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 THE MAN IN THE CASE
 
 UK WENT AWAY WITH A VISION OK HER HLINDIMi ALL HIS 
 HEART AND I1KAIN
 
 The 
 MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 h 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 Illustrated by Henry J. Peck 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 tfiUersidc press, CambriDgc 
 1906
 
 COPYRIGHT 1906 BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published September iqob
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A vision of her blinding all his heart and 
 
 brain (f a S e 34) FRONTISPIECE 
 
 " Ladies," she said, " I have come to resign 
 
 my office " 88 
 
 " She received us as if she had been the 
 
 queen of Heaven, sir" 124 
 
 Joan perceived Mary Caroline helping the 
 
 furnace man 184 
 
 She dexterously bound the wound 196 
 
 " Here s your mother s veil, Miss Joan " 246
 
 The 
 MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IVIN is like cat s cradle," 
 said Mary Caroline. "It s 
 quite interim long s 
 there ain t a man s hand 
 a-holdin of the string." 
 Miss Dare smiled. She smiled easily 
 and charmingly ; most easily that day, 
 for she was light at heart. It was an 
 October day, fair of face, warm of im 
 pulse, grave of purpose, like an experi 
 enced and beautiful woman, a day 
 deep to the soul of it with color, and 
 alive to the last nerve of it with ten 
 derness. One might have said that it
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 was a day when the two halves of the 
 year met before their separation ; that 
 winter clasped summer in his arms and 
 gave her in one solemn embrace the 
 passion of betrothal and farewell. 
 
 Miss Dare s living-room was so far a 
 thing from the accepted suburban "par 
 lor," that it was called a library, and, 
 to an extent, deserved the name. For it 
 was unpretentious, well lighted, and 
 lined with books. The windows of this 
 room were open the late afternoon 
 was so warm and the floating leaves 
 from the maples that arched the street 
 flew in on the south wind ; two or three 
 struck Miss Dare on the forehead and 
 remained on her hair like fragments of 
 a shattered crown ; one, a yellow one 
 with carmine cheeks, fell to the bosom 
 of her white woolen gown, and clung 
 there : she fastened the leaf in the place
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 it had chosen, but shook the others off, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Oh, but Mary Caroline ! Every 
 
 man does n t snarl. And if he does n t, 
 
 just think how splendidly he holds 
 
 the game ! His hands don t shake 
 
 - nor scratch and they re so 
 
 big-- 
 
 " The bigger they be, the wuss they 
 snarl," said Mary Caroline obstinately. 
 "It s the natur of the critter. I hain t 
 got no use for em, nor you neither. 
 Thanks be to mercy there ain t none 
 of em round us, clutterin us up with 
 late dinners, fussin over ice in the 
 grapes, and takin the seeds out of their 
 oranges same as they was babies to 
 get stuck in their throats. They re a 
 passel of sp iled boys - - men-folks ; 
 they had n t orter be let loose in the 
 same world with women to sp ile 
 3
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 em. T ain t fair play, not to neither 
 party." 
 
 "Mary Caroline," said Miss Dare 
 sweetly, " I wonder what you are going 
 to give me for supper ? " 
 
 Mary Caroline felt that she and the 
 subject were dismissed with a consider 
 ation equaled only by its diplomacy. 
 Nothing in the range of human imagi 
 nation (so far as this mysterious faculty 
 had been granted to her) --nothing 
 was too much for Mary Caroline to do 
 for Joan Dare. The old servant stooped 
 heavily and picked up the leaves which 
 were littering the floor at Miss Dare s 
 feet. 
 
 "There s a stitch outen you," she 
 said. " I must run you up." 
 
 She held the hem of the white gown 
 a moment, letting it go reluctantly ; 
 she seemed to fondle it ; her plain, 
 4
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 middle-aged face flushed with the 
 motion of stooping, and she limped 
 away as if the effort of the action had 
 hurt her somewhere. But Mary Caro 
 line never "complained" to her mis 
 tress. 
 
 Miss Dare had started to close the 
 open window, and to reach the shade 
 which had sprung to the top ; thus she 
 had one of the beautiful poses of the 
 eternal feminine that of the uplifted 
 arms ; an attitude significant at once of 
 grace and strength, of appeal and sup 
 port. 
 
 Joan had one of the faces of which 
 we say, "It is strong," and afterwards, 
 " It is sweet." She had passed her first 
 youth, and reached the age when 
 women can be most miserable or most 
 happy; some cynics have said, when 
 women can love most. Her form and 
 5
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 coloring had the ripeness and richness 
 of her thirty-fifth year ; her brown eye 
 was warm, and her motions were pliant, 
 and rather dependent than assertive, but 
 her head was well poised, and about 
 her mouth, despite its swift smile and 
 the charming way of it, were the lines 
 of emotion outlived, and suffering un- 
 communicated. 
 
 As she stood in this position, the elec 
 tric car came crying up the suburban 
 street, and whirred through the maple 
 arch that covered it ; the prosaic out 
 lines of the car were unnaturally pic 
 turesque, seeming a shallop of green 
 upon a sea of fire. 
 
 The passengers were coming from 
 the business train. Many of them were 
 walking, and one who at that moment 
 passed the house turned and looked at 
 it, and her. His feet lagged; he stood 
 6
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 for a moment with raised hat, and then 
 came up the avenue. This was some 
 thing of a distance, for Miss Dare s 
 house stood well back from the street 
 in a little estate of several acres, con 
 spicuous in the suburb of Mapleleaf 
 for its relative size, and its obstinate 
 refusal to be butchered into corner 
 lots. 
 
 Joan s arms dropped. Her visitor 
 raised his with the impulse of a man 
 who would have embraced the atmos 
 phere which surrounded her, but he 
 recalled himself. 
 
 " Are you coming in ? " she asked, 
 with a pretty, upward motion of the 
 head that she had when she was 
 happy. 
 
 " This evening - - yes. That is, if I 
 may ? Would you like to have me ? " 
 
 " Try it and see! " said Joan. 
 7
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Her voice laughed, her eyes laughed, 
 her fluttering color laughed. It was 
 now full sunset, and the eye of the 
 West, looking through the lens of 
 maple fire, seemed, like an artist s, to 
 select her. She was embossed upon 
 light, embodied of light, she pulsated 
 light. She was brilliant and vibrant. 
 She stood confident, yet gentle, an ei 
 dolon of joy untried but trusted. He 
 who had awakened this exquisite phase 
 of her stood with his head uncovered 
 before it, as one does before a great pic 
 ture or a statue ; he reflected in his own 
 appearance something of the splendor 
 of hers. She retreated from him, she 
 could not have told why, and melted 
 from his advancing eyes within the 
 room. When he had gone, she moved 
 about restlessly, and in a few moments 
 Mary Caroline heard her singing in 
 8
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 the garden behind the house. Her 
 dog was with her, barking ecstati 
 cally. 
 
 " I d like to go n set somewheres and 
 sing myself," observed Mary Caroline, 
 as she cleared the supper table. " It s 
 Friday night. They say they do miss 
 my alto when I ain t at meetin ." 
 
 " Why, go, by all means ! " cried 
 Miss Dare with cordiality so quick 
 that Mary Caroline gave her mistress a 
 shrewd and sober glance ; but it was 
 not accompanied by comment. Mary 
 Caroline knew her limitations. 
 
 When Mary Caroline came to say 
 that she was starting for the prayer- 
 meeting, Miss Dare was lighting a little 
 fire in the grate. The dog was with 
 her a very large collie, old, spoiled, 
 and a misanthrope. His big head was 
 on her shoulder, and both his paws were 
 9
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 around her neck, closed there with an 
 assurance which, however regrettable, 
 was plainly an accepted fact in the 
 family history. 
 
 " That critter don t know he ain t 
 a lap-dog," said Mary Caroline scorn 
 fully. "He hain t never been learnt 
 nothin to the contrary. Look a that 
 there dress of yourn ! " 
 
 " O Martin Zither ! " cried Miss 
 Dare. "It s white /" 
 
 She pushed the dog down, but quite 
 gently, and Mary Caroline brushed from 
 a spotless serge lap an imaginary print 
 of Martin Luther s front paw. As she 
 did so, she asked outright : - 
 
 "Warn t that Douglas Ray I heerd 
 before supper?" 
 
 " Mr. Ray was here, yes," replied 
 Miss Dare, in a tone with which Mary 
 Caroline never parleyed. The lady rose 
 10
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 as she spoke, and mistress and maid re 
 garded each other. The eye of each 
 was firm, but significant; that of the 
 maid was the first to waver. Mary Car 
 oline sighed. 
 
 " Would you mind tyin my veil for 
 me?" she asked humbly. " I can t do 
 it in kid gloves, let alone corsets." 
 
 "Why, of course ! " said Joan. 
 
 She arranged the bit of dotted lace 
 deftly over Mary Caroline s square fore 
 head, high cheek bones, and hat quite 
 in the mode. 
 
 " It s very becoming to you," she 
 said kindly. 
 
 All her life Joan remembered the 
 look of Mary Caroline s face, softened 
 by the lace, upturned and patient, lifted 
 for that moment from its daily descent 
 into drudgery sublimated by its worship 
 of herself. 
 
 ii
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " Go," she said. " Have a good time 
 and sing alto." 
 
 She put out her hand, why, she could 
 hardly have said ; Mary Caroline laid 
 hers in it timidly, and the two women 
 parted for the evening. 
 
 Joan had not been long alone 
 when Martin Luther, vociferating lan 
 guage which would not have been ad 
 mitted at the Friday evening meeting, 
 pushed, limping, to the front door. 
 Joan opened it, with a pretty, expect 
 ant color. But it was a woman who 
 stood in the vestibule a lady one 
 of the neighbors, Miss Dare s oldest 
 friend in Mapleleaf. Joan held out 
 both hands: - 
 
 " Annie Hammerton ! Come right 
 in!" 
 
 "Going to meeting?" asked the
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 neighbor. " I did n t know but you d 
 like company. It s rather dark." 
 
 " You never forget me. You always 
 remember," said Joan slowly. " No, 
 I m not going to-night, Annie. Mary 
 Caroline has gone. Martin Luther and 
 I are playing heretic." 
 
 She laughed, and thanked her friend, 
 and the two kissed, as women do, for 
 no particular reason, and Mrs. Ham- 
 merton went away. Joan watched her 
 slight outlines she was a little woman 
 sliding into shadow among the firs 
 and oaks of the avenue. 
 
 "Wait! I ll hold a light for you. It 
 looks so dark out under those trees. 
 What a pretty shade your fall suit is! 
 Call back, and let me know when 
 you re safely down, won t you ? All 
 right? Good-by, Annie, good-by." 
 
 Joan had caught up a hall candle- 
 3
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 stick, whose long white candle she 
 lighted with the quickness character 
 istic of all her motions. She held it 
 high above her head ; her white sleeve 
 
 fell awav from her wrist and forearm ; 
 
 j 
 
 her face and figure were revealed more 
 softly than vividly ; she swayed on the 
 threshold, standing between brightness 
 and blackness ; a step would have taken 
 her into either. Then her old friend s 
 voice came back, cheerfully : 
 
 " All right, Joan ! Good-by." 
 
 Joan stood smiling and shining. 
 
 " I have always thought," said a 
 voice from the dark, quite near her, 
 " that the most picturesque thing a 
 woman can hold is a candle. No, don t 
 stir ! Pray stay just as you are till I get 
 there. You won t shut me out, will 
 you ? 
 
 * I don t know," said Joan, setting 
 14
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 the tall brass candlestick down slowly 
 upon the little hall table. " I can t 
 possibly say what I shall do. I seldom 
 can." 
 
 " On the contrary," replied Douglas 
 Ray, "you are a level-headed woman. 
 You are destitute of caprice. But it 
 would n t matter much. I should have 
 the trouble of getting in the window, 
 that s all. I am coming, you know, 
 anyhow." 
 
 He stepped in, laughing, and shut 
 the heavy door. She watched the back 
 of his well-shaped head and shoulders 
 while he was locking the door. Mar 
 tin Luther greeted him, but sardonic 
 ally, and returned to the living-room, 
 where he dozed heavily on the rug, 
 occupying the whole of it, with the 
 apparent purpose of keeping the visitor 
 away from the fire. 
 15
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 It now occurred to Miss Dare she 
 had not thought of it before that she 
 was alone in the house with Douglas 
 Ray. Something in this simple circum 
 stance embarrassed her. Was it the fact 
 that he was locking the door ? As if he 
 belonged there. Or the masterful ease 
 with which he tossed his coat and hat 
 upon the hall sofa? As if it were his 
 sofa. Or was it what ailed the man? 
 He had loved her for a good while ; 
 she knew his eyes as Andromeda knew 
 the eyes of Perseus. But this was a Per 
 seus repelled. She had preferred her 
 dragons, whatever they were, to his 
 advancing passion. Only now, perhaps 
 scarcely for a month s span, or a week s, 
 who could say ? had she seemed to 
 cease to distance him. The man, who 
 had studied every letter of her nature 
 with the scholarship of a determined 
 16
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 and undiverted love, sprang towards her 
 now, more like a captor than a rescuer. 
 He perceived that if his hour had not 
 come, it never would ; and that he 
 definitely purposed to make the most 
 of it, she felt with the poignant emo 
 tion, half of pain and half of pleasure, 
 with which a delicate woman awaits 
 the expression of a not unwelcome 
 love. 
 
 As definitely she had purposed to 
 defer the psychological moment ; to 
 parry and feint, to give herself time, 
 perhaps to give him trouble ; to elude 
 him and perplex him ; to see if she 
 could discourage him why, she knew, 
 and yet she did not know. Experience 
 and instinct warred within her. She 
 was confused by a prelude which did 
 not preface the music of her feelings. 
 
 She began at once, when they had 
 1 7
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 sat down before the fire more strictly 
 speaking, when they had sat down be 
 fore Martin Luther - - to talk of any 
 thing, of everything, and anyhow. She 
 started in on the widest subject she 
 could grapple afterwards she could 
 not have told what; but swerved ab 
 ruptly to the personal ground upon 
 which the wisest of women are most 
 at ease. She chatted about his business 
 affairs comfortably, as if she understood 
 them. Ray was an architect ; he used 
 to say that his calling was a cross be 
 tween an art and a profession, perhaps, 
 rather, an art and an industry. He had 
 something at once of the mechanical 
 precision and chastened imagination 
 necessary to his occupation, and devel 
 oped by it. Besides, he had Scotch 
 blood in him. He listened to Joan 
 that evening in dense, almost obstinate 
 18
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 silence. After a while she observed that 
 she was doing all the talking, so drew 
 breath, and stopped short. 
 
 "Well?" he said quietly. "Why 
 don t you go on ? " 
 
 " But you are not saying anything. 
 You do not answer me." 
 
 " Because I did not come here to 
 night to talk politics, either national 
 or parochial, nor even to discuss my 
 own professional affairs, however im 
 portant, if true, they may be no, 
 nor Browning, nor the Eastern Wars, 
 nor what was it? the attitude of 
 Boston women toward Buddhism ? " 
 
 " How would Martin Luther do ? " 
 asked Joan contritely. 
 
 " Life is not long enough for that 
 subject." 
 
 " Would Mary Caroline suit you any 
 better?" 
 
 19
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "At least she is straightforward and 
 sincere," replied Ray, with the Scotch 
 look about his mouth. 
 
 " Now you are not kind ! Now you 
 wrong me ! " cried Joan quivering. 
 
 " God forbid ! " said Douglas Ray. 
 
 " I don t think God has anything 
 to do with it!" blazed Joan. "Things 
 are as people are. Life is what we make 
 life. It s not fair play to go packing 
 everything off on God the foolish 
 things we do, and the wrong ones 
 especially the wrong ones, the deeds 
 that have to have consequences the 
 moral hooks that draw other people 
 down. If a man forges a check, one 
 would suppose that Providence should 
 be arrested for it. It s not God s affair 
 how you treat me, or I treat you, or 
 what comes of it, now or or any 
 time." 
 
 20
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Joan," said the Scotchman, " I did 
 not come for us to talk not to-night 
 -like this." 
 
 Joan was sitting in the Morris chair 
 before the grate ; the fire was flutter 
 ing as a fire will, when it does not 
 know whether to live or die; what 
 light it gave expressed her, listening; 
 her position had a certain curve like 
 that of an ear. Martin Luther had got 
 up laboriously, and put his head in the 
 collie attitude upon her knee. Her 
 fingers went to his forehead instinc 
 tively, but her eyes sought the fire, 
 which plainly she did not see. It was 
 impossible for Ray to interpret her ex 
 pression or her manner. Stung by a 
 sudden sense of helplessness before the 
 mystery of womanhood which over 
 takes every sensitive man in the crisis 
 of pursuit, he said, between his teeth : 
 
 21
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " Put that dog out of the room. I 
 came here to ask you to be my wife, 
 and I don t want him listening ! " 
 
 Joan gasped. He thought for a mo 
 ment that he had said the fatal thing, 
 and thrown his last chance. He went 
 whiter than she, when, suddenly, she 
 lifted her hands above her head, and 
 so sat without a word. It was a whim 
 sical gesture as if she surrendered, for 
 her life, to one who threatened it. He 
 took two steps towards her. 
 
 " Go, Martin Luther," said Joan, 
 gently. " Go away, dear. Mr. Ray 
 does n t want you." 
 
 " I want you ! " cried the lover, 
 "you you! Nothing else, Joan, 
 in all the world. You Ve had your 
 hour, my dear. Now mine has come." 
 
 Martin Luther, with hanging head 
 and tail dejected, had lumbered obedi- 
 22
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 ently (for he was a dog) out of the 
 room and into the hall. Beyond the 
 threshold, being a dog, he turned and 
 looked. And when he saw, Martin 
 Luther sighed. 
 
 Joan did not remember Martin Lu 
 ther. She had forgotten the world and 
 all that was therein. She had neither 
 memory nor forecast. Nothing ap 
 proached her consciousness except the 
 rapture of soul and sense into whose 
 prison she had been captured. It seemed 
 to her like a cell in which she and 
 Douglas had been barred. Walls and 
 bolts of space and feeling isolated them 
 from the Universe, and locked them to 
 each other. 
 
 She had not thought it would be like 
 this she had not indeed meant it to 
 be like this. Was it then of no con 
 sequence what a woman meant? or 
 2 3
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 whether she meant anything at all ? 
 She had dreamed of a gradual surren 
 der, a slow and sure delight, delicate 
 concessions and explanations, subtle 
 advances and retreats, perhaps of con 
 fidences, for which he had given her no 
 opportunity ; she had expected emo 
 tion and experience, for which he had 
 allowed her no time. In point of fact, 
 the man had simply taken her two 
 hands and put them around his neck. 
 
 The first thing that he kissed was 
 the leaf upon her bosom --the gold- 
 colored one with the carmine cheeks. 
 But when hefound her lips, he thought: 
 " I have got me a woman from the 
 Lord." And he could have knelt be 
 fore her white feet. But she withheld 
 him, and she came to him like any 
 simple, impulsive woman who had not 
 24
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 been difficult to win. So then he was 
 astonished that he had been distanced 
 by her so long, or that he had been 
 afraid to woo her. Yet never had he 
 feared her as he did at that moment, 
 but it was the holy fear that a man has 
 of the love of a good woman when 
 first he perceives how great a thing 
 it is. 
 
 " How long have you cared like 
 this?" he demanded. But she shook 
 her head. 
 
 " If you had lifted a lash, I would 
 have followed your least whim, yes, 
 to the ends of the earth. I would have 
 sheltered you from everything every 
 care the hurts of living. Oh, we have 
 lost all this time ! Why did you" 
 
 But she pleaded with him again : 
 " Do not ask me ! I do not know how 
 to explain it to you the way I felt. 
 25
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 I can only tell you won t that do? 
 - the way I feel." 
 
 "We are in heaven," said the Scotch 
 man. " You shall exercise its rights. 
 And so, Joan, so shall I." 
 
 He took her to his heart as if she 
 had been a nestling girl, and lifted her 
 to the tall chair where they sat clasped, 
 but reverent, before the fading fire. 
 At first they were mute with their hap 
 piness, using only its sign language. 
 But presently they began to grope for 
 each other with blind speech broken 
 phrases, isolated words, apostrophes of 
 endearment ; and so, slowly they found 
 their way back to the human vocabu 
 lary which forms outside of ecstasy, 
 and relates the pitiable remainder of the 
 world where sweet and terrible new 
 love is not, or has forgotten that it ever 
 was, to the remote construction of life. 
 26
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 They spoke of all the pent-up things 
 that they had never had the right 
 to speak of before how much they 
 cared, and how long they had felt thus, 
 or so, why they had done or had omitted 
 to do this or that, why he had been 
 stern on such a day, or she had been 
 cold upon such another. They spoke 
 of their ties and conditions which were 
 outside the fact of loving each other, 
 and yet so mysteriously and sacredly 
 related to it ; they spoke of their fami 
 lies and friendships and circumstances. 
 Of hers, in fact, he had much to learn, 
 for he had been a silent, incurious sub 
 urban, having more the habits of the 
 town than of the country ; with what 
 was called the society of Mapleleaf, he 
 had troubled himself as little as possi 
 ble, and in its neighborhood chat he 
 was untaught. In truth, they were two 
 27
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 rather lonely people, and had swung 
 towards each other as if they had been 
 the only stars in their firmament. He 
 told of his parents who were living, and 
 she of hers, who were dead, and he told 
 her eagerly and boyishly how his would 
 take the place of hers, and be to her, 
 for the love they would have of her, 
 the renewal of what she had lost. 
 
 " My mother will come from Glas 
 gow to see you," he said. " She has 
 always wanted a daughter. She never 
 had one. And my only brother died. 
 It is almost the same as being an only 
 child like you." 
 
 Joan did not answer, but clung to 
 him, sighing, as if, he thought, she was 
 sorry for his outlived, distant sorrow ; 
 and it seemed at that moment almost 
 an actual happiness to him for the 
 sweetness of sharing it with her. 
 28
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Then they spoke of themselves again, 
 and of their love, and all other persons 
 and feelings fled away from before them 
 and it, as weak creatures in a forest flee 
 before the trampling of strong ones in 
 the underglades. And so, each taking 
 courage from the other, they came to 
 speak about their marriage, for sud 
 denly it seemed to them that they had 
 lost a hundred lifetimes in missing each 
 other until now, and that fate owed 
 them incredible compensations which 
 they must demand at sight. 
 
 Ray was prepared to beleaguer her 
 in this respect, thinking that she would 
 distance him and deny him, and that 
 he must fall back upon tactics and a 
 siege. But she, who had evaded him 
 for three years, and held herself beyond 
 his power to gain, gave herself now so 
 royally that he was half-suffocated with 
 29
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 his good fortune, as one is, who, turn 
 ing a sudden corner, finds that a red 
 olent, resinous, powerful wind from 
 the South is taking his breath. 
 
 " You are very woman of very wo 
 man ! " cried the man. 
 
 " When you wish," said Joan, " I 
 will be your wife." 
 
 The fire was now gone to embers in 
 the grate, and Martin Luther, in bit 
 terness of soul, was sleeping sonorously 
 upon the landing of the thickly-car 
 peted hall stairs. 
 
 The prayer-meeting was over. Mary 
 Caroline, having sung alto in all the 
 hymns, had come home in a state of 
 mind and heart which she took to be 
 one of a deeply religious character. 
 Mary Caroline hurried in to share the 
 pleasures of the evening with her mis- 
 30
 
 tress, but, hearing a ripple of low voices 
 succeeded by ominous and mystical si 
 lences, Mary Caroline had turned and 
 gone gloomily upstairs. Who can say 
 what comfort it gave Mary Caroline 
 under the anguish of the moment that 
 she should take the front stairs ? Per 
 haps one must be accustomed to back 
 stairs to understand. At all events, she 
 stumbled on the landing, and stepped 
 on Martin Luther s tail, and Martin 
 Luther remonstrated without reserve. 
 Martin Luther had a well-cultivated 
 tenor howl, which, Mary Caroline 
 said, was a loss to the choir. 
 
 Then Joan, blushing beautifully, 
 opened the door that was ajar, and 
 called : 
 
 " Had a good time, Mary Caro 
 line?" in a voice which was such a 
 cataract of delight that it scattered and 
 3 1
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 spattered joy-drops over poor Mary 
 Caroline shrinking out of sight in the 
 dark at the top of the stairs. 
 
 "I hain t ben to a whist-party," re 
 plied Mary Caroline slowly. She 
 passed on and up to bed without look 
 ing back, which delayed her a pang or 
 two of those that were in store for her. 
 But Joan could not think about Mary 
 Caroline. She crept back into her 
 paradise with the docility of one who 
 had already formed the habit of hap 
 piness. 
 
