BY 
 
 JOSEPHINE WINFIELD BRAKE
 
 3 6 * C
 
 Semiramis.
 
 HOW IT 
 
 HAPPENED 
 
 Being a Story in Three Books 
 and Several Manners 
 
 JOSEPHINE WINFIELD BRAKE 
 
 O, love is like the rose, 
 
 And a month it may not see 
 Ere it withers where it grows." 
 
 BAILEY'S Festus. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS' AGENTS
 
 COPYRIGHT, igoo, BY 
 
 JOSEPHINE WINFIELD BRAKE 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 THE PUBLISHERS' PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 2-84 LAFAYETTE PLACE 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO 
 
 EDITH HARLAN 
 
 AND TO ALL OTHERS WHO, WHILE 
 READING, WILL UNDERSTAND 
 
 2129751
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Commonly a preface is either an impertinence or 
 an archaism. This present preface is exceptional in 
 that it has no intention of appeal to the "gentle 
 reader " nor even the ungentle one. It is not even 
 a kind of fore-word, giving the key to the riddle. 
 In fact, like beauty, it must be its own excuse for 
 being. Behind its being there is occasion the oc- 
 casion of necessity. If that provokes curiosity, the 
 curious person is invited to use his wits to discover 
 the wherefore of it. 
 
 Good wine needs no bush, but a wayfarer from 
 far countries is often the better for a few civil lines 
 on paper. As with men so with books. This book, 
 out of the heart of the West, goes forth to all the 
 people. Its writer prays them to use it at least civ- 
 illy, upon first acquaintance, and later as well as it 
 shall have proved to deserve. It may be too little
 
 6 Preface. 
 
 for a great praise, too short for a long one, but no 
 one understanding the curious warp and woof of 
 good and evil we call human nature can deny it 
 something of verity.
 
 HOW IT HAPPENED. 
 
 JBoofc ffirst. 
 THE MAN WHO DESIRED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SEMIRAMIS. 
 
 Selene had moments of illumination. One fell 
 upon her as she stood poised in the center of the 
 picture. It was a living picture. True, living pic- 
 tures were old, but nothing else drew quite so well in 
 the town of Barcelona, which had not got over begin- 
 ning to call and feel itself a city upon the strength 
 of the census ordered by the town itself. That had 
 shown something like forty thousand people. Nat- 
 urally, the inhabitants of Barcelona were no longer 
 content to reckon themselves among the bourgeoise. 
 Civic pride, not to mention piety, demanded of them 
 churches metropolitan in their elegance. But aspir- 
 ing communities, like aspiring individuals, have a 
 trick of finding themselves lacking the wherewithal 
 to make real their fine and well-laid plans.
 
 io How It Happened. 
 
 The women in St. Ignatius stood stanchly behind 
 the vestrymen in their plan of turning the parish and 
 the parish church upside down and inside out. The 
 church itself was a massive stone building, some- 
 thing squat, something square, with only one bell and 
 the merest figment of stained glass. The devout 
 men and devouter women set their hearts upon a new 
 bell tower, a springing campanile to rise above the 
 vestry, and fling abroad the notes of bells in chime. 
 They planned, too, a new altar, windows all the length 
 of the church more gorgeous than Sheba's gems, a 
 roof of Gothic frettings, and pews in themselves pro- 
 vocative of devotion. The struggle to secure all 
 these things was so keen and sharp a good few 
 among the very elect of the sanctuary forgot or over- 
 looked that there were such things as aching hearts 
 or hungry bodies in this well-churched world. 
 
 To say the women of St. Ignatius meant, of course, 
 Mrs. Witherby. She led in everything, the rest 
 simply obeying her edicts. If now and then a mal- 
 content appeared, she was straightway put to shame 
 by the question, " Where would St. Ignatius be now 
 if Mrs. Witherby had not vowed to keep it even with 
 the rival parish of Calvary?" Calvary had at the 
 best three rich men in its congregation to St. Igna- 
 tius' two. But one malcontent had ever been known 
 to parry that thrust, and she took herself inconti- 
 nently into the hostile camp of Calvary. 
 
 Mrs. Witherby was rising fifty. In her youth she 
 had been sylph-like, with the narrowest hips and
 
 How It Happened. 1 1 
 
 shoulders. Added flesh made her almost cylindrical. 
 She was, furthermore, erect, with a lineless face, an 
 edged voice, and a pair of the coldest blue eyes that 
 ever twinkled from beneath brown-lashed lids. Not- 
 withstanding her flesh, she kept still some pretension 
 to beauty, was always correctly gowned, and prided 
 herself not a little upon the fact that she was never 
 in any point more than a month behind the extreme 
 of New York fashion. 
 
 Back in the dark ages of an unfashionable youth 
 Mrs. Witherby had contracted a habit of dominating 
 the entertainments of her church. In that same re- 
 mote period she had learned that even the churchliest 
 felt the appeal of spectacle spectacle within proper 
 restrictions. Then the spectacle was labeled as 
 tableaux. Mrs. Witherby and her world had, of 
 course, got very far beyond anything so semi-rural. 
 With them it was a cantata, a sacred drama the ten 
 virgins duly staged drew many shekels into the Lord's 
 treasury or an oracle with processional accompani- 
 ment. Perhaps it was the processional accompani- 
 ment which suggested to Mrs. Witherby her crown- 
 ing achievement "The Historical Procession of the 
 Centuries." 
 
 It must be confessed that the centuries were per- 
 sonified by figures somewhat capriciously chosen. 
 Mrs. Witherby did the choosing, with some faint 
 show of modifying suggestion from Lochiel Robins. 
 Lochiel had spent a couple of years abroad, and had 
 brought back no less than nine pictures, all with for-
 
 12 How It Happened. 
 
 eign names scribbled indistinctly in the corners. 
 Possession of so much art gave him a sort of prescrip- 
 tive right to knowledge of any sort of pictures. 
 "Hang chronology! You want above everything 
 figures that are picturesque," he had said. " Big, 
 splendid women who know how to wear clothes, or 
 to go without them, and men who had backgrounds, 
 whatever else they may have lacked. " 
 
 The saying certainly explained Semiramis. With- 
 out the vivifying suggestion it contained Mrs. With- 
 erby would never have thought of Assyria's warrior 
 empress. It is problematical, too, if, after she had 
 pitched upon the character, she would have cast Se- 
 lene for it but for the fate which we miscall chance. 
 As Mrs. Witherby herself explained, the procession 
 was so immense she was simply forced to go outside 
 the leaders, or go without proper performers. 
 
 It began with the casting out from Eden. That 
 ought to have been tremendously impressive, but was 
 marred by the fact that Adam's skin-coat sat very 
 much awry, being, in fact, Judge Witherby's fur-lined 
 coat worn wrong side out, and much too big for its 
 inhabitant. Then, too, the Angel of the Flaming 
 Sword had a head too small for his halo. Mrs. With- 
 erby breathed a long, relieved sigh when the curtain 
 fell, and said in Lochiel Robins' ear: "Thank 
 heaven, we are through with the Scriptures. Now 
 there is room for effect without shocking anybody's 
 sensibilities." 
 
 Succeeding pictures had won applause, sometimes
 
 How It Happened. 13 
 
 hearty, but oftener perfunctory. Semiramis came 
 seventh on the list. When the curtains parted, re- 
 vealing her bending slightly to take a tribute of pearls 
 presented by a captive barbarian warrior in a casket 
 of beaten gold, there was an instant flattering hush, 
 broken only by the deep-strained breaths which speak 
 of rapt vision. 
 
 Selene was tall, but somehow people had not no- 
 ticed it before. She was of a mold at once imperial 
 and motherly. Her blue-black silky hair grew low 
 about a broad, smooth brow, and swept back in heavy 
 masses that seemed to shape themselves naturally 
 into a proper resting place for a crown. Her throat 
 was an ivory pillar, melting into the swell of broad 
 shoulders and firm, cleanly modeled bust. She had 
 deep blue, black-lashed eyes, that in some lights and 
 some moods were wells of liquid purple, yet har- 
 monized amazingly with the warm olive of her skin, 
 the varying rose of her cheeks, and the vivid scarlet 
 of her lips. 
 
 The lips themselves were the keynote to her char- 
 acter warm, soft, vivid, neither large nor small, 
 well cut, and full of subtle potentialities, now soften- 
 ing to an enchanting smile, now hardening to a thin, 
 immobile line. They were sensuous lips, yet in no 
 wise sensual. In them one read, if only one were 
 wise enough, a nature that could love, defy time, defy 
 scorn or slight, doubly defying death, yet so balanced 
 and rounded it could hold itself hard, even against 
 itself.
 
 14 How It Happened. 
 
 Her royal robe was of purple, bordered with er- 
 mine, and barbarically bedizened with gold and gems. 
 It fell away from the columnar throat, bare save for a 
 rope of pearls the same pearls which were the cap- 
 tive's gift. He knelt at her feet, holding up the cas- 
 ket with both hands. She had made fast the gemmy 
 strand and wound it with slow, imperial grace again 
 and again about her throat. History, of course, gave 
 no warrant for the action, but in behalf of church 
 decoration Barcelona felt that it could afford to make 
 history to please itself. And nobody could deny that 
 the winding of the pearl rope added life to the pic- 
 ture, to say nothing of displaying Selene's fine arms. 
 The sleeves fell away from them at the shoulder, and 
 they were covered with bracelets half-way to the el- 
 bow. Any other woman so bedight would have looked 
 poor and tawdry. Selene herself might not have 
 borne the burden of it but for the strange inner light 
 which shone from her, making her whole personality 
 so radiant it brought her gorgeous setting into prop- 
 erly subdued tone. 
 
 Two black- clad slaves stood back of her, waving 
 quaint, long-handled fans above her head. Her 
 throne was richly gilt and raised upon a dais of gold 
 and purple. At the back there was a note of scarlet 
 in the hangings. In the foreground a small chest of 
 carved wood, overflowing with rich Eastern stuffs. 
 And as she wound the pearls about her throat a reed- 
 player hidden amid the palms in the background blew 
 and blew, as though timing her motion, now loudly
 
 How It Happened, 15 
 
 as in triumph, now in wailing minors, as though cry- 
 ing defeat and beseeching the victor's mercy. 
 
 One minute of the hush then the house shook 
 with thunders of applause. Again, again, came the 
 cries, the handclappings. The curtains had to be 
 drawn thrice before the clamor was stilled. Even 
 with that nobody had his fill of gazing. Mrs. With- 
 erby ought to have been enraptured. Instead of that 
 she frowned faintly. Lochiel Robins was at her 
 elbow. He had half forced her to take her place in 
 front of the curtain, saying masterfully (he was in 
 most things masterful) : " If you stay behind you 
 will make everybody so nervous ; the whole thing will 
 be a failure. You have done your best more than 
 any one else, possibly, could do. Now trust provi- 
 dence a little." 
 
 " I will if you will help providence, " she had 
 said; but he shook his head obstinately. "Those 
 poor martyrs have come to regard me as after a sort 
 your second self," he said. " I shall help them very 
 much more by sitting in next to the front row and 
 looking as though I knew it was impossible for any- 
 body to bungle." The event had proved his wisdom, 
 yet he did not exult over the fact. Mrs. Witherby, 
 glancing . up at him as the curtains at last hid Semi- 
 ramis from view, was amazed by the look in his face. 
 It had grown very white, the mouth was set, the eyes 
 tensely brilliant. She laid her hand lightly upon his 
 arm, saying, in a guarded whisper : " Are you ill ? 
 you not better go out for a breath of air? "
 
 1 6 How It Happened. 
 
 He shrank lightly from her touch. His color came 
 back with a rush, and the lids dropped over his steely 
 gray eyes. They ought to have been blue eyes. 
 Aside from them he was of the flaxenest Saxon type, 
 his face clean cut and impassive, his chest broad and 
 deep, his stature something beyond middle height. 
 Altogether, he had a thoroughbred look until one 
 came to examine minutely. Then one saw that the 
 fine, well-kept hands, soft and flexile and long-fin- 
 gered as they were, had stubbed finger-tips and the 
 short nails that bespeak strong animal instincts. The 
 tale they told was repeated and confirmed in the lines 
 beneath the chin and the thick, fleshy involutions 
 of the smallish ears. A physiognomist would have 
 gathered thence, and rightly, that here was a man 
 of force and fire, imperious as death, inflexible in 
 pursuing his own ends, holding to his own purposes, 
 swayed but never melted by the tropic glow of pas- 
 sion, and, in the exactions of surrender, cruel as the 
 grave. 
 
 Barcelona neither knew nor cared for all this. It 
 took the surface Lochiel Robins to its heart of hearts, 
 and reckoned him in all points the model he was in 
 a manner bound to be. He had been born to a good 
 name and very considerable riches. He had married 
 not over happily, it is true, but fate had kindly re- 
 lieved him within five years, leaving him as memen- 
 tos of his dead wife a small, imperious daughter, and 
 a fortune even larger than his own. It was his abso- 
 lutely the dead woman had loved him so entirely
 
 How It Happened. \j 
 
 she had flouted settlements. Perhaps it was her 
 trust which had moved him, or, likelier, the stirrings 
 of remorse that had made him promise her upon her 
 deathbed that she should have no successor. 
 
 People generally understand that such promises are 
 made to be broken. People about Lochiel Robins 
 said as much, adding, however, that here was the ex- 
 ception to the rule. Whatever he had promised that 
 he would keep, no matter at what stress to himself. 
 But they did not look for any sort of stress. Rob- 
 ins was past the age of hot and dazzling passions. 
 Perhaps, if left free, he might have wedded again 
 after a decorously long interval. As it was, with his 
 child and his ambitions, he would doubtless do very 
 well, and certainly keep faith with the woman who 
 slept so peacefully under a costly marble shaft upon 
 the fairest hilltop of Barcelona's cemetery. 
 
 He had known Selene ever since she was ten years 
 old. That is to say, he had been nebulously con- 
 scious that such an entity existed and moved about 
 within his local environment. He might even have 
 been able to tell one who sought knowledge of her 
 that she was orphaned and without near kin ; that she 
 had been married at fifteen to a man much her senior, 
 who had died within six months, leaving her but slen- 
 der provision; that she lived with her husband's 
 mother, who was also widowed and drew a pension ; 
 that the two went out very little, and, though they 
 had a pew in St. Ignatius, came but irregularly to 
 
 church. So much he might have repeated, and, in 
 2
 
 1 8 How It Happened. 
 
 repeating, echoed the reiterated gossip of his world 
 in general, his mother and Mrs. Witherby in particu- 
 lar. But of Selene herself the soul, the woman 
 he was profoundly ignorant until he saw Semiramis. 
 
 " I had rather it had been anybody else yes, any- 
 body," Mrs. Witherby said, nodding almost" imper- 
 ceptibly toward the stage. " Of course, I am glad to 
 have the Procession a success, but that sort of thing 
 is so very apt to go to the head of well, you know 
 that sort of person." 
 
 Robins got up somewhat abruptly, saying : " Ex- 
 cuse me ; I have just thought of something that must 
 be done," and hurried down the aisle. Two minutes 
 later he was behind the scenes, smiling down at Se- 
 lene whimsically, and saying, as he kissed her hand : 
 " I am too good an American, much too good a re- 
 publican, to miss such an opportunity of showing my 
 sense of the fact that even in the manufacture of em- 
 presses these United States beat the world."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE AWAKENING. 
 
 Selene drew away her hand with a little depreca- 
 tory laugh. The illumination was dying. In its 
 stead there had come a sort of tremulous pallor. It 
 amazed, it almost frightened her. Her ear was not 
 wholly unused to gallant speeches. True, she had 
 lived in semi- seclusion throughout the twelve years 
 of widowhood, but more than one man had tried to 
 come a-wooing and been sent civilly about his busi- 
 ness. She was not reckoned among Barcelona beau- 
 ties, nor of those who led its fashion, yet there was 
 that in her face, in her slow, soft graciousness, her 
 restful charm, which had sufficed to ensnare vagrant 
 fancies. 
 
 She was slow mentally, but it was a sort of alert 
 slowness, very far removed from stupidity. It was 
 part of her equable temperament. She had a sort of 
 cushiony and good-humored tolerance for all the 
 world, herself included. Witness the fact that she 
 did not fret over rinding in mind in the morning the 
 retort or the quip which should have sprung into 
 being over-night. Although she was well toward 
 thirty, her nature had kept in many points the ele- 
 mental simplicity of a child's. She had loved her
 
 2o How It Happened. 
 
 husband with a timid fondness rather as one under 
 direction than as one who makes a heart's choice. 
 He had been her guardian and always more than kind. 
 When he had said, " My girl, you must marry me," 
 she had obeyed just as she would have obeyed had he 
 said, "My girl, you must go away to school." 
 
 She had mourned him with a deep yet placid sor- 
 row. Often in the first years she had felt amazed, 
 almost shocked, indeed, at herself, for finding life still 
 good, the world green and beautiful, the sunlight an 
 enchantment, now that he was no longer there to 
 share in it all. She was lonely, desolate even at 
 times, but her's was not the searing sorrow that bore 
 down his mother, whitening her hair in a week, mak- 
 ing her face drawn, her eyes heavy with weeping, her 
 nights one long rebellion and ache of loss and long- 
 ing. " I wonder if I should feel so, too, if I if we 
 had a child? " Selene sometimes speculated a little 
 wistfully. In the face of daylight she told herself it 
 must be she had no capacity for deep feeling of any 
 sort. She could wish it otherwise. Anything, even 
 crushing sorrow, might be better than the deadly 
 dullness of void days. In her heart of hearts she 
 knew better, knew that deep underneath there lay a 
 volcanic stratum, that might one day rise to appal 
 her or to destroy. 
 
 Until that night Lochiel Robins had been among 
 the commonplaces of her existence. His home lay 
 quite at the outside of Barcelona, but every day she 
 saw him driving past, sometimes alone in his dog
 
 How It Happened. 21 
 
 cart ; oftener in the handsome open carriage, with his 
 lady mother on the seat beside him. He never drove 
 with his little girl. The child had her own trap, 
 with a nurse and groom to take her for airings. Once 
 upon a picnic excursion Selene had gone past the 
 Robins demesne and seen a small, haughty person 
 who gave herself airs sitting in a basket chair strapped 
 to the back of a meek gray donkey, which a groom, 
 almost as meek-looking, led up and down the lawn. 
 
 Five days in each week Selene worked half the day. 
 Barcelona had a circulating library, which kept open 
 for that space of time. Selene hated the work. Not 
 work in general, but this tedious going over and giv- 
 ing out of books, putting them in place again, keep- 
 ing records and tallies, warning delinquents, and 
 making a roll of such as must be dealt with for the 
 powers that were. She did not care much for books 
 unless they had pictures in them, or told of painters, 
 painting, or in some way opened up the magical mys- 
 teries of form and color. All her life she had craved 
 to be an artist. If only she could fix in imperish- 
 able form the dreams and fancies and glories that 
 swam before her in the snow, the sunshine, the rain, 
 then, indeed, existence would have new meaning for 
 her and would seem a gift precious beyond rubies. 
 
 The library held her prisoner from nine until one. 
 Throughout the afternoons and the blessed Satur- 
 days she went out, nearly always alone, nearly 
 always with her sketch-book. Her sketches were 
 the despair of the Barcelona drawing masters, but
 
 22 How It Happened. 
 
 once, when she had slipped up to the city, a hun- 
 dred miles away, and sought out an artist, he had 
 looked at them narrowly, some of them more than 
 once, then flung them down, saying almost irritably 
 as he looked her over : " Here, you have the feeling, 
 the thing that really makes the artist ; but you know 
 nothing except what it will trouble you to forget. 
 Two years of forgetting, with three of learning, might 
 but, no ; it is impossible your age is against it- 
 then, too, you say you have no money. Better give 
 up the thought altogether. Of course, you will not 
 give up this sort of thing," touching the sketches as 
 he spoke. " It will hardly profit you materially, but 
 I doubt if in the end it will not do you more real 
 good, give you more real happiness, which is the end 
 of all things, than if you starved and studied and en- 
 dured all things in hope of a career. " 
 
 He showed himself cruelly kind. A whole brood 
 of fluttering, half -fledged hopes and plans were struck 
 down by his words. The elder Mrs. Barker was as 
 wax in Selene's hands. " You are all my boy left 
 me all I have to live for, Selene," she had said in 
 the first abandonment of her grief, laying her head 
 upon Selene's throbbing breast. Since then there 
 had been but one will in the household. It spoke 
 volumes for the sanity and wholesomeness of Selene's 
 nature that her mother-in-law's abject submission 
 made her only the more regardful of her wishes. 
 
 The two lived simply, yet with a certain touch of 
 elegance. Their home was their own, so the narrow
 
 How It Happened. 23 
 
 joint income sufficed. If the house was unpreten- 
 tious, it was very comfortable a gray cottage, with a 
 tiny yard in front and a bit of garden back. Selene 
 made the most of both spaces. Throughout the short 
 northwestern summer she kept them riotously a-blos- 
 som with sweet, old fashioned flowers. Flowers, in- 
 deed, were her companions, counselors, and often her 
 comforters. They spoke to her as human lips could 
 not speak. Even the humblest had its message for 
 her, but most of all she loved the roses. She wore 
 them in her hair and at her throat. Their color 
 and fragrance made up for her the whole joy of 
 June. 
 
 As Lochiel Robins stood smiling down at her, sud- 
 denly there came to her a great waft of rose scent, 
 and she was aware of some one approaching with a 
 sheaf of hothouse roses in the hollow of his arm. The 
 rose-bearer looked inquiringly at Robins, who nodded 
 slightly and held out his hand. In the next breath 
 he was saying, as he crowded the flowers upon her : 
 " See how provident I am ? It was borne in upon me 
 this morning, that somebody to-night would make a 
 famous success, and I determined to reward that per- 
 son fittingly." 
 
 " Oh, I do not know. The Procession is not done 
 yet ; besides, there are the singers and the young lady 
 who recites," Selene murmured; her eyes again il- 
 lumined as they rested upon the flowers. Robins 
 shrugged his shoulders expressively. " I wish you 
 would be honest," he said. " You might with me.
 
 24 How It Happened. 
 
 You know as well as I know that the minute and a 
 half of you was worth yes, more than worth all 
 the three hours of the rest." 
 
 " You are too kind," Selene said. " No, I had 
 better say, not quite kind. Let me divide the flow- 
 ers. There are enough for all." 
 
 " No." Robins put out his hand decisively. " They 
 are your property, of course. You can keep them or 
 throw them away, but I will not have them scattered 
 as though they were so much rubbish. Do you know 
 what happens to those ill-conditioned persons who 
 slight a gift before the giver's eyes ? " 
 
 "No; what is it? " Selene asked, laughing again 
 a little odd laugh that masked a shiver. Robins 
 looked at her, pretending to frown portentously. " I 
 cannot tell you here," he said, glancing about the 
 cramped, disordered space. " Instead, I shall come 
 some evening and tell you, when you cannot escape 
 paying me the attention the subject deserves." 
 
 " I shall have to tell the rector how you discourage 
 unselfishness," Selene said, lightly. She was still 
 trembling, but her pallor had vanished. A soft, 
 steady stain of rose burned in either cheek. Robins 
 let his eyes rest on her with a long, devouring gaze. 
 " It is odd," he said, at last. " We have known each 
 other always and are just now finding each other out. 
 How do you account for it? " 
 
 " I do not account for it because I do not know 
 it," Selene said, not trying to meet his gaze. He 
 shook his head impatiently. " Why do you fence with
 
 How It Happened. 25 
 
 me? " he said. " Something has happened to us to- 
 night. You know it as well as I." 
 
 " Let me go ! You must ! I have to change my 
 dress," Selene said, drawing away from him. She 
 was still in her royal robes. Again he caught her 
 hand, lifted it level with his head, and let his ringers 
 follow the line of her bare arm. She drew back with 
 flashing eyes. A tall screen, one of the many prop- 
 erties crowded back of the stage, cut them off from 
 other view. " I think a gentleman would hardly take 
 such advantage of time and place," she said, speaking 
 very low. He stood directly in her path, and showed 
 no inclination to step out of it. " You know I am 
 helpless," she went on, in the same hushed voice. 
 " That I will not, I cannot protest here. Now, please, 
 let me pass. See, I am keeping your flowers. I will 
 even promise not to throw them away, but to take 
 them straight home with me. " 
 
 " You are not going? " he said, decidedly. " Not 
 for two hours, that is. You must stay for the recep- 
 tion, you know. Mrs. Witherby will never forgive 
 either of us if the star of her choice Procession does 
 not show up there. " 
 
 " That shows how little you understand about mat- 
 ters of this sort," Selene said. " If Mrs. Witherby 
 remembers me at all, it will be to be glad I had sense 
 enough to go away when I was no longer useful or 
 ornamental. Oh, I am not the least bit angry over 
 it. She cannot help being what she was born, any 
 more than you or I can."
 
 26 How It Happened. 
 
 " What a lot of bad manners your doctrine would 
 saddle on our Creator," Robins said, irreverently. 
 Selene gave him a look, then moved as if to pass him. 
 He stepped aside, but only half way if she passed 
 him she must brush close to his breast. His eyes 
 were hard and bright. An unwonted red showed 
 faintly in the ivory bronze of his cheek. Seeing her 
 hesitate, he smiled and drew yet further back, beck- 
 oning her to pass. Suddenly they heard Mrs. With- 
 erby's voice, dry and rasping. She was saying 
 acidly: "Has anybody seen Mrs. Barker? I must 
 find her. You know she has a lot of jewels. I do 
 hope she knows enough to keep them safe until I can 
 get them in my hands." 
 
 " Here they are," Selene began, darting out and 
 beginning nervously to strip herself of her gauds and 
 gewgaws. Robins stepped to her side, an ugly sneer 
 on his face. He looked Mrs. Witherby squarely in 
 the eye and said, raising his voice so all could hear : 
 " Blame me for any delay in handing back the jewels, 
 Mrs. Witherby. I alone am answerable. Mrs. Bar- 
 ker has been anxious to be rid of them ever since she 
 left the stage. " Then to Selene: "You have been 
 kind enough to say I may take you home. When 
 you are ready, you will find me just outside the stage 
 door. " 
 
 Selene walked away slow and stately, her head 
 high, her eyes burning. Mrs. Witherby gasped and 
 turned to Robins. He had vanished. A scowl so 
 black settled upon her face. One onlooker said to
 
 How It Happened. 27 
 
 another, speaking low and behind his hand : " Here's 
 a tableau that does not fit into the Procession, yet I 
 will lay odds it would bring down the house." 
 
 " You're right," nodded the other. " Oh, but Sis- 
 ter Witherby is in a heavenly frame of mind. She'll 
 never forgive herself for bringing out the young 
 widow Barker so, though there is at least three hun- 
 dred dollars in the hall to-night." 
 
 Selene was coming back, still slow, still stately, 
 still with the light in her eyes. She walked straight 
 up to Mrs. Witherby and huddled a glittering mass 
 into her hands, saying : " Please let me know to-mor- 
 row if all you entrusted me with is there." Then 
 with a ceremonious bow she passed on into outer 
 darkness.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CAPRICE OR DESTINY. 
 
 A fortnight later Selene stood in her little par- 
 lor, leaning her elbow on the mantel and gazing into 
 the red depths of a glowing fire. It was late winter. 
 Outside the pavement rang under the tread of casual 
 feet, the air was crisply vital, as it has a trick of be- 
 ing when winter is on the turn of spring, and the wind 
 blew up the street and around corners with an edge 
 of steel in its teeth. 
 
 Yet the room was odorous all through with the 
 fresh sweetness of roses hothouse roses, heavy- 
 headed, loose-petaled blossoms, full sisters to those 
 which had been thrust upon Selene while she wore 
 her royal robes. They had come to her that morn- 
 ing a great boxful. Inside there was a note, which 
 ran : " No doubt you think you have escaped me. By 
 these presents learn your mistake. I am coming to- 
 night, whether or no I may, to teach you what risk 
 you run when you slight the gifts of the gods." 
 
 There was no name, but she had understood per- 
 fectly, and dropped the bold screed with a little happy 
 cry. Her heart had been yearning, hungering, won- 
 dering, all the days since their parting. He had left 
 her upon her own doorstep, pressing her hand warmly
 
 How It Happened. 29 
 
 in both his own and saying very low : " Remember 
 until I come." She had remembered ah, how faith- 
 fully ! never dreaming of doubt or mistrust when 
 his coming was delayed. Her days had been full of 
 happy unrest. Through half the night she had lain 
 staring into the darkness, filling its void with memo- 
 ries of his looks, his tones, the turn of his head, the 
 tensely thrilling clasp of his hands. 
 
 Something of maiden shyness yet clung to her. 
 She was amazed at herself because of this open de- 
 light in love. It was love. At last she knew what 
 love meant. A flood of bliss, immeasurable, unfath- 
 omable, had caught her away from her gray, lonely 
 life, and borne her into realm of faery. At last she 
 comprehended the heights and depths of the human 
 heart, the human soul, the gladness of full joy, the 
 sadness of lack and loss. The comprehension made 
 her infinitely tender toward her husband's mother. 
 The two had never jarred, but their lives had gone 
 forward in a certain subdued key, each taking the 
 other's regard upon trust and neither going to the 
 pains of letting the other see it was more than casual. 
 
 Now Selene could not endure that. She smiled 
 at her companion across the breakfast table, kissed 
 her when she went away to work, waved her a greet- 
 ing as soon as she was in sight of home, and in a 
 hundred tender, small ways made the elder woman 
 happy. Mrs. Barker was small and slight, with lit- 
 tle wisps of dry hair always blowing about her face. 
 She had a wistful sympathy with Selene's changed
 
 30 How It Happened. 
 
 mood. " Seems like you are getting ready to blos- 
 som with the flowers, daughter," she said more than 
 once when Selene broke into a snatch of song or gave 
 an especially sunshiny laugh. " I am glad of it so 
 glad," the poor mother went on. " That was Paul's 
 last thought last wish. 'Try to make my girl 
 happy, mother,' he said to me almost the very last 
 thing not an hour before he died. I have tried, but 
 somehow I'm afraid I haven't known very well how 
 to do it. I've been afraid even to love you too much 
 for fear it would not please you. " 
 
 Selene had stopped her there with kisses kisses 
 warm and fond, such as women often give their hurt 
 children, who come nearest their heart of hearts. 
 " One can never have enough love, mother," she had 
 said. " I believe God is love, and life is love. It is 
 sacrilege to even think of loving too much." 
 
 To-night she had put on a Greek gown of heavy, 
 lustreless white stuff. It fell about her in classic 
 folds that gave a new distinction to even her perfect 
 outline. Her hair made a dusky coronal above her 
 brow. There was a vivid crimson rose enmeshed in 
 it, just where the rich reflections of it would best set 
 off the creamy pallor of the forehead. Another rose, 
 as red, and richly full-blown, nestled amid the lace 
 upon her breast. Neither ribbon nor trinket marred 
 the swan-curve of the bare white neck. Indeed, the 
 only gleam of metal about her was that thrown up by 
 her wedding ring a heavy band of beaten gold, which 
 never left her finger. Mrs. Barker had looked at it
 
 How It Happened. 3 1 
 
 with humid eyes as Selene passed through the sitting 
 room on her way to the parlor. All the life left in 
 her withered frame concentrated upon the memory of 
 her son. For his memory she was bitterly jealous. 
 She would go mourning all her days, so it had seemed 
 to her impossible that Selene's heart should wake and 
 stir to a new blossoming. She had even seen the 
 change in her without comprehending it until the 
 roses came. They spoke a language she could not 
 affect to misunderstand the first word of it and the 
 last was love. 
 
 Still, she had said nothing. In all things she was 
 just. She had told herself over and over again it was 
 better so. She felt her strength ebbing yearly. A 
 little while Selene would be alone. It was better, 
 ever so much better, that she should form new ties, 
 make for herself the potentiality of a new home, when 
 the old one, safe and narrow, was both desolate and 
 impossible. Her pension as an officer's widow (Colo- 
 nel Barker had died at the head of his men in the 
 fighting before Richmond) was much more than half 
 their maintenance. She wondered a little if she had 
 not been wrong in not letting Paul go to take his 
 father's vacant place. He had been wild to do it, but 
 he had seemed to her so young only sixteen, though 
 of man's full stature she had clung to him and 
 kissed him, and besought him, until he had agreed to 
 stay at home. 
 
 If he had gone, there might have been a pension 
 for his widow. Somehow, though he had not lacked
 
 32 How It Happened. 
 
 brains or industry, he had never got nearer success 
 than the promise of it. He was himself so open, so 
 honest, so steadfast, it did not occur to him that other 
 men who made fair weather to his face could be less 
 so. He had trusted them to his hurt again and 
 again, without ever learning the lesson of suspicion. 
 It was his mother who grew angry and said bitter 
 things of his ill-users. He gave them the tolerant 
 charity of silence when all other charity was impos- 
 sible. 
 
 Selene's father had been his closest friend, and 
 Selene herself he had loved from babyhood. When 
 he married her, he had deemed himself on the high 
 road to fortune fortune which he coveted mainly 
 for her sake. As simply his ward, society would 
 not let him love and care for her ; as his wife, he 
 could give her without let or hindrance all that her 
 beauty- worshiping nature craved. 
 
 Death is sometimes a crowning mercy. It was 
 certainly so in the case of Paul Barker. He had died 
 quickly almost painlessly just one day too soon 
 to know that the venture in which he had risked 
 everything had come to naught. Selene had knelt 
 beside him, sobbing as a child sobs, with his failing 
 fingers threading her silken hair. But his eyes had 
 lifted with their last light to his mother's faded blue 
 ones, and the glance was at once an entreaty and a 
 benediction. 
 
 " I must not grudge her happiness, no matter how 
 it comes," the mother repeated inly, as the door shut
 
 How It Happened. 33 
 
 behind Selene. She did not know who had sent the 
 roses. Selene had been delightfully vague in her 
 tale of the Procession and her own triumph in it. 
 Lochiel Robins' name would have deepened Mrs. Bar- 
 ker's heartache to apprehension. Socially she was 
 far wiser and more learned than her daughter. She 
 knew that though the Barkers and Robins were born 
 equals, both of that lustier New England stock which 
 had transplanted itself for the peopling of the North- 
 west, there had come a great change since the time 
 of the Civil War, in which Lochiel Robins' father 
 made a fortune. Ever since his wife (Robins' mother) 
 had held herself very high not, it is true, cutting 
 her old familiar friends outright, but treating them 
 with a distant, icy friendliness, much harder to en- 
 dure than an actual slight. She had joined with Mrs. 
 Witherby in ruling Barcelona's upper crust until the 
 town spread and grew beyond their domination. 
 
 Still they kept rein over their own faction of its 
 social world. It was well-nigh an absolute despotism. 
 Robins himself rebelled against it now and then 
 only, and never, it was said, very successfully. Oddly 
 enough, he had married to please himself, in spite of 
 strong opposition from both his social arbiters. Still 
 more oddly, his wife had very soon conquered a peace 
 with them. She had been a slender, fair-haired 
 woman, with insolently beautiful blue eyes and a lan- 
 guid, creamy voice, who had not hesitated to flount 
 openly the best of Barcelona, or to let it be known 
 how immeasurably inferior, in her opinion, Barcelona
 
 34 How It Happened. 
 
 and Barcelonians were to everything in her native 
 East. 
 
 Yet she had not cared to live there. " We should 
 only be part of the people," she had explained, lan- 
 guidly. " Here we are the people. " If her meaning 
 was not plain to the listener, she had not cared to 
 elucidate it. Her husband had never been quite sure 
 whether he most loved or hated her. There had been 
 scenes from almost the first week of the honeymoon. 
 More than once he had gone away vowing inly it was 
 for good. But he had always come back before very 
 long, drawn by the triple chain of habit, association, 
 and affection. 
 
 His father had died just as he came out of college. 
 Ever since the weight of great concerns had rested 
 upon him, not crushingly, but with a sort of steadying 
 force. Semi -occasionally he liked being a man of 
 affairs. At other times, in the depths of his own 
 conscience, he was honest enough to face the convic- 
 tion that living meant to him pleasing himself. 
 Whatever he craved that he set himself to gain, not 
 regardless of who might suffer by the gaining, but in 
 the manner that should make his gratification of least 
 offense to his world. 
 
 For example, occasionally there fell on him a mad- 
 ness for gaming. For a while he let it gnaw ; then, 
 when the desire became so acute there was a certain 
 exquisite delight in the pain of it, he went away to 
 one of the great cities, searched out some game of 
 hazard, and won and lost, until he no longer cared
 
 How It Happened. 35 
 
 for the pastime. Wine did not appeal to him. He 
 was too full-blooded, too possessed of a spirit ap- 
 proximating the glow of intoxication ; but if he had 
 chosen to drink, he would have done it after the same 
 contained and self-protective fashion. As to women, 
 specifications are needless. Given a man of such 
 temperament, celibate or widowed, and the common- 
 est understanding can supply probabilities. 
 
 Something of all this Mrs. Barker knew through 
 her dead son's confidences confidences he had never 
 dreamed of giving to Selene's young ears. Though 
 Paul was ten years the older, he had chanced to know 
 Robins better than the mass. The two had not been 
 closer than surface friends Paul's mother, indeed, 
 was his only intimate but he had liked Robins after 
 a sort, and discussed him as a type rather than an in- 
 dividual, saying sometimes : " Robins seems to me 
 to be a revival, a reversion to the old Puritan buc- 
 caneers, who sat in meeting and sang devoutly, be- 
 tween whiles the voyages they made on the high 
 seas to plunder and to slay. He has the primal 
 human instincts, hot and strong underneath his veneer 
 of Puritan descent and college training. He would 
 not outrage the veneer for his right hand. He is as 
 far from giving in upon any point where he has set 
 his heart. A moral whirlwind even could not take 
 him out of himself. He might die for a thing which 
 he believed to be right, but the dying would have to 
 be done strictly in accord with the conventions of his 
 own mind."
 
 36 How It Happened. 
 
 Human judgments are errant. Paul Barker per- 
 haps had seen no deeper than his fellow-men. Cer- 
 tainly there was nothing sinister in the look of Lochiel 
 Robins as he stood upon the Barker steps pulling at 
 the asthmatic bell. It sent a feeble tinkle through 
 the resounding spaces inside, but no noise of steps 
 came after for the space of a minute. Robins smiled 
 at the delay. As it lengthened by another minute 
 his smile grew merrier. He made no effort to ring 
 again. When at last Selene opened the door, keep- 
 ing herself shielded by the leaf of it, he slipped in- 
 side, saying, with no pretense of greeting : " I know 
 all about it. You thought I had waited so long it 
 would not hurt to make me wait a minute longer." 
 
 " You are quite right," Selene said, a dimpling 
 smile playing about her mouth. " In fact, I had seri- 
 ous doubts as to whether I should or should not make 
 you wait always." 
 
 " Indeed," he said, taking both her hands in his. 
 "There is a story back of that waiting.. Come and 
 let me tell it to you, then you yourself shall say what 
 it means caprice or destiny? "
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MEASURE OF LOVE. 
 
 " Are you sure, perfectly sure, you are quite right 
 in your mind? " Selene said, affecting to look at him 
 anxiously as they came into the lighted parlor. He 
 still held the hand he had taken, and stooped to catch 
 the other. The action brought them face to face. 
 He studied her a breath's space, then caught her to 
 him and kissed her twice, saying in her ear : " Wicked 
 one, I see you mean to make sport of me yet you 
 know, quite as I know, the blessed truth." 
 
 " Let me go ! " Selene said, drawing away from 
 him. " You have no right " 
 
 " Must our love be measured by the hours of our 
 acquaintance ? " he asked, pretending to frown at her. 
 " Sit down here, you rebellious person. Do you not 
 know it is wicked to waste our minutes together our 
 precious minutes in vain contentions ? " 
 
 " O, me ! I wonder who is contending ? " Selene 
 said, sitting down as far from him as possible, her 
 hands primly folded in her lap. For a minute he 
 stood, leaning upon the mantel, looking down at her 
 and affecting to see only vacancy. " I came in search 
 of a queen, my soul's queen," he said. " I left her 
 here only a little while back. Where can she be hid- 
 ing?"
 
