THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP
 
 EDGAR FAWCETT'S OTHER WRITINGS 
 
 FICTION 
 
 RUTHERFORD 
 
 A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE 
 A HOPELESS CASt 
 AN AMBITIOUS WOMAN 
 TINKLING CYMBALS 
 THE ADVENTURES OF A WIDOW 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF CLAUD 
 THE HOUSE AT HIGH BRIDGE 
 . OLIVIA DELAPLAINE 
 A MAN'S WILL 
 DOUGLAS DUANE 
 SOLARION 
 DIVIDED LIVES 
 MIRIAM BALESTIER. 
 A DEMORALIZING MARRIAGE 
 THE EVIL THAT MEN DO 
 A DAUGHTER OF SILENCE 
 FABIAN DIMITRY 
 HOW A HUSBAND FORGAVE 
 A ROMANCE OF TWO BROTHERS 
 A NEW YORK FAMILY 
 LOADED DICE (In press) 
 
 HUMOROUS VERSE 
 
 THE BUNTLING BALL 
 THE NEW KING ARTHUR 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES 
 AGNOSTICISM, AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 POETRY 
 
 FANTASY AND PASSION 
 SONG AND STORY 
 ROMANCE AND REVERY 
 SONGS OF DOUBT AND DREAM
 
 LIBRARY OP CHOICE F1CTIOX 
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 For women must weep" CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 BY EDGAR FAWCETT 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AN AMBITIOUS WOMAN," "A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE, 
 "ANEW YORK FAMILY," "SOCIAL SILHOUETTES," ETC. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by LAIRD & 
 LEE, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 All rights reserved.
 
 PS 
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 JUST where West Eleventh street is so queerly de- 
 flected into a south-ward course by the cross-cut of 
 Greenwich avenue and the abrupt birth of Seventh, 
 you may find, among the plain brick dwellings, a 
 sprinkling of smaller structures, two-storied, and even 
 plainer still. Into one of these, death had of late en- 
 tered, and his coming had been marked by many 
 tears. 
 
 Isaac Trask had just died, and lay now in his own 
 little plot at Greenwood, beside the wife who had 
 gone years before. His three daughters felt the awful 
 loneliness that followed his loss, walking about the 
 rooms of their little home and staring at one another 
 now and then with wide, worried, tearless eyes. At 
 intervals, they would meet and talk of him, after each 
 had pretended to busy herself with some task else- 
 where. Eunice, the eldest of them, was young, and 
 Annette, the youngest, was a mere slip of a girl. They 
 looked so strange to one another in their black robes, 
 and the house was so still, with that queer stillness ' 
 which seems always listening for a step ! At almost 
 any time of day, he was wont to come in from the 
 
 (7)
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "store," which, stood just a stone-throw off, in Green- 
 wich avenue, and which flared behind its big polished 
 window two monstrous bottles of red and of blue 
 liquid, in the old-fashioned style that Broadway and 
 Fifth avenue apothecaries have long since chosen to 
 desert. Hundreds called him "Doctor" Trask, though 
 he had no right to the title, and not seldom \vould 
 declare that he had none ; but it had often been said 
 of him that he deserved this form of address far more 
 than many practitioners and no doubt with excel- 
 lent truth. It had grown clear, too, that he was 
 excessively beloved in the neighborhood, and that his 
 medical help among the poor had been the chief cause 
 of this devotion. But there had been other causes, 
 as the keen, popular cry of dismay and grief at his 
 death surely showed. 
 
 "Girls! Where are you, girls? "his great blithe 
 voice would call, at any hour when he chanced to 
 "drop in at the house;" and always one of the three 
 would answer "Here, pa," and come to him, for a 
 word, perhaps a stroke of the hair, perhaps a kind of 
 drolly perfunctory kiss, behind which lay a world of 
 paternal love. 
 
 No wonder that these three orphaned maidens now 
 missed him as they did. His going had been so hor- 
 ribly sudden. In the twinkling of an eye, he had been 
 torn from them, this robust man, with his dark beard 
 but faintly silvered and his body such a seeming oak 
 of strength. 
 
 "Only think," murmured Dora, the second sister, 
 after the girls had drifted together again that after- 
 noon in the "little back parlor," and had each sunk 
 droopingly into the first seat that offered, "he took 
 me sleighing a week ago this very day! And I've never
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 seen him jollier never ! " "He never knew the name 
 of low spirits," declared Eunice, who said nearly ev- 
 erything with emphasis, and had a repute for intellect 
 and force of character. She was not pretty at all ; 
 her color was nearly always too high, and her features 
 lacked harmony; but she had honest, brown eyes, 
 white teeth, and a womanly air of being better than 
 some of her passing moods might at all times disclose. 
 Her friends, though few, liked her more in their way 
 than did her acquaintances in theirs. To her sisters 
 she was often an autocrat, yet at best a very loving 
 one. Her chief fault was a tendency to approve or 
 disapprove all people who came within her ken 
 sometimes even to lecture and scold them, while con- 
 stantly showing them that they had either succeeded 
 or failed in the winning of her good graces. "But I 
 wouldn't speak of him as jolly," she continued; "it 
 somehow don't sound reverent, Dora, at a time like 
 this." 
 
 "Pooh," said Dora, with sombre rebellion, from 
 the lounge where she lolled. "I guess pa knows 
 how bad /feel or he would know, if " 
 
 "Oh, don't, Dora!" exclaimed Annette, with a 
 sudden pained start. She had lately joined the 
 church a Baptist one and had been baptized 
 there in the hectic flurry of a "revival," tender as 
 were her years. "I know just what you're going 
 to say, and please don't say it." 
 
 "Annette's right," pronounced Eunice. "You 
 oughtn't to hurt her feelings." 
 
 ' ' I guess I can express my own, though, if I want 
 to," said Dora, stoutly. "Annette can believe as 
 she pleases, but nobody knows a thing!" Here 
 Dora's limpid blue eyes clouded with tears under
 
 10 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 her curly gold crown of low-growing hair, and she 
 threw both hands upward with a gesture of pa- 
 thetic dissent. "Oh," she went on, in a sob-broken 
 voice, "if there's any heaven that has got pa now, 
 I'm sure he don't like it there half as much as he 
 liked it here " (she could scarcely speak the next 
 words) " here among all of us that loved him so ! " 
 
 Annette sprang forward, a dark, thin girl, with 
 a face of the most sensitive cut. " You mustn't talk 
 that way, Dora you mustn't!" she cried, and 
 flung both frail arms about her sister. "Pa's an 
 angel now a beautiful white- winged angel ! " 
 
 Dora kissed the face that had come so close to 
 her own ; but \vhile the tears half choked her, she 
 managed to reply with that humor which had won 
 from her dead father many a golden laugh : 
 
 " Oh, mercy! I I can just see poor pa pestered 
 with a pair of wings ! How mad he'd get if they 
 didn't work right ! " Wouldn't he, girls ? " 
 
 Eunice came over to Dora, now, shaking her 
 head in great rebuke, and yet laughing with soft, 
 irrepressible laughter. She circled each of her sis- 
 ters' backs with an arm, and for a moment, inter- 
 twined thus, the trio made a picture of exquisite, 
 unconscious charm. They all three laughed to- 
 gether. . was not Dora the wit of the family, and 
 would not poor, dear pa himself have laughed if he 
 had been there ? But it was mirth with no hint in 
 it of anything but a sort of gentle reactionary hys- 
 teria, and it even bore its tribute of filial devotion as 
 well. And yet the girls looked suddenly at one 
 another with shocked faces, and Eunice almost 
 haughtily withdrew herself, saying: 
 
 "Upon my word, Dora! There's a time for every-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP ll 
 
 thing. Of course, you didn't mean wrong, but ap- 
 pearances must be kept up, you know." 
 
 Dora tossed her blonde head. " Oh," she said, with 
 a sort of weary wildness, " I just feel like flinging ap- 
 pearances, as you call 'em, to Kalamazoo! It was 
 the last thing we ever dreamed would happen, and 
 here it is, down on us like the falling of the sky ! " 
 
 She leaned her head back against the tufted lounge 
 and stared up at the ceiling with a certain air of dis- 
 trust, as though she felt that this, too, might drop 
 and crush her. Meanwhile Annette had taken one of 
 her limp hands between both her own and begun to 
 press it against her lips and fondle it. 
 
 "Oh, Dora," said Annette, "if you could only feel 
 about him as I do, it would give you such comfort ! " 
 
 "But I can't," muttered Dora, stolidly, while she 
 still stared at the ceiling; "I can't, and neither does 
 Eunice. Do you?" she abruptly cried, leveling a 
 glance at her elder sister. 
 
 Thus assailed, as it were, Eunice recoiled a little. 
 She was not religious, and her clear mind kept her 
 from being even wholly orthodox. But her place as 
 feminine head of the household vetoed unconven- 
 tional revolts. 
 
 " I think faith a splendid thing to have," she said. 
 " Who doesn't ? " " You're trimming, Eunice," Dora 
 now said to her, rather sharply. You do trim a good 
 deal ; I've told you so before ; most folks with brains 
 get into the way of it. How glad we ought to be, 
 Annette, oughtn't we, that we're a pair of perfect 
 fools?" 
 
 Annette took no notice of this some what dreamily- 
 spoken brutality. She continued to pat and stroke 
 her sister's hand while she said :
 
 12 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 " You'd think so much more happily of poor pa if 
 you'd only believe as I do ! For you were his favorite, 
 Dora. You know you were ; and " 
 
 "No, no!" struck in Eunice. "Pa didn't have 
 any favorites. He loved us all three just the 
 same." 
 
 Still holding Dora's hand, Annette looked at her 
 elder sister with those great dark eyes which her pale- 
 ness made larger and vivider. "But he always cared 
 so for Dora's jokes," she said. " He used to kiss her 
 and take her on his knee oftener than he did MS, Eu- 
 nice. At least, it seems so now." 
 
 "He loved us all three just the same!" repeated 
 Eunice, with the oddest kind of pathos and coldness 
 blent in her voice and mien. "We mustn't think of 
 him," she \vent on, in her most admonitory and ma- 
 ternal way, "as caring for one of us the least speck 
 more than the other. We mustn't. It's disrespect to 
 him. Why, suppose that one of us should be taken 
 just as he was?" 
 
 "Oh, Eunice !" cried Annette, running over to the 
 speaker and falling at her feet. 
 
 "It might happen," said Eunice, with her hand on 
 Annette's hair. "Why not? And if it did happen, 
 would the two that were left think that she who'd 
 gone hadn't loved them both the same ? " 
 
 This question seemed to pierce Dora, for now she 
 too rose and came over to join the others-; and then 
 these three poor mourners intertwined again and 
 looked into one another's eyes, as though to say thus, 
 without words, how horrible a thing it would be if 
 any of them should really die. For while they had 
 greatly loved their lost father, and missed him almost 
 as the meadow misses the sun, he was still apart from
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 13 
 
 that intensity of union which they had made, since 
 childhood, among themselves. 
 
 It was all a very lovely and beautiful union, and it 
 held, as one might say, the quintessence of that sort 
 of fondness which so often haunts, odor-like, the fire- 
 side, the home. Their mother's early death may have 
 had much to do with this richer note and accent of 
 sisterhood. They had clung together in more than a 
 merely physical manner, each giving to each some del- 
 icate spiritual aliment, whether of guardianship, 
 counsel, sympath}'- or pure affection. They had not 
 realized the full strength of their own interdependence 
 until they began to mark the difference bet-ween other 
 sisters and themselves. But perhaps even then the 
 whole realization did not take place. Their mutual 
 regard would have been less charming than it was if 
 tinctured with any conscious flavor. In fact it had 
 none whatever, and clothed their communions with 
 the naturalness of alders clothing a brook-bank. 
 
 "If pa could tell us anything," said Dora, breaking 
 the little silence which had fallen upon their new- 
 formed group, "it would be that we should drive 
 away black thoughts about death, and remember 
 that we may all three live to get false teeth and wear 
 glasses as strong as telescopes." 
 
 "Yes, life has got to be lived," said Eunice, frown- 
 ing away a smile. "The heartache isn't cured by 
 brooding over it ... Girls," she pursued, sinking her 
 voice, "you know what aunt 'Liza told us about the 
 way pa left his affairs." 
 
 Dora nodded. "There wasn't any will, was 
 there?" 
 
 "No," said Eunice. "But it isn't only that, you 
 know. Most of pa's property was in those two
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Greenwich avenue houses; and there's a mortgage on 
 both, it seems." 
 
 "What is a mortgage, anyhow?" asked Annette. 
 
 Eunice gave a little sapient cough, and was about 
 to follow it by some phrases of explanation whose 
 dignity might have exceeded their truth, when the 
 front-door bell rang, and soon aunt 'Liza, otherwise 
 Mrs. Heffernan, joined her sad-faced nieces. An elderly 
 woman, with so much flesh that it made her head 
 and face look a degree or so too small for her body, 
 Mrs. Heffernan wore a dark robe and a bonnet quite 
 as dismal, except for one or two little sprays of funereal 
 purple. This costume had its deferential meanings, 
 and Mrs. Heffernan could afford such tributes in the 
 line of dress. It would have been almost droll for 
 her to don permanent mourning, since her late broth- 
 er-in-law had always detested her husband, Mr. 
 Andrew J. Heffeman, his character, his trade, his 
 associates and his creeds. Long ago she had married 
 a bar-keeper, who now owned four large liquor sa- 
 loons and was an Ajax of power in New York politics. 
 This marriage had been a horror to her quiet Amer- 
 ican kindred, whose social place might broadly be 
 described as middle-class, though upper-class might 
 mean a grade which in this land and town is still 
 harder to define. But Eliza Bassett had had her will, 
 and when her sister, Eunice, had soon afterward mar- 
 ried the Greenwich avenue apothecary, with a business 
 repute as bright and stainless as the plate-glass win- 
 dow which augment of good fortune enabled him, 
 later on, to secure, this second alliance was held as 
 in a manner palliating the odium of the first. Then 
 had come the growing Heffernan prosperity, which 
 had proved a thorn in the flesh of Isaac Trask. There
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 15 
 
 were times when he was on the verge of forbidding 
 the girls even to visit "aunt 'Liza." But this, herec- 
 ognized, would have been cruelty to her, since she 
 was childless and loved his daughters. Still, on more 
 than one occasion he had remorselessly snubbed Mr. 
 Heffernan himself. His children had been brought up 
 to hold themselves haughtily above the whole con- 
 nection. ' 'Andy" Heffernan could have afforded, long 
 since, to snap his fingers at the apothecary who had 
 married his sister. He had bought several houses 
 up -town, which were now worth thrice apiece what 
 he had paid for them. His four fine taverns brought 
 him in superb profits on the hogsheads of inferior 
 whisky that he sold there, and would have paid him 
 far better if he could only have got honest men to 
 tend his bars a Utopian dream of which his own 
 'prentice past must have shown him the airy texture. 
 Two or three somewhat dramatic meetings had oc- 
 curred between himself and Isaac Trask in former, 
 days. Trask had spoken his mind with arraigning 
 freedom on the subject of frauds and steals in muni- 
 cipal doings. Heffernan, never a genial person, had 
 each time looked sourer things than he said. For 
 perhaps five years before Trask died the brothers-in- 
 law had never met. But meanwhile Trask had all 
 kinds of bitter thoughts to think if so disposed ; for 
 Heffernan, buoyed by the changeless dominance of 
 his party, had meanwhile served his term as alder- 
 man only to have it succeeded by the honors of an 
 appointment as Police Commissioner. Eunice and 
 her sisters breathed in the aroma of their father's 
 dislike. They got into the way of saying "uncle 
 Andrew" with the tips of their lips, as it were, and 
 even then as seldom as possible. For their aunt Eliza
 
 16 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 they had no such coldness of dealing ; and though 
 their father would allow them to accept no gifts from 
 her nor to visit her at any time, Mrs. Heffernan, with 
 unrepelled hardihood, crossed their threshold two or 
 three times each month. 
 
 She was not an enlivening woman ; she had indeed 
 often struck their young spirits as a curious^ gloomy 
 one. But her frank interest in their welfare, her de- 
 sire, tenacious and inalienable, that they should not 
 be made to forget her as their nearest of kin, and her 
 constant revealed fondness for the memory of their 
 dead mother, wrought amiably with them and bade 
 them welcome her comings. 
 
 After they had kissed her and seated themselves be- 
 side her, she stared up at a bad picture of Mr. Trask 
 which hung over the fire-place, there in the back- 
 parlor, and said, with her nasal and slightly whining 
 tones, the tones that so many American women get 
 to use as they age : 
 
 "That's just him through the world, now, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 ' I wish we had a better one of him," said Eunice. 
 
 "We've got a photograph," said Annette, in her 
 eager, childlike way. "We can have a portrait 
 painted from that. Kitty Brigg's mother's portrait 
 was painted so after she died, and Kitty says it 
 scares her sometimes it almost speaks." 
 
 " I wish we could get one that would speak," said 
 Dora, with a smile that swiftly turned into a sigh. 
 
 " We'll have to wait a while, I guess, before we find 
 out whether we can afford anything like an oil- 
 painting," said Eunice, with a glance at Mrs. Heffer- 
 nan, both dubious and plaintive. "Won't we, Aunt 
 'Liza!" she appealed, not expecting any special re-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 17 
 
 ply, but merely meaning a general reference to her 
 father's masterless estate. 
 
 "I'm afraid you will," said Mrs. Heffernan. With 
 her dull-blue eyes (that always seemed to express a 
 kindly spirit, though never quite a happy one) sweep- 
 ing in turn each face of the auditors near her, she con- 
 tinued : " Ain't you yet had anything positive about 
 what your pa left ? " 
 
 "We've heard something," said Eunice, addressing 
 her aunt and not responding to the look which both 
 Dora and Annette somewhat anxiously fixed on her. 
 "I mean, Aunt 'Liza, through Austin Legree." 
 
 "Oh, he's so nice and kind!" exclaimed Annette, 
 slapping her hands together in a little-girlish, ap- 
 plausive style. 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan gave a long nod that ended in sev- 
 eral shorter ones. " He's the young man your father 
 trusted so, ain't he? " she said, in a venturing sort of 
 voice. " The young man that 'tends the store? " 
 
 "Goodness, he's better than that," declared Dora, 
 a trifle tartly. " Pa wanted to make him a partner. 
 He'd have been one in a few months, wouldn't he, 
 Eunice?" 
 
 " I think so," said Eunice, her high color deepening 
 a little. "Mr. Legree has been very good to us," 
 Aunt 'Liza. He was pa's right-hand man, you 
 know." 
 
 ' Pa thought the world of him," struck in Annette. 
 
 "He's told us there wasn't any will," proceeded 
 Eunice. "He's been here a number of times and 
 given us comfort by letting us know that the store 
 was going on just the same for the present." 
 
 " For the present yes," murmured Mrs. Heffernan ; 
 and as she spoke, all her three listeners started, lean-
 
 18 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 ing their heads toward her in earnest heed. " But it 
 can't last like that," she continued, with a fall and a 
 quiver oddly mixed in her speech. "You girls don't 
 understand, of course; but there's things to be 
 looked after, and this Mr. Legree, no matter how 
 smart he is, can't arrange 'em. He's pretty young, 
 in the first place, and in the second, he isn't any rela- 
 tion to you. And except him, your pa never seemed 
 to have any near friends of a business kind." 
 
 "Pa kept himself to himself a good deal, in a busi- 
 ness way," said Eunice, straightening her figure a 
 little and no doubt scenting, much more keenly than 
 did her sisters, the drift of coming words. 
 
 "Oh, I know that," said Mrs. Heffernan. There 
 was a pause, and her mild, blonde, half-worried face 
 transiently drooped. Bridling \vith a sudden nerv- 
 ous and even querulous effect, she proceeded: "The 
 fact is, my dears, I don't believe anybody can look 
 after you, just now, as well as your Uncle Andrew." 
 
 "Uncle Andrew!" faltered Eunice. "Why, Aunt 
 'Liza, you know that pa " 
 
 "Never mind," said Mrs. Heffernan, catching Eu- 
 nice by the wrist and peering into her dismayed face. 
 "He's coming here. He's been talking with your pa's 
 young chum. He may be here any minute. He can 
 tell you how you stand a good deal better than any- 
 body else. He knows about all these things. It 
 ain't only what he may or may not 'a found 
 out at the store to-day. He's made enquiries. He 
 wants to treat you all three nice and good. Never 
 mind if your pa and him wasn't on the best of 
 terms." Here Mrs. Heffernan rose, and her large 
 body trembled a little with plain agitation as she did 
 so. "You'll trust your Aunt 'Liza, I hope. You
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 19 
 
 won't go back on her now, when she's come here to 
 befriend you. The Lord knows you need somebody. 
 Things look bad mighty bad. Your Uncle Andrew 
 might have turned his back on the whole muddle." 
 
 "Muddle!" bristled Dora, finding her feet with a 
 frown. Just then the hall-bell rang again. 
 
 Eunice rose now, and Annette did the same. 
 
 "We've got those two houses, Aunt Liza," began 
 Eunice. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know," said Mrs. Heffernan, with sor- 
 rowful shakes of the head. She pointed toward the 
 outer hall. "That 'shim now I'll betit is. Heprom- 
 ised me he'd come soon. It isn't that he bears any 
 grudge. He might, but he doesn't. It is him," she 
 presently asserted, as a bass male voice floated in 
 through the limited space of the almost miniature 
 interior. The next instant she had quickly scanned 
 each of the three faces confronting her, and had read 
 on each reluctance and alarm. "He's come as your 
 friend remember that. And you need one, children. 
 Treat him fair, now, and you'll never regret it." 
 
 The girls exchanged flurried looks. This occasion 
 was to all of them crucial. For years they had been 
 taught to hold in disesteem this rich liquor-seller who 
 had married their aunt. That he should come to 
 them now in the role of a helper, was at once incred- 
 ible and repulsive. A little while later, when he 
 entered the room, they stood waiting him as if he 
 had been a sheriff come to seize their chattels with 
 ruthless clutch.
 
 II 
 
 His appearance may have seemed to them a little 
 ogreish, but his demeanor was surely the reverse. 
 They saw at once that he meant only to be suave 
 and kindly, and that he bore no signs of ill-will for 
 past slights. He took their hands in his own im- 
 mense one, but claimed no avuncular kiss. 
 
 "Your aunt thought Ibetter come," he began, "and 
 tell all I know about what your father's left. 'Tain't 
 very much that I do know, but that I'll gladly tell." 
 Then, with his brogue and his guttural gruffness, he 
 began a little tale of how he had gone to the "store" 
 a day or two since and got the head clerk, Austin 
 Legree, to give him certain points about his dead 
 employer's wordly goods. These tidings he had made 
 use of in other quarters, and was now prepared to 
 state (though of course roundly alone) the worth of 
 Isaac Trask's possessions. It soon dawned upon 
 Eunice and her sisters that their uncle had behaved 
 toward them in a spirit of great goodness; forsurely, 
 considering their father's treatment of him in the 
 past, he should have been the one of all others to 
 refuse them the least aid. 
 
 Eunice could not resist her native trend to praise
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 21 
 
 where she thought praise was due, just as she would 
 have spoken her mind freely if blame had occurred to 
 her as the proper mode of viewing her kinsman's 
 admitted course. 
 
 "You've been very kind, indeed," she said, with a 
 sparkle of feeling in her brown eyes. And then, while 
 her face fell and she bit her lip troubledly: "But all 
 the pains you took haven't brought much good news 
 to us, have they? We've got very little to live on, 
 then, with those two mortgages and the need of sell- 
 ing out the business at the store." 
 
 Heffernan scanned the carpet and moved his big 
 hands uneasily on his gaunt knees. "There won't be 
 much, that's true," he muttered. Then he lifted his 
 eyes and fixed them on the plump, small, faded face 
 of his wife. "I've I've been saying to your aunt 
 'Liza" he began. But here Mrs. Heifernan caught 
 the words from his mouth. "Your uncle Andy wants 
 to take care of things for you, girls, and he'll do it 
 splendid, too, if you'll only let him. He knows so 
 much about business.. He might add a little for the 
 first year or so, to what he pays you out, and then 
 afterward, when things got fixed and running reg- 
 ular, he might that is, if you insisted, he might let 
 you return him anything he'd-a-'commodated you 
 with." 
 
 "Oh, no, no," said Eunice, her figure stiffening a 
 little. "We wouldn't like to borrow, you know." 
 The remembrance of her father's proud antipathy 
 had shot chillingly through her mind. It was almost 
 enough to make the dead turn in his grave, this idea 
 of their ever being dependent on the man "pa" had 
 despised. 
 
 Heffernan cleared his throat and rolled his dead-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 black eyes toward his wife. The glance seemed to 
 say, "There, what did I tell you ? " 
 
 Dora now broke the silence with a cheery jaunti- 
 ness. "Oh," she said, "we'll have something; after 
 all. And we can take in a few boarders, if the worst 
 conies to the worst. The house isn't too small for 
 that, I guess. We could all go into one room and 
 sleep in the same bed. Only I shan't be in the middle 
 if we do. Eunice must go there, for I've slept with 
 Annette before, and I know how she kicks." 
 
 This brought the relief of a laugh, in which Heffer- 
 nan was the heartiest sharer. He looked at his wife 
 again, and she nodded, as if to say, "Didn't I tell you 
 what a joker that girl was ? " Then aloud Mrs. Hef- 
 fernan exclaimed: "You're just your mother over 
 again, Dora, every once in a while ! " 
 
 Their uncle's gravity soon returned to him. "Well," 
 he said, chiefly addressing Eunice, "I don't want to 
 put you out 'o sorts any more than you are as it is. 
 I can only tell you, though, that I stand ready to be 
 of help if you need me; and if you don't, why, there's 
 no bones broken." He spoke those last words rather 
 grimly, but with an air of much patience; and then 
 he rose, again glancing at his wife as though to query 
 of her, "Haven't I done my best, and is there any- 
 thing more I could say or do ? " 
 
 "We're very thankful to you," murmured Eunice, 
 quitting her chair with a dashed, apologetic start. 
 "But I I guess pa would have liked it better if we'd 
 tried to get on with just what he's left us and no 
 more." 
 
 "Oh, I understand, " replied Heffernan, yet not with 
 the faintest cynic ring in his tones. "I respected your 
 father and admired him," he added, after a slight
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 23 
 
 pause. "If he didn't think the same 'o me, I shan't 
 make that a reason for not recollecting I married 
 your aunt." He took from his waistcoat pocket a 
 big, costly -looking gold watch and consulted it. "I 
 guess Mr. Legree '11 be dropping in pretty soon, and 
 if he does he'll make a proposal about the store. 
 He's got some plan in his head about buying out the 
 business himself." 
 
 Dora gave a short, brisk titter. "Austin Legree! 
 Buy us out! Well, I never! I didn't know he had 
 a cent to his nam." 
 
 "He talks as if he might raise a few," said Hef- 
 fernan. "Wait a bit till you hear what he's up to 
 and how he wants to get at it." 
 
 Leaving his nieces, that afternoon, Andrew Hef- 
 fernan felt stung to the quick. You could not 
 have told his chagrin from his face ; that staid, as 
 always, haggard and sunken-cheeked, with its black 
 eyes caverned under shaggy brows. He had a big, 
 bony frame, and his awkwardness made it seem 
 uncouther and more angular still. When Eliza 
 Bassett married him he had not been so ill-favored 
 as now. That pallor of his had not the same 
 chalky gleam, and those hollows had not been^ 
 scooped above the jaws. Those who knew him 
 best said that he was a far happier man when a 
 poor one. Now he had his four establishments and 
 his money in bonds and real-estate, in mortgages and 
 bank-stock. Thousands envied him, and he knew it. 
 If he had foreseen, when a barefoot lad in Ireland, 
 that such riches and thrift would become his at 
 some future time, his joy would almost have defied 
 bounds. But to-day you would have decided as 
 you looked on him that whatever boons luck might
 
 24 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 have borne him, happiness was by no means on 
 their list. 
 
 And in truth he was very far from happy. He had 
 worked hard, at first, in his bad trade, and had nev- 
 er dreamed of thinking it a bad one. If yon had 
 asked him why he did not think it vile, since it fed on 
 the vices of the needy and took bread from the lips 
 of wives and children, he would have given you a 
 score of reasons to prove that it was fair and 
 honest as any other traffic between man and man. 
 But in a slow, erosive way, doubts had undermined 
 his belief that it was either fitting or cleanly. Con- 
 science had wakened in him, as though from a life- 
 long torpor ; and when he tried to review his recent 
 past and find the precise cause for this or that 
 phase of change, he invariably stopped short at the 
 inward image of his wife. 
 
 She did not accompany him from the Trasks' to- 
 day, and he visited two of his liquor-shops before 
 going home. She met him almost as he entered the 
 Second Avenue flat which for several years the3 r had 
 occupied. This was on the ground-floor of a large 
 brown-stone building not far from one of the broader 
 uptown streets. It was not large, but it seemed so 
 to its two proprietors, who had gone into it after a 
 long residence in much meaner quarters. It had in- 
 deed represented luxury to both of them, and Heffer- 
 nan's growing wealth had never roused in him a 
 thought of any statelier abode. If his wife had pro- 
 posed one he might have readily acquiesced ; but she 
 pronounced these apartments amply commodious, 
 meaning to her also, as they certainly did, an ease of 
 living that eclipsed any she had known in former 
 days.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 25 
 
 An eye with the least sense of art in it would have 
 found them unlovely enough. They had door draper- 
 ies, of course (what portals in what New York flat 
 are nowadays without them?), but these were of 
 some woolly, flamboyant stuff that hung foldless and 
 hence graceless. The other decorations were cheap 
 and quite shorn of taste ; the chairs and sofas had 
 that machine-made look about their gilt-touched 
 woodwork which one sees in the modern furniture 
 exposed on the sidewalk before Sixth or Third Ave- 
 nue shops. The tidies on the chairs were horrors of 
 brick-red worsted, and from the wall gleamed two 
 large framed photographs of the presiding lessees. A 
 steam radiator warmed (and generally overheated) 
 the front-parlor, as the sitting-room was called, and 
 ranged about the unused- hearth were three or four 
 immense conch-shells whose polished, spotted and 
 leering lips would have glared artificially if placed at 
 the very rim of ocean itself. 
 
 It was all dreary and common, and the incessant 
 clamors of the Elevated, as train after train passed 
 overhead, certainly did not help to endow it with any 
 semblance of domestic peace. Mrs. Heffernan was 
 seated by one of the windows with some sewing, as 
 her husband appeared. Her work was the making 
 of a certain white undergarment, which habit in a 
 great degree urged her needle to shape. Reading tired 
 her, and years of poverty had long ago made idleness 
 irksome. She looked up on hearing and seeing the 
 new-comer, and then said, still stitching away: 
 
 "Well, it didn't come to much, after all, did it? " 
 
 "No," was the gloomy answer. 
 
 "I knew the girls wouldn't, Andrew. It was just 
 like 'em to refuse. And now all we can do is to help
 
 26 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 'em through that young man. What's his name ? " 
 
 "Legree." 
 
 "Oh, yes Austin Degree; so it is. They can 1 1 live 
 decent on what '11 come in for the next two or three 
 years, until those mortgages are paid off, and if he 
 buys out the drug-store business with your money 
 and don't let 'em get the least notion how the thing's 
 been fixed, they can do moderate welL" 
 
 Heffernan threw his large frame into an easy-chair 
 at her side. He began slowly to pull with the fingers 
 of one hand at his heavy, black, gray-streaked 
 moustache. 
 
 "I guess you're right," he said. "But I don't see 
 why I should take all these pains, 'Liza, for girls that 
 think me the dirt under their feet just as their father 
 did before 'em." 
 
 She paid no notice to this grumbling plaint. "Mr. 
 Legree was a good deal trusted by Isaac Trask for 
 the last three or four years. I know that. You told 
 me yesterday he was the kind of young man you'd 
 trust y ourself . " " M yes . ' ' 
 
 "He's pretty young, ain' he, with a neat, trim look, 
 and nice, bright eyes, and not a sign of drink or late 
 hours about him? I remember seeing him a month 
 or so ago, at the door of the store as I was passing, 
 after a call on the girls. I don't doubt it was him. I 
 says to myself at the time that it was. And I re- 
 member thinking he might be a fairish kind of match 
 for Eunice if her pa 'd take him into the business 
 later on." 
 
 There was a little pause, and then Heffernan 
 gloomily proceeded: "All I do is done on your ac- 
 count. You'd fuss so if I didn't act just like this."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 27 
 
 "Something else would fuss, Andrew," she said, 
 still stitching. 
 
 'Something else, eh ? " 
 
 "Your conscience. You know what Isaac Trask 
 was. If he gave you the cold shoulder 'twas because 
 he was dead against the way you've got up in the 
 world." 
 
 A muffled oath left Heffernan, and he shifted in his 
 chair. If any one but " 'Liza" had dared to speak to 
 him like this the oath might have been a great deal 
 louder and hot words have followed it, though, 
 after all was said, he had an excellent temper. 
 
 "He was down on my politics," the man sullenly 
 said. "If they'd been the same as his, he'd have 
 treated me nicer." 
 
 "I ain't thinking of politics, Andrew. I don't know 
 anything about 'em ; I never could remember which 
 party was which, or who was voting for who, though 
 I can't help but say it's always seemed as plain to 
 me as the nose on your face that the side you've 
 taken 's got pretty dirty skirts. Now you needn't 
 scowl, for all I do know has come from your own 
 lips. It's you that's let on to me how the Boss gives 
 orders and the dealers like yourself get just so many 
 five-dollar bills at election-times to pay out where the 
 voting's doubtful." 
 
 Heffernan smiled and frowned together, the effect 
 being somewhat mirthless. "Look here, 'Liza," he 
 said, "politics is a game, and it ain't a game for 
 women to play.' ' 
 
 "Oh, I don't want to play it," she replied, as she 
 dropped her sewing and fixed on him those dim-blue 
 eyes that once, when brighter, had been to him stars 
 of promise, and were now still a potency with him
 
 28 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 of suasion and guidance. "As I told you, I wasn't 
 thinking of politics at all. I meant the liquor busi- 
 ness, and I guess Isaac Trask chiefly meant that, 
 too." Here she lifted her head so that its thrown- 
 back face looked almost piteously small in contrast 
 with her fleshful bosom. "Oh, Andy;" she said, and 
 her voice fell with a forlorn plaintiveness, "it's killing 
 you!" He got up from his chair with both hands 
 stuffed deep into the pockets of his trousers and head 
 low-drooped. "Well," he growled, walking away 
 from her, "/e it kill me ! " 
 
 She sprang erect, watching him keenly for an in- 
 stant. Then she went straight to his side and laid a 
 hand on one of his shoulders. 
 
 "Andrew," she began, "you could get out of it by 
 another way than that. ' ' He stood quite still and lis- 
 tened to her. He was not a man given to fits of ire when 
 crossed, and yet, though often cloudily jocose or af- 
 fable with those among whom the world threw him, 
 apt to play the raw rowdy if his self-love were hurt. 
 Still, to her he had always been tolerant, and only 
 at fleeting intervals irascible. Her consent to marry 
 him, years ago, had been a vast condescension in his 
 eyes. He had never quite recovered from the honor 
 she had paid him in consenting to that runaway 
 alliance. Her house, her kindred, had always been 
 more or less sacred to him, from then till now. She 
 was above him at that time, and she had remained 
 above him ever since. His devotion to her had not 
 waned ; he was really, with all his faults in other re- 
 spects, a model husband. Now and then he drank 
 more than his extraordinary powers could stand, 
 but when this occurred he always craved her pardon, 
 if she had observed the lapse, with a humility that
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 29 
 
 was roughly chivalrous. Her loathing of his em- 
 ployment as a liquor-seller had not sprung from any 
 wifely disgust at his excesses. These were so rare and 
 so brief that they scarcely dealt her a sting. She had 
 grown to abominate his calling for reasons that rose 
 from a natural moral revolt. Who can explain the 
 origin of these human distates in all of us ? Heredity 
 may be their father, but he is often, in the immense 
 complicated line of every individual ancestry, a shad- 
 owy enough progenitor to resemble the genii of 
 romantic legend. Eliza was nowadays often laughed 
 at by her neighbors and friends as a ' 'prohibitionist 
 crank." Prohibitionist, in a certain sense, she un- 
 doubtedly was. It had come across her, a few years 
 ago, that to live by the sale of liquor, to accumulate 
 gain by this means, was a ghastly sin. Her conviction 
 had at first failed to sway her husband. He had been 
 born a Catholic, but the religious impulse had slum- 
 bered latent in him for a long time after quitting the 
 compulsory church-goings of his earlier Irish days. 
 Then, at a later period, it had awakened, and though 
 his wife was of wholly differing faith, her fierce abom- 
 ination may perhaps have kindled and nurtured the 
 fires of his own. She had never sought to interfere 
 with his beliefs; hers were not hardy enough for that, 
 though they kept divergent from his. But his, on the 
 other hand, reawakened and strengthened under the 
 stress of these new conscience-qualms. Our intellects 
 need a good distancing of ignorance to equip them 
 for being virtuous without religious aid, and Heffer- 
 nan was quite of the unlettered throng who reach 
 right only by the process of stripping from it eccle- 
 siastic enwrap ments, like the husks and silks that 
 cling round a prized ear of maize. And yet, with a
 
 30 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 novel idea of guilt weighing on him and paining him, 
 he stood appalled before the requirements of his 
 church. But these, as he soon learned, were require- 
 ments that waived his own burning sense of sin. It 
 soon became plain to him that he could "repent" in 
 the most approved manner and yet continue to dole 
 out his fiery fluid for any chalk-cheeked starveling 
 who laid on bis counter a dime in exchange for a glass 
 of it. Perhaps compunction might have been blurred 
 in him by this recognition of easy priestly clemency, 
 had not the voice of his wife, mocking yet melan- 
 choly, struck discord through the primal coverts of 
 compromise. It was she who told him, in so many 
 words, to heed the warnings of his own spirit and 
 not concern himself with professional monitors. 
 These might rate it within the lines of their policy to 
 hold him blameless, but if the stain were on each coin 
 he earned, whose 1 eye could detect it quicker than his 
 own? 
 
 "Yes," she now repeated, "you could get out of it 
 by another way than that. You could quit the trade 
 altogether. If you'd only do it. Andrew. If you 
 only would!" 
 
 Frowning blackly, he moved away from her. "How 
 many hundreds 'o times before now, '.Liza," he pro- 
 tested, "have we been through talks like these you 
 and me? " 
 
 'Ain't you got money enough?" she demanded, 
 both her short, plump arms outspread. "Why, la 
 sakes alive, you've got too much! I play lady as far 
 as I can, and that means only keeping one girl, doing 
 all my own bedroom work and having a woman in 
 once a week to help with the sweeping. We don't 
 want another cent. It would take you lots of time
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 31 
 
 to 'tend to those we've got already. And what's it 
 now? Not so much the going on sprees, for I know 
 you're steadier that way than almost any of 'em; 
 but it's the being forced to tipple, tipple all day long 
 with Tom, Dick or Harry, just for custom's sake. 
 And then it's the devilish night-hours you have to 
 keep, tramping from one of your stores to the other, 
 'fraid to offend people by not joining 'em in a glass, 
 and what with that and the counting out of the 
 money, not getting to your bed till it's often day- 
 break, or after." 
 
 She may have said all this to him many times be- 
 fore, but he listened to her- as if he now heard it for 
 the first time. Of all living people she alone could 
 thus address him; she held the key of his complaisance; 
 she often fretted him, but never to such an extent that 
 he wished to reply in anything like brutal terms. 
 Their union had been childless, and it was not demon- 
 stratively loving; but for him as for her it had 
 been satisfying as no other mortal could have 
 made it. 
 
 "Oh, the life's a hard one, I grant you that," he 
 said grimly. "But it can't stop yet, 'Liza the time 
 ain't come for it to stop." 
 
 "Why not? Why not?" she persisted, her voice 
 rising shrill and then dying into reproachful semitone. 
 "I've heard you say, yourself, ever so many times, 
 that you believed money that comes from liquor- 
 selling has a curse on it." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw! We all talk rot when we're nervous." 
 
 "It wasn't rot a bit ; it was gospel truth. There is 
 a curse. Look at most of your old friends that used 
 to keep stores like yours. They made money, too, 
 but where is it and where are they? Look at Hugh
 
 32 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Driscoll, with his handsome face and his splendid 
 health." 
 
 "Oh, he was a fool. Drink and horseracing ruined 
 him." 
 
 "So they did. His dollars were easy earned and 
 easy spent. That's the way with 'em all. Patrick 
 McManus owned five elegant stores in this town 
 seven years ago. What's become of all his big sav- 
 ings ? The last you heard of him he was 'tending bar 
 at 'leven dollars a week down in Prince street. Oh, 
 I know what you'll say to his tumble that it was 
 Wall street and drink mixed together. But the money 
 goes, Andrew that's all I mean: the money goes, 
 every time. John Fogarty dropped dead in a minute 
 behind his own bar the finest on this very avenue, 
 and now his two sons are both in the gutter, landed 
 there by the lucre he left 'em . . And I could name 
 others; I could name Denis Milligan; I could name- 
 but no matter. I tell you, Andy, there is a curse on 
 the whole nasty trade. I ain't superstitious, but who 
 prospers in it ? Drink, and the wear and tear of the 
 nights, and the worriment of having their bar-keepers 
 knock down on 'em, kills three-quarters before their 
 time. And the rest " 
 
 "Ah, 'Liza, if I could only get four good honest 
 men that wouldn't knock down on me! I'm safe other 
 ways. I've got two decent men now. I believe Jimmy, 
 at the Eighth avenue store, and Bill, at the First 
 avenue store, ain't robbed me of a nickel." 
 
 "Not yet. But they will. They're both new. Give 
 'em time; they'll play the old game inside the next 
 month . . . Oh, Andy, cut loose! It's a filthy business, 
 and it's wearing you out. Stick to your politics, if 
 you please. Lord knows they're bad enough, but
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 they're better than being head of a firm where Satan 
 himself is your silent partner! " 
 
 Till now he had stood with face half-averted from 
 her own ; but as she ceased this time he turned full 
 upon her, and she read in his features an unfamiliar 
 look, half savagery and half suffering. 
 
 "See here, 'Liza," he cried, "I hate it all more than 
 you do, but there I am, and there I've got to stay. 
 If I cut loose now, I'd set a whole gang dead against 
 me. Politics! Why, as though they didn't chain me 
 to the trade faster than if I'd never touched 'em. I'm 
 pledged to run my stores and work for the districts 
 they're in. Did you s'pose the salary I get and the 
 plums that go with it came for no value received? 
 The men that's made me what I am would damn me 
 for a renegade and a turncoat if I went back on 'em 
 now. I'm up to my neck in debts, obligations to 'em. 
 Did you think city patronage such as I've had were 
 thrown to anybody, like a bone to a dog ? I tell you, 
 'Liza, that though I've laid at your side in my bed 'o 
 nights and felt the cold sweat break out all over me 
 with dread and shame to be the widow's enemy and 
 the orphan's persecutor, I know myself, there's still 
 such a grip at my throat, such a pair o' handcuffs 
 round my wrists, that it would take the courage of a 
 lion to to shake 'em off ! " 
 
 His voice failed him here, and as he almost fell into 
 a chair she perceived tremors in his visage and frame 
 that affrighted her no less from their novelty than 
 their force. "I ain't got that courage," he "went on, 
 staring up at her with a woful dismalness. "I ain't 
 got it, 'Liza. The tide's taken me, and I must float 
 out with it God knows where ! " 
 
 These words were a horrible revelation to her, and 
 3
 
 34 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 chiefly because they disclosed tliat he was more tor- 
 tured by a constant goading remorse than she had 
 yet dreamed of. At the same instant she realised 
 with a fresh keenness that her own convictions had 
 been fatally right, and that the curse upon the gains 
 he had gathered from across his drink-soiled counters 
 already had found him out, since it thus had caught 
 him in meshes of anguish. 
 
 With a cry she flung herself on her knees at his feet, 
 and catching one of his big, coarse hands in both her 
 own, kissed it, half-strangled by her gushing tears.
 
 Ill 
 
 Dora's native humor burst its bounds after their 
 aunt's departure had followed that of her solemn 
 lord. 
 
 " 'Pon my word," she exclaimed, "I began to think 
 they were going to propose they should open a new 
 liquor-saloon somewhere and get us three to run it 
 fpr them." 
 
 "Oh, Dora! 1 ' frowned Eunice. 
 
 "I think they are both so very kind," said Annette. 
 
 "Indeed you're right," declared her elder sister. "I 
 was perfectly amazed by uncle Andrew's conduct. 
 For, girls, when we think how pa treated him ! " 
 
 "No worse than he deserved," said Dora. 
 
 "Don't be ungrateful," rebuked Eunice. 
 
 "The way he acted appeared to me as truly Chris- 
 tian," said Annette. 
 
 "So it was," Eunice approved. 
 
 "Oh, he certainly has put himself to trouble on our 
 account," conceded Dora. "But then "wasn't it aunt 
 'Liza who made him ? " 
 
 "That's nothing to us," objected Eunice. "There 
 are so many husbands who are perfect mules when 
 their wives ask the least favor of them. I hope /'//
 
 36 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 never get such a husband," she added, with a sudden 
 dry ness. 
 
 "Oh, Eunice, "laughed Dora, "I pity him if you do!" 
 
 "I wonder if Austin Legree will come soon," mur- 
 mured Annette, almost as if to herself. 
 
 "Mercy me," shot Dora. "What's he got to do 
 with Eunice's future husband ? " 
 
 "Oh, please don't!" cried Eunice, with her face 
 on fire. 
 
 "Well, I declare! " announced Dora, while her blue 
 eyes took cruel, critical twinkles. "What's the color 
 of a guilty conscience, Eunice? Is it scarlet, like your 
 cheeks?" 
 
 Annette came to the rescue. "Make Dora blush a 
 little on her own account, Eunice. Mention what she 
 said about Mr. Kinnicutt's yellow whiskers," 
 
 "Who's Mr. Kinnicutt? " said Dora, trying not to 
 look conscious. "Oh, yes; I remember. He's the 
 young man that called here one evening, weeks ago, 
 with Austin Legree." 
 
 At this same moment, but a little distance away, 
 behind the counter of the apothecary shop which still 
 bore "Isaac Trask" over its doorway, and had so 
 borne that rather dingy gilt name for many past 
 years, Austin Legree and the Mr. Kinnicutt just 
 named were talking together. 
 
 The mild winter afternoon was waning outside in 
 Greenwich avenue, above whose almost ignobly ugly 
 lines of edifice brooded a delicate amethyst sky that 
 wrought telling contrast with the dark-streaked 
 snow-piles in the streets. Between these mounds of 
 tainted pallor the cobble-stones of the thoroughfare 
 itself gleamed in puddles of unholy slush. But the 
 weather, with its tender tang of freshness after hours
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 37 
 
 of sunshine, gave to even this graceless domain a 
 charm which its greater privacy made impossible in 
 Sixth avenue, where more public clamors are blent 
 with like architectural crimes. 
 
 Austin Legree looked as if the bright day had put 
 some glad leaven into his spirits. But then his 
 aquiline face, with its white skin, shining eyes, bud- 
 ding moustache and clean-cut jaws, always had a 
 vivid freshness. Through nearly all his youthful life 
 he had been known as keen-witted, ambitious, capable, 
 shrewd. Born of very poor parents, he had climbed 
 high and swiftly in his record at the ward-school to 
 which he had gone. When sixteen he was classed 
 with many boys five years his senior. Longing to 
 enter the free New York College, orphanage had com- 
 pelled him to forego such career. A taste for medicine 
 had drifted him, later, into the employment of Isaac 
 Trask, by whom his talents and his mature cool- 
 headedness had been valued at their full worth. When 
 the sudden death of Trask occurred, he held a place 
 of trust that caused surprise in none who knew him. 
 Tall and handsome, prudent and painstaking, self- 
 disciplined and abstemious, he was yet full of a brisk 
 and virile courtesy \vhose commercial weight began 
 soon to make itself plainly felt. His dead employer 
 had more than once admitted the push with which 
 his unvarying blandness and buoyancy helped along 
 sales. It may have been a wholly insincere pose; 
 there were times when Trask, watchful of its pro- 
 cesses, inly affirmed it to be as artificial as floral 
 traceries on iron. But a metallic polish is often very 
 alluring, and Austin Legree's hardness, if really ex- 
 istent, was beyond doubt hidden by very winsome 
 concealments.
 
 38 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 If any one knew the truth about his character, and 
 had had the chance of gauging either its humanity 
 or selfishness, that observer was surely the young 
 man with whom he now conversed. Harvey Kin- 
 nicutt had known him in his school days, and had 
 often admired those placid victories of scholarship 
 which had made him the pet of his instructors. Le- 
 gree had envied Kinnicutt the golden opportunity of 
 going through that very academy from which he 
 himself had been debarred by the stern ban of per- 
 sonal want. The Kinnicutts were by no means a 
 race of plutocrats; Harvey's father was always 
 keeping an oyster-saloon on some portion of Sixth 
 avenue, and never occupying the same quarters much 
 longer than a year at a time. His big golden sign of 
 "Kinnicutt" would fade from the region of Jefferson 
 Market only to reappear in that of Central Park. 
 He clung to this particular avenue like an eruption ; 
 when driven from one spot he would break forth in 
 another. The little moss gained by such a rolling 
 stone had helped to soften the fate of Harvey, who 
 might have been put behind an oyster-counter at 
 fifteen instead of going a year or two later to the 
 turreted red bjick institute in Lexington a venue. But 
 the result of his education had proved bitter shame 
 of his father's business. Harvey loathed the very 
 smell of an oyster, and when any one asked him if he 
 were related to the Kinnicutt who dealt in that kind 
 of shell-fish, he would crimson to the eyes. 
 
 Genial eyes they were, and the yellow whiskers 
 which Annette Trask affirmed that her sister had ad- 
 mired were curly and grew with fringy prettiness 
 along either side of a rather comely face. It was not 
 a face with the least strength in line or moulding, but
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 39 
 
 it was no less winsome for certain hints of fallibility, 
 even feebleness of character, than that of Austin Le- 
 gree for an almost radiant self-security and mental 
 hardihood. 
 
 Harvey Kinnicutt, on leaving the free college at 
 which he had won no signal honors, became possessed 
 with the idea of going into journalism, partly because 
 it was a calling about as remote from oysterdom as 
 any other which he could choose, and partly because 
 he was dowered with a glibness in the use of his pen 
 which he sometimes thought might land him among 
 the newspaper potentates. Nevertheless, he was ex- 
 tremely modest in the main, and after having striven 
 for a considerable period as the reporter of a paper 
 in good repute, he had begun to realize his own defi- 
 ciencies acutely and with a mild regret. His nature 
 had no intensities, except perhaps its loathing of the 
 oyster-trade. He would have served his vocation 
 better if he had been more in earnest about life. But 
 he was very much in earnest about any young fem- 
 inine face that happened to engage him, and it began 
 to strike his friend that such captivations increased 
 with alarming speed. Latterly he had felt the weak- 
 ness of his powers as a writer, and had often gone 
 with his manuscript to the drug-shop in Green vvich 
 avenue for the purpose of consulting Legree, with 
 whom his intimacy (varied by only occasional breaks) 
 had continued ever since their school-days. Legree, 
 quick as a flash at seeing the tameness or lameness of 
 certain work, would suggest here, amend there, and' 
 often aptly revise everywhere. On this particular 
 afternoon Kinnicutt had brought him a manuscript 
 on whose faults and needs he had passed rapid and 
 possibly shrewd judgment. But they were not dis-
 
 40 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 cussing this question any longer. For some reason 
 there had been a lull in the usual flow of custom, and 
 while a second clerk attended to the wants of unim- 
 portant purchasers, Legree had time to touch upon 
 his own very unsettled affairs. 
 
 "Oh, yes, "he was saying in his crisp American style, 
 "I'm sure Heffernan will advance the money. But 
 remember, Harvey, it's a dead secret between you 
 and I." 
 
 "You bet it is, Austin. Trust me." 
 
 "I will. Now see:" and Legree's brilliant eye lit, 
 for an instant, with diamond sheen. "Say I get the 
 store, just as it is, with this debt on it. I can run 
 trade here in a smarter way than Trask did. I know 
 some dodges and tricks rot, if you choose, but rot 
 that takes and tells with the big herd and I can put 
 my patent rheumatism medicine on the market at 
 the same time. I'm going to call my medicine Opa- 
 line Ointment;- it'll be a kind of pinkish white, and I 
 guess the name will catch on. People are such fools, 
 you know, that a kind of a flowery name like that 
 fetches 'enii And the stuffs a real daisy, Harv.; I've 
 been working at it six months." 
 
 "I guess it must be splendid," said Kinnicutt loy- 
 ally. "You do know such a lot about drugs. What 
 a pity you couldn't have been a doctor ! " 
 
 "If I can get the oil well started it'll bring me in 
 more cash than if I was tramping around town with 
 a satchel," asserted Legree. "You just wait. So 
 much depends on how a new medicine is started." 
 
 "Yes, I know. You must gull folks with travelling 
 agents and big posters, and all that. Oh, you can 
 do it." 
 
 "I don't want to gull folks," said Legree coldly.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 41 
 
 "But you've got to fetch 'em to a thing, nowadays, 
 or they'd fight shy of it if it was the genuine balm of 
 Gilead, bottled and corked by the angel Gabriel 
 himself.' 
 
 "Right you are, every time," acceded Kinnicutt. 
 "But look here . . that debt you just spoke of. How'll 
 you manage to \vork that off? " 
 
 Legree drooped his head a little and passed one 
 hand over the glossy dark curls that clad his small, 
 shapely head. "The Heffernan money, eh ? " 
 
 "Yes. I mean that." 
 
 "M yes. Of course." Legree squared himself a 
 little, and put both hands behind his back. Then, 
 lowering his voice, and staring straight into his com- 
 panion's amiable, pink- tinted face, he proceeded: "You 
 can keep a secret, Harv. Look here: I can take all 
 the time I want, there. I'm going to have that old 
 rum-seller treat me fine." 
 
 Kinnicutt smiled, showing his nice, bright teeth. 
 "Come, now; ain't you a little too sure he will?" 
 
 "Not a bit of it," was the reply, teeming with 
 doughtiest confidence. "I'm going to marry one of 
 his nieces." 
 
 Kinnicutt gave a great start. "Which," he queried, 
 quite sharply. 
 
 "Talk lower, please. That Cody is stupid but he 
 ain't deaf . . Oh, not the one you like." 
 
 "The eldest, then?" 
 
 "Yes Eunice." 
 
 "Has she ?" 
 
 "Oh, no, not yet. But she will have me. I'll fix 
 that." 
 
 A little pause followed, during which Kinnicutt 
 gave a soft giggle while his friend called out some bit
 
 42 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 of information regarding tooth-brushes to his lank 
 and horse-faced fellow-clerk, Cody, who was serving 
 a customer on the other side of the shop. 
 
 Presently Legree, with a hand" on his friend's 
 shoulder and a voice all prudent undertone, went 
 fluently on. 
 
 "Yes, I'll fix that. I'll get Eunice. I'll have her 
 and the business both. She's a nice, steady girl, just 
 my sort, and she ain't so wonderful poor, neither. I 
 guess I couldn't do better. Trask left those three 
 girls a very decent pile between 'em." He removed 
 his hand from Kinnicutt's shoulder, and while putting 
 both that and its mate into his trousers' pockets, 
 drew back a little. "Don't you forget that, old boy. 
 Look here . . why don't you go in for Dora? " 
 
 Kinnicutt,asweknow,had a way of blushing. "Oh, 
 Lord!" he said. "She wouldn't have me a poor 
 newspaper reporter." 
 
 Legree tossed his head and pursed his lips. "Try 
 her. I'd like some fellows for brother-in-laws a dev- 
 ilish sight worse than I'd like you." 
 
 Kinnicutt burst into a loud laugh, then. "Why, 
 Austin, one would think you dead sure of things, the 
 way you talk." 
 
 "I am," said Legree, down in his throat, as it were, 
 with a rather tightened expression about his thin 
 lips. "You wait and see."
 
 IV 
 
 As it turned out, Harvey Kinnicutt did wait and 
 did see. His waiting, too, lasted but a brief time. 
 Within a fortnight Isaac Trask's entire business had 
 been a.t least seemingly bought by his friend, and the 
 three heirs had signed the deed of transfer. There was 
 an actual scintillance about Austin Legree's demeanor 
 when these formalities had come to an end. Calling 
 upon Andrew Heffernan, he thanked that gentleman 
 with so hearty a vigor and bathed his doleful pas- 
 siveness of mien in so rich and sparkling a cordiality 
 that the liquor-dealer after \vard said to his wife: 
 
 "By George, 'Liza, I guess it's years since I met a 
 young chap so full o' grit and go as that Legree. 
 Why, he's as sprightly as a colt, with a head as level 
 as a bull-terrier's. If one of the Trask girls was to 
 get him she might do a heap worse." 
 
 "Do you think so ? " said Eliza Heffernan musingly. 
 "From \vhat I've seen of him (and that ain't much, 
 of course) he kind o' 'pears to me ..." 
 
 "Well? " said her husband as she paused. 
 
 "Oh, I don' know. Cold, if you like,,or . .hard. Yes, 
 hard's better. But I dare say I'm wrong, Andy. I 
 get notions." Here Mrs. HeiFernan began to stitch
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 away with great diligence at her inveterate sewing. 
 She never sewed at anything dainty or pretty; it was 
 always some voluminous white fabric that had to be 
 hemmed or felled or treated with rough strokes of the 
 needle, and with coarse thread also. Her husband 
 had more than once asked her where these "eternal 
 underclothes" went that she was always constructing. 
 She would never give him an answer that satisfied. 
 "It can't be my shirts," he would say, "for I only 
 wear three a week ; and it can't be things for yourself. 
 If it was, you'd have enough in that line, by this time, 
 to last if you lived till Judgment day ... I guess it's 
 charity," he more than once remarked ; and she never 
 replied except with a laugh and a shrug of her fleshful 
 shotilders. He had hence concluded that it was 
 "charity," and indeed on many occasions rightly. 
 This belief fed, if possible, deeper inward devotion for 
 her, the one regnant element of tenderness and gen- 
 tleness in his world-worn nature. 
 
 "You may be ever so right," she now went on, "but 
 if we'd had a girl I'd somehow been afraid of Legree 
 for her if she'd taken a shine to him." 
 
 "Then you'd feel scared if you heard he was going 
 for one of the Trask girls ? " 
 
 "Oh, I can't say that! Good gracious, marriage is 
 all such a queer kind o' risk. And we women have 
 got to take such awful risks, Andy ten times worse 
 than the men must." 
 
 "You took a big risk \vhen you married me, 'Liza 
 and got left, I s'pose you mean," he said sadly. 
 
 "No, no," she denied. "I ain't casting slurs. I 
 wouldn't do different to-morrow than I did when I 
 slipped off with you that day from pa's in Fourth 
 street."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 45 
 
 "Oh, you wouldn't," he muttered, secretly pleased, 
 but showing it only by a downward drag of his bushy 
 eyebrows. 
 
 "No. I'm one of the lucky ones among women." 
 She then frowned a little, and he saw half the frown, 
 as it were, in her profile, watching it bent above her 
 work. "Of course there's that trouble of your still 
 staying in the liquor busi ..." 
 
 "Oh, let up on that, please," he grumbled; and her 
 profile at once brightened again, as though she re- 
 morsefully wished to repair the effect of her late 
 attempted innuendo. 
 
 "What I mean's this, Andy," she continued: "us 
 women, as regards marriage, are the under-dogs in 
 the fight. I've thought it all over; I know I'm right 
 about it, too. There's three things that pester and 
 torment us when we get to be wives. Most of the 
 men I won't say all of 'em, but most either don't 
 stay true, or else they drink more or less bad, or else 
 they're regular devils in their own homes. Devils, I 
 mean," she added, "that behave like angels outside." 
 
 Heffernan gave a low laugh. "Adultery, drunk- 
 enness, and general cussedness, " he said, as if speaking 
 to himself and thus reviewing the verity or falsity of 
 her bold statement. "Upon my word, 'Liza, I guess 
 you're right. Yes, I guess you are . . . And s'pose 
 Austin Legree should make up to one o' the Trask 
 girls. Which o' those three heads would you say he'd 
 come under, eh ? " 
 
 "Oh, how can I tell," she answered. "I don't be- 
 lieve he'd drink, and I shouldn't be surprised if he 
 kept faithful enough to any wife he'd married ; for I 
 shouldn't think he had heat enough in his blood ever 
 to get his cool brain the least bid fuddled. But as for
 
 46 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 behaving well oh, you can't prophesy about these 
 things! The only way is to find out afterward. And 
 that's the sad part of marriage, Andy: you've got to 
 find out so much afterward." 
 
 "You mean that you women have got to," he 
 laughed. "But how about us men ? " 
 
 "Sometimes you find out horrible facts. Oh, I grant 
 that. I'd rather deal with two bad married men 
 than one bad married woman, any day. But the last 
 are more scarce ; I stick to that." 
 
 "Well," he murmured, after a pause, in dreary-toned 
 rumination, "I guess you've hit the nail just about 
 square on_the top, 'Liza . . . Yes, I guess you have." 
 
 His mind once made up with respect to any special 
 plan, Austin Legree was not the person to procras- 
 tinate. Their bereavement had brought them so much 
 more together than they had ever heretofore been, 
 that for an "evening caller" like himself the girls 
 appeared almost inseparable. He wanted to have a 
 peculiar kind of talk with Eunice, and he found her 
 almost never alone for five minutes at a time. Dora 
 or Annette would be sure to enter just as he was on 
 the point of saying what he desired to say; indeed he 
 esteemed himself fortunate if neither of them were in 
 the room \vhen he gave Eunice his greeting, whether 
 by day or night. But the drug-shop was so near that 
 comings and goings with respect to the little brick 
 house in West Eleventh street were not hard to ob- 
 serve; and one afternoon, when he had seen Dora 
 and Annette pass through Greenwich avenue together,
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 47 
 
 he betook himself to the home of Eunice with distinct 
 expectations and resolves. 
 
