tit lttj:e Series Each nmo. Cloth, gilt top WHILE CHARLIE WAS AWAY. By Mrs. Poultney Bigelow. $0.75 THE TALK OF THE TOWN. By Elisa Armstrong Bengough. $1.25 THE STIRRUP CUP. By J. Aubrey Tyson. $1.35 THE UNWELCOME MRS. HATCH. By Mrs. Burton Harrison. $1.25 Others to Follow Beta P0rfc : 3D. Slppleton & Co. Untoelcome JElrs. ppictcn a Co. 1903 Copyright, ipoj, by D. Appleton 3" Company Published June, 1905 Copyright, 1901, by the Ess Ess Publishing Company ^tinting Companio gorh flJntoelcome Jftm |N a well-furnished room of a good hotel in the smart residential quar- ter of New York a stout-armed Irishwoman was in the act of drawing together a pair of chintz curtains over an alcove bed. The neat little brass bedstead, the pattern of the chintz and of the Brussels carpet, the ash furniture, the electric fixtures, the lace window-curtains and the steam radiator, like gilded organ- pipes, had been so often imprinted on the retina of Miss Biddy McCluskey's eye, in her daily whiskings through many such apart- ments as sixth-floor chambermaid of the Stuyvesantia, that it was strange she should single out the temporary owner of this particular apartment for meditative com- ment. i 1 222S492 eamDeicotne jEr& "She's a beaut, is No. 1089," she ob- served to a bell-boy who had come up with a parcel. " Not so young as some, but the real thing in manners. Must ha' kep' lots o' help in her time, private house, Fifth Ave- nue style, like the ones I always lived wid before I took up wid hotels. Tell you something, Jimmy she ain't more'n laid on the outside o' that bed all night, and she come all the way from Californy, so she says." " Aw, wot are ye givin' me ! " was the self- sufficient answer. " I don't advertise myself for no mind reader, but I see No. 1089 wuz in trouble w'en I lifted her bags up here last night. Guv me a quarter for myself just to take a tellygram down to the office below, let alone anudder quarter an' a penny for de stamp, an' den dropped herself down dere on de sofa, and was tuk wid a fit o' de shivers. See?" " You didn't happen to read that telegram, sonny?" asked Miss McCluskey, while in- dulging in the lightning act of passing a amtoeicome feather duster over smooth surfaces conve- niently at hand. " Marry me on yer next Sunday out, an' I'll tell yer all my secrets," retorted the boy, provokingly, then carried his sauce and his buttony exterior out of reach of her aveng- ing duster. Scarcely had the door of No. 1089 closed behind the bell-boy, and Miss McCluskey relapsed into a long, leisurely survey of her charms in the mirror, when there was a hes- itating knock. To the chambermaid's tart invitation to come in responded a mysteri- ous, battered-looking creature, with a futile attempt at gentility in his get-up, who in- sinuated himself into the aperture he had created and gave a comprehensive glance around the room. " Well, what's up? " asked the McCluskey, rebukingly. "Don't let me incommode you, miss," was the suave answer. " It is only er a little business I have with the lady. She won't want to miss me, sure." 3 flJtttaelcome " She ain't in," snapped the chambermaid, whose life was spent on guard against way- farers and strangers. " Oh, never mind. I'll wait," returned the visitor, complacently. Somehow, with all her experience, Biddy thought she had never met such shifty yet universally inquisitive eyes. They seemed to bore through wood and metal, looking- glass and stuffs, and to read the innermost motives of her being. The poor thing thought of the dollar bill she had found in the bureau drawer in No. 1101 a day or two before, and of an embroidered pocket handkerchief, tucked between the tufted seat and back of an armchair in No. 1090, that she had appropriated without men- tioning the fact at the desk. She faltered as she tried to regain her usual masterful tone. " If the lady wanted youse so much, why didn't you send up your card ? " "She'll understand," the man answered, pushing further in, and at last standing on OJntoelcome the hearth-rug, while still continuing his rapid survey of the room and its contents. " I remember, now, I heard her mention down the tube that if a gentleman calls she'll be back at ten-thirty, sharp." " A gentleman, eh ? " said the stranger, with animation. " So it ain't you ; see ? " replied Miss McCluskey, who was regaining her usual form. " Come, now ; git outside, or I'll call down the trumpet and have the porters up." " I'm afraid you are hasty, my dear miss," said the stranger, dropping into a chair. " The truth is, you