 Now and then she would take some 
 of the little frights of joy and retreat 
 from him and withhold herself, and 
 try to argue with him and with her 
 self, and with their ecstasy, but only 
 to plunge into the garden of it again. 
 
 With her cheek against his cheek 
 she breathed :
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Oh, I am afraid are n t you? 
 to be so happy ?" 
 
 But the lover laughed. 
 
 " I am not afraid of anything in the 
 heavens above, or earth beneath, or in 
 hell that is under the earth. Nothing 
 can happen that can take you from me 
 now." 
 
 They clung and were silent, and then 
 they talked and clasped, and while they 
 kissed and vowed, they took no note of 
 time, and the tall old clock in the hall 
 struck twelve times before they knew 
 that it had struck at all. At that he 
 left her, and she went to the door with 
 him, and when they opened it, a spatter 
 of rain smote them in the face. The 
 southerly weather was quite gone; an 
 east wind had brought a storm upon 
 its back, and all the trees on the avenue 
 were groaning and tossing their arms. 
 33
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " Light the candle, won t you ? " said 
 Ray, making a mock of the dark. " I 
 can t see a step before me. There ! 
 Hold it higher, please, so. Stand 
 awhile, my beautiful. I wish to look 
 at you." 
 
 This she did with a pretty obedience, 
 and he went away with that vision of 
 her blinding all his heart and brain - 
 she with the candle held high above 
 her head, standing sweet and docile to 
 his will, yet tall as a queen, with that 
 upward motion of her chin, and splen 
 did as the Angel Joy. 
 
 She stood a little at one side of the 
 step, and the candle gave her a rich 
 back-ground the panels of the heavy 
 door, and the old brass knocker, and 
 knob, with its large plate. She recalled 
 to Ray, whose imagination had the 
 scriptural tendency of his nationality, a 
 34
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 picture he had seen of a woman search 
 ing for the piece of silver that she had 
 lost. The knocker seemed to peer over 
 her shoulder at him. It was something 
 of a curio, the knocker ; much carved, 
 always well-polished, and so explicit to 
 the eye. It carried the head of a fate 
 which had a ring in its mouth, and 
 therefore could not speak. It was not 
 a cheerful, perhaps not wholly a hos 
 pitable knocker, but Joan had grown 
 up with it, and did not mind it. In 
 deed, the sober thing seemed to laugh 
 behind her at Ray as he looked back 
 from under the wet trees ; as if nothing 
 could come near Joan and not rejoice 
 for the delight of her that night. 
 
 Then she called down into the dark, 
 but very softly, as she had called to the 
 woman neighbor : 
 35
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " All right ? Good-night - - good- 
 by." 
 
 And he called back 
 
 " Good-night good-by good- 
 by." 
 
 So she shut the door and locked it, 
 and came back and sat down alone in 
 the tall chair. She could not go to sleep 
 for very joy, but stayed in the empty 
 room, with Martin Luther. At her 
 foot she felt the crumple of a leaf which 
 she picked up, and was going to toss it 
 in the grate, but she saw that it was 
 the yellow leaf with the carmine 
 cheeks, that his lips had touched upon 
 her bosom. 
 
 " It holds his first kiss," she thought, 
 " I shall keep it till I take his last." 
 
 She crossed the room to lock it in an 
 old Sheraton desk that was her father s, 
 her shadow following her across the 
 36
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 drawn shades, sliding from window to 
 window of the large room. When she 
 turned to come back the knocker on 
 the front door lifted and fell with a 
 soft thud. After a hesitant pause it 
 lifted again, then with definite urgency 
 rose and fell once more. 
 
 Martin Luther waked, roaring, and 
 sprang. A little disturbed, but not dis 
 tinctly frightened, Joan followed the 
 big dog to the locked door. It was now 
 storming brutally, but, through the rage 
 of wind and wet, Joan heard spoken 
 quite plainly her own name. 
 
 " Who are you ? " she asked cour 
 ageously. " Who is it speaks to me ? " 
 
 "Joan!" entreated the voice from 
 without. " For God s sake open the 
 door ! " 
 
 Staggering and groping, Joan reached 
 the knob of the door ; it moved in her 
 37
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 shaking fingers ; the bolt slid ; the key 
 turned ; the chain, which was added to 
 the protections of the house at night, 
 tautened as the door swung in. 
 
 " Joan ? " repeated the voice from 
 the storm, " Joan ! " The collie had 
 now ceased to growl ; every hair of him 
 was alert, significant, but not belliger 
 ent ; he pushed his nose, and then his 
 paws, through the space above the 
 chain. 
 
 With a grip at the heart such as 
 kills the weak, and weakens the strong, 
 Joan saw that the dog s tail began 
 to swish first slowly, then rapidly 
 against the wall.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HEN Mary Caroline came 
 downstairs next morn 
 ing she found Miss Dare 
 there before her. This 
 was an extraordinary cir 
 cumstance, for the maid had spoiled the 
 mistress, who breakfasted anyhow or 
 nohow, in bed or out of it, at any hour 
 that suited the lady s fancy. Joan, in 
 fact, was as free of household responsi 
 bilities as if she had been Mary Caro 
 line s boarder. 
 
 " I have been trying to start the 
 kitchen fire," explained Miss Dare, 
 without looking around. 
 
 " The kitchen Jire ! shot Mary 
 39
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Caroline. " Whatever in the name of 
 thanks be to Mercy should you have to 
 do with kitchen fires ? " 
 
 " I thought 1 d better learn," re 
 plied Joan dully. 
 
 " I d sooner teach a chipmunk," sug 
 gested Mary Caroline. " It would be 
 a sight easier." 
 
 She took the poker hotly from Miss 
 Dare; who now raised her head, shrink 
 ing slightly as one does who meets his 
 friend for the first time after the expe 
 rience of some disfiguring disorder 
 then boldly hurrying on the dreaded 
 moment, she turned her face quickly 
 and fully towards her old servant. 
 
 Mary Caroline dropped the poker, 
 which fell red-hot upon Joan s gray 
 dress and bit a hole in it. The sickly 
 smell of the burnt woolen filled 
 the kitchen. Neither of the women 
 40
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 spoke until Mary Caroline said, " God 
 A y mighty ! " 
 
 "I haven t slept very well," ob 
 served Miss Dare slowly. " You may 
 bring me some coffee and some 
 thing. After breakfast I 
 
 She put her hand to her head con 
 fusedly. Ashen and carven, a blasted 
 face looked upon Mary Caroline. Joan 
 stood like a tree smitten by lightning 
 from heaven in a storm that had hit 
 nothing else. She was scorched to the 
 roots ; every leaf of her blackened, 
 each twig of her dead. She had the 
 aspect of the primeval things which 
 accept their fate without a weak and 
 weakening protest. She did not writhe. 
 But the old servant who loved her did. 
 Mary Caroline uttered herself as if a 
 surgeon, without anesthesia, were mov 
 ing a saw through her flesh. 
 41
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " Please don t," protested Joan faintly. 
 " Don t mind it so, Mary Caroline. 
 After breakfast I will yes, after break 
 fast I will speak with you." 
 
 Mary Caroline, who had the tongue 
 of a torrential talker, suddenly dammed 
 it. Something of the dumbness of her 
 mistress extended itself to her ; a little, 
 too, of the dignity. She received Joan s 
 rebuff without reply, and cooked her 
 breakfast silently. This was ordered 
 upstairs, and Mary Caroline found Miss 
 Dare fully dressed, lying straight and 
 still on the bed, with her smooth hair 
 dark against the pillow. 
 
 " I will bring the tray down myself," 
 said Miss Dare thoughtfully. She added 
 a word or two about wanting to rest, 
 but glanced at her breakfast with the 
 eye of one who did not see it. Mary 
 Caroline was pathetically pleased to 
 42
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 find when the tray came down that the 
 meal had been eaten heartily after all. 
 As soon as the dishes were washed, Mary 
 Caroline put on a clean apron and came 
 into the library. It was still raining, and 
 the windows of the large room were 
 dripping and dreary. A southeast gale 
 lasts twelve hours, and this one lacked 
 yet several of its abrupt death. Miss 
 Dare was in the Morris chair. Mary 
 Caroline, without being invited to do 
 so, took a seat on the sofa, and folded 
 her red hands upon her white apron. 
 She was the first to speak. 
 
 " Well ? " she said. Here I be." 
 " Mary Caroline," replied her mis 
 tress, without looking at her, " I have 
 something painful very painful to 
 say to you." 
 
 "Out with it, then! " said Mary Car 
 oline, stiffening. 
 
 43
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "I find it --hard," parleyed Joan. 
 
 " Has that feller been a hurtin of 
 your feelin s?" demanded Mary Caro 
 line, with ominous calm. 
 
 " If you mean Mr. Ray " 
 
 " Because ef it s him ef he s dars t 
 to - - hain t thrown you over, has he? " 
 
 A pale smile answered this half- 
 strangled outburst. 
 
 " Because ef he had," observed Mary 
 Caroline, " I d kill him ; that s all. I 
 know how, too. I d slice him the way 
 I do corn-beef." 
 
 "We will leave Mr. Ray out of the 
 conversation, Mary Caroline. He has 
 no connection with the subject about 
 which I have sent for you to talk with 
 me. It is quite another matter upon 
 which I have to speak." 
 
 " I ain t so sure of that," retorted 
 Mary Caroline obstinately. " I 11 bet 
 44
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 the critter s to blame for it somehow. 
 Men-folks always be to blame for the 
 sorrers of women-folks. It s the nater 
 of em. But there ! If you re sot on 
 it, dearie, / won t stand in the way." 
 
 Mary Caroline, overcome with her 
 own magnanimity, seemed to break 
 like a strong crockery bowl, and cracked 
 into shrill crying. 
 
 " I 11 make the best on t, may the 
 Lord have mercy on his sinful soul ! 
 Have the feller hold the cat s-cradle ef 
 you find it more interim than you 
 do livin alone along of me. Don t 
 you bother your poor head, Miss Joan. 
 I 11 put up with the critter someways 
 or nuther. Seein you ask it of me, I 
 swear I will ! " 
 
 "But," interrupted Miss Dare feebly, 
 " I am not asking anything of the kind 
 of you. I am asking something a great 
 45
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 deal harder than that." Joan paused 
 and panted. 
 
 " I am asking you, Mary Caroline, to 
 leave my service." 
 
 Mary Caroline clapped her hand to 
 her ear ; like one dashed deaf by the 
 detonation of a cannon. 
 
 "Marm?" 
 
 "Alas yes. Dear Mary Caroline! 
 Yes." 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 Joan nodded silently. 
 
 " Me leave you ? Us that has been 
 together -- through everything - - for 
 eighteen year " 
 
 Miss Dare leaned her head back 
 upon the Morris chair. She made no 
 reply, and her silence affected Mary 
 Caroline more powerfully than any 
 speech or language within the etymo 
 logy of the situation could have done. 
 46
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 She wrung her gnarled hands and 
 thrust them out before her, as if they 
 had been facts. 
 
 " Look ! " she said. " How long 
 they ve done for you ! " 
 
 Then the old servant sank upon her 
 knees, and uttered these pathetic 
 words : 
 
 " I will put ice in his grape-fruit ! I 
 won t never say a word about them late 
 dinners. I 11 take the seeds outen his 
 oranges ; I 11 do up his outin shirts 
 his bosom, if you say so, an never 
 chirp." 
 
 But Joan sat perfectly still. Mary 
 Caroline rose from her knees labori 
 ously. Her cheeks and lips were now 
 as blanched as Miss Dare s own. 
 
 "Mean this, do you ?" 
 
 Joan looked up stolidly ; scarcely a 
 pulse of expression throbbed across her 
 47
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 face. Mary Caroline began to untie 
 her apron and to roll down her sleeves. 
 She started for the door. Joan moved 
 her dry lips. 
 
 " Where are you going ? 
 
 " I m goin for one o them nervous 
 doctors. You ve gone stark, starin 
 crazy. Some on em had orter see to 
 you right away." 
 
 Joan smiled she could not help it, 
 even then, and even there but it 
 would have been easier to see her weep. 
 
 "Mary Caroline," she said distinctly, 
 " if you bring any one to the house 
 you will arouse my deep displeasure. 
 Otherwise we shall part the friends - 
 the dear friends that we have been 
 so long. I am quite myself, and I 
 understand perfectly what I am do- 
 ing." 
 
 Now Mary Caroline received the 
 48
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 arrow full in the throat. It was as if she 
 made one fierce effort to pull it out. 
 
 "I won t go!" she said, standing 
 still in the middle of the room. 
 
 " Not if I ask you to, Mary Caro 
 line?" 
 
 " God A mighty ! " repeated Mary 
 Caroline. She turned her head, and 
 locked her hands upon her neck ; as if 
 she were wounded in the jugular. 
 
 "Who s a comin in my place?" 
 
 "No one nobody no person." 
 
 " He ain t turnin me out for no 
 darky butler ? Nor no heathen Chinees? 
 Maybe he fancies them Amenyuns 
 goin to evenin schools four miles off 
 an can t understand no more English 
 than a woodchuck atop of Greenland s 
 Icy Mountains. You can tell him he s 
 welcome to em." 
 
 " I can only repeat," returned Miss 
 49
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Dare faintly, " that Mr. Ray has no 
 thing whatever to do with the matter. 
 My reasons for this step are my own. 
 I cannot explain them to you. I wish 
 I could. I can only ask you without 
 any questions to leave my house, and 
 me." 
 
 "When?" cried Mary Caroline 
 wildly. She began to tremble. 
 
 "To-day," replied Miss Dare. 
 
 Mary Caroline tottered to the door. 
 
 " You can go to your sister s, can t 
 you?" pleaded the mistress. "I shall 
 continue to pay your wages. I shall 
 pay you just the same as usual, and 
 your board for a year two years - 
 three five until I ask you to come 
 back to me : if I ever do." 
 
 " What do you take me for?" groaned 
 Mary Caroline. " I d starve first. No, 
 I thank you, Miss Dare not so much 
 50
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 as my week s notice. I 11 pack up and 
 go to-night. I 11 send Dexter for my 
 trunk come Monday. Ken I stay long 
 enough to clean up my kitchen n pan 
 tries an do my Saturday s cookin ?" 
 
 Joan turned her face away. It lay 
 upon the cushion of the tall chair like 
 a medallion of mystery carved with the 
 chisel of pain. Mary Caroline stood a 
 moment looking at it, and then she 
 shut the door. 
 
 The day passed as days do when 
 there is death in the household ; or part 
 ings harder than death. The two 
 women exchanged but few words, and 
 those of a quiet character. Miss Dare 
 was acutely restless, and wandered about 
 the house to no visible end, for no ob 
 vious reason. Mary Caroline heard her 
 in the attic, in the guest rooms, up 
 stairs and down. Once she came upon 
 5 1
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 her suddenly, in the upper hall, stand 
 ing still and looking straight at nothing. 
 
 "Why are you here?" asked Joan 
 sternly, and poor Mary Caroline shrank 
 and fled. When she got downstairs she 
 flung on a shawl to get out and find a 
 "nervous doctor;" but her purpose 
 wasted before the prospect of Miss 
 Dare s displeasure. 
 
 " If she only had some folks," 
 thought Mary Caroline. She enumer 
 ated Joan s departed relatives with that 
 sense of her own helplessness which 
 only an old servant who stands in stead 
 of family relationships to a willful and 
 worshiped mistress can experience. 
 
 "Father n mother gone Harum 
 dead and her aunt Mari . Her uncle 
 Amos travelin in some heathen nation. 
 Nobody left the name of her but them 
 Californy cousins and she the way 
 52
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 she is. It doos seem as if this here was 
 more n one hired girl had orter 
 tackle." 
 
 " I ve set three loaves o white and 
 one o graham," said Mary Caroline 
 at dinner time. " I ve roasted a couple 
 of fowls an I m bilin a ham. There s 
 four pies n a bowl o doughnuts. That 
 had orter keep ye till her that comes 
 after me let alone it bein a him 
 gets round to knowin where anything 
 is." 
 
 " Nobody is coming after you," re 
 plied Miss Dare. " It won t hurt me 
 to do a little work myself." 
 
 "You pore creeter!" murmured 
 Mary Caroline. " You pore, disluded, 
 misfortnit creeter ! I d like to see ye 
 do it," she added grimly. " Would n t 
 shet the door in my face if I should 
 make a party call some day, would ye? 
 53
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 I 11 bring a card-case and ring the 
 front bell." 
 
 " I should prefer - - I am sorry to say 
 it, Mary Caroline that you did not 
 come." 
 
 At this mortal shot Mary Caroline 
 gave up the field. Without a struggle 
 she surrendered to her fate. For the 
 remainder of the day she met it with 
 a dignity not surpassed by that of her 
 mistress. She asked no question, she 
 had no replies. Joan felt that she was 
 treated with the reserved forbearance 
 and uncandid silence which one ex 
 tends to a deranged person not legally 
 under surveillance. The position of 
 the two towards each other had now 
 begun to grow so unnatural that the 
 pangs of parting were, somehow, 
 mysteriously eased. For the rest of 
 the time it was now but a few 
 54
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 hours that they remained together, 
 neither affected the mask of words; 
 yet it seemed to the maid that her 
 mistress nervously watched the clock, 
 and wished them fewer. Mary Caro 
 line went about her work in massive 
 silence. She scrubbed and swept, she 
 baked and dusted, she washed and 
 ironed, she packed and wept. With the 
 steel muscle and the passionate devo 
 tion of the old-fashioned servant, she 
 crushed the labors of a week into the 
 span of a day. 
 
 At five o clock she came into the 
 library to say good-by. 
 
 The southeasterly, having run its 
 twelve hours span of life, had gnashed 
 itself out at noon, and the afternoon 
 had been brilliant, and rather cool. 
 The wind had veered now to the north, 
 and the trees on the avenue were bend- 
 55
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 ing the other way : as if the burdens 
 on their shoulders had been shifted. 
 The drops still strolled down the win 
 dow-panes, one seeking the other and 
 multiplying slowly. Miss Dare was 
 watching them without seeing them 
 when Mary Caroline entered the room 
 suddenly, in her best clothes and fash 
 ionable hat, with the veil of spotted 
 lace. Her face was disfigured by cry 
 ing, but her eyes were now quite dry. 
 Her high cheek-bones were hectic. 
 
 "I ve cleaned the back stairs," she 
 began, " and the cellar and the attic, 
 an all my closets. My room is all 
 done up. No Amenyun won t find a 
 speck nowhere. I Ve washed ye an 
 ironed ye all I could an I ve swep up 
 everywhere only that sewin room with 
 the extry silver we keep locked. I 
 could n t find the key. I ve left a list 
 56
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 of the forks and spoons for that there 
 darky butler. I ve set the supper-table 
 for ye. Dexter he 11 git my trunk 
 come Monday. It s strapped, an I 
 brought it down the back stairs he s 
 such a spindlin critter/ 
 
 Mary Caroline paused. Both women 
 had become very pale. Neither seemed 
 able to utter the word for which both 
 were waiting. 
 
 " You n me ve lived together for 
 eighteen years," said Mary Caroline at 
 last. " Death nor trouble hain t parted 
 us, nor wuss n death. Whatever s a 
 doin of it now, or whysomever, or 
 whichsomever s in store for ye Miss 
 Joan, you remember thar I be." 
 
 " I will remember," said Joan. 
 
 " Mary Caroline ? If it should happen 
 
 that I should be blamed for parting 
 
 with you or for anything I could n t 
 
 57
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 expect you, I know, to feel the same 
 to me ? " 
 
 She spoke somewhat piteously ; it 
 was the first symptom of weakness that 
 had escaped her. 
 
 " Death n hell will give up the 
 dead as is in them," solemnly answered 
 Mary Caroline, " before I give up 
 feelin the way I ve always felt to 
 you." 
 
 Joan held out her shaking hand. 
 But Mary Caroline did not take it. 
 Instead, she threw her arms around 
 Miss Dare s neck, and kissed her, for 
 the first time in their lives. 
 
 "Oh, my dear!" she sobbed, "my 
 dear ! my dear ! " 
 
 When Joan lifted her face, Mary 
 
 Caroline was walking down the avenue 
 
 with her little bag in her hand. She 
 
 did not turn her head. Martin Luther 
 
 58
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 followed her, with a busy tail ; he 
 thought he was going to the post- 
 office. 
 
 But Mary Caroline sent him back. 
 He came dejectedly, and did not trou 
 ble himself to seek his mistress, whom 
 he seemed to have forgotten. Joan sat 
 alone in the silent house. She could 
 hear her own heart-beats.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OUGLAS RAY came out 
 from his office a little 
 later than usual that day. 
 He did not get his Satur 
 day afternoons "off," like 
 the salesmen and book-keepers, his 
 neighbors in Mapleleaf. In the pro 
 fessions a man is his own task-master, 
 therefore unindulged. Ray was indus 
 trious, ambitious, and successful ; hence, 
 at times, mercilessly overworked. 
 
 " When I see these fellows parad 
 ing the streets for eight hours work," 
 said the architect, " I d like to tell 
 them how many of us are lucky to get 
 off at eighteen." 
 
 60
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 It was nearer six than five o clock 
 when he passed Miss Dare s house on 
 his way from the train. It was not yet 
 dark, and he looked for some sign or 
 trace of her. He was disappointed to 
 find neither. Only the hall was lighted, 
 and the shades in the library were 
 drawn. He hurried his dinner, and 
 got to her before seven. The gas in 
 the house was now turned on as usual. 
 He did not ring, but lifted the knocker 
 decidedly. The fate with the ring in its 
 mouth responded. She answered the 
 summons herself; the light was behind 
 her, and her face presented itself to him 
 only in its values, like those of a dark 
 ened statue. She still wore the gray 
 dress that she had put on that morn 
 ing, but at first he did not notice the 
 lack of splendor in whose enhance 
 ment he had seen her last, nor perceive 
 61
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 that, whereas he had parted from a 
 glorified being, the allegory of joy, the 
 poem of hope, he was received by a 
 dulled and patient woman. It was 
 enough for him at first to touch her 
 
 living, loving, warm, and pliant 
 
 his. She lay in his arms with a cer 
 tain desperate helplessness not charac 
 teristic of Joan. Had love wrought 
 upon her already one of the swift and 
 mysterious miracles which it is said 
 sometimes to work upon the natures 
 of the strongest, who are the tender- 
 est of women ? She sank against him 
 like any little feminine creature, as if 
 she had within her no more any power 
 to exist outside of himself; as if she 
 found herself deprived of thought and 
 action, or the capability for either; as 
 if she put him forever between herself 
 and the stress of life yielding its elec- 
 
 62
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 tions and its struggles to him, for very 
 love. 
 
 He drew her into the large, empty 
 room. The fire was not lighted in the 
 grate, and a sort of cheerlessness which 
 he could not define struck his sensibil 
 ities coldly. He turned to the tall 
 chair in which they had sat, rapturous, 
 last night. Suddenly it seemed to him 
 a long time ago, and he wished, he 
 could not have told why, that he had 
 not suffered so great a space between 
 the first and the next draughts of joy, 
 whose brimming goblet was at his lips. 
 
 " People call twenty-four hours a 
 day! he began. "Four and twenty 
 centuries have gone into this one. I 
 wanted to come in this morning. I tried 
 to run out at luncheon. I tried to 
 
 "Love! Lift your face. No? 
 Then I shall do it for you, Joan." 
 63
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 He turned it gently upon his arm 
 where she had hidden it, and so brought 
 it forcibly to the solitary gaslight burn 
 ing above his head. Then the same 
 solemn word that had expressed the 
 horror of the old servant leaped to 
 the lips of the lover. 
 
 "God!" he said, "my God!" 
 
 Joan had released herself from his 
 arms, and stood stolidly. Up to this 
 moment she had not spoken. The fig 
 ure by which we have tried to indicate 
 the impression of her appearance forced 
 itself upon Ray s mind like something 
 inevitable, the only human phrase for 
 the occasion. 
 
 " You have been blasted ! " he cried. 
 "What is it ? What can ail you ? Joan r 
 Joan?" 
 
 " Have you written to your mother ?" 
 she began, in a lifeless voice. 
 64
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I am glad of that. Don t do it 
 just yet." 
 
 " I cabled her this morning." 
 
 " Oh ! I am sorry." 
 
 * I suppose I might have waited 
 a little, but I could n t ; I was too 
 happy. I did n t think you d mind it, 
 dear. Do you so much?" 
 
 " I am sorry," repeated Joan. " I 
 wish you had not done it." 
 
 The lover s ardent face sank. 
 
