A Story of to-Day: Part Iv

AN hour after, the evening came on sultry, the air murky, opaque, with yellow trails of color dragging in the west: a sullen stillness in the woods and farms; only, in fact, that dark, inexplicable hush that precedes a storm. But Lois, coming down the hill-road, singing to herself, and keeping time with her whip-end on the wooden measure, stopped when she grew conscious of it. It seemed to her blurred fancy more than a deadening sky : a something solemn and unknown, hinting of evil to come. The dwarf-pines on the road-side scowled weakly at her through the gray; the very silver minnows in the pools she passed flashed frightened away, and darkened into the muddy niches. There was a vague dread in the sudden silence. She called to the old donkey, and went faster down the hill, as if escaping from some overhanging peril, unseen. She saw Margaret coming up the road. There was a phaëton behind her, and some horsemen : she jolted the cart off into the stones to let them pass, seeing Mr. Holmes’s face in the carriage as she did so. He did not look at her; had his head turned towards the gray distance. Lois’s vivid eye caught the full meaning of the woman beside him. The face hurt her : not fair, as Polston called it: vapid and cruel. She was dressed in yellow: the color seemed jeering and mocking to the girl’s sensitive instinct, keenly alive to every trifle. She did not know that it is the color of shams, and that women like this are the most deadly of shams. As the phaëton went slowly down, Margaret came nearer, meeting it on the road-side, the dust from the wheels stifling the air. Lois saw her look up, and then suddenly stand still, holding to the fence, as they met her. Holmes’s cold, wandering eye turned on the little dusty figure standing there, poor and despised. Polston called his eyes hungry: it was a savage hunger that sprang into them now; a gray shadow creeping over his set face, as he looked at her, in that flashing moment. The phaëton was gone in an instant, leaving her alone in the muddy road. One of the men looked back, and then whispered something to the lady with a laugh. She turned to Holmes, when he had finished, fixing her light, confusing eyes on his face, and softening her voice.

“ Fred swears that woman we passed was your first love. Were you, then, so chivalric ? Was it to have been a second romaunt of ‘ King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid ’ ? ”

He met her look, and saw the fierce demand through the softness and persiflage. He gave it no answer, but, turning to her, kindled into the man whom she was so proud to show as her capture, — a man far off from Stephen Holmes. Brilliant she called him, — frank, winning, generous. She thought she knew him well; held him a slave to her fluttering hand. Being proud of her slave, she let the hand flutter down now somehow with some flowers it held until it touched his hard fingers, her cheek flushing into rose. The nerveless, spongy hand,—what a death-grip it had on his life! He did not look back once at the motionless, dusty figure on the road. What was that Polston had said about starving to death for a kind word ? Love ? He was sick of the sickly talk,—crushed it out of his heart with a savage scorn. He remembered his father, the night he died, had said in his weak ravings that God was love. Was He? No wonder, then, He was the God of women, and children, and unsuccessful men. For him, he was done with it. He was here with stronger purpose than to yield to weaknesses of the flesh. He had made his choice,—a straight, hard path upwards; he was deaf now and forever to any word of kindness or pity. As for this woman beside him, he would be just to her, in justice to himself: she never should know the loathing in his heart: just to her as to all living creatures. Some little, mean doubt kept up a sullen whisper of bought and sold,— sold, — but he laughed it down. He sat there with his head steadily turned towards her: a kingly face, she called it, and she was right,—it was a kingly face: with the same shallow, fixed smile on his mouth, — no weary cry went up to God that day so terrible in its pathos, I think: with the same dull consciousness that this was the trial night of his life,— that with the homely figure on the road-side he had turned his back on love and kindly happiness and warmth, on all that was weak and useless in the world. He had made his choice ; he would abide by it, — he would abide by it. He said that over and over again, dulling down the death-gnawing of his outraged heart.

Miss Herne was quite contented, sitting by him, with herself, and the admiring world. She had no notion of trial nights in life. Not many temptations pierced through her callous, flabby temperament to sting her to defeat or triumph. There was for her no under-current of conflict, in these people whom she passed, between self and the unseen power that Holmes sneered at, whose name was love ; they were nothing but movables, pleasant or ugly to look at, wellor illdressed. There were no dark iron bars across her life for her soul to clutch and shake madly, — nothing “in the world amiss, to be unriddled by-and-by.” Little Margaret, sitting by the muddy road, digging her fingers dully into the cloverroots. while she looked at the spot where the wheels had passed, looked at life differently, it may be;—or old Joe Yare by the furnace-fire, his black face and gray hair bent over a torn old spelling-book Lois had given him. The night perhaps was going to be more to them than so many rainy hours for sleeping,— the time to be looked back on through coming lives as the hour when good and ill came to them, and they made their choice, and, as Holmes said, did abide by it.