 He told her, almost as soon as they were seated 
 side by side, of the difficulty which he met in securing 
 her unshared company. And then, with a supreme 
 boldness, he pursued: "I don't know how any poor 
 fellow would manage if he should want to play sweet 
 on a member of this family. It looks as if he'd have 
 to do all his talking in the presence of witnesses." 
 
 "I'm afraid he would," said Eunice, with a prim, 
 transient smile. 
 
 Legree's nerves were very calm for those of a lover 
 with the "now or never" intention firm in his mind. 
 He did not have to steady himself at all as he here 
 tenderly said : 
 
 "Then I suppose I'd better profit by the occasion 
 and try to make hay while the sun shines." 
 
 "You!" she returned, with a sudden mettlesome 
 air. He had often said things of this kind to her, 
 though none as yet that was half so fraught with 
 meaning. "Perhaps you'd better make sure that the 
 sun does shine." 
 
 "Oh, I can't help feeling it does when I look into 
 those dear brown eyes of yours. ' ' And then he caught 
 her hand, which she at once snatched away. 
 
 "Have I made you angry?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 "If I have I'll never forgive myself." 
 
 "But you haven't." 
 
 "Still, you look so . . so upset." 
 
 She laughed very nervously. "I guess I might be!" 
 
 "Why?" he urged, leaning so near to her that she 
 caught the pure scent of his healthy young breath, 
 untainted by the modern and ubiquitous cigarette,
 
 48 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 or yet by another folly more baneful still. "Is it such 
 a big surprise to find out I love you?" 
 
 She glanced full into his face, but drooped her eyes 
 the next instant, as though the gleam shed by his 
 own brilliant ones had dazed her. 
 
 "I . . I didn't . . know ..." she stammered. 
 
 But as he caught her in his arms, now, she made 
 no second sign of resistance, "I want you for my 
 wife," he said, with the closest semblance to a real 
 burst of passion that he had possibly ever known 
 "for my sweet treasure of a wife, through lots and 
 lots of happy to-morrows. And perhaps if you don't 
 care so very much for me now you'll get to care more 
 when you think of how your father used to like me, 
 and ... " 
 
 "But I do care for you now!" she broke in, and 
 after that she burst into tears ... A little later Legree 
 attempted with gentle gallantry to dry these tears, 
 using a slightly-starched handkerchief whose rather 
 impracticable folds he managed adroitly, and on 
 whose perfume (as the finest thing in essences his shop 
 contained) he furtively prided himself. . . . That even- 
 ing Harvey Kinnicutt dropped in upon him and the 
 two friends had a talk together. 
 
 "You're engaged, then?" said Kinnicutt, after a 
 good deal of listening, "There isn't any doubt about 
 it, Austin?" 
 
 "Doubt?" said Austin, with one of his cold, gay 
 little laughs. "No more than the break of day to- 
 morrow morning . . . Now, see here, Harvey: if you'd 
 like to be my brother-in-law I'll do what I can. The 
 match would be a good one for you. Of course you'd 
 have to play your points in a smart manner. You 
 can't expect Dora Trask to throw herself at you.''
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 49 
 
 "I don't, "faltered Kinnicutt. "Good Lord, Austin, 
 why should I?" 
 
 "And you'd like to pitch right in and get her, before 
 any other fellow has a chance?" 
 
 Kinnicutt recoiled a little, coloring. "By Jove, 
 Austin, what a manager you are ! " 
 
 "Manager? , How do you mean? When there's 
 anything to be done, I believe in just going to work 
 and doing-it settling it up, that is, and finishing it." 
 
 "Yes, I know," hesitated his friend. "But getting 
 married isn' like ..." 
 
 "Any other piece of business? Stuff! Why isn't it? 
 Of course it's precisely the same . . But Harvey, do 
 you really want the girl ? There's the question. Do 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You'd like to marry, then, and . . er . . give up all 
 your infernal foolishness ? " 
 
 "Foolishness?" 
 
 "Oh, you know what I mean, " came the staccato 
 tones of Legree, rushing, insistent, and yet free from 
 all touch of actual warmth. ' 'You must quit thinking 
 about every new, pretty girl you meet. There must 
 be only one pretty girl for you in the whole world. 
 Understand ? And her name must be Dora Trask 
 or, if you choose, we'll say Dora Kinnicutt." 
 
 "I'd like to . . to be able to say it ! " was the almost 
 stammered reply. "And I think she's the . . the 
 sweetest, nicest girl I ever saw. If she'd marry me, 
 Austin, I'd feel like ..." 
 
 "Supporting her, eh?" came the keen, swift inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 Richly amiable though he always was, Kinnicutt 
 frowned now, as at a brutality. "Good Heavens, 
 i
 
 50 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Austin! As if I wouldn't work my head off to sup- 
 port such a wife as that ! " 
 
 Legree held out his hand. "That's the right kind 
 of talk," he said. "Now listen. I'll fix it for you. 
 I'll fix it better and quicker than you think. When 
 your time comes for proposing, Harv., I'll tell you. 
 Leave this thing to me. You've got your weekly 
 salary, and she'll have her share of the family-money. 
 Understand ? Now just you wait . . . By the bye, it 
 ain't late. I can leave things with Cody for the rest 
 of the evening. We'll go round there and pay a 
 call." 
 
 There would be no hyperbole in stating that Har- 
 vey Kinnicutt now felt himself intoxicated \vith hope. 
 He had already seen enough of Dora to admire her 
 very much. He was ambitious regarding the question 
 of matrimony, and to become the husband of a girl 
 who might have a few thousands at her control and 
 had never worked for her living, sharply pleased him. 
 But he was not ambitious after the fashion of Legree. 
 He loved the idea of social advancement, and wanted 
 to rise on the oyster-trade as one may rise on step- 
 ping-stones of his dead self. But what appealed to 
 him chiefly was feminine beauty or charm. He dis- 
 covered himself no more in love with Dora Trask 
 than with a half-dozen other girls whom he knew 
 and thought fascinating. His nature had just that 
 fatal receptive shallowness: it could image within 
 itself the attractions of a great many more Doras 
 than one, yet not a soul of them made much deeper 
 impression upon it than the reflected shape will pro- 
 duce upon a mirror. He was a young man who had 
 not yet realized the full powers of inconstancy sleep- 
 ing in his own spirit. Joined to a native weakness
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 51 
 
 of will, this temperament of his was replete with 
 malign threat against the peace of her to whom he 
 might give his name. Legree may have so prophesied 
 in thinking of his friend's future, since he was apt 
 both to draw judgments regarding those whom he 
 knew and not seldom to cast their horoscopes besides. 
 
 But the chances are that he had foreseen no serious 
 perils ahead for the woman whom Kinnicutt might 
 marry. His motive in wishing such a union brought 
 about, was the preference that both of Eunice's sis- 
 ters should not remain unmarried for an indefinite 
 time after she became his wife. He had already dis- 
 tinct ideas on the subject of how his household affairs 
 should be arranged when he and the eldest Miss Trask 
 were one. Certain intentions in this respect might 
 be classed as even now labelled and pigeon-holed 
 within the orderly cabinet of his intelligence. 
 
 Meanwhile a flutter in a dove-cote would be quite 
 too mild an expression for the perturbed state of the 
 little West Eleventh street house. Eunice could not 
 have kept her betrothal a secret from her sisters, even 
 if the mere thought of doing so had not ranked for 
 her among criminal impulses. Her face and eyes 
 were betrayal in themselves, and she had no sooner 
 begun brokenly with ''Girls, I've had a a visit from 
 somebody since you've been out," than Dora, giving 
 her a look of poignant suspicion, cried in accusing 
 tones : 
 
 "You mean Austin Legree, and I shouldn't be a bit 
 surprised if he'd said something awfully queer to 
 you." 
 
 As it soon transpired, he had said something even 
 queerer than Dora's quick wit surmised. 
 
 "Well, I'm just taken right oif my feet ! " exclaimed
 
 52 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Dora, when she and her younger sister had heard 
 more, "To think you've actually promised to get 
 married ! Oh, Eunice! And without our knowledge! 
 
 "I couldn't help it," said Eunice, as though she 
 were confessing some mighty misdemeanor. 
 
 By this time Annette had begun to weep, though 
 quite softly. As Dora's droll reproach ended, she 
 hurried to Eunice and threw both arms about her 
 neck. "How could you do it without telling us you 
 were going to ? " Annette wailed. 
 
 Eunice patted the speaker's temple with one hand, 
 and kissed her on the forehead. "I I didn't know 
 it would happen so suddenly," she made trembling 
 answer. 
 
 Dora's blonde head was high in the air, and her 
 bloomy lips were curling. "Oh, you didn't! But 
 you never let us know you loved him ! " 
 
 "You . .you must have suspected," sighed Eunice. 
 
 A certain fall in her voice made Dora start a little. 
 Her haughtiness wilted in an instant. Annette was 
 crying on Eunice's shoulder, now, and this second 
 sister made the third one's grief a reason for drawing 
 near her and putting an arm about her waist. 
 
 Then Eunice, seeing that Dora had come so close to 
 her, broke forth with the words: "Oh, Dora, you're 
 not angry at me! " . . And soon afterward the three 
 were clinging together, foolishly, even absurdly, if 
 we will, but with obedience to an ardor of affection 
 at once beautiful and sincere 
 
 "You say he wants you to marry him pretty soon?" 
 Dora observed, after a while, to Eunice. "But I hope, 
 for Heaven's sake, that he doesn't want to take you 
 away!" 
 
 "Take her away ! " burst from Annette. "Take her
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 53 
 
 from as/" And the girl's dark eyes moistened again, 
 while her under lip quivered. 
 
 "Now, look here, Annette," snapped Dora in a 
 scolding tone that "wrought no more offense than if 
 it had been the scamper of a mouse across the carpet, 
 "I do hope we're not going to have any more booh- 
 hooing from you! I thought we'd all decided to 
 brace ourselves up and not behave like babies." 
 
 ''But you're not going to leave us, are you, Eunice?" 
 appealed Annette. 
 
 "Of course not," Eunice replied. "We'll live here; 
 why shouldn't we? There's room enough." Then 
 something made her shield her face with both hands 
 and give a hysteric little laugh. She promptly grew 
 calmer, however, and looked at Dora with a pathetic 
 touch of the old chiding, superior, elder-sisterly 
 manner. 
 
 "I said, six months ago," she asserted, "that I 
 liked him that I liked him very much. 11 Here she 
 glanced at Annette, as though to receive some cor- 
 roborative sign from the one member of their limited 
 family circle whose repute for truth was quite untar- 
 nished. "And as for you, Dora," she went on, with 
 solemnity and loftiness, "I don't think you'd behave 
 much different from what I did if somebody you like 
 should speak up in the same way. I don't say that 
 a certain person will, either that is, not yet. But 
 \vhen I told Austin Legree this very day how curious 
 it would seem for me to get married first, expecting 
 as I've always done that I'd stay the old maid of the 
 family and you and Annette would each have me 
 throw an old shoe after your wedding-carriages, he 
 laughed and said that he guessed a certain person 
 might care to follow his example as quick as wink if
 
 54 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 he only got pluck enough put into him by the right 
 word from you. 'And in that case,' said Austin, 
 'there might be a double wedding instead of a single 
 one' . . Oh, Dora, if it should happen ! It would be 
 so much more sociable than getting married all alone, 
 don't you know?" 
 
 "I I simply never!" fumed Dora. " You can 't mean 
 anybody but that Harvey Kinnicutt ! And I've seen 
 him about half-a-dozen times in my life !" 
 
 "Oh, he's called here a good deal oftener than that," 
 contradicted Annette, with juvenile literalness. "And 
 then he took you to Daly's once, and once to the 
 skating-rink. And he But oh, Dora, you wouldn't 
 go and be married too, would you?" came the plead- 
 ing self-interruption. 
 
 "Catch me!" retorted Dora, in great scorn. "One 
 of us is enough, Annette, for the next ten years or so, 
 at least." 
 
 "Good!" cried Annette, clapping her hands in 
 feverish joy. "That'll make me an old maid, and it 
 '11 make you a very old woman, won't it? And all 
 the better, Dora ! we'll stick together, won't we, and 
 not let anybody come and separate us!" 
 
 "It depends on who comes a-courting us," said 
 Dora, with a shrug of her shapely shoulders and a 
 pout of pique on her rosy mouth. "They must be 
 better than newspaper reporters with fathers that 
 keep oyster-saloons." 
 
 'This was a bitter speech for Dora, whose humor 
 seldom had an acrid tang in it ... But that evening, 
 when Legree brought Harvey Kinnicutt in his wake, 
 she gave no sign of having judged so harshly of the 
 young reporter's matrimonial claims. He took no 
 risks of being crushed by her, however, merely pay-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 55 
 
 ing his homage through the help of little prismatic 
 compliments. Now and then he would drop a hint 
 that evoked from her a slight disdainful stare ; but 
 for the most part their converse was replete with 
 harmony. 
 
 When both their guests had gone, Eunice, with her 
 cheeks burning, as certain girls' cheeks will burn after 
 their lovers have left them, told Dora that her own 
 sweetheart had very stoutly declared Harvey Kinni- 
 cutt to be as much in love as he was. " Austin says 
 he's crazy to propose," proceeded Eunice, "but he 
 don't think you'd look at him in that way. Still, 
 he's ever so gone about you. He'd write his finger- 
 nails off to support you nice. Some people say he's 
 so smart he'll soon get a place with a regular salary 
 to it; and if he does, you know, Dora, he won't be 
 such a bad match, after all." 
 
 "M no," said Dora, as she loosed her opulent 
 blonde hair before the looking-glass, and began to 
 hold tress after tress of it with the ends turned up- 
 ward so that she could thus better deal them little 
 prodding strokes of the comb. 
 
 "Besides," pursued Eunice, who had a good deal 
 less hair and somewhat swiftly had done it up into a 
 grim little ball at the back of her head, "Austin says 
 we ought to rent this house for a pretty decent sum. 
 And if we did, and went to live in flats (side and side 
 by one another, you understand) we might 
 
 "Oh, for goodness' sake don't!" cried Dora, rush- 
 ing up to her and putting a hand over her mouth. 
 "Because you're engaged do you think the whole o' 
 the rest of creation has got to be? But 't isn't only 
 that you've engaged me to him ; you've located me 
 in a flat, and I don't doubt you could tell me what's
 
 56 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 it's street and number. Next thing you'll be giving 
 me a christening." 
 
 "Oh! DoraTrasi/" 
 
 " Or a funeral, mebbe . . . Besides, if these things 
 should happen, and we lived in flats, what would 
 become of Annette? Or perhaps you're going to 
 marry her oif too." 
 
 Annette was asleep in a small bed not far from 
 that of her two elder sisters. Formerly her bed had 
 been elsewhere, in a little chamber adjacent to this; 
 but when death had so abruptly stalked into the 
 house he had made the sisters huddle together, so to 
 speak, in blended love and fright. Annette had gone 
 upstairs this evening with a despairful feeling in her 
 heart ; and though the voices of her sisters did not 
 now awaken her from her sound young sleep, these 
 and the dread of coming household changes may 
 possibly have caused her to murmur aloud several in- 
 coherent things, which at length ended in the clear- 
 heard sentence: 
 
 " Don't let's leave one another, whatever happens!" 
 
 Eunice and Dora exchanged a look, and then the 
 eyes of both of them filled with tears. 
 
 "She's right," said Eunice, with an almost rever- 
 ent lowering of the voice. "Whatever does happen 
 we ought to try very hard, all three, to live together." 
 
 Dora nodded. She was thinking whether Eunice 
 or Legree had the stronger will, and that if by any 
 remote chance she should marry Harvey Kinnicutt, 
 she would make him not only live just where and 
 how she pleased, but conform to all sorts of domestic 
 laws in a spirit of devoutest .obedience.
 
 A few days later Kinnicutt boldly spoke his mind, 
 and the result was .betrothal. Dora had liked him 
 for many past months, and yet a kind of virginal 
 revolt in her had wrought the eifect of reticence, 
 denial and even half-savage indifference. Kennicutt 
 would willingly enough have waited a year, two 
 years, before the wedding, but now that he stood in 
 the light of an affianced husband, Austin Legree 
 made his own will-power dominantly felt. This was 
 not done with any tyrannic display of suasion. He 
 merely talked in his nimble and secure style, showing 
 the subject now in this light and now in that, as 
 though it were something that he wanted to sell. 
 His idea, his plan, was that Eunice and Dora should 
 both be married some time in the coming April, and 
 on the same day. Before then a lessee could be found 
 for the house, and two comfortable suites of rooms 
 engaged in one of the apartment-houses on a side 
 street off Sixth avenue, possibly in the near neighbor- 
 hood. He consulted Mr. Heffernan, and brought 
 back word that this arrangement had seemed satis- 
 factory to the girls' kindly if self-appointed guardian. 
 When Annette looked woe-begone he patted her on
 
 58 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 the cheek and told her that she should stay half the 
 year with one sister and half with the other. " But 
 I want to stay with them both all the time," Annette 
 would make demurrer, \vhereat he would smile his 
 hard, bright smile, and tell her that she would soon 
 have a husband for herself. From "Aunt 'Liza" he 
 wore away in no time the unfriendly impression that 
 she at first had formed of him. The girls had another 
 aunt, an only sister of their dead father, Mrs. Giebel- 
 house, the wife of a well-to-do German florist. They 
 had never liked this lady, always from children regard- 
 ing her as peevish and unsocial. She had turned up 
 her nose at the engagement of Eunice, and plainly 
 grumbled at that of Dora. But then Aunt Ida was 
 always turning up her nose and grumbling at every- 
 thing arid everybody, or so the two elder girls 
 assured their lovers when she treated each young 
 man with her frostiest behavior. Legree, using all 
 his most complex tact, succeeded ill, for a good 
 while, in making her unbend to him. But at last he 
 did succeed, and she would occasionally drop in of 
 an evening to laugh over his comic imitations of cer- 
 tain actors at Tony Pastor's, and his bewildering 
 tricks with cards. At these times her husband 
 always accompanied her, a big, handsome Teuton, 
 with an amber beard and sluggish blue eyes. He had 
 got together a neat sum of money as a market- 
 gardener in the suburbs when she married him, and 
 why he had ever fallen in love with her Ida Trask's 
 friends, including her deceased brother, had vainly 
 marvelled. Conrad Giebelhouse was her junior by 
 surely five years, and she had not a feature of the 
 Trasks in her thin, soured face, with its high-cheek 
 bones and its puckered chin. She had a spare, grace-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 less figure and a constant stoop. She was fond of 
 wearing a skimpy red-worsted shawl in the house at 
 almost every season except midsummer, and her lips 
 were nearly always blue; with her bony shoulders 
 gathered together, she would incessantly seem like a 
 person on the verge of having a chill. Oddly enough, 
 her husband had been in love with her during his 
 courtship, and was now, as then, her devoted slave. 
 If she had not been quite a dowerless maiden, ob- 
 servers might have explained the ascendancy won by 
 such an almost arctic personality over this burly and 
 bearded spouse who obeyed her slightest nod. As it 
 was, he thought her, in all the pinched and wintry 
 harshness of her type, a creature captivating and 
 beautiful. So also did he think their only child, a 
 little girl with a face about as cheerful as a nipped 
 russet pippin and a temper that not seldom fumed 
 itself into spasms of passion. Socially Mrs. Giebel- 
 house bore her head rather high, and long ago had 
 refused to exchange visits with Mrs. HefFernan, whom 
 she held to have made an odious marriage. When 
 the girls told her of how kindly the husband of their 
 Aunt 'Liza had behaved to them, she gave a cold 
 little cackle of a laugh, saying : 
 
 " Why, mercy, he's got heaps and heaps of money. 
 He can well afford to be generous." 
 
 " It wasn't his money I referred to," said Eunice, a 
 little tartly. " He gave up his time, and all that." 
 
 " His time ! " shuddered Mrs. Giebelhouse, touching 
 the bluish-pink end of her nose with a lace- trimmed 
 handkerchief that she had got as a great bargain 
 from a "marked down" 'lot at Macy's. "I only 
 wish he'd make better use of his time than he does
 
 60 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 do. Goodness ! if your uncle Conrad was what he 
 is, I'd just lay down and die! " 
 
 "Aunt 'Liza does a good deal of good with her 
 share of the money," boldly said Dora, who hated 
 the avarice of her aunt Ida Giebelhouse, and liked 
 now and then to deal it a sarcastic thrust. "We 
 never knew how charitable she was till lately. She 
 goes around into all sorts of awful places and helps 
 people with money and victuals and clothes." 
 
 "Well she may," said Mrs. Giebelhouse. "Butshe'd 
 have a lot o' work if she tried to make up for the sins 
 of her husband." 
 
 Not long after this, Mrs. Heifernan appeared, and 
 the two ladies gave one another that bloodless kind 
 of greeting which always passed between them when- 
 ever they met at the Trasks'. Conversation natu- 
 rally turned upon the double engagement of Eunice 
 and Dora. Mrs. Giebelhouse had already sniffed with 
 plain contempt at the prospects of either would-be 
 bridegroom, and in a pause rather embarrassing to 
 the hostesses of these two antagonistic aunts, An- 
 nette made one of her frank, unwordly remarks. 
 
 "Well," she said f "I'm glad both sisters are going 
 to marry men I like. I don't know what I should 
 have done if I hadn't liked them for brother-in-laws. 
 Aunt Ida don't appear to think they'll suit, but per- 
 haps she only means that they're not rich enough." 
 
 Eunice frowned and shook her head at the speaker. 
 "Annette," she said, "you mustn't put words into 
 Aunt Ida's mouth that haven't left it." 
 
 "Oh, she didn't say that," replied Annette rebel- 
 liously," but we all saw what she meant." 
 
 Mrs. Giebelhouse compressed her lips in away that 
 lent new height to her cheek-bones. "Don't scold
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 61 
 
 the child on my account, Eunice," she said freezingly. 
 
 "I'm not a child," claimed Annette, in affronted 
 tones. "I guess you don't remember how my birth- 
 days have been counting up lately." 
 
 "That's so, I'm afraid," Dora here struck in, with 
 her humor taking one of its bitter tinges. "Young 
 people keep 'count of their birthdays, but elderly ones 
 often don't notice 'em because they're too busy for- 
 getting their own." 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan laughed very amusedly at this. She 
 ceased laughing, and then suddenly started again. 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Giebelhouse looked excessively som- 
 bre, though she soon broke another awkward silence 
 thus: 
 
 "Oh, I'm old as Methuselah, girls, if you please. 
 But age ain't our worst teacher when it tells us the 
 man with a few footy dollars to his name makes a 
 dangerous husband." 
 
 "There's husbands with thousands o' dollars to 
 their names," said Mrs. Heffernan, "that often have 
 got hearts as small as their purses are big." 
 
 "A big heart and a bigpurse ain't al ways enemies," 
 replied Mrs. Giebelhouse. I didn't find it so. Not 
 that I pretend to having your means," she added, 
 with a smile like lit ice. 
 
 Bristling a little, Mrs. Heffernan said. "I married 
 a poor man. Did you ? " 
 
 "Oh, no," was the reply. "My husband had made 
 his way slow. The flower business ain't so quick as 
 the liquor business. There's so many folks that like 
 a cocktail better than a bokay." 
 
 This was a hard blow to Mrs. Heffernan, and Eu- 
 nice exclaimed, with a desire of dulling it : "Aunt'Liza
 
 62 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 believes in marrying for love, and so do I. If bad 
 times come they've got to be borne." 
 
 "And bad times do come to most married women, 
 I guess," said Mrs. Heffernan, as if she wanted to 
 show her unwotmded state by merely saying some- 
 thing in the air. 
 
 "Bad times come to most married men, I think," 
 declared Mrs. Giebelhouse. "I believe agirl ought to 
 marry prudent, in the first place. And after she's 
 done that she usually gets a man that she can make 
 what she pleases of." 
 
 "Do you make of your husband just what you're a 
 mind to?" asked Mrs. Heffernan, not with satire or 
 even a hint of challenge, but simply as if swayed by 
 motives of general disinterested query. 
 
 "Why, certainly I do," was the reply of the florist's 
 wife. "My husband would sooner go and jump off 
 High Bridge this minute than oppose me in any- 
 thing!" 
 
 "Yours is a pretty rare case, then, I reckon," said 
 Mrs. Heffernan. 
 
 "No, it ain't, if you'll excuse me," disclaimed Mrs. 
 Giebelhouse. "It ain't half so rare as you think. 
 The great point is, a "woman's got to begin right. 
 Oh, there's so much in that! The men are more 'n 
 half of 'em ready to be twirled round our fingers." 
 
 "It needs a rather strong sort o' finger sometimes," 
 doubted Mrs. Heffernan politely. 
 
 "Oh, I admit there's reg'lar devils/'answered Mrs. 
 Giebelhouse. "But I ain't talking of them. I'm talk- 
 ing of the usual decent all-round husbands. Most o' 
 the fights and rows that wind up in divorces are the 
 women's fault, not the men's. You needn't tell me. 
 I've seen too much o' the weak foolishness and ca-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 63 
 
 pers and deceits of my own sex. What men \vant is 
 plain, square honesty, joined to res'lution. Nine- 
 tenths o' the men will give in if they're acted proper 
 to and not dawdled with." 
 
 "Nine-tenths o' the men, /should say," denied Mrs. 
 Heffernan, "have to be dawdled with, as you call it, 
 before their wives can make 'em either give in or 
 behave Christian." 
 
 "That ain't been my experience, Mrs. Heffernan. 
 But of course there's different circles of s'ciety. Some's 
 high and some's low, and the space bet-ween 'em's 
 very sizable." 
 
 "I s'pose people that supply flowers to receptions 
 and parties," Mrs. Heffernan said, mindful of a recent 
 contrast between cocktails and bouquets, "often get 
 a kinder peek-a-boo glimpse into houses \vhere the 
 big folks are." 
 
 This bit of irony made Mrs. Giebelhouse bridle so 
 angrily that its perpetrator felt sorry for having let 
 it escape her. She had a heart as gentle as it was 
 latently sad, and these petty battles of tongues re- 
 pelled her by their triviality, dwarfish enough beside 
 the mountainous needs and griefs of a world that 
 she had tried (and not lukewarmly) to better. 
 
 Mrs. Giebelhouse departed in a little while, and she 
 remained with her nieces, talking of marriage in a 
 more hopeful strain because conscience-smitten by 
 sudden thoughts of how unwelcome must sound her 
 pessimism regarding it to these maiden ears in which 
 yet lingered the echoes of their lovers' vows. But 
 the nimbus of sentiment clung too shiningly about 
 either young soul for any shadows of darksome pro- 
 phecy to dull it. 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised if most wives were just
 
 64 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 what you've described 'em," said Eunice; "that is, 
 bullied almost to death by their husbands, one way or 
 another." But it did not occur to her that by the 
 vaguest chance she herself could ever be placed on 
 this black matrimonial sick-list. 
 
 And with Dora it was quite the same. "I haven't 
 got a doubt, aunt 'Liza," she said, "that thousands 
 of women in this world could hardly see much dif- 
 ference between marriage and the toothache if one 
 didn't last an ever so much shorter time than the other. 
 Isn't that the principal point ? One can be cured, and 
 the other's got to be endured." As she spoke thus, 
 the sprightly Dora did not dream of applying any 
 such scorching assertion to her own beloved Harvey. 
 He, of course, like Eunice's equally prized Austin, was 
 aloof and exempt from all the alleged depravities of 
 his sex. 
 
 And such faith persisted with a steadfast ardor 
 through the rest of the winter, not fading a whit but 
 even blooming the hardier, as latter April brought 
 both the girls' wedding-day more charmingly near. 
 It had been decided that they should both be wedded 
 a little before the first of May, and at the same time. 
 Legree had managed everything, and through him 
 the renting of the West Eleventh street house had 
 been accomplished with what struck all who heard 
 of the sum guaranteed as a happily high one. A 
 gentle and continuous joy now pervaded this resi- 
 dence over which hung the fiat of coming exit. Only 
 Annette was despondent, and she, poor soul, tried 
 her best not to seem as if she were dispirited. But 
 her dread of the general family breaking up could not 
 be masked, no matter how finely heroic were her 
 secret efforts. One day Eunice found her seated with
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 65 
 
 tearful eyes in the back parlor, and staring up at the 
 portrait of their father, a work that narrowly escaped 
 being a daub, as much because of its crude flesh-tints 
 as of its amateurish pose and the texture of its whis- 
 kers, each hair of which looked like a black wire 
 curled by the nippers of a deft silversmith. 
 
 "Now, Annette," began Eunice, with her old habit 
 of lectureship at once on the alert, "what does this 
 mean? You're crying here, and not for the least 
 cause." 
 
 Annette rose and flung herself, sobbing, on her 
 sister's breast. She had a great deal to pour forth, 
 in her fervid transport, about the heart-breaking 
 novelty of the threatened change. Eunice was a little 
 stern, in her way of being stern a way which often 
 irritated outsiders but which Anifette regarded no 
 more than if it had been the buzz of a fly. While her 
 sister scolded her she dried her eyes and promised 
 that she would not let herself take the thing so hard 
 hereafter, and added, with a look of self-control that 
 pierced Eunice, certain words full of hectic and fac- 
 titious hope regarding the good times they were all 
 going to have together in those new flats on Sev- 
 enth avenue. 
 
 That evening, when Dora and Eunice were alone 
 together for a short interval, the latter said, in tones 
 of thoughtful concern . 
 
 "I really wish poor Annette wouldn't take on so 
 about us." 
 
 "It's about leaving the house," said Dora, with a 
 certain outward coldness that was not coldness at 
 all. "She'll get over it soon enough. Harvey 
 thinks so." 
 
 "Austin thinks so, too," murmured Eunice. Then 
 5
 
 66 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 she added, quite drearily: "The poor child is miser- 
 able. She didn't eat a thing at dinner." 
 
 "Pooh!" said Dora, who always carved. "I helped 
 her to a big piece of beef, and she eat every bit of it . . . 
 Eunice, you're such a worrier ! If we girls all had a 
 million dollars apiece you'd worry because it wasn't 
 two." 
 
 "You don't worry, because you 're so harum-scarum 
 and flighty!" answered Eunice, in her best scolding 
 manner. 
 
 And then Dora revolted, as she always did, and 
 the two exchanged sharp words together, none of 
 which they meant, and none of which either of them 
 thought that the other meant. It was simply one 
 of their queer semi-monthly quarrels, which always 
 left them looking* daggers at one another for a few 
 minutes after they had ended, but daggers blunt and 
 bloodless. Just as these airy weapons were being 
 resheathed, Annette entered the room, perceiving 
 signs of the late contest. But no sooner had her 
 sisters looked again at her pale face, in "whose dark 
 eyes gleamed what is perhaps the most poignant of 
 all pathos, the pathos of self-control, than the effects 
 of their recent excitement made them both melt in 
 tears. 
 
 "'Pon my word," cried Dora, in strangled tones, 
 flinging herself on a sofa, "it's killing Annette, and I 
 shan't be married at all. There ! " 
 
 "Then I shan't be, either!" wailed Eunice, drop- 
 ping upon the same sofa. 
 
 Annette slipped in between them, casting an arm 
 about each of their necks. "Oh, you two silly geese," 
 she said, "you know you don't either of you mean a 
 word of it!"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 67 
 
 Eunice, who -was wont to receive many more ca- 
 resses than she gave, now kissed Annette's cheek. 
 "Dora's right," she faltered; "it is killing you." 
 
 "No, it isn't," said Annette, and though her lips 
 trembled the tears did not come. "It's a . . a wrench 
 for me, girls a pretty hard wrench, you know but 
 I guess that's going to be all." She lifted one fragile 
 hand, clenched it, and shook it for a second in air. 
 "And there's one thing," she -went on: "I "won't cry 
 at your weddings . . no I won't ! They shan't say of 
 me that I went round the parlors like a kill-joy, with 
 my face as long as my arm they shan't say it, not 
 if I'm sick abed for \veeks after, just from holding in!"
 
 VI 
 
 Annette kept her word. She was pale and con- 
 strained on her sisters' wedding day, but no one saw 
 her \veep. There \vere only a few guests present; the 
 brides' recent bereavement no doubt explained this 
 fact to those of their circle who were not bidden. 
 Apart from relatives, the company could almost be 
 counted on one's fingers. There had been some talk 
 about two church- weddings, but Legree had finally 
 negatived that plan. 'It was cheaper and a good 
 deal cosier to be married "athome,"he decided, afiat 
 of which Harvey Kinnicutt, with the terror of most 
 bridegrooms as their day of doom draws near, gave 
 sturdy approval. 
 
 The Heffernans of course came, and the Giebel- 
 houses, with little Mollie, their child. Then there w as 
 a cousin on the Bassett side, a Mrs. Plimpsoll, who 
 brought her husband. Austin Legree's kindred were 
 about seven in number: an aunt or two, with their 
 lords, and a small band of cousins. All of these were 
 as different from Legree as day from night, having 
 neither his show of thrift nor his confident bearing. 
 They were all extremely poor people, dressed for the 
 most part with pathetic attempts at smartness, and
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 69 
 
 all plainly impressed by the distinct rise in life of the 
 young Greenwich avenue druggist. Not so the kin- 
 dred of Harvey Kinnicutt, who were nearly all well- 
 to-do, and one of whom, a Mr. Spangle, owned a 
 large carpet-house on Ninth evenue. Mr. Spangle 
 was indeed the social potentate of the little assem- 
 blage, and when he appeared, with his florid face, 
 bland smile and accentuated corpulence, whispers 
 about him went round the room, such as "That's 
 Spangle, the big carpet-man," from the knowing ones, 
 and "Oh, is that him? Why, how good-natured he 
 looks, don't he?" from those less sapient. Mr. Span- 
 gle came a trifle late, as befits a person of financial 
 dignity and general superior status. Perhaps the 
 two bridal-parties may have waited upstairs a few 
 minutes for his arrival. While Catharine, the Trasks' 
 only servant, was giving a last touch or so to the 
 veil of Eunice with her red, clumsy hands, it is cer- 
 tain that the elder of the brides inquired somewhat 
 nervously: "Has Mr. Spangle come yet ?" And when 
 she learned that he had not yet come, it is doubtful 
 if Eunice felt her desire to be punctual down there in 
 the parlor half as acute as it was before asking her 
 question. 
 
 She appeared first, leaning on her sweetheart's arm. 
 She was dressed in a white robe of tucked muslin, 
 which she had made herself, and she wore a crown of 
 artificial orange-flowers, from which depended her 
 veil over a face almost unnaturally flushed by excite- 
 ment. Her whole attire was dowdy in the extreme, 
 and Mrs. Hefiernan, who knew all about the fash- 
 ions, had a pang of regret on seeing her. Aunt 'Liza 
 would so gladly have given to each of the brides an 
 entire outfit, including their wedding-gowns; but
 
 70 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 she well knew that her offer would have been refused 
 with that gentle kind of sternness born of inherited 
 traditions. As it was, a tender craze of economy 
 had ruled both sisters for weeks past. Concerning 
 ordinary apparel they were as heedful of the reigning 
 mode as almost every New York girl of our era, 
 whatever may be her class or means; but in the 
 matter of nuptial robes experience had taught them 
 little and a piteous impulse of self-dependence had 
 led them into sad errors of taste. 
 
 Poor Eunice was pronounced a fright by some of 
 her more critical observers, chiefly Mrs. Giebelhouse, 
 who whispered " Sakes alive ! " to her husband as the 
 trainless tucked muslin swept over the ingrain carpet. 
 "She looks live an Avenue A girl going to take her 
 first communion," this merciless judge \vould have 
 liked further to whisper, but did not dare; and 
 indeed such a comment would have been specially 
 indiscreet, just then, as one of Legree's cousins (a 
 shop-girl in a Broadway emporium) had drawn quite 
 close to the florist's wife and was feeling between 
 thumb and forefinger the quality of her purple 
 watered-silk frock. 
 
 As the costumes of Eunice and Dora were precisely 
 alike, so \vere those of Legree and Kinnicutt. They 
 both wore cut-away coats, with broad lapels and a 
 button-hole nosegay. Their trousers were pearl- 
 colored, and their waistcoats, opening very low, re- 
 vealed shirt-fronts ornately embroidered and plaited, 
 with narrow neck-ties of lilac satin. It was re- 
 marked that both young gentlemen (though garbed 
 in a way that might have struck terror through a 
 more select wedding-feast) looked handsome and 
 stylish.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 71 
 
 The two ceremonies were brief and simple, the 
 same clergyman presiding at each. Even her heavA- 
 crown of cheap imitation orange-blossoms and her 
 some\vhat coarse tulle veil could not make Dora look 
 anything but pretty, with the mutinous gold of her 
 curly tresses, the excited sapphire gleams in her eyes 
 and the glad young rose in her cheeks. Her air was 
 of course much less serious than that of Eunice, and 
 "ain't she sweet?" was spoken by more than one 
 watcher, below his or her breath. The brides freely 
 mixed with the little throng after their wedding- 
 rites were ended. Legree was extremely ashamed of 
 his relatives, who contrasted ill with those of Kinni- 
 cutt. They all had poverty written more or less 
 legibly on their raiment, and some of them bore on 
 their faces that look of stupor and servitude which 
 poverty begets. The young man knew that all three 
 of the sisters felt secretly hurt in their pride, but 
 this did not wound him half so much as the belief 
 that Mrs. Giebelhouse was probably sneering at his 
 low origin, either in thought or in furtive semitone. 
 He hated the bonds of blood that had made it need- 
 ful for him to ask this small crowd of paupers. 
 Pangs of jealousy shot through him as he saw Mr. 
 Spangle chatting with apparent jollity to oystermnn 
 Kinnicutt, and dangling as he did so the heavy gold 
 locket which hung from his heavy gold watch chain. 
 Legree's own people gathered in a group among 
 themselves. The others, all in better clothes and 
 marked by an air of comparative "position," ig- 
 nored them and flocked apart, like birds of a glossier 
 feather. Reflections literally curseful in their disgust 
 passed through Legree's mind, but from the even 
 smile on his lips and the cheery alertness of his
 
 72 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 mien you could not have told that he underwent the 
 least chagrin. He had risen from the same ranks as 
 those in which his connections now dwelt, but one 
 of the secrets of his rise had been an art to hide dis- 
 agreeable emotions when they swayed him. This, 
 for the man who pushes and strives among his race, 
 is a potent equipment inded. If Legree had been a 
 man whom the world had placed higher at the begin- 
 ning of his efforts toward advancement, this force 
 of personal control might have marked him for a 
 most important part in the great human comedy 
 where ambition makes so many of us aim to play 
 leading characters. As it was, he could hate and 
 smile with deft facial discipline. 
 
 A vivacious clamor of talk soon prevailed in the 
 little parlor. Kinnicutt went about, joking and 
 laughing with this person or that, in his bland and 
 simple style. As Legree had long ago stated of him, 
 he had no chance but one of ever going to the bad. 
 He was just now excessively happy, and said so to 
 everybody with blithesome abandonment. The shop- 
 girl related to Legree (the girl who had stealthily 
 felt Mrs. Giebelhouse's dress) lured him by a pair of 
 dainty dimples and peachy tints in her coloring. New- 
 wedded bridegroom though he was, this proved quite 
 enough for him. He must present himself to this 
 maiden and talk with her in a gay strain, full of 
 partial flirtation. She, honored and flattered by the 
 attention, and feeling herself singled out from the 
 shabby comrades near her, pulsed \vith a soft trium- 
 phant content. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Giebelhouse had managed to in- 
 form her husband that she guessed she wouldn't stay 
 much longer, as she hadn't ever before been in such
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 an awful rabble as this. And when her husband, 
 with his drowsy amiability, his speckless broadcloth 
 suit, and his big horny hands, whose dirt-caked nails 
 revealed the modest market-gardener of the past no 
 less than the wealthier florist of to-day, had drifted 
 off from her and found other sources of converse, 
 she herself, in a passion of exclusiveness, went and 
 sat beside Mrs. Plimpsoll. 
 
 This lady had just been muttering something to 
 her qwn husband, a stout person with a most ruddy 
 and healthful air. " Your leg's gone to sleep, Ezra ? " 
 she was saying. "Well, what if it has? I've had 
 mine like that hundreds o' times." 
 
 " But it pricks so," he whined, " and the thecalf s 
 so numb \vhen I pinch it that I really think, Rhoda, 
 we'd better go, for I I may be on the verge of 
 paralysis." 
 
 " What next ?" frowned Mrs. Plimpsoll, who was 
 a little woman with a sagging underlip and in her 
 eyes an uneasy stare that made her seem as if she 
 were always living on her nerves. It had long since 
 been said of her that in marrying Ezra Plimpsoll, 
 the rich corner-grocery man, she had caught a great 
 prize. But now her friends pitied her more than they 
 envied; for though her husband had sold out and 
 retired on his money, he was in mortal dread of 
 dying each new day of his life, notwithstanding that 
 many doctors had declared him quite sound. Poor 
 Mrs. Plimpsoll would not have minded half so much 
 being a real nurse to him as the sham nurse that she 
 was forced into becoming. The hypochondriac 
 whom she had wedded was in perfect seeming health, 
 except for his horror of illness, and his wife spent half 
 her time in relieving his alarms. Whatever ache or
 
 74 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 nervous qualm lie complained of she always was 
 ready to assure him that she had had the same affec- 
 tion hundreds of times herself. "A stopped up feel- 
 ing in the chest, Ezra! " she would say; "why, only 
 last week I had it so that I could hardly breathe." 
 Or "a distress at the pit o' your stomach? Why, 
 upon my word, Ezra, I had it so awfully two days 
 ago that I thought I'd have to tell you." 
 
 "Why don't you ever let on to me about your ail- 
 ments," he once said to her, peevishly suspicious, 
 "until I've got one of 'em myself? " 
 
 "Oh, I don't want to bother you about trifles," 
 she would answer . . . And so months went on, lived 
 by her in an atmosphere of constant domestic false- 
 hood, and of anxiety as well, since she loved her 
 Ezra and was forever in secret fear lest one of his 
 imaginary ills might prove actual. This marriage 
 of theirs was on her side a perpetual martyrdom, 
 which she bore in patient courage. As a congenial 
 union it had been both a mockery and the opposite. 
 Not for untold gold would the little woman whom 
 he was forever persecuting have failed to become just 
 the faithful wife she was ; and yet beneath her fidel- 
 ity lay a great tedium. They had money, a prett}^ 
 home, a halcyon future and yet incessant worri- 
 ment. 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan knew of all this as well as did Mrs. 
 Giebelhouse. The three ladies now met, for the two 
 last-named ones both chanced to approach Mrs. 
 Plimpsoll at the same time. 
 
 " How are you, Mr. Plimpsoll ?" said Mrs. Heffer- 
 nan, putting out her hand. "Well, I hope, sir; for 
 you know I ain't able to call it 'better,' " she smil-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 75 
 
 ingly added, " 'cause you've never yet seemed to me 
 the least bit sick." 
 
 " That's right," said Mrs. Pliinpsoll. " Pitch into 
 him real good, 'Liza', he deserves it." 
 
 " There's always something, somehow," said Mr. 
 Plimpsoll, with oracular vagueness, while he covertly 
 pinched the leg that had gone to sleep. 
 
 "Oh, yes, there always is something," said Mrs. 
 Giebelhouse, with a movement of her shoulders in 
 their purple watered-silk vestment, as though they 
 missed the red worsted shawl that was their usual 
 fatigue dress. "You can't go on living one speck, 
 I've found out, except you're tripped up by trouble." 
 
 At this scrap of bitter philosophy Mrs. Plimpsoll 
 stiffened her slim neck and pointed with a stealthy 
 jerk of the thumb, to her husband. "His troubles 
 are only 'maginary," she said. "Ain't they?" she 
 proceeded, appealing to Mrs. Heffernan. 
 
 "I shouldn't like to say," Mrs. Heffernan replied. 
 She had, as we know, her sweeping views on matri- 
 mony, and the Plimpsolls only represented to her 
 another phase of persecuted woman. Then, non- 
 committally, she added : " It's so hard^to put your- 
 self inside o' people's digestions, and all that. Doc- 
 tors make believe to, but I guess their fibs are most 
 as big as their fees." 
 
 "I don't want anyone to get inside o' my diges- 
 tion, unless he'd like to have it land him at Green- 
 wood 'fore next year," said Mr. Plimpsoll; these 
 gloomy words and tones emanant from a positively 
 brilliant visage. 
 
 "Ain't that nice talk for a wedding?" said Mrs. 
 Plimpsoll, with a strained smile. "See here: I tell 
 him he'll bury me and live to marry two more."
 
 76 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 In the laugh that followed, Mrs. Giebelhouse gave 
 a low-lidded but searching stare at the dress of Mrs. 
 Heffernan. It was clearly a costly one; in texture, 
 make and trimmings it eclipsed her own. So she 
 said, thrilled by one of those little jealousies that 
 crawl into this or that cell of a soul full of welcomes 
 to petty grudges and spites : 
 
 "My! How good that frock fits! And how 
 el'gant it is ! But ain't it hard, now, for such fleshy 
 folks as you to get such a real skin fit ? " 
 
 Mr. Plimpsoll, who disliked the speaker, here sud- 
 denly forgot his numb leg long enough to befriend 
 Mrs. Heffernan, whom he liked very much. 
 
 " There's two common kitchen-clocks back yonder 
 among the presents," he said. "I wonder who had 
 the cheek to send 'em." 
 
 His wife shot him a scared glance. 
 
 " 'Twas you, wa'nt it? " said Mrs. Heffernan, turn- 
 ing to Mrs. Giebelhouse. 
 
 "Yes," came the chill reply. 
 
 "Oh, was it?" said the roused invalid, who knew 
 quite well that it was. " Excuse me." 
 
 "Yes, I had the 'cheek', as you call it," pursued 
 Mrs. Giebelhouse, haughtily. "I don't see the use o' 
 silver tomfooleries for girls that marry as they're 
 doing." 
 
 "We gave silverware," said Mrs. Plimpsoll, brist- 
 ling, "but it wasn't tomfoolery. And as for your 
 present," she continued to Mrs. Heffernan, "those 
 dozens o' forks and spoons and table-knives were 
 just too nice for anything! " 
 
 "Too nice," giggled Mrs. Giebelhouse, gelidly, "for 
 the rag-tag- and-bobtail connections both girls are 
 forming."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 77 
 
 " Oho," said Mr. Plimpsoll, coming out of himself, 
 as it were, in a way that delighted his wife, even 
 though open ire at Mrs. Giebelhouse's avarice 
 wrought the change. ' ' So you believed in suiting your 
 wedding-presents, eh, to the size of the bridegrooms' 
 purses? " 
 
 "I gave all I could afford," scowled Mrs. Giebel- 
 house. "Please recollect that my husband ain't a 
 blood-relation of the Trasks, whatever / may be. 
 And -" 
 
 "Lord!" cried Ezra Plimpsoll, bursting into a 
 laugh so jocund that it flooded his wife's soul with 
 joy, " do you mean to tell us dear old Conrad Giebel- 
 house, the kindest-hearted man God ever made, put 
 it into your head to send poor Eunice and Dora 
 those two kitchen clocks ? ' ' 
 
 And here Plimpsoll exploded with laughter, so much 
 to the delight of his faded little wife that she put one 
 frail hand on his shoulder and watched him with a 
 wistful fervor as he leaned back and mirthfully quiv- 
 ered. It was such an age since she had seen her Ezra 
 plunge, like this, into a bath of social oblivion ! She 
 didn't care a fig, now, what had brought him back 
 to his old blithe and wholesome self. She could have 
 blessed Mrs. Giebelhouse for causing the precious alter- 
 ation or, rather, she could have blessed her until 
 the voice of the florist's wife, tremulous with rage, 
 thus answered : 
 
 "I guess you'd better go on 'tending your liver and 
 dosing it with quack medicines. That 'pears to suit 
 you better, Mr. Plimpsoll, than meddling does." 
 
 "Wedding-presents are free to be talked about," 
 snapped Mrs. Plimpsoll," when they're spread pro- 
 mise 'us on a table, like these are. And as for quack
 
 78 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 medicines mercy! The last time I went into your 
 bed-room it looked like a 'pothecary 'son moving-day. 
 Bottles higgledy-piggledy everywhere, and all of 'em 
 with patent labels ! " 
 
 "And you're the last one on earth, Ida, to talk 
 about meddling,'" began Mrs. Heffernan . . But just 
 then an eldritch scream was heard, and little Lizzie 
 Giebelhouse, arrayed in a large, clotted-looking neck- 
 lace of red coral, and in blue kid boots, rushed fren- 
 zied -y to her mother. She had tried to steal a sand- 
 wich from the luncheon table, just then being set, and 
 had received a cold repulse from the waiter who 
 presided over it a lank and tallowy stripling from a 
 near confectioner's. Lizzie Giebelhouse, like most ma- 
 rauders, felt wrathful at being surprised in a secret 
 foray. She was too thin and pale, poor little girl, 
 ever to become purple with passion ; but if it had not 
 been for her pallor and attenuation she would doubt- 
 less have worn a look, just now, as apoplectic in tint 
 as her mother's robe, to which she now clung, gasping 
 and frantic. 
 
 As with most spoiled children, Lizzie was subject 
 to long catchings of the breath, always followed by 
 a roar of misery. She caught her breath in this way 
 the moment she had gained her mother's side and 
 clutched the watered-silk gown with two fierce little 
 tugging hands. Her closed eyes, open mouth and 
 flung-back head a head whose sandy-flaxen hair had 
 been left dishevelled after preposterous crimping 
 caused Mrs. Giebelhouse to drag her away into the 
 near hall. But before the exit of mother and child 
 had been performed, one of Lizzie's worst roars broke 
 forth, making almost everybody start. 
 
 "She'll spank her, now," said Mrs. Heffernan, with
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP " 79 
 
 a weary scorn. "I guess, after all, it's a good deal 
 harder fate to have children and not know how to 
 bring 'em up than to wish you'd had 'em and yet 
 never own a chick to your name." . . . 
 
 New, though smothered, shrieks presently sounded 
 from the hall, and the cheerful face of Mr. Conrad 
 Giebelhouse saddened as he heard them. But lun- 
 cheon was now announced, and a look of hungry 
 interest possessed Legree's ill-clad swarm of cousins. 
 They pushed their way into the back parlor, whence 
 exhaled an odor of stewed oysters, luringly pungent. 
 
 "Your governor's fixing this whole lunch business, 
 ain't he? " Legree said in the ear of his fellow-bride- 
 groom. 
 
 "Yes," replied Kinnicutt, hoping no one had heard 
 his parent mentioned as the reigning caterer. "You 
 know that well enough." 
 
 "Well, I hope it '11 go all right," remarked Legree, 
 turning away. 
 
 "Oh, you bet it will," was the response. 
 
 But soon there was evidence that Kinnicutt's filial 
 confidence had been misplaced, and that the refection 
 was not going all right by any means. The elder 
 Kinnicutt had undertaken to supply not merely the 
 stewed oysters but other edibles besides, such as the 
 vanilla and strawberry ice-creams, the mixed fancy 
 cakes and the pyramid of candied orange-quarters. 
 But it swiftly transpired that so me misunderstanding 
 had occurred, and that (oh, fatal discovery!) there 
 would not be enough oysters to go round. Always 
 good-tempered, Harvey addressed his father in ago- 
 nized asides. But the gentleman who had almost 
 spent his life as a commercial Sixth avenue nomad, 
 seemed shocked now into an imbecile helplessness.
 
 80 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 The blunder being made, it was manifestly absurd to 
 try and repair it at this late date. Meanwhile a few 
 people were served, and the remainder left to stare 
 at two empty tureens. The relatives of Legree pierced 
 him with new mortifications. One of them, an 
 elderly lady with a large braid of hair worn as a 
 coronet, secured a plateful of oysters and then fed 
 from it her two daughters, both grown-up damsels, 
 with her own fork. A girl who witnessed this pro- 
 ceeding with eyes that had a ravenous glare in them, 
 suddenly burst into tears. 
 
 "Well, your dad has made a fine mess of it ! " said 
 Legree to Harvey Kinnicutt, and poor Harvey could 
 only shrug his shoulders, with despair in his looks. 
 Legree tingled with satisfaction, however, and felt 
 that his own torments were now being in a measure 
 avenged. He went about from group to group stating 
 through whose negligence the deficit had occurred. 
 He liked Harvey as well as he had ever liked any- 
 body ; it was not that with him. There was pleasure 
 in feeling that some one else besides himself had been 
 bruised, stung. Now and then a guest would say 
 "Oh, is Kinnicutt the oysterman his father?" and 
 Legree would answer "Why, yes; didn't you know 
 it? " with another little twinge of gusto. 
 
 The failure of the oysters proved merely a com- 
 mencement of like disasters. The sandwiches disap- 
 peared soon afterward, and at length a desperate 
 lad in a short jacket, with jowls and a hang-dog eye, 
 made a sly grab at the cake-basket and bore it to a 
 ^corner in which sat a small clique of his own. But 
 this a.ct was quickly discovered by the waiter in 
 charge, who darted into the corner and dragged the 
 cake-basket away while rude hands were making
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 81 
 
 dives at its contents. These would have been wholly 
 abstracted if some one had not cried "For shame ! " 
 The indignant waiter, breathing hard, had set his 
 trophy of conquest once more on the table when he 
 suddenly recollected that there was a bowl of claret- 
 punch down-stairs, and hurried to fetch it. While he 
 was gone the lad with the jacket and the jowls re-emer- 
 ged from his coign of semi-concealment among friends 
 and did something surreptitiously dreadful to the 
 pyramid of candied orange-quarters, for it partially 
 collapsed and therewith the lad secured no slight 
 amount of sticky loot, after the fashion of other more 
 historic depredators. His cool deed of infamy was a 
 signal for two youths in another part of the room to 
 attack the little turrets of pink-and- white ice-cream 
 with spoons and plates as their impromptu weapons 
 of siege. Quickly, after that, the sweets and the ice- 
 cream were quite demolished by others, a miniature 
 horde in the wake of these small leading vandals. 
 When the waiter arrived with the bowl of claret-punch 
 he uttered a dismayed groan that "roused general 
 laughter. But there had not been enough of these 
 latter dainties to satisfy the assembled number, and 
 abruptly a wild shriek was heard from Lizzie Giebel- 
 house. "Pink ice-cream!" she shouted. "I want 
 some pink ice-cream!" Her lamentation created 
 more laughter, and while its peals yet rang she threw 
 herself on the floor in front of her mother and began 
 to kick with a truly epileptic vigor. 
 
 "Conrad!" cried Mrs. Giebelhouse, and the sweet- 
 tempered sire of Lizzie hurried forward and picked 
 her up, carrying her from the room, followed by her 
 wrathful mother. 
 
 "Oh, what a funny marriage that is! " murmured
 
 82 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan to the renowned Mr. Spangle, who 
 had taken a seat at her side. "The wife's tyrant 
 number one, the child's tyrant number two, and the 
 husband's a willing slave to 'em both." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Heffernan, who had just then 
 come up to his wife with a plate of ice-cream which 
 she refused to accept in the circumstances of general 
 famine for that luxury, "so long as he is a willing 
 slave, why ain't he happier than if he tried to boss 
 things and got kicked back for his pains?" 
 
 "Ho-ho, Mr. Heffernan," laughed Mr. Spangle, 
 who fairly exuded jollity. "That's fine talk for a 
 wedding ! I'm glad my wife ain't here. What's that?" 
 he broke off, seeing the punch-bowl. "Stuff to drink, 
 as I'm a sinner! We must propose the health o' the 
 couples." And he hurried to do so. 
 
 The punch, like everything else, was insufficient; 
 but Mr. Spangle managed to usurp the ladle, dole 
 himself out three glassfuls, and at length launch into 
 a hymeneal address. 
 
 It was a very pompous and silly address, though 
 it would have been received with much warmer 
 plaudits if the thin, pink fluid had not proved so 
 sadly unequal to the consumptive powers of those 
 who hearkened. A titter went round when the 
 orator made, allusion, among other tumid common- 
 places, to the "flowing bowl" whence these bridal 
 healths were being drunk. So infelicitous a slip 
 lamed the effect of his further remarks, and he re- 
 tired from^the void punch-bowl with a series of back- 
 ward crestfallen jerks. 
 
 " I wish I hadn't come," growled a bony girl of the 
 Legree clan, as the whole assemblage now moved 
 into the front parlor. " If Tenny and me had staid
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 83 
 
 over to the store we'd a got something feat, not a 
 spoonful of ice cream and a sliver o' yeller candy. If 
 I'd only got a few o' them cuts o' glazed orange, I'd 
 have stuck 'em away somewheres for poor little 
 Tommy. He screeched and yelled 'cause we wouldn't 
 let him come, and we \vere 'fraid he'd carry on when 
 he caught sight o' the lunch. But I guess he'd a be- 
 haved better than that Giebelhouse young one. F' 
 all her blue kid gaiters and her fash'nable frock, little 
 Tom's got better manners than her! " 
 
 "Hush, Kitty," said the lady with the coronal 
 braid, who was Kitty's mother and the absent 
 Tommy's, too. "Keep your mouth shut. Ain't I 
 often told you, child, that it's good manners when 
 you're out in company and get riled, no matter by 
 what, to keep your mouth shut ? " 
 
 "She ain't had much chance to open it where the 
 grub's been, Aunt Susan," said the jacketed youth 
 who had laid low the pyramid of confectionery, even 
 if his daring had thus far fired no Ephesian dome. 
 
 This bit of humor wrought its consoling effect, 
 and softened for its hearers the pang of going hungry 
 again into the front parlor. There is no such way of 
 inflicting distress upon a wedding-party as to dis- 
 appoint it in the viands of its expected feast, and 
 perhaps Mr. Spangle realized this during the next 
 few minutes of low-voiced talk and dreary general 
 awkwardness that now ensued. Outside in the street 
 a cling-clang organ of the modern kind was playing 
 with vociferous ardor. Nobody heard it, or, hear- 
 ing, nobody heeded it, until suddenly, through some 
 audacious jollity of Mr. Spangle, its owner was in- 
 duced to enter with it into the narrow little hall close 
 upon the parlor, Then, when its riotously jingling
 
 84 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 strains began, there at the very elbows of everybody, 
 a great start responded, followed by a great outburst 
 of acclaim. And immediately Mr. Spangle, tripping 
 into the room with his corpulence nimbly set at 
 naught, exclaimed in tones of high glee: 
 
 "A Virginia reel, ladies and gentlemen ! A reg'lar 
 old-fashioned Virginia reel ! Come, take partners ; ' ' 
 and he made a "pigeon wing" and a bow before the 
 just-created Eunice Legree, who rose bashfully as his 
 hand caught her finger-tips. Then there was a rush 
 for places, the bolder ones dragging those more 
 reluctant. 
 
 Meanwhile, with glittering eyes and extreme pallor 
 of visage, Austin Legree arraigned oysterman Kinni- 
 cutt in the vacated back parlor. 
 
 "You've made a fizzle of things, sir," he said, " and 
 there's not a shred of excuse for it." 
 
 "Draw it a little milder, Austin," spoke Harvey 
 Kinnicutt, who just then came up to him, Dora 
 chancing to follow the next minute. 
 
 The two bridegrooms faced one another, as Mr. 
 Kinnicutt (a bald man, with a faded, irresponsible 
 look) retorted crisply : 
 
 " I guess he had ought to draw it milder, upon my 
 word! Mistakes will happen " 
 
 " Mistakes ! " Legree sneered. " You.knew just how 
 many were coming. You've botched things damn- 
 ably. It's an infernal shame ; you ought to go and 
 hide your head." 
 
 Neither Harvey nor Dora had ever seen him so 
 angry before. He appeared to them in a new, as- 
 tonishing phase. It seemed to Dora that a kind of 
 white flame, like that of lightning itself, leapt from 
 his cold, brilliant eyes. Her thoughts flew to Eunice.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 85 
 
 Surely she had never known he could look and act 
 like this ! 
 
 "Austin," Dora urged, "never mind. It was a 
 mistake; it must have been. And you should learn 
 respect for your elders. What would Eunice say if 
 she saw you now ? " 
 
 Legree ignored Dora and cast another scathing 
 glance on the elder Kinnicutt. " It's just such devil- 
 ish mistakes, as you call 'em," he said, hoarsely, 
 "that have made you pop from place to place on 
 Sixth avenue for years past. Confound you, I " 
 
 "Austin," broke in Harvey, "that's my father! " 
 
 Legree snapped his finger and thumb in the air. 
 " You better feel proud of him now, when he's made 
 of our whole wedding-lunch nothing but a disgusting 
 farce!" 
 
 Harvey's clouded face darkened more as he turned 
 it on his father. " By jove, that's true," he said, the 
 great influence Legree held over him re-exerting its 
 force. 
 
 "Harvey," exclaimed Dora, recoiling, "you must 
 remember it is your father, though! You " 
 
 But just then the clamors of the street-organ struck 
 on all their ears. 
 
 "What's that? " shot from Legree. He hurried to 
 the open folding-doors between back parlor and 
 front. For some little time he stood gazing at the 
 jaunty generalship of Mr. Spangle, while that per- 
 sonage massed his fellow-revellers for the expected 
 reel, and while the newly-domiciled organ trilled its 
 tempestuous allegros. If, all this while, he had been 
 making up his mind to act in any resolute manner, 
 he must have reached a decision just as the couples 
 had all been marshalled and the dance was about to
 
 86 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 begin. For he then walked swiftly into the parlor 
 and in a very commanding tone broke forth : 
 
 "Mr. Spangle, ifyou please ! " 
 
 With a really noble twirl of one toe, Mr. Spangle 
 was about to open the dance. But he paused as he 
 saw Legree's pale face and lifted hand. "Well, sir," 
 he said, "what's up? " 
 
 "Just this," replied Legree, and his voice had the 
 cut of a knife in it. "You can't bring hand-organs 
 out of the street into this house and expect 'em to 
 play for you to polka by. If you wanted so much to 
 have a dance, I guess you've got money enough to 
 have brought your own band o' music." 
 
 "Oh, . . I . . have, havel?" stammered Mr. Spangle, 
 utterly taken aback. 
 
 Legree deigned no answer, but darted out of the 
 room, and almost in a trice had hustled the organ- 
 man from the narrow little hall into the street, where 
 he belonged. 
 