 38 How It Happened. 
 
 " Maybe you had better call in the police," Selene 
 said, with eyes of meek innocence. She was fighting 
 as woman fights her last desperate fight against the 
 thrilling, overwhelming flood that sweeps her from 
 all hold of herself. She had all a modest woman's 
 pride ; she did not wish to seem too light, too easily 
 won. All he had spoken her heart had echoed in 
 gracious gladness. She was throbbing through and 
 through in the bliss of love acknowledged and re- 
 turned, yet some instinct rose up within her to stay 
 the acknowledgment of full surrender. 
 
 " O, but you are wicked ! " he said, bending to take 
 her face in his hands. " You leave to those eyes all 
 the task of saying you are glad of my coming. Tell 
 me so now with your lips, else I shall never let you 
 
 go." 
 
 Selene shook her head and smiled. She dared not 
 trust herself to speak. Her voice would be one 
 tremor of joy she was even afraid there would be 
 tears in it. He sat down at her side and drew her 
 head to his breast. " Be quiet ! You know you be- 
 long to me, " he said, imperatively. " We were born 
 for each other, and have wasted ever so many years 
 in finding out the fact. We will not waste another 
 one. Darling, darling, do you think there is a power 
 on earth that can keep us apart ? " 
 
 In answer her hand crept shyly to his cheek. He 
 drew the arm about his neck, and buried his lips in 
 her hair. His arms clasped her convulsively. " At 
 last I have found my queen," he whispered, his
 
 How It Happened. 39 
 
 voice a low, shaken whisper. " My queen, who loves 
 even as she is loved. That is only justice, sweet- 
 heart. Now, for two weeks I have endured the tor- 
 ment of the damned all for your sweet sake. " 
 
 "Why did you stay away?" Selene asked. He 
 put her face a little away so he could look full into 
 her eyes, as he answered: "Because I had to be 
 sure. " 
 
 " I do not quite understand," she began, trying to 
 draw herself away. He held her fast, saying, with 
 a grim laugh : " Of course, she does not understand. 
 The demons of pain and passion have not laid hold 
 on her." Then quickly and softly : " It was this way, 
 darling when you took possession of me I was like 
 a man dazed. It was so new, so strange, I could 
 hardly believe it. I am no saint even to you I 
 shall not try to pose as one. I thought I knew every 
 phase of passional attraction of what men call love. 
 This this enchantment was none of them. I was 
 bewitched, taken out of, away from my usual self. 
 You made the world. All I felt, or thought, or knew 
 clearly, was a wild desire, a restless longing to seek 
 you, to make you my own, and carry you away from 
 all the world. I had got back to primal human in- 
 stincts. Adam perhaps felt so for his Eve. The 
 cave-dwellers, I make no doubt, had the same fierce 
 and consuming passion for the mates they won in 
 fight. You see, I am glazing nothing. It is my be- 
 lief that in the beginning souls and bodies are created 
 dual units one-half male, the other female. We are
 
 40 How It Happened. 
 
 the parts of such a unit. The miracle is that we 
 should have not known it sooner. I cannot get over 
 that it was the thing that made me doubt and led 
 me to test our love by putting a thousand miles be- 
 tween us. " 
 
 " I am better than you. I never doubted," Selene 
 whispered, hiding her face in his breast as she spoke. 
 He kissed her twice and went on : " You knew 
 women always know. But for your sake I had to be 
 quite sure. I said to myself: 'If the city can dis- 
 pel this witchery, I will let it do it. If time can 
 weaken it, if distance can dull it, then I may live, 
 lacking this woman. She is not supreme. I will 
 see if her empire is over my soul or only over eager 
 and craving senses " 
 
 He stopped, put her gently out of his arms, got 
 up and walked the room's length two or three times. 
 When he came back to her, he was pale and quiet, 
 his face drawn, his voice a little husky. " What need 
 to tell the rest ? " he said, " except that you held 
 me through everything. Your eyes shone between 
 me and the gayest spectacle ; your face rose before 
 me like dawnrise when I was satiate with venal 
 charms. I had to come back to come back to my 
 own. You cannot send me away. " 
 
 Selene was sobbing softly, her face hidden in her 
 hands. After a little while he took the hands gently 
 from her face and kissed the humid eyes. " Sweet- 
 heart, these are the last tears you shall shed for me," 
 he said. " I shall remember them always as the dia-
 
 How It Happened. 41 
 
 monds of my soul, the most precious of all created 
 things. " 
 
 "They are distilled from my love as the dew is 
 distilled from the night," Selene said softly. "In- 
 deed, I do love you. No, you did not make me do it 
 not any more than I made you. It must be fate, 
 I I am so happy I am almost frightened it 
 seems too good to last," the words coming hardly 
 above her breath. 
 
 " It shall last ! " he cried, with a low, triumphant 
 laugh, again catching her to him. " Hush ! I will 
 have no ifs and buts," he went on. "The semblance 
 of doubt, even, is sacrilege. You are mine, mine, 
 mine, to have and to hold, so long as life en- 
 dures." 
 
 Silence fell upon them silence unbroken save by 
 the loud beating of two hearts. Through long, bliss- 
 ful minutes he held her close, his lips now and then 
 touching her forehead or burying themselves in the 
 waxen softness of her cheek. Time and the world 
 were not for those two. From heart to heart there 
 ran the subtle sweetness which can transfigure min- 
 utes into eternities make the narrowest confines 
 as gorgeously wide as the universe. Love, the vital 
 root of all that is, had sprung up for each at the 
 glance of an eye into a rare and perfect fulness 
 of blossom, whose breath was the true breath of 
 heaven. 
 
 By and by Selene stirred a little and looked up 
 into his face. " It is all so strange, so wonderful ! "
 
 42 How It Happened. 
 
 she said. " How can it all have happened, when we 
 had been passing each other by all these years and 
 years? " 
 
 "Love is the crown of mystery as of blessing," 
 Robins said, thoughtfully. " I have asked myself 
 the same question over and over. The one possible 
 answer is the psychological moment. Something 
 awoke your soul it looked out of your eyes and 
 my soul recognized it. Darling, I hope you will 
 never look again as you did just then, when my 
 heart went down in the dust at your feet." 
 
 " Indeed ! Why ? I wish I might look so always 
 for you," Selene said, a little wistfully. Robins 
 laughed and kissed her again. " If you could," he 
 said, " then I should be forced to turn Turk, and keep 
 you forever veiled and behind barred doors. I can- 
 not bear even to think of another man seeing in you 
 what I saw and being roused by it to something like 
 the same emotion." 
 
 "There is no danger," Selene said, simply. "I 
 suppose I am a little bit good looking but nobody 
 beside you ever found me beautiful. I am glad I am 
 not outright ugly ugliness of every sort is such a 
 mistake." 
 
 " Yet you would be ugly, disfigure yourself, for my 
 sake ? " Robins said, not as though asking a question, 
 but after the manner of one stating a fact. Selene 
 sat up and looked thoughtful a minute, then said, 
 slowly : " Yes ! I would do even that to give you 
 peace of mind. But you will never need to ask it.
 
 How It Happened. 43 
 
 I doubt if anybody else will ever give me more than 
 a casual look." 
 
 " How very modest we are, all at once," Robins 
 said, laughing softly. " Selene, Selene, are you play- 
 ing innocent, or have you truly been so wrapt in your 
 own worlds of faery you do not know ? " 
 
 " Know what ? " Selene asked, leaning a little back 
 and locking her hands behind her dusky head. 
 
 " That you are one of the most dangerously beauti- 
 ful creatures in all the world," he said. " Once a 
 man begins to perceive it, he has no chance whatever. 
 It is not of the outflashing type, which stuns and 
 warns. Instead, it steals unawares upon you, with 
 the softest, the most subtle allurements. Back in 
 the dark ages you might have been hanged for witch- 
 craft. Do you know that, sweetheart? If you do 
 not, learn it now and walk warily in the knowledge. 
 I may not be patient always with this enchantment. 
 Some day I may try you with bell, book and candle, 
 to see if it be true Christian woman's magic, or if you 
 will fly away in a flash of sulphurous flame." 
 
 Selene gave him a happy glance bird-like and 
 liquid as she answered : " If I practiced the black art, 
 there are other people and things that would disap- 
 pear not my poor self." 
 
 " O, me ! I did not dream you were so vindictive," 
 Robins said, smiling. "Tell me, who are those peo- 
 ple and what are those things ? " 
 
 "The people let me see!" Selene said, reflect- 
 ively. "They are not so very many; only Squire
 
 44 How It Happened. 
 
 Waite, who is so hard on the poor folk in his mill 
 cottages you will admit Barcelona could very well 
 spare him and Tobe Rickets, who breaks up birds' 
 nests, and chases homeless dogs, and well, yes, and 
 Mrs. Witherby. Perhaps I ought not to hate her, but 
 I do. It gives me a chill to pass her on the street 
 since she insulted me so that night." 
 
 " I see you would make a discriminating reformer," 
 Robins said, again laughing. " Barcelona would be 
 a better place to live in if you were its benevolent 
 despot. Go on ; tell me about the things. Which 
 of them would you eliminate first ? " 
 
 " The library so I could not possibly have to 
 keep it," Selene answered, promptly. " You can nev- 
 er know the weariness of it the routine, the endless 
 questions people ask, the mistakes they make, and 
 the reflex ones I make. Books are good things, but, 
 like women, I think, they should have their own 
 homes and be kept forever in them." 
 
 " Poor, precious sweetheart ! " he said, lifting her 
 hand to his cheek. " Her slavery is almost ended. 
 I will not let that go on a day longer than I can 
 help?" 
 
 A heavy, halting step sounded upon the narrow 
 flagged walk, and a fumbling hand pulled the asth- 
 matic bell. Selene sprang up, but sat down precipi- 
 tate. Mrs. Barker had opened the door; she heard 
 the caller stump inside and pass on to the sitting 
 room. The next minute there was a tap at the door, 
 and Mrs. Barker said, not looking within : " Excuse
 
 How It Happened. 45 
 
 me, Selene; Squire Waite is here. He says he 
 must see you a minute upon urgent business." 
 
 " Be sure you come back soon," Robins said at the 
 door. He had walked to it with his arm about Se- 
 lene's waist. She turned and held up her lips for a 
 kiss, smiling and blushing like a rose in June. As 
 the door shut behind her, she shivered violently. 
 For a half-minute she stood still, her breath coming 
 fast. Then she hurried across the narrow hall and 
 on to the sitting-room hearth. Squire Waite stood 
 upon it, fingering his hat with heavily gloved fingers, 
 his back to the fire and his legs contentiously wide 
 apart. He was a trustee of the library. Its estab- 
 lishment, indeed, was largely his work, though but 
 little of his money had gone into it. Still he had 
 much to say in its management, chiefly because, hav- 
 ing retired from active business, he had heaps of time 
 to potter with and pry into small affairs. He had 
 resisted all Mrs. Barker's hospitable solicitations to 
 seat himself. Selene knew that meant he had some- 
 thing disagreeable to say. He greeted her with a 
 smile, that changed almost to a snarl as his eye took 
 in the effect of her picturesque costume. His mouth 
 hardened, his glance lost its furtive droop. He held 
 up his head severely, and said, with almost no pre- 
 tense of salutation : " I thought I'd better come and 
 tell you right off, Miss Selene. The trustees had 
 a meeting to-night and resolved on some changes. 
 Quite considerable changes, ye may say. Fact is, 
 they amount to this : Yereafter the hours'll be from
 
 46 How It Happened. 
 
 four in the aft'noon to nine at night. Ye see, it's 
 mainly for the mill folks, and they ain't got daylight 
 to spare. Now, you've give so far well, we'll say 
 middling satisfaction, but we made up our minds to- 
 night that in the fuchyer, with men and boys coming 
 in, and all that, the lib'arian had ought to be a 
 man " 
 
 "I quite agree with you," Selene said, clearly. 
 " Have you come to give me notice, or shall I stay 
 away at once ? " 
 
 " O ! Notice, of course," the Squire said, begin- 
 ning to shuffle his feet. " The new hours don't begin 
 for a month, and then, too, we've got to find our 
 man. "
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE KINGDOM IS READY. 
 
 " O, Selene ! What shall we do ? " Mrs. Barker 
 asked with white, dry lips as Squire Waite shuffled 
 away. Selene flung up her head. She had fighting 
 blood, a hot Highland strain, coming true and undi- 
 luted from a Scotch great-grandfather, who had fought 
 for bonny Prince Charlie. Besides, she was too 
 happy to feel any sting or arrow of earthly existence. 
 She looked straight into the fire a minute, then said, 
 her lips curling faintly : " Do ! We shall do excel- 
 lently, mother ! I was never quite so glad of any- 
 thing as to be rid of my old-man-of-the-sea. I shall 
 easily find something better. Of course, I cannot 
 help but feel contempt for the way these people have 
 managed. If they had said a word to me, I would 
 have told them I thought their plan a good one, and 
 would gladly make way for the man of their choice. 
 But to meet in secret ! O, how I hate creeping, 
 crawling things ! But never mind, dear ! We will 
 not waste breath or lose sleep over them. Run away 
 to bed and let me bring you a cup of hot milk. I 
 dare say Mr. Robins will be going soon then I can 
 Jock up." 
 
 "Robins! Is it Lochiel Robins?" Mrs. Barker
 
 48 How It Happened. 
 
 almost gasped. " Selene, darling child ; beware ! 
 O, do have a care. You know how he is situated 
 and even if he broke his promise his mother would 
 never make you welcome." 
 
 " Mother, mother, what a disconsolate little person 
 you are! Do not borrow trouble! Do not, I en- 
 treat," Selene said, putting her arms about the 
 elder woman, and hiding the wrinkled face in her 
 breast. " As yet I cannot tell you anything, but 
 this you must believe : Whatever happens to me, and 
 many things may happen, I shall never forget that I 
 was Paul's wife or that he thought me good enough 
 to be your daughter. If I am good enough for that, 
 then I am equal to anything. Only love me, dear, 
 and trust then all will be well. " 
 
 Mrs. Barker began to sob dry, choking sobs that 
 made Selene shiver. For a minute she stood irreso- 
 lute, then gently pushed the weeping woman down 
 into an easy- chair and turned toward the door. Mrs. 
 Barker clutched her hand and said, brokenly : " Bear 
 with me a little while daughter. All my thought 
 all my care, is for you." 
 
 " I know it. Do not cry, mother ! Do not ! You 
 break my heart," Selene said, lightly stroking the 
 bowed head. It lifted beneath her hand. Mrs. Bar- 
 ker got to her feet, and said, almost steadily : " Go 
 back now; back to your lover," choking a little over 
 the word. " Forgive me if I have saddened you when 
 you were so happy. Good- night. I am going to pray 
 God to keep and guard my child."
 
 How It Happened. 49 
 
 A lump rose in Selene's throat. She could not 
 speak, but with a quick, close kiss hurried away. She 
 found Robins pacing the parlor back and forth like 
 a caged animal. "You have been gone eternities," 
 he said ; then, after a sharp look, " and you have left 
 yourself behind. What has happened? Tell me! 
 Quick ! " 
 
 While she told him his face cleared magically. 
 "That is good news the very best, " he said. "I 
 was wondering how I could end all that. It is quite 
 out of the question your staying there, where you 
 would be the prey of curious eyes and gossiping 
 tongues." 
 
 " I hate both, but have no reason to fear either," 
 Selene said a little proudly. " Please the good Lord, 
 I never shall have. I myself am glad of the change 
 only I wish it had not come quite so unexpectedly. 
 Mother is disturbed over it. I can see that very 
 plainly. Not so much for the money, though I do 
 not deny it has been a help, but because she thinks 
 it shows I have made enemies " 
 
 " What if you have ? Leave me to take care of 
 them," Robins said, slipping his arms about her. 
 Selene shrank ever so slightly, and said, turning 
 away her head : " She thinks it is because of you I 
 have made them. I am not sure but that she is right. 
 What do you say? " 
 
 "That she is right," Robins said, promptly. 
 " Mrs. Witherby but there is no need to explain. 
 
 You saw and heard her that night suffice it that 
 4
 
 50 How It Happened. 
 
 Mrs. Witherby is potent in Barcelona; likewise she 
 has a tongue. It is partly my fault, all this, so you 
 must leave to me wholly the remedying of things. I 
 provoked her. After I had left you, I went back. 
 Mother Witherby took me to task for my absence 
 rated me, in fact, as though I had been her lackey. 
 ' Where have you been, Robins?' she asked as she 
 caught sight of me. I thought I could depend on 
 you to help me to the last.' ' Oh, ' said I, ' I have been 
 helping you. I could not possibly let young Mrs. 
 Barker go away feeling that she had got into a crowd 
 where not one soul had the least comprehension of 
 good breeding.' I said it right out loud, too, where 
 a dozen people heard it. As she could not discip- 
 line me for my insolence, she has thought up this 
 way of taking her revenge on you. The Christian 
 virtues as practiced by the Witherby standard are apt 
 to make a normal and natural man sigh for a few un- 
 Christian ones." 
 
 "I understand," Selene said, with a soft, slow 
 smile. "But are you sure, quite sure, it is not to 
 spite Mrs. Witherby that you are here ? " 
 
 " You are worse than a heathen and a heretic to 
 even suspect such a thing," Robins retorted. "You 
 must do penance for your sins. Sit down ; no, not 
 there over in that dark high-backed chair, and let me 
 look at you without speaking for full ten minutes." 
 
 '"There was silence in heaven for the space of 
 half an hour,' " Selene quoted, mischievously. " I see 
 you are bent on finding out whether or no, as some
 
 How It Happened. 51 
 
 people claim, that text proves that there are no women 
 there." 
 
 " Will you be quiet very quiet ? " Robins de- 
 manded, seating her in the chair and placing her arms 
 to suit himself. As he laid one of them down, he 
 stooped and kissed the round, blue-veined wrist, then 
 wheeled and almost ran to the farthest window, where 
 he stood for some minutes staring blankly at the mirk 
 outside. When he came back, his face was set. 
 
 " I shall have to get away," he said, impatiently, 
 glancing at his watch. " All I can say now is trust 
 me. Do nothing, say nothing, believe nothing 
 until I come again." 
 
 In a flash he was out of the room, the house, leav- 
 ing Selene a figure of disquiet beside the fading fire. 
 
 Half an hour later she was in her own small room 
 looking intently at her image in the old-fashioned, 
 black-framed mirror above her equally old-fashioned 
 chest of drawers. It had been her grandmother's 
 and was one of the few bits remaining to her from 
 the home she scarcely remembered. She had played 
 with its brasses ever since she could toddle. The 
 mirror had pictured her in her first long dress, with 
 her hair put up to mask her extreme youth. It had 
 held her image a bride and the image showed her 
 the same face framed sombrely in widow's weeds. 
 Somehow it seemed to her a companion. She was 
 glad that she could look into its friendly depths and 
 see for the first time her countenance transfigured and 
 love illumined.
 
 52 How It Happened. 
 
 " O, but I am pretty now," she said to herself, 
 smiling and lifting her round white arms so their 
 whiteness framed her face. " I never thought so be- 
 fore. I am sure, indeed, I was never so. It is the 
 inner light the reflected glory. Robins, my darl- 
 ing, how can I wait to see you ? I wonder will you 
 come to-morrow. You cannot be so cruel as to wait 
 until next day. I wonder what would happen if if 
 you did not come at all ? O God, spare me that trial. 
 If I am idolatrous of Thy creature, give my idolatry 
 some other punishment." 
 
 A strange and sudden heaviness fell upon her. 
 It was not the heaviness of sleep, yet as soon as her 
 head touched the pillow her eyelids dropped over her 
 eyes, and her tense breathing became soft and full. 
 She was sleeping yet awake. Gradually she lost 
 sense of her surroundings, or, rather, they seemed to 
 melt and change wholly. The old mirror lost its 
 black frame and changed to one set in ivory and sup- 
 ported upon rods of beaten gold. The room itself 
 had spread and spread until she could barely distin- 
 guish upon its distant walls the shimmer of rich 
 stuffs changing through every tender hue. Now they 
 shone pink as the dawn, now dusk as the twilight, 
 now sea-green as summer waves, or of the radiant 
 blue of summer skies. Suffusions of gray and pur- 
 ple and rosy lavender played over the deeper tints. 
 Now and again the gleam of a jewel ruby, ame- 
 thyst, emerald, sapphire, chrysophrase cleft as with 
 a sword-thrust the changing hues. The jewels were
 
 How It Happened. 53 
 
 thick toward the ceiling. It was of vapor-white 
 studded magically with little scintillant stars. Un- 
 derneath them everywhere mist-white draperies waved 
 and hovered in softly scented breezes. They fell 
 down like the foam of fairy cataracts upon a floor of 
 white marble overlaid with rich rugs. A magnificent 
 tiger skin, the head glaring as though alive, lay in 
 the foreground. Upon it there was a chair, throne- 
 shaped, and all over gold, with a golden footstool be- 
 fore it. A shadowy figure stood back of it, with arm 
 outheld as though to place upon the head of whoever 
 might sit upon the throne a crown of thorns, massy 
 and rusted, and dripping at the points with blood. 
 
 Chilled and shaking with horror, Selene saw her- 
 self in the golden mirror advance toward the chair. 
 Her image was robed in the same mist-white of the 
 draperies. It seemed to be translucent. She could 
 see clearly as it passed the mysterious flickering lights 
 playing upon the tinted walls beyond. Slowly it en- 
 circled about the throne, now advancing, now retreat- 
 ing, and always the eyes of the dusk figure holding 
 the crown of thorns burned and blazed, though it 
 made no movement of invitation. 
 
 No sound came, but Selene was somehow aware of 
 the words : " Enter in. The kingdom is ready. It 
 is the kingdom of soul and sense." She was con- 
 scious, too, of a mad yearning to sit in the seat and 
 wear the crown of thorns, pressing them down until 
 they dripped afresh with her blood. The lights grew 
 and strengthened. All the intolerable splendors
 
 54 How It Happened. 
 
 pressed upon her, almost overwhelming her. She 
 could not take away her eyes, but lay trembling, pant- 
 ing, wild to spring up and claim the crown, yet some- 
 how mysteriously withheld. The transparent other- 
 self began to fade, to draw back, as though coming 
 into herself. She gave a little cry, and raised her 
 eyes to the dark, hovering figure. It stood now for 
 the first time full in the flooding light. It smiled 
 grimly; its eyes were full of brooding fire. They 
 seemed to pierce her very soul, to draw her in spite 
 of herself, away from life, from earth, from compre- 
 hension. Looking into them she gave a wild scream. 
 In their fire she had at last recognized the soul of 
 her lover, Lochiel Robins. 
 
 The shrill cry broke her trance. She sprang up in 
 bed, and put out her arms imploringly. For a min- 
 ute she could not breathe, could not speak, could not 
 even shape a mental prayer. Her face ran cold 
 sweat, her hands were clinched, every nerve and 
 muscle in her vibrating as in the relaxing of deadly 
 strain. 
 
 She fell back on the pillow sobbing wildly. 
 "Robins! Robins!" she moaned. "You called 
 me ! I tried to come. I do not dread the crown of 
 thorns if you plant them on my brow. O my love, 
 my life, what does it mean ? What can it mean ? "
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RESOLUTION. 
 
 A man who prevails against any set foe is often 
 conquered by his environment. Lochiel Robins had 
 in large measure the instinct of dominance, of leader- 
 ship. He felt, and truly, that no man, no aggrega- 
 tion of men, indeed, in all Barcelona could stand suc- 
 cessfully against him. In local matters he spoke, 
 and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. 
 This was partly by inheritance. His father had 
 virtually held the town in the hollow of his hand. 
 The son had been wise enough to recognize very 
 early in his career that the indispensable condition 
 of continuing leadership is the ability to direct the 
 current of prevailing impulse rather than to contra- 
 vene it. 
 
 That is to say, he knew that Barcelona accepted 
 him, deferred to him, chiefly because of this un- 
 spoken, intuitive conviction that Barcelona at bottom 
 controlled him. He was its strongest man intellectu- 
 ally, financially, politically, yet his strength was as 
 weakness compared to the might of its own mass. It 
 had a subdued yet solid pride in his riches, his attain- 
 ments, his social eminence, even his necessary frail- 
 ties the decent and well -masked transgressions of a
 
 56 How It Happened. 
 
 gentleman. He was a sort of radical sign, express- 
 ing to the commonwealth at large the type of Barce- 
 lona's achievements and civilization. 
 
 Self-love in the sense of small vanities, he had 
 none. But he did love very dearly the quality of con- 
 sequence he perceived in himself. Until he fell 
 under Selene's sway it had been the keenest and most 
 vital of his emotions all the more keen and vital 
 that it was unacknowledged. He found himself now 
 in a curious, an irritating position. Fate had pre- 
 cipitated a crisis, and he was inadequate. A better 
 man, or a worse, would have met and mastered it. 
 
 He loved Selene so madly, so entirely, the bare 
 thought of life without her was appalling desolation. 
 But how bring her into his life, held and bound as 
 he was to the living and dead ! His mother, he knew, 
 would not openly break with him, but she would draw 
 aside, and look unutterable things in a fashion en- 
 tirely maddening. Then there was his little child ! 
 A girl, he held, was very largely what her home made 
 her. He had no right to give this girl an atmosphere 
 of frost, and heart-burnings, and perpetual silent 
 strife. Clearly, he was answerable to his child, even 
 more than to his mother or even to her mother. 
 
 Her mother! He always stopped there in his 
 tumultuous meditations. The dead woman's eyes 
 seemed to swim before him the mouth he remem- 
 bered so well to smile whimsical scorn. He could 
 feel the thought back of them satiric thought of 
 his perfidy. Constance had not been of an exalted
 
 How It Happened. 57 
 
 soul, but she had read human nature shrewdly, 
 especially masculine human nature. Even when he 
 made her the promise she had smiled as she smiled 
 in his mind now and said, faintly : " I am sure 
 you will keep that at least six months." 
 
 Outside his family was his world. There he must 
 face open revolt. Selene would never fit into it. 
 Her nature, like her figure, was too large, and sim- 
 ple, and freely natural, to submit to the crampings of 
 its narrow conventions. For, though the great world 
 has its conventions they are, indeed, as widespread 
 as the human race those conventions are airy and 
 elastic compared with the rigid regulations of aspir- 
 ing provincial places. Selene had been always in 
 Barcelona, but not of it. She was past the formative 
 stage now, and though she did not wholly lack adap- 
 tation, it was idle to hope that she could so far change 
 herself as to accept its straight restrictions and de- 
 vious enlargements. 
 
 Barcelona likewise would be as far fiom accepting 
 her. More, it would resent bitterly her elevation to 
 the ranks of its leaders. Politically, it was, as a com- 
 munity, intensely Republican, but the Republican- 
 ism stopped short of social life. There, if lines of 
 class and caste lacked open and verbal recognition, 
 they were, none the less, strictly drawn and main- 
 tained. True, the lines ran sinuously. It would have 
 puzzled the keenest student of social conditions to 
 say why they included certain individuals, and left 
 others to the casual lay mind much more desirable
 
 58 How It Happened. 
 
 out in the cold. Money, though a very consider- 
 able factor, was not indispensable, any more than it 
 was a talisman an open sesame. 
 
 Selene was of the excluded just why nobody could 
 say. Her mother had been a farmer's daughter, her 
 father a promising young inventor. Both had died 
 when she was a tiny child, leaving her to the care of 
 Paul Barker and his mother. By birth and blood 
 the Barkers were entitled to hold up their heads with 
 the best, yet, what with bereavement and misfortune, 
 they had let themselves get in a way of being over- 
 looked. Though town gossip was keenly cognizant 
 of them and their affairs, the town's invitation lists 
 knew them not. Paul's marriage had evoked com- 
 ment enough his death so quickly following some- 
 thing approaching sympathy for those he left behind. 
 Out of the sympathy, and certain nebulous stirring in 
 the breasts of their fellow parishioners in St. Ignatius, 
 there had come the offer of the place at the library. 
 Selene had taken it when her year of mourning ended, 
 all unconscious that in the taking she had put herself 
 farther than ever outside the social pale. It set her, 
 indeed, very near the level of the mill girls, who were 
 well understood to be nearly on a par with Barce- 
 lona's kitchen maids. 
 
 All these things and many more seethed through 
 Lochiel Robins' brain as he tossed and writhed in bed 
 on the night after he had left Selene. He was not 
 a profane man, yet for hours he muttered curses 
 upon life and life's hamperings of circumstances.
 
 How It Happened. 59 
 
 He could see no clean way out yet such a way there 
 must be. As the city clocks struck four, he clinched 
 his hands, crying out : " Damn it ! I will have her ! 
 She is mine! She shall stay mine. The whole 
 world shall know it before another night ! " 
 
 Just then some one rapped violently on his door 
 Perkins, his little girl's nurse, called through it : " If 
 you please, Mr. Robins, madam, your mother, has a 
 bad turn. She says will you please get up. I have 
 already sent for the doctor." 
 
 " It is my heart, Robins I have been afraid of it 
 this long time," his mother said, brokenly, when he 
 had rushed to her bedside. " No, there is no danger 
 now," answering the question in his eyes. " I am 
 better, but I do not want another attack if a doctor 
 can keep me from it." 
 
 Soon the doctor came bustling in keen-eyed and 
 cold under a suave, professional exterior. After half 
 an hour, which had seemed to Robins a year, the doc- 
 tor drew him aside to say : " So far the mischief is 
 not serious. The danger lies in a recurrence of the 
 attack. If we can guard against that for a couple of 
 years, there will be no danger at all. You must keep 
 your mother quiet and tranquil. Any exertion, any 
 excitement, may cost her her life, or, if not that, her 
 health. Once let this functional weakness of the 
 heart become well established and she will live in the 
 very shadow of death." 
 
 Robins nodded silently, his lips compressed to a 
 bloodless line. The doctor went on : " In such cases
 
 60 How It Happened. 
 
 care is much more than medicine in fact, it is the 
 only medicine worth mention. I have prescribed a 
 mild tonic and light exercise. After a little, I advise 
 change of scene. Nothing violent, you understand 
 a little journey by easy stages, and, if possible, in 
 the society of friends." 
 
 Again Robins nodded. He felt the toils tighten- 
 ing about him. It was his mother against his sweet- 
 heart life against love. All his life he had been 
 imperiously spoiled, impatient of delay, overriding 
 whatever came between him and his momentary de- 
 sire. He could no more change his emotional consti- 
 tution than a leopard can change his spots. Though 
 he was not unfilial, he had never felt for his mother 
 the absorbingly tender devotion that is the true crown 
 of motherhood. He loved her with a sedate, respect- 
 ful fondness, that would make her loss a pain, yet 
 miss her scarcely a month. What he did love su- 
 premely was his ideal of himself. The ideal would 
 suffer irretrievably if, by any action of its flesh and 
 blood simulacrum, his mother came to harm. 
 
 All this lay inarticulate in his consciousness as 
 he bowed the doctor away. He had said, speaking 
 evenly, with just a shade of hardness : " Depend on 
 it, your patient shall be guarded more vigilantly than 
 I would guard my own life." 
 
 Then he flung himself down upon the sofa in the 
 hall outside her door and slept heavily until the sun 
 was high. It was almost noon, in fact, when he 
 awoke and sat up rubbing his eyes. Voices came to
 
 How It Happened. 61 
 
 him from within his mother's speaking in almost 
 the usual strength, and Mrs. Witherby's running 
 nimbly along the whole gamut of town gossip. 
 
 "I assure you it is quite true," she was saying. 
 "That Barker creature is dangerous the sooner she 
 is forced to leave Barcelona the better for all of us. 
 As long as she was content to be nobody, I tolerated, 
 I even encouraged her, for that poor old mother-in- 
 law's sake. You know I have very few mistakes upon 
 my conscience, but I made one almost criminal when 
 I let her appear in the Procession. Robins is partly 
 to blame for that he insisted there was something 
 oriental in her look. Because the stage setting was 
 so handsome and people insisted upon seeing her 
 three times, she has grown quite insufferable. My 
 dear, it would make you ill to see her airs and graces, 
 not to mention her clothes. It is positively impious 
 the way she sets herself up above the fashions. 
 Why, she told me the other day she would rather 
 wear what was becoming than what was stylish. Did 
 you ever hear such vanity? Setting her own looks 
 against the dictates of progress ? And even that is 
 not the worst. I saw Squire Waite as I came on. 
 He says when he went last night to give her notice 
 she was entertaining company in the parlor some 
 factory hand, I dare say and came out to see him 
 with some white thing on, long and full, and tagged 
 about, with hanging sleeves, and he couldn't for his 
 life say whether it was a wrapper or a nightgown. 
 He quite agrees with me that we cannot be rid of her
 
 62 How It Happened. 
 
 too quickly if the church is to be kept pure and the 
 young saved from evil example." 
 
 "You are too hard on her, I think," Mrs Robins 
 said, more mildly. "There is nothing worse about 
 the woman at least, in my opinion than under- 
 breeding, and for that she is hardly answerable. She 
 does not, I admit, fit into our life here. If I might 
 advise her, it would be to go to a city. She has, I 
 think, something of what are called Bohemian in- 
 stincts. She would, I dare say, be better off and 
 ever so much happier among people of her own kind. " 
 
 Robins dropped down, pretending to sleep again, 
 his hands clinching hard. Every word had struck 
 upon the raw. What these two said all his world 
 would say, magnified a hundredfold. He would have 
 been more hopeful had his mother joined fully in 
 Mrs. Witherby's railing. She might recover from a 
 prejudice and pass from anger into admiration, but 
 nothing under heaven, neither time nor tide, nor 
 earthquake, he well knew, could ever move her from 
 a position of tolerant and excusing patronage once 
 she had assumed it. 
 
 Presently his little daughter came pattering by. 
 She stopped at sight of his figure, recumbent and 
 disheveled, and said, in an accent of serene con- 
 tempt : " Papa is disgusting asleep all in a lump. 
 I did not know he could look so common." 
 
 It was the last straw. He got up and fled precipi- 
 tately to his own room. Two hours later, refreshed 
 by bath and breakfast, with a flower in the button
 
 How It Happened. 63 
 
 hole of his handsome top coat, he sprang into his 
 light carriage and drove away, seemingly a gallant 
 and an enviable figure, yet with that in his heart and 
 oppressing brain which might have made the poorest 
 contented man feel him an object of pity. 
 
 He drove far and fast out into the bleak country, 
 unlovely in the raggedness of the first spring thaw. 
 In the calendar March was a spring month, but Bar- 
 celona could always count upon it for a supplemental 
 winter. The month was nearly past. Until that 
 day it had given no hint of mildness. Sunrise had 
 brought a southerly wind ; before noon the sky was 
 overcast, yet the roadside ditches ran brimful, every 
 patch of bare earth had become a muddy blotch, and 
 the snow banks were turning rapidly to slush. 
 
 Robins drove alone. He had felt that even the 
 groom's silent presence would harass him. He sent 
 his horses straight in the teeth of the wind and went 
 at a slapping pace until he noticed foam gathering in 
 their flanks. Then he wheeled them about, set his 
 teeth and said through them : " It is the only way. 
 It must, it shall come to pass ! "
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HELD IN MORTMAIN. 
 
 " Sweetheart, sweetheart, tell me that you missed 
 me ! that your soul cried out for me day and night, 
 even as mine did for you ! " 
 
 Lochiel Robins said it, kissing Selene between 
 every word. He held her in his arms, her face upon 
 his breast, her eyes, full of the softest, happy light, 
 looking up into his. Again and again he strained her 
 to his heart, murmuring in her ear : " Sweetheart ! 
 Rose of love ! Say you cannot live without me ! " 
 
 "I had to live without you a whole, long week," 
 Selene said, gently; "but do not think I reproach 
 you ! " she hurried on. " I heard Dr. Ware told 
 me about your mother. You were right to stay 
 close so long as she needed you. " 
 
 " Nobody can ever need me as I need you," Robins 
 answered. " O, my sweetheart, it is cruel, piteously 
 cruel, for any human creature to be so bound up in 
 another as I find myself in you." 
 
 " You are quite sure ? " Selene asked, the note of 
 interrogation drowned in happy confidence. She was 
 thrilling through and through adrift on a flood of 
 ecstacy that swept her beyond connected thought or 
 purpose. She was certain of only one thing that
 
 How It Happened. 65 
 
 was, she was alive to her finger tips with the vital 
 pulsings of love. Doubts, misgivings, apprehensions, 
 all had fled far away at the sound of his voice. She 
 had waited tensely throughout the seven days, feed- 
 ing her heart upon husks of memory and wheat of 
 full trust. Now that the trust was justified, she did 
 not try to weigh and reason she was quite content 
 to love. 
 
 " I am sure of everything," Robins said, confi- 
 dently, almost, she thought, defiantly, flinging up his 
 head. " Sure, we love each other ; sure, we were 
 made for each other; surest, we can never marry 
 each other. " 
 
 Selene slipped heavily from his hold and fell prone 
 upon the floor, almost at his feet. As he knelt be- 
 side her, trying to raise her to his bosom, she shrank 
 from him, moaning faintly and putting her hands 
 over her eyes. " Say that again please, " she whis- 
 pered after a little. " I want to be sure I heard it 
 right." 
 
 " We can never be husband and wife," Robins re- 
 peated, doggedly. " But what of that ? Marriage is 
 for life love like ours is for eternity." 
 
 " I know I am not good enough, or beautiful enough 
 for you," Selene said, tears raining over her face, her 
 bosom heaving with a choking sob. "Nobody is 
 quite that but but it was cruel in you to to 
 make me believe you felt so." 
 
 " Good enough ! God ! Selene, sweetheart ! Do 
 you not know you are too good, too grand, too beau- 
 5
 
 66 How It Happened. 
 
 tiful for me for any man that ever lived ? " Robins 
 cried. " It is not that you must know you must 
 have known all along how it is with me. I am not 
 free. I have made a promise to the dead. As the 
 law has it, I am held in mortmain " 
 
 Selene broke from his hold and covered her face 
 with her hands. He was silent, breathing heavily 
 after that break in his speech. " Be a little reason- 
 able, sweetheart," he hurried on. " You cannot 
 dream that I shall ever give you up for anything 
 dead or living. I need you ! God alone knows how 
 bitterly. The manhood in me cries out for you, your 
 softness, your sweet eyes ah, how sweet they are ! 
 all all your glorious womanhood as its own com- 
 plement. You must be mine ! You shall ! If you 
 will not give me my sweetheart, I shall go mad." 
 
 " You are mad already," Selene said, weeping bit- 
 terly. " O, what have I ever done ? What have you 
 ever seen in me that you should say in one breath 
 'you cannot marry me ' and in the next 'you shall be 
 mine' ?" 
 
 " You have done nothing but be your own sweet 
 self the fairest woman under the sun," Robins cried, 
 catching her to him in spite of her. "O sweet- 
 heart," he hurried on. " Hear reason or reasoned 
 unreason! Listen and you will not try to gainsay 
 me. There is no taking back a promise from the 
 dead. Answer me now, on your soul, have you never 
 thought of this thing which stands between ? " 
 
 " I thought life was stronger than death and love
 
 How It Happened. 67 
 
 than both," Selene whispered. "If it seemed dark ? 
 I trusted you you could make it all right, my heart 
 said. Even when mother tried to warn me, I would 
 not hear a word. Forgive me if I am wrong but it 
 seemed to me, if this promise was so sacred, so in- 
 violable, it must have stood between us and any words 
 of love. Answer me is that dead woman still su- 
 preme in your soul ? Is it only the mortal, the mate- 
 rial man, that has come to me whispering a love of 
 the flesh only?" 
 
