeel that you can count on me, always. The one person a woman can counton is the man who loves her. "

And after a little silence:

"You see, I know you are not in love with me. I cared from thebeginning, but I always knew that. "

"I wish I did. " She was rather close to tears. She had not felt atall like that with Pink. But, although she knew he was suffering, hisquietness deceived her. She had the theory of youth about love, that itwas a violent thing, tempestuous and passionate. She thought that lovedemanded, not knowing that love gives first, and then asks. She couldnot know how he felt about his love for her, that it lay in a sort ofcathedral shrine in his heart. There were holy days when saints lefttheir niches and were shown in city streets, but until that holy daycame they remained in the church. 

"You will remember that, won't you?"

"I'll remember, Willy. "

"I won't be a nuisance, you know. I've never had any hope, so I won'tmake you unhappy. And don't be unhappy about me, Lily. I would ratherlove you, even knowing I can't have you, than be loved by anybody else. "

Perhaps, had he shown more hurt, he would have made it seem more real toher. But he was frightfully anxious not to cause her pain. 

"I'm really very happy, loving you, " he added, and smiled down at herreassuringly. But he had for all that a wild primitive impulse whichalmost overcame him for a moment, to pick her up in his arms and carryher out the door and away with him. Somewhere, anywhere. Away from thatgrim old house, and that despotic little man, to liberty and happinessand--William Wallace Cameron. 

Ellen came in, divided between uneasiness and delight, and inquiredpainstakingly about his mother, and his uncle in California, and thePresbyterian minister. But she was uncomfortable and uneasy and refusedto sit down, and Willy watched her furtively slipping out again with aslight frown. It was not right, somehow, this dividing of the world intoclasses, those who served and those who were served. But he had an ideathat it was those below who made the distinction, nowadays. It was themasses who insisted on isolating the classes. They made kings, perhapsthat they might some day reach up and pull them off their thrones. Atthe top of the stairs Ellen found Mademoiselle, who fixed her with coldeyes. 

"What were you doing down there, " she demanded. 

"Miss Lily sent for me, to see that young man I told you about. "

"How dare you go down? And into the library?"

"I've just told you, " said Ellen, her face setting. "She sent for me. "

"Why didn't you say you were in bed?"

"I'm no liar, Mademoiselle. Besides, I guess it's no crime to see a boyI've known all his life, and his mother and me like sisters. "

"You are a fool, " said Mademoiselle, and turning clumped back in herbedroom slippers to her room. 

Ellen went up to her room. Heretofore she had given her allegiance toMademoiselle and Mrs. Cardew, and in a more remote fashion, to Howard. But Ellen, crying angry tears in her small white bed that night, senseda new division in the family, with Mademoiselle and Anthony and Howardand Grace on one side, and Lily standing alone, fighting valiantly forthe right to live her own life, to receive her own friends, and thefriends of her friends, even though one of these latter might be aservant in her own house. 

Yet Ellen, with the true snobbishness of the servants' hall, disapprovedof Lily's course while she admired it. 

"But they're all against her, " Ellen reflected. "The poor thing! Andjust because of Willy Cameron. Well, I'll stand by her, if they throw meout for it. "

In her romantic head there formed strange, delightful visions. Lilyeloping with Willy Cameron, assisted by herself. Lily in the littleCameron house, astounding the neighborhood with her clothes and hercharm, and being sponsored by Ellen. The excitement of the village, andthe visits to Ellen to learn what to wear for a first call, and werecards necessary?

Into Ellen's not very hard-working but monotonous life had comes itsfirst dream of romance. 

CHAPTER XIII

For three weeks Lily did not see Louis Akers, nor did she go back to thehouse on Cardew Way. She hated doing clandestine or forbidden things, and she was, too, determined to add nothing to the tenseness she beganto realize existed at home. She went through her days, struggling to fitherself again into the old environment, reading to her mother, lending herself with assumed enthusiasm to such small gayeties as Lentpermitted, and doing penance in a dozen ways for that stolen afternoonwith Louis Akers. 

She had been forbidden to see him again. It had come about by Grace'sconfession to Howard as to Lily's visit to the Doyles. He had notobjected to that. 

"Unless Doyle talks his rubbish to her, " he said. "She said somethingthe other night that didn't sound like her. Was any one else there?"

"An attorney named Akers, " she said. 

And at that Howard had scowled. 

"She'd better keep away altogether, " he observed, curtly. "She oughtn'tto meet men like that. "

"Shall I tell her?"

"I'll tell her, " he said. And tell her he did, not too tactfully, andman-like shielding her by not telling her his reasons. 

"He's not the sort of man I want you to know, " he finished. "That oughtto be sufficient. Have you seen him since?"

Lily flushed, but she did not like to lie. 

"I had tea with him one afternoon. I often have tea with men, father. You know that. "

"You knew I wouldn't approve, or you would have mentioned it. "

Because he felt that he had been rather ruthless with her, he stoppedin at the jeweler's the next morning and sent her a tiny jeweled watch. Lily was touched and repentant. She made up her mind not to see LouisAkers again, and found a certain relief in the decision. She wasconscious that he had a peculiar attraction for her, a purely emotionalappeal. He made her feel alive. Even when she disapproved of him, shewas conscious of him. She put him resolutely out of her mind, to havehim reappear in her dreams, not as a lover, but as some one dominant andinsistent, commanding her to do absurd, inconsequential things. 

Now and then she saw Willy Cameron, and they had gone back, apparently, to the old friendly relationship. They walked together, and once theywent to the moving pictures, to Grace's horror. But there were nopeanuts to eat, and instead of the jingling camp piano there was anorchestra, and it was all strangely different. Even Willy Cameron wasdifferent. He was very silent, and on the way home he did not once speakof the plain people. 

Louis Akers had both written and telephoned her, but she made excuses, and did not see him, and the last time he had hung up the receiverabruptly. She felt an odd mixture of relief and regret. 

Then, about the middle of April, she saw him again. 

Spring was well on by that time. Before the Doyle house on Cardew Waythe two horse-chestnuts were showing great red-brown buds, ready to fallinto leaf with the first warm day, and Elinor, assisted by Jennie, the elderly maid, was finishing her spring house-cleaning. The Cardewmansion showed window-boxes at each window, filled by the florist withspring flowers, to be replaced later by summer ones. A potted primrosesat behind the plate glass of the Eagle Pharmacy, among packets offlower seeds and spring tonics, its leaves occasionally nibbled bythe pharmacy cat, out of some atavistic craving survived through longgenerations of city streets. 

The children's playground near the Lily furnace was ready; Howard Cardewhimself had overseen the locations of the swings and chute-the-chutes. And at Friendship an army of workers was sprinkling and tamping the turfof the polo field. After two years of war, there was to be polo againthat spring and early summer. The Cherry Hill Hunt team was stillintact, although some of the visiting outfits had been badly shot topieces by the war. But the war was over. It lay behind, a nightmare tobe forgotten as soon as possible. It had left its train of misery anddebt, but--spring had come. 

On a pleasant Monday, Lily motored out to the field with Pink Denslow. It had touched her that he still wanted her, and it had offered anescape from her own worries. She was fighting a sense of failure thatday. It seemed impossible to reconcile the warring elements at home. Old Anthony and his son were quarreling over the strike, and Anthony wasjibing constantly at Howard over the playground. It was not so much hergrandfather's irritability that depressed her as his tyranny over thehousehold, and his attitude toward her mother roused her to bitterresentment. 

The night before she had left the table after one of his scourgingspeeches, only to have what amounted to a scene with her motherafterward. 

"But I cannot sit by while he insults you, mother. "

"It is just his way. I don't mind, really. Oh, Lily, don't destroy whatI have built up so carefully. It hurts your father so. "

"Sometimes, " Lily said slowly, "he makes me think Aunt Elinor's husbandwas right. He believes a lot of things--"

"What things?" Grace had asked, suspiciously. 

Lily hesitated. 

"Well, a sort of Socialism, for one thing, only it isn't exactly that. It's individualism, really, or I think so; the sort of thing that thishouse stifles. " Grace was too horrified for speech. "I don't want tohurt you, mother, but don't you see? He tyrannizes over all of us, andit's bad for our souls. Why should he bellow at the servants? Or talk toyou the way he did to-night?" She smiled faintly. "We're all drowning, and I want to swim, that's all. Mr. Doyle--"

"You are talking nonsense, " said Grace sharply. "You have got a lot ofideas from that wretched house, and now you think they are your own. Lily, I warn you, if you insist on going back to the Doyles I shall takeyou abroad. "

Lily turned and walked out of the room, and there was somethingsuggestive of old Anthony in the pitch of her shoulders. Her anger didnot last long, but her uneasiness persisted. Already she knew that shewas older in many ways than Grace; she had matured in the past year morethan her mother in twenty, and she felt rather like a woman obeying themandates of a child. 

But on that pleasant Monday she was determined to be happy. 

"Old world begins to look pretty, doesn't it?" said Pink, breaking in onher thoughts. 

"Lovely. "

"It's not a bad place to live in, after all, " said Pink, trying to cheerhis own rather unhappy humor. "There is always spring to expect, when weget low in winter. And there are horses and dogs, and--and blossoms onthe trees, and all that. " What he meant was, "If there isn't love. "

"You are perfectly satisfied with things just as they are, aren't you?"Lily asked, half enviously. 

"Well, I'd change some things. " He stopped. He wasn't going to go roundsighing like a furnace. "But it's a pretty good sort of place. I'm forit. "

"Have you sent your ponies out?"

"Only two. I want to show you one I bought from the Government almostfor nothing. Remount man piped me off. Light in flesh, rather, but fast. Handy, light mouth--all he needs is a bit of training. "

They had been in the open country for some time, but now they wereapproaching the Cardew's Friendship plant. The furnaces had covered thefields with a thin deposit of reddish ore dust. Such blighted grassas grew had already lost its fresh green, and the trees showed stuntedblossoms. The one oasis of freshness was the polo field itself, carefully irrigated by underground pipes. The field, with its stablesand grandstand, had been the gift of Anthony Cardew, thereby promotingmuch discussion with his son. For Howard had wanted the land for certainpurposes of his own, to build a clubhouse for the men at the plant, witha baseball field. Finding his father obdurate in that, he had urged thatthe field be thrown open to the men and their families, save immediatelypreceding and during the polo season. But he had failed there, too. Anthony Cardew had insisted, and with some reason, that to usethe grounds for band concerts and baseball games, for picnics andplaygrounds, would ruin the turf for its legitimate purpose. 

Howard had subsequently found other land, and out of his own privatemeans had carried out his plans, but the location was less desirable. And he knew what his father refused to believe, that the polo ground, taking up space badly needed for other purposes, was a continualgrievance. 

Suddenly Pink stared ahead. 

"I say, " he said, "have they changed the rule about that sort of thing?"

He pointed to the field. A diamond had been roughly outlined on it withbags of sand, and a ball-game was in progress, boys playing, but a longline of men watching from the side lines. 

"I don't know, but it doesn't hurt anything. "

"Ruins the turf, that's all. " He stopped the car and got out. "Look atthis sign. It says 'ball-playing or any trespassing forbidden on thesegrounds. ' I'll clear them off. "

"I wouldn't, Pink. They may be ugly. "

But he only smiled at her reassuringly, and went off. She watched himgo with many misgivings, his sturdy young figure, his careful dress, hisair of the young aristocrat, easy, domineering, unconsciously insolent. They would resent him, she knew, those men and boys. And after all, whyshould they not use the field? There was injustice in that sign. 

Yet her liking and real sympathy were with Pink. 

"Pink!" she called, "Come back here. Let them alone. "

He turned toward her a face slightly flushed with indignation and setwith purpose. 

"Sorry. Can't do it, Lily. This sort of thing's got to be stopped. "

She felt, rather hopelessly, that he was wrong, but that he was right, too. The grounds were private property. She sat back and watched. 

Pink was angry. She could hear his voice, see his gestures. He wasshooing them off like a lot of chickens, and they were laughing. Thegame had stopped, and the side lines were pressing forward. There was amoment's debate, with raised voices, a sullen muttering from the crowd, and the line closing into a circle. The last thing she saw before itclosed was a man lunging at Pink, and his counter-feint. Then some onewas down. If it was Pink he was not out, for there was fighting stillgoing on. The laborers working on the grounds were running. 

Lily stood up in the car, pale and sickened. She was only vaguelyconscious of a car that suddenly left the road, and dashed recklesslyacross the priceless turf, but she did see, and recognize, Louis Akersas he leaped from it and flinging men this way and that disappeared intothe storm center. She could hear his voice, too, loud and angry, and seethe quick dispersal of the crowd. Some of the men, foreigners, passedquite near to her, and eyed her either sullenly or with mocking smiles. She was quite oblivious of them. She got out and ran with shaking kneesacross to where Pink lay on the grass, his profile white and sharplychiseled, with two or three men bending over him. 

Pink was dead. Those brutes had killed him. Pink. 

He was not dead. He was moving his arms. 

Louis Akers straightened when he saw her and took off his hat. 

"Nothing to worry about, Miss Cardew, " he said. "But what sort ofidiocy--! Hello, old man, all right now?"

Pink sat up, then rose stiffly and awkwardly. He had a cut over one eye, and he felt for his handkerchief. 

"Fouled me, " he said. "Filthy lot, anyhow. Wonder they didn't walk on mewhen I was down. " He turned to the grounds-keeper, who had come up. "Youought to know better than to let those fellows cut up this turf, " hesaid angrily. "What're you here for anyhow?"

But he was suddenly very sick. He looked at Lily, his face drawn andblanched. 

"Got me right, " he muttered. "I--"

"Get into my car, " said Akers, not too amiably. "I'll drive you to thestables. I'll be back, Miss Cardew. "

Lily went back to the car and sat down. She was shocked and startled, but she was strangely excited. The crowd had beaten Pink, but it hadobeyed Louis Akers like a master. He was a man. He was a strong man. Hemust be built of iron. Mentally she saw him again, driving recklesslyover the turf, throwing the men to right and left, hoarse with anger, tall, dominant, powerful. 

It was more important that a man be a man than that he be a gentleman. 

After a little he drove back across the field, sending the car forwardagain at reckless speed. Some vision of her grandfather, watching themachine careening over the still soft and spongy turf and leaving deeptracks behind it, made her smile. Akers leaped out. 

"No need to worry about our young friend, " he said cheerfully. "He isalternately being very sick at his stomach and cursing the poor workingman. But I think I'd better drive you back. He'll be poor company, I'llsay that. "

He looked at her, his bold eyes challenging, belying the amiablegentleness of his smile. 

"I'd better let him know. "

"I told him. He isn't strong for me. Always hate the fellow who savesyou, you know. But he didn't object. "

Lily moved into his car obediently. She felt a strange inclination to dowhat this man wanted. Rather, it was an inability to oppose him. He wenton, big, strong, and imperious. And he carried one along. It was easyand queer. But she did, unconsciously, what she had never done with Pinkor any other man; she sat as far away from him on the wide seat as shecould. 

He noticed that, and smiled ahead, over the wheel. He had beeninfuriated over her avoidance of him, but if she was afraid of him--

"Bully engine in this car. Never have to change a gear. "

"You certainly made a road through the field. "

"They'll fix that, all right. Are you warm enough?"

"Yes, thank you. "

"You have been treating me very badly, you know, Miss Cardew. "

"I have been frightfully busy. "

"That's not true, and you know it. You've been forbidden to see me, haven't you?"

"I have been forbidden to go back to Cardew Way. "

"They don't know about me, then?"

"There isn't very much to know, is there?"

"I wish you wouldn't fence with me, " he said impatiently. "I told youonce I was frank. I want you to answer one question. If this thingrested with you, would you see me again?"

"I think I would, Mr. Akers, " she said honestly. 

Had she ever known a man like the one beside her, she would not havegiven him that opportunity. He glanced sharply around, and then suddenlystopped the car and turned toward her. 

"I'm crazy about you, and you know it, " he said. And roughly, violently, he caught her to him and kissed her again and again. Her arms werepinned to her sides, and she was helpless. After a brief struggle tofree herself she merely shut her eyes and waited for him to stop. 

"I'm mad about you, " he whispered. 

Then he freed her. Lily wanted to feel angry, but she felt onlyhumiliated and rather soiled. There were men like that, then, men whogave way to violent impulses, who lost control of themselves and had toapologize afterwards. She hated him, but she was sorry for him, too. Hewould have to be so humble. She was staring ahead, white and waiting forhis explanation, when he released the brake and started the car forwardslowly. 

"Well?" he said, with a faint smile. 

"You will have to apologize for that, Mr. Akers. "

"I'm damned if I will. That man back there, Denslow--he's the sort whowould kiss a girl and then crawl about it afterwards. I won't. I'm notsorry. A strong man can digest his own sins. I kissed you because Iwanted to. It wasn't an impulse. I meant to when we started. And you'reonly doing the conventional thing and pretending to be angry. You're notangry. Good God, girl, be yourself once in a while. "

"I'm afraid I don't understand you. " Her voice was haughty. "And I mustask you to stop the car and let me get out. "

"I'll do nothing of the sort, of course. Now get this straight, MissCardew. I haven't done you any harm. I may have a brutal way of showingthat I'm crazy about you, but it's my way. I'm a man, and I'm no handkisser. "

And when she said nothing:

"You think I'm unrestrained, and I am, in a way. But if I did what Ireally want to do, I'd not take you home at all. I'd steal you. You'vedone something to me, God knows what. "

"Then I can only say I'm sorry, " Lily said slowly. 

She felt strangely helpless and rather maternal. With all his strengththis sort of man needed to be protected from himself. She felt noanswering thrill whatever to his passion, but as though, having told herhe loved her, he had placed a considerable responsibility in her hands. 

"I'll be good now, " he said. "Mind, I'm not sorry. But I don't want toworry you. "

He made no further overtures to her during the ride, but he was neithersulky nor sheepish. He feigned an anxiety as to the threatened strike, and related at great length and with extreme cleverness of invention hisown efforts to prevent it. 

"I've a good bit of influence with the A. F. L. , " he said. "Doyle's in badwith them, but I'm still solid. But it's coming, sure as shooting. Andthey'll win, too. "

He knew women well, and he saw that she was forgiving him. But she wouldnot forget. He had a cynical doctrine, to the effect that a woman'sfirst kiss of passion left an ineradicable mark on her, and he was quitecertain that Lily had never been so kissed before. 

Driving through the park he turned to her:

"Please forgive me, " he said, his mellow voice contrite andsupplicating. "You've been so fine about it that you make me ashamed. "

"I would like to feel that it wouldn't happen again: That's all. "

"That means you intend to see me again. But never is a long word. I'mafraid to promise. You go to my head, Lily Cardew. " They were haltedby the traffic, and it gave him a chance to say something he had beeningeniously formulating in his mind. "I've known lots of girls. I'm nosaint. But you are different. You're a good woman. You could do anythingyou wanted with me, if you cared to. "

And because she was young and lovely, and because he was always theslave of youth and beauty, he meant what he said. It was a lie, but hewas lying to himself also, and his voice held unmistakable sincerity. But even then he was watching her, weighing the effect of his words onher. He saw that she was touched. 

He was very well pleased with himself on his way home. He left thecar at the public garage, and walked, whistling blithely, to his smallbachelor apartment. He was a self-indulgent man, and his rooms werecomfortable to the point of luxury. In the sitting room was a desk, asclean and orderly as Doyle's was untidy. Having put on his dressing gownhe went to it, and with a sheet of paper before him sat for some timethinking. 

He found his work irksome at times. True, it had its interest. He wasthe liaison between organized labor, which was conservative in the main, and the radical element, both in and out of the organization. He playeda double game, and his work was always the same, to fan the discontentlatently smoldering in every man's soul into a flame. And to do this hehad not Doyle's fanaticism. Personally, Louis Akers found the world apretty good place. He hated the rich because they had more than he had, but he scorned the poor because they had less. And he liked the feelingof power he had when, on the platform, men swayed to his words likewheat to a wind. 

Personal ambition was his fetish, as power was Anthony Cardew's. Sometimes he walked past the exclusive city clubs, and he dreamed of atime when he, too, would have the entree to them. But time was passing. He was thirty-three years old when Jim Doyle crossed his path, and theclubs were as far away as ever. It was Doyle who found the weak placein his armor, and who taught him that when one could not rise it waspossible to pull others down. 

But it was Woslosky, the Americanized Pole; who had put the thing in amore appealing form. 

"Our friend Doyle to the contrary, " he said cynically, "we cannot hopeto contend against the inevitable. The few will always govern the many, in the end. It will be the old cycle, autocracy, anarchy, and thendemocracy; but out of this last comes always the one man who crownshimself or is crowned. One of the people. You, or myself, it may be. "

The Pole had smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 

Akers did not go to work immediately. He sat for some time, a cigarettein his hand, his eyes slightly narrowed. He believed that he could marryLily Cardew. It would take time and all his skill, but he believed hecould do it. His mind wandered to Lily herself, her youth and charm, hersoft red mouth, the feel of her warm young body in his arms. He broughthimself up sharply. Where would such a marriage take him?

He pondered the question pro and con. On the one hand the Cardews, onthe other, Doyle and a revolutionary movement. A revolution would beinteresting and exciting, and there was strong in him the desire to pulldown. But revolution was troublesome. It was violent and bloody. Even ifit succeeded it would be years before the country would be stabilized. This other, now--

He sat low in his chair, his long legs stretched out in his favoriteposition, and dreamed. He would not play the fool like Doyle. He wouldconciliate the family. In the end he would be put up at the clubs; hemight even play polo. His thoughts wandered to Pink Denslow at the pologrounds, and he grinned. 

"Young fool!" he reflected. "If I can't beat his time--" He ordereddinner to be sent up, and mixed himself a cocktail, using the utmostcare in its preparation. Drinking it, he eyed himself complacently inthe small mirror over the mantel. Yes, life was not bad. It was damnedinteresting. It was a game. No, it was a race where a man could so hedgehis bets that he stood to gain, whoever won. 

When there was a knock at the door he did not turn. "Come in, " he said. 

But it was not the waiter. It was Edith Boyd. He saw her through themirror, and so addressed her. 

"Hello, sweetie, " he said. Then he turned. "You oughtn't to come here, Edith. I've told you about that. "

"I had to see you, Lou. "

"Well, take a good look, then, " he said. Her coming fitted in well withthe complacence of his mood. Yes, life was good, so long as it heldpower, and drink, and women. 

He stooped to kiss her, but although she accepted the caress, she didnot return it. 

"Not mad at me, Miss Boyd, are you?"

"No. Lou, I'm frightened!"

CHAPTER XIV

On clear Sundays Anthony Cardew played golf all day. He kept hisreligious observances for bad weather, but at such times as he attendedservice he did it with the decorum and dignity of a Cardew, who bowed tohis God but to nothing else. He made the responses properly and with acertain unction, and sat during the sermon with a vigilant eye on thechoir boys, who wriggled. Now and then, however, the eye wandered tothe great stained glass window which was a memorial to his wife. It saidbeneath: "In memoriam, Lilian Lethbridge Cardew. "

He thought there was too much yellow in John the Baptist. On the Sundayafternoon following her ride into the city with Louis Akers, Lily foundherself alone. Anthony was golfing and Grace and Howard had motored outof town for luncheon. In a small office near the rear of the hall thesecond man dozed, waiting for the doorbell. There would be people infor tea later, as always on Sunday afternoons; girls and men, walkingthrough the park or motoring up in smart cars, the men a trifle boredbecause they were not golfing or riding, the girls chattering about thesmall inessentials which somehow they made so important. 

Lily was wretchedly unhappy. For one thing, she had begun to feel thatMademoiselle was exercising over her a sort of gentle espionage, and shethought her grandfather was behind it. Out of sheer rebellion she hadgone again to the house on Cardew Way, to find Elinor out and Jim Doylewriting at his desk. He had received her cordially, and had talked toher as an equal. His deferential attitude had soothed her wounded pride, and she had told him something--very little--of the situation at home. 

"Then you are still forbidden to come here?"

"Yes. As if what happened years ago matters now, Mr. Doyle. "

He eyed her. 

"Don't let them break your spirit, Lily, " he had said. "Success canmake people very hard. I don't know myself what success would do tome. Plenty, probably. " He smiled. "It isn't the past your people won'tforgive me, Lily. It's my failure to succeed in what they call success. "

"It isn't that, " she had said hastily. "It is--they say you areinflammatory. Of course they don't understand. I have tried to tellthem, but--"

"There are fires that purify, " he had said, smilingly. 

She had gone home, discontented with her family's lack of vision, andwith herself. 

She was in a curious frame of mind. The thought of Louis Akers repelledher, but she thought of him constantly. She analyzed him clearly enough;he was not fine and not sensitive. He was not even kind. Indeed, shefelt that he could be both cruel and ruthless. And if she was the firstgood woman he had ever known, then he must have had a hateful past. 

The thought that he had kissed her turned her hot with anger and shameat such times, but the thought recurred. 

Had she had occupation perhaps she might have been saved, but she hadnothing to do. The house went on with its disciplined service; Lent hadmade its small demands as to church services, and was over. The weatherwas bad, and the golf links still soggy with the spring rains. Herwardrobe was long ago replenished, and that small interest gone. 

And somehow there had opened a breach between herself and the littleintimate group that had been hers before the war. She wondered sometimeswhat they would think of Louis Akers. They would admire him, at first, for his opulent good looks, but very soon they would recognize what sheknew so well--the gulf between him and the men of their own world, sohard a distinction to divine, yet so real for all that. They would knowinstinctively that under his veneer of good manners was something coarseand crude, as she did, and they would politely snub him. She had no nameand no knowledge for the urge in the man that she vaguely recognized andresented. But she had a full knowledge of the obsession he was becomingin her mind. 

"If I could see him here, " she reflected, more than once, "I'd get overthinking about him. It's because they forbid me to see him. It's sheercontrariness. "

But it was not, and she knew it. She had never heard of his theory aboutthe mark on a woman. 

She was hating herself very vigorously on that Sunday afternoon. Mademoiselle and she had lunched alone in Lily's sitting-room, andMademoiselle had dozed off in her chair afterwards, a novel on her knee. Lily was wandering about downstairs when the telephone rang, and she hada quick conviction that it was Louis Akers. It was only Willy Cameron, however, asking her if she cared to go for a walk. 

"I've promised Jinx one all day, " he explained, "and we might as wellcombine, if you are not busy. "

She smiled at that. 

"I'd love it, " she said. "In the park?"

"Wait a moment. " Then: "Yes, Jinx says the park is right. "

His wholesome nonsense was good for her. She drew a long breath. 

"You are precisely the person I need to-day, " she said. "And come soon, because I shall have to be back at five. "

When he came he was very neat indeed, and most scrupulous as to hisheels being polished. He was also slightly breathless. 

"Had to sew a button on my coat, " he explained. "Then I found I'd sewedin one of my fingers and had to start all over again. "

Lily was conscious of a change in him. He looked older, she thought, andthinner. His smile, when it came, was as boyish as ever, but he didnot smile so much, and seen in full daylight he was shabby. He seemedtotally unconscious of his clothes, however. 

"What do you do with yourself, Willy?" she asked. "I mean when you arefree?"

"Read and study. I want to take up metallurgy pretty soon. There's anight course at the college. "

"We use metallurgists in the mill. When you are ready I know fatherwould be glad to have you. "

He flushed at that. 

"Thanks, " he said. "I'd rather get in, wherever I go, by what I know, and not who I know. "

She felt considerably snubbed, but she knew his curious pride. After atime, while he threw a stick into the park lake and Jinx retrieved it, he said:

"What do you do with yourself these days, Lily?"

"Nothing. I've forgotten how to work, I'm afraid. And I'm not veryhappy, Willy. I ought to be, but I'm just--not. "

"You've learned what it is to be useful, " he observed gravely, "and nowit hardly seems worth while just to live, and nothing else. Is that it?"

"I suppose. "

"Isn't there anything you can do?"

"They won't let me work, and I hate to study. "

There was a silence. Willy Cameron sat on the bench, bent and staringahead. Jinx brought the stick, and, receiving no attention, insinuated adripping body between his knees. He patted the dog's head absently. 

"I have been thinking about the night I went to dinner at your house, "he said at last. "I had no business to say what I said then. I've gota miserable habit of saying just what comes into my mind, and I've beenafraid, ever since, that it would end in your not wanting to see meagain. Just try to forget it happened, won't you?"

"I knew it was an impulse, but it made me very proud, Willy. "

"All right, " he said quietly. "And that's that. Now about yourgrandfather. I've had him on my mind, too. He is an old man, andsometimes they are peculiar. I am only sorry I upset him. And you are toforget that, too. "

In spite of herself she laughed, rather helplessly. 

"Is there anything I am to remember?"

He smiled too, and straightened himself, like a man who has gotsomething off his chest. 

"Certainly there is, Miss Cardew. Me. Myself. I want you to know thatI'm around, ready to fetch and carry like Jinx here, and about asnecessary, I suppose. We are a good bit alike, Jinx and I. We'resatisfied with a bone, and we give a lot of affection. You won't mind abone now and then?"

His cheerful tone reassured the girl. There was no real hurt, then. 

"That's nice of you, you know. "

"Well, " he said slowly, "you know there are men who prefer a dream toreality. Perhaps I'm like that. Anyhow, that's enough about me. Do youknow that there is a strike coming?"

"Yes. I ought to tell you, Willy. I think the men are right. "

He stared at her incredulously. 

"Right?" he said. "Why, my dear child, most of them want to strike aboutas much as I want delirium tremens. I've talked to them, and I know. "

"A slave may be satisfied if he has never known freedom. "

"Oh, fudge, " said Willy Cameron, rudely. "Where do you get all that?You're quoting; aren't you? The strike, any strike, is an acknowledgmentof weakness. It is a resort to the physical because the collectivementality of labor isn't as strong as the other side. Or labor thinks itisn't, which amounts to the same thing. And there is a fine line betweenthe fellow who fights for a principle and the one who knocks people downto show how strong he is. "

"This is a fight for a principle, Willy. "

"Fine little Cardew you are!" he scoffed. "Don't make any mistake. Therehave been fights by labor for a principle, and the principle won, asgood always wins over evil. But this is different. It's a direct playby men who don't realize what they are doing, into the hands of a lotof--well, we'll call them anarchists. It's Germany's way of winning thewar. By indirection. "

"If by anarchists you mean men like my uncle--"

"I do, " he said grimly. "That's a family accident and you can't help it. But I do mean Doyle. Doyle and a Pole named Woslosky, and a scoundrel ofan attorney here in town, named Akers, among others. "

"Mr. Akers is a friend of mine, Willy. "

He stared at her. 

"If they have been teaching you their dirty doctrines, Lily, " he saidat last, "I can only tell you this. They can disguise it in all the fineterms they want. It is treason, and they are traitors. I know. I've hada talk with the Chief of Police. "

"I don't believe it. "

"How well do you know Louis Akers?"

"Not very well. " But there were spots of vivid color flaming in hercheeks. He drew a long breath. 

"I can't retract it, " he said. "I didn't know, of course. Shall we startback?"

They were very silent as they walked. Willy Cameron was pained andanxious. He knew Akers' type rather than the man himself, but he knewthe type well. Every village had one, the sleek handsome animal whoattracted girls by sheer impudence and good humor, who made passionate, pagan love promiscuously, and put the responsibility for the misery theycaused on the Creator because He had made them as they were. 

He was agonized by another train of thought. For him Lily had alwaysbeen something fine, beautiful, infinitely remote. There were othergirls, girls like Edith Boyd, who were touched, some more, some less, with the soil of life. Even when they kept clean they saw it allabout them, and looked on it with shrewd, sophisticated eyes. But Lilywas--Lily. The very thought of Louis Akers looking at her as he had seenhim look at Edith Boyd made him cold with rage. 

"Do you mind if I say something?"

"That sounds disagreeable. Is it?"

"Maybe, but I'm going to anyhow, Lily. I don't like to think of youseeing Akers. I don't know anything against him, and I suppose if I didI wouldn't tell you. But he is not your sort. "

An impulse of honesty prevailed with her. 

"I know that as well as you do. I know him better than you do. But, hestands for something, at least, " she added rather hotly. "None of theother men I know stand for anything very much. Even you, Willy. "

"I stand for the preservation of my country, " he said gravely. "I mean, I represent a lot of people who--well, who don't believe that changealways means progress, and who do intend that the changes Doyle andAkers and that lot want they won't get. I don't believe--if you say youwant what they want--that you know what you are talking about. "

"Perhaps I am more intelligent than you think I am. "

He was, of course, utterly wretched, impressed by the futility ofarguing with her. 

"Do your people know that you are seeing Louis Akers!"

"You are being rather solicitous, aren't you?"

"I am being rather anxious. I wouldn't dare, of course, if we hadn'tbeen such friends. But Akers is wrong, wrong every way, and I have totell you that, even if it means that you will never see me again. Hetakes a credulous girl--"

"Thank you!"

"And talks bunk to her and possibly makes love to her--"

"Haven't we had enough of Mr. Akers?" Lily asked coldly. "If you cannotspeak of anything else, please don't talk. "

The result of which was a frozen silence until they reached the house. 

"Good-by, " she said primly. "It was very nice of you to call me up. Good-by, Jinx. " She went up the steps, leaving him bare-headed andrather haggard, looking after her. 

He took the dog and went out into the country on foot, tramping throughthe mud without noticing it, and now and then making little despairinggestures. He was helpless. He had cut himself off from her like a fool. Akers. Akers and Edith Boyd. Other women. Akers and other women. And nowLily. Good God, Lily!

Jinx was tired. He begged to be carried, planting two muddy feet on hismaster's shabby trouser leg, and pleading with low whines. Willy Cameronstooped and, gathering up the little animal, tucked him under his arm. When it commenced to rain he put him under his coat and plunged his headthrough the mud and wet toward home. 

Lily had entered the house in a white fury, but a moment later she wasremorseful. For one thing, her own anger bewildered her. After all, hehad meant well, and it was like him to be honest, even if it cost himsomething he valued. 

She ran to the door and looked around for him, but he had disappeared. She went in again, remorseful and unhappy. What had come over her totreat him like that? He had looked almost stricken. 

"Mr. Akers is calling, Miss Cardew, " said the footman. "He is in thedrawing-room. "

Lily went in slowly. 

Louis Akers had been waiting for some time. He had lounged into thedrawing-room, with an ease assumed for the servant's benefit, and hadimmediately lighted a cigarette. That done, and the servant departed, hehad carefully appraised his surroundings. He liked the stiff formalityof the room. He liked the servant in his dark maroon livery. Heliked the silence and decorum. Most of all, he liked himself in thesesurroundings. He wandered around, touching a bowl here, a vase there, eyeing carefully the ancient altar cloth that lay on a table, the oldneedle-work tapestry on the chairs. 

He saw himself fitted into this environment, a part of it; comingdown the staircase, followed by his wife, and getting into his waitinglimousine; sitting at the head of his table, while the important men ofthe city listened to what he had to say. It would come, as sure as Godmade little fishes. And Doyle was a fool. He, Louis Akers, would marryLily Cardew and block that other game. But he would let the Cardewsknow who it was who had blocked it and saved their skins. They'd have toreceive him after that; they would cringe to him. 

Then, unexpectedly, he had one of the shocks of his life. He had goneto the window and through it he saw Lily and Willy Cameron outside. Heclutched at the curtain and cursed under his breath, apprehensively. But Willy Cameron did not come in; Akers watched him up the street withcalculating, slightly narrowed eyes. The fact that Lily Cardew knew theclerk at the Eagle Pharmacy was an unexpected complication. His surprisewas lost in anxiety. But Lily, entering the room a moment later, ratherpale and unsmiling, found him facing the door, his manner easy, his headwell up, and drawn to his full and rather overwhelming height. She foundher poise entirely gone, and it was he who spoke first. 

"I know, " he said. "You didn't ask me, but I came anyhow. "

She held out her hand rather primly. 

"It is very good of you to come. "

"Good! I couldn't stay away. "

He took her outstretched hand, smiling down at her, and suddenly made anattempt to draw her to him. 

"You know that, don't you?"

"Please!"

He let her go at once. He had not played his little game so long withoutlearning its fine points. There were times to woo a woman with a strongarm, and there were other times that required other methods. 

"Right-o, " he said, "I'm sorry. I've been thinking about you so muchthat I daresay I have got farther in our friendship than I should. Doyou know that you haven't been out of my mind since that ride we hadtogether?"

"Really? Would you like some tea?"

"Thanks, yes. Do you dislike my telling you that?"

She rang the bell, and then stood Lacing him. 

"I don't mind, no. But I am trying very hard to forget that ride, and Idon't want to talk about it. "

"When a beautiful thing comes into a man's life he likes to rememberit. "

"How can you call it beautiful?"

"Isn't it rather fine when two people, a man and a woman, suddenly finda tremendous attraction that draws them together, in spite of the factthat everything else is conspiring to keep them apart?"

"I don't know, " she said uncertainly. "It just seemed all wrong, somehow. "

"An honest impulse is never wrong. "

"I don't want to discuss it, Mr. Akers. It is over. "

While he was away from her, her attraction for him loomed less than thethings she promised, of power and gratified ambition. But he found her, with her gentle aloofness, exceedingly appealing, and with the tact ofthe man who understands women he adapted himself to her humor. 

"You are making me very unhappy; Miss Lily, " he said. "If you'll onlypromise to let me see you now and then, I'll promise to be as mild asdish-water. Will you promise?"

She was still struggling, still remembering Willy Cameron, still tryingto remember all the things that Louis Akers was not. 

"I think I ought not to see you at all. "

"Then, " he said slowly, "you are going to cut me off from the one decentinfluence in my life. "

She was still revolving that in her mind when tea came. Akers, havingshot his bolt, watched with interest the preparation for the littleceremony, the old Georgian teaspoons, the Crown Derby cups, thebell-shaped Queen Anne teapot, beautifully chased, the old pierced sugarbasin. Almost his gaze was proprietary. And he watched Lily, her casualhandling of those priceless treasures, her taking for granted of serviceand beauty, her acceptance of quality because she had never knownanything else, watched her with possessive eyes. 

When the servant had gone, he said:

"You are being very nice to me, in view of the fact that you did notask me to come. And also remembering that your family does not happen tocare about me. "

"They are not at home. "

"I knew that, or I should not have come. I don't want to make troublefor you, child. " His voice was infinitely caressing. "As it happens, Iknow your grandfather's Sunday habits, and I met your father and motheron the road going out of town at noon. I knew they had not come back. "

"How do you know that?"

He smiled down at her. "I have ways of knowing quite a lot of things. Especially when they are as vital to me as this few minutes alone withyou. "

He bent toward her, as he sat behind the tea table. 

"You know how vital this is to me, don't you?" he said. "You're notgoing to cut me off, are you?"

He stood over her, big, compelling, dominant, and put his hand under herchin. 

"I am insane about you, " he whispered, and waited. 

Slowly, irresistibly, she lifted her face to his kiss. 

CHAPTER XV

On the first day of May, William Wallace Cameron moved his trunk, theframed photograph of his mother, eleven books, an alarm clock and Jinxto the Boyd house. He went for two reasons. First, after his initialcall at the dreary little house, he began to realize that something hadto be done in the Boyd family. The second reason was his dog. 

He began to realize that something had to be done in the Boyd family assoon as he had met Mrs. Boyd. 

"I don't know what's come over the children, " Mrs. Boyd said, fretfully. She sat rocking persistently in the dreary little parlor. Her chairinched steadily along the dull carpet, and once or twice she brought upjust as she was about to make a gradual exit from the room. "They act soqueer lately. "

She hitched the chair into place again. Edith had gone out. It was heridea of an evening call to serve cakes and coffee, and a strong andacrid odor was seeping through the doorway. "There's Dan come home fromthe war, and when he gets back from the mill he just sits and staresahead of him. He won't even talk about the war, although he's got a lotto tell. "

"It takes some time for the men who were over to get settled down again, you know. "

"Well, there's Edith, " continued the querulous voice. "You'd think thecat had got her tongue, too. I tell you, Mr. Cameron, there are mealshere when if I didn't talk there wouldn't be a word spoken. "

Mr. Cameron looked up. It had occurred to him lately, not precisely thata cat had got away with Edith's tongue, but that something undeniablyhad got away with her cheerfulness. There were entire days in the storewhen she neglected to manicure her nails, and stood looking out past thefading primrose in the window to the street. But there were no longerany shrewd comments on the passers-by. 

"Of course, the house isn't very cheerful, " sighed Mrs. Boyd. "I'm asick woman, Mr. Cameron. My back hurts most of the time. It just achesand aches. "

"I know, " said Mr. Cameron. "My mother has that, sometimes. If you likeI'll mix you up some liniment, and Miss Edith can bring it to you. "

"Thanks. I've tried most everything. Edith wants to rent a room, so wecan keep a hired girl, but it's hard to get a girl. They want all themoney on earth, and they eat something awful. That's a nice friendly dogof yours, Mr. Cameron. "

It was perhaps Jinx who decided Willy Cameron. Jinx was at that momentoccupying the only upholstered chair, but he had developed a strongliking for the frail little lady with the querulous voice and the shabbyblack dress. He had, indeed, insisted shortly after his entranceon leaping into her lap, and had thus sat for some time, completelyeclipsing his hostess. 

"Just let him sit, " Mrs. Boyd said placidly. "I like a dog. And he can'thurt this skirt I've got on. It's on its last legs. "

With which bit of unconscious humor Willy Cameron had sat down. Something warm and kindly glowed in his heart. He felt that dogs have acurious instinct for knowing what lies concealed in the human heart, andthat Jinx had discovered something worth while in Edith's mother. 

It was later in the evening, however, that he said, over Edith's bakerycakes and her atrocious coffee:

"If you really mean that about a roomer, I know of one. " He glanced atEdith. "Very neat. Careful with matches. Hard to get up in the morning, but interesting, highly intelligent, and a clever talker. That's his onefault. When he is interested in a thing he spouts all over the place. "

"Really?" said Mrs. Boyd. "Well, talk would be a change here. He soundskind of pleasant. Who is he?"

"This paragon of beauty and intellect sits before you, " said WillyCameron. 

"You'll have to excuse me. I didn't recognize you by the description, "said Mrs. Boyd, unconsciously. "Well, I don't know. I'd like to havethis dog around. "

Even Edith laughed at that. She had been very silent all evening, sitting most of the time with her hands in her lap, and her eyes onWilly Cameron. Rather like Jinx's eyes they were, steady, unblinking, loyal, and with something else in common with Jinx which Willy Cameronnever suspected. 

"I wouldn't come, if I were you, " she said, unexpectedly. 

"Why, Edie, you've been thinking of asking him right along. "

"We don't know how to keep a house, " she persisted, to him. "We can'teven cook--you know that's rotten coffee. I'll show you the room, if youlike, but I won't feel hurt if you don't take it, I'll be worried if youdo. "

Mrs. Boyd watched them perplexedly as they went out, the tall young manwith his uneven step, and Edith, who had changed so greatly in the lastfew weeks, and blew hot one minute and cold the next. Now that she hadseen Willy Cameron, Mrs. Boyd wanted him to come. He would bring newlife into the little house. He was cheerful. He was not glum like Dan ordiscontented like Edie. And the dog--She got up slowly and walked overto the chair where Jinx sat, eyes watchfully on the door. 

"Nice Jinx, " she said, and stroked his head with a thin and stringyhand. "Nice doggie. "

She took a cake from the plate and fed it to him, bit by bit. She felthappier than she had for a long time, since her children were babies andneeded her. 

"I meant it, " said Edith, on the stairs. "You stay away. We're a poorlot, and we're unlucky, too. Don't get mixed up with us. "

"Maybe I'm going to bring you luck. "

"The best luck for me would be to fall down these stairs and break myneck. "

He looked at her anxiously, and any doubts he might have had, born ofthe dreariness, the odors of stale food and of the musty cellar below, of the shabby room she proceeded to show him, died in an impulse tosomehow, some way, lift this small group of people out of the slough ofdespondency which seemed to be engulfing them all. 

"Why, what's the matter with the room?" he said. "Just wait until I'vegot busy in it! I'm a paper hanger and a painter, and--"

"You're a dear, too, " said Edith. 

So on the first of May he moved in, and for some evenings PoliticalEconomy and History and Travel and the rest gave way to anxious cuttingsand fittings of wall paper, and a pungent odor of paint. The old housetook on new life and activity, the latter sometimes pernicious, as whenWilly Cameron fell down the cellar stairs with a pail of paint in hishand, or Dan, digging up some bricks in the back yard for a border theseeds of which were already sprouting in a flat box in the kitchen, rana pickaxe into his foot. 

Some changes were immediate, such as the white-washing of the cellar andthe unpainted fence in the yard, where Willy Cameron visualized, lateron, great draperies of morning glories. He papered the parlor, andcoaxed Mrs. Boyd to wash the curtains, although she protested that, withthe mill smoke, it was useless labor. 

But there were some changes that he knew only time would effect. Sometimes he went to his bed worn out both physically and spiritually, as though the burden of lifting three life-sodden souls was too much. Not that he thought of that, however. What he did know was that the foodwas poor. No servant had been found, and years of lack of system hadleft Mrs. Boyd's mind confused and erratic. She would spend hoursconcocting expensive desserts, while the vegetables boiled dry andscorched and meat turned to leather, only to bring pridefully to thetable some flavorless mixture garnished according to a picture in thecook book, and totally unedible. 

She would have ambitious cleaning days, too, starting late and leavingoff with beds unmade to prepare the evening meal. Dan, home from themill and newly adopting Willy Cameron's system of cleaning up forsupper, would turn sullen then, and leave the moment the meal was over. 

"Hell of a way to live, " he said once. "I'd get married, but how can afellow know whether a girl will make a home for him or give him this?And then there would be babies, too. "

The relations between Dan and Edith were not particularly cordial. WillyCameron found their bickering understandable enough, but he was puzzled, sometimes, to find that Dan was surreptitiously watching his sister. Edith was conscious of it, too, and one evening she broke into irritatedspeech. 

"I wish you'd quit staring at me, Dan Boyd. "

"I was wondering what has come over you, " said Dan, ungraciously. "Youused to be a nice kid. Now you're an angel one minute and a devil thenext. "

Willy spoke to him that night when they were setting out rows ofseedlings, under the supervision of Jinx. 

"I wouldn't worry her, Dan, " he said; "it is the spring, probably. Itgets into people, you know. I'm that way myself. I'd give a lot to be inthe country just now. "

Dan glanced at him quickly, but whatever he may have had in his mind, hesaid nothing just then. However, later on he volunteered:

"She's got something on her mind. I know her. But I won't have hertalking back to mother. "

A week or so after Willy Cameron had moved, Mr. Hendricks rang the bellof the Boyd house, and then, after his amiable custom, walked in. 

"Oh, Cameron!" he bawled. 

"Upstairs, " came Willy Cameron's voice, somewhat thickened with carpettacks. So Mr. Hendricks climbed part of the way, when he found his headon a level with that of the young gentleman he sought, who was nailing arent in the carpet. 

"Don't stop, " said Mr. Hendricks. "Merely friendly call. And forheaven's sake don't swallow a tack, son. I'm going to need you. "

"Whaffor?" inquired Willy Cameron, through his nose. 

"Don't know yet. Make speeches, probably. If Howard Cardew, or anyCardew, thinks he's going to be mayor of this town, he's got to thinkagain. "

"I don't give a tinker's dam who's mayor of this town, so long as hegives it honest government. "

"That's right, " said Mr. Hendricks approvingly. "Old Cardew's beenrunning it for years, and you could put all the honest government he'sgiven us in a hollow tooth. If you'll stop that hammering, I'd like tomake a proposition to you. "

Willy Cameron took an admiring squint at his handiwork. 

"Sorry to refuse you, Mr. Hendricks, but I don't want to be mayor. "

Mr. Hendricks chuckled, as Willy Cameron led the way to his room. Hewandered around the room while Cameron opened a window and slid the dogoff his second chair. 

"Great snakes!" he said. "Spargo's Bolshevism! Political Economy, History of--. What are you planning to be? President?"

"I haven't decided yet. It's a hard job, and mighty thankless. But Iwon't be your mayor, even for you. "

Mr. Hendricks sat down. 

"All right, " he said. "Of course if you'd wanted it!" He took two largecigars from the row in his breast pocket and held one out, but WillyCameron refused it and got his pipe. 

"Well?" he said. 

Mr. Hendrick's face became serious and very thoughtful. "I don't knowthat I have ever made it clear to you, Cameron, " he said, "but I've gota peculiar feeling for this city. I like it, the way some people liketheir families. It's--well, it's home to me, for one thing. I like togo out in the evenings and walk around, and I say to myself: 'This is mytown. ' And we, it and me, are sending stuff all over the world. I liketo think that somewhere, maybe in China, they are riding on our railsand fighting with guns made from our steel. Maybe you don't understandthat. "

"I think I do. "

"Well, that's the way I feel about it, anyhow. And this Bolshevist stuffgets under my skin. I've got a home and a family here. I started in towork when I was thirteen, and all I've got I've made and saved righthere. It isn't much, but it's mine. "

Willy Cameron was lighting his pipe. He nodded. Mr. Hendricks bentforward and pointed a finger at him. 

"And to govern this city, who do you think the labor element is goingto put up and probably elect? We're an industrial city, son, with abig labor vote, and if it stands together--they're being swindled intoputting up as an honest candidate one of the dirtiest radicals in thecountry. That man Akers. "

He got up and closed the door. 

"I don't want Edith to hear me, " he said. "He's a friend of hers. Buthe's a bad actor, son. He's wrong with women, for one thing, and when Ithink that all he's got to oppose him is Howard Cardew--" Mr. Hendricksgot up, and took a nervous turn about the room. 

"Maybe you know that Cardew has a daughter?"

"Yes. "

"Well, I hear a good many things, one way and another, and my wife likesa bit of gossip. She knows them both by sight, and she ran into them oneday in the tea room of the Saint Elmo, sitting in a corner, and the girlhad her back to the room. I don't like the look of that, Cameron. "

Willy Cameron got up and closed the window. He stood there, with hisback to the light, for a full minute. Then:

"I think there must be some mistake about that, Mr. Hendricks. I havemet her. She isn't the sort of girl who would do clandestine things. "

Mr. Hendricks looked up quickly. He had made it his business to studymen, and there was something in Willy Cameron's voice that caught hisattention, and turned his shrewd mind to speculation. 

"Maybe, " he conceded. "Of course, anything a Cardew does is likely tobe magnified in this town. If she's as keen as the men in her family, she'll get wise to him pretty soon. " Willy Cameron came back then, butMr. Hendricks kept his eyes on the tip of his cigar. 

"We've got to lick Cardew, " he said, "but I'm cursed if I want to do itwith Akers. "

When there was no comment, he looked up. Yes, the boy had had a blow. Mr. Hendricks was sorry. If that was the way the wind blew it washopeless. It was more than that; it was tragic. 

"Sorry I said anything, Cameron. Didn't know you knew her. "

"That's all right. Of course I don't like to think she is being talkedabout. "

"The Cardews are always being talked about. You couldn't drop her ahint, I suppose?"

"She knows what I think about Louis Akers. "

He made a violent effort and pulled himself together. "So it is Akersand Howard Cardew, and one's a knave and one's a poor bet. "

"Right, " said Mr. Hendricks. "And one's Bolshevist, if I know anything, and the other is capital, and has about as much chance as a rich man toget through the eye of a needle. "

Which was slightly mixed, owing to a repressed excitement now makingitself evident in Mr. Hendricks's voice. 

"Why not run an independent candidate?" Willy Cameron asked quietly. "I've been shouting about the plain people. Why shouldn't they elect amayor? There is a lot of them. "

"That's the talk, " said Mr. Hendricks, letting his excitement have fullsway. "They could. They could run this town and run it right, if they'dtake the trouble. Now look here, son, I don't usually talk about myself, but--I'm honest. I don't say I wouldn't get off a street-car withoutpaying my fare if the conductor didn't lift it! But I'm honest. I don'tlie. I keep my word. And I live clean--which you can't say for LouAkers. Why shouldn't I run on an independent ticket? I mightn't beelected, but I'd make a damned good try. "

He stood up, and Willy Cameron rose also and held out his hand. 

