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 PUTNAM
 
 WHOSO FINDETH 
 A WIFE 
 
 J. WESLEY PIT*AM 
 
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 THE 1UCAUI-VV COMPANY 
 
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 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE
 
 WHOSO FINDETH 
 A WIFE 
 
 BY 
 J. WESLEY PUTNAM 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY 
 1914
 
 Copyright, 1914, by 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I BY DEVIOUS WAYS 9 
 
 II GREAT EXPECTATIONS 23 
 
 III THE LION AND THE LAMB 30 
 
 IV THE ENTERING WEDGE . . ..... . 38 
 
 V THREATENING CLOUDS . . . . ... . 55 
 
 VI THE BARGAIN 66 
 
 VII GIVING AND TAKING 78 
 
 VIII THE CLOSED DOOR . . . . . . . 93 
 
 IX NOT STRICTLY ACCORDING TO PROGRAM . . .112 
 
 X FACING FACTS . . . . .... . . . 117 
 
 XI A GLIMPSE OF THE EEAL 124 
 
 XII OUT OF THE STAGNANT HARBOR 134 
 
 XIII YOUTH WILL BE SERVED . . . . . . . .146 
 
 XIV ON THE FLOOD 154 
 
 XV A HELPING HAND . . . . . . > . . .177 
 
 XVI IN THE DARK WATCHES 202 
 
 XVII THE EENUNCIATION 207 
 
 XVIII HOMING TOGETHER . . 224 
 
 2137823
 
 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE
 
 WHOSO FINDETH A 
 WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BY DEVIOUS WAYS 
 
 I 
 
 IT was four oclock when Dunham s car swerved 
 off the Avenue and came to an abrupt stop in 
 front of a house in Fifty-fifth Street. Ralph 
 Dunham stepped out briskly and slammed the 
 door of the limousine sharply behind him. 
 
 1 Wait ! " he said to the chauffeur. And then 
 he turned and climbed the short flight of steps 
 that led to the Ferris door. A moment later 
 he had thrown off his fur-lined ulster and sat 
 expectantly before the glowing library-grate of 
 one of the most respectable houses in New York. 
 
 Dunham had come direct from his downtown 
 o
 
 office. The day s work was finished. By turns 
 he had schemed and fought and threatened and 
 cajoled. The same hand that had hammered 
 the desk in emphatic gesture in front of one 
 caller had patted the back of another in pro 
 pitiating friendship. It had set a bold, firm 
 signature to some scores of letters which car 
 ried messages of various import, some pleasant 
 and some of exceedingly ill omen, to as many 
 men whose business trails crossed Dunham s 
 path. And out of the never-ending struggle he 
 had emerged as unwearied, strong and indomi 
 table as the day when a dozen years before he 
 had come out of the West, that vast breeding 
 place of giants, and thrown himself joyfully 
 into the thick of the financial fray. 
 
 Dunham s glance roved appraisingly about 
 the big room. He appreciated and envied the 
 dignified furnishings of the place. The whole 
 decorative scheme breathed a respectability, 
 an evidence of social assurance, that the best 
 of the Fifth Avenue decorators had failed to im 
 part to his own luxurious bachelor house. A
 
 BY DEVIOUS WAYS 11 
 
 less astute man than Dunham would have told 
 himself in this connection that there were some 
 things money could not buy. But as it hap 
 pened, Dunham was intent upon a purchase of 
 this very commodity that he lacked, and needed. 
 In fact) his presence in the Ferris house was 
 due to his determination to acquire the, one 
 thing that the metropolis had jealously refused 
 to yield up to him unimpeachable social posi 
 tion. And as he sat there waiting, a quiet but 
 insistent force that would not be denied, he was 
 certain that he had made no mistake in the 
 market-place. The wares were there. And 
 Dunham knew that they could be bought. Well 
 he had the price! And fortunately for the 
 success of his undertaking, spiritual considera 
 tions did not enter into his scheme of life. He 
 did not doubt, deep within his consciousness, 
 that when the time came he could square him 
 self with the Almighty. Why should he? He 
 had never yet known failure. 
 
 He heard his name, enunciated in a woman s 
 low-pitched, cultivated tones, and found him-
 
 12 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 self shaking hands with Stephen Ferris* wife. 
 Margaret Ferris looked at the big, dark figure 
 with an interest which she took no pains to 
 conceal as the two stood facing each other for 
 a moment. She felt the brute force of the man. 
 Even his hand-clasp, careful (not gentle) as it 
 was of her long, slim fingers, struck her as 
 hiding a steely strength that she was unac 
 customed to. This man and those of her world 
 were made of different stuff. 
 
 "Mr. Ferris has just come in," she said. 
 * If you will be so good as to come upstairs we 
 can talk undisturbed in his study." And Dun 
 ham followed her up the wide staircase. 
 
 ii 
 
 As they entered the room Stephen Ferris 
 rose from his desk. 
 
 Glad to see you, Dunham, he said. * How 
 are you?" 
 
 "Very well," Dunham answered. "And 
 you?" 
 
 "Quite fit, thanks." And as his wife sat
 
 BY DEVIOUS WAYS 13 
 
 down at one end of the long leather davenport, 
 Ferris waved Dunham to an armchair. He 
 hesitated for a moment, and looked inquiringly 
 at his guest. A striking contrast marked the 
 two men. Ferris, slender, narrow-shouldered, 
 immaculately dressed, was no different from a 
 hundred of his kind. An unbroken line of city- 
 bred men before him had bequeathed to him an 
 air of unstudied ennui that was marred only 
 by a few lines of worry that stamped them 
 selves indelibly upon his features. Fifty years 
 of ease had not fitted him to face impending 
 disaster with the resolve to conquer. 
 
 Ealph Dunham knew the type. Men of 
 Ferris * ilk had served his purpose often 
 enough. He noted with satisfaction the pile 
 of papers that lay strewn upon his host s desk 
 bills, unmistakably, bills unpaid and press 
 ing, the ever-increasing incubus which sooner 
 or later fastens itself upon the luckless, shrink 
 ing shoulders of the world s idlers. Three gen 
 erations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves! 
 Dunham believed in the old adage that came to
 
 14 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 his mind. His mouth set grimly as he recalled 
 his own shirt-sleeve days. They were not so far 
 back. Well ! he would play the good fairy and 
 step in and avert the coatless calamity in 
 Stephen Ferris case. He would put fate to 
 rout. 
 
 Meanwhile Margaret Ferris waited. It was 
 to her that Dunham spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Ferris, I may as well come to the 
 point at once," he began. "I suppose your 
 husband has told you of our conversation yes 
 terday, at the Club?" he said inquiringly. 
 
 Margaret Ferris nodded silently. 
 
 "Yes," Dunham continued. "Well, the mat 
 ter is quite simple to explain, then. Mr. 
 Ferris sale of his Federal Express holdings 
 was what suggested this step to me. To put 
 the case plainly, you need money. Not to-day, 
 perhaps, nor to-morrow. But the proceeds of 
 the sale of this stock will not last forever. It 
 is just staving off the inevitable when one be 
 gins to live upon his principal." He turned 
 to Ferris, who had reddened visibly under his
 
 BY DEVIOUS WAYS 15 
 
 remarks. "An unpleasant topic, I know," 
 Dunham continued. But the contingency must 
 be faced." He hesitated a moment. "It is 
 possible, as I suggested to Mr. Ferris, that I 
 may be of some assistance to you." 
 
 Margaret Ferris clasped her hands nerv 
 ously. 
 
 "Oh! Mr. Dunham!" she exclaimed, "what 
 you say is too true. I ve seen it coming for 
 three years: You don t know how I ve wor 
 ried! We ve tried to cut down our expenses. 
 But do what we will, it s no use. Whenever we 
 save in one place, some unforseen demand 
 arises and more than counterbalances. Steve 
 has thought of going into business. But you 
 know how difficult it is for a man to begin work 
 for the first time at his age. His father got 
 along very nicely on what Grandfather Ferris 
 left him. But everything is so different now! 
 It costs so frightfully to live! It s appalling 
 the way the bills run up." 
 
 Ferris regarded his wife with surprise. He 
 had heard all this often enough, in private.
 
 16 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 But for Margaret to lay bare family secrets in 
 this fashion was disconcerting, to say the least. 
 
 " There, there! * he broke in. "It s not so 
 bad as that. You know how women will worry, 
 Dunham. It s true, to be sure, that we poor 
 rich feel the pressure of the cost of living. 
 There are enough others in the same boat with 
 us. But things aren t hopeless, you know. 
 Now, if I could find just the right sort of busi 
 ness to bring in a few thousand a year extra, 
 we d do very nicely. I ve been thinking quite 
 seriously of buying a seat on the Exchange. In 
 fact, I ve nearly made up my mind to do it. 
 However, if you ve anything better to suggest, 
 Dunham, out with it! Perhaps you have in 
 mind a partnership of some sort?" 
 
 Dunham s face scarcely concealed the con 
 tempt which a man of his stamp always feels 
 for the weakling, as he answered: 
 
 "Yes, something of the sort ! A family part 
 nership is what I have in mind. 
 
 * Family ! I don t quite follow you, Ferris 
 exclaimed.
 
 BY DEVIOUS WAYS 17 
 
 "I ll explain," Ealph Dunham continued. 
 "My plan involves your daughter." 
 
 11 Elizabeth 1" they both said quickly. 
 
 "Precisely. Let us say, for the sake of argu 
 ment, that your daughter marries me. It s only 
 reasonable to suppose that I would be disposed 
 to do the right thing by her family." 
 
 Dunham watched his hearers narrowly as a 
 look of surprise involuntarily passed between 
 the two. 
 
 "I didn t come here to sound my praises as 
 a son-in-law. I ll only say that your daughter 
 could do worse. I m older than she oh! by 
 eighteen or twenty years, I daresay I m forty 
 next month. But I m clean as men go. And 
 if there are a good many unsmoothed angles 
 about me there are other considerations to be 
 thought of." 
 
 Ealph Dunham paused. That his proposal 
 carried something of a shock he did not doubt. 
 But he was accustomed to upsetting people s 
 equanimity. 
 
 Margaret Ferris sat quite still. Her white
 
 18 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 hands clutched the arm of the seat and her 
 strained, eager face was eloquent of mingled 
 doubt and hope. Ferris began to pace the 
 room. And he was speaking faster than was 
 his wont. 
 
 "This is an astounding suggestion," he was 
 saying. "I m not sure that we ought to listen 
 to you." 
 
 . Dunham noted with satisfaction that Ferris 
 eyes avoided his own. He knew the signs of 
 tempted and wavering humanity. 
 
 "Do you know the girl at all?" Ferris asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Very slightly," Dunham told him. "Just 
 a howdy-do kind of acquaintance. She seems 
 a shy sort. Only been out a short time, hasn t 
 she?" 
 
 "Yes," Ferris replied. 
 
 "Not two years," his wife added. 
 
 "She may have other ideas of her own," 
 Ferris said. Of course she s to have her own 
 way. We wouldn t think of influencing her in 
 such a matter."
 
 BY DEVIOUS WAYS 19 
 
 "Of course not," Dunham said. "But she s 
 bound to marry some day, and why not me as 
 well as anyone? And why not a little sooner 
 as well as a little later? I wouldn t dream of 
 asking you to insist upon your daughter s 
 marriage to me if it were distasteful to 
 her." 
 
 Margaret Ferris was silent. What mingled 
 waves of emotion were surging within her she 
 alone knew. But Dunham felt that her silence 
 did not auger ill for his cause. It was a mo 
 ment that tried even his well governed nerves. 
 But he felt that he must press home his point 
 before he left that room. 
 
 "Suppose you think the question over," he 
 said suavely. "There isn t any special hurry, 
 you know." And as he spoke his eyes sought 
 the tell-tale varicolored heap of tradesmen s 
 bills upon the desk. He knew that there lay 
 the goad which must prick the couple on to a 
 decision. "Perhaps it s just as well that we 
 understand one another, however. Let me put 
 the case clearly. Give me your consent to win
 
 20 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 your daughter, and if I succeed I ll pay these 
 debts all of em" and he waved a careless 
 hand toward the desk "and settle a million 
 dollars on you." 
 
 From Margaret Ferris lips came a sudden 
 inarticulate sound. Surprise, joy, hope, fear 
 it was impossible for Dunham to fathom that 
 throaty sob. He turned to Ferris, who had 
 stopped dead in his tracks and now stood fac 
 ing him, with his eyes staring and his mouth 
 foolishly opening and shutting. But his loose 
 lips framed no words. 
 
 Dunham rose. "Think it over," he said. 
 "And meantime if you ve no objection I d like 
 to see a little more of Miss Elizabeth. Under 
 stand, I won t say anything to her without 
 hearing from you. But until you decide there 
 can be no harm in such attentions as I may pay 
 her." 
 
 "Oh! no harm at all!" Ferris hastened to 
 answer, recovering from his sudden seizure. 
 "Of course your suggestion is er just a bit 
 unusual, you know. And it has taken us so
 
 BY DEVIOUS WAYS 21 
 
 completely by surprise that we shall have to 
 give ourselves a little time to decide." 
 
 "Naturally," Dunham answered. "And 
 now that we understand one another I must be 
 on my way." He turned to take Mrs. Ferris 
 hand, when a knock at the door interrupted his 
 adieu. Stephen and Margaret Ferris started 
 guiltily. 
 
 "Come in!" Ferris called. And a girl en 
 tered. 
 
 "Oh! it s you, Elizabeth," Margaret said. 
 "You know Mr. Dunham " 
 
 "To be sure," Elizabeth Ferris answered 
 evenly. Dunham took a small, well-gloved hand 
 in his and murmured his pleasure. 
 
 "Jane said she thought I d find you in Dad 
 dy s den," she told her mother. "I promised 
 to drop in at Ann Jordan s tea. But I ll be 
 back in plenty of time to go to the Hartleys * 
 dinner with you." 
 
 "Very well, child," her mother said. 
 Good-by, Mr. Dunham ! So glad to have seen 
 you again !
 
 22 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 m 
 
 Dunham turned to Elizabeth Ferris. 
 
 "May I give you a lift in my car?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh! thank you, I was going to walk. It s 
 not far you know Eightieth Street." She 
 made a bewitching picture, in her brown suit 
 and sables, with little wisps of rebellious chest 
 nut hair escaping beneath the close-fitting edges 
 of her tailored hat. Dunham looked at her 
 with immense approval. 
 
 "My car s just spoiling for exercise," he 
 pleaded. 
 
 "Well then, I ll walk back. Good-by, dear 
 people " and she smiled brightly at her father 
 and mother. 
 
 So they went away on that winter evening. 
 And into the stream of cars that rolled majes 
 tically up Fifth Avenue Dunham s chauffeur 
 skillfully piloted them. And the Lion and the 
 Lamb were together in the blustering March 
 twilight.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GEEAT EXPECTATIONS 
 
 I 
 
 THE sound of the outer door shutting behind 
 those two departing ones sounded dully in the 
 ears of Stephen Ferris and his wife. Now that 
 Dunham had gone, and the last sign of his pres 
 ence had vanished with the echo of the closing 
 door, the whole interview seemed to them both 
 but some fantastic dream. Ferris sank into 
 the chair behind the desk and looked wearily 
 at the appalling testimonials of disaster that 
 lay before him. 
 
 Margaret still sat leaning against the arm of 
 the leather sofa, her chin resting upon both 
 hands. 
 
 ii 
 
 "Well!" Stephen said at last. "What do 
 you think of it?" 
 
 23
 
 24 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "Of him?" she countered. 
 
 "Yes what of him?" 
 
 "Not exactly the sort of son-in-law I d have 
 picked out ! Still, he might be worse. There s 
 this to say in his favor, Steve. He 11 never be 
 any worse than he is now. If he were younger, 
 oh! ten years younger his ultimate develop 
 ment might still be problematical. But he s 
 mature. His personality, and his habits 
 mental and moral are fixed for life." 
 
 "Oh! damn his habits! Men are all alike, 
 underneath. Have you ever seen him eat soup, 
 now? The chap gets on very well when he sits 
 down and talks. But what s he like, I wonder, 
 to well, to live with? To take into one s fam 
 ily?" 
 
 "Don t worry about that sort of thing, Steve. 
 Table manners are at a discount nowadays. 
 They re the least valuable asset a man can 
 have. I ve often wished that your family had 
 drilled less refinement into you paid not so 
 much attention to how gracefully you could live 
 on money somebody else made, and put some
 
 GREAT EXPECTATIONS 25 
 
 effort on teaching you how to earn some your 
 self." 
 
 Ferris looked wearily at his wife. He had 
 often heard such complaints from her during 
 the past three years. And he had long since 
 learned the futility of attempting to stem the 
 torrent of dissatisfaction that she poured upon 
 him with unvarying regularity. 
 
 "What about Elizabeth?" he ventured, when 
 she had finished. "Do you think she will ever 
 agree to marry Dunham?" 
 
 "Why not?" she answered sharply. "What 
 else would she do? Marry some young fool in 
 her own set who s had the same sort of up 
 bringing that her father s had? Not if I can 
 help it, Steve! This is a brilliant match for 
 her. It isn t every girl who has such a chance. 
 They re as few opportunities like this as are 
 fortunes the size of Ealph Dunham s. Just 
 how much is he worth, Steve?" 
 
 Ferris shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Nobody knows," he said. "I doubt if the 
 man knows himself. You hear all sorts of sto-
 
 26 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 ries. Sixty seventy millions, that s what 
 some think. But suppose he s only worth half 
 that ... it s enough. More than enough!" 
 
 Hard lines showed about Margaret Ferris 
 mouth. A score of minute wrinkles, those tell 
 tale marks of the workings of the mind within, 
 bespoke worry, avarice, scheming. 
 
 " A million dollars!" she said, slowly. "It s 
 nothing to a man like him. Little enough, I 
 should say, in exchange for the position that 
 Elizabeth would bring him ! Many a man has 
 spent more than that, vainly too, in the effort 
 to display his wife s jewels in coveted places." 
 
 Stephen Ferris laughed. It was not a pleas 
 ant sound, coming from his contemptuous, 
 sneering lips. 
 
 "What do you want!" he asked her. "I 
 might have known you wouldn t be satisfied. I 
 suppose you think Dunham ought to make over 
 half his holdings. If you want to know what 
 I think, it s a damned generous offer. A mil 
 lion dollars to be married! Not many men 
 would be willing to pay that. If it were the
 
 GREAT EXPECTATIONS 27 
 
 other way, now a million to get unmarried! 
 . . . well, I could appreciate that better." 
 
 Margaret Ferris paid no attention to her 
 husband s sally. 
 
 "No, it s none too much. But I suppose 
 beggars can t be choosers. And that s what 
 we re fast becoming beggars! That s what 
 we ll be soon enough if Elizabeth plays the 
 fool." 
 
 "You ll have to talk to her, Margaret," 
 Ferris advised. "You ll know how to do it 
 better than I. If this thing slips up the Lord 
 knows what we ll do. With the debts paid and 
 a clean million to work with, I ll go down on 
 the Street and double it in no time. 
 
 Mrs. Ferris sat suddenly bolt upright and 
 faced her husband. 
 
 "Where do I come in, pray?" she asked. 
 "You flatter yourself, Steve, if you think you 
 can grab all that money for yourself. If you 
 had it you are just silly enough to throw it 
 away inside of a year. " She paused a moment, 
 as if to let her words prepare him for what was
 
 28 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 coming. "Half of it s to be mine, Steve," she 
 said firmly. "Mine to do with as I like!" 
 
 Ferris glared at her. 
 
 "Don t be unreasonable," he said. "Who 
 brought this fellow here, anyhow? You don t 
 suppose I m a child, do you, to be cheated out 
 of what rightfully belongs to me? I expected 
 to do something for you, naturally. But I 
 might have known you wouldn t be satisfied 
 with a square deal. It s a wonder you don t 
 want it all." 
 
 "Only my share, Steve!" she replied. 
 "You played with the money my father left me, 
 and where is it now? And you made ducks 
 and drakes of your own fortune. Now I m go 
 ing to manage for myself. 
 
 Ferris knew that her mind was made up. 
 
 "As you wish," he said, sourly, with little 
 relish for the resignation that he knew must 
 be his lot. "What s the use, after all, of 
 quarreling over what we haven t got?" 
 
 Margaret Ferris paused, as she laid her hand 
 on the doorknob.
 
 GREAT EXPECTATIONS 29 
 
 "No, Steve," she said. "We haven t got 
 it now. But it won t be my fault if we don t get 
 it. Elizabeth simply has to marry soon. If 
 she didn t it wouldn t be long before we d be 
 unable to do anything for her at all. And what 
 chance has a girl without gowns, and a family 
 that can entertain for her ? As it is, things are 
 growing shabby about the house. And we 
 haven t a single decent car left. And how 
 we re to get another goodness knows. The 
 limousine has been out of commission for a 
 week and Williams says he simply can t patch 
 it together much longer. It s now or never! 
 This man Dunham is a special dispensation of 
 Providence sent for the relief of the pious. 
 He s manna, Steve, that s what he is!" 
 
 "Well, mind you don t crowd him too quickly 
 down Eliabeth s throat." 
 
 "Trust me, Steve." 
 
 "I will ... if I must," Stephen Ferris 
 added, as his wife closed the door behind her.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE LION AND THE LAMB 
 I 
 
 WHILE her father and mother were haggling 
 over the division of the spoils, the price of her 
 purchase, Elizabeth was speeding gaily uptown 
 in Dunham s car. She had met the man a few 
 times at balls and dinners. But his occasional 
 presence in her set was only of recent date. 
 Though for years he had loomed large in the 
 newspapers, it was rather in the fashionable 
 restaurants, at the Opera and the Horse Show, 
 that Dunham had become a familiar figure. In 
 the innermost sanctified shrines of the old New 
 York families he had penetrated only of late, 
 and on few occasions. Elizabeth wondered 
 mildly what could have brought him to her 
 father s study. And then she promptly for- 
 
 30
 
 LION AND LAMB 31 
 
 got the matter. The present was sufficiently 
 diverting. 
 
 Dunham was not a great talker. Where 
 business was not concerned he never had much 
 to say. But now and then he put in a word 
 agreeably enough. In his thoughts there was 
 much that would have astonished the pretty 
 chatting creature at his side. He looked down 
 at the soft whiteness of her cheek, ivory-like 
 in the dusk of early evening, and there came 
 over him a sudden desire to clasp her roughly 
 in his arms. It was not love. Affection was 
 something that Ealph Dunham had had no time 
 for. But here was a woman who would some 
 day be his his to do with as he liked. He had 
 no doubt of the outcome of his suit. The power 
 of money was an influence he had reason to be 
 lieve in. Would she shrink from him when the 
 time came? He stretched out a hand and un 
 seen by her touched the rich stuff of her suit; 
 and then quickly drew away, with every nerve 
 strung taut. He must not be hasty, he re 
 flected.
 
 32 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 They were nearing the Plaza, and Dunham 
 said 
 
 "You ve time for a spin through the Park, 
 haven t you?" 
 
 "Why, yes, Mr. Dunham," the girl answered. 
 The suggestion surprised her. She had not re 
 garded Dunham as a contemporary of hers 
 but rather of her parents. His age was obvi 
 ously nearer theirs than her own. His offering 
 her a lift in his car had been only common 
 courtesy. But to take her for a ride in the 
 Park, out of his way, and hers too, suddenly 
 gave ground for a different construction of 
 their relations. 
 
 Elizabeth Ferris, city-bred as she was and 
 accustomed to such attentions from men as 
 come naturally to an attractive girl of her class, 
 was still unscorched by the flame of passion. 
 There was something about her a certain un 
 mistakable virginal quality, that had made men 
 careful in their treatment of her. She was the 
 sort of girl whom no dancing partner, how 
 ever voluptuous, would dare clasp closely.
 
 LION AND LAMB 33 
 
 Such maidens seem to possess some magic 
 charm that enables them to move through life 
 uncontaminated by unwholesome influences. 
 Many girls who had made their debuts in the 
 same season as she were already adepts at the 
 game of hearts. Their eyes habitually shot a 
 challenge out at every man they met, and they 
 were ready to go far in the dangerous fields of 
 sweet adventure. 
 