 " No ! A hundred times no ! " Robins cried ; then, 
 a little thoughtfully, " I loved my wife madly until 
 she was my wife. After that there was a change. 
 We seemed to grow together, yet apart. I cannot 
 hope to make you understand it, but to-day I love her 
 memory devoutly next to you, my sweetheart yet 
 if she were living here in the flesh I should infallibly 
 hate her." 
 
 " She did not love you she would never have left 
 you bound and lonely," Selene cried, a little spite- 
 fully. Robins laughed, rather grimly. " She loved 
 me. I am certain of that, " he said ; " but it was with 
 a possessive love. She never cared what I did it 
 would not in the least have disturbed her to know I 
 had a sweetheart, but she wanted the world to recog- 
 nize me as hers for all time. I have thought some- 
 times that she loved me with all her soul and almost 
 hated me with her body." 
 
 Selene was crying quietly. Robins lifted her face 
 and wiped away the tears, saying : " Sweetheart, you
 
 68 How It Happened. 
 
 love me, body and soul even as I love you. To win 
 you, if need be, I could defy death, and the world, 
 and the devil. But since you love me, you will help 
 me over a hard place by seeing the stones and pitfalls 
 clearly and not thrusting me into them. Even if I 
 were free, there are many reasons why an open union 
 is impossible. I cannot murder my mother. To 
 make you my wife would be the same as to put a 
 knife in her heart. Then you yourself do you think 
 I have no care to see you happy? I must live in 
 Barcelona. Fate has tied me here. If you came 
 into my life, the atmosphere of it would stifle you. 
 You were born for the open, for sunshine, for love 
 and happiness. It is hard enough for me, with all a 
 man's outlets and distractions, to bear this cramped 
 and narrowing social atmosphere. You, who are a 
 hundred times more generous of mold and impulse, 
 would fit into the cage I should have to set you in 
 about as a wild dove would fit a canary's brazen 
 prison. If only you will be brave, and strong, and 
 trustful, we may make for ourselves a little foretaste 
 of heaven. We can love, live, die for each other, and 
 our world be no whit the wiser. Say that it shall be 
 so, sweetheart ! We can be happy, so happy, it would 
 be sinful to put it aside." 
 
 Selene got up unsteadily. In a mocking flash there 
 came to her a happening for the day. A mill girl 
 had by mistake got out a volume of Shakespeare. In 
 the noon recess she ran in with it, her face a very 
 moral of disgust, to say, as she slammed the book
 
 How It Happened. 69 
 
 down open upon the desk : " I thought you had only 
 decent works here. Look at that?" With her 
 stubbed finger indicating a couplet on the page of 
 a historical play. It was Elizabeth Woodville's 
 speech in answer to King Edward's rough wooing 
 
 " Although I am too low to be your queen, 
 I'm much too high to be your concubine." 
 
 She had taken the book, with a sort of dull impa- 
 tience, and replaced it with a well-thumbed romance. 
 The girl's mutterings had worn upon her nerves. 
 Now, in letters of fire, the woman's answer stood out 
 upon the page of memory. Almost unconsciously she 
 repeated it aloud. As Robins caught the import of 
 the words he frowned heavily. 
 
 " Listen to me and reason, Selene," he said, stand- 
 ing up straight and inflexible before her. " This is 
 no question of that kind. You know that as well as 
 I. But look things squarely in the face. We love 
 each other. Granted ? You nod your head. If we 
 separate, the result is misery. If we marry, the 
 result is greater misery if greater misery there can 
 be. I have not spoken this thing lightly. My God ! 
 Do you think if there were any other way I would 
 have risked bringing even one tear to your eyes? 
 Give me yourself, your precious self, and no wife 
 ever had a husband half so true as I will prove my- 
 self to be to the queen of my heart- 
 Selene, too, had risen. Now she moved away, like 
 one stunned. He stopped short and caught her hand,
 
 jo How It Happened. 
 
 asking : " What does that mean ? You are not going 
 to leave me ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " she said, simply. " And I think I I will 
 say good-bye now. To-morrow is my last day with 
 the books, you know after that we I think we shall 
 go away." 
 
 " Where ? " Robins demanded, catching her hands 
 and holding her fast. 
 
 " I am not quite sure," Selene said, still speaking 
 in that stunned whisper. " The world is very big. 
 I I hope we shall find a place somewhere in it and 
 work." 
 
 " Work ! Selene ! Sweetheart ! Do you dream 
 how you torture me? " Robins cried, catching her in 
 his arms. " You work, my queen, while I loll in idle 
 plenty? Selene, Selene, if for nothing else, for your 
 own sake stay and let me take care of you, and your 
 life shall be one of luxury and ease." 
 
 " The world is not full of ravening wolves," Selene 
 said, with a wan smile. 
 
 " No but of men which are very much the same," 
 Robins said, impatiently. " Of men who will look 
 on you to lust after you, depend on that Selene, of 
 men who will scruple at nothing to bend you to their 
 wills. You you would tempt a St. Anthony, when 
 you have that meek, appealing look, or when you fling 
 up your head imperially, as though bidding Fate to do 
 its worst. Take me, sweetheart, if for nothing but 
 your watch-dog. No wolf shall come near you while 
 I am on guard. You are not wanton, nor vain by na-
 
 How It Happened. 71 
 
 ture ; you do not crave show and glitter. Let me 
 make your life a long dream of quiet and beauty. O ! 
 it can be done and the big, prying world none the 
 wiser. You shall stand before it as spotless as the 
 snow. " 
 
 "That signifies nothing," Selene said, proudly. 
 " If if I could bring myself to be to do what you 
 ask, it would be, not for what you could give me, or 
 save me from but only because I love you so." 
 
 " O, what a wicked, wicked sweetheart ! She wants 
 to make out that I am one of the wolves. I have not 
 gone down into hell itself and wrestled with twice 
 seven devils because I love her a hundred times too 
 well to leave her. O, no ! It is just because I am a 
 man and am in the ravening mood." 
 
 "I did not say that," Selene said, slowly; "but 
 there is truth in it, even if I did not. You think 
 you will always love me -that I grant. You think, 
 honestly, that you will keep me in honor, and hold 
 me as high as good, pure women deserve to be held. 
 But I fear, I fear, I know you best. It is desire 
 which speaks now. Once you had tired of me, once 
 you had seen a fresher face " 
 
 "Hush! I will not hear treason," he said, again 
 catching her to him. " Sweetheart ! My own be- 
 loved ! Nothing could ever make you less to me than 
 the noblest, the queenliest, the loveliest woman under 
 the sun. Love and all that springs from it is pure. 
 I ask you to be mine because of love. God made us 
 male and female. That which he set it in our hearts
 
 72 How It Happened. 
 
 and bodies to do can be no transgression of his uni- 
 versal law. It is not much I ask only that you will 
 let me love you, let me shield and shelter and guard 
 you. O, my own ! I did not dream you could be so 
 hard. You are like the sharp flints, only all my edged 
 words can strike in you no spark of fire." 
 
 " How wise you are," Selene said, smiling and 
 clutching her breast. She had gone suddenly white. 
 A keen physical ache stabbed her heart like a knife- 
 thrust. She staggered to a chair and sat heavily 
 down. Robins knelt beside her, stroking her hands 
 and showering endearing epithets upon her. 
 
 " Selene, Selene ! I did not dream it went so 
 hard," he said, contritely; "but, darling, I cannot 
 give up my sweetheart. Maybe I am cruel but 
 what will a man not do for more than his life? " 
 
 Selene's sobs had ceased suddenly. Her tears 
 dried up. She sat upright, and looked about her, 
 her cheeks a deep, glowing scarlet. "Tell me ex- 
 actly what you want, " she whispered, shrinking, and 
 turning away her face as he put out his arms. " Noth- 
 ing much only you," he said, trying to take her in 
 his arms. She got up and waved him back. " You 
 ought to go away quick!" she said. "This this 
 cannot be decided all in a minute. We both feel too 
 much now. Go and do not come again until I send 
 for you." 
 
 " Impossible ! " Robins said, confidently, walking a 
 step away. He was trembling all over, more shaken, 
 even, than Selene. "I cannot wait for happiness,"
 
 How It Happened. 73 
 
 he said; "at least, not until I am sure of it. Only 
 give me your promise, sweetheart, and you will see 
 how good and patient I can be." 
 
 " Go away please ! " Selene repeated. " I cannot 
 think only feel, while you are here." 
 
 " I am glad. I want you to feel to feel the same 
 leaping love that tears and rends me," Robins said. 
 " My darling ! O, my darling ! You may be right 
 to hesitate, but for my sake be wrong, grandly, mag- 
 nificently wrong. " 
 
 " For you I would dare anything except to lose 
 your love," Selene whispered, with her arms about 
 his neck. " I would give you myself ah, how gladly, 
 if it were not for the knowledge that in time you 
 would come to hate me for the gift. " 
 
 "The risk shall all be mine," he cried, straining 
 her against his breast. Then he let her go so sud- 
 denly she almost staggered, and turned away, with a 
 quick shiver, his hands clinching hard. Selene looked 
 at him with infinite compassion. She, too, was shaken 
 as a reed in wind. She longed, with a wild, immeas- 
 urable longing, to fling herself at his feet and say to 
 him she would be his slave, content to lose the whole 
 world if only the losing would give him an instant's 
 pleasure. She had by nature a rare fibre of devotion. 
 She had, too, the warmth and fervor of her oriental 
 temperament. She was of the north by birth and 
 ancestry, yet surely in some far eon her soul had 
 steeped itself in the glow of the tropics. Every nerve 
 in her cried aloud its impulse of surrender. This
 
 74 How It Happened. 
 
 man was her mate, predestined from all time she 
 yearned to cling to him and say : " My lord, my king, 
 do with thine hand-maiden as seemeth good in thy 
 sight." 
 
 Something withheld, something remote, intangible 
 as the fine essence of a flower. It was not a moral 
 scruple moral scruples she had none in the face of 
 love. It was not instinct, since every primal chord 
 was vibrant with love's impulse. Whatever it was, it 
 moved her to dart to the door, rush through it, and 
 say from the outer side of it : 
 
 " If you will come again in three days, my answer 
 will be ready."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LOVE'S LAST REFUGE. 
 
 Three days later Lochiel Robins stood awaiting 
 Selene, his face as white and set as though it showed 
 beneath a coffin lid. His eyes were twin fires in 
 cavernous depths. Throughout the three days he had 
 scarcely eaten or slept. There were haggard lines 
 all about the insolently handsome mouth. He stood 
 stock-still save for a nervous clinching of the hands 
 in the ambush of folded arms. 
 
 Truly the pains of hell had hold upon him. Pride, 
 dominance, desire, each roused to the highest pitch 
 by this unlooked-for delay, combined to make him 
 emotionally a figure of fury. Outwardly he was as 
 one frozen. His mother had looked at him with 
 something like awe that day, and his little child, in 
 spite of childhood's unknowing courage, had shrunk 
 from him in passing, and said to her nurse : " Papa is 
 an o-gre," with great stress on the word. " We will 
 leave him to be eaten by the lions when they come." 
 
 There was something decidedly ogreish in the 
 gleam that lit his countenance when at last Selene 
 stood before him. " You do not love me half as you 
 love to torment me " he began, but stopped short, 
 stayed by her face of woe, her hanging, listless hands.
 
 j6 How It Happened. 
 
 her drooping figure. With a rush he caught her in 
 his arms and covered her face with wild kisses. 
 " Sweetheart ! " he said, crushing her so he could feel 
 her tremors, " Forgive me ! Do forgive me ! But I 
 am not a patient man. I can be less so than ever 
 now that I see you suffer, even as I." 
 
 "Not even as you," Selene said, gently. "You 
 suffer to destroy this beautiful love of ours I in the 
 hope to save it." 
 
 " What do you mean ? O, you can never intend to 
 stand out against me ! Sweetheart ! Be kind and 
 say I may kill you and myself rather than that. 
 Death is infinitely sweeter than the thought of life 
 without each other." 
 
 " I know it," Selene said, still gently, swaying a 
 little as she loosed herself from his hold. " If I had 
 been a coward, Robins, you would have found me 
 dead. It is because I love too much to stain it that 
 I have the courage to try to live on alone." 
 
 " Selene ! You do not mean that ! You cannot ! " 
 Robins cried, his face blank in its despair. Selene 
 smiled, a sad, patient, little smile. 
 
 " I must tell you something, " she said ; " some- 
 thing that maybe will make it easier for you. I have 
 been searching my heart in all honesty these three 
 days past. We are seldom wholly honest least of 
 all with our own consciences. I have found out 
 things even about this love of ours I thought I 
 knew so well. I do love you, Robins. I shall never 
 love anybody else as well. I had set you so high on
 
 How it Happened. 77 
 
 that love as on a pedestal that put you far, far from 
 common men. Now, though I love you no less, I 
 begin to see my mistake. You say you love me yet 
 you would destroy me. There is a selfish, possessive 
 element in it that hides from you in the depths of 
 your own desire. You want me want me very badly 
 that I devoutly believe but want me upon your 
 own terms. You would not for my sake defy your 
 world yet you ask me to defy the wisdom and the 
 experience of all ages " 
 
 " Stop ! I do not care for cold-blooded reasoning," 
 Robins broke in. 
 
 Selene smiled wanly and went on. " There is just 
 this further for me to say : I may be a poor thing 
 I am, I shall remain, mine own. I should like to be 
 your wife. There would be no happiness comparable 
 to living and striving to make you the man God meant 
 you to be. That man is not a libertine and seducer. 
 Because I love you so I will never, by God's help, be 
 the means of bringing you so low. " 
 
 "I see! You want position, social consequence, 
 hollowness, and sham," Robins said, bitterly. " You 
 stickle for the outward and visible sign, yet fling away 
 the reality. " 
 
 " Is it unreasonable," Selene asked, " that I should 
 care for the thing which drives you to ask so much 
 of me ? Confess, Robins. The truth can do no harm 
 if you worked in the mill would you hesitate to 
 marry me ? " 
 
 " That has nothing whatever to do with it at all,"
 
 78 How It Happened. 
 
 he said, impatiently; then, with a sudden burst of 
 tenderness, catching her in his arms : " The only 
 thing is can you, will you, send me away? " 
 
 " I must ! " Selene said, freeing herself lingeringly 
 from his hold. " Though I am sending my heart, my 
 real life, away. I love you, Robins, too well to let 
 you fail in honor. I love this love of ours this most 
 precious thing of my life too dearly to make its 
 memory a hissing and an offense." 
 
 " You are right ! Selene ! Selene ! My precious 
 sweetheart ! " Robins said, dropping on his knees to 
 kiss her garment's hem. Then he sprang up, put his 
 hand over his eyes, and rushed away like a man dis- 
 traught. 
 
 Selene tottered as he left her. When she heard 
 the door close behind him, she fell headlong upon the 
 floor, her eyes set, her hands rigid, her breath com- 
 ing in quick, convulsive gasps. The fearful strain 
 had told mightily upon her. She was conscious of 
 but one thing a wish to cry after him : " Come 
 back! Come back! Anything is better than that 
 you leave me ! " Her heart, her soul, her pride, were 
 bruised and wounded. She was not without innocent 
 vanities. That is to say, she was wholly a woman. 
 It had been a cruel blow to learn that he who she so 
 madly worshiped had so great an element of weakness 
 in him. She saw with a strangely logical vision that 
 the keeping of his promise was but a pretext for the 
 salving of his pride. The sight had been a whole- 
 some bitter. If she had continued to believe him
 
 How It Happened. 79 
 
 wholly flawless, wholly noble, she could never have 
 withstood his impassioned pleadings. 
 
 All the more that she was so vividly conscious of 
 traitors within the fortress of herself. In every fibre 
 she fairly ached to belong to him. She was not a 
 woman of snow, but of flesh and blood, wholly human, 
 therefore intensely lovable. It had been a gallant 
 fight against the besieger, made doubly hard by the 
 enemy within the gates. She had won at fearful 
 cost. After half an hour she got up unsteadily, say- 
 ing with dry lips : " The sun will rise to-morrow. I 
 wonder if it will seem to shine for me ?" 
 
 Methodically she moved about, extinguishing the 
 lights, banking the fire, straightening the cushions, 
 and setting the room in its usual careful order. She 
 had a pretty housewifely knack in her finger tips. 
 All she touched seemed to fall naturally into graceful 
 groups and shapings. She had been always too full 
 of housewifely pride in her home. Now there was a 
 touch of sanctity and saving in the care of the homely 
 familiar things. 
 
 Presently all was done. She stood in front of the 
 dusky grate with a flaring candle in her hand. 
 Faintly she could hear in the room across the hall 
 Mrs. Barker playing softly upon an old melodeon. 
 It belonged to her youth Paul had loved it when he 
 was a tiny lad, and now, though it was worn and 
 wheezy, his mother still clung to it. Selene always 
 shivered a little at the sound of it. It seemed to her 
 forlorn almost funereal. So it was played only late
 
 8o How It Happened. 
 
 at night, when the player fancied herself unheard by 
 ears too engrossed in their own concerns. Over and 
 beyond the cracked notes of it Selene caught the 
 tramp of feet, the occasional clamor of gay voices. 
 April had come in with a sudden spring-like rush, and 
 the streets were full of young people running to and 
 fro. 
 
 She set her candle down and took up a picture. It 
 was of Robins a handsome cabinet photograph 
 showing his face in profile. He had brought it to her 
 himself, saying, with a half whimsical smile: "I 
 know it is very bad, and not the least a substitute for 
 myself, but at least it will serve to prevent your fancy 
 from constructing a rival to me an ideal I cannot 
 approach. " Then he picked up a small ragged pastel 
 of Selene herself and said, as he slipped it in his 
 pocket, after surveying it critically : " H m ! Not 
 so much unlike you as it might be, and very much 
 ahead of a staring black and white thing. I believe 
 I can tolerate it until I can do better. One of these 
 days you shall be painted for me as I desire to have 
 you." 
 
 The melodeon ceased to whine and wheeze. Selene 
 caught up the candle and hurried toward her own 
 chamber. With her heart wounds raw and bleeding 
 she shrank from even the most sympathetic eye. 
 Once inside the door of her own quiet room, she laid 
 the picture down upon the narrow white bed, knelt 
 and pressed her quivering cheek to it, as one might 
 press a beloved dead thing. " Robins ! Robins !
 
 How It Happened. 81 
 
 You are dead to me! " she moaned, half articulately. 
 " I must bury my dead so I can remember him, not 
 clothed in corruption, but with sinless eyes and strong 
 arms, and a heart palpitant with life and love. 
 Death ! Death ! You are the one real healer, the 
 true comforter, and may I not ask you to come ? You 
 have healed so many heartaches. 
 
 " 'All that tread 
 
 The earth are but a handful to the tribes 
 That slumber in its bosom.' 
 
 " If you had not healed them ah me ! I fancy 
 they would have groveled lower and lower. 'The 
 raised spirits that walk in glory ' came up through 
 tribulation, even such as that wherewith I am trou- 
 bled. " 
 
 Very softly she flung up the window. A moon in 
 its last quarter hung low in the east, flooding the 
 whole world with a suffused silver, shining too ten- 
 der to be called light. It fell over Selene, making a 
 halo about her head. Her loosened hair streamed 
 down upon her white neck and whiter gown like a 
 fringy mourning veil. All about her breathed the 
 fragrance of roses Robins' roses, sent that morning 
 to plead his cause. In the still street below she 
 caught a suddenly moving figure. It was too dim to 
 note more than its outline her heart did not need 
 even that. She knew. Robins had lingered out- 
 side, hoping, praying for recall, or else indeterminate 
 whether to come back of his own motion, swoop down
 
 82 How It Happened. 
 
 on her in the relaxation following struggle, and carry 
 her to his way of thought in spite of herself. 
 
 She was glad, so glad, he had not come back. In- 
 fallibly she must have yielded. Yet underneath the 
 gladness lay a keen and burning anguish. He had 
 gone. He was lost irrevocably. All the days of her 
 years she must walk alone. Wheeling swiftly, she 
 rushed to the bed and flung herself upon it, sobbing 
 heart-brokenly and moaning between the sobs : 
 
 " My God, my God ! why hast Thou forsaken me ? 
 Give me strength to banish this idol, to cling to and 
 worship only Thee! " 
 
 Yet between the supplications she clutched the in- 
 sensate picture, holding it against her heaving breast 
 as a dying man might clasp the symbol of salvation. 
 Presently she started a little. Just across the street 
 an old woman lay dying. She had fought a good 
 fight, keeping the faith through many discourage- 
 ments, and now that she was entering into reward, 
 she had begged those about her to sing. To ease her 
 shortening breath all the windows stood wide thus 
 Selene heard clearly through the fresh night air : 
 
 " As a mother stills her child, 
 Thou dost hush the tempests wild. 
 Boisterous winds obey Thy will, 
 When Thou say'st to them ' Be still ! ' 
 Wondrous Sovereign of the Sea, 
 Jesus ! Saviour ! Pilot me ! " 
 
 Selene ran back to the window and knelt, the tears 
 raining over her shaken face as the song went on :
 
 How It Happened. 83 
 
 ' ' When at last I near the shore. 
 And the fearful breakers roar 
 'Twixt me and the peaceful rest, 
 Then while leaning on Thy breast 
 May I hear Thee say to me, 
 ' Fear not ; I will pilot thee.' " 
 
 Selene listened, her sobs slowly dying. There 
 seemed to come balm of healing in the cool night 
 breeze. For an hour she knelt there, watching the 
 silver suffusion creep and strengthen until all the 
 world lay enchanted, its ugliness, its meanness, its 
 scars and gashes drowned out in the radiance from 
 heaven above. As she watched, a strange calm fell 
 on her. Through it she noted with a strange sense 
 of separateness all that had come and gone in that 
 last fateful two months. She had lived and died in 
 them. Death might, after all, mean rest not act- 
 ual physical death, such as had come to succor the 
 sufferer across the street. It had moved her to tears 
 to see through the lighted window the figures crowd- 
 ing about the bed for a last look, a last kiss ; then 
 the swift drawing back, as though to give room to the 
 parting soul; the taking away of the pillows from 
 beneath the dying head at last, the crossing of 
 the dead hands over the breast, while a man's voice, 
 tremulous with grief, said : " The Lord gave ! The 
 Lord hath taken away ! Blessed be the name of the 
 Lord ! " 
 
 " Blessed be the name of the Lord ! " Selene 
 echoed, bending her head upon her clasped hands. 
 " Father in heaven ! Help ! O, help ! I am a child
 
 84 How It Happened. 
 
 bereft and in darkness. You who are love must be 
 love's last refuge from itself." 
 
 A benison of tears welled up in her eyes. They 
 seemed to quench the flame in her heart, though the 
 sharp ache remained. Presently she got up and wiped 
 her eyes. The candle was guttering out upon the 
 ledge in front of her old mirror. She extinguished 
 it ; then by the moon's rays she gathered the gor- 
 geous roses from out their vase, spread a length of 
 thick white damask over her lap, and began with ten- 
 der fingers to strip off their scented petals. " I will 
 keep you always," she whispered, now and again, 
 pressing a particularly glowing bud to her lips. 
 " You are the sweetness of the roses. It is the 
 thorns I must throw away." 
 
 At dawn she fell heavily asleep, with her face 
 buried in the smother of rose leaves. Her last con- 
 scious thought was of those other thorns, that could 
 neither be plucked nor thrown away.
 
 JBoofe Second 
 THE MAN WHO DARED. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 SELENE WRITES: 
 
 Aboard the F. F. V., June loth. 
 
 After all, instinct led me aright. When the blow 
 came the blow which shattered my life my soul 
 yearned with a yearning inexpressible for the soli- 
 tudes, the silences, the grandeurs of the mountains. 
 Always I had dreamed of them, living there in that 
 teeming town, with the flat, fertile reaches round 
 about it, laughing through summer harvests ; chilling, 
 freezing, numbing to every sense in the whiteness of 
 the snow. 
 
 We are here mother and I speeding, speeding 
 through the heart of the mountains. It seems like a 
 fairy tale running on into actual fairyland. By and 
 by we shall stop. Then, I wonder if the fairyland, 
 whose marvelous beauty has brought my soul its first 
 balm, will grow commonplace and even ugly, after 
 the fashion of the good earth where human presences 
 defile it ? But I will not think about that. Instead,
 
 86 How It Happened. 
 
 I will feed my eyes, my soul, upon the vistas that 
 loom and pass with the whirring revolutions of our 
 flying wheels. 
 
 O, the beauty of them! The wild magnificence! 
 The softness of dim, distant blue valleys ! The beet- 
 ling sternness of near crags, threatening to fall and 
 crush us as we speed along ! At least, they seem to 
 threaten. In reality, I know they are far beyond the 
 possibility of harming the peaceful myriads who pass 
 them day by day. I can hardly take my eyes from 
 them. Between every word my glances travel to the 
 flitting splendors outside. Not until night shuts it 
 away shall I dare undertake to set down all that I 
 came hither to record. 
 
 Even mother, who sits just beyond me, is drawn a 
 little out of her grief. My darling mother ! You 
 have been an angel of succor in this trouble. Travel 
 will be a boon to you, almost as much as to me. All 
 your life you have been shut in by Barcelona con- 
 fines. It is time you began to learn how much there 
 is in the big world outside. It fills me with pride 
 that is almost pain to see your dim eyes brighten as 
 you note my own absorbed glances and to remember 
 that it is because of me, because of love, rooted in 
 mother love, you have given up your own world, not 
 only unmurmuringly, but gladly, and set out, with 
 me for pilot such an unskilled pilot! to find and 
 
 conquer a new one. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 The scenery we are passing o'erwhelmed my heart,
 
 How It Happened. 87 
 
 yet I had thought I had infinite capacity to endure 
 beauty. I could only sit silent, thinking: "Dear 
 Lord ! Dear Lord ! I did not know even you could 
 make anything so supreme." I forgot everything 
 else all the splendors within were as nothing to the 
 splendors without. Yet they had seemed to my un- 
 traveled eyes wonderful indeed. I had thought of 
 long journeying always as something tedious, and 
 confined, full, at the best, of wearing hours. I am 
 finding myself borne as on a magic carpet, where I 
 have only to wish for things and, lo ! they appear. 
 It is the apotheosis of mind, and muscle, and money, 
 this gliding rush across the backbone of a continent. 
 I had read of it, to be sure but reading is pale and 
 tame. It fails altogether to give one the exquisite 
 sensations of my present experience. 
 
 Night has come down on us a silver, moonless 
 night. Here or there, if I looked out, I might catch 
 a massy, looming, black, outline, or the white gleam 
 of a star. But I shall not look. In two hours more 
 we shall come to our journey's end. I have persuaded 
 mother to lie down, and shall spend the two hours in 
 setting down faithfully much that has come to pass. 
 In all my life I have never kept a journal. This 
 will not be a journal only my one confidante, to 
 whose safe and silent keeping I shall confide what- 
 ever befalls me that is worth a record. The observa- 
 tion car is almost deserted. I shall have it wholly 
 to myself in a very little while. Once more to my 
 dear mother, to hold her hand, and kiss her eyelids
 
 88 How It Happened. 
 
 down, then I shall come back to begin what I, per- 
 haps, ought to have told my confidante first. 
 
 # * ***** 
 
 Mother is sleeping like a worn-out child. Her 
 eyes were so heavy she could barely lift them and 
 smile at me. Dear, dear mother ! While she is left 
 me I can never account myself wholly desolate. 
 
 Somehow I am loath to begin to turn back those 
 closed pages of my life and transcribe what they con- 
 tain. After all, it is not much. It might be summed 
 in a sentence : Once upon a time there were two 
 women, and one of them so exceeding sorrowful they 
 fled away together into the friendly wilderness. I 
 wonder I wonder if ever there will come for me a 
 day when that would not suffice to tell me the whole 
 story ! It is said people live on through blight and 
 heartbreak, and come of age, and wrinkles, and silver 
 hairs. But it is hard to believe it, even with mother 
 before my eyes. She loved and lost, it is true, but 
 her loss was not like mine. She could weep, honor- 
 ing her dead, with her tears. I must weep because 
 of keeping my dead he really is dead to me in the 
 straight path of honor. 
 
 Words cannot picture how it hurt and helped 
 me that he did not try to see me after that last night. 
 Of course, there were casual meetings more than 
 one where we two passed each other by with only 
 the recognition of slight acquaintance. It was best 
 so infinitely best. But my heart ah, me! what 
 is the use of trying to recall and put on paper the
 
 How It Happened. 89 
 
 ache, and longing, and deadly sense of loss that filled 
 all the months between the night he left me and that 
 in which I left him ! 
 
 Yes! Left him! Understand, O trusty paper! 
 With you I shall be as honest as if I were the Re- 
 cording Angel. I do not say my own conscience 
 we palter with our own consciences quite as though 
 they were persons outside. I dare say, there was 
 never a wrongdoer yet but was able to make, if not 
 a defense, at least a strong plea of extenuating cir- 
 cumstances to the judge sitting within him. I left 
 my home, my old life, all I had ever known, because 
 of Lochiel Robins. I could not live in sight of him 
 without him I would die rather than be his upon his 
 own terms. Over against his passion and his pride I 
 have set my woman's will to keep myself unstained. 
 I love ! God alone can know how I love him ! But 
 I will love him, if unwisely, at least too well to let 
 love suffer stain. 
 
 At first the talk of going affrighted mother; yet 
 in the end she was eager for it as eager, even, as I. 
 She did not shed one tear when they told her our 
 house was sold that we could go away from the old 
 life absolutely free. We have kept only the things 
 we could not bear to part with. I thought they would 
 be very many more, but the little mother showed her- 
 self a Spartan. She would not sell the cradle in 
 which Paul and all her babies had been rocked, but 
 she gave it to a poor young thing, whose sick child 
 had no cradle. It was the same with many other
 
 90 How It Happened. 
 
 things. " I want them to go where they will carry a 
 blessing and be at home," mother said and I loved 
 her the more for the saying. 
 
 One very odd thing: When it was thought we 
 would have a public sale, Finklen, the old man who 
 buys second-hand stuff, came to me one day, bowing 
 and puffing, and spluttering out something about a 
 chair. It was a particular chair a dark, high-backed 
 old wooden one. He had a customer who was most 
 anxious to buy it privately. The customer only came 
 out in his talk after I had refused even to let him look 
 our household stuff over. I knew what he wanted ; 
 I thought I knew also who wanted it. Robins always 
 made me sit in that old, dark chair he said it fitted 
 my queenliness it was a sort of throne. If he had 
 got it, I wonder what he would have done with it ? But 
 I shall never, never know. We shall walk apart for- 
 ever hereafter. The chair I shall keep it is safely 
 stored, to be sent to me when I am established in the 
 city. No one shall ever sit in it not even myself. 
 I shall keep it as a sort of shrine at which I may say 
 orisons to my dear, dead love. 
 
 We are going to the city the greatest city of the 
 western world as soon as summer is over. Hazard- 
 ous it may seem, yet I have no fear. We have enough 
 money in hand to tide us through the first year per- 
 haps even the first two. In that time I shall cer- 
 tainly be able to put myself in the way of earning 
 more. We shall live simply, with no straining after 
 that which is beyond us. I am young enough and
 
 How It Happened. 91 
 
 strong enough to do good work of whatever sort my 
 hands may find to do. Indeed, I must work, if I 
 would escape despair, maybe madness. I am writ- 
 ing sanely enough, but ah, me! it is because I 
 dare not let loose the torrent within. 
 
 Robins ! Robins ! You are my first thought and 
 my last ! I see your eyes in the light that steals first 
 over my waking moments ; your smile in the laugh 
 of the winds at play in the meadows ! You are with 
 me all the time around me, about me enveloping 
 me with your presence, subtly, yet really. I am 
 yours, yours alone. O, the lonely longing to feel the 
 pressure of your arms, the warmth of your kisses ! I 
 think if you came suddenly to me I might almost 
 die of joy. 
 
 Stop ! O piteous fool ! Stop ! The man is not 
 worth one heart pang. He let you go, whistled you 
 down the wind of his pride, his position, his world. 
 He is no manly man he would have taken all at 
 your hands, yet make no sacrifice himself ! Think 
 of all that then say, if you dare, that you love him 
 still ! There is no excuse for him. His promise ! 
 Faugh ! He offered you what he called the soul of 
 marriage! If that dead woman meant anything, she 
 meant to have him mourn her all his days. With 
 you he would have been excellently consoled, and 
 after you had faded the consoling process would have 
 gone on and on. Men are sophists always in the 
 light of their own hot desires. Be brave, Selene ! 
 Look at this man who holds your heart in thrall ex-
 
 92 How It Happened. 
 
 actly as he is. It may be bitter, but in the end it 
 may also give you your freedom ! 
 
 Freedom ! O, desolate word ! If I were truly 
 free, it would be to love and still more to be loved. 
 Robins, my darling boy, I know you, thoroughly, piti- 
 lessly your strength, your weakness and I love you, 
 perhaps the better because you are no flawless icicle ! 
 That is a woman's way. You love me, not as I love 
 you, but with all the strength and fire of your soul. 
 You are held and bound. No man is stronger than 
 his environment. I would not hate you even if I 
 could. People laugh at the line so trite, so vulgar- 
 ized 
 
 " 'Tis better to have loved and lost, 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
 I know it voices a great, an overwhelming truth. 
 
 I have burned my ships. Barcelona will never 
 see me again unless I was about to write unless it 
 sees me Lochiel Robins' wife, but that is so incon- 
 ceivable I shall not set it down. Even if I were his 
 wife, I feel for him too deeply to wish for such a 
 triumph over the Witherby tribe. Stinging, buzzing 
 insects that they are, I would not have them sting my 
 beloved. If he came to me now in the morning 
 with a wedding ring in his hand I would tell him : 
 " Dear, I shall only put it on if you will take me 
 where we may live in joy and peace." 
 
 No ! Barcelona is behind me. The future ? God 
 alone knows. But this I do set down out of a full
 
 How It Happened. 93 
 
 heart all that a woman reasonable, capable, reason- 
 ably honest, wholly unrestrained, can do to make her 
 way, that I shall do. It is more than a little curious 
 how I have been led thus far upon the way. It was 
 something more than blind yearning for change and 
 beauty, I am sure, which made me set my face to the 
 mountains. How best to reach them I did not cer- 
 tainly know. Three railways run in and out of Bar- 
 celona. We had never studied their routes mother 
 and I so little had the thought of migration laid 
 hold upon us. But one of them, we knew, led through 
 the Piedmont Valley, around which the mountains lay, 
 and so we are here in the heart of them. 
 
 We can be, I think, rather proud of ourselves. Al- 
 though we are so entirely home-bred provincials, this 
 train, the last word of luxurious travel, has not made 
 us gape and stare. We have accepted it, all its com- 
 forts, all its magnificence, quite as though they were 
 commonplaces of our daily life. It makes few stops. 
 It is only as a special favor won for us, I think, by 
 our entire inexperiencedness that we are to be put off 
 at our stopping-place, a thrifty village in the edge of 
 the mountain-land. Perhaps it would be better if we 
 made our half-way halt in their heart, but somehow 
 I cannot feel easy until I have put their whole rugged 
 barrier between me and my life. 
 
 My life! Selene Barker, the woman Lochiel 
 Robins loved, is dead dead and buried beyond res- 
 urrection. This pale walking image of her bears her 
 name and her burdens. Henceforth the image must
 
 94 How It Happened. 
 
 stand for the reality. The good Lord send that it 
 may always stand firm for the right the right which 
 the true Selene died for. 
 
 I must stop my heart poor Selene's heart is not 
 yet quite dead. It throbs as though it would burst. 
 I can look back no longer. Here on the very verge 
 of the new world I should be able to lay the ghosts 
 of the old, but they haunt me and madden me al- 
 most with their insidious whispers. " He will come 
 to you! O, never fear! He will come!" is the 
 burden of their chant. Father in heaven ! Save me! 
 Spare me that trial ! Do not, I pray you, break a 
 bruised reed ! 
 
 The train is slacking speed and there is the por- 
 ter. In a minute I shall be standing a stranger on 
 strange land. Mother, dearest, one moment ! There ! 
 Give me your hand ! Lean on me I am strong. Let 
 me close my book, put down my pen I see a wel- 
 coming light outside.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Edge, June 2Oth. 
 
 Perhaps I am growing fanciful. Mother insists 
 upon it when she hears my name for our village of 
 refuge. It has a commonplace appellation which does 
 not in the least agree with its location. That is wildly 
 beautiful. It sits upon the very eyebrow of a cliff, 
 looking across a narrow mountain valley and down 
 into a winking, dancing stream. So to me it is The 
 Edge nothing more nor less than the edge of the 
 world, as well as of the mountains. Here they have 
 lost their wild grandeur. Instead, they are a riot of 
 rippling, rounded swells. Semi-occasionallyyou find 
 crags, and deep glens, and the loveliest, sunflecked 
 tarns. I suppose they must be tarns that is what 
 all the wild, pretty streams I ever read of in the story 
 books were called. I like our American creeks bet- 
 ter but then it does not sound so romantic. Ro- 
 mance ! Faugh ! I almost hate the word. It brings 
 up the library and well other things that I have 
 determined to forget. 
 
 Creeks or tarns, the mountain waters are alive with 
 leaping silver-sided things trout, I suppose. Es- 
 pecially the water upon which The Edge looks down.
 
 96 How It Happened. 
 
 We have found shelter in a dwelling that commands 
 almost half its silvery length. Every day I see men 
 whipping the pools of it and wading in the shallows. 
 They are strangers, I hear city men up for the fish- 
 ing ahead of the general summer rush. They wear 
 rubber boots the most of them coming to the hip ; 
 carry strangely wonderful things they call creels, and 
 have their hats banded about with leaders and flies. 
 They have what they call split bamboo rods, too. I 
 am beginning to find out something about the aris- 
 tocracy of sport. In Barcelona, I dare say, our high 
 society indulges in such things, but the fishing that 
 the mass understands is done with cheap and, in the 
 main, home-made tackle. The woman of the house 
 has let me know that The Edge plumes itself no lit- 
 tle upon its profitable sportsmen visitors. They beat 
 plain summer boarders hollow, she says. She says, 
 further, that the plain summer boarder is a " main 
 dependence " with many of the farmer folk. " If it 
 wasn't for the money they fetch in, half the places 
 around would be et up with the mortgages," she tells 
 me. That is another new thing. In Barcelona, try 
 as we may to be up to date, only the very rich or the 
 very sick think of leaving home because of the sea- 
 son. 
 
 That is to say, we have not caught the vacation 
 habit. We ! It makes me laugh that we ! What' s 
 Barcelona to me, or I to Barcelona, any more ? Noth- 
 ing in the round world. Still, I cannot just yet get 
 out of the habit of speculating about it as though I
 
 How It Happened. 97 
 
 were still of it. Henceforth I must learn to do it as 
 a reincarnate spirit might speculate upon former states 
 of existence. 
 
 We mother and I are very comfortable. And I 
 am safe. What is more essential we have made 
 good terms for the summer. Coming so early we 
 shall be able to live a month for what the regular va- 
 cationers would pay for a fortnight. I am a little 
 curious to watch the August rush. Perhaps it will 
 divert me enough to tone my nerves and make me feel 
 really like work. I certainly hope so. So far I am 
 literally dead supine and listless, even in the face 
 of the beauty that ought to set me quivering with de- 
 light and a desire to fix its evanescent charm. I feel 
 none of the desire. Even the sight of palette and 
 brushes has grown hateful. Still, I go out every 
 morning with my sketch-book. Once I caught the 
 morning spirit and worked away with something of 
 my old fervor. In the middle of it I heard a man 
 speak in the valley below. Something in the timbre 
 of his voice recalled Robins. I dropped my book, 
 bowed my head upon my clasped hands, and sobbed 
 dry, choking, soul-rending sobs for an hour. And 
 all night long I could not sleep. Through the dark- 
 ness I saw and heard him so plain I lay palpitant, as 
 though he were coming to kiss and claim me. 
 
