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
<EJntelcome
For the first time Marian's self-control
failed her. She started as if flicked by a
whip, and the angry tears rushed into her
eyes.
" In the person of your wife ? " she said,
cuttingly. " Thank you for recalling her to
me. As I remember Mrs. Lorimer she was
hardly a model for innocent youth clever,
certainly, at concealing compromising ap-
pearances a little vulgar, a little pious, per-
fectly satisfied with the punishment allotted
in this world to other sinners, so long as she
herself was not found out."
Cleave, being human, smiled vaguely
around the eyes at this, the muscles of his
mouth remaining quite firm. Lorimer, too
furious to notice him, searched vainly for a
properly withering reply.
Marian's face had taken on a reckless look,
and she hurried on :
" I seem like a ghost coming back and
hovering over your two devoted, connubial
heads, don't I ? How often I used to say I
meant to try that hovering and eavesdrop-
41
l)e
ping spirit business, if you survived me !
Well, I've tried it, and I don't find it as
funny as I thought."
" Incorrigible ! The old cursed trifling ! "
exclaimed Lorimer, turning his back.
" Cleave, this woman's hopeless ! I leave
you to deal with her."
Marian, running after him, placed her
hand on his arm. There was something so
childlike about her as she pleaded with him
to forgive her rash speech, to listen to her
yet a little while, that any other man than
Lorimer would have insensibly yielded a
point or two before her magnetism. But
he preserved his harsh, unyielding exterior
as he grudgingly inquired what she had fur-
ther to say.
Marian trembled in every limb.
" It is such a little thing to you to grant
what I've crossed the continent to ask," she
said, with desperately imploring eyes. " Let
me see my child once, only once."
" Listen to that, Cleave ! " said Lorimer,
contemptuously. "After the years of work
42
antoelcome
we've had to suppress this woman in the
child's memory - "
" She remembered me, then ? " cried the
mother, thrilling with joy.
" At first we had no end of bother with
her. She was nervous, hysterical, always
calling for you in her sleep, and talking of
you to her nurses. But by the judicious
management of her present mother all that
nonsense has been squashed. My daughter
is now a healthy and normal girl. She be-
lieves you to be dead, and, so far as 1 know,
never thinks of you."
The iron entered into Marian's soul at
this, and her head drooped forward pitifully.
" Does she know," she asked, faintly,
" about my disgrace ? "
" I fancy nobody has enlightened her,"
answered Lorimer. " Old Agnes, who was
her nurse when you left, has had entire
charge of her since, and is still her maid.
The woman had my strictest orders to never
mention you."
" Agnes ! " exclaimed Mrs. Hatch, " old
43
Agnes ! She was always old, I think, and
dear and forgiving. A kind of moral feather-
bed to throw one's self upon. Then she's had
Gladys? Oh, I'm glad ! I'm glad! Rich-
ard, for God's sake, don't refuse me ! I don't
ask to meet my darling face to face. Let
me only look at her from a distance, feast
my eyes on her features, and I'll go back as
I came."
" It's too risky," said he, after a moment's
thought.
" Dick, look at my life ! " she pleaded.
" Isn't it enough of a wreck to please even
you ? Think what you and Cleave did for
me. Why, in this town, where I was born
and belong to the best, there isn't a decent
house I could walk into now not one! It
seems a dream that I once led my set in so-
ciety here; a party wasn't a go without me.
When Mrs. Dick Lorimer left a dance it
was over, and the rest followed me out, like
sheep, into the dawn, even watched me get
into my carriage. Oh ! I lived then "
She raised her arms over her head, then
44
atttoelcome
dropped them suddenly. " Richard, by the
memory of that time, grant me one look,
one little look, at Gladys! It can't hurt
her, or you. Remember when you first
lifted your baby from my side and kissed
her, then me, and thanked me for her. You
weren't all hard then you had a husband's
and a father's heart in your bosom, and warm
blood in your veins. Bad I may be, but
you can't ever forget that hour. Richard,
have pity! Think how I've suffered, expi-
ated my sin ! Try to imagine the bitter
loneliness of my solitary life since you turned
me out. Have mercy on a poor, crushed
woman ! Let me see my child ! "
While Cleave suddenly found his atten-
tion claimed by a gang of workmen relaying
the asphalt in the street below, Lorimer
spoke, in a gentler tone :
" What you ask is manifestly improper.
Under no circumstances could you be ad-
mitted inside my house."
" Inside or out, I care not ! " she went on,
seeing her advantage. "Anywhere, so I
45
antoelcome
catch one glimpse of my child ; see her be-
fore she passes into the new life and away
from me forever."
Lorimer walked over to Cleave by the
window and conferred with him in whispers,
with the result that the lawyer, wonderfully
subdued in manner, left his client and came
over to sit by the chair into which Marian
had fallen, quivering with her own vehe-
mence of passion.
" Mrs. Hatch," he said, with real feeling,
"there are delicate questions involved in
what you ask. The young gentleman your
daughter is to marry will presently be placed
in an embarrassing predicament. It will be
soon necessary to inform him of the facts of
her mother's past."
" He might have known them easily, if he
had tried," she said, gloomily. " It was cer-
tainly no mystery ! The papers were full of
it at the time."
"As a matter of fact, he comes from
a distance," Cleave went on, smoothly,
" and has chanced to hear nothing at all
46
I)e antoelcome
about the divorce. He, like the rest of
the world, believes you to have died long
since."
Marian echoed him :
" Died long since ! And so I did, God
knows ! "
" In these cases," pursued the lawyer,
" nothing comes of reviving old sorrows and
grievances. My client had already deputed
me to inform his future son-in-law of the
fact that Gladys's mother is living, though
unlikely ever to make herself known to him
and his wife. We shall ask him, in his own
time and place, to tell his wife the truth.
Would you wish to cloud your child's mar-
riage by letting this sad news come to her
now ? "
" No, a thousand times no ! You know
it, Mr. Cleave! " exclaimed Marian.
' ' Then there is another circumstance that
complicates the situation. The father and
the mother of the bridegroom reside at some
distance from New York. They are excel-
lent, influential people of large wealth, and
47
are just now allied with Mr. Lorimer in very
important business "
" Dick's business ! Then he has them in
his net? " cried she, in irrepressible satire.
Mr. Cleave went on, patiently :
" Those worthy people are old-fashioned,
narrow and conservative to eccentricity. Did
they know of this matter, they would be
quite capable of violent public opposition to
the match, which would thus stir up around
an innocent young girl a noisome scandal in
the newspapers, and bring you small satis-
faction in return."
" No, no, not that never that 1 " she said.
" Tell her all, Cleave," said Lorimer, join-
ing them. " She'll understand me better
then. Tell her that the son is dependent
on his parents for fortune, and that if she's
lunatic enough to show up now, she'll not
only disgrace her child, but impoverish her.
Besides, those people will, like as not, whip
their money out of a venture that means
millions to my family. Why, curse her,
she'd ruin all of us ! "
48
Clje antoelcome jflm
" Now I fully understand you," she said,
facing him contemptuously, then turning
quickly away. " That's enough, Mr. Cleave
I'm conquered. I'll struggle no more.
But before you go, tell me, please not if
my girl's lover is rich or well-placed and I
don't care a rap about his frumpy old parents
and their millions tell me if my child's hus-
band will be good and true patient with
her faults, forbearing with her follies if, in
short, he is a gentleman."
" Miss Lorimer's choice is all that her
friends could wish," the lawyer answered.
" But, Mrs. Hatch, you did not let me finish
what I began to say under instruction from
my client. If he were quite assured that
you would in no way betray your identity,
he might consent to let you see Miss Lori-
mer at a distance. There would be the
condition that you go away from town
directly afterward, of course. "
" See her ! Oh, my God ! " cried Marian.
"Where? How?" *
" Mrs. and Miss Lorimer are in the habit
4 49
t)atci)
of driving in the Park every fine afternoon
about four. If you will go to-morrow to a
spot that will be indicated by my client, you
may be able to see the young lady pass in her
carriage, without fear of her detecting you."
" But how shall I know my child ? " she
asked, anxiously.
" Mr. Lorimer will send old Agnes to
join you, and point her out to you. You
will this evening receive a note from me
containing full particulars; but there must
be this clear understanding, that this is all
you will ever ask of us."
" I promise anything ! " she cried, joy-
ously. "Just now I feel only seventeen
myself. Calling for me in her sleep ! My
own my treasure ! Old Agnes coming for
me! Dear old thing! She always loved
me. Harm Gladys by thought or deed for
my selfish pleasure? Oh, Mr. Cleave, I
can't speak to Richard Lorimer! I don't
want to lose the heavenly warmth his
promise has put into my heart ; but tell
him, please, that I'll do all he asks."
50
Over her April face again swept a torrent
of tenderness, making it so young, so radi-
ant, that the two men who had come there
to scorn her went out together in half-
shamed silence.
Lorimer, indeed, had vaguely thought to
offer Marian some pecuniary help, but on
looking about him decided that her finances
must be in a satisfactory condition, since she
presented such a good front to the world.
51
Ill
[HE Park presented a pretty and
unwonted spectacle all that long
bright day of May. For a won-
der, no boreal hint in the air
brought bronchitis and pneumonia into the
train of the various May queens who
assumed their brief sovereignty in spots
yielded by authority for the occasion. A
soft wind rustled the young leaves of the
trees and scattered the petals of forward
blossoms on the velvet turf. Every bosk-
age showed masses of tender color, but for
once the flowers were outdone by their
human rivals.
Since before noon May parties of children
from the tenement districts all over town
had been streaming out of trolley cars and
overflowing into the various approaches of
the Park. Numbers of them wore caps of
red, white, and blue and carried American
52
flJutoelcome
flags, walking in prim processions, led by
drum and fife, until they reached the bits of
springy turf surrendered to them for the
day. Then they relaxed into a very orgy of
Spring happiness, running, tumbling, slid-
ing, shouting, rolling and turning cart-wheels
on the grass. Some of the bands were made
up of children dressed in gala costumes of
old-world fashion. Their faces revealed
types of every nationality of Europe, the
Slav predominating ; an odd sight altogether
under the forest of American liberty-caps.
Other little urchins and damsels were in
pathetically tattered finery, footing it and
scampering with the best.
In a lovely nook near one of the main
driveways stood a little summer-house,
whose trellised sides and steep-pointed roof
were fairly dripping with the purple bloom
of wistaria. A shaded path in front divided
it from the road, and on one side, in an
intensely verdant meadow, stood a May-
pole, the many- colored streamers of which
were held by a party of children of the poor-
53
Ontoelcome Jttr& l^atcl)
est class; circling round the dancers, in-
structing them in the art of weaving the
ribbons about the pole, and generally polic-
ing the crowd, passed and repassed a half-
dozen young men and girls, the active mem-
bers of a club for benevolent work in this
stratum of society. For those left over
from the dance were organized games and
distractions of every kind that the active
brains of the managers could invent. One
poor little fellow, in shoes a world too big for
him, having gained possession of a painted
balloon, had retired with it, in jealous rapt-
ure, to the shelter of a clump of pyrus
japonica, and was giving the wonder rein
above his head, following its upward course
with fascinated gaze.
" Take care, Johnny-boy ! " exclaimed one
of the managers, a charming young woman
in thin muslin, with a large picture-hat
wreathed with nodding plumes, who ob-
served him as she was darting by. " Hold
very fast to your string. If it gets away
from you, you're gone ! "
amelcome Jftttf,
But to Johnny-boy the present enterprise
embodied all the sky-soaring romance of his
six years of East-side existence in his mother's
flat. His brown eyes grew bigger as his string
was tolled out from his hot little dirty hand ;
smiles widened his small thin face; he felt
akin to a bird winging its way into the azure.
A lady emerged at this moment from the
screen of verdure dividing the playground
from the roadway, and looked about anxi-
ously to identify the spot. When she saw
the summer-house and one or two other
landmarks of which she was in search, her
face grew brilliant with satisfaction ; then, as
quickly, tears came into her eyes. Johnny-
boy, seeing this grand and pretty lady in
tears, looked at her in astonishment. His
glance aside was unfortunate, since his treas-
ured balloon took immediate occasion to
elude his grasp and speed away higher,
driven by the breeze. His look of despair,
seen only by the newcomer, caused her to
drop on her knees beside him and put an
arm around his shoulder.
55
l)e (Unwelcome
" Don't cry, little man," she said, sooth-
ingly-
"It wuz my bhme!" wailed Johnny;
" the first I ever had ! "
" But you can get another. My balloon
went up long ago, and I couldn't," she said,
slipping into his hand a silver piece that
brought joy to his face.
" Say, this'll buy two blunes, an' I'll bring
you one, lady," he observed, clattering off in
pursuit of a vender.
The lady smiled, and her smile was re-
flected in the eyes of the pretty girl with the
picture-hat, whom the sound of Johnny-
boy's wailing had brought back to the spot.
* ' Thank you for relieving our little chap's
trouble so promptly," said Miss Lina Thurs-
ton, secretary of the Little Wings Club, to
the stranger, whom she at once recognized
as of her own station. " I have done noth-
ing for hours, it seems to me, but redress
wrongs and soothe grievances. It's a little
world in miniature, this May party of ours."
You represent the Little Wings Club? "
56
entDclcome
"Yes, I'm its unworthy secretary. To-
day we flatter ourselves we are a distinct
success. No little boy has as yet broken or
sprained any part of his anatomy, there have
been only three fights, and no little girl has
insisted on going home."
" From what do you derive your name, if
I may ask ? "
" A fancy of one of our vice-presidents,
Miss Gladys Lorimer - "
* * Ah ! " said the strange lady, with a
sudden indrawing of the breath.
" I beg your pardon; are you ill ? " asked
Miss Thurston, kindly. " Wouldn't you
like to go and sit a while in that little sum-
mer-house, and look on at our fun? "
" It's nothing but the first heat of Sum-
mer. You were going on to tell me more
about your club and its vice-president."
" She selected for our motto the lines:
Little things on little wings
Bear little souls to heaven.
Rather nice, isn't it? You know our asso-
ciation is called a fashionable fad, but - "
57
dntoelcome
" And Miss Lorimer is fond of char-
itable work ? Is she strong enough to
do it does she run no risks in the quar-
ters of the town where these children
live?"
"You know her, then?" began Lina,
when a small girl coming toward her engaged
her attention.
" Miss Thurston, Tommy's pinched me,
and took away my orange."
" Coming, Katy ! Duty calls, so I must
run away. If you stop awhile you'll see
them crown the queen," she added, with a
friendly nod of adieu.
Marian, left again alone, looked about her
nervously.
" It is almost time for Agnes," she thought,
trying to still her beating heart by pressing
her gloved hand over it.
A young man, very pleasant of face and
near-sighted, came out of a thicket of shrub-
bery and stopped before her, taking off his
hat.
"I beg pardon, but are you one of the
58
(Untoelcome
committee?" he said, in rather a helpless
tone.
" No ; but can I be of use ? " answered
Mrs. Hatch.
" Thanks, ever so much. There's a little
Roumanian girl over there sitting glued to
the ground, howling dreadfully, and won't
tell what's the matter. What on earth shall
I do with her?"
Miss Thurston, executing one of her
swallow dips about the crowd, here returned
to the relief.
" Stay by her, Fred, and comfort her.
It's your duty as first vice-president," she
exclaimed, mischievously.
" Oh, I say," answered Fred, visibly ex-
hilarated by her presence. " I can do it fast
enough if you keep me company."
" I can't, possibly," said she ; " I'm * it *
in kiss-in-the-ring. Perhaps you'll change
places with me, though."
" No, thanks," he answered, returning
manfully to his post. An organ-grinder
just then appearing with a monkey created
59
(Untoelcome jttrg*
the usual diversion, and in the general sortie
of the forces to surround him, Marian was
again left to her own devices.
" I am running too great a risk," she
thought, ruefully. " If they knew what I
am I'd be the hawk in the dovecote. But
oh, what it means to me to hear my darling's
name spoken familiarly among them ! " She
looked at her watch. " Three minutes past
the hour, and Agnes hasn't come ! Oh, if
she should fail me ! "
The next turn in her walk to and fro re-
vealed hurrying toward her through the
crowd a plain, thick-set old woman with a
shrewd, benevolent face and the manner of
a privileged upper servant who is also confi-
dante of the family. Marian schooled her-
self to resist the desperate impulse to throw
both arms around her, and contented herself
with a long and fervent kiss.
