DEAD SELVES
 
 BY MISS MAGRUDER 
 AT ANCHOR 
 
 AND 
 
 HONORED IN THE BREACH 
 
 lamo. Paper, 50 cents 
 Cloth, $1.00
 
 DEAD SELVES 
 
 BY JULIA MAGRUDER^ 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE PRINCESS SONIA," " AT ANCHOR," 
 " HONORED IN THE BREACH." ETC. 
 
 I hold it truth with him who sings, 
 To one clear harp, in divers tones, 
 Tliat men may rise on stepping-stones 
 
 Of their dead selves to higher things 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII
 
 PS 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, 
 
 BY 
 
 ]. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
 
 TO 
 
 MY MOTHER, 
 
 WITH FAITH AND HOPE AND LOVE
 
 DEAD SELVES 
 
 WHY not marry Mrs. Gwyn ? 
 It was perhaps for the hundredth time 
 that Duncan Fraser asked himself this question, 
 and answered it. The first time, the answer 
 had come, prompt and final as a trip-hammer. 
 Now, it was as prompt as ever, but not as final. 
 He had not forgotten the reasons against this 
 marriage, these were not to be lost sight of 
 for an instant, but the reasons in its favor had 
 gained immense weight with him, between the 
 first and the hundredth time of asking. 
 
 The chief of these latter reasons was that 
 Mrs. Gwyn was very rich ; not rich as some 
 men count richness, but she was the possessor, 
 by inheritance from her husband, of a colossal 
 fortune, and it was nothing less than a colossal 
 fortune which Fraser needed for the accom 
 plishment of the end and ambition of his life, a 
 thing far dearer to him than love, or personal 
 
 5
 
 6 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 delight, or any other feeling which had ever 
 animated him. 
 
 Besides being rich, Mrs. Gwyn was young, 
 and she was very beautiful. The latter consid 
 erations, however, influenced Fraser but little. 
 The money was the thing. He had years ago 
 embarked upon a career of daring scientific ex 
 periment. Having a good fortune himself, he 
 had spent it freely for the advancement of his 
 ends, but after having built a magnificent labor 
 atory and having scoured the earth for instru 
 ments and appliances for its equipment, he was 
 beginning to feel the pinch of want of money, 
 and to face the intolerable possibility of having 
 to call a halt upon himself, just when he had 
 gone far enough to make it imperative to go 
 farther. He had great faith in himself, in his 
 power to make money or to accomplish any 
 other end to which he might set himself, but, 
 in this instance, time was lacking. If he paused 
 to turn aside and make the money that he 
 needed, too much valuable time would be 
 wasted, too precious an opportunity would be 
 left to others. He wanted the money at once, 
 and he wanted it as he had never wanted any 
 thing before. 
 
 Fraser was accustomed to dealing honestly
 
 DEAD SELVES. 7 
 
 with himself, and he did not deny that personal 
 ambition entered somewhat into his schemes. 
 He knew, however, that this was not the chief 
 element. He had the keen instinct of delight 
 in science for its own sake, and he had also a 
 devout longing to succeed, because such success 
 would result in benefit to his fellow-men. He 
 had a great deal of this feeling of abstract 
 altruism, though he had few warm personal ties 
 or affections; indeed, there was but one of 
 these which was very marked in him, and that 
 was for his mother, whom he respected as much 
 as he loved. She, on her part, had concentrated 
 her strong nature on this only child and loved 
 him with intensity, though she did not hesitate, 
 upon occasion, to criticise and even to reprimand 
 him, as if he had been still a boy. No one felt 
 more than she the powerful personal magnetism 
 which all who came in contact with Fraser ac 
 knowledged in him. If he gave his friendship 
 to few, there were many who offered him theirs, 
 and even those who disliked or were jealous of 
 him rarely withheld their tribute to the person 
 ality of the man. He was well known in New 
 York as a serious worker in science, whose in 
 vestigations were important and promised great 
 results ; but in the little town of Brockett, where
 
 8 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 he had built his laboratory, he was, of course, 
 an even more conspicuous figure, and it was in 
 this little town that Mrs. Gwyn resided, or 
 rather in a sort of castle on the outskirts of it. 
 
 Why not marry Mrs. Gwyn ? 
 
 The reasons against such a course had, at first, 
 seemed to Fraser so supreme, so sufficient, so 
 absolute, that a second s consideration had 
 caused him to dismiss the idea from his mind 
 with decision and repulsion, such repulsion as 
 he had never known for a woman before. There 
 was, indeed, a hideous fact about Mrs. Gwyn, 
 which so eclipsed her beauty that that was worse 
 than nothing to Fraser, and for a while it had 
 eclipsed also the advantages of becoming the 
 sharer of her fortune. It had been a total 
 eclipse, but recently a line of light had seemed 
 to penetrate the darkness, almost without his 
 being conscious of it. Her beauty, her youth, 
 her charm, her self, were as insignificant to him 
 as ever, but her money had become more impor 
 tant and, somehow, less impossible to him than 
 it had seemed to be at first. 
 
 The ugly fact about Mrs. Gwyn was this. She 
 had married a man feeble in mind and con 
 temptible in body, had been his wife for two 
 years, and was the mother of his imbecile child.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 9 
 
 No one knew exactly how it had come about. 
 He had met and married her somewhere in the 
 country and had brought her home to the palace 
 which his father had built and left to him. 
 There, for two years, she had lived, in lavish 
 magnificence, as his wife, and there the child 
 had been born. 
 
 No friend of the family had even seen this 
 child, and it had been quickly sent off to an 
 asylum, no one wondering at the fact that its 
 beautiful mother wanted it out of her sight. It 
 was bad enough for her to have to see its father 
 growing mentally and physically weaker every 
 day and spending most of his time in sleep ; for 
 even since their marriage his degeneration had 
 been rapid. His father having died suddenly 
 without a will, he had been the only heir to that 
 great fortune, having just mind enough to escape 
 being judged non compos. It had been hoped, 
 by those who took any interest in him, that his 
 wife would prove intelligent enough and have 
 sufficient control over him to prevent the waste 
 of his fortune, and this hope had been realized, 
 for Rhoda, in spite of her inexperience, proved 
 herself admirably sensible and judicious, and 
 so managed his affairs that, at his death, his 
 great fortune was left intact. It then became
 
 io DEAD SELVES. 
 
 known that, by will, he had left her his sole 
 heir. 
 
 When the grand funeral was over, and Rhoda, 
 in her widow s weeds, had followed him to his 
 grave and left him there, a body, all that he 
 had ever been ! the world had only good words 
 to say of her. She had been a faithful wife to 
 him, they said, and had made every effort to 
 control him for his own good, if to elevate him 
 was impossible. She had, moreover, never 
 given any occasion for gossip as to her personal 
 conduct, and, if she spent money lavishly and 
 dressed extravagantly, she had a right to receive 
 the price for which she had sold herself. No one 
 thought of considering it anything but a bar 
 gain. At least her name had never been 
 coupled with that of any other man than her 
 husband, and the world gave her due credit for 
 that. 
 
 Fraser, however, hearing this tribute paid 
 her, from time to time, was conscious of a sharp 
 mental sneer. Small credit to her for that, he 
 thought, for where was there a man so low as to 
 be willing to succeed Fred Gwyn in the favors 
 of Rhoda, his wife? The very suggestion of 
 such a thing was abhorrent to him. 
 
 So when, in the sort of frenzy which at times
 
 DEAD SELVES. n 
 
 beset him at the crucial need of money, he 
 asked himself why he should not marry Mrs. 
 Gwyn, this hideous fact in her past history had 
 been the answer to the question.
 
 II 
 
 THE weather was perfect, a warm noonday 
 in early May, which gave the first fore 
 taste of summer. Fraser, having occasion to 
 go from Brockett to New York, had decided to 
 take the boat instead of the train, on account 
 of the rather oppressive heat, and Mrs. Gwyn, 
 being in the same case, had, for the same rea 
 son, come to the same decision. Others, ap 
 parently, had not been so influenced, for the 
 company on the boat was small, so that each 
 passenger could be clearly seen and individual 
 ized by the others. 
 
 Fraser, however, who had taken a seat alone, 
 on the shady side of the deck, was too self-ab 
 sorbed to look about him much, and for some 
 time after the boat had started, he sat lost in 
 moody and despondent thoughts, which now 
 and then were pierced by exhilarating and ex 
 citing ones. The situation was this. He had 
 reached, in his work, a point where he saw more 
 brilliant possibilities looming up than he had 
 ever seen before, but the enormous sum of 
 
 12
 
 DEAD SELVES. 13 
 
 money which it would require to follow out 
 that line, and the wretchedly low ebb of his 
 own fortune, made him feel a sense of being 
 crushed and stifled. He had reached, in pos- 
 sibility*at least, a hitherto unimagined height, 
 and he saw also the possibility of a fall such as 
 he had never before had cause to fear. All that 
 was required, to keep him on that height and 
 to save him from that fall, was money, and the 
 poignant need of it stung his consciousness like 
 a whip-lash. 
 
 He winced visibly, turning in his seat. As 
 he did so, his eyes fell upon the face and figure 
 of Mrs. Gwyn, sitting a little distance off. 
 
 Once more he asked himself that question, 
 and at the same moment Mrs. Gwyn acknowl 
 edged his presence with a grave but friendly 
 bow. 
 
 He hesitated one instant ; then he got up and 
 moved to a seat at her side. 
 
 " Good-morning," he said, raising his hat. 
 As he did so, he remembered that he had once 
 told himself that this was the only woman he 
 had ever seen who made him feel an inward 
 protest against this act of homage. 
 
 " Beautiful weather, is it not ?" he said. " It 
 makes one wonder why any one should prefer
 
 i 4 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 the train to this, any one who is not pressed 
 for time, at least." 
 
 " I had supposed that you were always of that 
 number, said Mrs. Gwyn, in a low, rich voice. 
 "You seem to me the busiest man I have ever 
 known, and therefore the most fortunate." 
 
 He fancied a shade of wistfulness in her tones, 
 as she said this, but her voice was so low and 
 even that it did not betray much feeling of any 
 kind. An excellent voice indeed, Fraser re 
 flected, and her manner and appearance agreed 
 with it. 
 
 Her husband had been dead two years, and 
 although she still wore black, it was not mourn 
 ing. To-day, indeed, a decided change was 
 visible in her dress, though there was no color 
 about it, except a bunch of cream- colored roses 
 on her breast. Fraser could not tell what the 
 indefinable change was, but her costume was 
 certainly charming, and she looked distinctly 
 girlish, in a hat which shaded her face and a 
 light transparent veil. 
 
 "The busiest man may be the least fortu 
 nate," he said, in answer to her last words, " if 
 he finds himself thwarted in his objects by the 
 impotence that comes from a lack of means to 
 carry them out."
 
 DEAD SELVES. 15 
 
 "What sort of means?" she said. "Influ 
 ence, opportunity, money, or what?" 
 
 "Money," he said, brusquely. "Influence 
 I do not want, and opportunity is upon me in a 
 flood. It is money that I want. " 
 
 " Trfen let me invest in your schemes," she 
 said, and, although she spoke quietly, he could 
 see the color deepening under her veil. " I 
 have been to your laboratory often enough to 
 give me a little insight into what you are trying 
 to do, and I ve been groping about rather help 
 lessly of late, trying to find some way in which 
 I could do something really availing with my 
 money. Let me take a lot of stock in these 
 schemes of yours." 
 
 Fraser smiled and shook his head, but there 
 came a certain glow into his heart, at the very 
 thought of what was offered him. 
 
 There is no stock to take, " he said . " Stock 
 companies clamor for results, and any such con 
 dition would harass me beyond endurance, even 
 if I could get any rational business-man to put 
 up money on such wild dreams as mine, for 
 wild dreams, of course, they would appear to 
 them." 
 
 " To you, however, they are solid and reason 
 able, and I am willing to take your judgment.
 
 1 6 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Please let me give, lend, or invest what money 
 you want for this purpose. You know how 
 really inconveniently rich I am." 
 
 Again, through those even tones, there 
 penetrated a certain feeling, and this time 
 he construed it to mean protest or resent 
 ment. 
 
 "I tell you this," she went on, as if apolo 
 getically, " to show you that you need not 
 hesitate to take me at my word. I used to 
 think that I could spend any amount of money, 
 and I suppose I ve been extravagant enough; 
 at least I ve tried to be ! But to spend more 
 than a certain sum, one must exercise both 
 energy and inventiveness, and I have not a great 
 deal of either, I imagine. My money is ac 
 cumulating tremendously. Why should it ? 
 There is no one to use or enjoy it. That 
 thought has troubled me seriously of late, and 
 I wish you would relieve me of this burden, by 
 investing a lot of it in your work. Either it 
 will do good or it will not. In the former case, 
 all is right. In the latter, no harm is done, for 
 I shall not miss it." 
 
 "But surely," said Fraser, looking at her 
 wonderingly, "you can give it away." 
 
 "I do, some of it, but I have no interest in
 
 DEAD SELVES. 17 
 
 organized charities. I doubt if they do any 
 good, and I am not even sure that I care much. 
 I am not very large-hearted, I fancy." 
 
 "But there are personal cases. You must 
 have relatives and friends. 
 
 " I nave some relatives, and perhaps friends 
 too, and I have been generous to them, or so 
 they tell me ; but one does not give souvenirs 
 at the rate of tens of thousands and hundreds 
 of thousands ! At any rate, I have not felt like 
 doing that. As I said, however, I don t think 
 my heart is very big." 
 
 " I fear it would not be your heart that would 
 be at fault if you followed your inclinations 
 now," said Fraser, smiling. "Any judicious 
 man would tell you that it was rank folly to 
 invest in my schemes." 
 
 "I don t think I care for the opinion of 
 judicious men. I do not aim at being wise. I 
 like to indulge myself, and it isn t often that I 
 find anything which I want so much to do as 
 this. I am too ignorant to understand your 
 ideas and efforts, of course ; but in going with 
 people over your laboratory, and in hearing you 
 now and then explain a little, when there was 
 some one who seemed capable of taking it in, I 
 have been interested by the tremendousness of
 
 1 8 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 your undertakings. It has seemed to me that 
 my mind had never stretched to so big a thought 
 before. This attracts and interests me. I 
 should like to have a part in a thing so big. It 
 seems to give me a wider breathing-space. In 
 deed," she added, "so greatly should I like 
 to have a share in this enterprise of yours that, 
 if I could, I d force you to let me have my 
 way. 
 
 She smiled, as she said it, but he did not 
 return her smile. He was thinking intently. 
 Between his slightly contracted lids, his eyes 
 shone. The next instant, however, he seemed 
 to throw off some inward suggestion, with a 
 hasty shrug, and said, as if mockingly : 
 
 " What a fruitless and meaningless talk we 
 are having ! Of course you could not do a 
 thing like this. There is absolutely no way. 
 The result is, on the face of it, too uncertain 
 (though /believe in it as I believe in nothing 
 else !) to allow of its being considered as an in 
 vestment. No, you will find other and more 
 amusing ways of spending your money. I 
 have just heard of your purchase of a house in 
 New York, and I am told that you will occupy 
 it next winter." 
 
 " That is a mistake. A fancy seized me when
 
 DEAD SELVES. 19 
 
 I heard that that house was in the market, and 
 I telegraphed my agent to buy it. He has 
 done so, but I shall not go to New York to 
 live." 
 
 "Whfnot?" 
 
 "Because of a good reason which came to 
 me as an after-thought. I bought that house 
 (which, years ago, as a country girl, sight-see 
 ing, I had gazed at, in gaping admiration, on 
 the occasion of my only visit to New York !) 
 and I thought I would spend this summer in 
 Europe, buying furniture for it. I had some 
 pleasure in imagining the collection of these 
 things and their arrangement in that house; 
 but, I asked myself, what then ? It is perfectly 
 well known to you that I am entitled to no 
 position in society, except such as my money 
 would give me. It is good enough for Brockett, 
 but I do not fancy it for New York. The sort 
 of position which I should occupy there it is 
 not agreeable for me to think of. 
 
 " But you would soon make friends." 
 
 " I do not easily make friends, and, besides, 
 I do not like to think of the sort of people who 
 would flock about me, when I opened my house 
 there. With no social vouchers, I should seem 
 a sort of adventuress. There is no woman whom
 
 20 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 I could summon to me as a friend, and no man 
 as a protector. The idea is unpleasant to me. 
 I prefer to stay in Brockett." 
 
 " Under other circumstances, however, you 
 would like New York, would you not ? Brock 
 ett is absurdly limited. You would enjoy the 
 real world. 
 
 " Yes, I think I should. It must be interest 
 ing, because it is so big. That is why your 
 scientific schemes have interested me. They 
 are big. " 
 
 At this moment, a warning whistle blew, and 
 people began to collect their belongings and to 
 rise. Mrs. Gwyn s maid approached, carrying 
 her mistress s bag and umbrella. 
 
 Fraser remained at Mrs. Gwyn s side until 
 they reached the wharf. She only spoke once, as 
 they walked along, and that was when, touching 
 the roses on her dress, and finding them limp 
 and withered, she said, "How quickly flowers 
 fade !" as if in impatient protest, and, unfasten 
 ing them, she threw them from her. 
 
 "It is supposed to be an emblem of life," he 
 answered, smiling. " Science is the thing that 
 does not disappoint. If the end fails, the way, 
 in itself, is compensation." 
 
 " I said you were the most fortunate person
 
 DEAD SELVES. 21 
 
 that I knew," she answered, as he helped her 
 into the carriage. 
 
 "Not if the end fails! I may talk philo 
 sophically, but I must not fail in this thing." 
 
 He closed the door and raised his hat. Again 
 that unpleasant consciousness connected with 
 the act recurred to him. " How long are you 
 to be in town?" he said, struggling to shake 
 it off. 
 
 "Three days." 
 
 " May I call upon you ?" 
 
 She bowed and gave the name of her hotel. 
 
 The next moment she was gone.
 
 Ill 
 
 THAT afternoon Fraser spent in hard work 
 which bore directly on his great scheme. 
 Every hour its feasibility seemed greater, its 
 success more assured, if only he might not be 
 hampered by the lack of money ! 
 
 When evening came, he felt himself exhil 
 arated rather than exhausted, and after dressing 
 and dining at his club he got into a cab and 
 drove to Mrs. Gwyn s hotel. 
 
 The servant who took his card up brought 
 word that Mrs. Gwyn would see him, and led 
 the way immediately to her rooms. 
 
 When Fraser entered, closing the door, he 
 found her seated in a large chair, near the 
 centre of the small drawing-room, her hands 
 lying idly in her lap. She was exquisitely 
 dressed, in an informal costume of the most 
 finished elegance. The gown was made long 
 at the wrists, but it left a little of her rounded 
 throat uncovered. It was of dense, dull white, 
 with bows of wide black velvet, one of which 
 was set upright, toward the back of her head,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 23 
 
 after the manner of an Alsatian peasant. She 
 wore no jewels, except on her hands, but these 
 were weighted with superb stones, that glittered 
 with varied colors. Fraser, looking keenly, saw 
 among^hem the small wedding circlet, and felt 
 a sense of shock. With such sentimentality as 
 this, however, he had nothing to do. 
 
 In his evening dress his appearance, though 
 not essentially handsome, was distinguished. 
 In this quality Mrs. Gwyn s was fully a match 
 for it, and she had, besides, the advantage of 
 remarkable beauty. He doubted, as he looked 
 at her, whether she would not consider him pre 
 sumptuous in the claim which he was about to 
 make, but he was determined that that consider 
 ation should not prevent his laying the matter 
 before her. 
 
 "I am fortunate to find you in," he said, 
 seating himself directly in front of her. 
 
 " I am always in, during the evenings, when 
 I come to New York. I know few people here, 
 none, in fact, that I care to look up. Busi 
 ness and shopping take me out in the day, but 
 in the evenings I am usually quite alone. 
 
 " You should have remembered to supply 
 yourself with books," he said, looking around 
 and noticing that there were none about.
 
 24 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 " I do not care for books. I rarely read 
 one." 
 
 "You have been playing, perhaps," he said, 
 seeing that the piano was open. 
 
 " No: I thought I would, but I changed my 
 mind. I do not play much, and, besides, music 
 makes me sad. I don t understand why it 
 should, and that irritates me. No wonder I 
 called you fortunate, to have continual occupa 
 tion which interests you !" 
 
 "You would have the same," he said, "if 
 you were in New York and in touch with the 
 life here." 
 
 Perhaps. But I have explained to you how 
 I feel about that." 
 
 Fraser turned upon her a full, direct gaze, as 
 he said : 
 
 " I have heard it stated, Mrs. Gwyn, that you 
 are an excellent woman of business, and it is as 
 such that I am going to speak to you now and 
 put before you a certain proposition. You must 
 judge whether or not it would be worth your 
 while to accept it." 
 
 He paused an instant, and then, sure that he 
 had her strict attention, went on : 
 
 "You probably understand fully that the in 
 terest of my life is concentrated in my work
 
 DEAD SELVES. 25 
 
 and career as a scientist and electrician. So 
 entirely does this occupy and satisfy me that I 
 have not, since the time that I embarked in it, 
 entertained the idea of marriage. If I do so 
 now, it is, as you will quickly understand, for 
 the purpose of furthering that work and career." 
 
 He paused, to see if she would show any 
 surprise. Her face, however, remained calm, 
 though interested. 
 
 "What I am going to suggest for your con 
 sideration," he went on, "may appear to you 
 preposterous in the extreme, but there is no 
 reason why I should not, at least, propose it. 
 You have offered me the use of your fortune 
 for the advancement of my work. I could not 
 accept that offer unless I made you a return for 
 it. You have told me that this work of mine 
 interests you and that you would like to have a 
 part in it. You have also said that you would 
 like to live in New York, if you had the proper 
 protection of a man and an established position 
 in society. I can give you these things that 
 you desire, and you, in return, can give me the 
 use of a part of your fortune for my work. 
 This is the idea that I wished to lay before you, 
 the arrangement which I should, if it meets 
 with your approval, be glad to make. It is an
 
 26 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 offer of marriage, of course, but merely of the 
 form of marriage, and we should each be as 
 free in our own lives as now. 
 
 When he paused, the unresponsiveness in her 
 face made her seem to him almost stupid. He 
 was a good deal excited himself, for, far though 
 any thought of love was from his consciousness, 
 it was a significant and important question upon 
 which he awaited her decision. 
 
 " I am not certain that I understand you per 
 fectly," she said. 
 
 "I offer you the protection and the social 
 advantages of my presence and my name," he 
 answered. "You can easily satisfy yourself, if 
 you are not already satisfied, that, as my wife, 
 your position would be as good as any one s. 
 You can furnish the house, take part in fashion 
 able life, and, I think, find interest and enjoy 
 ment in it. The important point is whether 
 you will consider this, and a partnership in my 
 career, as sufficient offset for the tremendous 
 advantage I should gain by the use of your for 
 tune in my work. This is the question await 
 ing your decision. I do not speak of love, for 
 that, of course, is an element which does not 
 come in on either side. In that sense, I am as 
 much disinclined to marriage as I ever was."
 
 DEAD SELVES. 27 
 
 You have reasons of your own, she re 
 plied, "for your position as to marriage. I 
 also have mine. I had made up rny mind 
 against it as definitely as you could have done ; 
 but sucfi an arrangement as the one you propose 
 shows me the matter in a new light. I consider 
 the advantages quite as great to me as to you. 
 I accept your offer." 
 
 "I feel exceedingly grateful to you for the 
 confidence which your acceptance implies," he 
 answered, gravely, "and with this perfect under 
 standing between us, I think I can promise that 
 you shall not have cause to regret your decision." 
 
 That was all. There were no protestations 
 on either side, but the contract was made, the 
 partnership established. 
 
 There seemed to be singularly little need for 
 talk or explanations. The conditions were sim 
 ple and were perfectly understood. It re 
 mained only to settle the details of time and 
 place. 
 
 "You had thought of going abroad to furnish 
 the house, he said, presently. Why not carry 
 out that plan ? It will be necessary for me to go 
 shortly to Paris and Berlin. May we not have 
 the marriage ceremony performed very soon 
 and go together? I shall expect to have you
 
 2 8 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 always with me," he added, with a certain 
 timidity of manner which she had not seen in 
 him before. " That is my idea of the real pro 
 tection which you desire. We need not inter 
 fere in the least with each other s habits, but it 
 will be necessary for us to be together. Fortu 
 nately, you take an interest in my schemes, and 
 I shall do my best to increase that interest, and 
 to take you into my work as far as that is pos 
 sible. We shall not bore each other, I think ; 
 and I trust we shall be the best of friends." 
 
 He offered his hand as he spoke, and she took 
 it, in a cool clasp. 
 
 " That plan will suit me perfectly," she said. 
 "I can accommodate myself to any date that 
 you like." 
 
 " Have you no friend or trustee whom it will 
 be necessary for you to consult ? Of course it 
 is understood that the conditions of our agree 
 ment are absolutely between ourselves ; but you 
 may wish to advise with some one before con 
 cluding it." 
 
 " No : there is no one to consult. There 
 never was a woman more absolutely mistress of 
 herself than I am." 
 
 "And so, believe me, you shall remain. I 
 will not interfere with you nor inconvenience
 
 DEAD SELVES. 29 
 
 you in any way, but I shall always be at hand 
 to serve you to the utmost of my power. It re 
 mains only for you to be good enough to name 
 the day, as early a one, I would beg, as you 
 can conveniently have it." 
 
 "Let it be whatever day will best suit your 
 plans, to-morrow, next week, a month, a year 
 hence ; just as you please." 
 
 " Might I say two or three weeks from now? 
 Not, however, if it would inconvenience or dis 
 tress you in any way." 
 
 " That will suit me perfectly," she answered. 
 
 " Then, to be definite, may I fix it as the first 
 of June?" 
 
 She bowed, in quiet acceptance. 
 
 "Thank you," he said. "I feel that your 
 trust in me is very generous. It will be a tre 
 mendous incentive to me to be worthy of it." 
 
 " I have no fears," she answered, " and there 
 is nothing for you to be grateful for. I shall be 
 getting what I want, and if you, in turn, do the 
 same, all is well. I shall feel a sense of satis 
 faction in my money which I have failed to get 
 before." 
 
 She said this naturally and simply, without 
 emphasis or any trace of strong feeling. 
 
 When Fraser was gone, she sat for some time
 
 3 o DEAD SELVES. 
 
 without changing her position, or even, per 
 ceptibly, her expression. Then a subtle altera 
 tion, as of a passing cloud, crossed her face, 
 and two tears overflowed her eyes and fell upon 
 her lap. She looked at them in some surprise, 
 for she had no definite consciousness of the feel 
 ing that had been their source. Why should 
 she shed tears ? She was better contented with 
 the prospect now unrolled before her than she 
 had been with any other on the horizon of her 
 life. She was mercifully freed from what had 
 once so burdened and oppressed her. She had 
 now the chance which she had sometimes cov 
 eted of showing her beautiful person and her 
 splendid toilets to the highest advantage and in 
 a social position which could not be impeached. 
 Besides this, the man who had always seemed to 
 her the most impressive and important person 
 she had ever seen was to be her companion 
 every day of her life, and to take his position 
 as her husband. What a wonderful feeling it 
 would be, to appear in public with a husband 
 of whom she could be proud ! Then, too, she 
 was to travel abroad, and to have such a part as 
 she should prove able to take, in this man s 
 career. How fortunate she was, and how in 
 explicable was the source of those two tears !
 
 DEAD SELVES. 31 
 
 As for Fraser, he turned away from that inter 
 view feeling entirely content. He was a man 
 quite able to dispense with the good opinion of 
 the world, if necessary. He had had to make 
 himselfindifferent to that, before going half so 
 far in his present career, for he had had his share 
 of condemnation and even ridicule to bear. It 
 mattered little to him, however, whether the 
 world believed in him or not, so long as he be 
 lieved in himself; and the rule which he applied 
 habitually in public matters he now applied 
 specifically in this very private one. He knew 
 that the world would suppose him to occupy a 
 position which he would have scorned to take ; 
 but as long as he himself knew of the strict line 
 drawn between that position and the reality, he 
 was entirely contented.
 
 IV 
 
 RHODA GWYN had been called Rhoda 
 Fraser for two years. She had estab 
 lished herself in New York and had become a 
 distinguished figure in its society. The current 
 of her life, on its surface at least, had flowed on 
 with serenity and success. Nothing could have 
 been more harmonious than her life with Fraser. 
 They had settled it between them how much of 
 her fortune was to be at his disposal for his work, 
 the only difficulty being that she wished him not 
 to put this restriction on himself, perhaps the 
 only wish of hers with which he had refused to 
 comply. He talked to her freely about his in 
 vestigations and experiments, and she took a 
 serious interest in them. The farther the way 
 was opened up, however, the more tremendous 
 did the labor and difficulties appear ; more than 
 once he had told her that, but for her daring 
 and belief in him, in putting this great sum of 
 money into his hands, he would have been com 
 pelled to give up all. 
 
 His evident confidence in her stimulated her 
 32
 
 DEAD SELVES. 33 
 
 to greater efforts to be of service to him. She 
 began, surreptitiously, to read the scientific 
 books and magazines which she saw him poring 
 over, and soon came to take an intelligent in 
 terest in his work which often surprised him. 
 She would put down the names of these books, 
 order them for herself, and study them, with 
 persevering patience, during her quiet hours. 
 Of these there were many, for she was abso 
 lutely alone in the great magnificent house, and 
 she was not a woman who easily made friends. 
 She was generally liked and admired, and had 
 a long visiting-list, to which she paid due regard, 
 but an intimate of any kind she had never had 
 in her life. Losing her parents early, and 
 having no brothers or sisters, the claims of rela 
 tionship had sat upon her very lightly, and, in 
 spite of her two marriages, she had never come 
 near to any human soul. As an offset to this 
 fact, it was true that she had never in former 
 days felt the need of such close relationship. 
 If she felt it now, it was a consciousness which 
 was just beginning to dawn upon her. 
 
 Rhoda s was one of the natures which develop 
 
 slowly, depending for their development chiefly 
 
 upon affection ; and affection was a thing which 
 
 Rhoda had never received in her life, and had 
 
 3
 
 34 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 not even given. Her childhood and girlhood 
 had also been passed without intellectual stim 
 ulus, and, in spite of her beauty, talent for 
 dress, and really distinguished manners, it might 
 have been said with reason, and indeed it some 
 times had been said, that Rhoda was dull. 
 
 The first stimulus that came to her mind was 
 this interest in Eraser s scientific work, but 
 the obstacles which lay in her way were great 
 and many. In reading scientific books and 
 magazines she would have to look out so many 
 words in the dictionary that her brain would 
 almost whirl ; but somehow she made progress, 
 and had taken her first step in the fascinating 
 path of intellectual expansion. Her reward for 
 these efforts was something that gave her a 
 pleasure beyond her imagining. 
 
 Eraser, seeing her sympathetic attitude to 
 ward his work and remembering her large prac 
 tical interest in its result, talked to her more 
 and more freely about it, and one day sud 
 denly proposed that she should go with him to 
 Brockett and give him some aid in the labora 
 tory. 
 
 Rhoda went, with a new and uncomprehended 
 feeling in her heart, which was nearer akin to 
 joy than anything she had known.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 35 
 
 That day was the first of many. Very often 
 now she went with Fraser to the laboratory, 
 and was able to give him some assistance oc 
 casionally, by looking up references, and by 
 delicate^ manipulations of weight and measure 
 ment, at which her deft hands and long pointed 
 fingers were very clever. People in society 
 who knew of these expeditions of Rhoda s to 
 her husband s workshop joked about them in 
 a flattering sort of way, and said that Mr. and 
 Mrs. Fraser were quite the ideal pair and that 
 they cast in the shade the connubial relations 
 of their neighbors. Such jests as these always 
 stung Rhoda, when they occurred in the pres 
 ence of Fraser. Otherwise she was indifferent 
 to them. 
 
 On one occasion, as she was leaving the 
 house to go with Fraser to Brockett, he said to 
 her suddenly : 
 
 " Why don t you bring a book, to read when 
 I am busy without you?" 
 
 " I can get one there," she said. 
 
 " Only the books that relate to our business," 
 he said, he was fond of referring to it in this 
 way. " Take a novel." 
 
 " I don t care for novels." 
 
 " But you never read them, according to what
 
 36 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 you have told me. Perhaps you could cultivate 
 the habit." 
 
 He saw that she still looked disinclined. 
 
 " Let me choose one for you. What do you 
 say to Middlemarch ? 
 
 " I have never read it." 
 
 " Then read it you must ! I expect to go on 
 reading it over, as often as I have time, as long 
 as I live." 
 
 He went to the library, brought his own copy 
 of the book, and put it into his bag, with some 
 important letters and papers that related to his 
 work. 
 
 When they arrived at Brockett, some men 
 were waiting to see him, and so he left Rhoda 
 in the little rubbishy sitting-room, which had 
 been the creation of his bachelor days and had 
 never been disturbed since. 
 
 Rhoda was used to waiting here for hours. 
 When Eraser did not want her, she would re 
 main here patiently, and either read or think, 
 never interrupting him, no matter how long he 
 might be delayed. She had done more think 
 ing than reading in this little, crowded room, 
 with its litter of dusty instruments and disused 
 papers and materials, and, if reading was a new 
 mental exercise with her, thinking was almost as
 
 DEAD SELVES. 37 
 
 much so, at least the sort of thinking which 
 absorbed her now. She was like a person who 
 had realized that he was cold, without realizing 
 the possibility that he might be warm, or like a 
 bird wfto, in the confines of his cage, realizes 
 his captivity but does not realize the liberty that 
 is beyond it. The bird is happier so ; and so 
 was Rhoda happier, perhaps, when she felt that 
 she was joyless but did not realize that she might 
 have had joy. 
 