 " I did not mean to hurry you 
 to trouble you in any way. A man 
 is not the same. I have to learn what 
 a woman is. Forgive me, Joan." 
 
 "Oh!" said Joan, "it is you who 
 must forgive me." 
 
 " You < I would forgive you anything 
 you ever did or ever can." 
 
 Joan stood averted ; she stirred 
 65
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 slightly at these words ; she seemed to 
 drink them. 
 
 " I shall remember that," she 
 breathed. " I thank you for saying 
 that." 
 
 She tottered for a moment, like a 
 soldier who has been hit, but rides on ; 
 men have found such stiff and dead 
 upon their horses. Then quietly and 
 dully, without a particle of drama, she 
 spoke these words : - 
 
 " Douglas, I cannot marry you. I 
 cannot be your wife." 
 
 Ray had extended his arms, but they 
 dropped. He regarded her with the 
 still confident, but slightly puzzled ex 
 pression of a man whose attitude of 
 mind does not shift easily ; his had the 
 leisurely movement of his nationality, 
 and lumbered at that moment. 
 
 " I suppose," he said coldly, " this 
 66
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 is one of the caprices of the feminine 
 nature ? I lack a liberal education in it. 
 I do not know how to deal with it. 
 Can t we omit these superfluities 
 from our relations, Joan? 3 
 
 "You told me last night that I 
 am incapable of caprice," slowly re 
 plied Joan. " And I am not descend 
 ing to a superfluity. If I were, your 
 lightest wish would wrench me out 
 of it." 
 
 At this the slight frost he had melted 
 in his warm, wet eyes. 
 
 " I might have known you did not 
 mean it ; I should have known. For 
 give me, lassie ! " 
 
 "But I did mean it," said Joan 
 deliberately. " I do mean it. Most 
 unhappily, I must mean it. I cannot 
 marry you. I cannot be your wife. 
 Yes, I know I said I would last night. 
 67
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 To-night I must unsay it all. I must 
 recant our happiness." 
 
 " You cannot recant our love ! " 
 
 " I cannot recall my own . . . for 
 you. I wish I could." 
 
 " Nor mine for you, by Heaven ! " 
 cried the Scotchman. " It is a fact. I 
 told you how it is. It is fixed. You 
 cannot interfere with it. I swear a 
 woman shall not meddle with a man 
 like that. You cannot defy the laws 
 of nature. They are stronger than you. 
 And so am I. And so is the love I 
 gave you. Do you suppose it is a dead 
 leaf that you should toss it away ? " 
 
 "I wish I could," repeated Joan, 
 sighing. " For your sake and for 
 mine." 
 
 " Its roots have gone down like a 
 mountain s," said Ray sternly. " Are 
 you going to peck at it with a lady s 
 68
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 fan ? I have heard that women do such 
 things, sometimes. You can make me 
 . . . most miserable, Joan, if you 
 choose to ... play with me ! " 
 
 " I do not play with you ! " cried 
 Joan in a voice of unbearable anguish. 
 It was the first sign of suffering that 
 she had permitted herself, and across 
 the countenance of her lover passed 
 the first serious, or at least the first 
 evident apprehension that she was in 
 mortal earnest. He put out both hands 
 as if he groped for his words : 
 
 " We are man and woman you 
 my woman, I your man. You gave me 
 your word. I hold you to it." 
 
 " I ask you to free me from it." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I cannot tell you why." 
 
 " I thought she loved me," muttered 
 Ray ; he looked at her, but it was as 
 69
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 if he did not see her ; he seemed to 
 be speaking to something that stood 
 beyond her ; invisible, yet immovable 
 like the shape of fate. Joan did not 
 answer. Her silence began to hammer 
 into the man s brain like the nail that 
 was driven into the brain of Sisera. 
 
 " I tell you I can t unlove. I m not 
 that kind of man. It makes no differ 
 ence what you do, how you feel. No 
 thing can stop my loving you." 
 
 " Not even my . . . caprice ? Not 
 even my cruelty ? " she quivered. 
 
 " Not even your cruelty ! " thundered 
 Ray. "Not anything you can inflict 
 on me not any wrong you can do 
 me, or do yourself. No ! As God 
 hears me No ! " 
 
 Joan was visibly agitated by this 
 protestation. She had gone over to 
 the fireless grate, and was now stand- 
 70
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 ing in her long gray dress, with her 
 hands upon the mantel, and her face 
 upon her hands. 
 
 Douglas Ray, as he said, was not 
 past master in the education which 
 comprehends, and hence may conquer, 
 Woman. 
 
 Viewed in the large, spelled with a 
 capital, the topic confused him. He 
 could think of nothing better to do at 
 that moment than to argue with Joan. 
 
 " Last night do you remember ? " 
 
 " Oh, I remember it all every 
 thing ! " 
 
 "What you said?" 
 
 " All I said." 
 
 "What you did?" 
 
 " Everything I did. I would kiss 
 you as many times more. I am not 
 sorry . . . for that. Did you think I 
 was ashamed ?" 
 
 7 1
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Joan lifted her head nobly. 
 
 "But to-night just now when 
 I came in " 
 
 "Yes, to-night, when you came in. 
 I let you I could not help ... so 
 much. I love you, Douglas. Do you 
 think I ought to be ashamed? I had 
 not thought of that. I was . . , 
 pretty tired. I was . . . glad to see 
 you; but it must not happen any 
 more. No no. You must not . . . 
 after this." 
 
 She put out one trembling hand. 
 He, who had stepped toward her, re 
 treated before this white barrier as if it 
 had been a wall of crystal ; it was as 
 transparent, but as hard to pass. 
 
 " Mother used to teach me," pleaded 
 
 Joan, in a broken, girlish voice, " that 
 
 I must not let a man . . . touch me 
 
 . . . unless . . . And I cannot be your 
 
 72
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 wife. I have thought a great deal about 
 my mother, since ... I used to try to 
 please her, even when I was a grown 
 up girl. When I made her little prom 
 ises, I always kept them." 
 
 She murmured on, to Ray it seemed 
 incoherently. He stood staring. The 
 only explanation of Joan s condition 
 which now presented itself to him was 
 the same which had occurred to the 
 old family servant. Had Joan Dare lost 
 her reason ? That firm, wholesome 
 reason which so happily distinguished 
 her? Why, she was saner than any 
 woman he knew ! 
 
 "Where is Mary Caroline?" he 
 asked abruptly. " I want to see her a 
 minute." 
 
 He started to the door. But Joan 
 had stepped between him and it. 
 
 " Mary Caroline is not in," she said, 
 73
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 with an escaping eye. " She has gone 
 out." 
 
 " Then I will wait till she comes 
 back." 
 
 " It may be quite late," argued Joan 
 -"too late. I don t think you had 
 better, not to-night." 
 
 Ray turned, with his obstinate 
 Scotch expression, wheeled suddenly, 
 took Joan in his arms, and carried 
 her to the tall chair where they had 
 sat last evening. There, despite her 
 self, he held her, and then he began to 
 talk. 
 
 He perceived, now, that it was no 
 skirmish in which he was engaged, 
 and he laid siege with the solidity 
 of a determined nature. He began by 
 reviewing the situation calmly ; he 
 deferred to her reason, to her pride, 
 to her conscience : then to her ideas of 
 74
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 justice, to her sense of honor, to all the 
 strongest faculties and qualities that she 
 possessed. From this ground he retreated 
 subtly, and deliberately attacked her 
 weakness. He challenged her love, he 
 doubted her loyalty, he played upon 
 her tenderness. He smote her quick 
 ening sensibilities as if she had been a 
 breaking harp. Joan clenched her 
 hands and locked her lips. 
 
 Beyond an invisible line, which she 
 had drawn for herself, she would not 
 go. It was as fatal and as formidable 
 as a magic circle. All the resources of 
 the man failed to cross it. When he 
 found that this was so he began to re 
 proach her. 
 
 " I had the right to demand your 
 reasons. You have given me none." 
 
 " Alas, I have none to give you." 
 
 " What do you expect a man to be- 
 75
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 lieve under circumstances like these ? 
 What shall I think?" 
 
 " Believe what you must. Think 
 what you will. I have no reason to 
 offer you." 
 
 " I have the right to demand it," he 
 repeated. 
 
 " You had the right. You have it 
 no longer. I have taken it from you. 
 I have nothing more to say. I " 
 
 Suddenly but solemnly Ray closed 
 her lips with his. 
 
 " Have you nothing to say to me 
 now?" 
 
 " Nothing - - more." 
 
 " Nor now ? " 
 
 "Oh, no oh, no." 
 
 "Nor yet?" 
 
 Then for the first time that evening 
 two strong, stinging tears slid down 
 Joan s cheeks. 
 
 76
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " You make it so hard ! You make 
 it so hard ! 
 
 This was more than the lover could 
 bear, and he spared her immediately. 
 
 " Child," he said, with the forbear 
 ance and gentleness of tone with which 
 one addresses the sick or the helpless, 
 " you are overwrought, to-night. I 
 will not trouble you any longer. We 
 will talk another time." 
 
 Joan had released herself from him 
 and stood in the sombre light, swaying 
 as if she were trying to find her footing. 
 There was that in her eyes which would 
 have touched a savage. Before it, the 
 compassionate, finely-fibred man who 
 loved her broke and yielded altogether. 
 
 When she said, "We must not talk 
 again. I should rather you would not 
 -come" he turned and left the 
 room without a word. 
 77
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 She heard him put on his coat. She 
 saw him take up his hat and lay his 
 shaking hand upon the bolted door. 
 
 When he had opened it, he looked 
 back. She was standing where he had 
 left her, alone in the middle of the 
 large, dim room, in her gray dress, 
 with her blighted face. She seemed to 
 hold out her hands to him ; then they 
 fell, and hung down straight at her 
 sides. 
 
 As Ray went out of the front door 
 Martin Luther came in. The collie, 
 who had, either purposely or accident 
 ally, been left out some time, entered 
 with an injured air, but, diverted by 
 one of the responsibilities which dogs 
 take so seriously, began to scent the 
 passing of the Scotchman s feet, or 
 some other canine hallucination which 
 disturbed him. This he was tracing 
 78
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 towards the foot of the stairs when 
 Joan called him back. 
 
 " Martin Luther," she said pathetic 
 ally, " are n t you going to stay by me ? 
 There is n t anybody else." 
 
 She put her arms about the dog s 
 neck, and hid her face upon his ruff.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HE suburb of Maple- 
 leaf has the rural traits 
 which its pretty name 
 suggests, together with 
 the urban temperament 
 which made it natural that such a name 
 should be attached to it. Some one of 
 the salesmen, book-keepers, or small 
 merchants who selected and settled the 
 spot had possessed a certain imagi 
 nation. 
 
 Escaping the city in the fall of the 
 leaf, he had tramped joyfully through 
 drifts of driving oak and maple, elm 
 and ash and chestnut, which filled the 
 roads of a village then almost as naive 
 80
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 as if it had been curled at the feet of 
 Monadnock. These streets he had in 
 due season marked with an arcade of 
 little maples, that in the days of which 
 we speak had become an arch of car 
 mine, gold, and glory. 
 
 The maple, although it has orange 
 moods, is known in New England as 
 the tree that is red three times a year : 
 at the blossom, at the seed, and at the 
 dying. In May, the children climb to 
 tear the crimson feathers from the 
 lower branches ; in October they wade 
 knee-deep through the flood of color 
 which flows from sidewalk to sidewalk, 
 crackling deliciously beneath the feet. 
 
 Mapleleaf is eight miles out from 
 the city which is said to have, with 
 the possible exception of Canton and 
 Liverpool, the most beautiful suburbs 
 in the world. 
 
 81
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Of these some are more fashionable, 
 but none more persuasive than the lit 
 tle community of which we write. It 
 might best be described in the South 
 ern word " homey." It unites the in 
 dependence of the town to the good- 
 fellowship of the country. It is at 
 once initiated and provincial. It wears 
 the latest mode, and follows the newest 
 fads. It hears the popular lecturer, the 
 great singer, and the reigning play. It 
 has its fifty trains a day (both ways) 
 and the fifteen-minute trolley sched 
 ule. It has its kindergarten and its 
 High School, its Ladies Wednesday 
 Club, its caterer, its bank, its telephone 
 exchange, its hospital. In short, Maple- 
 leaf is equipped, if not elite. 
 
 In this attractive little town the 
 family of Joan Dare were conspicuous 
 and influential. It was, in fact, Josiah 
 82
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Dare, her father, a respected book 
 seller of the city, who had planted 
 the maple arches and developed the 
 suburban imagination. This is not so 
 common that it did not make its mark. 
 He was the first deacon of the church, 
 the first president of the bank. The 
 trolley, the telephone, the public li 
 brary, the drinking-fountain, the Citi 
 zens Improvement Association owed 
 their comfortable existence to his en 
 ergy and ingenuity. The lesser suburb 
 is even more a one-man community 
 than the country village, and in Maple- 
 leaf Josiah Dare was the man. 
 
 His daughter had that quiet social 
 ease and unquestioning assurance of 
 position which belong to the " first 
 lady " of a small but not a rural neigh 
 borhood. The family had known their 
 share of troubles, like other people. 
 83
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Perhaps (like other people) they may 
 sometimes have thought it a heavy 
 share. But the sorrows of her first 
 youth were well behind Joan, and when 
 she took the unread book of happiness 
 in her hands, turned the first page and 
 tossed it away, she had the equipment 
 for joy which only pain can give. Her 
 Sunday visits to the elaborate suburban 
 cemetery where her parents lay had 
 long since ceased to give her acute 
 grief. Her free and solitary life with 
 her old servant had begun to assume 
 a shade of monotony. Sometimes she 
 caught herself saying : - 
 
 " This is a doll s house after all. 
 What would a real home be?" 
 
 She was ready for love ; she was ripe 
 for happiness. Without a moment s 
 hesitation she had dashed both down. 
 
 Only second in importance to the 
 84
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 church, and secretly believing itself to 
 be of more than the bank, the library, 
 or the Improvement Association, the 
 Ladies Wednesday Club of Mapleleaf 
 was, and is, a power not to be derided 
 or ignored. To-day, in fact, the Ladies 
 Wednesday Club of this agreeable sub 
 urb represents the great Affiliation of 
 the nation, forty thousand women 
 strong in the state alone. At the time 
 of which we write, the Wednesday 
 Club was relatively a primitive but still 
 a powerful body ; a significant substi 
 tute for the sewing-circle of the rural 
 districts and of an elder day. Of this 
 organization, Joan had long been the 
 president, and her recent absence from 
 its sessions had not passed without re 
 mark. 
 
 One Wednesday afternoon some five 
 or six weeks after the opening date of 
 85
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 our story, the delinquent officer unex 
 pectedly presented herself to the hostess 
 of the day s occasion, who was, in fact, 
 the wife of the minister. Joan was 
 greeted in a pointedly Christian man 
 ner, and with a warmth so effusive that 
 it gave the impression of misplaced 
 italics. 
 
 The parsonage was full, and a trem 
 bling lady in a cobalt silk dress (this 
 was before the day of white silk shirt 
 waists) was quavering forth her views 
 on the Italian Renaissance. These, at 
 the appearance of Miss Dare, came to 
 an abrupt and embarrassing stop. 
 
 As Joan entered the bright, crowded 
 rooms, they seemed to roll and divide 
 before her as the Red Sea divided be 
 fore the Israelites. Waves of guarded 
 faces rippled around her. Whispers like 
 the trickle of waters hushed at her ap- 
 86
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 proach ; Joan was conscious, in fact, 
 that every eye was upon her, and that 
 half the lips in the room were busy 
 with her name. She perceived that she 
 was at the mercy of one of the cruelest 
 of human forces - - the power of the 
 feminine tongue. 
 
 Whatever her purpose in coming to 
 the Club at all had been, Joan seemed 
 abruptly to change it. The color did not 
 rise upon her pale face, but her eyes har 
 dened. The presiding officer of the day 
 made way for her, but Joan by a ges 
 ture declined. She stood for a moment 
 with her firm hand upon the table, 
 closed and strong, as if it had been a 
 gavel with which she commanded at 
 tention : this, her manner and attitude 
 enforced peremptorily. 
 
 " Ladies," she said, speaking quite 
 distinctly and with great composure, 
 87
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " I have come to resign my office as the 
 president of this organization. I am 
 sorry to do so. I have not now the 
 leisure necessary to fill the position with 
 which you have so long honored me. 
 I thank you for that honor, and for 
 your kindness and your confidence." 
 
 Her voice faltered a little upon that 
 last word, but she added no other to it. 
 She looked for a moment upon the 
 faces of her old neighbors and friends ; 
 her expression was inscrutable; itseemed 
 to remove her from them even before 
 she turned and left them with a proud 
 and quiet step. 
 
 As she passed through the hall, the 
 door of the study opened, and the min 
 ister, wearing that resigned and hope 
 less, but still slightly injured expression 
 with which a man receives the pre 
 sence of a Woman s Club in his own 
 88
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 house, came out and spoke to her. He 
 was an elderly man and had known 
 Joan since she was a little girl. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "what does 
 this mean ? " 
 
 " It means that I am very busy," 
 said Joan slowly. " I cannot listen to 
 papers on the Italian Renaissance this 
 winter." 
 
 Her eye answered the challenge of 
 his, defiantly. 
 
 "I am coming to see you," said the 
 minister, with his hand upon the door, 
 which he opened for her with a defer 
 ent courtesy. 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Cotton," said Joan 
 coldly, " but it s hardly worth while. 
 If I should need you I would send." 
 
 " Do you think I shall wait for 
 that ? " demanded the clergyman. 
 Rebuffed but resolute, he stood watch- 
 89
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 ing her as she went down the concrete 
 walk of his hundred-foot lot and rap 
 idly disappeared at the corner of the 
 street. She did not look back. 
 
 Had she done so, she might not have 
 been taken off her guard, when short, 
 nervous, feminine steps hurried up and 
 overtook her. 
 
 She gave one little warm outcry, such 
 as that with which women greet each 
 other when they meet affectionately. 
 
 " Annie ! you ! I have not seen you 
 it seems a great while." 
 
 Mrs. Hammerton, panting and 
 flushed, tried to fall into step, but the 
 short span of her little feet found it as 
 hard to keep pace with her friend as 
 if Miss Dare had been a man. 
 
 " I have called two or three times. 
 Nobody answered the bell," she com 
 plained. 
 
 90
 
 " I must have been out," said Joan 
 calmly. 
 
 " Mary Caroline has left you?" 
 " Mary Caroline has left me." 
 "And you are living there alone?" 
 "Why, no! I have Martin Luther." 
 The neighbors walked on together 
 for a few moments in uncomfortable 
 silence. It was a November day, bitter 
 to its heart s core. The maples were 
 stripped and shivering, and dead leaves 
 crackled on the concrete at the feet of 
 the two women. Annie Hammerton, in 
 her new fall suit, looked a little crea 
 ture, too small to grapple with a great 
 subject. Joan glanced down upon her 
 with a certain compassion. 
 
 "Well?" she said, "what is it, An 
 nie?" 
 
 " I do not know how," stammered 
 Annie. " I left the Club on purpose 
 91
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 I hurried after you I thought I might 
 not have a better chance I felt that 
 somebody ought to speak to you." 
 
 "What about?" asked Joan, in a 
 matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 "That is just it," pleaded Mrs. 
 Hammerton. " I am ashamed to tell 
 you what it is about." 
 
 "Then why do you?" asked Joan 
 quietly. 
 
 " Because somebody must," cried 
 Annie. She put her hand upon the arm 
 of her taller friend, and clung to her as 
 she uttered these trembling words. 
 
 " Joan, somebody has got to tell 
 you. There are stories dreadful 
 things" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "About you about you !" 
 
 "Yes," replied Joan. 
 
 "Oh, you have heard them, then?" 
 92
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Annie s voice relaxed into a tone of 
 melting relief. 
 
 " No," replied Joan, " I have heard 
 nothing. You are the first person who 
 has spoken to me like this. I think," 
 she added, after a surcharged moment 
 in which each studiously avoided look 
 ing at the other, "that it would be 
 better if you were the last." 
 
 Mrs. Hammerton s hand fell slowly 
 from the arm of her friend. 
 
 " You are not a married woman," 
 she said, not without dignity, "and I 
 am. I think I ought to tell you. I 
 think I ought to warn you. Such talk 
 such things need some attention. A 
 woman cannot trample them under foot. 
 She can t go right on as if nothing were 
 being said. You ought to trust some 
 body to confide in somebody. You 
 owe your friends some explanation." 
 93
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Of what?" asked Joan, in a sting 
 ing tone. 
 
 Mrs. Hammerton made no reply. 
 
 They had now reached Miss Dare s 
 avenue, and her old neighbor followed 
 her automatically up to the steps. There 
 Joan paused and turned a glittering 
 smile. 
 
 "Won t you come in?" she asked 
 politely. 
 
 But Annie Hammerton began to sob. 
 
 "Not now I can t do it ! I will 
 try again some other time." 
 
 She turned, and ran down the ave 
 nue, hurrying for the green car which 
 cried up the street as Joan put her key 
 into her solitary door. 
 
 Within the hall neither voice nor 
 
 footfall greeted her. If the house had 
 
 been occupied by the dead and who 
 
 could say that it was not?- -it could 
 
 94
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 not have been stiller. Martin Luther 
 was out ; affairs of his own, whether 
 political or predatory, detained him - 
 as they often did. Collies are born rov 
 ers, and Martin Luther had the habits of 
 his race. Joan found him an uncertain 
 housemate, and missed the society of 
 Mary Caroline, who did not forage for 
 chickens, or hunt foxes, still to be found 
 in the thick woods which rose like 
 ramparts around Mapleleaf. 
 
 Miss Dare tossed off her long coat 
 and hat and, with a sigh, went out into 
 the kitchen, there to be met by the too 
 candid signs of her laborious and as yet 
 not successful efforts to compass the 
 domestic arts of which Mary Caroline 
 was past mistress. But, at a glance, 
 Joan s arrested feet stopped short. 
 
 The pathetic evidences of disorder 
 and inexperience which she had left 
 95
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 behind her when she hurried to the 
 Wednesday Club had mysteriously van 
 ished. The last pan was scoured ; the 
 last towel was washed and neatly hung 
 to dry ; a spotless floor and a shining 
 stove received her. From the oven 
 came the strong, warm scent of baking 
 biscuit. A vigorous soup was boiling in 
 the kettle ; a pie which seemed to have 
 been hastily made, and was uncooked, 
 stood on the dresser. Joan stared at 
 the miracle. 
 
 After a few moments of puzzled re 
 flection, she went upstairs to change 
 her dress, but thought better of it and 
 soon came down and examined the 
 kitchen carefully. She tried the back 
 door ; it was locked as she had left it, 
 and the key, which she had removed, 
 hung by its leathern tag in its place on 
 a nail at the jamb of the door. She 
 96
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 tried the windows they were locked ; 
 the pantry it was fast; the laundry 
 it was bolted. Conscious of a vague 
 uneasiness, and yet despite herself aware 
 of something like a sympathetic pro 
 tection, whose source she could not 
 explain, Joan prepared her supper 
 thoughtfully. Martin Luther, who now 
 began to feel the need of his, scratched 
 peremptorily to be let in. Joan took 
 down the key with the leathern tag, 
 let the dog in, locked the door, and 
 hung the key again. 
 
 It was perhaps half-past seven that 
 evening that the fate with the ring in 
 its mouth knocked boldly at the front 
 door. Joan answered the summons 
 promptly, but when she saw from whom 
 it came, she drew back a step or two. 
 Douglas Ray did not wait to be ad- 
 97
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 mitted, but pushed in and shut the 
 door behind him. Joan had not seen 
 him since the evening when they had 
 parted at her behest. He had written 
 her many letters. Some she had an 
 swered, some she had not. She had 
 intimated to him plainly that his pre 
 sence was undesired by her, and he 
 had taken her at her word. 
 
 He had taken her at her word till 
 this. But now he seemed to elect that 
 she should take him at his. There was 
 that in his manner which told her that 
 his errand was serious, and that she had 
 better not fence with it or him. 
 
 " Your house is cold and cheerless," 
 he began. " May I light the fire ?" 
 
 "Why, certainly," said Joan, "that 
 is, if you are going to stay long 
 enough." 
 
 Without waiting for her permission, 
 98
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 he had stooped and struck a match to 
 the cannel in the grate. 
 
 " I cannot tell," he answered, with 
 his Scotch expression, " how long I 
 shall stay. But long enough, Joan, 
 to say that which has brought me 
 here." 
 