It grew cool and darker. Holmes left the phaëton before they entered town, and turned bark. He was going to see this Margaret Howth, tell her what he was going to do. Because he was going to leave a clean record. No one should accuse him of want of honor. This girl alone of all living beings had a right to see him as he stood, justified to himself. Why she had this right, I do not think he answered to himself. Besides, he must see her, if only on business. She must keep her place at the mill: he would not begin his new life by an act of injustice, taking the bread out of Margaret’s mouth. Little Margaret! He stopped Suddenly, looking down into a deep pool of water by the road-side. What madness of weariness crossed his brain just then I do not know. He shook it off. Was he mad ? Life was worth more to him than to other men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He went slowly through the cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the pale, frightened face of the moon hooded in clouds : he did not dare to look, with all his iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on the road. She was sitting there just where he had left her: he knew she would be. When he came closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her clasp her hands behind her, the fingers plucking weakly at each other. It was an old, childish fashion of hers, when she was frightened or hurt. It would only need a word, and he could be quiet and firm,— she was such a child compared to him: he always had thought of her so. He went on up to her slowly, and stopped ; when she looked at him, he untied the linen bonnet that hid her face, and threw it back. How thin and tired the little face had grown ! Poor child! He put his strong arm kindly about her, and stooped to kiss her hand, but she drew it away. God ! what did she do that for ? Did not she know that he could put his head beneath her foot then, he was so mad with pity for the woman he had wronged ? Not love, he thought, controlling himself,—it was only justice to be kind to her.

“ You have been ill, Margaret, these two years, while I was gone ? ”

He could not hear her answer; only saw that she looked up with a white, pitiful smile. Only a word it needed, he thought, — very kind and firm: and he must be quick,— he could not bear this long. But he held the little worn fingers, stroking them with an unutterable tenderness.

“You must let these fingers work for me, Margaret,” he said, at last, “ when I am master in the mill.”

“ It is true, then, Stephen ? ”

“ It is true, — yes.”

She lifted her hand to her head, uncertainly: he held it tightly, and then let it go. What right had he to touch the dust upon her shoes, — he, bought and sold ? She did not speak for a time ; when she did, it was a weak and sick voice.

“ I am glad. I saw her, you know. She is very beautiful.”

The fingers were plucking at each other again ; and a strange, vacant smile on her face, trying to look glad.

“ You love her, Stephen ? ”

He was quiet and firm enough now.

“ I do not. Her money will help me to become what I ought to be. She does not care for love. You want me to succeed, Margaret? No one ever understood me as you did, child though you were.”

Her whole face glowed.

“ I know! I know ! I did understand you ! ”

She said, lower, after a little while,—

“ I knew you did not love her.”

“ There is no such thing as love in real life,” he said, in his steeled voice. “You will know that, when you grow older. I used to believe, in it once, myself.”

She did not speak, only watched the slow motion of his lips, not looking into his eyes, — as she used to do in the old time. Whatever secret account lay between the souls of this man and woman came out now, and stood bare on their faces.

“ I used to think that I, too, loved,” he went on, in his low, hard tone. “ But it kept me back, Margaret, and”

He was silent.

“ I know, Stephen. It kept you hack ”

“ And I put it away. I put it away to-niglit, forever.”

She did not speak ; stood quite quiet, her head bent on her breast. His conscience was quite clear now. But he almost wished he had not said it, she was such a weak, sickly thing. She sat down at last, burying her face in her hands, with a shivering sob. He dared not trust himself to speak again.

“ I am not proud, —as a woman ought to be,” she said, wearily, when he wiped her clammy forehead.

“ You loved me, then ? ” he whispered.

Her face flashed at the unmanly triumph ; her puny frame started up, away from him.

“I did love you, Stephen. I love you now, — as you might be, not as you are, — not with those cold, inhuman eyes. I do understand you, — I do. I know you for a better man than you know yourself this night.”

She turned to go. He put his hand on her arm; something we have never seen on his face struggled up, — the better soul that she knew.

“ Come back,” he said, hoarsely; “ don’t leave me with myself. Come back, Margaret.”

She did not come ; stood leaning, her sudden strength gone, against the broken wall. There was a heavy silence. The night throbbed slow about them. Some late bird rose from the sedges of the pool, and with a frightened cry flapped its tired wings, and drifted into the dark. His eyes, through the gathering shadow, devoured the weak, trembling body, met the soul that looked at him, strong as his own. Was it because It knew and trusted him that all that was pure and strongest in his crushed nature struggled madly to be free ? He thrust it down ; the selflearned lesson of years was not to be conquered in a moment.

