MRS. BRAND 
 
 H.A.MITCHELL KEAYS 

 
 309E
 
 OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS AHGELBS
 
 MRS. BRAND
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 By H. A. MITCHELL KEAYS 
 
 Author of "The Road to Damascus," "He that Eateth 
 Bread with Me" "The Marriage Portion," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1913 
 
 By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 (Incorporated)
 
 MRS. BRAND
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT was growing cold. Mr. Overholt felt the 
 bleakness of the wind on his face, and he buttoned 
 his coat more closely about him, as he left his 
 house and swung down the street. He was feel- 
 ing at his best to-night. Hope and ambition gen- 
 erally run high in the young man, and he was 
 a young man with hope and ambition at least tem- 
 porarily satisfied. He had attained the position 
 he had sought, and yet he had succeeded by the 
 most simple means in accomplishing what older 
 and honored men had wrecked their dignity in 
 a vain attempt to acquire. To be sure, he was on 
 a three months' trial, as it were, but with the 
 result of two Sundays behind him he had no doubt 
 as to his complete giving of satisfaction. 
 
 He had laid his plans well. And he had car-
 
 2 MRS. BRAND 
 
 ried them out as well as he had laid them. From 
 the very day that he had read in his village weekly 
 of the death of Dr. Marvin of Glenedge, he had 
 made as strategical an attack on the dead man's 
 shoes as it was possible to conceive. The intro- 
 duction of his name to the supply committee by 
 a brother minister, who had been tried and found 
 wanting, had put him in touch with his goal, and 
 the rest had been comparatively easy. A trip to 
 Chicago and Glenedge, a frank statement of his 
 plans to the committee, and a carefully planned 
 although seemingly extemporaneous address at 
 their prayer-meeting, which had created an instant 
 impression, had been followed by a conversation 
 with the great man of the church, a wholesale 
 merchant in the city, a Mr. Brand. Mr. Overholt 
 had not been surprised by the invitation extended 
 to him, and he had accepted with a gravity that 
 was a mask only to a triumphal surge of feeling, 
 which lent him a most captivating animation. 
 
 But he had delighted in the surprise he had 
 given his wife upon his return home. He had 
 called her to him, and she had hurried over to him 
 with quick eagerness, and, sinking down on a foot-
 
 MRS. BRAND S 
 
 stool beside him, had leaned her head against his 
 knee with a timid happiness that he divined. His 
 eye traversed her frail figure and dwelt upon her 
 thin, tiny hands with a certain satisfaction. 
 Strangers could not deny the extreme delicacy of 
 her appearance, and it was not needful that one 
 should say more than that it had been character- 
 istic of her even when her health was better. He 
 had softly stroked her hair as he told her of his 
 trip, and the exultation in his voice was answered 
 by a glowing happiness that made her radiant. 
 
 " I'm so glad for you " 
 
 He had cut her off. 
 
 " It will be better for you," he had interjected. 
 " Oh, of course there's nothing the matter with 
 you, and the doctors in Chicago are worse than the 
 one here. Well, we won't argue about it. And 
 I don't have to resign here," he had added with an 
 easy laugh. " The Glenedge church pays its sup- 
 plies pretty heavily, and I can fill in easily with 
 some fellow during my absence." 
 
 Now, a few weeks later, he was on his way to 
 the Brand mansion as an invited guest. " I expect 
 Mrs. Brand home from a visit to-morrow, and you
 
 4 MRS. BRAND 
 
 had better come in and take dinner with us and 
 a nephew of ours, Dr. Challoner," Mr. Brand had 
 said. " We can talk over church matters a little. 
 I wish Mrs. Overholt could come, too," he added, 
 kindly. 
 
 " Yes, it is too bad. But the necessary upset 
 in coming to Glenedge has prostrated her, and she 
 must have perfect quiet." 
 
 As the servant ushered him across the wide, 
 beautiful hall into the drawing-room, the minister 
 experienced a thrill of kinship with his surround- 
 ings that affected him deliciously. After the arid 
 monotony of recent years this was life. The 
 satin draperies were crushed aside, and his hand 
 hospitably grasped by that of his host, who led 
 him into a room that seemed to shimmer in amber- 
 hued radiance. 
 
 " You're just on time. I see you're a punctual 
 man, like myself," said Mr. Brand, cordially. 
 " My dear," he added, turning towards a lady 
 who sat beside the hearth listlessly watching the 
 flames. Mrs. Brand rose up, slowly, indifferently. 
 Another one of the endless chain of ministers! 
 She stepped forward, her hand politely extended
 
 MRS. BRAND 5 
 
 to her husband's guest. But her proud eyes met 
 his only for a moment, and then, though the com- 
 posure of her face was apparently unstirred, she 
 found herself in her chair again with the sluggish 
 current of her life lashed into mad motion by 
 unexpected revelation. There was a blur of voices 
 in her ears, a black dance in her eyes; her heart 
 seemed gripped by fingers of steel. 
 
 Mr. Overholt felt suddenly at variance with his 
 environment, for he was unused to hauteur in 
 women, by whom he had always been encouraged 
 to consider himself the focal point of the sur- 
 rounding universe, and though he glided easily 
 into conversation with Mr. Brand, his mind was 
 active in speculation upon the woman, who might 
 be unconscious of his proximity to her for all the 
 evidence she gave to the contrary. Her face was 
 shielded from him, but her pose and the sweeping 
 curves of her figure tormented him with subtle 
 challenge, and his eye, greedy always of beauty 
 of form and color, fastened upon her again and 
 again. The dull red of her velvet gown, with the 
 filmly fretwork of lace about her throat and arms, 
 the gleam upon her restless fingers no, she was
 
 6 MRS. BRAND 
 
 distinctly not the kind of wife that one would nat- 
 urally impute to John Brand. 
 
 " Where is Arthur*? " inquired Mr. Brand, sud- 
 denly, with a dinner-time edge to his voice. 
 
 " Oh, he's coming. We must wait for him." 
 
 The tone of her voice, and the peculiar, little 
 gesture of her head where had he noticed them 
 before? A sudden suspicion edged its way to his 
 mind. If she would only lift her eyes. She must ; 
 he would make her do that. Perhaps Mrs. Brand 
 felt the pressure of his silent demand upon her, 
 for she pushed her chair sharply back a few inches 
 and turned her face towards him; their eyes met 
 for a brief moment. 
 
 The outer door gave a distant clang, and 
 almost immediately a young man hurried into the 
 room. " Now, I've kept you waiting, haven't I*? 
 It's too bad. Mr. Overholt? Yes! I don't 
 attend that church as a rule, but it has certainly 
 been fine fun lately sampling the supplies." 
 
 At the dinner table Mr. Brand monopolized the 
 conversation, according to his wont. His position 
 in the world held a never-ending fascination for 
 him, and sooner or later it was inevitable that he
 
 MRS. BRAND 7 
 
 should speak of the time when he had but one 
 shirt, which his first wife washed and ironed while 
 he slept. " I tell you what it is," he said to-night, 
 " if these fellows who are always grumbling be- 
 cause my money isn't theirs would do as I did for 
 a while they wouldn't have time for so many 
 theories." 
 
 " How was that? " inquired Mr. Overholt. 
 
 " Let them get along for years with four hours 
 for sleep a day, and then lie awake to worry out 
 the next scheme, like I did," replied Mr. Brand. 
 " They look at me now and say: ' He don't do a 
 thing to earn all that money. We have more right 
 to it than he has.' Have they*? A man has got 
 to earn his first thousand with the sweat of his 
 brow, and if he's half smart it will take care of 
 itself and him too after that. And it's precisely 
 that thousand that they want me to earn for 
 them." 
 
 " Yes, you're quite correct," said Mr. Overholt. 
 " A great deal of nonsense is talked about the 
 working man just now. You might almost sup- 
 pose that it was criminal for a man to be indus- 
 trious and saving. I believe the working class
 
 8 MRS. BRAND 
 
 generally is getting the idea that it must be made 
 self-supporting by law and not by labor." 
 
 " You're right there," said Mr. Brand, approv- 
 ingly. 
 
 Although Mr. Overholt bent an attentive ear 
 to his host's reminiscences, every faculty he had 
 was engaged in the solution of the problem that 
 had put him on the rack. " The devil ! " he had 
 ejaculated mentally, as Mrs. Brand's defiant gaze 
 had revealed her identity to him. How could 
 such a thing be possible? That here, in this proud 
 and splendid woman, he should suddenly find 
 himself face to face with that almost forgotten 
 
 love-affair , he studied her furtively, his mind 
 
 in a whirl of amazement and anxiety. He re- 
 called her from among numerous skeletons of the 
 past, an odd kind of girl with unexpected streaks 
 of brilliance and daring that at first fascinated, 
 and finally wearied him. She had been a shabby 
 creature to whom clothes could only have figured 
 as a necessity, and in that respect he could find no 
 trace of her in the woman opposite. As the din- 
 ner progressed through its courses he felt a ris- 
 ing irritation at her complete preoccupation in
 
 MRS. BRAND 9 
 
 the young man beside her. They seemed to be 
 on the best of terms with each other. 
 
 When they rose from the table Mr. Brand 
 led his guest into the library, but Mrs. Brand 
 went into the drawing-room, and Dr. Challoner 
 followed her. 
 
 "Who is this fellow?" he inquired, as they 
 stood together looking down at the wreathing 
 flames in the grate. 
 
 " He*? Oh, the new minister, or supply, or 
 what not, for ' The Pilgrims.' " There was more 
 than contempt in her tones, and Dr. Challoner 
 looked at her with some amusement. 
 
 " What is it? Don't you like him? " 
 
 " Like him ! " The vehemence in her voice 
 was surprising. Then after a moment she said 
 lightly enough, "Dear no! What difference 
 does it make to me what he's like? " 
 
 Yet as Mr. Overholt and her husband crossed 
 the room towards her she shivered with dread. 
 She felt afraid of her own tongue even, lest it 
 should suddenly, involuntarily, reveal the past 
 behind them both, and she looked at him with
 
 10 MRS. BRAND 
 
 quick, unconscious question in her eyes. But he 
 was absorbed in his own problems. 
 
 " Mr. Brand has been telling me of your work 
 in the slums," he said hesitatingly to Dr. Chal- 
 loner. " I did not quite understand." 
 
 Dr. Challoner smiled. " There are other phy- 
 sicians here, as you may know. So I have adopted 
 another field of work, but not here in Glenedge." 
 
 " You must let me do something more than 
 cheaply sympathize," continued the minister. As 
 he spoke Mr. Overholt opened his pocket-book, 
 and drew out a bill. With a really tender heart 
 for the sufferings of others he combined a gaudy 
 generosity that frequently paid him a handsome 
 dividend on the investment. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said Dr Challoner, drawing back. 
 " I do not beg for my people." He felt a sudden, 
 unreasonable aversion to taking the money. 
 
 " You had better take it, Arthur. I do not sup- 
 pose it will choke anyone." Mrs. Brand had not 
 meant to speak, but the hidden rush of feeling had 
 its way with her, and she heard her own voice with 
 a feeling of terror. Her remark acted on Mr. 
 Overholt like a lash. He moved directly before
 
 MRS. BRAND 11 
 
 her, and looking down at her steadily with those 
 blue eyes in whose amorous depths she had once 
 lost herself, he said coolly : " Thank you, Mrs. 
 Brand. I admire the fine discrimination of that 
 remark." 
 
 The hands lying in her lap began to tremble; 
 she felt his pitiless gaze upon them. The old, 
 forgotten fear of him, the fear so subtly mingled 
 with ignorance and admiration by which he had 
 compelled her girlish love, awoke in her again. 
 He divined it, and in one triumphant instant he 
 felt himself safe. No, she had not told her hus- 
 band, and she never would. 
 
 " Your aunt," he said, turning to Dr. Challoner 
 with an easy smile 
 
 " Aunt ! " exclaimed Mrs. Brand. It was such 
 a relief to seize an outside topic. " I draw the 
 line at aunthood," she said decisively. 
 
 " Yes, we tried it for a year, and it didn't work. 
 But it's too long a story now." Dr. Challoner 
 smiled, and rose to go. 
 
 " Must you be off, my boy? Well, don't for- 
 get the way to my pocket-book when anyone down 
 there needs helping out."
 
 12 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " All right, uncle. It's a well beaten track." 
 And the doctor was gone. 
 
 The dread of a possible tete-a-tete forced itself 
 upon Mrs. Brand. Her husband was an old man, 
 and if his guest remained much later he would 
 certainly resign himself to his evening paper 
 towards which his eyes were yearning even now. 
 " I think I'll amuse myself, and give you gentle- 
 men a chance to talk church to your heart's con- 
 tent," she said abruptly. 
 
 After a while the conversation in the drawing- 
 room lagged conspicuously, and still Mr. Overholt 
 waited. He was busy importuning Fate for a lead 
 that he could follow. And presently there floated 
 towards him faint fragments of a melody, at once 
 alluring and evasive. 
 
 " How beautifully Mrs. Brand plays ! Do you 
 think she would resent my listening to her a little 
 nearer? " 
 
 " Why, no," exclaimed Mr. Brand heartily, his 
 hand already on his paper. " Follow the sound, 
 and you'll find her." And with a sigh of relief he 
 was lost in a study of black and white. 
 
 Mrs. Brand, piling one passionate crescendo
 
 MRS. BRAND 13 
 
 upon another, felt rather than saw the minister 
 beside her. She played on, and he, leaning against 
 the piano watching her face in the dim light, was 
 stirred by memories of the very existence of which 
 he had been hitherto unconscious. It seemed but 
 yesterday that he had held her in his arms, and 
 felt the meeting of her lips upon his, and now, 
 what a gulf lay between! Perhaps the pressure 
 of the past grew at that moment unendurable to 
 her, for her hands dropped with a sudden crash 
 on the key-board. 
 
 " Why did you stop*? I never heard anyone 
 play so beautifully," he said sincerely. 
 
 She laughed scornfully. " Yes, I play very 
 well," she answered with impartial chill. " It 
 would be strange if I did not." 
 
 " We don't all succumb to training so easily. 
 But most of us can learn enough to recognize our 
 mistakes," he remarked experimentally. 
 
 Mrs. Brand rose from the piano. 
 
 " No, don't go. There is something I must say 
 to you." In his insistence he laid his hand upon 
 her arm, soft and white above her bracelet. She 
 quivered helplessly, and stood still, waiting.
 
 14 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " My wife is here, sick and alone. She is a 
 good, little woman, and it would grieve me if 
 she had to suffer for my sins. May I not hope 
 that she may have you for her friend? " 
 
 " Your wife," repeated Mrs. Brand slowly. 
 " How long have you been married? " 
 
 " Four years and a half." 
 
 He had not married her at once then. 
 
 Instinctively he divined her thought. 
 
 " I did not marry Mary Moore." 
 
 "You did not!" 
 
 " You must remember," he answered quickly, 
 the tang of bitterness in his voice, " that you 
 refused any explanation whatever; that my let- 
 ters were returned to me unopened, and that when 
 I went to your home to explain matters person- 
 ally, I found that you had consoled yourself by 
 marriage, and were gone, to Hell for all that 
 I cared." 
 
 His vehemence so subtly calculated was not 
 without its balm to her. 
 
 " But how could you possibly expect to 
 explain " 
 
 " I didn't," he broke in eagerly, " but a man is
 
 MRS. BRAND 15 
 
 never a fool in his own estimate. I admit it all. 
 Anything you like to say or think of me. But 
 now " he paused significantly " what ex- 
 planation is possible to me now? And yet my 
 wife it would mean so much to her " and 
 then as if mastered by an impulse that would not 
 yield, he added, impetuously, " You will under- 
 stand so many things when you see her." 
 . Suddenly she held out her hand. In the flood 
 that threatened to sweep her away from her 
 accustomed moorings far out upon the unknown 
 depths of experience she was glad to grasp at 
 something definite. 
 
 "I will come and see your wife," she said 
 simply, and together they passed out into the 
 mellow radiance beyond them.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 LONG hours after Mr. Overholt had sunk into 
 sleep, kaleidoscopic with brilliant dreams in which 
 now the church of the Pilgrim Fathers, and now 
 Mrs. Brand appeared to lay themselves at his 
 aspiring feet, Mrs. Brand herself remained awake, 
 staring with wide-open eyes into the darkness 
 where the memories of the past took sombre shape. 
 She saw herself a girl again, and her heart ached 
 for that girl. Aunt Lavinia, could anything 
 have mitigated the misery of living with Aunt 
 Lavinia, whose reputation for piety was a thing 
 to conjure with, outside her own home? Her 
 facility in prayer was such that she was constantly 
 in demand, and her missionary zeal left nothing 
 out, except, of course, her husband and her 
 wretched little niece, equal burdens upon the soar- 
 ing pinions of her sanctity. But when Cecily 
 graduated from High School, a lank, ungainly 
 girl, and Aunt Lavinia was silently exultant to 
 
 16
 
 MRS. BRAND 17 
 
 think that now at last she could transfer those 
 ignominious duties of house-keeping and home- 
 making that had so cruelly enslaved her hitherto, 
 it was discovered that Uncle Ben had other and 
 obstinately rooted ideas in regard to the future of 
 his niece. 
 
 " You intend to send her to college ! " reiter- 
 ated Aunt Lavinia for the twentieth time, grimly 
 doubting the evidence of her ears, and Uncle Ben 
 himself trembled at hearing his dreams of inde- 
 pendence thus assailed. 
 
 "Well," he admitted reluctantly, "she's too 
 smart not to have a chance." 
 
 " Too smart," screamed Aunt Lavinia, by way 
 of working up to a wild outburst of tears. " Oh, 
 yes, to be sure. It's only dull people like 
 me " 
 
 " Well, my dear," said Uncle Ben, unwittingly 
 allowing his tongue a loop-hole of escape from 
 between his teeth, " I should think Cecily's going 
 away to college would be a great relief to you, for 
 you have always said what a burden she was, and 
 how differently you could arrange your life if she 
 wasn't here."
 
 18 MRS. BRAND 
 
 So Cecily went to college, and when she came 
 back every now and then Uncle Ben felt repaid 
 for the wounds which that war had inflicted. 
 Aunt Lavinia's exhortations had lost their terrors 
 for the girl, and she could afford to smile about 
 them now. For life had all at once become very 
 sweet to Cecily, and she expanded like a rose 
 beneath the maturing influence of sun and shower. 
 
 " Why, Cecily, you're getting to be quite a 
 beauty." 
 
 " Oh no, Uncle Ben, just healthy and happy, 
 thanks to you." 
 
 Eugene Overholt! In letters of fire the name 
 defined itself against the mid-night gloom. Why 
 had he ever crossed her path*? He was a student 
 like herself, but in the Theological Department, 
 and when they first became acquainted she had 
 taken no pains to encourage the intimacy for that 
 very reason. She despised theologues. Alas! it 
 was precisely this aloofness that enhanced her 
 attractiveness to the budding pastor, who had not 
 hitherto suffered feminine rebuff and found the 
 experience delightfully stimulating, and as time 
 went on the piquant flavor of this flirtation devel-
 
 MRS. BRAND 19 
 
 oped in him a passion for the answer to a question 
 which bewitched him, " She loves me, she 
 loves me not ! " 
 
 It was years since she had re-incarnated the 
 ghosts of memory as she was doing to-night. Her 
 brain reeled and her heart grew sick. Even in 
 the darkness she felt the blood rush hotly to her 
 face as she realized how complete had been his 
 conquest at last. Had he ever forgotten that 
 evening, when after the manner of their kind, they 
 had wandered far out upon a quiet country road, 
 and as the shadows deepened she had leaned 
 towards him, and intoxicated with the bliss of 
 loving and of being loved had kissed him of her 
 own accord for the first time. 
 
 " All thy passions matched with mine, 
 
 Are as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto 
 wine." 
 
 Her lips curled. Ah, was it so*? And then that 
 letter that terrible letter. They had both grad- 
 uated, and he had gone out West to take charge 
 of a little church, while she was to spend her time
 
 20 MRS. BRAND 
 
 in teaching until their marriage. After a few 
 weeks his letters grew duller and briefer than even 
 his inaptitude as a correspondent warranted, but 
 she made tender excuse for him in her heart, 
 he was so busy caring for his flock and composing 
 the sermons that must be masterpieces of plead- 
 ing. Under the stimulus of preparing herself to 
 be a fitting help-mate for him she turned towards 
 religion, and for the first time in her harried 
 youth she felt herself at peace with God and 
 nature. 
 
 One day the postman handed an unusually 
 bulky letter with a smile of kindly comprehension. 
 She flew with her treasure to her room, her heart 
 throbbing with anticipation. As she whisked by 
 her chair she caught sight of herself in the mirror, 
 and stood still for an instant to apostrophize the 
 radiant reflection of her happiness. If only a 
 photographer had been by to immortalize that 
 moment and himself, it would have covered a 
 multitude of sins. It was Cecily's last glimpse of 
 her girlhood. She tore open the envelope greed- 
 ily. " My darling Mary " What did it mean? 
 She stared stupidly at it for a moment, and then
 
 MRS. BRAND 21 
 
 turned to the end of the letter. " Your devoted 
 Eugene." A prescient chill seized her heart and 
 she sat quite still staring dully at the wall before 
 her. The letter spoke for itself. One term of 
 endearment followed another, and as she rigidly 
 exhausted page after page it dawned at last upon 
 her to whom they were addressed, pretty, little 
 Mary Moore, a fellow student whom Nature had 
 clearly ordained for decorative rather than intel- 
 lectual ends. " Mary, Mary Moore," she re- 
 peated with passionate contempt. These love- 
 lured sentences, the very ones indeed over which 
 her own, shy lips had lingered, how sickening they 
 were in the fierce light of this revelation. Even 
 the sudden thought that no doubt the letter he had 
 written her was already in the hands of Mary 
 Moore was powerless to inflict a sharper sting 
 upon her. Hour after hour she sat there, alone 
 with her dead dreams, until the darkness of night 
 penetrated her benumbed consciousness. Then she 
 staggered to her feet, only to sink weakly upon her 
 knees beside her bed, there to surrender herself to 
 the storm that swept her before it like chaff. 
 Six weeks later she married John Brand, a life-
 
 22 MRS. BRAND 
 
 long friend of good Uncle Ben's whose " Nunc 
 Dimitis " over the event seemed to her quite suf- 
 ficient warrant for it. . But she was no unwilling 
 bride. In those six weeks she accumulated a stock 
 
 
 
 of worldly maxims which would have graced a 
 hoary head. Love*? Sentiment? Bah! And to 
 John Birand, madly in love and proportionately 
 vain 6Ver .the discovery after the manner of men 
 of his yeajs, there was a delicious fascination in 
 those garish. statements from her ripe, young lips. 
 " Love you 1 ? Oh no. Please don't marry me on 
 any such basis as that. You are a good man, I 
 think, and I m satisfied with that. I don't see 
 why people should make two fools of themselves 
 over this particular species of contract. You 
 don't think it necessary to go into rhapsodies over 
 your business partner or to sit for hours gazing 
 into his eyes like an owl." 
 
 On religious matteb she was equally explicit. 
 " I respect your beliefs," she said tolerantly, " but 
 personally I see no reason for believing in them." 
 Still he felt no discouragement, for he relied upon 
 contact with himself to effect $p easy transforma- 
 tion of these girlish crudities, and it was no doubt
 
 MRS. BRAND 23 
 
 a distinct shock to him later on, when sentiment 
 so dealt with in the abstract loomed up concretely 
 in the form of a decided refusal to say her prayers 
 before she went to bed. This was outraging to 
 one's ideals of womanhood. But as time went on 
 they settled down into a sort of Darby and Joan 
 jog-trot in which each conceded a little to the 
 other's gait. If Mr. Brand became conscious of a 
 lack in his wife, which he would have hesitated to 
 analyze, he attributed it broadly to a tempera- 
 ment superior to the vulgar manifestations of 
 affection. As for jealously, he would have 
 laughed at the bare idea. Bless my heart ! What 
 could any other man have given her that she 
 didn't have as his wife. She was a fancy article, 
 to be sure, and as such not to be judged by stand- 
 ards applicable to grosser moulds. 
 
 The night wore on, deepening at last into the 
 chill darkness of the coming dawn. Her husband 
 slept heavily beside her. How old and ashen his 
 face had looked against the vigorous glow of that 
 other one! And she had thought it possible by 
 one wild plunge to fix a gulf forever between her 
 present and her past ! Poor fool !
 
 24 MRS. BRAND 
 
 But she had no thought of the revenge which 
 Mr. Overholt dreaded, for the possibility of his 
 becoming the pastor of the church of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers had not suggested itself to her. Her only 
 anxiety was to bear herself towards him with a 
 dignity befitting her present station in the world. 
 The sooner he discovered what a small place that 
 insignificant love-affair occupied in her remem- 
 brance, the better it would be. She would have 
 been less the woman, however, if she had not dis- 
 covered some sweet subleties of compliment in 
 his inability immediately to recognize her. She 
 almost laughed as she recalled how she must have 
 appeared in those student days during her incom- 
 plete emancipation from Aunt Lavinia's sway. 
 For to Aunt Lavinia any theory that regarded 
 clothes as other than a mere envelope for perish- 
 able human frames was an invention of the devil. 
 So it was not strange that Overholt had failed to 
 recognize in the woman she was now the girl who 
 had once been his sweetheart. Oh well! She 
 would take good care that he should find out the 
 change in her outward appearance, great as it 
 might be, was slight in comparison with those
 
 MRS. BRAND 25 
 
 more complex changes that separate the simple- 
 hearted girl from the woman of the world it 
 pleased her to think herself. 
 
 Naturally enough, it had been a great shock to 
 her, this unexpected meeting, but as she dwelt 
 upon it the situation defined itself to her more 
 clearly, and her imagination exploited its possible 
 phases in a way that reflected great credit upon 
 her capacity. After all, it was but fair that she 
 should be just enough to admit that there might 
 be changes in Mr. Overholt equal to those in her- 
 self. Certainly Mr. Brand seemed captivated by 
 him, and he was not given to making mistakes in 
 his judgments. 
 
 In this as in many debates with herself that suc- 
 ceeded it, Mrs. Brand took account of everything 
 except herself. There was nothing abnormal 
 about her failure to do this, for she was not more 
 ignorant of the mental and moral ingredients of 
 which she was composed than are most mortals.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IT was a cold afternoon towards the close of 
 December, when Mrs. Brand stepped into her car- 
 riage to go and call upon Mrs. Overholt. She 
 had met the minister a good many times since 
 that evening, but there had been no reference to 
 a past which they were equally anxious to ignore. 
 But the attitude that Mrs. Brand had so con- 
 fidently prescribed for herself she found difficult 
 to preserve. What object was there in planting 
 her personal vicinity with signs that read plainly, 
 " Keep off the grass," only to have them unnoticed 
 and trampled down at the pleasure of the intruder 
 who calmly assumed her consent. 
 
 It was gradually becoming an assured fact that 
 Mr. Overholt would be called to the pastorate of 
 the church. His own rating of himself had ap- 
 parently been a conservative one, judged by the 
 enthusiasm of the growing congregations that 
 assembled to give him a hearing. From the very
 
 MRS. BRAND 27 
 
 first, the circumstances of his advent among them 
 had been a sort to awaken sympathy, and when 
 he appeared a few Sundays after his arrival ten- 
 derly leading up the aisle his little wife, frail and 
 sweet as a passing flower, there were even some 
 moist eyes among those who eagerly devoured the 
 spectacle he had prepared for them. He under- 
 stood the importance of accessories as thoroughly 
 as any stage manager, but his game was worth 
 the candle. 
 
 It was natural that he should become a frequent 
 visitor at the Brands. There were many things 
 about which he desired the deacon's opinion. " I 
 do want to revive the work as well as I can while 
 I am here," he said whole-heartedly, " and it's 
 astonishing the disorganization that sets in when 
 a church is so long without a pastor. Why, some 
 of the societies have gone utterly to smash, I 
 can't even find the pieces." 
 
 " Perhaps that's a providential dispensation," 
 remarked Mr. Brand dryly. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder. There's another thing I 
 noticed. Most churches have a couple of vicious, 
 old cranks in them, but there are more to the
 
 28 MRS. BRAND 
 
 square yard in this church than in any I ever 
 heard of. It strikes me there are quite a few of 
 your members who are going to be the kind of 
 angels that need asbestos wings." 
 
 Mrs. Brand laughed. " You appear to be 
 somewhat heated yourself," she said demurely. 
 " Who has been trying a game of theological tag 
 on you to-day? " 
 
 Conversations such as these did not calculate 
 to foster the chilling reserve which she had fore- 
 ordained for herself. But in her calculations she 
 had quite overlooked the resources of " the party 
 of the second part," and before long she realized 
 that an iceberg drifting steadily south might as 
 well avoid disintegrating influences. 
 
 It was with an odd variety of sensations that 
 she grasped the hand of the " good, little woman," 
 who was not to suffer for her husband's sins. She 
 had come armed with all the conscious panoply of 
 place and prestige, but her heart melted at the 
 sight of the wan, little face so timidly lifted to 
 her own. 
 
 " But are you really better? " she inquired
 
 MRS. BRAND 29 
 
 doubtfully, after they had consumed some time 
 in the verbal moves of polite society. 
 
 " Oh yes," replied Mrs. Overholt with convic- 
 tion. "There is really nothing the matter it 
 is just my husband's anxiety," she added with a 
 little color rising in her face. 
 
 Mrs. Brand smiled tolerantly. Mr. Overholt's 
 words, " When you see my wife you will under- 
 stand many things," came back to her mind. Yes, 
 indeed. She sat for a moment in silence staring 
 absently at the fire and the grinning spectres in 
 its red depths. 
 
 " Are you pleasantly situated here*? " she asked 
 abruptly but not unkindly, her eyes travelling in 
 critical survey around the room. 
 
 " Oh yes, all things considered. It was very 
 fortunate that we could rent the house furnished 
 for the two months." 
 
 " We have a beautiful parsonage. It would be 
 a nice place to live in," said Mrs. Brand, but Mrs. 
 Overholt answered with gravity, " Yes, I suppose 
 it would." 
 
 " Have many of our ladies called on you? "
 
 30 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " A few." A worried, little crease appeared in 
 Mrs. Overholt's forehead. 
 
 " They ask so many questions," she hazarded 
 shyly. 
 
 " I could not have believed it especially of 
 Mrs. Crumpet," exclaimed Mrs. Brand wickedly. 
 Then they both laughed, and after that everything 
 was easy. 
 
 " But fortunately they are not all like Mrs. 
 Crumpet. I think I shall have to coach you a 
 little, for I know exactly how they will pump you. 
 Do you think, for instance, that you would like to 
 live in Glenedge*? " Her quick ear had caught the 
 sound of the street door, and a subsequent rustle 
 in the room that was connected by an arch with 
 the one in which she and Mrs. Overholt were 
 sitting. Instinctively she began to play a part for 
 the benefit of an unseen hearer. " The answer 
 to that question is self-evident, only the young and 
 thoughtless would ask it. Glenedge and Paradise 
 are synonymous terms. About them one must 
 cherish hopes, but never opinions." 
 
 Mrs. Overholt looked perplexed, but her lips 
 assumed a patient, little smile.
 
 MRS. BRAND 81 
 
 "Is your husband an early riser?" demanded 
 Mrs. Brand relentlessly with so exact an assump- 
 tion of the manner of which the minister's wife 
 had already had an experience that it was impos- 
 sible not to laugh. 
 
 " Well of course it makes a difference " 
 
 " Nothing ever makes any difference in a min- 
 ister's family. You must say that your breakfast 
 hour is half-past six, or Mrs. Deacon Humdrum 
 would be shocked at your shiftlessness. The 
 Humdrums weary of life every evening at half- 
 past eight, and never have breakfast later than 
 six o'clock, no matter how many hours of sleep 
 they have suffered from. I have a slavish admir- 
 ation for Mrs. Humdrum. She seems to think 
 she is the understudy of my guardian angel, and 
 after the sermons she always feels impelled to 
 force a special application of it to my needs." 
 " I suppose you are very active in the church? " 
 "I"? Oh, no ! I take no interest in it whatever, 
 not in the way you mean. But as a spectator 
 I get a great deal out of it. It is such an ad- 
 mirable stamping-ground, and necessarily, I have 
 always been intimate with the minister's family."
 
 32 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " How strange ! " 
 
 " That I should be intimate with the minister's 
 family? " And wilfully misinterpreting the 
 remark Mrs. Brand rushed on. " Yes, isn't it 
 comical. Of course you never saw Dr. Marvin! 
 The dearest old antediluvian. He was a valuable 
 relic." 
 
 Mrs. Overholt had never heard anyone talk of 
 the ministerial species like this before, and she 
 looked a little troubled. 
 
 " But I was fond of Dr. Marvin. He never 
 nagged me about my soul; he only prayed about 
 it, and I quite approve of that. But Mrs. Marvin 
 was different. She would nag if you got caught 
 alone with her. But you aren't like that? You 
 aren't afflicted with a heroic sense of duty, I 
 hope? " 
 
 " No," replied Mrs. Overholt earnestly. " I'm 
 afraid I'm very negligent about those things. I 
 don't think I was cut out for a pastor's wife." 
 
 She looked so mournful that Mrs. Brand 
 laughed. " You poor, little thing," was her in- 
 ward comment; " in the hands of the Tom, Dick 
 and Harry Humdrums."
 
 MRS. BRAND 33 
 
 " Be thankful you weren't," she said aloud. 
 " One would suppose to hear some people talk 
 that there were three sexes, Men, Women and 
 Ministers' Wives." 
 
 " May I come in*? " said a voice behind her as 
 she finished speaking. " Mrs. Brand, how kind 
 this is of you! Why, dear, you look positively 
 giddy." And Mr. Overholt sank wearily into his 
 big chair before the fire. " What have you two 
 been gossiping about ? " he asked, with an admir- 
 able display of innocence. 
 
 " Oh, ministers, and people," said Mrs. 
 Overholt vaguely. 
 
 " That's a fine distinction, and I'm dreadfully 
 afraid that Mrs. Brand is responsible for it," 
 hinted Mr. Overholt. 
 
 " No, I think that's original with Mrs. Over- 
 holt," retorted Mrs. Brand. " But it has my 
 approval." 
 
 " Why? " 
 
 For the life of him he could not resist the query. 
 While he was intermittently the victim of alarms 
 regarding this woman, the situation had developed 
 charms for him which outweighed its perils.
 
 34 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Don't you know 1 ? " she asked, with a chal- 
 lenge in her dark eyes that he accepted and 
 returned on the fly, while Mrs. Overholt sat silent 
 in innocent admiration of the enigmas surround- 
 ing her. " Oh, you surely wouldn't submit to 
 being classed among people, common, vulgar 
 people who have to be kept under by command- 
 ments and all that sort of thing"? " 
 
 He felt the flash in her eyes. " Oh, spare us 
 the poor ministers," he replied with collective 
 prudence. " I'm sure you would if you only knew 
 the tortures I've endured dashing civility around 
 the parish this afternoon. There's Mrs. Kelly, 
 for instance, who thinks my sermons ' too kind of 
 pretty * to impress the intellect of Allen Edward, 
 ' and I shall look to you, Mr. Overholt, to gather 
 that precious sheaf into the harvest. We are 
 regular contributors to the pastor's support.' " 
 
 " That woman," said Mrs. Brand, " has a head 
 for business." 
 
 " So I concluded. And fortunately at the 
 request of the treasurer I had looked over his 
 books with him the other day thereby placing my- 
 self in a position to say promptly to Mrs. Kelly :
 
 MRS. BRAND 35 
 
 ' Then I am to infer that you wish ten dol- 
 lars' worth of salvation injected into your son 
 annually.' " 
 
 " Oh, lovely ! " exclaimed Mrs. Brand, with an 
 outburst of laughter. " But how could you do 
 it?" 
 
 " It takes some initial grit," he replied mod- 
 estly. " But that woman will cleave to me now 
 like a kicked cur. And Mrs. Wigley," he con- 
 tinued, reminiscent of his experiences, " who hopes 
 that if I am called to this church, of which she 
 has evidently the gravest doubts, I shall make it 
 the particular aim of my ministry to become inti- 
 mate with her children. ' They are unusually 
 bright, Mr. Overholt, and I know that you would 
 find them most inspiring. It is not for my chil- 
 dren that I am pleading, Mr. Overholt, it is for 
 your own good that I speak so frankly. I think 
 you should make a point of mingling with the 
 young people freely.' ' 
 
 " What did you say? " 
 
 " Nothing. That crushed me. I wrung the 
 unselfish mother's hand in trembling silence and 
 departed much affected. I wound up my tribula-
 
 36 MRS. BRAND 
 
 tions with Mrs. Gasch, who hopes that Mrs. 
 Overholt is not as frivolous as she looks." 
 
 " Oh, don't," protested Mrs. Brand, " that 
 abominable, little woman." 
 
 " I did my best to ease her mind. I told her 
 that I would mention her feelings to the com- 
 mittee, and would do my utmost to prevent their 
 extending a call to Mrs. Overholt. With that I 
 sweetly smiled myself away, and left Mrs. Gasch 
 quite agitated, I think." 
 
 " Well, I really don't think that you have any 
 reason to feel blue over your afternoon's work. 
 And I don't think Mrs. Overholt need feel fright- 
 ened over these dreadful accounts of the parish. 
 There are nice people here, and I have been doing 
 my best to prepare her to meet the horrid ones. 
 But there's one thing I have forgotten, and I 
 know Mrs. Humdrum won't. Mrs. Overholt," 
 she began with tremendous solemnity, " I trust 
 that your husband does not defile himself with the 
 deadly weed. That is the one thing upon which I 
 must satisfy my conscience with regard to him." 
 
 An expression of agony appeared upon Mrs. 
 Overholt's countenance.
 
 MRS. BRAND 37 
 
 " Why, my dear, of course he smokes," said 
 Mrs. Brand consolingly. "They all do. Even 
 Dr. Marvin." 
 
 " What, now? " interposed Mr. Overholt, in a 
 tone of horror. 
 
 Mrs. Brand dismissed him with a lofty glance. 
 
 " I caught him at it once, but I vowed I'd 
 never tell, and I think that was why he was so 
 nice to me. But when Mrs. Humdrum assaults 
 you on the subject you must look perfectly 
 shocked and say, ' Oh Mrs. Humdrum, did Dr. 
 Marvin do that*? How dreadful ! ' That will be 
 sufficient. She will nearly have a fit at the bare 
 suggestion, and as she only has accommodations 
 for one idea at a time you'll get off easily." 
 
 Mrs. Brand rose, gathering about her the sump- 
 tuous wrap that had fallen from her shoulders. 
 " Of course you have family prayers," she re- 
 marked suggestively. " I know a family who got 
 up quite a reputation for piety by reading Tenny- 
 son between the courses. The unsuspicious Swede 
 was much impressed by the spectacle, and talked 
 it up accordingly. Unfortunately the family was 
 not dependent upon a reputation of that kind, and
 
 38 MRS. BRAND 
 
 so they told the story on themselves. I merely 
 offer this as a suggestion." She met Mr. Over- 
 holt's eye defiantly. 
 
 "Don't you think you're cruel?" he asked 
 quietly. 
 
 " 1$ Cruel? What a funny thing for you to 
 say." 
 
 He looked at her resentfully. How long was 
 she going to bully him with that? But she had 
 crossed over to his wife, and taking the little hands 
 in her own with a charming gesture she said, " My 
 dear, we shall be friends. And don't let anyone 
 worry you into trying to turn yourself inside out 
 for the sake of being sociable. Sociable? " She 
 dwelt on the word with contemptuous emphasis. 
 " It's a depraved word." 
 
 Mr. Overholt escorted her to her carriage, but 
 in the vestibule she paused a moment to draw her 
 wrap closer about her throat. 
 
 " Ah, permit me ! " he exclaimed with the 
 ready gallantry so characteristic of him, and 
 before she could utter a protest his fingers were 
 busy with the troublesome clasp. The color flew 
 burning into her face, and then with impetuous
 
 MRS. BRAND 89 
 
 defiance of the gaze she divined upon her she 
 raised her eyes to his. 
 
 " What kept you so long? " inquired Mrs. 
 Overholt, when her husband returned. She had 
 been watching the departure of her visitor from 
 a distinctly feminine standpoint the parlor 
 window. 
 
 " Oh, some bother about her cape. I suppose 
 women like to have their clothes so complicated as 
 to demand a little masculine assistance now and 
 then." 
 
 " Mean old thing," declared his wife, pounding 
 his knee prettily with her little fists. She sat down 
 on a low chair beside him, and leaned her head 
 against his arm, and he stroked her soft cheek 
 tenderly, with fingers in which a thrill still 
 lingered. 
 
 Lilias McMichael was the only child of wealthy 
 parents, and had been reared with all the care 
 that their love for her had prompted. When the 
 lover, who had subjugated first herself and then 
 her parents by his charm, became the equally 
 devoted and attentive husband, she wondered in 
 the humble innocence of her bursting little heart
 
 40 MRS. BRAND 
 
 what she had done to deserve so great a gift. She 
 was not beautiful, but she was an exquisitely 
 dainty maiden, and her lines had kindly fallen to 
 her in places that made no harassing demands 
 upon her intellectually. If there were things 
 about her husband that sometimes puzzled her 
 crinkly little brain she contracted, in due course 
 of time, a satisfactory habit of dismissing them 
 with the reflection that it was not to be expected 
 that she should always understand him. And 
 when upon her father's death a year or two after 
 her marriage, it was discovered that the fortune 
 that it had been his life work to acquire had van- 
 ished in a cloud of speculation, her husband's bear- 
 ing during that time must have been a signal 
 disappointment to the people who had hinted that 
 his affection for her was other than a purely 
 unselfish one. 
 
 " Why, my dear little child," he protested, 
 gathering his grief-stricken wife in his arms, " do 
 you suppose I want any apologies from you about 
 your father's affairs'? Anyone would think to hear 
 you talk that I had married you simply because 
 you were an heiress." And yet that was precisely
 
 MRS. BRAND 41 
 
 why he had married her, as he realized at this 
 moment. But he had a saving contempt for retro- 
 spect, and a profound assurance regarding his 
 future which served to mitigate the force of 
 untoward circumstances. And little Lilias Over- 
 holt, being unimaginative, and not given to mak- 
 ing critical analyses of character, was spared some 
 discoveries that might have disturbed her serenity. 
 
 So it might be inferred that there was a wide 
 gulf between the thoughts of these two as they 
 sat there in the twilight together. 
 
 " That woman is as dangerous as a keg of gun- 
 powder," thought Mr. Overholt. 
 
 But the dangers of gunpowder have never out- 
 weighed its attractiveness for the male half of 
 creation. 
 
 A few days after this Mrs. Brand called by 
 previous arrangement to take the invalid for a 
 drive. " There is no hurry," she said to the serv- 
 ant, who explained that her mistress was not quite 
 ready. She idly picked up a book lying on the 
 table, and found herself unable to repress a smile 
 at the title, " Wives of Men of Genius." But 
 after running over its pages she laid it back upon
 
 42 MRS. BRAND 
 
 the table with an angry bang. When her indigna- 
 tion had had time to subside somewhat her atten- 
 tion was attracted by a noise outside the door. 
 " Whatever can it be," she wondered. The door 
 handle rattled ominously, and then a little voice 
 said in tones of affliction, " Want to come in. 
 Want to come in." She hastened to open the 
 door, and in marched a little being bearing on his 
 sturdy shoulders such a mass of golden hair that 
 Mrs. Brand impetuously exclaimed : " Why, you 
 lovely yellow chrysanthemum, where did you 
 come from*? " But the small person surveyed her 
 resentfully, and proceeded to pucker up his lips in 
 a way that portended many things. He clearly 
 objected to her presence there, and proposed to 
 name her an interloper at the top of his voice. 
 " O come here," she cided desperately. " Do you 
 know I've got two brown kitties on my hat*? Did 
 you ever see a brown kitty?" And as she spoke 
 she took off her hat, and placed it alluringly upon 
 her knee whence two little telescoped beasts, with 
 tails that apparently originated in the backs of 
 their necks, gazed enticingly at him. Kitties of 
 so strange a breed must be investigated, and the
 
 MRS. BRAND 43 
 
 little boy began a cautious advance. He was a 
 charming baby with his soft hair tossed into sunny 
 clouds around his cherub's face, pink and warm 
 from the effects of a recent nap, and Mrs. Brand 
 in whose mind children were a damp, unpleasant 
 jumble of drooling chins and inadequate jaws, for 
 which Providence had compensated them by a 
 surplusage of lung-power placed at their indiscre- 
 tion, felt herself affected by a new sensation as 
 she looked at the bonny lad. 
 
 " I wonder if these kitties have any teeth*? Has 
 yours? " 
 
 He nodded his head seriously. " My kitties 
 got spwatchers too," he vouchsafed slowly with 
 bewitching drawl and a pout of his under lip, 
 holding towards her a fat, little fist on which 
 kitty had unmistakably tattooed her trade-mark. 
 
 " Oh, my kitties never do such things as that,' 
 said Mrs. Brand feelingly. " You come up here, 
 and sit on my knee, and I will let you hold my 
 hat right in your lap." 
 
 This invitation was accepted with dignity, but 
 when he once found himself enthroned with the 
 coveted quadrupeds in his grasp, his infantile
 
 44 MRS. BRAND 
 
 doubts vanished, and he poured forth the secrets 
 of his soul with the enchanting candor of child- 
 hood. 
 
 "Have kitties got fur insides? " he inquired 
 suddenly after he had nearly reduced his hearer 
 to a state of imbecility by his recollections of the 
 Animal Kingdom generally, and Noah's Ark in 
 particular. 
 
 " No, I don't think so," replied Mrs. Brand. 
 
 "What kind have dey got, den?" he asked, 
 nailing her with his relentless, blue eyes. 
 
 " Oh, why, I don't know, why, skin 
 insides, I suppose, like yours and mine," she 
 added hastily, conscious that she was being 
 weighed in the balance, and desperately anxious 
 lest she should be found wanting in a clear defini- 
 tion of " insides." 
 
 " What color bleed have dey got*? " 
 
 But this question was easier to dispose of. 
 
 " Oh, red bleed," she answered promptly, " just 
 like yours and mine." 
 
 " Just like the bleed in your cheek? " he 
 demanded, looking at it skeptically, and proceed- 
 ing to pinch it experimentally with his pigmy
 
 MRS. BRAND 45 
 
 thumb and finger. This was delicious. It was 
 years since she had so unreservedly enjoyed 
 herself. 
 
 " Where did you get your chrysanthemum 
 hair? " she inquired presently during a temporary 
 lull in the proceedings. 
 
 " From Heaven. But it is going to seed now. 
 I told mamma it would if she didn't cut it soon. 
 The inside of my head is full of hair seeds," he 
 added cheerfully. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " exclaimed Mrs. Overholt opening 
 the door at this moment, and gazing ruefully at 
 the spectacle before her. " Why, McMichael, 
 how did you ever get in here? I suppose he has 
 bothered you to death, Mrs. Brand." 
 
 " No, indeed. We've had a fine time together 
 haven't we?" She hesitated, and then said: 
 " Would you mind my calling him Chrysan- 
 themum*? When he brought his head in I couldn't 
 call him anything else." 
 
 Mrs. Overholt did mind a great deal, being very 
 proud of her patronymic, but she smothered her 
 preference for the good of the cause, and said 
 with patient sweetness: " Oh, no; it is all right.
 
 46 MRS. BRAND 
 
 We are very proud of his name, McMichael. If 
 he should ever settle in the East where my family 
 is known it would be a passport for him." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so," said Mrs. Brand vaguely, 
 wondering why people would seek to propit- 
 iate remote contingencies at such a sacrifice. 
 McMichael Overholt! 
 
 Chrysanthemum took rather a tearful farewell 
 of his new friend, and was only consoled by the 
 promise of a drive with the pony. 
 
 " Such a dear, little pony ! " said Mrs. Brand. 
 
 "Has he got a tail?" 
 
 " Yes, I think he's nearly all tail." 
 
 "And four legs?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And can I whip him all I want to? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I think so." 
 
 " And den will he wun away? " he wound up 
 in glee at the hope of such a climax. 
 
 Mrs. Brand's growing intimacy with the min- 
 ister's family was a great source of satisfaction to 
 her husband. He had often been forced to admit 
 to himself that her little witticisms at the expense 
 of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin had not been without
 
 MRS. BRAND 47 
 
 warrant, and he felt it a most encouraging sign 
 that she listened attentively to the sermons of this 
 pastor, and made no remarks about them what- 
 ever. Mr. Overholt's reputation as an orator was 
 already having so marked an effect upon the 
 church attendance that Mrs. Crumpet was forced 
 sadly to admit having never expected in her time 
 " to see the Church of the Pilgrim Fathers become 
 the resort of the rabble." The gospel according to 
 Sister Crumpet did not contemplate the adoption 
 as a working theory of any such risky utterances 
 as, " I was a stranger and ye took me in," and 
 she endured bitter pangs at the invasion of the 
 pew that had always been sacred to her substantial 
 person.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MRS. BRAND stood in the rounding alcove of her 
 sitting-room, looking idly out upon the storm that 
 whistled icily against the windows. How dull it 
 was to be shut up alone all day ! As it was neces- 
 sary for a full-grown woman to have some occupa- 
 tion other than twirling her thumbs, she had set 
 herself to the writing of a long-delayed letter. 
 She had committed herself to the address, but the 
 date? That puzzled her, and she had retreated to 
 the window to consult the elements about it when 
 she discerned the dim figure of a man fighting his 
 way slowly up the street. 
 