" Oh, Agnes, Agnes, Agnes ! " she re-
peated, yearningly. " How long since I've
seen your dear old face ! I'd like to let all
the world know what a duck you are ! "
60
SJntoelcome
" My poor dear, my poor dear, quiet your-
self. Come in the summer-house and sit
down. There'll be an officer stepping up by-
and-by to see what ails the pair of us. There !
there ! Let me look at ye, my beauty. Not
much changed for the better, if anything
in looks."
" Agnes, is she coming ? " demanded
Marian, as soon as they were in the seclusion
of the green- walled kiosk.
" By-and-by, Mrs. Lorimer, my dear. Ye
have a wild look in your eyes ; ye must con-
trol yourself."
" There, I'm controlled," said Marian,
choking down her emotion. " I feel as if I
could throw myself like a tired child into
your arms, and cry my heart out. It's been
so long, Agnes ! I've been so lonesome ! "
" My lamb, I've never forgot ye. But
that I had your child to look after, I'd have
pulled up stakes and followed ye to Cali-
fornia."
" She needed you more than I did. I'm
thankful she had you," cried Marian, squeez-
61
ing the time-hardened hand under the neat
brown glove. " But begin, and don't stop.
Tell me everything about her from the time
I left her until now."
"No, my dear, I can't," said Agnes,
mournfully. " He wouldn't let me come
to-day without a solemn promise I wouldn't
talk about the child. I wasn't so much as
to answer a question about her."
" Cruel ! cruel ! " cried Marian. " This is
more than I deserve."
" Don't give up, dear. Think ! ye're going
to see her in a minute ! That'll comfort ye
a little, won't it ? While we're waiting tell
me about yerself. Ye've found friends?"
" None of my own sort," she said, sadly.
" Ye haven't wanted for anything ? "
" You remember my old knack at making
lampshades and painting fans ? Well, I
started a little business, in time opened a
place of my own ; my ideas ' took,' and I've
prospered fairly well. I had laid up quite a
little capital, and the thing was growing
in my hands. Two weeks ago, when I read
Ije Ontoelcome
about Gladys going to be married, the terri-
ble longing to see her overcame me. I sold
out my business to my forewoman, took all
I had, bought some good clothes and started
East."
" Heedless as ever, bless her heart ! " said
Agnes, surveying her companion's costume
and person admiringly. "Always had the
touch with everything she put on ! The
present madam isn't a patch on ye for style.
But after ye've seen her, your child mum's
the word, but sure I can say that what are
ye going to do ? How in the world, poor
bird, are ye going to live ? "
" God knows ! " Marian answered, drearily.
" Where ? " pursued the old woman, anx-
iously.
Marian did not speak, but made a vague
gesture outward with her hands.
" I'm afraid ye've done another mad thing,
my dear, to give up a good support. The
world isn't ever in a hurry to help women to
help themselves."
" When was I ever prudent ? " cried Mrs.
Hatch. " Didn't money always slip through
my fingers like water through a sieve ? But
I don't care for anything now except what I
came here for. Let me see my child just
once, and I'll begin life all over again."
Agnes stroked her hand.
" Poor child 1 poor child ! "
A flush of pleasure came into Marian's
cheek.
" It is so sweet, so precious, to be pitied
by a true heart," she said, gratefully. " At
this moment I feel happier than in years."
The two sat silent for a little while, old
Agnes hampered by the injunctions laid
upon her, Marian in a dream of the past
evoked by her companion's voice and touch.
She was aroused from it by a little cry from
Agnes.
"There! there! She's coming. Look,
dear, that's Mrs. Lorimer's victoria."
Entirely sheltered from observation as she
was, Marian could feast her eyes to her
heart's content on the vision pointed out to
her. On the rear seat of the approaching
64
atrtoelcome
carriage, with its shining Kentucky cobs,
two trim men on the box and the Lorimer
crest in silver everywhere, sat an older wom-
an, on whom the mother's gaze wasted no
time, and a fair, youthful creature, who ab-
sorbed her attention utterly. Tears rose to
Marian's eyes and for a moment obscured her
treasure. Dashing them away impatiently,
she looked again, and thanked God when a
block in the line of vehicles ahead kept the
Lorimer victoria longer in her sight.
" That Gladys ! That my nestling, whom
I left asleep in her crib ... so tall, so
beautiful! . . . Ah, God! Agnes! She
doesn't speak to the Sphinx woman any
more than is needful. They aren't intimate,
as mother and daughter should be. Gladys
is absorbed on her own account. . . . Oh !
I'm like a beggar staring at a feast. I envy
that woman ; envy her horribly. It might
have been my victoria. How I should
have gloried to be seen abroad with my
angel! . . ."
" She's a fine, well-grown guyrl, and a
5 65
ffJtttpelcome jftm
perfect lady, if I do say it," answered Agnes,
complacently.
" These tears again ! They must go. I
must see her every second of the time al-
lowed me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Hatch, desper-
ately shaking her head to rid herself of the
fresh gathered mists before her vision.
" Agnes, they're going ! . . . Oh, God !
she must not leave me unsatisfied. Agnes,
the time's too short for the mother that
gave her birth. "
" They're only going to stop a little way
ahead, and the child will get out to join her
friends," said Agnes, passing a stout arm
around the agonized creature. Her own
old eyes could see nothing for their quick
response to the mother's yearning.
While Marian sat in the arbor, paying in
that brief space of time the bitter price of
her misdoing as she had not done in all
the years of her exile, Mrs. Lorimer's voice
was uplifted in exhortation to Marian's
child :
" Gladys, I have really no patience with
66
antoelcome
this club business of yours ! I hesitate
greatly to leave you among the rabble of
children from the East-side. You'll get some
disease, I'm certain, and this is no time for
you to make experiments with your health."
" I promised them to come, mamma," an-
swered the girl, gently ; " but, of course, if
you don't wish it, I won't stop."
" I should think your subscription was
enough, and I would give something over.
However, since I see Miss Thurston and
Dolly Gay and Mrs. Brenton are there, I
suppose you may venture for a little while.
Only until I go around the drive, remem-
ber ! "
The victoria had halted, and Gladys, un-
der the superintendence of a natty groom,
had set one slender foot on the asphalt. At
sight of her, the children, evident adorers
of their young vice-president, broke bounds
and swarmed down to the driveway, followed
by the young ladies who had them in
charge. There was no holding back. Gla-
dys was surrounded, captured, coaxed to
67
play wolf. A deafening clamor filled the
air. All the passers-by smiled indulgently,
for this was the children's day in Central
Park.
As her conquerors carried the young girl
off to the green slope from which their
Maypole soared aloft, and Mrs. Lorimer,
with many jingling chains, drove reluctantly
away, Marian Hatch made a movement to
run out of her hiding place, but was arrested
by the reproving glance of her comrade.
" Mrs. Lorimer, my dear for, God save
us, I can't be calling ye by the name ye give
yerself think what ye're about."
"You're right, Agnes," she said, falling
back on the bench. ' ' Oh, she is coming
back this way."
" Keep quiet, ma'am, and there'll be some-
thing to reward ye. I wasn't to mention
names, but I'll leave ye to guess who it is
my young lady has spied walking down that
path that crosses below us. Who is it she'd
run to meet like that, if not her future hus-
band, bless her soul ! "
68
CUntcelcome
Agnes, brimming with pride and impor-
tance, indicated by a gesture the direction
in which she desired Marian to look, and the
latter, with eagerness and jealousy com-
bined, turned to behold Jack Adrian !
Jack Adrian, to whom her child fluttered
like a homing pigeon Jack Adrian, between
whom and herself she had voluntarily opened
the gulf of separation !
How could she have dreamed that this
comrade of her later days, this man whose
honest belief in her had been like a spring
in the desert of her life, this fond lover, who
had yet made her feel the bitter sense of
her unfitness to be spoken to about his be-
trothed, was the master of Gladys's des-
tiny?
As she stood staring at the two with start-
led eyes, they remained for a moment so
near her on the path below she could not
but hear their talk, simple in phrasing, but
freighted with the intonation of happy
lovers.
" I was so afraid " Gladys began.
69
" Afraid of what ? " he asked, looking into
her eyes.
" Oh, that I shouldn't be let stop and
then that you wouldn't get here," she said,
blushing under his gaze.
" I only came to say I couldn't come," he
answered, laughing, "and to get this look
at you to carry me on till evening."
"Foolish boy! All that long way up-
town for me ? "
" No, for the Club, if you like that bet-
ter."
"Come, then, you must show yourself
for a minute. Too bad ! There's mamma
in the victoria, coming back."
" Soon there'll be no mamma to come be-
tween us," he said, smiling. " I'll chaperon
you, and you'll chaperon Dolly and Lina,
you see."
"That will be such fun! But, really,
Jack, I'm ashamed of speaking so about
Mrs. Lorimer. She has done her best for
me, I'm sure."
" But her best is oppressive, as we know."
70
dJntoelcome
" If she were my own, my very own
mother, I shouldn't feel so," the girl said,
with a sigh. They had started to walk back
to rejoin the little group around the May-
pole, and, in passing, Gladys's voice came to
her mother's ear so distinctly that the listen-
ing woman involuntarily stretched out her
arms in answer.
But the voices passed, receded, and di-
rectly afterward she saw Mrs. Lorimer drive
up, reclaim her companion, greet Adrian
with effusive graciousness as he put Gladys
into her place, and sit waving exaggerated
farewells to the rest of the club committee
assembled on the knoll above. Whatever
might be the measure of regard cherished
by Gladys's friends for her stepmother, they
omitted none of the forms of respectful
salutation in her direction. The stir of re-
bellion against this condition of affairs made
Marian sick and cold. The horrible differ-
ence between the lots of the two women
one of whom had sinned and accepted
the consequence, the other, having sinned
71
antoelcome jflm
equally, yet successfully hidden her secret
smote her poignantly. For a moment
her sense of the injustice of Fate obscured
even her feeling for her child.
But when the footman sprang up beside
the coachman, and the victoria with the
Lorimer crest and liveries was under way;
while Jack Adrian stood, hat in hand, smil-
ing at Gladys, who looked back at him with
the innocent, happy expression of a young
child that has gained its heart's desire then
a realization of what she was losing came to
Marian.
" My child ! my child ! my child ! " was
all she could say. But the look in her face
alarmed Agnes more than anything that
had gone before. It was plain that the poor
woman was tried beyond endurance and
hardly responsible for anything she might
do. She suddenly ran out of the summer-
house, Agnes clutching her and pleading
with her to remain until under self-con-
trol.
" Agnes, you don't understand, ' ' she ex.
72
claimed. ' * It's the last time I shall see her !
I have looked my last upon my child !
Would you not pity any mother who was
turning away from her child's grave ? "
The nurse, seeing her thus half-distraught,
clasped her hands, praying for the interposi-
tion of Christ and Mary to save the pool-
soul from some desperate act. And just
then, straight along the path into which Ma-
rian had strayed, came Adrian, hurrying
back to his day's work, in which the meet-
ing with Gladys had been a sunny episode.
As Mrs. Hatch beheld him the full mean-
ing of their relative positions flashed through
her mind, arousing the desire to shelter Gla-
dys at all hazards by concealing their rela-
tionship.
" I have been mad; now I am sane," she
said, marshaling her nerve-forces to guide
her in the inevitable meeting. Adrian,
when he saw Mrs. Hatch standing there be-
fore him, holding out her hand as she would
have done at any time during their recent
friendly companionship, was not glad of the
73
OntDelcome jttt%
encounter. She came too suddenly into the
arena of thoughts fully filled with his love
and eager anticipations of soon having Gla-
dys to himself. Since they had parted, the
day before, he had reverted to her more
than once, with mingled feelings. If, when
they had arrived together in New York,
anyone authorized to do so had asked him
who, critically speaking, was the most fas-
cinating woman he had ever met, he would
have answered, Mrs. Hatch. She had piqued,
entertained, charmed him during the days
of their enforced companionship on the Pull-
man car. But there had been no disloyalty
to Gladys in that admiration. He had al-
ways kept this dear little guileless love of
his in a walled garden in his thoughts.
Marian's sad story, her impulsive confi-
dence, the glimpse she had given him of her
hapless life, had, as we have seen, excited his
loyal sympathy. But after he had gone out
of her impelling presence, the natural revul'
sion had come. He wanted no more of a
woman whose history was inscribed upon
74
fllntoelcome
such a scroll. At present, all his ideas were
tinged with rose color, his hopes and manly
ambitions fixed on home and hearthside, wife
and children, the sanctity of the marriage tie.
He wanted nothing in common with one
who had, whatever her temptation, in her
own case deliberately dragged in the dust
the fair fabric of marital honor. The more
he reflected on such as Gladys, the more
repellent seemed such as Mrs. Hatch. If
ever he should meet the poor woman again,
he would not stay his hand from doing her a
service; but just now he did not want her in
Gladys's kingdom emphatically not !
He lifted his hat, and spoke to her pleas-
antly, forcing himself to pause for a moment
and express the hope that she was feeling
better than yesterday and enjoying the open
air, adding his wish that she might have had
good news.
" Yes, I have had good news of a sort,"
she said, smiling, under her veil, so that he
felt quite relieved regarding her.
" My best congratulations," he said, hur-
75
ftntoeicome
riedly ; " and you won't mind my leaving
you in rather a hasty fashion? The truth is,
I have no right to be here now. A business
appointment of some importance awaits me
at my office."
" Don't let me keep you. Good-by,"
she said, brightly, and again their hands met
and parted.
For days Marian had been feeding on his
comradeship. Their exchange of ideas had
been intimate and continued. She had rec-
ognized her power over him, and rejoiced in
it in true womanly fashion. Now that power
had vanished utterly. She herself had de-
stroyed it. Her quick intuition read in his
mind relief to be rid of her.
And worst of all, he was to be the hus-
band of her child. But she had not betrayed
herself ! Thank heaven for that !
Old Agnes, coming up to her, did not
hide her surprise at what she had wit-
nessed.
" My dear, I am that taken aback who'd
have thought ye knew my young lady's
76
antDelcome
sweetheart ! " she said, wonder puckering her
face.
" I know him, but he does not suppose
that I ever laid eyes on Gladys," Marian
hastened to explain.
" And ye're satisfied with her choice ? He's
rich and a grand family, too, they say, and a
high education, and a bonny lad to look at,
don't ye think?"
"Yes, Agnes. I think so. Gladys is
luckier than ever her mother was, for he is
all you have said, and . . . good. He'll
never let harm come near her."
"Mrs. Lorimer, my dear, ye are getting
white. Come back into the summer-house
and sit down and use my salts. ' '
" Don't call me that ! Call me Mrs. Hatch.
It's all I've a right to. Oh, Agnes, my heart
is breaking ! "
" That's right, cry it out, my dearie. I'm
only allowed an hour with ye, but I do hate
to go and leave ye. There's a bit of time
yet."
" Agnes, don't forsake me ! I feel as if I
77
fttrtoelcome
were on a wreck, and you, in the last life-
boat, leaving it without me. "
" My lamb! my poor, sorrowing lamb! "
muttered the old woman, drying her eyes.
Marian seized her arm and said fiercely in
her ear :
"Agnes, if I die for it, I must see her
nearer."
" What can I do, dearie ? Ye told the
lawyer if ye saw her once 'twould do ye."
" What do lawyers know about a mother's
heart ? " she cried. " I said so, and I meant
it ; but this glimpse of her has aroused within
me a passion of longing to be close to her, to
speak to her, no matter how or where. Just
think of all the years I missed all those
baby years of her precious life ! I can't get
them back. No matter what I do, I can't get
them back. It always drove me crazy when
I sat working the thought of what I was
missing ! I love children with their little
nestling hands and trustful touches, . . .
and I left my own to strangers ! Agnes,
you know what I must be feeling. She's
78
Cije ftntoelcome
mine, mine ! spite of all, she's mine 1 God
gave her to me. We oughtn't to be sepa-
rated, any more than flesh from blood. Oh !