"I don't know that my opinion is of any value, Mr. Hendricks. But I hopeyou get it, and I think you have a good chance. If I can do anything--"

"Do anything! What do you suppose I came here for? You're going to electme. You're going to make speeches and kiss babies, and tell the ordinaryfolks they're worth something after all. You got me started on thisthing, and now you've got to help me out. "

The future maker of mayors here stepped back in his amazement, and Jinxemitted a piercing howl. When peace was restored the F. M. Of M. Had gothis breath, and he said:

"I couldn't remember my own name before an audience, Mr. Hendricks. "

"You're fluent enough in that back room of yours. "

"That's different. "

"The people we're going after don't want oratory. They want good, straight talk, and a fellow behind it who doesn't believe the country'sheaded straight for perdition. We've had enough calamity bowlers. You'vegot the way out. The plain people. The hope of the nation. And, by God, you love your country, and not for what you can get out of it. That's athing a fellow's got to have inside him. He can't pretend it and get itover. "

In the end the F. M. Of M. Capitulated. 

It was late when Mr. Hendricks left. He went away with all the oldenvelopes in his pockets covered with memoranda. 

"Just wait a minute, son, " he would say. "I've got to make some speechesmyself. Repeat that, now. 'Sins of omission are as great, even greaterthan sins of commission. The lethargic citizen throws open the gates torevolution. ' How do you spell 'lethargic'?"

But it was not Hendricks and his campaign that kept the F. M. Of M. Awakeuntil dawn. He sat in front of his soft coal fire, and when it diedto gray-white ash he still sat there, unconscious of the chill of thespring night. Mostly he thought of Lily, and of Louis Akers, big andhandsome, of his insolent eyes and his self-indulgent mouth. Into thatcurious whirlpool that is the mind came now and then other visions: Hismother asleep in her chair; the men in the War Department who hadturned him down; a girl at home who had loved him, and made him feeldesperately unhappy because he could not love her in return. Was lovealways like that? If it was what He intended, why was it so oftenwithout reciprocation?

He took to walking about the room, according to his old habit, andobediently Jinx followed him. 

It was four by his alarm clock when Edith knocked at his door. She wasin a wrapper flung over her nightgown, and with her hair flying looseshe looked childish and very small. 

"I wish you would go to bed, " she said, rather petulantly. "Are yousick, or anything?"

"I was thinking, Edith. I'm sorry. I'll go at once. Why aren't youasleep?"

"I don't sleep much lately. " Their voices were cautious. "I never go tosleep until you're settled down, anyhow. "

"Why not? Am I noisy?"

"It's not that. "

She went away, a drooping, listless figure that climbed the stairsslowly and left him in the doorway, puzzled and uncomfortable. 

At six that morning Dan, tip-toeing downstairs to warm his left-overcoffee and get his own breakfast, heard a voice from Willy Cameron'sroom, and opened the door. Willy Cameron was sitting up in bed withhis eyes closed and his arms extended, and was concluding a speech to adream audience in deep and oratorical tones. 

"By God, it is time the plain people know their power. "

Dan grinned, and, his ideas of humor being rather primitive, he edgedhis way into the room and filled the orator's sponge with icy water fromthe pitcher. 

"All right, old top, " he said, "but it is also time the plain people gotup. "

Then he flung the sponge and departed with extreme expedition. 

CHAPTER XVI

It was not until a week had passed after Louis Akers' visit to the housethat Lily's family learned of it. 

Lily's state of mind during that week had been an unhappy one. Shemagnified the incident until her nerves were on edge, and Grace, findingher alternating between almost demonstrative affection and strangealoofness, was bewildered and hurt. Mademoiselle watched her secretly, shook her head, and set herself to work to find out what was wrong. Itwas, in the end, Mademoiselle who precipitated the crisis. 

Lily had not intended to make a secret of the visit, but as time wenton she found it increasingly difficult to tell about it. She should, sheknew, have spoken at once, and it would be hard to explain why she haddelayed. 

She meant to go to her father with it. It was he who had forbidden herto see Akers, for one thing. And she felt nearer to her father thanto her mother, always. Since her return she had developed an almostpassionate admiration for Howard, founded perhaps on her grandfather'sattitude toward him. She was strongly partizan, and she watched herfather, day after day, fighting his eternal battles with Anthony, sometimes winning, often losing, but standing for a principle likea rock while the seas of old Anthony's wrath washed over and oftenengulfed him. 

She was rather wistful those days, struggling with her own perplexities, and blindly reaching out for a hand to help her. But she could not bringherself to confession. She would wander into her father's dressing-roombefore she went to bed, and, sitting on the arm of his deep chair, wouldtry indirectly to get him to solve the problems that were troublingher. But he was inarticulate and rather shy with her. He had difficulty, sometimes, after her long absence at school and camp, in realizing heras the little girl who had once begged for his neckties to make intodoll frocks. 

Once she said:

"Could you love a person you didn't entirely respect, father?"

"Love is founded on respect, Lily. "

She pondered that. She felt that he was wrong. 

"But it does happen, doesn't it?" she had persisted. 

He had been accustomed to her searchings for interesting abstractionsfor years. She used to talk about religion in the same way. So he smiledand said:

"There is a sort of infatuation that is based on something quitedifferent. "

"On what?"

But he had rather floundered there. He could not discuss physicalattraction with her. 

"We're getting rather deep for eleven o'clock at night, aren't we?"

After a short silence:

"Do you mind speaking about Aunt Elinor, father?"

"No, dear. Although it is rather a painful subject. "

"But if she is happy, why is it painful?"

"Well, because Doyle is the sort of man he is. "

"You mean--because he is unfaithful to her? Or was?"

He was very uncomfortable. 

"That is one reason for it, of course. There are others. "

"But if he is faithful to her now, father? Don't you think, whatever aman has been, if he really cares for a woman it makes him over?"

"Sometimes, not always. " The subject was painful to him. He did not wanthis daughter to know the sordid things of life. But he added, gallantly:"Of course a good woman can do almost anything she wants with a man, ifhe cares for her. "

She lay awake almost all night, thinking that over. 

On the Sunday following Louis Akers' call Mademoiselle learned of it, bythe devious route of the servants' hall, and she went to Lily at once, yearning and anxious, and in her best lace collar. She needed courage, and to be dressed in her best gave her moral strength. 

"It is not, " she said, "that they wish to curtail your liberty, Lily. But to have that man come here, when he knows he is not wanted, to forcehimself on you--"

"I need not have seen him. I wanted to see him. "

Mademoiselle waved her hands despairingly. 

"If they find it out!" she wailed. 

"They will. I intend to tell them. "

But Mademoiselle made her error there. She was fearful of Grace'sattitude unless she forewarned her, and Grace, frightened, immediatelymade it a matter of a family conclave. She had not intended to includeAnthony, but he came in on an excited speech from Howard, and heard itall. 

The result was that instead of Lily going to them with her confession, she was summoned, to find her family a unit for once and combinedagainst her. She was not to see Louis Akers again, or the Doyles. 

They demanded a promise, but she refused. Yet even then, standing beforethem, forced to a defiance she did not feel, she was puzzled as wellas angry. They were wrong, and yet in some strange way they were right, too. She was Cardew enough to get their point of view. But she wasCardew enough, too, to defy them. 

She did it rather gently. 

"You must understand, " she said, her hands folded in front of her, "thatit is not so much that I care to see the people you are talking about. It is that I feel I have the right to choose my own friends. "

"Friends!" sneered old Anthony. "A third-rate lawyer, a--"

"That is not the point, grandfather. I went away to school when I was alittle girl. I have been away for five years. You cannot seem to realizethat I am a woman now, not a child. You bring me in here like a badchild. "

In the end old Anthony had slammed out of the room. There were argumentsafter that, tears on Grace's part, persuasion on Howard's; but Lily hadfrozen against what she considered their tyranny, and Howard found inher a sort of passive resistance, that drove him frantic. 

"Very well, " he said finally. "You have the arrogance of youth, and itscruelty, Lily. And you are making us all suffer without reason. "

"Don't you think I might say that too, father?"

"Are you in love with this man?"

"I have only seen him four times. If you would give me some reasons forall this fuss--"

"There are things I cannot explain to you. You wouldn't understand. "

"About his moral character?"

Howard was rather shocked. He hesitated:

"Yes. "

"Will you tell me what they are?"

"Good heavens, no!" he exploded. "The man's a radical, too. That initself ought to be enough. "

"You can't condemn a man for his political opinions. "

"Political opinions!"

"Besides, " she said, looking at him with her direct gaze, "isn't theresome reason in what the radicals believe, father? Maybe it is a dreamthat can't come true, but it is rather a fine dream, isn't it?"

It was then that Howard followed his father's example, and flung out ofthe room. 

After that Lily went, very deliberately and without secrecy, to thehouse on Cardew Way. She found a welcome there, not so marked on herAunt Elinor's part as on Doyle's, but a welcome. She found approval, too, where at home she had only suspicion and a solicitude basedon anxiety. She found a clever little circle there, and sometimes acultured one; underpaid, disgruntled, but brilliant professors fromthe college, a journalist or two, a city councilman, even prosperousmerchants, and now and then strange bearded foreigners who were passingthrough the city and who talked brilliantly of the vision of Lenine andthe future of Russia. 

She learned that the true League of Nations was not a politicalalliance, but a union of all the leveled peoples of the world. She hadno curiosity as to how this leveling was to be brought about. Allshe knew was that these brilliant dreamers made her welcome, and thatinstead of the dinner chat at home, small personalities, old Anthony'scomments on his food, her father's heavy silence, here was world talk, vast in its scope, idealistic, intoxicating. 

Almost always Louis Akers was there; it pleased her to see how the othermen listened to him, deferred to his views, laughed at his wit. She didnot know the care exercised in selecting the groups she was to meet, therestraints imposed on them. And she could not know that from her visitsthe Doyle establishment was gaining a prestige totally new to it, analmost respectability. 

Because of those small open forums, sometimes noted in the papers, thoseinnocuous gatherings, it was possible to hold in that very room othermeetings, not open and not innocuous, where practical plans took theplace of discontented yearnings, and where the talk was more often offighting than of brotherhood. 

She was, by the first of May, frankly infatuated with Louis Akers, yetwith a curious knowledge that what she felt was infatuation only. Shewould lie wide-eyed at night and rehearse painfully the weaknesses shesaw so clearly in him. But the next time she saw him she would yield tohis arms, passively but without protest. She did not like his caresses, but the memory of them thrilled her. 

She was following the first uncurbed impulse of her life. Guarded andmore or less isolated from other youth, she had always lived a stronginner life, purely mental, largely interrogative. She had had strongchildish impulses, sometimes of pure affection, occasionally of sheercontrariness, but always her impulses had been curbed. 

"Do be a little lady, " Mademoiselle would say. 

She had got, somehow, to feel that impulse was wrong. It ranked withdisobedience. It partook of the nature of sin. People who did wickedthings did them on impulse, and were sorry ever after; but then it wastoo late. 

As she grew older, she added something to that. Impulses of the mind ledto impulses of the body, and impulse was wrong. Passion was an impulseof the body. Therefore it was sin. It was the one sin one could not talkabout, so one was never quite clear about it. However, one thing seemedbeyond dispute; it was predominatingly a masculine wickedness. Goodwomen were beyond and above it, its victims sometimes, like those girlsat the camp, or its toys, like the sodden creatures in the segregateddistrict who hung, smiling their tragic smiles, around their doorways inthe late afternoons. 

But good women were not like that. If they were, then they were notgood. They did not lie awake remembering the savage clasp of a man'sarms, knowing all the time that this was not love, but something quitedifferent. Or if it was love, that it was painful and certainly notbeautiful. 

Sometimes she thought about Willy Cameron. He had had very exalted ideasabout love. He used to be rather oratorical about it. 

"It's the fundamental principle of the universe, " he would say, wavinghis pipe wildly. "But it means suffering, dear child. It feeds onmartyrdom and fattens on sacrifice. And as the h. C. Of l. Doesn't affecteither commodity, it lives forever. "

"What does it do, Willy, if it hasn't any martyrdom and sacrifice tofeed on? Do you mean to say that when it is returned and everybody ishappy, it dies?"

"Practically, " he had said. "It then becomes domestic contentment, andexpresses itself in the shape of butcher's bills and roast chicken onSundays. "

But that had been in the old care-free days, before Willy had thought heloved her, and before she had met Louis. 

She made a desperate effort one day to talk to her mother. She wanted, somehow, to be set right in her own eyes. But Grace could not meet hereven half way; she did not know anything about different sorts of love, but she did know that love was beautiful, if you met the right man andmarried him. But it had to be some one who was your sort, because in theend marriage was only a sort of glorified companionship. 

The moral in that, so obviously pointed at Louis Akers, invalidated therest of it for Lily. 

She was in a state of constant emotional excitement by that time, and itwas only a night or two after that she quarreled with her grandfather. There had been a dinner party, a heavy, pompous affair, largelyattended, for although spring was well advanced, the usual May hegira tothe country or the coast had not yet commenced. Industrial conditionsin and around the city were too disturbed for the large employers toget away, and following Lent there had been a sort of sporadic gayety, covering a vast uneasiness. There was to be no polo after all. 

Lily, doing her best to make the dinner a success, found herselfcontrasting it with the gatherings at the Doyle house, and found it verydull. These men, with their rigidity of mind, invited because they heldher grandfather's opinions, or because they kept their own convictionsto themselves, seemed to her of a bygone time. She did not see in them asafe counterpoise to a people which in its reaction from the old order, was ready to swing to anything that was new. She saw only a dozen orso elderly gentlemen, immaculate and prosperous, peering through theirglasses after a world which had passed them by. 

They were very grave that night. The situation was serious. The talkturned inevitably to the approaching strike, and from that to a possibleattempt on the part of the radical element toward violence. The oldermen pooh-poohed that, but the younger ones were uncertain. Isolatedriotings, yes. But a coordinated attempt against the city, no. Labourwas greedy, but it was law-abiding. Ah, but it was being fired byincendiary literature. Then what were the police doing? They weredoing everything. They were doing nothing. The governor was secretly aradical. Nonsense. The governor was saying little, but was waiting andwatching. A general strike was only another word for revolution. No. Itwould be attempted, perhaps, but only to demonstrate the solidarity oflabor. 

After a time Lily made a discovery. She found that even into thatcarefully selected gathering had crept a surprising spirit, based on thenecessity for concession; a few men who shared her father's convictions, and went even further. One or two, even, who, cautiously for fear of oldAnthony's ears, voiced a belief that before long invested money wouldbe given a fixed return, all surplus profits to be divided among theworkers, the owners and the government. 

"What about the lean years?" some one asked. 

The government's share of all business was to form a contingent fund forsuch emergencies, it seemed. 

Lily listened attentively. Was it because they feared that if they didnot voluntarily divide their profits they would be taken from them?Enough for all, and to none too much. Was that what they feared? Or wasit a sense of justice, belated but real?

She remembered something Jim Doyle had said:

"Labor has learned its weakness alone, its strength united. But capitalhas not learned that lesson. It will not take a loss for a principle. It will not unite. It is suspicious and jealous, so it fights itsindividual battles alone, and loses in the end. "

But then to offset that there was something Willy Cameron had said oneday, frying doughnuts for her with one hand, and waving the fork aboutwith the other. 

"Don't forget this, oh representative of the plutocracy, " he had said. "Capital has its side, and a darned good one, too. It's got a sense ofresponsibility to the country, which labor may have individually buthasn't got collectively. "

These men at the table were grave, burdened with responsibility. Herfather. Even her grandfather. It was no longer a question of profit. Itwas a question of keeping the country going. They were like men forcedto travel, and breasting a strong head wind. There were some there whowould turn, in time, and travel with the gale. But there were otherslike her grandfather, obstinate and secretly frightened, who wouldrefuse. Who would, to change the figure, sit like misers over theirtreasure, an eye on the window of life for thieves. 

She went upstairs, perplexed and thoughtful. Some time later she heardthe family ascending, the click of her mother's high heels on thepolished wood of the staircase, her father's sturdy tread, and a momentor two later her grandfather's slow, rather weary step. Suddenly shefelt sorry for him, for his age, for his false gods of power andpride, for the disappointment she was to him. She flung open her doorimpulsively and confronted him. 

"I just wanted to say good-night, grandfather, " she said breathlessly. "And that I am sorry. "

"Sorry for what?"

"Sorry--" she hesitated. "Because we see things so differently. "

Lily was almost certain that she caught a flash of tenderness in hiseyes, and certainly his voice had softened. 

"You looked very pretty to-night, " he said. But he passed on, and shehad again the sense of rebuff with which he met all her small overturesat that time. However, he turned at the foot of the upper flight. 

"I would like to talk to you, Lily. Will you come upstairs?"

She had been summoned before to those mysterious upper rooms of his, where entrance was always by request, and generally such requestspresaged trouble. But she followed him light-heartedly enough then. Hisrare compliment had pleased and touched her. 

The lamp beside his high-backed, almost throne-like chair was lighted, and in the dressing-room beyond his valet was moving about, preparingfor the night. Anthony dismissed the man, and sat down under the lamp. 

"You heard the discussion downstairs, to-night, Lily. Personally Ianticipate no trouble, but if there is any it may be directed at thishouse. " He smiled grimly. "I cannot rely on my personal popularityto protect me, I fear. Your mother obstinately refuses to leave yourfather, but I have decided to send you to your grand-aunt Caroline. "

"Aunt Caroline! She doesn't care for me, grandfather. She never has. "

"That is hardly pertinent, is it? The situation is this: She intends toopen the Newport house early in June, and at my request she will bringyou out there. Next fall we will do something here; I haven't decidedjust what. "

There was a sudden wild surge of revolt in Lily. She hated Newport. Grand-aunt Caroline was a terrible person. She was like Anthony, domineering and cruel, and with even less control over her tongue. 

"I need not point out the advantages of the plan, " said Anthony suavely. "There may be trouble here, although I doubt it. But in any event youwill have to come out, and this seems an excellent way. "

"Is it a good thing to spend a lot of money now, grandfather, when thereis so much discontent?"

Old Anthony had a small jagged vein down the center of his forehead, andin anger or his rare excitements it stood out like a scar. Lily saw itnow, but his voice was quiet enough. 

"I consider it vitally important to the country to continue its sociallife as before the war. "

"You mean, to show we are not frightened?"

"Frightened! Good God, nobody's frightened. It will take more than ahandful of demagogues to upset this government. Which brings me toa subject you insist on reopening, by your conduct. I have reason tobelieve that you are still going to that man's house. "

He never called Doyle by name if he could avoid it. 

"I have been there several times. "

"After you were forbidden?"

His tone roused every particle of antagonism in her. She flushed. 

"Perhaps because I was forbidden, " she said, slowly. "Hasn't it occurredto you that I may consider your attitude very unjust?"

If she looked for an outburst from him it did not come. He stood for amoment, deep in thought. 

"You understand that this Doyle once tried to assassinate me?"

"I know that he tried to beat you, grandfather. I am sorry, but that waslong ago. And there was a reason for it, wasn't there?"

"I see, " he said, slowly. "What you are conveying to me, not toodelicately, is that you have definitely allied yourself with my enemies. That, here in my own house, you intend to defy me. That, regardless ofmy wishes or commands, while eating my food, you purpose to traffic witha man who has sworn to get me, sooner or later. Am I correct?"

"I have only said that I see no reason why I should not visit AuntElinor. "

"And that you intend to. Do I understand also that you refuse to go toNewport?"

"I daresay I shall have to go, if you send me. I don't want to go. "

"Very well. I am glad we have had this little talk. It makes my owncourse quite plain. Good-night. "

He opened the door for her and she went out and down the stairs. Shefelt very calm, and as though something irrevocable had happened. Withher anger at her grandfather there was mixed a sort of pity for him, because she knew that nothing he could do would change the fundamentalsituation. Even if he locked her up, and that was possible, hewould know that he had not really changed things, or her. She feltsurprisingly strong. All these years that she had feared him, and yetwhen it came to a direct issue, he was helpless! What had he but hiswicked tongue, and what did that matter to deaf ears?

She found her maid gone, and Mademoiselle waiting to help her undress. Mademoiselle often did that. It made her feel still essential in Lily'slife. 

"A long seance!" she said. "Your mother told me to-night. It isNewport?"

"He wants me to go. Unhook me, Mademoiselle, and then run off and go tobed. You ought not to wait up like this. "

"Newport!" said Mademoiselle, deftly slipping off the white and silverthat was Lily's gown. "It will be wonderful, dear. And you will be agreat success. You are very beautiful. "

"I am not going to Newport, Mademoiselle. "

Mademoiselle broke into rapid expostulation, in French. Every girlwanted to make her debut at Newport. Here it was all industry, money, dirt. Men who slaved in offices daily. At Newport was gathered the realleisure class of America, those who knew how to play, who lived. ButLily, taking off her birthday pearls before the mirror of her dressingtable, only shook her head. 

"I'm not going, " she said. "I might as well tell you, for you'll hearabout it later. I have quarreled with him, very badly. I think heintends to lock me up. "

"C'est impossible!" cried Mademoiselle. 

But a glance at Lily's set face in the mirror told her it was true. 

She went away very soon, sadly troubled. There were bad times coming. The old peaceful quiet days were gone, for age and obstinacy had metyouth and the arrogance of youth, and it was to be battle. 

CHAPTER XVII

But there was a truce for a time. Lily came and went withoutinterference, and without comment. Nothing more was said about Newport. She motored on bright days to the country club, lunched and played golfor tennis, rode along the country lanes with Pink Denslow, accepted suchinvitations as came her way cheerfully enough but without enthusiasm, and was very gentle to her mother. But Mademoiselle found her tense andrestless, as though she were waiting. 

And there were times when she disappeared for an hour or two in theafternoons, proffering no excuses, and came back flushed, and perhaps alittle frightened. On the evenings that followed those small excursionsshe was particularly gentle to her mother. Mademoiselle watched andwaited for the blow she feared was about to fall. She felt sure that thegirl was seeing Louis Akers, and that she would ultimately marry him. Inher despair she fell back on Willy Cameron and persuaded Grace to invitehim to dinner. It was meant to be a surprise for Lily, but she hadtelephoned at seven o'clock that she was dining at the Doyles'. 

It was that evening that Willy Cameron learned that Mr. Hendricks hadbeen right about Lily. He and Grace dined alone, for Howard was away ata political conference, and Anthony had dined at his club. And in themorning room after dinner Grace found herself giving him her confidence. 

"I have no right to burden you with our troubles, Mr. Cameron, " Gracesaid, "but she is so fond of you, and she has great respect for yourjudgment. If you could only talk to her about the anxiety she iscausing. These Doyles, or rather Mr. Doyle--the wife is Mr. Cardew'ssister--are putting all sorts of ideas into her head. And she has met aman there, a Mr. Akers, and--I'm afraid she thinks she is in love withhim, Mr. Cameron. "

He met her eyes gravely. 

"Have you tried not forbidding her to go to the Doyles?"

"I have forbidden her nothing. It is her grandfather. "

"Then it seems to be Mr. Cardew who needs to be talked to, doesn't it?"he said. "I wouldn't worry too much, Mrs. Cardew. And don't hold tootight a rein. "

He was very down-hearted when he left. Grace's last words placed a heavyburden on him. 

"I simply feel, " she said, "that you can do more with her than we can, and that if something isn't done she will ruin her life. She is too fineand wonderful to have her do that. "

To picture Lily as willfully going her own gait at that period would bemost unfair. She was suffering cruelly; the impulse that led her to meetLouis Akers against her family's wishes was irresistible, but there wasa new angle to her visits to the Doyle house. She was going there now, not so much because she wished to go, as because she began to feel thather Aunt Elinor needed her. 

There was something mysterious about her Aunt Elinor, mysterious andvery sad. Even her smile had pathos in it, and she was smiling lessand less. She sat in those bright little gatherings, in them but not ofthem, unbrilliant and very quiet. Sometimes she gave Lily the sense thatlike Lily herself she was waiting. Waiting for what?

Lily had a queer feeling too, once or twice, that Elinor was afraid. Butagain, afraid of what? Sometimes she wondered if Elinor Doyle was afraidof her husband; certainly there were times, when they were alone, whenhe dropped his unctuous mask and held Elinor up to smiling contempt. 

"You can see what a clever wife I have, " he said once. "Sometimes Iwonder, Elinor, how you have lived with me so long and absorbed solittle of what really counts. "

"Perhaps the difficulty, " Elinor had said quietly, "is because we differas to what really counts. "

Lily brought Elinor something she needed, of youth and irresponsiblechatter, and in the end the girl found the older woman depending on her. To cut her off from that small solace was unthinkable. And then too sheformed Elinor's sole link with her former world, a world of dinners andreceptions, of clothes and horses and men who habitually dressed fordinner, of the wealth and panoply of life. A world in which her intereststrangely persisted. 

"What did you wear at the country club dance last night?" she would ask. 

"A rose-colored chiffon over yellow. It gives the oddest effect, like anOphelia rose. "

Or:

"At the Mainwarings? George or Albert?"

"The Alberts. "

"Did they ever have any children?"

One day she told her about not going to Newport, and was surprised tosee Elinor troubled. 

"Why won't you go? It is a wonderful house. "

"I don't care to go away, Aunt Nellie. " She called her that sometimes. 

Elinor had knitted silently for a little. Then:

"Do you mind if I say something to you?"

"Say anything you like, of course. "

"I just--Lily, don't see too much of Louis Akers. Don't let him carryyou off your feet. He is good-looking, but if you marry him, you will beterribly unhappy. "

"That isn't enough to say, Aunt Nellie, " she said gravely. "You musthave a reason. "

Elinor hesitated. 

"I don't like him. He is a man of very impure life. "

"That's because he has never known any good women. " Lily rose valiantlyto his defense, but the words hurt her. "Suppose a good woman came intohis life? Couldn't she change him?"

"I don't know, " Elinor said helplessly. "But there is something else. Itwill cut you off from your family. "

"You did that. You couldn't stand it, either. You know what it's like. "

"There must be some other way. That is no reason for marriage. "

"But--suppose I care for him?" Lily said, shyly. 

"You wouldn't live with him a year. There are different ways of caring, Lily. There is such a thing as being carried away by a man's violentdevotion, but it isn't the violent love that lasts. "

Lily considered that carefully, and she felt that there was some truthin it. When Louis Akers came to take her home that night he found herunresponsive and thoughtful. 

"Mrs. Doyle's been talking to you, " he said at last. "She hates me, youknow. "

"Why should she hate you?"

"Because, with all her vicissitudes, she's still a snob, " he saidroughly. "My family was nothing, so I'm nothing. "

"She wants me to be happy, Louis. "

"And she thinks you won't be with me. "

"I am not at all sure that I would be. " She made an effort then to throwoff the strange bond that held her to him. "I should like to have threemonths, Louis, to get a--well, a sort of perspective. I can't thinkclearly when you're around, and--"

"And I'm always around? Thanks. " But she had alarmed him. "You'rehurting me awfully, little girl, " he said, in a different tone. "I can'tlive without seeing you, and you know it. You're all I have in life. You have everything, wealth, friends, position. You could play for threemonths and never miss me. But you are all I have. "

In the end she capitulated

Jim Doyle was very content those days. There had been a time when JimDoyle was the honest advocate of labor, a flaming partizan of those whoworked with their hands. But he had traveled a long road since then, from dreamer to conspirator. Once he had planned to build up; now heplotted to tear down. 

His weekly paper had enormous power. To the workers he had begun topreach class consciousness, and the doctrine of being true to theirclass. From class consciousness to class hatred was but a step. Ostensibly he stood for a vast equality, world wide and beneficent;actually he preached an inflammable doctrine of an earth where thelast shall be first. He advocated the overthrow of all centralizedgovernment, and considered the wages system robbery. Under it workerswere slaves, and employers of workers slave-masters. It was withsuch phrases that he had for months been consistently inflaming theinflammable foreign element in and around the city, and not the foreignelement only. A certain percentage of American-born workmen fell beforethe hammer-like blows of his words, repeated and driven home each week. 

He had no scruples, and preached none. He preached only revolt, and inthat revolt defiance of all existing laws. He had no religion; Christto him was a pitiful weakling, a historic victim of the same system thatstill crucified those who fought the established order. In his new worldthere would be no churches and no laws. He advocated bloodshed, arson, sabotage of all sorts, as a means to an end. 

Fanatic he was, but practical fanatic, and the more dangerous for that. He had viewed the failure of the plan to capture a city in the northwestin February with irritation, but without discouragement. They had actedprematurely there and without sufficient secrecy. That was all. Theplan in itself was right. And he had watched the scant reports of theuprising in the newspapers with amusement and scorn. The very stepstaken to suppress the facts showed the uneasiness of the authorities andleft the nation with a feeling of false security. 

The people were always like that. Twice in a hundred years France hadexperienced the commune. Each time she had been warned, and each timeshe had waited too long. Ever so often in the life of every nation camethese periodic outbursts of discontent, economic in their origin, andran their course like diseases, contagious, violent and deadly. 

The commune always followed long and costly wars. The people woulddance, but they revolted at paying the piper. 

The plan in Seattle had been well enough conceived; the city light plantwas to have been taken over during the early evening of February 6, andat ten o'clock that night the city was to have gone dark. But the reignof terrorization that was to follow had revolted Jim Osborne, oneof their leaders, and from his hotel bedroom he had notified theauthorities. Word had gone out to "get" Osborne. 

If it had not been for Osborne, and the conservative element behind him, a flame would have been kindled at Seattle that would have burnt acrossthe nation. 

Doyle watched Gompers cynically. . He considered his advocacy ofpatriotic cooperation between labor and the Government during the warthe skillful attitude of an opportunist. Gompers could do better withpublic opinion behind him than without it. He was an opportunist, ridingthe wave which would carry him farthest. Playing both ends against themiddle, and the middle, himself. He saw Gompers, watching the releaseof tension that followed the armistice and seeing the great child hehad fathered, grown now and conscious of its power, --watching it, fullyaware that it had become stronger than he. 

Gompers, according to Doyle, had ceased to be a leader and become afollower, into strange and difficult paths. 

The war had made labor's day. No public move was made without consultingorganized labor, and a certain element in it had grown drunk with power. To this element Doyle appealed. It was Doyle who wrote the carefullyprepared incendiary speeches, which were learned verbatim by hisagents for delivery. For Doyle knew one thing, and knew it well. Labor, thinking along new lines, must think along the same lines. Be taught thesame doctrines. Be pushed in one direction. 

There were, then, two Doyles, one the poseur, flaunting his outrageousdoctrines with a sardonic grin, gathering about him a small circle ofthe intelligentsia, and too openly heterodox to be dangerous. And theother, secretly plotting against the city, wary, cautious, practical anddeadly, waiting to overthrow the established order and substitute for itchaos. It was only incidental to him that old Anthony should go with therest. 

But he found a saturnine pleasure in being old Anthony's Nemesis. Hemeant to be that. He steadily widened the breach between Lily and herfamily, and he watched the progress of her affair with Louis Akers withrelish. He had not sought this particular form of revenge, but Fate hadthrust it into his hands, and he meant to be worthy of the opportunity. 

He was in no hurry. He had extraordinary patience, and he rather likedsitting back and watching the slow development of his plans. It was likechess; it was deliberate and inevitable. One made a move, and then satback waiting and watching while the other side countered it, or fell, with slow agonizing, into the trap. 

A few days after Lily had had her talk with Elinor, Doyle found a way towiden the gulf between Lily and her grandfather. Elinor seldom left thehouse, and Lily had done some shopping for her. The two women were inElinor's bedroom, opening small parcels, when he knocked and came in. 

"I don't like to disturb the serenity of this happy family group, " hesaid, "but I am inclined to think that a certain gentleman, standing notfar from a certain young lady's taxicab, belongs to a certain departmentof our great city government. And from his unflattering lack of interestin me, that he--"

Elinor half rose, terrified. 

"Not the police, Jim?"

"Sit down, " he said, in a tone Lily had never heard him use before. Andto Lily, more gently: "I am not altogether surprised. As a matter offact, I have known it for some time. Your esteemed grandfather seems totake a deep interest in your movements these days. "

"Do you mean that I am being followed?"

"I'm afraid so. You see, you are a very important person, and if youwill venture in the slums which surround the Cardew Mills, you should beprotected. At any time, for instance, Aunt Elinor and I may despoil youof those pearls you wear so casually, and--"

"Don't talk like that, Jim, " Elinor protested. She was very pale. "Areyou sure he is watching Lily?"

He gave her an ugly look. 

"Who else?" he inquired suavely. 

Lily sat still, frozen with anger. So this was her grandfather's methodof dealing with her. He could not lock her up, but he would know, dayby day, and hour by hour, what she was doing. She could see him readingcarefully his wicked little notes on her day. Perhaps he was watchingher mail, too. Then when he had secured a hateful total he would go toher father, and together they would send her away somewhere. Away fromLouis Akers. If he was watching her mail too he would know that Louiswas in love with her. They would rake up all the things that belongedin the past he was done with, and recite them to her. As though theymattered now!

She went to the window and looked out. Yes, she had seen thedetective before. He must have been hanging around for days, his faceunconsciously impressing itself upon her. When she turned:

"Louis is coming to dinner, isn't he?"

"Yes. "

"If you don't mind, Aunt Nellie, I think I'll dine out with himsomewhere. I want to talk to him alone. "

"But the detective--"

"If my grandfather uses low and detestable means to spy on me, AuntNellie, he deserves what he gets, doesn't he?"

When Louis Akers came at half-past six, he found that she had beencrying, but she greeted him calmly enough, with her head held high. Elinor, watching her, thought she was very like old Anthony himself justthen. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Willy Cameron came home from a night class in metallurgy the eveningafter the day Lily had made her declaration of independence, and lethimself in with his night key. There was a light in the little parlor, and Mrs. Boyd's fragile silhouette against the window shade. 

He was not surprised at that. She had developed a maternal affection forhim stronger than any she showed for either Edith or Dan. She revealedit in rather touching ways, too, keeping accounts when he accused her ofgross extravagance, for she spent Dan's swollen wages wastefully; makinghim coffee late at night, and forcing him to drink it, although it kepthim awake for hours; and never going to bed until he was safely closetedin his room at the top of the stairs. 

He came in as early as possible, therefore, for he had had DoctorSmalley in to see her, and the result had been unsatisfactory. 

"Heart's bad, " said the doctor, when they had retired to Willy's room. "Leaks like a sieve. And there may be an aneurism. Looks like it, anyhow. "

"What is there to do?" Willy asked, feeling helpless and extremelyshocked. "We might send her somewhere. "

"Nothing to do. Don't send her away; she'd die of loneliness. Keep herquiet and keep her happy. Don't let her worry. She only has a shorttime, I should say, and you can't lengthen it. It could be shortened, ofcourse, if she had a shock, or anything like that. "

"Shall I tell the family?"

"What's the use?" asked Doctor Smalley, philosophically. "If they fussover her she'll suspect something. "

As he went down the stairs he looked about him. The hall was fresh withnew paper and white paint, and in the yard at the rear, visible throughan open door, the border of annuals was putting out its first blossoms. 

"Nice little place you've got here, " he observed. "I think I see thefine hand of Miss Edith, eh?"

"Yes, " said Willy Cameron, gravely. 

He had made renewed efforts to get a servant after that, but the invalidherself balked him. When he found an applicant Mrs. Boyd would sit, verymuch the grande dame, and question her, although she always ended bysending her away. 

"She looked like the sort that would be running out at nights, " shewould say. Or: "She wouldn't take telling, and I know the way you likeyour things, Willy. I could see by looking at her that she couldn't cookat all. "

She cherished the delusion that he was improving and gaining flesh underher ministrations, and there was a sort of jealousy in her care for him. She wanted to yield to no one the right to sit proudly behind one of herheavy, tasteless pies, and say:

"Now I made this for you, Willy, because I know country boys like pies. Just see if that crust isn't nice. "

"You don't mean to say you made it!"

"I certainly did. " And to please her he would clear his plate. He ratherran to digestive tablets those days, and Edith, surprising him with oneat the kitchen sink one evening, accused him roundly of hypocrisy. 

"I don't know why you stay anyhow, " she said, staring into the yardwhere Jinx was burying a bone in the heliotrope bed. "The food's awful. I'm used to it, but you're not. "

"You don't eat anything, Edith. "

"I'm not hungry. Willy, I wish you'd go away. What right we got to tieyou up with us, anyhow? We're a poor lot. You're not comfortable and youknow it. D'you know where she is now?"

"She" in the vernacular of the house, was always Mrs. Boyd. 

"She forgot to make your bed, and she's doing it now. "

He ran up the stairs, and forcibly putting Mrs. Boyd in a chair, made uphis own bed, awkwardly and with an eye on her chest, which rose and fellalarmingly. It was after that that he warned Edith. 

"She's not strong, " he said. "She needs care and--well, to be happy. That's up to the three of us. For one thing, she must not have a shock. I'm going to warn Dan against exploding paper bags; she goes white everytime. "

Dan was at a meeting, and Willy dried the supper dishes for Edith. Shewas silent and morose. Finally she said:

"She's not very strong for me, Willy. You needn't look so shocked. Sheloves Dan and you, but not me. I don't mind, you know. She doesn't knowit, but I do. "

"She is very proud of you. "

"That's different. You're right, though. Pride's her middle name. Itnearly killed her at first to take a roomer, because she is alwaysthinking of what the neighbors will say. That's why she hates mesometimes. "

"I wish you wouldn't talk that way. "

"But it's true. That fool Hodge woman at the corner came here one daylast winter and filled her up with a lot of talk about me, and she'sbeen queer to me ever since. "

"You are a very good daughter. "

She eyed him furtively. If only he wouldn't always believe in her! Itwas almost worse than to have him know the truth. But he went alongwith his head in the clouds; all women were good and all men meant well. Sometimes it worked out; Dan, for instance. Dan was trying to live up tohim. But it was too late for her. Forever too late. 

It was Willy Cameron's night off, and they went, the three of them, to the movies that evening. To Mrs. Boyd the movies was the acme ofdissipation. She would, if warned in advance, spend the entire day withher hair in curlers, and once there she feasted her starved romanticsoul to repletion. But that night the building was stifling, and withoutany warning Edith suddenly got up and walked toward the door. There wassomething odd about her walk and Willy followed her, but she turned onhim almost fiercely outside. 

"I wish you'd let me alone, " she said, and then swayed a little. But shedid not faint. 

"I'm going home, " she said. "You stay with her. And for heaven's sakedon't stare at me like that. I'm all right. "

Nevertheless he had taken her home, Edith obstinately silent and sullen, and Willy anxious and perplexed. At the door she said:

"Now go back to her, and tell her I just got sick of the picture. It wasthe smells in that rotten place. They'd turn a pig's stomach. "

"I wish you'd see a doctor. "

She looked at him with suspicious eyes. "If you run Smalley in on meI'll leave home. "

"Will you go to bed?"

"I'll go to bed, all right. "

He had found things rather more difficult after that. Two women, bothill and refusing to acknowledge it, and the prospect of Dan's beingcalled out by the union. Try as he would, he could not introduce anyhabit of thrift into the family. Dan's money came and went, and onSaturday nights there was not only nothing left, but often a deficit. Dan, skillfully worked upon outside, began to develop a grievance, also, and on his rare evenings at home or at the table he would voice hiswrongs. 

"It's just hand to mouth all the time, " he would grumble. "A fellowworking for the Cardews never gets ahead. What chance has he got, anyhow? It takes all he can get to live. "

Willy Cameron began to see that the trouble was not with Dan, but withhis women folks. And Dan was one of thousands. His wages went for food, too much food, food spoiled in cooking. There were men, with able womenbehind them, making less than Dan and saving money. 

"Keep some of it out and bank it, " he suggested, but Dan sneered. 

"And have a store bill a mile long! You know mother as well as I do. Shemeans well, but she's a fool with money. "

He counted his hours from the time he entered the mill until he left it, but he revealed once that there were long idle periods when the heatingwas going on, when he and the other men of the furnace crew sat andwaited, doing nothing. 

"But I'm there, all right, " he said. "I'm not playing golf or riding inmy automobile. I'm on the job. "

"Well, " said Willy Cameron, "I'm on the job about eleven hours a day, and I wear out more shoe leather than trouser seats at that. But itdoesn't seem to hurt me. "

"It's a question of principle, " said Dan doggedly. "I've got no personalkick, y'understand. Only I'm not getting anywhere, and something's gotto be done about it. "

So, on the evening of the day after Lily had made her declaration ofindependence, Willy Cameron made his way rather heavily toward the Boydhouse. He was very tired. He had made one or two speeches for Hendricksalready, before local ward organizations, and he was working hard at hisnight class in metallurgy. He had had a letter from his mother, too, and he thought he read homesickness between the lines. He was not at allsure where his duty lay, yet to quit now, to leave Mr. Hendricks and theBoyds flat, seemed impossible. 

He had tried to see Lily, too, and failed. She had been very gentle overthe telephone, but, attuned as he was to every inflection of her voice, he had thought there was unhappiness in it. Almost despair. But she hadpleaded a week of engagements. 

"I'm sorry, " she had said. "I'll call you up next week some time I havea lot of things I want to talk over with you. "

But he knew she was avoiding him. 

And he knew that he ought to see her. Through Mr. Hendricks he hadlearned something more about Jim Doyle, the real Doyle and not theposeur, and he felt she should know the nature of the accusationsagainst him. Lily mixed up with a band of traitors, Lily of the whiteflame of patriotism, was unthinkable. She must not go to the house onCardew Way. A man's loyalty was like a woman's virtue; it could not bequestionable. There was no middle ground. 

He heard voices as he entered the house, and to his amazement foundEllen in the parlor. She was sitting very stiff on the edge of herchair, her hat slightly crooked and a suit-case and brown paper bundleat her feet. 

Mrs. Boyd was busily entertaining her. 

"I make it a point to hold my head high, " she was saying. "I guess therewas a lot of talk when I took a boarder, but--Is that you, Willy?"

"Why, Miss Ellen!" he said. "And looking as though headed for ajourney!"

Ellen's face did not relax. She had been sitting there for an hour, letting Mrs. Boyd's prattle pour over her like a rain, and thinkingmeanwhile her own bitter thoughts. 

"I am, Willy. Only I didn't wait for my money and the bank's closed, andI came to borrow ten dollars, if you have it. "

That told him she was in trouble, but Mrs. Boyd, amiably hospitable andreveling in a fresh audience, showed no sign of departing. 

"She says she's been living at the Cardews, " she put in, rockingvaliantly. "I guess most any place would seem tame after that. I dohear, Miss Hart, that Mrs. Howard Cardew only wears her clothes once andthen gives them away. "

She hitched the chair away from the fireplace, where it showed everyindication of going up the chimney. 

"I call that downright wasteful, " she offered. 

Willy glanced at his watch, which had been his father's, and bore theinscription: "James Duncan Cameron, 1876" inside the case. 

"Eleven o'clock, " he said sternly. "And me promising the doctor I'd haveyou in bed at ten sharp every night! Now off with you. "

"But, Willy--"

"--or I shall have to carry you, " he threatened. It was an old jokebetween them, and she rose, smiling, her thin face illuminated with thesense of being looked after. 

"He's that domineering, " she said to Ellen, "that I can't call my soulmy own. "

"Good-night, " Ellen said briefly. 

Willy stood at the foot of the stairs and watched her going up. He knewshe liked him to do that, that she would expect to find him there whenshe reached the top and looked down, panting slightly. 

"Good-night, " he called. "Both windows open. I shall go outside to see. "

Then he went back to Ellen, still standing primly over her Lares andPenates. 

"Now tell me about it, " he said. 

"I've left them. There has been a terrible fuss, and when Miss Lily leftto-night, I did too. "

"She left her home?"

She nodded. 

"It's awful, Willy. I don't know all of it, but they've been having herfollowed, or her grandfather did. I think there's a man in it. Followed!And her a good girl! Her grandfather's been treating her like a dog forweeks. We all noticed it. And to-night there was a quarrel, with all ofthem at her like a pack of dogs, and her governess crying in the hall. Ijust went up and packed my things. "

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know. I got her a taxicab, and she only took one bag. I wentright off to the housekeeper and told her I wouldn't stay, and theycould send my money after me. "

"Did you notice the number of the taxicab?"

"I never thought of it. "

He saw it all with terrible distinctness, The man was Akers, of course. Then, if she had left her home rather than give him up, she was reallyin love with him. He had too much common sense to believe for a momentthat she had fled to Louis Akers' protection, however. That was thelast thing she would do. She would have gone to a hotel, or to the Doylehouse. 

"She shouldn't have left home, Ellen. "

"They drove her out, I tell you, " Ellen cried, irritably. "At leastthat's what it amounted to. There are things no high-minded girl willstand. Can you lend me some money, Willy?"

He felt in his pocket, producing a handful of loose money. 

"Of course you can have all I've got, " he said. "But you must not goto-night, Miss Ellen. It's too late. I'll give you my room and go inwith Dan Boyd. "

And he prevailed over her protests, in the end. It was not until he sawher settled there, hiding her sense of strangeness under an impassivemask, that he went downstairs again and took his hat from its hook. 

Lily must go back home, he knew. It was unthinkable that she shouldbreak with her family, and go to the Doyles. He had too littleself-consciousness to question the propriety of his own interference, too much love for her to care whether she resented that interference. And he was filled with a vast anger at Jim Doyle. He saw in all this, somehow, Doyle's work; how it would play into Doyle's plans to haveAnthony Cardew's granddaughter a member of his household. He would takeher away from there if he had to carry her. 

He was a long time in getting to the mill district, and a longer timestill in finding Cardew Way. At an all-night pharmacy he learnedwhich was the house, and his determined movements took on a sort ofuncertainty. It was very late. Ellen had waited for him for some time. If Lily were in that sinister darkened house across the street, thefamily had probably retired. And for the first time, too, he began todoubt if Doyle would let him see her. Lily herself might even refuse tosee him. 

Nevertheless, the urgency to get her away from there, if she were there, prevailed at last, and a strip of light in an upper window, as from animperfectly fitting blind, assured him that some one was still awake inthe house. 

He went across the street and opening the gate, strode up the walk. Almost immediately he was confronted by the figure of a man who had beenconcealed by the trunk of one of the trees. He lounged forward, huge, menacing, yet not entirely hostile. 

"Who is it?" demanded the figure blocking his way. 

"I want to see Mr. Doyle. "

"What about?"

"I'll tell him that, " said Willy Cameron. 

"What's your name?"

"That's my business, too, " said Mr. Cameron, with disarmingpleasantness. 

"Damn private about your business, aren't you?" jeered the sentry, stillin cautious tones. "Well, you can write it down on a piece of paper andmail it to him. He's busy now. "

"All I want to do, " persisted Mr. William Wallace Cameron, growingslightly giddy with repressed fury, "is to ring that doorbell and askhim a question. I'm going to do it, too. "

There was rather an interesting moment then, because the figure lungedat Mr. Cameron, and Mr. Cameron, stooping low and swiftly, as well as toone side, and at the same instant becoming a fighting Scot, which meansa cool-eyed madman, got in one or two rather neat effects with hisfists. The first took the shadow just below his breast-bone, and theleft caught him at that angle of the jaw where a small cause sometimesproduces a large effect. The figure sat down on the brick walk andgrunted, and Mr. Cameron, judging that he had about ten seconds' leeway, felt in the dazed person's right hand pocket for the revolver he knewwould be there, and secured it. The sitting figure made puffing, feebleattempts to prevent him, but there was no real struggle. 

Mr. Cameron himself was feeling extremely triumphant and as strong as alion. He was rather sorry no one had seen the affair, but that of coursewas sub-conscious. And he was more cheerful than he had been for somedays. He had been up against so many purely intangible obstacles latelythat it was a relief to find one he could use his fists on. 

"Now I'll have a few words with you, my desperate friend, " he said. "I've got your gun, and I am hell with a revolver, because I've neverfired one, and there's a sort of homicidal beginner's luck about thething. If you move or speak, I'll shoot it into you first and when it'sempty I'll choke it down your throat and strangle you to death. "

After which ferocious speech he strolled up the path, revolver in hand, and rang the doorbell. He put the weapon in his pocket then, but hekept his hand upon it. He had read somewhere that a revolver was quiteuseable from a pocket. There was no immediate answer to the bell, and heturned and surveyed the man under the tree, faintly distinguishable inthe blackness. It had occurred to him that the number of guns a man maycarry is only limited to his pockets, which are about fifteen. 

There were heavy, deliberate footsteps inside, and the door was flungopen. No glare of light followed it, however. There was a man there, alarmingly tall, who seemed to stare at him, and then beyond him intothe yard. 

"Well?"

"Are you Mr. Doyle?"

"I am. "

"My name is Cameron, Mr. Doyle. I have had a small difference with yourwatch-dog, but he finally let me by. "

"I'm afraid I don't understand. I have no dog. "

"The sentry you keep posted, then. " Mr. Cameron disliked fencing. 

"Ah!" said Mr. Doyle, urbanely. "You have happened on one of my goodfriends, I see. I have many enemies, Mr. Cameron--was that the name? Andmy friends sometimes like to keep an eye on me. It is rather touching. "

He was smiling, Mr. Cameron knew, and his anger rose afresh. 

"Very touching, " said Mr. Cameron, "but if he bothers me going outyou may be short one friend. Mr. Doyle, Miss Lily Cardew left her hometo-night. I want to know if she is here. "

"Are you sent by her family?"

"I have asked you if she is here. "

Jim Doyle apparently deliberated. 

"My niece is here, although just why you should interest yourself--"

"May I see her?"

"I regret to say she has retired. "

"I think she would see me. "

A door opened into the hall, throwing a shaft of light on the wallacross and letting out the sounds of voices. 

"Shut that door, " said Doyle, wheeling sharply. It was closed at once. "Now, " he said, turning to his visitor, "I'll tell you this. My nieceis here. " He emphasized the "my. " "She has come to me for refuge, andI intend to give it to her. You won't see her to-night, and if you comefrom her people you can tell them she came here of her own free will, and that if she stays it will be because she wants to. Joe!" he calledinto the darkness. 

"Yes, " came a sullen voice, after a moment's hesitation. 

"Show this gentleman out. "

All at once Willy Cameron was staring at a closed door, on the innerside of which a bolt was being slipped. He felt absurd and futile, andnot at all like a lion. With the revolver in his hand, he went down thesteps. 

"Don't bother about the gate, Joe, " he said. "I like to open my owngates. And--don't try any tricks, Joe. Get back to your kennel. "

Fearful mutterings followed that, but the shadow retired, and he madean undisturbed exit to the street. Once on the street-car, the entireepisode became unreal and theatrical, with only the drag of Joe'srevolver in his coat pocket to prove its reality. 

It was after midnight when, shoes in hand, he crept up the stairs toDan's room, and careful not to disturb him, slipped into his side of thedouble bed. He did not sleep at all. He lay there, facing the fact thatLily had delivered herself voluntarily into the hands of the enemy ofher house, and not only of her house, an enemy of the country. Thatconference that night was a sinister one. Brought to book about it, Doyle might claim it as a labor meeting. Organizers planning a strikemight--did indeed--hold secret conferences, but they did not post armedguards. They opened business offices, and brought in the press men, andshouted their grievances for the world to hear. 

This was different. This was anarchy. And in every city it was goingon, this rallying of the malcontents, the idlers, the envious andthe dangerous, to the red flag. Organized labor gathered togetherthe workmen, but men like Doyle were organizing the riff-raff ofthe country. They secured a small percentage of idealists andpseudo-intellectuals, and taught them a so-called internationalismwhich under the name of brotherhood was nothing but a raid on privateproperty, a scheme of pillage and arson. They allied with themselvesimported laborers from Europe, men with everything to gain and nothingto lose, and by magnifying real grievances and inflaming them withimaginary ones, were building out of this material the rank and file ofan anarchist army. 

And against it, what?

On toward morning he remembered something, and sat bolt upright in bed. Edith had once said something about knowing of a secret telephone. Shehad known Louis Akers very well. He might have told her what she knew, or have shown her, in some braggart moment. A certain type of man wasunable to keep a secret from a woman. But that would imply--For thefirst time he wondered what Edith's relations with Louis Akers mighthave been. 

CHAPTER XIX

The surface peace of the house on Cardew Way, the even tenor of herdays there, the feeling she had of sanctuary did not offset Lily's clearknowledge that she had done a cruel and an impulsive thing. Even hergrandfather, whose anger had driven her away, she remembered now as afeeble old man, fighting his losing battle in a changing world, and yetwith a sort of mistaken heroism hoisting his colors to the end. 