suspect me ; but a lady of your tact and intelligence should know better." As he spoke he was reading the labels on the trunk nearest him a lady's dress-basket, covered with tarpaulin, smart, up-to-date and newly lettered. "A long journey Mrs. Hatch has had from 'Frisco, hasn't she ? Mr. Hatch with her ? " he went on. 5 antoelcome ;jttt% " Mr. Nobody's with her ! " exclaimed the woman, indignantly. " If yer want to ask questions, go down to the office." " Come to think of it, I won't wait, but will just leave a note saying I'll call again," observed the visitor, as an apparent after- thought. " She'll be so sorry to have missed her old friend ! " Gliding into a chair set behind a fanciful and uncomfortable little hotel desk strewn with a few open papers and writing materi- als, he affected to scribble a few lines on a sheet of white paper. In the brief time that he sat there even Miss McCluskey's suspicious eyes did not keep pace with his swift investigation of everything within his reach though she observed he slipped every drawer open noiselessly and peeped inside. Apparently nothing rewarded this ex- ploration by Mrs. Hatch's old friend. In a very few moments he got up, crumpled the paper he had written and put it in his pocket, declaring he had changed his mind 6 autoelcome and would leave a message for her at the office; then, wishing the ample Biddy a polite good-day, started for the door. " Good luck go wid ye 1 " observed the woman, with animus. " Good-bye, miss; no offense, I hope, but " and he slipped a dollar into her hand "No. 1089 is O. K., as far as you have seen? " " I'm not up till yer low questions, any- way," returned Biddy, indignantly pushing the money back into his grasp. " On the square, savey ? Keeps no com- pany, orders no cigarettes or cocktails in her room, uses no hypodermics or morphine ? " he explained, pleasantly. " An' is it yer ' old friend ' yer asking that about ? " cried she, angrily. " Sure I know yer sort at last. Ye'r' a detective, bad cess to yer ugly mug. She's a perfect lady, I tell ye, and that's all ye'll get out o' me, if ye stop here till ye take root." "No offense, no offense," repeated the man, imperturbably, as she fairly forced him 7 into retreat and slammed and locked the door. The next knock revealed nothing more alarming than a District Messenger boy carrying a neat little parcel, wrapped in jeweler's style, and sealed at either end. "Special, C. O. D.," recited the lad, briefly. " Told me at office lady left orders she'd be in at 10.30." " You look like the right article, so wait there, " replied the maid, leaving the door on the crack while she finished her task, hurry- ing into seclusion a pair of shoes with trim buckles, and venturing to try around her own throat a long feather-boa before she laid it in a drawer. Punctually, as a bell in a neighboring clock tower struck the half-hour after ten, the soft rustle of a woman's skirts came up the corridor from the elevator door and paused before No. 1089. " Oh 1 you are there ? That's very nice," said a peculiarly soft and low cadenced voice. " I see the door's open, so the maid 8 cantoelcome must be still inside. Come in, please, till I settle our account." Once in a while there is found a Dis- trict Messenger boy who has human emo- tions, and this one responded, as did the rest of the world in general to Marian Hatch's greeting, with a smile. She was a tall, slim woman, youthful of form and face, and though the wells of her deep eyes were brimming with the emotions of sad experience extremely pretty still, grace- ful in every one of her impulsive move- ments, and of a personal distinction in ap- pearance and bearing that marked her as belonging to the higher-cultured class. Her tailor-made costume of dark gray was se- verely cut, but stylish, while her large black hat and nodding plumes made a picture of the charming face beneath, and she held a couple of American beauty roses in her hand. " You have done my room nicely, and just in time," she said to the maid, who, assuming an attitude of subservience foreign 9 to her usual demeanor, responded with a grin, and softly disappeared. Then the lady, taking off her gloves, veil, and hat, threw them carelessly on the sofa, and relieving the boy of his parcel, dropped into a chair by the little table in the center of the room. As she broke the seals she glanced with happy eyes at the box's con- tents, then at the accompanying bill. " Quite right. Here is the money. Re- ceipt the bill, please," she went on, holding the box and falling