201D
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 UNIV, OF CAUF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 The man is the spirit he worked in, not what he did, 
 but what he became. 
 
 He both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, 
 and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and 
 then shall every man have praise of God.
 
 "HERE YOU ARE AT LAST. 
 IT'S GOOD. GOOD TO SEE YOU AOAIN!"
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 LEONORA B. HALSTED 
 
 FRONTISPIECE BY 
 
 H. RICHARD BOEHM 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE METROPOLITAN PRESS 
 1910
 
 Copyright, 1910, by 
 THE METROPOLITAN PRESS 
 
 Registered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 (All Rights Reserved) 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 PRESS OF WM. G. HETWTTT 
 
 Cl-(i7 NAVY STREET 
 BROOKLYN, :NEW YOKK
 
 TO THE FRIENDS 
 
 WHO HAVE MADE MANIFEST THE GLORY 
 THAT IS IN MAN 
 
 2130315
 
 "0 star on the breast of the river, 
 
 marvel of beauty and grace, 
 
 Did you fall straight down from heaven, 
 
 Out of the sweetest place? 
 You are white as the thoughts of an angel, 
 
 Your heart is steeped in the sun; 
 Did you grow in the golden city, 
 
 My pure and radiant one? 
 
 Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven, 
 None gave me my saintly white; 
 
 It slowly grew from the blackness 
 Down in the dreary night. 
 
 From the ooze and slime of the river 
 
 1 won my glory and grace. 
 White souls fall not, my poet, 
 
 They rise to the sweetest place"
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "A fixed idea that dominates a life." 
 
 FEOM the first childish remembrance her one desire was 
 to get on, to move forward. She had a passion for life, 
 an impulse to live it with throbbing fullness from heart 
 to farthest verge. 
 
 Not to be equal to anything life offered was to her the 
 sin of sins. When Chance held out a hand, she seized it 
 eagerly. To have what she wanted, to do what she chose, 
 to be what she wished, were such strong lures that, in 
 stretching toward them, she paid small heed to what might 
 be in the way. But she was never at rest in the end at- 
 tained: to do, not to have done, was the point. The goal 
 was ever ahead, the Heart's Desire was ever looming above 
 the rim, and toward it, ever, she pressed on. 
 
 Under the wide hickory boughs that shaded the school- 
 yard a circle had been made, and within, two little girls 
 were tussling valiantly with a big one. When a second 
 big girl took part, there came flying across the yard a 
 
 1
 
 3 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 slim figure aglow with life who plunged at once into the 
 fray. Bertha Henley hated anything unfair, and she 
 struck out now to such effect that in short order she drove 
 off the giants, and stood protecting defiantly the little sis- 
 ters who clung to her in panting relief. 
 
 From the moment she dashed into the ring every eye 
 hung on Bertha. Bright as flame, she was a dancing 
 potency that would not be ignored. Attention, quivered 
 about her ready to dart ; in some of those watching, it was 
 the dart of the snake, quick to hiss and sting; in others 
 it was the bird's motion, swift to follow its leader through 
 every swoop of flight. 
 
 When in the pause an envious voice rasped the old sneer, 
 "Augh ! she's nobody; she hain't got no father!" the oldest 
 boy in school hurled back promptly the command: 
 
 "Shut up, Billy Blake! She's plucky, and she knows 
 what's fair; I'm for her from this out. Treat her decent 
 now, or you'll catch it!" 
 
 He stepped close to her side, and Bertha looked up at 
 him, her great hazel eyes sparkling with victory. She was 
 a child of eight; fair, freckled, with a tawny mane. A 
 dull-blue homespun dress hung on a figure which showed 
 clear strength in its freedom of movement. Every atom 
 of her, body and mind, was alert, tense with will. The 
 road had been hard here at school, but she gave no heed 
 to rocks or bogs, looking only to the end; and she knew 
 that in the last minute she had reached with a bound the 
 top of the hill. No more would she have to climb trees 
 and do all sorts of woodland feats to excite her school- 
 mates' interest. Heretofore they had edged away from her 
 at their desks, and been shy of her during recess, and when 
 she tried to make friends, pushed her off. It had bewil- 
 dered and hurt the child, she couldn't understand, and Pa
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 3 
 
 and Ma wouldn't say anything except that she must try 
 not to mind. Now she needn't care any more, she needn't 
 mind at all, for she had won them they were hers. 
 
 After school Bertha ran home in fine feather, walking 
 on air. The path led along the edge of a ploughed field, 
 where the earth was rich and dark under innumerable 
 green shoots piercing the clods, and then the way dipped 
 into the woods which were intimately known to her. Every 
 hollow where ferns were uncurling, as well as the breezy 
 uplands whence one looked off over low hills under a wide 
 reach of sky, was familiar footing to her feet. She was 
 sensitively aware of them now, aware that they were bathed 
 in the vaporous lights and thin shadows of springtime, but 
 she was not thinking about them; her mind was intent on 
 this new thing: the exultant sense of power, and how to 
 use it. 
 
 As she neared the cottage she saw Pa's slouching figure,, 
 bent with toil, trudging along the road, his battered hat 
 mellow in the low sunbeams, a saw under his arm, and a 
 kit of tools in his hand. She leaped forward and caught 
 the other hand swinging beside him, and shouted happily : 
 
 "Here I am, Pa! And, oh, I had such a good time at 
 school to-day. Tim Goodwin told that mean Billy Blake 
 to keep quiet about me, or he'd catch it! so now they 
 hold their tongues. You see, I'd fought for those silly 
 little Wimple girls" and she told the story with much 
 impetuous fluency. 
 
 Pa looked down at the gay little figure prancing along 
 beside him, so overflowing with life that she took a grace- 
 step now and then simply to get rid of extra energy, and 
 his mild blue eyes beamed with affection, while his pride 
 in her showed through every line of his weather-beaten face. 
 As he listened to her tale, however, there was something
 
 4 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 especially tender in his expression. It was cruel-hard for 
 the little one to be so badgered, but he was glad she took 
 it all with such spirit. She should never fail of any help 
 he could give her, that was certain, but he knew it wouldn't 
 be apt to go very far. 
 
 Presently the small frame house that was home to them 
 came in sight. It had a prim garden in front bounded by 
 a whitewashed fence. A flower-border, Pa's care, ran 
 either side the straight path from gate to porch, and he 
 stopped now to set straight a stick or two which told where 
 twining things would presently appear. But what took 
 Bertha's eyes with ever fresh delight these spring days was 
 the large cherry tree spreading over the low roof its ample 
 branches now laden with live snow, that had a faint, pun- 
 gent fragrance eagerly drawn in by the child. She noticed, 
 too, how many shoots had uncurled since morning on the 
 brown stems of the woodbine that all winter had embroid- 
 ered a pattern on the cottage ; a pattern now beginning to 
 fill in with the burnished gosling-green of young leaves. 
 She hated to go in and leave it all the wide out-of-doors 
 that suited her literally down to the ground and she hung 
 back on Pa's hand, but he held tight and pulled her along. 
 
 "You won't get any supper if you don't come in," he 
 warned, and at this suggestion she followed reluctantly. 
 
 Ma was still at work by the kitchen window, straining 
 to get a few more stitches taken before the light should 
 fail. She was tall and thin, with sandy hair twisted into 
 a solid knot behind, and the front locks brushed back hard 
 from the worn face; her needle glanced in the sunset as 
 her gnarled fingers pushed and pulled. She looked up 
 when Bertha danced toward her, eager to tell the great 
 story again, and bade the child not to upset her spools; 
 then her eyes passed to the old man bending over the fire,
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 5 
 
 and rested on him for a moment with an expression of 
 peace. The tension of being apart was eased, and things 
 fell into their usual wont. When she turned to her needle 
 again it was with a long-drawn breath of content, which 
 Bertha's voluble tale and lively gyrations could not dis- 
 turb. 
 
 This atmosphere of content, in spite of arduous work, 
 had been about Bertha ever since the childless old couple 
 had adopted her to their hearts. They were simple, unlet- 
 tered folk, clean in body and mind. Pa was very tender 
 to his little girl always, while Ma loved as much perhaps, 
 but was more strict and stern ; her aim being to get rid of 
 the bad, Pa's to foster the good. 
 
 "The child ain't a bit like anybody else," Ma often said 
 helplessly; but she held Bertha to plain work, such as 
 washing dishes, scraping vegetables, scrubbing floors, and 
 polishing tins, until the teeming activity of the child was 
 irked almost beyond endurance. Bertha resented the pov- 
 erty of the things about her, and even more she resented 
 the poverty of mind in which her foster-parents acquiesced. 
 She did not live in their world, and to-night more than 
 ever she felt the surge of ability to create something quite 
 different. She looked about the painfully clean kitchen, 
 noting the polished stove, the bright pans struck to impish 
 winkings by the sunset glow, the scrubbed and sanded 
 floor, the table with its red cloth, fluid lamp, and big 
 black Bible, and there was a sense of exultance within her ; 
 some time she'd be rid of it all ! She was going to be 
 Somebody, she'd have lots of things and do what she liked 
 with them. Billy Blake and Meg Tuttle and the rest 
 should find out she had something in her; she'd show them ! 
 and she went off on another irrepressible spin around the 
 room; or stopped short with a dish in one hand and a
 
 6 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 spoon in the other as some new plan for capturing her 
 playmates' fancy suddenly struck her. 
 
 When these plans were put into execution during the 
 succeeding days and months, each one was so compelling 
 that dullness and insipidity vanished before her. Every 
 circle she set spinning; she cared little for consequences, 
 so that it moved. She took an ardent interest in every- 
 body, and if they had the least responsiveness she made 
 them live to the top of their bent. The pressure of her 
 personal sway hurried them, indeed, until they gasped 
 sometimes at the pace, even dropped by the way exhausted, 
 or stood stock-still in rebellion; a fact which, after a few 
 frantic efforts to force them forward, did not trouble her, 
 for if this top didn't spin, another would, and she passed 
 on to the next. Withal, she had small concern with any 
 program, or any deep-laid plan; she simply lived her own 
 life audaciously, fearlessly, expecting others to do the same 
 and take the chances. Of course she got herself and her 
 followers into innumerable scrapes, but she got out of them 
 also, and generally tugged the others along, not without 
 credit to herself. In truth, she was a born leader, and 
 life here presented her with the first master's degree, which 
 she took lightly with a sense of coming to her own. 
 
 So was it with schooling. Her mind was determined 
 to know : to learn how was a consuming desire ; it consumed 
 every barrier across her way. A fence was to her merely 
 a hurdle ; the higher, the more exultation in the leap. She 
 threw herself on her lessons with a will which let her know 
 easily in quarter the time what the other children had to 
 pore over. This left her leisure to think of all the thou- 
 sand other things she wanted to know; and kindly Miss 
 Barcom, not well equipped herself, was driven half crazy 
 by Bertha's multitudinous questions, until out of self-de-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 7 
 
 fense she was compelled to restrict the child's endless in- 
 quiries. 
 
 In lieu of knowledge, therefore, Bertha's fecund brain 
 fed itself on dreams. She made verses and imagined tales, 
 scribbling them on her slate or on shingles, and living far 
 more vividly in the world thus created than in that of 
 humdrum circumstance. Hours enough to make many a 
 week she spent lying on a couch of pine-leaves under lofty 
 trees, watching the far-off branches sway against the blue ; 
 or she balanced in some crotch of the spiked boughs, talk- 
 ing to the birds and butterflies. A wisp of straw dropped 
 by a nest-building bird on the top of a tree and covered 
 with moisture, looked to her a fairy's sceptre; and she 
 climbed eagerly until she reached that topmost bough to 
 find it only what it was : no magic wand, but a bit of the 
 refuse of earth jeweled by the dews of heaven. 
 
 Once school hours were over she hied away to the woods, 
 and let mind as well as body rove untrammeled. Bit and 
 bridle fell away; the tense muscles of her will relaxed, for 
 here all was friendly and familiar; she had nothing to 
 conquer it was all hers. She would lie in the wheat fields 
 and look up among the bearded yellow stalks waving like 
 little trees against the sky, and feel herself a fairy. How 
 nice to be so little and light ! She would watch the insects 
 climb, and fly, and hover, and she delighted in the field- 
 mice even when the soft little things ran up her legs and 
 popped out at her throat. She laughed gaily at their 
 bright, frightened eyes, and held them long enough to 
 scold them for being afraid of her, and then put them 
 down to scamper away while she called after them merrily, 
 "Good-bye! Come again!" 
 
 As she grew older, her favorite haunt became the 
 grounds of the notable place of the neighborhood, which
 
 8 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 she had never seen occupied, but which was kept up with 
 care. She used to wander through the pine woods that 
 lay below the hill upon which the house stood, or lie curled 
 up in the branches of the oaks by the pond, and fancy 
 herself the princess of this domain. There was an affinity 
 in her for the best that came near, and this therefore was 
 the place of all others where she would like to live. Not 
 but that she preferred the city: that was her dream, a 
 dream of all things fair, including nature, but supremely 
 human nature. To have life surging and pulsing about 
 her for miles on every side, to have a million new people 
 to meet, and learn, and know ah, that would be heaven! 
 But this was the best on earth. 
 
 It was a large house with a lofty, pillared porch, and 
 many windows hidden by green blinds. To Bertha it was 
 simply the house in which gentle-folk lived. It stood on 
 a hill against a background of trees, and looked off to 
 the west over billowing land, crested here and there by 
 woods, with calms of meadows between; a tranquil green 
 landscape, unless the low sun flamed to the zenith and sent 
 a strange glow over the country far and near. 
 
 She would sit on the steps of the spacious porch in the 
 summer afternoons by the hour. Glorious sunsets she saw 
 there, and gorgeous air-castles did she build from the 
 quarry they provided. To go to Sunset Hill became her 
 pilgrimage; it was a little far, but it was worth while. 
 
 The caretaker let her go over the house once, and she 
 was deeply impressed by the big mirrors, the gilded frames, 
 and the many rooms so elaborately furnished; but she 
 thought the grey bare floors not nearly so nice as Ma's 
 immaculate boards. When she said something of the sort 
 the caretaker laughed, and took her upstairs where he 
 showed her rolls on rolls of carpet that would be put down
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 9 
 
 if any one were coming home. She was awed at the 
 thought of such vast luxury, and then in a trice knew it 
 was exactly what she wanted, and appropriated it at once 
 for her dreams. To have her feet sink into carpets thick 
 as the moss by the pond ; to see pictures of beautiful places 
 and wonderful people on the walls framed in gold ; to own 
 all of them and have some of them yours by blood what 
 immeasurable joy ! 
 
 "Why don't they come back?" she asked the old man. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Grey, who owns the place now since his mother 
 died, he can't come back while his wife's alive. She's 
 sickly, and they say she can't bear the climate here too 
 cold or something. She's a sweet lady, I ain't holdin 
 anythin' 'gainst her, but they do say she hates this place/' 
 and he shook his head at the recurrent grudge. 
 
 "How strange!" commented the girl, looking about her 
 intently; then she tried to conjure up scenes that would 
 make this appear one to abandon. It was difficult, for her 
 imagination had few facts to work with. Though she had 
 long since devoured the sparse books of the community, 
 they left her empty; but of one thing she was sure: only 
 cities could keep people away from a place like this.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was a perfect June day in the year Bertha was twelve 
 that a leaf was turned in her life's book. School had 
 closed, and Ma planned during vacation to teach the child 
 many domestic duties which lessons had been a pretext for 
 shirking; but she had first to catch her hare, and this was 
 no easy matter, for Bertha was shrewder than other wild 
 things. She was up and out on tiptoe in the early dawn 
 before the old folks were awake, and touching ground her 
 feet flew straight to her favorite haunts, carrying her in 
 the fleet security with which a bird cleaves the air. . A 
 marvelous vitality tingled in every particle of her being: 
 her shape and coloring seemed its very type. The zest for 
 life, the urgent joy of mere existence, pushed her into 
 many a madcap freak. She would run races with the rab- 
 bits till her breath was fairly gone; she would strip and 
 dash into the pond and swim about swift as a fish; or dive 
 and come up shaking back her hair, to laugh with the wild 
 glee of childhood; and, when she was tired, she would lie 
 perfectly still in sun or shadow, her arms under her head, 
 basking in the sense of sheltered repose : a happy animal. 
 
 To-day by the middle of the afternoon she found herself 
 in her chosen seat, high up on an oak, close by the water, 
 where the branches spread wide and low. She was balan- 
 cing herself to the wind's motion, delighting in the buoy- 
 ancy of her perch, and crooning softly, when she heard a 
 whistle and a footstep coming through the woods. She 
 
 10
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 11 
 
 peeped around her big branch cautiously to see who could 
 be below : a stranger ! a man ! a gentleman ! It was warm 
 weather, and he had a straw hat in his hands, which were 
 clasped behind him as he strolled along; she watched every 
 movement as if her life depended on not missing one. His 
 air of distinction, of elevation above the humdrum level of 
 her daily life, made her feel him at once a hero. The sad- 
 ness of his face but enhanced her intense interest: how 
 romantic to be sad ! 
 
 Swayed either by the unconscious attraction of her pres- 
 ence, or by the inviting aspect of a seat at the foot of her 
 tree, where she had heaped leaves between the roots to 
 make a luxurious armchair, he sat down, and gave a little 
 exclamation of surprise at finding himself so comfortable, 
 looking about him a moment with curiosity. Then he 
 threw aside his hat and leaned back, content to enjoy the 
 goods the fairies had provided. The outlook sloped toward 
 the pond and the lively little brook that drained it, so 
 that he had no incentive to glance above, where, intent on 
 his every movement, and hardly daring to draw breath, 
 throbbed the young girl. 
 
 Here was a new person dropped into her world, undoubt- 
 edly the owner of Fernside, for much bustle had been 
 going on there, and the flustered caretaker had told her 
 the wife was dead and Mr. Grey would return. Surely 
 this was he. He had a broad band of black on his hat, 
 but his clothes were grey, the finest clothes she had ever 
 seen and he so careless of them. This was the way men 
 ought to dress and appear. He was quite old, perhaps 
 thirty or even thirty-five, with abundant wavy brown hair, 
 a mustache and a dab of beard under the lips. How dis- 
 tinguished he was, how unlike any other man she had ever 
 seen!
 
 13 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 He drew in several long breaths as if reveling in the 
 delicious odor of wild grape that made the air sweet; and 
 looked about to note the beautiful woodland, animate with 
 lights and shadows that chased one another in the gentle 
 breeze like expressions over a loved face. The rhythmic 
 sound of the wind in the trees was stilling his heart to 
 listen as its intermittent waves came and went, never twice 
 the same. He sat quiet for awhile, sighing now and then 
 as if his thoughts were heavy; then evidently they began 
 to lighten. The profound 'sense of. repose had hushed his 
 trouble, and was touching his nature to new harmony. 
 
 Presently he began to hum and then to sing; the true, 
 clear voice made the shivers run over her, but this did not 
 prevent her from drinking in eagerly the air he sung, 
 which became at once part of her consciousness. He re- 
 peated it several times, making slight variations here and 
 there, and, as he went along, the lines to fit it came sing- 
 ing themselves into her mind; not a halt, only a blank 
 word now and then she could easily fill those in 
 afterwards. She leaned forward in her leafy nest, her 
 eyes glowing on her unconscious companion, whose song 
 presently lapsed into silence. It was the first time she 
 had heard a man's trained voice, but she was aware that 
 here was one who knew how, and the mastery gave her a 
 thrill of delight. He looked off over the pond, and flung 
 a pebble or two into the water as if to break the current 
 of his thoughts; then moved restlessly and picked up his 
 hat. Oh, he mustn't go away until she could speak to him ! 
 But a sudden shyness overcame her; she could neither 
 speak nor move. He brushed his hat, rose, and started off 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" she cried. She had spoken involuntarily 
 and was frightened by the sound of her own voice. She
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 13 
 
 shrunk back as she heard it, and let the great branch hide 
 her again. 
 
 "Hallo!" he exclaimed, looking into the dense mass 
 above him. "Who's up there?" 
 
 She did not reply; she was quaking, yet ready to laugh, 
 it was so funny. 
 
 "Is there any one up there?" he repeated. "If so, show 
 yourself." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "I am an idiot," he grumbled, turning away. "If trees 
 are going to talk Yet certainly 
 
 He stopped short, for a high childish voice began to sing 
 the melody he had been composing, with words he was sure 
 he had never heard. 
 
 "By George!" he exclaimed, under his breath not to 
 interrupt, and he came back softly, peering up through 
 the branches and listening with keen ears. He knew 
 where she was, but he could catch no glimpse of her, and 
 she, who had seen him turn back, sung one verse after 
 another with increasing courage and volume. At length 
 she came to a sudden halt, for peeping down to see if he 
 were still below, she caught sight of his amazement and 
 broke into a peal of laughter, throwing herself back against 
 the branches, careless now of being seen, with an abandon 
 that made her look to the man below a veritable dryad. 
 
 "Take care! You'll fall," he cried. 
 
 "Fall!" she echoed in a tone of derision, and thrust her 
 head beyond the limb to see what he could bte thinking of. 
 
 "By Jove !" he exclaimed again, as her fair face with 
 its bright eyes leaped into sight. "This is a miracle. 
 Come down, or I shall have to go up after you." 
 
 " You'd be welcome," said she demurely, with fun in her 
 face. She moved on her bough as if to make room for
 
 14 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 him. He looked at the tree, and then down at his unac- 
 customed legs ruefully. 
 
 "I can't do it," he said. "I'm too old. Be good to me 
 and come down." 
 
 There was a rustle of leaves, a crackle of branches, the 
 swing of a lissom blue figure, and the maiden stood before 
 him. 
 
 She was an attractive sight, here in the depth of wild- 
 wood, this young creature of the Diana type, with tawny 
 hair rippling around a milk-white forehead, arched eye- 
 brows and long lashes, a straight, well-cut nose, and full 
 lips parted to disclose even, teeth and a rosy tongue. 
 Against the background of young verdure and blue-and- 
 silver water she seemed the very embodiment of spring. 
 Her big hazel eyes gazing up at him with vivid interest 
 had a shock of life in them such as he had never met: 
 they brought him to action at once. 
 
 "Who are you?" he said, putting out his hand with a 
 kindly smile. "Whoever you are, little marvel, let us be 
 friends." 
 
 She looked shyly at her hands, stained with bark and 
 leaves, then at his, so shapely and well-kept, and her eyes 
 leaped to him with a query that was instantly answered : 
 they shook hands heartily. 
 
 "That's right," he said in a tone of satisfaction. "It's 
 plain you know whom to trust. Now tell me, where did 
 you get those verses you sung to my tune? They really 
 fitted it remarkably well." 
 
 "It was your tune, then?" she exclaimed, with frank 
 delight. "I thought it must be, because you went over it 
 just as I do when I can't find a word that suits." 
 
 "Do you mean that you made those verses?" he ejacu- 
 lated incredulously.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 15 
 
 "Yes; they came to me while you were singing." She 
 looked at him candidly, her eyes dark and full of dream. 
 
 "Most extraordinary!" he murmured, studying her with 
 keen attention; she might be surprising him at the ex- 
 pense of truth. "Do you often do that sort of thing?" 
 
 "No, I never did until to-day; I never had a chance 
 before." 
 
 "Sudden inspiration, eh?" he laughed with renewed 
 doubt. 
 
 She was bewildered and hurt by his tone, and felt ready 
 to cry. He was aware of having made a slip and tried to 
 set her again at ease as well as to satisfy his own curiosity 
 by saying: "Tell me, do you read much? Where did you 
 find those verses?" 
 
 "Why, I have told you!" she answered, indignant and 
 aggrieved. "They just sung themselves to me while you 
 were singing," and she turned her head away to hide the 
 tears that would start. She could not understand why 
 any one should distrust her, for what was the use t>f pre- 
 tending? It was for herself that she craved recognition 
 and esteem. He had some knowledge of human nature, 
 and he believed her. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said, taking off his hat, and 
 holding out his hand again, his face grave with courtesy. 
 "You must forgive me, for I simply did not understand." 
 
 She brushed away her tears, ever quick to spring toward 
 kindness, and laid her hand in his. 
 
 "Sit down here, and let us talk a little," he added then, 
 waving her toward the seat she had made. 
 
 She sank into it as a bird settles, glad to cover her cop- 
 per-toed shoes that were so rusty and battered. He 
 stretched himself beside her, not only diverted for the 
 moment, but aroused by this unusual and evidently gifted
 
 16 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 girl. She, meanwhile, thrilled to think how romantic they 
 must look; and, deeper, she had a sense that this was a 
 great date in her life; to her imagination, where noon 
 crowded dawn, at this moment the clock struck twelve. 
 
 "Let me hear the verses again, will you?" he asked 
 quietly. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, her lips moving as she made 
 sure of the words. Then she turned to him and repeated 
 the lines in a simple way that had its charm. 
 
 "Ah, but you leave out my tune," he said reproachfully. 
 
 "You know how to sing and I don't," she answered 
 shyly. "You sing it." 
 
 "But I shan't remember your words, I'm afraid." He 
 tried them, however, to Bertha's intense delight. She 
 leaned forward breathless, her hands clasped tight, her 
 eyes brilliant, to hear her words sung by this elegant gen- 
 tleman ! 
 
 "Do you know any others?" he asked when he had 
 ended. 
 
 "Lots," she cried eagerly. "I could tell you a book 
 full." 
 
 "Let me hear a few," and she entertained him for a 
 while with her rhymes and fancies. 
 
 "That's very nice," he said then, checking her. "You 
 have a good ear, and I'm glad you've got the brain to use 
 it." 
 
 "Thank you," she said in a low tone. 
 
 "What for, my little woman?" 
 
 "For being kind to me," she answered simply. 
 
 "Isn't everybody? But you haven't told me yet about 
 yourself. Who are you?" 
 
 "I am Bertha, Pa and Ma Henley's little girl. Mr. 
 Sims, the gardener, lets me come here, for I don't do any
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 17, 
 
 harm." She looked at him anxiously to see if he would 
 mind, and he said promptly: 
 
 "Of course you don't; come all you like. You go to 
 school in winter? But it's vacation now, of course; are 
 you glad of that?" 
 
 "Yes no; not particularly." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I like to study; but then, I love the woods." 
 
 "So do I. I used to be very happy here as a lad," and 
 he sighed while the lines of his face drooped together; 
 but he recovered himself in a moment. "You must know 
 pretty nearly all they can teach you in the district school?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "What are you going about next, then?" 
 
 "I don't know," she said, with a note of depression in 
 her voice. 
 
 "You must have some idea in that remarkable little 
 head of yours. Ah, I see you have," as her eyes flashed 
 to his. "Well, out with it; don't be afraid. There are 
 ever so many things that look hard and come easy when 
 you try." 
 
 "I know that." 
 
 "What a little wiseacre it is! and said in such a tone 
 of conviction, too. Tell me now, what is it you've tried 
 that seemed hard and proved easy ?" 
 
 "I went to school when Ma didn't want me to." 
 
 "So Ma's an ogre, is she? And what else?" 
 
 "I made them like me at school." She drew her slender 
 form upright with conscious pride. 
 
 "That can't have been hard; no one could help it." 
 
 "They tried to help it, but they couldn't." Her eyes 
 sparkled with a sudden sense of humor, as well as power.
 
 18 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "By Jove, this is a prodigy!" he exclaimed, leaning on 
 his elbow and watching her with swift growth of interest. 
 
 As for her, she learned his every feature by heart in 
 that first meeting: his straight profile, his mobile nostrils, 
 his self-possessed lips, but above all his eyes ; blue eyes like 
 the sky with the sunshine in it when he smiled, but mostly 
 shadowed eyes, like the myrtle blossoms she loved. 
 
 "Well, what is this tremendous thing you have in mind, 
 that looks too hard for you to attempt, even with such 
 experience ?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment; then, "I want to go to the 
 seminary !" she exclaimed, and held her breath at her own 
 audacity. She had not whispered the aspiration to a soul 
 before, but sympathy makes the dumb speak. 
 
 "I should think that might be managed," said her new 
 friend carelessly. 
 
 "I mean," she insisted, her breath coming quick and her 
 eyes compelling, "I want to go to the seminary at Evans- 
 ville and learn everything everything; but it costs two 
 hundred whole dollars a year!" 
 
 "Hm, does it cost that much?" he commented, digging 
 holes with his stick in the leafy mold while he meditated. 
 What to do with this child was the question. He had the 
 best will in the world to help her. Moreover, he had been 
 wishing of late for some new interest. He had come back 
 to his home moved by the restlessness of grief; it was too 
 great to bear nursing; one might as well nurse a devouring 
 lion; it had to be kept at bay or it would prove tyrant. 
 And here had sprung up at his feet, over his head, a fresh 
 interest, a living and very lively one: what should he do 
 with it? 
 
 They talked on for some time, he drawing her out, she 
 excited and happy; her horizon suddenly enlarged, its
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 19 
 
 confines leaping so far that the firmament above and the 
 firmament below were undivided, for possible and impos- 
 sible merged. 
 
 After a while he looked at his watch (a real gold watch !) 
 and remarked that it was already six. She sprung to her 
 feet in alarm. 
 
 "Oh, I must run home just as fast as I can!" she cried. 
 "Fm never away at meal times." 
 
 He laughed at this naive avowal, and the laugh made her 
 blush crimson as she explained hastily that she knew she 
 was a naughty girl, neglecting her sewing and housework 
 and all that, but she wouldn't for anything hurt Pa by let- 
 ting him think she was lost, as he surely would if she didn't 
 come home to supper. 
 
 "That's right," said Mr. Grey, his eyes almost affection- 
 ate as they rested on her where she stood in the low rays 
 of the summer sun a delightful picture. He got to his 
 feet slowly. "Tell your Pa that I'm coming to-morrow to 
 see him. Now good-night, little poet," and he patted her 
 shoulder gently. 
 
 "Good-night, sir," she replied, looking up at him with 
 eyes full of fervent candor. Then she tipped to run with 
 swift-footed flight. He watched her light motion as she 
 diminished down the woodland path, and he was satisfied 
 in the watching. She seemed to waft along without effort, 
 as thistledown is blown. So must Diana's maidens have 
 appeared to the Greeks, an apotheosis of nature. 
 
 How came she to be what she was? he asked himself 
 as he turned homeward. Something unusual must have 
 gone into her makeup; he must find out what.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE next day when Bertha saw him a long way off (she 
 wasn't out of sight of the cottage this day !) she flew to Pa, 
 crying in a huddle of words : 
 
 "Mr. Grey's coming! Mr. Grey's coming! I met him 
 in the woods yesterday he told me to say he'd be here 
 but oh, I couldn't speak of it somehow all at once. Now 
 he's here! I saw him turn into the lane!" And she was 
 off before astonished Pa could ask a question. 
 
 Mr. Austin Grey coming to see him! He looked out, 
 bewildered ; and Ma, leaning over his shoulder, saw the gen- 
 tleman advancing through the lights and shadows, and be- 
 gan to dust a spotless chair with the garment she was mak- 
 ing, and set the Bible more exactly in the middle of the 
 table. When he knocked at the door, they gave him a 
 solemn and tremulous welcome. Such an event as the 
 presence of Mr. Grey in their little cottage was hardly 
 inferior to the dropping in of the President of the United 
 States, for at so lofty a height degrees make little differ- 
 ence. Of course social superiority was of no consequence 
 to them in theory, for they were good Americans, but in 
 practice it was quite another affair. When he said directly 
 that he came to see if he could arrange to help their little 
 girl by sending her to the seminary, they put out involun- 
 tary hands toward each other to brace against the shock 
 of surprise. Little by little, however, they settled down 
 
 20
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 21 
 
 to an agitated contemplation of this marvel. Nothing 
 ever happened to Bertha as it did to other folks, Ma al- 
 ways said, and the blood began to glow in her withered 
 cheeks as she saw herself so strikingly verified. Who could 
 have dreamed of this star falling out of the sky and lodg- 
 ing gently in the child's lap? The tears came into Pa's 
 wistful eyes : he knew what it would mean to little Bertie ; 
 and Ma opened and shut her thin lips several times with- 
 out speaking. 
 
 Mr. Grey was deeply touched by their emotion. He had 
 learned Bertha's history so far as it was known in the 
 village, and had heard of the old folks' devotion to the 
 child, and he tried now to set them more at ease by making 
 the situation clear to them. 
 
 " You see, all I mean is that I should like to give Bertha 
 the opportunity to get what she craves and what she ought 
 to have a good education. She has an unusually clever 
 brain; it would be a misfortune not to cultivate it. I don't 
 ask you to decide at once; take time to think it over; I'll 
 come again in a day or two and see what you have to say." 
 
 When he left, they devoted their whole thought to the 
 great question, hardly cooking a meal, or doing a stroke 
 of work, until they had made up their minds. The main 
 quandary was, would it be best for the child to be educated 
 so far above her station? Wouldn't it put more tempta- 
 tions in her way, and make her more restless? On the 
 other hand, it was an opportunity for everything she 
 wanted, an opportunity to make her contented perhaps; 
 it hurt Pa to see her so dissatisfied. Moreover, they had 
 the background of knowledge that circumstances are elastic 
 in a free land: what was to hinder Bertha from rising, 
 rising, far beyond their ken? The pang that came with 
 this thought spurred them on to acceptance, lest they
 
 22 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 should be selfish in refusal. No pride stood in their way 
 to prevent taking so much for their child from a stranger. 
 He had, and they had not, and he offered as simply as they 
 took. In the end they worked and prayed themselves up to 
 the decision to pass over the child's future to. the care of 
 this man, well known to them by reputation at least. 
 
 "Yes," said Pa, the spokesman of the pair who seldom 
 failed to pull together, "we have decided you are right. 
 Bertie shall have her chance. Housework and sewing are 
 'gainst nature with her, but she's always been smart at her 
 books." 
 
 "I don't doubt it," said Grey heartily, "yet she may 
 need some coaching during the summer to pass the ex- 
 aminations." 
 
 Pa and Ma listened helpless, knowing naught of such 
 details. They made a few careful conditions however: 
 
 " She must come back every second Friday and stay with 
 us over Sunday," urged Ma, "and Pa must be free to see 
 her whenever he likes." 
 
 "Of course, of course," replied Mr. Grey, surprised at 
 this phase. "I don't mean to take her from you the least 
 bit in the world, but simply to add to what you do for her. 
 You are her parents; at most I can be only a sort of 
 guardian." 
 
 Pa shook his head with a slight, pathetic smile; so far 
 as he was concerned, it was giving up the child. 
 
 Mr. Grey took leave of them in thorough accord. He 
 realized their genuine quality, and it went far toward ex- 
 plaining Bertha that she should have had such influences 
 about her since she was three. 
 
 Part way down the lane he came across her, agog with 
 excitement and suspense. Twenty times a day, if not of an 
 hour, she distracted the old people by urging them to tell
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 3 
 
 her what they were going to do? and why on earth didn't 
 they decide? Now, when Mr. Grey met her, her cheeks 
 were glowing and her eyes intense as she stammered: 
 
 "Is it is it " 
 
 "Is it settled? Yes, my dear. You are to go to the 
 seminary in the fall; that is, if you can pass the examina- 
 tions." 
 
 She gave a gasp of joy and paled, while her heart beat 
 tumultuously. Now bliss was hers; now time wag going 
 to begin anew ! Then her practical mind steadied her. 
 
 "What shall I have to know? I don't care what it is, 
 I'll learn it before that." 
 
 "Certainly you will, but I haven't found out yet myself. 
 I shall to-morrow. Be a good girl, now, my little ward." 
 
 She took his hand between both of hers, looking up at 
 him with lustrous eyes, dark with emotion; then she 
 dropped her face for a moment on the hand she held and 
 he felt the pressure of young lips, before she dashed away 
 and blew quickly out of sight. 
 
 "So grateful for such a trifle!" he murmured as he 
 walked on, touched to the heart, resolving that she should 
 have a friend in him so long as he lived. 
 
 He left the village soon after this, and did not return 
 until she had been long a pupil of the unattainable semi- 
 nary; but the tutor he had provided told him of her fine 
 success in passing the examinations, and he wrote at once 
 congratulating her, and asked her to tell him in a month 
 or two how she liked it. 
 
 The reply might have been written on her knees. Not 
 that she had no faults to find, but she had a new incentive, 
 a mighty stimulus that spurred her to redoubled exertions. 
 Free use of the pass-key into the world's treasury of knowl- 
 edge was more than ever her ambition, only now her long-
 
 24 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 ing throbbed to finer issues: she wanted to be what Mr. 
 Grey would like. 
 
 This thought led her as a star through all the harsh 
 and stormy experiences of the first year ; a period of bitter 
 disappointment and one full of mortification. Everything 
 was interpreted against her quite as a matter of course. 
 Some would have been crushed by the heavy weights put 
 upon her, but it worked differently in her case: since they 
 were intolerable she threw them off. 
 
 "Of course I'm ambitious!" she proclaimed defiantly 
 when the accusation was made. "The best is what I'm 
 after, and what I mean to get. The rest of you may be 
 content with enduring, or putting up with second or third 
 best ; I'm not ; that's flat. I want the lest, and I'm going 
 to have it, too!" 
 
 Faith in the power of will had become more indomitable 
 than ever; it grew with what it fed upon. The world's 
 hand was against her whenever she came in contact with 
 it until she conquered by sheer force; or, like a snake- 
 charmer, met fanged and poisoned prejudice with the spell 
 of power, subduing it to her will. Each time she put her 
 sovereignty to the test, there was the exhilaration of doubt 
 Shall I succeed now? and each time that she did, she 
 tasted afresh the intoxicating draught of the conqueror 
 which brings contempt for the victims. 
 
 It was a wholesome check upon this feeling that she had 
 to do some of the work of the establishment, according to 
 Mr. Grey's plan; a precaution he had taken to keep taut 
 her sense of independence, and also to teach her how to 
 turn time and skill into means toward pome desired end. 
 When she wanted a curtain, or a fringed bureau-cover for 
 her tiny bedroom, she had to devote part of her Saturdays 
 to sewing, which she abhorred. This led her to value the
 
 25 
 
 articles, and also proved that she could earn as well as cost. 
 The two hundred dollars was writ much smaller now to 
 her mental vision. 
 
 Nevertheless, what had been joy in the forecast turned 
 to ashes in the handling, except that she got fuel for the 
 flame of her desire to know; and life at the seminary set- 
 tled down into grim perseverance at her studies, checkered 
 by occasional raids into the camp of the enemy, whence 
 she would return with one or another soldier vowed to her 
 banner, captives of what was coming to be more and more 
 a captivating personality. 
 
 The fortnightly visit to Pa and Ma was her one relief 
 from routine, and it was their happiness. She descended 
 into the poor little cottage like a burst of sunshine; they 
 lived through all the hibernating days of her absence on 
 the life she brought when she came; and she was perfectly 
 content for the time to be just their little girl, to sit bask- 
 ing on the hearth at Pa's feet, and watch Ma at her end- 
 less tasks, which she seldom offered to share, and which 
 now even Ma never required her to assume. The girl 
 was catching some gleam of the precious treasure there was 
 for her in their affectionate, unselfish interest not for 
 what she could do, what she could recite, what she could 
 show off, but for what she was, because they loved her. 
 
 Mr. Grey, too, she relied on in the same way, not think- 
 ing it strange that he should care for her. but taking his 
 goodness in simplicity, as she took sunshine, and water, 
 and the green earth, and the joy of living. She never 
 failed to go twice a month to the spot where she had met 
 him, be it in rain, snow, ice, or bright weather, and he 
 was constantly in her mind as a sort of demi-god, all- 
 potent and to be adored. 
 
 He dropped in now and then from the outer world, tak-
 
 2fl A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 ing much interest in his ward. She seemed to him no nine- 
 teenth century girl, but one after the manner of the early 
 ages, when the earth was young, and humanity was fresh, 
 and E.den's gates were still ajar. She never fretted him 
 by restless movements without an end; either vigorous 
 action occupied her, or equally vital repose, a condition 
 curiously satisfying. Many otherwise sad hours did he 
 while away imagining her future. If fate were only kind 
 enough to produce a good man, willing to marry such a, 
 girl, and whom she would not come to depise To keep her 
 safe by tucking her away in some corner until this happy 
 event should arrive, was his only idea. Sensuous, sensitive, 
 passionate, conscious of power; already attractive beyond 
 most, and growing to be beautiful what an array of 
 charms ! but each one a separate danger. His control, such 
 as it was, could be only evanescent. She was docile now, 
 but presently some one would come whom she would love, 
 and then exeunt all the rest ! 
 
 He did everything he could think of meanwhile to 
 strengthen her mind, thus hoping to offset a certain 
 lawless tendency by emphasis on the law-abiding qualities. 
 He seized the best way in her case by pointing out the 
 vulgarity of not conforming to the customs humanity has 
 learned by wide experience to be best. 
 
 "Morals are like good breeding: they are the manners 
 of the deeper things in social life," he told her one day. 
 "You learn politeness and courtesy by adopting the stand- 
 ard of the world's rules in such matters; and in just the 
 same way you grow into true womanhood, and keep your- 
 self upright and undefiled, by adopting the world's rules in 
 regard to what is considered noble, and honest, and pure, 
 and of good report. Try to bear this in mind, Bertha, and 
 act on it. There are some things, to be sure, that the world
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 2? 
 
 doesn't know yet that is where the chance for reformers 
 comes in but you will be wiser not to think of possible 
 exceptions until you have mastered the rule." And these 
 things sunk into the girl's mind, making a deep impres- 
 sion. To do something he would dislike became her under- 
 standing of sin ; to strive to fulfil his ideal was her loftiest 
 conception of virtue. 
 
 There is no denying that the leaning of such an ardent 
 young soul against his, the charm of virgin soil in it, 
 touched Mr. Grey at times with a suggestion of magic pos- 
 sibilities. But he instantly repudiated the thought, which 
 left him with a sense of keen humiliation. He was a man 
 of singular probity and cleanliness, and having such a wife 
 as he had (for death only set a distance between them), 
 he was purified to a rare degree. To be untrue to his wife 
 was really impossible to him; it never came as a tempta- 
 tion, in fact, except in the stealthy underground sense of 
 the silent offering of circumstance which he ignored. 
 
 He had promised to be present at Bertha's graduation, 
 but he did not come, and she was disappointed beyond all 
 reason. She took the first place by incontestable superior- 
 ity, but the day's many honors lacked relish since she 
 missed what she wanted most. Yet it was a day of tri- 
 umph, none the less because some of the teachers who 
 could not get along with her ached to suppress her; but 
 there was hearty admiration as well as much unwilling 
 tribute accorded her when she read the valedictory. She 
 had written it with the thought of how each syllable would 
 sound to Mr. Grey and he heard none of them! 
 
 But she threw off the sob that clutched at her throat 
 and gave a defiant toss of her head. If he didn't care, let 
 him stay away ! Here were people who couldn't help car- 
 ing, for she read in the faces before her a rapt attention
 
 28 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 that soothed her wounded pride. In fact, the appearance 
 she made riveted every eye. Despite the ill-cut and scanty 
 white dress Ma had made with tearful devotion, the girl 
 looked superb as she stood there with her well-developed 
 frame, long, lithe limhs, and symmetrical head crowned 
 with coils of golden-brown hair. Its wavy outlines set off 
 the dazzling complexion, the passionate lips, and scintillat- 
 ing eyes, as leaves do a flower. But had she possessed not 
 one of these beauties she would still have enchanted her 
 beholders, for she impersonated life life for which man 
 pants; more life and fuller than was to be found in any 
 such degree elsewhere. She was radiant with it ; it startled 
 in her glance, and thrilled in her voice, until she seemed to 
 crowd the air. There were those thus influenced who 
 wanted to throw up a window to get an independent 
 breath ; but most people surrendered to what aroused them 
 from sloth, and were vitalized for the moment by the surge 
 of life emanating from her. 
 
 Thus she reached the girl's gateway into the world. She 
 had come up to it with a flourish of trumpets, in spite 
 of her disadvantage among these girls who -had honest 
 names as a birthright; but a blank wall barred her passage 
 just outside the gate; she stepped into an impasse whose 
 smooth walls towered around her without a crack to peer 
 through, or a cranny to serve as a foothold. Pa and Ma 
 were present in her hour of triumph, awestruck by her 
 splendor, by her accomplishments, and the praise they 
 heard; could this be their little girl? Yes, she would al- 
 ways be that, thank God ; they had come to trust her now. 
 She was glad in their gladness, and yet she felt, with them, 
 that they were a part of the life behind her, not before. 
 They represented the home from which she would sally
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 29 
 
 forth to conquer the world; only, how could she sally 
 through that impassable wall? 
 
 Nothing was clear in her mind for the next step, because 
 she had leaned on the idea that Mr. Grey would provide. 
 Like other girls, she expected something would happen 
 when she should leave the seminary. Might not the opaline 
 veil of the future roll away and disclose something won- 
 derful, something unknown, and yet half -guessed ? But 
 her dreams had come to naught; at this critical juncture 
 Mr. Grey failed her. She hadn't the least idea why; 
 nobody had heard from him since February and here it 
 was June ; could he be ill, dead ? Impossible ; life was too 
 actual in her for the notion of death to convey a meaning. 
 
 The truth is, it was the year 1861, a date significant 
 forever to Americans; but around this little far-in town, 
 the tide of patriotism and woe had hardly begun to rise. 
 Its balancing motion passed almost unnoticed by school- 
 girls; that might be just the feel of life. 
 
 She returned home with Pa and Ma to the little cottage 
 that had never seemed so poverty-stricken and inadequate 
 before. It was warm with love, but the emotional had 
 long ceased to suffice her. The thirst of her intellect for 
 occupation, of her being for life, was like an anguish. So 
 far she had lived in the frame others had set around her, 
 as most women do to the grave; now she was suddenly 
 thrown on her feet with a shock : that he should have for- 
 gotten her! 
 
 Two days later she was leaning on a high-barred fence, 
 without motive sufficient to climb it, when she caught sight 
 far down the road of the Fernside horses and a carriage 
 approaching rapidly. On the instant she was over the fence 
 and running toward them. She would hail old Pete, and 
 learn if there were any news; there must be something in
 
 30 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 the wind or he wouldn't travel so fast. Then she saw Mr. 
 Grey inside, and her heart bounded toward him, but her 
 pride for the first time pulled her back. She stopped run- 
 ning and quieted into a slow walk. Why should she hurry 
 to meet him, when he came so tardily? 
 
 But he had see her also, and sprung out to greet her. 
 How good it was to see again the well-dressed figure that 
 she considered the perfection of masculine form, and the 
 fine aristocratic face with its cultured expression, and the 
 blue eyes that had always shone kindly on her! How 
 could she maintain her pride against him? 
 
 "My dear Bertha!" he exclaimed, taking both her half- 
 reluctant hands. "I am so glad to meet you first of all. 
 I feared you would never forgive me for not being here at 
 your Commencement ; but you had my letter, and the box 
 of flowers?" 
 
 "I have had nothing from you since January," she an- 
 swered with a wounded air. 
 
 He looked amazed, distressed. "No letter, and no flow- 
 ers either? What a brute you must have thought me!" 
 He tucked her arm under his as if to secure her, and 
 turned to the driver. "Go home, Pete, and look after my 
 traps; I'll be there presently. Now come; let us take the 
 path through the woods, and talk it all out." 
 
 She acquiesced gladly, her pride melted quite away by 
 his genial presence. She pressed his arm with a delighted 
 squeeze as they entered the by-path. 
 
 "It is so good to have you back again! I thought you 
 had forgotten I existed," she said with a little half-derisive 
 pout. 
 
 "No, no, my girl; there is no possibility of that." He 
 looked affectionately at her fair face, which was now al- 
 most on a level with his, fresh lips half open, dark eyes
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 31 
 
 full of dancing light. "You must never fancy that, what- 
 ever happens. I want you to count on me as one of the 
 steady factors in your life, always, unto the end of the 
 world." His tone startled her, and she noticed, as his face 
 settled back from the surprised pleasure of meeting her, 
 that he looked tired and careworn. 
 
 "What is the matter?" she said quickly, with an appre- 
 hensive clutch at her heart. "What is going to happen?" 
 
 "Ah, if we only knew, any of us!" he replied with an 
 anxious sigh. "But you shall hear about all that pres- 
 ently ; I have been fearfully busy, hardly had time to sleep 
 or eat ; but now I want to hear about yourself. You took 
 honors? You came out with colors flying and a salvo of 
 artillery ?" His face sobered instantly at the thoughts sug- 
 gested by his military simile. 
 
 "I took the honors, yes. It didn't amount to much; you 
 were not there." 
 
 "Nonsense ! It amounted to a great deal. I thought of 
 you often that day, in spite of everything, and pictured 
 you wearing some of my flowers. And they didn't come? 
 That's a shame. But, my dear girl, you are not to despise 
 what you have gained by honest, hard work. You have 
 accomplished wonders, and if you are not proud of your- 
 self, I am extremely proud of my ward." 
 
 This was the praise she had craved, but now that it 
 came it robbed her of speech. She hung her head, while 
 the tears filled her eyes, and she pressed his arm trem- 
 ulously. He withdrew it to throw it around her. There 
 was a sense of last moments in his mind that made a little 
 effusion seem pardonable. 
 
 "You dear child! Did you really care so much? I'm 
 very sorry I couldn't be here. You did splendidly, as
 
 82 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 I always knew you would, and I could hear the applause 
 away off in New York." 
 
 But no flattery availed now; the flood-gates were open. 
 He had not kissed her even as a child, and the unwonted 
 caress loosened her self-control so that she threw her arms 
 around his neck and wept passionately, not for grief nor 
 joy, but simply because she couldn't help it. He soothed 
 her as best he could, and would not rebuff her, though he 
 was himself considerably shaken, until the summer storm 
 had spent itself, and she subsided, trembling, at the foot 
 of their tree. 
 
 Then he began to explain, somewhat nervously at first, 
 but presently with his patriotism quenching other emo- 
 tions, how he had been detained by the necessities of the 
 government, how everything was topsy-turvy and needed 
 organization, and how every man's strength, and time, and 
 thought must be given to the utmost. 
 
 She listened, but for the first time what was of vital 
 interest to him that he tried to share with her, did not 
 stir her. She felt chilled and alone. It was not the com- 
 munication she had subconsciously expected; it was disap- 
 pointing; it was a question of principles, not personalities, 
 and the personal at this moment excluded all else. 
 
 Feeling the lack of response, he dropped his side pres- 
 ently and took up hers. What was she going to do ? What 
 aim had she now? She shook her head in dejection. 
 
 "None?" he questioned in surprise. "What has become 
 of your ideals, child? I expected you would have a fine 
 scheme all laid out in black and white, and I've been won- 
 dering what it was. Come, you must have thought of some- 
 thing." 
 
 He looked at her searchingly, and a sudden blush burned 
 her cheeks ; it hurried her into speech.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 33 
 
 "I thought of teaching of going to Buffalo " 
 
 "Go to a city, and alone? No, no, my dear, that 
 wouldn't do at all. Why, in town, women by the hundreds 
 are already seeking work, seeking food for themselves and 
 their little ones. It is fiercely hard; you mustn't go among 
 them. You might teach, but it must be where you are 
 known and can be protected; if you think that is what you 
 would like best" 
 
 ("Best!") 
 
 "I will see what can be done. How does the writ- 
 ing come on?" For she had made some ambitious efforts, 
 and now she told him that two of her poems had been ac- 
 cepted by the Buffalo News, and paid for, actually two 
 dollars ! 
 
 "Brava! brava! that's splendid! Why didn't you send 
 them to me ? But let's have them now ; I'm sure you know 
 them by heart." 
 
 She did, and she repeated them, and others, for a happy 
 half-hour that she dreamed about often thereafter. He 
 listened with his mind as well as his ears; admired, criti- 
 cized, suggested, but above all, believed in her faculty, and 
 that she would cultivate it for the best. 
 
 "You must take to war songs presently," he said, as 
 his mind reverted to its preoccupying thought. "Write on 
 liberty; write marches for the host that comes to free. 
 That is bound to be the outcome. It is a question whether 
 all shall be slaves and slave-drivers, or all shall be free; 
 no compromise is possible." 
 
 But Bertha had not wakened to patriotism yet ; she bore 
 a grudge against the country that kept Mr. Grey from 
 her. She thought of the war only as something happening 
 afar off, as in Asia or Africa; now it impinged upon her 
 life, and she resented the intrusion.
 
 34 
 
 Mr. Grey's visit was short, but he made it sure in regard 
 to Bertha's affairs; she must be provided for against any 
 contingency. She still pleaded for the city, but he shook 
 his head. He was elated when he found there was a 
 vacancy at the seminary, and that they would let her fill 
 it; there surely she would be safe. She acceded to the 
 plan without enthusiasm. She knew it all at the seminary ; 
 it was but a trifling difference whether she were pupil or 
 teacher. Her dreams had been of a glittering sky and the 
 light that never was on sea or land. 
 
 He saw her dsappointment, for she was as transparent 
 as clear water, and he exerted himself to make also an 
 opening for her imagination. He carried some of her 
 verses to New York and took time to induce one of the 
 lesser editors of a daily paper to look with a favorable eye 
 on what Bertha might send him. Then the whirlpool that 
 centered in every prominent man at that tremendous time 
 engulfed him, and she heard no more.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 \ 
 
 NOT until November did he come again. Then, without 
 warning, the day before Thanksgiving, he called for her at 
 the seminary, causing the fog of life there to lift suddenly 
 and disclose the shimmer of the opaline veil. She was 
 swift in her preparations and joined him where he waited 
 in the buggy, flicking the sod with his whip, his face heav- 
 ily shadowed. It brightened at her appearance, however, 
 and she jumped in, a bit breathless, but the sense of hurry 
 quickly subsided in the delicious rest of being with him. 
 
 The day was mild, almost balmy, one of those strange, 
 exotic days that sometimes come in the late fall, and 
 through their unexpected quality give us pause. The heavy 
 verdure of summer that makes a gloom in the woods even 
 at noon, had given place to a golden tranquillity, in which 
 all dark lines of bole and bough were delicate as in spring- 
 time, and shadows, unless like mellowed light, were rare. 
 The faint haze that softened vacant spaces gave to Bertha 
 a delicious sense of mystery ; nothing was stark and clear, 
 everything was promiseful, enrapturing: she told him the 
 weather was in accord with his taking her by surprise. 
 
 And he found her in a new mood; softer, less spirited, 
 more alluring; he realized as he had never done that she 
 was no longer a child. With the realization of this came 
 a sudden sadness. Poor girl, it was her lot to face the 
 world, and with what a face! Such bright beauty but 
 added greater force to the contest in her own nature where 
 
 35
 
 36 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 the sensuous and the spiritual must fight hard. The issue 
 was of such tremendous import that he felt he should seize 
 this opportunity to help the supremacy of the best; so, as 
 they drove through the ripened landscape, through the hush 
 of consummation in which preparation lies hidden as the 
 seed in the fruit, he began to talk to her very seriously. 
 She did not catch his tone at first, so wrapped was she in 
 the sweetness of sitting here beside him, looking out on 
 golden hopes and vistas dim in beauty. Soon, however, 
 quick to respond to another's mood, especially to his, she 
 roused from these vague impressions. Moreover, high con- 
 verse did not die echoless within her, and she listened with 
 wide, attentive eyes, a slight element of fear mingling with 
 surprise and stirred sensibility. 
 
 "Beware," he was saying, "of doing anything you will 
 afterwards regret. Use your gift of imagination to picture 
 the consequences of what you are going to do, so as to 
 choose what will bring you durable pleasure. Hold your 
 ideal high above your head: let it be a lamp to show you 
 clearly which path is best. Never mind if you suffer in 
 following it ; even if its oil be your heart's blood, in what 
 service can it burn so well ?" 
 
 His tone was deep and clear, his face full of a com- 
 manding earnestness ; his eyes, sunk deeper in their sockets, 
 shone upon her as a beacon-light. Forgotten was the outer 
 world, bathed in golden atmosphere; forgotten were her 
 misty dreams: all her being was concentrated here. He 
 was her lamp; he was the ideal she would follow; his was 
 the service in which it would be an ecstasy to pour out her 
 heart's blood. 
 
 He was looking at the wide harvested fields, and the 
 evergreens along the road overgrown with bitter-sweet
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 37 
 
 berries; he did not see her expression of worship, else he 
 could hardly have gone on. 
 
 "You have much to learn, yon are just entering life, 
 rememher; you will have much to bear, much to conquer. 
 You have a tumultuous nature, Bertha." Here he glanced 
 at her, and the fervor of her eyes made his breath halt a 
 moment; then he looked away and commanded it. "You 
 will have to fight hard, but bear this in mind : Don't suc- 
 cumb to anything you know in calmer moments is wrong. 
 Let the waves of passion, and of anger, and of despair, roll 
 over you as they must, but hold your soul as you would 
 your breath under water, and they will presently roll away 
 and leave you stunned, drenched, half-drowned, maybe, 
 but alive, and your own." He paused a moment, and then 
 added, as he looked at her with the sternness of memory 
 in his face, "I know what it is, Bertha." She glanced up, 
 startled: had he, on those serene pinnacles, ever known 
 what it was to struggle? "I know what it is," he repeated 
 slowly; "I don't speak mere words; it is my deepest ex- 
 perience that speaks." 
 
 She was silent, almost awed. He bent to her level, 
 and wished to lift her to his. She felt humbled, and yet 
 upheld. Since he had had temptations, perhaps she too 
 could conquer them ; she would, for he wished it. He was 
 her hero who would kill the evil genii within her; he was 
 an ideal to worship, a beloved human being to adore. 
 
 Too soon they reached Fernside, where the old people 
 were at the gate to welcome their darling. They had come 
 to spend Thanksgiving at the big house, which was by this 
 time fairly familiar to them, for it had been the scene of 
 many similar reunions. Bertha was ever the high light of 
 the picture. She had never been uncomfortable amid these 
 fine surroundings which had at first daunted the very souls
 
 38 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 of Pa and Ma. But to Bertha the better ever seemed 
 native ; she walked as if this were her accustomed air. 
 
 To-night, partly as a reaction from the solemn talk of 
 the drive, she bubbled over with mirth, taking off some of 
 the other teachers with ludicrous perfection of mimicry, 
 at which the old folks laughed to tears, while shaking their 
 heads at her impertinence. She drifted about the large 
 rooms with a blithe smoothness that held the eye, and satis- 
 fied it. Just such should be the gait of a girl. She brought 
 the jocund air of spring into their autumnal lives, and 
 refreshed them vitally with her gladness and singleness 
 of heart. 
 
 The quartette had a gay meat-tea for which Ma made 
 the incomparable biscuit, and afterwards they sat around 
 the wood fire, roasting chestnuts, baking apples, and drink- 
 ing cider, while Mr. Grey told them of what he had been 
 doing, what was going on in the centers of action, and 
 brought the stir and current of the world into their se- 
 cluded lives. He intended to raise a company in the neigh- 
 borhood and he asked the advice and assistance of all three. 
 Bertha easily took the lead ; she let go her old repugnance 
 to the demands of the nation, and entered into his plans 
 with enthusiastic interest. She knew everybody, and she 
 knew how each one could be best approached; he was 
 amazed at her insight and surety of judgment. He was 
 delighted also that she had wakened to the situation at 
 last, for he had thought her a little obtuse in this direction. 
 
 The few holidays passed in a glow of good work, of 
 patriotic ardor. She listened to his stirring appeals, and 
 almost wished she were a man that she might join the 
 company. She heard his sad stories of suffering and pri- 
 vation and unnursed deaths, and implored him to let her 
 become a nurse; but he scouted the idea. Later on, per-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 39 
 
 haps, when she was older, and the available force of better- 
 fitted women had been used; a grim outlook, but he was 
 one of the few who foresaw from the first a prolonged 
 struggle. 
 
 She had to go back to school for Monday, and he went 
 over the next day to say good-bye, bringing her fruits and 
 candies. 
 
 "I can't get over thinking you are still a child," he said 
 smiling, as she eagerly undid the parcels. 
 
 "I hope you won't," she answered, laughing. She sat 
 beside the open stove and munched the sweets like a child 
 indeed. Her dark-red gown emphasized the beauty of her 
 fairness. It was like the trailing arbutus, he thought, and 
 she had grown to flower and fragrance under such unto- 
 ward circumstances as it softly conquers. Weight of pine 
 needles and chill of snow had been against her, but she 
 had pushed her indomitable way through them by sheer 
 force of life, and here she was, a joy to contemplate. 
 
 "You are well content in this position," he said, more in 
 the tone of affirmation than of question, for she looked 
 the picture of happy repose, as she sat relaxed in the high- 
 backed rocking-chair ; it charmed the tired man. She had 
 a way of making ordinary things conform to a luxurious 
 sense in her; while she occupied a seat it seemed fit for 
 Cleopatra, when she left it, one was astonished at its stiff 
 lines and lack of comfort. 
 
 She nodded carelessly, still gazing into the fire with a 
 smiling face. There was no use bothering about dullness 
 while he was there: she was happy now. 
 
 "I am very glad of it," he said, after a little pause, and 
 his voice had changed. "I should be sorry to leave you 
 dissatisfied."
 
 40 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 At his tone her glance darted to his face, which had 
 sobered, and the candy fell into her lap. 
 
 "It would be a trial to me to go away and think of you 
 as unhappy," he pursued, a little uneasy under her eyes 
 which he did not meet. "You know I am going away, 
 Bertha," 
 
 "What do you mean?" she demanded, sitting upright, 
 and grasping the arms of her chair. He was always going 
 away; why should he announce this departure in such a 
 frightening fashion? "You are not going farther than 
 usual, or for a longer time, are you?" she insisted. 
 
 "Child," he said with a smile, "do you suppose I could 
 enlist all these men, and stay behind myself, when" 
 
 But she would not let him continue. "You are going 
 into the army!" she cried, horror-struck. "0, dear Mr. 
 Grey! don't go, don't go ! I implore you." 
 