 But Elizabeth Ferris was made of finer clay. 
 Dunham was sensible of this quality in his 
 companion. Not that he had met it frequently. 
 Indeed, the women he had known intimately 
 were of a far different stamp. Since he had 
 lived in the East he had had little time for 
 feminine society. But in his younger days in 
 the West, in mining camps and boom towns, he 
 had known women. Then he had danced and 
 drunk with the carelessness of unfettered youth. 
 One girl had been no different from all her 
 adventurous sisters. The same treatment an 
 swered for all. And Dunham had gone on his 
 migratory way from one town to another in
 
 34 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 blissful ignorance of the infinite variety of the 
 gentler sex. Even in those days he had been 
 a masterful man. Men had feared and hated 
 him. But women had feared and loved him. 
 And all the time he had fought his way steadily 
 upward with scant regard for whosoever served 
 his purpose either for play or profit, for gayety 
 or gain. 
 
 But Dunham had had reason enough to real 
 ize that he now lived in an entirely different 
 world. The ways of the New Yorker were not 
 his ways. He soon discovered that the men 
 who did business with him in the daytime did 
 not idle with him at nighttime; that though he 
 lunched with Harrington and Dumont and 
 Battersby and others of their class, he never 
 dined with them. And when some chance meet 
 ing brought him into fleeting contact with these 
 
 men when they had their women folk with them 
 \ 
 
 introductions were likely to be conspicuous by 
 their absence. Occasionally, as it now and then 
 happened, he was presented to dowager or 
 daughter. But the atmosphere was never con-
 
 LION AND LAMB 35 
 
 ducive to much informality. Conversation 
 generally languished. Probably, he reflected, 
 under their skins those haughty creatures were 
 the same as Judy O Grady. But superficially 
 they were as different as another sex. 
 
 As the door to the social world swung slowly 
 wider before him, Dunham had advanced with 
 cautious tread. He knew how to handle the 
 men. But the women! Ah! they were still 
 a riddle unsolved. 
 
 Ealph Dunham smiled slightly as he glanced 
 at the frail little bird caught in the cage beside 
 him. Some day he would not have to be so 
 circumspect! But now he fell back upon such 
 small-talk as he could muster. He had seen 
 her at the theater the night before; and they 
 criticized the play. Fortunately it was a drama 
 that he could discuss with her. 
 
 s 
 
 They had been spinning along close to the 
 speed limit with the engine purring evenly, 
 fairly eating up the Park road. Meanwhile, 
 in Elizabeth Ferris pretty head an estimate 
 of the man beside her took shape. He was
 
 36 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 interesting yes; somewhat more serious- 
 minded than most of the men she knew. But 
 in spite of his having his life filled with mines 
 and railroads and banks, he seemed not oblivi 
 ous to the gayer side of life. That such a wiz 
 ard of finance should so unbend as to spend a 
 half -hour with a girl in a motor-car, and could 
 actually laugh and joke with her, struck her as 
 an amazing thing. Her previous impressions 
 of Dunham had been based in a great measure 
 upon the conception the cartoonists had unani 
 mously settled upon. Those enterprising art 
 ists were fond of depicting Dunham as a 
 grim-visaged figure, clad in mail, with the dollar- 
 mark blazoned big upon his shield, who stood 
 knee-deep in financial carnage and mowed his 
 way through throngs of hapless ruined 
 wretches. 
 
 But now she had to revise her opinion of the 
 man. He had proved that he was not altogether 
 the ogre that he had been represented. It is 
 true, she was conscious of a certain quality of 
 steely strength about Dunham; but he was far
 
 LION AND LAMB 37 
 
 from being the personification of brute force 
 and savage cunning that filled the mind s eye 
 of the public. 
 
 n 
 
 " Really, my dear, he s far from impossible," 
 Elizabeth said to her friend Ann Jordan, as she 
 recounted her adventure over tea and English 
 muffins. "Different from the men we know, of 
 course, but not at all the wild and wooly person 
 you d think him from reading the newspapers." 
 
 Such were Elizabeth Ferris first impressions 
 of a man who was to play no insignificant part 
 in the shaping of her life.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ENTEBIJSTG WEDGE 
 
 I 
 
 A MONTH had elapsed since Dunham s proposal 
 to Stephen and Margaret, and during that time 
 the financier had paid Elizabeth marked atten 
 tion. He had been present at more social func 
 tions than it had been his custom to attend. 
 First there had been a dinner-dance given by 
 the Ferrises, to which Dunham had been in 
 vited. He had devoted much of his time to 
 Elizabeth upon that occasion. And following 
 fast upon the Ferris stamp of social approval 
 there had descended upon Dunham a shower 
 of invitations such as had never blessed him 
 before. He smiled each morning as he noted 
 the altered character of his mail. Already, he 
 congratulated himself, his overtures were bear- 
 
 38
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 39 
 
 ing fruit. He had made no mistake in his esti 
 mate of the situation. 
 
 Every night found Dunham playing his new 
 role of society-man. He even learned the lat 
 est dancing steps not being the sort to stand 
 by and look idly upon action of any kind. Fur 
 thermore, it did not suit his purpose to see 
 Elizabeth Ferris borne off upon the arm of 
 every empty-faced youth who knew how to 
 move his feet in time to music. 
 
 So Dunham had plunged with characteristic 
 vigor into the business in hand the business 
 of getting married. He danced with Elizabeth, 
 and talked to her, and sent her flowers, and 
 books, and bon-bons. And he called at the 
 Ferris house at every opportunity. It was not 
 surprising that his name and Elizabeth s soon 
 became coupled in the mouths of the gossips. 
 
 n 
 
 Margaret Ferris was not slow in hearing the 
 stories that were being circulated the rumors 
 of her daughter s engagement to the wealthiest
 
 40 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 bachelor in New York. But as yet she had said 
 nothing to Elizabeth. It was evident that the 
 affair must soon come to a crisis so vigorous 
 was Dunham s suit. Margaret was not sur 
 prised, therefore, when Elizabeth said to her 
 one day 
 
 "Oh, Mother! What do you think I heard 
 to-day? It was something about Mr. Dunham 
 and me! We re engaged at least that s what 
 Emily Morton told me this afternoon. She 
 says she s heard it several times. Isn t it 
 ridiculous ? 
 
 Mrs. Ferris smiled at her daugher s excite 
 ment. 
 
 "Bidiculous?" she repeated, as if weighing 
 the word. "Beally, Elizabeth, why not be 
 more optimistic and say premature?" 
 
 "Why, what do you mean?" Elizabeth asked 
 in astonishment. 
 
 "Just what I say, my dear," her mother re 
 plied. "People wouldn t be saying such a 
 thing unless there were some likelihood of its
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 41 
 
 really happening. The public, you see, always 
 has its eyes open." 
 
 "But Mr. Dunham hasn t the least idea of 
 marrying me, Mother, I m sure. I hope he 
 won t hear such an embarrassing story. " 
 
 "Why do you think he hasn t any idea of pro 
 posing, Elizabeth?" Mrs. Ferris asked. "You 
 are young, my dear. When you are older you 
 will learn that any man may be suspected of 
 anything!" 
 
 "Absurd, Mother! Mr. Dunham has simply 
 been nice to me because he knows you and 
 Father. I m sure I m the last girl he d ever 
 think of in that way." 
 
 Margaret Ferris looked at her daugher nar 
 rowly. It was hard for her to realize, some 
 times, that anybody could be so unsophisticated 
 as Elizabeth. But she could remember, though 
 it cost her some effort, that there had been a 
 time when she had believed that people mar 
 ried for love. 
 
 "Why has Dunham been so attentive to you
 
 42 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 lately!" she asked. "Do you imagine that it 
 is because he is so fond of your father or me 
 that he spends so much of his time with you? 
 My dear child don t be ridiculous! You re 
 surely old enough to know that when a man 
 pays marked attention to a woman he always 
 has some definite end in view. In your case 
 that end, so far as Dunham is concerned, can 
 be nothing more or less than marriage." 
 
 Elizabeth looked at her mother in amazement. 
 She was astounded at such a construction of 
 Dunham s gallantries. 
 
 "How can you imagine such a thing!" she 
 cried. 
 
 "How can you fail to know it!" her mother 
 retorted. 
 
 "He hasn t breathed a word to me not one 
 syllable that could be so construed," Eliza 
 beth answered. 
 
 "There s plenty of time," was her mother s 
 confident comment. 
 
 "Even if it were so that he had any such
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 43 
 
 intention as proposing to me of course it 
 would be out of the question." 
 
 "How out of the question? " Margaret 
 asked calmly. 
 
 "Why his age!" Elizabeth exclaimed. 
 "How could I marry a man old enough to be 
 my father?" 
 
 "It s a much wiser thing for a girl to do to 
 marry a man older than she is than to tie her 
 self for life to a selfish boy," Mrs. Ferris ob 
 served. 
 
 "Anyhow, I don t care for Mr. Dunham," the 
 girl declared. 
 
 "My dear don t be silly," her mother said. 
 "It isn t so much a question of caring that 
 should decide one nowadays, when a man pro 
 poses. It s all very well for the heroine of 
 some romantic novel to rant about love; but 
 we must not forget that this is a practical age. 
 There are many things one has to consider. 
 And most important of all is money. There s 
 no real happiness anywhere without it for
 
 44 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 there s too much worry, if not actual hardship, 
 for people who can t make both ends meet. 
 Since you have brought up the question, I tell 
 you these things that you ought to know. Dun 
 ham means to marry you there s no doubt at 
 all of his intentions. 
 
 Elizabeth turned her frightened eyes upon 
 her mother. 
 
 "Oh, don t say that!" she begged. "He- 
 he wouldn t ask me unless he thought I liked 
 him a great deal ; and I ve never given him any 
 reason to think that." 
 
 "My child your own feelings are probably 
 the last thing he would consider. Whether you 
 liked him, I mean. It s not the way of a man 
 least of all a man like Dunham to let a pro 
 posal of marriage hinge upon the lady s atti 
 tude. It s of themselves that men think. They 
 see something they want and they go after it. 
 Dunham wants to marry you and it s inevitable 
 that he will propose." 
 
 "He mustn t oh! he mustn t do that! 
 Can t you go to him and tell him that I don t
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 45 
 
 want to be married? Please, Mother! Tell 
 him I didn t understand. Please don t let him 
 ask me ! " 
 
 Elizabeth was on the verge of tears now. Be 
 fore her rose a mental image of Ealph Dunham 
 persistent, assertive, strong, and perhaps 
 cruel. She shrank from the prospect of deny 
 ing him anything. She suddenly felt weak and 
 defenseless. 
 
 " Don t cry and make a fuss over this," Mar 
 garet said sharply. It would make me miser 
 able, and you too, and it wouldn t do any good 
 at all. I want you to be happy, Elizabeth, and 
 if you are sensible and marry Dunham I m sure 
 you will be. He admires you very much, and 
 he will treat you like a queen. 
 
 "But I can t marry him, Mother I Don t 
 you understand? He s one of the last men I 
 know that I d choose for a husband." 
 
 * * My dear girl, you haven t any choice. When 
 a man as rich as Dunham asks a girl to marry 
 him there is no question of refusal or accept 
 ance, believe me. Naturally, he is not a man
 
 46 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 to make a very good impression at first upon so 
 young a girl as you are. But all that would 
 come right in a little time. Eeally, my dear, 
 you re enormously lucky quite the most for 
 tunate girl I know of." 
 
 " Lucky!" Elizabeth repeated. "I m sure 
 I don t understand you at all. I don t want to 
 marry Mr. Dunham. I I m not ready to 
 marry anyone," she stammered. "I ve never 
 thought much about marriage, you see. It all 
 seemed so far off, always. I thought I d have 
 years to myself, before that." 
 
 "You re a queer child," her mother told her. 
 "Dreamy, impractical you get those qualities 
 from your father. He has always found it 
 difficult to accept the world as it is, and trim 
 his sails accordingly. I hope you re not going 
 to disappoint me this time. Be a sensible girl. 
 Do you know there ll be thousands of women 
 who will envy you? There are thousands of 
 them who would ask nothing better on earth 
 or in heaven either than to be Dunham s 
 wife.
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 47 
 
 "I suppose they want money, don t they?" 
 Elizabeth said. 
 
 Hm. money, no doubt, her practical mother 
 answered. "But you don t seem to realize that 
 money means power. Think what you could 
 do with such means as Dunham will provide his 
 wife with! You re interested in charities, for 
 instance. Now about all you can do is to take 
 part in tableaux at the Plaza, or the Ritz, which 
 somebody else organizes. Or you go over to 
 the East Side and talk with the settlement 
 workers. But with millions at your disposal, 
 just think of the good you could do, my dear! 
 You could give beds to hospitals you could 
 even build hospitals themselves! There s no 
 end to the charities you could finance." 
 
 As Elizabeth listened to her mother s en 
 thusiastic recital her color deepened and in 
 her eyes glowed a light which had not appeared 
 in them before during the course of their talk. 
 
 "I d never thought of that," she said slowly. 
 "And is that why so many other girls would 
 be so glad to marry Mr. Dunham?"
 
 48 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "Some of them, yes, no doubt," her mother 
 said, with a shrewd look at her. "Others 
 would have an eye to the things they could do 
 for themselves. They would think of the 
 clothes they could buy, and the motor-cars they 
 could ride about in, and the jewels they would 
 have. And those things are all very well in 
 their way, too, you know. But of course they re 
 not the big ends that an unselfish woman would 
 have in mind." 
 
 Elizabeth s face wore a puzzled look as she 
 pondered over her mother s words. 
 
 "There s one thing I don t understand," she 
 said after a time. "How could a girl a thor 
 oughly nice girl make up her mind to live 
 with a man whom she didn t really love? She 
 might respect him and he might be very good 
 to her but if there were no no other feelings 
 between them if she were not passionately in 
 love with him, how could she ever reconcile her 
 self to bearing him children? I m sure I 
 should never want to give a child to a man I 
 did not love. It would be an unnatural thing.
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 49 
 
 I should hate such a child, I m afraid. Oh, 
 Mother ! It all seems so wicked ! It all fright 
 ens me. I don t know what to think." 
 
 Margaret Ferris bit her lip with vexation. 
 She had been congratulating herself on the way 
 she had managed the difficult situation. That 
 idea of Dunham s wife devoting his fortune to 
 charitable works had been a positive stroke of 
 genius, she told herself. It had a visible effect 
 upon Elizabeth s attitude. And then the girl 
 had veered off and there they were, face to face 
 with another barrier, in the shape of an ob 
 stacle that was by no means easy to surmount. 
 But Mrs. Ferris rose to her task. 
 
 "Dear child," she began, in the most pro 
 pitiatory and confidential of tones, "this ques 
 tion of children is one that frightens every 
 young bride. It s quite the most natural thing 
 in the world that it should, too. But you see, 
 things have changed tremendously even in our 
 day. Fifty or a hundred years ago the family 
 that didn t have a dozen children was the excep 
 tion to the rule. Now the family with more
 
 50 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 than one or two is the exception. And many, 
 many married women never have any children 
 at all. Eace suicide! Nonsense! I m speak 
 ing of the upper classes, you know. That s 
 where the poor really help us. They still have 
 large families. They can t be dissuaded, it 
 seems. And so we more conservative mortals 
 have to turn to and provide for their progeny. 
 We build children s homes, and children s hos 
 pitals, free schools and playgrounds. It s only 
 fair after all that we should do that much, 
 when they relieve us of the necessity of supply 
 ing a population for the earth. 
 
 "So don t trouble your little head about that 
 sort of thing. Dunham would defer to you, I 
 know. You see, a man like him hasn t his heart 
 set on founding a line. It s all different now 
 from what it was in the old days when a man 
 had lands, castles, and such things to hand 
 down to posterity. Then he wanted to keep 
 his property intact it was a sort of monument 
 to him. But what sentiment can anyone have in 
 bequeathing railroad stocks to his children?
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 51 
 
 He knows well enough that after he s dead his 
 securities will soon find their way into the 
 market again, and that ten, or even five years 
 after his demise there ll be very little to re 
 mind anybody that there ever was such a per 
 son. Besides, every rich man knows that a rich 
 man s son is never any good. So they don t 
 bother much about having any nowadays. And 
 then, too, men like Dunham are too busy mo 
 nopolizing the earth to think much about any 
 thing else." 
 
 With a laugh Margaret forthwith dismissed 
 the subject as one definitely settled and Eliza 
 beth asked her no more questions at least 
 upon that topic. But the girl still pondered 
 over the amazing situation that confronted her. 
 
 "Why should he want to marry me?" she 
 questioned. "I m sure he can t love me he 
 hardly knows me! You must be mistaken, 
 Mother dear." 
 
 1 1 Don t be silly, Margaret said. * How long 
 do you suppose it takes a man of decision to 
 make up his mind whether he wants to marry
 
 52 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 a certain person? No doubt Dunham was im 
 mensely taken by you the first time he laid 
 eyes on you. You re really a very pretty girl, 
 Elizabeth. And I dare say you can believe in 
 love at first sight? Although it s long since out 
 of fashion, it s just what one might expect from 
 a person of Dunham s origin. I m afraid he s 
 an unfashionable man; so why be surprised if 
 his affections exercise themselves in an unfash 
 ionable way? Come! come! Don t worry be 
 cause someone s in love with you. That s the 
 nicest part of the whole affair the fact that 
 the man is genuinely fond of you." 
 
 "But when I m not fond of him, how can I 
 marry him? It wouldn t be fair. I d be a 
 liar! A cheat! I d hate myself." Elizabeth 
 was most unhappy. 
 
 But her mother was indefatigable. 
 
 "Nonsense!" she cried. "You don t under 
 stand yourself. You don t understand Dun 
 ham. You ve looked on him as a personage in 
 stead of as a flesh-and-blood man. He s quite 
 human and you d find him very kind and gen-
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 53 
 
 erous, I know and there s not the slightest 
 doubt that you d soon become very fond of him. 
 Indeed, it s quite as well to have a husband 
 who s a good bit daffy about you you know 
 they say there s no such thing as a husband and 
 wife caring for each other in just the same de 
 gree. And you can understand how unhappy 
 you would be if you married someone you were 
 desperately in love with but who was more or 
 less indifferent to you. Yes you re a very 
 fortunate girl, Elizabeth. You ought to be 
 ideally happy, I m sure. 
 
 in 
 
 In spite of her mother s attempt to mold 
 her mind into such shape as would cause her 
 complacently to regard Dunham in the light of 
 a suitor, Elizabeth remained far from con 
 vinced. Her mother s arguments gradually 
 lost their force as the days went by and she 
 came little by little to look upon Margaret s 
 theories as mere whims. 
 
 Elizabeth knew that her mother s wishes
 
 54 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 sometimes bordered upon obsessions and she 
 assured herself that Ealph Dunham s intention 
 of proposing to her existed solely in her 
 mother s mind. 
 
 So at last she breathed easily again and for 
 got the lowering cloud which for a time had 
 hung over her and dimmed her usual optimistic 
 girlish vision of the world.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THREATENING CLOUDS 
 I 
 
 AT the first signs of summer the Ferrises closed 
 their townhouse and migrated to Oak Ledge, 
 their country-place in the Berkshires. 
 
 It was Sunday morning, and the guests were 
 sleeping. Margaret too, as was her habit, was 
 still in bed, giving nature the opportunity to 
 do for her what could not be trusted solely to 
 her French maid. There had been a time when, 
 in spite of hours of massage, her face had re 
 vealed an increasing number of disconcerting 
 wrinkles the tiny witnesses to her anxiety over 
 the family s finances. Though she had reli 
 giously spent as many hours in bed as ever, her 
 sleep had been but fitful. But since Dunham s 
 overtures Margaret s hopes had buoyed her 
 up. The result was already apparent in 
 
 55
 
 56 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 her returning color and the freshness of her 
 skin. 
 
 Elizabeth, waking early, had looked out upon 
 the gold-flooded sweep of fields and decided that 
 the prospect was too tempting to miss. She 
 dressed hurriedly and went down to the break 
 fast-room where she found her father just about 
 to seat himself to a solitary meal. 
 
 Stephen Ferris was conscious of a guilty 
 qualm as his daughter kissed him on both 
 cheeks. He observed her glowing face and 
 sparkling eyes. Hers were the joyous spirits 
 with which youth is blessed. She was beauti 
 ful his daughter. He did not wonder that 
 Dunham had found her desirable. And he was 
 all the more doubtful, as he looked at her across 
 the table, of the merits of the cause in which 
 he had enlisted. 
 
 Ferris said little during the meal. While 
 Elizabeth chattered throughout the breakfast 
 her father s thoughts turned upon the unpleas 
 ant task that lay before him the disagreeable 
 duty of discussing Dunham s eligibility with
 
 THREATENING CLOUDS 57 
 
 the girl. He had shirked the obligation as long 
 as Margaret would permit. The time had come 
 when he knew that he must speak. But it was 
 characteristic of him that he still postponed 
 broaching the subject. Somehow it was diffi 
 cult to find an opening. 
 
 ii 
 
 "Will you come for a walk?" he asked Eliza 
 beth, when having finished their breakfast they 
 stepped out upon the broad piazza. 
 
 "Yes, indeed!" she said gladly. And tak 
 ing a hat and stick from the hall he rejoined 
 her quickly. Through the blossoming meadows 
 they made their way, to a distant hill covered 
 with swaying conifers and carpeted thick with 
 a blanket of pine needles. 
 
 Watch as he would, Ferris could discover no 
 turn of their rambling talk that came with gun 
 shot of the topic which was uppermost in his 
 mind. So at last he spurred himself on and 
 took the leap. 
 
 "Elizabeth!" he said, all at once. "You
 
 58 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 have grown up. It s hard for me to realize the 
 fact but it s true nevertheless." 
 
 She looked at him brightly and gave his arm 
 a squeeze as she answered 
 
 "I m a big girl, you mean, Daddy but your 
 little daughter just the same." 
 
 "Yes, dear," he said. "And I ve been aw 
 fully glad to have you, and thankful, too. But 
 the hard part of it all is that I can t always 
 keep you. You ll be getting married some day 
 and then you won t be walking through the 
 fields with me any more." 
 
 She laughed at his seriousness. 
 
 "Don t be gloomy over that prospect," she 
 replied. "I m a new woman. Nowadays girls 
 don t look forward to being married as the sole 
 aim of their existence. Marriage is something 
 mercifully provided for women who can t do 
 anything else with their lives. There s too 
 much for women to do in this age, oh ! social 
 work votes for women the improvement of 
 the condition of the poor too many things of 
 that sort crying for our attention."
 
 THREATENING CLOUDS 59 
 
 Improving the condition of the poor ! Ferris 
 winced at the unintended irony of the remark. 
 If Elizabeth married Dunham she would cer 
 tainly be improving the condition of the poor. 
 He thought with a shudder of his bank balance. 
 Yet lie wished that Margaret had not insisted 
 on his having a talk with their daughter. Mar 
 garet was not the kind to suffer any conscien 
 tious twinges. He was too sensitive perhaps, 
 as his wife was forever telling him. 
 
 He looked at Elizabeth curiously. And he 
 was glad that she could not read his thoughts. 
 
 "My dear this modern-woman stuff is all 
 right for unattractive girls who haven t any 
 chance of being married. It s a very good 
 thing for girls from obscure families gives 
 them a chance to do something besides marry 
 ing some poor clerk and settling down to a 
 humdrum life of bringing up babies and try 
 ing to make both ends of a scanty salary meet. 
 But your position is quite different It s in 
 evitable that you should marry. " 
 
 Elizabeth laughed again.
 
 60 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "What a dear, old-fashioned person you 
 are!" she cried. " You re hopelessly behind 
 the times." 
 
 Ferris smiled at her cajolery. 
 
 "Perhaps!" he admitted. "But there are 
 other men younger than I am, too who are 
 just as old-fashioned. There s someone right 
 in our house now who doesn t think you ought 
 to devote yourself to a career of suffrage, or 
 socialism, or any other of those queer fads." 
 
 "Oh! Mother! Yes, of couse. I know her 
 heart s set on making a social butterfly of me." 
 
 * No I wasn t thinking of your mother. It s 
 a man a certain man who would like to marry 
 you." 
 
 She could see that his hands were trembling 
 violently as he continued quickly 
 
 "Elizabeth, I want to talk to you. You re 
 twenty now, aren t you?" 
 
 She was frightened by the look on his face, 
 but she said that she would be twenty in nine 
 weeks.
 
 THREATENING CLOUDS 61 
 
 "Well," he said, "you are old enough to be 
 married." 
 
 She nearly screamed ; and when she had had 
 time to get her breath she told him that she did 
 not want to be married at all for a long time. 
 Ferris seemed impatient and cut her short. 
 
 "Your mother married me when she was only 
 a few weeks over eighteen," he said. "And 
 I think early marriages are the happiest. I 
 want you to think about it." 
 