 The flaring fire leaped towards him 
 as if it would offer the welcome that 
 she refused. When he stood aside, the 
 large, dusk room seemed to lift the lids 
 from its darkened eyes. The books in 
 the tall cases regarded the two ; they 
 gave the impression of doing so con 
 sciously ; as if, indeed, they were the 
 only intelligent and responsive com 
 panions of the solitary woman. 
 
 " Come, now," said Ray comforta 
 bly. "Isn t this better? Isn t this 
 pleasant?" 
 
 " It is pleasant," admitted Joan, in a 
 99
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 very low voice, " I do not know that 
 it is better." 
 
 She had not offered him a chair, nor 
 made any movement to take one her 
 self. She stood, tall and motionless in 
 the steel-gray poplin dress that she had 
 worn at the Wednesday Club. It was 
 a dull, unyouthful costume, and seemed 
 to contend with Joan s natural brilliance 
 and beauty. These, the lover perceived, 
 had suffered a reduction of tone and 
 power since he had seen her last. The 
 room behind her was now fluent with 
 shadows, as the house around her 
 seemed rilled with ghosts. She had an 
 unreal look. 
 
 " I have come," said Ray, " to speak 
 with you upon an important matter 
 you had better sit down, Joan," he 
 added, as if he had been the master of 
 the house and she his guest. 
 
 IOO
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 With evident reluctance she obeyed 
 him, and he seated himself at a little 
 distance from her. By mutual instinct, 
 both avoided the Morris chair. 
 
 "Now," asked Joan, "what is it, 
 Douglas?" 
 
 Abruptly Douglas plunged : - 
 
 " It is necessary for some one to tell 
 you that you have inexplicably become 
 the subject of distressing gossip. Its 
 source or its cause I do not know. 
 That it is destitute of foundation makes 
 it the more monstrous. It is like a 
 house hanging from a balloon and sway 
 ing in the air," ventured the architect. 
 " But that does not alter the case - 
 beyond a certain point. I have come to 
 talk it over with you." 
 
 "I have nothing to say," replied 
 Joan. 
 
 "Not even to me ?" 
 
 IOI
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Not even to you." 
 
 " Your father is dead," urged the 
 dismissed lover, speaking very slowly 
 and with great distinctness. " Your 
 brother is dead. You have not a man 
 relative in the world within your reach. 
 You are without a natural protector. 
 But you must be protected, and I pro 
 pose to do it." 
 
 "How?" asked Joan, with a sad 
 little smile. 
 
 "Give me your confidence," en 
 treated Ray, " and I will tell you how." 
 
 She shook her head. "I have no 
 confidence to give you." 
 
 "Are you sure of that?" 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 " I thought you might rather - - I 
 thought it would be less painful for you 
 to hear it from me. You must hear it 
 from somebody." 
 
 102
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " I have already heard it," admitted 
 Joan, "from my oldest and dearest 
 woman friend." 
 
 " What have you heard ?" 
 
 " That I am being talked about. 
 That there are stories." 
 
 " Nothing more ? 
 
 " That is all. I thought it was 
 enough." 
 
 " Has no one told you," demanded 
 Ray sternly, "that the people of this 
 town suppose you to be living here 
 alone with a stranger? In short," he 
 added desperately, when he had waited 
 in vain for Joan s reply, " it is said that 
 there is a man in this house." 
 
 These words came from Ray s lips 
 as if each one had been a drawn tooth. 
 She could hear him groan. He had 
 turned frightfully pale. 
 
 " Poor Douglas ! " said Joan gently. 
 103
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Of course," he began again with a 
 catch in his breath, " this is, as I said, 
 a monstrous story. But I should like 
 to be able to say something about it." 
 
 " Have you ever seen this this fab 
 ulous creature? "asked Joan, with curl 
 ing lip. 
 
 "No! God forbid! No!" 
 
 "Has anybody else?" 
 
 " You know," suggested Douglas 
 Ray, with a merciful but pitiful attempt 
 to be jocular, " that phrase people use 
 in the country, There are those that 
 There are those that affirm some such 
 preposterous legend, Joan." 
 
 "And you," demanded Joan, "what 
 have you said ?" 
 
 "I have said," replied Ray, "every 
 thing that a man can say in behalf of a 
 woman, without injuring the woman. 
 I have done everything except to kick 
 104
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 the whole village into the sewer. But 
 I thought I had I think I have the 
 right to your confidence. I am here to 
 ask for it." 
 
 " I have none to give you," answered 
 Joan. " I have nothing to say. If my 
 life and my character cannot defend 
 me from this thing, no man can or 
 shall," she added through set teeth. 
 
 " I thought if you would take Mary 
 Caroline back ?" pleaded Ray, " or send 
 for some elderly female relative? or do 
 something to put a stop to this thing ? " 
 
 " I can do nothing," answered Joan, 
 " to put a stop to it." 
 
 " Not even offer me some explana 
 tion ? Something I could say ? " 
 
 " I have no explanation to offer you, * 
 
 she repeated monotonously. "Not even 
 
 if you do not trust me any longer. I 
 
 cannot help that. You need not unless 
 
 105
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 you want to. There is no reason why 
 you should trust me unless you choose. 
 I have no claim upon your confidence, 
 Douglas, except that you have known 
 me a good while and that you did 
 love me." 
 
 Her voice trembled almost imper 
 ceptibly upon the last three words, but 
 her eyes were staring bright and dry. 
 
 Then swiftly, with a heart-breaking, 
 sweet smile, she held out her hand. 
 
 " Good-night," she said, " good-by." 
 
 " I will say good-night," he an 
 swered, " but I will never say good- 
 by." 
 
 He offered her no caress, but took 
 the hand she lent, and held it mightily 
 in both of his ; then bowed his face 
 upon it and staggered to the door. 
 
 " Don t mind it so, Douglas, "pleaded 
 Joan. "It cannot it cannot be 
 1 06
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 helped ! I am sorry, but I am not 
 ashamed." 
 
 As unconsciously as her shadow fol 
 lowed her, the woman in that vital 
 moment had followed her lover. Both 
 had now crossed the threshold of the 
 library. His hand was upon the knob 
 of the door, when the red hall light 
 flared in some sudden draft. While the 
 two stood there mute and miserable, a 
 footfall clicked distinctly somewhere 
 overhead. 
 
 "There!" cried Ray. "What is 
 that?" 
 
 " It might be Martin Luther," sug 
 gested Joan, with composure. 
 
 But as she spoke these words, there 
 reverberated from hall to hall and from 
 wall to wall of the silent house a 
 muffled hollow noise. It was the sound 
 of a man s cough. 
 
 107
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 T the time of our story 
 the church terrestrial in 
 the town of Mapleleaf 
 was like the church ce 
 lestial of religious hope 
 and dream it was one and indivisi 
 ble. With a fine unconsciousness of 
 any other existing sect The Denomi 
 nation represented ecclesiastical Chris 
 tianity to an incurious acceptance. The 
 people, untempted by any other, took 
 their inherited polity as a matter of 
 course, and the Protestant community 
 referred to their religious organization 
 with the tone, if not the accent, of good 
 Catholics. One said The Church. To- 
 108
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 day there are five in Mapleleaf. Then 
 there was only the complacent, com 
 monplace edifice which sat back in the 
 square as easily as a commuter in a car 
 seat. Had the building not been of 
 wood, and painted a chilly brown, it 
 would have failed to meet the sub 
 urban architectural ideals at that day in 
 vogue. 
 
 In fact, the church met most of the 
 suburban ideals these were not ex 
 acting and received in return the 
 unqualified allegiance of people who 
 regarded their church as a soul insur 
 ance corporation, and their pastor as a 
 species of religious clerk or agent hired 
 for spiritual occasions to make out the 
 policies. In a word, the little Congre 
 gational parish of Mapleleaf was a large 
 force - - the strongest in the town. In 
 it were vested the moral and social 
 109
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 codes. Out of it went the written and 
 unwritten law. Its fiat was irretrieva 
 ble. There was no appeal from its ver 
 dict ; whether it educated saints or 
 cultivated sinners, whether it had in 
 spirations or made mistakes, whether 
 it represented God s heart or man s 
 stupidity, it represented power. One 
 might as well fling one s self before the 
 fender of the green car blurring down 
 the hill before one could read its num 
 ber, as oppose one s self to the judgment, 
 the will, or the tradition of the village 
 church. 
 
 Nevertheless, and in spite of the ab 
 solute oligarchy which handed the pas 
 tor his salary four times a year on 
 quarter-day, the parish of Mapleleaf 
 had in its pulpit a man. 
 
 The Rev. Eliakim Cotton was an 
 elderly man, as we have said; there was 
 
 1 10
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 snow on his hair, there was fire in his 
 eye, there was sun in his smile. He 
 represented the notable instance of a 
 New England minister who was not 
 afraid of his people. When he had oc 
 cupied the parsonage with the hundred- 
 foot lot and the concrete walk for five 
 years, the usual movement to exchange 
 a pastor whose virtues you know for 
 one whose faults you do not know was 
 accidentally omitted from the politics 
 of the congregation who could say 
 why ? - - and Mr. Cotton, holding over 
 that mysterious danger line, had re 
 mained where he was. He had now 
 been the minister of Mapleleaf for 
 twenty years. 
 
 Some ten months from the date of 
 the last chapter which we have re 
 corded in the biography of Joan Dare, 
 
 the Rev. Mr. Cotton sat in his study 
 in
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 with iron on his lips, and trouble in his 
 eyes. His committee sat with him 
 five in number: two deacons, the clerk, 
 the theological member, and the rich 
 member. 
 
 The minister was in his study chair 
 before his old walnut desk; this showed 
 the precision of a methodical man. 
 No letter went astray, no paper played 
 truant, no book lolled upon that sacred 
 surface ; the pens rested in their rack 
 with an air of infinite leisure ; only his 
 blotter showed the signs of work, and 
 that was black with it. 
 
 The room was brown and ascetic. 
 The ragged carpet was darned, the 
 faded furniture was patched, but the 
 large bookcases were full. Above the 
 mantel hung an old-fashioned lith 
 ograph of Cromwell preaching to his 
 pious soldiers. Behind Mr. Cotton s 
 
 112
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 chair John Calvin, seeming almost as 
 large as life, and quite as shocking, 
 gasped forever upon his death-bed. 
 One was therefore surprised that a 
 photograph of Da Vinci s Christ was 
 fastened to the revolving bookcase, 
 close within the minister s reach ; this 
 occupied such a position that his eyes 
 constantly met it. 
 
 The theological member (who had 
 just been speaking) followed the min 
 ister s glance ; but it was not apparent 
 that he saw the picture. The rich 
 member looked at his watch; he felt 
 that he was wasting time; there was 
 no money to be made out of the occa 
 sion, and, it seemed, no progress either. 
 The rich member frowned at the 
 dilatory nature of these ecclesiastical 
 matters ; a man of affairs would have ac 
 quitted or condemned the accused, and
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 been done with it, an hour and a half 
 ago. In point of fact the minister and 
 his committee had been in executive 
 session behind locked doors for two 
 hours, and had come to no agreement. 
 Within the incumbency of the present 
 pastor no similar case had come before 
 the attention of the church of Maple- 
 leaf. The senior deacon could not re 
 collect that he had ever been called 
 upon to discipline a member for an 
 important offense. 
 
 "She has been in regular standing a 
 good while," he sighed. " If I am cor 
 rect, she made a profession when she 
 was in early youth. She still attends 
 Divine Service and the weekly confer 
 ence of prayer." 
 
 " It is an extraordinary case," observed 
 the junior deacon. " I never knew one 
 like it. I deeply deplore it, brethren. 
 114
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 I greatly regret the necessity of action 
 upon it." 
 
 " What would you do ? " asked the 
 senior deacon uneasily. 
 
 "That s it ! That s it ! " cried the 
 rich member. " What will you do ? 
 Put it that way. Put it in any way, 
 only do something, gentlemen ! Make 
 a move ! Make any move and I 11 
 second it." 
 
 " I move/ suggested the theological 
 member, " that a committee of three 
 be appointed to visit the accused, and 
 confer with her as to the nature of her 
 offense." 
 
 "Second the motion! " said the rich 
 member, getting to his feet. " Why 
 not this evening ? What s the use of 
 wasting time ? Time, gentlemen, is 
 always above par." 
 
 " These rumors are an injury to the
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 church," argued the theological mem 
 ber. " It is common scandal. It is a 
 very serious matter." 
 
 " She always has borne an unblem 
 ished reputation," argued the junior 
 deacon timidly. His eyes met those 
 of the minister, which had assumed 
 a stern expression. At this point some 
 one proposed that the pastor should 
 become one of the committee selected 
 to confer with the offending mem 
 ber. 
 
 " I decline," said the Rev. Mr. Cot 
 ton shortly. " I absolutely decline to 
 have anything to do with such a step. 
 You know my opinion, gentlemen. I 
 have expressed it to you repeatedly. If 
 you hound down this unhappy woman 
 you will do it without my approval or 
 my sanction. I have explained my po 
 sition in this matter to you till there 
 116
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 is really nothing more for me to say 
 about it." 
 
 " Have you ever reasoned with her 
 yourself, sir," asked the theological 
 member, " as to the nature of her 
 offense ? " 
 
 " I have said everything to her that 
 I can properly say," replied the pastor 
 gravely. 
 
 " Does she offer any explanation or 
 exculpation of her conduct?" 
 
 " Neither. None whatever." 
 
 " You defend her in face of the 
 facts, do you ? 
 
 " I do not understand the facts, sir. 
 Do you?" 
 
 " But," persisted the theological 
 member, " the question is, do you de 
 fend her conduct ? 
 
 " Her conduct is a mystery," replied 
 
 the minister. " But her spotless char- 
 117
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 acter is her advocate. I will not arraign 
 her for I don t know what. The only 
 Christian course to pursue, in my opin 
 ion, is to let the poor girl alone. Time 
 may justify her against these unfortu 
 nate suspicions. I say time should be 
 given her. If we don t trust her, who 
 will ? If we show her no mercy, who 
 should?" 
 
 The clerk, a little silent man who 
 had scarcely spoken, now observed 
 tentatively : " The offending member 
 should first be visited, as our polity 
 requires, in a friendly capacity by one 
 or two fellow-members. She should 
 be approached in a friendly manner, 
 before she is officially censured." 
 
 " This has already been done," said 
 
 the minister sadly. " Some ladies of the 
 
 congregation have called upon her ; my 
 
 wife was one of the number, and Mrs. 
 
 118
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Hammerton ; I grant you that this 
 difficult duty has been performed with 
 as much delicacy as the case admits of. 
 Ecclesiastically I own that you are free 
 to act, in this case, gentlemen, if you 
 insist upon it. My advice is against it, 
 that s all. If you prefer to talk it 
 over," he added, " without me, sup 
 pose I give you the opportunity ? 
 
 " That might be advisable," replied 
 the senior deacon thoughtfully, " even 
 if it is a little out of order. It won t 
 take us long, Mr. Cotton. We 11 call 
 you." 
 
 "Very well," assented the minister. 
 He rose at once and left the room; he did 
 not seek his wife ; they had talked this 
 thing out till there was nothing more 
 to be said ; the minister had been forced 
 to observe that Mrs. Cotton underwent 
 variations of this painful theme ; he 
 119
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 could not at any given crisis in the 
 affair predicate that her opinion would 
 or would not coincide with his own. 
 He paced the oil-cloth of his little dark 
 entry hotly till his committee recalled 
 him. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen ?" he began. 
 
 But he saw before they spoke that 
 they had decided against him. The 
 elderly minister had never played lackey 
 to his committee. But he knew them. 
 He made no idle attempt to dissuade 
 them from their purpose, but seemed 
 rather suddenly to fall into step with 
 it. 
 
 " I see that you intend to act in this 
 matter. Perhaps it is as well," he said 
 unexpectedly. " It will satisfy you. 
 And it won t " but he paused. He 
 could not say that the official censure 
 of her church would not harm the 
 
 120
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 arraigned church-member. He con 
 tented himself with asking the sub 
 committee to report the result of their 
 effort at once, and, when they had 
 hurried over the necessary formalities 
 which intervened, the clerk, the senior 
 deacon, and the theological member 
 put on their hats and went out. 
 
 In a short time a very short time 
 they returned. 
 
 It was a warm September night, and 
 one of the study windows was open. 
 The committee, as they came up the 
 concrete walk, saw the tall figure of 
 their minister pacing the floor with an 
 unendurable nervousness. The junior 
 deacon, who was not a nervous person, 
 sat reading the denominational weekly. 
 The rich member was casting up ac 
 counts in his pocket diary. These two 
 
 121
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 men got to their feet at once, and the 
 minister ran like a boy to open the 
 front door. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he began eagerly, 
 " you made a short call." 
 
 " Long enough," snapped the senior 
 deacon. " Too darned long in my 
 opinion." 
 
 Now history recorded not in that 
 parish the time when the senior deacon 
 had been heard to say " darn." The 
 minister allowed himself a secular 
 laugh. 
 
 " We must appoint a committee to 
 call on you, my brother," he suggested 
 pleasantly. Then he repeated his phrase. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen ? " 
 
 He turned the key in the study door, 
 and the six church officers confronted 
 each other for a moment in silence. 
 The gravity of their position now 
 
 122
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 urged itself upon the lightest of them ; 
 and none of them were careless men. 
 
 "Well?" reiterated the pastor. 
 
 " I move," said the senior deacon, 
 " that we proceed with the case. It 
 should come before the church." 
 
 " I second the motion," said the 
 theological member eagerly. "It is a 
 clear instance of falling from grace." 
 
 " Our sister seems to me to be a sad 
 woman," ventured the little clerk. 
 " And a comely. I regretted our er 
 rand when we had accomplished it." 
 
 " I did not y " said the senior deacon. 
 "We were not received in a proper 
 manner." 
 
 "May I ask," inquired the pastor, 
 " how you were received?" 
 
 "As if she had been the Queen of 
 Heaven, sir. She had that that gen 
 eral appearance, sir." 
 123
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "She gave no evidence of conviction 
 of sin," said the theological member. 
 
 " She had a beautiful collie with 
 her," deprecated the little clerk. 
 
 "A vicious dog," urged the theolo 
 gical member. "He snapped at me 
 twice." 
 
 "She did not even ask us to be 
 seated," complained the senior deacon. 
 
 The pastor bit off an unsanctified ex 
 clamation between his teeth. There 
 dashed before him a flashlight of the 
 scene that desolate, delicate woman 
 those three well-meaning, stupid 
 Christians the insolent nature of 
 their errand they men, all men! 
 
 " There should have been a woman 
 among you if you had to go!" blazed 
 the minister. 
 
 "The polity of our church does not 
 place females upon the governing 
 124
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 board," the theological member re 
 minded him. 
 
 " Then it ought to ! " cried the elderly 
 minister, "and I have been preaching 
 forty years and never thought of it till 
 this minute." 
 
 The Rev. Eliakim Cotton was a 
 man, as we have said, and for a mo 
 ment s span he could have cried 
 " Shame ! " upon his ecclesiastical of 
 ficers. But he had the graciousness of 
 his wide experience, and of his large 
 heart, on which saint and sinner both 
 must lean. 
 
 "They think they are doing right," 
 he thought. "They, too, must be led." 
 
 His closed hand relaxed ; it fell upon 
 the open Testament on his study table. 
 He wheeled in his chair, and turned 
 his pale face instinctively towards the 
 Leonardo s Christ. He did not look 
 125
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 at Oliver Cromwell ; and John Calvin 
 was behind him. 
 
 " My brothers," he said gently, " be 
 fore you decide this question I should 
 like to say a little more about it." 
 
 Then the Rev. Eliakim Cotton be 
 gan to talk. 
 
 It was then well after nine o clock. 
 It was past ten when the church officers 
 left the study, and quietly separated 
 for the night. When the door closed 
 upon the last of them (it happened to 
 be the theological member) the Rev. 
 Mr. Cotton ran to the foot of the stairs 
 and eagerly called his wife: - 
 
 "Maria? Maria! Come down, please. 
 I want you to accompany me on an 
 errand of Christian mercy." 
 
 "Where?" asked Mrs. Cotton, "and 
 what for?" 
 
 She stood in her wrapper, with her 
 126
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 arms upraised; she was putting her 
 gray hair in crimping-pins for the 
 night. 
 
 "We are going to Joan Dare s at 
 once - - immediately. Come, Maria ! 
 Put your things on, won t you ? I will 
 explain on the way over." 
 
 " I ve got a headache," urged the 
 minister s wife. 
 
 The minister whirled on the heel of 
 his well-worn boot. 
 
 "Very well," he said. "Then I 
 must go without you." 
 
 " Oh, but you can t do that. It 
 would n t do, Mr. Cotton. You would 
 be talked about." 
 
 "When I m afraid of being talked 
 about," returned Mr. Cotton slowly, 
 " I will give up preaching. I suppose 
 if I went to hell after a lost soul the 
 parish would talk about it. But my 
 127
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 parish knows I should go if I thought 
 I ought to." 
 
 " You put me in a hard position," 
 complained Mrs. Cotton, "and it would 
 take me so long to dress Eliakim ? 
 Eliakim!" 
 
 But the Reverend Eliakim Cotton 
 had left the house. He walked rapidly, 
 squaring his bent shoulders ; he held 
 his gray head high ; his thin hands 
 hung clenched at his sides. He had a 
 headache, too, though he had not men 
 tioned it, and his eyes were tired and 
 strained. As he walked, these tricked 
 him somehow, for the picture on the 
 revolving bookcase appeared to move 
 and swing before him through the 
 deserted streets of Mapleleaf. Now in 
 darkness, then in light now with a 
 tremor on the lip, then with a tear on 
 the cheek the saddest and the strong- 
 128
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 est Christ of all that art has offered 
 Christianity followed the old pastor all 
 the way. 
 
 The lights were still burning in the 
 house of Joan Dare. 
 
 "I am glad of that," he thought 
 he ran up the steps like a boy "or 
 else I might have had to give it up." 
 
 He did not ring, but lifted the 
 knocker gently ; the fate with the 
 muzzled mouth called three times. 
 That had been the minister s knock 
 ever since Joan could remember ; she 
 recognized it, and opened the door at 
 once. 
 
 The pastor came in without a word, 
 and stood in the middle of the library. 
 Joan, in her long gray dress, stood 
 opposite him. Her face had the wiz 
 ened look of an animal that is aging 
 from physical pain. 
 129
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Joan, I ve come to tell you " 
 he began. But she put up her hand as 
 if she warded off a blow. 
 
 " Don t ! " she entreated. 
 
 " Oh, you poor girl ! " cried the min 
 ister. " How you suffer ! " 
 
 He was a tall man, as we have no 
 ticed, and he looked down at Joan s 
 upturned face. Afterwards he said of it : 
 
 " I have never seen anything like it 
 on any human countenance. It was as 
 if I saw the riven side." 
 
 " There, there, my dear," said the 
 pastor. " I came to tell you I have 
 conferred with my committee. No 
 thing will come of it, Joan. This eccle 
 siastical tornado has blown itself out. I 
 am here to tell you not to distress your 
 self I thought," he added, "you 
 would sleep better to know." 
 
 But Joan had sunk upon the nearest 
 130
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 chair and hid her face. Since she was 
 a girl, when she had great troubles to 
 bear, the minister had never seen this 
 self-possessed woman cry. He dashed 
 his own hand across his dim eyes and 
 let her sob it out. He wished he had 
 been a woman, that he might have 
 taken her in his arms and comforted 
 her. 
 
 " It s the insult ! " she moaned. 
 " It s the disgrace ! 
 
 While he stood looking at her with 
 his hands locked behind his black coat, 
 the front door opened without ring or 
 knock, and the swish of a woman s 
 skirt crossed the library floor. 
 
 The minister s wife had thrown her 
 long raincoat over her wrapper ; her 
 gray hair was half in crimping-pins, half 
 astray upon her wrinkled forehead ; she 
 was not a picturesque or aesthetic sight ;
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 but something in her expression made 
 her a beautiful one at that moment to 
 her old husband. He stood aside, and 
 turned his face away, as she flung her 
 thin arms around Joan s shaken shoul 
 ders and kissed the stricken girl upon 
 the cheek. 
 
 "They re nothing but men, Joan," 
 said the pastor s wife. "What could 
 you expect ? " 
 
 Joan slept little and lightly that 
 night, and at half-past four in the morn 
 ing she was thoroughly awakened. 
 Strange sounds, muffled and stealthy, 
 were in the house. Now and then she 
 had heard something of the kind dur 
 ing the last year, and never without a 
 sense of uneasiness. She had not been 
 able to find any sufficient explanation 
 of the disturbance, or of certain inci- 
 132
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 dents which had accompanied it, and 
 experienced the discomfort of one who 
 will not accept the mystical, and cannot 
 supply the exact hypothesis. 
 