 Will he ever leave me in peace ? It is cruel, now 
 
 that I have given up everything, to have him haunt 
 
 me, harry me, day and night. Although I love him 
 
 so I should be able, at least, to work apart from him. 
 
 7
 
 98 How It Happened. 
 
 Mother watches over me with a tender, loving pa- 
 tience that should be in itself inspiration. She does 
 not know all the truth I have told her only that we 
 had agreed a marriage between us was impossible. 
 Dear heart ! I would not grieve her delicate gentle- 
 woman's nature so much as to tell her any man rated 
 lower than the best the woman her son saw fit to 
 make his wife. There is something wonderfully 
 touching in her trustful pride in me. She is in- 
 finitely sorry for the pain I suffer. Though I do not 
 speak it, she reads it in my dark-circled eyes, my 
 pallor, my drooping head and infinitely glad that I 
 am still her daughter, still Paul's wife, called by 
 his name. 
 
 She counts nothing a sacrifice for me. Only this 
 morning she came to me with a lovely string of old 
 chased gold beads. " Paul's father gave them to me 
 upon our wedding day," she said. " I hardly ever 
 wore them you know I was always thin but they 
 will be beautiful on your round throat. I have kept 
 them to put in the coffin with me, but now I want 
 you to have them, in remembrance of me and my 
 boy." 
 
 I shall wear them to please her what would I not 
 do to please her ? the one human creature who cares 
 whether I live or die, am happy or sorrowful? I 
 must in some way make up to her all I have cost her. 
 It is no little thing for one to pull one's self out of 
 an accustomed place when one is well past middle 
 age, and go, in blind trust, into strange, new scenes,
 
 How It Happened. 99 
 
 To-night I am writing, possessed with a fury of ac- 
 tion. Any sort of action. I must do something or 
 scream aloud. It is raining outside soft, pattering, 
 summer rain. In the morning there will be a new 
 heaven, a new earth. 
 
 I shall go out into it. I shall take mother with 
 me. And I shall ask her : " Dearest, what is it your 
 wish that we shall do all this summer day ?" She will 
 smile and demur and hesitate, but I shall carry her 
 off to a fair hillside I have found, where there are 
 ferns in the shadow and daisies in the sun. There I 
 shall establish her on the rocks, like a queen on her 
 throne, and talk to her, and make her tell me stories 
 stories of Paul, a baby, a little lad, a big boy, almost 
 a man, begging to go with his father, or, later, to go 
 and fill his father's vacant place. 
 
 They are sweet stories, full-flavored with the sweet- 
 ness of home and love. O, if only I had loved Paul 
 as I love Robins, how happy I could be to mourn him 
 and cherish his memory all the days of my life ! 
 This world is all criss-cross. The worst of it is the 
 way it seems a touch would set it right. If there 
 were no pomps and vanities, neither the desire of the 
 eyes, nor the pride of the flesh, we might come very 
 near to realizing our heaven below. 
 
 I must stop. If I go on longer, there will surely 
 come a mood of madness. The wind is rising, the 
 rain tattoo is lulling to the faintest patter, like the 
 sound of fairy footfalls. I wonder if there will 
 ever fall a rain for my parched heart? I wonder
 
 ioo How It Happened. 
 
 I must stop. Good-night, my confidante! Good- 
 night ! 
 
 THE EDGE, June 23d. 
 
 The best-laid schemes of mice and men go wrong 
 likewise the best-laid schemes of women. It was 
 fair in the morning, as my heart had prophesied ; but 
 a rainbow arched the fairness, presage of further 
 showers. In spite of it I set forth upon my outing. 
 The hillside ah! what words shall paint its cool, 
 green freshness, with raindrops nestling still in the 
 hearts of the flowers and the depths of the grass ! 
 The ferns seemed to uncoil their new fronds visibly. 
 All the shady spots waved with them the mossy 
 ledges seemed heaped with green velvet cushions, 
 regal in their softness. All about the birds sang 
 not their full-throated fair weather songs, but in fit- 
 ful choruses of dropping notes. 
 
 They knew, those wise birds, the rain was not over. 
 I knew it, too, but just then my mood was too will- 
 ful to let knowledge lead to wisdom. We set out, 
 with an umbrella between us a big, tent-like affair 
 I have set up for mother's benefit. We had, beside, 
 our lunch basket, my sketch-book and easel. I 
 begged to leave them behind, but mother insisted 
 they should bear us company until I was forced to 
 give in to her. But waterproofs and overshoes I 
 would none of. " If we must be lumbered up with 
 them," I said, "we had better stay indoors."
 
 How It Happened. 101 
 
 I had my reward for that fine piece of folly. Tow- 
 ard eleven o'clock there came the quickest heavy 
 shower. It was a regular thunder gust a blue-black 
 cloud, veined through with forked lightning, sharp 
 wind, and big, pelting drops falling in thick sheets. 
 It seemed to gather all in a minute around at the 
 back of the hill. We hardly caught the first roll of 
 thunder when it was in sight and between us and 
 shelter. There was nothing for it but to run down 
 hill to the streamside, where there are big, shelving 
 rocks. I knew they would save us from the worst of 
 it at least they would so far fend off the wind as to 
 make the umbrella avail. So I snatched up mother 
 and scurried down with her, leaving easel and sketch- 
 book to their fate. 
 
 Even then we got smartly sprinkled before our 
 haven of refuge was reached. At the very last I 
 slipped, and fell sprawling, but clung desperately to 
 the lunch basket until I was again on my feet. What 
 amazed me was to find myself laughing aloud over my 
 mishap, just as I used to laugh when I fell in the 
 snowbanks on my way to school. Mother looked at 
 me, the gladdest light coming into her eyes. " I am 
 getting my daughter back," they appeared to say 
 and so gently I was thoroughly ashamed. Darling 
 mother ! You are enough for any mortal's worship ! 
 Whither thou goest I will go, whither thou stayest I 
 will stay ; thy people shall be my people, and thy 
 God, above all things, my God. 
 
 I had just set her snug in the deepest recess of the
 
 IO2 How It Happened. 
 
 rocks, and stood holding the umbrella tent to shield 
 her still more, when two men came running toward 
 us two fishermen, with rods over their shoulders 
 and creels strapped at the waist. I knew who they 
 were our landlady is better than a city directory. 
 She can tell to a single entity all who come and go 
 in the village. Indeed, she not merely can, but will. 
 The only way to keep from hearing is to run away 
 and we have not always energy for that. So we are 
 to be pardoned for knowing that the taller of the fish- 
 ermen was a certain Mr. Horton, who hailed from 
 New York City, whose business was indeterminate, 
 but who was known to have a deal more money than 
 he put to wholly good uses. As, for instance, he was 
 supposed to be sporty, from the fact that he had in- 
 cited the village lads to get up a cock-fight and wag- 
 ered ten dollars even on the result. As he backed 
 both competitors, it did not seem to me he was tak- 
 ing an undue advantage. Still, I had not said so 
 my landlady's scruples are things one does not wil- 
 fully tread on when once one knows their strength. 
 Mr. Horton's companion was also a New Yorker, and 
 reported to be an artist in search of health and the 
 picturesque. 
 
 His name was Greybrook. Horton had a way of 
 shortening it to Brook. The Edge had adopted the 
 same fashion, until the real name appeared only at 
 the postoffice. I had encountered Brook more than 
 once in the course of my strolls, but so far we had 
 preserved that affectation of ignorance regarding each
 
 The place where I stood was almost in the water's edge
 
 How It Happened. 103 
 
 other's existence that is demanded by the proprieties 
 of semi -rural American life. The real ruralist is, I 
 have found, always full of good-fellowship and ready 
 to recognize a fellow- creature in anything human. 
 There are, I find, many points in common between 
 the extremes of society. The very high and the very 
 low are equally approachable. It is those between 
 who are so fearful for their gentility they put up in 
 their faces a moral " Keep Off the Grass " sign. 
 
 I am wandering. As Brook caught sight of me he 
 touched Morton's arm significantly and said under his 
 breath : " There ! You see, I was right ! I have 
 found, not the lost arms of the Venus de Milo, but 
 the Venus herself, in flesh and blood." 
 
 He never meant me to hear him. Perhaps he 
 thought the storm would drown his voice ; perhaps, 
 also, the rocks have the conformation of a whispering 
 gallery. However that may be, I felt myself redden 
 furiously. For my life I could not help it. Horton 
 had glanced at me. It was a glance that stung like 
 a whiplash. I caught myself repeating inly what 
 Robins had said to me men would look on me to 
 lust after me. I swung a little about so as to inter- 
 pose the umbrella between us, but had to change my 
 position, as the rain was dashing in wildly. Mother 
 should be sheltered from it, as she in turn should 
 shelter me from the insult of that man's eyes. I 
 spoke to her, in a low tone, asking if she were com- 
 fortable and bidding her not to be afraid. The place 
 where I stood was almost in the water's edge. With
 
 104 How It Happened. 
 
 dismay I saw the stream coming nearer and nearer. 
 The rain was so torrential if it lasted half an hour 
 the brook would be in flood. 
 
 For myself, I did not care. It was another thing 
 about mother. She is so frail, like a piece of old 
 porcelain, I trembled at the thought of a drenching 
 for her. High up in the rocks there was a dry niche. 
 If only she could clamber into it, she would be safe. 
 I measured the distance with my eye, then looked 
 down at her. It was hopeless, I saw, for her to make 
 the effort. I had resigned myself to the inevitable, 
 when Horton said at my elbow : " Excuse me but 
 storms do not let one stand on ceremony. Mrs. Bar- 
 ker, if you will allow me, myself and my friend can 
 put your mother up there where she will keep dry." 
 
 " If you will do it, I shall thank you very much," I 
 said. He smiled at me he has, certainly, a winning 
 smile. Brook was already scrambling up the rocks. 
 In a minute he stood firm, reaching down his arms. 
 " Don't be afraid, ma'am ! Horton can lift you like 
 a baby, and I oh, I'm ever so much stronger than I 
 look," he said, cheerily. Horton smiled again, and 
 nodded ; then picked up mother and held her higher 
 than his breast, as lightly and as tenderly as I might 
 hold a little frightened child ! Brook caught her and 
 set her in a natural armchair of rocks. " Now let it 
 rain all it pleases ! " he called down to us, standing 
 beside her. " You two strong ones need not mind it 
 and we are safe," turning to mother with a bright 
 smile, as he sat down at her feet.
 
 How It Happened. 105 
 
 " Shall I not help you up, too ? " Horton asked, 
 holding out his arms tentatively. I shook my head. 
 " There is no room," I said. " Besides, now that I 
 can have all the umbrella, I shall do very well. But 
 you may pass up the lunch basket. The clouds are 
 thickening so it may have to answer for everybody's 
 dinner." 
 
 "Who cares?" he said. " O, but this is jolly! A 
 picnic all our own out in the rain ! " Brook shouted 
 down to us as he caught the basket. Horton was 
 measuring the space on the rocks with his eye. 
 " There is room in plenty," he said, at last. " And, 
 really, you will have to get up there. The brook 
 will be running like a mill-race where you stand in- 
 side the next five minutes." 
 
 " I am strong it will not wash me down," I 
 said. " As for a wetting, I do not mind that in 
 the least." 
 
 " But I cannot let you get a drenching when it is 
 easier to be only damp," he said, smiling and drop- 
 ping upon one knee. He had on his high boots, so 
 it really did not matter that he knelt in two inches 
 of racing, muddy water. As he looked at it, he said, 
 half mournfully : " No more good fishing for three days 
 at least. Those rascals, the trout, will be so gorged 
 with worms they will disdain the handsomest fly that 
 ever was cast." 
 
 "What do you want?" I asked, as he looked at 
 me without speaking. He nodded impatiently, say- 
 ing : " There's your step. Brook, give her a hand !
 
 106 How It Happened. 
 
 Now, up you go ! Otherwise I shall have to scram- 
 ble up, with you over my shoulder." 
 
 " I am not light enough for that," I said. Then, 
 as the water was coming down in boiling waves, I 
 stepped as he had bidden me and found myself safe 
 and snug at mother's elbow. Brook shouted with 
 laughter as Horton leaped up after me. " Oh, oh ! " 
 he cried. " I must sketch that scene. The fellows 
 at the Racquet will be wild when I show it there. " 
 
 "You will do no such thing. Behave, can't you, 
 once in your life? " Horton retorted, then bent down 
 to mother, with a whimsical laugh, saying : " My dear 
 madam, if we were very proper persons, we would at 
 once present ourselves in due form to each other ; but 
 as we have been in The Edge ten days each that 
 would be a waste of breath, since, I dare say, each of 
 us is much better informed about the other than we 
 can possibly be about ourselves. " 
 
 "The ten days make that inevitable," I said. 
 Mother smiled at me and shook her head. But she 
 held out a hand to each of the strangers, saying, in 
 that sweet, old-fashioned way of hers that makes me 
 so proud of her : " At least, I feel sure we know you 
 well enough to ask you to dinner. Mr. Greybrook, 
 please pass me the lunch basket. I dare not trust 
 Selene to open it she is a headlong child and I 
 put it up myself ever so carefully, even if I did not 
 know we should have company. " 
 
 Brook knelt before her holding the basket. We 
 were so crowded there was no place for it at least,
 
 How It Happened. 107 
 
 no safe place. He looked up at her with sunny eye 
 and said, a little hesitatingly, yet with confidence : " I 
 wonder if you won't mind a fellow's having some- 
 thing to drink? " 
 
 "Not a bit, if it is worth drinking," mother said, 
 smiling back at him. " My husband always liked a 
 glass of wine with his dinner, and I have never found 
 out why the abuse of a good thing should forbid its 
 use." 
 
 " What a delight you are ! " he said, warmly. " I'd 
 give a thousand dollars to hear my mother say the 
 same thing. She thinks, bless her heart, that the 
 devil lurks in every bottle that ever had anything 
 stronger than milk in it. She even sighs and shakes 
 her head when she thinks about my doctor ordering 
 me to take a glass of sherry once in a while." 
 
 " I can vouch for the sherry he is going to offer 
 you, madam," Horton said, nodding toward Brook. 
 " Brook has a good heart the best in the world al- 
 most but when it comes to a palate for things that 
 require to be exquisite well, all I can say is that he 
 should pray to be permitted always to choose for his 
 enemies. The sherry in his flask is good, though 
 the best in this country genuine Amontillado. Let 
 me beg you two to finish it with me ; then you will 
 certainly not be harmed." 
 
 " Mrs. Barker young Mrs. Barker must not be 
 left out," Brook said, stoutly. Horton laughed, a 
 low, amused laugh. " You leave me out of the 
 count," he said. " I am here to look after young
 
 io8 How It Happened. 
 
 Mrs. Barker. Sherry is a good tonic for aged and 
 feeble persons. For such as she and myself what 
 do you say to genuine eau de vie ? " 
 
 He pulled from his breast pocket a flat silver flask, 
 richly chased. The top flew back as he touched a 
 hidden spring, revealing a tiny cut-glass drinking cup 
 resting in its recess. This he filled with a fragrant, 
 oily, mellow stuff from within the flask and passed it 
 to me, saying : " You have no doubt drank deep of 
 another water of life still, you must not disdain 
 this." 
 
 I swallowed it, why I hardly know. Instantly my 
 veins began to run warmly, happily, my mouth 
 wreathed itself into smiles. I knew my eyes were 
 sparkling, my cheeks two damask roses. I caught 
 mother's eyes full of gentle wonder, touched a little 
 with alarm. They made me smile as I had not 
 smiled since that night when I died. The liquor had 
 not gone to my head. It was as steady, as sane, as 
 head could be. Mysteriously it had reached some 
 secret spring of the soul and set forces working that 
 had been clogged and dumb. 
 
 We ate, huddled there, the rain dashing impo- 
 tently under our rock roof. The food was ambrosial. 
 As we ate, I laughed and chatted with the strangers 
 as I have seldom done with my nearest friends. Hor- 
 ton kept his eyes fast upon me. I felt the looks, 
 but no longer resented them. I was in a mood to 
 defy life and the world and Fate. The rest seemed 
 in a degree responsive to it, even my gentle mother.
 
 How It Happened. 109 
 
 We were so absorbed in ourselves we forgot every- 
 thing else. It came with a shock of sharp surprise 
 when mother said, looking across the creek : " Why, 
 the rain is over ! See, the sun is shining as bright 
 as ever. "
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Edge, June 29th. 
 
 My birthday has passed I am turned into my thir- 
 tieth year. From what is in my heart I might be 
 a hundred. God send I may never see such another 
 as that birthday, now three days back. Oh, it was 
 cruel ! Fate might have chosen some other time for 
 her last fell blow. Ever since I had only strength 
 to murmur : " All Thy waves and Thy billows have 
 gone over me ! " 
 
 Robins came to me Robins, my lover, more than 
 ever my lover wild with love and loss. Heavens ! 
 It makes me shudder even while I thrill to recall the 
 mad longing, the desperate hunger in his eyes. He 
 came on me unawares. That was not wholly kind. 
 I know he thought to surprise me with my guard 
 down, and so, maybe, to win an easy victory. 
 
 All day I had been restless and singularly de- 
 pressed. I had stolen away from them all. Since 
 our adventure in the rain Horton and poor Brook have 
 fallen into the friendliest intimacy with us. Mother 
 smiles approval of them, and I do not wonder at it. 
 They treat her like a queen upon her throne. But I 
 am not a princess regnant, nor even potential. They
 
 How It Happened. 1 1 1 
 
 have developed in me an element of good fellowship 
 which is a surprise to myself. Of course, their good 
 fellowship is touched the least bit in the world with 
 gallantry, but so delicately one must be wholly flat- 
 tered by it. Still, upon my birthday everything 
 human wore upon me. I wanted silence and the 
 hills. I stole away to them for comfort. There is 
 a rocky, shady peak some little way back of my fa- 
 vorite hillside from which one can look all up and 
 down the valley and on to the railway. There I hid 
 myself at the foot of a tall pine lying prone on the 
 carpet of clean, brown, sweet-smelling needles and 
 staring at the little blue dots of sky I caught through 
 the network of branches. 
 
 I heard no word, no sound even. Suddenly some- 
 one knelt beside me, caught me as though he would 
 never let me go, and kissed, kissed, kissed me, crush- 
 ing me the while in a breathless embrace. Oh, the 
 heaven of that minute ! Heaven ! Maybe I am sac- 
 rilegious, but I doubt if waking to find myself in the 
 mansions of the blest would have so filled and flooded 
 my soul with pure, quick-leaping bliss. 
 
 At last Robins let me go, only to snatch me again 
 to his heart and say huskily : " Selene ! My sweet- 
 heart ! Are you not sufficiently punished for this 
 wickedness you have wrought ? " 
 
 I did not answer him ; I dared not let him hear the 
 gladness in my voice. He had come ! It must be 
 he who had repented. He would never, never leave 
 me. I should never again know the lonely, intoler-
 
 112 How It Happened. 
 
 able ache of empty arms and empty heart. I drew 
 away from him gently, smiling at him and putting 
 out my hand in signal that he must sit quiet at a 
 little distance. 
 
 " I am glad, so glad to see you, " I said at last. 
 To my own ears my voice was vibrant. He started 
 painfully as I spoke. " Are you only glad ? " he 
 asked, a little resentfully. " Glad ; O, Selene ! 
 Sweetheart ! I have come to you across the very 
 gulfs of hell." 
 
 For the first time I looked narrowly at him. His 
 face was drawn and white, his eyes blazing. He 
 moved nearer and said, not offering to touch me: 
 " O, my sweetheart, you have brought me to a pass 
 I thought no human creature ever could. I have 
 come to entreat you, to besiege you, to compel you, 
 if I must, to take back that cruel, that senseless cruel 
 decision. Be mine! You must! You shall not 
 make all the sacrifices. I am willing, anxious to 
 meet you half-way. Say you will give me your sweet 
 self and henceforth both of us shall be dead to our 
 worlds. I have it all arranged ; that is what has kept 
 me so long from your side. Give me your promise 
 and we can disappear with no harm, no hurt to a liv- 
 ing soul. I have here in my pocket that which repre- 
 sents ready money enough to keep us in modest lux- 
 ury so long as we shall live. Other things are all 
 arranged. My mother will not suffer; my child will 
 go into safe hands. I am giving up all my world for 
 you."
 
 How It Happened. 113 
 
 "No; it is for your own way," I said. " O, 
 Robins, my darling. Do you not see how cruel, how 
 desperately cruel all this is ? Do you not see that if 
 for this desire you are ready to fling aside all the.ties 
 of nature your mother, your child, your place and 
 station among your home people I dare not trust 
 myself to it. When the flame of it dies, as die it will, 
 then you will repent you will find me a burden, a 
 clog, a hindrance. Honor might hold you to me, but 
 the bitterness of death would be as honey compared 
 to that " 
 
 "Still carping; still reasoning!" he broke in, 
 roughly. " Selene, you are one of nature's contra- 
 dictions. You look like nay, you are a real woman, 
 all fire and dew and sweetest sweetness ; yet when it 
 comes to the crux of things then the woman takes 
 flight. In her stead there is a palterer who never 
 knew a heart throb. Answer me at once. Will you 
 take me or leave me ? By the God, you shall do the 
 one thing or the other ! I will not be played with to 
 soothe your hurt pride, your lust for coquetry and 
 conquest ! " 
 
 " Robins ! " It was all I could say. Saying it I 
 flung up my arms, half rose, staggered and fell. The 
 rest is black darkness a long, black blank it seems 
 to me. I came out of it to find myself in his arms, 
 my head pillowed upon his breast, his fingers stroking 
 my temples, his mouth close to my ear whispering 
 the tenderest entreaties, the most caressing words. 
 
 I did not try to push him away. It was beyond
 
 ii4 How It Happened. 
 
 me. Strength, woman's pride, self-respect, every- 
 thing, were for a minute submerged in the flood of 
 my love. There was bliss ineffable in the bare touch 
 of his fingers. I lay inert in his arms, letting him 
 clasp me, as our mother earth may one day clasp me, 
 into rest and peace. I knew it could not last. I 
 knew the struggle was but barely begun. Strength 
 must come to me from some source ; why not through 
 the tonic of this exquisite and unnamable joy ? 
 
 " Sweetheart, speak ! Say you forgive me ! " he 
 whispered at last. I opened my eyes and looked full 
 in his face. The glance almost conquered me. I 
 saw in it the ravages of pain and passion. He had 
 aged by ten years since the night of our parting. A 
 woman who stands valiantly against passion, even her 
 own, is almost surely undone when pity cries aloud. 
 It was in my heart to say indeed, the words were 
 shaping themselves on my lips : " Take me, Robins ! 
 I am yours, bound and helpless. Do with me as you 
 choose." But something stayed me. 
 
 In the thickets below a bird began to sing, loud 
 and clear and sweet, to his brooding mate on the 
 nest. I knew the song and the singer. I had made 
 friends with the pair of thrushes in the long summer 
 days. And as I heard their love chant a hundred 
 things rushed over me. Here was a pattern for us 
 who call ourselves the higher creatures. They love 
 as they sing cleanly, sweetly, purely centering 
 everything upon the home and the brood. 
 
 My heart, storm-swept and passion-wasted though
 
 How It Happened. 1 1 5 
 
 it was, leapt at the thought. This was the love it 
 craved, love open, free, honored in the sight cf God 
 and man. No other love would appease it. Better 
 die myself and see my lover die of heartbreak than 
 to do that which would kill the nobility of love and, 
 instead of leading to the heights, sink us both to the 
 eternal depths. Not in my own strength, not for my 
 own sake, but for love's sake, and in love's name 
 again I bade him leave me. 
 
 He raved, entreated, almost threatened. The day 
 went by to an evening of storms. At last I rose, 
 utterly worn and wearied. " If you will not part in 
 peace so be it," I said. " It is the last touch of grief 
 to leave you thus in anger, but leave you I must, or 
 I shall surely die. " 
 
 He caught me to him fiercely and began his mad 
 protest afresh. Just then I heard a footstep on the 
 rocks below. It was already dusky down there in 
 the shadows. Shrubs and tangle hid us. I held up 
 a warning hand. Robins let me go and stepped 
 back, holding out his arms. I lay within them for 
 one brief second, then, as he loosed me, darted away 
 and staggered down the hill. At the foot of it I fell 
 senseless. There Horton found me. Mother had 
 sent him in search of me. She had grown uneasy 
 over my long stay. 
 
 When I came to myself, he was chafing my hands 
 vigorously. My mouth was full of brandy from his 
 ever ready flask. He looked down at me kindly, yet 
 his smile was somewhat grim, as he said, nodding
 
 n6 How It Happened. 
 
 lightly toward the hill : " That fellow was pretty hard 
 to get rid of, but I do not believe he will trouble you 
 again." 
 
 "Why! What do you know ? Did you see?" I 
 began, helplessly. He laughed still grimly, saying, 
 as he helped me to my feet : " Selene Barker, you are 
 the most infantile person of your size it has ever 
 been my fortune to meet. Do you think the whole 
 story was not plain at first blush to a man who knows 
 life as I do ? I could not help knowing there was a 
 man, a scoundrel perhaps, behind your presence 
 here, your downcast looks, your fitful temper. You 
 are the sort to be intensely happy except when 
 the man you happen to love makes you otherwise. 
 Forget him, Selene, unless he is a square-dealing 
 man. No other sort is worth any woman's griev- 
 ing, let alone spoiling the finest pair of eyes in the 
 world." 
 
 " Don't, please ! " I said, too crushed and miserable 
 to be more than hurt at his open flattery. He gave 
 me a keener look ; then patted my hand, as he might 
 have done a little child's, saying: "There, there. 
 Now let me get you home. I'll improvise a story 
 maybe it was a snake that frightened you which 
 shall let you get off to bed and stay there for a 
 day." 
 
 " It was a snake," I said faintly, " the serpent that 
 crawled in Eden." 
 
 He gave a low, comprehending whistle and hurried 
 me home in silence. At the door I fainted again.
 
 How It Happened. 117 
 
 What he told the others I do not know, but for two 
 days and nights I lay in a darkened room, neither 
 eating nor sleeping, crushed beneath the knowledge 
 that Robins was lost to me forever and that we had 
 parted without a kind word.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Edge, August. 
 
 No heart to write, O kindly and patient confi- 
 dante ! The whole world has been a burden for ah, 
 so long ! Since Robins went and took my heart with 
 him six weeks have passed. In retrospect they seem 
 six centuries. Even the healing of the mountains 
 has been in vain. 
 
 Yet something happened to-day which showed me 
 I am not wholly dead. I was sketching, aimlessly, 
 blurring in lights and shadows, trying to catch some 
 of the magnificent aerial distances, when Brook came 
 up behind me. The poor lad has been far from well 
 lately. Though he is exactly my own age and has 
 lived at racing pace, he somehow seems to me very 
 raw and young. Perhaps it is Horton's attitude, or, 
 rather, the reflex of it in my own mind. He rates 
 Brook always in the kindliest fashion as a big, 
 fond elder brother might rate a wayward youngster of 
 whom he was in truth inordinately proud and fond. 
 Brook takes it beautifully. The two are the best sort 
 of comrades. Brook has told mother many things to 
 Horton's credit how he had stood by him in illness 
 and trouble, helping around hard places and insisting
 
 How It Happened. 119 
 
 that he should persevere, when Brook himself was 
 wholly discouraged. 
 
 I knew nothing of the boy's presence until I caught 
 his breath, quick and hurried, as he looked over my 
 shoulder. " Oh ! " he cried. " Miss Selene, that is 
 magnificent. If only I had your color sense ! " Then 
 a little mournfully, as his eyes traveled over me : 
 " Or even half your healthy strength to use what 
 gifts I have. I am just finding them out in time 
 to be too late. Horton swears at me when I say that, 
 but I am mightily afraid I'm in the right of this. If 
 only I could go back ten years ! But there ! Whin- 
 ing is no good. I must get better well, in fact. I 
 must. If I do not, I shall not be able to look my 
 own ghost in the face." 
 
 Then we talked as we had never talked before of 
 art and the life that leads to it and the innermost 
 meanings of it to feeling souls. As we talked, I felt 
 almost calm, and when he left me, fell to work again 
 with something of my old delight in it. I wonder if 
 it is true that for me salvation that way lies? I am 
 uncertain whether I care to find out or not. These 
 have been wild weeks. I have made a hundred mad 
 plans to hide in a convent, to go and nurse the 
 plague-stricken, to wrap myself away from the knowl- 
 edge of all in the obscurity of a drudge ! I have said 
 to myself hope was dead, and love, and ambition. It 
 was only in the weariness of actual physical hardship 
 that I could hope for rest. 
 
 Work is nature's anodyne ; but what work? This
 
 I2O How It Happened. 
 
 dabbling in color has been always the delight of my 
 soul. Form does not appeal to me ; even flowers are 
 but masses of tint. It is the crystal gold of the sun- 
 light, the silver of the moonshine, the soft suffusion 
 of cloudy skies that takes possession of my soul and 
 makes it glad. If I could paint a great picture, it 
 would be vague as the Apocalypse, a huge stretch of 
 heights and distances, riotously beautiful with all the 
 hues of light. If only I could do that, living might 
 be worth while, after all. When I said as much to 
 Brook, the poor fellow's eyes grew wistful indeed. 
 " Do not talk that way, " he entreated. " Indeed, 
 Miss Selene. Living is worth while anyway, even 
 when you live, as I do, in the very shadow of death. " 
 
 Poor lad ! I understood. He has gone the pace 
 that kills, especially those who have brain and body 
 equally delicately attuned. Tears for him came to 
 my eyes, as he went away. They had not dried when 
 Horton came up. He is never long away from Brook, 
 though I hear from my landlady, of course, that there 
 are urgent pleasures daily calling him. It must be 
 the man has a heart deep and tender or he would not 
 thus comfort and companion a struggling and obscure 
 artist, whose career, I very much fear, is drawing to 
 the end. Horton looked at my wet eyes keenly, then 
 said, in the most humane tone I ever heard from him : 
 " So you, too, have seen the truth. Do you know, if 
 life were purchasable, I would give half my fortune 
 to gain twenty years for that poor lad ? " 
 
 "Is it hopeless his case?" I asked. Horton
 
 How It Happened. 121 
 
 nodded and said, with a bitter smile : " Quite hope- 
 less. I knew that when we came; but the moun- 
 tains were his fancy, and I swore he should see them 
 to the end. At first he mended so wonderfully it 
 seemed a miracle was to be wrought. You must see 
 the change of late. To think it is all so little worth 
 while, too. Here is a man the world ought not to 
 spare, dying before his flower because of a woman's 
 whim. " 
 
 " So there is a story. I am sorry for him," I said, 
 turning away my face so he could not see how it 
 whitened. He nodded again, almost fiercely, saying : 
 "Yes; but a story I shall not tell you in detail. 
 She is a great lady, with riches, a husband, position, 
 and all that. My lad pleased her fancy of the min- 
 ute ; she led him on and on, kept him dangling about 
 her, until she owned him body and soul. Then, when 
 in a minute of madness, over- enchanted with her sub- 
 tle alluring, he spoke well, what all men feel in 
 such cases, she she turned and slew him with her 
 pretense of outraged innocence and wounded wifely 
 pride. The truth was she had tired of him ; besides, 
 she had a newer lover in leash. She is high and 
 haughty and spotless before her world. My wife and 
 all the other women follow her lead. She can set a 
 fashion, or ruin a reputation, almost by the waving 
 of her fan." 
 
 "Why do you let your wife countenance her?" I 
 asked, looking at him steadily. He broke into a 
 grating laugh.
 
 122 How It Happened. 
 
 "Why do I let my wife?" he echoed. " O, Se- 
 lene Barker, I wonder where you have lived always 
 to have kept alive a tradition of wifely obedience ! 
 My wife does in all things exactly as she pleases." 
 
 " Perhaps you set her the example," I said, look- 
 ing away from him. He laughed again. " Of course," 
 he said. " There was nothing else to be done in such 
 a case as ours. We had no illusions I and my bride. 
 Our marriage was a commercial transaction, con- 
 cluded and conducted with the strictest commercial 
 integrity. I needed her half million of ready cash 
 to save encumbered real estate worth that sum sev- 
 eral times over. She needed a fixed position, a hus- 
 band and an establishment. Her money came out of 
 junk, you see, and she was so close to it it had not 
 been fully disinfected " 
 
 " Please do not speak that way," I said. " It seems 
 to me so cruel. However it may have happened, she 
 is your wife. Any word that touches her must touch 
 you much more closely." 
 
 He looked at me amazed. " You are a survival," 
 he said, at last, with that same hard laugh. " Per- 
 haps if all women were like you no man would ever 
 speak as I have just done. But do not set me down 
 so much a fool as to think I speak that way often. I 
 do not, on my life. There is something about you, I 
 cannot understand what, that almost compels a man 
 to speak his inmost thoughts." 
 
 " I shall forget what you have spoken, -as nearly 
 as I can," I said. "Meantime about poor Brook
 
 How It Happened. 123 
 
 is there nothing whatever that can be done for 
 him?" 
 
 "Nothing, except what I am doing saving him 
 the shame of a bloody end," Horton said, speaking 
 through shut teeth. " I am keeping him here be- 
 cause I know him so well. If once he came to know 
 what I know that the woman who broke his heart is 
 making herself the scandalous wonder of her world 
 by her almost open liaison with Brook's supplanter 
 well, the world would wake up some fine morning to 
 shudder over a social tragedy. Brook would kill the 
 other fellow, not because he has succeeded, but be- 
 cause he is so low he boasts of his success. My lad 
 would be apt to make a clean job of it end up by 
 killing himself and the woman, too. When a man 
 has felt in himself all the golden possibilities and 
 knows they are forever gone, he is likely to take a 
 desperate revenge on fate." 
 
 He left me, shuddering and affrighted in my own 
 soul over the potentialities of human passion.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Edge, August 2Oth. 
 
 The masque of the passions has reached an end 
 all peace. Today we buried poor Brook under the 
 spreading lindens of the village cemetery. He begged 
 to sleep there such a pitiful begging ! little broken, 
 gasping words in between the spurts of blood. Hor- 
 ton stood by him to the end. I am almost ready to 
 say now that friends may love and keep faith with a 
 love passing the love of woman. Those two were 
 certainly faithful unto death. And yet Brook's 
 very last word was a name " Agnes " that sent the 
 fire into Horton's eyes. 
 
 That was four days back. We waited for his peo- 
 ple. Only the mother came. She is a good woman, 
 I am sure, but, oh, how little she must have under- 
 stood the son who lay so peacefully in his coffin. 
 She was shaken and bowed with grief for him, but it 
 was not wholly the grief of love bereft. There was 
 disappointment and crushed aspiration in what she 
 said to mother : " We always knew he had talent," 
 with her handkerchief to her eyes ; " but it would not 
 be so hard to give him up if he had not had such fair 
 prospects opening before him. Only last winter the 
 very richest people in the city took him up. Why,
 
 How It Happened. 125 
 
 he was paid a thousand dollars for just one portrait. 
 And the lady who sat for it had said she would make 
 others sit for him. We had built on it so. It is so 
 hard to think we must give it all up because the poor 
 boy had not the strength to stand out against evil 
 ways. Of course, it was the late hours, and the 
 smoking, and and the drink that did it. What 
 should be done with those who lead young men into 
 such wickedness? Yes, Mr. Horton has been kind, 
 but that does not make up to us. He sent the boy 
 abroad, and there was where our son fell into those 
 dreadful ways." 
 
 Thank God, when I die, there will be none to ap- 
 praise my loss. It made me sick at heart to hear 
 this woman, who is in her own mind of the very elect, 
 speak so openly, yet so blindly. Yet Horton excused 
 her when I told him of it later. His mouth put on 
 the grim look I have come to know so well, but all 
 he said was : " Well, she shall be consoled. She 
 needs to be, I dare say. They are desperately poor, 
 I know. Brook always shared generously with them 
 whatever he earned. He has left a lot of unfinished 
 things sketches and studies. It will be easy to see 
 that they are sold at a fair valuation. " 
 
 " Which means that you will buy them, wiping 
 your own claim off the slate," I said. He looked at 
 me keenly. " Who said I had any claim ? " he asked. 
 I nodded : " Brook himself told mother said the 
 most he cared to live for was to repay you 
 
 " Don't ! " he broke in, turning sharply about. I
 
 126 How It Happened. 
 
 saw his mouth quiver under his thick mustache. " It 
 is curious," he went on, after a minute, " the effect 
 the lad had on me. It must be he awoke the dor- 
 mant paternal instinct. I felt almost as if I could be 
 a good man while he was around. " 
 
 " You are good in your way," I said. He shook 
 his head. " Not even in my way," he said, " though 
 that is a pretty bad one. Miss Selene, I wonder if I 
 am as much a puzzle to you as you have been from 
 the very first to me ? We are both human beings, 
 but that is about all we have in common. " 
 
 He is a big, fair man, with crisp, blonde hair, and 
 sleepy, heavy-lidded blue eyes. The eyes rested 
 upon me, full of frank questioning at first, but some- 
 thing gathered in their depths which made me turn 
 abruptly away. Of course, it will never get farther 
 than his eyes that unhappy something which is so 
 distasteful, yet seems to be so inevitable. He is the 
 very pink and pattern of respectful courtesy. Though 
 he may be as bad as he makes himself out, I am cer- 
 tain he will never manifest anything else toward me, 
 unless my own manner should license the change. 
 
 I did not answer his question directly. Instead, I 
 said, slowly, weighing my words as I let them fall : 
 " We are certainly unlike in one thing. You married 
 a woman you knew you did not love, because it was 
 to your purpose. I well, I have put away love, the 
 most wonderful love in the world, because I could 
 not keep it unstained." 
 
 " That is to say, you are impracticable hopelessly
 
 How It Happened. 1 27 
 
 so," he said; then he wheeled and walked away. I 
 did not see him again until he came to walk with 
 mother behind poor Brook to the grave. 
 
 It was all very solemn, very touching the rustic 
 gathering, the old, white-haired minister reading the 
 ritual in a quavering treble, the sough of soft winds 
 in the pines on the hills, the rustle of the linden 
 boughs, and the droning of the humble-bees through 
 the plumes of golden-rod flaunting all about. Some 
 kindly soul had lined the grave with fresh evergreen 
 boughs, and when it came to be rilled the rough fel- 
 lows at the spades did the work very gently, spreading 
 a thick carpet of soft earth over the boards before 
 they began to let the clods and pebbles rattle down. 
 When the mound was heaped, I laid a sheaf of daisies 
 on it. Poor Brook loved them. " They are the con- 
 stant flowers," he said to me one day, giving me a 
 choice handful. His mother watched me, a little re- 
 sentfully, I thought, as though she might be think- 
 ing : " Here is an intruder who takes up some part of 
 the attention which should center on me, the chief 
 sufferer." But Horton gave me a grateful look. If 
 that man has a heart, poor Brook found the way to it. 
 
 The Edge, June 26th. 
 
 Another year, another birthday! I am rising 
 thirty, and I have gone back ten years. This Se- 
 lene is no gay girl of sweet and twenty, but she has 
 the spring of youth, which is hope.
 
 128 How It Happened. 
 
 So much so much has come and gone since last 
 I wrote. Odd that I should pen no line in all the 
 months I have been away from this little mountain 
 village; yet not strange, either. In the city one 
 barely lives it is all so breathless, so absorbing, 
 there is no room for anything more. Mine was the 
 fullest possible life there; the wonder would be if I 
 had snatched time to write of it. Here in the sweet 
 content of the mountains, where for two full weeks I 
 have given myself up to the delight of looking at 
 them, I shall pick up my broken strands and weave 
 from them a connected fabric. All the more con- 
 nected, perhaps, that I have waited. Things show 
 much more at their true values in perspective. 
 
