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 Copyright, 1903, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 Published, August, 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 NEW YORK
 
 URL 
 
 SRLF; 
 
 TO 
 
 JAMES O G. DUFFY 
 
 AUTHOR AND SCHOLAR 
 CRITIC AND FRIEND 
 
 2,8-03
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 MAJOR ANTHONY PHCEBUS 
 WHYOT, confident in his per 
 suasive powers, as he was confident that 
 he possessed all other faculties desirable in 
 unlimited degree, had determined to rea 
 son with his nephew. Women have long 
 since learned that profound physiological 
 fact that the way to a man s heart so at 
 least we are told is through his stomach. 
 Through some little attrition with the gov 
 erning sex during a long life Major Whyot 
 had mastered that lesson. Therefore, as 
 a judicious preliminary to the reasoning 
 process, there was to be a dinner. 
 
 The Major had reserved a private room 
 in the Loyal Club for this purpose. Reso- 
 
 CO
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 lutely turning his back upon the blandish 
 ments of Broad Street, he had so seated 
 himself and at the table, for the ap 
 pointed hour had arrived that his ex 
 pected guest would be compelled to face 
 the light. It was indeed a subdued light 
 that came through the handsome hangings, 
 for the Loyal Club was second to none 
 in the quiet elegance of its fittings, but it 
 was enough for the Major s design. The 
 Major lived in a blaze of internal glory. 
 Externally, however, subdued lights were 
 in consonance with his tastes, which were 
 modesty and simplicity carried to the height 
 of arrogance ! 
 
 Like all Philadelphians who belonged 
 to his exclusive set the Major was a bon 
 vivant, an epicure, at whose feet Lucullus 
 might have sat and learned lessons. If 
 he had ever heard of Lucullus and his 
 prodigalities, however, the Major would 
 have despised him. The Roman epicure, 
 naturally antedating William Penn, was 
 nothing to the Major. He had just chosen 
 
 [2]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a luncheon, the details of which shall be 
 left to the reader s imagination and expe 
 rience, but which the Major felt, with rea 
 son, could not fail profoundly to move his 
 young nephew. The order had scarcely 
 been delivered when to him entered the 
 young man expected. 
 
 Doctor William Penn Whyot in no way 
 resembled his uncle. The Major was typi 
 cal of old Philadelphia. The doctor was 
 not typical of any especial section of the 
 city not even of Philadelphia itself ! By 
 a singular atavism, for which in his secret 
 heart the doctor devoutly gave thanks, his 
 characteristics, physical and mental, which 
 will appear in due course, were those of 
 his grandmother on the paternal side. 
 Suffice it for the present to say that he 
 wasn t a bit of a Whyot either in thought, 
 action, or appearance. 
 
 That is why the Major was so elabo 
 rately preparing to reason with him. Not 
 on account of his alien appearance from 
 the Whyot standpoint oh, no. That was 
 
 [3]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a hopeless condition, although some change 
 might have been effected from the Why- 
 ot point of view again if William Penn 
 had only dispensed with that pointed Van 
 Dyck beard he wore. There wasn t a single 
 Whyot in the whole long and it must 
 be confessed somewhat ghastly line on 
 the walls of the Pine Street house, thought 
 the Major with constantly renewing re 
 sentment, who had ever worn his beard in 
 that way. Most of them had no beards 
 at all, and those who condescended to 
 mustaches, singularly resembled " Uncle 
 Phoebus," as the doctor irrelevantly called 
 the Major in his mind. 
 
 There was no doubt about the Major. 
 He was a pocket edition of his ancestry. 
 Two hundred years of unquestioned social 
 supremacy had refined away their strength 
 and sublimated their weakness, and the 
 Major was the legitimate resultant. He 
 was a dapper little man with thin aristo 
 cratic features, white closely cut hair and 
 a very white mustache, whiter by contrast 
 [4]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with his very red face. Except the doctor 
 he was the last, as he was physically 
 also mentally the smallest of the famous 
 Philadelphia Whyots. He did not realize 
 it, of course, but there had been a steady 
 degeneration in the line, and the Major 
 was the scion of a noble plant nearly gone 
 to seed. 
 
 Nevertheless he still possessed some of 
 the outward marks of his ancient race. 
 After his lights, albeit they were not brill 
 iant indeed, he was a gentleman that is, 
 if you measured him by his own definition 
 of what a gentleman should be. One thing 
 he did possess, and that was a full measure 
 of the courage which had made the orig 
 inal Huguenot, de Vyault, brave the press 
 ure of the Grand Monarch until the revo 
 cation of the Edict of Nantes beggared 
 him in fortune and drove him to Eng 
 land; a resolution which enabled him to 
 survive the disgrace of being forced into 
 manual labor for a livelihood. 
 
 The Major s title, for instance, was no 
 [5]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 gim-crack epithet begot by militia service, 
 but was honestly come by. He had vol 
 unteered promptly in 61, resigning his 
 cornetcy in the City Troop to accept a 
 captaincy in one of the Pennsylvania regi 
 ments. In the first battle he had been des 
 perately wounded while leading a charge 
 at the head of his men. He had been 
 promoted for his gallantry and had forth 
 with resigned his commission when the war 
 became so common that everybody came 
 crowding into the ranks and he had to take 
 orders from " the son of a tinker, by 
 Jove! " which was more than he could 
 stand. 
 
 The fortunes of the original de Vyault 
 had gone very low in England. Poverty 
 of goods had induced some transient pov 
 erty of spirit in the earlier descendants 
 alas soon lost! At their nadir of misfort 
 une, however, they had fallen under the 
 influence of William Penn, turned Quaker, 
 and with him had come to America. 
 
 The first Quaker Vyault they discard- 
 [6]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ed the " de " then who came over had 
 been a shoemaker. Malicious people said 
 a barber, but the family always insisted 
 upon St. Crispin as the patron saint of the 
 early dispensation. Really, when you think 
 of it, that was as low down as a Vyault, 
 speedily metamorphosed into Whyot, could 
 possibly go. They had begun at the feet 
 of humanity in the new land, therefore, 
 and it was evidence of their ability that 
 they so speedily rose to its head. Such a 
 line of magistrates, justices, financiers, 
 merchant princes, soldiers, and sailors, 
 could not be exhibited by any other family, 
 either in the old Proprietary Province, or 
 the succeeding Keystone State. They had 
 attained the zenith of their fortunes at the 
 beginning of the century since then their 
 progress had been the other way. They 
 had at first stood still, then they had gone 
 back. The Major was the last limit 
 downward; the doctor a protest up 
 ward. 
 
 The family had gathered much money 
 [7]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in their long advance. In its descent it 
 had managed to retain it, even to increase 
 it. The conservatism of Philadelphia had 
 replaced the hot French blood, and what 
 ever they had they held on to. The Major 
 had the most of the property now, although 
 the doctor was not without a comfortable 
 fortune. When the words " much money " 
 are used it may not be inferred that the 
 Major s fortune was a vast one. It was 
 ample for the Major, for any moderate 
 gentleman. It might have run to a million, 
 possibly, but there was nothing vulgar 
 about it like the fortunes of the nouveaux 
 riches, who lined Fifth Avenue, New 
 York, with their palaces and filled New 
 port with the sound of their extrava 
 gances. 
 
 The Major had always enjoyed plenty, 
 and possibly, therefore, he was not a judge 
 of relative values, but, had he been forced 
 to choose, he would have preferred his old 
 Pine Street house and his high, square pew 
 in St. Christopher s like many Quakers 
 [8]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 they had become Church of England peo 
 ple and then Episcopalians of the " high " 
 variety in due course to almost all of his 
 other worldly possessions. For the Major 
 belonged to the oldest and most exclusive 
 set in Philadelphia. Fortunately for Phila 
 delphia and the rest of the country there 
 were not many of them. Birth, brains, 
 money, unless they had the hall-mark of 
 Philadelphia upon them, were as nothing 
 to the Major and his kind. The preten 
 sions of the Southern cavalier amused 
 him. The extravagances of the New York 
 millionaire awakened his contempt. The 
 arrogance of the Boston brain was like 
 the brain itself a thing incomprehensible 
 to him. 
 
 There were other people in Philadelphia 
 besides the Major and his friends, some 
 thing like a million and a quarter of them, 
 but they did not count. They were simply 
 there. They paid the interest on his bonds, 
 enhanced the value of his stocks, and so 
 contributed to his income; aside from that 
 [9]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 function he had little knowledge of, and 
 less interest in, them. He was thoroughly 
 satisfied with himself and his friends, with 
 his position and his family, except his 
 nephew, the doctor. There never had been 
 a physician among the Whyots before. 
 That was bad enough, " beastly pill rollin 
 business," so the Major phrased it. He 
 could still recall how terrible had been the 
 shock when the doctor s choice of a pro 
 fession had been announced to him. What 
 was the need of any profession? The first 
 Whyots had been workers, beginning with 
 the shoemaker, but conditions had altered; 
 there was now no necessity for them to do 
 any work more laborious than cutting cou 
 pons or preparing the list of guests for the 
 annual Assembly balls. 
 
 Why had his nephew not elected to be 
 come a gentleman of elegant leisure like 
 himself? the Major wondered, painfully. 
 But he had managed to survive that blow 
 and had become fairly reconciled to it 
 when the news was carefully broken to 
 [10]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 him by his sister and the doctor s aunt, a 
 widow who stood in a dead mother s place 
 to the young man, that the hope of the 
 family was engaged to be married! The 
 breaking of the news was accompanied by 
 the usual feminine evidences of internal 
 cardiac disintegration. There was weeping 
 and wailing, and but that even the best 
 artificial sets did not gnash successfully, 
 the old Biblical conditions would have 
 been reproduced, even to teeth. 
 
 The violence of Madame s feelings were 
 evidenced by this scene. The Whyots 
 were distinctly undemonstrative, they 
 prided themselves upon it, and that his 
 sister should have given way to such emo 
 tions and in the presence of her brother 
 for whom she felt a holy awe as the head 
 of their ancient and honorable house 
 was testimony to the depth and intensity 
 of her grief and disappointment. There 
 was excuse for it, though, and while the 
 Major could not forgive such a display, he 
 condoned it, when he learned here was
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the rub that William Penn Whyot was 
 going to marry a nobody ! 
 
 Her father did not have a house on 
 Pine Street, would not have lived on Pine 
 Street if the whole street had been given 
 to him, although he had money enough to 
 buy the whole street if he had wanted it. 
 No, he lived out with the common people 
 on North Broad Street, miles above Mar 
 ket Street, where he had the largest and 
 handsomest house in many blocks. 
 
 " Why didn t he go to New York, damn 
 him," soliloquized the Major, " where he 
 belonged," and live on Fifth Avenue over 
 looking the Park, which appeared to be 
 laid out for the exclusive delectation of 
 mortals favored by Plutus and the kindred 
 gods? He was an anachronism, an ab 
 surdity in Philadelphia. He had no pew 
 in old St. Christopher s either. If he had 
 ever entered that ancient edifice he would 
 have considered it a musty, fusty, uncom 
 fortable old building, any way. On the 
 contrary, he actually occupied the finest 
 
 [12]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 seat in the brand new Holy Angels 
 Church; of which, in his grim way, he was 
 one of the strongest supporters finan 
 cially, that is, for his piety was in an in 
 verse ratio to his contributions. 
 
 Philip Chalden lived in Philadelphia be 
 cause he owned the town. If choice had 
 directed his footsteps to New York he 
 probably would have owned that city also, 
 but Philadelphia satisfied him as a posses 
 sion. The majority of the citizens of 
 Philadelphia fatuously believed that they 
 governed themselves. A large portion of 
 the minority did not care who governed 
 them, so long as they were let alone. An 
 other small but very aggressive portion 
 knew that Philadelphia was governed by 
 Philip Chalden, and they endeavored to 
 make it interesting for him by their efforts 
 to shake off their thralldom. A few hun 
 dreds, of the St. Christopher s set, of which 
 the Major was the leading exponent, nei 
 ther knew nor cared nor believed any 
 thing about it. If they thought of it at 
 
 [13]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 all, in some wildly intellectual moment, 
 they were persuaded that they governed 
 not merely Philadelphia, but the world 
 itself. They were the people and wisdom 
 would die with them. 
 
 The fatuous majority referred to used 
 to hold elections from time to time and put 
 a new man in the City Hall at least he 
 wore trousers and looked like a man out 
 wardly, although he was merely a puppet 
 who would put other men, so called, 
 but like unto himself, in various positions 
 of trust and profit in his gift, such 
 as the Director of Public Safety, the chiefs 
 of the various subordinate bureaus, and so 
 on. The little group of reformers used to 
 meet enthusiastically and with one unpur- 
 chasable, and also largely unsalable, paper 
 of small circulation, as their organ, furi 
 ously attack the government. 
 
 The government was Philip Chalden. 
 
 He moved the Mayor, the Mayor moved 
 
 the Director, the Director his chiefs of 
 
 bureau, the chiefs of bureaus their various 
 
 [14]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 subordinates, till the bottom was reached, 
 and the mass of the people, reformers and 
 all, were moved and great was the move 
 ment of them ! Chalden moved the people 
 in a great many ways. For instance, he 
 owned the street railways and nobody was 
 transported except in his cars. The re 
 formers were transported with rage, but 
 that counted for nothing. The press of the 
 city with few exceptions was against the 
 government, the exceptions being the pa 
 pers that Chalden owned. He owned all 
 that he wanted, or enough of them to carry 
 his point, and he was indifferent to the 
 censure of the few really great journals and 
 the small and unpurchasable week 
 ly. He would like to have that weekly, 
 but when he found it impossible to buy it, 
 or silence it, he suffered it to bark away 
 it didn t matter in the long run, said the 
 cynical boss and he was right. 
 
 So Chalden had power, such power as 
 all the Whyots, dead and gone from the 
 Major back to Adam, put together, if they 
 
 [15]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 could trace so far, had never enjoyed. I 
 said the Major back to Adam advisedly, 
 because it was inconceivable that the earth 
 could ever have moved along without a 
 Whyot to assist Providence in keeping 
 things going; and the genealogical tree, 
 which was the Major s fondest study, went 
 back into pre-historic times with various 
 wonderful authentications of its accuracy, 
 not the least of which was the Major him 
 self. 
 
 And then Philip Chalden not only had 
 power politically, municipal power and 
 therefore national power, but he had money 
 besides. Indeed, in modern politics these 
 two things seem to depend upon each other. 
 He was director of heaven or perhaps 
 it would be better to say the other place 
 only knew how many corporations, and 
 when Philip Chalden took his place on a 
 Board of Directors, he usually became the 
 whole Board. It was very simple. The 
 function of a director is to direct. He di 
 rected. What his fellow directors thought 
 [16]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 or wished did not matter at least not to 
 Chalden. He owned the trolley system, 
 the biggest shipyards on the Delaware, 
 the greatest locomotive works; he was 
 president of the largest bank, in fact 
 men said if you investigated any sort of 
 an enterprise successful, that is you 
 would generally run up against Philip Chal 
 den before you got through. If the poor 
 little Major had but known it, he enjoyed 
 the income of his million of invested doll 
 ars simply because Chalden disdained such 
 game as he and did not bother with little 
 things. The arrogance of that little sec 
 tion of Philadelphia for which the Major 
 stood amused him, when he thought of it, 
 and he tolerated it, let it alone it did 
 not matter ! 
 
 In addition to his political and financial 
 power Philip Chalden had birth and breed 
 ing and education as well. Here was no 
 vulgar boss. Although no one knew it, he 
 was born of one of the oldest and proudest 
 families of St. Louis. While the Major 
 
 [17]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and his friends had been exploiting them 
 selves in Philadelphia Philip Chalden s an 
 cestors had been playing great parts in the 
 history of the nation. For reasons which 
 were sufficient to him and therefore no 
 body s business, he fondly fancied Chal- 
 den had chosen in early life to abandon his 
 family name and to forsake the United 
 States. That appellation under which he 
 was now known had nothing to do with his 
 birth, although it was in some sort a fam 
 ily inheritance. He had quietly appeared 
 in Philadelphia a score of years ago, com 
 ing from Italy, it was believed, or some 
 other foreign land, without explanation, 
 and had gone to work. He was a mystery 
 in the beginning and had remained so, 
 though there were many who would have 
 given fortunes to penetrate the mystery 
 and solve the secret men instinctively felt 
 was locked in his own breast. 
 
 Chalden was an uncommunicative man 
 who never told anybody anything. He let 
 results speak for him, and they spoke in no 
 [18]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 uncertain tones. His manners were polite 
 enough, but hard and masterful. He had 
 been brutalized by unlimited success, mor 
 ally, that is, just as the Major s forebears 
 had been weakened by it the difference 
 was temperamental. The Major scorned 
 humanity, and holding himself aloof from 
 it let it alone. Chalden hated it, mastered 
 it, ruined it, flung it away, gasping, crushed 
 and broken. The Major would scorn to 
 do a mean thing, though the petty was his 
 frequent path ; the financier would not stoop 
 to do a petty thing, though he allowed no 
 scruple to stop him in a grand coup. 
 
 Chalden had already been offered a cab 
 inet position; had he been willing to clear 
 up the doubt about his nationality, he 
 might have had the nomination for Presi 
 dent of the United States a thing the 
 Major would not have accepted under any 
 circumstances. The Major was like the 
 de Rohans a king he could not be, 
 there was nothing else to tempt him. He 
 was a Whyot. The Major and Chal- 
 [19]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 den were an admirable pair to contemplate. 
 Both were thoroughly American products. 
 There are many Majors in Philadelphia 
 and not a few Chaldens there and 
 everywhere. 
 
 Chalden had been a college man and 
 in youth had mingled in the best society 
 in the United States. Now he mingled in 
 no society at all. He lived alone in his 
 big house on North Broad Street, and few 
 there were who entered it. He transacted 
 his business in the Chalden building, near 
 Fifth and Chestnut streets, and his whole 
 private life was a thing apart from public 
 affairs. There was no Mrs. Chalden. 
 There had been one, but there was none 
 now, and the family comprised himself 
 and his daughter Alicia. It was Alicia 
 with whom Dr. William Penn Whyot was 
 about to taint the pure stock of the Whyots 
 by allying himself to her, in what the 
 Major would have characterized as unholy 
 wedlock. It would have been disgraceful 
 enough under any circumstances, but so 
 
 [20]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 long as the Major remained unmarried 
 Dr. William Penn Whyot was the last of 
 his line, and unless the old man married 
 and kept up the stock without vulgar cross, 
 why there would come a day eventually 
 when no adequate representative of the 
 ancient family would be found to give that 
 distinction to Philadelphia which made 
 neighboring cities so madly envious of its 
 assured claim ! 
 
 There had always been an Anthony 
 Phoebus Whyot so named from the 
 Huguenot progenitor and a William 
 Penn Whyot. The older had been An 
 thony Phoebus and the younger scion Will 
 iam Penn right along. If William Penn 
 now married Alicia Chalden it was con 
 ceivable that there might be a Chalden 
 Whyot, perhaps with a " damned hyphen 
 between em!" Such a thing was little 
 less than sacrilege in the Major s mind. 
 
 It was therefore with an anxiety which 
 can scarcely be imagined that, after hear 
 ing the direful news from his sister, he had 
 
 [21]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 arranged to meet his nephew at the Loyal 
 Club on Broad Street and, after the best 
 luncheon he could evolve, reason him out 
 of his infatuation. 
 
 [22]
 
 II 
 
 MAJOR WHYOT had never been 
 genuinely in love. It was a habit 
 or an attribute of the Major s to be loved 
 but to love not. He would not have pro 
 claimed it, but he cherished in his heart 
 the conviction that many women had been 
 in love with him in his younger days and 
 that there had not existed a maiden who 
 would not have stooped eagerly to lift the 
 handkerchief if he had dropped it. Con 
 sequently, through his own lack of experi 
 ence in the consuming fire, Major Whyot 
 was ignorant of the fact that even backed 
 by a good dinner reason stood little chance 
 in a trial of strength with love. Wrapped 
 in the garment of his own self-esteem he 
 was equally unconscious that, contrasting 
 his own personality and that of his nephew, 
 he was at a great disadvantage in the lat 
 ter case as in the former. 
 
 [23]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 William Penn Whyot, it has been said, 
 and it was borne into the Major s soul 
 that afternoon as never before, did not re 
 semble his ancestry at all. The Major s 
 glance comprehended his own dapper, 
 faultlessly clad, and entirely correct, if 
 rather undersized, person, and sighed at 
 the difference between himself and his 
 nephew. Of a distinctly Teutonic type, 
 tall, broad-shouldered, blond, keen eyed, 
 redolent of life, energy, confidence, and 
 hearty self-satisfaction, he was the Major s 
 antithesis in almost everything. There 
 fore the sigh of the Major was one of 
 commiseration for William Penn. By the 
 way, it was only within the family circle 
 that he was so known. The girls who had 
 loved him called him Will. His Philadel 
 phia intimates affectionately styled him 
 Billie, or in bon camaraderie, Bill. At his 
 college Harvard he was known as 
 " The Quaker," shortened to " Quake," or 
 " Old Quake," when they won the first 
 [24]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 foot-ball game from Yale in years largely 
 through his prowess. 
 
 The personality of the younger man 
 filled the room when he entered it. The 
 Major actually seemed to grow smaller in 
 his presence. That is, he would have 
 seemed smaller had there been any one be 
 side the decorous waiter to mark the situa 
 tion. What he seemed to do and what he 
 really did were different, however. As 
 William Penn entered he swelled with re 
 sentment, like a turkey cock, longing for 
 nothing so much as to call him to account 
 then and there. However, he restrained 
 himself for the present with what he con 
 sidered a marvellous self-control, and an 
 swered the young man s hearty " Good 
 afternoon, Uncle Anthony," with what he 
 fancied was a kindly, even an affectionate, 
 cordiality. William Penn had the original 
 Whyot voice, deep, strong, virile, mascu 
 line. The Major s voice, like his person 
 and his mind, was also gone to seed. It 
 [25]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 was thin, high-pitched, and unpleasantly 
 effeminate. It satisfied the Major, how 
 ever, and his nephew had heard it too 
 often to mark it especially. 
 
 Restraining the temptation to plunge in 
 medias res at once, the Major pointed to 
 the table. William Penn sat down, with 
 a word of explanation that he had been 
 detained by a professional call, and the 
 cocktails were solemnly produced. The 
 Major s idea of the process of reasoning 
 was that it began with a cocktail. That 
 singularly fatuous habit was not an exclu 
 sive Philadelphia custom, by the way, and 
 if he had known how common the practice 
 was the Major might have abandoned it. 
 They were not " Club Cocktails " either; 
 no Manhattan, Martini, or other ready- 
 made compound for him! The Major 
 would as soon have thrust his legs into a 
 ready-made pair of trousers, or have eaten 
 what he called a " bulk olive," as to have 
 poured a ready-made cocktail down his 
 aristocratic throat. His at least were al- 
 [26]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ways made to order after a recipe time- 
 honored in the club furnished by one of 
 his ancestors, by the way. 
 
 " The thing I like about a cocktail," re 
 marked the doctor, genially, " is its local 
 color." 
 
 " Ye-es," answered the Major, feeling 
 after the intellectual puzzle which this 
 remark presented, " er it is warming 
 inwardly and er stimulating. A 
 pleasant introduction to a dinner." 
 
 " Yes, sir, you are right. The local 
 color is mainly internal, but it is quite per 
 ceptible otherwise, as well." 
 
 " Yes," cackled the Major, groping for 
 the point and reaching it finally. It was a 
 touch of the Whyot wit, he thought, and 
 he was glad to recognize it in William 
 Penn. " But sometimes it is external, too 
 er the local color, if you have enough 
 of it the cocktail, I mean ! " 
 
 " Good," said Doctor William Penn, 
 gravely, " I am glad you caught on, uncle. 
 That s what I meant." 
 [27]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The Major felt somewhat dashed by 
 this rebuff, but the excellence of his dinner 
 and it was certainly a good one, the 
 Major being a past master at that re 
 assured him, and it was with high hopes 
 that he marked course after course disap 
 pear. William Penn s appetite was cer 
 tainly a noble one. With the arrival of 
 the coffee and cigars and the disappearance 
 of the waiter, the talk which the young 
 man had mainly kept up in the flippant 
 style of the beginning, began, under the 
 Major s judicious guidance, to take a seri 
 ous turn. 
 
 " William Penn Whyot," said the Ma 
 jor, pushing back his chair after a grace 
 ful, well-bred, and somewhat meditative 
 puff at his cigar and by the way, the 
 Major, in common with many of his fellow 
 citizens in Philadelphia, eliminated the 
 " h " when it followed " w," and Why 
 ot became " W yot," " white " became 
 "w ite," "wheat" " w eat," and so on. 
 That wasn t the only peculiarity of his 
 [28]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 accent either. When he pronounced the 
 word " know," for instance, he inserted an 
 " a " before the " o," and softened the re 
 sulting diphthong until it was a cross be 
 tween the southern drawl and the Yankee 
 twang, with results strange to hear. 
 
 ; William Penn Whyot," he continued 
 solemnly and impressively, " I have 
 brought you here ah to reason with 
 you." 
 
 " Go ahead, nunkie," remarked William 
 Penn irreverently, puffing away at his cigar 
 with characteristic energy. 
 
 William Penn," said the old man, 
 " you know that odious appellation is dis 
 tinctly unpleasant to me. As the matter 
 before us is er serious, I could wish 
 that your mood would be likewise." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Uncle Anthony," 
 said the young man, " I am all attention." 
 
 " I learn from your aunt, sir, that 
 you are contemplating er holy mat 
 rimony." 
 
 Your information is quite correct, sir." 
 [29]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " And that er the ah young 
 person " 
 
 " Hold on there ! She er isn t 
 what you call a person, Uncle Anthony." 
 
 " We will pass that over for the pres 
 ent," said the older man solemnly. " Shall 
 I say for er argument s sake the 
 ah object of your affection?" 
 
 " Well, sir, that is a truthful descrip 
 tion." 
 
 "She er is, so I am informed 
 in in short I ah " 
 
 The Major was hopelessly floundering, 
 but William Penn gave him no possible 
 assistance. In fact, there was a look in 
 the blue eyes of the young man, a little 
 glint which was sufficient to warn even so 
 obtuse and self-centred a person as the 
 Major that there were limits beyond which 
 even he could not pass. 
 
 " The young lady," gasped out the Ma 
 jor finally, " doesn t appear er ah 
 to be one of us." The objective case, that 
 pronoun, of the ancestral " We " 1 
 [30]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " She is not, at least not yet and I hope 
 to Heaven she never will be," the doctor 
 might have added if he had voiced his real 
 thought. 
 
 " The lady, I am told, is the daughter 
 of of a man named Chalden, or 
 something of the sort? " 
 
 " Your information is quite correct, 
 sir." 
 
 " Mr. Chalden is well, in fact, I 
 know nothing about him." 
 
 " He owns half of Philadelphia." 
 
 " My dear William Penn Whyot," re 
 marked the Major, " the man may own 
 four-fifths of it, or nine-tenths of it, or 
 ninety-nine hundredths of it. I know very 
 little of that portion of Philadelphia, and 
 I want to know less. Who owns such 
 people is a matter of indifference to me, 
 as I suppose it is largely to them. I 
 suppose we are obliged to have the lower 
 classes " 
 
 " Or the interest on your bonds would 
 not be paid, Uncle Anthony."
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Quite so, and having paid the interest 
 they cease to interest me further," said 
 Uncle Anthony, serenely, waving his hand 
 as if to dismiss a topic which was of no 
 especial importance. " But this man er 
 
 Chalden, is it not? doesn t own me." 
 " He might if he wanted to," thought 
 
 the doctor. 
 
 " And the people of Philadelphia, at 
 least among those with whom I mingle, 
 do not know him. Now, my dear William 
 Penn Whyot, a moment s reflection will, I 
 am sure, convince you of the manifest im 
 propriety of allying your blood with er 
 -that of Mr. Chalden. The Whyots 
 for generations have married none but the 
 best people in Philadelphia, and as you are 
 the last of the line I shall never marry 
 
 there is a burden laid upon you by your 
 ancestors, the obligation of your race, sir. 
 Honor demands that you should be ex 
 ceedingly careful in your choice of a 
 er " 
 
 " Honor demands, Uncle Anthony, that 
 [32]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 I should marry to please myself, not my 
 ancestors. But I have been careful. She 
 is perfect, sir; and to be quite frank with 
 you, I don t care a rap for all the Whyots 
 dead and gone as compared to Al Miss 
 Chalden." 
 
 "My dear William Penn ! " remon 
 strated the Major sadly, outraged by such 
 irreverence, " you must be er in 
 love." 
 
 " Well, Uncle, aren t most people who 
 4 contemplate matrimony in love? " 
 
 " People of the vulgar sort, I believe, 
 are prone to er the passion. Now, 
 I ah contemplated matrimony sev 
 eral times in my early career, but never 
 with such feelings as those which seem to 
 actuate you." 
 
 " Perhaps that s why you never mar 
 ried?" 
 
 " No, no. To tell the truth, there were 
 no particularly attractive girls in our circle 
 at the time, and rather than marry outside 
 of it I concluded to remain a bachelor. It 
 
 [33]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 was a great sacrifice, but I depended on 
 you to ah carry on the line." 
 
 Well, uncle, I m sorry I can t please 
 you, but I m not built that way." 
 
 " Conditions are different now, William 
 Penn," urged the other; " there are, I have 
 noticed, a number of young women of our 
 acquaintance, who would be eminently 
 suited to you, who are possessed of the 
 necessary birth, some little means, although 
 you will lack for nothing when I die, and 
 charms of person er sufficient to 
 make the union I propose not distasteful. 
 There are Miss " 
 
 " Hold on, Uncle Anthony, don t men 
 tion the young ladies names. I should not 
 like to refuse them even to you, and it 
 would be no use anyway, as I am in love 
 with Miss Chalden and I intend to marry 
 her." 
 
 " It s that damned Harvard College 
 that has done this," the Major burst out 
 wrathfully, his quivering self-control utter 
 ly gone, and the combination between his 
 [34]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 feeble voice, his flushed face, and the in 
 tensity of his language almost moved the 
 doctor to laughter. " If you hadn t gone 
 there you would never have escaped from 
 the influence of Philadelphia. I wanted 
 you to follow in the footsteps of your 
 fathers at the old University, but you 
 would go to that accursed Boston, where 
 what they call brains takes precedence over 
 everything a gentleman holds dear. It is 
 either that or your grandmother. One 
 mesalliance in the family breeds another. 
 My great-grandfather almost broke his 
 heart when your grandfather married a 
 Putbus of Germantown, and damn it all, 
 sir, you look like her! You re not a bit of 
 a Whyot in anything. We did the best we 
 could for you before you were born by 
 marrying your father to my poor sister. 
 She was a Whyot of the purest blood, his 
 cousin, and I thought we could break up 
 the infernal cross. And when she died 
 your aunt, my sister, did her best to instill 
 proper principles in you. But I see we 
 
 [35]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 didn t succeed, sir. Who are these Chal- 
 den people, anyhow?" 
 
 The Major was fluent enough when he 
 was excited as now. William Penn was 
 sorely angered but at the same time amused 
 by his uncle s language. He had never 
 enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his grand 
 mother, the " Putbus of Germantown," 
 and he did not feel inclined to take up any 
 vigorous cudgels in her behalf, yet it did 
 not seem quite gallant of him to allow the 
 unoffending old lady to be reviled without 
 making some defence for her. However, 
 he realized what a shock his approaching 
 marriage would be to his uncle, and, as he 
 was genuinely fond of the queer little old 
 man, he controlled himself as best he could 
 and answered him gently. 
 
 " Well, uncle, to be frank with you, I 
 know very little about the Chalden family. 
 They came here some years ago from Italy 
 or some foreign land, yet they are Ameri 
 cans. Miss Chalden told me that her 
 father never talks about it, but she believes 
 [36]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 they originally sprang from St. Louis 
 that is not generally known, and you will 
 kindly not mention it, sir? " 
 
 "From St. Louis?" interrupted the 
 Major fiercely. "St. Louis? Where in 
 Heaven s name is the place? " 
 
 " In Missouri, sir." 
 
 " Good God, sir, you don t mean the 
 West? " in a tone which the Pharisees 
 might have used when they asked if any 
 thing good could have come out of Naza 
 reth. 
 
 " I do, sir. If you will recall it, sir, 
 St. Louis is as old as Philadelphia. I think 
 it was settled before Philadelphia, if I am 
 not mistaken, and I have no doubt these 
 people are just as good as " 
 
 " William Penn," cried the Major 
 fiercely, " stop there ! You don t know 
 what you are saying! You will thank me 
 in your cooler moments. Preserve your 
 temper. Look at me, sir! " 
 
 The little man was fairly trembling with 
 excitement and emotion. 
 [37]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Well," said William Penn, smiling in 
 spite of himself, " whatever her family 
 may be, I am going to marry her, not her 
 ancestors. She is " 
 
 " Spare me," sneered the Major scorn 
 fully, " I am in no mood to listen to the 
 rhapsodies of a lover. What s her 
 name?" 
 