“ There have been times,” he said, in a smothered, restless voice, “ when I thought you belonged to me. Not here, but before this life. My soul and body thirst and hunger for you, then, Margaret.”

She did not answer; her hands worked feebly together.

He came nearer, and held up his arms to where she stood, — the heavy, masterful face pale and wet.

“ I need you, Margaret. I shall be nothing without you, now. Come, [Margaret, little Margaret! ”

She came to him, and put her hands in his.

“ No, Stephen,” she said.

If there were any pain in her tone, she kept it down, for his sake.

“ Never, I could never help you,— as you are. It might have been, once. Good-bye, Stephen.”

Her childish way put him in mind of the old days when this girl was dearer to him than his own soul. She was so yet. He held her, looking down into her eyes. She moved uneasily; she dared not trust her resolution.

“ You will come ? ” he said. “ It might have been, — it shall be again.”

“ It may be,” she said, humbly. “ God is good. And I believe in you, Stephen. I will be yours some time: we cannot help it, if we would: but not as you are.”

“ You do not love me ? ” he said, flinging off her hand.

She said nothing, gathered her damp shawl around her, and turned to go. Just a moment they stood, looking at each other. If the dark square figure standing there had been an iron fate trampling her young life down into hopeless wretchedness, she forgot it now. Women like Margaret are apt to forget. His eye never abated in its fierce question.

“ I will wait for you yonder, if I die first,” she whispered.

He came closer, waiting for an answer.

“ And — I love you, Stephen.”

He gathered her in his arms, and put his cold lips to hers, without a word; then turned and left her slowly.

She made no sign, shed no tear, as she stood watching him go. It was all over: she had willed it, herself, and yet — he could not go ! God would not suffer it! Oh, he could not leave her, — he could not! — He went down the hill, slowly. If it were a trial of life and death for her, did he know or care ? — He did not look back. What if he did not? his heart was true; he suffered in going; even now he walked wearily. God forgive her, if she had wronged him!—What did it matter, if he were hard in this life, and it hurt her a little ? It would come right,— beyond, some time. But life was long.— She would not sit down, sick as she was: he might turn, and it would vex him to see her suffer.— He walked slowly; once he stopped to pick up something. She saw the deep-cut face and half-shut eyes. How often those eyes had looked into her soul, and it had answered! They never would look so any more.— There was a tree by the place where the road turned into town. If he came back, he would be sure to turn there. — How tired he walked, and slow! — If he was sick, that beautiful woman could be near him,— help him.— She never would touch his hand again,—never again, never,— unless he came back now. — He was near the tree: she closed her eyes, turning away. When she looked again, only the bare road lay there, yellow and wet. It was over, now.

How long she sat there she did not know. She tried once or twice to go to the house, but the lights seemed so far off that she gave it up and sat quiet, unconscious except of the damp stones her head leaned on and the stretch of muddy road. Some time, she knew not when, there was a heavy step beside her, and a rough hand shook hers where she stooped feebly tracing out the lines of mortar between the stones. It was Knowles. She looked up, bewildered.

“ Hunting catarrhs, eh ? ” he growled, eying her keenly. “ Got your father on the Bourbons, so took the chance to come and find you. He ’ll not miss me for an hour. That man has a natural hankering after treason against the people. Lord, Margaret! what a stiff old head he 'd have carried to the guillotine ! How he’d have looked at the canaille!”

He helped her up gently enough.

11 Your bonnet ’s like a wet rag,” — with a furtive glance at the worn-out face. A hungry face always, with her life unfed by its stingy few crumbs of good; but to-night it was vacant with utter loss.

She got up, trying to laugh cheerfully, and went beside him down the road.

“ You saw that painted Jezebel tonight, and”-stopping abruptly.

She had not heard him, and he followed her doggedly, with an occasional snort or grunt or other inarticulate damn at the obstinate mud. She stopped at last, with a quick gasp. Looking at her, he chafed her limp hands, — his huge, uncouth face growing pale. When she was better, he said, gravely,—

“ I want you, Margaret. Not at home, child. I want to show you something.”

He turned with her suddenly off the main road into a by-path, helping her along, watching her stealthily, but going on with his disjointed, bearish growls. If it stung her from her pain, vexing her, he did not care.

“ I want to show you a bit of hell: outskirt. You ’re in a fit state : it ’ll do you good. I ’m minister there. The clergy can’t attend to it just now; they ’re too busy measuring God’s truth by the States’-Rights doctrine or the Chicago Platform. Consequence, religion yields to majorities. Are you able ? It’s only a step.”

