FACES IN THE DAWN THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. LID. TORONTO FACES IN THE DAWN BY HERMANN HAGEDORN THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 COPYRIGHT, 1914 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1914. Reprinted January, 1915. Meinem lieben Vatting in dankbarer Erinnerung an schone, vergangene Weihnachten ist diese Erzahlung der alien und neuen Welt in treuer Liebe gewidmet CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. In Which an Ogre Loses His Temper . . i II. In Which Appears a One-time Saint Teresa with a Young Man from Westoversea . 24 III. In Which a Baron s Daughter Shows the Ogre s Wife How to Wash Dishes . . 45 IV. In Which a Dream Comes to Life and Proves Disturbing 65 V. In Which the Ogre Opens His Sacred Archives 85 VI. In Which a Melancholy Personage Enters the Story and Leaves It Again (Temporar ily) Because of a Headache .... 95 VII. In Which the Ogre Finds That Something Has Happened to His Spectacles . .113 VIII. In Which Many Candles Are Lighted on a Christmas Tree, and Elsewhere . . .123 IX. In Which a Dream-come-to-life Meets the Ogre at a Crossroads and Points Him the Way 153 X. In Which the Ogre Regards Himself in the Looking-glass 170 XL In Which the Melancholy Personage Buckles on Her Broadsword and Goes to Battle, to the Discomfiture of Everybody . . .180 XII. In Which the Ogre Barely Escapes Devour ing His Own Child and Becomes Properly Humble Forthwith 204 vii Vlll CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIII. In Which the Ogre Forgets Himself and Ac quires Merit 225 XIV. In Which Four Friends Fear for Their China- ware 234 XV. In Which the Ogre s Wife Wins Strength from the Everlasting Arms and Delves in the Archives 249 XVI. In Which the Melancholy Personage Makes a Disconcerting Discovery and a Conscien tious Amazon a Promise 273 XVII. In Which a Drunkard s Whistle Raises the Devil, Lays a Ghost and Ends a Rebellion 279 XVIII. In Which, as in All Good Romances, There Is Marrying and Giving in Marriage . 307 FACES IN THE DAWN FACES IN THE DAWN CHAPTER I IN WHICH AN OGRE LOSES HIS TEMPER ADAM SAMUELS, pastor in Wenkendorf , laid down his pen with a deep sigh that spelt somewhat ex haustion, somewhat relief and very largely self-pity; and, picking up the mass of closely written sheets, read over his sermon. It evidently neither pleased nor displeased him. It was the customary disser tation on the birth of Christ which he had delivered, with negligible changes, Christmas after Christmas for ten years, a not very learned examination of Isaiah and the other Prophets, Major and Minor, for intimations of the Saviour. There were quota tions by the dozen, which his congregation, know ing nothing of concordances, always looked upon as evidences of incredible erudition, and rolling out bursts here and there which sounded impressive, but unfortunately meant nothing at all. The pastor read these over twice, half aloud, hypnotized by their sound, then laid the sheets down with another sigh and took off his heavy spectacles. "Esperanza !" called the pastor of Wenkendorf. m THE DAWN There was no answer only the whimpering sob of a child in the next room, drowned a second later by the clatter of dishes; the whimper again, more like a cry this time ; silence, and a gust outside blow ing the gritty snow against the window-panes. The pastor frowned. "Esperanza, I called you 1 Esperanza !" he cried again. A boy of four, balancing himself on a chair be side him, failed to keep the carefully planned equi librium, and came crashing to the floor. A howl arose, a howl of pain and indignant wrath, that started a sympathetic flow of tears from a three- year-old in ambush under the pastor s writing table. The pastor picked up the boy by the collar of his dirty dress, which turned the howl to a wail of pierc ing clamor long drawn out, with cadences like a barbaric chant. The girl, after a second s inter ested pause, took up the dirge, hammering the floor with a poker. The cry in the kitchen gained force. From regions unknown, softly, stealthily, hypocriti cally disinterested, entered the parsonage cat and mewed. The pastor sat stock-still a moment, darkly glory ing in the attentions of an evil fate, and stoically letting the babel eat like acid into his soul. Then, with a sharp exclamation, he abruptly rose, cuffed the howling children right and left, and stalked to ward the door. He flung it open. A kitchen that might have been the original china shop after the FACES IN THE DAWN 3 bull s exit met his glance a helter-skelter place, all pans and dishes. On tables and chairs, pans; on shelves and on the floor, dishes. In the corner, a stove more pans; in the opposite corner, a cradle more dishes. Some of them were washed, but not elaborately; most were grimy and brown, and on some lay a thick dust over the grease, as though they had waited vainly many weeks for soap and water. Cabbage was cooking on the stove, its odor made in no wise more endurable by the fact that the milk in which it was boiling had previously been scorched. The little room was low-ceilinged, with one win dow, tightly shut. The pastor hesitated on the threshold and turned away, sickened; he scarcely knew whether at heart or elsewhere. He had been brought up in a neat home. Esperanza s kitchen was a spiritual torture. He stopped and half turned, irresolute. His wife looked up from her pan of dishes by the window. "Did you call me, Adam?" she asked mildly. "Call?" He hesitated, considering whether he should admonish her as she deserved. He decided on sarcasm. "Yes, I think I called." He was going to say more, but the insistent chant in the study rose to new heights and he suddenly flung up his hands, trembling with uncontrolled rage. "My God in heaven who sits among the angels ! Those children ! Those children!" "I will quiet them, Adam," said Esperanza sooth ingly. 4 FACES IN THE DAWN There was no need for her ministrations, how ever. The children had been diverted from their woes by their father s violent outburst, and were calm again. The pastor, moreover, recovering from his attack of temper as swiftly as his little children from their fears, growled: "Never mind. I called to tell you the sermon was done. The Christmas sermon. I thought I would read it to you. It will only take an hour. * She looked up at him with a weak smile of con sent which did not deceive him. Dishes were hanging over the little lady like a hesitant ava lanche. She wanted to plow her way as far into them as she could before the youngest of the Be loved Three, quieted now, began to demand seri ous attention, supper and bed. It had somehow be come her one ambition in life once to get the better of the dishes. But it was, "Of course, Adam," that she answered. His eyes contracted a little, the hard lines, half concealed by the heavy moustache, hardened. "You have no interest. Never mind." Esperanza turned to him, slightly tearful. The little face on the short, slender body had been pretty once, but now it was pale, its prettiness flattened out by much toiling, and its roses quite faded save for a red blotch in each cheek pathetic as a last year s leaf. Her eyes only held yet some of their doelike candor as they looked pleadingly into the FACES IN THE DAWN 5 pastor s steely eyes. "You know I have interest," she said. Adam turned back toward his room with a sigh meant to reproach. "Never mind. Take away the children/ The howls of the two elder babes rose anew at the threat of exile. "Take them away! I shall go crazy with them, I am certain of it. But you will not care. Noise, disorder my God you thrive on them!" She dragged the children, howling, along the floor and out. "I ll try to keep them quiet," she said meekly. "But they are so lively." There was pride in her voice. She had been lively herself not many years back. "When they are quiet I ll come back and listen to the sermon," she added gently. Adam s voice was sharp. "No, I have changed my mind." "As you wish, of course, Adam." This very con tritely. Esperanza went back to her dishes, the pastor to his desk. But five minutes later, he raised his voice again, calling; and Esperanza hurriedly dried her hands and answered the imperial summons. Adam, it appeared, had, as was not unusual with him (for he had a shockingly soft heart for a man of such plate-armor exterior), Adam, it seemed, had repented his unbeautiful explosion; and, in his customary lordly manner, which, of course, was the only manner which a self-respecting husband could 6 FACES IN THE DAWN adopt toward his wife, had sent for her to receive his apology. "My child, you must not be angry with me," he said, in tones which suggested that he was, pos sibly, more anxious to propitiate his conscience than his wife. "You know that I have much on my mind." Esperanza laid her arm about his neck gently. "I know, Adam," she answered warmly. "You do not mean to be unkind." But Adam, for all his elaborate apologizing, did not enjoy being forgiven by his meek little wife. To ask forgiveness was one thing. That salved his conscience as a pastor. To be forgiven, with the implication of at least temporary superiority in the magnanimous party that forgave, was an entirely different matter, and did not fit into Adam s theory concerning the relation of the sexes. According to that theory, Esperanza should have embraced Adam fervidly, crying, with tears of simple devotion, that the fault was really hers, and that it was really she who should ask pardon. Whereupon, Adam would gently soothe her, not denying her statement, and ultimately end the interview to the deep satisfac tion of both by charitably forgiving her for his offense. The pastor frowned. He had meant to be un kind, he had meant to be as cutting as possible, and there was no reason why he should not if he saw fit. Esperanza should not have taken advantage FACES IN THE DAWN 7 of what was merely a diplomatic remark meant to ease his conscience and certain strained relations be tween the kitchen and the study. "Yes, yes," he murmured grumblingly, "but please do not interrupt me again." Esperanza did not ask her husband in wrath who had been the one to interrupt whom. She fell meek ly into the trap as she had fallen into similar traps for five years past, and said, much perturbed, "Oh, I am so sorry. Forgive"; and made for the door. But Adam s voice recalled her once more. "Have they sent us our Christmas box from the Manor-house yet?" he asked. It was a bootless question to put, and he put it only because he was irritated, and it was the habit of his irritation, when thoroughly roused, to fare north and south in search of fresh woes to feed on. For he knew perfectly well that the Christmas box had not arrived. If it had there would have been jubilations, and jubila tions, I need not point out, there were none in the parsonage at this moment. Esperanza, standing in the doorway, shook her head, casting about her eyes in a timid way that sometimes comes with tired youth. "No, Adam," she said, adding quickly as she saw the storm sweep ing up over his face, "but it is only the twenty- third." "So?" There was long-drawn wrath in the little monosyllable. "Twenty-third or twenty-fifth! Do you think for a single instant that they will send it? 8 FACES IN THE DAWN They did not send it last year. We will live with out it, too." Esperanza s clear blue eyes grew brave for the sake of the Manor-folk, as they never thought it proper for them to grow brave for herself. "But, Adam, you are unjust." She hesitated, for her lord and master was frowning at her temerity. "Excuse me don t you think you are a little unjust? They have been away so much, the Manor-folk. The Baron and the young lady only came back from America this week. And, you know, the Baroness is so pious she hasn t time to think of such worldly things." There was no hint of irony in the warmth of her childlike voice. "And last year?" thundered the pastor. "You know they were in Italy last year. And the Baroness told me when they came home that she nearly discharged the overseer for forgetting to send us a box. You remember." "Yes," remarked Adam icily. "But she didn t discharge him. And I remember she said she would send a box at once. And she forgot." "She has so much to think of." "Bah!" snorted the pastor. "Herself!" He passed his hands over his eyes and through his hair with a gesture of bitter finality. "So we live and starve, serving God in a godless world!" Abruptly he rose, and, leaning over, shook his sermon in his wife s face. "I have my Christmas sermon writ- FACES IN THE DAWN 9 ten, but do you know what I am going to do with it? 11 "Why, Adam " she cried, a little frightened. His cheeks looked suddenly cadaverous, his lips gray. He tore the manuscript sharply across and across again. "Adam!" she cried. "It is too mild and sweet," he exclaimed. "The pious old fraud and her husband shall not have a comfortable hour in church if I can help it." "Oh," she cried in meek protest. "But it is Christmas." His voice was harsh and his face red with anger. "I know what is proper! You take their side, of course. You always do. You take everybody s side against me." "Adam !" This with tears. "Oh, stop ! Stop it ! Christmas day I preach on perdition and the end of all things. I ll stoke hell- fire for them!" He had a good voice and there were the distant rumblings of damnation in it as he flung out the words. "I am sorry. It will be their first service since their return. And Fraulein Gudrun has always been kind." The pastor s head fell a little and the angry flush faded, leaving his cheeks and brow pallid again. He tried to speak, but bustled about among his papers instead, finally sitting down heavily in the chair be- io FACES IN THE DAWN fore his desk. He was evidently moved, though for what reason Esperanza could not imagine. At last he said quietly: "Why do you speak of Fraulein Gudrun?" Esperanza could only repeat her previous re mark. u She has always been kind." "Yes, of course," he said. "She is good." The baby was whimpering again in the kitchen. "Quiet the child," he commanded wearily. Esperanza hurried out, closing the door gently behind her. Her heart was heavy for her good man. She knew, as though she were watching him with her eyes, that he was leaning his head on his hands now, staring over the disorderly desk, over the piled- up books and papers stonily out into the wintry land scape. She knew that when these fits of depression were on him he was as though in an iron cell that no outside force could invade. It gave her a pang to think how lonely he must be in that cell with noth ing but his own angers and despairs talking to him from the hard walls. The thought came to her that perhaps it was she who had built him that cell. But the fear died, not because she could confute it, but because the baby needed her. The dingy kitchen, the unwashed dishes and pans, and the smell of the cabbage cooking in scorched milk did not affect Esperanza as they had affected her husband. Five years ago the parsonage kitchen had become her world. She was not a rebel by na ture (rebellion sounded of Beelzebub and the fallen FACES IN THE DAWN n angels) and her bringing up in the little northern town still smug with old laws and old customs had led her to be grateful even for the little she had. She had jumped at Adam, when he unexpectedly marched in at her father s front door one noonday, in his best pastoral black, and rather gloomily and unenthusiastically proposed to her; and she had told herself since, times over, that if she had the chance to jump at him again, knowing now what that jump signified, jump she would. For when at long inter vals a feeble protest spoke in her she quieted it by remembering that it is the wife s place to bear and obey, and gratefully realizing that if she had re mained single she would have not even a kitchen. She would be cooking everybody s cabbage but her own and minding everybody s children. Besides, she had loved Adam, loved him with the gushing Schwarmerei of seventeen for thirty-four, loved him very intensely indeed, the first six weeks of their engagement, and she loved him yet (somewhat as she loved her uncles) when she had time to think about it. The baby needed expert attention. Esperanza how the guests at the wedding had jested on that name, pointing out with bibulous elaboration how very hopeful was the outlook for a large brood where the very name of the future mother signified hope Esperanza, cooing and making sweet, mean ingless words, soothed his fretting heart, put into his hands a cup decorated with flowers and a motto : 12 FACES IN THE DAWN Guten Appetit! and attacked her dishes once more. Had Adam stepped on the threshold then he might have forgotten damnation and the end of all things for a moment in the pathos of that slender dun figure washing dishes. She was always washing dishes, he would have remembered, and she was always being interrupted and she was never through. Five years ago, when she had come to the parsonage, sandy- haired, red-cheeked and monstrously proud of her self for being married, she had let her house-clean ing go for a day, and somehow she had never caught up. And then the babies. Their coming had set her back. Probably there would be some unwashed dishes in the kitchen till she died. This possibility did not worry her vastly. She told herself that she was doing her best, angels could do no more. And if she were less pretty than she had been, that was too bad, but did not matter much. For Gott sei Lob und Dank! she was married. Her looks had held out long enough to achieve the one victory society absolutely required of her; and now that the victory was won they might rest in peace. And piously she remembered that the Lord regards beauty of soul far above the loveliness of the body. Esperanza left her dishes abruptly, wiped her hands on a greasy towel, and started to peel the potatoes for supper. A moment she listened for the scratch of Adam s pen in the adjoining room or for the rumble of sonorous sentences, for Adam had a way of composing aloud. There was no sound. FACES IN THE DAWN 13 He was still in his iron cell, she mused with a sigh. The little lady of the parsonage was right and at the same time wrong. Adam was certainly not indit ing a fresh Christmas sermon, but Esperanza s men tion of Gudrun von Hallern had unbolted the barred door with which his despairs were wont to keep him a brooding prisoner, and had sent his thoughts rang ing over green pastures and beside still waters. He had not seen Gudrun von Hallern for a year now, not since her departure with her lovable, unhappy old father, the Baron, for America. He had won dered whether the year would ever pass, and, when it had passed, whether Gudrun would really come back. She had come back, though Adam had not seen her; but rumor said that the young American who had driven up in the coach with the Manor party from Hiinenfeld would soon carry her off again. The thought held no resentment, only a deep pain. She had been so vital a part of his life for ten years dear Lord! ten years! how they had flown ! It occurred to him that five thousand miles away she could and would be no farther from him than she had been in the Manor-house, and his love found consolation there, not unmixed with bitter ness. He had seen little enough of her the past seven years here and there a glimpse as she gal loped through the narrow lanes of her father s woods or down the highway to Hunenfeld; and now and then a word as they met by a sick-bed in the H FACES IN THE DAWN parish. She had never suspected, and never would suspect, that she was the gold thread twisted for good or ill, but twisted eternally, it would seem, with the brown and gray and black threads of Adam s life. His love was his soul s one invaluable treas ure, which he cherished, miser-fashion, all the more because no one but himself knew how he descended his cellar stairs on lonely midnights and clinked the coins. He drew a sheet of paper under his hand and tried to write, but his thoughts would not be bound to theology. They flew back down the years to the time he had first come to Wenkendorf, humiliated and ashamed with failure. His spirit had seemed withered grass ready for the oven, and he had gone about his work with no gleam of enthusiasm or love for the peasant-folk he was to teach and exhort and lead in godly ways. Then he remembered how one day a girl of twelve in a battered red felt hat had come to the parsonage with a basket of cherries. Life, that day, took on a sudden glow that cooled somewhat in lonely, later years; but even now he felt a remnant of the old warmth, and he knew, even through his bitterness, that that remnant would never wholly depart. He recalled winters passing into springs, springs into summers, summers into autumns, and the dancing figure a radiant part of each, as Gudrun unfolded into thirteen and four teen and fifteen and needed to be confirmed. Then began his golden time, the half year he set apart in FACES IN THE DAWN 15 a precious cabinet from all other half years and years of his life; for twice a week now he went to the Manor-house and taught the little girl her cate chism. What a wonderful pupil she had been, so quick, so eager, so devout. He could see even now the dark bright eyes, troubled at intervals by the disharmony of her father s house, but not yet sad dened by the loneliness that was to come. The rankling shame that had been all that his Silesian pastorate had left to him had dwindled, as all things that were born of the depths naturally seemed to dwindle and expire in the presence of this restless gleam of sunlight, this warm being all tenderness and fancy, who was half a wood-sprite (with her touch of wood-magic and wood-deviltry) and half a childish Saint Teresa. Adam recalled how the ar rogance of his youth, broken with the humiliation of his fiasco at Stromau, had died in the light of Gudrun s candid eyes, and a new, inspiring humil ity had been born. He had seen from the start the chasm that separated him from this child of an other birth, but it was with a heart uplifted rather than resentful that he had watched the chasm widen as his devotion grew. And now, gazing down the years, he knew that he had never been closer to God than on that warm Palm Sunday in April when he had confirmed her. The pastor, sighing deeply, dipped his pen in the ink-pot and wrote the word : Text. Then he groped among the scattered books on the table for his 16 FACES IN THE DAWN Bible and turned to his old standby, Isaiah, for a thunderous verse. But the leaves, slipping through his fingers, ran back into Solomon s Song of Songs. "Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me," he read. And once more his thoughts fled from theology into the ancient hills. There was a crash of broken china in the kitchen; and a wail, that had no place in the secret hill-roads his mind was traversing, rose up and gathered strength. Adarn stalked to the door with a snort of fury. As the pastor once more filled the opening with his black bulky frame, Esperanza cowered in voluntarily as if the genie had popped out of the bottle and was making a move to devour her, pans, dishes, kitchen stove, babies and all. He spoke with suspicious softness. "Esperanza," he said with a reproachful resignation that was a bit comical coming from those stern lips behind that ogre s mustache, "did something break?" "Yes, Adam." Oh, very far away was her voice, as if a great wind were blowing and carrying it over the downs to sea. "What was it?" Frightened, she answered: "Your cup." "The one the one I asked you always to be very careful with?" "Yes, Adam." There was a pause. The child, left to itself, had FACES IN THE DAWN 17 stopped crying and was looking up with bland de light at the sudden excitement. But Esperanza knew those pauses. In her far-away voice she said, "I m sorry, Adam." "Sorry? Any child can say that." Oh, there was sarcasm in those tones. u You might have been sorry before it happened and given your child some thing else to play with." Another pause; then with a bit of the pulpit thunder Esperanza had always admired so much: "What am I to drink out of now?" The question was a poser. There were the ordi nary coffee cups and there were the tea cups, dozens of them, unwashed, about the room; but Esperanza knew how Adam scorned these "thimbles," as he called them. "I don t know," she said helplessly. "There s a goblet " The pastor slammed the door, so that the house shook with the slam. Esperanza had no nerves to speak of, but she shuddered by a sort of reflex action and sighed a little tearfully as she passed the half- peeled potatoes on the table without a gleam of recognition and took to her dishes once more. In the adjoining room the pastor s anger at his violent recall from Elysium had somewhat cooled. The slamming of the door had brought a manner of relief. A slammed door was to him the final, unanswerable argument. The very bigness of the noise meant power, and the sense that it symbolized the greatness of his wrongs and would be ringing 1 8 FACES IN THE DAWN in Esperanza s ears even after he and the spoken words had gone supported his theory of its polemi cal value. He subconsciously enjoyed a real row, moreover; he enjoyed his wife s discomfiture, since she was responsible for so much discomfort of his own, he enjoyed supremely his own despairing wrath; and often when a row threatened to peter out he would feel subtly impelled to inject fresh oxygen. The slamming of the door was, in the code of the parsonage, the formal declaration that arbitration had failed, that the ambassadors had been given their passports and that real hostilities were about to commence. But it symbolized even more. To the little washed-out heart in the kitchen, as to the stronger, tyrannical heart in the study, it symbol ized isolation. Esperanza accepted it as she ac cepted everything else, with the meek subjection of the slave-girl who is grateful for a roof and crumbs and the occasional tempestuous affection of her lord and master. Centuries of grandmothers and great- great-grandmothers who honored and obeyed where they did not always cherish had pitched her into the world with little will of her own and that little pli able enough in despotic hands. Dimly she recog nized that three virtues were demanded of her, prettiness of body, compliance of will, resignation of heart. The first had been a gift from birth and she had spent it loyally in her man s service; the second she had acquired in the first month of mar- FACES IN THE DAWN 19 riage; the third, which was the greatest of all, for it was the essence of each and beat like the inces sant sound of the sea through everything she had ever heard or considered about her sex, the third, which was resignation, she was now acquiring, and would later sanctify with prayerbook reading and psalms when the children grew up and left her time for such things. Esperanza, then, accepted isola tion with what is known as pious meekness. Adam, however, accepted it with a certain grim welcome. He liked to feel his power over even so slight a child as Esperanza, and he liked very much to feel the glow of righteous indignation that was suffusing him at this moment as he stood behind the slammed door and thought how very badly he was treated. Adam was very sorry for himself. He was surer of that than he was of the Apostles Creed or ulti mate damnation. For Adam, ever since he had come to Wenken- dorf, had virtually (though, be it said, also vir tuously) led a double life; and it had never occurred to him that the parallel existences should be, or even that they might be, coordinated. One life, the nobler, contained Gudrun and little else; the other contained the parish and the parsonage, which means that it included the whole world which in these lat ter days he knew. For a brief time during the Gol den Six Months when Gudrun was his pupil, and for a year or so after, his love for her had indeed stirred him to new zest in his parish work. He had studied; 20 FACES IN THE DAWN and he had preached better than ever before. Gud- run filled his soul and seemed to pass like a saving wine into all his activities. Gradually, however, as the Saint Teresa of fifteen had grown into the tom boy of sixteen and the shy, perplexed, uncertainly waiting girl of seventeen, the inspiration had waned. Adam had felt a vague disappointment as from a distance he observed the subtle change in her, the gradual turn to fine clothes and the attentions of young men. She rode dashingly through the woods as before, but oftener than not there was some lieutenant from the garrison at Hiinenfeld at her side, and as they rode past him he occasionally caught some piece of arrant nonsense from herself or her companion that sounded harshly in his ears. After such a meeting he would often moon for hours over a single reverberation in his next Sun day s thunder, trying to recapture a dream; and the ungodly would find him rather more Mosaic than was comfortable. From this period dated the birth of a manner of dream-existence running parallel with his everyday life. The actual Gudrun had dis appointed him; therefore he recreated the little Saint Teresa figure and set her on a secure pedestal in his innermost self, where, when occasion offered, he tenderly worshiped. It was not a thoroughly living being that he enshrined thus; he had too little imagination. It was merely a beautiful, shadowy memory, never potent to upstir him as the real Gudrun had done. On the contrary, his love for FACES IN THE DAWN 21 the dream-figure was directly responsible for much of his irritability and violence of temper; for he set this love in a niche apart from the rest of exist ence and resented the strident contrasts to it that life brought. And often he was most unbearable when he had been closest to what to him was holi ness. The sound of the slammed door was still tingling, not uncomfortably, in Adam s ears when he seated himself at his desk again, prepared to attack the new Christmas sermon. His preparation in this case consisted principally of a thoroughly disagreeable mood. Damnation was his theme, and a mild form of temporary damnation seemed to be his state. For a sense of the cussedness of life was upon him, beak and talons. Animate beings (with one exception or two) were perdition-bound; and inanimate objects (cups, for instance) were possessed of devils. The air was full of owls and imp-wings. Things had always gone wrong, things always would go wrong. Life was the breaking of nice coffee-cups one after the other. Adam rose to his feet with a defiant fling of his body and strode across the room, blowing out his frosty breath like a bull snorting rebellion. That cup ! His wife should have known how he treas ured it. For Gudrun had given him that cup years and years ago. Well, probably his wife had broken it on purpose. (Oh, unction to the tried spirit.) He remembered other pretty cups Gudrun had 22 FACES IN THE DAWN brought down, when he held bachelor s hall in the parsonage. Esperanza had smashed them all long since; and Gudrun, of course, would come to the parsonage no more. And how was he to buy a new cup with a family and his paltry few hundreds a year? For an instant came the memory of days long before that family existed, jovial days in Sile sia until the crash, and, earlier yet, vagabondage days on the highways of the Tyrol and God knows where else, in Italy and the Alps. He suddenly ached for the highway and the hills. He turned to the window. There were no hills here. He could discern a straight line of low cottages, shadowy through the snow, and above them the gaunt, snow- laden boughs of old lindens. Roundabout he knew was the windy land spreading with its elevations and depressions, monotonous and level as the sea, to the sea s gray shore itself. There was no zest in this northern country, only gray skies and the sharp salt air and the biting blast over the heather. He turned his eyes southward, remembering that though Stro- mau and Wenkendorf were covered with his shat tered crockery, no cup of his had ever broken in the south. The round spot in the sky, shining like a silver plate, was dipping toward the horizon, ending its brief voyage. Adam knew it must be three o clock or thereabouts, and high time that he map out the firstly, secondly and thirdly of his new Christmas Sermon. He sat down at his desk, as he had sat FACES IN THE DAWN 23 down a half-dozen times in the past hour, and dipped the long penholder with its souvenir bust of the Old Emperor at the top (dating from eighty-eight, the Dreikaiserjahr) into the ink-pot. At that moment Esperanza opened the kitchen door. The potatoes had recurred to her mind again and she had stopped her dish-washing. Be fore she began the peeling process once more, it occurred to her, however, that she might pacify her spouse. u Adam," she said. "Don t you think one of the coffee-cups Aunt Sophie gave me might do? They are almost as large as " The pastor started up, overturning his chair. "Go ! Go away !" he cried. "I can t stand you !" He glared at her as the tears filled her eyes and rolled down her sad, placid cheeks; then abruptly threw on the cape that hung on a nail nearby, and his little green hat with the feather (oh, relic of the Tyrolese wander-days), and stalked out of the house. CHAPTER II IN WHICH APPEARS A ONE-TIME SAINT TERESA WITH A YOUNG MAN FROM WESTOVERSEA . THE snow was coming down in thin flakes as Adam opened the heavy oak door that led out into the world. For an instant he stood on the threshold, affected he scarce knew how or why. But he was a peasant s son and he loved the out-of-doors; and in spite of his inner turmoil the beauty of the wintry dayVend was suddenly singing to him. There was a heavenly peace in that wintry landscape. The row of little plastered cottages was utterly still, the great shrouded lindens were still. Save for the flickering wayfarers of the snow, there was no motion at all on the earth or in the air. No man passed, break ing the smoothness of the wintry carpet; no lamp shone yet to indicate human activity within. Over creation lay a peace that Paradise might envy. The pastor felt it all for a fleeting second; then with three angry strides he crossed the little garden in front of the parsonage where in summer Esper- anza always planted nasturtiums and despondent fuchsias, and turned sharply to the left. He had 24 FACES IN THE DAWN 25 his own reasons for turning to the left, instead of to the right, which led nearer the woods he was seek ing. For the right-hand road led past the Manor and he avoided the Manor always, for the peace of his soul. The Manor-house spelt Gudrun and a love that had never even approached the foothills of hope; but it typified other blessings too, which he might hope for but presumably never would attain. For one thing it stood in his eyes for comfort of the body, which meant much to him. He knew well enough that there was no superabundance of joy within those gray walls; but the routine of life at least ran with uninterrupted smoothness. Meals came and went and came again five times a day as simply as dawn comes, or the postman. And they were never scorched, he felt sure of that. Sorrow, he mused, must be easier to bear when meals come on time. In two minutes he had escaped the village and was turning left again, past the blacksmith shop (where a bearded man in a leather apron who had left a leg at Mars la Tour greeted him with a cheery: " N Abend, Herr Pastor 1") and down a narrow road flanked by half-grown plum trees. Right and left were open fields stretching on the left to a line of tall spruce where the Manor s park wall ran, and on the right for a half-mile or more, billowy and through the snowflakes, mysterious, to the bordering woods. Sugar-beets had covered these fields last summer, he remembered, and he had 26 FACES IN THE DAWN often taken his boy and girl here to watch the rab bits that scampered among them. The snow was deep and made walking slow, so it was half an hour before he had covered the mile to the black line above the whiteness where the for est began. The woods welcomed him with a quiet so intense that he was almost afraid. They were young woods, mostly half-grown spruce, hemlocks, and balsam firs, with here and there a tall oak or pine of an earlier generation watching serenely over the slender growth. In spring they were always an intoxicating maze of fresh green bough-tips; now they were somber, for the snow lay heavily on the hemlock branches and night was stalking among the stems. Adam walked down a lumber-cut in the direction of a favorite bench of his that stood on the only elevation within miles and gave some view over the level country. On clear days you could mark a bright silver line under the sun that was the Baltic, but even on snowy dusks such as this you might dis cern east and west a dozen manor-houses with their farm buildings like huddled chicks beneath huge linden boughs. The spot, moreover, had associa tions, and Adam for that reason had sought it out so often that it seemed his own personal property, though he knew well enough it was on the Baron s land. It was on this bench that Gudrun, just turned fifteen, had eloquently described to him the struggle she was having at home not to be sent to a busy- FACES IN THE DAWN 27 body maiden aunt in Berlin for the six months instruction her mother wished her to take under a fashionable court preacher preparatory to her con firmation. She loved Wenkendorf and the untram- meled outdoor days, and dreaded as she would im prisonment the cramped city life. Her father had sided with her, as he generally did, dreading on his side the loneliness of the Manor with only the mel ancholy placidity of the Baroness for company. The pastor remembered that the decision hung fire a month, for the Baroness, for all her piety and resig nation, was never an easy lady to budge; and it was here on this bench again that Gudrun told him with bright eyes that she had won. That, with the later dusks when he had borne the dream out of the vex ations of daily life for an hour s silent revival, fur nished the bright side of the bench s associations. The dark side, which no beauty of sunset or sum mer fragrance ever let him ignore, was the memory of one June evening when he had come with racked soul, fleeing from the rumor the garrulous old coach man had dropped at his door, that Fraulein Gudrun was engaged to a young count in garrison at Hiinen- feld. He had always known, of course, that some day she would marry, but he never let himself be lieve that anyone short of Theseus would be able to win her. And Count Max, though a man of breeding and many scattered, half-developed talents, was no Theseus at all, but beneath the attractive exterior a very commonplace, butterflying sort of 28 FACES IN THE DAWN Prussian officer. The pastor hated him for his superficial grace and for the laying bare in Gudrun of a less noble strain than he had ever imagined could be in that lost St. Teresa of his. For the girl, he told himself painfully, must be somewhere akin to the man she had chosen. On that sorrowful dusk Adam severed himself definitely from the Gudrun of eighteen, and it was a year before he found even his dream-figure again; finding her, as he seemed to find so much of his joy and pain, on the bench in the woods he was approaching. But that bench had seen mighty conflicts meanwhile and suffered for six months complete desertion. For Adam in his dis tress had suddenly gone and married Esperanza, and Gudrun a half-year after she had celebrated her engagement, with all the attendant ceremonials of love-feast, public announcements and photographs in "Sport und Welt" had broken it. The pastor was glad to remember it all as he plodded through the heavy snow, for it helped him to forget the sordid present. He remembered his misery when Gudrun, looking ill and unhappy after the fire and water of gossip she had gone through following the broken engagement, had called for mally on his wife. For the first time he had felt almost a right to take her in his arms and comfort her in her sorrow; for even he, who was not analyt ical, realized that her sorrow was partly grief over a dead hope, partly disappointment and partly hu miliation; and therefore akin to an old sorrow of his FACES IN THE DAWN 29 which he hid from all the world, even from him self when he could, but knew was blazoned on his heart in fiery letters STROMAU. Her sorrow seemed to bring her close to him; and through the pang of seeing her thus with his wife between them as mark of his infidelity ran the joy of the knowl edge that her spirit had not been satisfied with the superficial glamour Count Max had offered her in place of love, and had taken up its journey among the spheres again. But he uttered neither his agony nor his joy, nor, needless to say, did he take her in his arms. He was more than usually silent and stiff, so that thenceforth Gudrun, deeming herself unwelcome, kept away from the parsonage. Adam strode moodily through the snow. How like a happening of yesterday it all was ! And now five years were gone. Gudrun was farther away than ever a crystalline niche-figure set among stars and he, poor plodder on a stony highway, was older and duller and harder and more unhappy. The bench was occupied. Two figures, black against the mother-of-pearl sky, were seated there gazing over the white lands. The snow had ceased. In the hollows, very dark and clear against the white fields, the scattered manors stood out long, huddled roofs, gray walls that seemed black in contrast to the pure whiteness of the snow, stark trunks and overhanging limbs, with here and there a pine or a cedar coldly immortal among his mortal, deciduous 30 FACES IN THE DAWN fellows. Through the crisp silence came now the lowing of cattle calling the milkers, and from an other hollow the melancholy baying of a mastiff. A sleigh jingled busily down the highway to town, ten miles away. The pastor saw and heard it all, for he had stopped, wondering whether to turn or to proceed. He could not identify the intruders. They were a man and a woman, so much only he could see, and at the woman s feet lay a black shape which was presumably a dog. The sky was growing brighter now as the clouds melted, and the pair on the bench blacker, more distinct in outline, but more unrecog nizable against it. He watched the silhouettes a mo ment, puzzled to know who they might be. A faint suspicion stirred in him, and a minute later the woman turned her head and the misty sunset lit to flame the shapeless red felt hat she wore. Adam recognized that hat with a sharp pang that raced through his veins, leaving fire where it went. It was the lineal descendant of another red felt hat in whose band clusters of cherries had hung one June day ten years before. The woman under it was Gudrun von Hallern. The pastor felt his blood ebb and flow about his heart with a thunder as loud as the surf; for as he watched he heard them speak in such low tones as the first creatures of earth must have used, fearing the eavesdropping stars. The man spoke low and she answered with a sudden quick lift of her head FACES IN THE DAWN 31 that Adam remembered was characteristic even of her early girlhood and that told of a message of eyes saying things that the lips could not frame. The two were silent for a minute, then slowly the woman s hand crept over to the man s. Adam felt a burning in his soul, a crying that was anguish, not for the Gudrun there before him, nor for the dream- Gudrun, but just for youth, youth, youth ! The girl drew back, retreating, it seemed playfully, from the man. Then, when the pastor somehow was least expecting it, came the blow. For they kissed. Adam shrank back into the trees. The voice of his own youth centuries away cried to him that the place was sacred ground which he must not pro fane. Misery like a ghastly hand was squeezing his heart. Youth ! He seemed to forget that it was Gudrun he had seen, for the cry in him was not for her, but for the radiance he had suddenly di vined in that hand groping for another hand, that head thrust back, that kiss the golden moment he had never found, when the soul of man is all ten drils reaching toward the sun. He backed into the woods. He was suddenly, unaccountably humble. He must not break in on their hour. He must go and go swiftly, for through the anguish for youth gone by began to beat the pain of his own tender ness for the slender shadow in the red felt hat. A dead bough fell in his path with a crash that stirred not the lovers at all but woke with a start the dachshund at their feet. He jumped up, lis- 32 FACES IN THE DAWN tened an instant with waving tail and palpitating ears; then, with a bark, stirred his comical little legs to incredible swiftness and made straight for the pastor in the thicket. The shadow-girl drew herself quickly from the shadow-man s arms. "Scamp, Scamp, you rapscal lion! He s after a bird. I ll teach him." She rose to pursue with a quick energy that spelled hard times for Scamp; but the man held her, laughing a deep- toned laugh as she struggled. "But I don t want him to get a bird, Jimmie. Let me go, please. I ve been working for years trying to train that beast and now you spoil every thing." The shadow called Jimmie evidently did not re lease his hold much, for through the brush the pas tor could see a struggle against the dulling sky. He saw no more for a minute or two, however, for Scamp had arrived and was offering his trouser legs attentions which the pastor did not view with favor. "Go way, go way!" he cried. Scamp, the dachs hund, did not go away, neither did he seriously fol low up his first threat to bite. He contented him self with merely dancing in canine ecstasy about the perturbed pastor. "You presumptuous young man!" cried a vigor ous voice from the bench. "Now we can see right off who s going to be boss. Let me go ! I warn you!" FACES IN THE DAWN 33 "I ve only had you five minutes," pleaded the young man. "And I can t let you go yet." "Just see if you can t if you try." This with a struggle of a right arm freeing itself. "Nope," said the man with final decisiveness. "I ve thought it over. Can t be done." The girl s free hand described the necessary semi circle and came down none too gently on the young man s left ear. Involuntarily he relaxed his hold. "Oh, you Xantippe !" he cried. "Now I ll never let you go !" But the girl was out of his arms and away down the lumber-cut before he could tighten his hold again. Scamp was still barking, and she plunged with strong, free strides into the woods in the general direction from which the sound came. The woods were dark, but there was no underbrush and it was not two minutes before she was upon the errant Scamp and his quarry. She recognized the pastor at once, though she could not clearly see his face. She knew the great, hulking, black form, and her greeting was cordial. "Good evening, Herr Pastor!" she cried. "Scamp ! Come here ! Naughty Scamp I I am so sorry. Scamp! He didn t bite you, did he? I was afraid he was after a bird." Adam pulled off his hat with the peasant s obse quiousness, which means that there was no grace in the action, only a scramble to bare the head. He mumbled something that neither he nor the girl un- 34 FACES IN THE DAWN derstood, but it made no difference, for at that mo ment the young man, who had lost his way, came up. u Poor bird!" he said as he joined the girl. The pastor did not understand, but grew suddenly rigid, took a step toward the American and clapped his heels together. "Pastor Samuels!" he cried. The American was just a bit dazed. For a second he had feared an attack (being a frontiersman, and not knowing the temper of the natives), then an almost overwhelming desire to laugh at this black statue inhibited speech. At last he gathered his senses and held out his hand. "Oh, glad to meet you. My name is Hammer- dale." He spoke English still, that being the only language he knew. The pastor could understand the tone, though the words were lost on him, and, suspecting that the stranger had done his part in the ritual of introduction, relaxed. There was a moment s pause. The pastor was tingling with the presence of Gudrun after the long gap; meanwhile, staring at the American, as he tried in vain through the dusk to discern the features of this man who had come, as that other had come five years before, to take away the daughter of the Manor. He could see that he was medium-tall and strongly built. His voice bespoke power, courtesy and possibly a kindly heart, without, he was glad to note, the gallantry he detested in the officers who had come wooing from Hiinenfeld. The rest was FACES IN THE DAWN 35 dusk and mystery. The man was still a shadow against a bright sky. Gudrun hesitated, then broke the silence. "Herr Pastor/* she said, "do you want to know a secret? I m engaged." This news did not startle the pastor. The scene on the bench had been self-explanatory. But he did not try to offer conventional wishes or benedictions, for he was listening to friendly, tender things that were echoing around the words she had spoken. They seemed to say (or did he, who was sensitive enough, but not very imaginative and not at all sub tle, merely dream it?) : "You know what this means to me. That other was a flash in the pan but this is real and abiding." She took the young man s hand as they stood side by side. "This is my boy," she spoke. "And he s very nice when he s not ob stinate, but when he is, I have to spank him. But he ll learn. Husbands have to be obedient nowa days. I learned that in America. And I m going to make my American husband toe the mark." She spoke laughingly; and when Gudrun, on request, had interpreted, the American laughed too, a quiet, good- natured laugh. "They all talk that way," he said, turning to the minister, quite forgetting that that gentleman knew about as much English as Scamp the Dachshund. "But they eat out of our hand in a week." Gudrun laughed softly and happily, not derisively at all. There was a quiver in the laugh like the 36 FACES IN THE DAWN quiver of moonlight on a brook. Her hand sought her Young Man s. It did not have to search long, for the Young Man s was searching too. She gave it a quick, warm pressure, and as she did so she felt her eyes fill. She hesitated a moment to control her voice. "He s an old idiot, Herr Pastor," she said softly. "He s trying to tell you what a tyrant he is. But he s the one who has given me strength and taught me how a woman can really be a comrade to a man. Oh, he s swept my head clear of a wagon-load of cobwebs, and made me feel independent and really useful for the first time in my life. I really believe that if we live long enough Jimmie will be able to persuade me that it was important that I should have been born." The American divined the gist of her words and did not laugh this time. He pressed her shoulder hard as he would a man s and under cover of the falling darkness kissed the black hair under the red felt hat, pretending that he was bending down to break a twig off a bough that was threatening her. The pastor observed the proceeding and un derstood, though his mind was attempting to form some reply to the girl s speech. He found it diffi cult. The point of view was new. Besides (Gud- run or no Gudrun) it was moonshine. It was hard for him to collect his thoughts. They seemed to be wandering like sheep about that indis tinct, black hill that was the girl s head, browsing FACES IN THE DAWN 37 in her hair, in the fringed coverts of her eyelids and about the frank, noble heights and depths al most hidden in the dark. It seemed to him hours before he spoke, but the two beside him did not seem to notice his abstraction; for they were telling each other ancient tales with finger-tips, and had forgotten all about the pastor. "Of course it is important that you should have been born," he answered dogmatically, with a touch of resentment, leveled, possibly, against Hammer- dale for not quelling, before this, so patent a heresy. "But that has nothing to do with independence. It is wisely written in the Scriptures that the woman shall serve and obey the man. Her usefulness