 A general murmur, dubious in character, followed 
 the exit of Legree. Yet by the time that he had re- 
 turned into the parlor, opinion had become definitely 
 shaped. Nearly everybody sided with the young 
 bridegroom, in spite of his having cut short the pros- 
 pective dance. "He's perfectly right," passed about 
 the room . . "Spangle, the rich carpet-man's, too fresh 
 altogether" . . "It was all a rowdy business, any- 
 how" . . "I'm glad he fired up and talked his mind 
 square out like that" . . . 
 
 These and similar comments greeted Legree's sec- 
 ond appearance. Eunice, mortified and trembling, 
 met him, with the words "Oh, Austin, please excuse 
 me/" He caught her hand, looked into her face, and 
 the hardness in his eyes grew soft. What wonder,
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 87 
 
 indeed, since she was the only woman he had ever 
 even remotely approached loving, and this was their 
 nuptial hour? But an impulse quite in accord with 
 his dying and pacified anger made Legree, while he 
 presently turned and perceived that the important 
 Mr. Spangle had sunk, purple \vith rage, into a chair, 
 feel regret for having offended a personage of so much 
 conceded wealth. One of his rare fits of ire having 
 faded, the man became himself again ; and that was 
 a self replete with tendencies of social policy. 
 
 Still, he chose no conciliatory course. Gently lead- 
 ing Eunice from the room, he whispered a few words 
 in her ear. She at once went upstairs, he following. 
 Soon Dora became aware that she had gone, and 
 went also, accompanied by Harvey. 
 
 Annette had wholly detested the idea of the organ- 
 grinder's entrance, and this shock had come rack- 
 ingly upon her after the shame of the insufficient 
 luncheon. She had attempted no duties as hostess. 
 The best that her strained and grieving heart could 
 do was tacitly to contain its acheful sorrow. She 
 simply did not dare to go upstairs and be with her 
 sisters while they changed their dresses. She now 
 saw Mr. Spangle rise from his chair and stand for a 
 moment glaring all about him, as though he were in 
 search of somebody to insult. She wondered if he 
 would select her, as a scion of the house, on whom 
 to pour his vials of evident scorn. When, in another 
 minute, he strode fiercely from the room, she felt her- 
 self breathe freer. And then, as it seemed to her, the 
 company talked together in tones almost low and 
 sober enough for a funeral. Alas, it was all a funeral 
 to poor Annette ! 
 
 The time seemed interminable until her two sisters
 
 88 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 and their husbands reappeared, all clothed in a far 
 different way from that in which they had last been 
 seen. A throe of guilty grief now pierced Annette. 
 They must have needed her upstairs. How had they 
 got on without her help ? Had Catharine properly 
 aided them? Had they thought her derelict and 
 marvelled at her absence? But she could not have 
 gone up there she could not ! If she had gone it 
 \vould have been impossible for her to come down- 
 stairs again and see them depart see them really de- 
 part from her, these sisters whom she so treasured 
 and who might be passing out of the old sweet inter- 
 sisterly life forever . . forever ! 
 
 At length there was a flurry on the stairs, and the 
 parlor soon emptied all its guests into the hall. 
 Some of the bridegrooms' friends were ready with 
 rice to fling after both the carriages which were 
 waiting outside. As for Annette, she sat alone in 
 the void parlor, clenching her hands, fearing to stir. 
 
 "I must I must," she said aloud, and rose to her 
 feet. Suddenly Eunice rushed into the room. 
 
 "Annette, child," she called, " where are you ? " 
 
 "Oh, Eunice!" 
 
 "Now don't be so heart-broken, Annette! I'll 
 write I'll telegraph so will Dora! Annette! You 
 look so strange! " The tears were streaming down 
 Eunice's flushed cheeks. "Why don't you cry as I 
 do, darling?" 
 
 "I I can't," gasped Annette, pale as paper. "Oh. 
 Dora," she exclaimed an instant later, "you, too ! " 
 
 The three clung together, then, after Dora had 
 hurried in, just as they had clung more than once 
 when the shadow of death fell on them a short time 
 ago. Some of the guests pushed across the threshold,
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 89 
 
 but drew backward when they saw what was 
 passing. Eunice and Dora were both in tears. An- 
 nette only pressed her cold cheeks, her cold lips, to 
 either face. " Oh, ray dear ones, my dear ones ! " she 
 said, in a quivering whisper. ' ' Do forgive me ! If I 
 look queer and can't cry as you do, it isn't because 
 my heart is breaking no, no but only because it's 
 bending a little . . bending . . that's all, dears, that's 
 all!" 
 
 Annette scarcely remembered, a half hour or so 
 later, just how Catharine had got her upstairs and 
 laid her on the small bed near her sisters' larger one 
 the bed where she had slept ever since her father's 
 death. She knew the guests had all gone. The little 
 house seemed very still. Aunt 'Liza had been there 
 and kissed her and pressed her hand and said she 
 would drop in soon again ; and just before departing, 
 Aunt Ida Giebelhouse had appeared and told her to 
 cheer up and given- her a frigid kiss, like the peck of a 
 parrot. 
 
 As she felt stronger, now, Annette rose from the 
 bed, walking somewhat unsteadily. Oh, how still 
 everything seemed ! 
 
 " Catharine," she called, " Catharine." 
 
 A few minutes later the faithful Catharine came, 
 and found that she had sunk upon the floor in a 
 sitting attitude and bowed her head as though op- 
 pressed by "the change and not the change" in a 
 hundred familiar features of that silent room. But 
 she was weeping now, poor child, as Catharine tend- 
 erly raised her, and weeping with all the more vio- 
 lence, no doubt, because of her long abstinence from 
 tears. 
 
 New experiences in life are not always entered
 
 90 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 across unobstructed thresholds ; and whatever may 
 have been just the mode of ingress now used by 
 Annette, it surely cost her novel pain. For indeed 
 there are certain alterations in this human lot of 
 ours which may only be reached by approaches harsh 
 as those spiked walls over "which to climb at all is to 
 leave some of our blood behind us.
 
 VII 
 
 When the two bridal pairs returned, after a brief 
 absence from New York, it lacked only a few days of 
 the first of May ; and that was the date of general 
 exit from the West Eleventh street house. Annette 
 was a splendid helper, as both her sisters agreed, in 
 the toils and demands of preparation. She appeared 
 to have lost every shade of her former melancholy, 
 and to be now all hardihood, sympathy and alert- 
 ness. There was a great deal to be done, for the 
 house had been rented furnished, and the two adjacent 
 flats in the large Seventh avenue apartment-building 
 near Fourteenth street were bare of everything, from 
 carpet to window-shade. Money was now needed 
 for purchases, and as yet the Trask estate supplied 
 but little. Austin Legree secured a liberal sum, how- 
 ever, which was advanced him by Hefiernan. He did 
 not mention this favor to anyone except Harvey 
 Kinnicutt, and then in secrecy. The days of purchase, 
 of packing, of cold mercantile and domestic calcula- 
 tion, were dreary days enough to those concerned in 
 them. ; Then came the actual occupancy of new quar- 
 ters, and at last the settled process of living in them,
 
 92 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 with Annette as Eunice's companion for the next six 
 months, according to previous arrangement. 
 
 " I guess you'll always stay here, though," said 
 Eunice, after Annette had slept for several nights in 
 her small bedroom, and shown signs that she was 
 getting used to its fair if limited accommodations. 
 "You're now just as much with Dora as you are with 
 me, you know." 
 
 "So I am," agreed Annette. "Why, it's all one 
 stretch o' rooms, Eunice, with merely that little hall- 
 way between ours and hers." 
 
 "But, perhaps, you'll rather feel yourself Dora's, 
 half the year, and mine the other half," said Eunice. 
 "And, perhaps," she added, "Dora may get jealous 
 if you don't." 
 
 "Dora jealous!" laughed Annette. "You can't 
 mean it, Eunice ! As if either of MS could be jealous 
 of the way one cared for the other ! " 
 
 "I was only joking, of course," said Eunice; and 
 Annette, replying "I should think you were!" struck 
 her playfully on the cheek .... 
 
 Time \vent by. The summer came, and it was a 
 cool one through June, but sternly the reverse during 
 early July. Precisely alike in space, the two adjoining 
 suites of rooms were pretty, but by no means com- 
 modious. When the heat came it wrought dis- 
 comfort, but both of the young wedded couples ap- 
 peared to stand it stoically. 
 
 "I'm the only one that complains, " Annette said. 
 She sighed, and added: "I suppose I'm the only one 
 that misses the dear old house we've left." 
 
 It seemed to her, all through that summer, as if 
 her sisters could not well be much happier than they 
 were. There were really two establishments, but it
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 93 
 
 often appeared exactly like one. The narrow little 
 intervening hall was so easy to slip across, and then 
 any friend ^of Eunice's was sure to be a friend of 
 Dora's too. A visit paid Mrs. Legree was paid like- 
 wise to Mrs. Kinnicutt, and vice versa. For a good 
 while they all five spent their evenings together, and 
 through many weeks of that same placid unrecorded 
 life which is going on in countless homes, Annette 
 told herself that both her sisters were married in the 
 happiest possible way. She wanted to be excessively 
 loyal and impartial in her liking for either husband. 
 She did not wish to care for one the least bit more 
 than she cared for the other; but at last she found 
 that her preference was drifting in the direction of 
 Kinnicutt. 
 
 After all, he was infallibly amiable, and of Legree 
 that could not be said. Legree was subject to moods, 
 and they were not al \vays gracious ones. Now and 
 then Annette wondered that Eunice should so quickly 
 have grown used to his curt responses and loveless 
 looks. It began to dawn upon her that he was not 
 an easy man to live with, while Kinnicutt was easy 
 in a marked degree. If the husband of Eunice chanced 
 to drop in of an afternoon when she and Annette 
 were occupied with callers, nothing could excel his 
 manner for winsomeness and suavity. But the mo- 
 ment they went away this bland mien departed with 
 it. In his courting-daj'S he had not shown a glimpse 
 of any such repellent hardness. "Good Heavens," 
 thought Annette, "what a lifter of veils marriage is!" 
 One evening he came home to their five o'clock din- 
 ner, and the joint of meat proved to be quite reck- 
 lessly over-cooked. ' 'You will keep that Catharine, ' ' 
 he grumbled to Eunice. "She isn't worth hersalt, as 
 I've told you often!"
 
 94 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "Hush, Austin, or she'll hear you," said Eunice. 
 (For they had no other servant except Catharine, 
 and she constantly came and went to and from the 
 near kitchen while they dined) . 
 
 "I don't care if she does hear me," retorted Legree. 
 "I've a good mind to go and discharge her on the 
 spot." 
 "Oh, you mustn't, you shant ! " exclaimed Annette. 
 
 "She's been with us so long, Austin, and " 
 
 "She's not with 'us' any more, if you please," he 
 broke in. 
 
 Annette bit her lips, and then a little spark came 
 into each of her big, dusky eyes. "Oh, I know very 
 well," she said bitterly, "that our house is broken 
 
 tip thanks to you." 
 
 "Thanks to me, eh?" he retorted, with a rattle of 
 laughter. "Well, I guess you're about right. If I 
 hadn't put my brains to work for all of you, things 
 would 'a' been blacker than they are now." 
 
 Annette gave her dark head an irritated toss. ' ' You 
 had your way," she said, "and that's the long and 
 short of it." Then she looked at Eunice, adding: "I 
 begin to think he has his way a good deal more than 
 might have been expected." 
 
 "Oh, Eunice fights me enough, if you mean that," 
 he replied, with a voice and air peculiar to himself; 
 for both were icy in their repression, and yet full of 
 insolent challenge, almost as if their owner had au- 
 dibly said: "See how I keep my temper, try to ruffle 
 it as you may." 
 
 "How can you, Austin?" cried Eunice, in hurt 
 tones. "If there's one thing I haven't done since our 
 marriage, it's fight you." 
 Their eyes met across the table, then, his cold and
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 95 
 
 shining, hers honest and reproachful. An epoch was 
 made in Eunice's life by that glance given and that 
 glance returned. She was a high-spirited nature; she 
 had been accustomed to lead at home since early girl- 
 hood, even her father often yielding to her and calling 
 her his young despot as he did so. But love, court- 
 ship and marriage had enveloped her in a taming and 
 subduing spell. With Dora they had not been agencies 
 of by any means the same sort; they had simply 
 made the younger sister more womanly and less 
 pranksome. What sad surprises had come to Eunice 
 since the beginning of her wifehood she had thus far 
 wholly failed to disclose. But this particular evening 
 sornehow ended them. She felt that whatever hap- 
 pened, now, she would no longer pay it the mental 
 tribute of consternation. 
 
 It is this way with so many women newly mar- 
 ried. The} 7 descend to a recognition of what their 
 husbands truly are by a little stairway whose steps 
 are made of separate astonishments and alarms. 
 There is nothing in its way lovelier there is nothing 
 fraught with a sweeter element of picturesqueness 
 than the surrender of a proud and self-reliant "woman 
 when passion and sentiment work in her the humb- 
 ling change. Eunice had made that kind of surrender, 
 and now there had come a time when for reasons 
 best known to her own disappointed heart, she de- 
 termined to retract it. The retraction was not by 
 any means a clean-cut proceeding at the commence- 
 ment of these new relations. But it was evident to 
 Legree; it had its natal angles and lines of formation, 
 like those of a dawning crystal watched by the eyes 
 of a chemist. For Legree, he was no tolerant 
 watcher. He perceived the movement of things per-
 
 96 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 fectly, and it roused in him a rebellion thatf drifted 
 upward from the depths of his nature as a sub- 
 aqueous weed might drift from the bottom of a pool. 
 
 Battle was in the air, now, and both of them 
 clearly understood it. Annette understood it, too. 
 Almost with tears she said to Dora, when the hot, 
 wearisome months had passed and autumn's grate- 
 ful respites had begun : 
 
 " I don't think Eunice is half so happy as you are." 
 
 "No? " said Dora, questioningly, and yet as if she 
 had known it all before. Then she leaned her lips 
 close to Annette's ear and whispered something, at 
 which her sister replied : 
 
 "That might cause a difference . . I don't know. 
 It's a bond, of course, in the joy, the hope it must 
 rouse. Yes, I I wish it were true of her as it is of 
 you!" 
 
 "Perhaps it may be, soon," said Dora, "and then 
 there'll be happier times." 
 
 Annette sighed. " Will there ever be, Dora ? " 
 
 " Good heavens, Annette ! You don't mean " 
 
 "Oh, I mean," shivered Annette, "that worse times 
 are coming for them both! Dora, you haven't 
 dreamed of what that man really is ! He's all for 
 self; he hasn't got a grain of human feeling." 
 
 "Annette!" 
 
 "Don't ask her, but watch and see if I'm not 
 right. You've been blinded by your own happiness ; 
 it's been like a kind of soft bandage laid on your 
 eyes. . . Don't ask her about it, I say, for she's too 
 proud and too hurt, just now. She wouldn't give in 
 that he's \vhat he is." 
 
 "You you don't think, then, that he loves her?" 
 asked Dora, with almost an accent of fright.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 97 
 
 " Dora," replied Annette, solemnly, " I don't believe 
 he ever loved any one. in the "whole world except him- 
 self." . . . 
 
 When she next saw Kinnicutt his wife asked him his 
 frank opinion of Austin Legree's nature. " After all, 
 Harv.," she said, "you've known him five times better 
 than all of us girls put together." 
 
 The young man smiled", passing a hand over his 
 blonde curls. "Austin wants his own way, you 
 know and I guess he just will have it, pretty much 
 always." 
 
 " Then you think he won't make Eunice happy ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't say that. But she's got to give in to 
 him. If she don't there'll be war." 
 
 " Well, suppose she don't, and there is war. What 
 then?,' 
 
 Kinnicutt laughed. "Why, there'll be some bones 
 broken that's all." 
 
 Dora gave a little scream, and caught him by either 
 shoulder, gazing scaredly into his face. "Harvey 
 Kinnicutt!" she cried, "do you dare to tell me that 
 he'll ever strike her? " 
 
 "Oh, no, I didn't mean that, Dora. God forbid. 
 But he'll . . well, he'll lead her a dance." 
 
 " And she'll tire him if he does ! Trust our Eunice ! 
 Why, even I am easier sat on than she is." 
 
 " You ! " mocked her husband. " Wait till you dis- 
 obey me, that's all! " And he caught her pink little 
 ear between thumb and finger, at which she gave a 
 scream of pretended anguish and struck him frown- 
 ingly with her clenched hand. After that he seized 
 her in his arms and kissed the ear that he had pinched, 
 while she cried out, "Stop it, sir, I'm very angry at 
 you" secretly thinking, all the while, how dreadful
 
 98 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 it was that Eunice should not have married in the 
 same happy way as herself. 
 
 The full arid amplitude of Legree's selfishness had 
 not appealed to his friend. Kinnicutt's perceptions 
 of character were short-sighted; if they had not 
 been he might have made a better newspaper man. 
 He saw Legree, as it were, in admiring perspective. 
 But there were other modes of seeing him, and some 
 of these it was now the harsh fate of Eunice to test. 
 The truth was, he belonged to that class of men who 
 are called bullies when they wear shabby gear and 
 let their beards push out into a week's growth, but 
 who are called, when they don smarter habits and 
 respect a razor, by the daintier name of autocrats. 
 Legree was only happy, in a domestic sense, when 
 he was enforcing obedience. Socially it was quite 
 otherwise with him. Even to cross over into the 
 Kinnicutts' rooms made a difference in his demeanor. 
 At the drug-shop, too, he was for the most part 
 genial enough \vith dependents, a word or two of often 
 just reproof being nearly always followed by a soft- 
 ening air. Home was the one theatre of his tyrannic 
 exploits. Instinctively he must have meant it, when 
 he created it by marriage, to stand for a sort of dis- 
 robing chamber, in which all disguises worn else- 
 where should be flung aside on passing its threshold. 
 His choice of Eunice had been an odd one ; it was not 
 solely founded on ambition, though that, as a 
 motive, had swayed him. Some latent trait of 
 potential defiance in her had piqued him to passion ; 
 there are men who only love when she who attracts 
 them suggests the triumph of future subjugation. 
 For Eunice, the moment that he lost the heroic 
 glamour in which she had clothed him, he became
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 99 
 
 like one of her ordinary associates, a person to be 
 approved or disapproved as his conduct lowered or 
 lifted him in her sight. She had not yet ceased to 
 care for him, but her manner of caring for him had 
 lost its romantic allegiance. Her regard now wanted 
 to judge, dictate, rebuke, counsel. And in the circum- 
 stances this desire was one fraught \vith terrible 
 threat to her wifely peace. 
 
 A week or two later he came around from the shop 
 one afternoon when Annette chanced to be out, and 
 in his humor she noted a certain buoyant security. 
 He soon said to her, while she stood in their bed- 
 room, sorting some new washed underwear and 
 placing it in the bureau-drawers where they belonged: 
 
 " I guess this year is going to be the best that store 
 has ever seen since trade was started in it." 
 
 " Yes? " she answered, and then with a thought of 
 her father's long tarriance there among the drugs 
 and vials, continued: "That's a pretty bold state- 
 ment, isn't it, Austin ? Poor pa worked there a good 
 many years, you know, and made things pay rather 
 well." 
 
 "Oh, I understand all that. But what I said I 
 meant." 
 
 " Did you ? I'm glad enough if affairs are so pros- 
 perous. Now that one of the mortgages can't bother 
 us any more, it \vould be splendid if we could soon 
 get rid of the other." 
 
 "Quite right. I want to manage it, and so clear 
 the estate." Legree's rectitude in business, in all 
 dealings monetary or commercial, was flawless. 
 Whatever his faults, no one could cast a slur upon 
 his shining probity. 
 
 "Yes," Eunice assented. "I do hope the estate
 
 100 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 (though that seems such a grand word to use for it!) 
 can be cleared soon. Then we'll each have our own 
 clear share, you see, and if Annette should marry 
 during the next few years she'll know exactry how 
 she stands." 
 
 Legree, who had thrown himself into a chair and 
 now sat with legs crossed and arms folded, began to 
 stare straight ahead of him in a blank, musing style. 
 
 " The shares of each of the three heirs are all clear 
 enough now. The law provides 'em and makes as 
 good a will, after all, as any Isaac Trask could have 
 made himself." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Eunice, nodding decisively. "I 
 saw that when we all had to go down and sign- 
 papers there at the City Hall. How long ago it 
 seems! So this other mortgage won't make any 
 difference about the division of the property? " 
 
 Not looking at her, and still in the same posture, he 
 went on: "Good heavens, why should it? What 
 ignoramuses j^ou women are about these matters ! " 
 
 Eunice bristled, but said nothing. She continued 
 the work of folding and putting the garments into 
 their proper places. 
 
 In tones of rumination he soon proceeded : "Let 
 the business keep for a few months longer as thrifty 
 as it is now, and I'll pay Heffernan my debt to the 
 last dollar." 
 
 "Heffernan?" said Eunice, turning toward him 
 with a start. 
 
 He answered her start with one of his own, and 
 laughed, a little embarrassedly. " By Jove," he broke 
 out, "I was kind o' talking to myself, I'm 'fraid. 
 Oh, well; let it go. If you didn't know before, you 
 might as well know now."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 101 
 
 "Know what?" asked Eunice. "That you've 
 been borrowing money from un from Andrew Hef- 
 fernan? " 
 
 "Why not say uncle Andrew Heffernan?" he re- 
 turned. "Are you ashamed to call him so? You 
 needn't be. The money I gave you three girls for the 
 business, when I bought you out, came from his 
 pocket." 
 
 Eunice kept silent, a look of accusation leaving her 
 eyes. This mute answer appeared to prick its recipi- 
 ent, for he rose from his chair and threw his head 
 back affrontedly, saying: 
 
 "If you don't like it you can do the other thing 
 that's all. I let it slip, but there's no reason why 
 you shouldn't have known it long ago." 
 
 "Then," said Eunice, in her most judicial voice, "if 
 there was no reason, why didn't you tell it to me 
 long ago? " 
 
 He giggled, and \vith plain insolence. "Is'pose I 
 must have thought you'd sputter, just as you're 
 doing now." 
 
 Eunice gathered her brows together. " You knew," 
 she said, "that we wouldn't have let you buy pa's 
 business out with money borrowed from him." 
 
 " Bosh ! His money's as good as anybody else's." 
 
 " That may be. But it doesn't touch the point." 
 
 "Oh, it don't, eh?" 
 
 " Pa never approved " she began, and then broke 
 
 off. "But let that pass, Austin. You understood 
 just how we felt how poor pa had felt for years. 
 You deceived us. It wasn't nice in you. It was a 
 mean trick for you to serve us. 
 
 "Mean, was &, eh?" he said, coming toward her 
 with both hands in his pockets and his face grown 
 perceptibly paler.
 
 VIII 
 
 Eunice did not flinch a jot while he thus approached 
 her. " Yes," she said, "it was mean." 
 
 He was quite close to her as he replied: "Do you 
 know that's a pretty saucy way for you to talk to 
 me?" 
 
 "Is it?" she said, with her eyes flashing. "Then 
 I'll be saucier still, Austin. I'll tell you that you 
 treated your wife and your two sisters-in-law as no 
 man with a spark of the right respect for them ought 
 to have done. I don't know what I shall say to Dora 
 and Annette! They'll both be horribly put out, of 
 course. We were all three brought up to honor our 
 father's wishes." 
 
 He pushed out his underlip -with an effect that she 
 had never seen on his face before. "Pish!" he ex- 
 claimed. "In a good many things that father of 
 yours was a devilish old fool." 
 
 It was perhaps her look of agony and anger that 
 caused him to turn away. As he did so she took a 
 few steps toward him. 
 
 "How dare you, Austin Legree?" rang her next 
 words. " To speak like that of him ! It's too horri- 
 ble !" Then she went to a wardrobe, unclosed it and
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 103 
 
 stood quite still. In the silence that now came be- 
 tween them he could see her tight-clinched lips and 
 knotted hands. He had a desire (not of rage, at all, 
 but one simply masterful and imperious) to seize her 
 body and shake it, to force her hands open by wrench- 
 ings or even blows. As he watched her it gave him a 
 thrill to think of his own potential cruelties ; he seemed 
 to lean over a verge of self-confidence and look at 
 the extent of brutality that was possible to him, 
 where it stretched vaguely below. 
 
 Eunice made a visible effort, and after folding a gar- 
 ment that hung across her arm, placed it on one of 
 the wardrobe shelves. While she did this her face was 
 half turned from him ; but on a sudden she veered 
 round and showed him that her checks were a blaze 
 of color. She was one of those women whom agita- 
 tion reddens. 
 
 " Look here," she said, in a choked voice. " Pa's 
 picture's hanging there in the parlor. Before you and 
 I can ever be friends again, you've got to go and 
 stand in front of it, Austin Legree, and tell me you're 
 sorry you insulted him and ask me to forgive you." 
 
 He burst into a peel of scoffing laughter. "Mark 
 my words, now," she cried, with lifted hands, like a 
 fiery young prophetess. "You shall do it, or we shall 
 never again be on any but the coldest terms." 
 
 While he repeated his laugh she hurried from the 
 room. In a little while Annette returned, and she 
 told her everything. 
 
 Annetta was at first indignant. Then she grew 
 melancholy. " Oh, how could he so have lowered 
 himself as to speak of pa like that?" 
 
 "Pa," exclaimed Eunice, with her head in the air, 
 " who'd made him what he is !"
 
 104 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "That's true," agreed Annette. She did not receive 
 it at all as the other did. There was no dictatorship, 
 no domination about this younger sister. Dora had 
 flashes of these qualities, but by no means in the 
 measure possessed by Eunice. The eldest of the fam- 
 ily had alwa} r s taken upon herself to do all the scold- 
 ing, arraigning and even inflicting of penances. It 
 was with a certain awe of her sister's past rule that 
 Annette now continued : "And you really mean, then, 
 not to make up with him at all until he apologizes ?" 
 
 "He must go with me before pa's portrait, " de- 
 clared Eunice, having just then a look and an accent 
 that her observer had noted hundreds of times in 
 other days, "and he must ask both pa's forgiveness 
 and mine." 
 
 "Oh, "murmured Annette anxiously, clasping her 
 hands, "what if he shouldn't do it?" 
 
 "You mean, of course, if he refuses." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Oh, very well ! 7ethim. I guess he'll be sorry, 
 sooner or later." 
 
 "But, Eunice," pleaded Annette, "he's your hus- 
 band, you know. And a wife can't " 
 
 "Now, Annette, don't law down the law to me, if 
 you please" Eunice broke in. "I know exactly what 
 I'm about." And then she began to scold and lecture 
 Annette in the form with which her sister was per- 
 fectly familiar and to which she listened in the most 
 complaisant, matter-of-course way , knowing \vell that 
 behind any snubs and hurts that Eunice might ad- 
 minister, slept a rich fund of love. 
 
 " I should think you would stand up for poor pa's 
 memory as much as I do," Eunice recommenced, and 
 followed this reproach by views upon the mutual ob-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 105 
 
 ligations of the married state, interblent with not a 
 few sharp personal raps, such as "Dora will feel with 
 me if you don't," or "It's high tinre, child, that you 
 got to see what a big difference there'll be between 
 honoring your own future husband and letting him 
 treat you like a slave." 
 
 At dinner, that evening, there was complete silence 
 between husband and wife, though either of them ad- 
 dressed certain remarks to Annette. Afterward Le- 
 gree left the house, going, as he nearly always did, to 
 the near drug-shop, which was not shut until ten 
 o'clock. 
 
 People who dwell in close quarters like those usually 
 found in a Seventh avenue flat, cannot maintain 
 quarrels especially when they are matrimonial ones 
 with any marked amount of dignity on either side. 
 Eunice began to realize this fact as she thought of her 
 husband's return, and the excited flush hardly \vaned 
 from her face throughout all that evening. She and 
 Annette spent two hours of it in Dora's parlor. The 
 whole story of the disagreement was repeated, and 
 Kinnicutt, before he departed to perform a piece of 
 night reporting, heard it in full. While he put on his 
 overcoat he said to Eunice in a tone of gentle but con- 
 fident warning : 
 
 " Don't you push things too far. Take my advice. 
 Austin won't be driven." 
 
 "Neither will I! " flared Eunice, with head an inch 
 higher than was her wont to hold it. " Is there any 
 reason why one of us should have the right to do 
 more driving than the other?" 
 
 Kinnicutt smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 
 "Some folks must be humored so as to get along 
 with them," he said. " Everybody '11 tell you that."
 
 106 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "Everybody can tell it to me till till everybody's 
 black in the face," replied Eunice. "But that won't 
 make it so. Folks that want to get more than they 
 give more than they either ought to want or ought 
 to have given 'em should be taught lessons." 
 
 "You can't teach Austin lessons like that," said 
 Kinnicutt, very seriously, as he began to button his 
 overcoat. 
 
 "Oh, well," declared Eunice, with a bitter, nervous, 
 obstinate hardening of the mouth, " at least I'm able 
 to try." 
 
 When Kinnicutt had gone, she talked to Dora and 
 won her inevitable sympathy. At the same time, 
 Dora proffered characteristic, half-humorous counsel. 
 "I'd make believe I didn't mind it, for the present, 
 Eunice, and then some day I'd give him such a dig 
 about his own people that he'd have to fire up ; and 
 when he did, I'd say, 'why, mercy me, my gentle- 
 man, does this kind o' thing bother you as much as 
 it does me?' I'd catch him that way; you might 
 make him just squirm \vith rage, but you'd show 
 him you could hit back when the time came." 
 
 But no such course pleased Eunice. Her nature 
 was deeper than Dora's, and her sense of justice was 
 hence more acute. She demanded from her husband 
 the same sort of reparation which she herself would 
 have been willing to make if any like fault could have 
 beed laid at her own door. Just as he was born for 
 domination, so was she born for revolt. In one was 
 the spirit of masculine oppression; in one was 
 that of feminine liberty. One would have made an 
 excellent suzerain ; the other would have failed sadly 
 as a serf. 
 
 "He must \vipe away that slander," said Eunice,
 
 MUST WEEP 
 
 with grim firmness, just before she left Dora's room. 
 "As Aunt Ida Giebelhouse put it, a woman has got 
 to begin right when she marries. I'm going to begin 
 that way. I'll take my stand, come what will." 
 
 A little before ten o'clock she kissed Annette and 
 told her to go to bed. Poor Annette obeyed, and 
 while she was undressing heard Legree come in. But 
 only silence followed, though she expected the dis- 
 tressing reverse. As the silence continued (not even 
 the least sound of a voice breaking it) she at last fell 
 asleep. 
 
 When she met them at breakfast the next morning 
 she knew that the same silence must have gone on till 
 then. A few commonplaces passed between herself and 
 Legree, and presently he rose, soon afterward going 
 out. Annette looked across the table at her sister. 
 
 "Oh, Eunice," she said, "things can't keep on like 
 this." 
 
 "/don't want them to keep on, I'm sure," said 
 Eunice, loftily. 
 
 " But you might speak to him." 
 
 "He don't give me a chance. Last night when he 
 came in he passed me by with a look. . . Well, if I'd 
 been the lowest of the low, he couldn't have made it 
 much worse! I 'spose he expects me to beg his par- 
 don, or do some such crazy thing. But let him ex- 
 pect what he pleases. I've made my resolve, and I 
 won't budge from it one jot." 
 
 A little later that morning, Mrs. Giebelhouse and 
 Lizzie appeared. Dora was sent for, and the lady 
 was soon in converse with her three nieces. She had 
 on a street-costume which she held to be in the pink 
 of taste, but which her present observers clearly 
 recognized as one of the freaks of her deathless
 
 108 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 economy. It betrayed that tentative effect, as re- 
 garded the slopes of its cutting, which bespoke some 
 cheap dressmaker "in for the day." Lizzie had a 
 flamboyantly holiday air with respect to her dress, 
 but only scowls of the shabbiest kind for her cousins. 
 She was not at all diffident, but merely cross and un- 
 social. She clung to her mother, refusing all hospi- 
 talities of an immaterial sort, and hiding in the heart 
 that must have lain somewhere inside her narrow 
 little stooping chest agreed for "something nice to 
 eat," which her mother had sternly forbidden her to 
 mention. .Annette soon went and got her a large, 
 red apple, which she seized without the ghost of a 
 " thank you," and which she was at once maternally 
 forbidden to bite. Eunice, who disapproved of Lizzie, 
 secretly deplored Annette's gift. After receiving it 
 and being commanded not to touch it with her tiny 
 teeth, Lizzie kept staring at it with an avid flicker in 
 her dull eyes. She was not at all a bashful child; her 
 sullenness had no such excusable source. All through 
 her visit she kept lifting her thin, strait little face, 
 with its high cheek bones and its healthless pallor, 
 to the face of her mother, its maturer counterpart. 
 Questions accompanied these looks, peevish, auda- 
 cious, commanding, each in its way the very essence 
 of juvenile crudity. 
 
 "It was such a beautiful day," Mrs. Giebelhouse 
 announced, " that I thought I'd drop in and see how 
 you girls were getting on. . . So you're real settled, 
 ain't you? ' ' and she looked about her with a glance 
 that might have belonged to a newspaper critic at 
 the first performance of a play by his pet foe. 
 
 "We wondered what had become of you, Aunt 
 Ida," said Eunice, with a little attempt to be affable.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 109 
 
 " Me? Oh dear! I've had a dreadful cold since the 
 last one of you girls called; and then Lizzie here 
 (mind you don't bite that apple now till you get 
 home!) has had cramps and toothache and Lord 
 knows what else. Mr. Giebelhouse, he -wanted to go 
 down to Florida, but I sat down on that, Jean tell 
 you." 
 
 "Ma," said Lizzie, pulling at her mother's gown, 
 "what was it you sat down on? Ma! What was 
 it?" 
 
 "I guess it was your pa," said Mrs. Giebelhouse, 
 looking at her nieces. "I hate travelling; I have to 
 lay right flat on my back nearly all the time I sail, 
 and the cars ain't much better, for they make me 
 sick to the stomach, too." " I d'clare," she continued, 
 with one of her bleak laughs, and a drawing together 
 of her spare shoulders, as though they craved the 
 worsted shawl that so often clad them, " I sometimes 
 b'lieve the Lord either put me together in a hurry or 
 was thinking of something else. Anyhow, I ain't 
 good for much, ailing 'most always as I am 'cept to 
 make your uncle Conrad toe the mark." 
 
 "Doesn't Uncle Conrad ever refuse to toe the 
 mark? " asked Eunice, and both her voice and words 
 drew toward her the glance of either sister. 
 
 " Oh, yes, now and then. The other day he kicked 
 a little when I said I wouldn't go South. And when 
 I said I'd a good deal rather die here comf table in 
 my own house, he kicked more." 
 
 "Pa didn't never kick you, ma," affirmed Lizzie. 
 " Did he ? Did he, ma ? Did he ?" 
 
 " I rather guess not," said Mrs. Giebelhouse,though 
 without even a glance at the pallid little questioner, 
 who again pulled at her gown.
 
 110 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "But I shut him right up, girls. I showed him he 
 mustn't try to bulldoze me," 
 
 "How did you show him, Aunt Ida?" asked Eun- 
 ice ; and again the double sisterly look stole toward 
 her with gentle and covert anxiety. 
 
 "Oh, I talked. I talked for about five minutes 
 \vithout stopping. Your Uncle Conrad is rather 
 'fraid o' that, and I found out a good while ago that 
 there's hardly anything a wife can do that works 
 like a strong, steady flow o' talk." 
 
 "I shouldn't want my husband to be under my 
 thumb," said Dora, gayly. "If he was, I should get 
 so tired keeping him there." 
 
 "All right," said Mrs. Giebelhouse, with a shrewd, 
 acid little nod. " Take your thumb off, if you choose, 
 and give him his head. Mebbe some day you'll be 
 sorry you did." 
 
 "You speak as if you thought there were lots of 
 wives who were sorry that way," said Eunice. 
 
 "So there is," asserted Mrs. Giebelhouse. "Lots 
 and lots. They don't begin right. I hope both you 
 and Dora have begun right." 
 
 "What is beginning right?" asked Annette, after 
 another nervous side-glance at Eunice. " Isn't it for- 
 giving more than blaming? Christ taught that: 
 why shouldn't wives practice it? " 
 
 " Oh, don't lug in religion'' 1 chid Mrs. Giebelhouse. 
 " That's well enough for Sundays, but marriage has 
 got six other kinds o' days every week, and whether 
 you care to put it in your pipes, girls, and smoke it, 
 or whether you djon't, there ain't anything that 
 mortgages a man to Old Nick himself in the way o' 
 capers and deviltries worse than one o' your meek 
 spirits on the wife's part. That meek spirit's done
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 111 
 
 more harm than tongue can tell ; I hate these flabby 
 women that give in and don't take an tipper hand 
 right from the word ' go.' I tell ye, girls, the men ex- 
 pect to be bossed, and when they ain't it disappoints 
 'em. And the disappointment ain't sobering, neither; 
 it works on 'em in a frisky way. Why, mercy! If 
 your Uncle Conrad hadn't been caught hold of with a 
 firm grip right at the start, there's no telling how he 
 might 'a' cut up. Always recollect one thing, girls : 
 marriage means give and take on both sides, but the 
 more we women folks take and the less we give, the 
 better for every one of us in the long run. There, 
 now, Lizzie, didn't I telljou not to bite that apple?" 
 
 But Lizzie, with a disobedience that might have 
 been expected of her even sooner than it occurred, 
 had bitten the apple several times. Being now both 
 shaken and cuffed by her mother, she choked from a 
 morsel of the fruit and turned purple in the face. 
 Then Mrs. Giebelhouse shrieked, with alarm, her rage 
 (she never struck her child without rage, either in 
 public or private) fluttering away into a very hys- 
 teria of solicitude . . . 
 
 " What a visit! " exclaimed Dora, after Lizzie had 
 recovered, and mother and child had brought relief, 
 by their departure. "I rather guess Aunt Ida's 
 tongue would wag like mad if anyone else came 
 lugging such a vixen of a child to Ijer house." 
 
 " She's 'cute as she can be, though, in some things," 
 Eunice said, musingly. Annette gave Dora a plain- 
 tive glance, at this, and the latter said, with brisk 
 denial : 
 
 "About marriage, Eunice? Why, it made me 
 shiver to hear her talk ! What she said might be true 
 enough if there was no such thing as love between
 
 112 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 husband and wife. But it's just that very love that 
 makes all the difference." 
 
 " It ought to," murmured Eunice. 
 
 To-day soon seemed as if it were a day of visits, for 
 in less than an hour afterward Mrs. Heffernan ap- 
 peared. 
 
 "I'm so glad I missed your Aunt Ida," said that 
 lady, when told who had been there and gone. " She 
 sours me, somehow, just as thunder does milk." 
 
 "Oh," laughed Dora, "she's done it already with 
 us. We're all lopid!" And then there was a general 
 ripple of mirth, and Annette told about Lizzie and 
 the asphyxiating apple, with added comments re- 
 garding the matrimonial views of the departed guest. 
 
 Eunice did not speak for some time, and then she 
 began quite suddenly, inspired by that affection for 
 "Aunt 'Liza" which all the three sisters had felt 
 since childhood, but which had increased markedly 
 since their father's death. 
 
 "I'm going to say something right out to you," 
 Aunt 'Liza," were Eunice's first words, "and some- 
 thing that, perhaps, it might be thought better taste 
 if I kept to myself. But I can't help whether it's 
 better taste or not. Yesterday my husband aston- 
 ished me very much by telling me that he'd bought 
 pa's business with money borrowed from . . from 
 Uncle Andrew." After this Eunice went on with can- 
 dor just rude enough not to be offensive, lapsing 
 thence into a straightforward tale of her own wrongs 
 and the conditions of reconciliation that she had im- 
 posed. 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan listened with great attention, and 
 at length solemnly spoke. "My dear Eunice," she 
 said, "It won't do at all. You can't drive a man like
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 113 
 
 that. Of course, some men are sheep ; but take my 
 word for it, there's more o' the lion and the tiger, 
 too in most of 'em. Nine out of ten of the wives 
 known to you and I as what they call 'ruling' their 
 husbands, do it (when they do really do it, which - 
 ain't often ) by up-and-down humbug and deceit. I 
 tell ye what it is," Mrs. Heffernan pursued warming 
 to her subject, "we women mostly marry with all 
 the odds o' happiness against us, and when they turn 
 in our favorit's because we've got hold, by goodluck, 
 of a man that's a trump. But trumps are scarce cards 
 in the game o' husbands. Many a good man is a 
 brute in his own home, and yet would think you crazy 
 if you called him one. The fact is, they can't see, and 
 they won't be taught to see, that if we're weak in the 
 things they're strong in, it's because they're weak in 
 the things we're strong in. It ain't so long ago that 
 we were their slaves, mind, and they ain't forgot it 
 yet. You can often try to fool 'em and they'll see the 
 trick and make out they don't; but meet 'em square 
 and tell 'em what you think your rights are, pointing 
 out the wlry's and the wherefore's, and they'll either 
 turn round and hate ye, or else they'll hit back so 
 hard and savage that you'll have one out o' two 
 choices to knock under or to live in purgatory." . . . 
 Later that same day, Eunice compared the creeds 
 of her two aunts. Altogether, she thought, there 
 was more truth in that of Mrs. Giebelhouse, though 
 she was far from agreeing with it wholly. As for 
 the step she had taken, she still felt fixed in her intent 
 not to recede from it. When her husband came home 
 that afternoon she had made up her mind to break 
 the unnatural silence between them, and speak. But 
 as it turned out, he spared her the pains. He chose 
 
 to speak first. 
 8
 
 IX 
 
 Eunice entered their little front parlor as she heard 
 his steps. The bland November day was dying out- 
 side in hazy glimmers. Annette had gone on some 
 household errand ; Catharine was rooms away, in 
 the kitchen, preparing dinner. As Eunice stood and 
 looked at Legree unbutton his overcoat and throw it 
 across a chair, the stillness weighed upon her oppres- 
 sively. Words trembled on her lips, and she was 
 about to utter them, when he suddenly faced her, 
 shot into her eyes one of his bright, hard looks and 
 said: 
 
 "I hope you're over your tantrum, It's about time 
 you came to your senses." 
 
 Eunice started, and then slightly shuddered. "I 
 think just as I thought, Austin," she said, "and feel 
 just as I felt." She lifted her hand and pointed to the 
 wofully daubed portrait of her late father. "In his 
 presence," she continued, " I insist that you " 
 
 " Let up on that nonsense," he broke in. His voice 
 rose higher, and his manner breathed electric energy, 
 but he did not seem angered in the least. 
 
 " It isn't nonsense," Eunice said. " I " 
 
 "Look here: you're my wife, and Is 'pose you want
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 115 
 
 to live on good terms with me as such. Now you 
 can't do it by any flummery of this kind. You've got 
 to just pull those horns of yours right in right in, 
 d'ye understand ?" He had drawn quite close to her 
 as he thus spoke. " I \vant no more of these airs and 
 I won't have 'em. You must behave like a woman, 
 and not like an over-grown child." 
 
 ' 'It's because I wish to be a woman, Austin, that 
 I've taken this course." 
 
 "Taken this course! What the devil do you mean 
 by such impudence ? You might as well try to push 
 this house into the middle of the street with the tip 
 of your parasol as to budge me one inch by your 
 highfalutin talk." 
 
 "Very well," said Eunice. "Then I won't make 
 the effort." 
 
 "Explain yourself," he ordered. "If you won't 
 make the effort to browbeat me and play the high 
 and mighty with me, what will you do ? Behave* 
 like a sensible woman and stop playing silly 
 capers?" 
 
 "You cast a shameful slur upon my dear father," 
 said Eunice. 
 
 "Don't lie," he retorted, cool as steel. "I liked 
 your father and he liked me. What I said about him 
 is true enough, though, and many a better man 
 than him has deserved to be called an old fool. 
 Make sure of this, my lady : you'll hear a good sight 
 worse from me if you're not careful how you cheek 
 me." 
 
 "I've . . I've . .just heard you tell me not to 7/e," 
 gasped Eunice. "That's worse than I ever dreamed 
 I should hear from you." 
 
 " Is it ? Then you'll have to live and learn. You're
 
 116 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 not going to be handled with kid gloves while j^ou're 
 By wife ; don't make any mistake there I " 
 
 "I I must and shall have respectful treatment from 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, bosh! I shan't trim my words to suit your 
 fads and fancies. You'll take me as you find me." 
 
 "I find you abusive, outrageous. I won't take you 
 that way." 
 
 "Yes, you shall, if I choose to make you," he an- 
 swered, with a voice whose harshness was not paral- 
 leled by any other she had known to leave his lips. 
 "You can lord it as you like over your sisters, but 
 you'll bark the wrong tree if you expect to play 
 me in the same style." 
 
 He smiled as he spoke, and Eunice dropped her eyes 
 an instant before the bloodless bravado of that smile. 
 Then, raising them, she sought to answer that she 
 would either be his wife in the just and true sense or 
 that she would live with him no. longer. 
 
 But somehow, looking into his pitiless face, she 
 could not pronounce the words. Not that she feared 
 to do so, but that to do so would be to hint a rup- 
 ture that was horrible. She was planting her foot, 
 poor Eunice, on a path which many another woman 
 has trod many another woman, too, with all her 
 courage, all her hate of yokedom and mastership. 
 It was because she had loved this man that she had 
 married him, and though the tenderness and romance 
 with which her sex delight to clothe their love was 
 already shrivelling in the blast of dire discovery, the 
 love itself staid proof against such onslaught. She 
 perceived this truth then, in a moment of exquisite 
 and racking pain. Legree had turned her captor and 
 shook her chains, as if to attest it, boldly beneath
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 117 
 
 her eyes. But she might loosen those chains if she 
 could not break them. She was not helpless in his 
 hands. It flashed through her mind that the Heffer- 
 nans would help her if she chose to ask their aid, 
 and that dependence on them need not ensue. But 
 there was the new, sudden satire of her position, 
 like an abrupt-seen sneer on the sphinx-lips of des- 
 tiny. To defy him she must leave him; and to leave 
 him, frightfully though his very presence exhaled dis- 
 appointment, would be anguish that she had no hardi- 
 hood to confront. 
 
 It was a ghastly lesson for a spirit like hers. But 
 the swift and fateful minutes taught it her as she 
 stood there speechless at his side. Some hours come 
 to us armed with those white-hot brands for our 
 souls which sear them so deeply that the scars grow 
 a part of what they stamp. Such an hour had come 
 to Eunice now. She let herself slowly sink into a 
 chair, while her hands met in a tense clutch. 
 
 "Austin," she said, "I thought you cared for me." 
 
 From her own point of view this was about as 
 weak as anything she could have uttered. She saw 
 his smile deepen, and soften likewise. Then she burst 
 into tears, and as she strove to dry her streaming 
 eyes he came up to her and put his hand on her head. 
 
 "Why, certainly I care for you," he answered. 
 "You'll find me as good a husband as they make 'em, 
 Eunice. But you must remember to be a woman a 
 real womanly woman and not a vixen or a shrew." 
 
 Then he kissed her, once on the forehead, and again 
 (while she raised her head and looked at him with a 
 great wistfulness) full on the lips. He had a perfectly 
 secure sense of conquest now, and he covertly tingled 
 with it. He had not believed that she would be so
 
 118 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 docile, but lie had meant to crush her, sooner or 
 later, all the same. Of course, he already told him- 
 self, this was not the end with her; she would break 
 out again. And while he stood beside her and stroked 
 her hair or held her hand, talking in a placated 
 strain what was really the most insolent egotism 
 and condescension mingled, he felt a sort of regret 
 that the tussel had not proved a tougher one that 
 he had not been called upon to show his powers of 
 discipline and coercion in all their handsome en- 
 tirety. . . . 
 
 Eunice amazed her sisters by her new submissive- 
 ness. At first it seemed to them that the change had 
 a suspicious origin, as though thrills of physical 
 fear might have wrought it. After a while they 
 grew more accustomed to it, however, and Dora, for 
 one, declared that it was a blessing. But Annette 
 shook her head; she saw more than Dora did, and 
 doubtless was reluctant to tell quite everything that 
 she saw. Still, she was frank enough, except through 
 a fear of distressing her listener; and now, as weeks 
 lapsed along, there seemed the sweetest and yet most 
 potent of reasons why her listener should not be dis- 
 tressed. 
 
 "Yes, Dora," Annette said one day when they were 
 together, "it's true that Eunice and Austin get along 
 peaceably. But he is very harsh with her quite 
 often." 
 
 "Harsh, Annette? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. For instance, he came in a day or two 
 ago with wet feet. It had been raining horridly 
 you remember. He wanted to change his shoes and 
 stockings, and warm his feet at the fire. But there 
 wasn't any fire except the one in the kitchen range ;
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 119 
 
 you know how it is here, we've got the grate in the 
 parlor, but we seldom have a fire in it unkss the 
 weather suddenly starts up very cold indeed before 
 the steam-heater has been set going. And you reco- 
 lect how warm it got to be when that heavy rain 
 came on. The steam-heater was just luke-warm. 
 Austin wouldn't try that for his feet, and he wouldn't 
 go into the kitchen. It was altogether below him to 
 go into the kitchen, and he made this plain to Eunice 
 in a few cold, sharp words. Catharine was out, and 
 he wanted a fire made in the grate. To do that, coal 
 and wood had to be fetched, and Eunice told him so. 
 'Then go and get both,' he said; but Eunice ob- 
 jected. He didn't show any temper; he never does. 
 But he said to her in a tone that made me shiver ', 
 Dora ' All right ; get a scuttle, go to the bin there 
 back of the kitchen, and fill it with coal and wood, 
 then build a fire as quick as you can.' " 
 
 " Oh, Annette," said Dora, " and did Eunice go? " 
 
 " Yes, but I went with her. I helped her get the 
 fuel and I helped her make the fire. He didn't like me 
 to interfere one bit, I could see that. But he said 
 nothing rude to me. He never does, and sometimes 
 he's very sociable. I don't belong to him as Eunice 
 does." 
 
 ''And after you'd made the fire for his majesty," 
 scowled Dora, " didn't he thank you? " 
 
 "He said, ' Ah, that's better 'nothing more. Then 
 afterward he added to me: ' You needn't have both- 
 ered yourself, ' quite kindly. But when the fire had 
 got well started he went up to Eunice and gave her a 
 little swinging shake of the hand, always with that 
 self-satisfied smile on the lips, like a strict school- 
 master's to a bad child. Oh, how I do hate that
 
 120 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 smile. You never see it. It's only before her that he 
 ever smiles that way." 
 
 " And Eunice never flares up at him? She stands it 
 all? How strange! " 
 
 " She doesn't dare not stand it, Dora. She's afraid 
 to make a fuss. Oh, I've watched! " 
 
 "Afraid? Eunice afraid? " 
 
 "Yes. And do you know why? If there should 
 be a big fight it might end in their separation." 
 
 " Well," said Dora, with a toss of the head. " And 
 s 'pose it did!" 
 
 "It would break Eunice's heart. She's thought 
 those chances out. She loves him. She can't help 
 going on loving him. I guess there must be a good 
 many -wives like that. I never had the least idea of 
 it till lately, but now I begin to understand how 
 hundreds and thousands of tormented women, Dora, 
 may he dragging their weary days along in this 
 weary world!" 
 
 "It's a very pleasant world for me," said Dora. 
 " Harvey's always just lovely, as you know. But if 
 he carried on like Austin, I I'd leave him, love or no 
 love. Yes, I would, though I haven't got half the 
 spunk and grit that Eunice has or rather used to 
 have!" 
 
 "You're very happy, Dora," said Annette, ferv- 
 ently. "And I'm so glad you are! It cheers me 
 when I think of Eunice's lot." 
 
 Of late, indeed, Dora had felt specially called upon 
 to be thankful. When the winter had first set in, 
 Kinnicutt had sighed over the paucity of dollars that 
 he was enabled to earn. But latterly his affairs had 
 altered, and he was now in better case. 
 
 Never an able writer, his glibness, mixed with a
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 121 
 
 certain slangy and facetious epigram, had pleased 
 one of the sub-editors of the " Morning Monitor '," a 
 newspaper which had won success. One day he dis- 
 covered that the son of the editor-in-chief, a Mr. 
 Gordon Ammidown, had been his classmate in col- 
 lege. This was blithe news for Kinnicutt, who at 
 once felt that his fortunes might now be bettered. 
 He sought the younger Ammidown at the editorial 
 office of his father, but learned that he was ill. Not 
 seriously ill, the tidings ran, but kept in his room for 
 a few days. Later the two ex-classmates met, and 
 Gordon Ammidown was very civil. He did not look 
 as if he had been ill, and svhen Kinnicutt, with a 
 look of surprise at his ruddy face, told him so, he 
 said lightly that his trouble had been " only a touch 
 of rheumatism," and at once changed the subject. 
 In a way these two young men had been somewhat 
 intimate at their city college, but Gordon Ammidown 
 had shone as a scholar far beyond Dora's husband. 
 By a certain social superiority, too, Ammidown had 
 made himself felt, though not snobbishly in the least. 
 His father had been a prominent New Yorker, fiercely 
 opposed to the kind of politics in which Andrew 
 Heffernan was immersed, and conspicuous a few years 
 ago in the legislature of the state. The very name 
 of Simeon Ammidown had acted as a sort of terror, 
 at one time, upon his foes in municipal schemes and 
 frauds. Drifting into a high-salaried place on the 
 Monitor, he had ultimately bought that journal and 
 assumed full control of it. He was a man of singu- 
 lar personal mildness, and seriously to talk with him 
 was to admit the force of his intellect, if sometimes 
 to recoil with keen dissent from his opinions. But 
 when he took a pen into his hand and wrote, this
 
 122 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 mildness became acerbity, and often of the bitterest 
 sort. Young Gordon had inherited no little of his 
 father's brains, and already had achieved something 
 like repute among his constitutents in the columns 
 of the Monitor. Folks said of him that he had a 
 much kinder heart than his father ; and when he had 
 whispered pleasant prophesies of future augmented 
 wage in the ear of his former co-disciple, Kinnicutt 
 went home full of rainbow expectancy to his wife. 
 
 " Don't you see how set up I am, Dor ? " he said, as 
 he kissed her. " Don't I look like a man who's struck 
 a lucky number in the Louisiana lottery ? " 
 
 "You always come to me cheerful and jolly, Har- 
 vey," replied Dora, as she returned his kiss. "I'd 
 pretty soon put you through a course of sprouts if 
 
 you had moods and airs like " 
 
 11 Austin Legree?" he laughed, as she paused. 
 They had talked over Eunice's troubles together. 
 "Well, Austin 's got his good points. I won't go 
 back on him. He wants to have his own way in his 
 own house. Every sensible man does. They're not 
 all such geese as I am." 
 
 "No, thank the Lord," said Dora, while she stealth- 
 ily untied his cravat, which had for her an unsatis- 
 factory droop, and then re-tied it with great linger- 
 ing delay. And soon, while she gave the curls at 
 either of his temples a little double caress, just as a 
 fond mother might have done to the locks of her 
 cherished boy. " Things would be topsy-turvy if all 
 husbands were petted and made such geese of as I 
 make of you!" she said . . . "And so you've invited 
 this young fellow to come and spend the evening 
 with us, Harv? Gracious! I.." And here she 
 drooped her head on his shoulder with a tremulous 
 laugh.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 123 
 
 He patted her neck while he answered, merrily: 
 " You're the goose now, Dora. Why you're as well as 
 you ever were, and look prettier. The idea of such 
 nonsense." 
 
 " No, it isn't nonsense, Harvey ; I don't feel like en- 
 tertaining persons. I ..." 
 
 "There needn't be anybody but Austin and Eunice 
 and Annette." 
 
 " Perhaps we might ask the Plimpsolls," Dora said 
 after a silence. " We took tea with them, you know, 
 the other Sunday." 
 
 " All right. And the Heffernans . . why not ? " 
 
 "Dear, kind Aunt 'Liza! But then there's Uncle 
 Andrew. Still, perhaps he won't come." 
 
 Kinnicutt frowned gently. "You oughtn't to feel 
 that way about Andrew Heffernan, Dor." 
 
 " No ; you're right. If pa knew how that man has 
 treated us he wouldn't object, would he ? . . And 
 Harv., I tell you . ." She put a hand on each of his 
 shoulders and beamed up into his face. "We'll have 
 some punch. I'll get it made at " 
 
 "Punch," he struck in, with mock horror. "Oh, 
 don't ! I never hear the word without I think of our 
 wedding-day and that awful empty bowl in the 
 back parlor?"
 
 But Dora, in her invitation to the Plimpsolls, men- 
 tioned a glass of punch as the prospective refresh- 
 ment of the evening. And in doing so she did not 
 count upon the disarray which her little note would 
 effect. 
 
 "A glass of punch?"* said Mr. Plimpsoll plaintively, 
 when his wife had read aloud to him Dora's note. 
 "You know I might just as well take poison, Rhoda." 
 
 " Oh, you needn't take it, Ezra. We can just drop 
 in for an hour or so next Wednesday." 
 
 "If I'm spared till then," muttered her husband, 
 who had just come in from a long walk and looked 
 in the full bloom of virile vigor. 
 
 "Spared, Ezra!" shuddered Mrs. Plimpsoll, who 
 could never get used to his sepulchral allusions. 
 "Why, what do you mean?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing," he replied. 
 
 She flew to his side the next instant and put her frail 
 arm about his bulky shoulder. " Tell me, Ezra, she 
 pleaded. "You was so well when you went out. 
 What is it?" 
 
 Thus implored, Mr. Plimpsoll consented to answer. 
 "I've got heart disease, Rhoda. There's no mistake
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 125 
 
 this time. I was passing along Broadway, there by 
 Bryant Park this morning, when the pain took me. 
 It . . ." And then the pain was described in thrilling 
 detail. 
 
 "Nonsense," cried his wife when he had finished. 
 She was secretly ver}- much alarmed, as she could 
 never help being when any new revelation like this 
 was made to her, but she would not have shown her 
 fear for the \vorld. "Why, that sort of thing is noth- 
 ing but dyspepsia." 
 
 "Dyspepsia, is it?" said Ezra Plimpsoll with sombre 
 irony. " I only wish it was !" 
 
 "Now, Ezra," began his wife, braced, as it were, for 
 the role of consoler, "I've had exactly the pain you 
 describe fifty times if I've had it once. Why, the other 
 day, when I was shopping in at Altaian's, it came on 
 so awfully that I thought I'd have to scream out. > 
 And then I remembered the buckwheat-cakes I'd eaten 
 that morning. You know, Ezra, we had buckwheat 
 cakes this morning, and you ate quite a number." 
 
 " I didn't know you kept such a sharp watch on my 
 appetite," he said coldly. " Perhaps 'twould be well 
 if you made the best of your present chances, as 
 they're not likely to last long." The doleful inuendo 
 conveyed by those final words had not at all an un- 
 familiar sound to poor little Mrs. Plimpsoll ; but it 
 made her inwardly quake, nevertheless. 
 
 Dissolution spared its threatened victim until next 
 Wednesday, however, and then he decided to go to 
 the Kinnicutts', as his wife had written that their 
 coming would be provisional upon the health of her 
 husband. But a little while before they started from 
 their home in Harlem, Mr. Plimpsoll was seized with 
 another "feeling," and all through the journey his
 
 126 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 wife kept doling out comfort to him in such words as 
 these : 
 
 "Why, I've had t/zatmore times than I've got fingers 
 and toes ! Mercy, yes ! Let me see ; when did I have 
 it last? Oh, yes; only Sunday. Why, it's nothing at 
 all. Everybody has it, now and then ! " 
 
 "Oh, it's merely one more warning," said Mr. 
 Plimpsoll, in a funereal bleat that contrasted some- 
 what ill with his bright eye and ruddy cheek. And 
 although the poor little worried soul who sat in the 
 Elevated at his side studied how she should respond 
 with a skeptical laugh, her heart began to throb 
 again and she made up her mind that she would pay 
 a secret visit to-morrow on the particular physician 
 whom her husband was just then consulting, and ask 
 him if he really thought Ezra's "feelings " were " all 
 nervousness," as he had cheered her not long since by 
 stating. When they got into Dora's bright-lighted 
 little rooms, the spirits of the death-menaced Ezra 
 lost their gloom, and he quaffed several glasses of 
 punch to the mingled pleasure and dread of his wife. 
 She was charmed to see him get out of his vapors, but 
 realized that the escape was too sadly temporary, and 
 behind it lurked* a morbid to-morrow that would try 
 cruelly her already hard-strained nerves. And yet it 
 was very pleasant for Mrs. Plimpsoll to be there with 
 her three kinswomen, and to tell herself how mar- 
 riage had oddly altered Eunice, taking down her color 
 a little and giving her a milder manner and perhaps 
 a rather less assertive form of speech ; how Dora, 
 with her debonair smile and her shy morsel of confi- 
 dence so delicately murmured, was interesting bej^ond 
 words ; and how Annette had shot up so magically 
 of late into the most winsome of slender, dark-eyed 
 girls.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 127 
 
 Eunice had given a few fond touches to Annette's 
 costume, that evening, before they went together into 
 the rear flat where Dora and Kinnicutt waited their 
 guests. This Gordon Ammidown, who had lately 
 helped Kinnicutt so kindly on the staff of his father's 
 newspaper, struck Eunice as a fine potential match 
 for Annette. Dora had reported how clever and nice- 
 looking a young man he was from the point-of-view of 
 Harvey; and the fact of his being Simon Ammidown's 
 only son made both married sisters augur merrily 
 concerning his possible enslavement when their darl- 
 ing Annette should dawn upon him. 
 
 " My !" Annette had laughed. " As if such a great 
 big stylish person as that would look at poor me ! . . 
 Besides," she added demurely, " I might not take the 
 least fancy to him ; and if he was hung all over with 
 diamonds and I didn't care for him, that would just 
 settle matters with me /" 
 
 The Heffernans came, and they, with thePlimpsolls, 
 completed the little party. Aus tin Legree, clear-faced, 
 with his trim moustache and metallic eyes, almost 
 rayed forth genialty. Eunice watched her husband 
 and wondered what furtive deadening spell there was 
 for him in the air of his own home. Heffernan, hag- 
 gard and gloomy as usual, made efforts to talk and 
 ended each effort in dismal failure. Aunt 'Liza shot 
 toward him a nervous though veiled glance now and 
 then, conscious of a new mental worriment that 
 vexed him sorely. 
 