 She had been congratulating herself that her 
 mother had forgotten all about her ambition 
 for marrying her off to Ealph Dunham. But 
 her father s abrupt broaching of the subject 
 of marriage made her suspect at once that her 
 mother had been urging her ideas upon him. 
 Neither of them spoke for a time; and then a 
 thought came into Elizabeth s head and she 
 asked wickedly 
 
 "Father, has Jack been speaking to you?" 
 
 "Jack? Jack who?" said he. 
 
 "Oh, Papa! Jack Fleming of course," she
 
 62 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 answered. Jack Fleming was a sort of distant 
 cousin of hers who happened to be staying at 
 Oak Ledge. There was no more sentiment be 
 tween him and Elizabeth than between brother 
 and sister. She was teasing her father deliber 
 ately and she did not dare to look at him just 
 then for she knew that he was angry. 
 
 "Jack Fleming! Why, he hasn t a penny!" 
 he said quickly. 
 
 "He likes me, I think," Elizabeth said in a 
 very low voice. 
 
 "My child, what is the good of his liking you, 
 or any girl? The chief thing the only thing 
 you must have if you want to get married is 
 money lots of money." 
 
 She was startled. Quite suddenly she looked 
 up and said: 
 
 "What is it, Papa!" 
 
 He answered without looking at her : 
 
 "Dunham wants to marry you. He is one of 
 the richest men in New York." 
 
 Elizabeth nearly screamed.
 
 THREATENING CLOUDS 63 
 
 "Wants to!" she said. "Perhaps, but I m 
 not willing. And I should think you re not 
 willing either. 
 
 He looked at her quickly, and she could see 
 that he was nervous. 
 
 "What do you mean?" he asked. 
 
 She was daring now, and bold. She turned 
 and looked him full in the face : 
 
 "You wouldn t want me to marry him, would 
 you?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Elizabeth was shocked. It seemed to her 
 that the reasons were plain : Dunham was old, 
 he was not handsome or charming, and some 
 how she was sure that he did not belong to the 
 same sort of people as her father and mother 
 and her friends. And now that the horrid sug 
 gestion about marrying him was put into her 
 head again she found out quite suddenly that 
 she didn t like him at all. 
 
 But to have to answer her father s question, 
 put in such a tone, too, was dreadful. She felt 
 as if she were choking.
 
 64 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "He is much older than I am," she said in a 
 whisper. 
 
 "Yes, yes; I know that. But if you could 
 like him he would be generous to you, and he 
 would be kind to you, I think," said Ferris. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I couldn t, I couldn t, I couldn t!" she 
 gasped out. 
 
 Stephen Ferris s face looked dreadfully 
 white, and it cut Elizabeth to the heart to think 
 she was disappointing him. But he patted her 
 on the shoulder and said: 
 
 "All right, my dear. You must do as you 
 like, of course. But if you were a little older, 
 and I could talk to you better " 
 
 He broke off suddenly, and patting her shoul 
 der again, ended with a nod and a smile, and 
 again said, "All right, my dear." 
 
 Then he turned away and said : 
 
 "Well, let s get back to the house. They 
 will be down by this time." 
 
 And then there came upon her the strangest 
 feeling she had ever had yet. Though he was
 
 THREATENING CLOUDS 65 
 
 so sweet and so kind, and though he turned 
 away as if the dreadful thing he had spoken 
 about was dropped altogether, Elizabeth had, 
 just for a moment, a feeling as if she suddenly 
 had found her hands and feet tied up so that she 
 could not move. And a horrible feeling came 
 over her that something was hanging over her 
 from which she could not escape.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE BARGAIN 
 
 I 
 
 THROUGHOUT the weeks that followed, Eliza 
 beth and Dunham often met. A succession of 
 week-end yatching- and house-parties usually 
 found the two the guests of the same host. 
 And Dunham s attentions were more and more 
 openly directed to Elizabeth, while her mother 
 seized every opportunity to convince her of 
 Dunham s desirability as a husband. 
 
 It was at the Eamsays country place on 
 Long Island that Dunham asked her to marry 
 him. The polo cup-matches were being played 
 at Meadow Brook and every house for miles 
 around was crowded with people. Upon the 
 eventful night, which Elizabeth was destined to 
 remember long, Dunham had suggested to her 
 a stroll upon the beach. It was warm and the 
 
 66
 
 THE BARGAIN 67 
 
 moon was approaching the full. Upon the 
 broad piazzas enthusiastic groups were dis 
 cussing the day s play, while the more ener 
 getic members of the house-party were dancing 
 to the lively strains of a graphophone. 
 
 Elizabeth heard Dunham s invitation with 
 dismay. She had studiously avoided being left 
 alone with her admirer. But she could think 
 of no plausible excuse then ; and soon they were 
 walking through the garden, down the path 
 which led to the bay. 
 
 Almost fearfully Elizabeth peered through 
 the midsummer gloaming at her companion, as 
 if she would discern at once, without further 
 suspense, if his purpose were what she had long 
 dreaded. Was it come at last the crisis that 
 she feared? 
 
 What she saw, in the half-light, was a man 
 of good height, with broad shoulders and a 
 strongly knit frame. He had a resolute face, 
 and short, thick, wavy brown hair; a pair of 
 quick, gray eyes, black-lashed and deeply-set 
 under somewhat bushy brows ; firm lips, a trifle
 
 68 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 thin; a massive jowl, and a clear, colorless skin 
 not by any means a " beauty man," but a 
 man whose face had the power to attract as 
 well as to repel. 
 
 n 
 
 Along the beach, upon the hard sand close 
 to the water s edge, they walked. And Dun 
 ham, to his great astonishment, found it diffi 
 cult to put his thoughts into words. But at 
 last he broke the silence which had fallen upon 
 them a quiet which was only the more marked 
 by the occasional wash of the ebbing tide. 
 
 "Miss Ferris," he said suddenly, "I asked 
 you to come down here on the shore, away from 
 the others, because I have something to say to 
 you and I couldn t say it except when we 
 were alone." And straightway, drawing a 
 deep breath, he plunged into his declaration. 
 "The very first time I saw you I thought you 
 were lovely and since I have known you bet 
 ter my first impression has only become con 
 firmed. I don t mean that I had any doubt
 
 THE BARGAIN 69 
 
 from the beginning upon the subject; but the 
 time s past when a man can carry a damsel off 
 on his charger without any preliminaries. 
 Nowadays the lady s own wishes have to be 
 consulted. I don t know how you regard me 
 I haven t the slightest idea whether you find 
 my society even endurable. You see, all young 
 women like you are so well-mannered that a 
 man like myself never knows what they think 
 or feel. But I can assure you that there s no 
 doubt in my mind as to my attitude toward 
 you. I want you to do me the great honor of 
 becoming my wife. I can say honestly that I 
 never wanted or asked any other woman to 
 marry me. That I m doing so now is as much 
 a surprise to me, in a way, as it may be to you, 
 for I never thought somehow that I should 
 find a girl who appealed to me as you do. 
 Never imagined that I d meet any woman who 
 would attract me so much that I d want to live 
 with her. This may all sound queer to you 
 but what I m trying to do is to tell you how I 
 feel toward you. I suppose most people would
 
 70 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 call it love. I don t know what it is. I m not 
 a man who has been given to self-analysis. 
 Haven t had the time nor the inclination. It s 
 those moody writer chaps who can pick a pas 
 sion to pieces. All my life I ve simply wanted 
 things and then tried to get them. Now I want 
 you. And if you can say Yes, I promise 
 never to cause you, knowingly, any regret for 
 marrying me. Your life, your happiness, your 
 honor, I ll do my best to cherish them." 
 
 As Dunham finished, he came to a halt upon 
 the beach. Elizabeth paused, too, and they 
 faced each other silently for one brief, tense 
 moment. A lump in her throat was choking 
 her. Her eyes sought his almost piteously as 
 they blazed at her under his heavy eyebrows. 
 Even Elizabeth, as well as Dunham, knew that 
 he was strangely moved. He held himself 
 rigid under a sudden strain of unexpected sus 
 pense and the knotted veins swelled on his 
 broad forehead. As he watched her he saw 
 that she grew pale and shuddered. 
 
 And still she said nothing.
 
 THE BARGAIN 71 
 
 "You you seem frightened," he told her. 
 "Please don t be afraid of me. Don t feel 
 that this is something you can t escape from, 
 if you wish. I d be the last person in the 
 world to try to induce you to do something you 
 didn t want to do." 
 
 "I I believe you," she said, finding her 
 voice at last. "I am sure of it. For I know 
 you re too big a man to be willing to take ad 
 vantage of a woman. Before I can give you 
 an answer," she went on hurriedly, "I too 
 must tell you something of my own feelings. 
 You see I want to be honest with you. I 
 couldn t bear ever to have you think later 
 that I deceived you, that I misled you in any 
 way." 
 
 Impossible!" Dunham exclaimed, in a tone 
 of relief. So he had a chance ! He even won 
 dered why he had for a moment doubted the 
 outcome. He never asked more than a chance. 
 Granted that, for him success in any undertak 
 ing was an assured thing. "Of course you 
 wouldn t deceive me you couldn t, Miss Fer-
 
 72 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 ris. It s not in you. But what is it that you 
 have on your mind?" he asked her. 
 
 She breathed quickly in her agitation and 
 clasped her slender hands nervously. Dun 
 ham s searching eyes disconcerted her. 
 
 "If if I should marry you," she said halt 
 ingly, "would you be willing to give me oh! 
 it s hard to put it into words to give me a 
 great deal of freedom? More freedom than 
 many women might ask?" 
 
 "My dear lady," Dunham answered, "your 
 happiness would be my chief concern. This 
 freedom that you speak of if it s essential to 
 your well-being ought not to be a difficult 
 thing for your husband to provide; unless, of 
 course, he merely married to secure a house 
 keeper and I reckon I can provide you with 
 plenty of servants. So I don t believe you d 
 find yourself hampered. You ought to be 
 much freer than you ve ever been. A married 
 woman can do just about as she pleases, you 
 know. 
 
 Elizabeth s bosom rose and fell with her la-
 
 THE BARGAIN 73 
 
 bored breathing. Even in the moonlight her 
 face and neck darkened over the unwonted rush 
 of blood that coursed up to her temples. 
 
 "Perhaps you don t quite understand," she 
 said. "It is very hard to explain. What I 
 mean is this : I m not very old ; and I ve never 
 really faced the question of marriage before. 
 And it frightens me. There s so much about 
 it that s a sealed book to me. I believe that 
 you would be kind to me but whether I mar 
 ried you would depend upon what you expected 
 of me. It may seem to you very unfair, but I 
 couldn t give everything to you nor to any 
 man I have ever met. I I don t know how 
 much you d expect how much you would ask 
 of me." She had avoided his eyes, as she 
 spoke ; but now she looked him full in the face. 
 "I couldn t give what perhaps you would feel 
 you must have . . . children they they re 
 simply out of the question." She looked up at 
 him fearfully for a moment, and then quickly 
 turned her head. "That s what I mean. Per 
 haps sometime I might feel differently about it.
 
 74 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 But it frightens me now. And I can t prom 
 ise that I d ever change. I had to tell you 
 and you don t have to marry me, now that you 
 know." 
 
 Dunham considered the matter rapidly. 
 Her fears he set down as the natural shrinking 
 of a girl who was herself little more than a 
 child. She was hardly mature, mentally as 
 was not uncommon among the children of the 
 rich. He knew that the wits of the poor 
 quicken early under the struggle for existence. 
 Children? He had not given a serious thought 
 to that phase of his marriage. Vaguely he had 
 seen himself perhaps two decades off with 
 younger people in his house. But Dunham s 
 imagination concerned itself habitually with 
 things of the present. A year, or two, or five 
 ten at the most stretching away into the 
 future, gave him vista enough for his plans. 
 His world moved too fast to anticipate too 
 much. Modern industrialism is an ever-shift 
 ing thing. Men build up only to tear down 
 again, and begin their labor anew upon a
 
 THE BARGAIN 75 
 
 vaster scale. A river is diverted from its 
 course to make fertile some barren waste ; or a 
 tunnel is dug, to give access to some isolated 
 spot; continents are separated and the physical 
 map of the world is changed. And amid all 
 this constant alteration he is the genius who 
 can adapt his plans to new conditions who 
 can suddenly marshal his forces in the battle 
 of commercialism and by an unexpected change 
 of front turn defeat into victory. 
 
 Children had not entered Ralph Dunham s 
 scheme of life. 
 
 Surely, he thought, this girl s reluctance is 
 quite to be expected. Probably it is the usual 
 attitude of carefully sheltered young women 
 from whose eyes the sterner facts of existence 
 have been hidden. Dunham knew that there 
 were countless homes in New York, as in every 
 great city, homes consisting each of only one 
 room, in which the wonderful mysteries of life 
 and death were constantly being enacted in the 
 presence of old and young alike. But he like 
 wise knew or thought he did of the igno-
 
 76 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 ranee in which the wealthy rear their girls and 
 boys. 
 
 "I understand," he said thoughtfully. 
 "You are very honest with me, and I appreci 
 ate it. And so far as this question of freedom 
 is concerned, put your mind at rest, please. 
 It s you, I ve been thinking of. It s you I m 
 asking for; and having won you as I hope to 
 do you suppose I d have the heart to make 
 you unhappy? No, my dear child; you ve 
 nothing to fear, believe me. . . . And you ll 
 say Yes? " he asked her. 
 
 "You you understand ?" She put the 
 question timidly. "Why I make this reserva 
 tion! It is because I am not sure of myself 
 yet. Perhaps I ought not to marry you. It 
 may be a wicked thing for me to do; for I m 
 afraid I don t know what it means to love a 
 man absolutely. It may be that I am different 
 from other girls. I only know that I am as I 
 am. And if you still want me, then I will 
 marry you." 
 
 Dunham laid his hand quickly upon her arm.
 
 THE BARGAIN 77 
 
 Her naivete had given an odd zest to the occa 
 sion, which it would have lacked with a girl of 
 a commonplace nature and conventional ideas. 
 
 But she stepped back at once, as if his action 
 had frightened her. 
 
 Dunham was piqued, amused, vexed, and in 
 terested all in one moment. He felt that she 
 was absolutely delicious in her disregard of the 
 extraordinary prize that he offered in the 
 matrimonial market. He realized that there 
 was a tantalizing fascination about her; that 
 her lips looked fresh and fragrant and inviting 
 in the moonlight. It thrilled him the thought 
 that he had triumphed. And it cost him much 
 not to take her up in his arms and crush her to 
 his heart with masterful kisses. 
 
 But he knew that the time for love-making 
 was not then.
 
 CHAPTER VH 
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 
 I 
 
 So Elizabeth was engaged to Dunham! The 
 news caused much secret rejoicing in the Fer 
 ris household. The solution of the family s 
 financial difficulties lifted a great weight from 
 the shoulders of Margaret and Stephen. They 
 had been like condemned prisoners, anxiously 
 awaiting a pardon which they hardly dared 
 hope would arrive in time. 
 
 Elizabeth had returned home two days after 
 that evening when she and Dunham had made 
 their bargain upon the shore of the Sound. 
 When she told her father and mother what had 
 happened they had had much difficulty in hid 
 ing their triumphant joy. And Margaret 
 kissed and patted her daughter with an unac 
 customed warmth. 
 
 78
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 79 
 
 "You seem very glad, Mother," Elizabeth, 
 said, glowing beneath the caresses which had 
 been sadly lacking throughout her childhood. 
 
 "Of course I am, dearie," Margaret Ferris 
 said. "You have proved yourself a sensible 
 girl. And now your future is assured. You re 
 going to be married to a good man who not 
 only wants to take the best of care of you, and 
 give you everything, but he has the means to 
 do it. Taking the will for the deed is all very 
 well in theory; but in every-day life it s a 
 pretty unsatisfactory substitute for the real 
 thing. Many, many young brides find out the 
 truth of the matter very quickly. They marry 
 young men who would be only too glad to buy 
 them everything they could wish for; but not 
 having any money they can only provide love 
 in a cottage, with the traditional bread and 
 cheese and kisses. Girls who have been well 
 brought up, as you have, accustomed to having 
 every luxury, are bound to find such an exist 
 ence very palling after its novelty has worn 
 off. That s why we are so glad! We know
 
 80 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 that you ll be well taken care of and I m sure 
 you re going to be very happy." And Mrs. 
 Ferris kissed her child again, beaming upon 
 her the while as though it were and indeed 
 it was one of the happiest moments of her 
 life. 
 
 Stephen, as was usual with him, had less to 
 say than his wife. But he gave Elizabeth a 
 paternal peck upon her cheek and nodded his 
 approval of Margaret s remarks. He knew 
 better than to attempt to gloss over the situa 
 tion. He had always been inept at any busi 
 ness requiring subterfuge though he had 
 never known his shortcomings in that respect 
 until his marriage. Living with Margaret had 
 opened his eyes to a realization of how intri 
 cate and complex a matter life really is. Look 
 ing upon a woman s daily maneuvers from be 
 hind the scenes, so to speak, had taught him 
 that he was ill equipped by temperament, train 
 ing, and even mentality, to skirmish his way 
 unaided through the world. And until he 
 found himself confronted by poverty he had
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 81 
 
 fervently congratulated himself that his fam 
 ily had provided so well for his wants. 
 
 The fact that Stephen Ferris was so entirely 
 aware of his own defects made his present 
 sense of relief all the keener. He devoutly 
 thanked God for his timely escape from the 
 ruin which had menaced him so threateningly. 
 
 "When are you going to be married, Eliza 
 beth? * the practical Margaret asked as soon 
 as the first felicitations were finished. 
 
 "Ralph wants the wedding this Fall in 
 about two months," Elizabeth answered. "Do 
 you think I could be ready so soon?" 
 
 Eeady ! Margaret laughed out of sheer joy. 
 And she told herself mentally that she would 
 have undertaken to have Elizabeth s trousseau 
 complete in two weeks time had it been neces 
 sary. She knew how the tradespeople would 
 tumble over one another in their eagerness to 
 fit out Ralph Dunham s wife. But Elizabeth 
 guessed nothing of the thoughts that were flash 
 ing through her mother s mind. 
 
 "I don t think that s too soon, dear," Mar-
 
 82 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 garet told her. "Of course there ll be a great 
 deal to do. But we ll begin at once and I m 
 sure there ll be no trouble in having a very 
 nice trousseau ready in that tune." 
 
 Elizabeth, it must be confessed, seemed less 
 eager than her mother at the prospect of an 
 early Fall wedding. 
 
 "But I m not sure I want to be married so 
 soon," she objected. "You see, it s all rather 
 unexpected and I feel as if I needed some time 
 to accustom myself to to the idea of being 
 married. After all, why should I have to 
 hurry? I shall be married for the rest of my 
 life and I haven t been out long, and I think 
 I d like to go about a few months longer just as 
 as a girl, you know." 
 
 Her mother laughed. 
 
 "I know perfectly well how you feel," she 
 exclaimed. "You rather dread the prospect 
 of being married. All young girls are reluc 
 tant to take the final step. But you d find, I m 
 sure, that you d feel no different if you waited 
 a year. So why postpone the inevitable? I
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 83 
 
 really think, too, that you ought to consider 
 Ealph. Men like him, who are just old enough 
 to realize, after being wrapped up in business 
 for years, that they should have been married 
 long ago, don t like to wait, once they have 
 found a girl they like. They want to be mar 
 ried with just as little delay as possible. So I 
 think you should just make up your mind to 
 follow Ealph s wishes. We ll announce your 
 engagement oh! in about a fortnight and 
 once you have grown accustomed to having 
 people know all about it your engagement 
 won t seem half so odd as it does now." 
 
 So the thing was settled. Margaret s wishes 
 prevailed, though now and then Elizabeth was 
 inclined to protest against being hurried. But 
 her mother was determined to bring matters to 
 a speedy termination. Their need of money 
 - was too pressing for her to be willing to coun 
 tenance any delay. And moreover she wanted 
 to see Elizabeth safely married to Dunham. 
 She knew that she would not be able to draw a 
 comfortable breath until the wedding had ac-
 
 84 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 tually taken place. Any delay, more than was 
 necessary to an observance of ordinary social 
 usage, she objected to vigorously. Who knew 
 what might happen? Every paper one picked 
 up contained news of automobile accidents, and 
 shipwrecks, and railroad collisions. No! She 
 did not intend to see the prize snatched away 
 from under her very nose. 
 
 So Elizabeth gradually became resigned to 
 the prospect. 
 
 n 
 
 There was much to be done in the ensuing 
 weeks. Margaret took up with energy the 
 numerous duties that devolved upon her. 
 Her capable brain planned everything in the 
 large and down to the smallest detail. And it 
 was characteristic of her relations with 
 Stephen that she was the one and not he 
 who not only proclaimed the necessity of a 
 definite adjustment of Dunham s promises to 
 them, but also effected the settlement. 
 
 Stephen displayed a distinct aversion to ap-
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 85 
 
 preaching Dunham on the subject of the money 
 Dunham had agreed to pay for the wife he was 
 buying. His reluctance to broach the subject 
 to his future son-in-law was quite in keeping 
 with his usual methods of transacting business 
 affairs. And Margaret soon gave up in dis 
 gust her attempt to urge Stephen to some defi 
 nite action. 
 
 " Don t hurry him," he had said. " Dun 
 ham s all right. He s square. He ll do just 
 as he promised." 
 
 "Of course I know that he will," she had 
 answered testily. " That s not the point, 
 Steve. And I know, as you say, that we can 
 manage to get along without the money until 
 the wedding. But don t you see that it s safer 
 to get it now and have it? No one knows what 
 might happen. Some terrible thing might oc 
 cur to prevent their being married at all. Then 
 where would we be?" 
 
 li Nothing s likely to happen," he had said. 
 
 "But what harm can there be in going to 
 Dunham now! He d never miss the money."
 
 86 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Stephen shook his head. 
 
 "I don t like to ask him to pay up," he had 
 told her. "He ll come around and settle of 
 his own accord. He may do it any day now." 
 And that was all the satisfaction she could get 
 from her liege lord. 
 
 So Margaret went to Dunham herself. And 
 as a result of her skillful moves, upon a day ap 
 pointed for the occasion Dunham and his lawyer 
 came to the Ferris house, where Margaret and 
 Stephen, together with Craig Clifton, their own 
 lawyer, waited in a fever of expectancy. 
 
 Craig Clifton was a young man, not yet 
 thirty. He had been the junior partner in the 
 law firm of Van Tyn and Clifton, and with the 
 death of the senior member had inherited the 
 Ferrises among other clients whom Van Tyn 
 had advised for years. 
 
 Clifton had shown no surprise when Stephen 
 
 outlined to him the terms of the transaction. 
 
 Even in the few years of his practice of law he 
 had come across too many curious marriage 
 settlements to be astonished by his client s in-
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 87 
 
 formation. The only unusual feature of the af 
 fair was the size of the payment to be made 
 a circumstance the contemplation of which was 
 
 very pleasing to Clifton, since his fee would be 
 
 \ 
 based upon the amount of money involved. 
 
 He did not share the nervousness of Eliza 
 beth s father and mother as they waited in Fer 
 ris study. And since both Margaret s and 
 Stephen s thoughts were too much occupied by 
 the approaching realization of long weeks of 
 hoping if not of prayers Clifton sat there 
 calmly deliberating in his mind as to how large 
 a fee his clients would pay without protesting. 
 Ferris, he knew, would be more than reason 
 able. But he reflected that women were more 
 difficult especially a woman of Mrs. Ferris 
 type, who looked upon bills of any sort (no mat 
 ter how legitimate) as something bordering 
 upon imposition, if not actual insult. 
 
 At last Dunham and his lawyer arrived. 
 The great man, trusting to his attorney, took 
 little part in the conversation. Nor indeed did 
 the matter require much discussion. The point
 
 88 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 which Margaret had feared might be raised an 
 unwillingness on Dunham s part to relinquish 
 all hold upon the money until the marriage 
 should have been effected was not brought up 
 at all. Dunham s lawyer had spoken to his 
 client upon that feature and had been directed 
 to deliver the funds unconditionally. He was 
 willing to risk any danger of the marriage s 
 failing to take place. As for the possible de 
 mise of one of the parties prior to the event, 
 Elizabeth seemed to him most unlikely to die; 
 and he had said to the legal light : If I should 
 die they might as well have the money as any 
 one else. It would be of no use to me, you 
 know," he had added grimly. 
 
 in 
 
 So it was settled. At last Margaret and 
 Stephen saw before them the proceeds of the 
 bartering of their child. They had been wise 
 in their day and generation. What they had 
 had to sell they had disposed of to the highest 
 bidder the first, to be sure, but to the highest,
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 89 
 
 there was no doubt. Yes! like thousands of 
 other aristocrats they had sold their daughter 
 in the markets of the world. 
 