 That feeling had dawned imperceptibly upon 
 her slow consciousness, and she was just begin 
 ning to know the pain of it. 
 
 This morning another bright May day, two 
 years after that important trip from Brockett to 
 New York Rhoda sat amidst the litter of the 
 shabby little office that opened into the great 
 laboratory, and, with the book lying unnoticed 
 on her lap, looked out of the open window. 
 
 There had been a recent rain, and the young 
 green leaves overhead, as well as the young 
 grass-blades underfoot, had been newly washed, 
 and threw off the sunshine from their surfaces 
 with a delicate glitter. There was a bush out 
 side the window, in which a catbird was build 
 ing its nest, with many self-important twitterings 
 and flirts. A honeysuckle-vine grew near, and
 
 38 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 a great thick-bodied bee, weighed down with 
 honey and yet bent on getting more, flew in 
 and out of the window with a droning buzz. 
 
 Rhoda, whose perceptions of every kind 
 seemed to have undergone some inexplicable 
 quickening recently, looked with interest at the 
 bird and the bee, and fell to speculating on their 
 habits, in a way that would once have been un 
 natural, if not impossible, to her. If they, in 
 their turn, had had the same faculties of obser 
 vation, they might also have been roused to 
 interest by the figure sitting there so silent and 
 motionless. 
 
 Rhoda was not yet twenty-five, and certainly 
 her beauty had no more than reached its merid 
 ian. There was something exquisitely simple in 
 the impression that she made, in spite of the 
 careful details of her costume, which all be 
 tokened the woman of fashion ; but the ex 
 pression of her face was so far removed from 
 such things that one might have supposed that 
 she had been taken and dressed, as one might 
 have dressed a doll. 
 
 This, however, was far from the case, for 
 Rhoda gave extreme care and attention to the 
 matter of her toilet. For this, there were two 
 reasons. One was a strong instinct which she
 
 DEAD SELVES. 39 
 
 had for it, and the other was the fact that Fraser 
 liked to see her well, dressed and, on one or two 
 occasions, had praised her taste. Poor Rhoda ! 
 she was slow, even in interpreting herself to 
 herself, *and she hardly realized that it was in 
 consequence of this that she had since chosen 
 her costumes with greater care. Her figure 
 was admirable, made on large lines and with 
 noble curves. Her large eyes, gray and can 
 did, were at this moment absent in their gaze, 
 and the corners of her mouth had a certain 
 droop. She had a peculiar quality of uncon 
 sciousness of self, and she sat there in a sort of 
 dream in which the bird, the bee, the face of 
 nature, and herself were all somehow blended. 
 
 From this state she was roused by a certain 
 dimness in the eyes and a consciousness of fall 
 ing tears. She had shed few tears in her life. 
 Somehow her feelings had rarely expressed 
 themselves in that way, and the sight of the 
 two spots upon the green cover of her book 
 roused her from her lethargy. 
 
 She sat upright, looked about her, brushed 
 her eyes with her handkerchief, and, changing 
 her position, drew off her glove and opened her 
 book. 
 
 Her recent experiences had taught her the
 
 40 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 lesson of thoroughness, and she had no faculty 
 for skimming the surfaces of things. With her, 
 reading was studying, and so it was a concen 
 trated mind which she now brought to bear 
 upon the pages before her. She was bent on 
 giving her whole attention to this book, though 
 she did not perhaps consciously recall the fact 
 of Eraser s high commendation of it. She 
 opened at the Prelude, and read the first para 
 graph attentively, pausing to conjecture what 
 "an epic life" might mean, and looking about 
 for a dictionary, that she might hunt out the 
 word "epos." There was none at hand, how 
 ever, but she had guessed at something in that 
 paragraph beyond its mere words, and she went 
 back and read it over. Then she went eagerly 
 on to the end. 
 
 When she had finished the two pages, she read 
 them again, pausing thoughtfully on certain 
 phrases, and then going on with an almost 
 breathless interest. She did not understand it 
 all. There was something in it deeper than 
 the definitions and technicalities of science, 
 but there were certain expressions in it which 
 she could not let go. Over and over she read 
 those words : Perhaps only a life of mistakes, 
 the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill
 
 DEAD SELVES. 41 
 
 matched with the meanness of opportunity; 
 perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred 
 poet and sank unwept into oblivion." 
 
 What did that mean? She understood the 
 surface ^meaning of the words, of course, but 
 she felt an inward significance that she longed 
 to probe to the bottom. She finished the para 
 graph and felt thirsty for more. She read the 
 last sentences over again, and then plunged 
 eagerly into the story. 
 
 It was not so absorbingly interesting to her 
 as the Prelude had been, but it fascinated her 
 as no story ever had before, and there were 
 sentences now and then which were like spirit 
 ual food to her soul. Presently she found her 
 self skipping, a thing she had never done in 
 her reading before, but her ardent longing to 
 follow Dorothea in her thoughts and feelings 
 and experiences was an impulse which no book, 
 heretofore, had given her. 
 
 After a long time the door opened and Fraser 
 appeared. He stood still on the threshold, 
 startled at Rhoda s appearance. Her eyes, 
 usually so cool and clear, were suffused with 
 feeling, and her cheeks with color. Her face 
 was a picture so continually before him that 
 he did not often take special notice of it, but
 
 42 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 now he saw it in a new light that brought out 
 its latent beauties; only in this instance the 
 light came from within. 
 
 " What is it, Rhoda?" he said. " What has 
 happened to you ? 
 
 This book, she said, this wonderful book! 
 Why have I never known that there were books 
 like this in the world ? 
 
 " Why, indeed ? Have you really never read 
 George Eliot before?" 
 
 "Never a word. Well, I think I shall not 
 say I don t like reading, after this." 
 
 She had recovered something of her usual 
 manner as she said these words, and her face 
 had also become more quiet and natural. Per 
 haps he felt a pang of regret to see the departure 
 of an influence which had been so beautifying, 
 for he said : 
 
 " Why don t you go on with your book? I 
 am almost sorry that I interrupted you." 
 
 "I will finish it at home," she said, closing 
 it and rising to her feet. " Can I do anything 
 to help you now?" 
 
 " I did want you for a little while," he said, 
 " but it seems a shame " 
 
 "Oh, please let me come," she interrupted 
 him. " The book will keep."
 
 DEAD SELVES. 43 
 
 His eyes lingered on her, just a second, as he 
 said : 
 
 " You are very good, I think, to help me so 
 willingly." 
 
 " Ohf it s my work as well as yours, you 
 know," she answered. "You promised me a 
 part in it, so I am proud of every little trifling 
 service I can render in its cause." 
 
 "You really do take a pride in it, don t 
 you?" he said. "Why? For its own sake, 
 and because you believe in it?" 
 
 " Of course. What other reason could there 
 be?" 
 
 " Certainly," he said, in rather hasty agree 
 ment: "that is the strongest possible basis for 
 such a feeling."
 
 THE next day Fraserwent alone to Brockett. 
 Soon after his departure Rhoda received 
 a large parcel, addressed to her in his hand 
 writing. It proved to be a complete edition of 
 George Eliot, and in the front of the copy of 
 " Middlemarch" were the pencilled words "For 
 Rhoda." It was the first present Fraser had 
 ever given her. There were no birthdays, 
 anniversaries, or little celebrations between 
 them. 
 
 It was pleasant to Rhoda to have this gift 
 from him, and in itself it was a treasure of great 
 price. She shut herself up alone in her beauti 
 ful apartments and read for hours at a time, 
 following the histories of Dorothea, Maggie, 
 Romola, Gwendolen, and the other passionate 
 woman-problems of those pages. The literary 
 art was nothing to her, and much that was 
 exquisite escaped her, but she got somehow a 
 food which she craved, and which increased the 
 appetite which it fed. By the light of these 
 life-histories she began to read something of the 
 44
 
 DEAD SELVES. 45 
 
 mystery of her own heart. In spite of her soli 
 tary life, Rhoda was not introspective. There 
 seemed to be a veil between her eyes and her 
 soul, and she knew herself as little as she knew 
 the real selves of others. 
 
 But liow there was a change. The veil was 
 there, but some new power had made her gaze 
 more penetrating. She began to wrestle, for 
 the first time, with the problem of herself. 
 
 She was oppressed by an awful loneliness. 
 Even Saint Theresa had had her little brother s 
 hand in hers in going forth to the life-battle, 
 but she had nothing, no one. The last thing 
 possible to her was to make any demand for 
 companionship or sympathy upon Fraser ; but 
 she wanted some one to speak to, some one who 
 would care about what she did and what became 
 of her. As she began to care more for the lots 
 of others, she longed that others might come to 
 care for her lot. 
 
 An idea occurred to her which soon grew into 
 a determined purpose. 
 
 One evening they were dining alone. This 
 did not occur often, for the dinner-hour was 
 almost Eraser s only relaxation, and he liked 
 then to go out, or have guests, a want which 
 Rhoda silently and skilfully supplied.
 
 46 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 When the servants had left them to their 
 coffee, Rhoda said, rather abruptly : 
 
 " Would you have any objection to my asking 
 your mother to come and stay with me ?" 
 
 The question evidently surprised him, but 
 after a second he said, quite naturally : 
 
 " I think my mother is too old and too fixed 
 in her habits of life to enjoy a visit to New 
 York and the exactions of modern life. It is 
 very kind of you, though, to have had the 
 thought of her, and I appreciate it very much. 
 
 "I do not deserve any credit, I am afraid," 
 said Rhoda. "It was purely on my own ac 
 count that I wished it. I should like to have 
 her with me for a while " 
 
 Fraser hesitated visibly. She could not fail 
 to see a certain look of reluctance in his face. 
 
 " She was very kind to me the one time that 
 I saw her," Rhoda said, " and I should like to 
 see her again. If you think that it would trouble 
 her too much to come to me, could not I go to 
 her for a few days ? She invited me most cor 
 dially. Have you any objection ?" 
 
 "Certainly not. How could I have? But 
 just at present I am afraid I could not get off to 
 go with you. If you would not mind going 
 alone "
 
 DEAD SELVES. 47 
 
 " Not at all. Indeed, I think I should prefer 
 it. She adores you so that, when you are 
 about, she has eyes for no one else." 
 
 She smiled as she said it, and her smile was 
 for a mcment reflected in his face. 
 
 " Yes," he said; " the greatest reason I have 
 ever had for believing in myself is because my 
 mother believes in me. I have always respected 
 her opinion above any in the world, and she is 
 certainly the only being in it of whom I am 
 afraid. To this day, the thought of her disap 
 proval is the most powerful check upon me that 
 I ever have. 
 
 " You do not then object to my writing and 
 proposing myself for a short visit ?" 
 
 " Far from it. I d be delighted. I am only 
 sorry that I can t go with you." 
 
 This speech, which came so trippingly from 
 his tongue, was one of those glib insincerities 
 which most of us utter every day ; for, as Fraser, 
 a few moments later, withdrew to the smoking- 
 room and sat there reflectively over his cigar, he 
 was feeling a decided disinclination to the plan 
 which he had just so cordially endorsed. 
 
 The reason of this, which was distinct and 
 sufficient to his own consciousness, he would 
 have been entirely unwilling for Rhoda to know.
 
 48 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 He had sometimes wondered that she had never 
 seemed to show any surprise when, on each one 
 of his occasional visits to his mother, since his 
 marriage, he had made some pretext for going 
 alone. The truth was, he felt so deep a regard 
 for his mother s opinion, and so wholesome a 
 fear of the penetratingness of her vision, that he 
 was strongly opposed to the idea of subjecting 
 the relations existing between Rhoda and him 
 self to her scrutiny. 
 
 He knew that his mother held the old-fash 
 ioned and conservative views about marriage, 
 and he felt that this discovery would be a blow 
 to her, and a consciousness between his heart 
 and hers from which he shrank. He did not 
 even wholly fancy the idea of Rhoda s going 
 alone, for he had found it necessary to keep 
 himself continually on guard to elude the loving 
 curiosity of his mother as to his marriage and 
 its effect on him. She had told him more than 
 once that he was too much absorbed in his work, 
 and that she would like to see it relegated to its 
 proper place and made the secondary object of 
 his life, and had said that she feared he had 
 married a woman who gave up to him too much, 
 a fault which his mother had never fallen 
 into !
 
 DEAD SELVES. 49 
 
 While he was engaged in his reflections, 
 Rhoda had gone impulsively to the library and 
 got out writing-things. She now appeared at 
 the door of the smoking-room with a sealed and 
 stamped, letter in her hand. 
 
 " I have written to your mother," she said. 
 
 "You will be giving her a very great pleas 
 ure," he answered, as a servant appeared in an 
 swer to Rhoda s ring and she handed him the 
 letter to be posted. 
 
 " My object, as I told you, is altogether sel 
 fish," Rhoda said. 
 
 Fraser had risen at her entrance, and they 
 now stood, facing each other, both young, 
 handsome, and in an environment which seemed 
 made for two such beings to be happy in. Why 
 could they not be so ? 
 
 Rhoda never lingered in the smoking-room ; 
 indeed, she never went there except for some 
 explicit purpose, and, that being in this instance 
 accomplished, she turned away. He had an 
 impulse to detain her, without knowing for 
 what, but he said nothing, and the next mo 
 ment he saw her passing up the wide staircase 
 and disappearing in the direction of her own 
 apartments. 
 
 Rhoda s present conduct rather made him 
 4
 
 50 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 wonder, for she did not usually act impulsively; 
 he would have said that she was the reverse of 
 an impulsive woman. But what, after all, did 
 he know about her? She was always beautiful, 
 and conformable to his wishes and his taste, 
 when in his presence ; and when she was out 
 of it he rarely thought of her. His work ab 
 sorbed him and encroached more and more 
 on other interests. To tell the truth, he had 
 resolutely schooled himself not to think of 
 Rhoda, for with the thought of her would 
 come that of two others, the creature who 
 had been her husband and the creature who 
 was still her child. 
 
 Of these two beings his mother had heard 
 but very little. She lived quite out of the world, 
 and it had been a softened account of Rhoda s 
 first husband that had been given her, while as 
 to the child she knew nothing. Its existence 
 was alluded to by no one, and it was generally 
 supposed to be dead. Rhoda never by any 
 chance referred to it, and Fraser tried his best 
 to put it out of his mimd. But, living or dead, 
 the child was a stubborn fact in his conscious 
 ness, and so also was its father. 
 
 The more Fraser became familiarized with 
 Rhoda s beauty, refinement, and intelligence,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 51 
 
 the more horrible did those two facts become 
 to him, and never had they seemed more so 
 than to-night, when he found himself forced to 
 contemplate the prospect of Rhoda and his 
 mothertogether, and to contrast the ideal which 
 his mother had had of the woman who was to 
 be his wife, with the fact of the woman who now 
 held that position in the world s eyes. 
 
 And yet surely no ideal of a fond mother s 
 imagining could have been more lovely in ap 
 pearance than was Rhoda, more gentle in na 
 ture, more generous in soul. He told himself 
 all this repeatedly, but it only made that ugly 
 blot blacker. Now, as he fancied what would 
 be his mother s opinion of a woman who could 
 be capable of such a thing, he shrank within 
 himself. Then there followed close the ques 
 tion, what would his mother think of a man 
 who could take upon himself the vows and 
 obligations of marriage with such a woman, 
 scorning her in his soul, and wishing only to 
 get possession of her money for the advance 
 ment of his career? 
 
 The thought of this was unendurable. He 
 must shake it off somehow. He got up, and 
 went off to the club, feeling some change of 
 the current of his feelings to be a necessity.
 
 52 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Rhoda meantime was alone in her room, 
 freed from the constriction of her dinner toilet, 
 and dressed in a loose soft gown, over which 
 her hair fell free. She was scanning eagerly the 
 pages which described Romola s meeting with 
 Savonarola on the day of her flight from Tito. 
 She was utterly unconscious of herself and her 
 own loveliness, as her fascinated gaze rested on 
 the book in her hand. These were the words 
 she read : " Man cannot choose his duties. 
 You may choose to forsake your duties, and 
 choose not to have the sorrow they bring. But 
 you will go forth, and what will you find, my 
 daughter ? Sorrow without duty, bitter herbs, 
 and no bread with them. 
 
 The book fell from her hand. A thought 
 had throbbed through her consciousness, which 
 might be either a life-throe or a death- throe. 
 She did not know what it was, for she had 
 never felt the like before. One blessed quality 
 it had, however : it was definite, tangible, dis 
 tinct. So much that she felt about her was 
 vague and formless that she seemed always 
 groping through a maze ; but here at least was 
 something that she could grasp and hold. 
 
 She must stop and think, however. She must 
 be sure ; and, in this juncture which she felt to
 
 DEAD SELVES. 53 
 
 be in some way a crisis, she thought, with throb 
 bing comfort, of the visit she was about to make, 
 and of the woman, old and experienced and 
 good, to whom she might now turn for help. 
 It was $ie first time that she had had a foretaste 
 of friendship, and it was infinitely sweet to her.
 
 VI 
 
 MRS. FRASER wrote promptly to ex 
 press her delight at the proposed visit. 
 Fraser, who had dined out that evening, came 
 in rather late, but Rhoda was so anxious to 
 tell him of the letter and to arrange for her 
 immediate departure that she waited up for 
 him, and about eleven o clock went down to 
 seek him. 
 
 The hall was thickly carpeted, and her slip 
 pered feet were almost noiseless as she ap 
 proached the library. At the door, however, 
 she stopped suddenly, checked by the sight of 
 Fraser lying on the lounge asleep. 
 
 She stood perfectly still for a few minutes, 
 and then, moving with extreme caution, came 
 nearer and sank noiselessly into a chair a few 
 feet from him, while he slept on profoundly. 
 
 The face of the sleeping man was troubled and 
 the brows were slightly contracted, as if with 
 anxiety or pain. Rhoda, who had strong in 
 tuitions about him, had suspected that his work 
 was not going well, but had not spoken of it. 
 54
 
 DEAD SELVES. 55 
 
 Generally he did not tell her of difficulties, 
 until they were over. She knew that this was 
 to spare her annoyance, and if she would have 
 preferred not to be so spared, she never told 
 him so. 
 
 She sat there now and looked at him with in 
 tensity and interest as if she had never seen him 
 before. It was indeed true that she had not 
 before seen him quite off guard, and had not 
 studied and examined his face. Their eyes 
 never rested on each other long, and never once 
 during these two years of life together had they 
 shown each other the full unguarded vision of a 
 frank and open gaze. 
 
 Now, however, though his eyes were fast 
 closed, she looked at him long and deliberately, 
 with a gaze of intense scrutiny. 
 
 The face of the man stretched at length before 
 her was strong and decided, the figure powerful, 
 the hands firm and capable, and, though finely 
 modelled, a little hardened by the use of acids 
 and metals and extremes of heat and cold. 
 Somehow, this made a strong appeal to her, 
 and she looked at them long. There was some 
 thing very noble-looking about this figure, lost 
 in the repose of sleep, and something strongly 
 impressive in the sad unconscious face.
 
 56 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 For it was sad. Rhoda saw that more plainly 
 than she saw anything else. Her gaze grew 
 more and more intense, and in the earnestness 
 of her scrutiny, she bent toward him, and 
 looked and looked, as if it were her last and 
 only chance. Was it that thought which gave 
 such meaning to her absorbed and burning 
 gaze, or was it perhaps another ? 
 
 Her hands were clasped together in her lap, 
 with a pressure which crushed the rings into the 
 flesh. Her breath came in such rapid pants 
 that she had to part her lips that the sound of 
 it might not arouse him. A look was on her 
 face that, until this moment, it had never known. 
 If the sleeping man had waked, would he have 
 known her? 
 
 As little did she know herself ! What was it 
 that had entered into her, changing and dom 
 inating her ? After those long moments of self- 
 forgetfulness she became possessed of an acute 
 self-consciousness. Its effect was to fill her with 
 alarm. She got up hastily and turned from the 
 room. Across the great hall she sped, almost 
 running, in her haste to be alone. The thought 
 of meeting a servant filled her with terror. Like 
 a creature hunted and followed, she ran to her 
 own room, and, locking the door behind her,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 57 
 
 stood panting and trembling, as she looked ner 
 vously about her. Then, with an inarticulate 
 cry, out of the ignorance and helplessness of a 
 heart which knew not itself and had no power to 
 help itself, she threw herself down upon the bed 
 and sobbed. 
 
 Fraser, meanwhile, slept on unconscious. 
 Profoundly weary in body and in mind, his 
 sleep had been too heavy to feel any influence 
 from that presence and that gaze. When he 
 waked, at last, it was very late. He got up 
 and went to bed, without so much as a thought 
 of Rhoda, as he passed her door. 
 
 But Rhoda heard every fall of that light foot 
 step, and her heart beat in thick, fast throbs at 
 the sound. He went into his room and closed 
 the door. Being tired, sleep came to him very 
 quickly. 
 
 Not so with Rhoda. She passed a sleepless 
 night. A new companionship had come into 
 her life, an insistent and disturbing one, but 
 she did not ask its name. Analysis of motive 
 and of emotion was unknown to her. She 
 knew of this thing only that it was pain, and 
 yet a pain which had some quality which was 
 sweet. Pain, she was accustomed to, of a dense, 
 dead kind, to which her somewhat slow nature
 
 58 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 was well indurated, but this was a sort of pain 
 that was new. It had a poignancy in it which 
 tuned her nature higher than it had ever reached 
 before, to a pitch, indeed, that almost made 
 her feel that the tense cord would snap and life 
 and feeling would go with it.
 
 * VII 
 
 AS the carriage, which met Rhoda at the 
 station, was mounting the hill, toward 
 the house in which Fraser had been born and 
 where his mother still lived, she was not with 
 out some of the misgivings which had beset her 
 husband at the thought of this visit. 
 
 The horses were old and lazy, and so was 
 the coachman: everything about her had an 
 air that contrasted strongly with the exciting 
 atmosphere of New York and the even more 
 stimulating air which pervaded the laboratory 
 at Brockett. On the porch, which was covered 
 with vines and decorated with luxuriant bloom 
 ing plants, stood Mrs. Fraser, waiting to wel 
 come Rhoda, a smile on her fine old face, 
 informing it with as mild and penetrating a 
 radiance as that which the evening star imparts 
 to a landscape. 
 
 She was small and thin, and was dressed in 
 the plainest black, with a delicate white cap 
 above her smoothly parted white hair, and a 
 
 59
 
 60 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 little half-transparent shawl around her shoul 
 ders, which did not conceal the fact that her 
 figure was a good deal bent. 
 
 Her whole appearance was extremely delicate, 
 the soft skin of her face being withered like a 
 shrivelled rose-leaf, and her finely modelled 
 hands wrinkled and wasted. But in her eyes 
 there shone the intelligence of perpetual youth, 
 and the splendid brow above them had the 
 visible stamp of nobility and intellectual power. 
 Her nose was straight, strong, and decided, and 
 her mouth, moulded by character rather than 
 by heredity, was equally expressive of humor, 
 resolution, and tenderness. 
 
 Rhoda, who was not a keen observer, and 
 who had little faculty for making deductions, 
 saw only this, a strong resemblance to Duncan 
 Fraser in a face which expressed a spontaneous 
 affection for her ! She had the sensations 
 which might belong to a young bird brooding 
 over its first nest and feeling against its breast 
 the movements in the little eggs and the faint 
 pricking of their shells. Something outside 
 her was waking up her dormant self and giving 
 her a strange new life of which she had never 
 dreamed. 
 
 As she got out of the carriage and mounted
 
 DEAD SELVES. 61 
 
 the steps, she felt herself clasped in tender 
 arms and called "my daughter." 
 
 How strange it was ! She had exactly the 
 sensation which she had sometimes had in 
 dreams. 
 
 "I afn so sorry that Duncan could not 
 come," the old lady said, keeping her hand as 
 she led her through the wide porch and into 
 the sweet old-fashioned house. "It would do 
 him good to leave his laboratory for a little 
 while. I m afraid he works too hard." 
 
 " I fear he does," assented Rhoda, not meet 
 ing her companion s eye, but looking about to 
 right and left. "What a beautiful, charming 
 old house !" 
 
 "Very old-fashioned and plain, my dear, 
 compared to the manner in which people live 
 now. It s the best of places to me, for all the 
 memories of my life are in it, at least all my 
 married life, and that is all a woman s real life. 
 All that goes before is an anticipation, and all 
 that comes after a reminiscence. I came here 
 a happy bride, and here all my years of wife- 
 hood were passed. My husband died in this 
 house, but he also lived in it, and that glorifies 
 it to me. Three dear children died here too, 
 but I had the joy of them for a little while,
 
 62 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 and I have the knowledge that I gave them 
 life, not only for time but for eternity. Here, 
 too, my Duncan was born, who was mine 
 before he was yours, and who is no less mine 
 now because he is yours also." 
 
 Again Rhoda turned away her eyes. 
 
 "I did not know you had had other chil 
 dren," she said, in an effort to change the subject. 
 
 "What! Is it possible Duncan never told 
 you of his two sisters and his little brother?" 
 
 "Perhaps I have forgotten," said Rhoda, 
 floundering mentally. She felt that this speech 
 made her seem indifferent, if not rude, but she 
 preferred that the blame should fell on her 
 rather than on him. 
 
 The old lady did not answer. They had 
 mounted the stairs, and she was leading the 
 way into one of the large upper rooms. 
 
 "I have given you Duncan s room," she 
 said, "because I thought you d like that best. 
 It has the old furniture which he used from the 
 time that he was a boy, and I have, from time 
 to time, hung photographs of him in this room. 
 I have always wanted you to see them, my dear, 
 but I could not make up my mind to let them 
 leave their places as long as I lived. Soon 
 they will all be his and yours. This is his first
 
 DEAD SELVES. 63 
 
 picture, taken at three months. How he laughs 
 at it!" 
 
 Rhoda was compelled to look at it and to 
 express interest. She had to follow the fond 
 mother around the room and to look at her 
 adored Son, in all his various positions and 
 changes. There he was in his first short frock, 
 with his hair done in what his mother called 
 " a roach ;" there on his Shetland pony, led by 
 a groom ; then in his first trousers ; then an 
 ungainly lad in knickerbockers ; and so on, up 
 to the time of his marriage. 
 
 How his mother glowed with interest, as she 
 passed from one to another, recalling certain 
 incidents connected with each ! Rhoda listened 
 with attention, asking questions and making 
 comments, but it was as a stranger might have 
 done who was interested more for the mother s 
 sake than on account of the pictures themselves 
 or the being whom they represented. She felt 
 a consciousness of this, and feared that she was 
 appearing very listless, but she had neither the 
 insincerity nor the quickness of wit to play a 
 part other than a passive one. Still she felt 
 that this dear old lady would perhaps be 
 wounded, and so she tried to stem the current 
 of her reminiscences by an excuse.
 
 64 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 " I am very tired," she said. " The journey 
 was fatiguing, and I got up early 
 
 " Of course. How thoughtless of me ! You 
 will want to lie down. I will go away and let 
 you rest." 
 
 It was strange to contrast the two women, 
 one old and bent and feeble in frame, and yet 
 with the strong fire of fervid, glowing life in 
 every lineament of her face ; the other young, 
 erect, superbly strong and healthy, but with an 
 apathy and coldness in her expression which 
 made her look far less akin to life. 
 
 Don t go," she said, in answer to Mrs. 
 Fraser s last words. " I only want to take off 
 this stiff dress and lie down and rest. Let my 
 maid come and make me comfortable, and then 
 you stay and talk to me. Haven t I come all 
 this way just to see you ? 
 
 The faint shadow of a smile crossed Rhoda s 
 face as she spoke. Her wish to have Mrs. 
 Fraser with her was sincere. She felt a strong 
 inclination to reach out and cling to her, but 
 she felt she must avoid that one topic, for the 
 present at least. 
 
 The journey, following her sleepless night, 
 had made her tired in reality, and she did not 
 feel her usual power of self-control.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 65 
 
 " Suppose I go and order you a cup of tea, 
 and then come and drink it with you here," 
 said the old lady; "and meantime your maid 
 can wait on you. She is unpacking your trunk 
 now in the dressing-room. Shall I send her 
 here ? fl 
 
 " Let me go myself," said Rhoda, "and we 
 can send her to order the tea. You don t sup 
 pose I am going to allow you to wait on me 
 like this?" 
 
 "Then you will be depriving me of one of 
 my greatest pleasures ! I have never been idle 
 or inactive in my life, and it would make me 
 wretched to be so. I am occupied, in some 
 way, all the time, and it is a rare delight to me 
 now to have some one near and dear to me to 
 wait upon. For next to my Duncan comes my 
 Duncan s wife !" 
 
 She hurried away with a light and active step. 
 It seemed to Rhoda that the radiance of her 
 smile and gaze inhabited the room after she 
 had left it. She must have been quite seventy, 
 and yet about her there was an atmosphere of a 
 youth more subtle than that of childhood.
 
 VIII 
 
 WHEN, a little later, Mrs. Fraser returned, 
 followed by a servant with the tea-tray, 
 the room had undergone a metamorphosis. Its 
 prim stateliness was as if decorated by spots of 
 soft color, from the various accessories to her 
 mistresses s toilet which Rhoda s maid had 
 strewn about. Poor Rhoda, if she had mas 
 tered no other art in life, had learned that of 
 being luxurious, aided by a maid who had 
 studied it as a profession and had reduced it to 
 a science. 
 
 As Mrs. Fraser returned to the room, the 
 maid was engaged in the work of plaiting her 
 lady s long hair, as the latter sat before her in 
 a straight chair, clad in a gown that might have 
 been made out of that May-day sky and 
 trimmed with its fleecy clouds. Rhoda wore 
 all these exquisite things as simply as a bird its 
 feathers, and was quite without any conscious 
 ness of them now. 
 
 The old lady, however, whose susceptibilities 
 66
 
 DEAD SELVES. 67 
 
 for everything were keen, took in every detail 
 with a rapid glance, and smiled. It was not 
 the smile of age extenuating the frivolities of 
 youth, but of frank enjoyment of such beautiful 
 things. 
 
 " Wnat a delicious smell !" she said, breath 
 ing in the violet-like odor of orris-root which 
 the unpacking had disseminated through the 
 room. " And, my dear, what charming things ! 
 You must allow an old woman, who does not 
 often have such a chance, to admire them. 
 Ah, how delightful all .this must be to Duncan ! 
 He had always such a love for what was soft and 
 fine and beautiful, until these scientific experi 
 ments, with all their dirty mess, got more 
 attractive to him." 
 
 She smiled, a happy smile of pride in him, 
 as she sat down and began to make the tea. 
 
 Rhoda, meanwhile, had dismissed her maid, 
 and the two were alone. 
 
 " I could not eat much on the train," she 
 said, " and what I did eat has given me a head 
 ache. This tea will be so good for me, and it 
 is so sweet for us to drink it together." 
 
 She drew a chair up near to the tea-table, 
 and sat down in it, crushing the end of her 
 plait and its blue ribbon bow beneath her.
 
 68 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 "Oh, don t mash that lovely blue bow!" 
 said the old lady, protestingly, and Rhoda, 
 laughing, drew the plait aside, so that it hung 
 over one shoulder. 
 
 " What splendid hair you have, my dear ! I 
 always loved a woman to have luxuriant hair, 
 and so did Duncan." 
 
 " I have almost too much to look well in the 
 present style," said Rhoda, ignoring her last 
 words; "but my maid is very clever with it. 
 I wear it down whenever I want to be really 
 comfortable. I have headache a good deal." 
 
 " Does your head ache now, my child? Lie 
 down, if it does, and let me stroke it. Don t 
 you like having your head stroked?" 
 
 "I ve never tried it," Rhoda said, forgetting 
 that there was an unintentional confession in 
 the words. " Do give me another cup of your 
 delicious tea. It deserves its reputation, I find ! 
 I have often heard Mr. Fraser say that no one s 
 tea was equal to yours." 
 
 "Mr. Fraser!" said the old lady, in laugh 
 ing protest. " Why, surely you need not be so 
 very formal with me, my dear. It sounds odd 
 for you to call him that to me." 
 
 "I have never called him by his Christian 
 name," said Rhoda, speaking with an effort at
 
 DEAD SELVES. 69 
 
 naturalness, as she selected a lump of sugar. 
 " Somehow Duncan sounds almost too famil 
 iar for any one but his mother to call him. 
 You see," she added, smiling, "he has im 
 pressed me, as he impresses others, with a great 
 idea of his dignity and importance." 
 
 " Well, dear, of course you and he know 
 best," answered the old lady; and Rhoda, glad 
 to make a diversion, put down her cup and said, 
 inquiringly : 
 
 "Do you really mean me to lie down, while 
 you sit up and talk to me ? I am ashamed to be 
 so lazy. Do let me give the lounge to you." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, my dear. I have never had 
 the habit of lying down in the daytime. It 
 would crush my cap ! And I have no soft 
 lounging-gowns like yours. But come, I want 
 to see you rest. I think the young, as a rule, 
 need rest far more than the old. The mind 
 wearies one more than the body, and generally 
 the minds of the young have much to harass 
 and burden them. Age, it has always seemed 
 to me, is the real time of happiness. It may 
 be sad, perhaps, to leave the keenness of youth 
 behind one, but I think one gets something 
 better in its place. I love to think that in the 
 life beyond, we shall take a fresh start, equipped
 
 70 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 with all the knowledge and experience that we 
 have gained in this, and not, as some maintain, 
 be in a state in which we will have no use for 
 them." 
 