 " Alicia." 
 
 " Alicia ! " snorted the old man, " what 
 sort of a damned fancy name is that? 
 If you will marry the woman, why 
 couldn t she have a name like Maria, or 
 
 er Elizabeth, or Sophia, like er 
 
 the females of our house. By gad, sir 
 
 Alicia ! It sounds er foreign 
 and er I don t like it ! " 
 
 " There was no thought of pleasing 
 you when she was christened, sir," dryly 
 answered the doctor, flinging in the quota 
 tion deftly, the opening for it was so good. 
 
 " I suppose not, sir, and yet they might 
 have done worse things than attempting to 
 pleasure the Whyots in the naming of any 
 [38]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 child," put in the old Major with uncon 
 scious humor. 
 
 " Of course, of course," answered his 
 nephew; "but, seriously, uncle, Miss 
 Alicia Chalden is a woman endowed with 
 every grace of mind and person. She is a 
 graduate of Brookford College, a Doctor 
 of Philosophy of that famous institution, 
 and a woman any man might be proud to 
 wed. It is no mesalliance, as you have 
 said, and that I have won her affection 
 amazes and surprises as much as it de 
 lights me." 
 
 " But her family, her family, sir? " 
 
 " When you see Mr. Chalden you will 
 be ready to consider him the Rudolph of 
 Hapsburg of his family, I am sure." 
 
 " But, my dear William Penn St. 
 Louis ! It s quite impossible, I assure you. 
 Where do they come from? Who are 
 they? What patents of nobility are back 
 of them?" 
 
 " As to that, I don t know, and I care 
 less." 
 
 [39]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " And that man Chalden, he lives north 
 of Market Street, on North Broad, actu 
 ally " the Major fairly gasped as he 
 enunciated this direful fact, which cer 
 tainly could not fail to disgust any rational 
 being. " Think of it ! You don t want 
 to get involved with any of those north 
 of Market Street people, William Penn. 
 Why, he is mixed up with all sorts of 
 vulgar business er trade, and all 
 that!" 
 
 " Yes, I believe he is," answered the 
 doctor composedly; " perhaps his original 
 ancestor may have been a shoemaker, or 
 possibly a barber." 
 
 " William Penn ! " said the Major, 
 wincing under this bald and brutal thrust, 
 " I fear you are hopeless. It s that cursed 
 Putbus blood." 
 
 " Pshaw, Uncle Anthony, he has a great 
 many irons in the fire, I suppose, but what 
 of it? For that matter, they say he owns 
 most of Philadelphia. I am sure I don t 
 know, but I understand that he is a director 
 [40]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in about everything that is worth directing, 
 and if the papers are true he is the political 
 boss of the town. But I am not marrying 
 Alicia for her family, or her father s 
 money, but because I love her." 
 
 " William Penn," said the Major, nerv 
 ing himself for the final plunge, " as the 
 er head of the Whyot family, I say 
 my last word on the subject to you. I for 
 bid this marriage. Should it take place I 
 will revoke the will I have made in which 
 you are my sole legatee, and devise my 
 fortune elsewhere." 
 
 " My dear uncle," said the doctor, ris 
 ing and taking the limp, unresisting hand 
 of his uncle in his own strong one, " to 
 lose your friendship and affection would 
 be a great blow to me. I will not say that 
 I would be indifferent to the loss of your 
 fortune, though I hope in any event the 
 day when I shall enjoy it may long be 
 deferred " 
 
 You shall never enjoy it unless you 
 abandon this monstrous marriage you are
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 about to er perpetrate," interrupted 
 the old man. 
 
 " But should you will your property 
 elsewhere my chief regret would be be 
 cause that was a mark of your displeasure. 
 I will be frank with you. It may be the 
 Putbus plainness, or the Whyot honesty 
 the Whyots were always men of honor. 
 Alicia Chalden is worth a million fortunes 
 like yours and that of her father com 
 bined, and I shall never give her up under 
 any circumstances so long as she honors 
 me with her affection. Don t do anything 
 in a hurry, Uncle Anthony. Wait until I 
 have the pleasure of presenting her to you. 
 Good-by, sir," and before the dazed Ma 
 jor could gather his wits together and re 
 cover from the shock which the bold but 
 kindly tempered young man had inflicted 
 upon him, Doctor William Penn Whyot 
 had vanished from the room. 
 
 The Major sat and rubbed his head with 
 his hand meditatively for a moment, until 
 finally through the wreck of his plans 
 [42]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 arose the glimmerings of an idea. He 
 looked at his watch. It was seven o clock. 
 They had dined early on account of some 
 previous engagements. The man would 
 not be at his office at that hour. He would 
 be at his home. Pressing a button, the 
 Major ordered his carriage. He had 
 taken a desperate resolution. He would 
 go to see Philip Chalden in person about 
 this iniquitous marriage, which must be 
 stopped at all hazards. 
 
 [43]
 
 Ill 
 
 TIME was when all coachmen were 
 negroes. The Major s rule of life 
 was contained in the military phrase, " As 
 you were 1 " He followed the ancient 
 practice long after others had bowed to 
 the modern innovation, and a few families 
 to whom the habits of the Whyots were 
 oracular did likewise. As a matter of fact, 
 however, the Major s black coachman and 
 footman were unique even in Philadelphia, 
 where the thing that has been is the thing 
 that shall be until the end of the chapter. 
 All the Major s servants were negroes, 
 therefore, and he took pride and pleasure 
 in the fact. 
 
 The distance between the Loyal Club 
 and the big new granite house on North 
 Broad Street was soon compassed, and al 
 most before he had developed his cam 
 paign, or even outlined his plan of attack, 
 [44]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 he found himself in the drawing-room 
 waiting the master. As he sat there he 
 inspected the room quickly, curiously, and 
 somewhat contemptuously. It was in per 
 fect taste. That could not be gainsaid. 
 The pictures on the walls, the bric-a-brac 
 on the magnificent mantel, the furniture, 
 the carpets, the decorations, all were of 
 the rarest and most beautiful variety, but 
 they were new. The Major was the old 
 est thing in that room, and in spite of the 
 fact that he did dress in the latest fashion, 
 he looked as old as his ancestry. The 
 Major was surprised, he did not know 
 that such things existed north of Mar 
 ket Street! To him entered Philip Chal- 
 den. 
 
 The millionaire was of the physical ap 
 pearance which naturally accords with the 
 title. He was a large, stout, powerfully 
 built, full-bearded man, with a keen, pierc 
 ing eye, firm, straight lips and resolute 
 jaw. His once black hair and full beard 
 were lightened with gray. He was con- 
 [45]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 siderably past middle age, though some 
 what younger than the Major. The Ma 
 jor was never impressed by anyone but 
 himself, but to ordinary mortals there was 
 something oppressive in the presence of 
 this man. He absorbed power from his 
 environment with such directness that a 
 sensation of weakness was produced among 
 those who approached him. Feeble men 
 gave up at once and submitted to his dom 
 ination, stronger men struggled against it, 
 often unavailingly. In many instances his 
 personality excited admiration and devo 
 tion. Sometimes, but more rarely, it 
 awakened antagonisms, furious, intense, 
 persistent. Few people could be indiffer 
 ent to it. It was only egregious and co 
 lossal self-satisfaction, such as the Major 
 possessed, upon which it had no perceptible 
 effect one way or the other. 
 
 The man was cold, reserved, distant, 
 
 dignified, repellent, to the last degree, yet 
 
 his manner was admirable. Truth to tell, 
 
 his satisfaction with himself was probably 
 
 [46]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 as great as that of the Major with him 
 self, yet there was this further difference 
 between the two, one had much reason to 
 be satisfied, the other had little. Yet, 
 after all, reason has no more to do with 
 self-satisfaction than it has to do with love, 
 and love is only self-satisfaction extended 
 to embrace somebody else. 
 
 " Major Whyot," said Mr. Chalden, 
 looking up from the card in his hand as 
 the Major rose on his entrance. 
 
 " The same, sir." 
 
 " Be seated, sir. You are of Philadel 
 phia, I presume? " 
 
 Why, of course, sir! I am surprised 
 that - gasped out the Major in aston 
 ishment. 
 
 The natural way to put the question 
 according to the Major was to say that 
 Philadelphia was of him, since the greater 
 contains the less, and he was petrified at 
 the idea that Mr. Chalden did not know 
 who he was. 
 
 " Of course ! I am surprised that you 
 [47]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ask such a question, sir! " he exploded 
 wrath fully. " I have been here for two 
 hundred years at least, sir! " 
 
 As usual, the little Major was confus 
 ing himself with his ancestry. 
 
 " Ah, indeed," said Mr. Chalden, the 
 faintest flicker of a smile beneath his heavy 
 mustache ; " I did not know " which was 
 not exactly an accurate statement. You 
 wish to see me? " 
 
 Yes, sir. I come in behalf of my 
 nephew, Doctor William Penn Whyot." 
 
 " I see." 
 
 " I wish to speak to you about this 
 er marriage with your ah daugh 
 ter, sir." 
 
 u And does your nephew wish you to 
 plead his cause, sir? " 
 
 " God bless me, sir, certainly not! " 
 
 " I am rejoiced to hear it, Major Why 
 ot, for the little I have seen of that young 
 man has convinced me that he is abundantly 
 able to plead his own cause." 
 
 " You are quite right," answered the 
 [48]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Major, " in fact I think he is a little too 
 able. His assurance " 
 
 " My dear sir, you cannot succeed now 
 adays without assurance. It is assurance 
 that wins modern battles. I half believe 
 it won them in the past." 
 
 " Yes," said the Major vaguely, utterly 
 ignorant that he was a living example of 
 the worst kind of assurance, that which has 
 no basis or reason for being, " but I er 
 this approaching marriage " 
 
 " Well, sir, to be frank, I have not yet 
 decided whether I shall consent to the mar 
 riage or not." 
 
 " God bless my soul, sir ! " spluttered 
 the Major, " do you mean to tell me that 
 you can hesitate for a single moment at 
 the opportunity opened by er the en 
 thusiasm of a misguided youth, for allying 
 yourself, your family ah with the 
 Whyots, sir! Why, sir, a marriage with 
 a Whyot is putting the hall mark of re 
 spectability the er upon " 
 
 The Major pulled himself up just in 
 [49]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 time. There was a tightening of Mr. 
 Chalden s gloomy brow, a little brighter 
 flash from his steel-gray eye, that flung a 
 danger signal across the Major s path. 
 He wasn t afraid of anybody, this little 
 Major, but he was a gentleman accord 
 ing to his lights, and he would not charge 
 his message with any unnecessary rudeness. 
 He had said enough, anyway. 
 
 "Well, Major," said Mr. Chalden 
 gravely, as the little gentleman s speech 
 went up into the air, " you are an able 
 and eloquent advocate. I confess that I 
 had not looked at the matter in that light, 
 but since you make such a point of it, and 
 since it is in evidence from the zeal with 
 which you plead the young man s cause 
 that your consent and approbation will not 
 be withheld in case the marriage be ar 
 ranged, I shall be apt to think favorably 
 of your nephew s plea." 
 
 You entirely misunderstand me, sir," 
 gasped the Major impetuously, " I do not 
 wish it at all." 
 
 [50]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " But you said the honor of an alliance 
 with a Whyot 
 
 Yes, sir, and it would be an honor, 
 but it is much too great an honor for an 
 unknown daughter of an unknown man, 
 sir." 
 
 Chalden kept his temper admirably. 
 That was one source of his power. Like 
 William the Silent he was tranquil in the 
 midst of storms. It is true, he usually 
 raised the storms himself and the tranquil 
 lity was easier on that account, but to the 
 big, powerful man the wrathful, squeaky 
 little Major, with his ancestry, his arro 
 gance, and his pride, was an object rather 
 of pity and contempt than antagonism. 
 
 " Frankly, sir," answered the great 
 financier, " I fancy I am sufficiently well 
 known in this community. My name I 
 speak in strict confidence as one gentleman 
 
 o 
 
 to another, sir " the little Major bowed 
 coldly at this, and Chalden knew that he 
 was to be trusted, too " is one which I 
 have made myself. I will say to you what
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 I have said to no other man, that I have a 
 legal right to bear another name, a legal 
 and moral right, sir. I was born an Avery 
 of St. Louis. You will respect my confi 
 dence, I am sure? " 
 
 The Major bowed again really, from 
 some points of view, Mr. Chalden was not 
 so bad after all ! 
 
 " My family there, I take it, though it 
 is a matter of supreme indifference to me 
 personally, is as old as your own," con 
 tinued Chalden, who divined that by plac 
 ing the matter on the little Major s honor 
 he was perfectly safe in revealing what he 
 had confided to no one else not even his 
 daughter. " My original ancestor was a 
 fur trader. What was yours, sir? " 
 
 " A shoe it is of no consequence at 
 all, sir," answered the Major in some con 
 fusion. " Pray proceed, Mr. Ch 
 Avery." 
 
 " Excuse me, Major Whyot. I have 
 assumed the name of Chalden for reasons 
 which are good and sufficient to me, and 
 [52]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 I desire to be addressed by it, and not by 
 the name of Avery. I repeat, that this is 
 told to you in strict confidence, which the 
 proposed relationship between our families 
 warrants." 
 
 " And your reasons, sir? " 
 
 " Concern no one but myself, sir. As 
 you know, I am a man of fortune." 
 
 " I know nothing about it, sir," said the 
 Major; " my observations of life and so 
 ciety are confined to my own associates." 
 
 " The facts are as I have stated them." 
 
 " It may be," responded the other; " of 
 course you understand that money or the 
 lack of it has nothing to do with my 
 er opposition to the marriage." 
 
 " Certainly it has not in my case," an 
 swered Chalden coolly, " else I would look 
 for a higher alliance even than one with 
 the heir of your ancient lineage, and what 
 ever other possessions you may have. 
 However, my daughter has chosen to fall 
 in love with your nephew. So at least she 
 has confided to me. The circumstances of 
 [53]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 their meeting were somewhat romantic. 
 Doctor Whyot has approached me in a 
 manly and dignified manner and asked my 
 consent to a marriage. I am favorably 
 impressed with him, but I have taken the 
 matter under advisement, and will decide 
 the matter when I have made certain in 
 vestigations concerning his character and 
 ability. Should I find Doctor Whyot de 
 serving, as I trust he may be, I shall prob 
 ably give my consent." 
 
 The man was magnificent in his cool 
 assumption of superiority, and the Major 
 was fast losing all control of himself. The 
 idea of his taking that ground with any 
 one who bore the Whyot name. It was 
 infamous ! 
 
 " But, good heavens, sir ! " he burst out, 
 " do you not see the manifest impropriety 
 of such a marriage? " 
 
 " What is the impropriety, sir? " 
 
 " Why, you are not er your daugh 
 ter doesn t er in short, sir, you do 
 not belong to the people you know 
 [54]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the ah the society in which I mingle. 
 My ancestors have had a pew in St. Chris 
 topher s church since the church was built, 
 sir, and we have lived in the same house 
 on Pine Street for one hundred and fifty 
 years ! Why, sir, I was born in the same 
 bed my great-great-great-great-grandfather 
 was born in ! We are the oldest, the 
 purest blooded people in the United States, 
 sir, and you wish me to consent to a mar 
 riage between your daughter and my neph 
 ew ! The daughter of a man who, for 
 reasons known only to himself, passes un 
 der a name not his own! And to my 
 nephew, the last of his line, sir! " 
 
 " Let me hear no more in this strain, 
 sir ! " said Chalden peremptorily and with 
 emphasis. " I beg to point out to you that 
 I am neither asking nor expecting your 
 consent. I do not care a snap of my fin 
 ger for your consent to the marriage of 
 my daughter and your nephew. My 
 daughter shall marry whom she pleases, 
 provided I please. Your claims to social 
 [55]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 distinction are absolutely nothing to me. 
 I care nothing for society, except to despise 
 it. So far as your family is concerned, I 
 may tell you frankly that if I saw in your 
 nephew the least resemblance to the ances 
 tral traits you exhibit, I should instantly, 
 without hesitation, deny his suit and for 
 bid any further intercourse between my 
 daughter and himself." 
 
 " But, sir " shouted the Major, at 
 least he came as near shouting as his vocal 
 apparatus permitted. 
 
 " Excuse me further," interrupted Chal- 
 den, " you have come to my house unin 
 vited, and you have made yourself unwel 
 come. I have borne with your slurs and 
 insults longer than I am accustomed to 
 bear. In fact, no one ever before presumed 
 in such a manner. My patience is ended. 
 My family is as good as yours. My 
 manners, this interview has proved, are in 
 finitely better than yours. You are a living 
 example of that arrogance and ignorance 
 which are characteristics of that deluded 
 [56]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 set which claims to represent all that is best 
 in Philadelphia, in the United States, in 
 the world itself, for that matter. I have 
 marked you and your confreres in secret 
 amusement heretofore. You have not 
 been worth serious attention, but, sir, if I 
 hear any more from you, or your friends, 
 I will break you to pieces! I will submit 
 to no more insults, to no more sneers, to no 
 more innuendoes from you. I will marry 
 my daughter to your nephew or not, just 
 as I please, and if you value your house on 
 Pine Street, or your pew in St. Christo 
 pher s, in God s name, sir, go back to the 
 one or to the other and keep quiet. Learn 
 for the first time in your life the truth, un 
 welcome though it will doubtless be, that 
 you live here and enjoy your petty position 
 on sufferance, my sufferance. I hold Phila 
 delphia, and you, and all of you, in the 
 hollow of my hand. If my daughter 
 wishes, she can have it all. She is all I 
 have. Why, you poor little relic of the 
 past, if she wanted to marry you, and I 
 [57]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 thought fit to allow her, you might get 
 down on your knees and thank Providence 
 for her decision." 
 
 " Heaven forbid! " gasped the Major; 
 " and let me tell you, sir, that I value your 
 threats not at all. My birth, breeding, 
 and position in society do not depend upon 
 wealth or money, or a house on Pine Street, 
 or a pew in St. Christopher s. Why, sir, 
 I am a Whyot ! That means little to you, 
 but it means everything to me. I have 
 warned you, sir, that nothing but unhappi- 
 ness can come from such a mesalliance. I 
 wash my hands of it, and I have the honor 
 to wish you good-evening." 
 
 With some show of dignity the little 
 Major retreated from the ground where 
 he had been so signally defeated. He had 
 tried to reason with the lover, also with 
 the father, in both cases without avail. 
 There remained to him no other resource. 
 The lady herself was out of the question. 
 She would probably weep, and the Major 
 was hopeless before weeping women. He 
 [58]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 had done all that could be done to prevent 
 the marriage. William Penn must go to 
 ruin in his own way. 
 
 Late as it was the Major drove to his 
 lawyer and wrathfully left with him in 
 structions to draw up a new will in the 
 morning. 
 
 To understand how things got into such 
 a dreadful tangle, from the little Major s 
 point of view, it will be necessary to turn 
 back several months and then pick up the 
 thread. 
 
 [59]
 
 IV 
 
 /^><IRLS, girls, are you all here?" 
 
 VJ" The anxious voice of the swiftly 
 approaching principal, trembling with anx 
 iety, could be heard above the nervous 
 clamor of the young women, the cries of 
 the men, and the roaring of the flames. 
 She was dressed in an evening gown, with 
 a shawl dragging from one shoulder. As 
 she ran up hurriedly she scanned the group 
 in terrified apprehension. At the sight of 
 her they broke into exclamations and cries, 
 confused and unintelligible. 
 
 "Young ladies, be quiet!" she con 
 tinued, nervously raising her hand in her 
 best class-room manner. " Remember, 
 that to be composed in the midst of diffi 
 culties is the highest test of breeding " 
 she could not refrain from this act of in 
 struction even in the excitement attendant 
 upon the fire, and indeed she was the 
 [60]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 coolest person there, maintaining her self- 
 control admirably. " Is anyone missing, 
 I say? Sarah, Margaret, Eloise, Ali 
 cia ?" 
 
 There was no response as she called this 
 name. 
 
 "Where is Alicia?" she added in a 
 sharp tone of voice. " Has anyone seen 
 her? You, Janet? " 
 
 " Indeed, Miss Winthrop," answered 
 the girl thus addressed, " I don t know 
 where she can be. She followed me out, 
 I thought." 
 
 "Have any of you seen her?" asked 
 the principal hurriedly. " Call her." 
 
 "Alicia!" 
 
 "Alicia!" 
 
 " Alicia ! " burst from the startled group 
 of women, young and old, in shrill screams, 
 in which, as they afforded a sort of relief 
 to the tension of the exciting moment, they 
 persisted hysterically. 
 
 There was no answer to their frantic 
 cries. 
 
 [61]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Gracious Heaven ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Winthrop at last, waving for silence again. 
 " She must be in there." 
 
 The eyes of all stopped roaming the 
 field and were fastened instantly upon 
 the burning building, from every win 
 dow of which, in the front at least, the 
 flames were pouring. One or two of 
 the girls began whimpering, one of them 
 screamed wildly again, but the most of 
 them stared in horrified silence. Where 
 was Alicia? The truth dawned upon them 
 at once. She was there! Merciful 
 Heaven ! 
 
 Hulswood Hall, the oldest dormitory 
 building of Brookford College, had caught 
 fire in one end at ten o clock that night, 
 and was now blazing furiously. The 
 seniors, who were quartered in this build 
 ing, had barely escaped with their lives, so 
 fierce and sudden had been the spread of 
 the flames through the old building. In 
 all stages of deshabille they clustered 
 around their principal and her assistants, 
 [62]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 who, from the nearest dormitories, were 
 arriving in swift succession on the campus in 
 front of the burning building. The girls 
 of the other classes were being held in the 
 other dormitories, making preparation for 
 leaving them should it be necessary, which, 
 on account of their isolation, was scarcely 
 probable. 
 
 Hulswood Hall was an ancient Revolu 
 tionary mansion around which Brookford 
 College had arisen. It had been presented 
 to the college years before by the Whyot 
 family in memory of a cognate and allied 
 family the Hulswoods were thus dis 
 tinguished because one of them had 
 married a Whyot. The college buildings 
 were located in a lovely and sequestered 
 valley some distance from the little town 
 of Brookford, which had grown up around 
 the railroad station of the same name not 
 far from Philadelphia. 
 
 There was no adequate provision for 
 fighting such a fire, and there was nothing 
 much to be done save to let it burn. The 
 [63]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 few male servants and other employees of 
 the college, under the direction of the pro 
 fessors, and these women showed them 
 selves cool indeed, were engaged in wetting 
 the roofs and taking other precautions to 
 save the adjoining buildings. Hulswood 
 Hall was doomed. To have it burned was 
 bad enough, but when the consciousness 
 burst upon the now thoroughly alarmed 
 group of girls and women that Alicia 
 Chalden was missing the situation became 
 appalling. 
 
 Grasping her dress in one hand and 
 dropping her shawl, Miss Winthrop, mo 
 tioning the girls to remain where they 
 were, ran toward two or three of the men 
 who were busied in front of the doorway 
 of the hall, removing further away some 
 furniture which had been brought out and 
 piled on the lawn before the flames got 
 much headway. 
 
 " Al Miss Chalden is in there! " she 
 screamed. " One thousand dollars, five 
 thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand " 
 [64]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 she knew Mr. Chalden s wealth and affec 
 tion would warrant any reward she might 
 offer " to any man who will go in the 
 building and get her. That s her room 
 over there," she cried, pointing to one of 
 the side windows above the trees. 
 
 The men, led by the gardener, dashed 
 at the doorway instantly, and then as 
 promptly recoiled as a fierce gust of fire 
 and smoke burst out of the opening and 
 enveloped them. They staggered back, 
 and, after they had reached a place of 
 comparative safety, gazed anxiously at the 
 flame-swept house and shook their heads. 
 
 " It can t be done, ma am," said the 
 gardener at last; " I wouldn t dare to try 
 it for the Chalden millions. A man d be 
 burned to a crisp before he got to her room. 
 Look at that hallway, there are no stairs 
 left." 
 
 " My God 1 " said the principal, " what 
 shall we do? What has happened? She is 
 in my charge I ll go myself ! " 
 
 She recklessly approached the blazing 
 [65]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 hall with some half formed purpose in her 
 mind, when the old gardener drew her 
 forcibly away from the building. She 
 stood wringing her hands, her old face as 
 white as death. The girls crowded around 
 her. 
 
 " She was all right when we heard the 
 alarm," cried her room-mate piteously. 
 " I heard her say Run, run! when we 
 started. I would not have left her if any 
 thing had been " 
 
 At this moment a hatless young man 
 the inevitable young man burst uncere 
 moniously through the surrounding girls 
 and made for the principal. He was tall 
 and athletic, and from his dress it was evi 
 dent that he had been riding. 
 
 "Is anybody in there?" he asked 
 sharply. 
 
 " Yes ! Alicia ! Miss Chalden I " came 
 in a perfect babel of screams. 
 
 "Where is she? Silence, the rest of 
 you ! " 
 
 " In that room yonder." 
 [66]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " The third from the front on the sec 
 ond story? " 
 
 " Yes. For God s sake, save her! " 
 
 Without a word the young man started 
 toward the building. 
 
 " Fifty thousand dollars " screamed 
 Miss Winthrop after him, but she had not 
 finished the sentence before he was at the 
 burning house. 
 
 Waving aside the men who would have 
 stopped him, he dashed up on the porch 
 and made for the front door. He had not 
 yet realized the fierceness of the fire. One 
 look through the broad old doorway into 
 the infernal pit of flame convinced him of 
 the absolute impossibility of entrance there. 
 The fall of a wall inside the building sud 
 denly threw the fire out of the entrance 
 straight at him. He was instantly envel 
 oped in flame and smoke. 
 
 He turned and ran blindly, with an in 
 stinctive consciousness for the proper 
 course, which he could not explain, to the 
 left. The house was surrounded by a long 
 [67]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 porch extending around three sides of it. 
 The smoke and flame obscured him for 
 the moment from the gaze of the people on 
 the lawn, and before the wind cleared the 
 porch temporarily he had vanished. They 
 could not tell what had become of him. 
 They thought he had entered and was lost. 
 As he ran it occurred to him that possibly 
 the back way was open, and instead of re 
 turning to the lawn he simply continued 
 on around the house and was hidden from 
 their view. The fire had not yet taken 
 such a hold of the back of the house as 
 of the front. Although the flames were 
 curling out of the windows as he passed 
 he got to the back porch without difficulty. 
 He made at once for the door, a heavy 
 oak affair, which was still intact. When 
 he put his hand on the handle he found 
 the door was locked. There was fire in the 
 kitchen he could see through the shuttered 
 windows, but more smoke than anything 
 else. He looked around for something 
 with which to break the door, and as he 
 [68]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 did so he heard the sound of a fall within 
 followed by a muffled scream. There was 
 a heavy wooden bench on the back porch. 
 In his excitement he picked it up as if it 
 had been a walking-stick and hurled it vio 
 lently against the door. The lock gave 
 way and the door flew open with a crash. 
 The black smoke poured out upon him in 
 a sickening volume. 
 
 The room had been tightly closed, and 
 as the air rushed through the door it seemed 
 to break into fire everywhere. The light 
 enabled him to see a prostrate figure in the 
 far corner at the foot of the back stair. 
 Filling his lungs with air, crouching low 
 to get as near the floor as he could, and 
 holding his breath, he made his way over 
 the burning planks through the smoke until 
 he reached the figure. The heap was a 
 dazed, half fainting woman. The fire was 
 already touching her garments. Without 
 losing a second he gathered her up uncere 
 moniously and started for the entrance. 
 Instinctively she buried her face in his 
 
 [69]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 coat, and in a moment they had gained the 
 door and were out in the open air. As he 
 passed through the doorway her foot, 
 hanging limp over his arm, struck against 
 the door-post. A sharp cry of pain broke 
 from her lips. Something seemed to re 
 store her to full consciousness. He had 
 no time to inquire what it was at the mo 
 ment, for he dropped her on the grass 
 he observed that she could not stand 
 and began tearing the smouldering skirt 
 from her, getting his hands well burned in 
 the process. When that operation was 
 finished he lifted her up again, carried her 
 farther away from the house, and placed 
 her once more upon the grass. 
 
 " My thesis ! " she gasped out, as he 
 laid her down for the last time. " I went 
 back for it and " 
 
 ; Where is it? " he asked abruptly. 
 
 He was a college man and he could un 
 derstand her anxiety. Something in the 
 spirit of a person who, having escaped 
 death as it were by the skin of the teeth, 
 [70]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and who was evidently suffering great an 
 guish, from her white, drawn face, who 
 could yet think of a thesis, appealed to him. 
 
 " Where is it?" 
 
 " I tried the front stairs," she said, 
 " but it was too late. Then I came down 
 the blind stairway into the kitchen. When 
 I opened the door I fell and dropped 
 the thesis. I have worked for two years 
 on it." 
 
 " I ll get it," he said, turning and leav 
 ing her. 
 
 It was a foolish and foolhardy per 
 formance to which he had so simply en 
 gaged himself. Had he been older he 
 would never have dreamed of such a thing. 
 And, to do her justice, if she had been 
 quite herself Alicia would never have sug 
 gested or allowed it. She could cheerfully 
 risk her own life for such a cause, but she 
 would not have permitted another to do so. 
 Yet he made the endeavor, and success- 
 fully. The fire was much hotter than it 
 had been, but it was still possible for him
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to pass over the floor, though now he knew 
 he went at the risk of his life. It was 
 blazing all around the spot where the roll 
 of paper had lodged, but the precious docu 
 ment was still intact. He repeated his for 
 mer precaution, then plunged recklessly in. 
 This time he had no heavy woman to carry 
 out, and it was well that he had not, for 
 his clothes were flaming when he reached 
 the door. He had taken no serious hurt, 
 however, and he rolled himself on the 
 ground instantly, which put out the fire, 
 although the thesis got badly crushed in 
 the process. Then he hurried to where he 
 had left the girl lying on the grass. 
 
 " I have it ! " he cried. 
 
 She made no answer, and, looking closer 
 at her, he discovered that she had fainted. 
 It was the first opportunity he had to more 
 than glance at her, and the fire gave him 
 light enough to see that she was beautiful. 
 His gaze swept her from head to foot. 
 One of her feet, without its shoe, was ex 
 tended on the grass beneath the charred 
 [72]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 petticoat in an unnatural position. An 
 other man might not have noticed any 
 thing amiss, but he was a physician ; being 
 young his professional instincts were the 
 stronger, and he stooped down to see 
 what injury she had sustained, for some 
 thing was wrong with the shoeless foot 
 evidently. 
 
 He was all action once more. Forget 
 ful of the fact that his hands were blis 
 tered, that his hair was singed grotesquely, 
 and that he was black with smoke and 
 burned in places, he drew his penknife 
 from his pocket, in default of other in 
 strument, lifted the little foot, skilfully 
 slit the girl s stocking, and laid bare her 
 ankle. A few manipulations, which be 
 spoke assurance and ability, apprised him 
 what was the trouble. It was a forward 
 dislocation of the ankle. The absence of 
 crepitation assured him that the ankle was 
 not broken. He glanced up from her 
 white foot to her whiter face. She was 
 still unconscious. If he could reduce the 
 [73]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 dislocation before she revived she would 
 thank him in the end. 
 
 He seized the ankle in his strong, skilled 
 hands, worked over it for a moment, and 
 finally forced the bones back into place. 
 His instincts and observations, since he had 
 discovered the accident, had been entirely 
 impersonal and scientific, he had handled 
 her with the impassivity of his profession. 
 Not until he had completed the task did 
 he notice the beauty of the foot and ankle 
 in his hand, and at that moment, with a 
 cry, probably extorted from her by the 
 pain of the reduction, the girl lifted her 
 head, struggled a moment, raised herself 
 upon her arm, and stared at him in bewil 
 derment. 
 
 " Saved now," he said, smiling at her 
 cheerfully, " and your ankle will be all 
 right with a little nursing." 
 
 "My thesis?" 
 
 " Here it is." 
 
 " Thank you very " 
 
 At that juncture Miss Winthrop, at- 
 [74]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tended by some of the girls, burst upon 
 the scene. She had only at the last mo 
 ment bethought her of the back of the 
 house. She saw the kneeling figure and 
 the recumbent one. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried. " Have you ? " 
 
 " She is safe, madam," said the man, 
 rising to his feet. " She had come down 
 to the kitchen. I got in without difficulty, 
 and we got out without much more. She 
 had gone back for her thesis, and found 
 her escape cut off." He discreetly said 
 nothing about his own part in rescuing that 
 document. " The young lady is all right, 
 too, with the exception of a dislocation of 
 her ankle, which she got in the kitchen, 
 and which absolutely prevented her from 
 moving. The pain must have been fright 
 ful. I fear I banged it against the door 
 post in bringing her out. As it is, I have 
 just taken advantage of her unconscious 
 condition to reduce the sprain I am a 
 physician and all she needs now is good 
 bandaging and careful nursing." 
 