 The color deepened in her cheeks, but she was 
 writing at high pressure when Dr. Challoner 
 entered after his usual prefatory tap. He sat 
 down, stretching himself out in the easy chair with 
 a sigh of contentment. " Make yourself at home, 
 Bruin," said Mrs. Brand kindly. 
 
 Early in their acquaintance she had dubbed him 
 
 48
 
 MRS. BRAND 49 
 
 " Bruin." " Don't you know," she said, " there 
 are certain perfumes associated in our minds with 
 people and experiences long since passed and 
 gone, the faintest whiff of which will bring the 
 past back so vividty that for the moment we for- 
 get the present^ I feel just that way about you. 
 Your tread is suggestive. I never hear you com- 
 ing without thinking of the forest primeval, and 
 the airy grace of the mastodon and megatherium. 
 There is something positively artistic in the way 
 you preserve your atmosphere against the assaults 
 of time. But we'll compromise on 'Bruin.' ' 
 
 For he was a great six-foot athlete with a 
 tendency to dispose his person promiscuously in 
 places manifestly not intended for it. One never 
 thought of his looks, which was a pity, perhaps, 
 for even in their immaturity they were full of 
 promise for the time when beauty of features 
 should have become dependent upon beauty of 
 character. 
 
 " Well, what is it now*? " suggested Mrs. 
 Brand, as the doctor seemed content to sit silently, 
 his gray eyes fixed upon her with a concentrated 
 stare which threatened to become monotonous.
 
 50 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " One would think I was a new kind of microbe." 
 
 Dr. Challoner laughed. " I wasn't even think- 
 ing about you." 
 
 "Oh, Bruin!" She sighed. "You're too 
 candid." 
 
 " Fortunately not all your friends are open to 
 that accusation. Mr. Overholt, for instance." 
 Dr. Challoner gazed impersonally at the fire. A 
 little ripple of laughter greeted his remark. 
 
 " Now, Bruin, you're jealous." 
 
 " Oh, I grant you there's nothing subtle about 
 me. I'll just tell you what I think about that 
 fellow. He's an everlasting fraud, that's what 
 he is." 
 
 " I've seen this accumulating for a long time," 
 said Mrs. Brand. 
 
 " You have ! " he exclaimed, with astonish- 
 ment. " But I've never opened my mouth about 
 the man." 
 
 " You didn't need to, Bruin. That's the charm 
 of a sensitive organization like yours. Your opin- 
 ion of him just dripped from every pore." 
 
 " Cecily, you're cruel ! It's kind of hard on me 
 that you should be able to kick off my sentiments
 
 MRS. BRAND 51 
 
 so neatly, when I can't for the life of me get on 
 the trail of yours." 
 
 Mrs. Brand laughed lightly. " That's odd, for 
 I've experienced the same difficulty myself. But 
 you must admit that he's kind." 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 " And generous." 
 
 " Ye-es." 
 
 " And handsome." 
 
 "Now, there " 
 
 " Never mind theorizing Bruin, for the case 
 doesn't demand it, and I see that you're preju- 
 diced." 
 
 "Hash!" 
 
 " And pious." 
 
 " That depends upon the meaning you " 
 
 " Pious, I said. If I had meant good I should 
 have said so." 
 
 " Oh, yes, pious." 
 
 " And brilliant." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And a born orator." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then, my dear boy, what more can you ask 4 ? "
 
 52 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " What more can I ask? " repeated the doctor, 
 gustily. Then he fell into a resentful silence, but 
 when he finally spoke again he startled Mrs. Brand 
 out of her smiling study of him. " That little 
 woman's dying, and a lot he cares ! " 
 
 "What little woman 9 " she inquired, sharply. 
 
 " Mrs. Overholt. He sent word yesterday that 
 he would like me to call. I wondered a good 
 deal, but of course it was my business to go, and 
 I went. It appears he's been consulting some 
 quack down town about her, so that if there ever 
 was a chance to save her it's gone now." 
 
 " Oh, but nonsense, Bruin. I haven't seen her 
 for a week, but she was so bright then." 
 
 " I dare say," he replied indifferently. " As 
 soon as I found out how immediately serious her 
 condition was I told him I should like to meet 
 Dr. Bradbury in consultation. I even intimated 
 that I was surprised at his not having called Dr. 
 Bradbury in the first place a member of his 
 own church. He just looked me up and down, 
 and said coolly, ' Will you kindly allow me a pref- 
 erence in the matter 1 ? I did not call you in to 
 undertake Mrs. Overholt's case without entire con-
 
 MRS. BRAND 53 
 
 fidence in your ability, and I do not think we need 
 to quarrel, because I intend to believe in her 
 recovery. ' 
 
 " It is her lungs, you know. I told him plainly 
 at last that I saw no prospects of her living more 
 than a few weeks unless a miracle was wrought. 
 He smiled quite pleasantly, and said he had never 
 found the acceptance of miracles a stumbling- 
 block. I tell you it was queer." 
 
 " I don't think you understand him altogether." 
 
 " No, I guess I don't! " retorted Dr. Challoner, 
 explosively. 
 
 " He has a very hopeful disposition, and of 
 course he wants to believe the best. But how 
 why, he was here last night." Mrs. Brand broke 
 off suddenly. " And he never said a word about 
 this, not even when I inquired for Mrs. Overholt." 
 She looked at the doctor in perplexity. " And he 
 was here so long! " 
 
 " I don't suppose there is anything particularly 
 exhilarating in the society of a sick wife." 
 
 " But I am appalled," said Mrs. Brand, in real 
 distress. " Poor little Chrys ! Whatever will 
 they do? Oh, Bruin, you must be mistaken."
 
 54 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " No, I'm not. It's just one of those wild fire 
 cases that don't give science any show." 
 
 They discussed the matter for a while, and then 
 Dr. Challoner said, as he stood waiting to go, 
 " 'Tisn't fair, is it? I come in here and reveal 
 all the family secrets of the O'Flahertys and 
 Nemeceks because they live on Moon Street, but 
 I have felt the greatest compunctions at talking 
 about the Overholts." 
 
 " Well, you needn't worry. I could tell you a 
 great many more and stranger things about Eugene 
 Overholt than you will ever be able to tell me." 
 In the very instance of speaking Mrs. Brand 
 winced at the indiscretion which let slip so danger- 
 ous a boomerang as that remark might prove. 
 But Arthur was notedly unobservant, and would 
 probably never recall it. And he did not until 
 he was half way to the city. 
 
 Dr. Challoner's mother had been left a widow 
 when the boy was about fifteen years old with 
 just sufficient means to equip him thoroughly for 
 the profession he elected to follow. That she 
 should die before his return from abroad seemed 
 a cruel dispensation, but her impetuous spirit
 
 MRS. BRAND 55 
 
 would have chafed sorely under the years of 
 apprenticeship to obscurity, which he must serve 
 before he should climb the heights of fame on 
 which she already saw him fixed. Between the 
 young man and Mr. Brand there was no closer tie 
 than the fact that the first Mrs. Brand and his 
 mother had been sisters, which was, moreover, a 
 stronger bond than either of them realized, for 
 around the memory of his early experiences there 
 had crystallized all the genuinely tender senti- 
 ment the millionaire had ever known. It was not 
 strange that the young man, bereaved, and hesi- 
 tant on the verge of an unknown future, should 
 feel somewhat disconcerted at finding that his 
 uncle's grave old house, which for all the years 
 that he could remember had been subject to the 
 rectangular sway of a staid housekeeper, had 
 undergone a startling transformation. That his 
 uncle should marry did not appear to him out of 
 the way, but that he should marry as he had was 
 decidedly so. But contrary to his forebodings he 
 and his " Aunt Cecily " soon became fast friends. 
 " How could I help liking you*? " she said to him 
 afterwards, " when you were so evidently over-
 
 56 MRS. BRAND 
 
 come by my charms. Do you remember that first 
 breakfast when you pressed me to try a few fried 
 potatoes on my porridge 1 ? It was such a relief to 
 the situation." 
 
 At no period of his career could the friendship 
 of a clever woman have been as valuable to him 
 as it was just then. To be sure, he did not recog- 
 nize the extent or the quality of Mrs. Brand's 
 influence upon him. Nor was she capable of an 
 adequate analysis of the delicate complexities of 
 a character at whose apparent simplicity she some- 
 times laughed. But she criticized him more judi- 
 cially than a sister might have done, and her 
 admiration for him, while less saccharine than a 
 sweetheart's, was happily more discriminating. As 
 for Mr. Brand, he was probably destined to go to 
 his grave without realizing how largely the tenor 
 of his way owed its evenness to his nephew, who 
 had come into his wife's life at a time when the 
 dignity of her position had lost its savor and when 
 she was growing perilously conscious of increas- 
 ing reservations regarding her husband and her 
 relations to him. In the companionship of a 
 spirit young and enthusiastic like her own she
 
 MRS. BRAND 57 
 
 found relief from the pressure of unwelcome 
 thoughts. They discussed each new experience 
 with the ardor of amateurs, and Mr. Brand sanely 
 rejoiced that his wife had found an outlet for 
 enthusiasms with which he was not contemporary. 
 For the first few months after his return from 
 abroad Dr. Challoner had remained at the Brands', 
 his uncle being anxious that he should take root 
 in Glenedge. And no doubt, he could in time 
 have filched a practice from the misfortunes of 
 physicians who permitted their patients to put 
 on a premature immortality, or went so far as to 
 mistake Mrs. Maule's alarming symptoms for 
 those of common hysterics, the sequel of sundry 
 remarks of her husband on the subject of sealskin 
 coats and spring bonnets. From a desire to be 
 dutiful, the young man patiently sampled the sit- 
 uation for a while, and then broke loose from it 
 with a gasp of relief, and went deliberately down 
 into the maelstrom of sin and suffering from which 
 he felt his call. And he had ever since exulted in 
 his choice. That was three or four years ago, and 
 now at thirty-two he felt himself rich in expe- 
 rience, and strong in his grasp of convictions
 
 58 MRS. BRAND 
 
 hitherto dimly apprehended. At first Mr. Brand 
 had been disgusted with the whole proceeding, but 
 as time went on he saw clearly that " the boy " 
 had gauged his mission well, and that he had in 
 him, moreover, the stuff from which a hero 
 springs. And there were times when the old man 
 swelled with pride which he would not have 
 admitted even to himself. 
 
 Two or three times a week Dr. Challoner would 
 come tumbling in upon Mrs. Brand, sometimes 
 with a tempest at his tongue's end and fury in his 
 eye. Then he would begin to apostrophize her 
 " like Demosthenes before he wore a pebble," she 
 told him once. " Why do you stutter and stamp 
 at me 1 ? I'm not the chosen figurehead of all the 
 corporations and cruelties in the world. Go home 
 at once, or no, better still, sit down here and write 
 out that man's story exactly as you have told it to 
 me. Don't write an article. Nobody cares a pin 
 for you or your theories." 
 
 " That's just like a woman," he growled. 
 " Totally unable to contemplate the abstract." 
 
 " Women and editors, Bruin," she retorted 
 unmoved.
 
 MRS. BRAND 59 
 
 The next day she always carried or sent the 
 manuscript down to the editor of one of the great 
 dailies, he being a personal friend of her hus- 
 band's, and had the satisfaction of seeing it 
 immediately in print. 
 
 " That's like their cheek ! " said the doctor when 
 she showed it to him in triumph. " They've cut 
 out the best parts of it." 
 
 She smiled a good deal to herself about that, 
 but she soothed his anathemas with the innocence 
 of an infant dove. After the acceptance of one 
 of these stories Dr. Challoner was amazed at 
 receiving a request for a series of six such studies 
 to be published under the title of " Snap-shots in 
 the Slums." The title was something of a shock 
 to a nature un journalistic in its bent, but he sub- 
 mitted to it for the sake of the cause he had made 
 his, and from time to time these pathetic sketches 
 appeared and made a place for themselves in the 
 minds of thoughtful men. 
 
 Directly after breakfast the morning following 
 Dr. Challoner's visit, Mrs. Brand hurried to the 
 parsonsage where the minister and his family had 
 been comfortably installed some weeks before.
 
 60 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Her sympathy for them all swept her manner free 
 from embarrassment as she explained her errand 
 to Mr. Overholt. 
 
 " I thought perhaps I could help you in some 
 way, for my heart aches for your wife and poor 
 little Chrys," she concluded simply. 
 
 "And me?" he inquired bending towards her 
 with a smile that carried with it so little sugges- 
 tion of foreboding that she stared at him blankly. 
 But a moment later she flushed with mortification, 
 for his next remark seemed to imply a rebuke that 
 she felt her manner must have courted. 
 
 " I know that you," he said gravely, " can 
 understand from what Dr. Challoner told you 
 what a burden of anxiety I am carrying just now, 
 and how difficult it is to remember that I have no 
 right to cast the shadow of my personal sorrow 
 over my people." 
 
 " Oh, I know it must be terrible for you," she 
 said impetuously. " You must let me be all the 
 help I can to you. Isn't there anything I could 
 do for Mrs. Overholt this morning? " 
 
 " Perhaps she would like to see you. I will go 
 and find out how she feels."
 
 MRS. BRAND 61 
 
 A faint smile flickered across his face as he went 
 up-stairs. But there was no sign of it when he 
 came down again, saying that Mrs. Overholt 
 would be so glad if Mrs. Brand cared to come up. 
 
 It was a wan, little face that looked up from 
 the pillows at the tall and radiant woman beside 
 the bed. The dainty Dresden China Shepherdess 
 effect was all gone; in the wide eyes there was 
 that wistful plea for sympathy that one sees some- 
 times in the eyes of a hurt animal. Mrs. Brand 
 was shocked at the change in the little woman, 
 and dropping on her knees beside her, she took 
 the transparent bits of hands in her own so firm 
 and warm. 
 
 " Why, my dear," she said in her round, rich 
 voice, " whatever do you mean by acting like 
 this*? You needn't suppose that we're going to 
 let you put on airs and graces and lie here at 
 your ease when all the rest of the world has to 
 be up and doing." 
 
 " Yes, I'll soon be better. I don't know why 
 Dr. Challoner won't let me get up." 
 
 " Oh, that's because it's been such horrible, 
 blustery weather."
 
 62 MRS. BRAND 
 
 On the other side of the bed stood Mr. Over- 
 holt, a silent watcher of the scene before him. 
 The scant figure of his little wife, her pallid face 
 with its sharpened outlines, what a background it 
 gave to the curve and color of the woman bend- 
 ing over her ! 
 
 It may have been the irritating sense of those 
 cool, blue eyes upon her or something subtler that 
 made Mrs. Brand say sharply, " Go back to your 
 sermon, please. We women want a chance to be 
 foolish if we choose, and we can't if you stand 
 there taking impressions of us." 
 
 Mr. Overholt shrugged his shoulders. When 
 he reached his study he lighted a cigar, and kicked 
 over his waste-paper basket. 
 
 "Confound her impudence!" he ejaculated, 
 and felt relief. 
 
 " Yonfound her imp' ness ! " repeated a little 
 voice behind him. 
 
 He whirled round on his chair, and there in 
 the corner sat McMichael composedly fitting a 
 garment of the Mother Hubbard species to his 
 sailor doll. 
 
 " Yonfound her imp'ness ! " reiterated the child,
 
 MRS. BRAND 63 
 
 apparently enamored of the phrase and anxious 
 to commit it to memory. 
 
 " Confound you for an omnipresent imp ! " 
 said his father laughing. " What are you always 
 turning up for like a bad penny? " 
 
 " 'Cause Hilda fell into the oven," replied 
 McMichael with the air of one possessed of a 
 grievance. 
 
 " Because you pushed her in, you mean, and she 
 sent you up here in the hopes of escaping with 
 her life. Now you must be a very good boy and 
 not speak while Papa writes his sermon." 
 
 Mr. Overholt's homiletical ardors did not, how- 
 ever, prevent his hearing, after a while, the light 
 opening and shutting of his wife's door, and in an 
 instant he was on the landing. 
 
 " Mrs. Brand, I should like a moment if you 
 can spare it," he said gently. 
 
 She hesitated. But at that moment McMichael 
 added himself to the proceedings, and precipitat- 
 ing himself upon her with a welcome for which 
 she was not primed, she capitulated, and sat down 
 in the chair that Mr. Overholt drew forward for 
 her. The little lad climbed confidently upon her
 
 64 MRS. BRAND 
 
 lap, and promptly began a search for hidden 
 treasure. 
 
 " Well, Chrys, what thoughts that are dark 
 and tricks that are vain are distracting your cor- 
 rugated little head just now*? " 
 
 " Want your tick-clock," he replied, sturdily. 
 And then, with a change of tone that was simply 
 glaring in its manifest design, he said lugubri- 
 ously, " I had a headache in my toof the day after 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Of course they laughed, and of course the watch 
 came forth, and McMichael forgot alike his wiles 
 and his woes. Then Mrs. Brand turned to Mr. 
 Overholt and began to speak of his wife. 
 
 " I know so little about illness that I cannot be 
 a fair judge, but it would seem to me most alarm- 
 ing that she has lost ground so suddenly." 
 
 " Yes, that is true. But she has been ill so 
 many times since our marriage, quite as seriously 
 as now, though not in the same way." 
 
 She found him just as Dr. Challoner had de- 
 scribed, calm and confident in his own opinion, 
 and quite indifferent about any other. She felt 
 suddenly foolish and out of place, as she had
 
 MRS. BRAND 65 
 
 nothing but sympathy to offer, and it was appar- 
 ently uncalled for. 
 
 " Come, Chrys," she said to the child cuddling 
 against her, " you must let me go now." Her 
 heart was full of a dim sense of outrage, and she 
 could not know how abrupt to the little boy was 
 his descent from Paradise. He went slowly back 
 to his corner, and sat down on his dolly with a 
 bump, that was ruin to the one and mortification 
 to the other. It was too much. With a wail he 
 broke forth, " Oh, I so lonely ! I so lonely all 
 by I-self." 
 
 In an instant Mrs. Brand was beside him. 
 " Why, you poor mite ! " she exclaimed. " What- 
 ever is the matter*? " 
 
 " Wipe my tears," he said, pitifully, and she 
 humbly mopped up the flood of which she felt 
 herself to be the bitter spring. Then she stood up 
 again, his little hand tightly clasping hers, but she 
 felt perplexed. Poor little Chrys! He looked 
 neglected yes, dirty; not at all as his dainty 
 little mother kept him. All at once there came 
 to her an inspiration. 
 
 " Mr. Overholt, I wonder I don't know
 
 66 MRS. BRAND 
 
 whether you would like it, but suppose you let 
 me take Chrys home with me and keep him for 
 a while. I really don't see how you can manage 
 with him just now." 
 
 " How kind of you," said Mr. Overholt, grate- 
 fully. " But you would find him an awful pest. 
 And yet it would be a relief to me to know that 
 he was happy and properly cared for. I really 
 am driven to death," he continued with a sigh, 
 and Mrs. Brand noticed with remorse how hag- 
 gard and drawn he looked just then. " Dr. Chal- 
 loner is to send us a nurse to-day, and perhaps 
 after this I shall not have such broken nights. 
 But even then, with my sermons to prepare for 
 the inevitable Sunday, and a couple of lectures 
 pressing, and the everlasting jangle of the door- 
 bell, with its unexpected demands upon my 
 time oh ! it's enough to drive a man mad." 
 
 " I don't see how you stand it at all." 
 
 " And my poor wife, lying wearily hour after 
 hour alone, wondering why I don't come and talk 
 to her." 
 
 "That must be the hardest thing of all," ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Brand, with quick pity for them
 
 MRS. BRAND 67 
 
 both. This little glimpse behind the scenes was 
 strong in its appeal to her sympathies, for she had 
 never thought of the penalties attached to popu- 
 larity; that the acquiring of a reputation should 
 carry with it the sting that one should never fall 
 below it became suddenly clear to her, and her 
 heart softened towards the man whose audiences 
 swayed beneath his eloquence. 
 
 " Yonfound her imp'ness!" chanted Mc- 
 Michael, seeing an opportunity to stop a conver- 
 sational gap to his own glory. " Papa said that," 
 he continued, from a kindly desire to enlighten 
 his friend. 
 
 Mrs. Brand looked at Mr. Overholt in momen- 
 tary embarrassment, and then her lips twitched 
 with comprehension. " Oh, that's charming! " she 
 exclaimed in a burst of laughter, in which Mc- 
 Michael and his victim joined. " Come away, 
 child," she said, tragically. " You'll ruin your 
 father's reputation. Just think if I had been 
 Mrs. Crumpet ! "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN the agitated weeks that followed her first meet- 
 ing with her old lover, Mrs. Brand left far behind 
 her the placid sequences of a life that had often 
 oppressed her. The convictions which a few 
 months before had been so neatly arranged in her 
 mind, loomed up before her now in a jumble of 
 contradictions. She realized dimly that she could 
 no longer define Mr. Overholt and her attitude 
 towards him, and her consciousness of this was 
 weighted with a vague alarm. Her position and 
 his in relation to each other she did not think 
 incomprehensible, but what was it in the man 
 himself that provoked her to incessant surmise? 
 Now, there was Arthur the thought of him 
 brought a smile to her tense lips. " Oh, yes, he's 
 just as good " Good"? Why was that the very 
 last word she would ever choose to describe the 
 other man. For he glowed with the enthusiasm of 
 faith, and she had felt herself unwillingly thrilled 
 
 68
 
 MRS. BRAND 69 
 
 by his power in presenting " their side of the 
 question." She knew pretty well where Arthur 
 stood on religious matters, though he rarely 
 touched upon them, and his position she consid- 
 ered a kind of weak-kneed compromise. " Charac- 
 ter " and " Duty " were cold-blooded terms and 
 contrasted ill as a gospel with one of glowing 
 imagery and dramatic emotion. Character it 
 was a mere matter of environment, and duty was 
 simply some other person's ideal coercively ap- 
 plied to his neighbor. Her lips curled as her 
 mind dwelt in pungent reminiscences upon the 
 days when she had worn the yoke of Aunt Lavinia. 
 
 Chrys was duly installed a member of the 
 Brand household, and speedily won from it a 
 deference to his lightest wish, which its master 
 characterized as " preposterous." " Can't he sleep 
 with Jane?" he inquired, protesting against the 
 intrusion into his dressing-room of a little white 
 bed. 
 
 " Certainly not ! " replied his wife, severely. 
 " I'm responsible for him, and must have him 
 near me."
 
 70 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Going to sit up nights beside him, I suppose," 
 said Mr. Brand, grimly. 
 
 Chrys unconsciously plied all his sweetest arts 
 upon this distinguished foe, for whom he seemed 
 to feel an especial admiration. One morning he 
 climbed ou* of his little crib, and, pattering coldly 
 across the floor, he leaned over and softly kissed 
 the old man's cheek. Mr. Brand started as if he 
 had been stung, and, staring angrily at the dimin- 
 utive figure beside him, he growled out, " What 
 under the canopy do you want now*? " 
 
 " I will get into bed with you if you like," 
 replied Chrys, c weetly, as one conferring a favor. 
 
 " But I don't like," retorted Mr. Brand, em- 
 phatically, still smarting from the touch of those 
 soft lips. 
 
 " Then you're a beastly man ! " exclaimed the 
 oi^raged child, as he retired precipitately to his 
 own nest, where Mrs. Brand found him sobbing 
 quietly when she came in from her dressing-room. 
 
 " Whatever can have happened? " she said 
 wonderingly to her husband, who vouchsafed no 
 explanation, bein^r seized with sudden fright as 
 to the light in which his conduct might be viewed.
 
 MRS. BRAND 71 
 
 But he carried with him to business that morn- 
 ing a vague sense of discomfort, which harried him 
 through the long day, and which he vainly sought 
 to smother by dwelling on the alarming depravity 
 of so young a child. " Dreadful language for 
 
 such a little boy. Why, when I was a boy " 
 
 And it was no doubt the soothing contrast afforded 
 by his own record that prompted him on his way 
 home that evening to pause suddenly in front of 
 a frivolous looking store and plunge in quickly 
 with the furtive air of an escaping criminal. 
 " Give me the best five-pound box of candy you've 
 got," he said, guiltily. But when the girl pre- 
 sented it for his inspection he was not satisfied, 
 and she found him so hard to please that when he 
 finally departed she said to the girl next to her, 
 " There goes an old man bound to get his money's 
 worth." But she was wrong that time. He had 
 simply been trying to see that box of candy 
 through the eyes of a little child, and it is a seri- 
 ous thing to have one's reputation subject to the 
 limits of a few square inches. " Perhaps he won't 
 come near me," he thought, apprehensively, as his 
 big house loomed up before him. But there was
 
 72 MRS. BRAND 
 
 no room yet in Chrys' wholesome, little heart for 
 the cherishing of a grudge. Dr. Challoner had 
 dropped in for dinner, as he occasionally did, and 
 the child looked up eagerly from his seat upon the 
 doctor's knee to shout in his piercing treble as Mr. 
 Brand came into the sitting-room, " Oh, Uncle 
 Brand, do you know we are going to have scarlet 
 roosters for dessert 1 ? I saw Jane taking them 
 out of a white box." 
 
 " Charlotte russe," laughed Mrs. Brand. 
 
 " Well, McMichael," said Mr. Brand, desper- 
 ately grasping at an opportunity which must not 
 be let slip, " go into the hall and see if there isn't 
 another white box out there." 
 
 The child slipped down and did as he was bid, 
 bringing back the parcel with him. 
 
 " Now you may si't down and open it," said Mr. 
 Brand, conscious of a wild anxiety lest his offer- 
 ing should pale in attractiveness beside the " Scar- 
 let Roosters." 
 
 It took a long while for the little fingers to do 
 the work, but at last the wrapping fell off, and 
 as the bright, pretty box came into view, Mrs. 
 Brand and the doctor glanced at each other with
 
 MRS. BRAND 73 
 
 amusement. For Mr. Brand, deserved as was his 
 reputation for large-handed generosity, was sin- 
 gularly opposed to those trivial but precious 
 expressions of good will that are the small change 
 of friendship. " If I need anything I can buy it," 
 he would say. " And what I don't need I don't 
 want anybody else to buy for me " which 
 would be sensible, indeed, if hearts were heads. 
 
 In the meantime Chrys stood regarding the box 
 in an ecstasy too great for utterance. His little 
 mother, in spite of her mental limitations, or 
 perhaps because of them, had clung with astonish- 
 ing tenacity to a few basic truths about the train- 
 ing of children, with the result that the child had 
 not had the sensations of a century crammed into 
 his four short years, and would willingly have 
 sold himself for a lollypop, with tender qualms of 
 conscience at his bargain. 
 
 " Take off the cover," said Mr. Brand, begin- 
 ning to find more enjoyment in the little scene 
 than he could have believed possible. 
 
 The child tipped it off slowly, and then with 
 but a glance at the sweetness within he replaced 
 it firmly, and walked with a Napoleonic air to
 
 74 MRS. BRAND 
 
 the farthest corner of the room, where he seated 
 himself flat upon the floor, and apparently became 
 lost in a minutely critical study of the carpet. 
 Mr. Brand looked the image of despair, and would 
 have spoken had not his wife laid a restraining 
 hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Let him alone, or you'll spoil it all." 
 Since when had she become an authority on 
 the subject of children and their humors'? Mr. 
 Brand was tired, and he leaned back in his chair 
 looking through half-closed eyes at his wife. How 
 different she was lately. Only the other night he 
 had heard her voice mingling with the lisping 
 tones of Chrys' evening prayer, a thing almost 
 incredible. " A little child shall lead them " came 
 into his mind, accustomed as he was to the cloth- 
 ing of his emotions in scriptural phraseology, and 
 then a strange thought pierced him like an 
 arrow could it be that he had not altogether 
 understood her? 
 
 "There, now," exclaimed Mrs. Brand, softly. 
 For the child, with averted eyes and a delicious 
 affectatic a of unconsciousness, was drawing stead-
 
 MRS. BRAND 75 
 
 ily nearer to the treasure which was filling his 
 little being with ecstasy. 
 
 He would not even steal a glance at the box, 
 but his fingers crept unerringly across the table 
 until they rested upon the lid again. Only for 
 a moment, however, and then he tiptoed elab- 
 orately back to his corner, but not to sit down 
 this time. He stood there clasping and unclasp- 
 ing his hands in a frenzy of foretaste from which 
 he must wring every drop of nectar, and then he 
 looked at the table. It was fatal. With one leap 
 he had spanned the gulf between, and, tearing 
 the cover off with ruthless clutch, he seized the 
 biggest, pinkest candy, and then, turning to Mr. 
 Brand, he said in a voice in which hope plainly 
 fought with fear, " For me? " 
 
 Mr. Brand nodded. A burden had rolled off 
 his soul, and henceforth there was established 
 between himself and Chrys an entente cordiale 
 in which the old man found the keenest satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Overholt came in nearly every day to see 
 his boy, and the exquisite affection that existed 
 between them was the one thing that Mrs. Brand
 
 76 MRS. BRAND 
 
 felt free to admire about the minister without any 
 harassing checks. As a friend no, he never 
 could be any woman's friend ; as a lover ah ! 
 she no longer dwelt upon her memories of him in 
 that capacity. He persisted in speaking of him- 
 self as her pastor, a little joke that they both 
 found droll, but which brought real comfort to 
 Mr. Brand. For the old man's anxiety about 
 her was growing upon him. He, himself, had 
 failed, but surely this man, with his brilliant way 
 of stating truths so precious and imperative, surely 
 he could influence her to those experiences against 
 which she had hitherto rigidly set herself. So he 
 was always glad to see the minister come in 
 never dull, and full of interest in people and 
 events; essentially a man of the world in his 
 beliefs as in his tailoring. " There's nothing vis- 
 ionary about that fellow," Mr. Brand remarked 
 with complacency. " He knows as much about 
 stocks and bonds as I do myself. It's too bad that 
 such a business man was spoilt for the making of 
 a preacher. But I guess our church don't need to 
 fret about that." For the opinions of Mesdames 
 Crumpet, Wigley and Gasch and sundry of that
 
 MRS. BRAND 77 
 
 ilk were certainly not shared by the crowding con- 
 gregations, who testified to their enthusiasm by 
 that unheard-of thing, a surplus in the ecclesias- 
 tical treasury. A year ago Mr. Overholt could 
 have desired no keener triumph, but now that he 
 held it in his grasp his cup was not full. His 
 salary of four thousand dollars, which had seemed 
 in prospect princely, developed in retrospect a 
 deplorable lack of " staying " qualities. The 
 minister affected patrician tastes, and secretly 
 scorned economy as a species of indecency. To tip 
 an obsequious waiter until the man's servile spine 
 bent low before him was a practical interpretation 
 of the little text, " It is more blessed to give than 
 to receive," which filled him with spiritual 
 exaltation. 
 
 The Brand mansion had become to him a kind 
 of temple in which were enshrined those ideals of 
 success which he never preached about, but just 
 worshiped. Mr. Brand himself was a gilt-edged 
 vision of what a man might be if if he only 
 could. And Mrs. Brand, with her proud detach- 
 ment from a vulgar world, inspired in him an 
 admiration which was not prompted in the least
 
 78 MRS. BRAND 
 
 by any sentimental regret for the past, for he 
 realized with admirable appreciation of things 
 human in general and of himself and Mrs. Brand 
 in particular, that as his wife she could never have 
 possessed for him the fascinations which he found 
 so potent in their sway of him now. " Her environ- 
 ment fits her like a glove," he thought in com- 
 placent approval of a result for which he surely 
 deserved the credit. For if he had followed her 
 up with the celerity she had evidently expected, 
 how pitiful would have been the contrast. " She's 
 twenty-eight. If I had married her she'd have 
 been sour enough by this time." Which he did 
 not mean at all as a reflection upon himself. As 
 to the dangers of his growing intimacy with her 
 there weren't any, for he had never known a 
 woman who was so little of a fool. He had no 
 fear of her making him the repository of her mari- 
 tal woes, which was the unfortunate way some 
 women had of flirting by inference, as it were. 
 There were methods less involved. He had been 
 afraid at first, but that had been for want of data 
 on the subject. Speaking broadly, Mrs. Brand 
 was a good woman, and what was more to the
 
 MRS. BRAND 79 
 
 purpose, she was undoubtedly a wise one. So he 
 felt comfortably sure of himself in a situation 
 about which he had few illusions. 
 
 " Never mind me, Jane," he said one afternoon 
 to the maid who opened the door in response to 
 his ring, " I will announce myself." 
 
 It was one of those warm days, sweet with the 
 soft airs of the coming spring, when the world 
 in spite of bare branches and the brown earth 
 sets winter at defiance on its own ground. Through 
 the open doors there floated out to Mr. Overholt 
 the sound of the piano, and he stepped lightly 
 through the wide, beautiful hall in pursuit of its 
 rippling melody. 
 
 Mrs. Brand was seated at the piano, sweeping 
 the key-board with glancing ringers. It was one 
 of those moments when she forgot the environ- 
 ment that Mr. Overholt admired so much, one of 
 those blessed moments when she wandered far 
 out upon the wings of her song into those dim 
 regions where fact pales before fancy, and where 
 vision takes precedence of prophecy. At last she 
 paused with a little sigh, but only to glide into 
 a lullaby, as light and sweet as a baby's breath.
 
 80 MRS. BRAND 
 
 The sun streamed in, a golden shaft of light, 
 through an amber panel of glass above her head, 
 and it was, perhaps, small wonder that Mr. Over- 
 holt, standing between the portieres in patient 
 endurance of the music, felt himself repaid by the 
 picture at which he gazed. He could not see Mrs. 
 Brand's face, but the charming pose of her figure 
 in a soft gown of russet hue with a deep fichu of 
 creamy lace falling away from her throat, left 
 nothing further to be desired. The lingering notes 
 of the lullaby died away into the baby's dreams, 
 and Mrs. Brand sat still, her hands idly clasped 
 in her lap. 
 
 "Mrs. Brand!" 
 
 She turned sharply around, but when she saw 
 her visitor she did not offer him the slightest wel- 
 come. He had frightened her dreadfully, and she 
 hated to be frightened. 
 
 "Oh, how sorry I am! Did I startle you?" 
 asked Mr. Overholt, coming towards her with a 
 smile in his eyes. 
 
 But the intuition upon which he prided himself 
 had played him false this time, for Mrs. Brand
 
 MRS. BRAND 81 
 
 was in what he later described to himself as a 
 " tip-towering rage." 
 
 " Who opened the door to you"? " she inquired 
 with the edges of her lips. 
 
 " Why, Jane opened it to me, as usual," he 
 answered, bravely enough. This was a ridiculous 
 way for a woman to act. 
 
 Mrs. Brand stepped across the room and 
 touched a bell, in answer to which the maid pre- 
 sented herself. 
 
 " Will you kindly remember in the future that 
 it is your business to show my visitors into the 
 reception-room*? " 
 
 The flustered maid retired in a condition of 
 stuttering apology, only to find the bell ready for 
 her with another ring. 
 
 But it was Mr. Overholt who stood next to it 
 this time, and when she appeared he said kindly, 
 " I am sorry that I should have got you into 
 trouble, Jane. Will you show me to the recep- 
 tion-room?" And he followed her without a 
 glance at Mrs. Brand. Once there he took out 
 his card, and said gravely, " Take that to your 
 mistress," and Jane retired again with an indis-
 
 82 MRS. BRAND 
 
 tinct but none the less unhappy conception of her- 
 self as a sort of human shuttlecock. 
 
 Mrs. Brand sat still for a few minutes 
 and studied the visiting card with an interesting 
 variety of feelings. She even laughed a little. 
 But one thing was clear to that reception-room 
 she must go, and she finally went after she had 
 braced and buttressed her position as well as she 
 could. Mr. Overholt had presumed unpardon- 
 ably; there could be no two opinions about that. 
 But face to face with him again, her preparations 
 to meet him seemed ludicrous. She felt as if she 
 had been walking on stilts which had suddenly 
 been knocked from under her. 
 
 " My wife has been worrying herself about Mc- 
 Michael's clothes, and nothing would do but that 
 I must come in and find out from you if anything 
 was wanted for him." 
 
 Could anything be more levelling to one's " high 
 horse " than this? She looked for some gleam or 
 twinkle of mirth, but the even blue of Mr. Over- 
 holt's eyes betrayed no sign whatever. He pro- 
 ceeded to a discussion of Chrys's wardrobe, brief 
 and technical, and then went away without the
 
 MRS. BRAND 83 
 
 slightest hint of an apology for his outrageous 
 conduct, having managed, indeed, to impress upon 
 Mrs. Brand that it was she who was in error. This 
 was intolerable, and she lay in wait for him with 
 elaborate schemes for his undoing, that would no 
 doubt have succeeded if Mr. Overholt had been 
 without schemes of his own. But he had never 
 been made so thoroughly angry by any woman 
 before, and he proposed that she should purchase 
 her pardon at his own price. And so a week 
 elapsed before she saw him again at all, and 
 then only for a few moments one evening, during 
 which she sat silent on the edge of a conversation 
 from which she was clearly excluded. Then 
 another week went by without the tete-a-tete for 
 which she perversely planned whenever she got 
 a glimpse of him. She went to the parsonage 
 every few days to see Mrs. Overholt, but except 
 on one occasion, when he left the room immedi- 
 ately upon her entrance with the briefest possible 
 greeting of her, his home was as unproductive of 
 his presence as a potato-patch might have been. 
 Then she spent hours in convincing herself that 
 she " didn't care," and Dr. Challoner, who was
 
 84 MRS. BRAND 
 
 in and out, as usual, was generally made the vic- 
 tim of this indifference. Oh, how dull he was, 
 with his work and his people ! She fairly detested 
 the whole thing, and told him so in unmeasured 
 terms. 
 
 " Well, hang it all ! " he exclaimed, desper- 
 ately. " What do you go enticing a fellow around 
 here for if you don't want to hear what he's got 
 to say*? " Whereupon he promptly received an- 
 other volley of invective; it was such a relief to be 
 able to say all one wanted to without fear of 
 unnatural consequences. 
 
 But this state of things must not go on. It was 
 ridiculous, and she would put an end to it. That 
 was why she went with her husband to prayer- 
 meeting, a thing whereat his soul rejoiced and 
 took fresh courage for her salvation. After that, 
 indeed, it would not have stunned him had she 
 led the prayers of the church. But one must be 
 patient, and not seek to involve the spirit in undue 
 precipitation. 
 
 At the close of the meeting Mr. Brand left her 
 to wait for him while he lingered here and there 
 discussing ecclesiastical business with one and
 
 MRS. BRAND 85 
 
 another. She sat still, feeling herself curiously 
 foreign to these people with a language and 
 experience of which she felt proud to be ignorant. 
 She followed Mr. Overholt with her eyes as long 
 as she could, and then reflected that his hat and 
 coat were still there, and any way he always 
 walked home with Mr. Brand. At last he started 
 up the aisle, but two or three women palpitated 
 round him, and he stopped to talk to them beside 
 the seat on which Mrs. Brand was sitting. What 
 would she do if he went by her without speaking ! 
 But he did not. When he had dismissed those 
 odious women with their grins and giggles, he 
 stepped into the seat in front, and, leaning over it, 
 held out his hand with a manner from which all 
 the warmth and spontaneity had departed, saying, 
 " Ah, good evening, Mrs. Brand. How is my boy 
 to-day? " 
 
 " Just as he always is the sweetest child in 
 the world." That was not at all what she ought 
 to have said, and she felt angry at the impulse 
 that had tipped her tongue with so nice an utter- 
 ance.
 
 86 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " How kind you are ! " And then he straight- 
 ened himself to move on. 
 
 "When are you coming to see us again? I 
 shall be at home to-morrow afternoon." She 
 found it harder than she had thought to infuse 
 a casual air into an invitation so direct. 
 
 Before replying, Mr. Overholt looked at her, 
 a faint smile chafing the corners of his mouth. 
 Above her velvet and furs her flushed, downcast 
 face appealed to him with the sense of a new- 
 found charm. But he was greedy of conquest, 
 and her attitude piqued him to a further trial of 
 his resources. 
 
 "Will you, indeed? That is too bad. I be- 
 lieve I have an engagement of some kind myself." 
 And he turned lightly on his heel to greet the 
 importunity of a badged and buttoned young 
 woman, who appeared to be the president of a 
 set of initials who were causing her deep distress 
 on account of their lack of spirituality, " if the 
 Y. E. L. P.'s go sleigh-riding on prayer-meeting 
 night." 
 
 " It's shocking," said Mr. Overholt. " But I
 
 MRS. BRAND 87 
 
 really think you can handle that much better than 
 I can. It needs some one with great tact." 
 
 He walked home with Mr. and Mrs. Brand. 
 She was invisible on the further arm of her hus- 
 band, and if she said good-night when they sepa- 
 rated he was not aware of it. 
 
 But whatever his intentions might have been in 
 regard to calling upon her, Mr. Overholt found 
 himself inquiring for Mrs. Brand shortly after 
 two o'clock on the following afternoon. He 
 waited in the reception-room a few minutes, and 
 then the maid reappeared to ask him to follow 
 her to Mrs. Brand's sitting-room. 
 
 " You must excuse my receiving you here. I 
 was asleep when you came, and really not a fit 
 object for the reception-room." She looked at the 
 tumbled pillows on the divan at the foot of which 
 she still sat. One cheek was pink and warm where 
 it had pressed the cushion, the other quite pale, 
 and she spoke with the uncertain utterance of one 
 who still lingers on the borderland of dreams. 
 
 " I am sorry that you were disturbed for me," 
 said Mr. Overholt, seriously. " Where is Mc- 
 Michael'?"
 
 88 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " He's gone out with Richard, and I have no 
 doubt he is trying to beat Curly bald. I heard 
 him this morning confidently inquiring of Mr. 
 Brand why he had rubbed so much hair off the 
 
 top of his head." 
 
 " Yes, he's awful," admitted Mr. Overholt. 
 
 But not there to discuss Chrys and his^ .doings, he 
 sat silent after his remark, lookingjat Mrs. Brand 
 with a cool persistence which she felt rather than 
 saw. From sheer nervousness she rose and crossed 
 the room, taking an easy chair near to him. It 
 would certainly be easier to endure a two-foot 
 stare than one of ten feet. 
 
 " How is Mrs. Overholt to-day 4 ? " 
 
 But Mr. Overholt did not reply to this ques- 
 tion. He simply continued to look at her. 
 
 "Oh, mercy!" she broke out, desperately, 
 " can't you speak*? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered, quickly. " Are you 
 sorry? " 
 
 " Sorry ! " she exclaimed. " Sorry, indeed ! 
 Sorry for what*? " 
 
 " Because you were so cross." 
 
 "Oh, how can you talk so! " she said, sitting
 
 MRS. BRAND 89 
 
 up straight and defiant on her chair. " You pre- 
 sumed outrageously " 
 
 " Of course," he said, lightly. Then, with a 
 quick change of tone as he bent towards her, " that 
 is, if it had been any other woman but yourself. 
 But do you think it possible to regulate things 
 between you and me as if we were ordinary friends 
 or acquaintances? " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 He waited a moment, and then said, bitterly, 
 " You can be a very cruel woman when you 
 choose." 
 
 Mrs. Brand threw her head against the back 
 of her chair with an impatient sigh. She had on 
 a white gown scattered all over with violets, and 
 by a pretty conceit the subtle perfume of the 
 dainty flowers themselves betrayed itself about 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Overholt got up to go. " I'm sorry I can't 
 see the boy. I think he had better come over to 
 see his mother to-morrow, perhaps." 
 
 Mrs. Brand looked up at him. " Don't go," 
 she said, softly. 
 
 " Why should I stay? " He was not a graven
 
 90 MRS. BRAND 
 
 image, and the rise and fall of her tremulous 
 breath, the appeal in her dark eyes were influences 
 of the most potent sort to him. He sat down 
 again, drawing his chair so close to hers that 
 she felt a vague alarm. 
 
 " I don't know what you want," she said, rest- 
 lessly. " Are you to be allowed to break in upon 
 me whenever you choose*? " 
 
 " Now you're foolish." He paused a moment. 
 " Do you suppose Challoner would have waited 
 in the reception-room until he was formally an- 
 nounced the other day 4 ? " 
 
 " But that's different," she said, quickly. " He's 
 Mr. Brand's nephew." 
 
 " Ah ! I'm glad that the relationship carries 
 so much weight with you." 
 
 Mrs. Brand flushed but did not speak. 
 
 " No, indeed, I was not going to wait with a 
 partition between me and the sound of your fin- 
 gers when, by a bold coup de pied> shall I 
 say 4 ? I could get inside the gates of Paradise." 
 He smiled at her with the singular sweetness of 
 expression which she found so irresistible in his 
 child. " And I didn't care a straw for your fury.
 
 MRS. BRAND 91 
 
 I think I would have been willing to pin you alive 
 to the canvas of time if I could have secured the 
 immortality of the picture. I never could under- 
 stand how people could collect sheets of pin-stuck 
 moths and things but if they felt they were per- 
 petuating beauty in those wings and crawls, I 
 think I sympathize with them. But I needn't 
 regret the loss of that picture now," he continued, 
 his eyes dwelling on her suggestively. 
 
 " Oh, spare me ! " she exclaimed, putting up her 
 hands defensively. 
 
 "Ah! now you're becoming morbidly self-con- 
 scious," he said, regretfully. " And that is fatal 
 to art." 
 
 A little silence fell between them, each feeling, 
 perhaps, the pressure of thoughts which it was 
 well not to utter. But some echo of Mrs. Brand's 
 was surely in the question which forced itself at 
 length to the surface. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, slowly, " I have 
 often wondered whatever induced you to become 
 a minister*? " 
 
 " You don't mean it ! Might I venture to in-
 
 92 MRS. BRAND 
 
 quire if there is an implied criticism beneath that 
 innocent wonder of yours? " 
 
 Mrs. Brand felt uncomfortable. 
 
 " Because if there is," continued Mr. Overholt, 
 looking at her steadily as he tugged at the ends 
 of his moustache, " it may be well to remind you 
 that no one can possibly realize more keenly than 
 I do myself how many are my shortcomings in 
 a calling which I consider the noblest of them all." 
 He pushed his chair back. 
 
 "Oh, I'm sorry!" cried Mrs. Brand, peni- 
 tently, holding out her hand towards him. 
 
 For an instant he looked at it indifferently. 
 Then he took it between his own with a quiet 
 deliberation that frightened her. But she would 
 have despised a struggle to free it, and it lay there 
 fluttering while her face grew pale. 
 
 " Look at me," he said, almost in a whisper. 
 
 "Don't!" 
 
 " Look at me," he repeated insistently. 
 
 She was like an entranced victim, as powerless 
 to quell the tumult within as to resist the com- 
 pulsion without. She slowly turned her averted 
 eyes towards him.
 
 MRS. BRAND 93 
 
 " Do you think," he began, rapidly, scorching 
 her with the glow in his eyes, " that it argues 
 nothing for me that I can sit here with your hand 
 in mine " he held it in a grip from which there 
 was no escape, while he caressed it tenderly with 
 the fingers which were free " that I can look 
 into your eyes as no other man has ever done, that 
 I can suffer the intoxication of your nearness to 
 me, remembering all that might be, and yet not 
 turn a deaf ear to the voice of duty in my soul? " 
 His voice sank until she hardly caught his words. 
 Never in her life before had she felt the fierce flow 
 of such a tide as swept madly through her veins 
 just now. She leaned her head helplessly back 
 against her chair and closed her eyes.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MRS. BRAND and Chrys were idling in the warmth 
 of the garden. She had been amusing him by 
 planting some seeds in a little nook which he had 
 appropriated as his own, where his " bee-biscus " 
 and his " Jackanese hop" were objects of so 
 tender a solicitude on his part as to threaten their 
 very existence. As he galloped hither and thither 
 on an imaginary steed of most uncertain temper, 
 after his horticultural ardor had spent itself, he 
 ran into Jane coming across the lawn with a note 
 for Mrs. Brand. It was just a few words from 
 Mr. Overholt, scribbled hastily on a half-sheet of 
 paper. 
 
 " Can you bring McMichael over to see his 
 mother at once*? " But Mrs. Brand knew it to 
 be a death warrant, and it was some moments 
 before she could look down at the sweet little face 
 beside her, for Chrys was always suggestively 
 ready to share her correspondence. " Come, dear," 
 
 94
 
 MRS. BRAND 95 
 
 she said, gently; " mamma wants to see us, and we 
 must go in and get clean faces and hands." 
 