I could fight like a tigress to hold her one
moment in my arms."
While she paused, drawing long breaths
of pain, the children away over by the May-
pole began to sing.
" Listen to them. They do that to mock
me, Agnes," she exclaimed.
" There, there," began Agnes, patting her
hand soothingly; and insensibly Marian's
heart opened to the comfort of her touch.
When she could speak more coherently she
faced the old nurse with imploring eyes.
" Help me, Agnes. If you want to die
happy think of some way in which I can get
near my child touch her dress, even. When
she goes to her husband my last chance will
be gone. He won't give me an opportunity
to meet her, even though he doesn't know
my claim on her. You are my one hope.
Think, invent some way to get me inside
that house."
79
Otttoelcome
Agnes sat up, alarmed.
" Inside that house, dearie ? It's not to be
thought of."
" I want to see her amid her bridal prepa-
rations, to carry away some little pictures of
her innocent maidenhood, to photograph her
on my memory before she becomes a wife
and mother, when I shall never dare intrude
on her again. Oh, Agnes ! it's as if I stood
stretching out my hands to you to keep me
from falling into a pit."
" How can I, child ? It's as much as my
place is worth; but I don't mind that.
When she goes, the light of that house is
snuffed out, sure."
" Couldn't I come there carrying some-
thing that's expected for the wedding ? "
cried Marian, her fancy leaping over all dan-
gers and difficulties.
" Ye were always such a one for ideas, an'
no fear in your body," said the nurse, irres-
olute, sorely tempted, yet following Marian's
lead, as had always everyone who came
within the sphere of her influence.
80
OJntoelcome
" Think, Agnes ; think ! "
" There's the wedding gown to come home
to-morrow from Madame Collette's. There's
nothing to prevent me fetching it away in a
cab. The madame knows me well, and that
I've waited on my young lady there at all
her fittings. Then, if I had ye in the cab
but oh, no, child ! what am I dreamin' of ! "
" Who's afraid, Agnes ? " exclaimed her
fellow- conspirator, joyfully " It strikes me
that's a perfectly feasible idea. I wait in the
cab at Collette's till you come out with the
box ; we drive to Mr. Lorimer's house ; you
go in at the basement door, while I present
myself boldly at the front door, with the box,
as a woman from the dressmaker. What
could be plainer sailing? You wash your
hands of me, and leave me to do the rest."
"No, no, dearie; it won't do," declared
Agnes, in a discouraged tone, " The risk's
too great."
" There are none of my old servants there
except yourself ? "
" No, ma'am, not one. The master took
6 81
cUtttoelcome $rtr&
good care of that. There ain't one of these
we have now ever heard of the first Mrs.
Lorimer. But if ye met him or her ! Just
think of it ! "
" Agnes, I take the risk, I tell you," ex-
claimed Marian, her voice sharp with eager-
ness.
There was another long pause, filled in by
the sound of the children's singing.
" Well, Agnes ? " Marian said at last.
" I can't, I tell ye. I don't dare ! " said
the woman, stubbornly.
Marian drew back with a quick, despairing
gesture. " Then I '11 end my bother some
other way," she said, in a somber whisper.
" My dear, my dear, whatever are ye
hinting at ? " cried the alarmed nurse.
" It would really be the best way," an-
swered Mrs. Hatch, gaining composure as
she went on. " Often and often I've
thought of it, but I wanted to live till I'd
seen her. Now that I've seen her, for God's
sake tell me what you think I've got to
hang on for? Listen, Agnes. I've been
82
conscious lately, more than once, of a pain
like an iron band across my heart. I saw a
doctor in San Francisco, and he tried to
dress his verdict in soothing words, but I
know what's here." She held her hand
against her side. " A sudden joy, a sudden
sorrow, . . . and I may go. No pain par-
ticularly, I believe so it's worth waiting
for. But life's been so hard on me, Agnes,
so unusually inclined to pull me up by the
check-rein at every turn, that, a little time ago
I formed the habit of carrying around with
me something of which it would be conven-
ient and simple for me to be supposed to
have taken an overdose, . . . after mak-
ing arrangements for a decent ending and a
paragraph in the newspapers that will not
compromise anybody."
" Mrs. Lorimer, ye'd never mean it ! "
" Yes, Agnes ; and what is more, I'll do
it now if you refuse me the last desperate
chance I have to see my child again. You
know I generally keep my word. "
" Oh ! ye poor thing, don't ye see my
83
fttvtoelcome
heart's bleeding for ye ? " cried Agnes.
" It ain't threats, however dreadful, as
would drive me against my duty. It's
pity for ye that's choking me. I just
feel, if ye went away and never saw her
more, that I couldn't sleep o' nights. If
I could only be sure of ye controlling your-
self-
"Try me," said Marian.
" Ye know 'twould be awful if he found
us out. That wouldn't move ye a mite, but
if 'twas known on the poor child - "
"Don't you feel that she's what would
keep me acting my part to the bitter end ? "
pleaded the mother.
" I never was so put about in all my born
days never, never I " cried Agnes.
A gleam of old-time mirth flashed into
Marian's eyes always it had been Agnes's
habit to sound a last protest in these words
before yielding to demands on her in the
nursery.
"The saints forgive me if I'm sinnin' to
save a poor mother's heart from breakin'! "
84
Ontoelcome $cvc&.
added the old woman, tears raining down
her cheeks.
Marian's face became radiant. In the re-
action from despair to respite, her nature, all
extremes, sprang up the gamut of hope as
though she had never known a rebuff of
fate. Youth came back to her starry eyes,
bloomed on her cheeks, laughed on her
vivid lips. As the nurse, almost terrified by
the sudden change, looked at her, beseeching
her to go no further, Mrs. Hatch sprang to
her feet and clapped her hands in joy.
At that moment a little band of children,
shut out by numbers from the Maypole
ring on the slope above, and including
Johnny-boy, came scampering down to find
a level place for a dance on their own ac-
count. Wild with hysterical delight, Marian
darted out to direct their revels, and finally,
amid their screams of pleasure, joined hands
in their circle, dancing gaily and gracefully
till they were out of breath.
85
IV
IACK ADRIAN sat in the morn-
ing-room of his future father-in-
law's house, in close conversation
with that astute gentleman, who,
for purposes of his own, had preferred to
give their talk an air of intimacy and domes-
ticity by selecting for it this familiar place
rather than the formal precincts of the li-
brary. Here, during their engagement, the
lovers had been wont to retreat from fear
of interruption below stairs ; here breathed
a thousand softening voices of their past.
But in spite of Mr. Lorimer's plans, the
young man's face wore no mild or placable
expression. His brow was knit, his head
was bowed on his hand, he bore every ap-
pearance of one who has just received an
appreciable shock. Lorimer, on his side,
was visibly nervous and full of an anxiety he
masked as best he might. He sat in an
86
Ontoelcome
armchair, twisting a paper-cutter made of
carved ivory, until it snapped and was tossed
away impatiently.
The room was one of those luxuriously
fitted quarters of a modern establishment,
where, at odd moments, the family is wont
to rendezvous and the ladies sit note-writ-
ing, gossiping, and toying with Penelope
webs of needle- work. A deep bay window
in the front, through whose liberal panes
were revealed glimpses of the Park across
the Avenue, was so screened and latticed
with growing vines and big-leaved plants as
to form a bowery retreat.
Couches and fauteuils of old-rose velvet,
cushioned abundantly, were arranged to hold
their sitters prisoner, since at the elbows
stood little tables with electric reading-
lamps, laden with the newest books and
periodicals.
A large table in the center bore writing
implements of silver, candle- sticks, paper-
cases, book-racks and framed photographs
without end, with tall silver and crystal
87
SJntBelcome
vases containing red roses and white lilac.
Low bookcases ran around walls hung with
greenish brocaded stuff and adorned with
water-colors and choice etchings and engrav-
ings.
To Jack the whole of the large, bright,
joyous-looking room was so eloquent of his
lady-love he could not bear now to look
around him, carrying the new thoughts of
her recently imparted to his mind. The
voice of Mr. Lorimer grated on him as it
had never done before, when after a brief
silence he again began to speak :
" And there, my dear Jack, is my version
of the story Cleave broached to you last
night ; an unpleasant one, I grant, for a man
to hear on the eve of his marriage, but
he shrugged elaborately " what would you
have ? Everybody nowadays has some sort
of a shilling shocker in his family. Suppose
the closet doors of most people we know
were to suddenly spring open and the hid-
den skeletons pop out ! By Jove, we'd have
a grisly time of it ! Imagine them meeting
88
on common ground for a witches' Sabbath !
The unmentionable wife or sister or daugh-
ter joining hands with the son or husband
or brother who's forty fathom deep with an
ugly scandal tied to his neck, like a stone to
a drowned dog ! Come, cheer up, old chap !
This'll never make any difference to you.
The woman's bound to keep dark. She
hasn't a ghost of a show among people who
used to know her. Besides, she's been mum
so long there's nothing to fear from her now."
" Not while Gladys remained with you,
perhaps ; but the change of estate may be a
temptation. However, that's not the only
thing. It's that I can't bear to associate the
thought of such a loathsome thing with
Gladys with my wife."
" There spoke the son of your Puritan
forebears," said Lorimer, with a short laugh.
" It won't do wearing that buff jerkin in a
society like ours. Put it off, my lad put it
oif ! But this much I can assure you the
child you're marrying inherits little from
her mother. She is gentle, loving, well-
89
antoelcome
balanced, self-controlled, as straight as a
string and as clean as a whistle. If it had
been my luck to get one of that kind in my
first venture, I'd not have had this cursed
story to tell you now."
" Mr. Lorimer pardon me," said Adrian,
in his intense fashion ; " did you give that
unfortunate woman the benefit of every
doubt ? "
" Didn't I tell you I have her letter own-
ing up to the whole thing ? " exclaimed Lori-
mer, irritably. " What's sauce for the goose
is sauce for the gander," was the intent of
her ladylike experiment.
" I know. Mr. Cleave gave me a copy of
it to read," said Adrian, flinching. " But it
struck me as the wail of one hardly responsi-
ble for her actions half-crazed by jealousy."
" Come, come, Adrian, you are a man of
the world. You must see, if we judged
women by our standard, domestic life would
go to smash utterly. Her case was fairly
tried by the best talent in the land, and went
against her from the first. The reading of
90
that letter before the referee made tatters of
her reputation. She seemed to be dazed,
offered almost no defense, slunk away into
hiding, and has stayed there till now. No,
Jack, no weakening to her. My motto is,
if a woman once does wrong, believe the
worst of her, and throw her overboard.
However, I've got the law with me, and on
that I stand."
" It is all abhorrent to me," answered
Adrian, gloomily. " I think, if you please,
we will never dig up this matter again. "
" Agreed ! " exclaimed Lorimer, with a
look of relief. " I am glad to have done
with it. Let us have a brandy to take the
taste of the resurrection business out of our
mouths. "
He gave an order to a servant who ap-
peared in answer to his ring, meanwhile
watching Adrian narrowly and with evident
nervousness. After he had partaken, alone,
of a liberal portion of the contents of a small
carafe, his spirits seemed to rebound.
" I'm doubly glad, my dear boy," he said,
91
antoelcome j
"that you agree with Cleave and me this
most regrettable matter should not be men-
tioned to your excellent father and mother."
" I can imagine nothing more unfortunate
than to do so. If know they must, let it be
later on. Now, I conceive my duty to
shelter Gladys to be higher than that of
letting them know the truth."
" Nobly said !" exclaimed Lorimer,his eyes
flashing satisfaction.
" I hardly think you could realize the con-
sequences were I to speak now."
Lorimer coughed. In his heart he felt
that he realized them thoroughly. " Old
school Blue Lights, eh ? " he said, attempt-
ing j ocularity. " They might, in plain words,
be inclined to kick against the match."
"They would certainly oppose it, and
withdraw their countenance," said Adrian,
walking to and fro. " For myself, I'd care
not a whit if they didn't give the money they
have promised us to begin upon. I could
trust to my own efforts to maintain her
properly."
92
"Oh, my dear man, that's understood,"
protested Lorimer, looking white about the
gills. " Of course I don't let her go to you
penniless, . . . although Cleave has ex-
plained that, just now, my affairs are rather
peculiarly tied up."
"Yes. The money question is the last
my father would consider, under ordinary
circumstances. But I can't hide from you
what I know would follow any such an-
nouncement to him as that I have just been
so unfortunate as to have to hear. It is not,
therefore, very nice for me to go into mar-
riage conscious of deceiving him. However,
as I said, I consider that my first duty is to
Gladys, poor child; and on that I stand or
fall."
" Good, Jack 1 Splendid ! " exclaimed
Lorimer, effusively. "In my daughter's
name, I thank you. Cleave says you will,
in your own good time, inform your wife
that her mother is still living."
" I accept the charge," said Adrian, grave-
ly. "I hope the knowledge will never come
93
antoelcome
to Gladys through anyone less considerate
of her feelings. Mr. Lorimer, one last ques-
tion : Has that unhappy woman led a correct
life since she left her child ? "
" She says so," answered Lorimer, shrug-
ging. " But I mean to be sure."
At this point a servant entered, and, halt-
ing at Lorimer's elbow, announced, auto-
matically :
" Mr. Jones."
" Ha ! the very man ! Show him up,"
said the master of the house, whose florid
skin had now regained its normal ruddiness.
Adrian, more shaken by their talk than he
cared to let Lorimer see, walked over to the
window, within earshot, however, of the dia-
logue that ensued between Lorimer and the
peculiarly offensive and underbred personage
now added to their number.
" Ha, Jones ! You needn't mind Mr.
Adrian. He is up to the whole affair, of
course. What have you to report ? " asked
Lorimer, harshly.
"Did my best, sir," came in the little
94
man's mincing tones, keyed according to his
notion of high society. " Put some of my
prettiest work into the job. But so far, I
regret to say, with no satisfactory result.
Was unable to find out anything but what
seemed on the straight."
" Well, the details," demanded Lorimer.
" Engaged her room at the hotel for a
week from the date of arrival; must have
funds or couldn't stand the cost. No call-
ers, no letters or telegrams, no drinks or
cigarettes. Was out all yesterday, took a
hansom to Central Park, dismissed it at en-
trance, returned afoot, ordered no dinner,
spent evening in room, reading. My orders
went no further, sir, I think."
" No ; and they stop here," said Lorimer.
" I hope you are satisfied with my good
intentions, Mr. Lorimer. My work for you
on other jobs of this kind has been more
successful. "
"That will do. Send your bill to the
office. My cashier will settle it. Good-
day."
95
omtoelcome j&r& fate!)
The detective backed supinely to the door.
" And if there's any other little thing in
this line you might want " he began, but
Lorimer had turned his back.
" Or you, Mr. Adrian," ventured Jones,
offering Jack his card.
Adrian immediately turned and walked
away, and the unappreciated genius went,
crab-like, into obscurity.
" That woman's devilish deep ! " flashed
through Lorimer's mind. " Where did she
get the cash for all this turnout ? "
But his lips forced a smile as he faced
Adrian.
" Not a pleasant part of it, I own."
" If this is your method of gaining infor-
mation about her, I should prefer to have
no news," said Adrian, hotly; and Lorimer's
red face grew redder still.
"Perhaps not, Jack. You think me a
cad, a brute, evidently. Very well. Per-
haps I am. When a man's had his domestic
life torn into tatters and flaunted before the
public by a damned loose woman "
96
Clje antoelcome
" Let me remind you that you are speak-
ing of Gladys's mother," interrupted the
young man.
"All very well for the man who's never
been bitten to have no fear of a mad dog.
Cultivate as much as you please the divine
virtue of forbearance with her class - "
" Apparently, this lady is not 'classed,"
said Adrian.
" Come, Adrian," resumed Lorimer, as
the two pulled themselves up on the brink
of a quarrel. " Man to man, you ought to
sympathize with me."
" Mr. Lorimer, you are Gladys's father.
From your hand I am soon to receive her at
the altar. I owe you, and have shown you,
every consideration. But the attitude you
hold toward the person whom I wish, with
all my heart, I had never heard of, makes my
gorge rise, and I can't help it. If I wrong
you, I ask your pardon, I can do no more."