into a sort of half- dream, while the lad, producing a stub pencil, moistened it on his lips, and stretching on the wall the paper she had handed him signed it laboriously. The messenger had been gone for some time, when she started from her reverie and took up her open portemonnaie from the table. " Bless me ! " she exclaimed. " That inno- cent Mercury little knew how nearly this payment has cleaned me out. But never mind, so long as it gives her pleasure ! Now, 10 (Untoelcome I must get into shape to receive a visit from my traveling companion across the conti- nent. He will be punctual. He has all the virtues, has Jack Adrian." Another knock at her much-beleaguered door, and Jimmy entered, card on tray, mechanically repeating : " Gentleman for 1089." "Ask the gentleman to come up," she said, after a glance at the card. Then, with a hasty look at herself in the mirror, she resumed her seat, taking up her roses and toying with them a little nervously. " I wanted, of all things, to receive Jack Adrian as a lady should," passed through her mind. " Dear, honest boy, he knows as little as the District Messenger boy does how near I am to being stone broke. After my journey here, and sundry purchases, I can afford to keep this room just one week and after that, the deluge ! " Then she was shaking hands, simply and cordially, with a young man of handsome face and cheery presence. He carried a 11 antoelcome large bunch of lilies-of- the- valley wrapped in soft paper, which, with some awkwardness, he offered for her acceptance. " You see, I took you at your word, and called abominably early," he said. " Have these ? I picked them up at a florist's as I came along in the hansom, and thought maybe you'd like 'em." " Like them ! " cried Marian, rapturously burying her face in their fragrance. " If you knew how sinfully I always covet flowers all flowers everybody's flowers ! I couldn't resist buying these poor roses in the street just now. Yours are so beautifully fresh and crisp ! They will last for days and keep Spring in my heart ! " " Glad you're pleased," he answered, sitting opposite her, hat and stick in hand, the image of conventional respectability and wholesomeness. " I'd meant to drop in any- way this morning to ask if you'd rested after our tiresome journey, and whether you'd met your friends all right at this hotel." She started a little, but smiled beamingly. 12 (Hntoelcome " Oh, I'm quite rested, thank you you found my telegram at your club ? " " Yes, and came at once. What can I do for you, Mrs. Hatch ? " " You've been doing so much for me for days past," she answered, lightly, " I daren't ask for more. Always thinking of me ; al- ways caring for me, a perfect stranger a son couldn't have been kinder. I wish you were my son. " " That's pretty ambitious, isn't it, from a woman of your age to a man of mine ? " he said, jokingly, " By the way, my father and mother have come down from their country home, and are in town for a purpose. I thought, if it would be agreeable to you, I'd like to bring my mother here to call." A little flush came to her cheek as she again rested it among the lilies. " How kind you are ! " she repeated. " How nice for your mother to own you ! I never had a son. In my short married life I had a daughter, whom I lost twelve years ago. She was just five." 13 Clje antoelcome " And you have lost your husband since ? " said young Adrian, gently. " Poor little woman, that was hard lines, wasn't it ? " Mrs. Hatch tried to answer. Her voice broke, and tears filled her eyes. While Adrian was wishing the conversation had not taken that particular turn, she recovered her- self, and spoke brusquely, and to his utter confusion. " Mr. Adrian, I sent for you to come here because I've been deceiving you." Adrian started visibly, but controlled his feelings to answer her in his usual jocular tone. " Don't say that. I've been thinking of you as almost my ideal woman." " Almost, not quite," she answered. "The ideal is the girl you're engaged to marry." " Who told you I'm engaged to marry ? " he asked, reddening to the ears. " As if you could hope to spend several days in solid talk with a clever woman and not have her find that your big, manly heart 14 antoelcome was gone out of your keeping. Why, you foolish boy, I knew it the first day then,'^ she added, dropping her voice, " I was con- vinced when you never spoke of her to me, a mere traveling acquaintance." " Granted, then, that I have that good fortune, and am very soon to be married," he said, hurrying ; " will you give me your good wishes ? " " Yes ! oh, yes a thousand of them ! " she exclaimed. " Happy boy, and happier girl, since she is sure of the husband of her choice ! But I mustn't talk of that. I must go on telling you about myself." "Must you?" he said, vaguely uneasy. "Why?" " " In the first place, because I'm awfully superstitious, and I'm afraid the object of my journey east will fail if I begin by letting you believe a lie." " A lie ! that's not a favorite word of mine, certainly," Adrian said, getting up, walking to the window and then returning to his place. 