She went on indifferently. The night was breathless and dark. Black, wet gusts dragged now and then through the skyless fog, striking her face with a chill. The Doctor quit talking, hurrying her, watching her anxiously. They came at last to the railway-track, with long trains of empty freight-cars.

“ We are nearly there,” he whispered. “ It ’s time you knew your work, and forgot your weakness. The curse of pampered generations. ‘ High Norman blood,’ — pah! ”

There was a broken gap in the fence. He led her through it into a muddy yard. Inside was one of those taverns you will find in the suburbs of large cities, haunts of the lowest vice. This one was a smoky frame standing on piles over an open space where hogs were rooting. Half a dozen drunken Irishmen were playing poker with a pack of greasy cards in an out-house. He led her up the rickety ladder to the one room, where a flaring tallow-dip threw a saffron glare into the darkness. A putrid odor met them at the door. She drew back, trembling.

“ Come here !” he said, fiercely, clutching her hand. “ Women as fair and pure as you have come into dens like this, — and never gone away. Does it make your delicate breath faint ? And you a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus ! Look here ! and here ! ”

The room was swarming with human life. Women, idle trampers, whiskeybloated, filthy, lay half-asleep or smoking on the floor, and set up a chorus of whining begging when they entered. Halfnaked children crawled about in rags. On the damp, mildewed walls there was hung a picture of the Benicia Boy, and close by Pio Nono, crook in hand, with the usual inscription, “ Feed my sheep.” The Doctor looked at it.

“ ‘ Tu es Petrus, et super hanc '— Good God ! what is truth ? ” he muttered, bitterly.

He dragged her closer to the women, through the darkness and foul smell.

“ Look in their faces,” he whispered. “ There is not one of them that is not a living lie. Can they help it ? Think of the centuries of serfdom and superstition through which their blood has crawled. Come closer, — here.”

In the corner slept a heap of halfclothed blacks. Going on the underground railroad to Canada. Stolid, sensual wretches, with here and there a broad, melancholy brow and desperate jaws. One little pickaninny rubbed its sleepy eyes and laughed at them.

“ So much flesh and blood out of the market, unweighed! ”

Margaret took up the child, kissing its brown face. Knowles looked at her.

“ Would you touch her ? I forgot you were bora down South. Put it down, and come on.”

They went out of the door. Margaret stopped, looking back.

“ Did I call it a bit of hell ? It’s only a glimpse of the under-life of America, — God help us! — where all men are born free and equal.”

The air in the passage grew fouler. She leaned back faint and shuddering. He did not heed her. The passion of the man, the terrible pity for these people, came out of his soul now, whitening his face and dulling his eyes.

“ And you,” he said, savagely, “ you sit by the road-side, with help in your hands, and Christ in your heart, and call your life lost, quarrel with your God, because that mass of selfishness has left you, — because you are balked in your puny hope ! Look at these women. What is their loss, do you think ? Go back, will you, and drone out your life whimpering over your lost dream, and go to Shakspeare for tragedy when you want it ? Tragedy ! Come here,—let me hear what you call this.”

He led her through the passage, up a narrow flight of stairs. An old woman in a flaring cap sat at the top, nodding, —wakening now and then, to rock herself to and fro, and give the shrill Irish keen.

“ You know that stoker who was killed in the mill a month ago ? Of course not, — what are such people to you ? There was a girl who loved him, — you know what that is ? She ’s dead now, here. She drank herself to death, — a most unpicturesque suicide. I want you to look at her. You need not blush for her life of shame, now; she’s dead. — Is Hetty here ? ”

The woman got up.

“She is, Zur. She is, Mem. She ’s lookin' foine in her Sunday suit. Shrouds is gone out, Mem, they say.”

She went tipping over the floor to something white that lay on a board, a candle at the head, and drew off the sheet. A girl of fifteen, almost a child, lay underneath, dead, — her lithe, delicate figure decked out in a barred plaid skirt, and stained, faded velvet bodice,— her neck and arms bare. The small face was purely cut, haggard, patient in its sleep, — the soft, fair hair gathered off the tired forehead. Margaret leaned over her shuddering, pinning her handkerchief about the child’s dead neck.

“ How young she is ! ” muttered Knowles. “ Merciful God, how young she is ! —What is that you say ? ” sharply, seeing Margaret's lips move.

“ ‘ He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ ”

“Ah, child, that is old-time philosophy. Put your hand here, on her dead face. Is your loss like hers?” he said lower, looking into the dull pain in her eyes. Selfish pain he called it.

“ Let me go,” she said. “ I am tired.”

He took her out into the cool, open road, leading her tenderly enough, — for the girl suffered, he saw.

“ What will you do ? ” he asked her then. “ It is not too late, — will you help me save these people ? ”

She wrung her hands helplessly.