She had determined, that first night in Elinor's immaculate guest room, to go back the next day. They had been right at home, by all the tenetsto which they adhered so religiously. She had broken the unwritten lawnot to break bread with an enemy of her house. She had done what theyhad expressly forbidden, done it over and over. 

"On top of all this, " old Anthony had said, after reading the tale ofher delinquencies from some notes in his hand, "you dined last nightopenly at the Saint Elmo Hotel with this same Louis Akers, a man openlymy enemy, and openly of impure life. "

"I do not believe he is your enemy. "

"He is one of the band of anarchists who have repeatedly threatened tokill me. "

"Oh, Lily, Lily!" said her mother. 

But it was to her father, standing grave and still, that Lily replied. 

"I don't believe that, father. He is not a murderer. If you would lethim come here--"

"Never in this house, " said old Anthony, savagely crushing notes in hishand. "He will come here over my dead body. "

"You have no right to condemn a man unheard. "

"Unheard! I tell you I know all about him. The man is an anarchist, arake, a--dog. "

"Just a moment, father, " Howard had put in, quietly. "Lily, do you carefor this man? I mean by that, do you want to marry him?"

"He has asked me. I have not given him any answer yet. I don't want tomarry a man my family will not receive. It wouldn't be fair to him. "

Which speech drove old Anthony into a frenzy, and led him to abitterness of language that turned Lily cold and obstinate. She heardhim through, with her father vainly trying to break in and save thesituation; then she said, coldly:

"I am sorry you feel that way about it, " and turned and left the room. 

She had made no plan, of course. She hated doing theatrical things. Butshut in her bedroom with the doors locked, Anthony's furious words cameback, his threats, his bitter sneers. She felt strangely alone, too. In all the great house she had no one to support her. Mademoiselle, her father and mother, even the servants, were tacitly aligned with theopposition. Except Ellen. She had felt lately that Ellen, in her humbleway, had espoused her cause. 

She had sent for Ellen. 

In spite of the warmth of her greeting, Lily had felt a reserve in AuntElinor's welcome. It was as though she was determinedly making the bestof a bad situation. 

"I had to do it, Aunt Elinor, " she said, when they had gone upstairs. There was a labor conference, Doyle had explained, being held below. 

"I know, " said Elinor. "I understand. I'll pin back the curtains so youcan open your windows. The night air is so smoky here. "

"I am afraid mother will grieve terribly. "

"I think she will, " said Elinor, with her quiet gravity. "You are allshe has. "

"She has father. She cares more for him than for anything in the world. "

"Would you like some ice-water, dear?"

Some time later Lily roused from the light sleep of emotionalexhaustion. She had thought she heard Willy Cameron's voice. But thatwas absurd, of course, and she lay back to toss uneasily for hours. Out of all her thinking there emerged at last her real self, so longoverlaid with her infatuation. She would go home again, and make whatamends she could. They were wrong about Louis Akers, but they wereright, too. 

Lying there, as the dawn slowly turned her windows to gray, she saw himwith a new clarity. She had a swift vision of what life with him wouldmean. Intervals of passionate loving, of boyish dependence on her, andthen--a new face. Never again was she to see him with such clearness. He was incapable of loyalty to a woman, even though he loved her. Hewas born to be a wanderer in love, an experimenter in passion. She evenrecognized in him an incurable sensuous curiosity about women, thatwould be quite remote from his love for her. He would see nothing wrongin his infidelities, so long as she did not know and did not suffer. Andhe would come back to her from them, watchful for suspicion, relievedwhen he did not find it, and bringing her small gifts which would beactually burnt offerings to his own soul. 

She made up her mind to give him up. She would go home in the morning, make her peace with them all, and never see Louis Akers again. 

She slept after that, and at ten o'clock Elinor wakened her with theword that her father was downstairs. Elinor was very pale. It had beena shock to her to see her brother in her home after all the years, and astill greater one when he had put his arm around her and kissed her. 

"I am so sorry, Howard, " she had said. The sight of him had set her lipstrembling. He patted her shoulder. 

"Poor Elinor, " he said. "Poor old girl! We're a queer lot, aren't we?"

"All but you. "

"An obstinate, do-and-be-damned lot, " he said slowly. "I'd like to seemy little girl, Nellie. We can't have another break in the family. "

He held Lily in much the same way when she came down, an arm around her, his big shoulders thrown back as though he would guard her against theworld. But he was very uneasy and depressed, at that. He had come on adifficult errand, and because he had no finesse he blundered badly. It was some time before she gathered the full meaning of what he wassaying. 

"Aunt Cornelia's!" she exclaimed. 

"Or, if you and your mother want to go to Europe, " he put in hastily, seeing her puzzled face, "I think I can arrange about passports. "

"Does that mean he won't have me back, father?"

"Lily, dear, " he said, hoarse with anxiety, "we simply have to rememberthat he is a very old man, and that his mind is not elastic. He isfeeling very bitter now, but he will get over it. "

"And I am to travel around waiting to be forgiven! I was ready to goback, but--he won't have me. Is that it?"

"Only just for the present. " He threw out his hands. "I have triedeverything. I suppose, in a way, I could insist, make a point of it, but there are other things to be considered. His age, for one thing, and then--the strike. If he takes an arbitrary stand against me, noconcession, no argument with the men, it makes it very difficult, inmany ways. "

"I see. It is wicked that any one man should have such power. The city, the mills, his family--it's wicked. " But she was conscious of no deepanger against Anthony now. She merely saw that between them, they, sheand her grandfather, had dug a gulf that could not be passed. Andin Howard's efforts she saw the temporizing that her impatient youthresented. 

"I am afraid it is a final break, father, " she said. "And if he shutsme out I must live my own life. But I am not going to run away to AuntCornelia or Europe. I shall stay here. "

He had to be content with that. After all, his own sister--but he wishedit were not Jim Doyle's house. Not that he regarded Lily's shift towardwhat he termed Bolshevism very seriously; all youth had a slant towardsocialism, and outgrew it. But he went away sorely troubled, after a fewwords with Elinor Doyle alone. 

"You don't look unhappy, Nellie. "

"Things have been much better the last few years. "

"Is he kind to you?"

"Not always, Howard. He doesn't drink now, so that is over. And I thinkthere are no other women. But when things go wrong I suffer, of course. "She stared past him toward the open window. 

"Why don't you leave him?"

"I couldn't go home, Howard. You know what it would be. Worse thanLily. And I'm too old to start out by myself. My habits are formed, andbesides, I--" She checked herself. 

"I could take a house somewhere for both of you, Lily and yourself, " hesaid eagerly; "that would be a wonderful way out for everybody. "

She shook her head. 

"We'll manage all right, " she said. "I'll make Lily comfortable and ashappy as I can. "

He felt that he had to make his own case clear, or he might havenoticed with what care she was choosing her words. His father's age, hisunconscious dependence on Grace, his certainty to retire soon from thearbitrary stand he had taken. Elinor hardly heard him. Monthsafterwards he was to remember the distant look in her eyes, a sort ofhalf-frightened determination, but he was self-engrossed just then. 

"I can't persuade you?" he finished. 

"No. But it is good of you to think of it. "

"You know what the actual trouble was last night? It was not her cominghere. "

"I know, Howard. "

"Don't let her marry him, Nellie! Better than any one, you ought to knowwhat that would mean. "

"I knew too, Howard, but I did it. "

In the end he went away not greatly comforted, to fight his own battles, to meet committees from the union, and having met them, to findhimself facing the fact that, driven by some strange urge he couldnot understand, the leaders wished a strike. There were times when hewondered what would happen if he should suddenly yield every point, makeevery concession. They would only make further demands, he felt. Theyseemed determined to put him out of business. If only he could havedealt with the men directly, instead of with their paid representatives, he felt that he would get somewhere. But always, interposed betweenhimself and his workmen, was this barrier of their own erecting. 

It was like representative government. It did not always represent. It, too, was founded on representation in good faith; but there was notalways good faith. The union system was wrong. It was like politics. Thefew handled the many. The union, with its all-powerful leaders, was onlyanother form of autocracy. It was Prussian. Yet the ideal behind theunion was sound enough. 

He had no quarrel with the union. He puzzled it out, travelingunaccustomed mental paths. The country was founded on liberty. All menwere created free and equal. Free, yes, but equal? Was not equality along way ahead along a thorny road? Men were not equal in the effortthey made, nor did equal efforts bring equal result. If there was classantagonism behind all this unrest, would there not always be those whorose by dint of ceaseless effort? Equality of opportunity, yes. Equalityof effort and result, no. 

To destroy the chance of gain was to put a premium on inertia; to killambition; to reduce the high without raising the low. 

At noon on the same day Willy Cameron went back to the house on CardewWay, to find Lily composed and resigned, instead of the militant figurehe had expected. He asked her to go home, and she told him then that shehad no longer a home to go to. 

"I meant to go, Willy, " she finished. "I meant to go this morning. Butyou see how things are. "

He had stood for a long time, looking at nothing very hard. "I see, " hesaid finally. "Of course your grandfather will be sorry in a day or two, but he may not swallow his pride very soon. "

That rather hurt her. 

"What about my pride?" she asked. 

"You can afford to be magnanimous with all your life before you. " Thenhe faced her. "Besides, Lily, you're wrong. Dead wrong. You've hurtthree people, and all you've got out of it has been your own way. "

"There is such a thing as liberty. "

"I don't know about that. And a good many crimes have been committed inits name. " Even in his unhappiness he was controversial. "We are neverreally free, so long as we love people, and they love us. Well--" Hepicked up his old felt hat and absently turned down the brim; it wasraining. "I'll have to get back. I've overstayed my lunch hour as itis. "

"You haven't had any luncheon?"

"I wasn't hungry, " he had said, and had gone away, his coat collarturned up against the shower. Lily had had a presentiment that he wastaking himself out of her life, that he had given her up as a bad job. She felt depressed and lonely, and not quite so sure of herself asshe had been; rather, although she did not put it that way, as thoughsomething fine had passed her way, like Pippa singing, and had then goneon. 

She settled down as well as she could to her new life, making no plans, however, and always with the stricken feeling that she had gained herown point at the cost of much suffering. She telephoned to her motherdaily, broken little conversations with long pauses while Grace steadiedher voice. Once her mother hung up the receiver hastily, and Lilyguessed that her grandfather had come in. She felt very bitter towardhim. 

But she found the small oneage interesting, in a quiet way; to makeher own bed and mend her stockings--Grace had sent her a trunkful ofclothing; and on the elderly maid's afternoon out, to help Elinor withthe supper. She seldom went out, but Louis Akers came daily, and on thesixth day of her stay she promised to marry him. 

She had not meant to do it, but it was difficult to refuse him. She hadlet him think she would do it ultimately, for one thing. And, howeverclearly she might analyze him in his absences, his strange attractionreasserted itself when he was near. But her acceptance of him was almoststoical. 

"But not soon, Louis, " she said, holding him off. "And--I ought to tellyou--I don't think we will be happy together. "

"Why not?"

"Because--" she found it hard to put into words--"because love with youis a sort of selfish thing, I think. "

"I'll lie down now and let you tramp on me, " he said exultantly, andheld out his arms. But even as she moved toward him she voiced her innerperplexity. 

"I never seem to be able to see myself married to you. "

"Then the sooner the better, so you can. "

"You won't like being married, you know. "

"That's all you know about it, Lily. I'm mad about you. I'm mad foryou. "

There was a new air of maturity about Lily those days, and sometimesa sort of aloofness that both maddened him and increased his desire topossess her. She went into his arms, but when he held her closest shesometimes seemed farthest away. 

"I want you now. "

"I want to be engaged a long time, Louis. We have so much to learn abouteach other. "

He thought that rather childish. But whatever had been his motive in thebeginning, he was desperately in love with her by that time, and becauseof that he frightened her sometimes. He was less sure of himself, too, even after she had accepted him, and to prove his continued dominanceover her he would bully her. 

"Come here, " he would say, from the hearth rug, or by the window. 

"Certainly not. "

"Come here. "

Sometimes she went, to be smothered in his hot embrace; sometimes shedid not. 

But her infatuation persisted, although there were times when hisinordinate vitality and his caresses gave her a sense of physicalweariness, times when sheer contact revolted her. He seemed always towant to touch her. Fastidiously reared, taught a sort of aloofness fromchildhood, Lily found herself wondering if all men in love were likethat, always having to be held off. 

CHAPTER XX

Ellen was staying at the Boyd house. She went downstairs the morningafter her arrival, and found the bread--bakery bread--toasted andgrowing cold on the table, while a slice of ham, ready to be cooked, wasnot yet on the fire, and Mrs. Boyd had run out to buy some milk. 

Dan had already gone, and his half-empty cup of black coffee was on thekitchen table. Ellen sniffed it and raised her eyebrows. 

She rolled up her sleeves, put the toast in the oven and the ham in thefrying pan, with much the same grimness with which she had sat the nightbefore listening to Mrs. Boyd's monologue. If this was the way theylooked after Willy Cameron, no wonder he was thin and pale. She threwout the coffee, which she suspected had been made by the time-savingmethod of pouring water on last night's grounds, and made a fresh pot ofit. After that she inspected the tea towels, and getting a tin dishpan, set them to boil in it on the top of the range. 

"Enough to give him typhoid, " she reflected. 

Ellen disapproved of her surroundings; she disapproved of any woman whodid not boil her tea towels. And when Edith came down carefully dressedand undeniably rouged she formed a disapproving opinion of that younglady, which was that she was trying to land Willy Cameron, and that hewould be better dead than landed. 

She met Edith's stare of surprise with one of thinly veiled hostility. 

"Hello!" said Edith. "When did you blow in, and where from?"

"I came to see Mr. Cameron last night, and he made me stay. "

"A friend of Willy's! Well, I guess you needn't pay for your breakfastby cooking it. Mother's probably run out for something--she never hasanything in the house--and is talking somewhere. I'll take that fork. "

But Ellen proceeded to turn the ham. 

"I'll do it, " she said. "You might spoil your hands. "

But Edith showed no offense. 

"All right, " she acceded indifferently. "If you're going to eat it you'dbetter cook it. We're rotten housekeepers here. "

"I should think, if you're going to keep boarders, somebody would learnto cook. Mr. Cameron's mother is the best housekeeper in town, and hewas raised on good food and plenty of it. "

Her tone was truculent. Ellen's world, the world of short hours andeasy service, of the decorum of the Cardew servants' hall, of luxuryand dignity and good pay, had suddenly gone to pieces about her. Shewas feeling very bitter, especially toward a certain chauffeur who hadprophesied the end of all service. He had made the statement thatbefore long all people would be equal. There would be no above andbelow-stairs, no servants' hall. 

"They'll drive their own cars, then, damn them, " he had said once, "ifthey can get any to drive. And answer their own bells, if they've gotany to ring. And get up and cook their own breakfasts. "

"Which you won't have any to cook, " Grayson had said irritably, fromthe head of the long table. "Just a word, my man. That sort of talk isforbidden here. One word more and I go to Mr. Cardew. "

The chauffeur had not sulked, however. "All right, Mr. Grayson, " he saidaffably. "But I can go on thinking, I daresay. And some of these daysyou'll be wishing you'd climbed on the band wagon before it's too late. "

Ellen, turning the ham carefully, was conscious that her revolt had beenonly partially on Lily's account. It was not so much Lily's plightas the abuse of power, although she did not put it that way, that haddriven her out. Ellen then had carried out her own small revolution, andwhere had it put her? She had lost a good home, and what could she do?All she knew was service. 

Edith poured herself a cup of coffee, and taking a piece of toast fromthe oven, stood nibbling it. The crumbs fell on the not over-cleanfloor. 

"Why don't you go into the dining-room to eat?" Ellen demanded. 

"Got out of the wrong side of the bed, didn't you?" Edith asked. "Willy's bed, I suppose. I'm not hungry, and I always eat breakfast likethis. I wish he would hurry. We'll be late. "

Ellen stared. It was her first knowledge that this girl, this paintedhussy, worked in Willy's pharmacy, and her suspicions increased. Shehad a quick vision, as she had once had of Lily, of Edith in the Cameronhouse; Edith reading or embroidering on the front porch while Willy'smother slaved for her; Edith on the same porch in the evening, with allthe boys in town around her. She knew the type, the sort that set anentire village by the ears and in the end left home and husband and ranaway with a traveling salesman. 

Ellen had already got Willy married and divorced when Mrs. Boyd came in. She carried the milk pail, but her lips were blue and she sat down in achair and held her hand to her heart. 

"I'm that short of breath!" she gasped. "I declare I could hardly getback. "

"I'll give you some coffee, right off. "

When Willy Cameron had finished his breakfast she followed him into theparlor. His pallor was not lost on her, or his sunken eyes. He lookedbadly fed, shabby, and harassed, and he bore the marks of his sleeplessnight on his face. "Are you going to stay here?" she demanded. 

"Why, yes, Miss Ellen. "

"Your mother would break her heart if she knew the way you're living. "

"I'm very comfortable. We've tried to get a ser--" He changed colorat that. In the simple life of the village at home a woman whose onlytraining was the town standard of good housekeeping might go intoservice in the city and not lose caste. But she was never thought of asa servant. "--help, " he substituted. "But we can't get any one, and Mrs. Boyd is delicate. It is heart trouble. "

"Does that girl work where you do?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Is she engaged to you? She calls you Willy. " He smiled into her eyes. 

"Not a bit of it, or thinking of it. "

"How do you know what she's thinking? It's all over her. It's Willy thisand Willy that--and men are such fools. "

There flashed into his mind certain things that he had tried to forget;Edith at his doorway, with that odd look in her eyes; Edith never goingto sleep until he had gone to bed; and recently, certain things she hadsaid, that he had passed over lightly and somewhat uncomfortably. 

"That's ridiculous, Miss Ellen. But even if it were true, which itisn't, don't you think it would be rather nice of her?" He smiled. 

"I do not. I heard you going out last night, Willy. Did you find her?"

"She is at the Doyles'. I didn't see her. "

"That'll finish it, " Ellen prophesied, somberly. She glanced around theparlor, at the dust on the furniture, at the unwashed baseboard, at theunwound clock on the mantel shelf. 

"If you're going to stay here I will, " she announced abruptly. "I owethat much to your mother. I've got some money. I'll take what they'dpay some foreigner who'd throw out enough to keep another family. " Then, seeing hesitation in his eyes: "That woman's sick, and you've got to belooked after. I could do all the work, if that--if the girl would helpin the evenings. "

He demurred at first. She would find it hard. They had no luxuries, andshe was accustomed to luxury. There was no room for her. But in theend he called Edith and Mrs. Boyd, and was rather touched to find Edithoffering to share her upper bedroom. 

"It's a hole, " she said, "cold in winter and hot as blazes in summer. But there's room for a cot, and I guess we can let each other alone. "

"I wish you'd let me move up there, Edith, " he said for perhaps thetwentieth time since he had found out where she slept, "and you wouldtake my room. "

"No chance, " she said cheerfully. "Mother would raise the devil if youtried it. " She glanced at Ellen's face. "If that word shocks you, you'redue for a few shocks, you know. "

"The way you talk is your business, not mine, " said Ellen austerely. 

When they finally departed on a half-run Ellen was established asa fixture in the Boyd house, and was already piling all the cookingutensils into a wash boiler and with grim efficiency was searching forlye with which to clean them. 

Two weeks later, the end of June, the strike occurred. It was not, in spite of predictions, a general walk-out. Some of the mills, particularly the smaller plants, did not go down at all, and withreduced forces kept on, but the chain of Cardew Mills was closed. Therewas occasional rioting by the foreign element in outlying districts, butthe state constabulary handled it easily. 

Dan was out of work, and the loss of his pay was a serious matter inthe little house. He had managed to lay by a hundred dollars, and WillyCameron had banked it for him, but there was a real problem to befaced. On the night of the day the Cardew Mills went down Willy called ameeting of the household after supper, around the dining room table. Hehad been in to see Mr. Hendricks, who had been laid up with bronchitis, and Mr. Hendricks had predicted a long strike. 

"The irresistible force and the immovable body, son, " he said. "They'llstay set this time. And unless I miss my guess that is playing Doyle'shand for him, all right. His chance will come when the men have used uptheir savings and are growing bitter. Every strike plays into the handsof the enemy, son, and they know it. The moment production ceases pricesgo up, and soon all the money in the world won't pay them wages enoughto live on. "

He had a store of homely common sense, and a gift of putting things intofew words. Willy Cameron, going back to the little house that evening, remembered the last thing he had said. 

"The only way to solve this problem of living, " he said, "is to see howmuch we can work, and not how little. Germany's working ten hours a day, and producing. We're talking about six, and loafing and fighting whilewe talk. "

So Willy went home and called his meeting, and knowing Mrs. Boyd'sregard for figures, set down and added or subtracted, he placed a padand pencil on the table before him. It was an odd group: Dan sullen, resenting the strike and the causes that had led to it; Ellen, austereand competent; Mrs. Boyd with a lace fichu pinned around her neck, now that she had achieved the dignity of hired help, and Edith. Edithsilent, morose and fixing now and then rather haggard eyes on WillyCameron's unruly hair. She seldom met his eyes. 

"First of all, " said Willy, "we'll take our weekly assets. Of courseDan will get something temporarily, but we'll leave that out for thepresent. "

The weekly assets turned out to be his salary and Edith's. 

"Why, Willy, " said Mrs. Boyd, "you can't turn all your money over tous. "

"You are all the family I have just now. Why not? Anyhow, I'll haveto keep out lunch money and carfare, and so will Edith. Now as toexpenses. "

Ellen had made a great reduction in expenses, but food was high. Andthere was gas and coal, and Dan's small insurance, and the rent. Therewas absolutely no margin, and a sort of silence fell. 

"What about your tuition at night school?" Edith asked suddenly. 

"Spring term ended this week. "

"But you said there was a summer one. "

"Well, I'll tell you about that, " Willy said, feeling for words. "I'mgoing to be busy helping Mr. Hendricks in his campaign. Then nextfall--well, I'll either go back or Hendricks will make me chief ofpolice, or something. " He smiled around the table. "I ought to get somesort of graft out of it. "

"Mother!" Edith protested. "He mustn't sacrifice himself for us. Whatare we to him anyhow? A lot of stones hung around his neck. That's all. "

It was after Willy had declared that this was his home now, and he hada right to help keep it going, and after Ellen had observed that she hadsome money laid by and would not take any wages during the strike, thatthe meeting threatened to become emotional. Mrs. Boyd shed a few tears, and as she never by any chance carried a handkerchief, let them flowover her fichu. And Dan shook Willy's hand and Ellen's, and said thatif he'd had his way he'd be working, and not sitting round like a stiffletting other people work for him. But Edith got up and went out intothe little back garden, and did not come back until the meeting was bothactually and morally broken up. When she heard Dan go out, and Ellenand Mrs. Boyd go upstairs, chatting in a new amiability brought about bytrouble and sacrifice, she put on her hat and left the house. 

Ellen, rousing on her cot in Edith's upper room, heard her come in sometime later, and undress and get into bed. Her old suspicion of the girlrevived, and she sat upright. 

"Where I come from girls don't stay out alone until all hours, " shesaid. 

"Oh, let me alone. "

Ellen fell asleep, and in her sleep she dreamed that Mrs. Boyd had takensick and was moaning. The moaning was terrible; it filled the littlehouse. Ellen wakened suddenly. It was not moaning; it was strange, heavybreathing, strangling; and it came from Edith's bed. 

"Are you sick?" she called, and getting up, her knees hardly holdingher, she lighted the gas at its unshaded bracket on the wall and ran tothe other bed. 

Edith was lying there, her mouth open, her lips bleached and twisted. Her stertorous breathing filled the room, and over all was the odor ofcarbolic acid. 

"Edith, for God's sake!"

The girl was only partially conscious. Ellen ran down the stairs andinto Willy's room. 

"Get up, " she cried, shaking him. "That girl's killed herself. "

"Lily!"

"No, Edith. Carbolic acid. "

Even then he remembered her mother. 

"Don't let her hear anything, It will kill her, " he said, and ran up thestairs. Almost immediately he was down again, searching for alcohol;he found a small quantity and poured that down the swollen throat. Heroused Dan then, and sent him running madly for Doctor Smalley, witha warning to bring him past Mrs. Boyd's door quietly, and to bring anintubation set with him in case her throat should close. Then, on one ofhis innumerable journeys up and down the stairs he encountered Mrs. Boydherself, in her nightgown, and terrified. 

"What's the matter, Willy?" she asked. "Is it a fire?"

"Edith is sick. I don't want you to go up. It may be contagious. It'sher throat. "

And from that Mrs. Boyd deduced diphtheria; she sat on the stairs in hernightgown, a shaken helpless figure, asking countless questions of thosethat hurried past. But they reassured her, and after a time she wentdownstairs and made a pot of coffee. Ensconced with it in the lowerhall, and milk bottle in hand, she waylaid them with it as they hurriedup and down. 

Upstairs the battle went on. There were times when the paralyzed musclesalmost stopped lifting the chest walls, when each breath was a newmiracle. Her throat was closing fast, too, and at eight o'clock came abrisk young surgeon, and with Willy Cameron's assistance, an operationwas performed. After that, and for days, Edith breathed through a tubein her neck. 

The fiction of diphtheria was kept up, and Mrs. Boyd, having a childlikefaith in medical men, betrayed no anxiety after the first hour or two. She saw nothing incongruous in Ellen going down through the house whileshe herself was kept out of that upper room where Edith lay, consciousnow but sullen, disfigured, silent. She was happy, too, to have herold domain hers again, while Ellen nursed; to make again her flavorlessdesserts, her mounds of rubberlike gelatine, her pies. She brewed brothsdaily, and when Edith could swallow she sent up the results of hours ofcooking which Ellen cooled, skimmed the crust of grease from the top, and heated again over the gas flame. 

She never guessed the conspiracy against her. 

Between Ellen and Edith there was no real liking. Ellen did her duty, and more; got up at night; was gentle with rather heavy hands; bathedthe girl and brushed and braided her long hair. But there were hoursduring that simulated quarantine when a brooding silence held in thesick-room, and when Ellen, turning suddenly, would find Edith's eyes onher, full of angry distrust. At those times Ellen was glad that Edithcould not speak. 

For at the end of a few days Ellen knew, and Edith knew she knew. 

Edith could not speak. She wrote her wants with a stub of pencil, ormade signs. One day she motioned toward a mirror and Ellen took it toher. 

"You needn't be frightened, " she said. "When those scabs come off thedoctor says you'll hardly be marked at all. "

But Edith only glanced at herself, and threw the mirror aside. 

Another time she wrote: "Willy?"

"He's all right. They've got a girl at the store to take your place, butI guess you can go back if you want to. " Then, seeing the hunger in thegirl's eyes: "He's out a good bit these nights. He's making speeches forthat Mr. Hendricks. As if he could be elected against Mr. Cardew!"

The confinement told on Ellen. She would sit for hours, wondering whathad become of Lily. Had she gone back home? Was she seeing that otherman? Perhaps her valiant loyalty to Lily faded somewhat during thosedays, because she began to guess Willy Cameron's secret. If a girl hadno eyes in her head, and couldn't see that Willy Cameron was the finestgentleman who ever stepped in shoe leather, that girl had somethingwrong about her. 

Then, sometimes, she wondered how Edith's condition was going to be keptfrom her mother. She had measured Mrs. Boyd's pride by that time, heralmost terrible respectability. She rather hoped that the sick womanwould die some night, easily and painlessly in her sleep, because deathwas easier than some things. She liked Mrs. Boyd; she felt a slightlycontemptuous but real affection for her. 

Then one night Edith heard Willy's voice below, and indicated that shewanted to see him. He came in, stooping under the sheet which Mrs. Boydhad heard belonged in the doorway of diphtheria, and stood looking downat her. His heart ached. He sat down on the bed beside her and strokedher hand. 

"Poor little girl, " he said. "We've got to make things very happy forher, to make up for all this!"

But Edith freed her hand, and reaching out for paper and pencil stub, wrote something and gave it to Ellen. 

Ellen read it. 

"Tell him. "

"I don't want to, Edith. You wait and do it yourself. "

But Edith made an insistent gesture, and Ellen, flushed and wretched, had to tell. He made no sign, but sat stroking Edith's hand, only hestared rather fixedly at the wall, conscious that the girl's eyes werewatching him for a single gesture of surprise or anger. He felt noanger, only a great perplexity and sadness, an older-brother grief. 

"I'm sorry, little sister, " he said, and did the kindest thing he couldthink of, bent over and kissed her on the forehead. "Of course I knowhow you feel, but it is a big thing to bear a child, isn't it? It is theonly miracle we have these days. "

"A child with no father, " said Ellen, stonily. 

"Even then, " he persisted, "it's a big thing. We would have this onecome under happier circumstances if we could, but we will welcome andtake care of it, anyhow. A child's a child, and mighty valuable. And, "he added--"I appreciate your wanting me to know, Edith. "

He stayed a little while after that, but he read aloud, choosing ahumorous story and laughing very hard at all the proper places. In theend he brought a faint smile to Edith's blistered lips, and a small liftto the cloud that hung over her now, day and night. 

He made a speech that night, and into it he put all of his aching, anxious soul; Edith and Dan and Lily were behind it. Akers and Doyle. It was at a meeting in the hall over the city market, and the audience anew men's non-partisan association. 

"Sometimes, " he said, "I am asked what it is that we want, we men whoare standing behind Hendricks as an independent candidate. " He wassupposed to bring Mr. Hendricks' name in as often as possible. "I answerthat we want honest government, law and order, an end to this convictionthat the country is owned by the unions and the capitalists, a fair dealfor the plain people, which is you and I, my friends. But I answer stillfurther, we want one thing more, a greater thing, and that thing weshall have. All through this great country to-night are groups of menhoping and planning for an incredible thing. They are not great innumbers; they are, however, organized, competent, intelligent anddeadly. They plow the land with discord to sow the seeds of sedition. And the thing they want is civil war. 

"And against them, what? The people like you and me; the men with homesthey love; the men with little businesses they have fought and laboredto secure; the clerks; the preachers; the doctors, the honest laborers, the God-fearing rich. I tell you, we are the people, and it is time weknew our power. 

"And this is the thing we want, we the people; the greater thing, thething we shall have; that this government, this country which we love, which has three times been saved at such cost of blood, shall survive. "

It was after that speech that he met Pink Denslow for the first time. A square, solidly built young man edged his way through the crowd, andshook hands with him. 

"Name's Denslow, " said Pink. "Liked what you said. Have you time to runover to my club with me and have a high-ball and a talk?"

"I've got all the rest of the night. "

"Right-o!" said Pink, who had brought back a phrase or two from theBritish. 

It was not until they were in the car that Pink said:

"I think you're a friend of Miss Cardew's, aren't you?"

"I know Miss Cardew, " said Willy Cameron, guardedly. And they were bothrather silent for a time. 

That night proved to be a significant one for them both, as ithappened. They struck up a curious sort of friendship, based on a humbleadmiration on Pink's part, and with Willy Cameron on sheer hunger forthe society of his kind. He had been suffering a real mental starvation. He had been constantly giving out and getting nothing in return. 

Pink developed a habit of dropping into the pharmacy when he happenedto be nearby. He was rather wistfully envious of that year in the camp, when Lily Cardew and Cameron had been together, and at first it wasthe bond of Lily that sent him to the shop. In the beginning the shopirritated him, because it seemed an incongruous background for the fieryyoung orator. But later on he joined the small open forum in the backroom, and perhaps for the first time in his idle years he began tothink. He had made the sacrifice of his luxurious young life to go towar, had slept in mud and risked his body and been hungry and cold andoften frightfully homesick. And now it appeared that a lot of madmenwere going to try to undo all that he had helped to do. He was surprisedand highly indignant. Even a handful of agitators, it seemed, could doincredible harm. 

One night he and Willy Cameron slipped into a meeting of a RussianSociety, wearing old clothes, which with Willy was not difficult, and shuffling up dirty stairs without molestation. They came awaythoughtful. 

"Looks like it's more than talk, " Pink said, after a time. 

"They're not dangerous, " Willy Cameron said. "That's talk. But it showsa state of mind. The real incendiaries don't show their hand like that. "

"You think it's real, then?"

"Some boils don't come to a head. But most do. "

It was after a mob of foreigners had tried to capture the town ofDonesson, near Pittsburgh, and had been turned back by a hastily armedbody of its citizens, doctors, lawyers and shop-keepers, that a nebulousplan began to form in Willy Cameron's active mind. 

If one could unite the plain people politically, or against a foreignwar, why could they not be united against an enemy at home? The Southhad had a similar problem, and the result was the Ku Klux Klan. 

The Chief of Police was convinced that a plan was being formulated torepeat the Seattle experiment against the city. The Mayor was dubious. He was not a strong man; he had a conviction that because a thing neverhad happened it never could happen. 

"The mob has done it before, " urged the Chief of Police one day. "Theytook Paris, and it was damned disagreeable. "

The Mayor was a trifle weak in history. 

"Maybe they did, " he agreed. "But this is different. This is America. "

He was rather uneasy after that. It had occurred to him that the Chiefmight have referred to Paris, Illinois. 

Now and then Pink coaxed Willy Cameron to his club, and for those rareoccasions he provided always a little group of men like themselves, young, eager, loyal, and struggling with the new problems of the day. Inthis environment Willy Cameron received as well as gave. 

Most of the men had been in the army, and he found in them an eageranxiety to face the coming situation and combat it. In the end thenucleus of the new Vigilance Committee was formed there. 

Not immediately. The idea was of slow growth even with its originator, and it only reached the point of speech when Mr. Hendricks stopped inone day at the pharmacy and brought a bundle which he slapped down onthe prescription desk. 

"Read that dynamite, " he said, his face flushed and lowering. "A man Iknow got it translated for me. Read it and then tell me whether I'm analarmist and a plain fool, or if it means trouble around here. "

There was no question in Willy Cameron's mind as to which it meant. 

Louis Akers had by that time announced his candidacy for Mayor, andorganized labor was behind him to an alarming extent. When WillyCameron went with Pink to the club that afternoon, he found Akers underdiscussion, and he heard some facts about that gentleman's private lifewhich left him silent and morose. Pink knew nothing of Lily's friendshipwith Akers. Indeed, Pink did not know that Lily was in the city, andWilly Cameron had not undeceived him. It had pleased Anthony Cardew toannounce in the press that Lily was making a round of visits, and thesecret was not his to divulge. But the question which was always in hismind rose again. What did she see in the man? How could she have thrownaway her home and her family for a fellow who was so obviously what Pinkwould have called "a wrong one"?

He roused, however, at a question. 

"He may, " he said; "with three candidates we're splitting the vote threeways, and it's hard to predict. Mr. Cardew can't be elected, but heweakens Hendricks. One thing's sure. Where's my pipe?" Silence while Mr. Cameron searched for his pipe, and took his own time to divulge thesure thing. "If Hendricks is elected he'll clear out the entire bunch ofanarchists. The present man's afraid. But if Akers can hypnotize laborinto voting for him, and he gets it, it will be up to the city toprotect itself, for he won't. He'll let them hold their infamousmeetings and spread their damnable doctrine, and--you know what they'vetried to do in other places. " He explained what he had in mind then, finding them expectant and eager. There ought to be some sort ofcitizen organization, to supplement the state and city forces. Nothingspectacular; indeed, the least said about it the better. He harked backthen to his idea of the plain people, with homes to protect. 

"That needn't keep you fellows out, " he said, with his whimsical smile. "But the rank and file will have to constitute the big end. We don'twant a lot of busybodies, pussy-footing around with guns and looking fortrouble. We had enough of that during the war. We would want some menwho would answer a riot call if they were needed. That's all. "

He had some of the translations Hendricks had brought him in his pocket, and they circulated around the group. 

"Do you think they mean to attack the city?"

"That looks like it, doesn't it? And they are getting that sort of stuffall the time. There are a hundred thousand of them in this end of thestate. "

"Would you make it a secret organization?"

"Yes. I like doing things in the open myself, but you've got to fight arat in his hole, if he won't come out. "

"Would you hold office?" Pink asked. 

Willy Cameron smiled. 

"I'm a good bit like the boy who dug post holes in the daytime and tookin washing at night to support the family. But I'll work, if that's whatyou mean. "

"We'd better have a constitution and all that, don't you think?" Pinkasked. "We can draw up a tentative one, and then fix it up at the firstmeeting. This is going to be a big thing. It'll go like a fire. "

But Willy Cameron overruled that. 

"We don't need that sort of stuff, " he said, "and if we begin that wemight as well put it in the newspapers. We want men who can keep theirmouths shut, and who will sign some sort of a card agreeing to standby the government and to preserve law and order. Then an office and afiling case, and their addresses, so we can get at them in a hurry if weneed them. Get me a piece of paper, somebody. "

Then and there, in twenty words, Willy Cameron wrote the now historicoath of the new Vigilance Committee, on the back of an old envelope. Itwas a promise, an agreement rather than an oath. There was a littlehush as the paper passed from hand to hand. Not a man there but felt acertain solemnity in the occasion. To preserve the Union and the flag, to fight all sedition, to love their country and support it; the verysimplicity of the words was impressive. And the mere putting of it intovisible form crystallized their hitherto vague anxieties, pointed to areal enemy and a real danger. Yet, as Willy Cameron pointed out, theymight never be needed. 

"Our job, " he said, "is only as a last resort. Only for real trouble. Until the state troops can get here, for instance, and if theconstabulary is greatly outnumbered. It's their work up to a certainpoint. We'll fight if they need us. That's all. "

It was very surprising to him to find the enterprise financedimmediately. Pink offered an office in the bank building. Some oneagreed to pay a clerk who should belong to the committee. It waspractical, businesslike, and--done. And, although he had protested, hefound himself made the head of the organization. 

"--without title and without pay, " he stipulated. "If you wish a titleon me, I'll resign. "

He went home that night very exalted and very humble. 

CHAPTER XXI

For a time Lily remained hidden in the house on Cardew Way, walkingout after nightfall with Louis occasionally, but shrinkingly keeping toquiet back streets. She had a horror of meeting some one she knew, of explanations and of gossip. But after a time the desire to see hermother became overwhelming. She took to making little flying visitshome at an hour when her grandfather was certain to be away, going in ataxicab, and reaching the house somewhat breathless and excited. She wasdriven by an impulse toward the old familiar things; she was homesickfor them all, for her mother, for Mademoiselle, for her own rooms, forher little toilet table, for her bed and her reading lamp. For the oldhouse itself. 

She was still an alien where she was. Elinor Doyle was a perpetualenigma to her; now and then she thought she had penetrated behind thegentle mask that was Elinor's face, only to find beyond it somethinginscrutable. There was a dead line in Elinor's life across which Lilynever stepped. Whatever Elinor's battles were, she fought them alone, and Lily had begun to realize that there were battles. 

The atmosphere of the little house had changed. Sometimes, after shehad gone to bed, she heard Doyle's voice from the room across the hall, raised angrily. He was nervous and impatient; at times he dropped theunctuousness of his manner toward her, and she found herself lookinginto a pair of cold blue eyes which terrified her. 

The brilliant little dinners had entirely ceased, with her coming. Asort of early summer lethargy had apparently settled on the house. Doyle wrote for hours, shut in the room with the desk; the group ofintellectuals, as he had dubbed them, had dispersed on summer vacations. But she discovered that there were other conferences being held in thehouse, generally late at night. 

She learned to know the nights when those meetings were to occur. Onthose evenings Elinor always made an early move toward bed, and Lilywould repair to her hot low-ceiled room, to sit in the darkness by thewindow and think long, painful thoughts. 

That was how she learned of the conferences. She had no curiosity aboutthem at first. They had something to do with the strike, she considered, and with that her interest died. Strikes were a symptom, and ultimately, through great thinkers like Mr. Doyle, they would discover the cure forthe disease that caused them. She was quite content to wait for thattime. 

Then, one night, she went downstairs for a glass of ice water, and foundthe lower floor dark, and subdued voices coming from the study. Thekitchen door was standing open, and she closed and locked it, placingthe key, as was Elinor's custom, in a table drawer. The door was partlyglass, and Elinor had a fear of the glass being broken and thus the keyturned in the lock by some intruder. 

On toward morning there came a violent hammering at her bedroom door, and Doyle's voice outside, a savage voice that she scarcely recognized. When she had thrown on her dressing gown and opened the door he hadinstantly caught her by the shoulder, and she bore the imprints of hisfingers for days. 

"Did you lock the kitchen door?" he demanded, his tones thick with fury. 

"Yes. Why not?" She tried to shake off his hand, but failed. 

"None of your business why not, " he said, and gave her an angry shake. "Hereafter, when you find that door open, you leave it that way. That'sall. "

"Take your hands off me!" She was rather like her grandfather at thatmoment, and his lost caution came back. He freed her at once and laugheda little. 

"Sorry!" he said. "I get a bit emphatic at times. But there are timeswhen a locked door becomes a mighty serious matter. "

The next day he removed the key from the door, and substituted a bolt. Elinor made no protest. 

Another night Elinor was taken ill, and Lilly had been forced to knockat the study door and call Doyle. She had an instant's impression of theroom crowded with strange figures. The heavy odors of sweating bodies, of tobacco, and of stale beer came through the half-open door andrevolted her. And Doyle had refused to go upstairs. 

She began to feel that she could not remain there very long. Theatmosphere was variable. It was either cynical or sinister, and shehated them both. She had a curious feeling, too, that Doyle both wantedher there and did not want her, and that he was changing his attitudetoward her Aunt Elinor. Sometimes she saw him watching Elinor from underhalf-closed eyelids. 

But she could not fill her days with anxieties and suspicions, and sheturned to Louis Akers as a flower to the open day. He at least was whathe appeared to be. There was nothing mysterious about him. 

He came in daily, big, dominant and demonstrative, filling the housewith his presence, and demanding her in a loud, urgent voice. Hardly hadthe door slammed before he would call:

"Lily! Where are you?"

Sometimes he lifted her off her feet and held her to him. 

"You little whiffet!" he would say. "I could crush you to death in myarms. "

Had his wooing all been violent she might have tired sooner, becausethose phases of his passion for her tired her. But there were times whenhe put her into a chair and sat on the floor at her feet, his handsomeface uplifted to hers in a sort of humble adoration, his arms across herknees. It was not altogether studied. He was a born wooer, but he hadhis hours of humility, of vague aspirations. His insistent body wasalways greater than his soul, but now and then, when he was physicallyweary, he had a spiritual moment. 

"I love you, little girl, " he would say. 

It was in one of those moments that she extracted a promise from him. He had been, from his position on the floor, telling her about thecampaign. 

"I don't like your running against my father, Louis. "

"He couldn't have got it, anyhow. And he doesn't want it. I do, honey. I need it in my business. When the election's over you're going to marryme. "

She ignored that. 

"I don't like the men who come here, Louis. I wish they were not friendsof yours. "

"Friends of mine! That bunch?"

"You are always with them. "

"I draw a salary for being with them, honey. "

"But what do you draw a salary for?" He was immediately on the alert, but her eyes were candid and unsuspicious. "They are strikers, aren'tthey?"

"Yes. "

"Is it legal business?"

"Partly that. "

"Louis, is there going to be a general strike?"

"There may be some bad times coming, honey. " He bent his head and kissedher hands, lying motionless in her lap. "I wish you would marry me soon. I want you. I want to keep you safe. "

She drew her hands away. 

"Safe from what, Louis?"

He sat back and looked up into her face. 

"You must remember, dear, that for all your theories, which are verysweet, this is a man's world, and men have rather brutal methods ofsettling their differences. "

"And you advocate brutality?"

"Well, the war was brutal, wasn't it? And you were in a white heatsupporting it, weren't you? How about another war, "--he chose his wordscarefully--"just as reasonable and just? You've heard Doyle. You knowwhat I mean. "

"Not now!"

He was amazed at her horror, a horror that made her recoil from him andpush his hands away when he tried to touch her. He got up angrily andstood looking down at her, his hands in his pockets. 

"What the devil did you think all this talk meant?" he demanded. "You'veheard enough of it. "

"Does Aunt Elinor know?"

"Of course. "

"And she approves?"

"I don't know and I don't care. " Suddenly, with one of the quick changesshe knew so well, he caught her hands and drawing her to her feet, puthis arms around her. "All I know is that I love you, and if you say theword I'll cut the whole business. "

"You would?"

He amended his offer somewhat. 

"Marry me, honey, " he begged. "Marry me now. Do you think I'll letanything in God's world come between us? Marry me, and I'll do more thanleave them. " He was whispering to her, stroking her hair. "I'll cut thewhole outfit. And on the day I go into your house as your husband I'lltell your people some things they want to know. That's a promise. "

"What will they do to you?"

"Your people?"

"The others. "

He drew himself to his full height, and laughed. 

"They'll try to do plenty, old girl, " he said, "but I'm not afraid ofthem, and they know it. Marry me, Lily, " he urged. "Marry me now. Andwe'll beat them out, you and I. "

He gave her a sense of power, over him and over evil. She felt suddenlyan enormous responsibility, that of a human soul waiting to be upliftedand led aright. 

"You can save me, honey, " he whispered, and kneeling suddenly, he kissedthe toe of her small shoe. 

He was strong. But he was weak too. He needed her. "I'll do it, Louis, "she said. "You--you will be good to me, won't you?"

"I'm crazy about you. "

The mood of exaltation upheld her through the night, and into the nextday. Elinor eyed her curiously, and with some anxiety. It was a longtime since she had been a girl, going about star-eyed with power over aman, but she remembered that lost time well. 

At noon Louis came in for a hasty luncheon, and before he left hedrew Lily into the little study and slipped a solitaire diamond on herengagement finger. To Lily the moment was almost a holy one, but heseemed more interested in the quality of the stone and its appearance onher hand than in its symbolism. 

"Got you cinched now, honey. Do you like it?"

"It makes me feel that I don't belong to myself any longer. "

"Well, you've passed into good hands, " he said, and laughed his great, vibrant laugh. "Costing me money already, you mite!"

A little of her exaltation died then. But perhaps men were like that, shyly covering the things they felt deepest. 

She was rather surprised when he suggested keeping the engagement asecret. 

"Except the Doyles, of course, " he said. "I am not taking any chances onlosing you, child. "

"Not mother?"

"Not unless you want to be kidnaped and taken home. It's only a matterof a day or two, anyhow. "

"I want more time than that. A month, anyhow. "

And he found her curiously obstinate and determined. She did notquite know herself why she demanded delay, except that she shrank fromdelivering herself into hands that were so tender and might be so cruel. It was instinctive, purely. 

"A month, " she said, and stuck to it. 

He was rather sulky when he went away, and he had told her the exactamount he had paid for her ring. 

Having forced him to agree to the delay, she found her mood ofexaltation returning. As always, it was when he was not with he that shesaw him most clearly, and she saw his real need for her. She had a senseof peace, too, now that at last something was decided. Her future, forbetter or worse, would no longer be that helpless waiting which hadbeen hers for so long. And out of her happiness came a desire to do kindthings, to pat children on the head, to give alms to beggars, and--tosee Willy Cameron. 

She came downstairs that afternoon, dressed for the street. 

"I am going out for a little while, Aunt Nellie, " she said, "and when Icome back I want to tell you something. "

"Perhaps. I can guess. "

"Perhaps you can. "

She was singing to herself as she went out the door. 

Elinor went back heavy-hearted to her knitting. It was very difficultalways to sit by and wait. Never to raise a hand. Just to wait andwatch. And pray. 

Lily was rather surprised, when she reached the Eagle Pharmacy, to findPink Denslow coming out. It gave her a little pang, too; he looked soclean and sane and normal, so much a part of her old life. And it hurther, too, to see him flush with pleasure at the meeting. 

"Why, Lily!" he said, and stood there, gazing at her, hat in hand, thesun on his gleaming, carefully brushed hair. He was quite inarticulatewith happiness. "I--when did you get back?"

"I have not been away, Pink. I left home--it's a long story. I amstaying with my aunt, Mrs. Doyle. "

"Mrs. Doyle? You are staying there?"

"Why not? My father's sister. "

His young face took on a certain sternness. 

"If you knew what I suspect about Doyle, Lily, you wouldn't let the sameroof cover you. " But he added, rather wistfully, "I wish I might see yousometimes. "

Lily's head had gone up a trifle. Why did her old world always try toput her in the wrong? She had had to seek sanctuary, and the Doyle househad been the only sanctuary she knew. 

"Since you feel as you do, I'm afraid that's impossible. Mr. Doyle'sroof is the only roof I have. "

"You have a home, " he said, sturdily. 

"Not now. I left, and my grandfather won't have me back. You mustn'tblame him, Pink. We quarreled and I left. I was as much responsible ashe was. "

For a moment after she turned and disappeared inside the pharmacy doorhe stood there, then he put on his hat and strode down the street, unhappy and perplexed. If only she had needed him, if she had not lookedso self-possessed and so ever so faintly defiant, as though she daredhim to pity her, he would have known what to do. All he needed was to beneeded. His open face was full of trouble. It was unthinkable that Lilyshould be in that center of anarchy; more unthinkable that Doyle mighthave filled her up with all sorts of wild ideas. Women were queer; theyliked theories. A man could have a theory of life and play with it andboast about it, but never dream of living up to it. But give one to awoman, and she chewed on it like a dog on a bone. If those Bolshevistshad got hold of Lily--!

The encounter had hurt Lily, too. The fine edge of her exaltation wasgone, and it did not return during her brief talk with Willy Cameron. He looked much older and very thin; there were lines around his eyesshe had never seen before, and she hated seeing him in his presentsurroundings. But she liked him for his very unconsciousness of thosesurroundings. One always had to take Willy Cameron as he was. 

"Do you like it, Willy?" she asked. It had dawned on her, with a sortof panic, that there was really very little to talk about. All that theyhad had in common lay far in the past. 

"Well, it's my daily bread, and with bread costing what it does, I clingto it like a limpet to a rock. "

"But I thought you were studying, so you could do something else. "

"I had to give up the night school. But I'll get back to it sometime. "

She was lost again. She glanced around the little shop, where onceEdith Boyd had manicured her nails behind the counter, and where now amiddle-aged woman stood with listless eyes looking out over the street. 

"You still have Jinx, I suppose?"

"Yes. I--"

Lily glanced up as he stopped. She had drawn off her gloves, and hiseyes had fallen on her engagement ring. To Lily there had always been afeeling of unreality about his declaration of love for her. He hadbeen so restrained, so careful to ask nothing in exchange, so withoutexpectation of return, that she had put it out of her mind as animpulse. She had not dreamed that he could still care, after thesemonths of silence. But he had gone quite white. 

"I am going to be married, Willy, " she said, in a low tone. It isdoubtful if he could have spoken, just then. And as if to add afinishing touch of burlesque to the meeting, a small boy with a swollenjaw came in just then and demanded something to "make it stop hurting. "

He welcomed the interruption, she saw. He was very professionalinstantly, and so absorbed for a moment in relieving the child's painthat he could ignore his own. 

"Let's see it, " he said in a businesslike, slightly strained voice. "Better have it out, old chap. But I'll give you something just to easeit up a bit. "

Which he proceeded to do. When he came back to Lily he was quite calmand self-possessed. As he had never thought of dramatizing himself, northought of himself at all, it did not occur to him that drama requiressetting, that tragedy required black velvet rather than tooth-brushes, and that a small boy with an aching tooth was a comedy relief badlyintroduced. 

All he knew was that he had somehow achieved a moment in which to steadyhimself, and to find that a man can suffer horribly and still smile. Hedid that, very gravely, when he came back to Lily. 

"Can you tell me about it?"

"There is not very much to tell. It is Louis Akers. "

The middle-aged clerk had disappeared. 

"Of course you have thought over what that means, Lily. "

"He wants me to marry him. He wants it very much, Willy. And--I know youdon't like him, but he has changed. Women always think they have changedmen, I know. But he is very different. "

"I am sure of that, " he said, steadily. 

There was something childish about her, he thought. Childish andinfinitely touching. He remembered a night at the camp, when some of thetroops had departed for over-seas, and he had found her alone and cryingin her hut. "I just can't let them go, " she had sobbed. "I just can't. Some of them will never come back. "

Wasn't there something of that spirit in her now, the feeling that shecould not let Akers go, lest worse befall him? He did not know. All heknew was that she was more like the Lily Cardew he had known then thanshe had been since her return. And that he worshiped her. 

But there was anger in him, too. Anger at Anthony Cardew. Anger at theDoyles. And a smoldering, bitter anger at Louis Akers, that he shouldtake the dregs of his life and offer them to her as new wine. That heshould dare to link his scheming, plotting days to this girl, so wiseand yet so ignorant, so clear-eyed and yet so blind. 