 Upon two small slips of paper was the tragic 
 story written. Margaret clutched hers fiercely, 
 as if she would never let it go. She had held it 
 tightly, even when bidding Dunham good-by. 
 And after he had gone her fingers still closed 
 upon the check in a vise-like grip, as a miser s 
 hand grasps his gold in the presence of an 
 other. 
 
 But Stephen had not picked up his share of 
 the treasure-trove. The magic strip of pink 
 paper which he had accepted in exchange for 
 his own flesh and blood still lay upon the table 
 in front of him. He looked down at it curi 
 ously. He had suddenly conceived an aversion 
 to touching it. For the first time he saw the 
 transaction in a clear light. The check seemed 
 polluted something unclean that he dreaded 
 to come in contact with. For a moment he was 
 tempted to rush after Dunham; to call him 
 back ; to tell him that the whole affair was mon-
 
 90 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 strous; that it must not be. But one look at 
 his wife, with her flushed face and a steely glit 
 ter in her eyes, convinced him of the absurdity 
 of such an act. The thing was done. It was 
 irrevocable. They had accepted the terms ; the 
 money had been paid. And now all was over 
 all except the part Elizabeth was to play in the 
 affair. For it was Elizabeth who must suffer 
 prettyy innocent Elizabeth. He shuddered 
 as he realized what he had done and he won 
 dered for an instant whether God would forgive 
 him. 
 
 IV 
 
 Craig Clifton rose and bade Mrs. Ferris 
 good-by. Stephen, conscious of a sudden de 
 sire to quit the room to escape from the scene 
 of the hateful transaction left Margaret and 
 accompanied the lawyer on his way out of the 
 house. 
 
 Clifton was feeling very well pleased with his 
 morning s work. It was, to be sure, something 
 of a breach of legal etiquette to negotiate any
 
 GIVING AND TAKING 91 
 
 business at a client s house. But the charge 
 he intended making on account of his services 
 would more than indemnify him for any possi 
 ble loss of dignity. 
 
 As they went down the stairs the butler 
 opened the front door to admit a young girl 
 who entered quickly and waited until they 
 should descend the remaining steps. 
 
 When she kissed Ferris, Clifton knew that it 
 was Elizabeth. 
 
 "Mr. Clifton my daughter," his client said. 
 They shook hands Elizabeth and the young 
 lawyer and the realization came over Clifton 
 with a sudden shock that he had just taken part 
 in a very reprehensible affair. He felt terribly 
 guilty under the cordial greeting of the fresh- 
 faced girl. 
 
 It struck Elizabeth, in the brief time that 
 they stood there, that both her father and Mr. 
 Clifton looked at her in a most curious way 
 her father out of the corners of his eyes, as if 
 he did not want to be seen looking, and his com 
 panion in a very odd way, as if he pitied her.
 
 92 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 His face was very grave, she thought, and yet 
 there was a kindness, a tenderness, a friendli 
 ness in both his voice and his manner which 
 made her feel instinctively that she liked him. 
 She wondered how old he was. 
 
 As he looked upon her delicate, flower-like 
 youth and reflected how her beauty had been 
 bartered in the room above Clifton was sensible 
 of overwhelming shame. And his heart went 
 out to her as to a child whom some dreadful 
 peril threatened. 
 
 It was only for a moment that Clifton saw 
 her, but she occupied his mind to the exclusion 
 of all else as he went back to his down town of 
 fice. As for a fee for his part in the contempti 
 ble business, the mere thought of such a thing 
 nauseated him. Faugh! Blood-money! that 
 was what it would be. He would have none of 
 it.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 
 I 
 
 THE last of the wedding guests had gone. 
 Stephen Ferris gave a great sigh of relief as he 
 entered his bed-room, and fervently thanked 
 God that the pious business was finished. Yes ! 
 it was all over! He could breathe again. 
 There would be no more unpleasant interviews 
 with insistent creditors no more importuning 
 letters from impatient tradesmen and (best of 
 all) no more harrowing scenes with Margaret! 
 Why should he care what people thought? 
 He had detected a touch of irony in many of the 
 honied speeches that had fallen upon his ears 
 that night. And one of the * yellows had been 
 quite outspoken in its comments upon the mar 
 riage, insinuating only too plainly that having 
 bought boards of directors and judges and leg- 
 
 93
 
 94 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 islatures, Dunham was at last buying himself a 
 wife. Ferris smiled grimly as he recalled the 
 tell-tale faces of some of his guests. He knew 
 well enough that many of the fond mammas 
 were carrying bleeding hearts home with them, 
 for the match-making instinct of matrons with 
 marriageable daughters is too deeply implanted 
 not to plunge its owners often into a hell of jeal 
 ousy. 
 
 He could hear his wife moving about in her 
 room. Margaret had been radiant that night. 
 It was years since Stephen had seen her appear 
 to such advantage. She had cast off almost 
 miraculously the burdensome shroud of worry 
 that had enveloped her for so many months, and 
 had beamed upon all comers alike with a coun 
 tenance that seemed never to have worn a frown 
 of perplexity. Ferris knocked at the door that 
 joined and yet separated their rooms ; and upon 
 hearing her answering "Come!" he entered. 
 
 Margaret had not begun to undress. She was 
 standing before her pier-glass, gazing at her 
 reflection with no little satisfaction. The news
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 95 
 
 of Elizabeth s engagement to Dunham had im 
 mediately changed the temper of the Fifth Ave 
 nue costumers. A flood of engraved announce 
 ments had invited Margaret to see the latest 
 Paris models, imported by mesdames with Irish 
 surnames, and French gentlemen Henris and 
 Georges and Eaouls with no surnames at all. 
 And Margaret had graciously permitted a few 
 the fortunate ones to practice their arts 
 upon her matronly figure. Bound her neck 
 hung a rope of pearls, a recent acquisition. It 
 was the gift of the groom an unconventional 
 offering to his future mother-in-law. Dun 
 ham, with the uncanny foresight which invari 
 ably characterized his moves, and had helped 
 him mightily to make his way in the world 
 had divined that he had best make Margaret 
 Ferris his friend. The money consideration, 
 he realized, was purely a business matter. But 
 jewels bestowed upon a woman ah ! there was 
 some sentiment attached to such an act. It was 
 easy to see that Ferris was weaker than his 
 wife. She dominated him. And Dunham con-
 
 96 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 sidered it politic to ally himself with the 
 stronger faction. That was usually his way. 
 Who knew but that some day his house might be 
 divided? 
 
 "Well! it s done!" Stephen said slowly, as he 
 dropped into a seat. 
 
 "Yes," she rejoined, still viewing herself in 
 the mirror, turning now this way and now that, 
 in preening, peacock fashion. "Yes but why 
 so mournful, Steve? One would imagine that 
 you had just come from a funeral. I should 
 think you had as good reason to feel cheerful as 
 a man ever had in this world of sin and credi 
 tors." 
 
 "Oh, well!" Steve answered testily, "I m 
 glad enough to be safely off the rocks, with 
 plain sailing ahead. But now that it s all over 
 and Elizabeth s gone I can t help wonder 
 ing. ..." He paused, and in the interval his 
 wife turned quickly and looked at him for the 
 first time since he had entered her bed-room. 
 
 "Wondering . . . what?" she inquired with 
 asperity.
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 97 
 
 "Oh ! just what it s all going to mean for her. 
 If she had married some chap of her own age, 
 young Jessup, or Tom Waring s boy, for in 
 stance someone she was in love with, I d feel 
 a lot easier about her. 
 
 Margaret s hands ceased toying with her 
 pearls. She moved nearer her husband and 
 peered at him intently as he sat there with 
 bowed head. 
 
 "Well ! you are a sentimental old fool, Steve," 
 she said. "I didn t think it of you. You ll 
 be sending Dunham s money back to him next, 
 I suppose." 
 
 "Good God! but you re hard, Margaret. I 
 don t believe you care a rap whether Elizabeth s 
 happy or not. 
 
 Margaret laughed. 
 
 "Don t be silly, Steve," she said. "Of 
 course I care. But why shouldn t she be 
 happy? She s a lucky girl. There isn t any 
 thing that she can t have. She need never 
 worry about money as long as she lives. And 
 Dunham will be good to her. He s generous,
 
 98 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Steve. And she looked down at her necklace. 
 * See what he did for me ! Any man who would 
 remember his wife s family so handsomely 
 won t stint his own." 
 
 "Look here, Margaret! Money isn t every 
 thing. It s all very well in its way; but it 
 won t buy happiness." 
 
 Margaret Ferris shrugged her shoulders as 
 she turned again to the pier-glass. 
 
 "Your early training again, Steve! You ve 
 told me that your grandfather used to talk to 
 you about honor, and business integrity and all 
 that sort of thing as if they were all that was 
 worth while. But he never said anything about 
 money! I tell you, money is power! Nobody 
 can accomplish anything without it. There 
 were some things your grandfather didn t know. 
 If he were alive I could teach him well, if not 
 how to suck eggs, at least a few truths that 
 would make him open his eyes ! 
 
 I dare say, Stephen answered drily. * And 
 since, as you imply, my early education was so 
 faulty, I m afraid we shall never agree upon
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 99 
 
 some points. We 11 never see things alike. All 
 I can say is that I hope we ll never have cause 
 to regret this affair. . . . Good-night!" 
 
 1 1 Good-night, Steve ! And for goodness sake, 
 cheer up! You ll live to bless the day Ralph 
 Dunham came to us." 
 
 n 
 
 It was a two-hour run from the Ferris coun 
 try place to the Marwood Inn. Dunham s big 
 French car had whisked the bride and groom 
 away in the moonlight, leaving the guests to 
 linger and make merry at their leisure. Neither 
 Elizabeth nor her husband felt at ease. It was 
 hard for them both to realize that they were 
 actually married. Bushing along the country 
 roads, with the soft nightwind against their 
 faces, they spoke but little. Dunham took her 
 hand in his and stroked it softly. There had 
 been no love-making during their brief engage 
 ment ; and now there was a vague something in 
 his wife s attitude that kept Dunham from slip 
 ping his arm about her and drawing her close
 
 100 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 to him. He wanted to feel her young, supple 
 body against him, and he longed to breathe in 
 the freshness of her smooth skin. But he could 
 wait. He had waited for many things in life. 
 
 It was midnight when the car came to a halt 
 in front of the hotel and Dunham helped his 
 bride out of the tonneau. The moon was still 
 high and from their vantage point on the bluff 
 they looked down upon the lake as it reached 
 away to the north, flanked upon both sides by 
 mountains which rose sheer and rugged from 
 the wave-lapped shores. Dunham s pulse 
 quickened as he took in the prospect. He felt 
 strangely young again. 
 
 "It s beautiful isn t it, dear!" he said. 
 
 * * Like fairy-land ! Elizabeth answered. She 
 too was entranced by the picture. The setting 
 was all the most imaginative maiden could have 
 dreamed of for her honeymoon. 
 
 Her honeymoon! Ah! yes. She was in 
 fairyland but where was the fairy-prince? 
 Was that he by her side that bulky figure, 
 swathed in the loose great-coat which flapped
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 101 
 
 unromantically in the cool breeze that swept 
 chillingly from the lake? Did some such ques 
 tion enter her mind as they stood there during 
 that short space? At all events, Elizabeth 
 looked at her husband; and as she looked she 
 shivered slightly. Dunham noticed the invok 
 untary shudder. 
 
 Come ! You re cold ! " he exclaimed, kindly 
 enough. " Let s go inside." 
 
 "Oh! it s nothing," she told him hastily, as 
 they turned toward the inn. It was not the 
 sharp wind that had caused the brief tremor, 
 for she was warmly wrapped. But in spite of 
 herself she had suddenly felt a touch of nerv 
 ousness. Of course, she and Dunham under 
 stood each other perfectly. And she trusted 
 him. He had been very kind. But what girl 
 would not experience at least some faint qualm 
 of uneasiness at such a time? 
 
 "Are you quite sure you re all right?" Dun 
 ham asked. 
 
 "Oh! yes. It s nothing at all. The air is 
 different here it s much higher up among
 
 102 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 these old mountains." And in a moment more 
 they had entered the great hall of the big sum 
 mer hostelry. 
 
 Except for employes the place was almost 
 deserted. Dunham found a chair for Elizabeth 
 where she waited while he spoke with the clerk 
 at the desk. Soon he joined her again. 
 
 "The cafe is still open downstairs," he ex 
 plained. * Let me give your coat to the boy and 
 he ll put it in our suite while we go down and 
 have a bite to eat. You must be hungry, after 
 that long ride." 
 
 m 
 
 In the restaurant a few guests were still lin 
 gering. Dunham ordered supper, and picking 
 up the wine-list said 
 
 "You must have something to make you 
 warm. What shall it be? A little brandy 
 would be good for you first, I think." 
 
 But she would take nothing. 
 
 "But you must be tired," he told her. "A
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 103 
 
 glass of champagne you ll drink that, 
 surely. ..." 
 
 She smiled at him across the table and shook 
 her head. 
 
 "No, thank you, Ealph. I don t feel like it 
 to-night," she said. 
 
 So Dunham ordered himself a whiskey-and- 
 soda; and the waiter hurried away. 
 
 It seemed to Elizabeth that she could never 
 swallow a mouthful again. It was silly of her, 
 she knew ; but the muscles of her throat seemed 
 to have tightened and she had hard work to sit 
 there calmly and smile, and talk to her husband. 
 There was a strange sensation of weakness 
 about her knees. She had a peculiar feeling 
 that her soul had entered some other person s 
 body, which had brought her with the man Dun 
 ham thither to that strange place. 
 
 Just what happened during that little supper 
 their first meal together Elizabeth could 
 never quite remember. Perhaps the events 
 that followed so swiftly upon it drove from her
 
 104 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 mind everything that immediately preceded 
 them. 
 
 She retained a hazy recollection of stepping 
 out of an elevator into one of the halls above 
 and waiting for a moment before a door while 
 somebody fumbled at the lock. And then the 
 door was swung open. Within was inky black 
 ness; and she hesitated on the threshold until 
 a sudden click of a button flooded the place with 
 light. 
 
 " Good-night, sir! Thank you, sir!" she 
 heard someone say, and the door closed softly. 
 When Dunham turned the key in the lock she 
 strangled a sudden impulse to scream. 
 
 IV 
 
 They were alone in the parlor of the suite; 
 and in the chamber that opened out of it Eliza 
 beth saw two white beds side by side. There 
 were no more rooms. 
 
 Dunham hung his motoring cap in the ward 
 robe; while Elizabeth slowly removed her veil 
 and hat and laid them upon the dresser. As
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 105 
 
 she looked into the mirror she saw that there 
 were shadows under her eyes, and that her lips 
 were pale. And a horrid fear gripped her. 
 She had trusted Ealph. . . . She had explained 
 to him. . . . And now the aspect of the suite 
 alarmed her. 
 
 Dunham noticed her agitated breathing and 
 he saw her hand pressed violently against her 
 throbbing heart. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked with solicitude. 
 "Are you ill, my dear 1 ? Tell me!" 
 
 She smiled at him sadly, and shook her head. 
 
 "Something s the trouble something s 
 wrong," he insisted. "You must tell me you 
 must trust me to take care of you now and see 
 that nothing harms you." 
 
 4 I I have trusted you, she said. There s 
 nothing really the matter with me except I 
 dare say I m tired." And then, without any 
 warning, she fell into a spasm of weeping. 
 
 Dunham was genuinely distressed. He bent 
 over her anxiously. 
 
 "There, there! Don t cry!" he said.
 
 106 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "You re completely fagged out. The wedding 
 was too much for you. It was a nervous strain. 
 But it s all over now and there s going to be 
 nothing more to worry about." 
 
 His words both relieved and reassured her. 
 
 "You re good to me," she said, drying her 
 tears. I knew you would be good to me. But 
 perhaps you don t quite understand me. I 
 I didn t say anything about it I thought you d 
 know. Please don t feel hurt by what I m go 
 ing to say. But I really thought you would get 
 me a room of my own. I thought you d un 
 derstand that that while we d see a great deal 
 of each other, and go about together, and be 
 good friends, you would not expect any more 
 from me than from a friend or a sister. And 
 I know you don t, of course. And so, when I 
 came into the suite and saw what it was like I 
 couldn t understand. I don t understand 
 now." She turned to him appealingly. Tears 
 still trembled in her eyes and her anxious face 
 betrayed the fear under which she labored. 
 
 Dunham listened to her in amazement. He
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 107 
 
 could scarcely credit what his own ears heard. 
 And before he could gather his scattered wits 
 and speak, a wild rage swept over him a fierce, 
 mad anger, not for the frail girl alone with him, 
 but against society for its stupid education of 
 children ; against Stephen and Margaret Ferris 
 for having reared their daughter in ignorance. 
 It was indeed true that Elizabeth s up-bringing 
 had been not merely one of silences but even 
 suppressions. And Dunham recognized in a 
 sudden flash of understanding that she had vir 
 tually no conception of the physical life of a 
 man and a woman. It was all a sealed book to 
 her. 
 
 Poor, ignorant, innocent, unhappy creature! 
 His anger ebbed as quickly as it came as he re 
 garded her compassionately. 
 
 " Don t be frightened," he said gravely, "by 
 the questions I m going to ask you. You ex 
 pected a separate room, I take it, as a natural 
 consequence of the l freedom* for which you 
 stipulated when I asked you to marry me. Is 
 that not so? Yes? I see. We understand
 
 108 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 each other, now, or at least / understand you. 
 This marriage, then, that we have entered into, 
 is really no marriage at all. It s a sort of con 
 tract, more oral than written, what we call in 
 business a * gentlemen s agreement the condi 
 tions of which may or may not be changed in 
 the course of time." 
 
 Elizabeth did not see why he should rehearse 
 the terms of their partnership, but she nodded 
 her affirmation of his statement. Nor could 
 she fathom the strange look that he gave her. 
 
 "Am I repulsive to you?" he asked her ab 
 ruptly. "Do I fill you with repugnance? Tell 
 me, in all frankness ; for if I do I would not in 
 flict myself even my occasional presence 
 upon you any longer." 
 
 Elizabeth stared at him wonderingly. She 
 was sitting upon one of the beds now, while 
 Dunham slowly paced the floor in front of her. 
 
 "Tell me how you really feel toward me," 
 he urged. 
 
 There was no fear in her face now only a 
 mild and trusting look of comradeship, such as
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 109 
 
 a child might bestow upon someone in whose 
 care he had been placed. Dunham winced un 
 der it. It was not the look a man expects to 
 receive from his bride. 
 
 "How I feel toward you?" she repeated. 
 What a queer question, Ealph. Well I 11 tell 
 you, though you must know already. I look on 
 you as my best friend, as someone who will al 
 ways be good to me kind, gentle, considerate ; 
 as a pleasant companion; a chum to go about 
 with." 
 
 "Bather a Platonic sort of affair this mar 
 riage of ours don t you think?" he inquired 
 bitterly. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it is. But of course, we both 
 understood that in the beginning," she replied. 
 
 He had not the "heart to enlighten her, then. 
 He could not tell her that their different concep 
 tions of life had betrayed them into the grossest 
 of follies. Was it a just punishment for him 
 a sort of ironical justice meted out to him be 
 cause he had been willing to enter into a barren 
 marriage ?
 
 110 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "So you like me as a chaperon so long as 
 I keep within certain bounds I 
 
 She smiled at his description of himself, for 
 she did not guess the struggle that was going 
 on beneath his outer calm. 
 
 "That s it precisely," she admitted. "I 
 shall like to feel that you re where I can always 
 find you, if I need you. I shall like to know 
 that you are not far away from me and yet not 
 too near. It s a strange attitude, perhaps, 
 though I should think many women would feel 
 that way toward their husbands. I I couldn t 
 have you hold me so that I couldn t slip away. 
 That s the sort of freedom that I can t give up." 
 
 He nodded. "Well far be it from him to seek 
 to deprive her of that freedom to which she be 
 lieved he had agreed. He must have time to 
 think. The situation was impossible intoler 
 able. He felt stifled all at once choking. 
 There flashed across his mind the remembrance 
 of a fight of his younger days, when a man s 
 fingers had closed round his throat in an iron 
 grip. He shuddered involuntarily. He had not
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR 111 
 
 been beaten then ; but now he had gone down to 
 defeat before a slip of a girl. He could have 
 sworn at himself in his impotent anger. But 
 he only said to his bride 
 
 This is stupid this mistake about our suite. 
 But it s easily remedied. There s a lounge out 
 side in the parlor. I ll be all right. So good 
 night! You have everything you need? Good! 
 Good-night!" 
 
 Dunham shifted the key of the connecting 
 door to the keyhole on the bedroom side. It 
 was a spring-lock, and as he went out he closed 
 the door firmly behind him.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 NOT STRICTLY ACCORDING TO PROGRAM 
 
 I 
 
 IN the parlor of the apartment Dunham passed 
 a wakeful night. He tried to consider the situa 
 tion calmly; but now and again a wave of hot 
 resentment surged over him and it required all 
 his strength to stifle the impulse to shout out so 
 that all the world might hear ; to cry aloud that 
 he had been victimized cheated of his just due 
 that his manhood had been betrayed. He felt 
 tricked caught beyond any chance of escape 
 in the relentless jaws of a trap which had been 
 partly of his own forging. Again and again he 
 crushed down his man s craving for violent ac 
 tion, which was but nature s attempt to supply 
 a vent for his seething emotions. And in the 
 stillness of the night he came at last to a saner 
 view of his dilemma.
 
 NOT ON THE PROGRAM 113 
 
 Would Elizabeth s attitude change as time 
 went on? The disgust and dread with which 
 she obviously regarded the vital facts of exist 
 ence would they ever give way to the natural 
 attitude of a normal woman? He wondered. 
 It was a riddle that was beyond his capacity to 
 solve. Suppose her peculiar perversion of in 
 stinct were unalterable? Could he go on 
 through the years hoping nothing, expecting 
 nothing? What effect would her tempera 
 mental insufficiency have upon them both? He 
 could not even guess, as he sat before the fire 
 place until the gray light began to creep in 
 through the shutters, while he watched the ashes 
 gently dropping from the dying fire. 
 
 n 
 
 They had planned to spend two days at Mar- 
 wood; but for Dunham any longer stop at that 
 now hateful place was impossible. He experi 
 enced an uncontrollable desire to flee from the 
 scene of his horrid awakening to leave it be 
 hind never to see again the spot where his
 
 114 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 newly-built air-castle had tumbled about his 
 ears. At breakfast he suggested moving on 
 and Elizabeth, refreshed and smiling after a 
 good night s sleep, agreed promptly to the 
 change of programme. 
 
 So Dunham ordered the car and they traveled 
 on. That day was typical of many others that 
 followed, made up of hours of scurrying over 
 hill and valley. Dunham, who had always 
 hitherto preferred to be driven slowly, now de 
 veloped a mania for speed. It gave him a 
 strange sense of relief from the tension that 
 strung all his nerves taut until it seemed to him 
 that something would snap within him. Con 
 tinually he urged the chauffeur on until that 
 careful driver, marveling at the change of tem 
 per that had come over his employer, registered 
 a vow never to pilot another bridal couple along 
 the path of their honeymoon. The poor fellow 
 breathed a sigh of relief whenever they turned 
 in at a hotel for a meal or a night s lodging. 
 The mad pace at which Dunham made him send 
 the car flying down the New England hills was
 
 NOT ON THE PROGRAM 115 
 
 often really dangerous. It was not so bad when 
 they kept to the main roads ; but sometimes the 
 whim seized Dunham to shun the more traveled 
 highways and then with undiminished speed 
 they jolted and rattled their way over ruts and 
 stones in a fashion that made Elizabeth s heart 
 jump with alarm. But her husband did not no 
 tice her consternation. 
 
 So they traveled on, up through the Connecti 
 cut Valley, across the White Mountains, then 
 into Maine, and Canada. But hurry as he 
 would, Ealph Dunham could not escape from 
 the nightmare that had fastened itself upon him. 
 And his mood at last underwent a change. 
 From a desire to avoid contact with other peo 
 ple he was sensible of a need of companionship. 
 He felt that he must be with men that he must 
 talk with them and drink with them and smoke 
 with them with fellow-creatures whom he un 
 derstood and who were sane. For he began to 
 have doubts of his own sanity. 
 