“ What do you want with me?” she cried, weakly. “ I have enough to bear.”

The burly black figure before her seemed to tower and strengthen ; the man’s face in the wan light showed a terrible life-purpose coming out bare.

“ I want you to do your work. It is hard; it will wear out your strength and brain and heart. Give yourself to these people. God calls you to it. There is none to help them. Give up love, and the petty hopes of women. Help me. God calls you to the work.”

She went on blindly: he followed her. For years he had set apart this girl to help him in his scheme : he would not be balked now. He had great hopes from his plan : he meant to give all he had: it was the noblest of aims. He thought some day it would work like leaven through the festering mass under the country he loved so well, and raise it to a new life. If it failed,— if it failed, and saved one life, his work was not lost. But it could not fail.

“ Home ! ” he said, stopping her as she reached the stile, — “oh, Margaret, what is home ? There is a cry going up night and day from homes like that den yonder, for help, — and no man listens.”

She was weak ; her brain faltered.

“ Does God call me to this work ? Does He call me?” she moaned.

He watched her eagerly.

“ He calls you. He waits for your answer. Swear to me that you will help His people. Give up father and mother and love, and go down as Christ did. Help me to give liberty and truth and Jesus’ love to these wretches on the brink of hell. Live with them, raise them with you.”

She looked up, white ; she was a weak, weak woman, sick for her natural food of love.

“Is it my work ?”

“ It is your work. Listen to me, Margaret,” softly. “ Who cares for you ? You stand alone to-night. There is not a single human heart that calls you nearest and best. Shiver, if you will, — it is true. The man you wasted your soul on left you in the night and cold to go to his bride, — is sitting by her now, holding her hand in his.”

He waited a moment, looking down at her, until she should understand.

“ Do you think you deserved this of God ? I know that yonder on the muddy road you looked up to Him, and knew it was not just; that you had done right, and this was your reward. I know that for these two years you have trusted in the Christ you worship to make it right, to give you your heart’s desire. Did He do it ? Did He hear your prayer ? Does He care for your weak love, when the nations of the earth are going down ? What is your poor hope to Him, when the very land you live in is a wine-press that will be trodden some day by the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God ? O Christ! — if there be a Christ, — help me to save it!”

He looked up, — his face white with pain. After a time he said to her,—

“ Help me, Margaret! Your prayer was selfish; it was not heard. Give up your idle hope that Christ will aid you. Swear to me, this night when you have lost all, to give yourself to this work.”

The storm had been dark and windy : it cleared now slowly, the warm summer rain falling softly, the fresh blue stealing broadly from behind the gray. It seemed to Margaret like a blessing; for her brain rose up stronger, more healthful.

“ I will not swear,” she said, weakly. “I think He heard my prayer. I think He will answer it. He was a man, and loved as we do. My love is not selfish ; it is the best gift God has given me.”

Knowles went slowly with her to the house. He was not baffled. He knew that the struggle was yet to come ; that, when she was alone, her faith in the faroff Christ would falter; that she would grasp at this work, to fill her empty hands and starved heart, if for no other reason, — to stifle by a sense of duty her unutterable feeling of loss. He was keenly read in woman’s heart, this Knowles. He left her silently, and she passed through the dark passage to her own room.

Putting her damp shawl off, she sat down on the floor, leaning her head on a low chair, — one her father had given her for a Christmas gift when she was little. How fond Holmes and her father used to be of each other ! Every Christmas he spent with them. She remembered them all now. “ He was sitting by her now, holding her hand in his.” She said that over to herself, though it was not hard to understand.

After a long time, her mother came with a candle to the door.

“ Good-night, Margaret. Why, your hair is wet, child ! ”

For Margaret, kissing her good-night, had laid her head down a minute on her breast. She stroked the hair a moment, and then turned away.

“ Mother, could you stay with me tonight ? ”

“ Why, no, Maggie,—your father wants me to read to him.”

“ Oh, I know. Did he miss me tonight,— father ? ”

“ Not much ; we were talking old times over, — in Virginia, you know.”

“ I know; good-night.”

She went back to the chair. Tige was there,— for he used to Spend half of his time on the farm. She put her arm about his head. God knows how lonely the poor child was when she drew the dog so warmly to her heart: not for his master’s sake alone; but it was all she had. He grew tired at last, and whined, trying to get out.

“ Will you go, Tige ? ” she said, and opened the window.

He jumped out, and she watched him going towards town. Such a little thing, it was! But not even a dog “ called her nearest and best.”