 [751
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Oh, sir," began the principal, stooping 
 down and gathering the girl in her arms, 
 " you have done nobly, you are " 
 
 " It s nothing, Miss Winthrop," said 
 the young man, smiling through his grime 
 and smoke and pain, " nothing at all. 
 Any man would have done it." 
 
 " I cannot allow you to say so, sir," said 
 the principal. " This is Miss Alicia Chal- 
 den. Her father there will be a 
 reward " 
 
 " To have been of service to Miss Chal- 
 den is reward enough," interrupted the 
 young man lightly. " But I think," with 
 an apprehensive glance toward the dormi 
 tory, " that we would better move farther 
 from the house. The walls might come 
 down at any moment, and if you will al 
 low me, the young lady can hardly walk 
 yet " he stooped down once more and 
 lifted the girl in his arms again. Before 
 he did so he put her thesis in her hand. 
 Followed by the grateful principal and
 
 the other girls he carried her toward the 
 nearest dormitory. 
 
 By this time a fire company from Phila 
 delphia, accompanied by physicians, had 
 arrived on a special train. 
 
 " If you will carry her in there," said 
 Miss Winthrop, pointing to the first room 
 off the hall, " I will advise these people 
 as to what is to be done and return in a 
 moment." 
 
 The young man accordingly deposited 
 his burden on a couch in the parlor and 
 turned away. The girl caught his hand. 
 
 You have saved my life, and my the 
 sis: I had worked years on that," she mur 
 mured. " I shall never forget you." 
 
 " It is nothing, Miss Chalden," an 
 swered the young man, striving gently to 
 draw away his hand. 
 
 " It s everything to me," she answered. 
 " We have looked death in the face to 
 gether." 
 
 There was a world of meaning in the 
 [77]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 words. His heart leaped at the sound of 
 them, and then, before he could divine her 
 intention, she lifted his burned and bleed 
 ing hand to her lips and kissed it. Then 
 she sank back on the couch, exhausted by 
 all that she had gone through. Leaving 
 her with some of the teachers and her class 
 mates, the young man quickly withdrew 
 from the room and, unnoticed in the con 
 fusion, traversed the campus, climbed pain 
 fully over the fence, mounted his horse, 
 and galloped away. He had been passing 
 the grounds by the merest chance, when he 
 had seen the fire, and had come to do what 
 he could. And he had done it. 
 
 It was not until next morning that Miss 
 Winthrop and Alicia Chalden, in talking 
 over the gallant rescue, realized that they 
 had not learned the name of the man who 
 had so superbly met the emergency. 
 
 178]
 
 V 
 
 IN the two months that had elapsed 
 since the burning of Hulswood Hall 
 Doctor William Penn Whyot had managed 
 to see Miss Alicia Chalden three or four 
 times, each time himself unseen. He had, 
 of course, immediately satisfied himself by 
 thorough if concealed inquiry that she had 
 sustained no permanent injury from her 
 adventure. 
 
 Whyot was no drone in the world s 
 affairs. He worked as hard at his pro 
 fession as the poorest doctor ever did. 
 Most of his patients were among the very 
 poor, who, in accordance with the peculiar 
 arrangement of Philadelphia, lived at his 
 back door, within a stone s throw of the 
 Pine Street quarter. He was a scientist 
 and a physician because he loved his pro 
 fession, and for no other reason. But 
 whenever he could take the time for a ride 
 [79]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in the country, since the fire, he had in 
 stinctively turned his horse so as to pass by 
 the Brookford College grounds. There he 
 had seen Alicia watching the others playing 
 tennis, it was before the days of golf in 
 America at least or he had caught fleet 
 ing glimpses of her once in a while strolling 
 under the old trees. 
 
 He was in love with her. The one or 
 two glimpses he had caught of her face in 
 the firelight that night had impressed her 
 beauty upon his consciousness as a more 
 conventional sight could never have done. 
 He could not explain his feeling for her, 
 nor could he understand how it had arisen. 
 But however it was, he had to recognize 
 the fact. He had read of such things, and 
 laughed now he knew they were true. 
 He made no struggle. Why should he? 
 He loved her, in secret, but with an increas 
 ing, possessing, consuming passion as burn 
 ing in his soul as the fire through which 
 he had carried her. There was no attempt 
 on his part to disguise the fact from him- 
 [80]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 self, although naturally he told no one else. 
 He was alone in the world with the excep 
 tion of the widowed aunt and his bachelor 
 uncle who lived in another Pine Street 
 house near his own. They should know in 
 due time, meanwhile he would keep it to 
 himself. The man and eke the woman 
 who keeps his love affairs to himself is 
 apt to prove the most successful lover. 
 
 The circumstances of his meeting with 
 Alicia had been so strange and so roman 
 tic; as she had said, when she had kissed his 
 hand, they had looked death in the face 
 together, and in that glance love had been 
 born; therefore, so he reasoned, they be 
 longed to each other forever. The papers 
 rang with accounts of the gallant and 
 heroic rescue of the millionaire s daughter 
 and her thesis, but no one discovered his 
 name, and he kept it religiously secret. He 
 did not wish to make himself known to her 
 yet. He ascertained that she would grad 
 uate in the spring he might have guessed 
 that from the affair of the thesis and he 
 [Si]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 resolved to wait until then. Waiting would 
 do no harm, he reasoned, with unusual 
 astuteness for a lover, and he was right. 
 
 There was a fierceness of purpose, an 
 intensity of energy about the doctor that 
 was utterly absent from the other members 
 of his family, which, indeed, had not been 
 evidenced by any of them for generations. 
 He had a touch of the temperament of his 
 old French ancestor, and when to this 
 resurrected strain of dashing gallantry and 
 gayety was added the dogged determina 
 tion of his German cross well, Alicia, if 
 she had known anything about it, might as 
 well have surrendered without a struggle. 
 
 Alicia did not know anything about it, 
 of course. She did not even know the 
 name of her gallant rescuer, but neverthe 
 less she was quite prepared to surrender 
 when the demand was made. 
 
 The fleeting glimpses she had caught in 
 
 the firelight of the doctor s face, smoked 
 
 and scorched though it was, had moved 
 
 her strangely. He had burst upon her in 
 
 [82]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 her direst hour, when she had commended 
 herself to God and given up hope peo 
 ple do not usually commend themselves to 
 God until they have lost hope, by the way ! 
 She recalled the quick, masterful way 
 with which, without explanation or un 
 necessary words, he had effected her res 
 cue. In the midst of her terror she had 
 been conscious of the strength with which 
 he had held her to him and carried her 
 through that inferno until she had fainted. 
 Even the thrill of exquisite anguish which 
 had brought her out of her unconscious 
 ness and discovered him at her feet, was 
 sweet in her memory. She would willing 
 ly suffer to see him there once more. Yet 
 in the privacy of her chamber, when her 
 heart lingered upon the picture, the blood 
 rushed to her face like another flame as 
 she thought of the man at her bare foot. 
 She could not at all regard him in the 
 light of a physician. It was in Alicia s 
 mind a lover who was there and Alicia 
 was right. 
 
 [83]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 A benefit conferred oftentimes means a 
 friendship shattered, but there are rare 
 natures which it binds with the grappling 
 hooks of gifts remembered. Alicia s was 
 one of these. One might not have said 
 that she loved the doctor. Men yield 
 first to, and acknowledge most freely, the 
 passion. Women are passive, less daring, 
 until the acknowledgment is made, then 
 they more often become the bolder sex. 
 Yet at a touch Alicia was ready to yield 
 and she did not even know the name of 
 the man ! 
 
 Such inquiries as they could make Miss 
 Winthrop had caused to be put in circula 
 tion, but no one could tell anything. Her 
 rescuer, Alicia learned from her college- 
 mates, had appeared as suddenly as if he 
 had dropped from the clouds. He had 
 done his work promptly and successfully, 
 and then had vanished, taking her kiss 
 upon his hand away with him. Had it not 
 been for the burning building, the long, 
 tedious days of recovery from her dislo- 
 [84]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 cated ankle, the crumpled thesis which, 
 to her joy, she found practically intact 
 she might have believed it all a dream. 
 
 Alicia was vastly provoked at her in 
 ability to find out anything about the man. 
 Even her powerful father, who had set in 
 motion all the resources at his command 
 and that practically amounted to every 
 thing in Philadelphia of value was unable 
 to discover anything. And her ignorance 
 of the man made him the more interesting 
 to her. It is the unknown that we fear, but 
 it is also the unknown that appeals. In ig 
 norance of his character or characteristics, 
 she made a hero of him. Perhaps that ig 
 norance is necessary to the making of 
 heroes in the present. She endowed him 
 with every grace and every virtue, and then 
 she loved the ideal she had created the 
 usual way. 
 
 Philip Chalden had offered to proclaim 
 
 a vast reward in the hope of bringing the 
 
 unknown man to light, but Alicia, with 
 
 clearer insight, had refused to allow it. 
 
 [85]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 There are services rendered by some 
 people, that is which cannot be paid 
 with money. Alicia divined that this man 
 was such an one. She could not have 
 loved him otherwise. He would not have 
 been her hero then. Money would be 
 nothing to such an one as he. She stood 
 ready though she did not admit it 
 to say yes to any other demand for reward 
 he might make, even to giving him her 
 self. Ah, Doctor Whyot was a wise man 
 indeed and a fortunate as well. 
 
 Alicia longed for a sight of her rescuer 
 once more, but she did not despair of see 
 ing him, and soon. She was young, just 
 turned twenty-one, when the accident oc 
 curred, and she had abundant hope. She 
 was firmly convinced that Heaven had 
 arranged the first meeting in spite of 
 the fact that a building had to be burned 
 down to bring it about, which was illogical 
 but feminine and she was equally as 
 sured that in a short time in some other 
 way another meeting would occur even 
 [86]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 if another building had to be burned down ! 
 So she allowed the image of the man, or 
 perhaps it would be more truthful to say 
 her ideal of him, constantly to grow greater 
 in her heart, arid she waited for him with 
 such patience as she could muster. 
 
 Possibly Alicia would have been more 
 unhappy in her ignorance had it not been 
 that she had a mission in her life. A mis 
 sion is often a salvation in an emergency 
 or crisis. That mission was the ameliora 
 tion of the condition of the negro. She 
 knew nothing practically about the negro. 
 Her earliest memories were of an ancient 
 Italian town where she believed she had 
 been born. It had been only fifteen years 
 since her father had returned to America, 
 bringing her with him, and all that time 
 she had been at school, first in the prepara 
 tory department auxiliary to Brookford 
 College, then in the college itself. But if 
 her practical acquaintance with the subject 
 was nothing, her theoretical knowledge was 
 great. Reality and theory are usually in 
 [87]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 inverse ratio to each other, especially in 
 sociological discussions. 
 
 The college, on account of the deserved 
 ly high reputation of its principal, and be 
 cause of the excellence of its faculty, had 
 a very high standing among similar insti 
 tutions, and many people there were from 
 New England who matriculated thereat. 
 Alicia had fallen under the influence of 
 some of the most advanced thinkers upon 
 the subject as represented in New Eng 
 land, Miss Winthrop herself being from 
 an ancient Boston family. The tendency 
 of that section at that time and Miss 
 Winthrop adequately represented it was 
 not only to consider the negro as a man 
 and a brother, but almost as a man and a 
 superior, although temporarily in reduced 
 circumstances and humble condition. If 
 the actualities of the negro were nothing, 
 his possibilities were everything. Alicia s 
 idea of ameliorating the condition of the 
 negro was, first of all, to convince him of 
 his absolute and inherent equality with 
 [88]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the dominant race from every point of 
 view. 
 
 She literally threw her splendid person 
 ality into hard study of the problem from 
 books and theorists. There was not a 
 negro within ten miles of Brookford 
 College upon whom she could experi 
 ment, but the literature on the subject, 
 which was at that time mainly written by 
 New England people, was at her com 
 mand. She determined to devote all she 
 could command of her father s fortune, 
 which she vaguely realized was a vast one, 
 to the forcing of the social, intellectual, 
 moral, spiritual, legal and every other 
 kind of adjectival recognition of the 
 negro by everybody who did not think as 
 she. That her father might have some 
 thing to say upon that subject, that he 
 might have an opinion of his own, had 
 never occurred to her. 
 
 Alicia was as enthusiastic as she was ig 
 norant, as visionary as she was beautiful, 
 and as determined as she was impractical 
 [89]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a dangerous combination of faults, virt 
 ues, power, she. Hers was an unusual 
 mission, but then Alicia was an unusual 
 girl in many respects. She had wondered 
 how the unknown man who had suddenly 
 swept her to his heart, and into his heart 
 perhaps, and had become an integral part 
 of her future dreams, might regard such 
 an idea. Well, he should never be any 
 thing to her he had got that far in her 
 affections, you see if he were not will 
 ing to co-operate in every way in her de 
 sign. 
 
 Alicia was the first student in her class. 
 And she sacrificed no womanly grace or 
 charm in reaching that position. She was 
 a sort of " Admirable Crichton " among 
 the femininity of Brookford. Consequent 
 ly, at her graduation, she was allotted the 
 closing essay and valedictory. The thesis 
 upon which she had won her doctorate 
 in philosophy, which was to be con 
 ferred at the commencement exercises, was 
 upon the integral equality of the black and 
 [90]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 white races of all sorts and colors of 
 men, in fact. Doctor Whyot, on account of 
 his family connection with the college, had 
 always received invitations to the graduat 
 ing exercises, which he had never before 
 attended. He had counted upon the in 
 vitation during the two months that in 
 tervened between the momentous day and 
 the night of the fire, and this time, to the 
 great surprise of the principal, he promptly 
 accepted. He would see Alicia again face 
 to face and make himself known. What 
 would the result be ? 
 
 When he came into the great hall of the 
 college he paid his respects to Miss Win- 
 throp, as in duty bound, and was greeted 
 with flattering empressement by that worthy 
 lady, who naturally failed to recognize the 
 scorched and somewhat blackened mysteri 
 ous adventurer of the burning building in 
 the handsome, distinguished, well-dressed 
 young man before her. The same feeling 
 which had kept Whyot from making him 
 self known to Alicia induced him to take 
 [91]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a seat far back in the audience. He lis 
 tened in a perfunctory manner to the pro 
 found and subtle efforts of the young en 
 thusiasts who grappled with subjects that 
 had engaged the minds of wise men and 
 women for centuries and settled them 
 out of hand. He heard, with a smile of 
 amusement, possible Utopias outlined and 
 Orphic mysteries revealed by some femi 
 nine voice coming to him from billows of 
 lace and parterres of tulle. He longed 
 the while for the time when he should hear 
 Alicia attempt the solution of the greatest 
 problem that presses upon the American 
 people her subject he read on the pro 
 gramme the problem that began when 
 the Jesus, a Dutch man-of-war of ill-sorted 
 name, brought twenty " negars " into 
 Jamestown in 1620, and which grows 
 greater with every passing decade in the 
 history of the Republic What to do 
 with the negro ! Not that he should care 
 much for Alicia s opinion, he thought, but 
 merely that he might hear her voice again. 
 [92]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The negroes, to whom a large portion of 
 his skill and knowledge was devoted, were 
 very fond of Doctor Whyot. He did his 
 duty by them impartially, treated them 
 just as he did the other poor patients who 
 clamored at his door, but he did it under 
 mental duress. He disliked the negro on 
 every account, but so stern was his idea of 
 duty that, in his endeavor not to discrimi 
 nate against them, probably he overstepped 
 the mark upon the other side, and showed 
 them more favor and kindness than they 
 otherwise would have received therefore 
 they loved him. Among the whole race, 
 as he had come in contact with it, there was 
 but one whom he really respected, and that 
 was a certain man who had been a class 
 mate of his at Harvard. 
 
 When he had first noticed Alicia s sub 
 ject upon the programme, he had been con 
 scious of a faint feeling of disgust, not 
 with her, but with the subject and that 
 she should have wasted herself upon so 
 hopeless a problem. The disgust vanished 
 [93]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the minute Alicia stepped on the plat 
 form. 
 
 Heavens! He had never dreamed of 
 beauty like that. The clear, passionate 
 paleness of her face, the gray brilliancy of 
 her eyes, the scarlet fulness of her lips, the 
 mass of blue-black hair above her broad 
 brow, were the only details that he could 
 discern from his distant point of view, but 
 the poise of her head, her carriage, the 
 grace with which she stepped forward, the 
 dignity in bow and manner, all impressed 
 him profoundly. 
 
 He was conscious of birth and breeding. 
 The outward signs, the evidences of aris 
 tocracy and long descent, upon which those 
 who possess them love to dwell and at 
 which those who do not, love to mock 
 were all there. The slender hand that 
 held the thesis, the curve and sweep of her 
 figure, and the foot advanced beneath her 
 skirt ah, that was scarcely discernible 
 from where he sat, but the remembrance 
 of it was hidden in his heart. 
 [94]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Her voice, low and somewhat languid, 
 as befitted her southern and semi-oriental 
 appearance, nevertheless penetrated to the 
 extreme end of the hall. His heart would 
 have heard it and beat at the sound of it, 
 though it had been earth in its earthy bed, 
 he thought. He watched the parted lips 
 as one fascinated, the lips that had pressed 
 his hand. He looked down upon that 
 brown and hardy member, and involun 
 tarily started to raise it to his own lips. Of 
 what the girl was saying he was hardly 
 conscious. She could say what she pleased, 
 he did not care. She might do what she 
 pleased, it made no difference to him. He 
 had known that he loved her as he had 
 galloped up the avenue and gazed at her 
 under the trees, but now he realized it with 
 a different force, it was a revelation. Why 
 had he waited so long ? He had been a fool ! 
 
 And suddenly, like an electric flash, the 
 
 girl s eyes fastened themselves upon him. 
 
 She saw, she recognized, she conquered, 
 
 she was conquered. A slow color flooded 
 
 [95]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 her face. For a moment she hesitated, fal 
 tered, and then recovering herself she went 
 on. In that great assemblage, after that, 
 she saw only this man. She spoke only to 
 him. She was dealing with a thing dearest 
 to her mind and pleading with the person 
 nearest to her heart. She instinctively 
 realized, with the first flash of recognition 
 between them, that he, if he thought about 
 it at all, would be unfriendly to her posi 
 tion; and she set herself, with the enthusi 
 asm of that love which craves unity and 
 harmony reciprocation to reach its 
 highest development, to convince him, to 
 make him think as she. 
 
 All that she had studied and read for 
 three years, all that she had written and 
 rewritten, it flashed into her mind, had 
 been to enable her to convince this one 
 man. She forgot the negro as she pleaded 
 for the allegiance of this man; and she 
 received it. Such pleading would have 
 moved a stone. With an eloquence for 
 eign to woman, which was enhanced by the 
 [96]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 very unusualness of her subject, and by her 
 beauty and charm, she moved him to ac 
 quiescence, and she also carried the rest of 
 the audience with her. It wa-s a reflex 
 reaction caused by the earnest and power 
 ful appeal to the man she loved, and who 
 loved her. 
 
 The hall rang with applause as she fin 
 ished. Men and women stood up and 
 clapped and clapped again and again a 
 most unusual proceeding for Philadelphia, 
 which may be accounted for by the fact 
 that Brookford College gathered its stu 
 dents and its audience from all parts of 
 the country. It was such a triumph as 
 few young women have ever achieved. 
 Miss Winthrop, in her long connection 
 with the college, could remember nothing 
 like it. The happy principal s voice trem 
 bled with emotion as she bestowed upon 
 the happier girl for she had convinced 
 the one whose opinion she valued ! the 
 coveted degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
 summa arm laude! 
 
 [97]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Philip Chalden had never cared much 
 for his daughter before. He had done a 
 father s duty by her, he had provided her 
 with everything she could wish for, he had 
 seen that she lacked nothing, that she was 
 well cared for, and then he had mainly left 
 her to others ; but that night, as he sat back 
 in the far corner of the room, he thrilled 
 with pride. He was a loveless, lonely old 
 man. Alicia and himself constituted his 
 family. Now the girl was a success. She 
 knew something. Hard-hearted, practical 
 as he was, with centuries of inherited preju 
 dice from his Southern forebears in oppo 
 sition to her views, she did not convince 
 him for a single moment; he could have 
 torn her arguments to tatters, but she had 
 spoken with such grace and charm and 
 spirit; she had made such a good thing 
 out of an impossible proposition; she had 
 proved such a good advocate in a desperate 
 situation desperate from his standpoint 
 and she was so convinced herself that 
 her position was unassailable, her logic 
 [98]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 unquestionable, her conclusions absolute, 
 that the old man, who liked confidence, and 
 success, and who worshipped ability as his 
 god, felt strangely drawn toward her. If 
 she could thus advocate an absurd and er 
 roneous view, what might she not do with 
 truth! And yet the strangeness of her 
 subject came home to him as to no one 
 else who heard her. That subject 
 and he smiled in mockery as he remem 
 bered. 
 
 So two men in that great audience 
 looked upon the girl that night with eyes 
 of affection a lover and a father. It 
 was she herself who brought them to 
 gether. Compelled by an irresistible de 
 sire Whyot had gone toward her after the 
 exercises were over. He had waited on 
 the outskirts of the throng buzzing around 
 her with praise and congratulations, until 
 she disposed of them all, and turned eager 
 ly to him. It seemed ages to her before 
 she could devote to him a moment s atten 
 tion. A little eddy in the passing crowd 
 [99]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 left them alone for the moment, and others 
 approaching, seeing the intentness of her 
 greeting, stepped aside. 
 
 " Miss Chalden," he began as she ex 
 tended her hand, both hands, to him, " it 
 was magnificent ! " 
 
 " I am so glad you have come back to 
 me," she said softly, forgetful of every 
 thing else. " I can thank you now." 
 
 "Don t! It was a happiness to serve 
 you " he bent such a glance upon her 
 that brought the color to her pale face. 
 " I would lay down my life for you," he 
 added simply. 
 
 In the meeting of a great passion con 
 ventionalities are swept away. The love 
 in his heart spoke in his voice, flamed in 
 his eyes. They had looked death in the 
 face together, they both remembered again. 
 And the woman, in the midst of that 
 crowded hall, heard his voice, divined his 
 love, and returned it. The long lashes he 
 marked curving so gracefully swept her 
 cheek for a moment, then she lifted her
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 eyes, and looked upon him bravely, her 
 soul in her swimming glance. 
 
 " I know," she whispered breathlessly, 
 " I know." 
 
 And thus the compact was sealed, never 
 to be broken. So they thought. 
 
 " I do not know your name," she said 
 at last, smiling faintly up at him; tall as 
 she was, he towered above her. 
 
 It was only a detail now, she knew the 
 man, nothing else mattered. 
 
 "Whyot," he answered; "William 
 Penn Whyot." 
 
 " Father," she said, suddenly turning to 
 the older man, who had at last come tow 
 ard her. 
 
 " Alicia," said Chalden, " I am proud 
 of you. It was all wrong, but it was 
 splendid." 
 
 That was more praise than she had ever 
 received from the silent man. His sincer 
 ity spoke in his look and voice. 
 
 " Father," she continued, smiling with 
 pleasure and turning again, " this is Doc-
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tor Whyot. He carried me out of the 
 dormitory the night of the fire. I have 
 found him at last." 
 
 " Sir," said the older man, grasping the 
 hand of the younger, with more feeling 
 than he had shown for years, " you have 
 laid me under an inestimable obligation. I 
 never realized it until to-night. How can 
 I requite you? " 
 
 " Sir, there is a way," said Doctor Why 
 ot, looking the other boldly in the face, 
 with a courage and directness which 
 matched his own. 
 
 " Here," thought Philip Chalden, real 
 izing his meaning, " is a young man who 
 is not afraid." 
 
 There were few people who could look 
 Philip Chalden in the face without blench 
 ing. He felt the same stimulus and pleas 
 ure when a man looked at him in that way 
 that a fencer feels when the first thrust and 
 parry tells him that his blade is crossed by 
 one worthy of all his skill and courage. 
 
 As for Alicia Chalden, she trembled 
 
 I02
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with delicious pleasure as she heard her 
 lover s answer. It could mean but one 
 thing. And then, before they could say 
 anything further, the crowd swept them 
 apart, and the romance of their lives was 
 begun. 
 
 Was it to be a meeting only to be swept 
 apart in the end? 
 
 C 103]
 
 VI 
 
 THE Major s interview with the mill 
 ionaire had about decided the ques 
 tion in Chalden s mind, and the day after 
 he gave his final consent to an engagement 
 between Alicia and her lover. There were 
 reasons why the marriage between Alicia 
 and Doctor Whyot appeared especially de 
 sirable to Philip Chalden. No definite 
 date was set for the wedding, however, 
 although it was tacitly understood that it 
 should take place late in the approaching 
 fall. Chalden had stipulated that there 
 should be no undue precipitation in the 
 affair he wished to assure himself of the 
 genuineness of his daughter s feelings for 
 one thing and the doctor acquiesced in 
 the delay more willingly in the hope that 
 time might enable him to propitiate his 
 wrathful little uncle. 
 
 [ 104]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Alicia, who went little into society 
 there would be time enough for that after 
 her marriage was happy in her freedom 
 from even the gentle tutelage of Brook- 
 ford, and in her new love and lover. She 
 was quite content to wait until the autumn. 
 So the arrangement pleased everybody, 
 even the Major, who hoped against hope 
 that the delay might help him. The Ma 
 jor had altered his will, but had not yet 
 cut the acquaintance of his nephew. It 
 would not do to crush him altogether at 
 once. A sort of armed truce subsisted be 
 tween them. 
 
 Although Chalden offered his prospec 
 tive son-in-law various positions of trust 
 and responsibility in one or another of his 
 vast undertakings, the doctor preferred to 
 follow his profession, for the time at least, 
 and he sturdily continued his practice, see 
 ing Alicia, now that she had taken up her 
 abode at the North Broad Street house, 
 much more frequently than when she had 
 been at Brookford. There was a streak 
 [105]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of her father s business capacity and tenac 
 ity of purpose in Alicia, and all the mo 
 ments not occupied with her lover she de 
 voted to the negro. 
 
 There lived in Philadelphia at the time 
 a clergyman named Henry Olney. He 
 was the rector of the Episcopal Church of 
 the Cyrenian. There were several churches 
 for colored people in the city, and this was 
 the humblest of them all. It was located 
 in the midst of that locality where the 
 great mass of the poorer negroes were 
 compelled literally by the pressure upon 
 them of Jews and Gentiles to live. It 
 was a mission which was carried on by the 
 white people and was under the control 
 of the great Episcopal Church of the 
 diocese. 
 
 As if to compensate the church for its 
 lowly condition and the wretched character 
 of its people, its priest was by far the ablest 
 of those who ministered to the colored peo 
 ple in the city of Philadelphia. Indeed, on 
 the score of character, ability, and educa- 
 [106]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tion, he could stand among the best of the 
 clergy of the city without regard to any 
 conditions. After a course in Arts and 
 Letters, in which he had taken highest 
 honors at Harvard, he had prepared for 
 the ministry at the General Theological 
 Seminary in New York. His work at the 
 Cyrenian Church had been successful to a 
 marked degree, considering the conditions 
 under which he labored, and he had the re 
 spect of all the right thinking portion of 
 the community. 
 
 Still he was not a happy man. He was 
 perhaps the loneliest man in the city of 
 Philadelphia, for the Reverend Henry 
 Olney was, technically speaking, a negro. 
 That is, he had one-sixteenth of negro 
 blood in him. In person, in manners, in 
 habits of life, and thought, he was prac 
 tically a white man. The most rigorous 
 scrutiny failed to discover the slightest evi 
 dence that he was a man of color. If he 
 had lived where his ancestry was unknown, 
 and if he had so desired, he could have 
 [
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 passed for a white man without question. 
 His association, especially at college, where 
 his character and ability had made him 
 much liked, had always been with white 
 people. He was unmarried and had no 
 relatives that he could recall. He had 
 worked his way through college and owed 
 no man anything. In every sense of the 
 word he was a gentleman; in thought as 
 well as in action, in looks as well as in 
 education, yet he stood before the world 
 as a black man. 
 
 However hard his lot, however lonely 
 his situation, there was not the slightest in 
 tention on his part of denying it. It was 
 bitter injustice, of course, that that one 
 small infiltration of black blood should 
 dominate the more virile stock from which 
 he sprang, should cut him off from that 
 dominant race which contributed fifteen- 
 sixteenths to his physical, and sixteen-six- 
 teenths to his mental and spiritual entity, 
 yet such was the case. Inexorable custom, 
 more rigid than the ancient Median law, 
 [108]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 had passed its decree. He took up his 
 cross, a heavier cross perhaps than that the 
 Cyrenian was he, too, a black man? 
 had carried after our Saviour, and fol 
 lowed after his Master uncomplainingly. 
 
 There was a great meeting in the Acad 
 emy of Music under the auspices of the 
 Colored League, an Episcopal Church or 
 ganization for the advancement of the con 
 dition of the negro, a few nights after the 
 engagement between Alicia and Whyot, 
 which was to be addressed by the most 
 eminent member of the colored race in 
 America, the famous principal of the Tal- 
 ladega Institute; by the manager of one of 
 the great railroad systems of the country, 
 who was deeply concerned in the problem; 
 by the head of one of the largest merchan 
 dising concerns in America, where, by the 
 way, no negroes of whatever character or 
 ability could secure employment, save in 
 some menial capacity ; and by the Reverend 
 Henry Olney. 
 
 Alicia was there of course, so was Why- 
 [ 109 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ot. Where Alicia was there was he also. 
 He was trying his best to see things from 
 her point of view, and with fair success. 
 It is easy to see things from the viewpoint 
 of the woman with whom you are in love, 
 especially if that woman happens to be as 
 beautiful as you think she is, and you are 
 as wise as she thinks you. Deep down in 
 Whyot s heart was the old repugnance to 
 the negro against which he had always 
 fought. The friendship between him and 
 Olney, for he was the class-mate to whom 
 reference has been made, was genuine and 
 sincere. Yet he never would have dreamed 
 of inviting him to dinner as he would 
 others of his college-mates. The clergy 
 man had conquered the other man s liking, 
 but Whyot argued with himself that the 
 man was practically white in any event. In 
 that fate had allotted him the most un 
 fortunate social position to occupy that she 
 had to dispense, the young physician deeply 
 pitied his unfortunate friend. 
 
 The meeting was an entire success, 
 [no]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 that is, if a great congregation, brilliant 
 speeches, beautiful music, and fervid pray 
 ers are the elements that go to make up 
 a success. There were other things of 
 course, there would be results of some sort 
 possibly, but time only would show wheth 
 er anything permanent would be gained. 
 Vox et pr<eterea nihil was the usual result 
 of missionary or other public meetings of 
 this kind in the Academy of Music. Every 
 once in a while the reformers engaged it, 
 assembled a crowd, which called itself a 
 town meeting, hurled defiance at Chalden 
 and his henchmen, passed resolutions, ap 
 pointed committees, and with vast enthusi 
 asm adjourned. Nobody minded. The 
 people went away and forgot. The moun 
 tain labored and brought forth nothing, 
 " not even a mouse ! " 
 
 As a rule the speeches that evening were 
 all good, if not exactly palatable. The 
 eminent educator, whose remarks were fe 
 licitous to a wonderful degree, opened the 
 meeting by telling a story of a certain visit 
 [in]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 he had paid to the humble home of one of 
 his people in the far South. Coffee was 
 duly prepared, and when it was served his 
 black hostess asked his companion whether 
 he would like " hard sweetenin er saft." 
 Unfamiliar with the terminology, the com 
 panion chose " saft sweetenin ," whereupon 
 the ancient dame stuck her black finger into 
 the molasses jug, twisted up a large mass 
 of the sticky compound, and with her other 
 hand scraped it off into the coffee-cup ! 
 With this experience before him the dis 
 tinguished educator selected the alterna 
 tive. He asked for " hard sweetenin ," at 
 that the old woman bit off a huge piece from 
 a large lump of brown sugar and deposited 
 it in his cup ! The moral of the story, the 
 application of it, was that whatever the 
 audience got that night was bound to be 
 disagreeable to somebody. After that he 
 went on with his speech. 
 
