SALLY NELSON ROBINS
 
 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 . OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS
 
 
 OLD SHINES KEPT TIME WITH HIS EYELIDS, AND CALLED OUT THE FIGURES AT THE 
 TOP OF HIS VOICE 
 
 Page 88
 
 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 BY 
 
 SALLY NELSON ROBINS 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND FREDERICK 
 
 Ah. but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. 
 Or wbat't a heaven for ? " 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING'S 
 
 " Andrea del Sorto" 
 
 PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 1916
 
 COPYRIGHT, I9l6, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHED JANUARY, 1916 
 
 PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
 
 TO MY FRIEND 
 
 J. BERG ESENWEIN 
 
 FOR HIS COUNSEL 
 
 AND 
 TO MY DAUGHTER 
 
 RUTH NELSON ROBINS 
 
 FOR HER PRAISE 
 
 I AFFECTIONATELY AND GRATEFULLY 
 DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 2132483
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGK 
 
 OLD SHINES KEPT TIME WITH Hra EYELIDS, AND CALLED 
 OUT THE FIGURES AT THE TOP OF His VOICE. Frontitpiece 
 
 YOUR DEEDS ARE ALL BEHIND 151 
 
 "BE CAREFUL ABOUT KITTY. BILL-BOB." 251
 
 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 PART I 
 I 
 
 " CHATTIE has a baby a son ! " was the pass- 
 word, to the city of Bolingbroke in Virginia, this 
 January afternoon; and Bolingbroke, returning 
 from tea, cards, visits or business, looked at the 
 closed blinds of the gray house across from the 
 " Park " and whispered very tenderly : " Dear 
 Chattie, I'm so glad," and very sternly: "Ran 
 must turn over a new leaf now." 
 
 Charlotte Turberville Chattie for short was 
 the darling of Bolingbroke. 
 
 In the front room of the gray house blazing 
 coals cast a rich glow on chintz and dimity, em- 
 phasizing the still joy of the woman in the 
 bed. Charlotte Turberville was alone waiting. 
 " Mother " was in her violet eyes, and " Little 
 Babies " all around her pretty mouth. She could 
 still feel the sweet breath of the cradled treasure, 
 and the downy softness of the little red face. 
 " Nine pounds, twenty-one-inches-long, perfect, 
 wonderful! " If Randolph would only hurry up 
 she had so much to say though she was too 
 weak to talk this morning. It was too good to 
 
 9
 
 10 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 be true, this tiny bundle of love. She had waited 
 five years for this belated little savior. How could 
 a man help being a man, with his son looking on ? 
 
 Every five minutes the " trolley " passed the 
 door, each time it stopped she whispered, " Ran," 
 and sighed faintly when he did not appear ; but she 
 was too happy now to mind anything her son 
 was born. 
 
 The car stopped again, the front door opened 
 and closed gently, and Ran tiptoed up, but she 
 could hear funny for a big thing like Ran to 
 tiptoe ! 
 
 The six-foot, broad-shouldered father unbolted 
 the door, opened it a little and squeezed through 
 as if it helped things to squeeze came to the bed 
 and knelt beside it. The soft light increased his 
 peculiar beauty, dark, and finely moulded. 
 
 " My hands are so cold I am afraid to touch 
 you, Honey. All right ? " His smile was very 
 tender. 
 
 " Thinking of James Lane Allen's story of the 
 little mother and the strawberries? I can't re- 
 member her name I can't remember anything, 
 hardly, but the boy our little Son-Boy." She put 
 her hand on her husband's head. " Aren't you 
 glad, Daddy isn't it wonderful ? " 
 
 Something strange and wonderful overpowered 
 Randolph Turberville, and he hid his face in the 
 counterpane. For a moment he was sorry for
 
 A MAN'S REACH 11 
 
 everything; but he did not like the feeling, so 
 he stood up with his hands deep in his pockets as 
 if to steady himself. 
 
 " Women are too much for me; last night " 
 
 " Don't mention it, Ran I would go through 
 twice as much for Son-Boy. You didn't want him 
 as bad as I did, but you're glad he is here aren't 
 you?" 
 
 " Awfully glad." For a moment fatherhood 
 was unexpectedly sweet. 
 
 " Go in the nursery, Ran, and look at him. He 
 gets prettier every minute." 
 
 She must not be crossed to-night, so Ran went 
 into the next room and talked to the nurse about 
 his son, while Chattie smiled : not seeing, she still 
 could see father and son, strength and weakness, 
 love beholding its own lost innocence. 
 
 In a few moments Ran came back into his wife's 
 room, knelt by her bed and took her lily-hand in 
 both of his strong, brown ones. 
 
 " Oh, darling," she whispered, her lowered lids 
 fluttering like moth-wings. 
 
 " Sweetheart, Saint Charlotte ! " Ran almost 
 sobbed, he felt strangely, abominably strong in 
 the face of such patient weakness. Then as if 
 ashamed of his emotion he spent it in a long, 
 pleading kiss, finally returning to himself with 
 "Pretty red!" 
 
 " That means the whitest skin, Silly ! Isn't his
 
 12 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 mouth beautiful? He has a real nose, his eyes 
 flash, and his ears stick to his head like tiny pink 
 shells. His body is perfect suppose it wasn't! 
 Nine pounds is a great big baby." Charlotte 
 sighed for happiness. 
 
 " Everybody asked after you to-day and sent 
 love," Ran longed to rhapsodize he was trying 
 his best to please, but he felt that, after all, he 
 was not a very exultant father. 
 
 "You told his name?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " The tenth Randolph Turberville." 
 
 " Six white, and three black sheep : which will 
 he be?" 
 
 "Oh, Ran!" 
 
 " I was a baby once, Chattle." 
 
 " You are still a big baby, and your little baby 
 is going to make you a big white sheep," she 
 smiled. " Oh, we are going to be so happy." 
 
 She was very weak and her voice was like a 
 flower-scented zephyr blowing fitfully. His hands 
 were warm, now; and he took hers, chafed them 
 gently, and patted her cheek to warn her not to 
 talk too much. 
 
 " You women ! So happy over a wrinkled 
 beet." Ran was really a little happy, too. 
 
 " He means so much, darling my Isaac my 
 Samuel my John your Christ oh, I say it so 
 reverently, Ran your little Savior ! "
 
 A MAN'S REACH It 
 
 Ran said nothing, but pressed her hands as her 
 words pricked him like little tacks he was tender 
 to-night. 
 
 " Mammy says he is the ' spittin' image ' of me. 
 I think he is exactly like you, Ran ! " 
 
 " Don't talk any more, Sweet ! Let me talk 
 to you. I met Robert Catlett to-day and he was 
 delighted to hear about our boy he has two." 
 
 " Dear old slow Robert ! " 
 1 " He told me to tell you that he was delighted 
 with the country, and that he was going to bring 
 his sons up to be farmers." 
 
 "How is Eleanor?" 
 
 " Just as pretty as ever, he says ; is a fine house- 
 keeper, loves the mountains, her chickens and her 
 lambs and is raising her children according to 
 books." 
 
 "According to books?" Charlotte smiled, "I 
 think love and faith the best books, Ran. Eleanor 
 is such a mixture, by nature a wordling, by will 
 almost a fanatic to her notions eh, Ran ? Can't 
 you see her now in that yellow tulle with red roses 
 in her hair? Stunning! We thought Robert 
 Catlett not half good enough for her. Remember 
 when we played the 'Lady of Lyons?' Bob's 
 only words were, ' Seize him seize him ! ' and 
 he would say, * Catch him, catch him ! ' He 
 always seemed so dull and Eleanor so brilliant." 
 
 " They were a foil for each other solidity and
 
 14 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 charm wonder what their boys will take from 
 each? Heredity always interests me." 
 
 " Does it ? It scares me." Charlotte shivered. 
 
 " Robert told me to tell you the oldest boy was 
 Philip St. George after Eleanor's father ; and the 
 youngest, just ten months old, William Robert, 
 after his father. His nick-name is ' Bill-Bob.' ' 
 
 "How cute!" 
 
 " He is crazy about the baby Robert is very 
 sentimental, you know ; he took my hand and said : 
 ' Ran, your baby and mine must inherit our 
 friendship. Let's pledge for them, now to stick 
 to each other through thick and thin ! ' 
 
 " How sweet oh, Daddy, isn't it lovely? It's 
 so cozy, you and the baby and I, in this pink 
 twilight I wish time would stand still till I told 
 it to go. Hear his little * birdy' twitters ? He 
 feels he knows a little bit. Precious thing ! " 
 
 " Don't talk any more, dear ! " 
 
 " I'm not tired. It's so good to have you 
 what else did Robert say ? " 
 
 " He came down especially to see about Kate 
 and Kitty." 
 
 " Such a good foster-brother! Is Kate sick? " 
 
 " No but she is too busy to look after Kitty. 
 Nothing so pathetic as a wild child with a tame, 
 overworked mother. As the slang goes, Kitty 
 is on the * blink,' and Kate is too busy to see it." 
 
 " Kitty is only twelve, how could she be? "
 
 A MAN'S REACH 16 
 
 " But Chattie Innocent, there are signs at 
 twelve that are facts later. Kitty is beautiful and 
 needs looking after, and I told Robert so." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He is going to try to make Kate let him take 
 Kitty to Albemarle. You have talked enough, 
 Chattie time to get quiet. Think of your boy 
 and try to go to sleep. Maybe I shouldn't have 
 mentioned the Ingrahams." 
 
 " That doesn't bother me nothing stays in my 
 mind but our baby." 
 
 " Don't talk any more. Go to sleep go to 
 sleep." 
 
 Randolph Turberville, kneeling by the big white 
 bed, might have been Sir Galahad or St. George. 
 His proportions, in the half-light, were heroic; 
 the mould of his head, with its dark thatch, splen- 
 did. He chafed the limp lily-hand and smoothed 
 the pure brow very tenderly; then with a low, 
 " Go to sleep, Honey, go to sleep," kissed her 
 and left the bedside for the big chair by the fire. 
 
 Chattie was very still, but fragments of satis- 
 faction now and then passed her lips: " Beautiful 
 comfortable hear his little lips ' suff ' Ran? 
 Wonder if he is hungry nothing for him to- 
 night ! " A long pause, then " You there, 
 Ran?" Another pause. "Ran!" 
 
 Charlotte Turberville's face on the pillow was 
 a Malbone miniature with the glass scratched;
 
 16 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 great joy had not dispelled the pinch of heartache 
 which made her look older than her twenty-five 
 years ; her plaited hair zigzagged on the counter- 
 pane, and her face in the flat clasp of its chaste 
 smoothness was like a bruised pearl in a rim of 
 dull gold. 
 
 Randolph, in spite of his momentary exultation, 
 was bored as he sat in the big chair by the fire. 
 He generally played solitaire, smoked cigarettes, 
 or read the papers when in the house. He won- 
 dered if a cigarette would do any harm now; 
 amidst these holy mysteries he felt like a restless 
 boy in church, or a bull in an airship. How could 
 he get out? He would not wake Chattie for the 
 world. When he did get up, everything creaked, 
 the door almost gave him away and the floor and 
 the steps remonstrated audibly. 
 ' Chattie's sleep was like gossamer easily torn. 
 The cruel repression of years had relaxed into the 
 glory of motherhood, and she had gone to sleep 
 with no will, only unresisted satisfaction. After 
 an hour of billowy unconsciousness she awoke with 
 a shrill " Ran Ran Ran ! " 
 
 When her husband got to her, she was trembling 
 from head to foot, and whimpering pitiably. 
 " Oh, Ran don't be angry I am so sorry but 
 please let me hold you tight until I g-go to sleep 
 again ! "
 
 II 
 
 THE little Park across from the gray house had 
 not yet bourgeoned into spring's ecstasy, but here 
 and there was a token that leaf and flower were 
 near. A few moist April days with a touch of 
 April sun had set the yellow-bells a-ringing, and 
 greened the earth under the bare trees, which held 
 the low gray April dome upon the tips of their 
 long gray fingers. 
 
 It was a Wednesday in Lent, and from the gray 
 house where ten years ago a son was born, came 
 a woman and a boy. Nothing would have ex- 
 plained the woman better than her suit of blue 
 broadcloth creaseless costly simple. A blue 
 velvet turban emphasized the color and courage 
 of her face. Her figure was still slender and 
 young, but her mouth and eyes now looked more 
 than ten years older than had the mouth and eyes 
 of the woman in the bed. Bouncing beside her, 
 the boy yelled: " Bill-Bob Bill-Bob! " and her 
 gentle grasp could hardly restrain him for the last 
 word which she always gave : " Remember, 
 Son-Boy, half-past six you can see the clock 
 plainly in Park-Place tower; don't go out of the 
 Park hear? " 
 
 " I always hear," the boy answered frankly 
 " trouble is I can't remember." 
 
 2 17 
 
 *
 
 18 MAN'S REACH 
 
 He pulled from her like a young colt from a 
 close bridle, and Charlotte smiled at his young 
 strength his boyish beauty as she walked on to 
 the church to hear her cousin, Bishop Thruston, 
 preach from the text, " Wives submit yourselves 
 unto your husbands as unto the Lord." 
 
 Sometimes it was very hard to submit. At 
 this same hour Edward Potter was to speak at 
 the " Equal Suffrage League " upon, " Women 
 according to St. Paul." Chattie wanted to hear 
 him, too, for although she lived according to the 
 standard of her foremothers, away down in her 
 truth-belt was the question, " Is it fair? " How- 
 ever, she still kept the faith, and her cousin 
 Stevenson Thruston would show her this after- 
 noon how to keep it f orevermore. 
 
 Her short walk was enlivened by the shrill 
 treble of her son's voice : " Bill-Bob, oh, Bill- 
 Bob! " Nothing small or uncertain about young 
 Randolph Turberville his personality was so dis- 
 tinct and compelling that everybody in Boling- 
 broke knew him; his name opened the way and 
 his individuality kept it. His sturdy legs bulged 
 to strong flexible loins that yielded to the force 
 of his broad shoulders ; and upon his slender neck 
 his fine head sat firm and well moulded. He was 
 his father physically except in color his mother's 
 fair rosiness fell over his father's splendid pro- 
 portions like a soft veil. In spirit as in flesh his
 
 A MAN'S REACH 10 
 
 parents fenced in him continually a flash of his 
 mother's gentleness would yield to a flame of 
 his father's anger; the foam of his mother's con- 
 science would disappear in the green wave of his 
 father's self-indulgence: his nature was a game 
 and both sides tenacious. 
 
 As soon as he entered the Park, there was a 
 cry : " Son-Boy, Son-Boy, be on our side be on 
 our side! " But Randolph paid no attention he 
 was looking for somebody. 
 
 " Needn't look for ' Bill-Bob,' he's gone," an 
 acute observer announced. 
 
 " Where? " Randolph was not pleased with the 
 news. 
 
 " To ' Allemarle,'" the first speaker replied. 
 
 " You know everything, don't you ? " And 
 Randolph threw himself on one of the little green 
 seats, while a crowd of children piped, " Please 
 play * Tisket-tasket-green-and-yellow-basket ' with 
 us." 
 
 " Kids, tisket-tasket babies ! " Randolph was 
 very contemptuous. " Come on, Conquest, let's 
 play hare-and-hounds," as another boy ran up. 
 
 " Look at that red-haired girl ! " Conquest 
 pointed to a pretty child. " She can run like a 
 cutter. Let's ask her to play ! " 
 
 Randolph regarded the girl critically for a mo- 
 ment, and then with a cordial " All right ! " ran
 
 20 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 over to her, and thus Time's flight was soon for- 
 gotten. 
 
 In a second six little boys and the girl swept 
 the Park like a furious gale the rest of the chil- 
 dren sullen and envious. 
 
 As the boy, quite apprehensive, was racing home 
 about seven o'clock, he ran into his next-door 
 neighbor, Miss Lucy Ludwell. 
 
 " Randolph ! " the boy expected a sharp reproof, 
 but instead Miss Lucy asked : " Many gray cats in 
 our alley? " 
 
 " Plenty of 'em." Randolph was relieved. 
 
 "Ever kill any?" 
 
 " Heap o' times." 
 
 " I'll give you twenty-five cents for every dead 
 gray cat you bring me. A gray cat killed " Miss 
 Lucy almost sobbed " my canary bird just now." 
 
 " A de-e " Randolph restrained his indig- 
 nation and added, " I'll kill you as many gray cats 
 as you want, Miss Lucy." Then bounced along 
 home. 
 
 It was after seven when a rumpled boy his 
 handsome face aflame, his hair crinkling about 
 his brow dashed to the gray house and threw 
 himself upon the floor of the porch beside his 
 red setter Tweenchie, whispering into the dog's 
 ear, " Is she mad ? " And the dog showing his 
 teeth almost said " Yes." 
 
 His mother met him at the door, reminded him
 
 A MAN'S REACH 81 
 
 gravely of his disobedience and sent him supper- 
 less to bed. As the boy went reluctantly upstairs, 
 he saw his father and some merry friends in the 
 library with glasses in their hands. He did not 
 go straight to bed, but tipped down the passage 
 to a little balcony overhanging the back yard and 
 called" Jeter, Jeter ! " 
 
 A small negro boy soon answered and listened 
 eagerly to Randolph's relation of Miss Lucy's 
 offer. 
 
 " Think we can get any, Jeter ? " 
 
 " Sure." 
 
 " Bully ! We'll divvy." Randolph now went 
 to bed with this consolation: " If Jeter could only 
 get four cats, he would get fifty cents to buy 
 some candy for that dandy red-head girl, who was 
 the cause of his being put to bed." 
 
 So the years went on with their burden of per- 
 plexity and disillusion : Randolph, the father, had 
 swung far away from the intimacy of that happy 
 birth-night; Randolph, the son, was restive, and 
 Charlotte was often afraid that he would escape 
 from her hand like a toy balloon and soar in an 
 atmosphere in which she could not breathe. 
 
 At the age of fifteen Randolph was strenuous, 
 fearless, active, intense. Instead of cells filled 
 with discreet gray matter, his brain might have 
 been a circuit of hills teeming with millions of
 
 22 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 brain-ants each moving with frantic independence : 
 he was obstreperous, restless, audacious and 
 kind; marvelously acquisitive but the necessary 
 attention, though brief, exhausted him, and his 
 mind swung to a counter-action in the form of 
 amusement as intense as his work. The severity of 
 the school hours relaxed into the abandon of the 
 afternoon game; the feverish activity of the game 
 gave way to the calmer moments of the fireside 
 eventide. But even then, his mind wrestled with 
 all sorts of literature. Heredity made him cour- 
 teous to girls, but after the fleeting episode of 
 the red-head he did not permit them to bother him. 
 
 Among his weaknesses was a tendency to gen- 
 eral accommodation : it was very hard for him to 
 say no, and this agreeable quiescence was the fore- 
 runner of a later spirit of careless conviviality. 
 
 Religion was constitutional so far as a rever- 
 ence for ecclesiastical beauty in architecture, ser- 
 vice and song went; but the problems coincident 
 with its manifestations were, as yet, contradictory 
 and obscure, and he had not the time from the 
 glorious, plain things of life to tackle it. On 
 Sundays he was without reproach, he enjoyed the 
 perfection of his Sabbath attire, the dignity of 
 his mother's appearance, the sense of distinction 
 derived from the high seat which generations of 
 his forefathers had occupied. His aesthetic soul 
 took keen delight in the harmony of the service
 
 A MAN'S REACH 28 
 
 at the Holy Comforter, in the glorious windows, 
 the vast spaces and the quality of the wor- 
 shippers. 
 
 Charlotte Turberville like Hannah had 
 vowed a vow and said, " O Lord of Hosts, if 
 Thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine 
 hand-maiden, and wilt give unto thine hand- 
 maiden a man-child, then I will give him unto the 
 Lord all the days of his life." 
 
 Hannahs may give, but often Samuels refuse 
 to be given ! 
 
 Charlotte had made a calendar : " Short 
 clothes " " teeth " " trousers " " school " 
 " confirmation " etc. But many items on 
 that record had to be rubbed out. According to 
 her calendar it was now time for confirmation 
 and she must speak, no matter how hard was the 
 speaking. 
 
 She broached the subject in the twilight of 
 a Sunday, after a wonderful exhortation by the 
 same bishop who had convinced her that submis- 
 sion was expedient. The boy was fresh from a 
 walk with his chums, and had discussed things 
 hostile to the bishop's talk. One of these things 
 was a club and cards in the little room behind the 
 shop of Green the Tailor to be called " The 
 Green-Back." It was an exciting plan, and the big 
 handsome boy was busy with schemes for all sorts 
 of fun, when his mother, who had been very quiet
 
 24 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 on the other side of the fire, said in her tender 
 way : " Son-Boy, I wished for you this afternoon." 
 
 " Why, mother ? " He always responded cheer- 
 fully to her. 
 
 " Bishop Thruston our cousin spoke to the 
 class at the ' Comforter.' I could not half enjoy 
 it, because you were not there." 
 
 " I have heard one sermon to-day," rather indif- 
 ferently. 
 
 " Not like the Bishop's. There's so much of 
 me in you, dear, that I know this sermon would 
 have affected you deeply." 
 
 " A lot of you and a lot of not you." There was 
 a twinkle in the boy's eye. " Somebody mighty 
 near me doesn't like sermons." 
 
 His mother winced, but went on. She was 
 afraid she had already waited too long. 
 
 " Have you thought of confirmation, Ran- 
 dolph ? " These words affected Randolph like 
 a loud " Boo ! " He caught his breath and an- 
 swered : " Of course, mother. I have seen it about 
 a dozen times, haven't I ? " 
 
 " Not quite so often, but it is time for you " 
 
 " I thought that sort of thing was voluntary 
 after repentance and conversion, when a fellow 
 saw awful sights and felt oh, horribly! Do you 
 remember the coming-through of Simon? How 
 he yelled that he ' done got 'ligion, that his feet
 
 A MAN'S REACH 85 
 
 were in the miry clay, but now on the rock of 
 ages?'" 
 
 Charlotte was a lioness for principle, and she 
 fiercely resented her son's levity. She fairly laid 
 hold upon him, and the Bishop's words were no 
 more terrible or convincing than hers. They 
 threw a sharp shadow across the sweet vision of 
 the " Green-Back " and blurred other little pas- 
 times of young Randolph. His mother had not 
 given up the savior idea, and she hoped that her 
 boy's confirmation would affect his father favor- 
 ably. She was pained by the attitude of this 
 stony listener, and made up her mind to call in 
 Mr. Elsing, her rector. 
 
 So within a few days her son found himself 
 in the same room with the clergyman. It seemed 
 to happen naturally, and not a thought of a per- 
 sonal interview crossed Randolph's mind until 
 Mr. Elsing began to inquire into his spiritual con- 
 dition; then the lad's embarrassment and dis- 
 may saw only one way of escape a quick surren- 
 der, an immediate acquiescence to Mr. Elsing's 
 suggestion for his immediate action. If he had 
 been a bit holier, or a bit wickeder, he might have 
 been able to resist ; but his accommodating spirit, 
 his unwillingness to oppose, drew him into a net 
 which held him painfully. 
 
 When his mother came in, Mr. Elsing, with dra- 
 matic sympathy, put Randolph's hand in hers and
 
 26 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 whispered : " Mrs. Turberville your boy is 
 saved." 
 
 Chattie murmured " Thank God," and the 
 clergyman proceeded to explain Randolph's im- 
 mediate responsibilities. 
 
 After a while, the conversation changed. " You 
 will be glad to know, Mrs. Turberville," Mr. 
 Elsing spoke low. " That Kitty Ingraham Mrs. 
 Nestles, is is going to be confirmed." 
 
 " Kitty? Back in Bolingbroke? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, returned about a week ago a 
 stricken, changed woman, ready to live another 
 and a better life." A pause and a sigh. " We 
 must always remember that those who stray far- 
 thest are the most eager to remain in the fold 
 when once they return. Kitty Ingraham has been 
 thoughtless, but not wicked I trust. She now 
 sees herself." 
 
 "If her mother only knew!" Chattie was 
 almost in tears. 
 
 " She knows she knows." Mr. Elsing's smile 
 might have been made out of tissue paper. 
 
 " We have heard so many terrible things." 
 Chattie was almost afraid to mention them. 
 " Her husband killed a man for jealousy and 
 was acquitted." 
 
 " Yes yes but Kitty will explain," and with 
 another sigh Mr. Elsing almost whispered, " She 
 is very beautiful."
 
 A MAN'S REACH . 27 
 
 " I bet I saw her yesterday." Randolph was 
 recovering and much interested. " She wore a 
 bright purple dress and has lots of light hair. I 
 was in the Conquest's car and Mrs. Conquest 
 winked to Mr. Conquest and asked, * When did 
 she come back ? ' 
 
 Charlotte did not notice the boy's remark, nor 
 did the clergyman, and after a pause she said, 
 with feeling : " We were devoted to her mother, 
 but after Kitty " 
 
 " Well, well, you needn't be afraid of her now 
 she is a penitent who seeks confirmation ; " and 
 with a few more injunctions to Randolph, Mr. 
 Elsing said good-bye. 
 
 When he was gone, precocious fifteen wanted to 
 know all about Mrs. Nestles. Randolph remem- 
 bered Kitty Ingraham and he was more interested 
 in her than in his own soul at present. 
 
 At first Chattie was disposed to be reticent, but 
 the boy's importunity won. " Her mother was one 
 of our dearest friends and the adopted sfster of 
 Robert Catlett, the father of little Bill-Bob that 
 you played with so much when his father brought 
 him to Bolingbroke remember? " 
 
 "Of course I do he's a bulger." 
 
 " Kitty's mother had to work, and Kitty got 
 ahead of her and went with strange people, and 
 finally ran off with an actor named Nestles. They 
 quarrelled, as one might expect, and in a fit of
 
 28 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 jealousy Nestles shot one of the actors. He and 
 Kitty fell out after that that's about all I know." 
 
 " And her husband was acquitted ? I bet she 
 was making eyes at the man. You going to have 
 her here? " 
 
 "If she is going to lead a new life, dear " 
 
 Suddenly something swept Charlotte as a fierce 
 wind bends a flower. She threw her arms around 
 Randolph, lost her poise for a moment, and 
 sobbed : " You have made me so happy, Son-Boy, 
 let us forget all unlovely things and always try 
 to be good ! A boy is not safe until he is in the 
 fold of the church." 
 
 " Does that make him safe, mother? " Ran- 
 dolph was gazing steadily into Chattie's blue eyes. 
 " For if it does, I should think every parent would 
 yank his boy in by the scruff of his neck." 
 
 Chattie would have preferred more gravity 
 more spiritual elation but she tried to be satisfied 
 with what she had. 
 
 Randolph soon realized that the net fenced him 
 from his companions reared a high wall of par- 
 tition between him and the " Green-Back." At 
 first he climbed to the highest brick of this wall of 
 partition, peered over at his whilom chums, and 
 snarled mentally at their natural pranks; while 
 he thanked God, insincerely, that he was not as 
 other boys were. But it was impossible for him 
 to maintain this forced and dizzy attitude.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 29 
 
 Confirmation came four weeks after his subju- 
 gation by the rector. An exquisite service it was 
 an oratorio of song and prayer. The exaltation 
 of his mother, which in a measure counteracted 
 the glum isolation of his father, and a syllabub 
 over-dressing of repentance and resolution, tem- 
 porarily exalted his spirit. For the first time in 
 his life he really listened to a sermon. The Bishop 
 took as his subject the incident of the woman 
 touching the garment of the Christ, and His quick 
 perception that virtue had gone out of Him. The 
 cry of the discourse was, " Have you ever touched 
 Christ Jesus ? And you ? And you ? " 
 
 His voice hammered Randolph's conscience 
 soft ; his words, like searchlights, sought out dark 
 spots he was one of that staring, taunting multi- 
 tude he had never touched Jesus. Who had? 
 Anybody ? 
 
 In a moment it was all plain in the translucent 
 intelligence of a startled young mind; first the 
 real sense of " need," then the earnest reaching 
 out, the true touch of the Christ, the trickling 
 of His virtue through the mazes of a human soul, 
 creating human virtue which, in turn, would go 
 out for human good. 
 
 Again Randolph asked, " But who has touched 
 the Master? Who? Anybody?" 
 
 Who in this vast congregation could to-day re- 
 ceive the Divine encouragement " Blessed art thou,
 
 30 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not 
 revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in 
 heaven " ? 
 
 "Who had? Anybody?" Randolph turned to 
 his mother. " Had she ? Oh, yes. And virtue 
 had in turn, gone out of her in heavenly patience, 
 triumphant silence. Had the woman with the 
 rapt face across the aisle touched Jesus? Oh, 
 yes. And at length virtue had gone out of her 
 in the classical high-school near this great edifice. 
 Had the old soldier with the leonine head touched 
 Jesus? Oh, yes. And after a while virtue had 
 gone out in the hospital across the square." He 
 looked at this one and that: "Had he had she? 
 Yes no yes no ! " Then he asked himself : 
 " Have I touched Jesus ? Have I have I ? " An- 
 swer, young soul, answer! 
 
 The confirmation over, the communion service 
 began, and a fear clutched Randolph's soul : only 
 those who had touched Jesus should presume 
 to eat of that bread or drink of that cup. The iron 
 spear of unworthiness pointed to keep him away; 
 his mother's anguish and disappointment forced 
 him to go. " Take, eat ! " Randolph took the 
 bread, held it, moved it as if to put it to his lips, 
 hesitated, trembled, then with more reverence than 
 had ever guided any act of his life, he slipped it 
 into the pocket of his vest. The young soul had 
 answered.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 31 
 
 " Drink this in memory of me! " No drop of 
 it passed his lips. 
 
 After church he and his mother walked home 
 in silence great hours hold few words. Mrs. 
 Turberville went in, but Randolph flew back to the 
 church. 
 
 The rector was still in his study, which 
 Randolph without preliminaries entered, and be- 
 gan equally without ceremony : " I have never 
 touched Jesus so I could not taste this." He 
 pulled the consecrated crumb from his pocket and 
 placed it reverently in the rector's hand. 
 
 His sensation when again in the street was 
 freedom. He felt as if a double face had tele- 
 scoped into one open countenance and could look 
 the world in the eye without flinching he was not 
 a hypocrite. The misery of the church was dis- 
 pelled, he was like a coney or a wild goat of the 
 mountain that had been hitched to a strange and 
 loaded cart, and now found himself loose to scam- 
 per over the hills. 
 
 He was no hypocrite thank God ! 
 
 The sacred crumb was the first word from the 
 cross.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE next jab that fate had in store for Char- 
 lotte Turberville was a summons from the Police 
 Court for the appearance of Randolph, who, 
 frenzied with foot-ball, had been practising in 
 season and out of season. The McNabb School 
 was soon to play Woodberry-Forest, and upon 
 young Turberville's prowess greatly depended 
 McNabb's victory. 
 
 One day, at practice, his ball fell into the yard 
 of a negro woman, and over went Randolph after 
 it The woman had picked up the ball and re- 
 fused to give it up. He seized her and took it: 
 and forthwith the irate woman had him arrested 
 for assault and battery. 
 
 The boy got off with costs and a reprimand, 
 and went away up in the estimation of his friends ; 
 but away down in the opinion of his mother. His 
 adoring gang Minor, Carmichael, Conquest and 
 the rest all swore to reward him for his brief 
 persecution by a foot-ball zeal never before exhib- 
 ited: they'd whip Woodberry or die. But they 
 didn't, for there was a wonderful fellow on the 
 Woodberry team whose stellar performance won 
 the game by a single touchdown ; this fellow was 
 Bill-Bob Catlett. 
 
 32
 
 A MAN'S REACH S3 
 
 What with the shame of the Police Court and 
 other harrowing domestic details even more try- 
 ing it was quite three weeks after Chattie's talk 
 with her rector about Kitty Nestles before she 
 found a spare evening to invite Mrs. Nestles 
 to tea. 
 
 There had been much talk of Kitty's return 
 and her confirmation; even her mother's old 
 friends thought she should have fought her battle 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Kitty's remarkable costume at her confirmation 
 shocked the conservative congregation, and 
 although everybody thought her beautiful, many 
 also thought her frivolous and unpardonably vain. 
 
 Charlotte defended her valiantly, excused her 
 split skirt and red stockings, gave her the liberty 
 of her home and invited her to tea the very day 
 that McNabb's was defeated by Woodberry. 
 
 Although he bore his defeat with a smile, 
 Randolph was very sore over the game. His com- 
 fort, as he whistled his way home, was that his 
 team played splendidly and would certainly have 
 won but for a dogged, wiry chap, Robert Catlett, 
 who substituted for " Chig " Scott a Woodberry 
 fellow with whom Randolph had played before, 
 and of whom he was not the least afraid. He 
 had always had an idea that Bill-Bob Catlett was a 
 " fighter " ever since he played with him in the 
 Park when he was a kid.
 
 34 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Before Randolph reached home he remembered 
 that Mrs. Nestles was coming to tea. He was 
 rather glad they would have a fine supper of 
 which he felt the need, and he had heard that Mrs. 
 Nestles was great fun. He changed with care, 
 and at half-past seven joined his parents and the 
 child of their departed friends in his mother's 
 library, where chintz, lamps, books and flowers 
 always gave the impression of cheerfulness, no 
 matter what the spiritual condition of the occu- 
 pants. 
 
 " This giant your child ? " was Kitty's greet- 
 ing. 
 
 " Not quite sixteen," was his mother's proud 
 reply. 
 
 " Hard to believe ! " Kitty was holding 
 Randolph's hand affectionately. " Why I can 
 well remember bringing your mother guinea eggs 
 when you were born guinea eggs and fresh rolls 
 don't you remember, Cousin Chattie ? I always 
 associate guinea eggs with young babies. Just 
 think, boy, I could tote guinea eggs and walk 
 alone when you were born." 
 
 " And not be so very old either," Randolph's 
 smile was one of his big assets. 
 
 " Woodberry fleeced you," Mr. Turberville re- 
 marked a little teasingly. 
 
 " I don't think you could call it fleecing." A 
 quick flush evidenced the boy's soreness. " It
 
 A MAN'S REACH 86 
 
 was a good game and we lost; but we played 
 good ball even if Woodberry played better. That 
 fellow Catlett is a fiend." 
 
 " What Catlett? " To Charlotte foot-ball was 
 the battle, murder and sudden death from which 
 she prayed to be delivered; but she was immedi- 
 ately interested in the name Catlett. 
 
 " Bill-Bob lives in Albemarle stayed here 
 once don't you remember?" her son replied. 
 
 " Robert's son, Ran," Chattie said tenderly. 
 
 " Looks so but I never thought Robert's son 
 would play foot-ball he would more likely be a 
 Y. M. C. A. boy." Ran had a great contempt for 
 the Y. M. C A. 
 
 " Bill-Bob, they say, is awfully studious and 
 good, but an all-around athlete to boot, won't 
 give as much time as the team requires, but ready 
 to jump in when he is needed. Scott broke his 
 leg a week ago, and Bill-Bob swore the team 
 should win and practised for all he was worth. 
 Nobody down here knew that Scott had broken 
 his leg Young Randolph paused a moment. 
 " It's great to tackle nerve like that boy has 
 he is a natural winner." 
 
 " You said, Cousin Ran "- Kitty's eyes were 
 languorous and melting as she turned them upon 
 her host " that you would have thought Uncle 
 Robert's son would have been a Y. M. C. A. chap
 
 36 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 instead of a good foot-ball player why not 
 both?" 
 
 " They don't go together/' Ran smiled signifi- 
 cantly. 
 
 " I haven't seen Bill-Bob since he was a little 
 boy Uncle Robert doesn't approve of me," 
 Kitty's lowered lids for a moment shadowed the 
 velvet glow of her cheeks with her marvellous 
 dark lashes. " He was always a darling little 
 boy merry as a grig, fearless and trusty as a man 
 not a bit like Saint George, who is a poet 
 dreamy, idle and beautiful. But he'll never write 
 poetry it's too much trouble; he merely thinks 
 in lyrics, iambics and hexameters. Uncle Robert 
 and Aunt Eleanor speak of him as their preacher 
 just because he is not keen for anything else, 
 I think; but they have set Robert Bill-Bob 
 apart for some sort of money-making industry 
 that will make them all comfortable. Bill- Bob 
 is a capable boy and Saint George an adorable 
 idler, with a mind too dainty for common toil 
 they used to speak of Saint George as their silk 
 boy, and of Bill-Bob as* their good, strong denim." 
 
 " I have come up against him twice," Randolph 
 remarked, " and he has been game as lightning 
 each time." 
 
 "Oughtn't we to have him here, Ran ? " Chattie 
 was always bent on hospitality, and before her 
 husband could reply she turned to her son and
 
 A MAN'S REACH 97 
 
 inquired, " Where is the Woodberry team to- 
 night?" 
 
 " Going to leave at ten-thirty but at the 
 Bolingbroke till then." 
 
 " Thone up, dear, and ask Robert Bill-Bob 
 or whatever he is to supper." 
 
 "Bully!" Randolph fairly skipped to the 
 'phone. He wished to see this young hero again 
 as a mere boy. 
 
 " Aren't you crazy about him ? " Kitty Nestles 
 asked when the boy was gone. " Handsomest 
 creature I ever saw, bright as a dollar glorious 
 mixture of you both what is he going to be? " 
 
 " A lawyer, I hope. What else could a Ran- 
 dolph Turberville be ? " Chattie smiled at her 
 husband. 
 
 " Some of them are so poor that I should advise 
 a change of occupation." 
 
 Kitty turned to Ran as he spoke and could 
 but note the time-prints on his still handsome face, 
 and even her giddy soul was tinged with regret. 
 " What a pity how could a man fail with such 
 a wife ? " was her thought. 
 
 " Catlett is taking supper with the Anderson's," 
 Randolph announced regretfully as he returned. 
 
 " In good company," said Ran. " Like his 
 parents the best or none for them." 
 
 " The way with us all, I think." Chattie arose 
 at the supper bell.
 
 38 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " Except me," sighed Kitty as she followed 
 her in. 
 
 Notwithstanding- her dainty loveliness, Kitty 
 seemed somewhat discordant to the old-fashioned 
 dignity of Chattie Turberville's dining-room. 
 Heavy silver, shining mahogany, thin china, por- 
 traits, and Simon the butler, were the " old " to 
 Kitty's " new." Her gown, though beautiful, 
 was rather startling. The soft black skirt con- 
 cealed nothing of her round slenderness, every 
 movement gave tantalizing glimpses of some half- 
 hidden charm. Her pretty feet were but periods 
 to her trim silken legs. Her bodice, but a picot- 
 edged 'kerchief, artistically concealed and revealed 
 her marble bosom: and her slender neck rising 
 above was flexible ivory on which her well-cut 
 face, with its soft tints, hung like a rose on its 
 stem; yet over the rose, the ivory, the chiselling 
 appeared a faint blur like a smut from the left 
 hand of fate. 
 
 " There were never such waffles. And did you 
 kill these ducks ? " She beamed on Ran again. 
 
 " I really did the gang has a club down on the 
 Mattaponi we bagged thirty-five yesterday." 
 
 " They taste as if you killed them. Oh, me, 
 how I love Virginia cooking ! Is Mandy living 
 and do you have waffle days and Sally-Lunn days 
 and buckwheat-cake days as you used to do?" 
 The musical babbling of this modern siren was the
 
 A MAN'S REACH 89 
 
 tender recollection of sacred hours to her friends, 
 who were going to stand by her. " This homeli- 
 ness," she went on, " makes one feel like a way- 
 ward child, who is sweetly forgiven. How I have 
 missed it! You all can never know how hard it 
 was to come back nor how sweet it is to be back." 
 
 Many replies suggested themselves to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Turberville, but it was a difficult moment 
 and none of them seemed quite appropriate. 
 Young Randolph watched Kitty with keen inter- 
 est she was, to him, an unreal but adorable 
 vision. He had never seen anything like her 
 before. 
 
 Kitty wished to talk, and she rather liked their 
 silence. She had dwelt among stage- folk. She 
 had played parts and danced ballets ; and she knew 
 when she held her audience. 
 
 " I don't feel to any people as I do to you," 
 looking first at her host and then at her hostess, 
 and incidentally sweeping the boy with her eyes, 
 " and I want you to know that I am sorry. That's 
 
 the " Kitty's voice broke plaintive, and 
 
 Chattie to comfort her began: "Of course you 
 
 are. We " She looked at Ran and his queer, 
 
 interrogatory smile confused her, prevented her 
 from going on. 
 
 As for the boy, he felt, he did not think. For 
 the first time in his life the veil of the sanctuary 
 was lifted, and he knew that he was man and
 
 40 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 that she who had spoken was woman. The pool 
 of his being was stirred, and a multitude of emo- 
 tions were struggling to the top. 
 
 " What are your plans, dear ? " Chattie asked 
 when they were again in the library. 
 
 Ran's cigarette case was on the table, and Kitty 
 took from it a cigarette, and with a smile, asked 
 her hostess very sweetly, " You don't mind ? " 
 
 " I am afraid I do." Chattie's disapproval 
 was very gentle. " I never saw a lady smoke 
 before, although of course I knew they did it." 
 
 " Go on, Kitty." Ran was amused. " Chattie 
 is a back number, she's afraid not to protest 
 that's her religion." 
 
 Kitty lighted from Ran's, took her seat in a low 
 chair, crossed her jewelled feet, and puffed 
 enchantingly. 
 
 " Son-Boy doesn't even smoke," Chattie 
 patted her boy's sunny mane " and I wish you 
 wouldn't." 
 
 Ran's expression was of amusement; the boy 
 was fascinated; the mother was horribly disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 " What are my plans, Cousin Chattie? There 
 are only a few things that I can do, and I am 
 obliged to make money. The only practical thing 
 that I can do is dancing. There is a lot of money 
 in dancing." 
 
 " And friends, too," Ran looked at Kitty slyly.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 41 
 
 " I have taken a studio in the Arcade Building. 
 My classes will meet mornings and afternoons, 
 and I am giving a recital at the Bolingbroke to- 
 morrow. I used your name, Cousin Chattie I 
 knew you would do everything you could do for 
 me." 
 
 Chattie was a little surprised, but she did not 
 protest this time. 
 
 " I have not secured a man to dance with me 
 yet. Randolph, don't you dance? " 
 
 " Oh, no," Chattie could not keep silent now, 
 " none of these horrible new things." 
 
 " They are not horrible, if you dance them right. 
 I'll show you they aren't. Play ' Dreaming,' 
 Cousin Chattie and be convinced." 
 
 " I don't think I can." Mrs. Turberville was 
 quite positive. 
 
 " But here is a Victor haven't you a record? " 
 
 " I believe not," said Mrs. Turberville, to the 
 amusement of her husband and the despair of 
 her son. 
 
 " The Conquests have one." Randolph was 
 wild to see Mrs. Nestles dance. 
 
 " Run over and borrow it ! " said his father. 
 
 " They are " Chattie began. 
 
 " Go over and get it ! " Mr. Turberville re- 
 peated with more emphasis. 
 
 The record was procured, the chairs set back, 
 the music started, and the seductive evolutions of
 
 42 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 the dance began. Every curve in Kitty Nestles 
 was answer to the dreamy strain. Leg and arm 
 had voice: eyes and lips spoke: slowly, impres- 
 sively, gracefully, wonderfully, did sinuous im- 
 purity put off its purity, and unveil delectable mys- 
 teries to the senses of a throbbing, dizzy boy. 
 
 " Take the record back ! " Chattie thought they 
 had had enough. 
 
 " No, indeed," protested Ran, " we have not had 
 half enough." 
 
 Kitty took breath and danced again. Then she 
 must show the boy and the man, and Cousin 
 Chattie, too; but the wife and mother declined the 
 offer while the two men yielded to music and wo- 
 man, and watched enchanted the glide and 
 poise of two pretty feet, felt the touch of slim- 
 ringed hands, and the play of warm, spicy breath. 
 
 Suddenly Kitty's mood changed. She sat down 
 by Chattie and sighed. " Don't think I do it for 
 fun! It is my calling my bread. I am done 
 with impulse, wil fulness I have turned over a 
 new leaf. That's the reason I was confirmed. I 
 wanted something to clamp me, to hold me so hard 
 that I couldn't get loose no matter how badly I 
 wanted to. All my life I have had unmanageable 
 desires that would run here and there wherever 
 they wished to like like flocks of little chick- 
 ens out of a coop. And I didn't have anything 
 in me strong enough to keep them in. Maybe
 
 A MAN'S REACH 43 
 
 the church can," she sighed again plaintively. 
 
 Somebody might have spoken but no one did. 
 Chattie was afraid of Ran's smile she was very 
 religious, and if she said anything she would 
 preach. 
 
 Ran knew that what he wished to say was inex- 
 pedient, and the boy only wanted to touch those 
 dimpled shoulders, and cry : " You are O. K. old 
 girl, don't mind ! " 
 
 There were more sighs and a butterfly fluttering 
 of the eyelids and Kitty continued there would 
 be no more explanation after to-night : " I began 
 wrong, Cousin Chattie. I was so little when papa 
 died, and mama never smiled she blanketed her- 
 self you remember that hideous pall behind and 
 before? She made me want to get away from it. 
 There's no telling where I went. Everybody put 
 their fingers in my pie and told mama things, and 
 when I was with her it was, ' Don't don't 
 don't!' And when I was out of her presence 
 it was, ' Do do do ! ' All the time my desires 
 were irrepressible. 
 
 " The crisis came that summer the Templeton 
 Company came to Bolingbroke remember? By 
 this time I knew I had looks, and I was beginning 
 to play them. I met Paul Nestles oh me ! " 
 
 Chattie gave Kitty a nod as a warning the boy 
 was here the subject was not exactly suitable for 
 him. Then she winked at Ran and looked to see
 
 44 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 how Randolph was taking it. Kitty took no 
 notice of either winks or nods Ran's attitude was 
 encouraging, and the boy was petrified with 
 interest. 
 
 " I couldn't get Paul Nestles out of my mind. 
 Nothing else mattered in the wide world. Such 
 a face such eyes such a melting, tender voice ! 
 I wanted him, and I must have what I wanted." 
 
 She paused, clasping her hands and looking 
 down. 
 
 " My idol has fallen I have seen life I have 
 danced for bread I have been face to face with 
 sinII " 
 
 Chattie's nods and winks and flushed face 
 amused her husband and he announced gravely: 
 " Chattie is getting St. Vitus's dance, but in spite 
 of it I beg you to go on Kitty Randolph is no 
 baby." 
 
 " Have I said anything I should not have said? " 
 Kitty asked with surprise. 
 
 " Not a word go on," Mr. Turberville an- 
 swered. 
 
 " Men like Paul Nestles don't know the truth 
 they act all the time they are absolutely incon- 
 sistent. When he got tired of me he said I was 
 too free with other men." 
 
 Chattie could stand it no longer ; she proposed 
 that Randolph go out. She might as well mildly
 
 A MAN'S REACH 45 
 
 suggest that a young ox leave a field of juicy new 
 corn. Ah, no, Randolph was here to stay! 
 
 " You know I couldn't be too free with men, 
 Cousin Chattie. Well, Paul Nestles absolutely 
 deserted me for three years. I battled about 
 hither and yonder, and when I was free I came 
 home was I not right ? " 
 
 " Perfectly so," Ran affirmed with feeling. 
 
 Kitty's explanation had made her cheeks darkly 
 red like an American beauty, and her loveliness 
 had gone from exquisite daintiness to the brilliant 
 glory of a cloudless dawn. Hair, eyes, flesh were 
 splendidly illumined by a rush of feeling. She 
 closed her eyes as if overcome, and then mur- 
 mured, " I am white I am clean ! " 
 
 "Of course you are." Young Randolph had 
 been eloquently silent until this moment: when 
 Kitty left at twelve o'clock he took her home.
 
 IV 
 
 THE cruel beauty of Kitty Nestles stirred the 
 pool that lay pellucid and waveless in the fastness 
 of a youth's innocence. Something mysterious 
 rose from the depths of the boy-man and broke 
 into strange and fluttering desires like bright and 
 restless humming-birds. These strange desires, 
 these humming-birds of the flesh, sipped the dan- 
 gerous nectar of Kitty Nestles's beauty; but ere it 
 was too late they detected poison in it and flew 
 away : then the pool was still again. 
 
 But the " man " had stirred was awake : and 
 it went on growing according to nature's law. 
 Randolph's mother watched this development jeal- 
 ously, and his father often felt as if he were read- 
 ing a dog-eared story-book, for his son was in 
 many ways much like himself. 
 
 Charlotte Turberville was a thoughtful woman, 
 and she realized that the child is not solely the 
 mother's experiment, but also the father's nature 
 a medley of inherited passion, a mixture of all 
 the good and bad things which heredity can offer ; 
 sometimes so assimilated that the " man " is as 
 acceptable as plum pudding with all its warring 
 condiments ; sometimes so horribly mixed that the 
 result is as hideous as a crazy quilt, 
 
 46
 
 A MAN'S REACH 47 
 
 To the mother of a boy there comes a day when 
 he is an unknown quantity like a cake which has 
 been stirred and beaten to perfection, but not until 
 it is done can its excellence be tested. In the 
 moment that it is about to change from dough to 
 cake something unexpected happens and the thing 
 that was perfect when raw becomes awful when 
 done. 
 
 Randolph Turberville was in this crucial, under- 
 done state ; Charlotte's anxiety made her watch the 
 oven and the boy resented her " constant eye." 
 
 Since the fleeting obsession of Kitty, Randolph 
 had been interested in the tyranny of sex. He 
 began to study love. He read with throbbing 
 pulses historic love-affairs the world-romancy ; 
 and while he was thinking and reading he fell 
 indeed in love. 
 
 In the autumn of his eighteenth year, Mr. Henry 
 Corbin, of " Laneville," leased the Murray house 
 just across the Park, and a quick intimacy sprung 
 between the Corbin boys and Randolph. Their 
 only sister was coming for Christmas and Ran- 
 dolph was sorry they might have to take her 
 around. 
 
 On Christmas eve's eve all the boys were going 
 to the Church of the Holy Comforter to put up 
 wreaths, and about half -past eight Randolph 
 walked briskly through the Park to get the 
 Corbins, As he stepped into the Corbins' hall, a
 
 48 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 vision fairly took his breath away. A girl, on 
 a step-ladder in the drawing-room, was tying a 
 gay bell to the chandelier with a blood-red ribbon. 
 The curve of her uplifted arm, the symmetry of 
 her tense slenderness, and the tilt of her auburn 
 head, delighted him. 
 
 " Turberville, this is my sister Lettice," Henry 
 Corbin said with a proud smile. 
 
 " Who can't be decently polite because this 
 ladder is so ticklish," came in a queer, melodious 
 shrillness. 
 
 " Let me take your place," Randolph said 
 quickly. 
 
 Lettice laughed " What boy could ever tie a 
 bow? Might as well expect a girl to sharpen a 
 lead pencil." The ice was broken. 
 
 The bow having been tied and untied until it 
 suited, the girl stepped nimbly from the ladder and 
 offered her hand. 
 
 Her face, like an inspired cameo, gave at first 
 the impression of remoteness, but her tawny, 
 welcoming hair and the warmth of her mysterious 
 eyes forced a sudden friendliness. Randolph was 
 dazzled by her bronze hair fine and wavy, that 
 lay in a thick coil around her small head like a 
 breathing thing asleep ; by her long, curly lashes ; 
 by her eyes black as onyxes that night ; by her lips 
 undulating with feeling; by her grace ; by her high
 
 A MAN'S REACH 49 
 
 voice, which called to something listening within 
 his heart. 
 
 For a moment Lettice gazed critically at the 
 cheerful ribbon bow, then drew a sigh of approval 
 and pronounced : " It will do. I have a ' scruting ' 
 eye, as Aunt Dilsey says Aunt Dilsey is the 
 sphynx of Laneville; I wish you knew her." 
 
 " I'm only too glad to know you." Randolph 
 was eager and brusque. " We are going to put up 
 wreaths in the church come on with us ! " 
 
 " Would you let me? " Her smile was grate- 
 ful, and she ran up to ask her parents. Soon she 
 returned cheeks burning, face flaring with dis- 
 appointment. " Papa, as usual, won't let me. 
 He ought to be a pope and issue propagandas, 
 bulls and things. He thinks himself infallible as 
 it is, and no matter what mama thinks, she's 
 always afraid to say ' Boo ! ' I must not go down 
 to the church with you, boys, because it is sleeting 
 and I sneezed once this time last year. Pshaw ! " 
 
 " I'll run up and beg for you." Randolph was 
 ready to do anything for her. 
 
 " Then you would be an improper gander you 
 don't know papa." 
 
 A sudden memory made Randolph ask, " Aren't 
 you the girl that played in the Park with us about 
 nine years ago and ran like a deer? " 
 
 " You can't be the cute little boy that bossed 
 the job?" 
 
 4
 
 50 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " I am the boy that caught you by the hair and 
 made you squeal: you were a dandy kid I've 
 never forgotten you. I sold a dead cat and bought 
 candy for you, and when I couldn't find you, be- 
 cause I didn't know your last name, I got furious 
 and threw the candy in the gutter; if you couldn't 
 eat it nobody should." 
 
 " Delicious! " The bad humor of Lettice had 
 gone. " Please tell me about the cat ! " 
 
 Randolph told his story well, adding, " I 
 thought your name so nice and green." 
 
 "And me?" 
 
 " I don't like to tell," and with a few more 
 merry words the boys were off to church, and 
 Lettice was dreaming over the fire. 
 
 Randolph spent the night in the first wild fever 
 of real love. One moment his body would groan 
 with a queer craving, the next his soul would 
 disengage itself from such queer hunger and, alilt 
 on a mysterious bough, try to peep into the heart 
 of Lettice Corbin. Was there ever anybody like 
 her? She had gripped his heart from the height 
 of a step-ladder, and still held it brutally. Was 
 she ready to catch another? Did she care? 
 