lies not in independence, my dear young lady, but in service to her husband and her children. It is not womanly for a woman to want to be independent. It is not good for her to have such ideas. They make her discontented and bring discord into the home." Then, in a voice deeper, and it seemed, sincerely re gretful, he added, "I am sorry you have brought back such ideas from that too free country." By a mighty effort the girl willed herself back from Illyria in time to take in the pastor s last words. They made her want to laugh a little, for they re called to her mind one or two occasions in the New World when, for hours on end, charming, but shock ingly liberal, young ladies had flung themselves in vain against what they called, in despair, "the stern and rock-bound coast" of her old-fashioned mind. 38 FACES IN THE DAWN How remote, how unreal, how completely removed from the struggle of life this funny old parson- friend of her childhood seemed, since he regarded her, with her little handful of modern aspirations, as so wicked a radical. But her own defense of cer tain of the cobwebs in her garret which Hammer- dale s broom had finally swept out was still too vivid in her mind to make her reply other than humble. "America has not made me a heretic, Herr Pas tor. And I don t want you to think that I would blatantly speak against what you and so many people I care for hold sacred. But I have learned to think that a certain kind of discontent is a cardinal virtue. That," she went on softly, "is this bad man s fault. He has made me divinely discontent" she looked up into Hammerdale s face with the old, swift lift of her head that made the pastor s veins burn again, and added so faintly that only he heard for whom the words were meant "and, oh, my Jimmie, di vinely content." What Jimmie thought of the presence of a third person at so critical a moment is locked away with many other interesting things in his own private archives. But he boldly kissed her in spite of it. They walked home together, all three silent and full of newborn thoughts like buds in May, not quite full grown for utterance. Night, which had been close upon them in the woods, was still a good half hour away in the white fields under the low gray FACES IN THE DAWN 39 canopy. The air was sparkling and lent vigor to their steps and courage to their souls. They drew it into their lungs and responded to it. The burn ing heart of each flamed to its gusts and, for a space that seemed stolen out of time and set apart upon a hill in eternity, the three marched through the snow together, nobly akin. It was easy for the girl and her lover to forget themselves that happens to be the inevitable con comitant and, perhaps, the essential virtue of falling in love. But for the pastor to walk among the angels unconscious of his sad lot so soon after what had proved a particularly successful row with his wife was a different matter. As a rule he did not let heaven or earth interrupt the regular succession of crescendo, double forte and gradual diminuendo of his indignation and self-pity. Love, it seemed, was moving him as it moves the sun and the other stars, though in no way that he could even remotely understand. He felt no wrath at all now, but neither did he feel any of the poignant longing of his dream- hours nor any regret that life should be other than it was. It may be that he felt nothing at all; cer tainly he thought no thoughts. Perhaps it was that the world through which they went was surcharged with beatitude and his spirit was unconsciously im bibing; or, perhaps, that a sense of companionship he had never known, that the crystal air only and the mysterious, dreamy hand of the twilight gave, as with divine potency it drew veils and veils, making 40 FACES IN THE DAWN queens bowers out of barns, was upon his heart. But, however it came about, the pastor s heels that had been sluggish were winged now, and his being was a rosy suffusion. A wall of tall, black pines, looming taller and blacker every second, hammered on the consciousness of the three pedestrians until gradually it woke them from their dreamy state to the wintry world again. The wall was the western boundary of Wen- kendorf Manor. Behind it, dimly visible through bare beech-boughs and snow-laden firs, lay the Manor-house. It was a stately pile, square, gray, austere. There were tales enough running from mouth to mouth of the sorrows that Manor-house had seen, the latest not the least. They were vague tales but for that reason all the more alluring to listen to and to pass along. All that the village really knew was that the gentle-souled old Baron was growing grayer and grimmer and the pious Bar oness "queerer" and more detached year by year. Lying servants spread wild legends, and truthful ones admitted that the Baron and his lady never spoke with one another. At long intervals some guest from far away would come for a week to the house; from the neighboring manors no carriage ever rolled through the clean, noisy gravel to the stately porte cochere. The house had a cold look in the daytime, as if it, too, had a heart that was slowly petrifying. But on this night it looked very cheery through the twi- FACES IN THE DAWN 41 light. There were lights in the basement windows that was the kitchen. There were lights in the east room of the first floor that was the Baron s study. There were lights in the middle room above that was the Baroness s bedroom. Master, mis tress and servants were accounted for, the house seemed to say. They stopped at the open gate. It was flanked by posts surmounted by spread eagles, and through it the wide road, marked in the heavy snow only by the indistinct depressions of the gut ters, wound to the house. Gudrun spoke. Her voice was low as though she feared the espionage of the great firs, and some of the brightness had gone out of it. "I don t think I ll go home yet. It is so heavenly out here. I don t want to go home yet." She seemed to be thinking aloud, and neither Adam nor the American ventured a suggestion, but stood waiting for her decision. "I ought to go in," she said. For another second or two she hesitated, her lips half smiling at the new spirit of rebellion faintly reflected in her eyes. Then, suddenly, she picked up her skirts and ran ahead down the road, stopped, and a moment later sent a snowball whizzing be tween the heads of the two men, so close to both that both ducked. The girl laughed ringing derision, and ran on. Her Young Man brought her to with a well-aimed ball across her bows. She turned with a great show of indignation, leapt behind a tree 42 FACES IN THE DAWN and showered him with loose snow as he ran up to catch her. Two faces were washed redder and brighter with the clean snow and behind the tree somebody kissed. The pastor walked on after his rather undig nified evasion of the first snowball, a little ruffled and uncomfortable. He did not know how to act. A beautiful girl had never thrown a snowball at him before. He had never stopped to realize that a woman might throw a snowball at all. Esperanza had never been of much value in enlightening him concerning the possibilities of her sex; for Esperanza always strove to do exactly what her husband ex pected of her. She, therefore, merely confirmed what had been unsupported theories and prejudices. That a man, moreover, should retaliate seemed to him a dangerous admission of equality, and at the same time a piece of condemnable disrespect to the pedestaled sex he was not sure which. Anyway, the whole performance was disquieting, for he did not know whether he admired Gudrun more because of this display of her vigorous loveliness, or less be cause she was so much a tomboy when he preferred to keep her comfortably pigeon-holed as a goddess. He joined the ecstatic pair near the church and found them in silly mood, giggling and behaving like idiots. "What do you think, Herr Pastor?" Gudrun called out as he approached. "What do you think this two-year-old boy wants me to do? To march FACES IN THE DAWN 43 up into that church and make you marry us on the spot! He says that s the way he d do the business in Colorado. He doesn t even know about reading the banns. Isn t he a sheep?" Her voice ran up and down the pastor s spine. There was such magnificent abundance of youth in it. But he answered seriously, with due weight, not to say ponderously, "Marriage is a serious institu tion and not to be contracted lightly. You must explain to this young gentleman that this is not free America where " The girl groaned inwardly, but she stepped closer to the pastor and said simply, "You should know me, Herr Pastor. You should know I am not really irreverent. I was joking. Laugh, won t you, please?" He stared at her, but he was puzzled and an noyed and not in the mood for laughter at all. The exhilaration of the walk in the twilight had ended somewhat as the exhilaration of champagne has a way of ending in Katzen jammer. He had been a child, he told himself, a fantastic dreamer led astray by a sentimental pair of young lovers. He half ad mitted to himself that this was not true, but it gave him some satisfaction to blame his lapse from wrath and dignity on someone else, and thus lull his dis content with himself for his helplessness in the com pany of youth. So he did not laugh, but stared rather stupidly at the face, vivid to him even through 44 FACES IN THE DAWN the dark, and unsprung the latch of the parsonage gate. "Will you come in?" he asked in a voice meant to discourage acceptance. Gudrun chose to ignore the hook in the invita tion and answered gaily. "Why, thank you. Of course. I haven t seen the Frau Pastorin since our return. Jimmie, straighten your necktie and brush down that terrible, wild hair of yours." She drew off his cap and smoothed a rebellious cow lick as well as she could, while he stood blissfully acquiescent. "We are going to make a formal call on the Frau Pastorin." CHAPTER III IN WHICH A BARON S DAUGHTER SHOWS THE OGRE S WIFE HOW TO WASH DISHES ADAM had meant to be kind in making his invi tation sound as uninviting as possible kind prima rily to himself, of course, for he wanted an opportu nity to be alone, but kind also to his wife. His indignation against her had died long ago. His con science never, in fact, allowed his wrath long life, and it had passed this time even before the living Gudrun had broken into his meditations on the lost dream. He was able to think of Esperanza with perfect equanimity, and he charitably realized that a call at this hour would be an event akin to a catas trophe. Gudrun would have divined this had she not forgotten in the year of her absence from Wen- kendorf what a fluttering, helpless, dependent body the Frau Pastorin was. But, truth to tell, she was not thinking about the Frau Pastorin at all. She was merely happy as heaven, and was staving off any way she could the return to the Manor-house and its killing gloom. The good pastor did his best to make his voice 45 46 FACES IN THE DAWN sound hospitable as he called through the little house, "Esperanza ! Here are visitors to call on you." But the gladness was forced. Even Gudrun noticed that. There was no reply for thirty seconds at least. Then a faint, resigned voice answered, "I am com ing, Adam." The pastor led his visitors into his study, which was likewise the living-room and, like every other room in the house, the nursery. It was chill, for the fire in the great porcelain structure in the corner that looked like a tomb had gone out at noon and Esperanza had been too busy to undertake the la borious process of relighting it. Also, it was dark; and not until Adam had stumbled over a soft thing that howled when he stubbed his foot against it on the way to the lamp, did the suspicion arise in him that the room was scarcely likely to prove a place wherein to entertain callers. His suspicions proved correct. The lamp revealed various infants, two to be exact, grimy and slobbery infants, lying about the floor asleep or crossly waking. They had evidently been holding high revel in their father s absence, for papers were scattered helter-skelter, ink was run ning, like a black brook under ice, in a thin trickle beneath the torn pages of the Christmas sermon, and books lay open and torn-leaved over the floor. Gudrun saw the blood rise in the pastor s cheeks to his hair and the tips of his outstanding ears. He was wrathy and he was ashamed. The American FACES IN THE DAWN 47 noted it likewise. "Poor devil!" he whispered to his lady. For a half minute or so the pastor watched the scene of devastation in silence. It was his way of making the most of misery, to let it sink in, to absorb it all, then to bellow. When he finally spoke his voice was harsh with uncontrolled rage. "You you you beggar s offspring! * he cried, punctuating his words with cuffs about the ears of his howling progeny. "Unregenerate imps!" He caught one of the babes by the collar. Whether he was about to lay him over his knee then and there, or administer some other form of punish ment which his rage may have suggested, Gudrun and her Young Man never knew. For at that mo ment, Esperanza, with waist not half hooked up the back, rushed in from the kitchen and laid a staying hand on the child s body. From the deep pleading in her eyes and in her tones as she cried, "Adam!" you would have thought she was a Niobe protecting her offspring from a vengeful but curi ously unbeautiful Apollo. The father let the boy slide to the floor. "This is what happens when I go out!" he cried, turning the torrents upon his wife, "my books! my papers!" To all intents and purposes he had com pletely forgotten the presence of Gudrun and Ham- merdale. His eyes flashed anger, a tirade seemed to quiver on the tip of his tongue, ready to descend on the hapless little victim, his wife. He seemed 48 FACES IN THE DAWN to hesitate only because rage made him temporarily speechless. It was a pleasant domestic scene, and the Ameri can watched it with detached interest and amuse ment. People were always a joy to him, and here was a species he had so far missed. But to Gudrun the violent outbreak spelled tragedy, possibly more tragedy than was actually inherent in it, for it re called to her similar scenes in her own childhood, when the language was less crude, perhaps, but the underlying passion no less uncontrolled. Her father had been the silent sufferer, as Esperanza was now. Gudrun s happiness fled somewhere into the dark. She found herself wondering if this were indeed marriage ; and knew the same moment that the ques tion was absurd. "Adam," cried Esperanza in low tones. "Please. We are not alone." The pastor caught his breath, and Gudrun, on the watch, wedged in the saving word. "You must forgive us for coming in on you at this time of day," she said cordially. "I m afraid the dear kiddies keep you busy." The little lady turned to her with quivering lip and grateful glance. "Yes," she answered, sighing. "I was in the kitchen putting the baby to bed and when the other children were quiet in here I thought they had gone to sleep. They did not mean to be naughty. They are good children." "I am sure of it," Gudrun responded, her heart FACES IN THE DAWN 49 warming as never before to the meek little Frau Pastorin. "Tell me about them." As an after thought she presented the American. Esperanza bowed stiffly, somewhat embarrassed. The Ameri can withdrew the hand he held out when he realized that the pastor s wife did not understand that she was supposed to shake it. Esperanza did tell something of the children, but without eloquence. This big one was Adam, junior, aged four; this next one was Klarchen, aged three; in the kitchen-cradle lay Jakob, aged one. And so on. Conversation dragged. The children slipped from thought and shortly after from sight, drifting off into slumberland again under the table; while Gudrun continued what suddenly occurred to her was a monologue. Esperanza watched her humbly, though a trifle distractedly, as though she were lis tening also for sounds from elsewhere. The red blotches on her cheeks were glowing hot. Hammer- dale, in a dusky corner, noted that she was trying, unobserved, to button her waist up the back. Adam offered no help whatever in carrying on the conversation. He sat in his desk-chair with folded hands, now and again twiddling his thumbs agitatedly. There were lines in his face Gudrun had not seen before ; and once, when her mind, wander ing from the purely conventional talk which did not need its presence, recurred to the violent scene of parental despair, and her eyes unconsciously sought out the pastor, Adam s eyes tried stubbornly to 50 FACES IN THE DAWN meet hers, and fell. The pastor was evidently ashamed of himself. And the conversation still dragged and Gudrun began to contemplate flight. But a pot on the kitchen stove saved the situation. The pot was boiling over. It was the pot con taining the cabbage cooking in scorched milk and under Esperanza s eagle eye had merely simmered hitherto. A stern hissing accompanied by an espe cially pungent gust of cabbage-fragrance told the story. Esperanza leaped to her feet with a mumbled apology and fled, revealing to all the incomplete ness of her toilet. In her hurry and embarrass ment she knocked over a chair loaded with crockery in the kitchen. There was a fine crash. And, of course, the baby cradled by the kitchen stove awoke and set up a most piercing howl. Gudrun cast her Young Man a comical glance that might have meant a great many things. It might have said: "What do you think of this fam ily?" or it might have said: "What do you think of married life?" And it might have said: "This is better than wet blankets at the Manor-house and we wouldn t be allowed to be alone together anyway. I m going to make a lark of it." Undoubtedly, all of these profound communications were in the back of Gudrun s head, and in fragmentary form and somewhat vaguely they leapt the gap to Jim- mie s. He smiled back. That smile said: "This bunch is a dream. Go ahead. I m having the time FACES IN THE DAWN 51 of my life." There was a postscript in the form of an almost imperceptible wrinkle of a nostril which Gudrun interpreted: "Drop cabbage out of win dow." She laughed suddenly, so that the pastor, who was gloomily sorting his papers, looked up questioningly. A second later she had disappeared. Adam thought the lamp had suddenly gone dim. He sighed. Fraulein Gudrun had gone to help his wife. That was very kind of the manor-lady, thought the pas tor, but where did it leave him? Here he was alone with a stranger, a foreigner and no means of com munication at all. He made a helpless gesture or two that to the Coloradan were very comic. "Don t mind me, old man," he said. "I m very comfortable. And I ve got more things to think about than I could pack in a year s silence." The pastor understood the tone but not at all the words. He smiled feebly, inwardly resenting the American s composure, while he envied him for it. But an inspiration came to him. "Esperanza," called the pastor, opening the kitchen door. "Bring us sherry and two glasses." Hammerdale tried to call a halt, for he under stood the sherry and glasses. "I don t want any sherry, no, honestly. Please don t get it for me. Your wife is so busy." The pastor did not understand even the tone this time, or pretended not to. The American stared at him, inwardly muttering, "The damn brute!" 52 FACES IN THE DAWN and desiring deeply to turn the reverend gentlemen over his knee ; at the same time regarding him with the sort of wonder with which he regarded Indians, Orientals and other aliens whose point of view he could not hope to find. Esperanza came in, dutifully bearing a tray with a bottle and two glasses (not without finger-marks) ; and went, swiftly and without a word, as a good servant should. The sherry was extraordinarily fine, as even the American, whose knowledge of beverages was based on a distant though at the time complete study of mining-town whiskies, noted at once; and he won dered at its presence in this dingy parsonage. But the private cellar-mark of the Manor about the neck explained that; and Adam could have told him that it was a relic of a Christmas box of two years past. The pastor sipped the wine noisily and with evident relish; and Hammerdale produced cigars. The pastor smiled a broad smile of appreciation that showed his large, uneven, battered teeth and seemed curiously to broaden and flatten his sallow face. He lit the long Havana slowly, as if to drag out the luxury of the experience; then passed the matches to his guest. He was at ease at last, find ing it not difficult at all to be silent through an aura of smoke; and puffed stolidly. The American, even under ordinary circumstances a man of tremendous silences (for he had been bred among mountains), drew a long breath, opened a sluice somewhere in FACES IN THE DAWN 53 his head and luxuriously leaned back in his chair as the tide of dreams rushed in. In the adjoining kitchen Gudrun was battling with her not always controllable tongue. The squalor of the place brought horror to her soul. She was an excellent housekeeper herself. For years now she had carried the keys of the secret places jingling in her apron-pocket, and man, woman and germ in the Manor-house flew at her bidding, adoringly but not without fear. For she was born with the Hal- lern temper, which the uncles, aunts and cousins of the family considered an ancestral glory to be passed on undiminished from generation to generation; but which Gudrun viewed as a humiliating heritage of a line of self-centered martinets, a barbaric thing to be ashamed of and to crush. She knew perfectly well what she would do if she ever found a servant of hers smugly contented in a Gehenna like the parsonage kitchen. She would box her ears first and send her to her room for the day on bread and water. Then, when she was sure of her own control, she would deliver the damsel an address on the cleanliness which is not next to godli ness but is godliness, that that lady would pass on to her children and children s children to the fourth and fifth generation. Obviously, she could do noth ing of the sort with the little Frau Pastorin. A tenderness, moreover, which she never let herself feel for her servants (lest affection ruin the service 54 FACES IN THE DAWN and so the servant) , possessed her for this helpless creature of babies and unwashed dishes. The sud den intrusion of the pastor, with his calling for sherry as though he were in a restaurant, heightened this feeling. "Oh, men are selfish beasts !" she cried impetuously over the cradle. Esperanza let a plate that she was washing fall and break in her horror. "Oh, Fraulein Gudrun!" she cried, inexpressibly shocked. Gudrun smiled to herself and thought of her own Young Man. "Some men, I mean," she added. "Oh, yes, of course, some men," said Esperanza and went on with her dishes. Gudrun regarded her, marveling that such blind devotion could be. The baby would not be quieted by the mere rock ing of the cradle, so Gudrun took him up in her arms, feeling a sudden thrill at the wriggle and squirm of arms and legs. Such a wonderful mech anism, she thought, and such a mite of a body. The mechanism included lungs, and vigorous ones at that. Gudrun laughed at the black cavity of the screaming mouth, at the tight little pig s-eyes, at the funny nose that wasn t a nose at all, but only a hope. And she sat down and turned the infant on his stomach as she had seen real mothers do, and paddled him with infinite tenderness to the tune of a Brahms lullaby. Guten Abend, gut Nacht! Mit Rosen bedacht, FACES IN THE DAWN 55 Mit Naglein besteckt Schlupf unter die Deck : Morgen friih, wenn Gott will, Wirst du wieder geweckt. Guten Abend, gut Nacht! Von Englein bewacht, Die zeigen im Traum Dir Christkindleins Baum: Schlaf nun selig und suss, Schau im Traum s Paradies. The yowling could not hold out long against the lullaby. The baby opened his watery eyes once and closed them again, evidently satisfied. Gudrun felt a sudden rush of love to her lips and she kissed the child with a passion that surprised the little Frau Pastorin at the sink, and surprised and annoyed her self when the wave receded and left her for a mo ment cold. She was sure the child s mother was thinking her affected or at best extremely gushing. For a minute she stared across the room, biting her lips. What a fool she was, her eyes said. The baby was asleep and did not stir; and grad ually the regular breathing became in turn a lul laby to her suddenly ruffled spirits. When Es- peranza was not looking she drew the child closer; and when the mother turned again she pretended he was not yet asleep to draw out a little the piercing joy of the warm body in her arms. Her analytical mood had quite passed by, supplanted by a tender- 56 FACES IN THE DAWN ness less tempestuous than the last but deeper and more poignant. Throughout her being seemed to wake one voice after another as the light crept up and filled the shadowy places. It was like a June dawn in her birds everywhere and morning wind and indescribable fragrance, and each leaf coming to glory in the gradual day-rise. Gudrun had held babies before, impersonally and as a matter of duty, but with little even of the con ventional tenderness demanded by society in the pres ence of these marvelous little torch-bearers. She had never thought about motherhood very seriously. You married and then you had babies, one, two, three, four and so on. Now and then one died. That was too bad, but not a matter to pale and pine over as she had seen bereaved mothers do. The supply was so evidently inexhaustible. On the whole, babies had seemed to her the rather decidedly earthly part of an otherwise heavenly prospect. Gudrun smiled dimly, scarce knowing that she smiled, at her own foolish misconceptions, going a little cold as she remembered what she had thought (centuries ago) about babies dying. How very young she had been until this afternoon. She thought of foolish, harmless things she had said and done even this very day, and they seemed remote as if they had happened in another existence. Years of experience seemed to have passed since she had broken with that self-centered middle period of youth on the bench in the snowy woods. FACES IN THE DAWN 57 Distantly, like the half-heard patter of children s feet running from afar, the mother-rapture woke in her. Her heart fluttered and seemed to stop, then beat into wild tunes, and joy that burned like white steel, and made the tears spring in her eyes, made her throat husky and silenced her song. She shouted in her soul, a child, a child ! It was all so natural, so like the procession of the stars love and then the rapture of love returned and then the yearning for the child. The wonder of the divine succession rushed through her being like a great wind. The tears flooded her eyes and ran in rivers down her cheeks. Esperanza looked up from her dishes at the sound of a sobbing sniffle meant to stem the deluge; and stared in amazement. "Oh," she cried with instant sympathy. "You are unhappy." She dried her hands hurriedly on her apron and tried to lift the child from Gudrun s arms. Gudrun held him a second pressed close to her breast before she yielded him; and it seemed strangely as though she were giving up a child of her own when Esperanza picked him up, rather ungently, and laid him, soundly sleeping, in the crib. And still the tears flowed. Esperanza knelt down beside her. "You are un happy," she repeated, assertion of the fact and query as to the cause both in her voice. Gudrun managed at last to smile, and her smile opened dim, unexplored chambers in Esperanza s heart, for it was all the world like the long, golden 58 FACES IN THE DAWN shaft that breaks the cloudbank after a rainy day. The tear-stained cheeks shone with it like wet foli age. The dark eyes wonderfully shone, and over the whole face was the radiance of a joy so deep that it was almost impersonal; a hallowed joy, in which the merely earthly Gudrun, that ate and drank and ordered dresses from Berlin, dwindled into in significance, and the immortal being that loved and aspired stood in the little kitchen like a white tower of light. Gudrun, holding the babe in her arms, had surely come face to face with the eternities. Esperanza did not repeat her question. It was not necessary that she should, and, besides, her own voice was suddenly unmanageable and would not utter any words at all. For she was awed. These tears of the Manor-lady were tears of joy, she re alized to her own amazement; and such tears she had never shed. "I am so happy," Gudrun said at last with a queer vibration in her tones that lost itself between a sob and a giggle. "I ve just got engaged. I didn t think he loved me. He told me that he did, but I never quite believed it could be true. I m so dif ferent from the women he s known all his life splendid, free women, oh, so much stronger and bigger than I. But he does love me. The way he looked at me in the woods made me see. So it s all settled." She pulled herself together and added, with a foolish attempt at brusqueness, "It was that bawling brat of yours that made me cry." FACES IN THE DAWN 59 Esperanza did not quite dare to embrace Gudrun, but she came very close. "Perhaps you will have a little one some day," she whispered faintly as if she feared that the furniture would throw up hands and feet in horror at her indiscretion. Gudrun, strong and stalwart, laid her arms about the little woman as a comforting big brother might, staring through the walls at the dimly discerned par adise. "That s what I was thinking," she said. Esperanza was just a little bit shocked that a newly engaged girl should have such thoughts; but she pressed Gudrun s hand, nevertheless. And Gud run kissed her; and they were both amazingly happy. Gradually, as her exalted mood faded into a bright rosy background, Gudrun took in her sur roundings once more. Her first marvel was that so poverty-stricken a parsonage could contain so many receptacles for grease and dust; but she remembered that the wife of Adam s predecessor, a childless old lady who had died at Wenkendorf, had come from a rather well-to-do family in the neighboring town and, having inherited a houseful of kitchen utensils, had thus remotely been the cause of Esperanza s fall from domestic virtue. There was pretty china here, all nicked, alas, and all helter-skelter; bits of true onion-pattern and even a battered half dozen French plates and an English piece or two, all look ing very cast-down and forlorn as though they knew they were members of a noble line who had started 60 FACES IN THE DAWN life brightly, but had made a mess of it. There was no denying the mess. Gudrun only marveled at Esperanza s courage in attacking it at all, however ineffectively. Her housewifely instincts rose as to a challenge and her energy, never lagging, and now stimulated to fresh power by her happiness, responded as a sail responds to the wind. She tied on an apron that she discovered doing duty as a dish-cloth and plunged in. "Oh, Fraulein Gudrun/* protested the parsonage lady. "You mustn t." "Frau Pastorin," responded Gudrun, elbow-deep in greasy water. "I can t help it." Esperanza cast an uneasy glance at her visitor, for she seemed to note the faintest hint of reproach in her tones. "There are so many dishes," she said, with a sigh which comically suggested that she was uttering a philosophic generalization. Her momentary glow of happiness went out. She won dered dejectedly whether the Manor-lady was think ing her shiftless. It was an uncomfortable thing to have to worry about; but, fortunately, at that mo ment Adam opened the door and cast the two weary infants neck and crop into the kitchen. She had an excellent excuse therefore for forgetting her dejec tion and the troublesome dishes, which she did promptly; applying herself with fussy vigor to the children s supper. Gudrun washed and washed. She suspected that FACES IN THE DAWN 61 Esperanza would not miss her conversation, so she let her mind slip into pleasant sun and shadow places, dewy and fragrant, where it seemed to find another mind awaiting it that spoke to it many delectable things. And the dishes seemed to pass from squalor to brightness scarcely less quickly than her thoughts. Esperanza was amazed after she had filled the chil dren s plates with cabbage and other indigestible things ten minutes later to see how one pile of dishes and pans under the sink had dwindled. "How quickly you work!" she cried enviously. Gudrun laughed. "Oh, it s as easy to do them quickly as slowly." "I suppose so," said Esperanza dubiously, as though the idea had not quite filtered. There was a bawl from the table. Young Adam had made a lunge for a piece of sausage on Klar- chen s plate, and Klarchen was protesting vocifer ously. "I ll go on with the washing," said Esperanza after she had arbitrated the quarrel, "if you would be so kind as to watch the children." Gudrun thought the time had come to inject a truth. "No, I ll stay right where I am. I find it s best to do one thing at a time or I never do get through." "I suppose that is a good idea," said Esperanza slowly, as she sat down beside the children. The bird on the little cuckoo-clock from the Black Forest, which had been the pastor s gift to his bride 62 FACES IN THE DAWN at their wedding, flung open his shutter, cuckooed six times and retired behind a slammed door. "Donnerwetter!" cried Gudrun, forgetting her manners but not her dish-washing. "I didn t know it was so late. They ll be worrying at home, I m afraid." "You have been so good," said Esperanza, as she rose from her seat behind the babes. Her voice was low and humble and very grateful. u You washed so many dishes." Gudrun was still elbow-deep in dish-water, the splash-rub-clatter, splash-rub-clatter, as each dish was drawn out of Avernus, dried and laid shining as a saved soul among its redeemed fellows, going with the regularity of a gasoline engine trained never to miss a jump. And she did no more than raise her head and laugh softly as the study door opened and Hammerdale appeared, stared and smiled amusedly at the very domestic scene and particularly at his particular lady splash-rub-clattering by the sink. "Little lady," he remarked, "don t you think there ll be the riot act at home if we don t beat it pretty soon? It s six and we were due at four-thirty." He cocked his head a little to one side in the manner of an aesthete studying the color-values of a sunset. "Remember, they don t know yet that I ve taken on forever and ever full responsibility for your well-being; though I shouldn t wonder if they sus pected my aspirations in that direction since I ve lit tle-yellow-dogged your trail for some six thousand FACES IN THE DAWN 63 five hundred miles." He spoke slowly, luxuriously, somewhat the way the pastor in the next room was smoking, as if it were a new pleasure to talk openly of these things and he wanted to draw it out. "I don t want to go home," said Gudrun in the same half-stifled tones she had used as they stood in the snow outside the Manor gates an hour or so before. "I don t want to have to tell them about us, yet. I don t want to be dragged out of the stars into a family conference, dear. You don t know our family conferences." Her face was wistful as it bent over the dishes but brightened as she added, "and I do want to get these dishes washed for once." She spoke English, of course, so Esperanza, who was watching the two, fascinated by the easy com- panionableness, could only stare but could feel no offense. "I tell you," Gudrun cried with a joyous impulse. u You go home and say the pastor has invited us for supper, and I can t refuse. They ll protest, of course, but you ll fix things up. They do respect you so much more than they do me you distinguished foreigner." This last with half a sigh. Then she turned to Esperanza. "I am having such a happy time. May we stay to supper?" Esperanza looked at her rather stupidly and tried to conceal her embarrassment by tucking one of many wayward strands of hair in the place approxi mately where it had started the day. "You are very 64 FACES IN THE DAWN kind," she said. "We have so little to offer. But we shall be greatly honored." "I d rather you d be pleased," Gudrun said, smiling. The little woman looked into her eyes very simply and whole-heartedly. "You know I am pleased." Gudrun s faintly patronizing smile at the parson age lady s confusion faded before the sudden, open simplicity of her manner and the look of devotion in her eyes. "Run to the house as fast as you can, Jimmie," she said. "And run back faster. Bye- bye!" Jimmie went, but she ran after him to the door. "Don t forget to put on your rubbers," she called. "Got em on !" came back the cheerful answer. "Good-bye!" she called again, forgetting quite that there was a sleeping baby within six feet of her. "And come back soon!" She hesitated, then, remembering that English was safe in the parsonage, shouted boldly, "Sweetheart!" You would have thought the Manor-house was thirty miles away. By the short-cut over the wall and through the orchard it was exactly three hun dred yards. CHAPTER IV IN WHICH A DREAM COMES TO LIFE AND PROVES DISTURBING IT was a full half hour before Hammerdale re turned, rosy with the snowflakes on his cheeks. "I m sorry if I seemed slow," he said, as he drew off his rubbers, indicating each, as he removed it, with a special gesture that was meant to imply that he was the most obedient of lovers. "I made the trip going and coming under the record, but your father and mother, and particularly your mother, seemed to want a rather lengthy explanation as to whys and wherefores." Gudrun, persistent as time, was still washing dishes, and looked up from the dish-pan with a cloud in her glance. "I was afraid of that." "Your mother, I regret to state," Hammerdale continued in a slightly harder tone than was usual with him, "suspected that I had you off somewhere unchaperoned. I explained at length." Gudrun did not look up this time. "I am sorry. I wish she had trusted us," she said, and her voice, too, was a little hard. "Ever since I broke my en- 65 66 FACES IN THE DAWN gagement to Max it has been an obsession with mother that everything I do is naturally wrong be cause I do it." "She was pleasant enough about it." "Of course. Dear mother, she can t be severe." Esperanza, entering from upstairs, where she had put her two elder jewels to bed, saw that they were troubled, and thought in her blessed innocence that Hammerdale was peevish because supper was not ready. "He must be hungry," she said to Gudrun. "Tell him we ll have things ready soon." Gudrun kissed her. "You dear thing!" she cried. Esperanza, as it proved, was oversanguine, for it took her another stiff half hour to set the table and make what was still to make of the supper. Gudrun did not help her. She stayed tenaciously by her dishes, allowing the splash-rub-clatter to be disturbed not even by the presence of her Young Man. That gentleman watched her for three full minutes in silence. "You re a wonder!" he finally cried. "Give me a towel." She handed him something that did service as a dishcloth. "Good boy!" she whispered. But Esperanza was shocked. She went up to Hammerdale and tried to take the cloth from his hand. "No, no, no, no !" she cried seriously. "Tell him no, Fraulein Gudrun. It is not proper." FACES IN THE DAWN 67 Gudrun explained. Hammerdale regarded the parsonage lady with a look of comic protest, and persisted. "No!" cried Esperanza. Jimmie, however, would not be budged, and Gud run laughed softly and happily to herself. Finally she turned to Esperanza. "He s a good man, don t you think?" "No man should wash dishes," Esperanza replied, a little piqued, and bustled about the stove. Pastor Adam joined the kitchen-party when the inner call, which was much more regular than Es- peranza s, told him that it was seven-thirty. He opened the door slowly and filled the opening once more with his enormous black bulk. "Is supper ready?" he asked. "In a minute, Adam," said Esperanza, leaning over her dishes very red-faced from the heat of the stove and the general excitement. "It is time," he answered. His glance, beating down on his wife like a steamer searchlight on a tossing dory, shifted toward the sink, hung there a moment and shifted back. "Since when, Esperanza," said the pastor in slow, sharp tones, "do you make young gentlemen wash your dishes for you?" Gudrun threw back her head, laughing. "I m washing the dishes. He s just helping me. He in sisted. Crazy boy, isn t he?" The pastor did not smile at all. He looked, in- 68 FACES IN THE DAWN deed, as though the earth had opened and allowed his estimation of Hammerdale to drop through to China. The supper was finally ready, and served in the little dining-room across the hall, where an oil-lamp hung high over the table, shedding an uncozy light over the heavy furniture and crazily papered walls. The decorations were what one would expect from Esperanza on one wall a chromo of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtniss Kirche with an inserted por trait of the pious Empress in a very unpious looking plumed hat; and on another an embroidered motto: Was Gott tut das ist wohl getan, a nebulous state ment, which in the code of the parsonage meant that the pastor s grumps were a special dispensation of Providence for the spiritual exaltation of Esperanza, and must in no wise be interfered with. The room was aggressively uncomfortable, as Gudrun and Hammerdale discovered before they had crossed the threshold. The lamp flickered and smoked in its blackened chimney, the figured red ta ble-cloth was soiled and, worst of all, the fire in the porcelain tomb was on its last legs. "Esperanza," asked the pastor in his stern tones, "did you let the fire go out?" Esperanza opened the little brass door and peeped in. "It went out by itself," she said, implying that she had lent no aid in that proceeding. One of the pastor s ominous pauses followed. Gudrun jumped into it. "The kitchen is warm," FACES IN THE DAWN 69 she cried. "Why shouldn t we have supper there ?" "That is true," answered Adam. "Esperanza, take the dishes into the kitchen." The party filed back across the dingy hall, which was cold as Greenland, and Esperanza drew into the middle of the room a table that was clear of soiled dishes for the first time in God knows how long. They seated themselves and the pastor bowed his head. "Lieber Herr Jesu, set Du unser Gast t und segne was Du uns bescheret hast," he said like a well-oiled machine. Then he dived into his supper. Conversation, for the next ten minutes, was in abeyance, for Adam and Esperanza were busy, and Gudrun and Hammerdale, sitting opposite each other, were content to speak with glances and toe- pressures full of meaning. The food was a horror even to Hammerdale, who thought he had touched low water mark in culinary matters in Colorado min ing camps and on a certain prospecting tour he had taken into the interior of Mexico, but admitted to himself (and to Gudrun under the table) that here was a new record. He made his way manfully, how ever, through sausage and underdone potatoes and cabbage cooked in scorched milk and soggy ryebread as holey as chickenwire, marveling at the consti tutions that bore up under this diet day after day. He must have feigned well, however, for Esperanza remarked gratefully to Gudrun that her H err Brdu- 70 FACES IN THE DAWN tig am was kind to enjoy the simple parsonage fare so much. Gudrun s head was full of flying thoughts, speed ing with confusing flutter, wing-tip to wing-tip, across her mental vision. It seemed to her, strangely, as if she were rediscovering the world, or rather, as far as she was concerned, discovering it for the first time. Things looked so very different to the betrothed of Jimmie Hammerdale from what they looked to a lonely and very unimportant spinster Gudrun. As Gudrun, merely, she had as a rule ac cepted her surroundings unquestionably, and when she had questioned at all she had done so with con- science-smitings, deeming herself probably weak or indulgent to rebel against what other women through the centuries had quietly endured. But mat ters were decidedly different now. Unconsciously, she began to see things through Hammerdale s eyes. Wondering in her heart how this or that might look to her betrothed, she began to cast her glance criti cally about, reexamining her world. By the time they were half through supper she was confident that Jimmie would break off the engagement. For how could he know that all her countrymen did not absorb their food like a suction-pump? She sud denly felt herself disliking the pastor for misrepre senting her people so. When Gudrun thought that the meal was far enough advanced to admit conversation concerning other things than the meal itself, she broached the FACES IN THE DAWN 71 subject of the weather. That failing to rouse any active response, she turned to innocent village gos sip, historic events that had occurred during her absence the death of a nonogenarian or two, a mar riage, a burglary, and untold babies. Esperanza glanced toward her husband, evidently not daring to speak before he had spoken; but Adam sat silent, and one topic after another, launched by the now almost breathless Gudrun, turned turtle as it struck the water and sank before her despairing eyes. At last Adam spoke, breaking into the midst of a story of Colorado horse-thieving that had never before failed to hold its audience, breaking into it as though Gudrun had been silent all the while, wait ing for him to speak, breaking into it in a manner that showed without the shadow of a doubt that he had heard not a solitary word that Gudrun had been saying. "And when are you to be married?" he asked, as though they had been talking of nothing but marrying for hours. Gudrun stopped her story in the middle of a sen tence, gasping a little with the surprise of the pas tor s unexpected interjection. The blood rose to her forehead. Her attempt at conversation had evi dently not been a success. She laughed softly to hide her embarrassment, and Esperanza thought her merely bubblingly happy and glowingly beautiful. "I think I think don t you, that that depends a little on what my father and mother have to say when we tell them our news ? You see, Herr Pastor, I have 72 FACES IN THE DAWN not come back from America quite as lawless as you feared. Over there parents have nothing to say at all. It s quite funny. I don t like it. Parents suf fer so much for their children, when they are small, that it does not seem right that, when their chil dren are grown, they, the old people, should be ignored as old fossils who have done their work for the race and must make room for the young strength. It is unjust to the children, too. Respect for father and mother is just a symbol of the devotion the man and woman, when they go out into the world, must yield to law and the state, to humanity and beauty and God. And American children, I am afraid, do not always have the sense of this devotion that we on this side of the water expect." Her voice was low, as though she were unaccustomed to voice her opinions, and were distrustful of their validity. With a wistful smile that was half apology and half a plea for understanding, and a flash of eyes like heat- lightning through a black summer night, she turned from her discussion of general principles back to her own particular case. "I am German, and we Germans are trained to obedience, aren t we? Par ticularly we women. We are very docile. Our high est joy is the joy of loving those who master us. At least, everybody says so, so it must be true." She said this last with a wistful glance of sympathy toward Esperanza, and the faintest shade of irony in her tones. "Therefore, I must be a good girl, and lay my case before my parents. But my Young FACES IN THE DAWN 73 Man over there must get back to his work, and he says he will not go alone. I suspect that we are going to have some drama at the Manor the next week or two. Father will approve, I know, but Mother well, you never can quite tell beforehand what she will say. We may have to call you, Herr Pastor, before Christmas week is over, to restore a Christian harmony befitting the season." The pastor, who had been sitting back in his chair, staring at her hands that lay folded in curiously marble-like whiteness at the table s edge, lifted his head, so that unexpectedly their eyes met. "They can refuse you nothing," he answered. There was a tenderness in the pastor s tone that made Hammerdale look up from his difficult plate, and cast a swift, searching glance at his host. The pastor had evidently forgotten himself, for the hard lines about the eyes and mouth were amazingly soft ened and the flat grossness of the face had been supplanted by a look that was near enough to no bility to satisfy Hammerdale that something was ra dically wrong with some of his previous judgments. Five, perhaps even ten, seconds passed before Gudrun answered. She had been speaking more than half in jest and the pastor s sudden seriousness took her unprepared. She could not, moreover, throw his remark off lightly, for there was something close to benediction in the voice that spoke the everyday phrase. Nor could she explain to the gentleman that he was ignorant as a babe of the curious workings 74 FACES IN THE DAWN of the minds that ruled in the Manor-house. So she smiled a little incredulously, staring down long corridors of memory, as she answered, "I wonder," so softly that Hammerdale scarcely heard it across the table. Adam s eyes seemed to rest an interminable time on Gudrun s face. Hammerdale watched them and, before Gudrun had spoken, he told himself that he knew Pastor Adam s secret. There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of Esperanza eating cabbage cooked in scorched milk. "We are going to live in Colorado," said Gud run, drawing her mind by an effort out of its puz zlement over the pastor s behavior, "Mr. Hammer- dale has a ranch there, and some mines. How many acres is your ranch, Jimmie? Is it five thousand?" Jimmie nodded. "You can t imagine what a heav enly place it is. We visited there this autumn. It s seven thousand feet high and round about are the tremendous mountains where Jimmie s cattle and horses graze. It s miles from civilization, of course a hundred miles to the railroad and fifty to the nearest village. But when we get tired of each other, about once a year, we can run down to Glen- wood Springs on horseback. It s only sixty or sev enty miles and it s almost as stylish as Baden Baden, as long as one does not run beyond the hotel gar dens. And Jimmie has a piano at the ranch. It came a hundred miles over desert country and all FACES IN THE DAWN 75 the ranchmen roundabout reckon time B. P. and A. P. before piano and after piano. And there are horses! There never were such horses!" "You are fortunate to be able to go out into the world/ answered Adam slowly. "You will not be lonely. You have much to draw on in yourself." The pastor s serious tones once more put a dam per on conversation, though Gudrun, trying to pass them off lightly, interpreted them half jokingly. Hammerdale thought to himself in the pause that ensued: "So, that s it, too, parson? You re not so smugly contented here as I thought. Perhaps it s the hunger for the road that makes you growl so in captivity. The hunger for the road is the devil when it gets a man, isn t it, eh? I ve had it myself, thank you. But don t worry that it ll get in the way of our lady s happiness. I knocked the wanderlust on the head at the same time that I garroted De mon Rum. Oh, yes, it was a fine scrap, but a man in Leadville called me a damn loafer and, just be fore I was preparing for suicide by telling him he was a liar, it fortunately occurred to me that he was perfectly right. So that man and I went into partnership, and the Demons had to vacate. I won der what you would do if I started to call you names?" He looked up, as though he thought he had spoken, and was expecting an answer. The pastor s face was thoughtful, as though possibly he had received Hammerdale