 She threw herself forward out of the chair on to her 
 knees beside him, and now buried her face in his sleeve, 
 sobbing. For Mr. Grey to go into battle ! her Mr. Grey 
 to go through all those dreadful things he had told her 
 about, to be wounded, to suffer alone 0, it was incredible, 
 unendurable ! He touched her hair with his hand once or 
 twice, and said: "Poor child!" with the same tone of 
 commiseration he had used when she had been overcome 
 by the vexations of her school life. 
 
 The touch, the tone, the words, but more than all the 
 spirit underneath, which she was keen to feel, checked 
 her sobs. She drew away, and rising, went to the other 
 side of the room. She came back presently, having quelled 
 her emotion for the nonce. 
 
 "Thaf s my brave girl," said he. "I knew it would take 
 you but a few minutes to realize that it is no more for me 
 to go than for another."
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 41 
 
 She shook her head, but she would not voice her feelings ; 
 She knew he would despise them and her: she would try 
 to get around him on some other tack. 
 
 "If you ever meant to go, how does it happen you haven't 
 gone before ?" she asked at length. 
 
 "Ah, that is what I've wondered, too," he replied with 
 some self-scorn, hut his attitude to her immediately 
 changed. He need not try further to convince her of his 
 duty ; she took sides with it and reproached him for delay. 
 This was far from her thoughts, hut she listened eagerly 
 as he explained; winding up with, "And I have less to 
 sacrifice than most men; my parents, my wife, my child, 
 all are dead. It is little I give, only myself, but that little 
 I give heartily. It will be done soon, too. The regiment 
 of which they have made me colonel marches on the fif- 
 teenth." 
 
 Bertha blanched to a deadly white. These specific de- 
 tails and concluded plans made her sickeningly aware of 
 helplessness. Grey's attention was not called to her; he 
 believed her to be in full sympathy with his projects now, 
 and he gazed into the fire and went on talking almost to 
 himself. 
 
 "It would be different if my wife were living; then it 
 would be hard, I grant. To leave her to the mercy of fate, 
 to the agony of possible loss yet how many do that ! But 
 she is safe beyond such trials, and I thank God for it," he 
 said with a sigh of relief. "It is little indeed I give, for 
 if I am killed, it means reunion ; my life has already gone 
 before." 
 
 His voice had sunk to a low murmur ; but after a pause 
 he seemed suddenly to realize who was overhearing these 
 remarks, and he turned to Bertha with a quick deprecatory
 
 42 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 gesture. The room was dark except for the fading glow of 
 the coals; he could see merely the outline of her face. 
 
 "I heg your pardon, dear," he said, with some uneasi- 
 ness. "I forgot for the moment I was not alone. It is a 
 bad hahit a solitary man gets into sometimes." 
 
 Bertha did not speak, and he went on. 
 
 "I want you to know that if anything does happen to 
 me, I have left some provision for you." She gave a 
 smothered exclamation and threw out her hand with a ges- 
 ture he took for refusal. "Yes, yes, my child, you must 
 accept it. It is not much, but it will serve to tide you over 
 some difficulty. If I live, I shall always help you when 
 I can, so if I die it is but right I should do what may be 
 of use to you. Not that I expect to die, Bertha," he added, 
 making an effort to get out of this gloomy vein, and lean- 
 ing forward to put more wood on the embers. "They say 
 he who is willing is never hit, but I wanted to tell you in 
 case of accident." 
 
 He turned to look at her as the fire leaped up, and he 
 was aghast at the expression on her face : it was pallid with 
 misery, and there was a poignancy to her eyes as if she 
 were gazing on some dear, dead thing. 
 
 "Why, Bertha! I had no idea you would take it so 
 hard," he exclaimed, rising to bend over her anxiously. He 
 smoothed her elastic hair as she burst into tears, and was 
 silent a few minutes while she recovered herself. "I can 
 see just how it is, dear," he said then. "You are afraid 
 for me, and you think your prop will be gone, but you 
 hardly need a prop any longer; you have found your feet 
 and can walk your path securely. As for affectionate in- 
 terest, you know you are very dear to me. You must write 
 often and tell me all about yourself; before long I shall 
 be back again, please God. In any case, Bertha, remember
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 43 
 
 there is always God to depend upon. Without him none 
 of us could stand an instant." 
 
 But God and religion were empty sounds to Bertha. 
 They were too far off to have any significance. And now 
 her friend her only friend as she felt him at that moment 
 was going far away, too, completely out of her reach. 
 Besides, he didn't seem to have the slightest idea of what it 
 meant to her, and how could she tell him? Moreover, it 
 would be of no use. She was keenly aware of the adamant 
 in his composition; she knew she might throw herself 
 against him a thousand years and not effect anything 
 except to make him despise her. She must control herself, 
 and let him go, and then the deluge. 
 
 He was to leave by the evening train, and he had now 
 little time to spare. He took her hands and looked atten- 
 tively into her eyes. 
 
 "Kemember, child, what I told you the other day. Don't 
 be rash; cool your feelings in your judgment. If you get 
 into any perplexity, consult Pa and Ma; they will have an 
 instinct for the right where you are concerned. Now, good- 
 bye, my dear little ward." 
 
 He drew her toward him ; she was trembling like a leaf. 
 She turned up her face to him, but he was resolved not to 
 rub off the least bloom from this fresh virginal nature 
 whose would be the right? so he kissed her only on the 
 forehead, and she felt as if an icy touch had frostbitten her 
 heart. She drew away and he let her go reluctantly; he 
 could not account for her extreme agitation. 
 
 "Is there anything you want me to say or do before I 
 go?" he asked in perplexity, but she only shook her head. 
 Her hands were strained to her breast until the finger- 
 tips were purple in her determination to control herself; 
 he should not despise her.
 
 '44 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "Speak a word, then," he urged. "I can't bear to leave 
 you so." 
 
 "God bless you," she whispered, making a tremendous 
 effort. "May he be as good to you as you have been 
 to me." 
 
 "Ah, my dear, I have done very little," he said, a gleam 
 of responsive gratitude crossing his face. "You are the 
 one that does. Now, once more, good-bye." 
 
 He touched her hair with his lips, and his deep-blue 
 eyes very affectionately met hers, full of tumult and 
 anguish. Then he went away, closing the door behind him, 
 for she could not stir, only gaze and gaze. She stared at 
 that shut door until she heard the gate close, and his foot- 
 steps die away. Then, with a low moan, she fell forward 
 on the floor.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE fifteenth of December came and passed. Mr. Grey 
 wrote Bertha a hasty note at the moment of departure 
 for the front, and when she received it, she felt that all 
 was over. The man who meant the world. to her was gone 
 gone in every sense; the clangor of war resounded too 
 noisily for any need of hers to he heard, and even did her 
 voice reach him, of what avail? since his heart was with 
 his wife in heaven. The hurdle was beyond her leap, and 
 she threw herself, a wretched heap of despondency, in the 
 dust before it : it mattered little what became of her now. 
 
 But the very intensity of this mood bred its own reaction. 
 The balance tipped to the other scale, and she was ready 
 to throw in any weight that promised pleasure, the readier 
 because she was* in a reckless humor. 
 
 Of course Christmas was to be spent at home, but the 
 thought of the cramped cottage and its poverty as the best 
 that life offered, exasperated her, and she looked forward 
 with a mixture of dull distaste and resentment to. the drive 
 in a covered wagon? transferred for the winter to runners, 
 which was the country's usual slow and plebian method of 
 conveyance. Therefore it was with special relish that she 
 accepted an invitation to drive over in what she considered 
 proper style. 
 
 It came from a man who was brother to the principal, 
 and who had been captivated by Bertha. She was a girl 
 to strike any one's fancy; and, on her side, she was pricked 
 
 45
 
 46 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 on by the opportunity to test her powers, which had all 
 the charm of novelty as she was brought into contact with 
 each new person; particularly, now, when the person hap- 
 pened to be a man. At this age sex was a puissance that 
 drew her as gravitation does the earth. It pulled, but her 
 independence resisted, and the play between the two forces 
 gave her a dynamic quality that made life electric. Tom 
 Colton was the first man Bertha had ever known she could 
 sway. She swayed him conspicuously, and the sense of 
 power in being able to do it intoxicated her. Moreover, 
 to prevail with another, and a man, stimulated her self- 
 esteem. If not Mr. Grey, at least somebody. The wife of 
 the principal, whom Bertha had always disliked (and who 
 returned the feeling with interest), warned her harshly 
 not to flirt, or she would get into trouble, but what spirited 
 girl ever heeded such a caution? Certainly not Bertha. 
 Like other girls, she set sail on unknown seas, with colors 
 flying, led forward from point to point by new enticements, 
 knowing naught of what was beyond, only wondering how 
 far she could wield authority, and proving it as she went 
 with adventurous excitement. 
 
 It was a brilliant winter day. There had been sleet since 
 the last snowfall, and the trees were encased in ice, every 
 trunk, and branch, and twig, and blade of dried grass, 
 glittering in the frigid sunlight as if set with innumerable 
 diamonds a perfect fairy-land. As she came down the 
 steps, clad in her deep red dress and tight-fitting jacket 
 edged with fur, a turban pushing down the fluff of tawny 
 hair on her forehead, and resting on the great burnished 
 knot behind, Mr. Colton found her ravishing the fit 
 queen of the magic day. 
 
 He jumped out to assist, flattering her with a dozen 
 careful attentions, covering her with robes, tucking them
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 47 
 
 down closely, for it was very cold, and letting his eyes feast 
 on her the while in a way that gratified and fluttered her. 
 A heavily built man about thirty, tall and broad, he was 
 very strong and full of animal spirits. He had brown hair 
 and a long, coarse mustache that entirely hid his mouth, 
 a thick nose, and small, brown eyes, now aglow. Besides, 
 he was a brisk, jovial, free-handed fellow, good at story- 
 telling, and rather pleasant in a boisterous way. He was 
 not attractive to Bertha, but neither did he repel, and his 
 belongings were undeniably attractive. The luxurious cut- 
 ter and prancing horses, the proof of plenty, the freedom 
 from restrictions, and, above all, the play he gave to her 
 sense of sovereignty, charmed her. The whole affair was 
 a lively change from habits destitute of variety; it gave 
 life a fillip, and she was in a rebellious temper that lent 
 to pungency a fictitious value. What a contrast to the 
 shabby methods so hatefully" familiar, and what allurement 
 of opportunity ! She settled back under the warm buffalo 
 robes with the sensation that this was just right: let the 
 play go on. 
 
 "Well, how does it suit you?" he asked, noting the satis- 
 faction in her face, as she felt the swift movement over 
 crisp snow, and listened to the merry bells. The horses 
 settled into a steady gait and he could devote more atten- 
 tion to his bewitching companion. He leaned across to 
 tuck in the robes about her knees. "Not to teach, or do 
 any sort of work, but just to glide ahead and enjoy your- 
 self; how do you like that, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, I like it first-rate for a while," she smiled. 
 
 "And why not for always?" he urged, fixing eager eyes 
 on her half -averted face. "You're too splendid a girl to be 
 held down to stupid ways. This is the sort of thing 
 for you. You ought to have your carriage as you have
 
 48 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 gloves or a hat Mighty pretty hat, that, by the way ; but 
 not to be noticed beside the hair under it, or the face By 
 George, but you're a beauty !" 
 
 She sparkled under his vehement admiration, for it was 
 all novel to her, and she took whatever came with an in- 
 discriminate palate. Nevertheless, she played off a little. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said she. "You're just trying to turn my 
 head. You know you say such things to every girl you 
 meet." 
 
 "I don't meet any such as you, miss. They don't grow 
 on every bush, nor on every million bushes. I've had some 
 experience, you know; I've lived in towns, I've traveled 
 well, let me see, it was four thousand miles, barring ten, 
 last year but I've never seen, anywhere, such a girl as you 
 are; now that's flat. You're far and away the beauty of 
 the lot." 
 
 He tried to put his arm around her at this, but Mr. 
 Grey's habitual reticence shielded her and she kept him in 
 his place with a manner that still further enraptured him. 
 
 As for her, the contrast of her last drive along this road 
 through the mellow mildness of Thanksgiving time, with 
 Mr. Grey's high converse in her ears, smote sharply now 
 and then across the daring flirtation in which she was in- 
 dulging. There was a call in the memory like a far, 
 clarion note that catches attention above any surrounding 
 clamor, but she deafened her mind to its summons. She 
 refused to give heed to the notion that she should turn 
 from this gay sport (which did nobody any harm, she told 
 herself) to stale reality. On the contrary, she threw her- 
 self more wholly into the part with the fervor born of 
 opposition. Still, she realized that Mr. Colton must be 
 kept occupied to avoid complications, and she exerted her- 
 self to make him tell stories which he did well and there-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 49 
 
 fore enjoyed and led him on to brag about his affairs, 
 his ventures, and successes, an ever-congenial topic; letting 
 him break through only now and then into love-making, 
 even so in words alone. 
 
 He was in capital good humor, enjoying the situation 
 hugely. She intoxicated him with her beauty and mag- 
 netism, while her way of turning things kept his wits 
 awake, and whetted his appetite. It was surprising how 
 ably she managed it all, quite as if she had been born to 
 such a position, he told himself; but he knew very well 
 what was her birth. 
 
 At length, amid their chatter and jokes, he broached the 
 idea just as if they were children, she thought, playing 
 the impossible that he should run away with her. 
 
 "The horses are in prime condition," he added, laugh- 
 ing, but with an alert eye, "they could go thirty miles 
 without feeling it, and it will be moonlight to-night." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it might be lots of fun," said she, nonchal- 
 antly acquiescing in the ridiculous make-believe, "only of 
 course we should have to be married first; how would you 
 manage that?" 
 
 "We could see to that when we got to town," he replied, 
 looking straight between the horses' ears, as he guided 
 them skilfully around a sharp curve. 
 
 "Oh my, no!" she exclaimed. "You don't know how to 
 play this game; the wedding always has to come first, and 
 then they go away, and are happy ever after." She laughed 
 a gay little girlish cadence, while he, glancing at her with 
 veiled scrutiny, saw at once that her nonsense covered no 
 design. 
 
 "Well, let it be first, then," he said good-humoredly. 
 "It could be managed easy enough."
 
 50 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "You talk as if you had but to hold up your finger and 
 the world would obey." 
 
 "Well, yes; that's about the way money manages." 
 
 "Money would never manage me!" she cried, her eyes 
 flashing. 
 
 "Of course not," he assented promptly; "you and I'd 
 have to agree together, and then we'd make the money do 
 what we chose. For I've got money aplenty; how'd you 
 like the spending of it?" 
 
 "Oh, it would be jolly to have a lot of money to spend. 
 Only, I should want it mine, and no one else's." 
 
 "When we get married, what's mine's yours." 
 
 "When!" she quoted with ironical emphasis. "That's 
 not likely to happen soon." 
 
 "It'll happen as soon as you say the word," he urged, his 
 expression tense. 
 
 "What ! if I said it now, right off?" She looked at him 
 in curiosity, the excitement of a first proposal making her 
 breast rise and fall more quickly. He noticed it, and seiz- 
 ing her hand, crushed it. 
 
 "Yes, say it now, right off, and we'll be married before 
 you're an hour older!" He bent forward to look with 
 ardent eyes into her face, but she threw back her head, and 
 broke into a merry peal of laughter that carried off some 
 excess of electric fluid. He let go her hand. 
 
 "What nonsense !" she cried, "you don't mean a word of 
 it, and certainly I don't; it's all silly nonsense. The last 
 thing I'm thinking of is getting married. What would the 
 Principal say?" 
 
 "Who cares? You'll have nothing more to do with him 
 when you're my wife" 
 
 "Why, he's your own brother!" 
 
 "I know it; that's iv*hy. I don't care anything about
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 51 
 
 what he says," and he gave a sound of contempt. "When 
 you're my wife you'll understand." 
 
 "If I wait for that I shan't know very soon," she said 
 with decision. "But where are we? I don't know these 
 houses." 
 
 She looked about her in surprise. She had not noticed 
 what turnings he took after the first one, when, on her 
 saying it wasn't the right way, he assured her it was merely 
 a prettier one, and why need they hurry ? Now she found 
 herself in unfamiliar country, and a vague stir of alarm 
 mingled with the perception. 
 
 "I guess I made a mistake down yonder, you were so 
 deuced entertaining," he reassured her lightly; "but it 
 doesn't make any difference. We'll stop at the first hotel 
 we come to and warm up. You're almost frozen, and I 
 can hardly hold the reins." 
 
 In fact, the whistle of wind about their faces made the 
 intenser cold of the lowering day penetrate her very mar- 
 row ; and when they drew up finally at an inn door she was 
 BO numb he had almost to lift her from the sleigh, and her 
 mind was lethargic with cold. He took her into the empty 
 ladies' room, where a big stove radiated most welcome heat, 
 and left her there, staring into the fire. The mere animal 
 sense of warmth was always delicious to her; now, in her 
 need, she surrendered to it as to the embrace of one dear. 
 
 She sat still for some time, drowsily; until at length 
 he roused her by coming in, looking rather excited, and 
 with a glass of something in his hand. 
 
 "Drink this," said he, "I'm afraid I've given you your 
 death of cold. Drink; it'll do you good." 
 
 But she wouldn't be persuaded; she had never tasted 
 wine, and the odor of liquor was nauseous to her. 
 
 "No, thank you/' she said, getting up. "I don't want
 
 52 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 anything, I'm warm now, and we must go on. Pa will be 
 anxious if I'm not there on time. How long will it take 
 us from here?" and she began to button her jacket. 
 
 "Oh, just a little while, and he won't be anxious; he 
 knows you're in good hands," said Tom Colton easily, 
 draining the glass himself. "Besides, you must have a cup 
 of tea at least before you venture out again. It's getting 
 colder every minute, and your Pa'd never forgive me if 
 I let you get sick. Then the horses ain't ready yet ; they've 
 got to have their chance, too; so take off your coat, and 
 111 order the tea." 
 
 The idea of a hot drink was grateful to her, and as he 
 went away again she laid aside her wrap and looked about 
 her with more seeing eyes. It was the stiff room of such 
 an inn: horse-hair furniture, an ivy trained around the 
 white window-frame, some other plants set to catch the cold 
 light, an ingrain carpet, covered with oilcloth near the 
 stove; how ugly it all was! She hugged the fire again 
 with a shiver. The desire for beauty was a hunger in her, 
 and there was no hint of beauty here; it was nicer even 
 at home. She wanted to get home; home was a haven that 
 beckoned to her, and her heart responded with a somewhat 
 anxious throb. 
 
 Mr. Colton returned after a while with a couple of other 
 men, who peered at her curiously. He introduced them as 
 traveling acquaintances of his, and talked in showy fash- 
 ion, mainly about himself, while she hung silent. He 
 couldn't rouse her, and when the tea came in the men 
 went away, one shaking his head, the other slapping Colton 
 on the back and whispering to him amid much laughter. 
 
 He stood about, keeping up a ceaseless flow of words, 
 while she took tea; as she pushed away the empty cup he 
 left the room, saying he'd be back in a minute. Bertha
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 53 
 
 got into her things again, looking out to see if the cutter 
 were at the door; it wasn't. Just then Mr. Colton came 
 back and joined her at the window. 
 
 "Oh, don't be in such a hurry," he said, bulking large 
 beside her and standing quite close, his air a bit perturbed. 
 "There's something I want you to do before we go." 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, moving back a step. "I want 
 to get on." 
 
 "I know you do, and so you shall, just as soon as you 
 help me out of a scrape I've got into with these men." 
 
 "What sort of a scrape?" 
 
 "It's a bet they dared me to take." 
 
 "A bet ? I haven't anything to do with bets." She drew 
 herself up rather proudly. 
 
 "You have a lot to do with this one," he chuckled. Then 
 he sobered and bent careful eyes upon her, though he spoke 
 lightly enough. "They dared me to get you to go through 
 the marriage ceremony with me, just in fun, you know 
 there's a hundred dollars on it." 
 
 "How absurd!" She started toward the door, her head 
 high. "Come, I want to go home right away." At the 
 threshold the two men, and a third behind them, were 
 craning long necks to watch. 
 
 "Oh, see here," cried Colton, holding her back. "Don't 
 play off like that. Be a good girl and help me out. Here's 
 the chap who's to be minister ha, ha ! and all you have 
 to do is to say 'Yes' and 'I will/ and off we go ; the quicker 
 we get through it, the sooner we'll start. I'm not going 
 to give up my hundred dollars very easily now, you may 
 be sure. I'll just coax and coax until you give in, it'll be 
 shorter to do it right away." 
 
 He stood with his back to the door facing her, very much 
 aroused, his whole strength grappling for his end. The
 
 V 
 
 54 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 narrow air between them seemed to vibrate as if taut 
 strings were struck with force. She wheeled away, her 
 heart beating thickly, and went toward the window again, 
 Colton following close. 
 
 "It doesn't mean an earthly thing, you know," he be- 
 sought in a low tone. "Be a good girl and help me out. 
 My pride's up, for these men'll jeer at me if you don't, 
 and you know, now, I've been good to you. I shall be, too ; 
 we'll have lots of drives together. Come along; it's only 
 to say two or three words, all in fun, you know, and then 
 I'll take you straight home, as fast as the horses can trot." 
 
 Thus he cajoled her and the situation abetted him, for 
 hurry is often the foul fiend in person. She was very 
 anxious to get home and consent to this silly prank seemed 
 the shortest way out. Of course it wouldn't mean any- 
 thing; there had to be a license, and a certificate, and all 
 that, to get married really. Moreover, she had no reason 
 for distrust; Pa and Ma and Mr. Grey had taught her, 
 through years of trustworthiness, to rely on those that were 
 kind to her; and Mr. Colton had been kind. The form 
 once gone through with, however repugnant to her in- 
 stincts, she would be at home within an hour, and it 
 wouldn't make any difference. This she echoed to herself 
 from his persistent reiterations, and at length she turned 
 to him saying: 
 
 "Well, hurry up, then; let's have it over, and get away." 
 
 He swung around at once to hide the triumph flaming 
 up, and without delay the ceremony was accomplished. 
 Then the witnesses went out, congratulating the pair in 
 boisterous merriment, and the two were left alone. 
 
 Colton turned and seized her, trying to kiss her, his eyes 
 gleaming after a fashion that made her heart flutter as a 
 pigeon does caught by a hawk; but she pulled away, and
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 55 
 
 insisted on going home at once. He pooE-poohed haste, 
 but she wouldn't listen to him longer. She faced him with 
 imperial eyes; her way was dictator now, and although he 
 opposed her will with importunate resistance, driven by 
 the mutiny of every sense which still had- to be kept under 
 hatches, he found himself thwarted, deterred, and, pres- 
 ently, mastered. 
 
 She had had no doubt of ultimate success, but it was 
 with a surge of pride that she saw herself verified. Strong 
 and passionate though he might be, an exhibition of 
 original will brought him to heel ; she had made no mistake 
 in believing she could govern him. 
 
 He ordered the cutter brought around, and when it came 
 she bounded in, glad to escape from this oppressive place 
 that weighed strangely on her spirits; she longed beyond 
 reason to be safe at home with Pa and Ma. 
 
 "I can't have my bride take cold," he said, putting hot 
 bricks at her feet- and wrapping her in a big shawl he had 
 bought. "I don't want to drive up to your Pa's and find 
 you a statue of ice beside me." 
 
 "Hurry, then," she replied, submitting; and presently a 
 gay chorus of good wishes from the people assembled at the 
 half-open door rang after them on the piercing air. When 
 they got beyond the village he put his arm around her, 
 shawl and all, and held it there despite her struggles. 
 
 "Now, my pretty wife, give your husband a 'kiss," he 
 insisted. "Come, come; I'm taking you home as you want 
 me to; it's your turn to do what I want You shall!" 
 Suddenly fierce, he tried to get her lips. 
 
 She prevented him, and leaning across caught the whip 
 from its socket and gave the horses a cut that forced Col- 
 ton to let go of her and use all his strength to subdue them. 
 
 "You little devil!" he muttered, between clenched teeth.
 
 56 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 as he succeeded in his tussle with the lively animals. "Give 
 me that whip ; we can't afford to worry these brutes ; they'll 
 run away with us next." But she held it far out in her 
 left hand, and, as he tried to snatch it, pushed him off witli 
 her right, which she had freed from the encumbering 
 shawl. 
 
 "Let me alone, then," she said, with- a resolute air that 
 startled him. "I mean to keep this whip until I get home. 
 If the horses run away it will be your fault. Take this 
 turn to the right; I shan't put up with any more fooling." 
 
 He took the turn obediently, but, "Would it scare you so 
 to be my wife?" he asked, putting his face close to hers, 
 and speaking in a passionate tone. She gave the horses a 
 sharp flick and they jumped wildly. 
 
 "Damn it! don't do that!" and he bent again to the 
 task she compelled. 
 
 "Then let me alone." 
 
 His heavy nature realized slowly that he was on the 
 wrong tack; so he remained silent for a while, letting her 
 alone as she commanded. 
 
 The horses were dashing straight toward the west where 
 the sun had set. There was not a cloud in the sky; the 
 horizon was a dark fringe 'of forest, and beyond it was a 
 belt of absolutely pure colors; blood-red just above the 
 trees, merging into orange, refining to yellow, and then 
 deepening to an ethereal blue. In this, the silver crescent 
 of the new moon hung, faint but gathering radiance as the 
 dark came orr. The beauty of the scene made Bertha's 
 heart ache for Mr. Grey. 
 
 Presently, while she gazed at the spectacle, her com- 
 panion began to talk, at first quietly, then more vehement- 
 ly, at kst urgently; she was an alluring sight in the sun- 
 set-glow.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 57 
 
 "If we were really married, you should go everywhere 
 with me," he was saying; "we'd see the world, Bertha, and 
 you should always have the best: fine hotels, fine clothes, 
 the best of everything. Cities are worth seeing, I tell you. 
 There's New York, now; never was such a town as that. 
 We'd put up at the Saint Nicholas, and go everywhere. 
 It'd be fun to take you to the show; they'd be looking at 
 you instead of at the painted stage-ladies. But I'd be 
 mighty careful of you. If any fellow dared to look at you 
 once too often" and his heavy brows 1 drew together darkly. 
 
 The thought of a man's being jealous, about heir, flat- 
 tered her; she looked upon it as a tribute to power; but 
 this was only one point that pleased. The whole picture he 
 painted had a potent fascination for her. To explore the 
 world; to sit at its bounteous table, and devour any dish; 
 to taste flavors of delicious quality, to smell the breath of 
 life life! surging life, nothing less than life in all its 
 throbbing amplitude, was what she craved; the lure of 
 having it at her command was well-nigh irresistible. Then, 
 as she listened again to his words, she came down to details. 
 
 A fine house would be hers, just as she wanted it; 
 society she could command amid men and women worth 
 while, and she would discover if she could hold her own 
 among them. Obviously it might all be hers for the ask- 
 ing. So she inclined her ear while she looked with medi- 
 tative eyes at the rainbow colors, now fast fading into 
 gloom, but which seemed to the imaginative girl like a 
 new horizon opening before her. Was it the rainbow of 
 hope, and of a brighter life ? Was this the apple of oppor- 
 tunity chance put in her hand ? She turned it round and 
 round, feeling it, scenting it, appreciating its luscious ap- 
 peal. But when Tom Colton pressed for some response, 
 she would only say:
 
 58 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "Wait till we see Pa and Ma. I can't say anything till 
 I see them." 
 
 Before they reached the cottage it had grown quite dark. 
 As they came through the village, she. could see the people 
 running to the windows to find out what the sleigh-bells 
 meant ; it stirred her pride and sense of importance ; so it 
 might be always. She invited her escort to come in, and 
 he tied the horses, threw the blankets over them, and fol- 
 lowed her. 
 
 Pa and Ma knew him ; they had seen him several times 
 in the village, he was a great man in their eyes; not like 
 Mr. Grey, of course, but still very- fine. They were much 
 impressed by the fact that he had brought Bertie home, 
 and were actually stunned when he announced that she was 
 his wife. But Bertha revived them. 
 
 "Don't be alarmed, Pa," she said in easy scorn, crossing 
 the kitchen with a light step to his side, and laying her 
 hand reassuringly on his shoulder; "he's just carrying a 
 joke too far. I'm not married to him at all " 
 
 "Yes, you are," interrupted Mr. Colton with emphasis, 
 but the girl disregarded him. 
 
 "We stopped to get warm, and went through the cere- 
 mony just for fun, because he'd made a wager " 
 
 "0 Bertie!" cried Ma aghast, while Pa shook his grey 
 head slowly, his bushy eyebrows puckered over dim eyes 
 fixed anxiously on her. 
 
 "I tell you she is legally my wife," proclaimed Mr. Col- 
 ton, bringing the full weight of his large presence to bear. 
 "We were married an hour ago at Stockville before two 
 witnesses. She is my wife, I tell you, as fast as the law 
 can tie the knot. She must do what I say, and I say she is 
 to come with me." 
 
 He spoke in a tone that dazed the old people. They
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 59 
 
 could not get their breath, till Ma's broke loose in the wail : 
 "Why did you do it, Bertie? Oh, why did you do it?" 
 
 But Bertha paid no attention to this futile query. There 
 was a clutch at her heart as the thought seized her that 
 what he said might be true ; and a moment later, in a wild 
 huddle of sensations, she found herself believing in the 
 marriage. A flash of comprehension reproduced the scene 
 at the inn, and stripped it. Never should she forget that 
 ugly room with its hard, white light, its ivy, and red stove. 
 She had felt at the time that the drama put on this stage 
 meant more than it seemed : now she knew why. 
 
 Her whole being trembled as the conviction hurled itself 
 upon her; words were strangled by the impact; she could 
 make no move. But presently, with the curious secondary 
 sense that comes when the mind is rent in two, she noted 
 as a spectator the bewilderment of the old folks, the in- 
 sistence of Mr. Colton, the lethargy of herself. She could 
 look on as if it were all a stage, and she not one of the 
 players; she subsided into a seat. 
 
 Her strange passivity at such a juncture disconcerted the 
 old people beyond expression. They had been used to see 
 her full of self-confidence, decided in every opinion; now 
 they looked at her sitting in the corner, gazing at the fire, 
 saying nothing, letting some one else do all the talking, 
 though the matter concerned her supremely; and their 
 minds were lost in pathless places. Pa scratched the thin 
 hair streaking his half-bald head and looked from Ma to 
 Bertie, to Mr. Colton, in a dumb anguish of perplexity. 
 
 Tom Colton meanwhile was very voluble. He repeated 
 to the girl's guardians what he had spread before Bertha; 
 he told them she should never want, that he. was rich, and 
 she should have what she chose, he'd be good to her always, 
 and he wound up each one of his periods with the words :
 
 60 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "And you see, there's this to be kept in mind: she's my 
 wife; that's a fixed fact" 
 
 This indeed was the gist of the predicament to the old 
 couple. Marriage was an inviolable institution to them; 
 however brought about, however hasty and irregular, the 
 fact was sacred. That Bertie was his wife according to 
 law was the conclusion to which they were forced, when, at 
 length, seeing them still doubtful, he produced with much 
 ado a marriage certificate and submitted it to their ignorant 
 scrutiny. Bertha glanced rather with a sense of fulfilment 
 than any other interest at the portentous document; she 
 believed, hence testimony was of small value. On Pa and 
 Ma, however, the paper had almost a coercive effect ; never- 
 theless there was another point to be determined: Did 
 Bertie want to be his wife? 
 
 This the old man asked in a whisper, bending over her 
 with a heart of yearning tenderness. Did she like the idea? 
 Would she be willing to go away 
 
 "Have I any choice?" queried the girl in a clear, out- 
 spoken tone, looking straight up into Pa's eyes. There was 
 a strange expression in hers, quite unlike anything there 
 before; he couldn't understand it. "If I am his lawful 
 wife, mustn't I?" she said, and her only protector turned 
 away, still more awash with doubts. 
 
 There came a gleam of malice into Bertha's face as she 
 saw his inability to cope with the question. Hadn't Mr. 
 Grey told her to go to Pa when she needed advice, and 
 hadn't she done it? Well, let them take the weight of 
 decision; between them, they should dispose of her. She 
 didn't care, she told herself, whether she went or stayed, 
 whether she lived or died; and yet it was with a sort of 
 half-repugnant pleasure that she foresaw how the matter 
 would end.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 61 
 
 The old folks would not admit anything as settled that 
 night, however, and Mr. Colton left at last unwillingly, 
 repeating over and over that he would come for his wife 
 in the morning and she must be ready to go. As he bade 
 her good-night he boldly essayed to kiss her, but she evaded 
 him, and the pair, watching for a sign, noted the incident 
 sadly. 
 
 Once by themselves, confronting the stupendous change, 
 Pa and Ma tried to get Bertha to enlighten them, but she 
 was perverse; she would only reiterate facts, which told 
 little of realities. However, brought to book as they had 
 been by documentary evidence, their opposition was sapped ; 
 and, after a little, they found themselves making the best 
 of what was done and couldn't be undone; coming to the 
 conclusion, indeed, that it was a fine chance for their little 
 Bertie, just as the seminary had been. A sense of repeti- 
 tion in the experience, different as were the factors, be- 
 guiled them into a sort of timorous security. They had 
 parleyed long with themselves over what had turned out 
 the best thing in the world; perhaps here it would be the 
 same. 
 
 Colton returned betimes. Bertha met him in the morn- 
 ing light with a dignity that impressed him in spite of 
 himself, and made him greet with a high throb of victory 
 the reluctant compliance of the old folk to his claim. 
 They pleaded for a little visit from their darling, but, once 
 master, he put on a dictatorial air, saying he had most 
 important business that could not be delayed an hour, and 
 his wife must go with him; he'd buy her everything she 
 needed. Bertha said nothing, and Pa, after a wistful 
 glance at her, yielded his dear desires. Colton hurried her 
 off to put on her things, and she went upstairs, trembling 
 a little, but upheld by a curious mingling of hope, dread,
 
 62 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 and defiance. She knew nothing whatever of marriage, and 
 she had entire confidence in her power to govern this man 
 according to her will when she chose. Let Mr. Grey come 
 back though a sob caught her throat at the thought he'd 
 find it was true she needed a prop no longer; she could 
 carve out a life for herself. 
 
 She bade good-bye to her little room under the rafters, 
 and to the little cottage, and to the dear old Pa and Ma, 
 and to the dear old life whose center was Mr. Grey. She 
 drove off beside her husband, the old people showering tear- 
 ful blessings upon her, the village agog with excitement 
 "Bertha Henley married! and to such a rich gentleman! 
 my, but she's ambitious !" and when they were on the lonely 
 road again she let him put his arm around her, met his 
 burning eyes an instant, felt his kiss and this time she 
 used no whip.
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 A MONTH later, Bertha Colton in a Chicago hotel told the 
 bell-boy to ask the proprietor if he would be so kind as to 
 come to her ; she wished to speak to him a few moments. 
 
 When she had given her message she turned back to the 
 window, past which a company of soldiers was marching, 
 with heads erect, eyes front, flags flying, bayonets glancing, 
 while the air pulsed with cheers. The sight and sound 
 thrilled her despite the terrible shipwreck she had made; 
 they were waves of the mighty stream of life for which she 
 had thirsted, and which had stranded her here. 
 
 Here ; she faced the room as the last soldier filed around 
 a turn, and the crowd broke up. The apartment was hand- 
 somely furnished, with plush, and mirrors, and a velvet 
 carpet; Bertha had thought it palatial on entering, and 
 her outward show had been quickly brought into congruity 
 with her surroundings. Colton had taken her shopping the 
 day after their arrival, and fitted her out in every detail. 
 His eye had been trained by his business, and, infatuated 
 with his fresh possession, he had dressed her as a child 
 dresses a doll, solely for his own gratification ; that it hap- 
 pened to please her was a mere appendix. 
 
 But Bertha herself, the being of her, was more altered 
 than any external change could even suggest. All the years 
 that were past had taught her little compared with what 
 she had lived in the last month. The cup of life had 
 gurgled at her lips, and she had almost choked in the swal- 
 
 63
 
 64 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 lowing. Ages away seemed girlhood ; existence prior to Chi- 
 cago had been a drowse; coming there she woke to reality. 
 By this one month's experience, life the dear life she had 
 so fondly loved was made destitute, as a condemned man 
 is stripped, down to the bare body, of all his rights and 
 privileges. Naked stood existence, every illusion torn 
 away. She knew herself as never before, she knew some- 
 thing of the world, and she knew Colton. He was profane 
 throughout, he desecrated everything he touched, he made 
 life itself an offense, a sneer at all things fair and of good 
 report 
 
 She turned sharply as a knock came, restless to push 
 away the bitter wormwood of her thoughts : action was the 
 point. 
 
 A kindly man, white-haired and blue-eyed, entered. 
 "You wanted me, madam?" he asked pleasantly. 
 
 "Yes, thank you for coming," she replied, motioning 
 him to a chair and taking one near. As she leaned on the 
 table the lace of her sleeve fell back, disclosing a rounded 
 arm strikingly fair against the deep red gown. Mr. Har- 
 rison thought he had never seen a handsomer young woman. 
 
 "I wish to speak to you about myself, my position," she 
 said, wasting no time in preliminaries, and looking him 
 clearly in the face. "You know my husband left me yes- 
 terday?" 
 
 "Yes, m'm. He went to New York. He said he would 
 be back next week." 
 
 "But he will not," stated Mrs. Colton evenly. "He will 
 not return; he has abandoned me." 
 
 "Abandoned you !" exclaimed the man in astonishment, 
 for indeed she little looked one to abandon. 
 
 "A fact, nevertheless," she insisted, with a passing smile 
 for the high valuation she saw in his glance.
 
 . A VICTORIOUS LIFE 65 
 
 "My dear madam, he left only yesterday; how can you 
 think 
 
 "I know my husband," she continued in the same quiet 
 tone, but it had a finality that disconcerted Mr. Harrison's 
 lack of belief; he drew a sharp breath of readjustment, 
 and she went on: "Moreover, he left a note for me and a 
 hundred dollars ; that is all I have to meet the world with, 
 and you see I must do something. The diploma I hold 
 from the Evansville seminary would help me to get a place 
 to teach, as I taught there, if you would put me in the way 
 of trying; will you?" 
 
 Her face, paled and somewhat drawn by many emotions 
 and her first sleepless night, looked with appealing dignity 
 into his, and touched the man deeply; in fact, as he ex- 
 pressed it afterwards, he was never so dumfounded in his 
 life. To see a young girl, with beauty, good education and 
 manners, admitting that she had been deserted by her hus- 
 band, and setting out bravely to maintain her own self- 
 respect rudely assailed as it was, roughly demolished as 
 most women would have felt it was tremendously impres- 
 sive. There was no wail for sympathy, such as his ears 
 often heard in these sad times, for less cause; there was 
 no weak-kneed clinging to any chance prop, but simplj an 
 appeal for opportunity to help herself. Perhaps had she 
 been more dependent in manner she would have challenged 
 his masculine instinct of protection to a greater degree; 
 but he had a heart, and a daughter, and quickly reached 
 the decision to aid. He told her he would see what he 
 could arrange, for his experience had sufficed to make him 
 aware that if a wife thinks her husband a poltroon he is 
 not unlikely to prove so ; and if her husband should return 
 it would do no harm to find her teaching, while if not, her 
 need was plain.
 
 66 i A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "Until you get a position I hope you will keep this 
 room," he added as he rose to go. "I'll see that Mr. Col- 
 ton pays for it. And if there is anything else I can do, 
 I wish you would remember that I have a girl about your 
 age, and that I'll be glad to serve you as I would have a 
 stranger serve her." His blue eyes were gentle and re- 
 minded her of Mr. Grey. 
 
 "Thank you, thank you!" she cried impetuously, reserve 
 thawed. "You are exceedingly kind," and she held out 
 her hand with warm gratitude, while her lips trembled, and 
 her eyes filled. 
 
 "Not at all," he responded, shaking her hand heartily, 
 "just a father. Now don't be downcast ; we'll get you on 
 your feet and it will all come right in the end." 
 
 As he left the room Bertha sunk into an easy chair by 
 the fire, while the tears dried on her cheeks. There was, 
 then, kindness in the world, notwithstanding. She needn't 
 be thinking of the lake yet, as she did so often, so de- 
 spairingly, last night. If he would find her a place to 
 teach, she could get along somehow. 
 
 Unmoored as she was, the buoyancy of life made her 
 still ride the waves, despite the salt spume in her teeth; 
 she would plunge on, taking what came. How trivial 
 seemed the village experiences that a month ago were great 
 to her! Here she was, in the midst of a vast city alone, 
 shamed in the face of the world she had meant to dazzle, 
 yet surely innocent, for where had she been guilty in this 
 base betrayal ? She understood now why Mr. Grey wished 
 to keep her away from cities yet her mother had fared no 
 better in the country. Her poor mother; what had become 
 of her ? 
 
 Tom Colton had taunted Bertha with her mother one 
 day, and said she was mighty lucky to get such a husband
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE &ti 
 
 as he; and then he had laughed loudly, slapping his thigh 
 in his merriment over some barbarous jest he had up his 
 sleeve. The morning that he left he plucked it forth and 
 flaunted it in her miserable face. 
 
 "You made me tell an awful pack of lies," he grunted, 
 lolling back in a chair, spent with mirth. "What a mum- 
 mery that marriage was, certificate and all! He, he! 
 Who'd ever have been gulled by it but such a pair of cursed 
 innocents as your wood-doves, Ta' and 'Ma.' And you 
 weren't any better; it was easy enough to fool you; amaz- 
 ing easy when you have such a good head. You showed 
 yourself an idiot, my dear, in spite of your cleverness. 
 Somebody else was cleverer. Ha, ha ! At times I've won- 
 dered if you didn't know all along, and just thought you'd 
 seize your chance ; did you ?" He watched her keenly be- 
 tween half-shut lids. 
 
 "I knew nothing," she said, bitter desolation in her tone, 
 "nothing, nothing." 
 
 She had not been really surprised at what he told her, 
 for a day or two of association with him was enough to 
 teach her he was a liar. Of course it hadn't been hard 
 for him to trick her, to trick them all, such a set of inno- 
 cents as they were. Yet not to trust was so foreign to her 
 nature that she believed him now as she had believed 
 him then. Life was a fraud; she was nobody's daughter 
 and nobody's wife; she was a rootless weed thrown on the 
 waves to be buffeted as they chose. 
 
 Shortly after this talk he had gone out, shirking speech 
 on his intention, and presently she had found his note and 
 the money. It was all of a piece; every part fitted, the 
 gates of the world were clanged to, and locked with a snap 
 in her face. She had thought education was the key, Mr. 
 Grey had encouraged the idea
 
 68 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Mr. Grey it was anguish to think of him she 
 wouldn't ! she would tear her heart out by the roots first ! 
 
 Oh, but she must; it would keep her from accepting 
 defeat. He had told her she would have hardships to en- 
 dure, within and without, and that she must triumph over 
 them. A bugle called in the street, and she sprung upright 
 as to its summons. She would fight; war was in the 
 air ; it should be war with her, too. Superb, she confronted 
 fate. She defied the world, the flesh, and the devil; she 
 felt intimately acquainted with all three in the person of 
 Tom Colton ; but she defied even him ; he should not thrust 
 her into the mire. 
 
 Mr. Harrison came back the next day to tell her that 
 probably she would get a position on the west side before 
 long. While she waited she went about the town, seeing 
 the city life she had so desired, yet with only half-seeing 
 eyes; despite the strong tendency of her nature to be 
 vividly aware of the present alone. Tumult stormed in 
 her mind, while emotion tossed her violently from height 
 of will to trough of despair. Hope was mocked with 
 corpses instead of life; fate stared at her from a grinning 
 skull. God had forgotten her, Mr. Grey had left her, the 
 old people knew no better than to let her fall into such a 
 trap as this and the waves of seething misery choked her 
 thoughts. 
 
 But she came to the surface again in the recurrent 
 memory of the dear old folks; beloved Pa, and stern, 
 faithful Ma. They would always love her, but she could 
 never go back to them, never let them, or the village, or 
 the seminary, learn of this abject defeat, this shipwreck of 
 her rich cargo of dreams. She had solely herself to live
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 69 
 
 for, she must stand alone, but she must stand. No sur- 
 render, should be her motto; never give in. Struggle on; 
 through, if you must, but on, ever on. The country and 
 childhood were behind her; here in. the city, amid the 
 shock and contest of life, was her battleground, here she 
 would win. 
 
 And the levies steadily plodding to the front, awaited by 
 grim wounds and grisly death and glory ; the martial music, 
 the throb of drums in the air, the throb of freedom in the 
 breast; the lift of an unselfish cause for which men pas- 
 sionately sacrificed all, and held it slight in the giving; 
 the high devotion of women carrying their babes, chil- 
 dren tugging at their skirts steadfast-eyed in love as the 
 husband and father marched past all these sights and sen- 
 sations conspicuous on the street, emboldened Bertha, 
 stimulated her heart, thrilled her being, sanctioned her 
 resolve. Surely life had in it wherewithal to live, since 
 such things were. 
 
 She was installed presently in the position expected, and 
 went to work with a will. Occupation steadied her, and 
 forming new ties with pupils and co-workers brought her 
 to the normal, which, with her, was a lively attention to 
 whatever she did. Her salary, though insignificant to a 
 city-bred person, was more than at the seminary, and 
 proved sufficient, which was all she asked of it. Mr. Har- 
 rison advised her as to a boarding-place, and kept a fatherly 
 watch at an honest distance. Thus relieved of the funda- 
 mental concern in regard to bread and bed, with reviving 
 interest she seized life as it passed and made it give. She 
 was determined to get whatever there was to have, to get 
 power, success; not products so much as that which* pro- 
 duces, ever the dynamic. Anything that came within 
 reach she held in the fork of her mind until she knew it.
 
 70 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 The ore of experience found ready mintage, and, stamped 
 with her own personality, passed into circulation through 
 the press. The boarding-house people read her verses and 
 stories, and bragged of her presence among them; which, 
 indeed, to their arid lives was an everflowing spring of 
 interest. She was the object of incessant gossip of course, 
 being so striking, vivid, unusual, and in anomalous cir- 
 cumstances. She did not goad the inquisitive, however, 
 by making any mystery of her situation; without demur 
 she spoke of her husband and his desertion, though with 
 surprising celerity he was sinking into the background of 
 her consciousness; it was only for society's sake that she 
 retained his name and the word husband. She had slight 
 regard for legality, which, in truth, had given her small 
 cause to respect it. Life had begun for her without it, 
 and the only time it had come near her, it was used as a 
 lure to the trap, which, once sprung, would now drop her 
 into fathomless abysses. But she refused to fall, the trap 
 itself should be her support so long as she needed it ; hence, 
 "Mrs. Colton" she remained. 
 
 Never was there a period in the nation's history more 
 fitted to draw her forth than this special hour. In the 
 forcing-house of war, when whatever is within manifests 
 itself swiftly, her powers developed as if by magic. At 
 such a time the obvious alone makes an impression; acts, 
 words, capture the mind; the fact is the commander. 
 Bertha and her time were created to meet each other; she 
 gave body to ideas, she proclaimed them bravely, she waved 
 the flag, and beat the drum, and shouted with the multi- 
 tude. 
 
 Thus once aroused to the significance of the issue that 
 drew men into armies, and armies into battle, she threw 
 her utmost energy on the side of freedom. Tech-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 71 
 
 idealities, as she called them dubbing such even the aegis 
 of government, secession, the Union were trifling to her 
 mind compared with the one great point in controversy: 
 Shall human beings be slaves or free? Afire with convic- 
 tion that increased her magnetism to a well-nigh irre- 
 sistible extent, she swept the tardy to the recruiting-sta- 
 tion, winding up their lax spirits to high valor, making 
 her enthusiasm run like flame through the stubble of their 
 natures, so that they volunteered with ardor, disdaining the 
 possibility of death in the heroic maintenance of right. 
 
 Colonel Grey at the front heard of her through one of 
 these men and listened in astonishment. She was spoken 
 of as a potentate, which in very deed she was: she had 
 changed their way of thinking, a fact which had changed 
 their lives. He heard also a disjointed version of her his- 
 tory, quite unknown to him, for she had not written after 
 her runaway marriage nor had rumor borne him the news. 
 As soon as he returned to his tent, he pushed other mat- 
 ters aside and wrote her a letter full of amazement, sym- 
 pathy, praise, and affectionate inquiry. 
 
 She hugged it to her bosom when it reached her, and 
 read it over and over; but it never had an answer. She 
 could not reply from the surface merely, and anything else 
 was too bitter a draught. Before him she would fain ap- 
 pear only as conqueror, as victor over circumstances and 
 herself ; and she was far from this : war was still on.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SEVERAL months passed without a word from Colton, and 
 Bertha felt that in being delivered from him she had shaken 
 off Satan's hand. He was so alien to her, especially as 
 she had become, that the month with him sometimes 
 seemed incredible, a nightmare merely, from which she had 
 wakened to sanity and relief. 
 
 But one evening, after talking brilliantly to a full par- 
 lor, she had just left it with a gay good-night to the 
 dazzled folk gazing after her, and had reached her room 
 still chatting with Mrs. Endicott, an elderly woman of a 
 better class than the other boarders, when she broke off 
 short in what she was saying, gave a gasp, and fell faint- 
 ing on the sofa. As she recovered, she saw the lady watch- 
 ing her with speculative eyes; Bertha met them with a 
 frightened interrogation, and Mrs. Endicott nodded pity- 
 ingly. 
 
 Oh, the anguish of that hour! Nothing that had gone 
 before could be compared with it. She was thrown with 
 violence against the stony world where it was most pitiless ; 
 and she was not alone; another life hung on hers; to an- 
 other life would come the burden she had found so hard 
 to bear. Man and God had conspired against her from 
 the hour of her birth, and now they brought her to this. 
 
 She sent Mrs. Endicott away shortly, and lay prone, fac- 
 ing the black night. She was crushed by this terrible fact; 
 what should have been pure joy was torment. Every 
 
 72
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 75 
 
 sacred experience came to her smutched, befouled; why 
 should she be singled out for such cruelty? What was 
 God about that he should let the innocent suffer so? 
 Motherhood, at birth within her, rose militant to defend 
 this fatherless little one; she knew by a life's experience 
 what small mercy is meted out to the fatherless. How 
 could God be a. father and so treat his children ? Better 
 she and the child should die than live shamed, defaced. 
 
 She got up at length wearily and felt her way to the 
 window, opening the blinds and looking out on the wet, 
 sodden street. Not a light in heaven or on earth. To die; 
 wasn't that the best way out? Her child It was her 
 responsibility to say whether it should cease now, or grow 
 on to endure all she herself had undergone. She and her 
 mother had met the same fate, repeated the same tale of 
 wretchedness; should it go on, and on? No. The wheel 
 of wrong, and birth, and misery, of wrong, and birth and 
 misery, should be spiked here and now. The universe itself 
 could not force her to live unless she chose. You have pro- 
 voked me too far ! she cried to the black sky, throwing up 
 her arms wildly. I will destroy what you created without 
 consent from me. I am free ! I can do what I choose with 
 my own. Life's mine, death's mine 
 
 She turned to make a light and dress, her full lips thrust 
 out obstinately ; but with the action the thought came back 
 to her from another angle, and arrested her. Life was hers, 
 true; life was her right, her inalienable privilege; so it 
 was her child's: why should they die? They were 
 innocent, she could proclaim it proudly. She repudiated 
 the evil man would link with her life, she would 
 not charge herself with it. She and her child were vic- 
 tims, and she would not lie supine under being victimized ; 
 she would not surrender to this fate that hounded her.
 
 74 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 \ y 
 
 Nor would sne rob the little creature, wholly at her mercy, 
 of the very thing for which men were fighting, of what she 
 so eagerly upheld the freedom to live, and be one's own. 
 
 Her mouth straightened into tense resolve as will grasped 
 again its sceptre, but how, how, was it going to reign? 
 how could she spare with one hand, and not buffet with 
 the other? how was she going to carry this crushing 
 weight? 
 
 When she camo back from school the next day, she went 
 up to see Mrs. Endicott. This dowager was about sixty 
 years of age, with pretty grey hair, small eyes, and a heavy 
 mouth. Her husband was a business man, preoccupied with 
 affairs, their children were married out of town, and house- 
 keeping was abandoned, so Mrs. Endicott found herself 
 empty-handed, and regarded Bertha Colton as a very en- 
 livening addition to her wide circle of acquaintances. This 
 uncommon young woman would make her mark some day, 
 and Mrs. Endicott was keen to assume the position of 
 patron toward her. 
 
 Bertha on her side knew perfectly that in seeking Mrs. 
 Endicott's advice she would get the world's judgment of 
 the situation, not because Mrs. Endicott led the world, but 
 because she was its very humble servant. She constructed 
 her opinions according to the dictate of society and this 
 was what Bertha wanted to learn: hadn't Mr. Grey told 
 her to conform to the world's standard until she had mas- 
 tered its rules? So before this epitome of society Bertha 
 laid her case with apparent frankness behind which were 
 hidden discreet reserves, for nobody tells the world every- 
 thing, ending with the question: After last evening's 
 revelation, what was she to do? 
 
 "Why did your husband leave you?" asked Mrs. Endi-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 75 
 
 cott, taking advantage of her opportunity to feed curiosity. 
 "Was it just a quarrel, or something more serious?" 
 
 "He left me because he was afraid I would dominate 
 him, and I should ; but the idea of being dominated fright- 
 ens such a man." 
 
 Bertha spoke with so withering a contempt that her 
 hearer felt a sudden sympathy for the husband. 
 
 "If you fancy you can 'dominate' him, now is your time 
 to try," she replied with an edge to her laughter : the con- 
 ceit of such security irritated her a trifle. "Certainly you 
 ought to be with him," she went on, sobering. "If he 
 knew the condition of affairs, very likely he would let by- 
 gones be bygones, and come back to you. Do you know 
 where he is? Couldn't you take means to discover? A 
 man would be a brute who wasn't touched by your cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 "He is a brute," said Bertha, in a cold, weary voice. So 
 this was the world's verdict: she ought to abase herself 
 before Tom Colton, and beg for pity whine at his feet. 
 Never ! The lake sooner. 
 
 She went to her room with effusive offers of sympathy 
 ringing in her ears; she put on a loose gown, and lay on 
 the sofa, staring at the ceiling with rebellious eyes. Here 
 a messenger from the hotel proprietor found her and gave 
 her a note. It enclosed one from Tom Colton: after 
 months of silence now he wrote. Mr. Harrison had for- 
 warded it with a glad heart, the brave young wife was 
 going to be rewarded at last. 
 
 It looked like something very different than reward to 
 Bertha: was it doom? 
 
 She opened the letter slowly, lingering as if to put off 
 a fatal moment; her soul cowered at the thought of com-
 
 76 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 ing in contact with him again, even through a piece of 
 paper. It read: 
 
 "My dear Bertha, ray handsome Wife: 
 
 "Join me at Louisville on the llth. I shall be there a 
 week, and I will send you money as soon as I know this 
 reaches you. I have heard what your life has been since 
 we separated, and I am glad you are fit to come back to 
 me " 
 
 She started to her feet, flinging aside the letter with a 
 peal of laughter that sounded almost crazed. She she 
 fit to go back to him ! 
 
 Despite the leaden heart, her step was still marvellously 
 light as she went to and fro in agitation, until she could 
 master her disgust sufficiently to go on with the business. 
 When she had glanced through the remaining lines, she 
 rang and sent a message to Mrs. Endicott: the woman's 
 laugh had annoyed her. 
 
 The lady came in promptly, her face one interrogation 
 mark ; but she did not fail to note how individual the room 
 looked on which Bertha had stamped her own manner; 
 and how imposing Mrs. Colton herself appeared in the 
 long, loose gown that left every movement unfettered 
 certainly she was a splendid creature. 
 
 Bertha handed her the letter and watched her read it, 
 which Mrs. Endicott did with great interest, finding her- 
 self duly shocked. His wife had a devilish smart way of 
 making him do as she wanted, he wrote; he couldn't rid 
 himself of the impression she had made on him. He hated 
 to be burdened, but he hated worse to be without her. 
 Nevertheless he didn't intend to let any woman get the 
 upper hand of him; he didn't intend it any more now than
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 77 
 
 before, but probably she had learned her lesson. He signed 
 himself, "Your loving Husband." 
 
 Mrs. Endicott, handing back the letter, felt a stealthy 
 sense of envy toward anyone who could so command an- 
 other ; but what she said was : 
 
 "I congratulate you, my dear. It is a striking case of 
 providential interference," and she tried to look pious. 
 Bertha sprung to her feet, for it was impossible to keep still 
 under such words, and Mrs. Endicott watched her supple 
 movements with an appraising eye. 
 
 "What do you advise me to do?" demanded Bertha at 
 length, stopping before the worldly judge throned in an 
 armchair. The latter looked up into the strained face, 
 whence large eyes of pain were bent upon her, and hesi- 
 tated, but only for a moment. She much preferred that 
 some one else should do any deciding, but she could not 
 afford to throw away the opportunity of being first in the 
 confidence of one whom the world would be running after 
 before long. So she said: 
 
 "I don't think you should be unforgiving, my dear; it 
 is a woman's business in life to forgive, you know; and 
 since he is willing to make amends you should let him 
 have the opportunity to prove his repentance. Besides, the 
 only place for one about to become a mother is by the father 
 of her child." She drew herself up as she ended, feeling 
 that she had delivered the world's verdict very well. Bertha 
 felt it also, and she nodded slowly as she turned away. 
 
 It was useless to point out that the writer of this letter 
 had no more idea of repentance than he had of heaven, 
 that all he sought was to please himself; such considera- 
 tions were nothing to Mrs. Endicott, or to the world. 
 They looked at things only in the crude outline which 
 stereotyped a law to cover a million different cases. The
 
 78 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 ,/ 
 
 world's idea of marriage was that a man and woman should 
 live together before society, no matter what happened in 
 private. It was considered much less of a sin to be the 
 wife of a man you scorn and abhor than to lead a clean, 
 useful life openly, as the mother of a child who has no 
 recognized father. 
 
 But the child. She let herself fall into a chair, the 
 spring of hope suddenly crushed low, her head drooping 
 on her folded arms like a bruised flower. Her soul crawled 
 within her at the thought of going back, but there was the 
 child: at all costs, it must be saved from the savage world's 
 contumely. 
 
 She made no reply to the letter, merely thanking Mr. 
 Harrison for its delivery. About a week later, she was not 
 surprised as she came in when the servant told her in an 
 excited whisper that her husband was waiting upstairs. 
 
 She stopped a moment to drink a glass of water and 
 make quite sure of her coolness; then she went slowly to 
 her room. Tom Colton was lying on her bed, his shoes 
 soiling her clean coverlid, asleep and snoring. Her whole 
 being rose in revolt as she stood a moment, her hand on 
 the knob, looking in; then she closed the door between 
 them, relieved to shut the sight of him away even for an 
 instant, and crossed the hall to a court-window. But he 
 had wakened, and in a second looked out eagerly. 
 
 "Come in, come in !" he cried as soon as he caught sight 
 of her. "I've been waiting for you a deuced long time, 
 but here you are now, and it's all right." 
 
 She turned from the window and, by the dull light, for 
 a full minute, looked him in the face her future; then, 
 making a mighty effort, she moved slowly forward. Im- 
 patient, he strode toward her, but she avoided him, and
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 79 
 
 entered the room, her head high. He followed and closed 
 the door. 
 
 "Why don't you give me a welcome?" he said then, open- 
 ing his arms and drinking in the sight of her with pas- 
 sionate thirst. She ignored him with a shudder. "Oh, 
 come, don't be hoityrtoity," he said, his arms collapsing, 
 as she poked and raked the fire, her back to him. "But 
 I suppose you've got your pride up, and want me to make 
 love to you all over again. Well, I'm willing." He came 
 nearer, ready to seize her. 
 
 "Stand back!" she commanded, wheeling upon him, and 
 looking him straight in the eyes as she might a wild 'animal 
 she meant to quell. "None of that. You have deceived 
 me, and insulted me, and deserted me; you will find it 
 hard to make your peace." She spoke with slow emphasis 
 in a deeper tone than he had ever heard her use. 
 
 They stood thus motionless, eye to eye; he, held, as if 
 in a vise, by her will. Then she designated a chair, into 
 which he dropped, grumbling inarticulately. She seated 
 herself not far away, wishing him to understand that she 
 relied entirely on herself to keep him at a distance. She 
 took off her hat, and stroked the feathers into place, while 
 he watched every motion greedily. 
 
 "You're a deuced handsome woman," he broke out pres- 
 ently, edging his chair nearer; "you're a deal handsomer 
 than when I left you. What have you done to yourself?" 
 
 "I have lived a life of peace and content," she answered 
 briefly, her eyes on her hat. 
 
 "Well, you've done splendid, and made me proud of 
 you, my dear. Old Harrison, who took it on himself to 
 blow me up about you" he gave an amused chuckle "he 
 told me you'd been as steady as a rock. That's a big mark 
 to your credit, my beauty."
 
 80 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "Thank you," she said in a tone that cut even his sen- 
 sibilities. He moved uneasily. 
 
 " Oh, I don't say I didn't abuse you, but to tell the truth 
 I dassent stay with you. I was afraid I'd get so I couMn't 
 stay away. It looks as if I did anyhow," he added, sheep- 
 ishly. "You'd laugh to know how many times I've had 
 to handcuff myself to keep away from you. I hate to be 
 burdened with a woman, and I've just avoided Chicago; 
 but at last I determined I'd see you no matter what hap- 
 pened. So here I am, and we'll forget all about the rest 
 of it, and live happy ever after." He guffawed with awk- 
 ward hilarity and hitched his chair nearer. She stopped 
 him with a glance. 
 
 "7 shan't forget it," said she. 
 
 "Nonsense!" he cried, throwing himself back in his 
 chair and teetering it on its hind legs. "That's what 
 women are for, to forgive and forget." He got up rest- 
 lessly and leaned his back against the mantel, his hands in 
 his pockets, looking down at her. He loved her as much 
 as he was capable of loving anything, and underneath his 
 passionate desire hidden far within, as seed in a coarse 
 fruit was a kernel of something finer, more potent. "I'll 
 make you such a good husband, you'll call me a model 
 presently," he added in a lower tone with only a half 
 laugh. 
 