 Gordon Ammidown, the guest of the evening, was 
 meanwhile pleasing everybody. He made it plain 
 that he was one or two social grades above his sur- 
 roundings, and yet his air could not well have been 
 more modest and sincere. He was just tall enough
 
 128 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 to suit his athletic build, and had a face at once win- 
 some and intelligent, with close-cropped auburn hair 
 and a sparse, crinkled growth of the same hue on 
 lips, cheeks and chin. He looked like a handsome 
 young Austrian, and was clad in the evening- costume 
 that is not preferred of Seventh avenue society, 
 though his neck-tie was black. 
 
 "You just ought to set your cap for him, 1 ' whis- 
 pered Mrs. Plimpsoll to Annette. " Ain't he real styl- 
 ish, though? And he talks likeareg'lar Englishman, 
 don't he?" 
 
 Ammidown did not talk like an Englishman, but 
 his tones were not at all nasal and his accent was 
 that of culture. If he felt himself out of his element 
 he had the tact not to show it. When the punch was 
 handed round he refused to take any, and just as 
 Kinnicutt surprisedly asked him why, Mr. Heffernan, 
 \vho had arrived with his wife but a few minutes 
 ago, came forward at Legree's side, as though to be 
 presented to the distinguished editor's son. 
 
 "Oh, I'm taking nothing of that sort just now," 
 said Ammidown, in a careless tone. . At this moment 
 his eye caught Heffernan's and the two scanned one 
 another's faces. Ammidown receded a step or two, 
 and his color changed. Kinnicutt, whose back was 
 partially turned, saw nothing. Legree saw, and 
 fancied that the liquor-dealer, whose past and present 
 were botn plunged in the soilure of municipal poli- 
 tics, had been recognized by this young man whose 
 father had for years poured the hot-shot of his con- 
 tempt on bosses and "rings." In another moment, 
 however, Kinnicutt turned and introduced his friend 
 to the uncle of his wife. They shook hands, and 
 while they did so Legree thought he detected on the
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 129 
 
 lips of the younger man a faint satiric smile. It was 
 not long after this that Ammidown found occasion 
 swiftly to murmur in Heffernan's ear : 
 
 " I hope you'll say nothing to anybody." 
 
 " Me? No," was the reply. " What do I want to 
 talk for?" 
 
 " Thank you. And . . you promise, eh ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Thank you, again ..." Gradually loudening his 
 voice, Ammidown went on : "So there's every chance 
 of a dark horse winning at the next presidential con- 
 vention, Mr. Heffernan?" 
 
 "I guess so; it looks that way," Heffernan said. 
 " You see, the last state elections, with what stories 
 have .come out since, made some pretty bad party- 
 splits. I don't believe they'll nominate now. 
 
 Things are all against him." 
 
 " He's the best man you've got," said Ammidown ; 
 and then with a good deal of affable grace, seeing 
 that the serving of the punch at a near table had 
 caused all the ladies to come and seat themselves 
 within sound of his voice, he grew less downright in 
 tone and added : 
 
 "It's too bad that such a great country as ours 
 should be drifting into this unhappy mode of treat- 
 ment toward its worthiest and most prominent citi- 
 zens. They no sooner reach by the aid of strong and 
 brilliant efforts a position that entitles them to polit- 
 ical support from those whose creeds and principles 
 correspond with their own, than a swarm of jeal- 
 ousies rush upon them and beat them back into dis- 
 couragement and obscurity. I dare say it is nobody's 
 fault in particular, but the fault of our whole repub- 
 lican system, which for all its virtues begins to fail
 
 130 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 rather forlornly in the standing of certain larger 
 tests." 
 
 "That's true," said Kinnicutt, with a glance to 
 right and left among the auditors of this little speech, 
 as much as to say, " Don't you think my friend is a 
 very fine fellow indeed? " And before Dora's husband 
 could add another word, Legree, in his crisp way 
 commenced: 
 
 "We oughtn't to have the country turned upside- 
 down every four years by these elections for presi- 
 dent. If a man's fit to govern us for that time, he's 
 fit for a stay in the White House of ten years at 
 least." 
 
 "Make it six," said Heffernan. "Ten's too much 
 like the old king-business to suit American voters. 
 The will o' the people gets restive, you know, if it's 
 kept too long from working itself off at the polls." 
 
 "The constitution, as it stands, would give us 
 every chance of that," declared Gordon Ammidown. 
 "The will of the people could always speak plainly 
 enough through the voices of their other elected 
 servants." 
 
 "It don't speak very loud just now in this town," 
 remarked Mr. Plimpsoll, with a laugh whose careless 
 ring was like balm to his wife's anxious heart. "I 
 should say that here, 'pon my word, it had grown 
 just now a pretty small squeak." 
 
 " You'd be quite right to say so," said Ammidown, 
 with a side-glance at HefFernan. " New York is only 
 a shade better off to-day than she was in the time of 
 Tweed."... 
 
 "I wish they -wouldn't talk politics," murmured 
 Annette to Eunice. The ladies, all grouped together, 
 were holding their punch glasses, and sipping from 
 them.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 131 
 
 "Yes," replied Eunice. "But what nice language 
 he uses, doesn't he? And isn't he dressed nice? Austin 
 ought to have a s wallow-tail coat like that. I told 
 him so last spring; but he said you could always 
 hire one if you wanted it." 
 
 "My husband's got one," said Mrs. Plimpsoll. 
 "But I never dreamed he'd need it just to come and 
 spend the evening, you know." 
 
 " Neither he did," said Dora. " There are some very 
 stylish gentlemen in the city, they say, that always 
 wear them at dinner." 
 
 "My!" said Mrs. Plimpsoll, with a laugh, letting 
 her thin little body fall back in the sofa \vhere she 
 sat. "What a waste o' clean shirt-bosoms!" And 
 she leaned forward again, giving her glass of punch a 
 vigorous sip. 
 
 "Harvey says that Mr. Ammidown's parents keep 
 five servants," Dora now announced. "And they're 
 only four in the family. Just think of it!" 
 '" They've got a whole house, then?" said Mrs. 
 Plimpsoll. " Yes? Oh, well, if they're elegant, high- 
 toned folks, I ain't one bit surprised." 
 
 " Yes," young Ammidown was saying, "my father 
 has always been a protectionist, as you state. But 
 I'm not one, though I belong to no party \vhatever. 
 The tariff is not only to my mind a tax, but it's the 
 sort of tax that nations always find themselves 
 burdened with after a season of severe trouble. It 
 was laid upon us by the war, and now every possi- 
 ble public reason for its existence has passed. But 
 there are private reasons for its existence, and these - 
 are by no means to rock the cradle of ' infant indus- 
 tries,' but rather to serve grown-up and very thrifty 
 industries with costly meats on golden platters.
 
 132 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Cliques prosper and the masses are sufferers. Never 
 was there a greater fallacy than the assertion that 
 taxation can create national wealth. It really in- 
 creases trusts and monopolies alone; for, by raising 
 the prices of manufactured goods, it lays a veto on 
 their exportation, and compels those who produce 
 them to rely solely on home-purchases ..." 
 
 "Dear me! " said Annette to Mrs. Heffernan, "I 
 hope they won't talk like that all the evening. Can't 
 you do something, Aunt 'Liza, to kind of break them 
 apart? " 
 
 "Yes," said Aunt 'Liza, amiably. " I'll go and tell 
 Austin Legree how his Opaline Oil has helped your 
 Uncle Andrew's rheumatism; " and, as she rose, Dora 
 was heard saying to Mrs. Plimpsoll and Eunice: 
 
 " Isn't it too bad he won't take any of the punch? 
 everybody else has got a glass." 
 
 "Never mind," said Eunice, \vith a touch of her old 
 reproving and assertive manner. "If he doesn't take 
 stimulants, all the better. It increases my respect 
 for him." 
 
 " Oh, pooh," said Mrs. Plimpsoll, " I like a man to 
 drink now and then. I wish Ezra only would. 
 Gracious," she went on, closing her eyes for a moment 
 and giving a trill of laughter, while her glass re- 
 mained uplifted in one hand as though it were some- 
 thing she both dreaded to hold and dreaded to drop, 
 "that punch has made me as queer! What did you 
 put in it, girls?" 
 
 "Harvey made it," said Dora. "I don't think it's 
 strong a' bit. Now, Rhoda," she went on, "if it's 
 brightened you up we're so glad; because we said be- 
 fore you came that you'd havetosing us something." 
 
 "Sing! Me/" cried Mrs. Plimpsoll. "My dear
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 133 
 
 child, you must be crazy! I havn't sang a note in 
 ages!" 
 
 "The piano's awful, Annette says," continued 
 Dora. " We were fooled in it when we got it at that 
 auction, you know. But still, I guess it will do. 
 Now don't refuse! " 
 
 Mrs. Plimpsoll had no real intention of refusing. 
 To-night was a colorful one in her grey-toned life, 
 and to see Ezra " forgetting himself" had bathed her 
 worried soul in exhilaration. The piano gave out an 
 alarming jingle as she swept her hands over its keys. 
 But a superannuated instrument suited the feeble and 
 husky voice of the present performer, who knew none 
 but old-fashioned songs in which the moon was 
 called "pale Dian with her silver bow" and falling in 
 love with a girl was "kneeling before her maiden 
 shrine." Annette was in her way a judge of music, 
 though her two sisters decidedly \vere not. She felt 
 more than a suspicion that Mr. Ammidown was 
 also a judge, or at least understood the whole imbecil- 
 ity of the present attempt. For this reason she had a 
 twinge of shame as the young man dropped into a 
 chair at her side. Would he say anything in derision 
 of this musty old ballad that Mrs. Plimpsoll was 
 singing so badly? Annette hoped not, for the funny, 
 faded little cantatrice was after all her kinswoman, 
 and she was bound to stand up for her. 
 
 But he refrained from any comment whatever, 
 merely saying to Annette as the last cracked note 
 quivered precariously into silence : 
 
 "Are you musical at all yourself, Miss Trask?" 
 
 "Oh, I play a little," she replied. And then, as she 
 looked into his face, a great dread assailed her. Not 
 for the world could she let him think that her gift,
 
 134 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 slight though it was, bore even faint resemblance to 
 the methods of Mrs. Plimpsoll, And soon, in a guilty 
 murmur, she had told him how painfully ill she 
 thought that lady had just acquitted herself and how 
 she felt certain, ever so certain, that he was of just 
 the same view. 
 
 Ammidown looked into her face and confessed to 
 her that she was quite right. Then he asked her 
 what sort of music she played, and seemed pleasur- 
 ably surprised when she told him that a good deal of 
 it was German. After that the conversation somehow 
 became what Annette considered strikingly personal, 
 and almost before she knew it she had told him her 
 age, where she had gone to school, and a number of 
 things about herself. 
 
 "You're different from your sisters," he at length 
 said to her, in a musing, convinced way, while he 
 stroked his auburn beard \vith a hand that she had 
 already noticed, because though large it had struck 
 her as so shapely and white. " Yes, you and they are 
 somehow not a bit alike." 
 
 Annette frowned a little, at this, and her disappro- 
 bation woke his amused laughter. " I don't want to 
 seem different from Eunice and Dora," she protested. 
 " I wish to be as like them as possible." 
 
 "You're so fond of them, then?" 
 
 " Fond ?" Her dark eyes swept his face astonishedly. 
 "I adore them! Why shouldn't I? We were never 
 separated a single night until they were married." 
 
 For nearly an hour he and Annette talked together, 
 greatly to the satisfaction ofher two elder sisters. Once 
 Mr. Plimpsoll was about to approach and address 
 him when Dora glided adroitly forward and prevented 
 the interruption. Again Eunice did something simi-
 
 WOMEN' MUST WEEP 135 
 
 lar in the case of Kinnicutt, who thoughtlessly drew 
 near Ammidown, as if with the intent of breaking in 
 upon his tete-a-tete. 
 
 "Harvey," scolded Eunice, though her eyes were 
 twinkling, "how can you? Don't you see that 
 Annette's having a splendid time ?" 
 
 "Ho, you women !" laughed Kinnicutt. " How you 
 understand each other!" 
 
 " All kinds of things happen, you know," said 
 Eunice, with an oracular nod. 
 
 " You fancy him, then, eh ?" asked Kinnicutt, with 
 an air of proprietorship in his newly introduced 
 friend, as though he were a recent purchase, like a 
 carpet or a dozen of spoons. 
 
 " Fancy html" said Eunice. "I think he's just lovely! 
 And I guess Annette does, too." 
 
 Aunt 'Liza certainly did, and said so to her husband 
 as they journeyed together to their cross-town home. 
 "I wish he'd take a shine to Annette," she finished. 
 
 Heffernan, who was about to drop a dime into the 
 money-box of the then conductorless little Eighth 
 Street car that was taking them over the Third 
 Avenue Elevated, gave a sudden start and followed 
 it by a hard stare. 
 
 1 ' Him ? " he said . ' ' Annette marry him ? ' ' 
 
 "Why,yes. . Why not?"said Mrs. Heffernan, totally 
 misunderstanding her husband. "I s'pose his folks 
 are pretty fine, but who cares for that? Annette's fit 
 for anybody." 
 
 " Oh, yes," returned Heffernan. He had an impulse 
 to say something more, and controlled it. " After all," 
 passed through his mind, 'why give the chap 
 away. Besides, I promised him. If he really should 
 go for the girl, 'twould be a horse of another color,"
 
 136 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 A deeper shadow than usual resettled on his face. 
 It was a shadow with which his wife's eyes had late- 
 ly grown familiar, and while the cars went tinkling 
 onward she quietly asked : 
 
 "Is there any thing new, Andy, about that business 
 you spoke of last night?" 
 
 "No," he replied. " But I guess there may be before 
 I turn in." 
 
 "It's half-past eleven now," she said. " How I do 
 wish you could once get to bed at a decent hour ! 
 Must you go 'round to the stores to-night?" 
 
 At first he simply gave a gloomy little grimace for 
 answer ; and then, as if he were translating the 
 ungenial look into words 
 
 "Don't you know by this time, 'Liza," he said, 
 "that I've got to go and drudge through the whole 
 infernal thing every night ? ' ' 
 
 She sighed so loudly that he heard her above the 
 noise of the little car. 
 
 "Can't you trust any of your men, Andy? It 
 does seem too hard you can't." 
 
 " Trust 'em ?" he said, with a short laugh, tired and 
 yet scornful. "Why, if I left the money overnight 
 with any one of 'em, locked up tight in the drawer 
 though it is, I shouldn't be surprised to find it gone 
 to-morrow. I guess you don't forget how only last 
 year one o' the drawers was broke open with jimmies, 
 and the bartender laid it to thieves. I could suspect 
 as much as I wanted, but there wasn't any proof to 
 make me a whit the wiser." 
 
 He went the round of three of his saloons that 
 night, and got to a fourth, which was nearest his up- 
 town abode (on the corner of Third avenue, in fact, 
 and the street which ran within a few yards of his
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 137 
 
 front windows) just a few minutes before one o'clock. 
 The shutters had been closed in this establishment, 
 and only a thin seam of light betrayed, here and 
 there, that it was occupied. But the commonplace 
 defiance of the Excise Law was going on here as in 
 hundreds of other taverns. Bribed policemen passed 
 in brazen neglect of their duty, and sometimes boldly 
 tapped on doors and windows for the Ganymedes in- 
 side to come and serve their Jovian lips with drink. 
 Hefferrian had only to turn a knob and slip through 
 a side entrance to find himself before the scintillant 
 glass and modish woodwork of his own bar. On 
 this particular saloon he prided himself or rather 
 had once done so. He had caused the most drastic 
 repairs to be made in it, and its marble floor and 
 ornate chandeliers were even yet lauded in the whirl 
 of like but emulous alterations, for streets along the 
 big, coarse, clamoring avenue. There had been a 
 time and not so long ago, either when Hefifernan 
 held this really handsome interior as the apple of his 
 eye, and thrilled with triumph to hear praises of it. 
 Now all such feeling had changed with him; his 
 sense of success was tinctured with a conscience- 
 smitten disgust. His wife's voice was always call- 
 ing in his ears, " Leave the whole bad business leave 
 it, leave it." And of late a new moral loathing had 
 begun within his being, keen worriment as its result. 
 In the saloon a part of the usual tragedy was 
 going on, with the usual comic phases. Two \vork- 
 ingmen whose families were perhaps expecting them 
 at home and shivering at the thought of their con- 
 tinued absence, \vere talking maudlin twaddle over 
 their fresh-filled glasses about the question of social- 
 ism. They were peaceable citizens enough when
 
 138 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 liquor had not gripped their reasons, but now they 
 neither knew nor cared what mad stuff they babbled. 
 
 "Them Frenchmen was right," said one, "when 
 they rose up, begad, and chopped off heads like 
 fellers in a poultry-yard at Thanksgivin' times." 
 
 " Right ye are," said the other. "The on'y trouble 
 was that they didn't chop off half enough. Fur I 
 tell you, sorr, that there's no hopes o' the sacred 
 cause o' humanity in this worrld ontil Labor makes 
 one clean sweep o' Capital, and . . and . . dances a 
 jig yes, a good old Irish jig, if ye please on the 
 bloody carcass!" 
 
 Not far from these two mild-mannered rhetoricians, 
 were grouped a few gentlemen of much daintier garb, 
 some of whom wore dyed black moustaches curled 
 at the ends, while one or two aired diamonds of size 
 and perhaps price as well, in shirt-front or on fin- 
 gers. Nearly all their faces wore a hardness that 
 spoke either in terms of sensualism, dissipation or 
 both combined. They had been spending a good 
 deal of money in drinks at the bar, and a young man 
 with a fat, pink, .circular face who stood behind it, 
 was now offering them cigars and requesting that 
 they would "have a smoke wid the house." 
 
 They all accepted the cigars, which were of a brand 
 not to be contemned, and their talk flowed on in 
 something like this strain as they handed one an- 
 other the little stiff, thin slips of wood that were 
 used for lighters. 
 
 "We don't want no more dudes in Congress. They 
 ain't no good. They on'y make trouble with the 
 rest o' the boys, anyhow." 
 
 " That's so, Hughey. Down with the dudes, Jsay, 
 They're too fresh, altogether. They're as bad as 
 Mugwumps."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 139 
 
 " They ketch the brown-stone voters, though." 
 
 "Well, there ain't so many o' them, just now. 
 They don't show their heads much except when some- 
 one raises a scare about frauds and spoils." 
 
 "Humph!" The brown-stone voters had better 
 shoot their mouths off on that subject ! How did 
 more'n half o' them get the boodle they sport their 
 valleys and flunkies and carriages with? Hey?" 
 
 " Why, they got it out o' gambling deals and com- 
 bines in Wall street, out o' wreckin' railroads an' 
 makin' corners in the stock-market, out o' corruptin' 
 through lobbyists in the state legislates as well as 
 down to Washington, an' out o' bandin' themselves 
 together like a knot o' Barnum's menagerie snakes, 
 for the formin' o' their cussed trusts and monopolies. 
 That's how the brown-stone voters got it, and are 
 gettin' it to-day. An' then they turn up their nice 
 erristocratic noses at what they choose to call the 
 scandalous thieveries o' the politics o' New York." 
 
 This oratoric tirade was hailed with an applausive 
 murmur, which had just died away as Heffernan 
 stepped into the saloon. He nodded in his grave 
 style to three or four of the assembled convivialists, 
 but did not join them. He had been, until a few 
 months past, rather popular with his political con- 
 stituents, but lately the increased grimness of his 
 bearing had caused adverse comment. Not that he was 
 now really disliked, since his repute for being " a good 
 feller at heart" and "solid withtheboys every time," 
 had by no means waned. But whispers had recently 
 gone about that his wealth and official dignities had 
 caused him to assume undue airs. Some disbelieved 
 this; perhaps the man did so who had just made the 
 little denunciatory, tit-for-tat harangue, and who
 
 140 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 now approached him whither he had retired at the 
 further end of the shop. This man was one of the 
 diamond- wearers, 'a stone of great size and sheen 
 glittering from his red satin neck-tie. He had a large 
 and fleshly face of almost deadly pallor, slightly 
 pitted with small-pox. His features were all heavy, 
 even cumberous, and if he smiled they all remained 
 impassive except the lips, whose chalky hue made 
 the broad, white teeth look yellow. His name was 
 Larry McGonigle, and he had managed to make it a 
 name far more feared than loved. He was the tire- 
 less henchman of his Boss, but he was also a Leader 
 of stern rule in the four wards which he dominated. 
 He had tasted the flavor of many a perquisite, and 
 lived now on the fat of the land. In the giving out 
 of contracts for public work he had received and 
 pocketed illicit thousands; by his control of munici- 
 pal committees throughout the realm which he gov- 
 erned he stood toward his chief in the light of satrap 
 to sultan; he had but to lift one of his pale, puffy 
 fingers and appointments were reversed, candidates 
 created, aspirants repulsed. The Throne beamed 
 graciously upon him at all times, and he was a 
 mighty power behind it. From numerous grabs and 
 "divides" he had glided nimbly off with copious booty. 
 His character, from all points of view, was a blending 
 of servility, avarice and dishonesty. He was known 
 to be a relentless hater, and there were tales afloat 
 of his fiendish and implacable temper. Still, he had 
 a kind of left-handed honor, or was reported to have 
 by those who knew him best. His word, once given, 
 it was sometimes said, he never "went back" on 
 any bond or gage of help which that word may have 
 conveyed, and from certain current rumors concern-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 141 
 
 ing him, one might have argued that his loathing of 
 ingratitude was almost as strong as Dante's. He 
 had certainly ample reason for testing this one par- 
 ticular human virtue, since his acts of aid had been 
 manifold in the departments of Finance, Public 
 Works, Law and even Police. For years he had been 
 part of a large political machine, but a thinking and 
 sentient part, as now was palpably shown, and a 
 part with strong if concealed ambition. Soiled as 
 he was, he chose openly to base a new and bold claim 
 for public office on the simple though insolent pre- 
 tension that however darkly venal might be his 
 record, it had never met with legal disclosure or de- 
 nouncement. There was something at once horrible 
 and interesting in the audacity of this 'Larry Mc- 
 Gonigle, this well-known though unconvicted thief 
 having presumed to demand a seat in the Congress 
 of his native land. Yet on Washington he had fixed 
 his vicious eye, and it was because of this daring 
 aspiration that he now sought Heffernan, whose 
 election as alderman he had sturdily backed. Heffer- 
 nan listened to him for perhaps five minutes, in 
 secret amazement. When the truth was out, he folded 
 his large, strong arms and stared straight into the 
 speaker's face. 
 
 "So you really mean it, Larry? " he said. "You 
 ain't jokin', or anything like that? " 
 
 Just then two or three of Larry's companions 
 called to him. They were annoyed at Heffernan's 
 unsocial treatment of them, and on this account re- 
 sented their friend's desertion. 
 
 But Larry answered them curtly, even grufHy. 
 "Jokin'?" he said to his new companion. "Why, 
 Andy, I thought you'd sized me up better'n that! O*
 
 142 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 course I mean it. I'm goin' to run, and I want you 
 to fix things." 
 " Fix things? " 
 
 "Why, certainly. Here in this district. There's 
 
 lots o' time, and nobody's got more pull than you." 
 
 "But, Larry, I guess you've forgot something. 
 
 Next November young Wentworth's goin' to run on 
 
 our ticket, For that matter we're pledged " 
 
 " Oh, pledge be d d ! Young Wentworth's one 
 
 o* the brown-stone gang we boys \vere talkin' about a 
 minute before you turned up. Look here, Andy, I've 
 got a little job to ask you to do for me, and I'm 
 goin' to give you long notice in the doin' of it. You 
 can tend to the canvas 'round in these quarters no- 
 body can manage that racket like ye, understand. 
 No one bar none! 
 
 "Yes; but if young Wentworth ' 
 
 "Oh, hang young Wentworth! Let him pay his 
 five-thousand dollars down, if he wants. Let him 
 pay it to you." 
 "To me?" 
 
 "Yes, why not? The boys '11 'range it with the bal- 
 lots afterward for me. This Fifth avenue baby '11 
 find himself in the soup, that's all. You catch on, 
 don't ye, Andy?" 
 
 After the utterance of this infamous proposition 
 from Larry McGonigle, a silence followed. Presently 
 the choked voice of one of the semi-drunken workmen 
 broke it. 
 
 "Ana'chist? Me, by G ? Well, I'm ana'chist an' 
 dynamiter n' every blessed thing ye choose, purvided 
 purvided, mind ye it '11 help to put more bread 
 into the mouth o' my three darlin' young wans at 
 home!"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 143 
 
 "You'd put more bread into their mouths if you 
 put less whiskey into your own," growled one of 
 Larry's late associates. And then another of these 
 gentlemen called to him, " Larry, what '11 ye have?" 
 and received a short, cold answer that created pur- 
 sings of lips and liftings of noses among the bacchan- 
 al group. But the resentment was not directed at 
 Larry ; it had the frigid behavior of Heffernan for its 
 cause ; and presently they all trooped out in disgust 
 at what they chose to consider the airs of their host, 
 and as they swaggered in couples along the lamplit 
 a.venue each had some little tale to tell of how Andy 
 Heffernan was feeling his oats lately, since he had got 
 to be such a grandee at the liquor-trade besides alder- 
 man of his ward. 
 
 The two workmen went on mumbling their sedi- 
 tious imbecilities and clapperclawing each other at in- 
 tervals in polite frenzy. One of them tried to quote 
 a hysteric stanza from a certain Fenian poet, and re- 
 ceived a thankless guffaw as he first failed in the 
 iambics and then in the rhymes. High over the 
 counter a clock with a face almost as circular as the 
 pink-complexioned bar-keeper's pointed to the hour 
 of two, and the bar- tender yawned sleepily while he 
 looked up at its cold black-and-white confession. 
 Then he glanced toward Larry and his employer, 
 doubtless wondering what meant the pause that had 
 come between them and hoping that it might mean 
 an end of their low-voiced confab. 
 
 But Heffernan soon broke the pause. The light 
 back there was always dim at this watch of night, 
 and Larry could not see his face very well, though 
 aware that it had grown unwontedly grave. 
 
 "Here's the long and short of it," said Heffernan.
 
 144 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "You want me to egg on Wentworth at the Novem- 
 ber election, Larry, and then, when the time comes, 
 to knife him?" 
 
 "Knife him yes," said Larry, with a faint, sly, 
 shrewd laugh. " That's just what I do want." 
 
 " Oh, it's a bad business," Heffernan said, half turn- 
 ing away. He meant more than that he meant, 
 indeed, that it was a thing criminally vile and that 
 he shrank from it with secret horror. But he did not 
 say so. Was he afraid to speak the words? Here 
 stood a man to whom he owed much, and a man who 
 had sought him now because of just those old debts. 
 
 Larry McGonigle's eyes began to glisten as he fixed 
 them on his friend's profile. 
 
 " You won't stick by me, then, Andy Heffernan?" 
 he asked, the question leaving him in a gruff mutter. 
 
 Heffernan slowly turned and faced Larry. "Oh, I 
 don't mean that," he faltered. 
 
 Larry put out his hand. "Ah, now you talk like 
 one of the boys," he broke out. 
 
 For an instant Heffernan paused before he took 
 that outstretched hand, and a fight went on, quick 
 yet fiery, between his worse and better selves. Then 
 the worse triumphed, as it so often does on the duel- 
 ling ground of our souls, and he let his palm meet 
 Larry's, with a pressure of the fingers to follow. 
 
 He knew well enough that this clasp of the hands 
 involved a pledge. And while he gave it he had a 
 sensation like that which one might feel who sinks so 
 deep into mire that his throat and chin have touched 
 its chill blackness and each new second makes it more 
 closely threaten his lips.
 
 XI 
 
 Gordon Ammidown (whose house was in the same 1 
 uptown side-street as the saloon of Heffernan, though 
 removed from it by several hundreds of yards east- 
 ward) reached home, after the Kimiicutt's little party, 
 at a few minutes later than midnight. The house in 
 which he had lived for a number of years past with 
 his parents and sister, was a stone building of moder- 
 ate size and refined appointments. Gordon let him- 
 self in with his latch-key, and as he entered the dim, 
 soft-carpeted hall a feminine voice called gently to 
 him from the head of the stairs. 
 
 "Is that you, Gordon?" 
 
 "Yes, mother," he answered. 
 
 " Don't turn the hall-light out, my son. Your father 
 hasn't got home yet." 
 
 " It must be a big dinner, certainly," said Gordon 
 as he came up-stairs. 
 
 "He's to make a speech, you know, and " By 
 this time Mrs. Ammidown had come within reach of 
 her son, and broke abruptly off as she laid a hand on 
 each of his shoulders, looking eagerly into his face, 
 though the light in the second hall where they now 
 met was almost as vague as that below. 
 
 In the next minute or two came her tender, grateful 
 10
 
 146 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 little cry: "Oh, Gordon, I'm so glad! I I was . . 
 nervous, my son!" And his mother leaned her head 
 on Gordon's shoulder, trembling not a little through 
 all her delicate frame. Gordon put his arm about her 
 waist and drew her into the lighted library. It was 
 a pretty and somewhat stately room, with books 
 everywhere except on floor and ceiling, not to speak 
 of the interspace between them, which was relieved 
 b} T a few busts, in marble or bronze. Mrs.Ammidown 
 turned up the lamp on the middle table till it cast 
 hardier rays through the charming, scholastic dusk of 
 the chamber. At the same moment Gordon threw 
 himself into one of the big leathern arm-chairs, and 
 said rather wearily: "I wish you hadn't bothered, 
 mother. I really wish you hadn't. It's all right, you 
 know and it's going to stay all right." 
 
 "Forgive me for worrying, Gordon," she answered. 
 She seated herself not far from him as she thus spoke. 
 The lamp-rays appeared to touch her caressingly , in her 
 slenderness of frame and her faded sweetness of vis- 
 age. "I somehow couldn't help it, though; I " 
 
 "Yes, oh yes," he broke in, a trifle austerely. Then, 
 at once making his tones milder, he went on : "You've 
 waited up for father, I suppose?" 
 
 "Well, I thought he might be in soon." 
 
 A bitter, fleeting smile crept between Gordon's lips. 
 He knew as well as if she had said it, now, for whom 
 his mother had been "waiting. "Father may not be 
 home for an hour yet," he said, taking out his watch 
 and glancing at it. " When a lot of newspaper men 
 get together at Delmonico's, like this, the speeches 
 and the general hand-shakings occupy a small etern- 
 ity." 
 
 " Qh, yes, I know," said Mrs. Ammidown, "Have
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 147 
 
 you had a pleasant time this evening at the house of 
 your old college friend? Mr. . Mr. . I never can 
 recollect the name, somehow." 
 
 "Kinnicutt." 
 
 "Ah, yes. Were there many at the reception ?" 
 
 "It wasn't a reception. It was a horribly stupid 
 little third rate gathering in a flat on Seventh avenue. 
 But Harvey Kinnicutt is a very nice gentlemanly 
 fellow . . I think I told you that before. He married 
 into a family of three sisters, and they were all three 
 present. His wife is a sprightly and rather pretty 
 woman, with what Florence would no doubt call a 
 dowdy manner. It isn't vulgar, but it's . . Good 
 heavens, how difficult these kinds of definitions are! 
 There's another married sister, a Mrs. Legree, a per- 
 son with chronic high color, though not bad-looking, 
 and she has precisely the same general style of de- 
 portment as Mrs. Kinnicutt." 
 
 His mother laughed. "But you haven't told me 
 \vhat style Mrs. Kinnicutt's is. You've merely said 
 that it isn't vulgar." 
 
 Gordon smilingly nodded, and then gave a hopeless 
 little gesture with both hands. "Oh," he suddenly 
 said, striking the arm of his chair, "I can explain 
 them both through their younger sister, whose name 
 I discovered to be Annette, and who is pretty and en- 
 gaging. Annette has big dark eyes, with a liquid 
 light in them, like a deer's. She struck me as being 
 dressed in good taste, though I've not an idea what 
 she had on. The other sisters didn't strike me, some- 
 how, as 'being dressed in equally good taste, though 
 I haven't an idea, either, what they had on. Annette 
 never says "sir" when she speaks to you; the two 
 other sisters occasionally do say it, and they have a
 
 148 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 way oh, an indescribable way that isn't a bit 
 high-bred. Of course it's the essence of culture com- 
 pared with the way of some of their relations. But 
 Annette, on the other hand, seems to me a very re- 
 fined and s \veet-mannered young girl. She doesn't 
 appear to realize that she's a grade or two less . . 
 less middle-class than her sisters ; I think she would 
 be very angry at anyone who told her so. But it's 
 true, notwithstanding, and possibly a single fact ex- 
 plains it; she went to a private school for three years 
 or so, because the two elder girls urged their father 
 to send her to one. They went to a public school, 
 however, and it may be that all the difference lies 
 just there." 
 
 "Miss Annette doesn't say 'sir,' then," smiled his 
 mother. "And you're quite certain she doesn't 
 ' reckon ' or ' guess ?'" 
 
 " Oh, we all ' guess ' more than we're aware of, here 
 in the land of the free." 
 
 "And she's really very nice, Gordon ? Yci'.'ire been 
 taken with her?" 
 
 "Why, yess," he said, slowly, as if he were making 
 the confession to himself. " I shall be very sorry not 
 to see her again. In fact I promised I'd go there 
 once more, especially to see her. She's so sympa- 
 thetic." 
 
 After a little silence his mother said : 
 
 " It's pleasant to think of your caring for someone 
 else at last, my boy." 
 
 "Someone else? 1 ' he replied, springing from his 
 chair with a short, brusque laugh. "If you're mak- 
 ing any reference to Marian Chalmers, I can only tell 
 you that I've torn her out of my thoughts months 
 ago. ." With much lighter and cheerier voice, he pur-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 149 
 
 sued: "It's time we were both in bed, mother. 1 
 think you're a little foolish to wait up for father, but 
 still, as you please." . . 
 
 Mrs. Ammidown did wait up for her husband, 
 though the vigil proved a brief one. She wondered, 
 while it lasted, if her son had really ceased to regret 
 Marian Chalmers, the girl who had broken her en- 
 gagement with him two years ago for reasons that 
 she, Gordon's mother, partial and devoted though 
 her love was, could never rate as either cruel or un- 
 just. 
 
 Simeon Ammidown soon appeared, in full evening 
 dress, with an immense spray of hyacinths, which he 
 had got at the dinner, bulging from a lapel of his 
 coat. Taller than Gordon, he managed his slight 
 corpulence with dignity. He had once had just the 
 auburn hair and beard of his son, but time and dis- 
 appointment had thinned and paled them both. He 
 bore himself (with a face more aquiline than that of 
 Gordon, with an eye deeper-set and severer) like a 
 man who has something to tell the world but first 
 requires that it shall deferentially listen, There, per- 
 haps, had lain all his trouble; he had wanted too 
 autocratically that the world should listen. And in 
 a way it had listened, though not with attention 
 enough, not with the homage that he desired or that 
 he held himself worthy to demand. Every new social 
 experience discontented him. His pride was like an 
 uncovered nerve ; the merest air-currents \vould set it 
 aching. He abhorred push in others and scorned to 
 show the least himself. He assumed that men must 
 come to him ; he would not meet them half-way ; his 
 was the right of superior intellect if they pleased, 
 of genius. In consequence of this morbid self-esteem
 
 150 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 he suffered acutely, and spent hours in thinking bitter 
 thoughts about the neglect with which his fellows 
 treated him. And as usually happens, in such cases, 
 his fellows were for the most part ignorant that he 
 even charged them with neglect, and said carelessly 
 that he was a clever man, this Ammidown,but some- 
 how had got soured by life. And then perhaps they 
 would add that he was sensible in keeping his acidity 
 out of his newspaper, though Heaven knew he put 
 there enough denunciation and wrath. 
 
 "I do hope you made a speech to-night, Simeon," 
 said his wife. "You promised you would, you know, 
 if they asked you." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, they called on 
 me, but it was after Struthers of the Criterion and 
 Kindelon of the Asteroid." 
 
 "There was no slight intended, though! There 
 couldn't have been." 
 
 " There was a slight felt, however. I gave them a 
 few words and sat down. Why, good Heavens, 
 Louise, I should have been asked to preside ! " . . . He 
 then spoke on, for a little while, standing near the 
 crimson ruin of fire in the grate and referring to this 
 or that guest at the dinner his appearance, his 
 foibles or oddities, his conversational disclosures, 
 the delivery and quality of his speech. A frequent 
 thorn of sarcasm pricked through these remarks, to 
 some of which Airs. Ammidown put in a protest of 
 " Oh, Simeon," in her low, suave treble. 
 
 "But you're up at this wild hour," the editor sud- 
 denly said to his wife. " You were \vaiting ? " 
 
 "For Gordon," she ended, and then told where her 
 son had been and what he had said about his friend 
 Kinnicutt's relatives by marriage. .
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 151 
 
 "He was ... all right?" Aramidowa murmured, 
 with a peculiar look, as she ceased speaking. 
 
 " Oh, yes oh, perfectly," she hurried. 
 
 " By the way," he asked, after a little pause, " who 
 are these people among whom Gordon's friend mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 " Her father, who is now dead, kept a drug-store on 
 Greenwich Avenue." 
 
 "Oh, indeed! A fine lot for Gordon to be going 
 among ! And you say he admired an unmarried 
 daughter of this distinguished .house ?" 
 
 Mrs. Ammidown bit her lips. "He evidently likes 
 her, and says that she is very cultured and nice." 
 
 "Really!" 
 
 "Simeon, reflect a moment ; if our Gordon could 
 marry any good and pure girl now, think what sal- 
 vation it might be to him ! ' ' 
 
 She was looking with great earnestness into her 
 husband's face, but Ammidown stared past her very 
 coldly, even though she caught his large, solid arm 
 with both her frail hands. 
 
 "Oh, "he said, curtly, "marriage of course might 
 help him; but " 
 
 "I know what you mean," she struck in, agi- 
 tatedly. " But if it were a good, true-hearted girl ! 
 Remember, we can't look high for him. now. The 
 breaking of that engagement with Marian Chal- 
 mers lias got about so; has hurt him so!" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it has." And then the father added, 
 sternly, in his beard: "More shame to him that it 
 has!" 
 
 "God knows I don't excuse him, Simeon," the 
 mother said, with tremors in her voice that told as 
 if they had been sobs. " But I can't forget my poor
 
 152 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 father, and my brother, Ben. You know what 
 father might have been but for that curse, and what 
 Ben became on account of it ! " 
 
 "Yes, dear, I know." 
 
 "Well, how often have you said, Simeon, that 
 heredity is the strongest force \vhich affects our lives? 
 Who knows if Gordon could have done much better, 
 even at all better, than he has done as it is? But this 
 idea of his marriage! Oh, I feel that it might mean 
 such worlds of good to him! " 
 
 Ammidown took his wife's hand between, both his 
 own and held it thus while he shook his head and 
 smiled. 
 
 "My dear Louise! Has it ever occurred to yon 
 that you might be ruining the poor girl's entire life?" 
 
 "Simeon!" she exclaimed, with an effort to draw 
 her hand away. " How ca/2 you? Wouldn't she be 
 raising herself by marrying among us?" .... 
 
 Few women ever lived with a clearer conscience 
 than Louise Ammidown's, and yet when her husband 
 made a wry face, half humorous and half very seri- 
 ous indeed, she did not feel by any means beset by 
 compunctious twinges. There had been something 
 in her son's manner while he spoke of this Annette 
 Trask (or at least she had so believed) that struck 
 her as filmed if not penetrated by a glamour of true 
 sentiment. As a few more days went on, she grew 
 possessed with the idea that she should know and 
 cultivate Annette. Her love for her son made this 
 idea appeal to her in the light of a duty. She had 
 never been able to convince her husband that he 
 should use drastic measures in the way of blunting 
 his abnormal sensitiveness and put his belief in his 
 own deserts where it could suffer neither augment or
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 153 
 
 decrease from the passing treatment of society. But 
 she had strong influence over him, nevertheless, and 
 she soon used it with effect as regarded the birth 
 and general origin of Isaac Trask's daughter. 
 
 "It's got to be a fad with you," said her husband, 
 one evening, when they sat together in this 
 same library, where they had lately discussed Gor- 
 don's first meeting with Annette, "that our boy 
 should make up to that girl. Oh, well, have your 
 way, Louise. Heaven knows I've never given a fig 
 for family and pedigree. As you know, all my princi- 
 ples havs been against that trash here in America. 
 But I did not want my son to marry a women in 
 . . well, what we \vould call the lower ranks. You 
 say he's gone there again to-night? " 
 
 " Yes, Simeon. And he's been there once before. I 
 trust Gordon's taste, you know. And he seems to be 
 really attracted. I haven't said a word to Florence 
 yet.' I dread her behavior if anything shouldhappen. 
 It's too sad that Florence should be as absorbed as 
 she is by this devotion to fashionable people and do- 
 ings." 
 
 " Poor Florence," was the reply. " But you would 
 insist on sending her to that aristocratic school, three 
 years ago." 
 
 "I didn't know it was aristocratic, Simeon. I 
 didn't know what 'aristocratic' meant, forthat mat- 
 ter, in the sense that you now use the word and that 
 she \vould certainly use it. I wanted her to speak 
 French, and she has learned to speak it remarkably 
 well. But to my surprise she met girls there at 
 Madame Taillot's who treated her with grand con- 
 descension as not being in the 'set' of their 
 mammas and papas. I've told Florence till I'm tired
 
 154 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 telling her, how nonsensical all this self-assumption 
 is. On your side she comes of excellent stock, for was 
 not your grandfather a leading New York judge ? On 
 my side she is of the real old Knickerbocker element, 
 for was not my grandfather, Peter Van Boskirk, a 
 merchant of unblemished position? But no ; Florence 
 has got hold of a new word, ' swell 'such a brassy, 
 vulgar-sounding word to me, Simeon! She insists 
 that neither the Ammidowns nor the Van Boskirks 
 have ever been 'swell,' and the poor, dear girl is eat- 
 ing her heart out because she can't be invited to cer- 
 tain teas, receptions and dancing-parties where a 
 particular clique congregate. . . Ah," finished Mrs. 
 Ammidown, suddenly turning as she heard a light 
 step cross a near threshold, "it's you Florence, and 
 I don't doubt you've heard half what I've been saying 
 to your father." 
 
 "I've heard lots, mamma," said Florence, with a 
 dulcet little laugh, as she slipped to her father's side 
 and laid a hand on his shoulder. " Enough to con- 
 vince me," she \vent on, "that you don't misrepresent 
 me in my supposed absence." 
 
 Mrs. Ammidown looked at her husband, with a 
 little touch of connubial signal-service in the way of 
 slightly lifting her shoulders. "You see," she observed 
 dryly, "I'm not contradicted." 
 
 Florence gave her father a kiss, full on the lips. 
 "Pooh, mamma, he knows all about my feelings," 
 the young lady exclaimed. " We've talked them all 
 over, haven't we, papa?" 
 
 "They all come from those confounded newspapers," 
 mildly grumbled Ammidown. " Thank God I've kept 
 'society notes' out of the Monitor. But you will 
 read others, Florry. You will read of how Miss
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 155 
 
 Schenectady appeared at the latest extravaganza of 
 snobbery called a Patriarch's Ball or a Ladies' As- 
 sembly, or Heaven knows what, clad in such-and- 
 such a gown, with specialized folderol for trimmings. 
 And this rubbish, my dear, with other details equally 
 insipid and flippant, wakes your envy, as I dare say 
 it wakes the envy of many another New York girl 
 of just your mental calibre and social place. It's too 
 bad, Florry. These devilish newspaper squibs are 
 doing a frightful lot of harm, I've not the ghost of a 
 doubt, to hundreds of good little maids like yourself." 
 
 "Please don't call me a good little maid, papa," 
 dissented Florence. "It has such a namby-pamby 
 sound." 
 
 " Of course it has, my dear," said her mother, with 
 a tone of patient despair. " You would far rather be 
 referred to as a belle of the season, or as having led the 
 German at Mrs. Stuyvesant Van Corlear's with Mr. 
 Vandewater Poughkeepsie. " 
 
 " Dear me," said Florence, with a laugh, " how well 
 you know their names, mamma ! " 
 
 " Oh, I've reason enough for that," returned Mrs. 
 Ammidown. "You're always dinning them in my 
 ears." 
 
 Though not pretty, Florence had an interesting 
 face lit by soft brown eyes, masses of silky chestnut 
 hair and a beautiful figure, full of lissome curves. At 
 these words of her mother she gave a pout and a 
 mutinous little toss of the head. 
 
 " They've swell names, and they belong to the peo- 
 ple I want to go among," affirmed Florence. " I don't 
 care to go out at all unless I can mix \vith the very 
 best." 
 
 "Oh, Florence!" lamented her father. "If you 
 could see yourself as I see you now ! "
 
 156 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 " The very best, indeed ! " complained Mrs. Ammi- 
 down. " Why, I had always been brought up to be- 
 lieve that /belonged to the very best! There never 
 was any 'Four Hundred' when I \vasa young girl." 
 
 "Oh, excuse me, mamma, but there was," contra- 
 dicted Florence, with the true domination of the 
 American daughter, though without a scintilla of 
 actual disrespect. "The exclusive persons have al- 
 ways held their own here, for fully a hundred years 
 past." 
 
 " But my dear Florence /" urged Mrs. Ammidown. 
 "You forget that I was a Van Boskirk, and the Van 
 Boskirks " 
 
 " Never went in the fashionable set," interrupted 
 Florence. ' ' No, never !" 
 
 " But my mother gave parties," began Mrs. Ammi- 
 down, "and " 
 
 "Very charming ones, mamma, I don't doubt. 
 But they were not attended by the people in society. 
 They couldn't have been. If they had been, you 
 would now have a visiting-book full of all the swell 
 names, and I should be going everywhere." 
 
 " Really this is too much, Simeon," said Florence's 
 mother, appealing to the father of that young lady. 
 " You know, certainly, that we Van Boskirks were 
 considered old Knickerbockers when you married me!" 
 
 "So you were, Louise," the editor replied, with a 
 smile that had in it sadness no less than humor. 
 " But still, Florence is fatally right as to facts. Your 
 grandfather, and his father before him, were too sen- 
 sible to enroll themselves in any little ultra-select list 
 of New York citizens. There were parties at your 
 house in Clinton Place, as you state the dear old 
 family-mansion where you \vere born. Ladies and
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 157 
 
 gentlemen came to them, and as far as I've ever been 
 able to ascertain, nobod}^ came who did not deserve 
 one or the other of those titles. But as Florence 
 correctly might say, the gatherings were not 'swell.' 
 That abominable little word of hers has nothing to 
 do with real respectability or even gentility, if you 
 choose. Florence has got this craze, and I've no 
 doubt that she connects it with a secret grudge 
 against both you and me, for not having devoted 
 ourselves to the cult of a certain kind of American 
 snobbery which is by no means the least ridiculous 
 feature of our curiously faulty republic. 
 
 "Oh, papa!" cried Florence, as her father ended, 
 with a sigh, a shrug and a sudden resumption of the 
 pen that he had thrown aside on the open desk be- 
 fore which he was seated. "la grudge against you! 
 How can you put it that way! I only meant that 
 you and mamma hadn't cultivated nice people 
 Now, there, you are both angry again," wailed the 
 girl. " But how else can I put it? If I said 'good 
 society 'you'd both be angry, too." And suddenly 
 seeing from Ammidown's face that he was both 
 fatigued and repelled by her obstinate silliness, 
 Florence, who at heart adored each parent a great 
 deal more than the idea of becoming a shining light 
 in the "Four Hundred," threw both arms around 
 her father's neck and kissed him with moistened 
 eyes. 
 
 But this burst of emotion wholly failed to touch 
 her mother. Mrs. Ammidown recalled how her 
 daughter had dealt her stings for many months past 
 on the subject of their not "knowing the right peo- 
 ple" and being "altogether out of the daintier 
 cliques." This good lady had already realized the
 
 168 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 full truth of her husband's words regarding the in- 
 jury which fashionable disclosures in current news- 
 papers were inflicting on her child, as doubtless on 
 many another damsel besides, throughout our vast 
 metropolis. Florence might be able to get no heart- 
 burnings from her father's journal, the Monitor, but 
 she surely got a great many from another journal 
 which she bought and of which she avidly devoured 
 special columns. Proceedings of this sort might per- 
 haps have been treated more leniently by Mrs. Am- 
 midown if it had not been for her dread of Florence's 
 passionate outcry when her brother Gordon's mar- 
 riage with Annette Trask came to be mentioned; 
 and the possibility of such a marriage soon addressed 
 itself so sharply to the mind of Gordon's mother 
 that she began to regard it as a definite event in the 
 near future. 
 
 Her son had meanwhile paid three or four visits up- 
 on Annette. He had told his mother of two of them, 
 and with each admission had let slip a few admiring 
 words. By this time Eunice and Dora were in thrills 
 of delight. There was no mistaking the pomp and 
 circumstance of a match like that. " How glad poor 
 pa would have been, wouldn't he? " said Eunice, one 
 day. 
 
 "Good Lord," replied Dora; "you'd better wait 
 till there's a real sign of its being settled." 
 
 "Oh, things look awfully promising. Why, just 
 think: he's been here twice this week. And last night 
 I left 'em together for two good hours. Austin was 
 at the store, you know, and I told the worst kind of 
 a whopper; I said I had to step across the hall and 
 see you, as you'd been sort of sick all day; and there 
 you were at the theatre with Harvey, and of course 
 Annette and I knew it perfectly well."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 159 
 
 ''Oh, Eunice, how could you?" observed Dora, 
 though without the faintest shocked note in her 
 voice. "And what does Annette say he said?" she 
 went on. So strong was the bond of confidence be- 
 tween these three sisters that they had always held 
 the rosiest details of love-making as fair game for 
 mutual discussion. 
 
 "Well, observed Eunice, closing her eyes for an in- 
 stant with the air of one who \vishes accurately to 
 remember, "he said a number of nice things oh, a 
 number! He spoke sweetly of her eyes; you must get 
 her to tell you just what it was he said about them; 
 and then he told her he'd never met a girl he felt so 
 sympathetic with as with her." 
 
 "Did he say that?" Answered Dora. "Why, it 
 was exactly the way Harvey began with me." 
 
 "Was it? "Austin beg But somehow poor 
 Eunice paused. Perhaps the piteous truth had al- 
 ready too keenly dawned upon her that Austin had 
 finished, in a certain sense, far less romantically than 
 he "began." In another second she pursued, how- 
 ever: "And Annette says he just-begged her to give 
 him one kiss for good-bye ; but she wouldn't." 
 
 "That was right," said Dora. I'm glad Annette 
 played her cards so cleverly. Next time he'll ask for 
 two kisses, and she may give him only one, or per- 
 haps only half a one." 
 
 There was something unusual, even curious, in the 
 way these sisters were willing to talk with one 
 another about affairs which most women held as 
 sacred secrets. But the truth was, they, too, held 
 them as sacred secrets, and yet disclosed them in each 
 other's hearing with not the vaguest feeling of dis- 
 loyalty. It would not be exaggeration to state that
 
 160 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 their mutual fondness made a steadfast background 
 of loving confederacy against which all the events of 
 their lives were set forth. Dora, thrilled with a vague 
 yet approaching happiness, thought as much of how 
 two sisterly hearts would be gladdened by it as of 
 how her dear lord would be. Eunice, in the dolor of 
 her disappointment and bitter surprise, drew like- 
 wise an almost unconscious comfort from the near- 
 ness and profound capacity for sympathy of two 
 sisterly hearts. And as for Annette, though she pre- 
 tended at first not to care greatly whether this hand- 
 some and important Mr. Ammidown was or was not 
 her would-be suitor, she soon confessed to both Eunice 
 and Dora that she might, if wooed to her taste, ac- 
 cept him at the asking. More than this, Annette 
 revealed, with picturesque treachery, the progress of 
 her admirer's devotion. 
 
 "He'd kill me if he suspected I told you all this," 
 she said, one day, after Gordon had spent another 
 evening in her company and both Eunice and Dora 
 had plied her with their mingled questions. 
 
 "Nonsense," asserted Dora. "It isn't as if you 
 were telling anybody else. It's only among ourselves. 
 How silly, Annette, for you to feel that way !" 
 
 And then Eunice: "You ought to be glad that 
 you've got us to advise you, dear. I should say he 
 was just on the verge of proposing. And since you 
 care for him a great deal as you certainly do" (here 
 Annette shook her head several times and stared at 
 her own hands, which were twisting themselves 
 together nervously in her lap), "you should realize 
 that it will be a perfectly splendid match for you." 
 
 "Oh, perfectly splendid," echoed Dora. "Simeon 
 Ammidown's son ! My ! Just think of it ! "
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 161 
 
 The old elder-sister dignity cropped out in Eunice, 
 then. "We must remember, though, who we are," 
 she said, straightening herself and lifting her chin a 
 little. " Pa's record in business was "without a flaw 
 for many and many a year, as everybody knows who 
 cares to inquire." 
 
 Alas, the vanity of human boasts ! Even at this 
 very hour Florence Ammidown, to whom her mother 
 had just mentioned the possible chance of her brother's 
 engagement, was saying in a voice of plaintive dis- 
 gust : " Oh, mamma ! The daughter of a Greenwich 
 avenue apothecary ! It's too dreadful ! It's too re- 
 volting! " 
 
 And at the same hour, also, Harvey Kinnicutt, 
 there in the office of the Monitor, where he had met 
 with such welcome recent advancement, found him- 
 self brought face to face with a bit of tidings about 
 Gordon Ammidown that turned into mockery all his 
 own hopes concerning Annette's potential betrothal 
 and made him wonder how he could ever muster 
 nerve enough to blast the hopes of Dora and Eunice 
 as well.
 
 XII 
 
 After a certain course of cool reflection Kinnicutt 
 resolved to keep silence. Not even to his brother-in- 
 law, Austin Legree, would he reveal a \vord of the 
 tale which had just met his ears. At first it had 
 horrified him, but later he thought more leniently of 
 its disclosures. After all, was not Gordon Ammi- 
 down still a young man? He might reform, or he 
 might already have reformed, and for good and all. 
 The two or three persons there in the office who im- 
 parted this stunning bit of news to Kinnicutt had 
 declared also that these horrid periodic happenings 
 were said to be followed by fierce fits of repentance. 
 So much the better, argued Dora's husband. There 
 was always hope for a man not lost to shame. 
 
 When he next saw Gordon it was in Eunice's little 
 parlor, and the son of the distinguished editor had so 
 hale and wholesome a look that he almost doubted 
 the truth of those grisly tales. Really to doubt 
 them, however, would have been sheer folly; his in- 
 formants had babbled no fables, but told of what 
 their eyes had seen. Gordon's presence, this evening, 
 was dealing torture to a young man with a long 
 pink nose and a maidenly manner. The young man's
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 name was Jacob Chivver, and he kept a little 
 stationery-shop a fe\v streets away. Poor Chivver 
 had lifted his modest gaze toward Annette several 
 months ago ; and now and then, while he paid her 
 an evening call, she had smiled on him, either with 
 her fresh young lips or her soft, dark eyes, to an ex- 
 tent that had made his heart beat in tumultous hope. 
 An alliance with her had seemed to Chivver some- 
 thing very socially distinguished. He supported an 
 aged mother who had once been the proprietress of a 
 Seventh-avenue fruit-stand. Mrs. Chivver was not 
 so old, however, but that she could have beamed ap- 
 proval on Jacob if he had married a daughter of the 
 late Isaac Trask, that benign owner of the Greenwich 
 avenue drug-store, who used to help her rheumatism 
 so ably with his mysterious and honored potions. 
 
 But to-night Chivver's hopes were being dashed to 
 earth. Eunice had always rather frowned on his at- 
 tentions, and now, like many another woman of 
 good heart, she smothered all pity of his passion for 
 her sister behind a demeanor of stone. Chivver was 
 excessively humble of spirit, and had never believed 
 his aspirations toward Annette otherwise than pre- 
 sumptuous. When he looked on Gordon Ammidown, 
 cultured in speech and of visage, build, garb and 
 general outline so suggesting a world quite aloof 
 from his own, he underwent that silent sort of 
 anguish which helps to swell the vast sadness of the*- 
 whole human enigma. 
 
 He took himself away almost an hour before Gor- 
 don departed. It was a commonplace matter enough, 
 his awkward exit, his artificial smile on making that 
 exit, and his dreary heart-ache when he got down- 
 stairs into the lamplit dark of the street. What hap-
 
 164 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 pened to him happens to thousands of others all the 
 time. Yesterday destiny had seemed to beam on him; 
 to-night her brows wore the scowl of a storm-cloud. 
 Annette had not been uncivil; she had been worse, 
 for she had almost forgotten to notice him in the pre- 
 occupation caused by her other guest. There was 
 nothing for Chivver to do except go back to his tiny 
 shop and vend his lead-pencils and his pen-handles 
 with a brave heart. He might have made her a very 
 loyal and tender husband ; he couldn't but think of 
 that for a long, long while to come. But he did 
 not blame her for preferring such a grand, healthy, 
 handsome fellow as Mr. Ammidown. It never oc- 
 curred to him that if she married this brilliant young 
 gentleman she would not be accepting a fate far finer 
 and happier than any which his own powers of gentle 
 worship might have the grace of conferring. It simply 
 occurred to him that he had better not call on her 
 again, that he had been a dreamer of very bold dreams 
 and that to-morrow, if the sunshine crept in on the 
 five-cent copy-books and the flasks of mucilage and 
 little tin pencil-tops with their morsels of drab rubber 
 at the end, its rays wouldn't bring him any more 
 real cheer than though a blizzard from Dakota had 
 come to muffle the sky over the Seventh avenue house 
 roofs. 
 
 That evening, which had been so epical for sorrow 
 to one spirit, gladdened another with golden expect- 
 ancy. Annette had a little nervous crying-spell on 
 Eunice's shoulder after Gordon had departed. To 
 Kinnicutt, whose secret weighed heavily on his mind, 
 the strange speed of the courtship during another 
 fortnight proved startling enough. The day it be- 
 came known that Gordon Ammidown had engaged
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 165 
 
 himself to Annette, delight impregnated the air of his 
 own and the Legree household. He had an impulse 
 to tell Dora what he had learned, but her face was so 
 brightly wreathed in smiles that he hated the thought 
 of dimming them even ever so little. Then he won- 
 dered whether he ought not to breathe a word or two 
 in the ear of either Eunice or her husband. But they, 
 also, were mantled with a radiant satisfaction; it was 
 plain to him how keenly his brother-in-law's ambition 
 had been tickled by this flattering betrothal. Finally 
 he brooded a little on the question of addressing Gor- 
 don himself. But this project bristled with impolicy, 
 besides putting him in the posture of a mentor, which 
 was an odious one to his easy-going temperament. 
 Moreover, mused Kinnicutt, had not Gordon met 
 him the other day coming out of a down-town res- 
 taurant with that tantalizingly pretty little Hattie 
 Seldon, who did the society column for the Monitor? 
 No ; he wouldn't say a word. It was a splendid 
 match for Annette, and even if things did turn out 
 bad the first year or two they would no doubt come 
 round all right in the end. 
 
 "He wants it to be a short engagement," Annette 
 said to her sisters. " He thinks his mother would 
 rather have it a short one, though he didn't tell me 
 why. And, oh girls " (the old familiar vocative came 
 so natural to Annette just then! ) "she's going to 
 call on me very soon, and I'm frightened out of my ., 
 wits when I think of it." 
 
 " Pooh," said Eunice. " There's no use being fright- 
 ened a bit." But all that day and half the next, Mrs. 
 Legree had her best gown on the bed, ready to slip 
 into it at a minute's notice. In her way she was 
 more excited by the engagement than was Dora, and
 
 166 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 more, for that matter, than even Annette. Having 
 to go and make purchases, this same morning, she 
 had told her mighty piece of news to the affable 
 scarlet-faced butcher almost before she knew it. 
 "What!" said Mr. Sharkey with his cleaver in the 
 air. "You don't mean that the last of ye is to go 
 off so quick as that? Well, well, the men's 
 got more sense nowadays than I give 'em 
 credit for. And who is the lucky party, Mrs. Legree?" 
 
 Then with an attempt to seem as if she were saying 
 the most ordinary thing, Eunice gave her answer; 
 adding after a moment or two: "He's the only son 
 of Mr. Simeon Ammidown, the great editor, you 
 know." 
 
 "Ah, Simeon A.mmidown I know him!" cried Mr. 
 Sharkey, who had political creeds. "A fine man as 
 ever was. He's fit to be President to-morrer, so he 
 is." And Mr. Sharkey cut Eunice a more generous 
 steak than usual, by almost half a pound. 
 
 The next afternoon Mrs. Ammidown came, and all 
 three sisters went into her presence with fluttering 
 pulses. They might not have felt so honored by the 
 visit it they had witnessed a few recent scenes be- 
 tween herself and Florence. Only that morning Mrs. 
 Ammidown had said pleadingly : 
 
 "My dear, you will come with me, will you not?" 
 
 Florence was seated near a window, reading a 
 newspaper account of the Assemblies on the previous 
 evening. She had reached that part wherein the cos- 
 tumes of the ladies \vere described, and had drifted 
 into a revery of the folio wing highly intellectual char- 
 acter : 
 
 "Mrs. Bleeker Satterthwaite in yellow satin again? 
 
 , It must be the same dress she wore at the New
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 167 
 
 Year's ball, several weeks ago. And Lily Schenec- 
 tady in green ? Oh, yes, I recollect ; she's a blonde, 
 and it must have been becoming." (Florence did not 
 know a quarter of these peoplp about whom she read so 
 pertinaciously even by sight, but she had studied for 
 months past what the daily and weekly journals 
 had said of them.) "And that Poughkeepsie 
 girl, who is expected to catch Lord Glenartney 
 before he sails back to England, had on the 
 family emeralds. Think of entering a ball-room 
 deqked out in your family emeralds, with an Earl 
 to carry your bouquet! Oh, dear, what superb 
 times these girls must have! And then to think 
 that I'm not only out of it but that my brother my 
 own flesh-and-blood brother should be going to 
 marry so horribly !" 
 