Let us be silent ; the story of the night is not for us to read. Do you think that He, who in the far, dim Life holds tho worlds in His hand, knew or cared how alone the child was ? What if she wrung her thin hands, grew sick with the slow, mad, solitary tears ?—was not the world to save, as Knowles said ?

He, too, had been alone ; He had come unto His own, and His own received him not: so, while the struggling world rested, unconscious, in infinite calm of right, He came close to her with human eyes that had loved, and not been loved, and had suffered with that pain. And, trusting Him, she only said, “ Show me my work! Thou that takest away the pain of the world, have mercy upon me! ”

For that night, at least, Holmes swept his soul clean of doubt and indecision ; one of his natures was conquered,—finally, he thought. Polston, if he had seen his face as he paced the street slowly home to the mill, would have remembered his mother’s the day she died. How the stern old woman met death half-way! why should she fear ? she was as strong as he. Wherein had she failed of duty ? her hands were clean: she was going to meet her just reward.

It was different with Holmes, of course, with his self-existent soul. It was life he accepted to-night, he thought, — a life of growth, labor, achievement, — eternal.

“ Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast” — favorite words with him. He liked to study the nature of the man who spoke them ; because, I think, it was like his own, — a Titan strength of endurance, an infinite capability of love and hate and suffering, and over all (the peculiar identity of the man) a cold, speculative eye of reason, that looked down into the passion and depths of his growing self, aud calmly noted them, a lesson for all time.

“ Ohne Hast.” Going slowly through the night, he strengthened himself by marking how all things in Nature accomplish a perfected life through slow, narrow fixedness of purpose, — each life complete in itself: why not his own, then ? The windless gray, the stars, the stone under his feet, stood alone in the universe, each working out its own soul into deed. If there were any all-embracing harmony, one soul through all, he did not see it. Knowles — that old skeptic — believed in it, and called it Love. Even Goethe himself, what was it he said ? “ Der Allumfasser, der Allerhalter, fasst und erhält er nicht dich, mich, sick selbst?”

There was a curious power in the words, as he lingered over them, like halfcomprehended music,—as simple and tender as if they had come from the depths of a woman’s heart: it touched him deeper than his power of control. Pah ! it was a dream of Faust’s; he, too, had his Margaret; he fell, through that love.

He went on slowly to the mill. If the name or the words woke a subtile remorse or longing, he buried them under restful composure. Whether they should ever rise like angry ghosts of what might have been, to taunt the man, only the future could tell.

Going through the gas-lit streets, Holmes met some cordial greeting at every turn. What a just, clever fellow he was ! people said : one of those men improved by success: just to the defrauding of himself: saw the true worth of everybody, the very lowest: had n’t one spark of selfesteem : despised all humbug and show, one could see, though he never said it: when he was a boy, he was moody, with passionate likes and dislikes ; but success had improved him, vastly. So Holmes was popular, though the beggars shunned him, and the lazy Italian organgrinders never held their tambourines up to him.

The mill street was dark; the building threw its great shadow over the square. It was empty, he supposed; only one hand generally remained to keep in the furnace-fires. Going through one of the lower passages, he heard voices, and turned aside to examine. The management was not strict, and in case of a fire the mill was not insured: like Knowles’s carelessness.

It was Lois and her father,— Joe Yare being feeder that night. They were in one of the great furnace-rooms in the cellar, — a very comfortable place that stormy night. Two or three doors of the wide brick ovens were open, and the fire threw a ruddy glow over the stone floor, and shimmered into the dark recesses of the shadows, very home-like after the rain and mud without. Lois seemed to think so, at any rate, for she had made a table of a store-box, put a white cloth on it, and was busy getting up a regular supper for her father,— down on her knees before the red coals, turning something on an iron plate, while some slices of ham sent up a cloud of juicy, hungry smell.

The old stoker had just finished slaking the out-fires, and was putting some blue plates on the table, gravely straightening them. He had grown old, as Polston said, — Holmes saw, stooped much, with a low, hacking cough; his coarse clothes were curiously clean : that was to please Lois, of course. She put the ham on the table, and some bubbling coffee, and then, from a hickory board in front of the fire, took off, with a jerk, brown, flaky slices of Virginia johnny-cake.

“ Ther’ yoh are, father, hot ’n’ hot,’ with her face on fire, — “ther’ — yoh — are, — coaxin’ to be eatin’.—Why, Mr. Holmes ! Father ! Now, ef yoh jes’ hed n’t hed yer supper ? ”

She came up, coaxingly. What brooding brown eyes the poor cripple had ! Not many years ago he would have sat down with the two poor souls and made a hearty meal of it: he had no heart for such follies now.

Old Yare stood in the background, his hat in his hand, stooping in his submissive negro fashion, with a frightened watch on Holmes.