 The propositions he advocated and the 
 conclusions at which he arrived might be 
 disagreeable to a majority of the congre- 
 
 [112]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 gation, but there was no question as to 
 their sympathy with the manner and meth 
 od of the speaker. Such apposite illustra 
 tions, such humorous comparisons, such 
 ingenious arguments, such shrewd applica 
 tions, and such exceedingly good stories, 
 had rarely been heard by such an assem 
 blage. The man won his auditors com 
 pletely in the end, and it was easy to see 
 that his success was the result, not of a 
 fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, 
 but of native ability of a rare and unusual 
 character. Due to his white blood 
 fairly or unfairly urged his critics. 
 
 The two white men followed him at 
 some distance, be it said. They were both 
 good, forceful speakers, but they lacked 
 the forensic capacity, the oratorical brill 
 iancy, and the native shrewdness and wit 
 of the other man. The theme of each 
 man was the regeneration of the negro by 
 practical education, with a great insistence 
 upon manual training. The social ques 
 tion was touched on but lightly, and the
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 two white men did not even mention it. 
 The first speaker, and he was in face and 
 voice and manner unmistakably of the 
 negro type, for all his white blood, had 
 said, incidentally, that when the negro 
 had proved himself worthy, social recog 
 nition would follow. Meanwhile the 
 question was academic and not under dis 
 cussion. 
 
 As it was academic, the unthinking por 
 tion of the audience did not pay much at 
 tention to the remark, although here and 
 there one keener than the rest noticed the 
 statement and resented it, for, talk as they 
 might, there existed in that audience, as 
 there would exist in any other body of 
 white people in almost any section of our 
 country, an inextinguishable, ineradicable 
 consciousness of domination. They never 
 would, under any circumstances, or at any 
 time, be willing to extend social recogni 
 tion to the negro. To break down that 
 prejudice would be real national suicide, as 
 to maintain it is to preserve the purity of
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the race. With a complete realization of 
 that prejudice for he was white enough, 
 singular contradiction! to feel it the 
 Reverend Henry Olney rose to close the 
 meeting. 
 
 Without hesitation or circumlocution he 
 announced, what to many in that great au 
 dience must have been news, his connection 
 with the black race. Indeed, to those who 
 did not know him such an announcement 
 was necessary. As he stood there in the 
 conventional black of the clergy, his pale, 
 intellectual face flushed with the conscious 
 ness of the position he occupied, he pleaded 
 for the uplifting of the great black mass 
 which is down below; the ignorant, half- 
 civilized people which has been brought in 
 contact in an instant, as it were, with a 
 civilization acquired through centuries of 
 difficulties; the dull, unreceptive, super 
 stitious slave-holden negro, so fondly and 
 fatuously dowered with the highest gift of 
 modern citizenship in a day; and expected 
 to learn the use in an hour of the things
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 which it had taken the most brilliant race 
 the sun ever shone upon centuries to mas 
 ter. And he appealed for help for this 
 great, constantly growing, submerged body 
 of ignorance, incompetency, and degrada 
 tion, the lowest class of the most pitiable 
 people on the face of the globe. 
 
 Unconsciously, without premeditation 
 indeed, he had intended to avoid any such 
 reference he enlarged his plea. Grad 
 ually his thoughts changed, he rose above 
 the dark strata, and stood forth the repre 
 sentative of another class, a higher, of 
 which he was by no means a single in 
 stance, the men of mixed blood ! the 
 people who were in varying degrees prac 
 tically white. He painted the helplessness 
 and hopelessness of their condition with 
 such fervor and force and eloquence as 
 fairly swept the audience off its feet. They 
 forgot that he was a negro. They forgot 
 that to admit the claim of one man, of 
 whatever the degree of black blood, was 
 to admit the claim of all. The hearts of 
 [116]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the people went out to him, and when the 
 offering for the work was taken up they 
 showed that where their hearts were there 
 went their treasure also. 
 
 The man sat down after a terrible ar 
 raignment of society for its arbitrary and 
 unreasoning barriers, after an awful con 
 trast between the dictates of humanity and 
 the plans of God. 
 
 " Rich and poor," he cried at last, his 
 voice ringing the ancient phrases through 
 that great hall, " the black and the white, 
 the brown and the red, the Lord, He is the 
 maker of them all. There shall be a coun 
 try where there is neither Greek nor Jew, 
 circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, 
 Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, 
 and in all." 
 
 So, with such burning, fiery eloquence, 
 might Paul himself have spoken. 
 
 And that was the first time Alicia saw 
 
 the Reverend Henry Olney. As they stood 
 
 on the steps of the North Broad Street 
 
 house that night Doctor Whyot and Alicia 
 
 [117]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 discussed, as they had ever since the meet 
 ing, the wonderful speech with which Olney 
 had closed it. 
 
 "Don t you pity the negro?" asked 
 Alicia. " Don t you realize the truth of 
 all that Mr. Olney has said? Oh, Will, 
 I don t know why you cannot see as I do ! 
 They are human beings, they have souls, 
 God made them. Why should we object 
 to them merely because of the accident of 
 color? Because their skins are darker than 
 ours? What has the color of a man s skin 
 to do with the color of his soul? Aren t 
 all souls white in the sight of God? How 
 dare we discriminate? " 
 
 " I don t know why, but we do discrim 
 inate," answered Whyot stubbornly; " you 
 do yourself, Alicia." 
 
 " I do not." 
 
 Yes, you do, and it is easy to prove it." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 Would you marry a black man, 
 Alicia?" 
 
 " Of course not! " with a little sudden 
 [118]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 movement of repulsion she sought vainly 
 to conceal. 
 
 "There you are! How would it be 
 possible to extend social recognition with 
 out marriage? That is the supreme and 
 final test of social equality, intermarriage, 
 the other things amount to nothing." 
 
 " But I would not marry an Indian, or 
 any but a member of my own race." 
 
 " Certainly not, but it s different with 
 the negro; I feel it, you feel it. Are you 
 not conscious that our race is the dominant 
 one?" 
 
 " Yes, it has become so; but what it has 
 become the black race may." 
 
 " Never ! " said Whyot firmly. " I feel 
 sorry for them, of course. I want to help 
 them, and I want to help you ; but frankly, 
 I cannot forget the conclusion forced upon 
 me as to the essential superiority of the 
 white race. Why, you yourself argue it 
 to me by merely being in existence. What 
 ever may have been the Divine plan origi 
 nally, at least they have become an in-
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ferior race. Their development has been 
 arrested. I speak from a scientific stand 
 point. Perhaps one of the primeval septs 
 was turned aside, climatic or other condi 
 tions laid a hand upon its descendants, and 
 said, thus far and no farther. 
 
 " But look at the men of talent among 
 the colored people." 
 
 " You can count them upon your fin 
 gers," answered Doctor Whyot; " and 
 those who have discovered any special apti 
 tude at all have the white man s blood in 
 them. That Talladega superintendent, for 
 instance, and as for the man who outshone 
 them all, Olney, and he is a man," added 
 the doctor, " he is practically entirely white. 
 Him, now, I profoundly pity. Why should 
 one-sixteenth of black blood utterly elimi 
 nate him from the race to which he legiti 
 mately belongs? It is rank injustice, but 
 the fact exists. He is the loneliest of white 
 men. In spite of himself, the man looks 
 down upon the negro; in spite of them 
 selves, the white people look down upon 
 
 [ 120]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 him. He can look forward to nothing but 
 a life of service. He is a slave to that one- 
 sixteenth of black blood. It is an eternal 
 fetter laid upon him, and he is one of the 
 best, the noblest fellows that ever lived, a 
 gentleman, and I am proud to consider him 
 my friend. Yes, I pity him with all my 
 heart." 
 
 " Yes," said Alicia, " his is the saddest 
 case. And how can we help him? " 
 
 " Sad," returned her lover, " it is ghast 
 ly. And I see no way to help him; but if 
 you find any way I ll loyally help you, 
 dear." 
 
 " I ll find a way to help him, and all of 
 them, please God, Will," responded the 
 girl, confidently. 
 
 " Perhaps you may; I hope so. Do you 
 know what I thought as I watched those 
 four men and heard them to-night? " 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 ; Well, I will admit, that on the score 
 of intelligence, the two black men, count 
 ing Olney as one of course, outmatched 
 
 [121]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the white men, and I will admit the two 
 white men tried to eliminate from their 
 discussions and succeeded anything 
 which in the slightest degree savored of 
 superiority, and I will admit, further, that 
 the two black men strove to eliminate 
 and did from their speeches anything 
 which savored of subordination, and yet as 
 I watched them I was conscious that there 
 were two men from the dominant race 
 talking down to the proposition, and two 
 men from a subordinate race talking up. 
 In spite of themselves that is what they 
 did, their separate and divergent mental 
 attitudes indicated it plainly. It all came 
 to me as it came if people will honestly 
 admit it to everyone in that room." 
 
 "Yes," admitted Alicia reluctantly, 
 " you are right." 
 
 " Did it come to you? " 
 
 " Yes it did," she answered, troub 
 led, but honest, " in spite of my reason, 
 my heart, everything, I must admit I felt 
 it. That is my weakness, my wickedness; 
 [ 122]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 I ought not to feel that way. I know that 
 it is wrong. Yet we seem the master race. 
 Ah, Will, and you are the master of the 
 master race, too." 
 
 He bent down toward her. 
 
 " But you will help me, won t you? I 
 will, I must, try to solve this problem. 
 There is a way, I want to find it. You 
 will help me? " 
 
 " I will," he answered, " in everything, 
 with all my soul." 
 
 " God bless you, and good-night." 
 
 Alicia s lips melted upon his own, and 
 she was gone. 
 
 There was that in her kisses which never 
 satisfied. Each one was an inspiration. 
 She never made herself cheap to her lover. 
 There was always something in reserve. 
 Whyot stood in the still night trembling 
 from the brief yet burning touch. The 
 girl was an angel and a saint. She was at 
 the same time passionate and holy. She 
 appealed to every side of him. 
 
 In one of the many discussions they had 
 [ 123 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 had he had told her what a woman ought 
 to be to a man. 
 
 " A man," he had said, " is many sided, 
 if he be worth anything in the world. He 
 has a sensuous side, an intellectual side, a 
 moral side, a working side, a playful side. 
 The woman who is to fill the measure of 
 his heart must content him in his every 
 mood. She must appeal to his senses by 
 her beauty; she must appeal to his mind by 
 her intellect; she must appeal to his moral 
 aspirations by her spirituality, and when 
 he wants to work or to play, she must be 
 ready. You content me, Alicia. May I 
 speak with due delicacy, and say that there 
 is nothing here," laying his hand upon his 
 breast, " no desire, no dream, no aspira 
 tion, which I do not find realized in you." 
 
 " It is not so with me, Will," she had 
 answered, smiling up at him from where 
 she sat on a footstool by his knee. 
 
 " Not so with you, darling? " he cried, 
 with a fierce pang at his heart at the 
 thought that he failed to satisfy her.
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " I know a better way than that," she 
 had whispered softly; "I don t want you 
 quite to content me; to me love that is sat 
 isfied begins to die. I do not wish you to 
 realize my ideal of you exactly, absolutely, 
 completely. I do not wish to feel that 
 your revelation of yourself is terminated, 
 that I have nothing to learn, or to discover, 
 since I know it all. Dear, I want to feel, 
 as I look at you, that there is something 
 more, that I do not quite master it all; 
 that there is something still to be sought 
 for, something that I may have the pleas 
 ure of finding. You almost content me ; I 
 do not want you to do it quite." 
 
 Ah, indeed was Alicia a Doctor of the 
 philosophy of love and that is life! 
 
 " My dear," Whyot had whispered, 
 after a little thoughtful silence, " yours is 
 the higher, the nobler, the better way." 
 
 Yes," she answered, nestling closer to 
 him. " Be a little but not too discontented 
 with me for what I have said. Let me 
 always be near, very near to the full 
 
 measure." 
 
 L 12 5]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 She had risen as she had spoken, and he 
 had stooped toward her and swept her to 
 his breast. 
 
 " Near my heart forever," he had cried, 
 and with that, as this night, she had kissed 
 him and had gone. 
 
 He thought of that conversation there 
 with her good-night kiss upon his lips as 
 he dimissed the coupe and walked down 
 the long, lonely, brightly lighted streets 
 toward his home. 
 
 There was a mystery about the girl, an 
 elusiveness. He never quite fathomed her. 
 As he progressed further and further in 
 her affection, in her confidence, in her 
 being, there was always a brighter vista 
 opened before him. Ah, yes, to be a little 
 discontented, in the sense in which she used 
 it, that was best, in love and in life. Alicia 
 was right. She was always right dear 
 Doctor of Philosophy. 
 
 Why hadn t she given him two kisses 
 that night instead of one? 
 
 [126]
 
 VII 
 
 THE great result of the meeting at 
 the Academy of Music, from Olney s 
 point of view, was that he had succeeded 
 in giving a practical direction to Alicia 
 Chalden s enthusiasm. He had an oppor 
 tunity to supplement her theory by his 
 knowledge, and she soon became the prin 
 cipal source of assistance for Olney s mis 
 sion work. Chalden, who had no use for 
 the negro in any other capacity than that 
 of a servant as a " nigger " he would 
 have phrased it watched her endeavors 
 with some amusement, mixed with not a 
 little contempt. 
 
 He had means enough to enable her to 
 indulge her whim, her fad, so he charac 
 terized it, to her heart s content. Alicia, 
 ignorant of the world, with but a vague 
 idea of money or its value, and with no 
 conception of the vastness of her father s 
 [ 127]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 financial resources, made no heavy de 
 mands upon his treasury. The sums that 
 seemed so large to her were trifling to 
 him. He never missed them, and if he 
 had would still have given her unlimited 
 range gladly. 
 
 Olney was keen enough to see how the 
 land lay, but he was too honorable a man 
 to take advantage of her inexperience, and 
 beside that, he was in love with her. In 
 love with her with a full realization of 
 the entire hopelessness of his position. In 
 love with her, with an iron determination 
 never by word, look, or gesture to betray 
 his passion to her or to anyone. 
 
 His manner toward her was perfect. 
 In no way did he give her the slightest 
 tangible clew to the feelings with which he 
 regarded her; yet, without being positively 
 aware of it, without stating the fact baldly 
 to herself, Alicia had some instinctive in 
 tuitive feminine perception of the way in 
 which Olney regarded her. She felt it in 
 some degree at least. If she had had any 
 [128]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 actual evidence to go upon, doubtless there 
 would have been an instant repulsion, but 
 the whole affair was so subtle that she felt 
 nothing but pity for the man. 
 
 He never presumed socially upon her 
 generous enthusiasm for his race. He 
 came often to the North Broad Street 
 house, but always upon legitimate business 
 with meet subjects for her deliberation. 
 When he finished his business he went 
 away. Indeed, in the shortness of his vis 
 its lay his safeguard. He could only con 
 trol himself for a limited time, the strain 
 was too great. Some day he felt the ten 
 sion would be too much for him. Then, 
 God help him, he would break. Mean 
 time, he would not see her except it were 
 necessary. He ought not to have seen her 
 at all after he recognized his feeling for 
 her, but then there was the mission, and 
 what she could do for it. His duty, and 
 his desire, ran parallel a rare occur 
 rence, for these things nearly always cross 
 at right angles. 
 
 [ I2 9 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Alicia had dragged Whyot to the mis 
 sion in her train. The college acquaint 
 ance between the two men had been re 
 sumed, and the doctor lent what assistance 
 mainly medical he could to the other 
 man s work. He had not the slightest 
 suspicion of the feeling Olney entertained 
 for Alicia. The suggestion of such a thing 
 would have seemed to him preposterous 
 as indeed it was an insult which it 
 certainly was not. In fact no one sus 
 pected it except the girl, and her con 
 sciousness was not sufficiently acute for 
 her to feel affronted not yet. The hap 
 piness and satisfaction she took in her own 
 love affair, the completeness of her self- 
 surrender to her lover, and the entirety of 
 his devotion to her, moved her the more to 
 a tender pity for the poor clergyman and 
 his hopeless passion. 
 
 As for Olney, he raged against the situa 
 tion in which he found himself involved. 
 Practically as well born, in one sense, as 
 Whyot, though out of wedlock, for the 
 
 [ 130]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 white blood in him came from a mixture 
 of some of the best strains of the oldest 
 and most aristocratic portion of Virginia; 
 as bright a student, as well educated a man 
 as the doctor, with a mind keener and more 
 subtle, with manners even more polished, 
 for greater necessity for circumspection 
 existed in his case than was required of one 
 whose position in society was so assured; 
 with a profession which was second to 
 none in dignity, honor, and unselfishness; 
 and with a consciousness of ability to 
 achieve, he could not see why that little 
 infiltration of black blood should remove 
 him so entirely from the possibility of 
 seeking the desire of his heart. 
 
 Why, in God s name, wasn t he as capa 
 ble, as fit a husband for Alicia Chalden as 
 any other man on earth? No man was fit 
 for her of course. That admission was 
 an evidence of the genuineness of his pas 
 sion, but at least there was no real reason 
 save that damned streak, with its inevita 
 ble implication of oft repeated illegitimacy
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 back in the line, which differentiated him 
 from the rest of the world. God! if he 
 had only been a black man, he would have 
 gloried in his color. But to be neither one 
 nor the other, to be set far above the black 
 man on the one hand, and far below the 
 white man on the other; to have all the 
 ambitions, aspirations, desires, and capaci 
 ties of the white man, and yet to be denied 
 all participation or fellowship with him, 
 and to be forced to turn for all that makes 
 life dear to the black race, or to another, 
 if he could find one, in a situation like unto 
 his own, and thus unite two discontents 
 into a mighty river of despair it was im 
 possible ! 
 
 The faith, the belief, the religion of the 
 Reverend Henry Olney trembled in the 
 passionate vortices in which his soul was 
 caught and tossed. He prayed, he ago 
 nized, he threw himself with redoubled 
 energy into his work. He forced himself 
 to see the girl with the outward calmness, 
 the indifference of a stranger. He steeled
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 his heart against the influence she exerted, 
 he mocked and despised himself for giving 
 way to a passion in which in his secret hours 
 he gloried and in vain. He succeeded 
 in but one thing. He loved the girl with 
 the tropic intensity of the South, yet amid 
 the inward conflict he gave no outward 
 sign. Not even Philip Chalden, with his 
 keen vision, could have detected it. Only 
 Alicia had that dim idea of it which she 
 pityingly put out of sight. 
 
 There lived in Chalden s household an 
 old black woman, who had been Philip 
 Chalden s nurse and in turn Alicia s. Aunt 
 Nancy was a member of Olney s congrega 
 tion. She had grown to love the young 
 man as if he had been her own son, and 
 he, respecting her sterling integrity, her 
 shrewd common sense and kindness of 
 heart, repaid her with kindly and affection 
 ate consideration. She was almost bed 
 ridden now, and he came often to see her. 
 Time was when Philip Chalden had stood 
 [ 133]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 highest in her heart, but the cares of the 
 world in which he lived had gradually en 
 grossed the man. He had lost the finer 
 feelings, and though he still treated his old 
 " mammy " with careless kindness and in 
 dulged her every material wish, he came 
 less and less often to see her. She simply 
 drifted out of his life. 
 
 There is a weak spot in every man s ar 
 mor, one point at least in which the other 
 wise invulnerable may be fatally stricken; 
 and the secret of success for the enemy is to 
 find the point. It was a petty stab in the 
 heel that laid mighty Achilles low. 
 
 This woman knew all about Chalden s 
 mysterious past, of course; but when he 
 thought about it at all he remembered that 
 she had known it all the time and she had 
 never spoken of it. She would never speak 
 of it. His was the confidence of custom, 
 begot by the habit of old assurance. He 
 had cautioned her enough at first, but of 
 late years the subject had not even been 
 mentioned between them. 
 
 [134]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 If he had considered it, it is probable, 
 nay, certain, that he would have reasoned 
 that self-interest, if no other motive were 
 potent, would keep her silent. What! If 
 loyalty were gone, would she venture to 
 strike at the hand that fed her, clothed her, 
 sheltered her? Would she open her lips 
 when to tell meant her beggary, the street 
 in her old age, severance from Alicia 
 from him? So confident was he that the 
 shadow of a doubt of her fidelity never en 
 tered his mind. Yet had he but thought of 
 it with the unbiassed clearness with which 
 he was accustomed to consider eventual 
 ities, he might have realized that there 
 would come a moment when his material 
 power, at least, would be unavailing, and 
 that if no other force existed to restrain 
 her, the situation, for him, would be pre 
 carious in the extreme. That would be the 
 moment when, not of choice but of neces 
 sity, she would be compelled to exchange 
 the comforts of her present home for a 
 narrower and more lasting abode. What, 
 
 [ 135]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 if just as she trembled on that eternal verge, 
 she should speak? 
 
 Chalden had done with women long 
 since. Like men of his calibre, he despised 
 them unless they were bad enough to be 
 useful to him, and he forgot that the most 
 potent force to undermine loyalty and kill 
 devotion is neglect. One cannot even 
 scorn a black woman with impunity, and 
 to a loving heart, especially a woman s, 
 worse even than scorn is indifference. 
 
 The old mammy had loved him when he 
 was a child and when he was a man. She 
 had been loyal and helpful to him in all 
 his troubles, and had taken pride in her 
 assistance to her master. In her old black 
 breast she had buried secrets, the mere pos 
 session of which might have killed a less 
 sturdy woman. She had been faithful to 
 him through years, but now a change had 
 come over the spirit of her dreams. She 
 had been left alone too much. 
 
 We have it from the Highest Authority 
 that it is not good for man to be alone, and 
 [136]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 it may not be gainsaid that solitude is even 
 worse for a woman, especially a woman of 
 Aunt Nancy s class, to whom attention, be 
 it only that we might bestow upon a dog, 
 is as the breath of life. Chalden s own 
 action had wrought a miracle. He had 
 shaken the fidelity of an ancient slave. 
 Into the place which his own withdrawal 
 had left vacant had crept the personality 
 of another man; the more easily, because, 
 like many full-blooded negroes, Aunt 
 Nancy was proud to claim the brilliant 
 Olney as one of her own unfortunate 
 race. 
 
 The ground was undermined beneath 
 Philip Chalden s feet by his own actions. 
 There was brewing for him a petard which, 
 in the end, was to hoist the engineer. 
 Jealousy, the bitter pangs of old relation 
 ship slowly sundered, of benefits forgot 
 benefits that she had conferred upon him 
 filled that old storm-torn heart. Slowly 
 these had swept out the image of Chalden 
 and that of Olney had entered in. 
 [ 137]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 It is true that Alicia had her place in the 
 woman s heart, too; but it was never the 
 place that Chalden had held, nor was it 
 that which Olney began to occupy. Alicia 
 had been separated from her old nurse for 
 so many years that she had grown some 
 what apart from her. Without in the least 
 intending it, for she had too gentle a heart 
 to neglect the old woman or hurt her feel 
 ings in any way, the girl, on her return 
 home, did not quite resume the old place 
 or enter again upon the relationship which 
 Aunt Nancy fancied should subsist between 
 them. Truth to tell, Alicia was more in 
 terested in the general proposition with re 
 lation to the negro race to which she had 
 engaged herself, than in any particular in 
 dividual, even old Aunt Nancy that is 
 the mistake of most social reformers, they 
 shrink from the personal application of 
 their theories! 
 
 So, since the love the old woman had 
 borne Philip Chalden could not restrain 
 Aunt Nancy, the less affection she had for
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 his daughter proved no bar. She hesi 
 tated and Chalden was lost. 
 
 Often when Olney was with his humble 
 parishioner, Alicia came to the sunny 
 chamber which was now Aunt Nancy s 
 world. The aged woman s affection for 
 the preacher enabled her to divine some 
 thing of what was going on in the man s 
 heart. There are few secrets a man can 
 keep from a loving woman, be she wife, 
 or mother, or friend, and Aunt Nancy 
 knew that Olney loved Alicia. 
 
 The fact roused in the old woman 
 strange and impossible dreams. Strange 
 feelings tore her bosom, strange revela 
 tions trembled on her lips. Alone most of 
 the day. she brooded and brooded. 
 
 On her death-bed she called the preacher 
 to her and made him a marvellous con 
 fession. With her dying hands she pressed 
 into his palm a packet of old, time-faded 
 papers. The man went gray as he bent 
 his head to hear what the old woman had 
 to tell. After she died under his own ab- 
 [ 139]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 solution, with the packet tightly clasped in 
 his own hand, he staggered out of the 
 house, and, not daring to trust himself on 
 foot in the street, called a cab and was 
 driven to his own study, his mind reeling 
 as if he had had a stroke. He was appalled 
 at the revelation the old woman had made. 
 But for the confirming evidence in his hand 
 he would have disregarded it as the foolish 
 dream of a fatuous old dotard. 
 
 That night, as she had insisted and as he 
 had promised, he had an interview with 
 Philip Chalden. The financier listened to 
 him at first with indifference, soon suc 
 ceeded by amazement, rage, and terror. 
 When Olney left the house an hour after, he 
 had refused wealth beyond the dreams of 
 avarice. He had given his word of honor 
 to keep a secret, the keeping of which broke 
 his heart; and yet there was a strange ex 
 altation in his soul, the exaltation which 
 comes alone from the sacrifice of self, 
 which almost compensated him for what 
 he had done. And there was one man in 
 [ 140]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 that great city in which Olney worked and 
 labored who knew him, negro though he 
 might be, for a man and a master. 
 
 Everybody recognized that there was 
 something mysterious about Chalden. He 
 refused persistently to discuss his early 
 life. No one knew anything about his 
 place of birth or his young manhood. He 
 had suddenly appeared in Philadelphia, 
 attended only by the baby Alicia and 
 the old black woman. Without vouch 
 safing explanation of any sort he had 
 made his upward way, climbed to his own 
 place. The keenest and cleverest question 
 ing had never betrayed him into commit 
 ting himself in the slightest degree. There 
 were many men who would have given 
 much to discover his early history, for 
 they were persuaded his silence concealed 
 something which it would be highly advan 
 tageous to his many enemies to know. 
 Now Olney knew it, and his pledged honor 
 made of him, constructively at least, Chal- 
 den s friend. Yet Chalden hated him.
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 It had been many years after Chalden 
 came to Philadelphia before he rose to 
 prominence, and, try as they could, and 
 some of the best detectives in the country 
 had been covertly employed to solve the 
 mystery, they found nothing. Olney had 
 solved it in part, the most bitter part. He 
 would not have been human had he not felt 
 elated. It is not so much the use, the em 
 ployment of power, as the possession of it 
 that satisfies some men. Philip Chalden 
 was in Olney s power, and Olney, who 
 could not be bribed or frightened, had 
 voluntarily promised to stay his hand. But 
 Olney had done wrong at least he was 
 doubtful, and with a man of Olney s tem 
 perament there was condemnation in the 
 doubt. A slighted conscience tempered 
 pride, alloyed sacrifice, weakened power, 
 and added its pangs to those of love, 
 unrequited and hopeless yet it was for 
 Alicia that he had promised what he 
 had. 
 
 As for Chalden, the whole situation, 
 
 L 142 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and more than all his impotence in it, shook 
 him to the very soul. Face to face with 
 a man who knew what he had set his whole 
 mind and soul upon concealing and forget 
 ting, a man who could neither be bought 
 nor broken, neither awed nor coerced he 
 would have killed him if occasion had 
 served. 
 
 Late the night of his interview with the 
 clergyman Chalden made his way upstairs 
 to the chamber of his old mammy. He 
 looked down upon her dead body, decently 
 laid out for burial, with the malevolent 
 gaze of a baffled autocrat, a checked con 
 queror. Yet long ago he had lain in her 
 arms, she had loved him. He would have 
 staked his life on her fidelity, but she had 
 proved false to him. Why he had retained 
 that confidence in her was suddenly become 
 a mystery to him perhaps because she was 
 only a black woman, he thought. He had 
 been for once in his life a fool. Once was 
 enough. 
 
 Fie had juggled with honor, man s 
 
 [ 143 1
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 honor, as he had juggled with stocks. 
 Everything with him had been simply a 
 question of dollars and cents. It was all 
 a matter of price. The only question 
 worth bothering about was " how much? " 
 The same hour in which the old woman, 
 by betraying him for what price he knew 
 not, had confirmed his theory, the young 
 man, by volunteering to keep his secret 
 without money and without price, had 
 broken it down; yet only in part. 
 
 Chalden knew men and women. At 
 least he knew the baser side of the race he 
 mastered and despised. He did not be 
 lieve that it was in any human heart to keep 
 such a secret as the clergyman possessed. 
 There was one passion of which he had 
 known little for twenty years. If it had 
 been explained to him again he might have 
 been enlightened. It was not consideration 
 for Chalden that would keep Olney silent, 
 but love for Alicia that would seal his lips. 
 Chalden had loved once in his life, and his 
 affection had been basely betrayed. There-
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 after he only hated, and he viewed as a 
 sign of weakness the showing of any sort 
 of affection except for Alicia. It rather 
 alarmed him when he thought of the hold 
 Alicia was taking upon him. 
 
 [H5]
 
 VIII 
 
 THE Major passed his days in broken 
 hearted discontent. Chalden s accept 
 ance of William Penn as a suitor for his 
 daughter, William Penn s determination to 
 persist in his opposition to the Major s de 
 sire, all conspired to make him most mis 
 erable. He had seen Alicia at church and 
 at different places in company with his 
 nephew. Once, at the Opera, William 
 Penn, with Alicia on his arm, had cornered 
 him and he had been presented to her. 
 Her beauty had impressed him powerfully, 
 it always did everyone, and he thought too 
 much of himself to be guilty of any open 
 rudeness to her, but he was greatly relieved 
 when William Penn took her away, and his 
 determined opposition was not weakened a 
 bit. The girl knew all about the Major s 
 feeling toward the marriage. Her lover 
 had not concealed it, and she was grieved 
 [146]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in that knowledge, but she had neverthe 
 less avowed her willingness to marry Will 
 iam Penn in spite of the family antagonism 
 which had been awakened, trusting to win 
 him to her side in the end. Doctor 
 Whyot was of full age and could decide 
 for himself, so Alicia sensibly reasoned 
 besides, she loved him too much to give 
 him up. 
 
 With the obstinacy of small natures the 
 Major still refused to acquiesce in the situ 
 ation. The will which had been drawn up 
 in his anger remained unchanged, and he 
 had no more to do with his nephew than 
 he could help. Indeed, the Major began, 
 with anxiety and fear be it said, to contem 
 plate matrimony himself. Why! the real 
 true Whyot line might perish from the 
 face of the earth! Either alternative was 
 dreadful. To give up his ease and be in 
 his old age at the beck and call of a woman 
 was frightful for him to contemplate. 
 The Major s ideas of the sphere and place 
 of women were as low as Philip Chalden s
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ideas of men, which was saying a great 
 deal. 
 
 The old man passed his days in revolv 
 ing countless fruitless and impracticable 
 schemes to separate the lovers and pre 
 vent the marriage. On one occasion he 
 dreamed of entering the financial world, 
 of taking up the battle against Chalden, of 
 attempting to ruin him ! No consciousness 
 of inferiority deterred him from this fatu 
 ous undertaking, but he realized that, were 
 Alicia poor, William Penn s honor the 
 Whyot honor would second his affec 
 tion and the situation would be more hope 
 less than before. 
 
 It became speedily known in Philadel 
 phia that a marriage between William 
 Penn Whyot and Alicia Chalden had been 
 arranged. There was no secret made as 
 to the displeasure of the Whyot family 
 and their associates, indeed the Major had 
 been outspoken on the subject. His re 
 marks and those of his friends who agreed 
 with him had come to the ears of Philip 
 [148]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Chalden, and the latter had determined to 
 revenge himself by bringing the Major to 
 the brink of ruin. When the Major got 
 to the brink if he behaved himself he 
 might be pulled back, if he did not he 
 would be shoved over. Chalden would 
 thus deter any of the Major s friends or 
 acquaintances from further animadversions 
 upon him. A word or two to his trusted 
 brokers started a raid on a certain line of 
 stocks much affected by conservative Phila- 
 delphians for their apparent solidity and 
 freedom from fluctuation, in which most 
 of the Major s holdings were involved, 
 with those of hundreds of other people. 
 Chalden did not care for those others; he 
 was after the Major primarily, the Ma 
 jor s friends incidentally, who else might 
 suffer did not matter to him. Chalden 
 didn t appear in the enterprise, and nei 
 ther William Penn Whyot nor the Major 
 realized his connection with the affair. 
 
 The surprised Major woke up one morn 
 ing, however, to find that he stood just 
 
 L
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 where Chalden had determined he should 
 stand, on the verge of ruin, with the events 
 of the ensuing day to decide whether he 
 should go back or over. The poor little 
 Major was no financier. Other men, car 
 ing nothing for the Major, fought Chal 
 den, for they soon realized who was behind 
 the movement that was bearing down the 
 Major s stocks, because they wanted to hit 
 Chalden and they always fought him what 
 ever he did; but they fought him unavail- 
 ingly. So far as the Major was concerned 
 he had to stand helpless; stop, listen, or 
 wait, with what equanimity he possessed, 
 for the results. At this critical stage in the 
 Major s fortunes there came to him one 
 Buldon, a principal operator in the stock 
 market, who, like the Major, stood to lose 
 or win all, to such a point had his oppo 
 sition to Chalden brought him with the 
 rest. 
 