 She recalled all that she had read of 
 supernatural phenomena, but without 
 mental hospitality. Her robust, practi 
 cal temperament recoiled from the 
 occult. 
 
 " There is an explanation of every 
 thing," she thought. "Perhaps I shall 
 get this one now. I may find out how 
 those things were done for me." 
 
 She sprang for her slippers and gown, 
 and trailed softly down the stairs. 
 
 All houses are haunted. Ghosts that 
 do not come under the classification of 
 the Psychical Research Society the 
 love, passion, sin, joy, anguish, sanctity, 
 blasphemy, of family life - - wander 
 and contend like spirits forever within
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 the walls of human homes. So sur 
 charged does a house become with the 
 experience of its occupants that a man 
 with the discomfort of imagination 
 clamors for the right to build his own 
 roof, to haunt it with his own person 
 ality, and hand it down in turn to ten 
 ants less sensitive than himself. 
 
 With ghosts like these the house of 
 Josiah Dare had long been full. Added 
 to their tragic company were there any 
 of the other sort ? 
 
 Joan admitted asking herself the 
 question; but she went down the back 
 stairs stoutly, and with a colorless face 
 on which the smile of a skeptic and 
 the nerves of a woman warred, pushed 
 open the kitchen door. 
 
 She had made no sound in doing this, 
 and her entrance did not disturb the 
 occupant or occupants of the kitchen,
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 if any such were there. Indeed, if there 
 were any, they were invisible, and Joan 
 was conscious of a clutch at the heart 
 when she perceived that this was the 
 fact. 
 
 In the range a fire, built, it seemed, 
 without hands, was burning heartily ; 
 Joan noticed that one of the covers was 
 red hot. 
 
 "It has been going a good while," 
 she thought. 
 
 Bread kneaded, it seemed, without 
 fingers, was in the oven. A boiler 
 lifted without explicable agency stood 
 steaming on the coals. The floor was 
 washed, and the windows. The table 
 was scoured, and the faucets. Joan 
 went to the door. The key hung in its 
 place by its leathern tag on the nail by 
 the jamb. She tried the door. It was 
 locked. At that moment she became 
 35
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 aware that a rhythmical sound which 
 she was sure she had heard when she 
 stepped from the stairs to the kitchen, 
 had abruptly ceased. The kitchen was 
 perfectly still. The room was filled 
 with the unreal light of dawn. 
 
 As Joan stood in it, confused and 
 hesitating, she saw a yellow crack at 
 the bottom of a closed door flare and 
 go out like extinguished gas. Hurry 
 ing to this door, which led to the 
 laundry, she stumbled over a chair; her 
 hands touched and clutched at some 
 thing soft ; this she drew to the window 
 and examined. 
 
 It was a woman s garment ; a Scotch 
 plaid golf cape, whose pattern and col 
 ors sent the blood driving fast through 
 Joan s veins. 
 
 She struck a match, lit a lamp and 
 holding it, she could not have told why, 
 36
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 high above her head, as if she had far 
 to search, opened the door into the 
 laundry and went in. 
 
 Forcing itself against the wall as if 
 it would force itself through to escape 
 detection, a deprecating figure huddled. 
 
 Plainly it was the figure of a woman, 
 and Joan s courage lifted. Who could 
 say why a woman s ghost should be 
 more harmless than a man s? It is 
 doubtful if history would reinforce 
 Joan s assumption. 
 
 With wet arms bared above the 
 elbows, with red, parboiled hands be 
 fore her face, the intruder uttered four 
 short words : 
 
 " Oh, Miss Joan dear ! " 
 
 " Mary Caroline," began Joan 
 sternly, "what does this mean ?" 
 
 But her trembling lips refused her, 
 and when Mary Caroline held up her
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 dripping hands, Joan caught and clasped 
 them impetuously no ghosts they, 
 but warm, living, loving hands, big, 
 work-worn faithful hands the hands 
 that had served her and toiled for her 
 with the passion of self-effacement that 
 only women know, and which they 
 may offer to another woman as ro 
 mantically and as loyally as to the 
 master, man. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " asked 
 Joan as soon as she could speak. But 
 her eyes answered her own question. 
 
 " Your washin ," sobbed Mary Caro 
 line. " I did n t suppose I d get caught 
 at it. I d a-got em all out on the line 
 by half-past six I see you at it," 
 added Mary Caroline, " nights after 
 dark. I can t stand it, that s all." 
 
 " Mary Caroline," began Joan, across 
 whose face revelation was slowly steal- 
 138
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 ing, " was it you who hung out those 
 clothes once when I left the basket 
 under the lines ? When I came back 
 they were all up." 
 
 "That was me," replied Mary Caro 
 line. 
 
 " Was it you that baked the biscuits 
 and the pies and washed the floor that 
 day at the beginning ? " 
 
 "Yes, that was me." 
 
 " Was it you who did the ironing 
 three weeks ago in the night? Mary 
 Caroline, was it you who gave the 
 kitchen a spring cleaning ? And was it 
 you Martin Luther roared at so last 
 week at five o clock that time he 
 tumbled down the cellar stairs ?" 
 
 " That was all me," said Mary Caro 
 line with hanging head. She began to 
 cry, as if she had been a guilty child. 
 " Don t scold me for it! "
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Joan s lip quivered. 
 
 " I had to do it," pleaded Mary Car 
 oline. " I had to do it." 
 
 "Where do you come from?" de 
 manded Joan. " What are you doing ? 
 Where are you staying ? Why do you 
 take all this trouble for me, dear 
 Mary Caroline ! " 
 
 Mary Caroline went to the laundry 
 window and dashed the shade up. She 
 pointed across the hollow to the short 
 " unaccepted " street that cut between 
 the square and the trolley lines. An 
 acre of Miss Dare s oaks and maples 
 rose beyond the little garden fore 
 ground, in which the fire of nastur 
 tiums and salvia, half quenched by frost, 
 seemed to smoke and flare up before it 
 went out. 
 
 " Me and my sister have rented that 
 house," said Mary Caroline quietly. 
 140
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " Them was her young ones that you 
 see playin round there that day you 
 stood lookin a long time. I got be 
 hind the hen coop. Thanks be to 
 mercy you did n t " 
 
 "But I did! I see now that I did 
 recognize you. It was so incredible, so 
 impossible that I dismissed it from my 
 mind. Mary Caroline, what are you 
 doing this thing for?" 
 
 "To be nigh you," said Mary Car 
 oline. " I had to do it." 
 
 "But how do you manage? You 
 would not take money from me at 
 the first." 
 
 " No, nor I won t now, Miss Joan." 
 
 "Do you mind telling me how you 
 are living?" 
 
 " Oh, I take in or go out," replied 
 Mary Caroline carelessly. " It don t 
 
 matter much. I get along. I can set 
 141
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 there of an evenin and watch your 
 lights till they go out there! I must 
 put them drafts off my stove." 
 
 Mary Caroline dashed into the 
 kitchen, and Miss Dare followed her 
 slowly. When Mary Caroline had 
 closed the drafts, the two women stood 
 and regarded each other with a con 
 scious awkwardness. 
 
 Into Joan s puzzled eyes a swift in 
 terrogation ran. Her glance fell upon 
 the closed door, whose key hung from 
 its leathern strap upon the nail beside 
 the jamb. 
 
 "Mary Caroline," she said abruptly, 
 " I can t understand yet how you got 
 into this house. The house is always 
 locked, and the key is always out." 
 
 "There ain t no bolt," returned 
 Mary Caroline with a grim smile. "I 
 get in with my own key." 
 142
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Your own key?" 
 
 "Why, yes, that there dooplicate you 
 give me when I went out evenin s. I 
 kep it in my pocket. It has ben there 
 ever since." 
 
 From the pocket of her wet dress, 
 drenched with suds, Mary Caroline 
 forthwith produced an old back-door 
 key. 
 
 "Do you want it?" she deprecated. 
 " It s yourn." 
 
 Joan shook her head gently, and 
 Mary Caroline restored the key to her 
 pocket with a smile of ecstasy. 
 
 " I don t know what to say," began 
 Joan lamely. "It is divine; but it is 
 dangerous, Mary Caroline." 
 
 "Marm?" said Mary Caroline. 
 
 " I can t bear to say I don t want 
 to tell you I don t know isohat to 
 say ! " cried Miss Dare miserably. Her
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 clear gaze clouded before the steady 
 eyes of her old servant. 
 
 "Seems to me I m about as fit to be 
 trusted s anybody I know on," sug 
 gested Mary Caroline, with dignity. 
 There seemed something almost like a 
 reversal of their positions ; as if the 
 mistress had in some unexpected sense 
 become answerable to the maid. 
 
 "As fit," replied Joan quickly, "as 
 any person I know in the world. But 
 I have nothing to say, Mary Caroline 
 not even to you." 
 
 " I did n t s pose you had," said Mary 
 Caroline quietly. "You Ve grown aw 
 ful peaked," she added. "I don t 
 wonder, seein s you have to eat your 
 own cookin . I ve got two pies in the 
 oven besides the biscuits." 
 
 "I must go," cried Joan suddenly; 
 she turned her fine head with a hunted 
 144
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 motion like that of a listening animal. 
 "I must go now, dear Mary Caroline." 
 
 " I shall finish that there washin ," 
 Mary Caroline announced. " I don t 
 know s I care what you say. I ain t 
 a-goin to leave it in the suds say ! 
 Miss Joan?" 
 
 Joan, with her hand on the knob of 
 the half-open door, paused at the foot 
 of the stairs. As she did so she shut 
 the door again, and stood with her back 
 against it. 
 
 " Miss Joan," said Mary Caroline, 
 " I hain t nothin to say but this here 
 one thing. By all them years I done 
 for you you promise me one pro 
 mise, an I won t ask ye no more." 
 
 "I m in something of a hurry," 
 replied Joan, resuming her natural 
 manner. " Tell me what it is, Mary 
 Caroline. I will consider it."
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " See that there red tablecloth ? " 
 Mary Caroline pointed to the clothes- 
 horse which was standing before the 
 range. " It s most dry now. It needed 
 washin somethin awful - - Miss Joan, 
 if ever you need me quick and turrible 
 - will you hang that there tablecloth 
 outen the laundry window?" 
 
 The tears smarted to Joan s haggard 
 eyes. 
 
 " I promise you I will ! Dear Mary 
 Caroline ! I will indeed." 
 
 " An you remember," said Mary 
 Caroline solemnly, " thar I be?" 
 
 " I will remember," sighed Miss 
 Dare. A piteous smile shone for an 
 instant upon Mary Caroline, and then 
 the door closed swiftly and quietly 
 between herself and it. 
 
 When Miss Dare went into the 
 146
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 kitchen to get breakfast her week s 
 washing hung flapping merrily on the 
 line in a high September wind, and 
 Mary Caroline was gone. When Joan 
 went into the laundry she saw that 
 Mary Caroline had omitted to wash 
 one article. This was a necktie, a 
 summer tie of striped cotton stuff; it 
 might, or it might not have been part 
 of a man s wardrobe. Mary Caroline 
 had folded it very neatly upon the 
 shelf above the tubs and left it there. 
 Joan s ringers closed over it slowly.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 VIL report is a thistle 
 down floating before the 
 eye, a bird fluttering above 
 the hand, a ball and chain 
 clamped upon the feet, a 
 weight locked around the neck. It 
 eludes reason, it flees truth, it incar 
 cerates the free, it drowns the swim 
 ming. 
 
 Sometimes Joan Dare felt herself 
 barred and bolted apart from human 
 kind ; she sat in the " dark solitary " 
 where the remorseless judgment of men 
 and women equally immures the ar 
 raigned, the convicted, and the misun 
 derstood. At other times she seemed 
 148
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 to herself to be falling down depths 
 unmeasured, freighted with lead to 
 keep her there, blindly seeing through 
 fathoms of crushing water the stir of 
 happy keels and sails upon the surface 
 of life. 
 
 We are used to saying that health is 
 never valued until it is lost, nor happi 
 ness unless it is missed, nor affluence 
 till it is gone, nor position unless it is 
 obscured. Which of us estimates the 
 simple value of fair fame ? Who of us 
 appraises the common, unnoticed prop 
 erty of an unblemished name ? For a 
 good reputation, who takes the trouble 
 to thank God ? 
 
 One warm night when Joan sat on 
 her doorsteps in the soft autumn dark, 
 the south wind took the voices of 
 passers on the concrete sidewalk and 
 flung at her these words : - 
 149
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " We ain t anyways uncommon, our 
 family ain t. None of us ever did any 
 great thing. We ain t famous, nor ed 
 ucated, nor rich we re just plain 
 folks. But there s one thing we ve 
 always had, and that s f^racter. I tell 
 you, sir, it s more precious than rubies" 
 
 Joan recognized the voice ; it was 
 that of a neighbor, a working-man, 
 a poor, uninteresting man ; nobody 
 thought much about him, or indeed 
 much of him ; he used to take care of 
 her furnace ; she could scarcely recall 
 his name. 
 
 Her leaping heart scorched her face. 
 
 " They are talking about me," she 
 thought. She could well have changed 
 lots with this stupid, irreproachable 
 person, and blessed Heaven for the 
 chance. 
 
 The neighborhood gossip of Maple- 
 150
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 leaf was not peculiarly cruel ; less so, 
 perhaps, than that of some larger or 
 smaller places. It was and is a kindly, 
 well-meaning suburb, too much in 
 volved with the overlapping of metro 
 politan life to find leisure for the paltry 
 curiosity of more remote and less busy, 
 or more active and less conscientious 
 communities. 
 
 The mystery which hung, or which 
 appeared to hang, over Josiah Dare s 
 daughter was not brutally treated ; only 
 naturally, perhaps ; but, if the village 
 criticism had been of a ruder variety, 
 it could not have doomed her to a 
 solitude more definite or more sad. 
 
 The too punctilious recognition, the 
 too mechanical smile, the cool, cour 
 teous salutation, the silent avoidance 
 hurt more subtly than the direct in 
 sult. Her delicate flesh received poi-
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 soned assegais rather than bludgeon 
 blows. 
 
 Mapleleaf was, in fact, one large 
 family ; and when it became known, 
 as everything does become known, in 
 such neighborhoods, that the church 
 had censured, and, it was suspected, had 
 narrowly escaped excommunicating 
 Joan Dare, she found herself the ob 
 ject of a scandal the more serious be 
 cause no one expressed it to her in so 
 many barbarous words. 
 
 Averted looks turned from her in 
 public places. People crossed the street 
 to avoid meeting her. Customers in 
 stores were zealously busy at counters 
 when she approached. Her friends 
 dropped like fading flowers in a steady, 
 rising wind. Her oldest and best proved 
 no exception to the general retreat ; 
 Mrs. Hammerton had ceased to visit 
 152
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 her; Mrs. Cotton came several times, 
 but she could not, though, to do her 
 justice, she honestly meant to, divest 
 herself of that pointedly Christian man 
 ner which Joan found so trying ; and 
 the attempts of the minister s wife to 
 do her duty by the harassed woman 
 were, on the whole, little or no com 
 fort. Mrs. Cotton had exhausted her 
 sympathetic inspirations on that even 
 ing when she came to heal the gashes 
 made by the church committee, who 
 were " nothing but men." She found 
 it difficult in colder and heavier air to 
 rise to heights so fine. 
 
 But the Reverend Eliakim Cotton 
 persisted with a celestial obstinacy in 
 befriending the unfriended woman ; 
 Joan found herself unable to distance 
 the simple, dogged, Christian manliness 
 of her pastor. He would neither desert 
 53
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 her nor neglect her. He ignored her 
 rebuffs, and overlooked the recoil from 
 sympathy which suffering developed in 
 her. But this priestly oversight was, 
 of course, only an occasional break in 
 the monotonous solitude of her life. 
 
 With the loyalty of her lover Joan 
 owned it harder to contend. Douglas 
 Ray defended and guarded the ostra 
 cized girl as if he had the right to do 
 so which she had denied him. It mat 
 tered nothing to him that she fended 
 off his sympathy, declined every practi 
 cal service which he would have ren 
 dered her, and forbade his presence in 
 her house. If he absented himself, it 
 was for her sake. He protected her 
 reputation as if it had been that of his 
 sister ; and laid his silent homage at 
 her feet as if she had been his promised 
 wife. He had long ceased to ask for 
 154
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 explanations of the course of life that 
 she pursued. In spite of it, and without 
 them, he preserved an allegiance whose 
 existence she felt as one feels the influ 
 ence of a range of hills, distant but 
 powerful. In the old Scriptural phrase, 
 she " lifted up her eyes " to it. But she 
 did not tell him so. 
 
 On the rare occasions when they 
 met, he found her pale and quiet. She 
 remained calm and dumb. She wrapped 
 herself in a reserve on whose dignity 
 her own mother could not have in 
 fringed. She had the expression of a 
 woman whose thoughts are high, but 
 whose attitude cannot be. Her nature 
 seemed to stoop, as if under invisible 
 burdens ; her soul, we might say, had 
 begun to grow round-shouldered be 
 neath its load. She had lost the joyous 
 erectness of one who has the confidence
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 and the respect of her fellow-townsmen. 
 She had acquired the furtive look of 
 the hunted. Her candid eye evaded 
 her neighbors. 
 
 Half with censure, half with pity, 
 and always with the irritated wonder 
 of the unimaginative when confronted 
 with a mystery, the people of Maple- 
 leaf watched the movements of the 
 solitary woman. 
 
 In her dull gray gown she faced them 
 when she must, or eluded them when 
 she could. Joan now almost always 
 wore gray who could say why ? - - as 
 if her misfortunes had selected a uni 
 form. Who can explain why a woman 
 clothes her experience with its kindred 
 or its complementary colors ? 
 
 There were not wanting a few ob 
 servers, lovers of the theatre, who half 
 unconsciously associated Joan Dare with 
 156
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 a popular play at that time on the 
 boards in the city, and represented by 
 actors of an excellent grade. 
 
 " I can t help it ! I cannot help it ! " 
 admitted Mrs. Hammerton in a guilty 
 whisper. " But those gray things keep 
 reminding me of Hester Prynne." 
 
 Mrs. Hammerton had selected Mrs. 
 Cotton as the recipient of this confi 
 dence ; as if the fact that she was the 
 wife of a minister palliated or even 
 sanctified the confession. 
 
 " Hester Prynne ? " asked Mrs. Cot 
 ton with a frown of gentle perplexity. 
 
 " Why, don t you know ? In the 
 Scarlet Letter. All Joan lacks of it 
 is that long gray veil and - - one other 
 thing." 
 
 " Oh, the Scarlet Letter ! " replied 
 Mrs. Cotton. She was familiar with 
 Hawthorne, of course ; every educated
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 woman must be. But the minister s 
 wife did not attend the theatre. She 
 felt the limitations of her ecclesiastical 
 training and position before a worldly 
 experience. To her mind Annie Ham- 
 merton s picturesque impression pre 
 sented no definite significance. The 
 lifeless, loveless draperies of Hester 
 Prynne upon the stage, her blanched 
 face, her sumptuous figure, the pathos 
 of her haughty bearing in public, its 
 more pathetic humility in solitude - 
 Hester, derided on the streets with her 
 child radiant in the forest with her 
 lover - - proud upon the scaffold at his 
 side - - and always Hester with the 
 cunning embroidery scarlet and heavy 
 on her breast - - these scenes the mind 
 of the theatre-goer carried from the 
 play. But the pastor s wife had read 
 the book a good while ago. 
 158
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 In the now desolate and difficult life 
 of Joan Dare, one woman remained, in 
 the ultimate sense of the word, her 
 friend. Mary Caroline had reached 
 that upper altitude of human loyalty 
 which is content " not to question 
 why." With an intelligence not to be 
 expected of her class, and a reserve 
 hitherto foreign to herself as a specimen 
 of it, the old servant seemed to have 
 reasoned herself or loved herself into 
 such a tact and dedication as forced 
 themselves upon the acceptance of her 
 mistress whether with or against the 
 lady s will. 
 
 Often, perhaps too often, Joan, stand 
 ing in the laundry window which com 
 manded the pretty foreground of garden, 
 the middle distance of the grove, and 
 the perspective of the unaccepted street, 
 perceived the stanch figure of Mary
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Caroline occupied with some obvious 
 excuse for being where it was, but se 
 cretly, Joan felt, watchful of her house 
 and of herself. She could have iden 
 tified (she was now sure) the room in 
 which Mary Caroline slept or waked 
 and thought of her ; its light burned 
 far into the night ; its shade was usually 
 lifted ; at any moment a figure might 
 fill it, with arms upraised and large 
 hands carried to its eyes, shutting out 
 the light to penetrate the darkness. 
 
 Often, more often again, Joan, com 
 ing down in the morning, found in her 
 kitchen the miracles of domestic art 
 against whose loving-kindness she had 
 ceased to contend. Every household 
 task which it was possible for the 
 affectionate burglar with the duplicate 
 latch-key to perform within the house, 
 at hours when such could be secretly 
 160
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 and successfully conducted, Mary Car 
 oline achieved with a triumphant skill. 
 Joan perceived that her old servant 
 now never, in her wildest or tenderest 
 depredations, stepped beyond the topog 
 raphy of the kitchen. Mary Caroline 
 had reached the point of self-effacement 
 where she respected the will of her 
 mistress, if not the nature of the cir 
 cumstances which separated the two. 
 Joan, in the darkening dawns of au 
 tumn, listened to Mary Caroline s 
 stealthy movements downstairs, and 
 turned and slept. Sometimes she said : 
 "Dear Mary Caroline!" and her lip 
 curved tenderly ; it did not tremble ; 
 her eyes were bright and dry. Joan 
 had ceased to exhibit signs of emo 
 tion. It was as if she now experienced 
 none. 
 
 161
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 It was not long after the visit of the 
 church committee at her house - - per 
 haps three weeks or four - - that Joan 
 went out one afternoon into the grove 
 beyond the garden with her books and 
 sewing and Martin Luther. It was one 
 of the summer days which may burst 
 like a blossom from the dying roots of 
 the year. It was so warm as to be 
 oppressive, and so dry that the grove 
 was an acre of tinder; the dead leaves 
 would have ignited like gunpowder at 
 a match ; the moss crackled beneath 
 the foot ; in the garden the frosted 
 flowers tried to lift their heads - - the 
 salvia could not, but some of the nas 
 turtiums did. 
 
 Across the hollow in the unaccepted 
 street the figure of Mary Caroline passed 
 to and fro beneath flapping white out 
 lines that flung themselves about in 
 162
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 a rising wind, writhing upon a clothes- 
 reel of great size. No weaker woman 
 than Mary Caroline could have grap 
 pled with it, in the now considerable 
 breeze. Miss Dare, with a sigh, per 
 ceived these indications that Mary Car 
 oline, for eighteen years proud of her 
 position as a trusted family servant, had 
 fallen to another which all her life she 
 would have scorned. That this social 
 descent had been elected for her sake, 
 Miss Dare could not doubt. She re 
 membered Mary Caroline s parting 
 words : 
 
 " Death n hell will give up the 
 things that are in them, before I give 
 
 up feelin the way I Ve always felt to 
 
 > 
 you. 
 
 This recollection touched Joan, and 
 when a footstep crackled on the dead 
 leaves of the grove, and she turned 
 163
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 quickly to see who it was, her face 
 carried a softened, suffused appeal 
 gentler than its now habitual expres 
 sion. 
 
 Half-tints, like the shadows of clouds 
 or the wraiths of color, chased across 
 her cheeks and forehead, when she per 
 ceived that Douglas Ray, with a firm 
 step, was coming to her through the 
 complaining leaves. He lifted his hat, 
 but did not speak. Martin Luther had 
 gone to meet him leisurely ; the dog s 
 hospitality was dignified and critical ; 
 Martin Luther had not forgotten the 
 Morris chair, and regarded Douglas 
 Ray with the suspicion of the collie s 
 bitterest memories. 
 
 Joan was sitting on an old rustic seat, 
 
 moss-grown between two pines, whose 
 
 needles drifted over her, and upon the 
 
 magazines and work-basket which lay 
 
 164
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 beside her. Without remark, Ray took 
 these things off, and sat down in the 
 space that they had occupied. This 
 action was so characteristic of him 
 that she smiled slowly. It was a good 
 while since she had seen him, and in 
 spite of herself her eyes leaned towards 
 him. His fed upon her hungrily. For a 
 poignant moment neither weakened the 
 intensity of feeling by words. Then, 
 abruptly, Joan began to button her 
 long coat, and stooped for her hat, which 
 lay on the leaves at her feet. An iron 
 hand prevented her. 
 