 Rhoda had thrown her graceful body at 
 length upon the lounge. Her slender feet were 
 crossed at the instep, as she lay on her back, with 
 her hands ringless, except for a gold band on 
 the marriage finger lying lightly folded. 
 
 If she was unconscious of herself and of her 
 loveliness, her companion was not so. She sat, 
 in the pause which had followed her last words, 
 looking at the figure on the lounge with evident 
 relish and appreciation. Rhoda was certainly 
 an object lovely to look upon, and more so than 
 ever in this moment. Those last suggestive 
 words had fed a newly wakened appetite within 
 her for a sort of food which she had never 
 tasted before, and had never even hungered for. 
 Who, until this hour, had ever spoken to her 
 of the life to come, so as to make it seem a 
 reality to her, a place for hope and longing to 
 rest upon ? 
 
 "And yet," she said, eager to lead her com 
 panion on to say more, "we are generally told 
 that youth is the precious time, the time of joy 
 and opportunity."
 
 DEAD SELVES. 71 
 
 "Of joy, in one sense, so it is; I do not 
 underrate that delight which belongs to the 
 wild freshness of morning; but, looking back 
 on all the stages of life, as I do now, age seems 
 to me the best, except for one thing, the thing 
 you ITave already mentioned. I mean the op 
 portunities of youth. Age has its opportunities 
 too, but these are mostly for the benefit of others. 
 Youth is the time for opportunities for our 
 selves." 
 
 She paused, and Rhoda, though reluctant to 
 speak herself, felt that she must go on, in order 
 to get her companion to say more. So she 
 said: 
 
 " Do you mean opportunities of getting pleas 
 ure for ourselves ? 
 
 "Pleasure? No, child. At my age pleasure 
 is not one of the first considerations of life : or 
 perhaps I should say that pleasure is not the 
 same thing that it is to the young." 
 
 "Then what sort of opportunities do you 
 mean ? 
 
 "Opportunities of wise selection, my child, 
 of choosing to do right, instead of wrong, 
 when the right path is the hard and painful one 
 and the wrong path easy and pleasant. These 
 are the opportunities for one s self which settle
 
 72 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 the destinies of others, which add to the store 
 of light and strength in the world, by which 
 others may see and endure. In such oppor 
 tunities as this, youth is richer than age, and its 
 influence is weightier. People say, and say 
 naturally, that it is easy enough for the old to 
 be self-denying and patient, when life is behind 
 them ; but when the young are willing to give 
 up and able to endure, with life still ahead of 
 them, the influence is far more potent, both for 
 the good of others and for their own souls. 
 These are the only opportunities of youth that 
 I could wish back again," she added, with a 
 greater earnestness. "There are some choices 
 and decisions of my life which I would gladly 
 undo if I could, but there are others one or 
 two, at least which sweeten old age, as they 
 will sweeten eternity, for me." 
 
 Rhoda seyes had been fastened on her eagerly, 
 absorbing every word with breathless interest. 
 Her color had risen ; her eyes sparkled. 
 
 "Have I talked too much, my dear?" said 
 her companion. "You look as if you might 
 be feverish. Suppose I go now and let you 
 rest." 
 
 "Oh, no, no,"saidRhoda, insistently. "Stay 
 with me and talk to me. No one has ever spoken
 
 DEAD SELVES. 73 
 
 to me like this, in all my life. If you would 
 have great patience with me and show me how, 
 I might be different from what I am. I might 
 be a good woman myself, and help others. And, 
 oh, when I hear you talk, it makes me feel that 
 I shouW like to be!" 
 
 These words and tones awakened in Mrs. 
 Fraser a wonder which it cost her an effort to 
 conceal. She was careful, though, to do noth 
 ing which might check Rhoda s freeness of 
 speech, and so, taking one of her smoothly 
 modelled, firm young hands into hers, she 
 stroked it gently, saying, with great tender 
 ness: 
 
 " You have never had a mother before, my 
 poor dear child ; but you ve got a mother now." 
 
 In an instant Rhoda had sprung upright, and 
 had thrown her arms around the other s thin and 
 wasted form. 
 
 "Oh, be my mother? Take me for your 
 child! "she cried. "I want to be good. I 
 want to do right, but I have been cruel, selfish, 
 wicked ! and I can never be any better, unless 
 you show me how, and love me, and believe in 
 me, and help me to believe in myself." 
 
 The arms around her were weak and frail, 
 but they held her close, and kisses of warm
 
 74 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 tenderness fell thick on hair and eyes and 
 cheeks. 
 
 "Tell me what this trouble is, my child," 
 the old woman said. " It cannot be anything 
 that can make me feel that you are other than 
 my child, as long as you come to me for help 
 and guidance. Don t be afraid to tell me, no 
 matter what it may be." 
 
 She spoke with great solemnity, for she felt 
 that the moment was an important one. She 
 had invited a confession from her son s wife, 
 and had promised to take the part of a mother 
 to her, but all her heart was roused to fear, as 
 she waited to hear what this confession might 
 be. 
 
 " One question first, my child," she said, her 
 lips close to the bent head that leaned against 
 her. " Could you not take this trouble to your 
 husband ? Would it not be better to speak of 
 it first to him?" 
 
 "Oh, I couldn t! I never, never could!" 
 she cried. " He is the last person in all the 
 world to whom I could speak of it." 
 
 "Then tell it freely and fully to me, and I 
 will help you," was the strong response. The 
 mother- heart was full of love, but it was full of 
 justice too, and if Duncan, as she half divined,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 75 
 
 had neglected his young wife and failed to take 
 her sorrows and perplexities and make them his 
 own, putting his work before his duty as a hus 
 band, no one could be more ready to judge 
 and to condemn him for it than was his own 
 motlfer. 
 
 In spite of those words of loving encourage 
 ment, Rhoda remained silent. She clung about 
 the older woman s neck, as a child might have 
 done who was conscious of some wrong and was 
 ashamed to show its face. 
 
 "You will be good to me?" she whispered. 
 " You will forgive me, and try to help me ? It 
 will seem, to you of all the women in the world, 
 a most dreadful thing that I have done." 
 
 At these words the older woman felt the 
 strong heart within her contract, but she an 
 swered promptly and most tenderly : 
 
 " Speak to me freely and without fear, my 
 daughter. I will be to you all that your own 
 mother could be now, God helping me." 
 
 "It is because of that great and wonderful 
 mother-feeling in you," Rhoda said, "that I 
 dare to speak to you now, and yet, for that very 
 reason, you will see and feel my wrong-doing as 
 no one else on earth could. I am going to tell 
 you, though, and you will help me. You have
 
 76 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 already helped me to see more plainly something 
 that has been glimmering before my eyes for 
 weeks now ; but I could not get any help, until 
 I thought of you. When I came to you I did 
 not think I would tell you this thing, only try 
 to get some help and some direction, without 
 that; but you are better and dearer than I 
 thought, and I feel that I must tell you, and 
 perhaps, cruel and wrong as I have been, you 
 will forgive me and help me." 
 
 " I will indeed, my child. Try to feel as if 
 I were your real mother, who cared for you as 
 a baby, when you were a poor, helpless little 
 thing " 
 
 " Don t ! don t !" cried Rhoda. " You are 
 making it harder and harder for me. I do not 
 understand that mother-love. I am too cold 
 and hard and unnatural ; but oh, though you 
 do not know it, though I have forgotten it my 
 self and fought against the memory of it, I am 
 a mother too." 
 
 Even in that crucial instant, Mrs. Fraser felt, 
 piercing the consciousness of her horror and 
 pain, a satisfaction in the fact that her face was 
 hidden from her companion. It was some sec 
 onds before she could reply, and then her voice 
 was calm and tender, as she said :
 
 DEAD SELVES. 77 
 
 " Tell me about it. Tell me the worst there 
 is to tell." 
 
 " I am a mother," Rhoda repeated, her face 
 still hid against the other s breast, " though a 
 neglectful and unnatural one. My child is five 
 years old, and I have never seen its face but 
 once." 
 
 " Five years ! Does Duncan know ?" 
 
 "He did know once. Whether he knows 
 now that it is living, I cannot say. He knew 
 of its birth, and he knew its father. It was with 
 the full knowledge of both of these that he 
 asked me to marry him. I have practised no 
 deception on him." 
 
 For the second time her companion had occa 
 sion to be glad that her face was concealed, but 
 this time it was a look of relief from a horrible 
 fear, which she would have shrunk from having 
 seen. 
 
 "Tell me. Speak freely to me, my child," 
 she said ; and, so encouraged, Rhoda went on : 
 
 " They have never told you, then, that during 
 my first marriage a child was born, a girl. 
 For many days they would not let me see it, 
 and I felt the reason why. When, at last, it 
 could be kept from me no longer, I looked. 
 Oh, poor little horrible thing " She broke
 
 78 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 off, clinging closer to that sweet old figure, and 
 speaking through blinding tears. " Something, 
 I don t know what, has waked a new feeling for 
 my child in my heart, and every moment that I 
 am with you that feeling deepens. I can pity it 
 now, but until now I have never had anything 
 but loathing for it." 
 
 "It was deformed, poor baby?" said the 
 other, gently. 
 
 " Yes, deformed in body, with no hope of 
 being anything but imbecile in mind, the doc 
 tors said. They told me what to do with it, 
 and I was glad to take their advice. It was 
 sent to an asylum, and I have never seen it 
 since. I have tried not to think of it, and at 
 first I succeeded, though at times the thought 
 that it was mine, that I was responsible for its 
 miserable existence, would trouble me, but al 
 ways I shook it off. Lately I cannot do this. 
 The thought of it haunts me, and, oh, at last a 
 change has come to my hard heart, and I do 
 not want to forget. I want to do my duty by 
 my child. I am its mother. Perhaps they let 
 it suffer at that place, and I could save it that, 
 at least. Now that my conscience and my heart 
 have waked at last, you will help me to do right 
 and to be a better woman, will you not ? I want
 
 DEAD SELVES. 79 
 
 to, oh, I want it intensely, but I don t know 
 how." 
 
 "You will know now, my dear daughter. 
 The will that is aroused within you will point 
 the wayt Thank God, we can throw the past 
 behind us, when we set our feet in the right 
 path, and what you have it in your power to do 
 now will be a full atonement. The thing that 
 you have done would not be called wicked 
 or cruel by the world; but if it seems so to 
 you, you must make haste to change it. What 
 is it that you want now to do?" 
 
 "It is not what I want, for I shrink from it 
 even yet. It is what I must do ! I must take 
 that poor little creature home and keep it near 
 me, and see that everything which care and 
 thought can do to help its poor life is done. I 
 have sent a doctor at regular intervals to visit it 
 and make me a report, and he always tells me 
 that everything is being done, but that the case 
 is quite hopeless, as there is absolutely no intel 
 ligence to work upon. He says only its physical 
 comfort can be ministered to, and that, surely, 
 I can do as well as others, for I am its mother. 
 I have known that fact and acknowledged it, of 
 course, but it is only lately that I can feel it, and 
 with it I feel the sense of being so selfish, so
 
 8o DEAD SELVES. 
 
 cruel, so wicked. You forgive me, though, 
 don t you, and care for me in spite of it, and 
 you will be kind to me and love me and hold 
 me up in what I am going to do?" 
 
 " That I will, my darling !" 
 
 When had poor Rhoda heard this word ap 
 plied to her before ? Probably never. At the 
 sound of it, her heart melted, and, clinging 
 closer yet to the old woman s neck, she burst 
 into violent sobbing. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser made no effort to check those 
 sobs and tears, but let the paroxysm spend itself 
 upon her breast, patting her gently, smoothing 
 her hair, and speaking loving words to her. At 
 last she tenderly laid the poor tired head back 
 upon the pillow, and, taking her own handker 
 chief, wiped the tear-drenched face and kissed 
 the weary eyes. The lids had softly dropped 
 and covered them, and Rhoda felt that it would 
 be sweet to keep them forever closed to this sad 
 life, and to pass away from this weary world 
 with such precious words and tones to comfort 
 her poor starved heart. 
 
 Fearing that she had fainted, Mrs. Fraser went 
 to the dressing-table, and, bringing cologne, 
 gently mopped and stroked the hot temples. 
 Presently Rhoda opened her eyes with a smile.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 81 
 
 " Oh, how good you are ! how good !" she 
 said. "I am very miserable, and yet I m happy 
 too." 
 
 You can be happy within, my darling, no 
 matter how miserable you are without. Do 
 your duty, in the highest way that your soul 
 perceives it, and help the hard lives of others, 
 and you will have a joy that nothing can take 
 away from you." 
 
 "And oh," said Rhoda, fervently, "there is 
 one thought that will be forever a joy to me. 
 It is that just when my child finds its mother, I 
 have found mine." 
 
 "Then you must learn to call her by her 
 name. I want to hear you say it." 
 
 "Mother," said Rhoda, in a voice of low- 
 toned fervor ; " God bless you, mother !" 
 
 It was the first time that such words had ever 
 crossed her lips. A stirring of the love of God 
 had come to her heart with its first wakening to 
 the love of man. 
 
 " That word spoken between us," Mrs. Fraser 
 said, solemnly, "makes you my child indeed, 
 and I am going to speak to you as my own 
 child, and ask you this question. Why have 
 you not talked these things over with your 
 husband?" 
 
 6
 
 82 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 At these words Rhoda s face grew suddenly 
 tense and grave. There was no expression of 
 child-like appeal in it now, but a look of con 
 scious strength, as she said : 
 
 "Not even to you, my own mother, can I 
 quite tell that. You will not misunderstand or 
 think it any lack of confidence or love, will 
 you ? 
 
 " No, no, child, indeed no ! Only, if Dun 
 can, who ought to be your friend, your guide, 
 your counsellor, has failed in his duty to you 
 here, the person to point it out to him is his 
 mother. 
 
 " He has not failed. He has been blameless 
 in it all. He has fulfilled every obligation that 
 could possibly be his. You must take my word 
 for this. Oh, mother dear, my own sweet 
 mother, all of a woman s heart cannot be bared 
 to any one, not even to the mother whom she 
 loves. One promise you must make me, and 
 keep, as your sacred word of honor. It is that, 
 as to what lies between your son and me, you 
 will not interfere. I am bound to say this to 
 you, and I must say it once for all, as I cannot 
 bear to speak of it again. He has been and he 
 is all that he ought to be to me. There is no 
 obligation to me that he has ever left unfulfilled.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 83 
 
 You must take my word for that. If our rela 
 tions to each other do not exactly accord with 
 your ideas of marriage, you must remember the 
 difference in human characters and lives and 
 lots. Even your gentle hand, my mother, must 
 not be laid upon this place. I want you to 
 understand how solemnly I mean this. Re 
 member that you have my word for it that, in 
 his relations to me, he is all that I ask, all that 
 he ought to be. You will respect my wish about 
 this, mother, will you not ?" 
 
 Yes, Rhoda, yes. I have always held that 
 it was wrong and impious for others, no matter 
 how near the ties of love or kinship, to intrude 
 upon the sacred ground of marriage, particu 
 larly when their counsel is not asked. But you 
 must make me a promise also, my dear. If you 
 ever feel differently, if the day ever comes that 
 you want help or advice, I want you to promise 
 to come for it to your husband s mother. You 
 will do this?" 
 
 " I promise it, if that day should ever come ; 
 but you must not make yourself anxious and 
 unhappy without cause. Try to believe me 
 that all is right, that I have nothing to com 
 plain of in your son, that he has faithfully and 
 fully discharged his every obligation to me.
 
 84 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 And now you agree with me do you not ? 
 that we will not speak of this again." 
 
 She had perfectly recovered her self-control, 
 and the conversation ended here, with feelings 
 of confidence and affection in both the old 
 heart and the young.
 
 IX 
 
 THE habit of reserve was so confirmed in 
 Rhoda that after that one full and open 
 talk with Mrs. Fraser she relapsed more or less 
 into her former manner, though it was tinged 
 now with the softening influence of affection 
 and confidence. She was reticent both by 
 nature and habit, and only some great inward 
 upheaval, such as the one which had just taken 
 place, could shake her out of that state. This, 
 added to the fact that Mrs. Fraser was a person 
 of quick intuitions and great tact, made it seem 
 natural, after that one talk, that they should fall 
 into a more formal attitude toward each other. 
 Indeed, they both felt this to be inevitable, for 
 unrestricted confidence between them was im 
 possible without entering into the question 
 which they had agreed to avoid. As to that 
 question Mrs. Fraser had many and deep mis 
 givings, but she had given her promise not to 
 interfere, and the wisdom of that pledge she 
 could not doubt. 
 
 After dinner that evening Mrs. Fraser led the 
 
 85
 
 86 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 way into the drawing-room, and, opening the 
 piano, asked Rhoda for some music. 
 
 "How did you know that I could play?" 
 said Rhoda. "I didn t think any one knew it." 
 
 Here was another admission ! 
 
 "It seems to me natural that you should," 
 was the answer, " and I love music so that I 
 suppose the wish prompted the thought." 
 
 " I took lessons long ago, and had some talent 
 for it, I suppose, but I never played, as people 
 must play to be listened to nowadays : so I 
 never attempt it. Lately, however, I have been 
 practising, when I knew that no one was within 
 hearing : so perhaps I can give you a little 
 pleasure. I hope so." 
 
 The piano was near an open window which 
 gave a view of the moonlit lawn and flower 
 beds. An odor of mignonette was wafted in, 
 and Rhoda felt the atmosphere, both within and 
 without, to be full of peace and calm. A little 
 of the same feeling had crept into her heart and 
 expressed itself in the music that she played. 
 
 There was no doubt that she had a sympa 
 thetic and delighted audience. Mrs. Eraser s 
 vivid and expressive face glowed with a fine 
 feeling, and she made Rhoda play on and on, 
 until at last her hands were exhausted, though
 
 DEAD SELVES. 87 
 
 her spirit was refreshed, as it had not been for 
 many a day, by the subtle stimulant of giving 
 pleasure. This was a thing of which Rhoda as 
 yet knew but little. 
 
 " H6*w sweet it is to play to you !" she said, 
 as she came and seated herself on the lounge 
 beside the old lady, who sat erect in one corner 
 of it. "I am not much of a musician, but I 
 see that I can play enough to give you pleasure, 
 and that is a rare pleasure to me. 
 
 Another admission ! 
 
 " Now you must play for me," said Rhoda. 
 "I have heard your son say that you have never 
 given up your music, and that, to this day, it is 
 the sweetest in the world to him." 
 
 At these words the old lady gave a little sound, 
 which might have been construed into a protest ; 
 but if Rhoda heard it, she did not take in its 
 meaning, as her eyes followed the slight figure 
 to the piano. 
 
 It was delightful to hear Mrs. Fraser play, and 
 it was almost more so to watch her as she played. 
 Of her repertoire she had retained only a few 
 old melodies, which she knew literally by heart, 
 and these she played with admirable spirit and 
 sentiment. She had an unconscious habit of 
 emphasizing with her head, so that when her
 
 88 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 fingers struck an emphatic chord she hit it off 
 also with a nod, and when the tune was slow 
 and wistful her head swayed tenderly to and 
 fro, and her eyes grew dreamy. Who could 
 fail to feel music so profoundly felt by its per 
 former? Rhoda was infinitely charmed by it 
 and by her, and said, as she ceased playing and 
 returned to her place on the lounge : 
 
 " I must have you in New York, mother ; or, 
 rather, New York must have you. What a social 
 success you would be ! I think the world, in 
 all its great centres, is getting very impatient of 
 the commonplace, and must have intrinsic char 
 acter of some sort in those whom it takes for its 
 favorites. It is commonplace itself to a degree 
 that would soon weary you ; but I fancy, if you 
 could be seen and heard at the piano, dressed 
 in that cap and kerchief, playing Believe me, 
 if all those endearing young charms, with just 
 that expression in your music and in your face, 
 you would become a popular darling on the 
 spot ; that is, if you would not too much de 
 spise the frivolities and worldliness by which 
 you would find yourself surrounded." 
 
 "Despise them, my child? No, no!" said 
 the old lady. "I never have that impulse. 
 Who could feel anything but pity for the poor
 
 DEAD SELVES. 89 
 
 beings who have not the glorious goal of a 
 happy eternity to look forward to ? To those 
 who have only this life to enjoy, with its paltry 
 results, I feel a sort of tenderness when I see 
 them trying to do the best they can to get 
 something out of their little steam-yachts, and 
 houses at Newport, and fine carriages and dia 
 monds and clothes ! Poor things ! it always 
 touches me, and I think it s really sweet of them 
 to care so much for those little trifles." 
 
 Rhoda smiled, with a bright interest, at these 
 words. 
 
 " But, for my own part," the old lady went 
 on, " I have done with the world, in that 
 sense. This old place is my world now, and 
 it is enough. I have my flowers and my dairy 
 and my garden. My servants, too, are like a 
 family, and I am personally interested in each 
 one, and in my neighbors. Then I have my 
 charity work, and then my books, old favor 
 ites which I read over and over. Better than 
 all, I have my memories of the past and my 
 hopes of the future and of reunion with my 
 husband and children. I have my dear son, too, 
 to think about, and now my dear daughter, 
 also." 
 
 Rhoda thanked her with a look of love.
 
 90 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 "It must be hard for you to be so much 
 separated from your son," she said. 
 
 "No, dear; I feel that I have him, in the 
 best sense, when I know that he is doing well, 
 and developing the great gifts which God has 
 committed to his trust, and living the life that 
 affords the richest opportunities. I can satisfy 
 myself with happy thoughts of him, and enjoy 
 him far more than if I kept him here to the 
 hinderance of his career, or followed him about, 
 to be a burden to him. I know he loves me, 
 all his life has been a proof of that, so I am 
 satisfied and happy to have him away from me a 
 great deal. The old should help the young all 
 they can, and burden them as little. Youth is 
 the time of struggle, when spiritual need is 
 strongest upon men and women. The physical 
 needs of age are infinitely less important." 
 
 "You are very wonderful, dear mother," 
 Rhoda said. " I am not surprised that your 
 son reverences you as he does. But you were 
 speaking about books," she went on, as if will 
 ing to make a diversion. "What are your 
 favorites?" 
 
 " I have few favorites, my dear, but those are 
 as true and tried as any friends could be. They 
 are all old-fashioned. Young s Night Thoughts
 
 DEAD SELVES. 91 
 
 is one of them, Homer s Iliad is another, and, 
 for novels, my favorite is Jane Eyre. 
 
 " Jane Eyre ? I must read it," said Rhoda, 
 interested. 
 
 "My* child, have you never read Jane 
 Eyre ?" said the old lady, her face and voice 
 expressive of the deepest wonder and protest, 
 not untinged with commiseration. 
 
 " Never," said Rhoda, apologetically. " Of 
 course I know what a fine novel it is considered. 
 I will get it at once." 
 
 "It is much more than a fine novel. It is 
 also as magnificent a code of morals as I have 
 ever known. There are people who have pro 
 nounced Jane Eyre an evil book. Heaven 
 pity them, I say ! I have never in fiction or 
 reality seen so difficult a choice of right and 
 wrong put before any one as there is in Jane 
 Eyre, never such inducement and temptation 
 to choose the wrong and reject the right ; but 
 little Jane, unaided except by the voice within 
 her soul, made the true choice against odds so 
 gigantic as cannot often come in the way of a 
 human being. There are few Rochesters, either 
 in reality or imagination, and few such siren-like 
 utterances as those by which he tried to beguile 
 Jane from the way she saw to be the right one."
 
 92 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Rhoda listened with deep interest, and also 
 with a tinge of amusement. She had in her 
 mind, from different sources, an idea of the sort 
 of man that Rochester was, and it amazed her 
 to see in this little, quaint, correct old lady his 
 eloquent admirer and eulogist. 
 
 "I must read the book at once," she said. 
 " I feel impatient to begin." 
 
 "Perhaps you would not mind my reading 
 some of my favorite scenes aloud to you," sug 
 gested her companion, almost as if she were ask 
 ing a favor. 
 
 " I should be perfectly delighted ; only I fear 
 it would be too great a tax upon you." 
 
 "Oh, I love to read aloud. It never tires 
 me, and certainly I am not likely to break down 
 on Jane Eyre ! Suppose we go to my sitting- 
 room now, where I am most at my ease, and 
 let me read a little of it to-night." 
 
 Rhoda agreeing willingly, they were soon 
 seated by a shaded lamp, Mrs. Eraser upright in 
 a high-backed arm-chair, her spectacles and a 
 well-worn volume in her hand. Rhoda noticed, 
 for the first time, that there was a faint pink 
 glow under one side of her white kerchief, and 
 had the curiosity to ask her, before beginning, 
 to tell her what it was.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 93 
 
 " It is a damask rose, my dear," the old lady 
 said. "I have always loved them, for their 
 color and their odor, and I have most tender 
 associations for them, connected with my hus 
 band. ,When I was young, I used to wear them 
 in my hair. I am too old to deck myself with 
 roses now, but I constantly put them there, out 
 of sight, because I love the smell and I love to 
 have them about me. There is a sort of com 
 panionship in it. But now for my dear book," 
 she said, with a change of tone. " I shall give 
 you a copy of Jane Eyre, and I expect it to 
 be a great pleasure to you, and a great benefit as 
 well. All people do not see that book as I do, 
 but I imagine that you will. I once gave a 
 serious shock to a very good man a minister 
 by telling him that if I had to start my 
 children forth in the journey of life with but 
 two books, those books would be Jane Eyre* 
 and the Bible." 
 
 With this emphatic enunciation, Mrs. Eraser 
 put on her delicate gold-rimmed spectacles and 
 began turning the pages of the book. 
 
 " I am not going to read the first part," she 
 said, " though I hate to skip a single word. It 
 is all absorbingly interesting, even the part 
 about her residence with her cruel aunt and
 
 94 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 cousins, and her life at a charity school. You 
 will read all that for yourself. I shall begin 
 with her meeting with Mr. Rochester. She 
 had been employed, you possibly know, as 
 governess for his ward. Now bear in mind 
 that Jane was a highly intelligent and sensitive 
 creature, who had never in her life had any 
 companionship with an equal in mind and feel 
 ing. Judge, then, what a vital pleasure it must 
 have been to her to encounter a man so origi 
 nal and independent in his intellect and so 
 acute in his feelings as Rochester, with all his 
 faults and eccentricities, was." 
 
 With this preamble, she adjusted her spec 
 tacles, cleared her throat, and, with a look of 
 the keenest interest and attention, began to 
 read. 
 
 For a while Rhoda s interest in the reader 
 almost eclipsed her interest in the story. It 
 was as delightful to see Mrs. Fraser read as it 
 was to see her play. She had the same habit 
 of emphasizing with her head, now to the right 
 and now to the left, and when any sentiment 
 called for special accentuation she nodded em 
 phatically on the important words. Her per 
 fect delight in the quick rapport which sprang 
 up between Jane and Mr. Rochester, through
 
 DEAD SELVES. 95 
 
 the commonplaces of their first interview, ani 
 mated her face with a radiance of which she 
 was all unconscious. 
 
 But very soon the story itself caught Rhoda s 
 attentidn and enchained her interest, and as her 
 companion read on, skipping the less important 
 scenes to hurry to her favorite ones, Rhoda s ab 
 sorption became equal to her own. The humor 
 of the situations was twice as charming, with 
 that sympathetic rendering of every word and 
 phrase, and occasionally, at some well-relished 
 speech, the old lady would nod her head and 
 emphasize her words in a way that would seem 
 to make the story live before one. For instance, 
 when Rochester parleys with himself as to 
 whether he shall admit to his bosom, or banish, 
 the thought of Jane, and then spreads his arms 
 and says, "Here, come in, bonny wanderer !" 
 the old lady s eyes scintillated with apprecia 
 tion and enjoyment. And when, further on, 
 in his arguments with Jane not to leave him, he 
 says, " Now for the hitch in Jane s character !" 
 she paused and looked at Rhoda, that she might 
 give her a moment to dwell upon the delight- 
 fulness of this. And when, near the end, 
 Rochester says, " Jane suits me : do I suit her ?" 
 and Jane answers, "To the finest fibre of my
 
 96 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 nature, her sweet old face was positively aglow 
 with satisfaction and delight. 
 
 It was a wonderful experience for Rhoda, in 
 more ways than one. It admitted her, for the 
 first time in her life, to an intimate companion 
 ship with a being who could give her both the 
 intellectual stimulus which she had heretofore 
 lacked and the greater boon of affection and 
 sympathy for want of which her life had been 
 more arid still.
 
 X 
 
 RHODA S visit was a short one. Full of 
 new impulses and inspirations as it had 
 been, she felt no wish to prolong it, but 
 returned to town on the day she had ap 
 pointed. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser, though she would gladly have 
 prolonged what had been so great a pleasure to 
 herself, did not urge her to stay. She and 
 Rhoda understood each other. She knew that 
 the young mother, so recently aroused to a sense 
 of her duty, would have no rest until she had 
 put her new resolutions into effect, and her own 
 sense of motherhood made a strong appeal for 
 this brilliant, beautiful young creature in her 
 first timid yearnings for the nobler life and the 
 higher ends of which she had had no vision 
 until now. 
 
 The parting between the two women was full 
 
 of a deep, unspoken emotion. When Rhoda, 
 
 equipped for her journey, put her arms about 
 
 the frail little figure of the elder woman and 
 
 7 97
 
 98 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 drew her close, there was promise as well as 
 confidence in the embrace, and her companion 
 felt it. 
 
 "Remember this, my child," said the old 
 lady: "I am not useless and superannuated 
 yet. If you should ever want me, I am not 
 only willing but fully able to come to you at 
 any time and for any service, though I am 
 anxious to keep quiet as long as I am not 
 wanted. Remember also that the old place is 
 always here and I am in it, and that it is yours 
 as well as mine. It may occur to you some 
 time that you would like to come here with 
 your child, for a little change, where the eyes 
 of strangers would not be upon you. If so, 
 remember that your child is my grandchild, 
 whether the tie of blood exists or not." 
 
 With these sweet words in her ears, and their 
 loving echo in her heart, Rhoda drove away, 
 leaving the old lady standing on the steps in 
 the sunshine, waving her hand with a smile of 
 encouragement that was strength for her heart 
 to lean upon. The last detail that she noticed 
 was the pink spot of color under the trans 
 parent muslin kerchief. 
 
 Rhoda s heart had opened like a bud in sun 
 shine, under the precious influences of this visit,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 99 
 
 but as she took her seat with her maid in the 
 cars, the very sight of the people about her 
 seemed to have its influence to congeal these 
 tender streams of feeling at their source. 
 
 At a Certain junction on the road the train 
 stopped to wait for a connection. Rhoda, feel 
 ing an inexplicable sense of withdrawal from 
 the people about her, prosperous travellers, 
 hurrying over the earth from crowded city to 
 crowded city, turned away from this sight and 
 looked out of the window. As she did so, the 
 expected train came in, and the palpitating, 
 gasping engine had come to a halt just on the 
 opposite side of the platform from where her 
 car had stopped. A woman, carrying a child, 
 had been waiting for the coming of this train, 
 and Rhoda saw her now hurrying eagerly up 
 the long platform to the engine. The weight 
 of her burden, together with her rapid move 
 ment, made her pant. She was laughing, too, 
 and talking to the child with a breathless 
 animation. Her broad face, covered with 
 freckles, was hotly flushed, and beads of per 
 spiration stood in half-circles under her light 
 blue eyes. A more absolute specimen of 
 physical discomfort, as she hustled along with 
 the child, Rhoda thought she had never seen,
 
 too DEAD SELVES. 
 
 and yet she looked completely happy, even joy 
 ous, at some anticipation ahead of her. 
 
 "Yonder s papa! Papa sees us," Rhoda 
 heard her saying to the child, with giggles of 
 delight. " Kiss hand to papa !" 
 
 Following the direction of the woman s eyes, 
 Rhoda now saw a strapping young fellow, in 
 coarse blue overalls smeared with smut and 
 grease, who had just sprung down from the en 
 gine, leaving the iron monster throbbing and 
 hissing on the track. The woman came bustling 
 up to him, with a hasty salutation of " Hello, 
 Tom ! and then they both fixed their eyes on the 
 small, wabbling figure of the child, which she 
 had set upon its feet on the platform. Mother 
 and baby were evidently in their gala attire. 
 The former wore a pink cotton dress bristling 
 with starched ruffles, and a hat with crude pink 
 roses in it which bobbed about at the top of 
 long wire stems. The baby was in white, 
 though it was the sort of white that rather sug 
 gested wrapping-paper than the soft material 
 suitable for a child s tender body. Its little 
 snub nose was red from sunburn, and the 
 stiffened lace of its cap-trimmings, from the 
 border of which the perspiration was streaming, 
 looked almost as if it might have been a pre-
 
 DEAD SELVES. 101 
 
 meditated instrument of torture. And yet the 
 child also looked happy, and gurgled and 
 grinned at the sight of its father. The latter, 
 it was evident, felt himself unfit for any near 
 association with these brilliant beings. He fell 
 on his smoked-stained knees before the baby, 
 and, as it bent forward to obey its mother s 
 behest to "kiss papa," he lurched his great, 
 strong body backward, holding himself off as 
 far as possible, while he allowed only his lips to 
 come in contact with the child. His face was 
 smeared with smut, his great hands were black 
 and greasy. He received the child s kiss 
 almost humbly. One might have said that he 
 felt himself scarcely worthy of it. "She 
 grows, don t she?" he said bashfully to the 
 mother, who answered laconically, "She do 
 grow, which seemed to be all they found to say 
 to each other. In another instant the con 
 ductor called out, " All aboard," and the young 
 engineer sprang to his feet and with a strong, 
 light leap had regained his position on the 
 engine and laid hold upon the throttle with his 
 left hand. The next instant the iron beast 
 began to push forward, and as it glided away 
 Rhoda could see its master, as long as he 
 remained in sight, leaning from the little
 
 io2 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 window and waving his grimy right hand to the 
 baby, while with his other hand he kept a calm 
 control of the great machine. 
 