 "You'll have to change very much first," she commented 
 icily. 
 
 " Oh, come now ; don't be too hard on a fellow. I knew 
 your pride was up when I didn't hear from you, and I've 
 come with the best intentions. What are these changes 
 you're after? What do you want?" 
 
 She would like to have said that to be let alone was all 
 her desire; a while ago she would have done so with a
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 81 
 
 vengeance ; but the child. She kept silence so long that he 
 took up the word again. 
 
 "You shall have a house, and servants, and fine 
 clothes " 
 
 "I've heard all that before," she interrupted him wear- 
 il} r . "The result doesn't give such promises any value." 
 
 "I know," he said hurriedly. "I told you a string of 
 yarns and then left you; but I shan't do that again. I've 
 found out that I want you, and I mean to have you." 
 
 "Do you?" she said carelessly, with a fleeting smile. Its 
 security playing on his suspense roused him to sudden fury. 
 He swore a great oath, and taking a stride bent down 
 close over her. 
 
 "You've got to come back to me," he hissed in her ear. 
 "I'm your husband, remember that." 
 
 "That, too, is an old story, and one you told me after- 
 wards was a lie," she said coolly; "you should have a bet- 
 ter memory." He raised his hand with a curse, but she 
 looked him straight in the eyes, adding in a different tone : 
 "Besides, there are many ways of ridding oneself even of 
 a husband: I shan't go back to you unless I choose." 
 
 An onlooker might have thought she could not escape a 
 blow, so savage did he appear when thus defied; but her 
 courage and self-confidence did not quail an instant. There 
 were indeed many ways of ridding oneself of a husband; 
 she felt herself capable of any one of them. 
 
 He saw it and veered away, indemnifying himself by a 
 stream of profanity that tired the ears. She got up feeling 
 it would be a relief to stand. A woman finds herself taken 
 at a disadvantage when a man bends close above her, but 
 even then she had triumphed. She went to the mirror and 
 gave some touches to her hair, turning her head now this 
 way, now that, to see it better. He, watching her cool
 
 82 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 movements, forgot his curses, and after a silence of some 
 minutes began again in quite a meek tone. 
 
 "What do you want me to say, Bertha? What are you 
 after?" 
 
 "I was under the impression that you sought this inter- 
 view." 
 
 "Why, of course I did. I must have you back, that's 
 the long and short of it. I love you, Bertha. I must have 
 
 you. I shall have you " And he started toward her 
 
 again. 
 
 But she drew herself to the full height of her stately 
 figure, and there was a royal womanhood about her. Her 
 abundant hair shone like a coronet of bronzed gold; her 
 fair face was tense and stern ; her eyes narrowed to a dan- 
 gerous blade of light as she said with the most distinct 
 utterance : 
 
 "You will not have me until you have fulfilled my de- 
 mands." 
 
 For a whole minute after she had spoken they looked'at 
 one another, will against will. Finally he straightened 
 himself with a long inhalation, muttering: "Damn it, but 
 you're a fine woman !" Then raising his voice he said with 
 urgency: "Well, well, let's have 'em, these demands; what 
 are they?" 
 
 She made no haste in replying, and he stood before her, 
 opening and shutting his hands with fierce eagerness. 
 When she spoke it was with quiet emphasis : 
 
 "You would have to give me kindness and freedom. 
 You would have to let me guide my own life. In the 
 house that you provide you would have to let me choose 
 who should enter." 
 
 He nodded eagerly at every claim. All this was easy 
 enough. His spirits rose as he thought she could be de-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 83 
 
 coyed by well-painted promises which it would cost him 
 nothing to decorate. 
 
 "Certainly, certainly!" he cried. "What else do you 
 expect? It shall all be as you say. Come now, say we've 
 made it up, and kiss me." He threw out his arms, but she 
 still held him aloof. 
 
 "First of all," she said, in a ringing tone, "must be a 
 strictly legal marriage, with the certificate in my posses- 
 sion." 
 
 "Well, there might be some trouble about that," he hesi- 
 tated, looking down, and kicking the carpet, while a smile 
 flickered about his mustache. "I'm willing all right, but, 
 you see I've a wife already up in Canada." 
 
 "Then go to her at once!" cried Bertha, turning upon 
 him like a tigress, her eyes ablaze, the full surge of her 
 abhorrence of him let loose. "Leave this room! Don't 
 dare come near me again ! I'm glad you're tied to some- 
 one else so that I'm free of you. Go !" 
 
 She was magnificent in her anger and disdain. He had 
 fallen back involuntarily, but he made no move to leave. 
 Admiration, the power of her personality, her sway over 
 him, were never so potent as at that moment. He must 
 have her at any cost. 
 
 "There, there! I didn't mean to raise such a whirl- 
 wind," he began awkwardly; "let me explain. Perhaps 
 it can be arranged after all." He looked at her craftily 
 where she stood over against him, her figure tense, her face 
 a mask of indignation. 
 
 "It can't be if you have a wife in Canada," she said 
 tersely. 
 
 "Now, don't you be too sure. I've a wife there, true 
 enough, or one who was my wife, but we're divorced. Ha, 
 ha!"
 
 84 
 
 "And for cause, heaven knows!" ejaculated Bertha, 
 dropping into a chair. Release was not so easy, her rea- 
 eon still held good. She tried to grasp it again firmly 
 enough to subdue her detestation. "You're such a liar!" 
 she groaned at length, "how am I to know what to be- 
 lieve?" She covered her face with her hands, a deadly 
 sickness coming over her; she felt as if sinking into a bot- 
 tomless morass. 
 
 "You can believe every word I say," proclaimed her 
 veracious companion. "It's gospel truth, I tell you. I 
 was married for three years up there ; that's where I learned 
 to hate a wife, and Lizzie to hate a husband, I guess. 
 Anyhow, we were divorced a year ago. She was stupid and 
 silly, nothing like you. I tell you, Bertha, I'm willing to 
 do anything you want me to. I'll even marry again, though 
 I swore I never would; but there's something about you 
 I can't get along without." He drew near and put his 
 heavy hand on her shoulder; she did not move. "I know 
 I've abused you, dear, but I really mean to try and make 
 it up to you. I'll be as kind and gentle as I know how." 
 There was a rough softness in his voice. "I'm not all 
 bad ; try me again and see. I love you, Bertha, as I never 
 began to love any woman. I'll marry you to-morrow, if 
 you say so, and we'll live together like a pair of turtle- 
 doves. Come, say you will, my beauty " 
 
 She shook off his hand and rose wearily, her eyes deep- 
 sunk and darkly circled. 
 
 "You can't take me in with talk now," she said; "I 
 know too much, I know you too well. Give me the name 
 and address of that divorced wife of yours, and I will have 
 a lawyer investigate it, and then we'll see." 
 
 From this point she would not be moved. She would 
 have what she demanded, neither more nor less, and he
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 85 
 
 finally went away, balked, but set upon his end in the blind 
 unreasoning fury with which waves drive upon the beach. 
 
 Then Bertha sunk into a chair, trembling like a leaf. 
 Her teeth chattered, her knees shook together; it was the 
 reaction from her intense self-mastery. If that marriage 
 in Canada would only prove valid so that she could be 
 free! But then, the child! Suddenly, by the dramatic 
 law of antithesis to which the mind is often subject in 
 hours of excitement, she saw herself driving quietly 
 through the mellow Thanksgiving weather, beside Mr. 
 Grey, and heard him say: "Hold your soul as you would 
 your breath under water, and presently the waves of pas- 
 sion and despair will roll away and leave you, half-drowned, 
 perhaps, but alive, and your own." 
 
 Alas, she would never be her own again. She had been 
 swept away from all that Mr. Grey thought desirable and 
 good, and she could never return; her life was lost, lost, 
 lost; and she wept piteously.
 
 CHAPTEB .VIII 
 
 IT was two years after they parted before Bertha and 
 Grey, now a general, met again. He had been continually 
 in active service, and had spent his time either at the front, 
 or taking hurried journeys to Washington or New York, 
 trying to serve more wholly the country to which he was 
 devoted body and soul. Now a wound gave him pause, 
 and in that pause he determined to see Bertha. He sought 
 her out with great interest and some hesitancy. He found 
 hardly credible in her surprising reputation the child or 
 even the girl he had known, and yet he had always fore- 
 told great things for her. What sort of a husband was 
 this man with whom she had run away, and why had she 
 done that? Why, too, had she cut off all communication 
 with him, her friend of ancient date, not replying to any 
 of the letters he had sent again, and yet again? Would 
 she consider his coming an intrusion? That she had called 
 the old folk to her, a fact he had learned in the village, 
 caused him to realize that she was still Bertha, the faithful 
 affectionate nature he had always found so docile. How 
 should he find it now? 
 
 These were his questionings as he stood at her door, and 
 was presently ushered into her luxurious parlor. He 
 looked about with lively curiosity, for Ehis was Bertha's 
 home, and he saw at once that it was eloquent of her. 
 Every corner betokened her presence; scattered here and 
 there he recognized things she had had from the first hav- 
 
 86
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 87 
 
 ing of anything, for she always carried with her what she 
 possessed. Now obviously plenty of means were at her dis- 
 posal. The furniture was effective and abundant, the 
 chairs were deep-springed and softly cushioned ; there were 
 flowers in many places, not all very fresh, but fragrant and 
 graceful. Books were strewn in every direction, and were 
 of every kind, from French novels to abolition lectues and 
 the latest scientific theory ah, there was evidence of the 
 insatiable mind he knew! On the walls were many pic- 
 tures, some tawdry, some excellent, all with an idea to pre- 
 sent, and that idea, in versatile forms, was ever life never 
 still-life, but life in action, the living interest. Nor were 
 statues absent. In front of plush curtains that draped a 
 bay window stood forth Mercury, atiptoe on the breath of 
 earth, springing upward from the slightest contact to the 
 highest reach. At the other end of the room poised on a 
 bookcase, as if just alighted from far flight, was the 
 Winged Victory. These two, both in plaster of course, were 
 the only white objects; and amid the multicolored sur- 
 roundings, enriched by the gleam of brass and the sheen of 
 gilt, they were dominant, characteristic. 
 
 He turned as he heard a footstep on the stair, from sur- 
 vey of the setting to the life here set. Bertha entered, he 
 saw, and she triumphed. She had every charm, and he felt 
 even in the first moment of delight in her beauty that she 
 would have attracted almost as much without any, so 
 potent was the magic of her personality. She approached 
 him with the buoyant lightness of step he well remem- 
 bered, her tall, rounded figure supple with life, her shapely 
 head, crowned with tawny hair, poised like a flower on its 
 etem, and her face aglow with welcome. 
 
 "My dear, dear guardian!" she exclaimed, holding out 
 both hands. "At last we meet!"
 
 88 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "At last," He answered, and the dear voice, strangely 
 familiar, made her tremble. "It has been far longer than 
 I wished since we parted, but now the present indemni- 
 fies me for what I have missed." 
 
 He looked into the clear depths of her truthful eyes, and 
 his own sustained the impact. The amazing force of life 
 in her, so striking in childhood which had been, indeed, 
 like a clash of cymbals when she dropped from her tree to 
 his side remained, nay, had grown, as all living things 
 must. She lived as fully as ever, he could see, but now 
 she had a larger scope. He had taken blame to himself 
 tfor her rash conduct might he not somehow have pre- 
 vented it? but now he saw that blame was quite beside 
 the mark; the actual was best. 
 
 Could it be but two years since he had bidden her good- 
 bye in the little seminary town when she had been so loath 
 to let her only friend go from her ? Yes, only a little over 
 two years ; yet here she was in the midst of a fast-growing 
 city, the mistress of a pleasant home, a power in society, 
 as he had learned, the advocate of noble causes, in full 
 regalia of beauty that surpassed his greatest expectation, 
 and panoplied with the dominion that was her right. 
 Every fear fled away in the light of her countenance. 
 
 She rejoiced in the effect she produced. It was to seize 
 this first fresh impression that of late she still left his 
 letters unanswered. To a childlike degree she continued 
 to regard his judgment as the criterion by which she must 
 stand or fall. If he approved, she was happy; if not, 
 miserable. 
 
 But a few moments were they alone together, yet 
 a period long enough to tie fast the slack bonds never 
 broken between them, when a tall man with a powerful 
 frame lurched into the parlor, scowling suspiciously as he
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 89 
 
 approached them, his heavy face flushed, his small eyes 
 hloodshot. Bertha's shoulders bent as if a physical weight 
 were put upon them when he entered, and her lips tight- 
 ened as she said, formally: 
 
 "General Grey, permit me to introduce my husband, 
 Mr. Colton. This is my guardian, Tom, of whose good- 
 ness to me I have often told you." 
 
 As the two men shook hands and measured one another, 
 finding nothing congenial, she realized how much army 
 life had brought out Mr. Grey. Clad in dark, simple uni- 
 form, the star on his shoulder-strap the only sign of rank, 
 he was plainly the general. Sunburned, scarred, hair 
 blanched at the temples, with the authoritative mien of 
 one in command, to her eyes he was simply the hero. 
 
 To look from him to Colton, the man who had become 
 her husband, made her heart beat thick with shame, and 
 her head droop. Blotched, bloated, bald, unsightly, Colton 
 betrayed himself in every feature, and made Bertha's 
 draught of humiliation almost insufferable. But General 
 Grey was viewing the situation from quite a different 
 standpoint. \His chief emotion, submerging all else, was 
 a profound pity for Bertha: that she should be an ap- 
 pendage to this man ! 
 
 It was easy to see, in fact it was impossible to ignore, 
 that Colton was violently jealous of his wife, and that a 
 new presence in the neighborhood was an offense almost 
 beyond his endurance. He said little, but he hung near, 
 awkward and inhospitable. Bertha made small attempt to 
 draw him into conversation, but neither could she make it 
 float free of his rude clutch; and, after a few moments' 
 abortive effort, she excused herself to call Pa and Ma. 
 
 They came in presently, close together, evidently a habit 
 of mutual support under changed conditions, .their thin,
 
 90 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 kindly faces eager with welcome of one they had not seen 
 for long, but whom they always remembered with grateful 
 affection. General Grey went forward to meet them, hands 
 outstretched. 
 
 "Dear Pa and Ma !" he exclaimed, taking a hand of each, 
 and smiling on them with warm geniality. "How good 
 it is to meet you again ! looking so well, too. I see Bertha 
 takes first-rate care of you, as you always did of her." 
 
 "Oh, it's no nice balance of benefits, you know very 
 well," cried Bertha, to whom gratitude seemed a meager 
 motive. "I simply love to have them close by, and they 
 like to be near their little girl again. Tom has been very 
 good about taking in my people/' she added, turning to her 
 husband with a sunny smile, to which he made a heavy 
 effort to respond. "He and Pa have fine times together, 
 don't you, Pa'? Men's confidences, you know, General 
 Grey. Don't you remember how you and Pa used to go 
 off together to the smoking-room at dear old Fernside, and 
 you wouldn't be there very long before I'd bob up be- 
 tween you? The little girl had lots of indulgence those 
 days, and what didn't come quick enough to suit her, she 
 just took; that's all." 
 
 "I remember perfectly," said Grey, smiling at Bertha's 
 arch glance, "how you danced in one night, when Pa and I 
 were deep in some calculations over books spread out on 
 the library table, and perched yourself coolly on top of 
 them, like a big bird, and told us we'd been at that long 
 enough, and now we were to pay attention to you." 
 
 "Yes, that's just what she was always saying," ejacu- 
 lated Ma, who had seated herself by the fire and looked 
 up from the grey wool socks she was knitting for the army. 
 "She always wanted to be paid attention to. She used to 
 beg me to look at this, and to hear that, and to smell some-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 91 
 
 thing else, until I was nigh crazy. Tell the truth, I never 
 knew what to do with the child, and after you put her in 
 the seminary, Mr. Grey, there warn't no use trying. She 
 just streaked up out of sight, and now my! I can't see 
 the top of her !" 
 
 Bertha, with a laugh, bent her tall head, crowned with 
 thick braids, before the old woman's affectionate eyes, 
 saying : 
 
 "Look; it's just what it used to be, Ma, when you had 
 such a time getting the snarls out of my hair, and the 
 quirks out of my brain. It'll never leave you behind, dear 
 old Ma," and she gave her a hearty kiss. "I'm. all of a 
 piece, and nothing will ever alter that fact. You couldn't 
 make the starch stiff enough to stay in my clothes, and 
 nobody ever can. I know I've been different from others 
 in that," she went on, addressing herself more directly to 
 General Grey. "Nearly all women are trussed and 
 cramped, but I never could be put into buckram. Ma had 
 to give up and let my things hang limp. I couldn't live 
 a trussed life; I must be myself or nothing. I must re- 
 strain myself, or go unrestrained. It's no use trying to 
 make a mold for me. I am not to be molded; I mold!" 
 She straightened herself, and looked her listener straight 
 in the eyes with a regal air; an air of dominion over her- 
 self no less than over others. Grey listened engrossed. 
 
 People came in presently, and he observed in what an 
 easy and gracious fashion Bertha sheltered the old folk, 
 blotting out their social deficiencies as the sun blots out 
 its spots. They were identified with her; she expected her 
 friends to take them as they took her, and her expecta- 
 tion was so spontaneous that it found ready fulfilment. 
 Their lives gained luster from her, while for them she was
 
 92 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 an embodied romance, a living poem, and one astonishingly 
 alive. 
 
 Yet even she failed to make her husband pass cur- 
 rent. She could do a good deal with him in various ways, 
 but he provided not even a scant amount of the material 
 on which a miracle can be wrought. The more General 
 Grey surveyed him, the deeper became his sympathy for 
 Bertha. He said something of the sort to Pa when they 
 happened to be standing together a little apart from the 
 enchanted circle around her. 
 
 "Yes, it's pretty hard on Bertie," admitted Pa, turning 
 his back on what he had seen often, and been hurt in the 
 seeing; "but we oughtn't to blame him harshly, because, 
 you see, he's got such a terrible jealous demon in him. 
 Why sometimes, Mr. Grey," (he couldn't twist his tongue 
 to General, and it made no difference), "when I see him in 
 one of his rages, I can't help thinking of those poor crea- 
 tures possessed by devils in Scripture. I know Ma's 
 right when she says that Satan's always at the elbow of 
 every one of us; but to some he's just a little hump sit- 
 ting on the fence watching for a chance, while to others 
 he's a great, roaring fiend with flame in his breath and 
 lightning in his eye. Now that's the way it is witb Mr. 
 Colton, and I'm afraid Bertie ain't apt to let the fiend 
 drowse off. Not that she does anything wrong," he made 
 haste to add, "but she just will live out her life, whatever 
 the consequences." 
 
 "Well, why shouldn't she, so long as she doesn't do any- 
 thing wrong?" inquired General Grey with some warmth. 
 "I don't think he deserves very delicate consideration at 
 her hands. It's an outrage to think that a woman of her 
 splendid quality should be subject to such a man as he." 
 
 "That's just the trouble," said Pa, speculatively. "He
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 93 
 
 knows she's far and away ahead of him, that he can't ever 
 hope to keep up with her, and she doesn't bend her head 
 to him as she did just now to Ma," he added, with tender 
 appreciation in his face. He paused a moment, that gentle 
 gleam still in his eyes; then he brought his mind back. 
 "It makes a pretty sorry fix, for he loves her desperately, 
 Mr. Grey. Tell the truth, while sometimes my heart's just 
 wrung for Bertie, all the time I'm sorrier for him." 
 
 "Well, I think you're very magnanimous, Pa," said Gen- 
 eral Grey, watching Bertha, who, wherever she was, made 
 the center of the picture, with Mr. Colton a dark shadow 
 to set off her brightness. "I'm sure I shouldn't be so mild 
 in judgment if I were where I saw this going on month, 
 in and month out." He frowned and his face set sternly. 
 "Why doesn't he go into the army? I wish I had him 
 there to put him through some stiff drill. It's ridiculous 
 to be jealous, it is always in vain." 
 
 "That's a fact, but it doesn't help a jealous man," re- 
 plied Pa, shaking his grey, shrewd head. "Passion ain't 
 good at reasoning; it's we who've got cool heads can use 
 our wits. I've thought and thought during the past year 
 and it looks to me thisaway: A jealous man considers 
 his wife belongs to him, just as if she were a house or a 
 horse ; but a person ain't that sort of thing at all ; what else 
 is the war about? No man has any right to hold a soul 
 as a slave. It's only love can by rights make one human 
 being yield to another; and love belongs to a man just 
 while it's given to him, and not a minute longer; for it's 
 a gift, don't you see? a free gift, or it's nothing. Now, 
 I'm not saying that duty don't have its place, for it has, 
 of course, and Bertie does her's, faithful. She's as devoted 
 a mother as ever was it scares me sometimes to see how 
 she loves little Lois, poor child ! and she's a much better
 
 9$ A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 wife than Her husband deserves; but, you know, now, Mr. 
 Grey, a girl like our Bertie isn't going to be ordered 
 round by anybody. The more he says what she shall and 
 she shan't do, the less attention she pays to him. I'm not 
 blaming her for that; I'm only saying it don't give the 
 demon in him a chance for the least bit of a nap," and the 
 old man put his thin fingers over his lips and chuckled 
 discreetly. 
 
 Bertha came up just then bringing Mr. Harrison, the 
 hotel proprietor, to introduce to Mr. Grey. "He helped 
 me at a crucial hour," she said, standing between the two 
 men for a moment after she had introduced them, as a 
 gorgeous flower stands between leaves. "Tell him all about 
 it, Mr. Harrison ; he will like to hear your version of what 
 I've been through since the time he knew me years ago." 
 
 General Grey watched her as she left him and circled 
 among her guests, while he listened to the tale the hotel- 
 man enthusiastically related. He saw that the world was 
 indeed a stage to her, but only in the sense of living her 
 part. Her role was to be herself, to make manifest what 
 she was now and now, and so on from point to point. To- 
 day palpitated with her life's blood. She was living by 
 the world's standard now, and she vitalized it wholly. 
 Reality was the very substance of her being. To seem to 
 be what one is not, to put on a false front, and plume 
 oneself on having that recognized as fine when it is all 
 sham this was of no earthly value to her ; she did not see 
 how it could be to any one. But to see herself reflected 
 from the world as she knew herself to be, and have that 
 self endorsed by the world, gave her firmness and validity. 
 
 Later, she brought up two men who for some time had 
 been talking rather boisterously, when not whispering,
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 95 
 
 with Tom Colton in the dining-room, where a decanter was 
 soon drained. 
 
 "Let me introduce Mr. Jones and Mr. McLean, General 
 Grey. They are proud to have the opportunity of talking 
 with you, and you may like to hear what they can tell you 
 of my marriage; they were witnesses of it," and she gave 
 them a strange look of mingled contempt and security as 
 she turned away. 
 
 It left them in a somewhat awkward position, but Gen- 
 eral Grey soon drew from them the tale he was so anxious 
 to learn. 
 
 "Yes," said McLean, a common, underbred fellow who 
 had skilfully evaded army service and thereby, as well as 
 in other ways, gained the eye of a trickster, "we witnessed 
 Tom Colton's marriage. We didn't know it at the time, 
 either, did we, Jones?" and he slapped his companion on 
 the back with a guffaw. Jones was of the follower type, 
 insecure of himself, a shifty-eyed, dark-browed man, whom 
 one could count on never to be reliable or fair. He con- 
 tented himself now with a nod and a grunt. "We'd known 
 Tom for years, you see," went on McLean, turning to Gen- 
 eral Grey and subduing his manner in obedience to the 
 gentleman's aspect; "we knew he was up to lots of pranks, 
 and the money he was so free with showed he thought 
 more of this one than common, that's all ; but he got caught 
 all right, didn't he, Jones? It turned out the traveler at 
 the hotel who did the work as minister was just what he 
 pretended to be; he had a right to marry 'em as tight 
 and fast as anybody. So there's our Tom, married in spite 
 of himself. We've laughed at him a devilish lot, but he 
 don't care. He's so crazy about her he'd do anything to 
 be with her; and a husband he became as proper as any- 
 body. Can't say it's done him much good, though; he's
 
 96 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 gone down hill fast. Fact is, she's too fine for him; she 
 whips him up to a pace he can't keep, and then he goes 
 to pieces. She's a mighty smart woman and a handsome, 
 but she's not the wife for him," and McLean shook his 
 head with heavy emphasis. 
 
 "How has he changed?" asked General Grey, who dared 
 not trust himself in any comments on the base tale. 
 
 "Oh, he's lost all his good humor, and come to be devil- 
 ish suspicious. He's jealous of everybody that takes a 
 squint at her; lots of 'em do, too; who can help it? But 
 just look at him now ; ain't it enough to make a man swear 
 to see a good fellow so damned foolish?" 
 
 Grey looked and saw Tom Colton standing near his wife, 
 whose high head and well-carried shoulders drooped again 
 under the incubus of his nearness; but it was evident that 
 Bertha's presence was much more potent to him than his 
 to her. He was watching her sullenly, a dull fire smolder- 
 ing in his eyes, every line of his face and figure dejected 
 yet wrathful, as if conscious of the defeat against which 
 be rebelled. He glowered at the men talking to her, bitter 
 discontent and suspicion envenoming his regard. What a 
 wretched plight for Bertha ! 
 
 "He seems to be successful in business, at all events," 
 said General Grey, turning his back on the offensive scene. 
 "He muet keep a hand on himself outside, or that couldn't 
 be." 
 
 "Oh, yes, he makes money fast enough wish he'd show 
 me the trick but it won't last long if he goes on at this 
 rate. He's plumb daft about his wife, just can't think of 
 anything else. Pretty nigh crazy, I say." 
 
 "Any danger of violence, do you suppose?" asked Grey, 
 somewhat uneasy in view of the disclosures of the evening. 
 
 "Well, I don't know," said McLean, rather drily; "that's
 
 97 
 
 t 
 
 her lookout. It's ticklish work carrying around oil and 
 flame together, you know; won't take much to make fire- 
 works of 'em. But I guess she knows what she's about." 
 
 This crude judgment Grey came to confirm in the days 
 that followed. He went away from Bertha's neighborhood 
 only to return; he spent all that was left of his furlough 
 with her. He found her intelligent conversation, her warm 
 sympathy for his experience, keenly interesting; it was 
 fascinating to make acquaintance with this new being who 
 bore the old name of Bertha, and whose heart, in spite of 
 her many friends, was as open to him as when he was all 
 she had. It touched him deeply to find his place unoccu- 
 pied, sacred to him in simplicity as if she were still an 
 ingenuous girl instead of the brilliant woman of the world. 
 
 The mastery she had of the world was the greatest mar- 
 vel. She had appropriated by instinct whatever came in 
 her way that goes to the making of those whom the world 
 approves. She was versatile, adaptable, wide-glancing, and 
 effective. She had the world within and through social 
 affiliations she simply came into outward possession of what 
 belonged to her, using it as one uses the familiar things 
 of home. Every gift she had was brought into play and 
 grew by exercise; her very environment received the im- 
 print of her personality. It was the materialization of 
 that aura which is said to surround each one, revealing 
 his individual nature: in short, she made visible the un- 
 seen. So strong and instinctive was this power in her that 
 she was inclined to discredit whatever remained unmani- 
 fested ; the manifest was her peculiar realm. 
 
 This was why she found society intoxicating. Each new 
 person was a possibility of unguessed relations. No mat- 
 ter how brief the contact, she threw herself into it with, 
 ardor and vivid concentration. Grey renewed his convic-
 
 98 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 tion that no one ever lived to the degree that she did. 
 Where most people have hut one talent for living (and that 
 is frequently folded away in a napkin) she had ten; nay, 
 she had a veritable genius for life. Wherever the present 
 touched her, life leaped to that place, answering on the in- 
 stant: Here am I; and it was there not in part but alto- 
 gether, strengthening every portion and moment by the 
 entirety of its presence. 
 
 He was meditating something after this fashion one eve- 
 ning when she had an unusual cluster of people about her. 
 They were brilliant and talented folk with names of note ; 
 chief among them was N. P. Willis, acclaimed by many as 
 the finest of contemporary poets, and an authority on so- 
 cial usages as well. Physically he was conspicuous, in a 
 somewhat rough era, for his steel-engraving appearance, 
 precise even to the graceful lovelock on his forehead. He 
 had already attained the height of his powers, which made 
 a prodigious stir, and it was one of his best traits that he 
 gave prompt praise to any promising beginner, and thus 
 was quick to applaud Bertha Colton. 
 
 "Your writings attract wide attention," he was saying, 
 as she listened with a gratified smile. "There is a vital 
 quality, a thrill of experience, an uncommon touch to what 
 you say, that makes people pay attention. Often your 
 words take us by surprise, like sunbeams in a wood, and 
 we greet them joyously. It is a happy gift, Mrs. Colton, 
 to be able to dissolve the trite in new wine of the spirit." 
 
 "Ah, yes," responded Bertha, "you have taught us that 
 'It is godlike to unloose the spirit, and forget yourself in 
 thought, bending a pinion for the deeper sky/ Your poem 
 lifts one to a mountain top and sets one face to face with 
 verity.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 99 
 
 " 'The soul of man 
 Createth its own destiny of power; 
 And as the trial is intenser here, 
 His being hath a nobler strength in heaven/ K 
 
 Her eyes were deep and shining, her expression up- 
 lifted, as she lent the poet's words their fullest value. Apt 
 quotation, which is the deftest praise, was ever ready on 
 her lips. Essentially a hero-worshipper, she gave tribute 
 with the liveliest grace in profuse bounty. Success, attain- 
 ment, was of colossal importance to her at this time, and 
 commendation from one who stood among the highest, in 
 a literary and social sense, was a draught of nectar; she 
 savored every drop. Such society was what she was made 
 for; here the whole seemed complete. But the whole was 
 never complete with Bertha; acquisition was but the stim- 
 ulant of new desires. 
 
 And, indeed, they were already in exercise. Garrison, 
 Wendell Phillips, Horace Greely, came to her house, at- 
 tracted by the articles she wrote on the subjects to which 
 they had consecrated their lives. She was impassioned for 
 great ideas, and indefatigable in forwarding their victory. 
 The questions brought up by the long and dreadful struggle 
 between slavery and freedom, she studied closely, forming 
 her own opinions and advancing them with tact and power. 
 Emancipation must be had at any hazard. She was ablaze 
 for freedom, freedom to possess oneself, to have at least 
 j one's own, to submit the closest domestic relations to no 
 human being. She wrote glowingly on such subjects with 
 pathos derived from her own experience and with indig- 
 nant passion. She expressed herself soul and body both. 
 All the ease and charm of her manner, all the strength 
 and catholicity of her spirit, all the vital force of her in-
 
 100 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 tellectual convictions, came forth and were received with 
 applause. The cruel lessons of life had taught her a men- 
 tal balance and steadiness rarely seen, and her power was 
 akin to that of the youthful geniuses history has most 
 praised. 
 
 Grey saw it all, for she engrossed his whole attention dur- 
 ing this visit; others were mere accessories in the picture. 
 His interest and approval were infinitely sweet to Bertha; 
 how could they fail to be when she had grown up under 
 them, thriven through their grace, and now met them again, 
 more abundantly, more on an equality than ever before? 
 Yet it was deeply indicative of her character that before 
 he took his departure for the front she could not refrain 
 from telling him the inner history of the sorry passes 
 through which she had come to this success. He shrunk 
 a little from the directness of her confidence, but he lis- 
 tened with sympathy and she was not one to hide herself 
 from any eyes that could see aright. 
 
 "I conformed to the letter of the law because of my 
 child," she said, leaning far over the table, so that her face 
 was nearly horizontal as she brought to bear the full force 
 of her personality in appeal for comprehension. "I alone 
 know what it cost me. I am a martyr to what is nearest 
 divine within me mother-love. Except for my child, ex- 
 cept for the suffering society would have unjustly entailed 
 upon her, I should have committed the grossest sin in 
 returning to Tom Colton, feeling as I did toward him, 
 feeling as I do; yet society would have said it was my 
 duty, child or no child; why shouldn't I despise such a 
 standard ? You told me to learn the rules of the game be- 
 fore I tried to improve upon them. Have you forgotten ?" 
 she asked, as he looked up startled. "I do not forget; I 
 have lived by your words through too many trials not to
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 101 
 
 have them clear within me. You said morals were like 
 good manners, that one must conform to the world's rules 
 in order to be well-bred; haven't I done so?" She drew 
 herself up proudly. "Doesn't the world know me for one 
 of its own? Doesn't it even follow me and fawn at my 
 feet?" With a contemptuous smile she ruffled a pile of 
 open letters lying on the table awaiting her pleasure. 
 "When I had mastered all the rules and become a skilled 
 player, you said I might think of improvements. 'There is 
 where the chance for reformers come in/ you suggested. 
 Ah, society needs reformation, God knows it does!" she 
 went on, pushing back her chair and springing up to pace 
 the room as was her habit when excited. General Grey 
 watched her lissom form float to and fro with pitying, ad- 
 miring eyes. "To act thus outrages a woman's truest in- 
 tuitions. The empty law has no validity but an arbitrary 
 one; it is a dry husk without a kernel, fit only for swine. 
 There must be a better way. The world needs social re- 
 pentance. The arks of safety, if such they be, the family, 
 society, the state, the church, should not be made so for- 
 bidding and grim that one struggling in the flood dares not 
 approach them. On the contrary, they should be life-sav- 
 ing stations whence men would put forth to help those in 
 danger; not the fortress of hypocrites, but the refuge of 
 the weak. There are people living in this thought to-day, 
 else where should I be? for you would not have helped 
 me. But the individual is far better than society. He 
 would do right if he were let alone, but society tyrannizes 
 over him, and forces him to do wrong as it did me to save 
 my little one. 'Oh, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, 
 but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.' " 
 
 She looked majestic in dignity as she stopped in front of
 
 102 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 him, and gave these words the full emphasis of her instinct 
 for freedom. It is a nohle instinct, humanity's most divine 
 right. It is what raises us above the brute and makes ns 
 capable of being sons of God. Her former guardian recog- 
 nized it, and bowed before it. She whom he had patronized 
 and who had been through such fearful trials, had passed 
 far beyond his tutelage. In the teeth of clenched an- 
 tagonisms she had won glory. Despite all, she was in line 
 with society, its leader even, and, as she said, it did in 
 truth need regeneration. Perhaps she was the one chosen 
 for the task, a modern Joan of Arc, who would emancipate, 
 not a nation merely, but institutional life. A woman who 
 had thus wrought her own career from tragedy to triumph 
 might achieve anything. He got to his feet and took her 
 hands. 
 
 "Bertha," he said solemnly, but with the exultance in 
 his tone that comes with the prophecy of great things; 
 "go forward and God be with you. It is not in vain you 
 have suffered and conquered; what you gain, the world 
 gains; for you see that it is not a question of pitting the 
 individual against the world, but of reaching freedom for 
 all by building it into the structure of social life. This is 
 what made John Brown great : he saw a great truth which 
 the nation did not recognize, but since the cause to which 
 he was a martyr was true, he drew the nation to him, and 
 in the end will emancipate us all from the shame of slavery. 
 So may you set right what is wrong by seeing social truths 
 clearly, and bringing others to the same view. You will 
 not lack followers in whatever course you take. Be sure 
 you are right, and then lead dauntlessly. Heaven bless 
 you !" 
 
 She pressed his hands while tears stood in the eyes with
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 103 
 
 which she met his, soul to soul. What a recognition! 
 What an outlook! He had found her a woman in his 
 world, equal, dominant, and paid her glad tribute. Then 
 he raised her above the heads of the throng, and sent her 
 forward with face lifted to the skies.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AT Mrs. Endicott's one day, shortly after Grey's return 
 to his command, Bertha met Agnes Sherwood, a tall, slight, 
 gray-eyed girl, with a small head and delicate complexion, 
 whose will was clearly indicated in a square chin and the 
 repressed line of lips determinately turned inwards. She 
 was painfully shy and gave every evidence of fear in the 
 presence of the notable woman whom her aunt insisted she 
 should meet, but Bertha divined that she had brains, and 
 before the girl knew what she was about she was talking 
 freely in a burst of self-forgetful enthusiasm. The subject 
 was "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the human beauty of char- 
 acter in the hero roused her to a fullness of expression that 
 astonished her aunt. 
 
 "Another miracle, my dear Mrs. Colton," she said gaily, 
 though in a low tone, as the niece, with flushed cheeks, 
 turned to some other guest. "I am charmed to find that 
 Agnes can be roused from her social lethargy. I couldn't 
 dissipate it, try as I would; but you are always working 
 wonders. Here I'm quite sure you'll get your effort's 
 worth. She's a bright girl, if she'd only let herself go." 
 
 "That is perfectly obvious," replied Mrs. Colton, watch- 
 ing the slim form clad in grey, which embodied a per- 
 sonality she found singularly attractive. Mrs. Endicott 
 was now keeping house again, and in the small, pretty in- 
 terior the girl was the essential figure. "What has made 
 her so repressed?" 
 
 104
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 105 
 
 "Oh, the notions of her parents," replied Mrs. Endicott 
 with some irritated emphasis. "Sarah Sherwood is a New 
 England woman, and neither she nor my brother ever 
 praise, so that Agnes has come to look upon herself as 
 faulty in every detail, and blameless in none. Of course 
 my sister-in-law considers me worldly to a sinful degree; 
 but I simply seized Agnes and brought her out of that 
 atmosphere where she was stifling. I shall keep her here 
 for the winter with me; a house is so much more attrac- 
 tive if there's a young person in it, you know. I've given 
 her air, now you get her to breathe, Mrs. Colton, or she'll 
 be a dead weight on my hands." 
 
 "She has plenty of lung-power," replied Bertha quietly. 
 "It's a simple matter to breathe when that is a fact. I 
 shall be glad to know her better." When she left that day, 
 therefore, she carried Agnes Sherwood's promise to come 
 to see her alone, so that they might get acquainted. 
 
 The girl felt an almost overpowering timidity as she 
 started to keep her appointment with the writer whose repu- 
 tation was an alarm, however winning the woman might 
 be; but she went. To her a promise was more coercive 
 than an army with banners. Had the heavens fallen to 
 prevent her she would have felt a poignant self-reproach 
 that even the ultimate catastrophe could make her break 
 a promise. 
 
 She was shown at once upstairs, where she followed, 
 her heart throbbing high. In the intimate room on the 
 second floor, Mrs. Colton was at her table writing, books 
 and pages strewn about. She looked up, not rising, but 
 with a bright smile of welcome, and held out her left hand, 
 the right poised over an incomplete sentence. 
 
 "Take off your things, and sit down by the fire," she
 
 106 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 said cordially. "You'll excuse me for a minute, won't 
 you? I'll have this done presently." 
 
 Before she ended her pen swooped down again on the 
 paper, and Agnes saw she was forgotten. Nothing could 
 have pleased her better. Her excited sensibilities fluttered 
 back into quiet. She drew softly to the fire, placing her- 
 self so that she could take in a picture of the room with 
 its mistress as the high light, and looked about her, almost 
 afraid to breathe lest she should awake. What a dream 
 was this to come true! She felt as if she were living a 
 novel. The room was hung with chintz and swathed with 
 many sets of curtains; the chairs were low and softly up- 
 holstered; there was a confusion of bric-a-brac in a dim, 
 rich light. As she grew accustomed to the sensuous at- 
 mosphere, Agnes's eye, trained to severity as a housekeeper, 
 noticed in the corners drifts of dust, and even cobwebs; 
 but she ignored them. She looked upon the scene as a 
 bit of foreign life, so strange was it, filled to overflowing 
 with things of every sort, luxurious, trivial, learned. In 
 the center stood the table where Mrs. Colton was writing, 
 everything arranged for her work, even to the vase of 
 flowers, never absent, and herself in perfect array. "I like 
 to be in full dress when I write," she would say, when 
 others expressed the need of being at ease physically in 
 order to give their whole attention to their work. "I am 
 most at ease when I am in my best condition." 
 
 Agnes sat entirely still, and feasted her eyes on this 
 radiant being. It was only a year or so since she read for 
 the first time a novel, and never should she forget the ex- 
 perience. Novels were her introduction to the world, and 
 now she was in the vitalizing presence of a woman who 
 surpassed all the heroines she had met in books. Hair of 
 reddish gold was combed up from neck and ears, and
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 107, 
 
 massed in a great pile on the top of the head, while around 
 the forehead it fell in short rings, which did not cover the 
 prominent brow nor interfere with the arched eyebrows. 
 The perpendicular profile was thrown into relief, with its 
 straight nose, full curved lips and firm chin a face to 
 meet and conquer fate, thought the girl. The mouth espe- 
 cially attracted her: the sensuous lips, slightly parted and 
 moving now and then to form the words she was writing, 
 seemed the expression of a joyous nature, free and un- 
 trammeled. It was a marvel to the repressed girl that such 
 a mouth could be; she pondered over the happy life that 
 must have made it; an early marriage, no doubt, to the 
 man she loved, his tender care of her, and the spontaneous 
 development of a rich nature. The more she looked the 
 more Bertha took possession of her empty existence, filling 
 the aching vacuum around her soul with a delicious vitality. 
 
 It was with a start of amazement, as if a mental image 
 suddenly became incorporate, that she saw Mrs. Colton 
 throw down her pen, and smile with relief and satisfaction. 
 
 "There; that's done," she exclaimed, "and pretty well 
 done too." She stretched herself a moment from slippered 
 feet to forehead, with the physical reaction one feels in 
 wakening. Then, rising, she went directly to the baby- 
 carriage in the corner where little Lois lay asleep. She 
 turned down the cover and looked at the wan, peaked face 
 with a fond scrutiny that told of an habitually anxious 
 heart. 
 
 "Come and see my baby," she said in a low tone, and, 
 as Agnes joined her, "isn't she a dear? See how long her 
 eyelashes are! She's frail, yes, but she's such a love! 
 Mother's blessed baby. I hardly let her out of my sight, 
 for fear something may happen to her, but she really has 
 a good deal of strength."
 
 108 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "Agnes noted the child's bluish pallor, the skimmed-milk 
 appearance around the eyes, the pale lips and blotched com- 
 plexion. It was remarkable that so vigorous a mother 
 should have such a puny child, but it was easy to see that 
 the mother's whole heart was set on the sorry infant. 
 Agnes felt a welling-up of compassion as Mrs. Colton 
 tucked in the child again, every movement a caress, and 
 turned away reluctantly. 
 
 She drew near the fire, where she sunk into a low chair, 
 holding a gaily painted screen between herself and the 
 flames. 
 
 "Well," said she, with a full look into the girl's ab- 
 sorbed, watchful eyes, "what do you think of my den? 
 And how do you relish being treated in such an uncere- 
 monious fashion ?" 
 
 "You were very good to let me come up," was Agnes's 
 soft reply, as if she were afraid this prismatic bubble might 
 be broken by a breath. "I hope I did not disturb you?" 
 
 "You helped me," answered Bertha, with a sunny smile 
 that unlocked to her thawing influence new recesses of her 
 companion's frozen heart. "I was conscious of you all the 
 time as one is of violets in the room. If the latter part 
 of my article is especially good you will know why. I was 
 not made to be alone," she went on, rocking slowly to and 
 fro. "I like to feel one who is sympathetic near me al- 
 ways; and I believe you and I are in sympathy, dear." 
 
 The starved girl blushed with delight. That endearing 
 word made her thrill from head to foot ; but she found no 
 reply. Bertha withdrew a little, having learned not to 
 overwhelm, asking in a lighter tone : 
 
 "Well, how does Uncle Tom come on?" 
 
 "I have finished it," said the girl, eager to repair her 
 tongue-tied lack of response, and with a tone of awe in
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 109 
 
 her voice. "Such self-abnegation I never dreamed of. No 
 wonder it is a book that has stirred the country. There 
 is incalculable power in perfect self-sacrifice." 
 
 "No greater than in noble self-assertion," proclaimed 
 Bertha energetically. "My main quarrel with the negroes 
 is that they show too little will. Why do they submit to 
 tyranny ? Better die a thousand deaths, better kill a thou- 
 sand tyrants, than be slaves. Had they the will to claim 
 what belongs to them, they would never have been outraged 
 as they are." 
 
 "But they were so ignorant and helpless when they were 
 captured in Africa," remonstrated Agnes, "and since, they 
 have had everything to keep them down." 
 
 "Nothing can keep down the will if it determines to be 
 free!" exclaimed Bertha. "Will is omnipotence, child. I 
 have yet to see what it cannot achieve. All else must suc- 
 cumb when a strong and persistent will commands." 
 
 Agnes felt as if she were facing a prophet as she looked 
 at this tall, fair woman, erect yet pliant in her pose of 
 pride, and the soul of the woman became apparent to her, 
 regal, effulgent. She felt its influence in every particle of 
 herself; the very clods of her nature stirred with life and 
 climbed eagerly toward this glorious vision. Hope's edi- 
 fice towered before her, built, completed, in the twinkling 
 of an eye, for had not the oracle declared will to be 
 omnipotent ? 
 
 But promptly to her burdened mind came the reaction, 
 and she said slowly: "I understand that perfectly, when 
 the matter is something one's will can affect, such as one's 
 own desires or actions, but when it conies to affecting 
 
 others, affecting a national situation " She shook her 
 
 head. 
 
 "That is just where a strong will gets its leverage," in-
 
 110 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 terrupted Bertha. "I have no use for the exhaustion of 
 energy within the straitjacket of yourself. Leave yourself 
 alone; or, rather, make it work on others; that is worth 
 while. Make the world conform to your will, make it take 
 the shape of your desires; that's the use to get out of life, 
 and that gives you the gauge of the value of will." 
 
 She met and held the girl's eyes, her own brimful of 
 energy, hut Agnes was far from passive. There was no 
 lack of will in her, but her attitude was stoical. In a 
 chaotic world she knew nothing of order except what she 
 could command in her own soul ; but now the positive cur- 
 rent met the negative, and set her tingling. 
 
 "I begin to understand what you said the other day," 
 she murmured, after one of the pregnant silences that do 
 more to make a friendship than any amount of speech. 
 "Books don't have the touch and feel of life; once aware of 
 that, anything less seems tame." 
 
 "No doubt," said Bertha, amused and touched, but not 
 frightening away her shy bird by letting her feeling be 
 too apparent: seeming indifference is often the most deli- 
 cate attention. "It is like living in a world of shadows to 
 live only among books. You put out your hand to feel 
 the people who interest you, and they are not there. But 
 look around you, and you see reality on every side. Each 
 human being is the center of his own universe; put your- 
 self in contact with him and you get his point of view. 
 Touch people, and they return your touch, you can mold 
 their lives, you can live romance, you can make history. 
 A sensation worth having is just to feel humanity; to be 
 in a crowd, sharing its enthusiasm, enlarges life; to domi- 
 nate a crowd, that's rapture!" 
 
 She leaned forward with eyes sparkling, the joy she 
 pictured stirring her and thrilling through her companion ;
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 111 
 
 when a heavy hand was laid on the door, opening it 
 clumsily, and Mr. Colton came in with an unsteady gait 
 and a scowling brow. 
 
 "Who's that? What are you doing there?" he said 
 roughly, as he saw the two figures by the glow of the fire. 
 In the heavily curtained room it was dusk. "Damn you! 
 Why can't you have a light?" he ejaculated, stumbling 
 over a stool and lurching into a chair. 
 
 His wife rose and the horror-struck Agnes thought her 
 figure majestic in its calm dignity. "I will light the gas, 
 and then you will see I have a friend with me," said 
 Bertha. 
 
 He muttered something not very complimentary to the 
 friend, but not very intelligible either. Agnes sprung to 
 assist her hostess and, as the light flared up, she cast one 
 scrutinizing look at the odious creature who had replaced 
 the husband she had imagined, and then met Mrs. Col- 
 ton's glance, a surge of tenderness and compassion in her 
 eyes. She put out her hand to take leave, but Bertha said : 
 "I will go down with you," and led her into the hall. 
 
 "It is no trouble, it's a pleasure, as perhaps you may 
 guess," she added, in answer to Agnes's murmur not to 
 trouble herself. She pulled her skirts away for the girl 
 to come beside her on the stairs, and Agnes effaced herself 
 eagerly in the narrow space. "I am sorry we should have 
 been disturbed, for I had promised myself a long chat with 
 you. You must come again, and soon. This is a bit of 
 life, you see," she went on with a minor note in her clear 
 voice. "It's not ideal at all, but very real; and it is a 
 large factor to me. I am glad for you to know it, Agnes. 
 I should like you to know me as I am." 
 
 They had reached the foot of the stairs, and she turned 
 and held out her hand. There was something almost
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 solemn in her manner, and the other was deeply stirred. 
 She took the hand between both of hers, which were small 
 and thin, and Bertha felt them tremble. 
 
 "I need a friend," she said slowly. "I need some one 
 I can trust absolutely ; and you need some one to open your 
 prison-doors; shall we be friends, dear?" 
 
 "Until my soul dies !" answered the girl from the pro- 
 foundest depths. 
 
 The woman put her arms around the slight, tense figure 
 and kissed her. Agnes went forth hallowed; life had 
 begun at last. 
 
 This was the birth of a friendship that exerted an in- 
 calculable influence on both. It was an intensely personal 
 bond, and so had the persistence of personality which 
 grows. Agnes was ready for Bertha, as Bertha had been 
 for the world; the larger woman became the world to the 
 girl. She filled her full : sense and mind and soul. Decked 
 in the richest of coloring, she was to the impoverished girl 
 loveliness incarnate. Her charm had a sumptuous quality 
 which not only gratified all those with whom she came in 
 contact, but, like nature, swarmed with an inexhaustible 
 supply of life. Her mental caliber was equal to her 
 physical, but the personality of the woman overtopped all. 
 
 It was this that most profoundly affected Agnes. The 
 integrity of the girl's soul demanded freedom, freedom 
 from bonds and strictures which she had accepted as des- 
 tiny all her life and that tended to thwart every effort 
 of her soul to grow. Bertha rescued her from captivity, 
 and Agnes came forth to live her own life, but chiefly 
 to follow her beautiful deliverer. Freedom meant less to 
 her than this captivating personality. Her parents tried 
 to interfere with the absorbing friendship, but they found 
 a new will in Agnes which would not allow them to detach
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 113 
 
 or attach her where they chose, and Mrs. Endicott sup- 
 ported the girl. 
 
 "It is the best thing that could happen to her," she said 
 to Mrs. Sherwood, who had come to town to carry Agnes 
 away. "The girl needs to be taken out of herself, and 
 Mrs. Colton is the one to do it. You may feel flattered 
 that her attention has been attracted. She is a power al- 
 ready, and she is going to be greater, for she has a towering 
 ambition. Don't rob Agnes of such a chance; leave her 
 here with me ; you'll see she'll come to no harm. I know 
 what I'm about." 
 
 Bather helpless before this worldly acumen, Mrs. Sher- 
 wood reluctantly succumbed. It was really futile to try to 
 do otherwise, in view of her daughter's resolution. Agnes 
 had a way, seldom used, of saying "No," that her mother 
 knew meant plain No. One might as well desist soon as 
 late from combating it. So she went away with tightly 
 pursed lips, shaking her head a little; but she left Mrs. 
 Endicott well satisfied. To have her niece form a close 
 friendship with the rising star meant light for the aunt. 
 Mrs. Colton was gaining brilliance at a rate Mrs. Endicott 
 had not even faintly anticipated; she fairly dazzled those 
 who looked. She reflected, indeed, the world's processes, 
 not as a mere mirror, but as a finely cut gem, which flashes 
 now red, now blue, now yellow, again simple white glory. 
 Mrs. Endicott, fitted to appreciate this achievement as few 
 are, extolled her in public, yet felt a deep but secret censure 
 which would not manifest itself so long as success 
 bulked large. She could not say why the woman got 
 on her nerves, but that she did was indubitable. Perhaps 
 it was mere jealousy there was plenty of this in Bertha's 
 neighborhood; perhaps it was something more disinter- 
 ested ; at all events it lurked under the flaunting blossoms
 
 114 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 of praise as a menace,, though one that might never come 
 forth to sting. 
 
 One warm June evening Bertha and Agnes were sitting 
 in the study without a light, except where the golden moon 
 looked in to keep them company. It was Sunday, made 
 especially a day of rest to Bertha's household by Colton'3 
 habitual absence. Monday had to pay for it, but Sunday 
 strengthened them for the payment. The balmy breeze 
 gave undulating movements to the muslin curtains which, 
 at this season, replaced the heavy winter draperies around 
 the open windows. Bertha was dressed in white, some 
 crumpled, diaphanous stuff, amid which pink ribbons 
 blushed. The roses Agnes had brought her drooped upon 
 her bosom, filling the languid air with fragrance. Bertha 
 swayed slowly to and fro in a low rocker, her lips curved 
 into a smile of content as she watched the passage of faint, 
 irradiated clouds across the moon. How softly the goddess 
 of the sky glided through all obstacles, making them beau- 
 tiful as they came under her influence, and shining with 
 renewed brilliance when they were left behind! What 
 cloud could touch her? She was high above such acci- 
 dents, riding serenely in the upper air. 
 
 "Agnes," she announced suddenly, "I said once I should 
 tell you my sfory some time; this is the hour." 
 
 "Tell me," replied the girl, complete affirmation in her 
 tone. What difference did it make what the story was? 
 Bertha was Bertha : all was said. 
 
 "My father was a New Yorker of aristocratic family," 
 began Bertha, much interested as she always was in trac- 
 ing her own origin. "He was a handsome man, full of 
 life and dash, and wrote poetry, they tell me. I should 
 like immensely to find some of those verses; I wonder if 
 they are anything like mine? Well, he met my mother
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 115 
 
 when he was on a walking tour, and promptly they fell in 
 love. She was the daughter of a farmer, but not one of the 
 Puritan farmers, whose musket-shots were heard around 
 the world. No; Pa tells me he is said to have lived 
 riotously in youth; perhaps this is why he was so bitter 
 against his daughter when she yielded to her love. For I 
 was a child, dear, of their first ardent love, love without 
 law, indeed, but sincere and fresh. Nothing mercenary 
 or calculating entered into my composition ; I was begotten 
 as the stars are begotten from the plenitude of power." 
 She faced Agnes with lustrous, level-lidded eyes, proud of 
 what was to her a nobility in her lineage surpassing that of 
 princes. "Like Adam and Eve they came together; the 
 outcome of that love was I. Despised I may have been 
 by man, but not by God, for he endowed me with many 
 gifts ; and surely my mother loved me. Alas, poor mother ! 
 News arrived only a few days before my birth that my 
 father, not yet twenty, had been killed by an accident. 
 She had to face her travail with that anguish in her soul ; 
 but at least she had known the supreme joy of love." 
 
 Bertha gave a long, half-sobbing sigh, and Agnes clung 
 to her, not understanding, but eager to console. After a 
 little Bertha resumed: "My grandparents scorned their 
 daughter and hated me ; but my mother clung to me while 
 I was a baby. It was not until some suitor demanded that 
 I should be sacrificed on the altar of respectability will- 
 ing as he was to take her, but not her badge of disgrace 
 that she consented to put me away. She repudiated the 
 bargain afterwards, I am glad to say, and drove him from 
 her, even though she was in turn driven from home. But 
 she never came back to me, her child." 
 
 "What became of her?" asked Agnes, deep sympathy in 
 her voice. It was a strange world to which she was being
 
 116 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 introduced; one full of surprises, and overthrow of tra- 
 ditions, but she held fast to her guide through the laby- 
 rinth, and felt nothing but love and devotion toward her. 
 How, indeed, could any one blame the innocent victim? 
 
 "I don't know," replied Bertha. "I must find out some 
 time. Pa says it was rumored that she went from bad to 
 worse, as he puts it, but one can't trust rumor. You should 
 hear Pa's account of how I was brought to him and Ma 
 when I was only three years old. I can recall my own 
 feelings very well, for the pain made an indelible impres- 
 sion, young as I was." Her eyes glistened with unshed 
 tears as she recurred to this early sorrow. "We drove over 
 from the farm, a number of miles, and everything was in 
 full summer glory. I had never explored the world so far 
 before, and I remember being in high glee, despite my old 
 grandfather's crossness. When we reached the little house 
 where Pa and Ma lived, dear old Pa came forward to greet 
 us. He's been very good to me always, but then I thought 
 him ugly, and his face pricked when he kissed me, and I 
 ran away from him into the funny little house. Ma was 
 there with a big glass of milk, so full that some of it 
 spilled on her immaculate floor. I suppose her hand 
 trembled, dear old heart ! She knew what was going on 
 behind my back, but of course I hadn't the least suspicion. 
 Strangers didn't frighten me and I knew the one I loved 
 was near, so I drank the cool milk thirstily until I heard 
 wheels on the road. Then I dropped everything and ran 
 to the door, only to see them driving off and leaving me 
 behind. I couldn't believe it. I screamed aloud to them 
 and ran out into the deep dust of the road, flinging myself 
 wildly after them, transported with fear. My mother 
 turned I shall never forget that face distorted with 
 agony and waved a good-bye. Still I rushed after; still
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 117 
 
 I called at the top of my childish voice; until at last I fell 
 on the stony road and lay face down in the dust. 
 
 "Oh, it was a cruel way to treat a child !" sighed Bertha, 
 wiping her wet eyes while Agnes possessed herself of the 
 other hand, pressing it tenderly. "Those screams of an 
 innocent little one, bereft of all she had ever known must 
 have pierced God's heart. Pa picked me up, he says I 
 remember nothing further and carried me into the house, 
 and rocked me in his lap through the long June twilight 
 into the dark. I dozed and wakened screaming, and dozed 
 again in a stupor of grief, until at last I fell into a deep 
 sleep. Then they undressed me and put me in their bed. 
 Ma says it most broke her heart to see me lie there, my 
 head a tangle of bright curls on the pillow, all color sobbed 
 away from my face, and dark, circles around half-closed, 
 unseeing eyes." 
 
 Bertha looked far off beyond Agnes into the distance of 
 the past she pictured ; but as Lois began to stir and moan 
 a little in her sleep, she put aside the girl and went quickly 
 to the child. 
 
 "Precious blossom!" she exclaimed passionately, bending 
 over the baby as if she would pour out her heart's strength 
 to nourish her; "you shall never suffer so. Never shall you 
 miss a mother's tender care, nor feel the dreadful desola- 
 tion of childhood, which has no knowledge of to-morrow, 
 and simply sinks engulfed in woe. My darling! Mother 
 is here and will never leave you." 
 
 She turned the little body gently and patted it to sleep 
 again. Then she put her arm across Agnes's slim shoul- 
 ders, led her back to the window, and resumed her seat and 
 her story. 
 
 She poured herself out to this girl as she had never done 
 before to any human creature, and free expression was an
 
 118 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 unspeakable solace. She had absolute trust in Agnes, and 
 she found here a heart which could sympathize with her 
 inmost feelings, as well as a mind which could understand 
 the vital reasons of her conduct. Hence a confidence estab- 
 lished itself by swift degrees as complete as the mystery 
 of human nature will allow. 
 
 Agnes herself was swept away from all old landmarks 
 by the mighty tide of life on which she found herself 
 embarked. She did not attempt to solve the problems 
 Bertha's history and present situation brought before her; 
 she simply accepted whatever solution Bertha gave them, 
 for she accepted her from top to toe, from center to cir- 
 cumference. In any case where their opinions differed she 
 was convinced that Bertha was the more likely to be right. 
 It was easy for her to think herself wrong in any- 
 thing : it was impossible for her to connect with Bertha any 
 idea of wrong, longer than for the moment necessary to 
 dismiss it. 
 
 Never was there any one who could accept homage with 
 a better grace. Bertha justified to the worshipper what- 
 ever high estimate might be put upon her; thus in the 
 long run she justified herself to the tribunal of any large 
 judgment; for such an estimate is a height impossible of 
 attainment by a spurious character. Idealization did not 
 stultify but aroused her. In any vital relation she treated 
 with others only on the basis of recognition that her ideals 
 were essentially worthy, for she was thoroughly genuine. 
 She might blunder by the way, might be challenged and 
 lose approval, and lose friends; but he who held on would 
 see his hopes had been firmly anchored. 
 
 On the other hand, at this time reality pressed upon 
 her outrageously, sharpening the contrast of her life to an 
 almost insupportable acuteness. Along with the adulation
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 119 
 
 and incense that dizzied her brain, making Her spiritually 
 arrogant, went the hideous crises that occurred more and 
 more frequently between her and Colton, for jealousy and 
 drink reacted on each other in him and drove him well-nigh 
 insane. 
 
 His second marriage like his first had turned out a harsh 
 disappointment, but he had no thought of getting rid of 
 this wife ; his one torment was, how to keep her. Not con- 
 tent with what she yielded to his hold he grasped for her 
 mind, which of course was infinitely beyond him. His 
 efforts to get at it had even a touch of pathos in them at 
 times, but most of the time they were mere clumsy con- 
 trivances to strap down her wings, since he could not soar 
 with her. Were he able to put the torch to culture and all 
 its instruments, as the barbarians did to the Alexandrian 
 library, it would have delighted him beyond measure. He 
 tried to prevent her from writing, but she laughed him to 
 scorn. Then he said she should not have a damned penny 
 for her pains as if she cared for the money ! It was his 
 part of the bargain to furnish that. At any rate, then, 
 since it was impossible to confine her broad wings, he let 
 the world know, and made her detestably aware, that this 
 superb woman, whom everybody was ready to adore, be- 
 longed to him, as a prize-ox might have been his property. 
 She had to go as he led by the nose-ring of her love for 
 her child. 
 
 For it was here, in the child only, that the better part 
 of their natures met. Colton as well as Bertha was devoted 
 to the poor creature and would spend hours away from the 
 bottle when he was coddling and playing with her. One 
 day Bertha went into the nursery, and found him sitting 
 motionless at the window, little Lois asleep on his arm. 
 He was watching her quick breathing and wan aspect with
 
 120 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 a look of so much concern that Bertha's face took on a 
 tender expression even for him. 
 