 At this point her mother had entered the room and 
 made to her that recorded appeal. 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" Florence refused. "I should do or 
 say something awfully rude, mamma, if I went." 
 
 " But, Florence, you'll have to meet them sooner or 
 later." 
 
 "Well, then, let it be as late as possible that 'sail." 
 
 "But is this kind to your brother, Florence? He is 
 deeply in love with the girl ; he has told me so." 
 
 " In that case he ought to control himself as regards 
 marrying her." 
 
 ' ' Florence ! The marriage may enable him to control 
 himself in another way." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know what you mean. But I can't face 
 the situation yet. I'm not equal to it. I shall need 
 several days longer before I can get properly nerved 
 for the ordeal. I've got to tell the Van Arsdales that 
 he's engaged, and when they ask to whom I shall
 
 168 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 want the floor to open and swallow me I know I 
 shall." 
 
 " But you needn't tell them " 
 
 "About the Seventh avenue flat? the Greenwich 
 avenue drug shop? Oh, Susie Van Arsdale will be sure 
 to begin to pump me the moment she hears of the en- 
 gagement. And perhaps the whole family will drop 
 me when they've learned the truth ; for the Van Ars- 
 dales are leading people, and Susie goes everywhere." 
 
 " If I were you I'd drop them before they had a 
 chance to inflict their shocking airs upon me," repjied 
 Florence's mother ; and she went alone to call upon 
 Annette and her sisters. 
 
 The visit was not an enlivening one. Eunice's par- 
 lor was pretty enough, but there were things in 
 it that Mrs. Ammidown would have liked to throw 
 out of the window ; as, for instance, a card-receiver 
 made of rice and red sealing-wax, a bunch of artificial 
 roses under a glass shade, and a Roman warrior in 
 imitation bronze supporting the gas-burner. The trio 
 who received her were all visibly fluttered. It seemed 
 to her that they were all good women, for being a 
 good woman herself she perhaps had a subtle power 
 about the detection of others. But it struck her, also, 
 that they were women quite outside her own grooves 
 of thought and taste. She did not agree with her 
 son that having gone to a private school had made 
 Annette deport herself in a more cultivated style than 
 that of her sisters. She thought the manners of the 
 trio were as like as three peas. If there was really 
 such a social grade here as a middle-class, they all cer- 
 tainly belonged to it. Their profuse politeness did 
 not altogether please her. She considered it forced 
 and a little hollow. They were too anxious to please.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 169 
 
 The idea of this marriage had evidently proved to all 
 of them a heady wine. They bowed too low and 
 smiled too deep. Mrs. Amtnidown began to feel 
 strong doubts, before leaving, on the subject of her 
 o\vn wisdom in having helped to bring this whole af- 
 fair about. All being said, was it possible to throw 
 with safety impromptu bridges across chasms, after 
 her son's daring method ? But had not she aided that 
 method most materially? The chasm was now 
 bridged, however, and one must walk on the new 
 planks as confidently as one was able. 
 
 This view of the case abode in Mrs. Ammidown's 
 mind, as she took her leave that day. One genial 
 thought dwelt with her: there had been the true 
 love-light in Annette's eyes when she had spoken to 
 the girl of Gordon, or so at least his mother had be- 
 lieved . . . 
 
 After that visit everything seemed to whirl with 
 Annette. In a few more days she had met Florence 
 among what seemed to her the patrician grandeurs 
 of the Ammidown drawing-rooms, and Gordon's 
 father had appeared there as well, and pressed a kiss 
 on her forehead. She came away, that afternoon, 
 with glowing tales for her sisters of how bright and 
 novel the home of her future bridegroom had ap- 
 peared. Florence had behaved haughtily, but poor 
 Annette had never realized it. She had taken for 
 granted the behavior of Gordon's sister, just as if it 
 had been some superior quality of deportment, akin 
 to the fine fabrics of the carpets or curtains, and hav- 
 ing on it a like unaccustomed gloss to that of the 
 heavy mahogany balusters in the hall. She pro- 
 nounced Simeon Ammidown "just too lovely and 
 fatherly for anything" in these later conferences with
 
 170 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Eunice and Dora. As for Mrs. Ammidown, it was 
 " oh, she is so sweet to me!' and when questions were 
 asked her about Florence the reply came, after a 
 pause of reverential doubt: "Well, Miss Ammi- 
 down is very pretty, but I guess she's a little re- 
 served." 
 
 "Reserved," said Dora. "I suppose you mean 
 stuck-up." 
 
 " Oh, no! " asseverated Annette, for whom such an 
 epithet, after the love-illumined glory of her ex- 
 periences, had an almost blasphemous ring. " Oh, no, 
 indeed! I don't mean that a bit, Dora!" 
 
 "People can be reserved without being stuck-up," 
 said Eunice, chidingly, to Dora. "And in those ele- 
 gant first families of ours," she went on, plainly im- 
 pressed by late fervid descriptions of plush door- 
 hangings and mirrors that aspired almost from floor 
 to ceiling, "I've often heard of how there are some 
 persons who . . a . . kind of keep themselves to them- 
 selves. I mean, at first" she added, looking hope- 
 fully toward Annette. 
 
 " This Miss Ammidown is a very high-toned young 
 lady, I guess the kind that goes to all the fashionable 
 parties given in the very finest Fifth avenue circles." 
 
 "Oh, she does," declared Annette. 
 
 "I heard her say to her mother that she was asked 
 to go to the opera this very evening in somebody or 
 other's box. She had a note in her hand, and showed 
 it to her mother, and Mrs. Ammidown said: 'Oh, 
 yes,' as if it was the commonest thing in the world 
 for her daughter to be invited to go to the opera like 
 that." 
 
 " There; you see? " said Eunice, looking at Dora. 
 
 "My!" said Dora, collapsing visibly. "I \vonder
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 171 
 
 what the opera's like at night. I've never been there 
 except at mat'nees. Neither have any of us, have we, 
 girls? " 
 
 ' ' Oh, Annette '11 soon go," smiled Eunice. " I dare 
 say she'll have a box all to herself, before very long. 
 Then she can ask us, Dora, if she's a mind to, but 
 perhaps she won't. Perhaps she'll have too many 
 grand new friends." 
 
 Eunice said this with a certain jocose pride, but An- 
 nette had no sooner heard it than she drew her 
 brows together in a real scowl, and then, while her 
 underlip quivered, she caught Eunice around the 
 neck with one arm. "You hateful thing!" she ex- 
 claimed. They had often called each other "hateful 
 things" in the ordinary reprimand and reproach of 
 their exquisitely intimate dealings. But when An- 
 nette's eyes were suddenly charged with tears, Dora 
 gave Eunice a severe look. 
 
 " Don't," said Dora. " The child's nervous . . . An- 
 nette, she's only in fun, of course." 
 
 " Oh, I know, I know! ' ' cried Annette, bursting into 
 a great flood of tears. With one arm about Eunice's 
 neck she reached out the other toward Dora, who 
 sprang near her in an instant. 
 
 " How could you, Eunice? " said Dora, with a great 
 frown. "She's been through so much this afternoon!" 
 . . And then a droll yet very tender change occurred 
 in the little group. Dora, who was always so gay 
 and careless, with her jokes and her gibes, grew sud- 
 denly as tearful as Annette. It was Annette who 
 first saw this unwonted change, and at once she 
 dashed away her tears and quite forsook Eunice, em- 
 bracing her other sister. 
 
 "Now, Dora, you mustn't!" she exclaimed, and
 
 172 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 shot over her shoulder a glance of immense meaning 
 at Eunice. "Must she, Eunice?" came the next 
 words. 
 
 "No, 120," Eunice quickly responded; and then, be- 
 tween them, she and Annette dried Dora's tears 
 while clinging to her, and while, at the same time, 
 Dora broke into her characteristic laughter and said 
 that she wouldn't be treated as if she were sick, and 
 that she wasn't abit more so than Annette, who had 
 had that awful first visit to pay on the mighty grand 
 family of her sweetheart. 
 
 The arrangements for Annette's quiet wedding 
 were made before Dora's little girl was born, and the 
 young mother was just well enough (to the great de- 
 light of her sisters) for that most welcome exertion 
 of her life, an appearance at the ceremony. 
 
 Quiet the wedding indeed was. Florence, whose 
 genuine love for her brother had now softened her 
 into at least a transient forgetfulness of the Four 
 Hundred and the newspaper Jenkinsistn that chron- 
 icles their weighty enterprises, proposed that An- 
 nette and Gordon should be married in the little 
 church at the corner of Sixth avenue and Twentieth 
 street, where she often performed her devotions, and 
 where for many years an altruistic spirit had shed 
 round its rays of peace and good-will. Mrs. Heffer- 
 nan appeared at the church, but slipped away after- 
 ward without speaking to anyone, as though con- 
 scious that her presence would be more out-of-place 
 there than was her handsome wedding-gift at the 
 home of the bride. Not so Mrs. Giebelhouse, how- 
 ever. She was so impressed with the superior sort 
 of alliance her niece was making that she came ar- 
 rayed in a bonnet which was one fluify white tangle of
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 173 
 
 orange-flowers, and mortified Eunice and Dora by 
 bringing Lizzie in a new pair of kid shoes, this time a 
 violent orange. Mr. Giebelhouse did his share, too, 
 in the way of dealing mortification. His dirt-caked 
 nails, so tell-tale of the florist, were now quite hid- 
 den, but the loose-fitting, pale-pink gloves that con- 
 cealed them were almost as trying in their way, and 
 his white neck- tie and full evening suit at one o'clock 
 in the afternoon were a cruel blow to the sisters of 
 the bride. Both Legree and Kinnicutt had learned 
 indirectly through Annette (who had got all such 
 points, of course, from Gordon) that "dress-coats 
 and low vests wouldn't be a bit the right thing." 
 
 The Giebelhouses, however, had sent a set of real 
 cut-glass, and this deference to the standing of the 
 bridegroom was fraught with refreshment after 
 those two kitchen-clocks not long ago presented to 
 her sisters, notwithstanding the evident snobbery of 
 the givers' motive. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Plimpsoll were of the party, she 
 looking more faded and fragile than ever, he ruddier 
 and plumper. All the way from their home to the 
 church (they came in the Elevated, never dreaming 
 of a carriage) poor little Mrs. Plimpsoll had been 
 persuading her lord that he was quite right to pooh- 
 pooh some new "feeling" of his, and that she her- 
 self had had it fifty times if she'd had it once. Mr. 
 Plimpsoll, who had secretly thrilled her by the state- 
 ment that he might "fall in the church and have to 
 be carried out a corpse," set up an astonishing 
 grumble, after the ceremony was over, at not being 
 asked to any subsequent wedding-reception. For 
 her own part, his wife felt glad that no such enter- 
 tainment would be held ; for she herself was racked
 
 174 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 by a splitting headache, from which she suffered a 
 good deal nowadays, and about which she did not 
 dream of telling Ezra through a fear of jarring his 
 already over-delicate nerves. 
 
 There was indeed no reception whatever in the 
 apartments of the Legrees. After Annette had 
 changed her bridal dress for a travelling-suit, only a 
 handful of people saw her depart. . . When the ex- 
 tremely modest little wedding was over, and Eunice 
 and Dora sat discussing it with their husbands, both 
 gratitude and disappointment entered into their com- 
 ments. They were glad that they had not been re- 
 quired to show themselves in a social way to the 
 Ammidowns, and yet they would have greatly liked 
 it if the Ammidowns might have brought them into 
 acquaintance \vith new people of an upper grade. 
 They had both bought expensive gowns for the wed- 
 ding ; Annette's preparations in the way of gear had 
 cost a good deal; then there had bsen the viands 
 furnished forth here at the house, which in spite of 
 simplicity had entailed clear disbursements. But 
 still, they found a great deal to speak cheerfully 
 about, and the chief subject for genial converse was 
 Annette's beauty as a bride, and the modish, becom- 
 ing style of her robe and veil. It had been, as both 
 sisters agreed, a much finer bridal-garb than their 
 own. The influence of the prospective Ammidown 
 connection had done all that. Surely, as regarded 
 many other new little glimpses into the more graceful 
 aspect of living, old orders of things had yielded 
 place to new. 
 
 Annette had been almost a dry-eyed bride. Remem- 
 bering how tearless she was at their own weddings, 
 her sisters did not think her serenity strange. But
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 175 
 
 they could not help wondering if her separation from 
 them would in the future be painful; for it was all 
 arranged that she should live hereafter in the home 
 of her husband. 
 
 "Just think," said Eunice, " what a crying-spell she 
 had yesterday, and how she clung to us and said she 
 couldn't leave us." 
 
 "Excitement kept her up to-day, "said Dora. "I 
 do hope she'll be happy off there, all alone." 
 
 ' ' All alone ! ' ' jeered Kinnicutt , amiably. ' ' Why on 
 earth do you put it that way ? " 
 
 " Oh, I can't help putting it that way," said Dora, 
 and her eyes filled as she rose and caught her baby, 
 which its nurse (the one servant she had) just then 
 brought to her. 
 
 Eunice \vent to the baby and began cooing to it 
 and kissing it, while Legree placidly said, looking 
 toward his wife : 
 
 "Annette won't be lonely. But perhaps she may 
 feel so when she comes here on future visits." 
 
 Dora, absorbed with the baby, did not hear him. 
 But Eunice lifted her head and murmured, " Oh, Aus- 
 tin! Ho wean you?" 
 
 Later, when he was alone with his wife, I^egree 
 said, curtly and harshly : 
 
 " You mustn't be surprised if Annette snubs you a 
 good deal, now she's married into that high-toned 
 set." 
 
 Eunice shook her head. "Such a thing couldn't 
 be," she returned. A certain chill brutality on her 
 husband's part, when they were away from observ- 
 ers, had become to her an affair drearily usual. 
 
 "Oh, couldn't it be?" said her cold tormentor. 
 "You just \vait . . . By the bye, did Annette ever jilt 
 that Chivver chap ? "
 
 176 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "Jilt him? Of course not, Austin? What makes 
 you think such a thing ? " 
 
 " He looked so asinine there in the church. Did you 
 notice the long lace he pulled ? " 
 
 "He did seem a little sad. I guess he liked Annette. 
 I" 
 
 "And she threw him over to marry a man -with 
 more money, Just as you'd have thrown me over 
 just as Dora 'd have thrown Harvey." 
 
 "Austin, please ' 
 
 " Oh, bosh ; you needn't deny it. I know. All you 
 women are tarred with the same stick." 
 
 "Thank you," said Eunice, biting her lips and 
 giving a few short nods. If her days of revolt were 
 over, she was not so cowed but that the difficulty of 
 self-control now and then made itself apparent with 
 her. 
 
 " And that Ammidown girl," swept on Legree, in 
 lys crisp and frigid style ; "do you call her a lady ?" 
 
 " Wasn't she polite to you ?" replied Eunice, with 
 the old rebellious spirit at work again under expected 
 slurs. 
 
 " Polite to me I Stuff! Who was she polite to ? Not 
 you, certainly. Why she hardly gave you the time o ' 
 day, with her nose cocked in the air and her long 
 arms akimbo, and the gloves on 'em reaching almost 
 to her ears." 
 
 " I thought her very prettily dressed. And people 
 can't help their manners. Florence Ammidown didn't 
 mean to be rude," 
 
 "Didn't she?" Here Legree shot out a little keen, 
 bleak laugh. "Well, perhaps not. Unless I'm all 
 wrong, Annette '11 get a good taste of her airs before 
 she's through with her."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 177 
 
 He had no grudge against Annette ; he liked the 
 Ammidown connection, was proud of it, and greatly 
 wished to keep in its good books. But having his 
 tilt at Eunice was quite an opposite affair. Doubt- 
 less he could not for his life have told why it gave him 
 pleasure to wound her like this, and then to watch, 
 as it were, the color of her blood. For Eunice seldom 
 took his little attacks with unconcern or even with 
 mildness; always she would have her fling in the way 
 of some retort. 
 
 She had it now. "You seem to be jealous," she 
 said, "that one of us should have got married into 
 the higher circles." 
 
 " Higher circles !" he sneered. " The son of an editor 
 who's dabbled in politics and usually been beaten, at 
 that." 
 
 "Oh," laughed Eunice, trying not to show that she 
 was angry, though her laugh was much louder than 
 she guessed and her cheeks had grown hot and red, 
 "I think I'c? rather be Mr. Simeon Ammidown's son 
 than the cousin of two or three shop-girls. 
 
 A tightened look showed itself round Legree's thin 
 lips. Of all other subjects he was most sensitive on 
 this one, the plebeian lowness (for so he held it) of his 
 own origin. 
 
 "You're not so far up in the world yourself," he 
 tossed back," that you can afford to throw mud at 
 me. I guess if you looked into the record of your own 
 family you'd find there girls that did a good deal 
 worse than earn their livings in dry goods stores." 
 
 Eunice clinched her hands. This seemed an appall- 
 ing insult ; it towered in sinister height over all that 
 she had received of late and they had not been few. 
 Legree's cruel domestic moods came upon him every
 
 178 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 two or three days. After a fashion his wife had 
 grown used to them, but although her innate ten- 
 dency to advise, supervise and dictate was now quelled 
 and partially benumbed, she still found docility a 
 difficult role. Poor Eunice was like a colt that ac- 
 cepts its harness but still preserves definite views on 
 the subject of the lash-string, She had reached that 
 stage of the unhappy wifehood when she sometimes 
 held guilty conferences with herself on the question 
 of how much heavier a yoke of imposition her love 
 would endure before it fell powerless on the roadside 
 of human toleration. She had begun, in other words, 
 to question the quality and vitality of her affection 
 for the man she had married; and in such reveries 
 there is always the peril of disgust. 
 
 " Pa and ma never had alow woman as their blood- 
 relation," she said, going unsteadily to ward the door 
 of the room . ' ' They were both ' ' 
 
 But before she could speak another word, Legree, 
 with his voice sharp as a knife-blade struck in : 
 
 "Oh, then you want to state that my blood-rela- 
 tions are low women ? I'd like to tell some of 'em 
 that. Perhaps they'd get up a law-suit against you 
 for libel. It would be a good way of clipping that 
 tongue o' yours. You need a real up-and-down scare. 
 Most foul-mouthed females do. I'd like to see the 
 screws put on you. I guess I'll try it, Justin the way 
 o' self-protection. 
 
 Quivering and flushed, Eunice stood at the thresh- 
 old which she had meant to cross. 
 
 ''You don't need any self-protection, Austin," she 
 said. "You're quite able to fight your own battles, 
 and to win them, as well like a rowdy." 
 
 After that she passed from the room, leaving him
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 179 
 
 alone with his indestructible temper and gelid smile. 
 
 This was what their life together had of late be- 
 come. Between intervals of comparative peace a 
 household horror would lift its venomous head. 
 Each time the apparition was to Eunice more fright- 
 ful. And each time, no doubt, a new audacious fea- 
 ture of dissension would crop up out of their bitter 
 talks. The end was not yet, Eunice would muse; 
 and with sinking heart she would put to her own 
 anxiety the question " What sort of an end will it 
 be when it conies ?" 
 
 Meanwhile she was armed with a strong safeguard. 
 She had not ceased to love her husband, terribly as he 
 sometimes would shake the roots and fibres of her 
 affection.
 
 XIII 
 
 After Annette and Gordon returned from their wed- 
 ding-trip they went to dwell at the Ammidown home. 
 Her separation from her sisters proved a great trial 
 to the young wife. She was almost absurdly proud 
 of the new conditions of life in which she found herself, 
 and would describe that or this little luxurious detail 
 with blended relish and fervor. But in spite of 
 changes at once novel and refreshingly cultured, her 
 heart hungered after the old companionships. She 
 had married in a manner for ambition, though love 
 had been her chief incentive for becoming Gordon 
 Ammidown's wife. Still, it was so hard to live under 
 a different roof from ' ' the girls . ' ' Her mo ther-in-law 
 did not make it harder, but Florence did not make it 
 in the least easier, and there were times when a cer- 
 tain reserve and aloofness in the demeanor of her hus- 
 band's father caused her to remember that she was of 
 a race which the world held unequal to his own. 
 Annette, like many young women of just her class 
 and type, looked on social elevation with a romantic 
 eye. She felt distinct gratitude toward Gordon for 
 having let her share his superior name and place. 
 The Ammidowns brought her into contact with a
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 181 
 
 more refined set of people than any she had ever 
 known before. There was something exquisite in the 
 way she still clung to the company of her sisters, how- 
 ever, and in their entire freedom from envy as they 
 listened to accounts of a society that Florence may 
 have thought plain and poky but that seemed quite 
 brilliantly the opposite to her brother's young bride. 
 Brilliantly the opposite it also seemed to Eunice and 
 Dora. One day the latter said to Annette, while she 
 was hugging and fondling her tiny and pretty little 
 niece : 
 
 "Harvey and I are sorry we've christened the 
 baby Eunice. We think it would have been much 
 better policy to have called her Annette, after the 
 great lady of the family. Some day, when Gordon's 
 a millionaire, you and he might " 
 
 " Oh, Dora, do stop! " cried Annette. 
 
 "No, let her go on," said Eunice, with majestic 
 sarcasm. 
 
 "In the first place," averred Annette, "I'm no 
 more a great lady than I'm the President's wife." 
 
 " Perhaps you may be that, some day," said Dora. 
 " Who knows? You've married a clever man." Some- 
 how she would have said " a smart man," not long 
 since, but with that startling adaptability of the Amer- 
 ican woman, she and Eunice had of late both bor- 
 rowed new forms of expression from Annette's 
 altered yet half unconscious phraseology. 
 
 "So has Eunice married a clever man," declared 
 Annette. "Austin might be almost anything, if he 
 chose to try." 
 
 " Austin isn't educated enough," said Eunice, with 
 a sad frankness that made each of her sisters turn 
 on her a glance of surprise. And each felt at the
 
 182 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 same instant that Legree's wife would not have 
 spoken thus of him three months ago. 
 
 Dora let her characteristic humor kindly cloak, as it 
 were, the melancholy little effect of awkwardness 
 which Eunice's bit of candor had produced. " I'mleftto 
 take for granted," she broke out, leaning over to the 
 baby, where it lay on Annette's lap, and giving its 
 wee frock-front one or two quick maternal touches, 
 "that my poor Harvey is simply without a ray of 
 brains." 
 
 "No one would dream of thinking that," smiled 
 Annette. "And only yesterday Gordon was saying 
 what a good, warm-hearted fellow Harvey is." 
 
 "Thank you," returned Dora, with mock humility. 
 "I hope that means they'll soon raise his salary on 
 the Monitor. Baby asked me this morning (didn't 
 you, baby?) whether the value of his services 
 wouldn't increase as the establishment continued to 
 employ him." 
 
 " Those are very big words for such a little mouth," 
 said Annette, giving her charge a fresh hug, "Auntie 
 doesn't know how to answer them, or Uncle Gordon 
 either, I'm afraid. It must advise its dear papa to 
 talk to Mr. Ammidown himself." 
 
 Kinnicutt had told Dora, of late, that he really 
 thought of doing so. But Dora, though she would 
 have liked ampler means for the management of her 
 little home, never allowed monetary longings to 
 trouble her. Unlike Eunice, she had been perfectly 
 happy since her marriage. She thanked destiny with 
 silent joy for having given her a mate whose daily 
 dealings were remote from the' least inclement mood. 
 If anything, her beloved Harvey was too amiable. 
 She had accused herself several times of shameful
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 183 
 
 peevishness just before and after the birth of her 
 child. And he had been so tenderly tolerant! She 
 asked herself, sometimes, if ever any woman before 
 now had had so faultless a husband. He might not 
 have the cold, strong, machine-like mind of Austin 
 Legree. He couldn't for his life have invented any- 
 thing like that wondrous Opaline Oil, which people 
 were beginning to buy so, and which promised to 
 coin thousands for its shrewd patentee. But he was 
 an energetic young journalist, if not so tremendously 
 able a one, and his night work (which he really did not 
 need always to do, as he had told her, and which occa- 
 sionally would keep him out quite late) was a proof 
 of how he toiled and meant to go on toiling for the 
 girl he had \vedded. 
 
 It was in the midst of thoughts and convictions 
 like these that a fearful blow came to Dora. She 
 could not have felt a greater faith in her husband's 
 complete constancy and singleness of affection than 
 at the very hour which shattered such faith for good 
 and all. 
 
 The spring had set in very raw and damp, so that 
 now and then of an evening Kinnicutt would wear 
 his thick overcoat when he went out of doors on 
 that "night work," which Dora had grown cordially 
 to hate. For the cessation of these nocturnal out- 
 ings, Dora would have been quite bold enough to 
 plead with the elder Ammidown had the young 
 reporter himself only permitted. But Kinnicutt 
 would shake his head and bid her wait. There was 
 time enough, he would say, and it might be bad 
 policy to push things too much just yet. Those 
 words of his afterward returned to her with misera- 
 ble mockery.
 
 184 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 On the morning when she found out the truth, or 
 at least no slight part of the truth, her baby was 
 asleep in its cradle beside her own bed; and on re- 
 entering, after a brief absence, the room where the 
 child lay, she was beset by a sudden sense of atmos- 
 pheric chill. Having certain things to do elsewhere, 
 she went hastily into a closet and drew from it her 
 husband's thick over-coat, which he had worn on 
 the previous evening. As she let the heavy garment 
 fall on the cradle, it occurred to her in a fondly poetic 
 way that this big fabric would not merely be shield- 
 ing from a material point of view, but that some 
 sweet fatherly spell of protection might be born from 
 it as well. 
 
 She was about to quit the side of the cradle and 
 the room also, when a small folded paper slipped 
 from the pocket of the coat down upon the floor. 
 Usually she had by this time brushed with thrifty 
 care any garment which Harvey had worn yesterday 
 and to-day abandoned. But this morning other 
 duties had stood in the way of such housewifely work. 
 She glanced with regret at a spot or two of dried 
 slush on the coat, and in so doing she saw the fallen 
 paper and stooped to pick it up. 
 
 She smiled as she did this, remembering how he had 
 spoken to her more than once of the remorseless 
 manner in which she would "go through" all his 
 pockets. Ah, the dear boy had only been making one 
 of his jokes. He had never written or received a line, 
 since their marriage, of which he \vould be ashamed 
 to tell her not he ! 
 
 The paper seemed somehow to unfold of itself in her 
 hand. She had not thought about reading it; she did 
 not think of doing so now as her glance fell upon its 
 open page.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 185 
 
 Then, seeing his name in a certain incredible con- 
 text, she started like one who has been stabbed. Her 
 fresh young face whitened to the lips while she read 
 on and on. It was a letter three pages long. It 
 told of an appointment which could not be kept 
 last night in a certain restaurant many streets 
 away. It gave excuses mixed with an appall- 
 ing tenderness. It bristled with references to 
 former meetings on former evenings. It glared with 
 one or two allusions to herself. It reeked with co- 
 quetries, with silly and yet damning epithets of en- 
 dearment. 
 
 Dora shuddered audibly as she hid the paper in her 
 gown. Almost at once she tore it forth again and 
 re-read it entirely, with lips that worked and eyes 
 that blazed. 
 
 Then she thought of Eunice, and hurried from the 
 room. Having reached the next threshold, she paused 
 there, and a generous pang pierced her heart, tor- 
 tured though it was with its own griefs. Ah, had 
 not Eunice already enough to bear? . . Just then 
 she heard the cries of her awakened child. She went 
 back to the cradle, took baby from it, and gave 
 succor to the tiny, hungry mouth. At the same time 
 her eyes began to stream with a tempest of tears. 
 It was a sight to have melted a soul of bronze, this 
 young mother seated suckling her baby at a breast 
 which had just been dealtsodeep if viewless a wound. 
 
 That evening Kinnicutt came gayly into the room 
 where she sat, trying to sew, with baby in a rocking- 
 chair close beside her, crowing and cooing and flinging 
 into the air two coraline little legs. 
 
 He stooped over the baby and kissed it and played 
 with it. While he did so Dora put aside her work, 
 rose and slipped away.
 
 186 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Surprised at her disappearance, he presently sought 
 and found her in the next room. Her head was slight- 
 ly bent over a high-standing wicker work-basket, 
 and one of her hands appeared to fumble among its 
 contents as though in search of something. But 
 really the posture and the movement of the hand 
 were both pathetic little feints. He came up behind 
 her and put his arm about her waist. She trembled, 
 and a doubt instantly entered his mind. But when 
 his lips had touched her cheek and she neither ac- 
 quiesced nor recoiled, then he doubted no longer; he 
 was sure. In spite of all the galliard levity of his 
 nature and temperament, guilt sounded its monition, 
 and he became sure. 
 
 "Well, what is it? " he said, with his thoughts fly- 
 ing to seek the real cause of her discovery, since 
 already conscience had convinced him that discovery 
 was the cause of the change in her. Then he added, 
 with a low laugh that rang piteously feeble: "I 
 hope you haven't heard any more bad news about 
 the goings-on between Eunice and Austin ? " 
 
 "No," she said. " But there's bad news of another 
 sort." She was twisting her hands together as 
 she now turned and faced him, and he saw a quiver 
 or two at the edges of her nostrils. 
 " What bad news ? " he asked. 
 
 "I found a letter you'd forgotten to burn up, or 
 tear up, or whatever you please. I found it in the 
 pocket of your thick coat." Her voice had a coldness 
 mechanic and dull. "I didn't find it, though, after 
 all," she went on, with a smile of scornful weariness, 
 remotely unlike the gay, brisk Dora he had left that 
 morning at his fireside. " It dropped on the floor as 
 I was throwing the coat over baby's cradle. I never
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 187 
 
 thought of reading it until it seemed to open in my 
 hand of its own accord. Perhaps," she added, in a 
 very solemn and forlorn voice, " God opened it there, 
 between my fingers, Harvey Kinnicutt, and showed 
 me the kind of man the kind of husband you 
 are." 
 
 There was no accusation in her tones ; there was 
 only an immense sorrow, and the signs of a disillu- 
 sionment no less mighty. 
 
 Then she either heard, or thought that she heard, 
 the baby's voice, and hurried away to the spot where 
 he had first come upon her with the sewing in her 
 hand. She discovered that the little creature had in- 
 deed altered its merry Growings to a kind of whimper. 
 . . But perhaps it had not really cried ; perhaps the 
 mother's heart had merely dreamed, for certain, sud- 
 den and subtle reasons, that it had called her. Some- 
 how in the misery of being forced to tell him of the 
 outrage he had put upon her, she may have felt that 
 her child was a natural if senseless defendant. She 
 took the baby from the rocking-chair in which it lay 
 nested, and clasping it to her breast seated herself in 
 the same chair. She wondered if he would follow 
 her and speak to her while she sat like this, but told 
 herself that she did not much care whether he came 
 or not. Presently he did come, however, and stood 
 near her. She lifted her eyes to his face for an instant 
 and saw that he was much paler. 
 
 "Dora," he began, "I deserve to have you hate me." 
 
 "I don't hate you," she answered. "But it's all 
 over, now ; it's all over. 
 
 "You mean our love?" he asked, after quite a 
 pause. 
 
 "I mean my love. You never had any for me."
 
 188 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "Dora," he protested, "I never loved a living wo- 
 man till I met you !" 
 
 "And you met her afterward. I see." 
 
 "No, no !" He flung himself on his knees beside her 
 chair and did the cowardly thing men of his moral 
 build so often do when unmasked. " It's true I met 
 her afterward, but I never loved her, or dreamed of 
 even caring for her. She led me on ; she tempted me ; 
 she used all kinds of arts. Of course I've been a weak 
 fool. But you must forgive me this once, Dora! 
 After all, a man is only a man ! And I swear to you 
 I'll never exchange one word with her again as long 
 as I live. . . Dora, why don't you speak ?" 
 
 "Speak? I've nothing to say." 
 
 " Give me your hand then. Don't keep it back from 
 me like that!" 
 
 "I'm holding Baby with it. But I couldn't give it 
 to you even if I wasn't." 
 
 "Why not?., why not?" His eyes fiilled with 
 tears. To some men tears would have brought a 
 repelling effect of weakness. With him it was quite 
 the opposite ; they became simply an accentuation of 
 his native winsome mediocrity. Dora did not know 
 it (what woman would ever tell herself such a hu- 
 miliating truth ? ) but it was this very mediocrity 
 that had made her love him. His distinct expression 
 of it appealed to her now. He went on speaking, and 
 sobbed like a girl as he spoke. He was tremendously in 
 earnest, and concealed nothing, though his lachry- 
 mose frankness might have extended itself to the 
 avowal of other faults, during the brief term of his 
 marriage, no less grave than this one. As it was, he 
 never felt a twinge for the commission of those faults. 
 He was one of those light beings who sometimes ap-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 189 
 
 pear to have been created for the express purpose of 
 breaking any strong and constant heart with which 
 they are brought into contact. It was impossible to 
 be disgusted by his childishness as he knelt and begged 
 for pardon, since there was an element of purely na- 
 tive grace in its very self-surrender. Among other 
 walks of life he would have been a born courtier, and 
 the king whose mistress he had alienated by his win- 
 some smile might have condoned the theft because of 
 his picturesque and fascinating remorse. He avoided 
 (and without the least shadow of shrewd design) just 
 that course of self-defensive reproach which might 
 have petrified his hearer instead of melting her. The 
 husband who can infamously injure his wife and yet 
 convince her that he holds himself both a monumen- 
 tal scamp for having done so and a scamp, too, with- 
 out one least residuum of resentment at being found 
 out, is a husband far more dangerous after his fash- 
 ion than the profligate who betrays her and then 
 bravely snaps his fingers in her face. For all wives 
 are not Eunices, who feel the almost deathless quality 
 of their love resist with hardy toughness of fibre ruf- 
 fianly inflictions. Others are Doras, who can stanch 
 what has seemed the mortal blow given to their love 
 by a recognition of intense mingled repentance and 
 self-abasement on the part of him who has wounded 
 them. 
 
 When Kinnicutt told her that he would die of a broken 
 heart if she no longer cared for him, Dora had an 
 abrupt frightened thrill ; but when he groaned that 
 she ought to have mercy on him because she was ever 
 so much higher and better and stronger than he was, 
 then she let one hand drop over the side of the rock- 
 ing-chair so that he could clasp it between both his
 
 190 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 own and bathe it with his copious and really genuine 
 tears. 
 
 While he so clasped and bathed it there seemed 
 nothing unduly puerile in his whimpered vocatives 
 and questions. "Oh, my shamefully-treated little 
 wife ! Oh, what a perfect wretch I've been to you. 
 And I dare say Eunice knows all about it, and what 
 on earth does she think ? Or perhaps you've only told 
 Annette ? Which of them did you tell ? Don't keep back 
 the truth from me don't spare me I don't deserve 
 to be spared ! " 
 
 " I haven't told either of them," came Dora's reply. 
 "I haven't told anybody but Baby." For the first 
 time her tears came, now, but she tried not to let him 
 see their moist rush. 
 
 He did see, however, and sprang to his feet. Then, 
 while his arms were about her, she chokedly said : 
 "Now, Harvey, remember that if I forgive this once I 
 do it because you tell me you've seen your sin the 
 greatness of your sin and because you mean to crush 
 down every bad thought, hereafter, that any bad wo- 
 man may rouse in you." Her voice was so strangled, 
 at this point, that she could scarcely use it at all. 
 "Do . . do you recollect the words of . . of . . our 
 marriage-service?" she pursued, with her lips in a ten- 
 der tremor and her eyes at last recklessly streaming. 
 " Do you recollect them, Harvey ? 'and forsaking all 
 others, cleave only to her?' You swore those words. 
 You swore them, but you haven't kept the oath. 
 You say it was some madness in you that made you 
 break it some madness that wasn't any part of your 
 love for me. You say that your love for me still is. 
 Then all the rest of the lives we live together must be 
 pn your side not only a fight against this madness,
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 191 
 
 Harvey, but a fight in -which you win. Do you under- 
 stand me? If if the flesh rises up you must grind the 
 flesh under your- heel. Do you understand ? Because 
 if you don't, or won't, or can't, then I can take Baby 
 and go to Eunice with her, and live as best I may.". . . 
 
 But he told her, with kisses and many vows, both 
 of present and future penitence, that he did under- 
 stand and would never swerve from perfect loyalty 
 to her henceforth. 
 
 She believed him; or, rather, under emotional stress 
 and a yearning for a return of the old happiness 
 which that state engendered, she believed that she 
 believed him. 
 
 A step made Kinnicutt cease from his contrite ca- 
 resses. The interruption was a very commonplace 
 one. The single servant in their little flat came to 
 tell them that dinner was getting cold. 
 
 " Take Baby, Susan," said Dora, giving the child to 
 the servant and knowing with secret shame what a 
 tale her wet, flushed cheeks had already told. " Come 
 to dinner, Harvey," she went on. "Yes" (glancing 
 at a near clock) "it is past the time, isn't it." She 
 was going to add "Why didn't you tell us before, 
 Susan? " but that, it struck her, would have been too 
 drearily absurd. Susan took the child, and as it saw 
 her broad-blown face, it laughed, glad to be within 
 the big, toilful arms that already it knew as well as 
 its mother's frailer ones. In another moment Dora 
 passed toward the dinning-room. But pausing and 
 turning, after a step or two, she saw Kinnicutt throw 
 something small and pink into the red, packed coals 
 of the grate. 
 
 "What was that?" she asked, suddenly^ and with 
 an unwilling note of suspicion in her voice one which
 
 192 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 was really the key-note of many days of life yet un- 
 dawned between himself and her. 
 
 Harvey started a little, and then turned to her with 
 an abrupt, strained smile. 
 
 "Oh, nothing," he said. " Only a little faded rose- 
 bud that I picked up on Sixth avenue a minute or 
 two befo.re I came in. Someone had dropped it, you 
 know." 
 
 It was indeed a little faded rose-bud, but he hadn't 
 picked it up on Sixth avenue a minute or two before 
 
 he came in. He had But no matter; it did not in 
 
 any way concern the "writer of that horrible letter; 
 it concerned someone else, and someone feminine as 
 well. 
 
 During dinner he asked her for that same horrible 
 letter, and she gave it to him. He left the room, 
 burned it in the same grate where he had burned the 
 rose, and then returned. 
 
 "You're so good so sweet and kind and merciful," 
 he said-, while he re-seated himself at their little table. 
 Dora looked at him. Her eyes were shining quite 
 brightly, but her face was still very sad. She made 
 him no answer, and tried to appear as if she 
 were eating. But in reality she ate only a few 
 morsels, choking even those down. 
 
 He, on the other hand, partook of an excellent 
 dinner, and during the hour or two that succeeded 
 the meal, fell asleep in a big arm-chair, and now and 
 then produced a mellow, comfortable little snore.
 
 XIV 
 
 On the following day both of Dora's sisters met and 
 talked with her, and both told her that she was 
 somehow not looking herself. But Dora merely 
 laughed and said: "Oh, I'm more of a housekeeper, 
 now Baby's come; you must remember that." 
 
 Annette, as usual, had some incident of social 
 gayety to record. This time it was a large dinner at 
 which she and her husband had lately been present. 
 
 "Mercy! " said Eunice, after certain details of the 
 banquet had been given. "I don't see how you sat 
 through all those courses. I'd have felt like bursting 
 if I'd eaten them all." 
 
 "Oh, I just nibbled at some," said Annette. "Be- 
 sides, every now and then, you know, I took a sip of 
 wine." 
 
 "Oh, they had wine, too?" said Eunice, as though 
 human credence were now being strained to its ut- 
 most. 
 
 'What kind was it?" Dora asked. 
 
 " Did they have wine and what kind was it? " mer- 
 rily mocked Annette. " Why, girls, they had six kinds 
 of wine." 
 
 " Six kinds! " repeated Eunice and Dora in a breath. 
 
 Id
 
 194 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "And such lovely flowers," Annette \vent on. Then 
 she described the luxury and color of these embellish- 
 ments; but as she ended, Eunice inquired: 
 
 "You certainly didn't even sip each of those six 
 wines, Annette?" 
 
 "Oh," said Dora, "Annette's used to tippling by 
 this time. They always have wine claret, didn't 
 you say? at the Ammidown dinners." 
 
 "Yes," replied Annette. "Mr. Ammidown's fond 
 of it. And I must confess that I've sort of got used 
 to a glass or two at dinner. Everybody at home 
 drinks it quite freely that is, everybody except Gor- 
 don." 
 
 Eunice pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. 
 "It seems to me just as dissipated!" she declared. 
 " Still, I know it's a French custom. I've heard that 
 in Paris they drink it instead of water. rOnly think! 
 Well, though, just look at what a people the French 
 are, with those awful revolutions going on nearly 
 all the while." 
 
 "It seems almost funny that Gordon shouldn't ever 
 take a drop of anything" but water," said Dora to 
 Annette. 
 
 " He doesn't carefor wine a bit, "Annette answered. 
 Then, lowering her voice, while a little star seemed 
 to swim into both her dark eyes: " I knqw, too, why 
 he doesn't care for it. He said to me not long ago, 
 girls: 'Annette,' he said, 'I'm not very old, as you're 
 aware, but I've seen just how much trouble drink is 
 bringing into the world every day.' " 
 
 "And he avoids it on that account?" said Eunice, 
 with admiration ringing clearly in her tones. 
 
 "He didn't saj^so," replied Annette, with a touch 
 of pride in the pose of her chin, "but I drew. my con- 
 clusions."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 195 
 
 "How nice of him," said Dora. "There aren't 
 many stylish New York young men who'd behave 
 like that." 
 
 Annette tried to look demurely unconscious of this 
 pungent compliment, and then she burst into a great 
 nervous laugh. " Oh, it does seem so funny," she ex- 
 claimed, "that I should be the \vife of a stylish young 
 New York man, as Dora calls him ! " 
 
 "It's true," approved Eunice, with her elder-sister 
 air handsomely in the ascendant. " From a worldly 
 point of view, Annette, you've made tie match of the 
 family." 
 
 "I hope it's a good match from another point of 
 view than that," murmured Annette. 
 
 "I didn't say it wasn't I surely didn't think it 
 wasn't," Eunice answered, with a sort of sweet 
 austerity. 
 
 "No, indeed, you didn't," said Dora, looking at 
 Eunice with a quick, wistful eagerness that died from 
 her blue e3^es an instant afterward. An odd fall in 
 her voice made Annette briefly stare at her. Then 
 there was a little silence among the three ; and at 
 length Annette said : 
 
 "After all, we're each of us very happily married. 
 We must acknowledge that." 
 
 Eunice's face darkened. "I'm the least happily 
 married," she said; and then, knowing that they 
 both knew something if not all of her trouble, she 
 lowered her gaze after a rapid glance at each of them. 
 
 "No, no," Dora shot in, as if moved by a sudden 
 longing to unveil her own secret sorrow. " No ; no. 
 I ' And there she stopped dead short. 
 
 Eunice broke into a laugh. "Ah, Dora," she ex- 
 claimed, "you've never known a pang since you took 
 Harvey's name."
 
 196 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 " Right, Eunice," chimed in Annette. " I only hope 
 that when I've been married as long as Dora's been I 
 can feel my husband as thoroughly my lover as we're 
 both sure Harvey is hers ! " 
 
 Annette's hope was not destined to be destroyed in 
 the sense that she uttered it. But a few more days 
 brought her a stern shock, nevertheless, with regard 
 to Gordon. 
 
 The family dined at home, that day, as they often 
 did, not being half so fashionable with respect to 
 dining out as their poor caste-ridden Florence would 
 have liked to have them. But when Annette pre- 
 sented herself in the dining-room she did so \vith a 
 wondering and even worried look. 
 
 "Gordon's not home yet," she said, as she seated 
 herself at the table. "It seems so queer. He's 
 always got back from the office, before this, by a 
 good hour earlier. I've never known him to be so 
 late since . . " (here poor Annette hesitated and 
 looked timidly at Florence) "since we were married." 
 
 Florence, who sat next to the young wife, frowned 
 a little as their eyes met. "You mustn't show so 
 much concern in your husband's goings and comings," 
 that wise damsel announced, almost too faintly for 
 either of her parents to hear. "It isn't good form. 
 It isn't done, you know, among nice people." And 
 then an odd, self-accusing look crossed Florence's 
 face, for some reason, as though she had spoken 
 stupidly at random. 
 
 " Oh, isn't it?" faltered Annette. " But I can't help 
 missing him, you know, Florence." 
 
 The two young women had got to be very good 
 friends by this time. Florence, with all her droll 
 snobbery, had a sweet and kindly heart. She may
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 197 
 
 have meant to do dreadful, annihilating things with 
 her snobbery on the advent of her pretty, dark-eyed 
 sister-in-law or told herself that she meant so to do. 
 But Annette had spiked her guns by promptly rever- 
 ing her, not only as the sole sister of Gordon but as a 
 young lady of the very first fashion. When Florence 
 said "If I were you, Annette, I wouldn't use 'guess' 
 as a form of speech, I'd use 'fancy' or 'think,'" 
 Annette had never dreamed of haughty revolt, but 
 had meekly responded : 
 
 "Thank you, Florence. And yet will you please 
 tell me why ' guess ' isn't a good English word ? " 
 
 Completely disarmed, Florence had broken into an 
 embarrassed giggle and assured herself that she had 
 never seen a pair of dark eyes that could so change 
 from drowsy to vivid as did those of her new simple- 
 bred little kinswoman. 
 
 "'Guess,'" she had answered lightly, "isn't an 
 English word at all. It's an American word." 
 
 "Oh, Florence! I can show it you in the diction- 
 ary. And why do you call anything 'horribly 
 American ? ' Is it ever horrible to be American ? " 
 
 Florence kissed her, and held her hand smilingly 
 while she said: "Yes, it's horrible to be American 
 when you're doing or saying anything that they do or 
 say better in the English manner. That is, my dear, 
 if you belong to the best society." 
 
 " Tell me about the best society," returned Annette ; 
 and then Florence had a great deal of nonsense to 
 talk, which continued in its intermittent outflow for 
 a number of weeks. Nothing to the young daughter 
 of the Ammidowns could have been more delightful 
 than the respectful attention and recipiency of An- 
 nette. That somewhat cynical poet who sang of
 
 198 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 women as all being rakes at heart might with far 
 truer wisdom have proclaimed them snobs in the 
 same furtive way. Annette became deeply interested 
 in the creeds and edicts of the select world as Flor- 
 ence, with her droll newspaper-born erudition con- 
 cerning them, pictured their charms. Incessantly 
 Annette was being chidden or snubbed for mistake or 
 solecism. She bore her yoke with delightful patience, 
 and indeed had only love to give in return for its in- 
 fliction. She had had ample chance, no doubt, to 
 discover by this time that the sister of her husband 
 was not at all the brilliant lady of fashion her own 
 airs and graces had implied. But she had discovered 
 nothing of the sort. Florence still shone for her eyes 
 with a corona of the most patrician distinction. 
 Her word was not only law ; it was law that begot 
 obedience as naturally as bark begets leaf. 
 
 To-day, after having seated herself at dinner, An- 
 nette had no idea of the secret anxiety that reigned 
 in this little family circle. But soon she detected 
 worriment on the faces of both Gordon's parents. 
 What could it mean ? Was he its cause ? Were they 
 keeping anything back from her ? 
 
 As the dinner progressed, she turned to Mr. Ammi- 
 down, and in speaking to him she forgot the drop- 
 ping of that old-fashioned " sir " which Florence had 
 long ago vetoed her using. "Can you tell me, sir," 
 she asked, "whether Gordon was at the office when 
 you left?" 
 
 "I'm unable to say," replied her father-in-law, 
 with a look that shifted unwontedly. He at once 
 spoke of something else, addressing his wife across 
 the table; and in her answers Annette perceived an 
 absentness yet somehow a repressed excitement.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 199 
 
 She denounced her own dread as foolish, and yet it 
 grew rather than waned. As soon as dinner was 
 over, and just as the head of the house had de- 
 parted for a solitary cigar upstairs in his library, she 
 went to Mrs. Ammidown's side and laid a hand on 
 that lady's arm. 
 
 " It does seem so strange," she said, " to go through 
 the whole of dinner without Gordon . . doesn't it?" 
 
 To her dismay, Mrs. Ammidown, after a mo- 
 mentary wistful stare, burst into tears. 
 
 "Mamma! mamma!" fell from Florence, who 
 hurried toward her mother at once. "Remember, the 
 new waitress may be back any instant. Do, please 
 control yourself." 
 
 But her monition might have done much better for 
 Annette. " Oh, what is it?" she cried, and terrifiedly 
 caught Mrs. Ammidown by either shoulder. " Some- 
 thing's happened to him, I know! It's happened, 
 and you've been afraid to tell me!" 
 
 Between them, Florence and her mother led An- 
 nette into one of the dim drawing rooms beyond. 
 Florence at this moment forgot every vestige of the 
 nonsense that ruled her life, yet ruled it, when all 
 was told, so superficially. She forced Annette into a 
 sofa, with gentle yet firm suasion. Mrs. Ammidown 
 seated herself on Annette's other side. Then there 
 was silence, during which Gordon's wife looked al 
 most wildly from one to the other face. 
 
 "What is it? What is it?" she again questioned. 
 ' ' Oh, tell me! Even if if he's dead, do tell me! ' ' 
 
 "Dead!" replied Florence. "As though we'd have 
 sat there like that if he had been!" 
 
 "It's nothing, nothing at all," broke from Mrs. 
 Ammidown, while she wiped her eyes in a manner
 
 200 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 full of plaintiveness yet of resolve as well. "My dear 
 Annette, I don't know why that that nervous fit 
 overcame me; I don't indeed." 
 
 "You were nervous about him, though!" said An- 
 nette. "It was that; it is that! Don't deceive me!" 
 Then she turned toward Florence. "Fo'//tell me!" 
 
 " Yes, I will," was the answer. 
 
 "Florence!" appealed her mother. " Remember that 
 we don't really know yet we're not sure yet!" 
 
 " Oh, mamma, "sprang from Florence with, mourn- 
 ful impatience. "We're almost as sure as we've ever 
 been! Didn't papa say that he came there into the 
 private office at three o'clock this afternoon and that 
 he was then " 
 
 Mrs. Ammidown rose, and put forth two trembling, 
 vetoing hands. "No, no," she cried, your father 
 might have been mistaken!" Then, tumultuously to 
 Annette: '""Come upstairs with me, my dear. I've 
 something to show you that I bought this afternoon. 
 Come." 
 
 Annette rose, taking the speaker's hand feverishly 
 in both her own. With a rebellious toss of the head, 
 Florence now rose also. "Mamma," she cried, 
 "from what I heard papa say just before dinner, / 
 haven't a vestige of doubt. And it's better that 
 Annette should know everything at once. We should 
 never have -kept it from her as we did. I knew it was 
 certain to come. And it has come ..." At this point 
 the girl suddenly staggered backward, and pointed 
 to the near doorway. "Heavens!" her next words 
 rang bleakly, "it's here now! " 
 
 Annette looked. She saw her husband enter the 
 room. She shot toward him, then paused. In an 
 instant she had grasped the full, odious truth.
 
 XV 
 
 Gordon dropped into a chair while his wife stood 
 gazing at him. His face was excessively flushed. He 
 had on his overcoat, and held his hat in one hand. In 
 the other hand he held a half-burned cigar. 
 
 His mother went toward him, passing Annette, 
 who stood as if turned to stone. 
 
 "Gordon," she said very gently, "will you come 
 with me to your room?" 
 
 She spoke' as if confident of his kindly answer. In 
 all such trying times as these she had never received 
 a real rebuff from him. But there came one now. He 
 waved his mother aside, and in another moment 
 stood unsteadily erect. His clouded mind was pierced 
 with shame and self-disgust at the sight of Annette. 
 He had an impulse to fling himself on the carpet at 
 her feet and grovel for her pardon. Then that passed 
 and an insane anger at his mother took its place. 
 His voice, as he began to speak, was fatally thick; 
 his words were fatally incoherent. Soon both cleared. 
 
 " She made me marry you," he said to Annette, not 
 loudly, but with a terrible huskiness. " She made me 
 marry you because she thought it would save me, 
 cure me. That's the truth Florence knows it's the
 
 202 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 truth. And the whole thing was an outrage. I 
 mean to you, dear girl to you ... I shouldn't have 
 come home at all. I should have staid away until 
 But my mind's more like my own mind now, and I 
 see I did come or somebody brought me God knows 
 which ... I won't stay, Annette; I'll go out again 
 for a little while and come back as soon as I'm better. 
 Don't be afraid; I won't stay long; I I must get 
 
 to the air, and I promise, I swear ' 
 
 He did not say what he would promise or swear, 
 but dashed from the room, and soon from the house 
 as well. Once out in the street, with a sharp, damp- 
 ish wind blowing on his face, he felt strangely, almost 
 agonizingly sobered. As he walked onward he tried 
 to recollect what had happened since that meeting 
 with his father in the afternoon. But he tried quite 
 in vain. The imp in him had got the upper hand 
 then, and a few stern words, a few shocked looks 
 from his father had served merely to intensify its 
 goblin sway. His nerves began to quiver with anew 
 craving for drink, and at the same time an acute 
 self-pity seemed threatening to drive him mad. The 
 past few years became panoramic to his heated brain. 
 There could be no doubt, he told himself, that nature 
 had laid on him one of those hereditary curses which 
 are like the worst freaks of spite from a malignant 
 foe. He recalled his college-days, in which he had 
 often shrunk with a sort of premonitory terror from 
 all wine, as though instinctively aware that it held 
 for him a peculiar power of bane. Then he had 
 striven to shake off such dread as unmanly and 
 weak. He had let the tempter work its will, and with 
 what horrible speed that will had been worked. 
 Other young men were not like him ; if they sank
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 203 
 
 into calamity it was not with his horridly abrupt 
 plunge. They had all had a fairer chance than he. 
 They had all known a time when they could drink 
 without seeming to be harmed a whit when excess 
 did not dog the heels of participation. He had never 
 known any such time. With him some cerebral 
 lesion had fraught with disaster the first glass that 
 met his lips, yet conferred on it a fearful fascination 
 besides. No wonder that Harvey Kinnicutt had 
 never guessed the truth in collegiate hours. There 
 had never been any visible truth to guess, at that 
 period. All that while he had held himself in, aware 
 of his own peril". Afterward he had let himself loose, 
 and the peril had grown a monster affliction. Oh, it 
 was hard ! 
 
 And then this marriage with Annette. Had he 
 been wrong to upbraid his mother for havingbrought 
 it about? Was not he himself prepared to control 
 the longing he felt for the girl? But had not his 
 mother behaved with savage cruelty ? Had she not 
 been merciless as some animal that slays .another to 
 feed its own young? Was not this whole alliance a 
 trick, a trap, a snare ? Did not poor Annette owe to 
 his house a bitter grudge ? And how should he go 
 back to her and look her in the eyes, knowing that 
 she knew at last of what an infamous traffic she had 
 been made the victim ? 
 
 "She may despise me so, after this," he said to 
 himself. " that to live with me will be a horror. " He 1 ' 
 stood still, as this thought crossed him, and a lamp- 
 post being near, he reached out a hand and clung to 
 it. He reeled for a second, as he did so, and anyone 
 passing him might have deemed him simply the most 
 ordinary of drunkards, clutching the traditional
 
 204 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 lamp-post. But in truth he had not been so com- 
 pletely sobered for several lurid hours as just at this 
 moment. " That to live with me will be a horror," 
 he repeated, aloud now and not mentally. "She 
 married me believing me so different from what I am. 
 Ah, poor Annette ! It was an outrage ! " 
 
 The gusty night had hidden a moon among its 
 driving, hustling clouds. Now there came an inter- 
 space of clear sky above the house-tops, and while 
 beams of pale splendor poured suddenly down on 
 the street and gutters washed clean by recent rain, 
 they showed Gordon's face, pale yet with no sign of 
 grossness on it, the eyes full of sorrow, the symmetric 
 auburn beard and moustache aiding by their mellow 
 gloom of tint his fine-cut nostrils, and the strong yet 
 soft curves of that interspace between cheeks and 
 brow which even more than his neat moulded chin 
 made him a man of noteworthy air. 
 
 But to Gordon himself the burst of moonlight 
 showed his present surroundings with keen display. 
 Near at hand was the saloon of Andrew Heffernan. 
 Its side-door seemed to beckon him. In other days 
 he had slipped through that side-door, conscious that 
 by so doing he escaped the publicity of being seen by 
 others of his own class. 
 
 " My wife's uncle," he thought. "How little I ever 
 then dreamed I should connect this dive with such an 
 idea!" 
 
 Yet the incongruity did not prevent him from soon 
 slipping inside. He was sobered, but still the greed for 
 drink had by no means left him. He hated to let Hef- 
 fernan see the truth if he were there. Perhaps Hef- 
 fernan was not there, he had said to himself, and in 
 that case he would remain long enough to lull this 
 awful craving.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 205 
 
 But Heffernan was there. "Ah," said the uncle of 
 Annette, in sudden recognition. That was all. Then 
 he put forth his hand, which Gordon took. " How 
 goesit?" the liquor-seller asked, in a cool, professional 
 way. And Gordon answered, more betrayingly than 
 he. knew : "All right. Won't you have something ?" 
 
 This passed in a flash. Heffernan was standing 
 outside ofhis bar ; he never went inside of it as a cater- 
 er nowadays. A group of men were at his elbow. 
 He moved away from them \vhile joining Gordon, and 
 before the latter knew it he and his wife's kinsman 
 stood considerably in the rear of the tavern. 
 
 "I hoped you'd never do this again, "Heffernan said. 
 
 4 ' I I didn't expect to," was the reply. "Do I look 
 bad?" 
 
 "You look off. . . Does she know?'' 
 
 " Never mind that. . . Well, yes, she does." 
 
 "I knew it was bound to come," said Heffernan, as 
 if musing, and with his grave, bass voice. 
 
 They drank together in silence. Then Gordon said: 
 " I don't think it will last long this time." 
 
 "I hope not." 
 
 Gordon seized Heffernan's big hand and wrung it. 
 "You're a d good boy, Heff," he said. 
 
 " That sounds like old times, Mr. Ammidown." 
 
 "Don't call me that. Look here: do you know 
 we're more closely connected than we used to be ?" 
 
 " I don't forget it." 
 
 Gordon's new drink had already done its work. He 
 put his hand on Heffernan's big shoulder and stared 
 into his face. "I've had some howling old times in 
 here, haven't I, old chap? Eh? Haven't I?" 
 
 " You've been pretty loaded here," said Heffernan 
 sombrely. "I hoped you'd been so for the last time 
 in your life."
 
 206 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 " So did I so did I. Let's have another drink." 
 
 "No more. You'll go home, now. You ought to, 
 and you will." Heffernan spoke with a gentle stern- 
 ness, but as he did so Gordon straightened himself, 
 and quite coolly and self-containedly ordered more 
 liquor. 
 
 "Look here," he said, "I'm all right. There's no 
 danger. A change was bound to come. But it 
 isn't going to be anything bad. Now don't you 
 worry. You behaved splendidly about . . about the 
 marriage. You never told a soul. Annette thinks 
 the world of your wife ; you know that, old boy. 
 She's never received anything but politeness when 
 she's come to our house. Isn't that so ?" 
 
 " Well," said Heffernan, drawing up his big frame, 
 "it is and it isn't. Your mother's been nice enough 
 to her, but your sister " 
 
 "Oh, bosh! Never mind Florence. She's a foolish 
 minx. She's got silly ideas. Don't let's think of her. 
 Look here : I didn't come in this place to talk about 
 women, anyway. I wanted to ask you about Went- 
 
 worth's chances in the next " And then, with a 
 
 fresh glass raised to his lips, Gordon paused, seeing 
 for the first time the great thinning and hollowing 
 change that had swept, of late, over Heffernan 's 
 visage. 
 
 "Why, what's come to you, man?" he broke off, re- 
 ceding a step or two. " Fou're not well." 
 
 "No," said Heffernan, drooping his eyes, "I'm not 
 well. That is, not very." 
 
 Gordon searchingly surveyed him. "I hope your 
 mind isn't bothered." 
 
 "Yes, my mind is bothered." 
 
 "How? Tell me, old chap. Tell me."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 207 
 
 " Mr. Ammidown, I " 
 
 "Oh, damn it, don't call me Mr. Ammidown ..." 
 Here Gordon gave a real, shrill, inebriate laugh. 
 "Well, keep your secrets; Inever pry into any man's." 
 He caught the lapel of Heffernan's coat and held it as 
 he went on: "You're a devilish good chap, every time, 
 and I want you to tell me that my friend, Wen tworth, 
 is bound to carry this district next November sure, 
 sure, and no mistake." 
 
 "It's too early to talk November politics," Heffer- 
 nan said. He tried to smile, but the result was only 
 a drawn and painful sort of leer. "Now, promise me," 
 he went on, "that you won't take another drop 
 that you'll let me go right straight home with you to 
 your very door. . ." 
 
 He spoke further words like these, and soon, to his 
 own surprise, prevailed upon Gordon to leave the 
 saloon with him and go quietly back to the Ammi- 
 down residence. Gordon had a key, and fumblingly 
 used it after he had said good night several times, at 
 last entering the house and closing the door behind 
 him. Heffernan walked back toward the saloon he 
 had quitted, saying once or twice in a faint whisper : 
 "Poor little Annette! . . poor little Annette! It's all 
 as much my fault as anybody's ! " 
 
 He re-entered his establishment with a sense that the 
 moon, still transiently denuded of her hurrying clouds, 
 glared upon him accusation and reproach. For that 
 matter, hundreds of material details in his daily occu- 
 pation and environment seemed thus to glare upon 
 him. He had reached that stage in the life of the 
 conscience-stricken when mere self-reproach and fierce 
 remorse have grown to be cousins, like neuralgia and 
 rheumatism. He was wretchedly unhappy, and ac-
 
 208 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 cording to the most tragic form of unhappiness which 
 ever assails the human soul. His wife, in whose char- 
 ities and whose sense of right he devoutly believed, 
 had helped to convince him that his course of daily 
 life reeked with evil. Being just in the mental state 
 to tremble guiltily under her counsels, he now found 
 himself confronted by new demands upon his forces 
 of moral concession. As he re-entered the saloon to- 
 night a man approached him who, of all others, rep- 
 resented most harshly his bond with wrong and 
 shame. This man was Larry McGonigle, and he 
 stood waiting at the bar as Heffernan appeared. 
 