 As she stepped into the street shimmering in 
 the golden light of the afternoon sun, and felt 
 her cheeks fanned by the soft air so instinct with 
 the spirit of the new life flitting by with glint of 
 wing and sheen of throat, her heart was riven by 
 the sharp contrast between all this and that scene 
 of decay to which they were hastening. Hitherto 
 death had been a remote event in human lives, 
 which had not trespassed upon her sympathies. 
 She looked down at Chrys, the little child around 
 whom the yearning tendrils of her love had wound 
 themselves. A great sob filled her throat. If he 
 were hers, how she would fight for her life ! 
 
 " I can beat you wunning," he shouted, break- 
 ing away from her and bobbing on absurdly in an 
 ecstasy of vigor. 
 
 "And he doesn't even know it," she thought, 
 with a jealous pang for the little mother whose 
 coming and going even on that long journey into 
 a far country had no significance for the child 
 whose lightest step her dull ear was yet quick to 
 catch.
 
 96 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Come, McMichael," said his father, who had 
 been anxiously awaiting him. But the little boy 
 drew back. " I 'fraid," he whimpered. Some- 
 thing in the ominous stillness of the house, in the 
 whispered sentences of the grave-looking nurse 
 who was answering Mrs. Brand's low-toned in- 
 quiries, awoke a vague awe in that impressionable 
 little mind. He hid his face in Mrs. Brand's 
 skirts. 
 
 " I am afraid you will have to take him up," 
 said Mr. Overholt, doubtfully. 
 
 " Oh, no ! I cannot," she exclaimed, involun- 
 tarily, with a sickening dread of the ordeal it 
 implied. But the child clung to her, and at last, 
 lifting him in her arms, she set her face resolutely 
 towards the stairs. Though he was heavy to 
 carry, she did not pause until she reached the bed- 
 side of his mother, whom she stooped and kissed 
 quickly. " Now, darling, you kiss mamma." 
 Chrys clambered over the edge of the bed after a 
 remembered manner, and cuddled his soft, pink 
 cheek against that other so soft and white. 
 
 Mrs. Overholt did not speak, but the strained
 
 MRS. BRAND 97 
 
 look of yearning faded out of her eyes, and a little 
 smile flickered across her pale lips. 
 
 Mrs. Brand walked silently to a chair and sat 
 down, a great awe upon her. She had not sought 
 this experience, but now that it had been fastened 
 upon her she would not quail before it. This, 
 then, was what they called death. Could one ever 
 become hardened to it, and take it calmly, as an 
 inevitable consequence of life 1 ? Her heart rose 
 in bitter rebellion at the very thought of it, as her 
 eyes sought the bed where Chrys lay babbling 
 sweet bits of gossip into his mother's ear. What 
 was it that dared arbitrarily to separate them? 
 
 " Mamma, my burfday's coming soon," mur- 
 mured the child. " What are you going to give 
 me 4 ?" 
 
 Mrs. Overholt half-turned her head. " My 
 watch," she said, faintly. Her husband found it 
 and placed it in the little hand that was fast losing 
 its grip on the things of this world. Her fingers 
 made an ineffectual effort to close over it, and 
 Mrs. Brand, who had drawn near again, caught 
 the look of distress in the dim, blue eyes. With 
 an intuition which had not always been hers, she
 
 98 MRS. BRAND 
 
 leaned over and, gathering the limp little hand 
 in her own, she placed it softly in the child's 
 warm, chubby fist. " For you darling al- 
 ways," lisped his mother, painfully. He gave a 
 crow of delight, and covered her face and pretty 
 golden hair with kisses. But her anxious eyes 
 sought Mrs. Brand's again. 
 
 " My baby," she whispered, hoarsely. " My 
 baby. Love him, watch him for me. Promise! 
 Promise ! " she repeated, her voice breaking into 
 shrill insistency under the stress of her anxiety. 
 
 " My dear, I do, I do," said Mrs. Brand, 
 brokenly. " I love him dearly, and I will do all 
 in my power to help him to be what you would 
 wish as long as I live." 
 
 Mrs. Overholt sank back exhausted, and Chrys 
 pillowed himself against her shoulder again, coo- 
 ing softly with delight over his " burfday " gift. 
 Mrs. Brand knelt beside the bed, her mind filled 
 with tumultuous questionings. What was she 
 thinking of this poor little woman, whose men- 
 tal processes had never commanded other than a 
 smiling tolerance*? It had been her mission in 
 this world to look sweet and " be good " with
 
 MRS. BRAND 99 
 
 the same quality of " goodness " demanded of nice 
 children. But Death had set his mysterious seal 
 upon her, and at once her most trivial thought, her 
 lightest whim invested themselves with a strange 
 dignity, and invoked reverence in place of for- 
 bearance. " Oh, I would give anything to know 
 what she thinks now now, in the face of it all," 
 thought Mrs. Brand, looking with wistful awe at 
 the wasted little frame beside her. 
 
 But Mrs. Overholt's peaceful soul was cleft by 
 none of the mysteries which to other eyes envel- 
 oped her. She was straying with unheeding feet 
 through sunny meadows down to the brink of the 
 river which had no terrors for her. After that 
 last effort to confide her child to the woman-friend 
 in whom she felt a clinging confidence, her mind 
 lapsed back over the years to those early days 
 when she had first felt the divine ecstasy of 
 motherhood. She clasped her baby in her eternal 
 arms of love again that love which is immortal 
 and defiant of death and its sting, and lulled by 
 his light breath, for he had fallen asleep, she sank 
 into happy dreams. 
 
 The door opened gently, and Dr. Challoner
 
 100 MRS. BRAND 
 
 came in. Mrs. Brand drew back to make way 
 for him, and as she watched him she was struck 
 by the sense of an unfamiliar phase of the man 
 whose characteristics she had so confidently ticked 
 off time and again. He stood looking at the 
 pathetic picture before him with compressed lips, 
 and she knew that his kindly heart was smitten by 
 it, but in the precision of his movements and in 
 the sharpened alertness of his face she saw him 
 no longer as the overgrown boy whose gaucheries 
 of thought and speech had been a jest to her, but 
 as the physician, keen and self-reliant. She had 
 never watched him in a sick-room, and in her 
 imagination she was wont to depict him against 
 a drawing-room background amid delicate frail- 
 ties of decoration whose ruthless destruction was 
 momentarily a probability by reason of his un- 
 chastened " bigness." But now his quiet profes- 
 sional air impressed her strangely with a new 
 sense of his ability and dignity. 
 
 " He doesn't even notice that I'm here," she 
 thought presently, with a half irritable apprecia- 
 tion of his absorption in the case before him, for 
 she had never realized what a monopoly of atten-
 
 MRS. BRAND 101 
 
 tion she had always expected her presence to 
 obtain from him. But at that moment he turned 
 and, coming towards her, said, " I think it will 
 be better for the child to be taken away now." 
 
 She rose mutely and approached the bed where 
 Mr. Overholt with tender hands was already sepa- 
 rating Chrys from his mother's embrace. Tears 
 filled her eyes as she thought that this was " the 
 parting of the ways " for these two henceforth, 
 and, with a bitter protest in her heart, she turned 
 and went down-stairs. With a sudden longing 
 for fresh air she stepped out on the porch. The 
 night was still and chilly, and she shivered as she 
 looked up at the stars gleaming coldly in the dark- 
 ening sky. An appalling sense of the impotence 
 of human love and human sorrow swept over her. 
 What was the good of it all of noble aspiration 
 and yearning endeavor towards the ideal of a 
 brain which could be crushed out of existence by 
 the accident of a moment'? A quickening fury 
 flushed through her veins. 
 
 The sudden lifting up of the windows beside 
 her recalled her to immediate cares, and she hur- 
 ried in to find the two men in the parlor, Chrys
 
 102 MRS. BRAND 
 
 in his father's arms, deep in the sleep into which 
 he had fallen by his mother's side, his little hand 
 still tightly clutching his watch. 
 
 " How shall I get him home? " inquired Mrs. 
 Brand. 
 
 " Oh, I will carry him," replied Mr. Overholt, 
 quickly. " I had thought of calling a cab, but 
 the jolting would certainly wake him. And it is 
 such a little way." 
 
 " I think you had better not do that, Mr. Over- 
 holt," said Dr. Challoner, a certain austerity in 
 his tone. " It is well for you to be here, and as I 
 need to see Mrs. Brand, I can relieve you of the 
 necessity of going." 
 
 " What do you think of Mrs. Overholt's pros- 
 pects for to-night? " inquired Mr. Overholt, as 
 they stood before parting on the door-step. 
 
 " I can hardly tell. It all depends on her 
 ability to resist such an attack as that of this 
 afternoon, which is liable to recur at any time. 
 Who will relieve the nurse to-night? " 
 
 " I shall do so myself. I prefer to," added Mr. 
 Overholt in a manner which forbade remark, 
 " especially after what you have told me."
 
 MRS. BRAND 103 
 
 They walked a little distance in silence, and 
 then Mrs. Brand burst out passionately, " It is 
 cruel ! It is wicked ! If I loved my child as that 
 poor little woman does, my love should follow 
 him somehow to the ends of eternity." 
 
 " Just think of it," she went on after a 
 moment's pause; " I feel as if I had helped her 
 get ready for execution. She is just to be killed in 
 spite of every impulse and instinct of her being, 
 which are all towards living. And what has she 
 done to be punished so"? " 
 
 " But I am not sure that her death is a punish- 
 ment," said Dr. Challoner, quietly. 
 
 " No, I suppose it's a reward for good conduct ! 
 You must think it a small matter to be one 
 moment full of the delight of living and being, 
 and the next to be swept arbitrarily out of exist- 
 ence." 
 
 " ' Thou wert one, 
 
 Fit to trample out the Sun. 
 Who shall say thine ardors are 
 But a cinder in a jar,' ' 
 he repeated. 
 
 Mrs. Brand was silent a moment. Then she
 
 104 MRS. BRAND 
 
 said contemptuously, " Surmises! Poetical poppy- 
 cock! I am sick of it all. It's so easy to wrap 
 the future in a sentimental mist, and prate about 
 the immortality back of it." 
 
 Dr. Challoner made no reply, until she said 
 irritably, " What is the matter with you to-night 1 ? 
 Why don't you answer me 1 ? " 
 
 " Because you are not sincere," he said, stop- 
 ping a moment to shift his heavy little burden into 
 an easier position. " You have just as much faith 
 in an immortal life as I have, but you have picked 
 up some glib shibboleths, and are trying to enter- 
 tain yourself by shouting them at me. As to Mrs. 
 Overholt, who are you that you should presume 
 to judge her life and its ending 1 ? Poor little 
 woman ! " he exclaimed, tenderly. " I am sure 
 she was happy when she fell asleep with her child 
 in her arms. Death has no terrors for her." 
 
 " No, because submission is easy when one's 
 intellect is duped by a drug." 
 
 Dr. Challoner laughed. 
 
 " Yes, it's comical, isn't it*? " she said, with a 
 little quiver in her voice. " But I know how Pat- 
 rick Bronte felt when he died standing."
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 There was no chance to say anything further, 
 for they had reached the door. Dr. Challoner 
 carried Chrys up-stairs, and then came down for 
 a chat with Mr. Brand. 
 
 " How are things going, Arthur 1 ? " 
 
 " Well, I can't tell. It may go on just like this 
 for days yet. But one can never tell." 
 
 " How is he bearing up*? " 
 
 " Remarkably, I should say," answered Dr. 
 Challoner, drily. 
 
 " He is a remarkable man. I don't know how 
 he holds out. Why, here, the other night, he 
 would insist on sitting up with that boy who was 
 run over by the trolley. I protested about that. 
 I told him that kind of work could be done just 
 as well by other people; that it didn't pay for 
 him to rack his nerves with that kind of thing. 
 ' 'T isn't good business,' I said," 
 
 " But he went? " inquired Dr. Challoner, as 
 some remark was evidently required from him. 
 
 " Went ! Of course he went, after he had 
 looked at me in that way he has, and said, ' Ah ! 
 I hadn't thought of it in that light before.' " Mr.
 
 106 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Brand laughed grimly. He had not been dis- 
 pleased at the futility of his appeal. 
 
 " Last week I begged him to accept a supply for 
 Sunday. But he said no, that he had never per- 
 mitted his private life to interfere with his duties 
 to his people, and that he preferred to fulfill them 
 at any cost to himself. And such a sermon as he 
 gave us on tribulation. The climax I shall 
 never forget it," said Mr. Brand slowly. " You 
 know Boyington, what an excitable fellow he is. 
 We met at the church door, coming out, and he 
 said to me, * That was a good talk. I tell you that 
 peroration was a pyrotechnic dream.' ' 
 
 Dr. Challoner laughed. " Yes, that sounds like 
 Boyington." 
 
 " I suppose that if a preacher can brace him- 
 self up to do it, the knowledge of his people's 
 sympathy sustains him wonderfully at such a 
 time." 
 
 " There are other things to sustain even a 
 preacher," said Dr. Challoner, gravely, but Mr. 
 Brand did not notice. 
 
 In reality, Mr. Overholt thought very little 
 about the sustaining sympathy of his people. But
 
 MRS. BRAND 107 
 
 he had so closely studied cause and effect in spir- 
 itual politics, and was so appreciative of the influ- 
 ence of oratorical setting and accessory that his 
 pulse responsively quickened as he found himself 
 the central figure in a situation furnishing a 
 rich opportunity for dramatic interpretation. He 
 would have felt contempt for the actor who should 
 appeal to his audience for their sympathy to 
 enable him to act. The proof of his ability lay in 
 his power to compel from them a tribute to his 
 genius. And on the previous Sunday he had cer- 
 tainly swept his audience with him onward, to 
 an exaltation of feeling, which in himself almost 
 amounted to intoxication intoxication with the 
 charm of his own emotion. 
 
 Mrs. Brand came down-stairs after having set- 
 tled Chrys for the night, and in the feeling of 
 unrest of which each was conscious it was a relief 
 to talk. They soon drifted into a discussion of 
 Dr. Challoner's theories, and Mr. Brand mani- 
 fested more interest than he had ever done before 
 in the young man's plans. 
 
 "Ah! you're an enthusiast, Arthur," he said 
 at last, with a sigh.
 
 108 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " I need to be," replied the doctor, simply. 
 " You can't wet-blanket me by calling me names." 
 
 " Mr. Overholt says you're a socialist of the 
 rankest type," observed Mrs. Brand. 
 
 " I wonder whether Mr. Overholt knows any 
 better than you do what socialism is and is not," 
 retorted Dr. Challoner wrathfully. " One would 
 think, to hear some people talk, that it was a crime 
 to know anything about the world's misery. But 
 I tell you as long as there is sin and suffering in 
 the world, the responsibility for it is yours. It 
 isn't enough to pay your own debts. Your account 
 is not settled until you've paid some other per- 
 son's, too." 
 
 Mr. Brand was held to be a very just man, an 
 expression which is not always flattering in its 
 implication. But his justness had been mercifully 
 tempered by his generosity, and it had never 
 occurred to him that justice itself might demand 
 from him a greater degree of self-sacrifice than 
 his generosity had prompted. But while Dr. 
 Challoner was talking that evening he had a dim 
 vision destined to bear much fruit, of the differ- 
 ence between human justice and divine justness.
 
 MRS. BRAND 109 
 
 After Mrs. Brand and Dr. Challoner were gone 
 Mr. Overholt returned to his wife's room to make 
 the final arrangements for the night. The nurse 
 was exhausted, having been on duty for many 
 hours, and after leaving him the necessary direc- 
 tions, with many charges to awaken her if there 
 was any sign of a change, she went away to sleep 
 until half-past three. He read for a while and 
 then, urged by some under-current of thought, he 
 went over to the bed and stood looking at his 
 wife. She was still in the stupor from which she 
 had not roused for some hours. But at any 
 moment she might have another attack similar to 
 the one during which he had sent so hurriedly 
 for McMichael, for in the midst of those horrible 
 struggles for breath she had continually gasped 
 his name in pitiful entreaty. Mr. Overholt shud- 
 dered at the recollection of it, for he had an 
 intense shrinking from the sight of physical pain. 
 " If I had to suffer so," he thought, " and knew 
 that death must be the end, I should put the end 
 to it all myself. Poor little girl ! It's too bad." 
 He touched her hand tenderly. 
 
 But his mind at once reverted to the thought
 
 110 MRS. BRAND 
 
 familiar to him by frequent dwelling on it in the 
 past. It had always fascinated him, and now he 
 was confronted by an exact case in point. Why 
 should it not be justifiable to put an end to the 
 chance for further suffering 1 ? Was it not the 
 kindest, the most humane thing to do*? If one 
 saw a helpless bird or a wounded animal in the 
 clutch of hopeless pain there would be no argu- 
 ment about putting it out of its misery. It would 
 be esteemed the most abandoned cruelty not to do 
 so. He returned mechanically to his reading, but 
 he soon found himself unconscious of the printed 
 words in the stress of an argument which it was 
 impossible to resist. The endless succession of 
 disturbed nights and anxious days was working 
 out its cumulative effect upon him now, and urg- 
 ing him to an act of which in moments less 
 benumbed he would have counted the cost. 
 
 He had often said that if he had not been a 
 minister he would have been a doctor, and medical 
 theories and experiments had always had a dis- 
 tinct fascination for him, with the result that he 
 was as well able to treat his wife as any hospital 
 nurse could have been. Perhaps that was why he
 
 MRS. BRAND 111 
 
 had been so chary of outside assistance in the care 
 of her, though possibly his reluctance in this 
 respect, which had not been unproductive of com- 
 ment among his people, was heightened by his 
 frank desire to preserve the privacy of his home. 
 His wife's tongue was not always to be relied 
 upon in matters requiring discretion, and there 
 were matters regarding him that required dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 Yet he realized now more keenly than ever 
 before what a good wife she had been to him. 
 Countless memories of her sweet ways came 
 crowding in upon him, and he dwelt upon them in 
 tender reminiscence. But this long, wearisome 
 struggle how tired she must be of it ! Then 
 
 \-J\-S 
 
 why why not*? Over and over again that one 
 insistent thought came whirling back to him like 
 a ball of flame. Gradually, in his dull brain 
 their position became reversed. It was he lying 
 there, a ghastly, physical spectacle, a weary 
 spirit sighing for release from its nauseous prison 
 house. Who was there brave enough to help him 
 in his helplessness? 
 
 At last, with a spasmodic start he got up and
 
 112 MRS. BRAND 
 
 paced the room, up and down, over and across, 
 until the pattern on the carpet added its intricacies 
 to the confusion in his brain. How tired he was? 
 It seemed as if there were a cord about his head, 
 and he wondered miserably how much tighter it 
 would be before it snapped. There was a lounge 
 in the room, and he mechanically drew it up 
 nearer the bed. A few minutes later he was 
 asleep, heavily, dreamlessly. 
 
 How long after was it, minutes or hours, that 
 he was awakened with the sudden shock of a sound 
 in the room, he did not know. His wife was sit- 
 ting up in bed, gasping for breath. Mr. Over- 
 holt sprang up in a frenzy of horror, and then he 
 turned towards the table on which were ranged 
 the medicines. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when Dr. Challoner 
 left the Brands', for conversation there had gone 
 deeper than he had anticipated. Socialist as he 
 might be, and carrying in his heart the scarred 
 memories of cruel wrongs against his people, he 
 held himself bound to accept whatever aid came 
 his way from whatever source. But he belonged 
 to the noble army of those that dream dreams
 
 MRS. BRAND 113 
 
 those priceless dreams that have in them the germ 
 of the world's redemption and he had been 
 moved to-night as never before to set forth to 
 Mr. Brand the visions which he cherished. 
 
 As he came in sight of the parsonage, an impulse 
 came over him to ascertain his patient's condition 
 at that hour. But he knocked on the door repeat- 
 edly before it was opened by Mr. Overholt him- 
 self. 
 
 " I was passing this way again," said the doctor, 
 " and thought I would run in a moment to see 
 how things were going." 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Overholt. But he remained 
 standing with his hand guarding the door, making 
 no effort by gesture or remark toward admitting 
 his visitor. 
 
 " What's struck the man ! " thought Dr. 
 Challoner, impatiently. " He acts as if he were 
 drugged." And abruptly pushing past Mr. 
 Overholt he went up-stairs. Approaching the 
 bed he leaned over the patient, but drew back 
 the next moment surprised beyond the bounds of 
 professional equanimity.
 
 114 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " She is dying! " he exclaimed, in a low tone 
 of horror. 
 
 " Yes," assented Mr. Overholt. He stood at 
 the foot of the bed looking at the doctor with a 
 dazed expression in his eyes. 
 
 " She has had more morphia," continued Dr. 
 Challoner. " When? " There was a tang in his 
 voice which penetrated Mr. Overholt's dulled 
 perceptions. 
 
 "Ah I do not know. Let me think," he 
 said, passing his unsteady hand across his fore- 
 head. " A little while ago, I think. Another 
 attack was coming on. It has been a great strain ; 
 perhaps I should not have remained alone to- 
 night. I am tired." The sentences came in dis- 
 connected jerks. Whatever Dr. Challoner's 
 ideas might be, he could not but feel the utter 
 prostration of the man before him. He was 
 about to speak again when the nurse came hastily 
 into the room. 
 
 " I heard your voice, and I was afraid some- 
 thing was the matter," she said by way of ex- 
 planation. She busied about, anxious to impress 
 herself upon the doctor. But he took no notice
 
 MRS. BRAND 115 
 
 of her, and at last she subsided, furtively to 
 await developments. 
 
 Dr. Challoner never forgot that night. It 
 ranked among the tragical experiences of his life. 
 The eastern sky was flushed with the glory of 
 the coming day when he left the house from 
 which the soul of its little mistress had fled. The 
 clammy horrors of that long nightmare still clung 
 to him, and he turned and looked back at the 
 house as if to assure himself that it was really 
 there. The loss of a patient smote him always 
 like a personal bereavement, but this ah, he 
 must not think of it. Not now, at least. But 
 what could blind his brain to the thoughts which 
 passed in riotous review before it! The fresh 
 morning air seemed but to fan the flame of his 
 imaginings to crueller activities.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after his wife's funeral Mr. Over- 
 holt went north with a couple of Eastern friends, 
 and remained away until the early autumn. His 
 church felt much alarm about him, for the remark- 
 able self-control which he had maintained pre- 
 saged a serious breakdown when the strain of 
 pulpit and parish should be withdrawn. 
 
 " About McMichael," he said to Mrs. Brand a 
 few days before his departure. 
 
 "That is all settled/' she replied, quickly. 
 " You could not possibly take him with you. Of 
 course he must stay with us." She was so serious 
 and so insistent that he finally deferred to her 
 presentation of the matter. 
 
 " Then you will write me every week, and let 
 me know how he gets on*? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I will see that you hear regularly." 
 
 " That was not what I asked." He looked at 
 her intently with an air of gravity that was dis- 
 
 116
 
 MRS. BRAND 117 
 
 concerting. She waited for him to say more, but 
 he volunteered nothing, and she felt herself grow- 
 ing warm under his continued gaze. 
 
 ' Yes," she said, hurriedly, as if in doubt of 
 his meaning, " you shall know everything about 
 him, I promise you." 
 
 He still looked at her in silence, and she felt 
 her resolution beginning to waver under this voice- 
 less coercion. But at that instant Mr. Brand 
 came in. 
 
 " Aren't you home unusually early*? " she 
 asked, with a deep sigh of relief. 
 
 " Yes. I felt tired to-day, and was glad to 
 come home." He spoke wearily, and she looked 
 at him with sudden anxiety, for her experience 
 of suffering and death in the last few weeks had 
 touched her into hitherto un though t-of tenderness. 
 The world had been to her like a great curiosity 
 shop, in whose motley display of sin and suffering, 
 mishap and happiness, she had felt herself to have 
 no part. But she could never feel like that again. 
 A purpose had come into her life a distinct 
 intention to fulfill to the letter the promise made 
 to Mrs. Overholt. She felt herself charged with
 
 118 MRS. BRAND 
 
 the welfare of a little life, and already this respon- 
 sibility was working out its potent ends upon her, 
 destined as she had been from the beginning to 
 stamp her simplest experiences with the most 
 tragic interpretation possible to them. 
 
 Mr. Brand established himself comfortably 
 beside the open window, and looked out approv- 
 ingly at the brilliant panorama of bud and blos- 
 som outspread before him. 
 
 " Ah, I tell you ! " he exclaimed, with a mighty 
 inhalation ; " this is a privilege after being cooped 
 up in a dusty office all day." Then the two men 
 drifted into talk about church affairs, and the 
 arrangements necessary during the pastor's 
 absence, until Mr. Overholt, rising at last to go, 
 said: " What do you think, Mr. Brand 1 ? I have 
 asked your wife to be kind enough to send me 
 a few lines every week while I am gone about my 
 boy. Of course I shall hear indirectly about him 
 in several ways, but I should esteem it the great- 
 est kindness if she should write me herself about 
 him." 
 
 " Why, of course she will," said Mr. Brand, 
 heartily. " Poor little chap ! I'm real glad to
 
 MRS. BRAND 119 
 
 think you've made up your mind to let us keep 
 him. I don't know how Cecily would keep house 
 without him now." 
 
 " That is settled then," said Mr. Overholt, with 
 an air of relief as of having disposed of another 
 detail of the business incidental to his departure. 
 But his eyes sought the flash in Mrs. Brand's with 
 a cool gleam, and then he was gone, leaving her 
 in a futile tempest of indignation at his easy 
 handling of the situation. 
 
 To Mr. Brand it seemed a simple matter of 
 duty that she should write fully and frequently to 
 the absent pastor about his child. Mr. Overholt 
 had his peculiarities undoubtedly, and Mr. Brand 
 had even felt himself occasionally puzzled to 
 account for them, but accustomed as he had been 
 to rate men and machines according to their 
 ability to accomplish the work set before them, his 
 admiration for his pastor's remarkable efficiency 
 quite outweighed the trifling doubts that some- 
 times disturbed his mind. And he was anxious 
 above everything to preserve his wife in her 
 uncritical attitude towards the minister. 
 
 When Mrs. Brand sat down to answer Mr.
 
 120 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Overholt's first letter with a promptness that was 
 due to her husband's urgency, she felt under proud 
 compulsion to write without restraint. She gave 
 him a full account of his son's latest sayings and 
 doings. " Jane took him to Sunday-school with 
 her yesterday, and when the teacher asked him if 
 he hadn't a penny for the collection, he said indig- 
 nantly : ' Oh, no ! My poor papa has to work very 
 hard for those pennies ! ' Mr. Brand is anxious 
 for me to tell you this story, as he thinks it prom- 
 ises well for the future of the boy." 
 
 Mr. Overholt, lazily reading her letter under 
 the shadow of far-away pine trees, smiled for 
 many reasons. " I wonder why she's so fond of 
 McMichael*?" And then, with masculine assur- 
 ance, he smiled again. He was feeling very happy 
 just now. He looked back upon his married life, 
 and thought of it as not having been at all dis- 
 agreeable, but it was distinctly pleasant to be free 
 from the necessity of formulating mitigating 
 theories about it. Had the gift of choice been 
 conferred upon him he could hardly have created 
 a situation more to his liking than the present 
 one. For while it was not a necessity of his
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 nature that he should be in love with any one, 
 it was essential to his complete enjoyment of life 
 that he should hover perilously on the brink of it. 
 And he had never before hovered so entirely to 
 his liking. 
 
 In the meantime Dr. Challoner, plodding his 
 way wearily through stifling alleys and swarming 
 streets, had never before felt so oppressed by the 
 bondage of his calling. He had established a 
 little free dispensary, where he put in a couple of 
 hours every day, but he no longer felt a glow of 
 enthusiasm in his work, and was sometimes 
 appalled at the irritation which these people 
 roused in him with their nauseating ailments and 
 ceaseless complaints. These were the times when 
 he turned his back with scorn of repudiation upon 
 his tenderly cherished theories. Such outbreaks 
 were necessarily followed by seasons of remorse, 
 which took the form of bitter conviction that he 
 was utterly incapable of rendering any real service 
 to humanity. The Brands had gone to the sea- 
 shore and their house was shut up, but even had 
 they been at home he could hardly have found
 
 122 MRS. BRAND 
 
 palliation there, for he and Cecily had parted in 
 anger. 
 
 " How dare you malign Mr. Overholt so"? " she 
 had burst out at him, after having forced from 
 him some expressions of his feeling towards the 
 minister. He looked at her in frank amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Have you constituted yourself his defender 
 then against me?" he asked, with a note in 
 his voice which she had never heard before. 
 
 " I am not aware that he needs a defender," she 
 replied, with dignity. 
 
 " Why, hang it all ! " he exclaimed, hotly. 
 " What's got into you"? Since when have you 
 been so innocent about him? Why, you told me 
 once that you knew more " 
 
 That boomerang, it was a fatal weapon just 
 then for Dr. Challoner, and when he retired 
 from that interview he did so with tingling ears 
 and a misty mind, which sought relief in those 
 mighty generalizations about womankind which 
 distracted man finds at times so comforting. But 
 the root of woman in general is always one woman 
 in particular, and in later ruminations he reverted
 
 MRS. BRAND 123 
 
 to that one. " Now, if I told her all that I think, 
 she might have had reason for flying out at me." 
 But there the matter remained, to harry him 
 through the dog-days. To think that he and 
 Cecily should actually have quarreled over that 
 fellow! It was intolerable. But the more he 
 thought about it the more complicated the whole 
 affair seemed to become, and he wondered miser- 
 ably whether he must reconcile himself to the rule 
 of reservations in the acquaintance which had 
 hitherto been so free of expression. It was, there- 
 fore, with manifold misgivings that he went to 
 the Brands' to welcome them home on their return 
 during the first week in September. 
 
 "Why, you miserable old thing!" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Brand, surveying him at arm's length. 
 " Whatever have you been doing to yourself? " 
 
 " That's so, Arthur," said Mr. Brand, chiming 
 in; "I guess it's been pretty hard slumming it in 
 the kind of weather you've been having." 
 
 " Oh, I could stand that all right if you people 
 didn't go off, and leave me no place to fly to. 
 I protest against that." 
 
 " Well, we won't do it again for a long time,
 
 124 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Bruin, and you don't know how good it is to see 
 you again." She beamed on him radiantly, and 
 as if by magic all his doubts and difficulties rolled 
 away, and he wondered what on earth he had been 
 making himself such a fool about. 
 
 " I suppose Overholt's expected back next 
 week," said Mr. Brand, after they had exhausted 
 personal topics. " Well, it's time he got into the 
 harness again, and if he feels as well as I make 
 out he does from his letters to Cecily, I should 
 think he was ready for it." 
 
 " From his letters to Cecily*? " repeated Dr. 
 Challoner. " What's he been writing you for*? " 
 he asked bluntly, turning to her. 
 
 " Oh, about Chrys," she replied, carelessly. 
 " Such stupid letters, you can't think. One would 
 suppose a man like that would make rather an 
 interesting correspondent, but I suppose he saves 
 himself for the public." She made a little grimace. 
 " There's more in one of your letters than in ten 
 of his, Bruin," she said, smiling at him enchant- 
 ingly. He had often insisted to her that he could 
 not tell a pretty woman from a plain one, but at 
 that moment he honestly thought her lovely.
 
 MRS. BRAND 125 
 
 In the innocence of his heart he thought she 
 must have forgotten all about the tiff they had 
 had over the minister. That was exactly what 
 she wished him to suppose, of course, for it would 
 never do to let him suspect her of repentance in 
 the matter. " He's too good to be let get sulky," 
 she told herself, and, fortified by this magnani- 
 mous view of her character, it was easy to be 
 gracious. As to Mr. Overholt's lack of brilliancy 
 on paper, what she had said was quite true. He 
 enjoyed receiving her letters, and read clever bits 
 of them to his companions, but it was useless to 
 attempt to answer them in what must of necessity 
 be subject to Mr. Brand's scrutiny. He could 
 afford to wait. Besides, he hated letter-writing. 
 
 After all, Mrs. Brand found it a real relief to 
 turn again to the old-time friend about whom 
 there lurked no subtleties of sentiment or mys- 
 teries of interpretation. " He's like a good, plain, 
 Anglo-Saxon sentence," she thought, looking at 
 him benevolently. " And the other why, he's 
 like the inscription on the palace wall at Padua." 
 
 "Well, Overholt's home," said Mr. Brand,
 
 126 MRS. BRAND 
 
 a few days later, " and I shouldn't wonder if he 
 dropped in this evening." 
 
 Mrs. Brand was seated at a table busily 
 engaged in pasting pictures into a linen book. She 
 arranged and rearranged them with an anxiety 
 worthy of a more artistic cause, her husband prob- 
 ably thought, for he watched her with some 
 amusement. 
 
 "Why don't you put in this?" he inquired, 
 picking up a vignette of Abraham Lincoln, which 
 she had thrown aside with a lot of others. " You 
 want to teach him to be patriotic." 
 
 " Oh, no. It worries him dreadfully to see 
 pictures of people without their legs on. I can 
 never make him understand where their legs are. 
 Besides," she added, scornfully, " this is not 
 intended to be a Primer for Precious Patriots. I 
 wouldn't have him know yet for the world that 
 there ever was such a man as Abraham Lincoln. 
 Jack the Giant Killer is a much more suitable 
 hero." 
 
 She leaned back to survey the completed page, 
 and Mr. Brand, perhaps by way of retaliation 
 upon her for the heresy of her remarks, said some-
 
 MRS. BRAND 127 
 
 what brusquely: "Of course his father will be 
 wanting the boy at once. I shouldn't think much 
 of him if he didn't." 
 
 Mrs. Brand shut the book with a snap, and 
 looked up quickly with the intention of saying 
 something, but the words died on her lips, and she 
 went abruptly towards the window, where she 
 stood in silence looking out. Somewhere in the 
 garden could be heard the erratic peals of a bell 
 to which even distance could not lend a charm. 
 They grew discordantly nearer as Chrys dashed 
 by harnessed to an express wagon. 
 
 " Look at me, Aunt Cecily," he shouted, de- 
 lightedly, as he caught sight of her at the win- 
 dow, " I'm a 'lectric car." 
 
 "What have you got under the basket*? " she 
 called back to him, referring to an inverted basket 
 with an array of bricks on top of it. 
 
 " Oh, that's my passingzer kitty. I put the 
 bricks on so she could sit still." A little cloud 
 came over his face. " I wish she was a boy, Aunt 
 Cecily. She'd know so much more about 'lec- 
 tricity." He waited for a moment, considering a 
 pout, but a suppressed sound as of subterranean
 
 128 MRS. BRAND 
 
 agony spurred on his flagging energies, and with 
 an entrancing little gesture he blew Aunt Cecily 
 a kiss from the tips of some very grimy fingers, 
 and, with a premonitory peal from the dinner- 
 bell, the car started on its devious course to the 
 accompaniment of imprecations from the impris- 
 oned passenger, who, after a long life faithfully 
 devoted to the care of a family too numerous to 
 mention, might reasonably have expected to spend 
 her old age in peace. " How sweet and wicked he 
 looked ! " thought Mrs. Brand, approvingly. But 
 when she turned to leave the room a few minutes 
 later Mr. Brand, happening to look up from his 
 paper, saw that her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " It's the idea of giving up the boy, I'll be 
 bound ! " He was not unconscious of the fact 
 that the prospect was an unpleasant one, but why 
 make a fuss over the inevitable? He would miss 
 the little chap, himself; who could help it? 
 
 But who could suppose that she would devote 
 herself to a child as she had. He leaned back in 
 his chair with a sigh and closed his eyes. His mind 
 was busy with thoughts which were of late becom- 
 ing frequent to it, for he felt bound to admit that
 
 MRS. BRAND 129 
 
 his wife's character was no longer quite intelli- 
 gible to him. It was disconcerting after he had 
 laid it out to his entire satisfaction, with the same 
 mathematical exactitude that he would have 
 applied to the subdivision of a suburb, to find 
 himself lost in a maze. In vain he followed every 
 new lead, and burdened his mind with promising 
 clues ; they all conducted him plausibly to a blind 
 wall. Was it possible that he could be jealous 
 of the child whose presence effected so incalculable 
 a difference in her? By no means, for he had at 
 no time felt dependent upon her for his happiness. 
 But in the plans that he had made for her, he had 
 always figured as the supreme and benevolent 
 factor of her life. There was not a trace of cow- 
 ardice in his nature, else he would never have 
 admitted to himself the thin-edged doubt which 
 was working its way into his mind, and which 
 was full of bitter suggestion to him. Moved by 
 a sudden impulse, he got up from his chair and 
 crossed the room to look at himself in a panel of 
 glass set into a cabinet. He had been a handsome 
 fellow in his youth, and had retired upon his 
 early reputation in that respect with an easy belief
 
 130 MRS. BRAND 
 
 in its endurance. But to-day he looked at himself 
 through eyes from which the scales were falling. 
 That deeply- furrowed face ah, he would 
 gladly have exchanged its noble lines of character 
 for the unwrinkled insipidity of youth. And the 
 white hairs which crowned his age with dignity 
 the stoop of those broad shoulders which had so 
 bravely bent themselves to the bearing of life's 
 burdens he faced it all unflinchingly, and then 
 went back to his chair with a sigh. He had always 
 been so vigorous and his energy so resistless that 
 he had not learned to think of himself as an old 
 man. He had the contempt of a strong man for 
 physical weakness, and was willing to endure mar- 
 tyrdom before admitting the condition of which 
 he was becoming aware, which in itself was the 
 real cause of this continued depression of spirits. 
 
 " Well, where is my boy"? " asked Mr. Over- 
 holt that evening, after he had shaken hands with 
 Mrs. Brand and received her congratulations upon 
 his improved and tanned appearance, while he 
 noted anew with practised eye the charm of her 
 own. 
 
 " He was here a moment ago, but when we
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 heard you were coming he got lost," said Mrs. 
 Brand, looking suggestively towards the table. 
 " I don't think we could find him." 
 
 " That's too bad," remarked Mr. Overholt, 
 gravely. " I wanted to tell him a story about 
 a little monkey I saw down-town to-day. He had 
 on a red cap and a red coat, and danced when his 
 master played the organ." 
 
 " Was it a gurdy-organ 1 ? " inquired a muffled 
 little voice. 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Brand, it was a gurdy-organ, and 
 when the man finished playing the monkey took 
 off his cap, and walked around for pennies." 
 
 " Did you give him one*? " inquired Chrys, in- 
 advertently presenting himself to his father's 
 clutch in his anxiety about the monkey's finances. 
 
 " Why, you don't mean to say you had for- 
 gotten Papa? " asked Mr. Overholt, after due 
 preliminaries had been gone through with, and 
 Chrys was submissively established on his knee. 
 
 "I so little; I don't know anything," faltered 
 the child, feeling that some excuse for his heinous 
 conduct must be forthcoming, and driven to his 
 wits' ends to devise one. But to his relief this one
 
 132 MRS. BRAND 
 
 appeared to be satisfactory, and then the flood- 
 gates of his speech were opened in earnest. 
 
 " I will show you my new book," he said, gen- 
 erously smiling upon his father, as he proceeded 
 without delay to a sonorous exposition of its 
 gaudy contents. " This is H, and means hipma- 
 possamus. A hipmapossamus is a big fiss." Then 
 with a sympathetic droop in his voice, " Poor hip- 
 mapossamus. He has to stay in the water all the 
 time, and he gets all soaking wet. And these are 
 buffi ts, and here are taggers." 
 
 " Buffits and taggers!" interjected Mr. Over- 
 holt, suddenly. " Great Caesar, child ! What 
 dread beasts are those"? " 
 
 " Buffaloes and tigers, no doubt," said Mrs. 
 Brand. " But I should think you might infer 
 from the picture before you, if you're giving it 
 the attention Chrys will expect." 
 
 " I stand reproved," said Mr. Overholt. " I 
 must admit I was thinking of something else." 
 
 Mrs. Brand did not look up from the bit of 
 fancy-work with which she was toying, but she 
 felt the intention in his remark, and she resented 
 the tell-tale color that forced its way to her face.
 
 MRS. BRAND 133 
 
 This was not at all the readjustment she had 
 planned when she had thought the whole affair 
 over in the broad light of reason and at a safe dis- 
 tance from the enemy. But Chrys evidently 
 objected to anything that threatened to interrupt 
 the even tenor of his monologue, and he hurried 
 on, a little frown of disapproval on his face. " I 
 will tell you a story about a buffit and a boy. 
 Once a little boy's mamma sent him down-town 
 on an errand. But the naughty little boy ran away 
 into the woods to play. And it was an awful 
 beary-wood, and there were buffits and taggers 
 there, too. And a great big buffit ran at him, and 
 stuck him full of holes with its horns, and so he 
 died. And the bears ate him up. And when his 
 mamma came to find him there was nothing left 
 but " 
 
 " Holes ! " exclaimed Mr. Overholt, frivo- 
 lously, much to his son's disgust and bewilderment. 
 
 " I must really congratulate you, Mrs. Brand, 
 on the success of your training. I don't think I 
 ever heard so hopelessly moral a tale before." 
 
 " I don't think it's due to me. Chrys is fond of 
 strong effects."
 
 134 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " P stands for puffy-dog," continued Chrys, 
 eyeing his father suspiciously. " B is for buff- 
 fly. How do angels get wings on*? " 
 
 This question came with a suddenness that was 
 paralyzing. And as no one vouchsafed an im- 
 mediate solution of the physiological problem, 
 Chrys kindly spared the ignorance of his audience 
 by moving on to an adjacent topic. 
 
 " E is for egg. And I will tell you, Papa, what 
 you ought to do when chickens won't lay their 
 eggs in their nests. You ought to get a nice, 
 smooth, stone egg, and put it in the nest. Then 
 the chicken would look in and see it and say, ' Oh 
 some other people have been here, laying their 
 eggs, and now I needn't mind.' " 
 
 Mrs. Brand laughed, but she said nothing. She 
 had a feeling that in this, their first meeting after 
 so long a separation, the father and his child 
 should be left to themselves. But Mr. Overholt 
 had other plans. He loved his boy better than 
 anything else in the world, but we do not always 
 enjoy most what we love best. Sometimes while 
 he had been away he had affected to doubt Mrs. 
 Brand's fascination for him; it was now all the
 
 MRS. BRAND 135 
 
 more agreeable to luxuriate in the thrill that her 
 presence undoubtedly produced in him. 
 
 " I suppose this boy doesn't stay up all the 
 evening," he said now, turning to Mrs. Brand. 
 " His conversation is like cayenne pepper, a little 
 of it goes a long way. " 
 
 He had expected the bell to be rung for Jane, 
 but Mrs. Brand got up herself. 
 
 " Come Chrys," she said smiling, and holding 
 out her hand. 
 
 But the child held back. " Then will you play 
 tag*? " he inquired, cautiously. 
 
 " Oh yes, I'll play tag," she answered. 
 
 " You don't mean to say he afflicts you like 
 that? " exclaimed Mr. Overholt. " I think you 
 had better let me take him home to-night." 
 
 " No, I can't do that. When you're settled 
 into regular ways again I'll lend him to you." 
 
 A few minutes later Mr. Brand and the min- 
 ister paused in their conversation to listen to the 
 flying feet above. 
 
 " Oh, this performance takes place every night," 
 said Mr. Brand, a trifle irritably. 
 
 " I've a great mind to go up there and give them
 
 136 MRS. BRAND 
 
 a scare," said Mr. Overholt, and Mr. Brand offer- 
 ing no objection he stole lightly up the stairs. Just 
 as he reached the top Mrs. Brand flew by. He 
 felt sure she had not seen him in the dim light, 
 and he started in swift pursuit of her. But she 
 had seen him, and with a panic quite dispropor- 
 tionate to the occasion she vanished into the dark- 
 ness, and fled down the back stairs. On her way to 
 the sitting-room she encountered Jane, whom she 
 sent up-stairs to attend to Chrys. Then she sat 
 down to her work again, demurely enough, but 
 with a glancing smile about her lips that belied 
 her manner. 
 
 Her husband, laying down his paper for a 
 moment, looked at her with a pang. It seemed 
 almost cruel that she should look so young, " as 
 young as when I first saw her," he thought, and 
 wondered why. There was a charming color in 
 her face, and her breath from running still came 
 short between her smiling lips. 
 
 " Where is Mr. Overholt ? " he asked. 
 
 " Up-stairs with Chrys," she answered, with 
 sudden gravity. " I thought perhaps he would like 
 a few moments alone with the child."
 
 MRS. BRAND 137 
 
 " You can't think how I appreciate your 
 thoughtf ulness," said Mr. Overholt. He was 
 standing between the portieres. " No, thank you, 
 Mr. Brand. I must go. But McMichael says you 
 have a new picturegraph of him to show me, Mrs. 
 Brand." 
 
 " Yes," she said, glad of an excuse to escape 
 from his eyes. " It was to be a surprise for you 
 when you came home." She went over to a large 
 portfolio and took out the photograph. She looked 
 about for a suitable place to stand it, and finally 
 propped it up on the table where it would receive 
 the best light. 
 
 " There ! " she exclaimed enthusiastically. 
 " The photographer said it was the handsomest 
 picture of the handsomest child he had ever seen." 
 
 " Oh, I suppose," said Mr. Brand dryly. " No 
 doubt the man thought you were his mother." 
 
 Mrs. Brand ignored the remark. She stood 
 facing her husband, looking at the photograph in 
 rather a defiant attitude, her head thrown back, 
 and one arm behind her. Mr. Overholt came over 
 and stood beside her. 
 
 " It really is charming," he admitted after a
 
 138 MRS. BRAND 
 
 moment. " I had no idea he could be worked up 
 into such an effect as that." He leaned down to 
 examine the finish of the picture, and then stepped 
 back to his former place, but so close to Mrs. Brand 
 that his shoulder touched hers. Mr. Brand had 
 turned his back on them, and was deep in his 
 paper. There were two things in a man's life that 
 he really believed nothing but death or a fire 
 should be suffered to interrupt, his prayers and 
 the perusal of his paper. And so it happened that 
 before Mrs. Brand could move away, she felt her- 
 self in the vise of an electric shock for Mr. Over- 
 holt had grasped the hand she had thrown so 
 carelessly behind her, and held it with a firmness 
 that was effectual against any ordinary methods 
 of escape. She stood there beside him, a prisoner 
 flushing and paling alternately, desperate one 
 moment, terrified the next lest they should betray 
 themselves to Mr. Brand. 
 
 " How long ago was this taken*? " asked Mr. 
 Overholt, coolly. 
 
 "About a month ago. It was done in New 
 York." It seemed to her that she spoke in heart- 
 beats.
 
 MRS. BRAND 139 
 
 " I have generally managed to get even with 
 people who have put me under obligations to 
 them," he went on in his even voice, " but it 
 puzzles me to know how to deal with you, espe- 
 cially when you won't play tag," he said, with his 
 frank laugh, letting her hand drop at last. " Am 
 I to take this home with me to-night*? " 
 
 " I will send it to the parsonage," she said 
 struggling to keep the indignation out of her voice. 
 
 Mr. Overholt said good-night to Mr. Brand, 
 and then held out his hand to Mrs. Brand, and she 
 was forced to offer him the one he had held but a 
 moment before. 
 
 " There is no way in which I can even faintly 
 express my gratitude to you." His eyes dwelt on 
 hers mournfully, and his voice matched them with 
 its melancholy cadence. " As for McMichael, if 
 a little child's love counts for anything, you know 
 how complete has been your conquest." 
 
 As they stood there, Mrs. Brand with her 
 stately head downcast, and Mr. Overholt bending 
 towards her, the expression on his face one of 
 reticent grief, Mr. Brand looking up suddenly at 
 them was struck by a thought as keen as sharpened 
 steel.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE first Sunday after Mr. Overholt's return 
 from his vacation found the Church of the Pil- 
 grims packed to the doors. The occasion was an 
 interesting one from any point of view cer- 
 tainly not the least so to the minds of a score 
 of self -prospective mothers-in-law, for whatever 
 odium attaches to that domestic office there is 
 none so earnestly coveted. American maidenhood 
 of all sorts and sizes, of every type and tint of 
 feature as of finance, displayed itself before the 
 pulpit on that sunny September morning, row 
 upon row. While any lack of devotion to his 
 wife's memory would have been esteemed a serious 
 lapse on the pastor's part, yet there was a thrill 
 of suspicion in beauty's breast that while his 
 heart might very appropriately be in the grave his 
 eyes were still at large, and subject to arrest. 
 
 At two minutes to eleven the church was full, 
 and in breathless condition subsequent to the 
 
 140
 
 MRS. BRAND 141 
 
 forced march by which the average Sunday morn- 
 ing congregation arrives at its destination. Mr. 
 Overholt was in his place, the cynosure of sympa- 
 thetic eyes, his head bent forward upon his clasped 
 hands, as the first, faint notes of the organ fell 
 upon the waiting throng, when a group moving 
 slowly up the aisle attracted to itself general atten- 
 tion. " There goes Brand," whispered a new- 
 comer; "he's got money to burn." 
 