15 flJntoelcomc jfctr& " You know I told you I am a widow coming to New York to visit my husband's family," she said, in a clear voice. " Well, that's false. I'm a waif, a social outcast. For twelve years not one of my husband's family has spoken to me. They wouldn't touch me with a pair of tongs." Adrian recoiled. He could not believe it was his merry, debonair comrade of yester- day who was saying such hateful words to him. "He is living and he got the divorce. You understand ? He got the divorce. No, don't try to answer me. ... I was a young, heedless, reckless, desperate girl, and I did what forced me to step down from my pin- nacle in good society ... to go out into darkness . . . never to see my child a- gain." Her voice broke in sobs. Through the open window came the rush and jar of the great city's everlasting movement. He was conscious of wanting awfully to get out into the open street again. 16 " I wish you hadn't sent for me," he said, finally. "I'd much rather have continued to think of you as I did." " Oh, I know it," she answered, forlornly. " And my excuse for having misled you is miserably weak. I only wanted to get back for a little while into the place I've forfeited. I saw you respected me, and I liked the feeling. It was so jolly to be squired and waited on by a man of my own sort above all, to be believed in." "In what way can I serve you now ? " he said, striving to let no change appear in his voice. " Oh, in no way." He thought there was a tinge of recklessness in her tone. " I'm not going to sponge any longer on your gal- lantry. I'm quite sufficient for myself, thank you. For years I've been taking care of that individual, working hard and living honestly. . . . Mr. Adrian, it was the kindest thing you ever did to propose bringing you mother to call on me." Adrian's ready blood rushed again to his dntoelcome temples. He was literally oppressed for words to answer her. " I only hope it'll be possible to find her disengaged, Mrs. Hatch," he stammered at last, because her eyes were fixed beseech- ingly on his. She sprang to her feet, letting her bunch of lilies fall to the floor. Her voice sounded sharp as she cried out : " That's not my real name ! I'm not Mrs. Hatch, any more than you're Mr. Hatch ! It's just a stupid, commonplace business name I took to work under. Oh ! don't try to soothe me now; I can't help my quick temper, and I see what my honesty has done for me. It's the same old story. If you're going to condole with me, don't ! " She swept up the room stormily, breath- ing hard. Adrian did not dare to stir. " You are quite unlike yourself," he ven- tured, in the end. "You'd better go, Mr. Adrian," said the poor creature, stopping before him suddenly. " Now, while I'm hard and horrid ! My 18 antoelcome ffivfr idyl's over. For a week I've been in my old place in life ; now I've relapsed. Pres- ently I'll be only a bubble, burst on the sea of your recollections. A month hence I'll have faded from your thoughts, and by next year, should you pass me in the street, you'll say, ' Where have I seen that woman ? ' So, you see, I'll not trouble you long. It's you that will trouble me. " " I swear I'd like to help you," cried the young man, fervently. " You can't, my dear boy ! you just can't 1 " she answered, touched by his evident sin- cerity. " No man can but one, and he's made of iron and india rubber. He's com- ing here presently." She shivered. " The man who was your husband ? " he asked, hesitatingly. " Yes ; all this while he's let people think I'm dead. But he well knows I've been living alone, toiling to keep the wolf from the door ! He's always had an eye several eyes on his lost treasure. He's never ceased 19 Clje dntDelcome to spy on me detectives everything hor- rid ; but I've never once asked him for help or anything. I have to now, for there's one I love better than my pride. " " Your child, too, is living ? " "Yes, with them he's married again and I'm just breaking my