 Perspective! I hate that word. I have a great 
 mind to blot it. I have had it hurled at me in all the 
 moods and tenses most maddeningly of all by that 
 French water colorist, who raved over the tints of my 
 "Autumn Foliage," but said, holding it upside down, 
 and sidewise, and endwise : " Madame ! Ze perspec- 
 tive ? Where ees him ? " 
 
 I must go back to the first of it. Really, though, 
 I think the first has been told. Like the last, almost, 
 it was Horton. For my life I do not know I did 
 not even know when it was happening how it all 
 came about that he fell in the way of looking after 
 me as he had looked after that poor boy with a dif- 
 ference, however. After the burial he always showed 
 me a dry, wholly impersonal kindness. One day he 
 took a portfolio of my sketches mother had lugged to
 
 How It Happened. 129 
 
 light, and went through them in the most ultra-crit- 
 ical manner, squinting his eyes, holding them about 
 in different lights, and never saying a word until he 
 had dropped the last one. Then he got up and 
 stretched himself a little. " Young lady, you can 
 make a painter if you will condescend to learn how," 
 he said, at last. " What I mean is, your color sense 
 is fine, but you have not the first rudiment of tech- 
 nic. Are you willing to work and wait and watch 
 five years ? " 
 
 " Ten, if it means learning to do what I have always 
 wanted," I said. He did not answer me for a full 
 minute. Then he said, thoughtfully : 
 
 " I am certain it can be done, but it is going to 
 take grit real, stubborn grit. I think you have it. 
 What do you say? " 
 
 " I do not know," I answered ; " but I am willing 
 to find out by trying." There the matter rested un- 
 til next day, when he was ready to go away. He 
 came and talked with mother, not me ; but as he left, 
 said, nodding very emphatically : " You are going to 
 hear some news astonishing news very soon. Be 
 sure you do not let it overcome you." 
 
 I laughed, and was amazed at myself. Laughing 
 was foreign to my feelings then, on many accounts. 
 But somehow Horton has always affected me morally 
 something as the glass of brandy he made me swallow 
 in the beginning of our acquaintance. For two days 
 mother kept her own counsel. Upon the third there 
 came a telegram, and after she had read it she said : 
 9
 
 130 How It Happened. 
 
 " Our holiday is almost over, Selene. Dear child, do 
 not look alarmed over it, but I commissioned Mr. 
 Horton to find us an apartment in the city. We will 
 go to it next week. He has told me what he thinks 
 of your chances, and I mean that you shall have every 
 advantage." 
 
 I did have every advantage. Between them mother 
 and Mr. Horton made me almost ashamed, their kind- 
 ness was so overwhelming. We were soon comfor- 
 tably settled in a tiny bird's nest of a place, but trim 
 and dainty and bright as any place could be. How 
 we reveled in the trimness, the brightness, we two 
 wayfarers, who had pictured in our mind's eye life in 
 a flat as a dim and airless existence. And then the 
 delight of making the tiny home express ourselves ! 
 No matter what we chose to put in it, we had no fear 
 of Mrs. Grundy before our eyes. In fact, I do not 
 think Mrs. Grundy exists for independent city folk. 
 They are a law unto themselves, so long as they keep 
 within the pale of the health board and police regula- 
 tions. 
 
 My masters ! Heavens ! If I try to tell of them, 
 I shall lose heart for everything else. Mr. Horton 
 chose them. They gave me private lessons. He 
 would have it so. " You are. too big, too mature, for 
 the League, for any of the classes," he said. " Be- 
 sides, you want different training. I know the men 
 who can give it." I am sure they tried as faithfully 
 as ever men did. I must have been a wearing pupil ; 
 I can see that myself. J listened to them attentively
 
 How It Happened. 131 
 
 and tried to profit by every word. But I have found 
 out a queer thing. I am not an old woman, but my 
 muscles have acquired while they were still plastic a 
 trick of responding to a certain mental impulse with 
 a motion which is often the reverse of what it should 
 be. That has made the unlearning very hard and my 
 hours of study seasons of grinding labor. But I 
 have not given up. I shall never give up. There 
 is too much at stake. 
 
 Love no longer flames the day-star of my soul. In 
 its stead there burns ambition ambition to set my 
 name high on the roll and let it be read there by the 
 man who would have thrown up his world for me, yet 
 lacked the manliness to brave it. 
 
 I have made a beginning. This is my secret, O 
 best of confidantes ! It is shared only with you and 
 one other my good, bluff, brusque Horton. I have 
 forgotten to tell you the change in him. He has 
 never, by word or look, since I became, after a sort, 
 his protegee, given a sign that he regarded me as a 
 woman. Sometimes his want of deference has hurt 
 me; then I have laughed inly, saying: "Ah, how 
 much better that it is so ! " At first I was afraid. 
 But Horton is at bottom manly. Perhaps my very 
 helplessness, the fact that I am so alone and so for- 
 lorn, has put him upon honor regarding me. 
 
 He knows of it ; he encourages me to hope. I am 
 painting the "Vision of St. John." It has haunted 
 me from my earliest years. If only I can manage to 
 put on canvas one-tenth part of its crowning splen-
 
 132 How It Happened. 
 
 dors as they melt and waver before my enchanted 
 eyes, then, indeed, the world will stop to look. I 
 work at it only by fits and starts. The masters ? I 
 would not let them set eyes on it for a million dol- 
 lars. They could never be quite so sensible as I al- 
 ready am of how far I have come short of the glories 
 I see in mental vision, and they would pick flaw after 
 flaw this was out of drawing, that lacked form or 
 poise, or this was faulty in composition. 
 
 I am learning what they can teach me as rapidly as 
 my slow mind permits. It may be years before I can 
 bring hand and brain so in harmony as to realize my 
 vision. It is my labor of love. If it takes the best 
 part of my life to make it perfect, I shall not grumble. 
 Meantime, it shall not be profaned by unfriendly eyes. 
 
 Living has not been over-costly. It is the lessons 
 that I shudder to think of. Still, we have a thou- 
 sand dollars of our little capital. It is in our Barce- 
 lona bank, because there interest is higher. Before 
 it is gone I may begin to earn money not great 
 sums, but modest ones, as modest as our desires. 
 Besides, we shall be in better circumstances ; many 
 expenses incident to setting up a home will not have 
 to be met again. The pension helps out famously. 
 Blessings on a thoughtful and noble government that 
 makes provision, even so humbly, for those its defend- 
 ers left behind. Mother's eyes shine, and she holds 
 up her head in pride, when she goes out with her 
 quarterly check to supply some special need. 
 
 Still, I do not quite see how we could have got on
 
 How It Happened. 133 
 
 but for the good Horton. He knows so much, in so 
 many ways, and all his knowledge- has been put at 
 our service. Then he has kept me supplied with 
 flowers they went a long way toward staving off 
 heart sickness and heart hunger. He has sent us 
 tickets, too, for the opera, the theater, about every- 
 thing we have cared to see. Once with a batch there 
 was a scrawl : " Look in the upper right-hand box to- 
 night. Mrs. Horton has a party in it. " Again, he 
 bade me one day look out for her carriage in the 
 park. " I want you to see her under gaslight and 
 by daylight," he said. " It will help you to under- 
 stand. " 
 
 It did help me. Mrs. Witherby, I am certain, 
 would say Mrs. Horton was a stylish woman. I am 
 sure she is stylish myself but it is rather bad style. 
 She is loud by nature, high-colored, with a face full 
 of heavy lines, and a lumpish figure. In her youth 
 she was square and somewhat rawboned. At least, I 
 think so, from the way she has laid on fat or padding. 
 " I can never permit her to take note of your exist- 
 ence. You are out of her world it is best that you 
 stay out of it," Horton said frankly, almost as soon 
 as we were established. " She would call on you if 
 I asked it, and send you a card to one of her inter- 
 minable dinners. But you would certainly gain noth- 
 ing by the acquaintance and you might possibly lose 
 a great deal. " 
 
 Horton himself came but rarely, though we heard 
 from him in some fashion at least three times a week.
 
 134 How It Happened. 
 
 He came always in the morning. " lam supposed to 
 be a man of fashion after fashion is awake," he ex- 
 plained. " My only freedom betwixt November and 
 midsummer is in the hours I snatch when I ought to 
 be in bed. To make up for them I doze comfortably 
 through the after-dinner oratory, which is among the 
 pains and penalties of being ranked a leading citizen. " 
 
 He is fond of riding, and often came to us on his 
 way home from a canter in the park. " I wish you 
 could have the same thing every day," he said more 
 than once, muttering afterward something about the 
 absurd western way of not teaching every girl to ride. 
 If only I had been southern I would be as much at 
 home in the saddle as a fish in water. To turn the 
 tables upon him I usually answered that if I had hap- 
 pened to be southern he would probably find my door 
 shut in his face, since he was politically a Republican 
 of Republicans and of a family that had sent more 
 than one famous abolitionist to the nation's councils. 
 
 We are friends; we shall never be anything but 
 friends. No doubt at first he felt in some measure 
 what Robins calls the seduction of my womanhood ; 
 but that is entirely past. We have agreed tacitly to 
 put aside the handicap of sex and be comrades upon 
 the safe ground of human friendliness and good-fel- 
 lowship. 
 
 Next week he comes to The Edge. I shall be glad 
 so glad to see him. I feared he would not come 
 that the memory of the poor lad would be too pain- 
 ful for him. When I said as much, indirectly, he
 
 How It Happened. 135 
 
 gave me an odd look. " I see you have very much to 
 learn, Selene," he said, "even about such a simple 
 subject as myself." 
 
 Mother is here with me. Dearest mother, she is 
 more silvery, more wraith- like than ever, yet the soul 
 of cheerful content. " I do not mind anything, Se- 
 lene, now that you have learned to smile again," she 
 says. And once, when I talked a bit wildly of hope 
 and fame, she came and kissed my cheek, saying, 
 with tears in her voice : " Darling, I hope you will 
 do it all you have planned, and more. When you 
 are famous, there is just one thing I shall ask : Tell 
 all the people how Paul always knew you had genius 
 and how he wanted to set you above all the world. 
 If he had lived, he would have done it. Up in 
 heaven he will rejoice to see you do it for yourself." 
 
 Her faith struck me dumb. I cowered and shrank 
 then suddenly held up my head. If, indeed, Paul 
 knows, he will understand all it has cost me to keep 
 myself as he left me-^-unspotted and unstained. 
 
 Robins ! I no longer let myself think of him. 
 Sometimes in my dreams but let that pass. The 
 book of life which held him is closed and sealed for- 
 ever. I love him. I shall love him to the end. But 
 it is not the old delirious madness. If his love had 
 but once been supreme, it would have won me. My 
 nature is devoted. I could say, smiling while I said 
 it: "All for love and the world well lost." But I 
 never lose the world for less than that perfect love 
 which is selfless and complete, casting out fear and
 
 1 36 How It Happened. 
 
 knowing nothing of abasement. Robins, I may, after 
 a while, be glad you did not love me so. In your 
 cowardice toward your world I found in part my safe- 
 guard. Time is a wonderful consoler a yet more 
 wonderful teacher. I at least have learned from him 
 that the soul, be it ever so lovelorn, cannot always 
 abide in desolation if it will give itself in full strength 
 to honest* hard work.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Edge, August . 
 
 I must either write or go mad. Inaction is impos- 
 sible. In the room beyond, mother my mother, 
 Paul's mother lies, peaceful and dead. O God! 
 God ! Could you not spare me this last blow ? She 
 was all I had to love ! We kept each other from deso- 
 lation. 
 
 And she was done to death. There lies the sting 
 of it ! If I had never tempted her away from home ! 
 but repining is idle. I will set it all down just as 
 it happened. She has seemed so bright and happy 
 this summer, particularly since Mr. Horton came. I 
 think he encouraged her wonderfully about my prog- 
 ress. I know he has never been half so kind in his 
 judgments. It has not been fulsome kindness. 
 Every word has rung true. Only two days back 
 mother said, when he left us : " Ah, Selene, if only I 
 can live to see you famous I shall be ready to depart." 
 The darling never had a thought for herself. It was 
 all for me because I was a part of Paul. 
 
 This morning we sat at ease together, watching 
 the sun dapple the mountain sides and the clouds play 
 at hide-and-seek with one another as the wind tossed 
 them about. I was almost entirely happy so near
 
 138 How It Happened. 
 
 to happiness I felt like pinching myself to see if I 
 were awake or dreaming. Suddenly a breathless 
 urchin darted up to us with a yellow envelope in his 
 hand. I tried to take it, but mother was before me. 
 She tore it open. I saw a Barcelona date line, with, 
 underneath, the words : " Pioneer Bank closed its 
 doors this morning. Examiner says it is a total 
 wreck." 
 
 The signature was unfamiliar. Mother read it 
 through twice, all the time growing white and whiter. 
 Then she flung up her arms and dropped slowly for- 
 ward. The next minute she would have been on the 
 floor but that I caught and held her. 
 
 " Let me help you ! She is quite dead .' " a voice 
 said two minutes later Horton's voice. He had fol- 
 lowed the messenger up from the village, fearing bad 
 news for us. I railed out at him like a mad woman, 
 bidding him take back what he had said, calling 
 wildly for stimulants, a doctor, help of every sort. 
 He lifted my light burden as though it had been a 
 feather, and bore her where she now lies. Then he 
 took me by the shoulders and pushed me inside my 
 own room, saying, as he slammed the door in my 
 face : " Stay there until you collect yourself a little. 
 I shall do whatever is needed." 
 
 He has been better than his word. There was lit- 
 tle that could be done. " Heart failure from shock," 
 the doctor said, at first glance, his eye taking in the 
 telegram, still clutched in her hand. I heard it all 
 I had opened my door a little way. It was too heart-
 
 How It Happened. 139 
 
 less to leave her all alone, with strangers only about 
 her. Horton kept back the curious crowd. If I had 
 hated him, I must henceforth be his friend for life, 
 in memory of his delicate consideration for her and 
 for me. 
 
 "Young Mrs. Barker is overcome. I have all 
 things in charge," I heard him say. Then he knocked 
 softly on my door, and when I opened it said : " Slip 
 away if you possibly can. The hills will help you 
 and to-day you need help sorely." 
 
 I locked the door, and when all eyes were turned, 
 shot out of the bay window and ran away, away I 
 neither knew nor cared where. For hours I walked, 
 coming back only in the shadow of the friendly dusk. 
 I found Horton waiting for me. " Go in, open your 
 door and rest," he said " I will send you something 
 eat, though you may force each mouthful. Then 
 rest all you may. To-morrow morning you will start 
 for your old home. You must " very imperatively. 
 " I know, you know, she craved to be laid beside her 
 son. I shall go with you most of the way. All 
 things will be ready when you reach the town. Be 
 quiet ! Do not name money at such a time. Do as 
 you are bidden. You owe it to her, if not to me." 
 
 I obeyed him, silently. All will go as he has 
 planned. Before sunrise she will be going home. 
 And I am homeless forever. O mother! mother! 
 If needs must you go, death was doubly, trebly cruel 
 
 to leave me behind. 
 
 *******
 
 140 How It Happened. 
 
 New York, Nov. . 
 
 At last I know what it is to be homeless amid the 
 isolation of a great city. No wonder I shrank from 
 coming back to it, though assured of a comfortable 
 abiding place. If I had been ever so eager, I could 
 not have come earlier. Horton made me stay in the 
 mountains. Good old Horton. I just begin to ap- 
 preciate him as he deserves. He says we are 
 chums, or rather partners. I wonder if he has 
 really given me poor Brook's place in his regard! 
 But I shall hardly ever know. He grows more 
 and more silent. I have seen him only three times 
 since he left me on the train twenty miles outside 
 of Barcelona. 
 
 "You must not go back to The Edge," he said 
 then, slipping a bit of paper into my hand. " When 
 when all is over go there to the place I have writ- 
 ten. It is farther south down in the Virginia 
 hills. I want you to see them in all their autumn 
 glory." 
 
 I saw them. Once he came to me when the world 
 was royal in gold and scarlet and purple. It was for 
 but three hours. " I was passing I stopped to see 
 that you were in no mischief," he said. Then he got 
 horses and took me for a long, long drive over the 
 hills. The air was like wine, the sunlight a benedic- 
 tion; yet some way they brought me no joy. Hor- 
 ton, too, was ill at ease. He sat very upright, speak- 
 ing more to the horses than to me. Once he turned
 
 How It Happened. 141 
 
 and looked at me with a narrow, calculating gaze. 
 Five minutes later he asked abruptly when I could 
 be ready to return to New York. 
 
 At once, I told him I was already so deep in his 
 debt I was anxious to set about finding a way to 
 earn my own living. At least, I meant to tell him 
 all that. He stopped me before I got to the middle. 
 " I wish you would not show yourself so ungrateful," 
 he said. " Be content to owe until you are called on 
 to pay." That was more than kind of him, but I can- 
 not be content. Now that I am here I shall do my 
 utmost to, at the least, keep my debt to him from 
 growing much greater. 
 
 Lessons I will not have, although I have almost 
 quarreled with him about it. We argued the point 
 for an hour it is the only subject upon which he 
 speaks in the old, free way. But I held to my pur- 
 pose so tenaciously he had to say, at last : " Well, 
 well, I give in to you ! After all, what does it mat- 
 ter?" Then he almost ran away, leaving me more 
 than ever puzzled. I have heard nothing from him 
 since, save for a line scrawled on the slip about a 
 package of bank notes which a messenger delivered. 
 It was entirely characteristic : " To be broken and 
 taken three times a day." 
 
 There are five hundred dollars in the package. 
 Added to what I already owe him, it makes my debt 
 over a thousand. The amount almost appals me 
 but no ! I will not let it. Horton is no niggard. 
 He helps free-handed, as he would like himself to be
 
 142 How It Happened. 
 
 helped in need. Long before this last loan is ex- 
 hausted I hope to be on my feet. Still, I cannot for- 
 get the very strange way he said : " You are dread- 
 fully in need of lessons from a new, a hard master." 
 I wonder what the saying can possibly mean ?
 
 CHAPTER XV, 
 
 New York, June . 
 
 Perhaps I am finding out what Horton meant. 
 Certainly I have had the hard lessons. My money 
 is two-thirds spent, and not one dollar have I earned. 
 Worse, still ; I am almost assured that it will be a 
 long time before I can begin earning, if, indeed, I 
 ever do. That is, in ordinary commercial ways. I 
 have tried everywhere to find something I could do 
 marketably, or a market for something already done. 
 Everywhere it is the same story my work gives 
 promise, but it is not up to the mark. How can I 
 go in the face of such discouragement? Sometimes 
 I spend hours before my Vision, utterly unable to call 
 up the looming heights, the immeasurable depths, the 
 soft splendors, the ineffable glories it owns in my 
 mind. 
 
 The Vision is my last hope. If only I could have 
 six months of calm to finish it ! I work at it often 
 through furious hours, only to find when next I look 
 at it that it will take other hours to undo all I have 
 wrongly done. I have no friendly counselor now. 
 Pride forbids that I go to Horton. He has not come 
 near me since the day I rejected his advice. If I 
 went, he would say in chuckling triumph : " So you
 
 144 How It Happened. 
 
 are willing to be made an artist, after all. O, yes ; 
 you may be a genius born, but the best of them have 
 to be made after they are born. Be good now, and 
 humble, and contrite. Go to work under your mas- 
 ters, and don't worry over things you cannot help." 
 
 Unless some good thing happens very soon I shall 
 be forced to go to him. There is a plan nebulously 
 in my mind. Perhaps he will not laugh at it if only 
 I can summon courage to tell it to him fully. He 
 has not forgotten me; of that I am sure. Christmas 
 and at the New Year he sent me beautiful gifts, not 
 offensively costly, but so chosen as to show he knew 
 and remembered my likings. They were very wel- 
 come how welcome one can only know who sits 
 strange among strangers, with only casual surface 
 friendliness in those about. 
 
 One day in a shop I met Mrs. Horton face to face. 
 The strangest impulse to speak, to let her know who 
 I was, and what I wanted so much to do fell upon me 
 then and there. If I had yielded to it, it is likely she 
 would have thought me crazy. Her face says she is 
 one who makes no allowance for moods. Still, it is 
 not a bad face ; only hard and vacuous, as I fancy her 
 life must be. I fancy, too, had she married a man 
 after her own mold and borne him children as hard 
 and narrow and material as their two selves, she might 
 have been very much happier. She is married, but 
 mateless. Horton shows her all outside deference. 
 She sits at his table, mistress, and is in consequence 
 a social power. But she must miss something, even
 
 How It Happened. 145 
 
 if she does not know that she misses it. He told me 
 once the whole duty of a fashionable woman's hus- 
 band was to pay his wife's bills and show himself in 
 her company once a fortnight through the half year. 
 I have been working these last four days upon a 
 set of menu cards. Even to such trifles have I tried 
 to bend my talent. In a little while I shall go out 
 with them. A dealer has promised to look at them 
 and try to sell them to a wealthy patron. That is 
 the nearest encouragement I have ever yet come. 
 Who knows but the painted bits are to be my touch- 
 stone ? If I can live even in the simplest fashion by 
 such things, I shall keep on, work on, hope on ; then 
 when the Vision is done I shall sell it, though it will 
 be like selling my life; pay my good, patient Horton 
 and go my ways, happy in the knowledge that if I 
 am humble I am also independent. 
 
 New York, Feb. . 
 
 It is a week since it all happened ; longer than 
 that, indeed, since it began. My hand shakes so it 
 is a question if I can write intelligibly, yet I am calm 
 and quiet now by contrast with what I have been 
 since the day when but I must not let myself think 
 of that first. Steady, Selene ! You must understand 
 that you have only yourself to look to now. That 
 self must be cool, calm, passionless, or you will go 
 under. 
 
 Now with my nerves tense I will try to say all I 
 10
 
 146 How It Happened. 
 
 have to say briefly, so clearly I shall not be ashamed 
 to read over the record in years to come. I know 
 they will come. Death passes by unhappy souls to 
 take those which revel in the happiness of full life. 
 
 My last failure how the shopmen laughed at my 
 ragged masses of color on the cards sent me to Hor- 
 ton, desperate but firm. I knew where I might find 
 him in business hours, although I had never been in 
 his office. As I entered it I saw him seated at a 
 desk. He did not look up, but I knew he was some- 
 how subtly aware of my presence. I saw his eyelids 
 quiver the least bit, his mouth relax, then harden 
 under his thick yellow mustache. As I came to the 
 very edge of the desk he glanced up at me, nodded, 
 and said, motioning me to the chair beside it : " Sit 
 down. You have come to your senses ? " 
 
 " Because I have come here? " I returned, answer- 
 ing his question with another. Again he nodded : 
 " I looked for you earlier, at least three weeks ear- 
 lier," he said, with a stealing smile. "Well, now 
 that you are here, what is it? " 
 
 His tone was cool, but not unkindly; he spoke ex- 
 actly as he might have spoken to a man whom he 
 knew but slightly and did not care to know better. 
 I blessed him inly for the carelessness of it. His 
 face, too, was tranquil. He leaned a little back in 
 his chair, and looked me full in the face. Then, see- 
 ing me glance at the young fellow who stood at a 
 high desk back of himself, he half turned his head to 
 say : " Go outside, Gatchel, and say I am engaged
 
 How It Happened. 147 
 
 for the next ten minutes. No; leave the door ajar. 
 Be sure, though, I am not interrupted, and if your 
 hear my bell call up Brasseur on the telephone. Bras- 
 seur is my lawyer," he explained, as the clerk van- 
 ished ; " a good fellow, but freakish in some points. 
 Now, madam, I am waiting for what you have to say." 
 
 " It is not much, and I do not know if I can say it 
 very clearly," I began. "Except the first part, you 
 are right, I wrong. I do not know enough to make 
 my own living. I am afraid the only way for you 
 ever to get your money back is to to Jet me spend 
 some more of it." 
 
 " How ? " he said, speaking so low I hardly caught 
 the word. It came with a hard breath behind it; 
 but even that did not warn me. I hurried on, hud- 
 dling the words together : " I shall never do anything 
 worthwhile until I know enough to finish the Vision. 
 All the people I have been to seem to think there is 
 something in me, but none of them can give me work 
 to live by while I bring it out. I thought that is 
 I hope you you have been so kind already that you 
 will will let me go somewhere to Paris, perhaps 
 where I can starve, and study O, believe I shall not 
 mind the starving ! until I learn to paint really to 
 paint, not to blotch and slur. If you will, you shall 
 be paid, if it takes half my life to earn the money " 
 
 " Selene ! " 
 
 That was all he said, but it stopped me short. His 
 eyes told me the rest even before he reached and 
 caught my hand. " O, you foolish Selene ! " he
 
 148 How It Happened. 
 
 said, laying his cheek upon the hand. " Why do you 
 waste your breath and my time in talking of money ? 
 You know you have known all along there could 
 never be any question of it between us. If you in- 
 sist that you owe me why, there is but one way to 
 pay it. You know what that is. Money ! Do not 
 name the stuff ! You shall have a thousand dollars 
 to throw to the beggars if only you will take it." 
 
 "I will not take it upon your terms!" I cried, 
 wrenching my hand from him and springing to my 
 feet. He, too, got up. 
 
 " I advise you to keep cool," he said ; " for your 
 own sake, of course. I assure you that I have, so far 
 as women are concerned, no reputation to lose." 
 
 I sank back, trembling all over, and covered my 
 face with my hands. I could feel the blood leaping 
 in my cheeks; then suddenly rushing back to my 
 heart in a mad, smothering tide. The very earth 
 seemed to rock beneath me. I had been so blind I 
 had trusted him, believed in him so even against his 
 own warnings. 
 
 After a little he went on : " Be sensible, Selene ! 
 I am a bad lot, but it is not wholly a despicable bad- 
 ness. I would not harm you indeed,, my wish is to 
 help you. But I am a man, with one life to live 
 and just now you are somewhat essential to it. Ac- 
 cept what I can give you, and your future is secure. 
 At a word I will settle upon you money enough to 
 keep you in elegance so long as you live and do it 
 in such a way that you would never be compromised.
 
 How It Happened. 149 
 
 In every way I would be as careful of you. You shall 
 stand before the world without spot or blemish. You 
 are new here almost wholly unknown. If you 
 choose, you can figure as an amateur artist, with an 
 independent income sufficient to provide you a small 
 but handsome establishment. Once you are in it you 
 will find a mighty difference, not only in your work, 
 but in the way people look at it. 'Unto him that 
 hath shall be given.' That would be social truth if 
 Scripture had never said it. Your position would be 
 unquestioned. Further, I have it in my power to put 
 you in the way of knowing many people really worth 
 while. There would never be any talk those things 
 can always be managed by one who knows how 
 
 "And your wife?" I asked, looking him full in 
 the eyes. My voice astonished me it was so low 
 and steady. He shrugged his shoulders the least 
 bit. 
 
 " My wife ! " he echoed. " My wife would neither 
 know not care. Do not let your conscience hurt you 
 on her account, Selene. In taking me you rob no- 
 body who has a better right. Now, for years and 
 years we have held our ways apart. And even if she 
 knew, I think she would approve my taste you are 
 certainly an improvement upon the others." 
 
 " What others ? " It was all I could say. Again 
 he gave the shrug, one shoulder rising a little above 
 the other. 
 
 " There are always others, my girl," he said. " Best 
 not know too much about them. But this I promise
 
 150 How It Happened. 
 
 you : When you are mine, you shall be supreme for, 
 at the least, six months. It may be longer, of course, 
 but I do not bind myself. One never knows what 
 may happen while the old planet is rolling around." 
 
 I had been looking over his head. Now I stood 
 up and set my blazing eyes full on his face. " So 
 that is what you have planned ! " I said, my hands 
 clinching. " And I thought you understood the sort 
 of woman you were befriending. Do you know, if I 
 would take what you offer if I would take anything 
 in exchange for my poor self I could have had it all 
 twice over two years ago and the man I loved be- 
 side?" 
 
 " O ! That man ! I remember him ! He let you 
 have your own way there in the hills, " Horton said, 
 carelessly. " Even then, Selene, I thought him a 
 fool to do it. Let us not go into heroics over this. 
 Recognize, my young woman, that you are bound to 
 be some man's prey why not mine rather than any 
 other? " 
 
 " That is what he said the man I loved ! " I an- 
 swered. Horton laughed a hard laugh. " So he 
 was not such a fool, after all," he said. " I forgot 
 then you had not tried your wings. " 
 
 I sat down, shaking like a leaf. His last words 
 brought back to me the horrible tmth. I was hope- 
 lessly his debtor for months I had existed upon his 
 bounty. The weight of obligation seemed to crush 
 to stifle me. I flung up my hands, and let my 
 head fall upon the edge of the desk, moaning out :
 
 How It Happened. 151 
 
 " O, why are you so cruel ! So very cruel ! I 
 never dreamed you could be so." 
 
 " It is you who are cruel to us both," he said, try- 
 ing to take my hand. I drew it away from him, and 
 buried my face in it. Big, scalding tears forced them- 
 selves between my fingers. Horton drew me to him, 
 and said, as he wiped them away : " The harder the 
 shower the sooner it is over but, Selene, let me beg 
 you not to cultivate a knack of indulging thus in 
 domestic hydraulics." 
 
 " I thought we were friends comrades ! " I moaned. 
 " You were so good to poor Brook why will you not 
 be as good to me ? " 
 
 " Because you are a woman and because, further, 
 you have set up your will against mine," Horton an- 
 swered promptly. " Brook, poor lad, never made that 
 mistake. But I should not scold you, naughty girl 
 that you are. The pleasure of subduing you is worth 
 a very great deal." 
 
 " I dare say it will be when it is yours," I said, 
 wrenching myself free of him. The sudden fury that 
 had fallen upon me brought a maniac's strength. Big 
 as he is, and well-muscled, I could have choked him 
 then and there. My fingers ached with a murderous 
 inclination to close about his throat. I locked them 
 behind me and hurried on. " I wonder at you you 
 seemed a man of discerning. You have seen me 
 many times I have not tried to mask from you what 
 manner of woman I am grateful, loyal, readily re- 
 sponsive to kindness, only too eager to put those who
 
 152 How It Happened. 
 
 are my friends in the high niches and do them hom- 
 age. If you were but the man I took you to be, then, 
 indeed, I should have been in danger not from you, 
 for that man will never take advantage of any woman 
 but from my own heart. I might have loved you, 
 in time, so entirely as to efface that other love and 
 all consideration for myself. And then I might have 
 come to you at your lightest bidding. I do not set 
 myself so austerely virtuous as to be beyond the 
 tempting of human impulses. I wonder that you did 
 not see it. I wonder that you were so blind most 
 of all, I wonder that you dared to think I would yield 
 under compulsion." 
 
 " You mean you will not ? " he asked, his brows 
 drawing together, a sneering smile settling about his 
 mouth. I bowed in silence. His frown deepened. 
 
 " How, then, do you mean to pay what you owe? " 
 he asked. " If you make our relations only those of 
 debtor and creditor, I shall have to ask that you name 
 some security for my claim." 
 
 " I have my picture but but it is not finished," 
 I began, biting my lips to keep back a fresh flood of 
 tears. He nodded coldly. 
 
 " I was thinking of that," he said. " It will suffice, 
 but, of course, you must guarantee to finish it. In 
 its present state it is a stretch of canvas neither 
 more nor less." 
 
 " I will do it though I do not see how I can do 
 it or die," I said, getting up and turning toward the 
 door. He stopped me, catching my arm in a vice-
 
 How It Happened. 153 
 
 like grip. " Wait a minute ! " he said. " I must 
 save you from yourself if you will let me. Do noth- 
 ing rashly. Take time three days, at least to 
 think over everything. At the end of them I will 
 come to you you had better not be seen here again. 
 Do not look so alarmed. I am not coming alone. I 
 shall bring Brasseur. Whatever you decide on, the 
 matter must be arranged in business fashion. I do 
 not want to be harsh with you, Selene, but really the 
 man you sent away was right. You are bound to 
 turn men's heads, wherever you may go. It is what 
 such women are made for. No; it is not your face 
 not even your form though both are divinely lovely. 
 There is something beyond something that steals 
 into a man whether or no, and makes him wild to 
 possess you. Think of your position alone, friend- 
 less, moneyless if you persist in standing out against 
 me. Think, too, that as I am, so are all other men 
 neither brutes nor demons simply men. You can 
 only live and work, or rather work to live by some 
 man's leave he will make conditions before grant- 
 ing it take my word for that. And you can save 
 yourself, shield yourself forever, by just one little 
 word. At least, think well before you refuse to 
 speak it." 
 
 " I will," I said. " But do not think I shall change. 
 I am going to ask God to give you a better mind." 
 Then I rushed away, with his low laugh sounding in 
 my ears, like the laughter of the Furies trebly sure of 
 their prey.
 
 
 
 154 How It Happened. 
 
 Once outside the nipping air refreshed and revived 
 me. I had left him full of one mad thought the 
 river. I could find it, and in the darkness hide my- 
 self forever beneath its waters. With the sharp, elec- 
 tric west wind cutting my cheeks the cowardly pur- 
 pose fled. I was alive to my finger tips I would 
 live out my life. More, I would not sit down supine 
 in the face of this fresh misfortune. Action was im- 
 perative. Before it I must have counsel. I clutched 
 my purse tight, then opened it and looked at the rolls 
 of bills within. Horton's money, I smiled to think, 
 could not be better spent than in trying to balk his 
 evil purpose. I saw clearly what that purpose was 
 to bind me in legal meshes, and, thus hampered, wear 
 down my strength. My picture, he well knew, was 
 more than life to me. All my hope, all my future, 
 was staked on it. Controlling that he would be able 
 to shut the last door of escape. He should not con- 
 trol it if there was any way out of it and there must 
 be a way. 
 
 I was in the lower city's mazes wholly strange to 
 me. It was a dull day, raw and lowering. From 
 many windows in the tall sky-scrapers there came the 
 flare of gas and electric lights, though it was but 
 three o'clock in the afternoon. I stepped within the 
 revolving doors of one especially tall structure, stood 
 a minute, irresolute, then said to the watchman in 
 uniform : " I want to find a good lawyer. Is there 
 one in the building? " 
 
 " 'Steenth floor room 1197," he answered, wav-
 
 % 
 
 How It Happened. 155 
 
 ing me toward one of the smaller express cars. In a 
 second it shot upward like a rocket. By the time I 
 had fairly caught breath it stopped, well above sur- 
 rounding roofs, the door was flung open, and the man 
 in charge cried: "Room 1197 down the hall! To 
 your right. " 
 
 I did not look at the name on the door. It gave 
 entrance to a very handsome suite of offices. " Say, 
 a lady, a stranger, is in need of legal advice," I said 
 to the boy at the desk, waving my hand impatiently 
 toward the inner spaces. Perhaps my wild look awed 
 him. In a minute he came back, almost running, and 
 said, holding open the door : " This way, ma'am ! 
 he's in there the boss himself." 
 
 I remember nothing more until I found myself 
 seated in a big leather-cushioned chair, facing a man 
 with the kindest eyes in the world. Still, they were 
 keen eyes. I should never attempt to dissemble 
 when they looked at me. His voice was deep and 
 musical the very sound of it soothed my edged 
 nerves. He was beyond middle height, slender 
 and alert-looking, with firm, capable hands, not 
 over-soft, but supple and fine of line, well, even, and 
 daintily kept. 
 
 " How can I serve you, madam? " he asked, when 
 I had stammered some sort of explanation of my pres- 
 ence. I was silent a half -minute before I answered: 
 " By listening to what I must tell you and then tell- 
 ing me the exact truth. I am hard beset. No 
 woman, I think, was ever more so. I have no friends,
 
 156 How It Happened. 
 
 and but little money. Do not think, though, that I 
 have come for charity even charity advice " 
 
 " I am not uneasy on that score," he interrupted. 
 " If you had not a cent, you would be welcome to 
 such help as my counsel might give. I am no Quixote 
 I do not profess to be better than my world. In- 
 deed, I may fairly class myself among men of the 
 world. Still, in all my life, I have loved just one 
 woman and one little girl. They are my wife and 
 my daughter. My mother died before my memory. 
 For her sake, for their sakes, I stand ready to help a 
 woman whenever I can. Now, that we understand 
 each other so far, please go on with what you have to 
 say." 
 
 I told him, glazing nothing, keeping back only 
 names. When I had finished, he sat a minute in deep 
 thought, then said slowly : " I am sorry, but I do not 
 see how you will avoid taking the one course or the 
 other that your creditor has indicated. Doubtless he 
 seems to you very cruel, very despicable. I have 
 nothing to offer in defense of him; but, my dear 
 madam, it is the way of the world." 
 
 " If I were your sister, what would you advise? " 
 I burst out. He looked at me with a strange smile as 
 he answered : " That is unsupposable. I never had a 
 sister. But if the case concerned a woman who was 
 anything to me I should never advise I should sim- 
 ply kill the man." 
 
 " You have answered me," I said. He shook his 
 head. " Remember, I advise nothing," he said.
 
 How It Happened. 1 57 
 
 " But as I think your mind is made up I will tell 
 you your legal rights. Such transfers as your cred- 
 itor has asked are not very common, but still a recog- 
 nized form of security. Picture dealers sometimes 
 take them but," as he saw my eyes brighten, "no 
 dealer would care to take yours, for the reason that 
 he would have to advance so large a sum before the 
 transfer would be effectual. You are, by your own 
 showing, wholly unknown and but partly taught your 
 chosen art. That would make the world say your 
 creditor had been magnanimous in letting you go so 
 deep in debt to him. You say he is to bring his law- 
 yer with him. Then all I can add is, be certain you 
 read and understand any instrument they may offer 
 you to sign. . Read before you sign, have the signa- 
 tures properly witnessed, then trust to Providence. 
 I am sure some way will open to you. No, no ! " as 
 he saw me unclasping my purse. " Keep whatever 
 you have in hand. My claim may wait for better 
 days without security. Do not be too much de- 
 pressed, either, over this transfer. The man who 
 holds it may have sinister motives in demanding it, 
 but it will prove a barrier to him, a shield to you. 
 You have put him in a coldly commercial light it 
 will be henceforth beyond his power to injure you. 
 As to studying, you can do that here at almost no 
 cost. It is possible I may help you that way after a 
 little I have friends who look after undeveloped tal- 
 ent such as yours seems to be. Let me have your ad- 
 dress. I will write "
 
 158 How It Happened. 
 
 " I cannot give an address, " I said. " At least, 
 not one that will be valid a week hence. I am going 
 away from all I know or ever saw or heard of in the 
 city going to bury myself in its obscurest quarter 
 until I can feel myself again a free woman." 
 
 " You love your picture ? " he asked. 
 
 " More than my life," I said. He looked a little 
 troubled. " I could never advise a woman to her 
 hurt," he said; " but, after all, in your case, I am un- 
 certain what you really should do. " 
 
 "I am not," I said. "Nor do I think you are. 
 You are only uneasy as to whether I have really the 
 strength to endure cold and starvation because of the 
 choice I make." 
 
 " You are right," he said, with a smile in his eyes. 
 It did not reach the lips, yet his whole face was illu- 
 mined. When I turned to go, he walked beside me 
 to the door, and said, as he shook my hand : " Keep 
 your courage up ! When that goes, everything goes." 
 
 As I went down, the swiftly dropping car seemed 
 to beat out the rhythm of an old, old song I have heard 
 a little German shoemaker sing. He lived just across 
 from the library Barcelona's library. By the way, 
 I cannot realize now that Barcelona and the library 
 ever existed. This was the song its iteration used 
 often to half-madden me. It came back as insistently 
 while I made that precipitous passage earthward : 
 
 " Goods gone something gone, 
 Must bend to the oar, 
 And earn thee some more.
 
 How It Happened. 159 
 
 Honor gone much gone ; 
 Must go and gain glory, 
 Then the idle gossips 
 Will alter their story. 
 
 Courage gone all gone ; 
 Better not have been born." 
 