"Do they know at home?"

"I am going to tell mother to-day. "

"Lily, " he said, slowly, "there is one thing you ought to do. Go home, make your peace there, and get all this on the right footing. Then havehim there. You have never seen him in that environment, yet that is theworld he will have to live in, if you marry him. See how he fits there. "

"What has that got to do with it?"

"Think a minute. Am I quite the same to you here, as I was in the camp?"

He saw her honest answer in her eyes. 

CHAPTER XXII

The new movement was growing rapidly, and with a surprising catholicityof range. Already it included lawyers and doctors, chauffeurs, butchers, clergymen, clerks of all sorts, truck gardeners from the surroundingcounty, railroad employees, and some of the strikers from the mills, men who had obeyed their union order to quit work, but had obeyed itunwillingly; men who resented bitterly the invasion of the ranks oflabor by the lawless element which was fomenting trouble. 

Dan had joined. 

On the day that Lily received her engagement ring from Louis Akers, oneof the cards of the new Vigilance Committee was being inspected withcynical amusement by two clerks in a certain suite of offices in theSearing Building. They studied it with interest, while the man who hadbrought it stood by. 

"Where'd you pick it up, Cusick?"

"One of our men brought it into the store. Said you might want to seeit. "

The three men bent over it. 

The Myers Housecleaning Company had a suite of three rooms. During theday two stenographers, both men, sat before machines and made a pretenseof business at such times as the door opened, or when an occasionalclient, seeing the name, came in to inquire for rates. At such times theclerks were politely regretful. The firm's contracts were all they couldhandle for months ahead. 

There was a constant ebb and flow of men in the office, presumablyprofessional cleaners. They came and went, or sat along the walls, waiting. A large percentage were foreigners but the clerks proved tobe accomplished linguists. They talked, with more or less fluency, withCroats, Serbs, Poles and Slavs. 

There was a supply room off the office, a room filled with pails andbrushes, soap and ladders. But there was a great safe also, and itscompartments were filled with pamphlets in many tongues, a supplyconstantly depleted and yet never diminishing. Workmen, carrying out thepails of honest labor, carried them loaded down with the literature itwas their only business to circulate. 

Thus, openly, and yet with infinite caution, was spread the doctrineof no God; of no government, and of no church; of the confiscation ofprivate property; of strikes and unrest; of revolution, rape, arson andpillage. 

And around this social cancer the city worked and played. Its theatreswere crowded, its expensive shops, its hotels. Two classes of peoplewere spending money prodigally; women with shawls over their heads, women who in all their peasant lives had never owned a hat, drove inautomobiles to order their winter supply of coal, and vast amounts ofliquors were being bought by the foreign element against the approachingprohibition law, and stored in untidy cellars. 

On the other hand, the social life of the city was gay with reactionfrom war. The newspapers were filled with the summer plans of thewealthy, and with predictions of lavish entertaining in the fall. Amongthe list of debutantes Lily's name always appeared. 

And, in between the upper and the nether millstone, were being groundthe professional and salaried men with families, the women clerks, thevast army who asked nothing but the right to work and live. They wentthrough their days doggedly, with little anxious lines around theireyes, suffering a thousand small deprivations, bewildered, tortured withapprehension of to-morrow, and yet patiently believing that, as thingscould not be worse, they must soon commence to improve. 

"It's bound to clear up soon, " said Joe Wilkinson over the back fenceone night late in June, to Willy Cameron. Joe supported a large familyof younger brothers and sisters in the house next door, and was employedin a department store. "I figure it this way--both sides need eachother, don't they? Something like marriage, you know. It'll all be overin six months. Only I'm thanking heaven just now it's summer, becauseour kids are hell on shoes. "

"I hope so, " said Willy Cameron. "What are you doing over there, anyhow?"

"Wait and see, " said Joe, cryptically. "If you think you're going to bethe only Central Park in this vicinity you've got to think again. " Hehesitated and glanced around, but the small Wilkinsons were searchingfor worms in the overturned garden mold. "How's Edith?" he asked. 

"She's all right, Joe. "

"Seeing anybody yet?"

"Not yet. In a day or so she'll be downstairs. "

"You might tell her I've been asking about her. "

There was something in Joel's voice that caught Willy Cameron'sattention. He thought about Joe a great deal that night. Joe was anotherone who must never know about Edith's trouble. The boy had littleenough, and if he had built a dream about Edith Boyd he must keep hisdream. He was rather discouraged that night, was Willy Cameron, and hebegan to think that dreams were the best things in life. They were asort of sanctuary to which one fled to escape realities. Perhaps noreality was ever as beautiful as one's dream of it. 

Lily had passed very definitely out of his life. Sometimes during hisrare leisure he walked to Cardew Way through the warm night, and pastthe Doyle house, but he never saw her, and because it did not occur tohim that she might want to see him he never made an attempt to call. Always after those futile excursions he was inclined to long silences, and only Jinx could have told how many hours he sat in his room atnight, in the second-hand easy chair he had bought, pipe in hand andeyes on nothing in particular, lost in a dream world where the fieldsbore a strong resemblance to the parade ground of an army camp, andthrough which field he and Lily wandered like children, hand in hand. 

But he had many things to think of. So grave were the immediateproblems, of food and rent, of Mrs. Boyd and Edith, that a little of hisfine frenzy as to the lurking danger of revolution departed from him. The meetings in the back room at the pharmacy took on a politicalbearing, and Hendricks was generally the central figure. The ward feltthat Mr. Hendricks was already elected, and called him "Mr. Mayor. " Atthe same time the steel strike pursued a course of comparative calm. AtFriendship and at Baxter there had been rioting, and a fatality or two, but the state constabulary had the situation well in hand. On a Sundaymorning Willy Cameron went out to Baxter on the trolley, and camehome greatly comforted. The cool-eyed efficiency of the state policereassured him. He compared them, disciplined, steady, calm with thecalmness of their dangerous calling, with the rabble of foreigners whoshuffled along the sidewalks, and he felt that his anxiety had beenrather absurd. 

He was still making speeches, and now and then his name was mentioned inthe newspapers. Mrs. Boyd, now mostly confined to her room, spent muchtime in searching for these notices, and then in painfully cutting themout and pasting them in a book. On those days when there was nothingabout him she felt thwarted, and was liable to sharp remarks onnewspapers in general, and on those of the city in particular. 

Then, just as he began to feel that the strike would pass off likeother strikes, and that Doyle and his crowd, having plowed the field forsedition, would find it planted with healthier grain, he had a talk withEdith. 

She came downstairs for the first time one Wednesday evening early inJuly, the scars on her face now only faint red blotches, and he placedher, a blanket over her knees, in the small parlor. Dan had brought herdown and had made a real effort to be kind, but his suspicion of thesituation made it difficult for him to dissemble, and soon he went out. Ellen was on the doorstep, and through the open window came the shrieksof numerous little Wilkinsons wearing out expensive shoe-leather on thebrick pavement. 

They sat in the dusk together, Edith very quiet, Willy Cameron talkingwith a sort of determined optimism. After a time he realized that shewas not even listening. 

"I wish you'd close the window, " she said at last. "Those crazyWilkinson kids make such a racket. I want to tell you something. "

"All right. " He closed the window and stood looking down at her. "Areyou sure you want me to hear it?" he asked gravely. 

"Yes. It is not about myself. I've been reading the newspapers whileI've been shut away up there, Willy. It kept me from thinking. And ifthings are as bad as they say I'd better tell you, even if I get intotrouble doing it. I will, probably. Murder's nothing to them. "

"Who are 'them'?"

"You get the police to search the Myers Housecleaning Company, in theSearing Building. "

"Don't you think you'd better tell me more than that? The police willwant something definite to go on. "

She hesitated. 

"I don't know very much. I met somebody there, once or twice, at night. And I know there's a telephone hidden in the drawer of the desk in theback room. I swore not to tell, but that doesn't matter now. Tell themto examine the safe, too. I don't know what's in it. Dynamite, maybe. "

"What makes you think the company is wrong? A hidden telephone isn'tmuch to go on. "

"When a fellow's had a drink or two, he's likely to talk, " she saidbriefly, and before that sordid picture Willy Cameron was silent. Aftera time he said:

"You won't tell me the name of the man you met there?"

"No. Don't ask me, Willy. That's between him and me. " He got up and tooka restless turn or two about the little rooms. Edith's problem had begunto obsess him. Not for long would it be possible to keep her conditionfrom Mrs. Boyd. He was desperately at a loss for some course to pursue. 

"Have you ever thought, " he said at last, "that this man, whoever he is, ought to marry you?"

Edith's face set like a flint. 

"I don't want to marry him, " she said. "I wouldn't marry him if he wasthe last man on earth. "

He knew very little of Edith's past. In his own mind he had fixed onLouis Akers, but he could not be sure. 

"I won't tell you his name, either, " Edith added, shrewishly. Then hervoice softened. "I will tell you this, Willy, " she said wistfully. "Iwas a good girl until I knew him. I'm not saying that to let myself out. It's the truth. "

"You're a good girl now, " he said gravely. 

Some time after he got his hat and came in to tell her he was going out. 

"I'll tell what you've told me to Mr. Hendricks, " he said. "And we maygo on and have a talk with the Chief of Police. If you are right it maybe important. "

After that for an hour or two Edith sat alone, save when Ellen now andthen looked in to see if she was comfortable. 

Edith's mind was chaotic. She had spoken on impulse, a good impulse atthat. But suppose they trapped Louis Akers in the Searing Building?

Ellen went now and then to the Cardew house, and brought back with herthe news of the family. At first she had sternly refused to talk aboutthe Cardews to Edith, but the days in the sick room had been long andmonotonous, and Edith's jealousy of Lily had taken the form, when shecould talk, of incessant questions. 

So Edith knew that Louis Akers had been the cause of Lily's leavinghome, and called her a poor thing in her heart. Quite lately she hadheard that if Lily was not already engaged she probably would be, soon. Now her motives were mixed, and her emotions confused. She had wantedto tell Willy Cameron what she knew, but she wanted Lily to marry LouisAkers. She wanted that terribly. Then Lily would be out of the way, and--Willy was not like Dan; he did not seem to think her forever lost. He had always been thoughtful, but lately he had been very tender withher. Men did strange things sometimes. He might be willing to forget, after a long time. She could board the child out somewhere, if it lived. Sometimes they didn't live. 

But if they arrested Louis, Lily Cardew would fling him aside like anold shoe. 

She closed her eyes. That opened a vista of possibilities she would notface. 

She stopped in her mother's room on her slow progress upstairs, movedto sudden pity for the frail life now wearing to its close. If thatwere life she did not want it, with its drab days and futile effort, itsincessant deprivations, its hands, gnarled with work that got nowhere, its greatest blessing sleep and forgetfulness. 

She wondered why her mother did not want to die, to get away. 

"I'll soon be able to look after you a bit, mother, " she said from thedoorway. "How's the pain down your arm?"

"Bring me the mucilage, Edie, " requested Mrs. Boyd. She was propped upin bed and surrounded by newspapers. "I've found Willy's name again. I've got fourteen now. Where's the scissors?"

Eternity was such a long time. Did she know? Could she know, and stillsit among her pillows, snipping?

"I wonder, " said Mrs. Boyd, "did anybody feed Jinx? That Ellen is sosaving that she grudges him a bone. "

"He looks all right, " said Edith, and went on up to bed. Maybe the Lorddid that for people, when they reached a certain point. Maybe He tookaway the fear of death, by showing after years of it that life was notso valuable after all. She remembered her own facing of eternity, andher dread of what lay beyond. She had prayed first, because she wantedto have some place on the other side. She had prayed to be receivedyoung and whole and without child. And her mother--

Then she had a flash of intuition. There was something greater thanlife, and that was love. Her mother was upheld by love. That was whatthe eternal cutting and pasting meant. She was lavishing all the loveof her starved days on Willy Cameron; she was facing death, because hishand was close by to hold to. 

For just a moment, sitting on the edge of her bed, Edith Boyd saw whatlove might be, and might do. She held out both hands in the darkness, but no strong and friendly clasp caught them close. If she could onlyhave him to cling to, to steady her wavering feet along the gray paththat stretched ahead, years and years of it. Youth. Middle age. Old age. 

"I'd only drag him down, " she muttered bitterly. 

Willy Cameron, meanwhile, had gone to Mr. Hendricks with Edith's story, and together late that evening they saw the Chief of Police at hishouse. Both Willy Cameron and Mr. Hendricks advocated putting a watchon the offices of the Myers Housecleaning Company and thus ultimatelygetting the heads of the organization. But the Chief was unwilling todelay. 

"Every day means more of their infernal propaganda, " he said, "and ifthis girl's telling a straight story, the thing to do is to get theoutfit now. Those clerks, for instance--we'll get some information outof them. That sort always squeals. They're a cheap lot. "

"Going to ball it up, of course, " Mr. Hendricks said disgustedly, on theway home. "Won't wait, because if Akers gets in he's out, and he wantsto make a big strike first. I'll drop in to-morrow evening and tell youwhat's happened. "

He came into the pharmacy the next evening, with a bundle of red-boundpamphlets under his arm, and a look of disgust on his face. 

"What did I tell you, Cameron?" he demanded, breathing heavily. "Yes, they got them all right. Got a safe full of stuff so inflammable that, since I've read some of it, I'm ready to blow up myself. It's worse thanthat first lot I showed you. They got the two clerks, and a half-dozenforeigners, too. And that's all they got. "

"They won't talk?"

"Talk? Sure they'll talk. They say they're employed by the MyersHousecleaning Company, that they never saw the inside of the vault, andthey're squealing louder than two pigs under a gate about false arrest. They'll have to let them go, son. Here. You can do most everything. Canyou read Croatian? No? Well, here's something in English to cut yourwisdom teeth on. Overthrowing the government is where these fellowsstart. "

It was intelligent, that propaganda. Willy Cameron thought he saw behindit Jim Doyle and other men like Doyle, men who knew the discontents ofthe world, and would fatten by them; men who, secretly envious of theupper classes and unable to attain to them, would pull all men to theirown level, or lower. Men who cloaked their own jealousies with the garbof idealism. Intelligent it was, dangerous, and imminent. 

The pamphlets spoke of "the day. " It was a Prussian phrase. Therevolution was Prussian. And like the Germans, they offered loot as areward. They appealed to the ugliest passions in the world, to lust andgreed and idleness. 

At a signal the mass was to arise, overthrow its masters and ruleitself. 

Mr. Hendricks stood in the doorway of the pharmacy and stared out at thecity he loved. 

"Just how far does that sort of stuff go, Cameron?" he asked. "Will ourpeople take it up? Is the American nation going crazy?"

"Not a bit of it, " said Willy Cameron stoutly. "They're about as able tooverthrow the government as you are to shove over the Saint Elmo Hotel. "

"I could do that, with a bomb. "

"No, you couldn't. But you could make a fairly sizeable hole in it. It'sthe hole we don't want. "

Mr. Hendricks went away, vaguely comforted. 

CHAPTER XXIII

To old Anthony the early summer had been full of humiliations, which hecarried with an increased arrogance of bearing that alienated even hisown special group at his club. 

"Confound the man, " said Judge Peterson, holding forth on the golf linksone Sunday morning while Anthony Cardew, hectic with rage, searched fora lost ball and refused to drop another. "He'll hold us up all morning, for that ball, just as he tries to hold up all progress. " He lowered hisvoice. "What's happened to the granddaughter, anyhow?"

Senator Lovell lighted a cigarette. 

"Turned Bolshevist, " he said, briefly. 

The Judge gazed at him. 

"That's a pretty serious indictment, isn't it?"

"Well, that's what I hear. She's living in Jim Doyle's house. I guessthat's the answer. Hey, Cardew! D'you want these young cubs behind us toplay through, or are you going to show some sense and come on?"

Howard, fighting his father tooth and nail, was compelled to a reluctantadmiration of his courage. But there was no cordiality between them. They were in accord again, as to the strike, although from differentangles. Both of them knew that they were fighting for very life; bothof them felt that the strikers' demands meant the end of industry, meantthat the man who risked money in a business would eventually cease tocontrol that business, although if losses came it would be he, andnot the workmen, who bore them. Howard had gone as far as he could inconcessions, and the result was only the demand for more. The Cardews, father and son, stood now together, their backs against a wall, andfought doggedly. 

But only anxiety held them together. 

His father was now backing Howard's campaign for the mayoralty, but hewas rather late with his support, and in private he retained his cynicalattitude. He had not come over at all until he learned that Louis Akerswas an opposition candidate. At that his wrath knew no bounds and thenext day he presented a large check to the campaign committee. 

Mr. Hendricks, hearing of it, was moved to a dry chuckle. 

"Can't you hear him?" he demanded. "He'd stalk into headquarters asimportant as an office boy who's been sent to the bank for money, andhe'd slam down his check and say just two words. "

"Which would be?" inquired Willy Cameron. 

"'Buy 'em', " quoted Mr. Hendricks. "The old boy doesn't know that thingshave changed since the 80's. This city has changed, my lad. It's votingnow the way it thinks, right or wrong. That's why these foreign languagepapers can play the devil with us. The only knowledge the poor wretcheshave got of us is what they're given to read. And most of it stinks ofsedition. Queer thing, this thinking. A fellow can think himself intomurder. "

The strike was going along quietly enough. There had been riotingthrough the country, but not of any great significance. It was inreality a sort of trench warfare, with each side dug in and waiting forthe other to show himself in the open. The representatives of the press, gathered in the various steel cities, with automobiles arranged forto take them quickly to any disturbance that might develop, foundthemselves with little news for the telegraph, and time hung heavy ontheir hands. 

On an evening in July, Howard found Grace dressing for dinner, andrealized with a shock that she was looking thin and much older. Hekissed her and then held her off and looked at her. 

"You've got to keep your courage up, dear, " he said. "I don't think itwill be long now. "

"Have you seen her?"

"No. But something has happened. Don't look like that, Grace. It'snot--"

"She hasn't married that man?"

"No. Not that. It only touches her indirectly. But she can't stay there. Even Elinor--" he checked himself. "I'll tell you after dinner. "

Dinner was very silent, although Anthony delivered himself of one speechrather at length. 

"So far as I can make out, Howard, " he said, "this man Hendricks isgetting pretty strong. He has a young fellow talking for him who getsover pretty well. It's my judgment that Hendricks had better be boughtoff. He goes around shouting that he's a plain man, after the support ofthe plain people. Although I'm damned if I know what he means by that. "

Anthony Cardew was no longer comfortable in his own house. He placedthe blame for it on Lily, and spent as many evenings away from home aspossible. He considered that life was using him rather badly. Tied tothe city in summer by a strike, his granddaughter openly gone overto his enemy, his own son, so long his tool and his creature, merelystaying in his house to handle him, an income tax law that sent him tohis lawyers with new protests almost daily! A man was no longer mastereven in his own home. His employees would not work for him, his familydisobeyed him, his government held him up and shook him. In the good olddays--

"I'm going out, " he said, as he rose from the table. "Grace, that chefis worse than the last. You'd better send him off. "

"I can't get any one else. I have tried for weeks. There are no servantsanywhere. "

"Try New York. "

"I have tried--it is useless. "

No cooks, either. No servants. Even Anthony recognized that, with theexception of Grayson, the servants in his house were vaguely hostileto the family. They gave grudging service, worked short hours, and, the only class of labor to which the high cost of food was a negligiblematter, demanded wages he considered immoral. 

"I don't know what the world's coming to, " he snarled. "Well, I'm off. Thank God, there are still clubs for a man to go to. "

"I want to have a talk with you, father. "

"I don't want to talk. "

"You needn't. I want you to listen, and I want Grace to hear, too. "

In the end he went unwillingly into the library, and when Grayson hadbrought liqueurs and coffee and had gone, Howard drew the card from hispocket. 

"I met young Denslow to-day, " he said. "He came in to see me. As amatter of fact, I signed a card he had brought along, and I brought onefor you, sir. Shall I read it?"

"You evidently intend to. "

Howard read the card slowly. Its very simplicity was impressive, asimpressive as it had been when Willy Cameron scrawled the words on theback of an old envelope. Anthony listened. 

"Just what does that mean?"

"That the men behind this movement believe that there is going to be ageneral strike, with an endeavor to turn it into a revolution. Perhapsonly local, but these things have a tendency to spread. Denslow had someliterature which referred to an attempt to take over the city. They haveother information, too, all pointing the same way. "

"Strikers?"

"Foreign strikers, with the worst of the native born. Their plans arefairly comprehensive; they mean to dynamite the water works, shut downthe gas and electric plants, and cut off all food supplies. Then whenthey have starved and terrorized us into submission, we'll accept theirterms. "

"What terms?"

"Well, the rule of the mob, I suppose. They intend to take over thebanks, for one thing. "

"I don't believe it. It's incredible. "

"They meant to do it in Seattle. "

"And didn't. Don't forget that. "

"They may have learned some things from Seattle, " Howard said quietly. 

"We have the state troops. "

"What about a half dozen similar movements in the state at the sametime? Or rioting in other places, carefully planned to draw the troopsand constabulary away?"

In the end old Anthony was impressed, if not entirely convinced. Buthe had no faith in the plain people, and said so. "They'll see propertydestroyed and never lift a hand, " he said. "Didn't I stand by inPittsburgh during the railroad riots, and watch them smile while theyards burned? Because the railroads meant capital to them, and they hatecapital. "

"Precisely, " said Howard, "but after twenty-four hours they werefighting like demons to restore law and order. It is"--he fingered thecard--"to save that twenty-four hours that this organization is beingformed. It is secret. Did I tell you that? And the idea originated withthe young man you spoke about as supporting Hendricks--you met him hereonce, a friend of Lily's. His name is Cameron--William Wallace Cameron. "

Old Anthony remained silent, but the small jagged vein on his foreheadswelled with anger. After a time:

"I suppose Doyle is behind this?" he asked. "It sounds like him. "

"That is the supposition. But they have nothing on him yet; he is tooshrewd for that. And that leads to something else. Lily cannot continueto stay there. "

"I didn't send her there. "

"Actually, no. In effect--but we needn't go into that now. The situationis very serious. I can imagine that nothing could fit better into hisplans than to have her there. She gives him a cachet of respectability. Do you want that?"

"She is probably one of them now. God knows how much of his rottendoctrine she has absorbed. "

Howard flushed, but he kept his temper. 

"His theories, possibly. His practice, no. She certainly has no idea. .. It has come to this, father. She must have a home somewhere, and if itcannot be here, Grace and I must make one for her elsewhere. "

Probably Anthony Cardew had never respected Howard more than at thatmoment, or liked him less. 

"Both you and Grace are free to make a home where you please. "

"We prefer it here, but you must see yourself that things cannot go onas they are. We have waited for you to see that, all three of us, andnow this new situation makes it imperative to take some action. "

"I won't have that fellow Akers coming here. "

"He would hardly come, under the circumstances. Besides, her friendshipwith him is only a part of her revolt. If she comes home it will be withthe understanding that she does not see him again. "

"Revolt?" said old Anthony, raising his eyebrows. 

"That is what it actually was. She found her liberty interfered with, and she staged her own small rebellion. It was very human, I think. "

"It was very Cardew, " said old Anthony, and smiled faintly. He had, totell the truth, developed a grudging admiration for his granddaughter inthe past two months. He saw in her many of his own qualities, good andbad. And, more than he cared to own, he had missed her and the younglife she had brought into the quiet house. Most important of all, shewas the last of the Cardews. Although his capitulation when it came wascurt, he was happier than he had been for weeks. 

"Bring her home, " he said, "but tell her about Akers. If she says thatis off, I'll forget the rest. "

On her way to her room that night Grace Cardew encountered Mademoiselle, a pale, unhappy Mademoiselle, who seemed to spend her time mostly inLily's empty rooms or wandering about corridors. Whenever the threemembers of the family were together she would retire to her ownquarters, and there feverishly with her rosary would pray for asoftening of hearts. She did not comprehend these Americans, who were sokind to those beneath them and so hard to each other. 

"I wanted to see you, Mademoiselle, " Grace said, not very steadily. "Ihave good news for you. "

Mademoiselle began to tremble. "She is coming? Lily is coming?"

"Yes. Will you have some fresh flowers put in her rooms in the morning?"

Suddenly Mademoiselle forgot her years of repression, and flinging herarms around Grace's neck she kissed her. Grace held her for a moment, patting her shoulder gently. 

"We must try to make her very happy, Mademoiselle. I think things willbe different now. "

Mademoiselle stood back and wiped her eyes. 

"But she must be different, too, " she said. "She is sweet and good, but she is strong of will, too. The will to do, to achieve, that isone thing, and very good. But the will to go one's own way, that isanother. "

"The young are always headstrong, Mademoiselle. "

But, alone later on, her rosary on her knee, Mademoiselle wondered. Ifyouth were the indictment against Lily, was she not still young? It tookyears, or suffering, or sometimes both, to break the will of youth andchasten its spirit. God grant Lily might not have suffering. 

It was Grace's plan to say nothing to Lily, but to go for her herself, and thus save her the humiliation of coming back alone. All morninghousemaids were busy in Lily's rooms. Rugs were shaken, floors waxedand rubbed, the silver frames and vases in her sitting room polishedto refulgence. And all morning Mademoiselle scolded and ran suspiciousfingers into corners, and arranged and re-arranged great boxes offlowers. 

Long before the time she had ordered the car Grace was downstairs, dressed for the street, and clad in cool shining silk, was pacing theshaded hall. There was a vague air of expectation about the old house. In a room off the pantry the second man was polishing the buttons ofhis livery, using a pasteboard card with a hole in it to save the fabricbeneath. Grayson pottered about in the drawing room, alert for theparlor maid's sins of omission. 

The telephone in the library rang, and Grayson answered it, while Gracestood in the doorway. 

"A message from Miss Lily, " he said. "Mrs. Doyle has telephoned thatMiss Lily is on her way here. "

Grace was vaguely disappointed. She had wanted to go to Lily with hergood news, to bring her home bag and baggage, to lead her into the houseand to say, in effect, that this was home, her home. She had felt thatthey, and not Lily, should take the first step. 

She went upstairs, and taking off her hat, smoothed her soft dark hair. She did not want Lily to see how she had worried; she eyed herselfcarefully for lines. Then she went down, to more waiting, and for thefirst time, to a little doubt. 

Yet when Lily came all was as it should have been. There was no doubtabout her close embrace of her mother, her happiness at seeing her. Shedid not remove her gloves, however, and after she had put Grace in achair and perched herself on the arm of it, there was a little pause. Each was preparing to tell something, each hesitated. Because Grace'stask was the easier it was she who spoke first. 

"I was about to start over when you telephoned, dear, " she said. "I--wewant you to come home to us again. "

There was a queer, strained silence. 

"Who wants me?" Lily asked, unsteadily. 

"All of us. Your grandfather, too. He expects to find you here to-night. I can explain to your Aunt Elinor over the telephone, and we can sendfor your clothes. "

Suddenly Lily got up and walked the length of the room. When she cameback her eyes were filled with tears, and her left hand was bare. 

"It nearly kills me to hurt you, " she said, "but--what about this?"

She held out her hand. 

Grace seemed frozen in her chair. At the sight of her mother's face Lilyflung herself on her knees beside the chair. 

"Mother, mother, " she said, "you must know how I love you. Love youboth. Don't look like that. I can't bear it. "

Grace turned away her face. 

"You don't love us. You can't. Not if you are going to marry that man. "

"Mother, " Lily begged, desperately, "let me come home. Let me bring himhere. I'll wait, if you'll only do that. He is different; I know allthat you want to say about his past. He has never had a real chancein all his life. He won't belong at first, but--he's a man, mother, astrong man. And it's awfully important. He can do so much, if he onlywill. And he says he will, if I marry him. "

"I don't understand you, " Grace said coldly. "What can a man like thatdo, but wreck all our lives?"

Resentment was rising fast in Lily, but she kept it down. "I'll tell youabout that later, " she said, and slowly got to her feet. "Is that all, mother? You won't see him? I can't bring him here? Isn't there anycompromise? Won't you meet me half-way?"

"When you say half-way, you mean all the way, Lily. "

"I wanted you so, " Lily said, drearily, "I need you so just now. I amgoing to be married, and I have no one to go to. Aunt Elinor doesn'tunderstand, either. Every way I look I find--I suppose I can't come backat all, then. "

"Your grandfather's condition was that you never see this Louis Akersagain. "

Lily's resentment left her. Anger was a thing for small matters, trivialaffairs. This that was happening, an irrevocable break with her family, was as far beyond anger as it was beyond tears. She wondered dully ifany man were worth all this. Perhaps she knew, sub-consciously, thatLouis Akers was not. All her exaltation was gone, and in its stead was asort of dogged determination to see the thing through now, at any cost;to re-make Louis into the man he could be, to build her own house oflife, and having built it, to live in it as best she could. 

"That is a condition I cannot fulfill, mother. I am engaged to him. "

"Then you love him more than you do any of us, or all of us. "

"I don't know. It is different, " she said vaguely. 

She kissed her mother very tenderly when she went away, but there wasa feeling of finality in them both. Mademoiselle, waiting at the top ofthe stairs, heard the door close and could not believe her ears. Gracewent upstairs, her face a blank before the servants, and shut herselfin her room. And in Lily's boudoir the roses spread a heavy, funerealsweetness over the empty room. 

CHAPTER XXIV

The strike had been carried on with comparatively little disorder. In some cities there had been rioting, but half-hearted andeasily controlled. Almost without exception it was the foreign andunassimilated element that broke the peace. Alien women spat on thestate police, and flung stones at them. Here and there propertywas destroyed. A few bomb outrages filled the newspapers with greatscare-heads, and sent troops and a small army of secret service men hereand there. 

In the American Federation of Labor a stocky little man grimly fought tooppose the Radical element, which was slowly gaining ground, and at thesame time to retain his leadership. The great steel companies, unitedat last by a common danger and a common fate if they yielded, stooddoggedly and courageously together, waiting for a return of sanity tothe world. The world seemed to have gone mad. Everywhere in the countryproduction was reduced by the cessation of labor, and as a result thecost of living was mounting. 

And every strike lost in the end. Labor had yet to learn that to ceaseto labor may express a grievance, but that in itself it righted nowrongs. Rather, it turned that great weapon, public opinion, withoutwhich no movement may succeed, against it. And that to stand behindthe country in war was not enough. It must stand behind the country inpeace. 

It had to learn, too, that a chain is only as strong as its weakestlink. The weak link in the labor chain was its Radical element. Rioterswere arrested with union cards in their pockets. In vain the unionsprotested their lack of sympathy with the unruly element. The vastrespectable family of union labor found itself accused of the sins ofthe minority, and lost standing thereby. 

At Friendship the unruly element was very strong. For a time it held itsmeetings in a hall. When that was closed it resorted to the open air. 

On the fifteenth of July it held an incendiary meeting on the unusedpolo field, and the next day awakened to the sound of hammers, andto find a high wooden fence, reenforced with barbed wire, being builtaround the field, with the state police on guard over the carpenters. Ina few days the fence was finished, only to be partly demolished the nextnight, secretly and noiselessly. But no further attempts were made tohold meetings there. It was rumored that meetings were being secretlyheld in the woods near the town, but the rendezvous was not located. 

On the restored fence around the polo grounds a Red flag was found onemorning, and two nights later the guard at the padlocked gate was shotthrough the heart, from ambush. 

Then, about the first of August, out of a clear sky, sporadic riotingsbegan to occur. They seemed to originate without cause, and to end assuddenly as they began. Usually they were in the outlying districts, but one or two took place in the city itself. The rioters were notall foreign strikers from the mills. They were garment workers, hotelwaiters, a rabble of the discontented from all trades. The riots were tono end, apparently. They began with a chance word, fought their furiousway for an hour or so, and ended, leaving a trail of broken heads andtorn clothing behind them. 

On toward the end of July one such disturbance grew to considerablesize. The police were badly outnumbered, and a surprising majority ofthe rioters were armed, with revolvers, with wooden bludgeons, lengthsof pipe and short, wicked iron bars. Things were rather desperate untilthe police found themselves suddenly and mysteriously reenforced bya cool-headed number of citizens, led by a tall thin man who limpedslightly, and who disposed his heterogeneous support with a few wordsand considerable skill. 

The same thin young man, stopping later in an alley way to investigatean arm badly bruised by an iron bar, overheard a conversation betweentwo roundsmen, met under a lamppost after the battle, for comfort and alittle conversation. 

"Can you beat that, Henry?" said one. "Where the hell'd they come from?"

"Search me, " said Henry. "D'you see the skinny fellow? Limped, too. D'you notice that? Probably hurt in France. But he hasn't forgotten howto fight, I'll tell the world. "

The outbreaks puzzled the leaders of the Vigilance Committee. WillyCameron was inclined to regard them as without direction or intention, purely as manifestations of hate, and as such contrary to the plans oftheir leaders. And Mr. Hendricks, nursing a black eye at home after therecent outburst, sized up the situation shrewdly. 

"You can boil a kettle too hard, " he said, "and then the lid pops off. Doyle and that outfit of his have been burning the fire a little high, that's all. They'll quit now, because they want to get us off guardlater. You and your committee can take a vacation, unless you can setthem to electioneering for me. They've had enough for a while, thedevils. They'll wait now for Akers to get in and make things easy forthem. Mind my words, boy. That's the game. "

And the game it seemed to be. Small violations of order still occurred, but no big ones. To the headquarters in the Denslow Bank came anincreasing volume of information, to be duly docketed and filed. Some ofit was valueless. Now and then there came in something worth followingup. Thus one night Pink and a picked band, following a vague clew, wentin automobiles to the state borderline, and held up and captured twotrucks loaded with whiskey and destined for Friendship and Baxter. Hereported to Willy Cameron late that night. 

"Smashed it all up and spilled it in the road, " he said. "Hurt likesin to do it, though. Felt like the fellow who shot the last passengerpigeon. "

But if the situation in the city was that of armed neutrality, in theBoyd house things were rapidly approaching a climax, and that throughDan. He was on edge, constantly to be placated and watched. The strikewas on his nerves; he felt his position keenly, resented Willy Cameronsupporting the family, and had developed a curious jealousy of hismother's affection for him. 

Toward Edith his suspicions had now become certainty, and an open breakcame on an evening when she said that she felt able to go to work again. They were at the table, and Ellen was moving to and from the kitchen, carrying in the meal. Her utmost thrift could not make it other thanscanty, and finally Dan pushed his plate away. 

"Going back to work, are you?" he sneered. "And how long do you thinkyou'll be able to work?"

"You keep quiet, " Edith flared at him. "I'm going to work. That's allyou need to know. I can't sit here and let a man who doesn't belongto us provide every bite we eat, if you can. " Willy Cameron got up andclosed the door, for Mrs. Boyd an uncanny ability to hear much that wenton below. 

"Now, " he said when he came back, "we might as well have this out. Danhas a right to be told, Edith, and he can help us plan something. " Heturned to Dan. "It must be kept from your mother, Dan. "

"Plan something!" Dan snarled. "I know what to plan, all right. I'llfind the--" he broke into foul, furious language, but suddenly WillyCameron rose, and there was something threatening in his eyes. 

"I know who it is, " Dan said, more quietly, "and he's got to marry her, or I'll kill him. "

"You know, do you? Well, you don't, " Edith said, "and I won't marry himanyhow. "

"You will marry him. Do you think I'm going to see mother disgraced, sick as she is, and let you get away with it? Where does Akers live? Youknow, don't you? You've been there, haven't you?"

All Edith's caution was forgotten in her shame and anger. 

"Yes, I know, " she said, hysterically, "but I won't tell you. And Iwon't marry him. I hate him. If you go to him he'll beat you to death. "Suddenly the horrible picture of Dan in Akers' brutal hands overwhelmedher. "Dan, you won't go?" she begged. "He'll kill you. "

"A lot you'd care, " he said, coldly. "As if we didn't have enoughalready! As if you couldn't have married Joe Wilkinson, next door, andbeen a decent woman. And instead, you're a--"

"Be quiet, Dan, " Willy Cameron interrupted him. "That sort of talkdoesn't help any. Edith is right. If you go to Akers there will be afight. And that's no way to protect her. "

"God!" Dan muttered. "With all the men in the world, to choose thatrotten anarchist!"

It was sordid, terribly tragic, the three of them sitting there in thebadly lighted little room around the disordered table, with Ellen grimlylistening in the doorway, and the odors of cooking still heavy inthe air. Edith sat there, her hands on the table, staring ahead, andrecounted her wrongs. She had never had a chance. Home had always been aplace to get away from. Nobody had cared what became of her. And hadn'tshe tried to get out of the way? Only they all did their best to makeher live. She wished she had died. 

Dan, huddled low in his chair, his legs sprawling, stared at nothingwith hopeless eyes. 

Afterwards Willy Cameron could remember nothing of the scene in detail. He remembered its setting, but of all the argument and quarreling onlyone thing stood out distinctly, and that was Edith's acceptance of Dan'saccusation. It was Akers, then. And Lily Cardew was going to marry him. Was in love with him. 

"Does he know how things are?" he asked. 

She nodded. "Yes. "

"Does he offer to do anything?"

"Him? He does not. And don't you go to him and try to get him to marryme. I tell you I'd die first. "

He left them there, sitting in the half light, and going out into thehall picked up his hat. Mrs. Boyd heard him and called to him, andbefore he went out he ran upstairs to her room. It seemed to him, as hebent over her, that her lips were bluer than ever, her breath a littleshallower and more difficult. Her untouched supper tray was beside her. 

"I wasn't hungry, " she explained. "Seems to me, Willy, if you'd letme go downstairs so I could get some of my own cooking I'd eat better. Ellen's all right, but I kind o' crave sweet stuff, and she don't likemaking desserts. "

"You'll be down before long, " he assured her. "And making me pies. Remember those pies you used to bake?"

"You always were a great one for my pies, " she said, complacently. 

He kissed her when he left. He had always marveled at the strange lackof demonstrativeness in the household, and he knew that she valued hissmall tendernesses. 

"Now remember, " he said, "light out at ten o'clock, and no goingdownstairs in the middle of the night because you smell smoke. When youdo, it's my pipe. "

"I don't think you hardly ever go to bed, Willy. "

"Me? Get too much sleep. I'm getting fat with it. "

The stale little joke was never stale with her. He left her smiling, andwent down the stairs and out into the street. 

He had no plan in his mind except to see Louis Akers, and to find outfrom him if he could what truth there was in Edith Boyd's accusation. He believed Edith, but he must have absolute certainty before he didanything. Girls in trouble sometimes shielded men. If he could get thefacts from Louis Akers--but he had no idea of what he would do then. Hecouldn't very well tell Lily, but her people might do something. Or Mrs. Doyle. 

He knew Lily well enough to know that she would far rather die thanmarry Akers, under the circumstances. That her failure to marry LouisAkers would mean anything as to his own relationship with her he nevereven considered. All that had been settled long ago, when she said shedid not love him. 

At the Benedict he found that his man had not come home, and for an houror two he walked the streets. The city seemed less majestic to him thanusual; its quiet by-streets were lined with homes, it is true, but thosevery streets hid also vice and degradation, and ugly passions. Theysheltered, but also they concealed. 

At eleven o'clock he went back to the Benedict, and was told that Mr. Akers had come in. 

It was Akers himself who opened the door. Because the night was hot hehad shed coat and shirt, and his fine torso, bare to the shoulders andat the neck, gleamed in the electric light. Willy Cameron had not seenhim since those spring days when he had made his casual, bold-eyedvisits to Edith at the pharmacy, and he had a swift insight into thepower this man must have over women. He himself was tall; but Akers wastaller, fully muscled, his head strongly set on a neck like a column. But he surmised that the man was soft, out of condition. And he had lostthe first elasticity of youth. 

Akers' expression had changed from one of annoyance to watchfulness whenhe opened the door. 

"Well!" he said. "Making a late call, aren't you?"

"What I had to say wouldn't wait. "

Akers had, rather unwillingly, thrown the door wide, and he went in. The room was very hot, for a small fire, littered as to its edges withpapers, burned in the grate. Although he knew that Akers had guessed themeaning of his visit at once and was on guard, there was a moment or twowhen each sparred for an opening. 

"Sit down. Have a cigarette?"

"No, thanks. " He remained standing. 

"Or a high-ball? I still have some fairly good whiskey. "

"No. I came to ask you a question, Mr. Akers. "

"Well, answering questions is one of the best little things I do. "

"You know about Edith Boyd's condition. She says you are responsible. Isthat true?"

Louis Akers was not unprepared. Sooner or later he had known that Edithwould tell. But what he had not counted on was that she would tellany one who knew Lily. He had felt that her leaving the pharmacy hadeliminated that chance. "What do you mean, her condition?"

"You know. She says she has told you. "

"You're pretty thick with her yourself, aren't you?"

"I happen to live at the Boyd house. "

He was keeping himself well under control, but Akers saw his handclench, and resorted to other tactics. He was not angry himself, but hewas wary now; he considered that life was unnecessarily complicated, andthat he had a distinct grievance. 

"I have asked you a question, Mr. Akers. "

"You don't expect me to answer it, do you?"

"I do. "

"If you have come here to talk to me about marrying her--"

"She won't marry you, " Willy Cameron said steadily. "That's not thepoint I want your own acknowledgment of responsibility, that's all. "

Akers was puzzled, suspicious, and yet relieved. He lighted a cigaretteand over the match stared at the other man's quiet face. 

"No!" he said suddenly. "I'm damned if I'll take the responsibility. Sheknew her way around long before I ever saw her. Ask her. She can't lieabout it. I can produce other men to prove what I say. I played aroundwith her, but I don't know whose child that is, and I don't believe shedoes. "

"I think you are lying. "

"All right. But I can produce the goods. "

Willy Cameron went very pale. His hands were clenched again, and Akerseyed him warily. 

"None of that, " he cautioned. "I don't know what interest you've got inthis, and I don't give a God-damn. But you'd better not try any funnybusiness with me. "

Willy Cameron smiled. Much the sort of smile he had worn during therioting. 

"I don't like to soil my hands on you, " he said, "but I don't mindtelling you that any man who ruins a girl's life and then tries to getout of it by defaming her, is a skunk. "

Akers lunged at him. 

Some time later Mr. William Wallace Cameron descended to the street. He wore his coat collar turned up to conceal the absence of certainarticles of wearing apparel which he had mysteriously lost. And he wore, too, a somewhat distorted, grim and entirely complacent smile. 

CHAPTER XXV

The city had taken the rioting with a weary philosophy. It was tired offighting. For two years it had labored at high tension for the Europeanwar. It had paid taxes and bought bonds, for the war. It had saved andskimped and denied itself, for the war. And for the war it had madesteel, steel for cannon and for tanks, for ships and for railroads. Ithad labored hard and well, and now all it wanted was to be allowed toget back to normal things. It wanted peace. 

It said, in effect: "I have both fought and labored, sacrificed andendured. Give me now my rest of nights, after a day's work. Give memarriage and children. Give me contentment. Give me the things I haveloved long since, and lost awhile. "

And because the city craved peace, it was hard to rouse it to itsdanger. It was war-weary, and its weariness was not of apathy, but ofexhaustion. It was not yet ready for new activity. 

Then, the same night that had seen Willy Cameron's encounter with Akers, it was roused from its lethargy. A series of bomb outrages shook thedowntown district. The Denslow Bank was the first to go. Willy Cameron, inspecting a cut lip in his mirror, heard a dull explosion, and ran downto the street. There he was joined by Joe Wilkinson, in trousers overhis night shirt, and as they looked, a dull red glare showed againstthe sky. Joe went back for more clothing, but Willy Cameron ran down thestreet. At the first corner he heard a second explosion, further awayand to the east, but apparently no fire followed it. That, he learnedlater, was the City Club, founded by Anthony Cardew years before. 

The Denslow Bank was burning. The facade had been shattered and from theinterior already poured a steady flow of flame and smoke. He stood amongthe crowd, while the engines throbbed and the great fire hose layalong the streets, and watched the little upper room where the preciousrecords of the Committee were burning brightly. The front wall gone, the small office stood open to the world, a bright and shameless thing, flaunting its nakedness to the crowd below. 

He wondered why Providence should so play into the hands of the enemy. 

After a time he happened on Pink Denslow, wandering alone on theoutskirts of the crowd. 

"Just about kill the governor, this, " said Pink, heavily. "Don't supposethe watchmen got out, either. Not that they'd care, " he added, savagely. 

"How about the vaults? I suppose they are fireproof?"

"Yes. Do you realize that every record we've got has gone? D'you supposethose fellows knew about them?"

Willy Cameron had been asking himself the same question. 

"Trouble is, " Pink went on, "you don't know who to trust. They're notall foreigners. Let's get away from here; it makes me sick. "

They wandered through the night together, almost unconsciously in thedirection of the City Club, but within a block of it they realized thatsomething was wrong. A hospital ambulance dashed by, its gong ringingwildly, and a fire engine, not pumping, stood at the curb. 

"Come on, " Pink said suddenly. "There were two explosions. It's justpossible--"

The club was more sinister than the burning bank; it was a mass of grimwreckage, black and gaping, with now and then the sound of settlingmasonry, and already dotted with the moving flash-lights of men whosearched. 

To Pink this catastrophe was infinitely greater than that of the bank. Men he knew had lived there. There were old club servants who were likefamily retainers; one or two employees were ex-service men for whom hehad found employment. He stood there, with Willy Cameron's hand on hisarm, with a new maturity and a vast suffering in his face. 

"Before God, " he said solemnly, "I swear never to rest until the fellowsbehind this are tried, condemned and hanged. You've heard it, Cameron. "

The death list for that night numbered thirteen, the two watchmen atthe bank and eleven men at the club, two of them members. Willy Cameron, going home at dawn, exhausted and covered with plaster dust, boughtan extra and learned that a third bomb, less powerful, had wrecked themayor's house. It had been placed under the sleeping porch, and but forthe accident of a sick baby the entire family would have been wiped out. 

Even his high courage began to waver. His records were gone; thatwas all to do over again. But what seemed to him the impasse was thisfighting in the dark. An unseen enemy, always. And an enemy whichcombined with skill a total lack of any rules of warfare, which killedhere, there and everywhere, as though for the sheer joy of killing. Itstruck at the high but killed the low. And it had only begun. 

CHAPTER XXVI

Dominant family traits have a way of skipping one generation andappearing in the next. Lily Cardew at that stage of her life had aconsiderable amount of old Anthony's obstinacy and determination, although it was softened by a long line of Cardew women behind her, women who had loved, and suffered dominance because they loved. Her veryinfatuation for Louis Akers, like Elinor's for Doyle, was possibly aninheritance from her fore-mothers, who had been wont to overlook theevil in a man for the strength in him. Only Lily mistook physicalstrength for moral fibre, insolence and effrontery for courage. 

In both her virtues and her faults, however, irrespective of heredity, Lily represented very fully the girl of her position and period. With notraditions to follow, setting her course by no compass, taught to thinkbut not how to think, resentful of tyranny but unused to freedom, she moved ahead along the path she had elected to follow, blindly andobstinately, yet unhappy and suffering. 

Her infatuation for Louis Akers had come to a new phase of its rapiddevelopment. She had reached that point where a woman realizes that theman she loves is, not a god of strength and wisdom, but a great childwho needs her. It is at that point that one of two things happens: theweak woman abandons him, and follows her dream elsewhere. The womanof character, her maternal instinct roused, marries him, bears himchildren, is both wife and mother to him, and finds in their unitedweaknesses such strength as she can. 

In her youth and self-sufficiency Lily stood ready to give, rather thanto receive. She felt now that he needed her more than she needed him. There was something unconsciously patronizing those days in her attitudetoward him, and if he recognized it he did not resent it. Women hadalways been "easy" for him. Her very aloofness, her faint condescension, her air of a young grande dame, were a part of her attraction for him. 

Love sees clearly, and seeing, loves on. But infatuation is blind; whenit gains sight, it dies. Already Lily was seeing him with the criticaleyes of youth, his loud voice, his over-fastidious dress, his occasionalgrossnesses. To offset these she placed vast importance on his promiseto leave his old associates when she married him. 

The time was very close now. She could not hold him off much longer, and she began to feel, too, that she must soon leave the house on CardewWay. Doyle's attitude to her was increasingly suspicious and ungracious. She knew that he had no knowledge of Louis's promise, but he began tofeel that she was working against him, and showed it. 

And in Louis Akers too she began to discern an inclination not to pullout until after the election. He was ambitious, and again and again heurged that he would be more useful for the purpose in her mind if hewere elected first. 

That issue came to a climax the day she had seen her mother and learnedthe terms on which she might return home. She was alarmed by his noisyanger at the situation. 

"Do sit down, Louis, and be quiet, " she said. "You have known theirattitude all along, haven't you?"

"I'll show them, " he said, thickly. "Damned snobs!" He glanced at herthen uneasily, and her expression put him on his guard. "I didn't meanthat, little girl. Honestly I didn't. I don't care for myself. It'syou. "

"You must understand that they think they are acting for my good. AndI am not sure, " she added, her clear eyes on him, "that they are notright. You frighten me sometimes, Louis. "

But a little later he broke out again. If he wasn't good enough to entertheir house, he'd show them something. The election would show themsomething. They couldn't refuse to receive the mayor of the city. She saw then that he was bent on remaining with Doyle until after theelection. 

Lily sat back, listening and thinking. Sometimes she thought that hedid not love her at all. He always said he wanted her, but that wasdifferent. 

"I think you love yourself more than you love me, Louis, " she said, whenhe had exhausted himself. "I don't believe you know what love is. "

That brought him to his knees, his arms around her, kissing her hands, begging her not to give him up, and once again her curious sense ofresponsibility for him triumphed. 

"You will marry me soon, dear, won't you?" he implored her. But shethought of Willy Cameron, oddly enough, even while his arms were aroundher; of the difference in the two men. Louis, big, crouching, suppliantand insistent; Willy Cameron, grave, reserved and steady, taking whatshe now knew was the blow of her engagement like a gentleman and asoldier. 

They represented, although she did not know it, the two divisions of menin love, the men who offer much and give little, the others who, out ofa deep humility, offer little and give everything they have. 

In the end, nothing was settled. After he had gone Lily, went up toElinor's room. She had found in Elinor lately a sort of nervous tensionthat puzzled her, and that tension almost snapped when Lily told her ofher visit home, and of her determination to marry Louis within the nextfew days. Elinor had dropped her sewing and clenched her hands in herlap. 

"Not soon, Lily!" she said. "Oh, not soon. Wait a little--wait twomonths. "

"Two months?" Lily said wonderingly. "Why two months?"

"Because, at the end of two months, nothing would make you marry him, "Elinor said, almost violently. "I have sat by and waited, because Ithought you would surely see your mistake. But now--Lily, do you envy memy life?"

"No, " Lily said truthfully; "but you love him. "

Elinor sat, her eyes downcast and brooding. 

"You are different, " she said finally. "You will break, where I haveonly bent. "

But she said no more about a delay. She had been passive too long to beable to take any strong initiative now. And all her moral and physicalcourage she was saving for a great emergency. 

Cardew Way was far from the center of town, and Lily knew nothing of thebomb outrages of that night. 

When she went down to breakfast the next morning she found Jim Doylepacing the floor of the dining room in a frenzy of rage, a newspaperclenched in his hand. By the window stood Elinor, very pale and withslightly reddened eyes. They had not heard her, and Doyle continued afurious harangue. 

"The fools!" he said. "Damn such material as I have to work with! Thisisn't the time, and they know it. I've warned them over and over. Thefools!"

Elinor saw her then, and made a gesture of warning. But it was too late. Lily had a certain quality of directness, and it did not occur to her todissemble. 

"Is anything wrong?" she asked, and went at once to Elinor. She had onceor twice before this stood between them for Elinor's protection. 

"Everything is as happy as a May morning, " Doyle sneered. "Your AuntElinor has an unpleasant habit of weeping for joy. "

Lily stiffened, but Elinor touched her arm. 

"Sit down and eat your breakfast, Lily, " she said, and left the room. 

Doyle stood staring at Lily angrily. He did not know how much shehad heard, how much she knew. At the moment he did not care. He hada reckless impulse to tell her the truth, but his habitual cautionprevailed. He forced a cold smile. 

"Don't bother your pretty head about politics, " he said. 

Lily was equally cold. Her dislike of him had been growing for weeks, coupled to a new and strange distrust. 