heart to see her! Think of me having to ask a favor of a man who has trampled me in the mire ! Oh, but she's worth it. If he's flesh and blood he can't refuse me ! " " My dear lady," Adrian said, softly, when her tears were somewhat checked, " you must know this is very painful to me, the more so because I feel so disgustingly useless in the case." " I told you you couldn't help ! " exclaimed Marian. " Don't mind my crying. It eases the pain. Every mile of our journey the train was saying, ' You are this much this much nearer to your darling ! ' Oh ! how foolish I am to struggle when I need so much strength for what's to come ! " She dried her eyes with a tiny web of 20 Ontoelcome ;fttt% lace and linen, so ridiculously inadequate for its purpose that she crumpled it up into a ball, threw it across the room and laughed. " Come, cheer me up a bit ! " she cried. " Tell me about the girl that's to be your wife." Now it was Adrian's turn to experience a sudden change of manner. A moment be- fore he had been ready, at all hazards, to rush into the lists and champion this delightful victim of man's inhumanity. But when it came to bringing the name of his fiancee between them, he grew chill. " What do you wish to hear?" he said, in a constrained voice. " The usual things. Is she fair or dark, young or old, merry or sad, meek or spirited? I hope, for her sake, nature hasn't been so cruel as to make her impulsive, jealous, fiery on provocation, repenting as soon as she has offended, a fond lover, a hot hater, keen for revenge, but ready to lie down in the dust and let herself be walked on by one she loves ! That's myself, Mr. Adrian the worst kind 21 l)e of an outfit for a wife. Better be cold, callous, self-worshiping, wearing an armor, never out of temper, never ruffled by a man's passions or emotions; pursuing the even tenor of an utterly selfish way, no matter who else goes under in the crash of life. That's my successor. She gets on splendidly 1 " " I think you are right," said Adrian, ris- ing. " It doesn't make you happier to see anyone just now. I'd better say good-by." " Oh, don't mind my being a little catty about that one," said Marian, nodding mys- teriously. " But I won't do it any more. You were going to tell me about your bride- to-be." " There's really nothing to tell," said the young man, still upon his feet to go, " but that she is very young, gentle, childlike, lovely to look upon, and entirely without experience in the world." " I was all that even lovely to look upon, they said when I married at seventeen. Think of what, in other hands, I might now have been I Oh 1 I see you are afraid to (Utttoelcome j$ir& have me go on. Men so hate a woman who makes scenes. Good-by, then, but before we part - " She paused, looking at him with a gaze all gentleness and pathos. " What, Mrs. Hatch ? " asked Adrian, very softly. Marian hung her proudly set little head. "Say you'll try to forget there's one door- way in my past with a black veil hanging over it 1 Say you believe I'm not altogether bad!" Adrian clasped her hand. " If ever you need me, send. I'll come at a minute's notice. You'll see then, Mrs. Hatch, whether I misjudge you." " Thank you, thank you ! " she cried. * ' Please continue to be as happy as you are good. Oh ! why aren't all men like you I Your wife will never be tempted - " At once he stiffened; the smile died out. " Pardon me, Mrs. Hatch," he said, inter- rupting her. " I see," she answered, sadly, " I mustn't cross the gulf between me and her. But you can't help my praying for her when I do for you. Now go please go. " She pushed him toward the door in her ever impulsive fashion, then dropped into her chair by the table. Adrian went slowly, torn by conflicting feelings, not in the least satisfied with himself. As he laid his hand on the knob he looked back. She was sit- ting like a breathing statue, her head drooped, her hands crossed on her lap. " Good-by, and take courage," he said ; then hurried out. For a long time she did not move ; then she uttered a deep sigh, and looking at a little traveling clock on the table, sprang suddenly into action. "Dick won't come. Nothing can make him weaken I " she cried out, and began pacing the floor in feverish anxiety. There was another knock, and almost at a bound she reached the door and opened it. A man of middle age entered, neatly at- tired in business clothes, of an exterior so 24 precise and formal that the first glimpse of him acted like a shower-bath on her nerves. He came in carefully, shutting the door