s message, and were pon dering it. A foot-pressure under the table brought 76 FACES IN THE DAWN a wordless communication from elsewhere. It said: "Isn t he queer? I do my best to make talk and he squashes it every time by some deadly serious re mark. I wish I knew what he means." Hammer- dale found explanations by pedal telegraphy diffi cult, and sent a private message of his own instead. Adam, meanwhile, was quite unconscious of the perturbation he had created. He felt stirred by Gud- run s presence, stirred as he occasionally felt in church, at some great festival, or elsewhere in the presence of a deep sorrow or a true happiness. He felt a sense of big issues in the air. It seemed to him that Providence had been unusually kind in let ting him be the one to know of Gudrun s engagement before all others and to guard the earliest hours of her new life. His heart grew warm. After all, how unchanged she was, he mused, a little sentimentally: in her snowball mood still a bit of the wood-sprite, and, when her eyes grew dark and deep with the glory of the new love, still the simple, devout girl who had seemed a childish Saint Teresa. The dis covery seemed to him of immense importance, for it meant that the dream-figure was a living figure again. His blood suddenly ran swift. Life had a zest left in it, after all, and possibly the world was not entirely perdition-bound. Thus his blood spoke. Gudrun made one more try at conversation. "There is a fine sense of freedom in those lonely mountains," she said. "Of freedom and fellowship. Men and women seem to feel that they are all work- FACES IN THE DAWN 77 ing together. I suppose some are rich and some are poor, but I did not notice any distinctions. And the women I found are cherished, not as over here, because they are weak and have to be sheltered, but because they are strong and have a quick sense of eternal values that men, as a rule, there as here, lack, because they live so close to reality that they are able to perceive only a small section of.it, perceiving dimly, if at all, the relations of the parts to each other and to the whole. These women are striving to do in the world what they have been doing for ages past in the lesser world, the home to cherish and hold high those things which cannot be weighed on the scales of the marketplace, the things of the spirit love for humanity first, and love of beauty and of clean living and of peace. They have been about as successful in their large home as most of us old-fashioned women have been in our little homes, but I suppose the effort counts somewhere, subjectively if in no way else." She laughed a little to hide the hint of discouragement in her tones. "We women seem to be eternally doomed to strug gle without visible results. I wonder what these American women will accomplish?" "A strange land of Amazons," remarked the pas tor disapprovingly. "It is a strange land," Gudrun answered, "strange in some ways as Patagonia. And the women aren t all Amazons, by any means. Many of them are just the silly extravagant things this age seems to find 78 FACES IN THE DAWN particular delight in breeding. They don t stray into the Colorado mountains often, and when they do they die of ennui or become merely bad. And many of the women are just queer. Jimmie s housekeeper, Mrs. Bead, for instance. She was a Seventh Day Adventist, and used to lie in the hammock all of Saturday, giving us barely enough to eat to keep us from starving; and then turn the house topsy turvy with washing and cleaning on Sunday. The loneliness, of course, encourages eccentricity. If there were no people to laugh at us, I suppose we should all be even crazier than we are. There was Mrs. Finerty, too Jimmie, Mrs. Finerty! with her ugly face and her beautiful eyes ! She was rheu matic, and used to talk in the funniest Irish way of the degeneration of these times and women voting. With utter scorn, you know. But every November, Jimmie says, with all her rheumatism she drives over the awful roads to cast her vote. Oh, but they are dear, heart-whole women out there. I never had half as many stanch friends here as I made in Colorado in six weeks ; great women, not beautiful that is, not what we call beautiful over here. Their beauty is more like the beauty of powerful invin cible men, the beauty of erect carriage and strong limbs and cheeks burnt by the sun and the wind. I suppose there is some devil that could get the men drink or fighting or discouragement; but there is no devil made who could get those free, intrepid women." Her voice was ringing clear in her enthu- FACES IN THE DAWN 79 siasm, but it suddenly dropped as she added in tones that were half exultation, half determination, "I am going to be one of them." Hammerdale, gazing up at her with unconscious devotion, understood it all, though she spoke Ger man. To him who loved her, and, because of the unusual intimacy their life in the wilds had made inevitable, knew her rather better than most men know the women they marry, the tones of her voice, and the lights and shadows flying across the dark of her eyes, were almost as intelligible as her spoken words. So he, who had qualms at times concerning the wisdom of transporting a Baron s daughter to the wilds of a western state, cast her a glance of gratitude and admiration and devotion all mingled. Gudrun threw off a little laugh that was like a bit of foam blown off a breaking wave. She was able to imagine that her enthusiasm might seem absurd to others. ( Jimmie, who to outward appearance never took himself or anything else seriously, had uncon sciously instilled that virtue.) She glanced quickly at Adam. If that gentleman, who took himself in finitely more seriously than the hierarchies of heaven do, thought her enthusiasm absurd, he was play acting very well, for he seemed to be listening at all pores. His eyes only seemed distracted, or per plexed, perhaps, possibly mirroring a mind that was being carried into new seas and felt uncomfortable as the familiar landmarks sank below the horizon. Gudrun s eyes met his, and shifted quickly before 80 FACES IN THE DAWN the unaccountable warmth they saw there to the other end of the table. Esperanza had disposed of her dose of cabbage and was leaning against the back of her chair with her hands, grasping knife and fork, stretched on the table before her. She, too, evidently failed to find Gudrun s enthusiasm absurd. But she was not perplexed as Adam was; her mind was not conscious of perilous seafarings. Her face was placid, dreamy, absorbed, like the face of a child hearing a new fairy-tale. Hammerdale s foot under the table said: "Please. Go on." Gudrun went on. "I met one girl there. She was twenty and not large but she was lithe and strong as an antelope. She drove a little wagon twenty-five miles every day, carrying the mails between Meeker, a little vil lage forty-five miles from the railroad, and Buford, which wasn t even a village, only a single house, where a woman with many children ran the family and the post-office, while her husband went fishing. The mail-carrier-girl had to pass through miles and miles of rough, uninhabited country and she car ried a revolver, but she was never molested. I shall never forget her. Her mouth and nose were too large and her whole face was too broad to be even pretty, and her burnt skin was peeling a little and her brown hair was bleached by the sun; but to me she was like one of those marble woman-figures in Athens who hold up the pediment of the temple." FACES IN THE DAWN 81 She paused, wondering again whether she were let ting her enthusiasm carry her too far. The pastor nodded his head ponderously up and down. "Our beautiful old German ideal of women is different," he said. "We would not have our women carry revolvers and do man s work. We honor them too much for that." Adam was sincere, for he was thinking of Gud- run; but Gudrun s lips contracted a little, for she was thinking of Esperanza. "Different parts of the world bring different con ditions," she answered after a pause. "But I think these men and women have much to teach us all." "What could they teach you?" asked Adam half to himself. There was only the faintest emphasis on the last word, but enough to make a flush rise to Gudrun s cheek. For an instant she resented what sounded like empty flattery; but as she glanced at Adam s face she saw how naive and childlike the eyes were. Their simple candor reminded her that Adam was not given to flattery. She answered his question in low tones. "They have already taught me much. They have taught me that men and women must struggle to gether, not singly, as always until now." She laid her clenched hands on the table and her eyes grew darker as water does when the wind blows over it. Her flushed face seemed suddenly a battleground where creation was fighting chaos. "Together, together!" Her voice was low, but 82 FACES IN THE DAWN still her words were like a cry. "Not Esperanza by herself, not my mother by herself, my father by him self, not I by myself, not the thousands and thou sands of men and women who slave from the time their bit of childhood ends to the day they die, by themselves, always by themselves. Together! If men and women could only realize that they are unhappy not because life is inevitably bitter, but rather because they so tragically isolate themselves and each other. Doesn t it seem foolish? We are all so pathetically solitary." "Ah, but Fraulein Gudrun," said the pastor, a kindly gleam in his gray-green eyes, "we struggle on as we must, the man in the storms of the world, the woman in her home. It has always been so, each, yes, each solitary, each in his world." Gudrun leaned toward him in her eagerness, so that in the thrill of her nearness Adam s head sud denly swam and, forgetting all philosophies, he could think only of her hair and her eyes and her flaming cheeks and the love that was kindling his being and making him think he was twenty-one. "There are not two worlds," she cried, "one outside the house and one inside, there are not two struggles. There is only one struggle, the struggle for spiritual growth, and none of us can fight it for the others, but none of us can fight it alone." The pastor did not try to reply. Gudrun s words seemed to come from far away. A rosy haze seemed to hang between them and his consciousness, a glow FACES IN THE DAWN 83 that was youth, and he sat, luxuriously silent, fearing to shatter it with the sound of his own harsh voice. He stared at Gudrun, then at the table, and at last, like a surprise, came the realization that he was not supposed to sit there mute. He tried to frame an answer, but he could think of nothing save the war rior look on Gudrun s face as she spoke. She was not a dream-figure any more, she was not a marble statue on a pedestal. She was a glowing comrade in the battle, as much in need of spiritual exaltation as himself. The knowledge brought a sudden sense of fellowship that he had never felt for her before. Her words came to him clearly now, filtering through the haze: "There is only one struggle, the struggle for spiritual growth, and none of us can fight it for the others, but none of us can fight it alone." Like the rushing of unexpected winds the cry swept through his being: "Why, dear God, could you not mate me with a woman like this?" Adam sat silent. Hammerdale, too, was silent, gazing with eyes deeper than before at Gudrun, who did not seem to see him, but stared into space, breathing deeply. Esperanza raised her eyes to Ad am s and there was an intimation of a new desire in them. "Oh, Adam, if we could you and I " Gudrun threw a swift glance toward her. Es- peranza s cheeks were flushed, and she flushed deeper with embarrassment as she felt Gudrun s 84 FACES IN THE DAWN gaze ; but she laid her hand shyly into Gudrun s out stretched left hand. Adam rose suddenly, and Hammerdale, too, rose. "Have a cigar, parson?" said Hammerdale, rub bing Aladdin s lamp. Adam hesitated, turned, and took one, biting off the end. CHAPTER V IN WHICH THE OGRE OPENS HIS SACRED ARCHIVES GUDRUN and Esperanza cleared the table, and washed dishes until nine. As the impudent little bird on the cuckoo-clock slammed the door behind him on the ninth call, the last plate splashed into the dishpan and clattered, shiny white, on the heap of resurrected crockery on the dripboard. "Come on, Jimmie," Gudrun called. "Now s your turn." Hammerdale jumped to her side and went to work with the dishcloth. "Come on, parson," he called. "Be a sport." It was fortunate on the whole that Adam did not understand any more of Hammerdale s words than the bare summons. If he had he would have car ried the stump of his Manuel Alonzo to dignified retreat in the study. As it was, he bit his lip, flushed, half rose and sank back into his chair. "Nixie," whispered Hammerdale to his lady. But at that moment Gudrun was very sure that drying dishes was a process related to the march of 85 86 FACES IN THE DAWN the constellations. It seemed suddenly immensely important to her that Adam should rise from his comfortable chair behind the end of what had been a noble cigar, take a dishcloth in hand and start drying dishes. "Herr Pastor," Gudrun called, u are you going to help us?" Esperanza was upon her like a panther, shocked nearly to death. u Oh, but Fraulein Gudrun." "The good Lord washed other things than dishes," answered Gudrun simply. Esperanza stood back, not knowing how to reply, and glanced uneasily at Adam. That gentleman flushed a fine brick red and lifted his eyes to Gud- run s. He found no relenting there. Instead, she came toward him with a dishcloth. "Here, Herr Pastor," she said in quite matter-of-fact tones. Adam slowly rose, took the dishcloth as if it were an unclean thing (as on the whole it was) and silent and embarrassed began drying dishes. Angels might have taken up a night s lodging in the parsonage kitchen when Gudrun and her army were through with it, shortly after the cuckoo un- melodiously remarked that it was ten o clock; so neat and clean it was. The pans were all hung in place under the shelves that bore mottoes in burnt wood Blank und rein das muss sein and such like and the dishes were carefully stowed away in cupboards in the kitchen and the icy pantry adjoin- FACES IN THE DAWN 87 ing. In setting away the dishes Gudrun showed herself machiavellian, for after placing just enough of the common crockery for daily use in the kitchen cupboard, she crowded the rest into the glass closet in the pantry, locked the door and dropped the key behind the flour-barrel. She smiled at her wily tactics. They were all very happy when they finally gazed about the shining kitchen, for after the first few minutes of constraint Adam and Esperanza had gradually relaxed, gradually forgotten themselves, and, catching the contagious gaiety with which Gud run and Hammerdale went about the work, become gay themselves. Soon Esperanza was humming a folk-tune and Gudrun took up the words: Da streiten sich die Leut herum Wohl um den Wert des Gliicks. Der eine heisst den andern dumm Am End weiss keiner nix. Da ist der allerarmste Mann Dem andern viel zu reich. Das Schicksal setzt den Hobel an Und hobelt beide gleich. Adam felt a warm feeling go through him for he used to sing that song in student days. Soon he, too, was humming, to the amazement of Hammer- dale, who, it seemed, did not yet know his Adam. 88 FACES IN THE DAWN And soon Hammerdale himself caught the strain, whistling it softly with variations as a man may who boasts a piano on his ranch. At last Gudrun and her Young Man from West- oversea stood at the kitchen door, saying good-bye. As Adam saw her standing, erect and strong, it oc curred to him that there was nothing grotesque in such a one going among Amazons. One could im agine her in battle. He avoided a farewell in the lamplight, for his emotions were still too near the surface to risk a meeting of eyes ; and bustled ahead to the front door. Esperanza, whose heart was bubbling over, bent over quickly as she held Gudrun s hand an instant, and kissed it fervently. "You have been like an an gel," she whispered. Gudrun kissed her cheek; and Esperanza s uncus tomary joy came to the boiling point once more. "I don t know why I should feel so happy," she cried. They parted, and Gudrun joined Adam and Ham merdale, who were waiting for her in the arctic area. A minute the three stood in the clear, cold out-of- doors before they spoke the final good-night, for the moon was dazzlingly bright on the snow and the little street of low cottages and overhanging linden-boughs, snow-laden, seemed a fairy snow vil lage out of Hans Andersen. Adam and Hammer- dale shook hands warmly, speaking each in his own language the conventional phrases, to hide from each FACES IN THE DAWN 89 other the sense each seemed conscious of, that this hand clasp was the seal upon a memorable event. "Parson, you re a good sort," added Jimmie. Gudrun, too, took the pastor s hand once more, and Adam, remembering the flushed, eager face, and his own rapturous imbecility, wondered with a thrill what words she would choose wherewith to crown these magic hours. Her hand lay in his, warm and firm. He let it lie limp (till she withdrew it, won dering at his jellyfish grasp) lest if he should press it at all he should press it too much. "You have a good wife," said Gudrun. Adam did not answer. Gudrun and her Young Man strode off through the heavy snow. For five minutes the pastor stood bareheaded in the cold air. The night was holy as a church and full of half-heard prayers and litanies and starry hymns ; and he stood motionless, almost unbreathing, to receive the benediction of the pure beauty round about. It seemed to him that the world was dis tant, and spoke inarticulately of things no longer familiar, and that the stars spoke a language he could far better understand. He breathed deeply, and with that breath he seemed to return to a com prehension of earthly affairs. He saw his garden- fence and his gate, and the row of cottages on the other side of the street. They were the same as they had been that afternoon when, wrathful and despondent, he had stood in that very spot, ponder ing grimly concerning damnation and the end of all 90 FACES IN THE DAWN things. What strong wind had come and swept away his despairs? He tried to recall the events of those six hours. There was only one the meeting by the bench in the woods. The rest was only a succession of moods, induced by a succession of unexpected flashes along his cloudy horizon. What strange moods, sunlight and shadow! What northern lights ! What figures, stepping over the rim of his empty existence, bearing a torch? It was Gudrun again, he cried in his soul, Gudrun as always. But a new Gudrun than the one he had worshiped for ten years no longer Gudrun, the ivory statue in a niche, the bright dream-being who made the surrounding world appear so dark, but Gudrun the comrade, groping toward the mountain- tops, the fellow combatant in whose eyes creation fought chaos. He turned from the wonderful night and re- entered the house. Who would have thought, he mused in the simplicity of his peasant soul, that women had their spiritual struggles too; that they were not all either goddesses or wives? For here was one woman, at least, who was fighting to achieve a deeper understanding, as he had read in books that men who become saints or preachers or poets some times fight. The resolution leapt in his heart: he, too, must struggle henceforth, if only to keep living the thrill he felt now of their unity. The question occurred to him whether Esperanza had ever had her spiritual struggle. He knew she FACES IN THE DAWN 91 had not. Her struggle had all been physical, a struggle against dishes and babies and meals, never against spiritual darkness. He closed and bolted the door. Esperanza, bright-eyed, was waiting in the study for his return. "Wasn t it wonderful?" she cried, as though she had had a vision. Adam mumbled something unintelligible and sat down at his desk. "Good-night, Adam," said Es peranza timidly. "I am quite tired. I am going to bed." He allowed her to kiss him and even spoke a hurried "sleep well," as he bustled about among his papers. When she was almost out of the room he turned and called her. She came quickly to his side, for his voice was unusually kind. "You are a good wife," he said, somewhat as a man might say the Apostles Creed, not because he knew it was so but because Authority had pro pounded it. Ecstatically, the thrills jostled one an other up and down Esperanza s back. She threw her arms about Adam s neck. "Oh, I want to be I do!" she cried. Adam sighed a little, but she did not hear that. In very girlish, silly fashion she kissed him indis criminately on cheeks, eyes, ears and nose, and was settling herself for the evening on his knee, when she felt his hand gently but indubitably pushing her off. "I must work now, child," he said. 92 FACES IN THE DAWN Whatever disappointment she may have felt did not come to flower in the midst of her general hap piness. She cried "Good night," kissed him once more, and was away to bed, gay as a Backfisch. The pastor once more drew some white paper under his hand and once more wrote Text. And once more he reached for his Bible. He turned straight to his old friend Isaiah. The familiar texts, around which he and others had sermonized so often that he need only push a button in his brain some where to turn out a new discourse with a minimum of labor, stared at him with naked bodies and life less eyes as he passed them by. Twelve hours ago, even six hours ago, they would have satisfied him. Now they seemed so utterly dead that he hurried past them, ashamed in his soul of the wordy glamour in which he had once decked them out. He turned the leaves slowly, but no text seemed to satisfy him. For the first time in his career he was endeavoring, though quite unconsciously, to ex press an experience; but the Bible, which to fresher eyes was a living fountain, to him had become a dried-up river-bed and would give him no vital drink. Every line he read had its associations of the class room or the pulpit that sounded above and below and through the ring of the wisdom itself. There was nothing there that would crystallize the emotions that, in no wise understood, were coursing through him. He closed the book at last and laid his folded FACES IN THE DAWN 93 hands on the cover. "I have found something," he said to himself. "What is it I have found ?" He opened the Bible once more. The leaves slipped from his fingers, and suddenly and so unex pectedly that it gave him a little shock the page of family annals lay before him. There were the dates of the birth of his parents, and his father s death, his own birth, confirmation, matriculation at the university, and admission to the ministry; then the dates of his various pastorates, first in Posen, then at Stromau in Silesia, then at Wenkendorf. There was a cross after the Silesian dates, which meant, possibly, crucifixion. Then came dates and brief memoranda of a dif ferent character: "June 15, 1902, G. v. H. brought me a basket of cherries." That was less tragic than the Silesian cross, but rather more indiscreet and revealing. The next entry ran, "December 24, 1902, G. v. H. gave me a pair of slippers." Notices of other gifts fol lowed. Then came the significant entry: "October 14, 1904, G. v. H. told me that I am to confirm her." Then, "Palm Sunday, 1905, G. v. H. s con firmation." And under it, "To-day I was one of the Twelve." Adam, glancing over the entries, caught his breath a little at this and a fleeting look of happiness flut tered at his lips, ran along his cheeks and passed away in a cloud of pain. "Easter Sunday, G. v. H. s first Communion. Isa. XII, i. Oh, Lord, I 94 FACES IN THE DAWN will praise thee : Thou wast angry with me. Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me." There followed hereupon a lapse of two years without record. Then came: "December 12, 1906. G. v. H. s first ball." Ten more dates followed, one below the other. "December 24, 1906. G. v. H. gave me a coffee- cup. "August 1 8, 1907, G. v. H. engaged to a man who is not worthy of her. "August 20, 1907. Adam Samuels engaged to Esperanza Kiste. "November 10, 1907. A. S. and E. K. married. "February i, 1908. G. v. H. s engagement broken." The dates of the birth of his three children and the death of a professor at the university who had expounded Isaiah to him followed. Adam dipped his pen into the black ink-pot and under the last wrote : "Dec. 23, 1912, G. v. H. engaged to Tchimi Hammertehl from America." He took a sheet of his thin, overworked blotting-paper and carefully blotted the last entry. Then, just as he was about to close the back cover on the book, he dipped his pen once more into the ink and under the entry wrote: "God keep them." CHAPTER VI IN WHICH A MELANCHOLY PERSONAGE ENTERS THE STORY AND LEAVES IT AGAIN (TEMPORARILY) BECAUSE OF A HEADACHE GUDRUN and Hammerdale took the longest way home, past the blacksmith shop and the farm build ings, now dark, deserted and silent, toward the huge, snow-burdened trees through which the Manor lights were shining. u Who would have thought, 1 said Gudrun at last, after a long silence, u that the parsonage would turn out to be a fairy palace? I don t think I ve been so happy in years." She gave a short laugh that some how was not entirely gay. "I m almost ready for the pleasant reception I suppose is waiting for us at home." "Your parson is a jewel," remarked Hammerdale. "He should be set in gold. But for the way he treats his wife he ought to be put in jail." "He is a good man," Gudrun answered thought fully. "I suppose you ll laugh at me, but I adored him when I was fifteen. He gave me lessons twice a week and he always treated me as though I -were 95 96 FACES IN THE DAWN somebody very important, which made me feel warm and happy. He was often harsh and always dog matic, and he taught me a lot of things that aren t true and that Fve had to work hard since to for get, but he gave me the best he knew, and I am grateful to him." They walked on in silence, passing through a wicket-gate in a tall arbor-vitae hedge and into the Manor park. "It is nice, you know," she went on, "to have someone imagine you a superior sort of being, even if you re not. I wonder if he would like me at all if he knew what trouble I sometimes have to be just ordinarily civil? And I don t think any of the noble thoughts that superior people are supposed to think. I have the dickens of a time just living." "I think," mused Hammerdale, "that the struggle just to live, as you understand living, is fuller of nobility than all the thinking-caps in creation." Gudrun pressed her shoulder against his arm. Then silently, hand in hand, they plowed their way up the broad, snow-covered stair and entered the house. The Baron and his lady, who had supped in mute and solitary grandeur at the ungodly hour of nine- thirty, were consequently still up and very wide awake when Gudrun and the suitor from America appeared. The Baron, in fact, was only a quarter through his post-prandial Furst Billow (which, au- FACES IN THE DAWN 97 thorities state, it takes a full hour to smoke) and lounging, as comfortably as anybody could when the Baroness was about, on the living-room sofa. The Baroness sat near, where the light from the tall aluminum-bronze lamp, with its pink shade which swore at the old-rose silk wall-covering and hangings, threw a bright glow on her softly melancholy face. The room, on the whole, was comfortably, if not tastefully, furnished, over-tasseled and over-knick- nacked, perhaps, but livable in a ponderous, old- fashioned way. There were heavy chairs and heavy sofas, heavy pillows, heavy vases, and third-rate paintings on the walls so heavily framed that visi tors used to wonder nervously whether it were safe to sit under them. But withal there was a spacious look about the apartment, for to right and left were vistas through curtained doorways to other, smaller rooms and on the side opposite the terrace windows wide openings showed the dining-room and the ball room beyond. The Baron straightened up at the sound of the opening door in the vestibule, and the Baroness, with a mild, resigned look, laid down her book. Gudrun and Hammerdale entered through the dining-room. "Good evening," said Gudrun shortly. "I m sorry we re late." The Baron and the Baroness received the greet ing with lifted eyebrows ; but there was a difference. Behind the Baron s questioning look there was more than a hint of sympathetic understanding. His 98 FACES IN THE DAWN bronzed, sensitive, slightly cadaverous face with its whitening mustache never could look very stern when his daughter was about, though it could be wrathy in all conscience out among the stables or the beet fields. Something in the blue eyes, which always gave the impression that they would like to twinkle much more than they did, told Gudrun that he was sorry for her plight and would give her silent support, if no more, in the difficulties he ap prehended for her. He was a retired Major, and had done brave things at Sedan and before Orleans, but he was no fighter in his home. u My Gudrun, Queen of Zeeland," he had a habit of saying with a wistful smile, "our whole trouble is that I have a damnably soft heart that no soldier who has worn the Emperor s coat should have." Gudrun always liked the profanity. It sounded so grotesque from her father s sensitive lips. But she liked less the straight, serious look in his eyes when he would add: "Look out, my Gudrun, you have a soft heart, too. Head high, and on the watch!" Though the Baron did not reply audibly to her greeting, Gudrun, then, knew that his feelings were on her side. She knew as certainly that her mother s were not. If that lady s lifted eyebrows and slightly pathetic smile veiled any sympathy at all, they veiled it very successfully. The Baroness sat back in her deep chair, her loose, black silk dress falling in ample folds and giving an impression of the grande dame which was heightened by the black FACES IN THE DAWN 99 cap of narrow velvet ribbons and exquisite lace that sat on her thick hair like a coronet. She had a rather large, fleshy face, large cow eyes, black- circled, and a prominent nose. The slight hook in it, of the kind called aristocratic, the straight up- and-down deep lines in her cheeks and the ringlets on her forehead, formally arranged after the pat tern of a departed generation, gave her a haughty look, which, ever since she had left an unsanitary, mediaeval castle to marry one grade beneath her, she had done her best to live up to. This had not been difficult (though sentiment had tripped her up once or twice in her early youth, once fatally, when she married the Baron) for the castle lay in a forgotten corner of a forgotten principality, owing its con tinued existence indeed to the fact that it lay so far outside civilization that no invading army, coming from south, east, north or west, had ever discovered it. Feudal habits of thought still ruled in those sunless rooms and draughty corridors, among them the conception that noblesse oblige means planting thorn hedges about your heart and mind. The Bar- oness, always mournful and always kind in a sac charine, irritating way, had somewhat the feeling that she was the last of a dying order, and by means of her thorn hedges was keeping back the rude bar barians of the latter days. She sat back in her chair and stared at Gudrun and Hammerdale till the American thought that breakfast would be announced before she would see ioo FACES IN THE DAWN fit to speak. A hymn-book lay in her lap, for she was sincerely pious in an old-fashioned, elegiac sort of way, and could read dull old hymns by the hour and end evidently refreshed. She drummed the book with her thumb until she had the waiting three half hypnotized. Then at last she spoke. "Gudrun," she murmured, "you have never done this to me before." "Why, what do you mean?" Gudrun asked, puzzled. "I have certainly skipped a meal before." "My child," said the Baroness sadly, "to stay out alone with a man at night!" Gudrun looked at Hammerdale with a whimsical smile that seemed to say: "Poor dear! If she knew." Then she looked at her father. The Baron, too, was smiling, a little guiltily. The rueful con fession in his eyes was too much for her equanimity. She sat suddenly down on the arm of the sofa, and laughed, body and soul. "Of course, of course, of course," she cried. "How awful you must think me. But, do you know, it never occurred to me that we weren t doing the proper thing. You see, in America, it was the most natural thing in the world " "Then it is not an accident, but a habit? My child, I am afraid you have become very bold. And your father has been inexcusably careless." "But, Clothilde, I beg you," interposed the Baron, "I trust this young man as I would trust my own son." FACES IN THE 1)AWN:; ; :^ /JJM ; "I would trust no young man with my daughter," answered the Baroness gently but with finality. Then, as though her words had settled the discus sion, she turned to Gudrun again, and spoke in a voice whose tender interest was a little over-sweet, "Did you have a pleasant evening, my dear?" Gudrun, who suspected the gentleness of the tone, answered in the affirmative, none too volubly. "And where have you been?" Gudrun flushed at the question, for it implied that her mother did not believe (or chose to pretend that she did not believe) that Hammerdale had told the truth about the parsonage. Her flush did not help the situation, nor did her low-pitched, slightly re bellious voice. "Mr. Hammerdale told you that we were staying to supper at the pastor s." "And why at the pastor s and not here?" pursued the Baroness, as sweetly as though she were speak ing of tea and biscuits. "We met him in the woods and walked home with him, and he asked us in," Gudrun explained, biting her lips in vexation at the cross-examination. What a baby she must appear to Jimmie ! She had a feel ing, moreover, that her mother did not care a straw where she had had supper, and was merely making up a scene to satisfy her love for histrionics, and to prepare for an impressive exit. "Was there any reason for you to stay half the night?" "You know we didn t stay half the night." \^;::sy;- FACES IN THE DAWN "I hope you will not lose your temper before your mother!" This in tones of deep reproach. "Of course not, mother," Gudrun cried. "But what is the use of cross-questioning me like a naughty child? I told you the truth at the start." "Quiet, child, quiet," the Baroness murmured in a soothing voice that always irritated Gudrun all the more. "You must learn control. You have been allowed to run wild in America." This little thrust was not lost on the Baron, who grinned surreptitiously. "Go on," said Gudrun with a resigned sigh. "You must not be sullen, my child, if I make clear to you that young ladies must not be out at night with young men." "Mother," Gudrun said slowly, "I am engaged to this particular young man." "Potzelement!" cried the Baron delightedly, springing to his feet and taking Hammerdale s hand. His eyes were twinkling like a mountain lake in the sunlight. "Never would have suspected the possi bility." Jimmie laughed. "You say it well." But there were no twinkles whatever about the Baroness. She cried, "Gudrun!" gasped, and clutched her heart. "You tell me that so suddenly without preparation?" "Mother, how absurd! You ve known ever since Jimmie came back from America with father and me that we should probably get engaged." FACES IN THE DAWN 103 "My child, my child, you are young, you can take things lightly. But I am an old woman. What you tell me moves me deeply. I must let it sink into me. I must let my heart grasp it." "Won t you say something to Jimmie?" Gudrun begged. The Baronness nodded her head. "Yes, yes. I cannot grasp it all yet. Let me think it all over. To-morrow, perhaps " She sighed deeply. "You are taking a serious step, child. Remember your previous mistake." Gudrun cringed a little, for she remembered it very well, and remembered, too, some of the rea sons that had led to it. "I have not forgotten it," said Gudrun, standing rigid, with eyes almost shut. The eyes of the Baroness grew watery and a tear or two rolled down her heavy cheeks. "This is a grave hour in your life, my child," she said, taking Gudrun s hand. Gudrun looked down at her, asking herself to what extent this was play-acting, plain sentimentality or real feeling. A lip, quivering realistically, re vealed that the Baroness might actually be sincerely, though she never could be completely, moved. Gud run gave her mother the benefit of the doubt, and pressed the hand that held hers. "I love Jimmie very much," she said simply, "and I think he loves me. We can t tell, of course, what s ahead of us, but I think we are not making a mistake in marry- io 4 FACES IN THE DAWN ing." She held out a hand to Hammerdale. u Eh, man?" Hammerdale gave a wordless answer. "But you are not thinking of marrying?" cried the Baroness, inexpressibly shocked. "Naturally," Gudrun responded. "We can t help that, can we?" The soft brown eyes of the Baroness were full of melancholy when she answered. "Child, child, do not make too great haste. Enjoy this period of your life, the rose-days of your youth, the days of courtship and blossoming love. They are the hap piest you will ever know. Draw them out. You have the bliss of loving and being loved. Do not be over-eager to take on the serious responsibilities of marriage." Gudrun listened for a note in her mother s voice that might reveal that she was thinking of her own engagement-time and her own subsequent sorrows. But she remembered that her mother s courting days had been anything but rosy, having been watched over by a dragon aunt and a semi-insane father. The Baroness was merely sentimentalizing, and Gud run felt something within her grow restless with extreme irritation. "You see, mother," she an swered as patiently as she could, "I should never risk marrying Jimmie if I thought that these court ship days would be the happiest we should know. Besides, we can t wait very long, for Jimmie must go back to his work." FACES IN THE DAWN 105 "In absence/ murmured the Baroness, "lovers can best prove the power of their love." A long silence followed this declaration of ma ternal policy. Hammerdale, who caught the drift of things from the changing expressions on the three faces, crossed the room and studied a fine old red Bartolozzi in a hideous black and gold frame. The Baron frowned and took a step toward the com batants. "Clothilde," he said, addressing his wife. "This is a matter in which I, too, may have a word to say." "Of course, Georg," she responded, raising her eyes. "You know you always have everything to say." "You are joking, Clothilde," the Baron answered. The Baroness shook her head sadly. "I am not in the mood for joking." "You understand, then," went on the Baron, "that I see no reason whatever why the children should not be married before this young man must go back to his work." The Baroness rose to her feet. "I understand, Georg." She laid a soft hand on Gudrun s black hair. "You are young, my child. You have no experience of life. Trust me." Then, without further words, she moved majestically through the dining-room and into the hall whence the stairway led to her rooms. "But, father," Gudrun cried, "it s absurd." io6 FACES IN THE DAWN The Baron nodded his head grimly. "Quite," he said. Gudrun ran after her mother, catching up with her at the foot of the stairs. "You mustn t go to bed yet. You can t decide this matter offhand like this without even telling us your reasons." "My child," murmured the Baroness with her wan, patient smile, "there are other days, many, many other days." "But why should we put things off?" "Let me go, child. I have a headache." Gudrun stood back. Slowly her mother ascended the stairs and disappeared. The Baron looked as if the French had captured Berlin and were camping in the Tiergarten. "Father, why didn t you say something?" Gud run cried as she returned to where her father and Hammerdale were rather disconsolately picking out fresh cigars. "You know perfectly well that mother will be sick in bed now until we promise not to say another word of marriage." "Very likely," said the Baron, meditatively blow ing out a match. Hammerdale had his own cigar well alight be fore he spoke, filling at last the silence which Gud run and her father were evidently keeping open for him. "I am sorry if our plans are going to make any friction in the house," he said. "Naturally, I wish Gudrun to do as her mother wishes as far as possible. But, of course, knowing Gudrun s feelings FACES IN THE DAWN 107 in regard to me and her rather unhappy life here, you understand that I shall have to insist that we be married before, say, before the middle of March/ He paused, then went on more slowly. "I am sorry to have to insist. But you see the situ ation." "But my wife/ said the Baron plaintively. "Have you a calendar?" asked Hammerdale. The Baron handed him a slip calendar with verses from the poets, birth and death-days, tides, moons and bills of fare beside the date itself on each thin sheet. Hammerdale turned the leaves thoughtfully. "If we put it off to the limit, March I3th, it would give us just time to make the boat at Liverpool " "No, no, no," interjected the Baron. "Never the thirteenth!" "All the better," said Hammerdale, smiling. "It ll have to be the twelfth. Would the twelfth suit you, Gudrun?" His voice was firm and quick and al most business-like. "I can be ready by the twelfth," said Gudrun. "And shall we have Parson Samuels do the job?" Gudrun laid her arm over his shoulder. "Of course, Pastor Samuels." "You are very confident, young man," said the Baron, laying his hand too over Hammerdale s shoulder. "I truly hope you may be married when you say. My only joy in life will go with you. Well, I must face that as I have faced other things. I io8 FACES IN THE DAWN am sixty. I have lived out of the stream. I am no longer important to anybody except, possibly, this girl of ours. I do not seem at all important to myself. But you two are under thirty. The world depends on you. Your happiness is supremely important. I trust you may find it. God keep you !" He kissed Gudrun, hesitated an instant, and then kissed Hammerdale on both cheeks. Hammerdale had always laughed at the idea of men kissing. But now he did not want to laugh at all. His throat acted queerly and he felt as he supposed men must feel when they stood before the minister hearing the tremendous words. He drew Gudrun close. When they awoke to the world again the Baron was gone. Gudrun gently extricated herself from his arms. "We are always walking on the brink of tragedy in this house," she said softly. "Father is such a no ble man, and mother is good, but it s always been the way that, when we should have been happiest, we seem to have come closest to misery. We, none of us, know how to live." She paused, went to one of the terrace windows and looked out into the moonlight. "I knew once upon a time, when I was fifteen, but I ve forgotten since. It was so easy then. I said to myself: I want to be good, and I was good, for being good meant doing my school les sons for a horrid governess we had, and my work in the house, and being kind generally, and that was all. And when I was bad, pretty soon I was sorry, FACES IN THE DAWN 109 and then everything ran along simply again. Then, suddenly, I woke up to conditions in the house or possibly they became worse than they had been. I tried in a childish fashion to make things better, and made them still worse. Soon after that mother decided that it was time I should think of getting married I was sixteen, Jimmie. She was living in another century, you see. She bought me fine clothes and invited young men, and I was fascinated by it all. And mother let me read sentimental books even Zschokke ! I don t suppose you know Zschokke, but he wrote terribly romantic stuff that wasn t al ways very decent. And when we walked in the woods together she used to talk of the bliss of youth ful love. I have thought since that it was a form of self-indulgence. It did me a lot of harm. I en joyed it all, I m afraid. Of course, I started to build my own romances and gradually these crowded out all my old ardor to live right above all things. I just forgot. And when my father, who saw what was happening, reproached me in his dear, gentle way, I was sullen and told mother, and there was a terrible scene. It s from that time that mother and father ceased to talk, except when it was abso lutely unavoidable. Mother felt offended and father was just miserable. And, until I broke my engage ment to Max, even father was distant and cold to me, not because he loved me any less, but because he was trying to crush all feeling in his heart." She paused, then went on in lower tones, "Father is a i io FACES IN THE DAWN man of deep feeling. He loved mother very much when he married her and though she made him give up his career and sapped the life of all his talents one by one and he must have been a wonderfully gifted man when he was young he still loves her. That is where our whole trouble lies. Father and I have never been able to strike back." Hammerdale, sitting in the sofa, regarded her with knitted brows and puzzled eyes. When Gudrun finally ceased and was standing with her back to him, still facing the windowpane to which she had ad dressed the greater part of her speech, the puzzle ment in his face grew as he tried to frame an answer. Gudrun was evidently expecting one, for she turned after a minute, saying, "Do you understand?" Hammerdale spoke slowly, carefully choosing his words. "I m afraid I don t quite get your mother yet. She happens to be a type we don t seem to have many of in the West." He held out his hand. "Here, lady, sit down. If you wander about much more I ll start to wander myself and I shouldn t like to do that. Now enlighten me. What s your mother s reason for not wanting us to marry?" Gudrun gave a short laugh that struck Hammer- dale as almost cynical. "Mother has no reasons. She has emotions. It isn t that she doesn t approve of you. She does. You know she s even been rather silly over you. I m sure she thinks it s very ro mantic that I should be engaged to you. But she doesn t want to let herself believe that I m really FACES IN THE DAWN in going to get married; for getting married means a lot of fuss and planning, and it means my going away and the necessity of a housekeeper to take my place and mother likes to shove all that into the dim future. It nearly wrecked the household when father and I went to America." "A sort of chronic nervous prostration?" Ham- merdale asked, groping for light. Gudrun smiled a little wearily. "Mother has iron nerves. The trouble is she can t face facts." "I suppose, then, we are in for some arguments?" "Jimmie, you re still in the dark. Mother never argues. She just obstructs." The smile faded; and she folded her hands in her lap and played with a bead-ring (a childhood relic) which she wore on her little finger. "I m tired, I m terribly tired of it, Jimmie," she said in suspiciously placid tones. "Ever since I can remember it s been the same. Without a word, without a look even, just by the way she s gone from one room to another, she s forced us to live the way she wanted and do the things she wanted, always avoiding crises, never daring to speak the truth or to face it, never daring to touch life anywhere, sentimentalizing everything. Why, all our life here has been just a wandering about among shadows, no goal, no principle, just an aim less passing from one year to the next, because we loved her and weren t able to strike back." Hammerdale stroked her hair with amazing gen- FACES IN THE DAWN tleness, considering the generous size of his hand. "I m afraid this is where you ll have to at last." Gudrun studied the little bead-ring and it recalled to her mind a month on the shores of the Baltic twelve or more years ago when her mother had given her that ring. But this memory was suddenly ef faced by another the picture of her father wistfully looking into her eyes and saying: "Look out, my Gudrun, Queen of Zeeland. You have a soft heart, too. Head high and on the watch!" She repeated the words to Hammerdale. "Head high," he said, bending over her chair. "And your father and I ll be on the watch. And, come to think of it, I shouldn t wonder if the funny parson might make a third." Gudrun did not look up into the face that she knew was bending so very close to hers. She sat, chin in hand, staring into the farther shadows of the room. "Four of us against my mother," she mused half aloud. "I m afraid I may not be an ab solute success as a rebel." CHAPTER VII IN WHICH THE OGRE FINDS THAT SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED TO HIS SPECTACLES PASTOR ADAM climbed out of bed next morning into his frosty room with a sense that life was be ginning anew. He did not express this thought con sciously and probably was not, strictly speaking, aware of it. Esperanza, moreover, serving him his breakfast with all the old docility on the outside, but a new, unnamed impulse within, did not see that he was different in any way from the man to whom she had served some eighteen hundred or two thou sand breakfasts in the course of their married life. She, who felt as though Gudrun had lit up a hun dred crystal chandeliers in her being, marveled in a mild sort of way that her husband could drink his coffee and eat his bread with the same absorption that had characterized his manner formerly. It oc curred to her suddenly that Adam was stolid. She was a little horrified at herself for thinking such a thing, but, on reviewing later Adam s bearlike attack on the breakfast, she decided the criticism was just. Perhaps the fact that Hammerdale, at supper, ii 4 FACES IN THE DAWN though evidently hungry, had not swept the food into his mouth as though it were the last in the world, and a train to catch, affected her judgment. At any rate, the recording angels clapped their hands and sang, as they made the entry in red ink, for it was the first criticism of her lord and master that Esperanza had ever ventured. It meant that a mind as well as a soul was awaking. The criticism, of course, was not just. Adam was not as stolid as his habitual habit of leaning over his plate (with the napkin tied firmly behind) and shoveling in his food, seemed to Esperanza s sud denly sensitive perception to indicate. Spiritually he was leagues from the Adam of yesterday s break fast; for he was hurrying this morning not because he was merely gluttonous, but because he was eager to be through, and about his work. Ideally, of course, Adam, after the spiritual house-cleaning of the previous evening, should not have had any mere vulgar appetite at all. But appetites are tough and have a way of surviving in Paradise or Cocytus. Adam s sense of a new beginning was expressed most clearly by the haste with which he, who was generally leisurely to sluggishness, rose from the table and threw on his cape and hat. Gudrun had thrilled him with her self-revelation, raising, by a word, the struggle of life to a dignity and beauty he had never associated with it. Life had always seemed to him a rather sordid plugging along from day to day; and he had, in fact, found about as FACES IN THE DAWN 115 much pleasure in it as a dray-horse might, seeking his recreation outside life, in dreams and more or less sentimental picturings of very improbable fu tures. But, since last night, Gudrun s words had been ringing through his thoughts and drifting, curiously iterant, through the semi-unconsciousness of his sleep: "There is only one struggle, the struggle for spiritual growth." He had always thought there were a thousand struggles, and they were all little struggles, unromantic, unrelated and scarce worth winning. u One struggle!" That was a different matter. If Gudrun s dictum were true, then he was gaining a step in the great struggle every time he kept his temper when Esperanza tempted him like the devil to lose it; and Esperanza was