“ Do you stay here, Lois ? ” he asked, kindly, turning his back on the old man.

“ On’y to bring his supper. I could n’t bide all night ’n th’ mill,” — the old shadow coming on her face, — “ I could n’t, yoh know. He does n’t mind it.”

She glanced quickly from one to the other in the silence, seeing the fear on her father’s face.

“ Yoh know father, Mr. Holmes ? He ’s back now. This is him.”

The old man came forward, humbly.

“ It’s me, Master Stephen.”

The sullen, stealthy face disgusted Holmes. He nodded, shortly.

“ Yoh ’ve been kind to my little girl while I was gone,” he said, catching his breath. “ I thank yoh, master.”

“ You need not. It was for Lois.”

“’T was fur her I corned back hyur. ’T was a rest,”—with a dumb look of entreaty at Holmes, — “ but fur her I thort I'd try it. I know’t was a resk; but I thort them as cared fur Lo wud be merciful. She’s a good girl, Lo. She’s all I hev.”

Lois brought a box over, lugging it heavily.

“ We hev n’t chairs; but yoh ’ll sit down, Mr. Holmes ? ” laughing as she covered it with a cloth. “ It ’s a warrm place, here. Father studies ’n his watch, ’n’ I’m teacher,” — showing the torn old spelling-book.

The old man came eagerly forward, seeing the smile flicker on Holmes’s face.

“ It’s slow work, master, — slow. But Lo’s a good teacher, ’n’ I’m tryin’,—I’m tryin’ hard.”

“ It’s not slow, Sir, seein’ father hed n’t ’dvantages, like me. He was a ”

She stopped, lowering her voice, a hot flush of shame on her face.

“ I know.”

“ Be n't that ’n ’xcuse, master, seein’ I knowed noght at the beginnin’ ? Thenk o’ that, master. I’m tryin’ to be a different man. Fur Lo. I am tryin’."

Holmes did not notice him.

“ Good-night, Lois,” he said, kindly, as she lighted his lamp.

He put some money on the table.

“ You must take it,” as she looked uneasy. “ For Tiger’s board, say. I never see him now. A bright new frock, remember.”

She thanked him, her eyes brightening, looking at her father’s patched coat.

The old man followed Holmes out.

“ Master Holmes ”-

“ Have done with this,” said Holmes, sternly. “ Whoever breaks law abides by it. It is no affair of mine.”

The old man clutched his hands together fiercely, struggling to be quiet.

“ Ther’ ’s none knows it but yoh,” he said, in a smothered voice. “ Fur God’s sake be merciful! It ’ll kill my girl, — it ’ll kill her. Gev me a chance, master.”

“ You trouble me. I must do what is just.”

“ It ’s not just,” he said, savagely. “ What good ’ll it do me to go back ther’ ? I was goin’ down, down, an’ bringin’ th’ others with me. What good ’ll it do you or the rest to hev me ther’ ? To make mo afraid ? It’s poor learnin’ frum fear. Who taught me what was right ? Who cared ? No man cared fur my soul, till I thieved ’n’ robbed; ’n’ then judge ’n’ jury ’n’ jailers was glad to pounce on me. Will yoh gev me a chance ? will yoh ? ”

It was a desperate face before him; but Holmes never knew fear.

“ Stand aside,” he said, quietly. “ Tomorrow I will see you. You need not try to escape.”

He passed him, and went slowly up through the vacant mill to his chamber.

The man sat down on the lower step a few moments, quite quiet, crushing his hat up in a slow, steady way, looking up at the mouldy cobwebs on the wall. He got up at last, and went in to Lois. Had she heard ? The old scarred face of the girl looked years older, he thought,— but it might be fancy. She did not say anything for a while, moving slowly, with a new gentleness, about him ; her very voice was changed, older. He tried to be cheerful, eating his supper: she need not know until to-morrow. He would get out of the town to-night, orThere were different ways to escape. When he had done, he told her to go; but she would not.

“ Let me stay th’ night,” she said. “ I be n’t afraid o’ th’ mill.”

“ Why, Lo,” he said, laughing, “ yoh used to say yer death was hid here, sornewheres.”

“ I know. But ther’ ’s worse nor death. But it ’ll come right,” she said, persistently, muttering to herself, as she leaned her face on her knees, watching, — “ it ’ll come right.”