 So urgent was the business, such a crisis 
 their fortunes were facing, that Buldon, 
 who was distantly allied to the Whyot class 
 [150]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and usually transacted their business for 
 them, ventured to call upon the Major at 
 his home before he had finished his break 
 fast, which was most annoying, for the 
 Major did not like to mix business what 
 he called business with his meals. Real 
 ly, Buldon was getting inconsiderate ! 
 
 Buldon had brought with him an un 
 known man, unknown to the Major, that is. 
 This person, actuated by a desire for re 
 venge for certain reasons which were soon 
 revealed, after years of search claimed to 
 have discovered what he believed to be the 
 secret of Chalden s life. The secret was 
 not one that reflected greatly upon Chal- 
 den himself. To have published it would 
 not have harmed him in the least in public 
 respect. It involved Alicia s mother. Bul 
 don had only the vaguest idea of what the 
 man had to tell. He had learned that the 
 man had made certain investigations alone 
 and had become possessed of certain valu 
 able information. With his secret he had 
 come back to Philadelphia, and, being a
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 cunning man, had quietly investigated the 
 present state of affairs in order to make 
 the best possible use of it. 
 
 He feared to go to Chalden direct. 
 The power of the man was so tremendous, 
 his courage was so well known, that the 
 investigator decided to hold his secret until 
 he could approach Chalden through some 
 third party, so that he personally could es 
 cape the consequences of the millionaire s 
 displeasure. And there were other reasons 
 why he feared to meet Chalden face to 
 face. He preferred to strike him through 
 a third party, himself unknown. When he 
 learned of the antagonism of the Whyot 
 family to the proposed marriage, when he 
 discovered the social position of Major 
 Whyot in Philadelphia, he determined 
 that in him lay his opportunity. The raid 
 on the Major s stock, which was now of 
 public notoriety, gave him a further lever 
 age, he thought. 
 
 There was an exciting interview be 
 tween Bnldon and the Major that morn-
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ing, the third man listening silently to what 
 was going on. 
 
 " I tell you," said the former, " that it 
 will mean ruin to us all. Your holdings of 
 the stock will not bring five cents on the 
 dollar. It is going down, and we can t 
 stop it. Chalden is behind it all. Nobody 
 else has power and money enough to do it. 
 That stock ought to be as good as the Bank 
 of England. It s been as steady as United 
 States bonds. Unless we can put a brake 
 on him we are ruined, ruined, I say! It 
 means that you and your friends who own 
 most of the stock will be reduced to beg 
 gary ! You ll have to go to work, or 
 starve. Here is this man who wants to 
 talk with you. He says he knows some 
 thing about Chalden that will be of great 
 service to us. I don t know what it is, he 
 hasn t told me. He won t tell anyone but 
 you, because you have a deeper interest in 
 getting hold of Chalden than any of us, 
 he says, in downing this infernal devil-fish 
 who has us in his clutches. I leave him 
 
 [153]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with you, and I tell you frankly, unless 
 you can do something with or without his 
 information, it s all up with us. Good-by. 
 Let me know at the earliest possible mo 
 ment at Larnard s office if anything is to 
 be done." 
 
 Leaving the other man, Buldon turned 
 on his heel and left the house as abruptly 
 as he had spoken. The Major had only 
 grasped two or three points in this concise 
 statement. Ruin, beggary, work ! They 
 were equally distasteful. Chalden, whom 
 he hated, was at the back of it ! 
 
 " Well er Mr. I did not catch 
 your name, sir," he said, turning to the 
 shifty looking man standing impudently 
 and easily before him. 
 
 " Call me Jackens, sir, that s as good a 
 name as any." 
 
 " You have something to say to me 
 which may be of service in this er 
 crisis, Mr. ah Jackens ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I m no business man. You should 
 
 [154]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 have a talk with Larnard, my broker, or 
 Mr. Buldon, but " 
 
 " This ain t so much in the way of busi 
 ness, sir, as you might think." 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 " For reasons which I needn t go into, 
 I ve been very much interested in finding 
 out what I could about Philip Chalden s 
 early life. And, by a singular combination 
 of circumstances, which you don t care to 
 hear about now, I ve been able to trace 
 him up. I know what nobody else knows 
 about him," he cried triumphantly. " His 
 proper name is Avery." 
 
 " I know it," answered the Major calm 
 ly; " don t shout so." 
 
 "The h lyou do!" 
 
 "Sir, sir!" said the Major, peremp 
 torily, " I want you to understand that you 
 are in a gentleman s private house, and 
 such language as that from a er a 
 person in your station to one of er 
 mine is not permissible." 
 
 " No offence, no offence, sir," answered 
 [155]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the other promptly, concealing his surprise, 
 " as between gentlemen " 
 
 " Proceed, sir," interrupted the Major 
 in the calmest manner, utterly disgusted at 
 the effrontery of the other a "gentle 
 man," indeed! 
 
 ; Well, perhaps you know the whole 
 story?" he inquired sneeringly. 
 
 " What I know, and what I do not 
 know, are no concern of yours, sir. If 
 you have anything to say, say it. If not, 
 go ! This interview is becoming er 
 distasteful to me." 
 
 " Sir, the main thing I have found about 
 Chalden is that he was a young blood in 
 St. Louis some twenty-five years ago, that 
 his wife ran away from him with another 
 man. That he followed her, shot the man 
 dead, and that the woman committed sui 
 cide. That Chalden took his daughter 
 and vanished gave himself out for dead. 
 I traced him to Italy and I traced him back 
 here. Now, I reckon that information is 
 worth more to Chalden than to anybody
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 else, unless it is to you. There is not a 
 soul on earth that knows it, unless it s me, 
 and there s many a man that would give 
 a pot of money to find it out. There s 
 newspapers, there s men that wishes to 
 down him, there s yourself, that could 
 bring him to his knees. That precious 
 daughter of his that your nephew is to 
 marry against your will, how d he like to 
 know that she was the daughter of an 
 adulteress, a suicide, and that her father 
 killed a man? Damn him! " went on the 
 other fiercely, revealing the motive of his 
 rage. " I was a speculator in a small way. 
 He s done me up, I was in his employ 
 and he kicked me out of it " 
 
 Mr. Jackens did not say that his dis 
 charge was for a good and sufficient cause. 
 
 " And I swore I d get even with him. 
 He ruined hundreds with his stock market 
 tricks, curse him, includin me ! " he went 
 on in a spasm of virtue, " and now I ve got 
 him right there ! " 
 
 He extended his hand with down-turned 
 [157]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 thumb toward the Major, who recoiled 
 from the possible touch as if from con 
 tamination. 
 
 The Major was calm, deadly calm, out 
 wardly, but he had never been so furiously 
 angry, so outraged, so insulted, in his life. 
 Au fond the blood of the de Vyault was 
 good blood still. 
 
 You wish me to go to Mr. Chalden 
 with this news? " 
 
 " I do, sir." 
 
 " I suppose you are not doing this for 
 mere revenge? " 
 
 " Lord, no, it s too expensive for me. 
 I want money, lots of it. I reckon it will 
 take about a cool million in cold cash to 
 shut me up." 
 
 " And er what do you expect me 
 to get out of the enterprise?" continued 
 the old man in that suspiciously quiet voice. 
 
 If Mr. Jackens had not been so excited 
 over the prospect, being a man of great 
 native shrewdness, he would have seen the 
 storm which was about to break. 
 [158]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Well, you can get what you want. If 
 I was you I d stop this raid on your stocks, 
 and I d make him withdraw his consent to 
 the marriage of his daughter to your 
 nephew " 
 
 " You hound! " cried the Major, burst 
 ing into furious wrath, " you infamous 
 dog ! You come here with such a propo 
 sition to me after prying into the ante 
 cedents of a gentleman, a gentleman ! 
 Yes, damn it, sir, and you ask me to soil 
 myself, me a Whyot, sir, by any such dirty 
 underhand business as blackmailing, sir? " 
 
 As he spoke the little Major snatched a 
 riding crop from the table in the library, 
 where the conversation had taken place, 
 and in a perfect passion of fury struck the 
 man again and again with the handle of it. 
 Mr. Jackens was half as large again as the 
 Major; physically the latter was no match 
 at all for him, but such was the fury which 
 filled the old man that the younger abso 
 lutely cowered before him. 
 
 " By God, sir ! " he spluttered, vainly 
 [159]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 seeking to protect his head and face as 
 he shrank back against the wall writhing 
 with pain, blood dropping from lips and 
 nose and gashed cheek. " You ll pay for 
 this ! He ll pay for it. I ll wait until to 
 morrow. Until he has ruined you, and 
 then I ll ruin him! " 
 
 ; I warn you," said the Major, throw 
 ing the bloody crop to the floor in disgust, 
 " not to cross my path again, ruin or no 
 ruin. And I warn you further, I have 
 some slight knowledge of Mr. Chalden. 
 I venture to say that if you open your 
 mouth concerning him with any such story 
 you will repent it to your dying day. 
 Cato," he continued more calmly, touch 
 ing a bell, in answer to which his black 
 footman entered, " show this person the 
 door. Do not allow him access to me 
 again." 
 
 " Yas, suh." 
 
 Cato was six feet two. He laid his hand 
 on the man s shoulder, turned him to the 
 right-about, and marched him out. 
 [160]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " You may kick him out, Cato," cried 
 the Major as they disappeared through the 
 doorway. 
 
 The little Major sank down in his chair 
 trembling with righteous indignation. He 
 had never been so insulted in his life. The 
 fact that the man had given away the secret 
 and that Chalden was now in his power 
 never came to him. The Major was not 
 a practical man. He had been outraged 
 in his finer feelings, and not the least hard 
 portion of his situation lay in the fact that 
 anyone had presumed to make such a 
 proposition to him, a Whyot ! 
 
 " Cato," he asked, as the man re-entered 
 the room, " did you kick him out? " 
 
 Yas, suh," responded the black man, 
 rolling his eyes with delight it is not 
 often a negro has such an opportunity 
 " I kicked him good, suh, an he lay at 
 de foot of de steps, suh, a-shakin his 
 fis an a-cussin most awful, suh. He 
 said " 
 
 " I am not interested in what he had to 
 [161]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 say, Cato," said the Major loftily. " By 
 the way, order my carriage at once." 
 
 As he entered the coupe anyone passing 
 might have heard him direct his coachman 
 to drive to the Chalden building, where he 
 hoped to find the financier. 
 
 [162]
 
 IX 
 
 CHALDEN was very much surprised 
 that morning when the Major s card 
 was brought to him in his private office. 
 Things were going his way they usually 
 did and the stocks in which the Major s 
 property was invested would soon be in his 
 possession at his own price, his price for 
 everybody and everything was a low one 
 like the devil he always bought cheap. 
 The day would see the ruin of the Major. 
 Naturally it immediately occurred to Chal- 
 den that the Major had come to beg off. 
 He at once jumped to the conclusion, al 
 though he was not a man who jumped to 
 conclusions usually, that the Major would 
 fain purchase his safety by withdrawing 
 his opposition to the marriage. As to that 
 Chalden cared not a whit for the opposi 
 tion of the Major. It rather pleased him 
 than otherwise. He delighted to crush. 
 [163]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 opposition, and he was never so unhappy 
 as when the day was made plain and easy 
 for him. Therefore he resolved not to 
 stop his raid on the Major s stocks, and 
 not to be moved by any plea which might 
 be urged. He had determined on the 
 man s ruin, and ruined he should be. After 
 that, if the Major behaved with propriety, 
 he might do something it would depend 
 on many things. He kept the Major wait 
 ing a few moments. It suited his pleasure 
 to do so, but finally he directed that he 
 should be admitted into the private office. 
 
 The agitation and indignation of the 
 Major had not evaporated at all. On the 
 contrary, they had become greatly inten 
 sified. The more he thought of it the 
 more angry he became. Chalden there 
 fore found himself confronted by a very 
 excited little man. He wondered if the 
 Major was ever calm. This morning his 
 red face was redder than ever. He was 
 fairly shaking with emotion. 
 
 " Mr. Chalden " he burst out. 
 [ 164]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Good morning, Major Whyot. Be 
 seated, sir. What can I do for you? " 
 
 " For me? Nothing, sir," spluttered 
 the Major; " we have not been our re 
 lations in short, sir, I dislike you, as you 
 probably dislike me." 
 
 " You didn t come here to tell me that, 
 sir?" 
 
 " No, sir, but a damned scoundrelly 
 hound, a man who says he is an ex-clerk 
 of yours, came to me this morning with a 
 a nasty tale, sir, and er made 
 a proposition to me, which need not be dis 
 cussed, but it was infamous, sir, insulting 
 to me, sir, a Whyot! And I have come 
 to " 
 
 " To blackmail me," instantly flashed 
 into the mind of Chalden. He knew there 
 were passages in his past which he would 
 give everything he owned to keep secret. 
 Fortunately for him he said nothing. If 
 the Major had not been so excited, how 
 ever, he would have marked the change in 
 Chalden s appearance. Hard at best, the 
 [165]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 man became as cold as an iceberg. His 
 usually immobile face was as expressionless 
 as a stone wall. The narrowing of his 
 eyes, the gleam that came in them, the com 
 pression of his lips, alone betrayed his in 
 domitable spirit. A hard man to blackmail 
 was Philip Chalden. 
 
 " I have come to put you on your guard, 
 sir, against the scoundrel," continued the 
 little man. 
 
 He had never appeared to better advan 
 tage in his life than at this moment. Chal- 
 den s jaw relaxed, his brow smoothed, his 
 eyes opened wider, and he gazed at the 
 Major in speechless astonishment. To 
 have an advantage and not to use it, against 
 an enemy ! Why, the man must be a fool 
 or a gentleman ! 
 
 There was good blood in Chalden. He 
 rose instantly to the Major s height. For 
 the first time in many years a feeling of 
 shame that he had so misjudged the other 
 man permeated his soul. Chalden as a rule 
 was only ashamed when he failed, and he 
 [ 166]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 had no cause to be ashamed on that score 
 since he had been in Philadelphia. When 
 he spoke, however, his remarks were en 
 tirely commonplace. Yet he was burning 
 with anxiety to know what was the rev 
 elation. It might be any one of several 
 things of varying degrees of importance to 
 him. 
 
 " What, may I ask, was the story? " 
 " I dislike to repeat it, sir," answered 
 the Major slowly, " but I suppose there is 
 no help for it. The man said that your 
 name was Avery." 
 
 " I told you that myself last spring." 
 " You did. He went on to say that you 
 were from St. Louis." 
 
 " Another piece of stale news to you." 
 " It was. That when you were a young 
 man forgive the repetition, sir your 
 wife ran away from you with er 
 
 your best friend, that you followed 
 them, caught them, and ah shot the 
 man dead. Your wife committed suicide 
 
 after that you ah disappeared 
 
 [167]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with your daughter, only to reappear un 
 der a new name some fifteen years later in 
 Philadelphia " 
 
 The Major spoke hesitatingly and with 
 difficulty. He regretted extremely even to 
 voice the story. It was neither a pleasant 
 nor an easy task. 
 
 " Well, sir, is that all? " asked Chalden 
 coolly, conscious at first of a feeling of re 
 lief and yet wondering if there was more 
 to the story. 
 
 "That s all," answered the Major; 
 " and whether the story be true or not 
 I er felt it due from one gentleman 
 to another to apprise you immediately of 
 it in order that you ah might take 
 such steps as your judgment dictates to 
 stop the scoundrel s mouth." 
 
 "The man s name was " 
 
 " Jackens. At least, that s what he said 
 it was." 
 
 " I know him. He is an ex-clerk of 
 mine. He was a small operator in stocks 
 who got in my way. I broke him, then 
 [168]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 out of pity for him, one of the rare times 
 when I have given way to the sentiment, 
 I gave him employment. He was a scoun 
 drel. He proved false to his trust. There 
 was a betrayal, a forgery. He fled. I 
 shall know how to deal with him." 
 
 " I supposed you would," answered the 
 Major. 
 
 " Do you know where he is to be 
 found?" 
 
 " Er no. He left my house rather 
 ah suddenly. In fact, I am ashamed 
 to say that I lost my temper with him and 
 I ah caned him severely." 
 
 " He is twice your size," remarked 
 Chalden, surveying the slight figure of the 
 older man, " and half your age." 
 
 "What has that got to do with it? 
 After I had done with him I turned him 
 over to my negro servant and he er 
 kicked him out, I believe. I warned him 
 that if he valued his life he would better 
 keep quiet about his ah fabrication." 
 
 " It is a true story," interrupted Chal- 
 [169]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 den, quietly. " Absolutely true. I sup 
 pose it is bound to get out sooner or later. 
 I shall, however, silence this man for the 
 present, and I shall depend upon your con 
 sideration to let it go no further." 
 
 You may count upon me, sir," an 
 swered the Major. 
 
 " Of course this action of yours was 
 taken for my daughter s sake? " 
 
 Chalden watched him curiously as he 
 asked this question. 
 
 " Well, not quite. Of course I should 
 be loath indeed to see her or any other 
 lady involved in er unpleasant 
 publicity. But I think I should have come 
 to you in any event as a ah 
 gentleman, you know." Whether he 
 meant Chalden or himself was not quite 
 clear. " She Miss Alicia, I presume 
 er was the ah daughter? " 
 
 " You may presume so," said Chalden 
 in his haughtiest manner, effectually estop 
 ping any further inquiries in that direc 
 tion. " Now, sir, you have rendered me a 
 [170]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 service. Is there anything I can do for 
 you?" 
 
 " Nothing, sir," answered the Major, 
 astonished at this question. 
 
 He had forgotten all about the mone 
 tary situation, or if he remembered it he 
 was not the man either to ask or to expect 
 a reward, or even to accept any, for the 
 doing of a gentle action. 
 
 Chalden questioned him further. 
 
 " This marriage is still distasteful to 
 you?" 
 
 i( It is, sir," more surprised than ever. 
 
 " Ah, well, I am sorry, for I have set 
 my heart upon it." 
 
 " I have nothing to say on that score," 
 replied the older man; "naturally this 
 er affair has not made me feel more 
 kindly toward the alliance with due re 
 spect to the young lady, of course. How 
 ever, we need not enter into a further dis 
 cussion of that point?" Chalden bowed 
 gravely. " I have warned you of the 
 blackguard. I hope you may be able to
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 deal with him, and I have the honor to bid 
 you good-morning, sir." 
 
 The Major bowed profoundly, turned 
 on his heel, and left the office. This time 
 decidedly the honors of war were with 
 him. Chalden instantly summoned his 
 private secretary and confidential clerk. 
 
 " Johnson," he said, " see my broker 
 immediately. Reverse all former direc 
 tions. I want the Whyot stocks forced up 
 to the highest possible price. I want it 
 done immediately. Don t spare any ex 
 pense in bulling them up. Never mind 
 the cost. I will stand for it whatever it 
 may be." 
 
 " Very good, sir," answered the secre 
 tary, too well trained to show his surprise 
 at this sudden reversal of policy, so unusual 
 in his employer; " but don t you think you 
 had better give me a line to the broker, the 
 present order being at variance with the 
 original plan? " 
 
 " Here it is," said Chalden, after scrib 
 bling a moment, " tell him to lose no time
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 about it. I want to see the stocks go up at 
 once, before the exchange closes, and they 
 must be higher than they were before we 
 began this raid. Send somebody in to me 
 as you go out." 
 
 As the second clerk came in Chalden 
 directed him to call up on the telephone 
 the Director of Public Safety at the City 
 Hall immediately. When the financier 
 got him, a brief conversation took place 
 which sufficed to put the best detectives in 
 the city on the track of Mr. Jackens. It 
 would not be a difficult matter to find the 
 man who showed signs of such severe 
 handling as Major Whyot had given him, 
 and the Director promised that the pris 
 oner should be at Chalden s service in a 
 few hours without fail. 
 
 The nerves of the Major were so broken 
 and shattered by the events of the morning 
 that he concluded to go to his club. There 
 about twelve o clock Buldon and Larnard, 
 the Major s attorney and financial agent, 
 appeared in search of him. They found
 
 him calmly enjoying a cigar over the 
 papers. 
 
 " Well, you did it all right," exclaimed 
 Buldon when they got him alone in a pri 
 vate room. 
 
 "Did what?" asked the Major inno 
 cently. 
 
 " Man, our stocks are going up ! " cried 
 the operator triumphantly. " Somebody is 
 bulling the market like mad. There has 
 been a reaction. I do not know the cause 
 of it, unless you did it, but the bears have 
 fled to cover. Rumor has it that old 
 Chalden is caught on the wrong side of 
 the market and is getting tremendously 
 cinched." 
 
 The Major shuddered at his friend s 
 coarse language "So Western, you 
 know!" 
 
 " We are helping the thing along all we 
 can," continued Buldon joyfully. " If it 
 all goes well they ll close higher than they 
 have been quoted for a dozen years, and 
 now that we have got them up, we will 
 [174]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 keep them there. Indeed, nobody seems 
 to have any particular interest in bearing 
 them down. You are saved, Major. We 
 all are. Did you see Chalden this morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Yes, I saw him." 
 
 " I feel that we owe you a debt of grati 
 tude," said the other; " how did you put 
 the pressure on him? " 
 
 "Pressure, sir? By gad! Sir!" burst 
 out the Major, enraged all over again just 
 as he had regained a measure of his usual 
 calm. " I caned one man this morning for 
 daring to insinuate that I " 
 
 " No offence, no offence, Major," ex 
 claimed the other man. " Was it the man 
 I brought you ? " 
 
 " It was, sir." 
 
 "And his story?" 
 
 " A damned outrageous piece of black 
 mailing! " 
 
 " You didn t use it on Chalden, of 
 course," remarked Buldon, warned by the 
 Major s rising fury. 
 
 [175]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 "Certainly not, sir! I would not do 
 such a thing to save myself from ruin." 
 
 " May I ask just what you did, Ma 
 jor? " queried Larnard quietly. 
 
 " What you or any other gentleman 
 would have done. I had the blackguard 
 kicked out of my house, and then I went 
 immediately to Mr. Chalden and warned 
 him that an attempt to blackmail him was 
 being made." 
 
 " You didn t say anything about the 
 stocks? " 
 
 " I said nothing, sir, nothing but that. 
 Would you have me mix up my business 
 matters with an affair of honor of that 
 kind, sir?" 
 
 " Certainly not, Major," promptly an 
 swered the astonished Buldon, winking at 
 the broker. " Well, at any rate, the stocks 
 are going up." 
 
 " Did Mr. Chalden say anything about 
 these stocks?" asked the lawyer curi 
 ously. 
 
 " Nothing. By gad, he did not even 
 [176]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 thank me!" answered the Major with 
 some resentment. 
 
 "Well, Major, shall I sell or hold 
 them? " continued Larnard. " What shall 
 I do with your shares? " 
 
 " Hold them, sir," answered the Major 
 promptly. The stock is just as good now 
 as it ever was. It has been in my family 
 ever since I can remember. These er 
 fluctuations are unnatural, I m sure." 
 
 " Very good," said the broker imper- 
 turbably. 
 
 " Major," said Buldon as they took their 
 departure, " allow me to say it, you are a 
 gentleman. You put us all to shame." 
 
 The Major was utterly unable to fathom 
 the curious glances of the men, and he 
 would have been more surprised at the up 
 roarious laughter which burst from them 
 as they left the club. 
 
 " The old innocent," said the operator, 
 " he worked it in the very best way. Oh, 
 unwittingly, of course," he added in the 
 face of the other s unspoken protest. " He
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 could not have driven Chalden an inch 
 with anything, I fancy." 
 
 " I do not think we would better men 
 tion this affair to anyone," returned the 
 lawyer. " Or we shall have to deal with 
 Chalden ourselves, and he s a good man to 
 be at peace with." 
 
 Yes," returned the other, " we must 
 keep it entirely quiet. And I doubt if we 
 could improve on the Major s methods 
 anyway."
 
 X 
 
 ALICIA CHALDEN and her father 
 during the past six months had en 
 tered upon a new relationship to each 
 other. Philip Chalden had shown more 
 tenderness for his daughter in that time 
 than he had manifested toward her during 
 all the rest of her life. During her school 
 days she had seen but little of her father, 
 whom she had adored possibly because 
 she knew so little of him. He had rarely 
 visited the school, and in her long vaca 
 tions he had usually managed to send her 
 abroad or upon some sightseeing expedi 
 tion, under the care of some of the teachers, 
 who were always ready to undertake the 
 duties of a chaperon on such a liberal scale 
 as Chalden s generosity encouraged. 
 
 He cheerfully supplied Alicia with ev 
 erything for which she asked, and many
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 / 
 
 things for which she had not, and as evi 
 dence of the satisfaction he felt in her 
 treatment at the school he had been one 
 of the most generous benefactors of Brook- 
 ford College. He rebuilt Hulswood Hall 
 after the fire, for instance, making it the 
 finest college dormitory building in the 
 country. Beginning with her graduation, 
 when he suddenly awakened to the realiza 
 tion of her beauty and intelligence, had 
 come a new order. 
 
 Beneath his cold exterior, his natural 
 and sedulously cultivated calm, he was a 
 man with great capacity for affection. 
 Disuse had not quite atrophied this faculty. 
 That he had kept his feelings under control 
 for so long had made the giving way to 
 them the more sweeping. Into the lonely 
 heart of the man Alicia had made way, 
 until now she had become all in all to him. 
 He had worked for the mere pleasure of 
 succeeding. He had beaten down opposi 
 tion, he had mastered, wherever he went, 
 whatever he touched, for supremacy s sake. 
 [180]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Now he was working for Alicia s sake. 
 Yet he said nothing about it. 
 
 There was a cloud upon Alicia s birth 
 through no fault of her own. Well, he 
 would make up to her for it, if he could, 
 by leaving her mistress of such wealth as 
 had never been enjoyed by any mortal 
 woman before. She was beautiful, she was 
 gracious, she was cultured, she was charm 
 ing. He would make her rich beyond the 
 most extravagant desire, he thought. Al 
 lied to Doctor Whyot, who was a splendid 
 representative of the ancient family whose 
 name he bore, she would take and maintain 
 a position second to none in the land. The 
 material forces of the world he had at his 
 command. He would lay them at the feet 
 of Alicia. Whatever happened she should 
 have money, and, as has been said, money 
 was still Philip Chalden s god. 
 
 On her part, while Alicia dreamed no 
 
 dreams of untold riches, she gloried in her 
 
 father s new-found affection for her. She 
 
 had divined in a little while, after she had 
 
 [ 181]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 come home to live with him, that Philip 
 Chalden could not unlearn in a few days 
 the habits of years. He was actually as 
 undemonstrative as the Major fancied he 
 was, but Alicia knew and thrilled to the 
 softer light in the old man s eyes, the 
 flicker of a smile upon his stern, cold lips, 
 the fugitive resort to a caress, when he laid 
 an unwonted hand awkwardly but tenderly 
 upon her. Yet as the days passed by, and 
 she saw more and more of her father, 
 Alicia was not altogether happy in his 
 affection. 
 
 Alicia was a woman of the very highest 
 principle ; her intimates at school called her 
 Quixotic. Perhaps she had a little of the 
 narrowness of enthusiastic youth. Time, 
 which dims the eye, would soften her views 
 and widen her horizon, of course. Alicia 
 would no more have done a wrong thing 
 than she would have cut off her hand. 
 Time would not change that, but age 
 might bring charity and a tolerant heart; 
 for the present she was a little severe, but 
 [182]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 more severe with herself than with anyone 
 else. She brought to the service of her 
 moral efforts the same qualities which had 
 brought success to her father. She was a 
 High Churchwoman, with many of the 
 qualities of the devotee. Nothing mean, 
 or low, or small, found lodgement in Ali 
 cia s breast. She was pure, unselfish, hon 
 orable to the last degree. And, as she knew 
 her father better, as he unwittingly took 
 her more and more into his confidence, as 
 he unconsciously allowed her to see his 
 estimates of men and things, as she began 
 to apprehend, dimly of course, his habit of 
 thought, his business methods, she began to 
 question in her own mind the ethics of her 
 father. 
 
 With the consciousness of his affection 
 came the consciousness of what shall it 
 be called? his moral weakness, from her 
 point of view. She saw with pain that 
 he was unaware of her unspoken censure, 
 that he saw nothing wrong in transactions 
 which she reprehended in her heart. He 
 
 [183]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 did not know or realize what she was 
 thinking, for she shrank from discussing 
 the matter with him as yet. Chalden 
 did nothing criminal, nothing actionable; 
 he used the methods and means in vogue, 
 which his opponents used, without scruple. 
 He played the game as he had learned to 
 play it; he played it better, however, more 
 subtly, more successfully than anybody 
 else. 
 
 Whether her father s ideas were legal 
 or illegal was nothing to Alicia. She 
 looked beyond the letter of the law, and 
 little by little a poisonous conviction that 
 her father did not attain, did not try to 
 attain, did not even recognize, the high 
 standard she set for herself, entered as a 
 blight upon the growing intimacy in which 
 she had taken such pride and delight. 
 That her father should be at fault ! It was 
 crushing. She might have lost faith in 
 man, in God, but for the sterling integrity 
 of her lover, and for the saintly piety and 
 pure disinterestedness of one like Henry 
 [184]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Olney, whose powerful helper she had be 
 come. Alicia spent many agonized hours 
 trying to decide what was her duty in refer 
 ence to her father. But she had not yet 
 solved the question. 
 
 Between her lover, her father, and her 
 work she found no time for idleness. The 
 latter especially engrossed her time during 
 the day. As Alicia came nearer and nearer 
 the practical side of the problem, as she 
 herself got in touch with the actual negro, 
 she found the theories which she had 
 formed were terribly incomplete and in 
 adequate. The difficulties confronting her 
 endeavor grew steadily greater as she in 
 creased in knowledge, but she faced them 
 with the indomitable resolution of her 
 father. She had lost no faith whatever in 
 the basic correctness of her ideas. She had 
 the serene self-confidence of the fanatic, 
 the martyr. She never doubted for a mo 
 ment but that God was with her, as He 
 had been her preserver but she recog 
 nized the obstacles which constantly sprang 
 [185]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 up in her way. The theory under which 
 she was working was undoubtedly correct, 
 but how bring about the realization of the 
 dream? Rougher hands than Alicia s had 
 grappled with that problem, greater brains 
 than hers had sought to solve it, and are 
 still trying to solve it, in vain; but Alicia 
 was young and undaunted, she did not 
 despair. 
 
 The temporal and spiritual affairs of the 
 mission prospered as never before. Olney 
 should have been the happiest man in the 
 world had his work been first in his heart. 
 His parish was a centre of activity and suc 
 cessful missionary work, such as always 
 results from a combination of opportunity, 
 talent, and money. The negroes of the 
 city furnished the opportunity, Alicia pro 
 vided the money, Henry Olney the talent; 
 yet Olney was the unhappiest man alive. 
 The glory of self-sacrifice had vanished. 
 Though he had stayed his hand for Alicia s 
 sake, he felt farther away from her than 
 before. Devote himself as he could to the 
 [186]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 work of his parish, its widening scope only 
 brought him more frequently in the pres 
 ence of the woman he loved without hope, 
 and that hopelessness was fast becoming 
 unbearable. 
 
 He saw her so often now that the effort 
 required to maintain his personal immo 
 bility was killing him. So successful had he 
 been that Alicia at last felt less conscious of 
 his devotion than at first. Perhaps she had 
 been mistaken, so superb had been his self- 
 effacement. As her father, and her lover, 
 and her work, engrossed her the more, 
 Olney felt that he was becoming simply a 
 machine to her. Not that her gracious 
 kindness, her unfailing courtesy, was ever 
 abated, but she was a little forgetful of 
 him. He had revelled in the knowledge 
 that she knew that he loved her, though he 
 might not speak. He had felt that she had 
 pitied him, and he was so beggared in self- 
 esteem by the constant realization of that 
 one black streak in him, that he had craved 
 even her pity. But now he realized that 
 [187]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 she was getting away from his influence. 
 Mad jealousy, hopeless affection, all were 
 breaking him down. He was fairly perish 
 ing with a love that was unknown, unre 
 quited, and impossible. 
 
 [188]
 
 XI 
 
 LATE in the afternoon of the day the 
 Major called upon her father at his 
 office Alicia drove back to her home from 
 her daily visit to the mission. The highly 
 trained English factotum met her as she 
 entered the hall. 
 