 " Guess he needs it. Youth and beauty come 
 high," replied his companion, laconically. 
 
 " See ! " palpitated a maiden to her mother. 
 " She's got his boy with her." 
 
 For Mrs. Brand had assumed the responsibility 
 of bringing Chrys to church with her, and as she 
 followed her husband to his pew she was by no 
 means unconscious of the unusual interest aroused 
 by this particular " weekly spectacle we are to 
 make of ourselves " as she had characterized their 
 church-going. But she was to-day the central fig- 
 ure in a picture that lingered long in the memories 
 of some who saw it. Though golden with the glow 
 of September's sun the weather was like cider with 
 a bead on it there was a nip in the sparkle like a
 
 142 MRS. BRAND 
 
 foretaste of frost, and this tall, stately woman 
 looked like the spirit of the season made manifest 
 a la mode. She was all in golden, brown velvet 
 with revelations here and there of dull, pink satin 
 linings, and in her face there was an unwonted 
 touch of color to offset the brilliant beauty of her 
 eyes. For a moment, as she had stolen a parting 
 glance at herself in her mirror, she had longed to 
 believe in the beauty that it reflected to her. 
 Then she shook her fist at it derisively. " No, I 
 can fool other people, but I'm not such a fool as 
 to fool myself." This morning the usual proud 
 aloofness of her bearing was tempered by her 
 solicitude for the child beside her, whose graceful, 
 little figure but accentuated the fine outlines of 
 her own. 
 
 Could Miss Alta High, the " vocal-highkicker " 
 as Mr. Boyington called her, of that famous 
 quartet that worshipped God on Sundays for 
 revenue only at the Church of the Pilgrims, have 
 realized how little Mr. Overholt heard of her solo 
 that morning she would have smiled less sweetly 
 upon him when he complimented her so fittingly 
 upon it at the end of the service. And could the
 
 MRS. BRAND 143 
 
 honorable promoters of Beauty's prospects have 
 realized how slight was the impression made upon 
 him by the charms they led in train, perhaps they 
 would not have trod on each others' toes quite so 
 assiduously for precedence in greeting their spirit- 
 ual director. ' 
 
 Up in the gallery sat Dr. Challoner, who had 
 not been even a casual attendant at the Church 
 of the Pilgrims, where religion according to his 
 mind was more a matter of pretence than of prac- 
 tice. He had had a " private view " of the char- 
 acter of one of its most honored officials, a man 
 who was a property owner in Moon Street, and 
 who had waxed fat upon the blood-money of his 
 rentals. Dr. Challoner never saw him without a 
 swift vision of that section of hell which was held 
 on earth in his name. 
 
 But an irresistible curiosity had drawn him 
 hither this morning. Here in the presence of this 
 handsome theological expert he relinquished him- 
 self to the subtleties of an enigma that defied solu- 
 tion. " Is the man a downright villain, or is he 
 an erratic genius who suffers from the restraints of 
 a mistaken calling? " he asked himself for the
 
 144 MRS. BRAND 
 
 twentieth time, as he listened to the modulations 
 of a prayer " which for beauty of thought and per- 
 fection of utterance has never been surpassed in 
 this city," as one of the great dailies enthusias- 
 tically described it twenty-four hours later. But 
 behind all Dr. Challoner's impersonal criticisms 
 of the minister there was wedged a suspicion that 
 haunted him he had not forgotten the death of 
 this man's wife. 
 
 Chrys comported himself until the beginning of 
 the sermon with commendable discretion, but he 
 succumbed quickly to his father's eloquence, and 
 sank in a soft, little heap against Mrs. Brand's 
 arm. She shifted her position slightly to accom- 
 modate the sleepy, little head, and then she lifted 
 her face, sweet with the tenderness of a lingering 
 smile, to the speaker. In that instant some subtle 
 force administered to her a shock that struck the 
 smile from her lips, and left her shivering with an 
 indefinable sense of repulsion and dread. What 
 was it? She looked in bewilderment at her hus- 
 band, but his face seemed even more rigid than 
 usual. Her glance fluttered back to Mr. Overholt, 
 and then she felt herself shaken again by an uncon-
 
 MRS. BRAND 145 
 
 trollable emotion. Something within her was 
 struggling was shrinking back from him, far 
 beyond the confines of the crowded church, out 
 towards the sun-swept spaces of eternity. For 
 those fleet moments of crisis she knew herself in 
 the grasp of a power that compelled her to a swift 
 vision of this man as he was and in the fierce light 
 of its illumination she shuddered again and again 
 with irrepressible loathing. Brilliant periods of 
 oratory fell unheeded upon her dulled ears, and 
 the sermon reached its conclusion in a climax of 
 eloquence that won it an enduring place among 
 homiletical models without moving her. The 
 voices of the choir rose in an enthusiastic burst of 
 moral sentiments, and then the congregation 
 waited in silence the words of benediction. Chrys 
 stood on uncertain little legs at Mrs. Brand's side, 
 but Mr. Brand did not rise, and as his wife glanced 
 back at him she saw with sudden alarm that his 
 head had fallen heavily forward upon his breast. 
 She bent over him in distress, but in the moments 
 of bewilderment that followed she realized noth- 
 ing with any clearness save that Dr. Challoner 
 was there, and that in his presence there was
 
 146 MRS. BRAND 
 
 strength. She felt the pressure of people about 
 her anxiously inquiring what had happened, and 
 then it lessened, and Dr. Challoner said to her 
 quietly : " Take my arm, and come to the vestry." 
 She had quite forgotten Chrys until he clutched 
 her hand. In the vestry they found Mr. Overholt 
 from whom any sight of the occurrence had been 
 obscured by the crush of people towards the doors. 
 He had already been so overwhelmed with con- 
 gratulations that it seemed after all only natural 
 that these friends should come to add their tribute 
 to his genius. So he came forward with a smile, 
 and the air of alert gallanterie that was indigenous 
 to him in the presence of a woman. But Dr. 
 Challoner lifted his hand imperatively to ward off 
 trivialities of speech, and said quickly, " Mr. 
 Brand has had a seizure of some sort, and I have 
 brought Mrs. Brand here to wait for a few 
 minutes." 
 
 It was in moments like this that Mr. Overholt's 
 directness of sympathy and unaffected kindliness 
 bound to him people who were uninfluenced by his 
 ability, or even sceptical of its integrity of pur- 
 pose. In the instant of Dr. Challoner's remark
 
 MRS. BRAND U7 
 
 his brain grew tense, and no doubt he felt as 
 shocked as he looked. He rolled forward a chair 
 for Mrs. Brand, and then he turned to the doctor. 
 " You must let me do the first thing I can that 
 will be of any service to you." 
 
 Dr. Challoner hesitated a moment, looking 
 doubtfully at Mrs. Brand. " Never mind me," 
 she said. " Go both of you." So they hurried 
 away. 
 
 After an interval of some minutes Mr. Over- 
 holt returned alone. " Now if you will come with 
 me, Mrs. Brand, I will drive home with you. Dr. 
 Challoner is on his way there with your husband." 
 His manner toward her was an exhibition of him- 
 self at his very best a differential kindliness 
 that left nothing to be desired. But she was 
 almost unconscious of him, until just as they 
 reached the door when he said gently, " I think 
 you will agree with me that it is better that I 
 should take McMichael home. You will have 
 many things to attend to if Mr. Brand should not 
 rally immediately." 
 
 She looked at him a moment in silence, uncon- 
 scious of the wistful appeal in her eyes. She was
 
 148 MRS. BRAND 
 
 full of undefined doubts and alarms of which he 
 was the vital cause, though perhaps she did not 
 realize that, for the inrush of subsequent impres- 
 sions had swept from her mind all remembrance 
 of her experience during the sermon. With a sud- 
 den tightening of her heart she bent down and 
 kissed the child. Her guardianship of him was 
 ended. She did not speak during the homeward 
 drive, but when she came to part from Chrys he 
 clasped his strong little arms about her neck. 
 
 " Let me go, dear. Uncle Brand is sick, so sick, 
 and he wants Aunt Cecily." 
 
 " Doesn't he want me too*? " wailed Chrys, 
 with an instant sense of injury. She unclasped 
 his fingers gently, whispering to him the while. 
 
 " Yes, I know, Aunt Cecily," he answered tear- 
 fully. " I are a big man." Then with an ominous 
 droop in his voice he added, " But I a very little 
 big man." 
 
 A drawn smile crossed her face. " No," she 
 said to Mr. Overholt. " Don't come in with me 
 now, but but do all you can for Chrys." 
 
 Dr. Challoner met her in her sitting-room, and 
 the sight of his face brought to her again the same
 
 MRS. BRAND 149 
 
 feeling of rest and refuge of which she had been 
 conscious in the church. 
 
 " Come now ! " he exclaimed, reassuringly. 
 " Don't look at me with such big, anxious eyes. 
 Uncle John is doing nicely, and I daresay in a few 
 days we shall know hardly anything about this. 
 Dr. Bradbury is with him. I saw you coming and 
 hurried down to meet you." 
 
 "What was it? Paralysis'?" 
 
 " Just a slight stroke." 
 
 " It's the beginning of the end*? " she asked, the 
 words coming boldly from her eager lips. 
 
 Dr. Challoner looked at her in silent outrage, 
 which, in her absorption, she interpreted as tacit 
 acquiescence in her remark. For some moments 
 she said nothing and then, bringing her hands 
 together suddenly, she spoke with low-toned 
 intensity, as if the words were inexorably crushed 
 out of her. 
 
 " I have been a cruel woman. He has been 
 kind and good to me ever since he saw me first, 
 and I have cared nothing about him." She would 
 have spoken further, but Dr. Challoner said with 
 peremptory abruptness, "Be quiet! You are
 
 150 MRS. BRAND 
 
 excited by what has happened, and are ready to 
 imagine all sorts of things. When Dr. Bradbury 
 comes down you shall hear his report." 
 
 "And then may I go up to him? " she asked, 
 with a humility that sat strangely upon her. 
 
 " I fear that would be unwise," he said reluct- 
 antly. " His recovery depends entirely upon 
 absolute freedom from mental excitement, and you 
 are overcharged with that yourself just now. Try 
 to be patient. There will be plenty for you to do." 
 
 He looked at her with careful scrutiny, won- 
 dering what further complexities were involved in 
 the revelation she had just made to him of her 
 attitude towards her husband. Her pride and his 
 innate delicacy and loyalty had been sufficient 
 safeguard against any interchange of opinion on a 
 marriage that had seemed to him strange at first, 
 but which time had accustomed him to think of 
 without surprise. Now he was gradually becom- 
 ing certain that between herself and Mr. Overholt 
 there was some mystery. " He holds one end of 
 the string and she the other," he thought as he 
 looked at her, and then in spite of a sense of anger 
 and exasperation his heart softened at the sight
 
 MRS. BRAND 151 
 
 of her forlorn appearance. After all, what had 
 life brought her 1 ? Only what she had brought 
 to it. An insignificant woman would have re- 
 mained insignificant in spite of the purchasing 
 power of wealth and position. And to be an old 
 man's wife was not a sinecure. Whatever his mis- 
 givings about Mr. Overholt might be, within his 
 heart he harbored no doubts of her real loyalty to 
 her husband. But for the first time he realized 
 how difficult must be a loyalty of the letter unless 
 reinforced by that of the spirit. An uncontrol- 
 lable impulse seized him. 
 
 " Whatever your difficulties are, do not speak 
 of them to anyone. If you must have help at any 
 time, you know that you can rely on me for it," 
 he said, weakly enough considering the ebb and 
 flow so fast and furious beneath the surface of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 " I know, Bruin." But already Mrs. Brand's 
 mood had changed, and he saw with a curious 
 sense of relief the return of her reserve. 
 
 Mr. Brand rallied with a rapidity that exceeded 
 the doctors' most sanguine predictions. When he 
 was able to be down-stairs, and to attend for a
 
 152 MRS. BRAND 
 
 short time every day to the details of such business 
 as was imperative, Mrs. Brand's sitting-room 
 began to bear a resemblance to a down-town office. 
 Old cronies and business acquaintances came in 
 frequently to spend an hour with him, and sought 
 to encourage him by noisy comments on his steady 
 improvement. " He'll be as good as new again in 
 no time." He listened to them with indifferent 
 contempt, for he knew better, and his mind was 
 hungrily occupied with schemes that cried aloud 
 for time, that precious time which was slipping 
 through his fingers like the hurrying sands in an 
 hour-glass. 
 
 Sometimes he would sit in silence for a long 
 while looking at his wife, and she would divine 
 in him a new tenderness for her quite unlike the 
 boastful pride which had often aroused her resent- 
 ment. 
 
 " Poor child ! " he murmured one day, uncon- 
 sciously giving utterance to the feeling that beset 
 him as he watched her. 
 
 Difficult tears filled her eyes, and a little while 
 later she went up-stairs and gave way to a passion 
 of grief and regret. She would have given any-
 
 MRS. BRAND 153 
 
 thing at that moment to be able to persuade her- 
 self that she loved him then or that she ever had. 
 Shut in as Mr. Brand now was from the active 
 pursuit of money-getting, for the first time in his 
 business existence he had unwonted opportunity 
 for the study of relative values. His religion 
 stood him in good stead, and with the calm assur- 
 ance which came from years of conviction he 
 dwelt upon the beatific vision so soon to become 
 the enduring reality. Day by day he loosened his 
 hold upon the cares of the life which had hitherto 
 engrossed him. The present, for him personally, 
 ceased to be of importance. His interests and his 
 hopes, all those vague delicate yearnings of which 
 he himself was hardly conscious, had seemingly 
 passed on ahead of his poor, disabled body into 
 that habitation not made with hands. Perhaps it 
 was because of the severed associations that were 
 so soon to be knit again in the bonds of eternity 
 that his mind reverted with strange tenacity to his 
 early experiences. Hardly a day passed in which 
 he did not lose himself in those long-past times of 
 struggle and stress, when he had felt strong to face 
 the world and its chances with his happy-hearted
 
 154 MRS. BRAND 
 
 little Mary at his side. He turned over with the 
 delight of discovery bits of their experiences, 
 which had since lain forgotten in his mind. How 
 fresh it seemed and how sweet! His heart beat 
 again like the boy's it had been then when first he 
 wooed her. She was only a slip of a girl in a pink 
 sunbonnet. How he had hated that sun-bon- 
 net it was always in the way. 
 
 He came back to the cold reality of his present 
 life with a sense of shock, and a consciousness of 
 loss, which made him feel almost guilty. For with 
 that mellow past and in the nearing future between 
 which the present was but a narrowing step, his 
 wife had no part. The wife who had died with 
 their baby how could anyone take her place? 
 
 But his mind dwelt upon his young wife's 
 future with increasing anxiety. Perhaps he over- 
 rated the attractiveness in which he had taken so 
 much pride, but he could not ignore the dangers 
 which would beset a woman still young, who 
 should become the mistress of her fate and of his 
 fortune. The thought which had pierced him with 
 its poisoned tip just before his illness recurred to 
 him continually, but there was no rankling bitter-
 
 MRS. BRAND 155 
 
 ness in it for him now. The more he considered 
 it the more he felt he was called upon to be a kind 
 of Providence to his wife. What did she know 
 of life'? But he, understanding her and her needs, 
 and the circumstances surrounding her there 
 was a solemn responsibility laid upon him which 
 he must not shirk. It was such a clear case, and 
 it grew daily more fascinating to him. It would 
 be the solution of all his anxieties concerning her, 
 temporal and spiritual. But how to attain it? 
 That he set himself patiently at work to discover. 
 
 Mr. Overholt came in to see him frequently, 
 and they discussed everything from the state of 
 the stock market to the minutest matter of church 
 detail. They discussed people, too, Dr. Challoner, 
 and even Mrs. Brand, and Mr. Overholt who 
 could not know that Mr. Brand was pursuing an 
 investigation along original lines, and with unus- 
 ual ends in view, was sometimes distinctly aston- 
 ished at the problems that were propounded in 
 these conversations. But he met them all with 
 unfailing tact and readiness. 
 
 One warm springlike day in November Mr. 
 Brand seemed to feel a return of the vigor that
 
 156 MRS. BRAND 
 
 had carried him unflinchingly through over half a 
 century of business drudgery. When Dr. Chal- 
 loner came in at eleven o'clock he preferred an 
 unexpected request. 
 
 " See here, Arthur, I've listened pretty patiently 
 to your tirades about your people and all that 
 sort of thing, but I've been too busy to pay much 
 attention to it. Now I may never feel again as 
 well as I do to-day, and I just want you to take 
 me to the worst sink-hole you've got. I want to 
 see the thing for myself." 
 
 Dr. Challoner hesitated. Yet it was the one 
 thing above all others which he had often desired. 
 " I do not know," he said slowly. " Perhaps you 
 
 do not realize no, of course you could not, 
 
 the horror of those places." 
 
 " That's all the more reason why I should see 
 it," said the old man sturdily, with deepening 
 lines of anxiety on his furrowed face. 
 
 " I don't know," said Dr. Challoner again. 
 " Let us consult Dr. Bradbury first." He was 
 unwilling to assume a responsibility that he might 
 plausibly be charged with having invited in his 
 own interests.
 
 MRS. BRAND 157 
 
 " Dr. Bradbury ! " exclaimed Mr. Brand, con- 
 temptuously. " When I say I want to do a thing 
 it means I'm going to do it." He was getting 
 angry and excited. 
 
 Mrs. Brand, who had been sitting by in silence, 
 looked up from her work to say quickly, " Don't 
 argue about it, Arthur. John knows what he 
 wants and what he can do better than anyone 
 else." 
 
 " That's right, Cecily ! " said her husband heart- 
 ily, with a smile of approval for her, at which she 
 felt an odd, little quiver of gratitude. 
 
 " I think I will go down and see Chrys while 
 you are gone," she said, as she followed them out 
 to the carriage with parting words of caution. 
 " The poor, little monkey must think I have 
 deserted him." 
 
 " Why don't you bring him back to stay a 
 couple of days'? " inquired Mr. Brand. 
 
 "Should you mind? He would make a good 
 deal of noise, you know," she added doubtfully, 
 tempering her eagerness. 
 
 " No," he called back, as the carriage drove off, 
 " not if it would please you to have him. "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MR. BRAND returned from his tour of inspection 
 apparently none the worse for the fatigue that it 
 had entailed upon him. Indeed it was but the 
 initial stage of an investigation that he pursued 
 with the same relentless devotion to detail which 
 had marked his career in the business world. Mrs. 
 Brand's sitting-room underwent a further trans- 
 formation; it became the rallying-point of people 
 as motley in opinion as in apparel. 
 
 " Whatever is he after 4 ? " said Mrs. Brand to 
 Dr. Challoner. 
 
 " I don't know, and I expect to have to wait to 
 find out. Sometimes I feel rather apprehensive." 
 
 " Of what? " 
 
 " Schemes. Organization. Don't you see? " 
 he said, smiling down at her. " When you have 
 just your heart and two hands to work with, it's 
 easy. You're simply one humble man, and you 
 do every next thing that comes in your way. And 
 
 158
 
 MRS. BRAND 159 
 
 that's all you can do. There aren't any complica- 
 tions about it. You just try to love your neigh- 
 bor as yourself. Perhaps you don't even suc- 
 ceed very well, but you keep on trying. But 
 when you begin to plan how to spend money on 
 your neighbor " he paused with a wry face. 
 
 " But, Bruin, you know you've always been 
 wanting money for them." 
 
 " Of course. But that was for a particular man 
 who was starving or a particular woman who was 
 dying. If you saw a person freezing to death, and 
 you had a blazing fire in your room, you wouldn't 
 sit down and elaborate a scheme as to the best 
 method of resuscitating him." 
 
 " But if you saw ten thousand freezing? " 
 
 " That's just it. There have been times when 
 the only thing that saved me from despair was 
 the remembrance that I was only one man and 
 was responsible for only one man's work." 
 
 He fell into silence, and Mrs. Brand studied 
 him for a while. At last she said, " What a funny 
 Bruin!" 
 
 " That's so ! " he exclaimed, heartily. " To talk 
 like this when my head fairly seethes with wild
 
 160 MRS. BRAND 
 
 schemes. I tell you it's a providence that so few 
 people can carry out their schemes in this world, 
 or it wouldn't be habitable very long. Good peo- 
 ple, like myself, I mean." 
 
 They both laughed, but Dr. Challoner went on 
 earnestly enough, " There never was a cause yet 
 worth struggling for that wasn't purified and 
 developed by every rebuff it got. As a power for 
 good, for instance, I should think that persecutions 
 must compare very favorably with prayer-meet- 
 ings. It's all part of the great plan. We don't 
 always happen to see it that way. I didn't when I 
 called on Deacon Davis to offer him my compli- 
 ments on the state of his tenements in Elysium 
 Row." 
 
 Whatever his intentions might be Mr. Brand 
 had apparently no confidences to share with any- 
 one regarding them. But one thing became very 
 clear to those about him. And that was the 
 ascending scale of his respect for Dr. Challoner. 
 
 " I've talked with scores of people about this 
 thing," he observed to Mr. Overholt, " lawyers, 
 college professors, political economists, and eco- 
 nomical politicians, laboring men, mechanics,
 
 MRS. BRAND 161 
 
 factory girls and what not, and I tell you among 
 the whole lot of them there isn't as much common 
 sense as Challoner has in his little finger. Dead 
 loads of theory, but not one of them ready to get 
 down and hustle in the dirt." 
 
 Certainly, in the opinion of some people Mr. 
 Brand was choosing extraordinary means to arrive 
 at the knowledge he was in quest of. By invita- 
 tion a dozen or more of his business and profes- 
 sional acquaintances gathered at his home one 
 morning, while he laid before them the conditions 
 of life within a radius of half a mile having Moon 
 Street as its center. Then he asked them as a 
 personal favor to himself to visit the district speci- 
 fied under the escort of Dr. Challoner, and at the 
 end of a week to report to him what recommenda- 
 tions, if any, they felt justified in making with a 
 view to its betterment. Of the work of com- 
 mittees in general he was as sceptical as Dr. Chal- 
 loner himself, but he foresaw a variety of results 
 from this one, and he was not disappointed. 
 
 " Moon Street," said Mr. Boyington, reflec- 
 tively. " Seems to me that's about where my
 
 162 MRS. BRAND 
 
 wife's property must be. But it's all in the hands 
 of her agent, and I'm not responsible for it." 
 
 Mr. Brand smiled grimly. In the course of his 
 investigations this fact had come to his knowledge. 
 " Well, Boyington, if I were you I believe I'd 
 make that agent's acquaintance." 
 
 " I'll make a note of that," said Mr. Boyington, 
 appreciatively. He was always making notes of 
 things, apparently for the sake of consigning other 
 people's demands upon him to a decent burial, in 
 black and white oblivion. But Mr. Brand was not 
 without hope in spite of the note-book. 
 
 After setting various details of time and meet- 
 ing-place with Dr. Challoner, these men, some of 
 whom were the busiest in the city, separated into 
 groups of twos and threes to seek again their 
 accustomed haunts of trade. 
 
 " Too bad about Brand," said one, regretfully. 
 
 " I'd have sworn by that man's common sense 
 a year ago." 
 
 " Well, I don't know. Somebody's got to take 
 these things up, and if they're half as bad as he 
 says it's a pretty serious matter." 
 
 " That's all right if you think so. But I'm not
 
 MRS. BRAND 163 
 
 going to waste my time on any fool's errand. I 
 never saw anybody yet that went into that kind of 
 thing that didn't exaggerate it out of all resem- 
 blance to the real conditions. I know what that 
 section's like, and I tell you those people are 
 attached to it. They don't want anything better." 
 
 " More's the pity, perhaps," said his companion, 
 shortly. 
 
 " No, I don't see that. Happiness is, after all, 
 merely a matter of adjustment to one's environ- 
 ment, and I know lots of those people are far 
 more comfortably adjusted to theirs than we are to 
 ours." 
 
 " But don't you see " 
 
 " No, I must confess I don't. The sun shines 
 on the just and the unjust. We're born and we 
 die, and that's the most that can be said of any 
 of us whether in Moon Street or out of it, and all 
 they've got to show, and all I've got at the end 
 of it is six feet two of ground that nobody else 
 wants." 
 
 This was the deacon who had suffered at Dr. 
 Challoner's hands. 
 
 " Give him a chance, Arthur. Give him a
 
 164 MRS. BRAND 
 
 chance," Mr. Brand had said, when his nephew 
 protested against their inviting him to confer with 
 them. " He's just the kind you've got to learn to 
 use in this world if you want to do anything worth 
 while." , 
 
 The strain to which Mr. Brand was subjecting 
 himself began to tell upon him, but he was deaf 
 to all remonstrance. He knew that his life was 
 grudgingly doled out day by day to him by the 
 miserly fingers of Fate, and all his remaining 
 energy was concentrated in one supreme effort to 
 materialize the ideas that were assuming definite 
 shape in his mind. 
 
 " If the Lord will but grant me time ! " he 
 exclaimed one morning, his mental stress being 
 such that the thought unconsciously escaped into 
 speech. 
 
 " Don't you think He can carry out His designs 
 without your assistance*? " inquired his wife 
 unable, to her own instant regret, to resist this 
 opportunity for a little fling. Away from him, in 
 the amphitheatre of her own mind, it was easy to 
 enact a drama in which she was swayed by sublime 
 motives.
 
 MRS. BRAND 165 
 
 Fortunately Mr. Brand was too much absorbed 
 in his own reflections to be conscious of his wife's 
 remark. He stared at her vacantly, his mind 
 revolving in an insistent whirl the details of the 
 plan that absorbed it. He saw the difficulties in 
 the way as clearly as the most unsympathetic 
 scoffer, but he was convinced that the resultant 
 evils would be infinitely less than the existent ones, 
 and, after all, he realized more clearly every day 
 that his inability to know infallibly what was best 
 did not absolve him from the necessity of acting 
 on what knowledge he possessed. His fortune 
 had come to him through legitimate channels of 
 business enterprise, and he had no qualms what- 
 ever about the possession of it. He was not by 
 nature a generous man, but his strong religious 
 convictions had developed in him a fine apprecia- 
 tion of his duty, more valuable to himself and the 
 world at large than the most enthusiastic impulse 
 of undisciplined and spasmodic generosity. A 
 life-long habit of submission to a Will superior to 
 his own had had its marvelous effects upon a char- 
 acter naturally and by circumstances ordained to 
 be self-assertive and self-sufficient. That day,
 
 166 MRS. BRAND 
 
 when he had followed Dr. Challoner from one 
 wretched tenement to another, there had come to 
 him with tremendous urgency the revelation that 
 what these people needed desperately beyond the 
 alleviation of their immediate misery was some- 
 thing which his money could not get for them. 
 The farther he penetrated into the rotten core of 
 all this wretchedness the more rapidly his wealth 
 depreciated in value in his own estimation. What- 
 ever good he might be the means of accomplishing 
 would after all be but secondary to that already 
 compassed by a lonely worker, whom he had 
 sometimes impatiently considered a " crank." 
 His clear perception of this fact did credit to his 
 sense of justice, and was of inestimable value in 
 determining his ultimate policy. These people 
 thought of Dr. Challoner as their friend. There 
 could be no doubt of that. 
 
 " Do you find them grateful to you for what 
 you have done, Arthur*? " he asked afterwards. 
 
 " Oh no, not often. In that as in other respects 
 they're astonishingly like us," said the young man, 
 drily. 
 
 Mr. Brand chuckled.
 
 MRS. BRAND 167 
 
 " But then, why should they be? They don't 
 want charity. In ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 
 dred it's forced on them against every instinct of 
 self-respect they've got. There's the soup-kitchen 
 where I help sometimes. What business have I to 
 offer a man soup when he wants work*? I hate 
 to give an able-bodied man soup. It's an insult 
 to his manhood and mine." 
 
 Mr. Overholt, who happened to be calling, 
 smiled slightly at the doctor's indignation. It 
 seemed to him overdone. For himself he wished 
 Moon Street at the bottom of the deep, salt sea, 
 for he was heartily sick of the whole thing, and 
 weary of affecting an interest in it that he could 
 not feel. 
 
 " What was your object in asking your friends 
 to wait a week before meeting with you again? " 
 he inquired of Mr. Brand. 
 
 " I had a good many reasons. I wanted to find 
 out, for instance, how many or how few of them 
 would have any interest whatever in the matter 
 at the end of a week." 
 
 Perhaps more had than he expected. Yet there 
 were only five men at the second meeting.
 
 168 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " I don't know, Brand," began Mr. Boyington, 
 immediately, " whether I've got any time to spend 
 talking over plans with you, for I've got my hands 
 full with my own. When Challoner got through 
 harrowing our feelings that day I went home and 
 told my wife what her property was like, and it 
 made her just sick. She inherited it from her 
 father, you know, and she's always had such an 
 idea about being independent that I never inter- 
 fered about it. Well, nothing would do the next 
 day but she must go around with me herself, and 
 the end of it is the agent's bounced, and she says 
 she's going to be her own agent after this. What 
 do you think of that for a saintly, little woman like 
 my wife? " he asked, looking around him with 
 irrepressible pride. " By gracious, there wasn't 
 any place too vile for her to poke her way into." 
 " Tell her we're proud of her," said Mr. Brand. 
 " If everybody had her spirit and grit there 
 wouldn't be such awful problems for the few to 
 solve for the many. Don't you think so, 
 McGarvey?" 
 
 " I'm not sure about that," replied McGarvey, 
 carefully. He was a long, lean Scotchman, quiet
 
 MRS. BRAND 169 
 
 and cautious a man apt to be overlooked before 
 you knew him, but never afterwards. His looks 
 were unimportant, but he was the possessor of a 
 sandy beard without which, according to certain 
 frivolous folk, he never could have attained his 
 success in life. In moments of extreme mental 
 tension every human being has some refuge to 
 which he flees. Some seek it in prayer; some find 
 it in the sympathy of a friend. McGarvey found 
 it in his beard. The usage of years had divided 
 it into two meagre red lines, the sport of every 
 passing breeze, but it seemed indisputable, never- 
 theless, that from these insignificant extremities 
 Mr. McGarvey derived all the physical and moral 
 courage that he needed. Confront him with any 
 unexpected problem he was mute until by 
 winding his beard around his fingers he had suc- 
 ceeded in harnessing his fingers firmly to his head. 
 Then he felt himself in touch with the universe, 
 and able to grapple with the gravest problems of 
 human experience and destiny. 
 
 " I do not know about that," he began again, 
 having adjusted himself securely. " You say, sir," 
 he went on, turning to Mr. Boyington, " that your
 
 170 MRS. BRAND 
 
 wife has dismissed this agent who was undoubtedly 
 unworthy. You say that in the future she intends 
 to do the work herself. Possibly it may be better 
 done." Mr. Boyington looked suddenly fierce. 
 " But I doubt it," continued Mr. McGarvey, 
 firmly. " In the meantime I should like to inquire 
 what is to become of the agent. If, as we hear it 
 frequently stated, the regeneration of society is 
 best accomplished by the direct, personal effort of 
 one individual for another, I think my inquiry is 
 a pertinent one. And it seems after all but a direct 
 application of the spirit of your remark to me," 
 he concluded, looking at Mr. Brand. 
 
 " But the fellow was a regular, dishonest ras- 
 cal," broke in Mr. Boyington excitedly. " If he 
 got his deserts he'd be inside the State's Prison." 
 
 " Precisely. And yet that is exactly the individ- 
 ual we prate about its being our desire to reclaim 
 until we are afraid we may have actually to come 
 in contact with him. We are sincere enough in 
 wanting to reform him if we can only do it by a 
 set of resolutions." 
 
 Mr. Boyington looked forlorn. "Well, by
 
 MRS. BRAND 171 
 
 * 
 
 gracious, what is a man to do when he wants to do 
 something*? " 
 
 ' You see," pursued Mr. McGarvey, inexora- 
 bly, " you've simply turned this fellow loose now 
 after affording him the encouragement of indiffer- 
 ence all these years to operate his dishonesty on 
 some unsuspecting person, who is perhaps not at 
 all as well able to stand it as you have been." 
 
 " Well, hang it all," exclaimed Mr. Boyington 
 desperately, with a distracted expression in his 
 round, good-humored face, " if you know so much 
 about it perhaps you'll be good enough to let a 
 little of your wisdom loose. What do you think I 
 ought to have done*? " 
 
 " That depends altogether on the character of 
 the man," said Mr. McGarvey, patiently. " If 
 you consider him a hopeless scoundrel it might be 
 your duty to society to put him in State's Prison 
 but " 
 
 " Did you ever think," said Dr. Challoner 
 eagerly, " how few hopeless criminals there really 
 are"? " Mr. McGarvey looked at him with calm 
 approval. " Mr. Boyington would perhaps find
 
 172 MRS. BRAND 
 
 that out, I was thinking," he remarked, in his 
 slow, temperate way. 
 
 " Has he any family? " inquired Mr. Brand. 
 They were now all so interested in this individual 
 case that they had quite forgotten having assem- 
 bled for any other purpose than to consider it. 
 
 " Well, I should say so ! " groaned Mr. Boying- 
 ton. " A dozen children, I should think twins 
 and what not a sick wife, and an old mother 
 or something." He had reached the point where 
 he could only find comfort by blackening his con- 
 duct beyond any hope of extenuation. 
 
 " How great has been the extent of his dis- 
 honesty, do you think*? " inquired Mr. McGarvey. 
 
 " Why, you see, it was fixed this way. My 
 father-in-law had known this man's family since 
 he was a boy, and as he lived right in that quarter 
 and knew all about it, he thought he couldn't have 
 a better agent. So he appraised the yearly rentals 
 at a certain figure. From that he deducted what 
 he considered a fair salary for the man, and a rea- 
 sonable average for repairs. The sum left was 
 what he received from the agent, who was then
 
 MRS. BRAND 173 
 
 at liberty to realize what he could from the 
 property." 
 
 " There it is ! " murmured Dr. Challoner. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if the man did the best he 
 could with a bad business," said Mr. Brand. 
 
 " That's just what I'm afraid of now," con- 
 tinued Mr. Boyington, dejectedly. " When my 
 wife went over that place and saw the condition 
 of things she was just wild, and she gave that man 
 his walking-papers instanter. He tried to explain, 
 but that only made it worse. And I believe he was 
 kind of stunned. You see, she couldn't get it out 
 of her head that he was to blame for the whole 
 thing. Tell you what I'll see that man again 
 this very day." 
 
 Mr. McGarvey, who had wound and unwound 
 himself a great many times during this interview, 
 now made a final disposition of his beard with a 
 sigh of relief, and the conversation drifted into 
 a wider discussion of the needs of Moon Street 
 and its vicinity. At last the gathering darkness 
 of the early December evening warned them that 
 they must break away from the subject that had 
 grown so interesting. Mr. McGarvey took Mr.
 
 174 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Boyington in tow, and Dr. Challoner smiled as 
 he caught a few words of the advice that the 
 Scotchman was pouring out with impassioned 
 eagerness. 
 
 " That man's pure gold," said Mr. Brand when 
 they were all gone, and he and the doctor were 
 alone. " He has a genius for details, and the 
 kindest heart in the world." 
 
 " So has Mr. Boyington, I suppose." 
 
 " Yes, and that's about all they have in com- 
 mon. But it's a strong bond, and they'll do each 
 other good." 
 
 There was a long silence, and then Mr. Brand 
 began to talk again, but with difficulty, for the 
 going over of his opportunities and his aspirations 
 to another man was not an easy task. " It has 
 been a hard day, Arthur, but my anxieties are 
 nearly over. I hope the burden I have put upon 
 you will not be too heavy, my boy. You will not 
 be bound in any way by any wishes of mine, for 
 the longer I have thought about it the more deeply 
 I have realized that this thing cannot be done 
 in a hurry; it needs years." 
 
 An hour later Mrs. Brand found them still
 
 MRS. BRAND 175 
 
 talking. She had acquired a general understand- 
 ing that her husband meant to devote the bulk of 
 his fortune to what might be vaguely termed phil- 
 anthropical purposes, but when he had endeav- 
 ored to discuss the matter with her she had utterly 
 refused to enter into detail with him, which was 
 really a greater relief to him than he would have 
 cared to admit. At least he had managed to 
 leave with her an impression of adequate pro- 
 vision for herself, to which she was not at all 
 indifferent, though she felt an aversion to any 
 exhaustive discussion of a subject that touched 
 her with a certain sense of humiliation. There 
 were times when she was acutely thankful that 
 her husband could not know how little of herself 
 she had put into the partnership that appeared to 
 be on the point of dissolution. Just now she con- 
 sciously felt herself to be a puzzle. Her days 
 went by in a series of jerks, quite unlike the well- 
 bred monotony of former times. But there were 
 no more distracting interviews with Mr. Over- 
 holt. Perhaps that contributed to the restless 
 feeling that harassed her, and which urged her 
 perilously near the danger line sometimes, when
 
 176 MRS. BRAND 
 
 it seemed as if she could not resist the fascination 
 of experimenting with the pastor in public. 
 
 One day Mrs. Crumpet, who had recently lost 
 her husband, came in to call upon Mr. Brand. It 
 had been a dreary day, and the old man was 
 glad of any visitor. Things went along smoothly 
 enough in the conversational rut until Mr. Over- 
 holt and Chrys were announced. Then Mrs. 
 Crumpet showed signs of agitation. She greeted 
 the minister impressively, and advanced upon 
 Chrys, whom she enclosed in an embrace that was 
 like an applied benediction. " Don't," said the 
 child, gravely, upon emerging, " you choke my 
 stomach." 
 
 An expression of pain appeared upon Mrs. 
 Crumpet' s countenance. " Dear little child ! " 
 she exclaimed in large tones; "so unaccustomed 
 to a mother's tenderness." 
 
 Mrs. Brand's lip twitched dangerously. But 
 her husband went gravely on with the interrupted 
 conversation, to the relief of herself and Mr. 
 Overholt, who for once felt unequal to looking at 
 her. 
 
 When Mrs. Crumpet had gone, and an oppor-
 
 MRS. BRAND 177 
 
 tunitv occurred she said to him, " I heard some- 
 thing about you the other day." 
 
 " I should think that not impossible," he re- 
 plied, with a cool assumption of indifference that 
 she found stimulating. 
 
 She leaned her head back against her chair, 
 and laughed softly. 
 
 " I hope this was." 
 
 Mr. Overholt said nothing. He took refuge 
 in the ends of his moustache instead. 
 
 " It was such a new idea to me. I don't know 
 how it would do, I'm sure." Mrs. Brand sur- 
 veyed him with reflective innocence, but her eyes 
 were dancing wickedly. " Mr. Crumpet has been 
 dead so few months that it was really a shock 
 to me." 
 
 " What was*? " inquired Mr. Brand, with sud- 
 den interest. 
 
 Mrs. Brand beamed upon him gratefully. 
 
 "Oh, haven't I told you? Only that Mrs. 
 Crumpet say that of course Mr. Overholt's atten- 
 tions to her can be only the delicate expression 
 of his ultimate hopes with regard to her, and that
 
 178 MRS. BRAND 
 
 she is prepared to consider the matter after a 
 due lapse of time." 
 
 " Well ! well ! " laughed Mr. Brand. " That's 
 pretty good. Reminds me of a story Bell told 
 me once. He and his wife had an eye on a desira- 
 ble house for a long time. The man who lived 
 there was very ill, and when he died Bell thought 
 there was not a minute to lose. In the evening 
 after the funeral he went in to see the widow, and 
 apologized a great deal for intruding, but said 
 he was anxious to make inquiries about the house. 
 ' Oh, you're too late,' said the widow between 
 her sobs, ' we rented it this afternoon at the 
 grave.' It seems to me Mrs. Crumpet is equally 
 forehanded." 
 
 Mr. Overholt's features gave way to a difficult 
 smile, but the situation was without humor for 
 him. The claws that he had elected to consider 
 sheathed for him were still sharp to scratch the 
 delicate epidermis of his pride in a most vulnera- 
 ble part. 
 
 " One does not expect very much of Mrs. 
 Crumpet," he said, frostily. " But I should not
 
 MRS. BRAND 179 
 
 have looked for such news through the medium of 
 Mrs. Brand." 
 
 " Why? Didn't you know how fond I am of 
 gossip'? I fairly revel in it. Besides, this would 
 tempt the taste of an epicure. I simply scratched 
 for details." 
 
 Mr. Brand, looking at them, had thoughts of 
 his own that he did not utter. But he tasted with 
 renewed appreciation the wisdom of his policy 
 with regard to his wife. 'Twas a skittish thing, 
 a woman. He had done well to make things sure. 
 It was characteristic of him that at no time had 
 he felt any doubts of the man, who was far from 
 being a fool and keen enough to be relied upon 
 to appreciate an opportunity. It is one thing to 
 cherish one's own sentiments, and quite another 
 thing to appreciate them in other people. This 
 old money-maker, after all these years, cherished 
 still in the core of him as his most sacred posses- 
 sion misty memories of things that time had 
 turned to dust. It would have seemed to him a 
 madness in anybody else to do likewise, to the 
 detriment perhaps of present interests. He had 
 never made his will before, partly from the indif-
 
 180 MRS. BRAND 
 
 ference of a man who feels there is really no need 
 of hurry, and partly from a superstitious fancy 
 that it would be equivalent to signing his own 
 death-warrant. And now that it was really done, 
 this underlying fear affected him in his weakened 
 condition more dangerously than he would have 
 cared to own. 
 
 Chrys had escaped to more congenial quarters, 
 and Mrs. Brand and Mr. Overholt went on talk- 
 ing. How tired he felt all at once ! With a sigh of 
 relief he leaned back in the encircling depths of 
 his chair, glad to be free from any further strain 
 of attention. For a while their voices hummed 
 dimly in his ears, and then he floated out upon 
 the broad and placid river of sleep. But after 
 a time the waves grew troubled. He thought he 
 heard the muffled roar of distant thunder. What 
 was it"? Where was he"? Ah! it was Cecily and 
 Mr. Overholt. They were talking, to be sure, 
 about Mrs. Crumpet? No! What was the min- 
 ister saying in those tones'? His wife was stand- 
 ing, tall and stately, with eyes flashing like the 
 diamonds on her slender fingers. It was the last 
 time her husband ever looked at her.
 
 MRS. BRAND 181 
 
 " How dare you ! " For a moment her pas- 
 sionate breath choked her utterance. Then she 
 went on, her anger battling with the need of cau- 
 tion, but not a word was lost to the listener. At 
 last she threw open the door behind her and went 
 out. 
 
 Mr. Overholt sprang up to follow her, and Mr. 
 Brand was left alone. He struggled to his feet, 
 but they wavered beneath him, and he fell help- 
 lessly back in his chair. Then he tried to call 
 aloud, but his voice broke in an unintelligible 
 groan. His soul cried out in agony for help, but 
 none came. He heard Chrys patter through the 
 hall, saying in his high, sweet voice, " But can't I 
 say good-bye to Aunt Cecily? " Then presently 
 the clang of the outer door, and all was still. 
 
 After all, until now, life had dealt out lenient 
 lessons to the old man. This one, coming late, 
 was too hard.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ANOTHER hot summer had scorched its way across 
 the Western prairies to the edge of the great lake, 
 leaving behind it a trail of golden days, the after- 
 glow of its fierce illumination. Children had sick- 
 ened and died in the city's tenements for lack of 
 fitting food and fresh air, and men and women 
 had cursed the God who had forced upon them 
 life without the chance to sustain it. 
 
 But over the face of Moon Street there was 
 stealing a change imperceptible perhaps to 
 indifferent eyes, but clear enough to those who 
 were concerned in it. John Brand had been dead 
 nine months, but he had insured his memory in the 
 hearts of its wretched inhabitants at compound 
 interest. Each year would double and treble their 
 obligation to him, and in their hitherto man- 
 forsaken, God-bereft lives, a few of them began 
 to realize something of this new fact. Half way 
 down Moon Street, in the heart of its filth and 
 
 182
 
 MRS. BRAND 183 
 
 degradation, there stood a square, old-fashioned 
 house which had gone through every phase of 
 humiliation. It caused a sensation even in Moon 
 Street, where sensations were not rare, when one 
 day an army of workmen took possession of this 
 place and began an astonishing process of remodel- 
 ing and renovation. Nobody ever remodeled any- 
 thing in Moon Street; they simply nailed on 
 or up or down another board. And in the matter 
 of fresh paint there was nothing newer than a 
 tradition. Finally it was discovered that the 
 house was being made ready for Dr. Challoner. 
 
 " An' phwat for would ye be givin' to live there, 
 doctor"? " inquired Mrs. Flynn, blankly, feeling 
 herself for once unequal to any strain upon her 
 natural gift as an orator. 
 
 " Why, for the sake of being near my friends," 
 replied Dr. Challoner, good-naturedly. 
 
 " Tis onraisonable av ye," she said, curtly, 
 turning on her heel on a mission of dissemination 
 of knowledge among the ignorant, and in dire 
 anxiety lest some hated rival should outstrip her. 
 But presently she came panting back again. 
 
 " Shure ye'll be for bringin' a woife wid ye 1 ? "
 
 184 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Dr. Challoner laughed. " Well, no, not just 
 yet, Mrs. Flynn." 
 
 That was several months ago. The house was 
 finished now, and Moon Street had inspected it 
 and, after revelling in the criticism of misunder- 
 stood details, had yet pronounced it good. But 
 what did it all mean, anyway"? That was exactly 
 the question which had baffled the understanding 
 of the owner, from whom Dr. Challoner had 
 finally succeeded in leasing the house for three 
 years. 
 
 "You ain't goin' to turn it into a hospital? " 
 he asked, suspiciously. " No, no, Bill," inter- 
 rupted the man with him. " He don't want to 
 make no money out of it. I've heard say there 
 was folks like that," he added by way of explana- 
 tion, which, however, created still greater ferment 
 in the liquor-dealing owner's mind, for he could 
 not comprehend a sane man's indulging in so 
 unremunerative a scheme of existence. 
 
 But after Dr. Challoner was duly installed in 
 the new abode, his actions were even less open to 
 interpretation than before. 
 
 " He has friends stayin' wid him now,"
 
 MRS. BRAND 185 
 
 announced Mrs. Flynn, excitedly. " A Mr. and 
 Mrs. McGarvey, if ye plaze, and a rale toidy body 
 she is, shure, and came around yisterday to invite 
 me to dhrink tay wid herself." 
 
 It had so happened that Mr. Brand's appeal to 
 Mr. McGarvey to become a trustee of that part of 
 his estate which was to be used in behalf of Moon 
 Street had come at a singularly propitious time. 
 Mr. McGarvey had begun his commercial life as 
 an engraver, and as the years went by his business 
 increased so steadily that at one time it absorbed 
 his energies to the exclusion of all outside inter- 
 ests. But for some years past an insidious change 
 had been creeping over the face of his affairs. New 
 inventions, processes unheard of one day and full- 
 fledged for active competition the next, were head- 
 ing a silent revolution in the old-fashioned arts 
 of the engraver, and Mr. McGarvey, cautious and 
 conservative, awoke to a tardy perception of the 
 fact that his business was slipping away from him. 
 He was a man of considerable means, and as his 
 business required but little capital he had been 
 free to invest his profits outside of it, so that there 
 were no financial anxieties confronting him. But
 
 186 MRS. BRAND 
 
 his industrious soul was galled at the prospect of 
 inactivity. Just then it was that Mr. Brand 
 stepped into his narrowing life with a new interest. 
 He seized upon it eagerly, not realizing at first by 
 any means that in seeking the solution of other 
 people's problems, which they had found too hard, 
 he was to gain the answer to his own. But in 
 a few short months he had shaken himself free 
 from the remaining fetters of his business, and was 
 prepared to devote himself body and soul to the 
 interests of Moon Street. For all his queer, slow 
 ways, Dr. Challoner found him infinitely easier 
 to manage than Mr. Boyington, whose restless 
 spirit acted rather irritatingly at times upon the 
 temper of his colleagues. But as Mr. Brand had 
 foreseen, Mr. McGarvey was invaluable in the 
 manipulation of Mr. Boyington, who felt for 
 the Scotchman an awe that he had never known 
 for any other mortal. 
 
 When the improvements in Brand House were 
 completed, and Dr. Challoner was about to install 
 himself in it, Mrs. McGarvey perceived a can- 
 tankerousness in her husband which time had 
 taught her to consider portentous.
 
 MRS. BRAND 187 
 
 " Either Sandy McGarvey is going to be sick 
 or he has got a scheme," she said to herself, and 
 set about discovering which it was. It did not 
 take her long. 
 
 " What is it you're wanting, Sandy McGar- 
 vey ? " she asked him some days later. " You're 
 better to tell me right away, because I know," 
 she added, suggestively. 
 
 Mr. McGarvey looked at her and wisely con- 
 cluded that the time was ripe to make her 
 acquainted with his heart's desire. 
 
 " Could you do it, Beth?" 
 