 "Tom," she said gently, coming up behind him, and lay- 
 ing her hand on his shoulder, at which he met her eyes 
 with something deeper in his than she had ever seen there ; 
 "our little daughter is not very strong, but don't be de- 
 spondent about her. She'll grow up and be a pride to us 
 yet; you'll see. My precious treasure!" She fell on her 
 knees to get closer to the child, and pressed her lips al- 
 most ferociously into the soft cheek. This little one was 
 the sole escape-valve for her mighty natural love. Lois 
 was her own, flesh of her flesh, heart of her soul, on whom 
 she could lavish love boundlessly. The man watched her, 
 taking in the two faces with one look the woman so vig- 
 orous, palpitant with life, so yearning to impart it; the 
 child quiescent, ravaged, lacking all vitality; and he put 
 his hand on Bertha's head with an awkward caress: 
 
 "I hope she will grow up for your sake, Bertha, even 
 more than for mine," he said gently. "You love her, and 
 God knows, I love her; but love can't do much; and see 
 how feeble she is !" 
 
 Bertha shot to her feet, throwing back her head with a 
 gesture and sound as if something intolerable were put 
 upon her. 
 
 "No, she isn't!" she cried defiantly. "She has gained a 
 pound in the last month. All children are weak, just as 
 they are little. She shall grow up to be strong and happy." 
 
 Masterfully she look the child from him, pressing the 
 small body against her own with an air of almost dis- 
 tracted intensity. Her husband, standing by, sluggish as 
 his mind was, understood something of what she was ex- 
 periencing: so had he felt often toward his wife; his, yet 
 so little his. He shook his head, turning away sorrowful.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "Ton, this time, surely, you will volunteer!" cried 
 Bertha, coming into the dining-room one bright April 
 morning, the Tribune in her hand. Pa and Ma and Colton 
 were already at the table, and she riveted their eyes upon 
 her by the glow and urgency of her aspect. "Here's an- 
 other call for troops; men are desperately needed. Don't 
 delay longer, Tom. Serve something bigger than yourself, 
 and who can tell how far you might swing ahead ? You've 
 stuff in you, if you'd only give it a chance " 
 
 "Oh, shut up, Bertha, and give me some coffee," inter- 
 rupted Colton, pulling her down into her chair. "I shan't 
 go into the army, and you needn't try to make me. You 
 can't get rid of me that easy." 
 
 His grim, suspicious smile, as if he caught her in a sly 
 trick, turned her soul, but she did not, for that, desist. 
 
 "Get rid of you!" she exclaimed. "What I want is to 
 get proud of you. Now's your chance. You'll put a clasp 
 to my necklace, and one that I shall honor, if you will 
 volunteer to-day." 
 
 She seized and held out in both hands the chain of beads 
 around her neck, each one different, some of glass, some 
 of gold, some of bronze, some of silver; each the symbol 
 and gift of a soldier whom she had persuaded to the 
 front. As she leaned forward, impressive, magnetic, she 
 bent upon her husband that insistent gaze of authority 
 
 121
 
 which few could resist. But a still stronger motive was at 
 work within him. 
 
 "Quit it!" he thundered. "Don't you try to wheedle 
 me into getting out of your way. You'd like me to be 
 killed, no doubt, but I'll stick close and show you I'm very 
 much alive. You needn't think I'm an absolute fool you 
 can do what you choose with. It ain't so by a damned lot. 
 Mind your own business and let me alone. What are you 
 going to be up to to-day?" 
 
 "That's my business," said Bertha, revolted, her ardor 
 quenched like flame by foul water. 
 
 "How is little Lois, Bertie?" interpolated Pa, his quiet 
 voice akin to a gentle hand upon her shoulder. "Did she 
 have a good night?" 
 
 "No, she was restless, and found it hard to breathe," 
 replied Bertha, anxiety overcoming rebellion in her face; 
 "but she's better since daylight. The doctor will be here 
 at noon." 
 
 At sundown, however, when Agnes came in, she found 
 the house in commotion. Lois was very ill, Pa told her in 
 words that trembled. An attack of croup was heavy upon 
 her, and as she had so little power to resist, the doctor 
 feared the worst. 
 
 The news gave Agnes a shock: could such a dislocating 
 blow be the next move of fate? She went upstairs, her 
 heart in a clutch of distress. The door between the nursery 
 and Bertha's study was open, and the girl stopped there 
 at gaze. Bertha stood at the foot of the crib, her face 
 loose, sunken, as if paralyzed. Her eyes were fixed on 
 Lois, who was in her father's arms, looking to him anxious- 
 ly for succor. The child's pathetic countenance was full 
 of pain, her breathing convulsive. Ma, working over some 
 steaming cloths, motioned Agnes away, and the girl with-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 3rew heartsick. She lingered awhile downstairs; the doc- 
 tor came and went, reporting some symptoms better, and 
 saying that if the night passed well 
 
 Early the next morning Agnes was at the house again, 
 and Bertha came for a moment into the study to speak to 
 her. The mother's face was drawn and weary, but not 
 abject as the night before, when will had lain supine. 
 Agnes could only press her hand in silence. 
 
 "She still lives," said Bertha, sinking on to a sofa; "but 
 in great pain and misery. She wants her father rather 
 than me, and he has held her all night. Oh, why should 
 my innocent little Lois suffer so? It is cruel, cruel, that 
 the sins of the father should be visited upon the children. 
 It is unjust; everything is unjust." She sprung to her 
 feet, nearly beside herself with anxiety and impotence. 
 "Why does God permit such things? Why should my life 
 have been cursed, lost from the outset ? Then why should 
 I have been forced to bring an innocent child into the world 
 to suffer like this " 
 
 The door opened softly and Pa entered. He joined 
 Bertha, laying his hand on her shoulder and looking ten- 
 derly into her face with commiserating eyes. For a long 
 moment he did not speak, then 
 
 "She suffers no more," he said. 
 
 Bertha gave a cry, flew to the door, and rushed through 
 it. Agnes followed slowly. It was true. Mr. Colton, the 
 tears rolling down his cheeks, was pulling at the bedclothes 
 to cover the thin little form, quiet now. Bertha sunk on 
 her knees and flung her arms around the touching little 
 figure. 
 
 "Lois ! my baby !" she cried. 
 
 Agnes shrunk away, destitute of aid. Pa put his hand 
 on Bertie's bowed head, pressing his thin old knee against
 
 124, A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 her side to support her. Ma drew to his other arm, which 
 clasped her. The only sound was Colton's hard, gulping 
 eobs. 
 
 A multitudinous flutter of flags, miles of bunting, wild 
 joy in the streets, men falling on one another's necks for 
 rapture that peace had come at last all this tumult of 
 delight beat upon the little cortege on the day of burial. 
 
 "What does it mean? What is it all about?" asked 
 Bertha dully, looking up once, as an outbreak of cheers 
 burst close upon them. 
 
 "Peace, my child, it means peace," answered Pa. "Lee 
 has surrendered." 
 
 "Peace? The war is at an end?" she queried, only a 
 faint, far echo of the world's activity penetrating her brain. 
 
 "Yes, we told you yesterday, you know; the news came 
 yesterday afternoon." 
 
 "Peace! And there are people who can be glad," she 
 murmured. Then, clasping passionately the little casket 
 that lay across her knee and Colton's, she cried aloud: 
 "My baby! my precious baby!" and tears again flowed. 
 
 The murder of Lincoln, which came hard upon the heels 
 of triumph, brought a revulsion unique in history from 
 tumult of joy to horror and woe; yet even this fearful 
 shock could not arouse Bertha from her private calamity. 
 
 The loss of her child shattered her accustomed existence. 
 The life which had commanded her life was snatched away ; 
 there was no center to her system; it was without coher- 
 ence or stability. The love for her child had been the sun 
 around which conduct revolved. She had lived the truth 
 that "Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough 
 good; by itself it makes everything that is heavy, light; 
 and it bears evenly all that is uneven. Love thinks nothing
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 125 
 
 * 
 
 of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no 
 excuse of impossibility. It is therefore able to undertake 
 all things, and it completes many." Lois gone, motive for 
 Bertha was blotted out. The dreams of girlhood which 
 had taken on more vivid hues to brighten the little one's 
 future, were again brought to desolate dust. The last shred 
 of faith and hope seemed blown away; there was no God, 
 there was no life hereafter, there was no life here. The 
 machinery of existence came to a stop, and she lay prone 
 in the grave with the body of her child. 
 
 Agnes was without help to offer. It appalled her to dis- 
 cover this fact, for she had been strictly brought up in the 
 forms of religion, and had supposed them to be solid and 
 secure. Now, when the huge grief of her friend, who was 
 so near that what one bore the other must share, fell, a 
 dead weight, on these conventions, they proved themselves 
 but hollow images which crumbled to earth before the on- 
 slaught of life. Not a single vital truth remained to il- 
 lumine the blackness of death. All that Agnes could do 
 was to press close and try to stanch the bleeding wound by 
 loving contact. It helped, as true sympathy always helps ; 
 but the two were like lost children; so dismayed by the 
 strange world in which they found themselves that they 
 did not count as comfort the immense solace of clinging 
 hands. 
 
 Tom Colton, to drown grief, drank deeply, and Bertha 
 found him more than she could endure, for a time at least, 
 so she took Pa and went to the sea, her husband acquiescing 
 grudgingly. 
 
 Bertha had never seen the sea, and now she longed for 
 it with an intense desire. It seemed to her as if it would 
 bring a message could she but hear it, and her whole soul 
 cried out for some message, some answer to her endless
 
 126 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 questionings, some assurance. They traveled east as swiftly 
 as possible, and Pa looked in wonder at the cities through 
 which they sped, and with awe at the mountains which 
 lifted through the dark to the clear stars. Bertha was 
 comforted as much as anything could comfort her by his 
 company. His was a congenial presence; and his simple 
 faith, that did not attempt to explain anything, rested her 
 weary mind. 
 
 They came at last to the sea; they stood upon its shore 
 and gazed out over its wide, grey waters. Distance beyond 
 distance she knew it extended, league beyond league. It is 
 nature's presentation of the infinite, and for the trrth 
 symbolized she instinctively sought the symbol, for to her 
 the invisible was a blank. But the message that the ocean 
 brought made her spirit shiver to its depths. A vast, 
 empty loneliness. What could one creature do amid such 
 uncontrollable immensity? What was the will against such 
 a resistless force? Her tiny individuality was lost like a 
 microscopic atom before this unresting, unfruitful chaos 
 of waves. The prairie, which has much of the same il- 
 limitable aspect, gave her no similar sense of personal in- 
 significance. Effort there is not in vain; the prairie re- 
 sponds to the touch of a hoe, to the fall of a seed, and the 
 fruit of man's will grows and is garnered into barns. But 
 here, what difference did it make whether man willed this 
 or that? His most powerful creations cause but a mo- 
 mentary track, or are engulfed without a sound. The sea 
 ignores his commands, and orders in his stead ; all is swal- 
 lowed eventually in the maw of this disintegrating element ; 
 its solemn thunder is man's dirge. 
 
 She turned from it with a shudder, rejoining Pa, who 
 sat on a rock with a grave but glorified look in his wrinkled 
 face, gazing out at the grandeur spread before him.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 127 
 
 "Come, Pa," she said hastily, "I can't stand it; it is too 
 horrible." 
 
 He looked up in surprise, but, seeing her expression of 
 desolate despair, his turned to pity. He rose stiffly, and, 
 without a regretful glance at what he would have liked to 
 watch all day, made ready to accompany her. 
 
 "Where are you going?" he asked, as they crossed the 
 beach. 
 
 "Inland somewhere; anywhere out of sight and sound of 
 this." 
 
 They took a sandy path which led toward pine woods 
 that made a green oasis to Bertha's wild eye. She hurried 
 along, her tall figure with its free, lissom movements under 
 the black garb taking on the air of a hunted thing. When 
 a wild rose briar caught her skirts she shuddered as if an 
 enemy had overtaken her, but on stooping to disentangle 
 her dress she saw the pretty pink stars which offered their 
 aromatic fragrance freshly, and she plucked them regard- 
 less of thorns, in her joy at finding something familiar 
 with almost a human homeliness. 
 
 "See, Pa !" she exclaimed, as he came up out of breath. 
 " They are like the roses at home. I haven't seen any since 
 I left there. Aren't they lovely? Do you remember how 
 I used to wind them in my hair? What a time I had get- 
 ting them out ! but the briar-scent would cling to me for 
 days. I always loved it," and she inhaled the pleasant 
 odor with a sense of delicious custom as they strolled on, 
 slowly now. 
 
 Presently they reached the pines, and wandered about 
 over sparse grass under thin shade. It was not an attrac- 
 tive spot. During a bright hour it might be agreeable 
 enough, but to-day the atmosphere was greyish, with the 
 hard look and far perspective that comes before a storm.
 
 128 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 It had lent the immensity of the ocean, in its disregarding 
 indifference, a more sinister emphasis. Here, where the 
 ocean was hidden, it impressed upon the mind a sense of 
 negatives peculiarly repugnant to Bertha. Her fragile 
 roses, not cultivated to endure, drooped and faded, as she 
 wandered ahout aimlessly. 
 
 "Sans light, sans heat, sans color, sans everything!" she 
 moaned at lengtjh, dropping onto a half-grassy hillock at 
 the foot of a pine. "What does it mean, Pa?" she queried, 
 looking up with gold-flecked eyes at the old man who 
 leaned, hands folded, on his stick beside her. An expres- 
 sion of fear came into her face. "I have longed for the 
 sea always, and of late it has seemed as if I could not live 
 without it. I come and look upon it, and I am afraid. I 
 want to get away, I want to forget it, and I can no more 
 do so than I can forget death." She shivered and drew 
 her cloak about her with a huddling gesture. 
 
 "Why should you be afraid to think of death, child?" 
 asked Pa gently. "It is but an end of pain; it is the be- 
 ginning of joy forever. Little Lois will welcome you in 
 heaven some day." 
 
 Bertha shook her head, sighing. She saw how impossible 
 it was to make Pa understand her state of mind, which, 
 indeed, was a maze to herself. She could picture her soul 
 only as the dove seeking over all the wild waste of turbulent 
 waters for a support on which she could alight and close 
 her weary wings. Would she never find a perch for her 
 foot? Must she sink, like the rest, in the flood? 
 
 She rose, an unquiet lassitude heavy upon her, and they 
 turned back toward the hotel. Presently she broke out 
 with: 
 
 "Pa, let us go Home! Let us go back to the village.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 129 
 
 Perhaps there I shall find At all events, I can't stand 
 
 it here ! You won't mind, will you ? Let's start to-day." 
 
 "Very well," said Pa, patiently. So the next day they 
 reached the village near which Bertha had been born. Ah, 
 why was she ever born ! 
 
 As they neared the cottage toward dusk, every turn was 
 full of memories, every tree was a friendly ghost. How 
 strangely familiar it remained, how unchanged. The peo- 
 ple who had rented the cottage were glad to take them in, 
 and gave of their best, with awe, to this fine lady who had 
 incredibly developed from the friendless child of yore. 
 She lay down in the bed of her childhood, and its hard 
 narrowness, far from disturbing her, made her sleep as she 
 had not slept since before Lois died. But in the morning 
 grief early drove her forth to nature, the simple quiet 
 nature that had befriended her in childhood. 
 
 A day or two later she was sitting under the old tree 
 where she had first seen Mr. Grey, her hands clasped about 
 her knees, her eyes fixed upon the blue lake and the misty 
 undulations beyond. In these haunts of her childhood 
 where she had dreamed, on the hill facing the west where 
 the sunset painted the sky not more gloriously than her 
 hopes had done the future, the constant refrain of her 
 thoughts was, "A lost life, a life lost." What she had 
 gained now seemed naught to her; the touch of death had 
 crumbled the world to dust ; why not let herself go whither 
 all tended? 
 
 A sound of footsteps approaching over the rustling car- 
 pet aroused her from these drear thoughts, and looking up 
 she saw Austin Grey limping toward her. She sprung to 
 her feet and ran to meet him. For a moment she forgot 
 all except that here was her old life coming back to her in
 
 130 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 the old places, the sweet hopes of girlhood, the marvelous 
 possibilities that lie before youth. 
 
 Grey was astonished at the smile that irradiated her 
 countenance; it was wonderfully spontaneous and fresh. 
 He had heard of her loss through Agnes, whom he had 
 never seen, but who had written urging him to go to 
 Bertha if it were in any way possible. "She needs you as 
 never before," said the friend. The sincerity and vicarious 
 distress of the letter were so patent that in spite of the 
 commotion of the time and a wound that troubled him, 
 he hastened to Fernside. Here this smile greeted him. 
 
 "How good of you!" she cried, grasping both his hands 
 regardless of the cane in one of them. "You are heaven- 
 sent if any one ever was. You are my dear, thoughtful 
 guardian as ever; only now" and her face fell abruptly 
 into desolation "now I need guarding more than ever." 
 She shrunk toward him as if to get away from herself. 
 The swift alteration of her look told him much. 
 
 "I thought possibly I might serve," he answered, noting 
 the ravages of grief in her fair face, conspicuous now that 
 dejection resumed its sway. "When there is a storm the 
 ship needs bulwarks," he added, as they walked toward 
 their tree; "they may help to save precious human lives." 
 
 She nodded, unable to speak, for this touch of compre- 
 hending sympathy made the trembling cup almost run over. 
 They seated themselves at the foot of the tree, she helping 
 to make him comfortable; then her burdened heart sud- 
 denly burst forth: 
 
 "Why should life be precious to me? I have nothing 
 to live for; I've lost my only tie; it matters little to any- 
 body what I do. There is no God, else he would have left 
 me Lois, my precious baby, the only creature in all the
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 131 
 
 vide universe I had of my own to love. But she's gone; 
 she's gone, do you understand? She's gone." 
 
 The wild look in her eyes, the hopeless fall in her voice, 
 the despair that spread about her a dark, illimitable void, 
 roused a combatant energy in Austin Grey. 
 
 "She is not gone," he said in a clear, ringing tone. "She 
 has but passed out of sight for a moment, as a mote from 
 those sunbeams yonder; it is just as much there in the 
 shadow as in the light. You must not let death, so little 
 a thing as death, Bertha, overcome you." 
 
 "So little a thing as death?" she echoed, with a sur- 
 prised stare. "How can I get back Lois?" 
 
 "By seeking her where she is," he answered with assur- 
 ance. "It is not the body, nor the earth's circumference, 
 that binds us to those we love; love itself holds us to- 
 gether, now as then, now as always. Hold on to your love 
 for your little girl ; let it lift you into the light." 
 
 "If it only could," she sighed drearily. 
 
 "Don't seek her in the tomb," he went on vigorously. 
 "It is empty; she is not there. You've never failed her 
 when she called, you won't now. Look up; turn your face 
 away from the grave and toward her toward truth." 
 
 She drank in thirstily what he said. That another could 
 so live by faith sustained and calmed her. What man has 
 done, man may do. But he could not transfuse his insight 
 into her mind ; that is a life-blood no transfusion can sup- 
 ply. She looked off over the water while the pain in her 
 face lapsed from its poignancy. 
 
 "Do you remember telling me," he resumed after a si- 
 lence, touching another key, "that when you first learned 
 of your birth you wanted to die as the easiest way out of 
 the tangle? But then you determined, 'No, I'll live and 
 conquer yet P And you did. You must be as brave now
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 as you were then, Bertha. You must go on, even if it be 
 through the shadow of death and the tumult of many 
 waters. You will, for your nature is not of the substance 
 to be dissolved in brine : it is preserved by it. Many wait 
 for the help you can give them. Your life has taught you 
 what can be gained through trial " 
 
 "What I have gained," she interrupted, "is nothing t9 
 what I have lost. I might have been something worth 
 while But what matters anything? Death ends it all." 
 
 "It ends it only as the rest between the beats of the 
 heart ends life," insisted the General. "Out of that rest 
 springs strength for the next throb and life is the un- 
 ceasing continuity of throbs. Don't dwell on death ; think 
 of life, think of your duties; they throng about you. N"o 
 person, however dear, can be one's only tie. There is 
 something beside people which binds us, and that is our 
 own soul. Besides, there is your husband; what of him?" 
 
 "My soul, to which you appeal, utterly repudiates himi" 
 she exclaimed with intense bitterness. 
 
 "Bertha!" he chided. The sternness of four terrible 
 years that had melted from his face in compassion, re- 
 turned to it now. "You forget that he is your husband." 
 
 "I'm not likely to forget it; hell-fires have burned it 
 into me. Fate has been hard, hard, hard !" 
 
 Her head dropped on her knees, and, knowing what he 
 knew, words of comfort failed her friend; but presently 
 words of energy came to him. 
 
 "Fate may have been hard to you, Bertha, but haven't 
 you been hard to yourself as well ? Look back and see if 
 you have not abetted fate. You married on an impulse 
 which brought you great trial, but you did not succumb. 
 Don't do so now. What you have lost, regain. But be
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 133 
 
 careful not to side with fate against yourself by another 
 rash action." 
 
 She raised her head as he spoke, and when he said, 
 "What you have lost, regain," a sudden brilliance of light 
 as of release broke over her face. He was startled by the 
 transformation, and it suggested the warning of his last 
 sentence, but she paid slight attention to that. 
 
 "Bless you! Bless you for the hope you have given 
 me," she cried, grasping his hand, and pressing it between 
 hers, as she looked up with dewy, grateful eyes. "I shall 
 never forget your words."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DURING the next few days Bertha and General Grey 
 were much together, largely out of doors, driving along 
 moist country roads, between the grateful shade of the 
 woods, and the sunny fields teeming with new life. Crab- 
 apples were in blossom, and she leaped out of the buggy 
 lightly when they saw some to pluck his wound deterring 
 him and piled the fragrant sprays high against the dash- 
 board: their rose and white matched her complexion 
 singularly well, he thought. He watched the movements of 
 her tall, lithe figure, comparing her to the young birch 
 trees around them which swung their white limbs freely in 
 garments of vaporous green, and his sense of beauty was 
 satisfied. She was climbing out of her grief hour by hour ; 
 it was amazing to see the new life grow, take on color, and 
 form, and expression. It interested him tremendously: 
 where might she not arrive with this vigor dauntlessly sur- 
 viving every shock? 
 
 Yet in this country intimacy he became aware of a dis- 
 orderly strain in her, and to him the disorderly was an 
 offense. He felt a lack of response to the more scrupulous 
 considerations of life akin to color-blindness; he even 
 scented a certain indelicacy in her defiance of that which 
 she scorned in the world's methods. 
 
 "There is a contemptible lot of hypocrisy in those who 
 set themselves up as exponents of the righteous and the 
 law-abiding," she exclaimed disdainfully, when they were 
 
 134
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 135 
 
 commenting on some of the corruptions that four years of 
 war had fostered. "Supposing commanders do drink; 
 what of it, if they win battles ? That is where they serve 
 the people, and that is what the people should he thankful 
 for: the wives will pay for the rest. Supposing men do 
 steal and get rich on what passes through their fingers? 
 What passes through is the point. If that helps a great 
 end, the stealing is their private affair. Why, the very 
 persons who point the finger and cry shame, would do 
 exactly the same, or worse, if they were in the same box." 
 
 " Some of them might, many of them wouldn't," asserted 
 Austin Grey with emphasis. "In any case, hypocrisy, you 
 know, is a tribute to virtue and has its value " 
 
 "Not a whit of value to my mind!" interrupted Bertha, 
 throwing back her head contumaciously. "Let a man live 
 out openly what is in him, and whether it be good or bad, 
 it won't do any such harm as these masks of virtue that 
 cover defilement, yet look demure." 
 
 "To cover one's sins is at least more decent than to flaunt 
 them," replied the man with some sternness. "Of course 
 it is simply a sham unless veracity is built up under it, 
 but that often happens : we adopt the form, and it in time 
 forms us." ' 
 
 "It is much more likely that rottenness will spread from 
 the center all through." 
 
 "Of course there are plenty of examples both ways; but 
 be that as it may, I want to go back to the other point you 
 made because it seems to me a mistake that weakens to 
 assume that since some do wrong when it is easy, all would. 
 All wouldn't. The difference between man and man is pre- 
 cisely the difference that makes history. Take slavery, for 
 instance. Many a man left the south and became a 
 pioneer, choosing poverty and hardships rather than to own
 
 136 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 slaves. Moreover, you know as well as I do that there are 
 certain things you or I wouldn't do, come what might. 
 Why blink the fact ? We can be merciful to others without 
 being unjust to the truth." 
 
 "Perhaps you are surer of yourself than I can be," said 
 Bertha in a minor, wistful tone. "It isn't difficult for me 
 to imagine myself doing almost anything, given the situa- 
 tion to evoke it." 
 
 "Well, your 'almost' saves my argument," replied her 
 guardian with a smile. "And I have a notion, 'almost' 
 would cover more things than you are aware of. At all 
 events, this idea is worth thinking over. It strengthens to 
 put one's back against the solid front of the universe to 
 straighten oneself according to definite principles then 
 one can face without faltering whatever comes. The flimsy 
 stage-properties of the world may be of small value, bat it 
 is well to beware of letting a contempt for th'em smolder 
 it might some day flame up and set afire at the same 
 time what is really the priceless inheritance of the race." 
 
 Bertha made no reply. She had a growing sense of 
 veneration for him, mixed with fear. The hard years of 
 toil and danger in defense of an assailed principle had 
 stripped to sheer strength the force of his character. He 
 was. a man affirmed by the trial of courage, by the need of 
 ready resource and clear views, by the unflinching stern- 
 ness toward the great wrong of slavery, which involved so 
 many lesser wrongs, and the same extirpating firmness 
 toward each of these lesser wrongs in turn. 
 
 Every contact between him and Bertha caused her esteem 
 and admiration to increase. He held their relations to a 
 high level ; it was he, not she, who maintained them there, 
 but he did so in entire unconsciousness. It was as impos- 
 sible for Bertha to be with any man and not try her sen-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 137 
 
 suous power over him, as for sunlight not to give forth 
 also heat ; but the atmosphere around Austin Grey deflected 
 the heat while letting the light shine through brightly. It 
 was a new experience to Bertha and one that checked her. 
 
 As she listened to his words of integrity and undeviating 
 righteousness, by some curious antithesis a thought oc- 
 curred to Bertha and kept recurring until, as they took a 
 new direction, she said: 
 
 "It must be this way that the old farm lies where I was 
 born. How would you like to drive on and see if we can 
 find out what has* become of my mother?" 
 
 The suggestion took him by surprise and he hardly ap- 
 proved of it, yet he would not attempt to dissuade her. 
 The marvels she brought to pass among women became 
 known to him while he was in Chicago; they were even 
 more remarkable than those she effected with men in get- 
 ting them to enlist ; and he recognized as one of her noblest 
 traits this impulse to lift others. She infused all those 
 under her influence with vitality, an inherent power to 
 throw off what cumbered. For she looked upon life in the 
 same manner that she made it evident, as a flame, in pro- 
 cess: body, either of flesh or deeds, was to her a mere 
 static register of results, part ash-heap, part fuel, which, in 
 burning, liberated forces that soared upward in living as- 
 piration. 
 
 Austin Grey was keenly appreciative of this quality, but 
 as they continued on their way he wanted to be sure she 
 saw the dangers. 
 
 "You know," he began, in a more nervous tone than 
 usual, "you may be getting yourself into something try- 
 ing. The mere fact of attempting to trace your mother 
 may produce complications. What will Mr. Colton say?" 
 
 "I am utterly indifferent to whatever he may say!" she
 
 138 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 exclaimed indignantly, while her face flushed a heavy red. 
 She waited a moment to let the impulse of anger subside 
 before she went on. "If I cannot go to my own mother, 
 who should? And certainly human beings ought to help 
 one another. From what I have heard she must be weak, 
 without will-power; but if a strong will were behind her, 
 pushing her up, she might be able to get on her feet again. 
 If I had been weak-willed when Tom abandoned me, 
 where mightn't I have fallen? I might have been like 
 mother, and certainly it wouldn't have been all my fault. 
 It is a crime for society to assume arrogantly that one sin 
 or a million, for that matter shuts a woman out, into 
 outer darkness. So long as there is power in her to live, 
 life may be turned in the right direction, and instead of 
 thrusting her down, every one should help to get her up 
 and steady her on her feet. That is what I have done with 
 others, and why not with my own mother?" 
 
 Grey listened intently and all his qualms and conven- 
 tional quavers were swept aside from the path of this in- 
 trepid woman, who went straight toward her opportunity 
 to aid, regardless of the pitch which might stick to her own 
 garments. It was the spontaneous, eager movement of her 
 whole being, without check from any resistance in her 
 mind. Austin Grey, in whom the resistant side was 
 strong, yet appreciated the simple nobility that her action 
 implied. He turned to look in her face, his eyes dark and 
 energetic as his men had seen them before a charge. 
 
 "Bless you, Bertha!" he exclaimed, the ring of high ac- 
 tion in his tone. "I will do everything in my power to 
 help you. This is the right way to reform the world." She 
 trembled from head to foot with sudden passionate delight 
 at his praise: to meet his approval was still the crown 
 of her ambition.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 They drove up to the old farmhouse slumbering in. the 
 warm spring sunshine. A few hens picked and pecked their 
 way around the vine-hung stoop. Bertha insisted on get- 
 ting out alone. 
 
 "No, don't move," she said, springing lightly before him. 
 "This is my business." 
 
 As she stood at the door in the vivid sunlight, her bronze- 
 gold hair coiled at her neck and fluffing around the fair, 
 potent face; her noble figure in an attitude of waiting 
 force, half-dreaming eyes glancing here and there, Austin 
 Grey received an impression of exhaustless vitality, of mag- 
 nificent possibilities. "A lost life," indeed! Rather, a 
 life ju&t begun, a life with all to gain, and every faculty 
 for gaining whatever she desired. 
 
 The door was opened by a small, withered woman over 
 seventy, with thin white hair, and indistinct eyes. She 
 blinked at the tall figure awaiting her, and drew back with 
 an expression of fear. 
 
 "Are you my grandmother?'" asked Bertha, bending with 
 a sudden impulse of gentleness. 
 
 "Hey?" ejaculated the old woman, half closing the door. 
 Bertha drew herself up to full stature and laid her hand 
 on the panel. 
 
 "Is Mrs. Bow at home?" she asked formally. 
 
 "That's me." 
 
 "Then I'll come in," said Bertha in a tone of easy 
 superiority, opening the door as she spoke. The grand- 
 mother gave way, and Bertha entered with the step of a 
 princess. Grey threw himself back in the buggy as the door 
 closed, and indulged in a fit of silent laughter. "No use 
 trying to resist her," he said to himself, as he flicked the 
 grass with his whip. 
 
 His mind amused itself while he waited in finding meta-
 
 140 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 phors for the impression she produced. Her nature had 
 the tropical quality of a magnolia tree in full flower; she 
 shed fragrance on the air in largess of bounty. Her tem- 
 perament reminded him of a changeable silk he had seen 
 her wear in Chicago, full of unexpected colors as movement 
 gave play to light and shade : the woof was love, the warp 
 was will, the whole was life. But far beyond the attrac- 
 tions of nature and temperament was the firm cohesion 
 of her being, compact to a quality which left space for no 
 loose play of parts, but drove intact to its end a splendor 
 of impulsion that lifted her from what was low, base and 
 obscure, to prominence and power. 
 
 Bertha reappeared presently, head tossing, eyes disdain- 
 ful, a most imperial manner assumed for the benefit of this 
 insignificant grandmother who had turned child and grand- 
 child out of doors, and prided herself on righteousness in 
 the act. 
 
 Grey immediately alighted, for Bertha's mien demanded 
 the utmost deference, and the wrinkled old woman stepped 
 forward and screened her eyes from the sun to look at him. 
 
 "Is that your husband?" she asked in a loud, eager whis- 
 per, with a quick accession of respect. 
 
 "When you choose to come to see me, grandmother, you 
 shall be introduced to my husband," said Bertha with a 
 queenly air, as she swept down the steps. Her escort went 
 through the requisite form of assisting her, and then turned 
 to the straight-skirted figure in the doorway. 
 
 "You will be welcome, madam," he said, lifting his hat. 
 Then he got into the buggy rather stiffly and they drove 
 away. 
 
 "Well," he remarked, with a half-quizzical look, as they 
 turned from the farm-gate into the road, "you seem to 
 have had a somewhat breezy interview."
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE! 
 
 "Yes, wasn't it absurd?" replied Bertha at once, but she 
 did not meet his eyes. "I can see that side of course, but 
 nevertheless it was trying." 
 
 "Indeed, I should think so," he responded, promptly 
 sympathetic. "Did you find out anything about your 
 mother ?" 
 
 "No; her mother doesn't know, or wouldn't tell. She 
 said I oughtn't to have anything to do with her, and she 
 wouldn't help me. If I had a husband, she was gracious 
 enough to remark, I might better stick to him, and not be 
 running after my mother who was no good. My mother !" 
 she exclaimed, striking her hands together with a sudden 
 passionate gesture. "How she must have rebelled against 
 such a woman ! I should have run away just to get rid 
 of her. To have no tenderness, no comprehension, nothing 
 but the hardness of a nether millstone instead of a mother's 
 heart it is enough to craze a girl. What right had her 
 parents to bring her into the world and then cast her off? 
 They forced their daughter to ruin in compelling her to 
 abandon her child. She loved me, and her love was her 
 one safeguard; when I was torn from her, the holiest in- 
 stincts were outraged so that she lost everything. She left 
 her father's house and sunk lower and lower, to the depths. 
 Ah, but why didn't she come back for me ? In her place, 
 I should have taken my child like Hagar and thrown my- 
 self on the mercy of a desert world " 
 
 Her eyes were shining with angry pity, but the thought 
 of how her mother had abandoned her only determined her 
 the more to find that weak-willed woman, and strengthen 
 her by a strong grasp. 
 
 "Let us drive through Milford ; it is just a little further," 
 she said, dashing the tears from her eyes; "perhaps we
 
 142 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 may catch a glimpse of her. One of the girls told me she 
 saw her there the other day." 
 
 "How did the girl know?" asked the man of the world 
 somewhat sharply, but he turned in the direction. Bertha 
 desired. 
 
 "By her resemblance to me," was the reply, which 
 silenced further question. 
 
 They drove at a quick pace toward the county town and 
 the setting sun. Although every condition differed, it re- 
 minded Bertha of that cold drive with Tom Colton, also 
 to the west. Again appeared before her the place where, it 
 had ended girlhood had ended that bleak hotel parlor, 
 everything harsh in the cold light ; ivy on the walls, red-hot 
 stove, an atmosphere of something wrong. If it had not 
 been so cold, perhaps The bitter misery of the might- 
 have-been engulfed her. She fought it off presently by 
 repetition of the words which were now her talisman. 
 "What you have lost, regain." She meant to regain it, her 
 freedom. The logic of circumstances certainly pointed to 
 this. What other mitigation of her terrible loss could there 
 be? Everything combined to bring her to this practical 
 issue: her childhood's haunts, her guardian's presence, the 
 teeming springtide, the resurrection of life from the grave 
 of hope, the very cleanliness of the little cottage, with its 
 bare boards and tins kept as Ma would have wished them, 
 worked in her to this end. Oh, to be an uncontaminated 
 girl once more, to be relieved of that jealous obsession, 
 to be unhampered and her own ! 
 
 "If we should see your mother, what do you want me 
 to do?" he broke the long silence by asking as they entered 
 the town. 
 
 "Follow her," replied Bertha promptly. "Then I shall 
 know where to find her some other day." She was on the
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 143 
 
 alert now, glancing keenly hither and yon as they drove 
 through the unkempt streets, lined with frame houses and 
 shaded by scraggly trees. Teams were tethered around the 
 post-office, and men lounged about. The pair drove away 
 from the center into the residence part, and up and down 
 the poorer quarters. Bertha's companion was just saying 
 it was no use to continue such a wild-goose chase, when a 
 tall woman turned out of a street ahead of them and 
 sauntered away. 
 
 "I wonder if that can be There is something about 
 
 her " 
 
 Bertha nodded eagerly in answer to his hesitating 
 phrases, and chirruped to the horse. The figure was 
 cloaked and had a long mourning veil down the back. 
 "Drive past; then we can see," she directed. 
 
 They did so, and each of them saw at the same moment 
 the utter difference, yet still the striking resemblance to 
 Bertha herself. 
 
 "Stop," she said at once, "I must speak to her." 
 
 He obeyed, though this was not in the bond, and Bertha 
 jumped out. The woman abreast of the carriage was 
 etartled by the plunge of this young creature into her path. 
 Frightened, she drew back, while Bertha exclaimed: 
 
 "Mother! don't you know me? I am sure you are my 
 mother." She caught the older woman by the arms, and 
 the two faces confronted each other; alike, yet singularly 
 unlike. Bertha's eyes were clear and steady, the mother's, 
 wavering and weak; she looked distraught in the grasp of 
 those strong, young hands. 
 
 "Your mother? Am I your mother?" she said in a be- 
 wildered way. "Then you are my little Bertha, my first- 
 born?" There was a break in the vacillating, uncultured 
 voice, the mother's heart was asserting itself. The nerve-
 
 144 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 less fingers caught a convulsive hold on tKe lappets of 
 Bertha's cloak, and the daughter bent forward and kissed 
 her with fresh young lips. Then they moved on slowly, 
 arm in arm, Bertha supporting her mother's somewhat 
 shaken form, and the mother looking into her handsome 
 daughter's face now and then, eager yet abashed. 
 
 Grey followed at a snail's pace in the distance. His leg 
 ached, it was time for dinner, the night-damps were com- 
 ing on, he wanted to get home. So this was the meeting 
 of mother and child after some twenty years' separation. 
 Well, much good might it do them both. He did not half 
 like his own part in the affair. If Bertha had been his 
 wife But then of course he would have had a right to 
 uphold her. As it was, he could see how from Mr. Colton's 
 point of view And then suddenly, as if an impertinent 
 hand thrust aside a veil to let in prying eyes, the world's 
 view of things obtruded itself upon him. The twilight 
 became suddenly full of venomous tongues that maligned 
 him and this fair woman whose reputation had been main- 
 tained at such a costly price. How could he have been so 
 blind! 
 
 The figures he was following stopped at a small house. 
 They were still talking earnestly and the buggy halted at 
 a short distance. It was quite dark now except for the 
 subdued glow of the western sky, against the dim radiance 
 of which the two tall figures stood outlined. They em- 
 braced and separated, Bertha saying in a tone of authority : 
 
 "I shall be here to-morrow, you understand, at ten. Be 
 sure to have the agent here. What is the name of this 
 street Gifford? You may rely on me, mother. Good- 
 night," and she went to the buggy. 
 
 "If you don't mind, I won't get out," said Grey apolo- 
 getically, making way for her. "My leg is bad."
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE , 145 
 
 "I have kept you out too long," she exclaimed contritely, 
 "I'm very sorry. Whip up and let us get home as fast as 
 we can." 
 
 "Don't worry. It is of no consequence," he reassured 
 her. They drove along fast for a while in silence. At 
 length Bertha drew a long hreath and said: 
 
 "It is as I thought; she needs me. I came just at the 
 right time. The man with whom she has been living died 
 a short while ago. He left her almost nothing, and she 
 has two girls to support. She is obliged to give up the 
 house in a few days, and I shall take them back to town 
 with me." 
 
 She spoke as if she were their natural protector, and had 
 the wealth of the Indies at her disposal. A quick whimsical 
 sympathy for Mr. Colton struck General Grey. 
 
 "Do you mean all three?" he inquired. 
 
 "Which one would you have me leave?" she asked with 
 some asperity. " The girls are six and nine ; of course they 
 must go with mother, and they can get a better education 
 in town." 
 
 She was already assuming responsibility with the ease of 
 strength. Grey admired her generosity, but the complete 
 ignoring of the husband's right to consideration galled the 
 man. Magnanimity might include also the one who would 
 have to support all these illegitimate relatives, instead of 
 regarding him simply as a money-bag. 
 
 "With Pa and Ma there, isn't it going to be rather a 
 heavy load to impose on Mr. Colton ?" he questioned pres- 
 ently. 
 
 "Oh, you're feeling sorry for him, are you?" she ex- 
 claimed, rather defiantly. "Possibly you might be right if 
 I were going to throw mother and the girls on his charity, 
 but I know him too well for that." She gave a hard
 
 14G A VICTORIOUS LIFE, 
 
 laugh. "No, I shan't ask him for anything at all. Ill 
 put mother in some place where she can earn a little, and 
 I'll make money enough with my pen to keep them going." 
 
 Her largeness of nature quelled criticism, and there was 
 a stir of feeling in his voice as he said simply: 
 
 "You are a good woman, Bertha." 
 
 But she felt a chill in the mental atmosphere, and de- 
 cided forthwith to go back to town. This sort of thing 
 could not last, and she did not want the situation to wear 
 threadbare ; perhaps already it was becoming a little shiny 
 at the seams.
 
 CHAPTEB XII 
 
 THE next time Grey was in Chicago, on calling at the 
 house Bertha had occupied he found it vacant. This was a 
 disconcerting shock. He inquired next door if anything 
 were known of Mrs. Colton, and learned she might be 
 found at the Lincoln House. There he met Mr. Harrison 
 in the hall. 
 
 "Sure, sure, Mrs. Colton is here," he cried, shaking 
 hands heartily. "That is, she's stopping here. Send up 
 the General's card to Mrs. Colton, Clark. Come in here 
 and sit down, General Grey; glad to get a glimpse of you. 
 Yes, she came here at once on leaving Mr. Colton." 
 
 "Ah? I haven't heard from her for some tune." 
 
 "You don't know then " the proprietor hesitated a 
 
 moment, checked by an eddy of discretion, but soon swung 
 out into the current again. "Well, it's town talk, so there's 
 no occasion to hold my tongue. She got her divorce last 
 month; plea was drunkenness, of course. Colton made no 
 defense, didn't even appear. Queer, that. But it made no 
 difference ; she'd have won anyhow ; she'll always win, Gen- 
 eral Grey. Never was such a woman for going right ahead, 
 in spite of everything. What finally drove her out 
 was that Colton tried to lock her in; but you might 
 as well try to lock up fire. She blazed her way right 
 through to freedom. Got a hundred dollars a month ali- 
 mony. It mayn't last long, though ; likely he'll soon drink 
 himself to death. But want of money never hampers her; 
 
 147
 
 148 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 she either gets it, or gets along without it. Whichever it 
 is, the question of money troubles her less than any woman 
 I ever saw." 
 
 "I guess that's so. It is the end that interests her, not 
 the means," said Grey, turning to the bellboy who entered 
 saying Mrs. Colton was not at home, but would General 
 
 Grey come up and see Here Pa appeared, a tall, 
 
 awkward figure hurrying forward, his thin face set in deep 
 wrinkles of pleasure. 
 
 "How d'you do, how d'you do!" he exclaimed, seizing 
 the officer's hand in both of his. "This is good! Come 
 right up. Bertie's out, but Ma's on edge to see you, and 
 Miss Agnes is there, too. Ever met her? Well, she's worth 
 meeting. Come right along. You'll excuse us, Mr. Har- 
 rison; Mr. Grey is an old, old friend, you know." 
 
 A pleasant sitting-room with many of Bertha's posses- 
 sions in evidence; sunshine streaming in through smoky 
 moisture that gave a yellowish mellow light ; Ma still knit- 
 ting grey army socks, and getting out of her chair stiffly 
 as Pa opened the door this was what presented itself to 
 Austin Grey's eyes. Greetings over, however, he looked 
 about for the lady he had been told he should see, and 
 thereupon a slight figure, with dark, dainty head, came 
 forward from the window and held out a delicate hand. 
 
 "It is a pleasure to meet one of whom I have heard so 
 much, General Grey," she said in a low, well-bred tone of 
 much cordiality. "I am Agnes Sherwood." 
 
 "My gentle correspondent," he replied, holding her slim 
 fingers a moment while he looked attentively at Bertha's 
 friend. The girl's gray eyes, not large but singularly clear, 
 and beautifully fringed, met his gaze with one less inquir- 
 ing but more intuitive. Brought face to face with Bertha's 
 guardian and ideal, she was satisfied. On both sides, in-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE j 149 
 
 deed, congeniality made itself promptly felt and put them 
 at ease. 
 
 "Yes, Bertie got her divorce," said Pa temperately, for 
 of course that which interested them most was soon the 
 topic in this group of genuine people. "I guess she was 
 right ; she could hardly have done different. You see, Mr. 
 Colton stamped rough-shod over every sensibility she had. 
 Time and again she flung everything she'd ever done in her 
 face, and everything her parents had done, and cursed 
 them one and all; no woman could stand it forever. Di- 
 vorce is a sorry thing, Mr. Grey, but sometimes it has to 
 happen. He only reaped what he sowed. From the start, 
 when he tricked her into marriage, to the end, when he 
 locked her in her room, he just used her for his own 
 pleasure ; so it's no wonder that after a while she came to 
 the conclusion she'd no further use for him; what else 
 could he expect?" 
 
 "He's a fearful jealous man. I never saw anybody get 
 into such rages," commented Ma, rocking to and fro as she 
 knitted. "But they're a worse torment to him than to any 
 one else. I used to think some time he'd go stark mad. 
 It won't really hurt him in the end to be away from her, 
 I guess, for just to be in the room with her stirred him all 
 up. He couldn't get anywhere nigh her mind, you know, 
 but he'd clutch after her like a boy chasing a butterfly, 
 and she'd look at him that disdainful, it'u'd just throw 
 him into a fury. While little Lois lived she put up with it, 
 but afterwards it rasped on raw flesh, poor child. Yet, you 
 know, Mr. Grey, there's a side to it where he was right." 
 
 "Yes? Where?" asked Bertha's former guardian. He 
 had a keen respect for this plain woman's wisdom. 
 
 "Why, he was her husband," said Ma, laying down her 
 knitting, and adjusting her big spectacles so as to look
 
 160 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 4 
 
 through tHem clearly, while she spoke with decision. "For 
 reasons sufficient to her she became his wife. That set her 
 a duty to be loyal " 
 
 "And wasn't slie, always?" interrupted Pa, quick in 
 defense of his beloved child. 
 
 "Oh, she's an honest woman, my dear; we all know that ; 
 but what Fm saying is, he had reason to feel her spirit 
 toward him wasn't wifely. It was not. He knew very 
 well she wanted to get away from him, and that isn't a 
 wifely frame of mind." 
 
 "Perhaps not," said Austin Grey; "but so far as I can 
 understand he failed absolutely to make good any claim 
 upon her ; on the contrary, he showed himself to be odious. 
 Yet, nevertheless " He hesitated, paused. 
 
 "It seems to me," said Agnes, her soft, clear voice a rest 
 to the ear, "that since he was absolutely incapable of rising 
 to her, and equally incapable of dragging her to him, neces- 
 sarily they had to part. It is the sheer logic of life." 
 
 She met Grey's doubtful eyes with affirmation, aware 
 of the resistance in his mind ; but before he found words, 
 Ma, who had been laboriously working out her thought, 
 resumed : 
 
 "Scripture says, the Lord thy God is a jealous God, and 
 I suppose that means he wants us to love him faithful for 
 our own good. Now Mr. Colton was jealous of Bertie for 
 himself, there he was wrong, but he had also the zeal of 
 love to keep her faithful, and there he was right. He 
 loves her, Mr. Grey. Really, he's more a true husband than 
 she's a true wife, though she's so much bigger a soul in 
 every other way; but you see, when once the idea of dis- 
 union is let in, what makes marriage true is gone." 
 
 The tender old eyes looked to her own husband, who 
 faced them tranquilly. The perfect conjugal relation of
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 151' 
 
 this simple pair had long been a joy to Grey, and he 
 glanced at Agnes Sherwood now to see how it affected her. 
 Plainly she felt the deepest appreciation, and their eyes 
 met in understanding. 
 
 "I see," he said quietly. After a pause of harmonious 
 silence he recurred to what Agnes had said. 
 
 "You approve then, of the divorce." 
 
 "Absolutely," she replied. Her tone checked his breath 
 a moment, so convinced was it. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Pa, looking at the girl affectionately. 
 "Miss Agnes's testimony was so to the point that the judge 
 gave the decree at once." 
 
 "I'm sorry you had to go through that," commented Grey 
 regretfully. "I should think there must have been plenty of 
 others to give in evidence. It couldn't help being very hard 
 for you." To picture this sensitive, reticent girl made 
 acquainted with unseemly knowledge in the vulgar glare 
 of a divorce court, hurt him ; why didn't her parents pro- 
 tect her better? But with the question came the recog- 
 nition of a decisive character in her that would not yield 
 in matters of moment; and it was easy to see that devotion 
 to her friend would override other considerations. 
 
 "I wonder if you could guess what she said when we left 
 the courtroom?" asked Agnes, passing over his comment 
 with a faint smile. "It was exactly like her, yet it took 
 me all aback." 
 
 "Tell me," he urged. "I never attempt to guess at her; 
 it would be quite useless." 
 
 "You find it that way, too, do you? I thought perhaps 
 
 you had known her so long Well, as we stepped into 
 
 the street she turned to me, her face bright and happy, 
 saying, 'Come, let's go to the matinee, I want to cele- 
 brate/ "
 
 152 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "H'm! Did you go?" 
 
 "No. I am far from having such elasticity. It had been 
 a heavy strain " As she spoke, a sense of burden-bear- 
 ing came into her mien, evidently habitual to her, and the 
 pallid transparency of her face shadowed. "The matinee 
 was out of the question for me. We compromised on going 
 to see her mother." 
 
 "Do tell me how she is getting on. You know I haven't 
 heard a word since they left the village." 
 
 "Oh, hasn't Bertha written?" cried the girl, distressed. 
 "She has been so driven and upset, you see. Yes, Mrs. 
 Harding is getting on very well. She and the little girls 
 are settled in a large room not far from here; and there 
 is enough sewing to keep her busy. I run in often, and 
 of course Bertha is in and out all the time." 
 
 "I don't know there's anything Bertie ever did," said 
 Pa, gazing into the fire meditatively, "that I liked better 
 than hunting up her ma and helping her along." Ma shook 
 her head with considerable doubt, but Pa went on serenely. 
 "It may be she'll fail, it may be she'll win; whichever 
 way, it's worth trying. And I believe she'll win. I never'd 
 have thought that weak, pleasure-loving woman, who aban- 
 doned her little child to strangers, could have enough in 
 her to pull up as she's doing. She's sticking to her part 
 faithful. Of course Bertie helps her, and so does Miss 
 Agnes they're a pair of angels to the poor soul but the 
 main thing is she's willing to be helped. It takes two to 
 make a bargain, you know, Mr. Grey. God Almighty him- 
 self can't help you if you don't want to be helped, but if 
 you do, and try your best, he's there to make you win." 
 
 "That's about it, Pa," acquiesced Grey. Then turning 
 again to the girl. "So you see a good deal of Bertha's
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 153 
 
 mother, do you?" he asked, and with some quiet audacity 
 added, "How does Mrs. Endicott like that?" 
 
 "Oh, she likes it well enough now," replied Agnes 
 frankly. "Of course at first she didn't approve of the idea 
 at all, condemned it utterly in fact. The three show them- 
 selves to be of a quality so different from Bertha that my 
 aunt said it was suicidal for her to shoulder the burden 
 of her mother and half-sisters while she was getting a 
 divorce. The world has sensibilties, she contended, which 
 it is silly to fret all at once; presently, if so maltreated, 
 it would turn and rend even Mrs. Colton. These are her 
 phrases, and they worried me considerably, I confess; for 
 my aunt is looked upon in our family as being very wise 
 in the ways of the world. I told Bertha about the matter 
 for I thought she ought to know: she took it most char- 
 acteristically. She holds herself entirely aloof from any 
 question of what may be said; not that she doesn't care, 
 but that she won't mind ; she knows she is in the right, and 
 if the world pillories her for trying to save her mother, 
 why, let it; that's all. Isn't it splendid to see anybody 
 drive so straight to an end ?" The girl's face glowed with 
 generous enthusiasm as she spoke. "The wisdom of her 
 course quickly justified itself, for my aunt is warmer than 
 ever toward her, and the world looks on, ready to applaud 
 whatever Mrs. Colton may undertake." 
 
 "She's a wonder," agreed Grey heartily. "Your un- 
 qualified support must be a great comfort to her. What- 
 ever she does you like, don't you ?" 
 
 "How can I help it?" smiled Agnes. "She is so mag- 
 nificent!" Then she looked up searchingly into his face, 
 and saw the dapple of doubt there. He discriminated; but 
 to Agnes, Bertha was absolute. There was nothing relative 
 about her; the girl's faith was white, uncheckered by a
 
 1541 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 shadow. It pained her to feel the difference in General 
 Grey's mind, for already she could grasp his unspoken 
 thoughts as well as those that came to the ear, and could 
 tell beforehand what he would answer; they were akin by 
 nature, spontaneous friends. 
 
 Bertha broke in presently on the quiet quartette with 
 a sweep of fresh air in her garments, an eager spring to 
 her step: she had learned downstairs whom she should find. 
 Grey rose to meet her, inwardly adjusting himself to her 
 electric advent. She came forward swift-footed, a tall, 
 pliant figure, still in black, the mellow glow irradiating 
 hair and face and brilliant eyes ; they shone with the warm- 
 est affection. 
 
 "How. good of you!" she exclaimed, greeting him with 
 a hearty clasp. "Don't you dare say a word ; my conscience 
 just bellows at me ! But they've told you ?" Her glance 
 swept the four faces, and she saw. "Of course," she went 
 on, conclusively. "It's better so. The whole matter now is 
 closed up, gone; I have nothing more to do with it." 
 She threw out her hands in a divesting gesture, amazingly 
 expressive. 
 
 They sat down and talked about a hundred things, freely, 
 keenly, with not a mention of Colton nor of divorce. 
 Anew was Grey astonished. A divorced woman had always 
 figured to his conservative and rather haughtily moral mind 
 as an object to be either shunned, or if not, then pitied. 
 Bertha's presence derided pity, and as to shunning her 1 
 
 She carried herself superbly, the weighted aspect entirely 
 gone. She was resolute, gladsome, strong, exhilarating ; the 
 very air about her sparkled; these four created an atmos- 
 phere in which she ravished criticism. 
 
 Nevertheless, when Austin Grey left the hotel, and, walk- 
 ing through the cool night air, looked up at the stars, he
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 155 
 
 shook his head. He was one for whom stars could shine 
 through the murk, but the murk too was visible. As he 
 went onward under the far faint gleams that mean mighty 
 worlds, his mind reverted to the spectacle of seeing Bertha 
 eat cream. She luxuriated in cream; she held the ample 
 spoon to her lips and steeped them in the rich liquid; she 
 sipped it slowly, pressing each drop as if caressing it ; she 
 dwelt upon it with mind as well as sense; she laved her 
 spirit in it, and parted from it, even in swallowing, with 
 regret. Then she beamed on you with gold-flecked eyes, 
 her coral lips moist and satisfied, and smiled happily. It 
 was a triumph of gustatory art; but such art was not of 
 the sort to attract Grey. 
 
 "How you do favor your father!" cried Amanda Hard- 
 ing, sitting dejected on the side of the bed where Bertha 
 found her next day on one of her heartening visits. "You 
 look like me, maybe, though you're a deal handsomer than 
 ever I was ; but he's in you. You've got just his ways, and 
 his cheery, wilful face." She sprung up suddenly to throw 
 her arms around the tall daughter, and sob on her shoul- 
 der. " Oh, how I did love him, how I did love him ! And 
 he loved me, too ! He would have married me, I know, 
 but he was killed before he could get back to me, and then 
 they made me give you up. That was cruel hard, cruel; 
 but what else could I do? Harry Fay said he'd take me, 
 but he wouldn't have you about, and father said I'd got 
 to marry him, or get out. I agreed at last, but after I'd 
 given you up I hated the very sight of Harry, nothing could 
 have made me marry him; and then father and mother 
 turned me out. Oh, life's been hard, hard," she wound up, 
 sobbing anew. 
 
 **Why didn't you come back for me? I've always won-
 
 15G A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 dered about that," asked Bertha, holding the shaken woman 
 firmly in one arm, and putting back the straggling hair 
 from her face. 
 
 "I knew you'd have better care where you was," the 
 mother said eagerly, lifting her head to exonerate herself ; 
 then she let it fall again with the words, "and I couldn't 
 take you into that life with me." She shuddered, and 
 Bertha held her more resolutely. "If it hadn't been for 
 Joe's taking pity on me after a while, I don't know what 
 I'd V done. He wouldn't marry me of course I wasn't 
 good enough to marry," she interpolated with drooping 
 shame "but he promised to be real good to me. and he 
 kept his word, too. But now he's dead, and I'm all alone." 
 
 "No, you're not," asserted Bertha in her courageous 
 voice. "I'm here, and I'll take care of you, and you've got 
 the girls to look after. Hush, mother, don't cry; I hate 
 tears, and " 
 
 "That's just like your father, too," murmured the 
 woman, trying to stop her sobs. 
 
 "And you're not to say, nor even to think, that you're 
 not good enough to marry. You are plenty good, and that's 
 what I mean to have you do one of these days. You're 
 better than most of the men, I'll warrant. But you said 
 you had some things of father's; come, show them to me 
 now." 
 
 Amanda brought forth a faded plush portfolio, handling 
 it tenderly, and Bertha opened it with reverence. Her 
 dead father. Inside were many verses scrawled in a young 
 hand on scraps of paper; verses not measured and metered 
 according to the laws of art, but showing at least a fresh 
 eye, and an ear for melody. This appealed especially to 
 his daughter. 
 
 "They're fine!" she cried, after she had read several,
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 157! 
 
 meeting the fond reminiscence of her mother's eyes with 
 lustrous pride. "They are carols; songs from the fullness 
 of the heart, as the bird sings, as the earth rejoices in the 
 sunshine ! He must have been like that ; he lived himself 
 straight out ; he scorned shams, and prevarications, and the 
 law's delays!" She drew herself up, elated to be such a 
 man's child. "Oh, I come of him, that's easy to see; but 
 I'm yours, too. You were frank and outspoken: you met 
 
 him halfway, and you loved. To love !" She caught 
 
 herself up in a rapture of silence. Her mother gazed, half 
 curious, half dull. In a moment Bertha came out of her 
 vision, and, getting to her feet, gave back the portfolio, 
 retaining half a dozen of the pages. "Oh, you shall have 
 them back," she promised, seeing the robbed look on her 
 mother's face. "I'm going to take these just to show to a 
 friend. I'll copy them, but you shall have these very 
 papers back, never fear." 
 
 She showed them to her guardian when next she saw 
 him, telling him what she had gleaned about her father. 
 "Mother has very little to tell," she explained. "Obviously 
 the emotional engrossed their whole attention while they 
 were together. Why shouldn't it, indeed? Love and life 
 what more is there ?" 
 
 She threw back her head in a superb challenge, but he 
 did not lift the gage. The arrow fell spent before it even 
 touched his armor. 
 
 "Rectitude," he answered quietly; then turned to some 
 practical issue, and she realized his distance. 
 
 As the best she knew, she aspired to him; but she was 
 too thoroughly in earnest with life to resort to the lures of 
 the coquette or the siren. Never did she compromise with 
 her ideal ; what it was at any given moment, that she aimed 
 at; and however far from the shining mark her actions
 
 158 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 might hit, yet "He who aims at a star shoots higher than 
 he who means a tree." But it was equally true that what 
 she could not command after due effort, she deemed did 
 not belong to her, and she would not waste herself upon it. 
 Again she had measured by Austin Grey's standard, again 
 was she found wanting; but now she felt it was his fault, 
 not hers. She was convinced of the artificial quality in 
 his censure, the lack of freedom of individual judgment 
 it implied. It made her assertive of her own integrity of 
 purpose, serenely conscious that she would triumph over 
 all limitations within and without, but in her own way. 
 
 Agnes agreed with her, though General Grey's stand- 
 point would have been hers but a short time before. She 
 believed he needed enlarging as she had done. One may 
 earnestly disapprove of divorce as a general method, yet 
 recognize that for certain individuals in certain circum- 
 stances, it is the best action. He, on the contrary, con- 
 demned divorce without exception, since it implies liberty 
 to marry again; while legal separation provides all the 
 refuge necessary for those intolerably abused. He held to 
 this opinion rigidly; even, as Bertha averred, to a brittle 
 degree. 
 
 "Human nature isn't made that way," she announced to 
 Agnes after an interview that had tried all three. She was 
 walking up and down, with long, independent step, hands 
 behind her back, eyes flashing. "If no latitude is permitted 
 by law, the law will be broken, that's all. Laws ! what are 
 they? Just petrified custom, a dead hand laying its chill 
 weight on life, a code of restrictions alien to the soul, a 
 despotic set of rules perpetually knocked over, perpetually 
 Bet up again, to be bowled down by the next generation. 
 There's no eternal verity about them, yet they try to chain 
 the soul, which is the only thing that does persist. Some
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 159 
 
 one says the Graces, seeking a temple that would not fall 
 down, found it in the soul of a man. There's the durable 
 for you, the law-giver !" 
 
 Agnes listened in silence. She was a product of the 
 old ascetic spirit which gave the ten silent centuries to 
 history. Into this cloistered quiet, that hid but did not 
 annul the passionate truth, Bertha broke like a flood of 
 sunlight, disclosing everything, both sacred and profane. 
 Agnes saw, and her whole life was altered ; but only slowly 
 did she understand. She was clear enough about her daily 
 actions which were immaculate as ever; but when it came 
 to judgment, her conscience was mute, or its emptiness 
 simply echoed Bertha's resounding assertions. This, in its 
 turn, had the effect of making the tatter's opinions gain a 
 validity to her own mind they would not have had other- 
 wise. Everything came to her through sense-perception, 
 as it were; she must see her own mind in another's for 
 it to gain full recognition from herself. Since Agnes, 
 who had been verily molded by the legal, the decorous, had 
 nothing to say against her breezy dicta why, obviously 
 they were true. At any rate, they were hers. 
 
 General Grey took leave of the friends with a sigh. He 
 went so far even as to warn Bertha not to be cruel to her 
 devoted follower. 
 