Jack's face glowed with his honest emo-
tions. Lorimer, surveying it with masked
curiosity, ended by shaking him by the hand.
7 97
OJtttoelcome
" My dear boy, you make me realize the
flight of years. When you are my age you
will be less inclined to but there, good-by
for the present. I am off to meet your good
father for a final discussion of our affair. If
all goes as we hope and expect, to-day will
be marked with a white stone in the united
families of Adrian and Lorimer. Together
we'll make a deal that'll open the eyes of
Wall Street. Come, man, put on a livelier
face to meet your sweetheart. Gladys and
my wife will, no doubt, join you here in a
minute. Don't let them see that look on a
happy bridegroom."
" You are right," said Adrian. " I think,
for the present, I shall also take myself
away, and try to get rid of my megrims."
" To resume duty later on," said Lorimer,
jovially, but with an undercurrent of anxiety.
"Come on, then, we'll go together to the
parting of our ways."
Adrian hesitated, then hurried after his
host. His sense of oppression in this room,
formerly the temple of his love and hopes,
98
Clje Ontoelcome
was overpowering. A few moments after
he had left it, Gladys, coming in on tiptoe
to surprise him, as she imagined, with a book
in his usual armchair, knew the sharp dis-
appointment of finding him flown.
"Jack! why, Jack!" she called. "He
was certainly here a moment since, for the
servants told me so. Oh ! there are mamma
and Dolly and Lina coming in to make a
list of the wedding presents. What a bore
that one never has a minute to one's self in
these days !"
Directly there was a formidable entrance
of Mrs. Lorimer, richly gowned in afternoon
house dress, followed by the prospective
bridesmaids, Dolly Gay and Lina Thurston,
in walking costume, who forthwith darted
like humming-birds about the room, assem-
bling jewelers' packages and boxes on the
large center-table, and giving vent to de-
lighted exclamations as the unpacking
progressed. Gladys, who, despite her senti-
ment, was only a mortal maiden, soon
checked her sighs and made merry with her
99
cUntoelcome
friends, Mrs. Lorimer seating herself behind
the blotter and inkstand, to make entries as
each present was in turn disclosed.
Mrs. Lorimer was in excellent humor
almost at the climax of earthly satisfaction.
Not only had the business combination of
the Adrian and Lorimer families sufficed, at
this most critical juncture in her husband's
affairs, to tide over difficulty, but it had
averted ruin and saved an exposure that
would have meant disgrace in the public eye.
Last, but not least, this marriage promised
her a long-desired social opportunity.
She had never been able to conquer certain
prejudices held against her in the circle in
which the first Mrs. Lorimer had moved by
right of birth and family connection. The
best people, or those so considered by the
second Mrs. Lorimer, had shown a persistent
objection to admitting her farther than the
outskirts of their little paradise. As Gladys
grew into womanhood there had, indeed,
been symptoms of a melting of the ice.
Old friends of Gladys's lovely and unfor-
100
dntDelcome
tunate mother had remembered the child's
existence, pitied her, decided that it was her
due to rejoin their ranks, in spite of the
rather dubious papa and the indubitably
vulgar stepmother. Invitations had begun
to come for Miss Lorimer, from some of
which it was impossible to exclude her
parents. And, finally, the luck of this early
marriage, with all its concomitants of good
family and wealth, gave Mrs. Lorimer her
chance to send out cards on her own account
to every one of the people she most aspired
to know. A list, pored over as pious an-
chorites pore over their breviaries, had been
made by her. The secretary most a la mode
for addressing envelopes had been secured,
to prevent her making mistakes in genera-
tions, inviting divorced couples together,
dead men and women " out of mind," or dis-
carded members of fashionable cliques. The
invitations finally sent out for the ceremony
and reception embodied the second Mrs.
Lorimer's highest ideals of the rewards of
the strenuous life.
101
jftttf,
Also, Gladys once married and off her
hands would remove her from a moral pres-
sure she had recently had occasion to feel
peculiarly galling. Mrs. Lorimer had, in-
deed, reached that second Summer of the
materialist which finds restraint in self-in-
dulgence the more trying because the Win-
ter of discontent is in full view.
To Gladys, of course, fell the first duty of
openings the boxes and parcels, reading
cards, and handing the contents over to
Dolly and Lina, who in turn submitted them
to Mrs. Lorimer. The elder lady had pro-
vided herself with an elaborately bound blank
book, in which she registered the gift, its
number, a remark pertaining to it and the
donor's name. As she thus obtained the
pleasure of familiarly inscribing the nomen-
clature of several members of the paradise
from which she had been hitherto shut out,
the task was pleasing, and her smiles
abounded, widening upon delicately tinged
and powdered cheeks.
" Four hundred and forty-two ! " cried
102
(Untoelcome
Dolly Gay, holding up a silver candelabrum
in either hand. " Mr. and Mrs. Howard de
Lancey. The sixth pair."
"Four hundred and forty-three!" ex-
claimed Lina Thurston, exhibiting a couple
of bonbon dishes. " Miss Robinson. Eight
of these altogether, and one odd one from a
needy millionaire."
" Hush, my dear ! " replied Mrs. Lorimer,
in a conclusive tone, due to Miss Robinson's
social eminence. " Write an extremely nice
note to her, Gladys."
" One carriage clock. Mrs. Van Arden! "
exclaimed Dolly, taking it from Gladys's in-
different hand.
"Mrs. Van Arden!" exclaimed Mrs.
Lorimer, flushing proudly. " Let me see
the card ! "
" No mistake ; it's from the Grand Pan-
jandrum herself, with the little round button
on the top ! " cried Saucy Lina. " It looks
second hand, Gladys, and will do for your
fourth-story back."
" Lina ! Miss Thurston ! " interposed Mrs.
103
antDelcome
Lorimer, rebukingly. " Don't think of send-
ing your note of thanks to Mrs. Van Arden,
Gladys, without my looking over it. I am
quite sure now that she will come to the
wedding," she added, in an undertone of joy
permeated with awe.
" I couldn't possibly be grateful for Mr.
Clayton's horrid little spoons," whispered the
lawless Dolly, holding the objects in question
up for survey.
" My dears ! " said Mrs. Lorimer, in her
best Sunday-school manner, visibly strength-
ened by new social prospects, " we should be
grateful for all intent at kindness from our
fellow-men."
Lina laughed.
"After forty perhaps," she said, with
large indifference.
" I am obliged to leave you, young ladies,"
soon remarked Mrs. Lorimer, to whom the
companionship of Gladys's bridesmaids was
not proving an unqualified pleasure. " I
have made an appointment to receive a
visit before tea from the secretary of our
104
Association for Suppressing Vice in High
Society. "
" Did you expect to suppress it before
tea, dear Mrs. Lorimer ? " asked Lina.
" Take my place, Gladys," said the lady,
rising and looking around her at the grow-
ing array of silverware and costly nothings
encumbering tables and chairs. " How kind
our friends have been ! "
"All the bread you and Mr. Lorimer
have cast upon matrimonial waters coming
back to Gladys," said Lina.
" Tf one could have the trousseau and
presents without the man ! " added Dolly,
thoughtfully. " But there seems no such
combination possible."
A footman and page entering, burdened
with more parcels, walked in line, with mili-
tary precision, to the writing-table and sur-
rendered them.
"No one has called with a box from
Madame Collette ? " asked Mrs. Lorimer of
the footman, and was answered in the nega-
tive. " Too bad Collette should be behind
105
antoelcome
time ! I especially wanted you to try the
dress on to-day, as to-morrow will be so
rushed, and I cannot remand the visit of our
secretary," went on the lady, addressing the
trio at the table. " That will do, Thomas ;
if a messenger from Collette calls, send her
up at once."
" The dress?" asked Dolly, with prompt
feminine ecstasy.
" The dress ? " echoed Lina, rapturously.
" Oh, what luck we should be here
when it comes home. Mine came yester-
day, and is perfectly lovely ! " exclaimed Miss
Gay. " Collette has done herself proud. "
" Look, girls ! " cried Gladys, absorbed in
a bulky parcel she had just undone; "was
ever anything so sweet and dear ? a crazy
cushion in silk patchwork, from that old
duck of an Agnes 1 She began it when I
was first engaged, and it's been such a mys-
tery ! Don't laugh, Dolly and Lina. For
years, if I've stirred in the night, Agnes has
come to me. She sleeps with one ear open
for me, I tell her. . . . A bit of every-
106
OntDelcome jttrg,
body's best frocks. . . . Dear Agnes !
No hands but her rough ones shall lace on
my wedding-gown."
" Gladys, that's you all over," exclaimed
Miss Gay, as the girl in a tender reverie
stroked the cushion before replacing it in its
box. " Here's a nice little promising parcel
I'm dying to have you open. No card with
it, either. Fancy not getting the credit of
one's outlay ! "
Smiling, and still under the spell of her
old nurse's surprise, Gladys undid the tiny
parcel placed in her hands by Dolly, all of
the party exclaiming in satisfaction over the
result. On a velvet bed lay a leaf of sham-
rock fashioned of costly emeralds, and hang-
ing to a chain set with diamond and emerald
points. It was a jewel that might have been
worn by a king's daughter. A little chorus
of admiration and wonder attended its pas-
sage from hand to hand. Even Mrs. Lori-
mer was arrested in her flight, to join in the
speculation as to whence the dainty thing
had come.
107
" This is, to my taste, the most delicious
ornament you've had ! " cried Lina, envi-
ously. " No doubt some of Jack's family
have sent it; but who who could consent
to do such an adorable action unknown to
fame?"
While the pendant rested in its new own-
er's rosy palm, and Gladys's brow knitted
with wonderment as to the giver, the foot-
man, returning, announced to his mistress
the presence of Miss Pincher in the recep-
tion-room down-stairs.
" Our honored secretary. Say I will come
directly," exclaimed Mrs. Lorimer. " But
first I must put some of these things away
in a place of safety." Gladys assisted her
while she carried a number of the more con-
spicuous articles across the room, placing
them on the shelves of a closet. But the
girl did not thus resign her latest gift, the
chain of which she had thrown around her
neck. For some unfathomable reason this
token had at once assumed to her a value
and importance unknown in her other pres-
108
dtrtoelcome
ents. Her one desire was to be free to fly
to the telephone and confide the fact of its
arrival to Jack. Making a device of show-
ing other bridal finery in her bedroom to
her friends, she rid herself of these laughing
maidens and flew out on the landing of the
stairs, passing through a doorway curtained
with greenish-gray velours that made a per-
fect setting for her white-robed figure and
roseate bloom.
As she stood waiting eagerly at the in-
strument she seemed a very image of youth-
ful hope and love. Her ripe lips bent them-
selves to the mouthpiece tenderly, her voice
thrilled with happiness when answering her
lover's challenge.
" Oh, you are there!" she said, with a
little, satisfied sigh. " I was so afraid I'd
miss you again. Jack, who could have sent
me the loveliest pendant and chain all set
with emeralds ? Some of your people, I
think. No? Well, do hurry up and see it.
I was so disappointed when I found you
were gone. Good- by."
109
" Gladys 1 " called Mrs. Lorimer, rather
crossly.
" Yes, mamma," she said, returning to the
morning-room.
"Now this is finished, I hope we may
have a little rest. Pray do not encourage
those girls to remain longer. Their eternal
giggling and answering back gets on my
nerves. "
" Poor mamma ! We are upsetting you
and your house ! " cried Gladys. " Never
mind ; in a little while you'll be rid of me,
and Jack will have all the bother."
" Nobody can say I've not done my best
by that child, "thought Mrs. Lorimer, as the
bedroom door closed on the disturber of her
peace. " But the marriage is a big relief.
When it's over, and Dick and I go abroad,
we'll see if I don't treat myself to a little
let-up from the devoted stepmother busi-
ness."
110
IS Mrs. Lorimer walked across the
Persian rug, on which her silken
skirts rustled aggressively, pomp
and the pride of life written in
every line of her face and figure, the door
on the stairs opened and the footman
ushered in a woman carrying by a strap
handle a modiste's box covered with black
oilskin.
The newcomer was tall, especially grace-
ful, clad in close-fitting dark tweeds, her
bronze hair covered by the little veil of black
gauze drawn across her face. She paused on
entering, and Mrs. Lorimer, though near-
sighted and thick-skinned as well as pano-
plied in her own importance, could not fail
to observe the slight defiance of her pose as
she halted near the door. The lady of the
house did not, however, consider that the
111
antoelcottte
personality of a mere dressmaker's young
person warranted the exertion of lifting her
gold- handled lorgnon for a closer investiga-
tion. As a rule, she treated all her em-
ployees as inevitable offenders, and addressed
them accordingly.
" I must say Madame Collette has taken
her time about the dress," she said, icily.
" Thomas, send Coralie to me. "
Coralie, the lady's maid, as anxious as the
rest of the feminine establishment concern-
ing this arrival, was on the footman's heels.
She came in with the air of an admiral as-
suming command of a quarter-deck, swooped
on the newcomer's burden and patronizingly
desired her to wait for the box.
"She will stay, of course, to make any
trifling alteration needed. You will be com-
petent for that, I suppose, although I shall
certainly inform Madame Colette that I do
not permit her to send me persons of bad
manners and evidently sullen temper."
As Coralie, with a superior smirk, glided
off with the box, the stranger did not in the
112
!je antoelcome
least- degree alter her pose, nor did she speak
a word.
" Go over there and sit in the alcove by
the window," said Mrs. Lorimer, sharply.
" If they want you, they will call you to
Miss Lorimer. Otherwise, you will take
your box and go."
The woman softly crossed the room and
withdrew into the retreat indicated, Mrs.
Lorimer following her progress by a high-
pitched order to the servant, given with in-
sulting emphasis :
"Thomas, until Agnes comes do you
stay here ; and, remember, you are responsi-
ble for the valuables around."
Directly afterward Agnes hurried into the
room, and Thomas, tongue in cheek, betook
himself down-stairs to narrate the incident.
Agnes, looking about her nervously, ran
over to the dressmaker's assistant and folded
her in her arms.
" My lamb ! To come back to your own
old home again like this ! It is more than
ye can bear. Stop trembling child; do."
8 113
" It is rage that's making me tremble,"
cried Marian, stormily. "That insolent
creature treating me like a thief! Oh, I
could kill her, Agnes ! "
" My dear, my dear, I told ye how it
would be," pleaded the old woman, terri-
fied.
" No, I can control myself, and will.
Only, when shall I see my child ? "
" You must chance it, honey. Very
likely she'll send for ye in there. Keep cool
and brave."
" I'm brave as Julius Caesar," said Marian ;
" and I'll die sooner than betray myself."
" You're crying now. Oh, dear, dear!
And ye were cool as a cucumber in the cab."
With a mighty effort Marian conquered
her emotion, answering in a gay tone :
" I always loved adventure, and you know
I'm a splendid actress. Don't bother that
poor old head of yours and, trust me, all
will go well."
To quiet herself she walked to and fro in
the room, noting the changes in decorations,
114
CIjc Ontwelcome
pictures, and furniture. To this house, then
so far up-town as to be regarded as a
pioneer's experiment, she had removed when
her husband's first rapid rise of fortune justi-
fied the outlay. Into its building had gone
her cherished ideas of nicety and conformity
to their station in life. The very books on
the shelves had been bought and often han-
dled by her. A thousand recollections as-
sailed her of the disillusionment that had
here resulted from talks and quarrels with
her husband. It was here, too, that she
had come to the desperate resolution that
wrecked her life. Almost any other room
in the house would have meant less to her,
except Gladys's old nursery. That thresh-
old she would never have dared to cross
with feet that had strayed so far from it into
a way so thorny ! . . .
With eyes blinded by tears she espied on
a side-table littered with photographs, minia-
tures, and dainty bits of silver, a picture
framed in glittering rhinestones, and stooped
to it, uttering a cry of joy.
115
l)e dntoelcome
" This is she, Agnes 1 It speaks 1 It
breathes 1 "
" Her last. Taken for the bridegroom,"
nodded Agnes, assentingly; then, at the
sound of a peal of laughter from the bed-
room, turned her gaze nervously in that
direction.
Marian, with a quick movement, slipped
the photograph out of the frame and into
the bosom of her blouse, and, with Agnes,
lent ear to the voices beyond the closed door.