 Elizabeth, too, found their lone companion 
 ship depressing. It was all too anomalous,
 
 116 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 though she did not guess the reason. They 
 were wed and yet not wed. They were attempt 
 ing something that was an enormity for a man 
 and a woman physically healthy and mentally 
 sane. And upon them both descended an un 
 rest such as neither had ever known before. 
 And yet they tired of the constant rushing hel 
 ter-skelter over the face of the earth. 
 
 And then the whim seized Dunham to go 
 abroad. His yacht, the Nomad, was in commis 
 sion, lying then at Newport, awaiting his or 
 ders ; for he had half intended to have it meet 
 him at some point along the coast. But now he 
 quailed at the very thought of a solitary cruise 
 with his wife. Inquiry disclosed the fact that a 
 liner was about to sail from Montreal and the 
 Dunhams caught it on the eve of its departure. 
 
 The first stage of their strange honeymoon 
 was finished.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 FACING FACTS 
 
 I 
 
 ALONG with thousands of other home-comers, 
 September brought the Dunhams back to New 
 York. Ralph had not allowed his wife to know 
 of the misunderstanding that had existed be 
 tween them previous to that unforgettable night 
 at Marwood the first night after their wed 
 ding. He had made a firm resolve that he 
 would not disillusion Elizabeth while her honey 
 moon lasted. How long thereafter could he si 
 lently endure the situation? He did not know. 
 He could not guess. He was aware only of an 
 enormous loneliness from which he could not 
 escape. The trying weeks which had elapsed 
 since his marriage had changed him strangely. 
 Before, he had always been self-sufficient. It 
 had made no difference in his happiness whether 
 
 117
 
 118 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 he was with others or not; whether he found 
 his associates congenial or not. He was not 
 like so many people who are miserable when 
 they are alone, or who are wretched when they 
 are thrown in with individuals they dislike ; who 
 have no capacity for self-reliance. But now 
 as never before during his lifetime he felt 
 terribly alone. 
 
 Perhaps it was because he was at the same 
 time so near and yet so far from her who should 
 have been closest and dearest to him. He had 
 not thought, at first, that the restraint imposed 
 upon him would prove so difficult to endure. In 
 the beginning he had regarded Elizabeth merely 
 as a pretty, attractive child. She had had no 
 real place in his thoughts much less in his 
 affections. But since they had been together 
 his attitude toward her had undergone a 
 change. Her personality, only half-fathomed 
 by him as it was, piquing his interest at first, 
 had gradually come to claim a large place in his 
 imagination. He had thought, after the first 
 shock of the denouement at Marwood, that life
 
 FACING FACTS 119 
 
 with her on a Platonic basis was possible for 
 him. But as time went on he was not content. 
 He could not divert his thoughts from the shy 
 creature he had captured but whose confidence 
 he had not. He lay awake during long, dreary 
 nights until he actually ground his teeth in a 
 frenzy of despair. Never before had he known 
 what it was to be afraid. He both feared and 
 hated the desolate silence of the night, unbroken 
 by so much as a whisper of her whom he at last 
 told himself he loved. 
 
 Yes! the miracle had happened! He loved 
 the sweet, timid, innocent girl that God had 
 given him and yet withheld from him. He 
 longed to catch her in his eager embrace and 
 hold her close, knowing that she belonged to 
 him and him alone. Whenever she shyly turned 
 her long-lashed child-like eyes to his he felt a 
 strange thrill, such as he had never known be 
 fore. He watched her lips when she spoke to 
 him ; and he longed to draw her tenderly to him 
 and kiss her fresh young mouth. 
 
 But all such caresses were forbidden him.
 
 120 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 He knew it knew it with a tragic conviction. 
 And Dunham mastered himself. He could 
 only hover about her and drink in her loveli 
 ness with longing eyes. Beyond that he could 
 not go; for he had quickly discovered that his 
 smallest advance sent her quivering away from 
 him. She recoiled from the merest touch of his 
 hand. And after he had seen her shrink from 
 him a few times he had studiously avoided the 
 slightest contact with her. 
 
 So he lived with her lived with her and still 
 without her tortured by the most exquisite 
 agony. 
 
 ii 
 
 A fortnight in New York brought Dunham to 
 the breaking point. His nerves began playing 
 him odd tricks. He slept less and less. After 
 nights of restless tossing he rose each succeed 
 ing morning wearier than he had been the day 
 before. His business affairs no longer inter 
 ested him. Unwillingly he went to his Wall 
 Street office and forced himself to take up such
 
 FACING FACTS 121 
 
 matters as demanded his attention. But his 
 mind seemed to have lost its old-time faculty for 
 quick and decisive dealing. He had difficulty 
 even in grasping the salient features of a proj 
 ect. For his thoughts constantly reverted to 
 the slender girl who had claimed his heart, 
 though withholding hers from him. 
 
 To cap the climax, one day Dunham made a 
 colossal blunder. It was a matter involving the 
 control of a railroad, a connecting link between 
 two of his Western lines which he had been try 
 ing for years to capture. At last the thing was 
 virtually in his grasp. Before he could put out 
 his hand and lay claim to the property as his 
 there remained only one move. And that last 
 strategic play he bungled hopelessly. The dam 
 age was done almost before he knew it and he 
 saw the work of years rendered futile. 
 
 It was not so much the loss of the millions of 
 money that startled him. He had lost his grip 
 that was what appalled him. He was a Sam 
 son shorn of his locks. And like Samson, his 
 wife was his undoing.
 
 122 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 in 
 
 Dunham was thoroughly alarmed. His first 
 thought was to see a doctor a specialist of 
 some sort. But when he turned the matter over 
 in his mind he knew that no medical man could 
 help him. His trouble lay hidden from the 
 reach of drugs. The malady was beyond the 
 help of mere man. And he realized that he 
 must fight the battle unaided. 
 
 He must go away. He must leave Elizabeth. 
 The very sight of her was maddening. To be 
 with her was agony. He could only try the 
 remedy of removing himself from her presence 
 for a time, in what he feared would prove only a 
 futile effort to forget her. 
 
 So it came about that Kalph Dunham told his 
 wife one evening that he had been asked to join 
 a party of men who were going on a West Indian 
 cruise. He saw with a pang that she welcomed 
 the news. She even urged him to go. And so 
 it was settled. Elizabeth announced on the 
 spot that she would pay her parents a visit in
 
 FACING FACTS 123 
 
 his absence. At dinner that night she was 
 gayer than her husband had seen her for 
 months. 
 Her laughter cut him to the quick.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF THE REAL 
 
 I 
 
 BACK again in her father s house, Elizabeth 
 gave a sigh of relief. At last she had escaped 
 from her husband s irritating nearness. It was 
 good to feel that she could move about as she 
 chose, without his constant escort; that she 
 could go down to a meal rid of the necessity of 
 facing him across the table and making labored 
 efforts at conversation. And the knowledge 
 that her respite was to be but brief made her 
 freedom all the sweeter. 
 
 Her parents had guessed from her letters 
 that all was not as it should be between bride 
 and bridegroom. But they had not suspected 
 the real status of affairs. Consequently, when 
 Elizabeth told her mother, as she soon did, of 
 the basis upon which she and Dunham had ar- 
 
 124
 
 GLIMPSE OF THE REAL 125 
 
 ranged their married life, Margaret Ferris 
 eyes opened wide in astonishment. 
 
 "But, my dear child," she exclaimed, "didn t 
 you realize things in the beginning 1 ? Didn t 
 you understand?" 
 
 "When I first met him? No, I didn t. He 
 was nice to me and kind. But I didn t know 
 then what marriage meant, and you ought to 
 have told me. I should have known then that 
 I could never be Ealph s wife. 
 
 "You ll get used to it." 
 
 "Never, never, never!" 
 
 "My dear, you will. You must. You are a 
 woman, and you must fulfill your destiny. It 
 is of no use to try to escape it. 
 
 "Oh, Mother, you married the man you 
 loved." 
 
 "Yes, but it comes to the same thing in the 
 end. Your father lives his own life and I live 
 mine. It s separation, none the less for being 
 amicable." 
 
 "Oh, Mamma!" 
 
 "Hush, child; don t be silly. You have to
 
 126 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 know these things now. Very few marriages 
 are happy. In most there s a rift which makes 
 itself evident sooner or later. Then, if the peo 
 ple are well bred, they agree each to go his own 
 way. If they are foolish there s a horrid quar 
 rel, and then another and another, until it comes 
 to a scandal, and everything has to be known by 
 everybody. * 
 
 Elizabeth was cold with horror. To hear that 
 her father and mother, the two people she loved 
 most in the world, were not the happy couple 
 she had always imagined them to be, was 
 so shocking that it seemed to complete the 
 transformation of the world from the 
 happy place she had thought it to a very 
 Gehenna. 
 
 She sat down quickly, saying nothing, but 
 feeling as if the ground were giving way under 
 her feet. Where was she to look for comfort, 
 for support, when those she had thought to lean 
 on failed her like that? 
 
 For a little while they were quite silent, Mrs. 
 Ferris walking to the nearest window rest-
 
 GLIMPSE OF THE REAL 127 
 
 lessly and looking out, and Elizabeth leaning on 
 her hand without even looking at her. 
 
 Presently Margaret came back to Elizabeth 
 and put her hand on her daughter s shoulder. 
 
 "You musn t think me unkind, Elizabeth," 
 she said, in a gentle tone, not like her sweet 
 "society" cooing voice. "But believe me, 
 child, I know everything, and I understand 
 everything, and I m dreadfully sorry that it 
 should all have come to your knowledge so sud 
 denly. 
 
 "But why need it have?" Elizabeth cried. 
 "Why was I brought up in complete ignorance 
 of facts that half the world knows and accepts 
 quite as a matter of course? It was unfair 
 it was wrong it was cruelly wrong!" 
 
 At this outburst Margaret sat down beside 
 her child and said in her most wheedling and 
 confidential manner 
 
 "No, I couldn t tell you anything. If I had 
 it wouldn t have come off. One can never tell 
 a girl, or she would never make a good mar 
 riage."
 
 128 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Elizabeth, shuddered. How could she use 
 such a word to her now I 
 
 "A good marriage!" she echoed in a dis 
 gusted tone. 
 
 But Mrs. Ferris was quite herself again. 
 She frowned imperiously at her rebellious child. 
 
 "Yes, a good marriage," she repeated. 
 "There is only one sort of marriage that is 
 good, even tolerable, and that is marriage with 
 money. It is a horrible thing to have to ac 
 knowledge, but there is no use in blinking the 
 fact. Marriage, life itself, is impossible now 
 adays, without money ; and having found a good 
 husband, a girl should not think, when she mar 
 ries, that she will have everything she wants 
 and that there will be nothing in life to put up 
 with. That is an impossible state of things. 
 There must always be little causes of disagree 
 ment between the most devoted husband and 
 wife; but the wise ones make the best of it, 
 and remember the reasons why they married, 
 and are content with something less than ideal 
 happiness."
 
 GLIMPSE OF THE REAL 129 
 
 Elizabeth looked at her mother closely. 
 
 "Why did I marry, pray tell me?" she asked. 
 "Did I want money so much? Do you think 
 such a thing as money can compensate me for 
 being tied for life to a man who is abhorrent to 
 me? I can tell you why I married Ralph. It 
 was simply and solely because you and father 
 urged me to. And now I begin to see why. 
 Now I begin to understand. You you were 
 the ones who needed money. I have asked 
 Ealph if that is not so, but he would tell me 
 nothing. I have a right to know. If he gave 
 you money I have a right to know." 
 
 "Very well!" her mother said. "I would 
 rather not have told you, but, as you say, you 
 have a right to know, and so you shall. Your 
 father s affairs were desperate, and he could 
 no longer take care of us in the way we were 
 accustomed to live. There were burdens on 
 his property mortgages. They were about to 
 fall due. And your father not only had no 
 money with which to pay them off, but he owed 
 everybody florists, and dressmakers, and
 
 130 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 butchers, and the whole hungry pack. Then 
 Dunham saw you and fell in love with you. And 
 he proposed for you to your father. He was 
 very generous let us have all we wanted and 
 made the handsomest offers, so that, no matter 
 what may happen, you will be all right. There, 
 that s all!" 
 
 "All!" Elizabeth exclaimed, sickened by her 
 mother s unblushing confession. "So you sold 
 me and never told me a word of the horrible 
 bargain you made. You deceived me oh ! why 
 could you not have told me 1 " 
 
 "No, that was impossible. Men like Ealph 
 Dunham don t come in one s way every day. 
 When one does, and proposes marriage, there is 
 only one thing to be done to accept him." 
 And then she added, after a moment "You 
 know, don t you, dear, that one can t bring up 
 young girls except as one does? One always 
 hopes that one may be able to give them every 
 thing to make them happy without having to 
 do violence to one s own feelings and theirs.
 
 GLIMPSE OF THE REAL 131 
 
 But then, when the time comes, and one recog 
 nizes the truth that only money can make a mar 
 riage endurable, why, one has to make the best 
 of it, and the girl, once married, has to make 
 the best of it too." 
 
 n 
 
 Sold ! Sold ! The hopelessness of it all, and 
 the horror of it, and the knowledge that she 
 could not put things right made Elizabeth weep 
 bitter tears in the secrecy of her bedroom. Her 
 mother s revelation had left her so lonely, so 
 miserable, and so revolted, that she felt as if 
 she could not go on living unless she could find 
 some way out of the frightful tangle. 
 
 Was it in any way her own fault? She did 
 not think so. She was flung into marriage, 
 without being allowed to know what she was do 
 ing. She realized that that was the only way 
 it could have been done. She wondered if her 
 father and mother knew how wicked they had 
 been. The whole thing seemed so horrible
 
 132 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 that she had been bartered by her own flesh 
 that she was almost stunned by the contempla 
 tion of the truth. 
 
 She wondered if the clergyman who mar 
 ried them old Mr. Cartwright had known, 
 whether he would have performed the ceremony 
 just the same ! She was afraid he would. She 
 was afraid he would have been more shocked 
 by the idea of his having any responsibility in 
 the matter, fhan by what he had to do in tying 
 a girl of twenty for life to a man twice her age 
 whom she did not love. 
 
 Sold ! Sold ! Surely they ought not to have 
 done it! Surely they, who knew all about it, 
 ought not to have sold her into bondage. She 
 groaned aloud. It was horrible, horrible! 
 Not to love the man one marries that must be 
 hard. But to hate him ! (and she did hate him !) 
 that was worse. 
 
 She hated it all. She dreaded the future. 
 She could not bear to think about the future 
 even then. When she thought of living out a 
 lifetime with her husband, she felt as if she
 
 GLIMPSE OF THE REAL 133 
 
 were stranded on some desert island, with only 
 a wild animal for a companion. If only she had 
 the courage to end it all to die and so escape 
 the intolerable bond that bound her!
 
 CHAPTER XH 
 
 OUT OP THE STAGNANT HABBOB 
 I 
 
 ANOTHEB summer had arrived, but with it had 
 come no change in the relations of Dunham and 
 his wife. Meanwhile Elizabeth spent no more 
 time with Ealph than seemed absolutely re 
 quired of her indeed she had slept more fre 
 quently under her father s roof than beneath 
 her husband s. 
 
 At Ferris invitation, Craig Clifton had come 
 to Oak Ledge for the week-end. There was 
 business that demanded attention. It was June 
 and Stephen knew that New York was hot, and 
 humid, and reeking with divers unpleasant 
 odors. He had no desire to set foot in the City. 
 So he asked Clifton to make a pilgrimage into 
 the Berkshires. 
 
 The pressure of work had kept Clifton in 
 
 134
 
 OUT OF THE HARBOR 135 
 
 town steadily and lie welcomed an excuse to es 
 cape to the country and avoid even a few of 
 the depressing, enervating days of New York 
 in midsummer. He arrived at the Ferris house 
 late at night after a tiring journey in a stifling, 
 dusty train; and after being greeted by his 
 host he had gone straight to his room and to 
 bed. There was a lively gathering upon the 
 piazza, but Clifton had not tarried to meet the 
 other guests. 
 
 The next morning he awakened early, to the 
 song of chirping birds. A fresh, perfume-laden 
 breeze was moving the curtains at his windows 
 and though it was hours earlier than he was 
 wont to rise when in town, he responded to the 
 call of the country and dressed quickly. 
 
 After he had finished the coffee and rolls 
 which were brought to his chamber, he made 
 his way to the gardens lying at the back of the 
 house and followed along the hedge-lined paths 
 which wove their way in and out. Here and 
 there he came upon a gardener busy with his 
 weeding ; but of the guests of the night before lie
 
 136 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 saw nothing. Finding a comfortable seat 
 placed invitingly beneath a cherry-tree, he sat 
 down to enjoy a cigarette. After the swelter 
 of New York it was delightful to be there in the 
 bright sunshine, and hear the twitter of birds 
 and smell the fragrance of flowers. He had not 
 sat there long when a step sounded on the 
 graveled path behind him. He turned instantly 
 and sprang quickly to his feet. It was Mrs. 
 Ealph Dunham, with her hands full of roses. 
 Clifton recognized her immediately, though he 
 had seen her but once before on the occasion 
 when he had been presented to her at her 
 father s house. 
 
 "Ah!" she said. "You are Mr. Clifton, are 
 you not? You too! you could not resist the 
 beautiful morning. But you have been idle, 
 while I have been busy, as you see," she ex 
 plained, raising her flowers for him to admire. 
 
 "They are beautiful, Mrs. Dunham," Clifton 
 said, and his heart pounded hard against his 
 ribs. "They are beautiful, and you " He 
 stopped suddenly, amazed at himself that he
 
 OUT OF THE HARBOR 137 
 
 should be so moved at the sight of her ; and he 
 paused just in time to choke off a most flagrant 
 compliment. 
 
 "And I am very energetic, you must agree," 
 she said, finishing his sentence for him. 
 
 Clifton let her interruption pass unchal 
 lenged. He had not meant his remark to end 
 as she would have it; but fortunately he had 
 realized before it was too late that it was decid 
 edly presumptuous of him to be making pretty 
 speeches to Mrs. Dunham. 
 
 "Will you wear one of my roses?" she asked 
 him. 
 
 "With much pleasure, if you will choose 
 one," he told her. 
 
 "Oh, you must tell me which you like best," 
 she said. "A pink one, or a white one, or a 
 red? For me I love the red," and she buried 
 her pretty nose deep in a cluster of crimson 
 blossoms. 
 
 Clifton thought they matched the red of her 
 lips. He touched gently the flower her mouth 
 had pressed.
 
 138 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "This one, please!" he said. 
 
 "Ah! so you prefer that color, too?" she ex 
 claimed, as she held the blossom out to him. 
 She smiled, and Clifton felt that no more glori 
 ous morning had ever dawned, since the begin 
 ning of things. 
 
 "How can those stupid people spend so much 
 time asleep?" she asked, as she looked toward 
 the house. "I want to go for a ride, and there 
 are just we two up. 
 
 "Perhaps you will let me go with you?" he 
 suggested. 
 
 "Do you really wish to come?" she asked. 
 "Then let us hurry and dress. I will see that 
 the horses are saddled and waiting for us." 
 
 ii 
 
 Off they went, the two of them, and the brisk, 
 delicious air and the charm of the exercise made 
 Elizabeth forget her troubles. For once for 
 the first time since her marriage she was 
 young and buoyant, seizing with eager hands 
 the passing pleasure.
 
 OUT OF THE HARBOR 139 
 
 Soon the road took them into a wonderful 
 old beech wood, where the long amber rays of 
 the early morning sun slanted athwart the 
 brown, gnarled trunks and danced and quivered 
 in the cool, green depths of the midsummer 
 foliage. Through the tree-tops the sky ap 
 peared like a gigantic plain of clearest azure 
 and crystal. They spoke little, at first, as they 
 rode along the forest path. The caressing 
 branches touched them gently as they passed 
 and now and then a squirrel cocked his eyes 
 curiously at them, and a brightly feathered 
 songster bade them a cheery good-morning. 
 Coming out upon an undulating meadow road 
 their mounts broke into a sweeping canter and 
 the early breeze, laden with puffs of clover, 
 wooed their faces sweetly. 
 
 Craig Clifton was in paradise and Elizabeth, 
 too, was radiant. 
 
 As he looked at her, with her white flawless 
 skin contrasting sharply with her chestnut hair 
 and the deep red of her lips, he was certain 
 that nowhere was there a match for that divine
 
 creature. He saw with appreciation how her 
 slight yet well-knit body swayed subtly with the 
 movement of her mount, and he admired the 
 firm but delicate way in which her hand felt 
 her horse s mouth. 
 
 "You re fond of riding, aren t you?" he said. 
 
 "I have loved horses since I was a little girl," 
 she told him, simply. "It is my greatest pleas 
 ure to be out in the open like this early in the 
 day. There s nothing to compare with the feel 
 ing of life and buoyancy it gives one. 
 
 Craig wished that he might spend all the 
 mornings of his life with her like this. But 
 he could not tell his companion that. He could 
 only talk commonplaces and tell her about the 
 favorite horses he had had, from Peter, his first 
 pony, to Bolero, his latest Irish hunter. 
 
 And as they talked gaily their horses carried 
 them further and further out into the rolling 
 country-side. When they came to a small 
 brook, which ran placidly between willow- 
 fringed banks, Elizabeth brought her horse to a 
 stop.
 
 OUT OF THE HARBOR 141 
 
 "See!" she said. "How pretty it must be 
 up there along the stream! Let us explore a 
 little ! And so they tied their horses to a fence 
 and rambled carelessly beside the tiny rivulet. 
 
 Soon they came to a spot where it was neces 
 sary to cross upon the rocks to the opposite 
 bank. Elizabeth would not let Clifton help her. 
 She was sure she was entirely able to manage 
 the crossing alone. 
 
 Forgetful of his own footing, in his careful 
 watch of her, he slipped on a stone, sending one 
 of his feet into the water. 
 
 They both laughed, which was the only thing 
 they could possibly do, being young and joyful 
 with the gladness of youth and summer time; 
 but when a moment later it was quite necessary 
 for him to touch her hand in assisting her to 
 cross a tiny silver tributary of the stream, the 
 laughter was hushed by the engulfing influence 
 of a sudden immense emotion. 
 
 They both knew, in that instant, through the 
 mysterious free-masonry of sex, that they were 
 strangely drawn to each other.
 
 142 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 He should have avoided it: he whose eyes 
 saw things more clearly than hers. He should 
 have realized the danger. 
 
 But his brain was a bit clouded by the veil of 
 his emotions. 
 
 He knew that already he regarded her differ 
 ently from the way he regarded other women 
 and he felt that he wanted to get rid of all bar 
 riers as quickly as possible. 
 
 This girl with the beautiful throat and the 
 serious eyes made a direct and instant appeal 
 to him. He could no more help touching her 
 than the butterfly can help touching the petals 
 of the rose. He didn t want to think anything 
 out to plan anything or grapple with anything 
 he only wanted immediately to begin enjoy 
 ing the rapture of being passionately in love 
 with a woman who was the right age to be loved 
 passionately. . . . 
 
 There was brilliance in her eyes, and there 
 was rose-pink on her cheeks, and when she 
 smiled it was without restraint. 
 
 He felt as if just at this precise moment life
 
 OUT OF THE HARBOR 143 
 
 were beginning, as if it were absurd ever to im 
 agine that it could have begun before. 
 
 They stopped and rested upon the bank. 
 Elizabeth sat quite still and tried not to be con 
 scious of anything except the green of the 
 leaves rustling overhead. 
 
 She would just go on thinking about those 
 green leaves and ah! no, $he couldn t go on 
 thinking about those because a little bird with 
 a speckled breast had flown on to the bough! 
 The little bird a plump little preening hen- 
 thing was now attracting her attention, and 
 and there, now another little bird had joined 
 her on the bough. 
 
 But the newcomer was a slimly-smart young 
 bird, and they were chirruping together and 
 their beaks were touching, and and . . . 
 
 With a flame Elizabeth Dunham s face grew 
 hot, for she had suddenly remembered that these 
 preening, twittering birds were part of nature s 
 stupendous scheme, which was the main element 
 of all creation. 
 
 These happy, chirruping birds were proba-
 
 144 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 bly mated birds who had loved in the spring 
 time. 
 
 Everything and everybody seemed concerned 
 in the sex-scheme, and the girl could feel a new 
 rushing and stirring of her own blood. 
 
 Vague unrest, a longing which would not be 
 explained, a strange heart-hunger all these 
 sensations she had known before. 
 
 But now this was something different. 
 