 " Was there ever anything you wanted that I 
 couldn't do, Sandy McGarvey *? " 
 
 And so it was settled. " For the only way 
 really to know anything about it is to jump right 
 into it as Dr. Challoner has done," said Mr. 
 McGarvey. So they were to go and stay a while 
 with him without exhausting their energy in 
 indefinite plans for a future that might be relied 
 upon to define itself clearly enough when the 
 time came. Mrs. McGarvey was a good, motherly 
 woman whose heart still ached for her children, 
 who had been laid away one after another out of
 
 188 MRS. BRAND 
 
 her sight, and her imagination warmed to the idea 
 of spending its abundant tenderness upon some of 
 the little ones who came unwanted and unwel- 
 comed into the teeming tenements. 
 
 Dr. Challoner and Mrs. McGarvey were friends 
 at first sight. It was perhaps her ardent liking for 
 " the lad " that influenced her to so easy a deci- 
 sion in regard to Moon Street. And as time went 
 on he felt himself under endless obligation to her 
 for the exercise of her administrative qualities on 
 his behalf. She untied many a knot that he would 
 have found puzzling, and assumed promptly the 
 solution of the unusual domestic problems which 
 such a venture entailed. For the first time in his 
 life he began to cherish vague dreams of an ideal 
 home, and to be stirred by thoughts which his 
 familiarity with his uncle's domestic life had 
 never suggested to him. 
 
 The utmost simplicity of style and purpose 
 characterized the plans of the trustees at present, 
 for under the terms of Mr. Brand's will there was 
 to be no attempt at a final disposition of the fund 
 that he had left at their disposal until three years 
 after his death, in order, as Mr. Boyington said
 
 MRS. BRAND 189 
 
 with a groan, that their ideas might become " clar- 
 ified and classified." Dr. Challoner found him- 
 self at last free to sever his intermittent connec- 
 tion with his feeble practice in Glenedge, and to 
 devote himself unreservedly to the work which 
 had lain upon his conscience so long. 
 
 " The lad's got something on his mind, I'll be 
 bound," said Mrs. McGarvey to herself one 
 evening, as Dr. Challoner came into their sitting- 
 room and threw himself into a chair with a sigh. 
 She watched him furtively for a long time. 
 
 " How's Mary Gard? " she asked, at last. 
 
 " Oh, she's all right," he replied, indifferently. 
 " Those Healy children have got scarlet fever, 
 though." 
 
 " Now, that's too bad," exclaimed Mrs. Mc- 
 Garvey, mournfully. " That poor, little woman 
 seems to be plunged from one thing into another 
 all the time." 
 
 Dr. Challoner said nothing further, and Mrs. 
 McGarvey sewed on in silence on the little dress 
 she was making. But she still had a question in 
 reserve. 
 
 " Has Mrs. Brand arrived*? " she inquired sud-
 
 190 MRS. BRAND 
 
 denly with an air which she was at liberty to 
 consider innocent. Dr. Challoner rose and shook 
 himself preparatory to going out again. 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! She got home on Monday." 
 
 " Is she looking well? " Mrs. McGarvey had 
 no interest whatever in Mrs. Brand's appearance, 
 but it was necessary to furnish some decent 
 drapery for her curiosity as to whether Dr. Chal- 
 loner had seen her yet. 
 
 " Yes, she is looking very well very well, 
 indeed, I should say. I am going out to see her 
 now." 
 
 As he rang the door-bell that evening at Mrs. 
 Brand's, Mr. Overholt came out. There was the 
 swift interchange of a glance that would hardly 
 have borne an affable interpretation, followed by 
 brief, conventional greetings, and the two men 
 passed on. 
 
 " There will come a time, my good Medicus," 
 thought Mr. Overholt, with a prolonged emphasis 
 on the final syllable that seemed to afford him 
 relief, " when you won't march in there with the 
 assurance which you seem to think your birth- 
 right."
 
 MRS. BRAND 191 
 
 Dr. Challoner found Mrs. Brand in the old, 
 familiar sitting-room in which he had not been for 
 so many months not since her sudden depar- 
 ture for Europe with Dr. and Mrs. Bradbury 
 immediately after her husband's death. She was 
 sitting before the fire, for the October evenings 
 were chill, in a little, low chair, with some pretty 
 work idling in her hands. She had always affected 
 to despise a needle, but after all it was an admir- 
 able weapon for a woman. 
 
 She rose impulsively to meet him, holding out 
 both her hands in greeting. Had he been dis- 
 posed to criticism, it might have occurred to him 
 that her effusiveness was to cover some undertow 
 of feeling, but criticism implies a place on the 
 grand stand, and he was in the ring himself just 
 now. After the first rapid interchange of ques- 
 tion and reply a silence fell between them, which 
 each one waited for the other to break. 
 
 " Tell me about your house," said Mrs. Brand, 
 as if suddenly remembering Moon Street. 
 
 " There really isn't much to tell. You must 
 come and see it. Would you*? " He looked at 
 her curiously.
 
 192 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Would I? Why, of course I would. Wasn't 
 I always interested in your work? " she said, with 
 an emphasis which did not escape him. 
 
 " You always seemed to be." 
 
 Mrs. Brand dropped her work, and drew her 
 chair nearer his. 
 
 "What's the matter with you, Bruin? What 
 have I done to have my good, little deeds dis- 
 cussed and dismissed in this cavalier fashion? " 
 She laid her hand insistently on his arm. " Some- 
 thing's happened to you. You don't even look as 
 you used to. But what have I done? " 
 
 He gazed steadily at the fire for a moment, and 
 said nothing. Then he faced her deliberately, and 
 she felt an indefinable pang at his expression. 
 How often she had laughed and dubbed him 
 " shy," with a dozen careless implications in the 
 term. But a shy person is hardly ever a coward, 
 and, without knowing why, she quailed before the 
 purpose in his face. 
 
 " What have you done? " he repeated, with 
 accent at which she instinctively bridled. Then 
 he paused, but he held her with his look. " It's
 
 MRS. BRAND 193 
 
 no business of mine. And yet for nine months it 
 has never been out of my head." 
 
 " What do you mean 1 ? " she demanded, sharply. 
 " Certainly, if there is any other aggrieved party 
 to this affair I might as well know it. But I fail 
 to see whom it can be. It would seem that I have 
 sufficient grounds for supposing that every har- 
 rowing expedient had been exhausted in disposing 
 of me. I think that expresses it mildly." 
 
 "I do not think you can feel more bitterly 
 about it than I do," said Dr. Challoner, " but I 
 know that Uncle Brand acted only for what he 
 believed then to be your best interests." 
 
 Mrs. Brand made a gesture of contempt. 
 " Why do you say ' then * ? " she asked. " Do 
 you think he has changed his mind since"? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Perhaps you would be good enough to 
 explain." 
 
 " I mean to." 
 
 He rose, pushing his chair back impatiently, 
 and walked two or three times up and down the 
 room, his hands behind his back. As Mrs. Brand 
 watched him there came to her a sharper realiza-
 
 194 MRS. BRAND 
 
 tion of the change in him than she had yet experi- 
 enced. He was older not with the age that 
 comes with blight, but with that of ripened youth 
 and vigor. In these few, short months there had 
 come to him some potent revelation of himself of 
 which she was aware in the altered bearing 
 towards herself which she felt in him. She per- 
 ceived this change with a curious mingling of 
 resentment and respect. But she had no time for 
 further speculation, for he sat down again, facing 
 her, and began to speak with a directness for 
 which no forewarning could have adequately fore- 
 armed her. 
 
 " I could not beat about the bush in any matter, 
 much less in this. When Uncle John made his 
 will I knew just as much about it as you did. I 
 knew nothing whatever about his plans with ref- 
 erence to yourself. But the night of his death, 
 when I came in here and found him alone in that 
 terrible condition, he summoned all the strength 
 and the will power he could force to his aid to tell 
 me that he had made a terrible mistake. He clung 
 to me in agony I can never forget it and 
 from his broken words I gathered some idea of
 
 MRS. BRAND 195 
 
 what he had heard." Dr. Challoner paused a 
 moment. It was harder than he had even sup- 
 posed. Mrs. Brand sat quite still, except for her 
 hands, which he saw trembling against her black 
 dress. He wished that he had not noticed them. 
 
 " He had overheard some conversation between 
 
 yourself and Mr. Overholt, " the name 
 
 passed his lips as if it burned them " doubtless 
 you remember it. I could not understand what 
 he meant then, but of course I did when I heard 
 the will. Had he lived, his first act would have 
 been to change it." 
 
 Mrs. Brand sat leaning slightly forward, as she 
 had been when he began to speak, and the poise, 
 so light and alert, seemed as if it were caught and 
 held in the meshes of a fate against which it 
 would be useless to struggle. Her eyes had lifted 
 their look to a picture above the doctor's head. 
 Why, yes, they had bought that picture in 
 Munich, she and her husband, two or three years 
 after their marriage. She had admired it greatly, 
 but had hesitated to make it part of her fixed 
 environment. Yet the fascination of it had 
 drawn her to the artist's studio again and again,
 
 196 MRS. BRAND 
 
 and he had at last parted with it, though seem- 
 ingly against his wish. " You are beautiful and 
 blessed, madame," he had said, in his strange way. 
 " Perhaps you will some day understand my pic- 
 ture, perhaps never. I do not know which is 
 best." 
 
 To-night she understood. She looked only at 
 the picture, and Dr. Challoner, impatiently wait- 
 ing for some word, grew bitter as he watched her. 
 
 Suddenly her face was wet. She put up her 
 hand to her eyes in bewilderment. A sob rose 
 in her throat. 
 
 An instant remorse seized Dr. Challoner. He 
 had counted on anger, affronted dignity rising 
 imperiously to defend itself. With that he was 
 ready to grapple, but before this silent misery he 
 was weak. " Cecily, what is it*? What can I 
 do? I had to tell you these things." 
 
 " I know," she whispered. " But you you 
 have been cruel you have thought cruel things 
 of me." 
 
 " For God's sake, what am I to think? " he 
 asked, wildly. 
 
 The tears came again, but she pressed them
 
 MRS. BRAND 197 
 
 back. She had no time for that now. An extreme 
 urgency was upon her to tell him everything. 
 There was much that he already knew, but she 
 began far back in her solitary childhood, and the 
 details with which he was already familiar took on 
 a tragic portent to him now. He shrank from her 
 love story, but she went through it unflinchingly, 
 sparing neither herself nor her lover. " Since then 
 I have often felt that if I had been less absorbed 
 in it than I was, of course I should have seen that 
 my intensity galled him that he was weary of 
 it," she said, simply. She dealt with her marriage 
 with the same ruthless candor. " Certainly I 
 meant to tell Mr. Brand of my broken engage- 
 ment, but when I began once he laughed, and 
 said boys and girls were often sentimental, and 
 that a woman who was going to be his wife 
 needn't dwell on memories of that sort. I really 
 don't think he would have cared at all then. He 
 would have taken it as a matter of course that I 
 might have fancied some one else until I had an 
 opportunity of marrying him." 
 
 At another time Dr. Challoner might have
 
 198 MRS. BRAND 
 
 smiled at the pathetic irony of her remark. It 
 seemed too pitifully true for that now. 
 
 " That is all," she said, at last. " I dare say 
 you will wonder, though you will not ask me, 
 what my attitude is towards Mr. Overholt now. 
 At present I have none." The color had come 
 back to her face, and she lifted her chin with the 
 proud gesture Dr. Challoner knew so well in her. 
 
 " You are mistaken in supposing I have nothing 
 to say about that man," he began, deliberately. 
 " You have spoken of my thinking cruel things of 
 you. That conversation which Uncle John over- 
 heard have you nothing to say in explanation 
 of that?" 
 
 "Nothing whatever!" she exclaimed, stung 
 into sudden humiliation and defiance by his un- 
 consciously judicial manner. 
 
 They sat in silence for some minutes. Then 
 she turned on him, the smoldering wrath of 
 months bursting into fierce flame. " How dared 
 he," she began, her breath coming in short gasps 
 of anger, " how dared he presume to dispose of me, 
 as if I could be bought or sold at his good pleas- 
 ure ! " For by the terms of Mr. Brand's will
 
 MRS. BRAND 199 
 
 she was to inherit an absolutely clear five hundred 
 thousand dollars if she married within a year and 
 a half of his death. If she did not, she was to 
 receive merely three thousand dollars a year from 
 the trustees of the estate. 
 
 " What is the use of dwelling on it? " said Dr. 
 Challoner, bitterly. " Like many other wise men, 
 Uncle John made a fool of himself when it came 
 to making his will. No such will would stand in 
 any court of law. There is no reason why you 
 should not break it." 
 
 "I! Break it! Oh, no," she said, proudly. 
 " I will never drag my affairs through a court." 
 
 " After all, however outrageous as it seems, he 
 only made that will for the sake of securing your 
 happiness. He had a great opinion of Mr. Over- 
 holt at that time. But we are talking to no 
 purpose, Cecily. You are face to face with your 
 future. You say, as you said at first, that you 
 will never break the will. There is something else 
 I hope you will say with equal decision." He 
 looked at her squarely, unflinchingly. The color 
 rose in her face, flooding it with crimson tumult.
 
 200 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " If you do not, you will make shipwreck of your 
 life." 
 
 She went over and knelt down in front of the 
 fire, holding out her cold hands to the blaze. 
 There was a forlornness in her attitude, and a 
 pathos in her severely black dress, with its white 
 bands and collar, that seemed painfully illus- 
 trative of her bereft condition. Dr. Challoner 
 had never realized before how alone she was in 
 the world. Yet he thought he understood the 
 defiance with which she had assumed the flaming 
 bunch of geraniums at her belt. " Poor child ! " 
 he said, softly. She turned swiftly towards him, 
 her eyes bright with unshed tears. 
 
 " Oh, Arthur, you don't know how hard it is. 
 You don't know anything about it. After 
 all, one is but an atom in the path of Fate." 
 
 " Oh, no, no! " He spoke with vehemence, his 
 voice hardening resistently as the image of Mr. 
 Overholt rose before his mind. " That is a fatal 
 way of thinking. You must never fall into it." 
 How difficult it was to talk to her! He must 
 get away and think it all over these revelations 
 that the evening had brought to him were bewil-
 
 MRS. BRAND 201 
 
 dering, and he was desperately afraid of being 
 betrayed into undue speech. Reluctantly he 
 looked at his watch. 
 
 " Ten o'clock. I must be off, for I have some 
 children I promised to see to-night." 
 
 "When will you come again? You don't 
 know how lonely it is," she said, wistfully. 
 
 " Soon, Cecily. But you must come and see 
 us often. You would like Mrs. McGarvey." 
 
 The tears were in her eyes again. Was it that 
 the " us " grated on her proscriptively*? Dr. Chal- 
 loner felt troubled.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 " MRS. BRAND will come to lunch with us to- 
 morrow," said Dr. Challoner one day to Mrs. 
 McGarvey. 
 
 "There, now! Didn't I tell you that all she 
 wanted was the asking, and if she comes once 
 she'll come again without that." 
 
 " Why? " 
 
 " Because it's like a spell the tenements, I 
 mean. I don't believe that any thoughtful man 
 or woman who ever went through this district 
 could ever live again in indifference to it. I don't 
 mean to say that every one who comes to see 
 Moon Street ought to stay and live here, though 
 I sometimes think I shall have to. But life can 
 never be the same again after all this misery has 
 photographed itself on any one's conscience. 
 There, now! Isn't that quite an oration*? But 
 it's just what I think." 
 
 This announcement of Mrs. Brand's approach- 
 202
 
 MRS. BRAND 203 
 
 ing visit threw Mrs. McGarvey into quite a flut- 
 ter. She had, of course, heard Mr. Brand's will 
 in relation to his wife discussed a great many 
 times, but she had never seen Mrs. Brand. With 
 the rest of the world she had plausibly concluded- 
 that Dr. Challoner was the man whom Mr. Brand 
 designed to benefit under the conditions of his 
 will, and, naturally enough, the longer she knew 
 him, and the more attached she became to him, the 
 greater was her curiosity as to what manner of 
 woman it might be who provoked sane men to the 
 doing of things inexplicable. 
 
 " Now, my dear," said Mr. McGarvey a little 
 pettishly, when his wife, in his opinion unduly 
 excited by the prospective visit, began to discuss 
 the matter anew in all its bearings, " I've told you 
 before that the person who has most cause to 
 complain in this affair is Mrs. Brand herself." 
 He had wound himself up and down so many 
 times in contemplation of the matter that he was 
 really growing weary of the exercise in that par- 
 ticular connection. 
 
 " Yes, of course, that would be so if she was a 
 nice woman," said Mrs. McGarvey, with the
 
 204 MRS. BRAND 
 
 vigor of conviction, " but Mrs. Boyington says 
 she is so proud and self-contained that you daren't 
 even refer to her affairs." 
 
 " Seems to me that's the best thing I've heard 
 about her yet," remarked Mr. McGarvey, stolidly. 
 
 This ineffective-looking Scotchman had applied 
 himself to a practical comprehension of the polit- 
 ical details in his ward with an undemonstrative 
 pertinacity which boded no peace to the settled 
 order of things when he should once have sifted 
 and assorted the data he was so patiently collect- 
 ing. So the next day it happened that he was 
 absent following a trail " which led to Hell," as 
 he himself expressed it. When he returned in the 
 evening he saw at once that his wife was in a state 
 of mental inflation that demanded relief. 
 
 " Well, did she come? " he asked, to afford a 
 safety valve. He was very tired, and could have 
 enjoyed a quiet half -hour with his pipe just then, 
 but in his thirty years of marital apprenticement 
 he had acquired a diplomatic scent which he was 
 occasionally betrayed into using. 
 
 " Come ! " exclaimed his wife, explosively. " I 
 should say she did, and Sandy McGarvey, don't
 
 MRS. BRAND 205 
 
 you ever again let a soul say a word to you about 
 her." 
 
 This was rather sweepingly prohibitive, and 
 Mr. McGarvey laid down the evening paper 
 which he had picked up for furtive perusal, with 
 a sigh of renunciation. What was coming now? 
 
 "Proud! Why, she hadn't been here five 
 minutes before she sat down to help me with these 
 shirts I'm making for the Schmolze boys. Though 
 I don't think she knows much about gussets, I 
 must say." There was a sub-vocal effect about 
 this remark which Mr. McGarvey wisely con- 
 cluded to denote something unfit for his ears. 
 " And we had just the nicest talk. She wanted 
 to know all I could tell her about the people in 
 the tenements, and sometimes the tears were in 
 her eyes, and sometimes they were in mine. And 
 to think of me worrying all this time because I 
 thought he was going to marry her and couldn't 
 love her. Love her! Why, he doesn't know 
 whether he's in the body or out of it when he's 
 near her. He just floats straight off to Paradise." 
 
 " How do you know that? " inquired her hus- 
 band, an obnoxious taint of scepticism in his tone.
 
 206 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " How do I know when the fire burns? Or 
 when the sun shines? " retorted his wife, with fine 
 scorn. " How did I know when you fell in love 
 with me yourself, Sandy McGarvey." 
 
 " Because I told you so," said he, stoutly. 
 
 " Not a bit of it. You don't suppose it took 
 me all that time to find out what was the matter 
 with you? " 
 
 " Then, of course, Mrs. Brand understands the 
 situation perfectly? " he asked, not without 
 malice aforethought. 
 
 " Ah, now, there it is ! " exclaimed his wife, in 
 a tone of despair. " For, would you believe it, 
 I don't think she has the least idea of such a thing. 
 The trouble is, she knows him too well to know 
 him differently." 
 
 " She's a very pretty woman," said Mr. Mc- 
 Garvey, rashly and irrelevantly. 
 
 " Pretty ! There isn't a pretty thing about 
 her." Mrs. McGarvey's face expressed genuine 
 surprise at this. " She's just like a queen mas- 
 querading round without her crown on. No, she 
 isn't pretty, but a pretty woman would stand no 
 chance beside her. When she's happy she's beau- 
 tiful."
 
 MRS. BRAND 207 
 
 " Isn't she happy, then? " 
 
 " No, she's miserable," said Mrs. McGarvey, 
 with decision. " And how could she be anything 
 else with such an insulting will as that hanging 
 over her head. When she said good-bye to me 
 she kissed me " 
 
 " I don't wonder at that," interposed Mr. 
 McGarvey, unguardedly, whereupon his wife 
 threw him a withering glance " Just like a 
 child, and said she would come again soon. She 
 hadn't had such a happy day for years." 
 
 " Did she go through the tenements? " 
 
 " Yes, but I didn't see her again after that. 
 Dr. Challoner took her around himself. I hap- 
 pened to tell her about Trixy Gaynor, and it 
 stirred her all up. I don't believe she's ever come 
 in contact with real, aching misery, and I thought 
 it would give her something to think about." 
 
 " 'Tisn't any good to expect to influence people 
 by spelling misery at them with ever so big an M. 
 You want to bring them into direct contact with 
 somebody whose life is ruined by the big M, 
 Personalization versus Generalization," said Mr. 
 McGarvey, philosophically, and as he hoped con- 
 clusively.
 
 208 MRS. BRAND 
 
 While they were thus discussing her, Mrs. 
 Brand was sitting quietly at home before her 
 cheerful fire. She was very tired. She had 
 climbed more stairs that day than she had done 
 since she was a weary little item in the schools 
 which are the nation's pride. But it was not the 
 remembrance of the stairs that oppressed her now. 
 From time to time she scanned her pretty room 
 and its exquisite appointments with a scrutiny 
 which found no satisfaction in its perfect harmony 
 of color and design. For her mind was busy 
 setting it in sharp contrast to that other room, 
 whose furnishings it required no effort of memory 
 to recall. Think of a girl, young and still pretty, 
 lying there day after day alone, facing in despera- 
 tion the insidious approach of that which she 
 dreaded most! But what joys had life brought 
 her that she should still crave it? Think of it 
 to be but twenty, and to have swept the tragic 
 gamut of human sin and suffering! To be but 
 twenty, and to curse God for having made man in 
 his own image! 
 
 " Would you mind waiting here just a 
 moment? " Dr. Challoner had said, pausing
 
 MRS. BRAND 209 
 
 before a certain door, after he had conducted her 
 hither and thither, chiefly in explanation of the 
 various plans which the trustees had under con- 
 sideration. " I must run in for a moment to see 
 a sick girl." 
 
 " Let me go in with you," said Mrs. Brand, 
 quickly. She divined that this was Trixy Gay- 
 nor's room. 
 
 Dr. Challoner hesitated. " I don't know," he 
 said, doubtfully. " She is very proud, and would 
 resent any intrusion of her privacy as much as 
 you would yourself." 
 
 " I know. But do let me go in. It's Trixy 
 Gaynor, and I want to see her. Don't stand argu- 
 ing ! " She gave him a little push, to which he 
 weakly yielded, and they went in. 
 
 " Well, Trixy," he said, cheerfully, as he went 
 over to the bed. " How goes it to-day"? Mrs. 
 Brand and I were passing, and I brought her in 
 with me, for I shan't be coming this way again 
 to-day." 
 
 But Trixy answered nothing. She lay, propped 
 up as well as might be by two small, hard pil- 
 lows, on her still harder bed. Her lips were
 
 210 MRS. BRAND 
 
 tightly drawn in an unlovely line, and her eyes 
 flashed angry defiance at Mrs. Brand. For Trixy 
 hated a " lady," and Mrs. Brand's bearing was 
 a fatal witness against her. She knew them, with 
 their pharisaical ways and pious drivelings! But 
 she had settled the last one who had come to pray 
 at her, and she had not lost her grip on the method 
 yet. 
 
 Mrs. Brand sat down upon a rickety chair 
 beside the dull window, and looked out upon the 
 dirty street where dirty children monotonously 
 screamed themselves hoarse for lack of anything 
 else to do. She had assimilated Trixy's attitude 
 toward her in an instant, and knew that, however 
 great her interest might be in the girl, there was 
 no opportunity at present of manifesting it. She 
 must obliterate herself as much as possible while 
 Dr. Challoner rearranged the medicines, and gave 
 his directions about them. 
 
 But all at once she jumped excitedly from her 
 seat. " Oh, look, look ! He will pound that little 
 fellow to death. Run down, quick ! " 
 
 Dr. Challoner calmly crossed over to the win- 
 dow, but after looking down a moment he ran
 
 MRS. BRAND 211 
 
 out, and they heard his footsteps clattering rapidly 
 over the uneven stairs. 
 
 " There ! He has got him. Shake him hard ! 
 The great, mean coward ! You poor little bit of 
 a boy!" 
 
 Trixy watched Mrs. Brand curiously, the hard 
 lines around her mouth softening a little. 
 
 " Now, I hope you're satisfied," said Dr. Chal- 
 loner, tolerantly, as he came breathless into the 
 room again. " I banged the big fellow nicely, and 
 sent the little chap home to his mother, and he's 
 got a good one, so you needn't lie awake to-night 
 thinking about it. Now, Trixy," he went on, 
 turning his attention to his patient again, " have 
 you been taking this medicine regularly? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, that is, as well as I could." What 
 a pretty voice it was ! 
 
 " As well as you could ! I wonder how well 
 that was with a clock that's stopped. What's the 
 matter with it*? When did it stop? " He wound 
 it, and shook it, and dosed it with epithets, but 
 all to no purpose, for it remained unmoved by all 
 his appeals. 
 
 " It stopped last night. Emmy said she was 
 afraid it wouldn't be worth repairing."
 
 212 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Whew ! This will never do. You must have 
 your medicine regularly." He looked about him 
 in perplexity, as if to evoke timepieces from the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 " Here, take my watch," said Mrs. Brand. 
 " Trixy can keep it till I come again. Do, 
 please ! " She held it out with a smile, and 
 Trixy, wondering, uncertain, caught the flash of 
 diamonds. " Why, it's dreadful to think of your 
 taking your medicine, hit or miss, in that way. 
 See, I will wind it for you, and then you will 
 know all about it." 
 
 Trixy said nothing, but suddenly she stretched 
 her hand out with the artless gesture of a child 
 eager for some new toy. Just think of it, to have 
 that lovely, gleaming thing beside her all through 
 the long, long day when Emmy was at work, and 
 the silent hours seemed endless, and she grew to 
 hate the white walls that shut her in with her 
 lonely thoughts. 
 
 " What time does Emmy get home, Trixy? " 
 asked Mrs. Brand, with a natural assumption of 
 intimacy that made Dr. Challoner check an 
 amused smile.
 
 MRS. BRAND 213 
 
 " About half-past seven, ma'am." 
 
 " Dear me ! That's a long time ! " said Mrs. 
 Brand, softly. " What do you do when it gets 
 dark? " 
 
 " Just wait, ma'am." 
 
 " What would you do 4 ? " asked Dr. Challoner, 
 looking at Mrs. Brand. 
 
 She hesitated a moment. Then she said, 
 
 vehemently, " What should I do? Just get 
 
 wild!" 
 
 Trixy laughed, quaveringly perhaps, but 
 nevertheless in real echo of the happy laughter 
 which had once rippled so readily from her young 
 throat. This kind of sympathy was new and 
 sweet to her. She understood it better than 
 prayers. But looking up at Mrs. Brand, she saw 
 that her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 Trixy never looked at the diamonds around the 
 watch again without thinking of that. This was 
 the experience insistently rehearsing itself to Mrs. 
 Brand as she sat alone that evening, surrounded 
 by every luxurious trick of wealth. What were 
 her own troubles in comparison with that girl's 
 misery? Trixy's face and manner haunted her;
 
 214 MRS. BRAND 
 
 perhaps she was dimly conscious of a nature there 
 akin to her own. What could one do for the girl *? 
 She sat a long time thinking. It was not as simple 
 as it seemed when she stood beside the bed with 
 the proffered watch in her hand. For not all the 
 treasures of time could buy back for Trixy the 
 heart of childhood, or wipe away from her life 
 the stain of sin. Wealth it was an impotent 
 thing. 
 
 Mrs. Brand leaned back in her chair and shiv- 
 ered just as she had shivered in the church a 
 year before. It was for wealth, that cruel trav- 
 esty of human weal, that she was giving herself 
 up to be driven on to the rocks of a future in 
 which she had no faith. Generally she managed 
 to elude a crisis with her conscience, but to-night 
 it held her in its clutch, and she shrunk affrighted 
 from its stern arraignment of her weaknesses. 
 
 Why had she come home at all*? He would 
 have sought her out anyway ; she knew that. But 
 that was not it. She had come because the 
 temptation to dare her fate was irresistible. 
 What was the secret of his fascination for her*? 
 Must she seek it in herself?
 
 MRS. BRAND 215 
 
 The image of her husband rose before her, set- 
 ting her veins aflame with indignation. For 
 months after she had first heard his will read she 
 had resolutely closed her mind to any contempla- 
 tion of it. But that attitude was necessarily a 
 temporary one, and when she once began to con- 
 template, she amply atoned for her delay. 
 
 " Why don't you come to church*? " Mr. Over- 
 holt inquired, when calling on her one afternoon, 
 some weeks after she had first seen Trixy. It hap- 
 pened that Chrys was staying with her, and, weary 
 from hours of active play, he had fallen asleep 
 in her lap. She had tried to keep him awake, 
 for in his unending interrogatory fusillade there 
 was safety for her. 
 
 " Why should I 4 ? " she answered, indifferently. 
 " I don't care anything about the Church of the 
 Pilgrims." 
 
 " Nor about its minister"? " he asked in cool, 
 even tones, a smile in the dark, blue eyes auda- 
 ciously bent upon her. 
 
 "Why should I?" she asked. 
 
 " Then you admit that the question is open to 
 argument 1 ? "
 
 216 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " No. I don't admit anything." 
 
 " I think you are wise," he retorted, with a care- 
 less, little laugh. " That is always the safer plea 
 in any case, innocent or guilty." 
 
 " Innocent or guilty 1 ? " she repeated, spurred 
 into argument against her better judgment. 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " Wait a moment. That child is too heavy for 
 you. Let me slip a cushion under your arm, if 
 you won't let me lay him down.on the divan." 
 
 " No, you may put him down." Perhaps the 
 child would kindly awaken under the transfer, 
 and so save her from the situation into which her 
 rashness had betrayed her. 
 
 " Just as you wish," said Mr. Overholt, so 
 gently that she instantly felt that her remark had 
 been misinterpreted. 
 
 But Chrys did not awaken. He relinquished 
 his fat little body to the easier position with a 
 deep sigh of satisfaction, and his father sat down 
 opposite Mrs. Brand. He was acutely conscious 
 of the difficulties of his position. 
 
 But the strain was becoming prolonged. Under 
 the stress of it his sermons were losing some of
 
 MRS. BRAND 217 
 
 their savor. The easy confidence with which he 
 had addressed himself to his task when Mrs. 
 Brand first returned home was deserting him. 
 There were pernicious influences at work about 
 her. Dr. Challoner was quite as anxious as he 
 was himself to appropriate the " unearned incre- 
 ment " which his uncle had so manifestly 
 intended for him, conditioned as it was on the 
 acceptance of a wife worthy to be courted for her- 
 self alone. It irritated him to think that the old 
 man's object in making so dense a will became 
 no clearer to him with the lapse of time, and Mrs. 
 Brand had never yielded him so much as a hint in 
 regard to the matter. Her recent astonishing dis- 
 play of interest in Moon Street seemed to him in 
 very bad taste, for he was quite certain that she 
 cared no more for those abominable tenements 
 than he did himself. She was not the kind of 
 woman who fell a victim to enthusiasms. Per- 
 haps, after all, these things which worried him 
 most were but the final flings of power before 
 abdication. Of course she meant to marry him. 
 It was easy to define her attitude toward Chal-
 
 218 MRS. BRAND 
 
 loner. She might use the fellow as a cats-paw, 
 to be sure, but why shouldn't she? 
 
 In the meantime he chafed under the difficult 
 distance she had set for him since her widowhood. 
 Considering the various episodes between them 
 this seemed absurd. There was a sphere in which 
 a man, properly enough, contented himself with 
 ocular tastes of his passion, but the alluring charm 
 which Mrs. Brand possessed for him rendered this 
 pastime increasingly difficult. As he diagnosed 
 his case he felt a thrill of gratification at the 
 extent of her hold over him. It would be a novel 
 and exhilarating experience to be passionately in 
 love with his wife; he was feverishly eager to 
 enter upon it. He was weary of this prolonged 
 parrying of the point at issue with weapons which ' 
 had grown perilously fine by over-practice. 
 
 "Haven't you a cigar about you*?" inquired 
 Mrs. Brand, reasoning that if a man had a cigar 
 he was not likely to yearn altogether for some- 
 thing else. 
 
 " Yes, I have," replied Mr. Overholt, " but I 
 don't wish to smoke it." 
 
 By one of those nervous contradictions of inten-
 
 MRS. BRAND 219 
 
 tion which betray even the best regulated at times, 
 she looked at him squarely, and the gravity of 
 his direct gaze met her like an electric shock. 
 
 " Perhaps I should not have spoken as I did 
 just now," he began, quickly, " but really, I some- 
 times wonder just how clear your conscience is 
 in regard to me." 
 
 " My conscience ! " Why could she not 
 throttle that sneaking, little tremor in her throat? 
 
 " Yes, your conscience. Don't you understand 
 what I mean? " 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 " Well, to speak plainly " He hesitated, 
 
 for he had not the least idea what to fill in with 
 next, his prearranged ideas vulgarly deserting 
 
 him " tell me, is it nothing to you, this long, 
 
 patient struggle I am bearing for your sake with- 
 out a word? " 
 
 Mrs. Brand rose from her chair in undisguised 
 agitation, with an imperious intention to refuse the 
 subject her consideration. 
 
 " No, you must listen to me," said Mr. Over- 
 holt. "A man cannot go on indefinitely as I 
 have been doing, and you know that I have
 
 220 MRS. BRAND 
 
 refrained from any expression of my feelings 
 simply out of deference to what might be your 
 wishes. But do you think that I can keep from 
 making comparisons between what is and what 
 might be? Do you think that I can come here, 
 feeling towards you as I do, and see my child so 
 happy with you, loving you as he loves no one 
 else, and then go back to my home without any 
 bitter sense of contrast? Would you have any 
 regard for me if I could? " 
 
 Thus far he had spoken with an admirable air 
 of self -repression, but now his voice betrayed an 
 emotion which was, perhaps, the most genuine 
 sensation he had experienced for years. " But it 
 is not that no thought of my loneliness, or of 
 my child even, which forces me to speak to you 
 to-night. It is because I love you because you 
 are to me what no other woman ever has been, or 
 ever could be." He was beginning to revel in his 
 emotions now, just as he did when preaching, and 
 he was so accustomed to carrying his audience 
 with him that it was like a blow to him when Mrs. 
 Brand threw back her head and laughed. She 
 had dreaded this ordeal so much, but now that it
 
 MRS. BRAND 221 
 
 was actually presented to her she felt herself 
 easily mistress of the situation. 
 
 " How can I help laughing*? " she said to him, 
 with a charming air of confidence. " Really, you 
 must never make love to me. I couldn't possibly 
 take it seriously, you know." She laughed again. 
 
 Mr. Overholt bit his lip, and was silent. And 
 he kept silent so long that Mrs. Brand felt her- 
 self growing unexpectedly nervous. At last he 
 turned to her eagerly. " Have you a pen and 
 some paper at hand*? " he said. " One of those 
 sudden Heaven-sent inspirations for a sermon has 
 come to me. You wouldn't mind my writing it 
 out here, would you 1 ? " 
 
 " I should be charmed," she said, drily, as she 
 found him what he required. Then she sought 
 her own work, and vagrantly applied her needle 
 to its detriment in the quiet hour that followed. 
 She vainly hoped that some visitor or some 
 domestic would call her away, and so relieve her 
 humiliation. Mr. Overholt wrote rapidly, and 
 when he had covered several pages he asked 
 whether he might read them to her. Though she 
 was really too angry now to take kindly to
 
 222 MRS. BRAND 
 
 homiletics, he seemed serenely unaware of this, 
 and, in spite of herself, after several unheeded 
 sentences, she yielded to the spell of his special 
 gift. 
 
 "How will that do?" he asked. "It's the 
 close of my sermon for next Sunday morning. 
 You can't think how it has bothered me." 
 
 " It will do," she said, simply. " I heard Mr. 
 Boyington describe one of your sermons the other 
 day as a * cerebral ecstasy.' I am afraid you 
 will bankrupt his vocabulary this time." 
 
 Mr. Overholt laughed. " That's Boyington. 
 But he will always be equal to any emergency. 
 And now, to go on just where we left off just now, 
 if you remember." This matter-of-fact method of 
 resuming a crisis took her breath away. " There 
 are several things I must set straight for you. I 
 have no defence to offer for the youth of a past 
 decade. But am I always to be judged by the fol- 
 lies and mistakes of those times? Is there no such 
 thing as development 1 ? Have you nothing to 
 regret? Can you look back now and say, ' All 
 I ask is to be judged by what I was when I was 
 nineteen.' I do not ask you now to listen to the
 
 MRS. BRAND 223 
 
 boy who loved you then. But I do insist that you 
 shall be fair to the man who offers you that which 
 you may esteem lightly perhaps, but which is the 
 very best he has to give." 
 
 His dignity of speech and bearing sat well upon 
 him, and Mrs. Brand felt it would be ungenerous 
 not to acknowledge his claim. 
 
 " Those things are past and gone, and there 
 can be no gratification to either of us in raking up 
 dead issues." 
 
 " Of course not," he said, quickly. " But there 
 is something more I must say. I am quite sure I 
 should not feel as I do now, if you were just what 
 you used to be. I was afraid of you then ; I knew 
 that there was but little resemblance between me 
 as I really was, and the ideal you took me for. 
 That tormented me; I couldn't stand it. It drove 
 me to others in whose society there was no impos- 
 sible standard set for me. You were very exact- 
 ing in those days." 
 
 "Am I less so now?" 
 
 " Yes. You haven't studied human nature 
 these last ten years for nothing." 
 
 Was it all a dream? she wondered oddly, these
 
 224 MRS. BRAND 
 
 low, seductive tones, and the fair, handsome face 
 bending so near her own*? A strange apathy came 
 over her. Why struggle with doubt and diffi- 
 culty? Why not compromise with Fate? 
 
 The early winter evening began to gather them 
 into its shadows. The magic hour was upon 
 them; each was conscious of its spell. To Mr. 
 Overholt the dim proximity of the woman for 
 whom his fancy had turned to a mature passion 
 was rife with suggestion. An impulse arose in 
 him, only to be repelled and rise again. If he 
 could but take her in his arms, as he had done so 
 many times in the long ago, she would be con- 
 strained to yield as she had done before. 
 
 " Cecily," he murmured, bending tenderly 
 over her, his hand grasping for hers hidden in the 
 fold of her dress. " Cecily, can we not begin 
 again where we left off, and forget the stretch be- 
 tween? " But his lips so near her face filled her 
 with alarm. There was in her yet a fierce, un- 
 conquered maidenhood that shrank from his 
 approach. At that moment she felt again a weird 
 dread of him.
 
 MRS. BRAND 225 
 
 " No," she said, drawing back. " No; we can- 
 not begin there, nor anywhere else." 
 
 " Forgive me," he urged, repentantly. " I 
 ought to be a better master of myself." 
 
 He rose to go, and then crossed the room to 
 stand beside his child a moment. After a little 
 silence he said softly, " Come here." 
 
 " I won't," an answer that sounded absurdly 
 childish to Mrs. Brand as she uttered it, but what 
 else could she say? 
 
 " Please come here," he repeated, with gentle 
 insistence. 
 
 She crossed the room slowly and stood beside 
 him looking down upon the sleeping child, who 
 lay in the careless abandon of innocent sleep, 
 his hair tossed in golden aureole about his head, 
 one flushed cheek resting upon a pink little palm. 
 Never had he looked more bewitching. 
 
 Suddenly holding out his hand to her, Mr. 
 Overholt said with a quiver in his vibrant voice, 
 " Good night, Mrs. Brand. I leave my boy to 
 plead for me."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IN the calmer moments which succeeded his inter- 
 view with Mrs. Brand, Mr. Overholt was not 
 without great anxiety in regard to it. But of one 
 thing he had at least assured himself, that what- 
 ever Dr. Challoner's intentions might be, they 
 were not as yet an appreciable menace to his own 
 prospects. " The fellow's an unmitigated ass," 
 he thought, pleasantly, pausing in the preparation 
 of a sermon on " The Sacred Honeymoon " to 
 enjoy a little exegesis of a more personal nature 
 than that afforded by " The Song of Solomon." 
 " If he had been half smart, he might have raked 
 in the entire outfit by this time, as Boyington 
 would say." 
 
 But the anxiety he had felt concerning Dr. 
 Challoner was now transferred to Mrs. Brand 
 herself. He owned himself baffled by her obsti- 
 nacy, for she had everything to gain by marriage 
 with him.
 
 MRS. BRAND 227 
 
 He would have been gratified to know how 
 entirely Mrs. Brand shared his opinions. She 
 wondered why she had not promptly put a stop to 
 argument by accepting him. She was weary 
 of debating the matter round and round an unend- 
 ing circle. Certainly, she had no ambition to be 
 a minister's wife, but she was serenely conscious 
 of the fact that no church would be narrow- 
 minded enough to apply to her the standards of 
 piety they would consider binding if she were 
 poor. As to Mr. Overholt, himself well, she 
 knew his faults thoroughly. She would at least 
 be spared the inevitable discoveries contempo- 
 raneous with honeymoons. She was weary of her 
 great house and its silences, and Mr. Overholt had 
 builded better than he knew when he left her 
 alone that evening with Chrys. The child was 
 with her continually, partly at her own desire, 
 partly from his father's policy, and each time that 
 he returned home from one of these visits it 
 became harder for him to go, and harder for her 
 to part with him. Aside from the imperative 
 charm of his own, little personality, she felt her- 
 self under bonds to his dead mother for his hap-
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 piness. When he stayed with her now his little 
 white bed was drawn up close beside her own. 
 A few nights after her conversation with his father 
 he suddenly awoke, crying out in terror, " Aunt 
 Cecily, Aunt Cecily, where are you 1 ? " 
 
 " Here, darling, here," she answered tenderly, 
 reaching out her hand for him to grasp. 
 
 " I thought God had taken you away, too," he 
 sobbed out in his distress, and would not be com- 
 forted until he had crept into bed beside her, and, 
 nestling close, forgot his troubles in her arms. 
 Long after his little breast had ceased to heave 
 with his imaginary sorrows, and his breath came 
 and went again in even rhythm, she lay awake, 
 wrestling with the problem which his pathetic 
 dependence upon her was pressing home to her 
 heart. This child loved her unreservedly, and she 
 had more faith in his innocent affection than in 
 his father's lurid ardor. She felt a certain pride 
 in her perception of the fact that without her 
 encumbrances Mr. Overholt would probably have 
 had no desire to marry her, but she felt herself 
 equally clear-sighted in the belief that he would 
 be more devoted to her and her bank account than
 
 MRS. BRAND 229 
 
 he ever could be to any other woman. Thus she 
 was not without a calm calculation of her charms 
 for him, financial and physical, and this temperate 
 view of the case argued a maturity of judgment 
 and a mellowing of experience which to her own 
 view of herself seemed admirable. The marriage 
 relation was replete with jack-in-the-box effects 
 for the unwary, but she had been through all that. 
 She had a supreme contempt for the women who 
 constituted themselves moral thermometers for 
 males. One could afford for men a beneficent 
 toleration, for they were all alike, the best and the 
 worst of them, and, after all, not wholly unlike 
 their critics. As the wife of a prominent minister 
 she would achieve a position considerably in 
 advance of that which the possession of mere 
 wealth could bestow upon her. Her long years 
 of association with a man whose estimate of suc- 
 cess was naturally that of a money-maker had 
 deepened in her an inborn passion for place and 
 power, and she was acutely conscious of the bril- 
 liant possibilities to them both of her marriage 
 with Mr. Overholt. 
 
 Her thoughts wandered into a lighter vein. She
 
 230 MRS. BRAND 
 
 remembered with a smile certain defects of his 
 delivery and theatricalities of style which had 
 offended her. With what discretion she would 
 apply herself to their eradication ! Of course, his 
 poor, little wife had been no help to him in these 
 respects. Few women could be. It required an 
 unerring eye for snap, and fine sense of circum- 
 stances, to undertake the development of genius 
 in another. And Mr. Overholt manifestly ad- 
 mired himself, as he was without any irritating 
 pricks of perception as to his possibilities. But a 
 humble man, fawning and solicitous of opinion, 
 was a contemptible object. The thing was to play 
 your game without showing your hand. A good 
 rule, surely, and productive of a clear conscience 
 were men but cards ! 
 
 No, she did not love him, but she argued it 
 likely that she had quite as much regard for him as 
 most wives had for their husbands after ten years 
 of marriage, and she certainly had loved him with 
 all the ideal fervor of her girlhood. She felt a 
 little thrill of gratitude to him for the delicate 
 way in which he had intimated to her his under- 
 standing of the fact that her love had been given
 
 MRS. BRAND 231 
 
 not to himself, but to the hero of her dreams. His 
 perception of this relieved her memory of some 
 of its bitterest stings. 
 
 Thus she reasoned as she lay there in the still- 
 ness of the night with Chrys' curly little head 
 upon her arm. But away beneath this babble of 
 the surface, in the recesses of her woman's soul, 
 there crouched a longing, deep and strong a 
 God-implanted instinct which she was striving to 
 gag with the husks of worldly wisdom this 
 passion to be loved with the love which knows 
 neither poverty nor riches, sickness nor health, 
 which laughs at the limitations of time and 
 eternity, because it holds in itself the key to im- 
 mortality. She had thought herself almost per- 
 suaded, but in an unguarded moment love lifted 
 up its protest. Tears forced themselves beneath 
 her eyelids. Why was the way so hard for her? 
 There was no saintly mother in the Church of the 
 Pilgrims who would not jump at the chance of 
 bestowing her daughter in the holy bonds of matri- 
 mony upon its brilliant pastor. So the battle 
 waged in her heart from day to day, and she drew 
 no nearer to a decision.
 
 232 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " You must wait," she said to Mr. Overholt, 
 though she despised herself for the suspense which 
 her irresolution entailed upon him. " I can not 
 tell. If you care anything about it all, you must 
 leave me alone." He elected to consider this 
 encouraging, and proceeded to render himself 
 unobtrusively indispensable to her, for which 
 there were plenty of opportunities in the difficul- 
 ties which perplex a woman who has always 
 treated with the outside world by proxy, and 
 whose theories of finance have been conditioned 
 by the rise and fall of her pocket-book. 
 
 In the midst of all these distractions she had not 
 forgotten Trixy Gaynor. The girl had learned 
 to listen for the coming of the light step outside 
 her door, and by degrees Mrs. Brand was discov- 
 ering more about the real Trixy than anyone had 
 ever known. For all the social difference between 
 them these two women touched at so many points 
 that the bond of sympathy which united them was 
 not surprising. 
 
 April came with its days when the soft wind 
 touched the tree-tops with hint of leaf and bud, 
 and when the very ground beneath one's feet
 
 MRS. BRAND 233 
 
 seemed to stir with the preparation of imprisoned 
 things for escape. Even in Moon Street spring 
 announced its advent, and pinched children ran 
 to and fro with a gladness for which their starved 
 little hearts knew no explanation. Mrs. Brand, on 
 her way to Trixy, stopped for a few moments at 
 Brand House to see Mrs. McGarvey. They talked 
 about the girl and the weary progress of her 
 disease. 
 
 " But she isn't like the same creature that she 
 was six months ago," said Mrs. McGarvey. 
 
 "How is that?" asked Mrs. Brand. 
 
 " My dear, I went in to see her time and time 
 again, and she'd just lie there staring at me with 
 those great eyes of hers, and never saying one 
 word. Nervous ! I used to be ready to fly before 
 I got out of that room. One day after I had gone 
 in and fixed her up as comfortably as possible she 
 snapped out just as I was going, * Now get down 
 and pray for me ! ' 
 
 Mrs. Brand laughed. " Yes, I can just imag- 
 ine Trixy saying that. I suppose she really want- 
 ed to thank you for your kindness. But when 
 Trixy gets a desperate fit on, she's pretty bad. "
 
 234 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " It isn't to be wondered at," said Mrs. Mc- 
 Garvey. " I don't know how you got such a hold 
 on her. No one else could. Now, there are her 
 flowers. It would never have occurred to me to 
 take those dry, old bulbs and stick them into that 
 lovely bowl right there before her eyes, and let her 
 watch them grow." 
 
 " Oh, how sceptical she was about that," said 
 Mrs. Brand. " She declared they wouldn't 
 grow, and when the first tiny shoot came up she 
 could hardly believe her eyes." 
 
 " I put my head in at the door yesterday as I 
 was passing, and she fairly screamed at me, ' Oh, 
 Mrs. McGarvey, come and see my lily.' She 
 couldn't talk about anything else." 
 
 " And still, when I think of all the time and 
 thought I've put on Trixy, it seems a pretty slow 
 way of doing much good in the world, doesn't 
 it? " said Mrs. Brand, wistfully. 
 