"That's not her laugh, Agnes," she ex-
claimed ; " there's a hard note in it."
" That's Miss Thurston, one of the brides-
maids, but a good girl eno'," said the old
woman. " That other's little Miss Gay,
who's always a-bubbling like a spring in the
woods in the old country."
" Why doesn't she laugh, Agnes ? " asked
Marian, listening eagerly. " Is she sad, or
sorry for anything? It can't be she isn't
happy in her choice."
" Bless ye, she's just dead in love with
Mr. Adrian," said Agnes, chuckling ; " and
116
autoelcome jttrg.
small blame to my girl, ayther, as the sayin'
is. Every servant in this house wants to go
and live with 'em."
The door opened. Marian started electric-
ally. But it was only the lady's maid,
carrying a sash or scarf of white transparent
stuff fringed with orange blossoms, which
she handed to Marian.
" Miss Lorimer thinks these orange blos-
soms should be tacked in place," she said,
giggling in a genteel manner. " They're
that loose they'll be falling off before the
bride gets up the church aisle."
" I will do it," said Marian, taking the
sash eagerly. " I have my sewing things in
my pocket."
Agnes breathed more freely when the
maid departed. Mrs. Hatch returned to
the retired corner of the great bay window,
and, sitting behind a clump of palms and
rubber trees, fell to work, while Agnes set
about picking up bits of wrapping paper
and boxes, and tidying the room. A noise
outside made Marian start again.
117
" Agnes, is Gladys coming out? " she said.
" Tut ! tut ! " answered the nurse ; " if it
isn't madam coming back again ! I did
hope that secretary female would keep her
below settling the hash of every sinner
God let be born into the world, except their
two selves. Child, ye can't stay here !
You're shaking like a leaf. Go, quick. I'll
make some excuse for ye. "
" It's too late, and I wouldn't if I could,"
said Marian, doggedly, drawing back farther
into her hiding-place.
"Our budget was smaller than usual
to-day," observed Mrs. Lorimer, whom a
course of Miss Pincher's flattering homage
had put again on her righteous pedestal.
" Well, Agnes, is all right ? Is that saucy
person gone? Have you seen the wedding
gown ? "
She advanced to enter the bedroom door,
but was met by the maid, who informed her
that Miss Lorimer begged madam to wait
where she was for a few moments, and
would she send Agnes, please ?
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flJtrtoelcome
" Very well. Go, Agnes ; I have a letter
here I will read meanwhile," said the lady,
subsiding into an armchair Mr. Lorimer
had once sent home for Marian's use in
holding her baby.
Agnes, with a miserable side glance at
Marian's covert, followed Coralie. But the
old woman need not have feared any in-
crease of temptation to self-betrayal on the
culprit's part through the fact of Mrs. Lori-
mer's presence in the room. It but served
to stiffen Marian's resolution to carry on her
effort to the end. She felt that she would
rather die than let this woman have a chance
to order her in contumely from the house.
But she had not counted on the ordeal next
befalling her : nothing less than the entrance
into the morning-room of Lorimer himself,
whom Agnes and she had ascertained to
have left the house before they ventured to
drive up to it.
Marian's blood ran chiller in her veins
than ever she had known it in the sad years
of tribulation, but she dared not follow her
119
tfJntuelcome
proud impulse to spring to her feet, avow
herself and take the consequences. She
cowered farther back into her corner, feel-
ing, rather than seeing, Lorimer go up
behind his wife and draw her face backward
for a kiss.
" It's all right, Madge, old girl," he said,
in deeply exultant tones. " By George,
we've turned the corner."
" You've won, Dick ? We're safe ?
How ? " she asked, nervously.
"Hush. Not here! I'll tell you later.
It's the biggest thing of my life, and only
you know how near we've come to everlast-
ing smash. Those old, prating Puritanical
fools, the Adrians, are fairly in the net, and
111 make 'em pay high for the privilege.
Come, Madge, toss those Social Purity let-
ters of yours into the waste-basket. Just as
soon as we're foot-free from the girl we'll go
abroad and have a jolly time on our own
account. We'll have money to burn, Mag;
money to burn. And that's better than
dancing to the tune of the society fiddle
120
antoelcome ;fttr&
here, where, spite of all, the women still
give you the go-by."
" You promise ? " she asked, sharply.
"No backing out, mind, on the score of
business. You'll take me abroad, spend
money freely, and let me get a rest from
these old reforms and charities ? "
" I need change myself, Mag. I'm over-
worked, overworried, and besides, I've been
seeing ghosts. Yes, I'll treat ; to a high
figure, too. Hang me, Mag, if I know any
younger woman that's a patch on you for
charm ! I'm dead stuck on you, madam,
and I'm not ashamed of it ! "
He kissed her again, and Marian heard a
cooing voice in answer:
" If I had only been the first 1 "
" Why, Mag, I care more for your little
finger than I did for her whole spoilt, hys-
terical body."
" Yet she was called pretty," said the coo-
ing voice again.
" Humph ! When I married her she was
pretty, and devilish lively and bright all
121
fine words ; but she broke my love up when
she got to thinking too much of me exact-
ing too much. You, Mag, have a different
hand on the reins. But here lately, I'll own
up, I've sometimes thought it might have
been different with her, you know, if I'd
been a little easier. I do believe she loved
me once."
"Loved you! that creature? Don't de-
ceive yourself." The voice was sharp and
hard now, with an undertone of eager
malice. Marian, whose head had been
bowed like a rain-drenched flower, straight-
ened herself suddenly.
" Perhaps you're right," answered the
man. " A fellow gets to be a softy some-
times, when he thinks of long ago. "
" She never loved you. She disgraced
you publicly. Remember the sting of
that."
" Damn her ! I don't forget," said Lori-
mer, firing up.
" There's my own Dick again ! I declare,
you frighten me, harking back to that de-
atvtoeicome
graded woman. What could have pos-
sessed you ! For my part, I don't see how
she could have had the heart to give you
up. Nobody's so handsome as you, Dick
so clever, so successful."
"Mag, you bewitch me when you look
like that. After all, a grown daughter's a
weight we'll feel lighter to be rid of. We'll
begin lie over again, from this on. There's
plenty of fun ahead, and we'll go the pace."
Marian, in an agony, had started to her
feet. The air around her seemed stifling,
the scent of the flowers in the window
boxes made her gasp, the blood beat in her
temples. It was not this she had bargained
for in steeling herself to meet the ordeal
of returning, like a thief, into her former
home.
The moan that escaped her was, fortu-
nately, unheard by the other occupants of
the room, for at that instant came from
Gladys's bedroom the chant of the Wedding
March from " Lohengrin," sung by fresh
young voices. Through the leaf screen Ma-
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antoelcome
rian saw old Agnes come out first, holding
back the portieres for the passage of Dolly
and Lina, walking and singing, hand in
hand. After them followed Gladys, her
slight young figure arrayed in a robe of
white satin, the tip of the long straight train
of which was jealously caught up from con-
tact with the floor by Coralie, the maid.
Then the girls halted, Gladys passing be-
tween them, and, with a sudden impulse,
kneeling at her father's feet.
By this impetuous movement of lonely
girlhood the little comedy of rehearsal was
suddenly changed in character.
Gladys bent her veiled head upon her
father's knee and burst into sudden tears.
While the unseen mother stretched out her
arms with a mighty longing to her child,
Mr. Lorimer looked annoyed, embarrassed,
drew back and finally rose to his feet, speak-
ing in harsh, sarcastic tones.
" Very pretty, my dear, but a trifle theat-
rical. Keep that sort of thing for Jack,
when you want to score a point. "
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antDelcome
In his heart he was repeating, " Her
mother, to a dot." The resemblance, less
of person than of manner and expres-
sion, stabbed him like an avenging knife.
His impulse, manlike, was to put the
door between him and the girl as soon
as possible ; and brusquely inviting his
wife to go with him into the billiard-
room and be rid of these frills and follals,
he hurried out, Mrs. Lorimer elaborately
following.
All the mirth had gone out of the little
group. Gladys, pale and pained, dropped
into a chair, Agnes hovering protectively
around her; Coralie disappeared; the two
visitors, making voluble excuse that they
had already overstayed their time, kissed
Gladys sympathetically, and with looks that
spoke volumes took their leave.
Gladys turned to Agnes with a swift
glance of despair.
" You see ! you see ! " she cried, pitifully.
" He hated to look at me. What did I
remind him of, Agnes? Was it my own
125
mother? Oh! if she were only here there'd
be one in the world besides you to care to
see me in my wedding gown ! "
"May I try the sash now, Miss Lori-
mer? " said an exceedingly soft voice beside
her. Gladys started and sat up, shocked
at her exposure of secret grief to alien ears.
Her impulse was to speak haughtily and
dismiss the intruder, but one glance into the
large, soft, yearning eyes bent upon her,
made her, on the contrary, rise obediently
and stand before a mirror in the panel of the
wall, where a good effect of their work
might be obtained. She did not observe
that Agnes, drawing off abruptly, had gone
over to the far end of the room, leaving
them quite alone.
"You saw me come in? You are quite
satisfied with the gown?" asked the girl,
making a strong effort to conquer her recent
agitation.
" Oh, more than satisfied. It is quite
perfect. I can find fault with not the small-
est thing," answered the dressmaker, and
126
OJtrtoeicome
again the tender cadence of her tones fell
soothingly on Gladys's ear.
" We were not quite sure about the lace
ending on the folds of the train behind,"
went on the bride-elect, taking a little addi-
tional comfort from the loveliness of her
own reflection at full length.
" I will adjust it," said the other, sinking
to her knees, and, unseen by Gladys, almost
burying her face in the shining, pearly folds
of the train and the film of lace that covered
it welcome hiding place for that eloquent
countenance of hers. The first touch of her
child's warm young body had intoxicated
her with long-restrained mother-love. Into
her heart, seared with sorrow and scorn from
her fellow-beings, flowed a sudden divine
current. It banished the old fury from
her veins, recreated all that woman owns
most nearly akin to the angels.
"That's better, I think," said Gladys,
surveying herself again. " Now, if you will
lift the veil and let me slip the sash around
my waist - "
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OJtrtoelcome
" No ! no 1 " exclaimed Marian, jealously.
" You must not stir, please. I can do it all
much better."
She had been anticipating the moment
when her hands might clasp that pretty,
slim waist. Eagerly her arms stole about
her child, but when it became needful to
withdraw them, without the embrace she
coveted, the effort was too great. Her
heart bounded wildly, her brain grew dizzy ;
she tottered, and Agnes caught her as she
swayed backward.
"Why," cried Gladys, innocently, "the
poor thing's ill, Agnes ; she's faint. Put her
in that chair while I fetch water, or I saw
brandy over on that table in the corner I'll
get that."
As the bride hastened in search of stimu-
lants Agnes breathed in Marian's ear an
imploring request to keep up, for God's sake,
until she could get her safely from the
house.
" I will, I promise you. It's passing
now," said Mrs. Hatch, to whom Gladys at
128
CEJntoeicome
once returned, carrying a glass of brandy,
which she put to her mother's lips.
" How good you are how dear 1 " whis-
pered Marian, in reviving tones. " If you
knew how ashamed I feel - "
" Don't think of it ! " cried the girl. " I'm
afraid you aren't strong ; you look so white
and tired. Collette shouldn't have sent you
out to-day."
" I am getting better and stronger every
moment, " protested Marian. " I should be
so mortified not to finish. There's a stitch
or two still wanting to the skirt. "
" If you really care so much," said Gladys,
assentingly; and again the mother knelt
behind the child, trying to thread a needle,
and failing for her tears, till Agnes, in sym-
pathetic dumb show, offered to accomplish
it for her, and fumbled from the same cause.
" Why, you blind old bat ! " cried Gladys,
playfully, snatching the needle and thread
from her nurse's hand. " It's a shame to
keep her waiting on her knees. I believe
now don't contradict me, Agnes you're
129
dntoelcome
crying to see your baby in her wedding
finery ! "
Laughingly, she passed the threaded nee-
dle to Marian, who resumed her task, while
Gladys went on chatting with her nurse,
gladdening the old woman's heart by praises
of her wedding gifts, then turning to eulogy
of the anonymous present recently received.
" Such a lovely pendant, Agnes ; just
what suits me ; just what I want ! Nothing
but Jack's pearls has given me such pleas-
ure. A bit of your own Irish shamrock,
Agnes; and I've got it on at this minute,
under my gown. Somehow you'll think
me silly but it seems to warm my heart.
. . . It's the kind of thing a mother
would have chosen for her girl and I need
a mother, Agnes. Why! she inter-
rupted herself, arrested by a sudden move-
ment of the dressmaker " look, Agnes !
The poor thing's ill again. I knew she was
not fit 1 "
" All is finished now, at any rate," stam-
mered Marian, pulling herself to her feet,
130
OJntoelcome
though deadly pale and tremulous. " Please,
Miss Lorimer, do not think of me again. I
cannot bear to cloud your happiness."
" Rest a while, do," said the girl. " Over
there, by the open window, is a little chair.
Make her go, Agnes, and stay by her till
she is better. I'll run away, now, and make
Coralie take this off."
With the music of her child's voice ringing
like joy bells in her brain, Marian, too weak,
indeed, to resist, found her way back to the
spot she had occupied before, Agnes attend-
ing her. But ere the little bride could carry
her silken glories into seclusion, Adrian, who
had accused himself of being a cold-blooded
wretch unworthy of her trustful love in leav-
ing the house without seeing her, returned.
Coming in with the air of one accustomed
to invade the place, he was caught on the
threshold and transfixed by the lovely ap-
parition of his promised wife.
" Oh, Jack ! " cried Gladys. " Don't look,
for the world ! It's bad luck for you to
look."
131
flJntoelcome
" I won't," he answered, shielding his eyes
with his hat, but peeping over it, well
pleased, at her image in the mirror.
" In two minutes I'll be back," she said,
hurrying away from him. " Please read, or
something, and presently I'll give you your
tea."
He laughingly complied, or appeared to
do so, by dropping into a chair and taking
up a book.
" Agnes," said Marian, in a whisper, "go
after her. Leave me alone with Mr. Adrian.
I must speak to him; I must, I tell you.
Go!"
The nurse, attempting protest, was over-
ridden by imperious insistence, and Marian,
her face and neck dyed crimson, advanced
to Adrian, pausing beside his chair and ad-
dressing him by name.
He looked up from his book. She had
not in the least overcalculated the effect on
him of her presence in this place. He sat
staring at her in bewildered, horrified silence,
then, remembering social courtesy, rose.
132
A long, ghastly gaze was bestowed by each
upon the other. In him, the whole misera-
ble truth was unrolling itself, taking shape
in his mind, localizing itself beyond a perad-
venture. In her, the shame of thus avow-
ing herself a secret marauder in the home
from which she had been cast out struggled
with her grief at inflicting such shame on
him.
And with this man, before whom she now
cowered with bent head, she had but a few
short days ago felt herself on equal terms as
friend, adviser, comrade.
He spoke first.
"Why are you here? How dared you
come here? he asked, in a tone she had
never heard from him before.
" Have you not heard the story of Gladys's
mother ? " she asked.
" Last night, for the first time, from Mr.
Cleave. God knows I did not dream of
your identity with her till now. "
" Then you know one dares anything to
avoid falling back into a pit. Mr. Adrian,
133
dtrtDclcome j
she could not recognize me. No one here
suspects me. It was my last chance."
" It is a fearful risk for you and all of us,"
he said, gloomily.
" Gladys does not dream that her mother
lives. For the others, I care nothing. I
was starving for my child. Would you have
let me go away unsatisfied ? Ah, Mr. Adrian,
I know you better. You wouldn't treat a
tramp like that. You've the kindest heart
in the world. Now that I know you're to
have her, I am so much happier."
He did not answer, but his face soft-
ened.