 So the old man sang sometimes in soft, half lisp- 
 ing German ; oftener in the rough and rugged Eng- 
 lish version. I had not thought of him of his song 
 since the day I left Barcelona in that first flight. 
 Yet now a stranger's word, so strangely spoken, had 
 brought them both back as clear as daylight.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 I can write only briefly of those three days. No 
 inquisitor, not Torquemada himself, ever devised a 
 torment so exquisite. In the watches of the night, 
 through my broken sleep, Robins came to me, smil- 
 ing and mocking me. " You would not take love," I 
 heard him say, " because in your pride you said love 
 meant shame. Now you have bread of shame thrust 
 on you. You knew how it would be. I warned you ; 
 yet you would not listen. " 
 
 Or else he looked at me in horror, saying : '' You 
 you are not Selene ! You have only stolen her eyes 
 to lure men to the devil." Then I woke up, shriek- 
 ing, my face bathed in icy sweat. Robins, if ever I 
 made you suffer, you are avenged a hundredfold in 
 those long hours of anguish. I wonder now that I 
 lived through them that I did not run out into the 
 night and plunge into icy waters. Something with- 
 held me something outside myself. I was spent, 
 broken, so spiritless at times that I even speculated 
 dully if, after all, it would not be better to give in to 
 Horton's will. 
 
 " You will be warm always you can keep away 
 from the eyes of the world. You know you hate 
 them, staring, peering, calculating, forever alert to
 
 How It Happened. 161 
 
 spy out a flaw," I told myself at such times. " And 
 you can give days and nights to the Vision. It is all 
 you have to live for. Why not sacrifice all that it 
 may be worthily wrought? " 
 
 No answer would come to the question. Only a 
 dead, blank horror rose and wrapped my faculties. 
 Sometimes it numbed them I even felt calm and 
 quiet. Then a little the pall lifted and all my soul 
 bruises began to ache and throb and cry out in pain. 
 I looked in the glass, and hated my face, hated my 
 eyes for their soft fire, and the curl of the lashes about 
 them. Then the thought would sweep down : " You 
 are an anachronism one of nature's mistakes. She 
 designed you for a throne, where you could have ruled 
 men as of right and been guarded by armies of your 
 lieges ! " After that I would cry out over my own 
 folly such rank, idiotic folly, bred, no doubt, by the 
 memory of Semiramis and Robins' wild, worshiping 
 words. 
 
 Ah, me ! A woman born with the trick of fascina- 
 tion in her eyes needs to be married by the time she 
 is out of short frocks. If Paul had been spared to 
 me, I might never have known the full glory of ex- 
 istence true love is its flower and crown but I 
 should certainly have missed knowing humiliation 
 bitterer than death. 
 
 All those three days the weather had lowered an- 
 grily. That last night the clouds gathered into a 
 howling, shrieking snowstorm. At morning it still 
 snowed. Even the city's grime was hidden in pure 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 How It Happened. 
 
 and spotless white. I looked out on it with a calm 
 as frozen. All my unrest, all my tremors had fled. 
 So had my healthy color. My whole countenance 
 was as waxen as the petals of a camelia. There were 
 some deep red roses upon my table. I knew who 
 sent them when they came the evening before, yet 
 had not the heart to fling them out into the storm. 
 I lifted a full-blown one and buried my lips in it. 
 The reflection of it was like a blood stain, yet I smiled 
 to see it. " O rose ! Sign of silence ! " I said in 
 my heart. " Pledge me silence, indeed, for this day, 
 when I must walk through a fiery furnace." 
 
 At breakfast people exclaimed over my pallor, but 
 I smiled them aside. It was no crude and vulgar out- 
 cry we are a select company here in this family 
 hotel. As I left the breakfast room the housemaster 
 drew me a little aside. " I have had a message from 
 Mr. Horton. It says he will be here about eleven to 
 see you on business. I have reserved the small par- 
 lor. Will it suit you to see him there? " 
 
 " Perfectly ! " I said, walking steadily away. A 
 sudden fancy seized me to put on my widow's weeds. 
 I have kept them, why I know not. Mother made 
 me promise not to wear black for her, so they have 
 lain in lavender, untouched, almost as fresh as new, 
 at the very bottom of my largest trunk. The gown 
 was almost outgrown, but when it was fastened made 
 me look wonderfully slender and girlish. It comes 
 high about the throat and is swathed, almost smoth- 
 ered, in crepe. Over it I put my widow's bonnet and
 
 How It Happened. 163 
 
 sweeping veil, then glanced at myself with a little 
 cry. I had lost fifteen years. The same girl looked 
 out at me who had first put on that trailing sable 
 vesture, and wondered, almost childishly, that though 
 she wore a widow's garb her heart was the heart of a 
 child. 
 
 The small parlor is a nook of warm, dull reds. It 
 never looked more attractive than by contrast with 
 the white whirl outside. There is a gas grate. Its 
 leaping light played here and there, setting up tricksy 
 shadows and still more tricksy gleams. Horton stood 
 looking down at it, a hard, insolent smile on his face. 
 There was another man back of him. I could not 
 see him clearly for the big bulk of my tormentor. 
 As he caught the sound of trailing garments he 
 turned half about. The sight of me astounded him. 
 With a bound almost he reached my side, took both 
 my hands in his, and asked : " Selene ! Mrs. Bar- 
 ker ! What have you done to yourself ? " Then, over 
 his shoulder : " Oh, Brasseur, let us have a minute 
 together. The thing is not fully arranged yet. " 
 
 I did not look up. My ears alone told me the 
 other man had stepped outside the door. Horton still 
 held my hands. " How dare you to be so wicked? " 
 he said. 
 
 " How dare you be so wicked ? " I flung back at 
 him. He laughed in his throat. " I dare anything 
 to gain my ends," he said; then, his voice suddenly 
 softening till it was like a caress : " You are so 
 strangely, so diabolically enchanting this morning I
 
 164 How It Happened. 
 
 feel I would rather kill you than let you go. Be a 
 good child you will be glad of it so glad once the 
 plunge is over. No you need not speak only press 
 my hand the least little bit and I shall know I have 
 won then Brasseur can come in and make his big- 
 wig law talk. You shall have your settlements all 
 secure before you give me even so much as one kiss. " 
 
 I snatched away my hands. " You need not have 
 waited. You had my answer three days ago," I said. 
 He fell back a step and looked me over coldly, with 
 cruel, wolfish eyes, but said no word for a minute. 
 Then: 
 
 " In that case oh, Brasseur ! We are ready for 
 you now." As the door opened, I raised my eyes and 
 saw my unknown kindly counsellor. He looked at 
 me with a sort of whimsical amazement. Certainly 
 he had never guessed that he had been called into a 
 case where the opposing person was his own friend 
 and client. 
 
 " Mr. Brasseur, Mrs. Barker ! " Horton said, in his 
 finest, most artificial manner. He bowed, but did 
 not offer to shake hands. Brasseur pulled a folded 
 paper from his pocket and handed it to Horton, who 
 passed it on to me with a sardonic smile. My hand 
 shook so that when I attempted to unfold it, it fell 
 and was almost drawn into the flame of the grate. 
 Both men bent to rescue it. As he rose Horton gave 
 me a meaning glance, and said, under his breath : 
 " That is what ought to be done with it it should be 
 burnt before all our eyes. "
 
 How It Happened. 165 
 
 " You have my permission to burn it if you can 
 trust sufficiently to my word," I answered. He looked 
 at me half in doubt. " If I burn it, it means sur- 
 render," he said, in the same hushed key. I shook 
 my head faintly. The room, the people in it, all 
 began to swim. Rallying myself desperately, I 
 walked to the table upon which stood pen and ink, 
 sat down beside it and held out my hand for the 
 paper. 
 
 Slowly, carefully, conscientiously, I read it every 
 line. Not one word penetrated my numb comprehen- 
 sion ; but, thank God, Horton did not dream that was 
 the fact. I felt his eyes devouring me as I read. I 
 felt, too, Brasseur's gaze of infinite compassion. 
 Presently I laid down the instrument and looked up 
 at him with a question in my eyes. I saw his lips 
 shape inaudibly : " You had better sign it. It is the 
 only way." 
 
 I spread out the paper, dipped my pen savagely in 
 the ink-well and tried to write my name. In vain ! 
 The pen fell from my nerveless fingers and rolled 
 upon the carpet. As Brasseur stooped to give it back 
 to me he said in my ear : " Sign ! Sign quick ! The 
 quicker the better ! " 
 
 I tried hard to obey him. Somehow it seemed to 
 me I must obey, no matter what he had said. But 
 still my fingers refused their office I could not shape 
 a letter, try as I might. In despair I glanced up at 
 Horton he was watching me still with those hungry, 
 devouring eyes. The sight made me desperate I
 
 1 66 How It Happened. 
 
 felt that I must scream if I had to endure his over- 
 sight through another minute. I began to write 
 a big, bold, black S stared me in the face. Suddenly 
 a realization of what I was doing of the long, losing, 
 hopeless fight I was binding myself to undertake 
 rushed over me and made me fall back in the 
 chair, white and shaking, gasping out : " Kill me, 
 if you choose; but, if I must live, leave me my 
 picture ! " 
 
 Actually I was begging begging of this man 
 from whom I had felt it would be degradation 
 to take hereafter even a crust. He sprang to 
 my side, saying, thickly : " I do not want to be 
 harsh with you, Selene. I will not be unless you 
 compel me." 
 
 Brasseur came suddenly between us. " Excuse 
 me, but you two can arrange these personal matters 
 at your leisure," he said. " As I have to get away 
 soon, please get through with the business of sign- 
 ing, so I can get through with the attesting. Mrs. 
 Barker, let me write the name, since you are so ner- 
 vous. I will put underneath it 'Per B. in the presence 
 of both parties to the agreement above written, by 
 the direction of the said Selene Barker,' and no court 
 on earth can ever upset it." 
 
 " Thank you ! " I said, gratefully. Horton looked 
 black as a thunder cloud. But he took the paper as 
 soon as Brasseur had finished with it, and slipped it 
 into his pocket before he came up to me. Then he 
 said, trying to take my hand : " Remember, Selene,
 
 How It Happened. 167 
 
 I give up nothing. Holdfast is the dog that wins, 
 no matter how long the chase." 
 
 The rest is a great, blank darkness. Today I 
 seem to be getting into a sort of gray twilight. To- 
 morrow what of tomorrow ? Fate, perhaps, can an- 
 swer. I certainly cannot.
 
 JBoofe 
 THE MAN WHO DID. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 BRASSEUR WRITES : 
 
 New York, March . 
 My Dear Danvers : 
 
 Thanks for not disappointing me, old man. I was 
 pretty sure my real romance, with a coincidence so 
 strange as to stagger belief thrown in, would interest 
 you more than a little. You see, I have not forgot- 
 ten your taste for stories, real stories, the human 
 comedies and tragedies that are so much stranger and 
 more moving than those which get on the stage. Be- 
 cause of the taste I shall think it's a pity you took to 
 making things instead of the law. True, you have 
 incidentally piled up a few surplus millions, but what 
 are millions in comparison with seeing quite to the 
 bottom of things, as is a lawyer's troublesome privi- 
 lege ? 
 
 I fear I am going to find it troublesome no end. 
 Our mutual friend Horton, who is a mighty profitable 
 client and a pretty general good fellow, can be an un-
 
 170 How It Happened. 
 
 conscionable scoundrel when it comes to women. His 
 wife, of course, excuses something. A man would 
 have to be superhuman if, tied to her, he did not per- 
 mit himself compensations. It is Ouida, I believe, 
 who comments upon the uselessness of jewels with 
 which Faust tempts Marguerite the Marguerites, 
 in her opinion, being all too ready to go the limit 
 without them. Ouida has a way of putting unwhole- 
 some truths about men and women between the covers 
 of her books. Because this is truth even more than 
 because it is unwholesome, I must condemn my client, 
 Horton, for seeking not merely to tempt, but to com- 
 pel this unwilling Marguerite. 
 
 Still, I do not wholly blame him. The woman is 
 a real ox-eyed Juno, and Horton, as Master Charles 
 Reade puts it, " the male of her species." Certainly 
 he is wild about her wilder than about all his twenty 
 previous loves. Indeed, I doubt if he felt for the 
 whole of them one-tenth of what he is now feeling 
 for her. Of course, he is a very Turk for jealousy 
 of her. My greatest fear is that some day, in an un- 
 guarded moment, she may precipitate a tragedy. She 
 is, it is true, neither a fool, nor a child. I judge she 
 must be thirty if she is a day. But she has the most 
 provoking lack of comprehension of the equation of 
 the sex. Horton was unselfishly kind to a man who 
 was in much her own case had artistic capabilities 
 lacking development and she either cannot or will 
 not understand why he is not as unselfishly helpful to 
 her.
 
 How It Happened. 171 
 
 Right there lies the problem of modern times. But 
 we won't discuss it now. I am telling you a story; 
 not indulging in philosophical disquisitions. This 
 story is halting to the outward eye, yet, I doubt not, 
 making swift progress toward the inevitable end. 
 The woman has gone away from her fine, select quar- 
 ters she is living in the barest, narrowest little room 
 now and she has just one hundred dollars Horton's 
 dollars, at that between her and starvation. In 
 fact, I dare say she is half starving now, pinching 
 and saving to eke them out until she can in some 
 fashion not wholly despicable earn more. She would 
 make a magnificent model, but I fancy there are 
 mighty few men who could look into her eyes and 
 name the matter to her. 
 
 For she has the most irritating, the most irrational 
 innocence in her gaze. It kept Horton at bay for 
 rising a year. With almost any other woman he 
 would have come to the point in a month. And even 
 now, when he is so sore and mad over it all, I think 
 that same irrational innocence will protect her from 
 anything more at his hands than the assault of cir- 
 cumstances. That is, I think he will not lift a hand 
 to keep her from getting on, any more than he will 
 lift a hand to help her to do it. He is waiting wait- 
 ing for the pressure of civilization to force her into 
 his arms. And because, in his own mind, he plays 
 thus fairly, it will go very hard with any man who 
 steps in to thwart him and circumstances. 
 
 Yet I have a great mind to be that man. That is
 
 172 How It Happened. 
 
 really the point of this swift answer to your letter. 
 You are, I think, the whitest fellow I have ever 
 known. You know me my prospects, capabilities, 
 obligations better than I know them myself. You 
 know, too, what it means if Horton is put against me. 
 His own business is very considerable, and he has it 
 in his power to throw me very much more. So far 
 he has thrown a large part of it, which I have managed 
 so satisfactorily there is every likelihood that I may 
 get the whole of it. Then, too, he has backed me 
 socially to a gratifying degree. It is through his 
 putting me up that I have got an early entrance to at 
 least two of the city's most influential clubs, and 
 clubs, I do not need to tell you, are tremendous helps 
 when a man aspires, as I do, to the handling of great 
 concerns. 
 
 Now, in the face of all this ; in face, too, of the 
 duty I owe myself and my dear and ambitious wife 
 what do you say ? Am I justified in following out my 
 natural impulse to put this woman, who is the most 
 casual of chance acquaintances, with no shadow of 
 claim on me beyond the common human claim, in the 
 way of making her own living and thereby making an 
 enemy of Horton? If another man asked me in cold 
 blood the question I have asked you I should tell him 
 he was a fool to risk so much. But, somehow, I can- 
 not get that woman's irrationally innocent eyes out 
 of my mind. They haunt me. In fact, more than 
 once they have come between me and the considera- 
 tion of a knotty legal point. I must in some way get
 
 How It Happened. 173 
 
 rid of them. I must either help her or forget that 
 she exists. Which shall it be? 
 
 Before answering consider also this point : So far, 
 as you know, all women have been to me pretty much 
 the same saving always my dearest wife. Ours has 
 been an ideal union we have been ten years married 
 without one single disagreement that a quick kiss 
 could not heal. She suits and satisfies me to the ut- 
 most. I am proud of her grace and charm of her 
 sweet, wholesome, clear-headed practicality. If I 
 ever succeed as I hope, it will be very much her 
 doing. She is in every sense a helpmeet. More 
 than that, her tact, her thrift, her pretty ways, the 
 charming home she makes for me all, all are poten- 
 tial in many ways. I shall never be less than her 
 lover, ardent and true. Notwithstanding, there is 
 something in this other woman that stirs me as I 
 have never before been stirred. You see, I am legal 
 enough to make no reservations in stating my case. 
 A man is the worst sort of fool who does not tell his 
 lawyer- judge neither more nor less than the exact 
 truth. While I am as certain as of my existence that 
 nothing could ever imperil my wife's supremacy, I 
 have a strong, almost fearful doubt that if I see too 
 much of the Juno I may find myself in a frame of 
 mind and body my conscience will be very far from 
 approving. 
 
 Now, answer! Answer quick! I can help Mrs. 
 Barker in a perfectly honest and business-like way. 
 It seems desperately cruel to refrain, and desperately
 
 174 How It Happened. 
 
 dangerous to do it. Help me with my puzzle as only 
 such a white, good fellow can. Remember, I am not 
 among the persons who ask advice solely that in case 
 of things going wrong they may have somebody else 
 to blame. 
 
 The nature of this letter will excuse the lack of 
 my wife's usual pretty messages. She is well so 
 is the girl, who says she means to grow big enough 
 to be your sweetheart. I know she would send you 
 a kiss if she knew I was writing. As to me, you 
 have known this long, long time that I was always 
 Yours to count on, 
 
 FRANCIS M. BRASSEUR. 
 
 (Telegram.) 
 
 Milltown, 111., March . 
 
 Francis M. Brasseur, New York City : 
 
 Letter received. The man who won't help a woman 
 whenever he can, as much as he can, as quick as he 
 can, is not worth damning. Go ahead. H - is 
 not the only man in the world whose concerns need 
 looking after. If you lose any business, call on me 
 to make good. Write particulars in full as soon as 
 there is anything to write. But be sure to act at 
 once this last is italics. Yours, etc., 
 
 DANVERS.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SELENE WRITES : 
 
 New York City, March . 
 
 There is not room for even confidence here in this 
 cramped place, still, I shall talk a bit with my one 
 confidante and see if talking will in any way relieve 
 the strain of these endless days. It is two weeks 
 now since. I left the hotel to become a very big and 
 very helpless sister of the poor. At least, that is the 
 way I seem to myself. The odd thing is I cannot 
 realize that I myself am of the poor worse than 
 poor, indeed, in that I am deeply in debt. 
 
 O, me! That is the thought, the memory that 
 poisons all my days, makes my nights sleepless and 
 so weights the wings of my fancy I work only by the 
 greatest effort. Yet that can make little difference 
 in the final settlement. I must starve or give in to 
 Horton. Every day makes me surer and surer of 
 that. I have walked until my feet are blistered look- 
 ing for work. I even thought I would be a house- 
 maid I was too honest to try for a cook's place, since 
 I know nothing of the work. I can clean a room and 
 make it pretty, more than pretty, indeed, if I have 
 the chance. But I shall never have it. Three appli-
 
 176 How It Happened. 
 
 cations have convinced me of that fact. The first 
 woman stared at me with languid insolence and 
 shrugged her shoulders when I said I had never 
 " lived out before." " I am sure as I can be she is a 
 criminal," I heard her say in a loud whisper to her 
 daughter. Then to me : " You er will not suit at 
 all. In fact, you are are too big for the rooms 
 we like things harmonious, you see." 
 
 The next of my prospective mistresses was, I judge, 
 a semi-invalid. She sat propped amid cushions, and 
 after the first glance turned her eyes away, saying, 
 fretfully : " You will never, never do for me you are 
 too overpowering. You oppress me. " As I bowed 
 myself away, the maid who had let me in said, with 
 a wink : " You had oughter come when the master's 
 round about. He'd a-given you a show he has an 
 eye for a good figger." 
 
 The last ah, me! I have hardly the heart to 
 write on. It does not seem to me this can possibly 
 be Selene Barker who has been creeping in at area 
 doors, begging humbly fora chance to earn a menial's 
 bread ! The last woman might have given me a trial 
 if I would have agreed to bring her a letter from my 
 pastor. I told her he lived a long way off. Then, 
 after the manner that very good people appear to 
 think it is their privilege to torture their dependents, 
 she set to work questioning me as to my home, my 
 bringing up, the whys and wherefores of my going in 
 service. I parried as best I might, watching all the 
 while her mouth grow grim and grimmer. It did not
 
 How It Happened. 177 
 
 in the least astonish me when she said: "It is evi- 
 dent you have some shameful story to hide. I can 
 never take into my employ any sly and tricky person 
 who refuses to be frank with me. No. It is not 
 your appearance wholly which tells against you. 
 Nowadays servants all aspire to look as much like 
 mistresses as possible. If you had told me the truth, 
 I might have helped you. As it is, I cannot recon- 
 cile it with my Christian duty to give you employ- 
 ment." 
 
 Afterward I understood. The lady is almost a pro- 
 fessional philanthropist. All her life she has had so 
 much that she cannot conceive the possibility of any- 
 one less fortunate ever being tempted. I am glad 
 she shut her doors on me. If she had taken me, I 
 should have felt in honor bound to stay through my 
 allotted time, and it could not have failed to be a 
 period of torture. Whatever comes I am free save 
 in one quarter. 
 
 My money wastes away like snow in sunshine, 
 though I hold to each penny with a grip like death. 
 I have tried to strike a fair bargain with myself on 
 behalf of my creditor. Half of each day I give to 
 working on the Vision ; the other half to trying to 
 earn a living. My creditor was sharp. He stipulated 
 that I should not remove the canvas without due no- 
 tice to him. Thus he makes sure of me, of knowing 
 where I am, and of knowing easily whatever I may 
 undertake. I cannot bring the Vision here. The 
 whole room is not big enough for it. So I have letf 
 
 12
 
 178 How It Happened. 
 
 it in the studio where it was begun. That adds ma- 
 terially to the cost of living, but what else can I do ? 
 If only I were a man, I would go and live in the 
 studio itself. I am strongly tempted to do it, any- 
 way. True, nobody stays in the building except by 
 daylight ; but what would that matter to me, once I 
 was safe behind locks and bars? 
 
 Yes ! The more I think of it the better does that 
 plan appear. As to eating I am a frightfully hearty 
 animal, but I shall master my appetite and bring it 
 within reasonable bounds. Bread and water, even, 
 can be tempting if one is but hungry enough. 
 Counting as close as I may, I have enough to keep 
 from starving for two months ahead. Practically it 
 is one month in which to work for myself. I will do 
 something each day to the Vision, if it is no more 
 than to stand despairingly in front of it and realize 
 its faults. 
 
 I must have more lessons. How to get them is a 
 problem. The classes are all made up now there 
 will be no new- ones until fall, except the summer 
 schools, which are as hopeless in my present condition 
 as entrance to the gates of heaven. I have haunted 
 the dealers until they shy at sight of me, yet now and 
 again they look at something and say, as they give it 
 back : " If you knew how 
 
 They do not go farther; they have no need. I 
 understand only too well that deprecating shrug and 
 carelessly pitying glance. Once I would have re- 
 sented both bitterly ; now I am callous to things so
 
 How It Happened. 179 
 
 slight. Yesterday something happened that gave me 
 a keen twinge. Friday is, after all, the proper day 
 for ill-luck. I had just shown a little new sketch 
 which is truly not half bad. It is a simple, simple 
 thing only a blur of purple distances with a gray, 
 craggy rock standing out against them, and at the 
 side of it a plume of waving golden-rod. Of course, 
 it is from nature one of the things I roughed in 
 there in the days before Brook died. The dealer 
 looked at it, then narrowly at me. I think the des- 
 perate eagerness in my eyes gave him his cue. He 
 handed back the sketch, saying : " O, it is what 
 shall I say decorative? But we want art, ma'am ! 
 Art! Nothing else will our public have." I turned 
 to go, when another woman dashed at him dashed is 
 the proper word, she moved strictly in that way. 
 She was youngish, and very rosy, with fluffy, brown 
 hair, and had made herself a picture in moss-green 
 frock and cape. She had diamonds, too, on her fin- 
 gers, and a gold- tipped arrow thrust through her beef- 
 eater hat. Altogether, she was very radiant, very 
 prosperous- looking, and full of babyish wiles. She 
 smiled up at the dealer, and made little soft clucks of 
 impatience while he ran through the half a dozen 
 things in her portfolio. At the end he flung back 
 one of them, saying, with a pretense of a frown: 
 " No, no ! Miss Carfax ! I positively cannot pay 
 good money for that thing. These others now well, 
 how much do you want for them ? Remember, I am 
 not going to bankrupt myself, as I did the last time. "
 
 180 How It Happened. 
 
 Airily she named a price that simply made me 
 stare. Maybe I am no fair judge, but the work was 
 ragged, no bit better drawn than mine, and nothing 
 like so well colored. But she got what she asked, 
 after a little haggling, and went away, looking dag- 
 gers at me for having presumed to linger until the 
 transaction was complete. When she had gone, I 
 plucked up courage to ask: "If I did something in 
 that line?" 
 
 " O ! Quite impossible ! " said the dealer. " Be- 
 sides, even if you could, we could not buy them as 
 matters stand. You you have nobody back of you 
 nobody who will go about in public asking : ' Seen 
 those things of Mrs. Barker's down at La Quelle's ? 
 Great, aren't they ? That woman has a future. ' Then 
 you have not the people who come to buy, because 
 they know Miss Carfax sells here. No, they are not 
 her friends, but she has friends these others want to 
 please. Oh, she is a young woman who will get on 
 anywhere. She is making herself a public name even 
 before she is an artist. Oh, yes; it is possible she 
 may never be an artist, but she will live, she will 
 thrive she has no need of money." 
 
 I, too, might have no need of money ! Cynically, 
 I am sometimes almost tempted to make a trial of 
 myself not as an applicant, but a proud and haughty 
 amateur. Horton seems to have known his world 
 very well. How I wish he could have known me as 
 well ! What misery I might have escaped ! I will 
 try to do him justice. Bad as he is, he is not wholly
 
 How It Happened. 181 
 
 so. If he had never let himself think of me as as 
 what he would have me be, I am sure we might still 
 be excellent friends. As it is, I have aroused his two 
 strongest forces desire and the impulse of mastery. 
 It is with him somewhat as it was with Robins in 
 refusing to become what he would have me be I have 
 made myself doubly the object of his desire. 
 
 It is odd how often we meet nowadays, bow gravely, 
 and pass on unsmiling. I cannot understand it. 
 Heretofore such encounters were rare. Perhaps it 
 is because of Lent society turns itself around in all 
 things then, I hear, and goes about to see the things 
 it has left for the penitential season. Pictures are, I 
 suppose, among them. Yesterday, after my encounter 
 with Carfax, I ran across Horton with three other 
 men of his sort. There were as many women in the 
 party. They were doing the art stores, it appears. 
 Two of the women were from out of town, and the 
 third, who is Horton's distant cousin, their hostess 
 and chaperone. After I had passed, returning Hor- 
 ton's bow with my best society inclination of the 
 head, I felt them all turn and stare after me, and 
 caught a subdued babble of comment, though no word 
 of it was distinct. I could fancy, too, that if he had 
 said of me what Miss Carfax's friends no doubt say 
 of her in like case there would have begun for me a 
 ripple of reputation that might in the end have had 
 desirable results. 
 
 Please the good Lord, one day Horton shall be 
 proud to have me recognize him and to speak in my
 
 1 82 How It Happened. 
 
 praise if he speaks at all. On the face of things that 
 seems hopeless, yet I have not wholly lost either hope 
 or faith. I must confess, though both are often at 
 low ebb so low that, though I have wanted this ever 
 so long to go to church, I have not done it. Ever 
 since mother but I will not go back to that. There 
 was a girl in the hotel, a girl with a voice, who, per- 
 haps, must answer for my staying so steadily away 
 from the sanctuary. She herself went regularly. 
 " Why, you cannot afford to stay away ! " she said 
 to me one day in amazement at my home-keeping 
 Sundays. " Do you not know it is the church peo- 
 ple who really help one to get on ? They look out 
 for one, especially a stranger who comes regularly, and 
 thus you get in the way of letting it be known how 
 you can be helped without the least loss of dignity. 
 Of course, the sermons are a bore and those mission- 
 ary meetings and things just fearful. But by singing 
 at one of them I got three parlor engagements. I 
 wish I could go to two churches alternate Sundays, 
 you know but Christians are real beasts for selfish- 
 ness. If you do not stick to one set all the time, 
 you will get nothing from them whatever." 
 
 After that I would not go, for fear I might be 
 thought as sordid as she. I cannot bring myself to 
 make God's house a market place, nor His day one 
 on which I must look out for material advancement. 
 " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," runs 
 the commandment. I do try, in my poor, imperfect 
 way, to keep it holy, putting evil thought and troubles
 
 How It Happened. 183 
 
 far away from me, and meditating on the unsearch- 
 able riches, the unspeakable glories of God and 
 heaven. It may be I am in the wrong. At any rate, 
 I have so far mastered my pride there is an uncon- 
 scious and pharasaical pride that one is not just as 
 other people I have, I say, so mastered my pride 
 that in the morning I shall put on my black clothes, 
 take my little, worn prayer book, and steal away to 
 church. 
 
 The very thought of it is soothing. I shall revel 
 in the organ harmonies, and feast my eyes upon the 
 rich lights through the windows even before the ser- 
 mon begins. God grant that it may hold for me some 
 special word of comfort. Lone sparrow upon a house- 
 top that I am, I yearn to be let alone.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 New York, March . 
 
 Let me try to be, beyond all things, just. Truth 
 is the best aid to justice, therefore I shall write 
 down exactly what happened. 
 
 Sunday morning I awoke, rested, refreshed, even, 
 by the reflex action of my resolve. It was a clear 
 morning the sky of that clean, hard, brilliant blue 
 that belongs to a March morning after a night of 
 frost. My first conscious thought was a prayer. I 
 had resolved to fast until evening, so no sloth of flesh 
 might cumber my waking spirits. A certain exalta- 
 tion possessed me. I was not conscious of cold nor 
 hunger as I walked out into the streaming sunshine. 
 The bells were already chiming. O, the tender, the 
 sublime invitation of their pealing! Almost I heard 
 in it the old, familiar words : 
 
 "Jesus, lover of my soul, 
 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly ! 
 While the nearer waters roll, 
 
 While the tempest still is nigh, 
 All my trust on Thee is stayed, 
 
 All my help from Thee I bring ; 
 Cover my defenseless head 
 
 With the shadow of Thy wing."
 
 How It Happened. 185 
 
 And, listening, my burden seemed to slip away, my 
 heart to sing for joy. Like one in a happy dream I 
 followed the chimes until they led me to a portal of 
 purest Gothic, richly carved and fretted, as was the 
 slender, springing spire. A throng of devout wor- 
 shipers poured through the door. There was no wan- 
 dering glance, no intrusive speech to mar the holy 
 hush of a holy time and place. Reverently I bent 
 my head and went in with them. At the threshold 
 I paused the least bit. Slight as the pause was, it 
 marked me for what I was a pilgrim and a stranger. 
 Instantly a kindly hand touched my arm, a kindly 
 voice said : " There are family sittings here, but all 
 seats are free, all comers welcome. " 
 
 Still, I hesitated a little. The man who had spoken 
 to me waved me forward. Very shortly I found my- 
 self seated less than a dozen pews from the pulpit, in 
 a softly cushioned space, beside a pair of richly but 
 quietly dressed women, whose faces said they did not 
 resent my presence. But one of them had the look 
 of a corpse. The spring sunshine through the purple 
 border of a south window poured a flood of ghastly 
 radiance full upon her. 
 
 I barely glanced at her. Her companion I saw 
 only as one sees a lay figure. The whole rich inte- 
 rior was entering into my soul. It was so full of color 
 and beauty and the atmosphere of holy devotion. Up 
 above the great organ pealed, flooding nave and chan- 
 cel with quivering harmony. The flowers upon the 
 pulpit seemed to tremble in the joy of it, and all the
 
 1 86 How It Happened. 
 
 glorious light-colors to dance in tune. My heart 
 leapt up to dance with them, the while it was mur- 
 muring inly: "Blind! O blind and ingrate! All 
 this might have been yours the gift of God's chil- 
 dren and you have kept rebelliously away! " 
 
 I sank back against my cushions full of happy 
 tremors that almost overran my brimming eyes. I 
 resolved upon the instant to let myself go to drop 
 the armor of suspicion of coldness, wherewith I had 
 girded myself, and go back to the old way to trust 
 and believe hopefully, as the old Selene Barker, the 
 girl who is so dead, had believed. 
 
 Presently, the chanting choir boys came in white- 
 robed procession, scattering incense about the high 
 altar. Once it would have seemed to me mere mean- 
 ingless mummery. In my present mood I understood 
 it was the ritual of sacrifice and oblation made for 
 all our sins, that life here and hereafter may be full 
 of hopeful light. Every sound, every waft of the cen- 
 ser, came straight home to me. By the time the min- 
 ister arose to speak I was as responsive as a wind 
 harp to the wind. 
 
 " Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! Lord 
 God Almighty !" 
 
 I read upon the sounding board above the high 
 lectern. The arch of it seemed to my eyes like a 
 halo about his head a beneficent halo full of cheer 
 for the sorrowful. He prayed with power that seemed 
 the power of God himself. It thrilled me, filled me
 
 How It Happened. 187 
 
 with a happiness so new, so strange, so wonderful, I 
 bowed my head to hide the tears that welled over and 
 rolled down my cheeks. 
 
 Text nor sermon I cannot set down, even in out- 
 line. When he read the last word of his set dis- 
 course, he folded the written sheets, dropped them 
 and leaned far over the pulpit to say something fur- 
 ther. " The meaning of Christ," he said, " is love 
 is fellowship. Fellowship does not stand afar off. 
 Instead, it comes close, it stretches out the hand, it 
 invites you to share your burden with it, to let it 
 ease you when you are over-spent. O my brethren, 
 there are more uses for hands than holding, and strik- 
 ing blows, and working the world's works, and grip- 
 ping the world's wealth. Brothers hand in hand 
 means brothers heart in heart. 
 
 " Shake hands all around with the troubled in 
 warm-hearted sympathy! The young, the discour- 
 aged, those who have small incomes and big expenses 
 give them of your strength by shaking hands. 
 Shake hands with God's children as they set forth on 
 that last unending journey! Across cradles, and 
 graves, and deathbeds, shake hands. Shake hands 
 with your enemies. So shall you save them from 
 doing you hurt, defaming you, and harming them- 
 selves by pitiful efforts to harm you. Shake hands 
 at the church door with strangers as well as friends. 
 Shake hands pulpit and pews! Shake hands Sun- 
 day with all days of the week ! Shake hands earth 
 and heaven ! Only thus can Jesus praise His holy
 
 1 88 How It Happened. 
 
 name be justified and His sacrifice avail ! His love 
 has no better measure, no better exponent, than a true 
 and honest hand-shake. May He speed the hour 
 when all men, high and low, rich and poor, shall 
 shake hands across all chasms of condition; when 
 nation shall stretch forth to shake hands with nation, 
 and God Himself shake hands with His creature 
 man." 
 
 I heard him, awed and breathless. It must be I 
 thought I had been sent to listen. Spiritual help I 
 needed beyond all other things. Perhaps in the full- 
 ness of it I might also find the material help so long 
 sought in vain. Perhaps I had lacked faith. Cer- 
 tainly I had tried vaingloriously to stand and work 
 alone, hoping to triumph, to overcome in my own poor 
 strength. Now I would ask God's guidance through 
 the lips of His chosen instrument. Faith and trust 
 might bring me over the Hill Difficulty, where for so 
 long my weary feet had been stayed. 
 
 All through the night the peace that peace of 
 God which passeth all understanding remained to 
 comfort me. I slept like a little child and awoke 
 with a heart of hope. It seemed a year went before 
 the hour when my worldly knowledge told me it 
 would be meet to seek out the minister. I meant to 
 go to him holding out my hand and saying simply : 
 " I have come for wisdom. Speak with me as your 
 heart directs." Then I meant to tell him briefly 
 of my sore need. Work alone I would ask for 
 any sort of work that would mean maintenance
 
 How It Happened. 189 
 
 and a little free time. I was not like the singer 
 full of hope to profit by the pious folk. But 
 I did think it might be in his power to speak 
 some word which would open a door hitherto closed 
 against me. 
 
 His house was easily found. It is big and fine 
 and stands on the corner of a desirable residence 
 street. But I rang its bell fearlessly. I was but one 
 of God's lonely ones come to ask the help of God's 
 people. They were active to save sinners. Though 
 I was far from perfect, I had not fallen to the depths, 
 and they might care as much to keep me still out of 
 them as they would to drag me back once I had taken 
 the plunge. 
 
 A man in livery opened the door not wide, but 
 stingily so he could peer out without letting me see 
 much within. He eyed me with disfavor before I 
 opened my lips, when I said : " Tell the minister a 
 woman wishes to see him about the Lord's business," 
 the disfavor grew into positive disdain. " You you 
 better go talk to the church society about that," he 
 said, sullenly, at last. " The minister he don't have 
 time to bother with no cranks. If he took it, he 
 wouldn't have no time fer nothin' else much. You 
 had better move along now. It ain't worth while 
 asking him I know he does not want to be trou- 
 bled." 
 
 " I shall not trouble him in the least," I said. 
 " But I am sure he will see me. At any rate, take 
 him my card and say I am waiting. Meantime I
 
 190 How It Happened. 
 
 should like to sit down and I should not like to have 
 you shut the door in my face. " 
 
 He had been on the point of doing that, but some- 
 thing in my voice or manner stopped him. Very 
 grudgingly he opened the door wide enough to admit 
 me, and said, motioning me to a seat : " Stay there ! 
 I know he's busy but I'll take him the card. " Then 
 as he went away he called to a smart housemaid, so 
 loud I could not choose but hear : " Maria, keep your 
 eye on the hall door, will you ? " 
 
 " I've got the missis' breakfast to take up ! " Maria 
 retorted, with a toss of the head. As they both dis- 
 appeared, I looked about me in amazement. The hall 
 was the very finest spot I had ever seen. Richly 
 carved wainscotings of rare Eastern woods ran all 
 about it. Above them were old tapestries ; the floor, 
 of polished wood, was strewn with rugs which must 
 have cost up in the thousands. They were genuine 
 antiques, with the softness and the splendors of the 
 far East breathing from them. The hall itself was 
 so spacious as to bespeak great wealth here in this 
 city where space is hardly less precious than rubies. 
 There was a cabinet, also an antique, full of curios 
 and carved gems. Tall, high-backed, carved chairs 
 stood here and there. Either side the fireplace there 
 were seats in tapestry-hung nooks. An inlaid table 
 some little way off upheld a mass of costly litter in- 
 terspersed with new books. 
 
 A real fire of hardwood snapped and sparkled be- 
 tween the great brass fire-dogs. In front of it there
 
 How It Happened. 191 
 
 was a magnificent tiger-skin, and on the wall at one 
 side a collection of firearms. Evidently some one in 
 the household was an ardent sportsman. It could 
 hardly be the minister himself, I thought, still the 
 matter was not vital. A man might love God and 
 God's work entirely, yet not abate by one jot his keen 
 relish for normal human pleasures. I had heard 
 vaguely that the church this minister served was 
 among the wealthiest in the city. It spoke vol- 
 umes, I thought, for the good faith of his parishion- 
 ers that they chose to have him live upon a scale of 
 magnificence matching their own. No doubt, by 
 making himself thus one with them he was able to 
 influence them more powerfully to arouse them 
 more keenly to a realization of the privilege of 
 wealth. 
 