 "Cruel!" cried Bertha, amazed, and drawing herself up 
 proudly. "I love her, and she loves me; we are not afraid 
 of cruelty between us, are we, Agnes ?" 
 
 "No," said the girl, yet she looked at Grey with ready 
 comprehension. "You need not fear for either of us." 
 
 "But I do for both, in different ways," he persisted. 
 "It is a perilous sea on which you are embarked, but only 
 the more earnestly do I wish you a good voyage." 
 
 He went away leaving depression behind. Both felt
 
 il60 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 disappointed, but in Bertha the disappointment was not 
 BO much with him as with destiny. The obverse of free- 
 will, which when misdirected makes fate, she saw in her 
 moments of depression, but without recognizing its cause. 
 
 "A perilous sea, is it?" she cried now, sinking into a 
 cavernous chair. "What else has life been to me ever 
 since my little boat was set adrift upon it? From the 
 first I have been the buffet of wind and wave, and when- 
 ever I have tried to accommodate myself to the world's 
 desires, and have taken refuge in one of its hoary old arks, 
 I have been flayed for it. I endured a brutal husband to 
 the utmost verge of patience, and of character, and when 
 at last even the hypocritical law allows me freedom from 
 him, my friend in whom I trusted, withdraws from me, 
 and calmly decrees that 'of course' I shall remain tied to 
 this loathsome corpse in mind if not in body, since 'of 
 course' I shall never marry again!" 
 
 She got to her feet and paced up and down, her long, 
 free stride cramped by the narrow limits of the space al- 
 lotted her. There was defiance in every line of her dy- 
 namic figure. 
 
 "As if I had ever been really married !" she cried scorn- 
 fully. "Doesn't marriage touch souls to finer issues than 
 those of flesh ? What resemblance, what attraction, is there 
 between Tom Colton's soul and mine? But my guardian, 
 who has known me from childhood, can't see facts as they 
 are: he looks only at what the dissimulating world tells 
 him to see. Why should I be set to live a maimed, one- 
 legged life because I was tricked as a girl ? Nonsense ! It 
 would throttle all the good in me. This stiff notion shall 
 not bind my hopes. I know the honesty of my desires, the 
 demand of my soul. I have a right to marry some man 
 I can love and respect ; a good man. I need him from the
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 161 
 
 core of my heart to the farthest limits of the mind : I need 
 him to be myself. I have a right to live and I will !" 
 
 She drew herself up to her stateliest height, the embodi- 
 ment of dauntless resolve. Agnes gazed at her, speechless. 
 She would have been ground to ignominious powder 
 by the events that had served but as stepping-stones to 
 Bertha. This splendid woman had been rejected from in- 
 fancy ; yet by sheer life, resolute to its end, she had become 
 what she was. This accomplished, she stood intrepid, 
 ready, the spring of endless achievement in her energetic 
 wffl.
 
 PART II 
 
 "AH me! how sweet is love itself possessed, 
 When but love's shadows are s& rich in joy!" 
 
 SHAKESPEABE. 
 
 "Joy in Thy world divine, 
 'And the body like to Thine; 
 Pride in the mind that dares 
 To scale Thy starry stairs f 
 Rising, at each degree, 
 The least space nearer Thee; 
 'Strength to forget the ill, 
 So Thy good to fulfil; 
 Freedom to seek and find 
 All that our dreams designed; 
 'Driven by Thine own goads 
 Forth on a thousand roads; 
 Patience to wrest from Tim0 
 Something of Truth sublime, 
 Or of Beauty that shall live, 
 We beseech Thee give!" 
 
 TAYLOR. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 FOR a while Bertha lay in haven under cool grey skies. 
 The change from the degrading turmoil of her life with 
 Colton to this peace worked upon her a ministerial effect. 
 
 163
 
 164 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Response to any fresh appeal was a potent factor in her 
 constitution. Now the screeching discords which had 
 jangled her whole being out of tune were calmed into 
 silence, and the harmony to which her life's music was 
 set could resume its major key. 
 
 Agnes was much with her, and the devotion of the girl's 
 love inexpressibly sustained the woman. They met also 
 in the good work of reinstating Bertha's mother in her own 
 esteem and in the world's eye, and it went forward with 
 cheerful alacrity. Bertha besides put in many hours of 
 daily labor as sub-editor of the paper to which she had long 
 been a contributor. The pay though not essential was con- 
 venient; and idleness had for her no perennial charm. 
 What she could not live without was a vent for energy, a 
 medium of expression. The fact that money followed, how- 
 ever, was of great value to her mind, for it meant recog- 
 nition. Exactly so much were her efforts worth to the 
 world; hard coin gave the measure as no estimate or flat- 
 tery could. Moreover, the approval of the world was no 
 slight consideration to her, though she defied it with a light 
 heart on occasion : habitually she required it in order that 
 she might have confidence in herself. Won, it established 
 her validity; withdrawn, she was restless until it was re- 
 gained. At this time, however, she was in the full flush 
 of pride and self-confidence ; even arrogance. Short of the 
 grave, she felt her will could govern. And what she wanted 
 she believed in with a spontaneous fulness that swept her 
 forward like a mighty wind. 
 
 One July evening she had accepted an invitation to dine 
 with Mrs. Endicott. This lady's interest waxed rather than 
 waned, for whatever Bertha Colton did the world noticed : 
 motion catches the eye, and she moved ; there was no deny- 
 ing that. Keen was Mrs. Endicott's scrutiny to catch her
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 165 
 
 in some misstep, and never was there one who lavished 
 opportunities for such triumph more than Bertha; but 
 the curious part of it was that it made no essential differ- 
 ence. Any slips were, like those of a skater, turned into 
 an easy glide that bore her freely onward. Where had she 
 ever learned the trick of carrying the world along as a 
 comet its tail? Often did the worldly dame ask herself 
 the question, but it remained unanswered : a fact which 
 did not in the least prevent her from forming part of the 
 caudal appendage. 
 
 The day before the dinner something new had sprung 
 up, and she hastened to write Mrs. Colton about it. 
 
 "Congratulate me, dear Bertha," wrote Mrs. Endicott, 
 "Ethan Carruthers is passing through town, and will come 
 to my little dinner. Of course you know of him : his bril- 
 liancy not alone as a statesman, but as a man, is renowned. 
 My humble table will be like a fly in amber between you 
 and him. Do look your prettiest, and talk your best; he 
 is a connoisseur of feminine charms, I'm told. With such 
 actors on the stage the rest of us will have nothing to do 
 but to form an appreciative audience." 
 
 This announcement stirred Bertha to a strange degree. 
 She could hardly sleep that night; she was impatient for 
 the next day to come, and then for it to pass, so that the 
 meeting with this stranger should be no longer retarded. 
 She put on a new, rose-colored dress, that, after the wear- 
 ing of black, assuaged a hunger within her; and, as she 
 had arranged to bring back Agnes to spend the night 
 always a delightful prospect the prelude was full of chords 
 that stirred anticipation. 
 
 Nevertheless the party had already gathered when she 
 floated into the presence of the seven with a serenity of 
 attraction that captured every eye. Mrs. Endicott and
 
 166 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Agnes she greeted warmly, but her glance flashed to the 
 one she came to meet a tall, well-proportioned man, with 
 dark hair, Greek features, and almost black eyes. These 
 were fixed upon her intently, and she saw in them at once 
 the leap of a challenge so prompt it took her breath. 
 
 Mrs. Endicott was wise in seating her chief guests at 
 opposite sides of the table, but the men beside Mrs. Colton 
 had small chance of gaining her attention. Mr. Preston, 
 the host of the notable politician, found his opportunity 
 in conveying low-voiced information about Carruthers. 
 "Second term in Congress;" "marked ability;" "great in- 
 fluence in his party;" "speeches carry people off their 
 feet;" these fragments remained in her mind, though she 
 hardly knew afterwards how they got there. She was hav- 
 ing incontrovertible evidence of his power, and she hung 
 on his words with avid ears. He had the fire in look and 
 speech which enchains attention ; and, this once given, one 
 was drawn as by the draught of flame. But she had enough 
 of the positive in her to resist, and the play of forces 
 awakened in her mind ideas and happy expressions that 
 soon left the field to them alone. Once away from the 
 table they yielded to the electric current that had insist- 
 ently established itself between them, and spent the rest 
 of the evening in eager exchange of ideas, without a thought 
 for others. Agnes, fretted by a persistent lover who failed 
 to make himself acceptable, wondered what in the world 
 Bertha was finding to engross her so in this dashing 
 stranger. She was incapable of jealousy, but she had a 
 premonition of loneliness. 
 
 It was a glorious moonlight into which Bertha and Agnes 
 stepped about eleven o'clock, escorted by Mr. Lansom ; Mr. 
 Carruthers had been torn away earlier by his friends. 
 Bertha walked along careless of footing, with her face lifted
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 167 
 
 to the sky which away from the moon was powdered by the 
 diamond-dust of stars. No lamps were lighted, and on such 
 a night as this they were not needed. She moved as if 
 she were queen of the heavens, and her soft gown and white 
 wrap were as clouds around her. 
 
 "Do come down to earth, Bertha," said Agnes presently, 
 somewhat petulant under the pressure of the circumstances 
 her lover thought propitious. "Here are Mr. Lamson and 
 I dying to know what you think of Mr. Carruthers. Is he 
 going to be our next president?" 
 
 "He might well be," she answered, while her lips curved 
 softly, and her eyes were still uplifted. "Nothing is be- 
 yond him." 
 
 "H'm! Is he so great as all that?" queried young 
 Lamson. 
 
 "He is great; his ambition need halt at nothing." 
 
 "Well, they say he doesn't halt at anything," observed 
 the young man with a slight laugh. "But he is certainly 
 brilliant when you bring him out." 
 
 After they had reached the hotel and gone upstairs, 
 Bertha drew Agnes on to the little balcony, for to-night 
 only the ample spaces of nature suited her mood. They 
 stood in silence a few moments watching the moon, Agnes's 
 face gathering the wistful sadness that was its habitual ex- 
 pression in repose ; then out of the silence Bertha spoke : 
 
 "I am going to marry that man," she said. 
 
 A thunderbolt precipitated from the blue could not more 
 have dazed her friend. 
 
 "What man?" she gasped. 
 
 "Ethan Carruthers." The name was spoken with calm 
 exultance as if it were a kingly title. 
 
 "What do you mean? What are you saying?" cried the
 
 168 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 bewildered girl, standing away a little to scan Bertha's 
 rapt face. 
 
 "I am saying what I mean," replied the woman proudly, 
 looking down an instant to let her starry eyes meet those 
 of Agnes. "I shall marry Ethan Carruthers. Love stood 
 ready to leap forth the instant my heart's door should be 
 opened; he has opened it to-night." 
 
 "But but " stammered Agnes. "You have only 
 
 just seen each other ; you can't say how do you know " 
 
 She broke off in helpless confusion. 
 
 "Oh, that is all quite plain," was the answer, with a little 
 laugh for such futile questions. "Words are useless things 
 when the soul sees." Her gaze was again uplifted. "I 
 shall marry him; he is the good man I have always de- 
 sired;" and her voice sunk into a murmur of delicious 
 self-communing. 
 
 Agnes made no further queries; it was impossible to 
 explain. The revelation was like a dazzling comet sud- 
 denly flashing into sight ; one could only look and wonder. 
 
 The next day at the earliest permissible hour Mr. Car- 
 ruthers called on Mrs. Colton. Her vivid personality had 
 made a glowing impression which forbade him to put her 
 for an instant out of his mind. He inquired about her 
 closely from his friends, who laughed at his conspicuous 
 infatuation, and he was fairly well acquainted with her 
 history when he was shown into the hotel parlor. He had 
 to wait but a few minutes, for she was confidently expect- 
 ing him. The knock that announced his card was to her 
 like the rising of the curtain on a first night ; all previous 
 experience had been but dull rehearsals for this supreme 
 hour. 
 
 She came downstairs with the swift, smooth descent of 
 a swallow, her figure draped in soft white that brought to
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 169 
 
 view all the beauty of her coloring; eyes radiant, and a 
 smile of pleasure on her full lips. Ethan Carruthers, him- 
 self like an old sculpture animated into vivid life, thrilled 
 as he caught sight of her. He met her at the doorway, 
 and pressed her hand close. His dark eyes greeted hers 
 warmly, and an instant emotional comprehension flashed 
 from one to the other. 
 
 "Though I saw you last night for the first time," he 
 said, in a low, impassioned voice, while they crossed the 
 room together, "you are as familiar to me as my heart's 
 desire. We have met often. Was it in dreams, or in 
 reality?" 
 
 She made no reply, but a smile as of one listening to 
 enchanting music played about her lips. 
 
 "If it was a dream, it was fair, but the reality exceeds 
 it," he went on. " 'A substitute shines brightly as a king 
 until a king be by ; and then his state empties itself as doth 
 an inland brook into the main of waters/ ' 
 
 His deep voice stirred her more than anything she had 
 ever known, and his ardent eyes caused her eyelids to flut- 
 ter and fall. A suffocating sweetness of sensation made her 
 pale suddenly as she sat down; he drew a chair close to 
 hers, feasting his eyes the while. 
 
 "I don't know why " she began to murmur. 
 
 "There are some things not to be explained," he inter- 
 rupted, though she felt it no interruption; "they exist, 
 that is all." She nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on his har- 
 monious features as on beauty that compels. "Our meet- 
 ing is one of these things," he continued. "It would have 
 made no difference were the whole earth between us, I 
 should have found you. We are together ; what remains ?" 
 He paused, but she could make no answer. He took her
 
 170 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 hand, folding it between his, and added in a low, thrilling 
 tone, "Naught remains but to enjoy." 
 
 She quivered, but she withdrew her hand. Not so lightly 
 was she to be won, and, instantly responsive, he put his 
 appeal one step higher. 
 
 " For years," he said, " I have read whatever I could find 
 that you wrote. I gloried in your eloquence as though it 
 were my own : now I see why." 
 
 "You had no need of borrowed eloquence," she re- 
 sponded, veering away from this masterful claim, though 
 she felt that a joyous fate had met her at last and bade 
 her stand and deliver. 
 
 "Nor did I borrow when I used your words," he re- 
 turned. "They were mine from the foundation of the 
 world." 
 
 His readiness delighted her, but the recoil of her in- 
 dividuality pushed her from him for the moment. "See," 
 she said, moving her chair a little away, a distance he 
 allowed to remain, bridged by his gaze. "I brought down 
 the book I mentioned last night. You said you did not 
 know the poem 'Expression'?" 
 
 "No; pray read it," he replied, his eyes upon her. 
 
 "I will, for I like it," she said; "it expresses what I 
 feel." 
 
 "Then I shall listen with my heart." 
 
 She gave him a quick glance, and, in a voice to-day sud- 
 denly enriched, she read : 
 
 "God's thought, hinted in thy soul's creation, 
 
 Writ out in cipher whereunto the key 
 Thou alone boldest, this thy generation 
 
 Has need of knowing, and requires of thee.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 171 
 
 "Pis the world's secret, and the years are knocking 
 At thy life's portal, clamoring for their right ! 
 
 Wilt thou defraud them, still in darkness locking 
 God's thought unuttered and repressed its might?" 1 
 
 She underlined these words with all the force of her 
 impulse, never so great before, to use to the full every 
 mode of expression. He seized her thought and would 
 have taken her into his arms, but for the check put upon 
 him by the reverence he saw in her nature. He had not 
 expected to meet God here. She went on: 
 
 "Give all out clearly, making grand confession 
 Of the true life within thee ! So, thy soul, 
 
 Through the stern granite of outside compression, 
 Shall come at length, God's thought, complete and 
 whole." 
 
 She looked up with shining eyes as she closed the book, 
 seeking his approval, but his gaze did not meet hers. It 
 was downcast, and a singular expression was on his hand- 
 some face. He was adjusting himself to a further per- 
 spective in this sensuous, intelligent woman ; she had a soul 
 as well. From the very fact that it was an unknown quan- 
 tity to him, it gave her a new and deeper fascination. 
 Not without significance was his perpendicular profile, and 
 Greek mouth curving from corner to corner like Cupid's 
 bow, with the darts of fitting words sped from the lips. 
 She and he were curiously alike in many outward ways; 
 while within, each saw in the other the realization of an 
 ideal. 
 
 "Yes," said Carruthers presently, looking up to find her 
 eyes resting on him in a dreamy haze. " 'Make grand con-
 
 172 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 fession of the true life within thee/ That is the fearless 
 way, the best way. And is there any life so true as love?" 
 
 "Perhaps not; perhaps " She hesitated, feeling the 
 
 rush of strong waters lifting her feet 
 
 "Ah, let me teach you I" he urged, with a leap of his 
 eyes to hers. 
 
 But she found her feet again and stood firm in the 
 stream. "Nay, you mistake me," she answered. "My 
 thought was that truth is as vital as love." 
 
 "What truth is so vital as love?" He leaned forward, 
 bringing to bear upon her his whole will, passionately 
 charged with feeling. 
 
 "Can love be so swift yet true?" she murmured, with a 
 timidity entirely new to her. 
 
 "Ay, you know it can. It takes but an instant for eyes 
 to see what it may have taken aeons to prepare for and a 
 lifetime to form. Ah, you recognize the thought. I don't 
 express it as well as you did, but your poems come back 
 to my mind in your presence to tell me of the soul which 
 is within this body." 
 
 As he spoke them the words were an eloquent compli- 
 ment, and she blushed, the warm, gentle tide creeping up 
 throat and face; he watched it rise with triumphant de- 
 light. 
 
 "Haven't you some poems of your own to read to me?" 
 he went on, letting voice say one thing, speech another. A 
 medium of communication was establishing itself between 
 them that made words of slight importance. Still, as she 
 had implied, the mind also requires food. 
 
 "Those old verses? They are not worth your time," she 
 returned, feeling that only now could she write something 
 worth while; previous expressions had become suddenly 
 obsolete.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 173 
 
 "You have invaded my time," he replied, his large, in- 
 tense eyes upon her face. "I can make good no claim 
 upon it: it is yours to do with as you will." 
 
 His words, each time so unexpected, yet when spoken 
 just what she would have him say, checked her usual flu- 
 ency. She rose to cover a sense of confusion quite un- 
 wonted, but delicious for all its strangeness and once on 
 her feet had no reason to give except as she said: 
 
 "Will you come up to my study, then?" 
 
 He accepted with an alacrity that confused her more 
 than ever, and she took refuge in formalities. 
 
 "My papers are all there," she explained as they crossed 
 the hall; "but you must not let the author's vanity in- 
 trude too far and detain you unduly." 
 
 "Nothing is due save my allegiance here," he answered 
 as she motioned him to precede her upstairs. 
 
 When they reached the pretty room it was empty, 
 shadowy, and fragrant with flowers. He paused on the 
 threshold, looking about him with warm eyes. As she 
 passed he caught her hand, and, bending, pressed it to 
 his lips. "The first," he murmured, and the almost un- 
 heard comment made her quiver from head to foot. 
 
 She went about the room, shading the table from a 
 stray sunbeam, or putting a chair in place; and to the 
 man, banqueting through his eyes, it seemed that so soft, 
 so light, must have been the steps of Aphrodite; so in- 
 stinct with life in every line and limb was the goddess who 
 gave birth to Eros. 
 
 She hovered from one thing to another, unable to bring 
 herself to sit down. She was trying to queen it over those 
 rebellious vassals in her nature that sought to master 
 her. His readiness ran fleet-footed ahead of hers; it en- 
 chanted, but it made her afraid.
 
 174 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 A bunch of roses she had worn the evening previous 
 stood, carefully vased, on the table among her books and 
 papers. He recognized the half-faded flowers instantly, 
 and lifted them to his face, his eyes shining over them on 
 her. She felt those eyes to the depths of her being; they 
 drew her as she had seen others drawn to her, but as she 
 had never herself been drawn. Again, for a moment, the 
 electric current worked to repel ; she tried hard to assume 
 her usual manner, and to banish fear. 
 
 "I receive my friends here," she said, smiling rather 
 tremulously, as she laid her hand on the high-backed writ- 
 ing-chair. 
 
 He made no reply nor motion until she slowly settled 
 into the seat, half-reluctant in surrender. Then he put 
 the flowers on the table, took a chair quite near her, and, 
 making a gesture toward the roses while he gazed deep 
 into her eyes, he said : 
 
 "In my dreams last night you were with me ; and then 
 you said you loved me." 
 
 Her head drooped, but his gaze held her, demanding a 
 reply. 
 
 "And you were with me," she whispered. 
 
 The next instant their lips met, and love sprung up full- 
 etatured at the touch.
 
 CHAPTER XlVi 
 
 AGNES went East on a visit to relatives shortly after 
 Bertha and Carruthers met. She left largely to escape 
 young Lamson's importunities, which were strengthened by 
 the urgings of her parents and Mrs. Endicott, and, more 
 potent than all others, by Bertha. Agnes felt, indeed, as if 
 every one were against her, and that she must cut loose 
 for a while in order to be sure of her own ground. 
 
 Bertha had pushed the matter to the furthest limit. 
 Nothing pleased her more than to see in others (unless it 
 were to feel in herself) the stirrings of the tender passion. 
 She fostered love affairs as the sun fosters the spread of 
 life in the seed : nature so ordered, intelligence should sec- 
 ond, sympathy must bring to pass. She did her best to 
 get every one to marry, for celibacy was to her a mutila- 
 tion she focused an unmarried person as a cripple. Most 
 of all did she wish Agnes to wed. "Better marry unhap- 
 pily," she insisted, "than not at all. You need to be lifted 
 off your narrow little feet and swept out into the great 
 main of life. You stagnate in a bayou until you marry. 
 Do it now. Take this young fellow; he's right enough. 
 You can make something of him ; but the important point 
 is, marriage will make something of you. It is the only 
 way you can complete yourself, sweet." 
 
 Agnes was powerfully affected by these urgings. In 
 truth, the balance of her nature was disturbed by them, 
 and the consciousness of this threw her into despair. The 
 
 175
 
 176 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 tension within made her personality so dynamic as to at- 
 tract not only one but several lovers; for children chase 
 fireflies because they glow. Love took on a sultry sound to 
 her; she suffocated under its unwished-for protestations. 
 Her individuality threw out sharp quills to fend undue 
 pressure from her soul ; she would have liked to cry, Hands 
 off! to the world. Not getting her wish, she fled. Once 
 away, by instinct she turned to the thought of General 
 Grey, and dwelling there her soul calmed. 
 
 When he learned that she was in the East he came to 
 see her ; eager to hear of their friend, glad to renew asso- 
 ciation with the girl herself, for each found an unusual 
 congruity in the other. In him the aspirations of Agnes 
 were made manifest, not by counterpart, as in Bertha, but 
 by the simplicity of fruition. Becoming acquainted with 
 his life, she felt she could have trodden every step of the 
 way. It was a deep, steadying comfort now to be in his 
 presence; his unswerving fidelity to his wife was a rock on 
 which she could lean, no less than it was a steadfast star 
 above troubled waters. In his memory, it is true, was the 
 joy of consummation, which to her might ever be denied; 
 but until she could feel that a similar ideal union of soul 
 with soul was promised, never would she marry. This was 
 the determination that trembled into quiet under his influ- 
 ence, as the needle finds the star. 
 
 Nothing of this was said between them, for they talked 
 almost wholly of Bertha. Both of them looked on her as 
 the high light in their common picture, and on themselves 
 but as shadows in the background ; but within the shadow 
 each felt watched over and understood by the other. Dur- 
 ing this interview, in fact, Agnes came to a sudden realiza- 
 tion that he was her truest friend one who gave her ample 
 (freedom, yet held her tenderly. Never was there a pair
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 more capable of such a frankly human attachment, and her 
 hungry soul fed upon it in a way astonishing to herself. 
 She found she was making him her confidant, not baldly, 
 but genuinely; and he received her confidence and said in 
 reply just what she would have had him say. Oh, the peace 
 of this comprehension! the unspeakable solace of inward 
 companionship after her hard loneliness ! He knew just 
 how to deal with her because her distress sunk into him al- 
 most as if it were an experience of his own. They were alike 
 as twins. To each, action whether in deeds or words was 
 merely the residuum, the sediment, as it were, of spiritual 
 activity. The inner stage was to them always the stage; 
 the outer was a mere puppet-show, at best but the repre- 
 sentation of what had been vitally presented within. So 
 it was not necessary to wait for acts; they were admitted 
 into the power-house of character, and could link or dis- 
 connect the levers that made wheels move or stand still. 
 
 After a month's absence Agnes returned to Chicago, her 
 mind steadied to a conclusion in regard to her own life, 
 and eager to be again with Bertha. She wrote ahead ask- 
 ing if she might spend the first night with her, and receiv- 
 ing happy response went over from her aunt's immediately 
 after dinner, and found Bertha alone. 
 , A rose-shaded lamp lighted softly the fragrant room. 
 It had seemed oppressive outside, but here the warmth 
 was freshened by a breeze that wafted the curtains to and 
 fro gently. Bertha was seated in the love-colored shadow 
 arrayed in clinging white, her hands folded. She rose to 
 greet Agnes, and there was a slow grace about her move- 
 ments, an air of joyous tranquillity that made a profound 
 impression. 
 
 "What an amazing woman!" thought the girl for the 
 hundredth time. "In her circumstances, to have this at-
 
 178 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 mosphere belong to her!" She felt humbled, yet enli- 
 vened. Bertha's buoyancy was nothing short of a miracle, 
 land her equable disposition, that balanced whatever came, 
 was a never-ending marvel; but perhaps the chief delight 
 in her presence was that in some subtle way peculiar to 
 sympathy she made others partake of the goods her nature 
 provided. 
 
 They embraced, and sat down close together. "It seems 
 ages since I saw you last," said Bertha fondly. Then she 
 smiled mysteriously, the girl thought and "Ages," she 
 repeated, with significant emphasis. 
 
 "A whole long month," repeated Agnes with a sigh. 
 
 "A month? A hundred months! One hour at times 
 sums up 'most glorious length of days/ Indeed, dear 
 Agnes, you have never seen me me as I am now never !" 
 She leaned back, and her eyes had an excited triumph in 
 their depths. 
 
 "True," said Agnes, "you have infinite variety. But 
 what has come to you since we last met ? Is it because you 
 were so busy living that you did not write to me ?" There 
 was reproach in her voice, but Bertha put it aside with a 
 gesture. She was a poor correspondent, since the present 
 ever preoccupied her, and they both knew it. 
 
 "So busy living, yes," she said in a low voice, as if her 
 exultation were hushed by the wonder of it. She was 
 silent a few moments; then she continued in a voice filled 
 with emotion, "Everything has come to me in this month, 
 Agnes. The universe has become mine. The wild cry of 
 my life has been answered; joy has come to me at last; I 
 love and am beloved." 
 
 Agnes looked at her as if she saw Venus just rising from 
 the waves. 
 
 "I told you how it would be," remarked Bertha pres-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 179 
 
 i- . 
 
 ently. "His soul and mine are one. God created them 
 at a single stroke, and then divided them that they might 
 have the rapture of finding each other. God himself can 
 have no feeling beyond love. It fills life to the brim, and is 
 the only nectar suitable for the jeweled cup. Life has be- 
 come transcendently beautiful to me; I always saw its pos- 
 sibilities, now I feel it actually in every fibre of my being. 
 Ah, my impoverished child, when will love come to you 
 that you may understand?" 
 
 She touched the girl's pale cheek with her large, softly 
 tinted hand. Agnes was kneeling beside her; all thought 
 of self lost; she was effaced in her friend. Bertha looked 
 on her somewhat as she would on the baby she had lost. 
 Such maturity of happiness as her own was beyond the 
 comprehension of either, but she poured herself out never- 
 theless. Sheer ecstasy overflowed. 
 
 "When will you marry?" asked Agnes, still in her wor- 
 shipful attitude. This triumphant love, sure in its perfect 
 joy, seemed to her the apotheosis of romance. 
 
 "When? Why, we are already married." Agnes started 
 back in amazement, but Bertha held her by the shoulder. 
 "Isn't marriage a sacrament of the heart, of the mind?" 
 said she, in a tone of soft reproach. "Surely no magic 
 lies in the mumble of a priest, or in the dry-as-dust words 
 of a lawyer. Love is the sacred rite; it is love that unites 
 and makes one, and those whom love has joined together 
 let no man put asunder." 
 
 Agnes rose. She comprehended nothing, and appre- 
 hended little, but she felt like getting to her feet. Bertha 
 was looking beyond her out of the window, immersed in 
 her love-dream. A sudden bitterness came into the girl's 
 mind; her dearest friend was so absorbed in joy that she 
 had no thought for the soul beside her. Agnes had suf-
 
 180 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 fered cruelly and felt a new torture now in the dread lest 
 Bertha was slipping from her. That must not be. She 
 put her arm around the beautiful neck, and turned the 
 face back against her shoulder. 
 
 "Darling," she said with exquisite tenderness, "you know 
 how deeply I hope you will be happy. May all the sorrows 
 of your life be made good. Since you find happiness in 
 this love, I rejoice in it for you. If you have found your 
 ideal of a good man may you be united at once, and for- 
 ever." 
 
 Bertha put up her lips, looking into the girl's sweet face 
 with sparkling eyes. They kissed, and the woman said, 
 "Bless you, dear; it was all I needed to complete my joy." 
 She pulled her friend down on her lap, hesitated a moment 
 while she questioned Agnes's devoted eyes with her own, 
 then, bending forward, she whispered a few words in her 
 ear. 
 
 Agnes sprung to her feet, and put a distance between 
 them, her face suddenly blanched. 
 
 "Can you mean what you say?" she asked in the lowest 
 audible tone. 
 
 "Yes," replied Bertha. 
 
 Agnes turned to the window and looked forth with sight- 
 less eyes. A wind had risen and tossed the dusty branches ; 
 it touched her hot forehead and cheeks like a desert wind. 
 She blushed for her friend, blushed to the soul. 
 
 Bertha came to her side. "Why do you turn from me, 
 child?" she said in her most winning voice. "Are you, 
 even you, whom I thought freed, still in shackles? He 
 will get a divorce soon she is insane ; he has not seen her 
 for ten years." Agnes caught her breath hard. This com- 
 plication was hideous news. Bertha went on with rising 
 excitement: "Do you suppose such a mere wraith of wife-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 181 
 
 Hood can stand in the way of love, the mightiest passion, 
 the torrent of two lives first finding its proper channel? 
 You might as well ask a rotten skiff to withstand a tropic 
 storm; you might as soon expect the hand of a paralytic 
 to keep back a triumphant army, or an infant's cry to stop 
 a conflagration, as to look for the mere notion of law, the 
 empty shell of it, to prevent love and its expression. No, 
 Agnes, such demands stultify the soul they stunt life. 
 Shelley lived ahead of his time; so will I. George Eliot 
 dares to follow her heart; am I less hrave? But it re- 
 quires no courage it is simply life. What do I care for 
 the world? I know what it has to offer, and what it can- 
 not give. I have won its approval and found it cheap. 
 My heart has starved at that table for years. Now it is 
 bounteously fed, and with ambrosia!" 
 
 Agnes had no words. She was unmoored and drifting 
 out on a tumultuous and shoreless sea, behind the horizon 
 of which the star of duty had sunk. 
 
 Bertha moved and leaned against the casement, her face 
 upturned, and in her carriage, her manner, was the change 
 which comes to a woman first in the joyous consciousness 
 of being supremely loved. There was not a suggestion of 
 shame about her; it shamed Agnes to think of shame in 
 connection with her. 
 
 "Look at the myriad stars," resumed Bertha presently, 
 and the cadence of her voice was delicious; "not one of 
 them but sings, still choiring to the choiring cherubim, and 
 my heart outsings them all : isn't joy good ? Look at the 
 earth, full of fruit and beauty : it lives out its life, and we 
 rejoice in its bounty. Look at the teeming town : is man, 
 who is the highest reach of nature, alone to be unhappy, 
 maiming himself and calling it duty? It is his own fault 
 if he does. He should sum up in himself all the gladness
 
 182 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 of the joy primeval, of angels and of men." She straight- 
 ened herself, feeling the dignity of being the splendid em- 
 bodiment of this sum. "Oh, Agnes, dear, believe me," 
 and she laid her hand on the girl's, "God does not wish 
 us to be miserable. God does not condemn us, out of 
 all creation, to self-denial; self -consummation is the end. 
 Sorrow is of earth, earthy; we should ally ourselves with 
 joy, which is heavenly." 
 
 "Yes," murmured Agnes, with the increasing roar of 
 those inner waves on her ear, "yes, if it be heavenly." 
 
 "And what is more divine than love?" cried Bertha, 
 catching up the words instantly. "God is love; love is 
 God : I obey nothing less !" 
 
 She looked regal as she took thus her stand on the 
 primitive rights of the human heart and deified them. 
 She accepted nothing of what the race has learned since 
 those rights were the highest. Social strictures were to her 
 but flimsy ties which when love flared up were consumed in 
 an instant. Not what the world thinks, nor what, as in 
 the social game of consequences, he or she might say, waa 
 the question; but whether 'tis nobler in the mind. Only 
 it was no question, so simultaneous was the answer : It is 
 nobler to love than to do anything else; it is nobler to be 
 loved than to be anything else ; it is best to live most fully. 
 She perceived with a clearness few attain that to love is 
 to lay hold of the divine vesture ; the whole, without which 
 the parts are but "fallings from us, vanishings." Rarely is 
 love seized so as to lift man out of the human into the 
 divine; rather, it is caught but for a moment, then loos- 
 ened, so that love as it soars leaves the man behind, prone, 
 perhaps, in that wake of vanished glory; yet for the mo- 
 ment he is in touch with the motive-power of the universe, 
 and feels the sublimity of the contact.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 183 
 
 This was Bertha's state at this time. She trusted her 
 lover as she trusted love, with whole-souled acceptance. 
 
 "Agnes," she cried to the girl, who was a silent con- 
 fidante silent in every sense, for her thoughts were in- 
 articulate "you have no idea of what wealth I have found ! 
 A man of noble attributes, of lofty perceptions and tender 
 instincts; a man who carries my ideal with him beyond 
 my former hopes ; one who gives me all I ask, and lavishes 
 upon me an abundance I knew not how to ask. Life's 
 sorrows disappear before such joy; they vanish as the mists 
 of night before the ardent sun; they are not." 
 
 "Not even your grief for Lois?" asked her companion, 
 standing, a slender grey figure, before the glowing woman. 
 She could not reconcile herself to Bertha's letting go to 
 such an incredible degree of what was not present. Her 
 friend looked at her reproachfully. 
 
 "Do you think I have forgotten my little daughter? Far 
 from it, Agnes. But the grief for her loss has fallen away 
 beneath love's magic touch. Often I feel her near me, a 
 benediction. I know now God is, because love is, and it 
 needs nothing less than Godhead to hold it; so my little 
 one lives somewhere still. Love assures me of this." 
 
 Some days later Agnes brought herself to the point of 
 making an inquiry to which she could find no adequate 
 answer within. 
 
 "Why not have waited, since it was a mere question of 
 time?" she urged, but in a voice hardly above a whisper. 
 The words, with their implications, were almost unspeak- 
 able, "Why haste in a way that destroys what is 
 sacred ?" 
 
 "How little you know, nun's soul that you are!" ex- 
 claimed Bertha, with a sigh and a smile. She thought a 
 few moments, concentrating tensely; then she said:
 
 184. A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "There's this: You can see that time does not exist in 
 view of eternal verities ; love and duty are eternal verities ; 
 therefore if it be right for us to love ever, it is right now, 
 and what is not a duty forever is not a duty now; don't 
 you see?" 
 
 The girl made no attempt to refute this self-deception. 
 She did not see ; all was dark. She had relied on Bertha so 
 absolutely, and had so absorbing a love for her, that to find 
 herself thus cut adrift (for she could not follow) from 
 every law and every person threw her into chaos. She could 
 hear no majestic word that divided the heavens from the 
 earth; there was no firmament above, and nothing but 
 unstable water below, a tossing tumult in which she could 
 barely keep her face unswamped. The thought of General 
 Grey's words when leaving her and Bertha together re- 
 curred often. It was indeed a perilous sea on which they 
 had embarked, a shoreless waste, without a single raft of 
 safety. 
 
 But there was no comfort now in the thought of General 
 Grey; it was a stinging lash to her. What would 
 he say, what could he say, but words that would be 
 like poniards? Wearied with long strife, she came even to 
 ask herself, why should Bertha have given her this cruel 
 burden to carry ? Why not have kept her secret, which was 
 a joy to her, an anguish to her friend? But no sooner 
 was the protest formulated than pushed away. Confidence 
 was priceless at any cost; love must suffice to carry what- 
 ever came. It must hold fast through every divergence, 
 for, if friendship were true, harmony in the end would 
 prevail. It was a coward's part to wish Bertha less honest 
 for the mere sake of ease. But what ought Agnes to do? 
 How was she to face the world how herself? She could
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 185 
 
 not drug her soul to sleep with lies ; what action would con- 
 tent the ogre ? 
 
 Meantime Ethan Carruthers, having gone away while 
 Agnes was absent, did not return. He wrote Bertha con- 
 stantly, and she him, letters of high literary and human 
 value, for neither of the two was a common nature. The 
 poetic spirit played through their intercourse and elevated 
 it, despite the moral drag; and Bertha, at least, stood 
 where sense-life fines off into something truer and more 
 vast. 
 
 The summer waned and vanished, and autumn reigned. 
 
 It was in September that a few people were bidden to a 
 rather remarkable ceremony in Bertha's sitting-room at the 
 hotel. Amanda Bow, a modern woman of Samaria, was 
 at last to be properly married. She had been lifted to 
 the level of such a possibility and maintained there, in 
 spite of many tendencies to slip, by her daughter's master- 
 ful and steady influence. Now the mother felt herself 
 made an honest woman by the legal pact. 
 
 Bertha and Agnes stood shoulder to shoulder through 
 the brief rite as they had through all that led up to it. The 
 man was a plain farmer from the country who knew pre- 
 cisely whom he was marrying and felt entire confidence in 
 the result. So did Bertha. "The longer she lives, the 
 further she will get from the slough of her youth," was 
 the prediction made to Agnes. "She has shed all that as 
 a snake its first skin." 
 
 "It is a magnificent tribute to you, dear, "said Agnes, 
 rejoicing in the opportunity for full-voiced praise. "What 
 magic is there comparable to the miracle of regeneration ? 
 It was you that focused the power here." 
 
 "I did have something to do with it," answered Bertha 
 easily; "so anybody might who just took hold and didn't
 
 186 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 lose grasp till the thing was done. Power lies all about us, 
 and inside, if we'll use it to an end." 
 
 Aa soon as the pair were pronounced man and wife, 
 Bertha stepped forward and embraced her mother heartily, 
 grasping Mr. Edwards's hand at the same time, while tears 
 mingled with smiles on the wife's acquainted face. Agnes 
 followed with her congratulations, and then Pa and Ma. 
 
 "God bless you, Mandy," said Pa with a strong ring in 
 his tone. "I never was gladder of anything in my life. 
 To see you stand here the wife of an honest man does my 
 heart good. Happy days to you !" 
 
 "Bertha was right," asserted Ma proudly, shaking hands 
 long with the woman she had long despised. "I'm mighty 
 glad of it. You and Mr. Edwards'll have a good time to- 
 gether down in the country, and nobody wishes you well 
 more'n I do." 
 
 When Mrs. Endicott heard of the marriage, she drew a 
 great breath of relief, exclaiming: 
 
 " Thank heaven ! I hope now she has gone out of sight 
 and will be allowed to stay out of mind. There was always 
 something shaky about that mother, and since I had much 
 to do with introducing Bertha into society, I feel a re- 
 sponsibility that makes me very uncomfortable when things 
 look queer." 
 
 Agnes cowered as she listened, but Bertha's serene and 
 calm assurance rose before her shaming fear. 
 
 "What becomes of the girls?" pursued Mrs. Endicott. 
 "I hope they vanish likewise?" 
 
 "Nellie, the younger, goes with her mother," replied 
 Agnes patiently. "Mary stays here with Pa and Ma. They 
 will leave the hotel, and take Mrs. Hoarding's that is, 
 Mrs, Edwards's room. They will be more comfortable in
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 simple surroundings, Bertha thinks, and they can look 
 after Mary better." 
 
 "Well, I guess that's a good idea," assented Mrs. Endi- 
 cott, rocking to and fro. "But what is Bertha going to 
 do with herself? That's the main question. It isn't to 
 be expected she will live along quietly like this; she is 
 bound to marry again. Of course she'll strike for some 
 f jie high, she's so ambitious. Who do you think the happy 
 man will be?" She turned suddenly to catch what might 
 be surprised on her niece's face. 
 
 "I don't question myself about the matter," was the dig- 
 nified reply. 
 
 "You wouldn't need to; she'd tell you the minute she 
 knew herself," retorted Mrs. Endicott, with a laugh. "But 
 keep her secret, child. When she has one of any real con- 
 sequence she won't be able to keep it long from the world ; 
 she delights too much in playing to the galleries. I do 
 hope she won't throw herself away on some good-f or-naught, 
 even if he be high in station ; but it's often the way with 
 those superb women; they don't seem to have any sense." 
 
 It was soon after this that Bertha greeted Agnes with the 
 jubilant tidings that Ethan was coming on Tuesday. 
 "Think of it, Agnes! only four days!" She held the girl 
 by her slim shoulders and gave them a little shake to rouse 
 her to the great news. 
 
 But Agnes would not rouse ; could not raise her eyes in- 
 deed; instead she hid them on Bertha's shoulder a mo- 
 ment, and then drew away in silence. She busied herself 
 with putting aside her hat and wrap, Bertha running over 
 with joy meanwhile. 
 
 The words she spoke made the girl shrink with an actual 
 physical repulsion. In her own soul at least there was an 
 impassable distinction between right and wrong. As a
 
 188 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 speck of dust on a garment is unnoticed, on the skin is 
 hardly felt, but in the eye causes torture, so is it with the 
 different grades of conscience. The dust was in Agnes's 
 eye now and tormented her to action. She went to stand in 
 front of Bertha, an ancestral, puritanic figure; tall, slim, 
 pallid, grave. 
 
 "Berth*," she said, "when he comes, I shall keep away." 
 
 "What do you mean?" cried the woman, startled as at 
 a pistol-shot. She sat erect and looked at the girl with 
 searching eyes. 
 
 "I must," said Agnes, on the rack. 
 
 "Why? Give me your reasons," demanded Bertha more 
 sternly. "You can't mean Why, child, are you jeal- 
 ous?" The tension gave way and she sunk back as if she 
 had probed the mystery and found the pistol-shot a harm- 
 less firecracker. Agnes shook her head sadly and sat down, 
 for her knees were weak. If it were merely jealousy ! But 
 Bertha persisted in her interpretation. She went and 
 perched herself on the arm of Agnes's chair, and put a firm 
 arm around her. She caressed her fondly, explaining that 
 no one could fake her place, that Agnes would always 
 be her dearest friend, and so on. The girl doubted none of 
 it; she turned her weary head to her friend's breast as a 
 child to its mother, and let the tears flow unrestrained. 
 It was very bitter. She loved Bertha more deeply than 
 ever; she did not judge her in the least. There was no 
 standard outside her own mind, and what was simply her 
 opinion she had no wish to impose on others. To them 
 right might be different; for her there was but one right, 
 and it was impossible not to follow it. She accepted the 
 inevitable of duty as she did of death. Oh, to be free from 
 this long ache of responsibility! 
 v Her heart was full of weeping, but the overflow lasted
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 189 
 
 only a short time; despair sunk deeper, and the tears found 
 their level there. She lifted her head, drying her eyes. 
 
 "I understand," she said. "I am not in the least jeal- 
 ous. Far from grudging you an instant's joy, darling, 
 gladly would I increase it." 
 
 "That's my dear," returned Bertha in a tone of much 
 satisfaction. She gave her a parting pat, and rose to lift 
 some flowers from the table and inhale their fragrance in 
 long, voluptuous breaths. "You can increase it by being 
 your most cordial self to Mr. Carruthers; you must greet 
 him as the man who makes your friend unspeakably 
 happy." 
 
 "I cannot meet you and him together," repeated Agnes 
 in a dull tone. 
 
 "Again?" exclaimed Bertha, wheeling round in amaze- 
 ment. "I thought we had exorcised that fiend; but it is 
 there still." She drew up a chair in front of her friend 
 and possessed herself of Agnes's hands, which trembled 
 visibly. "Now, speak out fearlessly; I want to get to the 
 root of this." 
 
 Thus adjured, Agnes spoke. She could not approve 
 Bertha's action ; she knew nothing except her own actions, 
 and conscience said "Thou shalt not" to her. It forbade 
 her to see those two together, the thought revolted her 
 soul 
 
 Bertha dropped Agnes's hands as though they scorched 
 and sprung to her feet. 
 
 "Revolted !" she echoed as she swept away. She had not 
 realized until now how deeply she depended upon Agnes's 
 approval. To have it thus snatched from her made her feel 
 cast out, naked, shivering. Yet indignantly did she re- 
 pudiate the calumny breathed against her love. That 
 Agnes, who knew her to the soul, should feel abhorrence!
 
 190 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 But it was because the conventional soul was still in the 
 drag-net of old prejudices; she could not rid herself of 
 those superstitions that was the trouble. 
 
 She turned as Agnes came toward her, and the two stood 
 facing each other; both grave, aware of the solemnity of 
 the moment; it was a crucial test to friendship. Agnes 
 spoke. 
 
 "You have often told me that we met on the basis of 
 our ideals, Bertha. It is true. You have emancipated and 
 enlightened me; you have given me life. Now, in this 
 matter, we cannot agree ; our ideals differ. I cannot bring 
 you to my point of view, nor you me to yours. Unless you 
 leave me free to do what I see to be my duty, we shall lose 
 each other. If I go to hell for it, I must do it. Another 
 might find another right ; to me this is the sole right. You 
 see. I cannot do otherwise." Her eyes strained to 
 Bertha's, but the light in them, though drear, was stead- 
 fast 
 
 Bertha was silent; silenced, indeed, to the soul. This 
 slight, earnest girl, whom she had been wont to mold as 
 Endymion the clay, now declared a life of her own, seeking 
 but one thing, duty. To the glowing woman it was the 
 revelation of an ideal undreamed of before. 
 
 She took the girl's delicate hand and raised it to her 
 lips. "I see," she said acquiescently; "be free." 
 
 Not many days later Bertha called at Mrs. Endicott's. 
 Aunt and niece were together when Bertha entered the up- 
 stairs sitting-room, filling it with the joyous bloom of hap- 
 piness. Never had she looked so superbly handsome. 
 Agnes was pale and miserable, but she could hide facts 
 past any one's finding out, and Mrs. Endicott was entirely 
 unaware of Carruthers's arrival in town.
 
 A VICTORIOUS OTE 191 
 
 While Agnes was getting a faint pink in Her cheeks from 
 the delight in her friend's presence, Bertha announced : 
 \ "I have come to tell you something, Mrs. Endicott, 
 which I want you to know first of all, except my little con- 
 fidante here." She glanced affectionately at Agnes, who be- 
 gan to pale and shrink. "You have always taken an in- 
 terest in my affairs, and been kind to me." 
 
 "All of which means, I suppose," said Mrs. Endicott, 
 smiling graciously, "that you are engaged to be married. 
 I was telling Agnes the other day it was sure to come. 
 Who is the favored mortal?" 
 
 "Ethan Carruthers. It is thanks to you that we met." 
 
 "Yes, yes, so it is! Well, I congratulate you heartily, 
 dear Bertha. That's a match worthy of you; how de- 
 lightful to be in Washington ! You will be married soon, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "There comes in the chief spice of my news," said 
 Bertha lightly. "We are already married; it took place 
 privately in the summer." 
 
 "You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Endicott, too sur- 
 prised even for the moment to be annoyed. "When? 
 Where ? Why was it so secret ?" 
 
 "There were reasons which have now happily passed 
 away," said Bertha, sailing with easy dignity over these 
 shoals. "One of them was the nearness of my divorce. 
 You know such things have much effect in politics. I shall 
 have to learn all the ins and outs of them now," she added, 
 with a happy laugh. "To-morrow we start for Washing- 
 ton; there's to be no more delay. I've a host of things to 
 do, but I had to take time to tell you my great surprise. 
 I haven't even let the old folks know yet. Don't you want 
 to go with me to them, Agnes ? I'm on my way there now." 
 
 "You bore that strain beautifully," she added as they
 
 192 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 left the house together. "Aren't you going to reconsider, 
 Agnes, and come to see me before I go away ?" She spoke 
 in the most alluring tone, which would have melted any- 
 thing less insoluble than duty in this girl who loved her so 
 dearly, but she only shook her head. 
 
 "Has he has he " she stammered in a whisper. 
 
 "Got the divorce? Yes; last week. He delayed for 
 that ; he is an honorable man, Agnes." 
 
 "And your marriage?" probed the girl, still speaking 
 below her breath. 
 
 "Oh, don't trouble about that," replied Bertha, a trifle 
 impatiently. "He has arranged for it on the way with a 
 justice of the peace some place where he is not known." 
 She walked along with head high and a touch of indigna- 
 tion in her manner. Deceit in any shape was against 
 nature to her, and she would have liked an open declara- 
 tion of everything ; so to be brought to book on a subterfuge 
 irritated her. She turned without delay to a more pleas- 
 ing phase of the subject. 
 
 "The life in Washington attracts me profoundly," she 
 said in a tone of keen interest. "To be at the fountain 
 head of affairs and learn how the nation is managed; to 
 meet important men and women who make history; to 
 affect people whose support is needed for great causes 
 it is a wonderful opening, Agnes. I feel as if the world, 
 and all that in it is, were being poured into my lap." 
 
 Her eyes were bright with anticipation and power, but 
 they dulled as she glanced at her somber friend. Agnes 
 tried in vain to respond. All she could say honestly was : 
 
 "I hope every aspiration you have may be fulfilled, 
 'dear. No one will rejoice more than I if you are happy 
 and successful."
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 193 
 
 "Why shouldn't I be?" asked the fearless woman. 
 Nevertheless Agnes's spirit chilled her. 
 
 Pa shook his head somewhat anxiously when told of the 
 new turn in Bertha's affairs, but said little; there was no 
 use, the deed was done. Ma, however, was full of queries 
 and comments that gained little response. 
 
 "Later on, when we are settled, I'll send for you," went 
 on Bertha confidently. "Meanwhile you and Mary are 
 safe and comfortable here, aren't you ? I know Agnes will 
 keep an eye on you. Here's all the money I have ; I'll send 
 you more later when things are not so upheaved. It's all 
 so sudden !" she added with an excited laugh. 
 
 "We'll manage, Bertie; we'll manage," said Pa sooth- 
 ingly. "Don't you worry about us. But my, what a change 
 for my little gell 1" He stood holding her shoulders a mo- 
 ment, looking into her deepened, gold-flecked eyes. "Be 
 careful, child," he said then gravely. "Look well where 
 you walk. Your swans are very like to be geese, you know ; 
 don't let them entice you too far out into the water. Now, 
 what can we do for you ?" 
 
 "Come over and help me pack, you and Ma, won't you?" 
 she answered, prompt always to accept aid. "I've such a 
 lot to do. And I'd like you to see Mr. Carruthers again 
 my dear husband." She dwelt on the words lingeringly. 
 
 "We'll come right over," said Pa briskly. "You run 
 along; we'll be there almost as soon as you are." 
 
 Mrs. Endicott was astonished at her niece's quick return. 
 "I didn't expect to see you again for hours," she exclaimed, 
 looking curiously at her niece. Those prying eyes were 
 intimately associated with every hour of this time to 
 Agnes's consciousness. "Are you cut out over there by this 
 sudden husband, or don't you like him?" 
 
 "Well, naturally I couldn't be there so intimately now."
 
 "You don't like him, that's plain, thongh wild horses 
 couldn't get you to admit it, I suppose. You are the 
 closest creature! Think of your knowing all along that 
 Bertha was married again, and to Ethan Camithers ! She 
 hit the bull's-eye of ambition there! When was the mar- 
 riage, and why on earth is there all this secrecy? It's a 
 very bad plan." 
 
 "I have no comment to make, aunt; it is not my affair." 
 
 "Well, I hope it will turn out all right," pursued Mrs. 
 Endicott, finding her niece hopeless. She rocked to and 
 fro with a calculating air. "Bertha has made good her 
 right to do pretty much as she chooses; but there are all 
 sorts of stories about Mr. Carruthers. They say he doesn't 
 mind sharp practices, and makes money faster than, he 
 ought to; but then they throw mud so in politics no one 
 can tell what is true and what is false. Besides, if a man 
 stands long enough before the country, and has the wit to 
 brazen things out, almost any amount of mud will dry up 
 and be blown away." 
 
 "Is that why you congratulated her on making such a 
 match?" asEed Agnes with some scorn. 
 
 "Oh, yes, that's one reason," answered the aunt com- 
 fortably. "He has plenty of brains; and with brains and 
 money and the machine on his side, I should think he 
 might get almost any position he wants. It's doubtful if 
 he could be President, for a campaign does riddle a man ; 
 but as a dark horse he might do even that there's no 
 telling."
 
 CHAPTER XV< 
 
 DURING the height of the season in the first printer of 
 the Carruthers's residence in Washington, General Grey 
 went to visit them. His- train was belated by a freight 
 accident, and the hack he took late in the evening jolted 
 along nnpaved and unlighted streets, mere troughs of red 
 dust between frame houses stark in ugliness. The over- 
 grown village, laid out on a grand plan, was not yet the 
 beautiful capital visioned by I/Enfant. To foreign eyes, 
 indeed, it seemed but "a howling wilderness," with vacant 
 streets going nowhere in particular, and a population chiefly 
 of negroes and politicians. The parks produced only 
 weeds ; wooden fences and patches of bare earth surrounded 
 even the White House, though at the other end of Penn- 
 sylvania Avenue the sole street lighted towered the 
 superb edifice of the Capitol, just completed and crowned 
 by Crawford's statue of Liberty. Grey recalled with pride 
 that, though at the beginning of the war the government 
 ordered work on the Capitol suspended, the contractors 
 were sufficiently patriotic to continue it at their own ex- 
 pense and risk, so that the sound of tools at work on the 
 building did not cease during the whole war. He remem- 
 bered also the effect produced on a number of prisoners 
 brought to Washington in '64 when the South was drained 
 almost to the lees. Confronted here by the great dome 
 being calmly finished, as if devastation were not within 
 the scope of possibility, they said mournfully, "If the 
 
 195
 
 196 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 North has men and money to use in building domes, there's 
 no hope for us." 
 
 Long trains of army wagons, each dragged by eighteen 
 mules, trundled past the traveler into town, making him 
 gasp with mingled dust and relief that their burden of 
 martial stores was no longer needed. The cruel war was 
 over; slavery was done away with; the Capitol belonged 
 to South as well as North; but great problems remained 
 to be settled. General Grey squared his shoulders as he 
 thought of the perplexing enigmas, insoluble by the sword 
 or any other form of force, to be wrought out now by clear 
 vision, wise action, magnanimity, and the will to accept 
 changed conditions. As the hack stopped at a large resi- 
 dence on one of the best streets, he wondered if the man 
 who lived here was capable of helping to solve these riddles. 
 He shook his head doubtfully. 
 
 The house, into which a colored butler ushered him with 
 multitudinous bows, was handsome, and richly furnished, 
 proclaiming wealth, and pleasure in its display. There was 
 a lack of restraint, a garishness that jarred on Grey's quiet 
 taste, but he recognized it as in the key of the nation's 
 mood at this time, where money easily come by went 
 lavishly. 
 
 The butler told him with many flourishes that Mr. Car- 
 ruthers had been absent all day at the Capitol and that 
 Mrs. Carruthers had waited long for her expected guest, 
 but finally had been obliged to go to the White House and 
 begged him to join her there. 
 
 As soon as the requisite changes were made, therefore, 
 he took himself across Lafayette Square to the Executive 
 Mansion, where he was cordially recognized by Mrs. Pat- 
 tison, the daughter of the President and head of his house- 
 hold. He had liked her from the first. In a difficult
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 197 
 
 position, she brought together almost irreconcilable ele- 
 ments by her insight into human nature and by her native 
 kindliness. 
 
 "You are always welcome, General Grey," she said 
 heartily, standing within the door of the Blue Room, and 
 grasping his hand in the deft way those that have to shake 
 thousands of hands learn in self-defense. "One of the 
 chief pleasures of this kind of life is that you have only 
 to wait a little and those you most want to see arrive." 
 
 "Because the power of attraction is so strong, madam," 
 he replied sincerely, in the moment that was his before he 
 yielded to the pressure of those surging toward the first 
 lady of the land. 
 
 He extricated himself and stood back against the oval 
 walls, glancing at the throng that filled it and over- 
 flowed into other apartments and into the broad hall where 
 a military band played. The lofty rooms, decked with 
 palms and flowers, formed a fitting background for the 
 gaily dressed, hooped women, and many uniforms still 
 worn by the men. The great disbandment of a million 
 combatants was not yet finished. Europe looked to see the 
 victorious republic swamped by its soldiers, and Americans 
 themselves were not without anxiety. Every one watched 
 keenly the process of reabsorption into civil life of this vast 
 mass of warriors, but Grey had an immense faith in the 
 principles of his country and of his countrymen. Though 
 thousands were thrown out of employment by the ceasing 
 of the demands made by war, he was convinced that a 
 virile nation in need of everything after years of terrific 
 strain would soon adjust itself; and that these soldiers, 
 toughened by hardship, disciplined under strict control, 
 would be markedly efficient in civil life. 
 
 Socially also the American spirit made manifest its
 
 198 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 adaptability. As he looked about he recalled with approval 
 the verdict of an Englishwoman who had recently traveled 
 here: "The democracy behaves like a lady." It had been 
 otherwise at times. Once General Grant, during a brief 
 return from the front, was caught in the East Room and 
 made to stand on a chair, despite his tortured modesty, 
 while the crowd cheered. Again at a public reception dur- 
 ing the war, when soldiers just from the field came in 
 whatever condition they happened to be, Grey had seen the 
 white dresses of the ladies in the receiving party blackened 
 to the knees by what rubbed off or leaped off the boys' 
 clothing. Poor fellows! having to be dirty is one of the 
 hardships of war but what a trifle in the balance ! 
 
 Not catching sight of Bertha, after some minutes' ob- 
 servation, he let himself go and drifted with the crowd. 
 
 "There! see her?" exclaimed a woman beside him, pull- 
 ing her escort's arm, and looking eagerly toward some one 
 stationed at the head of the East Room surrounded by a 
 group all facing one way. Grey looked, and of course it 
 was Bertha. She stood tall and aglow, carrying herself 
 superbly, and her beauty, at its prime, was set off by sump- 
 tuous apparel. The succulence of health made every mo- 
 tion vital, and flashed radiantly in her face, so that he 
 recognized it was in the very nature of things that people 
 streamed toward her. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; you can get anything you want if she's on your 
 side," went on his neighbor confidently. "I don't know 
 how she manages, but it's a fact. Make somebody intro- 
 duce you, Sam, and then put your best foot foremost, and 
 you'll win see if you don't" 
 
 "Mrs. Camithers is a new power," said a lady's reserved 
 voice on the other side, explaining the sights of the capital 
 to her companion. "She has come with this influx of
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 199 
 
 > 
 
 newly rich folk, but I don't think she belongs wholly to 
 them. She is the wife of Ethan Carruthers, you know. 
 He is one of the ablest men in "Washington, a master of 
 the arts of the consummate politician. I don't know that I 
 should trust him very far," and the voice fell low. 
 
 "You discriminate with your usual aplomb," said the 
 eager-eyed youth who hung on the older woman's com- 
 ments with keen understanding. "But what of her? Is 
 she like her husband? She's mighty good to look at." 
 
 "She is/' averred his mentor with emphasis. "She has 
 many gifts, beauty and magnetism and wealth; and a 
 good heart, I'm told. If she has a steady head as well, 
 there is no limit set for her. Do you remember the tale 
 of what was said to Mrs. Polk ? It might apply equally to 
 Mrs. Carruthers." 
 
 "No. Do tell me," said the young man, and Grey hung 
 by to hear. 
 
 "At one of the President's receptions a solemn-visaged 
 man came up and in a sudden silence, such as falls by 
 chance on an assembly, every one heard him say, 'Madam, 
 I have long wished to see the lady upon whom the Bible 
 pronounces woe/ Mrs. Polk was much puzzled and didn't 
 know what to reply, and again the solemn boom was heard, 
 'The Bible says, madam, Woe unto you when all men shall 
 speak well of you.' " 
 
 " H'm ! He must have needed a rest when he got through 
 with that compliment," laughed the young man. "I'm 
 glad to hear Mrs. Carruthers is well spoken of; it would 
 be a pity else, with that face. But one hears such stories." 
 
 Grey circled around the crowd and presently reached 
 Bertha without her noticing his advance. A young fellow 
 with an honest, enthusiastic face was saying:
 
 S00 A VICTORIOUS LITE 
 
 "You know the fair wouldn't go at all if it weren't for 
 you, and we've simply got to make a lot of money." 
 
 "Oh, I'll come, of course," responded Bertha heartily, 
 with a smile for his open admiration; "but you are bound 
 to succeed. Don't dream of anything else. It's a noble 
 cause and everybody is going to lend a helping hand." 
 
 "Especially if yours is seen pushing," insisted the wise 
 youth, giving way with the gratified sense that heaven 
 smiled upon his efforts. 
 
 Before Grey could make himself known a tall officer 
 close at hand got in his word. 
 
 "Don't promise others too much without lending me an 
 ear," he urged genially. 
 
 "Ah, Colonel Slocum, what opportunity are you going 
 to offer me? You may be sure I shall take advantage of 
 it." 
 
 "How like you!" he murmured, looking down on her 
 with kindly eyes. "We pester you with one demand after 
 another, and you never fail to give a gracious answer. 
 How do you manage it ?" 
 
 "By having friends who never make ungracious de- 
 mands. You'll see the case put to the proof when you tell 
 me yours." 
 