 Her own train whistled, and she was borne 
 away, but the remembrance of that little scene 
 remained with her. What a thing affection 
 was ! How it glorified the commonest lot ! 
 and how bereaved was the most brilliant lot 
 without it ! 
 
 Her handsome carriage, when it met her at 
 the station, seemed to her a sort of luxuriously 
 constructed trap set to imprison her, and her 
 magnificent house, when she presently entered 
 it, seemed a great jail.
 
 XI 
 
 RHODA was informed on her arrival that 
 Mr. Fraser was at Brockett and would 
 not be back until, time to dress for an engage 
 ment which would occupy him for the evening. 
 
 It was rather a relief to her. She wanted 
 some time to herself, to look the present hour 
 in the face. She realized profoundly that her 
 life was changed, but it was her wish that no 
 such change should be apparent to Fraser. 
 
 There was a deep root to that change, which 
 even her dear new mother did not know of, and 
 of which she could not think, alone in her own 
 soul, without feeling her cheeks grow hot. She 
 would not think of it. She would put her foot 
 upon the thought, as often as it arose, and per 
 haps, thus fought with and discouraged, it might 
 die and cease to trouble her. 
 
 She spent the afternoon alone, thinking and 
 planning as to her future and trying to brace 
 herself to bear bravely the poignant mortifica 
 tions and wounds which she knew that it in 
 volved. The worst thing which she had to 
 
 103
 
 104 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 fight was the physical and mental repulsion which 
 she felt for the object toward whom her awakened 
 soul and conscience were impelling her. She 
 knew that she had the power to overcome this, 
 and foresaw that she should overcome it, but all 
 the same she shrank, in body and in spirit. 
 
 She had ordered dinner to be served to her 
 in her own rooms, and she was sitting there, 
 when there came a tap at the door. 
 
 Come in," she said, and Fraser entered, 
 leaving the door open behind him. 
 
 He was dressed for dinner, and was looking 
 unusually well and animated. Rhoda s heart 
 beat quicker, for all her calm and guarded face. 
 
 "How are you, Rhoda?" he said. "And 
 how did you leave my mother?" 
 
 He did not so much as offer his hand, but 
 this she had not expected. There was a perfect 
 understanding between them, and the tacit laws 
 which they had made for their intercourse 
 seemed to be the same in the minds of each. 
 
 " She is very well, and sent you a great deal 
 of love," said Rhoda, in a perfectly conven 
 tional manner and tone. 
 
 "And how did you like the old place? I 
 hope you found it sympathetic. My mother 
 would be sure to find it out if you did not."
 
 DEAD SELVES. 105 
 
 " She could not have failed to see that I was 
 pleased with it," said Rhoda, "and I think it 
 gave her pleasure." 
 
 She had meant to take this opportunity, when 
 there w.as press of time, to tell him what she had 
 decided to do about the child. The tersely 
 worded sentences were already prepared, but 
 somehow they refused to be uttered. He looked 
 so buoyant, so of the prosperous and happy 
 world, which resents the intrusion of such hor 
 rible ideas as the one which she had to suggest, 
 that she could not bring herself to speak of it. 
 So she let the chance go by, and in another 
 moment he had bidden her a polite good-even 
 ing and was gone. 
 
 Left alone, she turned over once more in her 
 mind the thought of writing him what she had 
 to say. But she shrank from that as cowardly. 
 She did not want him to think that she could 
 not look him in the face while she spoke of a 
 thing which would necessarily bring up the 
 thought of her former marriage, and Rhoda had 
 now a different light upon that subject from the 
 one she had had of old, a light, alas, which 
 she felt was more nearly the one by which he 
 had seen it ! 
 
 Poor Rhoda ! It seemed to her that her soul s
 
 io6 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 growth and her mind s development two things 
 which she could not be unconscious of had 
 their strongest effect in showing her that mar 
 riage in colors so hideous that she turned from 
 the memory of it now with a deeper and more 
 intolerable aversion than the fact itself had 
 given rise to. After the first step, the de 
 velopment of her spirit had been rapid, and 
 every day and hour she saw more clearly what 
 the world the polite and politic world which 
 smiled upon her and flattered her must have 
 said of such a marriage as the one she had 
 made. 
 
 And if the world had sneered and scorned, 
 what must have been the thoughts of the man 
 who had put himself in the position of her 
 husband before that world ? How vitally he 
 must have wanted money ! How infinitely im 
 portant must his career have been to him, to 
 force him to endure even the appearance of 
 such a union ! 
 
 But it was all past and over now. People 
 soon forget, and she felt a consciousness that a 
 thing so completely out of sight as her first mar 
 riage was fast going out of mind also. In this 
 reflection lay her strongest temptation. The 
 world might forget and overlook her first mar-
 
 DEAD SELVES. 107 
 
 riage. More than this, Fraser himself might 
 gradually come to do so, if she did not, by her 
 own act, recall an evidence of it which must 
 impress it anew upon the consciousness of all. 
 
 Fof a moment the thought of the portentous 
 result of the step she had determined upon 
 shook her purpose, but for a moment only. 
 She was feeling that strange and imperious de 
 mand, the necessity of virtue. It had been late 
 in asserting its claim upon her life, but it was 
 therefore the more compelling. Yes, she must 
 do this thing. The voice of her soul had 
 uttered a fiat which she could not disobey. But 
 oh, if the consequences of it could only fall 
 upon herself alone ! She was willing to bear 
 them. She was almost eager for the sweet sense 
 of atonement which she trusted they would 
 bring, but she shrank from recalling such a con 
 sciousness to the mind of the man whom she 
 had married. It seemed somehow an outrage 
 to him. Well, this too might be a part of her 
 atonement, and certainly it was bitter enough ! 
 
 What a long and lonely evening she spent, 
 while Fraser was off at his dinner, enjoying 
 the agreeable talk and the well-cooked dishes ! 
 How jaded and wearied out she felt when he 
 came in animated and refreshed !
 
 io8 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 She heard him come, and, summoning all her 
 courage, went down to the library to speak to 
 him. 
 
 He had taken up the evening paper, but he 
 laid it by and rose to receive her, looking a little 
 surprised, but also or so she imagined a little 
 as if he were pleased to see her. She had often 
 seen such a look on his face lately, and it had 
 come to be a great deal to her. Was she about 
 to banish it forever ? It had taken years to make 
 it come spontaneously at the sight of her, but 
 there it was now, a look she had grown used to 
 seeing on that face. She attributed it wholly to 
 her interest and cooperation in his work, but it 
 was infinitely much to her, from whatever cause 
 it had come. 
 
 "Is that you, Rhoda?" he said, and surely 
 she was not wrong in fancying a ring of wel 
 come in his voice. " I m glad you came down. 
 You ll be pleased to know how well things are 
 going at the laboratory. I ve been quite lost 
 without your interest and sympathy in it all." 
 
 These words were sweet to Rhoda, toosweet, 
 alas ! Again she felt her purpose shaken and 
 had to muster her forces and make her resolu 
 tion anew. She felt that she must act quickly. 
 This ordeal must end.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 109 
 
 "I am so glad," she said. " No one could 
 care about it as I do, whether it makes you the 
 fame and fortune that I expect or not. But 
 there is something else that I must speak to you 
 of to*night. I have been waiting up on pur 
 pose." 
 
 He saw that she was very pale, and a look of 
 kind sympathy came into his face. 
 
 "Does my cigar distress you? You look 
 pale," he said ; and when she nodded, he tossed 
 it away. 
 
 "I will draw back the curtain : the room is 
 warm" he said. 
 
 Never before had she objected to his cigar or 
 to any act or habit of his, but now she felt half 
 stifled and was grateful for the fresh air. 
 
 As he turned from the window and came to 
 ward her, the whiteness of her face struck him 
 anew. There was a new look of timidity in 
 her, which made a strong appeal to him. Her 
 brief absence had caused him a half-unconscious 
 sense of lack and loss, and he felt it to be very 
 pleasant to have her back. 
 
 "You look tired and ill," he said, again, 
 pushing a deep chair toward her. "Sit down, 
 dear." 
 
 It was the first caressing word that he had
 
 no DEAD SELVES. 
 
 ever said to her, and its sweetness pierced her 
 heart. It was well the chair was near to receive 
 her, for her knees felt weak, from that wave of 
 feeling which swept over her. 
 
 She sank back without speaking, and Fraser, 
 as if recollecting himself, crossed the room on 
 some pretext and did not immediately return. 
 In this way she had a moment to recover her 
 self. She knew that he had not meant to say 
 that word to her, and its very spontaneousness 
 made it the precious thing it was. The swift 
 vision of a bewildering possibility flashed across 
 her brain, and with it came the dread alterna 
 tive of doing what she had come here deter 
 mined to do. One was the path of delight and 
 comfort, the other was the path of denial and 
 pain, but she could not hesitate for long. The 
 worst part of her sense of the contempt in 
 which she was tacitly held by this man and by 
 the world was the feeling that it was deserved. 
 She had advanced far enough along the upward 
 path of spirituality to make it more important 
 to her to deserve love than to have it. What 
 she suffered from most keenly was the con 
 sciousness of never having had real respect from 
 those who treated her with deference, particu 
 larly from Fraser. That was infinitely more
 
 DEAD SELVES. in 
 
 important to her than the other thing, for which 
 her heart had cried out for one instant, a cry 
 which had now been stifled. 
 
 "Mr. Fraser," she said, drawing herself up 
 right, jmd speaking in a strong and steady voice. 
 
 It seemed as if Fraser too needed to pull him 
 self together at this somewhat imperious sum 
 mons. It roused him, apparently, from some 
 influence of abstraction and preoccupation. He 
 turned suddenly and crossed the room, seating 
 himself before her. 
 
 Her whole manner had changed. She was 
 now cold and absolutely self-possessed. Could 
 it be, he wondered, that she resented the word 
 he had used? 
 
 "I must speak to you just once," she said, 
 "on a subject which it is necessary that you 
 should know about. I have decided to bring 
 my child home, and to keep it with me for the 
 future." 
 
 The man s face whitened. He started per 
 ceptibly, and drew backward from her. It was 
 a slight movement, but it expressed a sense of 
 revulsion which sent a pang of agony through 
 all her nerves and seemed to make them harden 
 into steel. He got up from his place and walked 
 away from her. She felt that he was experi-
 
 ii2 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 encing a sense of shame for her which would 
 not suffer him to look her in the face. This 
 conviction stung her pride. She stood up also, 
 and said, in a voice cold to curtness : 
 
 " I suppose you do not object. Of course I 
 shall take pains that you shall see and hear 
 nothing. I shall have some third-story rooms 
 made ready, and these, with the long verandas 
 there, will be all the space required. The utmost 
 care will be taken to spare you all annoyance, 
 and this subject need not be referred to again." 
 
 She was about to leave the room, but he 
 stopped her. 
 
 " Wait," he said, a certain difficulty of utter 
 ance apparent in his voice. " I should like to 
 speak to you. You well know that I should 
 never think of exercising any restriction upon 
 you, in any way. You are free to do, in all 
 matters, as you choose ; but why do you do this 
 thing?" 
 
 She looked at him coolly. There was the 
 expression of a concealed smile on her face. 
 Evidently she felt it to be impossible for him to 
 attribute her real motive to such a woman as he 
 conceived her to be. 
 
 "Because I wish to do it," she said, with an 
 inflection of pride in her voice.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 113 
 
 "That is enough for me, of course; but I 
 venture to suggest that you are making a mis 
 take. Much better care can be given to such 
 cases in institutions which exist for the purpose 
 and iftake a special study and science of it." 
 
 Rhoda could see that he was conquering an 
 intense repugnance, even in speaking at all. 
 
 " I shall see that the best possible care is 
 secured in this house," she said. " Nurses and 
 medical attention will be provided. I have 
 satisfied myself that there is no hope of im 
 provement in this case, and I have come to feel 
 rather late, perhaps that I must have my 
 child under the roof with me and attend per 
 sonally to its care." 
 
 Fraser was white to the lips, as he stood 
 facing her, and spoke still with that manner of 
 difficult compulsion. 
 
 "Have you visited it recently?" he asked. 
 " Do you know its condition ?" 
 
 "I know its condition, though I have not 
 visited it, a confession which I ought to be 
 ashamed to make. Thank God, I am ashamed ! 
 It is for that reason that I am trying to repair 
 the past." 
 
 "I would advise you to guard against rash 
 ness and sentimental feeling. Are you not 
 8
 
 H4 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 letting a mere emotion control your conduct 
 now ? 
 
 She looked at him from under half-lowered 
 lids. There was some resentment mingled with 
 the coldness of her glance. 
 
 "I am not, as a rule, emotional, I think," 
 she said, quietly, " and there could not be a more 
 proper object for feeling than my own child. 
 
 As she forced these words, she felt herself 
 wince inwardly, even as she saw him wince out 
 wardly and visibly. It was a look of positive 
 horror which her last words had called up on 
 his face. 
 
 "You must do as you like," he said, coldly, 
 "but it is impossible for me to understand why 
 you should wish to do a thing so painful and so 
 useless. 
 
 I do not ask you to understand. I did not 
 expect that you would. I only asked you to 
 agree. Since you have done so, we need say 
 no more." 
 
 She made a movement to leave him, but a 
 sudden idea came to him, and he stopped her, 
 saying, hastily : 
 
 " I suppose it is my mother who has put this 
 idea into your head. If so " 
 
 " You are wrong," she answered. " Does it
 
 DEAD SELVES. 115 
 
 seem to you impossible that a prompting of 
 duty could come to me from my own heart ? I 
 suppose it does seem so, and I cannot wonder ; 
 but this at least I can say : your mother had 
 nothirtg to do with it. She did not even know 
 of the existence of that poor being for whose 
 wretched life I am responsible. It has been 
 forgotten by every one." 
 
 " Yes, yes, it is forgotten !" he said, eagerly. 
 " Why should you bring it back from the dead ? 
 You can do it no good, and will do yourself 
 only harm." 
 
 Rhoda heard him with a sense of pain that 
 was quite new to her. It was the first time that 
 she had ever for one instant felt him below her, 
 and she had a feeling for him that cried out in 
 protest against that. 
 
 "Your mother did not suggest this thing to 
 me," she said. " It came from my own heart, 
 so long debased and dead. But your mother 
 knows of it and approves it. She has given 
 me her sympathy and support in doing it. She 
 was very kind to me, and treated me with a love 
 and trust that I have never known before. If I 
 had had a mother, and she had been like this 
 one, I could have been a better woman. I might 
 even have been a good and noble one, helping
 
 n6 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 other women by my life and my example, as she 
 is doing, instead of lowering and dragging down 
 every sacred ideal of woman, as I have done." 
 
 A dark flush spread over her face, and her 
 voice trembled. Her figure, in spite of its 
 strong young erectness, trembled also, and with 
 an impetuous motion she passed him and left 
 the room. 
 
 When she was gone, he stood some seconds 
 in his place and looked after her with wide, 
 disturbed, uncomprehending eyes. He saw her 
 turn, at the head of the stairs, toward her own 
 apartments and disappear from sight. 
 
 Throwing himself into a chair, he buried his 
 face in his hands and groaned.
 
 XII 
 
 SEVERAL months had passed, and Rhoda s 
 plan, put into prompt execution, had now 
 entered into the scheme of her daily life and 
 become an important element in her actions and 
 her consciousness. Fully prepared though she 
 had been, the sight of the poor, afflicted, mind 
 less being, whose existence in this sad world she 
 felt to be her bitter responsibility, had been a 
 terrific blow to her, and as time went on, it did 
 not seem to soften. The years which had passed 
 since the birth of this child had been significant 
 ones to Rhoda and had wrought in her a won 
 derful development. Her interest in Eraser s 
 work and her desire to enter into it with intel 
 ligence had stimulated her mind to a hitherto 
 undreamed-of activity, and this had led the way 
 to the development of her heart and her power 
 of feeling. The magic touchstone which had 
 kindled the new fire now burning in her heart 
 was a consciousness which Rhoda scarcely owned 
 to herself, and one which she would have suf- 
 
 117
 
 u8 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 fered death rather than have had known to any 
 other creature. 
 
 From the day of the child s removal to her 
 house, although it was accomplished in his ab 
 sence and with all possible privacy, there had 
 come a change in Fraser, which Rhoda felt 
 keenly. After that one talk, the subject had 
 not been mentioned, but there had come an in 
 creased sense of distance between them. Now 
 that it was over, Rhoda realized that there had 
 existed a certain bond, which might almost have 
 been likened to affection ; but this was now as 
 if it had never been. Indeed, so altered was he 
 toward her that she had been forced into a 
 totally changed attitude concerning his work. 
 He did not seem to wish to talk of it to her, or 
 to take her into it, as he had formerly done, 
 and, perceiving this disinclination on his part, 
 she withdrew into herself, and never now men 
 tioned the subject to him unless he introduced 
 it. Once he had objected, on account of the 
 heat, to her going to Brockett, but when the 
 cooler weather came he did not propose it, and 
 she, thinking that she understood, silently ac 
 quiesced in all. 
 
 Rhoda, constraining herself hourly to the 
 difficult task, spent a good deal of time with
 
 DEAD SELVES. 119 
 
 the child. It slept much, but its waking hours 
 were almost always accompanied by a little 
 fretful wailing, which indicated disturbance 
 and unrest. The nurses explained to her that 
 this could generally be stilled by music or by 
 any continued and decided sound. They kept 
 music-boxes, to play to it, but these were mo 
 notonous and discordant, and Rhoda had a 
 small piano taken to the room. 
 
 At that piano she would play for hours, gen 
 erally with the effect of quieting the child, who 
 would lie in its wheel -bed quite near to her. 
 
 And what music Rhoda played to those dull 
 ears ! What passionate strains of longing and 
 regret and renunciation rose in that quiet room, 
 so far away from the decorum and social ob 
 servances of the other part of the house, where 
 entertainments were given and visitors received ! 
 
 For Rhoda kept up punctiliously the duties 
 of her social position. Fraser was an important 
 man, whom other men sought out, and it was 
 both agreeable and useful to him to make his 
 house attractive. To every detail that could 
 further this end, Rhoda gave her attention, with 
 an assiduity that could not fail to bring success. 
 A better organized house and more delightful 
 dinners than hers were not known in the city.
 
 izo DEAD SELVES. 
 
 But that was one life, and the life which she 
 now led with the child was another. During 
 the hours she spent with it she preferred to have 
 no one else near, and generally sent the nurse 
 away, for rest or exercise, with a maid within 
 sound of the bell. 
 
 All this time her outside life was unchanged. 
 She frequently drove in the Park with Fraser, 
 where her beauty caused much admiration. 
 They talked together, of course, as they drove 
 or dined, but it was a desultory and impersonal 
 sort of talk, and they did not often meet each 
 other s eyes, except for the merest second. As 
 Rhoda now looked back at those days at the 
 laboratory, where there had been, at least on 
 one point, sympathy and familiarity between 
 them, she felt them to be a whole desert s space 
 away from her present life, and she understood 
 the reason of it. 
 
 It was that poor creature, fretting and sleeping 
 its useless life away up in the third story, which 
 had made this difference between them. But for 
 her act, in taking it into her life and conscious 
 ness again, the distance that divided them would 
 have been lessened daily. When she thought 
 of this, however, she shook her head. She 
 would not have had it so !
 
 DEAD SELVES. 121 
 
 The rooms in which the child was kept were 
 far away from her own and from Eraser s apart 
 ments. They were situated far back in the third 
 story, and had a long veranda running beside 
 them, wftere the wheel-bed was often pushed up 
 and down, for the sake of the air and motion, 
 of which the half-conscious invalid took small 
 account. Just beneath these rooms there was a 
 sort of workshop, which Eraser had once used 
 for a short time for some work which it was 
 necessary that he should do in town. The room 
 not being needed, it was left as he had last used 
 it, and he now and then had occasion to go to 
 it. There was a passage leading from his own 
 apartments to this room, and there was a stair 
 case on the piazza, outside of it, which led to 
 another overhead. 
 
 One evening Eraser went to this room, to 
 look for some object that he wanted, and just 
 as he was about to strike a light he was arrested 
 by the notes of a piano up above. He stood 
 still, waited, and listened. He loved music, 
 and this was very beautiful music which came to 
 him now. There was a quality in it which ap 
 pealed to him peculiarly. With every moment 
 the sweetness of it seemed to deepen. The 
 keys were struck by a hand which informed them
 
 122 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 marvellously with the feelings in the player s 
 heart, and never had he listened to any music 
 which seemed to him so sad. 
 
 For a long time he listened, a great agitation 
 possessing him. Could it be Rhoda who played 
 in that wonderful way, when he had never sus 
 pected her of any musical gift at all ? It must 
 be Rhoda. It could be no one else ; but he 
 must make sure. 
 
 Creeping silently out on the porch, he mounted 
 the stairs with great caution and looked through 
 the open window into the room. 
 
 Yes. There at the piano sat Rhoda, in a 
 scant gown that draped her body close, her hair, 
 in a long plait, hanging down her back, her 
 beautiful back, so straight and firm and finely 
 modelled ! He had never seen her with this 
 girlish-looking coiffure before, and it made a 
 strange appeal to him. The front of her sweet 
 rich hair was drawn simply back from her fore 
 head, outlining a face that, as he now scrutinized 
 it deliberately, seemed to him far the most lovely 
 he had ever seen, and as sad as the music that 
 she played. As he stood there, looking at her, 
 the admiration which the sight of her compelled 
 was mingled with a resentment and a sense of 
 injury which he did not understand.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 123 
 
 Rhoda, unconscious, played on. Her appear 
 ance, so unlike the formally dressed woman of 
 the world whom he was accustomed to see ; her 
 music, a^ gift so unsuspected in her ; her expres 
 sion, so unguardedly sad and pathetic, all seemed 
 to put him at a great and impassable distance 
 from her, while they all seemed to woo and 
 draw him, as no influence had ever had power to 
 do before. Her pure profile was toward him, 
 its chin lifted and eyes upturned to a point on 
 the wall before her, where a picture hung. He 
 could but dimly make the picture out, but he 
 saw that it was the figure of a woman stretched 
 upon a cross, while a man was stooping or kneel 
 ing below. 
 
 All the time that he looked the music con 
 tinued. She was playing the second Nocturne 
 of Chopin, a thing that he loved, but he had 
 never heard it played like this before. As it 
 went on to its exquisite ending, he seemed to 
 be listening with more than his mere outward 
 ears, and to hear more than merely these had 
 ever heard before. 
 
 As the last repeated chords came gently forth 
 from, under those light caressing fingers, he could 
 see a little quiver at the corners of the sweet 
 mouth. She crossed her arms upon the music-
 
 124 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 rack in front of her, and bent her head upon 
 them. He knew that she was crying. 
 
 A sudden strong impulse seized him. He had 
 almost moved forward, when a sound arrested 
 him, a harsh discordance which interrupted 
 hideously the silence which had followed that 
 melody. It made him wince and shrink, as 
 with physical pain. 
 
 This sound, as he now perceived, came from 
 the low wheel-bed on the other side of Rhoda. 
 On this bed he could see the outline of a shape 
 less bulk, which filled him with an indescribable 
 repulsion. He stood profoundly still, looking at 
 and listening to what sight and hearing loathed. 
 
 Rhoda, startled into consciousness also, put 
 out one hand, and, grasping the iron handle of 
 the bed, pushed it to and fro, while her voice, 
 still thick with tears, began to croon a gentle 
 song. With her other hand she tried to dash 
 away the tears, as they welled up from her heart. 
 
 It was too much for Fraser. To see her there, 
 weeping and wretched in that companionship, 
 was more than he could bear. A furious anger 
 and resentment got possession of him. He 
 turned suddenly, and fled back along the way 
 he had come. The emotions that rose in his 
 breast bewildered him almost to frenzy.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 125 
 
 He did not stop until he had gained his own 
 apartments, where he locked the door and re 
 mained long alone in the darkness. 
 
 At ten o clock of that same evening he came 
 out of iiis room, ready for a ball to which he 
 and Rhoda had accepted invitations. 
 
 When he reached the lower floor she was 
 already waiting for him, magnificently dressed 
 and wearing superb jewels. Her hair was ar 
 ranged in a wreath of close plaits round and 
 round her head, and her toilet, to the last detail, 
 was finished and perfect. Her maid stood by, 
 holding her wrap and fan. 
 
 Rhoda looked up as he came down the steps, 
 and gave him a small cool smile. This, as he 
 knew, was to answer for a greeting, for the 
 benefit of the servants who stood by. The dis 
 tant civility of it gave him a sense of anger. 
 
 As they drove through the streets together, 
 both were silent. Fraser was still possessed by 
 that blind resentment of he knew not what. 
 And yet what reason had he to complain ? The 
 woman who had agreed to take upon her the 
 position of his wife in the eyes of the world had 
 faithfully performed every obligation of her po 
 sition. Nothing had transpired which gave 
 him the least ground for resentment. Why then
 
 126 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 was he angry ? If she had caused him annoy 
 ance by the revelation of a deep unhappiness 
 which he had not suspected, the fault was his 
 for listening and prying. If she vexed him 
 by her coldness and reserve, was not this the 
 very attitude that he had tacitly prescribed ? 
 He knew that his anger was unreasonable, his 
 irritation senseless, but he felt it all the same, 
 and he felt it the more because he believed her 
 to be quite indifferent to it. 
 
 Very often in these last two years Fraser had 
 congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his 
 marriage. Not only was his scientific career 
 greatly advanced by it, but so also was his social 
 career. Rhoda was the most beautiful woman 
 of his acquaintance. Her manner and breeding 
 were highly distinguished, and he was very 
 proud of her. 
 
 Why then was he not also satisfied with her ? 
 Until lately, he had been so, and she had done 
 nothing recently at variance with her usual be 
 havior. The difference, then, must be in him 
 self. But what was its root ? 
 
 He asked himself the question, but he wilfully 
 ignored the response. The spontaneous current 
 of its suggestion was stemmed by a recollection 
 which on every recurrence roused in him anew
 
 DEAD SELVES. 127 
 
 that frenzy of resentment. He heard again in 
 imagination that petulant unnatural little cry, 
 striking its discord on the music s sweet remi 
 niscences ; he saw that repulsive shape close to 
 Rhoda s^ide, and knew that she had part and 
 lot in it. 
 
 This thought was so intolerable that the ner 
 vous tension of it shook him as with a chill, 
 at which Rhoda asked, politely, if he felt cold, 
 and said she was afraid he had worn too light 
 an overcoat. 
 
 The trivialness of this suggestion goaded him 
 still more ; but what could he do ? He was a 
 wise and able man, used to coping with diffi 
 culties and overcoming them ; but here at last 
 was one before which he stood utterly and bit 
 terly hopeless.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE growth of a certain amount of sym 
 pathy and communion between these two 
 beings had been slow and gradual, but its in 
 terruption was sudden and swift. They met, 
 talked, dined, drove, and went into society to 
 gether as before, but they felt the division which 
 had come between them to be definite, sharp, 
 and positive. The camaraderie which had once 
 existed on the score of Eraser s work was utterly 
 gone now, and neither made the smallest effort 
 to revive it. It was therefore rather a relief to 
 Rhoda when Eraser announced that he was 
 obliged to take a journey which would keep him 
 away from home for several weeks. 
 
 At one time it would have seemed natural that 
 Rhoda should go with him, but now the journey 
 was spoken of by both of them without refer 
 ence to any such possibility. Rhoda, however, 
 put in quite an eager request that she might 
 have his mother to spend the period of his ab 
 sence with her. The evident interest which 
 she took in this prospect irritated Eraser unac- 
 128
 
 DEAD SELVES. 129 
 
 countably, but of course he consented to her 
 wish. 
 
 So, after a cold and casual leave-taking, he 
 went, and his mother came. 
 
 With*the arrival of Mrs. Fraser began a new 
 and wonderful experience in Rhoda s life. Con 
 stantly to be surrounded by the tenderest care 
 and kindness, to be believed in and encouraged 
 in every faint good impulse that came into ex 
 istence in her heart, to be respected by the being 
 whom she reverenced most, was balm to the 
 poor spirit so long a stranger to love. There 
 was infinite comfort also in the assurance which 
 Rhoda tacitly received that the older woman 
 was possessed of some intuition which would 
 protect her in every delicate reserve and sensi 
 bility of her heart. She had no fear of having 
 her sacred secret consciousnesses spied upon by 
 this comprehending friend. For the first time 
 in her life, Rhoda was experiencing the luxury 
 of sympathy, and sympathy from a woman was 
 peculiarly sweet to her. If this sympathy was 
 tacit and unspoken in one way, there was an 
 other in which it could be and was fully ex 
 pressed, and that was with regard to the child. 
 She insisted upon Rhoda s taking her to that 
 sad room, and the experience, painful as it was 
 9
 
 1 30 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 in one way, was infinitely soothing too. It was 
 a joy undreamed of to have that horror shared, 
 with such courage and gentleness, by this strong, 
 sweet woman-friend. 
 
 " Have you ever thought of this, my child," 
 said Mrs. Fraser, after they had returned from 
 that first sad visit, " that that little creature has 
 never known and can never know either sorrow 
 or sin?" 
 
 "Ah, yes, dear mother, it is true," said 
 Rhoda. " You have given me a little comfort 
 by that thought." 
 
 "And yet, to us who are formed with great 
 capabilities of both suffering and sinning, these 
 may be such noble instruments of good that I 
 could never count any happy who lack them. 
 
 " Sorrow, yes," said Rhoda, " I begin to see 
 that now; but sin, wrong-doing, our own evil 
 acts, can you see any good, any compensation, 
 any hope, in these? Oh, mother dear, if you 
 could show me that ! I cannot see it. We do 
 wrong, and there come eternal consequences, 
 and consequences that affect others as well as 
 ourselves. We break our hearts with longing 
 to undo, but it is not to be. We can only 
 regret and suffer." 
 
 " We can do more than that. We can do
 
 DEAD SELVES. 131 
 
 our utmost to atone, and we can grow stronger 
 and tenderer to others ; and that, after all, is 
 what the world most needs." 
 
 Rhoda looked at her with a wistful earnestness 
 in which, there was much humility. 
 
 "Oh, mother, you will help me to learn that, " 
 she said. " I have done no good in my whole 
 life, no good, only evil. I should like to be 
 different. I should like to help and comfort 
 others, others who perhaps are more sad than 
 I. Perhaps I can do this, if you will show me 
 how. It would be sweet to me, mother, almost 
 too sweet." 
 
 Her lip trembled, as with the timid sadness 
 of a child, whose mind cannot formulate what 
 its heart feels. 
 
 " I will give you all the help I can, my child, 
 but it will be chiefly love. You will not need 
 other help. The light will come to you from 
 within, and you will know what to do and have 
 power to do it. Believe this, my daughter. 
 Take it as the word of a woman who has proved 
 God." 
 
 "Mother darling," said Rhoda, with a sort 
 of timid hesitation, as if the endearment were a 
 thing which she felt herself almost too bold in 
 using, " I want to be very truthful with you. I
 
 1 32 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 want you to love me knowing all my faults : so 
 I must tell you that I am not as religious, I fear, 
 as you would like me to be, as you no doubt 
 think that I am. I should like to tell you exactly 
 how I feel. I feel that I would love God if I 
 knew Him; but I don t feel that I know Him, 
 and I have a feeling, too, that I had perhaps 
 better not try to get near Him. He is so high, 
 so pure, so far above. I shrink from the thought 
 of the white light of His goodness. He in 
 tended women to be so exalted, so holy and 
 undefiled " 
 
 At the utterance of these last words a spasm 
 contracted Rhoda s face, and her whole body 
 shrank and trembled, until she dropped upon 
 her knees and buried her face in the older 
 woman s lap. Mrs. Fraser, as she laid her 
 loving hands upon that beautiful bowed head, 
 felt such a deepening of the mother-yearning 
 in her heart that her voice was tremulous with 
 it as she said : 
 
 " God s ideal of women must surely be ever 
 the holy and undefiled, but I think He meant 
 them to become so by knowledge of both good 
 and evil, and choice between them. Else why 
 did He not at once make them angels ? Inno 
 cence seems to us a beautiful thing, and so it is,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 133 
 
 in an angel or a child, but knowledge and vic 
 tory are better. You have had that knowledge, 
 my daughter, and it may have shown you very 
 terrible things, but so will the victory be the 
 more glorious. To me it would seem a lower 
 ing process for the human race to be turned into 
 angels ; I once heard a strong man utter this 
 conviction, that, when man fell, he fell up. " 
 
 Rhoda had hushed her sobs to listen. She 
 had raised her head, and, with flushed cheeks 
 and dishevelled hair, was straining her fever 
 ishly brilliant eyes to read in the calm old face 
 above her the meaning of those wonderful, com 
 fort-giving words. 
 
 "Oh, mother, mother, mother!" she said. 
 " You seem to me the very voice and messenger 
 of God, when you give me such hopes as that. 
 You think, then, you do think, that if I do my 
 best, if I try with all the power of my soul to 
 atone, to do right, no matter how hard it may 
 be, God will accept my atonement and make 
 my wicked heart feel clean and good at last?" 
 