 She would she must. He could feel her hair 
 now touching his face. Gee-whizz! Even the 
 imaginary surrender made him tremble, and his 
 youth swelled again with hunger, and then yielded
 
 A MAN'S REACH 51 
 
 to the crooning of his soul, which thrilled 
 chanted to the soul of Lettice Corbin. 
 
 The next morning Randolph was ashamed of 
 his sensations but in an entirely different degree 
 from his confusion over Kitty's brief tyranny: 
 then it was a blush, now it was presumption. He 
 was entirely different to-day from his yesterday- 
 self. He felt as if he had entered the sacred places 
 of the sages and eaten forbidden fruit. The 
 familiar things in his room were unfamiliar, and 
 his morning toilet was a problem. Which shoes ? 
 Which cravat ? Which socks ? Was his new suit 
 too loud? He and his mother had thought the 
 tiny fleck of red great style yesterday, now that 
 infinitesimal prick of color frightened him. Did 
 his hair wave too much? He must have it cut 
 to-day. 
 
 In the library the fire was spluttering with the 
 true Christmas spirit, row upon row of books 
 were cordial as usual, but he did not care for 
 them to-day. A bunch of narcissi in a red vase 
 on the table was suddenly transformed into the 
 fragrant purity of Lettice Corbin safe in the red 
 coil of his love. He stood up, raised his eyes, 
 and almost touched Christ through the vision of 
 her unstained girlhood. 
 
 The exaltation passed, and he looked around as 
 if afraid somebody had detected it. 
 
 Then in a big chair in the ingle-nook he reached
 
 52 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 out to the friendly book-shelf and pulled out 
 Dante's " Divine Comedy," turned to the index, 
 and found " Francesca, p. 37." 
 
 He found the page and Francesca's words be- 
 came his hope. " Love that exempts no one be- 
 loved from loving." " Galleotto was the book, 
 and he who wrote it." He was her book. She 
 could write his life with the touch of her spirit. 
 He felt the bite of her beauty leaping through the 
 lattice work of their short acquaintance. 
 
 This foolishness wouldn't do. 
 
 He put the book back and tried to be a normal 
 youth by jumping into his overcoat and rushing 
 out of the house. He would go to Forest-Hill, 
 meet the boys skate all day and forget the girl. 
 
 Maybe she would like to go! She looked as if 
 she skated (did every beautiful thing upon 
 earth:) so instead of taking the car for Forest- 
 Hill, he cut around the fountain, threw his skates 
 under the steps of the " Rest-House," crossed 
 " Belvedere," and stood on the corner, uncertain 
 afraid. 
 
 The grass was still green in the Murray yard, 
 and the morning fire twinkled through the library 
 windows, as he halted by the tall walnut at the 
 corner of the triangle, and caught her high, clear 
 tones from the Murray door-step. In a minute 
 Lettice and Mrs. Corbin were chatting down the 
 brick walk like merry twin-sisters: Lettice wore
 
 A MAN'S REACH 68 
 
 a suit almost the color of his, and her brown hat 
 was tilted, as if to reveal her shining hair and 
 the morning glory of her face. She gave Randolph 
 a careless nod, and when she had quite passed he 
 heard these flippant words : " Christmas eve and 
 silly little presents! We're taking the stores by 
 the forelock. Good-bye ! " 
 
 Randolph stood by the fence with his hands in 
 his pockets and watched Mrs. Corbin and her 
 daughter go down the street. Then turning with 
 a fierce " I'll be dogged," he went to " Forest- 
 Hill " as fast as the trolley could take him. 
 
 He skated furiously all day to forget her, but 
 when the sun dipped behind the woods and the 
 energy of the crisp day faded, she grew stronger 
 and clearer in his mind intensely irresistible. The 
 curtness of her morning greeting, after the night's 
 cordiality, dug mercilessly into his vanity the 
 suspicion of her scorn hurt as if his physical self 
 were pricked with a sharp lancet. He must have 
 hasheesh. Stopping before a bar-room he wished 
 he were twenty-one but he did not go in. 
 
 Going straight to the dining-room as soon as 
 he got home, he poured out a bumper and swal- 
 lowed it, then he took the glass into the pantry, 
 washed it, and turned it down on the pantry shelf. 
 
 The wine raised his self-esteem, made him feel 
 better about Lettice Corbin maybe he would go 
 to see her after tea!
 
 V 
 
 THE experience of that Christmas week waved 
 like a red banner across two lives: as another 
 Christmas week, a few years later, always flut- 
 tered like a pall. Curiously and easily Lettice 
 Corbin and Randolph Turberville glided into the 
 dim reaches of each other's lives, but the harmless 
 demonstrations which Randolph practised with 
 other girls were entirely left out of their sweet, 
 young intercourse. He quickly saw the wonders 
 of her nature, and although they had joke and 
 badinage, there was never the least cheap senti- 
 ment between them. 
 
 Once they were off on a brisk walk with faces 
 to a wild red sunset which flung the bare branches 
 clean into space, and shot through the highest 
 arch of the Cathedral tower like a burning mes- 
 sage from the heart of God. 
 
 " Then fire was sky and sky was fire and both 
 one ecstasy," she quoted slowly meditatively. 
 
 " In youth I looked to these very skies, and 
 probing their immensities, I found God there: 
 His visible power " he responded. 
 
 " Comrade," she whispered. 
 
 " Sweetheart," was his answer. 
 
 She was suddenly aloof, remote, gazing west- 
 ward with a rapt devotion which he dare not in- 
 
 54
 
 A MAN'S REACH 55 
 
 vade. Young as she was, she had a genius for 
 retiring within her quaint young dignity, which 
 sweetly forbade the least intrusion. She was only 
 at home a week this Christmas-time, and yet that 
 week ever hung over Randolph's life like a stretch 
 of translucent atmosphere high above earthly 
 care. In this wonderful " spirit-air " everything 
 assumed a new and lovelier shape; it was a sort 
 of heavenly mist which obscured the real day. 
 
 In these days the little Park between his house 
 and hers became the sacred gateway to her pres- 
 ence; the trees, the statues standing so firmly in 
 the grass which winter skies could not ungreen, 
 the spires springing gladly beyond the trees, the 
 fountain with its feeble stream, the rounding 
 paths, even the rest-house under which he flung 
 his skates all became for his red young passion, 
 question marks as to her probable reciprocation. 
 
 Their moments alone were not frequent, but 
 they held eons of emotion which could never fade. 
 Clouds rose, winds howled, ice and snow piled up 
 between them, but back of them was the undying 
 glow of youth's first, pure, roseate passion. 
 
 She had read voraciously as he had read. Her 
 Francesca was his Francesca her Beatrice his, 
 too ; a line from this, a line from that, would evoke 
 another line from her mental " Lumber-room," 
 as she called it; and they twain were one in the 
 kingdom of books, on whose delicious spicy
 
 66 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 borders they loved to stand. Sometimes they were 
 two, a very stern, very intolerant, very positive 
 " two " ; for neither was accustomed to yield an 
 opinion. Then she would toss her little head and 
 say with supreme finality : " Oh, well never mind 
 if you can't see." 
 
 Lettice took dinner one evening with some girl 
 friends, and Mr. and Mrs. Corbin and the boys 
 had tickets for the Academy. Mrs. Corbin asked 
 Randolph as a great favor to fetch Lettice home 
 and guard her till they got back. Her parents had 
 rigid ideas for the deportment and protection of 
 Lettice, but they felt no hesitation in leaving her 
 to Randolph's care: a Turberville would always 
 protect a Corbin. 
 
 Randolph brought Lettice in about ten, her 
 parents and brothers returned from the Academy 
 about a quarter to eleven. Their intercourse, in 
 the Murray library, lasted exactly three-quarters 
 of an hour but it was young life. 
 
 The library was not especially distinctive or elo- 
 quent. There were books in heavy ornate walnut 
 cases, tightly locked, like captives beyond prison 
 bars prisoners, not friends. Over the mantel- 
 piece was a beautiful portrait of a woman with 
 dark eyes, bright cheeks, and black hair scalloped 
 around her face. Lettice had pulled the sofa 
 from a corner where it slanted into place, to the 
 front of the fire, and put a table behind it on which
 
 A MAN'S REACH 57 
 
 was a lamp, a vase of flowers, some magazines, 
 and the evening paper. The portrait, the soft, 
 ample sofa, the fire, the lamp and the scattered 
 books humanized the formal room and created 
 a cheery coziness into which Lettice and Randolph 
 merrily entered. 
 
 " Whe-ew ! " she breathed as she threw her wrap 
 on a chair, fell into the sofa and began to remove 
 her hat and gloves. " A stupid dinner is exhaust- 
 ing and indigestible. Aren't the Trimbles hope- 
 less ? Help me to forget them ! " The expression 
 of her eyes conveyed the impression of actual 
 pain, which had to be eased very quickly. 
 
 Lettice tucked herself into a corner of the sofa, 
 tapped the seat, as an invitation to Randolph, and 
 gave herself to enchanting friendliness. 
 
 The young man experienced an alluring near- 
 ness, a delicious " oneness " which he had never 
 known before. 
 
 " How many people do you know," she asked, 
 " with whom you are perfectly happy, or, per- 
 haps better, perfectly comfortable? " 
 
 " Not a blessed one," he answered quickly. 
 
 " Not a blessed one ? " she responded, her coun- 
 tenance teasing with its ripples of light, its tiny 
 dimples of surprise. 
 
 " I am perfectly miserable with you." He was 
 going to tease, too. " I am like an Alpine walker 
 horribly near a crevasse; an aviator with hand
 
 68 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 clutched on the valve, one move this or that way 
 means death; an iron- worker knocking and drill- 
 ing on a slippery roof a hair's breadth this way 
 or that way and he is gone." 
 
 " I don't understand," she said, looking straight 
 into his eyes. " I don't see " 
 
 " You don't ? " He stood up before her. 
 Well " 
 
 Immediately lowered lashes cried " Stop." 
 
 Her unspoken command was inviolate, and 
 might have embarrassed them but for her imme- 
 diate self -adjustment. 
 
 " Take the Trimbles," she began. " From the 
 moment I meet them until I have left them, I am 
 conscious of a terrible effort to please, and a sick- 
 ening assurance that I can't do it. I like my 
 friends to fit like a kimono with nothing binding 
 or scratching. In a minute after I met you I 
 knew you would do." 
 
 Was this another challenge ? 
 
 " Indeed," she added very quickly, " I am spoilt. 
 I have lived too much with books and myself." 
 
 " You flit from one thing to another like a 
 careless red-bird, and seem to like everybody " 
 
 " Red bird ! buzzing, flitting. Good ! " she 
 laughed. " Let's talk sense ! Where's the light- 
 wood? We don't want gas or lamps, we want a 
 chunk." She opened a big, brass box. " Throw 
 it on, while I put out the lights. It is perfectly
 
 A MAN'S REACH 59 
 
 right and proper, for Laneville does it." She 
 turned out the lamp, lowered the gas, tucked 
 herself back into the sofa and they both gazed 
 at the spluttering blaze in silence. 
 
 " Isn't this nice? " she whispered. " Talk! " 
 
 The influence of the girl and the warm gold 
 light melted Randolph into a dreamy monotone; 
 words didn't matter, he meant them to declare 
 " I love you, I desire you, I need you ! " They 
 were snatches of Tennyson, of Byron, of Brown- 
 ing, of Emerson. 
 
 Her thoughts fled from cover, too. A pillow 
 was between them and now and again she spread 
 her hand upon it her slender hand, with a ruby 
 ring on her little finger once it touched Ran- 
 dolph's hand and thrilled him. 
 
 " How did you, a strong, active boy, find time 
 for it all ? " she asked. 
 
 " I took it. How did you? " he answered. 
 
 " I ? I have had nothing but time. I have 
 cheated, I have stolen, I have read, read ^-every- 
 thing they told me not to; and I have thought. 
 You see Laneville can only associate with Deer- 
 Chase, Rosegill, Mt. Airy and Beverly Park. 
 Sometimes the children at the various mansions 
 come without precision, hit and miss; and then 
 there is nobody at Deer-Chase for Laneville to 
 play with the other places are miles and miles 
 away. Then Laneville has to play with herself
 
 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 so instead of playing always with myself or the 
 boys, I have played with the fire of intellect, and 
 I am burned I am scared, I don't understand 
 it all, but I want to." She put her vivid face close 
 to the eager face of Randolph. " I want to know, 
 I want to feel, I want to act do ! " 
 
 " Don't you feel ? " A tell-tale cadence in 
 Randolph's voice made her look a quick ques- 
 tion. She got a spontaneous but wordless answer 
 which made her look away. 
 
 " Feel ? " She spoke dreamily now. " I should 
 think so. But I want to understand. It is all 
 such a chaos tangles of wishes, aspirations and 
 ignorance. I can't sit at Laneville and dream and 
 knit and feed chickens day after day, year after 
 year, like mama. Dear mama she has never 
 failed to arise at seven o'clock ; I never knew her 
 to be sick ; she has a precise minute for the smoke- 
 house key, the garret keys, the store-room keys; 
 a precise minute for each meal; a minute for the 
 Bible and Prayer-Book; a minute for all of her 
 reading, and she marks her places with a cross- 
 stitch card; a more than precise minute for bed; 
 and I am willing to express my solemn and re- 
 ligious opinion that at the stroke of a certain min- 
 ute she falls to sleep. Papa is like her. I don't 
 want to do things on the minute. I want to do 
 them when I feel like it. See? Understand?" 
 
 Randolph nodded his assent he was afraid
 
 A MAN'S REACH 61 
 
 to speak lest he break the pretty sequence of her 
 thoughts. 
 
 " Papa is just like mama, he and she are two 
 exactly similar halves which make a harmonious 
 and perfect whole. I stay by myself a lot, and 
 I have thought of everything. Sometimes I am 
 scared to death at the very mystery of life, and 
 I have been thinking of death since I was a tiny 
 child haven't you?" 
 
 " No it has never especially bothered me it 
 was just nature and law." 
 
 " I remember perfectly the very first day that 
 I realized death. The sunlight was dimmed as 
 if it were filled with smoke, the very world seemed 
 suddenly cursed with a blight. I couldn't play. 
 I hung around mama's chamber ; she was darning 
 papa's socks, and crooning old songs like a honey- 
 bee's drone. The drone fell in tune with my 
 gloom. ' Please stop,' I cried. 
 
 " Mamma looked at me in amazement. ' Why 
 aren't you playing with your brothers ? ' she asked 
 seriously. 
 
 " * Because I've got to die,' I answered. Oh, 
 I remember it so well. Mama drew me to her 
 and spoke volubly of the bliss of seeing God and 
 the wonders of Paradise; but the gloomy fact 
 obscured any heavenly anticipations, and I re- 
 fused to be comforted. 
 
 " It has been that way with everything. Facts
 
 62 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 attack me suddenly and puzzle me to desperation. 
 Life is a furious eddy and I a tiny leaf swirling 
 and whirling ; but to me the tiny leaf is the whole 
 show. Life is knowledge, power, religion, love. 
 I have to know all haven't I ? " 
 
 Randolph took up the strain and ambled on 
 vaguely trying to say something which he 
 couldn't. 
 
 After some minutes Lettice began again : " My 
 mammy was comfortable. I have never been per- 
 fectly easy since I grew out of her arms. Did you 
 ever have a mammy ? " 
 
 " Did I ? " Randolph smiled. " Sure! " 
 
 " And did she pat you at night and sing ' sh 
 sh-ssh sh ? ' Can't you feel the sand-man tus- 
 sling with your obstinate eyes, and hear her faint, 
 sibillant 'sh-ssh sh-ssh sh?' How I wish I 
 could once more cuddle into her monotonous mel- 
 ody! In the summer dusk she would let me sit 
 on the garden steps a few moments, before she 
 put me to bed. Even then I was in a way conscious 
 of mystenes : the third terrace with its tangle of 
 vines and shrubs was the end of the world; and 
 I would peer into its blackness and wonder and 
 wonder; just as I am peering into those lightwood 
 blazes and wondering and wondering and wonder- 
 ing now. You think me silly, don't you? " 
 
 And so the mighty minutes of that three- 
 quarters of an hour ended. Not a personal senti-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 63 
 
 ment had they uttered, but each word from each 
 lip carried a world of meaning. Boy and girl, 
 forced in the hot-house of precocious imagination, 
 had handled subjects beyond their years. Around 
 them fell a luminous veil of sentiment as real as 
 the yellow blazes of the lightwood chunks. They 
 let it hang and warm, they did not call its name. 
 They did not acknowledge to themselves that it 
 was there. The thrill of life shot like sparks 
 through the smoke-clouds of thoughts; but the 
 one was afraid to speak and the other afraid to 
 hear. 
 
 After a pause it was her way to take up an en- 
 tirely new subject as if the former was absolutely 
 finished, and now with a little sigh, she began : 
 
 "There was a woman at the Trimbles' that I 
 could not stand. I suppose she is pretty in her 
 glaring way ; but I don't believe she is nice. She 
 had a lot to say and she made eyes at a beautiful 
 creature that she called ' Saint.' Her name is 
 Nestles." 
 
 " Kitty Nestles she is my cousin." 
 
 " Your cousin ? " with surprise. 
 
 " Yes, one's cousins are never a picked lot. 
 She comes to our house and I went crazy over 
 her for a little while." Randolph thought that a 
 confession was imperative he never intended to 
 have a concealment from Lettice. 
 
 "You did?"
 
 64 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " Yes for a little while," he repeated looking 
 down. 
 
 " Well no accounting for taste, and a young 
 boy is so foolish." Lettice laughed merrily as if 
 for forgiveness. 
 
 At present Randolph thought that even the 
 memory of Kitty was sacrilege to the transparent 
 purity of the girl beside him. 
 
 " And the handsome young man who is study- 
 ing medicine here her Saint? " 
 
 " I don't really know, but I have a suspicion. 
 She has a foster uncle in Albemarle who has two 
 sons, Philip St. George and Robert. She used 
 to stay a great deal with them. Mrs. Nestles told 
 us that Philip was very clever and good-looking." 
 
 "Philip St. George what?" 
 
 " Cocke-Catlett." 
 
 " Now I know all about them. Old ' Bremo ' 
 and ' Timberneck ' people." 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " And that's where she gets her Saint ? " 
 
 " Maybe so," indifferently. 
 
 " He reminds me of a porcelain Apollo in a pair 
 of soiled hands." 
 
 "You are old." 
 
 " Perhaps so there's papa ! " as Mr. Corbin's 
 latch-key scratched in the door. " He might be 
 in an unfavorable mood." She sprung up and 
 turned up the gas,
 
 A MAN'S REACH 65 
 
 The charm of the play acted as an emollient 
 upon Mr. Corbin, and his usual dignity was gar- 
 nished with smiles like a ring of parsley around 
 a well-browned joint. " Did we keep you too 
 long? " he asked Randolph, almost affectionately, 
 as he entered the warm, bright room. 
 
 And while the boy, somewhat shyly, was trying 
 to emphasize the seeming brevity of his pleasant 
 vigil, Mrs. Corbin was insisting that he should 
 dine with them the next evening. 
 
 A sense of their friendliness touched Randolph's 
 heart pleasantly and pungently, as a sip of peach- 
 brandy steals into the physical man. He felt his 
 future suddenly caught into theirs, by the spear of 
 fate, as a crochet needle firmly twists a scarlet 
 thread into the purple and gray of a half-done 
 afghan. 
 
 He soon said good-bye, and Mr. and Mrs. Cor- 
 bin discussed his unusual ease of manner and good 
 looks long after they were in bed; while Lettice 
 tingled and trembled with a sensation which she 
 did not understand. 
 
 At home Randolph's sensations were like the 
 buzzing of a million whipsaws he could not stand 
 them. He was not wicked, he hurt and he wanted 
 ease ; he was all impulse, not meditated wrong. 
 
 Down into the dining-room once more this 
 time to take the decanter up-stairs and put it on 
 a table beside him. It was empty when he went to 
 
 5
 
 66 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 bed. He had drained it unconsciously while won- 
 dering over Lettice Corbin. Strange that this was 
 a thing he did not regard as a subject for con- 
 fession, any more than the drinking a cup of tea 
 or a glass of water. 
 
 With Lettice it was different a million little 
 bells were ringing in her soul and not one out of 
 tune. She swung in a fresh spring world of mys- 
 terious bud and strange leaflet, and the landscape 
 was veiled with a faint rosiness that would be- 
 come royal crimson as the years wore on. It 
 would not be all sunlight, there would be storm 
 and shadows; but they would breast the storm 
 together and smile.
 
 VI 
 
 THE year before young Randolph Turberville 
 went to the University his mother met her second 
 great disillusionment: instead of one ghastly 
 secret, her heart held two: the boy had snapped 
 her rein, and the elder Randolph was a ruin. 
 
 The vision of a savior-son had become a farce ; 
 for only a few days ago when she had, with tears 
 in her eyes, begged Randolph to do something to 
 save his father, the boy had almost contemptuously 
 replied : " You might as well ask an eye-syringe 
 to put out a fire, mother! Cut it out it won't 
 do!" 
 
 " You don't believe in personal influence, Son- 
 Boy?" 
 
 " Oh, I believe in it when it acts ; but I know 
 my ' man/ mother and I can see myself preach- 
 ing to dad. He'd dismiss me with a fierce * Go 
 to .' I'd be entirely squelched, and as severely 
 reprimanded as if I had received a slap in the 
 face, and a disdainful ' Now will you be good? ' 
 No, ma'am, not me." 
 
 " I can't imagine anything more inspiring than 
 one's son declaring his principles, and by the very 
 force of his conviction and example drawing his 
 
 67
 
 68 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 mistaken father from his sins." Chattie's firm 
 mouth trembled with feeling. 
 
 " Oh, mother you're a ' corker.' You're so 
 ^^ 
 
 " So old, so silly, so archaic I know little boy. 
 And you are so young, so sure of yourself. Take 
 care, take care, dear, lest you fall." 
 
 Randolph had a cunning way of silencing his 
 mother with affection. Now he hugged and kissed 
 her : it was his way of saying " Please stop! " 
 
 Charlotte understood and let the subject drop 
 for the present. 
 
 Randolph was living and loving in his young, 
 crude way. He and Lettice constantly wrote to 
 each other, and he was studying much harder than 
 usual because he wanted to go to the University 
 the next year. His prime reason for going to this 
 famous seat of learning was the conviction that 
 he would make the " foot-ball " team. Daily he 
 was forcing himself into the realm of Man: un- 
 known to his parents, he belonged to a club the 
 " Green-Back " organized primarily for inno- 
 cent, boyish sport; but evolving into a snare 
 where pennies and dimes jingled merrily to the 
 seductive tune of poker. Sometimes they had 
 beer at the " Green-Back," and when they did, 
 Randolph was very jolly stimulation sharpened 
 his wits. 
 
 As yet public opinion predicted great things for
 
 A MAN'S REACH 69 
 
 this adorable youth. He was to recover the pres- 
 tige of the Turbervilles, who had hitherto been 
 Beacon Lights in old Virginia. 
 
 So when Randolph was eighteen, he went into 
 his place at the University as most men have 
 done elsewhere even Judas Iscariot. He got into 
 the good-clothes, cock-sure, heart-breaking, jolly 
 class commonly called good fellows. He was 
 asked to join the Alpha-Omega Society, which re- 
 quired social standing and courage to run with 
 the boys. Randolph was governed by that mys- 
 terious honor system, which apparently declares 
 everything mete and right, except the performance 
 of those vital duties, for the observance of which 
 every young gentleman is supposed to enter 
 college. 
 
 Randolph's life was now his own, and he liked 
 it ; he was like a half -broken colt, who has kicked 
 off every strap and buckle that restrained him : and 
 races along with head erect and nostrils distended 
 upon a strange, sweet road. He went to bed late, 
 and arose late. He knew every field and hill near 
 the University before he had been there a month, 
 and every pretty girl for miles around although 
 he had seen none who held a light to Lettice 
 Corbin. He attended classes irregularly, and be- 
 came intimate with bar-rooms and other inevitable 
 irregularities of the wee sma' hours. He inveigled 
 his mother into sending him a fine old desk and
 
 70 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 table, in the desk drawer he kept good cheer for 
 his friends, and upon the circular dignity of the 
 mahogany table he and his companions frequently 
 gambled all night. Randolph was feeling his 
 freedom feeding upon the sweets of the honor- 
 system flying triumphantly, like an eaglet, into 
 the ether of " do-as-you-please." 
 
 Now and then he made brilliant, if spasmodic, 
 dashes in his classes, and astonished the faculty 
 with his mental agility. Randolph was plunging 
 everywhere, instead of going plumb in the right 
 direction. 
 
 He made half-back on the 'Varsity team, and 
 one of the proudest moments of his life was the 
 starting for Bolingbroke on November the twenty- 
 eighth to tackle Chapel-Hill on Thanksgiving Day*, 
 the twenty-ninth. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day broke all crimson and gold 
 over the chimney pots of Bolingbroke. The sun, 
 at first a round, red Mars, bespoke a fierce encoun- 
 ter; but later it powdered Benjamin Street with 
 gold, filled the air with hope, and turned the 
 naked branches of the trees into polished steel 
 against the cloudless sky. 
 
 The every-day noises of cart and broom, news- 
 boy and milkman seemed almost impertinent ; but 
 presently Benjamin Street broke into all the poetry 
 of voice and motion, and the merry treble of girl- 
 hood was lost in the basso-prof undo of college
 
 A MAN'S REACH 71 
 
 yells. The air was still and crisp, and in it the joy- 
 ous train fairly danced : while everybody old and 
 young prophesied either for Virginia or Chapel- 
 Hill. The White and Blue of Chapel-Hill flashed 
 gaily in motor-car or afoot; and the Orange and 
 Blue of the University flashed, too, in brave 
 security. 
 
 Then followed a sweeping, lonesome silence 
 why? Bolingbroke is taking its famous Thanks- 
 giving lunch. 
 
 Presently everybody comes out, in waves of 
 dual confidence : tallyhos, decked with Orange and 
 Blue, draw up and move off from stately door- 
 ways in trails of laughter. Tallyhos, decked with 
 White and Blue draw up and move off, too, and 
 their gay loads laugh in even greater security. 
 
 Sound and motion die, tallyhos and carriages 
 are no longer seen the game is on ! At William 
 Byrd Park humanity eager, electrified strains 
 the bleachers and packs the grand-stand. First it 
 beholds the White and Blue with a thousand 
 rooters and cheerful melody. They mean to win ! 
 But when from two busses the Orange and Blue 
 leap, a wild shout fairly shakes the expectant 
 multitude, while " Tow Tow Turberville 
 Turberville " sounds from ten thousand lips as 
 Randolph Turberville, in contagious confidence, 
 smiles upon the field. Megaphones magnify the 
 cries of the cheer-leaders ; brass bands blare, and
 
 72 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 one universal voice seems to yell " Wah who 
 wah ! Vir-gin-ia-a-a-a ! " 
 
 Listen! Carolina pierces Virginia's clamor 
 with: 
 
 I'm a Tar-Heel born, 
 
 I'm a Tar-Heel bred, 
 And when I die, 
 
 I'll be a Tar-Heel dead. 
 
 All blood is tingling, all interest is as tense as 
 a fiddle string. It is the extro-version of Boling- 
 broke's loyalty the manifestation of Carolina's 
 courage and zeal. 
 
 Randolph Turberville had no idea that Lettice 
 was a witness of the game, until the short inter- 
 mission between the halves; then he felt some- 
 thing warm as the play of fire. He looked over 
 the field, and, strangely, caught the consecrated 
 gaze of Lettice Corbin's eyes. The sympathy 
 upon her face was glorious, startling. She waved 
 a baton gay with Orange and Blue a dozen times 
 and then settled herself suddenly to a fixed contem- 
 plation. Her attention was peculiar entirely dis- 
 tinct from the commonplace interest of the big, 
 still multitude. She had plainly disengaged her- 
 self from everything else in heaven above and 
 earth beneath, and wound her will around Vir- 
 ginia's team. 
 
 One could tell quite as easily, by the interplay 
 of her features, how her fear and hope ran as
 
 A MAN'S REACH 78 
 
 one could feel the joy and pain in the melody 
 of a Kubelik or Paderewski ; or see the sunlight 
 and shadow in a Turner landscape. When Vir- 
 ginia scored elation stalked like a flamingo across 
 her heart and sent its gorgeous plumage to her 
 face. Her father beside her, grave and ponderous, 
 was a massive oak frame for her reckless and 
 defiant enjoyment. 
 
 The contesting teams were nearly enough 
 matched to make the game interesting. It was 
 now near its close. Virginia was six to Carolina's 
 nothing; a chance play or rally could create the 
 possibility of tying the score; and Carolina, with 
 the ball, was fighting hard to tie it. 
 
 The multitude lost its breath, then caught it 
 with a shrill inhalation: Virginia was seven 
 Carolina nothing. The enthusiasm of Lettice 
 swept her face with ecstasy which almost blinded 
 Randolph's parents, who greeted her as she was 
 leaving the grand-stand. The girl's hair, slightly 
 blown, crawled in red gladness from her close 
 fur cap: the shell pink of her quiet hours had 
 turned, from wind and feeling, to rich-red discs 
 upon each cheek ; and her long fur coat from neck 
 to heel, threw the clean-cut joy of her face on the 
 crisp, sun-swept day. It was disengaged from 
 physical bondage, and trembled like a star in the 
 soft tones of the closing afternoon.
 
 74 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " What a wonderful girl ! " Chattie said to her 
 husband when the Corbins were gone. 
 
 " Rather queer, but very pretty and a ' sport ' ; 
 I like her," was Randolph's commentary as Lettice 
 and her father drove off behind a splendid pair of 
 bays. " That's the finest team in town it must 
 be good to own it ! " 
 
 As soon as possible young Randolph was at the 
 Murray house which the Corbins had taken for 
 the winter ever since the glad Christmas of the 
 step-ladder episode. The Murray house was a 
 landmark in Bolingbroke, its several Murray mas- 
 ters had been given to generous hospitality; and 
 now that the only surviving child of the late mas- 
 ter had to depend for subsistence on the once cozy 
 home, she was content to retire to a boarding 
 house where Mr. Corbin's generous rental kept 
 her in ease and comfort. 
 
 The Turbervilles and Murrays were close 
 friends and a path would no doubt have been 
 beaten from the little gray house on one side of 
 the Park to the red brick house on the other even 
 if the city had not laid off the broad walk across 
 the park : even if a young gentleman in the gray 
 house had not fancied a young lady in the red 
 house on the other side. 
 
 " How did you come? " was Randolph's trite 
 greeting to Lettice, as she entered the Murray 
 drawing-room.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 75 
 
 "On the ' choo-choo ' train how else?" she 
 smiled. 
 
 " You know what I mean. How did you get 
 off? I thought the rules of Sweet-Briar so hard 
 and fast, that no girl would ever get off for a 
 foot-ball game." 
 
 " For me, Randolph, there is an authority far 
 above Sweet-Briar the word of Mr. Henry 
 Corbin. Papa let me, just for to-day. My reports 
 have pleased him. I just had to; and oh, I'm 
 so glad. Wasn't it great ? " 
 
 " Fine splendid, but I certainly was surprised 
 to see you." Randolph was a delicious blur of 
 confusion. 
 
 "When you played?" Lettice saucily asked. 
 " Did you always expect to win? " 
 
 "I felt pretty sure all the time; but after I 
 got in the game I had a sixth sensation a queer, 
 piercing prick in my determination : I cannot ex- 
 plain it. It was as sharp in my judgment as an 
 arrow in my heart. It was pain and it was bliss 
 you needn't laugh." 
 
 "I'm not laughing, I'm thrilled." The girl 
 drew a little nearer to Randolph. " You want to 
 know what that queer thing was ? It was I ME. 
 True? I willed you should win and you won." 
 
 " Oh, Lettice why don't you will me to all 
 good?" 
 
 " I wish I could," she said slowly and tenderly.
 
 76 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " But wasn't it great? I can never forget the 
 glory of victory we tasted together of it didn't 
 we ? Oh, those splendid shoulders, those delicious, 
 tousled heads if I were a man I'd play to the 
 death. Oh, me, I am nothing but a miserable 
 girl; and it's knitting, crochet, bridge or gossip. 
 No wild tumult for me, but I'll never forget papa 
 it's the very first time in all my life that he let 
 me do something just because I wanted to. God 
 bless him for it! Randolph" suddenly Lettice 
 was very serious " Randolph, I came to see you 
 win, to help you to win; and I came for some- 
 thing else, too." 
 
 "What else, Lettice?" 
 
 " To ask you a question will you answer? " 
 
 "I will." Randolph was serious, too; he felt 
 something unpleasant coming. 
 
 " Do you drink Randolph ? Do you play 
 cards for money? Are you very, very wild? 
 Three questions instead of one." She smiled. 
 
 " Who told you such a lie? " 
 
 " A friend of yours." 
 
 " A friend of mine bah ! " 
 
 " I want you to tell me that you are not so 
 that I may contradict it." Her eyes were very 
 steady as they met his. 
 
 " You must not believe all you hear, Lettice." 
 
 " I don't, but I'll believe you, if you tell me that 
 you are not wild dissipated."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 77 
 
 " Of course I'm not, Lattice it's bosh ! " 
 
 " I'm so glad so very, very glad." She held 
 out her hand to him he took it and there's no 
 telling what he might have said but for a rather 
 stern " Lettice ! Lettice ! " from above. 
 
 " It's papa," she said. " I promised not to keep 
 him waiting. He only let me come for the day, 
 you see; and my train leaves at six-ten. Such a 
 glorious, too-short day ! Never mind ' Christ- 
 mas er comin' soon.' Mama and papa are thinking 
 of giving me a house-party at Laneville then, 
 won't it be fine? " 
 
 " For those who are bidden I 
 
 " You? You know but I'm so glad you told 
 me what you did." 
 
 " Come on, Lettice ! " sounded rather ominous 
 from above. 
 
 " Wait till I come down I " were the last words 
 of the girl as she went up for her wraps: soon 
 she returned with her father and mother. 
 
 She was slender even in furs, and her face hung 
 like a rose against their sombre softness. She 
 was putting on her gloves too deliberately, when 
 her father rather impatiently said : " Hurry up, 
 Lettice." 
 
 Her face puckered for a moment, as does the 
 face of a little child when its nurse says bed-time, 
 but it almost instantly cleared as she told Ran-
 
 78 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 dolph good-bye, and between her parents, went 
 out of the house. 
 
 Randolph returned to the University the next 
 day, but before he went he called on Mrs. Corbin 
 and went to the station with the Corbin boys, 
 one of whom, James Parke, was left-tackle on the 
 'Varsity team. 
 
 Mrs. Corbin was inclined to be confidential, 
 and after a few preliminaries remarked in a nerve- 
 less way: "We are not exactly satisfied about 
 Lettice. She has queer ideas to which we will not 
 submit. Laneville is restraining no mischief 
 there. We are going to have a Christmas house- 
 party for her and our boys, and we are going 
 to be very stern with ourselves about the invita- 
 tions. Lettice is now seventeen; in another year 
 she will be out, and it is very important for her 
 to have just the right friends and only those of 
 her own class." Then with exquisite condescen- 
 sion " You will get an invitation, very soon, 
 Randolph, for Mr. Corbin and I always do things 
 in time. Irregularity of any kind would kill us." 
 
 Randolph regarded this pussy-cat lady criti- 
 cally. Her dress was gray, and her gray little 
 voice was pitched in a pale-gray key ; but her face, 
 without a tell-tale line, did not change throughout 
 her whole recital. If she were pale gray, Mr. 
 Corbin was certainly deep purple ; how could pur- 
 ple and gray have produced the kaleidoscope of
 
 A MAN'S REACH 79 
 
 feeling that was called Lettice ! She was surely a 
 comet from a twilight sky. 
 
 As the young man walked back from the red 
 house through the Park to the gray house to tell 
 his mother good-bye, the swell of foot-ball glory 
 yielded to the sweetest, tenderest sentiments for 
 Lettice Corbin. He had lied to her in the Murray 
 house drawing-room the night before, and he 
 was sorry. But why should he harry her with 
 miserable details when he had made up his mind 
 to turn over a new leaf? The beautiful girl with 
 her courage and gladness had put something won- 
 derful in his soul something too powerful and 
 wonderful ever to permit him again to indulge 
 in any questionable pastime. He, this blessed 
 hour, had turned over a new leaf and he never 
 intended to soil it. He was young, his indiscre- 
 tions were only wild oats, Lettice had delivered 
 him.
 
 VII 
 
 THEIR house-party for the coming Christmas 
 had absorbed the energy of Mr. and Mrs. Henry 
 Corbin ever since Thanksgiving. The list of 
 those to be invited was expurgated day after day ; 
 and now, according to their inviolate opinion, the 
 twenty young ladies and gentlemen finally chosen, 
 were eloquent witnesses to the social sense of 
 their hosts-to-be. 
 
 The task of selection had been a very serious 
 business ; each candidate for the honor had under- 
 gone a crucial genealogical and moral test and 
 now Mr. and Mrs. Corbin sighed with relief, for 
 twenty invitations were addressed, sealed with 
 the Corbin crest and now were sweetening in 
 orris in Mrs. Corbin's desk drawer. The conclud- 
 ing words of each of these orris-scented notes 
 were " All must be at Laneville on Christmas 
 eve to put up the wreaths, fill the stockings and 
 make the egg-nog." 
 
 It was a great honor to be invited to Laneville 
 for its reputation was national to a degree inter- 
 national. Every President of the United States 
 had been entertained there. During the summer 
 season all sorts of tourists begged the privilege 
 of its unusual and mellow charm, but the request 
 was always politely declined. Therefore to be 
 so
 
 A MAN'S REACH 81 
 
 bidden to partake of this feast of a roseate and 
 exclusive past, for a whole week, was a courtesy 
 not to be lightly treated. 
 
 " Henry," Mr. and Mrs. Corbin were toasting 
 their feet before the fire of their bedroom in the 
 Murray house, just before retiring " I am just a 
 little uncertain about Robert Catlett as we have 
 not seen him for so long, and I remember so well 
 what a wet blanket his father was at our wedding." 
 Mrs. Corbin was a woman who had to bother 
 about something, and usually she bothered about 
 the wrong thing. 
 
 " That was because he was so infatuated with 
 Eleanor Cocke that he had no eyes for anybody 
 else. He never was so serious or stupid before. 
 Henry and James Parke," Mr. Corbin referred to 
 his boys, " have excellent taste, and if they want 
 Robert you may be sure he is all right." 
 
 " Maybe so," Mrs. Corbin sighed. 
 
 When the Corbins left Laneville in Middlesex, 
 for the Murray house in Bolingbroke, early in 
 November, they set it in good order for their 
 return at Christmas. Every rug, curtain, screen 
 and blanket was in place, and the stupendous de- 
 tails of kitchen and store-room were skilfully and 
 minutely arranged. Accomplished servants, who 
 still called them " Master " and " Mistiss," had 
 inherited their customs from generation to gen- 
 eration; and during the Corbins' absence had
 
 82 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 ceased not day or night to carry out their min- 
 ute injunctions for drawing-room, dining-room, 
 kitchen and stables. 
 
 Mrs. Corbin moved a little from the fire, her 
 pink flannel dressing gown was about to scorch, 
 and spoke again in a mauve key : " We have under- 
 taken a risky business : six days of trying to make 
 young people happy. I find myself depending 
 upon Randolph Turberville. Don't you think him 
 very unusual, Henry ? " 
 
 " Remarkable ! I never saw a more attractive 
 fellow. I trust he will make up to his mother, 
 what his father has so persistently denied." 
 
 " I just don't believe he can do anything else." 
 After a pause Mrs. Corbin continued rather 
 timidly, " He and Lettice are very fond of each 
 other." 
 
 " Very." This was as much as Mr. Corbin's 
 sense of propriety would allow him to say. 
 
 Lettice in a letter to Randolph poked a lot of 
 innocent fun at her parents' efforts to exhibit her 
 privately. " They are having a sort of fair," she 
 wrote, " not of pincushions and needle-books, but 
 of Virginia traditions for theirs is the kingdom 
 of heaven. Traditions have been known to be 
 stupid, and I am depending upon you to electrify 
 them, when they collect at Laneville." 
 
 Randolph had replied : " Count upon me for 
 anything everything."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 83 
 
 The plan, worked out with such minute pre- 
 cision by the elder Corbins, began with the gath- 
 ering of their guests at the Murray house in 
 Bolingbroke on December the twenty-third; or 
 rather those of their guests who must pass through 
 Bolingbroke in order to get to Laneville. All 
 who were convenient to the Rappahannock River 
 on which Laneville so proudly stood, would come 
 by steamboat to the Laneville wharf. 
 
 To the Corbins it was very meet and proper, for 
 their hospitality and ciceronage to begin hours 
 and hours before the young folk even started for 
 Laneville. Mr. Corbin would not for worlds 
 allow Lettice to travel a moment without a chap- 
 erone, and he had already fetched her from Sweet- 
 Briar to Bolingbroke on the twenty-second. 
 
 Charlotte Turberville had seen much of the 
 Corbins during this autumn and had heard much 
 of their house-party. She knew that those who 
 would go with the Corbins from the Murray house 
 would leave the Southern Station in Bolingbroke 
 at four o'clock on December the twenty-third. 
 She also knew that Lester-Manor, the station at 
 which the party would disembark, was about fif- 
 teen miles distant from Laneville, and that the 
 carriage journey, to and fro, was no trifling 
 undertaking: therefore, it would be very discon- 
 certing for any guest not to appear. Suppose her 
 own son were to disappoint the Corbins horrible !
 
 84 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 As Chattie sat before her twinkling library fire, 
 this twenty-third of December, Randolph's life 
 was like a string of beads that she held in her 
 hand: each bead an episode, a laugh, a cry, a 
 kiss, a frown, a day, a month, a year. 
 
 Randolph did not appear at home all day, and 
 when time came for the Corbin party to start from 
 the red house, Chattie stole into the Park to watch 
 he might be there. 
 
 She saw Mr. and Mrs. Corbin come out of the 
 iron gate, and lead the line of merry youth around 
 the triangular fence to Main Street for the trolley, 
 and she scarcely could restrain the cry : " Please 
 stop and tell me where is Randolph my boy?" 
 
 At half after three o'clock, the next day, Simon 
 conducted a young man to Charlotte Turberville 
 in the library. 
 
 " Randolph? " was her greeting. 
 
 " All right," was the young man's answer, for 
 he was an optimist. " You remember Robert 
 Catlett?" 
 
 "Of course, I never could forget ' Bill-Bob's ' 
 smile." 
 
 Robert Catlett hesitated for a moment, then 
 with his characteristic directness informed Chattie 
 that Randolph had sprained his ankle, and that he 
 had run in to tell her so that she would not be 
 frightened.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 85 
 
 " Randolph is the whole show," he added, " and 
 I don't know what we'll do without him. I wish 
 I were not in such a hurry, but I've only fifteen 
 minutes to catch my train and for two of us to 
 disappoint the Corbins would be dreadful. Good- 
 bye. Randolph's in the hall, he'll tell you the rest." 
 
 Robert Catlett was mistaken: Randolph never 
 told. 
 
 This Christmastide was the first test of Lettice 
 Corbin; and she found that she could suffer and 
 yet seem to be glad. At the first word of Ran- 
 dolph's disaffection Mrs. Corbin simply flopped, 
 but Lettice immediately administered an heroic 
 remedy in the form of irresistible hilarity. 
 
 This house-party had to " go," and her mother 
 had to keep step with her determination nolens 
 volens. The ranks of her being cried: " Surren- 
 der!" but the little plumed captain, the god-in- 
 her, marched boldly at the head of the disheart- 
 ened troop, and it stepped quickly to the music of 
 her strange, strong will. Lettice was crushed by 
 Randolph's absence, for she had counted so trust- 
 fully on him : but she rallied her discomfited 
 forces, dazzled and infatuated her guests, and at 
 the end of that memorable Christmas time nine 
 young men adored her, while nine young women, 
 although fascinated also, called Lettice " a trifle 
 queer."
 
 86 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Around the immense Laneville dinner-table, 
 brought from England in 1710, sat a jolly party 
 of twenty-five a few evenings after Christmas Day. 
 Everybody was in the best humor, and subject 
 after subject was generally and generously dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 Towards the close of the elaborate dinner a 
 duel was fought by Lettice and Steve Harrison 
 with the deep voice of Mr. Corbin remonstrating 
 now and then like the blare of a kettle-drum. 
 
 " No intellectual giants at the University now," 
 was Mr. Corbin's first note. 
 
 " Never were," was Harrison's rejoinder 
 " the Brobdingnags Henry, Marshall, Jefferson 
 all went to William and Mary, and I always 
 thought it mean in Jefferson to ruin his own Alma- 
 Mater with a fine University." 
 
 Mr. Corbin cleared his throat, the sound was 
 always ominous, and Buck Bernard, to save the 
 hour, announced : " Randolph Turberville is the 
 cleverest man at Virginia now." 
 
 " I differ with you." Steve Harrison was em- 
 phatic. " That man is at this table." All eyes 
 turned to Robert Catlett, who was wrestling with 
 a side-bone of the turkey. " Randolph is dippy 
 nutty." 
 
 " And so are you," Lettice spoke sharply. 
 " Randolph at least is also fun : his ideas tag and 
 one has to tag back."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 87 
 
 " Instead of Laneville, he chose " Steve 
 
 was not going to allow himself to be squelched. 
 
 " A sprained ankle." 
 
 " Sprained ankle? " Steve snickered, and most 
 of the table with him. 
 
 "What do you all mean?" 'Lettice was 
 flushed. " Didn't Randolph sprain his ankle, 
 Robert?" 
 
 " He did." Robert Catlett's tone was like a 
 spoonful of powdered alum in a pail of muddy 
 water. 
 
 The kettle-drum once more called to order: 
 " What is the moral tone of Virginia, now ? " 
 
 " Pretty good." Robert Catlett, as has been 
 said before, was an optimist. 
 
 Steve snickered again : " In spite of idlers, f oois 
 and booze-artists." 
 
 " Isn't Charlottesville dry? " The kettle-drum 
 was persistent. 
 
 " Yes, but Bolingbroke is not, or Baltimore. 
 It's barrels now instead of glasses: and indecent 
 bedrooms instead of decent bar-rooms." 
 
 " Steve! " from half a dozen. 
 
 " Turberville " 
 
 " Imported a barrel of ginger-ale last week ? " 
 Catlett's voice fell on the good old name as snow 
 falls on a soiled fleece. 
 
 " Let's change the subject ! " The shrill tensity 
 of Lettice popped like a toy-pistol the table
 
 88 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 jumped. " We girls don't care to hear any more 
 of it." 
 
 " Please care! " The eyes of Catlett met those 
 of Lettice. " You are the very one to care, for 
 if you care, you will cure." 
 
 Again Mr. Corbin was inquisitive : " Most of 
 you live in the Fraternity houses, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Buck lives with Mrs. Nestles." Steve was 
 still sore. A sly smile went around the table like 
 a thistle chain. 
 
 " Yes, Saint Catlett and I know a good thing 
 when we find it Saint is Bill-Bob's pretty 
 brother." Steve flushed a little in spite of his 
 bravado. 
 
 " I thought Mrs. Nestles lived in Bolingbroke." 
 Lettice was puzzled by Catlett's gravity. 
 
 Bill-Bob's voice cool as a lettuce leaf again 
 brought momentary relief : " The old-fashioned 
 boarding houses where ladies like Mrs. Booker 
 and Mrs. Berkeley mother the boys are best." 
 
 " P-s-s-s-s-s-s-h ! " softly hissed Steve Harrison. 
 
 Later in the evening, everybody gathered in the 
 hall, where there was a fiddler and a bowl of 
 e gg n g- Old " Shines " could make the fiddle 
 talk, and " Snow-bird-on-the-ash-bank," " I-got- 
 another-one-chum-chum-a-loo," " Ole-sukey-blue- 
 skin," " 'Possum-up-the-gum-tree," and many an- 
 other wild melody set the young folk into delirious 
 motion. Old " Shines " kept time with his eyelids,
 
 A MAN'S REACH 89 
 
 and called out the figures at the top of his voice. 
 Now and again he broke forth rapturously, into 
 
 'Possum up de gum tree, 
 
 Cooney in de holler, 
 Shake yo' foot an' tu'n aroun'? 
 
 I gie you harf a dollar. 
 
 or 
 
 Ole Sukey Blueskin fell in love wid me, 
 She 'vited me to her house to hab a cup o' tea. 
 An' er what did Sukey git fer supper? 
 Chicken foot, duck foot, apple sass an' butter. 
 
 There is an inspiring, almost elemental merri- 
 ment peculiar to vast halls in old Virginia Manor- 
 houses. It is hasheesh to care, and expresses itself 
 eloquently in sinuous motion and joyful laughter. 
 
 To-night the dance ended with the Virginia 
 Reel, which Mr. and Mrs. Corbin led. Then to 
 the big silver bowl, in which the golden eggnog 
 foamed. Lettice in white with a green ribbon 
 in her hair, flushed and radiant, wanted " Vive 
 1'Amour," and Mrs. Corbin went to the piano to 
 play the accompaniment. At first, as is generally 
 the case, there was a momentary shyness, but pres- 
 ently Steve Harrison, who had not quite forgiven 
 Lettice, raised his glass and began: 
 
 Some time, some people get a wee bit pettish, 
 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 But here's my forgiveness to pretty Miss Lettice, 
 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 With a glad rush came the chorus 
 Vive 1'amour, vive 1'amour, vive la compagnie.
 
 90 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Lettice now quickly filled her glass, 
 
 Come fill up your glasses, but not with the best ; 
 
 Vive la compagnie 
 
 And drink to the health of our news-boy guest, 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 Vive 1'amour, vive 1'amour, vive la compagnie. 
 
 Maria Bland gaily took up the strain : 
 
 Come fill up your glasses, to an odious comparison, 
 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 The dear-little, sweet-little, critical Harrison, 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 Vive 1'amour, vive 1'amour, vive la compagnie ! 
 
 Lettice was an adorable care-free siren, as she 
 sang again: 
 
 Come fill up your glasses, and here is good luck, 
 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 To good-hearted, good-natured, merry young Buck, 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 Vive 1'amour, vive 1'amour, vive la compagnie ! 
 
 And Buck Bernard, not to be outdone, replied 
 lustily : 
 
 Come fill up your glasses (has any one caught her?), 
 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 And drink to the health of the Corbins' fair daughter, 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 Vive 1'amour, vive 1'amour, vive la compagnie ! 
 
 The spirit of fun and foolishness was con- 
 tagious; every boy and girl, and even Mr. and 
 Mrs. Corbin, made toast after toast: a kindly 
 sally fell on every name, and when ideas got scarce
 
 A MAN'S REACH 91 
 
 and laughter began to lower, Lettice struck a 
 softer key: 
 
 Come fill up your glasses a lovely job, 
 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 And drink to the health of brave Bill-Bob, 
 Vive la compagnie. 
 
 Vive 1'amour, vive 1'amour, vive la compagnie ! 
 
 Steve nudged Buck and whispered : " Poor 
 Randolph!" while a spurt of unchecked feeling 
 crimsoned Robert Catlett's face; he was caught 
 off guard. 
 
 Lettice noticed the telltale glow, and turned 
 her face away it hurt her. 
 
 They went their several ways at twelve o'clock : 
 Lettice in her pretty room sat by the fire motion- 
 less, sad. She was the evening star burnt out. 
 She was puzzled, wretched, aching with a queer, 
 tingling smart. Something was the matter with 
 poor Randolph; something awful, she reckoned: 
 yet she couldn't permit a lot of miserable gossip 
 at her father's dinner table to go unrebuked. 
 Little tattling pests she was going to teach every 
 mother's son of them a lesson : she'd break their 
 hearts as if they were china cups, and then throw 
 every piece away. 
 
 Through the days that followed there was in- 
 deed devotion and then agony among the men, as 
 Lettice with a bleeding heart bewitched them.
 
 VIII 
 
 THE college career of Randolph Turberville 
 was not peculiar, as there were scores of young 
 men who led lives of even more reckless indul- 
 gence than did he. In the eyes of his fellows his 
 mental and physical gifts made his frailties par- 
 donable, yet within himself he knew that in the 
 midst of his excesses there would come tormenting 
 memories of Lettice, only to be relieved by reach- 
 ing for another glass. 
 
 It was during his last year at college that Let- 
 tice, at twilight, often made a ball of her slender- 
 ness in the corner of his mother's library sofa, and 
 yielded to the confidences of trustful intimacy. 
 The older woman's sense of duty constrained her 
 one evening to tell the girl impersonally what 
 havoc love could do. 
 
 " I understand, I understand." Lettice un- 
 wound herself from the sofa, stood up, drew a 
 long breath and clasped her hands behind her. 
 " But if one has it, one has it and that's the end. 
 ' Thou shalt not kill.' Love lives, breathes, feels, 
 grows : if one kills love, one is a murderer." The 
 girl's wild spirit disengaged itself from her slen- 
 der self and entered the Holy of Holies of 
 Chattie's soul. 
 
 92
 
 A MAN'S REACH 98 
 
 " Of course love hurts," Lattice went on, " but 
 if it is mine I must take it. A hunchback child 
 hurts; a blind son hurts; but how can a mother 
 throw them away ? No. Love lives, breathes, and 
 if it ever comes to me, Mrs. Turberville, it is mine 
 forever and forever. Bless your dear soul! I 
 understand, it was mighty hard for you to speak, 
 but you spoke. That is all right." 
 