be- hind him, and not offering her his hand. " Mrs. Lorimer," he said " or, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hatch you may have forgot- ten me. I am Mr. Cleave, Mr. Lorimer's lawyer." " I haven't forgotten you, Mr. Cleave," she responded, in clear, cutting tones. " It's hardly likely you got him his divorce. Isn't he coming ? " " He is undecided," answered the lawyer, seating himself on the edge of a small up- right chair. " I was to have a few prelimi- nary words with you. Of course, madam, you must know that your letter, announcing your intended arrival in New York, was a considerable shock to my client. On my own part, I can assure you that I believed you to be dead." " Very sorry to disappoint you," she said, curtly and with a little curl of the lip. " Mrs. er Hatch, I had better be frank 25 Qntuelcome with you," went on Mr. Cleave, not in the least susceptible to curls of any sort. "And there is nothing gained by long preamble. My client at first declined, on any terms, to see you or hold speech with you. Your re- quest seemed to him in the highest degree presumptuous. But, after consideration, he agrees to do so, on the absolute conditions that the meeting shall be in my presence and that there shall be no nervous excite- ment, no recrimination, no scenes." " I never wanted anything less in my life than a scene with him ! " she exclaimed. " My client was never a man to avoid ful- filling the duty of - " " Being disagreeable to someone down in the world. Exactly," she interrupted. " There, Mr. Cleave, don't trouble yourself with extolling Dick Lorimer to me. I will tell you frankly that, although you were the instrument of Fate to me, I don't bear you a personal grudge. I know you to be a severe man, but I believe you are a fair one. If ever you've felt a moment's compunction 26 (tJntaelcome for your share in turning a poor, friendless girl of two-and-twenty adrift on the dark river of men's and women's mercy, listen to me now. I want nothing on earth from you but a moment's belief in me. You have nothing to lose but a little of that hard crust with which the world and the habit of the law have surrounded you. Believe in me, Mr. Cleave ; it won't harm you when you stand up to be judged. Believe in me, for, though I was bad and reckless, I always told the truth." Mr. Cleave pursed his lips together till the line of them described a half-circle; he hemmed several times, and tried not to look her full in the face. At last, speaking to the steam radiator, he said, in a judicial voice : r " Proceed, if you please, Mrs. Hatch." Marian, who was by now keyed to despair- ing eagerness, hurried on : "You remember, on the trial, even you never accused me of not having loved my husband. I loved him too well; when I 87. found his fancy had wavered away from me, to settle on the person who is now his wife, 1 was mad with jealousy. I did everything I knew to win him back, but my day was over. My little arts wearied him. If I was coquettish, he was cold as a stone. If I ex- postulated, he was bored. If I cried and raved, he swore at me and went to the club." " That was a long time since, dear mad- am," interposed Mr. Cleave, impersonally, " a long time since." " Oh, I know, but once is forever to a wom- an who loves. But hear the rest of it a plain story from one who has never forgotten a single incident of that time, Mr. Cleave. The day Dick Lorimer brought that woman into our house, and forced me to receive her, I was crazy for revenge. I did the wildest act of folly a woman can commit. That man my husband's best friend who had been trying to make love to me for months, and I laughing at him, but, all the same, playing with fire, asked me to punish Dick 28 CJje antoelcome by going away with him. I was not twenty- three, remember, and still in love with Dick. . . . I felt myself spurned, humiliated, by my husband. ... I cared for noth- ing else. . . ." She did not sob, but stopped for a few mo- ments, holding herself sternly in check, a proceeding that caused Mr. Cleave to survey the radiator with almost friendly regard. Presently she resumed : " I am putting it in the fewest, baldest words. You know what followed. . . . I agreed to go away with that man. . . . I let him make all the arrangements. . . . I met him at a certain train. . . . You know it all, I say. God knows you made enough of it in those clever speeches before the referee. . . ." " Well, madam ? " said the lawyer, after another pause. " I want to get you to say, now, that you believe I did all that for