 "Hello," he said, and put out his hand which Hef- 
 fernan took. 
 
 "You're alone to-night," said the liquor-seller, with 
 an air of having nothing else to say. 
 
 'Yes. Alone and cold sober. Will you have a 
 drink?" 
 
 They talked together for perhaps ten minutes in 
 tones so low that others who were at the bar failed 
 to hear a word they said. Then suddenly Larry Mc- 
 Gonigle loudened his voice a little; perhaps he had 
 not been as "cold sober" as he asserted, and the 
 fresh stimulant of which he now partook told ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 "What do I want?" he asked, and brought his fist 
 heavily down on the bar-counter. "A clean under- 
 standing 'twixt you and me. Now, that's plain talk- 
 You're goin' to boss this Wentworth job. How'll 
 you boss it? Man to man; let me know how." 
 
 Heffernan rolled his dark eyeballs (and they had 
 grown glassy, of late, like a sick man's) toward the 
 two groups of wassailers not far away. These had 
 not heard; they were too immersed in their own va- 
 cuous parlance.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 209 
 
 "Man to man," said Heffernan, with curt gruff- 
 ness, "I've got no news on the subject. You talk 
 about boodle planked down, Larry. I havn't seen 
 any yet. If I do " 
 
 "Well, if you do," McGonigle struck in with sharp 
 heat. "What then?" 
 
 Heffernan shrugged his" huge shoulders. "Oh, 
 pshaw! you talk like a kid of sixteen. The money 
 Wentworth spends on his election ought to go to 
 getting him in." 
 
 A silence intervened, and then Larry McGonigle 
 drew himself up, with a look on his large, pale, fat 
 face that those whom he did not like had frequently 
 been sorry to see there. 
 
 " It musn't go to gettin' him in, Andy. It must go 
 to gettin' me in. You pledged yourself to me on'y a 
 few weeks off, here at this very bar that you'd knife 
 him when the time come. You give me your hand on 
 it. Do ye go back on your word? Is that the size 
 of it?" 
 
 Heffernan remembered his pledge perfectly. He 
 nodded coldly, though scorched by inward torments. 
 
 "No, it ain't the size of it," he returned, sullenly. 
 "The whole thing is early yet to waste chin-music 
 on." His manner grew scowling, even offensive,' 
 though it concealed mental agony. "I ain't gone 
 back on my \vord yet, Larry." 
 
 For a few seconds McGonigle surveyed him, with 
 suspicion and a smoldering challenge as well. 
 
 "All right," he said . . . "Everything paid for? ' ' he 
 soon asked of the bar-keeper, who nodded yes. Then 
 he began to button his overcoat. 
 
 While doing so he fixed his dull, small eyes on Hef- 
 fernan. He did not speak at all loudly or excitedly
 
 210 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 now, but there was, nevertheless, a great deal of 
 hard, harsh, bull-dog earnestness in his next \vords. 
 
 "You owe me things, Andy. We ain'-t square yet, 
 as creditor to debtor, if I choose to put it that way. 
 But I don't say I do choose to put it that way. You 
 tell me you ain't gone back on your word yet. All 
 right. There's been whispers flyin' 'round, and I 
 guess you may have heard some of 'em if you ain't 
 heard all. They may be lies. I hope so. But if they 
 turn out not to be lies, an' if you've made up your 
 mind to treat me as if I was somebody who'd never 
 done you a favor in his life, why then look out. I'm a 
 good friend, but I'm a bad foe. Don't you forget it 
 and look out." 
 
 There was excessive threat in the undertone which 
 clad these last two sentences. Heffernan gave no 
 sign that he had heard a syllable of either. He had 
 lowered his massive head a little, and with an elbow 
 on the polished wooden railing of the bar, he stood 
 like a man spell-bound by some intense revery. 
 
 Larry McGonigle silently stared at him for several 
 seconds. Then he turned and left the saloon. 
 
 When he had gone Heffernan drew a deep breath. 
 
 "That man," he said, aloud to himself, "would 
 hoot me down like a dog if he took the notion and 
 was drunk enough to think I deserved it." 
 
 "What, sir?" inquired the bar-keeper, supposing he 
 had been addressed. 
 
 "Nothing, Tim," replied his master, with a smile 
 that had no mirth in it. "I wasn't talking to you. 
 I hope I was talking to a worse man myself." 
 
 He spoke those last words so faintly that Tim did 
 not catch them. A little while afterward he left the 
 saloon. It was earlier than usual when he got home
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 211 
 
 that special night. His \vife had not yet gone to bed, 
 though the hour was nearly two o'clock. 
 
 "This won't do, Liza," he said, as he entered the 
 sitting-room and found her sewing beside a lamp. 
 
 "I just wanted to finish this, Andy," she \vent 
 through the pretense of explaining. 
 
 "Oh, you sat up for me, /know!" 
 
 She gave a long, soft sigh. " You said you mightn't 
 be very late to-night." 
 
 "Yes. Well, here I am." 
 
 She slipped to his side as he threw himself into a 
 chair. "Oh, Andy!" she burst forth plaintively, 
 "you've got that look again!" 
 
 He made no answer, and she put an arm about his 
 neck. "Your head doesn't ache you now, does it?" 
 she said. 
 
 "No. It don't often ache much, anyhow." 
 
 ' But there's that queerness?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You'll go and see the doctor again to-morrow. 
 It's time, you know." 
 
 Heffernan sternly shook his head. "There's no 
 physic for a case like mine," he muttered. 
 
 "Ah," she cried, as a smile shot over her face. 
 "Then you're coming to feel what the only real 
 physic is Andy?" 
 
 "I sometimes think it's a black draught, Liza- 
 black as death." 
 
 " Hush, Andy hush! How can you?" 
 
 "Oh, I can, easy enough. Anybody can. It don't 
 take long, and it don't cost much. It " 
 
 She flung both arms about him, and gave a little 
 pained scream at the same instant. " No, no, no. To 
 do a thing like that! But you don't mean it! . ,
 
 212 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 There's something else, though, that I do wish you 
 wou/Jmean! And it "wouldn't be hard. All you've 
 got to do, Andy, is just to break loose with a big 
 wrench. . Andy!" 
 
 " Well?" he said, as she started away from him and 
 stood erect at his side. 
 
 "I know just how you're in doubt, just how you 
 suffer!" 
 
 "Well?" herepeated; and his gaze scanned her form, 
 which was to him not over-fleshful, her face which 
 was to him full of a fine feminine sweetness and hu- 
 man kindness as indeed it was to any other eye 
 that observed it with the least careful heed. 
 
 "This, Andy, this: We haven't the same kind of 
 faith, and yet we both believe almost the same thing. 
 We both trust with all our souls that there's a God 
 who'll hear if we cry to him in sorrow." She sank 
 on her knees at her husband's feet, and caught one of 
 his hands as she did so. "Kneel and. pray with me, 
 Andy. Kneel . . won't you?" 
 
 After a pause, during which she looked up into his 
 seamed and rugged face with profound yearning, Hef- 
 fernan rose, and then dropped on his knees at her 
 side. 
 
 She took both his big hands in her own, now, and 
 held them together while she softly rained kisses on 
 them. Her eyes began to pour tears, but the voice 
 that left her lips a moment later was undisturbed by 
 tremors. 
 
 "Oh, merciful God," that voice gently but keenly 
 rang, "give to this man who now kneels at my side 
 a sense of your great love and great pfty ! Make him 
 sure of both; let both enter his heart and search it, 
 till he feels that you are not only mighty but friendly
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 213 
 
 as well. Teach him that to lose the respect of the dis- 
 honest is to reap a rich reward. Give him courage to 
 dare the foolish sneers of those \vhose praise his 
 heart despises. Make him tear himself bravely from 
 the toils of sin, as we root a plant from earth that 
 harms it and place it in earth full of nourishing health. 
 Guide this man straight to a right way of living, O, 
 God, and above all, show him that when he gives up 
 what his own spirit already hates as mean and low, 
 he brings upon himself no real burden but only a new 
 happiness, which every new year will increase. ..." 
 
 Perhaps the prayer might have lasted longer if Hef- 
 fernan had let it. But he now rose and silently passed 
 from the room. His \vife knew that he was deeply 
 moved. There was joy to her in that thought, and 
 while she remained on her knees after he had gone her 
 prayer continued, modulated into the lowest whis- 
 pers and assuming a kind of passionate colloquialism, 
 a reverent familiarity, to which she would not have 
 dared let him continue an auditor. 
 
 "Oh, God," she appealed, "may he soon quit that 
 cursed trade and the vile politics th at go along with it ! 
 If he can't behave right to Mr. Wentworth, don't let 
 him make believe he can and plaster himself all over 
 with lies to please the greedy gangs that think they 've 
 got a grip on his very soul. Snatch his soul away 
 from 'em, O God, and take it to yourself. Make us 
 poor again, if you please. Only spare me my health, 
 and I'll be glad to work for us both, as I work now 
 for them that poverty and sickness keep crushed down, 
 without a chance or even a hope !" 
 
 But hope came to this woman as she finished her 
 prayer. He had knelt with her; he had listened. 
 That meant so much !
 
 XVI 
 
 Mrs. Ammidown, during the next few days, felt like 
 groveling for pardon at the feet of Annette. But her 
 daughter-in-law did not merely fail of demanding any 
 such repentant course ; she was ready to mingle her 
 own sorrow with that of the self-accusing mother. 
 
 No argument could have convinced Annette that the 
 least trap had been set for her. She was horrified, but 
 her dismay was far from taking the form of blame. 
 Why should they have told her if they trusted that 
 Gordon would rise superior to his past? If indeed they 
 had told her she would have married him just the 
 same. She would have trusted, too, in the potencies 
 of her own wifehood. It was all an awful blow, and 
 she reeled under it ; yet the courage and fortitude with 
 which she pulled herself together, with which she ac- 
 cepted this unforeseen trouble as though it had been 
 some ill of the flesh that suddenly had befallen her 
 husband and must be ended and fought with, not 
 daintily shrunk from and execrated, wrought a new 
 and quick bond between herself and the kindred of 
 him whose name she bore. 
 
 Gordon's attack ended, as former ones had done, 
 in total physical collapse. He drank with frightful
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 215 
 
 abandonment for three or four days, and then, 
 menaced by the worst of all deliriums, he sank into 
 that nerveless prostration which needed both physi- 
 cian and nurse. Annette filled the latter office at first, 
 though Mrs. Ammidown and Florence aided her in it 
 with loving zeal. As Gordon began to improve, his 
 mother begged Annette to keep up the deception she 
 had already used with her sisters, and allow a "severe 
 cold" to account for his illness and seclusion. 
 Annette promised obedience, although it was hard to 
 hide this novel and poignant grief from the sympa- 
 thetic knowledge of Eunice and Dora. 
 
 Both Eunice and Dora, however, soon learned the 
 whole truth. Gordon had this time behaved with 
 wild imprudence, not only appearing twice or thrice 
 at the office of the Moni tor flushed, unkempt, impos- 
 sible, but in the course of his final visit attempting to 
 seat himself at his desk and issue orders, amid the 
 smothered giggles of certain observers. Kinnicutt 
 was one of these, though not a derisive one, and that 
 evening the secret proved heavier than he could bear. 
 Besides, it had now ceased to have the faintest sem- 
 blance of a secret. Dora heard with a little amazed 
 shriek, and flew across the hall to Eunice. Then, for 
 quite a while they shuddered and lamented together. 
 
 "I've a good mind to go up there now now, this 
 very night," said Eunice, with her color high and her 
 demeanor full of the old indignant accents that mar- 
 riage had plainly subdued. " If Annette wants to come 
 and stay here she can, you know, as easily as not." 
 
 " Or she could stay with me, for that matter," said 
 Dora. 
 
 "How the poor child must be suffering!" 
 
 "It's dreadful to think of."
 
 216 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "And Harvey's known it all this time!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He should never have allowed the marriage to 
 take place," scolded Eunice. "Now it's clear, Dora, 
 why these 'ristocratic Ammidowns were so willing 
 our Annette should come into their family! They 
 knew pretty well, I guess, that no girl of his own set 
 who'd found out what he wa.s, would shake a stick 
 at him." 
 
 " He deserves to have a stick more than shaken at 
 him," frowned Dora. "And just to think that we 
 saw Annette only day before yesterday and she never 
 told us a word!" 
 
 " Nor gave a single sign of that perfect horror there, 
 at home!" 
 
 "Yes, she did show it," declared Dora, tightening 
 her lips together and looking sibylline. "I noticed a 
 difference in her. She didn't say much, and she kept 
 her head down a good deal, playing with Baby. And 
 then she was paler than usual. I told her I thought 
 so, and you didn't agree \vith me." 
 
 " Poor child! poor child!" faltered Eunice. 
 
 "You speak that way behind her back, "said Dora, 
 with a melancholy smile, " and to-morrow you'll haul 
 her over the coals for not telling us about her 
 troubles." 
 
 It was true. Next day, when Eunice went to see 
 Annette at the Ammidowns, she took her sister to 
 task in the most indignant terms. Annette was 
 meakness itself; there was something as natural as 
 breathing in being soundly berated by Eunice. Her 
 eyes filled as she brokenly conceded: 
 
 "Oh, Eunice, I I grant you I should have told 
 everything. It was shame it was false shame, if
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 217 
 
 you will that locked my lips. You see, I'd I'd been 
 boasting so." 
 
 "Boasting," said Eunice, as if she didn't at all 
 understand. And with almost a scowl she gave the 
 hair on Annette's forehead one or two proprietary 
 touches. Then she pushed her away, a little, as they 
 sat beside one another on a sofa in the Ammidown 
 drawing-room, and stared at her \vith a tremendous 
 critical survey. Just as she had concluded that " the 
 child" looked a good deal worn and worried, Annette 
 wearily responded: 
 
 "Yes, Eunice, boasting! I'd talked to you so much 
 about the fine, handsome way life was lived here. 
 I'd Oh, you understand, don't you? And it seemed 
 like such a dreadful come-down for me to tell you 
 that poor Gordon was . . . what he is." 
 
 As she drooped her head Eunice leaned closer to 
 her. "Annette, you oughtn't to stay here. You 
 ought to come back home yes, that's just what I 
 mean, for your real home is with Dora and me the 
 very instant your husband doesn't give you a happy 
 one." 
 
 " But it had been so happy a one," began Annette, 
 "until " 
 
 "Until! Yes! That's just it ! Until he'd showed 
 you that he'd made you marry him under false pre- 
 tences." 
 
 "Oh, Eunice!" 
 
 "It's true . . . I'm glad that Mrs. Ammidown and 
 her daughter are not at home, as you tell me. I didn't 
 ask to see them; I didn't \vant to! I was afraid, 
 if I should see them, of what I might say. Do you 
 think that for an instant I'd have let you marry a 
 confirmed drunkard like that? No, indeed!" Here
 
 218 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Eunice drew herself up, with an immense fiery pride. 
 " We may not be as high up as they are in the scale 
 of society and all that we may not be able to give 
 dinners with flowers and cut-glass finger-bowls and 
 goodness knows how many highfalutin fixings in the 
 line o' French candies and " 
 
 " Eunice, dear! Please don't!" 
 
 "But we had a father and mother (you know it, 
 Annette Trask!) that \vere folks who loved what was 
 right and decent, and lived as if they did, from their 
 births to their deaths. It won't do at all, it won't do 
 at all ! " fumed Eunice. " We want you back to us, 
 Annette! Dora and I want you back!" 
 
 "I can't go," replied Annette, drooping her eyes. 
 "As as I told you, he's better now. That is, he's 
 got to bed, and a doctor has come, and though he's 
 very \veak and sick, he promises 
 
 " Pooh! He promises till the next time . . . And 
 they leave you alone \vith him! His mother and sis- 
 ter go out and leave you alone with him!" 
 
 "Not alone no. There's a hired nurse. Mr. Am- 
 midown thought it best, after a talk with the doctor. 
 But he wakes up every now and then and asks for 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, so you must go to him soon!" said Eunice, 
 austerely. " I see." And she haughtily rose, though 
 Annette, rising too, thought nothing of her haughti- 
 ness, for two tell-tale tears in either of the w ell- 
 known hazel eyes were turning her grand manner to 
 mockery. 
 
 "And Mrs. Ammidown and Florence had to go 
 out," pursued Annette. " There were things they 
 wanted to buy things for the sick-room." 
 
 "Oh," said Eunice, at once softening.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 219 
 
 "And Mrs. Ammidown was so forlorn, so shaken, 
 herself, that she couldn't go alone, and got Florence 
 to be her companion. They'll soon return. They're 
 awfully troubled. And, Eunice, he's fond of me still ! 
 He realizes his great fault. He believes the whole 
 thing is a disease with him. Now that he is my 
 husband, Eunice, I surely oughtn't to desert him. 
 He's disappointed me yes ; but I begin to think 
 most wives are disappointed in one way or another. 
 Look at Austin." 
 
 "Austin?" Eunice murmured. 
 
 "Why, yes. He's disappointed you, you know. 
 He isn't the man you expected him to be. He treats 
 you very badly at times." 
 
 " Oh, well," Eunice answered, biting her lips. 
 
 Annette kissed her. "But you don't want to 
 leave him; you cling to him; you can't help it ... 
 After all, if one of us is thoroughly happy (and I do 
 think Dora is!) let's try and get some -comfort out of 
 that!" . . . 
 
 In the afternoon, when she had reflected more upon 
 Annette's case and decided that nothing could excuse 
 the Ammidowns for not having made clear the true 
 nature of the alliance which they had so graciously 
 approved, Austin presented himself and showed her 
 by his hard, bright manner that he was in rare good 
 spirits. 
 
 "I've seen your uncle to-day," he said, "and paid 
 him off the very last dollar of my indebtedness." 
 
 " That's very nice," said Eunice. 
 
 " It's all my Opaline Oil," Austin affirmed, rubbing 
 his trim, shapely hands together with a genial 
 vehemence. "That's caught on so; I shouldn't be 
 surprised if it were to net me six hundred this month.
 
 220 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 And the sales grow bigger every week ... By the 
 way, Mr. Heffernan looks poorly." 
 
 " Aunt 'Liza said the other day that he was ailing," 
 replied Eunice. But her mind was on other things 
 than the health of Mr. Heffernan. "I've been to see 
 Annette," she^ went on. " I talked very plain to her. 
 I told her.I wished she'd come here and live \vith us." 
 
 Austin turned and gave his wife a keen, brief stare. 
 
 " Bosh ! Come and live with us! Harvey dropped 
 into the store this morning and told me Gordon 
 Ammidown's folks had got hold of him and were 
 pulling him through his racket." 
 
 "Yes; it's true." 
 
 "Well, then! You certainly haven't been fool 
 enough to advise Annette to leave him ! " 
 
 Eunice changed color and gave her head a slight 
 yet imperious toss. "Austin, Austin," she said, 
 " that isn't the way to speak ! " 
 
 "Oh, it isn't? I'll speak worse before I speak 
 better." 
 
 "You will?" 
 
 " Yes when you tumble into such devilish idiocy as 
 to advise a wife to leave her husband. What's it 
 your business, anyhow? " 
 
 "She's my sister," breathed Eunice. "She's my 
 dear sister! " 
 
 "Who said she wasn't? Is that any reason you 
 should try to make a shrew and a Jezebel of her? " 
 
 " I tried to do no such thing." 
 
 " Stuff. Don't lie out of it." 
 
 "Lie out of it! As if I could! And I must bear 
 such blackguardism ! " 
 
 " Look here I'm no blackguard." 
 
 "You are one you are!" she flashed, and faced
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 221 
 
 him as he drew near to her. He lifted his hand as if 
 to strike her, and stood with it poised above her 
 head. He had no appearance of passion, but there 
 was a malignity in his eyes that somehow both dulled 
 and brightened them. 
 
 "I wish you would strike me, and end it," she 
 broke forth, as he let his hand fall and wheeled away 
 from her. 
 
 " End it ?" he sneered. "How?" 
 
 "Oh, you know! That would be the end if you 
 didn't kill me. I'd never live with you another day 
 after you'd struck me, provided I lived at all." 
 
 He gave a little rattle of mocking laughter. "So 
 you're at your old tricks again," he said, suddenly 
 growing serious. "I thought I'd put down the 
 vixen and termagant in you, but it seems they've 
 popped up once more. Now, I mean that you shall 
 beg my pardon for calling me a blackguard." 
 
 "Beg } r our pardon!" she scoffed. "Not if I -were 
 cut into inch-pieces, Austin Legree, for not begging 
 it!" 
 
 "We'll see," he flung over his shoulder, moving 
 toward the doorway. "You'll do it, though.' 
 
 " It's you that should beg my pardon ! " she cried, 
 with the break of a great pain in her voice. "But 
 you wouldn't mean it, if you did, so I don't care to 
 have you do it. I only care for decency from you 
 for avoidance of insult. You take delight in saying 
 the most horrible things. You're no more like the 
 man I married than ..." 
 
 But she was talking to dumb walls. He had 
 quietly betaken himself from the room. 
 
 She sank into an arm-chair and pressed her burning 
 face against its cushioned back. Every detail of the
 
 222 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 past interview returned to her how she had hoped 
 for his sympathy in the excess of her indignation and 
 compassion at the deceit practiced upon Annette, 
 and how he had replied to her with freezing blasts of 
 abuse. 
 
 "Beg his pardon!" she thought; and' her heart 
 swelled with wrath while the few slow tears that 
 trickled from between her eyelids were of scalding 
 heat. " I've been a feeble fool before him long enough. 
 For the sake of peace, for the sake of that love I 
 loved him with once and a part of which (God help 
 me!) I love ,him with still my spirit has kept itself 
 under, has crushed itself down. But here's an end to 
 such folly forevermore! It isn't my nature to kiss 
 anybody's feet, man's or woman's. I'll act out my 
 nature henceforth. I will, I 'will, come what may ! " 
 
 And Eunice, poor rebel, tried hard to do so. She 
 detested "not speaking " to a fellow mortal. It had 
 always been her impulse, among those who immedi- 
 ately surrounded her, to speak overmuch. She was 
 a born lecturer and monitress. The qualities of inso- 
 lent mastership discovered in her husband had racked 
 her sense of moral dictation to its utmost roots. Even 
 now, when put on the defensive and humiliatingly 
 reminded of past uncharacteristic surrenders and 
 concessions, she yearned to turn against him the full 
 tide of her native talents for pricking torpid con- 
 sciences and whipping into shape derelict observances 
 of duty. But she repressed all such desire. Her de- 
 termined part was at present one of quiet defiance. 
 She had already yielded far too much, and she would 
 not yield a jot more, Austin, like the accomplished 
 bully that he was, met her with her own weapons. It 
 was his instinct to grind her under his heel merely
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 223 
 
 because she had become his wife and belonged to him. 
 There are some men who never own a horse that they 
 do not make quiver beneath their lash-strokes; nor 
 a dog who licks their hands except with mute memories 
 of yesterday's blows. Legree was one of these men, 
 and if Eunice had ever borne him children he would 
 have treated them with the same stern domination 
 with which he now treated her. 
 
 For two days not a word was uttered between 
 them. Dora heard everything from her sister's lips 
 and began to detest her brother-in-law with an ardor 
 toward which his previous acts of tyranny had led 
 the way. She even resolved to give him " a piece of 
 her mind," and indeed carried out her design. But 
 there Legree slipped in a kind of satanic diplomacy 
 which was a subtle adjunct of his brutal domestic 
 methods. 
 
 Instead of defending himself he was amiability in- 
 carnate. He did not deny Eunice's assertions; he 
 sought gently to smile them away. No astute men- 
 dacity should here be charged to him; it may have 
 been that the doubt which he flung over his wife's 
 complaints and fault-findings had a real existence 
 for him while he suggested it. "You know that she's 
 quarrelsome and wants to lay down the law," he 
 said to Dora. " She doesn't realize herself," he added, 
 " that she called me a blackguard and in many other 
 ways was horribly abusive. Now, Dora, you've 
 never seen me blackguardly, you've never seen me 
 abusive, but you certainly have seen Eunice try to 
 take the upper hand, try to appoint herself judge and 
 jury on a good many occasions." 
 
 Dora shook her head in negation at this, though 
 secretly aware that it was more or less true. She
 
 224 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 almost lost her temper as she proceeded to discuss 
 the affair. But Legree, who never lost his temper, 
 and who was always indestructibly amiable among 
 "outsiders," merely shrugged his shoulders and affa- 
 bly challenged his sister-in-law to quote an instance 
 of his having behaved like this dreadful villain Eunice 
 represented him. 
 
 A little later there was a talk between Eunice and 
 Dora, in which the latter clearly betrayed the influ- 
 ence of Legree's late sophistries. Eunice fired at 
 once, and a contest took place, ending, as such duels 
 always did, in actual, if not obvious amity. Mean- 
 while Eunice wanted money for household expendi- 
 tures, and on this and various other accounts the 
 silence between herself and her husband became 
 piercingly inconvenient. 
 
 But there was only a single, strait way back into 
 his good graces, if such they could really be called. 
 That way was one of self-prostration. Eunice knew 
 the man thoroughly by this time, and in proportion 
 as she had got to know him better the vitality of her 
 love had dwindled. She scarcely understood, nowa- 
 days, just how much or how little she cared for him, 
 he had so disappointed, repelled, disgusted her. The 
 electric element of passion was leaving her atmos- 
 phere; a grayness had begun to settle over its hori- 
 zon, where roseate clouds had once hung and delicate 
 heat-lightnings had once played, with their golden 
 glimpsings and tropic throbs. 
 
 Annette's trouble kept fretting her; there were one 
 or two bills that waited to be paid; her husband's 
 impassive face and dead silence began to tell upon her 
 nerves. At last, on the evening of the second day, 
 she resolved, almost hysterically, to change things, if
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 225 
 
 it were possible to change them and yet leave herself 
 with a shread of dignity. 
 
 They were alone together in the little dining-room. 
 They had eaten their dinner without seeming to take 
 the least heed of one another's presence, except that 
 Legree had carved a slice of mutton for Eunice, which 
 the servant, Catharine, had handed her. But Catha- 
 rine had gone now, and seeing her husband lift the 
 last morsel of mince-pie to his lips, Eunice resolved 
 that she would address him. 
 
 "Austin," she said, " it doesn't seem right that we 
 should live this way." 
 
 He smiled, and nodded. "Oh, it doesn't? You're 
 coming to your senses, then?" 
 
 " I've never lost 'em." 
 
 " That's only one of your confounded lies." 
 
 " If I should tell Dora that you had insulted me like 
 this you would deny you had done so." 
 
 He laughed, leaning back in his chair and non- 
 chalantly using a tooth-pick. "It's so like a woman 
 of your kidney to go and wash her dirty linen in 
 public." 
 
 "My two sisters are not 'public,' if you please. 
 They are my dearest friends in the world and al- 
 ways shall be, till death alters things. . . Austin, see 
 here," and now Eunice rose from her chair. " Do you 
 want me to be your wife or your slave which ?" He 
 laughed again, and this time the laugh had blades in 
 it that cut her. " I want you to beg my pardon for 
 the name you called me." 
 
 "Austin, I will never beg you pardon," came the 
 answer. "I will never humble myself to you again. 
 I am willing to live with you on equal terms, but on 
 
 no others. I have done nothing to deserve your pres- 
 15
 
 226 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 ent treatment. We can't get on like this, not speak- 
 ing to one another, and unless you consent to act 
 civilly it is better we did not get on at all." 
 
 "Oh, not get on at all, eh?" he said, and she saw 
 him grow white, and knew that she had angered him. 
 Then as he rose he smiled again, but the smile was 
 somehow different, with less mockery in it and a sort 
 of tigerish keenness. 
 
 "No," replied Eunice. "I've borne all from you that 
 I intend to bear. You speak of my begging your par- 
 don ; if you begged mine twenty times it wouldn't 
 cover the horrid things you've said to me. We must 
 begin all over again, Austin Legree, or we must . . 
 separate." 
 
 She pronounced that last word with hesitancy, even 
 plain reluctance. But no sooner had she done so than 
 Austin shot up to her side with eyes blazing and 
 hands clenched. 
 
 The fiend in him was horribly uppermost, then. If 
 he had married many another woman than just this 
 Eunice whom he had married, he would have coerced 
 her into submission in a trice by his lurid look, by his 
 fury, masculine though unmanly. 
 
 "You devil," he shot out between working lips, 
 "you won't obey me as a wife should? You won't?" 
 And he glared into her face, with his body touching 
 hers. 
 
 "I told you I wouldn't be your slave," said Eunice, 
 never receding from him an inch. 
 
 " Slave ! Pooh ! Tell me you're sorry that you called 
 me a blackguard." 
 
 Eunice choked, and then, with a defiance that was 
 magnificent, gasped out : " I told you so and I tell it 
 you again !" In that fleet instant all her love for him
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 227 
 
 died, shrivelling into naught, as a rose-leaf shrivels 
 under flame. " You are a blackguard, Austin Legree, 
 and you " 
 
 Then he struck her. She was Eunice, the self-opinon- 
 ated, hardy-spirited Eunice, and she struck back, or 
 tried to do so. Then he smote her again, this 
 time with his clenched hand, and she gave a great 
 scream, falling half stunned upon the floor. 
 
 Everything whirled round her while she lay there 
 for several seconds. And then, suddenly, she saw a 
 new man bend over her. It was not Austin Legree, 
 at first she vaguely told herself surely it was not. 
 This trembling, \veeping creature looked so unlike 
 Austin. And }'et it actually was he. 
 
 " Eunice!" he moaned. "For God's sake forgive me! 
 I I didn't mean it. You .fcflowhow seldom I'm angry. 
 Let me help you Eunice, I could kill myself for strik- 
 ing you like that ! I " 
 
 " Then go and kill yourself, you mean brute !" cried 
 a voice. It was Catharine's, and Eunice, half lifted, 
 half staggering to her feet, knew whose arms helped 
 her. 
 
 "My head," she murmured, reeling dizzily as she 
 rose. "Oh, Catharine, don't let him touch me !" 
 
 " He'd better nottry, ma'am !" growled Catharine, 
 with a black look at Legree. 
 
 "Get me get me to my sister's rooms," Eunice 
 pleaded. 
 
 Catharine got her there. When Dora saw her, a 
 great purplish mark had begun to show itself over 
 one of her brows. 
 
 "You you must never let me live with that man 
 again," Eunice gasped to Dora; and then she burst 
 into a leaping, excited laugh. " Anybody else would
 
 228 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 faint away, "she went on, catching her breath wildly, 
 but I only get redder in the face, Dora, don't I?" 
 
 " Eunice ! Eunice ! " cried Dora, as she bent over her 
 sister in agony and horror. 
 
 Just then Kinnicutt entered. As he did so Legree 
 appeared, pushing past Catharine, by another door. 
 
 " I want to say " Legree began. 
 
 "Harvey!" cried Dora, leaving the side of Eunice 
 where she had sunk on a sofa, "if you don't put that 
 man out of our home I'll never look at you again !" 
 
 Legree receded. Kinnicutt, swiftly understanding, 
 forced him across the threshold he had just crossed. 
 
 "I I will never live with him after this;" were 
 Eunice's first words, while Dora stood over her and 
 bathed with cold water the brow so cruelly abraded. 
 
 "You never shall! You never shall!" rang from 
 Dora. "I'd go in rags before I let 3 r ou !" And stoop- 
 ing she kissed the great darkening bruise that she had 
 bathed.
 
 XVII 
 
 Legree was full of repentances, but they availed him 
 nothing. Eunice refused ever to enter the doors of 
 the suite of rooms she had quitted, and Dora seconded 
 her stoutly in this resolve. 
 
 " You live with us," Dora said. " We'll take care of 
 you, Harvey and I. Susan was luckily saying she 
 had to leave, and Catharine dear, good old Cathar- 
 ine ! can come in and take her place." 
 
 Meanwhile Legree's remorse was terrible. He real- 
 ized his own infamous action, and hung for several 
 days about the closed doors of the Kinnicutt apart- 
 ments. But they were never opened to him. Dora 
 met him once or twice with a stony stare, and always 
 flung at him the same words ' ' Your wife is a widow. ' ' 
 
 Annette, coming to her sisters, joined them in their 
 fierce disclaimers. To Legree she said, with curled 
 lips and flashing eyes : " Don't ask me to pity you. If 
 
 I were only a man I'd " and then she retired, 
 
 breaking into tears. 
 
 Utterly cowed, Legree gave up the siege. Policy 
 began to thrust its voice through remorse, and he 
 dreaded that the tale of his brutality might transpire 
 and ruin the augmenting sale of his Opaline Oil. At
 
 230 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 the end of the month he relinquished the rooms where 
 he and Eunice had done their first and last connubial 
 housekeeping. But still in spite of even so radical a 
 step he did not abandon hope. He might as well have 
 put faith in the falling of the sky, and yet his reason 
 for persistence in the belief that Eunice would at 
 length surrender was based on his control of the fam- 
 ily finances. From this control he had not yet been 
 asked to resign. Would he receive any such request, 
 and would not the fact of his superior keenness in all 
 business matters tempt his wife to take the more ex- 
 pedient course of try ing him again? HarveA^Kinnicutt 
 had not the faintest needful equipment of a monetary 
 manager. Who else was there to supervise paA^ments 
 and investments, moderate though the task might 
 be? Surely not Gordon Ammidown, with this horrid 
 recurrent vice of his, the subject of recent damning 
 disclosures. Well, then, had he not only to wait? 
 True, Eunice had ignored the long, humble and im- 
 ploring letter which he had written her. But that 
 letter had had its effect, however discouragingly Kin- 
 nicutt may have stated otherwise. Oh, yes, a turn 
 of the tide would come. 
 
 But though a turn of the tide did come, it brought 
 only final and unforeseen rebuff. One day in early sum- 
 mer Andrew Heffernan presented him self at the Green- 
 wich avenue drug-shop. He looked very altered and 
 ill, but he spoke to Legree with a force and directness 
 that could not be parried. Heffernan was rigor itself. 
 He could not have been much plainer in act or speech. 
 He refused Legree's offered hand ; he required in the 
 names of the three sisters who \vere his nieces by mar- 
 riage a complete restitution of the stewardship Eu- 
 nice's husband had held.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 231 
 
 "There ain't any use of kicking," said this cold 
 and stern ambassador. " Your wife '11 never look at 
 you again, and I don't blame her that she won't. 
 You've made your bed, young man, and you must 
 lay on it. You're not wanted any more round those 
 parts, and you needn't think there's the ghost of a 
 chance for you. Hand over everything bank-books, 
 papers of agreement, all that belongs to Eunice and her 
 relations. You ain't in it, from now till the day you' 
 die, and if you choose to go into some other state 
 and get a divorce and marry again, I guess nobody '11 
 care. If Eunice ever wanted to marry again it would 
 be different ; but I've talked with her and I'm pretty 
 sure she'll never try matrimony a second time; she's 
 had enough of it after the devilish side of it she's seen, 
 thanks to your dirty capers. I didn't suspect you 
 could behave like such a hound but we won't talk 
 about that. We're square on the money I lent you, 
 and I can only say you'd never have got a cent of it 
 if I'd known the stuff you're made of." 
 
 Legree, thrilling with despairful reluctance, cut him- 
 self loose from the last bond of hope between himself 
 and his injured wife. Heffernan, from that hour, 
 took charge of the Trask property; which he 
 at once proceeded to manipulate with benevolent 
 dishonesty. He coolly placed moneys to the 
 credit of his nieces which had never accrued to 
 them from the limited little paternal estate. 
 He employed a kind of generously astute cunning, and 
 invented reasons for their increased riches which 
 looked and sounded as plausible as though they had 
 been the shrewd stealings of some adroit rogue. He 
 artfully improved the three buildings their father had 
 left them, and did so at such a liberal private outlay
 
 232 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 that the rent of each structure was augmented by- 
 several hundreds of dollars a year. Nobody guessed 
 the truth of these amiable frauds except his wife, and 
 she, enchanted by their neat sagacity, was the last 
 person in the world to expose them. 
 
 A bitter lesson had been taught Legree. Before the 
 defiance shown him he recoiled in guilty disarray. His 
 remorse now became anguish, for he stood gazing, as 
 it were, into the strange, muddy depths of his own 
 soul and saw there the clouded light of an unperished 
 love. It was to be his doom that he must go on lov- 
 ing Eunice for years yet, if not for the rest of his life- 
 time. A dreadful languor came over him, and it 
 seemed as though his very character changed. If 
 there was a fortune in his Opaline Oil he failed to reap 
 it, and at length sold the patent to a man who was 
 soon rumored to make from it many thousands. The 
 old ambition had died out of him, and such a morbid 
 shame had taken its place that he sometimes fancied 
 that he saw passers-by and street-boys point jeering- 
 ly at his shop-windows as that of the man who had 
 beaten his wife. After a while Greenwich avenue be- 
 came for this reason intolerable to him, and he re- 
 moved from it, going far away into a side-street that 
 gave on the Bowery. His career now became per- 
 fectly neutral. He neither failed nor succeeded ; he 
 simply went on living. His life had been ruined, and 
 yet no one among his new neighbors had any suspic- 
 ion that this was true. If Eunice had pardoned 
 him and taken him back he \vould have proved ever 
 afterward the meekest of husbands. Yet how could 
 Eunice, or any living being save Legree himself, know 
 this? There lies a world of pathos in just that ignor- 
 ance of each other's changed hearts which build dense
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 233 
 
 walls, very often, between two spirits that might re- 
 accost one another in almost ideal amity. Had she 
 known the depth and breadth of this man's grief and 
 self-disgust, she might have striven again to care for 
 him, and perhaps have warmed up a few embers of 
 affection, in spite of clogging ashes, on the void and 
 forlorn hearths tone of their lost nuptial content. Pos- 
 sibly to have a complete recognition of him would 
 have meant for her a complete revivified love. But as 
 it was, the disjunction remained absolute. Legree's 
 letter had not moved her ; a glimpse into his dulled 
 and chilled life might have done so. But that form 
 of circumstance which we call accident forbade her 
 such an experience. 
 
 All the freshness, alertness and assertiveness of Le- 
 grees's manned died out. He slipped (no doubt un- 
 consciously to himself) among the vast throngs of 
 the completely commonplace. It was a terrible punish- 
 ment for one who had been so dominating in his per- 
 sonality, and he felt it as a strong man may feel bonds 
 that constrain muscles yet in the prime of their vigor. 
 As a sure result of such mental distress, he took to 
 the alleviation of drugs. They were at his hand in 
 his shop, and he had only to strench forth that hand 
 and accept their flattering yet perilous ease. The end, 
 from that time, though prolonged through years, 
 was inevitable. If Eunice had cared for what is termed 
 an exquisite revenge, she might have found one by 
 watching the downfall of her husband, gradual and 
 yet wofully certain. 
 
 It was not that Legree's curious love for her had 
 shattered and spoiled him. It was a moral element in 
 the man himself that had risen and caught him by 
 the throat, like an incarnate spectre of retribution.
 
 234 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 He had started with a great faith in himself and a 
 conviction that he understood himself thoroughly. 
 Some inherited curse had pushed its bane into his 
 blood; and on the frenzies of impulse to crush be- 
 neath his heel the woman who had in a way glided 
 under the aegis of his possessorship, he had never 
 remotely dreamed of counting. That force the force of 
 the household bully and blackguard in him he had 
 found too powerful for overthrow. As events in his 
 special case directed, it had overthrown him. And 
 yet, as often in brooding hours of reflection he 
 would tell his own thoughts, there \vere m3 r riads 
 of his fellows now alive who had begun with their 
 wives just as he had begun and reduced them to 
 actual cringing servants within two or three years. 
 Here Legree was perfectly right. In many a home 
 to-day the husband is precisely that species of do- 
 mestic monster which his evil genius had made him 
 eager to become. Who reads these words without 
 power to recall marriages where the wife has bowed 
 in despicable submission to her husband's nod? "Get 
 
 me my slippers " " Fetch me my umbrella " 
 
 "Bring me my cigar box and some matches along 
 
 with it " These are orders constantly heard from 
 
 marital lips and constantly obej^ed with not even a 
 murmur of revolt. But after all, such phrases of 
 command are merely surface-signs of an autocracy 
 that feeds on far deeper springs of sway. There are 
 wives whose acts are not alone salaams and pros- 
 trations, but whose opinions, too, have knee-joints 
 to kneel \vith in melancholy limberness. These 
 women suppress themselves as wholly as do the 
 lolling inmates of seraglios, except that they are 
 drudges no less than favorites. Their very existence
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 235 
 
 is a challenge to the attainment of that "equal 
 rights " ideal held so fondly a cult among the strong- 
 er of their sex. They begin by not wishing to think 
 except as their husbands do, and they end by not 
 daring. In the instance of Legree and Eunice, subju- 
 gation was attempted and failure followed, though 
 led up to by animal cruelty. In countless other in- 
 stances the subjugation, even when blows have to 
 be struck for its full attainment, is secured at last. 
 The blows, whether they leave or do not leave a 
 mark, are kept secret. Volumes of horrors might be 
 written on the tacit martyrdoms of women. Eunice, 
 who did not care to contribute her biography to the 
 series, yet deserved a brief notice there, like the 
 memoir given a minor poet among more copious 
 tributes to singers of a hardier note. 
 
 It is true that the present chronicle has no further 
 concern with Austin Legree, and yet there may be 
 interest in a swift record of his later life, partly be- 
 cause it furnished a kind of ironic corollary to his 
 past and partly because it was tinged with that so- 
 termed poetical justice which rarely may be traced 
 or even glimpsed outside the pages of legend or ro- 
 mance. 
 
 JustasHeffernan had bluntly hinted, the husband of 
 Eunice at length crossed into another state and mar- 
 ried again. The woman whom he married made no 
 demure on the question of his obtaining a divorce in 
 New York. She was a languid, mild-mannered girl, 
 the daughter of a neighboring keeper of a beer-saloon, 
 and anxious to escape from the dominion of a step- 
 mother whom she detested. She understood perfectly 
 that the marriage was legally null, and yet she pre- 
 ferred that course to becoming the acknowledged
 
 236 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 mistress of Legree. Nobody except herself knew 
 that he had another wife living not far away. All 
 the druggist's old acquaintances had drifted from his 
 ken. He had no special regard for Hannah Enstein; 
 he merely yielded to her pseudo-matrimonial per- 
 suasions. | He thought her a kindly, gentle sort of 
 girl, and indeed her blonde look and rather feeble build 
 so indicated. 
 
 But the mock wedding in Jersey City was scarcely 
 over before he woke to a sense of her tart and shrew- 
 ish turn. She was no more the Hannah Enstein he 
 had believed himself to have wedded than if she had 
 suddenly washed away some skillful kind of facial 
 fresco and revealed the tints of a negress. She snub- 
 bed him when she did not scold, and while doing 
 neither she treated him with the indifference we 
 bestow on bores. Legree saw in her demeanor a sort 
 of mirror, where his own humbled spirit looked 
 forth at him with painful scorn. And yet he never 
 fought against her. Arrogance was dead in him; 
 the mordant scorch of his former shame had killed 
 it. He sometimes thought that Hannah possessed a 
 peculiar power over him, half physical, half mental. 
 But he could never feel quite sure on this point. She 
 ruled him ; that he knew, and there were also times 
 when he told himself that if their union had been one 
 for which the law held no punitive terrors he might 
 have retaliated with all his old fire. As it was, she 
 flung their precarious mode of life in his face, and 
 instead of showing the least dread that he should re- 
 mind her of the disgrace that might spring upon 
 them any day from a charge of bigamy against him- 
 self, she would coolly refer to 'the chances of this 
 charge being made, as though it were some threat
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 237 
 
 like that of heart failure or of contagion from small- 
 pox. All in all, Legree's days became a burden to 
 him. The memory of Eunice was like a vision of 
 lost and bartered beatitude. He grew to be. mocked 
 at as a henpecked husband of the most ludicrous 
 type. Finally his secret excesses \vith morphine were 
 discovered by Hannah, who had for some time sus- 
 pected them. Her fury was almost barbaric, and 
 finally took the form of blows. Repeatedly these at- 
 tacks occurred, and one day, when he entered his 
 rooms half demented from the drug, his old devil 
 awoke after long slumber, like the afrite that vacated 
 the Arabian flagon. He rushed on Hannah and 
 cleft her skull horribly with some sort of quick- 
 seized weapon, killing himself inside the next ten 
 minutes. It was one of those hideous tragedies that 
 reach us through the newspapers twice or thrice a 
 a week, if not oftener. Eunice heard of it, and shud- 
 dered at the thought of her own escape. Still, she 
 might not have done so. Her pardon of Legree 
 would have saved him for a life of decency and thrift ; 
 her implacable repulsion had brought him to the 
 horrid downfall which rounded his days. She 
 was not to blame, and yet her unpitying course 
 had produced this ghastly result. We may shut 
 our eyes to the facts of these fatal influences being 
 often guiltlessly effected by one life upon another in 
 this curious turmoil and tangle of human exist- 
 ence. But such avoidance and deprecation will 
 not serve us. The truth remains: we make and 
 mar each other's lives by the mere process of pre- 
 serving our own. And if we think of how many 
 calamities may be . wrought, and how many are 
 daily and hourly wrought, by the simple unavoid-
 
 238 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 able jostling of soul againt soul, with what pregnant 
 and tremendous argument should this recognition 
 appeal to us when it becomes a question of how 
 much good we can do our fellow-mortals in compara- 
 tively minor ways! when we consider the untold 
 value of a kindly or merciful deed, the infinite potency 
 of even an aidful or compassionate word ! 
 
 Not, however, until years had passed did Eunice 
 find herself confronted by the grim tidings of her 
 husband's end. After Heffernan's good offices with 
 regard to the family property she learned of Legree's 
 removal from the old Greenwich avenue quarters, 
 and there her knowledge, as that of Harvey Kinni- 
 cutt and all her relations, permanently ceased. But 
 in her changed mode of living Eunice neither posed 
 as a disappointed woman nor felt the faintest cause 
 for playing any such cheerless part. Indeed, she could 
 now follow her former bent of la wgiving and leader- 
 ship. She adored her little namesake, Dora's daugh- 
 ter, and had soon brought about between the child 
 and herself relations almost maternal. Kinnicutt paid 
 her a good deal of solid deference, and once, while 
 Dora was absent, made such tender overtures that 
 she first looked at him with startled bewilderment 
 and then burst into a great ridiculing laugh. Kinni- 
 cutt joined in the laugh, with extreme good humor. 
 That he should be left alone in the society of any 
 young woman even passably good-looking was but 
 another mode of saying that he should pay her court. 
 From Kinnicutt the posture of the mere shallow 
 sensualist was absent at all times. Inside the limits 
 of a certain age he admired nearly every woman he 
 met. If she had a single good point, in a physical 
 sense, he instantly perceived it, gave it full credit for
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 239 
 
 being. As for evil intentions, to accuse him of these 
 -would have been almost like blaming a sunflower for 
 turning toward the dawn. It is perhaps wholly 
 within the truth of things to state that he was the 
 abject slave of a temperament innately amorous. 
 To accuse him \vould be to declare that the sweep of 
 human will is wider than some of our best philoso- 
 phers concede. Kinnicutt never thought about these 
 matters; he had not the kind of mind that thinks 
 about them. Eunice's treatment of him had seemed 
 to preclude the idea of her ever ''telling Dora." And 
 afterward, when he became quite sure that Dora had 
 not been told, he approached Eunice in a vein of 
 gentle confidence which disarmed while it distressed 
 her. 
 
 Eunice had her fierce moral acerbities, but in the 
 presence of Kinnicutt's gentle and captivating con- 
 fessions, even she became complaisant. Kinnicutt 
 belonged to that type of man who might win a Me- 
 dusa not only not to turn him into stone, but to 
 tame for him the snakes among her curls through the 
 processes of mild manipulation. 
 
 Eunice, disarmed by her brother-in-law's natural 
 \vinsonieness, frowned on him with a touch of par- 
 don in her frown. 
 
 "Oh, Harvey," she said, "do you mean to tell me 
 that you ever see any woman you could like as you 
 do Dora." 
 
 And then Kinnicutt framed a gallant answer, which 
 flattered Eunice in spite of herself, and made her 
 think that her brother-in-law had, after all, the nicest 
 and sweetest ways. There is no woman who does 
 not love devotion; and though Eunice detested mari- 
 tal infidelity with her whole soul, she nevertheless
 
 240 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 clad her view of Harvey's courtesies with little pris- 
 matic edges of indulgence. 
 
 Her appreciation of Kinriicutt's obeisance was 
 thoroughly harmless. There was no flavor in it of 
 disloyalty to Dora. She liked to be liked, and there 
 her slightest trend of treachery had its limit. Often, 
 in those Seventh avenue lodgings, her tears gushed 
 forth with solitary sadness over the realization of 
 what wreck Fate had wrought of her own live. But 
 no one ever really knew how her wound bled. During 
 the summer that now ensued, Dora, who fell ill and 
 had to be nursed, more than once thanked God that 
 Eunice was so companionably near. 
 
 The summer, always so odious in New York, 
 proved a keen trial to Eunice. Being ill and languid, 
 Dora did not seem to mind its ardors of heat. But 
 Annette brought forlorn tidings of Gordon's new 
 lapse. For weeks he had kept straight and right . . 
 now, suddenly he had again broken bonds 
 
 "Your married life is a mockery," Eunice told An- 
 nette. "We thought we were marrying you so well, 
 Dora and I! How little we dreamed of the real 
 truth!" 
 
 "I'd rather have him just as he is than not have 
 him at all," Annette had answered. 
 
 And so the days went on. Gordon recovered from 
 his new attack. The change in the weather put ver- 
 nal flowers among the plots of Central Park, and 
 then, in a few days, as one might say, summer leaped 
 on the town, fierce and uncompromising. The 
 Seventh avenue apartments were not conducive to 
 happiness, after that. They were excessively hot, 
 and Eunice advised an out-of-town sojourn. An- 
 nette had already gone away for the summer, and
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 241 
 
 her example had its weight. One could not keep cool 
 by speaking of "my sister, Mrs. Ammidown, who. is 
 in a cottage, you know, at Saratoga," however re- 
 freshing might be such a disclosure to one's family 
 pride. And so the little Kinnicutt household left 
 town, though not for a cottage at Saratoga. They 
 went to a large, 'cheap, third-rate hotel not far away, 
 where there were negro servants with white cotton 
 gloves who waited on the guests in a huge malodorous 
 dining-room, and \vhere you got " a view" from the 
 piazza, which was a combination of the Corinthian 
 and the New Jersey. Kinnicutt came up every night, 
 or sometimes early in the afternoon. The people in 
 the hotel were what is called "sociable," which often 
 means gossipful and dangerous. Before they knew 
 it Eunice and Dora had made a few foes. Two of 
 these were ladies on whom Kinnicutt beamed with 
 more than the ordinary radiance. Dora at once 
 showed toward both of them a kind of smoldering 
 disapproval. This they resented, and scandal was 
 the result. Eunice of course knew everything, and 
 Dora, in her bitter annoyance and chagrin, told of 
 the wretched episode which had cost her, not long 
 ago, such a tremor of agony. 
 
 "It's too perfectly awful," said Eunice, with knit- 
 ted brows. " I never dreamed he was like that. And 
 now his behavior here! Oh, Dora, you shouldn't 
 live with him ! " 
 
 ' ' Shouldn' 1 1 ? " said Dora, at once bridling. "Please 
 let me be the judge of that, Eunice. You can leave 
 your husband if you choose. I married mine more 
 with my heart than with my head." 
 
 " Dora," cried Eunice, " do you mean to infer ? " 
 
 "I mean to infer nothing." 
 16
 
 242 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 11 Oh, yes you do. And it's outrageous of you ! " 
 
 Then a really fierce quarrel occurred, during \vhich 
 Eunice held her sister's baby in her arms, and after 
 which the two contestants spoke to one another as 
 if not a shadow of dissension had come between 
 them. But Eunice, with her vigor of individualism, 
 left a distinct persuasive mark t>n ( Dora. That 
 evening, when her husband came back to the hotel, 
 she addressed him savagely. 
 
 "Harvey, you've made frightful trouble here. 
 Eunice thinks we ought to leave at once." 
 
 Kinnicutt lifted his blonde brows in an infantile 
 way. " Eunice must be crazy," he said. 
 
 "No, she isn't. You've carried on awfully. I don't 
 
 say you meant it. No, I won't say that, after 
 
 But you understand." 
 
 "I'll be hanged if I do understand," affirmed Kinni- 
 cutt. 
 
 "Your behavior with Mrs. Rawlinson," began 
 Dora, "is " 
 
 "Oh, stuff and nonsense! Mrs. Rawlinson, Dora, 
 is old enough to be my mother." 
 
 "Not quite. But she's old enough to conduct her- 
 self more decently than she does. And then that girl, 
 Eva Brand . . Why the whole hotel is talking about 
 your goings-on with her! " 
 
 "Now, Dora, think. You've been a good deal en- 
 gaged with Baby, both afternoons and evenings. 
 I " 
 
 " Oh, don't begin that way. You " 
 
 "But, Dora, it's true. I haven't " 
 
 "Yes, you have! And, Harvey, you know it's dis- 
 graceful to " 
 
 "Disgraceful to treat one or two pretty women
 
 WOMEN MUST W&EP 243 
 
 politely. That's all I've ever thought of doing, Dora 
 darling, and 
 
 ' ' ' Dora darling ! ' Yes ! Eunice warned me of that 
 kind of talk!" 
 
 "Oh, Eunice be blowed!" exclaimed Kinnicutt, 
 but without the faintest sign of anger. 
 
 "All right ! " cried Dora, not only angry but suffer- 
 ing. "I'll tell her you said that ! " 
 
 " Don't. She's lovely. I'm very fond of Eunice." 
 "Oh, are you?" faltered Dora, gnawing her lips. 
 " You're very fond, I begin to think, of almost every 
 woman you meet." 
 
 ' ' Now, Dora, look here. ' ' As Kinnicutt thus spoke, 
 with his face wreathed in smiles that few \vomen 
 could ever see and not be somehow allured by, he 
 went close to Dora and deftly caught both her hands 
 in his own. 
 
 "Now look here, now look here," he continued, and 
 began to swing her hands to and fro while he stooped 
 and kissed each of them twice or thrice. " This Mrs. 
 Rawlinson is a horrid, designing old frump. But 
 she isn't bad to look at when she's fixed up her 
 played-out complexion and can get a good light to 
 hide the signs of repair ..." 
 
 "Hush, Harvey,** scowled Dora, "this is nothing 
 but your humbug. I won't listen to it, I " 
 
 "Yes, you shall listen, you little goose! " And he 
 had kissed her on the lips before she knew. " A man, 
 Dora, love, is so different from a woman. Why, 
 good gracious, you ought to take our temptations 
 into account ! That creature has gone forme as I ... 
 Well, Dora, I won't say any more. You cang-ess." 
 
 "I . . I've guessed already just how you've gone 
 for her" murmured Dora, with an irrepressible belief
 
 244 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 in this last statement, try hard as she would to 
 crush it down. Kinnicutt's face, as it smiled into 
 hers, was so winsomely handsome that his declara- 
 tion seemed fraught with an immense verifying force. 
 "But this Eva Brand, Harvey. She didn't go for 
 you! " 
 
 " Oh-ho !" cried Kinnicutt. "Didn't she, though ?" 
 And then he went on to say disparaging things 
 about Eva Brand, whom he had really drawn into a 
 passionate attachment for himself. He said these 
 things with the easy lying that a man of this light and 
 careless calibre can always let so gracefully slip from 
 his lips. And poor Dora listened, believing. It was 
 not hard to believe him a person of the most enchant- 
 ing equipments. Before that interview ended she felt 
 convinced that in their separate ways Mrs. Rawlinson 
 d.nd Eva Brand were women of the most shocking 
 boldness. 
 
 By this time it was August, and the whole vulgar 
 hotel was in a ferment of silly gabble. After a con- 
 ference with Eunice it became plain to Dora that de- 
 parture was the wisest plan. Eunice, meanwhile, had 
 become furious at Kinnicutt. She attempted, one af- 
 ternoon, to arraign him. 
 
 She might as well have attempted to arraign an 
 east wind or an epidemic of influenza. Kinnicutt 
 was far more agreeable than either. In the nice preser- 
 vation of his temper he bitterly reminded Eunice of 
 Legree, but there the similitude distinctly stopped. 
 
 " You have treated us horribly," Eunice said. "We 
 feel disgraced in this hotel because of your action." 
 
 " My dear Eunice," he returned, "how can you talk 
 to me so cruelly? I've tried so hard to make every- 
 thing comfortable for you and Dora." Then a little
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP . 245 
 
 sigh escaped him. " You know that Dora may be 
 very dear to me, but that you are almost the same. 
 I say 'almost,' Eunice, and with good reason, dear 
 sister. . You'll let me call you sister, won't you?" 
 
 "No," replied Eunice austerely. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you will. Dora's lovely, of course, and 
 I'm tremendously fond of her; but I sometimes think 
 that if she had had your intellect, Eunice, (I won't 
 speak of your figure and the fetching style with which 
 you carry yourself) I might " 
 
 "Now, Harvey, stop!" broke in Eunice. "Don't 
 say another word like that. If you do I shall be 
 furious." 
 
 " I always like to see you when you're angry," said 
 Kinnicutt, with meekness. 
 
 " Oh, you do ! " shot out Eunice, not half so nettled, 
 somehow, as she thought she ought to be. "And . . 
 and why, sir, if you please? " 
 
 " Why, Eunice? Because it's so becoming. You do 
 get such a beautiful color." 
 
 If there was anything about which Eunice had a 
 sensitive self-distrust it was her florid complexion. 
 And that Harvey should admire what she held to be 
 a weakness, filled her with sudden unconquerable 
 pleasure. This emotion, however, she controlled. 
 
 "You you are a fearful humbug," she said scowl- 
 ing with all her might. " I could speak worse of you 
 than that, if I wanted, but I won't." 
 
 " Yoii couldn't speak worse of me, Eunice. Shall I 
 tell you why ? You accuse me of being insincere when 
 I tell you that you are one of the handsomest women 
 I've ever met." 
 
 Ten minutes later, when their interview \vasbroken 
 by the appearance of Dora, Eunice asked herself
 
 246 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 whether she had given Kinnicutt the lecture she had 
 intended for him, and if not why not. Her mental 
 answer, ho wever self-humiliating, came to this : he 
 had interested her in the question of just how far down 
 on the nape of her neck her hair grew, and of how she 
 surpassed most women in the charming attitude of 
 having hair that grew neither too high nor too low 
 there, but with a few little tender curls as well that 
 (according to the gen tie avowal of her brother-in-law) 
 created an effect thoroughly delightful. 
 
 "Oh, there's 120 talking with him!" Eunice told 
 Dora a little later. But in reality she had talked with 
 him a good deal, and more agreeably to herself than 
 she liked to think about. 
 
 In another day or two they quitted the hotel. Dora 
 felt that their departure was the beating of a retreat, 
 and one which teemed for her with untold mortifi- 
 cations.
 
 XVIII 
 
 In early September, Annette returned from Saratoga. 
 Her eyes had the happiest of sparkles, and her lips 
 were filled only with good tidings. Gordon had been 
 irreproachable throughout all their stay. " He tells 
 me," Annette declared," that he means never to go 
 wrong again. And I believe him I can't help it." 
 
 " You're very sensible not to try and help it," said 
 Eunice. "Faith brings comfort, I think, and you're 
 right to cultivate it." 
 
 " Eunice says that as if she hadn't much faith her- 
 self," said Dora. Then, shaking her head: "I'm afraid 
 1 haven't either." 
 
 Annette's joyful look faded. "Don't discourage 
 me," she said. And then the tears glittered in her 
 dusky eyes. "Oh, girls, Gordon has been so lovely ! 
 If it were not for that horror I wouldn't change for- 
 tunes with anybody living. . He's working real hard, 
 too. Often he had to stay here in town for three and 
 four days at a time. And it's been such a trial to me, 
 besides the dread, you know, about his staying here 
 all alone. He's writing articles on the coming elec- 
 tion. Both he and his father are so interested in it!
 
 248 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 And the Monitor has gone up in circulation ; I don't 
 know how much, but public feeling is with it, they 
 say, and sales are greatly increased." 
 
 Annette was quite right, here. The Monitor had 
 attacked fraud with fury and yet with coolness. Once 
 more Simeon Ammidown's nanie was in the mouths 
 of men. Never really successful, either as a 
 journalist or a politician, he had certain admirers, 
 notwithstanding, and among these Andrew Heffer- 
 nan could be rated as the most heartily sincere. Hef- 
 fernan had not only read the Monitor, of late; he had 
 been impressed by its frank, daring and reformatory 
 spirit. Once he saw in one of its burning editorials 
 a reference to himself and the local power for good 
 or ill that he would hold in the near elections. His 
 name was boldly mentioned, and though it had been 
 either lauded or reviled in newspapers for several past 
 years, this candid attack upon it filled him with 
 mingled admiration and regret. He could not help 
 esteeming the clear-mindedness of the essay, while he 
 deplored its distinct slurs upon his own probity. 
 Word had come to him that Larry McGonigle still 
 believed in his "loyalty" and waited with lordly re- 
 serve for some proof of its continuance. 
 
 "I am in the fellow's debt," Heffernan said to his 
 wife. "He did things for me in those other days 
 \vhen I wanted things done. He's a man without 
 a grain of real goodness, and he thinks he's got a 
 grip on me that I can't shake off." 
 
 " Show him you can shake it off, Andy," was Mrs. 
 Heffernaii's reply. "Young Wentworth believes in 
 you, and more than that, you've taken the money 
 with a full understanding just how it's to be used." 
 
 "Yes."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 249 
 
 "Then let McGonigle make all the fuss he pleases. 
 I guess he can't and won't make much. You can pay 
 him back, if you're really so much in his debt, other- 
 wise than by turning traitor to Mr. Wentworth." 
 