gaining a step every dish she washed. His mind sprang from point to point with unwonted quickness; but on the last point he poised to catch his breath. "Does Es peranza want spiritual growth?" "Teach her to want it," came the answer from somewhere within him in a new voice he did not recognize. "She is hopeless," his mind answered. "How do you know?" asked the voice. "I have lived with her for five years." "Are you sure?" Adam did not know where the voice got that foolish question and decided that it was meaning less. "Anyway," he thought, "Esperanza is just a woman." ii6 FACES IN THE DAWN "Isn t Gudrun a woman?" That s foolish." Why foolish?" "Can you mention Gudrun and Esperanza in one breath ?" "Esperanza has possibilities" "She can t even manage a house. She can only bear children." "But you must confess she is a good mother" The old Adam reluctantly agreed. "Are all women good mothers?" "I suppose not." "Are you sufficiently grateful then?" "Perhaps not." "Esperanza is very loving." "Of course." "She never complains" "Why should she?" "Are you always loving with her?" "I suppose not." "Esperanza is unselfish" "She merely does her duty." "Do you always find that an easy thing to do?" "No. But I am a man. There are certain obvi ous things that it is easy for her to do because she is a woman. It is easier for a mother to be kind to her children than not. The things she finds difficult she neglects. Housekeeping, for instance." "Do you take sufficient interest in the house keeping?" FACES IN THE DAWN 117 "Why should I take interest? I have other, greater things to think of. Housekeeping is her special work." "There are not two struggles, one outside the house and one inside. There is only one struggle, the struggle for spiritual growth; and no one can fight it for the others, but no one can fight it alone." "Ah!" said the pastor aloud, and looked up, for a sleigh had stopped beside him; and as he looked up he looked straight into the eyes of Gudrun von Hallern. The conversation recorded above, between Pas tor Adam and a certain inner self that was gradu ally emerging from the dust the years had, day by day, spread over it, occurred on the highway that ran between the plastered, thatch-roofed cottages and the high park wall of Wenkendorf Manor. It began at the parsonage door, where the pastor ne glected in his absorption to note the beauty of the sunlit snow-world that made his eyes blink with its brilliancy; and accompanied his heavy, plodding steps as he proceeded toward a neighboring manor where a flinty old laborer with a pair of bad lungs had shown intimations of an eleventh hour peni tence. It was at the gate of the two spread eagles that Gudrun s sleigh, instead of running over him as it might quite easily have done, stopped him in his walk, and stopped the conversation at a point at which Adam was content for the present to let it remain. ii8 FACES IN THE DAWN "Good morning!" cried Gudrun, who looked very fresh and rosy in her furs; and "Greetings, parson!" cried Jimmie Hammerdale. Adam, who was disconcerted and embarrassed by the unexpected meeting, murmured, "Good night," corrected himself, and, very much flushed, shifted from one foot to the other like a school-boy who is reciting a piece and can t for the life of him think of the next line. Gudrun mercifully sup plied it. "Isn t it a wonderful Christmas Eve morn ing?" The parson looked about him as if to see whether it really were, and assented reluctantly. Certain words the buried self had said were still echoing in his ears, making actual, spoken words sound very faint and far away. "We are just starting off for a jingle over to Hiinenfeld," said Gudrun, "and were going to stop to ask your wife to prepare for a visit from the Christmas Man this afternoon. I so want to have a little Christmas frolic and we haven t had one at the Manor for years, you know." Her voice was a little wistful. "You do have a tree, don t you?" "We generally have a little one," Adam answered, "but this year " Gudrun drew the reins tighter, for the gray stal lions had had no exercise for a day or two and were impatient to be off. "You tell the Frau Pastorin that we ll be there about three. And she needn t bake, for our cake- FACES IN THE DAWN 119 boxes at the house are just running over and we ll come with all our pockets bursting with cookies." She hesitated, then added, "Hasn t your wife some quite special Christmas wish? I should so like to bring her something." Adam s eyes, more than his voice, spoke his grati tude. "You gave us our Christmas last night," he said. Gudrun s face grew suddenly grave and she drew a little tighter on the reins. "You do not know what those hours meant to Jimmie and me," she said so softly that the words were almost lost in the jingle of bells as the horses danced, rebellious of control. "We had a rather hard time when we got home. My mother does not quite approve of our getting married." "Oh, I am sorry," Adam cried with all the sin cerity of his love. "Do you think I am doing wrong, Herr Pastor? I am going to Hiinenfeld to have the engagement announcements printed." Echoes of the Third Commandment as he preached it, with the word "obey" grimly intrenched in the seat of the word "honor," woke in the pas tor s head. "I am sorry you are in trouble," he said, hedging. "Am I doing wrong?" she persisted. "It is not easy for you to do wrong." She laughed a little at that, but her voice was low and serious when she spoke. "No, it certainly 120 FACES IN THE DAWN is not easy in this case. It is a pilgrimage on bare feet." Adam remembered, with suddenly glowing heart, times, ages ago, when the little St. Teresa had brought her troubles (lesser troubles for the frailer shoulders) to the catechism lessons in the school room. "Perhaps you had better wait," he suggested .tentatively. A sterner light woke in Gudrun s eyes. "No, I am afraid to wait." "Afraid?" "I know myself, you see," she explained. "I am not used to disobeying my mother. If I waited, I might give in." Adam, the pastor, realizing that his efforts were futile, since Gudrun had evidently wanted encourage ment rather than advice, retired, beaten; and Adam the man came to the fore. He wanted to tell her not to give in though the heavens fall, but the pas tor in him balked at that. What he actually did say was, "You have an upright judge in your heart." Gudrun quickly shifted the reins to her left hand and reached out to him her gloved right. "And you are a true friend," she said. Adam felt the blood gallop in his veins as her hand pressed his firmly. A minute later he was watching the sleigh flying down the highway. More thoughtfully even than before, he went on. But his step was springy and young, for the picture FACES IN THE DAWN 121 of Gudrun, beautiful as the dawn, with the cold air reddening her cheeks and her eyes alternately bright and cloudy, went before him, as her face used to go before him in the days when Gudrun, neither saint nor woman but only a dream, filled his lonely hours. Another face was beside it, the com posed, quiet face, with the touch of sternness be neath the humor of the lips and the gray, deep-set eyes of Jimmie Hammerdale. That face did not disturb his vision of the other. It seemed already to belong with it. Adam did his duty by the scared-o -judgment la borer with decidedly more enjoyment and rather more skill than he had brought to similar occasions in the past. He was not heart and soul in the work, but that for once helped rather than hindered the effect, for he brought from the higher reaches, where his spirit w.as pursuing Gudrun s, a sober ex altation that made him, in his distraction, talk more sense than he was wont to talk when his mind was securely rooted to earth. He left the cottage with a buoyancy of tread which the laborer s ancient mother (a good ninety she was and still about) thought, as she watched him from her spy-platform by the window, inconsiderately vigorous for a min ister who had just promised her son forgiveness of his sins. Adam, indeed, felt cheered by the inter view with the old wretch. He had surprised him self with the wise things he had said. So he marched 122 FACES IN THE DAWN home happily thinking that one disagreeable duty, at least, had been made a triumph because he had felt that, small as it was, it was a part of the one tre mendous struggle. CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH MANY CANDLES ARE LIGHTED ON A CHRISTMAS TREE, AND ELSEWHERE GUDRUN and Hammerdale came promptly at three, but harbingers had gone before them. One such ministering spirit had brought a Christmas tree; no little stump of a thing to set on a table, but an eight-foot, majestic balsam fir whose top scraped against the study ceiling. The two elder children were bustled upstairs when it appeared in the offing, whence they made adventurous sallies of espionage, sliding half way down the banisters trying vainly to catch a glimpse of the Christmas Man. They were disappointed to discover only the manor-gardener s third assistant, a youth of fifteen with sugar-bowl ears, and decided that the Christ mas Man, being a high official, had a subordinate, of course, to do the heavy work for him. Quoth Adam, junior, aged four: "Karl does the carrying because the Christmas Man is so busy doing the brain-work." Assented Klarchen with admiration: u Of course, Adam. How wise you are !" 123 124 FACES IN THE DAWN Quoth Adam: "Of course. And when I am big you can do the carrying and I shall do the brain- work." Klarchen was silent, thinking it over. The second harbinger was the cook from the Manor-house, who, since she ruled, not too leniently, a sub-cook and a scullery-maid, bore the courtesy- title of Mamselle. She was a large, genial-faced woman with a loud voice that rang cheerily through the house, making Adam, junior, frown amazingly like his father, as he cogitated concerning her of ficial position on the Christmas Man s staff. "Funny people the Christmas Man sends," he remarked. "P raps she is the Christmas Man s wife," ven tured Klarchen, trying to make herself believe she did not recognize the voice. "It s Mamselle, stupid child," cried Brother scorn fully. "Do you really think so?" asked Klarchen, dis appointed. "Of course!" Whatever Mamselle s status in the mystic bureau cracy, she evidently knew her business as Christ mas emissary, for the children heard their mother exclaim with delight again and again, and leaned perilously far over the banister to see what they could. But they could see nothing at all and, after ten minutes of uninterrupted jabber, Harbinger Number Two departed. The children rushed to the FACES IN THE DAWN 125 upper windows to see whether the Christmas Man s sleigh was waiting for her outside, for they heard jingling bells. They actually did see a sleigh and it was piled high with mysterious bundles in brown paper, but they noted sadly that it was not the Christmas Man who was driving it, only another subordinate. But this subordinate was beautiful (which was one satisfaction), and they forgot the Christmas Man for a minute as they watched the beautiful lady give the reins to Heinrich the Manor- huntsman and jump to the ground. Another minion of the Christmas Man was at her side unloading the sleigh. A sudden tingling warmth ran through their little bodies as the hope became certainty that the many packages were actually not going to be carried away again; for the lady and the man entered the parsonage with arms laden, Mamselle climbed, still jabbering, into the sleigh, bells jingled and the sleigh was off. "Oh 1" cried Adam, junior, suddenly flushed and breathless. "Oh, Adam," cried Klarchen, and kissed him. There was a pause, whereupon Adam, junior, re marked sternly: "Now, aren t you glad I always made you be good?" Below, things were moving. The pastor was not at home, having been called to a neighbor who had broken her leg on an icy threshold and required his services to justify the ways of God. Esperanza, 126 FACES IN THE DAWN therefore, had the cares of hospitality on her own shoulders, and was correspondingly flustered. Gud- run and Hammerdale, however, convinced her speed ily that they had not come to be entertained, but to work, which flustered the little parsonage lady still more, until she forgot herself in the contagious excitement of her visitors. For the Christmas thrill was running up and down Gudrun s back as it had not done for the Lord knew how many years. There had been Christmases at the Manor-house in old times, celebrated with all the pomp and circumstance the occasion demanded, but with the silence a cold blanket had fallen on all festivals. The Baroness, absorbed in her piety and her Wehmut (which one must translate by the word melancholy, thereby missing the countless sentimental overtones which certainly the Baroness made the most of) , had grad ually pruned the celebration down to a single stately roast-goose dinner on Christmas Day, which to Gud- run was a mockery. She had tried once or twice to revive the old delights, but the spirit was gone out of them. Here, in the parsonage, she was deter mined, those delights should live for her once more before she put them behind her for always with the rest of her old life, or recreated them in other forms in her New World. Hammerdale, who associated Christmas mainly with indigo-blue mining camps, re sponded to her enthusiasm with a boyish abandon that made her marvel happily at the hidden treasures this excellent lover of hers was uncovering from day FACES IN THE DAWN 127 to day. He marveled on his part at her ability to give herself so completely to a sentiment without a vestige of the sentimentality his training had taught him to abhor. So both of them forgot completely, for the time being, the distressful interview with a wistfully smiling but iron-clad mother, and the rather somber drive to Hunenfeld in the morning; and pre pared a Christmas room in the parsonage that the carefree Christmas Man himself could not have im proved upon. They began on the tree, decking it out with chains and balls, trumpets and ships and bells and horses, stars of silver and showers of gold. The Christ- child stood on the topmost spire and about him and below stood a ring of angels exquisitely fashioned. "Jupiter!" cried Hammerdale, "we certainly roamed the attic to good effect." "Oh, there s five times as much as this some where," Gudrun answered, her voice warming as she remembered those Christmases of long ago. "Why, we used to have a tree fifteen feet high. I remember I used to nip off good things from it by leaning over the rail of the balcony above the dining-room. I stole one of the Christ-child s little angels once. You count. There are eleven up there. IVe the twelfth over in the school-room yet. Every Christ mas since we stopped having celebrations at the house I ve pulled him out of the drawer and had a little celebration of my own. One year I even had a tree. It was one foot high and carried exactly 128 FACES IN THE DAWN three candles. But I loved it. It brought back a bit of the breathless wonder of those early Christ- mases." They were drawing strains of gold and silver through the dark balsam boughs as she spoke, and Hammerdale, intent on his endeavor to carry the glistening threads through to the base of the tree without disturbing any of the other ornaments, did not look up as he answered: "We don t seem to cultivate breathless wonder at anything in my part of the world. We make a great fuss over celebra tions, but the innards of most holidays we somehow seem to miss." "Yes, and it s the innards that s everything," Gud- run cried, "as far as Christmas is concerned. The glory of it all is the sense of the hallowed season, that comes first, dimly, in October when the leaves go, and you begin to think of the presents you re going to make, and that grows more poignant as the snow comes and the people you meet begin to talk Christmas to you, and nothing but Christmas, as though life were to stop then, and there were to be no days beyond. That s the Christmas spirit. It sanctifies the meanest little cookie, somehow, and brings it into the aura of heaven." Jimmie laughed. "I guess you ve got it, bless you!" Gudrun laughed too, a little sheepishly. "I must sound like an awful baby." Hammerdale looked at her with his quiet, steady FACES IN THE DAWN 129 glance. "I think not, lady. I think not," he said, and carefully hung a gilded walnut on the tree. There was a knock on the door. It was Es- peranza, who had been banished to the kitchen, asking whether she could help. Gudrun opened the door a crack and laughingly barred the entrance. "You can t come in, Frau Pastorin, the Christmas Man is in here. You dress and get the children ready. We ll attend to this room." Esperanza looked up at her with her clear, blue eyes. "I will do anything you say," she answered. Finally the tree was finished, even to the candles, each of which was lighted and then quenched to make the later lighting quicker; and now Gudrun and Hammerdale fell to the packages. There was a motley assortment, ranging from a silk waist or two for Esperanza and a coffee-cup for Adam (Gud run had discovered certain shards), to railroad trains, dolls and lead soldiers for the elder chil dren and a rubber elephant for the youngest. There were other things too numerous to mention, unro- mantic things like underwear and stockings, combs, washrags and soap, scented to make its use tempting, table-linen, towels, dishcloths and dishdrainers. The linen and towels bore the Hallern crest and some of the toys dated from Gudrun s childhood; but Gudrun knew they would be no less welcome for that reason. Hammerdale, with a solemn face and a twinkle in his eye, contributed a box of one hun dred Manuel Alonzos. 130 FACES IN THE DAWN "I know I m blowing myself," he said in answer to Gudrun s mild scolding. "But if ever a man went down on his knees before a graven image, the dear old parson went down before those cigars last night. Let me give him a spree." The tree was standing against the north wall, and to right and left of it now they set tables, gath ered together from every room in the house; and overlaid them with shining white napkins. There was a table for Adam and another for Esperanza and one for each of the children, even unto the baby; and two tables more. "This one is for you," said Gudrun. "And this one, lady," answered Jimmie, setting his table close beside the other, "is for you. So we are quits." They arranged the gifts to best advantage and on every table set a soup-plate overflowing with cookies, nuts, raisins and bonbons. "I remember how I used to love having my goodies all to myself," Gudrun said. "That, too, was a part of Christ mas." The front door opened and shut and a heavy tread sounded on the flags of the corridor. "There s the parson now," said Hammerdale. "Won t he want to come in here?" Adam did want to come in, but Gudrun flew to the key and turned it just in time. "What is this nonsense, Esperanza?" he cried, shaking the door handle. FACES IN THE DAWN 131 Gudrun did not answer and with a glance com manded silence from Hammerdale. "Have you gone crazy, Esperanza?" cried the pastor. From above came a thin, small voice. "Did you call me, Adam?" "Who has locked my study door?" he called, flar ing up. Gudrun turned the key quickly and allowed her face to appear in the narrow opening of the door. "The Christmas Man, Herr Pastor! Have you forgotten it s Christmas?" Adam s anger cooled with wonderful rapidity. "Forgive," he said humbly. "I did not know it was you." He saw a light flash in her eyes as they looked straight into his. "Did you think it was only your wife?" she asked quickly. His eyes fell. "Forgive," he said again, more softly than before. The tables were all spread now, all but the two that were their own. "Now you can go out, Jim- mie, and let the parson entertain you. Then, when I m through with your table, I ll cover it with a sheet or something and you can come back and fix mine. But woe to you if you peep ! The Christmas Man will take everything away again. That s law and gospel." She kissed him lightly. "Out you go!" I 3 2 FACES IN THE DAWN Out he went. And in the dark of the icy corri dor he saw a black, bulky figure striding up and down on the flags outside the study door. "Greet ings, parson," he said. Adam s liking spoke undisguised in his answering greycing. * s Have a cigar," said Jimmie innocently. "Ah!" cried the parson. They adjourned to the frigid dining-room. They sat next each other in silence for a long time, huddled in their overcoats as close to the Chinese tomb as possible. Gudrun, it appeared later, arranged Jimmie s table in about three minutes, but Esperanza, who was preparing to warm up the Lu cullan feast which Gudrun had had prepared at the Manor, needed her assistance in the kitchen, and she forgot entirely that her Young Man was undoubt edly slowly coagulating in one of the unlighted, un- heated rooms of the lower floor. Hammerdale, it seems, got even with his lady, for he, too, forgot that he was to be recalled, and sat silently content, letting the minutes slip by as he breathed out and breathed in friendship. Soon he even forgot the cold, drawing slowly at his cigar and wondering at the inner warmth that was sud denly his. With amazement he discovered that he was very fond of the queer parson; and, half laugh ing at himself, he set himself to finding out why. The parson was sincere, he said to himself, and he could keep such excellent silences. He did not think FACES IN THE DAWN 133 it necessary to remind himself concerning the funda mental reason for the sympathy he felt for Pastor Adam. Perhaps Adam felt, somehow, the growth of Hammerdale s friendly feeling for him. At any rate, his heart, too, was warming to the clear-voiced American, who spoke and laughed little, but so heartily when he did, and who was never melancholy at all. They had never exchanged a single idea, but here they were, smoking in admirable unison, no strangers at all, but friends deeply learned in each other s hidden ways. Asked to analyze each other they would have quite sincerely professed complete ignorance; but the very comfortableness of the si lence that wrapped them round indicated that they knew many things that they did not even attempt to crystallize into definite thoughts. This, indeed, was not surprising, for the locks of both hearts responded to the same key. It was quite natural, then, for Hammerdale sud denly to continue aloud the conversation it seemed to him he had been carrying on subconsciously with Adam for the past half hour. "I met her first," he said slowly, entirely disregarding Adam s inability to understand the words he was saying, "I met her first at Bartlett s Ranch in the White River country, where her father went for the hunting and trout fishing. My ranch is twenty-five or thirty miles straight north over the mountains up Pagoda way and I met her one evening when I was stopping for 134 FACES IN THE DAWN the night at Bartlett s on my way to the fish hatch ery at Marvine Lodge. I stayed at Bartlett s ten days my Christopher, clear, cold September days they were ! and then they came back with me over the mountains by Lost Park and down Williams Fork not even a trail there in spots and bad cross ings over the streams that were pretty high after the first fall rains, but she took them like an old hand and, finally, at three in the afternoon we came to my place. I haven t got very many conve niences there except a talking machine and a piano that s out of tune but they stayed six weeks. I set the old man on the trail of a brown bear or two and a silver-tip, until he turned his ankle, and then I used to ride him over to a ledge near the house after supper, where he popped at coyotes till it was too dark to see your hand across the street. And, meantime, she and I were getting acquainted. The Baron s a good sort, but I guess he was a rot ten chaperon. We rode all up and down the valley, even as far as Harrowood s, twenty miles down toward Meeker, where one of God s women, old Harrowood s widow, runs the ranch and a peck of children and knows more of State politics than half the members of the Legislature. In a month there wasn t a white woman or a half-breed within twenty- five miles that Gudrun hadn t talked to. I guess they thought she was an angel from heaven the way they looked at her, and Gudrun, she thought she was a poor, helpless thing and used to sit for hours getting FACES IN THE DAWN 135 the women to talk of themselves and their lives. I always took the women sort of for granted, except Mrs. Harrowood, who has big-sistered me for ten years or more; but they did seem pretty fine as Gudrun talked of them. Of course, I loved her from the start and I suppose she knew it at the end of a week. I know I told her before we left Harriett s. But she wouldn t believe me. She said I just thought I loved her because she was different from the women I was used to, and that all that she was experiencing out West had upset her and she d have to get her bearings before she could be sure of herself or me or anything. But I wasn t going to run any chances, so I got old Pat Finerty, who owns the next ranch to mine, to keep his eye on my plant, and when the Baron got homesick and decided to make for the steamer I beat it after them. And now I ve got her for keeps. And half the plumb ing shops and decorating establishments in Colorado are going to get on wheels when we get back." There followed a long silence. Adam had let his cigar go out, and had not thought of relighting it. And, at last, forgetting quite that his words were unintelligible to Hammerdale, he spoke: "She brought me a basket of cherries one morning in June. Her black hair was loose over her shoulders and her dress was torn; and she told me about a Finnish laborer who had stolen a ham from the dairy cellar and was to be arrested and carried to Hiinen- feld. She wanted me to intercede for him. Of 136 FACES IN THE DAWN course, it did no good. Her father was angry and would not be budged. But she came often after that. I had been very unhappy, and she raised me up." There was another long silence. "It s wonder ful," Hammerdale mused half aloud, "how a woman can open up life. Mrs. Harrowood cured me of the Demon just by being ordinarily decent to me when I was lonely, and I guess I ve been pretty lonely most of my life. And just the way Gudrun looks at a Christmas tree ornament somehow is worth more as real education than four years at college and a post-graduate course thrown in." "I was very unhappy," Adam repeated in a low voice, "and she raised me up." A shaft of light shone suddenly through the key hole, and a second later a blast of cold air like a knife at their necks made the two men shiver as the door from the hall was opened and Gudrun, a lamp in her hand, entered. "So, here you are, young man," she cried. "And you ve forgotten entirely that you were going to set a plate of goodies on a table all for myself. Shoo out now, and do your duty. 7 am going to set the table for the feast. And you, Herr Pastor," she. went on, "you can revive the fire in the tile- stove. It s cold as Colorado in November." Which possibly showed that Gudrun and Esperanza, too, had been reminiscing. Hammerdale returned to the Christmas room, FACES IN THE DAWN 137 feeling a sudden pleasure as he saw the tree and the tables looking so very bright and festive even in semi-darkness; and saw the table that was his mys teriously piled high beneath the napkin that hid the things Jimmie was not to see until the proper time. Gudrun s table, still bare, stood next to his. He drew a jewelry case out of his pocket and laid it on the center of the table. "There," he thought, "Gudrun s table is finished; that didn t take long." But as he looked at the table it seemed hopelessly bare and hard-looking beside the others. Of course, he thought, for he had forgotten the cookies. He took the last brimming plate from the pastor s desk, planting it behind the jewelry box. The effect did not strike him as thrilling. Perhaps it was the gaiety of the socks and waists and neckties and ribbons on the other tables that made his display appear so hopelessly cold and lifeless. He opened the box and snapped it shut again quickly, for the brilliancy of the diamond pendant he had bought for his lady in Hamburg seemed suddenly as vulgar as some of the throats he had seen that wore such things and thought them on the whole the glory of life. He grew depressed, for it seemed to him that he had discovered in himself a streak of vulgarity. Why had he missed the spirit of Gudrun s Christmas so utterly as to intrude anything of real money value into this lovely mystery play of hers? It seemed like offering to tip the angels. He thrust the box back into his pocket and gazed 1 38 FACES IN THE DAWN at the table, which looked more in keeping with the others now, though it held nothing but a soup-plate overflowing with nuts and raisins and a marvelous variety of cookies. Suddenly, he had an inspiration. He turned to the pastor s desk and from the dis order picked out a clean sheet of paper. Seating himself in the pastor s chair, with a few strokes of a pen, he drew a picture, and under it wrote a dozen words. Then he folded the paper and half hid it under the plate, giving a long sigh of relief, as though he felt he had redeemed himself; where upon he rejoined the pastor in the dining-room. "Is everybody ready?" asked Gudrun. "Are the children dressed?" Esperanza poked a fork into the odorous goose that was slowly warming in the oven, closed the oven door, and took off her apron. She was flushed, partly from the heat of the range, partly from ex citement. "Oh, yes," she answered. "They have been dressed for hours. They were so impatient and they promised to keep neat." "You must bring the baby too. He will be glad for the lights on the tree," said Gudrun. "Have you a bell?" Esperanza found a silver bell. "Here, Jimmie," cried Gudrun. "You take this and when you have lighted the candles tinkle it and we ll come." Hammerdale retired into the Christmas room FACES IN THE DAWN 139 once more. "Herr Pastor," Gudrun called. "Are you ready ?" Adam appeared, looking as neat as he could in his best Sunday coat; and a little flushed too. "Isn t it exciting?" Gudrun cried. "Yes," he answered with a half melancholy smile. "I feel almost like a child myself. Come, chil dren," he called, "come quick! The Christmas Man is waiting." Adam, junior, hand in hand with Klarchen, came scampering down stairs. "Klarchen, Klarchen, the Christmas Man!" cried the boy. They sat down on the stairs, which were sep arated from the icy main hall by a partition and caught some of the kitchen warmth. "Now we must sing to the Christmas Man," said Gudrun. "Oh, yes, we must sing," cried Klarchen, thrilled beyond measure. In a clear voice Gudrun began. The children chimed in at once and on the second line Esperanza, singing very softly, took up the familiar words. O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, Wie griin sind deine Blatter! Du griinst nicht nur zur Sommerszeit. Nein, auch im Winter wenn es schneit. O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, Wie griin sind deine Blatter! Gudrun felt a lump in her throat. "You must sing, too, Herr Pastor," she said. 1 40 FACES IN THE DAWN "Good. I will sing, too," he answered. Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht! Alles schweigt, einsam wacht Nur das heilig, hochheilige Paar, Holder Knabe in lockigem Haar, Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh! Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh. "Do you hear the Christmas Man tinkling his bell yet?" whispered Esperanza to her children. "No," said little Adam in a hushed voice. "Did you, Klarchen?" "No," the little girl answered. "Did you, Adam?" The pastor began the next song in his deep, rich voice : O, du frohliche, O du selige, Gnadenbringende Weihnachtszeit ! Welt ging verloren, Christ ward geboren. Freue dich, freue dich, Christenheit ! A faint streak of light showed under the door of the Christmas room. "Look!" cried little Adam, as the Wise Men may have cried when they saw the star. Gudrun found Esperanza s hand and pressed it. "How cold your hand is, Fraulein Gudrun," cried the parsonage lady. FACES IN THE DAWN 141 "Is it?" said Gudrun. "I must be excited." And to control the whirligig of her mind she started a livelier song. Morgen, Kinder, wird s was geben! Morgen werden wir uns freun. Welch ein Jubel, welch ein Leben, Wird in unserm Hause sein! Einmal werden wir noch wach, Heisa! Dann ist Weihnachtstag ! The silver bell tinkled, pure and clear through the sudden silence that followed the song. The children leapt to their feet. "The bell!" they cried. Still it tinkled. Gudrun thought that St. Peter would tinkle a silver bell like that some night when he was ready to open heaven s door for her. They were all on their feet now. Esperanza, the baby in her arms, pushed little Adam and Klarchen to the fore. "You lead the way," she said. The children clasped hands, and at that moment Hammerdale opened the door. To the little group at the foot of the stairs the room that moment seemed a glory stolen out of fairyland. Hammerdale had quenched the lamp on the pastor s desk, and the hundred winking, blink ing candles on the tree gave an unearthly magic to the dingy, familiar place. So straight and white they stood, like a flaming hierarchy doing homage to the gleaming Christ-child at the peak. The tree had grown in woods nearby, the candles had been 142 FACES IN THE DAWN bought over a city shop-counter, and the sparkling ornaments fashioned by human hands, but together they made a thing that seemed strangely to rise above its mortal creators into the upper airs of heaven. The watchers on the threshold stood an instant in entranced silence. Then little Adam gave a gasp of delight and Klarchen gave a gasp, and "Oh, how beautiful!" Esperanza cried, and "Oh!" cried Pas tor Adam. Gudrun pressed her lips together, but her eyes shone, and Hammerdale, half-hidden in a corner of the room, suddenly remembered what Christmas was all about. Then with a shout the children invaded the room. "Here is your table, Klarchen," said Gudrun, "and here, little Adam, is yours." With inarticulate paeans the children fell upon their toys. "Oh! a new coffee-cup!" cried Adam, senior, with a gratitude in his voice that might have seemed comical to Hammerdale twenty-four hours ago, but struck him quite otherwise now. "And, oh, Herr Hammerdale, the cigars !" The American shook the hand he reached out. "Glad you like the brand, old man," he said. Esperanza s feelings had got the better of her and she was sniffling softly when Gudrun came at her grateful call to find her trying a new silk-lined cap on the baby. "And to think," she whispered, "that we thought the Manor-house had forgotten us." FACES IN THE DAWN 143 "Forgive us, Esperanza," Gudrun answered in low tones, "Jimmie and I at least will never forget you again." "I know, I know," murmured the little parsonage lady, "I know." She took up the gifts one by one, practical gifts all of them, for herself or the baby, exclaiming at each petticoat and pair of stockings as though they were part of a queen s raiment. "I shall go calling again now I have such wonderful things to wear," she exclaimed, looking suddenly surprisingly girlish. "And, oh, the hat!" "It is from New York," said Gudrun. "I thought it would be becoming to you." "New York!" Esperanza repeated in awed tones. "And do you really think it will be becoming?" Hammerdale, too, was appreciatively examining his harvest. There were neckties and socks of vari ous hues, the inevitable ash-tray, a knitted silk scarf that somehow looked familiar, and a pair of simple mother-of-pearl cuff-links. "Not a very gorgeous display, is it?" remarked Gudrun, "and I m afraid the ties are hideous, but they were all that Hiinenf eld could offer and I didn t want your place to look too bare. And the scarf? I did that on the steamer coming back. You teased me about my industry, do you remember? When I made that I was wondering all the time whether or not I d really marry you, and I think it helped me to decide. It did feel so good making something 144 FACES IN THE DAWN that would keep you warm." His hand on her shoul der answered her. And then Gudrun s eyes suddenly caught sight of the folded piece of paper under her plate of cookies. With an exclamation of delight at the mysterious find she drew it out and unfolded it. On it Hammerdale had drawn, not unskilfully, a Christmas tree bright with candles, and written one line: "Dear Christmas lady, I think you have some thing to teach Colorado." She took both his hands in such a way that the others could not see and gave them a close, grateful pressure. "How did you know," she whispered, "that that would be the most precious gift you could possibly give me? You do see into people, don t you?" Hammerdale smiled a little ruefully. "Sometimes I nearly am a most perfectly awful bull," he re marked. "I had a close shave to-night." But he did not dare to explain that statement until they were on their way home. The children were having a blissful time. Little Adam had established a complete railway system (modeled on the portable narrow-gauge line that ran through the Manor fields in autumn for the transportation of sugar-beets) and did not seem to fear the constant peril he was in of being annihi lated beneath the tread of his elders. Klarchen was rocking her new doll to sleep to the tune of "O Tan- nenbaum"; and even the baby was crawling about FACES IN THE DAWN 145 the floor teaching his rubber elephant to jump rail road cars, feet and other obstructions. A benign look was on Pastor Adam s face as he watched them, and a softer light in his eyes than Hammerdale had yet seen there. He turned as he felt a hand plucking at his sleeve and followed Es- peranza to her table. "Look, Adam," she said. "All these things for me." There was a ring in her voice that he had not heard for many a day. "Well, are you happy, child?" he asked, putting his arm through hers. "Oh, I am so happy!" she answered. "I am glad," he said. "You will look pretty in these things." "Oh, no; do you think so really?" she cried. The children grew sleepy and a little fretful at last, and at six were gently parted from their new treasures and led off to supper and bed. There were no howls to-night, no scoldings. A delicious peace seemed to lie upon the house and all its in mates that seemed to Adam to communicate itself even to inanimate things, for the dinner was ready just as it was wanted and the carving-knife was sharp for once, and the claret just the right tem perature. The dinner-table looked extraordinarily festive with the twelve-light candelabra Gudrun had borrowed from the Manor-house, and the twigs of balsam circling each plate. There were no long silences to-night, for even 146 FACES IN THE DAWN Hammerdale, having a faithful interpreter, managed somehow to follow the course of the conversation and even to give it a fillip down some new road by a word now and then that revealed what occasionally seemed to the pastor and his wife a startlingly heretical point of view. But Adam felt a little dif ferent toward heresy than he had the previous even ing. Heresy, after all, he dimly discerned, is of heaven or hell according to the lips that utter it; and he received with an equanimity, which a day be fore he would have deemed in itself heretical, the information that America had no national church and yet survived, that women voted in certain states and took part in public affairs in all; and that mar ried men on the whole appeared as brave, noble and happy a company where the wives were considered intellectually and spiritually their equals as in coun tries where they were sentimentally idealized but actually regarded as inferior. Adam balked, how ever, at that last. "We Germans/ he protested, "know that there are no women like our German women." Gudrun knitted her brows a little. "German women in the abstract, perhaps," she said slowly. "But your wives?" The pastor tried to meet her gaze, but the in truding memory of certain questions and answers through a crack in a door made the feat difficult. Moreover, he felt Esperanza s blue, childlike eyes FACES IN THE DAWN 147 fastened on his face. "Are we not kind to our wives?" he asked at last. "Kind yes," Gudrun answered. "Often, I think, devotedly kind. But is it only kindness you as a man would ask of another man whom you considered your equal?" "Kindness is much," said the pastor warily, seeing rapids ahead. Gudrun looked into space as if to remove the discussion from the perils of the purely personal which direct address involved. "Kindness," she said, "has always seemed to me destructive where respect did not go with it. I do not mean," she 1 continued quickly, "the merely conventional respect men give to any outwardly virtuous woman because she is a woman, but the true respect which men have for their equals of their own sex. To these they give their best, and seek eagerly the best in them, both growing by the exchange, because there is no condescension anywhere, but perfect independence of mind and soul. I have not seen enough of the lives of married people in America to judge whether this respect is common there. Perhaps it is unusual there, too, though I saw many examples of it. But I am sure it is very rare in our country." "But we Germans respect our wives," protested the pastor. She withdrew her gaze abruptly from infinity and looked up into the pastor s face as she spoke. There was an appealing eagerness in her own, as though 1 48 FACES IN THE DAWN she were on the trail of a truth and were follow ing the scent hot-foot. "Ah, respect," she cried, u of course, respect. But respect in the sense that I mean it, the respect for judgment as well as for mere virtue ?" Esperanza came to her husband s rescue. "Per haps it is the wife s fault when her husband cannot respect her." "Marriage is made difficult over here and is care fully guarded," Gudrun replied. "A man is sup posed to know before marriage whether he shall be able to respect his wife. He does a woman a great wrong if he marries her without being very sure of that." "Do you think," said Esperanza, speaking slowly and with evident difficulty, "do you think Adam should not have married me?" The pastor flushed deeply. "Dear girl, what a question!" Gudrun exclaimed, clasping her hand. "You know I think you are quite too good for him." She turned quickly to Adam, trying to steer the skiff out of the eddies with a feigned gaiety of tone. "Don t you think so, Herr Pastor?" "You must not ask him that, Fraulein Gudrun," said Esperanza quietly. "Oh, I do not need to," Gudrun cried. "Life has many turnings," said Adam at last, "and sometimes we lose our way." "This goose is certainly bang-up," remarked FACES IN THE DAWN 149 Hammerdale calmly, as though geese had been the subject of conversation. "I shall certainly have to export some of her progeny to Colorado, and grow famous." The pastor sighed in relief, and Gudrun, who felt guilty and stupid for not having divined in time whither the talk was leading, gave the foot of her vis-a-vis a grateful pressure. But Esperanza leaned back in her chair gazing with troubled eyes at her husband. They adjourned to the Christmas room when Gudrun and Esperanza had cleared the table, and lit the half-burnt candles again. Adam was silent, evidently depressed or preoccupied with his own meditations ; and Esperanza talked only in monosyl lables, eyeing her good man furtively now and then to see if he bore her any resentment. The joyous spirit that had animated them before was utterly vanished. Hammerdale felt as though somebody had robbed him of a valued possession. But the spirit was not gone beyond returning. It flickered in the offing as the first candle flickered anew on the tree, and entered in before the nuts and cookies had made their second round. Esperanza, for one, could not long remain depressed while she was telling herself (every ten minutes) that, praise God, all the dishes had been washed now two even ings in succession. She felt very much the luxurious lady, sitting in a sofa-corner after dinner instead of 150 FACES IN THE DAWN laboring in a greasy kitchen till she dropped. Life was decidedly looking up. Gudrun was careful this time to direct the talk along safe highways; and at last, after a lengthy pause which intimated that the subject of travel in foreign lands might be exhausted, she abruptly brought it to her own affairs. "We are to be married the middle of March," she said. "Probably the I2th. That is the latest possible date, for Jimmie must get back to his work. Will you marry us, Herr Pastor ?" The pastor drew a deep breath. "If you wish, yes," he said. Esperanza felt annoyed that he did not say more. Adam was stolid. "I do wish it," Gudrun answered. "I wish it very much." "Good," he said quietly, and taking a notebook from his pocket wrote down the date. "Funny devil," remarked Hammerdale to him self. "Shows more enthusiasm over a cigar." They sat for another half hour before the fra grant tree talking of unimportant things in a quiet, familiar, unconventional way that brought them all closer together than they had yet been. Finally they talked not at all, but gazed at the dying lights, peaceful with the unspoken assurance of friend ship. Adam took a deep breath or two which only Hammerdale noted, then turned his eyes slowly on Gudrun. He was sitting with his chin sunk on his breast, and his eyes, staring from under the heavy FACES IN THE DAWN 151 brows, spoke with such utter candor of devotion that Hammerdale felt ashamed, as though he had caught himself reading another man s diary. Their gaze was wistful, tender, and protective as a father s, seeming to say, "You are going a long way off. I wonder what life will do to you." And gradually it grew brighter, more intense, the gaze of a man crying after ten years of silent loving for a word, a touch of love as deep as his to give him courage for the silent years to come. Hammerdale saw his sudden, low gasp as a hand dropped softly on his arm. It was only Esperanza s hand, but the hunger died in Adam s eyes and his face grew peaceful again as it turned once more to the twinkling tree. At last Gudrun and Hammerdale stood saying good-bye. And the pastor pressed Gudrun s hand as he stood huge and straight beside the tree. "You have given me less than three months to make myself worthy," he said as simply as though that were the inevitable thing to say. Something in Gudrun s eyes fluttered like an un seen swallow reflected in a spring. "Do you think you are the only one," she murmured, "who must grow worthy in these three months?" "God help us all then," answered Adam. "Yes," she said. "God help us all." Gudrun and the American were standing at the open door of the Manor-house when Hammerdale broke the silence they had maintained on their walk 152 FACES IN THE DAWN home. "The pastor is a wonderful man," he said. "I think he is a good man," she answered grate fully. "I have never thought of him as wonderful exactly." "He is the only man I have ever met," said Ham- merdale, and his voice was almost reverent, "who seemed able to love absolutely without an eye for the reward." "Oh, Jimmie, you mean ?" "Yes." They closed the door. CHAPTER IX IN WHICH A DREAM-COME-TO-LIFE MEETS THE OGRE AT A CROSSROADS AND POINTS HIM THE WAY Two people did not find slumber with the rest of Wenkendorf that cold and placid Christmas night. One was Pastor Adam, fighting his way, inch by laborious inch, through his Christmas sermon; the other was Gudrun. The pastor had a wet towel round his head and coffee by his side; Gudrun was robed in scarlet and her black hair was loose. And it happened that their minds were both traversing the same road. Adam s travels down the highways and byways of memory, be it said, were not voluntary. He was honestly trying with all the force of his will to concentrate his thoughts on the little white sheets beneath his hand, but, as on the previous evening, invaders came in great flocks, storming the citadel till his Teuton sense of duty wavered and all but gave in. Grimly, however, he held the fort. A Christmas service without a sermon was as unthinkable a propo sition as a meal without food. So he tried to re member all the great and good things which other 153 154 FACES IN THE DAWN people had said about the birth of Christ, firstly, secondly and thirdly, defying the beckoning dreams. As the sermon grew, he realized that it was hodge podge, that half of it was nonsense and the rest of it was cant; and the nobler part of him squirmed. But there was no time for the examination of scruples. He gulped his coffee, cried almost pite- ously to the dear tormenting spirit to leave him to do his work in peace, and wrote. Gudrun, on her part, was fighting no battles. She had gone to bed thinking she was tired enough to sleep, but the room had seemed suddenly alive with flitting images and voices, and she had leapt up quickly and lit the light to escape the luminous faces grinning at her from the dark. The coal fire in the grate was not beyond rescue, and she poked it into life, wondering whimsically whether it were love or roast goose that was robbing her of sleep. She threw an old opera coat over her shoulders, and sank down in a great armchair close to the fire. But it was neither love nor roast goose that sud denly flooded her thoughts. It was Pastor Adam. The discovery which she and Hammerdale had simultaneously made, that Adam loved her, gave her a thrill which she never in the world would have imagined the queer, self-centered, noisy pastor could rouse in her. He was so decidedly unromantic a figure to see. One did not connect somehow a calm persistence of unrequited love with such a bulky frame, such an undeniably ugly visage; nor, more over, with such violent outbursts of temper as she FACES IN THE DAWN 155 had witnessed, and such crude egotism. She pon dered the matter rather objectively for all the thrill, having been trained by the years to self-distrust rather than conceit. She did not in her musings, in fact, connect herself, Gudrun von Hallern, a woman, at the moment sitting robed in a scarlet opera-cloak in front of an apology of a fire, with the pastor s love at all. Adam, her common sense told her, had never really been in love with her. Her face, entering his line of vision at, possibly, a crucial period in his life, had served his lonely mind as an habitation for the ideal it needed; an habitation which he promptly proceeded to furnish with a guardian angel. Thus, as quickly as possible, she tried to divest the romantic situation of its most sentimental aspects. But her attempt was not en tirely successful. After all the common sense, the thrill remained to be reckoned with. She told her self that she might as well face the fact that the discovery that Adam loved her elated her very much. Here her conscience came to her aid. It told her, with not entirely convincing sternness, that she should be distressed at Adam s devotion, that it was quite out of place in a minister of the Gospel who happened to have a good wife of his own to love even an idea or an ideal when it was gar mented in the personality of the betrothed of an other man; and that it was wicked of her, moreover, to have inspired such affection. She smiled broadly at that effort of her painstaking conscience; she 156 FACES IN THE DAWN had been so completely innocent, ever, of any wiles against the somber parson. The thought was glori ously grotesque, and she laughed softly to herself at the picture that presented itself to her mind of Gudrun von Hallern in the role of Potiphar s wife, laying traps for Joseph. Her conscience, therefore, was scarcely more effective than her common sense in quenching the undeniable elation. She had not had a superabundance of love in her life, and here, unexpectedly, was a love such as the poets sing of, pure, chivalrous, unregarding of itself, and it had been hers, unguessed, for nearly half her days. What if the lover were as queer a Dick as ever thundered from a pulpit? There must be some beauty, some