 There is a er person in the li 
 brary waiting for you, Miss Chalden," he 
 said as she turned to the stairs. 
 
 " What sort of a person? " asked Alicia 
 curiously, the man s manner was so strange. 
 " Er a very badly knocked up man, 
 I should say, Miss." 
 
 " Knocked up? What do you mean? " 
 Well, he is all done up in bandages. 
 His head has been hammered by somebody, 
 his clothes are torn." 
 
 " What does he want of me? " 
 " He says he wants to see you on par- 
 [189]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ticular business. He seems to be in an aw 
 ful hurry. He s been a-fidgetin like mad 
 in the room there. I didn t want to admit 
 him, Miss, but he said it was a matter of 
 great importance. I ve had James " 
 the other footman " a-watchin him ever 
 since. Will you see him, Miss? " 
 
 " Certainly, Robert," answered the girl. 
 " Stay within call, so that you can come to 
 me if I need you." 
 
 With some curiosity Alicia entered the 
 library, from which James, the footman, 
 immediately made his exit upon a signal 
 from her, and surveyed the man. 
 
 Mr. Jackens was a painful spectacle. 
 He had evidently gone to a hospital and 
 had had his face, cut and bruised fearfully 
 from the Major s fierce caning, done up in 
 bandages. He rose nervously to his feet 
 as the girl came in. 
 
 " Miss Chalden," he cried, " your fath 
 er, ma am? " 
 
 " He will not be here for some time. 
 Do you wish to see him? " 
 
 [ 190]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 Alicia was very much surprised at this 
 ejaculation, whose fervency denoted its 
 honesty. 
 
 What can I do for you?" she said, 
 advancing toward him. " You seem to be 
 injured, or in pain." 
 
 " It s nothing to do with that," he cried 
 roughly; " I hate your father. He s used 
 me ill." 
 
 " It is not possible that he is responsible 
 for this? " asked Alicia in alarm. 
 
 " No, curse it," cried the man. 
 
 " Stop ! " exclaimed the girl decisively. 
 "If you wish to talk to me further you 
 must refrain from language of that kind. 
 Another word, sir, in that strain," she con 
 tinued, extending her hand toward the elec 
 tric bell on the library table, as he opened 
 his mouth to protest, " and I will have you 
 put out of the house." 
 
 The baffled man glared at her, quiver 
 ing with impotent rage. 
 
 " I thought you were in trouble, suffer-
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ing," continued Alicia composedly, " and 
 perhaps had come to me for help. But I 
 see I have been mistaken. Now you will 
 declare your business at once." 
 
 She looked so like her father, the words 
 came from her with such clear-cut decision, 
 that the man secretly quailed before her. 
 
 " I was beat up this way by a man named 
 Whyot." 
 
 "Not Doctor Whyot!" 
 
 " No, it was his uncle. He done me up. 
 They both did." 
 
 " I don t understand." 
 
 The uncle beat me, the doctor, not 
 knowin it, bandaged me." 
 
 " I have no interest in all this," said 
 Alicia, " and I don t see " 
 
 " You have; your father done me an in 
 jury. I m goin to get even with him in 
 the person of his daughter, however I can. 
 Your mother " 
 
 The man stopped abruptly to give 
 weight to his disclosure by his hesitation, 
 and then, to stimulate the curiosity of the 
 
 [ 192]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 woman before him, he said again, slowly 
 and with a malevolent leer at her: 
 
 "Your mother " 
 
 " What of my mother? " 
 
 " Did you know her? Do you remem 
 ber her?" 
 
 " I cannot conceive that my personal 
 affairs have any interest whatever to you," 
 answered the girl haughtily, although her 
 heart was beating wildly. The man s man 
 ner was at once so mean and so sinister. 
 Alicia was brave, but in spite of herself a 
 cold fear gripped her heart. She would 
 hear no more. 
 
 ;< I must terminate this conversation. 
 You say my father injured you. Though 
 I do not believe it, you would better have 
 recourse to him. I decline to discuss my 
 mother, or anything further with you. As 
 it is " 
 
 She extended her hand toward the 
 bell. 
 
 " Don t touch that bell! " cried the man 
 suddenly, " unless you want me to tell 
 
 [ 193]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 your servants that your mother was an 
 adulteress, a suicide, and your father a 
 murderer! " 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked the girl 
 in bewilderment. She was too surprised to 
 take in the full import of the disclosure; 
 indeed there was so much of it and it was 
 of such a nature that at first it failed of its 
 purpose. 
 
 " I mean what I say! " said the man, 
 disappointed at her unexpected calm. 
 " It s true. Your mother ran away with 
 another man, your father shot the man 
 dead, then she committed suicide. Your 
 mother left you a baby in arms." 
 
 "It is false!" 
 
 " It s the truth. Don t you put on any 
 of your airs with me ! Why, you ve got no 
 right to the name you bear. Your real 
 name is " 
 
 " You scoundrel! " exclaimed Alicia, be 
 ginning to take in the purport of the man s 
 abominable words and instantly resolving 
 to hear nothing more, " to come here, here 
 [ 194]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to me, a woman, with such a scandalous 
 tale ! Not another word ! " 
 
 She struck the bell fiercely, and, not sat 
 isfied with that, she raised her voice. 
 
 "James! Robert !" she called. 
 
 The two men, who had waited without 
 in the hall, instantly entered the room. 
 
 What are you going to do?" cried 
 the man in alarm. " Do you want me to 
 tell them?" 
 
 Tell anybody," she answered royally. 
 " I am not affected by such a tissue of lies 
 as those you have told me, but there is one 
 person to whom you shall tell them." 
 
 "Who is that?" 
 
 " My father." 
 
 " Good God! " gasped the man. 
 
 " Yes, and you shall stay here until he 
 comes. Robert, you and James see that 
 this person doesn t leave this room; not un 
 der any circumstances, until Mr. Chalden 
 returns." 
 
 " I ll tell them," yelled the baffled man, 
 green with fear. 
 
 [195]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " You say a word, you open your mouth 
 damn you beggin your pardon, Miss 
 Chalden " said Robert, who had been in 
 the family for many years and was as faith 
 ful as he was trusted, " and I ll break your 
 face up worse than it is ! You ll need more 
 bandages on than you ve got now when I 
 get through with you. I don t want to hear 
 none of your lies! " 
 
 " Don t hurt him, Robert," said Alicia, 
 smiling faintly. 
 
 " No m, I won t. Just leave him to us." 
 
 " Very well," said the girl, as she 
 stepped into the hall. I will wait for 
 Mr. Chalden in the drawing-room." 
 
 " For God s sake, men ! " began Jackens 
 piteously when they were alone. 
 
 "Shut up!" said Robert; "you re not 
 to talk, d ye understand? " 
 
 " I ain t goin to tell you nothin ," per 
 sisted the man, " I jest want to get out. 
 Good Lord, I don t want to face that man ! 
 I ll make it worth your while " 
 
 " I tell you to shut up, and I mean it! 
 [196]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Miss Chalden is not here now, and I swear 
 to you if you open your mouth again I ll 
 hit you," cried the big footman, shaking 
 his huge fist in front of the man s broken 
 face. 
 
 [ 197]
 
 XII 
 
 ALICIA walked into the drawing-room 
 with her mind in a strange turmoil. 
 Of course the statement was a lie. She 
 would dismiss it from her mind and leave 
 the man to her father. That was easier 
 said than done. For instance, no one may 
 escape completely from the influence of 
 that most despicable of communications, 
 an anonymous letter. It has its effect; 
 though the letter be of the most wildly 
 improbable character, one cannot forget it. 
 Instantly there came into the mind of 
 the girl that she literally knew nothing 
 about her mother. Her father had per 
 sistently refused to talk of her, no picture 
 of her existed, at least she had never seen 
 one. All she really knew was that her 
 mother had died in giving her birth. She 
 did not know anything of her father s an- 
 [198]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 cestry even. She had lately been told that 
 he had been born in St. Louis, and that was 
 all. Her earliest recollection was of Italy. 
 The only woman she associated with her 
 infancy was old black Aunt Nancy, and she 
 was dead. 
 
 Suppose there were some truth in the 
 story? What a disgrace! To be the 
 daughter of a woman who had no, it 
 was not true, it could not be! Yet why 
 had her father never told her anything 
 about her mother? Why had he sternly 
 dismissed the subject whenever she had 
 touched upon it? The poison of the ac 
 cusation permeated her being. Was it 
 possible that her mother had been so lost 
 as to break She would put it out of her 
 mind ! It was a lie, a wicked lie, why 
 should she credit it? The unsupported 
 statement of a man of that stamp against 
 the life of her father, her honorable father, 
 upright Oh, God, what had she learned 
 from her father s business conduct? Was 
 he an upright man? What had she begun 
 [ 199]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 dimly to apprehend of his code of morals ? 
 Was there a man s blood on his hands? 
 
 Ah, if she had but known it, the blood 
 of many men was upon him. The life, the 
 fortune, the happiness, of many had hung 
 upon the turn of his hand, the nod of his 
 head. He had beggared men and dishon 
 ored women; not directly, of course, but 
 still none the less surely, as the result of 
 his gigantic operations. 
 
 Yet, if the awful tale were true? If her 
 mother had betrayed her father! If he 
 had killed the man, had taken vengeance 
 in his own hands! What then? Was he, 
 could he have been, justified? 
 
 Alicia threw herself upon her knees and 
 prayed as she had never prayed before. 
 For the first time in her life trouble that 
 sank deep down in her soul was upon her. 
 She prayed that it might not be true, pray 
 ing none the less fervently because she be 
 gan to feel that she was praying against 
 a hopeless fact. Her prayers brought lit 
 tle comfort, therefore. She felt revolted 
 [ 200 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in her soul at the possibility. Her father, 
 entering the hall in his usual noiseless man 
 ner, caught sight of her on her knees. 
 
 " Alicia," he asked, " what s the mat 
 ter?" 
 
 " Oh, father," she answered, rising and 
 going toward him, " tell me that it isn t 
 true!" 
 
 "What isn t true?" he asked, slipping 
 his arm around her waist to support her. 
 He perceived that she was trembling like a 
 leaf and her face was very white. " What 
 has happened?" he questioned anxiously. 
 
 " I have been told a story about my 
 my mother." 
 
 Alicia, drawn close to him, could feel the 
 start which even his iron self-repression 
 could not control. There was no indig 
 nant question from him. The man, she 
 instantly realized, was on guard, waiting. 
 
 " It isn t true ! " she cried in alarm. 
 
 "What isn t true?" again asked Chal- 
 den sternly, and his own heart almost 
 stopped its beating in fear of her answer. 
 [201 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 He made a false move, sure proof of his 
 intense perturbation. " Who has been 
 here?" he said suddenly. "Is it that 
 canting hypocrite, Olney?" 
 
 "Why, father! " questioned the girl in 
 startled surprise. " Mr. Olney ! What 
 has he to do with it? No, it s another 
 man!" 
 
 "Thank God!" Chalden exclaimed, 
 and the ejaculation was stored away in the 
 girl s mind to be brought to light later, 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He said I don t like to tell you. 
 He said that my mother was an adul 
 teress, a suicide. That you killed him. 
 That she left me, a baby that my name 
 is not Chalden." 
 
 The relief in the man s face was toe 
 great to be described. If Alicia had not 
 been so excited she would have marked it. 
 He stood silent, enfolding her in his arms. 
 His heart was beating as it had never beat 
 before. He could have faced the loss of 
 his fortune, power, position, everything, 
 [ 202 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with more equanimity than he welcomed 
 his escape from the greatest crisis that 
 could have come into his life. Although 
 he said nothing, his brain was preternatu- 
 rally active. Never had he thought with 
 such clearness and concentration. He in 
 stantly dismissed his first fear. 
 
 It was evident to him after the first 
 startled surprise that Jackens s story in 
 some way had come to his daughter. He 
 had thought of the possibility that some 
 time it might be made public. He had 
 striven with all his skill to keep it con 
 cealed. He would rather anyone had 
 heard it than Alicia, and now it had been 
 brought directly to her. It was bad enough 
 as it was but what should he do? 
 Should he deny it all? His keen mind per 
 ceived instantly that that would involve 
 him in explanations; that if he denied this 
 story he might have to tell her that which 
 he had so long concealed. Besides it was 
 scarcely possible under the circumstances 
 for him successfully to deceive her entirely, 
 [203]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 though he longed to do so. Yes, he would 
 tell her. There was truth anyway in the 
 story, to admit it was safest. 
 
 "Did Major Whyot tell you?" he 
 asked after a pause, thinking perhaps after 
 all the Major had proved a traitor, and 
 regretting as he asked that he had spared 
 him. 
 
 " Major Whyot ! What has he to do 
 with it? First Mr. Olney, then Major 
 Whyot. Ah! It is true. You don t an 
 swer me ! I am the daughter of that poor, 
 wicked woman! What is our name?" 
 
 " My name is Avery." 
 
 " And is that my name? " 
 
 " Naturally." 
 
 "And my mother? " 
 
 " Dear child," said Chalden, drawing 
 her to him again, " I would have spared 
 you this. I am grieved beyond expression 
 that you have learned it. I cannot deny 
 it. The story is true. I married, very 
 early in life, a young woman, one of my 
 own class in St. Louis I was born among 
 [204]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the best and noblest there and I loved 
 her God, how I loved her! " exclaimed 
 the old man. 
 
 All the restraints of years were suddenly 
 flung away from him. He told the story 
 with all the fervor and passion of a lover; 
 all the anger, bitterness, of the betrayed, 
 vibrant in his voice. He was speaking 
 truly now, the girl could feel it as she 
 listened. 
 
 " I lavished everything on her. One 
 child was born to us, a daughter. The 
 woman was not worthy of my love. My 
 best friend it s an old story, but true. 
 I ve tried to put the remembrance of it out 
 of my mind for years. They both deceived 
 me basely. I pursued them, and, blind 
 with rage, shot the man at her feet and 
 left them. The woman I had loved and 
 the man. One alive, one dead. When 
 they found them they were both dead. 
 The woman had exculpated me. She left 
 a note saying she had taken her own life. 
 I disposed of my property, changed my 
 [205]
 
 name, and left the country. I was the last 
 of my family. The change of name was 
 easy. I was baptized Charles Henry Alden 
 Avery. I dropped Avery, prefixed my 
 father s name, and put the initials to the 
 Alden." 
 
 "And the baby?" 
 
 " The baby died " 
 
 ;< What! " she cried in horrified amaze 
 ment. "And I?" 
 
 " No, no," he said, " you confuse me. 
 The mother died, not the baby. I took 
 the baby with me to Italy. I lived there 
 a number of years. Report of my death 
 was spread about by my own contrivance. 
 It was published broadcast, and then, after 
 a long time, I came to Philadelphia. No 
 one knew me. You know the rest." 
 
 "And was I that baby?" 
 
 And this time no nervous tremor shook 
 the frame of the man again. Alicia lifted 
 her head from his breast and looked at 
 him as if she would fain look into his very 
 soul. But he was on his guard now; his 
 [206]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 face was a mask behind which she could 
 see nothing. He seemed so calm and so 
 strong that her dawning suspicions were 
 lulled into assurance. His perfectly simu 
 lated coolness disarmed her. 
 
 " Of course," he said quietly, " of 
 course." 
 
 "My poor, poor father!" Her first 
 thought was for him ; later she would think 
 of herself. "How you have suffered! 
 But you should have told me." 
 
 " I concealed it for your happiness, my 
 dear," answered Chalden. 
 
 " I know, but I am we are a false 
 pretence, father. We do not go under our 
 rightful name. We can t even tell any 
 body without spreading this awful truth. 
 Oh, father, how could she do it? How 
 could she do it? The daughter of a dis 
 honored woman ! What have I ever done ! 
 The sins of the parents, they are visited on 
 the children. I learned that at school, but 
 I never knew its meaning before. How 
 could she do it? My poor father, but we 
 [207]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 have each other. I shall never leave you 
 now. I shall show you that even with this 
 tainted blood in my veins I can still be 
 true." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 " I cannot marry Doctor Whyot now. 
 I cannot allow it. You know how op 
 posed to me all his relatives are. How 
 proud even the doctor himself, although 
 he does not think of those things quite as 
 the rest of his people do, is of his pure, un 
 blemished ancient lineage." 
 
 " Alicia, this is madness ! " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " He does not know, he need not know." 
 
 " I must tell him." 
 
 "That is folly!" 
 
 " Father, when one s record is not clear, 
 when one s own mother was a one must 
 be the more honorable on account of that." 
 
 "But, Alicia " 
 
 " Don t! Don t urge me. We look at 
 things in different ways. I have my own 
 ideas of honor. You have yours. I must 
 [208]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 be governed by mine. Don t plead with 
 me, father! Let me respect the only hon 
 orable parent I have." 
 
 Chalden tore himself from her, put his 
 hand to his head and walked up and down 
 the room in great agitation. Whyot was 
 the one man in Philadelphia he would have 
 chosen for Alicia. And now she was about 
 to reject him! Arguments, appeals rose 
 to his lips, but he decided not to bring 
 them forth then. He would seek a more 
 fitting season, to wait would do no harm, 
 he had often won only by waiting. And 
 there was another thing troubling him. 
 
 "Who told you this story?" he finally 
 burst out. 
 
 " A man who came to the house this 
 afternoon." 
 
 "Yes, but what man?" 
 
 " He is in the library," said the girl. 
 Noticing the murderous gleam that sprang 
 into his eyes as he turned away, she ex 
 claimed hurriedly, " You won t hurt him? " 
 
 "Hurt him?" cried her father, reach- 
 [209]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ing up his arms as he spoke and opening 
 and closing his hands with a convulsive 
 motion, a gesture the more sinister because 
 he so rarely permitted himself the luxury 
 of any outward manifestation of his feel 
 ings, "I will choke him to death with my 
 naked hands ! " 
 
 Chalden infrequently gave way to his 
 emotions. To do so was a luxury in 
 which he did not often indulge. He con 
 trolled himself and others thereby. His 
 abandonment at this time was the more 
 impressive therefor. If he had had the 
 man before him he would undoubtedly 
 have killed him. Alicia clung to him des 
 perately. 
 
 " Father, I will not let you go until you 
 promise me you will not hurt that man! 
 I will stay with you until you promise. 
 There must be some other way to silence 
 him. It is no disgrace to you, and as for 
 me I would rather have it known than have 
 you to Promise me ! I won t let you 
 go until you do ! " 
 
 [210]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " I can keep him quiet, Alicia. The 
 man is absolutely in my power. He 
 thought to injure me through you, and 
 then escape. He tried to sell his news to 
 Major Whyot this morning; the Major 
 beat him as you see." 
 
 " Will s uncle," said the girl, a thrill of 
 pride in the Major s action lighting up her 
 face for a moment. 
 
 Yes, there is good blood in them, even 
 if the little Major has gone to seed. I 
 stopped a raid on his stocks this morning, 
 and he is richer now than he was before." 
 
 " That was noble of you. Did he ask 
 you?" 
 
 " Certainly not! The man is a gentle 
 man, which in business is tantamount to 
 calling him a fool. I don t understand 
 what Jackens waited for." 
 
 " He had to." 
 
 "Had to? Why?" 
 
 " I made Robert and James keep him 
 until you returned." 
 
 " Good ! I suppose he has told them ? " 
 
 [211]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " No, I do not believe he has. From 
 what I saw of Robert s method of dealing 
 with him, I think he has been kept quiet. 
 They would not allow him to speak. You 
 won t hurt him, father? Promise me! 
 You are all I have now. I can t even love 
 the memory of a mother! " 
 
 The girl s voice quivered and broke. 
 
 " Alicia," said the man, deeply moved 
 by her touching appeal, " whatever hap 
 pens to me, whatever you may learn, I 
 want you to believe one thing, that if I 
 have ever done you a wrong I love you as 
 I have never loved woman before. I want 
 you to believe that I think you are worthy 
 the respect, the devotion, of the best of 
 humanity." 
 
 " That makes up to me for a great deal. 
 Now, you won t lay your hands on that 
 man, will you? I want that promise, be 
 cause I have only you now. I could not 
 bear to see you " 
 
 " I shall not. Now, let me go." 
 
 " No, I must go with you. When I 
 [212]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 have told him one thing then I shall leave 
 you." 
 
 As the two entered the library Jackens 
 fairly cowered from the sight of Chalden s 
 heavy brow and lowering countenance. 
 
 "Oh, for God s sake, sir, Mr. Chal- 
 den " cringed the man. 
 
 " Be still ! " said the other sharply. 
 Robert and James, keep within call out 
 side. Has the man said anything to you? " 
 
 " Not a word, sir," answered Robert. 
 " I wouldn t let him." 
 
 " You are a rare and faithful servant, 
 Robert," said Chalden, " and I shall not 
 forget it." 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the man gravely and 
 simply as he went out and closed the door. 
 
 It was more praise than Chalden had 
 given him for years. He was one of those 
 who followed the financier s fortune with 
 blind devotion, and in such rare words he 
 found adequate reward. 
 
 " Mr. what is this man s name, 
 father?" 
 
 [213]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Jackens." 
 
 " Mr. Jackens, I did you an injustice. 
 I said that you lied. I still think you what 
 I said you were, a heartless villain and a 
 scoundrel, but you are not a liar, and I am 
 sorry I said so." 
 
 " Oh, Miss, won t you please " 
 
 u I do not need to do anything to help 
 you," said Alicia, " except to remind you 
 that we are told to forgive those who 
 trespass against us. You have trespassed 
 against my father and against me sorely," 
 she went on piteously, " but I we 
 forgive you." 
 
 She included Chalden in her statement, 
 but without permission or justification; one 
 look at his face showed that to Jackens, 
 who writhed under it. 
 
 " Oh, Miss, if you will only " 
 
 " Father has promised me that he will 
 not hurt you, and he always keeps his word. 
 Won t you, father?" 
 
 " I will. Now go, Alicia." 
 
 Left alone with the man, Chalden 
 
 [214]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 stepped to him cowering down on the floor 
 before him. His hands fairly twitched to 
 get at him. 
 
 "You promised her! " gasped the man 
 in mortal terror. 
 
 " And I ll keep my promise," answered 
 the other. " But I think you know how 
 I would like to strangle you. I ve just one 
 word to say to you. You told your story 
 to Major Whyot, and he came straight to 
 me with it. Then you told it to my daugh 
 ter. Have you mentioned it to anyone 
 else?" 
 
 " No, sir, so help me God, sir! " 
 
 Well, sir, I ve taken occasion to refer 
 to your past and I ve learned your career. 
 After you fled from my employ I had de 
 tectives put on your track. I knew how 
 you felt, and I wanted to protect myself 
 against all possible attacks from such as 
 you. I ve looked your career up from the 
 beginning. I know you to be one of the 
 blackest hearted scoundrels, in a small way, 
 that ever lived. I m not surprised at your 
 [215]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 attempt to do this. There is evidence 
 enough in my possession to put you in the 
 State prison for life. I don t know but 
 that there is evidence enough to hang you. 
 That store that was burned down! The 
 women in it. The forgery of my name 
 which I stopped before you could realize 
 anything on it. The abstraction of those 
 bonds. There s murder, arson, theft, for 
 gery! Do you mark that? This is not 
 theory on my part, I have the papers in 
 my office, in my safe. I m not bluffing. 
 
 " You will come down to my office to 
 morrow at ten o clock. I want you to be 
 perfectly certain that I have the evidence 
 there, that I can dispose of you as I wish, 
 that I can hang you, or at least imprison 
 you for life. Then I want you to know 
 that if you ever open your mouth about 
 that story, or about me, or mine, in any 
 way, so help me your God if you believe 
 in any that moment you betray me I will 
 fix you. I am rich enough to keep you in 
 sight forever. If you are not at my office 
 [216]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to-morrow morning at ten o clock, a war 
 rant will be issued for you immediately. 
 You are a marked man already. Do you 
 know what I did as soon as you left me 
 yesterday? I telephoned the Director of 
 Public Safety to cause you to be appre 
 hended and brought to me. There is the 
 telephone ringing now," continued Chal- 
 den, as the bell jangled from the desk. 
 He picked up the receiver. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " this is Mr. Chal- 
 den. Ah, the Director of Public Safety. 
 Yes, you have found the man? You traced 
 him to my house this afternoon, and you 
 report that he has not been seen to leave 
 it." Chalden lifted his head. "Come 
 here, my man. I want you to hear for 
 yourself. Now, take that receiver. I 
 want you to be perfectly sure that I am 
 stating the truth. You see," he added, as 
 the frightened wretch put down the re 
 ceiver, " now you have your choice. I ll 
 telephone the Police Department now that 
 you are here and they are to follow you 
 [217]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 after you leave and not let you get away. 
 You understand that I have only to lift my 
 hand and you are done for. You can de 
 cide by ten o clock to-morrow morning 
 whether your life and liberty are worth 
 more to you than the telling of this tale. 
 If I had not promised that girl that I would 
 not hurt you, you would never leave this 
 house alive. Now go ! Remember what 
 I ve said and be at my office at ten o clock 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 " I may not be admitted, sir." 
 
 " Yes, you will. Here is a card. I will 
 leave instructions there for your recep 
 tion." 
 
 " But don t I get any money? " whined 
 the abject man. 
 
 "Not a dollar, not a cent! You may 
 count yourself lucky in getting out alive. 
 Robert," said Chalden, as that person en 
 tered in answer to the bell, " show this man 
 to the door." 
 
 After the man had gone Chalden sat 
 down at the desk and laid his face upon it. 
 [218]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The sweat had come out upon his fore 
 head, although the room was cold. He 
 brushed it away from his haggard brow. 
 He looked years older, he was almost as 
 shaken in body and spirit as if he had had 
 a stroke. 
 
 " My God," he murmured, " my God, 
 what an escape! If she only knew! "
 
 XIII 
 
 ALICIA had instantly made up her 
 mind to break her engagement with 
 Doctor Whyot. 
 
 The girl was intensely proud. Without 
 saying much about it, scarcely even realiz 
 ing it, she had been as proud of her good 
 name, of her ancestry, as the Major of 
 his; in a different way, but as strongly as 
 he. She discovered that when she found 
 she had no reason to be. It had been 
 more or less an unconscious pride; just as 
 she had taken her ancestry for granted, 
 from her self-consciousness, so she had 
 fitted herself into the imaginary situation. 
 The crushing shock of the discovery of her 
 mother s infamy, her father s flight, the 
 change of name, the years in a foreign 
 city, and so on, swept her away from her 
 usual moorings. She felt lost in the situa 
 tion which confronted her. There was 
 [ 220 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 nothing in her experience or in her theories 
 of life which would adequately enable her 
 to rise above it. 
 
 In a perfect agony of shame and humil 
 iation, with a heart-break for the blight 
 that had come so suddenly and unexpect 
 edly upon her, she sat down and wrote to 
 her lover. She told him the naked truth, 
 and then, after declaring her surprise and 
 horror at the facts, which, she assured him, 
 she had not known until that night, she 
 peremptorily broke the engagement. 
 
 Never, she said, would she consent to 
 allow the anticipated marriage to take 
 place. While he was greatly different 
 from the rest of his family, yet she real 
 ized, and gladly, that he was by no means 
 free from a proper amount of that pride 
 of birth and ancestry which his family ex 
 hibited so extravagantly. They had often 
 spoken together of the privilege and the 
 joy of an untarnished name, an unblem 
 ished character, and a pure ancestry. 
 
 In view of what she had learned, in view 
 [221 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of the fact that the name she bore was not 
 her rightful one, in view of the possibility, 
 nay, the certainty, that sooner or later the 
 whole disgraceful story would come out, 
 she could not consent that the engagement 
 should continue. She could not marry 
 him, she could never marry anyone, with 
 such a cloud upon her. 
 
 She made no secret of her love for the 
 man; indeed, it was impossible to disguise 
 it. In the very act of renunciation, her de 
 votion, in despite of her mind, shone clear 
 and true and strong. The sentences with 
 which she said good-by rang more pas 
 sionately than any she had ever written or 
 spoken to him. Because it was the last 
 time, she abandoned herself to her feel 
 ings, and they overwhelmed her. 
 
 It was a noble letter, and Alicia was 
 a noble person. Her sense of honor was 
 keen, and deeply engrained in her being. 
 She prayed, after she had posted the let 
 ter, that Whyot might not call upon her 
 that evening. The strain of telling him 
 222
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 face to face what she had written would 
 have been more than she could have borne, 
 and love gave Alicia insight enough to 
 know that her own person would be the 
 most potent argument in preventing that 
 cool and dispassionate consideration of her 
 resolution which she demanded of her 
 lover. Alicia was absolutely determined 
 upon her course of action. The strong, 
 masterful, forceful traits of her father ap 
 peared in her character in curious streaks. 
 Generally amenable to argument, appeal, 
 persuasion, she sometimes exhibited a de 
 termination her enemies might have 
 called it an obstinacy which amounted 
 to impenetrable hardness. 
 
 Her heart was fairly breaking over the 
 sad end she foresaw to her love affair, yet 
 she never for a moment contemplated an 
 alteration in her decision. As to what 
 Dr. Whyot would do she could not tell. 
 She hoped that was the woman of it 
 that he might refuse to accept her renun 
 ciation of him and that he might come to 
 [223]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 plead with her later on, when she had in 
 a measure recovered from the trials of 
 the day. In that case, however, she was 
 firmly resolved that she would never give 
 way. She would never go to him as a 
 wife unless she could feel herself in every 
 respect his equal. 
 
 This confounding herself with her an 
 cestry was a distinctly unphilosophic view 
 for a Doctor of Philosophy to take, yet she 
 took it. It ran counter to her theories of the 
 inherent equality of individuals, but she 
 did not hesitate on that account. She be 
 lieved, for others, that each man made his 
 own place, and was to be judged on his 
 own merits; but she could not make her 
 theory fit her own case. The best of us are 
 creatures of contradiction, men as well as 
 women. Alicia resolved to break her en 
 gagement, in contravention of her theories 
 of life; yet she wished her lover to come 
 to her, to appeal to her, to plead with her, 
 in defiance of her inhibition. She said to 
 him, " Come no more," and if he did not 
 [224]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 come, though he came upon a fruitless 
 errand, her heart would break! 
 
 Yes, Alicia believed with all her soul in 
 the essential equality of individuals, no 
 matter what the several accidents of birth, 
 color, or station, might be. Yet she took 
 upon herself the sins of her mother and 
 created thereby an inequality between her 
 self and the rest of the world that is, 
 Doctor Whyot. Strange and illogical con 
 clusion for a Doctor of Philosophy, but be 
 fore she earned that good degree, and after 
 as well, she was yet a woman. A woman 
 in all but her resolution. 
 
 Alicia was very unhappy. She slept not 
 at all that night. Her cheeks burned 
 against the pillow as she thought of the 
 shame in what should be to the child the 
 very fount of altruism and pure affection, 
 her mother. With morbid sensitiveness 
 she felt the taint of evil in her, as if she 
 had herself been guilty. 
 
 Her thoughts dwelt often upon her 
 father. There was comfort there. How 
 [225]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 noble, how good, he had been! No won 
 der he was embittered toward society. No 
 wonder he had made war upon it and mas 
 tered it. No wonder he had withdrawn 
 himself from the world awhile. He had 
 done it from the impulse of a poignant and 
 never dying memory. But now he had 
 changed. Not in his methods, or in his 
 manners, or in his practice, perhaps men 
 do not change the habits of years in a mo 
 ment, unless under the inspiration of a 
 great catastrophe or in the presence of a 
 crisis but he had changed his object. 
 He was working and gathering for her 
 now. 
 
 She forgot, in the rush of her new affec 
 tion, other things that had begun to hurt 
 her. It was pitiful from one point of view, 
 but she clung the more desperately to the 
 honorable position of her father now that 
 she had been stricken so sorely on the ma 
 ternal side. She shut her eyes to the things 
 which had moved her so profoundly, which 
 had gone far to open her eyes to the true 
 [226]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 inwardness of some of her father s actions. 
 Her being went out to him in a wave of 
 affection which, had the lonely man be 
 low, sitting in the library, quiet and still, 
 staring at nothing with relief and terror 
 yet in his face, comprehended, might have 
 deepened his relief while it added to his 
 terror and, in spite of all, filled his heart 
 with joy. 
 
 Well, Alicia would devote herself to her 
 father, to her work. Perhaps God had 
 marked her out in this way by making it 
 impossible for her to enjoy the earthly 
 happiness which in the morning had been 
 her fondest dream. She would work 
 among the poor people who already looked 
 to her as the chief among those who were 
 to lead them into higher planes of living 
 and thought. What was her loss should 
 be their gain. She would send for Mr. 
 Olney in the morning. There was a 
 scheme, dear to his heart, from which she 
 had hitherto shrunk, it demanded so much 
 personal service of her, but she would now 
 [227]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 espouse it with earnestness, with glad 
 ness. 
 