 She felt like a person rushing on toward a 
 precipice no, she felt as if the precipice were 
 advancing toward her no, she felt as if a great 
 warm ocean of scented, swamping waves were 
 about to engulf her and in the waves she could 
 see she hardly knew what. 
 
 Life was beginning the gates were opening 
 as lock-gates open to show the glory of a river 
 that runs down to limitless sea life lif e ! 
 
 in 
 
 Clifton was sorry when the time came to re 
 turn to the road and turn their horses heads 
 homewards. As they followed slowly along the
 
 OUT OF THE HARBOR 145 
 
 bridle-path, which wound like a brown ribbon 
 through meadow and woodland, the sweet scent 
 of wild flowers came from the roadside and the 
 whole face of the world was aflame with a gor 
 geous golden tint, such as art has neither name 
 for, nor power to reproduce. 
 
 There were few spoken words between them 
 as they rode back to the house. 
 
 Why was there a strange bursting ache in 
 her heart? 
 
 What did she want? What was there which 
 she should have, yet had not? 
 
 As Clifton bent toward her softly in the 
 shadow of the beech wood voluntarily she 
 moved away, though the next moment a wave of 
 womanly tenderness swept over her. She was 
 sorry for him. And as Clifton bent lower and 
 looked into her eyes he saw an indefinable some 
 thing in their depths that sobered the riot in his 
 veins. 
 
 He smiled at her. Somehow that was all he 
 dared do, then.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TOTJTH WILL BE SERVED 
 
 f i 
 
 DURING the remainder of the day Clifton found 
 little opportunity to be with his host s daugh 
 ter. Most of the time he spent with Ferris, 
 going over the details of some real estate en 
 tanglements in which Stephen had become in 
 volved during that stage of dwindling fortune 
 from which Dunham had rescued him. 
 
 And Elizabeth? What of her all this time? 
 For it is not to be supposed that she did not have 
 her thoughts and moods, hopes and fears, joys 
 and misgivings. 
 
 When a woman that is to say an inherently 
 moral woman recalls with rapture the touch 
 of one particular man, it may be safely reck 
 oned that his personality has made a deep im 
 press upon her. 
 
 146
 
 YOUTH WILL BE SERVED 147 
 
 She knew that she had never met a man who 
 had appealed to her in just the way that Clifton 
 did. And all that day he was constantly in her 
 thoughts. 
 
 There was a dance at Oak Ledge that even 
 ing. Not till then, since his arrival on the pre 
 vious night, had Clifton had an opportunity to 
 mingle with the other visitors. There were 
 many in addition to the members of the house- 
 party owners of neighboring estates, most of 
 whom brought guests of their own. 
 
 After Clifton had played a game of billiards 
 with Bradley, a man whom he knew, and had 
 finished a cigar, he sought the ball-room. One 
 figure only filled his whole mind that of Mrs. 
 Dunham and it was she whom he went to the 
 ball-room to find. 
 
 But after scanning the swaying, gliding 
 dancers for a time he decided that she was not 
 there. He left the place. 
 
 She wasn t in the great drawing-room, among 
 the girls and their partners and their chap 
 erons galore; she wasn t in the writing-room;
 
 148 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 she wasn t on any of the corridor seats; she 
 wasn t on the balcony. 
 
 This was annoying, because now that Clifton 
 found it difficult to catch the desired glimpse of 
 her face, the wish only increased in fervor. 
 
 A girl! It was very extraordinary for him 
 to be so interested in a girll But there it was 
 he wanted to see her face more than he 
 wanted anything else in the world. 
 
 So after exploring all the near-by rooms 
 Craig Clifton enlarged the field of his search. 
 He walked the length of the long corridor, for 
 he remembered a small piazza that could be 
 reached from the further end of the passage. 
 Skillfully avoiding the pitfalls spread for him 
 by various willing maidens, he made his way 
 quickly to the secluded, vine-covered nook. 
 
 And there, looking serenely down at the 
 moon-lit garden below, stood the woman that 
 he sought. She was alone, and at the sound of 
 his step she turned and in the half-light they 
 saw each other s faces. 
 
 In another moment Clifton had spoken her
 
 YOUTH WILL BE SERVED 149 
 
 name softly, and gently held both her soft, cool 
 hands in his. 
 
 n 
 
 It is so hard to find accurate phrases when 
 the wine of music is inebriating the senses ! 
 
 Clifton, unconsciously guiding his partner in 
 and out among the other dancing couples, only 
 knew that he was supremely happy. 
 
 Elizabeth, too, experienced unwonted self- 
 communings. For her it seemed that the world 
 contained nothing but him for him it seemed 
 that the world contained nothing but her ! 
 
 So they swayed with the rhythm of the piece, 
 till suddenly the motif changed. 
 
 Then, with the change of the motif, the girl s 
 whole nature changed. It was as if she were 
 letting herself go without knowing it. 
 
 Ah ! how the strings were wailing and how the 
 melody was throbbing on the air! 
 
 She could look up at him and see the little 
 cleft in the center of his chin, and the sweetness 
 of his lips when he smiled, and the light shining
 
 150 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 through one obtrusive little outstanding lock of 
 hair which would insist upon breaking into defi 
 nite curl. 
 
 Ah ! the swell of the cellos as they took up the 
 crying of the theme ! like a passion dirge of liv 
 ing loves ! 
 
 Craig Clifton looked at the girl, who nestled 
 in his embrace. He looked at the cool pale skin, 
 beneath which throbbed the pulse of youth ; he 
 looked at the little scarlet mouth such a little 
 mouth, but full and sweet and dewy and he 
 looked at the gentle rising and falling of her 
 bosom. 
 
 In the crash of the music sounded triumph, 
 wild mysticism and humanity ; in the rapture of 
 the notes rang love s uncheckable passion. 
 
 Clifton s breath came faster and faster and 
 the minor melody of the stringed band sobbed 
 and swelled. "With the masterful air of a man 
 who demands the right to be a lover "Let s go 
 out," he said quickly " let s go out into the 
 garden !
 
 YOUTH WILL BE SERVED 151 
 
 "Yes, we will go out and invade the moon 
 light, she answered, and he followed, followed 
 with a firm look on his well-shaped mouth, and 
 a fixed brilliance in his blue eyes. 
 
 When they had passed into the shadow of the 
 trees, he took one of her hands and drew it un 
 der his arm, drew it there so that he could more 
 easily steer her toward the wicket gate, which 
 led to a bower of shrubbery beyond. 
 
 Yes, they were going through the wicket gate 
 and down the little path to a very paradise of 
 lovers. They would be alone entirely alone, 
 as nature meant lovers to be. 
 
 "Have you missed me?" was the first thing 
 he said to her. 
 
 "Missed you?" She instinctively tempo 
 rized with him, for after all she was a woman, 
 strengthened by the knowledge of her newly 
 found power. 
 
 "Yes, missed me, and wanted me, as I want 
 you now, as I want you now." 
 
 "Yes, I missed you, and and wanted you."
 
 152 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 It was her first confession, but it came easily, 
 far more easily than she could have believed 
 that it would be possible to confess. 
 
 So at last he was satisfied, for the moment. 
 
 She had missed him ! She had wanted him 
 so now nothing but love lay ahead ! 
 
 They found a seat, screened by a bank of 
 blossoming hedge, and sitting there both 
 sensed the potency of a force that seemed 
 stronger than they were. 
 
 She had never felt like this before. 
 
 It was pleasant to feel the cool night breezes 
 blowing upon her face. Everything was mys 
 terious, enchanting. The June roses were 
 sending up a perfume almost unholy in its 
 sweetness. The flowers were like girls with 
 youthful faces and passionate souls. 
 
 And the moon was shining not innocently, 
 somehow, even though her light was white and 
 silvery. And there were the stars, unreach- 
 able, far-away stars, sparkling with the bril 
 liancy of elusive hopes and elusive desires, 
 which can never be fulfilled.
 
 YOUTH WILL BE SERVED 153 
 
 Oh! what were those elusive hopes and de 
 sires beating so quickly at her heart ? 
 
 Why was there a sob at her throat? 
 
 A strange uneasiness came over her and 
 then, before she knew what had happened, Clif 
 ton had kissed her and crushed her in the soft 
 silence of the night. 
 
 But not a single endearing word left his lips. 
 The moment was too poignant for speech.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ON THE FLOOD 
 
 I 
 
 DUKING the remainder of that summer Eliza 
 beth and Clifton saw much of each other. It 
 was surprising how many details of her father s 
 business Clifton found it necessary to discuss 
 in person with his client, with the result that 
 week after week saw him making pilgrimages 
 to Oak Ledge. 
 
 For those two enamored ones Craig and 
 Elizabeth the time alternately dragged and 
 flew. During the intervals in which they were 
 separated they were in an impatient fever of 
 expectancy, chafing under the delay which must 
 ensue each week until they should meet again. 
 
 At first neither of them realized the impasse 
 into which their folly was leading them. When 
 they were together there was the excitement 
 
 154
 
 ON THE FLOOD 155 
 
 of the moment to blur their powers of compre 
 hension; and when they were apart the over 
 whelming desire to bridge the chasm of time 
 and space between them made them oblivious 
 of everything except that poignant longing. 
 
 It was inevitable that they could not go on 
 indefinitely without their secret being dis 
 covered by some one ; and it was Margaret who 
 found them out at last. She happened to inter 
 cept just one unguarded glance between the two ; 
 and it was enough. Her woman s intuition at 
 once supplied the whole story. Before she slept 
 that night she accused Elizabeth of being in love 
 with Clifton, and confirmed her fears. 
 
 n 
 
 Ralph Dunham had a country-place of his 
 own, on the Connecticut shore of the Sound. 
 It was a beautiful estate. A long house, 
 smothered in roses and creepers, capped its 
 highest eminence and afforded a wide view of 
 rolling hills and water. 
 
 Elizabeth had spent very little time at the
 
 156 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Connecticut house. She had gone there once 
 or twice at Dunham s request, in order to play 
 the hostess when he had guests there from 
 whom he especially wished to keep any suspi 
 cion of the fact that all was not as it should be 
 between them. But except upon those occa 
 sions she had avoided the place. The Knolls, 
 as Dunham had named the estate, possessed no 
 attraction for her at least not enough to 
 counterbalance her distaste for being more or 
 less thrown in her husband s society. 
 
 It came as a shock to Elizabeth when her 
 mother announced that she must leave Oak 
 Ledge at once and join Ealph at The Knolls. 
 
 "You are making a terrible mistake," Mar 
 garet told her. I m astonished that you have 
 encouraged Clifton. The affair must end now. 
 Indeed it s a mercy that no one else has dis 
 covered this foolishness. If Clifton must come 
 here on your father s business I suppose it s out 
 of the question to suppose that you won t keep 
 on seeing each other. So there s just one thing 
 to be done. I ve already told your maid to
 
 ON THE FLOOD 157 
 
 pack your luggage and you are going to go and 
 live under your husband s roof." 
 
 The information rather took away Elizabeth s 
 breath for # moment. At first she was moved 
 to rebel at her mother s harshness. But she 
 quickly made up her mind that she might bet 
 ter go. She knew she would have no peace 
 in the same house with her zealous parent. 
 
 "I m quite ready to do as you wish," she 
 said. "But I never thought I d be turned out 
 of my own father s house and I shall never for 
 get it." 
 
 "Don t be silly," her mother told her. "It s 
 simply for your own good that I m doing this." 
 
 For my good ? Since when, pray, have you 
 been thinking about me? " Elizabeth asked bit 
 terly. "I believe you re afraid. I believe you 
 expect more money from Ealph and you re 
 afraid you ll lose it." 
 
 "That s unkind," her mother said quickly 
 "most unkind of you. And I ll not argue the 
 point with you. If you were not a goose you 
 could see for yourself where your folly would
 
 158 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 end. Such affairs as this between you and Clif 
 ton spell divorce in large capital letters. I 
 don t mean to have our good name dragged 
 through the mire by a headstrong girl. It s 
 only the greatest good fortune that has pre 
 vented a scandal already. Who knows who 
 might have seen you and Clifton mooning about? 
 It takes very little to set people s tongues wag 
 ging." 
 
 Elizabeth had to shut her eyes tight to pre 
 vent the tears from falling. How miserable 
 she felt ! What a life it had turned out to "be ! 
 What a fulfillment of her dreams of indepen 
 dent happiness! At the end of those weary 
 months of marriage she was lonely and friend 
 less friendless except for Craig, and now her 
 mother was trying to put him away from her. 
 She opened her eyes and stared miserably out 
 into the gray afternoon light. She felt that 
 slie could not listen to another word and with 
 out looking at her mother again she hurried off 
 to her chamber.
 
 ON THE FLOOD 159 
 
 In her room she threw herself down upon 
 her bed and sobbed as if her heart would 
 break. 
 
 "I think I am going mad," she cried; "mad! 
 Oh, how wiU it all end?" 
 
 m 
 
 Dunham was astonished when Elizabeth ar 
 rived at The Knolls and announced that she had 
 come for an indefinite stay. Had she expe 
 rienced a sudden change of heart? The hope 
 quickened within him that at last in some mys 
 terious way her attitude toward him had 
 altered. But he was soon forced to acknowl 
 edge to himself that the status of their rela 
 tions was to continue as before. Elizabeth 
 showed no desire even for his casual companion 
 ship. On the very day of her arrival she sent 
 out notes to a dozen people inviting them to a 
 house-party. 
 
 Among the letters was one addressed to Craig 
 Clifton.
 
 160 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 IV 
 
 Elizabeth and Clifton were alone in her little 
 private sitting-room, a tiny retreat which 
 opened out of her boudoir. They had just re 
 turned from a long walk. He was leaning over 
 the back of a settee on which she was resting. 
 It was a great comfort to her to have him near 
 her again. 
 
 11 Elizabeth," he said suddenly, "have you 
 not wondered how all this is going to end ? 
 
 "End?" she exclaimed, looking up at him in 
 surprise. "Do you mean that we must must 
 part?" 
 
 "No no!" he answered quickly. "But we 
 can t go on forever like this. I didn t think 
 about it at first. But lately it has come over me 
 that some sort of crisis is inevitable. Eliza 
 beth we can t go on like this indefinitely. It s 
 it s impossible." 
 
 "Well what can we do?" she asked him 
 during the pause that followed his declaration. 
 
 "There s divorce," he said. "I ve thought
 
 ON THE FLOOD 161 
 
 about it; but it is not easy to obtain in New 
 York." 
 
 "Isn t there some other way?" she inquired. 
 "It s called by some other name annulment 
 that s it." 
 
 "Yes; but you have to have grounds, you 
 know. And I don t see how there could be any 
 annulment of your marriage." 
 
 Elizabeth thought deeply for a moment be 
 fore she answered. And then she said slowly 
 
 "I don t believe you understand. You see, 
 except in name I have never been Ralph s wife. 
 
 Clifton heard the words with delight. And 
 yet he could scarcely believe them. 
 
 "You you mean," he stammered, "that you 
 have simply taken his name ? And that there s 
 no more of a marriage between you two than 
 there would have been if if you had left him 
 immediately after the ceremony?" He was 
 watching her breathlessly now. 
 
 "Exactly," she said. 
 
 Clifton continued to stare at her wonder- 
 ingly.
 
 162 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 But why 1 " he asked. * Is it for any reason 
 that we could use against Dunham?" 
 
 "I don t know about that," she replied. "I 
 know nothing about legal matters least of all 
 the divorce laws." 
 
 "Tell me what you can," he urged. "Why 
 is it that that your marriage has never been 
 consummated?" 
 
 Elizabeth hesitated a little before replying. 
 She did not know precisely how to tell him. 
 
 "I m afraid it s all because of a misunder 
 standing on my part," she acknowledged at 
 last. "I didn t want to marry Ralph in the 
 first place. But father and mother both urged 
 me to do it. And when I told mother that I 
 I didn t care for him in that sort of way that 
 I couldn t she did not quite know what I 
 meant. And she told me that it would be all 
 right. And then, when I explained to Ealph, 
 when he asked me to marry him, he misunder 
 stood too. So it s all been a dreadful mistake." 
 
 "I see," Clifton said slowly. "Unfortu 
 nately, however, it s not the sort of thing that
 
 ON THE FLOOD 163 
 
 would help you to free yourself. " He pon 
 dered for a time upon the strange situation. 
 "How about your husband?" he asked then., 
 "Wouldn t he be willing to have the marriage 
 annulled? He has grounds for petitioning for 
 an annulment, I should say." 
 
 Elizabeth shook her head despairingly. 
 
 "I ve asked him already," she said. "But 
 he says that so long as I m getting the sort of 
 marriage that I stipulated for he sees no reason 
 why I should complain why I should want to 
 leave him. I think " she added, "I think he 
 hopes that perhaps, sometime, I may feel dif 
 ferently toward him." 
 
 Clifton was surprised to find himself pitying 
 Dunham in his heart. "Poor fellow!" he said 
 to himself. He had felt qualms of jealousy 
 whenever he had seen Elizabeth with her hus 
 band. But now he could afford to be compas 
 sionate now that he knew the truth. 
 
 v 
 
 They were silent for a few moments. Then
 
 164 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Elizabeth began to undo the buttons of her 
 gloves. Clifton put out his hand and reached 
 over her far enough to undo the buttons of her 
 left-hand glove. Then, raising the hand quickly 
 to his lips, he kissed it. 
 
 His lips were burning, and she shivered. 
 
 "Don t," she said hoarsely. 
 
 All right. He was still holding Elizabeth s 
 left hand, and she felt that his own were trem 
 bling. A horrible impulse urged her to turn 
 towards him, to put her right hand where her 
 left was, to meet his eyes. 
 
 But she knew she must not do this. She 
 fought with herself, half frightened, half angry. 
 
 "You had better go away," she said. 
 
 Her voice sounded faint and weak. She felt 
 his grasp growing tighter on the hand he held. 
 
 "Why!" 
 
 She did not at once answer. 
 
 A thousand reasons for his leaving her were 
 ready in her brain, and one strong above all 
 that she did not dare to utter. 
 
 "Why must I go?" he repeated passionately.
 
 ON THE FLOOD 165 
 
 She tried to draw her hand away, but it 
 seemed as if all the strength had gone out of 
 her. She felt like a reed, a wisp of hay, a 
 feather, anything that is without the power of 
 resistance, of standing upright. 
 
 It was he who spoke next, and his voice was 
 changed. It seemed to be broken and hoarse, 
 but with something in every tone that went 
 straight down to Elizabeth s heart, making her 
 ready to yield to him, to let him stay, as he asked 
 to do. 
 
 But yet she knew that she must not, that she 
 dared not. 
 
 "Why may I not stay? Your old Craig, eh, 
 little girl!" 
 
 She wanted to scold him for speaking to her 
 in that way, for making her feel as she was 
 feeling. 
 
 He was a man; he knew so much more than 
 she; surely he must know what he was doing 
 to her, how he was melting down principles that 
 ought to be hard and strong, and making her 
 forget what she ought to remember!
 
 166 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 For a moment her hand rested trembling in 
 his, and it was as much as she could do not to 
 let her fingers curl round his, affectionately, 
 convulsively. 
 
 Then she recovered some of her self-com 
 mand, and tried to laugh. 
 
 Old Craig ought to see that I m tired, and 
 that the kindest thing he could do would be to 
 leave me to rest a little, since I shall certainly 
 have to be with my guests again after dinner. 
 And if I have to go without any rest first, I 
 shall lose all that magnificent reputation for 
 good looks which old Craig himself had been 
 the first to assure me I ve got," she said. 
 
 "Well, can t you rest with me in the room 1 ? 
 Let me help you off with your things. Of 
 course, you can t rest in all that finery. But 
 you can change into your tea-gown and be as 
 lazy as you like." 
 
 1 No, I can t. It s all fastened up the back." 
 
 "Let me unfasten it for you. I m a capital 
 lady s maid." 
 
 "No."
 
 ON THE FLOOD 167 
 
 "Why not? Do you think I m not clever 
 enough 1 ?" 
 
 "No, of course not. But some one might 
 come in and think it odd I should let you do 
 it." 
 
 "Well, somebody has to do it. Didn t you 
 tell me your maid had just left?" 
 
 "Yes. But the chambermaid comes when I 
 ring." 
 
 "Well, ring for her now. Anything rather 
 than that I should be turned out. * 
 
 "But you d better go, Craig, before Ralph 
 comes." 
 
 * Oh, he won t say a word. I bet you he ll be 
 as meek as a lamb to-day." 
 
 "But I want you to go!" The truth was, 
 though she would not for the world have told 
 him so, that she had suddenly grown afraid of 
 herself, afraid of him, and conscious that, if 
 she were to let herself go ever so little, she 
 should break down into silliness, into confi 
 dences which she ought not to make, into con 
 fession that she was unhappy and lonely.
 
 168 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Lonely! Yes, that was what she felt. And 
 somehow this loneliness seemed worse when 
 Craig was there than when she was alone. 
 They were getting into an emotional state which 
 she dreaded to encourage. And it was strange 
 to think back to the time when she would just 
 have cried, and have let Clifton dry her eyes 
 and tell her not to be a goose. 
 
 Elizabeth began to be angry with him for not 
 understanding, or rather for pretending not to 
 understand. 
 
 She tapped her foot impatiently on the floor 
 and sat up on the settee, trying to drag her 
 hand away from him. But he merely slid round 
 the end and laughed at her. 
 
 "You did want me to take you for walks, now 
 didn t you?" 
 
 " Walks. Yes, that s different. I never 
 asked you to come and tease me like this." 
 
 "Do you mean that I m never to come and 
 see you except formally?" 
 
 "Oh, don t be silly. No. I only mean that 
 I really, really want to be alone now."
 
 ON THE FLOOD 169 
 
 "All right. Give me a kiss, and I ll go at 
 once. 
 
 He was close to her. For one moment she 
 was inclined to let him kiss her, and to kiss him 
 back. But the next she sprang up with a laugh, 
 and told him he was absurd, and that he must 
 go away at once and not tease her any more. 
 
 Then he caught her and kissed her against her 
 will. Oh, yes, it was against her will, though 
 she didn t try to get away. She couldn t. Shf. 
 felt as if she were paralyzed, and yet as if she 
 were glad not to be able to get away. 
 
 Suddenly she released herself so suddenly 
 that she almost fell to the floor. 
 
 "How could you?" she said in a whisper. 
 "You have no right " 
 
 "No right to love you? Why not? Who has 
 a better right than I? Elizabeth, don t you 
 want me to love you, child f You look so lonely, 
 so helpless, it makes my heart bleed to see you I" 
 
 She could only repeat the same words: 
 
 "You have no right, no right. I ve done 
 nothing to make you think of me like that."
 
 170 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "I think of you as a martyr, nothing less, 
 Elizabeth. You have been sacrificed to other 
 people s needs." 
 
 "Nonsense. I m not a martyr. But if I 
 were that s no reason why you should treat me 
 as if I were unworthy of respect." 
 
 " Elizabeth, how can you say such things 1" 
 
 "I say it because it s true. You know so 
 much that you ought to treat me beautifully!" 
 
 She burst into tears and threw herself upon 
 the sofa, and Clifton, very penitent and gentle, 
 stood near her and begged to be forgiven. 
 
 "Don t cry, Elizabeth; you make me feel such 
 a brute," he said. "Indeed I didn t mean to 
 make you cry. Why should you cry about it? 
 Why should you be angry with me for loving 
 you, for being mad when I see you thrown 
 away?" 
 
 She sat up suddenly, drying her eyes. 
 
 "I m angry," she said, "because you seem 
 to think it doesn t matter how you treat me 
 now. *
 
 ON THE FLOOD 171 
 
 "Come, Elizabeth, my darling, that isn t 
 fair." 
 
 "And don t call me darling. You never 
 dared to before." 
 
 He said nothing for a minute, and she sat 
 sobbing quietly. Then he bent down and laid 
 one hand on the end of the sofa, and asked in 
 a low voice: 
 
 "Shall I go away, then?" 
 
 She bowed her head without saying anything. 
 But he did not go at once. So presently she 
 looked up and saw him looking, oh, so sorry and 
 so kind and so handsome and well, just old 
 Craig! And as she looked up he turned to go 
 away. 
 
 Perhaps it was just a trick on his part and 
 that he didn t mean to go. But to see him turn 
 away from her was more than Elizabeth could 
 bear. 
 
 "Craig, don t go! Don t go like that," she 
 said. 
 
 He came back quietly, so as not to frighten
 
 172 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 her, and sat down beside her on the sofa, and 
 held one hand while with the other she kept on 
 mopping her poor red eyes. 
 