 "What are you going to do ? " he 
 demanded. 
 
 "I m going into the house." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I told you not to come." 
 
 " You forbade me the house. This 
 
 is not the house." 
 
 165
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "But you may be will be seen. I 
 do not want you seen here." 
 
 " Of course I shall be seen. That is 
 why I am here. The whole world is 
 welcome to see me. I have been wait 
 ing for just such a chance. I hope half 
 Mapleleaf will see me. I mean it 
 shall." 
 
 Joan put her pathetic lips together. 
 She continued to gather her books and 
 work, and extended her hand for the 
 hat that he held. But he shook his 
 head. 
 
 " It is not things that can be seen 
 which could harm you --Dear. You 
 know I would not do anything to in 
 jure you not if I never saw your face 
 again. You know I can be trusted to do 
 
 what is really best for you. You know it, 
 
 J> 
 oan. 
 
 " Yes," she admitted feebly. " I do 
 1 66
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 know it. But I do not think you ought 
 to come. Douglas, I do not want you 
 to come." 
 
 " How much difference," asked Ray, 
 "do you suppose that makes to me? I 
 told you long ago how it is. I told you 
 that I purposed to guard you, to pro 
 tect you. I have not changed my 
 mind." 
 
 "Then go away!" cried Joan with 
 sudden passion. 
 
 " I do not intend to go away," re 
 plied Ray quietly. " I do not intend to 
 go away at all." 
 
 Now Joan s pale face scorched and 
 blazed. 
 
 "I did not suppose," she panted, 
 "that I should come to this that I 
 should ever be insulted --by you." 
 
 She got to her feet, and confronted 
 him with a pitiable look. Martin 
 167
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Luther pushed himself between the 
 two, and began to growl on a low 
 octave. 
 
 " Joan, be still ! " said Ray sternly. 
 " You have not lost your wits. Don t 
 act as if you had. If we were not out 
 here where I can t so much as touch 
 the hem of your rain-coat, I should - 
 lassie ! I should crush that nonsense 
 out of you. I should kiss you till 
 you - If you don t stay where you 
 are, and treat me properly, I don t 
 know but I shall as it is. I won t an 
 swer for myself. - Sit dow r n, Joan, 
 and hear me out. Sit down, dear 
 please." 
 
 Martin Luther, who had never been 
 taught to charge, catching the too 
 familiar word " Down ! " crouched, 
 with a groan of protest and resentment, 
 at the Scotchman s feet. Joan, too, 
 168
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 obeyed. She reseated herself between 
 the pines, whose shaken needles drove 
 upon her. 
 
 " Dogs or women," she said bitterly. 
 " It seems we re much the same. 
 What do you want of me, Douglas ? 
 What are you here for ? " 
 
 " I am here," said Douglas Ray, in 
 an uneventful tone, " to ask you to be 
 come my wife." 
 
 " You have asked me that before." 
 
 " I seek the honor of your hand 
 again." 
 
 " The honor of my" Scarlet, she 
 bit her sentence off. 
 
 " I repeat," said Ray, " I seek I 
 urge the honor of your hand in mar 
 riage. I propose that you shall become 
 my wife at once. Let us have no more 
 of this misery, Joan. Let us be mar 
 ried, and settle the whole thing - - the 
 169
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 whole wretched, cruel thing. It is 
 time we did. I love you, Joan." 
 
 " In spite of- -it?" 
 
 "In spite of //." 
 
 " Notwithstanding all ? " 
 
 " Notwithstanding everything any 
 thing." 
 
 " Without an explanation of what 
 people call my conduct? 
 
 " I ask no explanations of your con 
 duct. I only ask for yourself." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," inquired 
 Joan, brushing a lapful of pine needles 
 on Martin Luther s head, " that you 
 would assume the burden of my - 
 perplexities ? That you would share 
 my painful position ? After all that has 
 happened ! After all this dreadful year ! 
 That you would trust me --so far as 
 that?" 
 
 " I would trust you," replied Ray 
 170
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 slowly, " further than that, if I could. 
 I suppose a man can t very well go 
 beyond it. I offer you the service and 
 devotion of my life. I urge you to do me 
 the honor to accept the shelter of my 
 name, what people call the protection 
 of a husband s presence. I wish to 
 shield you from everything. I ask you 
 to let me share your troubles no 
 matter what they are ! " 
 
 " Even if I could not explain them 
 to you ? " quivered Joan. 
 
 " If you could have explained them 
 to me," returned Ray quietly, "I know 
 that you would have done so long 
 ago." 
 
 " You would take me, mystery and 
 all?" 
 
 "And thank God for the privilege," 
 said Ray solemnly. 
 
 Joan wrung her thin hands together 
 171
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 where they lay upon her gray dress. 
 Martin Luther put his head in the collie 
 fashion upon her knee. Joan s tense 
 fingers relaxed, and caressed the old 
 dog unconsciously. 
 
 Ray looked at the collie with a sav 
 age envy. 
 
 " A man might better be a dog," he 
 said bitterly. 
 
 "And yet," she breathed, "other 
 men offer women what they call 
 love! . . . I wish I could! Oh, I wish 
 I could! ... I cannot," she added. 
 
 "You can, because you must," he 
 answered quickly. 
 
 " Alas, I cannot because I must not 
 ... I thank you, Douglas. You do 
 love me. I see that. I bless you for 
 that." 
 
 Then Douglas Ray sternly repeated 
 his old phrase: "The roots of my love 
 172
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 have gone down like a mountain s. 
 Nothing can stir it ; nothing that you do 
 or say. You might as well try to over 
 throw Wachusett with those poor, thin 
 little hands." 
 
 " I do not deserve it ! " cried Joan 
 passionately. " I do not believe there 
 are many women who would. Men do 
 not love like that. We are not accus 
 tomed to it. We have not been taught 
 to be worthy of it." 
 
 " Most men have not the honor of 
 loving you," replied the Scotchman 
 simply. " See here, Joan, I have 
 something to show you." 
 
 With an abrupt motion he took from 
 the pocket of his coat a paper, unfolded 
 it, and laid it upon her lap. 
 
 In one hurrying glance Joan s startled 
 eyes perceived the full significance of 
 what he had done. The paper was
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 signed by the town clerk of Mapleleaf, 
 and contained the license for the mar 
 riage of Douglas Ray and Joan Dare. 
 " Come, Joan," said Ray gravely. 
 "Let us not talk about it any more. 
 I wish you to become my wife at 
 once. To-day is just as well as any other 
 time. Whatever it is that distresses you, 
 let me share it. Whatever isolates 
 you, let me bear it. Your trouble shall 
 be my trouble, and your life my life, 
 -your home my home, if that must 
 be. I will ask no questions-- I trust 
 you. I will shelter you from every 
 thing--! love you. . . . That s a 
 good man - - your dominie that Mr. 
 Cotton. I have been to talk with him. 
 He will come right over and marry us 
 now. He is waiting to hear from me. 
 He will bring his wife. We shall need 
 one more witness we will send for 
 74
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 that person down in the hollow hang 
 ing out clothes. Something about her 
 looks very familiar to me. Come, 
 Joan ! " 
 
 The marriage license fell from Joan s 
 lap, and Martin Luther pounced upon it. 
 In a moment he would have torn it to 
 fringe, but a tremendous grip throttled 
 him, and the dog dropped the paper 
 without a word. Martin Luther, who 
 had been without a master too many 
 years, recognized the hand of one, and 
 yielded to it with the pride of a collie 
 in it. 
 
 " I shall either kill that dog, or love 
 him," said Ray through set teeth. 
 
 He secured the license and returned 
 it to his pocket. His own face had now 
 become as rigid as the woman s, and 
 had been from the first more resolute. 
 
 " Douglas," said Joan feebly, "you 
 75
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 are the best man I ever knew. I wish 
 I could do as you want me to. I can 
 not I cannot do it!" 
 
 In the position which the two oc 
 cupied upon the rustic seat between the 
 pines, Joan s observation commanded, 
 as it had done all the time, the full 
 view of the house; the man sat with 
 his back to it. He had begun to plead 
 with her, more powerfully (to the 
 woman) because more passionately than 
 he had yet done, when he stopped with 
 an abrupt and breathless exclamation. 
 Across Joan s eyes had swiftly crept an 
 expression of something which was 
 neither terror nor entreaty, but a cu 
 rious interplay of both. He could have 
 said that she made, towards the house, 
 an all but imperceptible sign. He 
 could have sworn that her whole figure 
 and face were significant, conscious, one 
 176
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 might have thought articulate. Did 
 she raise an instinctive hand ? Was it a 
 gesture of command ? or of supplica 
 tion ? or of anguish ? 
 
 Then Douglas Ray did a noble 
 thing. He sat still as he was, and did 
 not turn his head. The collie had 
 sprung up and run on towards the 
 house. But not a muscle of the man 
 moved. His face betrayed no more 
 curiosity than the carpet of pine 
 needles beneath her feet. 
 
 She was on them and on it now, 
 standing tall and resolute. He rose and 
 confronted her, still with his back to 
 the house. 
 
 " I must go ! " she panted, " I must 
 go in at once. Let me pass, Douglas. 
 Dear Douglas, let me go by you ! " 
 
 "What s that?" cried Ray, wheel 
 ing. " It smells like - - it sounds like a 
 177
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 bonfire. It s too windy a day. It won t 
 do- Where is it ? " 
 
 " It s just a bush," said Joan, re 
 suming herself, " one of those^. dead 
 spiraea bushes on the edge of the gar 
 den. It s got afire somehow. Don t 
 bother about it, Douglas. It won t 
 amount to anything." 
 
 " I m not so sure of that," replied 
 Ray decidedly. " It s a pretty high 
 wind, and very dry. I 11 put it out. 
 No. Stay still, Joan. I can t have you 
 anywhere around fire with your wo 
 man s skirts. Keep the dog off if 
 you can and stay just where you 
 are." 
 
 Ray hurried across the garden, and 
 she heard him stamping on the little 
 blaze among the spiraea bushes. These 
 were as dry as excelsior and burned 
 obstinately. 
 
 178
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 The wind had now in fact assumed 
 the proportions of a gale. The grove 
 began to writhe as if it were in fear ; 
 the pines and oaks took on the look 
 of living creatures chained to the stake. 
 Mined and countermined with pine 
 needles and dead leaves, consumed by 
 drought, and uncleared for years, the 
 floor of the grove presented a surface 
 parched for ignition. One narrow line 
 of flame, like a long fuse, ran from the 
 bush to the underbrush. 
 
 It did not take Joan long to per 
 ceive that the blaze was beyond the 
 control of one man, and she pushed 
 through the now stifling smoke. 
 
 " I can help ! " she cried. " Between 
 us, we can put it out." 
 
 " Keep your thin skirts out of the 
 fire ! " thundered Ray. 
 
 At this critical moment a woman s 
 179
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 figure panted up across the hollow ; 
 Joan saw that its hands and arms were 
 loaded ; they held a mop, two brooms, 
 and a snow-shovel. 
 
 "Here I be!" cried Mary Caro 
 line. 
 
 With her big arms and big hands 
 she fell mightily upon the burning 
 garden. Mary Caroline fought that 
 fire as if she had been cleaning house 
 or digging paths. She swept it, she 
 scrubbed it, she mopped it, she beat it, 
 she shoveled it. She uttered short, 
 sharp sounds, neither language nor mu 
 sic, like those of sailors hurling anchor 
 or furling sails. Martin Luther tried 
 to help her, vociferating profanely, and 
 retreated altogether like the coward 
 collie that he was when he burned his 
 tail. Suddenly the dog s whine changed 
 into a violent, anxious bark, and all the 
 180
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 collie sense of responsibility returned 
 proudly to him. 
 
 The smarting eyes of the three fire 
 fighters followed the motions of the 
 dog, who was now dashing desperately 
 from the garden to the grove and back 
 again. 
 
 " It s no use ! " cried Ray, running 
 hatless through the smoke. " It s got 
 beyond us ! We must have help ! The 
 grove is on fire ! 
 
 Before the words had left his lips, a 
 small, sharp petal of flame looking like 
 "a crocus in the shade" sprang from 
 the dry grass within ten feet of the 
 house. The fire-fighters had no time to 
 study the map of the conflagration, and 
 had not followed the course of a tiny 
 root of fire which had been running 
 unnoticed between the spirasa bush and 
 the hot, yellow blossom on the grass. 
 181
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Ray, scarcely comprehending the 
 significance of this new danger, never 
 theless turned his attention for a mo 
 ment to it, and Joan saw that he was 
 trying to stamp out the briskly burning 
 grass, where the crocus of flame had 
 now multiplied into a parterre. She 
 saw that he stooped and examined the 
 spot, glanced about him, and picked 
 something up. She was at his side in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Give it to me," she commanded. 
 
 "I will take care of it," said Ray. 
 
 " Please give it to me," insisted Joan. 
 
 Without a word he put into her 
 hand the stump of a half -burned 
 cigar. 
 
 The wind had now risen alarmingly, 
 and the fire with it. It seemed to Joan 
 that she had but looked, and the tap 
 estry of pine needles in the grove was 
 182
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 ablaze from the garden to the hollow. 
 It seemed to her that she but turned, 
 and the place was alive with people. 
 The solitary woman felt the intrusion 
 of human life upon her privacy with a 
 pang sharper than that of fear for her 
 endangered home. 
 
 Neighbors were there from the sur 
 rounding homes, passers from the 
 streets; children and men, a few women; 
 the police; and other neighbors still 
 a phantasmagoria of interference with 
 her isolation which filled her with in 
 communicable horror ; as if the well- 
 meaning people who had thronged her 
 premises had been the spectres of 
 delirium. 
 
 In one of these apparitions she per 
 ceived the figure of the Reverend Eli- 
 akim Cotton, crimson to his hair, as all 
 fire-fighters are. The circumstance 
 183
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 that his hair was gray seemed to 
 heighten the color of his face. He 
 was bringing water from somewhere in 
 pails. His wife was taking books out 
 from the library, and Annie Hammer- 
 ton was helping her. 
 
 The furnace man who said that 
 character was more precious than rubies 
 was trying to open the rusty piazza 
 stop-cock which he had handled so 
 many times. The junior deacon (who 
 lived a few doors down the street) came 
 running around the house with a hand 
 grenade. Through the asphyxiating 
 smoke Joan perceived Mary Caroline 
 helping the furnace man to drag seventy 
 feet of hose out of the cellar. The 
 quiet voice of Douglas Ray, raised, but 
 perfectly controlled, dominated the 
 unorganized good-will of the thicken 
 ing crowd. 
 
 184
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " It can t be helped," he said, " we 
 must have the Department." 
 
 A small boy came running around 
 the corner of the house. As he ran he 
 shouted : 
 
 " Here they be ! Here s the chemi 
 cal ! The ingine s comin . So s the 
 hook and ladder!" 
 
 Joan tried to cry out, " Douglas ! 
 Douglas ! Can t we do without that ? " 
 but before her dry lips could frame the 
 words, the place was swarming with 
 firemen. 
 
 The grove was now a lake of fire 
 whose waves had begun to rise and 
 splash. Ivy vines on dead, dry oaks 
 curled and scorched. One could see 
 the outlines of leaves like burning em 
 broidery blaze and fall off. The low 
 est boughs of the tallest pines began to 
 wince and shrivel. It was as if the 
 185
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 trees threw up their arms and cried for 
 mercy. When the power of the water 
 fell upon them they seemed to weep 
 for joy. Joan s trees looked to her like 
 sentient beings, saved from or doomed 
 to a tragic death. 
 
 Douglas Ray appeared suddenly at 
 her side. 
 
 "You had better go in now," he 
 said quietly. " Leave everything to 
 me. I think the worst is over." 
 
 As he spoke the words the violent 
 autumn gale abruptly veered and set 
 powerfully towards the house. Sparks 
 licked the metallic paint of the shingles 
 on the roof. Beautiful, blazing effects 
 of leaves and twigs drove through the 
 air and fell. The smouldering trouble 
 in the grass flared up and crawled 
 under the piazza. 
 
 "Look! Look! Look!" cried a 
 186
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 voice from the crowd. "The roof s 
 catching ! " 
 
 The firemen made a dash towards 
 the house. Joan pushed in advance of 
 them ; Martin Luther ran ahead of 
 her ; she went in and shut the door.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OUGLAS RAY dropped 
 the scorched broom with 
 which he had been beat 
 ing grass, and ran into 
 the house where Joan 
 had disappeared. He entered as she 
 had by the piazza ; this was reached 
 through a vestibule. He passed through 
 the outer door, which he shut behind 
 him, as Joan had done, and put his 
 hand not very confidently upon the 
 latch of the inner door. It was without 
 actual surprise that he found this locked. 
 He turned the knob noisily ; he 
 knocked loudly ; he rang the bell au 
 thoritatively. Martin Luther s fierce 
 188
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 protest reverberated through the house. 
 There was no other answer. 
 
 " Joan ! " Ray called. " Let me in 
 this minute ! " 
 
 Joan did not reply. 
 
 There were old-fashioned side-lights 
 at the door, and he tried to look 
 through them. But his eyes stung with 
 the smoke, which had irritated them 
 so long, and which now rilled the house 
 as well as the grove ; he could see no 
 thing distinctly. Without a moment s 
 hesitation he dashed the glass through 
 with his foot, put his arm in, and drew 
 the bolt. In doing this he cut his hand. 
 When he had thrust open the door, 
 and let himself in, and locked the door 
 again as Joan had left it, he stood for 
 a moment in the hall, uncertain. Joan 
 was nowhere to be seen. The house 
 choked with smoke. The firemen s 
 189
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 orders, the shouts of the crowd, the 
 hissing sound of water on the roof, 
 the roar of the fire in the grove, and 
 the rage of the unappeasable wind made 
 a jargon in which he could scarcely 
 hear his own voice. 
 
 " Joan ! " he repeated, " Joan, come 
 down ! " 
 
 He went through the long hall and 
 took a step or two up the front stairs. 
 "Come down," he pleaded; "if you 
 will, I won t come up." 
 
 But Joan remained silent. Ray now 
 perceived what in the excitement of 
 the moment he had entirely over 
 looked, that the front door was ajar, 
 and some one was in the library the 
 two ladies, Mrs. Cotton and Mrs. Ham- 
 merton, who, with the passion of people 
 at a fire to do the wrong thing, were 
 assiduously removing the books. 
 190
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " I would n t do that," said Ray. " It 
 is not in the least necessary. The house 
 is not on fire; only a few scorched 
 shingles and a post under the porch. 
 It will be under control very soon. 
 Those books will get wet and muddy. 
 I don t think Miss Dare wishes them 
 disturbed not yet." 
 
 The two women yielded readily to 
 the masterful, masculine manner which 
 took them in hand. 
 
 " Shall I bring back the books that 
 we have carried out ? " asked Mrs. 
 Cotton. 
 
 " Oh, no," returned Ray quickly. 
 " Let them be till we see what hap 
 pens. If you ladies feel inclined to 
 oversee Mary Caroline a little she 
 may need advice at her end." 
 
 Smiling, he shut the door upon the 
 visitors, and locked it hard. 
 191
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "They have gone, Joan," he called. 
 He ran halfway up the stairs. 
 
 A slight motion in the upper hall 
 replied to him, and looking up through 
 the smoke he saw a fold of Joan s gray 
 gown blown around the banister at the 
 top of the stairs. She did not present 
 herself within the range of his eyes. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " he 
 asked quietly. 
 
 " I am going to stay." 
 
 "Stay where?" 
 
 " Here - - upstairs, where I am. I 
 am not going to come down. You are 
 not coming up." 
 
 " Better I than the firemen," sug 
 gested Ray. 
 
 " Nobody is coming up." 
 
 " The Department does n t take a 
 woman s no ! for an answer, Joan. 
 Nor do I." 
 
 192
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " If you come up any further," said 
 Joan in a low, vibrant voice, " I shall 
 lock myself into the sewing-room." 
 
 " If you do, I shall break the door 
 in." 
 
 To this Joan made no response. 
 
 " Come ! " pleaded Ray more gently. 
 " Tell me ! What is it that you want 
 to do ? Go down with the house ? or 
 suffocate there in this infernal smoke ? " 
 
 " If it comes to that," replied Joan. 
 " Yes, if I am forced to that." 
 
 " She is capable of it," thought Ray. 
 " She would die game. But she will 
 not tell." 
 
 "Joan," he began in a different tone, 
 " be reasonable. I will not come up, 
 but you must come down. The house 
 is not going to burn at least I don t 
 think so. If it does, I will give you 
 plenty of notice. I have turned every-
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 body out of this end, and Mary Caro 
 line is looking after the other. I want 
 you to come down and speak to me." 
 
 Ray stood halfway up the stairs, hat- 
 less, dripping, muddy, and torn. The 
 face of the fire-fighter was dull, pur 
 plish crimson, as if its shadows had been 
 painted from a palette of blues. There 
 was blood upon his clothes, and on his 
 right hand. Joan stirred a step or two 
 and saw him. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried. " You are bleed 
 ing ! You are hurt !" She melted down 
 the stairs and caught his wounded 
 hand. Through the smoke he saw 
 her lifted face, her yielding attitude 
 very woman of very woman, as he had 
 called her once. 
 
 Infinite tenderness touched him 
 through her fingers ; low, passionate 
 
 exclamations formed, it seemed, uncon- 
 194
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 sciously to herself upon her lips. She 
 searched for her handkerchief, but 
 could not find it, and so tore off a ruffle 
 from her lawn waist and dexterously 
 bound the wound. When she had done 
 so, without a word she laid her cheek 
 upon it. 
 
 "Joan," said Ray, "would you marry 
 me now ? " 
 
 " Dear Douglas, no." 
 
 " Not if the house burns down?" 
 
 " I told you what I should do if the 
 house burns down." 
 
 " You are too much of a woman to 
 talk like that," said Ray impatiently. 
 " Every fireman in Mapleleaf would be 
 in every room in this house. If they 
 did n t, I should. You would be carried 
 out like a sofa pillow." 
 
 " But you said," replied Joan, " that 
 the house wasn t going to burn down."
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " It is n t. . . . Now will you marry 
 me?" 
 
 But Joan shook her heavy head. 
 
 At this moment a fireman on the 
 piazza roof called to some one be 
 low: 
 
 " Guess we ve got to the end of 
 this ! Anyways, if everything s right 
 inside." 
 
 "Joan," said Ray abruptly, "let me 
 pass, please. I must get up into the 
 second story and examine that roof. If 
 I don t, somebody else will." 
 
 " I cannot allow it ! " cried Joan. 
 
 " I don t ask you to," replied Ray 
 quietly. Gently putting aside her de 
 terring hands, he passed her and ran up 
 into the attic. He was gone but a few 
 minutes, and, glancing neither to the 
 right nor to the left, he ran quickly 
 196
 
 (Copyright 1<3 by the Curtis H,il,lihi,,. i Compl 
 
 SHE DEXTKROUSLY BOL NI) THE WOUND
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 down again ; he passed the closed doors 
 of Joan s house as if the sword of 
 Paradise and exile had whirled before 
 them. 
 
 " There ! " he said. " That s done/ 
 
 A glint of admiration like the gold 
 
 spark in the heart of a brown pansy 
 
 burned in Joan s soft eyes. She did not 
 
 speak. 
 
 The smoking grove was writhing 
 still, for the wind had not gone down. 
 But the lake of fire at the foot of the 
 trees had become a pond of muddy 
 water. Burning embroidery of leaves 
 and vines had ceased to fall, tattered 
 and glittering, through the air. The 
 oaks held up black, dripping arms, and 
 the fingers of the pines were drenched. 
 The spiraea that had wrought the mis 
 chief was drowned and broken in every 
 197
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 slender bone ; the salvia and the nas 
 turtiums were trampled into mud. The 
 sparks had now scattered like a flock 
 of bright birds driven to flight. The 
 little blaze under the piazza was out. 
 Plenty of shingles were burned, but the 
 soaked roof had ceased to smoke. The 
 drenched house was saved. 
 
 At the kitchen door Mary Caroline, 
 sleeves rolled to her broad shoulders, 
 soot and water and mud splashed upon 
 her white apron, her high cheek bones 
 Indian red, her honest eyes dark with 
 excitement, stood dispensing hospitality 
 and defying entrance to the crowd. 
 
 "The lemonade to the firemen first," 
 said Mary Caroline, " and the boys can 
 have what s left over. I guess there s 
 enough for the whole o yer. If I d 
 expected such a party, I d a beat up a 
 cake and had sandwiches. But you see 
 198
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 it s a surprise party and I warn t ready. 
 There s ladies here to help me," ob 
 served Mary Caroline, importantly. 
 " They re makin coffee. Miss Dare 
 says for the firemen to cool off on the 
 lemonade first. She is much obleeged 
 to you, gentlemen, very much indeed, 
 and so be I." 
 