 Yet it was, after all, a miserable girl 
 who came to this noble conclusion. 
 
 Morning brought no comfort either to 
 the broken girl or to the man who looked 
 as if he had escaped death by the shading 
 of a hair. Because they were creatures of 
 convention they went through the usual 
 routine of life. One must eat and drink, 
 if one cannot be merry, though death be in 
 the house or shame in the heart. Each 
 concealed from the other how deep had 
 been the hurt and strove to put on a sem 
 blance of cheerfulness. Alicia was loath to 
 part with her father that morning. She 
 sent him to his office with the memory of 
 a clinging embrace and a fervent kiss hang 
 ing about him. Those made the situation, 
 the real situation, the harder to bear. 
 
 Chalden found Jackens waiting for him, 
 and easily convinced that cringing and 
 thoroughly terrorized mortal of the indis 
 putable character of the evidence in his 
 [228]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 possession. When the ex-clerk left the 
 office of his former employer there was no 
 fear on Chalden s part that the man would 
 ever cause him further trouble at least 
 not until his death. There was some little 
 satisfaction for Chaiden in this manifesta 
 tion of power. Power is power, whether 
 it is wielded against the helpless or the 
 strong. Even the crushing of a mere weak 
 ling is not without pleasure to the man who 
 crushes it, provided he has the crushing 
 spirit. 
 
 But Chaiden had been greatly shocked 
 by the whole affair. If this man had at 
 last found out what he believed he had 
 taken such successful steps to prevent ever 
 coming to light, others might do the same. 
 They might do more. The security in 
 which he had lived was gone in a moment. 
 That was Chalden s weakness; to imagine 
 that anything in his past, in the past of a 
 man of such prominence as he, could be 
 forever concealed. 
 
 And there was another phase of Chal- 
 [ 229 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 den s life the opening of which would have 
 moved him to vastly greater sorrow than 
 the discovery of the misconduct of his 
 wife. For the first time in years the man 
 was unable to concentrate himself upon his 
 work. There is always business of moment 
 to demand the attention of a great finan 
 cier, and for the first time he felt inade 
 quate to it. He dismissed his secretary to 
 the outer office, refusing himself to all 
 callers on the plea of urgent private affairs, 
 and sat moodily alone in front of his great 
 desk. His attitude was singularly like that 
 assumed by one who expected a blow. A 
 premonition of disaster was in the air. He 
 waited. 
 
 Doctor Whyot received Alicia s letter 
 just as he was leaving his office to attend 
 a confinement case of great urgency. He 
 read it standing on his door step. His first 
 impulse was to go to her instantly, but the 
 poor woman to whose bedside he was 
 called required immediate attention. The 
 shock of the letter was so great that he 
 [230]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 hardly felt equal to the responsibilities of 
 the case, which he had reason to believe 
 would prove serious, yet his pride instantly 
 came to his rescue and his sense of duty. 
 The woman suffering bodily pain must 
 first receive attention, the poor woman who 
 required his professional services had the 
 first claim. The woman who was suffering 
 from heart-break must wait. Always, ev 
 erywhere, the woman who suffers from 
 heart-break must wait. A cut finger takes 
 precedence over a bruised soul even. 
 
 Whyot summoned his resolution to his 
 aid and determined to do his duty as a 
 physician, under the appeal made by a pro 
 fession which exacts from its followers the 
 devotion of a priest, the consecration of a 
 martyr, the labor of a serf. Alicia must 
 wait. 
 
 He scribbled a hasty note on his pre 
 scription tablet to the Major, with whom 
 he had striven to keep on terms of speech 
 at least during the period which had 
 elapsed since the famous dinner, asking
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 him to meet him early in the afternoon at 
 the Loyal Club, to which he promised to 
 repair as soon as he could get free from 
 his duties. For, on second thoughts, he 
 concluded that he must see the Major be 
 fore Alicia. He did not trust himself to 
 answer Alicia s letter, but pencilling a line 
 upon another tablet blank told her he had 
 received her letter and begged her to re 
 main at her own home until he appeared, 
 as he had an imperative call of duty which 
 prevented his coming to her at once. The 
 letter closed with the assurance that the 
 girl craved, that he did not love her for 
 her family, her ancestry, but for herself. 
 
 She was fully determined, and, realizing 
 her determination, it would have been bet 
 ter for her to avoid him; yet, after she had 
 read it, she carefully remained at home 
 during the morning, waiting. There the 
 Reverend Henry Olney found her, a prey 
 to nervousness and agitation and sorrow 
 vastly greater than her power of conceal 
 ment. 
 
 .[232]
 
 XIV 
 
 WHEN the Reverend Henry Olney s 
 card was put in Alicia s hand a 
 sudden flash of memory brought back her 
 father s strange remark of the afternoon 
 before. She had forgotten it in the rush 
 of events, and now she wondered vaguely 
 what he might have meant by the refer 
 ence. Was it possible that the clergyman 
 knew the shameful story which had been 
 revealed to her? If so, how had he found 
 it out? How long had he known it? Her 
 father had always spoken in detestation of 
 him. His coming to the house, especially 
 since Aunt Nancy s death, had been a dis 
 tinct concession to her desires on Chalden s 
 part. So far as she knew there had been 
 no intercourse between her father and Ol- 
 ney of any sort, yet the first thought evi 
 dently that had come into Chalden s mind 
 
 [ 233 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 when she had told him the story was that 
 either the Major or Olney had been her 
 informants. While the reference to the 
 Major had been accounted for, that to 
 Olney had not. What did Olney know, 
 was the question which confronted her 
 with his card. 
 
 A strange feeling of resentment came 
 over her. She could hardly express why 
 she felt this resentment, at least a frank 
 explanation would have involved an aban 
 donment of her sociological position of 
 inherent equality in individuals, which she 
 still maintained except so far as Whyot 
 and herself were affected by these new de 
 velopments ; yet there was the fact that she 
 did resent any knowledge of her private 
 affairs by a man who, from his mixed 
 blood, she instinctively felt, in spite of her 
 theories, to belong to an inferior race. 
 Alicia at that moment was a living protest 
 against her theory and for the second 
 time. 
 
 It did not then occur to her that in the 
 [234]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 end the discovery of such a secret in her 
 father s past would be inevitable, and that 
 when it was published it would be known 
 to everyone, high and low, black and 
 white. Her world at that particular in 
 stant was limited to Olney, and him she did 
 not wish to know it. If the story were 
 published broadcast no doubt there would 
 be something to dull the anguish of her 
 consciousness in the very publicity which 
 would be given it. If everybody knew it 
 the worst would be over, but to have a man 
 whom she had unconsciously and unwit 
 tingly dominated know it was unbearable. 
 She only considered that domination in 
 his case Olney approached so nearly 
 her own racial status that she instinctively 
 armed herself against him. She never 
 troubled her head or her heart about such 
 questions when she was brought in con 
 tact with the lower classes of negroes 
 and to have that secret known to Olney, 
 to feel herself an object of his pity It 
 was intolerable ! 
 
 [235]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 She did not feel that way about Doctor 
 Whyot at all. She wanted his pity be 
 cause she loved him, and she expected it 
 because he loved her, although all was at 
 an end between them. However, Alicia 
 realized that speculations concerning Olney 
 and herself were not profitable, and if the 
 man did know that secret which was crush 
 ing her he was in no way responsible for 
 the knowledge and could not honestly be 
 held accountable therefor by any right- 
 minded person. She did him the justice to 
 acknowledge that he had never presumed 
 upon such knowledge in any way if he 
 had it and that, although for the first 
 time she fairly admitted it to herself, or 
 took open cognizance of the fact, that he 
 was in love with her, he had never in any 
 way borne himself save with the most re 
 spectful decorum; that he had been, in 
 short, a self-repressing, self-respecting gen 
 tleman in all his intercourse with her. 
 
 These things did not give her any great 
 amount of comfort, but they forced her to 
 [236]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 endeavor to put all such vagrant ideas out 
 of her mind and to receive him precisely 
 as she was accustomed to do. Moreover, 
 on one account she was anxious to see him. 
 The breaking of her engagement, the new 
 determination to throw herself with more 
 vigor and energy into her chosen work, 
 the necessity she felt for his guidance, the 
 hoped for benefit of his wise assistance, 
 should have rendered him, and did, save 
 for the thoughts she had, a most opportune 
 visitor. 
 
 She was sitting in the library at the time, 
 and she gave orders at last that he should 
 be admitted. Had it been Doctor Whyot 
 whom she expected to open the door she 
 would have given instant thought to her 
 appearance. Indeed, had Alicia been a 
 girl of wider acquaintance among men, and 
 had she expected anyone of her own class, 
 she would have considered her looks in 
 spite of everything. With Olney it was 
 different. He was a clergyman and 
 well, at any rate she gave no thought to 
 [237]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 her appearance. She did not even exert 
 herself to banish the evidences of her grief 
 and despair. 
 
 The man saw her therefore entirely dis 
 armed, off her guard, indifferent. Even 
 an ordinary observer would have marked 
 the signs of that sorrow which had changed 
 her outlook upon life over night and had 
 settled upon her as a blight. An eye as 
 keen as Olney s, backed by an intellect as 
 subtle, instigated by a heart as passionate, 
 with that touch of oriental fineness of per 
 ception, which came from that little streak 
 of sun-kissed tropic blood, saw very much 
 more. 
 
 The whole woman in her anguish and 
 agony was revealed to him. He could 
 have borne her joy, he had schooled him 
 self to contemplate her happiness without 
 manifesting one jot of his feelings, but her 
 grief moved him beyond his power of con 
 trol. Yesterday she had been the personi 
 fication of youth, of hope, of freedom 
 from care; to-day it was as if a cloud had 
 [238]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 been drawn around her horizon. Her pale 
 face was whiter than ever. The passion, 
 the touch of life, had gone from it. There 
 were circles under her eyes, the very droop 
 of her figure, the slow turn of her head as 
 she lifted her eyes to meet his glance, be 
 spoke some crushing blow. He could see 
 that it was not physical, that some mental 
 shock had robbed her of the joy of life. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " he cried. " Miss 
 Chalden, what has happened. 
 
 He stepped nearer to her in his anxiety, 
 nearer than he had ever approached her. 
 She noticed his long graceful fingers 
 twined together and clinched as if they 
 would break from the pressure. They 
 made a white tremulous blur in front of 
 his long black clerical coat. 
 
 " What is the matter? " he cried. 
 " j j " 
 
 She stopped. How much did this man 
 know? Could she ascertain without be 
 traying herself? She would try. 
 
 "Why do you ask?" 
 
 [239]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 You look forgive me so 
 broken." 
 
 The man s voice quivered with his anxi 
 ety. Alicia s eyes opened. His guard was 
 off, too. She was looking into his soul as 
 he was looking into her own. There was 
 no doubt of his feelings now. The touch 
 of sorrow had enlightened them both. To 
 love, to suffer together, is it not at last to 
 see, sometimes to believe? She would be 
 careful. She answered him evenly: 
 
 " I am very well." 
 
 " Yes, physically, perhaps, but some 
 thing has happened. Tell me. What is 
 it? I must know! " 
 
 His imperative manner shocked her, 
 there was a sense of equality, nay, mastery, 
 in it. The girl drew herself up with a 
 flash of pride, a pride that she had never 
 "before exhibited in intercourse with him, 
 for there had been no occasion for it. 
 
 " Why do you ask? " she cried sharply. 
 " What right " 
 
 "The right of " the man burst out
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 hotly, and then stopped and bit his pale 
 lip until the blood reddened it. " No 
 right," he said at last, humbly, " none 
 whatever. I beg your pardon." He 
 passed his hand wearily across his brow as 
 if to drive away thought by the mere phys 
 ical pressure. " I forgot myself," he add 
 ed. He moved back a few paces from 
 her. " I pray your pardon. I have had 
 much on my mind of late. I have become 
 nervous, overwrought, unstrung " 
 
 He wondered dimly in his agony 
 whether he had completely betrayed him 
 self or not. His distress was so terrible 
 that the girl pitied him. 
 
 " You may ask," she said finally. " I 
 have heard something " 
 
 She looked steadily at him. How like 
 her father in her intent gaze, he thought, 
 as he returned her look unflinchingly. 
 
 " I have heard something that that 
 disgraces me." 
 
 " Miss Chalden," he cried at once, 
 keenly alive, as he thought, to the situa- 
 [241]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tion, " say no more, I beg of you. I am 
 no fit confidant for you. Your father, your 
 fiance do not tell me anything that you 
 would regret." 
 
 As he spoke there came into his mind a 
 vivid apprehension that she had learned 
 the secret that he possessed, that Aunt 
 Nancy had told him, and from his soul he 
 pitied her. Yet, in that he was a human 
 man with the human passions of his kind, 
 he could not restrain a leap of wild exulta 
 tion in his heart. Had she discovered 
 what he had concealed at the risk of his 
 life, could she be made to recognize the 
 depth of his love in his self-sacrifice for 
 her? He fought these things down like 
 the gentleman he was. He strove to be 
 conscious only of the fact that the knowl 
 edge he possessed, if she shared it, would 
 kill her. Perhaps the blow had already 
 been inflicted; yet there was not quite evi 
 dence enough for that in her appearance. 
 It could not be that, surely. It was only 
 a surmise naturally on his part, but still a 
 [ 242]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 surmise. There might be other dark peri 
 ods in the hidden life of Philip Chalden, 
 things bad enough, but beside that of little 
 moment. He must be careful. He must 
 watch himself. The man clinched his 
 hands once more and waited. 
 
 You are a clergyman," said Alicia 
 slowly. " I believe you to be an honorable 
 man. Something tells me that that 
 what I have to tell you is already known 
 to you." 
 
 The man was under too great a pressure 
 for any mental contradiction. Something 
 flashed into his face, sorrow for her, joy 
 for himself. The girl leaned forward and 
 stared at him. She extended her hand 
 toward him. 
 
 " I know that you know," she said tri 
 umphantly. " Don t you? You shall tell 
 me! " she continued, her voice rising a lit 
 tle. ; Do you know anything?" 
 
 " Stop, stop ! " he answered, putting out 
 his hand. 
 
 She brushed it aside. 
 
 [243]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Do you know anything " her voice 
 lost its sweetness in its commanding insist 
 ence " do you know anything about my 
 mother? " 
 
 The man shrank away from her. At 
 this moment he would have given his life 
 cheerfully to spare her. He tried to speak. 
 His voice died away in his agony. His 
 lips were parched and dry. He moistened 
 them nervously, turned away his head, and 
 lied to her. 
 
 " No," he whispered hoarsely, " I " 
 
 " Don t lie to me. You are a clergy 
 man, a priest of God, sworn to honor, hon 
 esty, a follower in your Master s footsteps. 
 I have watched you. I believe you to be 
 a true man, one of the few with whom I 
 have come in contact. Tell me the truth. 
 I adjure you in the name of the God we 
 both serve, do you know any disgrace 
 ful secret about my mother? " 
 
 " I do," answered the man, compelled, 
 bowing to a will stronger than his own; 
 and then he buried his face in his thin, 
 [244]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 slender hands and his body shook with 
 suppressed feeling. 
 
 She knew then, God help her, he 
 thought. He was mistaken, and never 
 was mistake more fatal in its consequences. 
 As yet she had no suspicion of the real 
 truth. 
 
 Why, why did you ask me? " he cried, 
 as soon as he could speak. " Why did 
 you force me to tell you? Good God, 
 have you no mercy, no pity ? I have known 
 it since the old woman died. Believe me, 
 I did not seek the knowledge. She saw 
 that I I " 
 
 What was the Reverend Henry Olney 
 about to say? Before her surprised yet 
 suspicious gaze he stopped. By an effort 
 that tore his very soul he checked himself 
 in time. 
 
 " She told me. I swear to you on my 
 honor as a man, by my vows as a priest, 
 that I never told it to a soul except to your 
 father! I would not have done so. You 
 can t think how awful this has been to me. 
 [245]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 When the woman told me it opened before 
 me such a vista of hope, I can t express it. 
 But there, that is over." 
 
 He lifted his face from his hands, and 
 the haggardness and misery in it more than 
 matched her own. He suffered for two 
 for Alicia and himself; she only suffered 
 for herself, then. 
 
 "Forgive me," he went on; "I have 
 made a fool of myself. I do not know 
 how I came to do it. The knowledge is 
 awful to you, but well, it hasn t made 
 any difference in your regard for me, I see 
 that, and I thought, I hoped, it might 
 if you ever learned it." 
 
 The girl was staring at the man wide- 
 eyed, astonished. What could he mean? 
 
 " I saw it in your eyes as I came in," he 
 continued blindly. " I watched you. For 
 one moment I hoped but that is over. 
 I want to serve you and I want to help 
 you. No one can understand your posi 
 tion as I." 
 
 A vague fear of something yet unre- 
 [246]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 vealed and more terrible had penetrated 
 the girl s soul as she listened to the passion 
 ate outburst. Had fate something worse 
 in store for her than the blows already in 
 flicted upon her? 
 
 You understand?" she asked slowly. 
 "What do you understand? Why " 
 
 " I understand, yes," said the man; 
 " don t you see? I know." 
 
 "Know what?" 
 
 " My mother also " 
 
 " Was she an adulteress, a suicide like 
 mine? " 
 
 " She was an adulteress," said the man 
 bitterly, "like many octoroons, yes; a sui 
 cide, no." 
 
 His words seemed to turn the girl to 
 stone. She stood before him absolutely 
 motionless. An octoroon what could 
 he mean? She was staring at him, and the 
 surprise this time was with him. She did 
 not know, she had not known, then. Just 
 heaven ! What had he done ? What had 
 she known or thought? Had he betrayed 
 [247]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the girl was speaking. He could not 
 hear what she was saying even at the dis 
 tance he stood. He stepped nearer to her. 
 She swayed unsteadily before him. He 
 grasped her by the arm. 
 
 " An octoroon ! " she whispered. " Was 
 my mother a negress as well as " 
 
 " Good God! " cried Olney in a voice 
 tense with all the horror of the discovery 
 of his error, " didn t you know? " 
 
 "No. Is it the truth?" 
 
 " It s a lie," answered the man prompt 
 ly. " I am mad! I don t know what I 
 said." 
 
 " It s the truth ! " cried the girl, " and 
 I am even as you tainted ! Black ! 
 Black! My God! My God! " 
 
 " Forgive me," exclaimed Olney des 
 perately, falling at her feet, clutching her 
 dress in his hand, " I thought you knew. 
 I should have died rather than what am 
 I saying? It s a lie ! I know nothing." 
 
 You love me," said the girl swiftly, 
 " and you know. Aunt Nancy told you. 
 [248]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 It made me like yourself. It brought me 
 in reach of you. You could hope, and yet 
 you kept silent and saw me give myself to 
 another man." 
 
 " No," persisted the man doggedly, " I 
 know nothing." 
 
 "An octoroon! Oh, not that! Yes, 
 say it was a lie, a lie ! " cried Alicia in a 
 heart-breaking appeal. " Why, my mother 
 was as white as " she was about to say 
 as I am " as any woman. She was 
 wicked, disgraceful, she abandoned me, 
 she ran away from my father, with his 
 dearest friend. He shot the man dead, 
 and my mother committed suicide and left 
 me a baby, a little white baby. She was 
 an adulteress, she was everything that she 
 should not have been oh, for God s 
 sake, don t say she was a negress ! " 
 
 The girl was wild with terror now. 
 She looked down at the man kneeling at 
 her feet and stretched out her hands to 
 him. 
 
 " Don t tell me that! " she cried. 
 [249]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " I will not," said the man, resolutely 
 persistent, hoping against hope that he 
 might undo his betrayal, rectify his awful 
 mistake. " What you have said is true, 
 and that s all of it. Your mother was 
 white, of course. That s what old Nancy 
 told me. I lied to you a moment ago. I 
 tried to make you believe that you were 
 even as I that I might hope that I 
 might love you that you might return 
 my affection. I worship the ground upon 
 which you walk. I lay my soul at your 
 feet. It has been there ever since I saw 
 you. I am a man, that accursed streak of 
 black blood has not altered me, changed 
 me, and but for that I might have won 
 you. At least I d have had a chance like 
 other men. It made me crazy, and I gave 
 way to the temptation just now. Hate me, 
 despise me, I have lied to you, I am a for 
 sworn man. I have been false to my ordi 
 nation vows, my honor as a man to 
 everything! I have thrown them aside for 
 you." 
 
 [250]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 And so he had, but in a different way 
 from that conveyed in his speech. 
 
 " No, no," said the girl, overwhelmed 
 by her consciousness of the bitter truth, 
 " you are telling an untruth now. I know 
 you, even despite yourself." His heart 
 leaped with joy at the testimony to his 
 rectitude that she had unconsciously given 
 him. " I know you better than yourself," 
 
 she went on. " She was a negress, and 
 j " 
 
 " Oh, do not," he interrupted in a last 
 appeal. " Dismiss all this from your mind. 
 The fault is mine. Would God I had died 
 before I came here! " 
 
 " And would God that I might now if 
 it be true ! " 
 
 " It is not. I swear to you " 
 
 " Stop ! Do not perjure yourself fur 
 ther. I am going to one who knows, from 
 whom I can get the truth." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 "My father!" 
 
 [251]
 
 XV 
 
 THE big clock in the office was just 
 striking twelve. Philip Chalden had 
 been waiting all morning for the blow to 
 fall, and upon the mid-day stroke of the 
 clock it came. Alicia entered the office 
 without ceremony of any sort. He had 
 carried in his mind all morning her miser 
 able face, which, in spite of her efforts to 
 be cheerful, had been so heart-broken, but 
 the sorrow he had seen and remembered 
 was nothing to the anguish that appeared 
 on her countenance now. 
 
 With scrupulous care she closed the 
 heavy doors that barred the way to the 
 private room in which he sat. They were 
 double, and so arranged as effectually to 
 conceal whatever went on inside that room. 
 Not a sound could penetrate through them 
 to the other side of the partition. There 
 were many things that happened in that 
 [252]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 office that Philip Chalden would not have 
 allowed anyone to hear. The father and 
 daughter were as alone, so far as sight and 
 hearing were concerned, as if they had been 
 in a desert. 
 
 " Alicia," exclaimed Chalden, as the girl 
 stood and looked at him with a burning, 
 awful glance. What is the matter? 
 What has brought you here? Has any 
 thing happened? " 
 
 The girl s hand went to her throat. 
 She struggled for a moment, and then she 
 gasped out, in a voice which was so filled 
 with suffering and so foreign to her usual 
 speech that had her auditor been blind he 
 could have marked her agony: 
 
 "Was my mother a negress?" 
 
 The question was so unexpected, so di 
 rect, that it stunned him. Alicia read her 
 doom sentence in the look that leaped into 
 his eye, the nervous shudder that shook his 
 frame. He strove as never before to col 
 lect himself, to think of some reply which 
 would avoid confession. 
 
 [253]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Answer 1 My God, last night you told 
 me that she was only an adulteress, that 
 was a lie ! I want the truth now ! That 
 woman s baby that she abandoned? It 
 died?" 
 
 He knew that he was beaten. He was 
 compelled to answer by the girl s imperi 
 ous, insistent demand. The time for lies 
 had gone only the truth could pass cur 
 rent now. 
 
 That baby died? " she insisted. 
 
 He bowed his head. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " Almost immediately." 
 
 " Ah, would God I had been she! " 
 
 " Alicia " began the old man. 
 
 " Don t touch me. Don t come near 
 me! My mother?" 
 
 "She was my wife s maid an oc 
 toroon; she had been in our family from 
 childhood. Her forebears had been my 
 father s slaves. There was good blood in 
 her veins our own. The other baby 
 
 died in Italy. I she " 
 
 [254]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The man hung his head. For the first 
 time in his life he could not look enemy 
 or friend in the face. The sweat stood 
 out on his forehead. Alicia gazed piti 
 lessly. 
 
 "The other baby?" 
 
 4 You were born a few months after her 
 death. And ah your mother died 
 when you were born." 
 
 " Had you married her? " 
 
 " Married an oc " cried Chalden, and 
 then he stopped. 
 
 " I see," said Alicia, " being a white 
 man you could not marry a woman like 
 my my mother. What is my name? " 
 
 " Avery is mine." 
 
 "But mine?" 
 
 " Alicia, Alicia ! " groaned the man, 
 " why do you press me this way? " 
 
 " I have no right to your name; I sup 
 pose I might be called after my mother." 
 
 They were slaves in my father s fam 
 ily. They called themselves Avery." 
 
 "Why didn t you tell me? Why, in 
 [255]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 God s name, did you pass me off as a white 
 woman? As your child? " 
 
 " You were my child." 
 
 " Yes, I know, but as your lawful child. 
 Why did you bring me up as a white 
 woman only that I should learn what I am 
 now? You didn t love me. I can t re 
 member in all my life that you ever showed 
 the least affection for me until after I 
 graduated." 
 
 " Alicia, I love you now." 
 
 " Yes, but not before. Why did you 
 doit?" 
 
 " My God! " gasped the man. " You 
 kill me with your questions! " 
 
 "I must have an answer! It s my 
 right." 
 
 " I hated society. After the death of 
 my my wife, and the killing of my 
 friend, I wanted to get away from it. I 
 had loved that woman " 
 
 "My mother?" 
 
 " No, no, the other woman, my wife." 
 . Alicia shrank as if from a blow. 
 [256]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " I loved her, as I told you last night, 
 more than my very soul, and when she be 
 trayed me, and with my best friend whom 
 I had trusted, I went mad. You will have 
 the truth. I became a human brute, an 
 animal. I took the baby and Nancy and 
 Alice away with me." 
 
 " Alice? This other woman, my moth 
 er " 
 
 " Yes, yes. She was beautiful in her 
 own way you know the rest." 
 
 " And this is my father? " 
 
 " You would have the story," he went 
 on desperately, his only possible hope being 
 in making a clean breast of it now. " I 
 brought you up in ignorance of your birth. 
 I wanted to use you as my revenge against 
 society. To make you as wise as you were 
 beautiful, as wealthy as you were wise. I 
 thought that you would be a success from 
 the beginning. I wanted to marry you to 
 the best and highest in the land, and then 
 well, I don t know what then. I in 
 tended to use you as my jest, but I did not 
 [ 257]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in the end. Because I began to love you. I 
 am frank, I am telling you the truth now. 
 I tried to think otherwise, but in vain. 
 When you had scarlet fever I was nearly 
 frantic lest you should die. I tried to make 
 myself believe that it was because I feared 
 to lose my my revenge on society. I 
 know now it wasn t that. I loved you. 
 Since you have returned from college and 
 we have been thrown together Alicia, 
 Alicia, I didn t love my wife of long ago 
 as I love you now. 
 
 " Don t shrink away from me ! You are 
 all I have. I ve won the world, I can buy 
 what I please, but there isn t a single thing 
 on earth that loves me, unless you will for 
 give me. Think of me. I was horribly 
 treated. I was mad. I was stricken in 
 everything that men hold most dear. I 
 was a brute, an animal, a fiend, a devil, 
 call me what you will! But now I am dif 
 ferent. I am ashamed. Alicia, I m your 
 father. I have not been good to you, but 
 I will make up to you now. I love you. 
 [258]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 You don t know how rich I am, how able 
 I am. I want to make reparation. You 
 wouldn t realize if I told you, but I 
 we have money enough to buy anything 
 under heaven. You and Doctor Why- 
 ot " 
 
 " He is nothing to me now. I could not 
 marry him. I can never marry any man 
 on the face of God s earth." 
 
 "Why not? I have the material pow 
 ers of the world at my at your com 
 mand. I can make you a duchess, a prin 
 cess. I might even buy you a throne." 
 You cannot make me a white woman." 
 
 " You are white now. Just a trace 
 of " 
 
 " Just what Mr. Olney has." 
 
 " The infernal hound ! " cried her 
 father. " He must have told you ! He 
 broke his word! " 
 
 " He could not help it. He came to see 
 
 me this morning. He saw I was in trouble. 
 
 I told him. You gave me the clew last 
 
 night when you asked me if he had told 
 
 [ 259 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 me the other. I told what I had learned 
 about my mother, and then it all came out. 
 He is innocent." 
 
 The black scoundrel ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "I would like " 
 
 " Stop ! What you call him you call me. 
 We are alike." 
 
 Well, suppose he does know," plead 
 ed her father. " I can buy his silence 
 nr " 
 
 \J L 
 
 You mistake him. He wouldn t tell. 
 Tortures could not wring it from him, but 
 if it were proper for him to proclaim it 
 you could not buy his silence and you could 
 not force it. Perhaps that s his black 
 honor. There are some things that your 
 money can t buy." 
 
 " I have not found them." 
 
 " Then I ll tell you what they are. One 
 is self-respect. To pass myself off for a 
 white woman for another day I would 
 rather die! It is not my fault that I am 
 black. I could not help it. It s yours; 
 but that I should exist a false pretence an- 
 [260]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 other moment, I shall not do it! Why, 
 as I rode down in the carriage I wanted to 
 scream at the top of my voice, I m black, 
 I m black! The hoofs of the horses beat 
 out the words on the pavement. The peo 
 ple who looked at me seemed to be crying 
 it in my face " 
 
 "Oh, God!" cried the old man, ap 
 palled at this display of frantic passion, 
 although her voice scarcely rose above its 
 ordinary tones. 
 
 " Everybody shall know it! I will con 
 ceal it no longer from anyone. The truth 
 shall be known, the truth that kills me, 
 and shames you. All the money and power 
 on earth could not make me love you. 
 There is one other thing you cannot buy." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Love," said the girl; " I hate you, I 
 loathe you ! I do not know where I get 
 the power to feel this way. My mother 
 was an ex-slave, my father is a liar, a brute, 
 a blackguard! Why should I care? " 
 
 She flung the mordant words at him in 
 [261]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a quiet, low voice that cut him like a lash, 
 such contempt there was in them. 
 
 " With such an ancestry I ought to be 
 willing to take anything, to do anything, 
 disgraceful. I ought to allow you to buy 
 me title, fame, place, and race, and I 
 ought to appreciate a character like yours. 
 But I don t; I despise you, I curse God 
 that you are my father, and if I have 
 power I shall never look upon your face 
 again. You have had your revenge, not 
 on society, but on me, a woman, with your 
 own blood in my veins, a woman who had 
 learned to love you, who has lain on your 
 breast, whom you called daughter. There 
 is no depth of hatred so deep that you do 
 not fill it in my eyes. That s all. I am 
 going now." 
 
 " Don t, don t! " cried the man. " All 
 that you say is true. But give me another 
 chance! I have been bad, you can make 
 me better. I was good once, you can bring 
 it out again. I will tell the truth, mine be 
 the shame, yours the honor; we will go 
 [262]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 away together. All that I have is yours 
 no, not to buy you, but for yourself to do 
 what you will, to do good with. Bear with 
 me. It won t be for long. This will kill 
 me. Have mercy!" 
 
 " I am going now," she returned monot 
 onously, as deaf to his appeal as if he had 
 not spoken. 
 
 " Where are you going? " 
 To my own people ! " 
 
 "Alicia! Alicia!" 
 
 She wrenched herself from his detain 
 ing hands, flung open the door, and in a 
 moment she was gone. 
 
 [263]
 
 XVI 
 
 IT was half after one o clock before 
 Doctor Whyot s buggy dashed up to 
 the steps of the Loyal Club. He had not 
 been able to leave the case which had so 
 inopportunely demanded his services until 
 a few moments before. He felt that he 
 had given enough evidence of his devotion 
 to science in his morning sacrifice, and reso 
 lutely postponing attendance upon other 
 calls, more or less pressing, he had driven 
 post-haste to the club. 
 
 In that rapid drive, and so far as he 
 could during the conduct of the case, he 
 had formed his plan. He intended to show 
 Alicia s letter to the Major, to beg him as 
 a gentleman to look at the situation from 
 the younger man s point of view. That, 
 whereas, before it had been a case of love, 
 it had now become a question of honor as 
 [264]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 well. He hoped the Major would see 
 things as he did and that he would not only 
 withdraw his opposition to the marriage, 
 but would actually join him in pleading 
 with Alicia. 
 
 Whyot had made no mistake about the 
 letter. He knew, as no one else did, the 
 strength of Alicia s character. Here was 
 no declaration of an overwrought, hysteri 
 cal woman who wanted to be coaxed. Her 
 firmness and intensity of purpose spoke to 
 him in the letter. He realized that he 
 would have to fight, and fight desperately, 
 for her love, and he intended to crave, nay, 
 to demand, the assistance of the Major. 
 He was not indifferent to the shock of the 
 declaration, he was just as proud in his 
 way as his uncle was in his of his clean 
 ancestry, and was just as grieved at the 
 revelation Alicia made to him as anyone 
 could have been. He was a just man, 
 though he was wildly in love. It made a 
 difference to him, but the difference, after 
 all, was trifling. He told himself that he 
 [265]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 did not care what she was, what her an 
 cestry which was not true, but it was a 
 good enough theory upon which to work. 
 