 "Oh, mine is simple enough," he replied, letting his 
 voice lower. "I want to get a quiet hour with Mr. Car- 
 ruthers in regard to matters down south. They're dread- 
 ful, Mrs. Carruthers, and Congress ought to know it, and 
 do something to remedy the situation. Mr. Carruthers 
 from his position on the committee is the very man, but 
 I haven't been able to reach him." 
 
 "You shall, you shall," cried Bertha readily. "Let me 
 see; next week Tuesday is our first time disengaged. Of 
 course there's the diplomatic reception, but come to din-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 201 
 
 ner and you can have your hour long before we need to go 
 to that." 
 
 "Thank you very much. When do you dine?" 
 
 "Half -past six good old-fashioned time, you see. We 
 don't wear any of the new fancies and furbelows yet." 
 
 "Whatever you wear would be the best fashion," he re- 
 plied with a military bow, as a diplomat insinuated him- 
 self past him. 
 
 "Ah, madame," cried the Russian; "now the crush ex- 
 plains itself. The world seeks but one center." 
 
 "Which, like the earth's, is a vanishing point at present, 
 Count Zadovsky," laughed Bertha. "Unless you will take 
 me to my carriage? I'm late already in moving on." 
 
 Slipping her hand into the eager arm proffered her she 
 went down the long room, glancing and bowing to all sides ; 
 men and women equally astrain to catch her eye. 
 People gazed toward her and after her, as when a shining 
 light goes by. 
 
 Ethan Carmthers, coming in late, saw her approach, and 
 stood among the crowd to witness it. His pride in her 
 was immense; just so should his wife lord it over the 
 throng. He called her his Most Magnificent, and the name 
 suited her most magnificently. Decked in glorious color- 
 ing, redolent with sensuous attractions, merely to look at 
 her set his pulses dancing, for she was wholly his. It was 
 still a delight to assure himself of this by watching 
 the change in her when she caught sight of him. Now 
 she was talking gaily with her foreign escort as she slowly 
 advanced, bestowing recognition in pleasant fashion here 
 and there, until she saw the man she loved. Then with 
 an exclamation she pulled the count forward hurriedly, 
 and, finding this too slow, dropped the arm that fell stiff 
 with surprise, and by a few hasty steps joined Mr. Car-
 
 202 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 ruthers. At rest there, she turned to her abandoned escort 
 with an apology. 
 
 "You see, it is my husband," she explained amply. The 
 count accepted the words with a bow and some murmur of 
 congratulation to the enviable man, and took himself off 
 like the stick of a rocket 
 
 This was her old friend's chance, and he stepped for- 
 ward within range of vision. The change in her mobile 
 iface was lovely to witness, and made the onlookers turn 
 curiously to eye the man producing it. 
 
 "My dear guardian!" she exclaimed, dropping Mr. Car- 
 ruthers's arm to hold out both hands. "Here you are at 
 last. It's good, good, to see you again ! Let me make you 
 and my husband acquainted. I was surprised to find that 
 two such public-spirited men did not know each other." 
 
 She watched them proudly as they grasped hands. This 
 was a very different husband to present for inspection; 
 in Grey's mind, too, the contrast tingled. Camithers was 
 splendid in appearance, a man of power and presence, in- 
 telligent, acute. He greeted General Grey with winning 
 cordiality. 
 
 "Now promise finds fulfilment," he said. "You have 
 meant so much to Mrs. Carruthers that I feel I owe you a 
 great deal." He glanced proudly at his wife in a way that 
 pleased Grey. 
 
 "You owe me nothing," he answered readily. "She is 
 the one who has done all." 
 
 "Let us go on," said the lady, beaming on the two so 
 dear. "We are late, and there's more than one place yet." 
 She took Grey's arm, but looked over her shoulder at her 
 husband half-archly, half-regretfully. It was still a trial 
 to her to be separated from him an instant. 
 
 The three drove off together, talking gaily, and stopped
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 203 
 
 to do their duty at the house of one of the shoddy mag- 
 nates of the period, whose attraction consisted chiefly of 
 terrapin and champagne, but who nevertheless was of some 
 social importance. 
 
 "The last time I was here," said Bertha, as they waited 
 in the string for an opportunity to alight, "many of the 
 guests, it seems, stayed until morning, and were served an 
 elaborate breakfast before they separated. The men of the 
 party went straight to business, as they were, and some of 
 the women appeared at morning receptions in the same 
 costumes they had worn at the ball. That's going alto- 
 gether too far, in my opinion, and I haven't cared to culti- 
 vate these people much since." 
 
 "The wife of a politician can't pick and choose," observed 
 Mr. Carruthers blandly. "He must swing with the tide, 
 not stick on some snag of personal opinion, else he wrecks 
 his ship." 
 
 Once within, the party was speedily divided by the crowd 
 that petitions any power ; man and wife, similar potentates, 
 were at once surrounded by seekers after place or favor in 
 almost equal numbers; but Grey was sufficiently versed in 
 Washington society to appreciate the difference in the com- 
 ponent parts of the two groups. The people clustering 
 around Carruthers were astute politicians, keeping watch 
 on party lines which were being drawn taut at this junc- 
 ture ; or lobbyists who wanted bills passed or averted, whose 
 business it was to maintain social affiliations with those 
 who could serve; and society folk, both those attracted by 
 so magnetic a person as Carruthers, and those who run 
 after whatever catches the public eye. 
 
 Of this latter class many also sought Bertha, for she 
 and the famous congressman matched each other as do the 
 hands, and between their hands at this time the world
 
 204 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 rolled so far as their little reach could extend. But a 
 different element entered into Bertha's following, a finer 
 quality among those who wanted things, and a few appre- 
 ciative of iier, not because of what she could do for them, 
 but because of what she was. Personality, the supreme 
 end, manifested even here its potency; manifested it here 
 most of all perhaps, drawing from this multicolored skein 
 the different threads which weave the one texture that 
 endures the raiment of character. 
 
 When the night's round was over and the horses headed 
 homeward, Carruthers heaved a great sigh of relief. 
 
 "How you women can stand this sort of thing all the 
 time I never could see," he exclaimed. "It's enough to 
 kill an ox, especially after a long day at the House. But it 
 has to be done, of course, the way things are." 
 
 The hall was a rich scene as they entered it, even in the 
 dim light contesting between dawn and chandelier. It was 
 one that never failed to delight Bertha ; Grey watched her 
 lingering pleasure in it, her fitness for it, with a gentle 
 smile. What an essentially feminine woman she was, de- 
 spite achievement made in seven-league boots! She was 
 fairer than he had ever seen her. Her beauty reminded 
 him of one of those thousand-leaved roses that unfold and 
 unfold, long after you think you have seen its heart. It 
 led the imagination far, for beauty is the sensuous form of 
 the divine. 
 
 "Don't delay long, dear," said Mr. Carruthers, as he 
 excused himself and started upstairs. "You and General 
 Grey have much to talk over, I know, but you'd better post- 
 pone it until a little later in the morning." 
 
 "Oh, it can wait a while, I guess, since it has already 
 waited so long," she laughed, yielding readily to her hus- 
 band's suggestion. "You must be very tired," she added,
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 205 
 
 turning courteously to her guest. "How does the wound 
 wear ?" 
 
 "What matter wounds since there's peace?" he said 
 quietly. "Mine can be forgotten surely. How comfortably 
 you are placed here! Among all the fine new things I 
 recognize still some old friends." 
 
 He took up a grotesque little image he had given her 
 years before, and turned it hi his hand. 
 
 "Yes, you will never find it otherwise so long as I am 
 I," she answered, her eyes warm with affection upon him. 
 She did not seat herself, but moved about with the light 
 lissomeness that was peculiarly her own, and which a long 
 day of social effort had not diminished in the least; the 
 inherent power of it still made him marvel. 
 
 "Are Pa and Ma here?" he asked, leaning against a 
 mantel to watch her waftures. 
 
 "No, they would hardly fit into this life, we thought, 
 and so would be unhappy. In Chicago they are content. 
 Another child to bring up is a godsend to them, and Mary 
 is turning out very well. Of course whatever money they 
 need is provided, and presently I expect to have them on 
 for a visit, but not just yet. Ethan has convinced me they 
 would be out of their element here during the social time 
 of year. How do you like my establishment?" she added, 
 looking at him candidly, with the same direct appeal for 
 approval that had characterized her from childhood. It 
 touched him deeply to see how simplicity maintained itself 
 at the sound core of this woman of the world. 
 
 "Very fine," he answered with a careless glance around; 
 "but what is incomparably finer is the estimate I see put 
 upon you by all these people. How little we could dream 
 ten years ago ! Yet I always knew you would go far." 
 
 "Your faith in me has winged my feet," she responded,
 
 206 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 in a deep, rich tone that echoed like the sound of bells in 
 his consciousness. She put out her hand, and they stood 
 linked a moment, eye to eye. "How good you have been 
 to me always; and always will be," she said soberly. "It is 
 an unbreakable support." 
 
 "It is firm, Bertha; such as it is," he said with a quiet 
 smile. "You need never fear its wavering." 
 "I know; I know. Thank heaven, I do know that." 
 "Now, good-night, don't let me detain you longer," he 
 added, for he saw that she was restless to obey Mr. Car- 
 ruthers's suggestion. How her docility would have 
 astonished Colton! By a mere indication of a wish Car- 
 ruthers gained what Colton used to try in vain to 
 coerce with anger and bolts. Love alone penetratingly con- 
 strains. Carruthers, it was easy to see, had her completely 
 in hand; he could play upon her as on a harp of many 
 strings, and every fibre thrilled to his touch.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE next evening a company had been bidden to dinner 
 at which General Grey was the guest of honor. The house 
 was splendidly decorated, yet Bertha arranged everything 
 with skill and coolness. She was in her element here 
 where wasn't she? thought Grey appreciatively mistress- 
 ing the house and the occasion with dexterous ease. As the 
 first guest rang the bell she came floating downstairs, ar- 
 rayed in white and gold, every movement supple, and her 
 face sparkling in quickened beauty. 
 
 "Do you like me?" she asked, dropping a courtesy while 
 he held back the portiere. 
 
 "You are delectable," he answered, and she greeted the 
 word with a gratified laugh. 
 
 As the party gathered, Grey recognized it consisted of 
 the best people justices and senators, diplomats and 
 women of degree. Among these was a small, benign lady 
 whose wavy hair, silvering at the temples, framed a strong 
 face full of sweetness. Bertha greeted her with a deferen- 
 tial mien that caught Grey's attention, and he was imme- 
 diately beckoned to an introduction. 
 
 "Let me present General Grey, Mrs. Maitland," said the 
 hostess with an inflection of unusual interest in her tone. 
 "He was my guardian in childhood and still remains my 
 mentor and friend. Mrs. Maitland is the high light of 
 Washington to me," she added, turning to Grey. "You 
 should like each other, because I am, so fond of you both, 
 
 207
 
 208 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 and both of you like me!" She broke off with an arch 
 glance at the two friendly faces watching her, and with a 
 gladsome laugh turned to the next comer. 
 
 "You are fortunate to have known her so long," said 
 Mrs. Maitland, looking at General Grey with clear, pene- 
 trating eyes, "I have had the pleasure only a short time, 
 but already I am very much attached to her. She is the 
 embodiment of life." 
 
 "Yes, that has always been her peculiar quality," said 
 Grey, feeling himself thoroughly at ease with this stranger. 
 " She lives beyond any human being I ever knew ; she lives 
 thoroughly on a dozen planes at once." 
 
 Their eyes following her saw her greet with cordial charm 
 a sedate, rather bent man, of tall frame and face of earnest- 
 ness abrim with geniality. 
 
 "Who is he?" asked Grey. 
 
 "Dr. Otell," replied Mrs. Maitland, her voice, always 
 modulated to a rare degree, now vibrating with increased 
 sensibility. "Surely you recall that amazing episode some 
 years before the war when a schooner was stopped with 
 sixty fugitive slaves on board, and the captain and mate 
 were put in jail here. No? Well, the town rose in a 
 tumult, and for several days a mob besieged Dr. Otell's 
 office where the National Era was published. A committee 
 of prominent citizens went so far as to urge him to give 
 up his press to the rioters and pledge himself to stop the 
 anti-slavery sheet ; but of course he refused. Then the mob 
 assailed his house, calling on him loudly to come out and 
 surrender. He did come out, with a quiet air, saying, 'I 
 am Dr. Otell. What do you want of me?' They clamored 
 for their demands, which he would not admit, but he asked 
 as an American citizen to be heard. After some uproar 
 this waa permitted, and what do you think happened?
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 309 
 
 Against all the turbulent passions and prejudices of such 
 a mob roused to fury, he prevailed by simple speech. Noise 
 dwindled, quiet came ; then began murmurs of assent, and 
 finally, at the right instant, a well-known man leaped up 
 beside Dr. Otell and moved an adjournment of the meet- 
 ing, which was voted for in due form by an orderly assem- 
 bly. The crowd that had been so angry melted away with 
 many calls of 'Good-night, doctor/ and there was no more 
 trouble." 
 
 Mrs. Maitland breathed a little faster as she ended the 
 tale, and her eyes were shining with the steady glow of 
 hero-worship. Grey recognized in her an authentic char- 
 acter which springs to glad salute when another of the 
 same sort marches by. 
 
 "A commanding presence can bring passions to heel," 
 commented Grey, watching the doughty reformer as he 
 talked with Bertha in fatherly fashion. "He discerns in 
 her stuff akin to his own," he added, after a moment. 
 
 "So do I," assented Mrs. Maitland. "She would never 
 burn the fagot for another, but she might easily be con- 
 sumed in its flame. I can imagine her standing shoulder 
 to shoulder with John Brown, for instance a splendid 
 though mistaken hero." 
 
 "Mistaken?" 
 
 "Yes, I came to see that, after years of devoted admira- 
 tion. His cause was just, omnipotent, as we have proved, 
 but he went to work in the wrong way. He attacked the 
 state " 
 
 "Which was supporting evil," interrupted Grey. 
 
 "I know it, but the state is greater than the indi- 
 vidual." 
 
 "But not greater than humanity, and he took his stand 
 on its side,"
 
 210 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "I know," she repeated patiently; "but he did so by 
 violence, by attempting to break the laws of the country 
 instead of changing them. His action was splendid, but his 
 life was justly forfeited. The state cannot allow such re- 
 bellion ; its own existence is in the balance, and that out- 
 weighs the life of an individual a thousandfold. Dr. Otell, 
 on the other hand, took the other course. He had all the 
 courage of John Brown, and all his ardor, but he added to 
 these judgment; and see the result. It was in his paper, 
 you know, that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' first appeared. No 
 one can tell how widespreading the influence of that book 
 was, nor in how many similar ways Dr. Otell helped the 
 cause. You see, the value of a reformer is in exact ratio 
 to the power he manifests in gaining followers. That, I 
 take it, is how a mere opinion gets to be a principle: it 
 passes by degrees through the mind of the race, becoming 
 either rectified or ratified. Don't you think the most excit- 
 ing moment of life is when you perceive a new thought? 
 There is no force that compares with the force of an idea; 
 without length, breadth or thickness, nevertheless it over- 
 turns all that has these qualities. So Dr. OtelPs method 
 brought to destruction what crushed John Brown. " 
 
 "But his soul goes marching on!" exclaimed the soldier. 
 "Yet you are right; I see your point; and, do you know, 
 you have hit very close to the bull's-eye in regard to Mrs. 
 Carruthers. Evidently you understand her." 
 
 As he spoke, he studied with deepening interest the firm 
 little lady beside him. She had well-cut features, and com- 
 plexion of a clear delicacy that lent itself to the light shin- 
 ing within. This was focused in small, well-opened eyes 
 where the soul rose nearer to the surface than in most ; but 
 the chief charm was her lovely expression. It showed a 
 character of strength mellowed by experience, reminding
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Grey of golden October weather in which trees rid of su- 
 perfluous leaves offer rich fruits to the hand, and the very 
 atmosphere is ripe to the core. 
 
 A justice of the Supreme Court presently came with' 
 deferential air to take her to the table, and Bertha drew 
 near General Grey. 
 
 "I knew you'd like each other," she said, beaming at 
 his praise of her new friend as they closed the long pro- 
 cession. "She is the most patriotic of women; she led 
 everything here among the Union people during the war. 
 No, her husband isn't living; he died a long while ago, 
 and she mourned that she had no sons to send into the 
 army; but her two daughters are like their mother, alive 
 to large demands, though neither of them can approach her 
 in breadth of intellect and judgment. I heard a man say 
 the other day one not given to a particularly high esti- 
 mate of women's capacity, either that Mrs. Maitland was 
 the only woman he had ever seen who was fit to be Presi- 
 dent." 
 
 It was a beautiful table at which they sat down, elabo- 
 rately decorated with emblems of honor to the chief guest, 
 which drew forth acclamations. Opposite Grey sat his host, 
 who fitted his position perfectly. Excellent to look at, his 
 manner on such an occasion was of the best, and every 
 talent he had was in high burnish. Grey admitted that 
 even his wife could not eclipse him. Many persons re- 
 marked on their striking likeness to each other which went 
 into some physical detail, but was more marked in mind. 
 The man had an exhilarating magnetism hardly second to 
 Bertha's; a similar variety of interests kept them both 
 astir ; the same vivid attention to the present moment gave 
 a keen edge to fluent speech, and equally fertile brains pro- 
 vided topics. Bertha- differed from her spouse in the tact
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 and sensibility with which she subordinated herself to her 
 guests, though her attractions shone the more winningly 
 through the gentle shade. Mr. Carruthers made no such 
 effort; the brighter the light he could turn on the occasion 
 the better pleased was he. Stories fell from his well-shaped 
 lips in quick succession ; repartee flashed, sometimes prick- 
 ing to the wincing-point without effect on his insouciance ; 
 the usual chat about current events went forward; but 
 gradually in Bertha's neighborhood a more personal atmos- 
 phere prevailed. 
 
 "Victory in the end is always on the right side," Mrs. 
 Maitland was saying; "indeed, that is the only end there 
 is. Every lost battle is but a Bull Eun; first or second or 
 millionth it doesn't matter how the defeats roll up, the 
 only actual end is Appomattox." 
 
 Bertha looked at her with lustrous eyes; here was a 
 kindred mind. 
 
 "The result of my observation is," General Dyer was 
 saying on the other side, "that the people are always right 
 in the long run, and never right at the time. At the time 
 they need leaders, and in the end it is the people who carry 
 forward their leaders." 
 
 "What did you think of that action of General Grant's," 
 asked Colonel Slocum, "in ordering 20,000 men to differ- 
 ent parts of the West last year?" 
 
 "It's a very silly performance to my mind," answered 
 Dyer shortly. 
 
 "Well, I thought it a good deal so myself," returned 
 Slocum, "until the other day when I had a chance to talk 
 to him, and I asked him why he gave that order. 'I was 
 convinced/ said he, 'that if the men could see what oppor- 
 tunities awaited them there, what farms they could have 
 for the taking, it would dispose of a large number of those
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 who might otherwise be dangerous.' That illuminated the 
 subject to me : his wisdom is making those who might be- 
 come tramps found an empire." 
 
 "A pilot was asked once if he were sure he knew where 
 the shoals were," commented Bertha. " 'Oh, no/ he re- 
 plied, 'but I know where the deep water lies/ " 
 
 "That reminds me," said Grey, "of an anecdote I heard 
 about Webster. He was addressing a crowded audience 
 which, being pressed by those who were trying to get in 
 to hear him, began to sway to and fro with a terrifying, 
 helpless vibration that rocked the building. Webster 
 stopped short, and then, in a stentorian voice commanded, 
 'Let each man stand firm/ On the instant the great 
 heaving mass stood still. "That/ exclaimed the orator, 'is 
 what we call self-government/ " 
 
 "Such self-government is what the South ought to apply 
 at this time," said Judge Fessenden. "If each man there 
 would stand firm, our vexed problem would be amazingly 
 simplified." 
 
 "That's a fact," said General Grey, earnestness at once 
 returning to his face. "If the South would only recognize 
 that we mean to deal fairly, and that we want to make 
 things as easy as possible in resuming old ties, Lincoln's 
 large mercy could be carried out; but the trouble is they 
 will not admit the logic of the situation. I've been travel- 
 ing down there, and I know." 
 
 This statement made every head turn his way, for first- 
 hand knowledge of the Southern attitude at this juncture 
 was eagerly sought. Reconstruction was the one topic that 
 held the attention of all : how to make valid the results of 
 those long anguished years in which the nation had tra- 
 vailed to bring forth a new era, which must not perish for 
 lack of wise care. Grey went on impressively :
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "They repudiate all acquiescence in the results of the 
 war. Every sort of ingenious scheme to enslave the negro 
 without being crushed by the government is hailed with 
 joy. For instance, a bill is proposed to provide that every 
 colored man or woman shall get a comfortable home within 
 twenty days of the passage of the act, or, failing this, shall 
 be immediately arrested and given over to the highest 
 bidder for a year." 
 
 "Preposterous!" was the general exclamation. 
 
 "Even Americans can hardly expect human nature so to 
 transcend itself," said Count Zadovsky urbanely, "as for a 
 proud and defeated people to accept the will of the con- 
 queror without seeking to evade it." 
 
 "Then the conqueror must make his will execute," pro- 
 claimed Mr. Carruthers. "If they don't yield to common 
 sense they will find force applied." 
 
 "Surely, surely," replied the foreigner; "blood and 
 treasure cannot be lavished in vain. And the North has 
 been, shall I say, magnanimous ? to a degree that astounds 
 Europe. Those men who are the heroes of the world in 
 war would have laughed at the policy which, for instance, 
 left the negro to raise crops that supplied the Confederate 
 armies with food." 
 
 "Who regrets the humanity of the action?" asked Mrs. 
 Maitland with a ring in her voice. "We look back upon it, 
 I'm sure, only with deep satisfaction." 
 
 "Yes, count," said Mr. Leighton, M.C., with a smile, 
 "we Americans like to show the world that old methods are 
 obsolete. Nevertheless, we are not willing to let those who 
 have fought us bitterly now dictate how they shall return 
 to the Union." 
 
 "Johnson will never permit coercion if he can prevent 
 it," commented Senator Dwinell quietly.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 215 
 
 "He can't," said Carruthers, looking the senator in the 
 eye with a significance Grey noted. 
 
 "Think so?" was the careless response; but Grey had a 
 sense of compact sealed. 
 
 "You see, the negro has never had a chance," Bertha 
 was saying to Justice Hastings on her left. " Economically, 
 of course, he has been absolutely shorn; and, what is of 
 more importance, on the domestic side he has had none 
 of the protection of a home; above all, no guarding by 
 marriage with its privileges and responsibilities which op- 
 pose the animal in us. He has had no chance to be a man 
 that's the supreme trouble. He has been held as a beast, 
 a beast of burden; yet during the war he proved many 
 noble traits. Heaven will out, however hell shrouds it." 
 
 Mrs. Maitland gave her hostess a startled glance, but 
 before such a face, alight with generous zeal, criticism 
 died. 
 
 As for Grey, he listened with a keen sense of the develop- 
 ment that underlay this valuation of marriage. Here was 
 quite a different key from the one Bertha had struck to 
 clangor in her days of defiance. Love not only had meek- 
 ened but enlightened her. The peerless opportunity offered 
 by marriage, day after day, year after year, to manifest and 
 mate multitudinous impulses, hopes, joys, sanctions, ideals 
 to foster through the fleeting the firm had been re- 
 vealed to her; and, true to her nature, she carried the 
 vision immediately into the common life of man, wishing 
 to share its opportunities with the humblest. 
 
 "Marriage, yes, surely, he should have the full benefit of 
 family life," replied the Justice, "but, first of all, he must 
 have protection to life itself, and the right to what he 
 earns these are primal necessities for black or white, and 
 they are not the negro's now."
 
 216 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 " Hundreds of colored men and Union soldiers are being 
 murdered," said General Grey sternly, "and there is not 
 an effort made to trace the murderers." 
 
 "That must be stopped," exclaimed Carruthers, with 
 some truculence. "It shan't be permitted to continue, if 
 Congress has its say, and who can thwart the will of the 
 people? We represent it such men as the senator and I 
 and we shall carry it out, come what will. The Presi- 
 dent may veto the bill, but we've got a majority large 
 enough to beat him at that game." 
 
 "It would be a vast pity," came the deliberate utterance 
 of Mercy Maitland to which statesmen lent ear, "if the 
 even balance of our threefold system of government were 
 endangered by these disputes between Congress and the 
 President. Do we want the legislative branch to become, 
 like Parliament, all-powerful? Don't we want rather to 
 maintain a steady equilibrium among the three functions ?" 
 
 "It is a momentous question," said Justice Hastings 
 meditatively, while Carruthers checked a retort. 
 
 "What about these tales of corruption we hear, Mr. Car- 
 ruthers?" asked Grey. "I haven't been in Washington 
 now for some time, but I'm told there are men here, and 
 women too, who are selling pardons, and making other foul 
 use of power." 
 
 "No doubt that's true enough; where isn't it true, Gen- 
 eral Grey?" was the careless answer. "You know how it 
 was in the army, how it is yet. There are always some 
 people who look to their own interests first, a way which 
 after all, you know, is the business method that pushes 
 along trade. But as to these trades in the Senate and 
 House that's stuff and nonsense. There are black sheep 
 in the herd, no doubt, but " 
 
 "How inconceivable to think that men entrusted with
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 their country's honor would so defile it !" exclaimed Bertha, 
 in deep, bell-like tones that resounded through her hearers. 
 
 Carruthers shot her a piercing glance which did not 
 escape Grey. Inside their similarity he sensed a difference, 
 a vital difference; centering perhaps in the man's lack of 
 reverence for things high and of good report. 
 
 Long years of practice had made Grey well versed in the 
 art of observation the vicarious life which formed his own 
 to a marked degree so that, as his visit continued, and, 
 later, was repeated, he came to feel certain jars, and to hear 
 dissonances which made him look forward with apprehen- 
 sion. They were only "little signs like little stars, the very 
 looking straight at mars," but his eye was accustomed to 
 sidelights of intelligence, and he knew these transient 
 gleams might mean worlds. 
 
 He said something of the sort to Agnes during the sum- 
 mer, when, after "the soldiers' convention" had sent out 
 clarion-calls to the people, he was doing his share in the 
 campaign, and found himself near the suburban town that 
 was her home. He seized time to call and she joined him 
 at once in the austere library. At sight of his stalwart 
 form and refined, strong face, she had a quick sense of 
 safety and freedom. He sent up the lark in her the lark 
 that has its nest in the life-giving gram, and soars high 
 filling the air with melody. 
 
 "Bertha insisted I should deliver you her love in per- 
 son," he said, smiling as they grasped hands. 
 
 " She knew I would be glad to see you," was the simple 
 answer, said in a tone that Grey found very sweet. The 
 girl was looking worn, he noted ; underneath present pleas- 
 ure, past pain showed. "When were you with her?" 
 
 "A fortnight ago." They seated themselves and settled 
 to a good, chat. "She is immensely interested in the cam-
 
 218 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 paign. Camithers is running again, you know, and of 
 course he will win. She is clever in keeping herself out 
 of sight where she would mar the game, and yet makes 
 herself a potent influence in his favor. Carruthers did an 
 able stroke of political work when he won her, I assure 
 you; she is brilliant beyond compare, beyond even herself. 
 You hear nothing in Washington society, so to speak, but 
 Mrs. Carruthers, Mrs. Carruthers; yet he holds his own 
 and forges ahead." 
 
 "Is he liked also?" ventured the girl, covering herself 
 with an impenetrable shield, while she let this question 
 dart forth. He looked at her keenly. 
 
 "Oh, he has his friends, of course, and among them he 
 is very popular. He carries people off their feet, and de- 
 lights in the fact; that tells much. But those who keep 
 their heads can see things to criticize in him. I am not 
 one of his admirers are you ?" 
 
 The sudden question found her unprepared, but after a 
 moment's hesitation, she answered in a low tone, "No." 
 
 "Bertha gave me to understand that you and he did not 
 get on well together; in fact, that you had declined to visit 
 her. She even tried to persuade me to coax you to go on" 
 the girl shrunk away and her head drooped "but I told 
 her I should not meddle. I had no doubt your reasons 
 were good, and I wasn't going to make it any harder for 
 you by teasing you to do differently." 
 
 She gave a sigh of relief; no wonder she felt safe and 
 free with him. 
 
 "The truth is," resumed he, leaning forward to trace the 
 pattern of the carpet with his cane, "I am inclined to 
 think I agree with you. It is better for you not to be 
 there, interesting as it is; and Bertha is too full of Car- 
 ruthers and her new life to need any one else yet."
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "Ah !" Agnes caught her breath at this intimation. He 
 nodded with slow gravity. 
 
 "Yes, the dream is beginning to blur and break, I'm sure 
 of it. A thousand pities, too. They seem so amazingly 
 well fitted to each other. As I saw them first, they ap- 
 peared to be in that matchless state of satisfaction which 
 springs from glad, full use of every faculty, together with 
 ardent love." 
 
 "That is happiness," affirmed Agnes slowly, conning the 
 words. 
 
 "If he approached her in splendor of character as he 
 does in looks, all would be well; but he doesn't." Grey 
 stopped his stick and turned to face Agnes, speaking 
 gravely. "A man in the political life of Washington walks 
 among red-hot plowshares. He does it without knowing 
 it, if he be honest ; otherwise they burn him, eventually 
 they brand him. Very reluctantly have I come to believe 
 that Carrufhers is a type of the evil influence at work in 
 our politics. Between you and me it may as well be ad- 
 mitted that Bertha made a mistake when she thought she 
 found in him a good man. He is distinctly not a good 
 man. I know nothing of his private character; she may 
 be right there, though I think character is a unit, however 
 many contradictions go to compose it. I noticed, too, 
 several times that her instinctive probity frets him ; but he 
 hoodwinks her protest, and she has not sufficient training 
 to make good her impulse. He is very intelligent, very 
 capable, a power to reckon with for good or evil; and un- 
 doubtedly his public acts are tainted." 
 
 "Even I have heard rumors," remarked Agnes, as he 
 paused, a vertical line of trouble on his forehead. "They 
 are true, then?" 
 
 "I'm afraid so. What I myself heard belittles the truth.
 
 220 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Indeed," he went on, meeting Agnes's attentive and pained 
 eyes with perplexity, "it is difficult to see how government 
 can be administered without being liable to abuse in that 
 it gives opportunity for appeal to the most sordid qualities 
 of those men who see a dollar in everything, and mean to 
 make it their own if possible. Carruthers, I'm afraid, is 
 of the sort who thinks statesmanship is simply a scuffle for 
 power in which every man has his price; and that the 
 richest man is the strongest power, no matter how he makes 
 his money. We are a commercial people, you see" he 
 laughed with some bitterness "and we carry commerce 
 into politics, where it doesn't in the least belong. I don't 
 mean that men are bought out and out, though that some- 
 times happens; but Jove puts on many disguises to lure 
 mortals to dishonor. Then, again, the war has organized 
 political forces, and made dominant that which is the 
 strongest. Just as long as right is nobly might, it is as it 
 should be; but when right degenerates into mere might 
 it is all wrong. That is where Carruthers and men of his 
 class stand : force, you shall that is the speech. It augurs 
 evil to the country when such men are at the helm." He 
 stopped with a frown that would have been stern had it 
 been less harassed. "How unutterably we miss Lincoln!" 
 he added then, with deep yearning. "He would have 
 known how to win rather than coerce, and he would have 
 had the sustaining confidence of the people. Now there is 
 no man to whom we can pin our absolute faith." 
 
 " Can we ever, to anybody ?" asked Agnes in a low tone 
 that was like a cry of desolation. It brought Grey instantly 
 from his wide thoughts to envisage life from her stand- 
 point. 
 
 "Are you in those bitter waters?" he asked, his eyes a 
 protection about her. "Most assuredly we can have faith
 
 in people, unqualified faith. Personality, in truth, is the 
 one thing to be trusted ; it abides when all else ceases." 
 
 "But do we find such persons persons who are all right 
 all the time?" she persisted, with a wan smile for the folly 
 yet urgency of her question. 
 
 "Well, of course, if we look for perfection the first dash 
 out of the box, so to speak, we are bound to be disap- 
 pointed," he replied, grasping her thought and many of 
 its implications. "It isn't dashing perfection that we want 
 so much as durable character, and this requires time to 
 disclose itself. Life takes a lifetime to live, remember. 
 Give it 'room, room to turn round in, to breathe and be 
 free!' That is where Bertha is great; she gives people 
 ample room and plenty of time. I verily believe she is 
 hopeless of none but the dead, and in them even she stirs 
 resurrectionary powers. Look at her mother; there was a 
 deed ! If that woman wasn't dead in trespasses and sins, 
 she came mighty near it. Then Bertha arrived, and the 
 waves of life streaming from the daughter started even that 
 lethargic mother into growth. You and I saw her perform 
 miracles before that, but aren't we continually astonished? 
 I tell you, living is a tremendous art, an immense transac- 
 tion. The Vanderbilts are said to have bought opportuni- 
 ties and sold achievements; Bertha does something of the 
 sort with life; she earns the right to take good wherever 
 she finds it, and gives it freely to whoever needs. That's 
 the true social idea, and when she gets it worked out thor- 
 oughly she'll surprise us again." 
 
 Agnes listened enchanted to this praise of her friend 
 whom she trusted through every doubt; it was delicious 
 food to her famished heart. She met his eyes gratefully, 
 but there was still deep sadness in her look. 
 
 "I wish you could know a friend of Bertha's there in
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Washington," resumed Grey presently. "She came to mind 
 a moment ago when I was speaking of Lincoln ; she is more 
 like him than any woman I know large, firm, clear- 
 minded, merciful. That is her name by the way, Mercy- 
 Mercy Maitland." 
 
 "She and Bertha are close friends, you say?" asked 
 Agnes, quick interest alive in her tone. Whatever touched 
 her beloved friend became to the girl a vital spark. 
 
 "Yes, the high-light of Washington, she calls her. I met 
 her several times; she is a quiet woman, rather slow, but 
 when the bow twangs her arrow hits the mark. Behind 
 whatever she says character stands in bulk and power. She 
 has discernment as well as charity, and when you are with 
 her you are gripped by the conviction that here is one on 
 whom you can wholly rely." 
 
 "How beautiful! And what a blessing for Bertha!" 
 Not the faintest hint of jealousy was in her tone; she was 
 full-heartedly glad on her friend's account. 
 
 "Yes; it is a great comfort to me to think of her within 
 reach of Bertha. She is a life-saving station if ever there 
 was one." 
 
 They talked about various things for some time until 
 finally he said: 
 
 "How about yourself, my dear friend? You look as if 
 life were more than stale and flat because of Bertha's 
 absence. Is it intrinsic loneliness?" 
 
 She nodded softly in answer to his gentle penetration, 
 tears springing to her eyes as the hunger was momentarily 
 appeased. In the fundamental division of humanity (not 
 into male and female, for nothing of this duality obtruded 
 itself into a friendship based on the unity of mankind) 
 they stood together. He, indeed, had known something of 
 the mystery where two souls fuse ; but that region had been
 
 closed if sacred ground to him for many years. It is im- 
 possible to live actively in more than one world at a time, 
 and now is the time to live here. He had realized this and 
 had thrown himself into the issues of the day with strength 
 and effect while far away the gates softly closed that had 
 stood ajar for some time before and after his wife's death. 
 
 Agnes had never experienced this exquisite intimacy; 
 she even doubted its possibility, yet yearned for it as an 
 impossible ideal. She felt in heaviness of spirit that we 
 are inalienably ourselves, that within this lonely fortress 
 each lives alone, and the immitigable solitude of it struck 
 terror to her soul. The very fact that she had known in 
 Bertha one who was able to unlock door after door of the 
 outer fastnesses, bringing forth the half-suffocated inmates 
 into light and air, made more harrowing the resurgent 
 destitution when the advance could not be kept up when 
 it fell back, back, almost out of sight and sound. She made 
 every effort to recall the lapsing nearness, but a chasm had 
 gradually yawned between them; not in affection, but in 
 communication. She would have hurled herself gladly into 
 that gulf as Curtius into the Roman depth could this action 
 have closed it; but no action will. Divergence of ideals 
 sets between souls an impassable distance. 
 
 Within the precincts of her own being, therefore, Agnes's 
 loneliness was almost of a density to be weighed and meas- 
 ured, certainly of a quality of spiritual oppression to which 
 the weight of the whole solar system would have been light. 
 Grey understood her psychical condition well, hence he 
 knew it was possible only to mitigate, not to relieve it. 
 Each of them was aware that the subjective character is 
 by nature solitary. Outward relations, things, mean little 
 to it, and this brings about detachment from what most 
 interests other people. Moreover, in the last analysis, the
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 pitiless distance between one human being and every other, 
 which is made sensible in such experience, cannot be 
 bridged ; but cheering words may wing across it, and these 
 he sent forth in flocks more welcome to her than the 
 ravens to Elijah. 
 
 "By the way, how are the proteges Bertha left under 
 your supervision, Pa and Ma and Mary?" he asked pres- 
 ently. 
 
 "Prospering, all three," replied Agnes, content to leave 
 introspection that cannot be dwelt on long without weak- 
 ening moral fibre, and glad to get into the endless occupa- 
 tion of considering others. "They feel it a good deal that 
 Bertha does not have them go to her, but they understand it 
 is Mr. Carruthers's influence, and make no complaint ; not 
 even, I believe, in their own minds. Their unalloyed faith 
 in Bertha is beautiful to behold. Whatever she does or 
 leaves undone is right to them because it is she. Some- 
 times I envy them that flooding main which covers all 
 shallows; but again I realize they are not so thoroughly 
 acquainted with her after all as one who discerns rocks 
 and reefs as well as deep water. Yet their method has a 
 calm " 
 
 She broke speech by a little annoyed shake of the head 
 at finding herself again in the old round, and went on 
 resolutely : 
 
 "They are greatly interested in Mary. Ma says she is 
 far easier to manage than Bertha ever was, and it is not 
 hard to believe it. Pa shakes his head a little in silence 
 when Ma makes such remarks ; he knows the difference be- 
 tween an eaglet and a wren." 
 
 "Hope Mary'll keep from flaunting into a peacock, at 
 all events," commented Grey. "The child is wonderfully 
 lucky to be in such good hands. Think what it has meant
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 to Bertha to have those old people as the groundwork of 
 all her experience; I often ruminate on it. Back of the 
 illusions which have lured her on until she proved them 
 delusions, back of the things of the world she has so in- 
 sistently craved, remains always the unworldly home of her 
 childhood, this genuine pair of folk. With them she got 
 down to the bare boards of life, but if bare they were al- 
 ways clean, and set, for her, with bread and honey. When- 
 ever she goes home in spirit, she must leave the world be- 
 hind, but she finds there what the world can neither 
 give nor take away. I shall be glad when she has them 
 with her again."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BERTHA fell into a chair, stupefied. Undeniable proof 
 paralyzed emotion. It was beyond belief that he should be 
 BO untrue to himself, so contemptuous of every high aspira- 
 tion; yet here were facts. Were they facts? She could be- 
 lieve nothing against him but his own evidence. Where 
 was he ? 
 
 She rose tumultuously and was going toward the door 
 that connected her room with his study, when Carruthers 
 sauntered through it calm, debonair, incomparably hand- 
 some, smiling on her with affection. 
 
 "Ah, it's good to find you here. I've missed you 
 
 sorely " He stopped, the easy words sticking in his 
 
 throat, as he saw her stricken face. His sobered, drew 
 tense. She approached him slowly, eyes probing his; 
 searching, appealing, imploring eyes that knocked loud on 
 heart and conscience. His fell an instant, then with a 
 mighty effort lifted again. She was close upon him, her 
 hands at his shoulders, lying heavily there. 
 
 "Ethan," she said in a hoarse whisper, "is it true?" 
 
 He had steadied himself for the shock, but in her strung 
 agony she was such that he gave a gulping gasp. How could 
 he confront her? how either meet, or fail to meet, this 
 gigantic demand? 
 
 "What what " he stammered, and broke off. 
 
 The early autumn sunshine, streaming golden through 
 the trees and decking the room redolent of their life to- 
 
 22$
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 gether; the complacent sense of cheer with which he had 
 entered ; her attire, rich and becoming, all struck athwart 
 the tragic severity of the moment. 
 
 "Is it true?" she cried in a low, husky tone, beneath 
 which tumult began to sound. "Is it true that you have 
 been faithless to the high love we pledged each other? 
 Proofs accumulate, but I cannot believe proof against you. 
 Tell me you only will I believe is it true ? Have you 
 Bessie " 
 
 He twisted on his heel, escaping from her hands; his 
 head was high, but his back was turned. 
 
 "Oh, she's been talking, has she?" he said in a hard 
 voice. "These chits never can hold their tongues. She 
 makes much out of little, she " 
 
 "Stop!" came the deep command. "Between you and 
 me it is of no consequence what she may be; you and I 
 alone face this. Face it we must, now and here." With a 
 couple of long, lissome strides she confronted him again, 
 but this time without a touch. "Tell me you are true; 
 oh, tell me " Her voice choked, her eyes filled sud- 
 denly, but as suddenly cleared: it was no moment for 
 clouds. "I would believe you against the testimony of all, 
 ay, even of myself. Tell me " 
 
 "Tell you what?" he said, seizing his course. In such 
 a cul-de-sac guarded by her towering personality, it seemed 
 the sole, desperate way. Her love might lend him strength 
 to toss her over the unscalable wall. He sprung to her, 
 taking her in his arms. "Tell you that nothing whatever 
 touches my love for you," he urged, his face close to hers, 
 "that nothing whatever impinges on my joy in you, that I 
 am as certainly yours as ever?" 
 
 "Entirely, entirely mine? Have you not been false for 
 an hour to the love we pledged?" She put him away, to
 
 228 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 hold him by her eyes, purged for the moment of all passion, 
 deep with tortured love, but clear also with penetrating 
 insight. 
 
 "Oh, what has an hour to do with our love?" he ex- 
 claimed before those eyes he could not lie. "It is eternal. 
 I love you to-day beyond all I've ever loved you, Bertha ! 
 Mine ! my own precious wife !" He wound his arms about 
 her, crushing her to him. She quivered from head to foot, 
 her organism at his mercy, her overwhelming love for him 
 at flood 
 
 But even as their lips clung together, she pushed him 
 abruptly away. Her bosom heaving, she cried : 
 
 "No I no! not now. We shame our love in slighting its 
 holiest covenant. Husband and wife are absolutely one to 
 one, or marriage is murdered. Have you slain our love, 
 
 Ethan, our glorious, joyous love ? And for an hour's " 
 
 She probed into his soul, and it blenched before her. " Oh ! 
 
 am I alone again ? Shall we never " She dropped on 
 
 the sofa and let her face fall among the pillows. 
 
 He said no word, but sat down close and tried to draw 
 her to him ; she resisted. 
 
 "No, no. Tell me it is not true, or leave me." 
 
 "Never!" He got his arms about her now and his lips 
 curved in a smile of conscious power. "Why in the world 
 are you worrying yourself so, dear? Our relations are not 
 affected in the least. The path was dusty in your absence ; 
 if I plucked an apple by the roadside it's what every man 
 does when his wife is away. Stay with me, and I'll never 
 stray I promise you that, my Cleopatra, magician of end- 
 less charms, necromancer!" 
 
 "Faugh!" She leaped to her feet, brushing aside dis- 
 ordered hair that glistened to glory in the sunlight. Head 
 thrown back, eyes blazing, she faced him sublime.
 
 "Don't dare to use those words now ! Either you are my 
 husband, your body my sanctuary, vowed to our love and 
 firm to that alone or you are nothing to me." Her mien 
 changed from indignation to poignant pathos. "Have we 
 lost all ? Are you not mine ? Every word you speak rid- 
 dles the past, robs the present, annuls our future. Oh, 
 Ethan ! is it true ? Are you no more my husband ? Have 
 you never been mine really, with the soul in it?" She 
 stretched longing arms toward him, but her feet were 
 nailed to the spot. 
 
 He sat, head in hands, power gone from him, his jaunty 
 air become listless, abject. Something in her rang great 
 bells within him, a sound of menace, almost of doom. He 
 felt himself carried out on a dark tide Whither? Why? 
 He raised his head, leaning his chin on his hands and 
 gazed at her. Of a sudden, he seemed strangely aloof from 
 it all, quiescent 
 
 "I have loved you with my whole being," she said, sum- 
 ming up the creed of love as she stood there, upright, to 
 him 'angelic with the light in her face, that glory on her 
 hair; "body, soul and spirit were filled full of love for you. 
 You know it well ; I thought you felt the same. Was our 
 life never a temple to you, Ethan, love its shrine? Did 
 heaven itself not brood for you over our ecstasies ? Oh, to 
 
 think " Her voice, resonant of the soul's great surge, 
 
 broke to a moan. "Now all is despoiled, defiled, gone. 
 It's gone, Ethan; our love is gone." Indescribably pene- 
 trating came the wail, " Oh, my baby, my love ! Gone, both 
 are gone; dead, gone!" 
 
 She lapsed into a seat, and stared tearless at the floor. 
 A slaughter of the innocents 
 
 He got up, shaking himself together, impatient of his 
 own feeling as well as of her.
 
 230 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "This is nonsense, Bertha," he said roughly; "you are 
 making a mountain out of a molehill. You magnify into 
 tragic shapes what every wife has to overlook. Nothing is 
 dead or gone. You are here, and so am I, and we love 
 each other ; you needn't try to deny it." He ruffled her hair 
 in passing with an assurred caress while he walked up and 
 down. She shuddered at the touch, as he saw with a qualm, 
 and changed to another key. "I myself am tremendously 
 proud of it. I never was prouder of you, and I'll make 
 you proud of me again yet. It looks as if I might get that 
 appointment to Vienna ; I came in to tell you about it. If 
 it carries through, my Most Magnificent will have a chance 
 to shine in the palaces of the most exclusive court in 
 Europe and she'll outshine them all." 
 
 "Gone," echoed Bertha, in a tone of the utmost dreari- 
 ness, still at gaze; "gone." 
 
 "Oh, stop that!" he ejaculated angrily; but underneath 
 was a hollow uneasiness. He shook her arm. "You're as 
 bad as Foe's Raven," he went on with an attempt at a 
 laugh. " Get up and go about your day's duties, and forget 
 all this, dear. You needn't fear any further I prom- 
 ise " 
 
 She turned her eyes to him without altering otherwise 
 the listless languor into which her body had drooped, and 
 his speech stopped. 
 
 The haunted depths were filled with ghosts of love-hours 
 done to death which rose in accusing array. Slowly they 
 filed past, and the man saw them. Not for nothing had 
 he the Greek modeling, the Greek instinct for form. 
 Through her eyes imagination became his judge, his ex- 
 ecutioner. After a long moment, he flung away from the 
 sight. 
 
 "We'll both go crazy at this rate," he declared, striding
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 toward his study. "I've work to do, if you Haven't, and 
 I'll put my mind to it." But with his hand on the knob, 
 he halted to look back at the motionless figure, in profile 
 to him now, eyes again fixed on the the floor. 
 
 "Bertha!" he protested, returning to her. A tremor 
 had crept into his voice, as if something new were opening 
 within. "Don't take it so hard, darling; it cuts me to the 
 quick. What do you want me to do, or to say? Anything 
 I can, I will gladly you know that." 
 
 "Nothing," she answered slowly. "There is nothing to 
 do or to say. All is gone." 
 
 He straightened himself from bending over her, irri- 
 tated by this reiterance. 
 
 "Why do you keep saying that? Nothing's gone, I tell 
 you. What do you mean ?" 
 
 "I mean you meant our life is at an end." 
 
 "/ meant it? Never! Not a word of truth in that 
 notion." 
 
 "Your act meant it." 
 
 "Pshaw! You exaggerate absurdly." 
 
 "Would you feel it exaggeration had I been false to our 
 love as you have been?" 
 
 "Oh, that's different. Women are not made like men." 
 
 "You say that to me?" 
 
 "Well, it's what the world says; I'm not singular in it." 
 
 "Has what the world says entered into our relation, 
 ever?" 
 
 "Not so much as it ought, I'll grant you," he conceded 
 with a laugh. "But we made good on that afterwards." 
 
 She got to her feet now, rose to her full height, looming 
 eminent before him. 
 
 "Ethan, you prove to me, cruelly prove with every word, 
 how little we have ever been at one. My love had in it the
 
 233 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 spirit of eternity; it was absolute in thought and wish and 
 intention; it is plain you gave me a mere passing fancy: 
 love is mocked by such exchange. Your life with me has 
 been a specious appearance, a pleasant plaything; to me 
 it has been heart's blood. Every instant we drift further 
 apart, the resistless current is separating us inexorably. 
 You don't see it; you say the difference between us is of 
 no consequence ; you think all is the same as before. Verily 
 I tell you, nothing is the same. Past, present and future 
 have been killed in the last hour. My life is left unto me 
 
 desolate " She grasped her throat with both hands as 
 
 if choking. 
 
 He turned to the window, that curious sense of doom 
 again moving like a cold touch among the roots of his 
 hair. Why? Why, indeed! he hadn't the slightest fear 
 of her, nor of any one ; he turned resolutely. 
 
 "I'm very, very sorry," he said, real, if momentary, com- 
 punction in his tone. "I wish it could be undone; but you 
 will see that life still goes on as before." 
 
 "Not for me." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I leave." 
 
 "Leave ! Leave me? What are you talking about?" He 
 wheeled to stride across the room and seize her arm. 
 "Leave me? Not by any manner of means! Such action 
 now would completely upset my whole scheme for appoint- 
 ment as minister to Vienna. Your sudden morality mustn't 
 interfere with that." 
 
 She caught her breath hard twice during this speech, as 
 one does who is struck in the vitals. When he ceased, they 
 stood in silence ; he holding her arm; she, terribly blanched, 
 with eyes sinking into him, through him the empty form 
 of the god she had loved.
 
 233 
 
 After a moment, soon unendurable, he dropped her arm, 
 and walked about, talking incoherently of the significance 
 of the moment to him in a political way, of his importance 
 to the party, of the country's need of the party's full 
 strength. He brought out every argument his cudgeled 
 brains could marshal, for he felt the shortness of these ap- 
 peals to her one after another fell a thousand miles short 
 of the aim. Yet he blundered on, for he had lost all sense 
 of what would touch her; in this guise she was completely 
 a stranger to him. 
 
 "Oh, cease," she said presently in a tone of such weary 
 nausea that chagrin clipped the word short on his lips. 
 "What is the use of talking?" she went on with a dull in- 
 flection that so.on mounted to disdain. "We are hopelessly 
 unlike. While I have been living straight out from the 
 heart, serving your aims with every talent I had, you have 
 been calculating, arranging your cards, playing a game; 
 and in it you have used as counters* your party, your con- 1 
 stituenfc oh, I see all clearly novj and, among, the rest, 
 the trivial trifle of me. I, the whole of me, pulsing with 
 love, you cast into the scale as another pound or two 
 that might bring your way the coveted prize of an 
 appointment to Vienna." The cold steel of her scorn 
 gashed: his self-esteem. "The faith in which I gave' myself 
 to you has been the butt of your mental jibes ; you married 
 me only because, as a politician., you couldn't afford to be 
 caught in a liaison. You speak of my 'sudden morality' 
 it is the very fiber of my being, and has been from my 
 earliest thought, that love is Jthe true morality. I acted 
 on that " 
 
 "When you ran away with Oolton?" he sneered. 
 Stripped by her tongue of the fine uniform in which he
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 had paraded, all the coarseness of the man showed its ugly 
 face. 
 
 "No, not when I ran away with Colton, nor when I re- 
 turned to him. I outraged holy instincts then, as long ago 
 I told you. It's but the obverse of what I say that my love 
 for you was the highest morality to me. To you, I find 
 now, it was corrupt. Oh, can't you see that mere observ- 
 ance of law isn't morality? Morality creates law. You 
 talk of making good by that hurried act in the office of a 
 justice of the peace : is that as far as your soul can stretch ? 
 Mine made good by a profound and absorbing love per- 
 vading every atom of my being from the moment that I 
 first loved you until this hour this hour, when I find you 
 are but the sham facing of a house of life that crumbles 
 into dust." She turned from him, those bitter ashes dry- 
 ing speech. 
 
 The lash drew blood at every cut, but he could not leave 
 her; he writhed, but he stayed: Vienna. Eyes and ears 
 watched restless, like a half-cowed animal, for an opening. 
 
 After a while she swung around at a distance and broke 
 a long silence during which she had been aware of his 
 coerced, obstinate presence. 
 
 "I am envisaging you by this new, dry light," she said 
 with freezing calm. "If you have used me simply as a 
 means to your end the very essence of selfishness so you 
 have used the larger implements Congress, your country, 
 humanity. I see now where your money comes from : it 
 is in exchange not only for your honor that, from the 
 signs, went easily long ago but for the nation's. You are 
 paid like any other hireling for these bills you put through 
 or withdraw. Talk of law !" The very essence of bitter 
 mockery welled up in an instant's laugh. It snapped the 
 cords of Carruthers's self-restraint even for Vienna.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 235 
 
 "Drop that rot!" he thundered. "You know nothing of 
 my actions in Congress, and you needn't waste your time 
 trying to pin epithets on them. I don't care a curse 
 for your opinions on any subject whatever you, who 
 vituperate and vilify your husband in every relation of 
 life, simply because you are jealous of a serving-wench !" 
 
 She drew herself up to majestic state, opposite his angry, 
 coarsened visage, until her presence filled space, crowding 
 his to flat annihilation. Not a word did she say, not a 
 gesture did she make, but her somber eyes commanded; 
 and, after a whole minute's vibrating hesitation, he took 
 himself clumsily away.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ON Capitol Hill, an unfashionable but high and airy 
 quarter, stood Mrs. Maitland's house, ample and plain; 
 furnished, indeed, with Quaker simplicity. Her stock was 
 Quaker, and explained to a degree the liberality of thought 
 and sweet adherence to principle that characterized her. 
 
 This afternoon was the day she received, together with 
 her daughter Evelyn and a friend who was visiting her 
 Lucy Wentworth. One after another, or in groups, men 
 and women came into the pleasant atmosphere of open 
 wood-fires and genuine friendliness for relief from the 
 chilly froth of superficial life. 
 
 A question on which people were agog at this time was 
 in regard to an attractive young woman, whom society had 
 accepted with enthusiasm, and who was later discovered to 
 be illegitimate, a shock that gave it a wrench. 
 
 "Do with her?" echoed Mrs. Maitland, her face clear. 
 "It seems to me there is no question about that; she is the 
 one we receive, not her progenitors. But here is Dr. New- 
 come, he will tell us what to think." 
 
 The prominent divine turned with a smile on hearing 
 his name, quite ready to lead a docile flock to pasture. 
 
 "Mrs. Maitland needs direction, there is no doubt of 
 that," he laughed. "What is the problem?" 
 
 It was laid before him and his face sobered at once. 
 
 "Society has grave responsibility in such a case," he an- 
 nounced, drawing himself together in sacerdotal fashion. 
 
 236
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 237 
 
 "It must preserve its life inviolate; it cannot afford to 
 throw down the bulwarks that defend humanity from its 
 own lawless turbulence." 
 
 "Then you mean that this innocent girl should be ex- 
 cluded from among us?" 
 
 "Otherwise society lets down the bars to herds of evil." 
 "It was not so the Church acted in early days," suggested 
 Mrs. Maitland mildly. "See Saint Augustine, and the 
 reverence paid to him." 
 
 "He was not born out of wedlock." 
 "But he lived an evil life for many years." 
 "We can repent of our own actions, we can't of an- 
 other's," said the reverend doctor. 
 
 "That would mean, wouldn't it, that the actions of others 
 toward us affect us more vitally than our own?" 
 
 "Oh, no; of course our deeds are what most vitally 
 affect us, but no man can isolate himself from his race. 
 You should remember, my dear Mrs. Maitland, what a 
 tremendous drag there is on all human nature to pull it 
 back to the animal. The institutions of society are set 
 against this undertow for the very purpose of keeping us 
 from drowning. Let me tell you of a case I had. A 
 mother and daughter came to me one night at dusk. The 
 mother told me her daughter had a child under promise 
 of marriage; she knew this because the two became en- 
 gaged with her approval. The grandmother was going to 
 adopt the baby, no one knowing of its origin, and she asked 
 me if I would baptize it. 'Surely,' said I; 'it is as much 
 God's child as I am, but this world has no place for it. 
 It is an outcast, spurned from birth. The best thing that 
 could happen would be that it should die, and the best 
 thing you can do for it is to pray that it may die. If the
 
 238 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 boy grows up he will have no choice but to become a tramp 
 and a sot ' " 
 
 There was a general exclamation of horror, voiced by 
 Evelyn in the cry, "And this is a Christian country !" She 
 had been listening with large-eyed earnestness, and could 
 restrain herself no longer. "What of the saying, Suffer 
 little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom 
 of heaven ?" she asked with poignancy. 
 
 "It is what I said, Miss Maitland," answered the divine 
 wfth subdued triumph. "The child might be fit for heaven, 
 but was not for earth." 
 
 "Isn't it our business to make earth heavenly?" sug- 
 gested Lucy Wentworth, a quiet, independent woman about 
 thirty. 
 
 "It seems to me," interposed Dr. Odell, who sat in the 
 background, leaning both hands on his stick, "that in such 
 rigid opinions there is danger of sacrificing humanity to 
 the family, instead of using the family for the aid of man- 
 kind. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the 
 Sabbath, you know ; and to my mind there is no surer way 
 of destroying an institution than by inflexible insistence on 
 it, which surely leads to revolt." 
 
 Dr. Newcome turned away as if argument on such a 
 subject were beneath him. 
 
 "It was fortunate the child you mentioned was a boy," 
 commented a quiet literary man. 
 
 "Does that make any difference?" asked Mrs. Maitland. 
 
 "Yes, indeed; it makes a great deal of difference. Women 
 are proud of their descent, men of their ascent." 
 
 "Oh, to establish women as human beings!" cried the 
 impulsive Evelyn, moving off with ill-repressed dissension 
 in her manner ; but Dr. Newcome would not let her escape 
 until he had said impressively:
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 239 
 
 "You must admit that between men and women there is 
 a gulf fixed which is forever impassable. Neither can be 
 judged by the standard of the other; they are essentially 
 different, and will be to all eternity." 
 
 "I'll never admit that," she threw back over her shoul- 
 der, continuing on her way. 
 
 A newcomer entered with a thrill in his presence as of 
 one electrically charged by some event, and when greetings 
 had been hastily dispatched he said : 
 
 "Mrs. Maitland, I came here as soon as I heard, because 
 I thought you should know what has happened." 
 
 "Yes?" said she, meeting his eyes with unruffled de- 
 meanor, but gathering herself together as one used to 
 shocks. "You heard " 
 
 "I've just heard it happened at noon that Ethan 
 Carruthers has been shot through the heart, and died in- 
 stantly." 
 
 Exclamations broke forth, and questions poured in. 
 "By whom?" "What for?" "Where?" "Was any one 
 else present?" 
 
 "The man who shot him is from Tennessee. He says 
 that he is the brother of a servant-girl in Mr. Carruthers's 
 house. He went into the private office alone where Mr. 
 Carruthers was at his desk; the clerks outside heard loud 
 voices, and then the pistol shots; they rushed to the door 
 and took the man prisoner. He surrendered without a 
 struggle, saying honor was now vindicated, and he would 
 take what came." 
 
 "Did you hear anything of Mrs. Carruthers?" 
 
 "She is out of town, no one seems to know exactly where. 
 At the house it is given out that she went East for a fort- 
 night, and of course she has been telegraphed." 
 
 "Please excuse me, friends," said Mrs. Maitland, prompt
 
 240 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 in action. "I should like to see if I can help." And the 
 company melted away. 
 
 General Grey, in town at the time, on going to the elabo- 
 rate house where he had been so lavishly entertained, 
 which now had an air of dreadful quiet, found Mrs. Mait- 
 land in calm command. 
 
 "It is good to come upon you here," he said in a low, 
 heartfelt tone. "What a terrible situation! Do you know 
 anything of Bertha ?" 
 
 "Only what I have learned from the servants. She left 
 last Tuesday, evidently in distress. Bessie is nearly beside 
 herself with sorrow and panic, but I gathered that she let 
 Bertha know " 
 
 "Ah!" Grey gave a long, pain-burdened sigh. That 
 stricken heart ! 
 
 They sat a few moments in silence; then he said: 
 
 "She must be found; it won't do for her to be alone at 
 this crisis. I'll get what hints I can from the butler, 
 and take the night train East. There must be some way of 
 tracing her." 
 
 When he got back to the hotel, however, his path was 
 made plain by a telegram from Agnes, dated before Car- 
 ruth ers's death. "Bertha at Saint Nicholas, New York, in 
 dire need. Telegraphed for me, but I cannot go; mother 
 dangerously ill." 
 
 Early the next morning he sent up his card to Bertha in 
 the New York hotel. It found her staring at the blank 
 ceiling, awake but without motive sufficient to rise, the 
 lethargy of hopeless sorrow weighting every limb. Now, 
 however, she dressed hurriedly and went down. Utterly 
 bereft during this awful week, she longed beyond expression 
 for a friend ; when Agnes's reply came, she felt that she had
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 none ; but here was her childhood's friend, her dearly loved 
 guardian. 
 
 She was so changed that, but for her noble figure, now 
 drooping together as one who carries a nearly intolerable 
 burden, he would scarcely have known her. All color had 
 fled from face and eyes, leaving her bright hair to frame in 
 startling contrast the drawn and ashen features. 
 
 He met her with a great heave of compassion, putting 
 her hand on his arm and holding it there as he led her into 
 a private parlor. He knew that no telegram had arrived, 
 and he surmised that she had not seen the previous eve- 
 ning paper. In fact, she had not looked at a newspaper 
 since the blow fell which shattered her life. 
 