"Politics? You seem to take your politics very hard. "

"I do, " he said urbanely. "Particularly when I am fighting my wife'sfamily. May I pour you some coffee?"

And pour it he did, eyeing her furtively the while, and brought it toher. 

"May I give you a word of advice, Lily?" he said. "Don't treat yourhusband to tears at breakfast--unless you want to see him romping off tosome other woman. "

"If he cared to do that I shouldn't want him anyhow. "

"You're a self-sufficient child, aren't you? Well, the best of us do it, sometimes. "

He had successfully changed the trend of her thoughts, and he went out, carrying the newspaper with him. 

Nevertheless, he began to feel that her presence in the house was amenace. With all her theories he knew that a word of the truth wouldsend her flying, breathless with outrage, out of his door. He couldquite plainly visualize that home-coming of hers. The instant steps thatwould be taken against him, old Anthony on the wire appealing to thegovernor, Howard closeted with the Chief of Police, an instant closingof the net. And he was not ready for the clash. 

No. She must stay. If only Elinor would play the game, instead of pulingand mouthing! In the room across the hall where his desk stood he pacedthe floor, first angrily, then thoughtfully, his head bent. He saw, andnot far away now, himself seated in the city hall, holding the city inthe hollow of his hand. From that his dreams ranged far. He saw himselfthe head, not of the nation--there would be no nation, as such--but ofthe country. The very incidents of the night before, blundering as theywere, showed him the ease with which the new force could be applied. 

He was drunk with power. 

CHAPTER XXVII

Lily had an unexpected visitor that afternoon, in the person of PinkDenslow. She had assumed some of Elinor's cares for the day, for Elinorherself had not been visible since breakfast. It soothed the girl toattend to small duties, and she was washing and wiping Elinor's smallstock of fine china when the bell rang. 

"Mr. Denslow is calling, " said Jennie. "I didn't know if you'd see him, so I said I didn't know if you were in. "

Lily's surprise at Pink's visit was increased when she saw him. He wascovered with plaster dust, even to the brim of his hat, and his handswere scratched and rough. 

"Pink!" she said. "Why, what is the matter?"

For the first time he was conscious of his appearance, and for the firsttime in his life perhaps, entirely indifferent to it. 

"I've been digging in the ruins, " he said. "Is that man Doyle in thehouse?"

Her color faded. Suddenly she noticed a certain wildness about Pink'seyes, and the hard strained look of his mouth. 

"What ruins, Pink?" she managed to ask. 

"All the ruins, " he said. "You know, don't you? The bank, our bank, andthe club?"

It seemed to her afterwards that she knew before he told her, saw itall, a dreadful picture which had somehow superimposed upon it a visionof Jim Doyle with the morning paper, and the thing that this was not thetime for. 

"That's all, " he finished. "Eleven at the club, two of them my ownfellows. In France, you know. I found one of them myself, this morning. "He stared past her, over her head. "Killed for nothing, the way theGermans terrorized Belgium. Haven't you seen the papers?"

"No, they wouldn't let you see them, of course. Lily, I want you toleave here. If you don't, if you stay now, you're one of them, whetheryou believe what they preach or not. Don't you see that?"

She was not listening. Her faith was dying hard, and the mental shockhad brought her dizziness and a faint nausea. He stood watching her, andwhen she glanced up at him it seemed to her that Pink was hard. Hard andsuspicious, and the suspicion was for her. It was incredible. 

"Do you believe what they preach?" he demanded. "I've got to know, Lily. I've suffered the tortures of the damned all night. "

"I didn't know it meant this. "

"Do you?" he repeated. 

"No. You ought to know me better than that. But I don't believe that itstarted here, Pink. He was very angry this morning, and he wouldn't letme see the paper. "

"He's behind it all right, " Pink said grimly. "Maybe he didn't plant thebombs, but his infernal influence did it, just the same. Do you meanto say you've lived here all this time and don't know he is plotting arevolution? What if he didn't authorize these things last night? He isonly waiting, to place a hundred bombs instead of three. A thousand, perhaps. "

"Oh, no!"

"We've got their own statements. Department of Justice found them. Thefools, to think they can overthrow the government! Can you imagine menplanning to capture this city and hold it?"

"It wouldn't be possible, Pink?"

"It isn't possible now, but they'll make a try at it. "

There was a short pause, with Lily struggling to understand. Pink'sset face relaxed somewhat. All that night he had been fighting for hisbelief in her. 

"I never dreamed of it, Pink. I suppose all the talk I've heard meantthat, but I never--are you sure? About Jim Doyle, I mean. "

"We know he is behind it. We haven't got the goods on him yet, but weknow. Cameron knows. You ask him and he'll tell you. "

"Willy Cameron?"

"Yes. He's had some vision, while the rest of us--! He's got a lot of usworking now, Lily. We are on the right trail, too, although we lost somerecords last night that put us back a couple of months. We'll get them, all right. We'll smash their little revolution into a cocked hat. "It occurred to him, then, that this house was a poor place for such aconfidence. "I'll tell you about it later. Get your things now, and letme take you home. "

But Lily's problem was too complex for Pink's simple remedy. She wasstricken with sudden conviction; the very mention of Willy Cameron gavePink's statements authority. But to go like that, to leave Elinor inthat house, with all that it implied, was impossible. And there was herown private problem to dispose of. 

"I'll go this afternoon, Pink. I'll promise you that. But I can't gowith you now. I can't. You'll have to take my word, that's all. And youmust believe I didn't know. "

"Of course you didn't know, " he said, sturdily. "But I hate like thunderto go and leave you here. " He picked up his hat, reluctantly. "If I cando anything--"

Lily's mind was working more clearly now. This was the thing Louis Akershad been concerned with, then, a revolution against his country. Butit was the thing, too, that he had promised to abandon. He was not akiller. She knew him well, and he was not a killer. He had got to acertain point, and then the thing had sickened him. Even without her hewould never have gone through with it. But it would be necessary now toget his information quickly. Very quickly. 

"Suppose, " she said, hesitatingly, "suppose I tell you that I think I amgoing to be able to help you before long?"

"Help? I want you safe. This is not work for women. "

"But suppose I can bring you a very valuable ally?" she persisted. "Someone who knows all about certain plans, and has changed his views aboutthem?"

"One of them?"

"He has been. "

"Is he selling his information?"

"In a way, yes, " said Lily, slowly. 

"Ware the fellow who sells information, " Pink said. "But we'll be gladto have it. We need it, God knows. And--you'll leave?"

"I couldn't stay, could I?"

He kissed her hand when he went away, doing it awkwardly andself-consciously, but withal reverently. She wondered, rather dully, whyshe could not love Pink. A woman would be so safe with him, so sure. 

She had not even then gathered the full force of what he had told her. But little by little things came back to her; the man on guard in thegarden; the incident of the locked kitchen door; Jim Doyle once talkingangrily over a telephone in his study, although no telephone, so far asshe knew, was installed in the room; his recent mysterious absences, andthe increasing visits of the hateful Woslosky. 

She went back to Louis. This was what he had meant. He had known allalong, and plotted with them; even if his stomach had turned now, hehad been a party to this infamy. Even then she did not hate him; she sawhim, misled as she had been by Doyle's high-sounding phrases, lured onby one of those wild dreams of empire to which men were sometimes given. She did not love him any more; she was sorry for him. 

She saw her position with the utmost clearness. To go home was toabandon him, to lose him for those who needed what he could give, tosend him back to the enemy. She had told Pink she could secure an allyfor a price, and she was the price. There was not an ounce of melodramain her, as she stood facing the situation. She considered, quite simply, that she had assumed an obligation which she must carry out. Perhaps herpride was dictating to her also. To go crawling home, bowed to the dust, to admit that life had beaten her, to face old Anthony's sneers and hermother's pity--that was hard for any Cardew. 

She remembered Elinor's home-comings of years ago, the strained air ofthe household, the whispering servants, and Elinor herself shut away, or making her rare, almost furtive visits downstairs when her father wasout of the house. 

No, she could not face that. 

Her own willfulness had brought her to this pass; she faced thatuncompromisingly. She would marry Louis, and hold him to his promise, and so perhaps out of all this misery some good would come. But at thethought of marriage she found herself trembling violently. With no loveand no real respect to build on, with an intuitive knowledge of theman's primitive violences, the reluctance toward marriage with him whichshe had always felt crystallized into something very close to dread. 

But a few minutes later she went upstairs, quite steady again, and fullydetermined. At Elinor's door she tapped lightly, and she heard movementswithin. Then Elinor opened the door wide. She had been lying on her bed, and automatically after closing the door she began to smooth it. Lilyfelt a wave of intense pity for her. 

"I wish you would go away from here, Aunt Elinor, " she said. 

Elinor glanced up, without surprise. 

"Where could I go?"

"If you left him definitely, you could go home. "

Elinor shook her head, dumbly, and her passivity drove Lily suddenly todesperation. 

"You know what is going on, " she said, her voice strained. "You don'tbelieve it is right; you know it is wicked. Clothe it in all the finelanguage in the world, Aunt Elinor, and it is still wicked. If you stayhere you condone it. I won't. I am going away. "

"I wish you had never come, Lily. "

"It's too late for that, " Lily said, stonily. "But it is not too latefor you to get away. "

"I shall stay, " Elinor said, with an air of finality. But Lily made onemore effort. 

"He is killing you. "

"No, he is killing himself. " Suddenly Elinor flared into a passionateoutburst. "Don't you think I know where all this is leading? Do youbelieve for a moment that I think all this can lead to anything butdeath? It is a madness, Lily; they are all mad, these men. Don't youknow that I have talked and argued and prayed, against it?"

"Then come away. You have done all you could, and you have failed, haven't you?"

"It is not time for me to go, " Elinor said. And Lily, puzzled andbaffled, found herself again looking into Elinor's quiet, inscrutableeyes. 

Elinor had taken it for granted that the girl was going home, andtogether they packed almost in silence. Once Elinor looked up fromfolding a garment, and said:

"You said you had not understood before, but that now you do. What didyou mean?"

"Pink Denslow was here. "

"What does he know?"

"Do you think I ought to tell you, Aunt Elinor? It isn't that I don'ttrust you. You must believe that, but don't you see that so long as youstay here--he said that to me--you are one of them. "

Elinor resumed her folding. 

"Yes, I suppose I am one of them, " she said quietly. "And you are right. You must not tell me anything. Pink is Henry Denslow's son, I suppose. "

"Yes. "

"Do they--still live in the old house?"

"Yes. "

Elinor continued her methodical work. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

Willy Cameron was free that evening. Although he had not slept at allthe night before, he felt singularly awake and active. The Committeehad made temporary quarters of his small back room at the pharmacy, and there had sat in rather depressed conclave during a part of theafternoon. Pink Denslow had come in late, and had remained, silent andhaggard, through the debate. 

There was nothing to do but to start again in an attempt to get filesand card indexes. Greater secrecy was to be preserved and enjoined, thelocation of the office to be known only to a small inner circle, and careful policing of it and of the building which housed it to beestablished. As a further safeguard, two duplicate files would be keptin other places. The Committee groaned over its own underestimate of theknowledge of the radicals. 

The two buildings chosen for destruction were, respectively, the bankbuilding where their file was kept, and the club, where nine-tenthsof the officers of the Committee were members. The significance of thedouble outrage was unquestionable. 

When the meeting broke up Pink remained behind. He found it ratherdifficult to broach the matter in his mind. It was always hard for himto talk about Lily Cardew, and lately he had had a growing convictionthat Willy Cameron found it equally difficult. He wondered if Cameron, too, was in love with Lily. There had been a queer look in his face onthose rare occasions when Pink had mentioned her, a sort of exaltation, and an odd difficulty afterwards in getting back to the subject in hand. 

Pink had developed an enormous affection and admiration for WillyCameron, a strange, loyal, half wistful, totally unselfish devotion. Ithad steadied him, when the loss of Lily might have made him reckless, and had taken the form in recent weeks of finding innumerable businessopportunities, which Willy Cameron cheerfully refused to take. 

"I'll stay here until this other thing is settled, " was Willy'sinvariable answer. "I have a certain amount of time here, and thefellows can drop in to see me without causing suspicion. In an office itwould be different. And besides, I can't throw Mr. Davis down. His wifeis in bad shape. "

So, that afternoon, Pink waited until the Committee had dispersed, andthen said, with some difficulty:

"I saw her, Cameron. She has promised to leave. "

"To-day?"

"This afternoon. I wanted to take her away, but she had some things todo. "

"Then she hadn't known before?"

"No. She thought it was just talk. And they'd kept the papers from her. She hadn't heard about last night. Well, that's all. I thought you'dwant to know. "

Pink started out, but Willy Cameron called him back. 

"Have any of your people any influence with the Cardews?"

"No one has any influence with the Cardews, if you mean the Cardew men. Why?"

"Because Cardew has got to get out of the mayoralty campaign. That'sall. "

"That's a-plenty, " said Pink, grinning. "Why don't you go and tell himso?"

"I'm thinking of it. He hasn't a chance in the world, but he'll defeatHendricks by splitting the vote, and let the other side in. And you knowwhat that means. "

"I know it, " Pink observed, "but Mr. Cardew doesn't, and he won't afteryou've told him. They've put a lot of money in, and once a Cardew hasinvested in a thing he holds on like death. Especially the old man. Wouldn't wonder he was the fellow who pounded the daylights out of Akerslast night, " he added. 

Willy Cameron, having carefully filled his pipe, closed the door intothe shop, and opened a window. 

"Akers?" he inquired. 

"Noon edition has it, " Pink said. "Claims to have been attacked in hisrooms by two masked men. Probably wouldn't have told it, but the doctortalked. Looks as though he could wallop six masked men, doesn't he?"

"Yes, " said Willy Cameron, reflectively. "Yes; he does, rather. "

He felt more hopeful than he had for days. Lily on her way home, clearonce more of the poisonous atmosphere of Doyle and his associates; Akerstemporarily out of the way, perhaps for long enough to let the normalinfluences of her home life show him to her in a real perspective; and arather unholy but very human joy that he had given Akers a part of whatwas coming to him--all united to cheer him. He saw Lily going home, anda great wave of tenderness flooded him. If only they would be tactfuland careful, if only they would be understanding and kind. If they wouldonly be normal and every-day, and accept her as though she had neverbeen away. These people were so hedged about with conventions andrestrictions, they put so much emphasis on the letter and so little onthe spirit. If only--God, if only they wouldn't patronize her!

His mother would have known how to receive her. He felt, that afternoon, a real homesickness for his mother. He saw her, ample and comfortableand sane, so busy with the comforts of the body that she seemed toignore the soul, and yet bringing healing with her every matter-of-factmovement. 

If only Lily could have gone back to her, instead of to that greathouse, full of curious eyes and whispering voices. 

He saw Mr. Hendricks that evening on his way home to supper. Mr. Hendricks had lost flesh and some of his buoyancy, but he waspersistently optimistic. 

"Up to last night I'd have said we were done, son, " he observed. "Butthis bomb business has settled them. The labor vote'll split on it, sureas whooping cough. "

"They've bought a half-page in all the morning papers, disclaiming allresponsibility and calling on all citizens to help them in protectingprivate property. "

"Have they, now, " said Hendricks, with grudging admiration. "Can youbeat that? Where do they get the money, anyhow? If I lost my watch thesedays I'd have to do some high-finance before I'd be able to advertisefor it. "

"All right, see Cardew, " were his parting words. "But he doesn't wantthis election any more than I want my right leg. He'll stick. You cantalk, Cameron, I'll say it. But you can't pry him off with kind words, any more than you can a porous plaster. "

Behind Mr. Hendricks' colloquialisms there was something sturdy andfine. His very vernacular made him popular; his honesty was beyondsuspicion. If he belonged to the old school in politics, he had mostof its virtues and few of its vices. He would take care of his friends, undoubtedly, but he was careful in his choice of friends. He would makethe city a good place to live in. Like Willy Cameron, he saw it, nota center of trade so much as a vast settlement of homes. Businesssupported the city in his mind, not the city business. 

Nevertheless the situation was serious, and it was with a sense of adesperate remedy for a desperate disease that Willy Cameron, after acareful toilet, rang the bell of the Cardew house that night. He had nohope of seeing Lily, but the mere thought that they were under one roofgave him a sense of nearness and of comfort in her safety. 

Dinner was recently over, and he found both the Cardews, father and son, in the library smoking. He had arrived at a bad moment, for the bomboutrage, coming on top of Lily's refusal to come home under the givenconditions, had roused Anthony to a cold rage, and left Howard with afeeling of helplessness. 

Anthony Cardew nodded to him grimly, but Howard shook hands and offeredhim a chair. 

"I heard you speak some time ago, Mr. Cameron, " he said. "You made mewish I could have had your support. "

"I came to talk about that. I am sorry to have to come in the evening, but I am not free at any other time. "

"When we go into politics, " said old Anthony in his jibing voice, "theordinary amenities have to go. When you are elected, Howard, I shalllive somewhere else. "

Willy Cameron smiled. 

"I don't think you will be put to that inconvenience, Mr. Cardew. "

"What's that?" Old Anthony's voice was incredulous. Here, in his ownhouse, this whipper-snapper--

"I am sure Mr. Howard Cardew realizes he cannot be elected. "

The small ragged vein on Anthony's forehead was the storm signal for thefamily. Howard glanced at him, and said urbanely:

"Will you have a cigar, Mr. Cameron? Or a liqueur?"

"Nothing, thank you. If I can have a few minutes' talk with you--"

"If you mean that as a request for me to go out, I will remind you thatI am heavily interested in this matter myself, " said old Anthony. "Ihave put in a great deal of money. If you people are going to drop out, I want to hear it. You've played the devil with us already, with yourindependent candidate who can't talk English. "

Willy Cameron kept his temper. 

"No, " he said, slowly. "It wasn't a question of Mr. Hendrickswithdrawing. It was a question of Mr. Cardew getting out. "

Sheer astonishment held old Anthony speechless. 

"It's like this, " Willy Cameron said. "Your son knows it. Even if wedrop out he won't get it. Justly or unjustly--and I mean that--nobodywith the name of Cardew can be elected to any high office in this city. There's no reflection on anybody in my saying that. I am telling you afact. "

Howard had listened attentively and without anger. "For a long time, Mr. Cameron, " he said, "I have been urging men of--of position in the city, to go into politics. We have needed to get away from the professionalpolitician. I went in, without much hope of election, to--well, you cansay to blaze a trail. It is not being elected that counts with me, somuch as to show my willingness to serve. "

Old Anthony recovered his voice. 

"The Cardews made this town, sir, " he barked. "Willingness to serve, piffle! We need a business man to run the city, and by God, we'll getit!"

"You'll get an anarchist, " said Willy Cameron, slightly flushed. 

"If you want my opinion, young man, this is a trick, a political trick. And how do we know that your Vigilance Committee isn't a trick, too?You try to tell us that there is an organized movement here to do heavenknows what, and by sheer terror you build up a machine which appeals tothe public imagination. You don't say anything about votes, but you seethat they vote for your man. Isn't that true?"

"Yes. If they can keep an anarchist out of office. Akers is ananarchist. He calls himself something else, but that's what it amountsto. And those bombs last night were not imaginary. "

The introduction of Louis Akers' name had a sobering effect on AnthonyCardew. After all, more than anything else, he wanted Akers defeated. The discussion slowly lost its acrimony, and ended, oddly enough, inWilly Cameron and Anthony Cardew virtually uniting against Howard. What Willy Cameron told about Jim Doyle fed the old man's hatred ofhis daughter's husband, and there was something very convincing aboutCameron himself. Something of fearlessness and honesty that began, slowly, to dispose Anthony in his favor. 

It was Howard who held out. 

"If I quit now it will look as though I didn't want to take a licking, "he said, quietly obstinate. "Grant your point, that I'm defeated. Allright, I'll be defeated--but I won't quit. "

And Anthony Cardew, confronted by that very quality of obstinacy whichhad been his own weapon for so many years, retired in high dudgeon tohis upper rooms. He was living in a strange new world, a reasonable soulon an unreasonable earth, an earth where a man's last sanctuary, hisclub, was blown up about him, and a man's family apparently lived onlyto thwart him. 

With Anthony gone, Howard dropped the discussion with the air of a manwho has made a final stand. 

"What you have said about Mr. Doyle interests me greatly, " he observed, "because--you probably do not know this--my sister married him someyears ago. It was a most unhappy affair. "

"I do know it. For that reason I am glad that Miss Lily has come home. "

"Has come home? She has not come home, Mr. Cameron. There was acondition we felt forced to make, and she refused to agree to it. Perhaps we were wrong. I--"

Willy Cameron got up. 

"Was that to-day?" he asked. 

"No. "

"But she was coming home to-day. She was to leave there this afternoon. "

"How do you know that?"

"Denslow saw her there this afternoon. She agreed to leave at once. Hehad told her of the bombs, and of other things. She hadn't understoodbefore, and she was horrified. It is just possible Doyle wouldn't lether go. "

"But--that's ridiculous. She can't be a prisoner in my sister's house. "

"Will you telephone and find out if she is there?" Howard went to thetelephone at once. It seemed to Willy Cameron that he stood there foruncounted years, and as though, through all that eternity of waiting, heknew what the answer would be. And that he knew, too, what that answermeant, where she had gone, what she had done. If only she had come tohim. If only she had come to him. He would have saved her from herself. He--

"She is not there, " Howard Cardew said, in a voice from which all lifehad gone. "She left this afternoon, at four o'clock. Of course she hasfriends. Or she may have gone to a hotel. We had managed to make itpractically impossible for her to come home. "

Willy Cameron glanced at his watch. He had discounted the worst beforeit came, and unlike the older man, was ready for action. It was he whotook hold of the situation. 

"Order a car, Mr. Cardew, and go to the hotels, " he said. "And if youwill drop me downtown--I'll tell you where--I'll follow up somethingthat has just occurred to me. "

CHAPTER XXIX

In one way Howard had been correct in his surmise. It had been Lily'sidea to go to a hotel until she had made some definite plan. She wouldtelephone Louis then, and the rest--she did not think beyond that. Shecalled a taxi and took a small bag with her, but in the taxicab shesuddenly realized that she could not go to any of the hotels she knew. She would be recognized at once. 

She wanted a little time to herself, time to think. And before it wasdiscovered that she had left Cardew Way she must see Louis, and judgeagain if he intended to act in good faith. While he was with her, reiterating his promises, she believed him, but when he was gone, shealways felt, a curious doubt. 

She thought then of finding a quiet room somewhere, and stopping thecab, bought a newspaper. It was when she was searching for the "roomsfor rent" column that she saw he had been attacked and slightly injured. 

They had got him. He had said that if they ever suspected him of playingthem false they would get him, and now they had done so. That removedthe last doubt of his good faith from her mind. She felt indignation anddismay, and a sort of aching consciousness that always she brought onlytrouble to the people who cared for her; she felt that she was goingthrough her life, leaving only unhappiness behind her. 

He had suffered, and for her. 

She told the chauffeur to go to the Benedict Apartments, and sittingback read the notice again. He had been attacked by two masked men andbadly bruised, after putting up a terrific resistance. They wouldwear masks, of course. They loved the theatrical. Their very flag wastheatrical. And he had made a hard fight That was like him, too; he wasa fighter. 

She was a Cardew, and she loved strength. There were other men, men likeWilly Cameron, for instance, who were lovable in many ways, but theywere not fighters. They sat back, and let life beat them, and they tookthe hurt bravely and stoically. But they never got life by the throatand shook it until it gave up what they wanted. 

She had never been in a bachelors' apartment house before, and shewas both frightened and self-conscious. The girl at the desk eyed hercuriously while she telephoned her message, and watched her as she movedtoward the elevator. "Ever seen her before?" she said to the hall boy. 

"No. She's a new one. "

"Face's kind of familiar to me, " said the telephone girl, reflectively. "Looks worried, doesn't she? Two masked men! Huh! All Sam took up therelast night was a thin fellow with a limp. "

The hall boy grinned. 

"Then his limp didn't bother him any. Sam says y'ought to seen thatplace. "

In the meantime, outside the door of Akers' apartment, Lily's finecourage almost left her. Had it not been for the eyes of the elevatorman, fixed on her while he lounged in his gateway, she might have goneaway, even then. But she stood there, committed to a course of action, and rang. 

Louis himself admitted her, an oddly battered Louis, in a dressing gownand slippers; an oddly watchful Louis, too, waiting, after the manner ofmen of his kind the world over, to see which way the cat would jump. He had had a bad day, and his nerves were on edge. All day he had satthere, unable to go out, and had wondered just when Cameron would seeher and tell her about Edith Boyd. For, just as Willy Cameron rushed himfor the first time, there had been something from between clenched teethabout marrying another girl, under the given circumstances. Only thathad not been the sort of language in which it was delivered. 

"I just saw about it in the newspaper, " Lily said. "How dreadful, Louis. "

He straightened himself and drew a deep breath. The game was still his, if he played it right. 

"Bad enough, dear, " he said, "but I gave them some trouble, too. " Hepushed a chair toward her. "It was like you to come. But I don't likeyour seeing me all mussed up, little girl. "

He made a move then to kiss her, but she drew back. 

"Please!" she said. "Not here. And I can't sit down. I can't stay. Ionly came because I wanted to tell you something and I didn't want totelephone it. Louis, Jim Doyle knew about those bombs last night. Hedidn't want it to happen before the election, but--that doesn't alterthe fact, does it?"

"How do you know he knew?"

"I do know. That's all. And I have left Aunt Elinor's. "

"No!"

"I couldn't stay, could I?" She looked up at him, the little wistfulglance that Willy always found so infinitely touching, like the appealof a willful but lovable child, that has somehow got into trouble. "AndI can't go home, Louis, unless I--"

"Unless you give me up, " he finished for her. "Well?"

She hesitated. She hated making terms with him, and yet somehow she mustmake terms. 

"Well?" he repeated. "Are you going to throw me over?"

Apparently merely putting the thought into words crystallized all hisfears of the past hours; seeing her there, too, had intensified his wantof her. She stood there, where he had so often dreamed of seeing her, but still holding him off with the aloofness that both chilled andinflamed him, and with a question in her eyes. He held out his arms, butshe drew back. 

"Do you mean what you have said, Louis, about leaving them, if I marryyou, and doing all you can to stop them?"

"You know I mean it. "

"Then--I'll not go home. "

"You are going to marry me? Now?"

"Whenever you say. "

Suddenly she was trembling violently, and her lips felt dry and stiff. He pushed her into a chair, and knelt down beside her. 

"You poor little kid, " he said, softly. 

Through his brain were racing a hundred thoughts; Lily his, in his arms, in spite of that white-faced drug clerk with the cold eyes; himself inthe Cardew house, one of them, beating old Anthony Cardew at his owncynical game; and persistently held back and often rising again to thesurface, Woslosky and Doyle and the others, killers that they were, pursuing him with their vengeance over the world. They would have to becounted in; they were his price, as he, had he known it, was Lily's. 

"My wife!" he said. "My wife. "

She stiffened in his arms. 

"I must go, Louis, " she said. "I can't stay here. I felt very queerdownstairs. They all stared so. "

There was a clock on the mantel shelf, and he looked at it. It was aquarter before five. 

"One thing is sure, Lily, " he said. "You can't wander about alone, and you are right--you can't stay here. They probably recognized youdownstairs. You are pretty well known. "

For the first time it occurred to her that she had compromised herself, and that the net, of her own making, was closing fast about her. 

"I wish I hadn't come. "

"Why? We can fix that all right in a jiffy. "

But when he suggested an immediate marriage she made a final struggle. In a few days, even to-morrow, but not just then. He listened, impatiently, his eyes on the clock. Beside it in the mirror he saw hisown marred face, and it added to his anger. In the end he took controlof the situation; went into his bedroom, changed into a coat, and cameout again, ready for the street. He telephoned down for a taxicab, andthen confronted her, his face grim. 

"I've let you run things pretty much to suit yourself, Lily, " he said. "Now I'm in charge. It won't be to-morrow or next week or next month. Itwill be now. You're here. You've given them a chance to talk downstairs. You've nowhere to go, and you're going to marry me at once. "

In the cab he explained more fully. They would get a license, and thengo to one of the hotels. There they could be married, in their ownsuite. 

"All regularly and in order, honey, " he said, and kissed her hand. Shehad hardly heard. She was staring ahead, not thinking, not listening, not seeing, fighting down a growing fear of the man before her, of hissheer physical proximity, of his increasing exuberance. 

"I'm mad about you, girl, " he said. "Mad. And now you are going to bemine, until death do us part. "

She shivered and drew away, and he laughed a little. Girls were likethat, at such times. They always took a step back for every two stepsforward. He let her hand go, and took a careful survey of his face inthe mirror of the cab. The swelling had gone down, but that bruise belowhis eye would last for days. He cursed under his breath. 

It was after nine o'clock when one of the Cardew cars stopped not farfrom the Benedict Apartments, and Willy Cameron got out. 

He was quite certain that Louis Akers would know where Lily was, andhe anticipated the interview with a sort of grim humor. There mightbe another fight; certainly Akers would try to get back at him for thenight before. But he set his jaw. He would learn where Lily was ifhe had to choke the knowledge out of that leering devil's thick whitethroat. His arrival in the foyer of the Benedict Apartments caused morethan a ripple of excitement. 

"Well, look who's here!" muttered the telephone girl, and watched hisapproach, with its faint limp, over the top of her desk. Behind, fromhis cage, the elevator man was staring with avid interest. 

"I suppose Mr. Akers is in?" said Willy Cameron, politely. The girlsmiled up at him. 

"I'll say he ought to be, after last night! What're you going to do now?Kill him?"

In spite of his anxiety there was a faint twinkle in Willy Cameron'seyes. 

"No, " he said slowly. "No. I think not. I want to talk to him. "

"Sam, " called the telephone girl, "take this gentleman up toforty-three. "

"Forty-three's out. " Sam partly shut the elevator door; he had seenForty-three's rooms the night before, and he had the discretion of hisrace. "Went out with a lady at quarter to five. "

Willy Cameron took a step or two toward the cage. 

"You don't happen to be lying, I suppose?"

"No, sir!" said Sam. "I'll take you up to look, if you like. And aboutan hour ago he sent a boy here with a note, to get some of his clothes. The young lady at the desk was out at the movies at the time. "

"I was getting my supper, Sam. "

Willy Cameron had gone very white. 

"Did the boy say where he was taking the things?"

"To the Saint Elmo Hotel, sir. "

On the street again Willy Cameron took himself fiercely in hand. Therewere a half-dozen reasons why Akers might go to the Saint Elmo. Hemight, for one thing, have thought that he, Cameron, would go back tothe Benedict. He might be hiding from Dan, or from reporters. But therehad been, apparently, no attempt to keep his new quarters secret. IfLily was at the Saint Elmo--

He found a taxicab, and as it drew up at the curb before the hotel hesaw the Cardew car moving away. It gave him his first real breath fortwenty minutes. Lily was not there. 

But Louis Akers was. He got his room number from a clerk and went up, still determinedly holding on to himself. Afterwards he had no clearrecollection of any interval between the Benedict and the moment hefound himself standing outside a door on an upper floor of the SaintElmo. From that time on it was as clear as crystal, his own sudden calm, the overturning of a chair inside, a man's voice, slightly raised, whichhe recognized, and then the thin crash of a wineglass dropped or thrownto the floor. 

He opened the door and went in. 

In the center of the sitting room a table was set, and on it theremains of a dinner for two. Akers was standing by the table, his chairoverturned behind him, a splintered glass at his feet, staring angrilyat the window. Even then Willy Cameron saw that he had had too much todrink, and that he was in an ugly mood. He was in dinner clothes, butwith his bruised face and scowling brows he looked a sinister imitationof a gentleman. 

By the window, her back to the room, was Lily. 

Neither of them glanced at the door. Evidently the waiter had beenmoving in and out, and Akers considered him as little as he would a dog. 

"Come and sit down, " he said angrily. "I've quit drinking, I tell you. Good God, just because I've had a little wine--and I had the hell of atime getting it--you won't eat and won't talk. Come here. "

"I'm not hungry. "

"Come here. "

"Stay where you are, Lily, " said Willy Cameron, from inside the closeddoor. "Or perhaps you'd better get your wraps. I came to take you home. "

Akers had wheeled at the voice, and now stood staring incredulously. First anger, and then a grin of triumph, showed in his face. Drink hadmade him not so much drunk as reckless. He had lost last night, butto-day he had won. 

"Hello, Cameron, " he said. 

Willy Cameron ignored him. 

"Will you come?" he said to Lily. 

"I can't, Willy. "

"Listen, Lily dear, " he said gravely. "Your father is searching the cityfor you. Do you know what that means? Don't you see that you must gohome at once? You can't dine here in a private suite, like this, and notexpose yourself to all sorts of talk. "

"Go on, " said Akers, leering. "I like to hear you. "

"Especially, " continued Willy Cameron, "with a man like this. "

Akers took a step toward him, but he was not too sure of himself, andhe knew now that the other man had a swing to his right arm like thedriving rod of a locomotive. He retreated again to the table, and hishand closed over a knife there. 

"Louis!" Lily said sharply. 

He picked up the knife and smiled at her, his eyes cunning. "Not goingto kill him, my dear, " he said. "Merely to give him a hint that I'm notas easy as I was last night. "

That was a slip, and he knew it. Lily had left the window and comeforward, a stricken slip of a girl, and he turned to her angrily. 

"Go into the other room and close the door, " he ordered. "When I'vethrown this fellow out, you can come back. "

But Lily's eyes were fixed on Willy Cameron's face. 

"It was you last night?"

"Yes. "

"Why?"

"Because, " Willy Cameron said steadily, "he had got a girl into trouble, and then insulted her. I wouldn't tell you, but you've got to know thetruth before it's too late. "

Lily threw out both hands dizzily, as though catching for support. Butshe steadied herself. Neither man moved. 

"It is too late, Willy, " she said. "I have just married him. "

CHAPTER XXX

At midnight Howard Cardew reached home again, a tired and broken man. Grace had been lying awake in her bedroom, puzzled by his unexplainedabsence, and brooding, as she now did continually, over Lily's absence. 

At half past eleven she heard Anthony Cardew come in and go upstairs, and for some time after that she heard him steadily pacing back andforth overhead. Sometimes Grace felt sorry for Anthony. He had madehimself at such cost, and now when he was old, he had everything and yetnothing. 

They had never understood women, these Cardews. Howard was gentle withthem where Anthony was hard, but he did not understand, either. Sheherself, of other blood, got along by making few demands, but the Cardewwomen were as insistent in their demands as the men. Elinor, Lily--Sheformed a sudden resolution, and getting up, dressed feverishly. She hadno plan in her mind, nothing but a desperate resolution to put Lily'scase before her grandfather, and to beg that she be brought home withoutconditions. 

She was frightened as she went up the stairs. Never before had shepermitted things to come to an issue between herself and Anthony. Butnow it must be done. She knocked at the door. 

Anthony Cardew opened it. The room was dark, save for one lamp burningdimly on a great mahogany table, and Anthony's erect figure was littlemore than a blur of black and white. 

"I heard you walking about, " she said breathlessly. "May I come in andtalk to you?"

"Come in, " he said, with a sort of grave heaviness. "Shall I light theother lamps?"

"Please don't. "

"Will you sit down? No? Do you mind if I do? I am very tired. I supposeit is about Lily?"

"Yes. I can't stand it any longer. I can't. "

Sitting under the lamp she saw that he looked very old and very weary. Atired little old man, almost a broken one. 

"She won't come back?"

"Not under the conditions. But she must come back, father. To let herstay on there, in that house, after last night--"

She had never called him "father" before. It seemed to touch him. 

"You're a good woman, Grace, " he said, still heavily. "We Cardews allmarry good women, but we don't know how to treat them. Even Howard--"His voice trailed off. "No, she can't stay there, " he said, after apause. 

"But--I must tell you--she refuses to give up that man. "

"You are a woman, Grace. You ought to know something about girls. Doesshe actually care for him, or is it because he offers the libertyshe thinks we fail to give her? Or"--he smiled faintly--"is it Cardewpig-headedness?"

Grace made a little gesture of despair. 

"I don't know. She wanted to come home. She begged--it was dreadful. "Grace hesitated. "Even that couldn't be as bad as this, father, " shesaid. "We have all lived our own lives, you and Howard and myself, andnow we won't let her do it. "

"And a pretty mess we have made of them!" His tone was grim. "No, Ican't say that we offer her any felicitous examples. But the fellow'splan is transparent enough. He is ambitious. He sees himself installedhere, one of us. Mark my words, Grace, he may love the child, but hisreal actuating motive is that. He's a Radical, because since he can'tclimb up, he'll pull down. But once let him get his foot on the Cardewladder, and he'll climb, over her, over all of us. "

He sat after that, his head dropped on his chest, his hands resting onthe arms of his chair, in a brooding reverie. Grace waited. 

"Better bring her home, " he said finally. "Tell her I surrender. I wanther here. Let her bring that fellow here, too, if she has to see him. But for God's sake, Grace, " he added, with a flash of his old fire, "show her some real men, too. "

Suddenly Grace bent over and kissed him. He put up his hand, and pattedher on the shoulder. 

"A good woman, Grace, " he said, "and a good daughter to me. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better. "

As Grace straightened she heard the door close below, and Howard'svoice. Almost immediately she heard him coming up the staircase, andgoing out into the hall she called softly to him. 

"Where are you?" he asked, looking up. "Is father there?"

"Yes. "

"I want you both to come down to the library, Grace. "

She heard him turn and go slowly down the stairs. His voice had beenstrained and unnatural. As she turned she found Anthony behind her. 

"Something has happened!"

"I rather think so, " said old Anthony, slowly. 

They went together down the stairs. 

In the library Lily was standing, facing the door, a quiet figure, listening and waiting. Howard had dropped into a chair and was staringahead. And beyond the circle of lights was a shadowy figure, vaguelyfamiliar, tall, thin, and watchful. Willy Cameron. 

CHAPTER XXXI

The discovery that Lily had left his house threw Jim Doyle into afrenzy. The very manner of her going filled him with dark suspicion. Either she had heard more that morning than he had thought, or--In hiscunning mind for weeks there had been growing a smoldering suspicionof his wife. She was too quiet, too acquiescent. In the beginning, whenWoslosky had brought the scheme to him, and had promised it financialsupport from Europe, he had taken a cruel and savage delight inoutlining it to her, in seeing her cringe and go pale. 

He had not feared her then. She had borne with so much, endured, tolerated, accepted, that he had not realized that she might have abreaking point. 

The plan had appealed to his cynical soul from the first. It was theapotheosis of cynicism, this reducing of a world to its lowest level. And it had amused him to see his wife, a gentlewoman born, bewilderedbefore the chaos he depicted. 

"But--it is German!" she had said. 

"I bow before intelligence. It is German. Also it is Russian. Also itis of all nations. All this talk now, of a League of Nations, a few dulldiplomats acting as God over the peoples of the earth!" His eyes blazed. "While the true league, of the workers of the world, is already ineffect!"

But he watched her after that, not that he was afraid of her, butbecause her re-action as a woman was important. He feared women in themovement. It had its disciples, fervent and eloquent, paid and unpaidwomen agitators, but he did not trust them. They were invariably womenwithout home ties, women with nothing to protect, women with everythingto gain and nothing to lose. The woman in the home was a naturalanti-radical. Not the police, not even the army, but the woman in thehome was the deadly enemy of the great plan. 

He began to hate Elinor, not so much for herself, as for the women sherepresented. She became the embodiment of possible failure. She stood inhis path, passively resistant, stubbornly brave. 

She was not a clever woman, and she was slow in gathering the fullsignificance of a nation-wide general strike, that with an end of allproduction the non-producing world would be beaten to its knees. Andthen she waited for a world movement, forgetting that a flame must startsomewhere and then spread. But she listened and learned. There was agreat deal of talk about class and mass. She learned that the mass, forinstance, was hungry for a change. It would welcome any change. Wosloskyhad been in Russia when the Kerensky regime was overthrown, and had seenthat strange three days when the submerged part of the city filled thestreets, singing, smiling, endlessly walking, exalted and without guile. 

No problems troubled them. They had ceased to labor, and that wasenough. 

Had it not been for its leaders, the mass would have risen like a tide, and ebbed again. 

Elinor had struggled to understand. This was not Socialism. Jim had beena Socialist for years. He had believed that the gradual elevation of thefew, the gradual subjection of the many, would go on until the majoritywould drag the few down to their own level. But this new dream wassomething immediate. At her table she began to hear talk of substitutingfor that slow process a militant minority. She was a long time, months, in discovering that Jim Doyle was one of the leaders of that militantminority, and that the methods of it were unspeakably criminal. 

Then had begun Elinor Doyle's long battle, at first to hold him back, and that failing, the fight between her duty to her husband and that toher country. He had been her one occupation and obsession too long tobe easily abandoned, but she was sturdily national, too. In the end shemade her decision. She lived in his house, mended his clothing, servedhis food, met his accomplices, and--watched. 

She hated herself for it. Every fine fiber of her revolted. But as timewent on, and she learned the full wickedness of the thing, her daysbecame one long waiting. She saw one move after another succeed, strikeafter strike slowing production, and thus increasing the cost of living. She saw the growing discontent and muttering, the vicious circle oflabor striking for more money, and by its own ceasing of activity makingthe very increases they asked inadequate. And behind it all she sawthe ceaseless working, the endless sowing, of a grim-faced band ofconspirators. 

She was obliged to wait. A few men talking in secret meetings, a hiddenpropaganda of crime and disorder--there was nothing to strike at. AndElinor, while not clever, had the Cardew shrewdness. She saw that, like the crisis in a fever, the thing would have to come, be met, anddefeated. 

She had no hope that the government would take hold. Government wasaloof, haughty, and secure in its own strength. Just now, too, it wasobjective, not subjective. It was like a horse set to win a race, andunconscious of the fly on its withers. But the fly was a gadfly. 

Elinor knew Doyle was beginning to suspect her. Sometimes she thoughthe would kill her, if he discovered what she meant to do. She didnot greatly care. She waited for some inkling of the day set for theuprising in the city, and saved out of her small house allowance byinnumerable economies and subterfuges. When she found out the time shewould go to the Governor of the State. He seemed to be a strong man, and she would present him facts. Facts and names. Then he must act--andquickly. 

Cut off from her own world, and with no roots thrown out in the new, shehad no friends, no one to confide in or of whom to ask assistance. Andshe was afraid to go to Howard. He would precipitate things. The leaderswould escape, and a new group would take their places. Such a group, sheknew, stood ready for that very emergency. 

On the afternoon of Lily's departure she heard Doyle come in. He had notrecovered from his morning's anger, and she heard his voice, raised insome violent reproof to Jennie. He came up the stairs, his head saggedforward, his every step deliberate, heavy, ominous. He had an eveningpaper in his hand, and he gave it to her with his finger pointing to aparagraph. 

"You might show that to the last of the Cardews, " he sneered. 

It was the paragraph about Louis Akers. Elinor read it. "Who were themasked men?" she asked. "Do you know?"

"I wish to God I did. I'd--Makes him a laughing stock, of course. Andjust now, when--Where's Lily?"

Elinor put down the paper. 

"She is not here. She went home this afternoon. "

He stared at her, angrily incredulous. 

"Home?"

"This afternoon. "

She passed him and went out into the hall. But he followed her andcaught her by the arm as she reached the top of the staircase. 

"What made her go home?"

"I don't know, Jim. "

"She didn't say?"

"Don't hold me like that. No. "

She tried to free her arm, but he held her, his face angry andsuspicious. 

"You are lying to me, " he snarled. "She gave you a reason. What was it?"

Elinor was frightened, but she had not lost her head. She was thinkingrapidly. 

"She had a visitor this afternoon, a young man. He must have told hersomething about last night. She came up and told me she was going. "

"You know he told her something, don't you?"

"Yes. " Elinor had cowered against the wall. "Jim, don't look like that. You frighten me. I couldn't keep her here. I--"

"What did he tell her?"

"He accused you. "

He was eyeing her coldly, calculatingly. All his suspicions of the pastweeks suddenly crystallized. "And you let her go, after that, " he saidslowly. "You were glad to have her go. You didn't deny what she said. You let her run back home, with what she had guessed and what you toldher to-day. You--"

He struck her then. The blow was as remorseless as his voice, asdeliberate. She fell down the staircase headlong, and lay there, notmoving. 

The elderly maid came running from the kitchen, and found him half-waydown the stairs, his eyes still calculating, but his body shaking. 

"She fell, " he said, still staring down. But the servant faced him, hereyes full of hate. 

"You devil!" she said. "If she's dead, I'll see you hang for it. "

But Elinor was not dead. Doctor Smalley, making rounds in a nearbyhospital and answering the emergency call, found her lying on her bed, fully conscious and in great pain, while her husband bent over her inseeming agony of mind. She had broken her leg. He sent Doyle out duringthe setting. It was a principle of his to keep agonized husbands out ofthe room. 

CHAPTER XXXII

Life had beaten Lily Cardew. She went about the house, patheticallyreminiscent of Elinor Doyle in those days when she had sought sanctuarythere; but where Elinor had seen those days only as interludes in herstormy life, Lily was finding a strange new peace. She was very tender, very thoughtful, insistently cheerful, as though determined that her ownill-fortune should not affect the rest of the household. 

But to Lily this peace was not an interlude, but an end. Life for herwas over. Her bright dreams were gone, her future settled. Without soputting it, even to herself, she dedicated herself to service, to smallkindnesses, and little thoughtful acts. She was, daily and hourly, making reparation to them all for what she had cost them, in hope. 

That was the thing that had gone out of life. Hope. Her loathing ofLouis Akers was gone. She did not hate him. Rather she felt toward him asort of numbed indifference. She wished never to see him again, but therevolt that had followed her knowledge of the conditions under which hehad married her was gone. She tried to understand his viewpoint, to makeallowances for his lack of some fundamental creed to live by. But as thedays went on, with that healthy tendency of the mind to bury pain, shefound him, from a figure that bulked so large as to shut out all thehorizon of her life, receding more and more. 

But always he would shut off certain things. Love, and marriage, and ofcourse the hope of happiness. Happiness was a thing one earned, and shehad not earned it. 

After the scene at the Saint Elmo, when he had refused to let her go, and when Willy Cameron had at last locked him in the bedroom of thesuite and had taken her away, there had followed a complete silence. She had waited for some move or his part, perhaps an announcement of themarriage in the newspapers, but nothing had appeared. He had commenceda whirlwind campaign for the mayoralty and was receiving a substantialsupport from labor. 

The months at the house on Cardew Way seemed more and more dream-like, and that quality of remoteness was accentuated by the fact that shehad not been able to talk to Elinor. She had telephoned more than onceduring the week, but a new maid had answered. Mrs. Doyle was out. Mrs. Doyle was unable to come to the telephone. The girl was a foreigner, with something of Woslosky's burr in her voice. 

Lily had not left the house since her return. During that familyconclave which had followed her arrival, a stricken thing of few wordsand long anxious pauses, her grandfather had suggested that. He hadbeen curiously mild with her, her grandfather. He had made no friendlyovertures, but he had neither jibed nor sneered. 

"It's done, " he had said briefly. "The thing now is to keep her out ofhis clutches. " He had turned to her. "I wouldn't leave the house for fewdays, Lily. "

It was then that Willy Cameron had gone. Afterwards she thought thathe must have been waiting, patiently protective, to see how the old manreceived her. 

Her inability to reach Elinor began to dismay her, at last. There wassomething sinister about it, and finally Howard himself went to theDoyle house. Lily had come back on Thursday, and on the followingTuesday he made his call, timing it so that Doyle would probably be awayfrom home. But he came back baffled. 

"She was not at home, " he said. "I had to take the servant's word forit, but I think the girl was lying. "

"She may be ill. She almost never goes out. "

"What possible object could they have in concealing her illness?" Howardsaid impatiently. 

But he was very uneasy, and what Lily had told him since her return onlyincreased his anxiety. The house was a hotbed of conspiracy, and for herown reasons Elinor was remaining there. It was no place for a sisterof his. But Elinor for years had only touched the outer fringes ofhis life, and his days were crowded with other things; the increasingarrogance of the strikers, the utter uselessness of trying to maketerms with them, his own determination to continue to fight his futilepolitical campaign. He put her out of his mind. 

Then, at the end of another week, a curious thing happened. Anthony andLily were in the library. Old Anthony without a club was Old Anthonylost, and he had developed a habit, at first rather embarrassing to theothers, of spending much of his time downstairs. He was no sinner turnedsaint. He still let the lash of his tongue play over the household, buthis old zest in it seemed gone. He made, too, small tentative overturesto Lily, intended to be friendly, but actually absurdly self-conscious. Grace, watching him, often felt him rather touching. It was obvious toher that he blamed himself, rather than Lily, for what had happened. 

On this occasion he had asked Lily to read to him. 

"And leave out the politics, " he had said, "I get enough of thatwherever I go. "

As she read she felt him watching her, and in the middle of a paragraphhe suddenly said:

"What's become of Cameron?"

"He must be very busy. He is supporting Mr. Hendricks, you know. "

"Supporting him! He's carrying him on his back, " grunted Anthony. "Whatis it, Grayson?"

"A lady--a woman--calling on Miss Cardew. "

Lily rose, but Anthony motioned her back. 

"Did she give any name?"

"She said to say it was Jennie, sir. "

"Jennie! It must be Aunt Elinor's Jennie!"

"Send her in, " said Anthony, and stood waiting Lily noticed his facetwitching; it occurred to her then that this strange old man might stilllove his daughter, after all the years, and all his cruelty. 

It was the elderly servant from the Doyle house who came in, a tallgaunt woman, looking oddly unfamiliar to Lily in a hat. 

"Why, Jennie!" she said. And then: "Is anything wrong?"

"There is and there isn't, " Jennie said, somberly. "I just wanted totell you, and I don't care if he kills me for it. It was him that threwher downstairs. I heard him hit her. "

Old Anthony stiffened. 

"He threw Aunt Elinor downstairs?"

"That's how she broke her leg. "

Sheer amazement made Lily inarticulate. 

"But they said--we didn't know--do you mean that she has been there allthis time, hurt?"

"I mean just that, " said Jennie, stolidly. "I helped set it, with himpretending to be all worked up, for the doctor to see. He got rid ofme all right. He's got one of his spies there now, a Bolshevik likehimself. You can ask the neighbors. "

Howard was out, and when the woman had gone Anthony ordered his car. Lily, frightened by the look on his face, made only one protest. 

"You mustn't go alone, " she said. "Let me go, too. Or takeGrayson--anybody. "

But he went alone; in the hall he picked up his hat and stick, and drewon his gloves. 

"What is the house number?"

Lily told him and he went out, moving deliberately, like a man who hasmade up his mind to follow a certain course, but to keep himself well inhand. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

Acting on Willy Cameron's suggestion, Dan Boyd retained his membershipin the union and frequented the meetings. He learned various things, that the strike vote had been padded, for instance, and that theRadicals had taken advantage of the absence of some of the conservativeleaders to secure such support as they had received. He found the betterclass of workmen dissatisfied and unhappy. Some of them, men who lovedtheir tools, had resented the order to put them down where they were andwalk out, and this resentment, childish as it seemed, was an expressionof their general dissatisfaction with the autocracy they had themselvesbuilt up. 

Finally Dan's persistent attendance and meek acquiescence, added to hiswar record, brought him reward. He was elected member of a conference totake to the Central Labor Council the suggestion for a general strike. It was arranged that the delegates take the floor one after the other, and hold it for as long as possible. Then they were to ask the Presidentof the Council to put the question. 

The arguments were carefully prepared. The general strike was to beurged as the one salvation of the labor movement. It would prove thesolidarity of labor. And, at the Council meeting a few days later, therank and file were impressed by the arguments. Dan, gnawing his nailsand listening, watched anxiously. The idea was favorably received, and the delegates went back to their local unions, to urge, coerce andthreaten. 

Not once, during the meeting, had there been any suggestion of violence, but violence was in the air, nevertheless. The quantity of revolutionaryliterature increased greatly during the following ten days, and now itwas no longer furtively distributed. It was sold or given away at allmeetings; it flooded the various headquarters with its skillful compoundof lies and truth. The leaders notified of the situation, pretendedthat it was harmless raving, a natural and safe outlet for suppresseddiscontents. 