 As Lettice was leaving that day she saw a new 
 book on psychology lying on the table : " I am 
 just crazy about this," she tapped the book affec- 
 tionately. " I feel something strange and sting- 
 ing here," touching her bosom. " I want to use 
 it for those who haven't got it I want to help, 
 heal, cure." Then suddenly added : " Did you 
 know that papa was going to take me to * Vir- 
 ginia ' for finals? " 
 
 Charlotte Turberville smiled her sympathy in 
 the girl's pleasure. 
 
 And in June Lettice did go to the University 
 to see Randolph graduate. Her father's class had 
 a reunion and Mr. Corbin took her up; while Mrs. 
 Corbin stopped in Bolingbroke to purchase fruit 
 jars, pickling spices and other domestic odds and 
 ends. When they arrived at the University, Mr. 
 Corbin went to his dear Mrs. Berkeley's, and Let- 
 tice was put under the soft wing of Charlotte 
 Turberville at the new Alpha-Omega Frat house. 
 June was at her best, and under her rose-wreathed
 
 94 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 dominion the charm of the University was deli- 
 ciously enhanced. 
 
 No Turberville had ever failed to make his 
 ticket, not even Randolph's father: so Randolph 
 was only doing what his forefathers had done, 
 except in the last tremendous vault over the heads 
 of his fellow students. This gave him keen elation 
 and fresh confidence in himself. He was going to 
 forget all his crooked ways, and walk hencefor- 
 ward and forever in the straight and narrow path 
 that leads to life everlasting. The appearance of 
 Lettice, in her radiant assurance, tuned all dis- 
 cordant keys; and youth, life and love rejoiced 
 exceedingly. 
 
 Everybody watched these lovers, for lovers 
 they were, even to the naked eye. The rare dis- 
 tinction of the girl recalled the vital energy of 
 her forefathers; and her vibrant beauty, her 
 strange audacity, her perfect poise entranced 
 young men, and recalled to soberer folk the belles 
 of the old White Sulphur and Fortress Monroe, 
 who had come from their fathers' plantations in 
 their fathers' carriages with maids and band- 
 boxes. 
 
 The love-making of this daughter of tide- 
 water and this son of the city of seven-hills went 
 well with the verdure and stately beauty of 
 Thomas Jefferson's classic buildings. Under the 
 trees Lettice, a piece of trembling gladness, rather
 
 A MAN'S REACH 95 
 
 stilled than troubled Randolph's mad pulses ; and 
 the aureole of her pretty head, softened by the 
 shadow-leaves, envisioned the gold of her inner 
 self which he saw almost as plainly. 
 
 Lettice was not always with Randolph; she 
 danced with everybody, challenged the attention 
 of old and young; and her smiles, like swallows, 
 skimmed hither, yonder, everywhere. She was 
 thrilled with Randolph's valedictory speech; 
 something within her burst its bonds, soared be- 
 yond her will, and drew her senses to a point of 
 acute and exquisite delirium. At the close, from 
 where she sat, she saw the crowd crown his efforts 
 with hand-clasps and heartening words ; and when 
 she was leaving the hall with him they came face 
 to face with Bill-Bob Catlett. 
 
 " Fine, Ran, fine ! " was his greeting. " When 
 I get into trouble I'll send for you to help me out." 
 
 " All right, Bill-Bob, I can promise to do so 
 with impunity, for you will never get into trouble: 
 but if ever you do I'm your man." 
 
 When Catlett had passed, Randolph turned to 
 Lettice very seriously : " He is the finest fellow 
 in the world; no mollycoddle either. Often and 
 often he has tried to save me, and quite as often I 
 have requested him to mind his own business and 
 showed him the door of my room. His fidelity 
 is beautiful our families are very intimate, you 
 know. It hurts you, Lettice, to think that I could
 
 96 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 ever be rude to Bill-Bob Catlett, and I am sorry I 
 ever was, and I certainly shall never be so again." 
 
 Finals were over, Randolph was a B.L. and an 
 M.A., and the supreme moment was at hand. 
 Never in the years of their rich acquaintance had 
 Randolph told Lettice he loved her, but in action 
 he had declared and redeclared his passion. Their 
 young courtship was one of suppressed sentiment. 
 The deed of their devotion was graven in letters 
 of fire upon each heart, but it lacked their bold, 
 full signatures. 
 
 The same thing hindered Randolph that had 
 induced him to return the consecrated bread to the 
 rector of the Holy Comforter: his ideal of the 
 man worthy to partake of that sacred feast was 
 not himself; his ideal of the man fit to pluck the 
 white rose of Lettice Corbin's heart was not he. 
 His aspiration was really high, and when attain- 
 ment receded he ached spiritually and turned to 
 artificial comfort. 
 
 His life at college had been lurid, tempestuous; 
 but Lettice had never hectored or badgered him 
 over it : her warning had been gentle as the even- 
 ing breeze that fans a fevered brow. Her spirit, 
 Randolph believed, had shrivelled at bad news as 
 a flower cut from its life-giving stem wilts in a 
 cruel sun. 
 
 Finals were over ! Lettice was soon off to Lane- 
 ville; Randolph would go the round of country
 
 A MAN'S REACH 97 
 
 houses; he was a popular fellow. They had but 
 one more evening together. For hours they had 
 been dancing joyously suddenly the dance wear- 
 ied them, they wanted each other and the pale, 
 wan night. There was a moon, but pile on pile 
 of cloud obscured it. 
 
 They stole from the great ball-room, sense and 
 soul quivering. As they stepped down the long, 
 wide stairway to the lawn he touched her arm : it 
 was cool, soft as an Easter lily ; it made her young 
 purity as real as the marble over which they trod. 
 It put a prayer on his lips : 
 
 " God help me ! God help me to be good ! " 
 
 Lettice wore the gauzy dress with the silver 
 butterflies, and in her hair was another silver 
 butterfly fluttering with little white stones. For 
 a while they wandered over the historic turf, 
 wordless; up and down, up and down a dozen 
 times ; like little children they held a rosy apple in 
 their hands too good to eat. When, at last, they 
 sat down upon an iron bench that stood under a 
 low-spreading elm, Lettice began : 
 
 " I am so sorry it is almost over." 
 
 "Over?" Randolph was emphatic. "Just 
 begun." 
 
 " Aren't you crazy to begin to work? " after a 
 long pause. 
 
 " I ought to be. Of course I am." 
 
 7
 
 98 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " You must not let a blade of grass grow under 
 your legal feet, Randolph. Are you sure that 
 Bolingbroke is the best place? " 
 
 " Yes, I reckon so. I have thought of Okla- 
 homa and Texas, but oh, me, they are so far away 
 from you and mother; besides, the Turbervilles 
 have a season ticket to the Bolingbroke bar." 
 
 " Sometimes a man tries harder when he is far, 
 far away from home, and " 
 
 " Will you go far away with me? " Randolph 
 interrupted. 
 
 " No." Lettice answered saucily as she tapped 
 Randolph's arm with her fan. 
 
 " Well, then? " Another long silence. 
 
 Passion like a cataract was sweeping boldly 
 over a dam of moss: above its roar sounded a 
 clear, imperative whisper: 
 
 " Lettice ! Lettice ! " No more. 
 
 " Randolph." Breathed rather than whispered. 
 
 " You know, don't you ? " 
 
 " A little bit." 
 
 " You never could know all, Lettice, because 
 there are not words enough in every tongue. But 
 I love you wildly, madly, dearly, so dearly. Let- 
 tice, sweetheart, blessed little sweetheart, will you 
 be my wife? " 
 
 She could not speak. Her silence was emotion 
 crystallized.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 99 
 
 " Do you love me Lettice ? " 
 " Y-e-e-s." Where was the color of the rose- 
 flame? 
 
 "Will you be my wife?" 
 
 Again she could not speak. 
 
 A strong arm fell around her slender waist; 
 her soft hand removed it. 
 
 "If you love me darling, why don't you 
 speak? " 
 
 " I am afraid." 
 
 "Of me, Lettice?" 
 
 Randolph fairly felt the tremble of her lips; 
 the surge of her senses: both the man and the 
 woman were bent, tossed, alive to the great 
 mystery. 
 
 "Lettice?" 
 
 " Randolph." 
 
 "Afraid of me?" 
 
 " Are you good, Randolph ? " 
 
 " Who is good, darling? " 
 
 " Are you good as you can be ? " 
 
 " I have been far from good, Lettice. You 
 know." Very humbly. " But only try me, try 
 me see how good I'll be ! " 
 
 There was another eloquent, teasing silence. 
 
 " Don't you love me enough, Lettice, to be 
 my wife? " His strong arm once more encircled 
 her waist. "Lettice. Sweetheart. Wife?"
 
 100 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 The girl caught her breath and raised her face 
 to the clustering elm leaves. There was not enough 
 prudence in the universe to restrain them. They 
 were one! 
 
 The night brightened " the world received at 
 once the full fruition of the moon's consummate 
 apparition." 
 
 They had few words of their own. Great 
 thoughts, absorbed long before, fell from their 
 lips like snatches of hymns and Bible texts fre- 
 quently fall from the lips of those on the edge of 
 Paradise. 
 
 " Christ rises," Randolph whispered. " Mercy 
 everywhere ! Lettice, sweetheart, don't be afraid 
 I'm going to slay every demon in my path." 
 
 " Like a man, Randolph, like a man? " 
 
 Love's ways ? So wonderful, so tender, so pas- 
 sionately pure. Still as the genius of Praxiteles, 
 upon the iron bench they sat invaded, sweetened, 
 conquered by the precious carelessness of love 
 till the lights in the ball-room went out : then they 
 had to return. 
 
 At the door of the Alpha Omega Frat house, 
 where Mrs. Turberville awaited them, they 
 stopped. 
 
 Lettice was very grave as they finally said good- 
 night. 
 
 " It is done, Randolph, for good and all. No
 
 A MAN'S REACH 101 
 
 matter what we are, what we do we cannot escape 
 while I am I, and you are you." 
 
 To the ears of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Corbin 
 floated rumor of the deplorable inclinations of 
 Randolph Turberville, and their conscientious' 
 minds were divided as to the best course to pur- 
 sue : whether to bind Lettice to the safe seclusion 
 of Laneville, or to expose her to the constant 
 temptation of Turberville's attraction and allow 
 this young gentleman to run the gauntlet with 
 others whose greater worthiness Lettice must at 
 last perceive. 
 
 About mid-summer a chance decision of their 
 daughter settled the question. A distant cousin 
 who owned a cottage at Newport invited Lettice 
 for a visit of two weeks: and at the same time 
 another kinswoman asked her to spend the same 
 two weeks at Virginia Beach. Lettice insisted 
 upon accepting the latter invitation, notwithstand- 
 ing the superior advantages of the former. The 
 straw that deflected her usually good taste, the 
 elder Corbins suspected, was Randolph Turber- 
 ville: if he could make up the odds against Vir- 
 ginia Beach and Newport, Rhode-Island he was 
 indeed dangerous. Mr. Henry Corbin, therefore, 
 did not lease the Murray house in Bolingbroke for 
 the winter months after Randolph Turberville 
 graduated from the University. If this young
 
 102 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 man had been blessed with the immediate influence 
 of Mr. Corbin's daughter, perhaps he might have 
 been able to resist the allurements incident to his 
 young manhood. The superlative emotion of the 
 early winter was his passion for Lettice, and his 
 dream of a home with her quickened his energies. 
 Yet at the same time, he felt a strange timidity at 
 the very thought of her. Her transcendent loyalty 
 and purity awed him: she was snow upon the 
 dizzy heights of his soul-hills : deep down in the 
 valleys of his being were dank, soggy places where 
 the reflection of the dazzling snow did not strike. 
 
 His office taken and well furnished by an ador- 
 ing and ambitious mother, he began voraciously 
 to read, to think, to write. His mind was a 
 tempest of intention; and yet every moment of 
 his life he had the sensation of being chased by 
 a rabid beast. He had to do and do, go and go, 
 to escape it. He attended the various courts to 
 listen and learn; he studied great law cases; he 
 considered social questions; he felt his pulses 
 springing toward God. He wrote to Lettice 
 Corbin daily, at first; he beheld life as opportu- 
 nity full and glorious; and yet he could not 
 escape the deadly fangs of the beast. 
 
 These various interests, emotions, activities, 
 made a continual whirligig in Randolph's soul. 
 He needed tonic, bracing; and he loitered till the 
 beast caught up and poisoned his intentions with
 
 A MAN'S REACH 103 
 
 the red juice of his great jaws. There were dis- 
 ciples of the beast in Bolingbroke as well as at the 
 University and they were waiting for Randolph 
 with a glass and " Here's to you ! " 
 
 The suggestion became at length too strong for 
 Randolph's will, too seductive for his badly trained 
 forces, and the " lidless eye of the hard world 
 saw him fall." 
 
 Every afternoon he would call at his club, the 
 Old Dominion, where the good- fellows gathered ; 
 Steve Harrison would invite a dozen or so to 
 " have something " ; Billy West could not let 
 Steve get ahead of him; then Brown must treat, 
 and Robinson, and Page and Turberville. Then 
 they all did it all over again, and went home only 
 when they could stay no longer. Up yonder above 
 the fumes was the warning loveliness of Lettice, 
 and Randolph had to take " another " to ease the 
 disturbance caused by her phantom presence. 
 
 Before the young man knew it, business, litera- 
 ture, journalism ( for Randolph had prepared sev- 
 eral articles on vital questions which had created 
 considerable comment), home life, social life, 
 Lettice, love, had yielded to an implacable and sin- 
 ister authority. Inch by inch he descended into 
 the bottomless pit of unrestrained appetite. How- 
 ever he never was a brothel drunkard, a low 
 gambler, a profane libertine. His " bouts " were 
 confined to the secret chambers of the Old Domin-
 
 104 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 ion, the secluded apartments of his boon compan- 
 ions, or his own office fitted so beautifully for the 
 student and the lawyer, but degraded to a retreat 
 for questionable hilarity. 
 
 Randolph was always going to stop. He was 
 always perfectly able to stop, whenever he felt 
 like it. This is the drunkard's battle-cry. The 
 terrible monster, that grips him with a thousand 
 teeth, is but a docile playmate, who will desist the 
 moment he is sternly ordered to do so. 
 
 The existence of young Turberville was a sud- 
 den elevation, a fearful and quick depression. 
 The chorus of his efforts and his temptations 
 clanged through the cells of his being, now pealing 
 the strophe of repentance, now the anti-strophe 
 of license and sin. Still, although bound with the 
 cords of a suggestion, he longed for a manhood 
 that could protect Lettice Corbin; a sonship that 
 could fold the cares of a glorious mother and put 
 them aside forever. His higher sensations trem- 
 bled beyond the slimy pools of his daily acts. 
 
 Weariness, stimulation, false ecstasy, prostra- 
 tion, more stimulation, exhilaration, a tumble, a 
 floundering in the mud-holes, then more alcohol 
 to soothe the broken tissues of bruised resolutions. 
 
 Husband and son went the same cloudy way; 
 but like parallel lines they never met. 
 
 More than the pleading of Chattie and the 
 warning of his real friends did the sight of his
 
 A MAN'S REACH 105 
 
 father make Randolph realize the danger of the 
 road on which he trod. Randolph so well re- 
 membered a confident, merry, delightful father, 
 who, in his boy-eyes held the world in a sling. 
 The sight of him now showed the hectic flush 
 which told that consumption was in his blood. 
 
 The older Randolph no longer conveyed the 
 slightest illusion: he was an undisputable fact. 
 He, who was so dapper, so correct in dress and 
 deportment, required Chattie's constant vigilance 
 to be either neat or polite. Her son watched her 
 solicitude with admiration and awe of what re- 
 markable stuff was she made ? She yielded to his 
 father a strange, gruesome deference which em- 
 phasized her scarred heart, her almost divine pity. 
 Randolph was staggered by his mother's courage : 
 well-dressed, calm, proud, gentle, she went un- 
 murmuring her lonely way. Randolph, the father, 
 was shaky from debauches, he ate not enough for 
 a child, slept only when sodden with wine or 
 opiates, and when with his family seldom emerged 
 from a ghastly silence. His fortune had gone 
 long ago and his maintenance was entirely from 
 Chattie's bounty. And she gave her all, heart and 
 purse so royally so kindly. 
 
 Randolph, her husband, must always be neat, 
 shaven, new: nothing old or shabby would she 
 for a moment allow. He was still herself. Once 
 in a while, however, after days and nights away,
 
 106 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 her son would shudder at the truth shabbiness, 
 slovenliness, decay : then the gray in the too-long 
 beard was like snow upon some old stubblefield. 
 His father himself doom natural and inevi- 
 table consequence. 
 
 Randolph had not been to Laneville: he had 
 spent several weeks with the Corbins at the White- 
 Sulphur the past summer, but later in the year 
 Mr. Corbin had been told certain things by James 
 Parke and Henry which made him forbid Lettice 
 to hold any communication with Randolph Tur- 
 berville. At first Lettice rebelled terribly, and 
 refused to believe the false gossip till she asked 
 Charlotte, and Charlotte answered. Then she 
 wrote the letter. 
 
 Randolph was not surprised : he knew it had to 
 come, yet he trembled at its tremendous signifi- 
 cance, its heroic calm. 
 
 DEAR RANDOLPH: 
 
 I should prefer to let things drift; but neither my self- 
 respect nor papa will permit me to do so. You fooled me, 
 and I have tried to help you, to keep you from fooling me 
 again. I don't think I have said anything very clearly, 
 but we had the faculty of thinking together, didn't we? 
 Well, it is as if we had never spoken, never thought, never 
 felt. It is all over. 
 
 It is hardest on me: our world will say "Randolph 
 Turberville didn't play fair with Lettice Corbin." I prefer 
 this. I would hate for the world to say that I didn't play 
 fair with you. I would much prefer to be wounded by you, 
 than to wound you. 
 
 What you and I thought by the fire, on the street, at
 
 A MAN'S REACH 107 
 
 the University, is very sacred to me; holy as memorial 
 flowers on a pure white altar. I could never mock it. Ah, 
 well, good-bye, comrade, fellow-thinker, seer of the blazes 
 until when? Ever? Never? 
 
 Good-bye, LETTICE. 
 
 LANEVILLE, January 3ist. 
 
 Randolph wrote many answers to this letter; 
 but he never sent one. 
 
 It was late in the following March that Ran- 
 dolph met Lettice in the Capitol Square, near the 
 State Library. The sight of her staggered him. 
 She evinced no feeling, whatever, beyond a gentle 
 cordiality. She had even in this little time since 
 he saw her, grown away beyond the Lettice that 
 Randolph knew. She offered a noble, strange 
 kindness; her high voice had dropped to a soft 
 fulness ; her manner was almost parental, and her 
 face no longer a flame but a steady, roseate glow. 
 No broken heart about her rather an infrangible 
 spirit that was able to mend anything. 
 
 She carried a black book in her hand. Randolph 
 referred to it. 
 
 " It is the * Virginia Magazine of History and 
 Biography/ for July, 1900; I am taking it back 
 to get another," she explained. " I am studying 
 Genealogy; I am trying to find out exactly what 
 you and I come from." 
 
 " Do you care what I come from, Lettice? " 
 
 " Yes, I do." She answered very slowly. 
 " What one is depends in great measure upon
 
 108 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 what one was. I care very much about what you 
 were a hundred years ago, what you are now, and 
 what you are going to be." 
 
 Randolph, bewildered by her gravity and self- 
 possession, did not say a word ; and Lettice added 
 in a cheerier mood : " I am here for a little shop- 
 ping before sailing. Papa, mama and I are going 
 to Germany for a year : poor papa has something 
 that may be serious, and he is sent to Germany 
 for the ' waters.' ' 
 
 Their talk was brief, and as Randolph went 
 down Bank Street, swept with a sickening regret, 
 he remembered that she had not asked him to come 
 to see her; indeed she had not mentioned where 
 she was or who was with her. 
 
 No matter who was with her, even if a dozen 
 fathers and mothers, he was going to find her, 
 fall on his knees before her, confess his crimson 
 sins, and swear to her and high Heaven that he 
 would never fail her again. He could stop for- 
 ever for her : he only needed the sight of her to 
 make him forsake the evil, and cling to the good. 
 
 But a hurricane raged in the young man's soul, 
 and only one thing could still it. His senses clam- 
 ored for a comforter that was not Lettice Corbin. 
 For the next day or two, he hid in one of those 
 mysterious places into which those who " look 
 upon the wine " may retire ; to the despair of those 
 that love them and await them at home.
 
 IX 
 
 " IT is very nice to find our daughter a philoso- 
 pher, Isabella! When I rendered my verdict 
 against Randolph Turberville, I looked for a tem- 
 pest that would rend our house asunder. Instead 
 Lettice is more reasonable, more remarkable than 
 she ever was : it shows that if one does one's duty 
 ail will be well." Mr. and Mrs. Corbin, on the 
 river porch, were watching Lettice and Bill-Bob 
 Catlett strolling slowly up the rose walk. 
 
 Bill-Bob Catlett had gone to the Theological 
 Seminary from the University and had taken Holy 
 Orders the previous June. His father's lack of 
 finances had cut his University career short, and 
 he was only there one year with Randolph Tur- 
 berville : he was a visitor at the time of Randolph's 
 graduation. As the friends of Bill-Bob scanned 
 the upward climb of his years, they could discern 
 nothing but ceaseless effort crowned with peaceful 
 satisfaction. No apprehension or uneasiness for 
 Robert Catlett ! He was the comfortable sort. 
 
 This young man and Lettice, strolling along, 
 did not seem especially to impress Mrs. Corbin. 
 Rather did she think of the miscreant Randolph. 
 " Oh, it was dreadful, very dreadful, Henry: I can 
 hardly believe, yet, that Randolph Turberville 
 
 109
 
 110 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 that beautiful, charming creature ever did ter- 
 rible things. I've often wondered if Jimmie and 
 Henry were not over jealous for their sister. ..." 
 Mrs. Corbin's expression was distinctly regretful 
 as she saw Bill-Bob and Lettice coming nearer 
 and nearer. 
 
 " Tut, tut, Isabella ! Nonsense ! Facts are 
 facts; and it may not be long before you'll see 
 that there is no such thing as a broken heart." 
 Mr. Corbin's grave countenance relaxed into pro- 
 phetic satisfaction. 
 
 " Well, all I have to say " Mrs. Corbin could 
 go no further the young people were at the door. 
 
 Upon the face of Lettice Corbin was undiluted 
 astonishment: if the quiet serenity of Laneville 
 had suddenly changed to the wild clamor of Wall 
 Street no greater surprise could have pinched her 
 features; while Catlett's firm step and steady eye 
 betokened a will to accept a painful circumstance. 
 
 " Come in, Mr. Catlett." Mr. Corbin pushed a 
 chair toward Bill-Bob. " Twenty- four hours are 
 not enough for Laneville; why do you make your 
 visit so short? " 
 
 " I won't get home, you see, before Friday after- 
 noon and Saturday is always busy." Bill-Bob's 
 hands grasping the arms of the old porch chair 
 expressed coercion, control ; " but I'm glad of even 
 a day at Laneville. It it "
 
 A MAN'S REACH 111 
 
 " Is too little pleasure for the trouble," Lettice 
 broke in. 
 
 "Pleasure?" Catlett's low question only 
 reached the ear of Lettice who had dropped into 
 a chair beside him. 
 
 " You are looking thin, Mr. Catlett : a week of 
 the ' salt ' would give you a half-dozen pounds, 
 and you need them. You know we are sailing on 
 Saturday a week, and you will not be likely to 
 find us here for a long time : ' a bird in the hand,' 
 you know. I am afraid you are working too 
 hard." Mr. Corbin was neither felicitous or face- 
 tious to people he did not like. 
 
 " Work never hurts, Mr. Corbin, and really I 
 am very well. I tramp a lot up and down hill; 
 my parish, you know, covers twelve miles of moun- 
 tain country. I love my work; it is like rubbing 
 a kettle that is covered with the ' black ' of years. 
 
 " When the metal begins to shine, I feel like I 
 am doing something sure enough. I can't stop 
 rubbing for long and I must go back." The 
 steadfast gleam of the young man's eye, as he 
 spoke reminded Lettice of a beacon light in a 
 battered tower: the rest of Bill-Bob's face was 
 troubled in spite of himself. 
 
 "Do you live alone, Mr. Catlett?" Mrs. 
 Corbin was always keen for domestic details; 
 mountains and soul-saving did not especially 
 appeal to her.
 
 112 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " I have been living alone," Bill-Bob took out 
 his watch and then looked toward the stables, 
 " but my only brother, Saint George, is with me 
 now. He is not very robust, and we like to keep 
 him in the country as much as possible; but he 
 hankers for the excitements of the city. I have 
 him now and I am going to try to keep him in- 
 definitely. My father has a good farm near Char- 
 lotteville, and it seems a pity that neither of his 
 sons chose his profession, which he quite set his 
 heart upon." 
 
 " What is your brother's profession ? " Mrs. 
 Corbin asked. 
 
 Catlett smiled. " Saint is a near-writer, Mrs. 
 Corbin, a most unfortunate occupation. When 
 one is a near-writer, one is even more tenacious 
 than if one were a real writer." 
 
 " But if one is a near-writer, is there not always 
 a chance of one becoming a real writer? Isn't it 
 like every other near thing? " Lettice was inter- 
 ested in Saint. 
 
 " I don't think it is it is a genus all by itself. 
 Saint is a lovely nature." A peculiar softness 
 diffused itself over Catlett's face. " You never 
 met him ? " turning to Lettice. 
 
 "Never," the tone of Lettice was regretful; 
 " but every time I hear his name, I want to see 
 him worse than ever. Is he susceptible, romantic, 
 easily impressed? "
 
 A MAN'S REACH 113 
 
 " I am afraid he is. Isn't that our ' trap ' ? " 
 Bill-Bob arose as a nervous little sorrel to a run- 
 about drew up to the door. " I am mighty sorry 
 to say good-bye." He shook hands with Mr. and 
 Mrs. Corbin, jumped in the run-about with Lettice, 
 and they drove off to the post-office, where Catlett 
 would join the mail-carrier and continue on to 
 Lester Manor, the station on the Southern Rail- 
 road where the train passed for Bolingbroke and 
 Albemarle. 
 
 Her parents called Lettice a philosopher, but 
 to their harnessed minds the sort of philosopher 
 that Lettice really was could never appear. 
 Lettice was on a quest; the kind of a quest that a 
 child of Laneville had never before dared to 
 make. 
 
 When she was forced to send the letter to the 
 man she loved, her heart would have withered 
 but for this consolation, " I'll cure him yet." 
 
 A multitude of ideas had telescoped into one 
 burning command from the lips of her God : '* Go 
 thou and find what is the obsession of drunken- 
 ness; and when thou hast found out, bring the 
 answer to ME ! " 
 
 So Lettice had begun her quest. She sat at the 
 feet of science as far as she could in a secluded 
 country place. She studied Randolph's genealogy. 
 It touched hers in a dozen ways, although they 
 were not nearer than sixth cousins ; but their ances-
 
 114 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 tors were Burwells, Carters, Robinsons, Pages, 
 Nelsons, Digges. Her father's library was her 
 first laboratory. Of course the written word is 
 no end of a snob, and Lettice had to read between 
 the lines ; but, as we all know, neither history nor 
 genealogy are worth anything without a vivid 
 imagination. 
 
 Lettice watched the pageant closely as the brave 
 adventurers came from England, to project a fas- 
 cinating civilization, exemplified at Laneville even 
 until to-day. The master was king ; he rode under 
 God's sky as if it were his own, and a day's march 
 would not cover his principality. He builded, 
 planted, gathered, made merry or serious as he 
 wished. 
 
 Such a life made for clear political ideas, cour- 
 age, hospitality unequalled, a personal freedom 
 both picturesque and dangerous. The Virginia 
 planter, dashing, fearless, compelling, romantic! 
 Was the license of his appetite a menace to his 
 race? 
 
 Lettice, the philosopher, in the dark days be- 
 tween the letter and her sailing, spent much time 
 in her father's library when her father was out 
 on the farm. She went through not only books, 
 but manuscripts, diaries, account books, files and 
 files of Virginia Gazettes. Randolph Turberville 
 certainly had pride of birth. The voice of his 
 people thundered in colonial council, revolutionary
 
 A MAN'S REACH 115 
 
 recklessness, in the pulpit, in the press, through 
 the poetry of plantation life. 
 
 Beneath the fanfare was every bit clean? Of 
 course not, it never is. These old planters drank 
 a lot of alcoholic beverages, witness the advertise- 
 ments of their importations in the Virginia 
 Gazettes! See how their vessels skim seaward and 
 bring back rum and Madeira, butts and butts of 
 it ! And there their portraits hung at Laneville 
 these lavish importers. 
 
 Holding her conclusions jealously, Lettice fresh 
 from the page would walk around and study the 
 faces of the common ancestors of Randolph and 
 herself. 
 
 King Carter! Did he like Madeira? His full 
 lips might still be smacking from his last glass. 
 John Robinson a trifle bibulous? Very, very 
 grand in scarlet velvet and powder ! Lettice could 
 almost hear his grandiloquent words, that memo- 
 rable day when George Washington had just 
 stumbled through a report in the House of Bur- 
 gesses : " Sit down, Mr. Washington, your mod- 
 esty is only equalled by your valor ! " Fine gen- 
 tleman was Mr. Speaker but did he not love 
 wine ? Looks so. 
 
 How about John Chiswell with his clear-cut, 
 patrician face ? Lettice had the dots on him, just 
 found them in the Virginia Gazette. In a fit of 
 intoxication, cruelly chronicled, Mr. Chiswell had
 
 116 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 drawn his sword and pierced Mr. Bouthwell in 
 the vitals ; because Mr. Bouthwell, a common fel- 
 low, had accosted Mr. Chiswell with familiarity. 
 
 Yes, the life that produced courage, intellect, 
 judgment, would also produce a dangerous per- 
 sonal freedom. What did anybody have to do 
 with the private life of a Virginia gentleman? If 
 he chanced to imbibe more than was absolutely 
 expedient, he could retire to the discreet attention 
 of his loyal body-servant: time, family life, yea, 
 even public service, could easily await his con- 
 venience. 
 
 So far as Lettice could discover, the immediate 
 ancestors of Randolph, with the exception of his 
 own father, were punctiliously sober. But hered- 
 ity oozes slowly, and the characteristics, away be- 
 hind, sometimes catch up and dominate those 
 excellent qualities of the next-of-kin. 
 
 There was plenty behind Randolph, Lettice dis- 
 covered, to justify and account for a tendency 
 much more alarming and dangerous than such a 
 tendency would have been in the fresh, free life 
 of long ago. 
 
 Some tiny cell in Randolph's remarkable brain 
 had come down to him from the ages, ready for 
 a suggestion, a desire. His symptoms had been 
 treated cruelly, unwisely. 
 
 The disease, diagnosed lightly, had developed 
 steadily until the fever raged and burned. Poor
 
 A MAN'S REACH 117 
 
 Randolph was a sick man, and yet he was called 
 wicked, bad, terrible. 
 
 Day by day Lettice heard the call, saw the vision 
 clearer and clearer. The voice was acutely 
 distinct : " For every ill there is a cure. Go and 
 seek, my child, till you find it. Go and do! Go 
 and do!" 
 
 The Corbins crossed on the " Kron Prinz 
 Wilhelm der Grosse," and while the older ones 
 quickly succumbed to the sickness of the sea, 
 Lettice did not miss a single meal, but spent six 
 days of absolute self- forget fulness and delirious 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Back of her serious consecration to a question- 
 able idea, was plenty of mischief and coquetry, 
 and these alone were seen by her new friends 
 aboard ship. The lack of ceremony in ocean eti- 
 quette brought her quickly in touch with interest- 
 ing people, and before she landed in the old world 
 her belt was full of new scalps. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Corbin settled at Carlsbad for 
 the waters ; and Lettice was put in the care of her 
 cousin Mary Nicolson wintering in Berlin to 
 hear music. At their hotel was also a ship ac- 
 quaintance, Charles Harker, who was pursuing 
 scientific studies in which Lettice was deeply in- 
 terested. 
 
 The two young people met daily and discussed
 
 118 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 the theories of Suggestion, Counter-suggestion, 
 Psychotherapy all the trade winds in the vast 
 zone of Alcoholism; while Harker saw the prac- 
 tice in the wonderful institutions for alcoholism 
 in Berlin. 
 
 One evening Harker, worn with the wear of his 
 quest, came to Lettice with a wonderful glory in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " This has been a strange day," he began. 
 " I've been in the brain of a victim. I've beheld 
 that subtle miracle, God and not God, I've watched 
 the alternating activity of its many cells the 
 counter-action of the psychical, physical, and 
 spiritual in man wonderful, wonderful! I saw 
 science actually cut out evil with a knife." 
 
 "A knife? How wonderful! Goon!" The 
 eyes of Lettice, black with interest, were onyxes 
 shot with fire. 
 
 " First," Harker was as much excited as she, 
 " I saw noble men overcome by a restlessness, a 
 depression that demanded stimulation. I watched 
 the victims as if they had been a line of moving 
 pictures. Here was a man seeking relief by 
 whiskey. Another in the wild delirium of complete 
 intoxication. Another in the frenzy of partial 
 awakening. Another eased by morphia swore 
 vehemently, ' No more drink or drug for me ! ' 
 But poor creatures, they are doomed by heredity 
 or weakness they are sick. The alcoholic sug-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 119 
 
 gestion lodges, often, in a brain cell awaiting it, 
 and this sinister power from its little citadel domi- 
 nates and damns a life unless it is extracted; 
 mind what I say unless extracted. 
 
 " A dipsomaniac cannot be a moderate drinker, 
 the desire must be pulled up by the roots. I have 
 seen this done to-day. I have seen mind dominate 
 mind, I have seen righteousness cower evil. I 
 have watched the God-in-man pluck the vile sug- 
 gestion from its fostering cell, and fill that cell 
 with a divine activity. Miss Corbin, mental medi- 
 cine can relieve the acute form of dipsomania, 
 destroy the pitiless dominion of abnormal thirst, 
 build up new desires, and by enforcement and re- 
 inforcement of the curative idea, make the victim 
 whole. Personal will is the only ultimate salva- 
 tion, the only antagonistic principle; but the will 
 must be put in splints, as it were, before it can 
 walk alone. 
 
 " Of course, if there's no will," Harker shrug- 
 ged his shoulders ; " but Miss Corbin, some wills 
 are only sprained, our mind-splints will fix them, 
 won't they?" 
 
 " Can't I see it, too mind casting the evil spirit 
 from a brother-mind ? How can I operate unless 
 I am taught how ? Take me to them, that I may 
 learn, too ! Let me see the ' God-in-one ' touching 
 the ' God-in-another ' and making light ! " 
 
 " You shall."
 
 120 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " Tomorrow ? " 
 
 " Yes, to-morrow, at twelve o'clock." 
 
 It was strange that the daughter of Henry 
 Corbin, of Laneville, in Virginia, should be trans- 
 fixed over mental experiments at an institution 
 for the cure of alcoholism in the city of Berlin : 
 but there she was intent, disengaged from all the 
 world, while Cousin Mary Nicolson thought she 
 was hearing music. Indeed, she was hearing heav- 
 enly music, and the stern German savants forgot 
 the clinic for the sight of a rapt, exquisite per- 
 sonality. 
 
 Lettice was called coquettish, care- free; a Vir- 
 ginia red-bird darting through the copse of Ger- 
 man seriousness. But this was the deep of the 
 girl's soul: it was only the foam, the fine spray 
 of her spirit that broke upon the spray of other 
 spirits and melted into jest and laughter. Her 
 genius was to do and mostly for others than 
 herself. The world sees the sparks from the 
 furnace-fires of the soul ; but no stranger can tell 
 the names of those who sit and speak around the 
 soul's cloistered hearthstone. 
 
 Lettice saw and believed. Christ called his dis- 
 ciples and gave them power to cure all manner of 
 disease. Would he not give her, one of the many 
 millions who were striving to follow Him, a tiny 
 bit of His mysterious medicine? If she had any 
 curative quality in her being, she was going to
 
 A MAN'S REACH 121 
 
 expend every particle of it upon Randolph Turber- 
 ville. How or where she did not yet know : but 
 time, place and efficiency would, she verily be- 
 lieved, appear in due time. 
 
 The great explorer, Determination, lighted by 
 the torch of God, could hew its triumphant way 
 through jungles of despair. She pinned her faith 
 to the swaying standard of mental healing. She 
 might not succeed in her trial test, but at least 
 she was going to arrest Randolph's interest some 
 day by a daring experiment. What glory, what 
 delight to behold him that was dead risen again. 
 
 She, moreover, believed that she and Randolph 
 were made for each other and blighted, sick, was 
 he any less her own? Must she cast him away 
 because he was sick? But how was she ever to 
 get to him to test her experiment, her power? 
 They were separated by a wilderness of black- 
 ened hopes; by a stone wall of self-respect and 
 pride; by the stern order of her father, who had 
 declared the gates of Laneville forever shut to 
 Randolph Turberville. How was she to get near 
 enough to him for the supreme test ? 
 
 He was just as much her love, sick unto death 
 with sin, as he was her love sick unto death with 
 pneumonia. In the latter case love would lift the 
 curtain of propriety and walk in why not now? 
 This was life or death.
 
 122 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Often Lettice would lose heart, hesitate, doubt; 
 but 
 
 Doubts are traitors, 
 
 And make us lose the good we oft might win 
 By fearing to attempt. 
 
 What was Lettice to do? How was she to 
 begin ? Her father was getting well in an ortho- 
 dox manner. Her mother had transferred her 
 Laneville " Economics " to Carlsbad and went her 
 placid way, while Lettice, the impatient explorer, 
 was held by a frozen sea. 
 
 Her release came suddenly. She and Cousin 
 Mary Nicolson were with the elder Corbins at 
 Carlsbad when the great doctor pronounced Mr. 
 Corbin practically well, but instead of sending 
 him home to Virginia, he advised a change from 
 daily guardianship and a return for further treat- 
 ment in three months, when he hoped to find his 
 patient well enough to be finally discharged. 
 
 Of course Mr. Corbin rebelled. His interests 
 were suffering in his absence from home: what 
 would become of Mrs. Corbin's gardens or the 
 whole plantation with them so long away? His 
 son Henry was off in a South American mine; 
 James Parke was off at Madison, Wisconsin, 
 studying agriculture in order to apply the latest 
 discoveries to the Laneville estate: he must not 
 be interrupted. What was to be done? If there
 
 A MAN'S REACH 123 
 
 were only some one he could trust to see about his 
 plantation. 
 
 " Here am I, papa." The pulses of Lettice 
 tingled with hope. Suppose he should let her go ! 
 Suppose she could have Laneville for any experi- 
 ment she might choose to undertake 'Laneville 
 with everybody far away delicious ! " I'm a 
 pretty good boss, you know, papa, and the way I 
 would prod Mr. Hudgens and the negroes would 
 be a caution. If you would only let me go, papa, 
 I'd never take my eye off anything; and I should 
 be so pleased to help you. Please, dear papa, let 
 me go ! I am quite old enough to assume responsi- 
 bility." 
 
 " Do you propose to go alone? " Mr. Corbin 
 asked with dignity. 
 
 " Wouldn't Cousin Mary Nicolson go with 
 me?" 
 
 " I never thought of that." Mr. Corbin showed 
 signs of yielding. " I really think there are some 
 things you might do for me, and with Mary 
 Mary is so safe ; and I think Mary wouldn't mind 
 going to Laneville for a financial rest. I'll think 
 over it, Lettice, and have a talk with your mother." 
 
 Heaven only knows how it came about, but be- 
 fore Lettice could catch her breath, her parents 
 were off to England to visit the head of the family 
 at " Hall-End " in the county of Warwick, and
 
 124 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 she and Cousin Mary Nicolson were racing across 
 seas to Laneville in Virginia. 
 
 At last the ocean was behind and the travellers 
 were steaming along on the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road. Lettice, rather listless, watched the giant 
 signs on the New Jersey and Delaware plains : 
 a cow, milked by a woman in blue, cried " Jones's 
 Malted Milk " ; a big bull announced " Guernsey's 
 Tobacco " ; and a huge, dustless screen repelled a 
 large black fly. Oh, the monotony of it all! 
 Lettice must have a paper, something to divert her. 
 A newsboy came along with a pile of the great 
 dailies, and she bought a Washington Times. 
 
 Nothing of vital interest until she turned the 
 page, then she read under the head of " Deaths in 
 Virginia " " Randolph Turberville in Boling- 
 broke, March the first." 
 
 Not another word. To-day is March the second.
 
 X 
 
 THE old world and the new world each had a 
 hand to an ear listening, listening: there were 
 queer whisperings in the air spirit was curing 
 spirit evil spirit was fleeing before the voice of 
 God. Go and do ! Go and do ! Seek a cure, no 
 matter what the ailment! 
 
 Lettice was listening, hearing, and away off in 
 Germany she had been able to think of Randolph 
 with a clarity of purpose. Randolph in Virginia 
 was thinking of Lettice, too ; but his thoughts were 
 befogged, blurred, inarticulate. 
 
 The condition of the elder Randolph Turberville 
 had remained so long about the same that neither 
 his wife nor his son felt any unusual uneasiness. 
 He was bloodless, bald, emaciated, irritable: but 
 no more so than usual. Poor Ran, he was the 
 memorial warning, the most convincing of all 
 temperance lectures, eternally rejected and abso- 
 lutely unheeded. 
 
 One day young Randolph, suffering with a terri- 
 ble headache after several nights from home, went 
 to his mother's room to ease himself on her big, 
 soft sofa. His headache was quickly frightened 
 away by a ghastly spectacle. His father, fallen 
 from a chair, lay crumpled on the floor white, 
 
 125
 
 126 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 drawn, still. He had reached the limit of his 
 resistance: every drop of blood had raced from 
 his poor, will-less brain ; he never spoke or breathed 
 again. 
 
 The useless existence of Randolph Turberville 
 was forgotten in that sublime pity that made the 
 whole of Bolingbroke his kin. The city streamed 
 to the door of the little gray house in tearful 
 sympathy, and the rooms could hardly hold the 
 flowers that Bolingbroke and all Virginia sent. 
 
 Of course, Ran was buried from the Holy Com- 
 forter: a Randolph Turberville had bought the 
 first pew in the church, and Turbervilles had occu- 
 pied it ever since. Everybody was at Ran's 
 funeral: the judiciary, lawyers, doctors, the 
 governor a Turberville was dead. 
 
 The short time necessary for the reading of the 
 service for the burial of the dead was eternity for 
 Randolph, the son. Beyond the riot of splendid 
 blossoms, the solemn words, the moan of the 
 organ, he saw a pinched body and heard : " Too 
 late! Too late!" 
 
 Every familiar object in the beautiful church 
 enlarged itself. He could hear his own baby foot- 
 steps,, his big-boy footsteps, slow footsteps follow- 
 ing a flower-decked coffin. The window color was 
 articulate sound; peals of exhortation, reproach, 
 despair darted through the red robe of the priest 
 in the chancel window ; and fiery daggers mingled
 
 A MAN'S REACH 127 
 
 with the soft eloquence of the wonderful reredos 
 Leonardo's Last Supper. Every blossom in the 
 wreaths, crosses, broken lyres, sheaves, spoke with 
 tongues of flame "Why? Why? Why? Why? 
 Too late ? Eternally too late ? " 
 
 Turbervilles, clean and unclean ! How far self- 
 responsible ? How far pre-doomed, predestinated ? 
 Had infringement of the Mosaic law, though by 
 but a tiny jot or tittle, done it? Could his father 
 have been cured? This awful moment, Randolph 
 could hear his mother distinctly pleading with him 
 to try to save his father : but he had scorned even 
 to try "OGod!" 
 
 Were he and his father victims of first-hand 
 transgressors? Instead of writhing, tormented, 
 receiving stripe for stripe, might not the weary 
 soul just fled from a pinched, scarred body, find 
 mercy in the Father-arms? Suddenly he was in 
 the city of Jerusalem on the left hand of the Mas- 
 ter, who turned to him and said : " Sick, and in 
 prison, and ye visited me not." " Inasmuch as 
 ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did 
 it not to me." Randolph, himself, also seemed to 
 slip away into everlasting punishment from which 
 he was lifted by the organ's peal. 
 
 The music vibrated with a tender resonance: 
 the brave mourner beside Randolph had chosen 
 hymns that might have been sung at the funeral 
 of a saint" Paradise," " Just as I Am," " The
 
 128 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Strife is O'er, the Victory Won " immemorial 
 comforters ! The hymns mingled mystically with 
 the rich tints of the window on the right of the 
 chancel placed in memory of Randolph's grand- 
 father, who had been a vestryman for forty-eight 
 years. The glory of this window and the leaping 
 voices dazzled the young man : for a moment he 
 was uplifted beyond flesh and sense. Our Saviour, 
 in the window, lovingly touched the fair head of 
 a child ; and to Randolph the Christ and the child 
 sang with the choir "Alleluia! Alleluia!! 
 Alleluia ! ! ! " For a moment despair turned to 
 triumph " Christ ! Christ ! Salvation ! Rescue ! 
 Health ! " But only for a moment. His mother's 
 grasp reminded him that the service was over, and 
 in terrible reality he walked with her out of the 
 church. 
 
 Lettice and Cousin Mary Nicolson reached 
 Bolingbroke in time for the funeral to which, 
 however, Cousin Mary refused to go. Her con- 
 demnation of human irregularity, not her own, 
 extended away and beyond the grave; and she 
 did not intend even to appear unmindful of the 
 dereliction of anybody, living or dead. 
 
 Chattie's Son-Boy, her big bright Galahad, as 
 Lettice loved to call Randolph to herself, was a dis- 
 mal caricature of the sunshine boy who caught the 
 heart of Lettice from the top of a step-ladder. With 
 his overcoat collar turned up to his ears, he was
 
 A MAN'S REACH 120 
 
 cruelly envisioned on the cold, raw day. His head 
 was bare, and his mop of bright hair was lifeless, 
 too long, and straighter than Lettice thought it 
 could ever grow. His face was puffed, red and 
 yellow-mottled ; and his forehead was full of lines. 
 Lettice was transfixed with pity and wholly un- 
 conscious of the tender solicitude of her gaze. 
 " Oh, Randolph, soiled and broken, I've come to 
 save you. Don't you feel me near? " 
 
 He raised his eyes and Lettice caught their pain, 
 weariness and despair. 
 
 Randolph was, indeed, startled by the vision of 
 Lettice Corbin: he thought she was still in Ger- 
 many. Instead of furs, she wore a long surtout 
 which took all the color from her face and made 
 of her bright hair discord and mockery. Her lids, 
 quickly lowered, gave to her face a crypt-like cold- 
 ness; but crystal teardrops, struggling through 
 her long lashes, offered a holy, pitying sympathy. 
 
 " Send her to me, O Christ ; send her to me ! " 
 Poor Randolph prayed as the clods of earth fell 
 heavily on his father's coffin. 
 
 From the grave Lettice hurried to Cousin Mary 
 Nicolson who awaited her at the Southern 
 Station. 
 
 Randolph expected Lettice all the evening : she 
 always appeared at supreme moments, and how 
 could she have the heart to fail him now ? When 
 she did not come, he was naturally crushed with a 
 
 9
 
 130 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 bitter conclusion : " Lattice Corbin is done with 
 me, and she is right." 
 
 His depression, when he and his mother had 
 parted for the night, was terrible. How could he 
 stand it ? He felt himself a frailer bark than ever, 
 blown by the whipping blast of destiny. He was 
 nothing but an agonizing " sting " forever to hurt 
 his mother and any other pitying one who might 
 regard him. He could not stand it. 
 
 The implacable-suggestion-satisfied could not 
 ease him to-night; momentarily it had lost its 
 seduction ; the higher emotions, quickened by the 
 events of the last few days, feebly attacked the 
 bestial proclivities. He was coerced by the mem- 
 ory of a wordless vision across an open grave. 
 " Oh, God, I must see her once more ! " he cried 
 in despair. 
 
 The pall of death and finality, the realization of 
 the fortitude of the magnificent mourner in the 
 next room, the knowledge that he had flung aside 
 the wealth of life like a filthy rag maddened 
 Randolph Turberville. He was going to end it 
 all this very moment. 
 
 He got up from his chair and started to his 
 wardrobe the end was there. He paused in the 
 middle of the floor : " He that was dead is risen 
 again!" Dead? Risen again? Can anything 
 dead rise again? A tiny shaft of hideous scorn
 
 A MAN'S BEACH 181 
 
 pierced his grief-marked face. " Dead? Risen 
 again? No! No!" 
 
 Randolph, now at the wardrobe, opened its 
 door. Four bottles stood on the middle shelf. 
 One bottle was labelled " Old Scotch " ; one, 
 " Mountain Rye " ; one, " Bumbgardner " ; and 
 the other, a white bottle containing a white fluid, 
 was marked " Poison." A young doctor friend 
 had left the white bottle there months ago, had 
 forgotten it; a happy circumstance to Randolph 
 now. 
 
 Randolph gazed pitiably at the four bottles. 
 jWhich? Which? Should he empty the Old 
 Scotch with a dozen gulps and forget for a few 
 hours? Or should he pour the white fluid upon 
 his handkerchief and sleep? Sleep forever? 
 
 " He that was dead is risen again." 
 
 " Rise again ? He that is dead ? " 
 
 " I have forfeited my place in this world, shall 
 I try my luck in another? " 
 
 " He that was dead, is risen again." 
 
 Randolph pulled his handkerchief from his 
 pocket and took the white bottle from the middle 
 shelf of his wardrobe. 
 
 " He that is dead shall rise again? " Prepos- 
 terous! Which which oblivion or ignomin- 
 ious resistance? 
 
 Which? Which shall it be?
 
 PART II 
 XI 
 
 THE Laneville carriage met Lettice and Cousin 
 Mary at Lester Manor. The new century was ten 
 years old, but Laneville still rolled over the level 
 roads of Middlesex in a cumbersome, family car- 
 riage. With Billy Dixon, the late driver, departed 
 the high boot and the folding steps, but the car- 
 riage still remained to crunch the soft sand of the 
 quiet roads. 
 
 There were piles of purple clouds in the evening 
 sky, and where they parted a silver Venus flashed. 
 In the open was occasionally the twinkle of home- 
 lights and in the forest the chirp of wild things. 
 Cousin Mary's thin questions broke against the 
 rhythm of the horses' feet; and the answers of 
 Lettice were like little bridges hanging lightly 
 above the ravines where her thoughts hid. She 
 was scarcely hearing, scarcely feeling; she was 
 composing a letter. Once before she had written 
 a letter; and this letter, burning her thoughts to- 
 night, was pendent to it. One undid ; this would 
 do. 
 
 At last a halt, and a merry " How d'ye, Miss 
 Lettice ! " from the little black gate-opener, 
 
 132
 
 A MAN'S REACH 133 
 
 meant home. She was reaching the climax, she 
 was coming nearer nearer. 
 
 " How far from the house now ? " Cousin 
 Mary's voice was thinner. 
 
 " More'n a mile," Uncle Alec, the driver, an- 
 swered. " You is done fergit, ain't yer, Miss 
 Ma'y?" 
 
 Around they passed, under the arching cedars, 
 in trustful security, in spite of the darkness ; then 
 through the arch of box, and at last to the Lane- 
 ville lawn. The great trees flung their bare 
 branches to the sky in hallelujahs for her home- 
 coming. The dogs curved their spotted bodies 
 and frisked and barked. From the windows 
 gleams of light greeted Lettice and Cousin Mary; 
 and the negroes, collected in the front porch, 
 chirped like a flock of blackbirds. 
 
 The house was set as for a great company, and 
 they had waffles and oysters for supper. 
 
 " Aren't negroes the best creatures in the 
 world ? " Lettice asked Cousin Mary as they 
 walked down the wide fire-lit hall. 
 
 " I think they are trials and pests," she an- 
 swered. " Lettice, dear, this hall is cold." 
 
 " Trials and pests ? Look, Cousin Mary ! fires 
 everywhere, lights, order, supper, smiles! What 
 more?" 
 
 " How d'ye do ! " Lettice cried, waving her
 
 134 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 hands to the portraits on the walls. " Glad to 
 have me back ? " 
 
 Cousin Mary Nicolson miraculously praised the 
 coffee, and yielded to the influence of waffles and 
 oysters. She actually looked serene and drowsy as 
 she and Lettice drew close to the library fire. 
 
 The spirits of Lettice shot skyward. Serious- 
 ness and precocity retreated before the impulsive 
 gladness of youth and health. There seemed no 
 hopeless condition in the universe. The delicious 
 amplitude and beauty of her home overpowered 
 her, flung out a challenge to the world. All in- 
 spiration was here. She had but to gather it and 
 go forward. Laneville did not bind it encour- 
 aged. It cried to her to-night, " We did our best 
 in our day and generation, but our best is not your 
 best. You have our lives to build upon, but your 
 life shoots away and beyond into God's mysteries." 
 
 She could not contain herself. In her sur- 
 charged being circulated pools of clearest hope 
 and intention. She seized Cousin Mary by her 
 slim waist, pulled her from her chair, and twirled 
 her into the immense hall. Her forefathers had 
 given her space in which to think and be glad; 
 she must dance out her satisfaction. 
 
 "Aren't you happy, glad, too?" she sang. 
 " Glad glad glad? Sing, Cousin Mary, sing! " 
 
 She rushed her unwilling cousin into a frantic,
 
 A MAN'S REACH 135 
 
 unwilling two-step; singing at the top of her voice 
 (to the tune of " Sally in the Garden ") 
 
 Cousin Mary Nicolson, Nicolson, Nicolson; 
 
 Cousin Mary Nicolson, Nicolson Nick! 
 I'm so happy, happy, happy 
 
 I'm so happy-e-e-e, Cousin Mary Nick! 
 