the sole purpose of paying Dick back in his own coin. What you tried to show was that I was wicked by nature, and unfit to be guardian of my child. Ah, Mr. Cleave, you were very eloquent ! " " My good lady, I must protest ! " began Cleave, forsaking the radiator to gaze at a table leg. He continued slowly : " I acted upon my best knowledge, in the best inter- ests of my client and his child, and the deci- sion of the referee was entirely fair and un- biased." "Yes, I know; but when I think what other women are, who still hold their heads high and are surrounded by their families, I feel that no one gave me half a chance. That letter I wrote that fatal fool of a letter, by which I hoped to touch Dick's heart and shame him to repentance that sealed my fate ! You remember it, Mr. Cleave you read it aloud in court! Now, look here." She ran across to a trunk, opened it, took out a parcel of letters and held them up to him. " All these, begging and praying to be for- given for one single act of madness ; swear- ing that I was living alone, and in bitter 30 grief and penitence. . . . See, Mr. Cleave ! . . . Just listen to this one, please ! " Mr. Cleave was startled from his calm. " Mrs. Lorimer Mrs. Hatch, I mean I must decline," he protested. " Very well, then. Here's another the same thing another all beseeching Dick, for our child's sake, to forgive me and take me back. Everyone he returned to me un- opened, excepting that first one that you read aloud. Ah ! how terrible it sounded in your voice ! " She threw the letters back into the trunk tray, shut the lid, and came back to him, wiping her eyes. " I regret what you tell me, Mrs. Hatch. It is a new chapter in the case, certainly; very distressing, indeed, but I fail to see what can be gained by reverting to it now," the lawyer said. " I only wanted to melt your heart a little," Marian cried, " in order to help me to melt Dick's." 31 antoelcome Her face, her attitude, the tones of her voice, evinced her sincerity and sorrow. Cleave answered her almost with anima- tion: " Upon my soul, I believe you loved Lor- imer only ! " " Thank you, thank you, Mr. Cleave. I did love him, but it took one of those Sphinx women to hold him^-one of the kind who know how to repress men, and act with them as cats do with their prey. Like the wife he's got now ! While I you could always see my heart in my face. I loved him, and I showed it. It wearied him Oh ! had I known bet- ter " Time passes, Mrs. Hatch. What, spe- cifically, did you desire me to do for you ? " interposed the caller. " Bring Dick here. Let me ask one single favor of him." "H'm! * Scenes,' you know. And my client was so exact on this point. I am afraid I can hardly trust you." antoeieomc ;fflm " Oh, yes, you can you can ! I won't raise my voice, won't say one unpleasant thing. Only try me, Mr. Cleave ! " She was so desperately anxious, so beau- tiful in her pleading, so much the wayward girl of old, Mr. Cleave could not refuse her. He walked, with short, mincing steps, over to the electric bell, and stood with his finger on the button. " It will be awkward for me if I send for him, and you - " "No ' ifs ' I promise," cried Marian. Mr. Cleave rang. " Thank you, dear Mr. Cleave," she said, softly. " This makes up for lots of harm you've done me. You can sleep better after this for thinking there's one poor little woman the less in the world to cherish you as her enemy." " I recognize some of the old Eve in you, Mrs. Lor er Hatch," said the lawyer, grimly smiling. " Yours is certainly not a personality one easily forgets." " Nor one that changes," she said, sighing. 8 33 When the bell was answered Mr. Cleave gave directions that a gentleman called Mr. Lorimer, then waiting below in the recep- tion-room of the hotel, should be shown up to No. 1089. In the little time that elapsed before the new arrival the lawyer addressed himself to the examination of a note-book taken from his pocket, on the pages of which were inscribed certain cabalistic hiero- glyphics that seemed to exercise his legal mind, but were in reality the very harmless address of a new bootmaker, given to him by a man at his club, and the recipe for a fish sauce, communicated by a gastronomic friend. When Mr. Lorimer entered the room and Marian saw again in the full light of day the man who had received the homage of her young heart so many years before, she experienced a sort of revulsion at her own blind infatuation for an object so unworthy. Time and self-indulgence, prosperity and a material habit of looking at