Dan gathered up an armful of it and took it home. On a Sunday following, there was a mass meeting at the Colosseum, and a business agent ofone of the unions made an impassioned speech. He recited old and newgrievances, said that the government had failed to live up to itspromises, that the government boards were always unjust to the workers, and ended with a statement of the steel makers' profits. Dan turnedimpatiently to a man beside him. 

"Why doesn't he say how much of that profit the government gets?" hedemanded. 

But the man only eyed him suspiciously. 

Dan fell silent. He knew it was wrong, but he had no gift of tongue. It was at that meeting that for the first time he heard used the word"revolution. "

CHAPTER XXXIV

Old Anthony's excursion to his daughter's house had not prospered. During the drive to Cardew Way he sat forward on the edge of the seat ofhis limousine, his mouth twitching with impatience and anger, his sticktightly clutched in his hand. Almost before the machine stopped he wasout on the pavement, scanning the house with hostile eyes. 

The building was dark. Paul, the chauffeur, watching curiously, forthe household knew that Anthony Cardew had sworn never to darken hisdaughter's door, saw his erect, militant figure enter the gate and loseitself in the shadow of the house. There followed a short interval ofnothing in particular, and then a tall man appeared in the rectangle oflight which was the open door. 

Jim Doyle was astounded when he saw his visitor. Astounded and alarmed. But he recovered himself quickly, and smiled. 

"This is something I never expected to see, " he said, "Mr. AnthonyCardew on my doorstep. "

"I don't give a damn what you expected to see, " said Mr. Anthony Cardew. "I want to see my daughter. "

"Your daughter? You have said for a good many years that you have nodaughter. "

"Stand aside, sir. I didn't come here to quibble. "

"But I love to quibble, " sneered Doyle. "However, if you insist--I mightas well tell you, I haven't the remotest intention of letting you in. "

"I'll ask you a question, " said old Anthony. "Is it true that mydaughter has been hurt?"

"My wife is indisposed. I presume we are speaking of the same person. "

"You infernal scoundrel, " shouted Anthony, and raising his cane, broughtit down with a crack on Doyle's head. The chauffeur was half-way upthe walk by that time, and broke into a run. He saw Doyle, against thelight, reel, recover and raise his fist, but he did not bring it down. 

"Stop that!" yelled the chauffeur, and came on like a charging steer. When he reached the steps old Anthony was hanging his stick over hisleft forearm, and Doyle was inside the door, trying to close it. Thiswas difficult, however, because Anthony had quietly put his foot overthe sill. 

"I am going to see my daughter, Paul, " said Anthony Cardew. "Can youopen the door?"

"Open it!" Paul observed truculently. "Watch me!"

He threw himself against the door, but it gave suddenly, and sent himsprawling inside at Doyle's feet. He was up in an instant, squared tofight, but he only met Jim Doyle's mocking smile. Doyle stood, armsfolded, and watched Anthony Cardew enter his house. Whatever he fearedhe covered with the cynical mask that was his face. 

He made no move, offered no speech. 

"Is she upstairs?"

"She is asleep. Do you intend to disturb her?"

"I do, " said old Anthony grimly. "I'll go first, Paul. You follow me, but I'd advise you to come up backwards. "

Suddenly Doyle laughed. 

"What!" he said, "Mr. Anthony Cardew paying his first visit to my humblehome, and anticipating violence! You underestimate the honor you aredoing me. "

He stood like a mocking devil at the foot of the staircase until thetwo men had reached the top. Then he followed them. The mask had droppedfrom his face, and anger and watchfulness showed in it. If she talked, he would kill her. But she knew that. She was not a fool. 

Elinor lay in the bed, listening. She had recognized her father's voice, and her first impulse was one of almost unbearable relief. They hadfound her. They had come to take her away. For she knew now that she wasa prisoner; even without the broken leg she would have been a prisoner. The girl downstairs was one of them, and her jailer. A jailer who fedher, and gave her grudgingly the attention she required, but that wasall. 

Just when Doyle had begun to suspect her she did not know, but on thenight after her injury he had taken pains to verify his suspicions. Hehad found first her little store of money, and that had angered him. Inthe end he had broken open a locked trinket box and found a notebookin which for months she had kept her careful records. Here and there, scattered among house accounts, were the names of the radical membersof The Central Labor Council, and other names, spoken before her andcarefully remembered. He had read them out to her as he came to them, suffering as she was, and she had expected death then. But he had notkilled her. He had sent Jennie away and brought in this Russian girl, amad-eyed fanatic named Olga, and from that time on he visited her oncedaily. In his anger and triumph over her he devised the most cunningof all punishments; he told her of the movement's progress, of itsingeniously contrived devilments in store, of its inevitable success. What buildings and homes were to be bombed, the Cardew house first amongthem; what leading citizens were to be held as hostages, with all thatthat implied; and again the Cardews headed the list. 

When Doctor Smalley came he or the Russian were always present, solicitous and attentive. She got out of her bed one day, and draggingher splinted leg got to her desk, in the hope of writing a note andfinding some opportunity of giving it to the doctor. Only to discoverthat they had taken away her pen, pencils and paper. 

She had been found there by Olga, but the girl had made no comment. Olgahad helped her back into bed without a word, but from that time on hadspent most of her day on the upper floor. Not until Doyle came in wouldshe go downstairs to prepare his food. 

Elinor lay in her bed and listened to her father coming up the stairs. She knew, before he reached the top, that Doyle would never let her betaken away. He would kill her first. He might kill Anthony Cardew. Shehad a sickening sense of tragedy coming up the staircase, tragedy whichtook the form of her father's familiar deliberate step. Perhaps had sheknown of the chauffeur's presence she might have chanced it, for everyfiber of her tired body was crying for release. But she saw only herfather, alone in that house with Doyle and the smoldering Russian. 

The key turned in the lock. 

Anthony Cardew stood in the doorway, looking at her. With her long hairin braids, she seemed young, almost girlish. She looked like the littlegirl who had gone to dancing school in short white frocks and long blacksilk stockings, so many years ago. 

"I've just learned about it, Elinor, " he said. He moved to the bed andstood beside it, looking down, but he did not touch her. "Are you ableto be taken away from here?"

She knew that Doyle was outside, listening, and she hardened her heartfor the part she had to play. It was difficult; she was so infinitelymoved by her father's coming, and in the dim light he, too, looked likehimself of years ago. 

"Taken away? Where?" she asked. 

"You don't want to stay here, do you?" he demanded bluntly. 

"This is my home, father. "

"Good God, home! Do you mean to tell me that, with all you must knowabout this man, you still want to stay with him?"

"I have no other home. "

"I am offering you one. "

Old Anthony was bewildered and angry. Elinor put out a hand to touchhim, but he drew back. 

"After he has thrown you downstairs and injured you--"

"How did you hear that?"

"The servant you had here came to see me to-night, Elinor. She saidthat that blackguard outside there had struck you and you fell down thestairs. If you tell me that's the truth I'll break every bone in hisbody. "

Sheer terror for Anthony made her breathless. 

"But it isn't true, " she said wildly. "You mustn't think that. I fell. Islipped and fell. "

"Then, " said Anthony, speaking slowly, "you are not a prisoner here?"

"A prisoner? I'd be a prisoner anywhere, father. I can't walk. "

"That door was locked. "

She was fighting valiantly for him. 

"I can't walk, father. I don't require a locked door to keep me in. "

He was too confused and puzzled to notice the evasion. 

"Do you mean to say that you won't let me have you taken home? You arestill going to stay with this man? You know what he is, don't you?"

"I know what you think he is. " She tried to smile, and he looked awayfrom her quickly and stared around the room, seeing nothing, however. Suddenly he turned and walked to the door; but he stopped there, hishand on the knob, and us face twitching. 

"Once more, Elinor, " he said, "I ask you if you will let me take youback with me. This is the last time. I have come, after a good manyyears of bad feeling, to make my peace with you and to offer you a home. Will you come?"

"No. "

Her courage almost failed her. She lay back, her eyes closed and herface colorless. The word itself was little more than a whisper. 

Her father opened the door and went out. She heard him going down thestairs, heard other footsteps that followed him, and listened in anagony of fear that Doyle would drop him in the hall below. But nothinghappened. The outside door closed, and after a moment she opened hereyes. Doyle was standing by the bed. 

"So, " he said, "you intend to give me the pleasure of your society forsome time, do you?"

She said nothing. She was past any physical fear for herself. 

"You liar!" he said softly. "Do you think I don't understand why youwant to remain here? You are cleverer than I thought you were, but youare not as clever as I am. You'd have done better to have let him takeyou away. "

"You would have killed him first. "

"Perhaps I would. " He lighted a cigarette. "But it is a pleasant thoughtto play with, and I shall miss it when the thing is fait accompli. I seeOlga has left you without ice water. Shall I bring you some?"

He was still smiling faintly when he brought up the pitcher, some timelater, and placed it on the stand beside the bed. 

CHAPTER XXXV

In the Boyd house things went on much as before, but with a newheaviness. Ellen, watching keenly, knew why the little house was socheerless and somber. It had been Willy Cameron who had brought toit its gayer moments, Willy determinedly cheerful, slamming doors andwhistling; Willy racing up the stairs with something hot for Mrs. Boyd'stray; Willy at the table, making them forget the frugality of the mealswith campaign anecdotes; Willy, lamenting the lack of a chance to fish, and subsequently eliciting a rare smile from Edith by being discoveredangling in the kitchen sink with a piece of twine on the end of hisumbrella. 

Rather forced, some of it, but eminently good for all of them. And thensuddenly it ceased. He made an effort, but there was no spontaneity inhim. He came in quietly, never whistled, and ate very little. He beganto look almost gaunt, too, and Edith, watching him with jealous, lovingeyes, gave voice at last to the thought that was in her mind. 

"I wish you'd go away, " she said, "and let us fight this thing outourselves. Dan would have to get something to do, then, for one thing. "

"But I don't want to go away, Edith. "

"Then you're a fool, " she observed, bitterly. "You can't help me any, and there's no use hanging mother around your neck. "

"She won't be around any one's neck very long, Edith dear. "

"After that, will you go away?"

"Not if you still want me. "

"Want you!"

Dan was out, and Ellen had gone up for the invalid's tray. They werealone together, standing in the kitchen doorway. 

Suddenly Edith, beside him, ran her hand through his arm. 

"If I had been a different sort of girl, Willy, do you think--could youever have cared for me?"

"I never thought about you that way, " he said, simply. "I do care foryou. You know that. "

She dropped her hand. 

"You are in love with Lily Cardew. That's why you don't--I've known itall along, Willy. I used to think you'd get over it, never seeing herand all that. But you don't, do you?" She looked up at him. "The realthing lasts, I suppose. It will with me. I wish to heaven it wouldn't. "

He was most uncomfortable, but he drew her hand within his arm again andheld it there. 

"Don't get to thinking that you care anything about me, " he said. "There's not as much love in the world as there ought to be, and we allneed to hold hands, but--don't fancy anything like that. "

"I wanted to tell you. If I hadn't known about her I wouldn't have toldyou, but--you said it when you said there's not as much love as thereought to be. I'm gone, but I guess my caring for you hasn't hurt me any. It's the only reason I'm alive to-day. "

She freed her hand, and stood staring out over the little autumngarden. There was such brooding trouble in her face that he watched heranxiously. 

"I think mother suspects, " she said at last. 

"I hope not, Edith. "

"I think she does. She watches me all the time, and she asked to see Danto-night. Only he didn't come home. "

"You must deny it, Edith, " he said, almost fiercely. "She must not know, ever. That is one thing we can save her, and must save her. "

But, going upstairs as usual before he went out, he realized that Edithwas right, and that matters had reached a crisis. The sick woman hadeaten nothing, and her eyes were sunken and anxious. There was anunspoken question in them, too, as she turned them on him. Mostsignificant of all, the little album was not beside her, nor the usuallitter of newspapers on the bed. 

"I wish you weren't going out, Willy, " she said querulously. "I want totalk to you about something. "

"Can't we discuss it in the morning?"

"I won't sleep till I get it off my mind, Willy. " But he could not facethat situation then. He needed time, for one thing. Surely there must besome way out, some way to send this frail little woman dreamless to herlast sleep, life could not be so cruel that death would seem kind. 

He spoke at three different meetings that night, for the election wasclose at hand. Pink Denslow took him about in his car, and stood waitingfor him at the back of the crowd. In the intervals between hall and hallPink found Willy Cameron very silent and very grave, but he could notknow that the young man beside him was trying to solve a difficultquestion. Which was: did two wrongs ever make a right?

At the end of the last meeting Willy Cameron decided to walk home. 

"I have some things to think over. Pink, " he said. "Thanks for the car. It saves a lot of time. "

Pink sat at the wheel, carefully scrutinizing Willy. It struck him thenthat Cameron looked fagged and unhappy. 

"Nothing I can do, I suppose?"

"Thanks, no. "

Pink knew nothing of Lily's marriage, nor of the events that hadfollowed it. To his uninquiring mind all was as it should be with her;she was at home again, although strangely quiet and very sweet, andher small world was at peace with her. It was all right with her, heconsidered, although all wrong with him. Except that she was strangelysubdued, which rather worried him. It was not possible, for instance, to rouse her to one of their old red-hot discussions on religion, ormarriage, or love. 

"I saw Lily Cardew this afternoon, Cameron. "

"Is she all right?" asked Willy Cameron, in a carefully casual tone. 

"I don't know. " Pink's honest voice showed perplexity. "She looks allright, and the family's eating out of her hand. . But she's changedsomehow. She asked for you. "

"Thanks. Well, good-night, old man. "

Willy Cameron was facing the decision of his life that night, as hewalked home. Lily was gone, out of his reach and out of his life. Butthen she had never been within either. She was only something wonderfuland far away, like a star to which men looked and sometimes prayed. Someday she would be free again, and then in time she would marry. Some onelike Pink, her own sort, and find happiness. 

But he knew that he would always love her, to the end of his days, andeven beyond, in that heaven in which he so simply believed. All thethings that puzzled him would be straightened out there, and perhaps aman who had loved a woman and lost her here would find her there, andwalk hand in hand with her, through the bright days of Paradise. 

Not that that satisfied him. He was a very earthly lover, with thehungry arms of youth. He yearned unspeakably for her. He would havedied for her as easily as he would have lived for her, but he could doneither. 

That was one side of him. The other, having put her away in that warmcorner of his heart which was hers always, was busy with the practicalproblem of the Boyds. He saw only one way out, and that way he had beenseeing with increasing clearness for several days. Edith's candor thatnight, and Mrs. Boyd's suspicions, clearly pointed to it. There was oneway by which to save Edith and her child, and to save the dying womanthe agony of full knowledge. 

Edith was sitting on the doorstep, alone. He sat down on the step belowher, rather silent, still busy with his problem. Although the night waswarm, the girl shivered. 

"She's not asleep. She's waiting for me to go up, Willy. She means tocall me in and ask me. "

"Then I'd better say what I have to say quickly. Edith, will you marryme?"

She drew off and looked at him. 

"I'd better explain what I mean, " he said, speaking with somedifficulty. "I mean--go through the ceremony with me. I don't meanactual marriage. That wouldn't be fair to either of us, because you knowthat I care for some one else. "

"But you mean a real marriage?"

"Of course. Your child has the right to a name, dear. And, if you don'tmind telling a lie to save our souls, and for her peace of mind, we cansay that it took place some time ago. "

She gazed at him dazedly. Then something like suspicion came into herface. 

"Is it because of what I told you to-night?"

"I had thought of it before. That helped, of course. "

It seemed so surprisingly simple, put into words, and the light on thegirl's face was his answer. A few words, so easily spoken, and two liveswere saved. No, three, for Edith's child must be considered. 

"You are like God, " said Edith, in a low voice. "Like God. " And fell tosoft weeping. She was unutterably happy and relieved. She sat there, notdaring to touch him, and looked out into the quiet street. Before hershe saw all the things that she had thought were gone; honor, a placein the world again, the right to look into her mother's eyes; she sawmarriage and happy, golden days. He did not love her, but he would behers, and perhaps in His own good time the Manager of all destinieswould make him love her. She would try so hard to deserve that. 

Mrs. Boyd was asleep when at last Edith went up the staircase, andEllen, lying sleepless on her cot in the hot attic room, heard the girlsoftly humming to herself as she undressed, and marveled. 

CHAPTER XXXVI

When Lily had been at home for some time, and Louis Akers had made noattempt to see her, or to announce the marriage, the vigilance of thehousehold began to relax. Howard Cardew had already consulted the familylawyer about an annulment, and that gentleman had sent a letter toAkers, which had received no reply. 

Then one afternoon Grayson, whose instructions had been absolute as toadmitting Akers to the house, opened the door to Mrs. Denslow, who wascalling, and found behind that lady Louis Akers himself. He made aneffort to close the door behind the lady, but Akers was too quick forhim, and a scene at the moment was impossible. 

He ushered Mrs. Denslow into the drawing room, and coming out, closedthe doors. 

"My instructions, sir, are to say to you that the ladies are not athome. "

But Akers held out his hat and gloves with so ugly a look that Graysontook them. 

"I have come to see my wife, " he said. "Tell her that, and that if shedoesn't see me here I'll go upstairs and find her. "

When Grayson still hesitated he made a move toward the staircase, andthe elderly servant, astounded at the speech and the movement, put downthe hat and faced him. 

"I do not recognize any one in the household by that name, sir. "

"You don't, don't you? Very well. Tell Miss Cardew I am here, and thateither she will come down or I'll go up. I'll wait in the library. "

He watched Grayson start up the stairs, and then went into the library. He was very carefully dressed, and momentarily exultant over the successof his ruse, but he was uneasy, too, and wary, and inclined to regardthe house as a possible trap. He had made a gambler's venture, riskingeverything on the cards he held, and without much confidence in them. His vanity declined to believe that his old power over Lily was gone, but he had held a purely physical dominance over so many women that heknew both his strength and his limitations. 

What he could not understand, what had kept him awake so many nightssince he had seen her, was her recoil from him on Willy Cameron'sannouncement. She had known he had led the life of his sort; hehad never played the plaster saint to her. And she had accepted herknowledge of his connection with the Red movement, on his mere promiseto reform. But this other, this accident, and she had turned from himwith a horror that made him furious to remember. These silly star-eyedvirgins, who accepted careful abstractions and then turned sick at lifeitself, a man was a fool to put himself in their hands. 

Mademoiselle was with Lily in her boudoir when Grayson came up, a thin, tired-faced, suddenly old Mademoiselle, much given those days to earlymasses, during which she prayed for eternal life for the man who hadruined Lily's life, and that soon. To Mademoiselle marriage was a finalthing and divorce a wickedness against God and His establishment onearth. 

Lily, rather like Willy Cameron, was finding on her spirit at that timea burden similar to his, of keeping up the morale of the household. 

Grayson came in and closed the door behind him. Anger and anxiety werein his worn old face, and Lily got up quickly. "What is it, Grayson?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Lily. He was in the vestibule behind Mrs. Denslow, andI couldn't keep him out. I think he had waited for some one to call, knowing I couldn't make a scene. "

Mademoiselle turned to Lily. 

"You must not see him, " she said in rapid French. "Remain here, and Ishall telephone for your father. Lock your door. He may come up. He willdo anything, that man. "

"I am going down, " Lily said quietly. "I owe him that. You need notbe frightened. And don't tell mother; it will only worry her and do nogood. "

Her heart was beating fast as she went down the stairs. From the drawingroom came the voices of Grace and Mrs. Denslow, chatting amiably. Thesecond man was carrying in tea, the old silver service gleaming. Overall the lower floor was an air of peace and comfort, the passionlessatmosphere of daily life running in old and easy grooves. 

When Lily entered the library she closed the door behind her. She had, on turning, a swift picture of Grayson, taking up his stand in the hall, and it gave her a sense of comfort. She knew he would remain there, impassively waiting, so long as Akers was in the house. 

Then she faced the man standing by the center table. He made no movetoward her, did not even speak at once. It left on her the burden of theopening, of setting the key of what was to come. She was steady enoughnow. 

"Perhaps it is as well that you came, Louis, " she said. "I suppose wemust talk it over some time. "

"Yes, " he agreed, his eyes on her. "We must. I have married a wife, andI want her, Lily. "

"You know that is impossible. "

"Because of something that happened before I knew you? I never madeany pretensions about my life before we met. But I did promise to gostraight if you'd have me, and I have. I've lived up to my bargain. Whatabout you?"

"It was not a part of my bargain to marry you while you--I have thoughtand thought, Louis. There is only one thing to be done. You will have todivorce me, and marry her. "

"Marry her? A girl of the streets, who chooses to say that I am thefather of her child! It's the oldest trick in the word. Besides--" Heplayed his best card--"she won't marry me. Ask Cameron, who chose tomake himself so damned busy about my affairs. He's in love with her. Askhim. "

In spite of herself Lily winced. Out of the wreckage of the past fewweeks one thing had seemed to remain, something to hold to, solid anddependable and fine, and that had been Willy Cameron. She had found, inthese last days, something infinitely comforting in the thought that hecared for her. It was because he had cared that he had saved her fromherself. But, if this were true--

"I am not going back to you, Louis. I think you know that. No amount oftalking about things can change that. "

"Why don't you face life and try to understand it?" he demanded, brutally. "Men are like that. Women are like that--sometimes. You can'tmeasure human passions with a tape line. That's what you good women tryto do, and you make life a merry little hell. " He made an effort, andsoftened his voice. "I'll be true to you, Lily, if you'll come back. "

"No, " she said, "you would mean to be, but you would not. You have nofoundation to build on. "

"Meaning that I am not a gentleman. "

"Not that. I know you, that's all. I understand so much that I didn'tbefore. What you call love is only something different. When that wasgone there would be the same thing again. You would be sorry, but Iwould be lost. "

Her coolness disconcerted him. Two small triangular bits of color showedin his face. He had been prepared for tears, even for a refusal toreturn, but this clear-eyed appraisal of himself, and the accuracy ofit, confused him. He took refuge in the only method he knew; he threwhimself on her pity; he made violent, passionate love to her, but heronly expression was one of distaste. When at last he caught her to himshe perforce submitted, a frozen thing that told him, more than anywords, how completely he had lost her. He threw her away from him, then, baffled and angry. 

"You little devil!" he said. "You cold little devil!"

"I don't love you. That's all. I think now that I never did. "

"You pretended damned well. "

"Don't you think you'd better go?" Lily said wearily. "I don't like tohurt you. I am to blame for a great deal. But there is no use going on, is there? I'll give you your freedom as soon as I can. You will wantthat, of course. "

"My freedom! Do you think I am going to let you go like that? I'll fightyou and your family in every court in the country before I give you up. You can't bring Edith Boyd up against me, either. If she does that I'llbring up other witnesses, other men, and she knows it. "

Lily was very pale, but still calm. She made a movement toward the bell, but he caught her hand before she could ring it. 

"I'll get your Willy Cameron, too, " he said, his face distorted withanger. "I'll get him good. You've done a bad thing for your friends andyour family to-day, Lily. I'll go the limit on getting back at them. I've got the power, and by God, I'll use it. "

He flung out into the hall, and toward the door. There he encounteredGrayson, who reminded him of his hat and gloves, or he would have gonewithout them. 

Grayson, going into the library a moment later, found Lily standingthere, staring ahead and trembling violently. He brought her a cup oftea, and stood by, his old face working, while she drank it. 

CHAPTER XXXVII

The strike had apparently settled down to the ordinary run of strikes. The newspaper men from New York were gradually recalled, as the milltowns became orderly, and no further acts of violence took place. Hereand there mills that had gone down fired their furnaces again and wentback to work, many with depleted shifts, however. 

But the strikers had lost, and knew it. Howard Cardew, facing thesituation with his customary honesty, saw in the gradual return ofthe men to work only the urgency of providing for their families, andrealized that it was not peace that was coming, but an armed neutrality. The Cardew Mills were still down, but by winter he was confident theywould be open again. To what purpose? To more wrangling and bickering, more strikes? Where was the middle ground? He was willing to give themen a percentage of the profits they made. He did not want great wealth, only an honest return for his invested capital. But he wanted to managehis own business. It was his risk. 

The coal miners were going out. The Cardews owned coal mines. The minerswanted to work a minimum day for a maximum wage, but the country musthave coal. Shorter hours meant more men for the mines, and they wouldhave to be imported. But labor resented the importation of foreignworkers. 

Again, what was the answer?

Still, he was grateful for peace. The strike dragged on, with onlyoccasional acts of violence. From the hill above Baxter a sniper dailyfired with a long range rifle at the toluol tank in the center of oneof the mills, and had so far escaped capture, as the tank had escapeddamage. But he knew well enough that a long strike was playing into thehands of the Reds. It was impossible to sow the seeds of revolutionso long as a man's dinner-pail was full, his rent paid, and his familycontented. But a long strike, with bank accounts becoming exhausted andcredit curtailed, would pave the way for revolution. 

Old Anthony had had a drastic remedy for strikes. 

"Let all the storekeepers, the country over, refuse credit to thestrikers, and we'd have an end to this mess, " he said. 

"We'd have an end to the storekeepers, too, " Howard had replied, grimly. 

One good thing had come out of the bomb outrages. They had had asalutary effect on the honest labor element. These had no sympathy withsuch methods and said so. But a certain element, both native and foreignborn, secretly gloated and waited. 

One thing surprised and irritated Howard. Public sentiment was not somuch with the strikers, as against the mill owners. The strike workeda hardship to the stores and small businesses dependent on thegreat mills; they forgot the years when the Cardews had brought themprosperity, had indeed made them possible, and they felt now onlybitter resentment at the loss of trade. In his anger Howard saw them asparasites, fattening on the conceptions and strength of those who hadmade the city. They were men who built nothing, originated nothing. Menwho hated the ladder by which they had climbed, who cared little howshaky its foundation, so long as it stood. 

In September, lured by a false security, the governor ordered thedemobilization of the state troops, save for two companies. The men atthe Baxter and Friendship plants, owned by the Cardews, had voted toremain out, but their leaders appeared to have them well in hand, andno trouble was anticipated. The agents of the Department of Justice, however, were still suspicious. The foreigners had plenty of money. Given as they were to hoarding their savings in their homes, the localbanks were unable to say if they were drawing on their reserves or werebeing financed from the outside. 

Shortly before the mayoralty election trouble broke out in the westernend of the state, and in the north, in the steel towns. There were uglyriotings, bombs were sent through the mails, the old tactics of nightshootings and destruction of property began. In the threatening chaosBaxter and Friendship, and the city nearby, stood out by contrast fortheir very orderliness. The state constabulary remained in diminishednumbers, a still magnificent body of men but far too few for any realemergency, and the Federal agents, suspicious but puzzled, were removedto more turbulent fields. 

The men constituting the Vigilance Committee began to feel a senseof futility, almost of absurdity. They had armed and enrolledthemselves--against what? The growth of the organization slowed down, but it already numbered thousands of members. Only its leaders retainedtheir faith in its ultimate necessity, and they owed perhaps more thanthey realized to Willy Cameron's own conviction. 

It was owing to him that the city was divided into a series of zones, sothat notification of an emergency could be made rapidly by telephone andmessenger. Owing to him, too, was a new central office, with some oneon duty day and night. Rather ironically, the new quarters were thedismantled rooms of the Myers Housecleaning Company. 

On the day after his proposal to Edith, Willy Cameron received anunexpected holiday. Mrs. Davis, the invalid wife of the owner of theEagle Pharmacy, died and the store was closed. He had seen Edith foronly a few moments that morning, but it was understood then that themarriage would take place either that day or the next. 

He had been physically so weary the night before that he had slept, butthe morning found him with a heaviness of spirit that he could not throwoff. The exaltation of the night before was gone, and all that remainedwas a dogged sense of a duty to be done. Although he smiled at Edith, his face remained with her all through the morning. 

"I'll make it up to him, " she thought, humbly. "I'll make it up to himsomehow. "

Then, with Ellen out doing her morning marketing, she heard thefeeble thump of a cane overhead which was her mother's signal. She wasdetermined not to see her mother again until she could say that she wasmarried, but the thumping continued, and was followed by the crash of abroken glass. 

"She's trying to get up!" Edith thought, panicky. "If she gets up itwill kill her. "

She stood at the foot of the stairs, scarcely breathing, and listened. There was a dreadful silence above. She stole up, finally, to where shecould see her mother. Mrs. Boyd was still in her bed, but lying withopen eyes, unmoving. 

"Mother, " she called, and ran in. "Mother. "

Mrs. Boyd glanced at her. 

"I thought that glass would bring you, " she said sharply, but withdifficulty. "I want you to stand over there and let me look at you. "

Edith dropped on her knees beside the bed, and caught her mother's hand. 

"Don't! Don't talk like that, mother, " she begged. "I know what youmean. It's all right, mother. Honestly it is. I--I'm married, mother. "

"You wouldn't lie to me, Edith?"

"No. I'm telling you. I've been married a long time. You--don't youworry, mother. You just lie there and quit worrying. It's all right. "

There was a sudden light in the sick woman's eyes, an eager light thatflared up and died away again. 

"Who to?" she asked. "If it's some corner loafer, Edie--" Edith hadgained new courage and new facility. Anything was right that drove thetortured look from her mother's eyes. 

"You can ask him when he comes home this evening. "

"Edie! Not Willy?"

"You've guessed it, " said Edith, and burying her face in the bedclothing, said a little prayer, to be forgiven for the lie and for allthat she had done, to be more worthy thereafter, and in the end to earnthe love of the man who was like God to her. 

There are lies and lies. Now and then the Great Recorder must put oneon the credit side of the balance, one that has saved intolerablesuffering, or has made well and happy a sick soul. 

Mrs. Boyd lay back and closed her eyes. 

"I haven't been so tickled since the day you were born, " she said. 

She put out a thin hand and laid it on the girl's bowed head. When Edithmoved, a little later, her mother was asleep, with a new look of peaceon her face. 

It was necessary before Ellen saw her mother to tell her what she haddone. She shrank from doing it. It was one thing for Willy to have doneit, to have told her the plan, but Edith was secretly afraid of Ellen. And Ellen's reception of the news justified her fears. 

"And you'd take him that way!" she said, scornfully. "You'd hide behindhim, besides spoiling his life for him! It sounds like him to offer, andit's like you to accept. "

"It's to save mother, " said Edith, meekly. 

"It's to save yourself. You can't fool me. And if you think I'm going tosit by and let him do it, you can think again. "

"It's as good as done, " Edith flashed. "I've told mother. "

"That you're going to be, or that you are?"

"That we are married. "

"All right, " Ellen said triumphantly. "She's quiet and peaceful now, isn't she? You don't have to get married now, do you? You take myadvice, and let it go at that. "

It was then that Edith realized what she had done. He would still marryher, of course, but behind all his anxiety to save her had been the realactuating motive of his desire to relieve her mother's mind. That wasdone now. Then, could she let him sacrifice himself for her?

She could. She could and she would. She set her small mouth firmly, andconfronted the future; she saw herself, without his strength to supporther, going down and down. She remembered those drabs of the street onwhom she had turned such cynical eyes in her virtuous youth, and she sawherself one of that lost sisterhood, sodden, hectic, hopeless. 

When Willy Cameron left the pharmacy that day it was almost noon. Hewent to the house of mourning first, and found Mr. Davis in a chair ina closed room, a tired little man in a new black necktie around a notover-clean collar, his occupation of years gone, confronting a new andterrible leisure that he did not know how to use. 

"You know how it is, Willy, " he said, blinking his reddened eyelids. "You kind of wish sometimes that you had somebody to help you bear yourburden, and then it's taken away, but you're kind of bent over and usedto it. And you'd give your neck and all to have it back. "

Willy Cameron pondered that on his way up the street. 

There was one great longing in him, to see Lily again. In a few hoursnow he would have taken a wife, and whatever travesty of marriageresulted, he would have to keep away from Lily. He meant to play squarewith Edith. 

He wondered if it would hurt Lily to see him, remind her of things shemust be trying to forget. He decided in the end that it would hurt her, so he did not go. But he walked, on his way to see Pink Denslow at thetemporary bank, through a corner of the park near the house, and took asort of formal and heart-breaking farewell of her. 

Time had been when life had seemed only a long, long trail, with Lily atthe end of it somewhere, like water to the thirsty traveler, or home tothe wanderer; like a camp fire at night. But now, life seemed to him abroad highway, infinitely crowded, down which he must move, surroundedyet alone. 

But at least he could walk in the middle of the road, in the sunlight. It was the weaklings who were crowded to the side. He threw up his head. 

It had never occurred to him that he was in any, danger, either fromLouis Akers or from the unseen enemy he was fighting. He had a curiouslack of physical fear. But once or twice that day, as he went about, he happened to notice a small man, foreign in appearance and shabbilydressed. He saw him first when he came out of the marriage licenseoffice, and again when he entered the bank. 

He had decided to tell Pink of his approaching marriage and to ask himto be present. He meant to tell him the facts. The intimacy between themwas now very close, and he felt that Pink would understand. He neitherwanted nor expected approval, but he did want honesty between them. Hehad based his life on honesty. 

Yet the thing was curiously hard to lead up to. It would be hard to setbefore any outsider the conditions at the Boyd house, or his own senseof obligation to help. Put into everyday English the whole schemesounded visionary and mock-heroic. 

In the end he did not tell Pink at all, for Pink came in with excitementwritten large all over him. 

"I sent for you, " he said, "because I think we've got something at last. One of our fellows has just been in, that storekeeper I told you aboutfrom Friendship, Cusick. He says he has found out where they're meeting, back in the hills. He's made a map of it. Look, here's the town, andhere's the big hill. Well, behind it, about a mile and a half, there's aGerman outfit, a family, with a farm. They're using the barn, accordingto this chap. "

"The barn wouldn't hold very many of them. "

"That's the point. It's the leaders. The family has an alibi. It goes into the movies in the town on meeting nights. The place has been searchedtwice, but he says they have a system of patrols that gives themwarning. The hills are heavily wooded there, and he thinks they haverigged up telephones in the trees. "

There was a short silence. Willy Cameron studied the rug. 

"I had to swear to keep it to ourselves, " Pink said at last. "Cusickwon't let the Federal agents in on it. They've raided him for liquortwice, and he's sick as a poisoned pup. "

"How about the county detectives?"

"You know them. They'll go in and fight like hell when the time comes, but they're likely to gum the game where there's any finesse required. We'd better find out for ourselves first. "

Willy Cameron smiled. 

"What you mean is, that it's too good a thing to throw to the otherfellow. Well, I'm on, if you want me. But I'm no detective. "

Pink had come armed for such surrender. He produced a road map of thecounty and spread it on the desk. 

"Here's the main road to Friendship, " he said, "and here's the road theyuse. But there's another way, back of the hills. Cusick said it was adirt lane, but dry. It's about forty miles by it to a point a mile or sobehind the farm. He says he doesn't think they use that road. It's toofar around. "

"All right, " said Willy Cameron. "We use that road, and get to the farm, and what then? Surrender?"

"Not on your life. We hide in the barn. That's all. "

"That's enough. They'll search the place, automatically. You're talkingsuicide, you know. "

But his mind was working rapidly. He was a country boy, and he knewbarns. There would be other outbuildings, too, probably a number ofthem. The Germans always had plenty of them. And the information was toodetailed to be put aside lightly. 

"When does he think they will meet again?"

"That's the point, " Pink said eagerly. "The family has been all over thetown this morning. It is going on a picnic, and he says those picnics oftheirs last half the night. What he got from the noise they were makingwas that they were raising dust again, and something's on for to-night. "

"They'll leave somebody there. Their stock has to be looked after. "

"This fellow says they drop everything and go. The whole outfit. They'reas busy raising an alibi as the other lot is raising the devil. "

But Willy Cameron was a Scot, and hard-headed. 

"It looks too simple, Pink, " he said reflectively. He sat for some time, filling and lighting his pipe, and considering as he did so. He wasolder than Pink; not much, but he felt extremely mature and veryresponsible. 

"What do we know about Cusick?" he asked, finally. 

"One of the best men we've got. They've fired his place once, and he'skeen to get them. "

"You're anxious to go?"

"I'm going, " said Pink, cheerfully. 

"Then I'd better go along and look after you. But I tell you how I seeit. After I've done that I'll go as far as you like. Either there isnothing to it and we're fools for our pains, or there's a lot to it, and in that case we are a pair of double-distilled lunatics to go therealone. "

Pink laughed joyously. 

Life had been very dull for him since his return from France. He haddone considerable suffering and more thinking than was usual with him, but he had had no action. But behind his boyish zest there was somethingmore, something he hid as he did the fact that he sometimes said hisprayers; a deep and holy thing, that always gave him a lump in histhroat at Retreat, when the flag came slowly down and the long lines ofmen stood at attention. Something he was half ashamed and half proud of, love of his country. 

 * * * * *

At the same time another conversation was going on in the rear room ofa small printing shop in the heart of the city. It went on to theaccompaniment of the rhythmic throb of the presses, and while twoprinters, in their shirt sleeves, kept guard both at the front and rearentrances. 

Doyle sat with his back to the light, and seated across from him, smoking a cheap cigar, was the storekeeper from Friendship, Cusick. In acorner on the table, scowling, sat Louis Akers. 

"I don't know why you're so damned suspicious, Jim, " he was saying. "Cusick says the stall about the Federal agents went all right. "

"Like a house a-fire, " said Cusick, complacently. 

"I think, Akers, " Doyle observed, eyeing his subordinate, "that youare letting your desire to get this Cameron fellow run away with yourjudgment. If we get him and Denslow, there are a hundred ready to taketheir places. "

"Cameron is the brains of the outfit, " Akers said sulkily. 

"How do you know Cameron will go?"

Akers rose lazily and stretched himself. 

"I've got a hunch. That's all. "

A girl came in from the composing room, a bundle of proofs in her hand. With one hand Akers took the sheets from her; with the other he settledhis tie. He smiled down at her. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Ellen was greatly disturbed. At three o'clock that afternoon she foundEdith and announced her intention of going out. 

"I guess you can get the supper for once, " she said ungraciously. 

Edith looked up at her with wistful eyes. 

"I wish you didn't hate me so, Ellen. "

"I don't hate you. " Ellen was slightly mollified. "But when I see youtrying to put your burdens on other people--"

Edith got up then and rather timidly put her arms around Ellen's neck. 

"I love him so, Ellen, " she whispered, "and I'll try so hard to make himhappy. "

Unexpected tears came into Ellen's eyes. She stroked the girl's fairhair. 

"Never mind, " she said. "The Good Man's got a way of fixing things tosuit Himself. And I guess He knows best. We do what it's foreordained wedo, after all. "

Mrs. Boyd was sleeping. Edith went back to her sewing. She had dependedall her life on her mother's needle, and now that that had failed hershe was hastily putting some clothing into repair. In the kitchen nearthe stove the suit she meant to be married in was hung to dry, afterpressing. She was quietly happy. 

Willy Cameron found her there. He told her of Mrs. Davis' death, andthen placed the license on the table at her side. 

"I think it would be better to-morrow, Edith, " he said. He glanced downat the needle in her unaccustomed fingers; she seemed very appealing, with her new task and the new light in her eyes. After all, it was worthwhile, even if it cost a lifetime, to take a soul out of purgatory. 

"I had to tell mother, Willy. "

"That's all right Did it cheer her any?"

"Wonderfully. She's asleep now. "

He went up to his room, and for some time she heard him moving about. Then she heard the scraping of his chair as he drew it to his desk, and vaguely wondered. When he came down he had a sealed envelope in hishand. 

"I am going out, Edith, " he said. "I shall be late getting back, and--Iam going to ask you to do something for me. "

She loved doing things for him. She flushed slightly. 

"If I am not back here by two o'clock to-night, " he said, "I want you toopen that letter and read it. Then go to the nearest telephone, and callup the number I've written down. Ask for the man whose name is given, and read him the message. "

"Willy!" she gasped. "You are doing something dangerous!"

"What I really expect, " he said, smiling down at her, "is to be back, feeling more or less of a fool, by eleven o'clock. I'm providing againstan emergency that will almost surely never happen, and I am depending onthe most trustworthy person I know. "

Very soon after that he went away. She sat for some time after hehad gone, fingering the blank white envelope and wondering, a littlefrightened but very proud of his trust. 

Dan came in and went up the stairs. That reminded her of the dinner, andshe sat down in the kitchen with a pan of potatoes on her knee. As shepared them she sang. She was still singing when Ellen came back. 

Something had happened to Ellen. She stood in the kitchen, her hat stillon, drawing her cotton gloves through her fingers and staring at Edithwithout seeing her. 

"You're not sick, are you, Ellen?"

Ellen put down her gloves and slowly took off her hat, still with theabsorbed eyes of a sleep-walker. 

"I'm not sick, " she said at last. "I've had bad news. "

"Sit down and I'll make you a cup of tea. Then maybe you'll feel liketalking about it. "

"I don't want any tea. Do you know that that man Akers has married LilyCardew?"

"Married her!"

"The devil out of hell that he is. " Ellen's voice was terrible. "Andall the time knowing that you--She's at home, the poor child, andMademoiselle just sat and cried when she told me. It's a secret, " sheadded, fiercely. "You keep your mouth shut about it. She never livedwith him. She left him right off. I wouldn't know it now but theservants were talking about the house being forbidden to him, and I wentstraight to Mademoiselle. I said: 'You keep him away from Miss Lily, because I know something about him. ' It was when I told her that shesaid they were married. "

She went out and up the stairs, moving slowly and heavily. Edith satstill, the pan on her knee, and thought. Did Willy know? Was that why hewas willing to marry her? She was swept with bitter jealousy, and addedto that came suspicion. Something very near the truth flashed into hermind and stayed there. In her bitterness she saw Willy telling Lily ofAkers and herself, and taking her away, or having her taken. It musthave been something like that, or why had she left him?

But her anger slowly subsided; in the end she began to feel that the newsituation rendered her own position more secure, even justified herown approaching marriage. Since Lily was gone, why should she not marryWilly Cameron? If what Ellen had said was true she knew him well enoughto know that he would deliberately strangle his love for Lily. If itwere true, and if he knew it. 

She moved about the kitchen, making up the fire, working automaticallyin that methodless way that always set Ellen's teeth on edge, andthinking. But subconsciously she was listening, too. She had heard Dango into his mother's room and close the door. She was bracing herselfagainst his coming down. 

Dan was difficult those days, irritable and exacting. Moody, too, andmuch away from home. He hated idleness at its best, and the strike wasidleness at its worst. Behind the movement toward the general strike, too, he felt there was some hidden and sinister influence at work, aninfluence that was determined to turn what had commenced as a labormovement into a class uprising. 

That very afternoon, for the first time, he had heard whispered thephrase: "when the town goes dark. " There was a diabolical suggestion init that sent him home with his fists clenched. 

He did not go to his mother's room at once. Instead, he drew a chair tohis window and sat there staring out on the little street. When the townwent dark, what about all the little streets like this one?

After an hour or so of ominous quiet Edith heard him go into hismother's room. Her hands trembled as she closed her door. 

She heard him coming down at last, and suddenly remembering the license, hid it in a drawer. She knew that he would destroy it if he saw it. AndDan's face justified the move. He came in and stood glowering at her, his hands in his pockets. 

"What made you tell that lie to mother?" he demanded. 

"She was worried, Dan. And it will be true to-morrow. You--Dan, youdidn't tell her it was a lie, did you?"

"I should have, but I didn't. What do you mean, it will be trueto-morrow?"

"We are going to be married to-morrow. "

"I'll lock you up first, " he said, angrily. "I've been expectingsomething like that. I've watched you, and I've seen you watching him. You'll not do it, do you hear? D'you think I'd let you get away withthat? Isn't it enough that he's got to support us, without your coaxinghim to marry you?"

She made no reply, but went on with a perfunctory laying of the table. Her mouth had gone very dry. 

"The poor fish, " Dan snarled. "I thought he had some sense. Lettinghimself in for a nice life, isn't he? We're not his kind, and you knowit. He knows more in a minute than you'll know all your days. In aboutthree months he'll hate the very sight of you, and then where'll yoube?"

When she made no reply, he called to the dog and went out into the yard. She saw him there, brooding and sullen, and she knew that he had notfinished. He would say no more to her, but he would wait and have it outwith Willy himself. 

Supper was silent. No one ate much, and Ellen, coming down with thetray, reported Mrs. Boyd as very tired, and wanting to settle downearly. 

"She looks bad to me, " she said to Edith. "I think the doctor ought tosee her. "

"I'll go and send him. "

Edith was glad to get out of the house. She had avoided the streetslately, but as it was the supper hour the pavements were empty. OnlyJoe Wilkinson, bare-headed, stood in the next doorway, and smiled andflushed slightly when he saw her. 

"How's your mother?" he asked. 

"She's not so well. I'm going to get the doctor. "

"Do you mind if I get my hat and walk there with you?"

"I'm going somewhere else from there, Joe. "

"Well, I'll walk a block or two, anyhow. "

She waited impatiently. She liked Joe, but she did not want him then. She wanted to think and plan alone and in the open air, away from thelittle house with its odors and its querulous thumping cane upstairs;away from Ellen's grim face and Dan's angry one. 

He came out almost immediately, followed by a string of littleWilkinsons, clamoring to go along. 

"Do you mind?" he asked her. "They can trail along behind. The poor kidsdon't get out much. "

"Bring them along, of course, " she said, somewhat resignedly. And with aflash of her old spirit: "I might have brought Jinx, too. Then we'd havehad a real procession. "

They moved down the street, with five little Wilkinsons trailing alongbehind, and Edith was uncomfortably aware that Joe's eyes were upon her. 

"You don't look well, " he said at last. "You're wearing yourself outtaking care of your mother, Edith. "

"I don't do much for her. "

"You'd say that, of course. You're very unselfish. "

"Am I?" She laughed a little, but the words touched her. "Don't thinkI'm better than I am, Joe. "

"You're the most wonderful girl in the world. I guess you know how Ifeel about that. "

"Don't Joe!"

But at that moment a very little Wilkinson fell headlong and burst intoloud, despairing wails. Joe set her on her feet, brushed her down witha fatherly hand, and on her refusal to walk further picked her up andcarried her. The obvious impossibility of going on with what he had beensaying made him smile sheepishly. 

"Can you beat it?" he said helplessly, "these darn kids--!" But he heldthe child close. 

At the next corner he turned toward home. Edith stopped and watched hisvaliant young back, his small train of followers. He was going to bevery sad when he knew, poor Joe, with his vicarious fatherhood, hiscluttered, noisy, anxious life. 

Life was queer. Queer and cruel. 

From the doctor's office, the waiting room lined with patient figures, she went on. She had a very definite plan in mind, but it took allher courage to carry it through. Outside the Benedict Apartments shehesitated, but she went in finally, upheld by sheer determination. 

The chair at the telephone desk was empty, but Sam remembered her. 

"He's out, miss, " he said. "He's out most all the time now, with theelection coming on. "

"What time does he usually get in?"

"Sometimes early, sometimes late, " said Sam, watching her. Everythingpertaining to Louis Akers was of supreme interest those days to theBenedict employees. The beating he had received, the coming election, the mysterious young woman who had come but once, and the black daysthat had followed his return from the St. Elmo--out of such patchworkthey were building a small drama of their own. Sam was trying to fit inEdith's visit with the rest. 

The Benedict was neither more moral nor less than its kind. Anunwritten law kept respectable women away, but the management showed noinclination to interfere where there was no noise or disorder. Employeeswere supposed to see that no feminine visitors remained after midnight, that was all. 

"You might go up and wait for him, " Sam suggested. "That is, if it'simportant. "

"It's very important. "

He threw open the gate of the elevator hospitably. 

At half past ten that night Louis Akers went back to his rooms. Thetelephone girl watched him sharply as he entered. 

"There's a lady waiting for you, Mr. Akers. "

He swung toward her eagerly. 

"A lady? Did she give any name?"

"No. Sam let her in and took her up. He said he thought you wouldn'tmind. She'd been here before. "

The thought of Edith never entered Akers' head. It was Lily, Lilymiraculously come back to him. Lily, his wife. 

Going up in the elevator he hastily formulated a plan of action. Hewould not be too ready to forgive; she had cost him too much. But in theend he would take her in his arms and hold her close. Lily! Lily!

It was the bitterness of his disappointment that made him brutal. Wickedand unscrupulous as he was with men, with women he was as gentle as hewas cruel. He put them from him relentlessly and kissed them good-by. Itwas his boast that any one of them would come back to him if he wantedher. 

Edith, listening for his step, was startled at the change in his facewhen he saw her. 

"You!" he said thickly. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been waiting all evening. I want to ask you something. "

He flung his hat into a chair and faced her. 

"Well?"

"Is it true that you are married to Lily Cardew?"

"If I am, what are you going to do about it?" His eyes were wary, buthis color was coming back. He was breathing more easily. 

"I only heard it to-day. I must know, Lou. It's awfully important. "

"What did you hear?" He was watching her closely. 

"I heard you were married, but that she had left you. "

It seemed to him incredible that she had come there to taunt him, shewho was responsible for the shipwreck of his marriage. That she couldcome there and face him, and not expect him to kill her where she stood. 

He pulled himself together. 

"It's true enough. " He swore under his breath. "She didn't leave me. Shewas taken away. And I'll get her back if I--You little fool, I ought tokill you. If you wanted a cheap revenge, you've got it. "

"I don't want revenge, Lou. "

He caught her by the arm. 

"Then what brought you here?"

"I wanted to be sure Lily Cardew was married. "

"Well, she is. What about it?"

"That's all. "

"That's not all. What about it?"

She looked up at him gravely. 

"Because, if she is, I am going to marry Mr. Cameron tomorrow. " At thesight of his astounded face she went on hastily: "He knows, Lou, and heoffered anyhow. "

"And what, " he said slowly, "has my wife to do with that?"

"I wanted to be fair to him. And I think he is--I think he used to beterribly in love with her. "

Quite apart from his increasing fear of Willy Cameron and his Committee, there had been in Akers for some time a latent jealousy of him. In aflash he saw the room at the Saint Elmo, and a cold-eyed man inside thedoorway. The humiliation of that scene had never left him, of his ownmaudlin inadequacy, of hearing from beyond a closed and locked door, theclosing of another door behind Lily and the man who had taken her awayfrom him. A mad anger and jealousy made him suddenly reckless. 

"So, " he said, "he is terribly in love with my wife, and he intends tomarry you. That's--interesting. Because, my sweet child, he's got a damnpoor chance of marrying you, or anybody. "

"Lou!"

"Listen, " he said deliberately. "Men who stick their heads into thelion's jaws are apt to lose them. Our young friend Cameron has donethat. I'll change the figure. When a man tries to stop a great machineby putting his impudent fingers into the cog wheels, the man's a fool. He may lose his hand, or he may lose his life. "

Fortunately for Edith he moved on that speech to the side table, andmixed himself a highball. It gave her a moment to summon her scatteredwits, to decide on a plan of action. Her early training on the streets, her recent months of deceit, helped her now. If he had expected anyoutburst from her it did not come. 

"If you mean that he is in danger, I don't believe it. "

"All right, old girl. I've told you. "

But the whiskey restored his equilibrium again. 

"That is, " he added slowly, "I've warned you. You'd better warn him. He's doing his best to get into trouble. "

She knew him well, saw the craftiness come back into his eyes, and metit with equal strategy. 

"I'll tell him, " she said, moving toward the door. "You haven't scaredme for a minute and you won't scare him. You and your machine!"

She dared not seem to hurry. 

"You're a boaster, " she said, with the door open. "You always were. And you'll never lay a hand on him. You're like all bullies; you're acoward!"

She was through the doorway by that time, and in terror for fear, havingtold her so much, he would try to detain her. She saw the idea come intohis face, too, just as she slipped outside. He made a move toward her. 

"I think--" he began. 

She slammed the door and ran down the hallway toward the stairs. Sheheard him open the door and come out into the hall, but she was well inadvance and running like a deer. 

"Edith!" he called. 

She stumbled on the second flight of stairs and fell a half-dozen steps, but she picked herself up and ran on. At the bottom of the lower flightshe stopped and listened, but he had gone back. She heard the slam ofhis door as he closed it. 

But the insistent need of haste drove her on, headlong. She shot throughthe lobby, past the staring telephone girl, and into the street, andthere settled down into steady running, her elbows close to her sides, trying to remember to breathe slowly and evenly. She must get homesomehow, get the envelope and follow the directions inside. Her thoughtsraced with her. It was almost eleven o'clock and Willy had been gone forhours. She tried to pray, but the words did not come. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

At something after seven o'clock that night Willy Cameron and PinkDenslow reached that point on the Mayville Road which had beendesignated by the storekeeper, Cusick. They left the car there, hiddenin a grove, and struck off across country to the west. Willy Cameronhad been thoughtful for some time, and as they climbed a low hill, goingwith extreme caution, he said:

"I'm still skeptical about Cusick, Pink. Do you think he's straight?"