 "My child, I do not think so. There are 
 some things which we cannot be certain about, 
 but this is not one of them. You have not told 
 me what this need of atonement within you is, 
 and I do not ask ; but, whatever it may be, the
 
 i 3 4 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 work is already begun. The wish to atone is 
 atonement in itself. The moment that a soul 
 wishes for God, it has Him. Do you not feel 
 Him in your heart?" 
 
 Rhoda was holding both of the aged hands 
 in a strong, compelling pressure, as if she would 
 force help from them. 
 
 "Mother," she said, "what it is that I feel, 
 I do not know. Perhaps you can help me to 
 understand. I feel lately in my heart something 
 that was not there before. I do not know 
 whether I love God or not. But, oh, I do 
 know that, above all things, I love goodness, 
 and that I would pay any price to have it !" 
 
 " How can goodness be anything but God, 
 or God anything but goodness ? Yes, my child, 
 there are ways that I can help you, just by show 
 ing you those very simple things. You are God s 
 child. You are fighting hard against evil and 
 in the cause of good. In that struggle your 
 heavenly Father will be with you." 
 
 " I never had a father on earth," said Rhoda, 
 "nor a mother, until you. They died almost 
 before I could remember, and there was no one 
 to take their place. Perhaps God will remem 
 ber that and not blame me too much. I am 
 willing to be punished, I need and I accept
 
 DEAD SELVES. 135 
 
 that, for it was a terrible, a hideous thing that 
 I did." 
 
 She wrenched her hands from her companion s 
 clasp and covered her face with them. Around 
 their white edges the flush from her cheeks 
 glowed with a color almost violent. 
 
 " Rhoda, can you not tell me? I would not 
 force a word, my child ; but I might be able to 
 give you some relief from this pain that you are 
 bearing. 
 
 At these words Rhoda lowered her hands, and 
 her face went suddenly white. 
 
 "Tell me," she said, a tense, repressed, al 
 most stolid look coming into her face, " tell me 
 how much you know. 
 
 " How much I know of what?" 
 
 " Of my marriage," was the stern reply. 
 
 " Do you mean the first, my child, or " 
 
 "I mean," said Rhoda, with ruthless inter 
 ruption, " I mean my marriage with that poor 
 creature who was, for two years, my husband, 
 and the father of that deformed and horror- 
 smitten being of whom I am the mother. 
 
 "I know nothing, my poor dear one, noth 
 ing but the fact." 
 
 " It seems to you utterly strange and unreal, 
 I suppose. Whatever version of it you may
 
 136 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 have heard, it seems now something far off and 
 far back. Will you believe me, then, when I 
 say that to me it seems to get nearer and nearer, 
 more and more real, actual, significant, present ? 
 You cannot realize this, but it is so. At the 
 time, it was vague, misty, uncomprehended, and 
 the whole experience was like a dull dream to me. 
 Now every act and sensation of it is acute and 
 keen, until my spirit seems a string strung up to 
 the highest pitch of endurance and strained con 
 tinually to those vibrations of torture." 
 
 She had drawn herself into a sitting posture 
 on the floor, and clasped her hands about her 
 knees. Her face was colorless, her lips tense, 
 as she sat looking away from her companion ; 
 and she went on, in a monotonous voice that 
 had a certain hardness in it, which her com 
 panion had never heard there before. 
 
 "I was young," she said, "only seventeen. 
 I had had a lonely childhood, with nothing to 
 develop either my affections or my mind. I was 
 not naturally loving, I think, and not clever. I 
 must have seemed just a dull and ignorant girl, 
 with what people said was beauty. I did not 
 know even this, until they told me, and then I 
 began to care to dress and look well and to have 
 people look at me. I was poor, and I knew I
 
 DEAD SELVES. 137 
 
 was a burden to the relations who let me live 
 with them. I wished that I could rid them of 
 that care and get into a pleasanter life, but I did 
 not know any way. I think I had neither the 
 courage nor the imagination to make a way ; but 
 when one opened before me I took it gladly. It 
 offered riches, ease, travel, dress, amusement, 
 and opportunity of every kind. I never thought 
 of love ; indeed, I knew nothing about it. You 
 do not know, you, perhaps, have not heard 
 
 " She broke off, her voice trembling. In 
 
 a moment, however, she recovered herself, and 
 went on in a slightly hardened tone. " I will 
 tell you all. I want you to know. The man 
 who offered me all this, through whom came 
 my release from a dull life of which I was 
 weary, was almost an imbecile. Did you know 
 this?" 
 
 " I have heard something I knew there was 
 something like that, my poor dear child." 
 
 Rhoda looked at her as if puzzled. 
 
 Why do you pity me?" she said, still in 
 that hard, cold tone. "I did it myself. No 
 one forced me. I got all that I bargained for. 
 I was not even unhappy." 
 
 "If you were not unhappy, you were dead, 
 and that is worse."
 
 i 3 8 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 "Yes, I was dead," she said. "How won 
 derfully you understand ! But it was not death 
 after life : it was just death going on, for I had 
 never lived. I do not remember that any one 
 ever said that I was dull and stupid, but I must 
 have been, with no sensibilities, no hopes, no 
 fears, no ideals. If I had had one ideal in my 
 life it might have saved me, but I had not one. 
 Worst of all, I had no ideal of myself, nothing 
 to be desecrated or lowered. I do not under 
 stand this ; I only know it. Where others get 
 their ideals from, I do not know. I simply 
 know that I had none." 
 
 She paused an instant, and then, as if in a 
 hurry to be done, went on : 
 
 " I married that man, that poor, weak, irre 
 sponsible, harmless being, and I got money, and 
 what might have been power, only I was too 
 ignorant to use it. Of course I was despised 
 for such a marriage. Of course the world was 
 revolted ; but I never knew it. How much 
 more revolted would it have been, had it known 
 that I was contented with my bargain ! You 
 have been imagining, perhaps, the wretchedness 
 of my awakening ; but I never waked. It was 
 a dull, comfortable magnificence, for which, of 
 course, I paid a price. I was not, however,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 139 
 
 ashamed or mortified about it. Shame, like my 
 other sensibilities, was dead, in the sense of 
 never having lived. I did not know that the 
 world despised me, and I had no light by which 
 I could despise myself. When that child was 
 born 1 she caught her breath, with a sort of 
 gasp, but hurried on and when I looked at 
 it, I suffered then ; but only until I could get it 
 out of my sight. I don t think I minded very 
 much after that. I was not happy, I had not 
 the consciousness that is needed to be happy, 
 but I was not wretched and miserable and peni 
 tent, as I should have been, as I suppose a 
 high type of woman would have been. Oh, 
 what am I doing?" She broke off suddenly, 
 turning to look her companion in the face. 
 "Am I killing your love for me, the one pre 
 cious thing that I have?" Her look was so 
 agitated, so frightened, so desperate, that the 
 kind old woman felt she could hardly bear it. 
 Leaning forward, she stretched out both arms 
 and drew the tragic young face toward her until 
 it was hidden against her heart. 
 
 " My own child," she said, tenderly, " I can 
 not bear to let you say another word. You have 
 told me enough: indeed, you have told me all, for 
 I understand what has not been spoken. I know
 
 1 40 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 how all that happened, darling. You have had 
 two selves, an old self and a new self. If you 
 had done that thing as the person that you are 
 now, you would be degraded by it, because you 
 would be sinning against light. You did it in 
 darkness and ignorance, and your suffering has 
 been great." 
 
 As she ended, Rhoda raised her head and 
 looked up. Her face was wonderfully beautiful, 
 profoundly sad, and yet penetrated by a ray of 
 exquisite hope. 
 
 "Oh, mother," she said, "what words of 
 comfort ! What hope, what joy they have shed 
 in my heart ! If only you will let me cling to 
 you, if only you will hold on close to me, I can 
 go on and walk the path that I now see stretched 
 before me. My suffering is hard, harder than 
 you dream, but I can bear it. One strange 
 part of it is that it seems to have only just be 
 gun. It is only lately that I have realized the 
 hideous wrong that I did in bringing that poor 
 creature into the world, and it stays with me all 
 the time now, an unending reproach and pain. 
 And yet even that is not the worst. I have a 
 pang to bear that is greater than that. Oh, how 
 good you are to let me open my heart to you 
 and to love me a little ! If you, a woman so
 
 DEAD SELVES. 141 
 
 high and noble, do not think me beyond the 
 reach of love, perhaps God will not either. Can 
 you imagine what it would be to have an ideal 
 of yourself given to you for the first time, and 
 to measure by that ideal the depth of your own 
 abasement? Lately, since this ideal has risen 
 in my soul, I have had a feeling that both God 
 and man must shrink at the very sight and 
 thought of me." 
 
 The old lady bent and kissed her tenderly on 
 brow and eyes and lips. Then, taking in hers 
 the beautiful young hand which wore the wed 
 ding-ring, she stroked it gently with her own 
 pale hand, on which the same symbol, thin with 
 wear, hung loosely. 
 
 " Rhoda, " she said, " I love you, not a little 
 as you say, but with a great, deep, tender love 
 that is just the same, I think, as if you were my 
 own dear daughter who had so made a mistake 
 and so realized and repented it. It was not sin. 
 You had not then the light which makes it sin. 
 If you were to do it now, a sin indeed it would 
 be ; but, ah, how impossible would it be to you 
 now !" 
 
 She looked at Rhoda with a fond confi 
 dence, but, instead of returning her smile, 
 Rhoda frowned and shuddered.
 
 142 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 "Now?" she said. "Now? Now? Oh, 
 how horrible !" 
 
 The agony of her face was piteous. Mrs. 
 Fraser felt that she must end this scene. 
 
 "Rhoda," she said, in her strong, decided 
 tones, " we understand each other now. Let us 
 stop this conversation here, and never return to 
 it again. The whole sad truth is before us. You 
 have done your best, and angels can do no 
 more." 
 
 " Oh, no, mother dearest, I have not done 
 my best. I am only beginning to learn what to 
 do. I am trying, and I will go on trying, and 
 you will help me. Besides your love and your 
 belief in me, you will help me about some 
 practical things. I found out, when I went 
 to that sad place to bring away my child, 
 that they very often have applications from 
 people who are too poor to pay their charges, 
 and I am trying to remedy this, in the best 
 way that is practical. I am going to give a 
 great deal of money for it, and you will help 
 me to do this wisely, so that it may really do 
 good." 
 
 "Yes, dear; but I am only an old woman, 
 and I think a man s advice and experience are 
 needed here. You had best consult Duncan "
 
 DEAD SELVES. 143 
 
 She stopped, checked by the look on Rhoda s 
 face. 
 
 "Mother," she said, controlling herself by 
 an effort, "you understand so well in other 
 things, try to understand also in this. I can 
 not ask help of your son there. I am willing 
 to suffer, God knows it, but that mortifica 
 tion is more than I can bear. You will see how 
 things are between us, mother, and you will let 
 them be. I think you will comprehend enough 
 not even to speak to him of my confidences to 
 you. You can be, you are, the angel of my life, 
 in every other way, but that one place you can 
 not touch, except to hurt. Dear mother, try to 
 take my word for this. You long only to do 
 good ; but there you would do a harm which 
 could never be repaired." 
 
 " Do not fear it, child. I feel that you are 
 right. I love my son, but I also love my 
 daughter, and this wish of yours is a sacred 
 obligation to me. Oh, Rhoda, my child, take 
 courage. In my long life, 1 have so often seen 
 such beautiful good come out of the darkest 
 evil. Remember continually that 
 
 1 Men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things. 1 "
 
 144 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 " Oh, what wonderful, glorious, beautiful 
 words ! said Rhoda. Thank you for giving 
 them to me, to think of and try to realize." 
 
 Mrs. Fraser looked at her in surprise. Was 
 it possible, she wondered, that the words were 
 new to Rhoda? It had that appearance, cer 
 tainly, but it seemed incredible. She was just 
 beginning to see into the strange ego of this 
 woman. Her appearance, that of a proud, re 
 served, highly developed woman of the world, 
 made her personality very impressive to all who 
 saw her. Though she talked little, it would 
 have been supposed that this came from her 
 mental superiority to those about her, rather 
 than from the opposite cause. People stood 
 somewhat in awe of her, as a rule, and were 
 afraid that their words might seem trivial to a 
 woman who looked so thoughtful, so grave, so 
 full of reserve force. And yet, had the veriest 
 school-girl among them sounded the depths of 
 Rhoda s knowledge of books and every kind 
 of intellectual learning, she would probably 
 have had her at a disadvantage. In the deeper 
 lore of knowledge of the human heart, how 
 ever, poor Rhoda was beginning to be well 
 versed.
 
 XIV 
 
 1 ^RASER, who had gone away to stay three 
 A weeks, returned in two. He had not 
 announced his coming, and so was not expected. 
 On reaching the house, he went at once to his 
 own apartment. 
 
 The room which had been given to his mother 
 was next his own, and, as it happened, the door 
 between them was ajar. It was but the smallest 
 crack, but through it the sound of voices reached 
 him, his mother s and Rhoda s. They were 
 pitched in a key of friendly argument, and 
 sounded cheerful, free, and familiar. He knew 
 that tone well in the older voice, but he found 
 it distinctly strange in the other. He stepped 
 to the door and stood there, looking into the 
 room beyond. His movements on the thick 
 carpet had not been heard. 
 
 The two women had been occupied, and had 
 interrupted themselves for this spontaneous talk. 
 Mrs. Fraser had an open book in her lap, and 
 Rhoda had just laid down some sewing, and 
 still wore a thimble. He had never seen her 
 10 145
 
 146 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 sew before, and in truth she was only now 
 meekly learning the art from her companion, 
 who was exquisitely proficient in it. The old 
 lady, in her black dress and transparent cap and 
 kerchief, was looking eager and interested, and 
 the beautiful young being, who sat facing her, 
 was not less so. Eraser almost started as he 
 looked at her. Never for a single instant had 
 he seen her look like this. The reserve, which 
 was a habit of self-consciousness, was gone, and 
 Rhoda, her free, natural, sympathetic self, was 
 there. She wore her hair in the long plait which 
 was generally her coiffure for comfort, and Eraser 
 felt a new sense of reality about her. 
 
 "So you think Rochester was not good 
 enough for Jane?" said the old lady. "I 
 don t like that idea. I think Jane knew what 
 she was about when she called him my likeness 
 and my equal. I always loved that so." 
 
 The zest with which the old lady rapped out 
 the quotation from her favorite book was as 
 ardent as any girl s. 
 
 "No, Jane was the better and finer of the 
 two," said Rhoda, " and that I can t forgive. 
 The man should be the superior." 
 
 "But I deny that Rochester was the inferior. 
 I can t have a word said against him."
 
 DEAD SELVES. 147 
 
 "I m not saying anything against him, 
 mother dear, only that he is not the type of man 
 that I admire." 
 
 "Oh, as to types, that s neither here nor 
 there. He was himself, and I would not have 
 him changed in any particular. He and Jane 
 have been my most intimate friends and com 
 panions for years, and I can t see a flaw in 
 either. Do you know, my dear, that I number 
 among my most fervent thanksgivings the fact 
 that I lived in the world after Charlotte Bronte 
 instead of before her ? 
 
 " I can understand. I feel just the same 
 about George Eliot. And just think how long 
 it was before I knew what a heritage I possessed 
 in books ! I feel that I want to read every 
 minute, to make up for my lost time, and one 
 reading is so far too little for the things I love. 
 How many times do you suppose I shall read 
 In Memoriam over ? And but for your quot 
 ing to me that line about our rising on stepping- 
 stones of our dead selves, I might never have 
 opened the book. Mother darling," she 
 added, impulsively, with a sudden change and 
 softening of tone, " I have taxed your precious 
 patience very often with sad and gloomy talk, 
 but I think I am going to get out of that. I
 
 148 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 think I am going to learn to follow the example 
 of your cheerfulness, and try to brighten the 
 world a little, if I can. Now, when I speak of 
 my dead self a little comfort seems to come 
 into my heart that that old self is dead, and that 
 by putting my feet upon it I may rise to higher 
 things. Oh, mother, I have so eaten my heart 
 out with regret ; but I shall learn not to regret 
 anything, if I am getting to be a better woman. 
 It is you, you, mother, who are teaching me 
 this lesson. Oh, how I love you, how I bless 
 you, how I thank you ! 
 
 Never had Eraser seen the face of the woman 
 whom he had married glorified by such a look 
 as this. He felt no pleasure in her heightened 
 beauty, however ; the only feeling that he was 
 conscious of was one of deep-rooted, intense 
 resentment. 
 
 Every moment this increased, as he now saw 
 the two women who were nearest to him in the 
 world engaged in this intimate, familiar, con 
 fidential talk and felt himself completely an 
 outsider. They were evidently thinking of him 
 as little as they were speaking of him ! 
 
 At Rhoda s last words she had stretched out 
 her strong hand and clasped the little thin one 
 of her companion. At that touch the need of
 
 DEAD SELVES. 149 
 
 a yet closer one came to them ; they leaned to 
 ward each other and kissed. 
 
 "My mother, my own little, precious 
 mother," Rhoda said, putting her two firm hands 
 against those thin and withered cheeks and 
 looking deep into the older woman s eyes. " I 
 have been very unhappy, mother dear, in my 
 short life, but I would be willing to bear a great 
 deal of unhappiness for the joy of having won 
 your love ; and it was my unhappiness that 
 brought you to me, that made me turn to 
 you." 
 
 These words so gently spoken, and this sight 
 so simply affectionate, stirred in the man who 
 heard and watched them a yet deeper sense 
 of injury and irritation. To hear Rhoda say 
 " Mother" was in itself a shock to him. How 
 could his mother be her mother, except through 
 him? and yet how utterly was he forgotten 
 and ignored ! There was a degree of intimacy 
 and familiarity between these two which made 
 a sharp contrast to the intercourse of Rhoda 
 and himself. He resented this fact, and his 
 resentment included both women. 
 
 Fraser turned from the door with a feeling 
 of aversion to the sight. Why had he hurried 
 back ? Avowedly to himself, it had been to see
 
 150 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 his mother, but now it was so evident that he 
 was not missed that he called himself a fool for 
 his pains. 
 
 Still treading cautiously, he went down-stairs 
 and out into the street, without having spoken 
 to either his mother or Rhoda. 
 
 He returned shortly before dinner, and went 
 immediately to his room to dress. He had sent 
 word to Rhoda that he had arrived, and as she 
 wished to avoid a meeting with him in his 
 mother s presence, she tapped at the door of his 
 dressing-room on her way down. 
 
 Receiving permission to enter, she opened 
 the door and passed just across the threshold. 
 
 The image of her which he had so lately seen 
 was distinct upon his mind, and the contrast 
 which she now presented to it gave him a sense 
 of inherent change. 
 
 She was carefully dressed for dinner, and her 
 rich hair was twisted into its noble coronal. 
 Her manner was absolutely cool, but he thought 
 he observed in it a little more cheerfulness than 
 usual, and he construed it to be an attempt on 
 her part to impose upon his mother, and per 
 haps to make it appear that they were in some 
 measure on such terms as she would wish. 
 Formerly he would have felt inclined to second
 
 DEAD SELVES. 151 
 
 her in this, but now he had an impulse to 
 thwart her. 
 
 "How nice of you to get back so soon!" 
 said Rhoda. " I am sure your mother will 
 appreciate the effort you have made to enjoy at 
 least a* part of her visit. I have done my best 
 to make her happy here, but of course I am not 
 you." 
 
 These words and the little smile which ac 
 companied them were rather more familiar 
 than her usual attitude toward him ; and even 
 this fed that resentment which flamed within 
 him. 
 
 "I did not return on that account," said 
 Fraser. " It was business that brought me." 
 
 " Still, she doesn t know that, and there s no 
 reason why she should. So, suppose we keep it 
 a secret between us." 
 
 Here again was implied a degree of confi 
 dence and community which provoked him. 
 He knew perfectly well that Rhoda was ini 
 tiating a certain change in their manner to 
 ward each other, for the sake of misleading his 
 mother, and the knowledge seemed to rasp his 
 nerves. 
 
 He made no answer to her last words, and, 
 seeing that he was fully dressed, Rhoda said :
 
 152 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 " Shall we go down now?" 
 
 This was worse still. He could scarcely keep 
 the irritation out of his voice, as he said : 
 
 "I am not quite ready. I will not trouble 
 you to wait for me." 
 
 " It isn t any trouble," said Rhoda. " I will 
 just walk on and wait for you at the head of the 
 stairs." 
 
 It was impossible to decline this ; and so, a 
 moment later, Fraser found himself walking at 
 her side down the stairway, and it angered him 
 all the more to feel that he was so profoundly 
 disturbed inwardly that he dreaded giving out 
 ward proof of it. Rhoda, on the other hand, 
 was perfectly mistress of herself, and kept up a 
 light and easy strain of talk, until they entered 
 the drawing-room where Mrs. Fraser was. 
 
 Her delightful old face glowed with pleasure 
 as she welcomed her son and returned his kiss. 
 Even his inward disturbance and preoccupation 
 could not prevent his giving her a greeting of 
 real affection. So they went in to dinner, to 
 every appearance a happy family party. There 
 was, however, a certain sense of strain, which 
 Fraser undoubtedly felt most of the three. 
 
 In Rhoda the effect of this feeling was 
 to cause an unusual exhilaration, and Mrs.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 153 
 
 Eraser s presence gave her such a sense of sup 
 port and sympathy that she talked far more than 
 usual, and talked well. The naturalness with 
 which she had learned to say " Mother" was a 
 surprise^to Eraser, and the evident congeniality 
 between the two women seemed to bring out 
 what was best in the minds of both. The con 
 versation certainly did not drag, but Eraser was 
 somehow very much out of it. He felt the ex 
 istence of a sympathy between his mother and 
 Rhoda which certainly did not exist between 
 himself and either of them. The talk was all 
 between the two women, and their efforts to 
 draw him into it were so sparely successful that 
 they soon abandoned them. He became aware, 
 however, that they were doing without him ex 
 tremely well, and, in spite of himself, he was 
 forced to acknowledge that the talk was inter 
 esting. He had forgotten how good a talker 
 his mother was, and he was now proving, for 
 the first time, how good a one Rhoda was. 
 There was force and originality in the old lady s 
 ideas, and there was the wonderful charm of 
 independent thinking. 
 
 If his mother s talk and points of view were 
 interesting to him, Rhoda s were far more so. 
 He had but a slight acquaintance with the
 
 154 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 mind of the woman he had married, and now, 
 in its fresh awakening to the deeper meaning of 
 life, there was an earnestness, a vigor, a naivete, 
 which had an extraordinary charm. He saw 
 how completely his mother was under the 
 spell of this charm, but this only added to the 
 smouldering store of resentment which was 
 growing hourly within him. 
 
 When the meal ended, he was glad to plead 
 a business engagement and to go out. He 
 stayed an hour or two, and, on his return, found 
 them still together in the drawing-room, talking 
 as interestedly as ever.
 
 XV 
 
 
 
 IT was perhaps a relief to all when Mrs. 
 Fraser went home. She felt it borne in 
 upon her that she was doing no good here, and, 
 dear to her as was her intimacy with Rhoda, 
 she had a feeling that she was dividing, rather 
 than uniting, her son and daughter. It even 
 seemed to her that Duncan was constrained in 
 his intercourse with herself, and a little less 
 affectionate than formerly. 
 
 Rhoda, though she keenly missed the rare 
 companionship she had recently enjoyed, had 
 felt herself under a sense of greater strain in 
 her intercourse with Fraser, and could not 
 help being conscious of the reproof to him im 
 plied by the old lady s loving attitude toward 
 herself. 
 
 And Fraser was perhaps the most relieved of 
 the three. He felt that his mother had been 
 playing a part in pretending to see nothing 
 strange in the intercourse of Rhoda and him 
 self; he felt that Rhoda had been playing a 
 part to support this idea, and he knew well that 
 
 155
 
 156 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 he had played a part himself, though he would 
 not own to his own heart what that deception 
 had been. 
 
 When the mother had gone, an attitude more 
 distant and reserved than any they had ever 
 known before was, as if by common consent, 
 established between Rhoda and Fraser. They 
 appeared in public together, as usual, but, except 
 when appearances required it, they rarely spoke. 
 He seemed busier than ever at Brockett, but he 
 never voluntarily spoke to her of his work, and 
 she never asked a question. 
 
 There was a change in Rhoda. Fraser both 
 saw and felt it. The visible evidence consisted 
 of a distinct difference in her attitude toward 
 the world, which had a reciprocal effect. He 
 noticed that she talked more than formerly, and 
 that, without effort, she attracted to herself the 
 men and women of force in whatever company 
 she chanced to be. He was accustomed to see 
 ing her admired, as a sort of distant divinity, 
 whom no one knew much about, but now there 
 appeared a warm human interest in the faces of 
 those who talked to her, and Fraser, furtively 
 watching her from a distance, would ask him 
 self sometimes why it was that the woman who 
 had consented to occupy the position of his wife
 
 DEAD SELVES. 157 
 
 reserved for strangers what would so naturally 
 have been his own. 
 
 Sometimes he was near enough to hear bits of 
 her talk, and he could not wonder that her 
 hearers looked interested. Many subjects which 
 were old* and threadbare to others were new and 
 vital to her, and she brought to them a fresh 
 ness and spontaneousness which lent a unique 
 charm. This added to her social position, her 
 fortune, her unusual and impressive beauty, 
 made a combination which was not to be ap 
 proached by any other woman in society. 
 
 For so long Rhoda had been considered cold 
 and unapproachable that her reaction into this 
 fervid animated being was all the more re 
 markable. Her passionate gratitude to Mrs. 
 Eraser for the sympathy which she had shown 
 her, in her time of need, made her eager to pay 
 the debt by giving the same help to others. In 
 stead of the cold and distant looks with which 
 she had been accustomed to meet strangers, 
 there now shone in her eyes, at every new intro 
 duction, a searching light of desire to give and 
 to take, in every way that such exchange seemed 
 possible. This drew both men and women to 
 her like a magnet. 
 
 She never went into the world now without
 
 158 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 being surrounded by people eager to speak with 
 her and to draw upon themselves her looks and 
 tones of gracious sympathy. Fraser himself was 
 gaining reputation every day in his scientific 
 achievements, but his distinction in the world, 
 as a man of force and personal importance, was 
 hardly greater than Rhoda s was now becoming, 
 in a woman s narrower sphere. People spoke 
 of their marriage with enthusiasm as the mating 
 of two great beings. 
 
 Now that Rhoda had made herself so ap 
 proachable and sympathetic, people of every 
 culte and tendency came to her with their special 
 interests, which she quickly made her own. 
 Philanthropists found her eager to bestow not 
 only her money but her time and interest and 
 to cooperate in their schemes. Artists and 
 musicians received at her hands in some in 
 stances money, in others influence and encour 
 agement, according to their need. All this was 
 seen and inwardly commented on by Fraser 
 with mingled feelings of wonder, annoyance, 
 and bitterness. But what was even worse was 
 to hear Rhoda talking intelligently to other 
 men about the scientific questions into which 
 she had first gained an insight through him ! 
 He and she never spoke together of those sub-
 
 DEAD SELVES. 159 
 
 jects now, and he was forced to acknowledge 
 that the fault was his. Still, he resented it, and 
 laid it up against Rhoda, in his mind. 
 
 The lives of these two people were now en 
 tirely apart. It was only on the bare surface 
 and in the eyes of the world that there was any 
 intercourse at all between them. Rhoda left 
 him completely alone, and made no effort to 
 get the least insight into his pursuits or occupa 
 tions. Fraser, on the other hand, exercised 
 now a careful watchfulness over all that she 
 did. He knew her goings out and comings in 
 as she did not dream of knowing his. He 
 knew that she spent a part of every day with 
 the child up-stairs, and that no engagements or 
 pressure of work prevented this. He had formed 
 the habit of coming home from Brockett earlier 
 than formerly, and to account for this he dab 
 bled at some writing, which he said he could 
 more conveniently accomplish at home. 
 
 But often, very often, he would leave his 
 papers on the desk in his dressing-room and 
 creep stealthily along the narrow back passage 
 which led to the old workshop, and there he 
 would shut himself in and wait for the sound of 
 Rhoda s step and the beautiful music which 
 came soon after it.
 
 160 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 With his body flung into an old easy chair, 
 he would remain motionless for an hour at a 
 time, listening thirstily. He passionately loved 
 music, and Rhoda s playing fed that passion in 
 a way that he had not known before. He had 
 never asked her to play for him, however ; he 
 recoiled from the very thought. 
 
 Rhoda was not a great musician, but her play 
 ing was unusual, and the social vogue which was 
 now hers won admiration for all that she did. 
 So when she played in company, as she occa 
 sionally did, her music roused positive enthu 
 siasm. Ardent as were the compliments which 
 she received, not one of them had ever come 
 from Fraser. If she observed this, however, 
 she gave no sign. 
 
 It had become a common thing for Fraser, on 
 his return in the afternoon, to hear interested 
 voices in the drawing-room, among which Rhoda s 
 was distinguishable, and to catch glimpses of 
 charming groups of people, for whom Rhoda 
 was pouring tea. There was still another scene 
 which he had looked in upon now and then, 
 Rhoda, with earnest face and eager voice, seated 
 absorbed in talk with a man who responded with 
 fervor to every word and look. It was no 
 especial man, for he had seen two or three dif-
 
 DEAD SELVES. 161 
 
 ferent ones whom he knew to be eminent in 
 philanthropy, art, politics, or science. She 
 never talked or looked in this eager way with 
 him. He owned that the fault was his, that he 
 
 had neither desired nor invited such intercourse 
 
 
 
 with her ; but he felt angry and offended. 
 
 About this time there was a convention of 
 scientific men in New York, before which Fraser 
 was to make an address. He had been invited 
 to give some account of his great schemes and 
 proposed inventions before them, and, as tickets 
 had been issued for the public, he had men 
 tioned to Rhoda casually that she " had better 
 
 go." 
 
 This form of words she took to mean that he 
 wished her, for the sake of appearances, to be 
 present on an occasion with which he was pub 
 licly identified. Her interest in his work had 
 not abated in the least, though she no longer 
 talked to him of it. So, when the evening 
 came, she dressed for the occasion with feelings 
 of animated interest and even curiosity. She 
 had known nothing of the progress of the work 
 of late, and was too proud to ask questions. 
 
 Fraser drove along with her, almost in silence. 
 The few remarks which they exchanged on the 
 way were merely casual, and referred neither
 
 162 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 to themselves nor to the occasion ahead of 
 them. 
 
 The convention was held in one of the large 
 theatres. He had secured for her a small loge, 
 to which he took her direct. 
 
 " Of course your friends will join you here," 
 he said. I will return for you as soon as I 
 can." 
 
 But Rhoda felt in no mood to be sought out 
 and claimed by friends. As the door closed 
 behind Fraser, she drew a chair toward the 
 back of the small box and seated herself quite 
 out of sight of the audience, a look of deep 
 sadness on her face. She knew that the man 
 who occupied toward her the position of hus 
 band was the greatest man she had ever known. 
 She took an intense and conscious pride in him. 
 She felt acutely nervous for fear he might not 
 do himself justice, might not reveal to the 
 world the inherent personal power that he had, 
 without effort, with indifference and coldness 
 even, revealed to her. 
 
 When she saw him at last, standing there, 
 grave and composed, before that great audience, 
 her heart shook, but it was with exultation, and 
 not fear. There were present wise and learned 
 men from all quarters of the world, and the fact
 
 DEAD SELVES. 163 
 
 that Fraser was to speak had collected many 
 people from his own society, who had come to 
 see their representative in this learned assem 
 blage recognized and crowned. Rhoda was 
 consciou^ of the smaller personal element, as 
 well as the greater impersonal one, in this large 
 crowd. But after one glance at Fraser she felt 
 the man s inherent force so dominant and sure 
 that there was no room in her heart for any 
 thing but pride and triumph. 
 
 He began to speak. How familiar was the 
 sound of that strong, incisive, penetrating voice ! 
 She saw that he was completely master of him 
 self and of his subject, and her anxiety for him 
 vanished. As he went on, unfolding before the 
 wondering attention of an audience startled al 
 most into bewilderment at his boldness, even in 
 this day of marvels, the daring aims of his vast 
 undertakings, and speaking with assurance of 
 their magnificent ends, Rhoda thrilled through 
 every nerve with pride in him. She knew that, 
 to many, his attempts must seem extravagantly 
 improbable, but he spoke with a calmness, a 
 security, a conviction, which carried a tre 
 mendous force, and he had had such suc 
 cesses in the past as argued strongly for the 
 future.
 
 164 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 She scanned the faces of the cold men of 
 science seated with him on the stage, and saw 
 that respect was mingled with interest. Once 
 she drew aside a corner of her curtain and 
 looked out at the audience. There the same 
 verdict was written even more distinctly, 
 high tribute to this man. 
 
 As for Rhoda, her soul saluted him. He was 
 not hers, he never had been, and he never could 
 be, but she felt an humble sense of pleasure and 
 pride that she was permitted to bear his great 
 name, to preside at his table, to be considered 
 his loved and honored wife. Upon her memory 
 there flashed suddenly the remembrance of that 
 rustic scene between the engineer and his wife 
 and child, and how beautiful love and tender 
 ness had seemed to her, combined with physical 
 strength and the control of the great forces of 
 nature and the might of machinery. But what 
 was that man s strength, compared to Fraser s? 
 What a weak symbol of human force was he, 
 when she thought of the gigantic undertakings 
 by the account of which this man was now hold 
 ing his audience spellbound ! 
 