 He talked of Agnes's telegram and other details, watching 
 to see if her mind were responsive. Her aspect, borne out 
 by the dull eyes that lay on his as if unable to sustain 
 themselves, made him doubt the condition of her mind. It 
 served, however, and presently he brought himself to the 
 tug by saying: 
 
 "There is something serious in the paper to-day about 
 one you hold dear." 
 
 "You don't mean Ethan, then," she commented. A 
 flicker of disdain lighted for an instant the sluggish eyes. 
 "He is no longer dear to me; he has killed my love, killed 
 himself in my mind," and she relapsed into gloom. 
 
 He took the paper from his pocket and folded it slowly 
 so that certain headlines would catch the eye, glancing at 
 her meanwhile. It seemed cruel, but she needed rousing. 
 "Read here," he said in a firm tone, and he held it before 
 her. 
 
 She looked at it heavily, gave a sound, put both hands 
 to her head, shutting her eyes in bewilderment a moment, 
 then opened them with a frown of concentration, and read.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 The news moved, shocked her, of course; but Grey was 
 amazed to find how true it was that the bitterness of death 
 lay for her in the act that had killed her love, not in the 
 assassination. 
 
 "Dead! By Bessie's brother's hand," she repeated more 
 than once, as if trying to realize what she had learned. 
 And again: "To think that Ethan my Ethan! should 
 die, and I feel no more grief, feel even a relief that his body 
 can mislead him no more. Oh, he might have been a man 
 to justify my love!" 
 
 She got to her feet and moved across the room with 
 heavy, dragging footsteps ; weary almost beyond endurance, 
 yet incapable of rest. Grey watched her, deepest pity in 
 his mien. The anatomy and physiology of life were being 
 taught her by torturing vivisection. 
 
 After a while she sat down opposite him, saying in a 
 hopeless tone : 
 
 "My faith in humanity is lost; all confidence in myself 
 is lost. If he, whom I loved with such utter confidence, 
 was false, where is truth and honesty ? The altar on which 
 I offered up my heart my whole being proves but a 
 charnel-house." 
 
 She flung out her hands with sudden wildness as a 
 drowning man tosses his arms. Grey took her cold fingers 
 and held them fast in silence; it was not time yet for 
 words. 
 
 Presently she began again, fumbling for some explana- 
 tion. She could not merely endure and die like the ani- 
 mals; intelligence was goaded to wrestle with her trials 
 through the long dark of despair. 
 
 "My life is always given in vain; I am thrown headlong 
 from one precipice to another. Why why? Is it foolish 
 credulity a terrible lack of sound judgment? Is it be-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 cause I take a Juggernaut for the true god until I find 
 my bones crushed, my veins bled to death? But how to 
 tell false gods from true? Is there any God, any truth in 
 the universe?" She turned desolate eyes upon him which 
 her guardian met with strength. 
 
 "Yes," he said, in the full resonance of deep conviction. 
 "God is; and truth is found in what is godlike in honor, 
 nobility, clear thought, never giving oneself the lie. If we 
 throw ourselves against the laws of the universe we con- 
 front God as Ethan Carruthers has found," he added 
 solemnly. Bertha's wide eyes did not wince. "Moreover, 
 we bear the penalty of misdeeds, whether they come from 
 mistakes or from misfortunes. A man falls into the ditch 
 just as surely whether he is blind or merely blindfolds him- 
 self. The deed must be returned to the doer because that 
 is the law of freedom; one so supreme and actual that it 
 cuts through every disguise, and presents us, to our amaze- 
 ment and even to our desperation, with the results we have 
 at some time carelessly prepared." 
 
 "Did I prepare Ethan's " she began slowly, and 
 
 stopped. 
 
 " Only you can answer that question," was the grave re- 
 ply, "and perhaps, now, not even you." 
 
 "Is it my fault that he is dead dead in evil-doing as 
 well as dead by an assassin's hand ?" 
 
 She spoke speculatively, without feeling; groping in the 
 darkness for something to clutch, even were it a sword. 
 "Perhaps if I hadn't left him yet I had to leave him; 
 there was nothing else to do." The inexorable was in her 
 tone. "Perhaps," she went on, turning to another pos- 
 sibility, "if I had been better if I had been a truer 
 woman " 
 
 "Who does not feel that?" he said with great tenderness.
 
 244 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "It is the cry that ever recurs when the heart is in sorrow. 
 Perhaps it is always true: what one soul can do for an- 
 other, exploration alone can tell." 
 
 "It might have been," she said slowly, as if her words 
 drained off the lees of unutterable bitterness. "It might 
 have been." Then her voice fell, as a dead body falls, in 
 the words, "Leave hope behind who enters here." 
 
 "No, no!" exclaimed Grey resolutely. "Remember that 
 Dante put not only those sad words over the gates of hell, 
 but that primal love made them. That is by far the greater 
 truth. Nothing is more certain than that hell is a proof 
 of God's love and respect for us. Love wishes us to be per- 
 fect, and will not shut us away from anything that may 
 make for perfection, not even to protect us from the ut- 
 most suffering. It we can't see what we are doing except 
 by the lurid light of hell, we learn by that. The way in 
 is open, but the way out is open too. We cannot go so deep 
 that God is not there before us, 'Thought I make my 
 bed in hell, behold, thou art there/ and where God is, 
 there is liberty." 
 
 So spoke the soldier, as brave and competent in fighting 
 the soul's battles as his country's, and as invincibly sure of 
 the right. It was like a strong arm thrown around one 
 amid pitiless waves to this life-worn woman ; but she could 
 not do more than hang on that arm, a helpless burden, for 
 all strength had gone out of her in the loss of faith in 
 herself. 
 
 It was the first time in Her life that this essential sup- 
 port had given way. One of her favorite sayings had been 
 that she defied the universe to take from her what she 
 wanted to hold. She had wanted to hold Carruthers, hold 
 him to his best and make it better, but he had slipped from 
 between her hands, as it were, and betrayed her faith in the
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 245 
 
 vulgarest fashion. It was a bewildering, a soul-shattering 
 state of things. It meant the impotence of will where 
 exerted to the utmost; it meant surrender of the very 
 ground of her being, hence the collapse of her whole life- 
 structure. Without faith in herself she could have no faith 
 in anything. What was so near and clear to her as her own 
 soul, or what so reliable as her own powers? If these 
 failed her, how expect anything to stand ? These had failed 
 her ; so everything else her conception of God, of human- 
 ity, of love, of friendship, of trust fell in heaps on one 
 another, adding confusion to ruin, and desolation to all. 
 
 Grey found that she reacted to no stimulus he could ap- 
 ply, whether of outward practical affairs, or of inner truth. 
 She needed, in fact, something different from stimulation, 
 and he took her, lax as she was, to those who had cherished 
 her in childhood. Pa and Ma believed in her, and she 
 needed the cradle for self-esteem at this crisis. The curve 
 of her character swept so much larger a circumference than 
 theirs that she often passed out of their sight for awhile; 
 but when she chose to go back they were ever there, loving 
 and faithful full of faith in her. Grey left her in their 
 hands feeling that here or nowhere was refuge. 
 
 Tended by them she lay prone for a time beneath the 
 burden she was unable to carry, while they ministered to 
 her, pouring the balm of simple love into her cruel hurts. 
 Even Ma asked no questions, expected no explanations ; the 
 two old people took her with the simplicity of nature that 
 does naught but offer the breast to her child. 
 
 Nevertheless, as her wounds closed in this hospital of the 
 heart, and apathy ceased to imprison her, she found that 
 the pitched battle was still going forward, while all hung 
 on the issue. Under the very ribs of death a new life must
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 grow, or the vacant skeleton could crumble to dust un- 
 mourned. 
 
 In her gathering restlessness the thought of Agnes came 
 to her, recurring again and again, until she left the dear 
 old folks and went to the friend with a mind. Mrs. Sher- 
 wood being convalescent, Agnes had liberty to devote herself 
 to this precious companion from whom she had been sepa- 
 rated such a weary while. 
 
 Bertha's appearance was a terrible shock to her. The 
 physical effects of calamity had somewhat passed away, but 
 the face Agnes had last seen abloom with joy, and which 
 had ever an amazing vivacity, now showed lifeless, except 
 when the brain focused on its task its well-nigh hopeless 
 task and then the effort was painfully evident. The emo- 
 tional fulness with which her life had teemed lay blighted 
 by the black frost that destroys. Only the importunate 
 mind, refusing negations, urged her to search to search. 
 
 She and Agnes talked the whole matter over, from bot- 
 tom to top, and to the full width of their natures. There 
 was not a whisper of the I-told-you-so spirit in Agnes, nor 
 did it occur to Bertha to suspect it; in fact, nothing oc- 
 curred to her but the imperative demand to see why she 
 had to suffer so. It ought not to be in vain that her ar- 
 teries were drained, and her nerves stung to agony. She 
 should carry up her anguish into the mind, learning what 
 had caused it, and how to avoid it. 
 
 "The one thing that seems clearest to me," contributed 
 Agnes, her thin height and ascetic look emphasized by the 
 dark garb she wore, "is that when man collides with a 
 universal law he is ground to powder to the dust of insig- 
 nificance. Our business is not to let emotion carry us into 
 the error of thinking we are exceptions to immutable law, 
 but to recognize it as the only thing of real value, submit-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 247 
 
 ting to it as to a serene and absolute sovereign throned 
 high above the heads and sufferings of men." 
 
 Her delicate face shone with the fervor of her spirit, 
 and Bertha looked at her as to one not of this world, in 
 the promptitude with which she put aside whatever came 
 between herself and what she saw as the best. From lone- 
 liness of spirit, strength and insight had come to Agnes. 
 Harried as she had been all her life by the accusing fiend 
 which insisted upon her guilt in even the least heedless 
 transaction that turned out wrong, she had found it in- 
 finitely refreshing to see Bertha shake herself clear of all 
 complicity with evil, even when Agnes was obliged to ad- 
 mit that in the same circumstances she herself would not 
 have been blameless. But now she had a horizon that 
 dwarfed their personalities; they dwindled into nothing- 
 ness before the face of truth. She saw this awe-compelling 
 vision so clearly that she felt it ought to enlighten Bertha 
 that it would enlighten her if she let go of what stood 
 between her and the light. 
 
 Bertha recognized the distance between them ; divergence 
 of ideals became more manifest the deeper they went. The 
 obliteration of the individual in Agnes's doctrine was to 
 Bertha essentially false; and so far as her own conduct 
 was concerned, she would not give up the idea that since 
 her intention had been honest, her actions had been moral. 
 Of course it was wrong to be so mistaken in another's char- 
 acter as she had been in Carruthers's, but this error of judg- 
 ment she felt incommensurate with the havoc wrought. 
 There was no justice in the plan of things, no soundness 
 without or within, no solution whatever. 
 
 Goaded by such lancelike thoughts she left Agnes 
 abruptly and betook herself to the seashore, whence a letter 
 had come from Mrs. Maitland in regard to some of the
 
 248 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 business she had transacted for Bertha in Washington. 
 The latter was totally indifferent to the contents of the 
 letter until she came to the signature, "Mercy Maitland." 
 The name signed sounded as a summons, and Bertha set 
 off at once, without hint of her approach.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IT was toward the close of autumn when she reached the 
 station by the sea. Mellow air spread abroad an atmos- 
 phere of peace; the ocean lay tranquil under the golden 
 sunlight, its deep blue reflecting the clear sky. 
 
 As Bertha dragged herself along the road, a sense of 
 calm began to filter into the distraction of her thoughts. 
 She drew long breaths that were not wholly sighs, for there 
 was a tonic quality in this air that expanded the breast. 
 Presently, coming from a headland across the delicate grey 
 fields of winged seed, she saw the slow figure, the sweet 
 face, of Mercy Maitland. 
 
 Bertha stood still and cried out the words: 
 
 "Mercy Maitland!" 
 
 Salvation seemed in the name, and her poignant cry rang 
 along the rocks, amid the trees, startling echoes. 
 
 Mrs. Maitland did not start ; she glanced up, and, seeing 
 who it was, quickened her steps, her expression deepening 
 and brightening as when sunlight reaches a cove. There 
 was something singularly reassuring in such quiet readi- 
 ness. She grasped the hands Bertha stretched out as if 
 pleading for succor, and looked into the haggard face, all 
 of her present in welcoming strength. 
 
 "Yes," she said in a tone of thorough affirmation, her 
 voice a blessing. "Yes." It was as if she knew how nega- 
 tions had been torturing this soul. "Yes." Then, taking 
 Bertha's arm and turning into a path through the pines, 
 she added, "This is the way." 
 
 249
 
 250 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 They walked on silent, Bertha with head bent and shoul- 
 ders drooping under the relentless burden, but with the 
 calm spreading in her bosom ; Mrs. Maitland upright, mild, 
 diffusing tranquillity. After a little they came to the brood- 
 ing cottage, a picture of frugal comfort, and Bertha's 
 things were taken away, and she was made at home. Peace 
 seeped in as she sat in the Shaker chair watching Mrs. 
 Maitland prepare the simple meal. 
 
 "I am quite by myself," said the hostess, now talking 
 easily as her sure fingers worked. "The girls have gone 
 away for some visits, and I like to be here in quiet. The 
 autumns are wonderful by the sea. Such days as this one 
 has a sense of power at rest that satisfies. Even storms 
 are in their element where there is ample space for all that 
 winds and waves can do." 
 
 I She talked on, recognizing that it made little difference 
 what she said. Bertha sat gazing at her thirstily, as a child 
 watches its mother after separation, drinking in loved 
 cadences regardless of words. Through the wide, weary 
 eyes her soul hung on this woman's soul with her whole 
 weight, feeling full strength there to support her extremest 
 heaviness. 
 
 Later Bertha got to speech, sure of comprehension. Be- 
 fore this mother-soul she unrolled her experience, fore- 
 shortening of course, but speaking with a rare sincerity, 
 since she felt absolute confidence, and was single-eyed to 
 the issue. Nor did modesty forbid, for where true sym- 
 pathy prevails, thoughts and emotions can be bared as the 
 body before one who sees simply. So she told of her par- 
 entage, her abandonment, the old folks, her guardian, the 
 fatal sleigh ride 
 
 Here she paused awhile, then lifted her eyes to the face 
 of clemency before her; there was a shrinking in them, a
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 251 
 
 look as if held to memories she would fain evade. "I see 
 my life now as I never saw it before," she said slowly. "I 
 see its many faults and stains, and they make me ashamed, 
 they make me loathe myself. Oh, why wasn't my life 
 hedged round with the evergreens of love and watchfulness 
 that other girls have!" she exclaimed, clutching Mercy 
 Maitland's hand in an access of emotion. "There were 
 women at the seminary good women, I dare say, who knew 
 the danger I had to meet why did they never lift a finger 
 to help me? But it's no use to think of what might have 
 been. I am what I am, what life has made me; outraged 
 as I have been outrageous, perhaps, as I have been you 
 shall judge." 
 
 She went on with her story, telling how any interesting 
 future seemed cut off absolutely if she stayed at the semi- 
 nary, every chance thrown away to become other than she 
 was, and what she was didn't suit her in the least. "Then 
 this man who called himself my husband, and whom I be- 
 lieved to be such this man whom I could sway offered 
 me at least a change. I took the chances, I went away with 
 him, I became his wife." 
 
 She traced the sequel : his desertion of her, her relief in 
 being free from him, the discovery that she was with child, 
 his letter, Mrs. Endicott's advice, her return to him for her 
 child's sake, the baby's death. 
 
 "Agnes Sherwood tried to help me in that great sorrow 
 as she has in this," she said, with tender recognition in her 
 tone. "After I left Pa and Ma I never knew what it was 
 to be accepted wholly all of a piece, for myself until I 
 met Agnes. Dear lamb of God, how good she has been to 
 me! She is a friend such as few ever have; exquisitely 
 devoted, unselfish, and with a mind. But I can't see with 
 her eyes. She hunts avidly for truth, as I do, perhaps, no
 
 253 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 less; but when she finds it, she bows down and worships it 
 with no thought of self. I can't do that. My self has got 
 to have some place in the process, or I can't make it work. 
 That may be egregious egotism, but it's me. If that has to 
 go, I go too; it cuts under my identity." 
 
 "It doesn't have to go," said Mercy Maitland's clear 
 voice. "On the contrary, it must stay stay in its place." 
 
 "Are you going to put it in place for me ?" asked Bertha, 
 a smile hinting itself for the first time on her devastated 
 face. 
 
 "Yes," said Mercy Maitlaud quietly, "we will together. 
 But go on now; let us have the whole." 
 
 So Bertha told of meeting Grey after her child's death, 
 of how she measured herself by his standard, and was found 
 wanting; of discovering her mother and sisters, and setting 
 them straight with society. 
 
 Mrs. Maitland's face glowed with enthusiastic apprecia- 
 tion as she heard of this. 
 
 "What a woman you are!" she exclaimed. "There is 
 veritable splendor in what you do." She hesitated a mo- 
 ment, and then continued: "I wonder if you ever heard 
 the story of a man who died and went to Paradise, where 
 he met a beautiful maiden. 'Who art thou?' he asked, 
 'thou who art fairer than any ever seen by me?' and the 
 maiden replied, 'I am thy actions.' " 
 
 A gleam lighted Bertha's countenance, but it sunk rapid- 
 ly again into gloom. "No, no," she said, shaking her head ; 
 "you don't know. Let me go on." 
 
 Her leaving of Col ton and the divorce were briefly sum- 
 marized; and then she came to what put a throb in her 
 voice the meeting with Carruthers and her love for him. 
 She did not minimize it in the least; it was vitally sig- 
 nificant to her. However superficial it might have been to
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 253 
 
 him, to her it was the profoundest reality she had ever ex- 
 perienced. 
 
 "We met like clouds in the sky, each driven by a mighty 
 wind, each charged with electric fires, each in the plenitude 
 of life, eager for what the other had to give. We were alike 
 there, I know it. I cannot have been mistaken that he did 
 love me with all the might of his being for a while. Ah, 
 there's the cruelty of it," she added, while her face worked 
 piteously. "His love was lightly pledged for a term the 
 end of which he foresaw from the beginning; I loved him 
 with no boundaries, either of time or space. When I have 
 seen him sleeping, beautiful as a god, with all the carks and 
 cares of life at rest, I have knelt beside him, worshiping, 
 secure that here was the altar on which I could offer up 
 thanksgiving for love bestowed, and ask in confidence that 
 I might ever be beloved." 
 
 Tears of deep feeling stood in her eyes as she reverted 
 thus almost in a whisper to her most sacred emotion. 
 Mercy Maitland saw that beauty revealed its divine quality 
 to her, disclosing itself as a consummate end to be attained, 
 as well as an embodiment to be possessed. She was a 
 creature made not only for sensuous enjoyment, but for the 
 vital interests of heart and mind; which are, in the end, 
 the only ones that do not pall, inasmuch as they have the 
 incomparable advantage over things of sense, that they last. 
 Thoroughly Greek in her worship of beauty, and passion 
 for freedom, all her deities took on human shape the 
 spiritual made tangible but she could not carve her statue 
 without the living form before her eyes. She had to have 
 models to create her gods; then she sublimated them into 
 Apollo and Aphrodite. The trouble was, the forms became 
 idols to her, and when they fell, her ideals also crashed 
 to earth in ruin.
 
 254 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Her face drooped again now into lines of dejection as 
 she said: 
 
 "I knew little of the man I loved so absolutely. I judged 
 him by myself, and no mistake could have been, greater. 
 I never dreamed of deceit in him any more than in myself. 
 When he got a divorce from his insane wife we should 
 marry; that was all." 
 
 She lifted her eyes to the attentive, comprehending face 
 of Mercy Maitland, who looked into their open depths and 
 found there naught but a sad candor. 
 
 "I see," said the mother-soul. Bertha was sitting at her 
 feet, one arm across her knees; she had never been in that 
 attitude with any one before; this gentle, firm maternity 
 was to her an entirely new experience. 
 
 "He did get the divorce," she resumed presently, "and 
 we were married ; but it was in secret, almost by stealth 
 on account of his political position, he said. I should have 
 understood then that there was not the reverence, the de- 
 votion in his love for me that was in mine for him, but I 
 did not. It is very hard for me to think ill of one I love. 
 I know it is a fault; one should discriminate. They say 
 that among the chief military qualities is the power to 
 know what is taking place behind the hill. I'm bad at 
 that; I expect people to be what they seem. To question 
 what lies behind the silence, or the speech, of those with 
 whom I come in contact; to set myself to guessing what 
 projects and motives lie behind action " 
 
 "Is to be saved from many terrible mistakes," put in 
 Mrs. Maitland with grave decision, as Bertha paused. 
 
 "Yes," she replied, "no doubt; you are right. It is cer- 
 tain that I was totally unaware of what Ethan Carruthers 
 was capable of doing. It took nothing less than an earth- 
 quake to make me realize my footing was not sure. The dis-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 255 
 
 covery came like a lightning-stroke that tore asunder the 
 very foundations of love. He shattered to dust the tables of 
 the law of love a law that needed no thunders from Sinai 
 to hold my obedience. But he had no conception of what 
 love meant to me. To him it was but a stirring of the 
 blood, begetting all sorts of imaginative fancies, pretty 
 enough in their way, and to be much enjoyed while they 
 last. Faugh ! What is treacherous to itself is rotten to 
 the core a mere illusion of the senses. It vanishes like 
 the mirage, leaving but a waterless desert as life's perspec- 
 tive. I am robbed even of joy in memory, for it was a 
 counterfeit from the start; the present is empty nothing- 
 ness I know I am alive only by the pain ; and what future 
 can there be unblackened by the knowledge of his falsity ?" 
 Her head sunk on Mercy Maitland's knees; a compassionate 
 hand was laid on the bright hair. 
 
 "Did death make no difference?" asked the older woman 
 after a silence, tenderly. 
 
 " No, none at all ; it altered nothing ; he was dead to me 
 before Bessie's brother killed him." Bertha lay still a few 
 minutes, thinking ; then raised her head to shake it mourn- 
 fully. "There was not a possibility of any relation left 
 when we parted. In that last interview I saw him by too 
 fierce a glare for the least hope to remain. Nothing went 
 deep with him; his magnetism, his personality even, was 
 a matter of the surface. Nobody was of more than tem- 
 porary value to him; he did as he chose, and let others 
 bear the consequences. He used everything and everybody 
 as means to his selfish ends, and such a self is necessarily 
 trivial. We were often said to be alike, but in all that goes 
 to make what lasts we were the opposite of each other, for 
 we estimated things at absolutely different values. In his 
 thought I was stained by my ready surrender to him, but
 
 256 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 I was not unchaste in that I repudiate the thought!" 
 She threw back her head with indignation and got to her 
 feet. "Believe me, I have never been a sensual woman 
 sensuous, yes, to the full redundance of the term but I 
 never made compromises with my ideal in my own soul. 
 Of course the ideal has always been out of my reach, but 
 what it was at any given moment of my life, that I aimed 
 at. And it is not true, that- chastity is an anatomical birth- 
 mark, neither is it a condition at the mercy of circum- 
 stances and organization; it is a state of the soul. What- 
 ever may have been done to me, I refuse to accept the idea 
 of unchastity as belonging to me. It does not. I hate the 
 evil men have tried to link with my fate; I won't charge 
 myself with it; I disown it; it is not mine." 
 
 "But what of the wrongs you have yourself committed? 
 What do you do with those ?" asked Mercy Maitland's firm 
 voice, not without trenchancy. 
 
 "I fling them away as soon as I see they are wrong!" 
 came the prompt belligerent reply as she wheeled to face 
 her questioner. It was good to feel the spring rebound. 
 "When I recognize the devil I cut his acquaintance, you 
 may be sure of that." 
 
 "That's right. There's no end to the vista where that 
 spirit may lead," said Mrs. Maitland heartily. 
 
 "I'm not saying," went on Bertha, walking slowly up 
 and down, "that I don't do wrong, and don't cling to it. 
 I do. It takes sharp thrusts to convince me that what I 
 want is not what I should have ; but once convinced, I do 
 let go, I push it away, I won't have anything more to do 
 with it. That is one of the chief causes of- my misery since 
 I left Ethan: the ignominy he threw lightly aside has 
 bowed my head in endless shame, though he, not I, did the 
 deed. I can't get rid of it. .Oh, we can bear anything of
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 257 
 
 our own, somehow no matter how hard but the sins and 
 sorrows of others that we can't remedy can't repent 
 of 
 
 She paused, her hands pressed together tight as she 
 looked out of the window with unseeing eyes. 
 
 "I'm afraid I shall have to admit that I never did love 
 Ethan not the man as he was. I formed an image in my 
 heart suggested by his features, by what I took to be his 
 personality, but utterly unlike him as it proved. That I 
 loved to idolatry; but now " 
 
 "No, my child, don't try to cut yourself asunder in that 
 way," said Mercy Maitland sanely. "It is well to leave 
 one's sins behind, but not oneself. A large part of yourself 
 went into your love for Mr. Carruthers; you shared a 
 mutual life, in joy and satisfaction; now you have a 
 sharper grief for his errors than as though they had been 
 your own. Don't try to cut loose from it. You must 
 realize the integrity of life it is an integer. ' You can't 
 divide yourself into separate lots, as it were, and drop this 
 and hold to that. Personality is one, like God." 
 
 "Then you think there is hope that Ethan may yet " 
 
 "Surely. Mr. Carruthers may not have been what you 
 thought him, but the possibility was there is there; for 
 we cannot destroy the eternal germ, whatever we do. Ulti- 
 mately some means will act upon that germ, bringing it to 
 bud and fruit. Hold to it in your thought of him. Ye 
 shall be perfect is a sublime and dreadful thought a 
 threat as well as a promise." 
 
 Bertha's wide eyes absorbed this truth as a dry sponge 
 water. There was silence for a space. 
 
 "Life is continuous, not fragmentary," resumed the 
 wiser woman. "It packs full without the hiatus of a 
 breath between. You, as you are, stand responsible for
 
 258 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 every part of your life. Don't dream that character isn't 
 the ancestor as well as the descendant of facts. What you 
 were, at any given moment, determined in large part not 
 only what you did hut what you had to endure." 
 
 She paused, weighing her words carefully before she 
 began again her slow speech. 
 
 "Let us look together a little at the life you have shown 
 me. On the whole, it is an inspiring spectacle, one that 
 proves your ideal is bound to win. The facts may have 
 often been wrong though oftener right but the use you 
 have made of them all, bad and good, has been thoroughly 
 to the point: to make yourself what you think you ought 
 to be." 
 
 "Then why am I where I am? Why am I what I am?" 
 cried Bertha, falling to her knees in front of Mercy Mait- 
 land, and gazing into her face with the anguish of one 
 whose perspective closes. The spring had snapped anew, 
 and life was down in the same old excruciating ruts. "My 
 life is lost; every hope is gone; my soul is a waste." 
 
 "Hush, dear; hope is not gone, your life is not lost. 
 But this is true: God is not mocked, and neither is man; 
 nor is he deceived in the end, though he tries hard to de- 
 ceive himself with the idea that grain and tares are all 
 one, and will bring forth equally the bread of life. They 
 will not; nothing is surer than that they will not. Yet 
 the tares may serve as a bitter brew which will void our 
 system of falsity and set us in the way of health." 
 
 "Where have I been false?" The imploring sincerity of 
 voice and eyes attested the imminence of soul, but Mercy 
 Maitland was equal even to this awesome presence. 
 
 "This is how it looks to me," she said with simple di- 
 rectness. "You stirred Mr. Carruthers's nature to depths 
 he had never before reached ; he loved you with all the love
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 859 
 
 his heart understood a mighty power, the good effects of 
 which can be but faintly estimated, had you and he so 
 willed. You both chose the lesser part; you chose instant 
 pleasure at the cost of duty, and the result is what you see." 
 
 "You mean death, wretchedness?" 
 
 Mercy nodded slowly. "With you," she went on, gen- 
 tleness in all her tones, "it is plain that aspiration guides, 
 however much you may be in bondage at times to things 
 of sense. The holiness you feel in the love you bore him is 
 very beautiful. In all great love, even though it be a law- 
 less passion, there is deep significance of good; in it man 
 touches the raiment of divine being. The trouble with 
 lawless love is that it cannot maintain this high relation- 
 ship. In some natures there must be many clutches before 
 a firm grasp is had; but this grasp is fidelity. You felt 
 free to enter into spontaneous relations with Mr. Car- 
 ruthers, even though he had a wife. You threw caution 
 and friendly admonition to the winds the passionate 
 winds that blow Paolo and Francesca forever through the 
 shadowed air." 
 
 Affright began in Bertha's eyes, but Mrs. Maitland con- 
 tinued steadily: "The deadly wrong inflicted by Mr. Car- 
 ruthers on your mutual love was but the logical sequence of 
 what you had both done before." 
 
 "Oh, no! no!" cried Bertha piercingly, starting to her 
 feet. "Everything was different!" 
 
 "Different in detail, but the same in principle," was 
 the firm reply, "and a self-perpetuating soul cannot live 
 without principles ; its life is larger than a hand-to-mouth 
 existence provides; it has to find something big enough to 
 hold its ideals, not cancel itself by contradictions. That 
 is why man has made the forms of social life far from 
 perfect, but tending toward perfection. For in them is the
 
 260 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 accumulated wisdom of ages, all tested by experience, all 
 bought by blood and tears. They point out the way the 
 way trodden and sanctified by those who have seen the 
 greater good and have risen to it." 
 
 Bertha turned slowly to the speaker, listening with ears 
 that heard. 
 
 "Through ages of increasing enlightenment man has 
 learned what is best," went on the earnest voice; "or at 
 least what is the only path to the best how freedom evolves 
 in accordance with eternal law and thus only. If yon 
 throw aside this precious inheritance, you throw yourself 
 into bondage, and you have to toil long, and in distress of 
 spirit, to win emancipation." 
 
 Bertha sunk to the floor, burying her face in the protect- 
 ing lap before her. Amid clouds and shock she began to 
 catch sight of the sacredness of contract, even if emptied 
 of its content. The lofty words spoken came to her like 
 wafts of far-distant music. Could she once reach those 
 chores of concord she felt that she would be saved; but 
 they were only momentary glimpses caught through the 
 storm-wrack which drove her before the gale. 
 
 "If laws must be obeyed for freedom to be attained, 
 what becomes of reforms, of progress?" she asked pres- 
 ently, turning her cheek to the knee against which she 
 leaned. 
 
 "Ah, that is part and parcel of the precious inheritance 
 handed down through the ages," replied Mercy Maitland 
 clearly. "Between the sanctions of society, bought at in- 
 finite cost because of infinite value, and the right of the 
 individual to step ahead at the risk of finding himself all 
 wrong or all right ostracized or idolized humanity 
 swings. Deprived of either, time would stop, and the whole 
 majestic evolution involved therein. That is why human-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 261 
 
 ity must learn the art of freedom. My father used to say, 
 'You must do as you choose; if you won't I'll make you.' 
 In less homely language, or rather, in all languages from 
 the absurd to the sublime, God says something of the sort 
 to man. 'You must choose; you shall be free; free to 
 enslave yourself if that be necessary to show you what free- 
 dom means. Try your way ; I would gladly save you from 
 misery, but I shall not interfere, for it is the essence of 
 your being, as of mine, that you are free. You may insist 
 on eating husks instead of bread, but in the end you will 
 discover that true freedom consists solely in choosing those 
 actions and desires and thoughts that do not limit you. 
 I shall have been with you through every throe, and I shall 
 be with you always, even unto the end of the world.' This 
 is divine and omnipotent love that shares its nature with 
 all because it has no limitations. It expands in a man's 
 soul, and negations go down before it; man expands, and 
 leaves his negations to bury themselves; the mighty Yes, 
 which is the marriage vow between humanity and divinity, 
 alone endures." 
 
 Bertha lay for awhile motionless, while the echoes of 
 solemn sweetness pulsed into silence, and only the low 
 thunder of ocean filled the ear. Then she rose, and, bend- 
 ing, kissed Mercy Maitland clingingly on each cheek, 
 looked in her deep eyes long and went out of doors. 
 
 Alone she paced the grey autumn sands, and watched the 
 break, break, break of the waves, piling themselves on high 
 only to fall in bitter brine. What was will, in which she 
 had always gloried? But as a bird caught in a net, a 
 winged thing fluttering to its death in the web of law. Far 
 from reforming the world, as her proud hopes had wished, 
 she saw in this hard grey light that she had done her best 
 to throw it back into chaos. This brought her to hate
 
 262 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 her sins and herself with a passion that was the reaction 
 of that which had begotten them, as deep as the new ideal 
 which searched the hidden recesses of her spirit. The 
 righteous judgment of the world which she now acknowl- 
 edged, as seen through the minds of those she most es- 
 teemed, brought her to the brink of the grave, to imminent 
 self-destruction. 
 
 For a day and a night she wandered alone in this ac- 
 cursed land of damnation. She came and went restlessly 
 to Mercy Maitland's brooding cottage; but she ate nothing, 
 she made no pretense of sleep, she said not a word. Once 
 she put her arms around the soft, firm figure of her host- 
 esvS, and let her tall head droop on the short shoulder, to 
 lie there a long time. Her friend held her fast, murmur- 
 ing words of tenderness ; but when she moved wearily, let 
 her go : the hour had not yet come. 
 
 Yet often while Bertha climbed along the rocks, or sat 
 dully on the sands, the anxious eyes of Mercy followed her 
 from afar, hovering over this crucial hour whose dangers 
 she guessed but would not interrupt; for she believed them 
 to be the throes of birth.
 
 PART III 
 
 "From this it may be seen how blessedness 
 Is founded in the faculty which sees, 
 
 And not in that which loves and follows next. 
 
 We from the greatest body 
 Have issued to the heaven which is pure light; 
 Light intellectual filled full of love, 
 Love of true good filled full of ecstasy, 
 Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness." 
 
 PARADISO. DANTE. 
 
 ''Now the Hours a/re canceled for ihee, 
 Pom and grief have fled away: 
 Thou art whole: let faith restore thee! 
 
 Trust the new, the rising Day! 
 
 When the crowd sways, unbelieving, 
 Show the daring will that warms! 
 He is crowned with all achieving 
 Who perceives and then performs" 
 
 FAUST II. GOETHE. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 VERY early in the morning, when the first blur of dawn 
 was touching the rocks and the living sea, Mercy Maitland 
 went in quest of her friend. Bertha had not returned to 
 
 263
 
 264) A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 the cottage all night; suspense had kept the mother-soul 
 on the watch with strained anxiety, and now drove her 
 forth to seek the one she loved. For a great love had grown 
 in her heart for this questioning, stricken child God's 
 child, with the likeness to her divine origin clear in every 
 feature. Absent or present, Mercy carried her in the arms 
 of the mind, giving her full liberty to cling close or to turn 
 away as she chose. In the hours of mortal combat the soul 
 must battle alone; yet Mercy would not fail by an instant 
 to be ready when the moment for succor should come. 
 
 There had been a storm through the night; not rain, 
 but a high wind, driving tumultuous clouds wildly across 
 the moon. The granite coast, shelving in giant steps to 
 the water's edge, was wet far up with high-flung foam that 
 glistened on the stern surface to the approach of dawn. 
 Beyond, the ocean was tremendous in its throbbing reach 
 of waves. The ceaseless motion, the turbulence of break- 
 ers tumbling into one another, plundered of their lofty 
 crests by the very force of an upward sweep which hurled 
 them to destruction; the crash and roar of conflicting 
 waters; the buffetings of wind, dying down now, but still 
 gusty; the far, faint light that diffused a dim conscious- 
 ness of what was to be seen without clarifying any part 
 all made Mercy Maitland feel the impotence of a tiny hu- 
 man being in this vast concavity of nature. 
 
 She walked swiftly along the huge ledges, letting her 
 eyes scout far, and search around every boulder, until at 
 last she came in sight of an inlet walled round by crags, 
 where a woman's crouching figure lay close to the edge. 
 Almost touching her feet seethed the waves, combing out 
 the long hair of seaweed as they ran back, tangling it 
 again in the scurry of the rush forward. Bertha was watch- 
 ing the monotonous to-and-fro with dull eyes, regardless
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 265 
 
 of the tide steadily encroaching upon her. The break of 
 waves broke her thoughts into bits as aimless as these 
 whirling drifts of scud 
 
 "Bertha, look up/' said a lovely human voice, while a 
 hand touched her shoulder. She lifted heavy eyes, and 
 there, to the east, over the dark tumult of weary waters, 
 she saw transfiguration. 
 
 The clouds near the horizon were piled in masses por- 
 tentous and toppling, but through them, where they 
 thinned, light penetrated. It showed itself as rusty red, as 
 deep rose, as orange, clearing to tints of green and golden 
 yellow. At right and left purple storm-wracks still hung 
 eullen, but in the center effulgence grew. A breathless 
 sense of impending revelation held the two women in its 
 spell one a little above, with protecting hand on the bent 
 shoulder of the other, whose chin rested on her cupped 
 hand, facing glory. 
 
 It was not until the sun rode free of all obscuring clouds, 
 dazzling in its splendor, that either spoke. Then Bertha 
 turned her face upward, resting her head against the firm 
 knees that backed her, and looked into the sun-illumined 
 face of her friend. 
 
 "How good you are !" she said. 
 
 The unused voice, exposed for many hours to storm and 
 drastic emotion, startled them both, and, to Mercy's eyes, 
 the face matched the voice. 
 
 "My precious child!" she exclaimed softly, both arms 
 hovering around the head and shoulders of this broken 
 woman whom she so loved. 
 
 They remained thus some time, Bertha's eyelids fallen, 
 while the warmth of the rising sun, and her friend's dear 
 presence, thawed the congealing passion round her heart. 
 Presently she moved a little, still clinging to the knees that
 
 266 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 supported her, and, with a shudder and a gesture backward 
 to the pool, said : 
 
 "I was almost there." 
 
 "No," said her friend slowly, while she pressed her close. 
 "You may have thought so, hut you are not of that kind; 
 your courage is sufficient to face your soul; and that re- 
 mains, whether you die or live. The soul can endure every- 
 thing, whether it be sin, sorrow, exhaustion or despair. It 
 can endure, and it can conquer; there are infinite reserves 
 of moral energy which it can use to recover its self-respect. 
 Come, dear, it is time to go home." 
 
 Bertha rose obediently, though with stiffened muscles 
 that hardly served. Mercy lent aid, and hand in hand they 
 went along the granite ridges in the fresh day. 
 
 The friendship thus founded "broad on the roots of 
 things fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs," held 
 inestimable power. The greatest thing in life is to set be- 
 fore people an ideal so attractive that they love it su- 
 premely. This can be done only by a person, for persons 
 alone win love. A mighty personality that does not domi- 
 nate but persuades to the best, and that is lovable to the 
 degree of its might, has infinite value becomes, indeed, the 
 enduring influence of ages. Mercy Maitland had some- 
 thing of this quality for Bertha : she made goodness tangi- 
 ble. She had wisdom, too, and through her, insignificant 
 as she was, Bertha caught a glimpse of -the consummate 
 flower of all processes Beauty. 
 
 "You are not transparent to the light," 'she -said one day, 
 when they were walking by the rippling azure that spread, 
 an unflawed jewel, from rim to rim; "if you were, your 
 personality would be unnoticed, and it is very apparent; 
 but you are translucent. I love to watch the play of opa- 
 line colors, the fire and sapphire of your character. You
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 267 
 
 roll out your wealth of mellowed experience like a lapful 
 of gems, each true to itself, catching the light of heaven 
 and reflecting it on earth. Oh, I love you very much. 
 Heaven be praised for what you are, beloved Mercy." 
 
 "And for what you are, dear. I was thinking last night 
 that most people are not shaken by their efforts because 
 they have no ambition beyond an easy ability, while you 
 have always aspired to the best with the full stretch of 
 every faculty. Times come when your soul is sick, but it 
 is still undaunted; exhausted, yet ready to go on. That 
 ceaseless aspiration is the core of your being and it is 
 white white heat and light, power. It has unguessed 
 potentialities too. You realize more than any one I ever 
 saw the divine prerogative of life, 'the glory of going on 
 and still to be.' I look to the future for marvels from you 
 that shall astonish even yourself." 
 
 Thus together they trod the sands, two atoms amid vast 
 immensities; yet with minds still more vast than nature's 
 widest spread the greater encompassing the less. They 
 talked, and parted, but to meet soon in converse again, for 
 the talks of women are long, long talks. They found their 
 ideals strangely fitted to each other, despite the differing 
 paths by which they had been approached; and it is the 
 goal, not the path, that signifies. 
 
 In this atmosphere Bertha recovered her balance and 
 made its foundation safe that marvelous balance which 
 even in her blind days had withstood the shock of circum- 
 stance, the whirl of fate, and, however dashed to earth or 
 caught to skies, never failed to resume its equipoise. Now 
 she was whole and she knew it. Led by Mercy she recog- 
 nized a coherent self, and found its dignity. The desire 
 to discover eternal laws in order to conform to them lifted 
 her into a realm of freedom where vision reigned. From
 
 268 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 the first Bertha had a divine instinct for freedom; it is 
 the incontestable witness of our heavenly origin, and, in 
 the end, leads to the unerring beauty of holiness. Where 
 she had formerly walked with self-confident spirit and had 
 fallen prostrate in consequence, now she had wings where- 
 with to fly. She rode the air "air, which drops an ant 
 that hath not wings, yet buoys an eagle to the sun." 
 Wings became hers by shifting her center from self to God, 
 the universal center. This brought her into command of 
 a new element, altering her relation to everything. Atone- 
 ment is made for all wrongdoing and false thinking simply 
 by taking this stand, at one with the divine. So she came 
 into her unbounded inheritance, sharing all that belongs to 
 God in common with the humblest man, who is sanctioned 
 to the farthest reach of his ability as the representative of 
 God, his plenipotentiary to the world. 
 
 Evelyn Maitland and Lucy Wentworth came back as the 
 chill days gained on mellow ones, the daughter ready to 
 insist that the cottage should be abandoned and return to 
 Washington made. The girls were profoundly impressed 
 by Mrs. Carruthers's presence and aspect. 
 
 "Did you ever see any one so changed!" exclaimed 
 Evelyn to her friend in retirement the first night. "The 
 look of her took my breath away; she must have suf- 
 fered terrifically." 
 
 . "And how your mother sustains her !" responded Lucy, 
 exquisite penetration hushing her voice. "It is holy 
 ground here, dear. Don't hurry them ; let the world come 
 in by degrees to this sanctuary." 
 
 "I never saw mother take to any one as she does to her," 
 remarked the daughter, half aggrieved. "She acts as if 
 she had known her always, and always loved her."
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 269 
 
 "Why shouldn't she? Don't you go getting jealous of 
 your own mother 1" laughed Lucy. 
 
 "I do get jealous, that's a fact, and one I'm heartily 
 ashamed of." She hid her face in her friend's neck. 
 
 "Think what a delicious balm your mother's affection 
 must be to such a wounded heart," returned Lucy, patting 
 Evelyn's shoulder gently. "But then she does everything 
 well that precious mother of yours. Let her manage." 
 
 But Bertha would not allow things to lag because of her. 
 "You have put new life in me, and you shall not be 
 ashamed of the use I make of your gift," she said to 
 Mercy, as the coming in of others made them turn to out- 
 ward life. "Just have patience until I get energy to do 
 some little thing that may prove I am worth your care." 
 
 "It needs no proving, dear. I have absolute confidence 
 in you, and I know you will succeed." 
 
 A letter from Colonel Grey at this moment told of a 
 position open to Mrs. Carruthers as subeditor on the news- 
 paper in New York that had formerly published her youth- 
 ful effusions, and, as usual, what she could immediately 
 put into practice seized her attention. 
 
 "That will do perfectly," she said with the stir of activ- 
 ity in her tones. "Once let me get a fulcrum for my 
 lever, and I'll manage." 
 
 The little money left by Carruthers after his many debts 
 were paid would be sufficient to start her, and she did not 
 disdain its use. "It is due me," she assumed calmly, and 
 Mrs. Maitland agreed with her. 
 
 "If you want to put a final fringe to your garment of 
 devotion," said Bertha to her friend, "burn up all his papers 
 some day. Life is burned clean behind me; I should like 
 all the debris to go too." 
 
 It was a glorious, bracing morning when she bade good-
 
 70 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 by to her friends and the wide glory of the sea. These 
 days done in blue and gold, in grey and storm, would never 
 "fade from her memory. She stood long, gazing out upon 
 the water, the wind pressing back her garments to outline 
 her form. It was youthful and instinct with life shoul- 
 ders thrown back, head erect, courage vibrant. It made 
 Mercy thrill to contrast her with the bowed woman who 
 had come. 
 
 Bertha turned presently, putting her arms around the 
 benign figure by the cottage door and pressing it to her 
 breast. "You can never know " she began, and fal- 
 tered. "Heaven reward you, sweet Mercy; I can't; it 
 would take Heaven to do it," and she kissed her friend 
 softly many times.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE next spring Austin Grey and Eossiter Wentworth 
 were driving down Fifth Avenue on a sparkling morning 
 when the bright air of New York made the body tingle 
 with life. Mr. Wentworth was a distinguished man, about 
 fifty-five, and had a strong, kindly countenance; his face 
 was smooth shaven, and the features required no hiding; 
 abundant dark hair, worn quite long and carelessly thrown 
 back, framed a square brow and firm chin; while the play 
 of mobile lips, and clear, clean eyes, showed virile power. 
 He was well known from one end of the United States to 
 the other, for he had always lived a public life, being a 
 man in easy circumstances who could devote his energy 
 to whatever he thought best. During the war he was one 
 of the unostentatious but powerful supporters of the ad- 
 ministration who gave their services ardently and with no 
 least thought of return; men whose names are a glory to 
 this country and to humanity. Identified with every noble 
 cause, he pushed with his whole force whatever he under- 
 took, and, exercising shrewd judgment hi choosing what to 
 attempt, he was frequently successful. He had been an 
 earnest abolitionist, and now that the slaves were freed- 
 men, and the country was turning to other work with 
 muscles strung to endurance and activity, his reforming 
 spirit did not die down. He had seen a great good arise 
 from tiny seed "little, infinite things," mere words and 
 he had seen also an immense amount of selfishness struck 
 out in the process, like sparks from stones under the feet 
 
 271
 
 273 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 of heavily laden horses. But the horses had carried the 
 load safely to its destination and were now ready for an- 
 other haul. The chief one to which Mr. Wentworth wished 
 to harness them was the cause of greater opportunities for 
 women. 
 
 The war gave women a great lift; they proved 
 their right to freedom by earning it, entering avenues abso- 
 lutely closed before. They filled the offices left vacant by 
 the defenders of liberty; they took hold of the plow and 
 the pen ; perched themselves on high clerks' stools ; became 
 doctor-wise by dint of hard nursing at home and on the 
 field ; organized large undertakings theretofore left entirely 
 to men; and thus in a myriad way showed themselves 
 capable of using opportunities wisely. Eossiter Went- 
 worth, who never let himself be run away with by his 
 various causes and the sympathy they excited in his large 
 heart, saw here what called for his utmost energy : making 
 straight the way before the next great step of humanity. 
 
 "By the way, Grey," he said now, as they rolled down 
 the handsome street of brownstone houses, "my daughter 
 tells me Mrs. Carruthers is in town doing newspaper work, 
 and that you know her." 
 
 "Miss Wentworth is quite right. I know Mrs. Car- 
 ruthers very well indeed, have known her since she was a 
 child. She is here, and is doing good work; a remarkable 
 woman." 
 
 "I should judge so. I used to hear of her when she was 
 living in Chicago and some of her writing came my way. 
 Capital stuff it was, too; I always meant to get myself in- 
 troduced, but I didn't, somehow. Lucy met her in Wash- 
 ington and was greatly struck by her. She was even more 
 impressed by the attachment Mrs. Maitland manifested 
 toward her; for Lucy, like the rest of us, reveres Mercy
 
 A VICTORIOUS LITE 873 
 
 Maitland. They met again at the seashore last fall, after 
 Mr. Carnithers's distressing death. Later Lucy told me 
 she had come here to work, but that she wouldn't want to 
 meet people." 
 
 "Quite a mistake, that, as it happens," replied Grey, a 
 sudden vision coming to him of Bertha's love of adven- 
 ture in human relations, not in the vulgar sense, but in 
 the gay, boy's-story sense, for which she would never lose 
 relish. "She is always ready to meet people; ready, not in 
 the conventional sense, either, but from the heart. She 
 would be delighted to have the honor of your acquaint- 
 ance." 
 
 "I should be greatly pleased to meet her; but there was 
 another purpose in my mind when I mentioned her. A 
 capable woman who can speak well is needed for the 
 lyceum courses next winter. It occurred to me that one 
 who could write with the power and freshness she did 
 could certainly speak, unless she were hampered by timid- 
 ity." 
 
 This was half a question, and in reply Grey threw back 
 his head with a merry laugh. To associate Bertha and 
 timidity was ludicrous to one who knew her. 
 
 "She would be self-possessed and have the right word 
 at command if she were sinking on a ship afire!" he ex- 
 claimed, smiling at Mr. Wentworth's surprise. "If you 
 could see her once you would understand." 
 
 The other man frowned a little: was she bold? Of 
 course he would not ask, but Grey, quick of wit, saw his 
 suppressed question. 
 
 "She is the most wonderful woman I ever met," he went 
 on, sobering to earnestness. "She has a rare intelligence, 
 and an organism to match. She can talk entertainingly 
 on a thousand subjects. Life has taught her a great deal,
 
 274 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 for she learns with amazing speed, so that you never feel 
 that you have reached the end with her. Respond to her 
 sensuous claims, and you realize that these, though very 
 prominent, are but the substructure of higher things. Meet 
 her intellect, and you encounter a depth of experience, 
 a knowledge of the tumultuous beatings of the human 
 heart, which warms intellect with sympathy, letting us 
 pent-up creatures through' into something quite beyond 
 mere intellect." 
 
 "H'm," said Wentworth, stirred by such speech from 
 a man of Grey's caliber. He recognized here the human, 
 appreciation of another human being, unitary, synthetic. 
 It struck a chord in himself that was rarely made to vi- 
 brate, and at once lifted their rather formal relation to 
 higher and more intimate possibilities. "H'm," he medi- 
 tated, "evidently a very unusual woman." 
 
 "You may well say that," returned Grey, a bit shy after 
 his outburst. " She is eminently practical, too. She would 
 make a great hit on a platform, and she would not object 
 in the least to making a hit ; it fact, it would delight her. 
 There you have her as plainly as I can give her to you. 
 When you see her you will understand. What is it you 
 would like to have her talk about?" 
 
 "Oh, the woman question," was the matter-of-course 
 answer. "There is none other of equal importance in the 
 world, since it concerns not only the half of humanity, but 
 the whole of it. What either man or woman does is vital 
 business for the race." 
 
 "She would agree with you there more than agree with 
 you: she has been a pioneer in that line. The circum- 
 stances of her life have made her assert the right of woman 
 to be, and she has done it magnificently; you couldn't have 
 a better object-lesson. And she will have ideas that mean
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 275 
 
 something. Events strike in with her, and produce 
 thoughts; she finds out the reason of things; she is just 
 the person for you." 
 
 "I should think so indeed. Will you speak to her about 
 it?" Wentworth was eager as any leader is who finds 
 person and place to fit. 
 
 "With pleasure; only, I can't speak, I'll write. I'm 
 going to leave town, you know, as soon as our business is 
 transacted; but I'll write her." 
 
 "I'm sorry you are going out of town; I remember now 
 you said you were ; but I was hoping you might introduce 
 me." 
 
 "I'd like nothing better. When I come back but that 
 will be some time yet." 
 
 "I can wait ; or I can get Lucy, perhaps, to take me there 
 if you are quite sure " 
 
 "Perfectly. I'l write her; you'll see." 
 
 The letter gratified Bertha immensely, and her ripe lips 
 curled with pleasure and amusement as she read. Of 
 course she knew of Eossiter Wentworth, for he was a high 
 peak of personal worth rising from a lofty plateau of family 
 and tradition; it would be fine to make his acquaintance. 
 Moreover, she was delighted by the prospect of a new under- 
 taking. She had no fear of failure; she know what she 
 thought, for the woman question was one on which she had 
 very definite ideas, and she could count on herself for 
 happy expression. Besides, it would be pleasant to have 
 a little more money. She had been pretty close to the 
 margin during the winter, living more or less easily on 
 the edge of her resources because she trusted that future 
 provision would arrive in time. But she did not wait for 
 the ravens; she went after them and taught them to fetch 
 and carry. And if the ravens should desert her, there were
 
 276 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 other birds of the air and beasts of the field at her service. 
 Moreover, she had strength to forego as well as to enjoy; 
 she could be lavish or simple, but she was never niggardly, 
 and seldom economical. Like nature, she wasted as she 
 went, not considering it worth while to apply intelligence 
 to so trivial a matter as expenditure. But she was an ex- 
 ecutive woman, knowing how to command, and disdaining 
 no honest toil ; so she met life fearless. 
 
 Now it was coming to her with courteous mien. The 
 eame mail that brought Grey's letter contained a note from 
 Lucy Wentworth asking if she might call, and when? 
 Bertha answered cordially with due observance of form. 
 This was setting about the matter in the right way. 
 She was tired to death, as she wrote Agnes, of being 
 peculiar; she wanted to be commonplace and like other 
 folk now. This, however, as Agnes pointed out in reply, 
 was the one ambition she could never hope to attain, ex- 
 cept on the surface; but the surface was all that conven- 
 tionality really meant: let forms be observed, and the 
 wheels would roll smoothly no matter what they carried. 
 She had been jolted through life's bypaths long enough; 
 she wanted the broad highway now, the most elastic 
 springs, the softest cushions; and, as usual, what she 
 wanted she obtained. 
 
 Mies Wentworth came to see her in a smart little 
 brougham, rather out of place in front of the Fourteenth 
 Street boarding-house where Mrs. Carruthers received her 
 in the stiff colorless parlor with a graciousness and ampli- 
 tude of beauty that annulled her surroundings. She was 
 the same here as in the elaborate luxury of her Washing- 
 ton house. Yet not the same. Lucy Wentworth's quiet 
 observation saw in this regal woman the sorrow-stricken de- 
 pendent of the seashore; and there was a deepening of 
 expression coming from that experience which could never
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 277 
 
 be effaced. But at present she was full of sparkle and 
 sunny cheer. 
 
 "How father will like her!" thought the daughter, find- 
 ing in this splendid presence the esthetic gratification that 
 a plain and unenvious woman does in the fairness of an- 
 other; recognizing also courage and vigor of soul in the 
 way she took life. 
 
 "Will you let me call for you to-morrow and take you 
 through the park a little, and then home for dinner?" she 
 asked before leaving. "Father could not come to-day, but 
 he is very eager to see you. He stipulated that we should 
 have you quite to ourselves the first time. After that, if 
 you will permit, we can ask a few friends to meet you." 
 
 "You are kindness itself," said Mrs. Carruthers grate- 
 fully. "I shall do whatever you say." 
 
 "A large carte-blanche," smiled Miss Wentworth. "Per- 
 haps you will have to withdraw it, we shall demand so 
 much of your time." 
 
 "A demand to be honored in every sense," returned 
 Bertha with a stately bow, profound sincerity in her tone. 
 
 The next day she met Mr. Wentworth in his own house, 
 a place of modest affluence, filled with objects of rare value, 
 discreetly chosen to harmonize with their neighbors. Mrs. 
 Wentworth, dead some ten years before, had been an in- 
 expressive woman whose house became the medium of con- 
 tact between her and the world; her taste, fine and sure, 
 had been given full opportunity by sufficient means, and the 
 result was a harmonious perfection that influenced power- 
 fully whoever came within the precincts. She left this 
 heritage as a thing of beauty to her husband and their only 
 child; and the daughter at least was exquisitely sensitive 
 to every tint, every attitude of chair or picture; for the 
 whole house was to her the shrine of memory. 
 
 Bertha felt the charm as soon as she stepped within the
 
 378 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 circle, but she identified it with this tall, dark-haired, 
 portly man, with the kindest expression and wonderful 
 eyes, who came forward to greet her. Never was she more 
 aware of life than when she met his eyes, in which humor 
 and innocence, blending with fire and wisdom, created a 
 confidence without flaw. On the instant she adopted the 
 world's judgment because it coincided with her own im- 
 pression. Never again would she trust to that alone; ex- 
 perience had taught humility; the general opinion and her 
 own must agree, or trust would wait. When they united, 
 as here, faith knew neither hindrance nor limitation. 
 
 Mr. Wentworth, on his side, ratified General Grey's 
 judgment at once; his guest was beautiful, she had dig- 
 nity and character ; obviously she was the very one he would 
 have chosen as an exemplar of the validity of woman. He 
 was proud to think it would be his part to introduce her to 
 the lecture-hall, plainly her sphere. Each straightway felt 
 at home with the other, and the daughter watched them 
 with quiet appreciation as they plunged into talk about 
 the cause, the way to make toward it, and the importance 
 of success. Bertha was in her most delightful vein, full 
 of enthusiasm, hope, assurance. He warmed under her 
 radiance: what a discovery! 
 
 It had always been one of Bertha's aspirations to do the 
 best thing in the best way, and this habit of mind made 
 her take on now with ease the signs of delicate breeding 
 that Mr. and Miss Wentworth diffused about them. She 
 felt that she had entered a luminous atmosphere where 
 light clung to her own garments. In a very short time, 
 so short indeed as to be imperceptible to others, she be- 
 lieved herself to be not alone with them, but of them. 
 No one stood higher in social position than they, and they 
 took pleasure in bringing her into contact with their large 
 circle of friends, who in turn found her most attractive.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 279 
 
 The tragedy which had widowed her, well known as it was 
 to this circle across which Mr. Carruthers had at one time 
 made a meteoric transit, formed the dark background from 
 which her glowing figure started forth life palpable. Few 
 could resist the power which she no longer tried to exert, 
 for it had become an accepted part of what she was. She 
 went on her way, and men and women followed : she looked 
 behind sometimes, noted the cortege, and smiled. In the 
 crowd she mingled with pleasure, for she never let it press 
 upon her rudely ; like a strong man in authority she moved 
 easily through any throng, and she was always in authority 
 now. She led, not by whim, for no one can long lead thus, 
 but through conformity; conforming to the best with a 
 singular aptitude for expressing it a leader by right 
 divine. 
 
 Her appearance on the lecture platform was a great suc- 
 cess and traced her path quite clearly for the nonce. In 
 the lyceum courses that were still largely patronized she 
 went about from town to town, the guest of the best fam- 
 ilies, enlivening thought and winning golden opinions, as 
 well as a fair amount of paper money. She would tell 
 with humorous appreciation Emerson's comment on "the 
 obstructions and squalor of travel." 
 
 "It is tantamount to this," he said on one occasion when 
 they met in their peregrinations a starry occasion to her, 
 so great was the reverence she felt for him "I'll bet you 
 fifty dollars a day for three weeks that you will not leave 
 your library, and wade, and freeze, and ride, and run, and 
 suffer all manner of indignities, and stand up for an hour 
 each night reading in a hall. And I answer : I bet I will. 
 I do it and win the money." 
 
 Bertha bore shifts and discomforts with imperturbable 
 good humor, her splendid physique carrying her lightly 
 through what bogged other people. Then too she had a
 
 280 
 
 healthy scorn for one who couldn't endure whatever chanced 
 to come with an eye serene to the end. When Mr. Went- 
 worth happened to be her traveling companion, as fell out 
 on several occasions while they were bent on common busi- 
 ness, he found her comradeship singularly congenial. They 
 took things with the same easy good nature, smiling at 
 petty bothers, or oblivious of them as they rode hard on 
 the swift-paced coursers of endless talk. Their enthusiasms 
 matched, their ideals held out the same irresistible lure, 
 life was equally a revelation to them. They had the buoy- 
 ancy, not alone of vital power, but of unquenchable faith 
 in succor for all, because of that insight which is aware 
 of the whole, seeing in every man a common relationship 
 to the divine. It was this that actuated Mr. Wentworth'a 
 ardor in the aid of whatever was good. By compulsion 
 of his nature he was continually trying to bring his part of 
 the world into better identity with the pattern set over 
 against it; vision through him became reality. 
 
 Amid the verbose discourses without pith or flower, de- 
 livered from many platforms as if they contained the wis- 
 dom of an oracle, his sincere utterance rang true. He had 
 an admirably modulated voice, and when he spoke in pub- 
 lic, his manner of rocking from foot to foot a moment, 
 and then coming down firm to present his argument was 
 very winning. He always spoke without notes, and would 
 bend a little forward, hands clasped, chin well in, forehead 
 and penetrating eyes brought to bear full upon his audi- 
 ence: naturally he was a convincing speaker. Bertha ad- 
 mired him thoroughly, both on and off the platform, and 
 had many opportunities to test her conviction that he was 
 a good man. Experience had harshly taught her that such 
 a person is a rare original of which there are few copies, 
 though many counterfeits. Here was no counterfeit, how- 
 ever. She would have been disgusted with herself had she
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 281 
 
 not by this time learned discrimination. Life does not 
 allow any lessons to be shirked, but it promotes swiftly 
 those who learn, and Bertha never dallied over her tasks; 
 it was on pleasure that she lingered long, extracting every 
 drop of honey. Now she appreciated Mr. Wentworth at 
 his true value, holding in her mind these words as expres- 
 sive of him : 
 
 "A human heart knows naught of littleness, 
 Suspects no man, compares with no one's ways ; 
 Hath in one hour most glorious length of days, 
 A recompense, a joy, a loveliness; 
 Like eaglet keen shoots into a2ure far, 
 And always dwelling nigh, is the remotest star." 
 
 "He is wonderfully like you," she wrote to Mercy Mait- 
 land, with whom she kept up close connection, despite her 
 usual inadvertence about letters. "I feel that he is some- 
 how the outer, masculine, creative power, of which you are 
 the inner, feminine, nurturing grace." 
 
 And Mercy read, and understood. 
 
 Toward Christmas of the same year Mrs. Endicott 
 brought Agnes East to do some shopping, the importance 
 of which, great to the silver-haired dame, was obliterated 
 to Agnes (except as a duty) by the thought of seeing 
 Bertha. They had not met for more than a year, but she 
 had heard from her more regularly since the new life be- 
 gan, and from time to time General Grey brought news. 
 