unsuspected bigness beneath the gar goyle exterior. For unselfish love, as Jimmie had remarked, was rare; and the man who could cling so tenaciously to an ideal was not to be laughed out of court. She decided that the angels above might not impossibly give a better report of Pastor Adam than his neighbors could, the shortcomings of some men being so palpable and clear to the eye, their vir tues so deeply concealed; and the thrill remained. Not even the thought of poor, unloved Esperanza could, in the first glow of her discovery, more than momentarily cloud the elation. The whole matter was so impossibly romantic, so unreal, that she lay back in her chair as though she were at a play, bask ing in the unworldliness of it all and thinking no more of examining it with reference to the ethical FACES IN THE DAWN 157 responsibilities it involved than she would have thought of similarly examining the story of Puss in Boots. Even Hammerdale slipped, for the instant, into the background, not, be it said, as a thing that is discarded, even temporarily, but rather as one that is accepted so absolutely that it transcends pigeon-holes. It was just as well for the pastor s sense of duty that he did not know that, while he was painfully grinding out phrase on pious phrase, he was having his hour in the heart of Gudrun. For during the quiet session of that Christmas night conscience and common sense drifted off to sleep, though Gudrun did not, and left the field, un hindered, to the fantastic spirit of memory. Pic ture after picture it conjured up and erased, comedy, tragedy, farce, all intermingled. Ten years it went back to a cherry-morning which she, too, remem bered, and thence along past dim half-forgotten inci dents of childhood and youth into less happy woman hood. For the first time she read the meaning of this word of the pastor s, and that glance; feeling more poignantly than ever before her guilt in let ting her girlhood s ardor die so woefully in the vanity of her young womanhood. She thought of the men she had known, of Max and of others who went before, butterflies all. Adam had watched them come and go, loving her in spite of them, in spite even of herself. That thought stung that she who could inspire so pure a love should have proved herself so obviously unworthy of it. How had the 158 FACES IN THE DAWN pastor s love ever survived her engagement to that talented fashion-plate, Count Max? Then came the inevitable query, bringing her sud denly back into the present why had Adam mar ried Esperanza? She remembered that his engage ment had followed close on the heels of her own. Disillusion, perhaps. The thought rankled. It was not pleasant to feel responsible for the domestic in felicity of the parsonage. She sat upright in her chair. She was responsible, of course. Because of her Adam had married the wrong person; and here still she stood, a shadow between Adam and his wife. She rose to her feet with a shiver and began pacing the floor. Why did one s sins return to stone one in this fashion? What subtle punishment! The fact that no one had forced Esperanza, as far as she knew, to marry Adam did not at the moment make her moral responsibility for the ill-considered marriage seem any the less. What could she do to make up to them both for her part in their pathetic mistake? She smiled at the question, to think that she, who could not even solve her own problem, should be puzzling her head over another s. Chilled and miserable, with no spark of the early elation, she turned to the window. The long white slope below shone dimly, for the moon had set. There were no stars. The dark sky seemed close as a prison-wall. She wondered if she would botch things again as she had botched them five years ago. FACES IN THE DAWN 159 What vanity aspiration without will-power was, since a person with such good intentions could make such a mess of life. She had humor enough left after her sleepless night to remark to herself that here her scruples were running off into nonsense, for she had not made a mess of life and had no in tention of doing so. She looked at the clock. It pointed to four-thirty, and with a faintly ironic smile she recalled something she had read some where about the activities of the human conscience between the hours of two and five in the morning. She climbed into bed once more, hoping that her mental exhaustion would induce slumber, but the dark seemed to breed faces, now her mother s, now Jimmie s, now Esperanza s; most insistent of all, the face of Pastor Adam. At last she drifted off into a cloudy No-Man s-Land between sleeping and wak ing, through which the faces pursued each other with dizzying speed Esperanza, and chasing her, Adam; and after Adam her mother, and after her mother Jimmie Hammerdale. It was all absurd and nerve- racking. She wondered why she couldn t go to sleep, and why she couldn t wake up. The day, coming in at her window between seven and eight, chased the band of ghastly marionettes off the stage, and recalled her definitely to reality. She rose, heavy-eyed and depressed. The scarlet opera-cloak across the foot of her bed recalled her gloomy pacings to and fro, and deepened her gloom. But the east was sending 160 FACES IN THE DAWN bright shafts into the deep blue of a cloudless sky, and she dressed quickly to seek the out-of-doors before the rest of the household should be about. On her way downstairs she listened at Hammer- dale s door an instant. There was no sound. Deem ing it poor charity to startle him out of sleep, she tiptoed away and went forth alone. Her feet were the first to break the perfect smoothness of the white wood-paths. She sank to her shoe-tops in the snow, but the snow was feather- light and seemed scarcely to impede her vigorous stride. Her depression and even her physical weari ness seemed to vanish. She felt like a fairy prince invading an enchanted land no human eyes had gazed upon, for unbroken perfection of white beauty was everywhere. On the meadows bordering the forest no deer or rabbit had yet cut his swift trail, and on the boughs no wing-tip had fluttered away a flake of the perfect arch. Without asking herself whither she was going she walked straight to the familiar bench. And there, as she emerged from the shadowy woods into the dazzling brightness of the clearing, she came face to face with Pastor Adam. He was obviously startled, for he did not lift his hat to her or even offer her a greeting. He stood rigid and mute. She, too, for some reason, could find nothing sensible to say, conscious that she was not yet ready to face Adam and his absurd, wonder ful devotion. "You are out in the woods early," FACES IN THE DAWN 161 she said at last, knowing as she said it that it was a stupid observation to make. "I had work to do," he answered. "I did not go to bed." There were several obvious replies she might have made to that, among them the remark that if she and her good man had not stayed so late the evening before the pastor need not have spent the night at his desk; but she chose to make none of them. There were a thousand weighty things she wanted to say, ideas that quivered and shone in the cavernous recesses of memory, but broke like bub bles as she reached out her hand to grasp them. One and another she held an instant, seeking a ve hicle to bear it forth to the outer world. And, as each was shattered in passage, it occurred to her how absurd it was that man had nothing better than an ox-cart for the transportation of his blown glass. Adam cleared the bench of snow, and they sat down, gazing silently off across the awakened white ness. U I worked at my sermon all night," said the pastor at last. "I never wrote with such difficulty. All I had learnt seemed to slip out of my mind, and the sermon would not and would not come. My brain gave my fingers words to write, but my soul, my soul was elsewhere." "How very strange," said Gudrun, thinking more of her own sleepless night than of his. "It seemed," Adam went on slowly, "it seemed 1 62 FACES IN THE DAWN that, all the while I was writing those hollow, mean ingless phrases, I was struggling to flee to a different world where I might think and speak of higher, won derful things." He folded his hands on his cane. "The soul of man is a strange thing, Fraulein Gud- run. It comes from God, who opens not his work shop to the eyes of his children; and its ways are mys terious as the mind of its Maker. It has its goings- out and its comings-in. It wanders over the world and looks in at friendly window-panes; it has its comrades; it has its happy hours. We are curious creatures, Fraulein Gudrun, palpitating like leaves in the wind beneath this stolid disguise of mortality." He paused; and as Gudrun looked into his face she marveled to see how softened the lines were. She noted again the high broad forehead with the close-cropped hair, the large nose and mouth, the slightly cadaverous cheeks, the ogre s mustache, but over the familiar features lay a nobler light than Gudrun had yet seen there. "Is this the real Pas tor Adam?" she said to herself. There was a deep tenderness about the eyes, a wistful droop about the corners of the mouth that seemed strangely out of place amid the parson s aggressively masculine features. The feminine qualities, which seemed so utterly lacking in the man she knew, were reflected here, and she marveled, asking herself whether she had been blind in thinking of Adam as harsh or tyrannical. Adam rose and walked up and down beside the FACES IN THE DAWN 163 bench. "Why have you come here this morning?" he asked with scarcely suppressed excitement. "I don t know why I came," Gudrun answered helplessly. "I didn t think where I was going. I just came. I might ask you, mightn t I, why did you come?" Adam stopped in his nervous promenade. "I was impelled." "Are we not rather too tragic for Christmas morning?" Gudrun asked after another long pause. "Yes, you are right," he answered heavily. "I will not cloud your holiday further." "Oh, -don t misunderstand me." "No. But you are right." He reached out his hand. "Good-bye. Your Tchimi he is a good man. Good-bye." She pressed the hand he held out, and noticed for the first time how feverish he looked. "Oh, are you ill, Herr Pastor?" He shook his head. "I am tired." "You must not go away yet. I wish you would rest a few minutes, and we ll go home together. Please." "Let me go, Fraulein Gudrun. It is better." "As you wish, of course." He took her hand once more, and Gudrun, feeling his hand tremble, cast a quick, frightened glance up at his face. His lips were set tight and his eyes were half closed. She felt his grasp relax, then tighten suddenly. He bent down and, before she could with- 1 64 FACES IN THE DAWN draw her hand, kissed it with an intensity of love that startled and stirred her all the more because it was reverent. She caught her breath and drew her hand away, looking up at him with suddenly knock ing heart. "Pastor Samuels," she cried faintly. "What are you thinking of? Oh, don t do anything like that again, ever." He noted the pain in her voice, and turned away. "Forgive, forgive," he whispered in a hoarse, un natural voice, not daring to face her. "Oh, you must never do that again." He turned to her once more, for her voice told him that he was losing for always the one being he needed most. He stood before her with bowed head. "Forgive," he murmured again and again. "I al ways said to myself that I would not for the world have you know. Forgive. For ten years I have said it. It is a long time." There was just a hint of self- pity in his voice, which Gudrun did not fail to note. "Perhaps that is why I always respected you so much," she said slowly, "because I felt that there were forces in your heart which you were big enough to hold in control." She paused. "Hadn t we better laugh a little now?" she added, looking up into his face with a smile that was friendly, but not without distress. "Laugh?" he asked, frowning. "Yes, so that we shall not have to weep in the end. This is all not as serious as it sounds. You are FACES IN THE DAWN 165 confused that is all. You have merely mixed me up with some theological abstraction of yours. Don t let us be so serious. I don t want to have to be sorry for this meeting this morning, or for yesterday and the day before. They were too good. We must not spoil the memory. We don t want to be sorry." He stood before her, huge and black and very ogre-like, save for the eyes which were not fierce at all. "You need not feel sorry, Fraulein Gud- run," he said. "There is nothing that you or I need feel sorry for. "My love has been clean. There has been no de sire in it. I am grateful for it above all other things. I came to you out of hell. I had gone from parish to parish, pursued now by the evil of my past, now by my laggard present. In one parish I was five years. That was at Stromau in Silesia. It was from there that I came to Wenkendorf. Stromau was ignominy. There I drank the dregs." He paused, and Gudrun pitied him for the bitterness and pain in his eyes. "In my first week here I found you," he went on. "You were a child then twelve or thirteen. I had known only the love that is a raging torrent of fire. I had been tossed upon it, and it had seared my soul. But you taught me the love that is a crystal river flowing silently to the sea. For that knowledge I can give you only thanks." Adam was silent, and Gudrun, with loudly beating heart, leaned back, struggling for words. A light gust blew the snow from a beech-bough gossamer- 1 66 FACES IN THE DAWN like across their line of vision, and a quarter of a mile away a doe, with ears pricked, listened fear- somely for the sound of human voices. Common sense and a cool understanding of the fitness of things, as the world, for good or ill, sees it, were neither benumbed nor asleep in Gudrun as they had been during her semiconscious vigil the night before. She said to herself that this sort of thing would not do at all, that Adam was hopelessly sentimental, and must be set straight at all hazards. But ways and means baffled her. She was too grate ful for his belief in her, unfounded as that belief to her seemed, to risk wounding him. But Adam s complete disregard of that one being to whom every fiber of him should turn in thankfulness and loyalty, faintly roused her ire. "I wish I could tell you," she said at last, "how much your friendship means to me, but, oh, I can t think of anything but Esperanza." The pastor nodded his head. "Yes, yes," he an swered slowly. "Our marriage was a mistake." Gudrun s anger cooled as she recalled that she was not quite unresponsible for that marriage. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Is it so hopeless?" "I see no hope," Adam replied. "You have given me so much," Gudrun cried. "If you could only turn it to Esperanza! I have so much to make me happy now. Esperanza has the children, but it is you that she wants. You understand. Oh, I am grateful for your friendship. FACES IN THE DAWN 167 But can t you see what it would mean to me if I could think that I had been some help, instead of only an obstacle, to your happiness?" "You have been the only happiness I have known," he answered. She shook her head. "Not I. Not this poor, struggling creature that is the real Gudrun. You imagined me quite otherwise, didn t you? Con fess. You thought me a lovely being quite impas- sionate, quite unhuman, half a saint and altogether too good for this wicked, wicked world." She turned and looked up into his face with a half rueful, half mischievous smile. "I m not quite that, am I? Don t you find, on the whole, that I m a little dif ferent on nearer acquaintance from what you sup posed? Not near so good, not near so lovely just an everyday, nice sort of young lady, whom the saints will not miss when you withdraw her image from their company." A cloud of displeasure crossed Adam s face. "Yes, Herr Pastor," she went on in the same tones of gentle levity. "Yes, I m afraid I am making fun of you. Shall I tell you some more about this ivory statue of yours? You thought she was a very proper, conservative, little statue, didn t you? You thought she was a quiet bide-at-home and, look, my dreams are all of a country six thousand miles away. You thought she was obedient and here I ve openly defied my mother. You thought she was a porcelain shepherdess from Dresden, and I 1 68 FACES IN THE DAWN am clearing my throat to shout for women s rights. Herr Pastor, I think you have not been loving me at all." Her voice became gentler and there was less of laughter in it. "For ten years you have been loving a dream." Adam, listening, with his chin resting on his cane, lifted his head. "You are trying to disillusion me. You are right in saying that I did not know you. But what can you say to disillusion me when I tell you that, knowing you as I know you now, I think you are nobler and more worthy of a man s devotion than I dreamed?" Gudrun leaned back against the bench with a sigh. "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed in despair. "Why do you let your head think such things? Can it be," she went on slowly, feeling her way, and deciding to take a chance, "can it be that you are a sentimen talist?" She watched his face closely, noting the sudden stiffening of the lips, the quick rising of the blood. "So?" he said at last, drawing out the word so that it seemed almost a moan. "I am only a fool to you after all." "Oh, no, no!" Gudrun cried. "Don t misunder stand me. I mean only that you are giving yourself too much to a dream, that you are deceiving your self and making yourself and others unhappy." "Perhaps," he said gloomily. She lifted her eyes to him again, watching him closely. "I cannot get Esperanza out of my head." FACES IN THE DAWN 169 At that he rose abruptly. "Fraulein Gudrun," he said, with the faintest suggestion of impatience, "you do not understand me. And you do not un derstand my wife." "I wonder," Gudrun thought. Down the path from the Manor-house, plow ing his way vigorously through the snow, came Jim- mie Hammerdale. "Hello, hello !" he shouted as he spied them, "hello, and merry Christmas!" Adam flushed and grew rigid. Evidently, he ex pected a jealous scene from Jimmie. He became restless inside. He had to admit to himself that his position was open to misunderstanding. But Gud run smiled quietly, reaching out her left hand to Hammerdale as he approached, and her right to the rigid, frowning pastor standing before her. "What have I done," she cried, "to deserve the friendship of you both?" She spoke in German, but Hammerdale understood the crucial word, and it gave him the key to the situation. He gave the pastor his hand, and thus, a closed circle, they re mained, it seemed, a minute or more. "Three of us now," said Gudrun. "But the cir cle will not be complete until there is a fourth." Adam let his hands fall. "You do not under stand," he repeated, and strode off into the forest. CHAPTER X IN WHICH THE OGRE REGARDS HIMSELF IN THE LOOKING-GLASS PASTOR ADAM strode home through the woods, and his being was like a cauldron, seething and steaming. With full force the realization of what he had said and done came over him. He must have been insane, he cried out, to tell Gudrun of his love. This treasure of his that he had always kept so carefully hidden what had possessed him to spill it out as a boy spills out his heart to his first love? He blamed somewhat his physical state. He was feverish after his sleepless night, and the constant battle between his will, holding him down to his sermon, and his inclination, leading him off into dreams of Gudrun, had worn out his strength, and must have dazed him. Once, in a moment of exhaustion, it had seemed to him that he was wafted out into farthest space, and had seen Gudrun and talked with her. It was under the influence of this dream that he had spoken. He must have been only half conscious even then, as he stood beside the bench, seemingly wide awake. But how strange 170 FACES IN THE DAWN 171 that he should have met Gudrun actually so soon after his dream. Possibly, he had not been romanc ing when he had said that he had been impelled. The soul of man was a wild, untetherable thing of unimagined farings. He grew hot and cold as he thought of his words of love, and sick at heart as he remembered with what unpardonable rudeness, after all his words of devotion, he had left her. Why had he been rude to Gudrun, repelling her efforts to bring harmony into the parsonage? Her intention, truly, was good. Was it possible that he did not want the situation in the parsonage changed, that he preferred his stony-walled solitude to the effort it would cost him to keep his house in peace? Slightly ashamed of himself, he admitted that this was possible. Gud- run s face rose before him, smiling ironically, and calling him a sentimentalist. He tried to reason with it and with his own conscience, which, unexpectedly, began to speak, taking Gudrun s side. It seemed that, baldly expressed, he preferred happy dreams to happy realities. Yes, that was indubitably senti mental. Gudrun knew what she was about when she called him a sentimentalist. So his thoughts went off into new laudations of the incomparable lady. When they returned reluctantly to earth, he decided that he must bestir himself concerning the conduct of his days. He did not attempt to formulate plans as he strode homeward, but he was clearly aware that 172 FACES IN THE DAWN not one side of him only, but his whole being, asked examination and adjustment. He was self-indulgent, he told himself. His life was awry. There was not enough of God in it. He caught his breath at the familiar word, for somehow it sounded fresh and new and inexpressibly revealing. Why had it never sounded so before? The thought came to him that this God whose name he had spoken was a potency of the soul and an infinitely more stirring proposition than the God who was just a King. He quickened his pace. This stir within him toward better living, was this God? Or was that thought merely a heresy that the mod ern mind seemed prone to fall into, and was God only a far-off Sovereign after all? He did not ar gue the matter out. A sense that he was on the border of a new life was strong upon him. His heart was lighter than it had been in years, it seemed. Perhaps, he had actually shed a burden when he had told Gudrun the story of his love, the burden of a self-centered dream-existence. He felt that a chapter in his life was closed. Adam delivered the result of his previous night s labors promptly at ten-thirty that morning; and it was quite as hollow and quite as meaningless as he had suspected. The congregation stood it, as it had learned to stand Pastor Adam s sermons, with de vout patience and an occasional snore. Jimmie Hammerdale arranged his face in a pose of rapt FACES IN THE DAWN 173 attention, and set his mind to planning alterations and improvements in a certain ranch-house in Routt County; but Gudrun, overcome suddenly by the sleep she had waited for in vain all night long, nodded undeniably, and had to be gently prodded to atten tion by the ever-watchful Baroness. That lady, look ing very melancholy and extremely pious, did not take her eyes off the pulpit, leaning comfortably back in her pew with that attitude of calm benignity wherewith middle age habitually receives its edifica tion. The sermon, contrary to Gudrun s expectations, finally came to an end. Worn out by the effort to keep awake, she hurried manorward with Hammer- dale; but the Baroness remained to offer her Christ mas wishes and a contribution to the pastor s men tal cupboard. She lingered after the rest of the parishioners had gone and thanked him for his up lifting sermon, looking up at him with the same melancholy sweetness that the Baron in desperate mood had once declared was very beautiful to see and forget, but was worse than red hair to live with. "We must advise together sometime, Herr Pas tor," she said in mellifluous tones perfectly modu lated. "My Gudrun has become engaged against my will. Possibly you know?" "Yes, I know," answered the pastor, feeling a lit tle guilty, remembering how he had housed the crimi nal. 174 FACES IN THE DAWN "She cannot long harden her heart against me/* the Baroness said with such quiet conviction that Adam grew almost afraid that she was right. "Honor thy father and thy mother. Ah, Herr Pas tor, the children of these latter days " Adam found the melancholy of the voice curiously lulling "they have lost the ideals that my generation held high." The pastor did not stop to realize that it was a new departure for him to be defending the children of to-day, but defended, and marveled afterward. "I have found that this generation has its ideals too, different from ours, but true and noble." The Baroness shook her head slowly, a mourn fully wistful smile upon her still beautiful lips. "Ideas, Herr Pastor," she said, "ideas, perhaps; but ideals, never!" Wherewith she departed. Adam took his way homeward, relieved as he came out of the church to find that Gudrun and Hammerdale had not waited for him at the door as he half feared they might, for he knew that he was himself still too much stirred up by the events of the morning to face Gudrun unconcernedly. He found Esperanza in the kitchen humming Christmas songs to herself as she made certain preliminary preparations for dinner, still an hour or more off, for service in Wenkendorf was at ten and Christmas dinner at Wenkendorf was at three. The children were in his study, which was, and for a week, he knew, would be the Christmas room, the little ones* FACES IN THE DAWN 175 holy of holies ; and he did not resent their presence, for the stately tree, its glamour of many lights slum bering now, seemed to say that this one week of the year they had rights even over his own. He sat down and watched them play. They were quiet, each absorbed in his own occupation. Adam, junior, was arraying his lead soldiery against an embroid ered sofa cushion which was supposed to bulwark innumerable hosts of the enemy; Klarchen was loy ally rocking her beloved doll; and tiny Jakob was chuckling over the antics of his red rubber elephant which, he had discovered, squeaked at command a most un-elephantine squeak. The thought came to Adam that life held hitherto undreamt of possibili ties of peace. And yet and yet if it were only any woman in the world except slovenly Esperanza who was sing ing those Christmas songs in the kitchen! The pastor went to the table where his gifts were still outspread, his socks, his neckties, his Manuel Alonzos, and, with the feeling that he was a wicked sybarite, took one of the cigars and luxuriously lit it, slowly drawing in the smoke and slowly puffing it out. A real cigar, as Hammerdale had assumed, was a rare bird in the parsonage. The pastor generally smoked a pipe, a long, por celain-bowled pipe which he filled with a brownish dust which he called Knaster. That tobacco did not come from Havana. It grew on fields nearby and in the autumn was hung in the sun on fences and 176 FACES IN THE DAWN racks ; and was very dry, indeed, by the time it was ready for the Herr Pastor to press into his black ened bowl. The bowl was so far away from his lips that he always had to call his wife when the pipe went out, and have her hold the match while he puff-puff-puffed. This was, of course, no great inconvenience to him, so he did not take seriously Esperanza s mild suggestion during the first weeks of their marriage that he shorten the stem. The pastor s pipe had a way, before one bowl of Knaster was half burnt out, of turning his study and gradually the rest of the house into something amazingly like a volcano pit. It made Esperanza and the children cough, and more than once, par ticularly in winter when the casements had to be kept tight, had led Esperanza to ask her lord humbly whether he would mind if she and the little ones went to call on the old coachman s wife, three houses down the road. He generally did mind, because he was afraid the cold air might hurt them. To-day the pastor, as he studied the heavy gray- brown ash on his cigar, admitted to himself that the pipe s enveloping clouds had been a bit trying at times. The smoke of this Havana of his curled and hung gently, dipping and rising on imperceptible currents. He watched the strands, how they coiled in and out of other strands, sinking suddenly here to form a ring, scurrying suddenly there like a dis persed army up and away through the upper smoke- FACES IN THE DAWN 177 strata against the very ceiling. He felt for an in stant that he was a very rich man, and better than his fellows. In the kitchen the singing stopped and Esperanza called through the open doorway, "Did you sleep on the sofa last night, Adam?" "No," he answered shortly, annoyed at her in trusion into his smoke-dream, which was all of Gud- run and a bench in the woods, and had nothing whatever to do with Esperanza. "I did not sleep last night." "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Weren t you tired?" "Yes, I was very tired," he answered patiently. "But I had my sermon to write." "I am so sorry I did not hear it. It was beautiful, of course." Adam did not like to have that sermon referred to. "No," he snapped. "It was very ugly." "Why, what do you mean, Adam?" she asked, ap pearing at the door. "How could it be ugly?" "I cannot explain. You would not understand." "I am sure I would understand, Adam," she re plied, looking up at him with the large innocence of her blue eyes. "May I read it?" Such interest in his discourses was something new, and Adam mistrusted it, believing she was merely trying to make up for her former indifference. "You needn t," he said. "But I should like to very much," she answered meekly. 178 FACES IN THE DAWN "Are you merely trying to please me, or are you really interested?" "Oh, Adam, you know I am interested," she cried. "Good," he answered, and gave her the sermon. Puffing opulently, he watched her as she read, watched her in silence for a good half hour, for Esperanza was a slow reader. She plowed man fully through page on page, choking her yawns, and proceeding with a persistence no one would have dreamed the little lady possessed. Finally, how ever, her eyes seemed to grow blurry, for again and again she drew the manuscript close; her head began to look unstable on her shoulders. Adam, watching her, looked grimmer and grim mer as the signs of boredom multiplied. It was one thing for him to decry his sermon, it was quite an other for his wife to express this most fatal of condemnations. He rose from his chair, towered above her an instant, and when he was certain that she was utterly unaware of his proximity, was, in a word, asleep, with awful ominousness he pro nounced her name: "Esperanza!" She woke with a start. "Oh, Adam!" she ex claimed. "What must you think of me? I don t know why I I " "You may give it back to me. You need not finish it," he said coldly. "Oh, Adam, but I want to. I am sure I shall like the rest." "Give it to me," he reiterated. "I do not want FACES IN THE DAWN 179 any more of your criticism. Will you do as I say?" She looked up suddenly into his angry face with her clear, candid eyes. "Oh, Adam," she cried, "do you not respect me at all?" He laughed harshly. "You child, you little echo ! What nonsense is this?" "I am going to try to make myself worthy of your respect," she answered softly. Her face had a sweet tenderness in its appeal that gave him pause. There was strength behind the tenderness, moreover, in place of the weakness he had grown to despise. Esperanza, too, something in him whispered, Esperanza, too, was struggling toward the light. How queer women were. "Good, finish the sermon if it will prevent a scene," he grumbled, covering his retreat as well as he could. She came to him and laid her hand on his arm. "I have not been a good wife to you, Adam. I think I have been careless. But I shall try to do better. Then you won t get angry and out of pa tience with me any more, will you?" There was such tender pleading in the voice, and such childlike assurance in the eyes, that Adam was, for a moment, unable to answer. "No, no, of course not," he said at last, adding, as a final shaft, "but you have much to learn." "I know," said Esperanza humbly. For some reason he did not stop to analyze, the pastor was sorry that he had fired that final shaft. CHAPTER XI IN WHICH THE MELANCHOLY PERSONAGE BUCKLES ON HER BROADSWORD AND GOES TO BATTLE, TO THE DISCOMFITURE OF EVERYBODY GUDRUN did not come to the parsonage with her Young Man (or without him, for that matter) for several days, and the fear took root in Adam that his outburst on Christmas morning might, after all, have offended the lady of his devotion. That unexpected piece of pastoral lyricism was, indeed, one cause of her nonappearance; but not for the reason that Adam s conscience proposed. Her in terview with Adam, after her restless night, had affected her, she found, more than she had sup posed. Adam curiously haunted her thoughts; and she decided it would be better that she and Adam take time fitly to compose their minds before they met again. She wanted, by all means, to steer safely clear of sentimental ebullitions, without losing the friendship which his unswerving belief in her told her he was capable of. She had not had any deep friendship in her life until Hammerdale had en tered it; and her friendship for Hammerdale had 1 80 FACES IN THE DAWN 181 been invaded so soon by the tremulous fears and gladnesses of an emotion which, if not more rare nor more noble than friendship, was certainly dif ferent from it, that she found her mind for the day or two following Christmas almost as full of Pas tor Adam as of the man she was planning to marry in just about two months and a half. She confessed that fact to Hammerdale in a half joking, half seri ous way. They were going through the cow-stables when she divulged her feelings. The very place where this confidence was given might have led Hammer- dale to pass it off jocosely, but, to Gudrun s deep content (she was a little afraid of his sense of hu mor), he answered her almost solemnly: "I m glad you told me that. I ve been wondering how your thinking machine was assaying the situation. It isn t exactly an everyday experience to have a man tell you that you ve led him in the direction of the stars. I guess I d been sorry if you hadn t thought about it a good deal." They walked through the stables and out into the steaming barnyard before he proceeded. "Go on. I m not jealous. You said you loved me; and you don t say anything un less you re pretty sure it s true. So think about the dear old ogre all you please. You ll have to be thinking about me, more or less, the rest of your days mending socks and so on so I guess I haven t any kick coming." Gudrun gave his arm a quick pressure. "Silly 1 82 FACES IN THE DAWN boy," she whispered, "how do you expect me to think of anything at all when you are so nice to me?" In the unsettled state of Gudrun s feelings, then, lay one reason for her nonappearance at the par sonage. The other reason was even more potent. The Baroness, who had not had a Christmas Eve celebration of her own in the Lord knew how long, was unexpectedly and deeply offended that Gudrun should have deserted her that one evening in the year to seek a celebration elsewhere. "I do not understand you any more, my child," she said pathetically, as Gudrun brought her in her breakfast after her return from the woods Christmas morning. "You have your engagement announcements printed before I have given my con sent to your engagement, and without a word you go off on Christmas Eve and leave your poor mother alone." "But, mother, dear," Gudrun protested gently, "I told you we were going to the parsonage and you said we might, since you were in bed and did not intend to get up." "I did get up after all," said the Baroness, con scious that she was uttering a crushing rejoinder. "We couldn t guess that you would, could we, dear?" Gudrun replied with no touch of irony. "I spent the evening with your father. We played bezique. He played very badly. He has no head for cards." A pang of conscience shot through Gudrun. After FACES IN THE DAWN 183 all, she should not have deserted her parents. The picture of them, playing bezique for hour on hour in utter silence, gave her the creeps. "Have the announcements come from the prin ter s?" asked the Baroness after a pause. The Baroness always liked to be well informed, even con cerning the things which officially she ignored. "Yes, mother," Gudrun answered. "They have come." "Let me see them." Gudrun fetched the little package from her bed room, opened it, and silently handed one of the broad folders to her mother. The Baroness read it aloud, softly, but with emphasis. "The engagement of our daughter Gudrun to Mr. James Hammerdale of Pagoda and Leadville, Colorado, we herewith have the honor to announce. Georg Baron von Hallern and wife, Clothilde, nee Countess Felse- neck." The Baroness paused. "We? That we is untruthful. I am no party to this." "Oh, but mother, we must announce it that way." "You should not announce it at all unless you can announce it truthfully. I am surprised at you, Gud run. But go on as you have gone. You must live your own life. Your punishment will come and then you will think of your poor mother whom you disobeyed." "Mother, dear! How do I know whether I am disobeying or not? You have not expressed yourself definitely either way. Just let me talk to you a 1 84 FACES IN THE DAWN minute and give you my point of view. I love Jim- mie, and, if we don t marry now, a whole year will have to go by, and " "Never mind, my child. We will say no more about it." u But I want to talk about it. I want to show you my reasons, my point of view. I want so much to have the announcements go with your consent." "The matter is settled. You believe you will be happy in doing wrong, so what can I say?" "But I m not doing wrong. I m sure of it." The Baroness shook her head, smiling with mourn ful wistfulness. "We will waste no more words. Please. An aspirin, Gudrun. You have brought back my neuralgia." Gudrun fetched the aspirin, and left the room with the feeling that she had been trying to charge up a mountain of sawdust. She went to her desk in one of the little reception-rooms that adjoined the salon, took out her address-book and started to ad dress envelopes. Her father came in at that moment, returning from a ride. She showed him the announcements. (< A la bonne heuref" he exclaimed. "My Queen of Zeeland, I take off my hat to you. I could not have done it. You should have been the soldier and I the old maid." "But I don t intend to be an old maid," Gudrun protested laughingly. "No, indeed," answered the Baron, smiling faintly FACES IN THE DAWN 185 as he stroked her hair. "I did not intend to be a dried-up country squire either. Thank the Lord you are not as soft as the Major. If you had my porridge heart you would surely be an old maid. Come, shall I help you? Since I am your open con federate, I might as well be of some help." They had worked together for ten minutes when Hammerdale entered. "Here, you young Hard- muth, King of Norway, come from oversea to steal away our Queen of Zeeland," cried the Baron, who was always in bounding spirits when he was getting the better of his lady. "Lend us your trusty right. This is emphatically your concern, and you shall not be allowed to shirk." Jimmie grinned a little sheepishly as he read over his own announcement on the page opposite the mani festo of the Baron and Baroness. " My engage ment to Miss Gudrun, Baroness von Hallern, " he read, translating, " daughter, and so forth and of his wife, Clothilde, nee Countess Felseneck say ! T have the honor herewith to announce. James Hammerdale, Duke of Leadville and Grand Mogul of Pagoda. This is immense. Couldn t sound more serious if it was a last will and testament. I pro phesy this makes a hit in Colorado." The Baron laughed heartily. "Custom, custom, we are fettered to it." "Rather good thing within limits, too. Custom, I mean. It discourages manslaughter." "Quite true," answered the Baron, more seri- 1 86 FACES IN THE DAWN ously. "But custom commits its own subtle murder. Look at me a dead man. In your country I should be a bandit, a cowboy, a politician, a live man of some sort, certainly not a country gentleman, penned up a thousand leagues from Buxtehude. Custom is the Garde du Corps of law. It is the last and staunchest bulwark against rebellion." Gudrun laid down her pen. "I think I ll let you two continue your exchange of undeniable truths by yourselves. It s almost time for church." She rose and started for her room, turning at the door way and looking back at them with a whimsically wistful smile. "I wish you people would talk of more cheerful things," she said. "I warn you that rebellion as a topic of conversation these days is taboo." Both Hammerdale and the Baron looked up sharply, and Hammerdale half rose. But Gudrun was already gone. The Baron was wrong about Gudrun s soldierly qualities, or else she was too raw a recruit to be other than fearful under fire. Her first resistance to the Baroness s subtle artillery had certainly ended in moral, if not actual, defeat for herself. She had inwardly admitted her own weakness, which no good soldier should do in the midst of a battle. And as she hurriedly dressed for church she was miserably aware of the fact that she had run from the enemy. FACES IN THE DAWN 187 The Baroness, on the other hand, she was a sol dier worth the Baron and Gudrun put together; for she could not only shoot and thrust, charge and ex ecute flank movements in her own inimitable way, she could plan a campaign. She had, in fact, laid the outlines of one before her interview with Gudrun, Hammerdale and the Baron two nights previous, was half over. This she had perfected the day be fore, lying comfortably in her bed, waited on by two maids ; celebrating its completion by suddenly rising, dressing and not pleasantly surprising the Baron as he was proceeding to the supper-table. The thing was that the plan began with the Baron. Military authorities would have called the Baron ess a Fabian. Her motto was: "Cut off supplies, harass incessantly, do everything but fight." In other words, wait wait and wait. The Baroness was almost divinely patient. Her moves, when she made any, were always such as would prevent a con flict, would preserve the status quo. She was the per fect conservative; there was something divine to her in things as they were. She, therefore, opened the action with the Baron by the simple means of a Spanish omelet, the like of which he had eaten for the first time on their honeymoon in Madrid some eight and twenty years ago. She trusted it to wake memories, and it did. The Baron did not go off into any sentimental maunderings at least, they were not audible for the tradition of silence, when silence was possible, was of too many years 1 88 FACES IN THE DAWN standing to be completely swept aside by a Spanish omelet. All he said was: "I suppose Madrid has changed, too, in twenty-eight years." But the Baron ess felt that the omelet had not been cooked in vain. The game of bezique, to which the Baroness had referred in her interview with Gudrun, was a sec ond move in the subtle campaign. The Baroness had not played bezique in years. She had put aside cards when she put aside colors in her dress and other things which her husband liked, and acquired the little lace cap, which he detested since it told him he was growing old. The Baron was delighted with the idea of bezique and laid aside his Furst Billow with alacrity when the Baroness proposed it. "You don t know how much pleasure you are giv ing me, Clothilde," he exclaimed at the end of one of the hands. "I am glad, Georg," she answered sedately. The Baroness beat her husband, which gave her a deep satisfaction which she did not re veal. She enjoyed her evening as she had not en joyed an evening with her husband in years. It is worthy of remark, however, that she would have joined Shadrach and his friends in the fiery furnace before she would have confessed it even to herself. The Baroness was well satisfied with her first day s campaign. The Baron was visibly mellowed. There was a certain glow in his cold courtesy, this Christmas morning, like Alpengluhen on a glacier. Rebel Number One, soft-hearted lover that he was, was coming to terms. FACES IN THE DAWN 189 The Baroness, as has been chronicled, turned her batteries next on Pastor Samuels. She could obvi ously not combat that gentleman with Spanish om elets and bezique; but she was too good a strategist not to realize that different conditions demand dif ferent tactics. She appealed to Adam in his role as the community s guardian of things spiritual. Gudrun was transgressing the biblical injunction the pastor must take her in hand. Adam s attitude rather amazed her. It lacked its customary dog matism. It gave her, moreover, no immediate en couragement that the pastor had any intention of lecturing her daughter. Obviously, Gudrun had made a firm ally these two days of inexplicable in timacy with the plebeian underworld. There was only one thing to do about that. Gudrun must go no more to the parsonage. The Baroness was too wise to command, and far too wise to make any disparaging remarks concern ing Gudrun s new friends. She even went so far as to praise the pastor s sermon during the stately Christmas dinner that afternoon, gently chiding Gudrun for her difficulty in keeping awake; and to speak kindly of Esperanza and the children. But she carefully filled Gudrun s time so absolutely that Gudrun had no opportunity to seek the friendly par sonage. The first day this fitted into Gudrun s own plans, the second day less, the third it began to be irksome. But the matter was so carefully engi neered by the Baroness that Gudrun, who was not i 9 o FACES IN THE DAWN clever at detecting plots, especially when they were directed against herself, never suspected that there were hidden strings. On the contrary, she trans lated her mother s evident desire to have her con stantly by her side into a sign of surrender. And with a lighter heart she took up again the addressing of the envelopes. Jimmie Hammerdale was the opponent, the Baroness realized, who was obviously most to be feared; and him she did not quite know how to at tack. He was fortified with a kind of armor she was unused to. His life, his character, his whole point of view were things foreign to her. The Baron was an open book to her, printed in clear Gothic; Hammerdale, on the other hand, was as an Alaskan totem pole. She approached her manipula tions of him without definite plans, trusting to luck. It was toward evening, three days after Christ mas, that she invited Gudrun and Hammerdale to her sitting-room for afternoon coffee; sending Gud run on a wild goose chase to the garret and the kitchen as soon as the material part of the enter tainment was disposed of. The subterfuge was rather obvious the Baroness was clumsy at battle in the open and Hammerdale, pleased rather than otherwise at the prospect of an exchange of ideas with his amazing hostess, sat back and waited for the firing to begin. The Baroness was, however, in no haste to commence, and for a minute or two they studied each other, the Baroness vague-eyed and sad, FACES IN THE DAWN 191 Hammerdale keen, piercing, with a thoughtful smile hammering at the wicket, wanting to get out. Ham merdale did not mind the silence, for, obviously, the responsibility of it did not rest upon him; and the Baroness was goodly to look upon, and worthy of more than the brief moment s attention. There was a large dignity about her face, heightened by that delicious coronet on her hair, the cap of lace and ribbons ; and so composed were the features that no one would have suspected that the dignity was more a matter of physical habit, inbred through the centuries, than a spiritual quality. He tried to study motives in that face and found it a fascinating, il lusive game, for a mist seemed to hang over every thing and truth was hard to find. He wondered, after consideration, whether the finding would be worth the labor of the search. He was a man who liked people according to their sincerity rather than their intellectuality, finding the insincere man the only insufferable bore, since he played the game with loaded dice. The Baroness, he decided, was a good deal of a bore. That lady, however, found her cool and calm-eyed critic not at all uninteresting. She was not used to his type of face, she disliked clean shaven faces anyway; they seemed effeminate, lack ing the bristling masculinity of the mustache. But the rather round face, bronzed by the sun, was not bad as clean-shaven faces went. It was not at all effeminate. The Baroness even wished with a sigh that she were seventeen again. 192 FACES IN THE DAWN Just as the silence was beginning to be uncom fortable, the Baroness spoke. "You may smoke if you wish," she said sweetly. She liked to have men smoke. Somehow, it was the thing for a real man to do a man to be a man must smoke and drink and accept whatever pretty lips offered themselves to him that was tradition. Hammerdale thanked her and answered that he would rather not. "I am afraid you are robbing yourself because you are in my room," she said. "You are very courteous. I am ignorant of your country. I thought you were all barbarians, particularly in the West." This piece of obvious flattery was not lost on Hammerdale. "Oh, we re barbarians, East and West. I am from New England originally. You see the barbarian was so strong in me that I had to make for the wilds." "I do not understand that," answered the Baron ess, honestly bewildered. "Other people have had difficulty in understand ing," said Hammerdale slowly, "even on my side of the water." There was a note in his voice that suggested to the Baroness her next query: "You have parents living?" Jimmie looked up ; and it occurred to the Baron ess that these eyes, gazing thoughtfully into hers, were the eyes of a lonely man. "My mother is FACES IN THE DAWN 193 still living," he said quickly, as if to get the words out and done with. "Ah!" murmured the Baroness, like an exhausted swimmer who suddenly feels the bottom under his feet. "And she is living with you?" "No," he answered, his face clouding. "My mother lives in Massachusetts. She does not care for the West." "Ah!" murmured the Baroness again. "How very hard that must be for her." She nodded her head feelingly, and the smile vanished from her lips, leaving only the melancholy. Hammerdale began to feel uncomfortable. "It is hard for us both," he said in defense. "Of course, one cannot lay out the paths of other people s lives," she went on. "But, since your mother cannot live with you, I should think that as long as you have her you would live with her." "It s a bit difficult to explain an unnatural situa tion like this," he replied, choosing his words care fully. "But there are differences between the East and the West that are deeper than differences of climate and altitude. Differences in attitude toward life. My mother and I place value on widely di vergent things. In many cases she abhors what I swear by. And so on." "So you must leave your poor old mother in her loneliness for the sake of a point of view?" quoth the Baroness sadly. "Forgive me. But you are like the rest of your generation." 