 She looked at those strong hands, and thought 
 how the very elements of earth and air were sub 
 ject to them, how he proposed to use the wind
 
 DEAD SELVES. 165 
 
 for his instrument and the ocean for his tool, 
 and how the power of his mind enabled even 
 the uncultivated portion of his present audience 
 to comprehend, in part at least, how this might 
 be. She saw how they thrilled to his meanings 
 and answered to his touch, and yet, as she knew, 
 not one of them in fifty had ever been nearer to 
 
 him than they were to-night, while she ! 
 
 This man and she sat daily at the same board, 
 slept nightly beneath the same roof, appeared 
 always in the world side by side, and were sup 
 posed to be in the closest of all human relations. 
 This was the appearance ; but how different the 
 reality ! She felt that no one in all that vast 
 assemblage was in actuality so far removed from 
 him as she. 
 
 And yet, in a sense, she was nearest to him ! 
 No one else could feel so familiar with his tones, 
 his gestures, his strong figure, his individual, 
 intellectual, compelling face ; and surely, surely 
 no one else could take such pride in him. These 
 were wonders that he proposed to do, things 
 which but a little further back in the world s his 
 tory would have been called miracles ; and yet 
 men dared not call him a visionary, after the 
 wonders he had already achieved. He had won 
 for himself the right to be heard, and the oldest
 
 1 66 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 and wisest of those learned men sat at his feet 
 to listen. 
 
 When at last his grand scheme was laid before 
 them, so forcibly, so ably, so simply, that even 
 the uncultivated and unscientific among his 
 hearers could not fail of some insight into it, he 
 gathered together the few sheets of manuscript 
 which he had used for reference, and sat down. 
 
 There was a wild outburst of applause. It 
 reverberated from dome to flooring of the great 
 building, with a vim that made the pulses of 
 every heart throb quicker. When Rhoda re 
 membered that this was the tribute of thousands 
 of hearts to one man, she wondered how he 
 could bear it. It must be almost too great, too 
 wonderful, too keenly precious ! 
 
 And in all that storm of praise, that tumult 
 of tribute, what was she? Behind her curtain 
 she clapped her gloved hands together again 
 and again ; but the noise they made in that 
 cyclone of sound was so small that it scarcely 
 reached her own ears, and how entirely lost it 
 must have been in the plaudits of that multi 
 tude ! Just so, she felt, her pride, her admira 
 tion, her worship for his genius were lost, in 
 the salutation to him which reverberated through 
 the world.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 167 
 
 Again she thought, how can he bear it ? As 
 if in answer to her question, he rose and bowed 
 gravely, once only, showing a face as calm in its 
 own strong self-possession as she had ever seen 
 it. And yet she, who knew that face so well, 
 saw that the eyes shone under their deep brows, 
 and the nostrils of the fine nose quivered. These 
 were signs of emotion that she had never seen 
 in him before. It had taken the plaudits of 
 thousands to produce them. What was one 
 poor weak woman to such a man ? 
 
 Her heart was bowed before him in a feeling 
 that was almost worship ; she could have wished 
 to be his servant, his slave. 
 
 Nevertheless, when he came to the little box 
 for her, as the audience was dispersing, she was 
 wordless. She did not give him so much as 
 the tribute of a look, but, drawing her cloak 
 about her, walked silent at his side until they 
 reached their carriage and were seated in it. 
 
 For some moments longer the silence con 
 tinued, but they were very near to each other, 
 and there were strange magnetic currents in the 
 air. The pavement was smooth and the well- 
 adjusted wheels almost noiseless : the carriage 
 itself seemed nearly motionless. 
 
 To Rhoda there came the sound of short,
 
 1 68 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 excited breaths, to Fraser the sense of trembling. 
 She told herself that his long effort in speaking 
 had disturbed his breathing. He told himself 
 that the strain of the long scientific lecture had 
 exhausted her and caused her to tremble so. 
 
 If they could have read each other s hearts, 
 they might have been surprised to discover that 
 that speech had been forgotten by them both. 
 In Rhoda s mind its influence remained, stir 
 ring her to an overwhelming feeling for this 
 man ; but it had been a mere emanation from 
 him, and here was he, himself, beside her. To 
 Fraser, the exhilaration of that popular triumph 
 existed now only in his mind as a biting con 
 trast to the coldness of this woman, supposed 
 to be one with himself. He was an eminent 
 scientist, accustomed to holding the forces of 
 earth and air in leash ; but there were currents 
 at work now over which he had no control, be 
 fore which he felt helpless as a child. 
 
 She was leaning back in the corner of the 
 carriage, her face entirely screened from the 
 light outside. He could only feel that she was 
 trembling. 
 
 "Rhoda," he whispered. 
 
 His own voice startled him. He had not in 
 tended to speak.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 169 
 
 "Yes?" she answered him, her low tones 
 conscious and sentient. 
 
 "Are you cold?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes," she whispered again. 
 
 He could feel that her trembling increased. 
 
 Bencflng, he drew her cloak about her closer. 
 Crossing the folds in front, he tucked them in 
 on either side. He was conscious that his arms 
 lingered in doing it. 
 
 "Is that better?" he said, holding them in 
 place. 
 
 "Yes," she whispered. 
 
 He could feel her eyes upon him in the silent 
 gloom. 
 
 "Rhoda," he said, again. 
 
 "Yes?" came the answer, fainter than before, 
 whispered, sibilant. 
 
 He did not speak, but his face moved toward 
 her slowly, until their eyes gleamed upon each 
 other, and their quick breaths met. 
 
 "Darling," he said, with sudden fervor. 
 
 The figure beneath his hands was trembling 
 still. His pressure tightened. His face was 
 coming nearer. It was so close now that she 
 could not see it, only feel his breath upon her 
 face. 
 
 At that instant the carriage stopped.
 
 1 70 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Remembrance came back with a rush. He 
 drew away from her with a swift movement, and 
 when the door was held open and he handed her 
 out he spoke with a voice that had regained its 
 usual composure. 
 
 "I promised to go to the club," he said. 
 " I shall be detained some time." 
 
 Rhoda could not answer. A servant was 
 holding open the door, giving admission to the 
 house, and she passed up the steps and into the 
 hall. She had turned very pale, from the vio 
 lent reaction of this scene. 
 
 She went at once to her room, and, without 
 ringing for her maid, threw off her long fur- 
 lined cloak and let it fall upon the floor, took 
 off her bonnet and gloves, unfastened her gown, 
 let it drop also into a rich heap, and was just 
 shaking out her thick hair, in her impetuous 
 need of physical relief, when there came a 
 knock at the door. 
 
 Throwing on a dressing-gown, she went and 
 opened it. It proved to be one of the two 
 nurses employed for the child, and she came to 
 say that her charge had had an unusually severe 
 recurrence of the attacks of heart-failure to 
 which it was subject, and that the doctor had 
 been sent for and was now with it.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 171 
 
 Poor Rhoda ! She had forgotten ! This 
 evening s excitement, the pride she had felt in 
 Eraser s public appearance and effect upon that 
 great audience, and, more yet, what she had 
 afterwards felt, when, alone in the carriage 
 with him, she had been dominated by that same 
 powerful personality, these things had been so 
 strong in their effect upon her that they had 
 caused her, for the first time, to forget the awful 
 past. 
 
 It was back upon her now, however, with a 
 surge of pain, and she must face it. Not wait 
 ing to twist up her long hair, she made a mute 
 sign to the nurse to lead the way, and, walking 
 silently after her down the hall, mounted to the 
 floor above.
 
 XVI 
 
 FRASER, meanwhile, had flung himself 
 into the carriage and shut to the door. 
 The club to which he had ordered himself to be 
 driven was some distance off, and he knew that 
 he had the present to himself without fear of 
 interruption. 
 
 The seat into which he had hurriedly sunk was 
 still warm from Rhoda s body. A perfume, 
 made from orris, which she habitually used, left 
 behind it a delicate pungent fragrance, as of 
 incense. As he closed his eyes and drew in 
 this sweet odor, she seemed to be near him 
 still, in the darkness, trembling with an emo 
 tion which he dared to believe that he compre 
 hended. 
 
 The evening, with its intoxicating triumph, 
 had left his brain excited and elated, but with 
 it all there was a keen sense of lack. He felt 
 that he had won a signal victory in a great cause. 
 He knew that the world would acknowledge 
 him henceforth as one of the heroes of the great 
 army of science, which was doing battle for 
 172
 
 DEAD SELVES. 173 
 
 the advancement of humanity. It was the ful 
 filment of one of the most ardent dreams of his 
 life ; but he felt like a man who, after long 
 abstinence, has had his hunger fully appeased, 
 but is bing consumed by thirst. Those vocifer 
 ous plaudits, ringing through that great theatre, 
 seemed to make a din and clangor in his ears 
 that half angered him, because he missed the 
 sound of tribute from the one source which all 
 his nature longed for now. He felt that, as long 
 as this note was missing, triumph was a thing 
 without meaning to him. 
 
 What this evening s success had given him he 
 had once held to be his heart s desire, but the 
 great unfulfilled longing within him showed him 
 now that this was not so. He had been avoid 
 ing, evading, eluding himself for a long time, 
 but this evening he dared to think bold 
 thoughts and dream bold dreams, more enthrall 
 ing to his senses than his public triumph had 
 been. That sudden stopping of the carriage 
 had interrupted what he now passionately wished 
 to have back. He reproached himself for not 
 having followed Rhoda. He knew that she had 
 been strangely moved. If he had gone after 
 her he might have forced her to own the mean 
 ing of that emotion ; but the stopping of the
 
 174 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 carriage, the appearance of the open house, the 
 very manner and tone of the footman, had 
 brought back habit and conventionality so 
 strongly that he had yielded to their influence. 
 This desire to return to Rhoda so possessed him 
 that when he reached the club he ordered the 
 carriage to wait for him, determined to take 
 advantage of the first possible opportunity to 
 excuse himself and return home. 
 
 His entrance was hailed with enthusiasm by 
 his friends, and he was compelled to listen to 
 their excited congratulations. But through 
 everything he felt that undercurrent in his con 
 sciousness which was drawing him to Rhoda. 
 He knew that he had betrayed himself to her. 
 It was what he had not intended to do, but 
 now that it was done he had a feeling of ex 
 ultation in it. The supreme excitements of 
 this evening had shaken him out of his custom 
 ary self-poise. He could not fail to be aware, 
 in a sense, of his own greatness, that there 
 must be great qualities in the man to whom 
 an assemblage representative of the brain of 
 the world had paid homage. This very thing 
 made him impatient of being thwarted in the 
 point toward which the whole current of his 
 will and force and longing was now set. He
 
 DEAD SELVES. 175 
 
 realized to-night that he had achieved his 
 utmost present desire, in his work, and felt a 
 consciousness of inherent power that made him 
 mad to win what had now become still dearer 
 to him fchan success in his career. 
 
 He drank several glasses of wine, but they 
 seemed to stimulate in him nothing but this 
 overmastering desire to see Rhoda again. In 
 return for the enthusiastic congratulations of his 
 friends, he made a short speech, for which he 
 was enthusiastically cheered. He was not sur 
 prised at this, for he felt that he was talking brill 
 iantly, and it was no effort to him to do so. This 
 sense of power within was tremendously stimu 
 lating, but it made him chafe at the limitation of 
 that power. There was a new and unexplored 
 world which he thirsted to see and conquer. 
 
 When he had responded to his friends toast 
 to him, he excused himself, and left the party. 
 Every nerve in him was tingling with the con 
 sciousness of triumphs recently passed, and the 
 eager anticipation of a still sweeter triumph 
 which he saw just before him. His face was 
 instinct with this emotion as he passed out of 
 the club, and, running down the steps, threw 
 himself into his carriage and gave the brief 
 word, " Home."
 
 176 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Never had that word expressed to him what 
 it did now. Never had his heart so throbbed 
 to the thought of it. It was his home, and it 
 was Rhoda s home ! It had long been theirs 
 apart, but it might be theirs together now. 
 For, if he had made a self-betrayal, so had she ! 
 Her body had trembled under his touch ; her 
 voice had faltered, when it had tried to answer 
 him. It had been here, in this very spot, 
 where the scent of her garments still lingered. 
 He threw himself upon his knees and buried 
 his face in the corner of the carriage that had 
 held her, pressing his lips upon the leather, 
 and drawing into his nostrils eager draughts of 
 that incense-smell. Rhoda ! Rhoda ! Rhoda ! 
 was the cry of his heart. Only an hour ago 
 she had been with him, the subtle currents of 
 their beings set toward each other ! In two 
 minutes more he would be with her again. 
 
 He sprang from the carriage, banged the 
 door, and ran up the steps with the eagerness 
 of a boy. He let himself into the house with 
 his latch-key, threw off his coat and hat in the 
 hall, and went straight to Rhoda s room, his 
 rapid movements and the fever in his mind 
 joining to make his heart beat thick and fast. 
 
 There was no answer to his knock. He
 
 DEAD SELVES. 177 
 
 knocked again and stood waiting. He could 
 hear those rapid heart-beats. Again there was 
 no answer, but he felt very bold, and he turned 
 the knob and entered. 
 
 There on the floor were Rhoda s furs, and 
 
 * 
 
 her discarded dress, but Rhoda was not there. 
 He crossed quickly to her dressing-room, call 
 ing her name softly, but with a cadence in his 
 voice which she had never heard. The dress 
 ing-room also was empty. 
 
 A suspicion came to him, a thought that 
 seemed to soil his mind as one drop of ink will 
 defile a bowl of clear spring water. It was like 
 the blight of frost on flowers, like discord in 
 terrupting music, like a foul odor blending with 
 holy incense. 
 
 He tried to shake it off, to ignore and forget 
 it. A memory seemed to knock at the door of 
 his heart and insist upon admission, but he 
 tried with all his might to bar it out. 
 
 Turning hastily, he went into the hall, and 
 looked into all the rooms which opened on it, 
 to see if she could have wandered into any one 
 of them. Each and all were dark and silent. 
 He looked over the banisters into the hall 
 below. The lights had already been put out, 
 and the sleepy servants had retired.
 
 1 78 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 That thought, that insistent idea, forced itself 
 upon him with yet greater urgency, but still the 
 voice within cried, " Rhoda ! Rhoda !" and he 
 must seek her even there. An element of bit 
 terness had mingled with the sweet, but the 
 magnet that drew him, in spite of every adverse 
 influence, was Rhoda, and he could not choose 
 but go. 
 
 Down the long hall he hurried, treading cau 
 tiously, for fear of being heard, and up the out 
 side staircase, which led to the veranda above. 
 
 A few steps along this took him to a window, 
 where he stood still in the shadow and looked 
 in. The sash had been raised, as if for air, and 
 the blind was partly drawn up. There were 
 movements and suppressed noises within, as of 
 people passing to and fro and speaking in low 
 tones, a man s voice, and the voices of several 
 women. 
 
 He saw, with only half-consciousness, the 
 doctor and two nurses consulting together and 
 preparing medicines, at one side of the room ; 
 but, apart from them, directly opposite him, 
 with her face turned full toward him, was 
 Rhoda. 
 
 Her dark hair hung forward around her face, 
 as she knelt beside the small wheel-bed, her
 
 DEAD SELVES. 179 
 
 elbows sunk in its covers, her face hidden in 
 her hands. 
 
 At sight of her there, all the blood in his 
 body seemed to whirl about and flow the other 
 way. A fierce bitterness got hold of him and 
 impeked him to look long, deliberately, scru- 
 tinizingly, at the small shapeless form beside 
 which Rhoda was kneeling. 
 
 At this sight, his body gave a wrench that 
 seemed to shake him from head to foot. Hor 
 ror, repulsion, disgust, possessed him in every 
 sense. That pallid, imbecile face had a like 
 ness in it to the being who had been its father. 
 As he looked and continued to look, his horror 
 deepened, for there, on the dark silk coverlet, 
 lay a limp and pallid little hand, which had yet 
 a look of Rhoda s. 
 
 The combination was too much for him. The 
 love but now so warm within his heart changed 
 into loathing, and he turned and fled, as if from 
 something out of hell. 
 
 Reaching his own room, he gave himself up 
 to a passion of fury and revulsion. Fool, de 
 graded, weak, insufferable fool, that he had 
 been, to forget that, to let any spell of beauty 
 and charm of mind and body eclipse the sick 
 ening horror of that fact about this woman !
 
 i8o DEAD SELVES. 
 
 And he had sunk to the level of loving her, of 
 wishing for her love in return ! He had even 
 fallen so low as to let her know it, this evening, 
 not two hours ago, to call her by a fond name ! 
 The very memory of her beauty added to his 
 fury. The thought of her grace, her sweetness, 
 her power to charm, was like an insult to him. 
 
 He walked the floor of his room, nursing his 
 anger and inward self-revolt until he had worked 
 himself into an impotent fury which had nothing 
 to vent itself upon and was therefore the more 
 furious. By degrees the outward signs of pas 
 sion and agitation subsided, but the forces of 
 rage within condensed and grew more keen, 
 more deadly, more determined, every instant. 
 He could not let the night pass, he told himself, 
 without undoing that brief but all-potent im 
 pression that he had made, without erasing 
 from her mind the idea that he had forgotten 
 the past and had come to love her. It was tor 
 ment to him to recall that moment s weakness, 
 folly, madness. He repudiated it now with all 
 his soul. 
 
 He left his room and went and knocked at 
 Rhoda s door. He did not know how much 
 time had passed, and he thought it possible that 
 she might have returned. He knocked twice
 
 DEAD SELVES. 181 
 
 and got no answer. Evidently she was still at 
 her post up-stairs. This conviction brought 
 with it no thought of tenderness, only a deep 
 ening of his fierce resentment against her and 
 against himself. 
 
 He opened the door and found the room 
 empty. The gas was low, so that he could dis 
 tinguish objects but imperfectly, as he entered 
 and began to pace the floor. But all about him 
 there were reminders of Rhoda that galled him. 
 When he went near the dressing-table he found 
 himself in the atmosphere of that peculiar in 
 cense-odor. He turned away abruptly, and, 
 crossing the room, threw himself down on a 
 lounge, his back to the light and his eyes fixed 
 on the door by which Rhoda would enter.
 
 XVII 
 
 AND Rhoda ? The reaction from that short 
 scene in the carriage, which had stirred 
 the long lifeless wings of hope within her and 
 had made them seem about to soar upward and 
 bear her into the heaven of heavens, was cruel, 
 sudden, terrible. 
 
 Having heard that the child was ill, she had 
 gone to it immediately, obedient to the new 
 and all-powerful voice of duty in her soul ; but 
 the glory of that vision of light had followed 
 her even across the awful threshold of that room, 
 and as she knelt beside that bed her heart and 
 spirit had been sustained by it. 
 
 In spite of all he loved her ! That was the 
 wonderful, glorious, beautiful truth, which noth 
 ing could undo. She knelt in this desolate place, 
 resolved to do her duty to the bitter end, but at 
 last the bitterness of her hard lot was sweetened 
 and justified by the love of him whom she 
 adored with every pulse and emotion of body, 
 soul, and spirit. God was good, and she was 
 happy, in spite of all ! 
 182
 
 DEAD SELVES. 183 
 
 The doctor pronounced the patient better and 
 the immediate danger past. Strange to say, 
 Rhoda felt herself relieved. It seemed cruel to 
 be glad that this blighted life should be pro 
 longed. In her heart, she did not wish it. She 
 earnestly desired death for this child, to whom 
 the life which she had given it was so worse 
 than useless ; but to-night she shrank from the 
 idea of death as she had not done before. All 
 her being was informed with a new vitality, and 
 she wanted to live and see life and to banish the 
 thought of death. 
 
 She turned from that sad room and walked 
 down-stairs in a dream of joy. It seemed to 
 her that bliss from out of heaven had floated 
 down to her and that an ineffable atmosphere 
 of glory wrapped her round. 
 
 At the threshold of her door she saw the 
 scattered leaves of a gardenia lying on the floor. 
 She trembled with joy at the sight. He had 
 been to seek her, then. She had felt certain 
 that it would be so ! 
 
 Full of an unspeakable happiness, fired with 
 an exquisite hope, she entered the room softly, 
 and had closed the door behind her, when, in 
 the dim half-light, she saw the tall, strong figure 
 that she loved, lying at full length on her sofa.
 
 1 84 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 She stood still a moment, her heart throbbing 
 with delight. Then, as he did not move, she 
 came cautiously forward and sank into a deep 
 chair near the lounge. He had been waiting 
 for her long, she fancied, and had fallen asleep. 
 It was not strange, she told herself. The night 
 was almost over, and the demands which its 
 hours had made upon his nervous forces must 
 have been gigantic. Naturally, he was exhausted 
 by such emotional strain as the events of this 
 night had caused, and she had kept him waiting 
 long ! 
 
 In the dim light, which was behind him, she 
 could not see his eyes, but she fastened her own 
 with eagerness upon him. She herself was facing 
 the light, and although it was turned low it 
 showed her eyes large, fervid, conscious 
 fixed upon him, and Fraser gazed upon her 
 steadily. 
 
 For he was not asleep. He was as awake and 
 conscious as herself. She had no suspicion of 
 it, though, and as she sat and watched beside 
 him, her voice, sweet with passion, breathed in 
 a soft whisper the word : 
 "Dear- 
 He heard as well as saw, but he made no 
 sound and gave no sign. His heart was hot
 
 DEAD SELVES. 185 
 
 with fury. The sight that he had lately seen 
 possessed him with a sense of loathing. The 
 very beauty of this woman infuriated him. The 
 sound of her voice maddened him. The per 
 fume of that incense-odor set him beside him 
 self with rage. Why should she be so much 
 more beautiful, so far sweeter, so infinitely more 
 full of charm, than other women ? He hated 
 her for it. 
 
 And Rhoda, seeing him there, unconscious, 
 as she still believed, but with a heart that would 
 return to sentience only to realize afresh a mighty 
 love for her, leaned gently nearer to him, her 
 whole being in an attitude of adoration for the 
 genius, the character, the soul, the mind, the 
 body, of this man whom now, at least, she felt 
 to be her own ! 
 
 His eyes were still upon her, but they were 
 hard and cruel, though she knew it not. His 
 nerves were strung to their highest point of en 
 durance, but outwardly he was profoundly still. 
 
 Again that soft voice spoke from out the per 
 fumed silence : 
 
 "Dearest " she said, and held her heart 
 
 to wait for his reply. 
 
 Still silence. A part of him, a mighty ele 
 ment of that complicated thing, himself, seemed
 
 1 86 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 to leap from out the bondage of his body to 
 answer her ; but he had another self, which in 
 this hour was uppermost, and that self shrank, 
 revolted. He lay there, enjoying her loveli 
 ness and her nearness to him, as men have been 
 fascinated by the beauty of some dangerous 
 wild creature which they intend presently to 
 kill. 
 
 She bent her head nearer, until their faces 
 were so close that, in spite of the semi-dark 
 ness, in spite of the heavy shadows from his 
 strong dark brows, she looked full into his open 
 eyes. 
 
 Instantly she shrank backward. 
 
 " What is it ?" she cried, in a hoarse whisper. 
 " I thought you loved me. You made me think 
 it there, in the carriage, by the word you said. 
 If I am mistaken " 
 
 "Mistaken !" he said, getting quickly to his 
 feet, and speaking in a harsh, discordant voice, 
 which yet was deadly calm and cold. " Mis 
 taken!" he repeated. "You thought I loved 
 you ! You thought I had forgotten ! I have 
 not forgotten. I remember. I married you for 
 money ; not a noble thing to do, but you had 
 done the same before me. A man sinks below 
 his ideal of himself when he marries for money,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 187 
 
 and I debased myself when I did it. But love, 
 not that ! I have not yet reached the level 
 of bringing a question of love into a bargain 
 such as ours." 
 
 Every word fell distinct and merciless upon 
 her ears. He saw her shrink backward with a 
 convulsive movement, and a hoarse sound es 
 caped her. Then she made an effort to get to 
 her feet, but her figure tottered, and she fell 
 back into a deep chair and remained there pro 
 foundly still. 
 
 Crossing the room with rapid strides, he stood 
 a moment before the fireplace, with his back 
 turned. He listened for some word or move 
 ment from behind him, but, hearing none, he 
 turned and looked. Something in her attitude 
 struck him as being unnatural. He went to 
 ward her, calling her name. 
 
 There was no answer. A great fear seized 
 him. Hastily turning on the gas, he went 
 near and looked at her. Her eyes were closed. 
 Was she unconscious, he asked himself, or 
 worse ? 
 
 He fell on his knees before her, and took up 
 one lovely hand. It was limp and cold and 
 nerveless. Chafing it between his own, he 
 covered it with kisses, calling her name, in pas-
 
 1 88 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 sionate entreaty that she would look at him, 
 speak to him. 
 
 But she neither spoke nor stirred. Her body 
 was relaxed and limp, from head to foot ; her 
 face was white as marble. And where, where 
 was the spirit of her, this exquisite unparal 
 leled woman, the treasure of whose love he had 
 so spurned ? 
 
 Lifting her in his arms, he carried her oh, 
 but the burden was sweet ! across the room 
 and laid her on her own bed. Then, without 
 loosening his arms from about her unconscious 
 body, he fell on his knees, and, holding her 
 close against his heart, talked to her, in fervid 
 whispers that told an agony of fear, a storm of 
 passionate love : 
 
 "Rhoda, Rhoda, my child, my love, my 
 darling, look at me, forgive me ! I love you, 
 Rhoda. O God, have mercy ! I love her, and 
 I have killed her!" 
 
 Great tearless sobs were shaking him from 
 head to foot. He laid his ear against her quiet 
 body, and listened for the beating of her heart. 
 Faintly, faintly he could hear it, and could feel 
 a slight, weak throbbing through the soft gar 
 ment that covered her fair flesh. But the placid 
 face was mute beneath his kisses ; the sweet
 
 DEAD SELVES. 189 
 
 body was passive and unknowing. As he lifted 
 her hand it fell heavily from his grasp. He 
 forced himself to be still a moment, until he 
 could listen for her breathing. It came so 
 scantily that he could not hear it, but he felt a 
 little Breath of warmth from between her parted 
 lips. He longed to drink into his own thirsty 
 being this little sign of life, but he dared not 
 put his face too close, lest he should stop that 
 weak, scant breath that seemed the one slight 
 thing that separated life from death. 
 
 Suddenly he realized that he must have help, 
 that he was throwing away moments which 
 might mean salvation to Rhoda and to him. 
 The power of action returned to him with this 
 thought. Loosing her from his arms, he strug 
 gled to his feet. Running to the bell, he rang 
 it violently, but before it could be answered he 
 had rushed from the room, along the dark back 
 passage, and up the outer stairway, and into the 
 room where Rhoda s child lay. 
 
 For the first time he felt an utter absence of 
 any sense of shock in this presence. He roused 
 one of the nurses, who was asleep on a small 
 cot, and told her to come immediately to Mrs. 
 Fraser, who had fainted. 
 
 Before the woman could draw on her gown
 
 i 9 o DEAD SELVES. 
 
 and slippers, Fraser had turned away and was 
 bounding down the staircase and running along 
 the hall that led him back to Rhoda s room. 
 
 There he found her maid, who had come in 
 answer to his ring and, with a terrified face, 
 was bending over her mistress and trying in 
 vain to rouse her. 
 
 In another moment the nurse entered and 
 began to use restoratives. She despatched the 
 maid to call the second nurse and to take her 
 place, and then she set herself to the task of 
 reassuring the terrified man. 
 
 Though her measures were so prompt and 
 energetic, she calmed his worst fears, by tell 
 ing him that she believed it to be only a faint 
 ing-fit, from which Mrs. Fraser would recover. 
 She advised him, however, to send at once for 
 the doctor. 
 
 Seeing that he could do nothing here, and 
 feeling inactivity at this crisis to be impossible, 
 Fraser, still in his evening clothes and thin 
 shoes, threw on his top-coat and hat, and, 
 having telephoned for a cab to meet him at the 
 doctor s office, rushed out into the streets and 
 over the damp cold pavements, his heart a hot 
 flame in his breast, and his feet, in spite of all 
 their haste, like leaden clogs upon him. He
 
 DEAD SELVES. 191 
 
 reached the doctor s house, and, having roused 
 him with imperious haste, the two men had just 
 started to walk the distance, when they met the 
 cab approaching. 
 
 Hurrying the doctor into it, Fraser closed 
 the d#or behind him, and went off himself in 
 the opposite direction. Going to the nearest 
 telegraph-office, he sent a message to his mother, 
 begging her to come to him on the morning 
 train, as she was needed. He knew that the 
 telegram would be alarming, but he knew also 
 that his mother was cast in the old Roman 
 mould and would be both willing and able to 
 come to his succor now. 
 
 As he came out of the office he saw that day 
 was breaking. The streets were lonely and 
 very cold, but the loneliness and coldness in 
 his own heart were too heavy upon him to 
 allow of his feeling the merely external. 
 
 He strode through the silent city, fighting a 
 hand-to-hand fight with fear. If Rhoda died, 
 if she left him with those words of his unsaid, 
 that brutal cruelty unretracted, he felt that life 
 was over for him. Then he thought, with 
 stifling horror, that even in death his conscious 
 ness would not be rid of the thought of what 
 he had done to her. It must remain as long
 
 x 9 2 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 as his soul had existence, an immortality of 
 agony and remorse ! 
 
 When he reached his own door, this fear had 
 made such a coward of him that he could with 
 difficulty summon courage to enter the house. 
 He stood trembling on the door-step and send 
 ing up mute prayers for help, for respite, for 
 the staying of this blow. 
 
 When at last, by the use of all his will, he 
 let himself into the hall, the sight of his white 
 face in the mirror startled him. He had not 
 courage yet to go up-stairs, and turned into the 
 library. 
 
 As he entered this room, the image of Rhoda 
 rose suddenly before him as she had come to 
 him here, the evening of her writing the letter 
 to his mother. Oh to have that moment back ! 
 He would have given every dream of his life, 
 of achievement in science and success in his 
 career, every belief that through his instrumen 
 tality the greatest machinery of the world was 
 to be changed, all the dreams that his mind 
 had ever conceived, to have that moment back, 
 to be with Rhoda alone in this place, to 
 have the opportunity to say to her the things 
 left unsaid then. 
 
 Again that tantalizing vision seemed to stand
 
 DEAD SELVES. 193 
 
 before him. The scent of warm Russia leather 
 from the books suggested that odor of orris, 
 violets, and incense which always hung about 
 her. Would it ever be wafted toward him 
 again from that sweet presence? If not, if 
 not, how was he to bear it ? 
 
 Suddenly he remembered what these mo 
 ments might be signifying in that room up 
 stairs. What a coward he was to have done 
 this thing to Rhoda, and then to turn and fly ! 
 He must go and see the result of his brutal 
 work. 
 
 Trembling at every step, he crossed the hall, 
 mounted the stairs, and walked slowly toward 
 the door of Rhoda s room. He could hear 
 movements within, and the sound of voices 
 speaking in low tones. As he stood there, try 
 ing to summon up his courage to knock, the 
 door opened, and the doctor came out. 
 
 Seeing Fraser there, with his white, bewil 
 dered face, he took him kindly by the arm, 
 and, drawing him along the hall to the door of 
 his own room, he led him to a seat. 
 
 "Don t look so frightened, man," he said. 
 "It s not as bad as all this." 
 
 " How is she?" he asked, huskily. 
 
 "She has recovered from the faint, but her
 
 i 9 4 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 fever is high, and I fear she is in for an attack 
 which may be a serious thing. Her brain is 
 much confused; she recognizes no one, and 
 what she says is incoherent. I am afraid she s 
 going to have brain j fever ; but with her youth 
 and splendid constitution she will have all the 
 chances in her favor." 
 
 Fraser s face showed a certain relief. An 
 attack of brain fever was a solemn thing, but 
 after the fear that had held him for the past 
 hour it was a respite. 
 
 "Doctor," he said, "you will do your best, 
 I know that, but have in all the aid that medi 
 cal science can supply. Work with all your 
 might for this precious life, and, if you believe 
 in God, help me to pray now." 
 
 The doctor looked at him in some surprise. 
 
 "I am not a praying man," he said. "I 
 never supposed you to be one either. 
 
 " I am not," said Fraser, " or at least I have 
 not been in these recent days. I have had my 
 eyes fixed for so long on the vast possibilities 
 of science, and I have seen it do such wonders, 
 that a natural materialism has been the result. 
 But to-night I see the limitations of science, 
 hard and fast as they are. I beg you to use 
 your best skill and to employ the skill of
 
 DEAD SELVES. 195 
 
 others; but my only real hope now is to ask 
 help of God. I have a good and religious 
 mother, and in this hour her faith appears to 
 me a more real and powerful thing than any 
 force of science. I have sent for my mother 
 to cdhie. She will be here to-morrow, and 
 will help, by her work, as well as by her 
 prayers, to save my wife." 
 
 It was the first time that he had ever spoken 
 of Rhoda so, even before strangers. He spoke 
 of her generally as " Mrs. Eraser," or, in more 
 intimate cases, as "Rhoda;" but now it 
 answered the very need of his heart to call her 
 wife.
 
 XVIII 
 
 WHEN Fraser met the train at the station, 
 and saw the little frail figure in black 
 get out of it, his heart swelled with a sudden 
 rush of tenderness. He had known that his 
 mother s coming was as certain as the arrival of 
 the train itself, and now that she was here he 
 knew that her will to try and her stanchness to 
 succeed in giving him the help which he needed 
 were both as sure as a rock. They had drifted 
 away from each other since his marriage, and a 
 restraint, felt by both but spoken of by neither, 
 had come between them. But now they had no 
 sooner looked into each other s eyes than they 
 knew that it was gone, that their full hearts 
 throbbed together again with the sympathy so 
 dear of old. 
 