 "You must go," she said at last. And she 
 tried to get up from the sofa. Clifton tried to 
 pull her down again. She stood for a moment 
 with his hands round her, anxious not to let 
 him see how frightened she was. And all the 
 while she knew that she was even more afraid 
 of herself than she was of him, as his earnest, 
 passionate face bent over her and two burning 
 eyes looked straight down into her own, while 
 her very soul seemed to thrill and quiver and 
 leap to meet them. 
 
 "Sit down," said he peremptorily. 
 
 By the tone he was taking, Elizabeth knew 
 that she must show fight without delay. 
 
 "No, I m not going to sit down again. I m 
 going to turn you out." 
 
 "You re not. I won t go." 
 
 "Nonsense. You must." 
 
 He jumped up and put his arm round her^ 
 while he took her chin in his hand and looked
 
 ON THE FLOOD 173 
 
 down into her eyes with that look which would 
 have made her so passionately happy in the old 
 days when she was free. 
 
 Now it made her shudder. And she strug 
 gled to get away, not looking at him. 
 
 "Let me go," she said hoarsely. 
 
 "No, no. I won t. I can t. Elizabeth, you 
 love me, don t you, don t you?" 
 
 She shook her head, fighting with him. 
 
 "No, no, no, I don t love you," she said. 
 "I m ashamed to find that you are not worthy 
 of my love." 
 
 "Little girl, don t say that. Do you think 
 I would want you to fail in your duty, to break 
 your vows? Do you think I would ask you to 
 love me if happiness were possible for you in 
 any other way 1 
 
 * I know you have no right to speak to me like 
 this; no right, no right," she said. "You must 
 let me go. You make me hate you, hate you 
 as much as I hate my husband." 
 
 "Elizabeth, you don t mean it. You don t 
 love him and you love me. Where s the sense,
 
 174 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 child, of sending me away, of fighting with your 
 own heart ? If you were married to a man you 
 could respect, even if you couldn t love him, it 
 would be different. But you know as well as I 
 do that he s an animal, a brute ; that to talk of 
 keeping your faith to him is an absurdity. 
 Come, Elizabeth, little Elizabeth, don t you trust 
 me? Don t you know that I can make you 
 happy?" 
 
 "No, no, no; I won t hear; I won t listen." 
 "Yes, you will. Don t be frightened. Don t 
 pretend to be cold. I know better. Elizabeth, 
 I love you, I love you. The sight of you makes 
 me tremble like a leaf. I think of you all day 
 long. I dream of you all night. Oh, Elizabeth, 
 don t send me away. You wouldn t make me 
 unhappy, would you?" 
 
 With all the love and all the longing that was 
 surging up in her heart, she felt that it was 
 contemptible of him to play upon her feelings at 
 such a time, when she was broken, heart-sore, 
 feeling deserted and desolate. And yet she had 
 not the heart or the strength to speak harshly,
 
 ON THE FLOOD 175 
 
 firmly, to send him away with indignant looks 
 and flashing eyes and the airs of a tragedy 
 queen. 
 
 She could only try feebly to release herself, 
 keeping her head turned away for fear he should 
 force her lips to meet his and her eyes to look 
 into his eyes. 
 
 "It isn t right, it isn t right of you. Go 
 away. 
 
 That was all she could say, and she said it in 
 such a silly, hoarse whisper, that it was more 
 like the complaint of a tired child than the 
 outraged dignity of an offended married 
 woman. 
 
 But perhaps it was the best way to meet him, 
 because it made him ashamed to be struggling 
 with such a feeble sort of creature, and also 
 it made him see that she meant what she said. 
 If she had put on airs of haughty indignation 
 he would have known that they were only put 
 on, and he might perhaps have beaten them 
 down and laughed her out of them, and well, 
 then, there is no knowing what might have hap-
 
 176 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 pened, broken and wretched and deserted as she 
 was. 
 
 As it was, Clifton seemed disconcerted, and 
 for a moment he relaxed his hold, and Elizabeth 
 ran to the door, just turning to whisper: 
 
 "Good-by."
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 A HELPING HAND 
 I 
 
 Newport Elizabeth met an old acquaintance 
 the Eev. Thomas Cartwright, who had per 
 formed her marriage ceremony. The Homers, 
 with whom she was staying, had invited the 
 clergyman to spend a few days with them. 
 Elizabeth had not known that he was coming 
 and it was with genuine delight that she found 
 him browsing among the books alone in the 
 library. 
 
 She held out her hand and he came forward 
 and took it. And the next instant her feelings 
 underwent a sudden change. For his face, 
 which could express so much, was full of a grave 
 kindness, and pity too; and all at once Eliza 
 beth remembered that she had been crying and 
 that her face must show it. And she was em- 
 
 177
 
 178 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 barrassed and disturbed. The tears came to 
 her eyes again. 
 
 He still held her hand and she was sensible 
 that for a moment her fingers seemed to tighten 
 around his, as if she knew that in her wretched 
 ness she had at last found a friend and was re 
 luctant to let him go. The next minute she had 
 recovered herself; and she explained that see 
 ing an old friend again unexpectedly was such 
 a surprise and pleasure that it had quite over 
 whelmed her. 
 
 The minister looked gravely at her again. 
 There were lines in his face lines which often 
 gave him an appearance of sadness when his 
 face was in repose. But they vanished as his 
 face lighted up when he spoke. Elizabeth 
 thought, as she regarded him, that his eyes were 
 the kindest she had ever seen. He had always 
 been kind to her, since her earliest recollections. 
 Often he appeared quite grave, and sometimes 
 even somewhat stern, but yet so kind always 
 that he made her feel that he was the very per 
 son she should go to in any difficulty.
 
 A HELPING HAND 179 
 
 Her heart went out to him, wracked as she 
 was, and torn by doubts and fears. It seemed 
 to her all at once that just to know that he was 
 in the world made her feel calmer, more com 
 fortable. She felt that it would be easy to go 
 straight to him and tell him everything vastly 
 easier than to make a confidant of her father 
 or her mother, or indeed anybody else. She 
 told herself, as she looked at him affectionately, 
 that he was the very ideal of what a clergyman 
 ought to be, but what so few seemed someone 
 to put trust in. 
 
 It was a boon, a blessing to her, to find him 
 there, when she had been feeling that there was 
 nobody in the world in whom she could confide. 
 When she told him how pleased she was to see 
 him he did not smirk, or say that he felt flat 
 tered, as everybody had seemed to do since 
 her marriage. Wealth was not included in 
 Thomas Cartwright s objects of worship. He 
 merely looked her full in the face, gravely and 
 sternly too. But Elizabeth knew thai the stern 
 ness was not meant for her.
 
 180 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 n 
 
 She told him all. There in the somber still 
 ness of the unfrequented library Elizabeth un 
 burdened her soul of its dragging weight of 
 sorrow and bitterness and perplexity. 
 
 He heard her through to the very end. And 
 when she had quite finished he said in a low 
 voice 
 
 "It s a bad business. But we must make the 
 best of it," he continued. "You are a brave 
 girl, to tell me these things, and we must see 
 that your future is assured. Thank God ! you 
 came to me with your troubles. It s what we re 
 for, we ministers to help the weary and heavy- 
 laden. Your troubles are not insurmountable, 
 my child. They are all too common in this age. 
 But unfortunately too many people blunder in 
 the solution of their difficulties." 
 
 Elizabeth jumped up, seized with a sudden 
 impulse, and leaning upon the table behind 
 which he sat she looked across at him and asked 
 passionately
 
 A HELPING HAND 181 
 
 "What did lie marry me for, Mr. Cart- 
 wright ?" 
 
 In the midst of his gravity and sternness 
 he looked at her and smiled, almost as if she 
 had said something amusing. 
 
 I don t think any one would find any difficulty 
 in ascribing a reason for a man s wishing 
 to marry you, my dear," he said, so quietly 
 that although she knew what he meant, it 
 scarcely sounded like the flattering speech it 
 was. 
 
 "I mean," she said, "I should think a dif 
 ferent type of woman would have appealed to 
 him a woman who was gayer, who was less 
 reserved than I, someone who was less sensi 
 tive and oh ! quite a different person altogether 
 from me; someone he would not find boring, 
 as I know I have been from the time we were 
 married. Really, I don t think I m at all the 
 sort of woman he could have expected to live 
 with comfortably. And he knew that I did not 
 love him. He was older vastly more expe 
 rienced. He should have known, he must have
 
 182 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 known, that without love passionate love 
 real marriage is impossible." 
 
 The Eev. Thomas Cartwright sat upright 
 suddenly in his chair. 
 
 "Ah! that s the common mistake!" he ex 
 claimed. "It is one of the great fallacies that 
 it is passion that consecrates the union of a 
 man and a woman. If it were true that it did, 
 there would be fewer successful marriages than 
 there are in the world. There are very few 
 grande passions. It is a thing that comes to 
 but few. Many think they are experiencing 
 it, to discover their error quickly. What they 
 mistake for an enduring flame is likely to die 
 as quickly as it grew." 
 
 Elizabeth was puzzled. 
 
 "But love real love should be the only 
 basis of marriage, don t you think?" she asked 
 him. 
 
 "Love? Hm . . . Love, dear young lady, is 
 a much overworked commodity. There are 
 many erroneous ideas concerning it. Most of
 
 A HELPING HAND 183 
 
 them have been inculcated by writers of fiction 
 the authors of novels, and plays too who 
 find in love the easiest capital out of which to 
 forge their so-called masterpieces. A strug 
 gling literary man discovered a long time ago 
 that it pleased the public mightily to be told that 
 love was sufficient excuse for almost any course 
 of action his ingenuity might devise. And so 
 many other writers have exploited his idea in 
 various ways that one can t pick up a newspaper 
 to-day without being confronted with some * af 
 finity story. The very common use of the vul 
 gar term affinity shows the general attitude 
 upon the subject. The kernel around which the 
 majority of popular novels the much-vaunted 
 best-sellers are constructed is Love is Us 
 own law/ It s not only a ridiculous theory 
 it s absolutely vicious. 
 
 "I didn t come to Newport expecting to read 
 a sermon," he told her with a smile. "And if 
 I do preach a little private one to you, you ll 
 understand, I hope, that it s intended not as a
 
 184 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 reproach but a help. And it will be the sort of 
 sermon, I m sorry to say, that is seldom or never 
 heard from the pulpit mo re s the pity." 
 
 As Cartwright paused Elizabeth turned her 
 eager face toward his. 
 
 Oh, I know that you want to help me, she 
 said. "I know that you re wise, and kind, and 
 good. If if I could only have had you to 
 guide me in the beginning I m sure all this 
 trouble would never have come to me." 
 
 "My dear none of us is omniscient," he said 
 gently. "What s done is done. And about all 
 we seem to be able to do in our poor human way 
 is to try to rectify our mistakes after we have 
 made them. The unfortunate thing about life 
 is that we are so little able to profit by such 
 wisdom as comes from the experience of others 
 long years of living. Each of us has to learn 
 the lesson anew. All my own life, for instance, 
 has been passed in learning, painfully and 
 often sorrowfully what hosts of men must have 
 learned before me. Why can not such knowl 
 edge be handed down in some way to the grow-
 
 A HELPING HAND 185 
 
 ing generations ? It s the saddest thing I know 
 the most maddening, too that we spend the 
 greater part of our time on this earth learning 
 how to live in it. And by the time we have 
 really discovered something definite of life s 
 mysteries, then it s usually too late to turn our 
 knowledge to account. We re old then. Our 
 course is run. And because we have arrived at 
 conclusions that do not fit in with the ideas of 
 the young, whom we would help during the few 
 years that remain to us, we re branded as do 
 tards, out of step with the times, out of sym 
 pathy with youth." In the Rev. Thomas Cart- 
 wright s eyes there glowed an unaccustomed 
 fire. It struck Elizabeth that he was strangely 
 stirred by the thoughts that his words ex 
 pressed. 
 
 m 
 
 * * My child, he went on, I 11 tell you as I Ve 
 told no one before the things that I have 
 passed my life in learning. I ve tried to tell 
 them before, but no one would listen to them.
 
 186 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Some day perhaps some second John the Bap 
 tist will emerge from the wilderness of false 
 standards, mistaken ideals, and mushy senti 
 mentality that the world is wandering through 
 and will proclaim the truth in flaming words. 
 He will be a true prophet, inspired and sent by 
 God to enlighten humanity. But the time is not 
 yet come. Long ago I found that I was not the 
 man to bear the message. You see," he said, 
 turning to her sadly, "I m just a weak, im 
 potent mortal. My impress upon the world is in 
 finitesimal. I can only do what I can in my own 
 little, humble way. It has often been borne in 
 upon me that my life was wasted spent in vain 
 in the futile pursuit of ministering to a fash 
 ionable parish to which I have never been able 
 to drive home a single great truth. But if I 
 can help you if I can guide just one tortured 
 soul out of the darkness into the light I shall 
 feel wondrously blessed, for the Lord will have 
 permitted me to accomplish a great thing." 
 
 Tears glistened in his eyes now, but with an 
 effort he pulled himself together and continued.
 
 A HELPING HAND 187 
 
 "We think we live in an enlightened age; 
 while in reality we re groping about in a maze 
 of misinformation. To begin with, our theories 
 of conduct for some hundreds of years have been 
 molded by imaginative writers whose aim has 
 been, not the dissemination of truth, but the 
 tickling of the fancy of their readers. These 
 dramatists and novelists have had to produce 
 works that the public liked else they starved. 
 Moliere began it, by the exalting of heroes and 
 heroines who set the gratification of passion 
 above all else above family honor, civic duty, 
 and patriotism. 
 
 "Marriage is bound up inextricably with the 
 welfare of society its safety and honor. Mar 
 riage is primarily a social act. It is individual, 
 of necessity, and religious as well. But we must 
 never forget that its morality is first of all a 
 social morality, because it so vitally concerns 
 social existence. 
 
 "These are generalizations, it is true, but 
 they are necessary to a real understanding of 
 your own problem. I think you will agree with
 
 188 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 me when I say that young people form their 
 ideas of marriage from plays and novels, and 
 not from the teachings of ethical writers least 
 of all from what could be the great predominant 
 teacher of Christian ethics the Church. For 
 the Church, with a wealth of material upon 
 which to base its theories, is terribly dumb upon 
 this vital question. 
 
 "The great obstacle to a clear understanding 
 of marriage is found in the fact that we are liv 
 ing in a literary age. Our popular writers as 
 cribe as the sole basis of marriage what they 
 term love a love which is nothing more or less 
 than eroticism. And the appalling error of 
 their teaching lies in the fact that they ignore 
 the truth that the only sort of love that conse 
 crates marriage possesses a moral nature and 
 has a distinct reference to a moral society which 
 surrounds it. It is concerned with social facts 
 the welfare of the state. 
 
 "But this moral kind of love is a thing which 
 takes into account greater considerations than 
 merely the affections of the individual, and is a
 
 A HELPING HAND 189 
 
 very different thing from the natural and purely 
 selfish love with which the pages of the popular 
 novels reek. Almost every successful play or 
 novel fairly stuffs the public with its vicious 
 assumption that the ideal love is one consist 
 ing of mutual passion. The great bulk of liter 
 ary and dramatic work nowadays turns upon 
 such subjects as married infidelity and heart 
 break. And the public likes it alas! And it 
 files out of the theater or lays down its book 
 at midnight filled to overflowing with the con 
 templation of the petty, sensuous, selfish emo 
 tions of the cheap puppets created by the au 
 thors brains. There s no thought of society 
 in all this sentimentality. There s no recog 
 nition that the unit of society is the family ; and 
 that the destruction of everyone of those units 
 is a blow a vicious, immoral onslaught upon 
 the social structure. 
 
 " Marriage, as it should exist if it is to work 
 for the good of the race which is its only log 
 ical excuse for being marriage concerns much 
 more than the affections of the parties thereto.
 
 190 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Bound up in the marriage of every two who 
 enter into that solemn contract is the welfare 
 of the community. But as we observe the con 
 crete examples of marriage that are everywhere 
 about us we see all the emphasis placed upon 
 the liberty of the contracting parties. The 
 world has adopted the view that marriage is a 
 private affair than which no view could be 
 more erroneous. It is much more than private ; 
 it is social : for in it is wrapped the fate of the 
 family. It is astonishing that society permits 
 such ignorance of that fact to prevail. It is 
 amazing that mutual passion is commonly held 
 to be the only factor to be considered in the 
 union of a man and a woman. In the eyes of 
 the world the marriage service is but a mum 
 bling of promises which the makers feel at 
 liberty to disregard at will. 
 
 * Now there must be a reason for the currency 
 of such views. What has been the influence that 
 has so warped the common sense not to say the 
 morality of the public? The answer is again, 
 vicious literature ; for it promulgates the views
 
 A HELPING HAND 191 
 
 that are best adapted to the purposes of the 
 money-grubbing writer. Moral, conscientious, 
 sane-minded people, living in righteous wedlock, 
 do not lend themselves to the construction of 
 sensational plots and erotic episodes. Put into 
 books, or behind the footlights, they make but 
 poor, humdrum stories and plays." 
 
 IV 
 
 The minister s words brought little solace to 
 Elizabeth Dunham. Where was the solution to 
 her problem? If it lay in her passive accep 
 tance of his theories, then she faced the obliga 
 tion of continuing to live with her husband, and 
 upon a decidedly different basis from that which 
 had existed between her and Ralph up to that 
 time. 
 
 Cartwright guessed something of her thoughts 
 and he waited for the questions which he felt 
 sure must follow his statements. 
 
 "What you say is quite true, I suppose," 
 Elizabeth said at last. "But it s so easy to ac 
 cept such views as applied to the rest of the
 
 192 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 world and so hard to accept them as applied 
 to oneself. I may be very wrong terribly 
 wicked but even for the sake of society I m 
 sure I cannot continue to remain Ralph s wife. 
 And if I find it impossible to do that, how much 
 more abhorrent would it be to me to enter into 
 a life with him which would conform to your 
 ideal of a moral marriage 1 How can you think 
 it possible for me to to take up my share in a 
 marriage which would constitute a unit such as 
 you talk about a family? For that would 
 mean that I would have to live my life under 
 conditions that would be revolting to me. No ! 
 No! I never could do it I m sure. Is there 
 no other way? There must be there must 
 be!" 
 
 She was only a woman, after all emotional, 
 and hysterical as well. And Thomas Cart- 
 wright reflected that he must not expect her to 
 yield up her instinctive impulses without a 
 struggle, if indeed she relinquished them at all. 
 But she had a soul worth saving; and he did not 
 lose heart. His was the obligation to save it;
 
 A HELPING HAND 193 
 
 he owed the duty to himself to her to the 
 Church to the Master. 
 
 "My dear," he said gently, " there is a posi 
 tive ideal of marriage. And having made your 
 marriage before God it is incumbent upon you, 
 as far as it may be in your power, to attain that 
 ideal. In Malachi the purpose of marriage is 
 declared to be the sowing of the Godly seed, 
 which is simply another way of saying that 
 marriages should be fruitful that they should 
 be productive of righteous children and so con 
 ducive to a better race. 
 
 "There is the way blazed for you," he said. 
 And he breathed a silent prayer that she would 
 follow the path, difficult though it might be. 
 
 "Ah!" Elizabeth cried "it s cruel cruel! 
 Why should I be punished for my blind igno 
 rance? If I ve lost my way, is there no other 
 road I can take? No other course that will 
 lead me out of this terrible maze I 
 
 "No other path that you can take and look 
 your Maker in the face," he told her, though it 
 hurt him to see her suffer so.
 
 194 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 I But I should be unhappy you don t know 
 how unhappy I d be! You re a man and you 
 can t understand. I should be miserable 
 wretched ! My life would be one continual tor 
 ment of soul." 
 
 She dropped her face upon the table and fell 
 into a fit of violent weeping. Great sobs shook 
 her shoulders; in both mind and body she was 
 wracked by her mingled grief and hopeless 
 ness. 
 
 "I thought that being married meant being 
 happy," she said at last, after the paroxysm 
 had passed. "Perhaps it does, for others; but 
 for me marriage has meant nothing but unhap- 
 piness." 
 
 II Don t feel that there s no hope," he said, in 
 an attempt to hearten her. " It s a very foolish 
 mistake that most people make to think that 
 when they are married they are going to live 
 happily ever after. Very, very few individuals 
 are so constituted that they can live with any 
 other person upon the intimate terms that mar 
 riage necessitates without discovering that the
 
 A HELPING HAND 195 
 
 state of matrimony is not a bed of thornless 
 roses. Even the most successful the ideal 
 marriage, requires the passage of time, of years, 
 yes, of a lifetime, to ripen as nearly into per 
 fection as may be possible. You see, it is a ques 
 tion of heart-culture, and just as the cultiva 
 tion of any living, growing thing is a matter of 
 effort, involving labor and difficulty, so does 
 even the ideal marriage necessitate careful nur 
 ture which may and probably will require 
 both pain and sacrifice. 
 
 "Nor is the ideal marriage by any means 
 free from friction. When the first storm bursts 
 in the shape of the first difference or quarrel 
 most young couples think that the sky has 
 fallen. And they often go on through life, look 
 ing upon every petty disagreement or mis 
 understanding as a tragedy. That, of course, 
 is an absurd way to regard what is generally 
 but a trivial and momentary friction, the result 
 often of nothing more aesthetic than an attack 
 of indigestion." 
 
 Elizabeth s eyes opened wide in astonishment
 
 196 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 as she heard the Rev. Thomas Cartwright s un 
 expected information as to happiness in mar 
 riage. 
 
 I know," he said, observing her surprise. 
 I know that that is not what you had thought 
 could exist when a man and woman were wisely 
 mated. I think that nearly all young married 
 people harbor the same misunderstanding of 
 the true facts. And marrying as they do with 
 the mistaken belief that they are entering upon 
 a perpetual billing and cooing, when they find 
 that they are not absolutely happy that there 
 are difficulties to be overcome, attended by sor 
 row and pain their first impulse is to rush into 
 the divorce courts. 
 
 Elizabeth was conscious of a hot flush of guilt 
 which overspread her cheeks as she listened to 
 the wise old man s words. It was clear that 
 he had observed much during his lifetime far 
 more than she would have suspected. But did 
 all his advice really apply to her? Upon sec 
 ond thought it seemed to her that he had all 
 the time been shooting over the mark. She did
 
 A HELPING HAND 197 
 
 not love her husband! There was the crux of 
 the whole situation. It was all very well for 
 Mr. Cartwright to tell her that a husband and 
 wife must expect friction of a trivial sort, and 
 overcome it with patience and forbearance ; but 
 her good old friend had in mind people who were 
 at least more or less in love with each other. 
 And how different was the case of her and 
 Ralph! She did not love him! There lay the 
 difficulty of applying the old minister s advice 
 to her own problem. She did not love her hus 
 band. That saving grace was lacking; and to 
 her mind, love being absent, any attempt to re 
 arrange her life with Ralph was futile. 
 
 v 
 
 "I m afraid you don t understand," she told 
 Cartwright. You see, I don t love my husband. 
 I dare say it was very wrong of me to marry 
 him; but I do not seem to have comprehended 
 what I was doing. And I was honest. I told 
 him I did not love him. So now it seems to me 
 that the only thing we can do is to part. If
 
 198 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 if I cared for him I could do the thing that you 
 ask of me or appear to expect of me. But I 
 don t love him and I can never go on." 
 
 Cartwright, however, was undismayed by her 
 immense conviction. 
 
 11 Perhaps I understand better than you 
 think," he said softly. "Let us hope I do, at 
 least. You say that you do not love your hus 
 band, and that not loving him you feel that di 
 vorce is necessary. That is your conviction. 
 But I hope that I may be able to help you to 
 change your opinion. It has never occurred to 
 you, probably, any more than it has to most 
 unhappily married people who have either 
 entered upon matrimony with no affection for 
 the other contracting party, or who, having mar 
 ried with the mistaken idea that they have 
 cherished a grande passion, have discovered 
 that they ceased to love it has never occurred 
 either to them or to you that the affections may 
 be controlled. That is not the popular view 
 the literary view but it is none the less cor 
 rect."
 
 A HELPING HAND 199 
 
 To Elizabeth it was a startling theory, that 
 one might at will love where one did not. And 
 it was a theory which at once struck her as 
 highly absurd and absolutely impracticable. 
 
 "You mean that I can learn to love my hus 
 band?" she asked, her voice full of the doubt 
 which she felt so strongly. 
 