 Almost breathless, she deposited " Cousin 
 Mary " into the softest chair in the large drawing- 
 room. Logs were burning, blazes were dancing 
 in brass and crystal, and Lettice tucked her vibrat- 
 ing self in the corner of the red velvet sofa and 
 caught her breath. Then turning to Cousin Mary 
 Nicolson, she asked naively: "Isn't Laneville 
 nice?" 
 
 Upstairs in her own dear room, with its clam- 
 bering roses and fluttering humming birds, she 
 crouched for an hour or more by the fire ; then she 
 went to her desk and wrote the letter. 
 
 If she were opening a gate that her father had 
 shut, Heaven, she believed, would give her absolu- 
 tion. How could she neglect so great an oppor- 
 tunity, even for a father's command? 
 
 Here was the " Great-God-in-her " clamoring 
 for expression : to whom must she listen to her 
 God, to personal inspiration; or to her father to 
 whom God seemed to speak in a monotonous 
 undertone ? 
 
 She earnestly believed that the evil she was 
 doing was only a mote to the tremendous good
 
 136 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 which would be accomplished by the " test " she 
 hoped to make within the sacred quiet of her 
 father's home. 
 
 A remark she had made to Charlotte Turberville 
 long ago recurred to her in the pretty seclusion 
 of her own room at Laneville: " Laneville was 
 made for me, not me for Laneville." 
 
 What greater privilege would the departed mis- 
 tresses and masters of Laneville wish for their 
 wonderful home than the glory of trying to raise 
 him that was dead ? "I was sick and ye visited 
 me." " I was sick and ye permitted me to visit 
 you." All the same, the very, very same. 
 
 Yes, Lettice was sure she was right, and she 
 was ready to face the consequence of her wild 
 experiment. She was going to try to lay hold 
 of Randolph Turberville, and bring him to his 
 senses : if she failed she would have done her best, 
 as she saw it: if she succeeded oh, Glory! Oh, 
 God! 
 
 Lettice knew she was right, and she left the 
 fire to write the letter. 
 
 MY DEAR MRS. TURBERVILLE: 
 
 You and Randolph have been most tenderly in my mind 
 ever since last Tuesday, when I had a glimpse of you 
 at Holly-wood. I wish I could write all I feel ; but I can't. 
 I can only say I am so very, very sorry for Randolph and 
 you. 
 
 I am writing especially to tell you this, but also to ask 
 of you and Randolph a great favor. Papa and mamma are
 
 A MAN'S REACH 137 
 
 still abroad, and will be for three months longer, and 
 Cousin Mary Nicolson and I are alone at Laneville until 
 they return. 
 
 The place will be enchanting soon, and I believe would 
 help you and Randolph to forget. Already the jonquils 
 and snow-drops are everywhere, and the lawn as green as 
 an emerald. Can't you and Randolph come at once and 
 stay as long as you choose? You will be no trouble to 
 me whatever, there are too many servants and too much 
 of everything for Cousin Mary and me. 
 
 Please come, dear Mrs. Turberville. I believe Laneville 
 will do you both a lot of good ; and I'll promise you to do 
 my level best to cheer you after you come. If you don't 
 come I shall think that neither you nor Randolph care for 
 me any more. 
 
 Any day or hour will suit me just drop me a line that 
 Uncle Alec and the carriage may meet you. 
 Most affectionately yours, 
 
 LETTICE CORBIN. 
 
 LANEVILLE, March the tenth. 
 
 A " life-letter " comes slow. The morning 
 asks, " Will it come to-day? " The night answers, 
 " Maybe to-morrow." 
 
 The " rural deliverer " stopped at the Laneville 
 gate any time between two and four o'clock in 
 the afternoon, according to the inclination of the 
 black horse that conveyed him: neither by lash 
 or oath did he express any impatience at the de- 
 liberate indolence of his stubborn beast. He lived 
 to chew tobacco and this he could do as well behind 
 a slow horse as a fast one. His attitude to his 
 occupation was resentful, he pulled papers and
 
 188 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 letters from his leathern bag as if they were 
 vicious, and stuffed them into the mail-box as if 
 they were vanquished enemies. No reassuring 
 smile for better things to-morrow ever lit the 
 rugged face when an expected letter did not come : 
 indeed, he considered letters rather foolish and 
 superfluous and had remarked to his fellow-car- 
 riers at the post-office " Pity some folks got 
 nothin' to do but watch for the mail, 'specially 
 Miss Lettice Corbin." 
 
 Lettice was trying to forget the letter, and to 
 lose herself in plantation interests. Immediately 
 after an early breakfast, to which Cousin Mary 
 Nicolson never came, she, on Kitty Fisher her 
 bay mare would flash over the fragrant brown 
 of new-plowed fields, over green pastures dotted 
 with mothering sheep, over pine-tagged road to 
 gather the last words of other industries; she was 
 earnestly holding the pulse of the plantation, and 
 trying to diagnose wisely the various agricultural 
 symptoms; while an acute, irresistible unrest 
 pricked her energy like a relentless thorn. 
 
 About two o'clock she on Kitty Fisher daily 
 awaited the " rural deliverer " at the outer gate. 
 Every day he was a little later than he was the 
 day before. Kitty did not care, she liked to munch 
 the new grass around the post that held the letter- 
 box. Lettice tried not to care, but mercy the 
 fate of the tinkling, laughing, spring world was
 
 A MAN'S REACH 139 
 
 in the keeping of the deliberate, unsympathizing 
 mail man. 
 
 Why did not the letter come? " Even if Ran- 
 dolph refused to consider my overtures, why did 
 his mother's courtesy fail her at such a time? 
 I try not to care, but I do, I do; so very, very 
 much," was the girl's heart-cry. 
 
 Two weeks passed, and the spring world was 
 sulky. The sky was gray, the green things be- 
 draggled, and the hopes of Lettice were crumpled 
 and dreary, too. 
 
 But, at last, there came a day when Lettice and 
 Kitty Fisher did not have to wait for the man who 
 fetched the Laneville mail ; for strange to say, he 
 had come, stuffed the mail in the box and gone 
 before they rode up. Lettice resented the appetite 
 of Kitty Fisher which induced her to greedily nip 
 the young grass before they reached the box, by 
 giving her a sharp lash on her silken rump accom- 
 panied with a stern, "Get up, Kitty!" When 
 the mare had unwillingly moved up, the girl leant 
 over eagerly and pulled out first a batch of papers 
 for Cousin Mary, a letter from her mother for 
 herself, finally a black-bordered envelope bearing 
 her name in characteristic elegance this she 
 opened first, quickly devouring its contents. They 
 pleased her, made her let herself go, and she waved 
 the letter in the wet air, and cried, " Hurrah, 
 Hurrah ! "
 
 140 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 The little black gate-opener, safe in her house, 
 started again to open the gate, but Lettice waved 
 her back ; she was going to save everybody to-day 
 for Randolph was coming. 
 
 Once more she stopped Kitty Fisher's feast, and 
 to her insistent " S-s-s-s-s-s " the little mare 
 flashed through the gate, down the long lane to 
 the house. The girl's quickened pulses found ex- 
 pression in the horse's rapid footsteps, for a " dead 
 paper mute and white " seemed " alive and quiver- 
 ing against her tremulous hands." 
 
 Mary Nicolson was in the library deep in the 
 mysteries of a pale pink shawl, when Lettice 
 burst in with : " We are going to have company, 
 Cousin Mary." 
 
 " Who? " asked Cousin Mary, with interest. 
 
 " Mrs. Turberville and Randolph." 
 
 " What are you going to do with that disrepu- 
 table fellow?" 
 
 Lettice, very grave by the fire, was reading the 
 letter again to herself : 
 
 DEAR LETTICE: 
 
 I have not written before because I could not get Ran- 
 dolph to make up his mind. He has had quite a spell 
 and is still miserable; but he is deeply touched by your 
 invitation, and has consented to accept it. We will be at 
 Lester Manor on the Monday afternoon train. 
 Thank you, so much, dear Lettice. 
 
 Affectionately your friend, 
 
 CHARLOTTE TURBERVILLE.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 141 
 
 Then Lettice regarded her cousin intently for a 
 moment before she asked, " Do you really wish to 
 know, Cousin Mary? I and Laneville are going 
 to cure him." 
 
 An exquisite sense of reconciliation, even for 
 Mary Nicolson, overcame the earnest girl about 
 to enter the retreat of passionless devotion. There 
 was always somebody to mock and revile the 
 explorer. Cousin Mary was conscientious, too 
 " Be ye reconciled to one another." 
 
 " Remember, Cousin Mary, how Mrs. Turber- 
 ville supported her shattered son the day of the 
 funeral won't you be glad to see her with him in 
 this great, blossoming sanctuary ? I am not doing 
 this thing that you condemn for caprice: before 
 heaven, Cousin Mary, I hear the voice of Christ." 
 
 Mary Nicolson was silent, and Lettice began 
 to hum a sacred melody; and presently a bright- 
 ness broke over Laneville, and going to the win- 
 dow she beheld that " gracious thing made up of 
 tears and light which was an answer to her soul." 
 
 Problems are worse than pain, only love can 
 find their answers.
 
 XII 
 
 LETTICE did not meet her guests at Lester- 
 Manor, but sent Uncle Alec, the faithful Laneville 
 driver, with the carriage. 
 
 It was a long, cold afternoon and the waning 
 sun lay upon the lawn like a timid intruder. The 
 shadows of the magnolia leaves danced wildly 
 upon the sides of the house, and the trees screamed 
 in the clutches of the March wind. 
 
 The confidence of Lettice had grown as pale as 
 the sun, her pulses as wild as the wind. She ran 
 upstairs and down a dozen times to see if the 
 fires were at their best, and gave minute sugges- 
 tions for the tea-table; demanding Mrs. Bell's 
 crochet mats, Grandmother Digges's china, Presi- 
 dent Nelson's urn, and a bowl of jonquils. 
 
 She caught the dogs and whispered secrets in 
 their ears, and their wagging tails accorded her 
 genuine canine sympathy. She implored Miles, 
 the cook, to have the coffee good and strong ; and 
 if she had been on the eve of a court ball she 
 could not have taken her raiment more seriously ; 
 when she appeared in piles of hair and purple 
 chiffon, Cousin Mary held up her hands: 
 " Haven't you mistaken the occasion ? " she asked 
 sternly. 
 
 142
 
 A MAN'S REACH 148 
 
 " It is the greatest occasion of my life," Lettice 
 answered defiantly, as she went to the window, 
 held her hands each side of her face and peered 
 into the descending darkness for their coming. 
 
 They were very late. A dozen times the wind 
 was a carriage rolling up, and the blessed dogs, 
 contrary to their custom, barked a dozen times 
 unnecessarily. 
 
 At last there was no mistake, the wheels were 
 crunching the gravel and the horses making for 
 the front door. 
 
 For a second the courage of the girl failed, but 
 a second more it was red-hot again. 
 
 " Here they are, Cousin Mary ! " she said as 
 she left the room. Cousin Mary mumbled some- 
 thing but Lettice paid no attention; before the 
 carriage stopped she was down the steps, and her 
 own hand opened the carriage door. 
 
 She expressed her welcome in a kiss to Mrs. 
 Turberville and a firm grasp of Randolph's hand. 
 Very quickly she perceived that she had to save 
 the situation her guests needed tonic. She had 
 to force them along with her spirit. 
 
 " Cousin Mary," she called, " here they are, 
 just as tired as you were. Come on and abuse the 
 Southern Railroad, and Laneville for being so 
 *ar." 
 
 Her sensations were similar to those of a phy- 
 sician who has hopefully travelled miles and miles
 
 144 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 to see a patient, and finds a dying man. There 
 were deep shadows beneath a pair of absolutely 
 weary eyes, and a wretched cynicism upon too- 
 full lips strangely removing Randolph from her 
 assumed flippancies. 
 
 As Randolph and his mother went up to their 
 rooms a sense of futility overcame Lettice; she 
 felt herself a silly cur barking at the wheels of 
 fate's chariot. " Things are as things are ; as 
 fate has willed, so shall they be fulfilled." She 
 wondered if after all that were true. 
 
 At the table they somewhat recovered them- 
 selves. Cousin Mary Nicolson loved news, and 
 listened with interest to the bits of urban gossip 
 that Mrs. Turberville so quietly related. 
 
 A young Bolingbroke girl, whom they all knew, 
 had been terribly injured in an automobile acci- 
 dent, and Lettice asked if her leg had ever been 
 set, adding with feeling : " Poor Margaret 
 Colston, she loved to dance and danced so well ! " 
 
 " Yes, it has been set at last after repeated fail- 
 ures, and they hope it is going to knit." Chattie's 
 voice was sympathetic. " The dear child has gone 
 through everything, but she may not be lame after 
 all." 
 
 " It is awful to think of a young girl being 
 maimed by carelessness." Cousin Mary was fast 
 losing her horror of Randolph, and was enjoying 
 his mother immensely. " I should never forgive
 
 A MAN'S REACH 145 
 
 a person for laying any sort of spiritual or physi- 
 cal blemish on my child." 
 
 "Well," Chattie's experiences had filled her 
 heart with an amazing charity unto all men. " I 
 don't think it was carelessness; I think it was 
 inevitable. I believe, too, that Jerry Donnan 
 poor fellow, he was driving the car at the time 
 of the accident would have lost his mind but 
 for Bill-Bob Catlett You know Bill-Bob is filling 
 the pulpit of the Holy Comforter temporarily, and 
 there is a strong suspicion that he will be called 
 to be rector." 
 
 " Never ! That callow youth ? " Cousin Mary 
 was astonished. 
 
 " Not such a callow youth as you would imag- 
 ine." Randolph had scarcely opened his lips be- 
 fore. " Bill-Bob is good stuff ; only difficulty is 
 that the Holy Comforter people are so set in 
 their ways that he'd never be able to carry out 
 his ideas even if he was called. Bill-Bob is a 
 crusader a reformer. He is the very fellow for 
 that church, but he'll be up against it when he 
 gets there." 
 
 " I've heard," Charlotte, always temperate, was 
 speaking again, " that at a meeting of the vestry 
 for the purpose of talking things over with 
 Robert Bill-Bob seems almost too familiar he 
 made his convictions very plain. His watchword 
 is Service, he is truly his brother's keeper and his 
 10
 
 146 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 sister's keeper, too. His mind is full of human 
 betterment, and I don't know how far the Holy 
 Comforter will sustain him. Our beautiful and 
 beloved church has been the church of the Classes, 
 and Robert thinks every church should be the 
 church of the Masses. That's where the trouble 
 will come in. Think of Mrs. Nathaniel Norris 
 having a pauper in her pew ! " 
 
 " Pretty bad," Randolph spoke again, " but 
 didn't you tell me, mother, that you heard that 
 at the end of that very meeting Bill-Bob made 
 an extempore prayer that drew tears from eyes 
 that never before had realized that an unwritten 
 supplication could reach the ear of God? " 
 " Yes, I heard that," said Mrs. Turberville. 
 " Well, I am surprised at nothing," Cousin 
 Mary lay down her knife and fork; " but I would 
 hate to think of the Holy Comforter being turned 
 to a revival meeting house, where anybody who 
 chose could come in and shout. I do think that 
 something exclusive should be preserved." 
 
 " No corners in religion now, Miss Nicolson," 
 Randolph smiled wearily. " They tell me Bill- 
 Bob is the expression of the highest world- 
 thought. He has worked wonders among the 
 mountaineers and he may work wonders in Bol- 
 ingbroke. I don't know," more wearily. 
 
 Randolph had no appetite for Laneville's
 
 A MAN'S REACH 147 
 
 boasted food, but drank quickly three cups of 
 creamless coffee. 
 
 "You asked us to make ourselves -at home," 
 he said to Lettice with a trace of his boyish sweet- 
 ness, " and I am accepting your invitation in 
 coffee." 
 
 This faint glimmer of his old self struck the 
 core of Lettice Corbin's resolutions : " He should 
 be entirely restored to his frankness, his charm. 
 It was all there every bit there and the world 
 would see it when the debris of indulgence was 
 cleared away." 
 
 When they arose from the table they walked 
 around the hall looking at the pictures of the 
 Corbin race-horses. It was too cool to tarry there 
 long and the ladies went into the drawing-room, 
 while Randolph stayed in the dining-room to 
 smoke. 
 
 For a few moments Mrs. Turberville moved 
 about among the pictures and different pretty 
 things, and then without any warning, asked : 
 " Isn't Son-Boy changed, Lettice ? " 
 
 Lettice, exhausted by her efforts at the table, 
 which now seemed palpable and hollow, didn't 
 have the strength to dissimulate. 
 
 " Yes," she answered almost in a whisper. 
 
 Mrs. Turberville sighed, and turning to Mary 
 Nicolson, said very quietly : " You could hardly 
 imagine what a brilliant fellow my son was."
 
 148 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Mary Nicolson could not answer a word. 
 
 Randolph did not join them, and at eleven, the 
 Laneville bed-time, Lettice went to find him. He 
 was still in the high-back dining-room chair his 
 head thrown back, and his hands clasped over it. 
 " It is good for you to ask me here, I'm almost in 
 despair my nerves, everything. I can't stand it. 
 The night of father's funeral I couldn't decide 
 whether it should be laudanum or always whiskey. 
 I chose the latter. Oh, Lettice! " 
 
 Lettice was not so brave as she had fancied. 
 She could not call up one light word. She wanted 
 to be kind but did not know how to begin. 
 " Nerves ? " she thought. " He needs something 
 stimulating." 
 
 " I am not much of a doctor, Randolph, I am 
 awfully ignorant about such things, but maybe 
 you really need a-a-a-tonic," she said hesitatingly, 
 " I I have some ammonia, and some wine and 
 whiskey." 
 
 " I have drunk gallons since my father's death," 
 he answered, " and I brought some with me. It 
 isn't a nice thing to do, but I might have killed 
 myself if I hadn't. I am a miserable creature 
 don't despise me, Lettice ! " 
 
 Where were the words of consolation and en- 
 couragement that Lettice Corbin had so faithfully 
 rehearsed? She could not think of a single one. 
 Silence enveloped them like a winding sheet. The
 
 A MAN'S REACH 149 
 
 splendid appointments of the mahogany-panelled 
 room suddenly became icebergs, its generous 
 dimensions a frozen sea in the midst of which 
 a man and woman stood chilled, numb, suffer- 
 ing. The tremendous moment, long expected, was 
 dumb, hopeless. The tongue of each was pinched, 
 the heart of each hard. The girl could not reach 
 a single thought to relieve the agony of her com- 
 panion. 
 
 A door opened very easily and Amos stepped 
 softly in. 
 
 " Mose bade-time ? " he asked timidly, as he 
 asked every night at this hour. 
 
 He went toward the hall Randolph and Lettice 
 following. Lettice called the other ladies from the 
 drawing-room, and they followed Amos to the 
 first landing, where on a Chippendale table stood 
 four squat candlesticks. Amos lighted three, 
 handed one to each of the ladies, and they passed 
 on up. 
 
 Then he lighted the fourth and led the way up 
 the broad stairway : " I'll show you yo* room, 
 Marse Randuff," he said with kindness. 
 
 Amos could read the handwriting upon a man's 
 face, and he knew that Randolph Turberville 
 needed his attention.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE next morning everything was easier and 
 conversation much less strained. After breakfast 
 Lettice and Randolph went over the place. He 
 showed a little interest in the cattle, the garden, 
 and especially the pigs. 
 
 " Don't you love them ? " Lettice asked as they 
 stood by a pen of squealing black and reds. 
 " Charles Lamb did when they were roasted." 
 In days gone by Randolph, perhaps, would have 
 repeated Charles Lamb's immortal ideas on the 
 roasted ears of a baby pig not so to-day; he 
 hadn't the energy. 
 
 From pigs to the dairy, to the garden where 
 shy little eyes were opening from their winter's 
 sleep, and finally to the stables : " Do you like to 
 ride? " Lettice asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Once I liked everything, didn't I ? 
 That was the worst of it." 
 
 Very soon she on " Kitty Fisher " and he on 
 Henry's " Hampton " were galloping over the 
 new-plowed fields fragrant with the breath of 
 mother earth. They were talking to the hands; 
 scanning the far reaches of Mr. Corbin's estate; 
 gaining little hillocks to get a view of the water, 
 the oyster boats, the vessels going so leisurely on 
 
 150
 
 TOUR DEEDS ARE A 1.1. BEHIND
 
 A MAN'S REACH 151 
 
 their pretty way ; stepping slowly through awaken- 
 ing woods and then out on the main road, straight 
 and wide, unlike the narrow Biblical path that 
 lea.ds to life everlasting. 
 
 There they put their horses out and ran without 
 a word four even miles to old Christ Church. 
 
 "Fine!" Randolph uttered his first word of 
 enthusiasm. " I'd like to go and go and go; far 
 and away into forget fulness, with all my deeds 
 behind me." 
 
 Lettice looked at him steadily and answered, 
 " Your deeds are all behind," her first words of 
 healing ! " Listen to the voices of the universe ! " 
 A pause. " Aren't they sweet? " 
 
 Randolph did not answer. 
 
 Almost in silence they studied the church and 
 the graves, and then they rode back more slowly, 
 not talking much but the task had begun. Every 
 inch of the road registered a subtle experiment. 
 She was drawing him into the net that she had set 
 for him the wonderful, mystical net of mental 
 and spiritual power. She was drawing on the 
 wild wishes of the years, the multitude of stinging 
 ideas that peopled her soul; and she was placing 
 them in eye, on lips, in smiles, in gesture the 
 fight was on. She had gathered her mind into one 
 supernatural, burning wish, which she turned 
 boldly on Randolph Turberville. 
 
 It took a little while for bourgeoning spring to
 
 152 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 change its timid smile into reckless laughter, but 
 it broke at last ecstatically. Laneville was a pastel 
 of softest pinks and whites and greens framed 
 by the blue mist sky and the blue mist river. The 
 ivy on the house, and the holly trees on the edge 
 of the lawn were clustered with pale green baby 
 leaves; bridal wreath leaped from the turf in 
 plumes of purity; peach trees rang with pinkness; 
 pyrus japonicas shot their red glory across the 
 softer tints, and yellow jessamine wound around 
 the stumps and ran up the porch pillars in yellow 
 gladness. 
 
 Sweeps of grass soft enough for a soul to nestle 
 in, and sweeps of sky, high and blue enough for 
 the wildest hopes, held this riot of scent and beauty 
 as a mighty cathedral holds its frescoes and melo- 
 dies. These blues and greens, pinks and violets, 
 reds and yellows met mysteriously in the air, 
 and made the crimson of passion, the royal purple 
 of confidence and hope. 
 
 Randolph and Lettice and even Mary Nicolson 
 and Charlotte grew dreamy with the dreaming 
 air; they all wandered about till the east wind 
 rose, then with armfuls of little blossoming things 
 they came in to dream some more before the crack- 
 ling evening fires. 
 
 Randolph was coming to Lettice just as true as 
 the battered, storm-swept vessel sails to port. He 
 was creeping into the old confidences which had
 
 A MAN'S REACH 153 
 
 opened so strangely between them. Gradually 
 they left the older women for longer periods, and 
 talked low and earnestly in the quaint seclusion 
 of Mr. Corbin's library. This library marked the 
 different masters as clearly as the rock proclaims 
 its period. Books ran from floor to ceiling, cut by 
 the doors, two deep-seated windows and the chim- 
 ney piece. The vital objects of the room were 
 an oval mahogany table, a large sofa between the 
 table and the fire, and two winged chairs each side 
 of the fire-place. The chairs and the sofa were 
 covered in bright chintz peacocks and red roses. 
 On the table were a lamp, a Bible, an ancestral 
 illustrated Shakespeare, and a paper cutter; and 
 over the mantel was a fine picture of the emigrant, 
 Henry Corbin, painted in England when a youth. 
 Two hunt dogs stood beside him in the picture 
 and the cry of his soul, articulate in his young 
 eyes was victory. Just over the picture, burnt 
 in the panelling, were the arms of the house, and 
 below on the mantel shelf were three duelling pis- 
 tols. The Corbins had believed in the Code of 
 Honor. 
 
 " Fight, and fight hard, if one has to ! " This 
 was the motto of Laneville, and Lettice was born 
 to uphold the tradition. 
 
 " Just the color of the rain across the river, 
 so serious and tender," was the thought of Lettice 
 a few days afterwards, as she ran through the
 
 154 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 river porch into the Laneville hall. It was the 
 sight of Charlotte Turberville's eyes that produced 
 it. She was standing at the window gazing over 
 the long rose-walk, red with young wood and 
 merry with new leaves, at the river, still and 
 gray to-day as a dead eagle's wing. Her soft, 
 black mourning hung straight as a streamer on a 
 mourner's door-bell; it took the blue out of her 
 eyes, and beyond their pale calm Lettice perceived 
 misery, doubt, apprehension, perplexity. " I won- 
 der what she is thinking about? I know what 
 she is thinking about. I am thinking about it, 
 too, old friend ! " 
 
 " You've let the fire go out." Lettice, entering 
 the room like a fresh breeze, went quickly to the 
 chimney-piece and pulled the green bell-cord. 
 " No wonder your eyes were gray ; this dampness 
 goes to your bones. Roily " the little negro's 
 response was incredibly quick " make haste and 
 bring in some chips and a log, it is cold to-day." 
 
 Rolly's lightwood and chips were soon gambol- 
 ling with the grave hickory log like care- free chil- 
 dren in the lap of a grandfather and Chattie and 
 Lettice enjoying the game. 
 
 " There should be no April showers, Mrs. 
 Turberville, only very pale, tepid sunshine, and we 
 all should swing gently in it no thinking, no 
 doing, just living and dreaming. Wouldn't you 
 like that?"
 
 A MAN'S REACH 155 
 
 " Swinging always made me giddy, Lettice : I 
 should like not to think." 
 
 " Thinking is horrible so persistent incorri- 
 gible. If one could only think directly to a con- 
 clusion, but thoughts go zig-zag in hog-paths : but 
 you are not to think your eyes gray, I love the blue 
 of them. Think aloud to me, maybe I can make it 
 easier." 
 
 Chattie's eyes had turned bluer for the picture 
 in the chair beside her. Lettice, with her boots on 
 the fender and her slim hands toasting in the 
 blaze, was living sympathy. Something winey 
 emanated from the slim figure in her farming 
 clothes, from the rain-rose of her face leaping 
 from the restraint of her oil-cloth cap. 
 
 " You " Charlotte began. 
 
 " Wait a minute. With the pale, tepid sunshine, 
 the swinging and the dreams I would have always 
 the fluting of Robin Hood. Listen listen! 
 Doesn't he make you feel better ? I know his pip- 
 ing from all the rest. Bravo, bravo, little man ! " 
 as the bird stopped. " He has been singing to me 
 all the morning everywhere I went. He knows 
 a thing or two." 
 
 The older woman's smile was a little bit discour- 
 aging, but she asked with interest : " What have 
 you been doing out so long? " 
 
 " Everything. I'm trying to be a just steward. 
 If there were an egg, or a calf, or a lamb less this
 
 156 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 year than last year, I would feel like an unjust 
 steward, and that papa would say, sternly, when 
 he returned : ' Write quickly what thou owest ! ' 
 I am on trial for my intelligence, my fidelity. I 
 thought certainly there would be a calf less to-day ; 
 and I have been bringing a small baby- jersey back 
 to life by means of a coffee-pot spout. Swathed 
 with white linen and conveying drops of warm 
 milk, that spout has saved my credit, I hope," 
 looking at the clock. " Eleven-thirty, I've got to 
 feed him again at one. I wonder where Randolph 
 is ; he generally helps me to resuscitate lambs and 
 calves and gaping chickens they are the most 
 unresponsive of our dumb invalids." 
 
 " I thought Randolph was with you." 
 
 " Not since breakfast." 
 
 " I wonder where he is this rainy morning." 
 
 " In his room, I reckon." 
 
 In the heart of each woman was the desire to 
 see where Randolph was, and also in each heart 
 was the hesitation to intrude upon a man's liberty. 
 
 " Randolph is getting restless, Lettice ; haven't 
 you noticed it ? " 
 
 " He has been restless all the time." 
 
 " In a way, yes ; but it was to me, or at least, I 
 tried to see in it, the restlessness of convalescence. 
 Now it seems to me the restlessness of * no use ' of 
 despondence." 
 
 " I have not seen it that way. Last night he
 
 A MAN'S REACH 157 
 
 seemed to enjoy our bridge didn't you think so ? 
 And he chuckled over William Green Hill. Not 
 the highest kind of humor, by any means ; but if it 
 amuses Randolph, it has done more than Dickens 
 or Mark Twain have been able to do lately." 
 
 Neither spoke for a long time. 
 
 Then Charlotte almost whispered : " He wants 
 to go home." 
 
 The five words meant to Lettice : " All for noth- 
 ing all for nothing!" A rebellious inner voice 
 whispered, " God has fooled you." 
 
 " He hasn't," the girl said aloud. 
 
 " Hasn't what ? " Mrs. Turberville was startled. 
 
 " Nothing. Did Randolph say he wanted to 
 go, or do you just think so ? " 
 
 " He said we had been here too long." 
 
 "When did he say so?" 
 
 " This morning." Charlotte clasped her hands 
 very tightly, as if trying to make up her mind to 
 say something. " Do you think he has been drink- 
 ing since he has been here ? " in a whisper. 
 
 " I do." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I have noticed how spicy his breath was. He 
 told me the night he came that he had brought 
 whiskey, and Amos tells me he gives him a little 
 to ease him off that he can't do without it yet : 
 Amos says if there is anything he knows about it's 
 whiskey and religion, that too much of either
 
 158 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 makes a man a fool, but that he knows exactly how 
 much it takes and that he is giving Randolph ' so 
 much and no more leetler and leetler every 
 day.' " 
 
 " Oh, me ! " His mother sighed. " I was so 
 much in hopes he was taking none." 
 
 " That would have been impossible, dear Mrs. 
 Turberville, fever don't go off all at once; it 
 lowers, and lowers, and the doctor watches so 
 very closely ; and when the hour comes for heroic 
 action, he acts. Do you know the way mama 
 shortened my flannel petticoats when I was tak- 
 ing off long clothes ? She snipped a bit off every 
 day to keep me from catching cold the abbrevi- 
 ation must not be too sudden. She snipped and 
 snipped, until the flannel was away above my 
 little feet : did you do Randolph's so, too ? That's 
 the way with drugs and whiskeys ; snip, snip, snip 
 a little every day: prepare the patient for the 
 tremendous final test the breaking off for good 
 and all. That is what I am waiting for. Mrs. 
 Turberville, I have a great big, audacious plan: 
 I can't speak of it, even to you. Words might 
 weaken it. I must concentrate all my will, all my 
 zeal, all my hope, all my faith on that plan : in a 
 way, I am awfully superstitious I am afraid if 
 I tell, it will break the spell : but Mrs. Turberville, 
 Randolph must stay here ; you must not permit him 
 to think of going away." The face of Lettice,
 
 A MAN'S REACH 150 
 
 close to Chattie now, was tense with determination. 
 
 " How can I keep him, if he minds to go? " 
 
 " I don't know, but you must." 
 
 " We have been here three weeks, dear Lettice ; 
 a long time to impose on your father's hospitality. 
 Mary Nicolson will " 
 
 " That doesn't make a bit of difference ; besides, 
 Cousin Mary doesn't think when she is amused. 
 And it's all tommyrot about papa's hospitality; 
 he would have sailed on the next boat, if he had 
 had to leave both kidneys behind, if he knew Ran- 
 dolph was here : but he don't know, and he won't 
 know until I tell him : which I will do the minute 
 I see him. In the meantime the only thing in 
 the world to you and me at the present moment 
 is to stop Randolph Turberville from drinking 
 whiskey, or to try to stop him. There is no risk 
 I wouldn't run to do it ; I believe I would lie and 
 steal do anything. If we cannot ever do it, 
 we can't, that's all about it. But Mrs. Turberville, 
 I verily believe I can. It seems to me God tells me 
 I can. Anyway, I am going to try, try my level 
 best. You must not ask me a question, but you 
 must do everything in your power to keep Ran- 
 dolph here. The very minute he leaves this place 
 without giving himself a fair trial I believe he is 
 lost. With all your might and main, keep him here 
 if you can! " The girl's weird earnestness low- 
 ered ; she caught her breath and smiled, " Do you
 
 160 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 think me crazy, dear, precious Mrs. Turberville ? " 
 She kissed the older woman on her forehead, add- 
 ing, "God bless you!" 
 
 "Want more chips, Miss Lettice?" Rolly's 
 restful face was in the door. 
 
 " Yes, a heap, Roily." Lettice spoke with ex- 
 citement. " I seem to get hot and cold in spots." 
 
 Neither Charlotte nor Lettice knew that Mary 
 Nicolson had come in until she asked querulously : 
 " Where did Randolph go on horseback ? "
 
 XIV 
 
 IT was not a very cheerful trio that sat before 
 the fire in the Laneville drawing-room at twilight 
 of this rainy day. At Laneville nobody ever came 
 to supper from the library, the sitting-room or a 
 bed-room : the family and the guests, according to 
 an unwritten law, always collected in the drawing- 
 room just before the evening meal; and here Mrs. 
 Turberville, Mary Nicolson and Lettice sat now 
 expectant. Each in her own way was uncom- 
 fortable; Mary Nicolson because she could not 
 with impunity tell her thoughts, speak her mind: 
 every fold of her stiff silk dress, every line of her 
 thin face, every hair of her severe head wore the 
 expression " I told you so." 
 
 Randolph's mother was generally miserable, 
 chiefly to-night, however, because she knew that 
 her staunch little friend was miserable, too. She 
 would feel better if she were miserable all by her- 
 self. Lettice was miserable because she was afraid 
 that Randolph, with the slyness of the diseased and 
 drunken, had fled her custody and thus put an end 
 to her experiment the thing for which she had 
 lived ; and for which she was ready to die. 
 
 The rain beat the windows, as if crying to be let 
 in: and the wind moaned and then waited for 
 
 11 161
 
 162 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 strength to moan louder : at last the supper bell, in 
 cheery distinctness, gave them all something pleas- 
 ant to do. 
 
 When the three were seated, Amos came in as 
 usual with the bread. 
 
 The old colored servant had a code of conduct 
 peculiarly his own which he very highly respected : 
 it would have been improper for him to say what 
 he had to say to either of the ladies alone. This 
 might suggest that Randolph was doing something 
 of which he or they might be ashamed, and there- 
 fore no way to treat a gentleman. What he had to 
 say must be said quietly to them all, as if nothing 
 were to pay. He stood a moment behind the chair 
 of Lettice, the silver bread basket in his hand, and 
 deliberately stated " Marse Randuff won't be home 
 to-night: it's raining too hard, and de roads too 
 bad for a city gemmen what's not used to 'em. He 
 be home to-morrer jes soon's I kin fotch him. I 
 brung Hampton home case he got a tech o' dis- 
 temper anyhow, an' needs he own stall. Marse 
 Randuff is all right, ladies, all right ! " 
 
 "But where is Randolph, Uncle Amos?" 
 
 Lettice was very serious. 
 
 " Nowhere in de wurrld, Miss Lettice, but wid 
 de gemmen at de cote house." 
 
 " I have always noticed " Cousin Mary Nicol- 
 son would have died to have held her tongue any 
 longer " that court houses have a strange fascin-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 163 
 
 ation for men, even when there is no court I 
 wonder why? " 
 
 " There is much about men that we women can't 
 understand." Charlotte was trying to be pleasant 
 and impersonal. " They are enigmas without 
 many good answers." 
 
 " I don't think Randolph is a bit of an enigma : 
 he simply was worn out with us and had to see 
 somebody else. I don't much blame him," thus 
 Lettice defended with spirit. 
 
 " You don't ? " asked Mary Nicolson icily. 
 
 That night was a bad one for Lettice. If only 
 she could be sincere! If only she could abandon 
 herself to diatribes upon Randolph's condition, his 
 needs, the possibility of his recovery : instead, she 
 must, according to convention, talk of everything 
 beneath the sun except Randolph Turberville; he 
 was too delicate a subject to be broached. So they 
 played bridge with dummy, and the only way she 
 could express her feeling was to beat Charlotte 
 and Cousin Mary out of their boots. 
 
 At eleven, Amos, the candles and bed but no 
 sleep for Lettice ! She had the sensation of having 
 missed a railroad train or a steamboat ; or of hav- 
 ing put a letter in the box without a stamp. Had 
 she missed her chance? 
 
 Free from stays and hairpins and wrapped like 
 a mummy in her thick, well-worn dressing gown, 
 she crouched close to the fender and peered into
 
 164 A MAN'S BEACH 
 
 the fire. She wanted a tongue of flame in every 
 pore. She wanted to blaze: she had dillydallied 
 long enough : three precious weeks gone and not 
 one thing accomplished rather the contrary. She 
 knew what she intended to do; why had not she 
 done it? 
 
 " I can, I can, if only he will let me try. 
 Has he run away because he suspects? Why 
 should there be any suspicion or secrecy? Why 
 should not I say, right out, ' Hold still, Randolph, 
 hold still and let me cure you ' ? " 
 
 Piece after piece of wood did the girl throw on 
 her fire till not a stick was left : she put the chunks 
 together again and again, and they all had burnt 
 to one glowing coal. She went to her window to 
 raise it, but waited a moment: there was power 
 and eloquence in the wild night, and before she let 
 it in to strengthen her lungs, to hasten sleep, she 
 would study its strange methods. Why the angry 
 wind, the thousand rain-fingers beating gruesome 
 discord ? Why ? Why ? Why the fierce human 
 will, subjugating, healing, curing? The wind and 
 rain out there: the fierceness of a woman's will 
 here. 
 
 Through the storm she saw the tall monument 
 to Henry Corbin in the graveyard at the back of 
 the garden : the willow tree, towering over it, had 
 gone mad and was lashing the marble with long 
 supple withes lashing it furiously; it knew no
 
 A MAN'S REACH 185 
 
 better. The rain sinking into the April flowers 
 had a reason for its frenzy buds and blossoms, 
 perhaps to-morrow. Was she going to play with 
 flint, beat vainly against stone ? Or like the furious 
 rain would frantic energy mean light, color, fra- 
 grance, peace? 
 
 In bed she and the storm were partners dancing 
 to the quick tune of inevitable action: the wind 
 swept from its caverns and embraced her waiting 
 forces and whirled them far from prudence and 
 conventionality: the rain gathered her reluctance 
 and her fear into a merry insinuating waltz ; and 
 then placed them in the mighty arms of the wind 
 which swayed and guided them far from the con- 
 tempt of men to a luminous acclivity, where all 
 things are expedient that can be done in the name 
 of God. 
 
 No sleep ! First a terrible " Suppose, suppose 
 Randolph never comes back." Then a confident 
 " He will, I know he will." A young brain 
 throbbing with courage and fear, a young heart 
 aching for pity and regret ! 
 
 Randolph did come back, and perhaps in a bet- 
 ter frame of mind. His mother's eyes regained 
 their limpid blue ; flowers sprung gladly after days 
 of rain ; Mary Nicolson, even, responded to the be- 
 wildering loveliness of the April earth ; and Amos 
 informed Lettice that " Marse Randuff were git- 
 tin* more better good-natured ev'y day. He
 
 166 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 'low he hongry, he 'low he sleep, he feel, he feel 
 like 'tother folks feel dat how he feel. He 'gin- 
 nin' to think sump'n of heself, an' ef a pusson don' 
 think er heap er heself who gwineter? An' 
 mosoever an' betternall Marse Randuff is slowin' 
 down on he dram." 
 
 Unmistakably, Randolph was responding to 
 silent treatment. His skin was clearer, the fine 
 red lines in the white of his eyes had almost dis- 
 appeared ; and his hair, though worn too long, had 
 lost some of its dryness and was actually trying 
 once more to wave around his forehead. The first 
 shoots of his dead self evidently were springing. 
 
 His affection for his mother had assumed its old 
 demonstrative freedom: he laughed involuntarily 
 at the jokes of Lettice: and actually, in good 
 nature, teased Cousin Mary Nicolson. 
 
 Upon a wonderful morning, about ten days 
 after the rainy day, he announced, " I did not 
 touch a drop of whiskey yesterday, and I slept 
 like a baby all night." 
 
 Cousin Mary stiffened and looked in her plate : 
 she'd rather one talked of committing adultery 
 than of drinking whiskey. 
 
 Lettice, who had lifted the top of the urn to see 
 why the coffee did not pour, let it fly back with a 
 snap : then she clapped her hands with a cheerful 
 " Good." 
 
 " Lettice ! " Cousin Mary was very stern.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 187 
 
 .. 
 
 What is the matter, Cousin Mary? Why 
 should we be always saying what we don't think, 
 and especially thinking what we don't say? It 
 isn't to keep awful things secret, but to run them 
 to the open, and try to get rid of them am I right, 
 Randolph?" 
 
 " You are right," he answered soberly, but with 
 spirit. The subject was not continued. 
 
 Lettice and Randolph were soon out seeing to 
 this and that and everything: the calf had been 
 saved by the coffee-pot spout and was well on its 
 four legs: lambs dotted the green meadow like 
 splotches of foam on a pea-green sea: plowmen 
 slowly tracked the wide brown fields : and singing 
 birds and clucking hens told the old, old story of 
 maternity and care. 
 
 Sweet, new life was peeping: by the barns they 
 gathered the careless children of nature's garden 
 stolid toothwort, pale carydalis, saxifrage and 
 henbane: at least Lettice gathered them arid dis- 
 played their unobtrusive beauty to Randolph. 
 Every smile of God was a little life-line. 
 
 In the fowlyard the big Plymouth Rocks were 
 jealous of their restless chicks; and one fluffy 
 mother walked all over her brood. 
 
 " Step-mothers," Lettice smiled. 
 
 Randolph held up his hands: it was too bad, 
 but he quickly answered, " The mother of the 
 chicken is the hen that lays the egg."
 
 168 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " And this hen did not lay the egg, because 
 she step " 
 
 " Oh, pshaw," he interrupted, " no way of prov- 
 ing it!" 
 
 Everything was easier this crisp, spring morn- 
 ing. Randolph's morbid self -consciousness was 
 less apparent, and both of them were dashing at 
 everything with the old, merry spirit. Randolph 
 had not yet displayed a bit of physical agility, and 
 Lettice could but compare his present indolence 
 with the activity of her foot-ball hero : would Ran- 
 dolph ever show his athletic side again ? 
 
 Somebody had left the garden gate open and a 
 frisky colt was rollicking over the flower beds. 
 
 " Let's drive him out Randolph ! " Lettice was 
 already in the blossoming old garden. 
 
 " Me against the colt what chance for me? " 
 Randolph was waving a stick, and uttering violent 
 threats which the beautiful young animal utterly 
 disregarded. 
 
 " Come on, Randolph ; run him out ! " 
 
 " Run ! " Randolph's tone was sarcastic. 
 
 "Yes, run. Why not? You can if you try. 
 I believe you would like never to try. Come on ; 
 don't you see the colt is about to trample the 
 peonies ? Peonies are papa's darlings : there must 
 not be a bud less this year. Run, Randolph ; drive 
 the colt away ! " 
 
 Lettice had been darting hither and yonder ; she
 
 A MAN'S REACH 169 
 
 had raced the sunbonnet off her head the little 
 blue sunbonnet she had promised her mother to 
 wear on account of freckles and now breathless 
 and bonnetless, she sat on a garden bench com- 
 manding Randolph to run : and he ran. 
 
 No use to fear for Randolph's lost agility: 
 Lettice could not tell which was the nimbler, he 
 or the colt. A boyish energy had superseded 
 Randolph's indolence and Lettice cheered his re- 
 covered spirit, chuckling gleefully over the victory 
 he at last won. 
 
 Later they went for the mail. Instead of wait- 
 ing for the rural deliverer, it was now the custom 
 of Randolph to go to the post-office and fetch it. 
 Usually Lettice went with him. 
 
 This morning they stepped along the embowered 
 bridle paths in silence : the ecstasy of nature was 
 enough : the crimson on the dove's breast, the 
 warm, intoxicating air, the blend of insinuating 
 odor produced delicious little thrills which sur- 
 prised Randolph. He did not like even this faint 
 tingle ; it must be repressed ; he must talk silence 
 encouraged it. 
 
 " I be dogged if you didn't make me run. I 
 didn't believe I could do it." 
 
 " I'll make you do something else, before I get 
 through, see if I don't." 
 
 " Something else? " Slowly. 
 
 " Umph umph " dreamily, and then as if
 
 170 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 suddenly awaking " Randolph, I've got designs 
 on you ! When you leave Laneville, you will 
 have become able to dispense with all things 
 that hurt you." 
 
 Lettice did not look at Randolph, but at the sky ; 
 and her words were like bolts of conviction slowly 
 hurled at him. They possessed a solemnity that 
 Randolph dare not resist. 
 
 " All right," he said, solemnly, too. " You are 
 queer, Lettice; sometimes I am afraid of you." 
 
 " Not afraid, impressed, rather ; that's what I 
 want you to be." 
 
 " You know I always fancied mysticism ; aren't 
 you a bit of a mystic? " 
 
 " I don't know what I am ; wish I did. Elsie 
 Vennerish, maybe." 
 
 " Never," emphatically. " Archangelish, a-a-a- 
 a-a " 
 
 Their eyes met, color rose to the cheek of each, 
 and both quickly looked the other way, and forced 
 their horses to a canter. 
 
 Presently they passed through a magnificent 
 skirt of wood ; beeches, oaks and hickories arched 
 the quiet roadway. Their horses fell from a canter 
 to a walk, as if in reverence. Randolph removed 
 his close riding cap; Lettice was already bare- 
 headed. 
 
 " These trees seem to take hold of your hair
 
 A MAN'S REACH 171 
 
 and press from it as many shades of gold as they 
 have green." 
 
 Lettice was surprised : it was the first time he 
 had alluded to her personally. In the old days, 
 now so very, very old, he often openly admired 
 her hair, her eyes, her smile, her mental pyro- 
 technics; but never yet during this strange, 
 pivotal visit. 
 
 " To me, Randolph, these trees with their ma- 
 jestic dignity, draw the very soul from me and 
 send it upward, upward, to " She was over- 
 come with emotion, and could not finish. 
 
 " It's a shame, a crying shame " Randolph 
 
 could not finish either. 
 
 " What's a shame, Randolph? " 
 
 " Nothing," very quickly. 
 
 The horses stepped slowly along as if giving 
 them time to hear the appeal of the towering 
 trees, the melody of the " Quaker ladies " so thick 
 upon the way, the benediction of the far-off sky. 
 
 Out of the wood Laneville burst upon them 
 through a vista of trees. 
 
 " It is splendid in its silence." Randolph took 
 off his cap again. 
 
 " The sight of it means everything on earth to 
 me." Lettice was still serious. " There is no 
 holy sensation that it does not revive. I used to 
 kick hard against the pricks of Laneville, the cease- 
 less admonitions, the never-ending restrictions:
 
 178 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 I am reconciled to them all now. Beyond these 
 infinitesimal aggravations are depths which it took 
 me a long time to sound. I would not be doing 
 what I am doing now but for the courage, the 
 consecration of Laneville. I am doing something 
 of which Laneville never heard, and yet I am try- 
 ing to do what Laneville teaches." 
 
 " What are you trying to do, Lettice ? " Ran- 
 dolph was very serious, too. 
 
 She was not afraid to look straight at him now. 
 " I am trying to thrust my will into your will, 
 Randolph. I am trying to get at a man's soul; 
 instead of blood transfusion it is soul transfusion. 
 
 Won't you, can't you " She could not say 
 
 any more, but tightened her rein on Kitty Fisher 
 and far outdistanced Randolph to the house gate.
 
 XV 
 
 FOR about a week longer they moved along, as 
 they had moved for over a month. Charlotte 
 thought she should be going home and Randolph, 
 too. It was all Lettice could do to stay them. 
 She herself was physically depleted by her strange 
 and as yet ineffectual task. Her color was fading, 
 she had no appetite, her whole being was yielding 
 to the clutch of her high-keyed soul. 
 
 After the ride through the sweet spring world 
 Randolph's usual depression returned, there was 
 a pleading weariness in his eyes, his talk was 
 forced: and the feelings of Lettice were similar 
 to those of a mother, who had been trying hard 
 to keep her babe from a sucking-bottle by every 
 diversion known to the baby world, and who had 
 at last concluded that the hour had come for heroic 
 measures: she could not stand the whining and 
 the fretting any longer. 
 
 The day had been long and trying, the nerves 
 of everybody were on edge ; and Lettice was sure 
 that if she did not do something quick she would 
 never do it at all: they would all fly apart like 
 sparks from a condemned sky-rocket. 
 
 She noticed that Randolph ate no supper, and 
 she herself had forced every mouthful. Well, 
 
 173
 
 174 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 perhaps a starved body would quicken the action 
 of her spirit ; anyway, she believed the hour could 
 be no longer delayed, and immediately after sup- 
 per she said to Randolph: "Let's go into the 
 library." 
 
 A wood fire sensed the spirit of the room and 
 voiced the impression it distilled. Amidst its 
 inspiration Lettice Corbin was actually going 
 to begin to tap Randolph Turberville's soul. She 
 need fear no interruption; evening visitors were 
 almost unknown to Laneville unless invited, and 
 Chattie and Mary Nicolson were fastened to the 
 drawing-room lamp and new stitches, which they 
 were learning from a knitting book just come 
 through the mail. 
 
 Randolph took one of the winged chairs, and 
 Lettice made herself small in the corner of the 
 sofa. Neither spoke at first, they were as fixed 
 as if in a game of chess both gazing in the fire 
 wordless, wondering. 
 
 The young man's gaze revolved to Lettice after 
 a while and was as steady as a star. Lettice felt 
 it and purposely held it. 
 
 " Just in this position in the Murray library on 
 West Benjamin Street, six years ago ! You shot 
 up, I down." He almost whispered. 
 
 She did not move or speak. She was a medium 
 with hands on the table. 
 
 **" I let go something, lost my balance, gave up
 
 A MAN'S REACH 175 
 
 to a queer and potent suggestion," Randolph con- 
 tinued in a low monotone. 
 
 " You believe in suggestion? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And in unsuggestion ? Counter-suggestion, 
 uprooting suggestion ? " 
 
 " You're getting too deep for me now." He 
 looked from Lettice to the fire and then drowsily 
 at her again. "Of course there was a cell ready 
 for the suggestion, else it could not have lodged; 
 a cup for the poisonous drop, else it were wasted." 
 
 " I know." She held his eyes steadily. She 
 willed to steep his senses with herself. 
 
 " Where did the suggestion come from? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I can't tell : it would be disloyal. I received 
 it when I was very young: I know the moment. 
 It was night, I was worn out and troubled : from 
 a legitimate source I got the idea of the soothing 
 and resuscitating power of whiskey (I might as 
 well be plain) and that idea, that suggestion 
 has been the strongest part of me ever since. 
 Nothing I could do would daunt it. Neither the 
 cell nor the suggestion were my fault." The 
 cynical tendency enlarged itself upon his lips, 
 and upon the fine curve of his nose grown thicker 
 in these shadow years ; his tones were nasal ; his 
 emphasis sharp: a bitter taste was in his mouth. 
 "If my adversary had been outside, I might have
 
 176 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 slain him : but he was within, encased, he fought 
 me in ambush, unfairly." 
 
 " There's ammunition for the hidden foe ; why 
 didn't you use it ? " 
 
 " I seemed not to know about it ; I was not able 
 to find it." 
 
 " You mean to say you did not want to find it." 
 
 " Try not to be hard on me, Lettice ; I am a 
 miserable creature, shrinking, ungrowing, failing. 
 I am conscious of abusing my nature until it is 
 like a saucepan eaten into holes by rust and ex- 
 posure; it cannot hold a gill of permanent reso- 
 lution." 
 
 " You see if it can't. I'll show you it can." 
 
 " I am a spiritual beggar, not a spiritual brute. 
 I have never given myself to greed, injustice, 
 cruelty, gross egoism; it has been stimulation, 
 frenzy, depression, more stimulation: the invin- 
 cible suggestion has made me lopsided, lacking 
 will either way you took me, with no superlativ- 
 ity of bad or good. Long ago between the clouds 
 was a vision of restored manliness: the clouds 
 have come together, the vision has forever de- 
 parted." Randolph put his face in his hands and 
 groaned. 
 
 " Go on, Ran, go on," Lettice urged with amaz- 
 ing kindness ; she was trying to put into her tones 
 the soothing quality of mammy's " shh-sh-sh-sh-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 177 
 
 sh-sh-sh " when her own baby self had been peev- 
 ish and difficult. 
 
 Not discerning the subtle power which was 
 encompassing him, Randolph spoke on : " Once 
 in a while the nerve centres of my being have 
 rebelled, and I have seen light breaking on the 
 top of my soul-hills: remember how you and I 
 used to prate about soul-hills ? Then I would try 
 harder than you will ever know to turn over 
 a new leaf, but even with the consciousness of 
 your precious sympathy, I'd get weary : I couldn't 
 do it. Like a whipped dog I followed my master, 
 Suggestion, and drank more whiskey than ever 
 before. I felt so much better drunk than sober: 
 my intelligence would immediately revive : I was 
 ' hail-fellow-well-met ' with Marcus Aurelius, 
 Plato, Charles Lamb, Sidney Smith and our be- 
 loved Robert Browning; and a 'jolly-good- 
 fellow ' with all my boon companions. Reaction, 
 of course, came in its own time. Then the old 
 high-brows scampered off, and my friends-of- 
 the-cup followed their example when my jokes 
 were less pungent. When alone, Lettice, it was 
 you that gave me hope, and you that drove hope 
 away." 
 