The glimmering shadows changed and faded for an hour. The man sat quiet. There was not much in the years gone to soften his thought, as it grew desperate and cruel: there was oppression and vice heaped on him, and flung back out of his bitter heart. Nor much in the future : a blank stretch of punishment to the end. He was an old man : was it easy to bear ? What if he were black ? what if he were born a thief? what if all the sullen revenge of his nature had made him an outcast from the poorest poor ? Was there no latent good in this soul for which Christ died, that a kind hand might not have brought to life ? None ? Something, I think, struggled up in the touch of his hand, catching the skirt of his child’s dress, when it came near him, with the timid tenderness of a mother touching her dead baby’s hair, — as something holy, far off, yet very near: something in his old crime-marked face,—a look like this dog’s, putting his head on my knee,— a dumb, unhelpful love in his eyes, and the slow memory of a wrong done to his soul in a day long past. A wrong to both, you say, perhaps ; but if so, irreparable, and never to be recompensed. Never?

“ Yoh must go, my little girl,” he said at last.

Whatever he did must be done quickly. She came up, combing the thin gray hairs through her fingers.

“Father, I dunnot understan’ what it is, rightly. But stay with me,— stay, father ! ”

“ Yoh ’ve a many frien’s, Lo,” he said, with a keen flash of jealousy. “ Ther’ ’s none like yoh, — none.”

She put her misshapen head and scarred face down on his hand, where he could see them. If it had ever hurt her to be as she was, if she had ever compared herself bitterly with fair, beloved women, she was glad now and thankful for every fault and deformity that brought her nearer to him, and made her dearer.

“ They ’re kind, but ther’ ’s not many loves me with true love, like yoh. Stay, father! Bear it out, whatever it be. Th’ good time ’ll come, father.”

He kissed her, saying nothing, and went with her down the street. When he left her, she waited, and, creeping back, hid near the mill. God knows what vague dread was in her brain; but she came back to watch and help.

Old Yare wandered through the great loom-rooms of the mill with but one fact clear in his cloudy, faltering perception,— that above him the man lay quietly sleeping who would bring worse than death on him to-morrow. Up and down, aimlessly, with his stoker's torch in his hand, going over the years gone and the years to come, with the dead hatred through all of the pitiless man above him, —with now and then, perhaps, a pleasanter thought of things that had been warm and cheerful in his life,— of the corn-huskings long ago, when he was a boy, down in “ th’ Alabam’,”— of the scow his young master gave him once, the first thing he really owned: he was almost as proud of it as be was of Lois when she was born. Most of all remembering the good times in his life, he went back to Lois. It was all good, there, to go back to. What a little chub she used to be ! Remembering, with bitter remorse, how all his life he had meant to try and do better, on her account, but had kept putting off and putting off until now. And nowDid nothing lie before him but to go back and rot yonder ? Was that the end, because he never had learned better, and was a “ dam’ nigger ” ?

“ I ’ll not leave my girl! ” he muttered, going up and down, — “ I ’ll not leave my girl! ”

If Holmes did sleep above him, the trial of the day, of which we have seen nothing, came back sharper in sleep. While the strong self in the man lay torpid, whatever holier power was in him came out, undaunted by defeat, and unwearied, and took the form of dreams, those slighted messengers of God, to soothe and charm and win him out into fuller, kindlier life. Let us hope that they did so win him ; let us hope that even in that unreal world the better nature of the man triumphed at last, and claimed its reward before the terrible reality broke upon him.

Lois, over in the damp, fresh-smelling lumber-yard, sat coiled up in one of the creviced houses made by the jutting boards. She remembered how she used to play in them, before she went into the mill. The mill, — even now, with the vague dread of some uncertain evil to come, the mill absorbed all fear in its old hated shadow. Whatever danger was coming to them lay in it, came from it, she knew, in her confused, blurred way of thinking. It loomed up now, with the square patch of ashen sky above, black, heavy with years of remembered agony and loss. In Lois’s hopeful, warm life this was the one uncomprehended monster. Her crushed brain, her unwakened powers, resented their wrong dimly to the mass of iron and work and impure smells, unconscious of any remorseless power that wielded it. It was a monster, she thought, through the sleepy, dreading night, — a monster that kept her wakeful with a dull, mysterious terror.

When the night grew sultry and deepest, she started from her half-doze to see her father come stealthily out and go down the street. She must have slept, she thought, rubbing her eyes, and watching him out of sight,—and then, creeping out, turned to glance at the mill. She cried out, shrill with horror. It was a live monster now, —in one swift instant, alive with fire, — quick, greedy fire, leaping like serpents’ tongues out of its hundred jaws, hungry sheets of flame maddening and writhing towards her, and under all a dull and hollow roar that shook the night. Did it call her to her death ? She turned to fly, and then-He was alone, dying! He had been so kind to her ! She wrung her hands, standing there a moment. It was a brave hope that was in her heart, and a prayer on her lips never left unanswered, as she hobbled, in her lame, slow way, up to the open black door, and, with one backward look, went in.