 " It's the only lasting way," retorted Mrs. Mc- 
 Garvey. " Depend upon it, my dear, Trixy will 
 be a star in your crown, and except for you she 
 would never have shone in anybody's." 
 
 Mrs. Brand smiled, but there was a veil of mist
 
 MRS. BRAND 235 
 
 in her eyes. " At first I thought I'd like to take 
 her home with me, and let her die in what we 
 should call comfort. But when I came to know 
 her better, and to see things from her point of 
 view, I realized that her dark, little room was 
 home to her, and that in it she felt free. What- 
 ever I give her must have no monetary value to 
 speak of like the lilies." 
 
 " Has she ever told you who she was? " asked 
 Mrs. McGarvey, abruptly. 
 
 " No, no ! The other day, when I was sitting 
 with her, she suddenly began to cry, and after 
 a while she said, ' Mrs. Brand, if you only knew 
 the kind of girl I've been, you would never sit 
 here talking to me like you do.' So I said, ' Why, 
 Trixy, I know all about it ! ' But she cried out, 
 ' No, you don't know anything about it,' and then 
 she broke into such a passion of grief that it made 
 my heart ache." 
 
 " What did you do with her? " 
 
 " Do with her ! Just cried, too roared, in 
 fact," said Mrs. Brand, tersely. " And when the 
 uproar was at its very height, who should walk
 
 236 MRS. BRAND 
 
 calmly into it but Dr. Challoner. Didn't he tell 
 you about it? " 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey shook her head. 
 
 " Well, he must have laughed finely in his 
 sleeve at me. But I didn't care for that. What 
 worried me was to think how humiliated Trixy 
 would feel. So I settled her back on her pillows, 
 and mopped up my face in a hurry, and then I 
 said to him, ' Oh, yes ; I know you are aching to 
 scold me for stirring Trixy up like this, and a 
 scolding is just what I need, but I won't stand it 
 from you.' Arthur is a blundering, old fellow, 
 you know, but not with sick people." 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey found it difficult to accept the 
 beneficent air of concession about this remark, 
 but she said, quietly enough, " Yes, he's so sensi- 
 tive to other people's suffering." 
 
 "That's just it. He took the hint at once, 
 pitched into me right and left. I wasn't to be let 
 come to Moon Street any more if I couldn't 
 behave myself with his patients, and a great deal 
 more. Of course, all this gave Trixy time to 
 quiet down, and when I went away she was talk- 
 ing quite calmly to him."
 
 MRS. BRAND 237 
 
 " Have you seen him since*? " asked Mrs. Mc- 
 Garvey. 
 
 " Yes, but he was grumpy." 
 
 " He has a great many anxieties just now." 
 
 " It wasn't that," retorted Mrs. Brand. " Mr. 
 Overholt happened to be there, and he can't bear 
 Mr. Overholt." It was such an odd relief to say 
 this to Mrs. McGarvey. She felt as if she had 
 suddenly let out a tuck in her mind, and was 
 grateful for the lessened tension. 
 
 "Mr. Overholt!" repeated Mrs. McGarvey. 
 " Does he often come to see you? " she inquired, 
 with tentative audacity. 
 
 " Quite often," replied Mrs. Brand, abruptly, 
 annoyed at the color she suddenly felt in her face. 
 " How late it is! " she exclaimed, looking at the 
 clock. " I mustn't keep Trixy waiting." She 
 leaned over Mrs. McGarvey's chair. " Good-bye, 
 mither. I don't know when I shall be in again." 
 
 But Mrs. McGarvey reached up and caught her 
 hand. The tender quaintness of the old word 
 touched into flame the mother-love in her heart, 
 which spent itself in silence upon the two she 
 loved so well, the one as much as the other now.
 
 238 MRS. BRAND 
 
 While she felt for Mrs. Brand a certain awe, 
 which was quite absent from the thought of Dr. 
 Challoner, it was a feeling with which she would 
 not willingly have dispensed. She took a certain 
 irrational delight in all the splendid airs of this 
 woman, who was, after all, at her simplest and 
 best with her. 
 
 " Dear heart," she said, " don't ever let any- 
 thing come between you and the labor you have 
 begun here in Moon Street." She kissed her 
 solemnly, tenderly, and then without a word Mrs. 
 Brand was gone. 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey sewed swiftly for a long time, 
 but at last her work was forgotten in her thoughts. 
 It was only by the greatest effort that she had con- 
 trolled herself in speaking to Mrs. Brand, for 
 what had been most dim to her had all at once 
 become most clear, and in the wider range of view 
 so suddenly disclosed she saw at first nothing but 
 despair. She knew Mr. Overholt well by repute, 
 and in the light of that knowledge she felt like 
 a general whose pretty pen-and-ink campaign 
 becomes a delusion and a snare in the unexpected 
 presence of the enemy. Mr. Overholt ! Why had
 
 MRS. BRAND 239 
 
 she never taken him into account before? " To 
 be sure, I've heard her say she had his little boy to 
 stay with her, but I never gave the man himself 
 a thought," she said to herself, with a feeling of 
 unspeakable disgust at her own thick-headedness. 
 Then she rapidly reviewed the situation from her 
 altered standpoint. Now she understood the 
 shadow that had fallen on Dr. Challoner. " But 
 why doesn't he pitch in and take his chances'? " 
 she demanded of the four walls, in an energetic 
 whisper. Well, perhaps he had. No, he hadn't. 
 She understood Mrs. Brand well enough to con- 
 vince herself of that. 
 
 With her natural impetuosity of preference or 
 otherwise, Mr. Overholt had already taken his 
 place in her mind as " that man," and her antip- 
 athy to him increased steadily in the same propor- 
 tion that she realized his mastery of the situation. 
 " Why, he's got everything in his favor," she 
 groaned. " What a position she would have as 
 his wife, and nobody could fill it as she would, as 
 he knows well enough, I'll be bound." 
 
 When Dr. Challoner came home to lunch she 
 studied him long and silently. There was an
 
 240 MRS. BRAND 
 
 absence of the Machiavellian in her honest nature, 
 and the strenuousness of her gaze impressed itself 
 upon him. 
 
 " What is the matter? " he inquired. " Or are 
 you just using me for a peg to hang a few thoughts 
 on? " He looked at her with such a bright smile 
 that her face broadened into a corresponding 
 beam. 
 
 "That's better! " he exclaimed, but there was 
 no chance for further conversation, for they had 
 taking lunch with them that day, some friends of 
 Mrs. McGarvey's, who, finding at last that their 
 curiosity was really stronger than their disgust, 
 had come to investigate for themselves what 
 manner of life it might be to which she had 
 become addicted. 
 
 " And do you mean to stay here 
 always"? " inquired one, in a series of lingual 
 bumps which she meant to be impressive. 
 
 " I don't know," said Mrs. McGarvey, simply. 
 " As long as I can be useful, perhaps." A vision 
 of this other woman's life rose up before her a 
 vulgar struggle for vain things. Tender pity 
 filled her heart. " I dare say it does seem strange
 
 MRS. BRAND 241 
 
 to you," she went on, " but I have no children, no 
 home cares to fill my heart and hands. And then 
 think of the children here, whom no one cares for, 
 and the poor mothers and the bad mothers. 
 Some of them have said to me that they can bear 
 it better the suffering and the poverty if 
 they just know that I am here, near them, think- 
 ing about them." 
 
 " But how does Mr. McGarvey stand it? " 
 " Stand it ! " echoed Mrs. McGarvey, briskly 
 snapping up the words as they fell primly from 
 the edges of her friend's thin lips. " He doesn't 
 stand it. He just rolls over and over in it. I tell 
 you he's taken to the politics of this God-forsaken 
 ward just as naturally as a saloon-keeper. I 
 shouldn't be surprised if after a while Moon Street 
 gets some of the paving done. There's been 
 enough money paid for it already to fill the street 
 with pavings up to the second story." 
 
 These were not the last of such visitors. People 
 who had never heard of Moon Street, and who 
 would not have cared anything about it if they 
 had, heard of Brand House, and came to inspect 
 it much as they would have done an Insane
 
 242 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Asylum or a Refuge for the Morally Obtuse. 
 They were not always civil, and sometimes forgot 
 the respect due to a private home. Some of them 
 examined Mrs. McGarvey doubtfully, distantly, 
 as if she were a magazine loaded with theories 
 which might suddenly explode upon them. 
 
 " For my part, I have no faith in these people 
 who start things up on the bumblebee plan," she 
 overheard one lady remark. 
 
 College students and professors, clever, hot- 
 headed people, poor and proud enough to choose 
 this means of exploiting themselves in a becoming 
 mantle of unselfishness, might be expected to act 
 thus, but that wealthy, middle-aged people like 
 this canny Scotchman and his wife should do it 
 was inexplicable. To take one's own good con- 
 duct as a matter of course and not of miracle 
 seemed to some of these visitors deplorable, in- 
 deed, and a vicious depriving of the Almighty of 
 the credit due him. But Mrs. McGarvey did not 
 care. 
 
 As soon as her visitors had departed that day 
 she sought her husband. " Sandy," she began, 
 solemnly, " she's going to marry Mr. Overholt."
 
 MRS. BRAND 243 
 
 "Who?" demanded the bewildered man, 
 " Mrs. Polkinghorne? " 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey appealed despairingly to the 
 ceiling above her as a witness to this exhibition of 
 masculine density. " Bless the man! Hasn't she 
 a husband of her own now, not to mention poor 
 Drew. No ! Mrs. Brand. She's going to marry 
 Mr. Overholt. There now ! What do you think 
 of that? " She swept him triumphantly with 
 her eyes, and folded her arms, with a fine effect 
 of resignation to the decrees of Providence. 
 
 " I hadn't thought of anything of that sort 
 myself," said Mr. McGarvey, slowly, with a 
 manifest groping for impartial light, " but it 
 would be rather a nice arrangement, wouldn't it 
 now?" He smiled experimentally at his wife's 
 Delphic aspect. 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey refreshed herself with a deep 
 groan, and then rushed with characteristic energy 
 into the task of putting a point upon her husband's 
 blunt perceptions. 
 
 " Nice ! Oh, very nice ! Especially for Dr. 
 Challoner ! " There was a delicate acidity in her 
 tones, which Mr. McGarvey nimbly detected as
 
 244 MRS. BRAND 
 
 a species of appetizer to the fluent feast about to 
 follow. 
 
 " There, now," he said, uneasily, " I had for- 
 gotten his having some little interest " 
 
 " Some little interest ! Sandy McGarvey, to 
 think the day should ever come when I should 
 hear you call the honest love of a man's heart 
 ' some little interest ! ' " 
 
 " Perhaps, my dear, it's not so bad as you 
 think. When are they to be married? " 
 
 " Married ! " exclaimed Mrs. McGarvey, with 
 the force of a bursting bomb. " Never, if I can 
 help it. You don't suppose I'm going to sit 
 quietly down and see that dear boy cheated out of 
 all his rights by a smooth-tongued trickster." 
 
 " Oh, come, my dear," remonstrated Mr. Mc- 
 Garvey, gravely. " I really think you would find 
 it difficult to maintain that opinion about a man 
 like Mr. Overholt. And if they intend to get mar- 
 ried, let me advise you to keep out of the affair." 
 
 " Oh, yes, if they really were going to get mar- 
 ried in the end." 
 
 Mr. McGarvey looked at his wife hopelessly. 
 " But you distinctly stated that Mrs. Brand was
 
 MRS. BRAND 245 
 
 going to marry Mr. Overholt," he said, with an 
 air of Christian patience in extremity. 
 
 "Never mind!" answered Mrs. McGarvey, 
 soothingly. " A man can't be expected to under- 
 stand these things like a woman. It's very easy 
 for him to make up his mind that he'll marry her, 
 but perhaps it won't be quite so easy for him to 
 make her make up her mind that she'll marry him. 
 Don't you see?" 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Mr. McGarvey, briefly and 
 blindly as concerned Mrs. Brand and her affairs, 
 but with a wide-eyed perception of his own and 
 his wife's. In argument she had always shown a 
 preference for victory.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MRS. BRAND turned the wind-swept corner west- 
 ward in the direction of Brand House. It was a 
 short walk from the station through a neighbor- 
 hood at first respectable, and then growing more 
 and more deplorable. At first she had been afraid 
 to come alone, but she had travelled the ground 
 so many times now that she had lost her early 
 fears at the clustering groups of dirty women and 
 sullen men, many of whom she had learned to 
 know by name, and better. Big Jim Moriarty, 
 who had fiercely resented the invasion by that 
 " restocratic gang " of the neighborhood where 
 he had hitherto reigned undisputed, had come to 
 have a sulking liking for the woman who was the 
 idol of his crippled boy's heart. Not that Mrs. 
 Brand had designedly inspired this or any other 
 feeling in little Dan Moriarty. She took an inter- 
 est in Trixy, to be sure, " because of her story," 
 she had said prohibitively, as if to insure herself 
 
 246
 
 MRS. BRAND 247 
 
 against any further extension of her sympathies. 
 But she could not be long in Moon Street without 
 other stories creeping to her ears, stories that made 
 her heart burn and kept her awake at night recall- 
 ing their pathetic details and bitter significance. 
 It had been quite different in by-gone days, when 
 she had listened with a critic's ear to Dr. Chal- 
 loner's fierce recital of those things. His whole- 
 souled indignation had been part of it all, part of 
 that picture which she had studied with an artist's 
 appreciation of its light and shadow. But lately 
 she was perilously near to losing her point of 
 view; in fact, she was in danger of becoming a 
 part of the picture herself, so gradually and 
 unconsciously had the circle of her sympathies 
 widened. Little Dan Moriarty? oh, yes, she 
 had been kind to him. 
 
 " She talks like her throat wuz sating-lined," 
 he said, in a burst of admiration to his father, who 
 would not at that moment have expressed his con- 
 tempt of " sating-lined throats " if the fall of a 
 dynasty had depended on it. 
 
 It was a wild, reckless day. But the very vio- 
 lence of the wind-storm had tempted Mrs. Brand
 
 248 MRS. BRAND 
 
 out into it, and as she braced herself to meet it 
 her spirits rose defiantly. Nearing the Glenedge 
 station she had come face to face with Mr. Over- 
 holt. 
 
 " Why, where are you going in such a wind as 
 this*? " he exclaimed, in amazement. 
 
 " Oh anywhere, anywhere out of the world," 
 she laughed back at him. 
 
 " You must mean Brand House, if it's to be 
 ' out of the world,' " he said, coldly. " You can't 
 think how much I object to your going there. I 
 will walk over to the station with you, and I 
 really think you had better take my arm." 
 
 But she walked on, her head high, resisting his 
 proffered aid. Presently she turned upon him. 
 " What right have you to object to my going to 
 Brand House 4 ? " 
 
 " The right of any real friend of yours," he 
 replied. They had reached the forlornly deco- 
 rative space surrounding the station, and without 
 question he took her arm to help her across it. 
 Through the folds of her sleeve she felt the insist- 
 ent pressure of his fingers, and of his ultimate
 
 MRS. BRAND 249 
 
 intention. " Will you go into the waiting- 
 room? " he inquired, as he released her. 
 
 " No, I hate to be stuffed in there to be 
 stared at." 
 
 She straggled after him as he sought out a shel- 
 tered spot. " Don't trouble to wait," she said, 
 with a polite air of dismissal. 
 
 But he remained, looking at her with an easy 
 smile. " Don't you think," he said, " that it's 
 rather like importing one's kitchen-ware from 
 Meissen when you are used in this species of 
 slumming*? " 
 
 She was tracing an elaborate pattern on the 
 dusty platform with the tip of her umbrella, and 
 she neither answered nor looked up at him, for 
 she felt herself growing less able to cope with him 
 in his aggressive moods. She was charming to 
 him at these times, when she let him infer his 
 dawning mastery of her. He wanted her money, 
 oh, yes, but that had become quite secondary in its 
 allurement to the woman herself. He had begun 
 to hunger for a sign in her of a feeling towards 
 him answering to his own, and as he stood beside 
 her now, outwardly calm and correct as a man
 
 250 MRS. BRAND 
 
 of the world should be, his mind fermented with 
 a vision of love's possibilities. But the train was 
 on time, and his dreams were cut short by its 
 noisy advent. As he handed her up the steps of 
 the last car, he retained his hold until he com- 
 pelled her eyes to turn for a moment to his. 
 
 So it was little wonder that she again exulted in 
 the frenzy of the storm as she sped towards Brand 
 House. It helped to drown the inner uproar. 
 
 " No, she isn't at home, and she won't be back 
 until late to-night," said the young woman who 
 answered her inquiry for Mrs. McGarvey. 
 
 Mrs. Brand turned away in deep disappoint- 
 ment. She had resolved at last to take Mrs. 
 McGarvey into her confidence. Fate had evi- 
 dently willed it otherwise. She was drifting into 
 the mood in which people do what they have long 
 struggled against with an ease which seems at the 
 time to justify their action. 
 
 Dr. Challoner crossing the hall at that moment 
 caught sight of her face as the door closed upon 
 it, and in an instant he was upon the step. 
 " Come back," he called after her. She turned 
 round, and stood still.
 
 MRS. BRAND 251 
 
 " What for? " 
 
 But the wind, catching her irresolute, left her 
 laughing and helpless against the fence, where Dr. 
 Challoner descended upon her, and, arbitrarily 
 seizing her, conducted her with great strides in- 
 doors, not relinquishing his hold until he planted 
 her firmly on a chair in his office. 
 
 "Horrid little hole!" she ejaculated, and 
 looked sniffingly about her. " One can hardly 
 breathe for bottles." 
 
 " Oh, if you object " He seized her 
 
 again and in spite of protest hurried her away, 
 and made at a rapid rate for the stairs. Half- 
 way up they met the young woman who had 
 answered the door-bell. She shrank back, trying 
 vainly to merge herself into the wall-paper, and 
 when they turned at the landing, she was still 
 there, gazing after them, in blank perplexity. 
 
 " Yes, she's new," said Dr. Challoner, " and 
 plainly unimaginative." As he spoke he ushered 
 Mrs. Brand into a cosy sitting-room where a 
 bright fire was crackling cheerfully in a big, old- 
 fashioned hearth. 
 
 " Oh, Bruin ! " she exclaimed, sinking weakly
 
 252 MRS. BRAND 
 
 into a chair. " Whatever has got into you to- 
 day? " 
 
 "Shouldn't wonder if it was just the pure 
 delight of seeing you," he answered, gaily, but 
 even as he spoke the light faded out of his eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Brand had taken off her coat, and was 
 proceeding at her ease upon a tour of inspection 
 round the room. He looked at her hungrily. The 
 little scene which he had surprised in Trixy's 
 room came back to him. He stood still, remem- 
 bering it. 
 
 " Oh, yes, there he is ! Gone into a brown 
 study, of course, about bones or bacteria, quite 
 regardless of the fact that he has a distinguished 
 visitor, and who she is or anything else about 
 her." 
 
 " No, not exactly," he said, quietly. A longing 
 came over him to pour it all out to her. " I was 
 thinking " 
 
 " Never mind what," she said, promptly. 
 " Something tremendous, of course, but quite in- 
 apropos, I'm sure, or you would never have made 
 such horrible faces over it." As she spoke she 
 turned a photograph towards him. " Do you
 
 MRS. BRAND 253 
 
 know, I had quite forgotten this ridiculous thing." 
 It was a photograph of herself, taken some years 
 before. One afternoon they had been walking in 
 town together, and as they had passed a photog- 
 rapher's he had reproached her with never having 
 given him a photograph. " Come in now, and 
 you shall have one taken to your liking," she had 
 replied, and straightway they had marched within, 
 giggling like two children in one of those delight- 
 ful lapses from dignity into which even the most 
 Grundy-ground of mortals are sometimes be- 
 trayed. They both laughed now at the remem- 
 brance. 
 
 " It really was a nice photograph," said Mrs. 
 Brand, regarding it critically. " Don't you think 
 so, Bruin?" 
 
 " I have always liked it," he answered, simply. 
 Then, with an impetuous rush of words he added, 
 " And I'm so glad nobody else has one like it." 
 
 " Oh, what a grasping wretch ! " declared Mrs. 
 Brand, with a light laugh. But there had crept 
 into her eyes for a moment a startled look. Bruin 
 had never spoken to her like that before. Of 
 course, he liked her better than he had ever given
 
 254 MRS. BRAND 
 
 a sign of liking any other woman, she knew that. 
 For a while, after her return home, there had been 
 a cloud between them, which of late, to her great 
 gratification, had seemed to lift. It was not neces- 
 sary that he should enjoy her marriage to Mr. 
 Overholt, but it was imperative that he should 
 remain her friend. She set the photograph back 
 on the mantelpiece with a little sigh. 
 
 "Oh, dear! how long ago that seems. We're 
 getting old, Bruin." She sat down before the fire, 
 and as she talked she began unconsciously massing 
 all her rings on one finger, an old trick of hers at 
 which he had often laughed. But he watched her 
 slender hands now with a hunger in his heart 
 which was every moment more unendurable. All 
 these familiar gestures, the multitude of imperious 
 little airs with which she had always manipulated 
 him, who could know and love these things in 
 her as he did, just because they were hers? And 
 who had divined as he had the yet unsounded 
 depths of her nature, the hidden sweetness of it, 
 waiting for some magic touch to unseal it"? 
 
 She was talking about all sorts of things, and 
 he found himself answering her with a dull
 
 MRS. BRAND 255 
 
 wonder at the double-mindedness which sustained 
 him in his inner and his outer role. 
 
 All at once she held her hand out to him. 
 "Look! Just see what I've done!" It was a 
 ring which had gone willingly enough where it 
 did not belong, and now refused to come back. 
 Mrs. Brand was as absurdly frightened as a 
 woman always is under such circumstances. 
 
 Dr. Challoner tried to draw it off, but it would 
 not come. Then he went into an inner room, and 
 came back with a bit of soap and a damp towel. 
 He took her hand again, and in a moment the ring 
 was off. She dried her wet finger, and he sat 
 opposite her, slowly polishing the ring. At last 
 he looked up. " Which finger does it belong to*? " 
 he asked. She had meant to take it from him, 
 but in answer to some strange tone in his voice she 
 silently held the finger towards him. 
 
 He leaned over, slipping the ring back in its 
 place. But that done, he did not let her hand go, 
 and looking in his face with a sudden thrill of 
 fear, she understood. 
 
 " Oh, don't, Bruin," she cried out. " Don't
 
 256 MRS. BRAND 
 
 you will break my heart." It was the last time 
 she ever called him Bruin. 
 
 " But I shall," he said. " I have a right to 
 love you." He dropped her hand and rose up, 
 tall and strong before her. She rose, too, and 
 they stood confronting each other, she with her 
 face pale, her eyes full of tears, and he with his 
 brain swayed by his urgent heart. " Can't you 
 see it had to be"? I know that I have always loved 
 you. When it seems less strange when you 
 have had time to think about it " 
 
 But she shook her head. " No, no, Arthur. 
 You are the best friend that I have in the world, 
 but I don't love anybody. I never shall." 
 
 " Ah, wait ! " he exclaimed, eagerly. " I would 
 have said that, too, not long ago. If you will 
 only let me love you it will come to you, too." 
 
 " No, no," she said, miserably. " Don't you 
 see how it is"? You only marry a person whose 
 friendship you will lose if you don't." She 
 laughed dismally. 
 
 " Will you marry a man on that ground? " he 
 asked, quickly. She hesitated. She was thinking 
 of things remote, which her own remark had sug-
 
 MRS. BRAND 257 
 
 gested to her. " Because if you will, you had 
 
 better marry me, for I swear Oh, Cecily," 
 
 his voice broke in appeal. He could not argue 
 it with her. His heart was in too helpless a 
 tumult. 
 
 But an impatient sense of injury stirred Mrs. 
 Brand. A new, miserable complication had arisen 
 to buffet her. That Arthur should act so good 
 sensible Arthur it was too trying. For she 
 realized his sincerity only too well. She could not 
 possibly doubt that he loved her, and she shrank 
 from the thought of the suffering before him as if 
 it were destined for herself. 
 
 " Why have you done this*? " she demanded of 
 him, in futile remonstrance. 
 
 "Great Csesar!" he exclaimed. "Do you 
 think I like it?" 
 
 Turning away from him in utter wretchedness 
 she began to draw on her coat. " It's getting late ; 
 I must go home." 
 
 He watched her silently, until the last button 
 on her glove was fastened. Then he went over 
 to her. " Is this the last, Cecily? Are you really 
 going away from me, out of my life? " His voice
 
 258 MRS. BRAND 
 
 was hoarse, and his face, always so strong and 
 eager in its outlook upon the world, was haggard. 
 
 " The end 4 ? Why, of course not. How could 
 it be? You will soon think so differently. Don't 
 
 you see, Arthur " She looked appealingly 
 
 into his eyes with the feeling for him in her heart 
 that a mother has for her child and it's hurt. 
 Why should a man take such pains to seek delib- 
 erately his own undoing? But her tenderness 
 was short-lived, for with the touch of her light 
 hand upon his arm she had wakened into mastery 
 feelings over which for the moment he had no 
 control, and suddenly she found herself in his 
 arms, those strong arms that held her like a vise, 
 with his kisses on her lips, kisses which fell 
 fiercely upon them more like blows than caresses. 
 And then as suddenly as he had taken her to him- 
 self he released her, saying roughly, " I will take 
 you to your train." 
 
 But she faced him indignantly. " How dared 
 you " 
 
 "How dared I"? You bet I dared. A man 
 doesn't need to figure out that there are some
 
 MRS. BRAND 259 
 
 things he can have for the taking, but not for the 
 asking." 
 
 " I will not walk to the train with you," she 
 cried. 
 
 But he only replied, coolly, " Yes, you will." 
 And she did. 
 
 The storm seemed to have increased in violence, 
 and once outside she was meekly submissive to 
 the strength which protected her. There were 
 critical corners to be turned, where she clung to him 
 tightly, glad enough, too, of his firm grasp of her. 
 They went along in silence. At the station he 
 found her train, and a comfortable seat for her, 
 but when she turned to bid him good-bye with a 
 politely neutral air, he was gone. He passed the 
 window without looking up, and she followed him 
 with her eyes across the platform towards the steps 
 with an added sense of outrage at his wantonly 
 abrupt desertion of her. 
 
 Long afterwards Dr. Challoner wondered how 
 he reached home that evening, but his memory 
 made no response to his demands upon it. Hours 
 later he came to a miserable consciousness of him- 
 self, alone in the gathered darkness, staring into
 
 260 MRS. BRAND 
 
 the whitening embers of the fire which seemed 
 to him like his own dulled soul, whence all the 
 radiance of energy and enthusiasm had gone. By 
 degrees his misery defined itself more clearly to 
 him; he began to grope after details. His 
 thoughts went back in bitter retrospect to those 
 early days of perfect harmony and ideal inter- 
 change of sympathy between himself and Mrs. 
 Brand, which might so easily have deepened into 
 that other and most sacred form of friendship. 
 " My wife ! My wife ! She might have been 
 that; she would have been that," he repeated, in 
 desolate alternations of despair. But to feel that 
 each moment bore her on a retreating tide away 
 from him whither*? Alas ! he knew too well. 
 
 The weak spot in her yes, he was aware of 
 it, but he had not loved her because he thought 
 her perfect. 
 
 He was familiar enough with the sight and 
 sound of physical suffering, but agony of this kind 
 was new and strange to him. 
 
 Through the long night, when the wind had 
 sunk into silence, Mrs. McGarvey heard and
 
 MRS. BRAND 261 
 
 grieved over the pacing of the feet above her 
 head. 
 
 When the first red streaks of dawn flushed the 
 sky he crossed to his window, and watched the 
 warm glow of the East spreading itself over the 
 sky. The stars paled before the approaching sun ; 
 the shadows of the night slunk out of sight. And 
 with this new day there dawned for him a nobler 
 mood. His work! Perhaps it needed from him 
 a yet deeper consecration an entirety of self- 
 surrender of which he had as yet but little concep- 
 tion. These poor brethren of his, into whose 
 drink-cursed, crime-stained lives he had come with 
 sympathy and with belief in better things for 
 them in this extremity of his own bitterness his 
 mind turned to them with a consciousness of their 
 claims on him in far vistas of opportunity. 
 
 But nothing could blot out for him the memory 
 of those never-to-be-regretted moments when he 
 had held her in his arms. 
 
 The days that followed were days of much per- 
 plexity to Mrs. Brand, not that she suffered from 
 doubts as to her ultimate course, but she found her- 
 self unable to arrange a future which should har-
 
 262 MRS. BRAND 
 
 moniously include Dr. Challoner, whom she still 
 felt to be a necessity. She wrote to him a good 
 many times asking him to come and see her, but 
 she destroyed the notes before the ink on them was 
 dry. For she could not think what she should say 
 to him after he should have come. So it was quite 
 by accident that she encountered him one morning 
 in a crowded store, where he was searching the 
 book counter. She was not aware of his proximity 
 to her until she heard some one say, " There's Dr. 
 Challoner! Now you can take a good look at 
 him. Isn' the a fine-looking fellow ?" She turned 
 a critical eye upon the two young women behind 
 her " stylish, pert creatures," she decided aus- 
 terely, and then after a moment of irresolution she 
 crossed over and spoke to him. He looked around 
 at her without surprise, for he had seen her some 
 minutes before. 
 
 "Can I speak to you presently"?" she asked, 
 not without a sudden trepidation, for there was 
 in his manner a certain aloofness, a detachment 
 from her and her interests which immediately 
 impressed her. 
 
 " Certainly," he replied, with an air of distant
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 deference to her wishes, which she thought odd, 
 " if you will wait one moment until they bring my 
 book." 
 
 She lingered on the edge of the crowd until he 
 appeared slowly making his way out of it. " Let 
 us go to the balcony on the second floor," she said, 
 as they started off, aimlessly. " One can nearly 
 always find a quiet spot there." 
 
 But once there she wondered a little wildly 
 what was to come next, for Dr. Challoner looked 
 steadily in front of him with an evident inten- 
 tion of silence which she found most embarrass- 
 ing. It really seemed to her that if she was willing 
 to overlook his action he ought at least to 
 evince some anxiety about it. To be quite honest, 
 she had found difficulty in convincing herself of 
 her own magnanimity, for though she had labored 
 to induce a sense of outrage over those kisses, her 
 efforts had always ended in a smile of which she 
 tried to remain morally unconscious. After all, 
 it had only been Arthur. 
 
 But it was not right of him to sit there so indif- 
 ferent to the indignation he might justly expect 
 from her. " If you haven't anything to say to
 
 264 MRS. BRAND 
 
 me, Arthur," she began, in desperation at his 
 silence, " we really need not prolong " 
 
 " Are you going to marry Overholt 1 ? " he 
 inquired, with paralyzing directness. 
 
 " What business is that of yours? " she asked, 
 stung into challenge by this unexpected forcing 
 of her hand. 
 
 He looked at her steadily, almost contemptu- 
 ously, for a moment. Then he turned from her 
 with a fierce gesture. "It's the money that 
 accursed money," she heard him say. 
 
 " I think you assume a great deal in your igno- 
 rance," she said, hotly. " If it was merely a ques- 
 tion of money with me there are other men I might 
 marry besides Mr. Overholt." 
 
 " Not me," he said coolly. " I'd never take 
 you with such a string as that tied to you." 
 
 She was furious, especially as she knew per- 
 fectly the truth of what he said. She made a 
 movement to rise. But Dr. Challoner had some- 
 thing further on his mind. " Wait a moment," 
 he said; " there is another thing I want to say. I 
 should never forgive myself if I did not ask you 
 if I did not warn you against the future you
 
 MRS. BRAND 265 
 
 are choosing." He spoke severely, judicially; it 
 was his only protection against the misery of his 
 position. He must, cost what it might of his own 
 slender store of peace, tell her what he could, 
 that he might not have to reproach himself with 
 her probable unhappiness. Surgeon as he was, 
 it seemed to him that he was called upon to pre- 
 side at his own dissection, for every moment of 
 this interview was torture to him. 
 
 " There are things I know and things I suspect 
 about Mr. Overholt which I am not able to tell 
 you of. But they are serious enough for you to 
 put an end to this matter before it goes any 
 farther." 
 
 She looked at him with an irresistible, little 
 smile. 
 
 " It is too bad you can not tell me what these 
 unspeakable things are; I should appreciate some- 
 thing a little more definite." 
 
 " Can't you understand that I may have knowl- 
 edge about which my conscience will not let me 
 speak 4 ? " 
 
 " No, I can not," she answered, obstinately. 
 " I have no sympathy for the affectation which
 
 266 MRS. BRAND 
 
 shuts your lips at a time that you pretend to con- 
 sider so serious a crisis for me." 
 
 Dr. Challoner rose from his seat. " Is your 
 carriage waiting for you"? May I see you to it? " 
 he asked, in a manner suggestive of utter remote- 
 ness of interest between them. As he was about 
 to close the carriage-door, he paused a moment, 
 leaning forward, his foot upon the step. " Do 
 you call yourself a good woman*? " 
 
 "I"? Oh, no, certainly not. Seriously, no. I 
 cannot imagine anything more stupid." 
 
 She faced him with defiance of manner and 
 pose, and that was the memory of her which he 
 bore away.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WITH her conscious ability for playing Provi- 
 dence in other people's lives, Mrs. McGarvey 
 found these days a weary drag upon her patience, 
 and she was nearly driven to suspect a mortifying 
 lack of omniscence in herself. Mrs. Brand had 
 not been to see her for some weeks, and as for 
 Dr. Challoner she had never known him so 
 unapproachable. At last she could bear it no 
 longer. 
 
 " Why doesn't Mrs. Brand come here any 
 more"? " she asked him, one day. 
 
 "Mrs. Brand 4 ? Oh, I don't know." But a 
 moment later he added, with reluctant honesty, 
 " Yes, I do," and then was silent. 
 
 " Can't you tell me what's gone wrong with 
 you both, laddie*? " she asked, with a broadening 
 of her heart and accent to his sorrows. " Some- 
 times an old woman can help a bit. It's the min- 
 ister, I know, who's making all the trouble." She 
 
 267
 
 268 MRS. BRAND 
 
 nodded her head at him with ponderous sagacity, 
 and in spite of his instinctive dread of sympathy 
 he said with a forlorn smile, " How did you get 
 on to that 4 ?" 
 
 " Eyes and ears," she replied, tersely. " I war- 
 rant you I know a good many things that you'd 
 be the better for knowing yourself. Have you 
 ever asked her to marry you*? " 
 
 Dr. Challoner hesitated. " I don't know," he 
 said slowly. " She knows I love her." 
 
 " Now does she, really"? " said Mrs. McGar- 
 vey, with an inspiring, little nip in her voice. 
 " However did she find that out? " 
 
 " Because I told her," he retorted, stoutly, 
 aware of the insidious attack that was being made 
 upon him. 
 
 " Dear me ! " remarked Mrs. McGarvey, in an 
 innocent, meditative tone. Then with sudden 
 alacrity, "Once?" 
 
 "Once and why not once?" asked Dr. 
 Challoner, with a fiery eye upon her. 
 
 " How often has Mr. Overholt asked her, I 
 wonder." 
 
 " That miserable hound ! "
 
 MRS. BRAND 269 
 
 " Yes, that's just what he is," said Mrs. McGar- 
 vey, " but I think it's likely he knows a thing or 
 two about the business he's in." She looked at 
 Dr. Challoner with shrewd kindly eyes. " A 
 woman likes to be won," she remarked, sugges- 
 tively. 
 
 Dr. Challoner kicked the table leg viciously. 
 " Well, that's all no use now." 
 
 "Why 1 ?" 
 
 " Because she is going to marry him." 
 
 " Has she told you so? " 
 
 " I guess so," he said, wearily. " Don't you 
 see there was never any chance for me. Mr. Over- 
 holt is the man her husband intended her to marry 
 " such a remarkable expression made its ap- 
 pearance on Mrs. McGarvey's countenance that 
 he paused abruptly for an explanation of it. 
 
 " No," she protested vehemently, " no, my dear 
 lad, it was you that he meant." 
 
 Dr. Challoner laughed. " But Uncle John 
 told me so himself, and Mrs. Brand knows that," 
 he said, with an amused perception of the fact 
 that he was evidently cutting Mrs. McGarvey's 
 most cherished theories to pieces before her eyes.
 
 270 MRS. BRAND 
 
 She looked the picture of despair, but after a few 
 terrible moments she rallied bravely. " I simply 
 wouldn't bear it," she declared, belligerently. 
 
 "I must," he said, quietly. "You see she 
 knows that I would never marry her under those 
 conditions. I don't want my wife to be my pat- 
 roness. If she ever came to me she would have 
 to let all that go." 
 
 " You expect a great deal. You expect a 
 woman to give up the luxuries and habits that 
 have become second nature to her, and what 
 do you offer in return*? " 
 
 "What do I offer in return?" he repeated, 
 vehemently. " The best that any man can ever 
 give to any woman, something never bought or 
 sold in the market-place." 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey sighed. " Dear lad, I will not 
 quarrel with you any more." She looked at him 
 with her eyes full of tears. The discipline of life 
 was it a good thing? At this moment she re- 
 belliously thought not. " It's all very well to talk 
 about developing character, but this will leave a 
 hard spot in his heart where there ought to be a 
 tender the most tender."
 
 MRS. BRAND 271 
 
 " Happiness " she began. 
 
 Dr. Challoner broke in impatiently, " Happi- 
 ness^ Is there such a thing as mere happiness*? 
 No. It's all a question of character." Hard lines 
 came and went about his mouth as his face fol- 
 lowed the workings of his mind. But all at once 
 it softened pathetically; his eyes glowed mistily. 
 " Ah, if you knew her as I do no, I don't mean 
 her faults I mean all that she really is and 
 could be if she would only give herself a chance. 
 But she has never had any. Her life has been so 
 warped and blunted. Poor child ! She has never 
 had a taste of the real sweetness of life, and so 
 she has nothing of comparison. And that man 
 think of her life with him. What will it be"? 
 What does he care for all the hidden beauty and 
 charm of her character? With Mr. Brand her 
 life must have been one of studied repression; 
 with Mr. Overholt she will be forced to the most 
 tragic expression of herself. And think of it " 
 he clenched his hands until the one left cruel 
 marks upon the other " think of the things " 
 he stopped, shaking his head in despair. 
 
 " What? Things you know about him? "
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey had the avidity of a carrion- 
 crow where Mr. Overholt was concerned. 
 
 " No, not things that I can absolutely say I 
 know, but things I suspect things I myself am 
 sure of, in fact. And yet I must not tell her," 
 he exclaimed, passionately. 
 
 " But, dear lad, you must tell her. You are 
 doing wrong," said Mrs. McGarvey, in real 
 alarm. 
 
 " No, I am not," he replied, firmly. " I have 
 argued it all out with myself over and over. No 
 man's home would be safe if a physician were 
 privileged to use outside of it the knowledge he 
 gains in it under extraordinary circumstances. I 
 have warned her I can not do more. And she 
 knows enough." He fell silent, and Mrs. McGar- 
 vey abandoned herself to utter wretchedness. 
 
 At last he got up, and stood for a moment, halt- 
 ing, irresolute, and when he spoke it seemed more 
 to himself than to her, the words dropping in 
 strange, uneven groups as if forced from him by 
 some external pressure. 
 
 " To think that I know what would forever
 
 MRS. BRAND 273 
 
 separate her from him and I dare not, must 
 not, will not tell her." 
 
 But Mrs. Brand had not yet yielded to the 
 thought of inevitable separation between herself 
 and Dr. Challoner. She clung persistently to the 
 belief that by some potent effect of her personality 
 she could unite the inharmonious elements about 
 her in a yoke of mutual toleration for her benefit. 
 Sometimes she found herself wondering why she 
 cared so much about Dr. Challoner's friendship. 
 She had never considered seriously his desire to 
 marry her. She knew his mental outlook thor- 
 , oughly, and some of the things that she valued 
 most were contemptible trifles to him; there could 
 be no harmonious adjustment of marital interests 
 with such a basis as that. 
 
 So it happened that Dr. Challoner one day 
 received a note from Mrs. Brand asking him to 
 call and see her as soon as he had an opportunity 
 of doing so. His first impulse was vehemently 
 negative to any such proposal, and yet he ended 
 by succumbing to her request, for it seemed to 
 indicate that there yet remained a loop-hole 
 through which he might help her to escape.
 
 274, MRS. BRAND 
 
 With the coming of the warm weather there 
 had been a great deal of sickness in Moon Street, 
 and it was at the close of a long, weary day that 
 had made heavy drafts upon his sympathies that 
 he found himself at liberty. 
 
 Mrs. Brand received him with a constraint that 
 savored of embarrassment, and instantly he per- 
 ceived Mr. Overholt lounging easily on a chair at 
 the end of the room. 
 
 " Aha, doctor ! " the minister exclaimed, aff- 
 ably. " How are you getting along in your part 
 of the world, or the Moon, perhaps I should say"? " 
 
 "Oh, don't talk about Moon Street," inter- 
 posed Mrs. Brand, abruptly. " It really isn't in 
 your line." She felt a quick resentment at Mr. 
 Overholt's air of pleasant patronage. 
 
 But he only laughed such a charming laugh, 
 the echo of happy fancies in his brain, perhaps. 
 "Ah, indeed! Well, I suppose I must pay for 
 my privileges by a graceful submission to snubs 
 now and then," he said with an air of gay hom- 
 age. But Mrs. Brand was not listening. She 
 was wondering desperately how to disentangle this 
 three-stranded snarl. From Mr. Overholt she
 
 MRS. BRAND 275 
 
 need expect no assistance; she supposed he was 
 laughing in his sleeve at her now. And Dr. Chal- 
 loner"? at that moment she impatiently con- 
 ceived of him as a kind of mathematician to her 
 conscience, perpetually haunting her with his per- 
 pendicular theories of right and wrong. She was 
 tired of it all ; she wished that she could escape to 
 some still corner of the earth where there were no 
 problems to be answered and no men to propound 
 them. 
 
 But Dr. Challoner saved her from the odium 
 of initiative. " You sent for me to come and see 
 you. If it can be arranged I should like to see 
 you now, alone. If not, the matter had better be 
 dropped, for I happen to be exceedingly busy." 
 His voice sounded to himself as if it reached him 
 externally from some great distance, but to the 
 hearers it had no such quality. Mr. Overholt 
 with pleasantly quickening pulses straightened 
 himself in his seat, and looked curiously at Mrs. 
 Brand. He considered the situation attractive, 
 and he meant to maintain himself impervious to 
 anything less than a direct request from her to 
 withdraw.
 
 276 MRS. BRAND 
 
 But Mrs. Brand threw her head back in the 
 light, lofty poise which each man knew so well, 
 for her evil star was in the ascendant, and was 
 impelling her to the utmost defiance in thought 
 and speech. Arthur to speak to her like that, 
 and before Mr. Overholt! Instantly she faced 
 him, pale and breathless. " Thank you, perhaps 
 that will be better. I am sorry to have troubled 
 you about a thing that is, after all, of no conse- 
 quence." 
 
 Dr. Challoner had presumed to consider him- 
 self under admirable control, but he had not bar- 
 gained for just this method of being dealt with, 
 and there was nothing in his mental equipment 
 that responded to it harmoniously. Without a 
 word, without even the courtesy of a parting ges- 
 ture of the briefest sort, he turned and left the 
 room. 
 
 For a few moments after he left them Mr. Over- 
 holt and Mrs. Brand sat silent. Then she sud- 
 denly turned towards him. Had she seen in his 
 face the slightest trace of amusement it would 
 probably have been a serious matter for him, but 
 the lissom lines of his ready-made countenance
 
 MRS. BRAND 277 
 
 expressed the most delicate adjustment to her 
 mood. He looked at her patiently, seriously. 
 Then he said with the utmost moderation of tone 
 and manner, " I wish I might shield you forever 
 from such trials as these." 
 
 The reckless impetus that had forced her into 
 one crisis had not yet exhausted its momentum. 
 " I think you may," she answered, in the same 
 breathless way in which she had spoken to Dr. 
 Challoner. 
 
 For a moment Mr. Overholt looked at her 
 with an almost dazed expression. Then he bent 
 over her. " My darling, do you mean this"? " he 
 asked tenderly, drawing her towards him. 
 Though she yielded to the ardor of his caresses 
 without other feeling than that they were some- 
 thing that she must accept as inevitable, Mr. 
 Overholt was not likely to find her passivity a 
 flaw just then, and yet when he released her, 
 her eyes were full of tears tears which he 
 pressed gently away from her face with whispered 
 words of endearment, for he was quite at home in 
 the character Fate had assigned to him. 
 
 But in the middle of that night she awoke sob-
 
 278 MRS. BRAND 
 
 bing from a dream, and for the first few moments 
 while her memory quivered in the borderland of 
 sleep, she shivered with terror. She was alone, 
 clinging desperately to a rock in a waste of waters, 
 from which a hand was stretched to clutch her, 
 a hand she knew, small and white. By degrees 
 she remembered an old parlor print, the nearest 
 approach to " art " that had been permitted upon 
 the walls of Aunt Lavinia's domestic Zion. She 
 meant to laugh about it, but instead of that she 
 began to sob again hysterically. 
 
 Mrs. Brand did not see Dr. Challoner for some 
 time, not until she met him one day as she was 
 leaving Trixy's room. He held the door open for 
 her to enter, but there was no further greeting 
 between them than the formal bow which Trixy 
 observed with amazement. The girl lay back 
 upon her pillows exhausted from a long fit of 
 coughing, and Mrs. Brand moved gently about 
 the room attending to its various details, and re- 
 arranging some flowers. When at last she sat 
 down beside Trixy, she saw that her eyes were 
 full of resentful interrogation. 
 
 " What is the matter, Trixy? " she asked, not
 
 MRS. BRAND 279 
 
 without poignant anticipation, for if Trixy had a 
 grievance to present it would not come wrapped 
 in cotton wool. And yet that was one of the girl's 
 particular attractions to her. 
 
 " What makes you so mean to him*? " she asked 
 bluntly. 
 
 Mrs. Brand stared at her in silence with a 
 straightening of her lips and a distinct set-back 
 of her shoulders which had, however, not the least 
 effect on Trixy. 
 
 " I'm just going to tell you all about it. You 
 don't suppose I've been lying here all this time 
 watching you two, and never thinking anything 
 about it. Why, it's just all I've cared anything 
 about. And then when you go and act like you 
 did just now I cannot bear it, that's all. If ever 
 man loved woman he loves you, Mrs. Brand. Ah, 
 not with the kind of love that he loved me with. 
 No ! No ! " Bitter tears streamed down Trixy's 
 face, and in a strange tumult of feeling Mrs. 
 Brand leaned over, and wiped them away. " Has 
 he ever asked you to marry him 4 ? " Trixy asked 
 in a whisper. 
 
 " Yes, Trixy, but I can't," answered Mrs.
 
 280 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Brand. How outrageous she would have thought 
 it a year before to be sharing her confidences with 
 a girl like this, but sympathy is a subtle leveller, 
 and these two natures struck many chords in uni- 
 son. A sudden rage possessed Trixy. She tossed 
 Mrs. Brand's hand off the coverlet. " How can 
 you be so cruel*?" she said passionately, and 
 before Mrs. Brand could explain with dignity, 
 that there were the most conclusive reasons why 
 she could not marry Dr. Challoner, the girl went 
 on vehemently: " How can you hurt anyone who 
 loves you like that"? It is wicked. You don't 
 know anything about it, but I know. His love 
 would make you good, not bad like mine made 
 me." She was speaking with an intensity of feel- 
 ing that Mrs. Brand had never seen in her before. 
 " Ah, you don't know, you don't know. You 
 never lay awake all through the long night in a 
 black horror to think what you are now, and what 
 you might have been such a little while before. 
 You never longed and prayed and begged for 
 something to happen that would somehow take it 
 all away from you the shame of it all. You 
 never fell asleep and dreamed that you were a
 
 MRS. BRAND 281 
 
 happy child again, and then woke to find the terror 
 of it nearer to you than it was when you fell 
 asleep." Her voice sank to an agonized whisper, 
 and she turned her face away, her poor, thin body 
 shaken like a reed in the storm of remembrance. 
 After a moment Mrs. Brand reached over and 
 touched her hand. The feeling of lofty resent- 
 ment that she had for some moments felt how 
 petty it seemed in sight of this poor child's misery. 
 
 Trixy lay silent. That this beautiful woman 
 with the unsullied dignity of her name and place 
 should stoop to clasp her sin-stained hand with 
 the tender touch of sympathy had always been to 
 her a mystery a mystery whose precious leaven 
 was gradually transforming her entire nature. 
 
 There was silence in the room for a long time. 
 Trixy evidently wished for quiet. Mrs. Brand 
 was busy with her own thoughts, but after a while 
 her mind reverted to the bitter story of which she 
 had had a closer glimpse to-day than ever before. 
 Sometimes she had felt sure that the girl wished 
 to speak to her about it. The subject had seemed 
 too full of difficulty to be rashly approached. 
 But to-day, perhaps, there had come to her an
 
 282 MRS. BRAND 
 
 opportunity that might never recur, and which if 
 wisely directed might be the means of freeing this 
 fleeting soul of some of its burden. 
 