" Don't forget what you said * If you
need me, I'll be there,' " she went on, en-
couraged. " I do need you, now, Mr. Adrian
awfully. Be forbearing, forgiving with
me for this last offense. Let me plead with
you to deal tenderly with my child. Take
her away from these cold, cruel people ; take
her into a home, a real home, where the
world and the devil are kept like wolves at
bay. Whatever comes to try your love,
134
(Unwelcome
cling close to each other. Confide in her,
cherish her, trust her, and she will never dis-
appoint you. Oh, I can see your two lives
blending into one and stretching out down
the long years in happiness and peace. Do
you think, then, it is likely I'd want to
trouble you ? Believe me, I am not selfish.
After this, I am going back to the realm of
homeless spirits, and neither you nor she
shall hear of me never, never, never ! There,
Mr. Adrian, I've touched you. One word
more when the time comes for you to tell
her about her mother, be as merciful as you
can."
She paused, choking. Jack looked at her
with strong compassion.
" I hate to let you go like this. You have
my club address. Write me sometimes how
you fare, and if you are ever in any distress
that I can help, command me ; but, my dear
lady, you must know that every moment
you linger here is dangerous. For Gladys's
sake, Mrs. Hatch, do not delay."
Dusk was falling in the room as Gladys
135
hurried back, gowned in her simple home
attire. Marian, at the same moment, crossed
the room and stood in a waiting attitude be-
side the door.
" Oh, you are waiting for your box ? " said
the young lady, pleasantly. " I believe
Agnes is fetching it. Yes, here she is ; and
you must tell Madame Collette we congrat-
ulate her on the gown, but she must really
take better care of you. Agnes, go and put
her in the cab. Good-by, and many thanks
for your trouble."
" Good-by," breathed Marian, softly,
standing statue-like, while Jack Adrian, feel-
ing tremulous as a woman, came up behind
his bride. The moments seemed to him in-
terminable before the door should close on
hapless Mrs. Hatch.
" Might I to you who are so good and
thoughtful of others, Miss Lorimer," said
the woman, in a low, strained tone " would
you let me offer you my congratulations on
your marriage?"
Gladys turned, smiling, blushing, with a
136
nestling movement toward her lover. To
her surprise, his face was grave and shadowed
as she had never seen it. She thought for
an instant there was moisture in his eyes,
and the nurse emitted a sound that seemed
strangely like a sob.
But no; impossible. Gladys laughed at
herself for the notion that everyone was keyed
to her own pitch of sentiment.
But there stood the strange woman gazing
at her with yearning, beseeching eyes, and
Adrian, leaning down, said to her, gently :
" Give her your hand, dearest. One is
never too rich in good wishes, do you think ? "
Gladys held out her hand shyly, and Ma-
rian pressed it to her lips without speaking.
" Come, Gladys, to the library. I think
we shall find everybody there," said Adrian,
breaking the trying silence, in dread of what
might occur. With an arm around her he
led her out of the room.
" It is very, very odd," said Gladys, won-
deringly. "One might almost think she
loved me but why ? "
137
Clje (EJntoelcome
" Why, indeed, sweetheart? " he said,
laughingly. But in his heart Adrian did not
laugh.
" And this is the very end ! oh, God ! "
exclaimed the mother, left behind.
" My dearie, my lamb, go, now," said the
nurse. " The way's clear, and you've had
your heart's wish. Take the cab, drive back
to your hotel, and after my bit of supper I'll
come and look after ye."
"Agnes, I believe something told her I
am her mother!" cried Marian, wildly.
The woman seized her by the arm.
" There, hurry ! What did I tell ye ? It's
the mistress coming in. Pick up the box
and go. Lord save us ! she mustn't find ye
here like this."
But Marian stood, stupid, spellbound. A
moment more, and Mrs. Lorimer, announc-
ing her coming fussily, sailed into the room
and stood peering suspiciously into the
gathering dark.
" Gladys ! Jack ! where are you ? Tea
is waiting in the library. Where in the
138
CUntDelcome
world is everybody ? Why haven't they lit
these lights ? "
Stepping back, she touched a button by
the door, and a soft radiance filled every
corner of the room. She saw Marian in
tears, saw Agnes wringing her hands behind
her and recognition came.
" You ! . . . You ? " asked Mrs. Lorimer,
a flutter of terror in her voice. " Why did
you come here ? "
Marian haughtily faced her.
" I once had occasion to ask the same
question in the same place of you, madam,
and when you were the intruder and I on
my own ground. I had very good reason
for knowing that your motives were less
creditable to you then than mine are now
to me."
" I knew that you were alive, but I never
dreamed you would have the impudence to
push yourself in here," cried the woman,
wrathfully. " This is Agnes's work, letting
you in; and out she'll walk after you, the
vile deceiver ! "
139
OJtrtDelcome jttrfc
" Having accomplished what I came for,
I will relieve you of my presence," said
Marian, whom danger had made cool.
Her daring seemed to dominate the situa-
tion, for Mrs. Lorimer did not stir until, as
Marian passed, the hidden photograph of
Gladys fell from her dress to the floor.
" As I supposed. Stealing my property !
Who knows what else you have got stowed
away about you ? " she said, spitefully,
snatching the picture from Marian's hands
as the latter stooped to pick it up. "Oh,
you needn't think you'll just walk out as you
came in ! People of your stripe must be
managed by the police," and she put herself
threateningly in Marian's path.
" Let me pass ! " said Marian, firmly.
" You shall not, I tell you ! " cried Mrs.
Lorimer, ringing the bell close to her hand,
"You can harm only yourself by this,"
Marian said, shrugging her shoulders lightly.
" For me, the worst has come and gone."
" Ask Mr. Lorimer to come to me here,
immediately," said the lady of the house to
140
antoelcome jttt%
the servant answering the bell. " Then
stand at the front door, and let no one leave
the house ! "
The man, glancing suspiciously at Marian,
then interrogatively at Agnes, hurried away,
and there was no delay in the arrival of Mr.
Lorimer.
"What's all this, Madge?" he said, on
the threshold. " Charles says there's been a
theft of some kind some of the wedding
presents - "
His sentence was cut short. His glance
fell on Marian. Black wrath filled his face.
" You you impudent, lying ! " he be-
gan ; but she interrupted him.
" Let me go. I have seen my child. She
does not know me. I have done no one
harm," she cried, proudly.
" Vile, degraded creature ! " cried Mrs.
Lorimer. " Your presence in this house is
an insult to Gladys and to me. But that's
not the point. You stole one thing ; no
doubt you've secreted others. Give them
up, or I'll have you searched."
141
Clje OJtttoelcome
" Oh, she's in no need of stealing, Mag,"
interpolated Lorimer, insultingly. "She's
got her pocket full of cash, and knows how
to get more, too."
" Then we'll just turn her out in the
street, where she belongs," added his wife,
seeing Marian flinch and grow white under
his stinging words.
" Stop ! " cried the goaded creature, sud-
denly. " Not another word till I have said
my say. I wanted to go in peace, but you
wouldn't let me. Then let us have it out 1
Oh, since I came into this house to-day I've
tasted heaven and hell. When my child
spoke to me, smiled on me, when I touched
her warm, young flesh, and realized that it
was part of mine when I felt once more
the glad thrill of motherhood warming my
veins, pulsing in my sad heart, I was drawn
out of my gulf of misery as if by an angel's
touch. There's no sacrifice I wouldn't have
made to keep good enough for Gladys.
There was no rancor left in my heart for
any living being. I could have forgiven even
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antoelcome
you, Dick Lorimer, for the ruin of my life.
But it wasn't to last. I hadn't deserved
such bliss. I'd been walking up the arch of
a rainbow, and when I reached the top found
that I must go down on the other side. But
thank God you two can't rob me of the
supreme hour of happiness that I have
known ! Yet now, now do you see ? you
have dragged me back into hell. This hypo-
critical woman, with her vicious taunts
you, with your cold brutality have made
me desperate. To punish you I'd risk any
sentence. When I crossed that threshold,
this afternoon, I was a penitent, soft-hearted
woman, yearning to walk in the right path.
Now I'm bitter, vindictive, dangerous ; and
you've only yourselves to thank for it ! "
" Dick, send for a policeman," exclaimed
Mrs. Lorimer, shrinking to her husband's
side.
" Let her rave herself out, and then turn
her loose," observed Lorimer. " I was the
worst kind of a fool to parley with her at all,
and I suppose I must reap the consequence."
143
OntDClcottte
" Put my life beside that woman's, will
you ? " said Marian, scathingly, " or match it
with your own, Dick Lorimer, and then let
heaven be judge between us."
" There will be time enough for that," he
answered, coldly. " For the present, the
world suffices me, and you will not deny
that its verdict is in our favor. If you take
my dispassionate advice, Mrs. Hatch, you'll
give up this cheap tragedy business and go
back to say the er sidewalk."
" You dare ? " she cried, furiously. " Then,
Mr. Lorimer, let me tell you that if I can't
answer your foul words in kind I can avenge
myself in another way. What of the com-
bination in business by which you have
just saved yourself from ruin and disgrace
through the marriage of your daughter to
Jack Adrian ? What if Adrian's people
if Adrian himself knew you as you are ?
Would you be so content with your position
then ? "
" Hold your mischievous tongue, will
you ? " he cried, savagely, putting his hand
144
(Unwelcome
on the bell, " or, in two minutes, my ser-
vants shall turn you out of doors for a com-
mon sneak- thief."
" Ring, then ! Call all your household, if
you choose. Let me tell my story first to
them, and afterward to whomsoever it may
concern."
" Damn you, I'm not afraid of you ! " he
shouted, and to prove it touched the bell.
There was a moment's critical silence,
while Lorimer, stubborn and somber, re-
mained facing Marian, old Agnes clinging
to her sleeve and praying her to have self-
control. Mrs. Lorimer, cowed and whim-
pering, sat crouched in an armchair. When
the two menservants, presenting themselves,
stood awaiting orders on either side of the
door, Marian felt herself keyed to the high-
est pitch of nervous desperation. Now, in-
deed, was she fairly reckless of results.
In her veins ran the hot fire of vengeance.
In spite of Lorimer's bravado she saw that
her mention of his private affairs in the
matter of the alliance with the Adrians had
10 145
hit hard. Her quick wit taught her that
with this weapon in hand she had only to
strike again to be more than even with those
who had so cruelly wronged and wounded
her. The thought of their discomfiture was
a sweet morsel in her mouth. To speak
out before their menials, to publish them
to the world as they were, seemed the
most precious privilege now left her. The
flicker of appeal in the woman's coward
eyes, the brutal rage in Lorimer's, were
an irresistible invitation to Marian to do
her worst.
While she stood, unconsciously framing
her sentences so that they might cause most
shame and pain, her whole being transformed
with the strength of her emotion, a soft
sound came to her ear the sound of a girl's
voice on the landing of the stairs Gladys
bantering her sweetheart and laughing joy-
ously.
Instantly Marian's form relaxed from its
tense, impassioned pose, a great change came
over her face; she listened, trembling vio-
146
lently, and the vengeful gleam of her eyes
was drowned in tears.
" I I will go now," she gasped, bowing
her head before her enemies.
"I thought so," sneered Lorimer, but he
had the wisdom to say no more.
Marian gave him one last, mute, terrible
look; then, lifting her box weakly, the un-
welcome Mrs. Hatch passed, conquered and
broken, out into the night.
147
VI
[T was a stale Midsummer morning
in a quarter of New York where
the jarring clatter of wheels over
cobble-stones, the ceaseless whiz
of elevated trains, and the cries of child-
ren squeezed out of overcrowded homes
to play in the street, made existence to
weak and weary brains tolerable only in
the rear of the houses wherein their pos-
sessors were compacted. In a back room,
at a window opening on a fire-escape,
which some deft hand had decked with
a few boughs of wildwood greenery thrust
into glass preserve jars, a woman sat at
work.
When she looked out over the green
boughs hers was the privilege of seeing the
sunshine, so blinding in the street, here fall
partially filtered through the foliage of an
ailantus tree in the next yard. This tree,
148
a morning-glory vine creeping up from the
fire-escape of a German woman below them,
and the fair field of azure overspreading all,
were her present substitutes for the beauties
of nature with which she had formerly been
familiar at Newport and Bar Harbor at this
season of the year.
Her inward vista ended in a dark middle
room, every spot of whose ceiling, every
crack of whose faded wall-paper, she had
scanned while lying on her back, staring
upward with hot eyes, during the recent
weeks of a long and painful illness. There,
in the far corners, stood two little iron
beds made up with exquisite neatness
and conventual purity of linen. One of
these beds she had thought never to leave
till carried from it with rigid feet fore-
most down the common stairway of the
tenement-house. But now between the
half-open sliding-doors, with their panels
of cheaply ornamented ground glass, she
surveyed it with the complacency of a grad-
uated invalid.
149
In a spot screened by a clothes-horse cov-
ered with cotton stuff, a gas stove stood on
a pine table that was additionally encum-
bered with the few utensils and supplies
requisite to the canary-bird menage of two
women, one of whom ate through gratitude
to another, who had in these days more
appetite than food.
In spite of its cleanly squalor and the
paucity of its furnishings, the place wore a
strangely festal air. Long scarfs of multi-
colored gauzes hung from a golden May-
pole. Japanese lanterns fastened to sticks
decked with tinsel fringes were ranged
around the walls. Stuffed birds swung
in gilded hoops. A parterre of paper
roses, red and white, bloomed on the
mantelpiece, otherwise arrayed with odds
and ends of old china, shells, fancy mugs
and photographs, such as a family ser-
vant might accumulate from a lifetime
of little gifts. The table at which the
wan worker sat was ablaze with sheets
of brightly tinted tissue-paper, gay ribbons
150
fllntDelcome
and a variety of finished toys in the guise of
cotillion favors.
When at last the final touches were be-
stowed on a French Polichinelle in cap and
ruffle affixed to the summit of a gilded staff,
she held him aloft, yielding him glad and
whimsical homage.
' There, Mr. Polichinelle," she cried, joy-
ously. " You are all ready for the Egertons'
dance at Newport ! You've a conceited
smirk on that jolly red face of yours. Now,
don't go and be so set up by your rise in life
as to forget your old friends and your hum-
ble origin. Remember, my boy, that pride
goes before a fall, and you're not, like me,
constructed to survive a smash. I wonder
if you realize what you're going from, and
where you wih 1 bring up. Here poverty,
distress, a poor, battered woman whom fate
would not spare when she prayed to be set
adrift on the unknown sea, working her
heart out to make you beautiful ! There
lights, music, flowers, the soft sea air, the
sparkle of gems, the rustle and gleam of
151
Ontoelcome
satins, and smiling dancers, whirling in a
brilliant round ! But don't let it take you
in, Polichinelle ! I've been there. I know
it all by heart. In those days life seemed
one long reach of shining parquetry, to be
whirled over to the music of a hidden or-
chestra. Is it better to have had and lost,
like me, Polichinelle, or never to have had
at all, like you ? Do I envy you ? God
knows I don't. My star's behind another
kind of cloud. Now, dear sir, accept this
tinsel cravat as a last token of my esteem !
Polichinelle, I'll swear you're the image of
old Beau Bannister, who used to dangle in
my train. He'll be at the ball, so look out
for your twin. Really, I think you're as
well fitted to express ideas as he is, poor old
dear!"
She laughed. For a moment she was
again Marian Lorimer in the heyday of her
insolent young beauty, queening it among
the fine folk who delighted to pattern after
her.
Then the door opened and an old woman
152
Ontoelcome
came in, carrying a homely basket on her
arm, and hot and breathless from three
flights of steps.
" Laughing, my dear ? " she said, with a
sort of patient cheerfulness now become her
habitual manner. " Thank the Lord ye feel
like it ! And what do ye suppose? I've not
only got the money for your candle-shades
from Laferriere, but an order for twelve
more in palest green. And you'd better
believe I stopped at the provision shop !
Here's meat for soup, and the beautifulest
little fat Spring chicken ye ever saw, with
tea, sugar, a little bottle of cream and a
whole half-pound of that butter ye like the
best little finger rolls, too. You'll lunch
like Queen Victoria to-day."
Marian ran over to her and examined the
contents of her basket gleefully.
" I never saw such richness, dear," she
said ; " but what's here for Agnes ? "
" Oh, childie, with a cup o' that grand tea
and a slice o' buttered toast I'll be in clover,"
was the answer.
153
" Agnes, you're an unblushing old fraud ! "
exclaimed the lady. " Now if you don't eat
with me, share and share alike, I vow I'll
starve."