things had rubbed off all the fine edges from his once 34 atrtaelcome striking manly beauty. The flesh beneath his eyes had a puffy, purple look ; the eyes themselves were lifeless, the mouth had set- tled into hard and pleasure-loving curves. The fulness beneath his chin told the tale of middle life, as did the outline of his formerly athletic figure. Slain at a glance was Marian's long-cher- ished sentiment for the husband of her youth. Although he fixed on her a first glance of some surprise at her abiding grace and freshness, the expression soon settled in- to one of rancorous resentment at her intru- sion into his life. With the feminine instinct of hospitality that nothing quells, Marian invited him to a chair ; but without acknowledgment of her courtesy, he addressed her while still stand- ing near the door. " Tell me at once why you presumed to commit the impertinence of asking me to call on you." Marian, who had unconsciously caught up Adrian's bunch of lilies, and stood 35 l)e with them in her hand, answered, delib- erately : " Because I have heard that my daughter is to be married." 36 II JOU mean that my daughter is to be married," Lorimer said, with cutting emphasis. " How does that concern you ? " " I read in a paper I picked up in San Francisco," she answered, with a proud, weary look, "some passing allusion to the approaching marriage of the beautiful Miss Gladys Lorimer, of New York, daughter of the eminent and wealthy financier. Nothing more. Of course, I did my best to find out further particulars. The people I knew were not of a kind to be informed on such points." " Hardly," said Lorimer, with a sneer. " I did not even see the bridegroom's name. You think I have no right to know it, or to care. But I do care awfully ! All these long, empty years I've lived on the thought of Gladys. Her childhood and her girlhood have been the playground of 37 my starved fancy. On every one of her birthdays I've bought a little pot of flowers and watered it with my tears. At Christ- mas I've wandered in the streets, looking through other people's windows trying to catch glimpses of young girls, wondering if she looked like them. When I met those of her age and station out walking or driv- ing I stared at them hungrily. I envied their mothers and their maids. I'd have given a year of my life to dress Gladys for her first ball." " Is this maudlin stuff what you brought us here to listen to ? " asked Lorimer, with a shrug. Marian showed no resentment. Her face had flushed, her eyes had a far-off, dreamy look. " Isn't she very young to be married, Richard ? " she said, in tenderest accents. " You forget yourself, Mrs. Hatch ! " the man said, ruffling like an angry turkey till the very veins of his throat swelled with re- sentful vanity. 38 antoelcome " So I did, Mr. Lorimer," she answered, lightly. "After all, / was married at her age. I remember my joy in my wedding presents was like a child's over new toys. We weren't rich then, and they seemed magnificent. . . . That brings me to asking if you will be so good so very good as to let me send your daughter this little token I've bought for her on her marriage ? " She had taken up the parcel recently ar- rived, and extended it beseechingly. " On no account. What are you think- ing of? Allow her to ... a present from you ! Why, she's no idea you're Cleave, the woman's mad stark mad ! " blustered Lorimer, backing to get out of her reach. She dropped the parcel on the table quickly. " Mr. Cleave knows I am not mad," she said, with spirit, " and you should. If you can't understand the natural impulse of ma- ternity - " " That you forfeited, once and for all," he 39 interrupted, " by throwing yourself into the arms of that damned * sympathizer,' who, luckily, is dead, though I fancy you've been consoled." " Come, come, Mr. Lorimer," said Cleave, warmly, " this won't do ! You know it won't do at all ! " " I don't mind him, Mr. Cleave ! " cried Marian, passionately. "He knows how much truth is in his insults. He knows what my life's been since I was mad driven so by his cruelty, neglect, and the wilful ignoring of every good impulse of my heart. Like my child, I was, when I mar- ried, motherless. There was no one to warn me of the fearful risk I ran. If I had known anything of life and men I might have been safe to-day. What wonder that I am desperately anxious about Gladys ? " "Don't presume to put yourself in the same category with Miss Lorimer, who, by the way, profits by the example and coun- sels of a most competent adviser." 40