 One of the firemen came up and 
 took the pail of lemonade. He saluted 
 respectfully as he said, " We was n t 
 expecting to see you here, Miss. Folks 
 said you got through some time ago." 
 
 "They did, did they?" cried Mary 
 Caroline scornfully. " Well, you just 
 tell em here I be." 
 
 The Chief of the Fire Department 
 of Mapleleaf came around like a caller 
 to the front door, and lifted the fate 
 
 with the bit in its mouth to knock. 
 
 199
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 He was surprised to find that the 
 door was locked ; that which opened 
 on the piazza he had already tried ; the 
 windows were fast ; he had found it a 
 species of discourtesy to force his way 
 by Mary Caroline after accepting her 
 lemonade and coffee. The Chief felt 
 that his official prerogative was not 
 recognized, and when Douglas Ray, 
 with Martin Luther roaring behind 
 him, opened the front door, the man 
 pushed in officiously. 
 
 "The fire is over," quickly said Ray. 
 
 " The fire is over to all appearance," 
 replied the Chief, "but I prefer to 
 make quite sure of it. I should like to 
 see the inside of the house." 
 
 "I have already done that," answered 
 
 Douglas Ray, with a pleasant smile. 
 
 "I have examined the house myself. 
 
 I am confident that there is n t a spark 
 
 200
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 left in it. You will excuse me, but 
 Miss Dare is very tired with all this, 
 and I should like to keep the premises 
 as quiet as I can for her. 
 
 " I have assumed the responsibilities 
 of the occasion," added Ray deliber 
 ately and distinctly, "as the lady is to 
 become my wife." 
 
 The Chief touched his helmet and 
 withdrew. Ray shut the door again, 
 and turned about with his Scotch ex 
 pression. 
 
 " Oh, what did you say that for ? 
 cried Joan from the upper landing. 
 
 " Because it s true," replied Douglas 
 Ray. 
 
 "It will be why, it will be all 
 over town by night ! " 
 
 "I meant it should be." 
 
 " But everybody will hear it ! Every 
 body will know it! 
 
 201
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " I hope everybody will." 
 
 "It will make everything worse! 
 urged Joan. 
 
 " It will make everything better," 
 urged Ray. 
 
 The two fire-fighters regarded each 
 other like duelists across the height 
 and width of the stairs. Smoked and 
 torn and crimson, the woman looked 
 down. Muddy and black and bleeding, 
 the man looked up. 
 
 " I shall never see her look less at 
 tractive," he thought; his heart leaped 
 because he loved her so much when 
 she was not beautiful. 
 
 " He looks as if he had been in a 
 battle," thought Joan. But she knew 
 that she loved him the more for that. 
 
 "The crowd is breaking up," said 
 Ray hastily. " The chemical has gone ; 
 the rest are going. I hear Mrs. Cotton 
 202
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 and Mrs. Hammerton in the dining- 
 room. Mary Caroline can t keep them 
 back any longer. You d better be on 
 hand, Joan." 
 
 Joan came down the stairs, and went 
 to meet her old friends. She was now 
 quite self-possessed.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HE winter set in bitterly. 
 It was colder than the 
 last, and Joan, in her sol 
 itary home, found the 
 practical perplexities of 
 daily life more rather than less severe. 
 There was a great deal of snow, and 
 Mapleleaf took her share of it. The 
 avenue was often closed, and the 
 scorched grove stood knee-deep in blue- 
 white drifts, or glittered to the brows 
 with chain armor of gray-white ice. 
 From the unaccepted street to Miss 
 Dare s house, a steady foot-path ran 
 across the hollow the winter long. No 
 blizzard blockaded Mary Caroline. 
 She waded through seas of slush and 
 204
 
 THE MAN IN TtfE CASE 
 
 water as merrily as if she had been 
 mopping a kitchen floor. Mary Caro 
 line wore rubber boots, and the golf- 
 cape whose pointed hood rose like a 
 Gothic arch from head bent to wind 
 or storm. Her strong figure had the 
 rude picturesqueness of a Millet pea 
 sant contending with a climate that 
 Millet never knew. 
 
 Often, in the freezing dawn, Joan 
 would hear the chug ! of a snow-shovel 
 underneath her window, and looking 
 out, would surprise the strong figure 
 of her old woman-servant manfully dig 
 ging out paths. 
 
 One morning she opened the window 
 and said: 
 
 "Mary Caroline, this must stop. It 
 is not fit work for you. I cannot have 
 it." 
 
 "Well, I supposed you d say so," 
 205
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 answered Mary Caroline, resting on her 
 wooden shovel. " I ve engaged a man 
 to do it." 
 
 She mentioned the name of the fur 
 nace man whose family had always had 
 character. 
 
 " I Ve give him the paths an ash 
 barrels," proceeded Mary Caroline 
 calmly. " I have swore him not to 
 come into the house. I told him you 
 was a-trainin some pet alligators you d 
 had sent you from Floridy an you was 
 afraid they d bite somebody." 
 
 "He believed you, of course! " re 
 plied Miss Dare bitterly. 
 
 " Land ! "said Mary Caroline. "He d 
 believe anything I told him. He s 
 ben some considerable sweet on me for 
 quite a spell." 
 
 With thesealleviations of her lot, Joan 
 
 206
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 continued her solitary and inexplicable 
 life. The village had now accepted the 
 mystery if not the pathos of it, and the 
 definite disapproval of her fellow towns 
 men had ceased to express itself to her. 
 
 This fact, of course, in no wise im 
 peded the current of public criticism. 
 Like a subterranean river it ran on 
 beneath her. 
 
 Chance words and petty incidents, 
 dropped into the vortex, went whirling 
 like garbage down that invisible stream. 
 People discussed her life in all its known 
 and unknown particulars. The village 
 mystery which had now become com 
 mon property was put to a painful ex 
 ercise. The family history was recalled. 
 Its details were torn from the merciful 
 silence of many years. The bereave 
 ments, the cares, the tragedies which 
 had befallen the household of Josiah 
 207
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Dare, long half-forgotten, were now 
 remembered. It was recollected that 
 the family had moved out of the state 
 for a time, and that Joan Dare had lived 
 for at least three years during her first 
 youth in some distant city Chicago 
 or New York. 
 
 Around this circumstance the gossip 
 of the neighborhood concentrated. It 
 was felt that anybody who could absent 
 herself from Mapleleaf for a matter of 
 years, might, in the nature of things, be 
 capable of an extraordinary personal 
 record. It was understood that in Chi 
 cago or New York the standards of life 
 were unfortunately not always identical 
 with those of the church and society 
 of Mapleleaf. In these remote and 
 abandoned places plainly anything 
 might occur. 
 
 Who knew what had happened, in 
 208
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 her regrettable absence from the most 
 desirable suburb in the world, to the 
 daughter of Josiah Dare ? The eccen 
 tricities of the family were exhumed; 
 their misfortunes were recalled with a 
 shake of the head or a droop of the 
 eyelid. Who could say that there was 
 not an unhappy tendency in the blood ? 
 It might take this form ; it might 
 choose that. Really, now that one 
 came to consider it, who knew what 
 dark scenes might have passed over the 
 stage of Joan Dare s once troubled ex 
 perience ? 
 
 The architect, when these scandals 
 reached him, set his teeth, but said no 
 word. What could he do ? What might 
 he say? Any step that he took in her 
 direction, every excuse that he offered 
 for her sake, might drag her deeper 
 into the underground river of the com- 
 209
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 mon talk. He was in the position, of 
 all most intolerable to a lover, when a 
 man cannot shield a woman without 
 multiplying the very pangs from which 
 he would protect her. 
 
 After the fire they had resumed their 
 old relations. His masculine persistence 
 had not dominated her in the least. 
 She had not conceded by the flutter of 
 an eyelash to his entreaties. In fact, 
 he thought she distanced him more 
 successfully than ever. She had reen- 
 tered the desolation of her life, and be 
 yond the boundaries of that desert he 
 stood and watched her with a helpless 
 -it was in fact becoming a hopeless 
 -misery. He had reached the pass 
 where he acknowledged to himself 
 that he could do absolutely nothing 
 for her. 
 
 The spring was like the winter, 
 
 210
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 and the summer as the spring. The 
 Scotchman bided his time patiently. 
 When Joan consented to see him his 
 heart lifted. When she rebuffed him it 
 stood still, but did not fall. He bore 
 with her distance, her dejection, and 
 always with the perplexing nature of 
 her position, with a gentleness such as 
 most men despise, and only a few 
 women possess. 
 
 He had ceased to make any attempt 
 to visit her in the evening a circum 
 stance to which neither alluded but 
 had fallen into the way of trying to ob 
 tain a few words with her on Saturday 
 afternoons. Sometimes he succeeded ; 
 then for weeks he was not admitted. 
 As the summer advanced she refused 
 more and more often to see him and, 
 in fact, it was noticed by the neighbors 
 that she was less and less to be met 
 
 21 I
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 about the streets of Mapleleaf. This 
 was perhaps partly to be explained by 
 the fact that a telephone, at that time 
 a novelty in the village, had been in 
 stalled in her house, and carried her 
 necessary communications to the trades 
 people of the town. Shortly after this 
 was done, Ray caused an instrument 
 to be set up in his own chambers. He 
 took occasion to let her know that he 
 had done so, but did not intrude upon 
 her seclusion with the use of the 
 wire. 
 
 "She would take the receiver off," 
 he thought, " as soon as she found out 
 that she could." 
 
 By July, Joan had ceased to admit 
 Ray to the house at all, and only the 
 woman-servant ever saw her. In Au 
 gust Mary Caroline was denied this 
 precious privilege. One day Miss Dare 
 
 212
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 had spoken to her from the window 
 and gently said : - 
 
 " I will send for you, Mary Caroline, 
 when I want you next." 
 
 It had been a hot summer, and the 
 fires of the south wind burned into 
 September the month of physical 
 weakness and stealthy disorders the 
 month when typhoid, and tuberculo 
 sis, and malaria have the upper hand 
 in their eternal wrestle with human 
 life. 
 
 One warm, weak morning, at the 
 first stir of the dawn, Joan came down 
 stairs. She was fully though hastily 
 dressed, but whether by accident or in 
 tent had avoided her customary gray 
 habit. Her face had a startling white 
 ness, and seemed to be a part of her 
 long cream-white woolen gown, as if 
 both had been carved from the same 
 213
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 piece of Carrara. She went directly to 
 the laundry, thrust up the shade, and 
 flung open the window. Across the 
 sill she hung the kitchen tablecloth, 
 shut the window down upon it, and 
 left the red signal flaring against the 
 house. She seemed not to know what 
 to do next, and sat down in the 
 kitchen confusedly. 
 
 The collie was asleep in the cellar, 
 and she was alone in the house, whose 
 unnatural silence appeared to terrify 
 her. Suddenly she grew a little faint 
 or sick, and her face fell into her hands 
 upon the kitchen table. 
 
 The key snapped in the lock, and re 
 sounding steps struck the floor. Two 
 strong arms inclosed her, and she found 
 her heavy head upon a woman s bosom. 
 
 " Here I be," said Mary Caroline. 
 " I run all the way. What is it, dearie ? 
 214
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Oh, what is it, dearie ? Ain t yer 
 goin to tell Mary Caroline?" 
 
 " Yes," said Joan, in a thrilling 
 voice, " I am going to tell you, Mary 
 Caroline, you first ; you before 
 everybody, you before anybody in the 
 world." As if she feared that the deaf 
 house should hear, or the sleeping 
 world might listen, she whispered a 
 few broken sentences into Mary Caro 
 line s smitten ear. 
 
 Across the old servant s face horror, 
 incredulity, pity, and a passion of ador 
 ing love raced with sheer mental ina 
 bility to overtake the meaning of the 
 language which she had heard. 
 
 "It s ompossible!" she cried, "you re 
 starin crazy. I d orter had one of 
 them nervous doctors to you two years 
 ago." 
 
 "Go up," pleaded Miss Dare, "go 
 215
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 upstairs and see for yourself- - 1 don t 
 know --perhaps you can tell me what 
 to do. It is three nights since I ve 
 
 slept. I can t think as I ought to. 
 j " 
 
 " The Lord o miseries and miracles 
 have mercy on ye ! " moaned Mary 
 Caroline, "ye pore creetur ! Ye pore 
 misfortinit, sufferin creetur! Oh, 
 my dear, my dear ! " 
 
 "Do not wait, Mary Caroline," 
 entreated Joan. " Go up please. 
 You re not afraid, are you ? I think 
 perhaps I am." 
 
 " You come along of me," com 
 manded Mary Caroline slowly. " You 
 lay down on the sofy and lemme cover 
 you. See, here s brandy. Ye ve kep 
 it on the second shelf same s as I did, 
 hain t ye? There! Soon s ye drawr a 
 breath, I 11 go. I won t go a step be- 
 216
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 fore - There, my lamb, there, my 
 lamb! Here I be!" 
 
 Joan, on the library lounge, lay quite 
 still. She felt a storm of tears upon her 
 fainting face. A big and brooding fig 
 ure knelt beside her. Kisses covered 
 her thin hands. She heard broken 
 phrases " Lambs ! " and " Dearies ! " 
 and "Pore creeturs!" crushed be 
 tween great sobs. 
 
 Then Mary Caroline heavily went 
 upstairs. The fall of her slow feet re 
 verberated through the empty house, 
 crossed the upper hall, entered a closed 
 room, and paused. 
 
 When Mary Caroline came down 
 (she had been gone some little time) 
 she found Miss Dare standing at the 
 telephone in the hall. She was speak 
 ing rapidly and clearly. Mary Caro- 
 217
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 line s awed face leaned over the banis 
 ter. 
 
 "Is Mr. Ray in?" 
 . . 
 
 "Are you Mr. Ray?" 
 
 " Douglas, is that you ? This is Joan 
 Dare." 
 
 " Douglas, will you come over ? At 
 once, if you please. I need help 
 Yes, I need you." 
 
 * 
 
 When Ray got there, she was quite 
 composed. Their eyes met his with 
 a cruel anxiety, hers with a solemn 
 light. 
 
 " Come," she said. 
 
 She extended her hand ; he took it ; 
 and without any other word she led 
 him up the stairs. 
 
 218 -
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 They crossed the front hall, still si 
 lently, and Joan led him to a closed 
 room on the rear of the house. At the 
 door she paused. 
 
 "Don t be startled," she said. "It s 
 the least of human miseries. It is 
 only Death." 
 
 She had a strange, remote smile. He 
 tried to read it, but felt that he could 
 not, as she drew him on. 
 
 "Shall I open the door?" he asked, 
 for he saw that she shrank on the 
 threshold. 
 
 " If you would ! " She shuddered. 
 There was a key in the outside of 
 the lock. He turned it, and they en 
 tered the room together, still hand in 
 hand. 
 
 The room was small, but it had two 
 windows; these were open, and the 
 blinds were closed. The broadening 
 219
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 day was barred from the darkened spot, 
 and they could at first see nothing dis 
 tinctly except the position of the bed. 
 This was drawn out between the win 
 dows as if to secure for it a current of 
 air. A body, plainly by its height that 
 of a man, lay upon this bed. It was 
 covered with a sheet and light coun 
 terpane. Mary Caroline, it seemed, 
 had performed the last offices, and 
 everything was decent and orderly 
 about the dead and in the room. Joan 
 stepped to the bedside, and uncovered 
 the face. She and Ray had remained 
 hand in hand, but now his fingers un 
 clasped slowly, and hers slid from them. 
 "Who is this man?" he demanded. 
 The words stirred slowly from his 
 white lips ; they had the sluggish move 
 ment of a glacier beginning to form 
 and stiffen. 
 
 220
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "I suppose," he said, "it is your 
 husband." 
 
 Joan, when he let go her hand, had 
 hidden her face with it. 
 
 " You ought to have told me," said 
 Douglas Ray.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 O," said Joan, " I have no 
 husband." 
 
 "And never had?" de 
 manded Ray sternly. His 
 manner was the more 
 dreadful because it superseded a sacred 
 tenderness in which a woman might 
 have perished because she died of 
 joy. 
 
 "Nor ever had," repeated Joan. 
 For the width of an instant, far in 
 the Scotchman s eyes there arose the 
 altar of an anguish so solemn that his 
 whole being seemed to be flung, a sac 
 rifice consumed, upon it. 
 
 Joan uttered an inarticulate sound. 
 222
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " Douglas ! Douglas ! >: she cried. 
 " Don t you see ? Don t you know ? 
 Have you never suspected all the 
 while?" 
 
 " I see nothing. I know nothing. 
 How could I suspect you?" he an 
 swered drearily. He replaced the sheet 
 over the dead man s face and turned 
 away. 
 
 " I have trusted you, Joan," he said. 
 
 " When no other man would !" Joan 
 lifted her head. " No other that I ever 
 knew I have been so proud of you ! 
 Oh, I have gone on the knees of my 
 heart to worship you, Douglas Ray ! 
 And now, just because it is so hard to 
 speak because I have got to feeling 
 for so long that I cant speak Douglas ! 
 Why, Douglas ! " 
 
 With incredible difficulty, as if the 
 power to enunciate them had been torn 
 223
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 out of her throat and mouth, Joan 
 uttered four half-strangled words. 
 
 " But I thought you had no brother, 
 except that one, you told me there 
 was only one ! " 
 
 "There was only one." 
 
 "And he is dead," argued Ray dog 
 matically. 
 
 " Yes," said Joan, " he is dead. He 
 died this morning in my arms. There 
 he lies." 
 
 She pointed to the long figure on the 
 bed her knees gave way beneath her 
 like broken hinges, and she slid down 
 slowly to the floor. Before Ray could 
 stoop to gather her she had laid her 
 lips upon his foot. 
 
 " You trusted me ! You trusted me ! 
 she sobbed. 
 
 "Oh, come!" cried Douglas Ray, 
 224
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 " I can t have that. Change places with 
 me, Joan." 
 
 He stooped and lifted her to her feet, 
 and would have knelt before her, but 
 she could not stand upon them. So he 
 took her in his arms instead. 
 
 "We will get out of this room," he 
 urged, " and then you shall tell me all 
 about it." 
 
 He lifted her as if she had been a 
 woman figure escaping him or clinging 
 to him in a beautiful, stormy dream, 
 and carried her into the hall. There 
 they found Mary Caroline, herself 
 white to her Indian cheek bones. 
 
 " It s him ! " she cried ; " it s him, 
 himself. It s Harum Dare. I ve give 
 him cookies and sponged his close too 
 many times not to know him, Mr. Ray. 
 It s Harum Scarum, no mistake. He s 
 changed something dreadful ; but then," 
 225
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 added Mary Caroline grimly, " so has 
 she." 
 
 " Go down, Mary Caroline," com 
 manded Ray, "and telephone for the 
 medical examiner ; or, no stay. You 
 need not, on the whole. I will do it 
 myself. I must have the full facts, 
 Joan, before he gets here." 
 
 " There s a lounge over at that there 
 window," suggested Mary Caroline 
 anxiously; "it s Martin Luther s, most 
 gener lly speakin , but she s pretty con- 
 sid ble heft for you to take downstairs, 
 and I ain t er goin ter have her walkin 
 round till I ve give her some breakfast. 
 She ain t slep enough to keep the life 
 in the wings of a broodin bird. She s 
 been a misfortunit, disluded creetur too 
 long, Mr. Ray, and don t you forget it. 
 Now she s clean gin out." 
 
 Obediently Ray did as the old ser- 
 226
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 vant directed. Suddenly Mary Caroline 
 seemed to have taken command of the 
 whole situation, and the governing class 
 deferred to her as a matter of course. 
 Ray put Joan on the lounge, by the 
 hall window, and sat down beside her. 
 It was a cretonne-covered lounge, white, 
 with large roses. He fastened his eyes 
 upon one of the roses, a crimson one, 
 which peered above the shoulder of 
 Joan s white dress. While she was try 
 ing to speak, he did not watch her face, 
 but he took her thin hand and held it 
 strongly. 
 
 "Have you never heard," began 
 Joan, without looking at him, 
 " about it?" 
 
 " People don t gossip to me," replied 
 
 Ray scornfully. " I knew there was a 
 
 tragedy of some sort. I never heard its 
 
 details; I never wanted to. Everybody 
 
 227
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 believed that the boy was dead, and so 
 did I. And so " 
 
 " And so did I," repeated Joan. " I 
 believed as everybody believed till 
 that night " 
 
 "Go on," said Ray. 
 
 For she had paused in pitiable agi 
 tation. 
 
 " He killed a man," she said with 
 sharp distinctness. " He was tried, and 
 convicted, and condemned. He would 
 have been they would have hung 
 him. It was in New York. He was 
 in Sing Sing. They took out bricks 
 and dug their way out you know 
 how prisoners do. There were two of 
 them, and the other was what people 
 call a gentleman too. I think he mur 
 dered a woman, and he meant to do it. 
 It was different with Harum. He did 
 n t mean to do any harm," she urged 
 228
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 earnestly. "He had been drinking. It 
 was a quarrel, and it it happened. 
 Harum was a kind boy, Douglas. He 
 was always bringing home starved kit 
 tens, and tormented dogs. I have seen 
 him go out of his way rather than step 
 on a spider or some little crawling 
 thing that anybody else would crush. 
 He was a dear fellow. I loved my little 
 brother. * 
 
 Ray lifted the hand which he held, 
 and laid his cheek upon it. He did not 
 speak. Joan s faltering voice went on : 
 
 "So they dug their way out of the 
 prison, as I tell you" 
 
 "Yes, I read of such a case last 
 week," interrupted Ray. 
 
 "And they got to the water, and 
 they were chased, and they jumped in. 
 One swam away it was dark, and he 
 
 escaped but one was drowned. It was 
 229
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 three weeks before they found the body, 
 and they said, and they thought 
 everybody thought they were sure 
 -it was Harum that they found, and 
 there was a lead pencil in his pocket 
 with the name carved on it with a jack- 
 knife H. S. Dare. And there were 
 some other reasons, but I forget them 
 all. So Father took him and buried 
 him, for he was allowed to do it. That 
 was up in the country, in New York, 
 in grandmother Scairn s old lot, and 
 everybody knew that he was dead. He 
 had been dead for eleven years, when 
 he- 
 
 "So we came back here to live, and 
 then Father and Mother died, and there 
 was only Mary Caroline and I and 
 Martin Luther. I was beginning to 
 learn how to bear it " - Joan s voice 
 wavered, "I was beginning to think I 
 230
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 might be happy like other women, 
 afterall. I had begun to love --you. I 
 had said I would be your wife." 
 
 " You will be," interrupted the 
 Scotchman, "before you are many 
 hours older." 
 
 Joan allowed herself the symbol of 
 a smile as she made a little gesture of 
 disagreement ; it was as if she had re 
 jected him so long that her denial went 
 on automatically ; her heart seemed to 
 have stiffened, as a muscle does that has 
 been clenched too hard and steadily ; 
 she shook her head; her cheek turned 
 against the crimson cretonne rose that 
 expressed her pallor. She seemed now, 
 Ray thought, as anxious as she had been 
 at first reluctant to go on talking. She 
 had begun afresh, when cantering foot 
 falls pounded up the stairs, and Martin 
 
 Luther leaped and laid his head, in the 
 231
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 collie fashion, upon her lap. Joan s 
 wasted fingers fell upon the dog s 
 ears. 
 
 "He s stood by me," she said pa 
 thetically. Ray watched her slowly 
 caressing hand. 
 
 "Such tenderness!" he thought, 
 " such tenderness ! Most women don t 
 know how to spell a syllable of it. She 
 could put them all in the primer class 
 and teach them --if they had enough 
 of it to let her." 
 
 But Martin Luther was followed by 
 Mary Caroline with coffee which she 
 put to Miss Dare s lips. Joan and Ray 
 sipped a little to please Mary Caroline, 
 but neither could eat, and Mary Caro 
 line went away. Joan now sat up 
 against the cretonne pillow, and with 
 firmer voice began again : - 
 
 " Harum was such a dear little fel- 
 232
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 low, Douglas you can t think. You 
 can t understand how it all was how 
 I felt, how we all felt about Harum. 
 Father was worse than any of us. He 
 spoiled the boy; from the beginning 
 of everything Harum had his way ; he 
 did as he pleased ; nobody stopped it, 
 and so Mother used to worry about it ; 
 she understood better how it was ; she 
 and I used to talk about it. One night 
 when I was just a girl at school, she 
 came into my room after I had gone 
 to bed, and said : Joan, I want you to 
 promise me, no matter what should 
 happen, promise me you will always look 
 after your little brother ; for Harum is 
 four years younger than I am, and he 
 used to look up to me, you know, and 
 tag after me at play, and I always took 
 care of him, and it never used to seem 
 to me as if he had grown up. He was a 
 233
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 mischievous little fellow, Douglas, full 
 of fun, always up to something and 
 I was always getting him out of scrapes 
 he d got into. Don t you see ? " 
 
 " I see," said Douglas. " Oh, I know ! 
 You don t need to tell me what you did 
 how you d treat a wild boy." 
 