 " Me ? " drawing closer. " Me ? How ? " 
 " In the dusk of returning sobriety your face 
 would shine, lips parted, eyes irresistible, hair 
 waving ' never mind ' ' here are we to save you/ 
 12
 
 178 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Then your face would fade, hard common sense 
 was pulling it back back, until nothing could 
 I see but the breath of your prayers, floating 
 like white birds over the dark chasm which 
 divided us." He caught his breath as if in pain. 
 " You prayed for me ? " 
 
 " Unceasingly, when I knew I was praying and 
 when I didn't know I was praying always." 
 
 " God bless you," falteringly. 
 
 " After a long, long time I found out that 
 prayer is action not only feathery lip-service, 
 but mental activity." 
 
 " Then ? " somewhat puzzled. 
 
 " Oh, when I realized that ' wordy ' prayer is 
 no more than a handful of goose feathers in the 
 face of a roaring beast, I began to pull red-hot 
 missiles from my heart and brain and hurl them 
 with all my strength against your difficulties. 
 Nothing worth while is easy, but Randolph, if I 
 had had an idea of the terrible strain of my task, 
 perhaps I would never have undertaken it I 
 don't know." 
 
 " You mean that my condition is altogether 
 hopeless? " with pitiful emphasis. 
 
 " Hopeless? Of course not, Randolph! " Her 
 sparkling eyes, varnished storm-clouds, gathered 
 up all the agony and depression of his face and 
 returned it to him explained and diminished. " I 
 am going to cure you." A long, tense pause.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 179 
 
 " I have something in me strong enough to enter 
 you and extract that terrible suggestion by the 
 roots. Randolph Turberville," very slowly and 
 softly, " God put me in this world to save you." 
 
 Both had risen. The man trembled ; the woman 
 exalted, unafraid, went closer to him and laid her 
 hand upon his arm. 
 
 " God ! " broke the rigid stillness of the listen- 
 ing room. " You can't, it's too bad for you to fool 
 yourself." He drew away from her, went back to 
 the winged chair, grasping its firm arms as if for 
 help. " I am too old, too old, too hard ; I can't 
 stop, I haven't the strength. ' The habit ! ' How 
 your words at the table the first night we were 
 here dug into my heart! I cannot stop, Lettice, 
 no use to waste your splendid young life on me. I 
 have tried ; you may not believe me but I have : 
 if I stop to-day I'll drink more to-morrow. If I 
 gain the fight as I've done to-day, as I do every 
 now and then, the sly suggestion whispers : * Bad 
 for your health, very bad; you've gone too far, 
 you can't do without stimulant.' If I see a ray of 
 hope, as I sometimes do when talking with you, it 
 fades before I seize it." 
 
 Lettice had listened patiently, shaking her head 
 slowly, firmly, in disagreement. Yet the expres- 
 sion of his face absolutely disarmed her. She had 
 seen the same look on the face of a suffering ani-
 
 180 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 mal, or in the puckers on the countenance of a 
 sobbing, heart-broken little child. 
 
 Then she summoned her retiring forces again. 
 
 " The suggestion whispers ? We must shut its 
 mouth." She tried to smile. He didn't smile 
 back. " Your ideals are above your power of 
 action. You need all sorts of help, and I am going 
 to give it to you." 
 
 Now he did smile faintly. 
 
 " There's nothing uncanny or irregular in what 
 I intend to do, Randolph dear; it is a fact that 
 suggestion, good or bad, subtly, surely, rules our 
 lives. You are coerced by the whiskey sugges- 
 tion: I am going to eradicate that and fill you 
 with the anti-whiskey suggestion. You've got to 
 help me to do it, you gave your heart to me once, 
 Randolph," with heavenly sweetness, her words 
 fell. " Now you've got to give me more than 
 your heart : you've got to give me your heart, your 
 head, everything." 
 
 " Take all ! " he breathed rather than said. 
 
 " I want you to live in me for a little while. 
 I want you to feel that all I am trying to do for 
 you is in in " She could not exactly express 
 herself. 
 
 " L " he began, but he could not finish ; the 
 
 word was too big for him. 
 
 " Habit makes crooked paths in the soul ; my 
 spirit is going to dig a ditch beneath those ugly
 
 A MAN'S REACH 181 
 
 paths and cast the soil of which they are made 
 entirely out of your existence." She moved her 
 hands up and down, above her head and down to 
 her lap. There was certainly less resistance about 
 Randolph; he was unconsciously yielding to her 
 opinion. She realized his plasticity and took 
 fresh heart. 
 
 " I am going to show you, Randolph, that you 
 really detest intoxication and I am going to make 
 this idea rule you : all that you've got to do is to 
 believe. Won't you try to believe ? " 
 
 " Y-e-e-s." His weary eyes, stirred with a 
 faint hope, met hers appealingly. 
 
 " Only believe ! " Lettice was near him again, 
 her hands outstretched. 
 
 With a cry he arose and clasped them as if 
 for life or death; then he let them go and stood 
 trembling, puzzled; his arms limp and helpless at 
 his side. 
 
 The look of his white, strained face, so yearn- 
 ing in its weakness, overwhelmed Lettice; she 
 could hardly restrain the sob in her throat ; every 
 instinct of her nature rose to succor and help 
 he should not perish ! 
 
 She now swung her words a little more im- 
 personally : " Do you remember "the day at the 
 University that we read Heine on the west lawn ? 
 I can hear you now. It is not we who master 
 our ideas. It is our ideas that master us, and
 
 182 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 drive us into the arena where as gladiators we 
 must fight for them. I am your gladiator, Son- 
 Boy, and my idea will never let me go." She 
 rose and waved her right arm triumphantly. 
 " Your gladiator, Son-Boy, dashing, plunging, 
 with lance extended for my idea!" 
 
 He was very grave, almost bewildered, irrespon- 
 sive, painfully silent. 
 
 A burnt log broke and fell on the coals: it 
 startled them both. Lettice went to the hearth, 
 took up the tongs, and put the pieces together. 
 Then she opened the wood-box, picked out two 
 lightwood knots, laid them on the glowing chunks, 
 lowered the lamp and blew it out. She had done 
 the same thing in the Murray library years ago. 
 
 The knots hissed, spluttered and blazed yellow 
 in the faces of these interlacing personalities, send- 
 ing gyrating shadows on the high ceiling. Neither 
 spoke: Lettice fixed her eyes on Randolph until 
 he seemed to contract, lose himself in her senses. 
 She liked this ; she wished to let him steep in her 
 individuality. 
 
 Presently she began in a dull monotone : " We 
 are partners, by God's will, and we must do the 
 best we can. Our firm is burdened with mort- 
 gages, debts : must we go into bankruptcy ? That's 
 a,n easy way of doing. I think we had better 
 gather up all our assets and see what we can do 
 first; try to restore our firm to respectability be-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 183 
 
 fore we entirely give up. I've got a lot of good 
 securities and I am perfectly willing to use them 
 all to save our firm its name is too good to sink 
 into ignominy and disrepute. But you have got to 
 help me, Randolph. Your part is to believe, my 
 part is to do. Won't you try to believe that I can 
 cure you? Won't you put yourself into my hands 
 for a little while? Mine are a woman's weak 
 hands, mine is a woman's infrangible will." Once 
 more she was up and close to him. " But in them 
 is healing, if you will believe." 
 
 Through his blue eyes shot lines of hope, like 
 a sick baby suddenly stretching its reviving limbs. 
 Lettice sunk on the wide arm of his winged chair 
 and he put his hand on her bare arm. His fingers 
 were hot and trembled : " I should like to tell you 
 something," he whispered, " but, but " 
 
 "Never mind, never mind," she interrupted; 
 " don't talk, don't try, just believe as I believe." 
 
 Suddenly he gave Lettice the impression of 
 drawing himself from her, and on his face was a 
 strange look, either of apprehension or of sus- 
 picion she could not tell which ; but it banished 
 hesitation and made her solicitude, her determina- 
 tion, at once professional. 
 
 She fell on her knees at the feet of the big chair 
 with her white hands on its arms, her face, like 
 a prayer, upturned to Randolph. She did not 
 speak for a minute or two, but her spirit was
 
 184 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 lashing the man's spirit in fierce waves until she 
 began : " You and I, you and I, moving in a mys- 
 terious will-sphere, my will in your will, grappling, 
 tussling with the whiskey idea trying to cast 
 it out. The Master helped Peter and John 
 to cast out devils: He is my Master as well as 
 theirs, will He not help me, too? He is, I know. 
 He is going to help me to subdue, to vanquish a 
 terrible suggestion." These words passed the 
 girl's lips with the solemn beat of a muffled drum. 
 Her spirit had really entered Randolph's senses, 
 in spite of himself. His eyes were now large 
 and luminous with a wild astonishment, he was 
 fastened to the subtle movement of this absorbing 
 play. 
 
 There was a pause, a lull of feeling, the astonish- 
 ment of the man died into slow resignation : he and 
 Lettice breathed together like French clocks tick- 
 ing softly; he very still in the chair; she even 
 stiller on her knees. 
 
 When Lettice finally arose and went across the 
 hearth (no longer a blaze, but a red blur of coals) 
 she had lived a life of intense concentration. She 
 lifted the lid of the wood-box and threw on an- 
 other lightwood chunk, then sank in the other big 
 chair. Her head thrown back, and gazing at 
 Randolph through low-lidded eyes, she began to 
 croon like a distant flute :
 
 A MAN'S REACH 185 
 
 Swing low, sweet c-h-a-r-i-o-t, 
 A comin' fer to carry me h-o-m-e, 
 
 Swing low, sweet c-h-a-r-i-o-t, 
 A comin' fer to carry me home. 
 
 She sang the old melody several times, patting 
 time with her foot: her eyes never leaving Ran- 
 dolph until his fine, fair head was easy on the 
 back of his chair, and his eyes as gentle and willing 
 as the eyes of a child. 
 
 The door opened : " Mose bade-time, Miss 
 Lettice ? " 
 
 " Yes, Uncle Amos," and Lettice went out. 
 
 " Still knitting? " she asked the older ladies in 
 the drawing-room, and saw through the open door 
 Amos following Randolph up the broad stair.
 
 XVI 
 
 LETTICE felt as if she held Randolph by a 
 chain and that if she allowed her thoughts to leave 
 him for a second he would break loose. She was 
 so enveloped, entangled in her mystical experi- 
 ment, that all life was but a thought-wire between 
 herself and her subject. She was afraid tc go to 
 bed lest sleep, like a sharp knife, break this 
 thought-wire, so she sat in a chair by her window 
 all the livelong night. 
 
 No breath of wind swayed the trees : their green 
 to-night was palest silver, and the little, lapping 
 waves of the quiet Rappahannock might have been 
 the soft lips of babies at their mother's breast. 
 Nature was soothing, but the girl did not want to 
 be soothed, rather she wished to be tightened by 
 a keener vision, coerced by a flaming confidence. 
 Her will must be as stern and hard as the black- 
 smith's defiant anvil: and her brain must send 
 forth the anvil's red, glowing sparks. 
 
 Towards dawn the muted birds, the cradled 
 flowers began to stir; and she, like a prophet after 
 the mountain's fast, girded herself for the battle. 
 She went down early, but she was afraid to give 
 the old plantation even an edge of her energy: 
 instead she sought the chair in which Randolph 
 
 186
 
 A MAN'S REACH 187 
 
 had sat the night before, and hugged her purpose 
 lest the sensuous languor of the April day drive it 
 away. 
 
 Charlotte and Randolph came down rather late ; 
 Cousin Mary would not come down at all on 
 account of her cold. 
 
 " Isn't April stupefying? " Randolph was 
 sleepily stirring his coffee. " I could hardly get 
 my eyes open at all this morning." 
 
 " You couldn't ? " Lettice drew his glance well 
 into hers. " A little while ago you couldn't get 
 them to shut remember?" Her smile was as 
 insinuating as the April warmth. 
 
 Randolph looked at her inquisitively without 
 speaking ; he was pensive, not moody, very gentle, 
 but not a bit querulous. 
 
 " I think we must be going home soon." Char- 
 lotte, since she came in, had looked as if some- 
 thing were on her mind. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " Lettice was not surprised, but like 
 one who awaited a certainty, she winced at the 
 final word. "Why?" 
 
 " First and foremost, because we must not wear 
 our welcome out. But for your unselfishness we 
 might have done it long ago : now the time has 
 really come on that account and others." 
 
 " Well, I can't chain you," Lettice playing 
 with her breakfast spoke with genuine feeling, 
 "but I would if I could."
 
 188 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " You have done us both a lot of good, dear 
 Lettice. We can never tell you how much." 
 
 " A lot of good ? " Randolph looked at Lettice 
 as if upon her answer hung life hope. 
 
 Lettice pressed her lips firmly together and 
 nodded her head up and down as if to say: "Of 
 course, all the good in the world." Randolph went 
 on with his breakfast as if perfectly satisfied. 
 
 " We are going to have a complete change of 
 diversion to-day and we are not going to do one 
 bit of work." The words of Lettice fell like a 
 new movement in a familiar sonata. " We are 
 going a-fishing ! " 
 
 "Fishing?" Randolph, in a measure, had 
 waked up. " Why haven't we been before? " 
 
 " Because the fish have not been biting. Uncle 
 Amos says there are shoals of them off Cedar- 
 Bush now, and we are going there just as fast as 
 our arms can carry us. You can row, can't you, 
 Randolph?" 
 
 " I used to; I don't know." 
 
 "If you can't, I can," Lettice announced as she 
 arose from the table. 
 
 They all had been out on the river day after 
 day, but always in Mr. Corbin's fine canoe manned 
 by Mr. Corbin's careful boatmen. Then there was 
 a-plenty of wind; there was none to-day and be- 
 sides Lettice wanted neither boatmen nor any 
 other lady besides herself.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 189 
 
 Adown the rose walk with fishing tackle, lunch, 
 a rug and a volume of Tennyson fit weapons to 
 fight the hours of a bright spring day. 
 
 Lettice's small row-boat was bobbing to its 
 anchor at the foot of the lawn. Its oars ready 
 under the gnarled paper-mulberry that stood near 
 the shore. Randolph pulled in the boat with one 
 of the oars, Lettice jumped in and he followed. 
 
 At first he rowed, rather laboriously: then 
 Lettice took a hand, or better, two hands. 
 
 She used the slender paddles as easily as a 
 Chinaman his chop sticks. In and out, grace- 
 fully, rhythmically as swallows skim ; catching the 
 sun on their thin blades and ducking it quickly 
 in the sparkling water. 
 
 " I learned when I was a child, you didn't." 
 The eyes of Lettice twinkled. " There are four 
 things that must be learned early to be well done : 
 swimming, dancing, skating and rowing." 
 
 They went very slowly up the river and then 
 around a bend to Cedar-Bush. The sun sweet- 
 ened them, the easy motion was full of a strange 
 comfort. They did not talk; Lettice was afraid 
 of antagonistic ideas she must reinforce the 
 pivotal idea every moment. 
 
 The fish did not bite, but they sat with lines 
 extended, waiting, patient. To Lettice the fish 
 were inconsequent, and usually she was a good 
 sport : today the fish were merely a common and
 
 190 A MAN'S BEACH 
 
 lazy interest for Randolph and herself. As they 
 sat on the side of the boat very close together, 
 Lettice was pouring her idea into his lulled senses : 
 and he, unconsciously, was giving his weary will 
 to hers. 
 
 The hours passed like a passive flock wending 
 their calm way to a peaceful fold. Randolph 
 showed no impatience; Lettice was satisfied be- 
 cause earth seemed to hold its breath in respect for 
 her sacred ritual. 
 
 They had lunch on the bank strewed with early 
 buttercups, and Randolph lay on a pile of " sea- 
 ore " * while Lettice read, droning like a bumble- 
 bee: 
 
 And some had visions out of golden youth, 
 
 And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 
 
 Look in upon the battle ; and in the mist 
 
 Was many a noble deed, many a base, 
 
 And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 
 
 And ever and anon with host to ho 
 
 Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, 
 
 Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
 
 Of battle-axes on shattered helms, and shrieks 
 
 After the Christ 
 
 "After the Christ!" Randolph interrupted 
 dreamily. Lettice did not answer, but read on: 
 
 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice rise, 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 
 * A sort of grass washed up by the waves.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 191 
 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
 
 She closed the book : it was enough. 
 
 Randolph still on the " seaore " with closed 
 eyes murmured, " I hear and I don't hear. I 
 am resting in you, Lettice ; I don't want to think. 
 Oh, Lettice, keep on trying to save me ! " 
 
 They rowed slowly back to Laneville : the east 
 wind was against them and they took turns, gliding 
 leisurely over the sunset sea. 
 
 When the boat grated, at last, near the old 
 mulberry, Randolph drew a long breath : " I am 
 tired ; I haven't the energy to walk to the house," 
 he said. 
 
 " That is just how I want you to be," Lettice 
 answered cheerily as she led the way. 
 
 Soon after tea Charlotte went up to Cousin 
 Mary , who was sneezing and blowing in her bed. 
 Lettice and Randolph, as on the night before, re- 
 tired to the library. The hour had come : it was 
 supreme. Lettice had a little stage- fright: she 
 felt her solitary experiment intensely. Old Henry 
 Corbin, above the mantelpiece, gave her courage; 
 and her zeal, which hitherto had spluttered and 
 sizzled, had become steady and blinding as the 
 head-light of a great engine.
 
 192 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Randolph was disposed to talk of himself, sadly 
 his empty hands, his dark and useless future. 
 And he referred to his mother's chastened, cheer- 
 less existence. " She would be much better off if 
 poor old daddy and I had gone off together; you, 
 too," looking into the girl's eyes guiltily. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " She patted the seat of the sofa 
 on which she sat as a sign for him to come and 
 sit beside her. " Sheer nonsense ! I cannot say 
 that you have always been a very good boy; but 
 all that is passed gone forever. You have been 
 a little bad " 
 
 " A 1-i-t-t-l-e b-a-d," very wearily. 
 
 " But henceforward and forever you are going 
 to be a heap good," with startling confidence. 
 " You are going to will, work, believe, be glad." 
 The wonder of human influence possessed the girl. 
 " I am going to take out the offending principle. 
 I I, Lettice Corbin, the girl whom you once 
 loved " 
 
 " Once ? " he sighed as if in real pain. 
 
 " Shh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh ! ' And these signs shall 
 follow them ; they shall cast out devils.' Now, as 
 then, Randolph to those who believe and act." 
 
 " Oh, Lettice, don't, don't deceive " 
 
 " Shh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh ! " she whispered again, as 
 she put her arm around his shoulder with the ten- 
 derness of a mother. " Don't think, look at me 
 and rest ! " She touched his eyelids, now flutter-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 193 
 
 ing, with her gentle fingers, then she smoothed 
 his lined forehead as she would have smoothed 
 James Parke's and Henry's. 
 
 His whole being was relaxing, sinking unwill- 
 ingly into unresistance. A large part of himself 
 was actually asleep; a tiny bit of him was awake, 
 and that part of him swung in the girl's voice 
 waves. His consciousness had been vanquished by 
 a woman's consecrated determination. He was 
 mental dough to be kneaded into mental steel. 
 The low words of Lettice reached layer after layer 
 of his soul, striking through the mazes of his 
 sensibility to the cell of the sinister suggestion. 
 
 Lettice, holding Randolph's waning interest 
 close to herself, removed the Suggestion with 
 reassuring words, red-hot from a furnace, heated 
 seven times by the fire of love. 
 
 " Son-Boy, you don't like whiskey, you don't 
 like whiskey, you don't like whiskey! Son-Boy, 
 you hate whiskey, you hate whiskey, you hate 
 whiskey ! Whiskey kills, whiskey makes Chattie's 
 love pain, whiskey makes the love of Lettice pain, 
 whiskey kills, destroys ; you hate it as Chattie and 
 I hate it, Randolph, Son-Boy. Do you hear, 
 Randolph ? Do you realize that you hate whiskey 
 as I hate it?" 
 
 As on the night before, she had fallen on her 
 knees before her bewildered patient ; she held his 
 hands now; it was all right, for the glad eye of 
 
 19
 
 194 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Henry Corbin protected her; the thoughts of all 
 the sages, phalanxes of encouragement in their 
 strong bookcases, protected her; the traditions of 
 Laneville to minister to all that were in need pro- 
 tected and justified her. 
 
 " You hate whiskey, Son-Boy, hate it, hate it, 
 hate it! Whiskey is hell. It kills. Say what I 
 say in your soul, your innermost soul ! Whiskey 
 kills. You hate it." Her words were pickaxes 
 cleaving a stubborn root ; they exhausted her, took 
 more than human strength to sway them up and 
 down, up and down, like a woodman. 
 
 As she had subdued Randolph, so she released 
 him, but the sparks from the furnace fires of 
 Love's sacrifice were blazing in his soul. When he 
 was wide-awake she stood up, lifted her hands 
 high above her head, and exclaimed : " Randolph, 
 something wonderful has happened. You are a 
 man again, a conqueror ! " 
 
 Randolph stood up, too. His eyes were strained 
 as if he had seen a vision. 
 
 Lettice, blown as if by a mighty wind, fell wear- 
 ily into the big chair. Randolph looked at her 
 wondering. 
 
 A terrible sensation of danger overpowered the 
 girl. " Don't look at me, Randolph," she said, 
 trembling. " Look the other way ! " She was 
 pitifully unstrung, all her nerves tingling. 
 
 She felt as if she, herself, held the evil sug-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 195 
 
 gestion as one holds a rabid beast, and that if she 
 let it go, it would dig its awful fangs into Ran- 
 dolph again. Could she hold it? Could she keep 
 it from him? She arose from the chair and al- 
 most tottered into the hall, clenching the beast in 
 the teeth of her will. Her mental attitude was 
 painfully magnified and supersensitive. 
 
 "Mrs. Turberville! Oh, Mrs. Turberville ! " 
 Her voice sounded weird, strange. It had returned 
 to the fine shrillness of her younger days. " Mrs. 
 Turberville, come to Randolph, he wants you ! " 
 
 She heard Mrs. Turberville's quick footsteps 
 coming down, then she drew the bolt of the front 
 door and almost fell into the night. Such a 
 night! The breath of flowers spicy sweet, the 
 river one " wan wave," and the crescent moon 
 hand in hand with the evening star. Abundant 
 mercy everywhere ! 
 
 Still clutching the poisonous beast, the evil sug- 
 gestion, in her feverish will, she raised her eyes 
 to heaven and handed it to God.
 
 XVII 
 
 THE carriage, Alec on the boot, stood at the 
 Laneville door an hour after breakfast on the 
 following day while Amos, Mammy, Roily and 
 several other negroes came out with bags, shawls, 
 flowers and lunch some useless, some necessary 
 impedimenta. 
 
 Charlotte stood in the hall telling the servants 
 good-bye as they passed along, and delighting 
 their simple hearts with coin : Mary Nicolson was 
 writing a letter to send by the Turbervilles to 
 Bolingbroke there are some of us who take an 
 economical pride in sending a letter without a 
 stamp, and of such is not the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Lettice, bewitching in riding habit and stiff hat, 
 was on the porch earnestly gazing into Randolph's 
 eyes and beating her words with her crop : " I 
 am just like a nagging mother when her little boy 
 is going to have a day off; I am bristling with 
 do's and don'ts. You think me silly and " 
 
 " No, I don't/' very earnestly. 
 
 " I am glad, you encourage me to say that 
 
 that " She hesitated, her eyes on the old 
 
 porch floor now ; she raised her head defiantly, in a 
 moment, gazed back into inquisitive blue eyes and 
 
 196
 
 A MAN'S REACH 197 
 
 went on: " That my will, like a stiff brush, has 
 swept the suggestion out of your mind or heart, 
 or or wherever it was, just as sure as you stand 
 there : and my will put the ' Good Disposition ' in. 
 Now your part, old fellow," she smiled, " is to 
 keep the ' Good Disposition ' at home. The minute 
 you allow it to run around there'll be the mischief 
 to pay. Remember the seven devils? They are 
 roaming about still. Good Disposition is a gad- 
 a-bout and must be restrained. The seven devils 
 are not so brave as you might think : a stern ' I 
 won't I won't ' will be to them like ' scat ' to a 
 cat. This is no hocus-pocus, it is is " 
 
 " Randolph," Charlotte's crepe cameoed her 
 face on the side-post of the front door, " come on, 
 it is time ! " 
 
 The old carriage swung around the circle, 
 through the gate, and down the level lane : Lettice 
 on Kitty Fisher swerving along in front. Kitty 
 Fisher was frisky to-day : she neither kept in the 
 road nor on her feet; now and then she would 
 rear and lift her head as if to steal more gladness 
 from the sky. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " The little gate-opener, on the 
 lowest rung of the last gate, had swung it to with 
 a bang ; the carriage was outside, Lettice and Kitty 
 Fisher within. Kitty's little feet tapping the sand 
 were like interrogation points; and each second, 
 like a cat-o'-nine-tails, whipped the visible Lettice
 
 198 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Corbin and Randolph Turberville further and 
 further apart. 
 
 Randolph, locked with his mother in the ample, 
 gray-padded carriage, was silent. He was dazed 
 like one merging from etherization : in the blur of 
 awakening a vivid girl shone like a star in a mid- 
 night sky. In a fraction of time a sequence of 
 mental flashlights threw the whole of Lettice 
 Corbin in his mental view as plain as a flight 
 of red birds against the solemn pines. He saw 
 her little and sweet, racing through the Park with 
 rings of red running over her head. He saw her 
 bigger and wiser the red rings grown to auburn 
 ringlets. He felt her spirit leaping beyond pru- 
 dence and wrapping him in its rich, red folds. 
 He almost saw this spirit snapping and sputtering 
 and then burning down to a steady glow which 
 blinded him. Away and away in the future was 
 another Lettice, his wife, with velvet, baby hands 
 upon her mother-face. " Oh, God," to himself. 
 "Oh, God!" 
 
 He was afraid ; he reached for his mother's lap, 
 found her hand and clasped it. 
 
 Chattie responded tenderly, and as if carrying 
 on his very thoughts, began : " These weeks have 
 made her very plain, before she was a darling 
 puzzle. Son-Boy, do you remember the first 
 Christmas they were in the Murray house ? " 
 
 " Do I remember ? "
 
 A MAN'S REACH 199 
 
 " She was so enchanting that night, wayward, 
 saucy, irresistible." 
 
 " She is a good sport, as sure as you're born. 
 Her asking us down shows that. Doesn't it. 
 mother?" 
 
 " You mean she ran the risk of her parents not 
 liking it ? I never thought of that before we came, 
 but constantly since." 
 
 " She didn't care. She firmly believes her mis- 
 sion is to cure me ; and even parents don't cut much 
 of a figure with her where I am concerned. This 
 seems conceited, but it is true. She believes in 
 mental medicine, mother, and she has administered 
 it to me." A long pause. Charlotte did not know 
 exactly what to say : after a while Randolph kept 
 on : " The night she called you, she had inserted 
 her will into mine." 
 
 " You really believe she had ? " 
 
 " I believe in in Lettice Corbin." 
 
 " And so do I," emphatically. 
 
 " You know, mother, there is a science of 
 psychotherapy " as if in argument, then, wearily 
 " I don't know. The thing that touches me 
 beyond expression is her effort. She has gone 
 every length to help me. She studied, planned, 
 acted according to a queer, exalted faith absolutely 
 contrary to the wishes of her parents. This fact, 
 tremendous, almost unbelievable, demands co-
 
 00 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 operation; but I am so so undependable so 
 inadequate." 
 
 " But, Son-Boy, you are going to do " 
 
 " What? " he broke in, almost fiercely. " Any- 
 thing?" 
 
 Charlotte's trump-card was consolation rather 
 than argument. " Lettice is wonderful." She 
 knew Randolph wanted to hear that. " She told 
 me once, I remember, that when she loved it would 
 be like Francesca looked at Paolo in our picture." 
 
 " She did ? " A long, long silence field, 
 meadow, wood all in languorous stillness ! Then : 
 " Of the efficacy of will against will I cannot tell 
 yet : but when a girl like Lettice Corbin puts aside 
 every thought of herself to save a man, her very 
 consecration and confidence have their effect. 
 
 " I shall never, no matter what I do, be able to 
 forget two evenings in the Laneville library. 
 Mother, Lettice Corbin is a crusader, a reformer. 
 a follower of " and the sacred name fell from 
 the young man's lips with shy reverence " the 
 Christ." 
 
 It is very hard for a mother and son who have 
 never spoken plainly to begin to do so, and Ran- 
 dolph's strange confidence somewhat disarmed 
 Charlotte. She began to speak away from the 
 subject : " Mary Nicolson " 
 
 Randolph kept to his line : " I feel as if it were 
 impossible for me ever to fight: somebody's got
 
 A MAN'S REACH 01 
 
 to fight for me : I am all jelly, not a bit of whale- 
 bone from bottom to top. Maybe it's leaving 
 Laneville, but this very moment, I am as if a 
 candle-extinguisher were over my head : I'm about 
 to smother." 
 
 " We don't like to leave : I'm all let down, too." 
 
 " You are, Mumsy? That's a comfort. If you 
 feel so, it is all right." Randolph took his mother's 
 hand again. " I've got to try, haven't I ? My 
 task is harder than you or Lettice could ever imag- 
 ine. I have thrown away all friendship that 
 could help me ; I never see Threshly, or Dame, or 
 Morris. Two or three times I borrowed money 
 from them." Chattie winced at this. " Thanks 
 to you, I've paid them back, but they are still 
 afraid of me," and with touching sadness, " We 
 were so intimate as boys." 
 
 " Be yourself, darling, and your old friends 
 will return." 
 
 "Myself, mother? Which is myself? Lettice 
 thinks she has revived myself; has she? Or is 
 that distorted creature that has staggered along 
 the streets of Bolingbroke, me? Is there in me a 
 thing that can force me on ? I want to so badly, 
 but have I the strength? " 
 
 Chattie could not speak ; really she had not the 
 aggressive optimism of Lettice of Laneville. 
 
 On they rolled over sweet, woodsy roads a mile 
 or two in silence: then Randolph again thought
 
 202 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 aloud : " She is obsessed with curing me, and she 
 believes in the potency of the spirit. I reckon she 
 is right. She has a message like Joan of Arc and 
 Madame Curie. She is no everyday girl I am 
 in good hands. If I can only bring her energy 
 with me. She is praying for me this minute, 
 mother, no matter what is doing. She bent over 
 me, mother," he was whispering now, " and 
 touched my brow and my cheeks : sense was out of 
 it; I was passionless yet adoring; and she, a 
 marble goddess lit with the lamp of God." 
 
 " No, no, Son-Boy, a woman with emo- 
 tions " 
 
 " I feel as if I had killed them all except the 
 one for service! I have no plan : I'm just me, a 
 man with my release ! A queer condition without 
 a parallel." 
 
 " This is the beginning, Son-Boy, convalescence. 
 You will soon be robust in every way ; and Lettice 
 and you will be young lovers again. You will find 
 yourself, and your old friends will find you. I 
 wish you had ever fancied Bill-Bob Catlett; if he 
 comes to our church he can help you." 
 
 " Bill-Bob is great, but he and I were on opposite 
 sides, you see. What a pair he and Lettice would 
 make!" 
 
 " Was he ever in love with her? " 
 
 " Some thought so." Randolph did not care to 
 continue this subject.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 203 
 
 " By the way, Son-Boy, I had a letter from 
 Kitty Nestles yesterday. She is back in Boling- 
 broke and wretched. Would it do for me to ask 
 her to pay me a little visit? " 
 
 " No. I don't believe, mother, that even you 
 are good enough to have Mrs. Nestles stay with 
 you. I wouldn't like to trust myself with her a 
 single day. She is a siren the judge on his bench ; 
 the preacher in his pulpit ; the doctor in his office 
 had all better beware of Kitty. I am sorry she is 
 in Bolingbroke. Keep her from starvation if you 
 can, but don't trust her with your men- folk she 
 has awfully winning ways." 
 
 " Poor creature." Charlotte's voice was softly 
 reminiscent. 
 
 The fat, bay mares took their time, the off one 
 teasing the " near " with a playful bite on the 
 neck, which Alec reproved with a touch of his 
 long, black whip. Alec wished to be polite, and 
 when his honored passengers were silent, he would 
 turn his kindly face to the window at his back and 
 explain the fields and things : " Mr. Corr's wheat 
 sorter backward," " Mr. Newcomb's oats a little 
 thin in spots," " Marse Doctor Nelson's office he 
 gone up yonder and nobody like him dese days." 
 
 Randolph was interested, but Chattie had 
 yielded to the magic of the spring and gazed with 
 sleepy eyes at the peaceful panorama. The horses
 
 204 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 slowed up and took long breaths for a steep hill, 
 and Randolph was minded to get out and walk 
 the ascent: afterward he sat on the boot with 
 Alec, smoked a cigarette, and listened, with pleas- 
 ure, to the vivid speech of the old negro. 
 
 " Dey done ruint Marse Warner place," point- 
 ing to a winged mansion gay with awning and 
 paint. " Dey even wants to move he and Mis' 
 Betsy out'n de own gyarden. Our folks allers 
 buries in de gyardens: dey never keered fer 
 church-yards dey's too conspic'us." 
 
 " What Warner lived there last, Uncle Alec? " 
 
 " Marse Alexander Warner, suh." 
 
 " Your name is Alexander, too? " 
 
 " Naw, suh not mine. I ain't got no Zander 
 in mine. I'se Alec Singleton, jes so." They were 
 now passing a cabin with a yard full of excited 
 negroes. " Trubble dar ! De corpse cum in dis 
 mawnin' fum Baltimo'. Our gals goes off keerless, 
 and cums back foot-fo'mus'. Lisson! Thai's 
 Lindy de corpse daughter a hollerin'. She ain't 
 useter de lossin' ob mothers as I is to de lossin' 
 ob wives. I'se had three, and whin my Jinnie 
 died las' fall a year, I done found out dat hollerin' 
 ain't no use; but Lindy is young yet, she dunno." 
 
 Like a baby's prattle did Alec's simple talk 
 soothe and amuse. 
 
 It was three hours before they reached Lester-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 805 
 
 Manor, and just three minutes before the South- 
 ern train pulled in. The last glances of Mrs. 
 Turberville and her son fell on Alec, his tall hat 
 in hand and his hair as close and white as sheeps' 
 wool, he was the last cry of plantation " raising." 
 His words echoed in their ears well on their way : 
 " Sarvent, Miss Charlotte ! Sarvent Marse Ran- 
 duff, I sho' does regret yo' department ! "
 
 PART III 
 XVIII 
 
 IT was after sunset when our weary travellers 
 reached their little gray house on the edge of the 
 Park : new-painted, it was looking like a nesting 
 dove with a snow-white breast ; while the red sky 
 flamed through the Cathedral arches with royal 
 cordiality and the children in the Park twittered 
 like a cage of birds. 
 
 Within, a restful vision of chintz and flowers 
 greeted them kindly; but the small space against 
 the breadth of Laneville stifled Randolph. Tem- 
 perament flings high and low, now it pinned Ran- 
 dolph to the dust all exhilaration had died and 
 his spiritual twilight was deeper than spring could 
 ever make. 
 
 The unruffled neatness of his own room was as 
 windless water to eager sails: the things on his 
 bureau, the regular chairs irritated him with unre- 
 sistance : he wanted to be buffeted, bruised, licked 
 into shape. 
 
 Even the spirit of his mother's dining-room was 
 contrary ; too nice, too smooth for his mood. In- 
 stead of hot muffins and chicken, iced tea and 
 salad, he wanted big loaves to part with a sword, 
 and joints in which a man might stick a spear. 
 
 206
 
 A MAN'S REACH 207 
 
 The table talk of the bewildered mother and son 
 was forced : both felt an unspoken apprehension : 
 it was the terrible pause just after the knife, when 
 one trembles and wonders if the malignant horror 
 will return. 
 
 In the library after supper the books were not 
 even consoling. Randolph discovered sufficient 
 energy to pull Montaigne from a shelf, and he 
 turned to his favorite essay the twenty-fifth of 
 the first book ; but he couldn't read it, so he put the 
 old philosopher back and took Shelley out. No, 
 not even Shelley. He felt harnessed like a shying 
 horse: or, like a small boy all trigged up in stiff 
 collar and patent-leather shoes, he couldn't move 
 lest his elegance crease or wrinkle. He lighted a 
 cigarette, puffed a few times, then threw it in the 
 fireplace. What must he do ? He was so fidgety, 
 so nervous ! He wanted the street and a half dozen 
 places he knew well. He wanted a strong glass, 
 a game, a good story, the " boys." 
 
 Charlotte had on her hands a peevish child who 
 must be amused. What must she do first ? There 
 was an unopened letter on her desk ; she unsealed 
 it and took from it a photograph which she held 
 for some moments in her hand, in pathetic con- 
 templation. Then she went to Randolph sitting 
 loosely and glum in a chair across the room. 
 
 " Tom Randolph sent me this and a touching 
 note," holding the photograph to her son. " I am
 
 208 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 so glad to have it. It was taken when Tom and 
 Ran were at the University; it is more like you, 
 Son-Boy, than Ran." 
 
 Randolph took the carte-de-visite and held it 
 under the nankeen shade of the droplight. The 
 face was singularly handsome, the eyes large and 
 bright, the forehead pure and broad but the 
 weakness of the mouth ! Within his memory his 
 father had always worn a moustache, and this 
 was the first time Randolph had seen his mouth 
 uncovered. It hurt him, it announced plainly that 
 his father had from his youth up suffered with 
 an incurable disease. 
 
 Randolph raised his eyes to the mantel mirror. 
 His own mouth was different, he thought : it looked 
 to him like a piece of metal horribly dented, while 
 his father's mouth was a piece of dough. 
 
 He was suddenly conscious of his mother's gaze 
 were their thoughts identical ? 
 
 " A beautiful face," he said reverently as he 
 gave back the picture. 
 
 " Beautiful." His mother got up as if she were 
 in pain, and went to the side wall where hung 
 Randolph's baby self; blue eyes, bright curls, dim- 
 ples, innocence, gladness ! Her wistf ulness melted 
 Randolph's soul. He went to her and took her 
 in his arms : " Mumsey, blessed little Mumsey, be- 
 lieve that I love you ! But mother, you don't know, 
 there are times when a man's will is nothing but
 
 A MAN'S REACH 900 
 
 feathers : you, women, don't know, Mumsey you 
 never can. And if a man's will is only feathers 
 can it ever turn to steel? " 
 
 In a moment Chattie Turberville was Lettice 
 Corbin : " He turned water into wine it is just 
 as easy for Him to turn feathers into steel ! " 
 
 Randolph was glad when alone in his own room. 
 He paced up and down, up and down, and wished 
 that his room was a mountain that he might climb 
 and climb and at last fall exhausted at the top. 
 
 " You want to spar and play and drink," some- 
 thing sinister said within him. 
 
 " I don't want to spar, and play, and drink. Be- 
 fore heaven, I don't ! " he answered boldly, as he 
 flung himself into a chair, clasped his hands above 
 his head, and tried to draw his whole consciousness 
 to Lettice at Laneville. He tried to grasp her 
 body and soul and put her in a chair beside him. 
 
 Presently the clouds parted and he saw a face 
 all entreaty all angel: Lettice was in the room 
 sustaining him. " Swept and garnished, Ran- 
 dolph, ready for the seven devils, don't let them in ! 
 Try as hard as you can, Son-Boy ! " 
 
 He was trying, but he was weak ; he ached, he 
 wanted tonic or something. And he could get it 
 so easily ; it was only to steal out as he had so often 
 done before, go south two blocks, give the counter- 
 sign (a Bob- white whistle) and Billy West would 
 open his door. All the jolly crowd was there to- 
 
 14
 
 210 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 night and it missed him, he knew; he had not 
 been to Billy's private saloon for over two months. 
 There they were now the merry, care- free lot! 
 Dick Tribbett, the " apron-string-boy-untied," 
 clever, scintillating, never weary of his liberty; 
 Lawrence Stone, the cleverest man in town, per- 
 haps, clean as a whip except for whiskey; old 
 Steve Harrison, apostle of " Poquet," as he called 
 the roystering game he played so well; all there 
 but he! They needed him, and his merry songs 
 to fill up the shuffling time : 
 
 The raccoon got a bushy tail, 
 
 'Possum tail am b'ar, 
 Rabbit got no tail at all, 
 
 But a little bit a bunch o' h'ar. 
 Git along 'Liza, po' gal: git along 'Liza Jane. 
 
 Yes, the boys needed Randolph and he needed 
 them he had to go. But the old library at 
 Laneville, and the " victory " eyes of the first 
 Henry Corbin clutched Randolph, held him as in 
 a vise crying, " For shame ! For shame ! " 
 
 " I am so thirsty, I must moisten my lips." 
 
 " With water, then." 
 
 " Bah, water is too thin." Randolph shook off 
 the master stare of the first Henry's eyes as if it 
 were a pestering gnat, and before he knew it he 
 was in his mother's dining-room. He struck a 
 match and held it close to the sideboard where 
 was the ancestral decanter ? Gone.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 211 
 
 No longer the first Henry's eyes, but the soft, 
 strong hand of Lettice, his ever so many times 
 great-grand-child ! The touch of this soft hand 
 was invincible ; it gently led Randolph back to his 
 room and a siren voice bade " Good Disposition " 
 stand guard all night. 
 
 Thirst demanded a glass, pleasure beckoned 
 with a handful of cards, but Randolph was able to 
 say, "Thirst! Suffer! Thirst! Suffer! What 
 matter? I'll not breathe if breath be yielding. 
 Thirst? Desire? What matter? Lettice of Lane- 
 ville is behind me she is helping me to-night." 
 Randolph strung these words on a red-hot wire, 
 and twirled and twirled them until they made a 
 ring of fire in his soul's vision : round and round 
 he twirled them, fast and faster; then slower, 
 slower, till out of this red wing of words a sooth- 
 ing, smiling Lettice came. 
 
 Randolph's senses ceased to twirl and jerk; he 
 was once more calm, even thought stopped beating 
 for him to hear " He that was dead can rise 
 again." 
 
 Some dead had risen; oh, yes; but how could 
 he so absolutely mentally and financially dead ? 
 
 For several years he had not appeared in the 
 courts ; and granted that his dissipations were put 
 in perpetual limbo, how long would it take the 
 " light " to so shine before men that they would
 
 212 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 realize his sincerity and encourage him with their 
 confidence? Could he wait for it? He was not 
 sure of himself. 
 
 And what about Lettice, and her active, un- 
 paralleled devotion? 
 
 Randolph Turberville was, by no means, with- 
 out superstition. He got it from his own family 
 as well as from the negroes. He would never tell 
 a bad " Friday-night " dream before breakfast on 
 Saturday morning; he avoided the thirteenth of 
 everything ; and he did not like to turn back when 
 once started, without making a ring and spitting 
 in it. The best teacher he ever had, Dr. Decolb, 
 a martyr to superstition, never permitted a pin 
 to lie in his path without picking it up and that 
 was where the school-boys got their inning. They 
 would scatter a paper ful on the brick walk, be- 
 tween his house and the school-room, and crack 
 their sides laughing at his efforts to pick them up. 
 Clever people were influenced by the occult, the 
 mysterious, so it was not altogether impossible 
 for Randolph to believe that the wonderful spirit 
 of Lettice Corbin could enter the shattered metrop- 
 olis of his life, the toppling city of his soul, 
 and with an almost supernatural power pick up 
 the evil spirit and cast it into the sea that it might 
 perish in the water. This, strangely, was not too 
 much for Randolph's superstition. Besides her 
 act was so ineffably devoted and vital that he felt
 
 A MAN'S REACH 21S 
 
 constrained to try to believe, even if he had to 
 cry " Lord help Thou mine unbelief ! " 
 
 Those tense hours in the Laneville library were 
 not only dramatic but coercive ; and the ripples of 
 the pebble, which Lettice cast in the dark pool of 
 his soul, were even now beating against his will. 
 But he did not have the faith to perch carelessly 
 upon her mental telepathy like a red bird upon a 
 green limb he must scratch, and peck, and grub 
 for his spirit's food. 
 
 Day after day the almost invincible tempta- 
 tion; day after day the almost supernatural re- 
 sistance ! 
 
 As true as God she had led him into the open, 
 but his own eyes must see the vision, too; his own 
 feet must climb the mountain, his own will must 
 fight shoulder to shoulder with hers. It must 
 subjugate the tatterdemalions of the flesh; the 
 gnats and hornets of the spirit; and the magazine, 
 from which he must draw the munitions for this 
 terrible warfare, was deep-down in the mysterious 
 organism of his own personal self. 
 
 Did he possess the strength? Did he have 
 enough aboriginal marrow to stand the siege? 
 He had repulsed the enemy up to this moment : but 
 each hour the enemy seemed to gain. 
 
 An uprush of confidence heartened him for a 
 moment, then a minatory retrospect would dash 
 him to the earth. He saw the things undone that
 
 214 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 he should have done ; the things done that should 
 have been left undone. Horrible! Horrible! 
 Every little deviating act was distinct in the high 
 light of a girl's purity. 
 
 A young man of twenty-eight who has practi- 
 cally wasted his life is, in any case, in a deplorable 
 condition, but especially so if he has wilfully 
 destroyed every intention of his earlier years. 
 A young man who has worked and caroused an- 
 tiphonally is much better off, for when he finds his 
 sane self he can simply leave off the debauch and 
 continue his work : but Randolph, keenly conscious 
 that he had thrown all of his business fat in the 
 fire, also keenly realized that the task of recon- 
 struction was colossal. 
 
 One of his most distressing symptoms was sleep- 
 lessness : he awoke before dawn, tossed this way 
 and that until sunrise, then dressed and went 
 down. Before his world was astir he would stand 
 on his mother's front porch the clean breast of 
 the gray dove thrust his hands in his pockets and 
 think and think What can I do ? 
 
 A divided self? Terrible! Evil against good 
 and a one-sided game. The first half played the 
 devil the winner! The second half on: still a 
 divided self good against evil which was to be 
 the winner? 
 
 Night, the hour when tom-cats prowl was his 
 worst time. Then the teeming world was far,
 
 A MAN'S REACH , 215 
 
 far away, and he and his mother stranded in the 
 little gray house. One moment he was over- 
 powered by a dizzying passion, the next everything 
 was fiddle-faddle, and nothing for the prodigal 
 to do but to return to his husks. 
 
 Evening after evening this experience was re- 
 peated, until upon a certain night when the awful 
 silences of a lonely soul were swept with a haunt- 
 ing melody from Laneville the telephone rang. 
 Billy West was at the other end : " Did you know 
 that Tom Boyd had the gout ? " he asked. 
 
 Randolph had not heard, he was sorry; what 
 was the cause? 
 
 " Don't know, unless it is because I fleeced him 
 at * poquet ' the other night," Billy replied. " Any- 
 way, he is flat of his back, foot as red as blood, 
 and as big as a bushel. Come on around and see 
 the poor fellow ! " 
 
 It was eleven-thirty of a Saturday night; but 
 Randolph went.
 
 XIX 
 
 THE crowd was boisterous in Tom's sitting- 
 room on the second floor of his handsome house, 
 built by the sweat and prudence of a self-made, 
 pious father. It greeted Randolph as if a con- 
 stant intercourse had never been broken by death 
 and absence. 
 
 "Hello, Ran!" 
 
 " We're waiting for you." 
 
 " Tom thinks he wants you ; and when he can't 
 get what he wants, he blubbers; and we don't 
 want any blubbering to-night." Three good- 
 fellows all spoke at once. 
 
 " Blubber the devil ! Better say Ran needs 
 us/' Tom Boyd, sprawled on a wide couch under 
 an oriental cover, like a huge beast under a palan- 
 quin, held out to Randolph his right hand, slightly 
 palsied by excess. " You're white, boy." Tom 
 did not have the tact of his companions ; Tom was 
 rather new. " You look as if you had not * tasted ' 
 for ages. You need us, you need it ! Remember 
 what old George the Third said to one of his 
 favorites ? ' They tell me, Sir John, that you love 
 a glass of wine.' ' Those who have so informed 
 your Majesty,' Sir John replied, ' have done me 
 great injustice: they should have said a bottle.' 
 
 216
 
 A MAN'S REACH 817 
 
 You need bottles, Randolph, jugfuls, demijohns 
 and here they are : ' Scotch,' ' Rye/ ' Rum,' ' Gin,' 
 every old darn thing : and the whole ' gang ' but 
 Jim Johnson. What's more, Ran, I've got a body- 
 servant, the real thing brought up in Middlesex 
 County; just from Middlesex County yourself, 
 ain't you ? " with a wink. 
 
 Randolph was grave : " Where is Jimmy 
 Johnson? " he asked. 
 
 " My body-servant's name is Lazarus ; sounds 
 good, don't it? Lazarus of Middlesex." Tom 
 winked again. " Knows how to rub, and talk, and 
 lets me cuss him when I choose. Middlesex is a 
 good place to come from, ain't it, Ran ?" 
 
 " Where is Jimmy Johnson? " Ran asked again. 
 
 " Speeding with Fanny Lark in old Lark's car, 
 while poor old Lark is away making more money. 
 Jimmy will tango to-night, and trot and maybe 
 commit " 
 
 " Oh, Tom," from several units of the " crowd." 
 
 " Maybe not; but none of you can deny that 
 Jimmy would have been safer with us. Help 
 yourself, Ran ! " Tom did not relish Turberville's 
 unusual aloofness. 
 
 " Billy has got above himself in your absence." 
 Dick Tribbett was taking some pretty bottles out 
 of the sideboard, and putting them on top. " He 
 calls himself the king of ' poquet.' We'll uncrown 
 him to-night, with your assistance, Ran."
 
 218 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " Fill up, boys ! " Tom Boyd was impatient for 
 the fun to begin. " Do the honors, Billy ! Damn 
 this foot, it has kept me on the ' wagon ' for a 
 month. I haven't got that much time to spare." 
 
 The memorial red-hot stove and the child pok- 
 ing its finger closer and closer. Randolph must 
 know once more how it felt. 
 
 Tom's rooms were very luxurious: rugs, pic- 
 tures good and coarse, easy chairs, mahogany fur- 
 niture, and the evidence of a good cellar standing 
 seductively on the Chippendale side-table. His 
 card-table was also claw- foot Chippendale; he 
 never used a deck but once : his decanters were of 
 the strawberry pattern, his glasses, too. 
 
 " You know," Tom was fond of gossip, 
 "Jimmy Johnson is divided in his affection be- 
 tween Fanny Lark and that big blonde Nestles 
 woman he shares the latter with that little milk- 
 sop Saint George Catlett, brother to the preacher, 
 Lord, ain't this a funny world ? Fill up, boys, 
 fill up ; don't feel badly because you can and I can't ! 
 Fill up ! " Tom's voice was whiny. 
 
 Randolph filled up. It was Scotch, and the burn 
 of it was good : in a minute he was another Ran- 
 doph Turberville. He told with fine effect a true 
 story of an old oysterman with a large toothless 
 mouth who had a bad habit of sleeping with it 
 open : " He not only, boys, had a large open 
 mouth, but also sleek inquisitive mice r and in the
 
 A MAN'S REACH 219 
 
 dead of night when Mr. Foxwell was peacefully 
 pursuing his nocturnal privilege of snoring, who 
 should hear and become interested but Mr. Mouse. 
 He proceeded to investigate, coming nearer and 
 nearer the round, warm orifice whence proceeded 
 the martial, horn-like sound. To Mr. Mouse it 
 had the quality of a patriotic air. He stepped in 
 time to it, nearer nearer nearer. Mercy, what 
 a warm, luxurious hole ! And Mr. Mouse walked 
 in. Then the fire-works! The snore that went 
 into Mr. Foxwell's nose could not get out of his 
 mouth this discomfited Mr. Foxwell into ' chh- 
 chh-chh ! ! ssh-ssh-ssh ! ! ' spluttering and fighting 
 and kicking. Mr. Mouse was never so surprised 
 in his short existence he scratched for life like 
 a cat on a carpet, tried his very best to pass the 
 Scylla and Charybdis of Mr. Foxwell's tonsils, 
 absolutely failed, couldn't turn around and contin- 
 ued to scratch. Mr. Foxwell tried to pull him out 
 by the tail, but the tail came off: Mr. Foxwell 
 actually had to get up and go to the house of old 
 Alec, the Laneville driver, who told me the tale and 
 ended with these words : ' Marse Randuff, whin 
 Misto Foxwell got to my house in de dade er night, 
 I didn't do nuttin' in de wurll, but job my two fo'- 
 fingers cl'ar in he mouf an' prize dat varmint out'n 
 it. Ef mices gwi' try to make nesses in folks' 
 thoats, what gwinter come o' inny er us ? ' I saw 
 Mr. Foxwell, boys, and the tale is true."
 
 220 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 "Just what I wanted." The whine was gone 
 from Boyd's voice. " I'll be all right to-morrow. 
 I haven't laughed so much since Ran's last story : 
 tell another, please, Ran. Fill up again and it will 
 come. I'll promise to laugh again, no matter what 
 you say." 
 
 Randolph filled up again, and the story came. 
 It was not so clean as the first, indeed it was rather 
 lurid. Applause was instantaneous and violent. 
 But over the merriment fell a purple mist, a mys- 
 tic reproof for Ran. He shouldn't have mentioned 
 Laneville now and here. Laneville and Tom 
 Boyd's room were as different as Heaven and Hell : 
 but they kept on laughing. 
 
 " Like old times. We've all missed you, Tur- 
 berville. Fill up again, we are about a dozen 
 ahead of you still,. and you will talk better as you 
 get more in." Billy West pushed the decanter of 
 the strawberry cut towards Randolph, who held a 
 glass of the same pattern in his hand. 
 