194 FACES IN THE DAWN Hammerdale found himself thinking that the Baroness was a rather intrusive person; but the pic ture she drew of his mother twisted his compressed lips upward into a slow grin. "Pardon me, Baron ess," he exclaimed. "But, really, you should see my good mother. Lonely ! She is president of half the societies for the preservation of antedeluvian relics in America, and the beacon of New Bedford social life. She doesn t tango because she s conservative, but she Bostons like a girl." "She dances?" "Why, yes. She s only fifty-odd. Why not?" There was a hint of irony in his tones which the Baroness chose to ignore. "So? So?" said the Baroness meditatively. "Your mothers are different in America. You have not the same feeling toward your mothers that chil dren have here. That is why you find it so easy to disregard Gudrun s mother." Hammerdale looked at her quietly and steadily for half a minute. Then he spoke. "Baroness, I have suspected that you were coming to something like that. I have a great feeling about mothers, more, possibly, than people have whose mothers have been more successful than mine. You think, of course, that I have been influencing Gudrun against you?" "I did not say that," declared the Baroness dep- recatingly. FACES IN THE DAWN 195 "I understand," Hammerdale went on, "but didn t you mean it?" "My dear Mr. Hammerdale," she cried, horrified at his bluntness. "You must not put meanings into my words that are not there." "Shall we say," he asked as patiently as he could, "that you implied it?" "My daughter is very dear to me," murmured the Baroness irrelevantly. Hammerdale swore softly to himself, but he spoke with all the courtesy of one who knows that he is arguing against a heart as well as a brain. "I wish to be absolutely frank with you. I did influence Gudrun in opposing you, and I intend to bend all my efforts to strengthen her in the position she has taken." "Mr. Hammerdale!" gasped the Baroness, quiv ering with amazement at his candor. "Pardon me if I continue. I feel that her po sition in regard to you is largely the same as mine in reference to my mother. It is a matter of clash ing temperaments." "Oh, but you are so absolutely mistaken," she cried, as though he had uttered the most patent of absurdities. "Clash? There is not the suspicion of it. We love each other so we are like sisters it is the rarest kind of relationship there is never a ripple. Clash! I am afraid you are speaking of something you know nothing about." Hammerdale let the Baroness s eloquence glide 196 FACES IN THE DAWN off him like hail from an elephant s hide. u As I was saying," he continued calmly, to the lady s evi dent perturbation, for she was not used to having her sentiments ignored, "it is a matter of clashing temperaments. It is one of the things that have to be faced squarely. Gudrun will never be happy, I m afraid, if she stays here. I believe she will be happy in Colorado. That isn t all vanity, either. It is the result of observation." "Of course, you have a perfect right to your opinion," said the Baroness rising, and smiling at him as a wounded saint might smile at her tormen tors. "But you are young. I must remember that, and not feel too deeply hurt by your unkind out spokenness. You do not understand." Hammerdale arose, too, amazed at the Baroness s sudden haste to terminate the discussion. "I am sorry if I hurt you. I said nothing that I do not sincerely believe." "We will say no more about it. But you will ex cuse me now? The shock has given me a headache." It was that last word that impelled Hammerdale not to respect the Baroness s desire. He remem bered another headache plea that first evening. Life was too short, he decided, to allow him to respect all the Baroness s attacks of neuralgia. "Pardon me," he said deferentially. "Would you mind letting me stay another minute or two?" "My dear Mr. Hammerdale you understand. To-morrow?" FACES IN THE DAWN 197 A stubborn streak asserted itself in Hammerdale. "You don t mind, do you?" he asked with the most courteous of smiles, "if we make it to-day?" But the Baroness did not intend to let matters come to a crisis if she could help it. The inter view had, because of Hammerdale s inexcusable can dor, already taken an entirely different direction from the one she had planned that it should take. Her idea had been to lull Hammerdale as she was lulling the others, to flatter or otherwise hypnotize him to quiescence. She could not afford a crisis, for crises brought open conflict; and her power lay in guerilla warfare, or leisurely campaigns of waiting. "Surely you will not overtax an old woman, Mr. Hammerdale?" said the Baroness. Jimmie was al most persuaded by the musical quality of her sad voice and the exquisite English she spoke; but not quite. Hammerdale smiled to himself at the impudent crudeness of the flattery that suggested itself to him; then he uttered it. "It has never occurred to me, Baroness, that I was talking with an old woman." She glanced up at him surprised. Then, with a glance that was not melancholy, for once, but ac tually tender, she sank back into her chair again. Something in the back of Hammerdale s being shouted an hilarious shout; but the look that he gave in exchange was formal and grave. 198 FACES IN THE DAWN "Thank you, Baroness," he said. "All I wanted to do was to suggest that we come to a clear un derstanding now of the situation as regards Gudrun and myself in order to avoid future misunderstand ings. As you know, I have amply satisfied the Baron concerning my financial and social status. He ap pears pleased with our engagement. As for Gud run, well, Gudrun seems willing to take a chance." "You speak so lightly of serious things," inter rupted the Baroness plaintively. "That is a habit of speech rather than of thought," Hammerdale assured her. "Now, what I am anx ious for is a definite statement from you. Your believe me, I speak with the greatest respect your unwillingness to express your verdict thus far is ob viously wearing on Gudrun. In short, won t you give us your consent?" "You have taken me at a disadvantage, Mr. Ham merdale," the Baroness replied feebly. "I am sure I am not well. I cannot discuss such momentous questions when I am in this state." "I am extremely sorry you are ill," he answered, so charmingly that no one would ever have guessed that he was muttering "Damned old fraud" to him self. "It is largely for your sake I am speaking. I believe you will feel happier later knowing that Gud run has gone from under your roof with your full consent. For, of course, you understand, whether you consent or not I assure you I speak with all reverence Gudrun is going to be my wife." FACES IN THE DAWN 199 The Baroness forgot her ailments for an instant as she stared at Hammerdale, her big round cow s- eyes like saucers in her head, saucers rimmed with blue. Then she wiped a tear from her cheek, a real tear, and sank back into herself as though she were collapsed by a blow. "My poor child," she whis pered, "my poor child." Jimmie watched her unmoved. "My dear Baron ess, I am not coercing Gudrun." "Ah, you say that," murmured the Baroness, "but it is not true. You are subtly coercing her, by your very presence you are coercing her. I pity my child from the bottom of my heart, for she will awake to the truth, she will feel bitter pangs, knowing that she has gone without her mother s consent. But she will be far away, and no remorse will help her then. Possibly I may be dead. One cannot tell. Grief, grief yes, sometimes it kills, though it is not often so merciful." The tears were running down her cheeks. The muscles of Hammerdale s face tightened. "Baroness," he said, and his voice was so firm that the Baroness forgot for the moment to weep, look ing up at him expectantly, "I am afraid you will think me rude, perhaps even brutal. In that case I should be sorry. But I believe that what you have been saying is pure unreasoning sentimentality. I do not expect you to agree with me, but I shall go ahead as though you did." 200 FACES IN THE DAWN "My poor child, my poor child," murmured the Baroness, her chin sunk on her breast. Gudrun, bone of this contention, entered sud denly. On the landing outside she had heard Ham- merdale s last words and they apprized her clearly enough of the situation to convince her of its serious ness. "Oh, what have you two been doing?" she cried. "I have been urging your mother to give her con sent to our engagement," Hammerdale answered cheerfully. "But I m sorry to say she won t com mit herself either way." The Baroness reached out her hand feebly and grasped Gudrun s. "My child, do not be rash, do not let yourself be hypnotized by a stronger per sonality than your own into taking a misstep. When he tries to argue with you shut your ears. Do not let him coerce you." "Why, mother, how absurd," Gudrun cried. "He is not coercing me." "Ah, my child," answered the Baroness, patting her hand as she would a baby s. "You are young. You do not understand the world. Such things are subtle. They are not on the surface." Her mother s habit of treating her like a child of twelve always started Gudrun s blood to sim mering. It did so now. "Surely, mother," she cried, "I am old enough to take care of myself. I have a will of my own, moreover, that even Jimmie here might find trouble in coercing. Eh, man?" FACES IN THE DAWN 201 Jimmie grinned. The whole situation seemed, in his mind, to be veering constantly between tragedy and comic opera. In the comic opera mood, not expecting to be taken in the least seriously, he re marked gaily: "If I m such a baleful influence I suppose I might disappear for parts unknown for a week or a month. Coercion would be difficult under those circumstances. " Gudrun laid her hand on his shoulder. "Silly idiot," she said. "Don t talk such nonsense." "I think," said the Baroness slowly from the depths of her chair, "I think Mr. Hammerdale s plan is a very good one. It will give " "But it s a joke, mother!" "A joke! You are mistaken, child. One does not joke about such serious matters. As I was say ing, it will give us all a chance to absorb these new thoughts, these new emotions that have come upon us with such cruel force. It will give us all a much- needed rest. You too, my dear." The Baroness sighed. Hammerdale, deciding that the play was definitely comic opera now, stroked his chin with appreciative amusement. "But, mother," Gudrun went on, "it s all non sense. Jimmie s going to stay right here. What does he want to trot over Europe for? Besides, he might get run over." "My dear, you talk of such things? And yet you want me to believe that you love him. I think it is advisable in every way that Mr. Hammerdale 202 FACES IN THE DAWN should go on a month s vacation. You will forgive an all too doting mother, Mr. Hammerdale?" "I am your guest, Baroness," answered Hammer- dale, wondering vaguely whether they would all be getting up in a minute to sing a topical song. It was all so obviously comic opera. But he spoke seriously. "Naturally, being your guest, I shall fall in with whatever plans you make for my going and coming." "No, no!" Gudrun cried. "This is perfectly ab surd. "Let s joke about something else." "My child, I am quite serious." "Mother!" "Trust me, my Gudrun." "But it is so needless this separation." "My child, you have been very stubborn," mur mured the Baroness, most gentle in her lulling mel ancholy. "You have hurt me more than I can say. But I will not speak of it. I will hide it in my heart where I have hid so much, and no one shall ever suspect that it is there. No one. But this thing you can do for me, this one request, perhaps my last, this you can grant. Or is your love too weak?" "Mother, it is not a question of love," Gudrun exclaimed, "but of common sense." "Ah, you are like the rest of your generation. Love is nothing. Common sense is all." "You are twisting my words. Of course I love you and want to do what you wish, but this is so quixotic " FACES IN THE DAWN 203 The Baroness was weeping and her voice was very feeble and faraway when she spoke. "My Gudrun, lost to me lost to me " "Mother, how absurd!" "Gudrun, the aspirin." Hammerdale went for a month at ten o clock next morning, and the Baroness looked, if possible, more melancholy than ever as she watched the sleigh go jingling down the drive to the highway. But Gudrun had her revenge, for she kissed the Unknown Stranger on the railroad platform in sight of half the gossips of Hunenfeld. CHAPTER XII IN WHICH THE OGRE BARELY ESCAPES DEVOURING HIS OWN CHILD AND BECOMES PROPERLY HUMBLE FORTHWITH ADAM and Gudrun came upon each other unex pectedly the afternoon following Hammerdale s sudden departure. Gudrun was coming from the bedside of the lachrymose old lady who had broken her leg Christmas Eve, and was still examining her life for dark misdeeds to justify such Jehovan punishment; and met Adam on the doorstep. She was able to greet him quite unconcernedly, for the events leading up to Jimmie s going had filled her mind so completely that Adam and his love-outburst had been crowded quite out of her thoughts. The pastor had forgotten nothing of that morning s ex perience; and, disregarding the probability that the matter was closer to him than to her, imagined that she must feel it all as vividly yet as he. Where fore, he flushed deeply and for a half minute sought in vain for words. Once more Gudrun came to the rescue. 204 FACES IN THE DAWN 205 "I am so glad to see you, Herr Pastor," she ex claimed, flushing not at all and giving him her hand with unaffected naturalness. "You must give my love to Esperanza. Does she think we are terrible not to have come to see her since Christmas?" She did not wait for a reply, but went on quickly. "I am spending all my days with my mother. She seems to be quite frail, and likes to have me about." Adam nodded his head, trying to reconcile Gud- run s words with the resolute and by no means frail spirit the Baroness had displayed in church Christ mas morning. "So?" he said. "I am glad." "I think she suffers from the thought of my going so far," Gudrun continued. "It must be very hard when you have brought up children, working and suffering for them, to have them go away with scarce ly a qualm." "That is one of the penalties we pay for joy," answered Adam with a bulldog expression on his face Gudrun had not seen there before, "that we must see it go, and send our blessings after it." "I had to send my blessings after my Jimmie- man." Gudrun remarked ruefully, "this morning at ten. Mother insisted that we must have a further period of inner examination. It s a little hard, but mother wanted it so much that it seemed pigheaded and selfish not to yield." "Ah!" murmured Adam, mentally dovetailing the Baroness s remark in church with the departure of the excellent Hammerdale. "Is it so?" 206 FACES IN THE DAWN "And Esperanza is well?" asked Gudrun, as she turned homeward. Adam was still thinking of the Baroness. "Es peranza?" he asked, rather stupidly, as though he could not recall who was meant. "Oh, yes, she is the same as always." "Just the same?" Gudrun asked meaningly, as they shook hands. The pastor flushed once more as the remembrance of the scene in the woods flooded his consciousness in a new wave. "You do not understand," was all he could say. Adam, having consoled the penitent lady of the broken leg as well as he could, took a roundabout way home to the parsonage. For the children were still ruling undisturbed by day in his study, and he had contracted the habit since Christmas of tramping the highways and byways, making a thinking-room of the great out-of-doors. His mind was crowded with countless new impressions, new ideas, new feel ings, new resolves ; and he despaired of coordinating them. He had always divided life formerly into just so many pigeon-holes, thrusting people and things into their respective boxes without misgiv ings. Gudrun went into the box marked Aspira tions, Esperanza into the box marked Disagreeable Necessities, the Baroness into the box marked Piety, and so on. But he realized that the pigeon-hole sys tem had somehow gone wrong; it no longer worked. FACES IN THE DAWN 207 Gudrun was more than an Aspiration, Esperanza was doing curious things that no one would expect of a Disagreeable Necessity, and the Baroness was pos sibly things beside pious, but what those things were he did not attempt to put into words. The thought came to him like an inspiration that life was not simple, but bewilderingly complex, and he wondered whether anyone had ever made that discovery be fore. As he walked along the highway toward Hiinen- feld, over snow packed firm as a boulevard in the runner-tracks the sleighs had made, he tried grad ually to straighten out the tangled threads. Two things were clear to him; one, that he could never go on leading the slipshod life he had led the past five years, and escape the bludgeon of an awakened conscience; the other, that he must be safely on the new road before he could dare, in the sight of God and his own soul, to aspire to do the great office for Gudrun and Hammerdale on the Twelfth of March. He recalled the naively frank words he had spoken as they were saying good-bye on Christ mas Eve: u You have given me less than three months to make myself worthy." He grew hot at the thought of his boldness, but this misdeed was so slight in comparison with his rush of emotion the fol lowing morning that it seemed almost conventional ; moreover, he was glad he had said it, for it gave him a center about which to array the jumbled ideas and emotions that were bewildering him. Speaking 208 FACES IN THE DAWN the words had also in a sense pledged him to fulfill the promise he had already made mentally. His pride did good service at this point. He would not have Gudrun think him a vain talker. He was no longer vaguely beating about the darkness. He had his eye on a definite aim. He must make him self worthy. Possibly the confusion in his soul might gradually give place to order if he kept his eyes unswervingly on the Twelfth of March. He knew that if he were not to appear an utter Pharisee to himself when the hour came; and if, henceforth, Gudrun s marriage was to be as holy a memory to him as her Confirmation, he must strive for purifi cation as he loyally strove then. Grimly he took cog nizance of ignoble years following that Confirma tion, ignoble not in the things done but rather in the things left undone. Dray-horse years should not have followed the calm, pure beauty of that Palm Sunday ten years back. He should not have allowed himself to sink into the common rut of dull-witted, heavy-footed humanity. He would draw himself out of it now. Something was wrong with his life. He did not know what it was. But henceforth he would be less irritable with Esperanza and the children, he would serve his par ish less grudgingly, he would study again. Es peranza? For the second time that morning the memory of his interview with Gudrun by the friendly bench rushed in upon him. "Esperanza" that had been her answer to the story of his love, and she had FACES IN THE DAWN 209 spoken the name again to-day. Esperanza. As he recalled her words that morning, that one word seemed to stand out above all others Esperanza. The meeting suddenly took on new significance, a significance which, he dimly realized, he considered slightly unwelcome. The general impression he had carried about with him was that Gudrun had scolded him for his sentimentality and ended by calling him her friend; the interview had, in fact, ended fairly triumphantly for him. Her last words and his re joinder he had considered in the light of an unfor tunate but irrelevant epilogue. But Gudrun s itera tion of that name gradually altered the picture. Es peranza Esperanza Esperanza she seemed to say. "If you have ever loved me Esperanza if you are not merely a selfish sentimentalist Es peranza. " He heard the name echoing down a hun dred corridors -"Esperanza !" "You do not under stand," he had said, meaning that he who had loved Gudrun could never love anyone so insignificant as his slavish little wife. And yet he seemed to hear Gudrun repeating in answer: "Esperanza Esperan za." He felt suddenly depressed. It would mean such an effort to keep his temper with Esperanza. Scaling the heavens seemed at that moment vastly easier. But he remembered his resolutions. He would set his house in order his inner house; and he could no more ignore Esperanza there than he could ignore 2io FACES IN THE DAWN her in the parsonage. Well, he said to himself with a sigh, he would do his best. He turned homeward, and noble resolves seemed easy of execution as he marched through the white fields, invigorated by the sense of a new beginning that had been on him in a greater or less degree ever since Gudrun and Hammerdale s first visit, but never more strongly than now. If he could only order his life to get the best out of it! Life might be full and rich even for him, he thought, if he could only grasp and hold the gifts it offered. He had not been inside the parsonage five min utes before the perfidious imps that exist for no other purpose than to quarry paving-stones for the broad streets of Hell began to apply their minute drills to his good intentions. The usual air of con fusion hung about the rooms. The Christmas room, his study, was confusion worse confounded, and the tree with its look of calm stateliness seemed more unearthly than ever amid such mundane disorder. The two elder children were cross and constantly on the edge of tears : on inquiry he found they had that morning done away with a tart of marchpane, that should have lasted a month, and were suffering the consequences. This was bad enough, but what was worse, namely that Esperanza, attending them, had let the corned beef and horseradish merrily boil themselves into shreds, he did not discover until, when the hour for the midday meal struck, Es peranza presented a long face, but no dinner. FACES IN THE DAWN 211 Adam, remembering his resolutions, held himself in hand. "So?" he remarked, merely raising his eyebrows. Esperanza waited for the storm which did not come, looking up at him with some concern when he was not watching to see if he possibly were unwell. Having satisfied herself on this score, she served what was left of the beef to serve, adding some rather ghastly blue potatoes and bread. Adam ate his meal without comment of any kind; but not with out inner struggles. He felt heroically virtuous, and, possibly, showed this feeling; for Esperanza bustled about more restlessly even than usual, help less before his silent disapproval. "I met Fraulein Gudrun to-day," he said as he rose. "Oh," Esperanza cried. "Did she say when she was coming again?" "No. Her mother needs her at the Manor- house." "I wish she would come. There are so many things I want to ask her." "So ?" said Adam. "What, for instance ?" Esperanza was flustered and did not answer, try ing, as she cleared away the dinner dishes, to pretend that she had not heard the question. "What, for instance?" Adam repeated. She looked up a little frightened. "Oh, about housekeeping," she answered vaguely. "She does things so quickly." 212 FACES IN THE DAWN "And what else?" "Nothing else except " "Well, out with it." "I want her to tell me how women how women become worthy of respect." Adam felt something glimmer and glow an in stant somewhere in his being; but his principal feel ing, as he retreated to his study a moment later, was one of annoyance at the obstreperousness of Dis agreeable Necessities who refused to stay pigeon holed. The little imps who hammer day and night at cracks in men s good resolutions were not repelled definitely by their first rebuff. As the day waned toward dusk they came in force, bringing their friends, for, as the pangs of hunger began to assert themselves in Adam, his resentment, quenched tem porarily by Esperanza s simple-hearted words, re- awoke, rose and buckled on armor and broadsword. Esperanza had put the children to bed, but their room was directly above the study and their inter mittent wails and whines gradually developed into a form of refined torture that made his toes and fingers wriggle restlessly with pent-up irritation. He had taken up his Greek Testament for the first time in months with the intention of carrying out another of his good resolutions; but after an hour of honest endeavor he thrust Testament and forbearance from him with one fling of his hand and strode upstairs. The children heard his step on the stair and, in- FACES IN THE DAWN 213 terpreting its sternness, set up anew their querulous laments. "Quiet, quiet, children," counseled Esperanza. "They are not feeling well, Adam." The pastor tried vigorous persuasion, and, when these elicited only fresh outbursts, threats. Then, suddenly, he lost his temper and laid first Adam, junior, and then little Klarchen over his knee and administered classic discipline. Little Adam bawled lustily and ran into a corner nursing the injured parts. But Klarchen merely whimpered as she sank back on the bed and then lay still. Her eyes were closed, her face ashen, her body rigid. Esperanza leapt toward her with a shriek. "Adam, what have you done?" she cried. "The child is " Adam stood white and trembling over the bed, as Esperanza shook the little body, crying heart rending cries. He stood like a rock, incapable of motion, helpless as though he were in a nightmare. Esperanza splashed water desperately on the child s face and rubbed her hands and her legs, moaning in wild, despairing tones that made Adam s blood run cold. He gained control of his body enough, at last, to take a step forward, offering, with a gesture, to help. But Esperanza waved him peremptorily away, and he stood as before by the foot of the bed, trying to pray, but incapable of framing a prayer. He could only close his eyes to the terrible sight and mutter "God, God, God!" over and over again. 214 FACES IN THE DAWN At last the child slowly came out of her convul sion, opened her eyes and breathed deeply. Then, holding her mother s hand, she went to sleep. Adam felt as if he, too, had been unconscious and had come back to life. "Esperanza !" he cried in a voice wherein tenderness mingled with compassion and the cry for forgiveness. "Esperanza!" But Esperanza, her hand still holding the hand of the sleeping child, turned on him like a tigress. "Go away! Adam, go away! I hate you!" He took a step toward her. "Esperanza I" he pleaded piteously. But she cried fiercely, "Don t come near me !" and shrank from his approach. Without another word he crossed the room and descended the stairs. The lamp in his study was still burning. He saw the friendly tree benignly keeping watch, he saw the scattered toys of the chil dren, the railroad train, the lead soldiers, the doll, the red rubber elephant that squeaked. Everything was the same as it had been when he went upstairs a few hours ago. The cuckoo-clock in the kitchen harshly announced six o clock; then he remembered that it had been a quarter to six when he went up stairs. Fifteen minutes ! The fact dazed him that he should have plunged to the heart of Hell; and returned; all in fifteen minutes! He sank down on a chair, listening for sounds from above. Little Adam, hushed by the terror of his mother s voice, had evidently gone to sleep, for FACES IN THE DAWN 215 Adam heard only Esperanza as she hummed little songs that he knew Klarchen loved. After a while the humming ceased, and he heard the scraping of chairs along the floor as Esperanza straightened out the room. Then he heard her step in the upper hall and steeled himself for the ordeal of facing her; but she did not come down. He heard her enter the room that was her bedroom and his, and heard immediately after the creaking of bedsprings. Es peranza had lain down. For a long while Adam did not move. It seemed to him that he could see nothing clearly but the white little body of the child, rigid upon the bed, and hear nothing clearly but Esperanza s shriek and finally her terrible condemnation. He said to him self again and again that but for God s grace he might have murdered his own child. It seemed to him impossible that he, who was not by nature a wicked man, should have come so close to committing a terrible crime. Something was wrong in him. There was some ghastly flaw somewhere. He strode up and down the floor of the study, up and down for hours. How contemptible he evidently was since even Esperanza despised him. He felt a quick pang of loneliness. Esperanza s rejection of him seemed to set him outside the pale. There had been such superhuman anger in her eyes. If he could seem so worthless to little Esperanza, what a poor thing he must be. Slowly the thought rose to his consciousness that 216 FACES IN THE DAWN the heart that could hate so terribly for an offense against her child must have wonderful treasures of love. The idea stung him to new life, and brought the blood again to his face and hands. Esperanza had thrust him from her and he seemed to stand far away from her now, and beneath her. That moment a new, ringing hope entered Adam s life. He sat until midnight in his study, forgetting that he was hungry. Then he took the lamp and as cended the stairs. Esperanza was lying across the bed, still dressed. He bent down and kissed her penitently. Then, not to disturb her, he took the lamp again and redescended to his study; and on the uncom fortable, five-foot sofa he ungrumblingly lay down for the night. Esperanza was preparing breakfast when Adam awoke. She greeted him, as he entered the dining- room, with her habitual, rather formal "Good morn ing, Adam" ; but there was a reserve in her tones which he, who was on the lookout, was quick to note. She spoke little as she served him his break fast, and he scarcely spoke at all. But as she came and went he watched her with an interest he had never felt before. She was pale and tired-looking and there were rings under the blue eyes, which Adam noticed for the first time looked even in weari ness cool and clear as the sky over a snowy hill. She went about her work in a detached way, not listlessly, or dreamily, as often in the past, but rather FACES IN THE DAWN 217 as if she were still half-prisoned in the ghastly nightmare of that eternal quarter-hour while the child hung between life and death. His own eyes were full of penitence and pleading petition as they followed her movements. But she did not seek his eyes nor offer any pardon. He wondered what she was thinking about, marveling a little at her con trol. For she was not sorry for her outburst against him. Her placid coldness told him that. Her anger then had not been a mere hysterical paroxysm, but the first conscious utterance of a passion that possibly had burned, unrecognized, in her for years. He wondered, gloomily, whether she had really hated him all the while. No, he was sure she had not. The idea was grotesque that little, simple- hearted Esperanza should have borne hatred beneath a cloak of meekness. She hated him only because he had lost his temper and been unthinkingly, save for the grace of God fatally, cruel to their Klarchen. He gulped down his breakfast, but, even so, the meal seemed to stretch out interminably. He felt her reproaches all the more heavily because they were unspoken. She was so uncannily quiet about her work, so hushed in all her movements, as though the child really had died. He longed for the famil iar sound of breaking crockery to reveal for a sec ond, at least, the old Esperanza. But no plate broke. She washed them all with scarcely a sound save the hissing of the boiling water in the dishpan. 218 FACES IN THE DAWN At last he rose and went through the kitchen toward his room. But at the door he turned. u Can you forgive me, Esperanza?" he asked in tones she could not help hearing were deeply penitent. She sank down limply beside the table, bursting into tears. "Oh, do not ask me that!" she exclaimed through sobs. He walked over to her chair and laid his hand gently on her shoulder. "I am so sorry," he said, simply as a child might say it. But she rose and drew back. "Don t talk to me now!" she cried. "Please! Leave me alone." He went to his desk, miserably humble, and sat with his head in his hands, trying to figure out what was to come of it all. Here was a fine end to his high resolves. Truly, the prospect of setting his life in order did not look as easy or as promising as it did. When he had vaguely set himself, yester day, to cleanse his days he had not guessed to what depths it was possible for him to sink. Since then he had been close to what he dared not name, and he had thought his sins cried finis at Irritability ! He wondered whether Gudrun would still call him her "true friend" if she knew what Esperanza knew? He could not face the thought of losing her, too, for he knew that the friendly intercourse with her since that eventful meeting in the dusk when he had found her again meant more to him than ever the Golden Six Months or the idealized memory of his little St. Teresa had meant. It was Gudrun, he knew, FACES IN THE DAWN 219 who had opened his eyes to the failure of his soul and pointed the way which he must henceforth take. As he glanced back over the Wonderful Week he suddenly saw milestones, indicating phases of what he realized now had been a steady development; a new point of view discovered here, an old prejudice buried there. He marveled that he should not have understood before the deep changes going on within him. He examined each new step in his awakening as he remembered it and always he saw Gudrun beckoning him from step to step. "There is only one struggle, the struggle for spiritual growth, 7 he repeated to himself, "and none of us can fight it for the others, but none of us can fight it alone." And again he heard Gudrun s voice saying: "Esperanza." At eleven o clock Gudrun, with the Manor hunts man at her side, drove up in front of the parsonage in her jingly sleigh, and pulled the jangly doorbell. Adam, who had seen her through the window, opened the poor and led her into the study. "May I go right into the kitchen?" Gudrun asked. "I do so want to see Esperanza." She went, not waiting for an answer, and found Esperanza drying the last of the breakfast dishes. "Oh, I am so glad," Esperanza exclaimed. "Please sit down. You see, I am almost through." There was a note of pride in her voice that rang even through the subdued tone, and she added: 220 FACES IN THE DAWN "Perhaps I may learn to be a housekeeper some day." "Why, you are progressing wonderfully. Where are the children? They are well, aren t they?" Gudrun saw Esperanza s eyes grow dim as she tried to appear busy by the range. "They are upstairs," Esperanza answered in dead tones. "Little Adam is playing with the Baby. Klarchen is asleep." Her voice was heavy and life less, and broke now and then with a sob. "What is the matter, Esperanza?" whispered Gudrun, taking her in her arms. But Esperanza did not answer. The tears over whelmed her and she lay against Gudrun s breast, sobbing and gasping hysterically, trying now and again to talk and breaking down more utterly after each attempt. "Oh, my dear, my dear," murmured Gudrun tenderly. Adam heard the sobbing and opened the study door. Gudrun felt Esperanza s body shrink away as she heard the step, thereby locating, she said to herself, the evident cause of the trouble. She waved Adam away with a quick gesture and a second later heard the door close again, very gently. Gradually Esperanza grew quiet. The outburst had been salutary, for when she shyly lifted up her eyes toward Gudrun again her face had lost its heavy hopeless look. "Oh, you are a good friend!" she exclaimed, pressing Gudrun s hand. But she did FACES IN THE DAWN 221 not offer to explain her state. Possibly she could not bear having others see Adam as she had seen him. Gudrun looked in at the study on her way out. Adam jumped up from his chair as her head ap peared cheerfully around the edge of the door. "Take good care of your little lady, 1 she coun seled. "She seems to have a slight attack of nerves." "Yes," answered the pastor heavily. "I ll be in again soon," Gudrun went on, "but I don t know when it ll be. Mother has been won derfully kind. She seems to want to console me for Jimmie s absence, and speaks so sweetly of him and yet she clings to me so. It does warm my heart, but, well, it does worry me. It makes break ing away from her just so much harder." "Ah!" murmured Adam once more, definitely de positing the Baroness in a new pigeon-hole not marked Piety. "Is it so?" "Well, mother is waiting for me," Gudrun added hastily. "Good-bye. Life is a good deal of a wilderness, isn t it? And the good things do seem to be so carefully stowed away behind forests of thorn hedges, like Sleeping Beauty s castle." She turned to the kitchen door once more, and called to Esperanza: "Good-bye, again! And cook your man here a good dinner. He looks as though he had been saving souls all night long, including his 222 FACES IN THE DAWN own. Good-bye, Herr Pastor!" and, bounding into the sleigh, she was off. Interminable gray days followed. Esperanza showed no more positive signs of her resentment, except her reserve, which stolidly rebuffed the two or three more trials he made to break it down. She went about her work simply and quietly, learning surprisingly quickly, Adam thought, the methods Gudrun had tactfully suggested for her housekeep ing. She spoke to him courteously always, though quite coldly. The child was still unwell and he felt the horror of that ghastly fifteen minutes still too keenly to resent Esperanza s condemnation. Once or twice he felt her eye upon him as if she were trying to make him out. He bore her critical glances with some boiling of the blood, but he resented her criticism less than he wondered what her judgment might be. He suspected it was not favorable, for, even after Klarchen had completely recovered and was romping upstairs and down again with Adam junior, her attitude did not change. Her first fierce anger had cooled, possibly vanished entirely; but her critical sense had been enfranchised and she played it relentlessly up and down and through Adam, her husband. Onge only her critical attitude got the better of his growing sense of the virtue of control. After a silent meal, during which he had felt her eyes fixed first on his hands, then on his face, then on the nap- FACES IN THE DAWN 223 kin about his neck, and again on his hands, with that lifeless look about her mouth which intimated that not heaven nor earth nor millstones could squeeze a word out of her, Adam felt some check-valve in his mind break, and anger rush through his veins. He banged the table quite in the fashion of for mer days. "Esperanza," he exclaimed, "for God s sake do not sit there like the dead. I am truly doing my part. If I did you wrong, I have tried at least to show you that I was sorry. You have no right now to play the sullen lady. We are neither of us saints." He rose, flinging his napkin on the table. "This house is becoming a terrible place," he went on. "No love, no tenderness, no warmth. That we should come to this, Esperanza !" But Esperanza had neither penitence nor warmth at that moment to offer him. She looked up at him piteously, and tears came. "I do not know what is the matter with me, Adam," she whispered. "Am I so wicked in your eyes that you must stare at me all day long, cold, cold to the heart? I, too, have had my sorrows, Esperanza, and I have fought, I tell you I have fought. Come, let us be through with this. Give me your hand." She gave him her hand limply. "I have nothing against you any more, Adam," she answered weakly. "And I suffer more than you, I think, from my own coldness. But I cannot help it. Everything is dif ferent in me from what it used to be," 224 FACES IN THE DAWN "You must control yourself, child," he said, not ungently. "You must pull yourself together." She sighed. "Why do you always sigh that way?" he cried, blowing up again. "Your sighs drive me crazy." "Oh, don t talk to me so," she answered, sob bing. "I am trying to be good, but it doesn t seem as if I could be." Adam marched out of the room, with head burn ing. But his anger cooled more quickly than for merly and when he sat down to supper there was no outward sign of it, and within was a little touch of tender pity where the anger had been. And the days crawled on, and Adam held his tongue when he was tempted to turn it loose, and worked, and grew in strength. CHAPTER XIII IN WHICH THE OGRE FORGETS HIMSELF AND AC QUIRES MERIT JANUARY dragged on, and to Adam in the study and Esperanza in the kitchen, leading their isolated lives, each day seemed seven. The cold placidity of the parsonage was wearing on them both far more than the turmoil and disorder of the past had done. Even the children seemed to feel that something was wrong, for they played listlessly and silently; and Esperanza began administering cod liver oil. The tables had curiously turned in the house hold. Adam was now the humble member. His close escape from a deed that would have wrecked him forever had had a lasting effect. He was scarcely ever tempted to irritability after that one fruitless attempt at conciliation; and, when tempted, took good care to control his feelings from Esper anza, for he knew that his peace of mind depended on his control; and, moreover, that any hope of peace in the parsonage depended on his not giving fresh offense to those pure, critical blue eyes. Es peranza, on the other hand, felt the power she 225 226 FACES IN THE DAWN possessed over the new Adam and unconsciously ex ercised it. Partly this power came from her recog nition of Adam s sense of guilt, partly from her own sudden indifference to his regard, and, for that matter, to everything else. After the ghastly ex perience at Klarchen s bedside, she had slowly come to understand what her life in the parsonage had been. She viewed it in the light of the things Gudrun had told them and contrasted Adam s domi neering violence with Hammerdale s quiet courtesy and helpfulness and respect. What a silly child she had been, she told herself, to think that husbands always ruled their wives with a rod of iron and that, come what might, she must submit. She seemed ages removed from the Esperanza of other years, and as far removed from the man who had been that fool ish girl s lord and master. She regarded him as she would a stranger, remarking to herself on the hard, selfish lines about his mouth. And thinking of him day and night (in spite of her indifference), she re membered one incident after another in which Adam had shown himself petty and mean and tyrannical. She gathered them all in and brooded over them; and all day long though outwardly gentle and calm and almost meek without ever speaking of their terrible quarter-hour together, she held Adam s guilt over him like a sword. But Adam was not allowing his penitence to crush him. His mind, in fact, did not dwell as much on his troubles, now that they had become acute, as they FACES IN THE DAWN 227 had in former days, when they were little chronic ills, or, if they seemed large, were for the most part imaginary. It roamed no more, moreover, in a dimly glowing past for its secret delights. There was no longer a potent little Saint Teresa, or a less distinct dream-figure, to distract it from the present. These had happily sunk into history; the living Gud- run had effaced them quite. Therein lay one of the notable results of that memorable interview in the woods on Christmas morning. Gudrun had, some how, made further glorification of this dream of his ignoble. She had stamped it with her emphatic dis approval when she called him a sentimentalist. The word had stung, but it had done its work. She had accomplished more even than that, however, as she would have clearly seen could she have looked into Adam s altered heart. By her gentle mockery she had made even his continued adoration of her a thing to be conquered rather than cultivated. When Adam called up her image now it was with a slight feeling of guilt. He began to realize that in dream ing of her he was doing a thing she had told him not to do; it was, in fact, self-indulgence and dis loyalty to the one whose slightest unspoken behest it had been his pride to obey. She had said, "Es- peranza," and gradually "Esperanza" came in his mind to signify that whole part of his existence which, dreaming of Gudrun, he had in the past neglected. So, in setting his life in order, he had begun to 228 FACES IN THE DAWN regard his pastoral work with a more critical eye than he had ever leveled at it before. The result, he frankly admitted to himself, not without con science-prickings, was disquieting. His parish was not one wherein the God he thundered of Sunday after Sunday was either greatly feared or greatly loved. It was an average parish, which, he admit ted with a pang, meant that it was a community in which the influence of church and pastor was purely negligible. He might lock up the white-plastered edifice to-morrow, and, save for one or two elderly ladies who would protest at the interruption of a habit, the men and women of his parish would not miss out of their lives the spiritual nourishment it had provided. Such a condition, he told himself sternly, was a mockery of the Faith. In the humble attitude of mind pastor Adam was in he had no difficulty in placing the blame for that condition. Quite accurately, he placed it on his own shoulders. Wherefore, on lonely walks, he examined first his theology. He found that, on the whole, admirably orthodox. Somewhat mollified, he ex amined his parish work. That, too, did not at once dissatisfy him. He had been reasonably con scientious. He regarded his sermons next. A few short weeks ago he should have given himself a rather good verdict on these, but of late it had seemed to him that the mediaeval tomfooleries of imps and brimstone, wherewith he habitually shook the stout old rafters, sounded a bit hollow and mean- FACES IN THE DAWN 229 ingless. His Christmas sermon had, indeed, awak ened him to a consciousness of how miserably he could preach, at a pinch. That sermon lived taunt ingly in his memory. It was so patent an example of manufactured piety shot through with noise. In reference to his preaching he repeated the phrase he had used to himself before in reference to his whole existence: "There was not enough of God in it" too much pseudo-learning, too much pseudo- piety, too much noise, but not enough of God. He wondered unhappily whether that were the trouble, likewise, with his parish work, which he saw clearly now was without importance to those it pretended to help there was not enough of God in it. He admitted to himself that he had carried it on purely as a matter of duty. There had been no vital spark. The effect of this critical self-examination was, at first, intense depression. Esperanza, remote as she was in her little world of pain, halfway between earth and the clouds, noticed it, and pitied him. "Are you ill?" she asked solicitously, feeling the first faint thaw of spring about her heart. Adam was warming his hands over the kitchen fire. "No," he answered shortly. She glanced at him, puzzled. "You look dis turbed," she said tentatively. He returned her glance, and his eyes, more poig nantly sorrowful than she had ever seen them, belied 1 the frigid firmness of the lips. "I do not ask for your sympathy," he replied. 