 " He was wild," admitted Joan, " but 
 I promised Mother. And he never was 
 anything worse until this this dread 
 ful thing. He did n t mean to do it, 
 Douglas." 
 
 "They never do," thought Douglas; 
 but he put her hand to his lips. Joan s 
 low voice went stealing on, ideal 
 izing, idolizing, forgiving; pardoning 
 like God and condoning like herself - 
 a woman " made of love " and " of love 
 all worthy." She told him --it seemed 
 that she could not tell him enough. 
 Now that the gates of silence were un- 
 234
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 locked, the torrent of expression poured 
 as if it would dash the dam of language 
 down. She recalled old, forgotten epi 
 sodes of the lad s college days - - little 
 things showing even to her exquisite 
 sense of exculpation how and where the 
 boy had first gone wrong ; she dwelt 
 on pretty incidents in his childhood ; 
 how he had done such a kind thing 
 one day, or such another on the next ; 
 how lovable he was ; what a handsome 
 lad, a scholar too ; such a brilliant fel 
 low and how they played together 
 and studied together as long as they 
 could, and about the letters that he 
 wrote home, and how the neighbors 
 called him Harum Scarum when he 
 was a little fellow and would get into 
 trouble, do the best she could, poor boy ! 
 poor boy ! But nobody thought that it 
 would ever be real trouble like that 
 235
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 which happened in New York. Then 
 her mind leaped over the tragedy and 
 swung away from New York abruptly, 
 and reverted suddenly to Mapleleaf, and 
 to the night when the outcast had lifted 
 and let fall the fate upon the threshold 
 of her door. 
 
 " He had been wandering about," 
 she pleaded, " God knows where all 
 those years. Harum never told me- 
 he could not talk about it. It was like 
 being the ghost of a lost soul ; you can 
 not show yourself, you know. Nobody 
 would want you, nobody would care. 
 But he knew /would, so when he found 
 out that he had consumption, Douglas 
 - that he could not live he came to 
 me. He did not think it would last as 
 long as it did ; he only came home to 
 die. He wanted so to be at home to 
 die! He wanted me so, Douglas! So I 
 236
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 took him in ; I did the best I could for 
 Harum." 
 
 "Did he never know did he not 
 suspect, the price you paid for it ? " 
 asked Ray, --" the awful price." 
 
 " Oh, no," said Joan, " he was 
 pretty sick ; he did not think it 
 through; I never told him that; I 
 made light of things, I put it to him 
 any way but that." 
 
 She closed her eyes, and her head 
 fell back upon the cretonne pillow, 
 weakly. Impulses of speech and second 
 thoughts of silence alternated on her 
 quivering lips. For a while he did not 
 intrude upon her by a word, but abso 
 lutely gave her will its way. 
 
 " Sometimes I had such frights," 
 
 she whispered, " lest he should be 
 
 found, lest people should come in. 
 
 That fire was the worst of all I 
 
 2 37
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 would have gone down with the house," 
 she cried, " before I would have given 
 him up ! " 
 
 Ray started to say, " You could n t 
 have, because I was there," but he fore- 
 bore. 
 
 " Then it was so hard to see him 
 suffer, to let him die that way, without 
 proper care - - no nurse, no doctor, 
 nobody but me." She pressed her hol 
 low eyes, as if she would shut out sights 
 she must see as long as she lived. " But 
 he would not have a doctor ; he could 
 not have one. I wanted our old doctor 
 so the one that Mother had, and 
 Father. But of course, you see, it never 
 would have done. Once I went into 
 town and saw a specialist. I gave an 
 other name not my own. I told him 
 about the case ; I told him the patient 
 was eccentric, and refused to see a phy- 
 238
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 sician, and what did he advise me to 
 do ? He gave me a prescription, and he 
 said there was n t anything to be done. 
 He said the patient would die about the 
 middle of September ; and he has. 
 I see so many things I might have 
 done differently," faltered Joan, "if I 
 had it to do over again. But I tried, 
 I did try to do the best I could for 
 Harum. I had n t anybody to to 
 ask." 
 
 Now she began to sob again. Ex 
 cept that once when the minister and 
 his wife had found her off her guard, 
 it was two years since Joan had cried, 
 and Ray did not try to check the dash 
 ing tears that wet her cheeks and his. 
 Instead, he sat down upon the lounge 
 and locked his arms about her. 
 
 " Here," h^ said, "you stay. Cry, 
 lassie ! Cry ! It will do you good ! 
 239
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 You great, royal woman soul ! You 
 poor brave noble girl ! " 
 
 Their lips met solemnly. To Ray s 
 came other words: he called her " hero 
 ine," "martyr," "soldier," "queen," 
 and God knows what high names be 
 sides; he offered her a litany, half wor 
 ship and all love. Joan received it 
 gently. 
 
 He left her presently and went down 
 stairs ; she heard him talking at the tel 
 ephone, and with Mary Caroline. Both 
 moved about the house ; doors shut and 
 opened ; bells rang, and the knocker 
 on the front door fell three times, but 
 Joan lay with her hands upon her eyes 
 and her grief upon her heart ; she nei 
 ther heard, nor saw, nor cared, what 
 happened. It seemed to her that any 
 thing might happen now, and then that 
 nothing could. 
 
 240
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 When Ray came back with strangers 
 and took them into the dead man s 
 room, she asked no questions and felt 
 no concern. When he came out of the 
 room and went downstairs and hurried 
 up again, she did not stir ; he sat 
 down on the lounge beside her, and 
 drew something from his inner pocket 
 unfolded it, and laid it on her lap. 
 
 " Martin Luther shan t get it this 
 time ! " 
 
 He smiled so happily that Joan 
 smiled too she could not help it. She 
 saw now that she held for the second 
 time in her trembling hands the mar 
 riage license, torn and worn from safe 
 and sacred keeping against the Scotch 
 man s heart. 
 
 " Joan," suggested Ray quite natu 
 rally, as if he were not asking anything 
 of consequence, " Mr. Cotton is down- 
 241
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 stairs, and his wife is with him. He 
 has come to marry us." 
 
 "Not now, Douglas?" Joan got to 
 her feet. She looked this way and that 
 about her. The door of her own room 
 was open behind her. Ray saw it, shut 
 it, and stood before it. 
 
 " You can t go there. You can t go 
 anywhere except here." He held out 
 his arms. 
 
 "You have been the most wretched 
 woman in the world, Joan. See ! I 11 
 make you the happiest. We have suf 
 fered enough, I think, don t you? Let 
 us turn about and try joy for a change. 
 I can t see any reason for waiting, - 
 in fact," added the Scotchman, " I wont 
 wait; I ve done enough of that. Besides, 
 there are things to be done yet; the sit 
 uation needs a man. Indeed, it needs 
 a husband ; Mr. Cotton agrees with me 
 242
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 about that - - not that it would make 
 the least difference if nobody agreed 
 with me. Come, Joan! " 
 
 "Very well," said Joan. She took a 
 few steps towards him, but stopped. 
 
 "What will your mother say?" she 
 asked. " There will always be poor 
 Harum, and the disgrace." 
 
 "What disgrace?" asked Ray.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 OAN stood in the library 
 with the old minister 
 and his wife and Mary 
 Caroline. Footsteps were 
 still stirring overhead, 
 and Ray closed the door and turned the 
 key. 
 
 " We are ready, sir," he said. 
 " I have n t any dress," pleaded 
 Joan, with an embarrassed little smile. 
 Ray s eyes traveled up and down the 
 clinging, trailing gown. 
 
 " Nothing could be whiter," he 
 suggested. 
 
 Mary Caroline stepped up softly ; she 
 had a folded package in her hand ; it 
 244
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 was wrapped in silk, which fell apart 
 beneath the old servant s strong and 
 reverent fingers. 
 
 " Here, my dear," said Mary Caro 
 line. "You listen to me; don t you let 
 him snarl this cat s cradle. He s no- 
 thin but men folks. He could n t un 
 derstand ; tain t in em. There ain t no 
 woman wants to be married in her 
 common cloes, nor never was not if 
 she d set the Last Trumpet for her 
 weddin day. Here s your mother s 
 veil, Miss Joan. It s pretty old, and 
 dreadful yellow, but there s a good 
 deal of it, and it was hern. I went up 
 stairs and got it, for I thought she d 
 like to have me." 
 
 With a deft and unexpected motion, 
 Mary Caroline shook out the lace, 
 hung it over her mistress, and draped 
 her with it from head to foot. 
 245
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Softened and enhanced, Joan s hag 
 gard face looked pathetically through 
 the illusion with which the custom of 
 generations has blurred the eyes of a 
 bride. Her mother s veil gave glamour 
 to her ; she had a spiritual beauty which 
 youth, and a light heart, and freedom 
 from care, and ignorance of suffering 
 may never know. She seemed to float 
 upon a silver cloud, and to sway as if 
 uncertain whether to vanish or alight. 
 The Scotchman gripped her hand ; he 
 felt as if she might melt away from him. 
 
 So her old minister married her and 
 blessed her. But Mary Caroline kissed 
 her through her mother s veil. Mary 
 Caroline did not cry ; she looked a little 
 stupid, as if she had lost her way in a 
 foreign land where she could not speak 
 the language. She held out her big 
 hand to Douglas Ray. 
 246
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 "Who giveth this woman to be mar 
 ried to this man ? " asked Mary Caroline 
 in an oratorical tone, as if she were 
 repeating an omitted part of the church 
 service. " That s me. There ain t no 
 other mortal man I d want to have her. 
 But I guess you ve earned her, Mr. 
 Ray." 
 
 With solemn steps, as if she had been 
 returning from some tomb where she 
 had left the dearest thing she knew, 
 Mary Caroline crossed the room, turned 
 the key, and opened the door. But 
 in the hall she stood still, and began to 
 paw the air with sudden, sprawling fin 
 gers. It took Ray some moments to 
 divine that these extraordinary gestures 
 were intended as a signal for himself. 
 He obeyed it at once, and Mary Caro 
 line shut the door. 
 
 " Seein you be her husband," said 
 247
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 Mary Caroline distinctly, " I suppose 
 this here s your business, not mine. I 
 found it under his pillow when I come 
 to lay him out. He d got his mother s 
 Bible, and this was tucked between the 
 leaves. You, see she s so wore out, I 
 thought you d better read it first. I 
 don t feel as if I had n t orter, and 
 I warn t er goin ter bother her. Thanks 
 be to mercy, she has bore enough." 
 
 Mary Caroline laid a folded note, 
 unsealed, within Ray s outstretched 
 hand. He read it in silence and with 
 out hesitation. Thus it ran: 
 
 DEAR JOAN, I want to be buried 
 in the evening if pretty dark, so 
 much the better, and I don t want it 
 put off. Don t draw out the misery 
 I ve made you trouble enough. Besides 
 I don t think I shall begin to rest until 
 248
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 I am under ground. I am tired of the 
 whole thing of sinning, of suffering, 
 of being. If I had my choice, I would 
 never be again, but if I had to go living 
 anywhere, I would try to be a different 
 fellow. On my soul (if I have a soul) I 
 would. Before God (if there is a God), 
 I am sorry for everything. I am sorry 
 all the way back, and as far as I can 
 remember. I was thinking yesterday 
 of the first lie I told, and how I took 
 some money from you when I was a 
 little chap. You never knew - - you 
 thought you lost it it was all you had 
 -two dollars and sixty cents. And 
 you were such a generous little girl, 
 you d have given it to me if I had asked 
 for it. The thing I mind most is dis 
 gracing you Great God, Joan! What 
 you have been! What you have done! 
 I don t believe there s another woman 
 249
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 in the world, not another sister, any 
 how, who would have crucified herself 
 as you have, and never cried out once 
 -no, nor groaned. You thought I 
 did n t know what it cost you; at first, 
 you see, I did n t. I never would have 
 come if I had seen the whole thing 
 through. I ve been a bad man, but I 
 never sunk so low as that. I would 
 have died like the castaway I am, and 
 I wish I had. But by the time I be 
 gan to understand it was too late. I 
 thought you d mind it less, if you 
 thought I did n t know, so I let you 
 think so. All I can say now is, I hope 
 I have died in time. You have grown 
 terribly thin lately, and pale. You are 
 like an ermine, Joan. You know the 
 little creature will stand still and be 
 killed before it will step in the mud. 
 They are slandering you to death, and 
 250
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 you ve stood still and let them ; they 
 have hunted you almost down these 
 Christian men and women, God forgive 
 them! it s more than I can do. I 
 wonder if you 11 miss me any in spite 
 of all. There s nobody else to. Peo 
 ple who have n t suffered or lived say, 
 God bless you! I say, God make more 
 women like you if He can ! 
 
 Love me a little when you are happy, 
 and forgive your brother, 
 
 HARUM S. DARE. 
 
 Now it was the old minister s turn. 
 Everything that tact and a pastor s 
 heart could do was done for these two 
 children of his parish the dead lad 
 and the slandered woman. He caused 
 the word of what had happened to be 
 carried everywhere, and half of Maple- 
 leaf came to share in the last service 
 251
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 offered to the blotted memory of 
 Harum Dare. 
 
 It was in the even ing, as he had wished ; 
 it was not going to be a dark night, as 
 he had hoped, for there was a high 
 moon, and twilight and moonlight met 
 with soft candle-light in the library 
 where the boy lay: going out of his 
 father s house as if he had never dis 
 honored it, and treated in it as he had 
 always been, with patience, with ten 
 derness, with trust, until the end. 
 
 Joan s neighbors and fellow-towns 
 men crept in with hanging heads. 
 When they saw her for she was still in 
 her white dress, and Ray beside her- 
 their first thought was that they had 
 been bidden to one of the solemn cere 
 monies when love and death share the 
 house, as love and death share life. But 
 they soon saw how it was, and under- 
 252
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 stood that none of her old friends in 
 Mapleleaf had been found worthy to 
 be bidden to the marriage of Joan 
 Dare. 
 
 Joan stood with lifted head. Once 
 her haggard eyes swept the crowded 
 room. In the arrow of that glance she 
 had seen everything, she had recognized 
 everybody all these people who had 
 misunderstood and wronged her. Their 
 faces swayed before her like the phan 
 toms of an after life. They seemed 
 a great way off farther than the boy 
 in his coffin. The minister s wife was 
 there; she had drawn her veil. Annie 
 Hammerton sat beside her, sobbing. 
 The old furnace man whose family 
 always had character stood in the 
 doorway, with a puzzled face. The 
 church committee were in the room ; 
 they sat decorously and did not look 
 253
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 at Miss Dare. The junior deacon and 
 the little clerk had moved up nearest 
 her. The senior deacon held his hat 
 before his face. The theological mem 
 ber and the rich member cast their 
 eyes upon the floor. Some of the fire 
 men were present, and the Chief in his 
 uniform, cap in hand, and the ladies of 
 the Wednesday Club with handker 
 chiefs at their faces. All of Joan s old 
 neighbors had thronged to honor her. 
 The house was full, and the press was 
 great; the hall, the stairs, the steps 
 overflowed, and the avenue was crowded 
 to the street. 
 
 The church people were there, and 
 the church choir, that sang as if it had 
 been any one else s funeral ; they sang 
 the old burial hymns that everybody 
 loves "Lead, Kindly Light," and 
 "Jesus, Lover of My Soul;" just as if 
 254
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 the dead lad had never disgraced his 
 father s faith or his father s name. 
 
 Then the voice of the old minister 
 uprose solemnly. He spoke with thrill 
 ing distinctness. The windows were 
 open, and the people halfway down 
 the avenue could hear what he said: 
 
 " There was once a woman who has 
 been called the greatest of her sex, who 
 came from the obscurity of peasant 
 ancestry and childhood to the front 
 of a world-wide and immortal fame. 
 She commanded men, she organized 
 forces, she led armies, she generated 
 battles, she saved a nation. She will be 
 remembered forever as the greatest 
 woman warrior of the world. 
 
 " Peace has her battles as well as war ; 
 common life, like extra life, has its rev 
 olutions, its conflicts, its victories, its 
 defeats; demands its leaders and finds 
 255
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 them. Village history has its heroines. 
 Glory passes them by, but a fine soul 
 cannot. A woman warrior stands among 
 us, unrecognized, misunderstood, 
 hounded to her anguish and our shame. 
 " People of Mapleleaf ! where we 
 should have trusted we have suspected. 
 Where we should have lifted and com 
 forted, we have crushed and derided. 
 Where we should have believed in a 
 spotless character, we have broken a 
 noble heart. This poor lad, whom we 
 are met to carry from his father s house 
 below to the gates of his Father s 
 house above, was a lesser criminal, I 
 think, than we have been. He only 
 killed a man ; we have murdered a 
 character; he slew a human life; we 
 have slain a woman s name ; his was 
 the deed of a moment s madness; ours 
 has been the deliberate action of years; 
 256
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 he slaughtered ; we have tortured ; he 
 has suffered; we have inflicted; he has 
 gone to the mercy of his Heavenly 
 Father s heart, a repenting and for 
 given soul. His share in this great 
 tragedy has been expiated. Ours is yet 
 unreckoned." 
 
 Then the minister, who had never 
 been afraid of his people, who was ac 
 customed to speak the truth to them, 
 no matter where it hit nor whom it 
 hurt, advanced and laid his hands upon 
 the dead man s head, and kept them 
 there a moment, as if he blessed the 
 wanderer. Who knows what sacred 
 and sad-hearted responsibility he had 
 felt for the self-willed boy, whom his 
 pastor had never been able to control ? 
 In an awed and trembling voice, the 
 minister began to pray: 
 
 " Great God, Thou who art the hope 
 257
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 of every sorry sinner, in Christ s name, 
 and for Christ s sake, we intrust this 
 erring soul to Thee. Take him to 
 Thyself and hold him there. We are 
 content to lay him on Thy heart. Just 
 and merciful God, Thou receivest the 
 dead, but in our keeping are left the 
 treasures of life. Make us worthy of our 
 sister, whom we have sorely wronged! 
 Lord, forgive our sins ! We have not 
 meant to be as cruel as we were ; perhaps 
 we have been more stupid than wicked 
 in Thy sight; but Lord, forgive our sin ! 
 If ever from this day we shall speak the 
 word that wrongs, remind us of this 
 hour. If ever our thoughtless lips 
 should scatter the slander that slays - 
 Lord, remind us of this hour, and of 
 this prayer." 
 
 When the old pastor s voice had 
 
 ceased from prayer the poor lad s neigh- 
 258
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 bors came up one by one to look upon 
 his face, and went their ways and 
 thought their own thoughts, and told 
 no man what these were, for their eyes 
 were downcast, and some, it was no 
 ticed, walked with heads upon their 
 breasts. 
 
 So Joan and her husband and her 
 old servant buried their dead, and all 
 the people followed them. It was far 
 on in the evening, and the moon was 
 high ; it stood in the sky as if it had 
 been built into the walls of the city 
 whose gates were each a pearl ; one felt 
 as if something had been opened and 
 let heaven down. Joan s exalted face, 
 wasted well-nigh as much as that other 
 which was covered now from sight be 
 neath September leaves and flowers, 
 lifted unconsciously with the battle at 
 titude, like that of the woman warrior 
 259
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 to whom the minister had likened her. 
 She seemed to be reviewing invisible 
 forces; she seemed to hear inaudible 
 voices ; it was as if she still stood apart 
 from all the world. She took her hand 
 from her husband s arm, and knelt be 
 side the open grave, and covered her 
 face. But on that solitary moment 
 no man, not even he who loved her 
 best, intruded. 
 
 Afterwards, she made it known to 
 him that she wished to remain, they 
 two alone together, until the sods had 
 been laid upon the poor lad. And it 
 was done, as she had asked, and every 
 one went away and left her so. She 
 busied herself with the flowers, and did 
 not speak. She stayed some time. When 
 she rode back with her husband, and 
 came to the doorway of her own house, 
 she was surprised to see that people 
 260
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 were standing solemnly on this side of 
 the avenue and on that. 
 
 The house was warmly lighted, and 
 the shades were raised. On the upper 
 step stood Mary Caroline, with Martin 
 Luther ; Mary Caroline was smiling 
 quietly, but Martin Luther, who could 
 not smile, but only love, came leaping 
 down. The crape had been taken from 
 the fate upon the door, and flowers, 
 knotted with white, clung to the 
 knocker. At a word from somebody 
 the carriage was stopped without com 
 ing to the steps, and the two got out 
 and walked a little way among the 
 neighbors, not understanding why they 
 did so. The old dog preceded them 
 with dignity. 
 
 Joan, on her husband s arm, in her 
 white dress, with the moonlight on 
 her, came up between the lines of peo- 
 261
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 pie on this side and that, and wondered 
 a little, but did not say so, --till sud 
 denly she felt soft arms around her 
 neck, and warm tears upon her cheek, 
 and it seemed to be that Annie Ham- 
 merton was sobbing in her ear : " For 
 give, forgive me, Joan ! " 
 
 " Me, too," nobly said the pastor s 
 wife, " I might have done so much ! 
 I wish I had." 
 
 Before she could draw her agitated 
 breath, Joan perceived that the women 
 of Mapleleaf, her old neighbors, had 
 come crowding up to ask her pardon, 
 because they had misunderstood her. 
 This touched her deeply, so much that 
 she could not answer them. Then 
 while she was trying to do so, she saw 
 that her way was blocked by a group of 
 men, who stood each with lifted hat 
 and head bared to do her honor. It 
 262
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 surprised her to observe that she stood 
 face to face with the committee of the 
 village church. 
 
 They were all there, the senior 
 deacon, the junior deacon, the clerk, 
 the theological member, and the rich 
 member, and they seemed to have 
 received her in an official capacity, for 
 the senior deacon was their chairman 
 and their spokesman, and he it was 
 who, with some difficulty and very 
 slowly, said : - 
 
 " It is our judgment and belief" 
 
 Joan s fingers tightened suddenly on 
 her husband s arm. 
 
 " It is our judgment and belief 
 repeated the senior deacon, " that 
 when a Christian church does anything 
 wrong, it ought to say so, like any 
 body else. Miss Dare, we made a mis 
 take ; we ve come to ask your pardon 
 263
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 for it. We wish to say - - in fact," 
 proceeded the senior deacon, " we 
 do say, that we consider you have 
 reached a high plane of Grace" (grace 
 was a favorite word with the senior 
 deacon, though what he meant by it 
 neither he nor anybody knew), " and we 
 honor you for it, madam. We wish 
 we had understood the circumstances 
 all along ; but we - - well, we did n t. 
 We thought we were doing right. We 
 meant to, but we see we did n t. So 
 we ask you to forgive us for Christ s 
 sake, Amen," added the deacon, as if 
 he had been making a public prayer. 
 
 Then Joan, for Christ s sake, Amen, 
 held out her thin hand to the deacon, 
 and to the members of the church com 
 mittee, and to her own neighbors, one 
 by one. For her great heart was large 
 enough to hold them all. A woman 
 264
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 who could love as she had loved would 
 forgive as she forgave. 
 
 Joan looked from face to face. " You 
 see," she said quite naturally, "I pro 
 mised Mother I d always take care of 
 my little brother." 
 
 She entered her home with her hus 
 band, and all the house was still ; it 
 seemed dazzling bright, and pulsated 
 before her. Every tragic sign had been 
 removed, and Mary Caroline was get 
 ting supper as if nothing had happened. 
 
 The Morris chair was in its place 
 before the library fire, which somebody 
 had lighted. Douglas Ray led his wife 
 across the room silently. With the 
 capacity for happiness which only suf 
 fering gives, Joan entered the kingdom 
 of joy. And so much greater a power 
 is hope than despair that it seemed to 
 her as if every pang which she had 
 265
 
 THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 known had evaded her memory, as it 
 had retreated from her life. She tried 
 to say so, but no words came. 
 
 Martin Luther jumped from the cre 
 tonne couch with the roses, sauntered 
 downstairs, and looked in at the library 
 door. When he saw what he saw, his 
 ears went flat to his head, and he hur 
 ried out into the kitchen to report the 
 circumstance to Mary Caroline. He 
 found her serving supper with the pro 
 fessional aid of the furnace man who 
 said that character was more precious 
 than rubies.
 
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