 The insolent servants I thought I understood. 
 The minister himself, of course, had not time to look 
 after them ; his wife was most likely a confirmed in- 
 valid. It was well on toward noon. Only an invalid 
 or a very fashionable lady would be breakfasting in 
 bed at that hour particularly on Monday morning 
 Sunday evenings were bound to be kept holy in the 
 household of this man of God. My heart rose up in 
 pity and went out to him afresh as I meditated. Here, 
 no doubt, I reasoned, in this tribulation of his own 
 heart, was one root of the wide, heart -reach ing sym- 
 pathy which had overflowed in his words and made my 
 dry soul feel renewed. A door at my right opened 
 and closed quickly. The minister came through it,
 
 192 How It Happened. 
 
 holding the hand of a tallish, thin man, who was 
 chuckling as though in great glee. I heard the min- 
 ister say : " It is almost unpardonable your not reach- 
 ing the city a day earlier. We had a quiet little din- 
 ner last evening that only wanted your presence to 
 make it perfect. Senator Talkwell, Doctor Greateye, 
 Esperance, the novelist, you know, and two or three 
 more nearly as good. My wife will be desolate over 
 not seeing you; but you know how she values her 
 health. We were up until two o'clock this morning, 
 and she will have ten hours' sleep, no matter what 
 happens." 
 
 " You should be glad of that it keeps her the 
 handsomest woman in the city," the tall man said, 
 with his hand on the doorknob. The minister smiled 
 beamingly and himself opened the door. He stood 
 chatting with his guest a minute longer, then came 
 in, half frowning, and turned, as if to re-enter the 
 room he had just quitted. Suddenly his eye fell on 
 me. He stopped short, stared ; then, seeming to re- 
 member something that had escaped him, said, with 
 superficial blandness : " Pardon me, madam I had 
 forgotten there was a that any one was waiting. 
 What can I do for you ? I must ask you to be brief, 
 as my time is very much taken up, and, at best, hardly 
 my own." 
 
 " I came to shake hands," I said, looking fixedly 
 at him. He continued to stare rather absently, but 
 brightened a little, saying : " O ! Then you heard 
 me yesterday. Well, madam, if all who come to me
 
 How It Happened. 193 
 
 were as easily satisfied my lot would be much hap- 
 pier than it is." 
 
 He came toward me, holding out his hand, his eyes 
 full of well-simulated warmth. I kept my hands 
 down a minute, then raised one and dropped it in his 
 palm, saying as I did it : " But that is not all I want. 
 Can you not help me to join hands with some work? " 
 
 Instantly his face froze. He almost dropped my 
 hand and stepped back a pace, motioning me away, as 
 he said : " What sort of work ? I really this is ex- 
 traordinary. You must be a stranger. I leave all 
 that sort of thing to the society. Go to them at 
 the parish house, you know they attend to all these 
 ahem ! trivial details so my mind shall be free for 
 well, higher things. " 
 
 " What are they ? Your sermons ? " I asked, 
 quickly. Then, as I swung on my heel, I repeated, 
 slowly: " 'I was an hungered, and ye gave me no 
 meat; thirsty and ye gave me no drink; naked and 
 ye clothed me not ; sick and in prison, and ye vis- 
 ited me not.' ' 
 
 " My church does all those things for me," he 
 cried, impatiently. " I you must know, nobody 
 thinks any more of taking Scripture literally. If 
 you will come back Thursday, I will listen to you a 
 few minutes 
 
 "Thank you!" I said. "But God is so much 
 closer, so much more accessible, I had rather go and 
 talk to Him." 
 
 How I got back to my poor shelter I do not know. 
 '3
 
 194 How It Happened. 
 
 I have a vague, confused memory of running, of be- 
 coming very tired, of seeing people as ghosts walking 
 then of falling down and sleeping almost as one 
 dead. Out of the sleep I waked to a blackness of 
 despair such as I have never known. Every door is 
 shut no escape is possible. I must sell myself or 
 die. There lies my only choice. I have eaten noth- 
 ing all day, save a crust and a cup of milk at morn- 
 ing. Even yet I am not, I suppose, in the lowest 
 depths. A girl I talked with the other day in a shop 
 told me, her eyes flickering dully at the recollection : 
 " Before I had regular work I get six dollars a week 
 now and do beautifully on it but before that often 
 all the breakfast I had was to stop on the grating 
 over a bakeshop as I went looking for work and snuff 
 the good, hot bread smell that came up to me. " 
 
 Tomorrow must decide it. Unless I find some- 
 thing, at evening I shall go to the river or Horton. 
 Choice would be easy only for the Vision. I could 
 not sleep in the grave and leave it undone.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BRASSEUR WRITES: 
 
 New York City, April . 
 
 The deed is done, my dear Danvers. On your head 
 rests the responsibility. Horton is raging like a 
 caged wild beast. As yet he only suspects my 
 agency, so I have not suffered financially. He is, 
 in spite of his delinquencies, too much a man, and 
 I had almost written a gentleman, to act seriously 
 upon a basis of suspicion. 
 
 Your prot6ge"e your unseen protegee perhaps I 
 had better call her ours is safe and at work. This, 
 I know, will be good news to you. It has surprised 
 me, well as I thought I knew you, to find how gen- 
 erously, how almost Quixotically, you have taken up 
 her cause. I hope, indeed, I believe, she deserves 
 it. Let me say, however, what is the frozen truth : 
 I do not believe there is anywhere in the world an- 
 other man who would do what you have done inter- 
 est himself in behalf of a perfect stranger to the ex- 
 tent of assuming a possible financial risk. It is like 
 you yet a little beyond what I expected even of you. 
 Therefore I myself am all the more shamed. When 
 your telegram came, I had about made up my mind 
 to let the whole thing go by the board as one that I 
 could not afford to meddle with. But when I read
 
 196 How It Happened. 
 
 your message in a flash I saw myself as I really was 
 a selfish coward, masking cowardice as prudence. 
 
 Your way of putting things has a tonic quality. I 
 hope I have shown myself at least " worth damning. " 
 Maybe I shall even show myself, after a while, worth 
 saying. Now, to get down to particulars the help- 
 ing hand was barely in time. I found Mrs. Barker 
 desperate white, calm, with burning eyes, and hands 
 like ice. Something, I know not what, had impelled 
 me to seek her just as soon as you made up my mind 
 for me. On the way to her I dropped in on my fel- 
 low-conspirator. He hardly deserves to be called so, 
 however, since he is a staid business man, whose only 
 concern was to find a person peculiarly endowed for 
 a very peculiar sort of work. 
 
 Still, more particularly, he is a big silk manufac- 
 turer, with artistic aspirations. He wants an un- 
 usual touch in his fabrics. In other words, he wants 
 them to be out of the beaten track. I have known 
 him since our college days and have often talked over 
 his hobby with him while we smoked our after-lunch 
 cigars. It was in one of the smokes the thought 
 came to me here is the place, the person to help 
 Horton's prey ! She has the most exquisite color- 
 sense she could make undreamed-of color combina- 
 tions. This man could and would pay her some part 
 of what they were worth to him not munificently, 
 of course, but enough to live on until she proves 
 whether or no she is capable of anything more se- 
 rious.
 
 How It Happened. 197 
 
 That is exactly what has come to pass. I stayed 
 with her only long enough to give her an address and 
 say : " Work awaits you there. " You ought to have 
 seen her face as she heard me. It is not a little un- 
 just that I should have had the sight instead. She 
 seemed to thaw, to come to life, to become all in a 
 minute a woman, flushing, paling, panting in the 
 stress of hope and joy. She was fully dressed for 
 the street. " I was going out to make an end of it 
 all," she said, seeing my glance of faint astonishment 
 at her readiness. Then she waited to say no more, 
 but skimmed down the stairs and shot out of the door 
 at a pace I could not equal. People in the street 
 turned and stared after her. I did not wonder at it 
 her face was so illumined. 
 
 As I was leaving my office she ran into me, her 
 face deadly pale, but her eyes glowing. " I had to 
 come to thank you, " she said, breathlessly. " Sleep 
 would have been impossible unless I had done it 
 and after today I shall have no time. Thank you ! 
 Thank God for that ! " 
 
 " I have done nothing ! " I protested. She shook 
 her head and looked at me, tears suddenly quenching 
 the brilliance of her eyes. They made her positively 
 irresistible still I made an effort to keep a level 
 head. Do not despise me utterly for what is com- 
 ing. It is part of our bond of friendship to speak 
 only the truth and all the truth. I might have re- 
 mained outwardly calm but for the woman herself 
 it is that same irrational and maddening innocence.
 
 198 How It Happened. 
 
 She stooped, lithely, lightly, and touched my fingers 
 with her lips. It was the gentlest, timid touch, such 
 as a child might give a stranger who had suddenly 
 given it a great and long-coveted pleasure. 
 
 Then I caught her in my arms, and kissed the 
 round of her white cheek. She shrank away from me 
 with a low, hurt cry : " You, too ! O, not you ! " she 
 said, looking at me with eyes full of pain. I thought 
 you, at least have you forgotten what you told me 
 first about the one woman the one little girl ? " 
 
 " No," I said contritely. " I have not forgotten it 
 nor have I forgotten them. Dear Mrs. Barker, do 
 forgive me. I I meant no harm. But let me give 
 you a bit of advice. However grateful you may feel, 
 or however kindly, toward any man, never again make 
 the mistake of forgetting that he is a man and 
 fallible." 
 
 "I shall not but, O! I am so sorry!" she said, 
 dropping her thick veil and walking away, while I 
 called myself all manner of fools and gave ten min- 
 utes to thinking how I could make up to her for this 
 last wholly needless hurt. 
 
 This is my conclusion : I can best atone by keep- 
 ing a careful eye on Horton. More, I will let him 
 know that I am watching in her interest. If he does 
 not like it, he may lump it and straightway take 
 himself and his business to another office. Also, I 
 shall see to it that his claim is paid if I have to put 
 money I cannot very well spare into the picture which 
 is his security if ever it is finished.
 
 How It Happened. 199 
 
 I have not seen her since. That was a week ago. 
 Yesterday I talked a while with Brentane, the silk 
 man, and found that he has hope of her. " She is 
 new and strange and frightened yet she is so big it 
 is not easy for her to fit herself into a new place," he 
 said. " So far she has not done much that I care for. 
 You see, I give her the color -cards of the season 
 the shades that are going to be fashionable and bid 
 her combine them and mingle them in every possible 
 way. This she does on little squares of cardboard, 
 which I look over next day. If any one of them ap- 
 peals to me, seems specially effective, then I give it 
 to the pattern-maker. After a while this new woman 
 may herself make patterns when she has learned to 
 draw and the technical part of it. There is much 
 more than even form and color in the matter of mak- 
 ing a pattern, let me tell you. I pay her only for 
 half-time twenty dollars a week. On that she can 
 live. I have given her a card also to the school we 
 manufacturers have established. There she will get 
 free the training she most needs. I have looked over 
 a pile of things she has been doing alone. It is 
 through them, not her color- work for me, I know I 
 have at last stumbled on exactly the woman I want." 
 
 " Has she the making of a great artist in her? " I 
 asked. Brentane smoked on a minute, then half 
 shook his head and said slowly : " A great artist, no. 
 But it would not astonish me if she painted one great 
 picture some of these days. A picture that was part 
 of her life herself. It will have to be something
 
 2oo How It Happened. 
 
 vague, something mystical she will never at her age 
 so far overcome want of early training as to do in- 
 spired work, dealing with realities. If she gets the 
 right subject, the right mood, the right air and light 
 all at once then she may do something wonderful ; 
 but she will never do it again." 
 
 Brentane knows. He spent five years abroad 
 knocking about among artists, intent to learn art 
 secrets. In fact, he has himself the artist soul, but 
 no facility whatever for giving it expression with his 
 fingers. He was fairly rich to begin, and this manu- 
 facturing business is in a way the expression of his 
 inner self. It has prospered in spite of some wild 
 schemes of profit-sharing he set on foot several years 
 back. His factory is outside the city not in a place 
 with the rest, but a green, tidy little village, half an 
 hour out by train. I wish our protegee might go to 
 live there, but that is impossible. Brentane is in town 
 most of the time, and all the finer details of the busi- 
 ness are conducted here. But she is in good hands 
 indeed, she could not possibly have fallen in better. 
 Brentane is so wrapped in business he will see in her 
 only his new colorist never a woman of unusual 
 charm. 
 
 I am writing thus at length that you may know 
 everything. Answer in the same fashion tell me if 
 you approve, and further, what you think of this plan : 
 Let us two, through a non-committal third party, 
 free Selene Barker from Horton's clutches, send her 
 abroad for five years, and take our chances of getting
 
 How It Happened. 201 
 
 our money back when she succeeds. It would cost 
 rather more than I alone can spare, or I should have 
 undertaken it alone. Let me hear from you at con- 
 venience she will do very well where she is at pres- 
 ent. Forgive this long epistle and much that it 
 contains. For the rest, I am as always, 
 
 Faithfully, 
 
 BRASSEUR.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 DANVERS WRITES I 
 
 Milltown, 111., May . 
 My Dear Brasseur : 
 
 I have taken time to think before answering you. 
 Understand, I am not dogmatizing, but this seems to 
 me to be incontrovertible truth the one thing more 
 deplorable than the fact that women work outside 
 the shelter of a home is the cruel necessity that 
 drives them to it. I myself employ women by scores, 
 with my conscience all the time protesting. I had 
 ever so much rather pay men enough to enable them 
 to marry, to take care of wives, and make a provision 
 tor possible daughters, but what will you ? There is 
 competition; there are the laws of trade ever so 
 many big things far too big for individual effort to 
 overset them, right in the way. 
 
 Nothing hurts me more than to realize, as I do so 
 very often, that while men must work, women, in the 
 main, must work and weep. They are ground be- 
 twixt the upper and nether millstones of human nature 
 and our complex modern civilization. If when she 
 becomes a worker she could cease to be a woman, 
 retaining only feminine aptitudes and deftness after 
 the manner of the working bees, then life would be
 
 How It Happened. 203 
 
 spared its most tragic spectacles for example, such 
 as that which you have been showing me at second 
 hand. 
 
 You do yourself injustice. I am certain the Fran- 
 cis Brasseur I know would never have been the cow- 
 ard to let a woman be crushed for any fear of finan- 
 cial loss. Money is not everything recollect, old 
 man, how we used to debate that point when our al- 
 lowances ran short at the old university. We were 
 callow and self-sufficient, after the manner of such 
 lads, but on the whole we often stumbled on sound 
 doctrine and pretty deep philosophies. Life has at 
 least taught me that much. It has not taught me to 
 forget, either, how the boy Frank Brasseur knocked 
 down the braggart son of a multi-millionaire because 
 he insulted a washerwoman's pretty daughter. City 
 life is a hardening and in some ways a devitalizing 
 process, but I shall never believe any amount of it 
 can change the elemental chivalry of my friend into 
 calculating prudence. 
 
 I should have been certain of you without your 
 confession. O, Brasseur, Brasseur ! The old Adam 
 must be strong in you ! Do not think, though, I shall 
 mock at you or sermonize again, life has taught me 
 the inevitability of such stumblings in the higher 
 way. The man never lived who was beyond tempta- 
 tion. Susceptibility is very largely a matter of tem- 
 perament and you were born susceptible in the last 
 degree. I myself am differently cast. My life has 
 not been spotless Heaven knows there are many
 
 204 How It Happened. 
 
 things in it I would wipe out if I could. As I can- 
 not, I must atone for them as best I may. But this 
 I can say : So far as regards women, there is no one 
 of them who has ever suffered hurt or insult or op- 
 pression at my hands. Only a few of them have the 
 power to move me. I am wondering, by the way, if 
 our protegee would attract or repel me. I have some- 
 times a wish to see her and find out. Then my mind 
 changes. I am sure it is best that we remain stran- 
 gers. I pity her deeply. She seems to have had 
 rather more than her share of troubles. If I were 
 omnipotent, with my present finite mind, no woman, 
 good or bad, should ever have trouble of any kind 
 more than the fact of womanhood. 
 
 If you look at it rightly, Brasseur, that is in itself 
 a tremendous handicap. Think what it must be to 
 be born helpless? Women have hands, ears, eyes, 
 organs, dimensions yes, and aspirations, and passions 
 much the same as men. They know the spur of 
 ambition, the sting of emulation, quite as well as the 
 restfulness of love and the sweetness of maternity; 
 yet, unless they would shame their womanhood, they 
 must exist largely in the passive voice. As between 
 men, I believe " the gifts of the gods are equal," but 
 woman's is quite another story. They are forced 
 into the race carrying weight from the start, and often 
 the winning means more shame to them than the 
 losing. 
 
 This being the case, I hold and try to live up to 
 my holding that it is every man's bounden duty to
 
 How It Happened. 205 
 
 protect a woman wherever, whenever, and however he 
 can even if needs must he protect her from herself. 
 It is further his duty to help within the straight and 
 narrow limits of the allowable. That is to say, to 
 help her by giving her fair work, fair usage, fair 
 wages, by putting her womanhood out of open con- 
 sideration in all matters of bargaining in fact, to 
 give her simply a white man's chance to do whatever 
 it may be necessary for her to undertake. Open help 
 loans that are practically gifts, indulgences and 
 that kind of thing, are disadvantages. In the first 
 place, they always carry in the world's mind so much 
 of compromising suggestion they require to be done 
 in secret. The big old world may be hard in indi- 
 vidual cases it often is but in the main it is right 
 eleven times out of twelve. Things begun in the 
 purest kindliness oftentimes drift on to dire disaster. 
 I have seen homes, and lives too, wrecked, by the 
 finest virtues of manly natures, and that, too, without 
 designed fault on the part of the woman. 
 
 You will understand why I say no, at least in part, 
 to your plan for this woman who interests us. Let 
 her stay where she is. There, if anywhere, she may 
 work out her own salvation. But keep watch as you 
 have suggested. If Horton makes a move to take 
 our distressed queen, give him check, if it cost ten 
 thousand to do it. Draw on me for whatever you 
 need, marking the draft " Letter B," so I shall under- 
 stand. As to the money for sending her abroad, that 
 shall be forthcoming whenever she is ready for it.
 
 206 How It Happened. 
 
 She is not ready now unless I wholly misunderstand 
 the situation. She would go oppressed, timorous, 
 and lacking hope. Once let her feel that she has 
 achieved something that she stands where she stands 
 in right of her own strength and she will be able to 
 profit by all the old world or the new can offer her. 
 
 I need not say, keep under cover about this. You 
 know, even better than I, how fatal it is to the best 
 intentions to have it known that they center and cir- 
 cle about a beautiful woman. You need not answer 
 at once I am off for the Golden Gate to-morrow, and 
 shall not be back before mid-August. Then I shall 
 likely look you up at the seashore, or wherever I may 
 find you ; of course, they will know your location at 
 the office. Make my compliments to your wife, and 
 tell my sweetheart she must wear overalls and romp 
 like a boy all summer so she will grow up in a hurry. 
 I am getting lonely out here and tired of bachelor ex- 
 istence. Ask her if she thinks she cannot manage 
 the growing up in the next five years. I found a 
 gray hair yesterday and am getting crow-feet under- 
 neath my right eye. 
 
 Seriously, I begin to feel the mistake of staying a 
 bachelor. It is too late now to remedy it all the 
 same, it is a mistake. And there is no reason in the 
 world why I should have made it. I have not the 
 ghost of a romantic memory to excuse it, and as to 
 ways and means I could have looked out for two since 
 the first year I set to work for one. It must be the 
 right woman did not come within range. Or, maybe,
 
 How It Happened. 207 
 
 there is no right woman for me. I may be of the 
 luckless ones born odd. However that may be, I 
 shall not speculate further over the matter. Still 
 this big house is lonesome. It would be livelier with 
 the patter of little feet all through it. 
 
 Good-bye. If I do not get back from this journey, 
 you will find I have not overlooked my little sweet- 
 heart in the division of things. Give her a kiss for 
 me. I have also left you ten thousand in trust. If 
 anything should happen to me, you will know what to 
 do with it. This is all, except that I am, 
 Sincerely your friend, 
 
 RICHARD DANVERS. 
 
 SELENE WRITES: 
 
 New York City, February . 
 
 A mood of memory possesses me. I will open the 
 book I shut, as I thought, forever, so many months 
 ago. Not to record all that has come and gone. 
 Some things I would forget others my soul keeps too 
 sacredly to profane them with a visible transcript. 
 Here or there I shall rough in a bit blurred and 
 hasty, yet sufficient, since no other eyes are to see it. 
 
 I have turned back, glancing along the pages fore- 
 written. It was not well done the heartbreak in 
 many of them all but laid hold on me anew. And 
 this new peace, this helping sanity and calm, is far 
 too precious to be lightly risked. Thank God for 
 work it has meant so much more to me than life. I
 
 208 How It Happened. 
 
 was at the very end of endurance when it came. At 
 first I was too fearful to do well that which it had 
 been given me to do. Thank God afresh He let 
 my courage come back to me. Now I take up my 
 tools with serene confidence that I shall not hold 
 them in vain. 
 
 I have grown to love it the work that at first 
 seemed so narrow, so paltry. I have grown, too, to 
 understand something of the impersonal art-love which 
 is life to Mr. Brentane. I see him but rarely only 
 when I have either pleased or disappointed him very 
 much. Indeed, I am a kind of hermit here in my 
 airy room, high above everything, with only my col- 
 ors, my cards, and my sheets of white paper. I mean 
 they are my implements the walls are full of casts, 
 and prints, and tiny statuettes, and bit of exquisite- 
 hued old china that is in itself an inspiration. At 
 first I climbed up to it every morning, but after a 
 month Mr. Brentane said, almost harshly : " You lose 
 time and strength coming why not stay here all the 
 time?" 
 
 There was no reason, so I stay now. I have three 
 rooms all my own. The building is all his and he 
 does not grudge me this space, otherwise wasted. 
 Two flights down there is the big hall, where every 
 day but Sunday betwixt October and May the design- 
 ing classes meet, and work. To me they have proved 
 a true godsend. At last I have taught my stubborn 
 fingers a knack of something like obedience to my 
 instructed will.
 
 How It Happened. 209 
 
 This is the largest room in my workshop. Here I 
 sit for six hours studying shades and colors, dream- 
 ing, experimenting, dashing tints that swear at each 
 other violently together, and interposing a third 
 which somehow brings them into harmony. It is 
 odd, but I do best with raw primary tints. Once or 
 twice Mr. Brentane has said, with a grim smile : " You 
 must be a kind of sorceress. That combination is as 
 impossible as it is beautiful and daring." Then I 
 have made the patterns not perfect ones, of course 
 I am not yet up to that ; but patterns which showed 
 how the raw reds and blues and vivid violets might be 
 made to soften and subdue each other into something 
 like Eastern richness. 
 
 Brentane says I have the Eastern eye barbaric, yet 
 harmonious beyond description. I smile inly when 
 he says it, thinking there may be really something 
 of the Orient about me. Robins always swore there 
 was and Horton 
 
 Oh, why have I let his name creep in ? I have 
 sworn to forget him, until that good day dawns when 
 I can know myself free. I hope it is not so faraway, 
 though it is months since I touched the Vision. I 
 am letting my dream grow and ripen as my hand 
 learns more and more the cunning of true art. Reg- 
 ularly every quarter I let his attorney know that the 
 picture is "still unfinished," and ask if my creditor 
 cares to examine it. So far he has not done it. 
 I hardly ever see him, indeed. Once I met him as I 
 was coming here. He halted me, and said, with a 
 14
 
 2io How It Happened. 
 
 sarcastic smile : " When it comes to choice betwixt 
 me and Brentane, Selene, remember I am likely to 
 die first and able to leave you richer." 
 
 " When it comes to a choice," I answered " why, 
 there remains always the river ! I was on the point 
 of going to it, when work came. Please leave me in 
 peace, so long as I can work." 
 
 He swung about and left me, with a blacker scowl 
 than ever. He is not friends with Mr. Brasseurnow, 
 though Brasseur is still his man of business. I fancy 
 he hates every one who helped in my escape from him. 
 If he only knew certainly that it was really death I 
 escaped I wonder if he would be so bitter and angry ? 
 
 Mr. Brasseur I see now and again. He is cramped 
 in my presence as I am in his. That is not strange 
 considering what I shall not consider. But after 
 all is said and done, he is truly kind. Once he 
 brought his little girl to see me, and he tells me over 
 and over : " If Horton stirs a finger, let me know it 
 at once. I've a knight that can settle that gentle- 
 man without help of even a pawn." 
 
 I do not quite know what he means it must be 
 something about chess a game I have always hated. 
 I do not care to know accurately because I under- 
 stand that he will fight for me if that other man 
 makes me trouble. That he will never need to do it 
 is now my dearest hope. I am not by nature comba- 
 tive now all I crave is to be left in peace. 
 
 Last night I dreamed of Robins. Ah, me ! How 
 dim and far off he seems now ! I can hardly believe
 
 How It Happened. 211 
 
 myself the same Selene Barker that agonized and 
 wept for him, that would have been trampled in the 
 dust for his glory, but could not bear to help him sink 
 his better self. I did love him better than I shall 
 ever love any other man. I doubt, indeed, if another 
 love is possible my heart is like a dead thing, so far 
 as relates to thrills and raptures. If he came to me 
 tomorrow in my dream he did come imploring me 
 to be his wife, in the face of all the world, I think I 
 should turn away from him to keep on with my work. 
 In the dream I heard his voice, I felt his touch yet 
 all the feeling evoked was a wish that he would go 
 and leave me. And only three years back his smile 
 was more to me than sunlight his image came al- 
 ways between me and my God. I was old enough, 
 certainly, to have loved with the love of a life. I 
 think I did love Robins so but love, at least in my 
 heart, is neither an air- plant nor an immortelle. 'Tis 
 true, 'tis pity and pity 'tis, 'tis true! I can only 
 admit the truth. Denial would make it none the less 
 pitiful. 
 
 If I had married him, I wonder if this same disil- 
 lusionment would have befallen ? I think not. Mine 
 is a constant nature, not light and fickle. Sheltered 
 by home walls, fed by home duties, I am sure the 
 flame of my love would have burned forever pure and 
 bright. Now, like the ballad heroine 
 
 ' ' I care for nobody, no, not I ! 
 For nobody cares for me ! " 
 
 But I do care very much for one thing success,
 
 2 1 2 How It Happened. 
 
 which is another name for independence and honest 
 maintenance. For that I live now, and hope, and 
 work, and plan. One of the plans I shall put in exe- 
 cution very soon. It is a little, tiny one yet may 
 have big results. I have found out in part the mys- 
 teries of rug patterns. A successful one, I am told, 
 is worth a good many hard dollars. And I have 
 dreamed out one that cannot fail of success. That 
 is ever so much better than wasting my dream-time 
 on lovers, past or prospective. This dream is going 
 down on paper Sunday. Commonly I spend the day 
 somehow in the open in the parks, or on the river, 
 or in a solitary excursion some little way out of town. 
 Church has not seen me since the day of shaking 
 hands. I read my Bible daily, and try to draw spirit- 
 ual strength from it, in my own poor way. Thus I 
 am assured I do not break the commandment to keep 
 the Sabbath holy. Only good thoughts come to me, 
 under the sky or in the face of the glad green earth. 
 Works of charity and necessity the strictest church- 
 man may do. It is a work of necessity this of 
 mine. I need a whole long day to do it well and I 
 have no other day free. 
 
 If my pattern brings me a hundred dollars why ! 
 I am like the milkmaid even more foolish than she. 
 I have saved a little money already if I can earn 
 more, outside my regular stipend, I shall put it aside 
 sacredly to be spent among the hills. Those far, blue 
 south lying Virginia hills haunt me. I must see them 
 once more somehow they seem to hold my Vision
 
 How It Happened. 213 
 
 somewhere in their enchanted depths. To go and 
 find it, and bring it away in my heart so my hand may 
 body it forth this is my one day-dream. To think 
 it hinges upon the possibilities of a pattern as yet 
 
 undrawn ! 
 
 * * * * * * # 
 
 New York, December . 
 
 My hand shakes so I can hardly write. I am glad 
 glad to the tiniest fibre of my being. Money is a 
 sordid thing often I have felt that I despised it. 
 Yet now I am so glad because of money I could 
 dance like a child. It is not so much money, either 
 only two hundred dollars, the price of my pattern. 
 But it means more as much more I have another 
 pattern in mind and as good as sold. I shall work 
 and wait ! O, I shall be good and patient ! Until 
 the summer is strong and full I shall not let myself 
 even think of the hills. But when I begin thinking 
 ah ! then I shall fly away to them I shall forget 
 color-cards and all their works, and bathe my soul in 
 the pure beauty of sun and sky and swelling blue dis- 
 tances, and sweeping valley lines. 
 
 After that I cannot say. Mr. Brentane is most 
 kind in his dry, unhuman way. " I think you are get- 
 ting restless for work real work," he said to me the 
 other day. " When you feel you cannot bear press- 
 ure any longer tell me. It may be I can spare you 
 half a year for what is in you." 
 
 Work ! Work ! Work ! That is my touchstone,
 
 214 How It Happened. 
 
 my talisman, the one thing that is truly vital in all 
 my days. I have not time or strength for even you, 
 my thrice-faithful confidence-keeper. When I come 
 to talk with you again, the whole face of the world 
 may have changed.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BRASSEUR WRITES I 
 
 New York City, August . 
 My Dear Danvers : 
 
 Have you any curiosity ? I believe you hold it a 
 vice of civilization still, you cannot wholly have 
 escaped it. At any rate you must be mildly anxious 
 to know something of a person concerning whom you 
 have heard much and said something this last two 
 years. I mean, of course, Mrs. Barker. I have seen 
 her myself but once in six months. That was a fort- 
 night back. I called on her as Horton's legal mouth- 
 piece, to ask about that unlucky picture of hers. 
 Horton, I am confident, hates me. He no doubt 
 keeps me because he thinks that his employment of 
 me professionally in a measure stands between me 
 and Selene's full friendliness. Horton has just sailed 
 gone abroad for an indefinite stay. He may stay 
 five years. It would, however, surprise me less if he 
 came back on the next steamer. He has not pined in 
 loneliness for the woman he is pursuing still his 
 madness for her is as hot as ever. He has grown 
 stouter a good deal this last year balder, too, and 
 coarser all round. To offset that, he has been lucky 
 in the market you do not need to be told he has
 
 216 How It Happened. 
 
 cleaned up another half -million. He himself says he 
 is " well-heeled for Paris." I believe he would give 
 up Paris and the half -million both for a certain per- 
 son in whom we are interested 
 
 I have a genius for wandering statement today. 
 That person, as I began saying in the beginning, is 
 now where you can see her, and talk with her, easily 
 and without the least awkward premeditation. Take 
 the F. F. V. one of these fine days and visit the old 
 springs of Virginia; you will find her somewhere 
 thereabouts. She means to stay until November, so 
 there is no great need of haste. I am letting you 
 know thus early so you may arrange to spare a fort- 
 night for that particular diversion. Do not try to do 
 the thing hurriedly. Take my word that she is 
 worth studying and give your whole mind to doing 
 it. When you have seen her, write me. If you were 
 any other than yourself, I should not advise as I do 
 I would be sure the report would run : " I came, I saw, 
 I was conquered." But you are like nobody in the 
 world but yourself and I am almost morbidly curi- 
 ous as to how you will be impressed with this woman, 
 who has bowled over several other types of the human 
 male so very completely. 
 
 It may interest you to know Brentane is still proof 
 against her charms, and further, that he sticks to his 
 opinion of her artistic capacities, in the face of very 
 considerable achievements on her part. She will, 
 according to him, be able henceforth to maintain her- 
 self well, even handsomely, making patterns and doing
 
 How It Happened. 217 
 
 purely decorative work. I am sure you will be glad 
 to know it. I am sure, too, if Horton turns rusty 
 upon his return, you will fall in with a plan I have 
 that we shall become her joint creditors, and give 
 her her own time and way of working out of debt. 
 
 But before everything else, go and see her for your- 
 self. You can easily make a valid excuse for such 
 going. There are fish and game galore in those Vir- 
 ginia mountains. Though you are a very mild type 
 of Nimrod, still you can handle a gun upon occasion. 
 Unless you think I might be in the way I should be 
 glad to join you there. Now, do not look suspicious 
 I have no shadow of ulterior motive. I am hence- 
 forth and for always Mrs. Barker's friendly well- 
 wisher. If you want my company, telegraph after 
 you get there. I will come on the next train if 
 the case is urgent. Until I see you, good-bye but do 
 not fail to let me know the whole truth. The girl is 
 growing at a great rate in fact, she feels so old 
 nowadays she has bidden me to tell you as gently as 
 I may that she really thinks you need not count on 
 her any more she wants a nice, pink-cheeked sweet- 
 heart, just as big as herself. Considering how the 
 feminine mind inclines to continuing conquest, I think 
 the message shows I have brought the young person 
 up to have something of conscience. I came near 
 forgetting it but if you find yourself experiencing 
 any qualms at sight of Mrs. Barker, why, you can go 
 in to win, with a knowledge you are entirely free at 
 least, so far as my family is concerned.
 
 2i 8 How It Happened. 
 
 This postscript or, rather, postulate threatens 
 to run feminine length. I shall stop short as al- 
 ways. Yours, 
 
 BRASSEUR. 
 
 (Telegram.) 
 
 Clifton Forge, Va., September . 
 Brasseur, New York City : 
 
 Caesar not in it. Stay away on pain of instant 
 death. Have found Venus Victrix. 
 
 Yours, etc., 
 
 DANVERS. 
 
 SELENE WRITES : 
 
 Heart of the Hills, October . 
 I am awake ! I am alive again ! My heart sings 
 for joy joy in the sunlight, the hills, the million 
 beauties all around me. It has been a wonderful 
 thing this revivification. It began, I think, when 
 I knew the wide blue ocean rolled between me and 
 my evil genius Horton. A weight seemed to lift, 
 an evil spell to fall away my eyes were no more 
 held from the subtle beauties of even the common- 
 est things. My hand grew firm and free. Better 
 still, I could make it do nearly what I would. My 
 heart likewise grew bold. I said in it : "I will be 
 happy happy as God meant me to be." So I put on
 
 How It Happened. 219 
 
 my black garments I have worn the garb of mourn- 
 ing ever since that day when it seemed I signed away 
 some part of my soul. Even Brentane, the unnoting, 
 was struck with the change in me. He was also very 
 kind. "You need freedom take it for at least a 
 while," he said and I obeyed. 
 
 Ah ! How the hills, my dear hills, received me ! 
 They had, I am sure, hidden their royal splendor un- 
 til I came. Never were there such dim, sweet pur- 
 ple unrolled along them such far height of faery set 
 up on their crests. The winds sang the lowest, weird- 
 est, most enchanting melodies, and as I listened I 
 saw their notes as the most wonderfully radiant hues. 
 It is curious the way my mind translates all impres- 
 sions into color. A bird note is clear, dawn-pink, or 
 the palest, melting lilac ; rippling water sounds gold- 
 en, and the rustle of ripe grasses pure royal purple. 
 Likewise it seems to me I can hear the colors it is 
 not a mere figure of speech to say that such and such 
 of them swear at each other. They whisper to me 
 the most wonderful things if only I could translate 
 the whispers into common speech then I should be 
 reckoned a poet. 
 
 Truce to speculations, to nice subtleties. Here in 
 the hills the delights of languor laid hold upon and 
 possessed me. For a month I did not so much as 
 think of work only lay at length in the sun or the 
 shadow, letting the marvel, and the glory of it all do 
 their perfect work. Silently, I felt that something 
 was coming something which would be epoch el. I
 
 220 How It Happened. 
 
 did not, I could not dream it was life itself new life, 
 fresh and wonderful, thrilling from the soul of nature, 
 or mother. 
 
 It is more than wonderful thus to be born again. 
 Sometimes I fear I am dreaming, and pinch myself 
 hard to make sure I am awake. As I grow more and 
 more into the light, all the darkness between comes 
 like a dream a bad dream, one that I remember 
 vaguely as one long, shuddering chill. 
 
 I can laugh at it, in this new strength, which came 
 as suddenly as the languor had come, and set me 
 quivering with the impulse to do, to create, to fix and 
 make real all the fine inner essence of light and glow 
 my soul was so raptly discerning. Then, and then 
 only, I brought out my Vision. It had been dark 
 and shrouded for a whole year. The sight of it 
 aroused a curious sensation partly pity for anything 
 so ill-done, partly hope for anything so excellently 
 conceived. For I could read through all the lines of 
 failure the promise of success. It was with my pict- 
 ure as with myself I had first much to undo before 
 real work was possible. 
 
 How I fell to work on it ! Never until then did I 
 taste the full rapture of action. Now I think I knew 
 something of the exaltation possible to a hero, who 
 gives his life for the achievement of a great deed. 
 He has the world's applause, its honors, and, maybe, 
 very much besides, but none of them can compare with 
 what wells up in his own heart to sweeten and sanc- 
 tify the actual doing. It is worth dying for nay,
 
 How It Happened. 221 
 
 it is even worth having lived for if life brought noth- 
 ing else. 
 
 Clifton Forge has fair hills about it, but something 
 told me a fairer world lay beyond. So I set out to 
 find it and, behold, here it is ! I have chanced upon 
 the loveliest cup-shaped valley in the very edge of 
 the mountain swells. Springs well out to gather into 
 a brook, then run away in a fairy cascade through 
 a narrow, deeply-shaded gorge. It is barely wide 
 enough for a mill road beside the babbling water. 
 All along either hillside there are ferns, and mossy 
 ledges, and trails of lusty vines. Down below the 
 ground is carpeted with clean, sweet- smelling leaves. 
 Here or there you see flowers gentian clusters, as- 
 ters of a hundred sorts, golden-rod this only where 
 the sun breaks through and waxen clusters of the 
 mystic Indian pipe. It is all enchanting, yet far less 
 so than the valley itself. It is all one farm, and no 
 very big one. The house is low and gray and square, 
 a picture of homely thrift and comfort. It stands on 
 a little rise at the valley's farthest verge. Back of it 
 the hills go up and up to a perfect pinnacle. From 
 the top of it one can see fifty miles up and down the 
 range. The charm of it is that for such viewing you 
 must seek one particular spot a bald, stony place, a 
 little westering, where the hills fall so deeply down 
 they are almost precipitous. Thick growths of laurel 
 and wild azalea hedge it about, and a huge leaning 
 chestnut shades it at mid-day, yet it no-wise shuts 
 out the view.
 
 222 How It Happened. 
 
 There, in that green seclusion, I began my work 
 anew, companioned only by silence and the hill. I 
 could not wish for better company. No soul, indeed, 
 could have better. It was a kind of inspired isola- 
 tion. I would not have exchanged it for anything 
 short of heaven itself. I came to the hill-top in time 
 to see the sun rise, and stayed there until I had 
 watched the sun go down, amid splendors no eye 
 might endure, no tongue or pen describe. All the 
 pretty, shy, wild creatures seemed to welcome me 
 velvet-footed rabbits came to nibble at tender shoots, 
 gray squirrels, and red ones, frolicked and scampered 
 up and down the chestnut boughs, quail piped clear 
 at mid-day and sent out their feeding cry at morning, 
 ruffed grouse whirred past me as though on purpose 
 to catch my eye. Then the butterflies came in clouds 
 tiny white and big yellow ones and when the 
 sun was hot the big, gold- dusty humble bees droned 
 all about. Wood wasps and dragon flies, too, darted 
 here and there, striking out fine, fairy, metallic shim- 
 mers in the glancing sunshine. Watching the flash- 
 ing of their translucent wings, I said, in my heart : 
 " So light, so translucent, must be the wings of an- 
 gels in my Vision." 
 
 Everything came to that until but I had better 
 tell that part consecutively it is the most wonderful 
 of all. Whether he sought me, or how he found me, 
 I shall perhaps never know. I mean Richard Dan- 
 vers the man who must forever stand apart from, 
 above, all other men. He came upon me one day, as
 
 He came upon me one day as I stood pondering over my canvas
 
 How It Happened. 223 
 
 I stood pondering before my canvas. There was a 
 gun in his hand, but one look at his eyes told me he 
 had no pleasure in the death of anything. I ought 
 to have been startled, or, at the very least, suspicious. 
 So much, at least, I owed to experience but I was 
 neither of those things. 
 