 " Trixy," she said gently, " you and I have been 
 friends a long time now, but you have never told 
 me anything about that. Isn't there anything 
 you would like to tell me'? " 
 
 Mrs. Brand was busy dressing a doll for a sick 
 child in the room above. She had dressed a good 
 many dolls since she first knew Trixy, for their 
 outfits had been an unceasing source of interest 
 to the girl, whose instinct in the matter of dress 
 had been one of her most fatal charms. 
 
 " I guess that bonnet had better be shirred," 
 she said now to Mrs. Brand, " and if you give her 
 up to me I'd like to fix that sash." Her thin, 
 trembling fingers had lost none of their inborn 
 cunning, and, as she gave a pinch here and a twist 
 there, she began talking in a tense monotone. 
 
 " Father died when Emmy and I were small, 
 and left mother alone to bring us up. I've heard 
 mother say that was the only useful thing he ever 
 did after he married her. Mother was smart. 
 She had been a lady's maid in some English noble-
 
 MRS. BRAND 283 
 
 man's family before she came to this country, and 
 she had great ideas about bringing us up right. 
 We got the name of being proud and I guess we 
 were. Mother kept a milliner's store, and she got 
 along real well. She always managed to keep us 
 at school, for she meant to make teachers of us. 
 But the winter I was seventeen she died. Only 
 three years ago." The gay, little doll fell from 
 Trixy's limp fingers, and she stared absently back 
 into the memories of that cherished girlhood. 
 
 " What did you do after that? " asked Mrs. 
 Brand, presently. 
 
 " Well, after everything was settled up it was 
 awfully dull; we missed mother so. Then we 
 heard that we could get splendid places as mil- 
 liners in Chicago. I didn't ever want to be a 
 teacher, but I wouldn't have dared tell mother 
 that. You see, we were born milliners. That was 
 something we didn't have to be years learning, 
 and it seemed just splendid to think of making so 
 much money right away. So, after thinking about 
 it a while, we pulled up and came. Em wanted to 
 come just as bad as I did. But after we got into 
 it we didn't like it so well as we'd expected to."
 
 284 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Why? " 
 
 " Well, for one thing we had to work such long 
 hours. Then we didn't know a soul, and nobody 
 cared a cent about us. I used to cry about it, but 
 Em was just like mother. She'd shove a thing 
 through somehow, and she always said 'twould 
 come out all right if we only had patience." 
 
 " What store were you in*? " asked Mrs. Brand, 
 impulsively. 
 
 But Trixy ignored the question, and when she 
 began to speak again her voice was pitched in a 
 cruder key. 
 
 " He was there, in the store. He always 
 noticed me after he came back he wasn't 
 there at first. But after a while we began to meet 
 evenings and Sundays. Poor Em used to get 
 pretty wild. She talked to me real straight. She 
 said I ought to have sense enough to take care of 
 myself, and that he never would have looked at 
 me if I hadn't been so pretty. I knew that better 
 than she did, but I didn't see 'twas anything to 
 fret about. And I was so happy; I know I got 
 prettier every day of my life. What Em said 
 was all right, but she didn't say enough because
 
 MRS. BRAND 285 
 
 she didn't know enough. Em never thought any 
 further than that we might fall in love with each 
 other, and that we couldn't get married because 
 of his " Trixy paused abruptly and then went 
 on. "And a broken heart! Em couldn't think 
 of that for me." There was a cruel irony in the 
 pretty voice. 
 
 " I used to watch his sisters when they came 
 into the millinery department with their mother, 
 so that I might be as near like them as possible. 
 They weren't pretty, but they were real ladies." 
 " Then he was a gentleman, Trixy? " 
 " A gentleman*? Oh, yes, what they call a gen- 
 tleman. That was just it, you see. Two or three 
 men had wanted to marry me already, but I just 
 couldn't bear them. I didn't want to get married. 
 I just wanted to be left alone. It was enough to 
 know that he loved me. I just hungered and 
 thirsted for a sight of him through the long day. 
 
 Sometimes when he was with his when he 
 
 couldn't speak to me, it just seemed as if I must 
 go crazy if he didn't give me a look. And he 
 knew it. Once I stayed away from an appoint- 
 ment I had made with him, but I never did that
 
 286 MRS. BRAND 
 
 again. It would have been easier to die, I think," 
 she said simply, " and he never looked at me for a 
 week. The time I spent with him was the only 
 time there was to me; the rest wasn't living." 
 
 " Why did you love him, Trixy? " said Mrs. 
 Brand, sadly. The pitiful, inevitable tragedy of 
 this one of the myriad Marguerites whose story 
 no poet would ever sing was burning its bitter 
 way into her heart. This was what love wrought 
 in an innocent life; it was well that she had set it 
 and its sophistries out of her heart. 
 
 " How could I help it"? " said Trixy, her bril- 
 liant feverish eyes wide with surprise. " He was 
 so handsome, and he had all a gentleman's ways. 
 He didn't make love to me like the other men did. 
 They made me mad. But he oh, don't you 
 know? " she broke off, wistfully. 
 
 " Besides, why was it wrong"? " she burst out 
 excitedly after a little pause. " You love a man, 
 and he asks you to marry him. I loved a man, 
 and he didn't ask me to marry him, but he asked 
 everything else, and I loved him too well to make 
 a bargain with him. I was meant to love some-
 
 MRS. BRAND 287 
 
 body, and I never could have loved anybody else 
 like I loved him." 
 
 She began to sob, and Mrs. Brand said, " Trixy, 
 I don't believe that you must tell me any more 
 to-day. It isn't best for you to think of these 
 things." The sight of the girl lying there with 
 her dark-lashed eyelids closed upon cheeks bright 
 with treacherous spots of crimson pierced Mrs. 
 Brand with a keener pity than she had ever felt 
 for her before. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I must tell you. I must. I will be 
 good. I won't cry any more," she said, in a shrill, 
 sibilant whisper. It was evident that some under- 
 current of feeling was sweeping away the barriers 
 that hitherto had bound her to silence. 
 
 " I can't tell you much about it, and you never 
 could imagine it the beginning of that fearful 
 dread, and the horror of it as it grew upon me. 
 He had told me such different things, and I didn't 
 know. Then one day he teased me, and said I 
 was getting dull, and that I was losing my good 
 looks, and so I told him what was frightening 
 me." She opened her eyes wide, and fixed them 
 hauntingly on Mrs. Brand. " And he laughed
 
 288 MRS. BRAND 
 
 laughed," she repeated, her tone rising into a sharp 
 wail. " He told me I must manage those things 
 better." Her eyes flashed, and she clenched her 
 thin hands until the nails bit her flesh. 
 
 Just for a moment; then with an extraordinary 
 return to self-control she said quite gently, " That 
 is all, Mrs. Brand." 
 
 But to Mrs. Brand it seemed only the begin- 
 ning. " Oh ! Trixy," she said, hot tears in her 
 eyes, " when the baby came oh, my child, 
 surely he did something, even if he could not 
 marry you." 
 
 " Oh, no," said Trixy, calmly. " He told me 
 himself that Em and I must leave the store at 
 once they wouldn't have that kind of girl in 
 their employ. Poor Em! Poor proud Em! It 
 broke her heart. But do you think she let go of 
 me*? She never said one word, and she worked 
 her fingers to the bone to keep us." 
 
 " How long did the baby live, Trixy? " 
 
 " Only a few days. Just think! A little girl, 
 and it was mine mine ! " The sweetest smile 
 hovered lightly about her lips, and then fled, 
 chased out of sight by her changing mood. " But
 
 MRS. BRAND 289 
 
 do you think I loved it? " she asked, fiercely. 
 " When I saw it the first time, lying there beside 
 me on the pillow, I put my hands around its throat, 
 tight, tight and I would have choked it to 
 death if Em hadn't come in." She was silent a 
 moment, then with a desperate wrench she sud- 
 denly raised herself up on one arm. " Tell me, 
 what can God do for a girl like me? Must I go 
 to Hell, and never see my baby again? How can 
 I ever be like I used to be? " 
 
 Mrs. Brand felt a sudden dismay. How could 
 one reason with a poor distressed child like this? 
 
 " Listen, Trixy," she said, gently, " you mustn't 
 think about it any more. And as for going to 
 Hell dear child, there isn't any such place as 
 that. People don't think about these things as 
 they used to." 
 
 Trixy sank back upon her pillows. " Then 
 what's the matter with me? " she said, slowly. 
 " Isn't there any Heaven either? " Her voice 
 quickened resentfully. 
 
 Mrs. Brand hesitated. She had always laughed 
 at the people who could " read their title clear " 
 without any doubt as to its meaning, but she felt
 
 290 MRS. BRAND 
 
 that something more than science and a surmise 
 was needed here. 
 
 " Why, yes, there must be a Heaven," she 
 answered, haltingly. 
 
 "Then how am I to get there? I can't get 
 there like this," the girl said, pitifully. 
 
 " Why, God will take you there, of course. 
 You are thinking too much about what is gone 
 by, Trixy, and you will make yourself terribly 
 unhappy if you keep on." 
 
 But Trixy turned away her face in a passion 
 of weeping. " You don't understand," she cried 
 out, miserably. " Don't you see it's all gone 
 wrong? I've been a cruel, wicked girl, and I'm 
 wicked still. I hate him. I would kill him now 
 if I could, and how can I go to Heaven if I feel 
 like that?" 
 
 " Dear Trixy, all that will be taken away when 
 you get there." 
 
 " Yes, but I can't wait. I want it taken away 
 now. It burns me like a fire. Oh, don't you 
 know the way? " She began to sob again, and 
 Mrs. Brand got up and walked to the window in 
 a tumult of doubt and perplexity. The afternoon
 
 MRS. BRAND 291 
 
 sun shone warm and bright upon the dirty street, 
 and upon the hordes of little children " damned 
 into existence " under conditions that would have 
 shamed animals. Her heart grew sick. Was there 
 no way of righting these wrongs, was there noth- 
 ing one could honestly offer to a soul in the quick- 
 sands'? 
 
 She went back to the bed, and tenderly stroked 
 the girl's hot forehead and tumbled hair. " I've 
 waited so long for you to talk to me about it," 
 Trixy began, in eager, broken whispers. " Long 
 ago before I stopped going to church we used to 
 hear about Christ about Jesus." Her voice 
 sank to the merest quiver of sound. " They said 
 He came to save sinners. That's me. But how*? 
 Tell me ! " She fixed her great eyes entreatingly 
 on Mrs. Brand's face. 
 
 Mrs. Brand shrank back as if she had received 
 a blow. In her fierce revolt against the narrowing 
 creeds of her childhood, and against the later blos- 
 soming of a faith all her own that was irritably 
 linked in her mind with her wretched love-affair, 
 she had pursued a war of extermination against 
 all the fine, religious instincts of her nature. She
 
 292 MRS. BRAND 
 
 would always be able to maintain herself proudly 
 superior to any vicissitude, but Trixy, poor Trixy, 
 with her ruined life, conscious only of the pain 
 and horror of it, and childishly longing for some 
 impossible retribution of her innocence, what 
 was to be done with her 4 ? While she wondered 
 what she could do Trixy's voice broke in, clear and 
 loud, upon her bewilderment. 
 
 " What is the matter? Why don't you say 
 something*? Aren't you a Christian, Mrs. 
 Brand?" 
 
 The color flamed into her face. A Christian! 
 She lifted her head. " No, Trixy, I'm not a Chris- 
 tian, as you call it." 
 
 "Then what are you here for?" exclaimed 
 Trixy, passionately. " I thought you knew a 
 better way a kinder way than the women that 
 prayed." She turned her face to the wall with a 
 moan of utter despair. 
 
 Mrs. Brand sat there, silent, rigid as unyielding 
 stone for a long time. Then some subtle sugges- 
 tion warning her that it was nearly time for 
 " Em " to come home she rose up and put on her
 
 MRS. BRAND 293 
 
 hat, and without a glance towards the bed she 
 went away. 
 
 When she reached home it was growing dark. 
 Before going indoors, she stopped for a moment, 
 and looked up at the star-set sky. Those mute, 
 insensate stars she felt a vague, unreasoning 
 hatred of them with their endless suggestions of 
 system and space. The sweet, heavy odors of the 
 flowers rose up around her; a firefly winged his 
 brilliant way across her path, and the soft night 
 air fanned her cheeks. But she had no heart for 
 the beauties of nature ; she was at war with nature 
 to-night. 
 
 When she went indoors, she was told that Mr. 
 Overholt was waiting to see her. 
 
 " Mr. Overholt," she said, blankly. " No, I 
 cannot see him now. Tell him I am very tired." 
 She swept on, upstairs to her own room, and 
 locked and double-locked the door. Mr. Overholt 
 was an exacting lover; her lips seemed to shrivel 
 at the possibility of his lingering touch upon them. 
 She lay awake that night thinking. Her pride 
 had been wounded, for she had considered her 
 method with Trixy certain of success. Had not
 
 294 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey herself said as much 4 ? And now 
 she was forced to admit that any hallelujah lass 
 would have answered the case better. At other 
 times she fairly moaned at the burden laid upon 
 her, for she knew she must go back to Trixy. Her 
 conscience smote her as she thought of the girl 
 lying there alone. What had she thought*? The 
 cruel details of the story she had heard rose up 
 before her like points of fire in the darkness. And 
 yet, after all that pathetic recital she had gone 
 away without a word. 
 
 But what could she do now*? There was 
 Arthur yes, she could have told him her diffi- 
 culty so easily, but Mr. Overholt ! No, she 
 
 could not imagine herself appealing to him about 
 it. It would be like seeking the sympathy of a 
 celebrated jurist on a point of moral law. A glib 
 receipt for regeneration would put her beyond the 
 present limits of her endurance. 
 
 The next morning Trixy, helplessly staring into 
 a deserted, dreary future, heard again the light 
 feet and swift silken sweep in the passage, and 
 Mrs. Brand came in. 
 
 " Trixy, I am sorry," she said. " I do not know 
 the way, but we will find it out together."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MR. OVERHOLT had returned from his vacation 
 hoping to find Mrs. Brand rendered more pliable 
 by the rigors of his absence, but her welcome of 
 him was much more restrained than he thought 
 desirable. During his absence she had discarded 
 the last vestiges of her mourning apparel, and he 
 thought her very lovely in her yellow gown with 
 yellow roses in her belt. But he did not feel at all 
 content to spend the evening watching her oppo- 
 site him in the straight, high-backed chair. 
 
 She was talking of Chrys, for the child had 
 stayed with her during his father's absence, and, 
 for reasons best known to herself she chose to 
 assume that an exhaustive account of his doings 
 was demanded of her. " I wish I could remember 
 all the funny things he said to me. One day we 
 had a little altercation about something I thought 
 he should eat. He always asked the blessing, and 
 at the next meal he said with an unmistakable sug- 
 
 295
 
 296 MRS. BRAND 
 
 gestive accent, ' Lord bless to us what now we like 
 to do us good.' " Mr. Overholt laughed, although 
 he had not been sufficiently observant of her 
 remark to know just what it was about. 
 
 " Yesterday he was sailing boats in the bath 
 upstairs, and I overheard him making arrange- 
 ments to hire an extra sailor out of Noah's ark. 
 ' Do you want to work in my boat? ' he asked. 
 ' Well, are you a member of our church? ' 
 
 " I thought you would appreciate that tale," 
 she added. " You see how kindly he has taken to 
 his training." 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Overholt. He got up and 
 came over to her, standing still and looking down 
 at her without speaking. And she forgot the 
 stories with which her mind had been so full. 
 
 " When are we going to be married? " he asked 
 doggedly. 
 
 " Married! Oh, I don't know," she answered, 
 with elaborate carelessness. But she knew the dis- 
 cussion was to be resumed exactly where it had 
 broken off when he went away, unwillingly alone, 
 for his vacation. 
 
 He dropped into a chair beside her, and, lean-
 
 MRS. BRAND 297 
 
 ing over, took her work out of her hands and laid 
 it on the table. 
 
 " How would the middle of next month do? 
 You see, we can't put this thing off indefinitely, 
 and I really don't think it will be in the best taste 
 to let it get too near the first of January." 
 
 The color rose in her face. In arguing her fu- 
 ture with herself she maintained a strictly finan- 
 cial point of view ; she could not, however, endure 
 any suggestion of such an attitude from him. 
 
 But she said nothing, and he took her hand, 
 and began drawing her sleeve back from her 
 wrist. Then he lightly kissed her arm again and 
 again. She watched him quite coolly. He must 
 kiss her, of course; she did not particularly mind 
 his lips upon her wrist. But at last he turned her 
 face towards him. " Next month"? " he repeated. 
 
 " Oh, I don't want to get married," she said, 
 lightly. 
 
 " No, of course not. It is only a little kind- 
 ness on your part to oblige me. For I want to 
 very badly. And Chrys, think of him. He 
 sobbed himself asleep last night after he came 
 home."
 
 298 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Yes, I know," she said, in a troubled way. 
 
 " Those miserable servants, they take the most 
 wretched care of him, poor child ! " said his father. 
 " Come ! you agree to next month 1 ? " 
 
 " Oh, let us give it all up ! " she said, quickly. 
 
 " Give it up ! " he echoed. " Not much ! Do 
 you think after a man has tasted nectar and am- 
 brosia he is going quietly back to bread and water 1 ? 
 We'll settle on the middle of next month," he said, 
 gaily. " I can get off for a couple of weeks then." 
 He went on with eager arrangements for their trip, 
 and she listened absently. But even then there 
 was growing in her mind a distinct intention to 
 put an end to it all, an intention which she per- 
 ceived as if it were something quite outside of her 
 own volition. During his absence she had con- 
 trived to think very little about him, and now that 
 he was back again she was suddenly confronted 
 by this strange determination in herself. 
 
 " I can't," she kept repeating to herself while 
 he talked. " I can't." But he found her silence 
 charming, and most appropriate under the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 When he got up to go she stepped towards the
 
 MRS. BRAND 299 
 
 door with an underlying intention of taking leave 
 of him in the hall. But the thing which she had 
 dreaded happened, for he caught her to himself, 
 and she experienced again all the stress of his love 
 in its abandon. An unutterable disgust took pos- 
 session of her while he kissed her, her lips, her eye- 
 lids, her throat, but she was still and unresistant 
 with a pride that he could never have compre- 
 hended. 
 
 When he was gone she crept up-stairs in the 
 darkness with a sense of such humiliation as she 
 had never dreamed it possible that she could know. 
 
 But Mr. Overholt carried away with him a 
 lightened heart. The question of his marriage 
 had become a very imperative one. He was quite 
 conscious of the fact that there seemed to be ele- 
 ments in his church that were not just as appre- 
 ciative of him as he might reasonably expect them 
 to be. He had achieved in it a great popular suc- 
 cess; he had been tremendously talked about, and 
 yet some of his old Nancys, as he called his board 
 of deacons, were not satisfied. And certainly some 
 of his utterances were not calculated to soothe the 
 breasts of a wounded diaconate. " There is a
 
 300 MRS. BRAND 
 
 little text somewhere that says, ' Resist the devil, 
 and he will flee from you ! ' I have discovered a 
 modern rendering of that ' Resist the deacons, 
 and they will fly at you.' ' This remark of his 
 was widely quoted, and aroused general sympathy 
 for the deacons, which, however, always expressed 
 itself in a smile, just as if they were sea-sick or 
 something of that kind. 
 
 " No, no," said Mr. Boyington, when he first 
 divined signs of an approaching scrimmage, " I 
 hope Mr. Overholt will read the hand-writing on 
 the wall, ' Veni, vidi, vici,' or whatever it was 
 that old king saw up there, and get out in time. 
 But you aren't going to pull me into the fracas. 
 If I was in his place I'd get out so quick you could 
 play cards on my coat-tails. And if he's going to 
 marry Mrs. Brand " 
 
 " Well, he isn't. Mrs. Crumpet says there is 
 not a reliable word in that report." 
 
 "Does she? Well, let's leave 'em alone. 
 That's my philosophy. If they're bound to fight, 
 don't get monkeying in the ring or you'll get hit." 
 
 If Mr. Overholt had been less preoccupied than 
 he was with matrimonial pursuits he would un-
 
 MRS. BRAND 301 
 
 doubtedly have been able to manipulate the dan- 
 gerous elements about him to his own advantage. 
 But he had ceased to be interested in his church. 
 It was essential to his nature that he should occupy 
 a commanding place in the affairs of men, but he 
 meant to pursue his future upon far more striking 
 lines than any that a merely ecclesiastical organi- 
 zation could afford him. There were times when 
 he still preached with a brilliancy that was almost 
 startling, but he was openly indifferent to the in- 
 terests of the Y. E. L. P. Society, and he had even 
 suggested an opinion on the subject of foreign mis- 
 sionary fiends. 
 
 There were not wanting people who accused 
 him of dissimulation people who shrank from 
 his official participation in the things most sacred 
 to them. And yet he took himself so seriously, so 
 momentously, that upon many people with whom 
 he came in contact he left the imprint of his own 
 opinion of himself. To let his genius soar and 
 watch it, intoxicated with admiration at its flights, 
 was a pastime of which he never grew weary. It 
 had been the possibility of that which had made 
 the ministry so attractive to him in the beginning.
 
 302 MRS. BRAND 
 
 The people who wondered why he had never gone 
 into the law did not realize that it would have 
 afforded no adequate scope for his emotions. 
 
 As Mrs. Brand herself was sufficiently aware 
 her fortune was her commanding attraction to 
 him, but after it was once assured to him, it would 
 have been difficult to believe that he ever had 
 loved or ever could love any other woman than 
 herself. The part of lover became an absorbing 
 one to him, and he operated the role with a keen 
 delight in his own effectiveness. He was some- 
 times conscious of a disappointing lack of response 
 in Mrs. Brand; he could have wished that she 
 " felt the part " a little more, but then it behooved 
 him to be lenient. Her first marriage had appar- 
 ently receded from her experience, leaving very 
 little effect behind it. She was still in many ways 
 as raw as a girl. After all, perhaps it was better 
 so, for he anticipated a great change in her, and 
 it would be pleasant to know it due entirely to 
 himself. He had a persistent theory about her; 
 he was eager to confirm it as her husband. 
 
 So it was small wonder that he had felt such 
 anxiety about his marriage. It meant freedom
 
 MRS. BRAND 303 
 
 and opportunity to him, and now that these were 
 so near he grew more and more restive under the 
 ecclesiastical yoke. 
 
 Though it was Saturday morning the sermon 
 hardly begun still lay unheeded upon the pastor's 
 desk. For his thoughts were not upon the parish 
 and its needs; they were concerned with the infin- 
 itely greater needs of his own personality, and its 
 distinctive claims upon the universe. Far away 
 down-stairs could be heard Chrys' shrill treble dis- 
 porting itself in a most astonishing version of an 
 old song. The keen lines about his father's eyes 
 relaxed ; he smiled as the ridiculous refrain floated 
 up to him again. 
 
 " My bonnet lies over the ocean, 
 " Oh, bring back my bonnet to me." 
 With all his sordid calculations concerning her 
 he was sincere in the belief that Mrs. Brand would 
 be good to his child. His affection for Chrys was 
 as yet the one untarnished spot in his character. 
 It was wonderful how many women were willing 
 to immolate themselves on the altar of matrimony 
 for the sake of being mothers to Chrys. Mr. Over- 
 holt had felt at times that it required something
 
 304 MRS. BRAND 
 
 akin to brute force to avoid being made a bigamist 
 unawares. And the mother who beamed proxily 
 upon him 
 
 But this was all about to end, and in the warm 
 glow of anticipation that he felt this morning it 
 was not to be supposed that his sermon should 
 weigh too heavily on his dreams. He smiled a lit- 
 tle as he recalled Mr. Brand's cautious financier- 
 ing. It was the timidity of a man who had never 
 recovered from the astonishment of finding him- 
 self rich, and for whom life had never advanced 
 from a duty to a fine art. Still, such careers as 
 his were the necessary foundations of those that 
 came next, picturesque and appreciative of the 
 claims upon them of redeeming a dull and money- 
 grubbing world from its sordid aspect. Five hun- 
 dred thousand dollars! It was not after all a 
 great deal, but he believed he could manipulate it 
 effectively. 
 
 In the midst of these imaginative flights the 
 senior deacon was announced as anxious to see 
 him for a few moments on business of importance. 
 Mr. Overholt descended upon him affably. " Oh 
 no, don't apologize for intruding this morning,"
 
 MRS. BRAND 305 
 
 he said genially. " Even sermons 'must give way 
 to any immediate service I can render my people." 
 
 " I daresay," said Mr. Waring, with some evi- 
 dent embarrassment. " Still I should not be here 
 this morning if it had not appeared to us so neces- 
 sary." He paused again, and Mr. Overholt 
 amused himself by silent speculations as to his 
 deacon's manifest discomfort. It was clear that 
 the pastor was to be " talked to " about some- 
 thing; he felt the repose of sitting on the outside 
 edge of this ferment, when one was supposed to be 
 an integral part of it. 
 
 But the deacon's gaze met the minister's with a 
 gravity that was ridiculously overdone. " Mr. 
 Overholt," he began, with a little quiver in his 
 voice that affected his hearer strangely, " I have 
 come to see you by myself this morning, because I 
 felt that before you were visited by our commit- 
 tee it was only just that you should have some 
 preparation for what they might say to you. I 
 have not come, however, without their knowledge 
 and consent desire indeed." He stopped, but 
 Mr. Overholt with a peremptory wave of his hand 
 motioned for him to proceed. There was, after
 
 306 MRS. BRAND 
 
 all, a limit to one's endurance of this sort of thing. 
 
 " Of course, you know, without my dwelling 
 upon it that for some time past there has been a 
 restless feeling in the church, a growing dissatis- 
 faction " 
 
 " Now, will you kindly tell me just what all 
 this beating about the bush means," interrupted 
 Mr. Overholt, with a bland smile. " In a very 
 few words if you please. I really am very busy 
 this morning." 
 
 " Your wife the nurse," faltered the deacon. 
 It was a warm day, and he stopped to wipe the 
 perspiration from his forehead. He had the air 
 of a very guilty man. 
 
 " My wife the nurse," repeated Mr. Over- 
 holt, acidly. " Now that may be a remarkably 
 lucid statement to you, my good friend, but it 
 lacks certain elements to make it quite intelligible 
 to me." As he spoke he rose from his seat. He 
 felt the utmost resentment at any gossip that im- 
 pinged upon the privacy of his home. 
 
 Deacon Waring rose also. " It is only because 
 I would have spared you, Mr. Overholt, if I 
 could," he said, simply. " Through the nurse who
 
 MRS. BRAND 307 
 
 took care of your wife during her last illness there 
 has somehow spread a report a report that you 
 that your wife died from an overdose of mor- 
 phine." Now that he had said it the man seemed 
 dazed with the horror of his own statement. 
 
 There was a moment's silence, broken by Mr. 
 Overholt's voice, cool and even. " That is, then, 
 what you came to tell me, Mr. Waring 1 ? I do 
 not doubt the kindness of your intention, but I 
 really fail to see in just what way you expect to 
 benefit me." A light film of pallor had settled 
 over his face; otherwise there was no sign in him 
 than it was other than an ordinary conversation 
 that was in progress. 
 
 Mr. Waring looked at him in amazement. 
 " But don't you see why, a minister's reputa- 
 tion is so fragile a thing even a suspicion is 
 able to ruin it completely. It is the most serious 
 thing that could possibly happen to you." 
 
 Mr. Overholt smiled. " A minister's reputa- 
 tion ! Really, I am not very much concerned 
 about that just now," he said, enigmatically. 
 
 " And this story " he blew it lightly from 
 
 his fingers "a nine days' wonder. The people
 
 308 MRS. BRAND 
 
 crave that kind of thing. And, after all, why 
 shouldn't they? " 
 
 " But my good man, every prospect you have 
 will be ruined by this thing. It won't be a nine 
 days' matter for you. You don't know what it 
 may lead to. If you can prove whatever proofs 
 you have must be gathered at once. There is Dr. 
 Challoner, you must see him." 
 
 " Ah, Dr. Challoner ! " There was barely a 
 perceptible drop in Mr. Overholt's voice. He 
 still stood grasping the back of a chair. Over his 
 white forehead there suddenly spread a bead-like 
 web of perspiration. " But if as you said just 
 now, Mr. Waring, a suspicion is sufficient to ruin a 
 minister, I don't see just how I am to defend my- 
 self. One can not get out an injunction against 
 a suspicion." 
 
 Mr. Waring went away in despair and conster- 
 nation. He was a simple-minded man, but he 
 had somehow the impression that throughout the 
 entire interview he had been played with. And 
 he could not understand that, for to him Mr. 
 Overholt's position appeared appalling in the 
 extreme.
 
 MRS. BRAND 309 
 
 When Mr. Overholt reached his study again 
 he threw himself face downward on the lounge, 
 and lay there without moving for some time. 
 Then he got up, and stood quite still in the mid- 
 dle of the room. A curious blight seemed to have 
 passed over him; the radiant effect of self-suffi- 
 cient youth was gone. He had the dazed and 
 shrunken look of a man who has had a great 
 shock, of which he feels the crushing effect with- 
 out understanding just what has caused it. He 
 put his hand wearily to his head. " But did I? " 
 he said aloud. " Did I? " He sat down abruptly 
 in his chair, and began to force his mind back to 
 the time with which his life now seemed to have 
 no vital connection whatever. His wife she 
 had certainly left an indelible impression on his 
 mind, but it was so shadowy and unreal. It was 
 a long time since he had thought of her at all, and 
 he found it quite impossible to replace himself in 
 the old relationship. " An overdose of morphia ! " 
 His mind played about the idea without any sense 
 of horror, but with the most lively curiosity as to 
 what he really had done. It interested him im- 
 mensely, but he could remember nothing except
 
 310 MRS. BRAND 
 
 the intense relief he had felt when he knew that 
 she was dead, for he was so tired, so cruelly 
 exhausted. And with her death she had vanished 
 out of his life, and in the crises that had accumu- 
 lated so frequently since then there had been no 
 time for useless retrospect. She had been a good 
 wife, with no disturbing elements of character. 
 
 But in the midst of these thoughts there was 
 continually present to him an alien consciousness 
 of something waiting to be done. How thick and 
 heavy his head felt. He got up and went over to 
 a cupboard from which after unlocking it, he took 
 a little phial. He really must have something to 
 clear his brain. 
 
 An hour later he was on his way to Mrs. Brand, 
 for in the vivid flashes of perception that began 
 to lighten his way he forsaw his dangers with all 
 the clearness Mr. Waring could have desired, and 
 his mind, long accustomed to strange feats of 
 speculation, began to answer brilliantly to the 
 spur of his necessities. An unexpected and un- 
 avoidable summons to New York, that might 
 entail a long absence for him he would explain 
 all that to her satisfactorily surely she could
 
 MRS. BRAND 311 
 
 see the necessity for their immediate marriage. 
 The details of that assumed rapid shape in his 
 mind. It would really be much better to be mar- 
 ried in New York. He would see her off over the 
 Lake Shore, and leave himself an hour or two later 
 by another route. That would be a most delicate 
 concession to her possible scruples on the score of 
 propriety. After all, it occurred to him pleas- 
 antly, that she would be glad to be taken by force 
 as it were, and married without further oppor- 
 tunity for argument. Only once as he came in 
 sight of the familiar house did his courage fail. 
 " Well, if she won't, the jig's up," he thought, as 
 he rang the bell. But he reassured himself tena- 
 ciously as he followed the maid through the 
 wide, quiet hall, sweet with the perfume of great 
 bowls of flowers set here and there, and prodigal 
 in all its appointments. Left alone to await Mrs. 
 Brand's coming, he paced to and fro, his mind no 
 longer working smoothly along the lines of a defi- 
 nite scheme, but filled with a rush of desperate 
 thought. His feet pressed into the thick carpet, 
 and he looked down at it suddenly with a critical 
 appreciation of its money value. Then his eye
 
 312 MRS. BRAND 
 
 wandered shrewdly over the furniture, and the 
 beautiful water-colors on the wall he had never 
 before felt so fierce a determination to have and 
 to hold all this for himself. In his fevered stress 
 of mind he sought to bribe the dim ideal that still 
 had somewhere a vague resting-place in his 
 thought. Ah, he would like to be different; he 
 would if he only had one chance. He sought out 
 an easy chair, and sinking into its luxurious depths 
 he closed his eyes as if to exclude the pressure 
 upon them of the wealth that encompassed him. 
 A light breeze blew a purple-blossomed vine 
 against the window, the bees droned in the hearts 
 of the flowers, and across the lawn came the whirr 
 of the mower as the grass fell in a green shower 
 about it. Into his soul there came a dim yearning 
 for the restoration of some lost moral quality. 
 
 He sprang suddenly to his feet, for Mrs. Brand 
 stood beside him. " My darling," he said, breath- 
 lessly. He caught her hands in his, drawing her 
 with an insistent pressure towards him. 
 
 " No, no," she said, hoarsely. " I have some- 
 thing to tell you." 
 
 " So you ought," he said, with a desperate effort
 
 MRS. BRAND 313 
 
 to smother the alarm her manner had produced in 
 him. " But so have I, and I think that you ought 
 to let me speak first, as I have come here just to 
 tell you this." She must not have time to think; 
 he must sweep her beyond her scruples by the 
 force of his own enthusiasm. " Listen, I have had 
 a most unexpected summons to New York. I 
 must leave to-day. I must do this, and it may be 
 necessary for me to be absent some time. Now, 
 I can not I will not bear any further separation 
 from you. The strain is killing me. Look at me ; 
 you can see for yourself." Had he achieved his 
 present appearance as the result of careful calcu- 
 lation, and infinite resource in dealing with women 
 he could hardly have succeeded better. But the 
 sharp sense of pity that filled her heart for him 
 was swept quickly out of sight by his own words. 
 " I want you to come with me at least I want 
 you to meet me in New York, and we will be mar- 
 ried at once." 
 
 She drew back, putting her hand out as if to 
 ward off further speech. But she was silent, strug- 
 gling to find some impossible way to make it easy 
 for herself and him. " It is just this," she fal-
 
 314 MRS. BRAND 
 
 tered at last. " I can not. It has been a hor- 
 rible mistake. I can never marry you." 
 
 "Why?" he demanded, with dry lips. Was 
 it possible that she had already got hold of this 
 story? 
 
 " Because I do not love you," she said, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " Is that your only reason? " 
 
 " Isn't it enough? " she said, with sudden 
 vehemence. 
 
 He smiled slightly. In a moment all his care- 
 fully elaborated schemes had slipped through his 
 fingers, for he recognized instinctively that her po- 
 sition, once taken, was final. But what had 
 driven her to it? 
 
 " It might seem so, under some circumstances," 
 he said, with caustic emphasis. But she could not 
 feel angry with him. She was too humiliatingly 
 conscious of her own miserable vacillation in this 
 whole affair. 
 
 ' You will never know how sorry I am," she 
 said, simply, " nor how ashamed. If it had not 
 been for Chrys, I think I should have known bet- 
 ter." Her eyes filled with sudden tears.
 
 MRS. BRAND 815 
 
 " Thank you," said Mr. Overholt, drily. This 
 was reparation pushed to an extreme, he thought. 
 But suddenly he stepped towards her. " Cecily," 
 he said, imploringly, " you cannot mean it. For 
 God's sake, think what you are doing. Have I 
 given you any cause for this? No, you know I 
 have not. You know I love you you, not your 
 money, or anything else, but you." 
 
 " Yes, perhaps," she said, slowly. " But things 
 are all changed with me. Oh, you must have seen 
 it." 
 
 " No, I have not." 
 
 She had sat down, but she stood up again. 
 " Must we argue it 4 ? " she asked, gently. " It 
 will never be otherwise." 
 
 " It must," he said, fiercely. " You ask too 
 much. I can not give you up now. My life will 
 be ruined if you do not marry me. You do not 
 know what it means to me." He looked at her 
 wildly, gripping one hand with the other as he 
 spoke. A frantic impulse swept over him to 
 tell her all the difficulties that beset him. But 
 even as he thought of that he knew that it would 
 be useless ; besides he could not do it. In a mind
 
 316 MRS. BRAND 
 
 like his where daring schemes overlapped each 
 other there was no room for direct simplicity of 
 thought. He relied upon his imagination for his 
 facts; he had even now a shifty consciousness of 
 that as he tried to imagine himself telling her the 
 story which should compel her sympathy. 
 
 " You talk about love ! " He made a gesture 
 of impatience. " Have I harassed you about 
 that? I am willing to wait. It will come." 
 
 A warm color spread over her face, but she said 
 nothing, and as he watched her his mood changed. 
 
 " What has come over you? You have every- 
 thing to lose if you do not marry me." She made 
 an impetuous movement, and a throng of words 
 swarmed to her lips, but she would not speak. 
 She had a feeling of such utter repugnance of her- 
 self and the part that she had played that she felt 
 a certain satisfaction in being pelted with these 
 odious personalities. 
 
 " Unless you mean to marry some one else," 
 Mr. Overholt went on, slowly. His heart gave a 
 sudden leap as he spoke, for she shrank back from 
 him as if from a creeping flame. " Ah, is it pos- 
 sible ! " he exclaimed, with biting emphasis.
 
 MRS. BRAND 317 
 
 " That is the meaning, then, of this sudden ap- 
 preciation of love, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 She faced him with indignant protest. " There 
 has been nothing to warrant you " 
 
 " It must be Challoner," Mr. Overholt broke 
 in, smoothly. "Challoner!" he repeated, as if 
 for the purpose of admiring the effect of the name 
 upon her. " Why didn't I think of it sooner, I 
 wonder"? Since when have you developed this 
 ardent affection for him, may I ask*? " A subtle 
 change had passed over him like a fresh, salt wind 
 off the sea. He was erect and smiling again, a 
 vision of invulnerable youth. He had played his 
 last card and lost, but after all, that shifted a 
 great responsibility off his shoulders. 
 
 Mrs. Brand looked up at him. There was a 
 chance for her now to make atonement, and her 
 heart clutched it desperately. Her dignity, her 
 pride, they were as nothing before this strange, 
 new power in her soul that urged her to the utmost 
 reparation she could make. 
 
 " Dr. Challoner *? Yes, I love him better than 
 my life, I think," she said, with quivering lips.
 
 318 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " I have always loved him, I think, but I did not 
 know it was love." 
 
 " That is very pretty quite Arcadian, in 
 fact." He held out his hand to her. " When is 
 it to be? " he asked, carelessly. " Or have you 
 waited to call my date off first"? " 
 
 " You do not understand," she said, passion- 
 ately. " Dr. Challoner will never ask me to 
 marry him now." Her eyes filled with tears. The 
 delicate reserve that she had set so imperiously 
 aside for a moment, came back upon her with a 
 sharp recoil, and she felt a stinging shame at what 
 she had done. 
 
 " So that is how it stands ! A most effective 
 situation ! " 
 
 " It has all been wrong," she said, miserably. 
 " It has always been wrong with us. But I want 
 you to remember, you must remember, that even 
 if I cannot do as I thought, you and Chrys will 
 always have a place "it was so hard to find 
 the best words " you must remember that I 
 promised to care for Chrys." 
 
 His heart softened. She had never said she 
 loved him, and he had never supposed she did,
 
 MRS. BRAND 319 
 
 but he knew her sincerity of feeling for his boy. 
 
 " I know you would be good to him," he said, 
 simply. " And I shall always be grateful to you 
 if you are." He took her hand to say good-bye, 
 and held it while he looked at her for a moment 
 that had for her the vague tremor of a final part- 
 ing, and to him it was the last glimpse of that 
 roseate future in which she had been, after all, 
 the supreme fascination. 
 
 When he was gone she dropped into the chair 
 nearest her, letting her hands fall helplessly at 
 her sides. She was worn out, and capable of no 
 clear thought on the interview from which her 
 pulse still throbbed tumultuously, but even then 
 she was gnawed by suspicions suspicions about 
 him always inherent in her, it seemed, and quick- 
 ened by the doubts of Bruin. That terrible dis- 
 trust of him with which her thought was honey- 
 combed besieged her now with suggestions from 
 which she shrank. The last few weeks had passed 
 through her life like a hurricane, sweeping her 
 heart clear of the rubbish with which she had 
 filled it, and making room in its silent spaces for 
 that dim visitant, so long ignored, to whom at last 
 she stretched out hands of yearning.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHEN Mr. Overholt left Mrs. Brand's he walked 
 rapidly along the street for some moments 
 without any definite sense of destination. The 
 consciousness of disaster that had been so heavy 
 upon him when he went to see her had quite 
 departed for the time at least, leaving in its place 
 an expanding exhilaration which spread like wine 
 through his veins. Let them do their worst; he 
 was ready to take the world by the throat if need 
 be. 
 
 He was close to the station when he heard the 
 distant whistle of a city-bound train. A few 
 moments later he was aboard it, speeding on its 
 swift wings of steel towards the fulfilment of an 
 idea that had suddenly struck him with the force 
 of an inspiration. In its contemplation he quite 
 forgot the crisis in his own affairs. The fellow 
 was such an arrant fool, he reflected generously; 
 he would probably spend the rest of his life wait-
 
 MRS. BRAND 321 
 
 ing for some one to push him into the troubled 
 pool of her affections. But who could do that as 
 well as himself? The fascination of the idea 
 appealed to him strenuously, and by the time the 
 train reached the city there was no remnant in 
 his mental outlook of the triumphant proprietor- 
 ship that he had so recently felt in Mrs. Brand. 
 As long as he could not have her why not lend his 
 aid to the man who could? His position seemed 
 to him a peculiarly felicitous one, for it called into 
 play resources of which he felt himself possessed 
 in profusion. As in the case of his wife's death, 
 so now, he had suddenly stepped out of a whole 
 set of emotions into a new and seductive range of 
 experience. Pursued under so elastic a system, 
 life seemed to offer endless opportunities for spir- 
 itual development, for what could be more con- 
 vincing evidence of the harmony of the inner with 
 the outer environment? His heart warmed 
 toward Dr. Challoner as he drew near Brand 
 House. Poor devil ! He had given him a 
 pretty vile time of it, he supposed, but he was 
 ready to even things up royally now that he was at 
 it.
 
 322 MRS. BRAND 
 
 He found Dr. Challoner in his office, and before 
 the surprised man could definitely grasp the 
 identity of his visitor Mr. Overholt had seized 
 him by the hand, and greeted him with fraternal 
 effusion. 
 
 " Yes, I don't wonder that you are astonished 
 at seeing me here. The fact is a little matter came 
 up to-day between Mrs. Brand and myself that 
 led to developments so vitally concerning you that 
 I felt myself compelled to come and talk the mat- 
 ter over with you." He could hardly forebear a 
 smile at the attitude and expression of the man 
 before him. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know how to account for it," 
 he went on genially, " but Mrs. Brand seems to 
 have made herself and you the victims of the most 
 extraordinary misunderstanding." 
 
 Dr. Challoner stepped forward. " You will 
 refrain from any further reference to Mrs. 
 Brand," he said, in a voice that filled the little 
 room. 
 
 " Can't very well, my dear fellow, unless you 
 would prefer me to refer to her as the X-femi- 
 nine. That would be appropriate."
 
 MRS. BRAND 323 
 
 Dr. Challoner laid his hand heavily on the 
 minister's shoulder. Mr. Overholt was gratified. 
 The situation was developing. " That's right. 
 Your feelings do you the utmost credit. But 
 they're just a little out of date." 
 
 Dr. Challoner drew back with an exclamation 
 of contempt. Bah! As well attempt to demon- 
 strate moral perspective to a canary-bird. 
 
 " You see, it's like this. You know that Mrs. 
 Brand and I have been engaged. Well, owing to 
 
 some unforeseen circumstances, " he stopped 
 
 suddenly, and put his hand to his head, the most 
 peculiar expression, a sort of hunted look, appear- 
 ing in his eyes, while upon his face a gray, with- 
 ered shadow seemed to rest "to cut it short, 
 my friend, I went to see her to-day, and she 
 ah, she expressed a preference for you that quite 
 cut me off from the enjoyment of her affections. 
 Do you understand*? " He eyed the man oppo- 
 site him curiously. "Loves you, you know; 
 always has; would die for you, I believe that 
 kind of thing. So she said, anyway. Rather a 
 grating experience for me, don't you think? " 
 
 Dr. Challoner said nothing, but his slowly
 
 324 MRS. BRAND 
 
 blanching face, and the grip of his teeth upon his 
 lips were sufficient testimony. "Hem! He takes 
 it rigidly," thought Mr. Overholt, with a sense 
 of disappointment. 
 
 But all at once Dr. Challoner brought his 
 clenched hand down upon the table beside him 
 with a crash that splintered into fragments the 
 glass apparatus which stood on it. His eyes 
 flashed like molten points of flame, for into his 
 mind tense with a tremendous vision of supremest 
 blessedness there had penetrated a thought more 
 cruel than he could bear. If such an incredible 
 thing could be true, this man would necessarily be 
 the last one in the world to tell him of it. For 
 one vehement moment he had all the feelings of a 
 man who longs to crush the malignant life out 
 of another. Then he said with a slow, shaken 
 utterance, " When Mrs. Brand wishes me to know 
 these things she will probably be able to tell me 
 them herself. In the meantime, as you seem to 
 enjoy my office, I will leave you to the undivided 
 possession of it." He was turning on his heel 
 when he paused, his keen eye arrested by a rapid 
 change in Mr. Overholt's appearance.
 
 MRS. BRAND 325 
 
 " What is the matter 4 ? " he said, roughly. " Are 
 you ill 1 ?" For Mr. Overholt was leaning un- 
 steadily against the wall, his white face with its 
 blue lips covered with that film of perspiration 
 again, and his eyes staring vacantly before him. 
 But at the sound of the sharp voice beside him he 
 braced himself involuntarily and seemed to regain 
 his poise as quickly as he had lost it. 
 
 "Ah, nothing! Was I faint, perhaps*?" he 
 said, with an effort towards his usual airy manner. 
 He looked at Dr. Challoner with a puzzled 
 expression, as if his memory were slow to respond 
 to some unconscious demand upon it. " Ah, to 
 be sure ! I remember now. Yes, yes ! " His 
 manner underwent a change, for he had stumbled 
 upon one of the few, genuine moments of his life. 
 " No, you don't believe me, but it is true, never- 
 theless, that I have done you to-day the greatest 
 service that one man could render another. I 
 have voluntarily placed in your keeping all that 
 had been snatched from mine. And you 1 ? All 
 you want is to kick me out of your sight." 
 
 It was six o'clock, and the streets were crowded 
 with a jostling throng of men and women dis-
 
 326 MRS. BRAND 
 
 gorged from the surrounding factories, but as he 
 hurried away back towards his train he was as 
 unconscious of their noisy proximity to him as if 
 he had been alone on the silent reaches of Sahara. 
 As he sank into his seat in the train a faint smile 
 crossed his lips. " To think that I should have 
 been so carried away. It was just the touch to 
 make the interview perfect." After a while he 
 took out his note-book, and scribbled a few lines 
 in it, and after reading what he had written a 
 great many times he tore out the page, and when 
 the train reached Glenedge he went into the near- 
 est drug store for an envelope and stamps, for 
 he was possessed by a restless desire to send the 
 message on its way as soon as possible. " I have 
 been to see Dr. Challoner," he had written Mrs. 
 Brand, " as I thought for the happiness of all con- 
 cerned that he ought to know of your state of 
 mind as soon as possible. His message to you is 
 that you are probably quite capable of telling him 
 your mind when you get ready." 
 
 There was the usual soda-water crowd in the 
 store, and even to his present obscured percep- 
 tions there seemed something strange in the way 
 they shrank back from him as he passed. He had
 
 MRS. BRAND 327 
 
 felt some surprise in the train at seeing his mem- 
 bers, one after another, hurry by the vacant seat 
 beside him into the forward car, although he had 
 really preferred to be alone. But after he had 
 posted his letter, there remained in his mind an 
 irritating sense of discomfort that grew upon him 
 steadily as the stimulating events of the outlived 
 afternoon receded from his imagination. The im- 
 pudent brilliancy of scheme and execution that 
 had so often passed for moral courage deserted 
 him at last, for he had no longer any goal in view. 
 
 When he reached home the first thing to meet 
 his eye was his evening paper lying on the door- 
 step. He picked it up, and mechanically straight- 
 ened it out as he went in, dully catching the big 
 
 head lines, " Sensational Disclosures " 
 
 What was that*? He tore it open, and farther 
 down the page was his own face looking out at 
 him with the easy assurance of a man who has 
 no doubts of his supreme ability to cope with the 
 world for which he lies in wait. 
 