" Child, sure as ye live, I stopped in a res-
taurant and had a plate of stew. It'll be to-
morrow before I feel hungry again. Lucky
I paid rent for these rooms so long ahead !
That poor Mrs. Murphy above us has to
turn out o' hers, and we're good for another
month, thank God."
" My illness, two doctors part of the time,
a trained nurse and expensive medicines
have made an awful vacuum in your little
hoard," said Marian, mournfully. " You
shouldn't have done it in such style, nursey.
A hospital for me would have been far wiser,
and you know it."
" What's the odds, so long as ye pulled
through? I never was forehanded in my
life, Mrs. Lorimer, any more than ye. We're
a pair of babies for spending money, child."
" But now I am well again, Agnes so
splendidly well "
154
amnelcome
" Yes, splendidly well," echoed Agnes, as
the speaker paused for an assenting answer.
" and I have made such a capital start
in business, it won't be any time before we
recoup again, and I'll pay you back with in-
terest. All will come out right, with such
orders as Mrs. Egerton's to start on."
" Bless Miss Thurston's heart for getting
it for ye ! " cried Agnes, infected by her zeal.
" Yes, bless her heart ! " repeated Marian.
"And to think that I used to dine with the
Egertons and they with me ! I had a tiff
with Kate Egerton once, when we were both
on the board of a swell charity, and she
went under in the fray. She little knows
how Time's whirligig is bringing her revenge
to-day ! The one thing that bothers me,
Agnes, is Doctor Cotesworth finding out
my secret."
" My child, it had to be. With ye so ill,
and me so scared, and he that I'd known
through his visits to the Lorimer family,
what could I do but fetch him here ? And
then he sort o' found us out."
155
antoelcome
" I know; and he in turn gave us away to
our good angel, Lina Thurston," said Ma-
rian, now on her knees packing away the
pretty gewgaws she had completed. " I
don't blame you in the least, Agnes dear;
you couldn't have kept it in, any more than
we could have lived without Lina Thurston
getting me that first work for Laferriere,
and buying me the materials. Like the
lady she is, Lina took back the money she'd
advanced for that stuff, as soon as I'd made
the first sales. Just wait till some of Kate
Egerton's pals ask her where she got these
favors, and Mrs. Hatch will have her hands
full of orders for more. We'll get out of
this house, then, Agnes, in double-quick
time. I'll have a tidy little showroom,
where ladies will like to come, and a fore-
woman who knows her business in witching
customers. Trust me for original ideas and
all the rest. Why, we'll be rolling in
money, Agnes, and have don't jump out
of your boots chicken twice a week ! "
Agnes, busy in her corner with the gas
156
antoelcome
stove, heaved a sigh, and looked at her
charge doubtfully.
"What is it, nursey? Out with it! I
see you have some deep-dyed conviction
you're afraid to speak."
"Dear, it's about Dr. Cotesworth. He
that's thought ye the beauty of the world
ever since he was a lad, and ye a young mar-
ried lady in your husband's home."
" Now, Agnes, old girl, none of your pa-
laver on that question," was the answer,
while Marian's head dived deep into the
box. " Trust an old maid for romantic fan-
cies!"
" My dear, he's the salt of the earth ;
he's-
" Then Lina Thurston's bread will be well
sprinkled with him," cried Mrs. Hatch.
" It was you yourself who told me they are
engaged."
" Servants' hall gossip's all I have to go
on," replied Agnes, turning the half of her
vaunted chicken on the grill. " They did
say Miss Thurston had always fancied him
157
antoelcome jftrg. f atcty
but since he's found ye again, poor gen-
tleman, he's looked another way. And if
ye hadn't bluffed him off - "
" Not one word, you match-maker ! Of
all the preposterous fancies, that's the worst.
When our two benefactors marry each
other, Agnes, we will send them the big-
gest, fluffiest sort of a lamp-shade, with your
compliments and mine - "
" It's queer, his having stopped away so
long now he that stretched out his hand to
help ye, that watched over ye as anxiously
as I. Ah ! childie, ye can't help yourself
ye fascinate everybody, old and young. I
can't mistake the looks I've seen him turn
on ye. And they do say he's going to leave
the country and settle in one o' them far-
away places in South America or China or
somewheres. When he's gone, and there's
no callin' him back, perhaps you'll be sorry
ye made so light o' him."
" But I don't make light of Robert Cotes-
worth, Agnes. God knows I don't. He's
a big, true man, if ever one was a good
158
atrtoelcome
gallant gentleman ; and what he has been to
me poor waif fallen across his pathway
is laid up in heaven to his account. But it's
a girl like Lina who ought to walk beside
him in the future he's her kind, she is.
Do you think I'd be base enough to use my
poor little chance to stand between them ?
Ah, no, Agnes, my day is done ; the sea has
swallowed up my setting star."
" Come, come, child ; if it bothers ye I'll
not mention his name again. Here's your
tray, and I've cleared the table. Sit ye
down and eat every bit of this."
Marian sighed again, then smiled, and
obediently seated herself before the tray.
" Oh, how good it smells ! " she exclaimed,
in answer to the old woman's look of eager
pride. " Agnes, you are a trump at cooking,
as at everything else. Now bring your own
plate and cup and sit on the other side."
" My child, I tell ye I've had my dinner,"
protested Agnes.
" Yesterday, I dare say, you pious de-
ceiver. Now mind me, old girl, or I'll not
159
flJntoelcome
eat a mouthful. Take your full share, and
we'll fairly riot over our first square meal in
the last three days."
However, Marian's appetite was soon sat-
isfied, while the older woman ate with
healthy hunger, and meanwhile regarded,
with covert yearning and anxiety, the still
brilliant though wasted apparition opposite.
Deep down in Marian's long- sealed heart
she had become aware of the springing up
of a new and delicious emotion an emotion
that was yet so unduly hers, she thought,
that she hung her head in consciousness
of desire to appropriate and indulge it. A
week or two before, when Robert Cotes-
worth made his visit the occasion of a tenta-
tive appeal to this feeling, she had laughed
bitterly at the idea of its possible existence.
Now now Was it because the old
woman's gossip had put her in possession of
the fact of his determination to leave the
country, faintly outlined in his last talk with
her? What else could have worked the
miracle but the thought of long parting from
160
one on whom she had come to lean, with
utter dependence, for every hope of health
and strength and daily sympathy ?
" Ye don't like it ? " asked Agnes, crest-
fallen.
" My luncheon ? Indeed, yes ! Im-
mensely ! " ecstatically exclaimed Mrs.
Hatch. " Haven't I eaten more than in a
long, long time ? "
" Well, dear, now you're strengthened a
bit, I've got a surprise for ye. What'll ye
say to our darling bride being on her way
home ? Yes, true enough, they're due on the
Campania to-morrow, early. Miss Thurs-
ton told me, and said I was to let ye know
it by degrees, but there aren't any degrees in
the likes o' that, are there ? "
"Agnes, you're like a sunburst 1" cried
Mrs. Hatch, radiantly. " But a moment
ago I was thinking of how far-reaching and
wide-spreading are the results of our own
wrong actions, wondering why I might not
dare to feel glad again in life. Now I am
glad healthily glad glad with a joy of
11 161
which no man, no moralist, no verdict of the
world may rob me."
" When you're feeling black-like inside o'
ye, dear, always think about your child.
I've noticed it never fails to do ye good."
" I do. I do think of her. Oh, my
Gladys, my Gladys ! Agnes, how grand
that she is coming home ! Though I may
never look at her or speak to her, I'll know
she's near. I'll picture her, dream of her, as
of old. Never can I forget the touch of her
warm, strong young hand, the sweet odor of
her breath, the soft texture of her flesh my
flesh, Agnes that day, that beautiful day
when I gained her that hideous day when
I lost her."
" My poor dear, something tells me you'll
see her again. God couldn't be cruel
enough to shut ye out from one more
chance. Let's hope, anyhow; and now,
child, ye must lie down and rest a bit, and
let me finish packing all these here things.
The expressman will call for them at four. "
" Go away, Agnes. Don't you touch my
162
fttttoelcome
playthings," cried Marian, wilfully, spring-
ing to her feet, then going down on her
knees again before the packing-case. "See !
I'll finish them beautifully. Since you said
that I might chance to see my child wildly
improbable though I feel such a hope to be
I have got new life in my veins. You are
right, Agnes God is just, not cruel, and
maybe He'll take into account what I've
done since not before I went under the
ban."
As one by one the bright emblems of a
gayer life than hers passed into eclipse in the
packing-case, the room, denuded of its finery,
was revealed in all its sordidness and poverty.
The hot afternoon melted into a hotter
night. A teething child in the front apart-
ment adjoining cried all through the long,
stifling early hours, until, in despair, Marian
stole forth to seek it, and carrying the little
sufferer out on the fire-escape, sat with it
there, wooing the breeze of dawn, while the
mother found merciful repose.
The baby dozed, but its watcher kept
163
open-eyed vigil. She was thinking that her
own child was on the sea, sailing down the
coast, nearing the friendly harbor. Again
and again she prayed God to speed her be-
loved safely. Just then the whole world
was narrowed for her to the confines
of a single ship. The months of blank
desperation following her daring visit to
her old home, the near peril of death
she had passed through, the new element
strangely injected into her life and rigor-
ously excluded from it, the reawakening
to an existence of toil and stress, the dark-
ness of the future all were now merged
in tumultuous joy at the thought of her
child's vicinity.
Spite of the wretched night, Marian woke
from a brief morning doze brighter and
stronger apparently than Agnes had seen
her in some weeks. Out of her garden of
new-budding hopes the "black bat night
had flown." For a morning paper had an-
nounced the arrival at the dock, earlier than
expected, owing to an unprecedentedly quick
164
antoelcome
run, of the steamer bearing, among others of
interest to the fashionable world, the newly
married pair, Mr. and Mrs. John Adrian, en
route to their Adirondack camp.
165
VII
I ATER in the day, Miss Lina Thurs-
ton, clad in cool, refreshing mus-
lins, wearing a shady hat and
carrying in her arms a great sheaf
of Summer flowers, descended from a han-
som before Mrs. Hatch's door. Having
once spent six months in a nurses' settle-
ment in a congested district of the town, the
sights and sounds of poverty were as familiar
to her as daily bread. She now glided be-
tween the groups of sidewalk children, dis-
tributing to them a posy apiece from her
armful, and then ran lightly up the steps to
Marian's quarters, leaving behind her a trail
of fragrance from sweet peas and nod-
ding roses. She found Marian sitting at
her usual table engaged in making candle-
shades, but looking like a new woman, so
Lina averred.
"Not the new woman, please. I'm just
166
the old, old kind, living on emotions and
impulses, pinning my everlasting happiness
on the sleeve of chance, and buoyed up by
my own imagination of things rarely realized.
To-day, however, I do feel strangely better,
and these flowers of yours will complete the
cure. Quick, Agnes! every glass and pitcher
you can trump up, and let me riot in the
beauties ! You yourself make me think of
some flower, Miss Thurston, but I have not
yet found which one."
" I '11 tell you, " said Lina, smiling. " Peach
blossom not especially good looking, and
concealing a bitter flavor. "
" Mignonette, rather," corrected Marian,
"with its clean, wholesome, health-giving
perfume. Dear friend, one can never say
the really grateful things one feels. It's
only pretty, meaningless phrases that run off
the tongue trippingly. But always remem-
ber that you've lifted me out of the valley
of desolation. It's something to have done
that for a fellow-being, isn't it ? Now, I
must tell you that Mrs. Egerton's huge case
167
full of things got off safely, yesterday, and,
if I do say it, will do credit to your recom-
mendation. When I get the money for
them, and for more work ordered by La-
ferriere, we'll be passing rich, Agnes and I.
We're even talking about moving out of
this house into better rooms, and in the
Autumn spreading our wings and opening
a little shop. Of course, capital's the rub."
"I'll help you," said Lina, looking at her
with surprise, so gay, so light of heart she
seemed. " I was just going to make an
offer to become a ' silent partner,' or what-
ever you like to call it, in your venture.
I've a small sum lying idle that I am glad
to invest so well. You see, 1 count largely
on your exquisite taste in purveying to the
monde oil Ion s amuse"
" You dear, blessed woman ! " cried Marian,
overjoyed. " That rolls the last stone out
of my path, since Dr. Cotesworth assures
me that with care, and by avoiding any
great mental strain, I am good for the or-
dinary span of life."
168
" He has not, then, convinced you that
you need someone to take absolute, exclu-
sive care of you ? " interrogated Lina,
brusquely.
Marian looked at her in surprise, then,
very gently, answered :
"You know him, dear lady. It was he
who brought you to me in my time of
cruelest stress. Can't you realize that even
the most clever and self-reliant man may
sometimes act on an impulse of pity, through
an obsession of missionary zeal ? Ah ! I am
mocking, as usual; but don't mind. What-
ever I may do, or leave undone, where he's
concerned, it's through no lack of apprecia-
tion or gratitude. "
" Do you know that he is going away
that he is exiling himself from home and
everything ? "
" I know that in time he will see what is
truly best for him," said Marian, very low.
" Mrs. Lorimer, you and I believe in each
other, don't we ? " answered Lina, bravely.
" Very well, then. Let me tell you that
169
Robert Cotesworth will not change. Put
from your mind any cobweb of delusion on
that score, and trust me implicitly that it is
better so. Only, it seems cruel to let him
go alone. There, I know you are sore
and weak and timid still ; but neither is a
child, or yet accountable to any human
being. It is a new life I am pointing out to
you, and over yonder, with half a world be-
tween you and your past, you may win the
chance you've lost here. Now, I won't let
you answer me not a word, please; you
are not yet ready for the new view of
things."
" Had ever good man so noble an ambas-
sador ? " cried Marian, tears rushing to her
eyes. " But you are right I am not fit to
speak of it. Just now I am all a mother.
Early this morning Agnes stole out into the
street to buy a newspaper, and since I have
seen the glorious news that Gladys has re-
turned, I can think of nothing else."
" Then you can bear hearing that I have
just come from her," said Miss Thurston,
170
aJntoelcome
scrutinizing the feeble, palpitating, yearning
creature with grave sympathy.
During the weeks of her visitations to old
Agnes's shabby abode, the friendship that
had grown up between Miss Thurston and
the poor waif of circumstance had strength-
ened into a devotion such as the world rarely
sees among their sex. Lina, like Dr. Cotes-
worth, possessed by the indestructible charm
of Marian's personality, had, like Cotesworth
also, come to estimate her at her true worth.
And when Lina realized that Cotesworth
had, without warning, found himself sur-
rendered heart and soul to a passion for
Marian absorbing the full power of his man-
hood, she put aside self and gave rein to her
vast desire to reconstruct the life of hapless
Mrs. Hatch. To save Marian seemed to
Lina the fulfilment of all her dreams of
service to her fellow-beings. And to serve
Robert Cotesworth, with whom for some
years past she had worked hand in hand in
the cause of charity, poor Lina would
have renounced did renounce, as we have
171
seen her own most secret hopes of happi-
ness.
At this juncture, coming as she did from
a special mission in Marian's behalf, to which
Cotes worth, still sore from his rejection by
Mrs. Hatch, and making preparations for a
long absence from his native land, had in-
spired her, Miss Thurston gave herself the
full joy of savoring good news in the act of
distributing it. While Marian lay back in
her chair, listening in fascinated silence, Lina
told her all the details of her visit to the
Adrians at the hotel where they were stop-
ping on their way through town. Marian
drank in every item about her child's beauty
and radiant happiness, about Adrian's sayings
to his young wife, about Gladys's pretty re-
joinders.
"But I must not tire you," Lina said,
suddenly, pulling herself up in some alarm
for the result.
" Tire me ! " cried Mrs. Hatch. " You are
giving me oxygen to live on ! "
"Because," said Lina, deliberately and
112
with tender intonation, "all I have said is
only by way of preparing you for something
better."
" Something better ? "
" Mrs. Lorimer, don't let yourself get ex-
cited. Your doctor has given me leave to
tell you "
"What has Dr. Cotesworth got to do
with it ? " exclaimed Marian, puzzled.