 The Major received him with rather 
 more warmth than usual. It was some 
 days since he had seen his nephew, to whom 
 he was devotedly attached, and of whom 
 he was secretly proud, even of his success 
 in his profession. If he would be a doc 
 tor, the Major was glad that he was a 
 good one, and the old man sorrowfully 
 marked the pain and agitation on his neph 
 ew s face. His greeting, therefore, was 
 distinctly cordial. 
 
 " William Penn," he began the Ma 
 jor always began all conversations in which 
 he took part; it was due him to take the 
 initiative, and he always took it " Will 
 iam Penn, you look troubled. What s the 
 matter? You have been working too 
 hard." 
 
 " Yes, Uncle Anthony, I have just han 
 dled a difficult case." 
 
 " Were you successful with it? " 
 [266]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " I think so. Yes, the woman is doing 
 well and but, sir, that is not what I 
 wanted I Uncle Anthony, I come to 
 appeal to you, and first of all I will ask 
 you to read that." 
 
 " That " was Alicia s letter. The Ma 
 jor put on his eye-glasses and read it care 
 fully. His nephew noticed that he mani 
 fested no surprise at the contents. 
 
 " Um " he said, handing it back. 
 
 You do not seem surprised, Uncle." 
 
 " I am not." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " I knew it all yesterday." 
 
 "You knew it?" 
 
 Yes. A blackmailing scoundrel came 
 to me yesterday morning and told me the 
 story. I went at once to Mr. Chalden and 
 told him." 
 
 "You went to him?" 
 
 "Yes, and, William Penn Whyot, let 
 
 me say to you right now, and I don t want 
 
 you to insinuate, even in your mind, that 
 
 I went there with any object of er 
 
 [267]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 checking the raid which I am informed 
 Mr. Chalden had inaugurated on my stock 
 in the ah " 
 
 " Uncle Anthony, I know you too well 
 to dream for a moment that you would 
 think of such a thing." 
 
 " Precisely. It takes a gentleman to 
 appreciate a gentleman. As to that letter, 
 I call it a very proper letter indeed. The 
 young lady has shown herself to be pos 
 sessed of er the instincts of ah 
 good society. She has my respect and ad 
 miration for her resolute and er he 
 roic action." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say that, for it 
 makes my request easier for you to grant." 
 
 " What is your request, sir? " 
 
 " I want you to go with me immediately 
 to her father and formally ask of him the 
 honor of his daughter s hand in marriage." 
 
 " What! " gasped out the little Major. 
 " Marriage to me? " 
 
 " Of course not, marriage to me. Then, 
 when we have received his consent, I want 
 [268]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 you to go with me to Alicia and add your 
 pleas to mine." 
 
 " Why, damn it! " cried the Major, " I 
 told Chalden yesterday that the marriage 
 had been bad enough before, but now it 
 was impossible. Not only are they people 
 with whom we cannot afford to ally our 
 selves, but ah the girl s ancestry is 
 not even respectable! I feel rather sorry 
 for Chalden, but that doesn t alter the case 
 one bit." 
 
 " Nevertheless, Uncle, you must go with 
 me." 
 
 " Preposterous, sir! " 
 
 " I tell you, sir, that it was a matter of 
 love alone before, now it is a matter of 
 honor, in addition. I value our family 
 more than you think, sir, but, after all, I 
 am not marrying the girl for her ancestry. 
 I tell you, I know her ! There doesn t live 
 a nobler, purer, better woman on the face 
 of the earth ! " 
 
 " Stop ! " cried the Major; " that s what 
 they all say." 
 
 [269]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " This letter proves it. She didn t wait 
 a moment to set me free." 
 
 " She knows you won t accept." 
 
 " She honors me if she believes that. I 
 do not deny that it makes a difference, but 
 it doesn t dimmish my affection for her, 
 and it binds her to me with the claims of 
 sorrow and trouble. Uncle, I appeal to 
 you. You are nice on the point of honor. 
 I know of no man more tender on the 
 question of honor and duty. I am a man 
 of full age, accustomed to think for my 
 self, with the responsibilities of my pro 
 fession before me. It is my solemn con 
 viction that it is my duty, as it is my 
 happiness, to insist upon this engagement 
 and to marry this girl." 
 
 " Suppose it comes out? " 
 
 " Let it come. No one will dare ques 
 tion the status of my wife. She ll be one 
 of us, a Whyot, then," he smiled faintly. 
 You must help me. As a gentleman, sir, 
 I appeal to you. Your course toward 
 Chalden, I have heard of it from Mr. Bul- 
 [270]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 don, was noble, magnanimous to the point 
 of Quixotism. You had him in your 
 power, you spared him when you hated 
 him. Match that action with another. 
 Oh, be moved! Shake off this prejudice 
 of race that sometimes, I think, has para 
 lyzed the energies of our latest genera 
 tions " 
 
 " William Penn," interrupted the Ma 
 jor warningly. 
 
 He was strangely swayed by the young 
 man s appeal, and his nephew, seeing that, 
 would not be stayed. 
 
 Think of that poor girl. Think of 
 her alone with Chalden. Think of her life 
 with the consciousness of this," putting the 
 paper before the Major again, " canker 
 ing in her soul ! As you are a gentleman, 
 nay, a man, as you have loved me, indulge 
 me in this. Go with me. Let us see Mr. 
 Chalden, and, backed by his consent, let us 
 go to Alicia. It all depends upon you. 
 You represent that for which Alicia has 
 drawn back. You are, as it were, the voice
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of society to her, and when you speak it 
 will have weight. I tell you frankly that 
 if I go alone I know what the answer will 
 be. I shall be unable to shake her resolu 
 tion, but with you, I feel, I do believe 
 I have no assurance, but I hope and 
 aside from all this, I love her. Didn t you 
 ever feel yourself, when you were younger, 
 a passion for a woman that consumed you, 
 that made you think that life without her 
 would be useless? I do not wish to inflict 
 upon you these things, but I love her, I 
 tell you ! I do not care what she is, or 
 from what she comes, her people, anything 
 I know only that I love her! She has 
 grown into my heart, she is bound up in 
 my life. I am asking you for everything 
 that man holds dear, by our relationship, 
 by your love and affection for me, by the 
 honorable instincts of our race, to help me. 
 Will you do it?" 
 
 " By Jove ! " cried the Major, wiping 
 his glasses suspiciously, "it is against my 
 principles. I think just as I always have, 
 [272]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 but, by gad, William Penn, I will! You 
 have the good Whyot blood in you, after 
 all. Honor, even family prestige, must 
 give way to it. The girl s done nobly. I 
 will help you win her, and together we 
 will protect her. Society in Philadelphia 
 takes its cue from me. When she marries 
 you she becomes a Whyot, and she s beau 
 tiful enough, and, if that letter indicates 
 her character, good enough, to be allowed 
 the title." 
 
 That was a great concession on the part 
 of the Major. 
 
 " Thank you," said William Penn grate 
 fully. " Now, let us go at once." 
 
 " Dismiss your buggy," said the Major, 
 " and we will take my coupe." 
 
 As the two men descended the steps of 
 the club the doctor s messenger boy came 
 running toward them with a note. 
 
 " It came," he said, " to your office, 
 
 brought by Miss Chalden s man. He said 
 
 she said you were to get it at once wherever 
 
 you were. I thought you would be here, 
 
 [273]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 for I heard you say you were going to meet 
 Major Whyot, sir." 
 
 " Very good, Bob," said the doctor 
 lightly, taking the letter. " Run back to 
 the office and tell anyone who comes in that 
 I will endeavor to return by, say, four 
 o clock, ready for duty. Come, Uncle." 
 
 As the two men got into the cab, Whyot, 
 with an apology to the older man, opened 
 the note. It was scribbled on a piece of 
 Chalden s office paper in a hand the trem 
 bling characters of which suggested a heart 
 breaking. Alicia had stopped in the outer 
 office, at that time practically empty, most 
 of the clerks being at luncheon, and had 
 written her lover a hasty note. And thus 
 it ran: 
 
 " What I wrote you last night was a lie. 
 I did not know it. This morning I have 
 learned the truth. I was not that baby 
 that was left. My mother was an octo 
 roon, the child of a slave. She was not 
 married to my father. Philip Chalden 
 [274]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is he. I am a black woman. This ends it 
 all. I knew you would come, after the 
 other letter, to plead with me. Now you 
 must not. I could not bear to look at you 
 across the gulf that separates us. And 
 though I am a child of infamy, of shame, 
 such as I never thought, yet I beg you 
 to believe one thing. That is, I love you 
 as if I were the purest, the noblest, the best 
 of women. Oh, Will, Will, it is all 
 summed up in this hideous confession, I 
 am a black woman beneath you. For 
 get me. 
 
 " Alicia." 
 
 As they rattled down Chestnut Street, 
 the Major, struck by the long silence, 
 turned to look at his nephew. At first 
 sight he thought the doctor had fainted. 
 
 "What s the matter? What has hap 
 pened?" 
 
 He shook the younger man. 
 
 "Is she dead?" 
 
 " Would God she were! Read that! " 
 [275]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " My God ! My God ! " whispered the 
 Major, staring stupidly at the letter after 
 he had mastered its contents. 
 
 Then he looked anxiously at his nephew, 
 and the question, " What shall you do 
 now? " died from his lips. 
 
 [276]
 
 XVII 
 
 T\ T R. CHALDEN," cried William 
 JLV JL Penn Whyot, unceremoniously 
 bursting into the room, brushing aside all 
 pretence at announcement, leaving a star 
 tled clerk behind him, " read that and tell 
 what it means! " 
 
 The Major, who followed the doctor, 
 carefully closed the door. Chalden had 
 not stirred from his position before the big 
 desk since Alicia had left him two hours 
 before. He surmised, especially when he 
 saw the Major, that they had come to him 
 about the Jackens story. He was not quite 
 prepared, therefore, for Alicia s letter. 
 He had been so shaken that morning, how- 
 over, that the limit of endurance seemed 
 to have been reached and further blows 
 only fell harmlessly upon a dulled, indif 
 ferent consciousness. He stared at the let 
 ter a long time. Alicia had been prompt, 
 [277]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 she had not waited. How many traits she 
 had that he possessed, that he gloried in I 
 What qualities she was mistress of ! What 
 a woman she was, what she might have 
 been if if only 
 
 " Well, sir," cried the doctor s voice, 
 breaking in abruptly upon his thoughts. 
 
 It was so harsh, so strained, so unnatural, 
 that the Major started in surprise. 
 
 " I have nothing to say," answered the 
 financier dully, handing back the letter. 
 
 "Nothing to say!" cried the doctor. 
 " That damned lie! You don t admit it? 
 It isn t true?" 
 
 41 It is the truth." 
 
 Whyot had approached nearer to Chal- 
 den. He stood close by his side, one hand 
 upon the desk, looking down at the man. 
 As he heard him admit the truth, he drew 
 back his right hand and with the quickness 
 of his old college days he struck the older 
 man fair in the mouth. The blow cut 
 Chalden s lip, and a thin stream of blood 
 trickled down his gray beard. 
 [278]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 "William Perm!" cried the horrified 
 Major, springing to his side and catching 
 the arm of the young man as it was lifted 
 to strike another blow. 
 
 " Let him alone," said Chalden, " no 
 one can insult me now. I deserve it. 
 Strike again for Alicia s sake." 
 
 His words came brokenly. He had 
 been mistaken when he fancied that the 
 limit of his endurance had been sounded. 
 He had quivered under Alicia s contempt, 
 but he responded again to Whyot s blow. 
 A proud man and a strong had been Philip 
 Chalden. When the proud and the strong 
 break, the tragedy is appalling. The man 
 was broken. But one thing remained to 
 him. He knew no other, no better way. 
 
 " Listen," he said hopelessly. " I am 
 rich. I do not know what my fortune is. 
 Two hundred millions, anything I want to 
 make it. I offered it all to Alicia. She 
 threw it back in my face. Don t get in 
 sulted. You have done all you can already 
 to break me. I offer it to you. The girl 
 
 [279]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is beautiful. She is well educated; her 
 principles are not mine. There is no trace 
 perceptible of her mother s blood in her. 
 She is a woman to be honored by the 
 noblest and best. For God s sake, take 
 her, and everything with her! " 
 
 There was a passion in his appeal, a 
 touch of his old-time fire, and it was the 
 motive that robbed the proposition of its 
 mercenary, its degrading character. It 
 was for Alicia, and for Alicia they could 
 forgive him. And William Penn loved 
 her, too, never as at that moment. The 
 Major looked at his nephew, his heart in 
 his mouth. What would his reply be? 
 
 " Could you bribe her? " questioned the 
 doctor. 
 
 " No," said Chalden, " I could not." 
 
 That was his answer. He realized it. 
 
 "Where is she?" cried the younger 
 man. 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Is she at home?" 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 [280]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Where did she say she was going? " 
 
 " To her own people." 
 
 " And where may that be? " 
 
 Chalden shook his head. " I do not 
 know." 
 
 " Who told her this awful story? " 
 
 " Olney." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 " Yes. An old black nurse of mine told 
 him, and he betrayed it. Alicia forced 
 him to tell it by pretending to know this 
 other story. She says he is innocent." 
 
 " I can well believe it," cried Whyot; 
 "I know the man. By heavens, that s 
 where she s gone ! He s in love with her. 
 What can have happened?" 
 
 A fierce pang of jealousy, to which he 
 had hitherto been a stranger, tore through 
 Whyot s heart at the thoughts that came 
 to him then. " Her own people." That 
 meant Olney. She could not go to him 
 except just heaven ! 
 
 " We must save her! " he cried, " from 
 herself. Come, Uncle, and you," he added 
 [281]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 roughly, shaking Chalden by the shoulder. 
 " You must come, too to see the end 
 of it." 
 
 Chalden rose to his feet mechanically, 
 and, as he stood bewildered, the little Ma 
 jor in a sudden access of charity handed 
 him his hat and overcoat. 
 
 " You are an infernal scoundrel," he 
 whispered, as he helped the broken old 
 man put on his overcoat, " but somehow 
 or other I feel sorry for you. Come on." 
 
 The Major had not quite gone to seed, 
 after all. He slipped his little arm inside 
 his whilom enemy s huge one and piloted 
 his faltering steps to the carriage. Will 
 iam Penn gave Olney s address to the 
 driver. 
 
 [282]
 
 XVIII 
 
 ALICIA left her father s private room 
 with no very clearly defined purpose 
 in her mind. It did not occur to her until 
 she reached the outer office that she really 
 had no place to go except her father s 
 house. Her lover? No, he could never 
 be anything to her again. And the thought 
 of him reminded her of a duty. She sat 
 down immediately and wrote him a trem 
 bling note which she despatched by a pri 
 vate messenger to his office. She was con 
 scious of a dull pain in her final confession 
 which only confirmed her previous renun 
 ciation, but she could not think of anything 
 save the hideous fact that she was a negress. 
 All her fine theories about equality van 
 ished in the instant that she looked at them 
 from the other the under-side. 
 
 As she left the great office building she 
 noticed the carriage standing before the 
 [283]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 door. She dismissed it without hesitation. 
 She would have nothing, absolutely noth 
 ing, that had been given her by her father. 
 The clothes she stood in, no more. Where 
 should she go? There was but one place 
 where, were the truth known, she would 
 be welcome. She walked in a daze through 
 the busy streets until she came to Olney s 
 modest rectory. 
 
 Yes, the clergyman was in," said the 
 heat maid-servant who opened the door; 
 " and he certainly would be glad to see 
 Miss Chalden." 
 
 The woman, as did all her race, knew 
 Alicia and what she had done for them. 
 
 " Would Miss Chalden go into the par 
 lor and wait? " 
 
 But Alicia asked if Olney was in his 
 study, and, on receiving an affirmative 
 answer, said she would go there, and she 
 would not trouble the maid to announce 
 her. She brushed past the astonished girl, 
 mounted the steps, opened the door, and 
 entered the study. 
 
 [284]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 OIney was on his knees. There was a 
 prayer-desk in one corner. His head was 
 bowed and his arms were stretched straight 
 before him. There was a stillness like 
 death in the room when Alicia opened 
 the door. The priest lifted his head and 
 stared at the white face of the girl as if 
 possessed. 
 
 " Alicia ! " he cried. It was the first 
 time he had addressed her thus, and he 
 was not himself or he would have used 
 more formal words. 
 
 " It is true," said the girl, " my father 
 admitted it." 
 
 Her voice was low and level and mo 
 notonous, without passion. It was as if 
 she had exhausted the variations of articu 
 late speech with the anguish which had left 
 her passive, and life for her now was ex 
 pressed in that one hopeless minor key. 
 
 Olney raised himself to his feet and 
 stepped nearer to her. 
 
 " My poor girl! " he murmured. 
 
 " I have broken with him. I have cast 
 [285]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 him off. There was no other place. I 
 came here." 
 
 " Oh, my God, Alicia, you should not 
 have done so ! Couldn t you " 
 
 " I thought you loved me," said the 
 girl. 
 
 " Alicia ! " 
 
 "Don t you?" There was a note of 
 subdued alarm in her voice. " How could 
 
 you, the daughter of a liar, a scoundrel, 
 a " 
 
 " Stop ! " cried Olney. " My father, 
 my mother. Were they not the same? 
 Are not all people of mixed blood the chil 
 dren of shame upon shame? My God, 
 sometimes I have cursed myself, not so 
 much because of the helpless black blood, 
 but for the fifteen-sixteenths of evil 
 white!" 
 
 " Yes, yes," murmured the girl. " No 
 doubt you are right from your standpoint. 
 But to be white, any kind of white, and 
 then wake up and find and find " 
 
 " I know," said the man, " I know." 
 [286]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 He took her hand now. 
 
 " Alicia," he cried. " No, let me call 
 you Miss Chalden. You are to me what 
 you have always been. The best, the 
 sweetest, the purest, the noblest of women. 
 Even I can scarcely understand your posi 
 tion. To know in a moment what I have 
 known for years I can hardly master 
 it. I can hardly realize the shock to you. 
 I am used to it. I did not mind it so 
 much until I met you. And now I want 
 to do for you everything that I can. I 
 want you to forget my personality and use 
 me. It was through me that you became 
 possessed of this dreadful secret." 
 
 " It would have become known in any 
 event," said the girl, " sooner or later. 
 This is my father s weakness. He did not 
 realize that there was no power on earth 
 to keep such a thing hidden." 
 
 You are right. But I want to make 
 reparation. I want to help you." 
 
 " I want no sacrifice," said the girl, look 
 ing at him, and he noticed how fierce was 
 [287]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the gleam of her eyes in spite of her dull 
 face, her low voice, and listless manner. 
 " Will you swear as you hope for heaven, 
 if there is such a place, before God, if 
 there is a God, to tell me the truth ? " 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " Do you love me? " 
 
 " I do, with all my soul." 
 
 " After what you know? " 
 
 " More than ever. Why should that 
 make any difference to me? It only puts 
 us on a level." 
 
 Alicia winced at this in spite of herself, 
 but she answered bravely : 
 
 I do not love you; I can never love 
 again. I never loved anyone but Dr. 
 Whyot, and now him least of all. I shall 
 never see him again." 
 
 "Does he know?" 
 
 Yes, I wrote him. But I respect you. 
 I used to pity you. Now I know some 
 thing of what you feel. If you will take 
 me, if you will marry me, I I we will 
 work together for our our " she bit 
 [288]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 her lip, but she would finish the sentence, 
 " our people." 
 
 Heaven opened before the vision of that 
 man as he heard these words. But because 
 he was a gentleman, a priest, because his 
 love for her was sublimer than an earthly 
 passion, he stopped her. 
 
 " Think, Alicia. You propose an irrev 
 ocable step. You are cutting yourself off 
 from the last possibility of return. Once 
 married to me the whole world will know 
 that you are not white. There must be no 
 pretence " 
 
 " Nor would I wish any," interrupted 
 the girl, " else I had not been here. Come, 
 we are made for each other. We are alike, 
 we are alone. I have no one but you " 
 
 " Never stoop to plead with me," cried 
 the man passionately. " To marry you is 
 the ambition, the desire of my heart. I 
 only hesitated for your sake. You have 
 decided, so be it. We will face the world 
 together." 
 
 " I am glad," answered Alicia simply. 
 [289]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " And have you thought, when " 
 
 " Let it be at once," said the girl; " you 
 know I have nothing. These," she con 
 tinued, lifting her purse and laying it on 
 the desk, stripping her fingers of their 
 rings, taking her watch from her dress 
 and placing them beside it, " these must be 
 returned to my father. I wish nothing of 
 him, nothing. This, too," she added, 
 drawing a last sparkling diamond from 
 her other hand, " this must go to Dr. 
 Whyot. You will see that they are de 
 livered?" 
 
 " I will. Alicia," he cried, gazing at 
 the pretty baubles, a new thought coming 
 to him, " you shall want for nothing. I 
 am not poor. I will give you all. I can 
 work." 
 
 " I only seek a refuge, and rest," said 
 the girl wearily. " Let us go." 
 
 " Are you ready? " 
 
 " Now as at any time." 
 
 Olney called a cab, and they drove to 
 the City Hall, procured a license, went to 
 [290]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 one of the man s clerical friends, explained 
 the situation briefly, and then Alicia Avery 
 and Henry Olney were made man and 
 wife. She had scarcely spoken one word 
 from the time they left the house. She 
 had been as one dumb. The bride had 
 all her bridal whiteness in her face as they 
 drove back to the rectory. He had gained 
 the desire of his heart, but the manner of 
 gaining lacked all that he had wished for. 
 He was all tenderness and consideration 
 for her yet he was her husband. There 
 was no essential racial difference between 
 them. Olney had not ventured upon any 
 caress. In the little study once more he 
 bent down to kiss her. To Alicia s eyes 
 the lips that approached her cheek, though 
 as finely cut as her own, suddenly took on 
 the semblance of the coarse, thick lips of 
 the negro. The blackness of the man, un 
 seen, smote her. With a low cry the girl 
 shrank back. 
 
 " Don t! " she whispered. " Not now. 
 Wait." 
 
 [291 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Then she put her face in her hands and 
 writhed and trembled without a sound. 
 Olney understood, and his heart sickened 
 within him. There was a difference after 
 all! What was the present situation? He 
 had thought to save her, had he made it 
 worse? His heart turned to stone as he 
 looked at her quivering before him. Was 
 the old prejudice still there and had Alicia 
 not realized it after all? 
 
 " Miss Chalden, Alicia, I mean," he 
 said, quietly, with the old self-repression, 
 " Alicia, don t ! I understand. I won t 
 touch you." 
 
 " Leave me alone for a little while. 
 You understand. This is so sudden and 
 strange to me. I will be brave. I didn t 
 realize " 
 
 She looked at him piteously, so piteous- 
 ly, that he half forgot the pain of her 
 avoidance. 
 
 " It shall be as you wish," he said gen 
 tly. " I shall leave you here until until 
 you send for me." 
 
 [292]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Thank you," said the girl gratefully, 
 looking at him, " you were always a gen 
 tleman." 
 
 He took comfort from that. There was 
 nothing that she could have said to him 
 that could have satisfied him so completely, 
 unless it were that which he feared she 
 could never say: 
 
 " I love you." 
 
 [293]
 
 XIX 
 
 LEFT alone in the room Alicia sank 
 down in the arm-chair in front of 
 his desk, in Olney s chair! She had seen 
 him sit there on the rare occasions when, 
 in company with others, she had visited 
 the study on the business of the mission. 
 In Olney s place ! Yes, by every right of 
 ancestry and birth, she was in Olney s 
 place. And she was his wife! For the 
 first time since she had heard the news that 
 morning Alicia was alone. She could sit 
 down quietly and think it out undisturbed. 
 She had fathomed the terrible situation 
 to its very depths. She had exhausted 
 anguish and despair for the present, and 
 she could now almost consider her situa 
 tion dispassionately, as if she had been a 
 stranger looking at a terrible drama. The 
 shock of it all had deadened and dulled 
 her sensibilities. Now she seemed to feel 
 [ 2 94]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 no pain. She could exert her powers of 
 analysis in a curious, impersonal way, and 
 she wondered at what result she had ar 
 rived. 
 
 She had acted promptly, decisively, upon 
 the information she had received. She had 
 spurned her father. She had abandoned 
 her lover. She had married Olney. There 
 had been nothing else to do. The propo 
 sition had sprung into her mind that he and 
 she, outcasts, social pariahs, as they were, 
 could work together, hand in hand, for the 
 people to which they belonged. She had 
 told her lover she could not marry a black 
 man, yet she had done so. She had given 
 the last proof of her convictions, but not 
 until, and only because, she too had be 
 come a negro. What next? 
 
 She was Olney s wife. She, Alicia Chal- 
 den, was the wife of a negro! That one 
 fact beat into her brain, only that, the wife 
 of a negro ! She told herself that she, too, 
 was as he. That they were just the same, 
 and yet in honesty to herself she was forced 
 [295 ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to admit that in this last analysis it was 
 not so. It was true they had the same 
 percentage of black blood in them, but Ol- 
 ney had lived his life in the full conscious 
 ness of the fact, which he had known from 
 the very beginning. He had realized al 
 ways, under all circumstances, that he was 
 a negro. She had lived her life without 
 the slightest knowledge of it. With not 
 even the faintest suspicion of it. 
 
 She had looked at life from the stand 
 point of the master race. She was a white 
 woman, with all her race s hopes, dreams, 
 thoughts, aspirations, with the white wom 
 an s natural affiliation with the white man, 
 with the white woman s inherent antago 
 nism for the black man. 
 
 Heredity? It was nothing. Environ 
 ment? It was everything. Starting from 
 the same ground it had made her white, 
 him black. She could not in a moment un 
 learn the lessons of a lifetime. Her the 
 ories of equality failed utterly when she 
 had to make a personal application of 
 [296]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 them. Conscious of all she had gone 
 through, she could not escape from a feel 
 ing of superiority, social and racial, over 
 powering in its magnitude, to the man she 
 had married. 
 
 At least there were shreds and tatters of 
 the feeling left, and it was fearfully strong 
 in her, it overwhelmed her. The late en 
 vironment clung to her, it made her position 
 unsupportable. She was married to this 
 man. She was his wife. How damnable 
 was the iteration of that constantly recur 
 rent thought! Until death did them part, 
 and no one could put them asunder, since 
 God had joined them. Ah, had He? 
 Was this His work? And her husband 
 had not kissed her, but only because he 
 willed not to do so. He had the right. 
 She was his. She belonged to him. The 
 white woman to the negro! If she had 
 known of it always it would have been dif 
 ferent, but she had not known. Her char 
 acter had been formed on white lines, his 
 on black. The situation was impossible. 
 [297]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 There must be an escape. She must go 
 away. 
 
 But where could she go? She thought 
 of her father with contempt. She thought 
 of the race to which she was inexorably 
 condemned with a fierce loathing, a more 
 intense repulsion; in that repulsion she in 
 cluded, in spite of herself, her husband. 
 Yes, he was a gentleman ; but, just heaven, 
 he was a negro ! She she was a 
 white woman. The years of her life had 
 implanted the consciousness of that, and 
 the consciousness remained in the face of 
 her recent knowledge. What could she 
 do? 
 
 Alicia s mental and moral faculties were 
 reeling on their throne. She felt unable to 
 discriminate in her dull confusion between 
 right and wrong. Were they only words, 
 words, after all? How could she, a child 
 of crime, of sin, of infamy, of iniquity, for 
 Satan knew how many generations back, 
 be held accountable for what she did? She 
 was not a free moral agent. Some malign 
 [298]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fate against which it was useless to battle 
 had brought about this state of affairs. 
 She was damned, whether in life or death 
 what mattered it? 
 
 Alicia was mad, at last. That throne 
 had been vacated. The poor soul was 
 empty swept and garnished ! Of one 
 thing only was she conscious, upon one 
 thing only was she determined. She would 
 never, never, in heaven, or earth, or hell, 
 be his wife! But how escape? 
 
 On the desk by her side lay an ancient 
 Spanish dagger of marvellous workman 
 ship. Olney used it for a paper-knife. 
 Some travelled friend had brought it to 
 him. She took it up in her hand, un 
 sheathed it. Her eyes scanned the pol 
 ished blade. It quivered in her trembling 
 fingers. The steel in the sunlight wavered 
 before her vision like a white flame. 
 
 There were voices in the hall below, 
 steps on the stair. Now or never. Alicia 
 lifted her arm. 
 
 ; Will ! " she whispered, and then, open- 
 [299]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 eyed, implacable, urged thereto by re 
 morseless fate, she drove home the lethal 
 weapon with all the force left in her. 
 
 " Thank God! " she cried, in exaltation, 
 as she delivered the blow, returning 
 heaven be praised in that fleeting in 
 stant of exquisite physical pain, to the 
 belief of her lifetime, the confidence of a 
 certain faith, and in the Article of Death 
 calling upon His Name. She swayed a 
 moment or two. The red blood spurted 
 about the dagger hilt. It was the same 
 poor human blood that fills the veins of 
 every child of God. Her resolution kept 
 her erect for the moment. She swiftly re 
 membered she had a prayer to make before 
 she went; she made it in one breaking 
 word: 
 
 " Mercy!" 
 
 That was all. Who shall say that she 
 did not receive it? 
 
 The door was thrown open. Thrusting 
 aside Olney, who had shown the way, Doc 
 tor Whyot burst into the room. The old 
 [300]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 supremacy of the white race, thought tke 
 priest bitterly yet he gave way. Hard 
 after the two came the Major, and last of 
 all Alicia s father. In bitterness of heart 
 he had planned his assault upon society, he 
 had thirsted for his revenge, and in bitter 
 ness of heart he saw it there, at his feet. 
 
 " She has fainted," cried Doctor Whyot, 
 kneeling down and turning her over. 
 
 He recoiled with horror at what he saw. 
 
 "Dead! Good God! Alicia!" he 
 said, taking her in his arms. 
 
 And again Olney, with a stopped heart, 
 gave way. Not even in death was she to 
 be his. He realized the situation before 
 the others, he loved the most. 
 
 No one spoke. They were appalled, 
 bound, stricken. At her lover s touch 
 Alicia opened her eyes. Her glance swept 
 them all, the Major at her side indiffer 
 ently; her father, was it in forgiveness? 
 her husband, was it in pity? and Doctor 
 Whyot ay, surely, there was love ! But 
 she said nothing. She was past all speech, 
 [3! ]
 
 A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 all suffering now. She only closed her 
 eyes forever. They had come too late. 
 It was over. 
 
 There at their feet was the poor little 
 Doctor of Philosophy. 
 
 Society was there, with its master, 
 Money, and its servant, Science, and its 
 protagonist, Love: the rules and regula 
 tions, the artificial conventionalities, the 
 wisdom and the folly of the one; the power 
 for good or evil of the other; the knowl 
 edge and certitude, the calm impassivity of 
 the third; the passionate self-sacrifice of 
 the greatest and last they were all there. 
 Collectively or singly, they were alike help 
 less. They could do nothing, nothing, in 
 the face of such a problem. Alicia herself 
 had found the only solution. 
 
 And at their feet she lay, a mute, eter 
 nal protest.
 
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 it has a permanent historical value. As a sketch 
 of hardy men and women it is full of a dramatic 
 interest." The Outlook.
 
 Other Books by Dr. Brady 
 
 BOYS OF THE SERVICE 
 
 IN THE WAR WITH MEXICO 
 
 A Midshipman s Adventures 
 
 on Ship and Shore 
 Illustrated by W. T. Aylward 
 $I.2O net (postage, 14 cents) 
 This stirring story of war and adventure has a 
 vivid historical setting of uncommon interest. The 
 amusing and exciting experiences of Midshipman 
 Ned Demon, son of Ned Denton of the Wasp s 
 Nest, and his two sailor comrades, ashore as well 
 as afloat, afford, also, a striking panorama of our 
 war with Mexico ; and it is a question whether 
 his experiences aboard the U. S. S. Somers, with 
 the story of the mutiny and the account of her 
 wreck, or his march with Scott upon the City 
 of Mexico, are the more absorbing. The reader 
 meets, in the beginnings of their careers, Grant, 
 Lee, McClellan, Beauregard, Kearney, and other 
 famous generals of a later period, and Mr. Brady 
 pictures them graphically and truly. It is a book 
 deeply to interest any boy, not only in the story 
 but in the period and the history 
 
 
 IN THE WASP S NEST 
 
 The Story of a Sea Waif in the War of 1812 
 
 Illustrated by Rufus F. Zogbaum 
 $1.20 net (postage, 14 cents) 
 
 Charles Scribner s Sons, Publishers 
 
 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000787137 9