 Later that night the minister sat alone in his 
 silent house, desperately fighting back the flood 
 that threatened to overwhelm him. The inter- 
 view that had just ended between him and his
 
 328 MRS. BRAND 
 
 deacons replaced itself continuously in his brain. 
 Not to appear in his pulpit to-morrow *? to be 
 forced to hide from his people like a felon in his 
 cell until an official board had investigated 
 what*? A long fit of shivering seized him, in 
 which he was sensitive only to the physical suffer- 
 ing that held him in its grip. But his brain cleared 
 after a while, and he fell upon his case again with 
 a species of fury that he felt must bring some 
 result. But wait! An investigation*? what 
 did that mean"? Where would it end 4 ? There 
 were back numbers in his history to which he had 
 not turned for years. They seemed to him to 
 have no more relation to his present than if they 
 had belonged to some previous state of incarna- 
 tion. But there were people who would take no 
 such view of the matter. His head fell forward 
 upon his hands, and he sat for nearly an hour 
 staring at his feet with eyes that had in them the 
 vacant glaze of despair. And then into his burn- 
 ing brain there pierced a thought as lucent as a 
 cooling stream between hot banks of sand. His 
 wife ! Ah, if he could but find a way back to her 
 tenderness. Her sweet face rose up before him; 
 her soft, blue eyes sought his with the same vague
 
 MRS. BRAND 329 
 
 look of bewildered appeal that had first thrilled 
 his ready heart long ago. Somewhere she must 
 be waiting for him still alone, perhaps, like a 
 frightened child in the dark, wondering why he 
 did not come. 
 
 What was that? Only the big clock in the 
 hall sonorously striking twelve, but the bottle in 
 his trembling hand fell to the floor with a crash. 
 For a long time he stood there, petrified, staring 
 at the splintered glass and the dark spot on the 
 carpet. But there was more of it somewhere, if 
 he could only find it. It would ease those terrible 
 beats in his head that seemed to him each one like 
 the last, slow stroke of eternity. He would sleep, 
 and to-morrow he would awaken to a new day, 
 over which there should be no shadow of hover- 
 ing horror. 
 
 In the early morning his little child, waking 
 into rapture at the sight of his father kneeling at 
 his side, tried to awaken him with light lips upon 
 the bent head, and then with tender protests that 
 grew from plaintiveness to bewilderment, and 
 finally with a dread he could not understand, he 
 cried aloud in terror.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 " AUNT CECILY, can Satan put his hand up 
 through the earth and pull you down to Hell? " 
 
 " No, dear, no ! Whatever made you think of 
 such a thing*? " Mrs. Brand straightened herself 
 pugnaciously on the lounge where she had been 
 resting, but before she could say anything further 
 Chrys proceeded reflectively, " Anyway, it is 
 much better to be good, because then your heart 
 beats so smooth and soft." 
 
 " Dear child ! " she thought, tenderly, with a 
 passing smile for the baby-philosophy that, after 
 all, went deeper than it seemed. It was Sunday 
 afternoon, and the cold, December rain blew in 
 torrents against the windows. Mrs. Brand had 
 been asleep, and Chrys, who had conscientious 
 scruples against the napping instinct in his elders, 
 had been at his wits' ends to furnish entertain- 
 ment for himself while he let her sleep, according 
 to what he vaguely felt later to have been a most 
 
 330
 
 MRS. BRAND 331 
 
 ill-judged promise. She had thought herself 
 sleeping until she had heard his clear, little voice 
 saying in a tone of dangerously patient remon- 
 strance, " God, this is the third time to-day I 
 have asked you to stop the rain, and you haven't 
 done it yet." 
 
 " Chrys," she said, gently, and in an instant he 
 was beside her, briskly alive to the opportunities 
 of renewed companionship. She was still sleepy, 
 and she found it difficult to keep up with his bril- 
 liant leaps from one subject to another, but Chrys 
 had his own persevering methods of securing 
 attention to the topic immediately in view. 
 
 " Let us die to-day," he said, with a most allur- 
 ing expression on his face. " Why should we wait 
 any longer? I want to ride my Heaven-horse so 
 badly. Let us go, Aunt Cecily." 
 
 " No, darling. There are so many things God 
 wants us to do down here first." 
 
 "What 4 ? " asked the child, brusquely. 
 
 Mrs. Brand hesitated a moment. Then she said 
 briefly, " Jim." 
 
 " Yes, Jim." The little face softened instantly.
 
 332 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Poor Jim! Aunt Cecily, why does God let Jim 
 have a crippled leg 1 ? I wouldn't if I was God." 
 
 " I know, dear." These baby questions, they 
 were just her own, after all. " But God has given 
 Jim a most beautiful soul. He will always have 
 that, but he will only have his leg a little while." 
 She often felt appalled at the strange twisting of 
 circumstances that had forced two souls into her 
 keeping, Trixy's and this child's. She felt a 
 responsibility for them that she would have dis- 
 dained for herself. From the moment that Chrys 
 was brought to her, shocked by his father's death, 
 she had set herself to fit this experience of his into 
 a natural place among his memories, but she had 
 many a heartache over the premature baptism of 
 this sensitive, little spirit into the sorrow and suf- 
 fering of the world before she succeeded, and 
 perhaps her methods were at least unusual. She 
 had vivid recollections of the pallid, palm-bearing 
 wretches who had figured as angels in her childish 
 imagination, and of the fearful God, caparisoned 
 like a Greek patriarch, who presided over their 
 melancholy performances. No! There should 
 be no such travesties of the Divine Nature to per-
 
 MRS. BRAND 333 
 
 vert the tender soul of this little one. Like all 
 children a born theologian, Chrys revelled boldly 
 in the mysteries of the future life, and Mrs. Brand 
 found herself compelled to furnish the most defi- 
 nite theories concerning it. But she was better 
 able to do that now than she would have been 
 sometime before, for from the day she had gone 
 back to Trixy saying, humbly, " I do not know 
 the way, but we will find it together," she had 
 patiently devoted herself to leading the poor girl 
 into the only path that seemed to promise peace. 
 No pastor could have searched the Scriptures with 
 more zeal than she did, and if her conclusions were 
 sometimes strangely at variance with what his 
 would have been, she drew them from the self- 
 same source. She watched the change in Trixy 
 with a feeling of awe, unconscious of the tremen- 
 dous effect the girl's experience was having upon 
 herself. She had begun this work of salvation 
 in another in a strange frame of mind. At first 
 she had thought of appealing to some outsider for 
 aid, but she knew how Trixy would resent such 
 an intrusion. And with a strain of scorn in her 
 thought it had seemed to her that if the Gospel
 
 334 MRS. BRAND 
 
 were good for anything it could surely stand her 
 presentation of it. She was disappointed in 
 Trixy; she had thought the girl made of stuff like 
 herself, of a grain fierce and fine enough to hold 
 itself together without the props of superstition. 
 But it seemed cowardly to desert her in her 
 extremity, and so she had assumed this mission of 
 redemption along lines that she despised. 
 
 After these few months she could hardly think 
 of it without tears. For in that bare little room 
 she had stood upon holy ground; she had wit- 
 nessed a mystery that her brain refused to admit, 
 but towards which her own heart yearned. It 
 was the same old experience over which Aunt 
 Lavinia would have gloated, as she complacently 
 ticked off its various stages with the crude catch- 
 words of her Calvinistic convictions. And though 
 there were moments when Mrs. Brand might 
 argue it down and resist the basis of it, she could 
 never deny her part in it, nor its hallowing influ- 
 ences upon herself. 
 
 That Gospel story how simple it had 
 seemed as she had read it to Trixy, with no other 
 thought than to find in it a value for a bruised
 
 MRS. BRAND 335 
 
 and broken life. And it was so full of that. There 
 seemed to be so many things which must have been 
 written just for Trixy. Here was no elaborate 
 scheme of salvation, no creed, rearing its hydra- 
 headed barrier between the soul and its home. 
 For Trixy's sake she became eager to seize upon 
 the most lovely portions of the story, and it was 
 small wonder that there came times when her 
 vivid, unworn recital of its tender, tragic passages 
 smote them both into silence too tense for speech. 
 After a while she became conscious of an en- 
 croaching audience at these readings. Little Jim 
 Moriarty had always been free to come and go 
 as he pleased, but there were others, poor dumb 
 drudges of women who stood about the door at 
 times with an expression in their eyes as of thirsty 
 things clustering around a pool of living water. 
 And, once, there was some one else who had come 
 heedlessly up the stairs, and then stopped, thrilled 
 by the sound of her voice as it rose and fell in 
 vibrant cadences, which, as he listened, had power 
 to fuse into one, sweet strain all the aching dis- 
 cords of his heart. Not love her*? As well bid 
 the sun cease its shining as to try to stem the cur-
 
 336 MRS. BRAND 
 
 rent that swept towards her, sweeping his stub- 
 born scruples out of sight. For he had told him- 
 self a thousand times that he would not love her; 
 that these things were amenable to reason would 
 one but listen to its mandates. He had hotly 
 argued her unworthy, and what proof was there, 
 indeed, that she had really broken with Mr. Over- 
 holt that last day. None but the dead man's 
 word, a wanton trust to pin one's faith to. A man 
 who had braced himself for months with the most 
 deadly of stimulants, a fact that had been amply 
 demonstrated after his death, what reliance 
 could one place upon the account he had given of 
 her? But how he cherished it! When he had 
 met her after Mr. Overholt's death she had 
 greeted him with a reserve that neither asked nor 
 gave anything, and as time went on the stiffness 
 of her manner had but increased. No, it must 
 have been only a mad trick or she would long ago 
 have found some womanly way of indicating her- 
 self to him. She came to Brand House quite often 
 now, for in that crisis, when she seemed to stand 
 alone the target for every base rumor with which 
 the daily press rang, she had sent for Mrs. Me-
 
 MRS. BRAND 337 
 
 Garvey. He had never been able to find out upon 
 just what terms the intimacy of the two women 
 had rearranged itself, for from that time on Mrs. 
 McGarvey manifested a most provoking reticence 
 with regard to Mrs. Brand. When she came home 
 after the events of that dreadful week were over, 
 and already fading out of the fickle, public mind 
 she had said to him, severely, " You're a bad boy. 
 I'm ashamed of vou." 
 
 
 
 " Why? " he asked, astonished. 
 
 " Fiddlesticks ! " she retorted, eloquently. 
 " You know why well enough." 
 
 " But would you have me force myself upon 
 her? " he demanded, indignantly. " You know 
 that she barely tolerates me." 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey snorted gently, as if she felt 
 too great a contempt for his conduct to waste her 
 breath upon it. 
 
 But she talked quite freely of Chrys. " Yes, 
 she's going to keep him. There doesn't appear to 
 be anybody else, and the child is absolutely desti- 
 tute, what with his father's nice, little side specula- 
 tions and his debts. How the wrangle about his 
 insurance is going to come out I don't know, but
 
 338 MRS. BRAND 
 
 I guess the company will have to pay, for as long 
 as he was in the habit of taking that stuff, and had 
 been known to have taken too much before, I can't 
 see how they can prove suicide. The man was 
 a villain, but for the dear child's sake I hope they 
 can clear his memory up as much as possible. 
 He's a lovely child not but what the homeliest 
 bairn is just as sweet," she added, with a tender 
 rush of memory backward over the years to the 
 little ones whose red hair and freckled faces had 
 been emblems of beauty to her when the tide of 
 life was at its flood. " And fond of her ! I never 
 saw anything like it." 
 
 " He always seemed to me a vain, spoilt, little 
 fellow," said Dr. Challoner, hastily. 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey smiled tantalizingly. " I sup- 
 pose Mrs. Brand realized that her taking such 
 prompt charge of the child would make it very 
 difficult for her to convince people that she was 
 not intending to marry Mr. Overholt," continued 
 Dr. Challoner, stiffly. 
 
 " Yes, she did," snapped Mrs. McGarvey, 
 "and do you think she cared 4 ? Lots of people 
 offered to take him, but I tell you she would have
 
 MRS. BRAND 339 
 
 scorned to save herself that way. And Mrs. Crum- 
 pet has been a great help. She publishes far and 
 wide the news that she regrets Mrs. Brand's step, 
 for that, of course, she would be glad to do her 
 duty by the child whose father intended her to be 
 its mother. Mrs. Crumpet has the most satisfying 
 theories about the whole thing. She thinks Mrs. 
 Brand is really at the bottom of all those reports, 
 just out of jealousy because of Mr. Overholt's 
 preference for Mrs. Crumpet." 
 
 But these talks had taken place many weeks 
 before that wet December afternoon when Mrs. 
 Brand sat with the dead man's little boy closely 
 curled up beside her while she read " Pilgrim's 
 Progress " to him. She thought it a dreadful 
 book, but it had the true, aboriginal instinct for 
 strong effects, and, after all, it was the mildest 
 religious stimulant compared with Fox's " Book of 
 Martyrs," by which her own young blood had been 
 quickened under Aunt Lavinia's sway. People 
 had grown tired of wondering whether Mr. Over- 
 holt had committed suicide or not, whether he had 
 poisoned his wife or not, and whether Mrs. Brand 
 had really been going to marry him. But even
 
 340 MRS. BRAND 
 
 as she read to Chrys the dreary refrain of some 
 of these questions kept ringing in her ears. It 
 seemed to her sometimes that she would never 
 conquer the humiliation that beset her in regard 
 to Mr. Overholt. That she, who had prided her- 
 self on her ability to dispose of her future to the 
 best possible advantage should have made such an 
 absolute fool of herself, made her heart hot with 
 shame. And Arthur what could he think of 
 her*? Not that she needed to wonder about that, 
 for his opinion was clearly made manifest by his 
 manner to her. Once she had questioned him 
 boldly, asking him to what he considered Mr. 
 Overholt's death directly due. " I really cannot 
 tell," he had replied, ambiguously, looking coolly 
 over her head at the wall beyond. " You must 
 remember that Mr. Overholt is known now to 
 have kept himself up under the strain of his wife's 
 illness by the use of that drug, and, besides, the 
 nurse was actuated by a desire for revenge because 
 
 of Mr. Overholt's " He hesitated as from 
 
 a polite wish to spare her references that must be 
 disagreeable. " Because he had trifled with her 
 sister," added Mrs. Brand, quickly. But the
 
 MRS. BRAND 341 
 
 matter had dropped there, for it was evidently 
 not his intention to be drawn into any discussion 
 that had Mr. Overholt for its subject. 
 
 ' There, dear, see! It has stopped raining, and 
 the sun has come out. Don't you think you would 
 like a race around the path with Darkey? " 
 
 She stood close to the window to watch the fly- 
 ing, little figure as it came every now and then 
 around the curve. Dear little Chrys! He was 
 the one, sweet spot in her life just now. To be 
 sure, there were times when she shrank from the 
 thought of possibilities the years might bring as 
 they forced his character to the surface, and then 
 her only hope lay in her belief that his little 
 mother had set the stamp of her own, simple sin- 
 cerity upon her boy. He had certainly inherited 
 his father's peculiar grace and charm of manner, 
 and she winced with pain sometimes at his child- 
 ish reproduction of some well-remembered gesture. 
 There remained in her mind no clear vision of 
 that storm-swept season of her experience. It 
 was a blurred and hideous nightmare. And then, 
 sharp upon its confused clamor there had come 
 that sudden, tragic silence more terrible than any
 
 [RS. BRAND 
 
 orror, the shame of it all, had 
 through her sensitive nature like 
 he thought of the man himself, 
 ,d and enemy alike to the solitary 
 ist hours, haunted her incessantly. 
 of his uncertain character 
 or those who thought they knew 
 their memory of him there was 
 t \ < Id a sting. But when stie 
 of his deacons' last inter- 
 her pity had broken forth in 
 . They had badgered him in the 
 ke a red-handed criminal, with 
 
 to his overwrought conditi 
 In the long, still hours she had often followed him 
 in bitter retrospect until he found peace beside the 
 only, little being in the world who had implicit 
 faith in him. There were times when she could 
 not forbear the belief that the fault was hers 
 that if she had herself been different, if she had 
 cared less for the most contemptible things in the 
 world, there would never have been that tragic 
 chapter in her history. She seemed to have dipped 
 her hands in pitch for the sake of snatching some-
 
 MRS. BRAND 343 
 
 thing that, after all, did not belong to her. What 
 right had she to all that wealth*? The fierce light 
 that she had turned upon herself and her motives 
 sent its long illumination back into the dark cor- 
 ners of her life as John Brand's wife. What had 
 she given the old man in return for his proud and 
 tender solicitude for her, that had reached out in 
 pathetic effort for her eternal welfare*? She had 
 given him nothing that she could by any possible 
 means withhold. She had rated her youth and 
 beauty extremely high. They seemed little 
 enough now in comparison with the sterling honor 
 in which her husband had held her. For from 
 the moment when she had first seen Mr. Overholt 
 again she realized now that her mind had been 
 absorbed in a determination to rekindle in him 
 the old fires. Extenuating circumstances'? Per- 
 haps, but in her present repudiation of the woman 
 who had been herself she had no place for pleas 
 of that sort. 
 
 And now everything for which she had been 
 willing to barter herself was slipping rapidly 
 away from her. Her home, her wealth, in a few
 
 344 MRS. BRAND 
 
 short weeks all the external trappings of her ex- 
 clusiveness would be stripped away from her. 
 
 She nodded brightly to the child as he swept 
 by in furious pursuit of the big Newfoundland 
 that bounced ahead of him like a Brobdignagian 
 baseball, but her eyes were dim with tears. 
 
 How humbly she had watched him lately in his 
 work at Brand House. How she had learnt to 
 reverence the calm simplicity of which she had 
 often made light. She had been amazed to find 
 what a place he had already gained for himself in 
 the world. " I tell you," she had overheard an 
 enthusiastic man say a few days before, " he holds 
 all the unions of Chicago in the hollow of his 
 hand. Not a single strike could be declared unless 
 it first had his sanction." How absurdly proud 
 that had made her feel, and she had unconsciously 
 beamed upon the speaker in an inexplicable way 
 that made him suddenly virtuously reminiscent of 
 a wife and seven children at home. She had 
 spoken to Dr. Challoner a few moments after- 
 wards, the soft glow still in her dark eyes, but he 
 had answered her shy, swift sentences with slow 
 and ponderous gravity. But while he talked to
 
 MRS. BRAND 345 
 
 her he was wondering wildly what he had said to 
 her last, for he had been thinking only of her 
 white hands, dainty, fluttering things, that he 
 longed to take in his own, strong grasp, and her 
 softly curving cheek awoke in him a mad longing 
 to lean over and kiss it, reckless and defiant even 
 of the people about them. Perhaps had they been 
 alone he might have done that, or she might have 
 broken out in the fierce denunciation of him with 
 which her heart was hot when she turned coldly 
 away from him. What was it that he wanted of 
 her*? Did he expect her to make humble apology 
 to him for her past wilfulness and ill-treatment 
 yes, shameful ill-treatment of himself? Well, 
 she never would. And she did not believe he 
 loved her, anyway. Perhaps he was impatiently 
 trying now to shake her off, alarmed and disgusted 
 at what Mr. Overholt had told him, if Mr. Over- 
 holt ever had told him anything of the kind. She 
 could not help thinking sometimes that he had 
 only written so to her for the sake of paying off 
 a few of his own scores. 
 
 It was all a hopeless tangle. She had trampled 
 her opportunity under foot, and now she must
 
 346 MRS. BRAND 
 
 bear the consequences. Clearly he did not care. 
 He knew she was approaching an experience that 
 would be arduous to her, and yet he had not a 
 word of sympathy or help for her. 
 
 " What is it, dear? " she asked, as Chrys ap- 
 peared, lagging and dejected under the evident 
 weight of some serious woe. 
 
 " You see, Aunt Cecily, that's the good of hav- 
 ing four legs instead of only two, like me." He 
 looked down at the inadequate means provided by 
 Providence for his locomotion with utter con- 
 tempt. " How could I suspect to beat Darkey in 
 a race"? Perhaps if two boys had raced him to- 
 gether then there'd have been four legs " 
 
 But he paused with such instant suspicion of this 
 logic in his pliant, little face that Mrs. Brand 
 laughed and caught him in her arms. " I'm tired 
 and hungry, Aunt Cecily, but not bread and butter 
 hungry. I'm only cooky hungry, Aunt Cecily." 
 
 11 So am I, Chrys," she said, with a wistful 
 smile. " I'm only hungry for just the thing I 
 want."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IF Dr. Challoner's heart sometimes failed him 
 under the pressure of the tremendous task that he 
 had undertaken, he had but to remember, one by 
 one, the people who had come to rely upon him 
 as the barrier which stood between them and the 
 industrial Juggernaut, heroes, some of them, in 
 that furious struggle for the crusts of existence, 
 those precious crusts for which even human lives 
 were deemed a poor equivalent. 
 
 So many responsibilities had grown up upon 
 his hands, of which he had never dreamed when 
 he first began to make his solitary way about the 
 hidden plague-spots of the great city, that he felt 
 sometimes indignant at the frequent, glib reference 
 to himself as an authority on social questions. 
 " An authority ! " he said, impatiently. " It is 
 only the people who don't know anything about 
 this newest of all the sciences who can afford to 
 pose as authorities upon it." Then it was a com- 
 
 347
 
 348 MRS. BRAND 
 
 fort to go back to the simple conception of his 
 place in the world which had sent him first among 
 these people the idea that there were some for- 
 gotten, unfortunate ones who might be helped just 
 by knowing that some one was thinking about 
 them, and longing to find a way of making their 
 lives more bearable. That was all the working 
 theory he had, but it was enough, and he was 
 glad to take refuge in its simplicity when it seemed 
 as if he were in danger of being swamped by the 
 modern horror, organization. There were people 
 who seemed bent not only on organizing his work, 
 but on organizing him into a peripatetic puppet 
 for the delectation of those happy mortals who 
 put in their time between now and eternity in a 
 wild-eyed search for new sensations. " It will be 
 just lovely," said a sweet society leader. " I'll 
 have him speak in my new Louis Quinze draw- 
 ing-room, and we'll drape a background for him 
 of flags of all nations, and then we'll put all about 
 him engravings of things like Marie Bashkirt- 
 seff's Street Arabs, you know, and that kind of 
 thing. And I'll wear a Louis Quinze gown and 
 look demure, and Mrs. High-Buffum can sing,
 
 MRS. BRAND 349 
 
 ' Come unto Me, all ye that labor ' there, who 
 says I can't plan something real serious and im- 
 proving? " 
 
 But Dr. Challoner refused to consider himself 
 against a flag background, with a Louis Quinze 
 foreground, and even told the dainty sponsor of 
 the scheme, that the thing he most dreaded was 
 an epidemic of slum-fad among society women. 
 " Better keep on dancing," he said, not unkindly. 
 " You will really do us less harm that way." 
 
 But his position as head of an enterprise that 
 was destined to attract widespread attention by 
 reason of the marked success of some of its 
 methods, and the prominence of the men interested 
 in it, subjected him to publicity from which he 
 could not hope to escape, and at last, in response 
 to a serious and just demand for more definite 
 information regarding the work in Moon Street, 
 he arranged to give a series of afternoon talks at 
 Brand House. " No, I will not go to them to 
 speak," he said, decidedly. " I want my illustra- 
 tions right in sight. People remember better with 
 their eyes than with their ears. And I don't want
 
 350 MRS. BRAND 
 
 to talk to anybody who hasn't interest enough to 
 come down among these things." 
 
 It had become the intention of Mr. Brand's 
 trustees to use the bulk of his bequest for the 
 building and endowment of a manual training 
 school. It seemed to Dr. Challoner, when this 
 idea first began to take root in their minds, that 
 some of their plans were on a very broad and 
 far-reaching basis, and before long he realized 
 that two of them, at least, had no misgivings as 
 to the financial outcome of the undertaking. 
 
 " No, Brand's money would never do all we 
 have in view. I think you and I will have to piece 
 things out a bit, old lady," Mr. McGarvey had 
 said to his wife. " And it's only the wisest kind 
 of a Providence and his duty to his family that 
 keeps Boyington from putting in every cent he's 
 got." 
 
 And yet what a drop in the ocean of human 
 misery all this brave-sounding effort seemed. Dr. 
 Challoner remembered dens called homes, where 
 in spite of the most vicious influences, tender 
 human affections grew and blossomed into beauty, 
 only to be wrenched asunder because there was
 
 MRS. BRAND 351 
 
 not bread enough to hold the precious spirit in its 
 poor starved body. There was the little one who 
 slipped silently away for lack of the care no one 
 dared pause to give it, and the mother whose share 
 of the scanty meal had too often found its way 
 into the eager, little mouths about her, and who 
 loosed her fitful hold on life with a cry of anguish 
 for the helpless children left to battle with it 
 alone. 
 
 " After all, the Turks were far more merciful 
 to the Armenians than we are to our poor," said 
 Dr. Challoner one night that winter. " We are 
 never sufficiently humane to go out honestly and 
 slaughter off a few thousands. We prefer slow 
 torture for all of them." He had come in late, and 
 had sat down to a supper that Mrs. McGarvey 
 noticed he hardly touched. 
 
 " What is it? " she asked. " Adolph Heller? " 
 For she was sure something special had happened 
 to stir him to such an unusual display of feeling. 
 
 " Yes. When I went in there to-day, there he 
 sat sewing under such an awful strain that the 
 blood was slowly oozing from his ears. And his 
 wife lying there, watching him, with death in her
 
 352 MRS. BRAND 
 
 face! But he must keep up that pace, for if he 
 can't there are others who will, for a while at 
 least! And yet we call ourselves a Christian 
 people ! " 
 
 He pushed his plate away from him, and leaned 
 back in his chair, closing his eyes with a sharp 
 sigh, as if he longed to blot out the pursuing 
 memory of such scenes. 
 
 " What did you do*? " asked Mrs. McGarvey, 
 after a while. 
 
 " I just took that cursed work out of his hands, 
 and told him he had done the last stitch for a 
 while. I meant until his wife was dead, but he 
 doesn't know that. I left them so happy, for the 
 poor boy is sure she will get well, now that he has 
 time to care for her. 
 
 " But first I sat there and just watched that 
 thing until it had burnt itself into me. I never 
 want to forget it. I ask God to avenge his poor 
 upon me if I ever do. I have saved Adolph Heller 
 to-night, but think! There are hundreds like 
 him in the city to-night, and there is no one to 
 save them, or to care." 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey had never seen him so shaken,
 
 MRS. BRAND 353 
 
 for usually he preserved an exuberant courage in 
 dealing with the problems about him that had 
 been of the greatest service in inspiring his less 
 hopeful followers. 
 
 " I had an experience in that little room a 
 kind of baptism into the pain and sorrow of the 
 world." He looked at Mrs. McGarvey with 
 misty, glowing eyes. " If I could die to-night in 
 the most awful, the most cruel way that could be 
 devised, and by that death save these poor ones 
 from their lives of wretchedness and cruelty, how 
 gladly I would die ! " 
 
 Mrs. McGarvey cherished that hour with him 
 among her most sacred memories, for it seemed 
 to her that she had witnessed the entrance of a 
 soul into its highest and most Christ-like possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 A few days later, at the close of one of the 
 afternoon talks, Mrs. Brand found herself the 
 center of a group of people, old society acquaint- 
 ances some of them, of whom she had seen little 
 since her husband's death, who were eager to dis- 
 cover her own attitude with regard to these things. 
 
 " Don't you think it's going to make these
 
 354 MRS. BRAND 
 
 people terribly discontented, Mrs. Brand 1 ? " in- 
 quired a bright-faced girl, with a confident belief 
 in her ability to handle any topic wisely as long as 
 she was gowned in the " latest." 
 
 Mrs. Brand looked at her for a moment quietly. 
 Then she said, " Are you never discontented your- 
 self, Miss Hilton*? Is it any more a crime for 
 them to be discontented because they have noth- 
 ing, than it is for us because we have so much we 
 don't know what to do with it 1 ? Don't you some- 
 times get discontented because you have so many 
 gowns you really don't know which one to 
 wear 4 ? " 
 
 "Oh, no; not discontented just tearing 
 mad," said the girl, with her sweet laugh. " No, 
 please don't say another word. I was foolish to 
 ask such a question." 
 
 " Not that I admit their discontent," Mrs. 
 Brand went on, with a smile. " The miracle to 
 me is their patience. Many times I have gone 
 home wondering why in the world they didn't 
 blow us all up." 
 
 There was a little stir on the edge of the circle, 
 and Dr. Challoner, who was standing near, saw
 
 MRS. BRAND 355 
 
 a lady, white-haired and stately, on the arm of a 
 young man, perhaps her son, making her way 
 towards Mrs. Brand. After the bustle of intro- 
 ductions had subsided he found himself watching 
 Mrs. Brand curiously. Her voice, sweet and yet 
 so subtly charged with some intensity of feeling, 
 carried her words beyond the silent group around 
 her. 
 
 " You wonder how I first became interested in 
 these things'? Well, of course, I had heard a great 
 deal about them from Dr. Chal loner, and I had 
 been greatly interested always in the artistic pos- 
 sibilities of the stories he told me some of them 
 were really admirable in a dramatic way, but it 
 never occurred to me that there was anything I 
 ought to do until I came in contact with a young 
 girl who was lying ill in one of the tenements." 
 A swift vision of Trixy rose before her. How 
 could she go on 1 ? But something, perhaps it was 
 the charming by-play between the young man and 
 the pretty girl, goaded her on to the telling of 
 poor Trixy's story. 
 
 " This girl interested me from the beginning, 
 and I was fortunate enough to interest her, for she
 
 356 MRS. BRAND 
 
 allowed me to do a great many things for her that 
 were a help to both of us. But it was a long time 
 before she told me anything about herself. She 
 had been carefully brought up, and she must have 
 been a lovely girl, for her charm is still apparent. 
 But there are certain rules a girl like Trixy should 
 never transgress. She was not in a station in life 
 that entitled her to be pretty with impunity, and 
 she had neither father nor brother." Her eyes 
 swept the young man's face, with its contemp- 
 tuous smile, for he was thinking, " How vulgar a 
 woman can be ! " And then she went on hur- 
 riedly, with hardening voice, " Poor Trixy' s days 
 are numbered now, but I never knew until last 
 night, when she called it aloud in her delirium, 
 the name of the man who must, who shall yet pay 
 the penalty of Trixy's misery. And he was, as 
 she had said, what we should call a gentleman." 
 Her lips were quivering now, but, with a bow to 
 some, and a few graceful words to others, she dis- 
 entangled herself from the men and women 
 around her, and moved towards Dr. Challoner. 
 In a moment he understood the mute appeal of her
 
 MRS. BRAND 357 
 
 eyes, and without a word he quickly led the way 
 to the shelter of the deserted dining-room. 
 
 " Was it wrong*? " she asked of him, humbly. 
 " I could not keep it. I should have despised my- 
 self forever if I had been afraid to speak. I 
 should have been a coward." 
 
 " I know. I honor you for what you said." 
 Her eager face, lifted to his, lost its troubled look, 
 and she smiled, with the angry tears still standing 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " You see," she went on in a voice so tremulous 
 now that the need for self-restraint was passed, 
 " I could not bear to see him there, hovering like 
 a hawk about that pretty girl " 
 
 " Ah, that was it, was it 4 ? " said Dr. Challoner. 
 " I did not know, one could not tell that you 
 were speaking directly to any one." 
 
 From the rooms beyond came the dense hum of 
 many voices that seemed to hem them in with 
 walls of living sound, there, alone, and he so 
 near to her that each fluttering breath of hers 
 seemed to him as if it were his own. 
 
 " But I do not mind as long as you " He 
 
 could not bear it, this sudden, sweet dependence
 
 358 MRS. BRAND 
 
 upon him, and in another moment the crowding 
 tide within would have burst the barriers he had 
 so stringently set for it. But Mrs. McGarvey, 
 sweeping heedlessly into the room, followed by 
 that species of mortal whose chief accomplishment 
 consists in being thirsty at the most inopportune 
 season, unconsciously wrecked the climax that it 
 had been her most cherished dream to promote. 
 But that did not prevent her remarking, with the 
 complacency of a marplot to Mr. McGarvey that 
 evening, that she had always known how it would 
 be from the beginning, and that she really be- 
 lieved it needed just a word her word to 
 straighten the whole thing out satisfactorily. Mr. 
 McGarvey ventured a feeble doubt about this, 
 which entailed upon him such a fusillade on the 
 subject of male creatures in general, that he retired 
 precipitately among his thoughts, and stubbornly 
 stayed there, in spite of his wife's efforts to draw 
 him out. You can not persuade a mouse out of 
 its hole by shouting. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Brand began her first defi- 
 nite arrangements towards leaving her home. The 
 trustees had as yet said nothing to her about it,
 
 MRS. BRAND 359 
 
 and she appreciated their reserve, but it placed the 
 burden of initiative upon her, and she shrank with 
 the utmost dread from any possible discussion of 
 the matter. There were times when she longed to 
 repudiate the last cent of dependence upon Mr. 
 Brand, but how could she do that, freighted as she 
 was now with the up-bringing of a little child"? 
 And, after all, she had been his wife ; he had come 
 into her life at its most critical point of develop- 
 ment, and had bent all her possibilities in his own 
 behalf. 
 
 She walked through the beautiful rooms one 
 after the other, making a swift inventory of the 
 things that under the terms of the will she could 
 justly claim as her own. When she was back in 
 her own sitting-room she revised the list in a numb 
 kind of way, and then sat there staring at it 
 blankly. After all, what did she care about any 
 of it*? This house, upon which she had expended 
 her utmost skill until every room bore the imprint 
 of her exacting taste in color and design, what 
 happiness had it brought her in the waste and arid 
 years that she had spent in it, those years when
 
 360 MRS. BRAND 
 
 she had proudly assumed that her heart could be 
 satisfied with the beauty that entranced her eye*? 
 
 The memorandum fluttered to her feet, and lay 
 there forgotten. A loathing for her surroundings 
 arose in her. A vision of herself and Chrys walk- 
 ing away out of it all into some fresh and honest 
 future rose up in her mind and seemed sweet until 
 some subtler thought for which her heart had no 
 words, gave a cruel and jagged edge to her 
 dreams, and filled her eyes with tears. The an- 
 nouncement of a visitor put an end to her arduous 
 reverie. 
 
 "Miss Hilton? Bring her in here, Jane," she 
 said, for she had an instant feeling that this visit 
 was to be anything but a conventional one. The 
 picture of the happy girl, lifting her tell-tale eyes 
 to the sated gaze of the man beside her, had been 
 a rankling memory to her since yesterday, and she 
 was full of pity for the charm that was destined 
 to be its own destruction. 
 
 " Now, what is it you really want to talk to 
 me about"? " she said, gently, after they had 
 played an unavailing game of pitch-and-toss for 
 some minutes.
 
 MRS. BRAND 361 
 
 The girl laughed with an air of relief. Then 
 she said, shyly: " Oh, if I could only tell you just 
 what I thought I could before I came ! " 
 
 "What is it? Something about Mr. Sanger, 
 perhaps," suggested Mrs. Brand. 
 
 " Yes, I think so," replied Miss Hilton, with 
 a bright blush. " Perhaps you don't know oh ! 
 of course you don't, that they all want me to 
 marry him, his people and mine, I mean and 
 I think he wishes it himself," she added, wistfully. 
 
 " And you 1 ? " said Mrs. Brand, gently. 
 
 " Oh, of course I shall marry him, I suppose, 
 but there are things I don't feel happy about." 
 
 " My dear, if you are quite resolved to marry 
 him, I should think the less you think of those 
 things the better," said Mrs. Brand, gravely. " If 
 you accept him, it must imply accepting them." 
 
 " Yes, but I want to be sure just how much it 
 is that I have to accept." A weary shadow crossed 
 the bright, young face, and the pretty mouth 
 straightened into a line that betokened other and 
 less alluring feminine qualities than Mr. Sanger 
 undoubtedly counted on in the woman he had sig-
 
 362 MRS. BRAND 
 
 nified himself as willing to endure with matri- 
 mony. 
 
 " Something he said to me yesterday, after you 
 had told us about that girl oh ! I have had all 
 kinds of thoughts ever since." 
 
 There was a little pause, for Mrs. Brand was 
 not willing to speak. 
 
 " It is just this," the girl began at last, desper- 
 ately, " I only want to know that you know noth- 
 ing, don't you see that, putting together what 
 he said to me, with wondering why you told us 
 that story, oh ! I only want to know that he was 
 not that man." 
 
 "Why need you care*?" asked Mrs. Brand, 
 abruptly. 
 
 "I*? Care?" repeated the girl, in surprise. 
 " Why, of course I care." She looked at Mrs. 
 Brand with some indignation. 
 
 " But you have never expected him to have a 
 standard of conduct at all approximating your 
 own for yourself. You have taken it for granted 
 that he might do with impunity what would be 
 fatal to you." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Hilton, slowly. "But it's
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 different when one is only generalizing." Then, 
 with a quick, vindictive change of tone, she added, 
 " But one does expect more of a woman than of 
 a man in that way." 
 
 ' Yes, I am quite willing to admit that. And 
 it is partly because of that instinctive demand that 
 a woman shall realize and set the ideal of purity, 
 because her penalty is so great when she does not. 
 And while there is a growing insistence that there 
 shall be one standard of morality for men and 
 women, it seems to me sometimes as if some very 
 good men and women were really advocating a 
 uniformity of license for man and woman. That 
 tendency accounts for the false sentimentality 
 talked and written about the fallen woman just 
 now. Poor Trixy is a fallen woman, and she 
 knows it, however charming she may have been 
 and still is." 
 
 " Yes, of course," assented Miss Hilton, 
 warmly, " and you say that she had been brought 
 up carefully, so that it must have been her own 
 fault." 
 
 Mrs. Brand's eyes flashed. " Her bringing up 
 had nothing to do with it, but you never have
 
 364 MRS. BRAND 
 
 been and you never will be wooed with the ardor 
 and subtlety that won poor Trixy. The man who 
 asks you to be his wife is tolerable certain of secur- 
 ing you. You apparently think that he asked of 
 Trixy what was most precious to her with the same 
 mild eagerness with which he asked you to be his 
 wife." 
 
 The girl flushed deeply. " Then you think," 
 she faltered, after a while, " that one should 
 refuse to marry a man because he had ever failed 
 in that way." 
 
 " No, I do not," said Mrs. Brand, slowly. 
 " That would be cruel, I think. I am not a be- 
 liever in Eternal Punishment, you see, and I think 
 it quite possible for even so self-indulgent a 
 creature as a man to repent of sin, and be done 
 with it. The question just turns on that." 
 
 " And yet if the cases were reversed, he would 
 not marry me, no matter how repentant I was." 
 
 " No." Mrs. Brand thought for a few minutes. 
 Then she said, " Nobody can calculate the benefit 
 to the world of a rigid standard of purity for 
 women. The standard for men can never be 
 improved by lowering the standard for women,
 
 MRS. BRAND 
 
 and women know that. All through the ages they 
 have been struggling to lift men up to their own 
 standard. And some time they will succeed." 
 
 As Miss Hilton rose to go she said, with affected 
 flippancy : " Well, one might give up a man be- 
 cause one happened to find out something about 
 him, and then marry another who was just as 
 bad." 
 
 A tender feeling of pity surged over Mrs. 
 Brand as she looked at the girl whose heart was 
 still fresh and sweet with the dews of youth, but 
 whose lips already bore the taint of a vicious 
 philosophy. She laid her hands gently upon the 
 young shoulders. " I have not talked to you about 
 Trixy," she said, looking straight into the clear 
 eyes that quickly hid themselves from her, " be- 
 cause I can not. But I can say that I am afraid 
 you do not realize the character of the man who 
 wishes to marry you." 
 
 The girl's lip curled. " No, I don't," she said, 
 drily, " and recommendations from his last place 
 are not required, at least by mother his bank- 
 account is all that could be asked." 
 
 After she was gone Mrs. Brand went back to
 
 366 MRS. BRAND 
 
 her memorandum. But the impetus necessary to 
 carry her through her task was gone, for she could 
 not banish from her mind saddening thoughts of 
 the girl, across the fair Eden of whose life the 
 serpent was busy prospecting his trail. " For of 
 course she will marry him. Ultimately she will 
 tell her mother all she has learnt from me, and 
 Mrs. Hilton will be horrified at my vulgarity, and 
 the girl will be hurried and worried into marry- 
 ing him. And then the avenging of Trixy will 
 begin."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 " I WISH I was an iceberg," sighed Chrys, 
 wearily. 
 
 " I'm afraid you'd find it very cold," laughed 
 Mrs. Brand. 
 
 " But you see, Aunt Cecily, they don't have 
 any work to do at all, only to keep still and 
 make ice for ice cream." 
 
 " And what work have you to do, I'd like to 
 know?" 
 
 " Why, Aunt Cecily, I've been working all day 
 trying to fix my old engine, and it won't fix," said 
 the child, tearfully. " I'd like to go up to Heaven 
 and trade it off onto God for a thousand, thousand 
 marbles. Then I'd be borned over again with a 
 good start. And now there is nothing that makes 
 me happy. Jane boiled my egg upside down for 
 breakfast this morning; I know she did, Aunt 
 Cecily. And Miss Lee says I haven't any Dandy 
 up in Heaven at all, and that it's very naughty 
 to believe such things." 
 
 367
 
 368 MRS. BRAND 
 
 Mrs. Brand smiled at this pathetic accumula- 
 tion of disasters, but she cuddled the little, desolate 
 figure up in her arms, and when at last she went 
 away, she left Chrys fully convinced that Miss 
 Lee at least would never have a horse to ride in 
 Heaven, for which she was much to be pitied. 
 And as it was satisfactorily proved that the egg 
 had been eaten right end up, it was conceded that 
 the upside-down boiling might as well be over- 
 looked. 
 
 She was on her way to Moon Street, where she 
 had spent most of the last week, for the sands of 
 Trixy's life were nearly run out now. When she 
 reached the bare, little room she found one of the 
 busy, over-burdened mothers in the tenement sit- 
 ting beside the bed. 
 
 " 'Tain't much longer you'll have to be sittin' 
 round here," she said encouragingly to Mrs. 
 Brand, as she paused a moment at the door before 
 going. "Why, I wouldn't give that for her 
 chances to get through the night, and Dr. Chal- 
 loner said as much himself this morning." 
 
 " Poor Trixy ! " said Mrs. Brand. 
 
 "That's all very well, my dear," with a pat-
 
 MRS. BRAND 369 
 
 ronizing tolerance for one whose views on the 
 mysteries of life and death could not be expected 
 to be other than sentimental, " but if you'd had 
 a husband and ten children a draggin' on you for 
 a score of years you'd be glad every time there 
 was a little more breathin' room for somebody." 
 
 Mrs. Brand knew better than to misunderstand 
 this rigidly practical view of the case, for the 
 woman who voiced it had one of the kindest hearts 
 that ever beat. It was simply the crude utterance 
 of that philosophy from which in the slums there 
 can be no escape. 
 
 Left alone, she hunted up the work that she 
 always kept on hand there, and as her needle flew 
 in and out of the coarse, little frock, her eager 
 thoughts kept pace with it. She looked around 
 the room with a pathetic sense of coming change. 
 It was here that she had entered into the great 
 depths of unselfish, human experience, here that 
 sin and suffering had first made themselves poig- 
 nant realities to her, for the cure of which some- 
 thing more was demanded than a down pillow 
 and a glib prescription for regeneration. 
 
 She got up, and leaned over the bed to look at
 
 370 MRS. BRAND 
 
 the still, sleeping face. The glow and curve of 
 radiant youth were gone, but in their stead was 
 the flowering forth of the soul in its beauty. 
 There was an exquisite smile upon the pallid lips 
 as of one seeing visions not of this world. For in 
 these last days the weak gates of flesh seemed 
 powerless to imprison the ardent spirit that had 
 so often bruised itself against them, but which 
 now ventured unafraid beyond them. 
 
 It was a miracle to her, this new, this regenerate 
 Trixy, who dwelt with the joyful anticipations 
 of a sainted seer upon the time when she should 
 behold " the King in His beauty." Was it all the 
 delusion of a fevered brain of which disease had 
 destroyed the delicate balance*? 
 
 What a blank it would make in her life when 
 Trixy was gone! For she had grown to have a 
 real affection for the girl to whom she had min- 
 istered so long, and whom she counted it now her 
 privilege to have understood so well. Her life 
 seemed suddenly to stretch out before her, an infi- 
 nite waste of years to be filled in as well as might 
 be, perhaps in fitful effort for these people. For 
 she knew many of them now, better than anyone
 
 MRS. BRAND 871 
 
 else did, and she had a grim perception of the fact 
 that, without any invitation on her part, there was 
 a harvest waiting for her hand. A career"? she 
 might have it for the choosing, but ah, no ! That 
 was not what she craved. 
 
 There had been no sound in the room, but all 
 at once she felt an insistent demand upon her, and 
 she lifted her head to meet Trixy's wide, clear eyes 
 fixed upon her with an intensity of expression that 
 was heightened by the perfect stillness of her face. 
 
 " What is it, dear? " Mrs. Brand asked, gently. 
 
 The girl's face lit up with sudden animation. 
 " Listen ! " she exclaimed, in a loud, clear whis- 
 per. " They will soon come for me, and before 
 I go we must sing." 
 
 " Sha'n't we wait for Emmy? " asked Mrs. 
 Brand, with a thought for the toiling sister whose 
 opportunities had been submerged for the sake of 
 this one. At the same time she felt a pang of 
 alarm at the sense of being alone in such a crisis, 
 for she had never seen death. It was growing 
 dark, and she rose to light the lamp, wondering 
 desperately what she should do if someone did 
 not come.
 
 372 MRS. BRAND 
 
 " Emmy knows," said Trixy, softly. Just what 
 she meant was not clear, and in another moment 
 she had begun to sing in a thin, quavering voice, 
 her favorite hymn. She seemed upborne by some 
 mysterious accession of strength, and in response 
 to an insistent pressure of her hand Mrs. Brand 
 joined in the singing, her full contralto mingling 
 strangely with the weird, sharp notes of the dying 
 girl. 
 
 Trixy lay with her head thrown back upon the 
 pillows, a rapt upward gaze upon her face, for she 
 was thrilled with the exaltation of an experience 
 so full of meaning to her, and the dramatic fervor 
 of her voice defined itself vividly against the mur- 
 mured harmony of the other as they sang the long 
 hymn through to the end. 
 
 No, this could not be death, this strong, vehe- 
 ment utterance of the soul's most ardent longings. 
 But even as the thought came to Mrs. Brand the 
 singing ceased, and a strange, pulsating silence 
 filled the room like the darkening peace before a 
 swiftly moving storm. The fictitious strength 
 that had sustained Trixy was suddenly gone, and 
 she lay with closed eyes, the breath coming in
 
 MRS. BRAND 373 
 
 light, uncertain gasps through her parched lips. 
 Already there had been breathed upon her the 
 mysterious and indefinable change of expression 
 that spiritualizes even a sinful face in death, and 
 with the awe of that transformation upon her 
 Mrs. Brand sank to her knees beside the bed. 
 
 Trixy was speaking again in a faint, broken 
 whisper. 
 
 " Pray ! I want you to pray, now ! " 
 
 Instinctively Mrs. Brand shook her head. " Oh, 
 Trixy," she said, " I cannot." 
 
 But as a look of agony came into the wide, dark 
 eyes so entreatingly fixed upon her face, she felt 
 a creeping shame at her refusal, and in a moment 
 more she had crushed herself out of sight, and 
 coerced her faltering lips into prayer. 
 
 It was not until the first, crude sentences were 
 passed that she quite realized what she was doing. 
 But a rush of pity filled her heart, and it became 
 not so hard a thing to take this bruised and broken 
 life that had missed its way in this world, and give 
 it into the certain keeping of One who came to 
 seek and to save those who were lost. As she went 
 on she gathered strength and assurance, for this
 
 374 MRS. BRAND 
 
 did not seem like the thing she had called prayer. 
 The room was charged with a warm, responsive 
 Presence that she did not need to see. 
 
 Her voice sank at last into silence, but she knelt 
 there without moving. Trixy's fingers still 
 grasped her arm, but they had lost their tense 
 grip, and upon her poor, wan face rested the glory 
 of the illumination from afar. 
 
 Mrs. Brand never knew how long she knelt 
 there, but at last the sound of a step upon the 
 threshold roused her, and she rose up, trembling 
 and shrinking even from the dull light in the room. 
 Dr. Challoner stood opposite her, looking down at 
 Trixy. He shook his head, and then came quickly 
 around the foot of the bed to Mrs. Brand. 
 
 " And you you have been here all alone? " 
 
 She nodded, for it did not seem to her that she 
 could speak. The intonation of his voice, deep 
 and tender, stirred in her a thousand wild emo- 
 tions. And she was quivering from the strain of 
 the experience she had just undergone. Her chin 
 began to tremble like a little child's. With only 
 a thought of her need of him she held out her 
 hands to him pleadingly.
 
 MRS. BRAND 375 
 
 " Arthur! " she cried. 
 
 And suddenly out of the mystery of death arose 
 the mystery of life. 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000 121 071 5