 " Right, 'Liza. If I knifed that young man, or if I 
 stood by and let him be knifed after what's passed 
 between us, I'd want to cut my throat the next 
 hour." 
 
 "The next hour, Andy!" exclaimed his wife, with a 
 sudden flash of gladness on her face. "Ah, howl wish 
 it was here! You know what I mean! When this 
 election is once over and done with you'll cut politics 
 and the liquor trade forever. That was your promise." 
 
 "So it was," he muttered, "and I won't go back 
 on it." 
 
 " The very next day, Andy, you'll begin." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Oh, how I wish that day was here! Let 'em wag 
 their tongues all they want. Who cares? I was 
 thinking about our going to Europe for a while. Such 
 lots like us do go nowadays. It might make a new 
 man of you; it might cure that trouble in your head; 
 they say the voyage often works wonders." 
 
 "Well, we'll see, 'Liza; we'll see." 
 
 " Of course, we wouldn't stay very long, you know. 
 I should hate to stay long, for my part, now that 
 Eunice is worse than a widow and poor Annette's 
 married a man with that awful curse on him. I 
 couldn't stop very long away from those three girls 
 o' mine, God bless 'em!" 
 
 Hefiernan looked at his wife with a slow, lingering 
 smile. His face was very haggard, now, and when 
 he smiled like that it gave her a secret chill, as if a 
 revealing light had been thrown on the ravages that
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 her love told her were those of a subtle, undermining 
 malady. 
 
 "YouVe got a great, big heart," he said. "No- 
 body knows that better than I do." 
 
 " Oh, pooh," said Mrs. Heffernan, with a frown and 
 ahead-toss. " My heart's full o' spite sometimes. I 
 often feel as if I could just kill that Austin Legree." 
 
 "Who blames you for that, 'Liza? I guess /don't." 
 
 "Oh, Andy, aint it strange, though! Do you re- 
 member how I once said to you that there were three 
 chief reasons why us women are so often unhappy in 
 our married lives?" 
 
 Heffernan shrugged his great shoulders. " You fire 
 off lots o' your notions at me all the time. I 
 shouldn't wonder but I did recollect some sort o' 
 stuff you let loose about married women. Wasn't 
 the first reason . . unfaithfulness?" 
 
 " Yes. And that's come to poor Dora. You know 
 what Eunice told me the other day how Harvey 
 Kinnicutt carried on over there at that Jersey hotel." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, that looks bad. It mayn't be so very, but 
 I'm doubtful . . . And then my second reason, Andy- 
 drunkenness. Look at poor Annette." 
 
 "True enough." 
 
 "And then my third reason." 
 
 "What was it, 'Liza? I forget." 
 
 " Oh, general deviltry. A man being a reg'lar high- 
 toned gentleman outside of his own home and a 
 perfect imp o' darkness inside. Wasn't that Austin 
 Legree, all over?" 
 
 Heffernan laughed. "You appear to have struck 
 it dead right," he said, adding with a 'sudden sigh, 
 " More's the pity !"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 251 
 
 "But I have got hopes of Harvey!" his wife ex- 
 claimed. "I wouldn't trust the word of any man 
 with that vile thirst in him as it's in Gordon Ammi- 
 down, not if he was to stay a week on his knees and 
 swear by fifty Bibles that he'd never touch another 
 drop. But with Harvey Kinnicutt it's different. He 
 can control himself if he's a mind to, and somehow 
 I think he don't mean to go on and set. Dora crazy 
 with more o' those capers. He's got such a good, 
 kind face, too. You needn't but look at him to see 
 there's no real harm in him." 
 
 " Humph ! " grumbled Heffernan. " ' Such a good, 
 kind face ' and ' no real harm in him ' . . . I guess that 
 about sizes him up for most o' the pretty -women he 
 runs after." 
 
 "Oh, mercy, Andrew! I hope you don't take him 
 to be a .. a professional rake ! " 
 
 "I'm afraid he ain't much better, 'Liza." 
 
 "My! But I won't believe it of him yet. I'm 
 going to give him another chance. And Eunice says 
 that Dora feels that way, too." 
 
 But Dora did not feel that way very many days 
 longer. It happened one afternoon, that she and 
 Eunice were shopping on Sixth avenue. They had 
 been to several places and failed to procure just what 
 they wished. Then Dora began to fret a little about 
 Baby, and at the same time said that it would be 
 foolish for them to go home to luncheon until they 
 had matched that tantalizing blue ribbon and got 
 another yard of the fringe that had given out in 
 the making of the new mantel cover. 
 
 "Let's lunch over there," Dora presently said, 
 giving a nod of her head toward an oyster-saloon on 
 the opposite side of the avenue, with spacious plate-
 
 252 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 glass windows and striped awnings and other luxu- 
 rious touches. 
 
 "Oh, Dora," said Eunice, with the instant sense of 
 extreme imprudence. ' ' Shall we ? " 
 
 " Yes if you think Baby '11 keep till I get home." 
 
 "Nonsense, as far as that's concerned. Isn't 
 Catharine with her, and always perfectly devoted? " 
 
 "Well, then; /et's." 
 
 "But isn't it sort of . . fast, Dora? " said Eunice, as 
 they began to cross the street together. 
 
 "Fast? Two married women going into an 
 oyster-saloon for a couple of stews and some beer." 
 
 ' ' Beer ! Oh , that will be fast . ' ' 
 
 " Do you think so ? Not a bit of it." 
 
 And after they were seated in the restaurant, Dora 
 ordered beer to accompany the oysters. 
 
 " Isn't it ever so fine here? " whispered Eunice. 
 
 *Elegant, isn't it, though?" returned Dora. The 
 tables were of costly polished wood, the floor was 
 marbled, the wall-paperings looked as though their 
 golden fern-leaves might be wrought of stamped 
 leather. Having been shown into the back of the 
 large interior, it was some little while before the gas- 
 lit dimness there permitted the sisters to notice that 
 other people were scattered round among the neigh- 
 boring tables. 
 
 Suddenly Dora's face grew very white. Noticing 
 the change, Eunice said \vith swift anxiety : " What 
 is it ? Aren't you well ? " 
 
 Dora's eyes alone spoke, now, and their observer 
 followed them. Not far away two figures were 
 seated ; their position was the most retired in the 
 saloon. They were a man and a woman, the latter 
 being dressed \vith a somewhat dashing showiness.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 253 
 
 Her face was in full relief; you could see how long 
 her eye-lashes were, and the infantile effect of her soft 
 \vhite throat. The profile of the man was alone 
 visible. But Eunice instantly recognized it as that of 
 Kinnicutt. 
 
 She stared at it, fascinated. He was smiling, and 
 presently he laughed, throwing back his head. His 
 companion laughed, too, and then they gazed across 
 their table, with a merry and ardent intimacy, into 
 one another's eyes. Eunice now turned and looked 
 at Dora. 
 
 " What . . what shall we do ? " came Dora's gasped 
 question. 
 
 Before any answer could be framed, the waiter ap- 
 peared with their refreshments. He placed these 
 before them, and at length withdrew. Meanwhile 
 not a word had been spoken. As the waiter retired, 
 Eunice said : 
 
 ''Act as if you didn't see him, Dora." 
 
 ' ' I I feel rather faint, Eunice. I ' ' 
 
 " Force yourself to keep up." 
 
 "I'll try." 
 
 "And don't look there. I won't, Dora, and don't 
 you. It's far the best way." 
 
 " Very well," Dora faltered. 
 
 "Now try to eat something." 
 
 " I I can't. I I should choke if I did." 
 
 " Then make believe to. I will." 
 
 After a little silence Dora said faintly: " Can't we 
 get up and go out soon ? " 
 
 " Soon yes. But not just yet." 
 
 As these words were spoken, the strident sound of 
 two pushed-back chairs made both sisters give an 
 involuntary glance toward Kinnicutt and his com-
 
 254 WOMENMUST WEEP 
 
 panion. Both had risen. He was putting on for 
 her, with an air of what struck them as hideous 
 gallantry, a wrap of some sort that she had thrown 
 aside during her repast. Standing behind her, he 
 leaned and said [something, with great apparent 
 fondness and mirth, in one of her ears. She broke 
 into a trill of laughter. Then they came forward 
 together, leaving the saloon. Kinnicutt passed them 
 so closely that they could almost have stretched out 
 their hands and touched the skirts of his coat. But 
 still he did not see them. They heard him say, how- 
 ever, in a tone of airy gayety : 
 
 " Don't you \vant to go with me to a matinee some 
 afternoon, when the coast is clear for both of us ? " 
 
 "It ain't ever clear for me," she laughed. "It's 
 always foggy." 
 
 "Oh, well, I'll take the risk of collision, if you 
 will." . . And then their voices died away. 
 
 As sometimes happens, in cases like these, fate 
 aggravated the blow it dealt. Eunice had not even 
 glanced at Dora during the past few moments, but 
 now, hearing a heavy sigh, she looked across the 
 table. 
 
 "Oh, it was too much!" breathed Dora. "I I 
 wish, now, I'd spoken." 
 
 "Much better that you didn't much," protested 
 Eunice. "I can see them," she went on, staring across 
 her sister's shoulder. " They've nearly got into the 
 street." She touched a little hand-bell. "Let's pay 
 and then go. Drink your beer, Dora drink it. It'll 
 brace you up wonderfully. See mine's done me lots 
 of good. Perhaps it may allow you to take some of 
 the oysters, and " 
 
 "No," said Dora, beginning to sip her beer. "I 
 just couldn't, you know, and that's all about it."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 255 
 
 " Well, neither can I," said Eunice. " And isn't my 
 face a perfect show ?" she pursued. 
 
 " It's a little flushed," admitted Dora. 
 
 " A littlel . . Here's our waiter. Never mind if he 
 appears surprised that we haven't eaten. The point 
 is to get away at once, now." 
 
 They were out in the avenue, presently, and Eunice 
 had drawn her sister's arm within her own. Then 
 she hailed a car, and they entered it. Scarcely a word 
 passed between them until they had reached home. 
 At last, as Dora sank into a chair beside the crib in 
 which her child lay asleep, she murmured: 
 
 " There's a pair of us now, Eunice. And it's come 
 in so short a time. Only think ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ?" Eunice asked. "Not that 
 you'll . . . ?" 
 
 "Leave him? Yes, I do mean that, "said Dora; and 
 her pallor, her shining eyes, and the resolute lines 
 about her lips made her look thoroughly as if she 
 meant it.
 
 XIX 
 
 That afternoon Kinnicutt came up stairs with a 
 jocund whistle on his lips, Eunice met him in the 
 little front parlor. " Hasn't this been a lovely Fall 
 day?" he said blithely. " Who'd think it was so near 
 November?" 
 
 Eunice made him no answer. Her back was turned 
 to him, and she had bent over a table and appeared 
 to be lightly dusting with her handkerchief the spaces 
 between its ornaments. 
 
 "I suppose you and Dora went out to-day " 
 
 Kinnicutt again began. 
 
 And now Eunice turned. There were tears in her 
 eyes. " Yes, Harvey, we did go out." Then she said 
 more, and as she ended the three or four quick sen- 
 tences that followed, she saw him whiten to the lips. 
 
 "I don't know that it's such a crime to go into an 
 oyster-saloon in the middle of the day," hesaid, "with 
 a lady friend that you . . you happen to meet." 
 
 Eunice was her real self in a trice then. " Harvey 
 Kinnicutt," she began, "what has your record been 
 already? A lady friend, indeed! And a lady, for that 
 matter, you'd happened to meet ! . . It's all come to 
 this, Harvey: Dora is worn out. She says so, and I
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 257 
 
 know she means it, I've done the best I can. I've 
 talked with her, I've argued with her, But " 
 
 "Oh, you want to scold, Eunice," said Kinnicutt, 
 who had got some of his color back, and not a little 
 of his easy, amiable self-poise as well. "You area. 
 dreadful scold, with all your nice points, and I don't 
 know any woman who's got more." 
 
 " No, no," shot Eunice, shaking her head. " That 
 won't do this time, Harvey. I've never seen Dora so 
 angry and yet so sad." 
 
 Kinnicutt slipped up to Eunice and tried to take her 
 hand. She would not let him do so, but his comely 
 face was now so amiable and winning that she did 
 not recede from him as she had intended. 
 
 "Do be nice and help me, Eunice ! " he pleaded. 
 
 " I can't help you. I can't do a thing." 
 
 "Yes, you can yes, you can! Dear, sweet, beauti- 
 ful Eunice! " 
 
 "Harvey Kinnicutt! I'm not beautiful, and you 
 ought to be ashamed (if you had any shame) to rank 
 me with the women you talk to in that style ! " 
 
 "Eunice, Eunice, please listen! That young girl 
 is as respectable, pure, and well-brought-up as any- 
 body we know. I just met her as . . as I was going 
 in there to take lunch. She . . why, Eunice, she was 
 going there to have an oyster as well. What was 
 more natural (as you might tell Dora that is, if you 
 cared for me \vith as much real devotion and . . and 
 admiration, Eunice, as I care for you ! ) than that I 
 should merely sit at the same table with an acquaint- 
 ance like her just an ordinary acquaintance, Eunice? 
 . . Why, good Heaven's! I hadn't seen the girl for 
 three months before that, and I '11 pledge you my word 
 that I never dreamed of seeing her again after we 
 walked out of the saloon together."
 
 258 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 This last avowal was very earnestly made, and 
 Eunice, knowing what she knew, recoiled before her 
 own swift realization of the falsehood it ensheathed. 
 She was on the verge of speaking her denial, her 
 proof-laden conviction, \vhen another voice spoke it 
 for her. 
 
 This voice was Dora's. A good deal of what had 
 just passed between her husband and his sister-in-law 
 Dora had already quietly stood and heard. Now she 
 took the words, as it were, from Eunice's mouth. 
 
 " You swear that you never dreamed of seeing that 
 woman again," said Dora, "and yet we both heard you 
 beg her to be with you again some afternoon, when 
 . . when the coast was clear ! That's what your 
 word your oath is worth ! Eunice was quite right 
 I'm worn out, and I'm both very angry and very sad. 
 Now, for once and all, it's ended between us, Harvey 
 Kinnicutt. I've my own money to live on at least 
 enough of it for me never to take another cent from 
 you, thank God, while I live ! " 
 
 'She put her hand to her throat and reeled a little as 
 she veered round again so as to face the door by 
 which she had entered. Eunice sprang toward her, 
 and at the same moment Kinnicutt called out in his 
 most plaintive yet dulcet tones : 
 
 "Dora! Dora! You're doing me the most awful 
 wrong!" 
 
 Dora paused and with one hand clutching that of 
 Eunice she spoke over her shoulder. 
 
 " You know that's false. I've borne from you more 
 than any decent wife should bear. As to forgiving 
 you, there wouldn't be the faintest use. It means to 
 you, this being forgiven, merely the liberty of doing 
 some new horrid thing when the first chance serves,
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 259 
 
 . . . Eunice has her cross to carry ; now I have mine. 
 Misery loves company, and we'll carry them to- 
 gether." A flash of the old jocular Dora was in this 
 last sentence, though its accents were trenchant with 
 irony. . Immediately after speaking she passed with 
 Eunice from the room. 
 
 Kinnicutt was greatly distressed, and had never 
 felt quite so remorseful. Still, he had every hope of 
 softening his wife once again. He let a number of 
 hours elapse before making this appeal, and then dis- 
 covered that Dora had steeled herself against him 
 with a dreadful sternness. Hardly would she even 
 consent to listen to his new protestations and vows, 
 hurrj-ing away from him \vhile they were being ut- 
 tered, as though contagious bane overhung them. 
 Many husbands, \vhether guilty or no, would have 
 used wrath, at this point, either as a relief or refuge. 
 But Kinnicutt was no more wrathful than if he had 
 been some injured saint. Indeed, there soon came a 
 look of patient sorrow into his face that might 
 almost have acquitted him before a jury. 
 
 Several more hours after his wife's final rebuff he 
 made an appeal to Eunice. "It can't be possible," 
 he said, " that she's going to to turn me out? " 
 
 "No," said Eunice. "She's going to leave you 
 here." 
 
 " Leave me here? " 
 
 "Yes. We're going with Catharine back to the 
 West Eleventh street house." 
 
 " The the devil you are! " wailed Kinnicutt bleakly. 
 
 " Uncle Andrew and Dora have had a talk to-day. 
 She -would ^Q at once and find him, and she succeeded. 
 The people in the West Eleventh street house are dis- 
 satisfied about something, and want to quit. Uncle
 
 260 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Andrew believes in letting 'em; he says there'll be 
 plenty a year for Dora and me to live on if we go 
 right back to the old house. She's crazy to get there; 
 she behaves as if she didn't want to lose a minute." 
 
 "Eunice," cried Kinnicutt, "can't you do am^thing 
 with her? Can t you, Eunice? " And he seized her 
 arm and peered into her face with his blue eyes full of 
 supplication. 
 
 Eunice tried to frown very darkly. "I've done 
 everj^thing I could," she said, " and a hundred times 
 more than you deserve. But I can't budge Dora; she's 
 like a rock this time. I did fresher to overlook your 
 behavior this once, scandalous though it's been, for, 
 after all, I pitied you." 
 
 "Yes, you've got a heart, Eunice; she hasn't any. 
 I wish I'd married you! 1 ' 
 
 "Don't misunderstand me, sir! I pitied you because 
 of the wretched figure you'll cut before all your 
 friends. A husband whose wife runs away from him 
 because he insults her to her face with nearly every 
 woman he meets! That's what they'll say. And 
 your conscience can't deny it for you must have 
 some conscience left! " 
 
 "My conscience doesn't deny it!" said Kinnicutt, 
 beginning to weep. " Oh, Eunice, you're so eloquent; 
 you've got such a flow of language! You hit the 
 nail right on the head every time." And then, while 
 wiping his eyes and sobbing (he did not by any means 
 become as ogreishly ugly as do most men when they 
 cry), with a queer, tragical slyness he \vent on: " Oh, 
 if you could only affect her as you do me! I I think 
 you might put forth your mag magnificent powers 
 just once again! " 
 And Eunice did make another trial, though it proved
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 261 
 
 a futile one. Dora was determined to go to West 
 Eleventh street with her baby and her sister. Harvey, 
 she declared, could stay in the flat just as it stood, 
 until the next rent was due; she didn't even care if 
 he sold the furniture afterward. Except her father's 
 portrait (which Eunice had brought thither when 
 she had moved across the hall) and a few other relics 
 more or less dear, she would be glad to escape all 
 material reminders of her married life. For the next 
 few days she refused to see him'except when necessity 
 constrained, and then she would pass him with a 
 stony face. Meanwhile preparations for departure 
 were being strenuously pushed, and one afternoon a 
 little party took their exit from the apartment-house. 
 Not expecting that they would go. so soon as this, 
 Kinnicutt returned to find an empty hearthstone 
 indeed. Almost at once he bethought himself of 
 Annette, went to her and succeeded in touching her 
 heart. 
 
 Annette, however, would have taken precisely the 
 course that she did take, whether her heart had been 
 touched or no. On the morning after Dora's and 
 Eunice's arrival at the West Eleventh street house, 
 she presented herself there, and met them both with 
 tears. But the tears were not because of Dora's 
 trouble with Harvey. Her first words made that 
 thoroughly clear. 
 
 "Oh, girls," she cried, "doesn't every inch of the 
 house remind you of those dear old days? I declare, 
 I almost saw pa, as I entered this parlor!" 
 
 "Yes," said Eunice, "it all seems very natural, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 Annette looked hard at Dora. " There's one thing 
 that doesn't seem natural at all."
 
 262 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "What?" asked Dora. 
 
 "Your coming here without Harvey," answered 
 Annette. "Oh, it's too awful! PMrst Eunice, and 
 now you ! Both separated, an 
 What will people think of us?" 
 
 "I shouldn't have thought much of myself," said 
 Dora, "if I'd done a bit differently." 
 
 " Oh, Dora, Dora! " said Annette, shaking her head. 
 " I didn't think you had it in you to be so cruel ! " 
 
 Dora's eyes flashed. "Cruel! I don't doubt he's 
 been to visit you and told you all sorts of false and 
 silly things. He's 'the hollowest of humbugs, An- 
 nette. Yes, I see by your face that he has been talk- 
 ing \vith you." 
 
 "He doesn't excuse himself," said Annette; "he 
 doesn't attempt to." 
 
 " As if he could ! " mocked Dora. 
 
 "Well," said Eunice, "at least give him credit for 
 one fault the less." 
 
 "He loves you, Dora, he loves you!" exclaimed 
 Annette. " And that means so much ! " 
 
 "Suppose," appealed Dora, "your Gordon was to 
 treat you as Harvey's treated me. What would you 
 do?" 
 
 "Stick to him," declared Annette, "if I thought he 
 loved me behind it all, and if I loved him ! " 
 
 "You wouldn't feel yourself grossly insulted?" 
 Dora went on. 
 
 "I might ; but I'd stick to my husband ! " 
 
 "I believe Annette would. 11 said Eunice, with ju- 
 dicial gravity. 
 
 Annette's cheeks grew pink and her eyes brightened. 
 "Why, if Gordon should begin to drink again (not 
 that I dream he ever will, for I'm now perfectly con-
 
 \VOMEN MUST WEEP 263 
 
 vinced that he means to crush down all those crav- 
 ings for the rest of his lifetime) but if he should 
 drink, and behave disgracefully, and fling shame on 
 me and his own family, I wouldn't leave him because 
 of that! I wouldn't leave him, no!" Annette re- 
 peated, and she looked with excited challenge at either 
 of her sisters. 
 
 " Perhaps you'd leave him if he struck you as Aus- 
 tin Legree struck me," said Eunice grimly, and with 
 what seemed gathering ire. 
 
 "No, I would not!" affirmed Annette. 
 
 "Oh, you wouldn't?" 
 
 "No!" Annette iterated. "Now, Eunice, I've 
 never told you this before, and I think Austin treated 
 you frightfully. But I wouldn't have left him as you 
 did." 
 
 "Neither would I," said Dora. 
 
 Eunice gave a little cry (it was a sort of " Et tu, 
 Brute 1 ' cry) and shotmild daggers at the last speaker. 
 
 Annette, equally dismayed, confronted Dora." Why, 
 what do you mean by such a statement?" she de- 
 manded. 
 
 "I mean," said Dora, "that to behave as Harvey 
 has done is ten times worse than any other kind of 
 conduct. Oh, yes," she went on hysterically, "I 
 could forgive a blow I could forgive being thrown 
 clown and stamped on far easier than such cold- 
 blooded deviltry as I've had to bear from my hus- 
 band! " 
 
 And then a quarrel began, with each one of the 
 sisters talking at the same time ; with Eunice loftily 
 preaching and scolding, just as she had done in their 
 maiden days; with Dora tearful and passionately 
 self-defensive; with Annette placating and concilia-
 
 264 WOMEX MUST WEEP 
 
 toryas she had always become during such tripartite 
 dissensions and with not a shadow of real ill-feeling 
 in the end, but merely a surface-deep indignation and 
 reproach. 
 
 Dora had made her resolve, however, and she per- 
 sisted in saying that she had made it without repeal. 
 Not long afterward, Heffernan, during a little chat 
 with his wife, gave that resolve his full approval. 
 
 "She's right," he said. "A chap like Kinnicutt 
 ain't fit to be the husband of any good woman. I 
 know his kind I've known it from 'way back. He's 
 better bounced than he is housed. I'll help her to a 
 divorce if she wants." 
 
 " Oh, I guess she don't want that," said his wife. 
 
 " There's grounds, ain't there? " 
 
 "I s'pose so. But she don't feel that wa} r . She'll 
 feel more like taking him back, some da} r , I shouldn't 
 wonder." 
 
 "More fool she if she does. He'll kiss thenext girl he 
 fancies, with the oath not to still warm on his lips." 
 
 "I know, Andy, but there's in him, after all, \vhat 
 makes nine women out o'ten knock under in the end." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " He's good-natured ; he's got a sweet tongue. Oh, 
 if some of the men that play pranks with women 
 only knew how much there is in doing it \vith a 
 smile and a kind word ! Lots o' wives will swallow 
 'most any sort of a pill if it's sugared for 'em thick 
 enough." 
 
 " Dora don't appear to be cut out that way." 
 
 "Well, you wait and see. It's bad language, con- 
 tempt, finger-snappings in our faces, that freeze us 
 women hard. The men don't know just how many 
 infernal things they can do to us if they'll do 'em
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 265 
 
 pleasantly ... So it's all settled about the election? " 
 
 Heffernan gave a slight start at this last question, 
 and then effected one of his sombre nods. 
 
 " Yes. Only Mr. Simeon Ammidown don't seem to 
 think so." He drew from his pocket a letter which 
 his \vife had already seen, and solemnly re-perused it. 
 
 " He's coming here to-night," said Mrs. Heffernan, 
 " and I'm glad he is. He's an honest gentleman, and 
 he wants to make sure the stories about you are 
 false." 
 
 Heffernan smiled with sarcasm. " I guess he wants 
 to threaten me. Well, he'll get no good by it if he 
 comes like that." 
 
 "Mark my words, Andy, he don't come like that. 
 His son, Gordon, has told him you ain't to be 
 bought this time." 
 
 "This time no," murmured Heffernan, with a hint 
 of sardonic self-retrospect. 
 
 "I'm going to that charity fair I told you of," said 
 his wife. "So you'll just have things hereto your- 
 selves. I'll see there's a decanter or two on a side- 
 table, and some crackers-and-cheese." 
 
 "Oh, stuff," was the reply. "Simeon Ammidown 
 ain't going to drink my liquor nor munch my 
 crackers-and-cheese, you bet, 'Liza. He's come in a 
 good deal different spirit from that." 
 
 But here Heffernan proved to be wrong. Ammi- 
 down had his clear suspicions of double-dealing on 
 the political part of this person, yet he wore no sign 
 of arrogance as he entered the little Second avenue 
 parlor a few hours later. Still, he offered no hand, 
 and received no such offer from his entertainer. 
 
 Gordon had said to him, not long ago, when it had 
 been a question between father and son as to what
 
 266 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 course the Monitor should take in treating the 
 chances of young Wentworth's possible defeat at the 
 ^polls through fraud "I'm certain that if you'd once 
 met and talked with Andrew Heffernan, sir, you'd 
 feel convinced as to the falsity of these rumors." 
 
 "You've met the fellow, then?" Simeon Ammi- 
 down had said, surprised. And the next minute he 
 recalled the relationship between the liquor-seller and 
 Annette, thereby relieving Gordon from certain em- 
 barrassed thrills. "Oh, yes, I remember .. Well, I 
 should like to judge for myself." 
 
 And to-night he had come for that purpose. The 
 contrast between the two men, as they sat side by 
 side, was very striking. In the presence of Ammi- 
 down you saw real nobility, an air of distinct culture, 
 and a few facial signs, perhaps, of that extreme 
 sensitiveness \vhich had been for him as a wlietstone 
 on which were sharpened the disappointments of his 
 career. Heffernan, on the other hand, showed noth- 
 ing of the recent moral change in him, except through 
 a more melancholy mien. His roughness, bigness, 
 uncouthness, looked all the cruder beside his com- 
 .panion's polish, symmetry and grace. 
 
 He offered refreshment before Ammidown had been 
 five minutes in the room, and the latter accepted, 
 drinking the potion that he chose with delicate and 
 infrequent sips.' A cigar he refused, though Heffer- 
 nan had been in hopes that he would have cared to 
 smoke one from a box full of very choice Havanas 
 placed near at hand. The liquor-seller himself smoked 
 continuously, but he used a cigar that was rank and 
 almost black a brand always to be found in his 
 waistcoat-pocket, and beside whose coarse flavors 
 all daintier ones were tame indeed.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 267 
 
 Converse took at first a somewhat wandering 
 form. Ammidown was polite, yet reserved as if 
 with the sense of concealing a few stings. He did 
 not really mention those past politics in which the 
 present alderman of his ward the man seated be- 
 fore him, puffing at a black cigar and looking strangely 
 hollow-cheeked and pale had played no reputable 
 part; but he referred to those past politics in a way 
 that left his meaning wholly plain. 
 
 Heffernan had received no signal, as yet, for out- 
 spoken dissent. But if he had once been thus squarely 
 met, it is quite likely that he would have refrained 
 from a hostile hint in reply. His words, for a good 
 while, were the merest monosyllables; and at last, 
 when Ammidown brought up the living situation by 
 a few bold sentences, he straightened himself in his 
 chair and listened with the manner of a man who 
 might shoot darts from a hidden quiver if the mood 
 should so urge. 
 
 "Now," said Ammidown, quietly proceeding, "I 
 have to ask you a little question, Mr. Heffernan, 
 which you may not care to answer." 
 
 Heffernan gave a long, serious nod, and returned: 
 "What's the question, sir, if you please?" 
 
 "It's this," said Ammidown, with his voice hard 
 though courteous. "Shall you care to place it in my 
 power to print your disapproval of reports now 
 current concerning you?" 
 
 Heffernan answered, at first by a direct glance from 
 his black, dull, smoldering eyes. Then, in undertone, 
 he answered. "You mean in the Monitor, of course?" 
 
 " Of course. Where else could I print anything?" 
 
 " M Yes. I thought you wrote for other . . publi- 
 cations. I mean magazines, reviews (do you call 'em 
 reviews?) and things like that."
 
 268 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "I did. But lately I've refused to do all such 
 work." As he spoke, Ammidown drew himself up 
 with what was unconscious hauteur. " I didn't care 
 to have my opinions bundled in with those of every 
 madman that chooses to stalk around the land, wav- 
 ing a cigar-spark as if it were a blazing torch." 
 
 "Ah," said Heffernan, reflectively, and with one of 
 his lean-lipped smiles, "you're thin-skinned, then. 
 I've heard you were." 
 
 Ammidown frowned for an instant, and then slight- 
 ly tossed his head. " Oh, I've my nerves, if you 
 please. I suppose most of us scribblers have." 
 
 Heffernan gave another nod. "Put me in your 
 paper, if you please, sir," he said, very deliberately 
 and with a look of blank musing in his eyes, "as 
 dead against knifing Mr. Went worth . . . That's 
 what you mean, aint it?" 
 
 The last sentence was delivered in a much louder 
 and more positive voice than the first. Ammidown 
 started, and a pleased look crossed his face. 
 
 "Say you know I'd scorn to doit," Heffernan went 
 on, "or to let others do it if I could prevent. Don't 
 quote my words don't 'interview' me, you know. 
 The day after to-morrow's election day. You can 
 prophesy, so to speak, sir. Then see how quick the 
 prophecy '11 come true. Mr. Wentworth needn't be 
 afraid. I've told him he needn't." 
 
 "And what," asked Ammidown, gently but with an 
 air of much firmness "what, Mr. Heffernan, may I 
 ask, have you told a certain person called McGonigle." 
 
 Heffernan again gave that smile which his observer 
 had cause to remember long afterward, hauntingly, 
 as we remember sinister dreams. 
 
 "My word, sir, I haven't seen him for weeks. . But 
 I've heard from him."
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 269 
 
 "Ah, you've heard ?" said Ammidown, leaning for- 
 ward a little, so that the altered light sent silver 
 gleams from the gray hairs in his auburn beard. 
 
 "Yes, sir," was the slow reply, made rather care- 
 lessly. "I've heard that he's on a pretty big drunk, 
 just now the kind that makes a man go about smell- 
 ing o' liquor for days, with his stomach and blood 
 full of it but his feet and his talk not showing he's got 
 any except to them that know him sober. Excuse 
 me, but 3 r ou ma\m't have come across that kind of a 
 spree. There's men that get on 'em." 
 
 Ammidown bowed gravely. "And that's all you've 
 heard about him?" 
 
 "No," was answered, after a slight pause. "I've 
 heard that if Mr. Went worth's elected, Larry Mc- 
 Gonigle means to find me and shoot me in my tracks. 
 They say he's sworn it half-a-dozen times."
 
 XX 
 
 Those words were very placidly spoken by Hefter- 
 nan. He puffed away at his big black cigar while 
 Ammidown watched him. 
 
 - " It's a bad threat from a man in the state you tell 
 me of," at length said the editor. " Why don't you 
 notice it ? I should think such a course would be the 
 wiser one." 
 
 Heffernan rose and \vent to the small side table 
 where the liquor was. He poured himself half a 
 tumblerful of stimulant, whatever its name, and 
 drank it off without dilution, taking a gulp or two 
 of water afterward. 
 
 " I can't notice it," he said, reseating himself, after 
 having loomed gaunt and haggard for a moment 
 above his guest. " I can't ; I've got to wait." 
 
 "To wait?" echoed Ammidown. "Good God! 
 Wait to be shot?" 
 
 "Yes, if you please yes." 
 
 " But there's the law." 
 
 "That for the law, in my case!" And Heffernan 
 snapped two bony fingers together with a clicking re- 
 sonance. "Why, I'm the law, myself, if ye choose. 
 Let me get that man put in jail for threats on my life.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 271 
 
 They'll all know just why~he threatens it, and jeer 
 and sneer at me behind my back for not giving Larry 
 what he claims. It's payment o' debts that he does 
 claim, Mr. Ammidown. Look -here: You know 
 something of our party, but how much d' you really 
 know ? You've kept well up above the scum and filth. 
 You've gone for it with your pen, and d d well, 
 pretty often. But you've never gone into it so that 
 you could hear the slime slush round your ankles, sir, 
 as I've done. That Larry McGonigle has served me 
 in the ways that I haven't got the nerve to tell a man 
 like you. There's dirty things done in this town of 
 ours every year that would almost scare hell itself to 
 hear about. Well, I waded in the rottenness once, 
 and Larry undertook to steer me. Now he wants his 
 pay, and now I ain't willing to give it to him." 
 
 Ammidown was terribly impressed. The man who 
 had thus spoken had bent forward in his chair 
 and had fixed upon him eyes in which there now 
 seemed to sleep a satanic darkness. 
 
 But the effect was not wholly an evil one, and new 
 \vords from the same source deepened it for good. 
 
 " No, sir, I ain't willing. It isn't often that one of 
 us chaps thinks of a better life when he's been living 
 a bad one for many a year, like me. The company o' 
 toughs and heelers (fellers that would make a father 
 choose between the shame of his own daughter and a 
 vote for their favorite ticket fellers that would keep 
 the bread from a starving man's fingers if he wouldn't 
 use 'em to slip more than one vote in at the polls on 
 a single day) this kind o' company, Mr. Ammidown, 
 don't tend to make you think you'll ever quit it when 
 it's once wound its coils round ye, body and soul. 
 But some months ago say a year or two, say a little
 
 2 72 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 more I got the notion o' cutting clean loose. It 
 swep' over me at the funniest times. It was like 
 strokes o' neurallerga; I never knew just when I needn't 
 expect it. Sometimes 'twould come when I had money 
 flowing in to me like water and not a worry in the 
 world. Then there was my wife. She didn't know 
 the damnable details o' my politics, she didn't know 
 the difference between a . . a mugwump and a Tam- 
 manyite, for that matter; but she knew liars and 
 swindlers and thieves had got me in their grip, and 
 she hated the trade that was putting dollars in to my 
 pocket. My wife, sir, has done most of it, I guess; 
 she's gone into a partnership with my conscience, 
 and by G , sir, they've kept up a thriving business 
 ever since. They've sent me in checks, between 'em, 
 Heaven bless 'em, that I can't cash ! But I'll do it 
 soon. I'll do it the night of election-day yes, sir, if I 
 have to write the endorsements on their backs, Mr. 
 Ammidown, with blood for ink." 
 
 The sweat glistened in beads on Heffernan's hueless 
 face as he finished. Ammidown, \vith a great, eager 
 glow on his own face, rose, lifted his chair, and 
 carried it close to the side of the liquor-seller. 
 
 "I I didn't dream you felt, like this," he said, ex- 
 citedly. ' ' And you'll cut loose how ? ' ' 
 
 "I '11 close every store I've got, sir. I'll resign the 
 place I hold under city government." Then, after a 
 pause, during which a clock on the mantel seemed to 
 tick for his hearer's astonished ears a kind of hysteric 
 confirmation, like "He will, he will": "And I'll do 
 something more than that. . Kill me if I don't! " he 
 added. 
 
 "Well, .what?" asked the editor, somehow be- 
 lieving him in a way that struck little thrills of self-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 273 
 
 ridicule through all his world-worn being. Still, he 
 spoke, as he felt, with excessive sincerity: "What 
 will you do, Mr. Heffernan * " 
 
 "I'll put lots o' this smutty money o' mine (that's 
 what my wife called it, and she was right, sir!) 
 where it can help them that the ungodly liquor-trade 
 has cast into misery. I don't mean I'll give all to 
 charities ; I'll keep enough to free 'Liza and me from 
 want while we live and bury us decent when we die. 
 And that won't mean so very much, neither; there's 
 a good many thousands that '11 go. I'm richer than 
 most people know about. They say that money 
 made as I make it slips away easy. And they're 
 right; so it does. But I haven't had the harum-scarum 
 habits that mostly go along with liquor-dealing. 
 I swore to myself nine years ago that I'd be worth a 
 half million 'fore I was fifty. I'm fifty now, and I 
 ain't worth the sum, but I ain't so far away from it 
 after all that is, between rum and politics both to- 
 gether. Well, I know the places that need it and 
 where it '11 do powers o' good. We know, that is, 
 my wife and me, though she'll boss the job, I give in." 
 
 Heffernan 's cigar had gone out. He got up and 
 found a light for it, and as he returned to his seat, 
 which was now so close to Ammidown's, the latter 
 had a hand stretched out for him, which he grasped 
 with a visible tremor through all his big frame. 
 
 "Mr. Ammidown," he muttered, " I didn't put out 
 my hand when . . when you first came into this 
 room." 
 
 "True, Heffernan. I . . I saw you didn't." 
 
 " 'Twasn't my place, sir. Look here, I've got a 
 mighty lot o' respect for you. I called you thin- 
 skinned a minute ago, sir " 
 
 18
 
 274 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 " And you were right," struck in the editor, with a 
 nervous laugh. " It's what's kept me a failure, I sup- 
 pose, all my days." 
 
 "A failure!" cried Heffernan, striking one gaunt 
 knee with his huge, tight-clenched fist. "No, sir. For 
 you're no failure. You've stood up for right. Oh, 
 I've kept an eye on you, sir. I've " 
 
 "Stop," said Ammidown, with much dignity, and 
 yet a warmth and grace of mien which would long 
 ago have pushed him where men of quarter his brain 
 and force had to-day found handsome harbors, if 
 only he could have used it less rarely and more in- 
 sincerely. "Stop, my man; I don't deserve your 
 praise. Mine has been no unselfish life ; I never saw 
 it more clearly than while you spoke just now. 
 What you say you mean to do Tve never dreamed of 
 meaning to do." 
 
 " How could you, sir ? You're " 
 
 "Oh, everything's relative. I know what you'd 
 say : our advantages of early training were not the 
 same. But if mine were more than yours, all the 
 larger reason I should have thought less about self- 
 advancement than self-repression." 
 
 "Come, now, sir! I'll bet you've thought very 
 little about self-advancement in your life ! " 
 
 Ammidown flung off a laugh of blended mockery 
 and amusement. "Ah, my friend, I've thought of 
 hardly anything else," he replied. 
 
 " But I can't believe it of you, sir ! " 
 
 "7 can, though. With a fine education, with 
 natural talents, with all that should teach a man the 
 best lessons of life, I gave myself up to service of self. 
 Not that I didn't flatter my own mind to the effect 
 that I wanted the good of my fellow-men above all
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 275 
 
 things. But secretly I was aiming at personal ad- 
 vancement through honest means. So many men do 
 that, and then persuade themselves that they are 
 ' reformers.' I have happened to possess a great deal 
 of what is called 'pride.' This quality has kept me 
 out of certain high places which others have elbowed 
 past me and seized. It's no credit to me, Heffernan, 
 that I resisted doing the things you did. It's im- 
 mense credit to you, though, that you've risen above 
 your surroundings. I admire you, I honor you for 
 this resolve. If anyone else (to be wholly candid) 
 had told me that you intended such a course, I should 
 have doubted my informant. You yourself have told 
 me, I've listened, and I haven't the shadow of a 
 doubt. I feel, at this moment, your inferior. Com- 
 ing here to make up my mind whether you had de- 
 termined or no on a particular piece of roguery, I'm 
 confronted with the fact that you've a native moral 
 sense twice the size of my own : for if I had sunk as 
 you did, it's certain that, I could never have swung 
 im^self up again with your magnificent courage and 
 force." 
 
 A slight pause followed, and then Ammidown 
 threw back his head with a cynic change passing in- 
 describably over his lips and brow. " Good God," he 
 went on, " what a feast for my foes I'd make at this 
 moment! Yet you've led me to believe you" (and 
 here the cynic change died with the speed of its birth) 
 "as you've led me to disbelieve to despise my- 
 self! " . . 
 
 It was after eleven, that night, when Ammidown 
 got home and went up into his library. As he neared 
 that room he heard voices, and on entering he found 
 his wife and Florence side by side.
 
 276 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "Here's papa, now," said Florence, with an excited 
 sadness. " Ask him if he didn't notice anything." 
 
 "Oh, never mind, never mind," protested her 
 mother, in worried accents. " Florence, why can't 
 you let well alone?" 
 
 "What is it?" inquired Ammidown, taking his 
 daughter by either of her wrists and looking fondly 
 though a little abruptly into her face. " Has one of 
 your 'dude' admirers dared to come to you this even- 
 ing in a collar the sixteenth of an inch below reigning 
 fashion?" 
 
 "I've no 'dudes' on my list, papa," said Florence, 
 trying to look august. Then, growing simply serious 
 again, "mamma and I were talking of Gordon." 
 
 " Gordon?" said her father quickly. " Well?" 
 
 "He went out this evening for an hour or two," 
 replied Florence. "He's at home again, now; he's 
 with Annette. But I thought it wasn't all right with 
 him. Perhaps I may have been wrong, but" 
 
 " Oh, I'm sure Florence was wrong," broke in Mrs. 
 Ammidown. Then she said more, and Florence said 
 more; and after the editor had been landed in a de- 
 pressing little slough of doubt, Florence kissed both 
 her parents and quitted the library. When the girl 
 had gone, Ammidown was on the point of speaking 
 further concerning Gordon; but his wife cut him short 
 with 
 
 "Now, Simeon, don't let's borrow trouble. There 
 is decided uncertainty any way; and besides, he's at 
 home with Annette for the present. Florence gets 
 nervous if the boy is the least gayer or duller than" 
 his ordinary self. . . . Now do tell me what happened 
 between you and that dreadful person you visited." 
 
 "Don't call him a dreadful person, Louise," was
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 277 
 
 the reply. . . . After that Ammidown spoke at some 
 length, his wife intently listening. . . 
 
 "Don't you think, Simeon," she slowly said, quite 
 a good while later, "that if this man's life is in danger 
 certain protective measures should be taken?" 
 
 "My dear," smiled her husband, "who is to take 
 such measures but the threatened man himself." 
 
 " And he won't take them ?" 
 
 "I've told you what he said." 
 
 " You're sure he said what he meant, Simeon?" 
 
 "No. I'm not sure now, though I was then. I can 
 only record for you his effect upon me, Louise. It 
 was tremendous while it lasted. There stood that 
 gloomy giant, with a strange light in his face and 
 with heroic words on his lips. The drama of the 
 thing struck me; my flesh began to creep; I'm afraid 
 I became a trifle hysteric 'gave myself away,' as the 
 saying goes. For here, you know, would be a deed 
 of truly splendid renunciation. I think you don't and 
 can't realize the breadth and height of it. If this man 
 throws disdain in the teeth of those vulpine thieves 
 and gamblers who make up his world and who have 
 backed him for years with their badness, he will be 
 performing an act of sublime bravery. Mere risk of 
 life will not be all with him. There is a kind of honor 
 among these blackguards that steal our tax-money. 
 To quarrel with one viperous knot of them is to 
 quarrel with all. Heffernan will "find himself loathed 
 by every man of his old constituency a pariah, in- 
 deed. But honest men, on the other hand, will not 
 care to know him surely will not care to place him 
 on their own levels. He must either change his skies, 
 or breathe the air of these only to feel them loaded 
 with maledictions, execrations.' '
 
 278 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "Mark me, Simeon, he'll never do the thing," said 
 Mrs. Atnmidown, who would as soon have believed 
 that a pot of diamonds lay buried in her back yard 
 as that any good might come from a person of Hef- 
 fernan's type. "He was posing before you, and 
 nothing else." 
 
 "Well, perhaps," murmured the editor, sinking his 
 bearded chin for a moment into his shirt-front, where 
 he sat within his own big, tufted reading-chair, and 
 drawing a hand through locks that time, as if with 
 sudden expeditious spleen, had both blanched and 
 thinned. "I only know that if Andrew Heffernan 
 does make that move, Louise, he'll show himself far 
 more of a man than many another, differently reared, 
 who's just gone on living in righteous ways without 
 a temptation to be fought and quelled." 
 
 Mrs. Ammidown smiled. " Oh, yes, if he makes it ! 
 . . And how did you give yourself away to him, as you 
 call it?" 
 
 He told her what he had confessed, and she bridled 
 as she learned it. 
 
 "You selfish!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "It's true." 
 
 "Absurd! you're 'touchy' as a porcupine, but " 
 
 " My dear, I'm a sore-head, and you know it. Now, 
 most sore-heads are selfish. I struck the wrong note 
 of effort in my early life. That note should have 
 been: 'How best can I serve my race without any 
 thought of wages?' Instead of that, the note was 
 sounded thus: ' How best, through serving m\*self, 
 can I serve my race?' There's a big divergence be- 
 tween the two sentiments." 
 
 "Oh, Simeon! You wrong yourself horridly." 
 And here Mrs. Ammidown came round to the back of
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 279 
 
 his chair and stooped with both hands outstretched, 
 presently clasping them just at her dear lord's bearded 
 throat. "Your only fault is one that your worst 
 foes might easily pardon, since its results injure no- 
 body but yourself. You will not cringe and truckle 
 to anyone ; and you have a spirit that since it is con- 
 scious of its own deserts from mankind, cannot help 
 silently, within the recesses of its own reflections, 
 demanding a certain homage. But my dear hus- 
 band" (and now the wifely hands crept up to the 
 sparse hair at either of his temples and began to 
 smooth it with delicate strokes) , "you have a nature 
 that would despise homage if you received it. You're 
 loftier than you esteem yourself, and the instant your 
 talents obtained that respect which you are certain is 
 their right, you would rate such tribute as quite 
 worthless. What you will not stoop to get, you 
 would hold in scorn if it flowed in upon you as your 
 proper due. Only, you must have it first, without 
 stooping. You rate it your prerogative, but you 
 would scarcely have given it a thought if you had 
 never been called upon to miss it. Your case isn't a 
 common one, Simeon, for your brilliant powers make 
 it exceptional. But there alone is it exceptional. Men 
 of far less mind have no doubt stood on their inch of 
 dignity ; you had a wider tract of vantage to stand 
 on, and there you bode." 
 
 Turning his head sideways he looked up at her with 
 a forlorn smile. " Oh, Louise," he exclaimed, "what a 
 wretched egotist you paint me ! " 
 
 She kissed him twice or thrice on the forehead. 
 "Don't say that! It pains me to hear you! Of all 
 others on earth I should be the last to admit you are 
 right ! So many women of my age can look back to
 
 280 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 their wedding-days through only mists of tears. 
 And I look back to ours as if beyond a beautiful 
 landscape of memories!" . . . She moved round 
 toward his side, now, and stood there gazing pen- 
 sively down upon him. "If Florence ever does 
 marry, I tremble at what may come of it. There are 
 Annette's two sisters ; both still are \vives, and yet 
 both in a certain sense have become widows." 
 
 " I imagine," said Ammidown, after a silence, "that 
 there's a wilful streak in those two women which 
 Annette hasn't a trace of. Don't vou think I may be 
 right?" 
 
 "Annette doesn't approve Mrs. Kinnicutt's course." 
 "And the other sister's does she approve that? " 
 "Mr. Legree struck Eunice. Separation and self- 
 protection appear to have been one, in that instance." 
 " Ah, well . . We so seldom hear both sides in these 
 matters. But personal violence is of course a hor- 
 ror . . . Still, both these women, from what I saw of 
 them, seemed to lack gentleness. I may be wrong, 
 though, for our meetings have been so few and so 
 brief." 
 
 Their present critic would not have accused either 
 Eunice or Dora of a lack of gentleness if he had ob- 
 served them during the next day while a sudden, 
 rather painful occurrence befell them . Expecting that 
 their cousin, Mrs. Plimpsoll, might soon call on them 
 after learning of their changed abode, they were sur- 
 prised to receive a visit from Mr. Ezra Plimpsoll 
 alone. But surprise that he should dare venture 
 from Harlem without the protective presence of his 
 wife soon ended in sorrow at his tidings concerning 
 her. He himself looked ruddy and hale as ever while 
 he delivered these tidings, though a plain agitation 
 mastered him.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 281 
 
 "So sudden!" exclaimed Eunice. "Poor Rhoda! 
 You say she was taken only yesterday ? I'll go right 
 up there with you now. Did she ask to have one of 
 us come? " 
 
 "She asked to see you both and Annette, too," 
 faltered Plimpsoll. " She's so fond of you all, you 
 know." 
 
 " Eunice and I will both go," announced Dora. . . 
 
 "And how are you? " inquired Eunice of the ever- 
 ailing Ezra as they all three went up-town together 
 on the Elevated. 
 
 " Oh, yes," exclaimed Dora, laughing. " You make 
 a person forget to ask about your health, because 
 you look as if 'twas so awfully .good." 
 
 "I I haven't had any bad feelings," came his 
 hesitant answer, "since poor Rhoda was taken. 
 Her her sickness seems to have scared 'em away." 
 
 "It's an ill wind, you know," said Eunice. 
 
 "Oh, but I don't want it to blow me any good if 
 it knocks her over ! ' ' said Ezra, his eyes filling with 
 tears. 
 
 It was evident that he was very much frightened. 
 The thought of losing this fragile little creature whom 
 his ills and his plaints had worried for years, affected 
 him with real horror. " You'll find her scarcely able 
 to hold her head up," he said to Eunice and Dora; 
 and then, to his juvenile delight, this prophecy proved 
 a false one when they arrived at the Plimpsolls' Har- 
 lem home. 
 
 " Oh, Rhoda ! " he cried, on seeing his wife clad in a 
 wrapper and seated in an arm-chair. "You don't 
 mean you're well enough to get up ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Plimpsoll, who was very pale, 
 and gasped a little. " I felt so much stronger that I
 
 282 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 got Jane to help me up. After all, tfie mote folks lay 
 in bed the more they \vant to, /think . . . Well, girls, 
 I'm so glad you came! I hope you didn't let Ezra 
 frighten you about me." 
 
 "Rhoda," Eunice presently said, "I don't believe 
 there's anything really serious the matter \vith you 
 except a kind of general exhaustion. But you must 
 go right straight back to bed and not rise from it 
 till you're stronger. Your lips are blue now, and 
 your pulse is altogether too fast. Now let me per- 
 suade you, dear, won't you ? " 
 
 Mrs. Plimpsoll soon complied, and after she was 
 lying comfortably between fresh bed-clothes and let- 
 ting Eunice bathe her head and chafe her hands, the 
 little lady, in feeble yet very earnest whisper, began 
 to say 
 
 " Oh, yes, Eunice; you were right. I hadn't ought 
 to have got up. But do you know, dear, it was be- 
 cause of him? I did so hate he should come back and 
 find me no better; so I says to myself I'd just make 
 him b'lieve I was better anyhow." 
 
 "You're too good to him, Rhoda; you humor him 
 too much. Everybody thinks you do." 
 
 " But then he's such a sufferer, Eunice ! You haven't 
 got an idea what that poor man goes through." 
 
 " From fright you mean ?" 
 
 " Oh, he's nervous; I allow that. But then he has 
 feeling's ! Why, Eunice, you don't know how often 
 I've sat in this very room quaking with fear, and ex- 
 pecting each minute he'd go off in a fit of p'ralysis or 
 apperlepsy." 
 
 * " And it's because you've quaked with fear, Rhoda, 
 that you're so run down now. He's been cruel " 
 
 "Oh, don't call him cruel !"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 283 
 
 "Well, childish, then." 
 
 " He's got a child's heart, my Ezra !" the sick little 
 creature sighed. "And he clings to me in such a child- 
 like way ! Yes, Eunice, you'd be surprised ! Now you 
 smile; I know it seems to you ridic'lous that a great 
 strapping fellow like him should really cling to a 
 weak whiffet of a thing like me. But it's so. If I should 
 die well, that's precisely why the thought 'o death 
 scares me as it does. 'Tain't that I'm 'fraid to go." 
 Here she sank her voice to a very low key, and 
 peered anxiously into Eunice's face. "It's that he's 
 so 'fraid, Eunice, to have me go ! What would he do? 
 Why he'd go crazy, that's what he'd do." 
 
 'He'd probably get married again," thought 
 Eunice, though she would have torn out her tongue 
 rather than say it. 
 
 Meanwhile Ezra, in a neighboring room, was say- 
 ing \vith childlike expansiveness to Dora: 
 
 " Oh, I realize it now ! I've treated that dear little 
 wife of mine shamefully. Look here, Dora, I've . .I've 
 sometimes (not al ways, you know, but sometimes) 
 told her I I was sicker than I really felt." 
 
 " That was outrageous," said Dora. 
 
 "Don't accuse me like that, Dora," said Plimpsoll. 
 I I can't bear it." 
 
 Dora looked grim for a minute. Then she said: 
 " If you'll let me tell you so, I've an idea that you 
 don't amount to much in bearing things, anyway. 
 
 "No., no," lamented Plimpsoll, "I'm afraid I 
 don't." 
 
 "Well, try to in the future. Try, when she's 
 well" 
 
 "But do you think she'll get well? Oh, Dora, do 
 you?"
 
 284 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 In his healthful apparent virility this question from 
 him struck Dora as almost insupportably babyish. 
 But soon she remembered how good a husband he 
 was, after all, and how he adored the little wife 
 whom Eunice had just put to bed. 
 
 "Yes, I believe she will get well," came Dora's re- 
 ply, given with a controlled yet ardent sympathy. 
 "And if she does " 
 
 "If! if!" panted Plimpsoll, bursting into tears. 
 "Oh, do you think there's a doubt, then? Perhaps 
 you think there's a great doubt! My God, what 
 should I do if I lost her!" 
 
 " Why not consider," sai(^Dora dryly, yet not with- 
 out an inward throb of deep pity, "what you may 
 do if she's spared to you?" 
 
 "I've been very weak," avowed Plimpsoll, wiping 
 his eyes. "But when all's said, I I haven't been 
 such a bad husband. She's meant every thing to me." 
 
 " She's meant too much," said.Dora cruelly. "She's 
 meant wife, nurse, doctor, housekeeper and servant." 
 
 ' ' Oh, no ! Not servant ! ' ' 
 
 "She's served you oftener than you'll admit, "Dora 
 pursued ..." But I don't want to lecture you. Let's 
 go in and see how she's getting along." 
 
 They entered the room where Eunice sat beside 
 Mrs. Plimpsoll. At the first glimpse of her husband 
 the latter brightened and put forth a hand. With 
 a jubilant look, Ezra clasped it. 
 
 "How do you feel, dear?" murmured the invalid. 
 
 Dora and Eunice exchanged glances. There seemed 
 such keen absurdity, mixed with pathos, in this re- 
 sumption of the old relations between husband and 
 wife. 
 
 "Why on earth don't you ask her how she feels?"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 285 
 
 Dora remonstrated, addressing the husband. But he 
 did not hear; he was too absorbed (as if swayed by 
 the stress of old habit) in explaining his exact sensa- 
 tions to the pale, prone little questioner. 
 
 ''I'm all right except for a few touches, now and 
 then," said Plimpsoll, "of that queer coldness just at 
 the root of my spine." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense, Ezra," returned the sick woman, 
 lifting herself up solicitously on the pillows. "I've 
 had that thousands o' times. Don't bother about 
 it. As I told you yesterday, it's a mere nothing. I 
 guess it only comes from indigestion. Dr. Todd, you 
 know, your new doctor, said yesterday that your 
 only trouble, Ezra, was nervous dyspepsia." 
 
 At this point Eunice slipped between the joined 
 hands of Mr. and Mrs. Plimpsoll, gently sundering 
 them. In another moment Dora pushed Plimpsoll 
 softly away from the bedside. . . . Later, when there 
 was every sign that their kinswoman would recover 
 after a few more hours of complete rest and when 
 Eunice and Dora had decided to take their departure, 
 the elder sister whispered to the younger: 
 
 "Oh, Dora, how many kinds of unhappy marriages 
 there are in this world!" 
 
 "But this," replied Dora, "is what they would call 
 a very happy marriage indeed." 
 
 Eunice sighed. "Oh, no doubt," she acceded. 
 
 " But, after all, Eunice, he's in some ways a model 
 husband," 
 
 "Yes, if you choose." 
 
 "And he just worships her." 
 
 "Yes in his fashion." 
 
 "You don't think Rhoda's got any thing serious the 
 matter with her, Eunice?"
 
 286 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "No, she's simply worn out with his idiotic nag- 
 gings." 
 
 " I guess you're right," affirmed Dora, with an air 
 at once sapient and hostile. " But I've done a little 
 talking myself, to Rhoda's lord and master, and I've 
 shown him, I hope, what a goose he's been living 
 like." 
 
 "Oh, have you?" said Eunice, with playful sar- 
 casm. "You needen't have wasted a word," she 
 went on. "When Rhoda gets well it will all go 
 along precisely as it went before." 
 
 " But he's been warned " began Dora. 
 
 "Has he, though! He'll forget the warning in no 
 time. Rhoda herself '11 help him to. They're both too 
 old to learn new tricks. You just see, now." 
 
 After a slight pause Dora began, as if musing aloud: 
 "Ah how true it is that there are many different 
 kinds of unhappy marriages! And it's the strangest 
 thing of all that even love shouldn't be a safeguard. 
 I used to think that it was. I used to think that 
 love and happiness \vent hand-in-hand, like two well- 
 behaved children along a country-road." Then her old 
 humor cropped out, and she added: "But I see now 
 that they don't always hold one another's hands. 
 It's too binding; they want liberty, sometimes, to 
 tear each other's hair out."
 
 XXI 
 
 All through the next day ominous growls reached 
 Heffernan. He visited his various establishments 
 and met in each a sign or two of the augmenting dis- 
 favor he had roused. Several anonymous letters 
 reached him, all being more or less fierce, and one 
 aflame with savageries of menace. He tore them into 
 inch-bits, and rejoiced that their contents could be 
 spared the knowledge of his wife. Three of his fel- 
 low-aldermen looked him up at his Third avenue 
 tavern, and two of them attempted roundly to scold 
 him; the other did more he sought to bully him 
 truculently. These interviews were highly painful, 
 but Heffernan bore them with stoicism. The whole 
 situation had begun to look excessively stormful and 
 lowering. An audacious fraud had been expected of 
 him by the gang of unprisoned felons who believed 
 that he would not dare, when it reached an actual 
 issue, to ignore obligations that seemed to them like 
 strong withes bound about his ankles and wrists. 
 These rascals were mostly law-makers in a city that 
 hideous laxities on the part of its residents had sur- 
 rendered to their wanton rule. Larry McGonigle did 
 not swim visibly into the ken of his former ally all
 
 288 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 through that day. But his name was not seldom 
 mentioned to Heffernan. He was like some mythic 
 ambushed avenger whose whereabouts were swathed 
 in a mist of brooding fire. The liquor-seller found that 
 this implacable candidate of a "split ticket" had 
 chosen to send him emissaries either bristling with 
 threat or packed with oily-tongued blandishments. 
 There was clearly a desperate flurry in the McGonigle 
 camp. What incensed and embittered his old col- 
 leagues was his refusal to state the truth or falsehood 
 of certain reports. On the morrow they should see 
 what they should see. Such was his mysterious pos- 
 ture, and no slur, no impertinence, open or covert, 
 could induce him to admit just how that bribable co- 
 hort of "boys" whom he held in control with the Went- 
 worth money would be manipulated at the coming 
 polls. Meanwhile his stand had been inflexibly 
 though secretly taken. There were certain agents in 
 his employ of whom both he and the young "gentle- 
 man" candidate he served had taken cautious account. 
 Vernal though the election would be in one sense, it 
 would prove, in another, as honest a proceeding of 
 the sort as this district had seen for many a year. He 
 meant that his last political act should teem with de- 
 fiance of that species of corruption which he held as 
 among the basest. 
 
 Evidently McGonigle had believed until now that 
 he would not presume to sever those old tenacious ties. 
 Sulky and aloof, the scamp had made his convictions 
 on this point palpably felt. By lifting a finger, Hef- 
 fernan, during these latter days before election, could 
 have signified that a flaw breeze of treachery to Went- 
 worth would set in just at the desired moment. But 
 now the last day of all had come, and he still remained
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 289 
 
 suspiciously mute. A tremor of virtuous disgust had 
 swept through the pure souls of those who guaged 
 the proper strength of "Larry's pull." Here was no 
 ordinary " pull," either. Some leaders might natur- 
 ally frown at such a game as Heffernan was asked to 
 play. But then he was a leader who owed McGonigle 
 a mighty debt. The Boss admitted that, and had 
 given Heffernan his views on the subject only a few 
 weeks ago. This was a Boss in all ways worthy of 
 his imperial place, and one duly pierced by a sense of 
 the majesty of the machine. He did not, like the 
 French king, say" the Machine, it is I ;" but he said, 
 in so many words, "to run the machine as it should 
 be run is to make a jackass of the people." 
 