 He did not speak a word until they were 
 seated in the carriage with the door closed upon 
 the world outside. Then, by one instinct, 
 their eyes met and their hands were clasped. 
 
 " Rhoda is very ill," he said, his voice thick 
 with emotion. 
 196
 
 DEAD SELVES. 197 
 
 The strong old face before him paled a little, 
 but the strong voice spoke with calmness. 
 
 " Hope always," it said ; " God will do the 
 best. Life and death are not much. Eternity 
 is long, and love is as long as eternity. I saw 
 my husband die, and I could bear it. We loved 
 each other, and we trusted God. I know that 
 he is waiting for me, and the separation is not 
 hard. How is it with you and Rhoda?" 
 
 He hid his face in his hands, and, with his 
 head so bowed, a groan answered her. 
 
 "Mother, mother," he said, "I love, I wor 
 ship, I adore her, but she does not know." 
 
 A smile illuminated the aged features beside 
 him, and she answered him in tones that had in 
 them a certain triumph : 
 
 "But she will know. God may take her 
 from you, but He will tell her that, and mere 
 bodily separation will be little, when that is 
 known." 
 
 " I do not want God to tell her; I want to 
 tell her myself, on my knees, in the dust before 
 her, for all that I have done. You do not 
 know!" 
 
 "I know little, but I have suspected much. 
 You are my son, and I love you, but many a 
 time, if it had not been for my respect for that
 
 198 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 glorious creature s pride, I would have told you 
 what it was that I suspected. But I will spare 
 you now. Your punishment is enough. I will 
 pray God, with all my heart, to give you the 
 opportunity for amends. 
 
 " If He will, all my life shall be a thanks 
 giving," he said. 
 
 After this they drove on in silence. The 
 strong old woman, who did not often permit 
 her kind heart to be over-lenient to the erring, 
 felt herself so touched by the anguish on her 
 son s face that the tears overflowed her eyes 
 and fell upon her thin and wrinkled hands. 
 
 But Fraser did not see them. His miserable 
 eyes were fixed on vacancy, and his thoughts 
 had strayed back over the memory of a past 
 which tortured him. As they began to draw 
 near the house, his nervous anxiety became so 
 intense that his mother had to use her utmost 
 skill to soothe and comfort him. 
 
 " Mother," he said, looking straight into her 
 eyes, as if he deliberately gave himself up to 
 the scrutiny of that penetrating gaze of hers, 
 "I wish with all my heart that you knew all ! 
 If I could bear to tell you, I would, and the 
 weight might be less intolerable ; but I have 
 been blind as well as cruel. I thought there
 
 DEAD SELVES. 199 
 
 was a quite impassable barrier between us. I 
 thought that the past quite cut us off from 
 love." 
 
 "The past? What past?" 
 
 " Rhoda s past," he answered, and even now 
 thereVas sternness in his voice. 
 
 The old lady smiled, a smile of confident 
 knowledge, as of age that looked with leniency 
 upon the ignorance of youth. 
 
 "Rhoda s past?" she said, with a sweet ex 
 tenuating smile. " That was not Rhoda. The 
 poor unawakened being who lived that ignorant 
 girl-life, and married without love or knowl 
 edge of what love and marriage were, who 
 simply went forward and did unthinkingly what 
 lay in her path, and so became the victim of 
 her own ignorance, that was not Rhoda, in 
 any sense except the one in which the grub is 
 the butterfly. That was the chrysalis from 
 which Rhoda sprang, bright winged creature 
 that she is ! All of us have our past, but few 
 have such a terrible past as hers, poor girl, and 
 few have risen so high on the stepping-stones 
 of their dead selves." 
 
 He could not answer her. His voice failed 
 him when he tried. He felt his mother s arms 
 close tight about him and draw his head against
 
 200 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 her own, as she had done to him when a troubled 
 little boy ; and, as he had not done since those 
 far-away days, he put his arms around her and 
 sobbed like a woman or like a man who is 
 both strong and tender, and whose capacity for 
 feeling is but rarely roused.
 
 XIX 
 
 RHODA S illness proved to be brain fever, 
 as the doctors had predicted. They 
 speculated much as to what could have been 
 its cause. Fraser heard them wondering and 
 conjecturing, but in his wretched heart he knew 
 too well. If Rhoda died, he should feel him 
 self her murderer. 
 
 And so began, for him and for his mother, 
 those days of poignant anxiety when the course 
 of a fever is followed from its beginning to its 
 climax. Whether or not there would be other 
 days of waiting from crisis to convalescence, 
 he dared not think ! 
 
 The sick-room was watched and tended with 
 all the care and skill that love and money 
 could secure. Doctors came and went contin 
 ually. Nurses moved about on noiseless feet, 
 and the strong old lady, showing no symptom 
 either of fatigue of body or weariness of mind, 
 was always at hand to assist in every emer 
 gency. Fraser alone seemed useless. 
 
 Once or twice he had entered that darkened
 
 202 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 room, but the sights and sounds of it were 
 more than he could bear. There, on the bed, 
 lay Rhoda, helpless, her soul gone out of her, 
 perhaps to return no more. At times she tossed 
 and muttered and cried out, as if in wild ap 
 peal to be spared, saved, released from some 
 terrible thing which threatened her. This was 
 intolerable to Fraser. If he could have spoken 
 to her, if his penitence, his appeal, his love, 
 could have reached her, he could have borne 
 any pain for that reward ; but when he knew 
 that Rhoda s gentle heart was cut off from any 
 approach from even the voice most dear to her, 
 that Rhoda s receptive brain was closed to 
 any comprehension of the words of love or of 
 reason, he felt that he must go away from 
 where that dear and lovely being lay, uncon 
 scious, unapproachable, unable to feel love or 
 to know that she was loved. 
 
 In those days his mother was his one com 
 fort. She did not talk to him much, but she 
 would join him in his own apartments, and walk 
 the floor at his side almost by the hour, her 
 frail arm around his great powerful body, and 
 her slight figure supported by his strong arm. 
 The best comfort she was able to give him was 
 the strong conviction which she felt that Rhoda
 
 DEAD SELVES. 203 
 
 would recover. He had a habit of faith in her 
 faith, which made this belief of hers infinitely 
 precious to him now. As often as she repeated 
 it to him, with her calm assurance of confidence, 
 new life seemed to flow into him, new faith in 
 God *nd in himself. 
 
 For since that scene with Rhoda he had suf 
 fered a self-abasement from which it seemed to 
 him that he could never raise his head. All 
 his powers of scorn and loathing were now 
 centred on himself. By contrast with himself, 
 the hated characteristics of the man whom 
 Rhoda had first married became innocent and 
 endurable. He felt himself to be a far more 
 despicable being than the poor harmless creature 
 for whom he now had little else than pity. 
 Even that being seemed less unworthy of the 
 love of Rhoda than he, who had been wilfully 
 and brutally coarse and cruel to her. 
 
 But now that he realized and repented, now 
 that he loathed himself as he had never loathed 
 another, now that the passion of his heart was 
 to undo what he had done, to expiate, to re 
 trieve, to atone, it was a thing almost intolera 
 ble to have it all forced back upon him, into 
 the wretched heart that was almost bursting 
 with its strain.
 
 204 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Torrents of strong impassioned words surged 
 up within him which he ached to say to Rhoda. 
 His self-abasement was complete, but he wanted 
 it to be in Rhoda s presence, at Rhoda s feet. 
 
 Once, with the awful pressure of this strain 
 upon him, he got up suddenly, impelled by a 
 force not to be resisted, and went to her. 
 
 There she lay, deaf to his words, careless of 
 his agony, cold to his remorse, all her grand 
 body still and placid from head to feet, her 
 sweet kind heart, which might have given him 
 the drop of pity for which his soul was parched, 
 throbbing to no consciousness, but only telling 
 out the beats of a life which was insensible, un 
 knowing, and unloving. He stood and looked 
 down upon her, his own heart overflowing with 
 a love which once she would have prized, a 
 worship which would once have been her pride. 
 
 Her dark hair was parted, and plaited in two 
 long braids. He could see the rise and fall of 
 her bosom, under its white gown, and he longed 
 to lay his face upon it and sob out the anguish 
 of his heart. But, if he did, she would not 
 know or care ! He looked at the white hand 
 that lay, palm upward, at her side, and saw the 
 gleam of his own ring in the shadowed scoop 
 made by its relaxed fingers. It seemed to him
 
 DEAD SELVES. 205 
 
 now an abomination that he had committed to 
 have put that ring on, with an oath which in 
 his heart he had intended to break. Who was 
 he, what was he, to scorn any act of hers? 
 She, as he well knew, had grown out of that 
 old slf and left it far behind, while he, but the 
 other day, had put the crowning act upon a 
 course of cruelty and brutality which would not 
 let him call that old self a dead one. 
 
 He stood and looked down at her, as a re 
 pentant murderer, who knew that he was to go 
 free for his crime, might have looked upon his 
 victim. It would have been a solace to him to 
 feel that he was to pay the penalty. This load 
 of unexpiated guilt was too heavy. 
 
 Suddenly Rhoda opened her eyes and looked 
 full at him. His heart leapt, and then fell, 
 smitten by that look as by a blow. She gazed 
 into his face as she might have looked on a blank 
 wall, her eyes expressing a blankness as great. 
 There was no approach to that dead conscious 
 ness, no avenue between that isolated soul and 
 his. 
 
 " Rhoda," he whispered, in a voice of agony. 
 
 But Rhoda did not hear him, though he bent 
 very low and all his hungry heart was in that 
 passionate word. She only continued to gaze
 
 206 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 at him with that blank stare which seemed to 
 put the width of the universe between her soul 
 and his. Repentance could not avail here. 
 Expiation and atonement had no place. Death 
 itself could hardly be so hopeless, for if the 
 spirit lived at all it would be conscious and he 
 might still hope to reach it, but here, in the 
 presence of this awful nullity, he felt the clutch 
 of absolute despair. 
 
 Wordless and hopeless, he turned and left 
 the room.
 
 XX 
 
 T5OSE days of alternating hopes and fears 
 dragged on. Fraser never went to Brock- 
 ett, and scarcely left his own rooms, except for 
 an hour or so every afternoon, when his mother 
 missed him and imagined he had gone out for 
 a little air and exercise, at which she rejoiced, 
 for this vigil was telling on him sadly. 
 
 One afternoon the old lady took her way 
 along that back passage and up that outer stair 
 way, to satisfy herself that Rhoda s child, in its 
 mother s unconsciousness, was being properly 
 cared for. As she approached the room she 
 saw that the door stood open, and, as her slip 
 pered feet made no noise, she was about to an 
 nounce herself to the nurse whom she expected 
 to find on duty, when a sight met her eyes 
 which made her pause. 
 
 Seated with his face toward her, and his gaze 
 fixed on the wheel-bed, which he continually 
 pushed to and fro, was Duncan. 
 
 For several moments she watched him, keep 
 ing up that strong, regular motion, and looking 
 
 207
 
 208 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 straight down at the child with a gaze of kind 
 ness and pity. She saw him draw the bed 
 a little closer and look intently at one spot. 
 Then, with a movement of passionate fervor, 
 he took up the little hand that looked like 
 Rhoda s and kissed it many times. He laid his 
 forehead, his cheeks, his eyes, against it, and 
 when he put it gently down it was wet with his 
 tears. 
 
 This was Rhoda s child, and he had hated it ! 
 He had thought it vile and repulsive and de 
 serving of his scorn, but, to his present vision, 
 he now deserved that feeling so far more him 
 self that he felt almost unworthy to touch this 
 poor, afflicted, innocent being, who was Rhoda s 
 child, and had, if only in its little useless hand, 
 a look of Rhoda. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser turned away. She felt that this 
 was a thing upon which even his mother could 
 not intrude. Her eyes were full as she descended 
 the stairs and went back to Rhoda s room, and 
 her heart swelled with a passionate prayer to 
 God for these two beings, so dear to her and 
 now so evidently and intensely dear to each 
 other. 
 
 Every afternoon now the mother kept a fur 
 tive watch upon the movements of her son, and
 
 DEAD SELVES. 209 
 
 she found that he invariably sent the nurse to 
 walk and remained there, as Rhoda had been 
 used to do, for the period of her absence. He 
 had even learned the use of the music-box in 
 the child s behalf, and would sit and turn the 
 little "handle round and round, grinding out the 
 monotonous iteration of three popular airs, 
 thinking the while of Rhoda s exquisite music, 
 for which he had never once spoken a word of 
 appreciation ! 
 
 One day it was about the sixth of Rhoda s 
 illness Eraser came to the door of the sick 
 room and motioned to his mother to come out. 
 She saw from his manner that he was stirred by 
 something far out of the ordinary. 
 
 "The child is dying, Rhoda s child," he 
 said. " The doctor says this is the end. Come 
 with me, mother. Come and show me how to 
 do my best to take Rhoda s place to it." 
 
 The old lady, without speaking, slipped her 
 hand in his, and so they went together to that 
 sad place, where doctor and nurses watched in 
 silence too. 
 
 There was no expression of anxiety on any 
 face. Perhaps there was even an effort on the 
 part of each to keep quiescent an expression of 
 relief and satisfaction. 
 
 14
 
 2 io DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Eraser, on his entrance, walked straight to the 
 bedside and sat down, taking up the little hand 
 which he had learned to love and looking down 
 upon it tenderly. The old lady, going to the 
 other side of the bed, sank upon her knees. 
 Doctor and nurses were the width of the room 
 away from her, and so her low voice was audible 
 only to her son, as she said these words : 
 
 " Heavenly Father, receive unto Thyself the 
 life of this little child who has suffered much but 
 has not sinned, and grant to us, who have sinned 
 much, that through the earnest suffering of re 
 pentance we may one day stand before Thee 
 blameless as this child. We have had much 
 given to us, and of us much shall be required. 
 To this soul Thou hast given little, and little 
 wilt Thou require. It returns to Thee as it 
 came, to await Thy will for it in another world, 
 where we believe that the failures and mistakes 
 of this shall be repaired. To Thy understand 
 ing and Thy love do we commend it. Amen." 
 
 Duncan, in a low, soft voice, repeated the 
 Amen after her, and as he did so he felt a faint 
 clutch from the little hand in his. A spasm 
 passed over the whole small body, and Rhoda s 
 child was dead. 
 
 He motioned to doctor and nurses to come,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 211 
 
 and, taking his mother s hand in his, he led her 
 from the room. 
 
 " Thank God that pain is spared to Rhoda !" 
 the old lady said, as she followed him into his 
 room. " She has had enough." 
 
 "Too much ! too much !" hesaid. "Mother, 
 you are a good Christian. You believe that re 
 pentance and amendment can wipe out the 
 worst of crimes, do you not? I can believe 
 that God may forgive me, perhaps even that 
 man might ; but that I can ever forgive myself 
 seems quite impossible, and that is an implacable 
 enmity that seems more than I can bear. It is 
 well with the poor child yonder. The peace 
 of the grave must be sweet ; but peace is not 
 for me. There is a crime unexpiated on my 
 heart which forbids me to think of peace." 
 
 " What is this thing, my son? Can you tell 
 your mother ? 
 
 "No: of this I can speak only to my wife. 
 If Rhoda dies " 
 
 He broke off. Those two sweet words, wife 
 and "Rhoda," were so profoundly moving to 
 him that he could say no more. 
 
 She will not die. She will live, his mother 
 said, and, for the hundredth time, the faith of 
 her strong conviction comforted him.
 
 212 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Two days later there was a quiet funeral from 
 the house in which Rhoda lay so ill. The car 
 riage which followed the hearse was occupied 
 by Fraser and his mother. All through the 
 services and the interment these two took their 
 places exactly as if it had been their own child 
 and grandchild. They were both in deep 
 mourning. Eraser s face looked haggard, sad, 
 and wan. Lack of sleep and acute anxiety had 
 told upon him. To those who did not know, 
 he probably looked like a father burying his 
 beloved child ; and, in truth, as he turned away 
 from that little grave his heart was heavy with 
 a new sense of loneliness. It had been some 
 thing to do for Rhoda, and to do it had com 
 forted his heart ; but now, in all the world, 
 there was no service left to be done for her dear 
 sake.
 
 XXI 
 
 r I ^HE crisis was passed, and Rhoda was pro- 
 
 -L nounced to be convalescent, though there 
 
 lingered a danger of relapse, which necessitated 
 
 an almost greater care and caution than before. 
 
 Never had his mother so realised what her 
 son s anxiety had been as when she saw the 
 abandonment of relief and thanksgiving into 
 which the hope of her recovery threw him. 
 
 For some days the patient was allowed to see 
 only the doctors and nurses. It was thought 
 unsafe even to allow her to know that Mrs. 
 Fraser was in the house. The long fever had 
 exhausted her completely, and she slept much, 
 but even when awake her lassitude was so ex 
 treme that she seemed hardly able to think or 
 to feel. 
 
 One day she seemed so much better that the 
 doctors said that either her husband or his 
 mother might go in to see her; and Fraser, 
 with a strong conviction that the sight of him 
 would do Rhoda harm, insisted that his mother 
 should be the one to go. The doctors looked 
 
 213
 
 214 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 upon this as the man s natural feeling that a 
 woman would be more tactful and acceptable in 
 such a case, and so the little old lady went. 
 
 Rhoda greeted her with a wan smile. She 
 was too exhausted to talk much, but she called 
 her "Mother," in a tender tone, and kept her 
 hand in her own, which was thin and wasted. 
 
 " Have I been very ill, mother ?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes, darling. We ve been quite anxious 
 about you ; but you are getting well fast now. 
 
 " They tell me that I have had fever, that 
 I have imagined things," she went on, after 
 a pause, during which the older woman had 
 sat by the bedside, quietly stroking her hand. 
 " Did you ever come to me once, when I was 
 very miserable, and take me away on a great 
 boat, where there were people and beautiful 
 children above, and down below hundreds of 
 poor sheep and cattle, trampling each other to 
 death, and being pushed toward the great open- 
 mouthed red furnaces which heated the boilers ? 
 Was this true ? 
 
 "No, dearest, no. That was all a delu 
 sion of your fever. Don t think about it now. 
 You have been nowhere but here in your own 
 home." 
 
 " How strange ! It seemed so real to me,"
 
 DEAD SELVES. 215 
 
 she said, and then fell silent. Presently she 
 spoke again. 
 
 " Were there two children lovely little boys 
 that played about here in my room, and ran 
 often to kiss me ? Or was this also a dream ? 
 
 "es, my child. You have been ill a long 
 time, you see, and it was an illness that causes 
 all such strange dreams." 
 
 But how can I ever separate the true from 
 the false ? How can I tell when the delusions 
 began ? Help me, mother darling. My mind 
 is so weak and confused." 
 
 Mrs. Fraser dared not let her go on longer. 
 She saw that Rhoda was anxious to talk and to 
 straighten out the tangles of her disordered 
 brain, but by strong and gentle urgency she 
 persuaded her to be quiet and to conform her 
 self to the doctors orders, so that she might 
 get well. 
 
 "You want me to get well?" said Rhoda, 
 wistfully. "You would care if I died?" 
 
 The strong old lady almost lost her self-con 
 trol at this, but, summoning her usual tone of 
 courage, she answered in such a way as to divert 
 the talk into a channel which she felt would be 
 less trying to the poor pale patient. 
 
 Rhoda s improvement after this was rapid.
 
 216 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 Fraser had not seen her yet, and his mother 
 could perceive that any mention of him seemed 
 to disturb and even to perplex the patient. It 
 was impossible to tell whether she desired to 
 see him or not, but their meeting could not 
 now be postponed much longer. 
 
 Once Rhoda had asked about the child. Was 
 it cared for? Did any one see that it lacked 
 for nothing? Was the doctor satisfied that 
 the nurses were faithful? All these questions 
 having been reassuringly answered by the doc 
 tor, she had not referred to the subject again. 
 
 Fraser, meanwhile, was doing his best to 
 possess his soul in patience. Now that that 
 awful dread was gone and it became certain 
 that Rhoda would live, his former life of inac 
 tivity became impossible to him. He rode on 
 horseback for hours together, sometimes getting 
 up before dawn and galloping in the Park, and 
 coming back exhilarated and excited as nothing 
 in all his life had had power to excite him until 
 this wonder of joy and triumph came upon him, 
 that Rhoda was going to get well. 
 
 And yet with the joy there mingled a deep 
 root of bitterness. Rhoda would live, but 
 would she ever be his ? How could he hope 
 it ? How was he ever to dare to meet her eyes,
 
 DEAD SELVES. 217 
 
 with the memory of the shameful words that he 
 had uttered, between them? He would go and 
 listen at her door, sometimes, and hear her 
 sweet voice speaking weakly to his mother or 
 the nurse. In the night he would lie for hours 
 on the floor of her own pretty dressing-room, 
 close to her door, enthralled by the sense of 
 her nearness to him. Her room was kept a 
 bower of roses, which were sent to her every 
 day, with the message that he would come to 
 see her as soon as she should be pronounced 
 well enough. The decision as to this had been 
 left to his mother, and she had her own reasons 
 for not hastening the hour of a visit of whose 
 consequences she felt a certain dread.
 
 XXII 
 
 " T^VUXCAN," said Mrs. Fraser, going to 
 
 J him one morning in the library, where 
 he was trying to dispose of some of his ac 
 cumulated mail matter, " Rhoda is so much 
 stronger and better now that I have told her 
 that you will go in to see her this afternoon." 
 
 A sudden apprehension seized him. 
 
 "Does she want it? Is she willing?" he 
 said. 
 
 "She is more than willing. Indeed, she is 
 unfeignedly glad, now that I have relieved her 
 mind of some fears that had tormented her. It 
 is very difficult for her to disentangle truth from 
 hallucination in her mind, but, together, I think 
 we have at last straightened things out. She has 
 asked me many questions, and would not be 
 satisfied without the most explicit answers." 
 
 What questions ? Tell me the whole truth, 
 he said, his face pale, his eyes wide and anxious. 
 
 "She questioned me particularly about the 
 meeting at which you made your address. She 
 218
 
 DEAD SELVES. 219 
 
 cannot talk much at a time, but she has fre 
 quently recurred to that. She wanted to know 
 if it was true that she went with you to that 
 meeting, and that you had a great public ova 
 tion. She even called her maid to confirm her 
 recollection as to the dress and bonnet that she 
 had worn, and she made me inquire of the foot 
 man if she had come home in the carriage with 
 you and you had then left her and gone to fill 
 an engagement at the club. All this was veri 
 fied, and her memory proved perfectly correct. 
 She remembers also the visit to the sick child s 
 room, and the doctor has convinced her that 
 it was that, after the strain of the evening s 
 excitement, from which she was already ex 
 hausted, which brought on the fever of the 
 brain. She knows that it began that same 
 night, with some horrible hallucinations which 
 have been torturing her ever since. She has 
 told me very little of the nature of these, but 
 she spoke with horror of seeing your eyes in 
 the darkness, and there is something connected 
 with this delusion which so distresses and dis 
 turbs her that I can do nothing, when she 
 speaks of it, but beg her to try to force herself to 
 realize that there is no truth in it, and so throw 
 it off. I think she is quite convinced of it at
 
 220 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 last, and she seems very peaceful and happy 
 now." 
 
 She ceased to speak, for her companion 
 was listening no longer. He had sprung to 
 his feet, like a man from whom chains had 
 just fallen, and was pacing up and down the 
 room, with strides so eager and so rapid that 
 she could scarcely catch the expression of his 
 face. 
 
 What was this that fate, or Providence, or 
 his good angel, had done for him ? It was too 
 marvellous, too glorious to be true ! Rhoda, 
 recovered from the illness which had threat 
 ened to take her from him, was waiting with 
 anxiety to see him, having proved to her per 
 fect satisfaction that the dear, beautiful, thrill 
 ing moments of that scene in the carriage were 
 a reality, and believing that that other scene of 
 brutality and shame which had come after it 
 was a delusion of her fevered brain ! 
 
 Perhaps he was a coward, perhaps he was 
 false to himself and his ideal, but he could not 
 help it that his spirit exulted. 
 
 A few hours later he was called to Rhoda s 
 bedside. The nurse had been sent to wait 
 in a room near by, in case she should be 
 needed, and his mother, having ushered him
 
 DEAD SELVES. 221 
 
 in, went softly out, and he was left alone with 
 Rhoda. 
 
 The large room, so characteristic of her in its 
 delicate luxuriousness, was beautified and per 
 fumed with the roses that he had sent. On a 
 table*at her bedside was a great rich mass of 
 them, and one crimson bloom was lying on the 
 pillow near to her white face. 
 
 She was greatly changed. The rounded 
 cheeks were wasted. The dark eyes looked 
 unnaturally large and brilliant. Even the fair, 
 sweet hands looked strange and thin, and he 
 saw in every sign a state of feebleness and ex 
 treme frailness which made his heart one pas 
 sion of pity. 
 
 Crossing the room on silent, reverent feet, 
 he came and knelt beside her bed. 
 
 "Darling," he whispered, in a voice that 
 shook. 
 
 It seemed to him that he was back again in 
 that supreme and perfect moment in the car 
 riage, and that he had only taken up the pre 
 cious scene a second later, at the very point 
 where it had been interrupted. 
 
 With Rhoda, however, all was different. She 
 stretched out one pale hand to him and smiled, 
 a beautiful, kindly smile, but she was still
 
 222 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 exhausted by illness, and it was only a faint 
 imagination of the feelings of that moment 
 which came to her now. 
 
 "Then you are glad I didn t die?" she said, 
 faintly. " You want me to live ?" 
 
 It seemed to her almost as if she were in a 
 conscious dream ; as if this powerful, impas 
 sioned man, kneeling at her side in an ecstasy 
 of joy, were only one of the delusions with 
 which she had held converse for so long. This 
 delusion was a sweet and pleasant one, and she 
 faintly pressed the hand within her own, as if 
 she would hold on to it, but there was in her 
 heart but the faintest reflex of the fire in his, 
 and she could but dimly comprehend his agita 
 tion. 
 
 " Rhoda ! Darling !" he said, indulging his 
 thirsty eyes with a long draught of her loveli 
 ness. " Do you remember those moments in 
 the carriage ? It was the first time that I had 
 let my heart speak out, but I had had a long, 
 hard struggle, first to keep from loving you, 
 and then to keep from telling you that love." 
 
 He paused an instant, and then went on : 
 
 "I thought that you were going to leave me, 
 
 Rhoda. What I suffered then " He broke 
 
 off, for he had no words.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 223 
 
 She raised her hand and laid it softly on his 
 hair. The gesture was tender, but a little timid. 
 
 "I am glad you cared," she said. "I am 
 glad I did not die, if you wanted me to live." 
 
 A sigh that was almost a sob came up in his 
 throai, her feeling for him seemed so mild a 
 thing, compared to the passion of love for her 
 which was consuming him. 
 
 " Tf I wanted you to live! Oh, Rhoda, 
 Rhoda, he cried, kissing the pale limp hand, 
 which seemed to forget to return his pressure, 
 "you do not dream what my love is! Only 
 get well for me, my darling, and I will show 
 you." 
 
 "I am glad you love me. It seems very 
 strange," she said. 
 
 " Strange, my Rhoda ? Strange that I should 
 love you ! Oh, no ! The strange thing would 
 be if I could fail to worship and adore you. 
 If I can only make you happy, life will be too 
 glorious, too sweet." 
 
 "You do make me happy," she said. "I 
 am very happy." 
 
 Her placid voice, her gentle look, her calm, 
 grave manner, were maddening. In his health 
 ful vigor, he felt happiness to be such a storm, 
 such a whirlwind, such a torrent, that he could
 
 224 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 scarcely believe that the faint utterance of 
 those quiet lips, the soft pressure of that frail 
 hand, the mild radiance of those calm eyes, 
 meant anything more than placid acceptance. 
 Contrasted with his own feeling, how could he 
 call that love ? He had forgotten to make 
 allowance for her lassitude of body and of 
 mind. It seemed to him that she had fanned 
 into a flame all the fire in his heart, only to 
 show him that her own heart was cool and 
 passionless and had in it no response to his. 
 
 Was this to be his punishment? Perhaps it 
 was. 
 
 He lifted the quiet hand he had been hold 
 ing, and, bending, laid his eyes against it. 
 There was an instant s storm of struggle, and 
 then he lowered it until it rested beneath his 
 lips, and, looking up above it, he met her eyes 
 with his. 
 
 " Are you happy, Rhoda?" he said. 
 
 She bent her head gently on the pillow, and 
 said : 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And satisfied?" 
 
 Again that quiet assent. 
 
 Satisfied ! Merciful heaven ! Was this all 
 that she wanted, all that the word happiness
 
 DEAD SELVES. 225 
 
 meant to her? Could she dream what that 
 word meant to him, or enter even remotely into 
 his conception of that other word, love ? 
 
 He looked at her, hungering and thirsting. 
 
 "Rhoda," he said, "do you love me?" 
 
 "Yes, dearly," she said. 
 
 The word smote him. He did not love her 
 dearly. He loved her ! When that was said, 
 how any qualifying word impoverished it ! 
 
 He felt a sense of hopelessness settling upon 
 him. 
 
 His blood was coursing through his veins like 
 fire, and the cool affection which was all that 
 she had for him was intolerable. It was a relief 
 when his mother came and told him he had 
 better go. She, more than doctor or nurse, 
 knew the possible agitation of this interview. 
 
 But Rhoda did not seem agitated. She had 
 been pleased to have him there, but she seemed 
 also willing to let him go. As he rose from his 
 keees, he stooped over and kissed her on the 
 forehead. She smiled up at him contentedly, as 
 if it were enough. Somehow, he got out of 
 the room, and, gaining his own apartments, 
 shut himself in alone. 
 
 Alone he was, utterly and terribly ! The 
 loneliness that comes after companionship is the
 
 226 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 only intolerable loneliness, and he knew now 
 how close and sweet had been the companion 
 ship of his thoughts of Rhoda. 
 
 After long waiting he had seen her, and 
 what he felt was a deep, desperate disappoint 
 ment. It was impossible that she could love 
 him, when their first moments together since 
 their love was owned had been like this ! But 
 his punishment was just, perhaps. He had 
 meant to take advantage of her ignorance, to 
 let it be supposed that those brutal words which 
 he had spoken to her were a delusion of fever. 
 He had meant to accept her love on this false 
 basis ; but fate had saved her from him, for she 
 did not love him ! That was the new principle 
 of pain to which he must now adjust his life. 
 
 She was out of danger. She was getting well. 
 He must return to his ordinary existence, where 
 business pressed. He began to go again to 
 Brockett, and tried hard to throw himself into 
 his work. 
 
 The small success of this effort was another 
 blow. Even his career had become almost a 
 matter of indifference to him, and the triumph 
 which he had recently scored in that direction 
 proved wretchedly light, balanced against the 
 loss which, in another way, he had suffered.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 227 
 
 Every morning he went early to Brockett, 
 and every afternoon he made a visit to Rhoda. 
 
 He was as calm and cool in manner now as 
 she. His kisses were as chill and gentle, his 
 looks as merely affectionate, as hers. No doubt, 
 he tdd himself, she was well satisfied with him ! 
 The nurse need have no fear of his exciting her 
 in any way.
 
 XXIII 
 
 ONE day Fraser, as usual, had been to 
 Brockett, and had come home toward 
 evening, feeling tired. He knew that his cus 
 tomary visit to Rhoda was before him, but the 
 strain of these visits, the efforts to tune him 
 self to her key, were so difficult to him that he 
 had a strong shrinking from them. 
 
 This afternoon, when he entered the room, 
 there was a change. The big bed was empty, 
 and Rhoda had been moved to the lounge in 
 the bay-window. There she lay, swathed in 
 soft draperies of some blue material, just enough 
 wasted by illness to make a passionate appeal to 
 the tenderness of a man who loved her. 
 
 The light coverlet had been thrown aside, 
 and there lay her long body, fine and straight 
 and beautiful. Her feet were thrust into soft 
 slippers, the pointed toes of which gave that 
 look of being delicately finished at the extrem 
 ities, which her long, tapering hands also carried 
 out. Her hair, parted and plaited, made her 
 face look meek and mildly grave, and her blue 
 228
 
 DEAD SELVES. 229 
 
 draperies, though they heightened her pallor, 
 gave a look of virginal serenity to her lovely 
 face. Her toilet to-day was soignee and dainty, 
 instead of being merely thorough and neat. 
 The difference was due to the fact that it had 
 beenjbr the first time directed by herself, in 
 stead of by her nurse. The finger-nails, deli 
 cately pink, in contrast to the blue- white of her 
 hands, were carefully trimmed and smoothed, 
 and a soft little lace-edged handkerchief was 
 crushed in one pale hand. 
 
 As he came near and stooped, as usual, to 
 kiss her forehead, the familiar scent from this 
 little grossamer-fine thing penetrated to his finest 
 consciousness, and made him clench his hand 
 with a force almost painful, to give himself a 
 danger-signal. 
 
 He drew a chair to the side of the lounge 
 and sat down in it, assuming a manner which 
 was painstakingly casual and collected. 
 
 It begins to look as though Rhoda were 
 herself again," he said. "How nice to see 
 you really dressed and off the invalid-list ! You 
 have had a weary time of it. 
 
 "Not very," she said, gently. "I had bad 
 dreams, in that long fever-sleep, but it was 
 sweet to wake and find they were not true."
 
 2 3 o DEAD SELVES. 
 
 At these words Fraser winced inwardly. He 
 even feared that some effect of them might show 
 in his face or movements, and so, remembering 
 a piece of advice given him by the doctor that 
 morning, and being willing to change the sub 
 ject in almost any way that would change the 
 current of his thoughts and hers, he said : 
 
 "Rhoda, the doctor tells me you are now 
 well enough to bear something which must be 
 told to you, dear, and of which in your soul 
 you must be glad ; but it will necessarily give 
 you a certain shock." 
 