 " When you all get warmed up " Tom Boyd 
 was leaning over the side of his couch, like a beast 
 poking his head out of its cage " I want you 
 fellows to beat Billy at his own ' poquet.' He had 
 a cinch without * Tubby ' to hold him down." 
 
 The sound of the nick-name of his carousals 
 was now distasteful to Randolph, his joviality 
 had received a chill. He had not touched the de-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 221 
 
 canter, but the glass was still in his hand. Things 
 were slowing down somewhat. 
 
 Lawrence Stone began to hum: "If you got a 
 gray cat, shave her, shave her! If you got a gray 
 cat, shave her to the bone ! " 
 
 Dick Tribbett told an incident of the week con- 
 cerning Jimmy Johnson : " Went home drunk as 
 a b'iled owl night before last, ripped out his pocket- 
 knife and slashed his great-grandfather's portrait 
 across the face ; then went up to his mother's door 
 and yelled : ' Been kicking up hell with my ances- 
 tors ! ' True, old Mrs. Johnson told my sister all 
 about it. The portrait was a St. Memin, valuable 
 and all that." 
 
 Between the story and the song all drank freely, 
 except Randolph and Tom. 
 
 " Going to wait all night? " Allan Darrow asked 
 as he began to shuffle the brand-new cards on the 
 Chippendale table. 
 
 "Hurry up," said Boyd impatiently. "Why 
 don't you fill up again, Ran ? " 
 
 " Have I had two or three? " Randolph's up- 
 lifted eyes were dreamy, distrait. " Epictetus 
 says, you remember, that he is a drunkard that 
 takes more than three glasses." 
 
 " To the devil with old ' Pic ' ! " Boyd moved 
 suddenly and screamed with pain. " Play the 
 game! What's the use of so much nonsense?
 
 222 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Limber up with a jugful ! Tubby, sit down and 
 begin. Go on ! " 
 
 There sometimes comes a moment in the middle 
 of the day, in the high tide of traffic, when there 
 is a pause ; everything for a second standstill : one 
 fairly hears the silence before the city roars again. 
 It was so now. The pause of the talk, in the midst 
 of the wine and the game, was audible. Ran's 
 will was suspended, for upon his next move hung 
 the fate of the man's life-game. A vision of conse- 
 quences was as plain as the log fire leaping in the 
 decanter, and the glasses. 
 
 " Tom or Lettice? Lettice or Tom which? " 
 The questions crossed like steel blades in Ran- 
 dolph's brain. "HI touch another glass I'll touch 
 a thousand ; I'll never stop through all the years. 
 Do I want to reel into the ferry-boat when I cross 
 the river Styx? Shall I pollute the influence of 
 those hallowed weeks in one mad evening? " 
 
 " Hurry up, Tubby ! Did that old place down 
 yonder make you so d d slow ? " Tom was at 
 the limit of his endurance. " Toss off and begin! 
 You look as if you had the jimjams, Tubby." 
 
 " Move the decanter, please, Ran, and let me 
 deal ! " Darrow held the new " deck." 
 
 The glass was still in Turberville's hand; his 
 will was to raise the decanter, fill it and quench 
 his thirst, moisten his lips ; again his will was to
 
 A MAN'S REACH 223 
 
 keep the glass dry ; his will moved too quickly for 
 his muscles to answer. 
 
 "Oh, move the bottle, Billy." Darrow mo- 
 tioned to West with the cards. " Let's have a 
 clean board." 
 
 Not Billy, but Ran, took the bottle of the straw- 
 berry cut by its short, thick neck, with his right 
 hand. The glass was still in his left. He squeezed 
 the bottle hard, as if it had been a chicken that he 
 wished to choke: then he raised it with his right 
 hand high above his head, and whanged its podgy 
 crystal, with all his might, against the mottled 
 " finish " of the Chippendale table. The decanter 
 came in two, the " Scotch " ran over the polished 
 mahogany and turned it white. With his left hand 
 Ran threw the glass into the red lap of the hickory 
 fire then laughed. 
 
 " I'll be damned! " said Boyd. 
 
 " Crazy ? " asked Darrow. 
 
 " My strawberry cut ! " Tom Boyd was furious. 
 " What in the devil is the matter with you, Ran? " 
 
 Ran's answer was uncannily slow. " N-o-o-o, 
 I am not crazy, I'm getting sane. I'll return your 
 glass, Tom, and some day I'll explain my action. 
 Maybe I was rather rather oh, well, I'll tell 
 you all about it when I can." He put his hand 
 to his forehead as if it ached. The " crowd " sat 
 in mute astonishment : Darrow whiffled the cards 
 once or twice aimlessly, then got up and put them
 
 224 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 on the mantelpiece. It was as if a wind-swept lake 
 had suddenly stilled. 
 
 To Boyd's entreaty Darrow picked up the cards 
 again: while Randolph wiped the table with his 
 pocket-handkerchief wiped it hard till the white 
 disappeared and the sheen of the mahogany 
 gleamed again. They played without snap and 
 Randolph did not win. 
 
 " Drink don't seem to count to-night." Tom 
 fairly groaned with disappointment. " Let's have 
 something to eat ! " 
 
 He rang for Lazarus, who soon appeared with 
 waiter after waiter of rich food. 
 
 " I counted on Jimmy for his salad dressing " 
 Tom's whine had returned " but as he is also 
 renegade, I'll have to make it myself. You forgot 
 the oil, Lazarus." 
 
 Lazarus, briskly, proceeded to fetch the oil but 
 in a second his head was in the door : " Does you 
 want de keerosene or de castor ile, Marse Torm ? " 
 
 " Even the nigger's mind is wandering which 
 of them do they use at Laneville, Ran ? Lazarus 
 does things as they do them in Middlesex, you 
 know." Boyd reached to the table, took a devilled 
 crab from a silver dish and hurled it at Lazarus. 
 " D n you," he yelled, " I'll pour a gallon of 
 kerosene over you, and a pint of castor oil in you 
 and set you afire, if you don't mind." 
 
 The five young men, struggling to find a lost
 
 A MAN'S REACH 225 
 
 chord, were readers and thinkers as well as 
 drinkers and cardplayers, and when at last they 
 put the cards aside they talked for hours, all 
 drinking a great deal except Ran and Tom. 
 
 Randolph, at dawn, made the move to go. 
 
 " Don't bother about the ' glass,' Tom," was his 
 farewell. " Mother has a lot just like it : it shall 
 be returned ; and remember, I've got a story to tell 
 you some of these days." 
 
 " It's you more than the ' glass ' that bothers 
 me." Tom's eyes were staring with cynical in- 
 quisitiveness into the eyes of Randolph Turber- 
 ville. " Been at the Corbins. Old flame burning 
 still?" 
 
 " Don't speak of that, Tom," Randolph almost 
 whispered. 
 
 " Stay all night with me, Tubby, and I'll for- 
 give you everything, and not ask you another ques- 
 tion." Tom Boyd adored this uncertain young 
 gentleman Randolph Turberville. 
 
 " No, thank you, Tom ! It's time I was going. 
 Good-bye!" 
 
 " High time." Darrow gave Ran a contempt- 
 uous scrutiny. " I detect a psalm-singing note 
 in your once manly voice ; going to join the church, 
 Ran?" 
 
 " Not yet." Ran smiled as alone he left the 
 room. 
 
 15
 
 XX 
 
 DAY, timid and indefinite had broken when 
 Randolph Turberville left Tom Boyd's house: he 
 walked down to Belvedere Street, crossed over, 
 and stopped by the house in the triangular yard. 
 There he stood and clutched the iron railing: it 
 was Sunday morning and not one soul was on the 
 street ; even the little box across Belvedere Street, 
 where the one-legged man sat all day to guard 
 the crossing, was close shut. He had never seen 
 it shut before, and Belvedere Street was lonesome 
 without the one-legged man. With the young day 
 upon it, the red house in which he and Lettice 
 had so often, at random, talked breathed the first 
 sympathy and congratulation. 
 
 " Is it all a dream, an hallucination ? Is there 
 a Lettice, in truth? Is there any absolute reality 
 beyond appearances? Does anything make any 
 difference ? Oh, God ! " Randolph's clutch of the 
 iron rail was harder, more desperate. He prayed, 
 not petitionally, but something within him held on 
 to God as his hand held the iron railing. Grad- 
 ually, very gradually, his spirit rose, as a man is 
 lifted up by putting his hands on a high, strong 
 beam, and raised by inches until his head, 
 shoulders, thigh, leg and foot are all on the same
 
 A MAN'S REACH 287 
 
 level : all of Randolph was there. His mind, for 
 a moment, took in a more extensive and inclusive 
 world; he heard a full, deep, compelling " Don't 
 give up. Don't ! " 
 
 Max Nordau calls mysticism any sudden per- 
 ception of hidden significance. It was here. All 
 " otherness " was quiet, and Randolph felt a 
 strange, ready, tremendous force which might push 
 it entirely out of the way. This awaiting force was 
 dynamogenic. It had flared suddenly and broken 
 the glass of the strawberry cut, and like a lion 
 it had delivered Randolph from the other beasts 
 in the jungle. It was polarized with an intangible 
 current which had hurled him into the sky-sphere. 
 Its aliveness had reduced the Tempter's power 
 might it not eventually altogether destroy it? 
 
 He let go the iron railing and walked slowly 
 across Belvedere Street and into the Park. In 
 his dear old gray playground he sank down on an 
 iron bench ; an overwhelming elation took hold of 
 him; his soul assumed an athletic attitude he 
 verily believed for a moment that he could fight. 
 The dynamogenic quality enveloped him like a 
 gust: he saw the sun, like a miracle on tip-toe, 
 edging its blood above the house-tops and he 
 longed to twist up by its roots one of the wine- 
 glass elms nearby, dip it like a paint brush into the 
 sun's crimson, and write in giant letters upon the 
 hollowed opal of the sky, " I'll never, never, never,
 
 228 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 never touch another drop ! " He needed a tre- 
 mendous prop, a transcendental bond to hold him. 
 
 But as he sat on the iron bench, with his back 
 to the Cathedral and his face to the shimmering 
 East, the gust stilled; the inner light faded, his 
 soul got gray. What if his measure were already 
 taken ? What if his growth could only reach cock- 
 tails, high-balls, whiskey straight ? The bite of the 
 Scotch was still on his tongue, and it made his soul 
 blush as the kiss of the libertine reddens a maiden's 
 cheek. 
 
 A strong hand fell kindly on Randolph's shoul- 
 der whose could it be this time of day ? Turning, 
 he saw a young man in a gray clerical suit. 
 
 "Bill-Bob! What on earth!" Randolph held 
 out his hand. 
 
 Catlett grasped it cordially : " We have certainly 
 got it all to ourselves." 
 
 " What in the world are you doing up so early? " 
 
 " I have been watching a soul go," very sadly. 
 
 " And I have been feeling a soul come." Ran- 
 dolph was serious also. " Whose soul went? " 
 
 " I'll tell you presently. Let me get my breath 
 in this sweet, spring air. Remember our bare- 
 foot races here ? And our kid foot-ball on the lot 
 where the Lutheran Church stands now? The 
 Hoboes against the Hellamites? Great." 
 
 " Now you are the rector of the Holy Com- 
 forter, and I I "
 
 A MAN'S REACH 229 
 
 " Never mind, never mind, old man." Catlett 
 sat down on the iron bench, too, removed his hat, 
 and ran his long fingers through his short, brown 
 hair, which reached a little on the left side, and 
 sighed : " That was a long time ago." 
 
 " Yes, a long time, but you have carried your 
 boy-face right along, Bill-Bob." Randolph seemed 
 to smile at his thoughts, then continued : " Remem- 
 ber how we guyed you about your long trousers 
 when ours were so short, and your nick-name 
 'farmer'?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed. 'Twas Albemarle against Boling- 
 broke. Kitty Nestles used to burn up father's old 
 trousers to keep mother from cutting them off 
 for me." 
 
 " Kitty Nestles." Randolph's words were not 
 exactly a question, but rather an effort to remem- 
 ber something. 
 
 " Kitty, you know, is our cousin and stayed 
 with us a great deal." Robert Catlett looked grave 
 again, and picking up a twig on the ground, he 
 snapped it quickly in two. Then he asked the 
 twinkle in his eye returning " Remember the cat- 
 money and the candy? " 
 
 " That I bought for Lettice Corbin ? " 
 
 There was a subtle challenge in the eye of 
 Robert Catlett as it caught the eye of Randolph 
 Turberville : and each face, in an instant, was as 
 red as blood.
 
 80 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Randolph changed the subject: " Ready to tell 
 me why you are out so early ? " 
 
 " I have been watching a spirit go," Robert 
 mechanically repeated the red of his face was 
 fading. 
 
 " Whose ? " Turberville had lost the intimacy 
 of childish memories, a restraint took hold of 
 him, his whole self was as if weak eyes were strain- 
 ing through too-strong glasses. 
 
 " Jimmy Johnson's. He used to play with us." 
 Catlett's tone was pitiful regret. 
 
 "Jimmy Johnson? Automobile?" Ran- 
 dolph's horror fell on the spring day like a drop 
 of ink in a cup of clear water. 
 
 " Yes. And all drunk. Chauffeur, Jimmy, 
 Mrs. Lark, another man and and and Kitty, 
 poor Kitty all. Of course this is confidential, 
 Ran." 
 
 "Of course. When did it happen where? " 
 
 Robert Catlett slowly, calmly told the ghastly 
 tale. Just as he finished, he sobbed. Never in all 
 his life had Randolph heard such a commentary as 
 that sob of Robert Catlett's. 
 
 " Who was the other young man? " Turberville 
 asked after a long, heavy pause. 
 
 Catlett for a moment looked steadily on the 
 ground, then he turned away slightly, and Ran- 
 dolph saw his lip tremble. After a while he 
 spoke. " Poor Jimmy. He never had one moment
 
 A MAN'S REACH 31 
 
 of consciousness. He was simply jellied mangled 
 quick. I had to tell Mrs. Johnson ; she had been 
 praying all his life for her only son with such 
 an answer. Poor woman ! " 
 
 " God didn't pay much attention to her did 
 He?" Randolph's words were biting, bitter. 
 "Didn't hear her?" 
 
 " Of course He did." There was magnificent 
 confidence upon Robert's face: he needed some- 
 body else's doubt to show his faith. 
 
 At a quarter after seven Robert looked at his 
 watch. " I've just got time to get to the early 
 service walk down with me ! " 
 
 They started down the street, and began to 
 talk more freely. 
 
 No thoroughfare on God's green earth is love- 
 lier than Benjamin Street in Bolingbroke of a 
 " dew-tipped," " flower-decked " Sunday morning 
 in May. The fourteen squares from Belvedere to 
 Ninth and Peace were short to Randolph and 
 Robert. Of course the terrible accident and the 
 cause of it directed the course of their conver- 
 sation. Death and alcohol, in the abstract, 
 absorbed the too-short moments. 
 
 Catlett was a strenuous advocate of " State- 
 wide." Randolph was not, and he cited many 
 instances of contemptible deception. 
 
 " Yes, I know. It will not be perfect at once. 
 What is ? But the law will be against the traffic."
 
 232 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " What's the use, if the law is broken? " 
 
 " ' Thou shalt do no murder.' People kill each 
 other, in spite of the law, don't they, Randolph? 
 But I am very certain that they would kill each 
 other oftener if there were no law against it." 
 
 Very calm and friendly was their talk as they 
 walked down Benjamin Street. Back again they 
 came to death, sudden death. 
 
 " Only absolute badness is absolute death." 
 They were now by the beautiful Turberville house, 
 and Robert pulled a leaf of ivy saucily hanging 
 over the high, gray wall. " Maybe there is no 
 absolute badness." 
 
 Randolph hoped not, but it looked mighty like 
 it, sometimes. " Taine says, you remember, 
 Robert, that vice and virtue are products like 
 vitriol and sugar." 
 
 " Yes, and the sugar, virtue, increases as the 
 vitriol, sin, decreases. All there is to it, Ran, is 
 that we must be as good as we know how to be, 
 and if we are we'll get better and better all the 
 time. We've got to fight and fight hard. Remem- 
 ber what the spirit said to Luther ? ' Martin, thou 
 shalt not be utterly without sin, for thou hast 
 flesh. Thou shalt therefore always feel the battle 
 thereof/ " 
 
 They stood on Ninth Street with the freshness 
 of the Capitol Square full in their nostrils : Wash- 
 ington's uplifted hand suggested courage and hope.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 283 
 
 " Yet the broken law can be the elementary edu- 
 cation of the soul," were Catlett's words as he 
 went toward the church. But he turned back and 
 added, "Won't you come in?" Then with a 
 reassuring smile, as Randolph shook his head, 
 " Anyway we must see a lot of each other. I went 
 to your house several times while you were out 
 of town." Did he know where Randolph had 
 been ? " And I want you to realize that there's 
 a game that beats foot-ball all to pieces." 
 
 Randolph walked up the street slowly, through 
 the Park, across " Laurel " home. His mother, 
 her face drawn, haggard, met him at the door. 
 
 " Where ? Again ? " was her greeting. 
 
 " Never again, maybe ! " Randolph kissed her. 
 " I have just walked down to the Holy Comforter 
 with Robert Catlett." 
 
 " Sure enough ? " 
 
 " Sure enough." 
 
 The next morning Randolph received a letter 
 from Lettice Corbin. 
 
 LANEVILLE, URBANNA, 
 Middlesex County, Virginia. 
 
 This is the first time I have been able to harness my 
 thoughts to a pen. It is like squeezing coveys of wild birds 
 into a tiny dove-cote. 
 
 A letter is generally extremely intimate or very formal. 
 Yours was formal, mine is going to be the exception 
 betwixt and between. Yours was formal, because you 
 were afraid to be otherwise: I am not a bit afraid of 
 " otherwise " but I believe betwixt and between saner.
 
 834 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 It was queer how I missed your mother and you: it was 
 as if two children had strayed off alone it was maternal. 
 (I am getting intimate.) 
 
 I've been very busy, and Cousin Mary Nicolson has been 
 niy amusement as well as my despair. She is improving, 
 but still considers herself my missionary and I have been 
 a cannibal to her spirit. I've torn the flesh from her plati- 
 tudes and crunched their bones. She is lots of fun, and 
 our opinions play hide-and-seek every evening. 
 
 She disapproves of you can't you guess why? And 
 when I have been very mean to her, I show my repentance 
 by letting her abuse you. When she exceeds the limit I 
 rein her in pretty sharply. 
 
 I am still farming fiercely, for I want papa's commenda- 
 tion when he returns ; at the same time I am convinced that 
 "a fo' de war" farmer has a hard time these days. We 
 need at least twenty hands. Friday we had fifteen and to- 
 day we have two. The Dukes of England are not half so 
 independent as the negroes of Virginia ; they work or not 
 just as they please. The old ones received such an impetus 
 from bondage that they keep on because they can't stop, 
 but the impetus of the young ones is the flesh and the 
 devil. 
 
 I've had a class of little " Island " children every Sunday 
 afternoon since you left. I never used to love children, 
 but I do now. Indeed, I am tenderer than I was, to all 
 living things. I was so intolerant, so cock-sure of myself 
 not so now. I realize fully that " only one thing counts 
 only one thing Love. It is the only thing that tells in 
 the long run. Nothing else endures to the end." 
 
 I am going to bed, Randolph, I am lonesome. I am 
 going to sing myself to sleep like mammy used to sing 
 to me on the garden steps and in my nursery : 
 
 Ride on ! Winter's er comin', 
 Ride on ! Winter soon'll be heah. 
 Ride on! Summer's a-goin'; 
 Ride on. Gawd's w-irl-er-win' ! Sh-ssh-ssh-ssssh-sh-sssss !
 
 A MAN'S REACH 235 
 
 This is an awfully stupid, meandering letter. I did it to 
 be doing something. It reminds me of an old maid sitting 
 with crossed feet and folded hands. Having said prunes 
 and prisms she will say nothing else for fear of ruffling 
 her thin lips. But I couldn't do any better. I wonder 
 why? 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 LETTICE PARKE CORBIN. 
 
 P. S. I wish I had a Geomantic table and a pen of 
 brass, that I might know just what you are about 
 
 L. P. C. 
 
 " You wonder why, Lattice ? I can tell you, 
 little girl. You are in the house of the afflicted; 
 and for fear of mentioning the corpse that lies in 
 silent dignity in an upper chamber, you are talk- 
 ing at random. That's all. Now and then you 
 come mighty near mentioning the corpse, but you 
 shy off. All the same, God bless you, Lettice, little 
 sweetheart ! " 
 
 Randolph folded the letter, returned it to the 
 violet envelope with the Corbin crest, and put it 
 in his pocket.
 
 XXI 
 
 COUSIN MARY NICOLSON, on the river porch 
 at Lane vi lie, was playing " Ram-rod " to the 
 " Supple jack " of Lettice Corbin. On the turf to 
 the right of the rose walk a stiff ceremonial was in 
 progress, for thirty children from " Carmines " 
 and " Dog-town," awkward, embarrassed, and also 
 enchanted, were assisting in a " Queen-of-May." 
 Almira Hogg was queen, Billy Croswell king. 
 Almira, in limp and apologetic ecstasy, stood on 
 a Persian rug; Billy, lover as well as yokel with 
 coarse and trembling hands upheld the coronet, 
 while his voice staggered through a speech, which 
 Lettice, radiant in pale blue and garlanded with 
 " Flowering- Almond," was, with contagious feel- 
 ing, handing to him word by word. 
 
 The children in coarse blues, yellows and reds, 
 each with his or her little part, curved like a circle 
 of zinnias from the leading lady and gentleman; 
 while father, mother, aunt and uncle in wrinkled 
 and astonished silence gazed at the unusual scene. 
 
 Lettice soon eased the rigidity of the coronation 
 with " Ring-around-the-rosy," " All around the 
 mulberry bush," and " Chick-a-me-Charmy- 
 crow." She, the leader in the simple games, 
 raised her sweet voice in elemental gladness, 
 
 236
 
 A MAN'S REACH 287 
 
 danced and pranced with the youngest: allowed 
 each child to clutch and rumple her pretty frock, 
 and did not flinch when old Mrs. Croswell, grand- 
 mother of the proud king, kissed her, plumb on 
 her smiling lips. 
 
 This finished Cousin Mary Nicolson, and she 
 flounced in the house, and up to her room. 
 
 Lettice watched the crowd as it gabbled and 
 wobbled over the green meadow home. Then 
 she went in and flung her blue weariness on the 
 settee in the hall, her blue-slippered feet well up 
 on its sturdy arms. She was glad, for she almost 
 saw tiny shoots of aspiration on the sandy hearts 
 of the Dog-town people. 
 
 Cousin Mary Nicolson's feet, in stern and de- 
 liberate quickness, sensed her feelings as she 
 stepped down the stair. 
 
 " Strenuous afternoon, Cousin Mary," came 
 crisply from the relaxed figure as the footsteps 
 drew near. 
 
 " Should think so." Some moments after 
 Lettice had spoken. Indeed Lettice had begun to 
 think her cousin was not going to answer at all. 
 
 " Twas worth the trouble, though ; such ' first- 
 hand ' joy is so beautiful. I can hardly wait for 
 another May-Day, or or something." The 
 words of Lettice seemed to taper off into the 
 wonder what next ? " They were so happy, so 
 hungry, so grateful! "
 
 88 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " I hope the servants will get all their trash off 
 the lawn to-night; I don't believe I could sleep 
 with Dog-town chicken bones on Cousin Henry's 
 lawn." 
 
 " They are not Dog-town chicken bones, 
 Cousin Mary." Lettice was very good-natured 
 and tried to be consoling. 
 
 " There is a place for everything, even for the 
 Dog-town children to be happy in, but that place 
 is not Cousin Henry Corbin's lawn." Cousin 
 Mary Nicolson was cryptic. " This is another 
 caper of yours that exactly matches the Randolph 
 Turberville caper." 
 
 " If it pays as well as the Randolph Turberville 
 caper, I shall be satisfied." Lettice was not in the 
 least ruffled. 
 
 " And pray, how did that remarkable escapade 
 
 pay?" 
 
 " Didn't you see a poor sick man improve, 
 Cousin Mary?" 
 
 "I did not." More cryptic. "All the time 
 that self-indulgent creature was here he reminded 
 me of those wretched picture puzzles in the news- 
 papers : * Find the duck,' ' Find the frog,' * Find 
 the girl ; ' at first I could not see a trace of the 
 boy I used to know it was all concealed in a 
 whirligig of lines. However, being of an in- 
 quisitive nature, I looked and looked : after a long
 
 A MAN'S REACH 239 
 
 time I saw the wing of the duck, the leg of the 
 frog, the foot of the girl. In other words, little 
 bits of Chattie's son would struggle through the 
 ghastly confusion." 
 
 " Wasn't it nice to see the little bits? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know." 
 
 " If you don't know, I am sorry for you. 
 Let's go in to supper." Lettice rather languidly 
 left the settee for the dining-room. 
 
 Later the two sat in silence by the drawing- 
 room lamp, Cousin Mary's tireless needles a little 
 on the girl's nerves. 
 
 The evening was far spent when Lettice an- 
 nounced suddenly : " The Bible told me to have 
 Randolph here; and then it told me to have a 
 ' Queen-of-May ' for Almira and Dog-town." 
 
 " I didn't know you ever read the Bible." 
 
 " You didn't ? Why didn't you ? " 
 
 Cousin Mary knit frantically with tight lips. 
 
 " Why didn't you ? " Lettice asked again, and 
 again Cousin Mary would not answer. So Let- 
 tice went on : "I have been always quite a Bible 
 reader, but for a long time, Cousin Mary, I read 
 it like you read it." 
 
 "Like I read it?" 
 
 This time Lettice took the liberty of not 
 answering. 
 
 " When I was confirmed, mamma told me it
 
 240 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 was very necessary for me to read my Bible 
 through every year: she had read hers through 
 and through twenty-five times. I did as she told 
 me to do it took about seven chapters a day, but 
 I kept on keeping on. How I did rattle through 
 those chapters! After a long, long time I got 
 awfully tired, and finally stopped reading the Bible 
 altogether. But when I was in Bolingbroke some 
 years ago I met a wonderful young Scotch clergy- 
 man, and he convinced me that the Bible would 
 tell me how to live if I read it right. I have been 
 trying to do this, and I don't pay much attention 
 to the number of chapters. The Bible is full of 
 the poor and needy, the sick and the afflicted ; the 
 Bible says we can cast out devils if we try." 
 
 Mary Nicolson flung her knitting on the floor, 
 and gasped as she announced: 
 
 "If there were any insanity in our family, I 
 should think you were mad. You had better keep 
 a sharp watch on yourself, Lettice." 
 
 " And was there insanity anywhere, Cousin 
 Mary?" 
 
 " I must confess," hesitatingly, " that I did hear 
 of a great-grandmother who thought she was a 
 teapot : she crooked one arm for the handle, and 
 lifted the other for a spout; and so she sat day 
 after day: she was perfectly harmless poor 
 thing."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 241 
 
 " But so uncomfortable. How long did she 
 keep it up, Cousin Mary? " 
 
 " Until she got what she wanted. The story 
 goes that her husband refused to give her a new 
 bonnet and some other things, but that the teapot 
 ruse got on his nerves, and he not only told her 
 to get a new bonnet but everything else she 
 wanted. I believe she was all right after that." 
 
 " A most brilliant ancestor. May I have her 
 name, please, Cousin Mary ? " 
 
 " No, that would not be respectful." 
 
 " Anyway I shall erect a little shrine in my 
 heart to her memory. She had the courage of 
 her convictions : she evidently thought for her- 
 self." For some moments Lettice tapped the table 
 with an ivory paper-cutter, then looking earnestly 
 at Cousin Mary, she asked : " Do you ever listen 
 to Christ? Does He ever tell you what to do? " 
 
 Cousin Mary drew a long breath : " Lettice, 
 you positively amaze and shock me. You vent- 
 ure to ask questions that are only fit for the emo- 
 tional confusion of a camp-meeting. There are 
 certain things that are never spoken of in polite 
 society." 
 
 " But this is a thing that should be constantly 
 spoken: I think I've cast out a devil and Christ 
 told me to do it." Sincerity like a chain held the 
 eyes of Lettice fast and still. 
 
 18
 
 242 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " If I were the proper person I would cable for 
 your father and mother without a moment's hesi- 
 tation. I never heard such blasphemy such 
 audacity." The older woman panted with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 " You have to be audacious, Cousin Mary, to 
 accomplish anything. I have only done what I 
 couldn't help doing to save my life. It seemed 
 
 to me such a pity for for " Lettice could 
 
 not speak for some moments, then as if frantic 
 for some sort of approval or sympathy she went 
 on in her nervous intensity, " I love Randolph, 
 Cousin Mary, I cannot help it, and I must try 
 to save him." 
 
 " Poor child ! " came hesitatingly from Mary 
 Nicolson's thin lips. 
 
 " I have looked everywhere for remedies all 
 by myself; I have feebly tried to strike my divine 
 spark and hold it to the candle in his soul. Will 
 it ever light, Cousin Mary? I have done all I 
 could my very, very best." The restraint of 
 the last months broke into jagged fragments, and 
 Lettice sobbed with her bright head on Mary 
 Nicolson's lap. She found comfort in confession, 
 even to a frozen priest. 
 
 But wonderful, strange Mary Nicolson is not a 
 frozen priest. 
 
 " Lettice," she began, " I wish, I w-i-s-h 
 I " Mary was sobbing, too."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 248 
 
 " Did you ever love as I love Randolph, Cousin 
 Mary?" The tiny crack in the high wall of a 
 lonely woman's reserve revealed to Lettice a far- 
 away disappointment still sharp and cruel; and 
 her question was broidered with a touching ten- 
 derness that pulled the curtain from Mary's heart. 
 
 " I loved, Lettice, but not as you love. I let 
 my love go out in the darkness, all alone. God 
 pity me ! "
 
 XXII 
 
 BOLINGBROKE fights the battle of the heat in 
 August. Her battle-cry " W-a-t-e-rrr M-i-1- 
 1-i-o-n-n-s. W-a-t-e-r M-i-1-l-i-o-n-n-n-s. H-a-n- 
 ov-e-r-r-r-W-a-t-e-r-m-i-1-l-i-on-s ! " The bat- 
 tle-crier, a Hanover negro, in a green tumbrel 
 cart with a white hood, drawn by a Hanover mule 
 with a piece of red flannel dangling from his 
 bridle. The same negro, the same cart, the same 
 hood, the same mule all day long and far into 
 the night from time immemorial. 
 
 It was one o'clock at night, the whole city 
 was panting, when Randolph rang for Simon. 
 The sharp twang of the bell roused his mother; 
 she first called, then got up, and went to Ran- 
 dolph's room. . 
 
 "Anything the matter, Son-Boy?" she asked. 
 
 " Nothing," Randolph spoke testily. " I rang 
 for Simon, mother, not for you." 
 
 Charlotte, a little uneasy, left quietly; and 
 Simon, very drowsy, appeared. 
 
 " Bring me some mint from the bed, Simon, 
 some sugar and cracked ice and " Ran- 
 dolph's words scurried guiltily like the feet of a 
 little child racing to mischief before prevented by 
 maternal solicitude. 
 
 244
 
 A MAN'S REACH 245 
 
 Simon's expression made him add, " Nothing 
 in the house? " 
 
 " Not a single Cordless." Simon understood 
 the language. 
 
 " Mother always keeps a little." 
 
 " Yes, sir, but not sence she tu'n temp'runce." 
 
 " I've got to have some from somewhere." 
 
 " I dunno whar dat whar is, Marse Randuff. 
 It sho* did hu't my feelin's, but Miss Charlotte 
 make me kyar ev'ry drap to dem sick folks." 
 
 "What sick folks?" 
 
 " Dem memorials, an' Retreat, an* Sheltering 
 Armies. You may not believe me, Marse Randuff, 
 but it hu't me as much as it hu't you, fo' Gawd." 
 
 " I have got to have some, Simon." 
 
 "Whar fu'm, Marse Randuff?" 
 
 " You go as fast as you can to Mr. Boyd's and 
 whistle! You know our call as well as I do. 
 Whistle loud, tell Tom Boyd when he raises his 
 window that I want a bottle of whiskey quick! 
 Make haste, Simon ! " 
 
 Simon soon came back with a bottle, but in 
 the meantime the blatant, begging, continuing 
 screech of a fire-alarm had quickly put Randolph 
 into his clothes and out of the house. 
 
 Down Benjamin Street he ran with the excited 
 crowd. Men of his own age and size easily out- 
 distanced him. " The efficiency of soberness," 
 Randolph thought as he panted along.
 
 46 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " Colonel Ambler's," " Mr. Middleton's," " All 
 Angels' Church," the crowd guessed as it rushed 
 eastward. Then throbbing with one intense 
 lament : " The Jefferson ! The Jefferson ! " 
 
 The Jefferson! The last word of an opulent 
 philanthropist, now beyond the drama of flame, 
 the pride of Bolingbroke, the most artistic hotel 
 in America ! On fire ! Bolingbroke raced, cried, 
 and took off its coat to divert the calamity. 
 
 " Save the things ! The hotel is doomed ! " 
 rang like a cracked bell. 
 
 " Try to save Colonel Ambler's things, too 
 his house is gone." 
 
 Flame waved from roof and window of the 
 Mooresque symphony, smoke soared high and ran 
 along the quiet sky like a scudding cloud : voice, 
 hammer, feet, water orchestrated ; while pictures, 
 rugs, vases and tables huddled in the street like 
 tearful emigrants. 
 
 Thirst was gone, mint julep dethroned by reck- 
 less energy. Randolph pitched in with the rest, 
 rushing, lifting, pulling down, giving orders like 
 the captain that he was. After awhile he found 
 himself again one of the old gang the Hoboes, 
 and Robert Catlett had left the Hellamites and 
 joined them. He heard Threshley, Dame and the 
 rest call " Turberville ! Turberville ! " as in the 
 old glorious days when " Virginia " played 
 * Chapel Hill " to a finish.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 247 
 
 Together they made a ring and lifted Valen- 
 tine's Thomas Jefferson from the smoking 
 rotunda. The statue was heavy and unwieldy and 
 the noble, wavy head struck a column, cracked, 
 broke, and fell on the marble floor. 
 
 Randolph let go quickly, picked up the head, 
 and cried: " Not hurt, the old boy just broke his 
 neck. It can be fixed all right ! " He bore the 
 head out, deposited it gently in a weeping lady's 
 lap, and went back hand to hand, shoulder to 
 shoulder, brain to brain, heart to heart with his 
 old friends, the Hoboes, who had made men of 
 themselves. 
 
 They fought till morning, the old Hoboes, the 
 merchants, the preachers, the street sweepers, the 
 ladies, the children of Bolingbroke, all for the 
 Jefferson: they saved some of it; they could not 
 save all. It was a lurid night that ushered in a 
 windless, sun-baked day, but Randolph's thirst 
 was gone into a community of interest and energy. 
 
 " Have you seen Robert Catlett's brother, Saint 
 George, lately ? " he asked his mother when talk- 
 ing over the fire the next morning at breakfast. 
 " O-o-o-h, not for years. Why ? " 
 " Last night, when every man was working his 
 tongue out, I noticed a pale-faced man fairly 
 hanging on to Kitty Nestles. I believe 'twas 
 Saint Catlett. I don't remember the last time I
 
 248 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 saw him: but I too well recall the little curly- 
 haired boy who was always sucking candy and 
 I think I would know him now. He looked, last 
 night, like a half of a man, who was still sucking 
 candy made out of glucose and awful poisonous 
 things." 
 
 " I hope not. Were you sure it was Kitty? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 "How did she look?" 
 
 " Like a blood-sucker a soul destroyer. She 
 is fat, and her pink cheeks are purple ; she has lost 
 perspective, values; her hair is the color of a 
 pumpkin but, but in spite of all this, there's 
 a faint suggestion of that radiant Kitty who took 
 tea and danced so divinely here long, long ago." 
 
 These words were not cold on Randolph's lips 
 before Bill-Bob Catlett ran in to tell Mrs. Tur- 
 berville that his parents were in town; and she 
 hospitably true to the South forthwith invited 
 them all to supper the next evening. 
 
 The Catlett family was prompt to accept the 
 cordial invitation and Charlotte's supper-table on 
 the occasion was an interesting one on account of 
 the difference in personalities with which it was 
 surrounded. She, herself, still beautiful as a rose 
 that has lost some petals in a storm, smiled behind 
 a fortress of old muskmelon silver. The pencil- 
 ling of care upon her face was fine as the stroke 
 of a humming-bird's wing; the sadness of her eyes
 
 A MAN'S REACH 249 
 
 was veiled with love, patience, hope, as layers 
 and layers of chiffon soften the scarlet of a 
 woman's gown. A brave smile obscured the jabs 
 of disappointment around her mouth. Her hair, 
 graying, was exquisitely coiffured and her sur- 
 pliced gown revealed the girlish ivory of her neck. 
 
 Eleanor Catlett sat on her left. Time had 
 shirred her face like puckered satin, and washed 
 her eyes with apprehension. Her front tooth was 
 gone, and when she smiled she drew her top lip 
 down to hide the aperture. Chattie met Time 
 with a sturdy vidette ; Eleanor let Time have its 
 way with no interference. On Charlie's right sat 
 Robert Catlett, Senior: bearded, wrinkled, bald; 
 his hard, rough hands witnesses of his tireless 
 efforts for his boys ; and in order to shield the in- 
 efncacy of one, he was apt to minimize the energy 
 of the other. He emphasized the ease of a preach- 
 er's life, and spoke with some bitterness of the 
 struggle for a livelihood that his son Saint George 
 always had to make. 
 
 Beside his mother was Robert, Junior, a prop, 
 a comfort, a delight a glad source whence 
 anxiety could never come. 
 
 At the foot was Randolph emerging from dan- 
 ger like some young lieutenant from a sunken 
 submarine. 
 
 The Sally Lunn had not fallen, the waffles were
 
 250 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 as light as foam, the soft crabs brown to a turn, 
 and the coffee ambered nectar. 
 
 The taciturnity of Robert Catlett's youth had 
 become the loquacity of age, while the brilliancy 
 of Eleanor's girlhood had smouldered to habitual 
 seriousness. At first the husband delivered dia- 
 tribes against everything in Bolingbroke motor- 
 busses, ha ve-your- fare-ready cars, stationary 
 basins; while Eleanor to make things pleasanter 
 inquired after everybody who was sick or dead. 
 
 "Have you seen Cousin Carlotta lately?" 
 Eleanor interrupted her husband to ask Car- 
 lotta was the mistress of Shirley, and Chattie's 
 aunt. 
 
 " She is ill in Norfolk, was taken sick at Mary 
 Randolph's house." Chattie spoke with feeling. 
 
 "Very ill?" 
 
 " Yes, with erysipelas very bad at Aunt Car- 
 lotta's age." 
 
 After supper the young men went out in the 
 yard to smoke, and the two women resigned them- 
 selves to the older man's continued conversation. 
 The unavoidable stiffness of the re-acquaintance 
 of Randolph and Robert had gradually yielded 
 to the deep-rooted affection of their earlier years. 
 They talked, or not, as they chose. 
 
 The moon filtered spangles through the thick 
 linden leaves and the white faces of the moon- 
 flowers starred the lattice by the kitchen door like
 
 *BK CAREFDL ABOUT KITTY, BII.Lr-BOB.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 251 
 
 carven pearl. Robert pulled out his pipe as he sat 
 down on the green bench and began to fill it. 
 "An easy job?" he began. "Dear old dad is 
 on the wrong track. The success of any business, 
 Ran, depends upon how badly people want your 
 goods : my goods are unpopular, people don't want 
 to invest in them, so I have a hard time ' drum- 
 ming ' see ? " 
 
 " U-m-p-h, u-m-p-h ! " The smoke of Ran's 
 briarwood cut the moonlight like a gray curl. 
 
 " When I show my samples to the Magdalenes, 
 the Rich, the Cunning, the Profane they don't 
 want to buy. If I advocate ' State-wide ' I'm 
 destroying the prosperity of the city; if I refer 
 to ' Child-Labor ' or the ' Double-Standard,' I'm 
 an advocate for Woman Suffrage; if I offer an 
 extempore prayer I'm unorthodox; if if I try 
 to redeem a fallen woman, I'm touching pitch 
 and will be denied. Not an easy job, Ran ! " 
 
 " You bet it's not ! " Randolph puffed on. 
 
 "But I love it. What do you think? Mr. 
 Didlake, one of my vestry, came after me about 
 going to see Kitty Nestles. Poor Kitty lives in an 
 awful rookery on Ninth Street and is forlorn and 
 miserable I must try to do something for her." 
 
 "Be careful about Kitty, Bill-Bob!" Ran- 
 dolph's briarwood was in his hand now. 
 
 Neither spoke for some time, when Catlett 
 began again : " And there's Saint, his poor, soft
 
 252 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 heart was swept and garnished up in Albemarle, 
 and now I'm afraid ' reporting ' is one, at least, 
 of the seven devils for him, poor fellow ! " with 
 a sigh. 
 
 Randolph did not reply for some moments ; the 
 subject was a delicate one. 
 
 At last he broke the summer silence with: 
 " How that expression swept and garnished 
 has taken hold of the world ! " 
 
 " Because it is so wonderfully true. We take 
 the little devil by the scruff of his neck and sling 
 him out of comfortable quarters and clean up the 
 place carefully but don't put anything in to 
 watch it. The little devil returns, hangs around : 
 the house is nice, clean, empty : and the little devil 
 goes off and gets other little devils and they all 
 enter his old quarters and live there and kick up 
 Ned. Nothing more deadly than emptiness, idle- 
 ness. You know how boys steal lead pipe and 
 things out of an empty house; and how the rats, 
 roaches, water bugs and things take possession." 
 
 " Is there not sometimes unavoidable idleness, 
 emptiness ? " Randolph was very serious. 
 
 " Never," said Bill-Bob emphatically. 
 
 Randolph sighed. 
 
 " You're a common-sense Jasper, Bill-Bob. Re- 
 member how contemptuous my crowd at ' Vir- 
 ginia ' was to a fellow who affected the Y.M.C.A., 
 and dubbed him ' Jasper ' ? "
 
 A MAN'S REACH 253 
 
 Bill-Bob nodded. 
 
 " Clergymen are great snobs, sometimes, but 
 you are a man. You would not be afraid to call 
 a Rock feller a ' tight-wad ' if he was : or to shake 
 hands with a murderer, would you ? " 
 
 "If my hand would do him any good he should 
 have it. I am a man, all right, Ran, and I glory 
 in it. I have felt the crimson of passion, but 
 the hand of God held fast the ivory door. I 
 have felt the bite of thirst, but the hand of God 
 put the glass of berry-red wine out of my reach. 
 I love to spend on myself, but God takes my gold 
 and gives it to the poor. I'm no namby-pamby 
 eunuch, Ran, but I've seen God that is all." 
 
 Again they were silent in the moon-warm, 
 summer-scented night. 
 
 " Know Tagore? " Ran asked. 
 
 " I love the ' Gardener ' ' Mine is heart, my 
 beloved.' " 
 
 Ran was startled by the feeling in Robert 
 Catlett's voice, and stunned by his words: 
 
 " I like Tagore, mystic, sinuous, tender : but 
 we cold occidentals can't half understand him 
 unless we, too, are thrilled by passion. I am 
 afraid of myself when " he stopped " when 
 where love for a woman comes in. I know that if 
 I were ever called upon to help a fellow get the 
 girl I loved and couldn't get, I should be found 
 wanting."
 
 254 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " You mean, even if she did not love you, you 
 would not be able to make it easy for the other 
 fellow to get her? " 
 
 " I am afraid I wouldn't, and I hope I will not 
 be tried." 
 
 " I suppose only a real saint could do it." 
 
 "'Twould be " Catlett paused. "Your 
 mother is calling you ! " 
 
 Chattie met Robert and Randolph at the back 
 door: "Aunt Carlotta is dead," she spoke tear- 
 fully, holding a telegram in her hand. " She died 
 at ten o'clock in Norfolk." 
 
 The five of them sat in the library and talked 
 of Carlotta Carter. 
 
 " Is that twelve o'clock? " Eleanor asked as the 
 clock chimed. 
 
 " Who would have thought it was so late ? 
 Robert is an owl, but Bill-Bob needs rest. I hear 
 his tossing and mumbling all through the night: 
 last night he cried out, ' Let Saint George alone, 
 Kitty ; let Saint alone ! ' I expect he thought they 
 were all playing and squabbling again, in Albe- 
 marle."
 
 XXIII 
 
 BOLINGBROKE offered the city tug to convey 
 the friends and relatives of Carlotta Carter to her 
 funeral. This action of Bolingbroke emphasized 
 the social importance of Mrs. Carlotta Louisa 
 Carter, late mistress of Shirley. 
 
 Randolph and his mother were next of kin, 
 and they joined twenty-two others of the elect 
 at the dock upon a gold-dust September day. The 
 twenty-two did not approve of Randolph, he had 
 gone contrary to Carlotta's counsel ; but Charlotte 
 Turberville, in her creaseless mourning and elo- 
 quent reserve, visualized Carlotta's gospel, and 
 held her hand on Randolph's arm most of the way. 
 
 Like those regretful Bible women, Carlotta's 
 friends upon the city tug spoke of her virtues, and 
 metaphorically spread out the garments she had 
 made. 
 
 " She was a personage, indeed," the Governor 
 of Virginia announced. 
 
 " The only Chatelaine of Virginia," Bishop 
 Randolph was tearful, and positive. 
 
 " I adored her ;" a rosy young girl had found 
 her tongue, hitherto tied by the awe in which she 
 held the small but distinguished company. " I 
 thrilled when she told of the Prince of Wales 
 
 255
 
 266 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 visiting Shirley, and about General Lee standing 
 in the drawing-room just upon the spot where 
 his parents, Light Horse Harry and Anne Carter 
 had plighted their troth. Who will inherit the 
 place?" 
 
 " Diana and Felicia, of course." Charlotte 
 always spoke when she believed it necessary. 
 
 " But after they are gone? " The rosy girl in- 
 voluntarily turned to Randolph, as did several 
 others of the party. 
 
 Randolph was detached, remote, gazing at the 
 white ruffles on the tawny water. He felt himself 
 an experiment which his self -satisfied cousins were 
 watching skeptically. He saw the zeal of Lettice 
 on the face of the water ; and from this wonderful 
 lighthouse little red ropes leaped and knotted 
 themselves around him, to keep him up. The 
 very fact of his being a part, even though unwel- 
 come, of this proud party, was tonic. 
 
 The city tug reached Shirley wharf at two 
 o'clock: the Norfolk boat which had borne Car- 
 lotta's body up the James lay there, still and silent 
 an imposing catafalque with flags at half-staff. 
 
 They landed, two and two, walked up the shady 
 road, across the lawn, under the tulip poplars 
 (trembling balls of gold to-day) to the Shirley 
 door. Charlotte's hand was still on Randolph's 
 arm. 
 
 Clergyman and chief mourners had awaited
 
 A MAN'S REACH 257 
 
 the party coming on the city tug, and they all 
 went down the great hall to the drawing-room 
 decked with Carlotta's garden flowers where lay 
 Carlotta, close in her narrow, black bed. 
 
 "I am the resurrection and the life!" Ran- 
 dolph raised his eyes to the portraits on the wall, 
 a flock of souls winged their disembodied way 
 in his mental vision Aunt Carlotta well behind : 
 his mother would follow after a while, then 
 Cousin Felicia and Cousin Diana and himself. 
 His thoughts were sweet, they gave him a sense 
 of spirituality; he was a link in an endless chain. 
 
 " I know that my Redeemer liveth ! " these 
 stately words had been said at least sixteen times 
 in this mellow drawing-room over Randolph's im- 
 mediate ancestors. The thought was inspiring, 
 it effaced the memory of the chill formality of 
 the elect on the city tug. It twisted another life- 
 line to pull him ashore. 
 
 From the portraits Randolph shifted his gaze 
 to Carlotta's neighbors, whose grief for their 
 friend was so genuine : he saw their battered pride 
 capsuled in straight, thin noses, in heads held 
 high by the check-rein of memory. He felt some- 
 thing very tender that was lacking in his newer 
 world. 
 
 " Peace, perfect peace," was too new for this 
 inherited ceremony, but when the old clergyman 
 
 17
 
 258 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 read, " I would not live alway, I ask not to stay," 
 not a voice refused to join the chorus : 
 
 " Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 
 There's no place like heaven, there's no place like home ! " 
 
 Young cousins of Carlotta tenderly bore her 
 body from the drawing-room to the wagonette 
 with four horses which stood at the Shirley door. 
 At the head of each horse a stalwart negro 
 stepped; behind walked the representatives of 
 great houses two and two, two and two : Shirley 
 and Brandon ; Tuckahoe and Deer-Chase ; Berke- 
 ley and Timberneck ; Rosegill and Laneville ; and 
 others. 
 
 " Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes ! " The close, 
 black bed went slowly down, and the representa- 
 tives of the great houses took up the spades and 
 lovingly covered Carlotta. As Randolph swung 
 the spade in and out, he, to himself, seemed to 
 be burying the crimson of his past in Aunt Car- 
 lotta's love, filtering the dregs of his soul through 
 her, shaping the scheme of an earnest life. 
 
 He walked back with his mother through the 
 garden, an ecstasy of dahlias, cosmos and chrys- 
 anthemums; a requiem of pale, autumn roses. 
 It soothed him like ethereal balm and reconciled 
 him to the aloofness of his relatives; he could 
 expect nothing else until he convinced them that 
 " he that was dead is risen again."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 259 
 
 As he unlatched the garden gate opening to the 
 lawn, a motor car chugged up to the door and 
 Henry Corbin, of Laneville, aged since he last 
 saw him, came out of the Shirley house, followed 
 by a svelt figure in a dark cloth suit. 
 
 Lettice ! In a moment the ethereal balm changed 
 to croton oil. Where was she before, that Ran- 
 dolph had not seen her? 
 
 Ah, but she sees him now, and the fluttering 
 of her tiny handkerchief is another life-line. 
 
 Soon everybody had gone but Chattie and 
 Randolph; Chattie was a daughter of the house. 
 
 Felicia and Diana, Carlotta's daughters, came 
 down to supper with the composure of good breed- 
 ing, and took the head and foot of the table, while 
 Charlotte and Randolph sat on either side. The 
 table seemed big and lonely. 
 
 " Mother was always wishing you would come 
 down, Randolph." Felicia's voice was low. " She 
 was afraid you did not care for the old place ; but 
 you do, don't you? " 
 
 " I love it, Cousin Felicia, and I loved Aunt 
 Carlotta: I was no end of a fool not to come 
 oftener." 
 
 " I am sure you loved her, Randolph. One 
 or two lumps, Chattie? " Diana's hand grasp- 
 ing the old sugar tongs was long and white as 
 her mother's. 
 
 " Mamma knew how gay and busy a young
 
 MO A MAN'S REACH 
 
 city man is and understood: she just wanted to 
 see more of you." Felicia's smile was like winter 
 sunlight. 
 
 Nobody spoke for some moments : each one was 
 at attention for Carlotta. Then Diana timidly told 
 of her last hours; her words tipping carefully on 
 the edge of tears. 
 
 After supper, back into the drawing-room 
 where the black bed had stood ! They all walked 
 reverently over the carpet patterned with red 
 and pink roses tumbling from brown baskets. 
 Felicia spied white petals from the coffin roses 
 spilled on the unfading reds and pinks of the 
 room : in a second she was on her knees, sobbing : 
 " Mother ! Mother ! " and pressing the sacred 
 leaves to her quivering cheeks. 
 
 Randolph fell on his knees beside her : " Dear, 
 dear Cousin Felicia, I'm so sorry ! " When had 
 he wept before? 
 
 At bed-time each cousin kissed Randolph: 
 " Good-night, dear," Diana whispered. " Be a 
 good boy ! " 
 
 " Be a good boy. Be a good boy." Randolph 
 could not get the words out of his mind. " How 
 could a fellow who has such a hinterland as I 
 ever forget it ? " 
 
 The old chaps, below, in their dull gold frames, 
 had chided him: his Cousins Diana and Felicia 
 made him blush.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 21 
 
 In Carlotta's carved bed, Felicia and Diana lay. 
 They must be close together to-night. 
 
 " I believe Randolph is all right, Diana." 
 " I do, too, Felicia. People love to tell horrid 
 things, but he is just as sweet and loving as he 
 can be. I wish mother had never heard anything 
 disagreeable about him." 
 
 " So do I. He doesn't look to me as if he ever 
 tasted a drop, Diana." 
 
 " He certainly doesn't, Felicia." 
 " He loves the old things, too, Diana." 
 " He looks like the Master of Shirley should, 
 doesn't he, Felicia?" 
 " Indeed he does." 
 
 In a few days, Randolph and his mother re- 
 turned to Bolingbroke on the good ship Poca- 
 hontas ; and before they reached the city Randolph 
 had asked Charlotte to lend him enough money 
 to begin again.
 
 XXIV 
 
 A SENSE of faint security came at last to Ran- 
 dolph ; he found that he was willing to avail him- 
 self of the subtlest remedies for his relief. He 
 was constantly off in the fields : he read Spinoza, 
 Bourignon, Emerson, the Bible and his favorite 
 texts were " He who puts on purity shall put off 
 impurity," and " He that was dead is risen again." 
 
 He felt his heterogeneous personality yielding to 
 a unifying power; instead of trying at last, 
 something was beginning to act. 
 
 His office was the same in which he and other 
 " good- fellows " had so recklessly caroused; and 
 the same sign-painter, who had put " Randolph 
 Turberville " on the glass door seven years ago, 
 remarked brutally : " I have painted your name 
 on twice and taken it off once; wonder who will 
 take it off next time ! " 
 
 " No next time, friend ! " Randolph's earnest- 
 ness impressed Mr. Sign-Painter. 
 