"One of the best men we've got, " Pink replied, confidently. "He's put uson to several things. "

"He's foreign born, isn't he?"

"That's his value. They don't suspect him for a minute. "

"But--what does he get out of it?"

"Good citizen, " said Pink, with promptness. "You've got to remember, Cameron, that a lot of these fellows are better Americans than we are. They're like religious converts, stronger than the ones born in thefold. They're Americans because they want to be. Anyhow, you ought to bestrong for him, Cameron. He said to tell you, but no one else. "

"I'll tell you how strong I am for him later, " Willy Cameron said, grimly. "Just at this minute I'm waiting to be shown. "

They advanced with infinite caution, for the evening was still light. Going slowly, it was well after eight and fairly dark before they camewithin sight of the farm buildings in the valley below. Long unpainted, they were barely discernable in the shadows of the hills. The landaround had been carefully cleared, and both men were dismayed at thedifficulty of access without being seen. 

"Doesn't look very good, does it?" Pink observed. "I will say this, forseclusion and keeping away unwanted visitors, it has it all over anydug-out I ever saw in France. "

"Listen!" Willy Cameron said, tensely. 

They stood on the alert, but only the evening sounds of country andforest rewarded them. 

"What was it?" Pink inquired, after perhaps two minutes of waiting. 

"Plain scare on my part, probably. I don't so much mind this littleexcursion, Pink, as I hate the idea that a certain gentleman namedCusick may have a chance to come to our funerals and laugh himself todeath. "

When real darkness had fallen, they had reached the lower fringe of thewoods. Pink had the fault of the city dweller, however, of being unableto step lightly in the dark, and their progress had been less silentthan it should have been. In spite of his handicap, Willy Cameron madehis way with the instinctive knowledge of the country bred boy, treadinglike a cat. 

"Pretty poor, " Pink said in a discouraged whisper, after a twig hadburst under his foot with a report like the shot of a pistol. "Youtravel like a spook, while I--"

"Listen, Pink. I'm going in alone to look around. Stop muttering andlisten to me. It's poor strategy not to have a reserve somewhere, isn'tit?"

"I'm a poor prune at the best, " Pink said stubbornly, "but I am notgoing to let you go into that place alone. You can rave all you want. "

"Very well. Then we'll both stay here. You are about as quiet as a horsegoing through a corn patch. "

After some moments Pink spoke again. 

"If you insist on stealing the whole show, " he said, sulkily, "what am Ito do? Run to town for help, if you need it?"

"I'm not going to round up the outfit, if there is one. I haven't lostmy mind. I'll see what is going on, or about to go on. Then I'll comeback. "

"Here?"

Cameron considered. 

"Better meet at the machine, " he decided, after a glance at the sky. "Inhalf an hour you won't be able to see your hand in front of you. Waithere for a half-hour or so, and then start back, and for heaven's sakedon't shoot at anything you see moving. As a matter of fact, I mightas well have your revolver. I won't need it, but it may avoid anyaccidental shooting by a youth I both love and admire!"

"If I hear any shooting, I'll come in, " Pink said, still sulky. 

"Come in and welcome, " said Willy Cameron, and Pink knew he was smiling. 

He took the revolver and slipped away into the darkness, leaving Pinkboth melancholy and disturbed. Unaccustomed to night in the woods, hefound his nerves twitching at every sound. In the war there had been adefinite enemy, definitely placed. Even when he had gone into that vilestrip between the trenches, there had been a general direction for theinimical. Here--

He moved carefully, and stood with his back against a tree. 

Not a sound came from the farm buildings. Willy Cameron's progress, too, was noiseless. With no way to tell the lapse of time, and gauging it byhis war experience, when an hour had apparently passed by, he knew thatCameron had been gone about ten minutes. 

Time dragged on. A cow, unmilked, lowed plaintively once or twice. ASeptember night breeze set the dying leaves on the trees to rustling, and stirred the dried ones about his feet. Pink's mind, graduallyreassured, turned to other things. He thought of Lily Cardew, for one. Like Willy Cameron, he knew he would always love her, but unlike Willy, the first pain of her loss was gone. He was glad that time was over. He was glad that she was at home again, safe from those--Some one wasmoving near him, passing within twenty feet. Whoever it was was steppingcautiously but blunderingly. It was not Cameron, then. He was a footfallonly, not even an outline. Before Pink could decide on a line of action, the sound was lost. 

Every sense acute, he waited. He had decided that if the incident wererepeated, he would make an effort to get the fellow from behind, butthere was no return. The wind had died again, and there was no longereven the rustling of the leaves to break the utter stillness. 

Suddenly he saw a red flash near the barn, and an instant later heardthe report of a pistol. Came immediately after that a brief fusillade ofshots, a pause, then two or three scattering ones. 

With the first shot Pink started running. He was vaguely conscious ofother steps near him, running also, but he could see nothing. His wholemind was set on finding Willy Cameron. Alone he had not a chance, buttwo of them together could put up a fight. He pelted along, stumbling, recovering, stumbling again. 

Another shot was fired. They hadn't got him yet, or they wouldn't beshooting. He raised his voice in a great call. 

"Cameron! Here! Cameron!"

He ran into a low fence then, and it threw him. He had hardly got tohis knees before the other running figure had hurled itself on him, andstruck him with the butt of a revolver. He dropped flat and lay still. 

 * * * * *

For weeks Woslosky had known of the growing strength of the VigilanceCommittee, and that it was arming steadily. 

It threatened absolutely the success of his plans. Even the election ofAkers and the changes he would make in the city police; even the ruseof other strikes and machine-made riotings to call away the statetroops, --none of these, or all of them, would be effectual against anorganized body of citizens, duly called to the emergency. 

And such an organization was already effected. Within a week, when thefirst card reached his hands, it had grown to respectable proportions. Woslosky went to Doyle, and they made their counter-moves quickly. Nomore violence. A seemingly real but deceptive orderliness. They weredealing with inflammatory material, however, and now and then it gotout of hand. Unlike Doyle the calculating, who made each move slowly andwatched its results with infinite zest, the Pole chafed under delay. 

"We can't hold them much longer, " he complained, bitterly. "This thingof holding them off until after the election--and until Akers takesoffice--it's got too many ifs in it. "

"It was haste lost Seattle, " said Doyle, as unmoved as Woslosky wasexcited. 

Woslosky did not like Louis Akers. What was more important, hedistrusted him. When he heard of his engagement to Lily Cardew he warnedDoyle about him. 

"He's in this thing for what he can get out of it, " he said. "He'll goas far as he can, with safety, to be accepted by the Cardews. "

"Exactly, " was Doyle's dry comment, "with safety, you said. Well, heknows you and he knows me, and he'll he straight because he's afraid notto be. "

"When there's a woman in it!" said the Pole, skeptically. 

But Doyle only smiled. He had known many women and loved none of them, and he was temperamentally unable to understand the type of man who sawthe world through a woman's eyes and in them. 

So Woslosky was compelled to watch the growth of Willy Cameron'sorganization, and to hold in check the violent passions he had himselfroused, and to wait, gnawing his nails with inaction and his heart withrage. But these certain things he discovered:

That the organization's growth was coincident with a new interest inlocal politics, as though some vital force had wakened the plain peopleto a sense of responsibility. 

That a drug clerk named Cameron was the founder and moving spirit of theleague, and that he was, using Hendricks' candidacy as a means, rousingthe city to a burning patriotic activity that Mr. Woslosky regarded asextremely pernicious. 

And that this same Willy Cameron had apparently a knowledge of certainplans, which was rather worse than pernicious. Mr. Woslosky's name forit was damnable. 

For instance, there were the lists of the various city stores and theirestimated contents, missing from Mr. Woslosky's own inconspicuous trunkin a storage house. On that had been based the plan for feeding therevolution, by the simple expedient of exchanging by organized pillagethe contents of the city stores for food stuffs from the farmers inoutlying districts. 

Revolution, according to Mr. Woslosky, could only be starved out. He hadno anxiety as to troops which would be sent against them, because he hada cynical belief that a man's country was less to him than various otherthings, including his stomach. He believed that all armies were riddledwith sedition and fundamentally opposed to law. 

Copies of other important matters, too, were missing. Lists of officialsfor the revolutionary city government and of deputies to take the placesof the disbanded police, plans for manning, by the radicals, the citylight, water and power plants; a schedule of public eating houses totake the place of the restaurants. 

Woslosky began to find this drug clerk with the ridiculous given namegetting on his nerves. He considered him a dangerous enemy to progress, that particular form of progress which Mr. Woslosky advocated, andhe suspected him of a lack of ethics regarding trunks in storage. Mr. Woslosky had the old-world idea that the best government was a despotismtempered by assassination. He thought considerably about Willy Cameron. 

But the plan concerning the farm house was, in the end, devised by LouisAkers. Woslosky was skeptical. It was true that Cameron might stick hishead into the lion's jaws, but precautions had been known to be taken atsuch times to prevent their closing. However, the Pole was desperate. 

He took six picked men with him that afternoon to the farm, and made astrategic survey of the situation. The house was closed and locked, but he was not concerned with the house. Cusick had told Denslow themeetings were held late at night in the barn, and to the barn Wosloskyrepaired, sawed-off shotgun under his coat and cigarette in mouth, andinspected it with his evil smile. Two men, young and reckless, mighteasily plan to conceal themselves under the hay in the loft, and--

Woslosky put down his gun and went down into the cow barn below, whistling softly to himself. He began to enjoy the prospect. He gatheredsome eggs from the feed boxes, carrying them in his hat, and breakingthe lock of the kitchen door he and his outfit looted the closetthere and had an early supper, being careful to extinguish the fireafterwards. 

Not until dusk was falling did he post his men, three outside amongthe outbuildings, one as a sentry near the woods, and two in the barnitself. He himself took up his station inside the barn door, sitting onthe floor with his gun across his knees. Looking out from there, he sawthe sharp flash of a hastily extinguished match, and snarled with anger. He had forbidden smoking. 

"I've got to go out, " he said cautiously. "Don't you fools shoot me whenI come back. "

He slipped out into what was by that time complete blackness. 

Some five minutes later he came back, still noiselessly, and treadinglike a cat. He could only locate the barn door by feeling for it, andabove the light scraping of his fingers he could hear, inside, cautiousfootsteps over the board floor. He scowled again. Damn this countryquiet, anyhow! But he had found the doorway, and was feeling his waythrough when he found himself caught and violently thrown. The falland the surprise stunned him. He lay still for an infuriated helplesssecond, with a knee on his chest and both arms tightly held, to hear oneof his own men above him saying:

"Got him, all right. Woslosky, you've got the rope, haven't you?"

"You fool!" snarled Woslosky from the floor, "let me up. You've halfkilled me. Didn't I tell you I was going out?"

He scrambled to his feet, and to an astounded silence. 

"But you came in a couple of minutes ago. Somebody came in. You heardhim, Cusick, didn't you?"

Woslosky whirled and closed and fastened the barn doors, and almost withthe same movement drew a searchlight and flashed it over the place. Itwas apparently empty. 

The Pole burst into blasphemous anger, punctuated with sharp questions. Both men had heard the cautious entrance they had taken for his own, both men had remained silent and unsuspicious, and both were positivewhoever had come in had not gone out again. 

He stationed one man at the door, and commenced a merciless search. Thesummer's hay filled one end, but it was closely packed below and offeredno refuge. Armed with the shotgun, and with the flash in his pocket, Woslosky climbed the ladder to the loft, going softly. He listened atthe top, and then searched it with the light, holding it far to the leftfor a possible bullet. The loft was empty. He climbed into it and walkedover it, gun in one hand and flash in the other, searching for someburied figure. But there was nothing. The loft was fragrant with thenewly dried hay, sweet and empty. Woslosky descended the ladder again, the flash extinguished, and stood again on the barn floor, considering. Cusick was a man without imagination, and he had sworn that some one hadcome in. Then--

Suddenly there was a whirr of wings outside and above, excitedflutterings first, and then a general flight of the pigeons who roostedon the roof. Woslosky listened and slowly smiled. 

"We've got him, boys, " he said, without excitement. "Outside, and callthe others. He's on the roof. "

Cusick whistled shrilly, and as the Pole ran out he met the otherscoming pell-mell toward him. He flung a guard of all five of them aroundthe barn, and himself walked off a hundred feet or so and gazed upward. The very outline of the ridge pole was indistinguishable, and he sworesoftly. In the hope of drawing an answering flash he fired, but withoutresult. The explosion echoed and reechoed, died away. 

He called to Cusick, and had him try the same experiment, following theline of the gutter as nearly as possible in the darkness, on that side, and emptying his revolver. Still silence. 

Woslosky began to doubt. The pigeons might have seen his flashlight, might have heard his own stealthy movements. He was intensely irritated. The shooting, if the alarm had been false, had ruined everything. Hesaw, as in a vision, Doyle's sneering face when he told him. Beside himCusick was reloading his revolver in the darkness. 

Then, out of the night, came a call from the direction of the woods, andunintelligible at that distance. 

"What's that?" Cusick said hoarsely. 

Woslosky made no reply. He was listening. Some one was approaching, nowrunning, now stopping as though confused. Woslosky held his gun ready, and waited. Then, from a distance, he heard his name called. 

He stepped inside the door of the barn and showed the light for amoment. Soon after the sentry floundered in, breathless and excited. 

"I got one of them, " he gasped. "Hit him with my gun. He's lying back bythe stone fence. "

"Did you call out, or did he?"

"He did. That's how I knew it wasn't one of our fellows. He calledCameron, so he's the other one. "

Woslosky drew a deep breath. Then it was Cameron on the roof. It wasCameron they wanted. 

"He'll sleep for an hour or two, if he ever wakes up, " Pink's assailantboasted. But Woslosky was taking no chances that night. He sent two menafter Pink, and began to pace the floor thoughtfully. If he could havewaited for daylight it would have been simple enough, but he did notknow how much time he had. He did not underestimate young Cameron'sintelligence, and it had occurred to him that that young Scot mightcannily have provided against his failure to return. Then, too, thestate constabulary had an uncomfortable habit of riding lonely backroads at night, and shots could be heard a long distance off. 

He had never surveyed the barn roof closely, but he knew that it wassteeply pitched. Cameron, then, was probably braced somewhere in thegutter. The departure of the two men had left him short-handed, and hewaited impatiently for their return. With a ladder, provided it could bequietly placed, a man could shoot from a corner along two sides of theroof. With two ladders, at diagonal corners, they could get him. But acareful search discovered no ladders on the place. 

He went out, and standing close against the wall for protection, calledup. 

"We know you're there, Cameron, " he said. "If you come down we won'thurt you. If you don't, we'll get you, and you know it. "

But he received no reply. 

Soon after that the two men carried in Pink Denslow, and laid him on thefloor of the barn. Then Woslosky tried again, more reckless this timewith anger. He stood out somewhat from the wall and called:

"One more chance, Cameron, or we'll put a bullet through your friendhere. Come down, or we'll--"

Something struck him heavily and he fell, with a bullet in the shoulder. He struggled to his feet and gained the shelter of the wall, his facetwisted with pain. 

"All right, " he said, "if that's the way you feel about it!"

He regained the barn and had his arm supported in an extemporized sling. Then he ordered Pink to be tied, and fighting down his pain consideredthe situation. Cameron was on the roof, and armed. Even if he had noextra shells he still had five shots in reserve, and he would not wasteany of them. Whoever tried to scale the walls would be done in at once;whoever attempted to follow him to the roof by way of the loft wouldbe shot instantly. And his own condition demanded haste; the bullet, striking from above, had broken his arm. Every movement was torture. 

He thought of setting fire to the barn. Then Cameron would have thechoice of two things, to surrender or to be killed. He might get some ofthem first, however. Well, that was a part of the game. 

He delivered a final ultimatum from the shelter of the doorway. 

"I've just thought of something, Cameron, " he called. "We're going tofire the barn. Your young friend is here, tied, and we'll leave himhere. Do you get that? Either throw down that gun of yours, and comedown, or I'm inclined to think you'll be up against it. I'll give you aminute or so to think it over. "

At half-past eleven o'clock that night the first of four automobilesdrove into Friendship. It was driven by a hatless young man in araincoat over a suit of silk pajamas, and it contained four Countydetectives and the city Chief of Police. Behind it, but welloutdistanced, came the other cars, some of them driven by leadingcitizens in a state of considerable deshabille. 

At a cross street in Friendship the lead car drew up, and flashlightswere turned on a road map in the rear of the car. There was someargument over the proper road, and a member of the state constabulary, riding up to investigate, showed a strong inclination to place themunder arrest. 

It took a moment to put him right. 

"Wish I could go along, " he said, wistfully. "The place you want is backthere. I can't leave the town, but I'll steer you out. You'll probablyrun into some of our fellows back there. "

He rode on ahead, his big black horse restive in the light from thelamps behind him. At the end of a lane he stopped. 

"Straight ahead up there, " he said. "You'll find--"

He broke off and stared ahead to where a dull red glare, reflected onthe low hanging clouds, had appeared over the crest of the hill. 

"Something doing up there, " he called suddenly. "Let's go. "

He jerked his revolver free, dug his heels into the flanks of his horse, and was off on a dead run. Half way up the hill the car passed him, theblack going hard, and its rider's face, under the rim of his uniformhat, a stern profile. His reins lay loose on the animal's neck, and hewas examining his gun. 

The road mounted to a summit, and dipped again. They were in a longvalley, and the burning barn was clearly outlined at the far end of it. One side was already flaming, and tongues of fire leaped out through theroof. The men in the car were standing now, doors open, ready to leap, while the car lurched and swayed over the uneven road. Behind them theyheard the clatter of the oncoming horse. 

As they drew nearer they could see three watching figures against theburning building, and as they turned into the lane which led to thebarnyard a shot rang out and one of the figures dropped and lay still. There was a cry of warning from somewhere, and before the detectivescould leap from the car, the group had scattered, running wildly. Thestate policeman threw his horse back on its hunches, and fired withoutapparently taking aim at one of the running shadows. The man threw uphis arms and fell. The state policeman galloped toward him, dismountedand bent over him. 

Firing as they ran, detectives leaped out of the car and gave chase, and so it was that the young gentleman in bedroom slippers and pajamas, standing in his car and shielding his eyes against the glare, saw acurious thing. 

First of all, the roof blazed up brightly, and he perceived a humanfigure, hanging by its hands from the eaves and preparing to drop. Theyoung gentleman in pajamas was feeling rather out of things by thattime, so he made a hasty exit from his car toward the barn, losing aslipper as he did so, and yelling in a slightly hysterical manner. Itthus happened that he and the dropping figure reached the same spot atalmost the same moment, one result of which was that the young gentlemanin pajamas found himself struck a violent blow with a doubled-up fist, and at the same moment his bare right foot was tramped on with extremethoroughness. 

The young gentleman in pajamas reeled back dizzily and gave tongue, while standing on one foot. The person he addressed was the stateconstable, and his instructions were to get the fugitive and kill him. But the fugitive here did a very strange thing. Through the handkerchiefwhich it was now seen he wore tied over his mouth, he told the runningpoliceman to go to perdition, and then with seeming suicidal intentrushed into the burning barn. From it he emerged a moment later, dragging a figure bound hand and foot, blackened with smoke, and withits clothing smoldering in a dozen places; a figure which alternatelycoughed and swore in a strangled whisper, but which found breath fora loud whoop almost immediately after, on its being immersed, as itpromptly was, in a nearby horse-trough. 

Very soon after that the other cars arrived. They drew up and menemerged from them, variously clothed and even more variously armed, butall they saw was the ruined embers of the barn, and in the glowfive figures. Of the five one lay, face up to the sky, as though theprostrate body followed with its eyes the unkillable traitor soul ofone Cusick, lately storekeeper at Friendship. Woslosky, wounded forthe second time, lay on an automobile rug on the ground, consciousbut sullenly silent. On the driving seat of an automobile sat a younggentleman with an overcoat over a pair of silk pajamas, carefullyinspecting the toes of his right foot by the light of a match, whileanother young gentleman with a white handkerchief around his head wassitting on the running board of the same car, dripping water and ratherdazedly staring at the ruins. 

And beside him stood a gaunt figure, blackened of face, minus eyebrowsand charred of hair, and considerably torn as to clothing. A figurewhich seemed disinclined to talk, and which gave its explanationsin short, staccato sentences. Having done which, it relapsed intouncompromising silence again. 

Some time later the detectives returned. They had made no furthercaptures, for the refugees had known the country, and once outside thelight from the burning barn search was useless. The Chief of Policeapproached Willy Cameron and stood before him, eyeing him severely. 

"The next time you try to raid an anarchist meeting, Cameron, " he said, "you'd better honor me with your confidence. You've probably learned alesson from all this. "

Willy Cameron glanced at him, and for the first time that night, smiled. 

"I have, " he said; "I'll never trust a pigeon again. " The Chief thoughthim slightly unhinged by the night's experience. 

CHAPTER XL

Edith Boyd's child was prematurely born at the Memorial Hospital earlythe next morning. It lived only a few moments, but Edith's mother neverknew either of its birth or of its death. 

When Willy Cameron reached the house at two o'clock that night he foundDan in the lower hall, a new Dan, grave and composed but very pale. 

"Mother's gone, Willy, " he said quietly. "I don't think she knewanything about it. Ellen heard her breathing hard and went in, but shewasn't conscious. " He sat down on the horse-hair covered chair by thestand. "I don't know anything about these things, " he observed, stillwith that strange new composure. "What do you do now?"

"Don't worry about that, Dan, just now. There's nothing to do untilmorning. "

He looked about him. The presence of death gave a new dignity to thelittle house. Through the open door he could see in the parlor Mrs. Boyd's rocking chair, in which she had traveled so many conversationalmiles. Even the chair had gained dignity; that which it had onceenthroned had now penetrated the ultimate mystery. 

He was shaken and very weary. His mind worked slowly and torpidly, sothat even grief came with an effort. He was grieved; he knew that. Someone who had loved him and depended on him was gone; some one who lovedlife had lost it. He ran his hand over his singed hair. 

"Where is Edith?"

Dan's voice hardened. 

"She's out somewhere. It's like her, isn't it?"

Willy Cameron roused himself. 

"Out?" he said incredulously. "Don't you know where she is?"

"No. And I don't care. "

Willy Cameron was fully alert now, and staring down at Dan. 

"I'll tell you something, Dan. She probably saved my life to-night. I'lltell you how later. And if she is still out there is something wrong. "

"She used to stay out to all hours. She hasn't done it lately, but Ithought--"

Dan got up and reached for his hat. 

"Where'll I start to look for her?"

But Willy Cameron had no suggestion to make. He was trying to thinkstraight, but it was not easy. He knew that for some reason Edith hadnot waited until midnight to open the envelope. She had telephoned hermessage clearly, he had learned, but with great excitement, saying thatthere was a plot against his life, and giving the farmhouse and themessage he had left in full; and she had not rung off until she knewthat a posse would start at once. And that had been before eleveno'clock. 

Three hours. He looked at his watch. Either she had been hurt or wasa prisoner, or--he came close to the truth then. He glanced at Dan, standing hat in hand. 

"We'll try the hospitals first, Dan, " he said. "And the best way to dothat is by telephone. I don't like Ellen being left alone here, so you'dbetter let me do that. "

Dan acquiesced unwillingly. He resumed his seat in the hail, and WillyCameron went upstairs. Ellen was moving softly about, setting in orderthe little upper room. The windows were opened, and through them camethe soft night wind, giving a semblance of life and movement under it tothe sheet that covered the quiet figure on the bed. 

Willy Cameron stood by it and looked down, with a great wave ofthankfulness in his heart. She had been saved much, and if from some newangle she was seeing them now it would be with the vision of eternity, and its understanding. She would see how sometimes the soul must losehere to gain beyond. She would see the world filled with its Ediths, andshe would know that they too were a part of the great plan, and that thebreaking of the body sometimes freed the soul. 

He was shy of the forms of religion, but he voiced a small inarticulateprayer, standing beside the bed while Ellen straightened the few toiletarticles on the dresser, that she might have rest, and then a long andplacid happiness. And love, he added. There would be no Heaven withoutlove. 

Ellen was looking at him in the mirror. 

"Your hair looks queer, Willy, " she said. "And I declare your clothesare a sight. " She turned, sternly. "Where have you been?"

"It's a long story, Ellen. Don't bother about it now. I'm worried aboutEdith. "

Ellen's lips closed in a grim line. 

"The less said about her the better. She came back in a terrible stateabout something or other, ran in and up to your room, and out again. Itried to tell her her mother wasn't so well, but she looked as if shedidn't hear me. "

It was four o'clock in the morning when Willy Cameron located Edith. Hehad gone to the pharmacy and let himself in, intending to telephone, but the card on the door, edged with black, gave him a curious senseof being surrounded that night by death, and he stood for a moment, unwilling to begin for fear of some further tragedy. In that moment, what with reaction from excitement and weariness, he had a feelingof futility, of struggling to no end. One fought on, and in the lastanalysis it was useless. 

"So soon passeth it away, and we are gone. "

He saw Mr. Davis, sitting alone in his house; he saw Ellen moving aboutthat quiet upper room; he saw Cusick lying on the ground beside thesmoldering heap that had been the barn, and staring up with eyes thatsaw only the vast infinity that was the sky. All the struggling and thefighting, and it came to that. 

He picked up the telephone book at last, and finding the hospital listin the directory began his monotonous calling of numbers, and still therevolt was in his mind. Even life lay through the gates of death; dailyand hourly women everywhere laid down their lives that some new soul beborn. But the revulsion came with that, a return to something nearer thenormal. Daily and hourly women lived, having brought to pass the miracleof life. 

At half-past four he located Edith at the Memorial, and learned that herchild had been born dead, but that she was doing well. He was suddenlyexhausted; he sat down on a stool before the counter, and with his armsacross it and his head on them, fell almost instantly asleep. When hewaked it was almost seven and the intermittent sounds of early morningcame through the closed doors, as though the city stirred but had notwakened. 

He went to the door and opened it, looking out. He had been wrongbefore. Death was a beginning and not an end; it was the morning of thespirit. Tired bodies lay down to sleep and their souls wakened to themorning, rested; the first fruits of them that slept. 

From the chimneys of the houses nearby small spirals of smoke began toascend, definite promise of food and morning cheer behind the closeddoors, where the milk bottles stood like small white sentinels and themorning paper was bent over the knob. Morning in the city, with childrensearching for lost stockings and buttoning little battered shoes; withwomen hurrying about, from stove to closet, from table to stove; withall burdens a little lighter and all thoughts a little kinder. Morning. 

CHAPTER XLI

In her bed in the maternity ward Edith at first lay through the days, watching the other women with their babies, and wondering over thestrange instinct that made them hover, like queer mis-shaped ministeringangels, over the tiny quivering bundles. Some of them were like herself, or herself as she might have been, bearing their children out ofwedlock. Yet they faced their indefinite futures impassively, contentin relief from pain, in the child in their arms, in present peace andsecurity. She could not understand. 

She herself felt no sense of loss. Having never held her child in herarms she did not feel them empty. 

She had not been told of her mother's death; men were not admitted tothe ward, but early on that first morning, when she lay there, hardlyconscious but in an ecstasy of relief from pain, Ellen had come. A tiredEllen with circles around her eyes, and a bag of oranges in her arms. 

"How do you feel?" she had asked, sitting down self-consciously besidethe bed. The ward had its eyes on her. 

"I'm weak, but I'm all right. Last night was awful, Ellen. "

She had roused herself with an effort. Ellen reminded her of something, something that had to do with Willy Cameron. Then she remembered, andtried to raise herself in the bed. 

"Willy!" she gasped. "Did he come home? Is he all right?"

"He's all right. It was him that found you were here. You lie back now;the nurse is looking. "

Edith lay down and closed her eyes, and the ecstasy of relief and peacegave to her pale face an almost spiritual look. Ellen saw it, and pattedher arm with a roughened hand. 

"You poor thing!" she said. "I've been as mean to you as I knew how tobe. I'm going to be different, Edith. I'm just a cross old maid, and Iguess I didn't understand. "

"You've been all right, " Edith said. 

Ellen kissed her when she went away. 

So for three days Edith lay and rested. She felt that God had been verygood to her, and she began to think of God as having given her anotherchance. This time He had let her off, but He had given her a warning. He had said, in effect, that if she lived straight and thought straightfrom now on He would forget this thing she had done. But if she didnot--

Then what about Willy Cameron? Did He mean her to hold him to that now?Willy did not love her. Perhaps he would grow to love her, but she wasseeing things more clearly than she had before, and one of the thingsshe saw was that Willy Cameron was a one-woman man, and that she was notthe woman. 

"But I love him so, " she would cry to herself. 

The ward moved in its orderly routine around her. The babies werecarried out, bathed and brought back, their nuzzling mouths open forthe waiting mother-breast. The nurses moved about, efficient, kindly, whimsically maternal. Women went out when their hour came, swollenof feature and figure, and were wheeled back later on, etherealized, purified as by fire, and later on were given their babies. Their faceswere queer then, frightened and proud at first, and later watchful andtenderly brooding. 

For three days Edith's struggle went on. She had her strong hours andher weak ones. There were moments when, exhausted and yet exalted, she determined to give him up altogether, to live the fiction of themarriage until her mother's death, and then to give up the house andnever see him again. If she gave him up she must never see him again. Atthose times she prayed not to love him any longer, and sometimes, for alittle while after that, she would have peace. It was almost as thoughshe did not love him. 

But there were the other times, when she lay there and pictured themmarried, and dreamed a dream of bringing him to her feet. He had offereda marriage that was not a marriage, but he was a man, and human. He didnot want her now, but in the end he would want her; young as she was sheknew already the strength of a woman's physical hold on a man. 

Late on the afternoon of the third day Ellen came again, a swollen-eyedEllen, dressed in black with black cotton gloves, and a black veilaround her hat. Ellen wore her mourning with the dogged sense of dutyof her class, and would as soon have gone to the burying ground in herkitchen apron as without black. She stood in the doorway of the ward, hesitating, and Edith saw her and knew. 

Her first thought was not of her mother at all. She saw only that theGod who had saved her had made her decision for her, and that now shewould never marry Willy Cameron. All this time He had let her dream andstruggle. She felt very bitter. 

Ellen came and sat down beside her. 

"She's gone. Edith, " she said; "we didn't tell you before, but you haveto know sometime. We buried her this afternoon. "

Suddenly Edith forgot Willy Cameron, and God, and Dan, and the yearsahead. She was a little girl again, and her mother was saying:

"Brush your teeth and say your prayers, Edie. And tomorrow's Saturday. So you don't need to get up until you're good and ready. "

She lay there. She saw her mother growing older and more frail, thehouse more untidy, and her mother's bright spirit fading to the drab ofher surroundings. She saw herself, slipping in late at night, listeningalways for that uneasy querulous voice. And then she saw those recentmonths, when her mother had bloomed with happiness; she saw herstruggling with her beloved desserts, cheerfully unconscious of anyfailure in them; she saw her, living like a lady, as she had said, withevery anxiety kept from her. There had been times when her thin face hadbeen almost illuminated with her new content and satisfaction. 

Suddenly grief and remorse overwhelmed her. 

"Mother!" she said, huskily. And lay there, crying quietly, with Ellenholding her hand. All that was hard and rebellious in Edith Boyd wasswept away in that rush of grief, and in its place there came a newcourage and resolution. She would meet the future alone, meet it andovercome it. But not alone, either; there was always--

It was a Sunday afternoon, and the nurse had picked up the worn wardBible and was reading from it, aloud. In their rocking chairs in asemi-circle around her were the women, some with sleeping babies intheir arms, others with tense, expectant faces. 

"Let not your heart be troubled, " read the nurse, in a grave youngvoice. "Ye believe in God. Believe also in Me. In my Father's house--"

There was always God. 

Edith Boyd saw her mother in the Father's house, pottering about somesmall celestial duty, and eagerly seeking and receiving approval. Shesaw her, in some celestial rocking chair, her tired hands folded, slowlyrocking and resting. And perhaps, as she sat there, she held Edith'schild on her knee, like the mothers in the group around the nurse. Heldit and understood at last. 

CHAPTER XLII

It was at this time that Doyle showed his hand, with his customaryfearlessness. He made a series of incendiary speeches, the general themebeing that the hour was close at hand for putting the fear of God intothe exploiting classes for all time to come. His impassioned oratory, coming at the psychological moment, when the long strike had brought itstrain of debt and evictions, made a profound impression. Had he askedfor a general strike vote then, he would have secured it. 

As it was, it was some time before all the unions had voted for it. Andthe day was not set. Doyle was holding off, and for a reason. Day byday he saw a growth of the theory of Bolshevism among the so-calledintellectual groups of the country. Almost every university had itsradicals, men who saw emerging from Russia the beginning of a new earth. Every class now had its Bolshevists. They found a ready market for theirpropaganda, intelligent and insidious as it was, among a certain liberalelement of the nation, disgruntled with the autocracy imposed upon themby the war. 

The reaction from that autocracy was a swinging to the other extreme, and, as if to work into the hands of the revolutionary party, livingcosts remained at the maximum. The cry of the revolutionists, to allenough and to none too much, found a response not only in the anxiousminds of honest workmen, but among an underpaid intelligentsia. Neitherpolitical party offered any relief; the old lines no longer held, andnew lines of cleavage had come. Progressive Republicans and Democratshad united against reactionary members of both parties. There were nogreat leaders, no men of the hour. 

The old vicious cycle of empires threatened to repeat itself, the oldstory of the many led by the few. Always it had come, autocracy, the toogreat power of one man; then anarchy, the overthrow of that power by theangry mob. Out of that anarchy the gradual restoration of order bythe people themselves, into democracy. And then in time again, by thatsteady gravitation of the strong up and the weak down, some one man whoemerged from the mass and crowned himself, or was crowned. And there wasautocracy again, and again the vicious circle. 

But such movements had always been, in the last analysis, the work ofthe few. It had always been the militant minority which ruled. Alwaysthe great mass of the people had submitted. They had fought, one wayor the other when the time came, but without any deep conviction behindthem. They wanted peace, the right to labor. They warred, to find peace. Small concern was it, to the peasant plowing his field, whether one manruled over him or a dozen. He wanted neither place nor power. 

It came to this, then, Willy Cameron argued to himself. This new worldconflict was a struggle between the contented and the discontented. InEurope, discontent might conquer, but in America, never. There were toomany who owned a field or had the chance to labor. There were too manyways legitimately to aspire. Those who wanted something for nothing werebut a handful to those who wanted to give that they might receive. 

 * * * * *

Three days before the election, Willy Cameron received a note from Lily, sent by hand. 

"Father wants to see you to-night, " she wrote, "and mother suggeststhat as you are busy, you try to come to dinner. We are dining alone. Docome, Willy. I think it is most important. "

He took the letter home with him and placed it in a locked drawer ofhis desk, along with a hard and shrunken doughnut, tied with a bow ofChristmas ribbon, which had once helped to adorn the Christmas tree theyhad trimmed together. There were other things in the drawer; a postcardphotograph, rather blurred, of Lily in the doorway of her little hut, smiling; and the cigar box which had been her cash register at the camp. 

He stood for some time looking down at the post card; it did not seempossible that in the few months since those wonderful days, life couldhave been so cruel to them both. Lily married, and he himself--

Ellen came up when he was tying his tie. She stood behind him, watchinghim in the mirror. 

"I don't know what you've done to your hair, Willy, " she said; "itcertainly looks queer. "

"It usually looks queer, so why worry, heart of my heart?" But he turnedand put an arm around her shoulders. "What would the world be withoutwomen like you, Ellen?" he said gravely. 

"I haven't done anything but my duty, " Ellen said, in her prim voice. "Listen, Willy. I saw Edith again to-day, and she told me to dosomething. "

"To go home and take a rest? That's what you need. "

"No. She wants me to tear up that marriage license. "

He said nothing for a moment. "I'll have to see her first. "

"She said it wouldn't be any good, Willy. She's made up her mind. " Shewatched him anxiously. "You're not going to be foolish, are you? Shesays there's no need now, and she's right. "

"Somebody will have to look after her. "

"Dan can do that. He's changed, since she went. " Ellen glanced towardMrs. Boyd's empty room. "You've done enough, Willy. You've seenthem through, all of them. I--isn't it time you began to think aboutyourself?"

He was putting on his coat, and she picked a bit of thread from it, withnervous fingers. 

"Where are you going to-night, Willy?"

"To the Cardews. Mr. Cardew has sent for me. "

She looked up at him. 

"Willy, I want to tell you something. The Cardews won't let thatmarriage stand, and you know it. I think she cares for you. Don't lookat me like that. I do. "

"That's because you are fond of me, " he said, smiling down at her. "I'm not the sort of man girls care about, Ellen. Let's face that. TheGeneral Manager said when he planned me, 'Here's going to be a fellowwho is to have everything in the world, health, intelligence, wit andthe beauty of an Adonis, but he has to lack something, so we'll make itthat'. "

But Ellen, glancing up swiftly, saw that although his tone was light, there was pain in his eyes. 

He reflected on Edith's decision as he walked through the park towardthe Cardew house. It had not surprised him, and yet he knew it had costher an effort. How great an effort, man-like, he would never understand, but something of what she had gone through he realized. He wonderedvaguely whether, had there never been a Lily Cardew in his life, hecould ever have cared for Edith. Perhaps. Not the Edith of the earlydays, that was certain. But this new Edith, with her gentleness andmeekness, her clear, suffering eyes, her strange new humility. 

She had sent him a message of warning about Akers, and from it he hadreconstructed much of the events of the night she had taken sick. 

"Tell him to watch Louis Akers, " she had said. "I don't know how nearWilly was to trouble the other night, Ellen, but they're going to try toget him. "

Ellen had repeated the message, watching him narrowly, but he had onlylaughed. 

"Who are they?" she had persisted. 

"I'll tell you all about it some day, " he had said. But he had told Danthe whole story, and, although he did not know it, Dan had from thattime on been his self-constituted bodyguard. During his campaignspeeches Dan was always near, his right hand on a revolver in his coatpocket, and for hours at a time he stood outside the pharmacy, favoringevery seeker for drugs or soap or perfume with a scowling inspection. When he could not do it, he enlisted Joe Wilkinson in the evenings, andsometimes the two of them, armed, policed the meeting halls. 

As a matter of fact, Joe Wilkinson was following him that night. Onhis way to the Cardews Willy Cameron, suddenly remembering the uncannyability of Jinx to escape and trail him, remaining meanwhile at a safedistance in the rear, turned suddenly and saw Joe, walking sturdilyalong in rubber-soled shoes, and obsessed with his high calling ofpersonal detective. 

Joe, discovered, grinned sheepishly. 

"Thought that looked like your back, " he said. "Nice evening for a walk, isn't it?"

"Let me look at you, Joe, " said Willy Cameron. "You look strange to me. Ah, now I have it. You look like a comet without a tail. Where's thefamily?"

"Making taffy. How--is Edith?"

"Doing nicely. " He avoided the boy's eyes. 

"I guess I'd better tell you. Dan's told me about her. I--" Joehesitated. Then: "She never seemed like that sort of a girl, " hefinished, bitterly. 

"She isn't that sort of girl, Joe. "

"She did it. How could a fellow know she wouldn't do it again?"

"She has had a pretty sad sort of lesson. "

Joe, his real business forgotten, walked on with eyes down and shouldersdrooping. 

"I might as well finish with it, " he said, "now I've started. I'vealways been crazy about her. Of course now--I haven't slept for twonights. "

"I think it's rather like this, Joe, " Willy Cameron said, after a pause. "We are not one person, really. We are all two or three people, andall different. We are bad and good, depending on which of us is thestrongest at the time, and now and then we pay so much for the bad wedo that we bury that part. That's what has happened to Edith. Unless, ofcourse, " he added, "we go on convincing her that she is still the thingshe doesn't want to be. "

"I'd like to kill the man, " Joe said. But after a little, as they nearedthe edge of the park, he looked up. 

"You mean, go on as if nothing had happened?"

"Precisely, " said Willy Cameron, "as though nothing had happened. "

CHAPTER XLIII

The atmosphere of the Cardew house was subtly changed and very friendly. Willy Cameron found himself received as an old friend, with no tendencyto forget the service he had rendered, or that, in their darkest hour, he had been one of them. 

To his surprise Pink Denslow was there, and he saw at once that Pinkhad been telling them of the night at the farm house. Pink was himselfagain, save for a small shaved place at the back of his head, coveredwith plaster. 

"I've told them, Cameron, " he said. "If I could only tell it generallyI'd be the most popular man in the city, at dinners. "

"Pair of young fools, " old Anthony muttered, with his sardonic smile. But in his hand-clasp, as in Howard's, there was warmth and a sort ofenvy, envy of youth and the adventurous spirit of youth. 

Lily was very quiet. The story had meant more to her than to the others. She had more nearly understood Pink's reference to the sealed envelopeWilly Cameron had left, and the help sent by Edith Boyd. She connectedthat with Louis Akers, and from that to Akers' threat against Cameronwas only a step. She was frightened and somewhat resentful, that thisother girl should have saved him from a revenge that she knew wasdirected at herself. That she, who had brought this thing about, had satquietly at home while another woman, a woman who loved him, had savedhim. 

She was puzzled at her own state of mind. 

Dinner was almost gay. Perhaps the gayety was somewhat forced, with Pinkkeeping his eyes from Lily's face, and Howard Cardew relapsing nowand then into abstracted silence. Because of the men who served, theconversation was carefully general. It was only in the library later, the men gathered together over their cigars, that the real reason forWilly Cameron's summons was disclosed. 

Howard Cardew was about to withdraw from the contest. "I'm late incoming to this decision, " he said. "Perhaps too late. But after acareful canvas of the situation, I find you are right, Cameron. UnlessI withdraw, Akers"--he found a difficulty in speaking the name--"will beelected. At least it looks that way. "

"And if he is, " old Anthony put in, "he'll turn all the devils of hellloose on us. "

It was late; very late. The Cardews stood ready to flood the papers withannouncements of Howard's withdrawal, and urging his supporters to votefor Hendricks, but the time was short. Howard had asked his campaignmanagers to meet there that night, and also Hendricks and one or two ofhis men, but personally he felt doubtful. 

And, as it happened, the meeting developed more enthusiasm thanoptimism. Cardew's withdrawal would be made the most of by theopposition. They would play it up as the end of the old regime, thebeginning of new and better things. 

Before midnight the conference broke up, to catch the morning editions. Willy Cameron, detained behind the others, saw Lily in the drawing-roomalone as he passed the door, and hesitated. 

"I have been waiting for you, Willy, " she said. 

But when he went in she seemed to have nothing to say. She sat in alow chair, in a soft dark dress which emphasized her paleness. To WillyCameron she had never seemed more beautiful, or more remote. 

"Do you remember how you used to whistle 'The Long, Long Trail, ' Willy?"she said at last. "All evening I have been sitting here thinking what along trail we have both traveled since then. "

"A long, hard trail, " he assented. 

"Only you have gone up, Willy. And I have gone down, into the valley. I wish"--she smiled faintly--"I wish you would look down from your peaknow and then. You never come to see me. "

"I didn't know you wanted me, " he said bluntly. 

"Why shouldn't I want to see you?"

"I couldn't help reminding you of things. "

"But I never forget them, anyhow. Sometimes I almost go mad, remembering. It isn't quite as selfish as it sounds. I've hurt them allso. Willy, do you mind telling me about the girl who opened that letterand sent you help?"

"About Edith Boyd? I'd like to tell you, Lily. Her mother is dead, andshe lost her child. She is in the Memorial Hospital. "

"Then she has no one but you?"

"She has a brother. "

"Tell me about her sending help that night. She really saved your life, didn't she?"

While he was telling her she sat staring straight ahead, her fingersinterlaced in her lap. She was telling herself that all this couldnot possibly matter to her, that she had cut herself off, finally andforever, from the man before her; that she did not even deserve hisfriendship. 

Quite suddenly she knew that she did not want his friendship. She wantedto see again in his face the look that had been there the night he hadtold her, very simply, that he loved her. And it would never be there;it was not there now. She had killed his love. All the light in his facewas for some one else, another girl, a girl more unfortunate but lesswicked than herself. 

When he stopped she was silent. Then:

"I wonder if you know how much you have told me that you did not intendto tell?"

"That I didn't intend to tell? I have made no reservations, Lily. "

"Are you sure? Or don't you realize it yourself?"

"Realize what?" He was greatly puzzled. 

"I think, Willy, " she said, quietly, "that you care a great deal morefor Edith Boyd than you think you do. "

He looked at her in stupefaction. How could she say that? How could shefail to know better than that? And he did not see the hurt behind hercareful smile. 

"You are wrong about that. I--" He made a little gesture of despair. Hecould not tell her now that he loved her. That was all over. 

"She is in love with you. "

He felt absurd and helpless. He could not deny that, yet how could shesit there, cool and faintly smiling, and not know that as she sat thereso she sat enshrined in his heart. She was his saint, to kneel and prayto; and she was his woman, the one woman of his life. More woman thansaint, he knew, and even for that he loved her. But he did not know thebarbarous cruelty of the loving woman. 

"I don't know what to say to you, Lily, " he said, at last. "She--it ispossible that she thinks she cares, but under the circumstances--"

"Ellen told Mademoiselle you were going to marry her. That's true, isn'tit?"

"Yes. "

"You always said that marriage without love was wicked, Willy. "

"Her child had a right to a name. And there were other things. I can'tvery well explain them to you. Her mother was ill. Can't you understand, Lily? I don't want to throw any heroics. " In his excitement he hadlapsed into boyish vernacular. "Here was a plain problem, and a simpleway to solve it. But it is off now, anyhow; things cleared up withoutthat. "

She got up and held out her hand. 

"It was like you to try to save her, " she said. 

"Does this mean I am to go?"

"I am very tired, Willy. "

He had a mad impulse to take her in his arms, and holding her close torest her there. She looked so tired. For fear he might do it he held hisarms rigidly at his sides. 

"You haven't asked me about him, " she said unexpectedly. 

"I thought you would not care to talk about him. That's over and done, Lily. I want to forget about it, myself. "

She looked up at him, and had he had Louis Akers' intuitive knowledge ofwomen he would have understood then. 

"I am never going back to him, Willy. You know that, don't you?"

"I hoped it, of course. "

"I know now that I never loved him. "

But the hurt of her marriage was still too fresh in him for speech. Hecould not discuss Louis Akers with her. 

"No, " he said, after a moment, "I don't think you ever did. I'll come insome evening, if I may, Lily. I must not keep you up now. "

How old he looked, for him! How far removed from those busy, cheerfuldays at the camp! And there were new lines of repression in his face;from the nostrils to the corners of his mouth. Above his ears his hairshowed a faint cast of gray. 

"You have been having rather a hard time, Willy, haven't you'?" shesaid, suddenly. 

"I have been busy, of course. "

"And worried?"

"Sometimes. But things are clearing up now. "

She was studying him with the newly opened eyes of love. What was it heshowed that the other men she knew lacked? Sensitiveness? Kindness? Buther father was both sensitive and kind. So was Pink, in less degree. Inthe end she answered her own question, and aloud. 

"I think it is patience, " she said. And to his unspoken question: "Youare very patient, aren't you?"

"I never thought about it. For heaven's sake don't turn my mind in onmyself, Lily. I'll be running around in circles like a pup chasing histail. "

He made a movement to leave, but she seemed oddly reluctant to let himgo. 

"Do you know that father says you have more influence than any other manin the city?"

"That's more kind than truthful. "

"And--I think he and grandfather are planning to try to get you, whenthe mills reopen. Father suggested it, but grandfather says you'd havethe presidency of the company in six months, and he'd be sharpening yourlead pencils. "

Suddenly Willy Cameron laughed, and the tension was broken. 

"If he did it with his tongue they'd be pretty sharp, " he said. 

For just a moment, before he left, they were back to where they had beenmonths ago, enjoying together their small jokes and their small mishaps. The present fell away, with its hovering tragedy, and they were boy andgirl together. Exaltation and sacrifice were a part of their love, asof all real and lasting passion, but there was always between them alsothat soundest bond of all, liking and comradeship. 

"I love her. I like her. I adore her, " was the cry in Willy Cameron'sheart when he started home that night. 

CHAPTER XLIV

Elinor Doyle was up and about her room. She walked slowly and withdifficulty, using crutches, and she spent most of the time at herwindow, watching and waiting. From Lily there came, at frequentintervals, notes, flowers and small delicacies. The flowers and foodOlga brought to her, but the notes she never saw. She knew they came. She could see the car stop at the curb, and the chauffeur, his shoulderssquared and his face watchful, carrying a white envelope up the walk, but there it ended. 

She felt more helpless than ever. The doctor came less often, but thevigilance was never relaxed, and she had, too, less and less hope ofbeing able to give any warning. Doyle was seldom at home, and when hewas he had ceased to give her his taunting information. She was quitesure now of his relations with the Russian girl, and her uncertaintyas to her course was gone. She was no longer his wife. He held anotherwoman in his rare embraces, a traitor like himself. It was sordid. Hewas sordid. 

Woslosky had developed blood poisoning, and was at the point of death, with a stolid policeman on guard at his bedside. She knew that from thenewspapers she occasionally saw. And she connected Doyle unerringly withthe tragedy at the farm behind Friendship. She recognized, too, sincethat failure, a change in his manner to her. She saw that he now bothhated her and feared her, and that she had become only a burden anda menace to him. He might decide to do away with her, to kill her. He would not do it himself; he never did his own dirty work, but theRussian girl--Olga was in love with Jim Doyle. Elinor knew that, as sheknew many things, by a sort of intuition. She watched them in the roomtogether, and she knew that to Doyle the girl was an incident, thevehicle of his occasional passion, a strumpet and a tool. He did noteven like her; she saw him looking at her sometimes with a sort ofamused contempt. But Olga's somber eyes followed him as he moved, litwith passion and sometimes with anger, but always they followed him. 

She was afraid of Olga. She did not care particularly about death, butit must not come before she had learned enough to be able to send out awarning. She thought if it came it might be by poison in the food thatwas sent up, but she had to eat to live. She took to eating onlyone thing on her tray, and she thought she detected in the girl anunderstanding and a veiled derision. 

By Doyle's increasing sullenness she knew things were not going wellwith him, and she found a certain courage in that, but she knew himtoo well to believe that he would give up easily. And she drew certaindeductions from the newspapers she studied so tirelessly. She saw theannouncement of the unusual number of hunting licenses issued, for onething, and she knew the cover that such licenses furnished armed menpatrolling the country. The state permitted the sale of fire-armswithout restriction. Other states did the same, or demanded only theformality of a signature, never verified. 

Would they never wake to the situation?

She watched the election closely. She knew that if Akers were electedthe general strike and the chaos to follow would be held back untilhe had taken office and made the necessary changes in the cityadministration, but that if he went down to defeat the Council wouldturn loose its impatient hordes at once. 

She waited for election day with burning anxiety. When it came it sohappened that she was left alone all day in the house. Early in themorning Olga brought her a tray and told her she was going out. She waschanged, the Russian; she had dropped the mask of sodden servility andstood before her, erect, cunningly intelligent and oddly powerful. 

"I am going to be away all day, Mrs. Doyle, " she said, in her excellentEnglish. "I have work to do. "

"Work?" said Elinor. "Isn't there work to do here?"

"I am not a house-worker. I came to help Mr. Doyle. To-day I shall makespeeches. "

Elinor was playing the game carefully. "But--can you make speeches?" sheasked. 

"Me? That is my work, here, in Russia, everywhere. In Russia it is thewomen who speak, the men who do what the women tell them to do. Heresome day it will be the same. "

Always afterwards Elinor remembered the five minutes that followed, forOlga, standing before her, suddenly burst into impassioned oratory. She cited the wrongs of the poor under the old regime. She painted inglowing colors the new. She was excited, hectic, powerful. Elinor inher chair, an aristocrat to the finger-tips, was frightened, interested, thrilled. 