 He paused an instant, a sense of agitation 
 seizing him, as he saw the sweet inquiry of her 
 eyes. It seemed cruel to bring up that dark 
 subject in this angelic presence, but he was 
 compelled to go on. 
 
 "Tell me," she said, wonderingly. 
 
 He felt for her ignorance, her unconscious 
 ness that he was about to lay his hand upon a 
 spot so sore. 
 
 " It will hurt you, I fear," he said, " and yet 
 it is good news, Rhoda blessed good tidings 
 about a being for whose sake you have suffered 
 much. 
 
 Her face seemed to grow more densely 
 white.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 231 
 
 "My poor child!" she said. Her voice 
 shook. Her lips trembled. She was still weak 
 from her illness, and he saw that she could not 
 bear a longer suspense. 
 
 "Yes, Rhoda, your poor child," he said. 
 "Its, life has passed away from the world in 
 which its soul has never dwelt. There is a 
 belief, in some Eastern religion, that the souls 
 of such beings are kept with God, and that 
 therefore their bodies are sacred too, and they 
 are thought of with more tenderness and rever 
 ence than any others." 
 
 He was using all his power to comfort her 
 and ease this moment s pain, but she seemed 
 scarcely to hear his words. Large tear-drops 
 filled her eyes and rolled down her pale cheeks. 
 
 " I am very glad," she said. 
 
 The pathos of those words and tears together 
 was almost too much for Fraser. His heart 
 ached with tenderness. He bent toward her 
 pityingly, and said : 
 
 "I wish I could have spared you this pain, 
 my poor Rhoda. I bear it with you." 
 
 "I am very glad," she said again, but the 
 tears came thicker and faster. She hid her face 
 in her handkerchief, and, pressing it down 
 with both hands, began to shake with low, half-
 
 232 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 stifled sobs. Her weakness made her powerless 
 to resist them, and she gave way and cried, as 
 simply and pathetically as a little child. 
 
 Fraser slipped from the chair to his knees. 
 
 " Rhoda, my own child," he said, bending 
 over her, " I know you are brave, and that you 
 say that you are glad, but I want you to be 
 really and truly what you are trying so hard to 
 be. Let it make you only thankful and happy, 
 dear, that God has sent this release for that 
 poor child s sake and for your own." 
 
 " I am," she said, speaking in a weak whisper 
 from behind her handkerchief. I am both 
 thankful and happy : but, oh, poor little thing, 
 to be so alone ! to be left to hired nurses all 
 the last days of its life ! to have no one to go 
 and put it into its little grave, no one who 
 cared!" 
 
 That was not so, my Rhoda. It was not 
 alone. I went there every afternoon to take 
 your place. I sat and watched and rocked it, 
 hour after hour, and I followed it to its grave 
 with pity and reverence, because it was your 
 child. My mother, too, went with me. So 
 now you cannot say that there was no one there 
 who cared. 
 
 She took her hands down and looked at him.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 233 
 
 "You did this?" she said. "You? You 
 did this thing for that poor little cursed and 
 blighted being to whom I gave its wretched life ? 
 Why did you?" 
 
 " Rhoda, darling, because it was your child, 
 and because I loved you so that I grew to feel 
 tenderly to it also, for your sake. I used to sit 
 by the hour and play the little music-box to it, 
 and rock it so strongly and regularly that its 
 restlessness would cease entirely. I used to love 
 then to look at its little hands. I used to hold 
 them close and kiss them, because they were like 
 yours." 
 
 He saw that his words gave comfort, and so 
 he went on and told her all that there was to tell, 
 thankful in his heart that he could give her the 
 solace of this knowledge. 
 
 " Oh, I thank you ! God knows, I thank 
 you!" she said, with the humble gratitude of 
 one who has received a favor undeserved. " It 
 soothes my heart to think that those poor little 
 hands were kissed before they were laid away 
 forever. 
 
 "Think of the soul and not of the body, 
 Rhoda. Its sad life here is over, and now it 
 has a sacred life with God." 
 
 "Yes, yes," she cried, eagerly. "It is
 
 234 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 sweet and good. I am so glad. I am not sad 
 about it. I don t know why I should cry. 
 How good you were ! How I thank you for 
 it!" 
 
 She reached out one slim hand the one on 
 which herwedding-ring hung loose and offered 
 it to him, with a smile. 
 
 "And to think," she said, as his fingers 
 closed around it eagerly, " to think that in my 
 fever and delirium I thought you had been 
 harsh and cruel to me ! Oh, you do not know 
 
 " she broke off suddenly, covering her face 
 
 an instant with her hand, "you do not know 
 what horrible, blighting, bitter words I thought 
 you said to me ! It is as plain to me yet as if 
 it had really happened. It must have been the 
 very beginning of my delirium. I thought 
 you were here, in this room, lying on this very 
 lounge, and that I came to you and spoke to 
 you with love and tenderness, as you had spoken 
 to me in the carriage, and that I saw your eyes 
 blaze on me from out of the darkness with a 
 look of scorn ; and then you spoke those words, 
 those dreadful, awful words which I cannot 
 forget, not even now, when you are near me, 
 with all your gentleness and tenderness and ex 
 quisite kindness to me and my poor child. How
 
 DEAD SELVES. 235 
 
 could I, even in delirium, imagine you so cruel, 
 so brutal, so unlike your great good self?" 
 
 He could not bear it. Wrenching his hand 
 away from those sweet clinging fingers, he got 
 up and walked across the room. 
 
 He knew that she was wondering at him, that 
 his rough and sudden movement had hurt her 
 in her heart, if not in her body ; but it was 
 some moments before he could command him 
 self sufficiently to come back to her, although 
 more than once she called to him and asked him 
 to come. Suddenly he turned, and, walking 
 to her side, looked down on her and said : 
 
 "Rhoda, suppose I had said those words to 
 you in reality, could you forgive me ? I have 
 a reason for wanting to know." 
 
 "Is it to test how much I care for you?" 
 she said, with a certain shyness, though her 
 eyes met his candidly. "Ah, I care much, 
 much ; but you do not know what those words 
 were with which, in my dream, you scorned 
 and taunted me. I could forgive a great deal 
 but not that ! A woman who had heard 
 herself so spoken to by a man could neither 
 forgive nor forget." 
 
 He did not answer, but turned in silence and 
 left the room.
 
 XXIV 
 
 RHODA S convalescence progressed rap 
 idly, so that a few days after her talk 
 with Fraser she was able to drive out. At first 
 she was too weak to walk down to the carriage, 
 and then Fraser used to carry her in his arms. 
 Her dependence upon him was sweet to them 
 both. When she got better and was able to 
 walk alone, both, in the silence of their hearts, 
 regretted. 
 
 There was something more than the mere re 
 cuperation from an ordinary illness observable 
 in Rhoda now. It was a more brilliant, buoy 
 ant, glowing, redundant health than she had 
 ever known before. She had been always a 
 pale woman, but now there was a genuine rose- 
 flush in her cheeks and a new-born radiance in 
 her eyes. For one thing, that sore-pressing, 
 ever-present burden of the child was gone. 
 That was much, but it was not all. There was 
 a deeper meaning yet to the new-found delight 
 in her heart, which made her bloom and radiate 
 236
 
 DEAD SELVES. 237 
 
 beauty and sweetness upon all who came in con 
 tact with her. 
 
 Every one recognized this, and as time went 
 by and Rhoda presently appeared in the Park, 
 driving with Fraser, her extraordinary beauty 
 made. positive sensation, the echoes of which 
 could not fail to reach Eraser s ears. 
 
 And if the world saw and felt this revivifying 
 of Rhoda s beautiful being, what of him? He 
 was enthralled by it, through all his soul and 
 senses. There was an air of calm joyousness 
 about her which made her seem like some radi 
 ant creature from another world, come here to 
 show how beautiful and bright existence might 
 be. 
 
 There had been always a large element of 
 the child in Rhoda, and this was not the less 
 evident now that suffering and conquest had 
 made her supremely woman. She seemed to 
 have come out of that illness new-made in body 
 and new-born in spirit. The old self, in which 
 she had sinned against her own soul and against 
 others, was now dead. She had done it through 
 ignorance, but we must pay the price of our 
 mistakes, as well as of our faults. It seemed 
 now, however, as if that debt was fully paid 
 and the new life was begun. Her lovely face
 
 238 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 gave evidence that the dewy radiance of its 
 dawn was all about her. 
 
 Fraser also had an old self, which he would 
 have rejoiced to count as dead. He looked 
 back with a fierce revulsion at the self who had 
 committed the great wrong of a marriage con 
 tract in which love had no part, the self who, 
 after this, had added to the wrong by becoming 
 engrossed in an egotistic life apart from the 
 young creature whom he had condemned to 
 lovelessness and loneliness. He had not had the 
 excuse of ignorance, which was so strong a pal 
 liative of Rhoda s fault. He had been an ex 
 perienced man of the world, and he ought to 
 have known in his inner sense, he had known 
 that he was doing her a wrong and subjecting 
 her to terrible dangers. But he had not cared 
 for that. He had cared only for his work and 
 his career in the world. 
 
 All this was now so changed that he felt he 
 could justly claim that that old self was dead 
 but for one thing ! The old, the lower, the 
 repudiated self could not be counted dead while 
 he took advantage of Rhoda s ignorance and 
 allowed her to believe that he had not uttered 
 those terrible words to her. The new and 
 nobler self could not come into full life until
 
 DEAD SELVES. 239 
 
 he owned the truth to her and was strong enough 
 to take the consequences. He tried to believe 
 himself strong, but before the thought of this 
 ordeal he was a coward, and from the possible 
 consequences of it he shrank. 
 
 Sot the laboratory he spent wretched, rest 
 less days, while Rhoda, at home, was contented 
 and peaceful, with her dear books, her happy 
 thoughts, and the companionship of the old lady, 
 whom she so tenderly loved. 
 
 At night, when Rhoda, with her faithful 
 nurse on a cot near by, was enjoying the de 
 licious and strengthening sleep of convales 
 cence, Fraser, in his room not far away, would 
 pace the floor for hours at a time, fighting, 
 struggling, wrestling with the temptations to 
 keep Rhoda ignorant of the truth about him 
 self. 
 
 Himself ! He paused and thought upon the 
 word. What was his true self? He denied 
 that it was the being who had married Rhoda 
 Gwyn for money. No, no ; his present self, 
 his true self, repudiated that one. Nor was he 
 the man who had, for so long, considered only 
 with a cold cruelty that unhappy and faithful 
 mother and that poor blighted child. He could 
 call God to witness that he had risen above
 
 240 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 that, that his evolution from that dead self 
 had passed into a higher thing. And to come 
 nearer yet he confidently and indignantly de 
 nied that he was the man who had spoken those 
 brutal words to gentle, beautiful, noble Rhoda, 
 who, out of her great-hearted generosity, had 
 forgiven him the past and turned to him in 
 love ! No, a thousand times no ; that was not 
 himself. In this illness of Rhoda s he had gone 
 through a discipline which had made him turn 
 with horror from the thought of that self, but 
 the new, the noble, the true self, as he believed, 
 was not yet born until he could confess the 
 truth to Rhoda and accept the consequences. 
 This was what a stern voice in his soul required 
 of him, but he shrank from it, as a man would 
 shrink from taking a leap from a precipice be 
 neath which was an unfathomed pit. 
 
 These were the thoughts which kept him 
 sleepless and wretched, as he paced the floor 
 of his room, alone in the darkness, while Rhoda 
 slept so well.
 
 XXV 
 
 
 
 ONE morning Mrs. Fraser announced that 
 she was going home. She had made all 
 arrangements, and even packed her trunk, be 
 fore she spoke of it, and both her son and her 
 daughter knew her well enough to understand 
 that when her mind was made up there was no 
 gainsaying her. 
 
 " I never like to make or even to cause a 
 commotion, my dear," she said to Rhoda. 
 "You are perfectly well, and I am not needed 
 any longer. There are duties calling me home, 
 and I must go. 
 
 " But it was only this morning that my nurse 
 left me," Rhoda said, " and to lose you both in 
 one day makes me appear more healthy and in 
 dependent than I like to be." 
 
 "It is a good thing to feel healthy, my child, 
 and independent too, as far as your nurse and 
 myself are concerned. You are strong enough 
 to dispense with her care of your body now, 
 just as you are strong enough to do without the 
 1 6 241
 
 242 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 spiritual aid from me which you had need of 
 when you were weaker." 
 
 " The time can never come when I shall fail 
 to need you, mother dear," said Rhoda, "and 
 yet I understand what it is that you mean. You 
 gave me the greatest gift I have ever received 
 when you gave me my ideal of myself. For a 
 long time I had not that; but how can any 
 woman live without it ? Judge how I must love 
 and bless you, my own mother, for this precious 
 gift." 
 
 There was a closeness of comprehension be 
 tween these two women as they parted which 
 had more of union in it than there was in that 
 other parting of mother and son. 
 
 " Duncan," said the old lady, with a certain 
 sternness in her voice, " I want you to take care 
 that you know how to value Rhoda. Your 
 mother used to wonder whether she would ever 
 see the woman who was worthy of you. I must 
 not shrink from telling you that I have come to 
 wonder now whether my son is worthy of the 
 woman who has consented to be his companion 
 for the hard journey of life. There is some 
 thing that I do not understand between you 
 two, something that I shall not pry into ; but 
 this I want you to remember, Duncan," she
 
 DEAD SELVES. 243 
 
 added, solemnly, putting her slight hands on 
 his strong shoulders and looking up into his 
 face ; "if you fall short of your whole duty of 
 love and service to that precious being if, 
 through any fault or folly of yours, you fail her, 
 or coftie short of the utmost man can be to 
 woman as husband and as friend your mother s 
 belief in and affection for you will have received 
 a blow from which they can never recover." 
 
 His eyes fell before that searching gaze. 
 
 " Mother, you had better face the truth," he 
 said. " I am not worthy of her." 
 
 "Then make yourself so," she answered, 
 sternly. " Kill and crucify whatever it is within 
 you that stands in the way. I do not know 
 what it is, and I do not ask, but this I do 
 know : if you treat Rhoda fairly, you can rely 
 upon her generosity to any length. But be 
 honest with her, Duncan. Let there not be a 
 remnant of deception between you, or you will 
 have your punishment, and you will deserve 
 it." 
 
 These were her last words, and they echoed 
 through his heart. 
 
 That afternoon, when she was gone, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Duncan Fraser drove together in the 
 Park.
 
 244 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 They talked, in low tones, about indifferent 
 things, but he saw a wonderful change in her. 
 That guarded attitude which had given her a 
 sense of repression and him a feeling of being 
 isolated from her was gone, and she spoke to 
 him cheerfully and freely, though sometimes 
 with a little look of timidity, which, in con 
 nection with the stateliness of her tall beauty, 
 agitated while it also charmed him. 
 
 An hour after their return from the drive they 
 dined together tete-a-tete. It was the first time 
 since her illness, and here too he could see a 
 marked change in her attitude toward him. He 
 recalled the cool aloofness of the figure he had 
 been used to see facing him there, and con 
 trasted it with the sense of joyous ease about 
 her now. The gown that she wore he could 
 not remember to have seen before. It was all 
 white, and there were violets at the border of 
 the square corsage. It was very simple, too 
 simple, in fact, for anything but this quiet home 
 dinner ; and for that reason it was sweeter. It 
 was made after the graceful fashion of the Em 
 pire, and Fraser thought he had never seen any 
 woman in any dress look so perfect. As she sat 
 there, talking easily and with that wonderful 
 change of look and tone which a sense of sym-
 
 DEAD SELVES. 245 
 
 pathy imparts, his soul reached out to her. But 
 he remembered, and he feared. 
 
 When dinner was over, he let her go before 
 him into the drawing-room, saying that he 
 would follow her when he had finished his cigar 
 and paper. 
 
 As he held open the dining-room door for 
 her, he looked not unworthy of the fair lady 
 who passed him with a smile as sweet as the 
 breath of the violets wafted from her breast. 
 
 Fraser stood and watched her until the lovely, 
 light-stepping figure had turned into the draw 
 ing-room. But still that look and smile con 
 tinued to haunt him. There had been something 
 in that frank swift glance that he had never seen 
 in Rhoda s eyes before, the willing acknowl 
 edgment of the love which was, both in kind 
 and in degree, what his mind and soul craved 
 like a thirst. He knew that he had called it up 
 by the gaze which, at the sudden coming nearer 
 of her loveliness, had blazed forth from his eyes, 
 and that very fact revealed to him his power 
 over her. 
 
 His cigar remained unlighted and his paper 
 unread. Quietly leaving the dining-room, he 
 went to the darkened library, where he sat 
 down alone. The effort to think was a difficult
 
 246 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 one, with the insistency of feeling so crowding 
 upon him. 
 
 What was he to do ? He wanted to be a brave 
 and honest man and to tell her the truth. He 
 had tried hard to bring himself to the point of 
 determining to do so, but so far he had not suc 
 ceeded. He knew what he ought to do, and 
 he wanted to do what he ought. Beyond that 
 he could not go. Yes, he wanted to do what 
 was right, but there was also something else 
 that he wanted with every nerve and fibre and 
 drop of blood in his body, something that 
 he might have, if he only let things be, if he 
 did not, by his own will and his own act, pre 
 vent it. 
 
 He sat there, still and silent outwardly, but 
 with a heart that leaped at every sudden thought 
 of her. He tried to school himself to the stern 
 duty which he saw so plainly before him, but the 
 memory of her voice and smile, the impression 
 of her face and figure, and, more than all, that 
 last swift look with which she had answered his, 
 appealed to his senses so alluringly that his mind 
 was a mass of confusion, perplexity, and agi 
 tation. 
 
 The library was next to the drawing room, 
 and he felt through all his thoughts the sense of
 
 DEAD SELVES. 247 
 
 Rhoda s nearness. He knew that she was there 
 and that she waited for him. 
 
 Rhoda, on the contrary, believed him to be 
 still in the dining-room, lingering over his cigar, 
 and felt that presently he would come to her. 
 She ^vas not impatient. The delicacy and re 
 serve of his attitude toward her, since their love 
 had been acknowledged, made the strongest 
 possible appeal to her. The newly awakened 
 consciousness within her gave her now a shy 
 ness and timidity which, as a crude and un 
 developed girl, marrying without even a con 
 ception of love, she had never had. The more 
 passionately aware she became of her feeling to 
 ward him, the more contented was she that he 
 should linger a little. The joy before her was 
 so bright, so blinding, that she had a little sense 
 of fear at its approach. 
 
 For the first time Rhoda knew what it was to 
 love, and she had with it that maidenly con 
 sciousness which is a part of love s delight. She 
 knew also that she was loved in return, and her 
 nature was so simple, so utterly opposed to the 
 modern methods of self-analysis, that she re 
 ceived the revelation of love as naturally and 
 unquestioningly as a child would have accepted 
 the arrival of a thing desired.
 
 248 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 She felt no wish to hasten the coming of her 
 joy, but she had a great longing to express her 
 self. The burden of silence weighed upon her. 
 
 Suddenly her eyes fell upon the closed piano, 
 and, rising, she crossed to it swiftly and sat down 
 upon the stool. It was on the side of the room 
 next to the library, too far away from the dining- 
 room, she thought, to be audible there, through 
 closed doors, so she could play to herself alone. 
 
 Feeling quite at her ease, she slipped back the 
 cover of the key-board and began to play. 
 
 They were old favorites that she played, 
 fragments which she had often gone over and 
 over to herself when she had first tried to pene 
 trate the mystery of the feeling of love. 
 Through these strains of music, tender, sad, 
 impassioned aspirations after the unknown, she 
 had come to the consciousness that the feeling 
 in her heart for the man with whom she had 
 made a mere marriage contract was love. 
 Through them now she sought to realize to 
 herself that love s full satisfaction and fruition. 
 
 Things came to her and she played them, 
 making no effort to comprehend the specific 
 feeling which prompted the widely different 
 strains. From some unknown impulse, she 
 began with Chopin s funeral march.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 249 
 
 As the first grand chords of it smote the silent 
 air, coming deep, low, and distinct to the ears of 
 Fraser where, within a pace or two, he sat in 
 his battle with temptation, he started in his 
 seat, and then sank back, vibrating like a harp- 
 string. The image of death, supreme, inevi 
 table, final, seemed to loom before him, putting 
 its fatal hand upon all life and love and joy. 
 It seemed to pronounce his own doom ; and 
 the verdict came through Rhoda s hands, as it 
 was right that it should. It seemed inevitable 
 that he must accept it, but he groaned in spirit 
 at the thought. 
 
 Then from the hands of Rhoda also came the 
 sounds of that second movement, with its clear 
 gentle melody that seems a smile at death ! It 
 had always spoken to him of the supremacy of 
 the spiritual over the material, and his heart 
 seemed to throb to the pulsations of a new life. 
 Over and over that sweet strain was repeated, as 
 if Rhoda too found pleasure in it. Every time 
 she played it the strain got lower, and as the 
 sound diminished it grew more keenly sweet, 
 seeming to draw him to it and to her. 
 
 Moving very softly, he went and leaned his 
 head against the door which separated the two 
 rooms.
 
 250 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 During the moment of his crossing that slight 
 space the music stopped. Could she have heard 
 him ? Impossible ! The silence continued for 
 a moment more, and then, nearer than before, 
 more passionately present to his senses and his 
 soul, the familiar and ever-loved strains of Schu 
 bert s Serenade pierced the short space which 
 separated him from Rhoda. 
 
 She played the opening bars very slowly. It 
 seemed as if her spirit as well as her fingers lin 
 gered over them. They drew him on, until, 
 with stealthy motions, and almost without con 
 sciousness of his body or his act, he had noise 
 lessly opened the door. The drawing-room was 
 thus suddenly exposed to view ; and there she 
 sat! 
 
 Her back was toward him, and the lights in 
 the wide room were few and dim. Her figure 
 looked the merest girl s, as she sat on the high 
 stool, with the folds of her short-waisted dress 
 drawn under her. He could see that her figure 
 swayed slightly with the rhythm of the song that 
 she played, and her graceful head, with its knot 
 of hair in distinct outline, was gently bending 
 too. 
 
 Moving one step at a time and with motions 
 of extreme caution, he drew nearer to her, not
 
 DEAD SELVES. 251 
 
 near enough for touch, but near enough to see 
 the outline of her profile, and even its expres 
 sion. Then he sank noiselessly into a chair 
 and watched and listened. 
 
 If Rhoda s playing had been enthralling to 
 him ^before, what was it now that the spell was 
 subtly strengthened by the sight of Rhoda s 
 face ? And even that was not all. He now 
 perceived that the lips, with their sweet alluring 
 curves, were moving, and that, with a sort of 
 delicate humming, she was carrying the air that 
 she played. 
 
 For the most part, this low singing was word 
 less, but now and then a short uttered sentence 
 accentuated it. She only recalled the words in 
 fragments, or else there were -only fragments of 
 them which expressed her feelings. 
 
 Fraser listened, all his senses tuned to their 
 finest susceptibilities. He took in the vision of 
 her beauty in a deep and ever-thirsting draught, 
 while his ears drank their fill of the melody 
 which flowed from under her fingers. But 
 keener, sweeter yet was the low thrilling sound 
 that sang to that marvellous music the words : 
 
 "While I dream of thee." 
 She sang them once, and then twice, as if the
 
 252 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 iteration were sweet to her. His heart trem 
 bled. 
 
 " While I dream of thee," 
 
 she sang again. 
 
 He knew that he and no other was the object 
 of her dreams. He knew that the hour had 
 struck for him to come into his kingdom. But 
 could he enter it as a usurper ? 
 
 The music thrilled the quiet air of that still 
 room where these two were alone. 
 
 Suddenly her hands fell from the keys and 
 lay upon her lap, and there was but an echo of 
 that strain and of those words. Then the audi 
 ble reverberation passed away, and the echo 
 lingered only in their souls. 
 
 He sat profoundly still and looked at her. 
 His gaze penetrated the silence as it had not 
 done the sound, for she felt it on her, and so 
 turned and looked at him, and, oh, the joy, the 
 exultation, of that look ! 
 
 He knew that there was not a cloud between 
 them, not a lingering vestige of the obstacles 
 which had separated them so long, except the one 
 which need be no obstacle at all, unless his own 
 act made it so. The gates of heaven were flung 
 wide before him, and nothing but his own hand, 
 directed by his own will, could shut them.
 
 DEAD SELVES. 253 
 
 Rhoda s eyes continued to gaze upon him, 
 dominating his senses and mightily threatening 
 his will. He got up from his seat, took a few 
 steps forward, and fell on his knees before 
 her. 
 
 H was there in repentance and absolute self- 
 abasement, but she did not understand. He 
 had intended to tell her, and to take from her 
 lips the scorn that he deserved, but she thought 
 he had come in a far different spirit, and, lean 
 ing, she laid her lovely arms around his neck. 
 Then, looking down upon him so, she smiled. 
 
 The all-loveliness of that smile and gaze was 
 more than he could bear. He threw his head 
 down, till his face rested upon the fragrant 
 draperies of her lap and the allurement of that 
 vision of her was hidden from his eyes. He 
 felt her tender fingers on his head, as if she 
 blessed him. She did not speak, but he felt the 
 voice of her soul speaking to his soul. 
 
 "Rhoda," he whispered, not lifting his bowed 
 head, " Rhoda, you do love me, don t you ?" 
 
 He felt the pressure of her hand grow stronger, 
 and she made a motion as if to draw him closer. 
 
 "Yes," she whispered. 
 
 The thrilling word possessed him like some 
 spell which every moment held him in deeper
 
 254 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 thrall. With her touch upon him, her love 
 about him, how could he tell her? 
 
 "Rhoda," he said, lifting his head and re 
 vealing a face distorted with the passion of his 
 struggle, " you say you love me; but how much? 
 how much ? Enough to forgive me as great 
 a wrong as a man ever did a woman ? 
 
 "Enough for anything," she said. 
 
 "Anything but this, I can believe. If it 
 were any other ordeal that I proposed to test 
 you by, I should not shrink, but, oh, this 
 frightens me. My soul within me fears. I 
 dare not tell you." 
 
 "Tell me," she said, tenderly, framing his 
 agitated face with her two lovely hands, and 
 looking down upon him with a sweet strong 
 smile. "I am not afraid." 
 
 "One moment," he said, in a half-stifled 
 whisper. " Give me one moment s grace. I 
 ought not to ask it of you, Rhoda but kiss me 
 once." 
 
 She bent until her face was very near to 
 his. Their lips had almost met, but he drew 
 back. 
 
 "No, no!" he cried. "You must not. I 
 cannot let you give what you might regret. 
 Oh, Rhoda, I have wronged you deeply, but I
 
 DEAD SELVES. 255 
 
 love you, I adore you ! I call on God to show 
 you this." 
 
 "I know it," she whispered back, "and so 
 do I love you. When that is so, there is nothing 
 we could not forgive each other. Remember 
 what^ou have forgiven me. It must have been 
 the worst of all things for a man to forgive a 
 woman." 
 
 "The case is different, my Rhoda. That 
 was not you. That ignorant, unknowing child 
 was but the germ from which you sprang. My 
 mother has shown me that. Knowledge has 
 come to you now, and love has taught you. 
 The old self is a dead one, out of which the 
 real you has come into life. 
 
 His words were spoken with conviction. He 
 felt their force so strongly himself that it was 
 only natural to him that she should feel it too. 
 
 "I accept that belief absolutely," she said. 
 " The self that did that awful, unbelievable 
 thing is quite, quite dead; and what is true of 
 me is also true of you. This unknown wrong 
 committed against yourself and me, it was not 
 done by you, the man that you are now, 
 whose love I take as my best gift from God, and 
 pay it back with the first love of my life, whose 
 hands I hold in mine, whose eyes now read my
 
 256 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 soul, as I read his and see that it is true and 
 good." 
 
 Under the power of her words, the whole 
 look of his face changed mysteriously. 
 
 " Rhoda, Rhoda," he said, "in ray heart, 
 and in God s sight, I know that what you say 
 is true. I know it, and God knows it, but it is 
 almost too much to expect that revelation to be 
 made to any other soul. Rhoda, you are right : 
 / did not do it. I could as soon bruise and 
 wound your beautiful body as I could now lacer 
 ate your soul as I did then. If God has revealed 
 this to you " 
 
 "He has He has! Why will you not believe 
 it and save yourself this suffering, which makes 
 me suffer too ? 
 
 Her face had paled. Her hands were trem 
 bling. He felt that he must end this ordeal, for 
 both their sakes. 
 
 " I will tell you all," he said. " Let me feel 
 your hands and see your eyes while I do it." 
 
 She clasped his hands in a tight pressure, and 
 turned her full gaze on him. 
 
 "Go on," she said. 
 
 "You remember that night when I spoke 
 before the convention," he began, speaking 
 very fast. "They all applauded me, and I
 
 DEAD SELVES. 257 
 
 knew that my career was made, that I held in 
 my hand the power and influence for which I 
 had struggled so long. I realized this, but I 
 felt an awful sense of lack, because I had not 
 you. I loved you more than fame, more than 
 success, more even than my dreams of helping 
 on my race. I was impatient of triumph apart 
 from you. As we were driving home together, 
 this feeling, which I had kept down for so long, 
 got too strong for me. I let you see it, and in 
 return you gave me one swift glance through 
 the well-guarded doors of your heart also. This 
 double secret my love for you and yours for me 
 would have inevitably come to a full betrayal 
 then but for the stopping of the carriage. It 
 gave me a moment s breathing-space, and I 
 knew that my only safety was in flight. I rushed 
 off to the club, but I could not stay. You drew 
 me to you, and every other force was powerless. 
 I hurried back to you, my pulses quickened into 
 fire at the thought of seeing you again. On 
 reaching the house i flew to your room. You 
 were not there. I searched for you everywhere. 
 I could not brook delay. At last oh, poor, 
 Rhoda ! I found you, by that poor child s bed. 
 I had never really looked at it before, and I 
 loved you so fiercely, so desperately, that that 
 17
 
 258 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 made me hate it. Instead of worshipping you 
 for your angelic sense of motherhood and duty, 
 I grew wild with rage. I looked full at that 
 poor being, and instead of pity I felt a mad re 
 sentment. The worst of all was when I saw the 
 little hands that looked like yours. But, Rhoda, 
 remember this : I carne to feel only a great pity 
 for that child at last, and I used to kiss those 
 little hands, with thirsty love." 
 
 Her eyes were still upon him, grave and true. 
 He could be nothing but honest to the death, 
 under the influence of such a gaze as that. 
 
 "I was wild, infuriated, out of my senses," 
 he said. " The brute that was in me then rose 
 up and mastered me. I rushed down-stairs and 
 waited for you, in your room, purposely to say 
 those cruel and dastardly words to you which 
 you oh, Rhoda, Rhoda ! thought you had 
 imagined in delirium. It was not so. They 
 were true. I said those words to you ; I looked 
 at you with such a look ; and I must pay the 
 penalty !" 
 
 He wrenched his hands away from her and 
 hid his face in them. There was a look in 
 Rhoda s eyes which he could hardly bear. The 
 kindness, the lack of condemnation in them 
 seemed to remove her too far from him. She
 
 DEAD SELVES. 259 
 
 appeared to him like an angel who looked at 
 him with a divine charity which was glorious 
 and sweet, and yet not what he wanted. He 
 was not very human, and he wanted her human, 
 equal love. 
 
 Ft>r some long seconds there was silence. 
 Then he said : 
 
 " Rhoda, I ask your forgiveness. Can you 
 give it ?" 
 
 She did not speak, until he lowered his hands 
 and looked at her. Then she answered him, 
 with a smile. 
 
 It was all sweet, all gracious, without a trace 
 of any thought that pained in it, a lovely 
 human smile, that yet seemed to lift him into 
 heaven. 
 
 "Then, Rhoda, you forgive me? It was too 
 much to hope, too much to think." 
 
 "I do forgive those words to the man who 
 uttered them," said Rhoda : "we easily forgive 
 the dead ! To you I have nothing to forgive. 
 That was another self that could be base and 
 cruel. That self is not you, Duncan !" 
 
 At the word never before uttered by her to 
 him he sprang to his feet, as if it were a sum 
 mons to all the manhood in him of body or of 
 spirit. Catching her hands, he drew her up-
 
 260 DEAD SELVES. 
 
 ward until they stood, tall, young, erect, and 
 face to face. The consciousness of that uttered 
 name made Rhoda s face aflame. Fraser was 
 very pale. He spoke to her in a whisper. 
 
 " Rhoda," he said, " you can say that to me, 
 after all that I have done?" 
 
 " Not you; it was not you !" she answered, 
 whispering too, and again she smiled. It was a 
 smile of perfect confidence, that gave him sud 
 den strength. 
 
 " No, no, not I, indeed !" he said; " not the 
 man that you have made of me, for, Rhoda, I 
 am new-born. Can you believe that you have 
 worked that miracle?" 
 
 "/ did not do it," she said, the whispered 
 tones getting lower yet, as they drew imper 
 ceptibly nearer together. "The power that 
 did that thing has worked a miracle for me as 
 well. Its name is Love." 
 
 Their eyes were fast upon each other, and 
 they drew ever nearer, until sound and sight 
 were lost in touch, as their wordless lips were 
 pressed together. 
 
 They drew apart, their hands still clasped, 
 and looked again into each other s eyes. 
 
 THE END.
 
 Date Due 
 
 TAT MO 74
 
 A 000 546 009 2