" Don't you know he is an intimate friend
of Mr. Adrian? He is also one of the biggest-
hearted men I know. He took upon himself
the responsibility of sending me to tell Mr.
Adrian of your illness and your whereabouts.
Of course, I took occasion to see Mr. Adrian
apart from Gladys. I believe I am sure
she has never yet been told "
" Better so," said Marian, crimsoning.
" But nobody could have been nicer than
Mr. Adrian. He was greatly shocked and
touched by my story of your illness and
. . . Agnes, do you come and stand by
Mrs. Lorimer while I tell her my best news
of all."
173
"Gladys is coming here? " cried Marian,
electrically. " Oh, yes ! I see it in your
eyes, I hear it in the tremor of your voice.
Ah, God is merciful ! "
" Mr. Adrian will bring his wife to look
up her old nurse," said Lina, steadily, while
Agnes slipped a sturdy arm around Marian's
shoulders.
"Now? soon? to-day?" faltered Ma-
rian, passionately glad.
"Now, almost immediately it was his first
impulse. He felt that you ought to see her, to
be encouraged to get well. But you won't
forget, Agnes you won't let her forget
that Dr. Cotesworth is emphatic against her
giving way to any sudden emotion. "
" I know I'm so grateful to him for this
thought, and to you for executing it, I'll
submit to anything. "
" I rather think he will find it best to be
here when they are," said Lina, a purple
flush mounting around her eyes. " The
truth is, I saw him for a moment when I
came away from them."
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flJntoelcome
" Oh, what plotters and planners you all
are, and all against one poor little broken
woman ! " cried joyous Marian, her thoughts
bounding ahead to the goal where they
oftenest converged. " If you could ever feel
the sudden delicious warmth that has come
into my heart ! Gladys here ! my baby !
mv beloved ! "
Her voice fell to so soft a note it might
have been the echo of a dream. She closed
her eyes in a little doze inspired by weak-
ness, and Lina Thurston, with a final keen
pang, thought she had never seen her rival
look more beautiful. Roughly, almost, so
quick the movement was, she leaned over
and kissed Marian on the brow, then hur-
ried from the room, while keen- sighted old
Agnes, used as she was to Miss Thurston's
abrupt ways, looked after her with adoring
gratitude, the greater because of her partial
comprehension of affairs.
" Miss Thurston is gone ? " cried Marian,
rousing presently. " Oh, Agnes, it's our
guardian angel who has taken flight ! "
175
" Never mind sorrowing after her, dearie,''
said Agnes, who was frantically putting the
room to rights. " She's got her reward laid
up above, for sure. The thing that's bother-
ing me is that ye ought to change your
dress."
* ' So I ought ! " exclaimed Marian, survey-
ing herself ruefully. "Get me that cream
muslin or no, my white-and-black."
" My dear, I just can't; we ate them both
up last week, when things were at their
worst. I'd been hoping to save enough to
get them out of pawn," answered Agnes,
dolefully.
" Never mind ; Gladys won't know your
room-mate, and Adrian won't care. Brush
my hair, Agnes, you old duck. I'm very
thin, and decidedly shabby, but I'll have to
do as I am."
" Do ye remember, lovie," suggested the
old nurse, * * how once ye used to give me
finery I couldn't use, and you'd laugh at me
for stowing it away in camphor and the like ?
Well, there was a Paris tea-gown, of a white
176
autoelcome
crepy stuff, trimmed with lace ; ye got tired
of it, and told me to never let ye look at it
again. It wasn't half- worn, and I've got it
yet."
" Why haven't you pawned that, too, you
miser ? What do you mean by hoarding
the best of the batch ? " asked Marian,
rallyingly.
" I I was just keeping it."
" For what ? " queried Marian.
"For old times' sake, sure," said the
woman, hurrying into the next room, hold-
ing one hand across her heart, as if Marian
could see it bursting with the sorrowful
intent, long treasured there, to save this
special garment for the last toilette of her
charge.
" How odd and jerky Agnes is to-day,"
thought Mrs. Hatch, settling and resettling
Lina's flowers in their vases, which, as now
arranged on her table, made a frame- work
for her noble head and bust. " I suppose
she's fairly overcome by the thought of her
little Gladys coming here. I'm not over-
12
amaelcome
come. I'm only calm and proud and thank-
ful. I want to do nothing that will betray
me to my child."
Agnes, who had been stooping over an
ancient trunk in the inner room, now re-
turned, carrying across her arms a fluttering
garment of white, filmy stuff, from whose
folds floated a faint odor of violets. At sight
of it Marian's face changed to a sudden wist-
ful pensiveness. Taking it across her lap,
she stroked it curiously.
" Ah," she said, half to herself, " I remem-
ber so well the day I bought it at Paquin's.
Dick helped me to choose it that was why
I gave it up afterward I couldn't bear the
sting of remembering happier times. We
came home to our hotel in the Rue Castig-
lione and drove out to the races at Auteuil
afterward. All Paris was in the Bois that
day of June. The carriages were four
abreast, moving at a snail's pace in the
alleys, all filled with pretty women and idle
men. The sidewalks were crowded with
people, the fountains and bands were play-
178
SJntoelcome ;fftr&
ing, the horse-chestnut blossoms rose like
pink spires on the trees, birds were singing
everywhere, and sunshine, flowers, verdant
slopes and vistas greeted us on all sides. I
was beautifully dressed, and Dick sat beside
me in the victoria, always whispering that
he had as yet seen no woman to match his
little wife in looks and chic. God ! why
couldn't that have lasted ? Why does noth-
ing last, except envy and spite and malice
and all uncharitableness ? 1 loved him so
then I drank in his every word like gos-
pel. Then the races were so gay, and we
drove back, as we came, through a world en
fete, and had our little dinner in our
rooms, when Dick insisted I should wear
this for him. This, for him ! How he kissed
my arms where the sleeves fell away ! They
were round and full and firm, not poor,
wasted sticks like these. This, for him!
Agnes, it would kill me to put it on again."
" Come, child, let me do your hair," said
Agnes, who had paid little heed to her rhap-
sody.
179
antoelcottte Jttt%
" No, I'll go in and loosen it a little, and
try to let it shade my face. I'm not looking
ill enough to repel a young person, am I,
Agnes ? " she added, anxiously.
"There'll never be one to look sweeter
and finer and more like the tip-top quality,"
asseverated the nurse, stoutly. " But ye
mustn't tire yourself, dearie ; whatever ye
do, don't get tired."
Marian promised, and went off to her
room, shutting behind her the sliding-doors,
and, at the last moment, looking back
between them to reassure anxious Agnes
with a caressing smile.
Hardly had she vanished from the scene
when a step was heard on the landing, fol-
lowed by a knock, and Agnes opened the
door to Jack Adrian.
" Oh, Mr. Adrian, it's as welcome as flow-
ers in May ye are," exclaimed the nurse, joy-
ously. In his manly and prosperous presence
she promptly forecast relief from her poignant
anxiety to make their livelihood assured.
Jack came in gravely, a line across his
180
{Unwelcome $rtt;&
brow, looking about him as if dreading to
meet what might be awaiting him.
" Agnes, this is a distressing story Miss
Thurston has brought me from Dr. Cotes -
worth," he said, in an undertone. " Where
is she ? "
" In yonder," signaled Agnes. "Yes, it's
sad, sir; but you'll not think, to look at her
now, how sad it has been. But she's like
one made young again by the news of your
coming. If only she could have a mind at
rest, sir, I believe she'd get a new chance at
living."
" Why was not I informed of her illness? "
he asked. " Surely I should have known.
I, not you, should have borne the burden.
She should never have dropped to this."
" She had promised ye, sir, that ye should
never hear of her again, and my poor lady
always kept her word."
" True, but I never meant to hold her to
that pledge. Agnes, your child is down be-
low, in the carriage. She knows nothing,
suspects nothing, of the real object of this
181
flJtvtoelcome
visit. She believes she is coming to rout
you out and take you away, to be part of our
establishment henceforward. For heaven's
sake, advise me what to do with her."
" Fetch her up, sir, and let nature point
the way."
" I am afraid she ought to know about her
mother," he said, moodily.
" I think so, sir. It's the one that suffered
birth pangs for her to live," answered Agnes.
" And so good, so patient, so high-minded
and brave. Believe me, Mr. Adrian, your
wife will never be ashamed to own my poor
darling for her mother."
" I know, I know," he hastened to say ;
"but Gladys is so bright and girlish still.
Our honeymoon has never waned. It has
been a dream of joy."
' " Ye can't shut out sorrow, Mr. Adrian,
from any woman's life. And Gladys, like
her mother, was made to bend, not break."
" I'll go for her, " he said, resolutely. " Do
you tell the mother we have come."
His turn of the door knob was met by that
182
cantuelcome jEt#*
of Gladys on the other side. She ran in,
beaming, and fell on Agnes's neck.
" If you two think I mean to stop down
stairs and play royalty on its rounds a
moment longer!" she exclaimed, radiantly.
"Jack knew that the greatest treat he could
give me, on the first day, was to come over
here and capture you, nursey darling ! Now
you're ours from this day forth you're go-
ing to darn .our stockings and keep those
piles of bridal linen in the most splendid
order, and generally ' boss ' our maids. Isn't
that a career for you, old thing? Answer
and say you're glad."
In this merry hectoring, in the birdlike
movements of the speaker's head, in the lov-
ing imperiousness of her manner, Agnes felt
that the mother was repeated.
"I'll be back in a minute," she said,
vaguely, disappearing.
Gladys, a little taken aback at the nurse's
abrupt exit, attributed it to emotion over
their reunion. In the interval of waiting
she fluttered like a butterfly about the room,
183
(antoelcome
handling its belongings with the freedom of
a petted juvenile.
" What a lot of lovely flowers Agnes has,
and how well she's learned to group them !
I recognize that old china cat and dog on
the mantelpiece, Jack. I bought them for
her at a fair, ages ago, when I was eight.
This old workbox, too, that I was never al-
lowed to play with ! I wonder I dare touch
it now. These shells old servants always
run to shells I used to put them to my ear,
like this, and listen listen for the voice of
the sea she told me I could hear. Oh, what
old frights of photographs ! Is there any-
thing so subduing to one's pride as to come
upon one's former self, with whom one was
so satisfied? Here I am, in all ages and
stages on a rock by an imaginary lake, on
my donkey, riding on a bough, and in my
first ball-gown. Oh, horrid little thing !
how you simper ! " and merrily she turned
the offending face to the wall.
" Here's a picture I never saw before,
Jack," she exclaimed, suddenly, pouncing on
184
ontoelcome
a faded photograph in a frame surrounded
by china forget-me-nots. " Agnes must have
had it hid away but why ? Jack 1 I've seen
this woman ! Awfully pretty she must have
been, in spite of that funny hairdressing and
gown. Tell me, dear you know me better
than I know myself where have I met her,
recently? Not a round and dimpled face,
youthful and smiling like this, but thinner,
paler, with the eyes full of unshed tears.
Jack, dearest, something goes out from my
heart to her I know not what - "
" Gladys, my sweetheart," said Adrian,
strongly moved, " doesn't that something
tell you you are looking at your mother? "
" Then why have they never shown it to
me before ? " she cried. " Why have I been
always told there was no likeness of her in
existence?"
" My darling, it was thought best to keep
you in ignorance. The circumstances under
which you and your mother parted were not
ordinary ones they were very, very sad.
The knowledge would have darkened your
185
(Sntoelcome
young life. Your father could not bear to
have her alluded to. She offended him, and
he never forgave her."
" What do you mean ? " she said, with-
drawing herself from his arm-clasp, and
blushing deeply.
" Gladys, your mother did not die. She
was separated by law from your father, and
went to live far away from him. She is
living still."
"But I have seen her, spoken to her, I
tell you," she said, bewildered. " Oh, why
doesn't it come to me when and how ? "
'* My own wife," said Adrian, again draw-
ing her to his heart, " you need all your self-
control, for you are about to meet the poor
lady whose life since she gave you up has
been everything that is true and noble. It
was not your nurse, but your mother, whom
I brought you here to see your mother,
who has been dangerously ill, and is still in
the most pitiful condition. All we can do,
darling, won't be enough to make up to her
for what she's suffered here."
186
He felt her heart beat wildly against his
own ; felt the tremor of intense feeling that
shook her frame, her hands fluttering in his
like prison birds. But speech from either
was arrested by the sliding back of the mid-
dle doors in their grooves. Marian, clad all
in white, a sweet, piteous look in her eyes,
the rose bloom of girlhood returned to her
cheeks, held out her arms to Gladys, who
flew to her embrace.
" It was you, mother, who came to me on
the day before my wedding ? " asked the girl,
presently, when she sat close by the chair
into which Marian had dropped, weak from
emotion, but happy beyond all words.
" Yes, my own love ; I could not resist it.
It was rash, foolish, unforgivable, perhaps,
but the only way to see and touch my child."
"And you sent this chain and pen-
dant I always wear ? See ! I have it on
now, and Jack has never pretended to be
jealous."
" Yes, yes ! " said Marian, eagerly.
" Often and often have I thought of you,
187
and not even to Jack have I spoken of the
strange thrill your touch gave me."
" My child, my little one, joy of my heart!"
murmured the mother in her ear, " in this
moment I'm living all the years I've missed
of you ; but we won't think, won't speak, of
what is gone. It's the future the bright,
glorious future that concerns us. To think
that "
Her words seemed to trail, then stopped
abruptly. Her head fell back, her hand
clutched at her heart.
" Jack ! Agnes ! " cried Gladys, in terror,
" come to her ! "
Agnes and Adrian, who had withdrawn
out of earshot of mother and child, hastened
to Marian's aid. The experienced eye of
the nurse saw at once that the present at-
tack differed in some respects from those
preceding it, and it was with a feeling of
enormous relief that she was called to the
door to admit Dr. Cotesworth, whose arrival
had been deferred until this momentous
crisis of affairs.
188
Clje antoelcome
Adrian, who believed Marian to be dying,
was torn between his desire to remove Gladys
from the painful scene and his conviction
that her place was by her mother's side. He
therefore welcomed appreciably Cotesworth's
prompt suggestion that his patient, on re-
covering from what might probably prove a
rather more obstinate attack than usual of
a familiar malady, would be far better left
alone in his hands and the nurse's.
So Gladys, yearning to remain, was car-
ried off by Jack, her final act being to kneel
beside her mother's fainting form and fondly
kiss her hand. It needed all of Dr. Cotes-
worth's authority to convince her that this
sudden close of an opening chapter of de-
light was not, of necessity, a last farewell.
Her plaintive and girlish assurance that she
would trust all to him rang in the physi-
cian's ears, and returned to him again and
again during his efforts to snatch poor Marian
anew from the jaws of the grim enemy, who
seemed ever to await her, hungering.
" Why didn't you let me go ? " Marian
189
asked Cotesworth, as he watched her again
struggle back into life and a sense of its re-
alities. Her old whimsical impetuosity of
manner gave him cheering reassurance that
it was her very self whom he had regained.
He answered her with a smile, repeating
what she had bid him keep to himself for-
ever.
" Oh, I meant because it was all just right
then, and it can never be right again," she
said, hastily. " I have tasted a supreme de-
light, and Gladys thinks she has recovered a
lost treasure. But now that they have got
me back, what in the world can Jack and
my darling do with me? This old trump of
an Agnes would rather starve with me than
leave me to go live in their luxury. You,
the best and truest friend woman ever had
I'm blighting your career; and what you
wanted me to do would have brought down
on you all the thousand tongues of scandal.
The plain truth is, I'm a problem, a super-
fluity, a block in everybody's path nobody
can afford to indulge in me. My death
190
antoelcome
would set everything straight! You who
have forced me to live, tell me what's to be-
come of me ? You are very clever, Dr.
Cotesworth, very big and positive, and sure
of yourself; but if you lived a thousand years
you could never solve that riddle, and you
needn't try."
" Nonsense ! That's just what I mean to
do," he answered, in a burst of such honest
masculine conviction that a flicker of the
old fun came into her eyes, to be followed
by a gush of grateful tears.
Was what he wished, and Agnes wished
with all her loyal old heart, ever to come to
pass ? They thought so, but already Mari-
an's higher self had decided otherwise.
(2)
191
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