 " You look tired. Rest, or the view will take 
 away your breath," I said, motioning him to a place 
 upon my Navajoe blanket, which was spread on a con- 
 venient ledge. He bowed gravely and asked : " Will 
 you keep on working if I do? " 
 
 " Certainly. Why not ? " I flung back at him, 
 making a quick stroke with a fine sable brush. 
 
 " I should hate to disturb you yet I do not want 
 to go away," he answered. I smiled at his frankness. 
 "Then you need not do it," I said. " The mountains 
 are not mine except by the right of those who love 
 them well. I wish they were mine so I could make 
 the whole world of hill-lovers welcome to them each 
 year." 
 
 He flung down his gun and eyed it with something 
 like disgust. " I have been carrying useless weight, I 
 see," he said. " And that is something which always 
 spoils my temper. There is so much one is forced to 
 carry it is a pity to waste strength." 
 
 I nodded. "Yes I have been finding that out 
 experimentally in the last six weeks. Henceforth I 
 mean to be wiser and let each day answer for each 
 day's burdens." 
 
 " That is right," he said, heartily, then got up and
 
 224 How It Happened. 
 
 held out his hand. I put mine within it, and was 
 thrilled by the clasp it met. In a little while we 
 were talking like old, old friends. Indeed, from the 
 first he gave me no sense of strangeness I felt I 
 had known him well always, and that he had likewise 
 known me. 
 
 I was too happy to wonder over it. His coming 
 was the last touch to my felicity. He had found quar- 
 ters in the farm house that sheltered me. What his 
 business or his pleasure was I did not try to find out. 
 I do not know even yet though I know many other 
 things. One of them is that Richard Danvers is the 
 truest, the noblest, and the manliest man alive. 
 
 I learned that something in this fashion : After ten 
 days of comradery the most stimulating comradery 
 in the world he said, as he stood watching my fly- 
 ing brush : " Do not put all your life on that canvas, 
 Selene. It is too precious I want a part in it my- 
 self." 
 
 I turned troubled eyes upon him. A sick dread 
 filled my heart. He had grown to be something to 
 me something precious to my starved and fainting 
 heart. Nature had brought it back to life, and human 
 kindness had made it beat warmly, as of old. But it 
 had done with lovers and loving I wanted a friend 
 I thought I had found one must I lose him just 
 as I discovered his true worth ? Perhaps he read all 
 this in my glance. At any rate, he came a step 
 nearer, but did not offer to touch me, as he said : " Do 
 not be frightened. I am very patient. I can wait
 
 How It Happened. 225 
 
 for years if only it is a hopeful waiting. I am 
 going to ask, Selene, what I have never before asked 
 any woman : will you be my wife ? Not at once, 
 of course. You know nothing about me you have 
 not thought of it. I had no need to think. The 
 moment I saw you I knew. But women are differ- 
 ent" 
 
 " Very different ! " I broke in. " As different as 
 I, an exceptional woman, am to women in the mass. 
 Before you go further with what you have to say, 
 listen; you may not care to go on when you know." 
 
 Then, in quick, tempestuous words, I told him 
 everything of Paul, of Robins, of .Horton, of my 
 hard fight, my despair, my rescue, my hope of ulti- 
 mate triumph. He listened, his face growing bright 
 and brighter all the while. When I wound up, " Now 
 you know all my worst enemy can tell you no more," 
 he smiled, and said, bending his head, as though in 
 reverence : " No matter what was said, Selene, nor 
 who said it, I should never believe it against the 
 witnessing of your eyes." 
 
 Poor eyes ! Tears suddenly drowned them. It 
 was so long since I had heard words of trustful faith. 
 Danvers took my hand tenderly between his own two 
 broad palms, and said, as he pressed it lightly : " Se- 
 lene, will you try to love me ? Just a very little ? " 
 
 " I would give half my life to love you as you de- 
 serve," I said, my voice shaken in the effort to choke 
 down a big, dry sob. He let go my hand, folded his 
 arms, and said : 
 15
 
 226 How It Happened. 
 
 " I am the best judge, dear, of my own deserts I 
 know myself rather better than you do. And if I can 
 be satisfied with whatever it may please you to give " 
 
 "Don't! Please!" I said, putting out my hand 
 in appeal. " I cannot listen to you I cannot think 
 of anything except work until until I am free. If 
 I ever am why ! then 
 
 " Then," he echoed softly. I could not answer him. 
 After a moment of tense silence he said, turning away 
 his head as though he feared his gaze might wound : 
 " If if only you will let me, Selene, I will make this 
 debt of yours mine and pay it," his lips tightening 
 a little over the last word. 
 
 " I do not doubt that but I can never let you," I 
 said. " Unless I pay it myself I can never feel truly 
 free. That man's hateful eyes would haunt me, 
 would poison the sweetness of everything. He must 
 see, he must be made to see that I have worked my 
 way through his meshes." 
 
 " I think I understand," he said, simply. " So un- 
 derstanding I cannot urge you further. But, at least, 
 give me this promise if your heart will let you : 
 when you are free " 
 
 He stopped, and looked at me steadily. I gave 
 him my hand. " When I am free, by my own 
 strength," I said, "you shall be the first to know it." 
 
 " I will come if you call me across half the 
 world, " he said. " Now I shall go away and leave 
 you to work out your victory." 
 
 He went, never even looking back. That was
 
 How It Happened. 227 
 
 three days ago. I miss him, more than words can 
 tell yet I am glad he has gone. Away from him 
 I am not shamed to let his face mingle in my 
 dreams of the future. I do not love him not as I 
 loved Robins. I do not love him in any way but I 
 do trust and look up to him, and feel that in him 
 there is a rock of steadfastness, a tower of manly 
 strength. 
 
 But I have put all thought of love or marriage aside. 
 My work, my Vision, calls me, enthralls me. I see 
 its ineffable glories float and circle across the dark- 
 ness and the light. I will make them visible to other 
 eyes not as I see them mortal colors and canvas 
 can never, never do that but in such fashion that 
 men shall know it is worth while to look again. And 
 beyond the glow and the glories lies for me the fair 
 prospect of freedom. 
 
 How will it be, I wonder, when the city again swal- 
 lows me up ? Mr. Brentane must do without me I 
 must work, work, while the soul of the mists and the 
 mountains abides with me. Plein air is, I believe, 
 the art jargon for it. Ah, me ! Life is neither broad 
 enough, nor deep enough, nor high enough to truly 
 voice the true and beautiful soul of art yet the shal- 
 low practitioners of it think they can speak the last 
 word. I have no strength to spend in quarreling 
 with them no strength for anything but work and 
 hope. 
 
 To-day there came a scrawl from Horton. Once 
 it would have set me wild. Now I brush it away as
 
 228 How It Happened. 
 
 I might brush a buzzing and intrusive stinging in- 
 sect. " 'Art is long and time is fleeting. ' Selene, 
 you are teaching me the full meaning of that line. 
 I am coming home in the spring. Please understand 
 that then it must be play or pay." I am so glad the 
 letter waited until Danvers was away. If he had seen 
 it but I would never have let him rush into trouble. 
 Indeed, upon second thought, I am sure he would not 
 have done it. He understands better than I can tell 
 him that anything he might do to defend or to avenge 
 me would, save in the last extremity, hurt me more 
 than it helped. 
 
 I have answered Horton. " It shall be play or 
 pay. " I wonder how he will read the line. But I 
 must get him out of my thoughts if I let myself 
 dwell upon him I shall lose one of my last precious 
 days in the heart of the hills. 
 
 * # # * * * # 
 
 New York City, January . 
 
 My life hangs in the balance. If I should fail 
 but I will not name failure even to my own con- 
 science. The heart of the hills abides with me even 
 here in the grimy town, shimmering, shining, melt- 
 ing in light or darkness, into the shimmering, the 
 shinings, the shadows of the golden walls, the jasper 
 streets, the river of the pure water of life, the won- 
 derful sea of glass. 
 
 My Vision is compact of all of them the effort of 
 a soul caught in the whelming splendors of the whole
 
 How It Happened. 229 
 
 magnificent allegory to spread out for other eyes 
 some part of its own blessed realization. I can hard- 
 ly bear to leave it long enough to sleep. Indeed, in 
 these days the cumberings of mortality bear hard. 
 
 Hope alone sustains me under the fearful strain. 
 I dare not let myself think of anything but triumph. 
 Triumph has a new meaning, a still more delightful 
 sweetness, since I have met Danvers. He writes 
 but I do not answer him. Still I know he is content. 
 It turns out that he knows Brasseur what if I had 
 listened to his love, without telling him the whole 
 truth ! All unconsciously, I was wise there even 
 crafty-wise. It is so strange but the more I think 
 of him the more I recognize his many excellencies, 
 the more doubtful I grow, in my own mind, as to 
 whether or no, if I were free, I should care to take 
 what he can give me ! 
 
 And he can give so much ! His wife will be able 
 to hold her head high among the best in the land. 
 It is certainly petty in me, yet the keenest emotion 
 I feel regarding him I mean the thing which touches 
 me most nearly, is a sense of triumph in the fact, for 
 fact it undoubtedly is, that his position is as much 
 beyond Lochiel Robins' as the Barcelona folk thought 
 Robins' was ahead of mine. 
 
 I should be ashamed to confess as much but from 
 the beginning I have made no half-confidences to 
 you, O patient pages ! Then I have never posed as 
 a paragon, devoted to Duty and Earnestness, with 
 capital letters. I am nothing but a woman, full of
 
 230 How It Happened. 
 
 human foibles, strength, and weakness so full, in- 
 deed, that often I wonder if Fate was not unkind 
 when she did not make me a farmer's wife, and let 
 me spend my life in mothering things flowers, and 
 animals, and children. 
 
 Ambition should be made of sterner stuff still, I 
 am deadly ambitious. It is the result of soul-trans- 
 mutation, most likely. Feelings denied their proper 
 and normal outlet often turn into strange channels. 
 I am prosing here tonight, for example, because I 
 wanted very badly to do something else. It was to 
 wrap myself in hood and cloak and dash out into the 
 streets, where a heavy snow is falling. As a child 
 that was my dear delight to stand and let the flakes 
 pelt my face till it stung, then drop down in a drift, 
 and roll, as a beast rolls in the dust. It must be 
 atavism in some ways I am strangely near my sav- 
 age ancestors a thousand years back. I had painted, 
 painted, until the early dark made work out of the 
 question. These days I cannot fix my mind on a book 
 and to sit dreaming in front of my grate was quite 
 as impossible. 
 
 The wind called to me, and the snow flakes tapped 
 invitation against my window panes. If I had heeded, 
 my world would have thought me mad. True, I 
 might have gone into the park and strayed away from 
 prying eyes. But the effort, the premeditation, would 
 have made my frolic too business-like to be worth 
 while. Desperately I have opened my locked book. 
 Good, silent friend! How often you have helped
 
 How It Happened. 231 
 
 me ! How often you have drank in my revelations, 
 saying never a harsh word of criticism or condem- 
 nation ! 
 
 To-night I have a curious sense of finality. I mean 
 to write here very many other things yet am im- 
 pressed that this writing is the last. Yet half the 
 pages are still fair, white paper. I shall use up three 
 of them to set forth, briefly, the case of Selene Bar- 
 ker versus Fate. 
 
 Selene Barker, a woman, not wholly ill-looking, 
 over thirty, loving life, and God, and little children, 
 has been strangely withheld from the average wom- 
 anly destiny, partly by something within herself, but 
 more by the Fate which we call Chance. 
 
 Now she stands at the parting of three ways. 
 Which of them is it ordained she shall tread ? Fate 
 alone can answer. 
 
 If she succeeds ? 
 
 The years unroll before her as a fair vista studded 
 thick with all delights. Honor is there, and compan- 
 ionship of choice spirits, and, it may be, love. To 
 achieve success she has done all she could has 
 toiled, has suffered, has put away the delights of life. 
 She is not wholly answerable either for the conditions 
 which make success now so imperative. What she 
 did was done in all innocence Fate may, however, 
 plead against that that ignorance is no excuse in 
 the eye of the law. 
 
 If she fails ? 
 
 She had much better die the sternest moralist
 
 232 How It Happened. 
 
 could not deny that, once he had an intimate compre- 
 hension of things. Failure means to her loathed lux- 
 ury all the days of her life means oppression as of 
 a nightmare, insult, it may be, and the falling away 
 from all she has striven so hard to keep fast. 
 
 If she dies ? 
 
 Not cowardly because she wills it, but happily be- 
 cause God wills it, then ! O, then ! rest and peace, 
 and the ending of all strife ! She has no fear of death 
 she would welcome him as a bridegroom, if he came 
 in the glow of triumph. But she cannot seek his 
 refuge wilfully she is pledged to another way. Per- 
 haps she is straining points, but here lies the sting 
 of it all. She cannot die, she cannot take kindly 
 succor, because because she has pledged herself, her 
 poor woman- self, to her enemy, as the gage of success. 
 Unless she can succeed she belongs to him, body and 
 soul. It is a fearful bargain one better broken than 
 kept, casuists will say. She knows better. This part 
 of the bargain may be unwritten but she made it, 
 accepted it, with open eyes. From that fact there is 
 no appeal. 
 
 Still she would not be human, much less a woman, 
 if she did not feel a certain potential grudge against 
 Fate.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The Spring Exhibition of the Society of the Fine 
 Arts that year came very near working a miracle. 
 It was not a canvas miracle notwithstanding there 
 was more than one notable picture. But when the 
 Earth said of a particular painting : " The Vision of 
 St. John (S. Barker, pinxit) is almost epochal, com- 
 bining as it certainly does the charm of realism with 
 the most exalted impressionism, and both suffused 
 with the very life of light," and the Diurnal echoed, 
 " A new artist, one S. Barker, of whom no one ap- 
 pears to have ever heard before, has given the Society 
 the success of this season in a big canvas, entitled 
 the Vision of St. John," then those wise in the ways 
 of newspapers opened their eyes and pricked up their 
 ears, well knowing as they did that the serious busi- 
 ness of life in the Earth office was to controvert what- 
 ever the Diurnal asserted, and that the Diurnal like- 
 wise proclaimed in action, if not in set words, that its 
 reason of being was to plague, hamper, and belittle 
 the Earth. 
 
 Alone neither's word meant anything to the dis- 
 cerning. Together it meant something unmistakable. 
 All the more that the Blazer, a sheet always conscien- 
 tiously flippant, said : " The Vision of St John, from
 
 234 How It Happened. 
 
 a new hand, is one of those very big pictures that 
 would be great pictures if only the painters of them 
 knew enough to boil them down to get their unde- 
 niable effects from less than an acre of canvas, and to 
 so strengthen the light that never was on sea or land 
 as to make it illume the artist's presumable intent.." 
 
 The Curule Chair, which posed as an artistic oracle 
 because it was always as conscientiously dull as the 
 Blazer was flippant, damned the Vision with faint 
 praise : " S. Barker, who is new, and, in most things, 
 raw, shows a color-sense that if hereafter properly 
 directed may mean something." This dictum the 
 Evening Mail Bag quoted with mild approval, prefer- 
 ring to say nothing upon its own account. 
 
 It was the Tabard, always eccentric, always incal- 
 culable, which took the Vision of St. John under its 
 protection, and exploited it, with all the trumpets 
 playing. This not through superior discerning on the 
 part of the Tabard's critic, but because that astute 
 person had several scores to settle with artists who 
 fancied themselves famous, and had, further, a realiz- 
 ing sense of the pains and pangs it would cost those 
 gentlemen to find their own glory obscured by a 
 newly risen star. 
 
 Strangers coming into the city and New Yorkers 
 returning to it have equally the habit of looking into 
 the morning's Tabard to find out what is going on. 
 The sheet's vagaries are well known to be matched 
 only by its profits notwithstanding, those two classes 
 feel that it is indispensable. Thus it came about
 
 How It Happened. 235 
 
 that two men read of the Vision, at nearly the same 
 minute, and with nearly equal gnawings of discom- 
 fort. The fact was astonishing, in view of the fur- 
 ther fact that they were strangers, moving each in his 
 own set orbit, the which, however, had impinged one 
 upon the other. As is usual in such cases, the point 
 of contact had been marked by a woman and that 
 woman the painter of the Vision. 
 
 Horton read it, on the deck of the incoming steamer 
 the ship had been met by tugs in the lower bay, 
 and Tabards were as plenty on it as blackbirds. The 
 other side, Paris in particular, had done Horton little 
 good. He moved heavily, almost lumpishly, his face 
 ill-colored, and a trifle puffy about the eyes. He 
 scowled almost incessantly as his eye ran up and 
 down the columns of fine print. The scowl deepened 
 to midnight blackness, when he saw Selene's name, 
 with a caricature of her underneath it, and below that 
 a half-column story of her life and artistic evolution. 
 The story was a work of the purest imagination. 
 Horton ought to have known that, but he was too 
 nearly in a temper for connected thought or cogent 
 reasoning. " Miss Barker," quoth the Tabard, 
 through its imaginative space writer, " is a young 
 and very beautiful woman, a member of an old and 
 aristocratic Southern family the Barkers of Virginia. 
 She came up to New York from her Virginia home, 
 which is not very far from the habitat of the other 
 Virginia beauty and genius, Amelie Rives, so lately 
 as last fall. She has studied abroad, but for the last
 
 236 How It Happened. 
 
 few years, directly from nature. It is the light of 
 her own hills and valleys that shines out with such 
 intense pathos, and still more intense beauty, from 
 her painted Vision. 
 
 " I found her in a sky parlor, to which she had re- 
 treated before the army of reporters now besieging 
 her. ' I am glad, of course, to tell the Tabard any- 
 thing I can,' she said, 'for there one is sure of reach- 
 ing the people one cares for also of never being mis- 
 quoted. My success will not alter my plans in the 
 least. What they are I do not just yet feel at liberty 
 to say. Yes ! perhaps I shall go abroad again next 
 winter. But it all depends on my home people. 
 They think me a genius, of course they have al- 
 ways done that. This will not surprise them in the 
 least. But you must really excuse me from talking 
 about myself.' 
 
 " From another source a very old and warm friend 
 I learned that there is a romance back of the pict- 
 ure, which I am sorry not to be able to make public 
 just now. All that is permitted to be revealed is the 
 fact that the first thing Miss Barker did after learn- 
 ing through the Tabard that she had made the suc- 
 cess of the year, was to send a telegram of one word 
 ' Come. ' It was addressed to a wealthy Southern 
 mine owner who, it is needless to add, came at once." 
 
 Then the Tabard man gave a categoric account of 
 " Miss Barker," her features, her stature, her favorite 
 shapes and colors in hats and frocks. Altogether, it 
 was a most creditable effort, seeing that the young
 
 How It Happened. 237 
 
 man who wrote it had no more to go on than a casual 
 sight of her, and still more casual speech, upon Var- 
 nishing Day, and a wholly accidental knowledge of 
 the fact that a friend of hers had sent a one-word tele- 
 gram. He had been wholly honest with his paper 
 it was not his fault that after he had with infinite 
 pains tracked Selene to her studio she had refused 
 even to see him, much less to talk. Report of that 
 fact brought imperative orders : " Get a story and a 
 picture somehow." So a staff artist sketched her 
 from memory he recalled her as having once been 
 his fellow-pupil at the League through the space of 
 a month. As he had a good eye and a better mem- 
 ory, the sketch was faintly like its supposed original 
 enough, at least, to let the Tabard indulge in edi- 
 torial vainglory over the way it had beaten its com- 
 petitors regarding the new genius. 
 
 Horton ought to have understood all that, even if 
 he did not. There was more excuse for Lochiel 
 Robins, who likewise read the fairy tale as he sat at 
 breakfast in the Swelldorf. He, too, should intui- 
 tively have known better than to believe it yet he 
 did believe the most of it, and the part about the tele- 
 gram made him knit his brows heavily and swear 
 behind his mustache. Luckily, he was alone his 
 mother had not been well enough to come with him 
 upon this Eastern journey. He had made a half- 
 dozen of them since his parting with Selene and this 
 was the very first time he had ever got trace of her. 
 
 As he read, the old love, the old longing, rose up
 
 238 How It Happened. 
 
 and mastered him. He had not lacked consolations, 
 either, but somehow other smiles, other faces, had 
 not been witching enough to wholly dull the ache for 
 Selene's loss. He dared not seek her out it was 
 his own act that had set a wall between them. But 
 he might see her at a distance, might even approach 
 her nearly in a crowd she would never, he was cer- 
 tain, repudiate a claim of old friendship, if he made 
 it before her world. He might ask no, he could 
 take no cognizance of the lucky mine owner. He 
 wondered a little where and how she could have met 
 him, and how she, the most uncompromising advocate 
 of freedom, could have given her pledge to one of 
 slaveholding antecedents. 
 
 All at once it flashed over him : what if that part 
 of the tale were false, as he knew much of the rest 
 to be ! He laughed a grim laugh to find himself so 
 relieved. Unacknowledged there sprang up within 
 him a hope he would see the picture, and the painter 
 of it he would first buy the Vision then he could 
 say: "I have some part of you. I want, as I have 
 wanted always I want you all." 
 
 He was breakfasting near noon the night before 
 had been a crowded one. As he passed out into the 
 street, a carriage went swiftly by. A man looked out 
 of the window, and scowled darkly as he shouted at 
 the driver : " Down town ! I must see that Brasseur 
 before I go home." 
 
 Robins could not choose but hear the wheeling 
 vehicle hindered his progress. As he stepped aboard
 
 How It Happened. 239 
 
 the car, himself bound likewise down town, he re- 
 called the man's face with something like a shudder. 
 " I should be sorry to stand in his way ! " he thought. 
 " There is no law of God or man that would stand 
 between him and anything he wanted very badly." 
 
 And Horton, as he sank back upon his cushions, 
 was aware of something familiar in this casual stran- 
 ger's face. It haunted him irritatingly, until, at 
 last, he said, swearing a great oath and slapping his 
 knee : " Either I am bewitched, and let everything 
 hinge upon that woman or that fellow is the one she 
 loved, who had not grit enough to take her, whether 
 or no." 
 
 He flung into Brasseur's office like a thunder gust, 
 saying, with no pretense of greeting, as he thrust the 
 Tabard under Brasseur's nose : 
 
 "What the devil and all is the meaning of this? " 
 
 " How do you do ! I've seen the paper," Brasseur 
 answered, rising and pushing the paper aside as he 
 held out a welcoming hand : " What it means ? O, 
 nothing much except that you are certain to get 
 back your money with compound interest if you 
 will take it." 
 
 " Damn the money ! You know I do not want it ! 
 Never wanted it ! It's the woman herself ' Hor- 
 ton began, his voice hoarse and sibilant. Brasseur 
 checked him with a look. 
 
 "If you really wanted her," he said, "then I'm 
 bound to tell you, you went about getting her a 
 cursedly bad way."
 
 240 How It Happened. 
 
 " So ! Perhaps you could have shown me a better ! 
 Perhaps you found it out for yourself," Horton 
 snarled. Brasseur's hand clinched, but he dropped 
 it behind him and stepped back, saying, coldly : 
 
 u As Mrs. Barker is my friend, and will be one day 
 the friend of my wife and my daughter, all I can say, 
 Mr. Horton, is I hope you will take your business 
 from this office just as soon as you can conveniently 
 find another attorney." 
 
 " The devil you do ! " Horton snarled, more angrily 
 than before. " You may keep on hoping I shall em- 
 ploy you, sir, just as long as it pleases me. Remem- 
 ber, you are under contract to me, for certain services. 
 Some part of them relate to this matter we are dis- 
 cussing. You will please go on with that and do 
 as I bid you." 
 
 " Not unless you apologize instantly," Brasseur said, 
 folding his arms. Horton breathed heavily a minute, 
 then burst out huskily : " You know I never do that, 
 Brasseur but come! let bygones be bygones. I 
 have got the devil's own temper and the devil's own 
 luck to match, it seems just about now. You you 
 do not know what it means to count on a thing to 
 watch it coming closer, closer, through years, with 
 each day as long as two and then, all at once, to 
 have it whisked away from you. It's upsetting. You 
 will admit that upsetting even to me and I usually 
 keep on an even keel." 
 
 Brasseur looked at him through a silent minute, 
 then said, slowly :
 
 How It Happened. 241 
 
 "Horton, how came you to do this? It your 
 pursuit of that woman, I mean is the only really 
 mean thing I have ever known you to do. In the 
 main, you are as square as a die. If you had been 
 as square with Selene Barker as you commonly are 
 with all the world, you might have won her in spite 
 of law and gospel." 
 
 Horton laughed disdainfully. " Then we will sup- 
 pose my decency was offered up a burnt sacrifice for 
 her safety," he said. "I ought to say damn her 
 but somehow I cannot. Tell me about her of 
 course, you have seen her since all this has been 
 happening. Is she well ? Is she happy ? Has the 
 picture gone to her head? " 
 
 " Not the least bit," Brasseur said. " You will find 
 her the same yet not the same. She seems some- 
 how smaller and younger, and less sure of herself 
 than ever. In . fact, she appears to be growing so 
 unsophisticated I have suggested that if she paints 
 another successful picture she shall have herself a 
 guardian appointed." 
 
 " Hasn't she chosen him already ? What about the 
 telegram ? " Horton said, waving the paper up and 
 down. Brasseur laughed a little. 
 
 " I know nothing about her sending any telegram," 
 he said. " I sent one O, yes ! it concerned her 
 remotely. But whether it will ever concern her more 
 nearly why ! you will have to ask her. She is the 
 only person on earth who can say. " 
 
 Horton sat down heavily, his face livid. "I've 
 16
 
 242 How It Happened. 
 
 been afraid of that from the first," he said. " You 
 had as well speak the truth there is another man. 
 But do not tell me it is the first one the one who 
 held himself too high for her. I had rather kill her, 
 kill him, than see her belong to a man like him." 
 
 " All I know is she has never loved this man I 
 doubt, and so does he, if she ever will," Brasseur 
 said. Horton drew a deep breath. "I'll give her 
 half a million, and never come near her, if only she 
 will send him about his business," he said. "Do not 
 think I am crazy, nor whining, Brasseur, but the 
 fact is, I'm not over-long for this world. You know 
 how my candle has been burned at both ends and 
 sometimes in the middle. It's beginning to flicker 
 I should not mind its going out if I could know 
 before it does go out the woman who was not for me 
 was also not for any other man." 
 
 As he hurried away, reeling a little in his gait, 
 Brasseur looked after him, and said, half aloud : " On 
 my soul, I'm sorry for him little as I know he de- 
 serves it." 
 
 About that minute Selene sat high above the roofs, 
 with folded hands, in a kind of happy daze. She 
 knew one thing alone clearly she was free, she be- 
 longed to herself. There could be no more doubt, 
 no more heart-breaking hope. She sat in the sun- 
 shine of certainty. Henceforth it rested solely with 
 herself to say what her life should be. 
 
 Brentane tapped at her door, but came in before 
 she bade him enter. " I know you are tired of hear-
 
 How It Happened. 243 
 
 ing people tell you how great you are," he said. " I 
 have come for something else. Am I welcome ? " 
 
 "Very welcome ! " Selene said, smiling and giving 
 him her hand, " although I think I know you have 
 come to say I am not a great person at all. " 
 
 "You are a great woman," Brentane said, eyeing 
 her narrowly. " But a great artist that is another 
 thing. Honestly now, do you believe, in the depths 
 of your own heart, you can ever paint another Vi- 
 sion? " 
 
 Selene shook her head. " I am glad to say no," 
 she said, " because well ! because I hope never again 
 to live through the things which have made the Vi- 
 sion what it is." 
 
 "So! You gauge yourself ! That is much! Very 
 much for a woman ! " Brentane said. " Now, to get 
 down to actualities I have come to offer you some- 
 thing. What you say makes the offer easier it is 
 meant wholly in kindness, yet I did not quite know 
 how you would take it in the first flush of success. I 
 want you to keep on working for me not in the old 
 way! O, no! under wholly new conditions. Let 
 me send you abroad, to see and talk with the colorists 
 there. It will broaden you, and make richer that 
 which is best in your temperament now. You will 
 never wholly master all the mechanical mysteries of 
 pattern making all the same, you can direct deft- 
 fingered people how to make patterns such as no other 
 mind can conceive. I have talked with one or two 
 others, who, like myself, aspire to lead, and, in so
 
 244 How It Happened. 
 
 aspiring, aim to help in teaching the world the utility 
 of beauty. Give us your time or even half of it. 
 We will pay you well for it. You can travel in- 
 deed, you must travel, to talk things over with manu- 
 facturers and color makers and dyers. But at least 
 half the year you can have a fixed home and money 
 enough to make it as beautiful as even you can desire. 
 What do you say to me ? Am I too late ? " 
 
 " No ! You are too early," Selene said, smiling. 
 " I have not yet found out whether or not I ever shall 
 want to do another stroke of work." 
 
 " At least, you will think of it ? " Brentane per- 
 sisted. Selene smiled brightly. "The very first 
 thing when I begin to think," she said. " Now I 
 can only feel. Part ol the feeling is I am grateful, 
 so very grateful to you. Without you I 
 
 She stopped, her lips slowly whitening. Brentane 
 got up. " Then it was as lucky for you as for me 
 our joining forces ? " he asked. Selene answered only 
 with a silent inclination of the head. It had all come 
 back, in a crushing flood, fche despair, the misery of 
 those old days, and so shaken her she dared not trust 
 her voice in speech.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 After Brentane left her a sudden fancy seized her. 
 She would muffle herself well and slip away to the 
 Fine Arts building. She had not been inside it 
 since the newspapers set up their hue and cry over 
 her. It was a raw, bright day in early spring the 
 nipping wind would excuse any amount of swathings 
 she might choose by way of disguise. She had not 
 meant to leave her apartments before nightfall but, 
 somehow, Brentane' s visit had made her restless. 
 Things were in the air, she felt and it was better to 
 meet them half-way than to sit waiting and wonder- 
 ing as to what would happen next. 
 
 Perhaps Brasseur might be in the building. There 
 .could be no one else whom she cared very much to 
 see. Brasseur had let her know, soon after the tele- 
 gram went, that Danvers was away nobody knew 
 certainly where so it was unlikely he would reach 
 the city for a week to come. She had let the mes- 
 sage go out of a full heart but even the gladness of 
 triumph had not made her sure. She wanted to see 
 Danvers again, to look into his eyes, to listen to his 
 voice, to touch his strong, warm hand, and with all 
 that fresh in memory, to ask herself : " Do you care ? 
 Can you give him the love he so well deserves ? " 
 
 She was too entirely his friend to think of giving
 
 246 How It Happened. 
 
 him less. She knew he would give all himself, exact- 
 ing nothing, but that she could never permit. Want 
 and misery and terror had not compelled her neither 
 would she be compelled by love, and the offer of an 
 honored name. She must be able to give as well as 
 to receive, to feel that her love was crowned, no less 
 than itself a crown, or she would walk alone all her 
 days. Regard for Danvers would not admit of less. 
 He was too fine, too noble, too high-souled, to be ac- 
 cepted for less than the highest love. He would suf- 
 fer if she sent him away for always, but it would be 
 a sharp and saving hurt to the pain he would feel in 
 finding out his wife could give only affectionate grati- 
 tude in place of love. 
 
 Because of this scruple she was glad he had been 
 delayed. Now, when he came, she could look at and 
 listen to him simply for himself. Brentane's offer 
 had made her sure for the future. No sordid consid- 
 eration of ways and means could by any chance tinge 
 her consideration of him. If she married him, he 
 could know it was for love, love only. Horton was 
 out of the way now it was only a question of days 
 until she would be legally released from his claim. 
 The gallery people had let her know there were 
 already flattering offers for the Vision. The offers 
 were held under advisement, they added. Mrs. Bar- 
 ker had been wise not to set a price at first and her 
 friend and adviser, Mr. Brasseur, insisted that no 
 definite bargain should be struck without first con- 
 sulting him.
 
 How It Happened. 247 
 
 Something of all this streamed formlessly through 
 her mind as she skimmed the streets, choosing those 
 that were least fashionable, hence most thronged, and 
 the safest hiding grounds. She had put on a new 
 gown, a rich pale purple cloth, with touches of sable 
 at throat and wrists. There was a trim little capote 
 to match. Selene had frankly admired her own image 
 in the glass, and sighed a little over the necessity of 
 spoiling the exquisite effect with a boa and veil, with- 
 out form, if not void. In her simplicity she did not 
 dream herself already a marked figure, or that her 
 height and svelte lines would betray her, even though 
 her face was invisible. 
 
 She reached the galleries in mid-afternoon. They 
 were unusually thronged. The crowd, ever swaying, 
 ever surging, was always thickest in front of the Vi- 
 sion. But the picture held less than half the gazing 
 eyes when the whisper ran about : " There she is ! 
 Mrs. Barker ! Or is it Miss ? That tall woman in 
 purple! She painted the big picture, you know. 
 Look ! Isn't she a picture herself? " 
 
 Half absently Selene had loosened the big boa, and 
 let it trail over her arm. Through her veil she caught 
 the glances and marked the craning of necks, the 
 crowding round about her, the gentle inward pressure, 
 hemming her in like a beast at bay. She tried to ig- 
 nore it to slip through. The crowd was courteous, 
 but as immovable as a plastic mass well can be. 
 Where one gave room for her, two crowded into the 
 vacant space. At last one young woman, bolder
 
 248 How It Happened. 
 
 than the rest, said, with a sort of merry shyness: 
 " O, Mrs. Barker ! Aren't you happy enough to die ? 
 Seeing all these people wild about you, must tell 
 you what a great thing you have done." 
 
 " I am glad other people seem to think so," Selene 
 said, smiling and blushing. As she spoke, she pulled 
 off the veil and let her eyes range unhampered. Next 
 minute she went white, then as suddenly turned a 
 rosy red. Lochiel Robins stood not ten feet away, 
 looking at her with his soul in his eyes. 
 
 After just a hard breath she gave him a smiling 
 nod. Noting its direction the crowd made way. 
 Half a minute afterward he was holding her hand 
 and saying : " Selene, will you ever forgive me, if I 
 buy your Vision and put it over the altar in St. Igna- 
 tius?" 
 
 " I think not. It deserves better things than Bar- 
 celona criticism," Selene said, smiling at him. He 
 shook his head. " Still perverse," he said. " Do 
 you not know Barcelona only presumes to criticise 
 where its criticism can hurt? " 
 
 "I know it shall not have my picture," Selene 
 said, drawing a little away from him. He smiled as 
 he saw it, saying : " You are but little older, I see, 
 Selene. Will you ever reach years of discretion, I 
 wonder ! Your look is exactly that of a willful child, 
 whose most precious possession is in danger. Do 
 not think I was in earnest about St. Ignatius. I 
 know better than you do how the Vision would be 
 wasted there. But I would like to own it for a very
 
 " Remember, I wrote play or pay. It makes me very happy tojtell 
 you It is pay."**
 
 How It Happened. 249 
 
 little while. I want to give it to some great gallery, 
 where it may stand, an eloquent advocate of your 
 claims to all the world." 
 
 " Thank you ! You are very kind," Selene mur- 
 mured. " But that is something with which I have 
 now nothing to do. You must see the gallery authori- 
 ties still, to be frank, I had a little rather you did 
 not yet." 
 
 " Your will is law, in any such matter," he said. 
 " But, at least, give me a chance. I hardly think 
 there is another prospective bidder who will appraise 
 your work higher." 
 
 " It is not that ! Please do not think so ! " Selene 
 said, eagerly. " But there is something some- 
 thing not settled. Oh ! ' she broke off, suddenly, 
 her eyes losing their light. " I must leave you there 
 is some one a man I must not miss." 
 
 Horton had entered and stood near the door. He 
 leaned heavily upon a cane, and watched her for ten 
 seconds before he stirred. Then he moved to meet 
 her. She was going up to him, her. whole frame 
 tense. " I am glad you have come back, Mr. Hor- 
 ton," she said, not offering him her hand. " You are 
 just in time. Remember I wrote, 'play or pay.' It 
 makes me very happy to tell you it is pay." 
 
 " I have no doubt of that," he said, the least thick- 
 ness striking through the low notes of his voice. " I 
 ought to congratulate you but you know how hope- 
 lessly truthful I am. I do not rejoice with you nor 
 for you. I am too busy sorrowing with myself. "
 
 250 How It Happened. 
 
 " I am sorry for you sorry you would not be al- 
 ways as kind as you were sometimes," Selene said, 
 very low. " When mother died I can never forget 
 that O, Mr. Horton, because of that, let me forgive 
 all you have made me suffer, and be once more my 
 friend ! " 
 
 "I wish I could, Selene! It is impossible," Hor- 
 ton said, sighing deeply. " But now that you have 
 escaped me, think of me as kindly as you can." 
 
 " I shall forget all save your kindness when I 
 have no more need to remember," Selene said, her 
 voice tremulous and wistful. Horton turned away 
 his head. 
 
 "I am going to die soon," he said. "I wish you 
 would promise me something a very little thing." 
 
 " What is it ? " Selene asked. Horton wheeled 
 about and faced her, as he answered, looking full in 
 her eyes : 
 
 " O ! It is only to be sure I am dead before you 
 marry the other fellow. " 
 
 Selene turned from him sharply, her cheeks crim- 
 son. He followed her and caught her arm in a 
 strong, tense clutch. "Why! There is Brasseur! 
 The man with him ? Who is he ? " he asked. Selene 
 did not answer. A leaping joy made her silent. 
 Sight of Danvers had set every doubt at rest. He 
 had come the kingdom was ready for him her 
 happy heart rose up and acclaimed him its chosen 
 master. 
 
 " The picture ? What are they doing to it ? Why,
 
 How It Happened. 25 1 
 
 there is a placard, 'Sold/ stuck in the corner of the 
 frame now ! " Horton said, impatiently. " The gen- 
 tleman who lost you, Selene, has perhaps learned wis- 
 dom by experience. I saw him with you as I came 
 in and was certain from your face that he was try- 
 ing to get the Vision which you did not want him 
 to have." 
 
 " I know nothing of who has bought it," Selene 
 said, edging away. " But, be certain, you are safe " 
 
 " Be quiet ! Never name that matter again ! " Hor- 
 ton said imperatively, tightening his clutch of her 
 arm, already painful. He seemed to stoop visibly 
 she felt him tremble a little and shrink away, but 
 could not free herself. Lochiel Robins started tow- 
 ard her, but Danvers was ahead of him. He caught 
 both her hands, and shook loose Horton's hold of her, 
 before he said : " Perhaps I ought to have come 
 straight to you but I was so very anxious to make 
 sure of something else first ! Can you not guess what 
 that was ? " 
 
 " Of course ! " Selene said, smiling up at him, in- 
 expressibly relieved to find him there, her rock and 
 her shield. " You wanted first of all to see my pict- 
 ure. As if I should ever resent being second to 
 that?" 
 
 " No ! I wanted to buy your picture ! " Danvers 
 said. "What is more, I have done it Brasseur 
 came with me on purpose to have all straight. From 
 and after this date all inquiries for it will be sent to 
 a man from the wild West. Are you glad or sorry ? "
 
 252 How It Happened. 
 
 " I cannot say until you tell me why you bought 
 it," Selene said, pretending to think deeply. He 
 looked down at her a second, with a warm, compel- 
 ling gaze. Her lids lifted before it, and let him see 
 all that was in the depths of her soul. He smiled as 
 he looked, drew her hand within his arm, and said, 
 almost too low for other hearing : 
 
 " I will tell you, though as yet it is a secret. I am 
 to be married soon the picture will be one of my 
 presents to my bride." 
 
 Horton caught the words and the look. He had 
 read aright the by-play betwixt those two so strangely 
 flung under his gaze. With a low, gurgling cry, he 
 flung up his arms, and fell across Selene's feet, 
 breathless, pulseless, stone dead.
 
 A 000 051 423 2