 For a leader like Heffernan to set himself against 
 the counsel of his Boss was in the eyes of the faithful 
 an enormity. To men bonded together for the pur- 
 pose of pla} r ing with marked cards, that one of their 
 number should suddenly fling his hand on the table 
 and point out to inimical eyes the little tell-tales signs 
 in knave, queen or ace, was punic faith of the direst 
 quality. Not yet had this abhorrent thing really oc- 
 curred, though gossip raged, and it was well know 
 that Heffernan had let certain peculiar words fall 
 among his fellow-aldermen last week, besides having 
 coolly ignored a message sent him from royal head- 
 quarters. He had never been much liked and always 
 a little feared. Now he was liked a good deal less and 
 feared a good deal more. To the bands of municipal 
 robbers who infest New York high places, nothing is 
 so terrifying as desertion from their ranks. Asin the 
 times of Tweed, so in the present day : to be " solid " 
 is the nearest guarantee of being safe. Bribery itself 
 is fraught with fewer perils than one thinks. The 
 19
 
 290 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 giver and those who receive are all self-sealed against 
 disclosure. But there have been cases where Con- 
 science abruptly stepped in, and with result more 
 dangerous to guilt than the ferretings of a posse of de- 
 tectives. Was Conscience now nerving the arm of 
 Andrew Heffernan for the infliction of an axe-stroke 
 that should ruin the "solidity" of swindling feder- 
 ations, and give the public a chance to look in through 
 the aperture thus wrought and gain a few glimpses 
 of just how they are plundered from year to year? 
 Surely such a calamity should be staved off. Had the 
 Ring no thunder-bolts in its quiver wherewith to 
 smite this rebel low? Bad a job as was the one Mc- 
 Gonigle had been said to have proposed, if he should 
 slip, after all, into the congressional shoes of young 
 "gilt-edged" Wentworth, how much better it would 
 be for the "boys!" Larry would see that fat berths 
 in the navy-yard, the custom-house, the post-office 
 and the Treasury were supplied to deserving friends. 
 But who could tell what highfalutin ideas about 
 " clean records " and all such stuff as that, might visit 
 the brain of this "kid-glove gent," if once he were in- 
 stalled at the capital ? 
 
 Heffernan narrowly escaped insult before the day 
 was over. He felt quite sure as to how the election 
 would go on the morrow, and during a brief inter- 
 view with young Wentworth, at his residence not far 
 from the, Third avenue saloon, he made this distinct 
 declaration. 
 
 Wentworth, a young man just past thirty, with a 
 pale, high-bred, eager face, thoroughly American in 
 type, asked him certain searching questions which 
 were replied to with satisfactory clearness. 
 
 "I think things can't miss fire, then," at length,
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 291 
 
 said Wentworth, in his quick, keen style, delivering 
 his words with what we call a Boston accent one, 
 by the way, to which he came through good right, 
 having not only been graduated from Harvard, but 
 having lived in sight 'of the classic Charles through 
 most of his childhood. 
 
 "You can sleep sound to-night, sir," returned 
 Heffernan, rising to depart. "Your ballots '11 all be 
 run out from the boxes. The other fellers can growl 
 as they please, but they don't dare do anything else. 
 I've called the henchmen together, and my word's 
 law to 'em. There couldn't be any knifing of you 
 done in {the district unless I chose to give orders for 
 it." 
 
 "Good Heavens, Air. Heffernan," replied Went- 
 worth, with a nervous laugh, "I must say that 
 you're frightful^ candid." 
 
 Heffernan gave one of his gloomy nods. " Well, sir, 
 I'm speaking right out. You've got the straight tip 
 from me, and that's what I've always meant you 
 should have. I'll stick to my bond, and you'll go to 
 Washington, sure as a gun. Hell could be roofed 
 and paved with the dirty acts I've seen done in my 
 time, but you ain't goirfgVto suffer from any of 'em, 
 and don't be a bit scared. The Boss himself can 
 fume and bluster, if he likes, but even he won't have 
 the cheek to try and bh ny stronger. Sleep 
 
 easy." And Heffernan mo\ , A toward the door. 
 
 Following him, Wentworth now said with some 
 hesitation: "By the way, I wanted to ask you if 
 you had seen Gordon Ammidown to-day." 
 
 " Gordon Ammidown? No. I don't see him often. 
 I s'pose, though, you know he married " 
 
 "Yes, I do know," said the young man, who be-
 
 292 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 longed to what are termed the 'Winthrop Went- 
 worths ' and who thought his friend Gordon's mis- 
 alliance a shocking one. "He married a niece of 
 yours, I believe . . Ah, yes . . . Well, Mr. Heffernan, 
 Gordon called on me this morning at my office. He 
 said that he wanted to have a talk with you, and 
 that he thought he'd look you up in one of your 
 saloons. I advised him not to do so." 
 
 A fall of the voice and a meaning look told more 
 than the speaker really said. 
 
 " He wasn't off again, was he? " queried Heffernan 
 sharply. 
 
 " Yes, I'm afraid so. That is, he was beginning to 
 get ' off,' as you phrase it." 
 
 " Too bad ! . . God help his young wife ! " 
 
 Annette was meanwhile beset by a sickening fear. 
 She had noticed the new change in Gordon, but had 
 dreaded to speak of it either to her mother-in-law or 
 Florence. Had they noticed, too, she kept asking 
 herself all through that day, and were they, no less 
 than she, dealing in merciful silence ? 
 
 When dinner-time came the three ladies of the 
 house sat down at table alone. To-morrow's elec- 
 tion had detained Simeon Ammidown down at the 
 office of The Monitor, and his wife announced this 
 fact soon after she had entered the dining-room. 
 "But Gordon is home?" she at once questioningly 
 added, with a glance first at her son's empty chair 
 and then straight into the face of Annette. 
 
 Immediately Florence's glance followed her moth- 
 er's. Annette felt her own color alter as she realized, 
 in an instant, that neither of her companions had 
 guessed the truth. 
 
 It flashed through her mind: "How strange!
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 293 
 
 why is it? Oh, they've not seen enough of him He 
 did not really show it till he came home rather late 
 last night." And quite promptly, after this hurried 
 self-communion, she said: 
 
 "No, Gordon's away, too. I suppose he must be 
 detained for the same reason that his father is. Don't 
 you think so?" 
 
 She tried to make her last sentence a careless one, 
 and addressed it, in placid interrogative, equally to 
 Mrs. Ammidown and Florence. Neither showed a 
 shadow of suspicion. 
 
 " Oh, yes, no doubt," said her mother-in-law. 
 
 "Yes, most probably," abetted Florence. 
 
 But Annette secretly knew, secretly felt. When 
 dinner was over and she had got up into her own room, 
 she gave way to a burst of anxious tears. Presently 
 Florence knocked at her door. They were great 
 friends, now, and whenever Florence aired her "socie- 
 ty " craze Annette was always responsive in the com- 
 mingled sense of sympathy and light ridicule. 
 
 "You somehow didn't seem yourself at dinner," 
 began Florence. " Mamma noticed it, too. Are you 
 worried about Gordon?" 
 
 "Oh, no," returned Annette. Then she added, a 
 little more tremulously than she wished or perhaps 
 knew: "And you didn't either, did you, Florence?" 
 
 "No," said Florence. 
 
 "Did . . your mother?" 
 
 "Why, no ... Annette!" 
 
 "Well." 
 
 "Are you nervous? . . Really nervous?" 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 This was said so composedly that it quite dis- 
 armed Florence. Her mind was averse just then to
 
 294 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 concerning itself with the subject of her brother's 
 possible downfall, dearly as she loved him. 
 
 "I wanted to tell you, Annette," Florence now be- 
 gan, with a palpable blush, "that Yandewater 
 Poughkeepsie almost proposed to me, this afternoon, 
 at those amateur theatricals in the Berkeley Lyceum." 
 
 "Yes?" Annette replied, with an effort to seem 
 interested. " Do tell me all that happened." 
 
 Florence went through a little narrative of dainty 
 trivialities, and at its end her sister-in-law said: 
 
 " Well, it certainly looks very much as if he -wanted 
 you to marry him." (She had heard hardly more 
 than half of the halcyon little history.) "And . . isn't 
 he a great swell, this Vanderdexter Schenectad}^, 
 Florence?" 
 
 " Vanderdexter Schenectady!" cried Florence, aghast 
 at the irreverent misnomer. " Oh, Annette, how can 
 3 T ou ! I I've been talking to you of Vandewater 
 Poughkeepsie, if you please!" 
 
 " Oh, yes; so you have," hastened Annette. " Please 
 forgive me ... But it will be a great match for a girl, 
 won't it, Florence?" 
 
 "They say he's got half a million," confessed Flor- 
 ence, with an air. "And then, of course, he has his 
 name. I might do worse. And if I did marry him 
 how I could lord it over some of the girls I know a 
 little and others I know only by sight. As for Susie 
 Van Arsdale, why, she'll just be green with envy for 
 weeks!" 
 
 "But, Florence," now urged Annette, shaking her 
 head with tender solemnity, "marriage means more, 
 I hope, than making a Susie Van Arsdale turn green. 
 The only point, to my thinking, is this, dear: Do you 
 love Mr. Poughkeepsie?"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 295 
 
 Florence shrugged her shoulders. "I love the idea 
 of being Mrs. Poughkeepsie," she muttered. 
 
 " But that is so little in the long run." 
 
 "So little?" trilled Florence, with a pert, rebellious 
 smile. "Oh, is it? ... Now, look here, Annette," she 
 went on, " you' ve been married quite an age. Have you 
 found this love you talk of so glibly, all-satisfying?" 
 
 "Have I?" broke from Annette. "Oh, Florence, 
 yes! Yes a thousand times!" Then she thought of 
 the potential woe that might be waiting her, and 
 this remembrance clouded her face. "No married 
 woman's life is entirely happy, I allow, but unless 
 love lights it and warms it, a woman might far bet- 
 ter go to her grave unwedded!" 
 
 "My dear Annette," exclaimed Florence, taking 
 her hand, "you're charming, and we should all belike 
 you; but unfortunately we are not." The way in 
 which Florence pronounced that "we" was (despite 
 the plain sincerity of her last little caress) deliciously 
 affected. No sophisticated matron of her beloved 
 Tour Hundred could have thrown over it a more 
 mundane air of fatigue and disillusion. " Now, there 
 are your two sisters," she pursued. " They evidently 
 don't put love on half as high a throne as you do." 
 
 " They never put it on any throne at all," said An- 
 nette, bitterly, "or, if they did, they've dethroned it 
 now with a vengeance!" 
 
 " And you think them wrong in the courses they've 
 taken?" 
 
 "Yes, Florence; since you've asked me the point- 
 blank question, I do think them wrong." 
 
 "But always before, Annette, you've seemed to be 
 defending them." 
 
 " Oh, no doubt. And yet inwardly, Florence, I've
 
 296 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 known them, felt them, to be all wrong, all 
 wrong." . . . 
 
 Annette and Florence presently went downstairs 
 together, and after a little while Simeon Ammidown 
 came home. He had dined down town. He looked a 
 little tired, but not unhealthily so, and after certain 
 hopeful expressions about the election on the follow- 
 ing day, and certain political allusions which none of 
 the three women who heard him understood in the 
 least (so prevalent throughout the womenhood of 
 America are ignorance and indifference concerning 
 the government of their country) he retired to his 
 library. His wife went with him, and when they had 
 both disappeared Annette said, in timid semi-tone 
 to Florence: "He didn't even mention Gordon, did 
 he?" 
 
 "No," was the reply. " Perhaps he thought Gordon 
 had got home hours ago." A worried look now 
 crossed Florence's face, but a ring at the front door- 
 bell soon chased it away, for she was expecting Mr. 
 Poughkeepsie, who had promised to bring with him 
 the new and famous leader of cotillons, Mr. Lexing- 
 ton Madison. If Florence could not shine herself at 
 Patriarchs' and Assemblies, there was comfort to 
 her in knowing that she saw and held converse, now 
 and then, with some of the mighty spirits who 
 reigned over such festivals. 
 
 It proved really to be Air. Poughkeepsie and his 
 friend. Annette slipped from the drawing rooms by 
 a back door just as they were entering in all the pale 
 splendor of prodigal shirt-bosoms and precipitous 
 collars. Passing the library upstairs, she heard Mr. 
 and Mrs. Ammidown's voice as they talked together. 
 She wondered if they were talking of him.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 297 
 
 Once within one of her own rooms, she gave way to 
 another fit of crying. Then she forcibly calmed her- 
 self and sat down with a book. The book was an 
 extremely keen and just attack upon corruption in 
 New York politics, which Gordon had asked her to 
 read and study several days ago. She had already 
 read about ten pages of it, and considered the lan- 
 guage very pithy and effective ; but to save her life 
 she could not keep in her mind any sort of distinct 
 idea as to the assailants and, the assailed, the sinners 
 and the sinned-against. She had told Gordon this, 
 and he had laughed at her shocking ignorance in a 
 fondly indulgent way, afterward proceeding to explain 
 just \vhat the momentous wrong was and just who 
 were the blamable aggressors. All this had seemed 
 quite clear for a little while, but later, when she had 
 taken up the book again, her old bewilderments "had 
 returned. Now they enveloped her like a fog one can 
 almost cut \vith a knife. She incessantly found her- 
 self listening for his step, and at last she suddenly rose, 
 certain that she heard it in the outer hall and that it 
 was fatally unsteady. 
 
 She was right. He came into the room, and when 
 she asked him if anyone had seen him downstairs he 
 answered in the negative, and answered with enough 
 clearness to make her feel sure he had not been seen 
 by anyone. Then, with nerves braced determinedly 
 and eyes full of hard, cold glitters, she helped him to 
 a lounge, on which he fell in piteous collapse. After 
 that she went into the adjoining bed-room and took 
 off her g own; replacing it with a wrapper. I^ater she 
 stole back to him and bathed his hot head from a 
 bottle of bay-rum, blowing with her breath against 
 the moist places that she made on his brows and
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 temples. His sleep grew less restless, and she disposed 
 his limbs more comfortably on the lounge. Finally 
 she stooped and kissed him. Her heart seemed to her 
 as if it would burst with grief. But Gordon's madness 
 only bound her closer to him. She thought of her 
 sisters. "What would Eunice do if placed as I'm 
 placed? " she asked herself; " What would Dora do?" 
 She fancied she was certain that they would not have 
 treated him as she had done, would not have kissed 
 him like that, would not have been drawn closer to 
 him by his wretched folly. 
 
 Soon a feeling came over her that she might shield 
 him from his mother's, from Florence's, perhaps even 
 from his father's discovery of the real truth. If he 
 awakened in an hour or two possibly in a longer 
 time than that with brain and speech rid of the 
 hateful clog which now hung upon them, she could 
 argue with him, supplicate him, rouse in him the 
 manful will and purpose that she so well knew were 
 his sane and actual traits. Then to-morrow this 
 horrible cloud might pass from both their lives. Well, 
 at least she \vould make the effort. And acting on 
 her new, pious resolve, she locked the door of the 
 room in which Gordon lay. Then, going into the 
 bedroom, she turned down its gas quite low, and 
 sinking into an arm-chair, waited amid the dreamy 
 dusk that she had wrought. 
 
 A long time passed. Her thoughts busied themselves 
 with the nature, the character of this man whom 
 she had married. What elevation, what stimulant 
 there had been for her in* his companionship! How 
 refining and how freshening had proved his guidances 
 and tuitions! Looking back through a vista of 
 months that stretched from now to the hour of her
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 299 
 
 bridal promise, she seemed like one who plunges his 
 gaze through the blent shade and shine of a rich- 
 fruited arbor. And yet there was nothing autumnal 
 about these memories; they were indeed vernal as 
 apple-blossoms themselves. To realize the existence 
 of a certain hideous ill had, it is true, soiled the sweet 
 picture with a dark blot of pain. But, after all, did 
 not happiness glow the brighter by contrast with 
 the gloom of this grief? Then, too, although brutal- 
 izing enough when it fell, the curse by which he was 
 visited had power over him simply in the way of a 
 disease; the appetite it engendered was no more a 
 part of him, of her Gordon, than would have been 
 the pangs of a head-ache, the delirium of a fever. 
 How could any man of his taste and cultivation be in- 
 nately coarse? Why, just to breathe the same air with 
 him had meant expansion, emancipation, both mental 
 and moral. Ah! if in some way, by giving her body, 
 her blood, a decade from the years of her future life, 
 she could stand between him and the world's knowl- 
 edge of his new shame! How gladly would she 
 shield him, how slight a service would she hold such 
 an act! For hers was that inalienable wifely devo- 
 tion which men admire, but which women of a 
 certain, hardy spiritual make too often sneer at as 
 feeble and tame. 
 
 After a certain interval a knock sounded at the 
 door of the sitting-room, just as Annette had ex- 
 pected. She waited a few moments, and the knock 
 sounded again. Then she opened the door of the bed- 
 room a little way, and, thrusting her head out, asked 
 mildly but a trifle querulously: 
 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 "It's I," said Mrs* Ammidown.
 
 300 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Annette feigned an embarassed laugh. "Oh, I'm 
 so sorry," she said. "I I'm just going to bed, and 
 Gordon, you know, has gone." 
 
 "Gordon's home, then?" broke from Mrs. Ammi- 
 down, while Annette saw a flash of joy on the speak- 
 er's face. 
 
 " Oh, yes. He got home some time ago. He was 
 very tired, and dined somewhere down town." 
 
 "Really, Annette?" came the answer, and with it 
 
 a look of perplexity as well. "His father said -But 
 
 never mind. I'm so glad he's home. Excuse me, dear, 
 for disturbing you." 
 
 "Oh," laughed Annette, "you haven't disturbed me 
 at all. And you'll excuse me, of course, will you not." 
 
 "Yes, dear, yes. . Good night." 
 
 "Good night . . and pleasant dreams to you, 
 mamma." 
 
 "To you also, my dear child," replied Mrs. Ammi- 
 down. . . 
 
 When the door was shut and locked, Annette reeled 
 from it in agitation. "Is my lie not justified," she 
 asked herself, "even if it only gives her a few hours of 
 peaceful sleep?" 
 
 But this gentle spirit, in its complete honesty and 
 purity, was nevertheless chilled and distressed by its 
 own falsehood. She sank down beside her bed and 
 buried her face for quite a while. Perhaps before she 
 rose a prayer of some sort had mutely floated from 
 her stirless lips. . . Dreading that Florence would come 
 as her mother had done, she did not cease to feel such 
 a visit probable until it was nearly midnight. Then, 
 convinced that Florence and Mrs. Ammidown had 
 met, she grew more calm. Several times she had 
 already stolen into the next room and found that
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 301 
 
 Gordon still slept. But at length, considerably past 
 midnight, she heard his voice. 
 
 "Annette," it called. 
 
 She hurried to him. He was sitting upright on the 
 lounge. All its disfeaturing flush had now left his 
 face. He was excessively pale, and his look had a 
 piteous naturalness, as though returned reason had 
 brought with it an untold self-contempt. 
 
 Annette sank on the lounge at his side. " My dear 
 Gordon," she said, with infinite tenderness, "I'm so 
 glad you're better!"
 
 XXII 
 
 For a moment he searched her face with his dull, 
 bloodshot eyes. 
 
 " My God," he murmured, " was there ever so sweet 
 a wife as you are ? No, you must not ! " and he rose 
 from the lounge as she tried to throw her arms about 
 him. "I I don't deserve it. I'm not fit for it ! " 
 
 Soon he dropped into a chair with a great forlorn 
 sigh. But as he did so she glided near him and stood, 
 quite quietly, within so slight a distance that he could 
 have put forth a hand and touched her dress. 
 
 His mind was clear enough, but his nerves were un- 
 strung, and a fierce remorse racked his soul, while a 
 physical craving made that remorse all the harder to 
 endure. 
 
 "What time is it? " he asked of her, with tones dog- 
 ged and sullen. 
 
 She told him the hour, and added : " You need other 
 rest than you've had, Gordon. Won't you take it ? 
 Let me loosen your neck-tie. . ." 
 
 "No." He waved her away, though not rudely. 
 Dropping his head a little, he went on: "Now yo u 
 see what a frightful mistake you've made." 
 
 "Mistake?"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 303 
 
 "Yes in marrying me." He lifted his head and 
 laughed bleakly. " Poor girl, poor girl ! It wasn't 
 even a mistake. It was a frightful deception." 
 
 " Never mind that, Gordon." 
 
 " Oh, you're saintly, about it I know! But if ever 
 a girl was made a victim of, it was you." 
 
 " I don't feel it that way," she exclaimed. And then 
 she sank down on her knees before him. " If it were 
 all to do over again, Gordon, and if I knew, as I did 
 not know when I married you, I I'd not hesitate a 
 single second!" 
 
 He hid his face in his hands for a slight \vhile. "Oh, 
 I'd rather have you pitch into me, take me to task !" 
 he cried drearily. Then he uncovered his face and 
 looked down at her \vith a wildness that gave her a 
 little inward thrill of fear. "You manage to put 
 yourself so terribty in the right, and and to keep there. 
 You make me feel like such a villain, such a monster!" 
 
 " You're neither one nor the other, Gordon," she pro- 
 tested sweetly. " You're merely somebody who is in 
 great trouble and who needs help, sympathy, love. 
 Let me give you all three." Her hand stole into his, 
 now, and he pressed it almost fiercely between his 
 feverish fingers. " But you must help yourself, too," 
 she \vent on. "By to-morrow, when temptation 
 comes again, you must clinch your teeth and crush it 
 down. Will you? Oh, answer 'yes,' and I'll I'll feel, 
 dear, as if Heaven had opened . . . Listen, now, Gordon, 
 I've got it all clear in my head. You just leave ever\ T - 
 thing to me. To-morrow morning, I'll go out with 
 you, exactly as I've done a good many times before. 
 Nobody need suspect a thing. But instead of only 
 going a little way with you I'll keep near you the 
 whole day long. They'll think I've gone to my sisters.
 
 304 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 We can look in at a matinee ; or we can take the train 
 out into the country somewhere, if it's pleasant 
 weather.". 
 
 He caught both her hands, crushing them excitedly 
 and yet tenderly in either of his own. 
 
 " You're so good so good ! " 
 
 "And now you'll get some rest, won't you, Gordon?" 
 
 "Rest! I've been asleep an. age." 
 
 "No, you haven't. . Oh, Gordon, Irecollect. There's 
 some of that sleeping medicine they gave you when 
 you that is, it was left over, you know, from your 
 last illness. Let me get it and give you some now. I 
 remember the dose perfectly. It will bring you a few 
 more hours of sleep, and then to-morrow we'll begin 
 you and I together, dear the struggle that's going 
 to end in victory ! " 
 
 Her eyes were burning into his own, and her pale, 
 pensive, uplifted face gave to those eyes a starrier 
 sweetness than he had ever yet seen in them. While she 
 knelt there at his feet, with her shoulders drawn to- 
 gether in that touching way women have when they 
 supplicate, Gordon felt like even a more trying person 
 than he really was. He stooped down and passionately 
 kissed her, twice, thrice. Then he fell back in his chair, 
 and raised both hands, waving them before his face in a 
 manner that expressed repentance, self-disgust and 
 acquiescense. all combined. At least, Annette so in- 
 terpreted the swift pantomime, and no doubt with 
 an intelligence that would alone be born of a love 
 like her own. 
 
 "I'll get it then," she said, and sprang lightly to 
 her feet. He nodded several times very quickly, and 
 then faltered: "Oh, my dear wife, how good, how 
 perfect you are!"
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 305 
 
 " Nonsense!" she shot out, with a real gladness and 
 a sudden deep-drawn breath, as of intense relief. 
 "There! Wait a minute. I'll get the medicine; I'll 
 bring it yo'i here. You needn't stir; I'll be back in 
 no time!" 
 
 And then she darted into the next room. Gordon 
 felt acutely her exquisite trust in his fealty. He sat 
 there alone for several seconds, and in this brief in- 
 terval a tremendous change beset him. It was 
 wrought, this change, by the craving of bodily weak- 
 ness and disarray. It shrouded his moral faculties 
 with the suddenness of a mist that creeps over a 
 coast, wrapping with fleet and intangible tissues 
 cliff and sand- 
 
 This craving caught him with ruffian clutch and 
 mastered him. Principle, truth, honor, vanished. 
 The meaning of life became an animalism. . . When, 
 in a few more minutes, Annette returned to the room 
 where she had left him, she found him gone. Hurry- 
 ing outside into the hall, she leaned over the banisters. 
 All was dark in the lower part of the house, and very 
 still. But she soon heard the clanging sound of a 
 closed door, far below. She understood what the 
 sound meant. Faint though it was, it smote her ears 
 like a knell. . . 
 
 All the next day was an agony. Gordon did not 
 return, and she mourned and trembled for him with 
 his mother and Florence. She had intended to visit her 
 sisters this day, but in not doing so she escaped, after 
 all, the annoyance of meeting Mrs. Giebelhouse. 
 
 Annoyance the visit of this lady certainly proved, 
 both to Eunice and Dora. She came with the contu- 
 macious and haggard little Lizzie, and at once began 
 to express her "views" concerning her kinswomen's 
 recent course of action.
 
 306 WOMEN MUbT WEEP 
 
 "Well, girls, you've gone and done it," she said, 
 "and I do hope you aint going to repent it." 
 
 "There was nothing else to be done," said Eunice. 
 
 "Nothing else," approved Dora. 
 
 "Oh, of course, from your point o' view." nodded 
 and smirked Mrs. Giebelhouse. "But you might 'a' 
 been less . , hem . . less hasty." 
 
 "Perhaps we might," muttered Eunice. 
 
 "Might isn't the word," said Dora, "We had to." 
 
 Mrs. Giebelhouse struck Lizzie a sharp blow on the 
 ear for having begun to braid the fringes of the table- 
 cloth near her and occasionally spit on them to in- 
 sure a more facile method of personal employment. 
 
 Lizzie at once shrieked and held her breath. This 
 transport ended in a low \vail, which continued un- 
 til her mother, with a touch of real solicitude, in- 
 quired: 
 
 "Well, what's the matter, anyhow. Is it that 
 tooth?" 
 
 "Yes," moaned Lizzie, with a hand in her mouth, 
 and with the effect of a thumb and forefinger grasp- 
 ing a certain segment of gum. "It is the tooth, 
 mommer. It aches like sixty." 
 
 "She won't have it out," explained Mrs. Giebel- 
 house to her relatives. "She carries on so when I 
 even speak of a dentist that I haven't got the heart 
 to take her to one." 
 
 "I won't go to the dentist! I won't, I won't!" 
 fumed Lizzie, stamping her foot. 
 
 "Hold your tongue, you hussy," cried her mother. 
 "You'll go where you're sent." 
 
 "No I won't! No I won't," screamed Lizzie. And 
 then her mother gave her another blow, at which the 
 child's wails became hysteric. Eunice, feeling that 
 she could stand it no longer, now burst forth:
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 307 
 
 " Oh, for Heaven's sake, Aunt Ida, do manage that 
 child better!" 
 
 Mrs. Giebelhouse gave a great start, and her mouth 
 grew more acid. She stared at Eunice, irately, and 
 as she did so, Dora exclaimed: 
 
 " Eunice is right. You spoil Lizzie. The child will 
 grow up to be a perfect nuisance, if you're not care- 
 ful." 
 
 Mrs. Giebelhouse's stare became a glare. Mean- 
 while Lizzie's lamentations decreased. The child had 
 detected something new and peculiar in the social at- 
 mosphere. It interested her to observe what that 
 something was, or into what it would develop, and 
 she accordingly restrained her screeches for the pur- 
 pose of listening. 
 
 " Dora Trask," shot out Mrs. Giebelhouse, "you " 
 
 "Dora Kinnicutt, if you please, Aunt Ida," came 
 the interruption. 
 
 . "Oh, yes," was Mrs. Giebelhouse's bitter reply. 
 " Of course it is Dora Kinnicutt, though ladies that 
 desert their husbands oughtn't to get mad for having 
 their marriages forgotten." 
 
 Eunice bristled at this, and looked as though she 1 
 meant to fire her big guns. "Aunt Ida," she began, 
 'I don't think it's good taste of you to sneer at Dora 
 and me in our misfortune." 
 
 "Misfortune!" sneered Mrs. Giebelhouse, in her 
 worst temper. " I guess there might be another way 
 of talking on that point." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Dora quite angrily. 
 "Do you mean, Aunt Ida, that Eunice and I were in 
 the wrong? If you do think this, you might have 
 said so in the first place." 
 
 "I don't say all the ugly things I think," Mrs. 
 Giebelhouse almost snarled.
 
 308 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 "Oh, don't you!" said Dora. "I'd always sup- 
 posed you never missed a chance of being disagree- 
 able." 
 
 "Is that so?" snapped Mrs. Giebelhouse, with 
 great tartness. " Mercy, Dora, it's no wonder you 
 couldn't get on as a married woman !" 
 
 ' ' Perhaps if Uncle Conrad had been a man of more 
 character than he is," retorted Dora, "you wouldn't 
 have got on much better than I did." 
 
 "Hush, Dora," reproved Eunice, though with a 
 very hostile look at her aunt. 
 
 "I won't hush," rebelled Dora. "Aunt Ida is al- 
 ways sajdng horrid things to people. She's no right 
 to come here and taunt us in our trouble." 
 
 "Taunt you!" shouted Mrs. Giebelhouse, rising. 
 "As if I had!" 
 
 "Of course you have," said Eunice firmly, rising 
 also. 
 
 Dora now sprang from her chair, with trembling 
 demeanor. " Why, you've never treated us the least 
 bit nicely, and you know it. You've never been good 
 or kind. I I don't believe you can be! I never saw 
 such an ill-natured person as you are. You just seem 
 to love sneers and slurs. They're meat and drink to 
 you." 
 
 "And and how about yourself?" panted Mrs. 
 Giebelhouse. "I I'll tell your Uncle Conrad how 
 you've insulted him /" 
 
 " She hasn't insulted him," struck up Eunice. " You 
 do bully him, Aunt Ida, as you bully everybody. Yes, 
 it's true. You needn't scowl and look fierce. Dora 
 and I are not under the slightest debt to you. And 
 anyway, I began this quarrel. I couldn't stand your 
 behavior to that child. It's awfully bad taste for
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 309 
 
 you to take her about to places and box her ears ill 
 public as you do. But you're always boxing every- 
 body's ears, more or less. You you haven't an 
 amiable hair in your head; do you know that?" 
 
 Eunice was very angry, and yet she showed the 
 grace of instant repentance as she saw her guest's 
 indignant stiffening of the body and somewhat dra- 
 matic shudder. Dora began to speak, now, but 
 Eunice silenced her by a gesture and a forcible though 
 gentle backward push. At this moment, however, 
 Lizzie, with tongue thrust out and an antic malevo- 
 lence in her sallow little face, darted forward. 
 
 "You two can sass my mother all } T OU please," 
 cried the child. "But who cares for you two, any- 
 how? Pa says you don't amount to much, and pa 
 knows. He says you ain't anything but a pair o' 
 vixens, fighting with your husbands and kicking 'em 
 out o' doors " 
 
 "Lizzie!" screeched Mrs. Giebelhouse. But. though 
 she caught the child furiously by one of her frail little 
 arms, Dora had already put both her own arms 
 round the tiny body and sank on her knees at 
 Lizzie's feet. And as she did this, Dora's eyes were 
 streaming with tears. 
 
 "Oh, Lizzie," she cried, "little, Lizzie Giebelhouse, 
 you don't know how you hurt me to the heart ! But 
 it isn't your fault, and I forgive you. I wish you had 
 a better mother than you've got, and some day, 
 poor little creature, you may remember that I told 
 you so." 
 
 This was to Lizzie's mother a crowning insolence. 
 She pulled the child from Dora's embrace and swept 
 out of the room, soon afterward quitting the house. 
 Still weeping, Dora staggered to her feet, and as she
 
 310 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 did so Eunice rushed upon her in fine and splendid 
 wrath. 
 
 " How how scandalous of you, Dora!" came the 
 reproving outburst. And then Eunice began to scold 
 with magnificent vehemence. 
 
 They had it out together, hard and hot. Any out- 
 side observer would have called it a severe wrangle. 
 But to the contestants it was a most ordinary species 
 of discussion. Eunice was not clearly aware why 
 she scolded or \vith what intent. But she scolded 
 vigorously, nevertheless. As for Dora, she accepted 
 the affair in the most matter-of-course fashion. Not 
 that her attitude was at all a meek one. She hit 
 back, and with blows that told. But it was all the 
 most usual sort of occurrence to both sisters. They 
 had warred with one another like this almost from 
 infancy. 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed to blame me," Dora 
 finally declared. "You detest her just as much as 
 I do. You know she was in the wrong, and yet you 
 act as if /were." 
 
 "A lady should always be a lady in her own 
 house," pronounced Eunice. 
 
 "Oh, indeed! When it comes to a pinch I guess 
 I'm a good deal more of a lady than you are." 
 
 "Dora, how dare you?" 
 
 "Oh, pooh! You can't sit on me." 
 
 "I haven't tried." 
 
 " That's not true. You're trying now." 
 
 Soon afterward they went in to luncheon together, 
 and before they left the table their conversation had 
 become 'completely peaceable. Dora retained agi- 
 tated memories of her aunt, however, and said, dur- 
 ing the meal, that she never wanted to see her again,
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 311 
 
 "I'm glad Aunt 'Liza wasn't here," she added, 
 "though we expected her to-day, didn't we? To 
 think of the difference between those two !" 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan had really intended to visit her 
 nieces that day. She longed to see them settled in 
 their new-old home, and the depths of her sympathy 
 with them in their sad semi-widowhood were pro- 
 found beyond \vords. But a sombre terror held sway 
 over her with respect to her husband. She realized 
 just \vhat peril might be threatening him all through 
 the day, and suffered torments of anxiety until the 
 early evening had brought him back. 
 
 " Wentworth's in, without a doubt," were almost 
 his first words to her. 
 
 "I'm glad very glad," she answered. "But you 
 felt sure how it would be, didn't you, Andy?" . 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "And there's been no trouble yet?" 
 
 "Trouble, 'Liza?" 
 
 "You know what I mean. They havn't tried to 
 browbeat you, or anything like that?" 
 
 "Oh, I've had some cheeky talk to put up with. 
 But it all blew over. Times may turn out a little 
 livelier to-night; but I don't scare very easy, as 
 you're aware by this time." 
 
 She was standing at the side of the chair into which 
 he had thrown himself, and she now let her hand fall 
 on his shoulder and rest there. 
 
 "Andy, you havn't seen him, have you," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "Who? Larry McGonigle?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He hasn't turned up, and I guess he won't. I 
 heard about him. I heard he was boiling drunk this 
 afternoon at Connolly's."
 
 312 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 " Connolly's ? " came her alarmed reply. That's 
 close to your Third avenue place, Andy, isn't it?" 
 
 "Pretty close yes." 
 
 "And . . andhewas there, eh? . . Well, youaint going 
 out again to-night. Say you won't, now." 
 
 He looked tip at her in wide-eyed surprise. "Not 
 going out again to-night, 'Liza? Why, you remem- 
 ber, woman, don't ye?" 
 
 "Remember what?" 
 
 "To-night's the night. Afterward I'll never sell 
 another drop o' liquor across any o' my bars. I'm 
 going to every one o' the four places, and I'll dis- 
 charge the bar tender at each. The boys that aint 
 on '11 get my orders not to open shop to-morrow, 
 with a month's wages ahead, same as the others." 
 
 "I do remember, Andy, and it's a glorious resolu- 
 tion you've made. But oh, if you'd only stay in to- 
 night!" And she leaned down to him with an eager 
 yearning in her face. "It seems to me that there's 
 danger . . danger." 
 
 "Why any more this night than another?" he said. 
 "If you mean, 'Liza, that they want to send me over 
 to Calvary, to-morrow or next day is as good a time 
 as now." 
 
 She gave a little shiver, and then tried to smile very 
 persuasively. 
 
 " I I didn't mean anything so awful. ' Of course 
 not! But it's the night of election-day, and that 
 makes so much difference just now. Don't tell me it 
 doesn't, Andy, for I know only too well. Those 
 avenues are just perfect holes this minute, and they'll 
 stay so till to-morrow morning." 
 
 But she failed to win him over. Indeed he finally 
 convinced her that her fears were almost groundless
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 313 
 
 and that however savage might be the desperado 
 element he had roused, a wholesome respect for his 
 civic and official standing would easily shield him 
 from any foul act of onslaught. Then, too, he had 
 determined weeks ago that on this night he would 
 take the first fateful and significant step. And she 
 had she not urged and pleaded \vith him that this 
 step should be taken ? Was it not more because of 
 her prayers and longings than for any other reason 
 that he had resolved to rise above his baser self and 
 wash from his soul those clinging stains ? 
 
 He put his arms about her just before he went 
 away that night, and the act was so unusually ten- 
 der a one (in spite of the large love she knew he had 
 for her) that it almost made her recoil from him with 
 affright. . . 
 
 When he had really left her, this feeling increased, 
 and she hurried out in the hall after him, saying: 
 
 "Andy, you you won't be one mite laterthanyou 
 can help; will you, now?" 
 
 After she had made this appeal it occurred to her 
 that such pertinacity might offend him, and she 
 looked for a frown on his face, rarely as any word or 
 act of her own had ever seemed to displease him. But 
 while opening the hall door he waved one of his big 
 hajids toward her, carelessly and yet fondly, at the 
 same moment smiling. The smile somehow dwelt 
 with her for a good while after he had gone, making 
 in her heart a little star of cheer. But after all, like 
 every other star, it shone in darkness. 
 
 She would have given a great deal to know him 
 safe at home that night, with all his four shops 
 closed and the first move in the fine, brave work, 
 fairly made. And she would have given a great deal
 
 314 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 more to know him as one who had outlived the spites 
 and hates that such a work was sure to engender, 
 at peace equally with his own spirit and those of his 
 fellow-men. 
 
 Ah, would that blessed hour ever dawn for him? 
 She drew quick breaths, poor woman, and piteously 
 trembled when she thought of the dubious and shad- 
 owy interval between now and then !
 
 XXIII 
 
 In succession Heffernan visited each of his saloons, 
 and confronted each bar-keeper with his discharge 
 and his payment for a month in advance. The last 
 place that he entered was the one in Third avenue, 
 nearest his home. Hitherto there had been no sign of 
 opposition or even of disturbance. In those other 
 establishments there were a few men drinking, most 
 of whom he did not know. The bar- tenders in those 
 taverns had received from their co-workers of the 
 daytime a decided hint of what would occur to them 
 to-night. They took their official tidings very qui- 
 etly, and closed the shutters unmurmuringly \vith 
 their employer's personal help. The ctistomers drifted 
 away in the most obliging style; Heffernan congratu- 
 lating himself that he should be able to get to his 
 Third avenue place at the comparatively early hour 
 of one. Each bar-tender, it is true, asked certain 
 questions. But they were respectfully put, and the 
 candid answers to them were received \vith no undue 
 bursts of curiosity. In each case Heffernan had 
 simply said that his business would be discontinued 
 from this time forward. After three shops had been 
 closed with a clear understanding that the closing
 
 316 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 was permanent, he had a grateful sense of good 
 treatment from circumstance, accident, \vhat you 
 will. "And I only hope," he said to himself, while 
 starting to effect his fourth and last visit, "that 
 things '11 go as smooth up yonder as they've done 
 elsewhere, though I guess they won't, for more rea- 
 sons than one." 
 
 His augury did not prove untrue. The Third ave- 
 nue saloon had always represented him much more 
 distinctively as a liquor-dealer than those other 
 haunts in other parts of the town. Here had shone 
 a visible symbol of his great prosperity and success, 
 with its really tasteful trappings in the way of wood- 
 work, chandeliers, plate glass and mirrors. Here, 
 too, were his political headquarters. In his most 
 conscienceless days he had held here vital talks with 
 men to whom his nod was golden, and entered into 
 compacts with other men whose services could swell 
 his viceregal sway. 
 
 As he now passed into the spacious chamber (hav- 
 ing its braveries a little dimmed at this late hour, 
 though the electric burners yet glowed with a good 
 deaf of boldness from wall and ceiling) he swiftly per- 
 ceived that a new and perhaps painful experience 
 waited him. Several knots of men stood near the 
 bar, all apparently his active patrons. He recognized 
 a number of them as former acquaintances, even 
 friends. He bowed to three or four, and these coolly 
 cut him, half turning away 
 
 Then he saw that they and their mates had gath- 
 ered here for some insolent or perhaps violent pur- 
 pose, and his blood rose. He had never been a man 
 of the slightest personal fear. Always he had prided 
 himself on never carrying a concealed weapon, though
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 317 
 
 it was well known of him that he had often risked 
 his life in defending the rights of men who were bul- 
 lied and threatened by rowdies frequenting his differ- 
 ent saloons. And with his own unaided strength, 
 too, he had repeatedly hurled from his doors bullies 
 and roysterers. Perhaps memories of his past prow- 
 ess and courage may have come into the minds of 
 certain watchers who now gazed on his dark eyes, 
 beginning to kindle a little amid the pallor of his 
 deep-s2amed face. 
 
 No one spoke as he stood there with one arm rest- 
 ing on his bar, bigger of frame than any man present 
 and wearing an expression at once more determined 
 and more sad. This very silence was in itself a chal- 
 lenge, and as such he chose to take it. Slowly he 
 drew forth his watch and looked down at its disc. 
 Then he looked up at the clock above the bar, as if 
 comparing the two timepieces. 
 
 "Tim," came his voice, with a distinct bass roll 
 amid the stillness, "you'll please sell no more drink 
 here to-night. I want the place closed. It's getting 
 late." 
 
 As Heffernan was turning away from the bar a 
 voice cried out to him : " There's them here to-night, 
 Andy Heffernan, that's seen you when you was glad 
 enough to keep open till three in the mornin' for an 
 extra ten -cents . ' ' 
 
 A laugh followed, and then some one else said: 
 "Make it five." This caused another laugh, louder 
 and more general, with a touch in it, too, of greater 
 defiance. 
 
 Heffernan had never been a hot-tempered man. 
 Heaven help the professional bar-tender who is hot- 
 tempered. In his 'prentice days he had learned to bear
 
 318 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 insults when resenting them would have been fatally 
 impolitic. Now he merely shrugged his shoulders and 
 walked away. Still, he meant that no more drink 
 should be sold, and if his man had attempted to dis- 
 obey him, he would have grown coercive in a trice. 
 
 A few of the little crowd sauntered out of doors. 
 These thinned the number left behind, and in it he 
 suddenly saw Larry McGonigle. The fellow wore a 
 slight scowl, and his paleness was pronounced ; but 
 he seemed sober enough. Heifernan scented some 
 deviltry the moment his eye lit on this creature. He 
 had come here for none but an evil purpose. Being fed 
 for days with liquor, his wrath had perhaps grown real- 
 ly murderous. "What had I better do?" he queried of 
 his own thoughts. " Gq behind the bar and unlock 
 that drawer with the revolver in it? Or shall I just 
 cheek him till he quits the place? For, after all, there's 
 a strong chance he don't mean to risk the gallows on 
 my account or any other man's." 
 
 McGonigle advanced, and seeing him do so Heffer- 
 nan stood his ground, though more with the air of 
 tolerating his approach than as if he were a waiting it. 
 
 But now a most unforeseen and hateful thing hap- 
 pened. Nearly opposite the spot where Heffernan had 
 stationed himself was the side-door used at this hour 
 as an entrance into the saloon. By this door, sud- 
 denly and quite unsteadily, entered Gordon Ammi- 
 down. 
 
 The young man's folly had almost reached one of 
 its mad climaxes. To glance at his face was to read 
 there a self-confession of mental frenzy and turmoil . 
 And yet in a way his mind seemed clear enough ; he 
 had the expression of one who might do some 
 desperate act but who would be unlikely to say any- 
 thing imbecile.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 319 
 
 Heffernan came forward, grasped his outstretched 
 hand, and then drew him back toward the further end 
 of the saloon. But Gordon resisted this attempt, and 
 insisted on pausing at the lower end of the bar. 
 
 His voice was unduly loud, and his first words rang 
 through the place. " Threecheers for you, oldfellow!" 
 he cried. "I've been looking for you ever so long. I 
 wanted to tell you how devilish glad I am that you 
 stood by your candidate and didn't sell him out as 
 some of those liars and slanderers claimed you meant 
 to do. I " 
 
 1 ' Mr. Ammidown, ' ' Heffernan struck in, "I wouldn't 
 talk about such things just here or just no w . " His voice 
 was the merest murmur, but Larry McGonigle, from 
 its evident solicitude of tone, easily guessed the paci- 
 fying tenor of its words. And at this point Larry 
 McGonigle chose to stride much nearer HefFernan, 
 and while doing so to fling out a fierce jibe: 
 
 "I pity any chap that thinks Andy HefFernau an 
 honest man," he sneered, "for in that case he's gotto 
 apologize to the devil for his mistake, and even then 
 he won't be let off easy." 
 
 Like a flash Gordon turned, and measured the speak- 
 er with contemptuous eyes. 
 
 "I don't know who you are," he said, "and I don't 
 much care. But if I were Mr. Heffernan I'd teach 
 you to manage your tongue more civilly or I'd find 
 out why you didn't." 
 
 There were a few growls, at this, in McGonigle's 
 background, but he himself merely turned from Gor- 
 don with a shrug. He had no such game in view as 
 a quarrel with this young " brown-stone voter," so 
 palpably in his cups. And now, almost immedi- 
 ately, Heffernan said, with great coolness and self- 
 control:
 
 320 IVOMKX MUST WEEP 
 
 " This gentleman's right. Here's the last place in 
 the world for you to come with any bluff like that. 
 I warn ye, McGonigle, I won't stand it. I wouldn't if 
 there was a thousand backers behind ye, and you 
 can't make me now. There's that door. See? It's late 
 enough to close, and close I shall. I wish ye no 
 harm, but good-night to ye, and good-night to all." 
 Heffernan had never in his life showed a simpler and 
 calmer dignity. He made his voice, as he ended, full 
 of quiet but very potent monition. Some of the men 
 in McGonigle's rear slipped tow r ard the door ; others 
 (about eight, in all) pressed up to the ruffian they held 
 worthy of their adherence. 
 
 " Before I quit your den," exclaimed AlcGonigle, with 
 a sudden horrible look of hatred, " I'd like to tell plain 
 out what mean stuff ye're made of." 
 
 " Gor for him, Larry," said a voice, "big as he is." 
 It \vas a drunken voice and it added, thickly but with 
 a brutish desperation : "I'll help to see fair play, an' 
 so'll the rest of us." 
 
 "Fair play!" cried McGonigle, with a gesture of 
 rageful scorn at Heffernan. " That's no kind of a man 
 
 to give it to or to get it from. He's " And then 
 
 broke forth sentence after sentence of such ribald in- 
 sult as only the slums of the world's huger towns 
 can spawn and foster. 
 
 Heffernan heard the tirade through. At its end he 
 had lost composure for the first time that night. 
 "Leave my place, "he now shouted with clinched fists. 
 "I don't care for your filthy tongue; everybody knows 
 it. But leave here, I say, or " 
 
 "Leave here!" roared McGonigle, with a sudden 
 baleful grimace. "I'll leave my traces behind me 
 when I do." And he whipped forth a pistol, levelling 
 it at Heffernan.
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 321 
 
 " Put that up!" commanded Gordon darting at him. 
 Gordon was no mean athlete, and the hand that now 
 caught Larry's wrist gave it a forceful wrench. But 
 one of the scoundrel's gang here pushed up (doubtless 
 with an intention of disarming him), and the contact 
 of his body with the very hand whose wrist had just 
 been gripped and twisted aside, caused a horror to 
 occur. The muzzle of the pistol once more was given 
 something like its former aim, but not quite that, 
 either, for the head of Gordon bent just one fateful in- 
 stant before it and in that instant a ball leapt out. 
 Those who saw said afterward that they did not think 
 Gordon was hurt, and fancied him only reeling back- 
 ward against the wall in dismay at his own rashness. 
 But all knew that McGonigle's second bullet hit 
 Andrew Heffernan. 
 
 Then someone tore the pistol from the assassin's 
 clutch, and three men who were vile enough to stay 
 loyal to him even then, hustled him out into the dark- 
 ness. The others remained, and yet he that first 
 reached. Gordon after he had fallen was Heffernan, 
 whose chest the second bullet had pierced. 
 
 Blood was pouring from the young man's temple. 
 He was already dead when Heffernan knelt at his side. 
 "My God! Poor boy! His wife his wife! " burst in 
 wild lamentation from the crouching giant. 
 
 Then Heffernan's own wound told, and he fainted. 
 
 It was quite a good while afterward when he came 
 back to consciousness on the impromptu bed they 
 had made for his great frame in the back of the saloon. 
 A crowd of faces were pressing round him. Some- 
 one waved them off, and he murmured "That's right," 
 for the faintness of death was upon him and with in- 
 exorable certainty he realized it. . . A little later he 
 
 21
 
 322 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 said, looking up at a man who lived near by and 
 whom he respected as honest and pure of life : 
 
 "I I'd have quit all this to-morrow. Ask 'Liza, 
 my wife. She'll tell ye. . poor 'Liza. ." And then, 
 with glazing eyes and gasping breath: "It's hard I 
 I couldn't show the wo rid I'd cut loose. And I had 
 cut loose. . I was going to strike right out along a. . 
 different track. But it couldn't be. . God knew best, 
 I guess. . 'Liza. . 'Liza. . ." And with a great shudder 
 of agony so prolonged and fearful that some of his 
 watchers turned away their heads to avoid seeing it 
 this man who had stood but a brief while since on 
 the very threshold of a noble abnegation, 3delded up 
 his misguided yet repentant life. 
 
 Hardly ten seconds afterward a shriek rang from a 
 woman's lips as she sank beside him. The terrible 
 fleetness of evil news had made good with her its 
 ghastly repute. People had burst upon her \vhile 
 watching for " Andy " in the Second avenue flat not 
 far away, and had told her that he had been shot, but 
 that it was hoped the wound would not prove mor- 
 tal and that they would soon bring him to her in an 
 ambulance. But she would.not hear of waiting; she 
 had sped from the house to find him and had found 
 him dead ! 
 
 And now, racked with grief and wrath, she lifted 
 one clenched hand, while her tear-blurred eyes and 
 back-thrown head gave to her kneeling figure the 
 severest accent of tragedy. " It's the cursed lack o' law 
 in this cursed town that's cost him his life ! " she cried. 
 "He's come to his death because he tried to break 
 away from the rogues that rule us here ! He's come to 
 his death because the men with money and brains and 
 book-learning the men that should fight these thieves
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 323 
 
 and rascals tooth and nail don't care, and go on 
 piling up dollars, and let thousands poorer and lower 
 than they be wronged and swindled. He was one o' 
 them, but he turned against 'em, God bless him for it! 
 They called him a traitor, but it's honor and not 
 shame to go back on vipers like them!" And here a 
 wild laugh broke from the new-made widow, and she 
 lifted both clenched hands instead of one. 
 
 "I begged him with all my soul to give his bad 
 life up," she cried. " I prayed for him, and I praj'ed 
 with him. I'm to blame more than he was. If Larry 
 McGonigle's here, let him kill me, too, for I'm more to 
 blame than ever poor Andy was. I hated the whole 
 pack o' vermin, and I hate 'em now. Let some of 'em 
 shoot me this minute, and I'll die, I'll be glad to die, 
 at . . my . . murdered . . husband's . . side! . ." 
 
 Her last words came in gasps, and some of her 
 listeners, if she had not now sank down in a swoon, 
 would have believed that she had gone mad. . . When 
 she fully recovered her faculties it was to find herself 
 back in her own home, where the solemnity of death 
 brooded over the still shape of him she had lost, and 
 where the very air itself seemed tingling with the 
 pathos of his t thwarted life, so cruelly cut off at the 
 very verge of better and loftier living!
 
 XXIV 
 
 To Annette the blow was one that words may but 
 weakly paint. Affliction sometimes plays with our 
 lives like a wayward child in a garden. The stalk is 
 not snapped in twain, but there comes a moment 
 when the least harder pressure may wreak final ruin. 
 So with Annette. She lay very ill for several weeks. 
 Gordon's corpse was carried to the grave on a day 
 when Eunice and Dora both watched near her bed, 
 dog-like in their fidelity, heedless of the hired nurse 
 and the wise physicians, and mixing despair of their 
 sister's life with defiance of medical and professional 
 demands for their absence. But the long and fierce 
 battle between youth and grief gave at last victory 
 to youth, though grief, like a foe conscious of power 
 uncrushed if maintained, chose retirement in place of 
 flight. 
 
 After all, Simeon Ammidown told himself, Annette's 
 fate had been happier than his own. He had no 
 merciful physical prostration to clog his heart-beats 
 and so blur his brain. For him it was decreed that 
 he must stand and gaze upon the stirless form of a 
 treasured son, finding in its very inaction the last un- 
 merciful sarcasm wreaked by fate on his own once-
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 325 
 
 ambitious life. Often in other days Gordon had 
 seemed to him an incarnate consolment for all he had 
 sought, felt confident of, attempted, and ultimately 
 missed. Disappointment had before now dealt him 
 bitter pangs. But these were almost like actual joys 
 compared with the purely unselfish anguish that 
 bowed and whelmed him now. Moreover, there was - 
 the misery of his wife to witness, with the mingled 
 sense of helplessness to soothe her and of self-reproach 
 at her superior "womanly heroism. Then the veiled 
 sneers of newspaper foes (all the more wounding be- 
 cause veiled) had to be noted and suffered from. And 
 afterward the doom of missing his dead both at 
 home and in daily business cares of missing him \vith 
 that incurable desire which makes hope turn from us 
 wholly discouraged, and shroud her bright eyes be- 
 neath her rosy robe. For Simeon Ammidown had 
 reached an age at which men begin either to breathe 
 rich renewals of contentment through the gains and 
 triumphs destiny vouchsafes their children, or else to 
 droop under that gray and heavy atmosphere which 
 precedes the coming of senility as its glooms precede 
 a storm 
 
 He was right, and the sorrow of Annette had cheer- 
 fuller tinting than his own. Rallying, she \vasyoung 
 enough unconsciously to make the very air and sun- 
 shine tender conspirators in aid of her recovery. 
 Then, too, the arrest and long trial of McGoiiigle 
 brought her a kind of lulling excitement, even though 
 indignation and disgust followed. 
 
 And for both feelings there was good cause. "In- 
 fluence" (not to spell the word in that form of dialectic 
 satire nowadays so familiar) literally mailed this 
 raw criminal in a shielding armor. It is safe to state
 
 326 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 that every eye-witness of his villainy on that Novem- 
 ber night lied recklessly concerning it except one. 
 That one was Tim, the poor moon-faced bar-tender, 
 and he once or twice tried frightenedly to tell at least 
 something that resembled truth. But evidence shat- 
 tering Tim's character into fragments as minute as 
 the punched sugar that he put into one of his own 
 fiery cocktails, promptly was either supplied from 
 true sources or else trumped up from nowhere. A 
 groan of contempt rose to the lips of all honest citi- 
 zens when the jury at the first trial found an agree- 
 ment impossible ; and this instance of perverted and 
 enslaved justice prepared them for the verdict which 
 closed the succeeding trial manslaughter in the 
 second degree. There was a flurry of protest, and 
 then all went as it had gone before. The community 
 swallowed this outrage as it had swallowed so many 
 others. ' The Monitor, it is true, shone with a 
 despairing brilliancy, and tore from the face of 
 every witness who had striven to white-wash the 
 inky guilt of the culprit his mask of brazen deceit. 
 The decent folk of the metropolis were made to know 
 just what scoundrels are sometimes permitted to tes- 
 tify in our courts ; and the decent folk, as usual, con- 
 tented itself by interchanging glances and saying 
 " How very dreadful ! " Besides, the Monitor was a 
 newspaper with the disadvantage of belonging to no 
 party whatever. And that, with a good many per- 
 sons who thought belonging to no party \vhatever 
 even a worseoffense than belonging to the "opposite" 
 party, was a serious drawback. 
 
 After she had got well, Annette brought her sore 
 and yearning heart to the old West Eleventh street 
 home, Mr. and Mrs. Ammidown and Florence, who
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 327 
 
 had all three learned dearly to love her, all three re- 
 belled, at first, when told of this intended step. But 
 that Annette should take it seemed only to be a small 
 irreversible part of the immense circumstantial scheme. 
 Like three sisters in some fairy-tale who had wandered 
 away by different paths, each to "seek her fortune," 
 they now all had re-met by the same hearthstone 
 which had heard the flowing of their childish laughter, 
 their childish tears. None had in any sense "gained" 
 her fortune except possibly one, and that one Dora. 
 Yet as the years slipped on they left behind them'many 
 a less happy household. After Heffernan's death his 
 wife had told her nieces of his last secretly generous act 
 to themselves. ;She told more, too; and the "Uncle 
 Andrew" whom they had shuned 'and shrank from 
 at the time of their father's death became in memory 
 almost a revered character. And surely they w^ere 
 right : for those of us who sin not because we are 
 taught from our cradles not to sin are pygmies be- 
 side those who seize upon their own transgressions 
 and shape from them a stairway by \vhich to mount 
 among purer zones of being. 
 
 "There's lots more money a year than I want, 
 girls," said Mrs. Heffernan, when her late husband's 
 affairs were at last settled . "I wish you'd let me pay 
 you over some every month. I know you're comf t- 
 able enough as it is, but then you might have another 
 girl, and the old house needs repairing, my dears, 
 and " 
 
 " Oh, you'll find plenty of ways to spend your in- 
 come, Aunt 'Liza," broke in Eunice. "You'd give 
 away in charity twice what you've got." 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan slowly shook her head. "Now
 
 328 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 that he's gone it seems as if I ought to do with the 
 money just what he'd intended. But a woman can't 
 look into the business parts o' these big charities and 
 make sure she isn't flinging money where it'll do 
 more harm than good. I mean to give, though, 
 where I am sure, in sums of all different sizes." 
 
 " Ah, you dear soul," laughed Dora. " You needn't 
 tell us that!" 
 
 They accepted the monthly augment of their finan- 
 ces, and it brightened life for them not a little. Young 
 Eunice could now be sent to the very best of schools, 
 and there was so much in that. The child was rap- 
 idly growing in grace, intelligence and good looks, 
 and her two aunts were already the fond vassals of 
 her slightest whims. 
 
 " She can afford to do without a father," said Dora 
 one day to Mrs. Heffernan. 
 
 "Why, how do you mean?" Aunt 'Liza asked. 
 
 "Oh, she's got three mothers, you know," Dora 
 replied with a smile. 
 
 Mrs. Heffernan looked grave. Rumors were afloat 
 in the air; Eunice and Annette had both been talking. 
 " He's just crazy to come back to her, Aunt 'Liza," 
 Eunice had said. ''And we do so need a man in the 
 house." 
 
 "And she's very hard about it, "had affirmed An- 
 nette. "For, after all, he always treated her well, 
 whatever he did. There's so much in that !" 
 
 Yes, there is so much in that (unfortunately, not 
 seldom) as to make many another -woman more 
 wronged than Dora melt and turn forgiving at the 
 last. Dora melted and forgave in a few more weeks, 
 and one day Kinnicutt, handsome and beaming with
 
 WOMEtf MUST WEEP 
 
 amiability, entered a room where. she sat waiting 
 him, with his two allies, Eunice and Annette, walk- 
 ing one at either side. 
 
 So Dora surrendered, and a great deal of happiness 
 came in consequence both to her and to those who 
 had brought the truce about. But it must not be 
 supposed that any deep and lasting "lesson" had been 
 taught Kinnicutt, or that he had now found it im- 
 possible to regard a pretty feminine face without 
 thrills of holy remorse. On the contrary, he had un- 
 dergone no such morally molecular change. He con- 
 tinued for the rest of his life precisely the one same 
 Kinnicutt, and Dora's "pardon" of him hadiiiit, 
 just as she herself may possibly have expected, a 
 strong element of the ludicrous. But it was the in- 
 evitable pardon that a man of his monumental good 
 nature always goes on getting till time lays its 
 gradual yet eternal veto on his follies. 
 
 Repeatedly (and with good practical reason, as 
 time lapsed along) both her sisters fell to hoping and 
 even expecting that Annette would marry again, . . 
 But one evening, just after dinner, when this question 
 took a conversational form, the young widow chose 
 with emphasis to exclaim: 
 
 "No, I've my recollections, but I've also my warn- 
 ings." And at Kinnicutt, who was present, she shot 
 a meaning look, which he received with his customary 
 bland repose. He had recently given his wife new 
 cause for unhappiness, and had "made up" with her 
 (by inducing her to accept for truth a little chro- 
 matic tissue of polite falsehood) only a few hours 
 ago. 
 
 "At Florence's musicale last night," continued
 
 330 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 Annette, "a lady sang that song of The Three Fish- 
 ers.' She didn't sing it anything extra, but it set me 
 thinking." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Kinnicutt amiably. " It's a lovely 
 thing, but too sad . . too sad altogether." 
 
 " Life is sad," murmured Dora. 
 
 " We oughtn't to take that view of it," spoke up 
 Eunice, with a kind of lecturing cheerfulness. She 
 did not divine the drift of her younger sister's re- 
 marks; perhaps if she had done so she would have 
 helped to draw Annette out, as it \vere. But Annette 
 needed no drawing out. 
 
 "There are those words in the song," she pursued, 
 " 'women must weep.' And they must! Oh, the 
 longer I live the more I feel just how thev must, and 
 why?" 
 
 Kinnicutt gave one of his coy, blithe laughs. "Come, 
 Annette," he said, "you chop the verse into halves. 
 It's 
 
 "For men must work, and women must weep," 
 
 And then he went on, with a comic assumption of 
 gravity, since he was now getting quite a handsome 
 salary as a sub-editor on the Monitor, though more 
 from the kindness and sentiment of Annette's father- 
 in-law than from any valued tasks he performed 
 there: "I'm sure I know a lot about working, though 
 weeping mayn't be as much in my line." 
 
 "No," said Eunice, rather crisply, on a sudden 
 having understood quite well, "you're like all men, 
 Harvey; you leave the weeping for MS to do." 
 
 "Oho!" cried Kinnicutt, with merry-twinkling 
 eyes. " And the scolding, too, sometimes !" 
 
 Eunice tried to look severe, which she never found
 
 WOMEN MUST WEEP 
 
 331 
 
 half as easy a matter with her brother-in-law as 
 with most other people; Dora glided from the room, 
 as if bent on some motherly mission to little Eunice; 
 and Annette sighed, with the ring in her low tones of 
 one who speaks one's musings aloud: 
 
 "Well, whether it's women's weeping or men's 
 working, I often think that men; between the two, 
 manage to have the best of matters in the end."
 
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