 " The ' hole-in-the-wall's ' mighty close : one 
 finger to-day, two to-morrer, is the way with 
 young fellows like you." 
 
 "No finger to-day and none to-morrow is safer." 
 
 " Not a God's doubt er that," said Mr. Sign- 
 Painter. 
 
 262
 
 A MAN'S REACH 63 
 
 Business was desperately slow ; Randolph began 
 with a little collecting, made a few feeble steps on 
 the misdemeanors of negroes, and Robert Catlett 
 got him to make his will. " Bill-Bob would gladly 
 be guilty of some indiscretion to help me along," 
 thought Randolph, " but no chance, even, of indis T 
 cretion in Bill-Bob's sane self." 
 
 The psalmist scorns the man who sitteth by 
 himself. Randolph sat by himself a great part of 
 his office hours ; but with him was a " Libanus " 
 that skipped like a calf; a " Sirion" that was as 
 care- free as a young Unicorn the Boadicean will 
 of Lettice Corbin. 
 
 The busy, somewhat scornful barristers in the 
 Mutual Building where was also the office of 
 Randolph occasionally threw him stale crumbs 
 from their full tables which he greedily devoured ; 
 and well-picked bones which he as eagerly gnawed. 
 Then upon a stormy, dreary day two Greeks, fight- 
 ing, were arrested, and one, who had seen Ran- 
 dolph play ball, sent for him to defend him. 
 
 When Randolph appeared before Justice John, 
 in behalf of the young exile, he was as self- 
 conscious as a debutante, and unfortunately fell 
 into the snare of poetry closing his speech with : 
 
 "The mountains look on Marathon, 
 
 And Marathon looks on the sea, 
 And musing there an hour alone 
 
 I dreamed that Greeks might yet be free."
 
 264 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 The justice shifted his quid contemptuously and 
 withered Randolph with " A darned foolish 
 dream. Sixty days ! " 
 
 His second case was not as disastrous. 
 
 Mandy, the cook and true wife of Simon, the 
 Butler, was his next client. Mandy had shut the 
 door in the face of the census man. 
 
 " He was too questionsome," she explained to 
 Charlotte horrified at Mandy's summons to the 
 police court. 
 
 " About what, Mandy? " 
 
 " You, Miss Chattie." 
 
 " Me? " somewhat astonished. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, dat scandrel say how he wanted 
 yo* age a young no-count devil ; in course I shet 
 de do'." 
 
 Mandy's appearance at the police court was a 
 little disconcerting apron as white as snow, face 
 as honest as the day the Justice, an arch reader 
 of negro character, knew she was innocent; but 
 he was going to have some fun before he dis- 
 charged her. 
 
 " Your name ? " very sternly. 
 
 " Yessuh ! My name Mandy Moore, yessuh." 
 
 "How old?" 
 
 " Old as Hector." 
 
 " Who, in the devil, is Hector? " 
 
 " De Tubbeville's old setter dawg ; we born de 
 same day."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 265 
 
 "Ho wold is Hector?" 
 
 " The Lord know, suh, I don't." 
 
 " Where do you live, Mandy ? " 
 
 " Right here wid Mis' Charlotte." Mandy drew 
 a long breath. " An' dat whar dat yuther white 
 gemmen got inter trubble. I lives wid Mis' Char- 
 lotte Tubbeville; you done hear 'bout de Tubbe- 
 villes ain't yer? " 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " You knows so," under her breath. 
 
 " Are you married, Mandy ? " 
 
 " Twice, suh. My fuss husban' dade, an' ef 
 Simon, he's my second, 'd die, I'd nuvver have 
 any man Christ died for agin'." 
 
 "Any children?" 
 
 " Yessuh Jeter, and a couple er twins." 
 
 " Two sets of twins or one pair? " 
 
 " Jes' two gals, suh, Nora and Cora. Cora de 
 bes' one; she dade. Nora gone out yonder, and 
 Jeter, too." 
 
 " Can you read, Mandy ? " 
 
 " No more'n a goat, suh." 
 
 "Born a slave?" 
 
 " Dat's mouty like assin' 'bout age, suh. De 
 Tubbevilles is my folks, dem at Six and Benjamin. 
 You done hear of 'em, ain't yer ? I done raise ebry 
 chile dey had an' Marse Randuff beside, a sottin' 
 yonder. An' I have yer to know you mout take 
 a fine tooth comb an* rake dis wurrl, an* nuwer
 
 26 A MAN'S BEACH 
 
 fine a nicer gemmen den Marse Randuff. He's a 
 Tubbeville an' he ma's a Kyarter, an' fo' Gawd 
 so long's my hade's hot I nuwer gwi' 'low no 
 sententious man to as' no unfair question 'bout 
 Mis' Charlotte. Dat's why, suh; dat's why!" 
 
 The case was dismissed. 
 
 One rainy day Randolph found himself um- 
 brella-less on the street ; and he huddled with some 
 negroes and white people under an awning let 
 down over vegetables in front ot a green grocery. 
 
 "Is you got nobody to' fen yo' pappy, yit?" 
 one negro asked another. 
 
 " Not yit." The negro took off his cap and 
 began to scratch his head. " Lawyer Hopper 'low 
 he too busy: he mean he know I ain't got no 
 money. Niggers ain' no mo' den sheep: I know 
 pappy ain' nuwer kilt nobody, but ef he is he'll 
 be kilt an' ef he ain't he'll be kilt, 'cause 'tain't 
 nobody but de ' Commonwell ' an' he ain't er 
 keerin'. Dey got me comin' an' goin', an' I better 
 keep my mouf shet an' leave pappy in de han's 
 er Gawd." 
 
 " Good 'nuff han's," the first speaker remarked, 
 e f ef " 
 
 " Ef what brer' Torm, you sho' ain' gwine 
 put no slur on Gawd." 
 
 " 'Cose not, boy, it jes' 'pear to me dat in de 
 way er de law, Gawd allers uses a slick white- 
 folks' tongue. Dat all I mean."
 
 A MAN'S REACH 167 
 
 Randolph was interested. He remembered 
 every circumstance now : Jacob Spurlark, a very 
 old negro, had been accused of the murder of 
 Mrs. Saddler, a white woman of Chesterfield 
 County. The negro had borne a splendid repu- 
 tation, and his arrest and imprisonment had caused 
 a lot of speculation. 
 
 Mrs. Saddler lived about three miles from old 
 Jacob. Evidently she had a package of vermilion 
 in a drawer with her money, for its stain was 
 upon a sheet, some bacon found in Jacob's house, 
 and also upon Jacob's hand. Randolph remem- 
 bered the whole story now, and he listened atten- 
 tively as Jacob's son went on dramatically to his 
 comrades : " He say he dunno huccum his rheuma- 
 tiz ain' keep him 'wake dat night, he sleep soun', an' 
 whin he look out in de mawnin' an' seen de white 
 sheet wid red 'pon it, near he do', an' de meat, he 
 jes' natchelly got plum skeered ; an' he crope out'n 
 he house an' got de meat an' de sheet, an' hide 
 'em in he lof, dat's huccome he hans red. My 
 pappy wouldn't kill a fly, hardly let 'lone Mis' 
 Saddler. He ain' nuvver did it." 
 
 The rain had stopped, and Randolph started 
 home, but something restrained him, and he made 
 a sign to the shiftless son of Jacob. In another 
 moment he had offered to defend his father. 
 
 Randolph Turberville had been eating syllabub, 
 now he could chew meat. He plunged with his
 
 268 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 old fighting spirit into the hideous details of a 
 murder. At dead of night he found himself in 
 imagination in the dark woods between Mrs. 
 Saddler's house and old Jacob's shanty. He read 
 voraciously, thought with violence. He talked 
 day after day with the old negro, and went over 
 his past life with his friends and acquaintances. 
 
 Old Jacob's trembling explanation touched 
 Randolph's tender heart : " Fo' Gawd, Marse L'y- 
 yer, why ain't I lef dat meat an' dat sheet 'lone, 
 an' stay in my bade like I orter? But you know, 
 marster, my bent laigs ain' nuvver crope thoo dem 
 dark woods in de dade er night an' kilt Mis' 
 Saddler. I ain' able to kill a chicken fer my 
 Sunday dinner; an' de mos' I'se uvver dun in de 
 wrong way, Gawd know, is in de borrowin' 
 chickens, now an' den, fum de white folks; but 
 dat ain't nuttin' like sho' nuff killin'." 
 
 The day of old Jacob's trial, Chesterfield Court- 
 House was packed with living curiosity, not on 
 account of old Jacob but of Randolph Turber- 
 ville. The voice of a singer had been stilled; the 
 pen of a writer had stopped ; the legs of an athlete 
 were broken. Could the voice return, the pen 
 write again, the broken bone and muscle knit? 
 
 Randolph felt it all : but the reporters were liv- 
 ing rowels to his determination ; the lawyers with 
 their doubtful faces tonic; while Lettice and 
 Charlotte threw to him ropes of confidence from
 
 A MAN'S REACH 269 
 
 Laneville and from Laurel Street. His world 
 would know to-morrow that " he that was dead is 
 risen again " at last he had gotten a chance ! He 
 was a fearless matador teasing the stubborn bull 
 public opinion: twisting twelve stalwart farm- 
 ers to his way of thinking. 
 
 " Look at the prisoner's face ! Is he a mur- 
 derer, or a simple-hearted old baby, already be- 
 holding the Paradise of his crude faith? Look 
 at his distorted, knotty feet ! Are they strong to 
 plunge through the rough darkness of three long 
 miles? Look at his crumpled hands! Are they 
 able to strike the blade true in the neck of a woman 
 whose hands could master him? How far had 
 old Jacob been from his cabin this whole winter ? 
 Not one hundred yards." 
 
 As Randolph pleaded for Jacob, he pleaded 
 with himself for himself. 
 
 " A lonely sufferer spends his long days in a 
 humble shanty, but neither hunger nor thirst nor 
 cold assail him why? Because Jacob for years 
 and years was a good citizen, and the good citi- 
 zens of Chesterfield County do not forget good 
 citizens. They remember with gratitude the good 
 deeds of Jacob when he was strong. Jacob dug 
 their garden beds, Jacob planted their corn, Jacob 
 was no eye-servant but did what his hands could 
 do with all his might. Is not this true citizens 
 of Chesterfield? Of Sunday afternoons young
 
 270 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Chesterfield girls sing along the road with baskets 
 in their hands where are they going? To carry 
 a part of their dinner to old Jacob Spurlark. 
 Matrons of Chesterfield, we meet, with Bibles in 
 their hands. Where are they going? To read 
 to old Jacob Spurlark. Does Jacob come to them ? 
 Oh, no, he cannot walk a quarter of a mile on 
 account of rheumatism how could he walk three 
 miles to Mrs. Saddler's house? Has any citizen 
 of Chesterfield seen old Jacob with a horse in the 
 last ten years? Would any citizen of Chester- 
 field County have been so considerate as to have 
 taken old Jacob these three miles, for Jacob to 
 have thrust a deadly blade in Mrs. Saddler's 
 throat? 
 
 " Young girls of Chesterfield, who share your 
 dainty food with the prisoner did he kill Mrs. 
 Saddler? Matrons who read the Word of God to 
 old Jacob Spurlark did he kill Mrs. Saddler? 
 Men, who say to-day, nobody to prune our trees, 
 and clean our wells, or shear our sheep as well as 
 Jacob Spurlark did he kill Mrs. Saddler?" 
 
 Randolph seemed to pause for an answer. 
 
 " In this audience is a citizen of Chesterfield 
 with palsied hands and snowy hair. It was many 
 years ago that he had a fine, handsome boy. That 
 boy one day went out on a mill-pond fishing: 
 Jacob Spurlark, not old and feeble but strong
 
 A MAN'S REACH 71 
 
 and active then, went, too, that day to the mill on 
 that pond carrying corn to grind. 
 
 " The boat with the boy capsized ; the boy could 
 not swim and the pond was deep. Who saved the 
 boy? Surely there are people in this room be- 
 sides the father of the boy, who remember the 
 heroism of Jacob that day. And yet in his trem- 
 bling, weak old days he turned a murderer. Im- 
 possible! There are witnesses here who have 
 sworn that they saw Jacob in the woods, creeping 
 towards Mrs. Saddler's. Are these witnesses still 
 sure and certain of the accuracy of their deposi- 
 tions? This is between them and their God. 
 There is another witness that saw old Jacob enter 
 Mrs. Saddler's house. Are you still sure of the 
 truth of your assertion? 
 
 " Who killed Mrs. Saddler? " A fearful accus- 
 ing pause. 
 
 " Who killed Mrs. Saddler? Old Jacob Spurlark 
 did not do it who did ? " 
 
 One of the witnesses twisted, trembled, and 
 finally fell into a hysterical heap on the floor. 
 
 Old Jacob was acquitted; the fighting Greeks 
 a step, Mandy a step, old Jacob a step on the 
 long ladder of reinstatement in the mazy laby- 
 rinth of public opinion! 
 
 The taste of appreciation and praise was sweet 
 to Randolph's hungry soul : he was like an ox that 
 had been grazing in parched pastures while a
 
 272 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 field of succulent corn was growing just over a 
 high fence. Now he had leaped the fence and 
 filled his empty stomach ^with the long sweet 
 blades and the juicy ears. 
 
 Two days after the acquittal of old Jacob he 
 received a telegram from Lettice Corbin. The 
 " rural-deliverer " was still slow and she had wired 
 as soon as the news reached her. 
 
 The satisfaction of Charlotte Turberville was 
 restrained. She had to contemplate her joy a 
 long time before she realized it ; as a turkey hen 
 looks and looks at a plump grain before she 
 decides to pick it up. 
 
 Randolph's state of mind was peculiar : he was 
 afraid, and humble, and yet he rejoiced. Like a 
 baby who finds that she can step across the nursery 
 floor all by herself, he wanted to keep on doing it. 
 He almost wished that somebody would commit 
 murder every day that he might defend the mur- 
 derer. Nothing especially exciting happened for 
 several months, but he was slowly getting up the 
 stair of life by way of commonplace practice, 
 invitations from prominent people, and long walks 
 with Robert Catlett. 
 
 Catlett was preaching a series of sermons that 
 had received much adverse criticism, and the last 
 of the series from the text " She Was a Sinner " 
 drew fierce open letters to the columns of the 
 newspapers.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 27S 
 
 The meaning of this discourse of the young 
 rector of the Holy Comforter was intensely 
 obvious from start to finish. In conclusion he 
 had said with unrestrained feeling : " My friends, 
 do you recall the incident of the man going down 
 from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among 
 thieves? They stripped him of his raiment, 
 wounded him, and departed, leaving him half 
 dead. Priest and Levite passed by on the other 
 side but thank God there was a good Samaritan 
 who bound up his wounds, set him on his own 
 beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of 
 him. 
 
 " In this city to-day are dozens of women who 
 have fallen among thieves naked, more than half 
 dead, their nefarious industry taken from them by 
 the closing of the red-light district they are 
 bewildered, bitter, shelterless, literally upon the 
 streets. Each of you to these wretched sisters can 
 be a good Samaritan, can bind up their wounds, 
 and bring them to an inn. ' For she is a sinner,' 
 and it was for sinners that Christ died. It is the 
 sacred duty of every man and woman in this 
 church to endeavor to bring these bleeding, way- 
 ward sisters to an inn it is the Father's business, 
 and therefore yours! " 
 
 Radical advice, it is true, and not exactly pala- 
 table to the members of the congregation: one 
 of the vestrymen remarked as he was going down 
 is
 
 274 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 the aisle to another vestryman, " Mr. Catlett knows 
 more of that class of people than anybody I ever 
 met!" 
 
 Lettice wrote to Randolph about every four 
 weeks; that was often enough to jerk the rein 
 and keep him in the road. Her sentiments were 
 like flocks of restless chickens in a tight-barred 
 coop, and so were Randolph's. Pride held the door 
 to keep hers in; and Honor squared its broad 
 shoulders and prevented Randolph's from running 
 out. 
 
 The letters of the daughter of Laneville piled 
 the details of a free, simple life upon her ele- 
 mental emotions ; but the real heart-beats of Lettice 
 made the " pile " tremble, as the wriggling of a 
 mole cracks the soil under which it gropes. Some- 
 times the real Randolph peeped through the vague- 
 ness of his letters, as the real Lettice flashed 
 through the subterfuges of hers. 
 
 Lettice was the exteriorization of Virginia aris- 
 tocracy, but her mind was prophetic; and her 
 heart a Socialist if her nose was Greek. The 
 problem of her class held her would it disappear 
 entirely from its realm like the great sturgeon 
 from Virginia waters? Or would it be diluted 
 or strengthened by intermarriage with the stranger 
 or the middle class? Would the future of Vir- 
 ginia rise from the soil? If so, must she not give 
 to this class such as she had ? All of these subtle-
 
 A MAN'S REACH 275 
 
 ties she put in her letters, and on the page which 
 Randolph now held in his hand was 
 
 " These strangers will never take root, Ran- 
 dolph these rich butchers, bakers, candlestick- 
 makers, and divorcees, who creep into the old 
 houses as they have crept into their seal-skins 
 and limousines. They expect the blessed old places 
 to make of them gentlemen too much to ask, be- 
 tween you and me they'll get tired before they 
 have tried long enough, and return to their 
 moving-picture, cafe world: just as they get tired 
 of trying to like batter-bread and roe-herring, and 
 go back to cold bread and codfish balls." 
 
 In the middle of this letter she came so near be- 
 ing sentimental that she quickly scampered off to 
 an impersonal anecdote. Of such elusive trifles she 
 made her tantalizing letters straws to show the 
 way the wind did not blow. 
 
 Randolph laughed and sighed over them, 
 while his impatient soul was afraid that the echo 
 of old Jacob's trial would die before another 
 Jacob or Esau he did not care which appeared.
 
 XXV 
 
 BOLINGBROKE did not care to punish Randolph 
 a moment longer than was necessary, so very soon, 
 as in years past, he was the bright, particular star 
 at the most exclusive dinner-tables. 
 
 Lettice Corbin was often discussed in his pres- 
 ence, and people who saw her at " Old Point," 
 New York and other places wondered why she 
 never came to Bolingbroke. One evening at a 
 large dinner at the Andersons' somebody an- 
 nounced that she was positively engaged to 
 Macauley Berkeley a rich Bostonian. And the 
 very next morning Randolph received this very 
 disconcerting letter: 
 
 I have been investigating old tomb-stones, Randolph dear, 
 and I really find them fascinating literature. I have discov- 
 ered one in the hollow by Fox-mill run you remember the 
 locality ? 
 
 The slab was covered with briars which I painfully re- 
 moved, and read with queer sympathy, these lines: 
 
 Beneath this stone, 
 
 Lies Martha Gwyn, 
 Who burst the outer shell of sin, 
 
 And found herself a cherubim. 
 
 Martha did just what I would like to do: I am tired. 
 I have got to go to the " White Sulphur " and I don't want 
 to. Ever hear of Macauley Berkeley? He is the milk-in- 
 the-cocoanut 
 276
 
 A MAN'S REACH 277 
 
 I think silence with regard to unaccepted suitors should 
 be one of the first articles of a girl's creed ; but I think it 
 is necessary for me to enter into some particulars regarding 
 Macauley "perpendiculars," as Uncle Alec calls them. 
 
 Macauley is our cousin. Our great-grandmothers were 
 sisters: his father was one of the Barn-Elm Berkeleys 
 born there. He was wise enough to migrate to Boston 
 and enlist the affection of one of the Boston Motts. She 
 rejoiced in many millions and Macauley is her only child. 
 More than one child would be considered wilful extrava- 
 gance by a Boston Mott. Our acquaintance with Macauley 
 was genealogical; he wanted to know all about Barn-Elms 
 and the Berkeleys he wanted to get even paternally with 
 the Motts. Papa had the supply equal to his demand, if 
 demand it was, for Macauley could never demand it would 
 be too harsh for his constitution. Macauley would always 
 make a buttered request. 
 
 Macauley deserves a little explanation. In appearance, 
 waspish. Whistler would have revelled in his shape. 
 Dilcie says : " Miss Lettice, 'pear to me Mr. Buckly laces 
 hisself." 
 
 I don't know about that, but in every other respect he 
 is exceedingly lady-like; I should call him a rubber-shoe 
 man ; he would certainly go around any puddles in his way. 
 His words pass his lips as if they were tip-toeing, and his 
 sentences end just like he folds up his handkerchief after 
 he uses it. His waistcoats are wonderful. I never saw 
 any like them ; and his neckties correspond invariably with 
 his socks. His bureau is loaded with monogrammed mys- 
 teries ; indeed, I believe he thinks in monograms they (or 
 it) are on everything. Macauley knows a lot, is terribly 
 educated and travelled, but he reads Browning as if he 
 were eating ice-cream, and Shakespeare as if he were 
 chewing gum. Randolph, you approach Browning as if 
 you were intoxicated, and I rather like your Shakespeare 
 jag.
 
 278 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 "What in the devil is Lettice driving at?" 
 Randolph thought as he turned a page. 
 
 If you meet him, I am sure you would know that he 
 would make a painless if monotonous husband. 
 
 " Whose damned husband does she mean ? " 
 Randolph impatiently asked himself. 
 
 Macauley never broke any of the ten Command- 
 ments 
 
 " He'll make me break the sixth Command- 
 ment, if Lettice don't mind." Randolph scarcely 
 had patience to read to the end of the letter. 
 
 and never said " damn " in his life. I am not going to 
 
 take any liberty with the ten Commandments, but I verily 
 believe, before a man is quite a man, he has got to say 
 " damn." 
 
 Macauley and I met in Berlin; did I ever tell you we 
 did? I quickly impressed him, and he asked me to be his 
 wife. He asked me in the same manner in which he folds 
 his handkerchief above referred to; his attitude was timid, 
 careful, he took a step and stopped like a spavined horse 
 advancing to a clump of clover. He said he loved me with 
 about as much snap as a toy pistol. I felt as if he were 
 blowing bubbles. He is now at Laneville reiterating his 
 oily statements. I tell you all this because papa insists 
 that I marry Macauley. He is so frantic for me to do it 
 that he is comparing Macauley with you, a thing papa would 
 never do unless in an emergency. 
 
 " Emergency, the devil." Randolph, alone in his 
 office, got up and paced the floor crumpling the let- 
 ter viciously in his hand. " I'll go to Laneville 
 to-morrow, and ask Lettice to share the comforts
 
 A MAN'S REACH 970 
 
 of our little gray house. Only three hours apart 
 as the crow flies, and no more than a glimpse of 
 her for two years! With a spidery millionaire 
 trespassing on my preserves I'll take it out of 
 father's and mother's hands as quick as possible. 
 I'll claim her as forfeit for my regeneration now, 
 not a day to spare. We will live on love and pot- 
 boilers, and snap our fingers at the rest of the 
 world." 
 
 He went on reading the letter : 
 
 Papa has unburdened his heart to me, and God knows 
 I'd like to accommodate him. Poor fellow, he has lost 
 money; everybody does sooner or later, don't they? Then 
 James Parke is recalcitrant James Parke, who went to 
 Madison, Wisconsin, to learn how to make Laneville pay. 
 Jimmy has fallen in love execrable practice with a girl 
 with a ranch thousands and thousands of acres of irri- 
 gated fertility, which she would not exchange for all the 
 history and romance of Laneville, and Jimmy has decided 
 that he don't care especially for Laneville either, but pre- 
 fers to ranch it with Evangeline Holdsclaw. 
 
 There's no accounting for taste, and Jimmy's taste has 
 upset papa dreadfully. Henry always vowed he didn't want 
 an acre of Laneville, and that he had no idea of sacri- 
 ficing his life to the weather and the negroes : so there's 
 nobody else but me. And I can't have it unless I can find 
 some money to go with it, and Macauley has the money. 
 
 " If she wants the varmint, let her have him! " 
 Randolph fairly hissed. 
 
 Papa has been awfully plain. He says there's only 
 one thing in Macauley's way, and that is you. He has
 
 80 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 given me his views on you pretty plainly, and that is why 
 I speak so frankly. 
 
 I have been intensely obdurate. Papa asked me if I 
 wrote to you I told him. He requested me not to write 
 to you again for six months. I would not promise. 
 
 Randolph crumpled up the letter again and 
 kissed it this time. 
 
 He says you are fooling me as many a dissipated man 
 has fooled other girls. 
 
 " An old sucker. 9 ' Randolph clenched his teeth 
 and read on. 
 
 I told him you were not dissipated, fiercely. 
 
 " God bless you." Now Randolph smiled. 
 
 He smiled. Oh, the irony of an irate father's smile. 
 He said a six months' silence on my part would prove it 
 I answered, " Then I'll prove it after one letter." Now I 
 am miserable. I don't know whether to take it back or not. 
 You and your letters versus the White-Sulphur and 
 Macauley : I don't know what to do. I shall be in Boling- 
 broke on the ten-thirty train next Wednesday. Meet me. 
 Don't fail. 
 
 It is only to see how you look, to touch your hand, 
 to hear a voice silent for me over a year a long time 
 when the voice is one I love to hear. No matter who is 
 with me come! There will be few words only the joy 
 of a look I need it. My courage dips daily. I must have 
 tonic. I don't know what you think of me, rather obvious 
 like the pink and blue. I can't help it I am sincere. 
 
 My experiment in the Laneville library told you every- 
 thing what's left to be said? 
 
 At ten-thirty on Wednesday. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 L. P. C
 
 A MAN'S REACH 281 
 
 " To-morrow at ten-thirty Lettice would be in 
 Bolingbroke? With Macauley Berkeley? Damn 
 Macauley Berkeley! Lettice in Bolingbroke to- 
 morrow ! " 
 
 Randolph did not mention the letter to his 
 mother, but strangely that very evening she talked 
 as if she had read it. 
 
 " Isn't it almost time to go for Lettice, Son- 
 Boy? " she asked. " Youth is the time for loving 
 you know." 
 
 " I know, mumsey." 
 
 Randolph got closer to his mother and took her 
 hand. He wanted to tell of the letter, but he 
 still felt its meaning too keenly for words. The 
 lights in the Park hung like low moons, and be- 
 neath the children were singing in piercing fal- 
 setto, " Tisket-tasket, red and yellow basket," 
 people walked the summer street slowly, and the 
 trolley every few moments put a full stop to 
 conversation. 
 
 " You loved to play in the Park, and I want 
 your children to play there, too." 
 
 From sacred sentiment the talk of mother and 
 son turned to the gossip of the town: the last 
 engagement, the hopeless illness of the Governor's 
 son, and Robert Catlett's efforts to get up a peti- 
 tion for the release of a negro convict whom he 
 thought had been unjustly sentenced. It was past 
 twelve o'clock when Randolph got in bed really
 
 282 .A MAN'S REACH 
 
 Wednesday the day that Lettice would come. 
 
 His sleep was gossamer painted with dreams. 
 Once he was at the station no Lettice, no 
 Corbins, nobody : then he was wrestling with Mr. 
 Corbin for Lettice: and last he and Lettice were 
 in a cab alone, she saying over and over again 
 " My brand new Ran, my brand new Ran! " The 
 words created a swarm of real fireflies in the taxi. 
 They blinded Lettice and she hid her face on 
 Ran's shoulder. "What are they?" Ran asked 
 loudly. " The sentiments of a human soul," a 
 small voice answered. " Love broken into bits 
 of moving gold." 
 
 Suddenly a terrible raucous yell tore Lettice 
 from Randolph's dream-arms. Was he awake or 
 asleep ? 
 
 "E-X-T-R-A-! E-X-T-R-A-A-A L-E-A-D-E-R-R-R ! 
 E-X-T-R-A L-E-A-D-E-R-R-R! E-X-T-R-A-A. E-X- 
 T-R-A-A-A ! " 
 
 Randolph was wide awake ; the noise was away 
 beyond his dreams. It was the cry of a frantic 
 new day, the fore- word of calamity or death. 
 
 " E-X-T-R-A-L-E-A-D-E-R-R-R ! " 
 
 Randolph caught a name yelled by the newsy 
 with fearful emphasis; he jumped from his bed, 
 rushed to his window, raised it, screamed " Boy ! 
 Boy ! " and ran down to the front door to receive 
 the extra, which he grabbed viciously but did not 
 unfold until he got back in his own room. Then
 
 A MAN'S REACH 283 
 
 he only read the headlines he could stand no 
 more. In an agony of vengeance he twisted the 
 newspaper into a tight rope, threw it in a corner 
 t>f his room, and flung himself on his bed, with 
 a groan. " How could God have rewarded his 
 young prophet with such a stab? Oh, God! Oh, 
 God!" 
 
 Simon came up as usual at a quarter to eight 
 with the morning paper, but Randolph did not 
 touch it till he was ready to go down, then he 
 picked it up as if it were a snake. 
 
 " What in the world is all this about? " His 
 mother met him in the upper hall. " Something 
 dreadful?" 
 
 Randolph was trying to tell her, when the door- 
 bell pealed, and Simon announced Dr. Roslyn, the 
 senior warden of the Holy Comforter. 
 
 " Where did such a lie come from ? " Randolph, 
 much excited, ran down quickly. Dr. Roslyn was 
 standing in the hall with a newspaper in his hand. 
 Randolph, without a word, led the way to the 
 library, where Charlotte joined them. 
 
 Dr. Roslyn spread the newspaper on the table 
 and tapped the headlines firmly with his open 
 palm. " Robert Catlett, rector of the Holy Com- 
 forter, at about two o'clock this morning shot and 
 instantly killed Kitty Nestles, one of the most 
 beautiful and notorious women of the underworld,
 
 884 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 in his own library in the rectory, at Ninth and 
 Peace Streets." 
 
 " It's a lie ! " Randolph's voice trembled. 
 
 " It is not," the senior warden answered, and 
 proceeded to read the sensational account with 
 deliberation and occasional emphasis : 
 
 " At two o'clock this morning a convivial party 
 in the Bolingbroke Hotel, just opposite the 
 rectory of the Holy Comforter, was startled by 
 two pistol shots. The rectory windows were open 
 and this party distinctly saw the rector place a 
 smoking pistol, which he held in his hand for a 
 second or two after the shooting, on the window 
 ledge, and then turn and kneel before something 
 on the floor. Two members of this party ran to 
 the rectory, through the front door, which was 
 not locked, upstairs. On the floor of the rector's 
 study was the form of a beautiful woman and zig- 
 zagging over her white shirt-waist was a stream 
 of blood. A packet of letters lay, half-burnt, on 
 the hearth. Robert Catlett was at the 'phone: 
 ' Gentlemen,' was his quiet greeting, * the police 
 will be here in a moment take a seat, etc., etc., 
 etc/ " 
 
 When Dr. Roslyn had finished reading, he 
 added : " I have been with Catlett for hours, and 
 he sent me for you. I should tell you, I suppose, 
 Randolph, that Catlett had a mad idea of your 
 defending him without any other legal assistance.
 
 A MAN'S REACH S85 
 
 We could not allow that, of course, but Catlett 
 insists upon your being retained as associate coun- 
 sel. I trust that you are fully sensible of the grav- 
 ity and responsibility of of " Dr. Roslyn 
 
 blew his nose. 
 
 Randolph paced the floor for some minutes 
 without speaking, and when his mother and her 
 old friend took up the conversation, he went to 
 the dining-room and bowed his head upon the 
 breakfast table: "Robert Catlett, Robert Catlett, 
 Bill-Bob," he sobbed. " Honest, earnest, merry 
 Bill-Bob!" He raised his head. "Rot! He 
 never did it! But in his despair he remembered 
 me, tried to push me along with his dilemma, 
 showed his faith in the man he helped to make 
 and I'll stand by you old fellow to the end! I 
 can hear his very thoughts, ' I'll help Turberville. 
 I'll show him how I believe in him. I'll trust him 
 with my life.' And you can trust me, Bill-Bob. 
 I'll show the whole world how impossible it was 
 for you to do it." 
 
 Randolph could only swallow a cup of coffee, 
 and then he and Dr. Roslyn walked over to Wide 
 Street, and took the car to the city jail. The 
 doctor never ceased talking, but Randolph did not 
 hear half he said. He was reading the wretched 
 headlines " alluring, enticing, beautiful, young, a 
 ward of his parents, the aesthetic and ascetic 
 clergyman had always loved her, but when she
 
 88 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 thrust herself between him and his duties and per- 
 sisted in claiming him, he lost self-control and 
 ended her poisonous life." These words flamed 
 in another extra which Randolph purchased in 
 the car. 
 
 Randolph remembered that Catlett went to see 
 Kitty, that he was a man, that that " he is 
 the one man on earth upon whose innocence I'd 
 stake my soul," he suddenly and with indignation 
 blurted out to the crowded and excited street car. 
 " Bill-Bob couldn't help being all right, if he tried 
 not to. If all the twelve Apostles swore that 
 they saw him shoot Kitty Nestles, I'd prove them 
 a pack of liars." 
 
 " There were only eleven Apostles constant, 
 you know." Dr. Roslyn's face wore a deprecat- 
 ing look; it never would have done for such a 
 wild fellow as Turberville to have been anything 
 but associate counsel. 
 
 " I don't care a hoot how many they were ; but 
 even if they accused Robert Catlett, I'd show 
 them a thing or two." 
 
 The car stopped. Randolph Turberville left 
 Dr. Roslyn who would be back later and 
 walked alone to Catlett's cell in the city jail.
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE pinched gloom of a felon's cell threw into 
 high relief the young beauty of Robert Catlett's 
 face: white, haggard, unafraid, it was as start- 
 ling as the image of a marble saint on a reeking 
 dunghill. The situation for a moment stunned 
 this stricken friendship, this wounded Damon and 
 Pythias. They grasped hands with voices clotted 
 with emotion. 
 
 Catlett spoke first : " I didn't shoot Kitty, Ran." 
 
 " No." Randolph's negation was a passionate 
 outburst. 
 
 "She killed herself, Ran." Catlett's voice 
 trembled with compassion. " Poor creature, I 
 tried to stop her, but I was not quick enough." 
 
 " Why did she kill herself, Bill-Bob? " 
 
 The old name touched him more than any word 
 spoken since the sudden tragedy of the early morn- 
 ing. Catlett closed his eyes and pressed his lips 
 together : " Turberville, for what does such a 
 woman, generally, kill herself?" 
 
 " Tell me everything, old man ! " 
 
 Robert Catlett was always concise and direct: 
 he wasted no words either on the street or in the 
 pulpit. " It is a short story," he began. " I 
 always sit up late, and the front door is never 
 
 187
 
 288 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 locked; from force of habit, maybe, country- 
 people, you know, never lock their front doors. 
 About one o'clock Kitty, with the slyness and 
 softness of a cat, stole up to my study. She 
 startled me, I must confess. She wanted what 
 she had promised never to touch again. She made 
 a pitiful appeal with a faint tinge of logic in it. 
 She was very desperate. She thought she had a 
 mortgage on a man's flesh and she wanted the 
 interest, pound for pound. I tried to show her 
 that the mortgage was lifted, for just two weeks 
 ago I had, with my own hands, given her a hand- 
 some sum for relinquishment. She listened, im- 
 patiently, like some quivering beast who had lost 
 a race. Her frenzy gradually faded into despair. 
 I talked to her as gently as I could, assured her 
 that I would always help her as far as possible, and 
 that I thought I knew people who would help her 
 to find another life. I showed her the ruin she 
 had wrought and endeavored to convince her that 
 the only way to repair it was in absolute self- 
 denial and a sincere effort to pursue a legitimate 
 energy. I used in argument the youth and weak- 
 ness of the man she loved I believe it was the 
 real thing, Ran, as tragic and unhappy as it was. 
 Passion was smouldering like a bed of dying coals. 
 I actually thought I saw God break on her face. 
 She really seemed to be listening, thinking, when 
 like a fearful S, O. S. upon a smoother sea
 
 A MAN'S REACH 288 
 
 she shrieked, ' I can't, I can't, I can't! ' and before 
 I could reach her, Ran, she had ripped the pistol 
 out and it was done that is all that I can tell ! " 
 
 " But the man, Ran, the scoundrel, I must know 
 all about him. You shall not ruin yourself to 
 save him." 
 
 For a fleeting moment a light broke on Robert 
 Catlett's face. " He'll tell," he whispered. Then 
 with strange compassion, " Don't judge him too 
 harshly, Ran; remember Kitty was was never 
 mind, that is all over now." 
 
 Catlett, during this dramatic interview, never 
 budged an inch from his original reticence re- 
 garding the man's identity. 
 
 " Maybe, you will do for the other lawyers 
 what you refuse to do for me, Bill-Bob." 
 
 "Never," said Catlett firmly. "I have said 
 what I have said." 
 
 Randolph took out his watch, and timidly, as 
 if his words were almost profane at such a time, 
 whispered : " Lettice Corbin is passing through 
 town to-day, and I am going to run down to the 
 station to catch a glimpse of her: I am coming 
 back, old boy." 
 
 " Life is so full of queer things to think of 
 Lettice coming to Bolingbroke to-day! Did you 
 know that I loved Lettice once, Ran? " 
 
 Turberville, almost as startled as he was by the 
 
 19
 
 290 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 death of Kitty Nestles, gasped, " No, I never 
 dreamed of such a thing." 
 
 " Always so heavenly kind and frank." Cat- 
 lett's words were set in a faint minor key. " She 
 told me from the very first that my case was hope- 
 less and that no other man had even slightly 
 touched her heart but you. I told her I would 
 not stand it not her indifference to me but her 
 affection for you. I told her that it was sacrilege 
 for you to dare to love her and hurt her as you 
 were doing. * Don't abuse him, Bill-Bob/ she 
 pleaded with her rare, incomparable sweetness, 
 ' but help me to save him.' ' Save him for you?' 
 I asked. ' Yes/ so earnestly, I can see the prayer 
 of her eyes now, Ran." 
 
 Turberville could not speak ; he actually forgot 
 that time was going, and ten-thirty drawing dan- 
 gerously near. 
 
 " I have always been fond of doing hard things, 
 Ran, but the hardest task I ever attempted was 
 to try to save you for Lettice : to relinquish Letticc 
 
 to you. Tell her to-day, Ran that that " 
 
 Catlett's voice choked. " Oh, well, I can't talk 
 freely to-day, Ran, but you are going to manage 
 my case so well that there will no longer be any 
 doubt of your superlative ability I am going to 
 make it easy for you to marry Lettice Corbin." 
 
 Randolph Turberville took Robert Catlett in his 
 arms, hugged him as a mother might hold her
 
 A MAN'S REACH 291 
 
 little boy, and tried to speak. He could not, and 
 the silence was majestic, stupendous. 
 
 " Do one other thing for me, Bill-Bob, one more 
 to add to the rest tell me the name of the man 
 that Kitty Nestles loved. If you say so, I'll never 
 breathe his name, but I can work better if you 
 will tell me." 
 
 " He will tell, Ran, if we give him time I'm 
 sure he will, and that will be better. Go on, Ran, 
 and do your best with what you have. I've told 
 you all I can. It couldn't have happened at a 
 worse time for me. The ' Good-Air-Home ' case 
 comes up to-morrow I should certainly be there. 
 I promised poor old Mr. Thomson to play checkers 
 with him to-night; he can't live long cancer on 
 the face. To-morrow is Saturday and I know 
 Jim Dutton will get drunk without our regular 
 week-end supper." 
 
 " I'll manage Jim Dutton," Randolph replied 
 brusquely. 
 
 He met Mr. Didlake, a member of the vestry 
 of the Holy Comforter, as he went out, and they 
 walked to the street car together. Mr. Didlake 
 was eager to know everything; what Catlett said, 
 how he looked and so forth. 
 
 " I could not make up my mind to go in," he 
 said. " I have never put my foot inside the door 
 of a jail and what's more, I never intend to. 
 This is an awful reflection on our church, Tur-
 
 t92 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 berville most unfortunate. Mr. Catlett's life has 
 seemed exemplary as far as anybody knew. But 
 this is a black situation, eye-witnesses, no guess- 
 work whatever it would seem! I have always 
 regretted Mr. Catlett's idiosyncrasies : he under- 
 took such preposterous things; you can't touch 
 pitch and not be defiled. He certainly affected 
 degenerate girls and got himself all mixed up in 
 that ' Good- Air-Home.' What business was that 
 of our rector? I detest this modern way of mix- 
 ing up with all sorts of people: foreign m^sions 
 are safest, anyhow. I like the old-fashioned way 
 of minding your own business. What business has 
 the rector of the Holy Comforter with juvenile 
 courts, politics, or the Red Light district? He 
 meddled with the last too much for his own good. 
 I really suspect that he leans to Woman Suffrage, 
 and, of course, when a clergyman forsakes his 
 legitimate business to fight wind-mills, such as 
 fallen women, degenerates, crooked politics, we 
 feel that he is very near the edge of of " 
 
 " Trne religion," Randolph snapped viciously. 
 
 Mr. Didlake was astonished, but proceeded 
 unctuously to defend himself : " I don't pretend 
 to deny that Mr. Catlett is an eloquent speaker, 
 but but " 
 
 " He upsets one of your fundamental ' articles ' 
 that the Episcopal Church neither meddles with 
 politics nor religion." Randolph lifted his hat, and
 
 A MAN'S REACH 293 
 
 jumped on the car for the C. and O. Station ; he 
 had so little time that he was afraid to trust to 
 making the " Southern " before the train arrived. 
 His watch was too slow, and when he reached 
 the C. and O. the train bearing the Corbins and 
 Macauley Berkeley had pulled out just five min- 
 utes ago by the clock. 
 
 Macauley Berkeley had no original personality, 
 but he was a faithful copy of a perfectly correct 
 young gentleman, and as otherwise fools are fre- 
 quently bridge-friends, so was Macauley, in other 
 respects commonplace and stereotyped, a genius 
 for the reading of faces. 
 
 He felt, resentfully, the expectancy on the face 
 of Lettice as the train approached Bolingbroke: 
 he saw the fearful collapse of her anticipation, the 
 futile search of her eye the moment of their 
 arrival at the Southern Station, the play of her 
 interest on the street as their " taxi " hurried to 
 the C. and O. Station the Southern train was as 
 usual late and the death of her hope as their 
 train departed westward. 
 
 ** For whom was she looking? Man or woman? 
 Would a woman ever look for another woman 
 with such pungent interest?" Macauley was 
 somewhat disconcerted. 
 
 The first clamor of the morning newsies was 
 over, but Macauley before boarding the train had
 
 294 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 purchased four copies of the Times-Dispatch. 
 Afterward the Corbin party remembered that 
 there was some excitement among the passengers 
 on the Southern, but they had been too much ex- 
 hausted by their midnight start from Laneville 
 to pay much attention to it. 
 
 Just before the train reached Acca station the 
 whole car was startled by a shrill ejaculation 
 from Lettice. Her voice had harked back to its 
 old intensive pitch. For the first time in years, 
 she lost hold of herself. 
 
 " That's the reason Randolph did not come," 
 went crystal clear from one end of the coach to 
 the other, and drew the attention of the crowd 
 to the blue-lipped girl with closed eyes, whose 
 head had fallen back on the clean linen of the 
 Pullman chair. 
 
 The rest of the car had read about the murder 
 earlier in the day; its first surprise and commen- 
 tary were over, but the first agony and astonish- 
 ment of the Corbins were awful. 
 
 " I feel as if we should go straight back," Mrs. 
 Corbin mumbled. 
 
 " Please let's " Intensive shrillness had 
 
 lowered to the quavering weakness of an invalid. 
 
 " The further we get away from such a loath- 
 some incident the better," was Mr. Corbin's fiat. 
 
 " One never knows who is inwardly clean." 
 Macauley's words minced like ladies' slippers.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 205 
 
 Lattice could only give him a contemptuous 
 glance. 
 
 Three of the party discussed the awful affair 
 in all its bearings: the fourth did not open her 
 lips until her father ominously remarked : " I have 
 always felt that hideous things should never be 
 stirred up more than absolutely necessary. It is 
 like taking a silver spoon and digging into the 
 very depths of a coffee boiler: up to the nice, 
 clear top the very top, mind you come the thick 
 black grounds. I like the coffee clear; I dislike 
 to see the thick, black grounds on the top. Let 
 them stay where they should be! Poor Catlett 
 had very exalted notions, but at the bottom he was 
 like other men, we see." 
 
 " Hush ! " The voice of Lettice was stronger, 
 and Macauley Berkeley wondered if it was Robert 
 Catlett for whom she looked this morning. 
 
 Through the warm August day the C. and O. 
 train crawled toward the Blue-Ridge : Lettice was 
 leagues and leagues behind the panting car, worlds 
 above the inanities of a sentimental millionaire, 
 miles and miles further up the slopes of the spirit's 
 highway than her conventional parents would 
 ever climb now. Lettice thought, and thought, 
 wondered, trembled, thought again 
 
 "Robert Catlett, dear, devoted Bill-Bob! 
 Never, never! Always the cross, the crown 
 of thorns, and the ' Away with him ' for the
 
 296 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 friends of sinners the sons of God." Still she 
 believed that Bill-Bob could almost kill to save. 
 She had, for years, recoiled from even the sus- 
 picion of what Kitty Nestles was. She could see 
 her now at the dinner party of her Christmas 
 childhood ; hear the boys' comments on her at the 
 Laneville Christmas dinner. Beautiful, lithe, 
 seductive, soulless; and Bill-Bob trying with all 
 his splendid detachment to save had lost? " Oh, 
 God, no, it could not be ! " 
 
 For the first time in her life innocence, purity, 
 was overshadowed by a vivid fancy of what the 
 momentary madness of the flesh might be. It 
 came to her suddenly like a sinister inspiration. 
 "And Bill-Bob? To think of Bill-Bob being 
 of all people in the world Bill-Bob ! " Again 
 the frantic, irrefrangible refutation " Never, 
 never, never, never." 
 
 "Of course that was why Randolph did not 
 come. I wish he had it would not have taken 
 many minutes," was the chorus to the wild dis- 
 cord of her grief and perplexity. 
 
 It was night when the glad strains of a brass 
 band welcomed the Corbins to the White Sulphur. 
 As soon as Mr. Corbin registered, the clerk handed 
 him a telegram addressed to Lettice. Mr. Corbin 
 had his suspicions, but he never asked Lettice 
 a question and even Mrs. Corbin was silenced 
 by the dignity of the face of her daughter as she
 
 A MAN'S REACH 287 
 
 tore up the message and threw the scraps in the 
 waste-basket. 
 
 For six weeks Lettice Corbin was an actress 
 of the first magnitude. She distracted every un- 
 married man at the " White," and made the mar- 
 ried men afraid of themselves. 
 
 " She is as cold as poor Scott's ice, and as dan- 
 gerous as a forest fire," one distinguished jurist 
 said to a famous Senator, one morning at the 
 spring. Lettice was giving a benefit performance 
 under the trees; six young swells sat around her 
 while Macauley Berkeley stood nearby. 
 
 "Talking about the Robert Catlett case, I'll 
 wager five to one," the Senator observed. 
 
 " Not at all ; she announced long ago that she 
 would neither listen to nor speak of it. It has 
 struck me that she was in love with Catlett ; he used 
 to go to Laneville constantly, I am told. She is 
 under high pressure over something I can see 
 that. She is acting all the time ; never shows one 
 shadow of her real self." 
 
 " I don't agree with you a bit." The Senator 
 was positive, too. " She is a cool philosopher 
 it's herself and nobody else. She is just the 
 woman to marry a rich ass like Macauley Berkeley, 
 if a quite as rich Solomon did not appear. Petered- 
 out old families must have money for social 
 power. She couldn't love Berkeley, to save her
 
 298 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 life, but she will be happy and virtuous with him. 
 She don't love him but she is smart enough to 
 make people think she does at least some people." 
 " She is about the most fascinating little devil 
 I ever saw." The Jurist had known swarms of 
 charming women. " And if she ever loved 
 Jerusalem ! But she never will ; men with millions 
 rarely have much else and Lettice loves the mil- 
 lions, you bet."
 
 XXVII 
 
 LIKE Joshua's moon at Ajalon, everything, 
 even Lettice, must stand aside till Robert Catlett 
 passed through: so Randolph folded his sweet- 
 heart up like a precious pearl, and put her in a 
 velvet case the holiest corner of his loyal heart, 
 there to abide constant and undisturbed till this 
 new and awful tyranny was overpast. 
 
 Like the stout captain of a man-of-war which 
 flounders in a terrible gale, Randolph must leave 
 everything below, and stand watchful upon the 
 bridge till the storm is over and the ship is safe. 
 
 There was a grim sort of pleasure in the case 
 for the young attorney and he drew upon all the 
 forces of his teeming mind and drilled them 
 day and night for the prisoner. His mind was 
 full of little red foxes darting, restless ideas 
 and his fancies were fox-hounds with strange, 
 true scent, which drove the red foxes to the open, 
 for his judgment master of hounds to chase 
 to the death. Adverse public sentiment, and the 
 wild slander of the daily press whipped him to 
 herculean confidence. 
 
 The stricken parents of Bill-Bob laid what 
 was left of pretty Kitty Nestles their half- 
 sister's child in a grave on their Albemarle farm ; 
 
 299
 
 300 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 and removed themselves and Saint George to the 
 Holy Comforter Rectory in Bolingbroke, where 
 like emaciated pelicans they fed their shadowed 
 boy with blood drops from their breaking hearts. 
 
 The press as usual was rabid and boisterous, 
 maintaining that Kitty Nestles had for months 
 lived at the rectory, that she certainly was staying 
 there at the time of her death, as was evidenced 
 by her wearing a pair of bedroom slippers on the 
 fatal night; that the unusual fact of a handsome 
 and merry young clergyman never affecting the 
 company of any young lady was entirely accounted 
 for now he had as much female on his hands 
 as he could with convenience manage; that his 
 sympathy with women of Kitty's class was caused 
 by his intimate connection with and his knowledge 
 of their strange and ghastly lives. 
 
 These bitter accusations made Randolph gnash 
 his teeth and plunge with violence into the intri- 
 cate labyrinths of circumstantial evidence. He 
 made every experience of his life a hand-maiden 
 to his efforts his fall, his new birth, his mother, 
 his love for Lettice Corbin, Robert Catlett all 
 joined in a fiery ring to help him to find the man 
 who was the cause of Kitty Nestles's death. There 
 must have been a man, Bill-Bob had almost 
 acknowledged that. 
 
 Randolph began to study the block on Peace 
 Street, from Ninth to Eighth, as a Mohammedan
 
 A MAN'S REACH 901 
 
 studies his Koran day after day with no especial 
 inspiration. First, there was the church with its 
 anachronistic spire, the church of the " four- 
 year-Republic," window, pew and bronze dedi- 
 cated to that tragic period. There the President 
 used to sit, up that long aisle the sexton took the 
 tragic note that paralyzed a nation, from that cir- 
 cular pulpit a young Paul of Tarsus preached last 
 Sunday memory, space, beauty but not a whis- 
 per of the coward who was hiding behind Robert 
 Catlett. 
 
 Next door to the church was the rectory 
 close shut to-day. The cook was fast asleep at 
 the crucial hour of that August night: the man 
 was off the lot; neither knew much of the charac- 
 ter of the rector's visitors they just came and 
 went all the time. The cook thought " they wuz 
 rich an' po'. Mr. Catlett nuvver said ' no ' to 
 nobody." If they rang the bell, she opened the 
 door, but generally they just walked in so. The 
 man never remembered seeing a very pretty lady 
 there, " the sort that came oftenest to see Mr. 
 Catlett was mostly old and pinched-like. Mr. 
 Catlett was always helping somebody he was 
 queer about that: seemed as he couldn't bear to 
 turn nobody down." 
 
 Next door to the rectory a human rookery 
 voluble, bitter: "Never in all their living on 
 Peace Street had they ever seen such onnery people
 
 302 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 as went in to the rectory since Mr. Catlett came. 
 They were not surprised at anything: old men 
 with handkerchiefs around their necks would sit 
 with him in the evening ; boys in blue flannel shirts 
 seemed perfectly at home: it was a pleasure to 
 watch the friends of the last rector; they wore 
 fine clothes and had beautiful carriages and horses, 
 and the rectory, then, was as nice as any house 
 on West Benjamin Street not so now. All the 
 lower floor given up to poor boys and noisy girls 
 and wretched mothers with crying babies ! They 
 all laughed and sang and did most any old thing 
 as soon as they got there. Mr. Catlett didn't 
 seem so bad, but more like he was plum crazy. 
 Of course if people had seen him kill the woman 
 that was the end of that." 
 
 Nothing very encouraging at the rookery. 
 
 From the rookery to the corner were shops a 
 beautiful drug store with bon-bons and perfumes 
 in the windows; a pretty cake shop where pretty 
 young Jewesses always smiled at their customers ; 
 tailor shops one for ladies and the other for 
 gentlemen; above the shops were small apart- 
 ments, but nobody living in them nor working in 
 the shops had even heard a pistol shot the night 
 of Kitty Nestles's death. They all went home or 
 to bed early and if they had heard a dozen 
 shots they would never have connected them with 
 Mr. Catlett.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 80S 
 
 On the corner opposite the shops stood St. 
 John's Roman Catholic Cathedral. Nobody there 
 at night ! Next door the priests' house. What did 
 the priests know? Had they all been asleep? 
 Yes, they were asleep knew absolutely nothing 
 about it. From the priests' house to the corner 
 was the Bolingbroke Hotel proud successor to 
 the old St. Claire. 
 
 The foremost lawyers of old Virginia were 
 retained to defend Robert Catlett David Tinsley, 
 of Tinsley & Coke; Alfred Lester, of Lester & 
 Montague; and William Stanard, who never in 
 his brilliant career had ever had a partner. 
 Tinsley and Lester knew law: Stanard was the 
 most effective pleader in the South, while Lester 
 could get evidence to fit his case out of a turnip. 
 