 "Oh, yes; she's found her feet, found her field," he had 
 replied to Agnes's anxious inquiries the previous spring. 
 "Let us agree to realize she always will. I saw an account 
 the other day of an asphalt pavement in a cellar which 
 cracked and then split open to let forth a gigantic mush-
 
 282 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 room, enlarged and strengthened by its soft, triumphant 
 combat with deadening circumstances. Instantly I thought 
 of Bertha; it was her vegetable prototype, for nothing can 
 hold down the life-force within her." 
 
 "Thank God!" said Agnes fervently. She was thinking 
 of this as they waited, Mrs. Endicott tired and impatient, 
 for Bertha's appearance on the platform of a New York 
 hall where she was to speak within an hour of her friend's 
 arrival in town. 
 
 "I'm dreadfully sorry not to meet you," she had written 
 to Agnes, "but come to hear me speak, and then I'll take 
 you home with me if Mrs. Endicott will permit She can 
 have you again as early in the morning as you say, though 
 I'd like nothing so well as to keep you near me all the time 
 you are in town. Of course I shall go back with you to 
 see her, and then we can arrange our plans. How delight- 
 ful it is to have you enter them again !" 
 
 A burst of applause roused Agnes from her anticipations. 
 Mrs. Carruthers was coming upon the stage, faultlessly 
 attired, superbly handsome. It made Agnes's breath catch 
 to see the radiance of this beloved face again; to watch 
 the quick, full eye searching for her through the throng, 
 and to meet it with a throb of exultance, as affection kissed 
 her across the distance for a long moment, before the 
 speaker turned to the business in hand. 
 
 Many minutes passed, and many words, while Agnes 
 simply drank in the cordial of Bertha's presence. She 
 seemed to the younger woman one who would never grow 
 old. Her complexion had regained its pink and white 
 brilliance, her auburn hair was piled in a rich crown upon 
 her shapely head, her eyes shone and sparkled, her whole 
 being was supremely alive. A thrill ran through Agnes as 
 she looked. How well she held herself! How graciously
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 283 
 
 she moved! How dominant she was! And then ears 
 joining the orchestra of praise what words she spoke ! 
 
 A new potency was here, for Bertha put the insight she 
 had gained into her fluent speech, which gleamed and glis- 
 tened with it, as the ripples of a brook glitter with the sun- 
 light. It had been her delight always to help others near 
 and far; now she had boundless wealth to give. It was of 
 a kind, also, that she could take to the market place or to 
 heaven with equal propriety. Many echoed the quaint old 
 saying, "The words she spoke meant more to me than to a 
 miser money." 
 
 "A woman should justify her existence as much as a 
 man," she was saying in a voice whose minor tones had 
 sweetened, and whose strident tones had strengthened to 
 richness since Agnes heard it last. "It is an equal demand 
 on every human being. Not that it is essential that a 
 money equivalent shall vouch for her usefulness what is 
 priceless can have no pay but some active reason for being 
 must exist. If she chooses conjugal happiness and children, 
 she is blessed among women. 
 
 "Happiness is a matter of choice; it can be worked out 
 methodically. The union of equals, not domination by 
 either, is the method of true marriage. The world 
 is advancing toward a larger sense of freedom in 
 every relation freedom of each individual as an end, 
 and all as means to a common end unattainable alone. This 
 is the only basis of worthy union in the family or body 
 politic : mutual pursuit of an ideal which makes for durable 
 
 joy- 
 
 Of course love laughs at logic, but underneath its gar- 
 ment of delight, as rocks beneath the flowery dress of sum- 
 mer, lie laws inviolable laws. For instance, it can never 
 be taken by violence, it must ever be wooed ; for there is no 
 fatalism about love. It is not the victim of chance attrac-
 
 284 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 tion, as by mineral or chemical affinity; nor is it at the 
 mercy of the wind of passion, nor dependent on the gush 
 of spontaneous springs. These all have their part to play ; 
 but love may rather be likened to a steady glow, a flame 
 that unweariedly aspires, a fire that burns on the hearth 
 of life so long as fuel feeds it fuel brought by ivilling 
 hands. It is the electric current, flashing magically in the 
 clouds, but also taught to fetch and carry, to pass on in- 
 telligence, to bring instant attention, to make life beautiful 
 with light. 
 
 Continuity of will, which is fidelity, causes love to 
 be free and fearless. When surface-charms fail, it looks 
 deeper ; it nurtures what unites ; it weeds out what threat- 
 ens to become a hedge ; it carefully tends the gardens where 
 beauty and fragrance bloom. To maintain a living proc- 
 ess, the more precious the growth, the more essential is 
 a congenial atmosphere and the finest care. Nothing is 
 ever done, all is ever to be done, since life is active, and 
 the moisture and sun of yesterday cannot be used to-day. 
 If the product is to be spontaneously beautiful, right con- 
 ditions to call it forth are indispensable. 'Natural growth 
 is stunted growth/ We must apply intelligence to nature 
 in order to secure its best. 
 
 Of course both persons must unite in this cultivation, or 
 the harvest fails. The very essence of love is not inde- 
 pendence, but interdependence. The two can win their end 
 only together ; they must make themselves freshly attractive 
 in perpetuity through loving and being lovable. Then they 
 keep in step, pressing close ; disentangling arms only to let 
 eyes meet fully ; going hand in hand, spirit in spirit, along 
 the road of life. 
 
 "But if a woman denies herself the proper fruition of 
 life, then she must make good in some other way. The 
 unmarried woman of the present is doing an immense
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 885 
 
 amount of the world's work that has never been done be- 
 fore by anybody. Witness Florence Nightingale and Clara 
 Barton; because of the work these executive, organizing 
 women did, peans of praise rise to heaven from hospital- 
 tent, and anxious homes, and pitiful commanders. Wit- 
 ness the army of teachers marching South to combat igno- 
 rance and set white ideals before the colored population. 
 Women have an immense and increasing share, not only in 
 this army, but in all schools throughout the land, through- 
 out the world; and it is right that they should. The 
 nurture of the young, teaching them how to participate in 
 the best known to the wise, is woman's natural sphere. 
 In the emulation between ideals, justice has been out- 
 stripped by mercy, for the world's development has reached 
 the stage where the welfare of mankind is the supreme aim ; 
 and this makes woman's place in public life necessary and 
 logical. Women are half of humanity, remember, and un- 
 fortunately the more ignorant half. Lack of knowledge 
 makes for slavery ; he who knows is master. The fortress 
 of ignorance is being more closely invested perpetually, 
 but it is a gigantic fortress still, and no human being can 
 afford to be faint-hearted in the effort to conquer one re- 
 doubt after another. Carry your flag high, determined not 
 only to perish in its defense if need be, but to carry it to 
 victory. That's the main point. Make up your mind not 
 to die until you succeed in what you attempt." 
 
 Agnes listened in a glow of exultation. The words were 
 shot home by the force of the speaker's personality until 
 they became living issues to her hearers. She was like the 
 magnetic pole whose variations set every compass throb- 
 bing; a dynamo that let no wheel stand unwhirled while 
 in contact with her. Agnes felt the eagerness of attention 
 in all those about her, the convergence of minds to one 
 focus. Bertha held her audience in the hollow of her hand;
 
 286 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 like a bird free to fly, it clung close, avid for the food she 
 spread before it. So was Agnes. Her love for Bertha was 
 still intensely personal, but she no longer appropriated her 
 how could she ever have done so ? she asked herself, half 
 in scorn, half wistfully. Under this aspect Bertha and her 
 actions became a drama of breathless and pregnant inter- 
 est, an impersonation of a royal part ; every move she made, 
 every cadence of her voice, thrilled Agnes with a sense of 
 supreme satisfaction. But as little as the spectator claims 
 the actor did she think of claiming Bertha in any exclusive 
 sense. She simply loved her beyond all and could have 
 watched her manifold charms forever. 
 
 Others, less loving, were also caught in the spell. "My 
 dear, she's great," said Mrs. Endicott emphatically as they 
 waited for the crowd to disperse. "Just see what sort of 
 people these are that hang on her words the best the city 
 affords, that's plain. She's no short-skirted, short-witted 
 exponent of woman's rights; she has made herself into 
 what every woman would like to be: even her tremendous 
 ambition must be satisfied. It's really great, I tell you; 
 it's great. And to think what she came from !" 
 
 "She came from God," said Agnes in a low, devout tone 
 that startled and silenced Mrs. Endicott's voluble praises. 
 
 They had many opportunities to get expressed, however, 
 during the fortnight that followed. Agnes, and Mrs. Endi- 
 cott because of her (for otherwise Bertha would not now 
 have selected her), were introduced into the many circles 
 that made Mrs. Carruthers a center. Firmly established 
 on good ground, she had troops of admirers and imitators. 
 People flocked not only to hear her, but to know her. A 
 presentation was an honor eagerly sought by both men and 
 women. Her reputation was radiantly clear; yet she was 
 emphatically a woman. This fact declared itself in every 
 movement of body and mind, and its polarity was evident
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 28T 
 
 more or less to each man she met, a quality in itself at- 
 tractive. Men sought her, fascinated, enthralled, giving 
 her masculine love in abundance, which still pleased her, 
 though she refused all entreaties to link her orbit with 
 another's. Like a star whose powerful contact sets various 
 planets spinning, yet she passed on her way little influ- 
 enced. 
 
 For such a woman to live in the eye of the public and 
 never make the least mistake was superb, thought General 
 Grey. When he first heard her address on Freedom his 
 bosom's lord sat lightly on its throne. She had a fine in- 
 stinct for limits, now trained and purified, and the more she 
 proclaimed liberty the farther she got from license. She 
 evolved the theme ably from its minute beginnings in plant 
 and animal life to its magnificent climax in the soul of 
 man, potentially one with the divine. He escorted her home 
 with a new reverence. She asked him in and begged him 
 to tell her frankly what he thought : she never got beyond 
 the feeling that judgment from him was from the highest 
 source. 
 
 "My dear Bertha!" he exclaimed, standing before her, 
 strong, erect, his head a mass of thick grey hair, his face 
 firm and genial. No surface-learner of life here; he knew, 
 and was sure of his knowledge. "Everything you do is 
 surprising, and everything you are is still more so. I never 
 cease to be amazed at what you achieve. Was there ever 
 such a woman?" 
 
 "I hope not," she answered, her mobile face sinking 
 from joy at his words in a sudden sigh. 
 
 "I wish profoundly that there were many more like you." 
 
 They were silent for a while, thoughts and feelings loom- 
 ing large. He clasped his hands behind him, walking to 
 and fro with his slight limp, while she followed his figure, 
 her eyes full of speculation
 
 288 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 After a little he came and sat opposite her. She was in 
 the meridian of life now, of stately proportions, still very 
 fair and with every line of her face ennobled by the lofty 
 quality of mind and heart. It might be more truly said 
 of her, indeed, than of most that all the charms of youth 
 were given to make her endurable until the beauty of char- 
 acter had time to develop. Not so much trailing clouds 
 of glory do we come, as aspiring toward the source of glory 
 do we go, toward God who is our home. 
 
 "I have known you intimately, Bertha," he said at last, 
 in a voice deep and vibrant with feeling. "Perhaps I know 
 you better than any other man" she nodded acquiescence 
 "and I tell you that if there were more women like you 
 in the world, it would be a better place, a far lovelier 
 country. I have known men and women; I have known 
 life as it is, and, thank God, I have known it as it might 
 be: you outdo them all. You have snatched victory from 
 defeat a hundred times; you have made it a habit to con- 
 vert ruin into triumph. I don't mean in a worldly sense, 
 though that is sufficiently astonishing, but in the unworldly, 
 in your soul. My dear, you know what my life has 
 been " 
 
 "The most consistently upright and noble of any," she 
 interrupted with warm affection. 
 
 "Yet I say to you I do not feel myself worthy more than 
 to kiss the hem of your garment, so far above me are you." 
 
 The tears stood in their eyes as they clasped hands. The 
 solemn triumph in Bertha's heart was near of kin to pro- 
 found humility. She, even she, was the woman to whom 
 this man spoke these words words that would be her en- 
 couragement throughout eternity. For she understood that 
 he did not mean to undervalue the righteousness his life 
 had exemplified, but to pay tribute to the infinite value 
 of the spirit that aspires.
 
 CHAPTEE XXII 
 
 AGNES took a great liking to Mr. Wentworth and his 
 daughter, fitting into their home as if she had been born 
 there. Bertha was more extraneous, but it was plain that 
 the balmy acquaintance between the man and woman was 
 moving gently on toward summer weather. It was no sur- 
 prise, therefore, when shortly after Agnes's return home 
 Bertha wrote her that Mr. Wentworth had asked her to 
 marry him. 
 
 "It was done in the courtly fashion of the old school, 
 the respectful way," wrote Bertha. "I felt treated at last 
 with due deference, felt myself saluted according to the 
 rules of the service. I accepted him with equal ceremony, 
 and we are to be married by the full Episcopal ritual at 
 my request. It satisfies me that such should be the end. 
 He was born with a clear perception of what truth and 
 right required, and it has been a necessity of his nature 
 to adjust his life to those requirements. He has been hon- 
 orable always, without making it into heroics. That he 
 should love me is the marvel. I warned him from me at 
 first, bade him not think more of me; but he smiled that 
 sweet, enveloping smile of his, and my halting objections 
 vanished as dawn-mists before the sun. I have the ten- 
 derest reverence for him, and am very glad to become his 
 wife. But little of my history have I brought to his atten- 
 tion; he is welcome to it all, but he does not care for it, 
 and I feel no obligation to make a ghostly procession of 
 
 289
 
 290 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 defaced and dead selves pass before his mind. What I am 
 suffices him; he is indifferent to what has produced the 
 result he loves, believing in me wholly ; so I feel that I may 
 do as the heavens have done, forget my evil, with them for- 
 give myself." 
 
 Agnes agreed with her, though she was quite certain she 
 could not have done the same. She was one who preferred 
 to pile up the sweepings of life in a conspicuous heap rather 
 than to have them hidden away in corners. Bertha 
 was wont to say of her, "In heaven I know I shall find you 
 peering about behind all the celestial furniture to see if 
 there is a roll of dust anywhere. As for me, there are other 
 occupations I prefer to that of hunting for dirt." Agnes 
 would not admit this was her especial delectation either; 
 simply she could not bear the thought of a secret stain; 
 but she recognized the question as an individual matter, 
 and she admired Bertha now with no less intensity because 
 of a larger toleration. 
 
 Her own career had settled into the lines of what her 
 friend still called, rebukingly, the monastic life; but with 
 it Agnes was content. She had declined all opportunities 
 to marry until the habit of mind thus indicated caused 
 them to cease. She became more and more profoundly 
 immersed in the subjective, not as self, but as abnega- 
 tion of self. Yet she did find a need for outer mani- 
 festation, and the need made way for itself, not only 
 in the absorbing duties developed at home in her mother's 
 prolonged invalidism, but in acts of spiritual as well as 
 material philanthropy. During the long silent hours that 
 life wrapped about her she thought deeply and with rare 
 clearness on truth and its laws, and this gave her words, 
 when they came, a surety and calm that at once arrested 
 attention. People found her one to whom they could go
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 29! 
 
 when they needed sympathy and advice; for from hidden 
 springs the water of life welled up and spread wide, reflect- 
 ing the perfect azure. 
 
 She left home very seldom, but she could not fail to be 
 present at the wedding the next June. Neither could Mrs. 
 Endicott, though for different reasons. 
 
 "I wouldn't miss it for the world!" she cried, waving 
 the engraved invitation above her head in a twitter of ex- 
 citement. "That it should come to this!" and she gave 
 the paper an extra flaunt. "The most notable man in 
 America, rich, of the highest station, the oldest family, 
 marrying our Bertha!" There was a touch of cruelty in 
 her laughter. "I could tell him a thing or two, and whis- 
 per a word here and there in that society which But 
 
 I shan't do anything of the sort. I'm too delighted that 
 I knew Bertha for what she really was when I saw her first 
 in sordid circumstances. I launched her, and what a voy- 
 age she has made ! She's got her end now ; here's haven 
 and heaven for her, I should think, at last 1" 
 
 But she mightily disapproved of Agnes's intention to 
 take on to the wedding the old folk, and their charge, 
 Bertha's half-sister. "You're a fool to do it," she ex- 
 claimed indignantly. "Why cast up these old hulks before 
 the eyes of the world when her ship is coming in with every 
 sail set and flags flying? It's a shame. She won't thank 
 you for it; I'm sure I shouldn't. Let these plebeian people 
 sink into oblivion where they belong." 
 
 "You know I don't agree with you about that," was the 
 firm reply. "I shall take them with me unless Bertha 
 objects, and of course she won't." 
 
 "Are you going to take the mother, too, into the best 
 that American society affords?" scorned the aunt. "Better 
 parade the whole circus while you're about it."
 
 292 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "No, I think not," said Agnes quietly; "she does not 
 belong." 
 
 The wedding day was rich in sunshine and freshness, 
 and the large church, filled with flowers, seemed all done 
 in white and perfume. Hundreds of Bertha's friends were 
 present, and hundreds of Mr. Wentworth's; the building 
 was crowded with eager faces and many whispers of the 
 envious could be heard. Every one hushed, however, as 
 the bridegroom came from the vestry preceded by chanting 
 choristers, and the bride at the same time came in from 
 the world, leaning on her guardian's arm, to join her spouse 
 at the altar. Agnes, watching devoutly, athrob with the sig- 
 nificance of every detail, recognized that the immense value 
 Bertha set on ceremony now was because her life had 
 lacked it so utterly, and she had paid a great price in ex- 
 perience and suffering to acquire the right to it. The 
 representative of God united them in holy matrimony, and 
 they knelt on embroidered cushions while the benediction 
 was given, and sweet music rose and fell on the fragrant 
 air. As they rose and walked down the aisle, husband and 
 wife, in full maturity, co-equal hearts and minds, they trod 
 with firm and buoyant step, their faces alight. 
 
 Mercy Maitland's sweet benignity was the first counte- 
 nance Bertha descried, and at the sight she pressed close her 
 husband's arm, for she recognized that he was a gift of 
 this conjugal spirit who had altered for her the focus of 
 life, making undreamed-of good possible. 
 
 Beyond was Agnes, whose devoted gaze she met with 
 unutterable speech. Beside her Pa and Ma clung close, the 
 dear pair who had nurtured Bertha's infancy and sheltered 
 her in sorrow and trial. She smiled upon them warmly, 
 and their dim, awed eyes filled with the rare tears of age 
 at her tenderness. Mary too, her half-sister, agape with
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 293 
 
 wonder, received a kindly glance and a quick thought 
 "That girl must be looked after." 
 
 In Eossiter Wentworth's beautiful home, now Bertha's, 
 friends were received after the ceremony, and here for the 
 first time Agnes met Mrs. Maitland, an event of great in- 
 terest to both. General Grey brought them together, and 
 Bertha was not too engrossed to note the precious group 
 and long to join it. 
 
 "It is a wonderful day for all of us who know Bertha," 
 General Grey was saying. "What an end to arrive at! 
 Yet I have said that, or thought it, a dozen times in regard 
 to her, and still she goes on. Will she ever arrive at an 
 end?" 
 
 "Never; why should she?" said Mrs. Maitland serenely. 
 "Life lives right along; there is no stopping-place. Every 
 station, you know, is not only a place of arrival, but also a 
 point of departure." 
 
 "She is but in the prime of life," added Agnes; "what- 
 ever lies behind, everything lies before her. I expect to 
 watch her progress with unflagging interest till my dying 
 day." 
 
 "She opens wide vistas to the mind," commented Mrs. 
 Maitland slowly, something of the seer's look in her eyes. 
 "She makes you see the perfectibility of man; showing 
 how life disposes of every negative in favor of a higher 
 affirmation. Now at last she is truly married: she could 
 not be herself until she had achieved this." 
 
 "You mean " asked Agnes, listening intently. 
 
 "I mean that here she finds a man of as wide-spanned a 
 nature as her own, who can be the companion of her flights 
 as well as of her daily life, and through him she gets what 
 she has so long sought, the close, responsive love ardent 
 yet intellectual of a good man. It will complete her; it
 
 294. A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 will bring her to see herself as whole, not a half, which 
 is the essential symbolism of marriage; a symbol verified 
 by the unique fact of creation, for love is both fruit and 
 seed." 
 
 They contemplated Bertha a few moments in silence, as 
 she stood stately and radiant at the doorway. 
 
 "She takes what comes to her with royal grace," re- 
 marked Grey presently, "and she goes without, on occa- 
 sion, almost as easily. That habit of mind husbands one's 
 forces to a wonderful degree." 
 
 "Oh, she always wants plenty of things, and plenty of 
 people," objected Agnes; "and she gets them, too," she 
 added with a little inclusive gesture, and a glance about 
 the delightful rooms thronged with friends. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, and she clings to them stoutly," returned 
 Grey, smiling, "but to nothing does she cling with such 
 tenacity as to her own soul. You and I have seen her hold 
 to it with a grip that has let it pull her out of many a 
 slough of despond, and up many a hill of difficulty. It 
 keeps one lively to follow where she leads. Judging from 
 the past she will still startle us, though to-day is so serene." 
 
 "I do hope she won't undertake anything more of an 
 extraordinary kind," said Mrs. Endicott, insinuating her- 
 self into this group of the best, as was her wont. "From 
 the first day I met our friend under very different circum- 
 stances from these" she interpolated suggestively, "I 
 saw that she was somebody to help, and I put myself out 
 to aid her wherever I could." 
 
 "She has certainly justified your insight," commented 
 Mrs. Maitland in rather a dry tone. Mrs. Endicott, worldly 
 wise, took her cue from it instantly. 
 
 "Oh, more than I ever dreamed, of course," she said 
 with effusiveness. "But now I hope she'll settle down and
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 295 
 
 devote herself to making that splendid husband she has 
 secured happy." 
 
 "He can hardly escape such a result with her/' replied 
 the Washington lady quietly, with an air that made her 
 inches grow; and she turned to join Pa and Ma and their 
 charge, softening for them by her gentle manner the over- 
 whelming brilliance of the hour. 
 
 Later she said to Grey : "What is going to become of that 
 girl ?" indicating Mary. "She ought to marry young. Those 
 dear old people who have plucked one child after another 
 from the flood can't help in that direction with her any 
 more than they could with Bertha. She ought to be saved 
 from her sister's hard fate by being brought into com- 
 panionship with men such as she should choose among; 
 not be left to pick up flotsam and jetsam." 
 
 "You are quite right; that never occurred to me in re- 
 gard to Bertha ; but I see new it should have," replied Grey 
 slowly. " She might have been spared much by such simple 
 wisdom a woman's wisdom." 
 
 "Perhaps not," answered Mercy Maitland, quick to 
 soothe. "The exquisite balance between free will in every 
 instant's decision and the sum of all that has gone before 
 may or may not be altered by what we throw into the scale. 
 Bertha is one who had to wrestle with circumstances to win 
 character; and she has done it superbly. From the first 
 she had the boundless bounty of young life, bursting 
 asunder every bond, compelling egress. I don't know that 
 any improvement would have resulted from different oppor- 
 tunities; but Mary's way can perhaps be made easier." 
 
 As the crowd lessened Agnes talked a good deal with 
 Lucy Wentworth. She found her strangely congenial. At 
 this moment of surrender of power she conducted affairs
 
 296 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 with skill and cordiality, but Agnes fancied her heart was 
 sad. She knew a meager outline of her history: that she 
 had loved and lost before she was twenty, her lover dying 
 by an accident shortly before they were to have been mar- 
 ried; that on top of this shock had come the brief illness 
 and death of Lucy's mother, the double grief throwing the 
 girl in on herself, but not to morbidness. Agnes found her 
 thoroughly attractive in the quiet cheer of strength. 
 
 Bertha stepped forward eagerly in her new life on the 
 level plateau at the top of the mountains she had found 
 so arduous in the climbing, and which still towered around 
 her to the skies. Yet what are the skies? Only the in- 
 finite perspective of what is this instant's breath to each 
 one of us. On the high level now attained she was warmed 
 through and through by the sunshine of society's approval, 
 and of a good man's love. The supporting joy of recog- 
 nition was hers, since she was taken as valid at the valua- 
 tion she set on herself. Of course the world pried, but it 
 got little for its pains. She commanded society calmly, 
 as by unquestioned right, and it made way for her com- 
 pliantly; not only because of her husband's position, but 
 because she knew of what she was worthy, and claimed it 
 with no more arrogance than a lady claims the right to 
 enter her own drawing-room. She delighted with a deep- 
 seated fervor in all her new home gave her in its safety 
 and assurance ; in the spacious, bright, honorable heart she 
 found at its center, full of sunshine for all human beings, 
 full of passionate love in the inmost life for her alone. She 
 rejoiced in her husband's delicate respect and fearless com- 
 panionship. He was great enough to comprehend her, lov- 
 ing her because he trusted her; and she requited his love 
 and trust in the only way they ever are requited by being 
 worthy of them.
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 297 
 
 She gave up lecturing of course and newspaper work 
 these were mere leaves the tree shed in due season ; now she 
 was abundantly represented in such ways by the masculine 
 half of her which resided in Mr. Wentworth's broad breast ; 
 but her energies did not lapse; they turned into new 
 channels. Society in the best sense was her element. She 
 was fond of intercourse, of the hurtle of thoughts, of life 
 in the act of living. She had always been ready at give- 
 and-take, more in the deeper things than in the superficial. 
 No matter under what heavy burdens her back might be 
 bent, she would stoop to help to his feet one who had 
 fallen, steadying him there before she passed on. Now she 
 turned her attention to new opportunities. She was 
 among the earliest founders of women's clubs, leading and 
 pushing them forward with all the force, the pioneer abil- 
 ity, of her intrepid determination. People who came in 
 contact with her, vaguely desirous of doing something, 
 somehow, found themselves in short order marshaled, ar- 
 rayed, bannered, and ready to march, with plain directions 
 and a ringing tune in their ears. 
 
 She had the gift of divination, too, in regard to leaders. 
 It took insight to discover, for instance, that under the 
 gentle aspect of Lucy Wentworth's personality there dwelt 
 a liberal mind, secure of itself and clear-sighted to an end. 
 It was something of a discovery to the young woman her- 
 self. The point was made at a dinner where several women 
 were gathered to talk over a new club in process of for- 
 mation. 
 
 "The first thing you must have is an idea, then organi- 
 zation and a leader," said Bertha succinctly. "When you 
 have found her, let her lead. Leadership is autocratic; it 
 is not made by counting noses. The consent of the gov- 
 erned must be gained, but don't worry about your leader
 
 298 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 becoming a tyrant. She will find the way to make all 
 work so they can train themselves for what she has by 
 birthright. There is one who could lead/' she wound up, 
 nodding toward Lucy. 
 
 The lady flushed with surprise at this sudden personal 
 application of wide-glancing remarks, and the concentra- 
 tion of many eyes, and shook her head; but a church 
 worker said with a friendly look : 
 
 "Very likely you are right, Mrs. Wentworth. I know 
 something of Miss Wentworth's capability by experience; 
 yet isn't she rather young to be the head of a club in which 
 there would be many older women ?" 
 
 "What has age to do with it?" retorted Mrs. Wentworth. 
 "Years neither confer nor detract; the power of leadership 
 lies in character. You wouldn't shrink from undertaking 
 this, Lucy? You have ideas, you know, plenty of them, 
 and executive ability; you would find it just work to your 
 hand. It is a big interest to mold at the beginning what 
 may be of vast value hereafter. Wouldn't it please you ?" 
 
 "I should want a great deal of assistance," replied Lucy, 
 unconsciously assuming the position Bertha's manner 
 seemed to confer. Her father smiled with downcast eyes, 
 then gave a glance at his wife of thorough admiration. 
 Bertha saw it, but did not let her eyes or lips waver as she 
 looked at Lucy, who went on : " Of course I should shrink 
 from the responsibility, but if no one better could be 
 found " 
 
 "There you are, ladies!" cried Bertha, rising from the 
 table as the meal ended. Lucy laughed, recognizing how 
 deftly she had been caught. She bore her stepmother no 
 grudge, however; the surprise had brought her into a 
 realization of her own powers. 
 
 Nevertheless, in various ways Lucy found it a little irk-
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 299 
 
 some to have a stepmother of so masterful a character. It 
 wasn't altogether easy to subordinate herself after the years 
 during which she had governed in her father's house. 
 Moreover, she had exquisite sensibilities and a character 
 founded in fidelity; it hurt her to have any one put in her 
 mother's place; it was hard to see the changes come. 
 Bertha found it still harder not to cause them; in fact, 
 though she meant to be kindly about the manner, she was 
 determined about the matter : the house must lose its former 
 mistress's look and take on hers, though of course only by 
 degrees; she desired to offend no one. So the completed 
 thing of beauty was subtracted from, now here, now there, 
 and things the daughter considered alien were substituted, 
 out of keeping with their neighbors, destroying the flawless 
 unity of effect. She said no word, however, and her father 
 hardly noticed. As piece by piece of new furniture or 
 decoration was brought in, Lucy claimed piece by piece 
 the old, withdrawing it into her own rooms, which became 
 darkened by these unsuitable vestiges of a creation she 
 winced to see dismembered. Bertha tried to persuade her 
 to let them be given away, or carried to the garret, but was 
 always quietly denied. At length, a couple of years after 
 her marriage, while Lucy was absent on a visit of some 
 duration such visits were made with increasing frequency 
 Bertha took the matter into her own hands. "Without a 
 hint of her project, she sent "all this accumulation of rub- 
 bish" to the auctioneer's; and, with great pains and con- 
 stant personal supervision, redecorated and refurnished her 
 stepdaughter's rooms, and had them bright and cheerful 
 to greet Lucy on her return. 
 
 What the daughter felt is not recorded; what she did 
 was to accept the situation. She had a good deal of her 
 father's large-mindedness. Her character, as decided as
 
 300 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Bertha's, was quite different. Bertha went through every 
 obstacle; Lucy withdrew into herself, an inaccessible aerie, 
 at the mere hint of obstruction. Though Bertha exerted 
 herself to the utmost, driven not only by the love of power 
 which is stimulated through denial, but by the tenderer 
 desire to win love in her own household, she met here in- 
 destructible resistance. Lucy possessed herself and would 
 allow no one to impinge upon her individuality. She saw 
 the limitations of her stepmother more acutely than any 
 one ; she knew something of what could be looked for, and 
 in which directions nothing could be expected, for limita- 
 tions do limit inevitably, she argued. She saw that Bertha, 
 as she called her frankly refusing her the sacred name of 
 mother could not be expected to know what natural ties 
 meant, nor how deep to the changeless heart of things 
 pierce the clinging roots of family associations; she was 
 blank in her ignorance of what these might signify. Lucy 
 even went so far as to say to her father, for it was an 
 event in the family history, a jar that gave a shock to all 
 concerned : 
 
 "If I had done a thing like that, it would simply have 
 damned me." 
 
 "But the action is not the same in her," said Mr. Went- 
 worth, certain of the fact, but with a distressed frown. 
 
 "No, I see it is not," answered the daughter tolerantly. 
 " She is color-blind in such matters ; she set up the wrong 
 flag without knowing it. Fortunately the accident caused 
 is not fatal," and she smiled bravely, though with a certain 
 wanness, at her father, who took her in his arms, kissing 
 her tenderly.
 
 SEVEN" years came and went, and Bertha's season of fruit- 
 age passed serenely. Prosperity sweetened her, mellowed 
 her, refining the rich juices of her nature to a delicious 
 quality. Sour turned to sweet, astringency to spice, tough- 
 ness to tenderness. The fruit of her life was golden and 
 was served in dishes of silver. It resembled the blossom 
 little, but if one looked closely one could find the petals 
 of the flower outlined at the core. 
 
 Mary married happily from her sister's beautiful home, 
 and their mother, content on her husband's farm, sent them 
 a letter full of thanksgiving for both. The old folk, who 
 returned to the village where Mary left them, were full of 
 pride in their chief treasure, and sure now that she would 
 need them no more. It was not long before they died, 
 within a few days of each other. 
 
 Bertha and her husband went to see their worn bodies 
 laid reverently away, and afterward they walked and talked 
 long in the woods haunted to Bertha by every memory, and 
 fuller now than in her girlhood with hope and aspiration. 
 The windows of the world were thrown wide, and she looked 
 forth in every direction on a boundless perspective of op- 
 portunity, and love, and life. Now and forever she saw 
 to be of the same nature, though now is but a dewdrop, 
 and forever is the infinite sea ; here and hereafter are equal 
 terms, for life lives: "death only dies." 
 
 Seven years she lived in honor and tranquillity; hands 
 
 301
 
 302 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 filled with good works, the mind with knowledge, her heart 
 with tenderness, and her spirit with peace. Love and 
 friendship she cultivated as the supreme beauty of exist- 
 ence that into which utility blooms tending them with 
 a care that gets amplest return only when lavished on per- 
 sonal relations. The endless time consumed in such at- 
 tuning, such accord of soul, brings a deepening of per- 
 sonality that is time's most precious product. Will here 
 flowers into spontaneous joy, and joy is life's ambrosia. 
 
 From this clear sky fell the bolt of business disaster 
 through the dishonesty of people Mr. Wentworth had too 
 generously aided with the wealth of his good name. It 
 took every cent he possessed to supply the deficit, and what 
 he had given his wife for her own went into the fund. 
 Lucy also wished to add her quota, the sum settled upon 
 her by her father before he remarried, but this he would 
 not permit. 
 
 "Why not I, if Bertha?" she asked, feeling held off. 
 
 "Because she has faced the world, my child," said her 
 father tenderly, drawing her to him. "She knows how to 
 meet and manage it, if that should become necessary. You 
 do not, Lucy. You can do for others endlessly, as all this 
 good work you accomplish shows; but you could not readily 
 fend for yourself. So you must keep your money, dear. 
 The creditors' demands are met, and there is no need of 
 your sacrifice; but I value it as highly as though you had 
 made it, sweet Lucy." 
 
 "No, because you do not accept it," she replied in a tense 
 voice, standing like a straight, white lily beside him. "But 
 still I can say no more than that it is yours to do with as 
 you will." 
 
 "I know it very well, dear," he answered, looking up at 
 her comprehendingly from where he sat at his high-piled
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 303 
 
 desk. "To prove to you that I know, you shall defray our 
 expenses until I can see what it is best to do." 
 
 This was all he would accept from any one. He re- 
 fused the aid that was pressed, almost pushed, upon him 
 by his myriad friends, and settled down to work out the 
 new problem. But he was a man well on in years now 
 who had lived up to the margin of his vitality, so 
 that there was no superfluous strength laid away for a 
 hibernating old age. The shock of disappointment in the 
 friends he had trusted, the change in his life, and the 
 efforts it necessitated, developed before long an organic 
 weakness, and he began to lose strength and to lie on the 
 sofa whenever he was not at work. As his duties and re- 
 forms slipped from his relaxing fingers, his wife picked 
 them up one by one and carried them forward in her 
 peculiarly able way. Her life-giving quality passed over 
 into whatever she undertook, and he came to look upon her 
 as an unfathomable well of strength. 
 
 Lucy's admiration for her stepmother's large quality of 
 courage and character grew apace these days, but she still 
 held herself aloof. Long since Bertha had desisted in her 
 effort to win her; what she could not command, she did 
 not demand, obviously it did not belong to her; so the two 
 women lived amicably together, but between them a dis- 
 tance lay. 
 
 One morning Bertha was sitting beside the couch, where 
 Wentworth lay now most of the time, talking in her loftiest 
 and tenderest vein. At such times she seemed almost in- 
 spired; indeed, she was inspired by the spirit of her ex- 
 perience risen from its grave clothes, eager to help. 
 
 "You should be a preacher, dear," said her husband, 
 looking appreciatively at the firm mouth into which the
 
 304 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 sensuous lips had been chiseled and at the eyes filled with 
 an earnest glory. "I'm sure you have preached better ser- 
 mons to me than any I have heard elsewhere," he added 
 in answer to the startled expression that came upon her 
 face. 
 
 "Ah, you know it is the prerogative of a wife to lecture 
 her husband," she returned with a smile; "but it would 
 hardly do from the pulpit." 
 
 "Why not?" he questioned seriously. "I believe it would 
 answer your craving to help better than anything else. It 
 has often seemed to me that the ministry is the vocation 
 most suitable to women. It needs love above all else, and 
 the persuasive faculty. Good must be made attractive, and 
 that is a peculiarly feminine problem. At the bedside of 
 the sick no one can be more suitable than a woman to speak 
 consoling words, and to teach the patience which is her 
 life-habit. To the dying, who can make the life of the 
 spirit so clear as she? as you have to me, beloved. 
 Among the poor why, the minister now gets the women 
 to do most of the work there, like my sweet daughter. 
 Think of it, dear; it will occupy you when I am gone. 
 You seem to me wonderfully well fitted for the place : you 
 have a genius for expression ; you have had much practice 
 in speaking to audiences; you have a clear perception of 
 truth, and a great love for humanity. It would be easy 
 for you to master the studies necessary. Speak to Dr. 
 Skidder about it, or I will; he is a capable man, and he 
 appreciates you. Many a time you have said women might 
 enter any profession for which they could fit themselves; 
 why not give an example to the world? Of course, prej- 
 udice will be against ycru, but that needn't matter. You 
 have learned long since to triumph over that." 
 
 He paused, but she sat silent. Her genius for expression
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 805 
 
 was struck dumb by this wonderful thought. Could it be 
 that such a suggestion was made to her to her, and by 
 one who knew her with the utmost intimacy? Yet why 
 not? Who could teach better than she who had been over 
 every step of the arduous way, she who knew where the 
 bogs were that must be avoided, and how best to climb the 
 hills? Who could testify more clearly than one who had 
 set her seal to the truth that God is true, and could give 
 adequate reasons for the faith that was in her? 
 
 She rose, and began pacing up and down with her long, 
 free step. Her husband's words had rolled back a curtain 
 from her mind. She saw the wide landscape bathed in a 
 golden light ; she saw the glancing play of its holy waters ; 
 she heard the rustling of the leaves on the tree of life. She 
 saw herself passing along the highways and byways, helping 
 some to their feet, carrying this fragile one in her bosom, 
 leading by the hand that strong soul blinded by many 
 thorns. She saw more than individuals ; she saw the masses 
 struggling like sheep one over another, falling headlong in 
 their eagerness to get on, not knowing whither; she saw 
 herself at their head, conducting them directing them 
 She heard a voice crying in her ears, "The fields are al- 
 ready white unto harvest, but the laborers are few; go you 
 in." It was like a revelation to her, this suggestion that 
 made every divergent path of her varied life converge here, 
 here find its reason for being, its guiding over-soul. The 
 riddle of her life was answered; the Sphinx's dumb lips 
 moved and spoke the solvent words : Live and give. 
 
 She fell on her knees beside her husband, laying her 
 head upon his breast, the rare tears raining over her cheeks. 
 He held her close awhile in silence, and when at length 
 he asked what was the matter, she could only say:
 
 306 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 "I am so happy, so blessed. Let me cry a little; you are 
 so very good to me, beloved." 
 
 The next day he called Dr. Skidder to him and spoke of 
 what he hoped for Bertha. The doctor was a Congrega/- 
 tional minister of great ability and breadth of ideas, the 
 pastor of a large and intelligent flock which flourished 
 under his care that helped their lives to expand without 
 let or hindrance, yet in the order of harmony. Mr. Went- 
 worth had been one of his strongest upholders, and now the 
 doctor listened with much hospitality of thought and feel- 
 ing to the plan proposed. 
 
 "It is the best sort of an idea," he averred enthusiastic- 
 ally. "You and I know what fine service she can render, 
 and it is eminently fitting that it should be consecrated to 
 the highest cause. To exclude her because of her sex from 
 the profession whose business it is to bring God and man 
 together would seem much like agreeing with the obsolete 
 notion of the Mohammedans that women have no souls. 
 In God is no question of sex, neither should there be in his 
 service. A wise man said, 'Woman's humanity is the gen- 
 eral fact to be recognized, her womanhood is the special 
 fact out of which grow her personal relations. When these 
 principles are recognized, sex will be relegated to the priv- 
 acy where it belongs/ " 
 
 "Capital!" exclaimed Mr. Wentworth, a smile broaden- 
 ing his thin face. 
 
 "The distinction of sex has no place in mind," went on 
 the doctor learnedly. "A problem in geometry is neither 
 masculine nor feminine; the facts of history, the data of 
 science, cannot be regarded from a male or female stand- 
 point; there is but one for anything mental, and that is 
 the standpoint of truth. When Paul excluded women from 
 public exercises he held to Jewish ideas that were passing
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE SOTf! 
 
 away; the Christian thought rises above that duality to a 
 higher unity. God is spirit, and those who worship must 
 worship in spirit and in truth. This, perhaps the highest 
 statement in the gospels, was made not only to one of the 
 despised sex, but to a woman of a despised nation, and 
 one who, according to ordinary human judgment, was of 
 despicable character. Yet Christ pierced through the shells 
 of appearance in every one of its guises to the kernel of the 
 mind, and gave her the whole truth, without hesitation or 
 explanation. She received it in the same spirit, without 
 apology, though with awe, and instantly acted upon it. 
 That is all God asks. It isn't a question of sex that is 
 so petty it is forgotten; it is merely a question of having 
 ears that hear." 
 
 Not long after this Mr. Wentworth died. It was a case 
 of heart failure at the last, and the end came with merciful 
 celerity. He told Lucy before Bertha that she must not 
 trammel herself in any way by the legacies he left, and 
 she understood him. Nevertheless she insisted afterward 
 on giving a small sum to her father's wife which could 
 defray her expenses while she was establishing herself other- 
 wise; she asked her to speak if ever she were in need, 
 and then their paths separated. Bertha was left once more 
 to face the world alone. 
 
 But she did not feel herself alone. The you-and-I of 
 it, that in which two are distinct yet identified, held her 
 and her mate together; not in the same way as when he 
 was on earth, but essentially. She was so wholly vital, as 
 in body so in soul, that life convinced her of its perpetuity ; 
 the dream that it could cease as a candle is snuffed out 
 had long since vanished with the night. Time and space
 
 308 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 she saw to be the transient theater of life, for she realized 
 that, whether on or off the stage, personality abides. 
 
 "Do you suppose she will marry again," asked Evelyn 
 of her mother when they heard of Mr. Wentworth's death, 
 "or has she passed the age for that?" 
 
 "It is not a question of age," answered Mercy Maitland 
 with deliberate assurance. "Many women older than she 
 have married, many more have wished to marry; she will 
 do neither." 
 
 "How can you be so sure when she married twice be- 
 fore?" 
 
 "Because I know her character," was the calm reply. 
 "In Mr. Wentworth she found her long-sought ideal of a 
 good man, and he set before her in daily detail the beauty 
 of a noble life faithfully lived. They were united long 
 enough to become thoroughly at one; as an individual, 
 therefore, she is complete, once and for all ; hence any idea 
 of marriage that seeking of a part for the whole is tran- 
 scended, and naturally lapses into desuetude." 
 
 "I wish I could know as you do, mother. I can't recall 
 one of your prophecies about people that didn't turn out 
 right." 
 
 "There's no magic in it, dear. Observation and interest 
 have taught me what to expect of different persons. It is 
 a very simple process and it simplifies life; I find it well 
 worth cultivating." 
 
 Bertha threw herself into the work of mastering theology 
 under Dr. Skidder's able guidance with the same ardor she 
 had used to attack previous problems, and with wisdom 
 vastly increased. Eventually she summed up her creed in 
 the one phrase: Personality human and divine, inclusive, 
 as it is, of the perfectibility of man. 
 
 "The working out of practice on this basis," she said,
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 309 
 
 reviewing her convictions to him, "makes clear that, 
 inasmuch as man is not shut out either of hell or 
 heaven by divine decree, neither should his fellows strive 
 to close either door, which may be equally the entrance into 
 life for that soul. Hence toleration in action and opinion 
 should prevail; no dogmatism, but clear formulation of 
 truth so far as seen, and the most attractive possible per- 
 suasion to its acceptance; no final judgment, but recogni- 
 tion of endless opportunity, while keeping firm hold on 
 ethics as the laws of freedom; no dictation in any shape 
 to another adult soul (except by due process of law), but 
 perennial aid by way of insight and example; creation, in 
 short, of an atmosphere in which love of the best can grow. 
 Men must learn to think what is true and to do what is 
 right, since thus alone can they 'be good together/ attain- 
 ing to the full stature of a man, which is that of an angel. 
 
 "Moreover, our ambition to be perfect must embrace the 
 race in the active desire that all may be perfect, before 
 the consummation can be reached. The laws of the uni- 
 verse make manifest that only through serving others can 
 we serve ourselves; only through the practical realization 
 of the unity of man do we become men. This is what 
 family life, mercantile life, national life, cosmic life, all 
 mean: each individual puts his mite into the treasury of 
 God, and as interest he gets in return the whole. 
 
 "That past sin should exclude one from this illimitable 
 heritage is unthinkable ; indeed, the suggestion seems to me 
 blasphemous, a slur on the nature of the divine. The one 
 narrow path leading direct to God is to abandon whatever 
 is seen to be wrong or false ; there is no other path, and no 
 other end to this. Glory shines down this pathway, illumi- 
 nating at the very farthest end whoever strives. He sees 
 the effulgence the instant he turns into the way, and it
 
 310 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 makes clear that the joy of life, no less than the duty of 
 him who would attain, is fidelity fidelity to the best that 
 is seen. Then the glory that surpasseth grows more and 
 more glorious as he advances, emerging into the perfect 
 day." 
 
 The hour of ordination was the most solemn and the 
 most joyful of her life. Robed in stainless white, with the 
 sunlight like a loving hand upon her splendid crown of 
 hair, now glinting with silver; her face chastened, exalted, 
 Bertha Wentworth knelt to receive communion as a priest 
 of God. She gloried in the moment as excellent beyond 
 compare; not for herself that speck vanished in transcen- 
 dent light; nor even for womanhood though she was 
 aware that in her it received supreme recognition; it was 
 for humanity, forgiven all its shortcomings, joyous with 
 eternal rejoicing as the child of God. 
 
 A few of her most intimate friends alone were present. 
 General Grey and Agnes and Mrs. Maitland sat side by 
 side, reviewing in the splendor of this moment all they 
 knew of Bertha. They were uplifted with the one they 
 loved; they felt that all men were. The silence of that 
 kneeling form with face upheld to God was eloquent of the 
 surety that may encourage any one who desires heaven. 
 It is always within his reach; he has but to pursue the 
 right way and he comes into his own. 
 
 Mrs. Endicott sat behind them, very still. She had not 
 been so always. 
 
 "This is too much!" she cried indignantly when she 
 heard of Bertha's intention to be ordained. "I can stand 
 most things, but this goes beyond me. Why, that woman 
 
 is no more fit to be a minister Preposterous ! Such 
 
 a thing was never heard of. No church that is a real
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 511 
 
 church would ever permit it, in all the ages of the world. I 
 shall make it my business to see Dr. Skidder and tell the 
 dear old man what I know, and furthermore what I suspect. 
 He can't have the least notion of what she's been through." 
 
 "Whatever she may have been through," said Agnes, to 
 whom this was reeled off by her white-haired aunt under 
 pressure of high excitement, "she has come out of it into 
 the light. Her husband said in dying that she had been 
 to him a revelation of goodness. Isn't that sufficient?" 
 
 "Oh, her husband! Which one?" sneered the worldly 
 woman. "Mr. Wentworth probably never knew any more 
 than Dr. Skidder knows what she was. I didn't say any- 
 thing at her wedding it's a woman's right to make the 
 best marriage she can but now I shan't keep silent; this 
 is going too far. Her arrogant ambition must be made to 
 halt. It would be sacreligious to let her become a min- 
 ister !" The tone of scorn and disgust in which she spoke 
 would have been funny, had the situation not been so 
 serious. 
 
 Unable to dissuade her from going East with venomous 
 intent, Agnes warned Mrs. Maitland, who went at once to 
 New York, making herself known to Mrs. Endicott almost 
 immediately upon her arrival. The descendant of the 
 Puritans and of the Quakers met and Mercy prevailed. The 
 artillery of scorn and contumely, forged by the instinct to 
 shatter what towers high and reinforced by the sense of 
 setting up a bulwark to defend righteousness, was effectu- 
 ally spiked. Mrs. Maitland rendered plain to the lesser 
 woman that she would be wise not to interfere; she would 
 gain nothing, for Mrs. Maitland was aware of Dr. Skid- 
 der's breadth and charity of vision; she would lose much 
 much she would be sorry to lose. Thus having met the 
 worldly point of view on its own ground, she stepped to
 
 812 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 Mrs. Endicott's side as a sister, persuading her that, once 
 seeing straight, she really did not wish to obstruct. 
 
 "We have had an immense privilege in knowing such a 
 woman," said Mrs. Maitland in the course of the inter- 
 view. "You discerned the remarkable in her very early, 
 and it has grown more and more remarkable as her devel- 
 opment proceeds. What many have longed to see, we wit- 
 ness. I think of her sometimes as Michel Angelo hewing 
 with great blows his statue from the solid block. The 
 sculptor doesn't discover his figure wrapped up in the 
 marble, with a stain here, and a flaw there; he sees his 
 Dawn or Twilight perfect in his mind, and then tries to 
 wrest the rock into conformity with his vision. He can 
 work only with the material he has, and with the limited 
 knowledge he has acquired, so there are defects and blun- 
 ders to mar the image he would reveal; but these do not 
 destroy the idea, which gets itself expressed finally, in 
 more or less clumsy fashion a hint merely of what was 
 his ideal and the world sees, blaming or praising accord- 
 ing to its power of perception. At all events, it is God's 
 strength that she wields while she swings the chisel: let us 
 give him the glory, and pass on."
 
 IMMEDIATELY after her ordination Bertha went to a 
 parish that had called her and which was eagerly awaiting 
 her advent. Many of the people she knew personally, and 
 they rejoiced to have her among them and she rejoiced to 
 be there. Here the last wonderful phase of her life began ; 
 humbly, for it was a small parish, not rich in the things 
 of this world; peacefully, irradiated with joy. 
 
 How she did minister unto her people ! She threw her- 
 self heart and soul into the work in every detail. When 
 she first took charge, the society was weighed down 
 with a sense of poverty and acquiescence in the fact; she 
 preached against this spirit, and acted against it; she in- 
 fused the members with vigorous life so that matters im- 
 proved by leaps and bounds. In a short time the poor, 
 bare edifice they had been willing to let so remain was con- 
 verted into a comfortable, attractive church. "Put all 
 your money there," she said. "Don't try to beautify the 
 parsonage; my needs beyond simple necessities can wait. 
 Concentrate beauty where all can share it." 
 
 The congregation grew in numbers with surprising 
 speed. She went along the streets and alleys of the town, 
 in no blatant fashion, but effectively, calling the people by 
 name, and they gave heed. Some came for disingenuous 
 reasons, perhaps, but once having heard her having come 
 under her influence they continued to follow, fired with 
 zeal. She set before them convincingly what could trans- 
 
 313
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 form their lives from spiritual poverty to the inheritance 
 of earth and skies, rousing in them a desire for it beyond 
 any other wealth. All was theirs, of course; she simply 
 showed them how to take possession, a never-ending task 
 and joy, since before they had been ragged and idle "the 
 idle soul shall suffer hunger" whereas now they were 
 clothed in rich robes and surrounded by the plenteous 
 fruits of activity. At times she wished she had a whole 
 city to draw from instead of a little town, but she quickly 
 silenced such murmurings by the thought that here as well 
 as anywhere she could work with all her might, and the 
 reward would be sure. 
 
 "The last year has been surely the best and happiest of 
 my life," she wrote Agnes on the first anniversary of her 
 ordination. *'It seems almost incredible that such a year 
 could have been mine : a year of congenial work, of generous 
 appreciation, of sufficient success, and of deep peace." 
 
 During the second year of her ministry General Grey 
 called her to him by telegram, for he was dying. She went 
 at once, her heart full of wistfulness, yet of content: he 
 had earned promotion. She found him slowly failing 
 under the effects of a stroke of paralysis which left his mind 
 clear and speech unaffected. Independent as he had al- 
 ways been, and alone as he was, he looked upon his inca- 
 pacity as durance vile; and, although she tried to be 
 courageous for his sake, she could not forbear agreeing 
 with him. She had suffered very little physical pain or 
 disability and hardly knew what it meant, so she felt the 
 dismay that is apt to come with the habit of strength, 
 imagining the deprivation of it would be the greatest 
 calamity. "When my time comes, I do hope I shan't be 
 long about it," she thought. Meanwhile she exerted herself
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 315 
 
 to the utmost to ease his path, giving of her life-force, 
 physical and spiritual, without stint. 
 
 Grey's thoughts turned from this world, where the deed 
 was accomplished, almost wholly to the next phase. Often 
 he lost himself in dreams of meeting anew his long-loved 
 wife. Would she have gone too far ahead to turn back 
 to him? 
 
 "Nay, there needs no turning back," said Bertha gently. 
 "Love is the power that unites; sympathy is the spiritual 
 law of gravitation, drawing together those who love; and 
 when did love ever turn its back upon its object? Not 
 even God does so with the pettiest human soul. Consider 
 also how much further two can go than one alone. It is 
 a tremendous fact, one that encompasses life itself, for it 
 is the basis of life and also its highest crown. It has 
 divine authority, since to life together only does the power 
 of creation come. Love gives and love takes; each is es- 
 sential to perfection ; then every stroke of one wing is com- 
 plemented by that of the other; and the whole soars." 
 
 Thus she buoyed him in strong arms, as he had so often 
 upheld her. Immediately upon his death she returned to 
 her parish, which felt that it could hardly exist without 
 her. But she was tired, tired all through; weary body and 
 spirit. The strain on her sympathy, so active and deep, 
 had been too much for her, they said. She repudiated the 
 thought: it was a touch of spring fever; it would pass away 
 if ignored; what nonsense for her to be so tired! She 
 spared herself not the least, but worked harder than ever, 
 as there was much sickness in the parish, and her presence 
 was more eagerly waited for than health. But the little 
 cloud on the horizon grew, though at first it cast only a 
 grateful shade, at least to some of her people. The strain 
 of keeping pace with her indomitable energy and ceaseless
 
 316 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 work lessened little by little as her strength failed. At the 
 same time a loftier spirituality, a deeper significance, was 
 imparted to her words. The vigor that had distinguished 
 her always now turned within, owing to the lessening 
 vitality that robbed her body, but left her spirit free to seek 
 the deep things of God. She sought and she found them. 
 As month by month passed, her fair face grew thin, her 
 full form became meager; her firm hand lost its steadiness 
 as she baptized infants, or united couples in matrimony, 
 or said hopeful words over the dead, or administered 
 the holy cup of communion between heaven and earth; 
 but her soul rose higher and higher. The words she spoke 
 gained a wonderful clearness and beauty ; her voice vibrated 
 with compassion and exhortation; her eyes shone from the 
 pulpit like enlarging stars. 
 
 The people were absolutely devoted to her; they saw 
 with fear and trembling her loss of hold on physical life, 
 and when the day came that she fell on the highway in a 
 dead faint, simply spent in the service of others, they in- 
 sisted on calling the best physicians to her assistance. She 
 acquiesced; she had fought as long as she could; she sub- 
 mitted to their examination, and saw in their inscrutable 
 faces doom : she little knew to what. 
 
 They said she must go away and rest absolutely for a 
 time, and some of her parishioners escorted her tenderly to 
 the "cure" that had been recommended. Her heart was 
 heavy in being thus checked in mid-career. Like Faust 
 she had arrived at the moment she would fain delay be- 
 cause it contained the largest possibilities. In fact, the 
 moment was eternalized, since she had learned here and 
 now the method of eternity, which is to live through others, 
 thus living to the largest one's own life. What would her 
 parish that she loved so dearly do without her? It would
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 317; 
 
 wait for her return, the people said. It did, with singular 
 loyalty. It defrayed all her expenses ; it gave her love and 
 care in unstinted measure; a committee went often to visit 
 her in the seclusion decreed, but eact time returned with 
 sorrowing faces; she was getting worse instead of better. 
 
 At last she was told the termination could only be fatal. 
 The knowledge was no shock to her, for she had been in- 
 wardly prepared, and she insisted on returning to her peo- 
 ple while she yet had strength to say good-by. She stood 
 among them for the last time; she addressed her farewell 
 to them from the pulpit that meant such infinite things to 
 her. The church was thronged by a hushed assembly; 
 many faces> streaming with unnoticed tears, looked up to 
 her face, of a pearly pallor, which was uplifted by an ex- 
 pression that remained in their hearts to their dying day. 
 
 She spoke to them with the tenderness of a mother bid- 
 ding her children adieu. Her voice throbbed with yearning 
 in their behalf. She comforted them with the comfort 
 wherewith she had been comforted. She transcended grief 
 and rose to hope ; to the divine, the glorious hope that cries, 
 death, where is thy sting? grave, where is thy vic- 
 tory? She looked like a spirit heaven-descended into the 
 old barrel-like pulpit it had been her intention next to 
 have removed (they treasured it as a sacred relic). She 
 leaned upon its dark sides, and her hands were long and 
 pale like lilies. She was clothed in white raiment, and her 
 hair, that the pressure of pain had swiftly blanched, made 
 a silver setting to the chiseled face and great dark eyes, 
 burning deep in their sockets, through which the soul 
 shone. 
 
 When she came down among them afterwards, they gath- 
 ered about her, weeping, sobbing, trying to touch her, to 
 lay hold if only of her dress, as though thus they might
 
 318 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 keep her with them. The strain grew past endurance 
 shortly, and two of the elders caught her as she fainted, 
 and carried her, a sadly light weight for all her height, 
 away from the eyes of the congregation. 
 
 Mercy Maitland and Lucy found themselves side by side 
 in the crowd which stayed with stifled sobs to learn 
 whether or no their beloved would recover consciousness. 
 
 "If she survives," said Lucy, her countenance alight, 
 "she shall be my care henceforward; I shall stay with her 
 until the end." 
 
 "It is fit," replied Mercy, almost in a whisper. 
 
 Bertha did recover consciousness; the cup of suffering 
 was held to her lips for many months thereafter, while she 
 drank of it slowly, drop by drop, to the bitterest dregs. 
 She was aware now of what she had to expect, and she did 
 not falter, realizing that the soul is superior to any cir- 
 cumstance, and that the inevitable can be endured until 
 it works release. 
 
 Her chief solace and support during these crucial months 
 was Lucy, though Agnes and Mercy went to and fro several 
 times, bringing cheer and taking away inspiration; but 
 their lives were held by other duties. Lucy's supreme use 
 was here. The inaccessible soul had left its aerie and stood 
 on quiet, tireless feet beside this bed of anguish ; the tender 
 heart and nursing hands had found their ceaseless occupa- 
 tion. She went to Bertha as soon as she left the church, 
 and took charge with such efficient authority that there 
 was no question of acceptance; she stayed with her in 
 absolute devotion until the last. Yet for some time their 
 hearts did not lie against each other. 
 
 One day, apropos of nothing at all, Bertha said : 
 
 "I was all wrong you know, Lucy, in sending your
 
 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 319 
 
 mother's furniture away and doing your room over in spite 
 of you. I thought I was serving you a good turn, but it 
 simply shows how much I needed still to learn of sensibil- 
 ity, and not to interfere." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Lucy quietly, combing the long, 
 softened hair with a new touch of tenderness. The trivial- 
 ity of the event but made more apparent the simplicity of 
 spirit eager ever to learn ; obviously Bertha was capable not 
 only of making good a constitutional defect, but of sur- 
 passing limitations endlessly. 
 
 This incident led Bertha to relate her life's story to 
 Lucy, thus gathering up her whole history at its end. The 
 process belonged to Lucy because she could not take the 
 synthetic result without explanation, as her father could 
 blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed 
 it belonged to her also because her soul widened to receive 
 it. Through the telling of the tale she grew capable of 
 catching a glimpse of what God meant in creating this 
 woman. As a life finishes, it rounds into a perfect globe ; 
 all the deviations sink into the general round, as the un- 
 evennesses of the earth, be they Himalayas, are no more 
 than the pores of an orange-skin when seen from the 
 proper, the heavenly, distance. 
 
 Bertha was already at this lofty outlook and she lifted 
 Lucy to contemplation beside her. 
 
 "I never thought of myself as unchaste," she commented 
 at one point calmly, "but my life with your father 
 taught me otherwise. I hadn't meant to be, but I was, 
 unclean; chastity had to be acquired. It lay ahead, not 
 behind a chastened state of soul to which life, in spite 
 of every debasing experience, may lift." 
 
 Lucy took Bertha's large, well-formed hand, emaciated 
 now, and, bending her head, held it long to her lips. She
 
 320 A VICTORIOUS LIFE 
 
 did so humbly for herself how blind she had been ! ex- 
 ultingly for this other, to whom she gave true value at 
 length when all fleshliness was cleansed from the fair spirit. 
 
 Bertha's great eyes rested on her appreciatively, yet in 
 them was a detached expression as she resumed. 
 
 "Experience has come to purge my soul, to purify me as 
 by fire; this suffering is its consummation. When I leave 
 I shall have graduated from the school of anguish. I don't 
 ask to have the term shortened; far less would I wilfully 
 hasten its end. If God, who is love, leads us into the fur- 
 nace, it is because he sees it is what we most need. If we 
 say, No, I won't bear it! to one who is entirely loving, 
 entirely wise, we deny that we are capable of sharing his 
 nature, of becoming perfect, through whatever means. 
 There is nothing I want so much as to be clean, like God ; 
 if this fiery discipline is the way to achieve the end, it is 
 the way of all others I choose. So long as I cling to this 
 thought, all is well; but sometimes, Lucy, it forsakes me; 
 then I am in the midst of the furnace alone the sense of 
 desolation is unspeakable. But it is not for long." The 
 gloom faded, the glory came into her eyes. "Endurance 
 of what passes leads to that which, abides life everlasting 
 love joy "