230 FACES IN THE DAWN "Oh, Adam," she cried, distressed. "How wicked I must seem to you !" "No," he answered. "God moves us in strange ways." "Won t you tell me what is distressing you?" she persisted. "My life has been wrong, my work has been use less," he cried harshly. "My home God, what is this that I call my home? Why shouldn t I be dis tressed? Do me one favor, Esperanza. Do not rouse me up too much. Let me be." Esperanza felt a cracking and breaking of the ice about her heart; but it held her bound still. It seemed that she could desire to give sympathy, but sympathy itself she could not give. She looked at Adam with a pathetic, helpless expression about her mouth, that somehow softened his mood. "Never mind, Esperanza," he said with a note of hopefulness in his voice, "it is not yet the twi light of the last day." Adam s depression did not last long, for a week of warm, wet weather brought the grippe to Wen- kendorf, and to him days on end of ceaseless visit- ings. He welcomed the opportunity it gave him to forget his sense of failure and vigorously to start afresh. He was on his feet daily from before dawn until midnight, covering an amazing amount of ground, for his parish was not confined to Wen- kendorf itself, but extended in a radius of three or FACES IN THE DAWN 231 four miles beyond. And everywhere was the grippe, and everywhere distress and death and mourning. "You must not overwork," said Gudrun to him one day as they met at a bedside in the village. "I must tell Esperanza to keep the reins on you. But you are doing wonderful work." He flushed with deep gratification. "I am strange ly happy these days," he said, "and I don t seem to get tired." "Everybody is praising you," she went on. "It is right that you should know." He flushed again and pressed his lips together and blinked, for, man of emotions that he was, the tears had suddenly started in his eyes. A cold wave, following the thaw, did not im prove conditions in Wenkendorf parish. There were comparatively few deaths, for they were tough folk about there who did not easily die, but the fear of death was widespread; and this, Pastor Adam found, was the foe he had most to combat. And he had to combat it first in his own heart there was the rub ; for Adam was a fearful soul in the matter of phys ical ailments. He made much of them always, dreaded their coming at the first faint shadow of a symptom, thought, talked and dreamed of them, occupied his thoughts with them, in fact, for the time being, considerably more than with his Maker. His activity among the sick was, therefore, an even greater moral victory than Gudrun guessed. He was aided by a certain unprecedented recklessness in 232 FACES IN THE DAWN him which manifested itself in the first few days of the epidemic. He was doing honest and effective work, he knew. After all, was life a season of such unalloyed bliss that he need worry vastly to lose it? He flung himself into his efforts with greater vigor than before. Esperanza saw him scarcely at all. He took his meals and his sleep where he could. But rumors reached her, and she treasured them. The battle that Pastor Adam found he must con stantly wage with the fear of death in the hearts of his parishioners necessitated, he discovered with somewhat of a shock, a radical change in his theol ogy. He had been trained in a school whose em phasis lay considerably more heavily on the fear than on the love of God. Possibly a generation that had imbibed the Blood and Iron theory of govern ment did not find a God who ruled by gentleness as convincing a figure as a God who ruled by force; and possibly a government built on force did not discourage the exaltation of a Mosaic rather than a Christian ideal. With sudden power it struck Adam that this was the trouble with the churches in his country: they were trying to make the people quake in their boots before a wrathful Deity instead of setting their feet to run in the footsteps of a pitying God. Not wrath, but love, thought Adam, not fear, but hope there lay the keys one to the heart of God, one to the heart of man. So Adam went about among his sick and despond ent parishioners, bearing in his eyes not Jehovah, but FACES IN THE DAWN 233 Christ. It was almost pathetic to him to see how gratefully they accepted his new message, so hungry they seemed for hope. They throve on it, more over. The new-old truths roused them from their lethargic surrender to new vigor. The grippe held on for a while longer, but the fear of death, and with it death, vanished for the time being from Wenkendorf. And Adam, hearing grateful voices on every side, walked as in a dream, wondering how such praise should be given to him who had been, only yesterday it seemed, a self-indulgent dreamer and a tyrant. CHAPTER XIV IN WHICH FOUR FRIENDS FEAR FOR THEIR CHINAWARE THE Baroness von Hallern found Gudrun more and more necessary to her as the first week of Feb ruary sped by and the second week began. This was no affectation on her part, for she had dis covered that this girl, whom she had held at a dis tance in the past because she seemed to her aloof and willfully different from the average type she would have preferred her to be, was on the whole a rather companionable creature. She had seen glimpses in the past, but had procrastinated, for reasons that seemed excellent at the time, endeavor ing to understand what those glimpses might sig nify. She was as far as ever from comprehending the real Gudrun, groping toward woman s estate, but she found the young lady who sewed upper and nether garments for the Hottentots with her morn ings, and read her to sleep with devout discourses by fashionable preachers after dinner, decidedly worth cultivating. As a special mark of trust she resigned the household completely into her hands, 234 FACES IN THE DAWN 235 whereby, be it noted, the household as well as the Hottentots benefited. And meanwhile she became more and more convinced that somewhere a gentle man of her own land whose thoughts by day and dreams by night were not of dollars and dollars only, as those of all Americans were, possibly even a noble count with all the virtues of the departed Max, was living and breathing for no other pur pose than some day to find his Countess at Wenken- dorf Manor. For the Baroness had ideals, even if Gudrun had none. But the living, breathing human being who stood in the way of this nebulous paragon of hers, Ham- merdale namely, was by no means deleted from the scene as yet. This even the Baroness, who never admitted anything if she could help it, reluctantly had to admit. But her melancholy took on no deeper purple for that reason. She was by no means discontented with the way the campaign had gone since Hammerdale had been summarily shipped on his travels. The Baron, as the result of subtle at tacks on his resentment by the pious Baroness, was soft as the omelets wherewith the Baroness reawoke the slumbering memories. He was hors de combat, and could give Gudrun neither support nor advice. "She is your mother," was all he could say; and he made a helpless gesture that in itself was a sword drawn in the Baroness s cause. And meanwhile the engagement announcements lay, unsent, in Gudrun s desk. This the Baroness 236 FACES IN THE DAWN knew (for she had looked), and it seemed an ex cellent sign. What was less pleasing were the in quiring letters which came from Hunenfeld concern ing the young man to whom Gudrun von Hallern was rumored to be engaged. Gudrun remembered the affectionate adieu on the railway platform, looked as surprised as she thought the situation de manded, and volunteered no information. The passing of the weeks of Hammerdale s ab sence did not serve to dispel the apprehension that had come upon her at his departure. She dreamed of railroad wrecks, of beautiful young men dying in lonely hostelries, and even by day the vague fear took possession of her that she had thrown away her chance of happiness in yielding to her mother, and that Hammerdale would never return. It was a morbid fear, but when now and then it dwindled and seemed to go out, it did so only to yield place to a fear no less terrible that Hammerdale would return to claim her and that at last she would be unable to go with him. The ties that bound her to her mother were drawing closer. She had told herself in the past that she knew her mother like a book, that she could stretch out her finger and say, This is vanity, this is play-acting, this is sentimental tosh. But she was now less certain of her judgment. A new ele ment was there, it seemed, something that was not pious fraud, something that was real and sincere; and the remembrance of her condemnation in the past only served to make her more loyal now. FACES IN THE DAWN 237 The epidemic of grippe saved her nerves as it saved Adam s ; and for the time being it put a spoke in the Baroness s carefully greased wheel. For Gudrun might give up her own pleasures to stitch red flannel for the Hottentots, but she would not sac rifice (though her mother pleaded) the needs of the stricken families. She saw something of Esperanza and even of Adam in the course of her village work; and the companionship thrilled her strangely. She had a sense that they were three struggling spirits, fighting up out of the dark; and felt heartened, long ing for the fourth. At last January was done with, and one clear, cold afternoon Jimmie Hammerdale returned. Gudrun had planned to meet him at Hiinenfeld, but, hearing of it, the Baroness suddenly developed so realistic an attack of the grippe that Gudrun had to send the coachman instead, not daring to leave her mother, who was blaming her illness on Gudrun s charitable excursions to the sickbeds of the parish. She waited through the interminable hours of that afternoon with miserable forebodings. What would Jimmie think when he looked for her at Hiinenfeld and did not find her? Hammerdale came at length, looking fagged. He admitted that his travels had not been a success. He had been at St. Moritz for the winter sports, at Monte Carlo for the excitement, at Naples for the view; and found them all overrated and tiresome. "I m terribly glad to be back," he said, wandering 238 FACES IN THE DAWN about Gudrun s little sitting-room with a restless ness Gudrun had not seen in him before. "Hon estly, it was the devil of a trip. I hope it s made your mother feel better about our engagement." Gudrun was silent, wondering how best to ex press her mother s attitude. "Still on the fence?" he asked quickly. "Yes," she answered reluctantly. "She is not op posing, and she knows I am getting my clothes ready for a March wedding. But well you know how she is " "Um," remarked Hammerdale. In his peregri nations he stopped before her open desk, picking up a framed snapshot of the Baroness, and studying it. He set it down without a word, but as he did so he caught sight of a package that had a familiar look. "Oh," he said, glancing up at her keenly. "You haven t sent them, have you?" "Sent what, Jimmie?" she asked, rising and join ing him. "Oh, just those funny things telling folks about our engagement," he answered with a futile attempt at nonchalance. "Oh, Jimmie !" she cried. "I just couldn t. I sup pose you think I am a weak thing, but mother has been so loving. She s different, Jimmie, she s genu inely kind " Hammerdale inclined his head gravely, and Gud run saw with a pang that he looked haggard and pale. "Does that mean " FACES IN THE DAWN 239 "No, no!" she cried, divining what he was about to say. "It only means that we must wait a little while longer, not with our marriage, just with the sending of these things. It is her way, Jimmie. She won t be pressed. She has to take her own time. Just you see, one fine day, she ll pop out and shower us with blessings. Oh, don t be afraid, Jimmie." There was something in Gudrun s voice that spoke otherwise than her words ; and Hammerdale was not reassured. But he kissed her gently and whispered, "Who s afraid?" With Hammerdale s return the friendly inter course with the parsonage recommenced, in spite of all the Baroness could do to crowd Gudrun s hours; but something had gone out of it, or something had crept in. None knew exactly what it was, but the harmony of that Christmas eve did not return. The trouble, of course, was that each and every heart of the four was struggling under a weight of its own. Adam, not without honor in the parish, did not feel like an important prophet in his home; and even Hammerdale, whose habitual cheerfulness and ap parent imperturbability had sometimes been a source of annoyance and always a source of wonder to Adam, showed signs of anxiety. For one thing, when Adam and he were alone, he smoked faster and less luxuriously than formerly, and more as a man who works while he smokes. But he was by no means so absorbed in his own cares not to see, even 240 FACES IN THE DAWN before Gudrun suggested it, that a decided change had taken place in the relative positions of Adam and Esperanza. There was no fire and thunder about Adam at all, no slavish meekness about Esper anza. But neither was there warmth or any out ward sign of amity. Adam and Hammerdale were sitting in the study together, conversing in silence as usual. u Sorry, old man. You seem to lack the old ginger. Had a scrap with the missus ?" Thus spoke Ham- merdale s underself to the pastor s underself, as the conscious Hammerdale, not without amusement, was gratefully clipping off the end of one of Adam s Manuel Alonzos. "She hates me. She will have nothing to do with me," answered the underself of Pastor Adam. "You re probably in the wrong, then, parson. Men always are, you know, nine times out of ten." "What can I do?" The query seemed to carry a cry of despair along the invisible wires; but Ham merdale could not answer it. So as the days passed on, the two men, in strange ways not taught in school, spoke together and be came friends. Hammerdale admired the vigor with which Adam was handling his parish work; admir ing, too, the dignity with which he bore the frigidity of his home, so different, as Hammerdale remarked to Gudrun, from the bumptiousness with which he had formerly asserted his lordly rights. Adam, meanwhile, was regarding Hammerdale and his ways FACES IN THE DAWN 241 with thoughtful mind. He knew that Hammerdale was finding out that getting married to a daughter of the Baroness von Hallern was not all beer and skittles ; and he suspected that deep in his soul Ham merdale was beginning to wonder whether he were going to lose Gudrun after all. Adam was the man of all men to sympathize with such forebodings; and in many a handclasp he gave the American all that his heart could give of affectionate support. Ham merdale felt the understanding instantly, and many an hour, when Gudrun was sewing for the Hotten tots and the blues were upon him, sought out the pastor and ranged the wintry countryside with him, accompanying him on his rounds and gaining fresh courage from Adam s unalterable confidence. The sense of loyalty that had kept Adam true to Gudrun for ten years stood Hammerdale in good stead now. "The parson is a blamed idealist," said Jimmie, somewhat troubled, to Gudrun one day as they were returning Manorward from the parsonage. "The way he shakes hands with me always makes me feel as if he were giving me a reserved seat ticket in the front row of the angels." But at bottom Hammer- dale was grateful, for he knew the pastor s devo tion was helping him over some jagged rocks. The admiration of the pastor for Hammerdale, meanwhile, was not without its good effects on him self. Tradition had taught him that when you have feelings you show them; and he had found that the 242 FACES IN THE DAWN results were sometimes catastrophic. Hammerdale had a quiet way of exhibiting his pleasure at the beauty of a fine view, for instance, or a folksong or the companionableness of an after-dinner hour when the four of them sat together in the study and talked a little and were silent much ; and he never tried to conceal his devotion to Gudrun or his affection for the parsonage folk. But his irritation or anger, if he ever did feel any (and Adam, knowing the situation in the Manor-house, suspected that he might) , he never showed. Hammerdale might have told him that these mental miseries were as per sonal and private as the miseries that rack the body, and no more than they to be paraded or even men tioned. Adam would probably not have quite under stood this comparison, for his bodily aches had al ways seemed to him a perfectly proper subject of con versation. But he admired the attitude and sought after a time to accept it; and with Esperanza (with her sword over his head) demanding self-control on the one side, and Hammerdale quietly exemplifying it on the other, the pastor gradually began to con template elevating it to a cardinal virtue. February grew to maturity, and the date of the wedding was less than four weeks away. Still Gud run and Hammerdale dropped in at the parsonage for a minute or an evening three, four and five times a week, escaping when they could the thousand plans of the Baroness s inventive mind; but the cloud that hung over the gatherings settled rather than rose. FACES IN THE DAWN 243 A new care was added to the gloom by the illness of Esperanza, who had caught cold, with the rest of the neighborhood, and sat listlessly in her chair by the tile stove, wrapped in shawls, while the others talked boldly of futures in Wenkendorf and Colo rado which none of them really believed in. "When we are married," began to be a phrase to open por tals into fairyland, rather than into a real future in a real world. One woebegone afternoon, when they were sitting in the uncozy dining-room taking their afternoon coffee, Gudrun s perplexities, and incidentally Ham- merdale s, came to the surface. The weather had been miserable for days. A warm rain had melted a recent cover of snow, making the roads impassable either for runners or wheels, and barring Gudrun even from the paths in the woods which had always been her comfort in trouble. In the Manor-house they were burning lamps from morning till night, for the dark ended little before nine o clock and set in again shortly after three. There was a lamp burn ing in the parsonage dining-room now, the yellow light mingling in dreary fashion with the gray, foggy remnants of day. The coffee was excellent, for Gudrun had held Esperanza by force in her chair until she consented to stay and be waited on, and had made it herself. The fresh Butterkuchen came direct from the Man or-house oven and was still warm, and Adam was relishing it undisguisedly. Hammerdale, who could 244 FACES IN THE DAWN not get used to five meals a day, was smoking in a corner where a draught carried the smoke away from Esperanza into the corridor; and Esperanza had just said, "When you are married, Gudrun " when Gudrun halted her cup midway between the saucer and her lips and spoke. "Esperanza, I wish you wouldn t say any more When you are married. Her voice was quite controlled, showing the intensity behind it only by the rather too perfect evenness of tone and the quick, sympathetic smile which followed the words but did not belong to them, being evidently meant to coun teract whatever impression of inner disturbance her words might create. "I think we have all been a little sentimental, making beaui ful plans and pre tending that everything was roses for Jimmie and myself, when we have all known for weeks that it wasn t at all impossible that everything might be thorns. Jimmie and I must begin to learn to face the fact that it may happen that we may not marry at all." It seemed a long time before anyone spoke, the only sign of life coming from Hammerdale, who was quickly enveloping himself in smoke, possibly making a try at the ostrich s classic device. At last Esperanza said in tones scarcely louder than a breath, but deep with understanding, "Gud run." The pastor sat with hands folded in his lap, star ing into his empty cup. "Is it your mother?" FACES IN THE DAWN 245 Gudrun looked up. "Yes, it is my mother," she answered quickly, as if the words were tormenting her and she were anxious to get rid of them. "You said, I think, that she did not directly op pose?" "No," Gudrun answered, drawing out the word with a dubious note as though she did not herself know whether she were speaking the truth. "If she had opposed I should never have let Jimmie go on that foolish trip. But she seemed so unhappy." "So?" murmured Pastor Adam with the curious inflection he seemed to keep for use only when the Baroness was mentioned. "She seemed to appreciate our sacrifice for her," Gudrun continued, for ever since she has been won derfully dear. Now and then she has even entered into my wedding plans, making suggestions for dresses and hats and such things. But afterward she always cries and looks so forsaken and miser able it twists my heart-strings. Sometimes I feel I just can t leave her. Can you understand?" Adam nodded his head ponderously. "Yes. I understand." "Herr Pastor, what shall I do?" Gudrun leaned pleadingly over the table toward him as she spoke. "I could never be happy thinking she had appealed to me and I had deserted her for my own ends. And yet you know what Jimmie is to me, and you know that he has taught me more than my mother ever taught me. Sometimes I feel as though Jim- 246 FACES IN THE DAWN mie had been father and mother and all to me. And I know that in some way I can t understand I seem to have been almost as much to him. I can t de sert him. Isn t it a mix-up?" "Oh, I pity you," cried Esperanza feelingly. "What does Tchimi say?" asked Adam. "Oh, the worst of it is that since he came back Jimmie won t say anything at all. I just see him watching us all, and getting more and more anxious- looking, but when I ask him what he believes is right he just shakes his head and says it is my fight and he doesn t dare take sides. Oh, Jimmie," she exclaimed, turning toward the smoke-wreathed figure by the door. "I wish you were not a horrid saint." Hammerdale tried to grin. "Thanks. I rather wish I were," he answered, speaking in that slow, deliberate way of his. "I might be able to perform a miracle or two and persuade your family that they were glad to be rid of you." "What did he say?" asked the pastor. Gudrun interpreted, and Adam frowned a little instead of laughing as he was supposed to do; for his occa sional levity was the one quality in Jimmie of which the pastor emphatically disapproved. Levity al ways smacked somewhat of the devil to him, and re marks of Jimmie s which sailed close to irreverence in the original generally sounded to him well over the line in translation. "This is not an occasion for the display of mira- FACES IN THE DAWN 247 cles," remarked Adam, just a touch of severity creep ing into the tones. Hammerdale twisted his mouth into a comical shape, which signified to Gudrun, who knew the grimace, that he was mentally throw ing up his hands in despair at Adam s inability to take a joke. "It is altogether," Adam went on, "a matter of conscience." "Oh, but don t you see, Herr Pastor," Gudrun cried vehemently. "I don t want to trust this to my conscience. I have such a stupid, silly con science that always tells me that the thing I want to do is selfish and wicked, and the thing I don t want to do is noble and surely right. My conscience isn t a just judge." "Oh," cried Esperanza, coming to life among her shawls, "I thought one s conscience always was right." "I suppose one s conscience is," Gudrun an swered thoughtfully. "But there seem to be a lot of other voices inside that talk so loud habit and fear and affection and tradition, for instance that one s conscience can t really make itself heard." "How strange !" whispered Esperanza dreamily. "If you cannot hear clearly the inner voice," said the pastor reverently, "you can do nothing but trust that, in some way we cannot guess, God may give you light." A swift gleam shot over Gudrun s dark eyes like a meteor across the sky. "And idly drift?" she 248 FACES IN THE DAWN asked, and there was something in her voice that was almost resentment. "It is not idle drifting to trust God. It is hold ing the tiller tight while we wait for the wind to roll away the clouds from before the stars." And the pastor, glancing involuntarily in the direction of Esperanza, drew a deep, painful breath as if he, too, were holding a tiller and it were chafing his hands. CHAPTER XV IN WHICH THE OGRE S WIFE WINS STRENGTH FROM THE EVERLASTING ARMS AND DELVES IN THE ARCHIVES IT was Esperanza s cold that came nearer than any misfortune hitherto to disturbing the Baroness s placid features. For, one morning after breakfast, while Gudrun was stitching more garments for the Hottentots with her mother, a servant came with the message that the blacksmith wanted to see Frau- lein Gudrun. The old one-legged veteran, it proved, had been sent by Adam, as the only available mes senger, with the news that Esperanza was sick abed and the children uncontrollable; and could she pos sibly send a servant to tend the house while the pastor was away on parish duties? Gudrun, visibly worried, announced to her mother that she intended to go to the parsonage herself, and spend the day there. u How tactless of the pastor," cried the Baron ess, foregoing placidity for the moment. u He should have known that you are needed here." "But, mother, he did not send for me. He asked only for a servant." 249 250 FACES IN THE DAWN "By all means, Gudrun, send a servant. But you stay here with me. It is so cozy. I count the min utes when you are away." Gudrun cast a helpless glance about. "But I must see that Esperanza is well cared for." The Baroness gave a long weary sigh. "My Gud run, how glad I shall be when all this confusion is over and I have you altogether to myself again." Gudrun felt a little chill creep over her heart as though an evil power, working invisibly, had laid its hand on it. "I don t think I understand." The Baroness looked up at her from her needle work with that smile of hers that seemed so warm and loving. "There is nothing to understand," she said, patting Gudrun s hand. Gudrun called Hammerdale from an argument concerning brown bears which he was carrying on with the Baron, and together they waded through the slush to the parsonage. Gudrun made no se cret of her fear that Esperanza s illness might prove more serious than her physical condition indicated. "They must have had some terrible break, Jim- mie," she said, "and I can t find out what it was. I ve begged her to tell me, for I thought I might help to clear things up. But she just cried out that she couldn t tell. She s wearing away, Jimmie. Once she did tell me that she was so perplexed that it seemed her head never would stop aching day or night. Everything is topsy-turvy in her, she says. And when I m in the kitchen with her she FACES IN THE DAWN 251 asks questions by the thousand, like a child that s just discovered trees and flowers and animals and wants to know all about them. First she asked about housekeeping, and when I d told her pretty much all I knew she started to ask questions about life in general, particularly about marriage. I told her she probably knew more about marriage than I did since she had had five years experience, but she just shook her head in that bewildered, queer way she s had ever since I found her that day all broken up about something." "I guess the main trouble is," suggested Ham- merdale, as he hesitated a moment by the road side, spying for a ford, u that the little lady has waked up to a thing or two, and is a bit off her center." "Yes, and another trouble is," said Gudrun, plunging after him into the torrent, since ford there was none, u that she isn t sure that she wants to find it. She is such a child," she added, and Ham- merdale, giving her his hand to aid her crossing, noticed that her eyes were cloudy with perplexity. "She hasn t been trained to thinking for herself, she isn t used to it; why, I suppose she s never formed an opinion in her life, or tried to analyze a situation or an emotion. And now she s sud denly snarled up in the biggest tangle we humans know, and it s just too much for her." Hammerdale shook the water from his shoes and trouser-ends. "Did it ever occur to you," he asked, 252 FACES IN THE DAWN speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "that you and I might be a bit responsible?" Gudrun allowed herself twenty carefully picked steps through the slush before she answered. Her hand was on the latch of the parsonage gate when she spoke. u Yes. And I can t for the life of me tell whether I m sorry or glad." They found Esperanza, as well as the household, in better condition than they had anticipated. The elder children were playing funeral in the study, as the pastor was away, and were consequently in as subdued a state as the fascinating game demanded. The kitchen was really very neat, as Gudrun no ticed with an exclamation of satisfaction. Es peranza had evidently cooked and cleared break fast before submitting to the illness which had at last forced her into bed. "She s plucky, Jimmie," remarked Gudrun, "especially plucky, I think, be cause it s always been her trouble to let things slide. I wonder if the pastor ever dreams what a jewel he s got." Hammerdale stayed with the children, playing the role of chief -mourner, while Gudrun ascended the dark stairs to the room where Esperanza was lying. The Frau Pastorin raised herself as Gudrun knocked, and, without waiting for a reply, entered. She was worn and thin-looking, poor lady, with the red spots in her cheeks shining a little brighter FACES IN THE DAWN 253 than usual. "Oh, Gudrun!" she exclaimed with all the delight her weak voice could summon. "I never even hoped." "Here I am," Gudrun remarked with the conven tional, overdone cheerfulness of the sick-room vis itor. "Well, and how goes the world?" "It must be influenza." Esperanza s voice sounded apologetic as if she thought influenza a vice. "I just could not stand on my feet any more." Gudrun, without more words, took her watch in one hand and Esperanza s left wrist in the other. Then she felt Esperanza s cheek and brow. "A little fever," she said in matter-of-fact tones. She had watched the fussy, talkative, third-rate old doc tor from Hiinenfeld (who used snuff and sneezed much more than ever any of his patients) at so many bedsides in the village that she had learned fairly what to do and what not to do. "You stick in bed now for a few days. I ve told Lisbeth to come over from the Manor. The pastor will get his meals and the children will be cared for. And you, my dear, are to play the lady of leisure and loaf with mind and body as you never loafed be fore." Esperanza had sunk back on her flat hair-pillow. "My head aches so," she said timidly. Gudrun laid her hand on Esperanza s forehead and kept it there. "Aren t you trying to think too much, Esperanza?" Esperanza did not turn her head, but lay staring 254 FACES IN THE DAWN at the ceiling, and whispered: u Oh, how did you know that?" "I have seen some of the symptoms before," she answered softly. "Thinking in a straight line doesn t hurt anybody, but the trouble with you and me is that we think in circles, and the body doesn t like it." "In circles," Esperanza mused. "Circles, circles, circles." "Would you like me to read to you?" "Oh, would you?" The warmth of the little lady s gratitude was touching. "Would you mind reading a Psalm? Perhaps the one that begins: Praise the Lord, and forget not all his benefits. It helps me sometimes to be good. The Bible is on the children s table. The next room, where the baby is sleeping. The baby was awake all night. You will not disturb him. Thank you so much." Her voice sank to a deep breath and the last words were scarcely articulate. Gudrun found the Bible on the bed next to the sleeping child and in decidedly battered shape. The hundred and third Psalm was one of many that had disappeared before the ravages of infant hands. She informed Esperanza of that fact. "Oh, yes," said Esperanza, sighing. "I gave it to him in the night to play with." "There must be a Bible on the pastor s desk," Gudrun suggested. "I ll run down and see." "Oh, no, no, you mustn t. Adam never lets me FACES IN THE DAWN 255 have his Bible. He says it is full of slips of paper with notes on them, and I might lose them. I have never dared touch it." But Gudrun was well on her way downstairs. "I ll be careful," she called. She found Hammerdale flat on the floor with his hands folded across his breast. The children were softly, but dismally, intoning what was supposed to be the service. "This is a funeral," Jimmie re marked cheerfully, "and I am the central performer. Do I act the part well?" "Oh, Jimmie," Gudrun cried, "don t. That gets on my nerves." The corpse leapt to its feet, to the disappoint ment of little Adam and Klarchen. "Oh, I m devil ishly sorry. Forgive me for being silly." "It s stupid of me. But well I don t know why but it got on my nerves." "Pretty sick?" he asked, with a nod toward the ceiling. "That depends. If she can t get her thinking- machine straightened out, yes, pretty sick. Let me go, dear. I am going to read to her." She carried Adam s Bible, with its half hundred or more book-marks, upstairs as though the soiled, brown leather covers were the very tablets of the Law; nevertheless, Esperanza, turning her head a little as she came into the room, appeared trou bled. "Be very careful, Gudrun," she pleaded. 256 FACES IN THE DAWN "He ll never know I stole it and every slip shall stay in its place." "I don t want him to think I disobeyed him." "Oh, dear child!" was all Gudrun could say. "Please," whispered Esperanza, "the one begin ning Bless the Lord, O my soul! Gudrun drew a chair close to the bed and laid her right hand softly on Esperanza s forehead. "Oh, that feels so good," murmured the little lady. "Can you leave it there while you read?" Gudrun held the heavy Bible almost horizontally on her left hand so that the misty light, falling over the foot of the bed directly on her face from the one window, dimly lit the page ; and, in a low, firm voice, began to read: Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name. "Are you sure that is the one? I thought it said all his benefits in the first line." "Here it is, Esperchen," said Gudrun quietly. And went on. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. "Oh, yes," whispered Esperanza with a sigh of welcome. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mer cies FACES IN THE DAWN 257 She looked up, for she heard a sob. Esperanza s face was as though all the sluices in her heart had broken and were streaming tears. Her lips were convulsed and gave her face a tragic, despairing look. But Gudrun, with a quick, deep breath to con trol her own tears, took up the Psalm again, her voice as calm and steady as though it were merely an instrument for the divine Voice itself. And as she read she passed her hand gently again and again over Esperanza s forehead and hair. Who satis fie th thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle s. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. Esperanza s tears had ceased to flow. Her face became more composed, though half-gasping sobs were still contracting her lips. Once or twice she moaned faintly. Gudrun read on. He will not always chide: neither will He keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins nor re warded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. 258 FACES IN THE DAWN Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. "Oh, I know it," whispered Esperanza, and the tears came again, but more gently now, like a quiet summer rain. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting toward them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children s children; to such as keep his covenants, and to those who remember his commandments to do them. Esperanza sighed deeply; and closed her eyes. And Gudrun, casting a quick glance toward her, saw the tense lines relax and a look of peace come to the tired mouth. Gudrun let her hand rest on Esperanza s forehead, and read on: The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heav ens; and his kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his that do his pleasure. Bless ye the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my souL FACES IN THE DAWN 259 Gudrun closed the book gently and laid it on the bureau beside the bed. Esperanza s face was pale and quite calm, and she was breathing deeply. Gud run bent over her. Esperanza was asleep. She went to the window and silently drew shut the curtains. Then she took her seat again by the bed and sat for a long time with her hands folded in her lap. Once the baby woke and cried; and she went quickly and took him in her arms as on that first eventful evening. The touch of the little body seemed to make winding thoughts straight in her. Love and marriage and children seemed scarcely selfish desires to her as she gave him a spoonful of water to drink and rocked him tenderly in her arms till he, too, fell into a peaceful sleep. She returned to Esperanza and found her breathing restfully as before. Then she tiptoed downstairs. Hammerdale was keeping little Adam and Klar- chen almost superhumanly quiet, she thought, and found that the reason was that Jimmie had sug gested (with the aid of hands and feet, possibly) a game of Indians, the object of the participants being to emulate as far as possible the Indian s prime virtue of taciturnity. The plan worked to perfection, and when Gudrun entered the study she discovered the three cross-legged on the floor wrapped in blankets, grunting now and then and making faces at each other, but speaking no single word. "Oh, Jimmie!" Gudrun exclaimed, with an hys- 260 FACES IN THE DAWN terical little laugh that slipped from her control and ended in a sob. "How wonderfully absurd you are!" Hammerdale answered her with a gesture indi cating that it might not be wise to break up the game with speech now, and Gudrun, laughing more normally, proceeded to the kitchen. Lisbeth, the maid from the Manor-house who had been designated to take charge of the parsonage during Esperanza s illness, arrived at noon; but the pastor himself did not appear. Lisbeth, however, volunteered the information that he had probably been called to the outlying farm where the tardily penitent old reprobate who had thought of dying at Christmas-time, but had postponed the event, seemed really to be in his last throes. Esperanza was still asleep when, early in the afternoon, Gud run, conscious that her mother probably needed her, decided to return to the Manor-house. They closed the parsonage door behind them; and Gudrun, remembering the baby in her arms up stairs, and below the two children, mum as wooden idols, at Hammerdale s right and left, looked across the tops of the black linden boughs into a patch of blue, and asked the point-blank question: "Jim- mie, is there anything or anybody one shouldn t be willing to sacrifice for the sake of a child?" "Oh, bushels," he answered, pretending indiffer ence, as he opened the umbrella. "Here, this way. You ll drown in slush over there." FACES IN THE DAWN 261 "Jimmie?" "Don t ask foolish questions." He seemed ab sorbed in his endeavor to find a fairly adequate crossing. u And they talk of European roads ! Bad as Routt County. Shall we swim home or fly?" Esperanza woke from a long dreamless sleep with the faint feeling that angels had camped about her. The room was dark, and at first, half asleep still, she thought it was night and threw an arm over to the other side of the bed to see if Adam were there. Not finding him she raised her head. Through the blue cotton curtains she could see that it was daylight outside and, gradually, she recalled the circumstances of the morning, Gudrun s com ing and her reading of the Psalm, her own sudden outbreak and that hand on her forehead that seemed to draw all the ache and misery out of her head, bringing such heavenly peace. She wondered vaguely what her miseries had been, and even when the memory of the weeks and weeks of inner turmoil returned they did not seem quite real. She lay back on her pillow, for a minute luxuriously at ease. Then, from far away in the kitchen, she caught the fa miliar sound of the baby crying and started to rise quickly. But as her feet touched the floor her head began to swim, and she sank down again, afraid that she might faint. Full consciousness returned slowly, and at last she was able to call, "Gudrun! Gudrun, are you there?" 262 FACES IN THE DAWN She heard a scamper in the kitchen and steps on the stairs that did not sound like Gudrun, and not at all like Adam. An instant later Lisbeth, neat, red-faced and cheery, appeared, somewhat breath less. "Oh, Frau Pastorin, did you have to call long?" cried the girl sympathetically. "I was listening all the time for the Frau Pastorin to call, but the baby just cried and I didn t hear the Frau Pastorin at all." It was a new sensation for Esperanza to have anyone so servilely awaiting her pleasure. "No, Lisbeth. You came so quickly. Thank you/ she said gratefully. "Fraulein Gudrun said the Frau Pastorin was to have beef-broth when the Frau Pastorin awoke. May I get it?" "Oh, thank you so much," Esperanza murmured contentedly, wondering why she should be dream ing of fairyland when she seemed wide awake. "The rain has stopped and the weather is going to be beautiful," Lisbeth remarked as she flung back the curtains with characteristic energy. "The dear Lord wanted the Frau Pastorin to have sunlight when she awoke." Whether or not the dear Lord sent the sunlight for the special purpose Lisbeth imagined, the sun light was there, and a warm, bright ray from the sunset fell full through the window on the very little hill at the foot of the bed where Esperanza s feet were. FACES IN THE DAWN 263 "Oh!" exclaimed Esperanza. "How good!" Lisbeth went, returning in an incredibly short time with the steaming broth and a resume of Gud- run s final directions for the care of the parsonage and its lady. Esperanza listened dreamily ; and when Lisbeth carried her kindly heart downstairs again for the protection of the children, and the broth had fulfilled its purpose, Esperanza lay for a long time watching the ray of sunlight as it withdrew from her feet and slowly climbed the wall. She was not yet quite sure that she was awake. The world seemed suddenly so impossibly beautiful. Lines of the Psalm Gudrun had read recurred to her. "Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies," her mind whispered to her. She drew herself to the edge of the bed and reached for Adam s Bible. The Bible was heavy, a fact which Gudrun, sup porting it on her open left hand, had grown fully aware of; and, as Esperanza drew it weakly from the bureau-top, it dropped to the floor. She gave a little cry of fright, but was reassured when she dis covered that no mark had slipped from its place. The back cover only and a fly-leaf had been thrown open, and she was leaning over to close these on the rest of the book when her own maiden name struck her eye. She bent closer. "August 20, 1907. Adam Samuels engaged to Esperanza Kiste," she read. One, two, three, four, five, she counted. Five and a half years ago. Those had been very happy 264 FACES IN THE DAWN days five and a half years ago, she remembered, and her dreamy contentment fled suddenly as the memory of the past month flooded her mind again with the forgotten waters of bewilderment. She stared over the end-board of the bed at the blue sky, slowly deepening. The ray of sunlight had gone, she noted. Once more she leaned over the Bible, looking for her marriage date. There it was: "November 10, 1907. A. S. and E. K. married." Under it, she thought, must come the date of little Adam s birth, but what she read, as she strained her eyes through the dusking light, was : "February i, 1908. G. v. H. s engagement broken." "G. v. H." She was puzzled an instant. Gudrun von Hallern, of course ! She sank back on her pillow. How strange of Adam to have recorded that, and in his Bible. What difference ever did it make to him that on the first of February, five years before, Gudrun s engagement should have been broken? She tried to draw the book nearer and as she did so was puzzled dimly to discern more G. v. H. s, a dozen, fifteen. Her heart began to beat more quickly and she tried to raise herself and take a step in order to bring the book close to her eyes, but the world span about her and she sank back again, giddy and a little nauseated. Gradually, the early twilight blotted the whiteness from the walls about her, blotted away the stark boughs in front of her window, blotted the blue out of the sky. And every where she looked G. v. H! s, in Adam s handwriting, FACES IN THE DAWN 265 flitted and danced and curtsied before Esperanza s eyes. She laid her hand finally on her brow, feel ing the headache returning and wondering if she were quite sane. She heard the front door open and shut, and Adam s footsteps crossing the flag-stones of the hall into his study. Then she heard the greetings of the children (less timid than formerly, she thought, and wondered why) and Lisbeth s irrepressible, kind heart running over in the form of what seemed interminable gabble. Then she heard Adam s step again, first on the flagging, then more resonantly on the stairs. She could not see him when he entered; the room, save a patch by the window that a big star was light ing, was so dark. But the smell of rain-drenched clothes came to her. "Good evening, Esperanza," said the pastor with the reserve he had caught from her. "Are you feel ing better?" "Yes, Adam, thank you," she answered, seeing G. v. H. s whirling, like fiery pin-wheels, where the voice came from. "Old Rapp died," said Adam. "I was with him all day." "He was a bad man," said Esperanza. Adam sank down on the chair that had been Gud- run s. "I do not know," he replied with a finality that suggested, even to Esperanza s unsubtle mind, that he had been thinking about the matter for a 266 FACES IN THE DAWN long time, and felt baffled. u He changed so in these six weeks. At first he was only afraid of hell-fire, but before he died he seemed to have forgotten all about it, seeming to see heaven near. Six weeks! It is strange how men may be born again in six weeks. " Esperanza scarcely heard him, for the G. v. H. s were beginning to find voice and were humming and buzzing about her ears. "Adam," she cried, when it seemed to her she could endure the sounds no more, "why did you write about Gudrun in your Bible?" She heard Adam draw in a long breath that broke at the end into short gasps, and she heard the chair he was sitting in creak as he straightened his huge back and spasmodically drew in and stretched out his feet as though he were in physical pain. "What have you done, Esperanza?" he cried at last in a low voice such as a father might use to a child who has accidentally broken a priceless vase. Esperanza did her best to explain the circum stances attending Gudrun s use of Adam s Bible. "Did she see what you saw?" he asked in hushed tones. "No, Adam." He gave a sigh of relief, rose and went to the window. Esperanza saw his bulky frame black against the starlit sky. She groped for words. "Do you love her?" she asked at last, and the words sounded to them both as though they were FACES IN THE DAWN 267 spoken by someone on another star, so faint and unlike Esperanza s were the tones. He was silent, and after a minute he turned and stood at the foot of her bed. "You must forget all this, my child," he said, adding after a moment, with evident difficulty, "it was a dream." "I did not dream it," she cried piteously, "I know I did not dream it." "You do not understand, Esperanza. It was I who dreamed." She caught her breath at the somber exaltation of his voice. Then she saw the black shadow pass her bed and heard footsteps descending the stairs. Esperanza was grateful when Lisbeth interrupted the new merry-go-round of her thoughts by coming singing up from the kitchen with a lamp. "It is so dark for the Frau Pastorin," she remarked dep- recatingly. She was grateful, indeed, for the light itself, for she was afraid of the dark, particularly of late, since evil spirits within, uniting with not-im possible ghosts without, had frequently made her nights a misery. "G. v. H. s," moreover, did not flit so energetically before her eyes by lamplight. The thought brought again remembrance of Ad am s heavy Bible, half hidden under her bed. She leaned over again. The lamp was shining full on the page of chronicles. "June 15, 1902," she read, "G. v. H. brought me a basket of cherries." She felt a catch in her throat as she tried to tell herself that this was a silly thing to write in a Bible. The 268 FACES IN THE DAWN next was no more significant : "G. v. H. gave me a pair of slippers." "G. v. H. gave me a picture for my study" followed, and so on. Absorbed, she read the next entries concerning Gudrun s Confirma tion and first Communion. "To-day I was one of the Twelve," she read. One of what twelve? she won dered. Then she suddenly realized that Adam had meant the Twelve Disciples, and she stared at the lamp with mouth open, startled by the boldness and wonder of that revelation. Then she read: "G. v. H. s first ball"; and, in stantly, she thought of her own first ball and wished that Adam might have recorded that. The next entry was dated Christmas Eve, 1906, and ran: "G. v. H. gave me a coffee-cup." It was the one she had given the child to play with, of course, and the child had broken it. Esperanza felt a guilty pang that she should have been responsible for a loss that must have seemed tremendously important to him since he had valued the cup enough to bear record to it in his Bible. The next date was August 1 8, 1907. U G. v. H. engaged to a man who is not worthy of her." Below it was the line bearing her own name: "August 20, 1907. Adam Samuels en gaged to Esperanza Kiste." She stared at the dates. August 1 8 and August 20. Two days between Gud run s engagement to Count Max and Adam s en gagement to herself. She did not try to read more, but lay back with her arm across her eyes, so eager to understand FACES IN THE DAWN 269 that she felt no temptation to be angry with Adam, even for those two dates in August, which seemed in some way to make her ashamed, whether for Adam s sake or for her own she did not know. The entries stared at her in fiery letters. "G. v. H. told me that I am to confirm her." She struggled to di vine what had passed in Adam s soul on this date and the other. She could not guess, except that he had loved Gudrun for, she counted, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years. Five years before their marriage he had loved Gudrun, and five years after their marriage he loved her still. Had Gudrun ever loved him? Nothing in the en tries indicated that she had, and Esperanza, with out analyzing elaborately, felt through the simple gratitude for a pair of slippers, and years after, for a coffee-cup, that Adam had never dreamed of asking higher favors, being content merely to love. That was curiously unselfish and humble of Adam. She stared over the footboard and saw the stars twisting themselves into G. v. H. s. Oh, of course, she suddenly cried, of course, Adam loved Gudrun. How could he help it? If Gudrun had made a new being of herself, Esperanza, in these few weeks since Christmas, what must she not have been to Adam in the course of those ten years? "To-day I was one of the Twelve." How close to the divine his love must have been on that day. How high and noble it must have been from the very start to 270 FACES IN THE DAWN have made him wish to lay it before God in God s own Book. Esperanza, hearing Adam s footsteps on the floor below, suddenly felt a thrill as if some hero in a fairy story had come to life. "Adam!" she cried, "Adam, Adam, Adam, come!" She heard a scurry in the kitchen and Lisbeth s excited tones : "Herr Pastor, Herr Pastor !" and then Adam s quick steps as he hurried across the hall and up the stairs. She held out her arms to him. u Oh, Adam!" she cried. He knelt beside the bed and she threw her arms about his neck. All her perplexities seemed to vanish, the anger she had felt, the cold resentment, all seemed to melt in the glow that was suffusing her. Even the sense of her unworthiness, as she saw the emptiness of the soul she had asked him to love beside the great brimming spirit that had owned all his devotion, brought no pang in the joy of her new understanding. u Oh, Adam, for give me!" He kissed her hand. "I have been untrue to you, Esperanza," he whispered penitently. "Oh, no," she answered. "You could not help it. I was so weak and foolish. I brought you noth ing, and she brought you so much. You could not love me when you had once loved Gudrun." Her voice unexpectedly broke. An hour ago, had Esperanza given him the chance, he would have cried out to her that he did FACES IN THE DAWN 271 love her now, that his love for Gudrun had in some wonderful way passed over to her, that she had made him hers with her terrible scorn that night beside the little white form of Klarchen on the bed. But Esperanza s discovery of the devotion he had cher ished in his innermost sanctuary gave it a quick re ality that he thought it had forever ceased to pos sess. He wanted to withdraw himself from those eyes, because he could not guess how the mind be hind those eyes might judge the spiritual experience that had meant so much to him, finding it base, perhaps, or merely an idle sentimentalizing. Es- peranza would think the situation over, he thought, and would resent it later, even if she did not seem to resent it now. A new sense of disloyalty, more over, crept for the first time into his consideration of those boyish entries in his Bible, and he felt hu miliated in his own eyes; since he had always prided himself on his sense of loyalty, thinking of Gud run always, never of Esperanza. So he let Opportunity slip by, the elusive Oppor tunity he had longed for these many lonely, frigid weeks, seeing for the moment only the St. Teresa im age of his former, solitary years; and leaned over and kissed Esperanza gently on her forehead, but said nothing; and kissed her again even more gently, and still was silent. Then, as his knee touched an open book on the floor beside Esperanza s bed, he bent down and found his Bible; and closed it, and 272 FACES IN THE DAWN rising bore it slowly, as one in a dream, down the stairs into his study. Esperanza was too happy over the breaking up of the ice in her own being to be disappointed that Adam s rivers were not yet running free. CHAPTER XVI IN WHICH THE MELANCHOLY PERSONAGE MAKES A DISCONCERTING DISCOVERY AND A CONSCIEN TIOUS AMAZON A PROMISE DURING the days immediately following Es- peranza s day of fever and discovery, Gudrun and Hammerdale walked on the edge of a precipice. They knew, too, where they were walking, fully aware of their peril. Hammerdale recalled, after ward, what a boon the uncertainty of the weather was to them during those days; for they were able to bring up the subject perfectly naturally twenty times a day without appearing utterly fatuous. They remarked how like April it was ; would there be rain next or snow; perhaps it might hail in that case how good there were no crops ripening! (They decided later that this remark of Gudrun s deserved the prize for pure fatuity.) Now and then they branched into literature, Gudrun asking his opinion of Ellen Key and Ricarda Huch (of whom, she knew, he was as ignorant as his umbrella) ; and Hammerdale gravely discussing United States Farm ers Bulletins. The trouble was that the Baroness, 273 274 FACES IN THE DAWN during the hours Gudrun was caring for Esperanza, had suddenly waked up to the fact that her love for Gudrun had completely transcended diplomatic pretense, and had become a living fact. The dis covery set old cobwebbed, rusty engines, that had not stirred for decades, slowly to turning, amid much inner turbulence and some pain. Placidity vanished, and in its place came the nervous groping from half- seen buoy to buoy of ship-captains trying to make harbor without a pilot. They had had a scene, that involved tears, in the Baroness s bedroom when Gudrun returned from the parsonage, for the Baroness reproached her for her long absence, and Gudrun, seeking to explain, offended her mother still more by incidentally di vulging plans for frequent further absences. "Oh, my Gudrun," the Baroness exclaimed at last, breaking down a little. "I have been thinking so much of past years. I have reproached myself. I have not been to you what I should have been. Give me the chance now, give me the chance, my Gudrun, to make up to you the love I failed to give when you needed it. Give me the chance to find now what I lost, so that I may go to my grave happy and with a clear conscience." Her words were the words of one who has trained herself, whatever the crisis, to preserve pure diction, and a suspicion shot through Gudrun s mind that her mother might be play-acting. But the tones had a ring of sincerity; and the color receded from Gudrun s cheeks. FACES IN THE DAWN 275 "I love you, and I want you to love me," she an swered quietly, though her heart seemed suddenly to pitch and toss. "Then stay with me, my Gudrun," cried the Baron ess. "You mean you mean this afternoon, don t you?" Gudrun asked falteringly. Her mother s soft brown eyes turned to hers in pleading devotion. "You know what I mean." Gudrun had hold of herself now. She was glad that the words she had dreaded for weeks to hear had at last been spoken, and she answered quite calmly. "You want me to give up Jimmie." The Baroness knew that she was acting selfishly, but she did not want to appear crudely selfish. "For your happiness, Gudrun, as well as mine I wish it." Gudrun straightened up and her face was like marble. "My own happiness I can take care of. I am old enough for that." "Your happiness, my child," answered the Baron ess, smiling faintly her old placid, melancholy smile, as if she had grown accustomed to a selfish world and had learned to be patient with it. "But mine?" "You have no right to ask so much," Gudrun cried. "I know, my child. I have a right to ask noth ing." She laid the faintest emphasis on the word right. "Oh, but I can t!" 276 FACES IN THE DAWN "I am not young any more. I have not had a happy life. Your father has wronged me deeply. I have never spoken of it. I am not one who com plains. I have asked nothing of him. I have asked nothing of you before this." Gudrun found her mother s voice strangely lulling, as Pastor Adam had found it on Christmas Day. It seemed insidiously to sap her strength. "Our wedding is scarcely three weeks off. How can you ask me to give him up?" "I do not ask you to decide now, my child. But when you think over what I have said, consider whether when I am gone and buried you will not be glad if you have done what your mother asked of you." She patted Gudrun s cheek softly, the play-actress uppermost in her. But the true emotion broke through once more in a cry. "Oh, Gudrun, do not leave me !" Gudrun and Hammerdale had devoted their in frequent conversations, during the days following her scene with the Baroness, largely to the weather, for the reason that the one subject that was upper most in both their minds Hammerdale refused ab solutely to discuss. "You understand your relation to your mother," he said as they were sitting in the living-room late after the Baron and his lady had retired, "and I don t. I couldn t. You couldn t explain it. A thou sand things you don t understand yourself will be in fluencing you when you finally decide." FACES IN THE DAWN 277 "Oh, but Jimmie," she interrupted. "I have de cided." "No, I don t think you have. But I think you ve got an A i head on your shoulders and your heart s where it ought to be. If I leave you alone things ll be right whichever way you decide. If, on the other hand, I try to butt in, things may come out most all- fired wrong. Thank you, no. He also serves, etc. I may be as happy sometimes as a standful of fans watching a man steal third when the home-pitcher s back is turned, but I don t intend to give you grand stand advice. Now don t try to frown, because you can t. And don t try to persuade me, because you won t." He grinned feebly, and a second later, looking rather more grave than usual, held out his hand. "Come on. Shake on it." "But don t you see, it s this way. If my mother " Hammerdale bent down to where she was crouch ing in an armchair and, coming close, looked straight in her eyes. "I love you, I believe in you," he said in low, firm tones. "I believe in you a long sight more than I believe in myself. I want you to do what looks to you right. But I want you to do it because you do think it s right, not because you think that tradition, or your mother, or the Sultan of Bolo wants you to do it. I won t have you crawl." She drew the head that was close to hers still 278 FACES IN THE DAWN closer and kissed him. "I ll promise, Jimmie, dear. I won t crawl." "Good, shake," he said. "Shake," she answered. They shook. CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH A DRUNKARD S WHISTLE RAISES THE DEVIL, LAYS A GHOST AND ENDS A REBELLION THEN, one morning, from the last source in the world from which Pastor Adam would have ex pected it, came for Gudrun and Hammerdale and for them all, the wind, that was God, driving the clouds from before the stars. It came fairly well disguised, for it came in the form of a shrill whistle from a drunken man who had somehow drifted into the back pew of the Wenkendorf church. The pas tor heard it (as he was supposed to) and, inter rupting his eloquence, ordered the sexton to remove the offender. This was not quite easy, for the of fender had an accomplice, also drunk, and they re sisted ejection. A half dozen sturdy parishioners, however, seemed not sorry for a diversion, and, with strength but quietly, befitting the place, set the dis turbers outside the door. The sexton within stood guard. And, meanwhile, the bolder of the two out side, a Pole from the German provinces, entertained his companion, a ne er-do-weel and eyesore of Wen kendorf, with a delectable story. 