 The prosecution consisted of the city attorney, 
 Mordecai Cooke a rabid and successful lawyer 
 and his partner, Levi Funkhouser, who would 
 have sold his soul for a thousand dollars. 
 
 While the older men were splitting the fine hairs 
 of the law, Randolph was turning his imagination 
 like a stream of water shot with a thousand 
 hues into every crevice and crack of the lives of 
 Robert Catlett and Kitty Nestles. The witnesses 
 against Catlett were making fresh contributions 
 daily, according to the press, they not only saw 
 Catlett deliberately kill the woman, but beheld his
 
 804 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 terrible rage as he pulled his beautiful victim 
 about, beat and cuffed her. 
 
 Against this lurid background Robert Catlett 
 stood in incredible dignity; he tried not to wince 
 even when he read an open letter from a member 
 of his church demanding " What will become of 
 the church, of society, if such a man goes 
 unscathed ? " 
 
 In contrast to this pernicious query was the 
 procession that came to his counsel to testify of 
 Catlett's life. The Governor of the State an- 
 nounced, " I have put many of my burdens on his 
 young shoulders, and what would I have done 
 without him during the strain of the Adam trial ? " 
 
 The Bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese 
 wished to do something to testify his esteem of 
 the accused clergyman. " I have lived thirty 
 years in Rome," he averred, " and seen many 
 high-bred criminals but none with an eye like 
 Robert Catlett's." 
 
 The richest man in Bolingbroke, and not a 
 member of the Holy Comforter, put his fortune 
 at Catlett's disposal. 
 
 But the poor, the shawled women, the laboring 
 men, the rough boys even the negroes ! They 
 didn't know how to restrain themselves : and they 
 wept out what he had done for them. 
 
 It was a mighty experience for Randolph Tur- 
 berville.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 805 
 
 He had his line of defence straight as a shingle : 
 to much of it the older lawyers objected he held 
 his point tenaciously. " I am going to depart 
 somewhat from the path of my forefathers," he 
 informed his distinguished fellow-counsel. " I am 
 going to get absolute pardon for our client by my 
 imagination. I am going to show the jury exactly 
 what happened I'm going to make them see it as 
 plainly as I do." 
 
 At twilight one week after the murder Ran- 
 dolph was standing just outside the Bolingbroke 
 Hotel with his face toward the rectory thinking, 
 thinking, building his defence on the air, making 
 bricks without straw when he heard a curious 
 scraping on the pavement, which proved to be the 
 dragging of a paralytic limb by an old, bent man, 
 who passed by toward the priests' house, stopped 
 there as if to get breath, then wearily climbed 
 the steps and went in. 
 
 " Suppose the old priest was wakeful at nights ! 
 Had anybody asked him what he knew about 
 Robert Catlett?" 
 
 Randolph was going to find out, so every day 
 at a different hour he walked through the Capitol 
 Square with the hope of seeing the afflicted old 
 man. It was not long before he found out that 
 the priest's habit was to sit on one of the iron 
 benches in the Capitol Square near the Peace 
 Street gate from noon till one oclock ; and again 
 20
 
 806 A MAN'S BEACH 
 
 from four to five in the afternoon. Then he fed 
 the sparrows and the squirrels, and gazed dreamily 
 at the sky through the bare November trees. 
 
 One day Randolph, standing near the quiet 
 priest, said softly to himself : " What an improve- 
 ment to the old St. Claire ! " 
 
 He was hoping for a rejoinder it did not 
 come. Why had he never seen this priest before? 
 He thought he had interviewed all the inmates 
 of the house why had this one escaped him? 
 
 The next day at noon Randolph entered the 
 Square by the Bank Street gate, threading the 
 winding paths to the old priest's accustomed seat. 
 It was a glistening autumn day, and the brilliant 
 trees shouted glad color to the tranquil sky. Ran- 
 dolph sat on the bench, his eyes fixed to the noon 
 edition of the News-Leader, and presently heard 
 the pitiful scraping of the worn-out sacerdotal 
 foot. The priest sat down beside him a part, 
 at least, of the bench near the Peace Street gate 
 was his prerogative. 
 
 In a moment the turf, always green, was cov- 
 ered with squirrels and sparrows, the former nib- 
 bling the peanuts which the priest scattered from 
 a bag: the latter picking the crumbs which he 
 broke in tiny bits from a stale slice. 
 
 Randolph openly admired the priest's pension- 
 ers, the old man was grateful and the ice was 
 broken.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 307 
 
 They talked first of squirrels and sparrows, 
 then of other animals, and fields and woods the 
 priest was country-bred and Irish. 
 
 Finally something suggested Robert Catlett and 
 his approaching trial this brought the two men 
 strangely together : each knew instinctively where 
 the heart and hope of the other lay. 
 
 " I wish that house could talk." The priest 
 pointed with his stick to the rectory. " Such a 
 pardon were never known if it could. Fine, 
 young, Christian gentleman I miss his cheerful 
 smile, his daily word as he passed by. All sorts 
 of people went to him from my little room at 
 the corner there;" he pointed, this time, to the 
 window at the end of the priest's house opposite 
 the rectory. " I could see them come and go 
 come and go. Some were bothered others happy. 
 I have laid on my bed night after night and 
 watched him talking kindly to each one with his 
 study window wide open. He had no secrets. 
 Frequently a slim young man would be there, who 
 always sat with his back to the window : his hair 
 was light and he parted it in the middle from 
 crown to brow. I became interested in this young 
 man, although I never saw his face; he was in 
 trouble, or or in need; well, need is trouble, 
 too." 
 
 The old priest was crumbling the last of the 
 slice, and Randolph was afraid to breathe lest he
 
 SOS A MAN'S REACH 
 
 say no more, but he soon began as if he were only 
 thinking : 
 
 " If I only had not been so sick that night I 
 could have seen it all, too. I did see the woman 
 come in about half -after seven she had come 
 from the train, I think, for she had a satchel in 
 her hand. Catlett was not there and she went out. 
 She returned about one; I was in awful agony 
 and I had just rung for the nurse who sometimes 
 helps me, and who was with another priest that 
 night who had pneumonia. The nurse went to 
 get me some aspirin I was in pain: and before 
 she returned I saw the woman speaking franti- 
 cally, and Mr. Catlett speaking more earnestly 
 than I ever saw him speak before. The woman 
 waved her hand at something at a distance, and 
 then pointed to her shoes. 
 
 " This touched Mr. Catlett, and he went out and 
 got something and handed it to her, and took 
 up something, I don't know what, and again went 
 out of the room. By this time the nurse was 
 back; she gave me the aspirin and pulled down 
 my shade. I soon got quiet and heard nothing 
 else I am a little deaf till the next morning." 
 
 A slim young gentleman Randolph under- 
 stood; gave something to Kitty and took some- 
 thing away Randolph understood : he was going 
 to clear Robert mostly by imagination and he had 
 the whole thing straight as a shingle now: his
 
 A MAN'S REACH 800 
 
 ideas were in a strong frame like tiny bits of 
 Florentine mosaic he needed a few more bits, 
 he had gotten them from the old priest, and they 
 were made of Albemarle clay. 
 
 Randolph was in Robert's cell the last time be- 
 fore the day of Bill-Bob's trial and the prisoner 
 held in his hand a paper with an absurd cartoon 
 of himself, which was also an excellent likeness. 
 In the right hand of the cruel cartoon was the 
 sacred cup, while in the left arm was a bedizened 
 woman, and in the heart exposed a smoking 
 pistol. 
 
 " This was thrown in, by permission of author- 
 ity, of course, and it hurts : I wish I had not seen 
 it, for I may not be able to get rid of it ; up to this 
 moment I have been strong enough to think that 
 I could bear my cross, but this foolish satire has 
 weakened me. It is beneath the dignity of the 
 cloth it emphasizes horribly what might be true. 
 It is the last straw, Ran ! " Bill-Bob could not 
 restrain the elemental anguish which crowded his 
 narrow cell. " My gospel was, ' He that was dead 
 is risen again,' will my own experience entirely 
 refute it?"
 
 XXVIII 
 
 THE day of the trial opened rain-sodden, ill- 
 omened, dismal gloomy enough to congeal the 
 marrow of a free man's hope. Before a furious 
 wind the gusts of rain scudded against the win- 
 dows like lost tears ; and leafless Bolingbroke quiv- 
 ered and groaned like a naked child under a giant's 
 strokes. Yet the court-house was packed to its 
 breathless capacity, for the case was unusually 
 interesting and had attracted general attention. 
 Reporters from the greatest newspapers of this 
 country crowded the space reserved for the press, 
 and the London Times had sent over its own man. 
 The details of the trial would flash everywhere 
 simultaneously, millions would daily read them: 
 how would " Randolph Turberville " sound as it 
 rang over-world? 
 
 Judge, jury and counsel, formidable and re- 
 strained, walked in and took their seats. Robert 
 Catlett entered with his parents on either side and 
 his brother, Saint George, behind. He might 
 have been a modern John Baptist, lean, but un- 
 daunted, from his wilderness feast : his mother 
 in her tight little bonnet with its blighted white 
 rose was another Mary at the tomb: Saint 
 George was a startled plaster-of-Paris statue; 
 
 310
 
 A MAN'S REACH 311 
 
 while the elder Robert Catlett tried to assume a 
 careless confidence that he did not have. The 
 quiet family party, for any expression of dismay, 
 might have been taking their seats at a dinner 
 table. 
 
 The jury was called and the indictment read. 
 The lawyers for the defense and the Common- 
 wealth examined their separate witnesses. The 
 State's witnesses were the four strangers who 
 happened to be at the Bolingbroke Hotel that fatal 
 night, and who claimed to have seen the shooting, 
 the woman in whose miserable home Kitty Nestles 
 rented a room, the human crows in the rookery, 
 a drunken loafer from whose cruelty Robert Cat- 
 lett had rescued a consumptive wife, the charred 
 letter, the bedroom slippers and a check of Robert 
 Catlett's made payable to the firm of Carlin & 
 Fulton, and unhappily transferred by them to 
 Mrs. Nestles. 
 
 The prosecuting attorney opened the argument, 
 followed by Tinsley for the defense. Then Mor- 
 decai Cooke for the Commonwealth and Lester 
 for the defence: Levi Funkhouser would then 
 speak, followed by Turberville. Stanard's repu- 
 tation demanded that he close the defense, and the 
 Commonwealth's attorney would, of course, close 
 the case. 
 
 Tinsley was never more astute or more logical ; 
 he consumed the whole of the first day: if he had
 
 312 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 been doing legal legerdemain for the despair of 
 the jury he could not have been less intelligible to 
 them. His reasoning was marvellous, but abso- 
 lutely beyond the comprehension of the laity. 
 
 Mordecai Cooke made a thrilling series of word- 
 pictures : first of a Christian, then of a dastardly 
 hypocrite, and last of a trusting, desperate woman. 
 His were legal pyrotechnics, legal finesse, and a lot 
 of legal slush: his arguments and villifications 
 consumed the morning of the third day and the 
 jury followed him with evident interest. 
 
 Lester began in the afternoon of the third day, 
 gave the jury pure law till court adjourned, and 
 went over into the morning of the fourth day. 
 Randolph rejoiced in his reasoning the bored 
 jury yawned. 
 
 In the afternoon of the fourth day Funkhouser 
 was heard : he filled three hours with vulgar rhap- 
 sodies and followed the lead of Cooke in canon- 
 izing a desperate woman; the tide of sympathy 
 already with Kitty Nestles gained perceptible 
 strength. Funkhouser played upon the crowd with 
 the screech and blare of a hurdy-gurdy, made 
 capital of the bedroom slippers, the charred letter 
 and a check of Robert Catlett's found uncashed 
 among Kitty's things. He showed quite plainly 
 that it was not unusual, but quite ordinary, for a 
 minister to commit crime ; and cited two instances
 
 A MAN'S REACH 313 
 
 in the past year, where clergymen had first ruined 
 then murdered their victims. 
 
 At ten o'clock of the fifth day of the argument 
 in the case of the Commonwealth against Robert 
 Catlett, Randolph Turberville arose, with the con- 
 fidence of a June sun, to add his contribution 
 to the defense of Robert Catlett. Immaculate, 
 robust, the blue of his eye oriental sapphire, 
 browning hair still shot with gold, the dents about 
 his mouth all gone to purpose, his voice full and 
 round as a well-tuned 'cello he immediately 
 fastened, as if with lock and key, the interest of 
 judge, jury, opposing as well as associate counsel, 
 and court-room. 
 
 At first something terrific, strange, hot, coursed 
 through and through his being like forked light- 
 ning, blinded his mental vision and forced his 
 ideas to recede like an outgoing tide : it was, how- 
 ever, only for a moment; then his ideas came 
 rushing back, full-capped with a subtle confidence 
 almost as audible as the equinoctial surf. 
 
 " It is with a mixture of sadness and exultation 
 that I stand before you, my friends, to-day. Sad- 
 ness over the first ' rigor ' of a sickening circum- 
 stance: exultation, inexpressible, over the irre- 
 futable fact that the thrust of the spear, the 
 stream of blood, the cry of agony, and a dark and 
 trembling world opened the way to a sun-lit uni- 
 verse in which we work to-day.
 
 314 A MAN'S BEACH 
 
 " It is impossible for me to add a point to the 
 law that the other counsel have so skilfully ex- 
 plained; a drop to the eloquence that has fallen 
 from their lips. Mine is but a simple statement of 
 truth as I know it; the revelation of a character 
 that it has been my privilege to consider from its 
 frank and merry youth, to its sincere and conse- 
 crated manhood. I shall not try to change the 
 stream of evidence, but to ' gain my goal by going 
 with it.' 
 
 " We have heard day after day as we sat here, 
 the cry of Hypocrite! Reformer! Profligate! 
 Christian ! I shall pass over the first three epithets 
 for the present, and only affirm that if it is a 
 crime to be a Christian, my friends, Robert Catlett 
 is guilty. With him it is not ' I fast once a 
 week I give tithes to the poor,' but I love I 
 serve." 
 
 Turberville caught Catlett's eye: it called as in 
 the old foot-ball days " Come on, Ran when 
 you are on the team we always beat ! " Robert 
 Catlett, in the distance of doubt, called Ran and 
 Ran came. 
 
 William Pitt was once called the " King of the 
 Company/' With no vanity, but rather with a 
 strange humility, Randolph felt himself so now. 
 The cruel suspicion and ante-condemnation that 
 had poisoned the court-room was lifting, and the
 
 A MAN'S REACH 815 
 
 mocking audience, perhaps, more willing to be 
 convinced. 
 
 " Sin in the purple is much more horrible than 
 sin in rags : and when even the least suspicion falls 
 upon a confessed Soldier of Christ, it is far blacker 
 than pitch upon a fleece of wool. 
 
 " Once many years ago there was in Samaria 
 a well ; and by the well was a woman. She was 
 not a good woman, but there was One who longed 
 to make her so. Near Him were twelve men who 
 asked' Why talkest Thou with her? ' To-day, 
 in this city twelve times twelve are asking ' Why 
 talkest thou with her ? ' 
 
 " Just such a woman wiped His feet with her 
 hair : just such a woman trembled at these words 
 ' Neither do I condemn thee, go, and sin no 
 more.' If the woman of Samaria turned over 
 a new leaf, why not Kitty Nestles ? It was worth 
 trying. And failing in his efforts for rescue, 
 Robert Catlett was determined, if possible, to 
 deliver a modern Samson from the green withes 
 of this modern Delilah." 
 
 The audience, less sullen, drew a long breath. 
 Randolph felt firm in the saddle, an exhilarating 
 security took hold on him. 
 
 " Robert Catlett and I, barefoot urchins, scam- 
 pered over the red gulches and rocky hills of 
 Albemarle; and the same spirit that climbed the 
 mountain, broke the headstrong colt, and dug his
 
 310 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 mother's flower-beds bruised my young face be- 
 cause I cut in two a harmless caterpillar. The 
 same spirit that streaked like a flash through 
 Monroe Park, threw rocks recklessly and broke 
 Mr. Caskie's window fairly pulled another boy 
 from the firm clutch of a ' cop ' and cried loudly, 
 ' That boy didn't break the window, 'twas m-e-e-e, 
 mister. I'm awful sorry, I didn't go to do it; 
 my father is Robert Catlett lives in Albemarle.' 
 The same spirit that burst forth in astonishing 
 power in the Holy Comforter threatened its in- 
 fluence by listening to the wild heart-beats of 
 Kitty Nestles by talking with her. 
 
 " Robert Catlett couldn't tell a lie, but he never 
 failed to try to give good reasons for his misde- 
 meanors. Once he went, entirely contrary to his 
 mother's orders, into the house of a little friend 
 who had whooping cough, but he explained his 
 action with much satisfaction to himself. * Billy 
 was lonesome, mother, and I know I didn't ketch 
 it, 'cause I kept behind his back.' Well do I re- 
 member Bill-Bob and I seeing his favorite cow 
 writhing and choking on the sweet spring clover. 
 Bill-Bob never hesitated a moment, but thrust 
 his little arm down ' Kilo's ' throat bringing 
 nothing up but ' Kilo's ' painful tooth-prints on 
 his arm. Soon the cry from a servant, ' You ain' 
 nuvver ought to run yo' arm in " Kilo's " thote; 
 Lucy-cat done gone mad an' done bite Beppo dog
 
 A MAN'S REACH 317 
 
 an' I seen Beppo bite " Kilo " plum on her bag 
 " Kilo " mad, dat's what.' Such a commotion, 
 such a rush for the madstone man who lived over 
 in Amherst County. But Bill-Bob came out all 
 right." 
 
 The court-room laughed, the jury smiled good 
 signs ! Randolph was driven by something mys- 
 terious, warm, beautiful: was it Lettice Corbin 
 who was putting glittering thoughts, like winged 
 butterflies, into his mind? Was it the heart of 
 Lettice calling to the heart of Ran? He let go 
 law, and took hold of love. Life had renewed 
 his blood ; and he was pouring it forth for Robert 
 Catlett this dark November day. 
 
 "All sorts of folk came to Robert Catlett 
 clean and unclean he talked with all, offered his 
 strong arm for support and relief. He might not 
 have been prudent in talking with Kitty Nestles, 
 but he forgot the danger of her disease in his 
 desire to cure her. 
 
 " Kitty Nestles was like an older sister to Robert 
 Catlett. For years she was a daughter in his 
 Albemarle home; Robert liked her merry ways, 
 her seat in the saddle, her trickles of laughter 
 over the quiet place. He never dreamed that Kitty 
 could be anything but good, until at the University 
 she made a prey of one nearer to Robert Catlett 
 than Kitty Nestles could ever be." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Catlett flinched slightly: Saint
 
 318 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 George Catlett moved his foot, the scrape of it 
 was like the fall of a prayer-book at a funeral 
 the court-room caught its breath. 
 
 " Robert Catlett, not for one moment, spared 
 the rod of stern remonstrance ; he wouldn't stand 
 it but he had to. He was not the fellow to stop 
 because he did not seem to succeed, and he kept 
 on trying to restrain the sinister influence of his 
 foster-sister. He endeavored to remove her prey. 
 Robert Catlett was not going to see any soul die 
 of foul atmosphere, without an effort to remove 
 it to a purer air. His fight was one-sided, difficult 
 in spite of his energy. From the University Kitty 
 Nestles removed herself to Bolingbroke ; here from 
 time to time she had all sorts of prey, but by 
 degrees each escaped all but a single, belated 
 victim. 
 
 " It is this victim for whom Robert Catlett is 
 here to-day." Randolph caught Robert's eye 
 again : it said this time " Don't, Ran. Don't ! " but 
 Ran kept on. No time for mincing matters now. 
 
 " After a desperate fight the victim was re- 
 moved far from the clutches of the vampire, and 
 Robert Catlett's heart filled with pity for the 
 woman, and he talked with her once more. She 
 was very poor and desolate: in a way he could 
 help her. 
 
 " Years ago the grandfather of Robert Catlett 
 Philip Cocke was a large landholder, and some
 
 A MAN'S REACH 310 
 
 of his possessions lay just outside of Bolingbroke. 
 Catlett, by the will of this grandfather, inherited 
 a portion of this land and he sold it just about 
 the time that he removed Kitty Nestles's lover to 
 a point of safety." 
 
 From the fair hair of Saint George Catlett to 
 his pointed chin a wave of crimson rushed : he 
 never dreamed that Turberville would speak so 
 plainly ; he considered it cruel, almost illegitimate. 
 Twelve stalwart farmers very nearly winced as 
 they saw the unmistakable confusion; each man 
 of the twelve involuntarily straightened himself 
 the defense had scored. 
 
 "'Poor Kitty,' thought Robert; 'it must be 
 terrible to go under without a cent ; perhaps if she 
 had just enough for daily bread she might be able 
 to be a better woman, stronger to keep her hands 
 off her prey.' So Catlett took a five thousand- 
 dollar first mortgage on Bolingbroke real estate, 
 and arranged with the firm of Carlin & Fulton 
 that the six per cent, interest be paid to Kitty 
 Nestles in monthly instalments. The transaction 
 is open to the public and may be examined by 
 any person in this room. Catlett and Kitty Nestles 
 entered into a solemn bargain : the woman was to 
 be rewarded for keeping hands off. 
 
 " But the transaction would not come imme- 
 diately into effect, and Robert Catlett, with 
 Christ-like pity, sent his personal check to Carlin
 
 320 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 & Fulton; which they, perhaps unfortunately, 
 transferred, as it was, to Kitty Nestles. 
 
 " Catlett draws a long breath, he can go to his 
 work now, without a personal sorrow casting its 
 shadow between him and his daily task. He reck- 
 oned badly : Kitty Nestles, lonely in her poor room 
 on Ninth Street, repents of her bargain: she de- 
 termines to break her contract and follow her prey 
 to Albemarle. She well knows the softness of at 
 least two Albemarle hearts. 
 
 " But Kitty's vision is blurred, she overesti- 
 mates human endurance. Although she knocks 
 at the door of the modest home in Albemarle, it is 
 shut in her face : there is in that house one nearer 
 and dearer to the mistress and master than a 
 hysterical, sobbing, homeless woman their erring 
 son." A rustle in that court-room like wind in 
 the trees! 
 
 " Kitty, in her despairing fury refused to be 
 sent to the station and stumbled over the red, 
 rain-soaked roads of Albemarle. These are the 
 witnesses of her agony." Turberville removed 
 from a box a pair of mud-encrusted little boots. 
 " Look at her poor, well-worn shoes emblems of 
 her scarred, soiled life!" Saint George's eyes 
 begged Ran to take them away. " These high- 
 heeled, patent leather shoes, my friends, are 
 covered with Albemarle mud, which tells the way 
 that Kitty went.
 
 A MAN'S REACH 821 
 
 " Frantic, repentant not of her sins but of her 
 promises she returned to Bolingbroke, and 
 straight to the one person in the wide world who 
 she thought might listen. She found pity, but 
 absolute sincerity. The mortgage on a man's flesh 
 was raised Kitty could claim nothing else. 
 
 " We have explained the check these pathetic 
 echoes of a tawdry life account for the bedroom 
 slippers ; don't they my friends don't they? Not 
 one thing condemnatory for Mr. Catlett in them ! " 
 
 Randolph Turberville quickly took in the faces 
 before him: he was getting then* judge, jury, 
 mocking audience and serious lawyers all! 
 
 " Just across Peace Street from the rectory, as 
 you all well know, is the home of Roman Catholic 
 priests; the night that Kitty Nestles passed from 
 a turbid life to eternity a suffering old priest lay 
 awake in his bed. His room is in the eastern 
 corner of the priests' house, directly opposite to 
 Robert Catlett's study. This old priest saw Kitty 
 enter the rectory, with a satchel in her hand, about 
 seven o'clock : he saw her go out and return about 
 twelve o'clock this time to her tragic death. 
 
 " He saw Robert Catlett speak gently to her ; 
 he saw him very grave and sad ; he saw him go to 
 Kitty, pick up something, and take it out of the 
 room ; he saw him come back and give something 
 to Kitty. What did he take out? What did he 
 bring in? Robert Catlett took out a pair of sop- 
 
 21
 
 322 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 ping wet, worn shoes : he brought back all he 
 had a pair of bedroom slippers. He put the shoes 
 on the radiator in his upper hall to dry ; they fell 
 between the radiator and the wall as if to hide 
 their shame but will anybody in this room deny 
 that they are Catlett's most eloquent witnesses ? " 
 
 Randolph now picked up the half-burnt letter, 
 of which the prosecution had made such tremen- 
 dous capital. 
 
 " Twelve experts upon handwriting have exam- 
 ined this fragment of a letter. Nine say that it 
 looks like Catlett's ; two affirm that it is Catlett's ; 
 one says that it is not Catlett's. That one knows 
 what he is talking about ; I will show you that he 
 does. The post-mark is torn off the letter as you 
 see. Robert Catlett could never have written such 
 a letter, or such a fragment of a letter he never 
 could have descended to sickly sentimentality. 
 This letter is branded with the same substance 
 that clung so tenaciously to the patent-leather shoes 
 Albemarle mud. Yes, Kitty could have dropped 
 it ; you see I am feeling your very thoughts ; but 
 she didn't. Why not? How do I know that she 
 did not? I know because it was picked up, by the 
 mistress of Redlands (pretty reliable witness 
 eh?) and given to the postmistress at Cobham ex- 
 actly three days before Kitty went to Albemarle. 
 Here's the proof! Read it! The chemical analysis
 
 A MAN'S REACH 828 
 
 reveals the exact substance branding the letter 
 that branded the boots." 
 
 Randolph swept back over his quiet argument 
 with a burning brush; massing the color like a 
 young Titian. 
 
 The canvas glowed in that sombre court-room, 
 every figure distinct, compelling. One saw the 
 lust of the flesh, temptation, weakness, beauty, 
 youth, scars, pallor, a splash of regret, greater 
 despair then coursing along the canvas like an 
 avenging sky-rocket the ringing shot. 
 
 " Kitty Nestles on one side of the room, my 
 friends, the young rector heavy-hearted, bewil- 
 dered, pitying still, on the other. 
 
 ' I won't give him up ! Take back your 
 money ! He belongs to me, I want him ! ' The 
 woman hissed." 
 
 Saint George was restless. 
 
 "'Never, so long as I can keep him away!' 
 Catlett quietly answered. 
 
 " A cry of agony as of some wild bird kept 
 from its prey. ' Then I'll damn you, stop all of 
 your good works.' 
 
 " 'You can't do that.' Catlett was very quiet 
 still. 
 
 " ' I can't.' The pistol was the answer the 
 end! 
 
 " Greater love hath no man than this that' he 
 lay down his life for a friend.
 
 324 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 " Gentlemen of the jury, your Honor, brothers 
 of the law, kind and patient listeners I am done. 
 My case is submitted." 
 
 The clock struck four ; nobody had remembered 
 dinner to-day. 
 
 Stanard arose. Never did even he, himself, 
 ever show greater nobility, greater unselfishness: 
 " Gentlemen of the jury," he said, " I have nothing 
 to say." The Commonwealth's attorney stumbled, 
 floundered, soon stopped. 
 
 The judge made his charge to the jury and 
 they filed out at four-thirty and returned at four- 
 thirty-five. 
 
 When the prisoner stood up for their last word, 
 Saint George stood beside him. The eloquence 
 of his silent confession was greater than the plead- 
 ing of Randolph Turberville. 
 
 At four-thirty-seven, Robert Catlett was free. 
 His face, as he left the court-room, had not re- 
 laxed ; white, pain-chiselled, yet fearless it might 
 have been the face of some twelfth century Floren- 
 tine, persecuted for a creed. 
 
 The memory of the first moments were never 
 clear to Randolph, the smoke from the guns clung 
 to the atmosphere. But to his dying day he never 
 forgot the face of Robert Catlett, as he clasped 
 his hand ; or the ring of Stanard's voice " Ran, 
 oh, Ran!"
 
 A MAN'S REACH 3*5 
 
 He had started home, but he returned to the 
 steps of the City Hall. 
 
 " Ran," Stanard's voice was not altogether 
 clear, " I have been looking for a partner for 
 thirty years. I want to offer you full partnership 
 in my concern. Stanard & Turberville. Sounds 
 good to me." 
 
 He that was dead is risen again. 
 
 Ran walked home; he wondered if the sun had 
 been shining all day : he had not noticed it. The 
 glory of a dying but ecstatic world, banners and 
 torches, armies in red and gold saluted him from 
 the Capitol Square to Monroe Park. The sunset 
 hailed him from the Cathedral tower, and Chattie 
 met him at the door of the little gray house and 
 held his hand as they walked in.
 
 XXIX 
 
 THE Bolingbroke newsies were yelling " E-x- 
 T-R-A-A-A-L-E-A-D-E-R-E-R-R-R-R," as they had one 
 memorable day nearly three months ago but one 
 now caught, " Catlett free! Catlett free!" 
 " Turberville's effective pleading," etc. Yet 
 Charlotte and Randolph were talking as quietly 
 as if there were no outside din. Randolph was 
 stretched on the couch at the foot of his mother's 
 bed, Chattie beside him in a little rocking-chair. 
 
 " High time for a wife, dear." 
 
 His mother's words entered the procession of 
 ideas marching through his mind, and at once kept 
 step with the rest. 
 
 Of course it was time, high time. Lettice had 
 been with him all the evening singing " Glory 
 Hallelujah " in a clear treble. He felt as keenly 
 as if he could touch it her reckless sincerity, her 
 audacious affection, her rare, almost eccentric 
 beauty: he seemed to realize, as if for the first 
 time, her fidelity, her heavenly aspiration. She 
 had with wonderful discretion retired, sweetly, 
 through the weeks of Bill-Bob's necessity to- 
 night she was all here. 
 
 " Yes, it is time not a moment to lose." Ran- 
 dolph jumped from the couch, went to his mother's 
 
 326
 
 A MAN'S REACH 327 
 
 bed-table where stood an extension 'phone, and 
 called " Randolph 765," waited a second, then 
 " Send a taxi to 120 South Laurel to-morrow 
 at five-thirty." He hung up the receiver and 
 turning to his mother smiled. " I don't mind get- 
 ting up before day for her." 
 
 " I didn't know there was such a train for 
 Lester-Manor." His mother was getting excited. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, mumsey the old freight. Daddy 
 and I used to take that for the fishing club 
 remember? " 
 
 " I believe I do." 
 
 " I'll get to Lester-Manor about seven-thirty. I 
 shall wire for a trap to meet me and convey me 
 to Laneville. I'll get to Laneville, probably, be- 
 fore twelve. Oh, mother." Ran took her in his 
 arms and squeezed her. Between mother and son 
 there was perfect clarity at last. When there is 
 sorrow that we can't speak about, affection and 
 confidence split upon it like clear water upon a 
 frowning rock. Not so now, the love and intimacy 
 of mother and son flowed swiftly all the way 
 through. 
 
 Randolph felt older, much older, as he stood 
 with his back to the fire; his right hand, deep 
 in the pocket of his trousers fumbling with his 
 knife and a little silver corkscrew; his other hand 
 playing with some loose coin in his left trouser 
 pocket. The jingle made thought-steps he could
 
 328 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 hear his mind marching. He was in the Lane- 
 ville library picturesque, interesting, vital 
 where the real conflict had begun. How very 
 far it seemed then to now. What did it ? What 
 helped him to win? He had no more desire to 
 play the " cup " or the " game " than he had to 
 spin a top or ride a stick horse. 
 
 Was this he, himself, standing before his 
 mother's blazing fire, square financially with the 
 world, the hateful little debts of a wild man on 
 his uppers paid, a comfortable bank account, 
 
 his mother's respect, Lettice ? " A blast tore 
 
 through his body fiercer than any November gale. 
 Passion held him, not the sugared poesy of a 
 mystic, but the raging hunger of a man the 
 delicious heavenly madness that forced Adam to 
 eat the forbidden fruit. It was nothing in the 
 world but love, the same old, human-divine mys- 
 tery, that had saved or ruined millions, had de- 
 livered him. " Lettice, I'm coming to you just 
 as fast as I can," to himself. Aloud, " Oh, 
 mother ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, dear Son-Boy." 
 
 Another long, long pause then. " We must pack 
 your things, dear ! " 
 
 And looking down at his trousers Randolph 
 added, " These should certainly be pressed." 
 
 " Before to-morrow morning, Son-Boy? How 
 on earth I wonder if I could do it?"
 
 A MAN'S REACH 329 
 
 " Maybe I could ! " laughing. 
 
 " Son-Boy, I forgot to tell you Jeter has come 
 back." 
 
 " The devil, he has a black Prodigal! " 
 
 " He used to press your knickerbockers, you 
 know." 
 
 " Let's have him up : I should like to see the 
 rascal ; we have had good times together he and 
 I and Bill-Bob; we liked his black face. I'll go 
 out and whistle, and I bet he'll come." 
 
 Soon Randoph returned to his mother's cham- 
 ber, followed by Jeter little changed from his 
 care- free unstable boyhood. 
 
 Jeter was inclined to be tantalizingly voluble, 
 and to Chattie's innocent question : " Where have 
 you been all this time, Jeter? " replied: 
 
 " In Paterson, New Jersey, 'bout de mos' 
 onneres place for a preacher in de world. I wuz 
 more a 'zorter den a reg'lar preacher, no how. 
 Dis is de way dem Paterson niggers treat me. I 
 hadn't got no celery sence I cum dar 'cep a few 
 driblets, an' I natchelly assed de whyfo'. Den 
 dey 'low dat ef I had lef whin I oughter lef, 
 dey wouldn' owe me no celery. Den I up an* 
 'low dat dey owe me more'n a year celery; an' 
 what's mo' I wouldn' lef one step till dey pay 
 me my celery cent fer cent. Warn't I right, 
 Marse Randuff Miss Charlotte?"
 
 380 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 It was with difficulty that Randolph could get 
 him downstairs with the trousers. 
 
 As Chattie and Randolph packed his satchel, 
 they joked and giggled like happy children. 
 
 " Suppose Mr. Corbin won't let me in ! " Ran- 
 dolph was shaving and the half of his face, 
 well lathered, gave him a clownish look. 
 
 " Of course, he will be too glad, Son-Boy." 
 
 " Suppose they make a barricade of Macauley 
 Berkeley's waistcoats ! " 
 
 " Or his pedigree? " 
 
 " I can match him there, maybe ! " 
 
 " But laying all joking aside, Son-Boy, I want 
 you to tell Lettice that everything is ready for her, 
 and that the house is hers except for some little 
 corner where I may, sometimes, get out of your 
 way." 
 
 "Get out of our way? Silly! Will you be 
 lonesome while I am gone, mumsey? Hadn't 
 you better have Miss Mary Nicolson to keep you 
 company? " 
 
 "Mary Nicolson?" with a proud smile. "I 
 won't mind seeing Mary now." 
 
 The satchel packed, they went back to Char- 
 lotte's room. She went to her work-table and un- 
 locking the top-drawer, drew out a package very 
 carefully tied up. She unwrapped and unwrapped, 
 and finally uncovered a worn, leather ring-case.
 
 A MAN'S REACH SSI 
 
 Opened from its white velvet nest, a pigeon 
 blood ruby flashed in a rim of plain gold. 
 
 " This is for Lettice, Son-Boy. Uncle Carter 
 brought it to mamma from India the time he 
 took that wonderful voyage as a young mid- 
 shipman. It always seemed too grand for me, but 
 it just suits Lettice." 
 
 Randolph took the rare gem and held it under 
 the reading-lamp. 
 
 " What does it look like, Son-Boy? " 
 
 "Love, Life, Blood, Lettice! In the rich ex- 
 perience of to-day she glows like a ruby in a chain 
 of aquamarines. She " 
 
 The bell rang viciously, and Randolph putting 
 the ring in his mother's hand, ran down to open 
 the door. 
 
 A messenger boy handed him a letter, by 
 special delivery, from Lettice Corbin: 
 
 LANEVIU.E, URBANNA, 
 Middlesex County, Virginia. 
 
 First and foremost, Ran dear, I must confess my sins 
 tell you about the only thing that you do not know about 
 me. I have been really jealous of Bill-Bob in these terrible 
 anxious weeks. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd 
 so wicked? There has been a horrid little tempest in my 
 heart because you were thinking of Bill-Bob more than 
 you were thinking of me. I would not have taken you 
 from him for the world, but I was hateful all the same. 
 I believe Bill-Bob is going to be cleared triumphantly, and 
 I also believe that when the trial is over, you are going to 
 write and say " I'm coming, Lettice." But I am going
 
 382 A MAN'S REACH 
 
 to say it first. I would come to you, Ran dear, if it was 
 the thing to do ; but as it isn't you come to me as fast as 
 you can. I don't intend to do without you a moment 
 longer. There ! 
 
 Remember Birdie Peters, the yellow-haired child who 
 used to watch us ride by so wistfully? She has been aw- 
 fully sick and I nursed her last night; and it brought me 
 to my senses. 
 
 Old Mr. Peters is blind and old Mrs. Peters is deaf, 
 and when we heard that Birdie was sick, I knew they 
 couldn't nurse their grandchild properly. Papa and mamma 
 sent them something, and well satisfied settled themselves 
 to their papers and knitting. 
 
 It rained off and on till night, then a high wind and a 
 cold white moon kept company. Laneville didn't mind the 
 wind, the heavy curtains kept out the cold white moon, 
 but the little child, in her mean bed with her feeble, incom- 
 petent nurses, called me. 
 
 Mamma and papa were asleep, and I made up my mind as 
 quick as a flash to go to Birdie Peters. I got my rubber 
 boots and my big coat and crept down and out. The night 
 was wildly clear, the trees bent with a shout and rose with 
 a yell. The sheep huddled in a corner of the field, the 
 stars were as big as moons. I was not myself, but a 
 Hamadryad out on a lark! The main road greeted me in 
 white surprise : it was sand-dough between the stubble- 
 fields and my feet went in and out, like spoons in a batter ; 
 my shadow was long and narrow, weird and witchlike; 
 and an owl cried in the thicket back of the Peters's house. 
 
 But I got there all right: nursed Birdie all night; and 
 she led me to see that I couldn't wait for you any longer. 
 You need me and I need you, and we are ready for each 
 other. 
 
 I stayed with Birdie all to-day, and late this afternoon 
 I came home with Doctor Phil. You recollect Doctor Phil ? 
 He was in his gig, with his big flea-bitten " Hog-fish " 
 what a name for a horse! I jumped behind and stood on
 
 A MAN'S REACH 333 
 
 the bar, holding to Doctor Phil's shoulders, and we went 
 quickly home. 
 
 The bark of the dogs brought papa and mamma to the 
 door. If I had broken all of the Ten Commandments they 
 could not have been more depressed. They led me to my 
 room as if I were a criminal. 
 
 I am alone there now, calling you, calling you, as Birdie 
 called me. Make haste! Make haste! You can't be too 
 quick. I shall tell papa the first thing to-morrow that 
 you are coming. 
 
 My hair is all down over my blue kimono; my fire is 
 glowing like a good man's heart ; I am so warm, so glad. 
 My brain is full of little sparks, something is dancing 
 through me like velvet-wine. Now I am going to say my 
 prayers: but first I am going to take hold of the crinkly 
 ends of my long hair, and dance before the Lord as 
 Miriam did, in pure thanksgiving joy. I have asked you 
 to come, and know you are coming. I am so happy, 
 please come quick! 
 
 LETTICE.
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY'S 
 New and Forthcoming Books 
 
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 By GEORGE L. WALTON, M.D. izmo. Cloth, $1.00 net. 
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 and Churches 
 
 By ROBERT A. LANCASTER, JR. About 300 Illustrations and 
 a photogravure frontispiece. Quarto. In a box, cloth, gilt top, 
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 ALL CHILDREN LOVE SERIES 
 
 Heidi 
 
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 brothers, fathers, husbands and comfortable old bachelors, 
 to read this tale and even to hand it on to your friends of 
 the fairer sex, provided you are certain that they do not 
 mind the glint of steel and the shrieks of dying captives.
 
 The Man From the 
 Bitter Roots 
 
 By CAROLINE LOCKHART. 3 illustrations in color by Gayle 
 Hoskins. i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 "Better than 'Me-Smith'" that is the word of those 
 who have read this story of the powerful, quiet, competent 
 Bruce Burt. You recall the humor of "Me-Smith," 
 wait until you read the wise sayings of Uncle Billy and 
 the weird characters of the Hinds Hotel. You recall some 
 of those flashing scenes of "Me-Smith" wait until you 
 read of the blizzard in the Bitter Roots, of Bruce Burt 
 throwing the Mexican wrestling champion, of the reckless 
 feat of shooting the Roaring River with the dynamos upon 
 the rafts, of the day when Bruce Burt almost killed a man 
 who tried to burn out his power plant, then you will 
 know what hair-raising adventures really are. The tale 
 is dramatic from the first great scene in that log cabin 
 in the mountains when Bruce Burt meets the murderous 
 onslaught of his insane partner. 
 
 A Man's Hearth 
 
 By ELEANOR M. INGRAM. Illustrated in color by Edmund 
 Frederick, iimo. $1.25 net. 
 
 The key words to all Miss Ingram's stories are "fresh- 
 ness," "speed" and "vigor." "From the Car Behind" 
 was aptly termed "one continuous joy ride." "A Man's 
 Hearth" has all the vigor and go of the former story and 
 also a heart interest that gives a wider appeal. A young 
 New York millionaire, at odds with his family, finds his 
 solution in working for and loving the optimistic nurse- 
 maid who brought him from the depths of trouble and 
 made for him a hearthstone. There are fascinating side 
 issues but this is the essential story and it is an inspiring 
 one. It will be one of the big books of the winter.
 
 By the author of " MARCIA SCHUYLER" 
 "LOf MICHAEL" "THE BEST MAN" etc. 
 
 The Obsession of Victoria Gracen 
 
 By GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ. Illustrated in color. 
 
 1 2 mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 Every mother, every church-worker, every individual 
 who desires to bring added happiness into the lives of 
 others should read this book. A new novel by the author 
 of "Marcia Schuyler" is always a treat for those of us 
 who want clean, cheerful, uplifting fiction of the sort that 
 you can read with pleasure, recommend with sincerity and 
 remember with thankfulness. This book has the exact 
 touch desired. The story is of the effect that an orphan 
 boy has upon his lonely aunt, his Aunt Vic. Her obsession 
 is her love for the lad and his happiness. There is the 
 never-failing fund of fun and optimism with the high 
 religious purpose that appears in all of Mrs. Lutz's excel- 
 lent stories. 
 
 Miranda 
 
 By GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ. Illustrated in color 
 by E. L. Henry. i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 Nearly all of us fell in love with Miranda when she first 
 appeared in "Marcia Schuyler," but those who missed 
 that happiness will now find her even more lovable in 
 this new book of which she is the central figure. From 
 cover to cover it is a tale of optimism, of courage, of 
 purpose. You lay it down with a revivified spirit, a 
 stronger heart for the struggle of this world, a clearer 
 hope for the next, and a determination to make yourself 
 and the people with whom you come in contact cleaner, 
 more spiritual, more reverent than ever before. It is 
 deeply religious in character : a novel that will bring the 
 great spiritual truths of God, character and attainment 
 straight to the heart of every reader.
 
 11 GRIPPING" DETECTIVE TALES 
 
 The White Alley 
 
 By CAROLYN WELLS. Frontispiece. lamo. $1.25 net. 
 
 FLEMING STONE, the ingenious American detective, 
 has become one of the best known characters in modern 
 fiction. He is the supreme wizard of crime detection in 
 the WHITE BIRCHES MYSTERY told in, "THE 
 WHITE ALLEY." 
 
 The Boston Transcript says: "As an incomparable 
 solver of criminal enigmas, Stone is in a class by himself. 
 A tale which will grip the attention." This is what 
 another says : " Miss Wells's suave and polished detective, 
 Fleming Stone, goes through the task set for him with 
 celerity and dispatch. Miss Wells's characteristic humor 
 and cleverness mark the conversations." New York Times. 
 
 The Woman in the Car 
 
 By RICHARD MARSH. lamo. $1.35 net. 
 
 Do you like a thrilling tale? If so, read this one and 
 we almost guarantee that you will not stir from your chair 
 until you turn the last page. As the clock struck midnight 
 on one of the most fashionable streets of London in the 
 Duchess of Ditchling's handsome limousine, ArthurTowzer, 
 millionaire mining magnate, is found dead at the wheel, 
 horribly mangled. Yes, this is a tale during the reading 
 of which you will leave your chair only to turn up the 
 gas. When you are not shuddering, you are thinking; 
 your wits are balanced against the mind and system of 
 the famous Scotland Yard, the London detective head- 
 quarters. The men or women who can solve the mystery 
 without reading the last few pages will deserve a reward, 
 they should apply for a position upon the Pinkerton force.
 
 THE NOVEL THEY'RE ALL TALKING ABOUT 
 
 The Rose -Garden Husband 
 
 By MARGARET WIDDEMER. Illustrated by Walter Biggs. 
 Small i2mo. $1.00 net. 
 
 "A Benevolent Friend just saved me from missing 'The 
 Rose-Garden Husband.' It is something for thanks- 
 giving, so I send thanks to you and the author. The 
 story is now cut out and stitched and in my collection 
 of 'worth-while* stories, in a portfolio that holds only 
 the choicest stories from many magazines. There is a 
 healthy tone in this that puts it above most of these 
 choice ones. And a smoothness of action, a reality of 
 motive and speech that comforts the soul of a veteran 
 reviewer." From a Letter to the Publishers. 
 
 Edition after edition of this novel has been sold, surely 
 you are not going to miss it. It is going the circle of family 
 after family, every one likes it. The New York Times, 
 a paper that knows, calls it "a sparkling, rippling little 
 tale." Order it now, the cost is but one dollar. 
 
 The Diary of a Beauty 
 
 By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL. Illustrated by William Dorr 
 Steele. 121110. $1.25 net. 
 
 From the assistant postmistress in a small New England 
 village to the owner of a great mansion on Fifth Avenue 
 is the story told not as outsiders saw it, but as the beau- 
 tiful heroine experiences it, an account so naive, so 
 deliciously cunning, so true, that the reader turns page 
 after page with an inner feeling of absolute satisfaction. 
 
 The Dusty Road 
 
 By THERESE TYLER. Frontispiece by H. Weston Taylor. 
 12010. $1.25 net. 
 
 This is a remarkable story of depth and power, the 
 struggle of Elizabeth Anderson to clear herself of her 
 sordid surroundings. Such books are not written every 
 day, nor every year, nor every ten years. It is stimulating 
 to a higher, truer life.
 
 RECENT VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS 
 
 The Practical Book of Period 
 Furniture 
 
 Treating of English Period Furniture, and American Furniture 
 of Colonial and Post-Colonial date, together with that of the 
 typical French Periods. 
 
 By HAROLD DONALDSON EBERLEIN and ABBOTT Mc- 
 CLURE. With 225 illustrations in color, doubletone and line. 
 Octavo. Handsomely decorated cloth. In a box. $5.00 net. 
 
 This book places at the disposal of the general reader all 
 the information he may need in order to identify and clas- 
 sify any piece of period furniture, whether it be an original, 
 or a reproduction. The authors have greatly increased 
 the value of the work by adding an illustrated chrono- 
 logical key by means of which the reader can distinguish 
 the difference of detail between the various related 
 periods. One cannot fail to find the book absorbingly 
 interesting as well as most useful. 
 
 The Practical Book of Oriental Rugs 
 
 By DR. G. GRIFFIN LEWIS, Author of " The Mystery of the 
 Oriental Rug." New Edition, revised and enlarged. 20 full- 
 page illustrations in full color. 93 illustrations in doubletone. 
 70 designs in line. Folding chart of rug characteristics and a 
 map of the Orient. Octavo. Handsomely bound. In a box. 
 $5.00 net. 
 
 Have you ever wished to be able to judge, understand, 
 and appreciate the characteristics of those gems of Eastern 
 looms? This is the book that you have been waiting for, 
 as all that one needs to know about oriental rugs is pre- 
 sented to the reader in a most engaging manner with illus- 
 trations that almost belie description. "From cover to 
 cover it is packed with detailed information compactly 
 and conveniently arranged for ready reference. Many 
 people who are interested in the beautiful fabrics of which 
 the author treats have long wished for such a book as 
 this and will be grateful to G. Griffin Lewis for writing it." 
 The Dial.
 
 The Practical Book of Outdoor 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 
 By GEORGE C. THOMAS, JR. Elaborately illustrated with 
 96 perfect photographic reproductions in full color of all varieties 
 of roses and a few half tone plates. Octavo. Handsome cloth 
 binding, in a slip case. $4.00 net. 
 
 This work has caused a sensation among rose growers, 
 amateurs and professionals. In the most practical and 
 easily understood way the reader is told just how to propa- 
 gate roses by the three principal methods of cutting, 
 budding and grafting. There are a number of pages in 
 which the complete list of the best roses for our climate 
 with their characteristics are presented. One prominent 
 rose grower said that these pages were worth their weight 
 in gold to him. The official bulletin of the Garden Club 
 of America said: "It is a book one must have." It is 
 in fact in every sense practical, stimulating, and suggestive. 
 
 The Practical Book of Garden 
 Architecture 
 
 By PHEBE WESTCOTT HUMPHREYS. Frontispiece in color 
 and 125 illustrations from actual examples of garden archi- 
 tecture and house surroundings. Octavo. In a box. $5.00 net. 
 
 This beautiful volume has been prepared from the 
 standpoints of eminent practicability, the best taste, and 
 general usefulness for the owner developing his own prop- 
 erty, large or small, for the owner employing a profes- 
 sional garden architect, for the artist, amateur, student, 
 and garden lover. The author has the gift of inspiring 
 enthusiasm. Her plans are so practical, so artistic, so 
 beautiful, or so quaint and pleasing that one cannot resist 
 the appeal of the book, and one is inspired to make plans, 
 simple or elaborate ; for stone and concrete work to embel- 
 lish the garden.
 
 Handsome Art Works of Joseph Pennell 
 
 The reputation of the eminent artist is ever upon the 
 increase. His books are sought by all who wish their 
 libraries to contain the best in modern art. Here is your 
 opportunity to determine upon the purchase of three of 
 his most sought-after volumes. 
 
 Joseph Pennell's Pictures of the Panama Canal 
 
 (Fifth printing) 28 reproductions of lithographs made on the 
 Isthmus of Panama between January and March, 1912, with 
 Mr. Pennell's Introduction giving his experiences and impres- 
 sions, and a full description of each picture. Volume 7 ' j z 10 
 inches. Beautifully printed on dull finished paper. Lithograph 
 by Mr. Pennell on cover. $1.25 net. 
 
 "Mr. Pennell continues in this publication the fine work 
 which has won for him so much deserved popularity. He 
 does not merely portray the technical side of the work, but 
 rather prefers the human element." American Art News. 
 
 Our Philadelphia 
 
 By ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. Illustrated by Joseph 
 Pennell. Regular Edition. Containing 105 reproductions of 
 lithographs by Joseph Pennell. Quarto. 7K * 10 inches. 552 
 pages. Handsomely bound in red buckram. Boxed. S7.50 net. 
 Autograph Edition. Limited to 289 copies (Now very scarce). 
 
 Contains 10 drawings, reproduced by a new lithograph process, in 
 
 addition to the illustrations that appear in the regular edition. Quarto. 
 
 552 pages. Specially bound in genuine English linen buckram in 
 
 City colors, in cloth covered box. $18.00 net. 
 
 An intimate personal record in text and in picture of 
 the lives of the famous author and artist in a city with a 
 brilliant history, great beauty, immense wealth. 
 
 Life of James McNeill Whistler 
 
 By ELIZABETH ROBINS and JOSEPH PENNELL. Thor- 
 oughly revised Fifth Edition of the authorized Life, with much 
 new matter added which was not available at the time of issue 
 of the elaborate 2 volume edition, now out of print. Fully 
 illustrated with 97 plates reproduced from Whistler's works. 
 Crown octavo. 450 pages. Whistler binding, deckle edges. 
 $3.50 net. Three-quarter grain levant, $7.50 net 
 
 "In its present form and with the new illustrations, 
 some of which present to us works which are unfamiliar 
 to us, its popularity will be greatly increased." Inter- 
 national Studio.
 
 The Stories All Children Love Series 
 
 This set of books for children comprises some of the most 
 famous stories ever written. Each book has been a tried and 
 true friend in thousands of homes where there are boys and 
 girls. Fathers and mothers remembering their own delight 
 in the stones are finding that this handsome edition of old 
 favorites brings even more delight to their children. The 
 books have been carefully chosen, are beautifully illus- 
 trated, have attractive lining papers, dainty head and tail 
 pieces, and the decorative bindings make them worthy of 
 a permanent place on the library shelves. 
 
 TT J By JOHANNA SPYRI. 
 rleidl Translated by Elisabeth P. Stork. 
 
 The Cuckoo Clock By MRS. MOLESWORTH. 
 The Swiss Family Robinson G. 'E^MITTON. 
 The Princess and the Goblin MACDONALD. 
 
 rrM T J /" J ' By GEORGE 
 
 The Princess and Curdle MACDONALD. 
 
 At the Back of the North Wind MACDONALD. 
 
 A Dog of Flanders By OUIDA. 
 
 Bimbi B y <<oun>A. 
 
 Mopsa, the Fairy By JEAN INGELOW. 
 
 The Chronicles of Fairyland s y FERGUS HUME. 
 
 Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales 
 
 Each large octavo, with from 8 to 12 colored illustrations. 
 Handsome cloth binding, decorated in gold and color. 
 $1.25 net, per volume.
 
 A 000110648 3