Long after Olga had gone she sat there, wondering at the realconviction, the intensity of passion, of hate and of revenge thatactuated this newest tool of Doyle's. Doyle and his associates might beactuated by self-interest, but the real danger in the movement lay notwith the Doyles of the world, but with these fanatic liberators. Theypreached to the poor a new religion, not of creed or of Church, butof freedom. Freedom without laws of God or of man, freedom of love, oflust, of time, of all responsibility. And the poor, weighted with lawsand cares, longed to throw off their burdens. 

Perhaps it was not the doctrine itself that was wrong. It was itsimposition by force on a world not yet ready for it that was wrong;its imposition by violence. It might come, but not this way. Not, Godpreventing, this way. 

There was a polling place across the street, in the basement of a schoolhouse. The vote was heavy and all day men lounged on the pavements, smoking and talking. Once she saw Olga in the crowd, and later on LouisAkers drove up in an open automobile, handsome, apparently confident, and greeted with cheers. But Elinor, knowing him well, gained nothingfrom his face. 

Late that night she heard Doyle come in and move about the lower floor. She knew every emphasis of his walk, and when in the room underneath sheheard him settle down to steady, deliberate pacing, she knew that he wasfacing some new situation, and, after his custom, thinking it out alone. 

At midnight he came up the stairs and unlocked her door. He entered, closing the door behind him, and stood looking at her. His face was sostrange that she wondered if he had decided to do away with her. 

"To-morrow, " he said, in an inflectionless voice, "you will be moved byautomobile to a farm I have selected in the country. You will take onlysuch small luggage as the car can carry. "

"Is Olga going with me?"

"No. Olga is needed here. "

"I suppose I am to understand from this that Louis has been defeated andthere is no longer any reason for delay in your plans. "

"You can understand what you like. "

"Am I to know where I am going?"

"You will find that out when you get there. I will tell you this: It isa lonely place, without a telephone. You'll be cut off from your family, I am afraid. "

She gazed at him. It seemed unbelievable to her that she had once lainin this man's arms. 

"Why don't you kill me, Jim? I know you've thought about it. "

"Yes, I've thought of it. But killing is a confession of fear, my dear. I am not afraid of you. "

"I think you are. You are afraid now to tell me when you are going totry to put this wild plan into execution. "

He smiled at her with mocking eyes. 

"Yes, " he agreed again. "I am afraid. You have a sort of diabolicalingenuity, not intelligence so much as cunning. But because I always dothe thing I'm afraid to do, I'll tell you. Of course, if you succeed inpassing it on--" He shrugged his shoulders. "Very well, then. With yourusual logic of deduction, you have guessed correctly. Louis Akers hasbeen defeated. Your family--and how strangely you are a Cardew!--lostits courage at the last moment, and a gentleman named Hendricks is nowsetting up imitation beer and cheap cigars to his friends. "

Behind his mocking voice she knew the real fury of the man, keptcarefully in control by his iron will. 

"As you have also correctly surmised, " he went on, "there is now nothingto be gained by any delay. A very few days, three or four, and--" Hisvoice grew hard and terrible--"the first stone in the foundation ofthis capitalistic government will go. Inevitable law, inevitableretribution--" His voice trailed off. He turned like a man asleep andwent toward the door. There he stopped and faced her. 

"I've told you, " he said darkly. "I am not afraid of you. You can nomore stop this thing than you can stop living by ceasing to breathe. Ithas come. "

She heard him in his room for some time after that, and she surmisedfrom the way he moved, from closet to bed and back again, that he waspacking a bag. At two o'clock she heard Olga coming in; the girl wassinging in Russian, and Elinor had a sickening conviction that she hadbeen drinking. She heard Doyle send her off to bed, his voice angry anddisgusted, and resume his packing, and ten minutes later she heard acar draw up on the street, and knew that he was off, to begin themobilization of his heterogeneous forces. 

Ever since she had been able to leave her bed Elinor had beenformulating a plan of escape. Once the door had been left unlocked, buther clothing had been removed from the room, and then, too, she hadnot learned the thing she was waiting for. Now she had clothing, a darkdressing gown and slippers, and she had the information. But the doorwas securely locked. 

She had often thought of the window, In the day time it frightened herto look down, although it fascinated her, too. But at night it seemedmuch simpler. The void below was concealed in the darkness, a softdarkness that hid the hard, inhospitable earth. A darkness one couldfall into and onto. 

She was not a brave woman. She had moral rather than physical courage. It was easier for her to face Doyle in a black mood than the gulf belowthe window-sill, but she knew now that she must get away, if she were togo at all. She got out of bed, and using her crutches carefully movedto the sill, trying to accustom herself to the thought of going over theedge. The plaster cast on her leg was a real handicap. She must get itover first. How heavy it was, and unwieldy!

She found her scissors, and, stripping the bed, sat down to cut and tearthe bedding into strips. Prisoners escaped that way; she had read aboutsuch things. But the knots took up an amazing amount of length. It wasfour o'clock in the morning when she had a serviceable rope, and sheknew it was too short. In the end she tore down the window curtains andadded them, working desperately against time. 

She began to suspect, too, that Olga was not sleeping. She smelledfaintly the odor of the long Russian cigarettes the girl smoked. She putout her light and worked in the darkness, a strange figure of adventure, this middle-aged woman with her smooth hair and lined face, sitting inher cambric nightgown with her crutches on the floor beside her. 

She secured the end of the rope to the foot of her metal bed, pushingthe bed painfully and cautiously, inch by inch, to the window. And inso doing she knocked over the call-bell on the stand, and almostimmediately she heard Olga moving about. 

The girl was coming unsteadily toward the door. If she opened it--

"I don't want anything, Olga, " she called, "I knocked the bell overaccidentally. "

Olga hesitated, muttered, moved away again. Elinor was covered with acold sweat. 

She began to think of the window as a refuge. Surely nothing outsidecould be so terrible as this house itself. The black aperture seemedfriendly; it beckoned to her with friendly hands. 

She dropped her crutches. They fell with two soft thuds on the earthbelow and it seemed to her that they were a long time in falling. Shelistened after that, but Olga made no sign. Then slowly and painfullyshe worked her injured leg over the sill, and sat there looking down andbreathing with difficulty. Then she freed her dressing gown around her, and slid over the edge. 

CHAPTER XLV

Election night found various groups in various places. In the back roomof the Eagle Pharmacy was gathered once again the neighborhood forum, awildly excited forum, which ever and anon pounded Mr. Hendricks on theback, and drank round after round of soda water and pop. Doctor Smalley, coming in rather late found them all there, calling Mr. Hendricks "Mr. Mayor" or "Your Honor, " reciting election anecdotes, and prophesying theend of the Reds. Only Willy Cameron, sitting on a table near the window, was silent. 

Mr. Hendricks, called upon for a speech, rose with his soda water glassin his hand. 

"I've got a toast for you, boys, " he said. "You've been talking allevening about my winning this election. Well, I've been elected, but Ididn't win it. It was the plain people of this town who elected me, andthey did it because my young friend on the table yonder told them to. "He raised his glass. "Cameron!" he said. 

"Cameron! Cameron!" shouted the crowd. "Speech! Cameron!"

But Willy shook his head. 

"I haven't any voice left, " he said, "and you've heard me say all I knowa dozen times. The plain truth is that Mr. Hendricks got the electionbecause he was the best man, and enough people knew it. That's all. "

To Mr. Hendricks the night was one of splendid solemnity. He felt atonce very strong and very weak, very proud and very humble. He would dohis best, and if honesty meant anything, the people would have it, buthe knew that honesty was not enough. The city needed a strong man; hehoped that the Good Man who made cities as He made men, both evil andgood, would lend him a hand with things. As prayer in his mind wasindissolubly connected with church, he made up his mind to go to churchthe next Sunday and get matters straightened out. 

At the same time another group was meeting at the Benedict. 

Louis Akers had gone home early. By five o'clock he knew that thechances were against him, but he felt a real lethargy as to the outcome. He had fought, and fought hard, but it was only the surface mind of himthat struggled. Only the surface mind of him hated, and had ambitions, dreamed revenge. Underneath that surface mind was a sore that ate like acancer, and that sore was his desertion by Lily Cardew. For once in hislife he suffered, who had always inflicted pain. 

At six o'clock Doyle had called him on the telephone and told him thatWoslosky was dead, but the death of the Pole had been discounted inadvance, and already his place had been filled by a Russian agent, whohad taken the first syllable of his name and called himself Ross. LouisAkers heard the news apathetically, and went back to his chair again. 

By eight o'clock he knew that he had lost the election, but that, too, seemed relatively unimportant. He was not thinking coherently, butcertain vague ideas floated through his mind. There was a law ofcompensation in the universe: it was all rot to believe that one waspaid or punished in the hereafter for what one did. Hell was real, butit was on earth and its place was in a man's mind. He couldn't get awayfrom it, because each man carried his own hell around with him. It wasall stored up there; nothing he had done was left out, and the more heput into it the more he got out, when the time came. 

This was his time. 

Ross and Doyle, with one or two others, found him there at nine o'clock, an untasted meal on the table, and the ends of innumerable cigarettes onthe hearth. In the conference that followed he took but little part. TheRussian urged immediate action, and Doyle by a saturnine silence tacitlyagreed with him. But Louis only half heard them. His mind was busy withthat matter of hell. Only once he looked up. Ross was making use of thephrase: "Militant minority. "

"Militant minority!" he said scornfully, "you overwork that idea, Ross. What we've got here now is a militant majority, and that's what electedHendricks. You're licked before you begin. And my advice is, don'tbegin. "

But they laughed at him. 

"You act like a whipped dog, " Doyle said, "crawling under the doorstepfor fear somebody else with a strap comes along. "

"They're organized against us. We could have put it over six months ago. Not now. "

"Then you'd better get out, " Doyle said, shortly. 

"I'm thinking of it. "

But Doyle had no real fear of him. He was sulky. Well, let him sulk. 

Akers relapsed into silence. His interest in the conspiracy had alwaysbeen purely self-interest; he had never had Woslosky's passion, orDoyle's cold fanaticism. They had carried him off his feet with theirpromises, but how much were they worth? They had failed to elect him. Every bit of brains, cunning and resource in their organization had beenbehind him, and they had failed. 

This matter of hell, now? Suppose one put by something on the otheraccount? Suppose one turned square? Wouldn't that earn something?Suppose that one went to the Cardews and put all his cards on the table, asking nothing in return? Suppose one gave up the by-paths of life, and love in a hedgerow, and did the other thing? Wouldn't that earnsomething?

He roused himself and took a perfunctory part in the conversation, buthis mind obstinately returned to itself. He knew every rendezvous of theRed element in the country; he knew where their literature was printed;he knew the storehouses of arms and ammunition, and the plans forcarrying on the city government by the strikers after the reign ofterrorization which was to subdue the citizens. 

Suppose he turned informer? Could he set a price, and that price Lily?But he discarded that. He was not selling now, he was earning. He wouldset himself right first, and--provided the government got the leadersbefore those leaders got him, as they would surely try to do--he wouldhave earned something, surely. 

Lily had come to him once when he called. She might come again, when hehad earned her. 

Doyle sat back in his chair and watched him. He saw that he had goneto pieces under defeat, and men did strange things at those times. Withuncanny shrewdness he gauged Akers' reaction; his loss of confidenceand, he surmised, his loyalty. He would follow his own interest now, andif he thought that it lay in turning informer, he might try it. But itwould take courage. 

When the conference broke up Doyle was sure of where his man stood. He was not worried. They did not need Akers any longer. He had been apresentable tool, a lay figure to give the organization front, and theyhad over-rated him, at that. He had failed them. Doyle, watching himcontemptuously, realized in him his own fallacious judgment, and hatedAkers for proving him wrong. 

Outside the building Doyle drew the Russian aside, and spoke to him. Ross started, then grinned. 

"You're wrong, " he said. "He won't try it. But of course he may, andwe'll see that he doesn't get away with it. "

From that time on Louis Akers was under espionage. 

CHAPTER XLVI

DOCTOR Smalley was by way of achieving a practice. During his morningand evening office hours he had less and less time to read the papersand the current magazines in his little back office, or to compare themonth's earnings, visit by visit, with the same month of the previousyear. 

He took to making his hospital rounds early in the morning, rather tothe outrage of various head nurses, who did not like the staff to comea-visiting until every counterpane was drawn stiff and smooth, everybed corner a geometrical angle, every patient washed and combed andtemperatured, and in the exact center of the bed. 

Interns were different. They were like husbands. They came and went, seeing things at their worst as well as at their best, but mostly attheir worst. Like husbands, too, they developed a sort of philosophy asto the early morning, and would only make occasional remarks, such as:

"Cyclone struck you this morning, or anything?"

Doctor Smalley, being a bachelor, was entirely blind to the earlymorning deficiencies of his wards. Besides, he was young and had had acold shower and two eggs and various other things, and he saw theworld at eight A. M. As a good place. He would get into his little car, whistling, and driving through the market square he would sometimesstop and buy a bag of apples for the children's ward, or a bunch offall flowers. Thus armed, it was impossible for the most austere of headnurses to hate him. 

"We're not straightened up yet, doctor, " they would say. 

"Looks all right to me, " he would reply cheerfully, and cast an eagereye over the ward. To him they were all his children, large and small, and if he did not exactly carry healing in his wings, having no wings, he brought them courage and a breath of fresh morning air, slightlytinged with bay rum, and the feeling that this was a new day. A newpage, on which to write such wonderful things (in the order book) as:"Jennie may get up this afternoon. " Or: "Lizzie Smith, small piece ofbeef steak. "

On the morning after the election Doctor Smalley rose unusually early, and did five minutes of dumb bells, breathing very deep before hiswindow, having started the cold water in the tub first. At the end ofthat time he padded in his bare feet to the top of the stairs and calledin a huge, deep-breathing voice:

"Ten minutes. "

These two cryptic words seeming to be perfectly understood below, followed the sound of a body plunging into water, a prolonged "Wow!"from the bathroom, and noisy hurried splashing. Dressing was a rapidprocess, due to a method learned during college days, which consistsof wearing as little as possible, and arranging it at night so that twothrusts (trousers and under-drawers), one enveloping gesture (shirt andunder-shirt), and a gymnastic effort of standing first on one leg andthen on the other (socks and shoes), made a fairly completed toilet. 

While putting on his collar and tie the doctor stood again by thewindow, and lustily called the garage across the narrow street. 

"Jim!" he yelled. "Annabelle breakfasted yet?"

Annabelle was his shabby little car. 

Annabelle had breakfasted, on gasoline, oil and water. The doctorfinished tying his tie, singing lustily, and went to the door. At thedoor he stopped singing, put on a carefully professional air, restrainedan impulse to slide down the stair-rail, and descended with thedignity of a man with a growing practice and a possible patient in thewaiting-room. 

At half-past seven he was on his way to the hospital. He stopped at themarket and bought three dozen oranges out of a ten-dollar bill he hadwon on the election, and almost bought a live rabbit because it lookedso dreary in its slatted box. He restrained himself, because hishousekeeper had a weakness for stewed rabbit, and turned into CardewWay. He passed the Doyle house slowly, inspecting it as he went, becausehe had a patient there, and because he had felt that there was somethingmysterious about the household, quite aside from the saturnine Doylehimself. He knew all about Doyle, of course; all, that is, that therewas to know, but he was a newcomer to the city, and he did not know thatDoyle's wife was a Cardew. Sometimes he had felt that he was undera sort of espionage all the time he was in the house. But that wasridiculous, wasn't it? Because they could not know that he was on theVigilance Committee. 

There was something curious about one of the windows. He slowedAnnabelle and gazed at it. That was strange; there was a sort of whiterope hanging from Mrs. Doyle's window. 

He stopped Annabelle and stared. Then he drew up to the curb and got outof the car. He was rather uneasy when he opened the gate and started upthe walk, but there was no movement of life in the house. At the foot ofthe steps he saw something, and almost stopped breathing. Behind a clumpof winter-bare shrubbery was what looked like a dark huddle of clothing. 

It was incredible. 

He parted the branches and saw Elinor Doyle lying there, conscious andwhite with pain. Perhaps never in his life was Doctor Smalley to be sorewarded as with the look in her eyes when she saw him. 

"Why, Mrs. Doyle!" was all he could think to say. 

"I have broken my other leg, doctor, " she said, "the rope gave way. "

"You come down that rope?"

"I tried to. I was a prisoner. Don't take me back to the house, doctor. Don't take me back!"

"Of course I'll not take you back, " he said, soothingly. "I'll carry youout to my car. It may hurt, but try to be quiet. Can you get your armsaround my neck?"

She managed that, and he raised her slowly, but the pain must have beenfrightful, for a moment later he felt her arms relax and knew that shehad fainted. He got to the car somehow, kicked the oranges into thegutter, and placed her, collapsed, on the seat. It was only then thathe dared to look behind him, but the house, like the street, was withoutsigns of life. As he turned the next corner, however, he saw Doylegetting off a streetcar, and probably never before had Annabelle madesuch speed as she did for the next six blocks. 

Hours later Elinor Cardew wakened in a quiet room with gray walls, andwith the sickening sweet odor of ether over everything. Instead of Olgaa quiet nurse sat by her bed, and standing by a window, in low-voicedconversation, were two men. One she knew, the doctor. The other, a tallyoung man with a slight limp as he came toward her, she had never seenbefore. A friendly young man, thin, and grave of voice, who put a handover hers and said:

"You are not to worry about anything, Mrs. Doyle. You understand me, don't you? Everything is all right. I am going now to get your people. "

"My husband?"

"Your own people, " he said. "I have already telephoned to your brother. And the leg's fixed. Everything's as right as rain. "

Elinor closed her eyes. She felt no pain and no curiosity. Only therewas something she had to do, and do quickly. What was it? But she couldnot remember, because she felt very sleepy and relaxed, and as thougheverything was indeed as right as rain. 

It was evening when she looked up again, and the room was dark. Thedoctor had gone, and the grave young man was still in the room. Therewas another figure there, tall and straight, and at first she thought itwas Jim Doyle. 

"Jim!" she said. And then: "You must go away, Jim. I warn you. I amgoing to tell all I know. "

But the figure turned, and it was Howard Cardew, a tense and strainedHoward Cardew, who loomed amazingly tall and angry, but not with her. 

"I'm sorry, Nellie dear, " he said, bending over her. "If we'd onlyknown--can you talk now?"

Her mind was suddenly very clear. 

"I must. There is very little time. "

"I want to tell you something first, Nellie. I think we have located theRussian woman, but we haven't got Doyle. "

Howard was not very subtle, but Willy Cameron saw her face andunderstood. It was strange beyond belief, he felt, this loyalty of womento their men, even after love had gone; this feeling that, having oncelain in a man's arms, they have taken a vow of protection over that man. It was not so much that they were his as that he was theirs. Jim Doylehad made her a prisoner, had treated her brutally, was a traitor to herand to his country, but--he had been hers. She was glad that he had gotaway. 

CHAPTER XLVII

It was dark when Howard Cardew and Willy Cameron left the hospital. Elinor's information had been detailed and exact. Under cover of thegeneral strike the radical element intended to take over the city. On the evening of the first day of the strike, armed groups from therevolutionary party would proceed first to the municipal light plant, and, having driven out any employees who remained at their posts, or such volunteers as had replaced them, would plunge the city intodarkness. 

Elinor was convinced that following this would come various bomboutrages, perhaps a great number of them, but of this she had nodetailed information. What she did know, however, was the dependencethat Doyle and the other leaders were placing in the foreign elementin the nearby mill towns and from one or two mining districts in thecounty. 

Around the city, in the mill towns, there were more than forty thousandforeign laborers. Subtract from that the loyal aliens, but add a certainpercentage of the native-born element, members of seditious societiesand followers of the red flag, and the Reds had a potential army ofdangerous size. 

As an actual fighting force they were much less impressive. Only a smallpercentage, she knew and told them, were adequately armed. There werea few machine guns, and some long-range rifles, but by far the greaternumber had only revolvers. The remainder had extemporized weapons, barsof iron, pieces of pipe, farm implements, lances of wood tipped withiron and beaten out on home forges. 

They were a rabble, not an army, without organization and with fewleaders. Their fighting was certain to be as individualistic as theirdoctrines. They had two elements in their favor only, numbers andsurprise. 

To oppose them, if the worst came, there were perhaps five thousandarmed men, including the city and county police, the state constabulary, and the citizens who had signed the cards of the Vigilance Committee. The local post of the American Legion stood ready for instant service, and a few national guard troops still remained in the vicinity. "Whatthey expect, " she said, looking up from her pillows with tragic eyes, "is that the police and the troops will join them. You don't think theywill, do you?"

They reassured her, and after a time she slept again. When she wakened, at midnight, the room was empty save for a nurse reading under a nightlamp behind a screen. Elinor was not in pain. She lay there, listeningto the night sounds of the hospital, the watchman shuffling along thecorridor in slippers, the closing of a window, the wail of a newborninfant far away. 

There was a shuffling of feet in the street below, the sound of manymen, not marching but grimly walking, bent on some unknown errand. Thenurse opened the window and looked out. 

"That's queer!" she said. "About thirty men, and not saying a word. Theywalk like soldiers, but they're not in uniform. "

Elinor pondered that, but it was not for some days that she knew thatPink Denslow and a picked number of volunteers from the American Legionhad that night, quite silently and unemotionally, broken into theprinting office where Doyle and Akers had met Cusick, and had, not sosilently but still unemotionally, destroyed the presses and about a tonof inflammatory pamphlets. 

CHAPTER XLVIII

There was a little city, and few men within it; And there came a greatking against it, and besieged it, And built great bulwarks againstit; Now there was found in it a Poor Wise Man, And he by his wisdomdelivered the city. --Ecclesiastes IX:14, 15. 

The general strike occurred two days later, at mid-day. During theinterval a joint committee representing the workers, the employers andthe public had held a protracted sitting, but without result, and byone o'clock the city was in the throes of a complete tie-up. Laundry anddelivery wagons were abandoned where they stood. Some of the street carshad been returned to the barns, but others stood in the street where thecrews had deserted them. 

There was no disorder, however, and the city took its difficulties witha quiet patience and a certain sense of humor. Bulletins similar to theones used in Seattle began to appear. 

"Strikers, the world is the workers' for the taking, and the workers arethe vast majority in society. Your interests are paramount to those of asmall, useless band of parasites who exploit you to their advantage. Youhave nothing to lose but your chains and you have a world to gain. Theworld for the workers. "

There was one ray of light in the darkness, however. The municipalemployees had refused to strike, and only by force would the city godark that night. It was a blow to the conspirators. In the strangepsychology of the mob, darkness was an essential to violence, and bythree o'clock that afternoon the light plant and city water supply hadbeen secured against attack by effectual policing. The power plant forthe car lines was likewise protected, and at five o'clock a line ofstreet cars, stalled on Amanda Street, began to show signs of life. 

The first car was boarded by a half dozen youngish men, unobtrusivelyready for trouble, and headed by a tall youth who limped slightly andwore an extremely anxious expression. He went forward and commenceda series of experiments with levers and brake, in which processincidentally he liberated a quantity of sand onto the rails. A momentlater the car lurched forward, and then stopped with a jerk. 

Willy Cameron looked behind him and grinned. The entire guard was piledin an ignoble mass on the floor. 

By six o'clock volunteer crews were running a number of cars, and hadbeen subjected to nothing worse than abuse. Strikers lined the streetsand watched them, but the grim faces of the guards kept them back. Theyjeered from the curbs, but except for the flinging of an occasionalstone they made no inimical move. 

By eight o'clock it was clear that the tie-up would be only partial. Volunteers from all walks of life were in line at the temporaryheadquarters of the Vigilance Committee and were being detailed, forpolice duty, to bring in the trains with the morning milk, to movestreet cars and trucks. The water plant and the reservoirs wereprotected. Willy Cameron, abandoning his car after the homeward rush ofthe evening, found a line before the Committee Building which extendedfor blocks down the street. 

Troops had been sent for, but it took time to mobilize and move them. It would be morning before they arrived. And the governor, over the longdistance wire to the mayor, was inclined to be querulous. 

"We'll send them, of course, " he said. "But if the strikers are keepingquiet--I don't know what the country's coming to. We're holding aconference here now. There's rioting breaking out all over the state. "

 * * * * *

There was a conference held in the Mayor's office that night: Cameronand Cardew and one or two others of the Vigilance Committee, two agentsof the government secret service, the captains of the companies of statetroops and constabulary, the Chief of Police, the Mayor himself, andsome representatives of the conservative element of organized labor. Quiet men, these last, uneasy and anxious, as ignorant as the others ofwhich way the black cat, the symbol of sabotage and destruction, wouldjump. The majority of their men would stand for order, they declared, but there were some who would go over. They urged, to offset thatreflection on their organization that the proletariat of the city mightgo over, too. 

But, by midnight, it seemed as though the situation was solving itself. In the segregated district there had been a small riot, and anotheralong the river front, disturbances quickly ended by the police andthe volunteer deputies. The city had not gone dark. The bombs had notexploded. Word came in that by back roads and devious paths the mostrabid of the agitators were leaving town. And before two o'clock HowardCardew and some of the others went home to bed. 

At three o'clock the Cardew doorbell rang, and Howard, not asleep, flung on his dressing gown and went out into the hall. Lily was in herdoorway, intent and anxious. 

"Don't answer it, father, " she begged. "You don't know what it may be. "

Howard smiled, but went back and got his revolver. The visitor was WillyCameron. 

"I don't like to waken you, " he said, "but word has come in ofsuspicious movements at Baxter and Friendship, and one or two otherplaces. It looks like concerted action of some sort. "

"What sort of concerted action?"

"They still have one card to play. The foreign element outside hasn'tbeen heard from. It looks as though the fellows who left town to-nighthave been getting busy up the river. "

"They wouldn't be such fools as to come to the city. "

"They've been made a lot of promises. They may be out of hand, youknow. "

While Howard was hastily dressing, Willy Cameron waited below. He caughta glimpse of himself in the big mirror and looked away. His face wasdrawn and haggard, his eyes hollow and his collar a wilted string. Hewas dusty and shabby, too, and to Lily, coming down the staircase, helooked almost ill. 

Lily was in a soft negligee garment, her bare feet thrust into slippers, but she was too anxious to be self-conscious. 

"Willy, " she said, "there is trouble after all?"

"Not in the city. Things are not so quiet up the river. "

She placed a hand on his arm. 

"Are you and father going up the river?"

He explained, after a momentary hesitation. "It may crystallize intosomething, or it may not, " he finished. 

"You think it will, don't you?"

"It will be nothing more, at the worst, than rioting. "

"But you may be hurt!"

"I may have one chance to fight for my country, " he said, rather grimly. "Don't begrudge me that. " But he added: "I'll not be hurt. The thingwill blow up as soon as it starts. "

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

"I know they'll never get into the city. "

But as he moved away she called him back, more breathlessly than ever, and quite white. 

"I don't want you to go without knowing--Willy, do you remember oncethat you said you cared for me?"

"I remember. " He stared straight ahead. 

"Are you--all over that?"

"You know better than that, don't you?"

"But I've done so many things, " she said, wistfully. "You ought to hateme. " And when he said nothing, for the simple reason that he could notspeak: "I've ruined us both, haven't I?"

Suddenly he caught up her hand and, bending over it, held it to hislips. 

"Always, " he said, huskily, "I love you, Lily. I shall always love you. "

CHAPTER XLIX

Howard went back to the municipal building, driving furiously throughthe empty streets. The news was ominous. Small bodies of men, avoidingthe highways, were focusing at different points in the open country. The state police had been fired at from ambush, and two of them had beenkilled. They had ridden into and dispersed various gatherings in thedarkness, but only to have them re-form in other places. The enemy wasstill shadowy, elusive; it was apparently saving its ammunition. Itdid little shooting, but reports of the firing of farmhouses and ofbuildings in small, unprotected towns began to come in rapidly. 

In a short time the messages began to be more significant, indicatingthat the groups were coalescing and that a revolutionary army, with thecity its objective, was coming down the river, evidently making for thebridge at Chester Street. 

"They've lighted a fire they can't put out, " was Howard's comment. Hismouth was very dry and his face twitching, for he saw, behind the frailbarrier of the Chester Street bridge, the quiet houses of the city, thesleeping children. He saw Grace and Lily, and Elinor. He was among thefirst to reach the river front. 

All through the dawn volunteers labored at the bridge head. Membersof the Vigilance Committee, policemen and firemen, doctors, lawyers, clerks, shop-keepers, they looted the river wharves with willing, unskillful hands. They turned coal wagons on their sides, carriedpacking cases and boxes, and, under the direction of men who wore theLegion button, built skillfully and well. Willy Cameron toiled withthe others. He lifted and pulled and struggled, and in the midst ofhis labor he had again that old dream of the city. The city was a vastnumber of units, and those units were homes. Behind each of those menthere was, somewhere, in some quiet neighborhood, a home. It was fortheir homes they were fighting, for the right of children to play inpeaceful streets, for the right to go back at night to the rest they hadearned by honest labor, for the right of the hearth, of lamp-light andsunlight, of love, of happiness. 

Then, in the flare of a gasoline torch, he came face to face with LouisAkers. The two men confronted each other, silently, with hostility. Neither moved aside, but it was Akers who spoke first. 

"Always busy, Cameron, " he said. "What'd the world do without you, anyhow?"

"Aren't you on the wrong side of this barricade?"

"Smart as ever, " Akers observed, watching him intently. "As it happens, I'm here because I want to be, and because I can't get where I ought tobe. "

For a furious moment Willy Cameron thought he was referring to his wife, but there was something strange in Akers' tone. 

"I could be useful to you fellows, " he was saying, "but it seems youdon't want help. I've been trying to see the Mayor all night. "

"What do you want to see him about?"

"I'll tell him that. "

Willy Cameron hesitated. 

"I think it's a trick, Akers. "

"All right. Then go to the devil!"

He turned away sullenly, leaving Willy Cameron still undecided. It wouldbe like the man as he knew him, this turning informer when he saw thestrength of the defense, and Cameron had a flash of intuition, too, thatAkers might see, in this new role, some possible chance to win back withLily Cardew. He saw how the man's cheap soul might dramatize itself. 

"Akers!" he called. 

Akers stopped, but he did not turn. 

"I've got a car here. If you mean what you say, and it's straight, I'lltake you. "

"Where's the car?"

On their way to it, threading in and out among the toiling crowd, Willy Cameron had a chance to observe the change in the other man, hisdrooping shoulders and the almost lassitude of his walk. He went ahead, charging the mass and going through it by sheer bulk and weight, hishands in his coat pockets, his soft hat pulled low over his face. Neither of them noticed that one of the former clerks of the MyersHousecleaning Company followed close behind, or that, holding to a tire, he rode on the rear of the Cardew automobile as it made its way into thecenter of the city. 

In the car Akers spoke only once. 

"Where is Howard Cardew?" he asked. 

"With the Mayor, probably. I left him there. "

It seemed to him that Akers found the answer satisfactory. He sat backin the deep seat, and lighted a cigarette. 

The Municipal Building was under guard. Willy Cameron went up the stepsand spoke to the sentry there. It was while his back was turned that thesharp crack of a revolver rang out, and he whirled, in time to see LouisAkers fall forward on his face and lie still. 

 * * * * *

The shadowy groups through the countryside had commenced to coalesce. Groups of twenty became a rabble of five hundred. The five hundred grew, and joined other five hundreds. From Baxter alone over two thousandrioters, mostly foreigners, started out, and by daylight the main bodyof the enemy reached the outskirts of the city, a long, irregular lineof laughing, jostling, shouting men, constantly renewed at the rearuntil the procession covered miles of roadway. They were of all racesand all types; individually they were, many of them, like boys playingtruant from school, not quite certain of themselves, smiling and yetuneasy, not entirely wicked in intent. But they were shepherded by menwith cunning eyes, men who knew well that a mob is greater than thesum of its parts, more wicked than the individuals who compose it, morecruel, more courageous. 

As it marched it laughed. It was like a lion at play, ready to leap atthe first scratch that brought blood. 

Where the street car line met the Friendship Road the advance was metby the Chief of Police, on horseback and followed by a guard of mountedmen, and ordered back. The van hesitated, but it was urged ahead, pushed on by the irresistible force behind it, and it came on no longersinging, but slowly, inevitably, sullenly protesting and muttering. Itsgood nature was gone. 

As the Chief turned his horse was shot under him. He took another horsefrom one of his guard, and they retired, moving slowly and with drawnrevolvers. There was no further shooting at that time, nothing butthe irresistible advance. The police could no more have held the armedrabble than they could have held the invading hordes in Belgium. At theend of the street the Chief stopped and looked back. They had passedover his dead horse as though it were not there. 

In the mill district, which they had now reached, they receivedreenforcements, justifying the judgment of the conference that to haveerected their barricades there would have been to expose the city'sdefenders to attack from the rear. And the mill district sufferedcomparatively little. It was the business portion of the city towardwhich they turned their covetous eyes, the great stores, the hotels andrestaurants, the homes of the wealthy. 

Pleased by the lack of opposition the mob grew more cheerful. The lionplayed. They pressed forward, wanton and jeering, firing now and then atrandom, breaking windows as they passed, looting small shops which theystripped like locusts. Their pockets bulging, and the taste of pillageforecasting what was to come, they moved onward more rapidly, shootingat upper windows or into the air, laughing, yelling, cursing, talking. From the barricades, long before the miles-long column came into view, could be heard the ominous far-off muttering of the mob. 

It was when they found the bridge barricaded on the far side, however, that the lion bared its teeth and snarled. Temporarily checked by theplay of machine guns which swept the bridge and kept it clear for atime, they commenced wild, wasteful firing, from the bridge-head andfrom along the Cardew wharves. Their leaders were prepared, and sentsnipers into the bridge towers, but the machine guns continued to fire. 

That the struggle would be on the bridge Doyle and his Council hadanticipated from the reports of the night before. They were preparedto take a heavy loss on the bridges, but they had not prepared for thething that defeated them; that as the mob is braver than the individual, so also it is more cowardly. 

Pushed forward from the rear and unable to retreat through the densemass behind that was every moment growing denser, a few hundredsfound themselves facing the steady machine-gun fire from behind thebarricades, and unable either to advance or to retire. Thus trapped, they turned on their own forces behind them, and tried to fight theirway to safety, but the inexorable pressure kept on, and the defenders, watching and powerless, saw men fling themselves from the bridges anddisappear in the water below, rather than advance into the machine-gunzone. The guns were not firing into the rioters, but before them, tohold them back, and into that leaden stream there were no brave spiritsto hurl themselves. 

The trapped men turned on their own and battled for escape. With thesame violence which had been directed toward the city they now foughteach other, and the bridge slowly cleared. But the mob did not disperse. 

It spread out on the bank across, a howling, frustrated, futile mass, disorganized and demoralized, which fired its useless guns across theriver, which seethed and tossed and struggled, and spent itself in itsown wild fury. And all the time cool-eyed men, on the wharves across, watched and waited for the time to attack. 

"They're sick at their stomachs now, " said an old army sergeant, watching, to Willy Cameron. "The dirty devils! They'll be starting theirfilthy work over there soon, and that's the zero hour. "

Willy Cameron nodded. He had seen one young Russian boy with achild-like face venture forward alone into the fire zone and drop. Hestill lay there, on the bridge. And all of Willy Cameron was in revolt. What had he been told, that boy, that had made him ready to pour outhis young life like wine? There were others like him in that millingmultitude on the river bank across, young men who had come to Americawith a dream in their hearts, and America had done this to them. Or hadshe? She had taken them in, but they were not her own, and now, sinceshe would not take them, they would take her. Was that it? Was it thatAmerica had made them her servants, but not her children? He did notknow. 

 * * * * *

Robbed of the city proper, the mob turned on the mill district ithad invaded. Its dream of lust and greed was over, but it could stilldestroy. 

Like a battle charge, as indeed it was, the mounted city and statepolice crossed the bridge. It was followed by the state troops on foot, by city policemen in orderly files, and then by the armed citizens. The bridge vibrated to the step of marching men, going out to fight fortheir homes. The real battle was fought there, around the Cardew mills, a battle where the loyalists were greatly outnumbered, and where therioters fought, according to their teaching, with every trick they coulddevise. Posted in upper windows they fired down from comparative safety;ambulances crossed and re-crossed the bridges. The streets were filledwith rioting men, striking out murderously with bars and spikes. Firesflamed up and burned themselves out. In one place, eight blocks ofmill-workers' houses, with their furnishings, went in a quarter of anhour. 

Willy Cameron was fighting like a demon. Long ago his reserve ofammunition had given out, and he was fighting with the butt end of hisrevolver. Around him had rallied some of the men he knew best, Pink andMr. Hendricks, Doctor Smalley, Dan and Joe Wilkinson, and they stayedtogether as, street by street, the revolutionists were driven back. There were dead and wounded everywhere, injured men who had crawled intothe shelter of doorways and sat or lay there, nursing their wounds. 

Suddenly, to his amazement, Willy saw old Anthony Cardew. He had somehowachieved an upper window of the mill office building, and he was showinghimself fearlessly, a rifle in his hands; in his face was a great anger, but there was more than that. Willy Cameron, thinking it over later, decided that it was perplexity. He could not understand. 

He never did understand. For other eyes also had seen old AnthonyCardew. Willy Cameron, breasting the mob and fighting madly toward thedoor of the building, with Pink behind him, heard a cheer and an angryroar, and, looking up, saw that the old man had disappeared. They foundhim there later on, the rifle beside him, his small and valiant figurelooking, with eyes no longer defiant, toward the Heaven which puts, forits own strange purpose, both evil and good into the same heart. 

By eleven o'clock the revolution was over. Sodden groups of men, thoroughly cowed and frightened, were on their way by back roads to theplaces they had left a few hours before. They had no longer dreams ofempire. Behind them they could see, on the horizon, the city itself, the smoke from its chimneys, the spires of its churches. Both, homesand churches, they had meant to destroy, but behind both there was theindestructible. They had failed. 

They turned, looked back, and went on. 

 * * * * *

On the crest of a hill-top overlooking the city a man was standing, looking down to where the softened towers of the great steel bridgesrose above the river mist like fairy towers. Below him lay the city, powerful, significant, important. 

The man saw the city only as a vast crucible, into which he had flunghis all, and out of which had come only defeat and failure. But thecity was not a crucible. The melting pot of a nation is not a thing ofcities, but of the human soul. 

The city was not a melting pot. It was a sanctuary. The man stood silentand morose, his chin dropped on his chest, and stared down. 

Beside and somewhat behind him stood a woman, a somber, passionatefigure, waiting passively. His eyes traveled from the city to her, andrested on her, contemptuous, thwarted, cynical. 

"You fool, " he said, "I hate you, and you know it. "

But she only smiled faintly. "We'd better get away now, Jim, " she said. 

He got into the car. 

CHAPTER L

Late that afternoon Joe Wilkinson and Dan came slowly up the street, toward the Boyd house. The light of battle was still in Dan's eyes, hisclothes were torn and his collar missing, and he walked with the fineswagger of the conqueror. 

"Y'ask me, " he said, "and I'll tell the world this thing's done for. Itwas just as well to let them give it a try, and find out it won't work. "

Joe said nothing. He was white and very tired, and a little sick. 

"If you don't mind I'll go in your place and wash up, " he remarked, asthey neared the house. "I'll scare the kids to death if they see me likethis. "

Edith was in the parlor. She had sat there almost all day, in an agonyof fear. At four o'clock the smallest Wilkinson had hammered at thefront door, and on being admitted had made a shameless demand. 

"Bed and thugar, " she had said, looking up with an ingratiating smile. 

"You little beggar!"

"Bed and thugar. "

Edith had got the bread and sugar, and, having lured the baby intothe parlor, had held her while she ate, receiving now and then anexceedingly sticky kiss in payment. After a little the child's headbegan to droop, and Edith drew the small head down onto her breast. Shesat there, rocking gently, while the chair slowly traveled, according toits wont, about the room. 

The child brought her comfort. She began to understand those graverocking figures in the hospital ward, women who sat, with eyes thatseemed to look into distant places, with a child's head on theirbreasts. 

After all, that was life for a woman. Love was only a part of the schemeof life, a means to an end. And that end was the child. 

For the first time she wished that her child had lived. 

She felt no bitterness now, and no anger. He was dead. It was hard tothink of him as dead, who had been so vitally alive. She was sorry hehad had to die, but death was like love and children, it was a part ofsome general scheme of things. Suppose this had been his child she washolding? Would she so easily have forgiven him? She did not know. 

Then she thought of Willy Cameron. The bitterness had strangely goneout of that, too. Perhaps, vaguely, she began to realize that only younglove gives itself passionately and desperately, when there is no hope ofa return, and that the agonies of youth, although terrible enough, passwith youth itself. 

She felt very old. 

Joe found her there, the chair displaying its usual tendency to climbthe chimney flue, and stood in the doorway, looking at her with haunted, hungry eyes. There was a sort of despair in Joe those days, and now hewas tired and shaken from the battle. 

"I'll take her home in a minute, " he said, still with the strange eyes. 

He came into the room, and suddenly he was kneeling beside the chair, his head buried against the baby's warm, round body. His bent shouldersshook, and Edith, still with the maternal impulse strong within her, puther hand on his bowed head. 

"Don't, Joe!"

He looked up. 

"I loved you so, Edith!"

"Don't you love me now?"

"God knows I do. I can't get over it. I can't. I've tried, Edith. "

He sat back on the floor and looked at her. 

"I can't, " he repeated. "And when I saw you like that just now, with thekid in your arms--I used to think that maybe you and I--"

"I know, Joe. No decent man would want me now. "

She was still strangely composed, peaceful, almost detached. 

"That!" he said, astonished. "I don't mean that, Edith. I've had myfight about that, and got it over. That's done with. I mean--" he got upand straightened himself. "You don't care about me. "

"But I do care for you. Perhaps not quite the way you care, Joe, butI've been through such a lot. I can't seem to feel anything terribly. Ijust want peace. "

"I could give you that, " he said eagerly. 

Edith smiled. Peace, in that noisy house next door, with children andkittens and puppies everywhere! And yet it would be peace, after all, a peace of the soul, the peace of a good man's love. After a time, too, there might come another peace, the peace of those tired women in theward, rocking. 

"If you want me, I'll marry you, " she said, very simply. "I'll be a goodwife, Joe. And I want children. I want the right to have them. "

He never noticed that the kiss she gave him, over the sleeping baby, wasslightly tinged with granulated sugar. 

CHAPTER LI

OLD Anthony's body had been brought home, and lay in state in his greatbed. There had been a bad hour; death seems so strangely to erase faultsand leave virtues. Something strong and vital had gone from the house, and the servants moved about with cautious, noiseless steps. In Grace'sboudoir, Howard was sitting, his arms around his wife, telling her thestory of the day. At dawn he had notified her by telephone of Akers'murder. 

"Shall I tell Lily?" she had asked, trembling. 

"Do you want to wait until I get back?"

"I don't know how she will take it, Howard. I wish you could be here, anyhow. "

But then had come the battle and his father's death, and in the end itwas Willy Cameron who told her. He had brought back all that was mortalof Anthony Cardew, and, having seen the melancholy procession up thestairs, had stood in the hall, hating to intrude but hoping to beuseful. Howard found him there, a strange, disheveled figure, bearingthe scars of battle, and held out his hand. 

"It's hard to thank you, Cameron, " he said; "you seem to be alwaysabout when we need help. And"--he paused--"we seem to have needed itconsiderably lately. "

Willy Cameron flushed. 

"I feel rather like a meddler, sir. "

"Better go up and wash, " Howard said. "I'll go up with you. "

It happened, therefore, that it was in Howard Cardew's opulentdressing-room that Howard first spoke to Willy Cameron of Akers' death, pacing the floor as he did so. 

"I haven't told her, Cameron. " He was anxious and puzzled. "She'll haveto be told soon, of course. I don't know anything about women. I don'tknow how she'll take it. "

"She has a great deal of courage. It will be a shock, but not a grief. But I have been thinking--" Willy Cameron hesitated. "She must not feelany remorse, " he went on. "She must not feel that she contributed to itin any way. If you can make that clear to her--"

"Are you sure she did not?"

"It isn't facts that matter now. We can't help those. And no one cantell what actually led to his change of heart. It is what she is tothink the rest of her life. "

Howard nodded. 

"I wish you would tell her, " he said. "I'm a blundering fool when itcomes to her. I suppose I care too much. "

He caught rather an odd look in Willy Cameron's face at that, andpondered over it later. 

"I will tell her, if you wish. "

And Howard drew a deep breath of relief. It was shortly after that hebroached another matter, rather diffidently. 

"I don't know whether you realize it or not, Cameron, " he said, "butthis thing to-day might have been a different story if it had not beenfor you. And--don't think I'm putting this on a reward basis. It'snothing of the sort--but I would like to feel that you were working withme. I'd hate like thunder to have you working against me, " he added. 

"I am only trained for one thing. "

"We use chemists in the mills. "

But the discussion ended there. Both men knew that it would be takenup later, at some more opportune time, and in the meantime both had onethought, Lily. 

So it happened that Lily heard the news of Louis Akers' death from WillyCameron. She stood, straight and erect, and heard him through, watchinghim with eyes sunken by her night's vigil and by the strain of the day. But it seemed to her that he was speaking of some one she had known longago, in some infinitely remote past. 

"I am sorry, " she said, when he finished. "I didn't want him to die. Youknow that, don't you? I never wished him--Willy, I say I am sorry, but Idon't really feel anything. It's dreadful. "

Before he could catch her she had fallen to the floor, fainting for thefirst time in her healthy young life. 

 * * * * *

An hour later Mademoiselle went down to the library door. She foundWilly Cameron pacing the floor, a pipe clenched in his teeth, and a lookof wild despair in his eyes. 

Mademoiselle took a long breath. She had changed her view-point somewhatsince the spring. After all, what mattered was happiness. Wealth andworldly ambition were well enough, but they brought one, in the end, to the thing which waited for all in some quiet upstairs room, with theshades drawn and the heavy odors of hot-house flowers over everything. 

"She is all right, quite, Mr. Cameron, " she said. "It was but a crisisof the nerves, and to be expected. And now she demands to see you. "

Grayson, standing in the hall, had a swift vision of a tall figure, which issued with extreme rapidity from the library door, and went upthe stairs, much like a horse taking a series of hurdles. But the figurelost momentum suddenly at the top, hesitated, and apparently movedforward on tiptoe. Grayson went into the library and sniffed at theunmistakable odor of a pipe. Then, having opened a window, he went andstood before a great portrait of old Anthony Cardew. Tears stood inthe old man's eyes, but there was a faint smile on his lips. He saw theendless procession of life. First, love. Then, out of love, life. Thendeath. Grayson was old, but he had lived to see young love in the Cardewhouse. Out of love, life. He addressed a little speech to the picture. 

"Wherever you are, sir, " he said, "you needn't worry any more. The linewill carry on, sir. The line will carry on. "

Upstairs in the little boudoir Willy Cameron knelt beside the couch, andgathered Lily close in his arms. 

CHAPTER LII

Thanksgiving of the year of our Lord 1919 saw many changes. It saw, slowly emerging from the chaos of war, new nations, like children, taking their first feeble steps. It saw a socialism which, born at fullterm might have thrived, prematurely and forcibly delivered, and makinga valiant but losing fight for life. It saw that war is never good, but always evil; that war takes everything and gives nothing, save thatsometimes a man may lose the whole world and gain his own soul. 

It saw old Anthony Cardew gone to his fathers, into the vast democracyof heaven, and Louis Akers passed through the Traitors' Gate of eternityto be judged and perhaps reprieved. For a man is many men, good and bad, and the Judge of the Tower of Heaven is a just Judge. 

It saw Jim Doyle a fugitive, Woslosky dead, and the Russian, Ross, bland, cunning and eternally plotting, in New England under anothername. And Mr. Hendricks ordering a new suit for the day of takingoffice. And Doctor Smalley tying a bunch of chrysanthemums on Annabelle, against a football game, and taking a pretty nurse to see it. 

It saw Ellen roasting a turkey, and a strange young man in the EaglePharmacy, a young man who did not smoke a pipe, and allowed no visitorsin the back room. And it saw Willy Cameron in the laboratory of thereopened Cardew Mills, dealing in tons instead of grains and drams, and learning to touch any piece of metal in the mill with a moistenedfore-finger before he sat down upon it. 

 * * * * *

But it saw more than that. 

On the evening of Thanksgiving Day there was an air of repressedexcitement about the Cardew house. Mademoiselle, in a new silk dress, ran about the lower floor, followed by an agitated Grayson with a cloth, for Mademoiselle was shifting ceaselessly and with trembling hands vasesof flowers, and spilling water at each shift. At six o'clock had arriveda large square white box, which the footman had carried to the rear andthere exhibited, allowing a palpitating cook, scullery maid and diversother excitable and emotional women to peep within. 

After which he tied it up again and carried it upstairs. 

At seven o'clock Elinor Cardew, lovely in black satin, was carried downthe stairs and placed in a position which commanded both the hall andthe drawing-room. For some strange reason it was essential that sheshould see both. 

At seven-thirty came in a rush:

(a)--Mr. Alston Denslow, in evening clothes and gardenia, and feeling inhis right waist-coat pocket nervously every few minutes. 

(b)--An excited woman of middle age, in a black silk dress still faintlybearing the creases of five days in a trunk, and accompanied by amongrel dog, both being taken upstairs by Grayson, Mademoiselle, Pink, and Howard Cardew. ("He said Jinx was to come, " she explainedbreathlessly to her bodyguard. "I never knew such a boy!")

(c)--Mr. Davis, in a frock coat and white lawn tie, and taken upstairsby Grayson, who mistook him for the bishop. 

(d)--Aunt Caroline, in her diamond dog collar and purple velvet, anddetermined to make the best of things. 

(e)--The real bishop this time, and his assistant, followed by a valetwith a suitcase, containing the proper habiliments for a prince of thechurch while functioning. (A military term, since the Bishop had been inthe army. )

(f)--A few unimportant important people, very curious, and the womenuncertain about the proper garb for a festive occasion in a house ofmourning. 

(g)--Set of silver table vases, belated. 

(h)--Mr. And Mrs. Hendricks, Mayor and Mayoress-elect. Extremelydignified. 

(i)--An overfull taxicab, containing inside it Ellen, Edith, Dan andJoe. The overflow, consisting of a tall young man, displaying repressedexcitement and new evening clothes, with gardenia, sat on the seatoutside beside the chauffeur and repeated to himself a sort of chantaccompanied by furious searchings of his pockets. "Money. Checkbook. Tickets. Trunk checks, " was the burden of his song. 

(j)--Doctor Smalley and Annabelle. He left Annabelle outside. 

 * * * * *

The city moved on about its business. In thousands of homes the lightsshone down on little family groups, infinitely tender little groups. Theworkers of the city were there, the doors shut, the fires burning. Toeach man the thing he had earned, not the thing that he took. To allmen the right to labor, to love, and to rest. To children, the rightto play. To women, the hearth, and the peace of the hearth. To lovers, love, and marriage, and home. 

The city moved on about its business, and its business was homes. 

 * * * * *

At the great organ behind the staircase the organist sat. In stiff rowsnear him were the Cardew servants, marshaled by Grayson and in theirbest. 

Grayson stood, very rigid, and waited. And as he waited he kept his eyeson the portrait of old Anthony, in the drawing-room beyond. There was afixed, rapt look in Grayson's eyes, and there was reassurance. It was asthough he would say to the portrait: "It has all come out very well, yousee, sir. It always works out somehow. We worry and fret, we old ones, but the young come along, and somehow or other they manage, sir. "

What he actually said was to tell a house maid to stop sniveling. 

Over the house was the strange hush of waiting. It had waited beforethis, for birth and for death, but never before--

The Bishop was waiting also, and he too had his eyes fixed on oldAnthony's portrait, a straight, level-eyed gaze, as of man to man, as ofprince of the church to prince of industry. The Bishop's eyes said:"All shall be done properly and in order, and as befits the Cardews, Anthony. "

The Bishop was as successful in his line as Anthony Cardew had been inhis. He cleared his throat. 

The organist sat at the great organ behind the staircase, waiting. Hewas playing very softly, with his eyes turned up. He had played thesame music many times before, and always he felt very solemn, as one whomakes history. He sighed. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was only anaccompaniment to life, to which others sang and prayed, were christened, confirmed and married. But what was the song without the music? Hewished the scullery maid would stop crying. 

Grayson touched him on the arm. 

"All ready, sir, " he said. 

*****

Willy Cameron stood at the foot of the staircase, looking up.