279 28o FACES IN THE DAWN The ne er-do-weel laughed hilariously and the Pole laughed; and Pastor Adam, in his pulpit, heard them and thundered louder than before to drown the ugly sound. The men were rocking in each other s arms with unholy glee when the congregation, frown ing to a man (for they took their religion seriously on Sundays), emerged from the church. The men were driven to shelter behind a low hedge, whence they hooted derision. At last the pastor himself came to the steps, but the men had turned into the highway, and, reeling and singing, disappeared through a cottage door. Adam turned back into the church to speak a word to Gudrun and Hammerdale. He was angry and distressed. The disturbance was outrageous; he felt humiliated that such a sacrilege should be perpetrated in his church, and there was anger in his glances as he came down the aisle again. Gud run, as he had noticed from the chancel, was pale, and her features seemed more clearly marked than formerly, sterner, more stonily calm. They spoke of unimportant things; then Gudrun said: "My mother regretted that she could not come. She is ill." "I am sorry," Adam replied, without much warmth. "She has sent for the doctor. She is quite fright ened." The pastor did not answer at once, but as he glanced quickly at the steel-blue eyes gazing straight- FACES IN THE DAWN 281 ly past him out of the window and miles beyond, he divined the latest developments in the struggle at the Manor-house. The Baroness was thinking, or pretending to think, that she was going to die. And, unconsciously, he drove home Hammerdale s preachment: u To find the right and to follow it is more important than the life or death of any hu man being." Then, lest he appear to have taken sides, he added, "Including your own." Which, from the standpoint of Gudrun s natural inclina tions, was possibly an unsatisfactory anti-climax. Adam watched Gudrun as she walked with her excellent Young Man down the little aisle and out into the bright morning, and it seemed to him that he was watching her walk out of his life. During the days since Esperanza s discovery of his secret, the pain of nerves, laid bare, had gradually sub sided as he began to comprehend Esperanza s at titude. She did not drag his love for Gudrun into the light of common day as he had feared she might, subjecting it to the indignity of cold examination and questions; and she did not seem in the least jealous. If she felt any pang because of his in fidelity it seemed to him that it was largely self- reproach. Adam had continued to love Gudrun because she, Esperanza, had failed in her duty. Thus she argued. She had been a drudge with a drudge s ideals; never a wife to companion him into the clear airs. One thing only he knew Esperanza could not forget: those two dates in August five years 282 FACES IN THE DAWN before. Why, Esperanza was saying to herself over and over again, why, if Adam loved Gudrun, had he done her, Esperanza, the deep injustice of asking her to marry him? Adam understood, more or less clearly, that, ex cept for this one thing, Esperanza bore him no re sentment; and the wonder grew in him that this mild creature he had thought, five years ago, he had honored beyond her wildest dreams by his mar riage with her, should prove so nobly magnanimous. Other women, he suspected, would have made a fine to-do about this dream-infidelity of his; and won dered why Esperanza had hidden her light under a bushel so long. They might have been so happy had she only shown him long ago how noble she was. And then, he wondered, if possibly he, Adam, had been blind. He entered the parsonage. Esperanza was work ing in the kitchen, and singing as she worked, for she had escaped from her bed the morning after her fever-day, feeling more free and light-hearted than she had felt in years. Adam, who usually buried himself in his study as soon as service was over, passed the time of day with her in the kitchen, and lingered as if work were less attractive than for merly or possibly his wife were more alluring. Es peranza, peeling potatoes, felt his gaze and was conscious of the blood gently creeping into her cheeks. For she had a clean, sky-blue muslin dress on and her hair was neat and she peeled the po- FACES IN THE DAWN 283 tatoes with a precision Gudrun had instilled in her; and all that was feminine in her shouted through her being that she was an attractive little body to look upon and glad she had a caller. Adam stood by the open door of his study, ex pecting any minute to retire into it, but postponing retirement, for he found that his eyes seemed to rest more easily and comfortably on Esperanza s fair hair bending over the bowl of potatoes than on any sight they had come upon. He said nothing at all, and his silence gradually made the flush deepen on Esperanza s cheeks and rise to her fore head. She looked up, finally, with an embarrassed smile that actually (oh, demure Esperanza!) had a sug gestion of coquetry in it. "Why do you look at me that way?" she asked. "You will make me cut my finger." Her words broke the spell he seemed to be under. He turned once more toward the study. "You have changed," he said slowly, and certainly to judge by those tones no saint was ever more obtuse to coquetry or more secure from the temptation to inspire it. "You have changed." Esperanza laid the knife into the bowl when he had gone, and folded her hands. A smile that was the smile of a girl of sixteen passed like a ray of light across her face, hesitating an instant at the corners of her lips, an instant in the deeps of her eyes. The temptation came to her to run after 284 FACES IN THE DAWN Adam, and make him tell her how she had changed (it would be pleasant to hear it from his lips). But she thought of the precepts of Gudrun, and went on peeling her potatoes. Into the parsonage, at four o clock that after noon, and into the pastor s study, came two elders of the Wenkendorf church. One was tall and thin and old, slightly bent, and wearing a long beard. That was Jakob Rasch. He was the Lear of the parish, a pathetic figure, who had long outlived his usefulness, outlived his friends, outlived even his children and grandchildren with the exception of one granddaughter who, in her youth, had strayed somewhat into primrose byways, and now, keeping house for him in her middle-age, vented her wrath at the scorn of her contemporaries upon his help less old head. His face was thin, his mouth almost toothless, but his pale blue eyes had the deep appeal of one who aches to die, and cannot turn the trick. His companion was a much younger man, the local barber, and dentist, surgeon and undertaker, on the side. He was short and stocky and had a face like a golden full-moon with irresponsible lines that in sisted on curving upward whatever the director in the brain of Emil Rind ordered. Thus he had a way of looking quite cheerful when, as surgeon, per haps, he was actually sad; and, when he was try ing to be deeply sympathetic, in his office of under- FACES IN THE DAWN 285 taker, for instance, he would appear the picture of carefree mirth. The pastor greeted his visitors cordially. The pathos of the elder, the avocation of the younger had brought both close to him during the years of his pastorate at Wenkendorf. The two men, how ever, if they felt cordial, were too embarrassed to show it. They refused the chairs Adam of fered them and seemed unable to talk. At last Adam asked them whether they had any special request. Rasch looked at Rind and Rind at Rasch. At last the old man, nudged none too gently by the younger, moved his lower jaw with its long beard up and down two or three times, as if to test whether it was in order, and spoke. "Yes, yes, Herr Pastor," he said in a whiny sing song, casting his pathetic, half blind eyes up at Adam. "We have something on our hearts. That man this morning who whistled " "I hope he has been locked up," said Adam sternly. "Yes, yes, Herr Pastor," replied the old man, "he has been locked up. Emil, here, he locked him up himself." "I locked him up," echoed Emil Rind, speaking solemnly, and looking more like a happy full-moon than ever. "Yes, yes, Herr Pastor," went on the whiny Rasch, shaking his head mournfully, "life is sad, 286 FACES IN THE DAWN sad. He told such a story, Herr Pastor, such a story. Lies, all lies. About the Herr Pastor." "So?" commented Adam coldly. "About the Herr Pastor. Sad, sad. When the Herr Pastor was in Silesia, in Stromau." Adam was thankful that he was sitting down, for his knees trembled so that he knew they would not have held him. He did not attempt to answer, speaking only another faint "So?" "Yes, yes, Herr Pastor," went on the dreary sing song, "the story is all over the village and every one is greatly excited and Emil, here, he said, you go to the Herr Pastor, and I said, no, you go, and he said, no, you go/ and at last, to save a fight on the Lord s day, Herr Pastor, and I not being as young as once I was, we both came." Adam sat and said nothing, but his heart seemed suddenly a pit where ghastly specters were waging a victorious struggle with the new glories and hopes and aspirations he had won. The low past he felt he had overthrown so completely that he never even feared it might challenge him again had risen and was here in his house and would destroy him after all. "What does the man say?" asked Adam at last. "Yes, yes, it is a long story, Herr Pastor," whined Jakob Rasch. "About a rich peasant and his daugh ter and how the Herr Pastor wanted to marry the daughter who was a loose bird, so they say, and how the father said no, and the daughter struck FACES IN THE DAWN 287 him, and the peasant took a whip and and horse whipped him " Adam rose; and his sallow, flat cheeks were white, and the hand that supported him against the desk fumbled and fidgeted nervously. But it was more than his mere bulk, towering above the flustered elders, that made Rind turn his beaming face quickly to his companion and say, in hushed tones "You old fool you, can t you see it s a lie?" But Adam gritted his teeth and said: u The story is true." Somehow the men got out of the house, whether by chimney, window or door Adam never could say definitely. When they had gone he remained an instant rigid and silent. Then, in a voice that had so much of pain in it that Esperanza gave an answering cry when she heard it, he called: "Es peranza !" She found him sunk back in his chair when she came running in, staring in black misery at the floor. His hair was wildly rumpled and the lines of his face were so deep that they seemed black in con trast to the pallor of the skin. He was breathing deeply in and out, as though he had taken part in a physical struggle. "Oh, Adam!" Esperanza cried, sinking on the floor beside him and reaching up her arms. "What have they done to you?" Adam s hand groped toward her hair and stroked 288 FACES IN THE DAWN it softly. "My Esperanza," he whispered faintly, as if a bleeding wound were fast stealing his strength. "What is it? Tell me. What have they done?" His hand stopped and lay like a heavy weight on Esperanza s head. "They are telling an evil story about me," he whispered. She laid her arms about his neck and drew her self closer to him. "You know, 7 will never believe it," she said loyally. "You are good/ he replied, not daring yet to meet her eyes. "But the story is true." "I am sure it cannot be so very bad," she said, looking up with childlike trust. He did not answer at once. "Not utterly bad," he answered at last thoughtfully, as if he were try ing to classify the sin and pigeon-hole it in his for mer fashion. "Only ignoble." "Will you tell me about it, Adam? I will not judge you." He bent down quickly and kissed her hair; and Esperanza felt a tear. She looked up quickly. Ad am s head was bent. After what seemed to her a long time, he spoke. "When I was pastor in Stromau, ten, fifteen years ago, I came and went a great deal in the houses of the wealthy peasants in my parish. They lived very well, and, after a time, I began to think that meat and wine were more necessary to me than a good conscience. I neglected my parish and spent my days FACES IN THE DAWN 289 and nights with the rich peasant-folk. I became a parasite, Esperanza." "What is a parasite ?" she asked. "I sold myself for food and drink," he went on, "while the poor in my parish suffered. It was so for five years. Then, one day, I found that I had fallen in love with the only child of one of the rich est peasants in the valley. Her name was Kathe and she was beautiful, and one evening when we were alone under the trees in the moonlight I seemed to melt at the touch of her and I kissed her and she said she loved me and loved me not and loved me. And, for months, she kept me in torment. And in those months the Devil showed me the king doms of the world, and I wanted her possessions al most as I wanted her. At last she said, Go to my father. I went to her father. He did not under stand at first what I wanted and when he under stood he laughed and said I was insane and called Kathe, and she laughed, too, that I should think that she, who was a rich peasant s girl, would marry a worthless parasite. And I went into a rage and cried out, asking why she had kissed me and loved me under the mulberry tree by the brook. And she struck me and the peasant took his whip and whipped me out of the house and out of the court and down the highway. And I heard the stable-boys laughing and Kathe laughing and I ran home and laughed and laughed and laughed." There was a ring of wild, bitter laughter under FACES IN THE DAWN the words that made Esperanza shrink a little. Adam felt her body drawing away and he cried like a lost soul at the final court, pleading for mercy, "Esperanza! 7 Her sudden repulsion vanished, She threw back her head and drew herself close and kissed him. "Adam, Adam, I love you!" she cried again and again. "My Esperanza, " he murmured, quieted by her caresses. "That this should come now! I have wiped it out of my soul, the stain of it, wiped it out in suffering, and God has forgiven. I know, because my conscience is clear again. God does not reproach me with Stromau. Oh, why should men reproach me with it?" His voice dropped, but there was more anguish in the tones than before when he continued. "That this should come now! Now, when we have found each other at last, Esperanza. You have for given me?" "Oh, Adam," she cried. "Do not make me think of that word." "You are good," he went on. "I have not de served such a good wife. And now we must go away from Wenkendorf " "Go away?" she exclaimed in consternation. "Yes," he answered heavily. "Do you think they will tolerate me here? And I had begun to love them, Esperanza. I said to myself, I have found my abiding place. These are my children. A dream, Esperanza. We must begin again." FACES IN THE DAWN 291 "But that will not be hard now, Adam," she whis pered through tears, "for we shall work together." "Together," he mused, nodding his head. "Not singly any more so, so you make me forget my pain and my anger, my anger against those hounds from Stromau ! Esperanza " He folded his great arms about her, staring dog gedly off into space as though he were watching the world rise in arms against him and were crying to the world: "You have robbed me of everything save this, but this I hold!" Dusk filled the room and brought the night and the night brought a slender moon that shone through dark boughs; but not until the children came tip toeing, half-frightened down the stairs, with the baby shuffling and sliding in the rear, crying for sup per, did Adam and Esperanza stir. As they trooped into the kitchen, all together, Adam held his head high. The elders had not exaggerated when they said that the parish was worked up over the story the Silesian laborer had spread abroad. It turned out that he had been one of the stable-boys on the farm where the tragic farce had occurred. He, therefore, knew all details, with comments by Kathe and her father of which even Adam knew nothing. He was a shiftless tramp, who had come to Wenkendorf by accident and quite by accident dropped into the back pew of the church. His going proved as strange 292 FACES IN THE DAWN as his coming, for that same Sunday night he broke from the room where he was confined, pending a cross-examination, and disappeared. He was never seen again. But the story was there, corroborated by Adam himself. The story could not escape. The parish, for all his labor and his love, the par ish laughed, as Adam knew that every parish within twenty miles would be laughing before a week was up. He pressed his lips together that Monday morn ing and made ready to go about his work. This was not as difficult as he had feared, for there were singing voices amid the glooms in his soul. For Es- peranza had drawn close to him as he rose from breakfast and whispered, "Remember, I shall be thinking of you wherever you go. So you will not be altogether alone, will you, Adam?" and the sense of companionship had lent rigor to his spine. Adam opened the parsonage door and stepped out into the world with a sense that every leafless bough and bush, every rock and wall, almost, and certainly every window was grinning at him and pointing fingers. Perhaps they were. Adam walked the gauntlet, looking not to right or left. The par ishioners, he found, were not all grinning. Some were prone to put the worst interpretation on his relations with the flirtatious Kathe, and to speak ponderously of moral laws; others, less ungenerous, remarked merely that Wenkendorf might do well to find a shepherd who had not been a black, or at least a gray, sheep himself. There was open talk FACES IN THE DAWN 293 over coffee-cups and butter-tubs, but mostly over beer-mugs, for the men were, as usual, the worst gos sips, concerning dismissal, transference, reprimands from above, and such. This baseless gabble re ceived unexpected stimulus through a rumor, ema nating from the servants quarters at the Manor- house (whither a certain maid named Lena, a listener at keyholes, had carried it), that the Manor-folk had emphatically declared that the pastor must go, and that there would be no wedding at Wenkendorf until he did go and a successor was appointed. Kind friends, of course, communicated these tid ings to Adam, not once, but a dozen times, as he went his round of parish calls that chilly February morning. They told him other things, not with words, but with the look of an eye or the pressure of a hand, but, good or ill, he forgot these in the crushing disappointment the news from the Manor- house conveyed. A successor? Another would marry Gudrun and his friend Tchimi. So there was another dream gone with the rest. He tried to doubt the validity of the rumor, but there was re ality in the ring of it; for he knew the Baroness s pride sufficiently to realize that though a vicious man might preach and marry in Wenkendorf till the moon went hissing in the sea, an absurd man might not. But Gudrun? And Jimmie Hammerdale? He knew, of course, that Gudrun would be loyal to the parsonage through thick and thin, but, never theless, a fear crept in that she who would forgive 294 FACES IN THE DAWN thieving and murder, if necessary, might not forgive the sheer vulgarity of the farce of Stromau; or, in finitely worse, that even she might laugh a little, and so drop forever out of his sky. It was curious that as he bravely went his round that morning he felt surer of Hammerdale, in spite of his occasional lev ity, than of Gudrun; possibly because, though he loved Jimmie, his judgment meant less to him than Gudrun s. He saw and heard nothing of either the whole of that long Monday forenoon. If they were true to him, he pondered gloomily, surely he would have heard. If Adam could have looked into the Manor-house that morning he might have forgotten his fore boding and distrust. The Manor-house was in tur moil. The Baroness, whose imagination was keen in the matter of physical ailments, had managed to work herself into a really dangerous state. The old doctor from Hiinenfeld, snuff-box and all, had been at her bedside since the previous evening, and was looking, not only physically weary, but anxious. The Baroness s heart had evidently gone wrong. The old doctor had not the slightest idea whether it had expanded or contracted or merely broken, as the Baroness intimated; but he looked learned and held her pulse and shook his head and otherwise acted as his profession demanded; and in odd moments re tired for a pinch of snuff. Gudrun hovered about her mother s bed as nurse and general director of FACES IN THE DAWN 295 ceremonies, torn in mind between warm sympathy and the chilly suspicion that her mother might be play-acting again. Hammerdale was below-stairs and as peaceful in spirit as a prisoner in a court waiting for the return of the jury. Now and then the Baron, puffing at his lengthy Fiirst Billow, would sit down next him and mischievously and not at all maliciously discuss parsons in general, since Ham merdale persisted in courteously sidetracking every incipient discussion of Pastor Adam in particular. The story had filtered into the upper apartments of the Manor-house rather slowly. The kitchen and servant quarters knew it, of course, even before the two elders had called on Adam at the parsonage; but the illness of the Baroness, to whom the maids as a rule dutifully delivered all gossip of the sort, made her inaccessible; and Gudrun squelched so promptly the only attempt to retail the sorry story to herself that she did not find out until Monday morning that the tattle was about the pastor. She heard it, finally, from two maids who, instead of sweeping and dusting the rooms as they had been told, were giggling in the corridor. "Magda ! Lena !" Gudrun called, opening the door of her mother s sitting-room. "Quiet! What is the matter? This house seems possessed." A little sheepishly, but proud at bottom to be the bearers of such delectable gossip, the girls told the story, missing no points and elaborating freely. Adam s fears had been quite groundless. Gud- 296 FACES IN THE DAWN run showed no inclination whatever to laugh. In deed, she pressed her lips so tightly together to keep inaudible the sob in her throat, that the girls became frightened, expecting a lecture. But Gud- run delivered no lecture. "Get me my hat and coat, and my rubbers," she cried. "Gudrun," called the Baroness in a weak voice. "Where are you going?" Closing the door softly, Gudrun returned to her mother s bed. "I ve got to go to the parsonage," she said agitatedly. "Is it necessary that you should leave me, my Gudrun?" whispered the Baroness in gentle tones containing just enough resignation to make the words a reproach. Gudrun decided that the longest way round was possibly the shortest road to her object. So she sat down at the foot of the bed and repeated the story of the pastor as she had heard it, omitting obvious lies and toning down the lurid colors. The Baron ess showed signs of returning life. "And now you understand, mother dear, why I must leave you for just half an hour, don t you?" Gudrun asked, kissing her. "The pastor and Es- peranza will need support to-day, even if the story is not true." "Why should the story not be true?" asked the Baroness in mild surprise. "It sounds true, I admit." "He was horsewhipped?" FACES IN THE DAWN 297 "That is the story." "And a peasant-girl. Gudrun, a liaison!" "No, that is not true. Not even Lena said that!" "Gudrun," murmured the Baroness, patting her hand. "My beautiful, innocent child. Keep your pure faith in human nature even if it be ill- based." Gudrun felt fires break and rise in her. The sus- piciousness, the sentimentality, the utter lack of un derstanding of her own outlook! Her fingers bent and pressed into her palms, her shoulders drew up as her back stiffened, her toes danced in her shoes. Lena, the chambermaid, knocked and opened the door. "Your coat and hat, Fraulein Gudrun. The rubbers are in the vestibule." Gudrun went to the door. "Thank you, Lena," she said, and started to put on her battered red felt hat. "I am going to the parsonage, mother. Shall I tell the pastor and his wife that we all believe in him and stand back of him?" "No." The tone was emphatic. "No?" "I do not wish you to go to the pastor s." Gudrun came back quickly to her mother s bed side. "Why? Tell me why you do not wish it. It is important now that I should know exactly why you do not wish me to go to the pastor s." "You are cold. How can you be so cold to your mother, Gudrun?" The Baroness was maneuvering for position. 298 FACES IN THE DAWN "I am sorry if I seem cold. I only wish to know your attitude." "I am ill. You must have consideration. You must not cross-question me." Gudrun clenched her hands again, for she felt the Hallern temper asserting itself. "All I want to know, mother, is why you do not wish me to go to the parsonage." "I have always disapproved of your going there so much," answered the Baroness in soft tones. "But you were wilful. Now you see that I was right." "Why, no, I don t," said Gudrun, puckering her forehead, puzzled to find the logic. "You will understand when you are older." "Good heavens, mother, what are you driving at? You go around things like a cat around a bowl of hot porridge. You look as if you meant a lot and say nothing at all. Do tell me what you want me to do." "Be careful. Be careful, Gudrun. I am ill." Gudrun threw up her hands. "Mother, this is pure theater!" The Baroness took no notice of this last evidence of the Hallern temper; but she did return to the subject. "Of course, Pastor Samuels cannot stay at Wenkendorf," she remarked as if the statement were axiomatic. "Of course he can," Gudrun cried, up in arms. "He must." "I shall see that the matter is laid before the FACES IN THE DAWN 299 Consistory." She gave a sigh which sounded much like a sigh of relief. "And, of course, your mar riage will have to be postponed." Gudrun regarded her mother quietly. "Do you think so?" she asked. "I could not endure now having Pastor Samuels perform that holy sacrament for my child." The Hallern temper gave a shout, but Gudrun lulled it and said, "Still that would be no reason for postponing my marriage. There are other pastors, though, of course, I intend to have Pastor Samuels." The Baroness raised her delicate eyebrows until the round eyes, eyebrows and nose looked like two exquisitely designed Romanesque windows with a stately column between. "My child, you intend?" Gudrun s face had its warrior look. "Yes," she answered. "But if your father and I forbid?" "You know father will not forbid." "But if I, your mother, whom you love, if I for bid?" Gudrun breathed deeply and came close to her, regarding her with steady, waiting eyes, as though after long searching she were standing on the threshold of truth. "Why should you want to for bid?" The Baroness took Gudrun s hand. "I so want to keep you for myself," she whispered. Gudrun s eyes withdrew, unsatisfied. She and her mother, she noted with a sigh, were still following 300 FACES IN THE DAWN each other around the porridge. "I am going to stand by the pastor," she said, hoping the direct statement might draw a direct reply. "Still, Gudrun," said the Baroness mildly, "that will not affect the action of the Consistory." "But you must not write to the Consistory." "Must not?" asked the Baroness reproachfully. "Oh, I don t care about the verb!" Gudrun ex claimed. "But must is what I mean." A look crept into the Baroness s eyes that Gud run had not seen there for five years, but had seen plentifully during the course of the struggles that preceded the end of her engagement to Count Max. It was a curiously catlike gleam. It meant that the Baroness s back was up. "You are my daughter," murmured the Baron ess. "I think finally you will do as I wish." Gudrun walked to the window to control her tongue and make sure that she would phrase her answer right. At last she turned. "If I think that what you ask of me is right, of course I shall al ways do as you wish. But, of course, you would not want me to follow your wishes if I thought that by following them I was doing wrong." She was glad when she had safely uttered the elaborate state ment. The Baroness followed her with her eyes to the window and back to the bed. "I think you should let me remain the judge of the right and wrong of my wishes." FACES IN THE DAWN 301 Gudrun laughed outright. "Why, mother!" she cried. "You wouldn t want to make me a puppet on strings, would you?" "I wish I could make you a good daughter," an swered the Baroness. But at that moment Gudrun, sitting at the foot of her mother s bed, thinking, with eyes half closed and hands clenched, saw the light. She rose, laugh ing as people laugh sometimes at funerals for sheer nervousness; but there was the faintest suggestion of gladness in her laugh. She pushed the lace cur tains aside as if she wanted more light and more light; still laughing faintly. "Child," exclaimed the Baroness querulously, "what are you laughing at?" Gudrun turned and the clouds were all gone from her eyes. "Mother," she cried, "think what fools you and I might have made of ourselves! I might have given up Jimmie I nearly did because I thought you needed a friend, when you only wanted a puppet!" "Gudrun, what are you saying?" "It makes me cold to think I might have given up Jimmie, and been so terribly fooled!" She went to the window again. The Hallern temper was up. The Baroness was suddenly pale. "Gudrun," she cried in a weak voice. Gudrun did not turn. "Gud run, come!" she called. Gudrun turned quickly. Her mother was puf- 302 FACES IN THE DAWN fing heavily, gasping for breath. "My heart/ she whispered. Gudrun propped her up with pillows and ran to the hall and out on the balcony that overhung the dining-room. "Herr Doktor! Jimmie! Come quick!" Jimmie came, three steps at a time, and the old doctor, with red handkerchief trailing from the rear pocket of his frock-coat, came agitatedly be hind. "A real seizure !" Gudrun whispered. "And I m responsible. We had a scene, Jimmie, and " The doctor was fidgeting about the Baroness, but she waved him away. "Gudrun," she whis pered. Gudrun came and bent over her. "Gudrun," said her mother in a low voice, "tell me that you ask my forgiveness, tell me that you will be my obedient daughter that I may die in peace." Hammerdale knew from the Baroness s tone and the frightened glance Gudrun cast him that here was the crucial moment at last. Gudrun hesitated. "My Gudrun?" asked the Baroness with a return of the melancholy smile. "Mother," whispered Gudrun, "try to go to sleep." "Yes, when you have told me." Gudrun endeavored to make up in her tones for the inevitable hardness of the words. "I can t ask your forgiveness and I can t promise always to be FACES IN THE DAWN 303 your obedient daughter. I am so sorry if I am hurt ing you." The Baroness sighed deeply. Possibly she ex pected that her life would, with effective tragedy, go out on the wings of that sigh. But it did nothing of the sort. Two hours later the Baroness was partaking of broiled chicken, potatoes, rice and com pote. Gudrun, accompanied by the Baron and Ham- merdale, called at the parsonage at one o clock, not without a certain amount of pomp and ostentation; for they went in the Manor coach, not because the roads happened to be abominable, but because Gud run wanted all the village to know that the Manor- house was officially standing behind the unfortunate pastor. The Baron protested mildly, but went; and the call had a wholesome effect on the perturbed minds of the parish. Adam felt the change in the greetings of the men and women he met on his re turn from a call at a distant manor, and hurried home to find Esperanza tearfully happy. The Baron, carefully directed previously by Gudrun, had cour teously invited Pastor Adam and herself to supper that evening. And, since the roads were so bad, he had added, the coach would call at eight. Adam breathed deeply. "So, so, so," he murmured. "Is it so, is it so?" Esperanza was flushed and embarrassed as she and Adam laid off their wrappings and entered the 304 FACES IN THE DAWN Manor living-room. She had seen the room before, but it always seemed surprisingly splendid to her eyes, which were unused even to the modest luxury of the Baron s house. She fidgeted uncomfortably in the right sofa-corner, answering the Baron s po lite queries monosyllabically and casting her eyes toward Adam, who, she was glad to note, did not seem much more at ease than herself. "You must excuse my wife," said the Baron. "She has been quite ill." The meal was, at first, a torture to Esperanza, but gradually, as she saw Adam s frigidity thaw out, she, too, grew warm. The Baron, with keen, thought ful glance, regarded now Adam, now Adam s wife, wondering at the friendship that bound his splendid girl and her excellent Young Man to this curiously unbeautiful pair. And yet, as they conversed (Ham- merdale, alone, sitting in happy, comprehending silence) it dawned on him that these people whom Gudrun and Jimmie had discovered were of more significance than he had guessed. He drew out first Esperanza, then Adam, until from a word here and a word there, he divined somewhat of the story of that difficult ascent to the new life that was to be theirs. "It cannot matter to us, Herr Baron," said Es peranza softly, "it cannot matter to us where we are sent to find our new life. It will be wherever we go, for we shall take it with us." "But you will not be sent anywhere," cried the FACES IN THE DAWN 305 Baron. "My Gudrun tells me that Wenkendorf is going to be famous in the district for its parson. You are not going away." The pastor looked down at his plate, then up and straight into the Baron s eyes. "Will they let me stay?" he asked. "Indeed they will," Gudrun exclaimed. "And you will marry us on the twelfth of March." The Baron laid down his knife and fork with a clatter. "Eh?" he cried. "So you ve won over your mother?" "No," Gudrun answered quietly, adding with a slow smile, "but I have won over my conscience." "Potzdonnerwetter!" ejaculated the Baron, taking up the bottle of golden Berncastler Doktor, "I drink to rebellion!" But at that moment the great door that led to the stair-hall opened, and the Baroness appeared. She did not look at all ill. Clad in her costliest black satin, with her most exquisite lace coronet on her head, she came with queenly dignity into the room. They rose as one, Adam and Esperanza flushed with embarrassment, Gudrun defiant, the Baron frightened, Hammerdale amused. "You have guests, and you did not wait for me?" murmured the Baroness reproachfully. There was a moment s silence. "We were drink ing to rebellion as you interrupted us," said the Baron, gathering courage, and with a touch of malice in his tones. Clothilde, he said to himself, was 306 FACES IN THE DAWN always appearing inopportunely and spoiling the fun. The Baroness gave him a melancholy glance, but did not answer. In silence she greeted Adam and Esperanza with her regal condescension; and, in si lence, sat down in the chair Hammerdale drew up for her. "But why rebellion?" she asked at last. There was another long pause. Then Gudrun spoke. "We are celebrating an engagement to night," she explained, breaking the news in as kindly tones as she could command. "Oh, I am so glad!" the Baroness cried softly. "I am so glad you know your mind at last, my Gud run. You were so uncertain. I have suffered with you, yes, I can truly say, I have suffered with you. Come into my arms, my children." The Baron laid his napkin on the table, gazing with open mouth at his wife. "Clothilde, this is too much " "Georg," she answered tearfully. "You do not understand a mother s heart." CHAPTER XVIII IN WHICH, AS IN ALL GOOD ROMANCES, THERE IS MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE THREE weeks or so later Pastor Adam, in a new black silk robe which the Baroness had sent him for the occasion, stood in the chancel of his little stone church gazing down the aisle. The pews were al ready well filled with guests and villagers. Butcher, baker and candlestick-maker were there: aunts in damask, and uncles in gorgeous uniforms; Rasch, the ancient Lear, who did not seem so sorry to be alive that clear March morning; Rind, who beamed like the rising sun; Lisbeth, who gabbled surrep titiously; the one-legged blacksmith, the Manor ser vants; Esperanza and the children, of course, in the first pew and brilliantly starched. Now the church- door opened and the Baroness entered, tearfully, on the Baron s arm; they took their seats. At the chan cel-side the organist pulled out a stop or two and began Bach s "Air for G string." The organ was a wheezy instrument and the boy who pumped behind the scenes was far more inter ested in the expected entrance of the bride than in his 307 308 FACES IN THE DAWN bellows; but the organist seemed, in curious fashion, to make the old pipes sing. The church-door opened once more and, leaning on Hammerdale s arm, Gud- run came. Adam watched her come, slowly, while the music hung about and above her, not with the measured ceremoniousness of a march, but with the piercing tenderness of the voices of memory, of hopes and mercies and old delights, and sorrowings whose sting the years have blunted. And, as Gud- run came, a hundred bolted gates seemed to open in Adam s being. It seemed that ten years were passing as she walked slowly up the aisle, it seemed his whole life was passing, and things long past and done with came forth and crossed his vision once more. He saw his childhood again, his school days, his wild barbarian youth of women and wine and sword-play, his first parish, his second, then Stromau, that had pursued him but could not crush him after all; then Wenkendorf. He saw a red felt hat with cherries stuck in the band, and a face below it, all sky and sunlight and roses; he saw Gudrun the child, Gudrun the budding girl, Gudrun the woman. Out of the darkness of time she seemed to be coming toward him, growing, expanding, now caught in the snares of pain, now full of laughter, coming toward him, a spirit of light to be loved, and to pass after his ways had been made straight. Slowly up the aisle Gudrun came, an Amazon even in white satin. Hammerdale s face was deathly sol emn. It was characteristic of him that he should FACES IN THE DAWN 309 take the ordeal hard. The music ceased, dying in a poignant quiver that escaped like a half-remem bered dream. Adam caught his breath, and began the service. He read slowly and more softly than was his cus tom, as though he felt that the words were for Gud- run and Jimmie only, and would lose some of their sanctity if he spoke them as if for the staring crowd. And, as he read, he knew why he had told himself that he must make himself over before this Twelfth of March. For, as he stood before the kneeling figures, with a kind of sublime shock it occurred to him that, here in God s house, he was not Adam Samuels, reading old, dull phrases from a book, but a smoothed and chiseled instrument through which the voices of heaven were blowing wonders of unimagined melody. This was the end to which he had labored. He had cleansed and purified the reed so that God s voice might sound harmoniously clear. The reading ended, the rings were given and re ceived, the replies spoken. Then quietly, with none of his old pulpit-thunder at all, Adam delivered his sermon. He made no attempt to soar; the usual paraphernalia of his discourses, his vines and fig- trees, his deserts and his palms, he omitted entirely. He uttered the ancient homely truths unostentatious ly and friendly-wise, as one to whom they are new because he has to discover in his own experience how real they are. 310 FACES IN THE DAWN He closed, speaking the prayer and the benedic tion half in a dream; and could not speak at all as he shook the hands he dimly saw outstretched. Gud- run and Hammerdale turned and walked slowly down the aisle. And, as Adam watched Gudrun go, he felt his being fill with all the wonder and grati tude of humanity toward the angels; but as he bent his head and gazed unexpectedly into the candid eyes of Esperanza he knew that the shout and tug in his heart were for her. TVHE following pages contain advertisements of Mac- * millan books by the same author, and new fiction. HERMANN HAGEDORN S POEMS Poems and Ballads New Edition Cloth, ismo. $1.00 net. "We can see from this volume that Mr. Hagedorn is a truly accomplished poet . . . the poems are worth writing and are worth reading, because Mr. Hagedorn only writes what he really feels, and this volume will strike in many a reader a responsive chord." Poetry Review (England}. "Hermann Hagedorn s work suggests a keynote for all future poetry." Alfred Noyes. "... contains an unusual amount of pure poetry. " N. Y. Times. "He has been able to bring before us once again in his verse those fleeting aspects of beauty that mortal vision and mind hold, but for an instant." Review of Reviews. "It is refreshing to find a young writer who realizes that it is possible for a poet to be sane. Mr. Hagedorn is not guilty of erotic verse he neither dawdles in scented gardens, nor beats his breast beside some painted sea. His voice shows the restraint of one acutely conscious of the beauty of life as dis tinguished from panoramic show." Boston Advertiser. "He has a message as well as style and ranks to-day, slender though his output has been as yet, among the foremost of Ameri can poets. " Philadelphia Public Ledger. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York NEW MACMILLAN FICTION The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman By H. G. WELLS. Cloth, izmo. $1*50 net: The name of H. G. Wells upon a title page is an assurance of merit. It is a guarantee that on the pages which follow will be found an absorbing story told with master skill. In the present book Mr. Wells surpasses even his previous efforts. He is writing of modern society life, particularly of one very charming young woman, Lady Harman, who finds herself so bound in by conventions, so hampered by restrictions, largely those of a well intentioned but short sighted husband, that she is ultimately moved to revolt. The real meaning of this revolt, its effect upon her life and those of her associates are narrated by one who goes beneath the surface in his analysis of human motives. In the group of characters, writers, suffragists, labor organizers, social workers and society lights surrounding Lady Harman, and in the dramatic incidents which compose the years of her existence which are described by Mr. Wells, there is a novel which is significant in its interpretation of the trend of affairs today, and fascinatingly interesting as fiction. It is Mr. Wells at his best. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York NEW MACMILLAN FICTION The Mutiny of the Elsinore By JACK LONDON, Author of "The Sea Wolf," "The Call of the Wild," etc. With frontispiece in colors by Anton Fischer. Cloth, I2tno. $1.35 net. Everyone who remembers The Sea Wolf with pleasure will enjoy this vigorous narrative of a voyage from New York around Cape Horn in a large sailing vessel. The Mutiny of the Elsinore is the same kind of tale as its famous predecessor, and by those who have read it, it is pronounced even more stirring. Mr. London is here writing of scenes and types of people with which he is very familiar, the sea and ships and those who live in ships. In addition to the adventure element, of which there is an abundance of the usual London kind, a most satisfying kind it is, too, there is a thread of romance involving a wealthy, tired young man who takes the trip on the Elsinore, and the captain s daughter. The play of incident, on the one hand the ship s amazing crew and on the other the lovers, gives a story in which the interest never lags and which demonstrates anew what a master of his art Mr. London is. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York NEW MACMILLAN FICTION Saturday s Child By KATHLEEN NORRIS, Author of "Mother," "The Treasure," etc. With frontispiece in colors, by F. Graham Cootes. Decorated cloth, ismo. $1.50 net. 11 Friday s child is loving and giving, Saturday s child must work for her living. " The title of Mrs. Norris s new novel at once indicates its theme. It is the life story of a girl who has her own way to make in the world. The various experiences through which she passes, the various viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally to realize that service for others is the only thing that counts, are told with that same intimate knowledge of character, that healthy optimism and the belief in the ultimate goodness of mankind that have distinguished all of this author s writing. The book is intensely alive with human emotions. The reader is bound to sympathize with Mrs. Norris s people because they seem like real people and because they are actuated by motives which one is able to understand. Saturday s Child is Mrs. Nor ris s longest work. Into it has gone the very best of her crea tive talent. It is a volume which the many admirers of Mother will gladly accept. Neighborhood Stories By ZONA GALE, Author of "Friendship Village/ "The Love of Pelleas and Etarre," etc. With frontispiece. Decorated cloth, I2mo. boxed. $1.50 net. In Neighborhood Stories Miss Gale has a book after her own heart, a book which, with its intimate stories of real folks, is not unlike Friendship Village. Miss Gale has humor; she has lightness of touch; she has, above all, a keen appreciation of human nature. These qualities are reflected in the new volume. Miss Gale s audience, moreover, is a constantly increasing one. To it her beautiful little holiday novel, Christmas, added many admirers. Neighborhood Stories will not only keep these, but is certain to attract many more as well. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York NEW MACMILLAN FICTION The Three Sisters By MAY SINCLAIR, Author of "The Divine Fire," "The Return of the Prodigal," etc. Cloth, i2mo. $1.35 net. Every reader of The Divine Fire, in fact every reader of any of Miss Sinclair s books, will at once accord her unlimited praise for her character work. The Three Sisters reveals her at her best. It is a story of temperament, made evident not through tiresome analyses but by means of a series of dramatic incidents. The sisters of the title represent three distinct types of woman kind. In their reaction under certain conditions Miss Sinclair is not only telling a story of tremendous interest but she is really showing a cross section of life. The Rise of Jennie Gushing By MARY S. WATTS, Author of "Nathan Burke," "Van Cleve," etc. Cloth, i2mo. $1.35 net. In Nathan Burke Mrs. Watts told with great power the story of a man. In this, her new book, she does much the same thing for a woman. Jennie Gushing is an exceedingly interesting character, perhaps the most interesting of any that Mrs. Watts has yet given us. The novel is her life and little else, but that is a life filled with a variety of experiences and touching closely many different strata of humankind. Throughout it all, from the days when as a thirteen-year-old, homeless, friendless waif, Jennie is sent to a reformatory, to the days when her beauty is the inspiration of a successful painter, there is in the narrative an appeal to the emotions, to the sympathy, to the affections, that cannot be gainsaid. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York " - \ T/j pi UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 25 194. LD 21-100m-12, 46(A2012sl6)4120 -f- I VC 46129 298958 UNIVERSITY OF CAIylFORNIA LIBRARY