 "Precisely. The thing may be accomplished, 
 impossible as it may appear upon the face of it. 
 The process is of a two-fold nature positive 
 and negative. As for the negative means you 
 will agree with me, I think, that one can at least 
 remove oneself from such influences as tend to 
 divert his affections from their legitimate ob 
 ject. A woman need not listen to the impor 
 tunities of a lover, so-called. She need not per 
 mit his advances or attentions. She need not 
 even see him. And by breaking off all relations 
 with him she will have accomplished the first 
 great step toward the proper and moral rehabil 
 itation of her affections." 
 
 She knew what he meant. He meant that she 
 must break with Craig. Never to see his eager,
 
 200 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 solicitous eyes ; never to hear his voice, vibrant 
 with words of love and adoration ; never to feel 
 the sympathetic touch of his hand upon hers; 
 never again to open a longed-for letter from him 
 and thrill under the fervor of its message! 
 Could she do it? Could she deliberately deny 
 herself the things which were as the breath of 
 life to her? Her heart sank at the mere con 
 templation of the prospect. 
 
 * That is the first step for you, my child. And 
 having taken it you will have placed yourself 
 in a position to undertake the positive acts 
 which in the end will bring you happiness, as 
 we know it on this earth. Christ said Love 
 ye your enemies. 9 What is that, I ask, but a 
 command to be master of our affections? He 
 knew in His divine wisdom that the feat was 
 possible of attainment. It s quite in accord 
 with what we know nowadays of psychology. 
 Having given the command, Our Lord went 
 further and laid out a definite course of action 
 to be followed : for did He not say, Bless them 
 that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
 
 A HELPING HAND 201 
 
 and pray for them that despitefully use you ? 
 In those few words lie the precept that I would 
 have you follow, in principle. Their meaning, 
 translated into every-day language, is this : that 
 kindly acts give rise to kindly feelings toward 
 their recipient. Any student of psychology 
 will tell you that repeated actions constitute 
 training. A thing performed often enough be 
 comes a habit. Therefore if we conduct our 
 selves consistently in a loving way towards 
 others, in the course of time love for those 
 others will be instilled in us. Like begets like. 
 Deeds of loving kindness breed love in their 
 doer. 
 
 "This is not my advice, my dear. It is 
 Christ s teaching. Only follow it and I am sure 
 you will be wondrously repaid. For the time 
 will come when you will render heartfelt thanks 
 unto Him, because you will love your husband. 
 And loving him, it will be your happiness to 
 be a helpmeet for him, to honor and cherish 
 him so long as you both live."
 
 I 
 
 WHEN he left town upon the Nomad, Dunham 
 had hoped to gain some respite from the bur 
 den of sorrow which had attached itself like 
 some incubus to his shoulders. In the fresh 
 breezes of the New England coast he had looked 
 for rejuvenation; and he had thought with an 
 immense longing of the nights, when if he could 
 not sleep, he might at least lie in a deck-chair 
 beneath the sky and look out upon the peace of 
 the moon-kissed water as the yacht lay at 
 anchor in some quiet harbor. 
 
 But except for one night even that boon was 
 denied him. They had scarcely left the swell 
 off New London behind them when the wireless 
 operator picked up a message which told Dun 
 ham that his presence was required in New 
 
 202
 
 IN THE DARK WATCHES 203 
 
 York. So the next morning the yacht s nose 
 would be turned back toward the metropolis. 
 
 Dunham was conscious of an unconquerable 
 shrinking from the business that demanded his 
 attention. He had lost his zest for the game 
 which of old had always had such a fascination 
 for him. Never since his return from his honey 
 moon had he recovered his grip upon his af 
 fairs. His interest no longer lay in the accumu 
 lation of wealth a proceeding which now palled 
 upon him unspeakably. All his thoughts cen 
 tered irrevocably about a slip of a girl. Noth 
 ing on earth except her could awaken his least 
 concern. And alas ! she cared less than nothing 
 for him. 
 
 A fortnight had passed since he last saw 
 Elizabeth. It was at The Knolls, memorable to 
 him as the place where his hopes had risen, only 
 to die quickly when he discovered that she was 
 still obviously wretched with him. 
 
 At last Dunham had come to despair utterly 
 of ever being anything more to her than a hin 
 drance to her happiness. She had been trapped
 
 204 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 into marriage and he was the drag attached to 
 the trap. She strained away from the hateful 
 clog as far as the chains of matrimony allowed. 
 But she knew that he was always there; she 
 knew that she could not escape. 
 
 Such thoughts as these were ever-present in 
 his mind. They drove all else completely out 
 of his head. He was melancholy. And a mor 
 bid conviction of his uselessness fixed itself upon 
 him like an obsession. To his disordered vis 
 ion all his efforts in life seemed vain. He could 
 not convince himself that "he had ever been of 
 any benefit to the world. He told himself again 
 and again that if only he could make Elizabeth 
 happy he would have accomplished an immense 
 thing something which would have justified his 
 existence. But now he could discern no reason 
 for his being. 
 
 n 
 
 At night, as he stood alone at the rail of the 
 Nomad and looked down upon the face of the 
 water a sudden longing came over him to drop
 
 205 
 
 into the gently heaving swell. The sea was like 
 a cradle, rocked by some invisible hand ; and he 
 felt that it offered him incomparable rest. 
 Eest ! rest ! that was what he wanted now. And 
 this would be a perfect rest, for it would be 
 without an end. It was the only logical solu 
 tion of his difficulties. It would permit Eliza 
 beth to find happiness where she would ; and of 
 late Dunham had little doubt that Elizabeth 
 could be happy with someone some other more 
 fortunate man than he. He had noticed that 
 Craig Clifton was invariably included among 
 guests invited to The Knolls and he could not 
 but remark that Elizabeth and the young law 
 yer were often together. Even to Dunham it 
 seemed strange that the fact bred no resent 
 ment in his heart. It only made him sadder 
 only confirmed his feeling of hopelessness. 
 
 He straightened up and looked about him. 
 There was no one near. His guests were all 
 asleep in their state-rooms and none of the 
 night-watch was in sight. He leaned over the 
 rail again and bent nearer the water. The sea
 
 206 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 seemed to call to him "Come come! I will 
 take you gently to my bosom and lull you into 
 peaceful sleep. Come come! * 
 
 The temptation to obey almost overpowered 
 him. Something within him some deeply- 
 rooted instinct of self-preservation made his 
 hands close upon the rail in a desperate grip. 
 And still he felt an enormous longing to slip 
 stealthily into the lapping swell. In a few mo 
 ments it would all be over. It was such a simple 
 thing to do. A six-foot drop and the deed would 
 be accomplished. 
 
 What would people say of him? They would 
 call him a coward, just as he had called other 
 men cowards who had chosen that way of end 
 ing their troubles. He winced at the thought. 
 And slowly he drew back from the yacht s side. 
 No! that should never be said of him. He 
 shivered as he realized how near he had been 
 to self-destruction. And in the stillness he 
 breathed a prayer he who never prayed he 
 breathed a prayer of thanks to the Almighty 
 because he had seen in time.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 
 I 
 
 THOUGH Craig Clifton did not know it, Eliza 
 beth consecrated to him a long night of mem 
 ories and tears. Many times she wavered in 
 her decision; but when the gray dawn stole in 
 at her windows it discovered her asleep at last, 
 resigned to the stern duty that Thomas Cart- 
 wright had shown her to be hers. 
 
 In just one respect she had not been able to 
 accept the line of conduct he had urged upon 
 her. He had admonished her not to see Craig 
 again a denial which she found impossible to 
 impose upon herself. She felt that she must 
 meet him once more. She had tried to write 
 him of her determination, and had given up the 
 task as utterly hopeless. Her thoughts would 
 not mold themselves into words which she could 
 
 207
 
 208 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 set down on paper. Yes! she must see Craig 
 and break the news to him as best she could. 
 
 Accordingly Elizabeth left Newport that very 
 morning, having first sent her lover a message 
 which asked him to meet her when she should 
 reach New York. 
 
 Clifton had cajoled the gate- guard in the sta 
 tion to let him pass through to the train-shed, 
 and there he met her, unsuspecting, eager, and 
 smiling, almost as soon as she stepped from the 
 car. He insisted upon taking her to one of the 
 big Fifth Avenue restaurants for tea and Eliza 
 beth yielded to his urging. They found the 
 hotel, as they expected, virtually deserted, for 
 at that season the patrons of all the fashionable 
 places of refreshment were scattered to the four 
 corners of the earth, far away from the de 
 pressing heat of New York in summer. 
 
 He found Elizabeth strangely silent. And yet 
 she would not tell him the reason for her quiet 
 ness. Deserted as the big room was, except for 
 themselves and a few waiters hovering here and 
 there in the background, she felt that it was still
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 209 
 
 no place for her to tell him of her decision. 
 
 "Take me home, please," she said, when she 
 had finished the iced beverage which Clifton 
 had ordered for her. The dainty confections 
 which he had bade the waiter bring lay un 
 touched before her. Food was the last thing 
 she had any desire for. 
 
 "Are you ill!" Clifton asked solicitously, 
 as he put her thin silk coat about her shoulders. 
 
 "No not ill. Just tired!" she told him. 
 She could not tell him the truth yet. She 
 could not tell him of the dull ache in her 
 heart, of the hopelessness which weighed her 
 down with its crushing load. 
 
 Clifton s car carried them quickly to the Dun 
 hams town-house. The big stone mansion pre 
 sented a forbiddingly deserted appearance as 
 they climbed the steps ; but there were servants 
 there, for Dunham never knew when he would 
 be summoned back to New York by some sud 
 den call of business.
 
 210 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 "Is Mr. Dunham in town?" Elizabeth asked 
 the man who opened the door. 
 
 "No, Mrs. Dunham, he went away on the 
 Nomad last night and said he did not expect to 
 return until next week." 
 
 She gave the servant her wraps and with 
 Clifton went on into the library. 
 
 At last they were alone. Clifton looked at 
 her tenderly. 
 
 "My darling!" he said softly. "Do you 
 know that you are the most glorious being in 
 all this wonderful world I 
 
 She smiled at him wistfully. There was glad 
 ness in her face, for the moment, for she saw 
 that her lover had forgotten in that moment the 
 very existence on earth of any except them 
 selves. She knew that his infatuation for her 
 had immediately crowded out all thought of her 
 husband and the unconventional situation in 
 which they were placed. She wished that he 
 might never be brought back to the stern real 
 ities that faced them. 
 
 "You re troubled " Craig whispered, as
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 211 
 
 though he half read her thoughts. "I realize 
 often that things are difficult for you. But 
 when I am with you I forget everything ex 
 cept that we love each other. With you filling 
 my mind and heart there s no room left for 
 troubles. 
 
 "But they exist, Craig. All the forgetting 
 we can do doesn t make them any the less," 
 she told him sadly. "I ve been thinking about 
 them more than you know." 
 
 "I m sorry," he said. "I m sorry that you 
 are unhappy. But you re bound to be worried 
 and downhearted so long as things continue 
 as they are now. Why not change everything? 
 Why not leave Dunham? Neither of you is 
 happy now, and I m convinced that you would 
 be doing him no unkindness no wrong if you 
 would break away from this irksome yoke and 
 come to me." 
 
 For a short space they stood in silence. Clif 
 ton felt with an all-conquering conviction that 
 she was rightfully his. He felt it was his in 
 defeasible privilege always to be near her and
 
 212 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 comfort her, and to shield her from whatever 
 harm might threaten. 
 
 "My beautiful Love," he said turning to her 
 gently, "we belong to each other. You are all 
 mine, and I am wholly yours. This wonderful 
 bond that brings us together is too strong for 
 us to ignore." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Craig " she answered slowly "we must 
 part. We must forget each other. I ve 
 thought it all out and I m convinced." 
 
 He looked at her in astonishment. 
 
 "Do you think I could go away from you?" 
 he exclaimed "knowing that you love me, 
 knowing that I d be leaving you to a wretched 
 existence? No! no! You re young, and glor 
 ious and vital! And yet I could more easily 
 see you dead than relinquish you to the horror 
 of that living death to which your marriage with 
 Dunham would condemn you. * 
 
 "Ah, Craig try to forget all that," Eliza 
 beth said, as she gazed long and wistfully into 
 his troubled eyes.
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 213 
 
 "We ll forget it yes," he answered. And 
 a great resolve formulated itself fast within 
 his consciousness. "We ll forget it together!" 
 He spoke quickly, and she saw that his sinews 
 tightened as his body quickened under the spur 
 of his shaping thought. "You must come with 
 me. I ll not leave you to mourn your life away. 
 If you won t leave Dunham in any other fash 
 ion, I ll just take you! Come come! We ll 
 go at once ! We 11 go abroad anywhere we 11 
 go by the next boat to-morrow, if there s one 
 leaving. 
 
 As his meaning impressed itself upon her, her 
 eyes opened wide with wonder. 
 
 "Oh! you are quite mad," she cried. "It is 
 impossible." 
 
 But Craig would not be denied. 
 
 "My dear one," he urged, "many people have 
 done that. It is by no means an unheard-of 
 thing. Think for a moment of what life would 
 mean for us two together! Our world would 
 be flooded with the light of love. And how dif 
 ferent from the appalling darkness, the inter-
 
 214 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 minable, drab days of torment if we part here. 
 I cannot I will not leave you. I know I m ask 
 ing you to violate society s conventions. I 
 know you d be cut off from all the associations, 
 every friend of your girlhood. But I am will 
 ing, yes, glad to ask that sacrifice of you, be 
 cause I m sure you would be happy." He had 
 taken her in his arms, as he spoke, and drew 
 her to him masterfully. 
 
 "Let me go, please," Elizabeth murmured. 
 And Clifton drew her gently to a near-by seat. 
 "It s not all that, that stands in the way, 
 Craig," she continued slowly. "Surely you 
 must know that I care enough for you to make 
 me glad to make such sacrifices for you. But 
 there is just one sacrifice I cannot make. I can 
 not forsake my duty." 
 
 "Your duty!" Clifton exclaimed. "Your 
 duty should not require you to devote your 
 whole life to carrying out this farce between 
 you and your husband. Why! you re living a 
 lie! It s unnatural wicked." And he looked 
 down at her fiercely in his indignation.
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 215 
 
 "Tell me you love me tell me !" he said with 
 a sudden vehemence that might have made her 
 half afraid. But she showed no fear. 
 
 "Yes, I think I love you," she said "I I 
 love you, and I am afraid I shall always love 
 you!" 
 
 She was pale, her cheeks and a glimpse of 
 low forehead showing between the loose strands 
 of her hair were creamily and purely pale. 
 
 To Clifton she seemed lovelier than ever. 
 And a feeling of immense tenderness swept over 
 him, and a passionate desire to shield her from 
 all harm. Yes there was no danger no 
 earthly peril, that he would not gladly face for 
 her sake, because it seemed to him that he loved 
 her as a man is destined to love just one woman 
 out of the whole world of women. 
 
 She slipped her arm through his. 
 
 "Come!" she said, "there are some things 
 that I that I must tell you." And she drew 
 him down upon the seat beside her. 
 
 For a brief minute she said nothing but her 
 eyes drank in thirstily the light that burnt in
 
 216 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 his. And Clifton was supremely happy then, 
 as he sat there silently with this slender, fair- 
 haired woman, who to him represented the 
 happy legion of the all-desired. 
 
 "Craig!" she said at last, "I have come to 
 tell you something that will hurt you frightfully 
 as it has hurt me. Oh ! I know ! for is not my 
 own heart breaking? I ve come to tell you 
 that I cannot go on like this. At last I ve seen 
 things clearly. I ve been a wicked woman even 
 to dream of happiness with you. I ve forgot 
 ten my marriage vows the promises that I 
 made before God. That I didn t realize all 
 they meant must make no difference. I must 
 accept the situation. And I cannot see you 
 again. " 
 
 She buried her head upon his shoulder, as her 
 whole body shook in the grip of her great emo 
 tion. 
 
 This was life!
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 217 
 
 m 
 
 At first Clifton was too stunned to speak. 
 He could only hold his love as she lay in his 
 arms, convulsively wracked by great silent, tear 
 less sobs of grief. 
 
 He looked down at her at first pityingly, 
 then wonderingly, then passionately. 
 
 He had loved her! God! he had loved her 
 so much, and planned for her, and waited for 
 her only for this! 
 
 It was madness, some distorted idea of con 
 science which love s ardor, love s unyielding 
 demand could disperse. 
 
 He would lift her face to his and cover her 
 lips with kisses and crush her slim, girlish form 
 to his heart, and then all those fantastic su 
 perstitions would be dispelled. Such were 
 the thoughts that came crowding into his 
 brain. 
 
 "You are saying what you don t mean, my 
 dear!" he cried. "This is just a nervous col 
 lapse. You have been under too great a strain.
 
 218 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Our love is too real and close a thing for you 
 to let it go by for the sake of some mythical 
 ghost of honor. Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" And 
 with the last call upon her name, his arms 
 opened and then closed more firmly around the 
 slim grace of her girlish figure, while hungrily, 
 eagerly, insistently his lips sought to find her 
 own. 
 
 He would not be cheated out of the woman 
 whom he wanted, and longed for, and loved. 
 
 "Darling! darling!" Twice he said it, then 
 the search for her lips was over. He had found 
 that little mouth that had so often returned the 
 pressure of his he would kiss her now, again 
 and again and again until . . . 
 
 "You will never kiss me again," she said. 
 1 These few days I have been half mad, and now 
 I am sane or perhaps it may be that I have 
 been sane and now I am half mad! I don t 
 know which way it is I only know that I want 
 you to forgive me!" 
 
 "Forgive you! forgive you!" said Craig 
 gently. "My darling! there is nothing to for-
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 219 
 
 give." He patted her shoulder soothingly. 
 "Don t feel badly," he whispered. Though 
 there be none to hear, that is ever a lover s way. 
 "You ve been too much alone to-day," he con 
 tinued. "But thank God I ll always be near 
 you now, to comfort you when you re sad and 
 troubled, and to rejoice with you when you re 
 happy." 
 
 "No! no!" she answered. "That can never 
 be, Craig. I ve thought it all out, alone, and 
 I know that if I forsook my duty I should know 
 nothing but remorse my life long. Oh! it s 
 hard ! hard ! But I was brought into the world 
 for this purpose. It was written down in the 
 book of life that I should marry Ralph. If I 
 ever find happiness, it must be with him." 
 
 Craig found himself at a loss for words. For 
 a time he could only try in his man s way to 
 comfort her. He kissed her again and again 
 and wished that he might have the good for 
 tune to meet Dunham as man to man. For was 
 not that devil the direct instrument of her tor 
 ture?
 
 220 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 How could he leave her to endure the suffer 
 ing which he felt sure would be her lot? Oh ! it 
 was incredible that this was the same bright 
 world of a short half -hour ago. Then the fresh- 
 tinted day had helped impart to him a sensation 
 of invigorated hope. But now a deep despair 
 came over him. 
 
 "How can I leave you! How can I leave 
 you! * he groaned. "And yet I cannot urge 
 you now. I know you have been fighting this 
 battle with yourself all day." 
 
 "Yes yes, and all night, too ! " she said sadly. 
 "And sometimes my longing to be with you al 
 most made me belittle every consideration ex 
 cept our happiness yours and mine. But in 
 the end I saw it all clearly. I ll always thank 
 God that I saw in time." 
 
 He was looking at her sadly. There seemed 
 so much of tender, sweet, beautiful womanhood 
 being wasted here. A divine friend, a perfect 
 wife, an ideal mother! How exquisitely she 
 would grace any of these roles ! 
 
 But he knew now alas! that he would play
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 221 
 
 no further part upon her stage of life. Their 
 too short drama was almost at an end. 
 
 "Craig!" she asked, "will you always re 
 member me?" 
 
 "Always always how could I ever forget 
 you?" was his half -questioning answer. 
 
 She clung to him with all the fictitious 
 strength of her despair. 
 
 "We must not meet each other again," she 
 told him tearfully. "You must not venture 
 near me. I do not know how strong I am. I 
 dare not see you, Craig. I could never again 
 fight as I have fought against myself. So 
 you must be brave for both of us. You 
 must be steadfast. No matter how clear 
 the call to come, you must shut your ears to 
 it. 
 
 "And, oh! Craig don t forget me too soon! 
 I know you will always keep a place for me in 
 your heart; but you are young and one day 
 some sweet girl will help you to forget this pain. 
 I hate the thought and yet I would not have it 
 otherwise."
 
 222 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 So it was finished between those two sad 
 young lovers. 
 
 "You must go you must go now!" she said. 
 "Don t make it harder for me. 7 
 
 And that appeal persuaded Clifton as no other 
 could have. Make it harder for her! Did he 
 not desire passionately to make all things easy 
 for her ! Was it not his dearest wish to antici 
 pate her every want and to relieve her of all 
 her burdens? To make the rough places 
 smooth? Should he then fail her in this one 
 the only thing he could do to lessen her 
 present anxiety? 
 
 "My dear!" he murmured, "I yield to your 
 will. But I cannot think that we ll not meet 
 again." And he looked at her still hopefully. 
 
 But Elizabeth felt with an immense convic 
 tion that she would never see him again. 
 
 IV 
 
 Down the Avenue Clifton rode. But all his 
 thoughts were of his love. He had left his 
 heart behind him. And every instant he was
 
 THE RENUNCIATION 223 
 
 being borne further and further away from that 
 which was dearest to him. 
 
 There was something depressing in the 
 cavern-like, deserted street, which stretched 
 away ahead of him like some yawning gorge, 
 with its great cliffs in the shape of lofty build 
 ings hanging threateningly over him. 
 
 He wondered when he should see his Elizabeth 
 again. For in his heart all hope was not yet 
 dead. Optimism is too essentially a part of the 
 philosophy of youth to be entirely stifled. It 
 is only long experience of life that permits us 
 to recognize defeat. Resignation comes only in 
 the wake of many disappointments. 
 
 And to Craig Clifton this was the first inti 
 mation that man is not always master of his 
 fate. It was his first taste of the bitterness of 
 the inevitable.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 
 I 
 
 AFTER Clifton had left her, Elizabeth felt that 
 she must die of grief. But she had no thought 
 of turning back. She had determined upon her 
 course and the way lay before her. 
 
 In the oppressive silence of the deserted man 
 sion she went quietly about her duty as she 
 saw it the removal of every visible trace of 
 her affair with Clifton. 
 
 Alone in her boudoir she unlocked her desk 
 and drew forth a packet of letters, Craig s let 
 ters, which she had carefully preserved. Each 
 one she read many times. As she touched them 
 they seemed a part of him and she felt that he 
 was near. Except for a few small trinkets that 
 he had given her they were the only tangible 
 tokens she had which had come from him. One 
 
 224
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 225 
 
 by one she tore them relentlessly into bits, 
 though every tear through the crisp paper was 
 like a rending of her own heart-strings. 
 
 If she found the ordeal a painful one, how 
 much more difficult would be the task of eradi 
 cating those more lasting though impalpable 
 mementoes of the soul ! She feared that the 
 feat would be impossible. And yet she knew 
 in her heart that it was better that she had sent 
 Clifton away. It was hard, and it would yet 
 be even harder the existence that confronted 
 her. But if she could not endure it she reflected 
 sadly that, after all, she could not live forever. 
 
 She had nearly finished destroying the letters 
 when, as she picked up one of the few that re 
 mained, a paper fluttered to the floor. Craig s 
 photograph ! It was just a little picture, taken 
 by some amateur, but Elizabeth held it as if it 
 were a priceless miniature done by some great 
 artist. The little informal portrait brought to 
 her a sense of intimacy with him, it conveyed 
 to her a feeling of his reality. 
 
 Sadly then she rent the small photograph in
 
 226 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 twain and dropped the pieces into the basket 
 which was now brimming with the fragments of 
 Clifton s letters. To it were soon added the 
 remainder of the missives and then, hastily 
 gathering tip the small remembrances that he 
 had given her, she cast them into the mass of 
 torn paper. 
 
 Once the thing was accomplished she breathed 
 a sigh of relief; and ringing for a maid Eliza 
 beth directed her to remove the basket. As the 
 door closed behind the servant, the immense 
 silence of the spacious room filled Elizabeth 
 Dunham with a curious feeling of oppression. 
 The afternoon was waning and a summer 
 thunder-storm had overcast the sky with a pall 
 of darkness which cut off the slanting rays of 
 the sinking sun and transformed the big room 
 to a place of vague shapes, of dim outlines and 
 deep shadows. Perhaps that change worked 
 subtly upon her overwrought nerves. At all 
 events, she felt an eerie foreboding in the som 
 ber quiet and experienced a strange sense of 
 loneliness. She was conscious all at once of a
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 227 
 
 great need of companionship, of the definite 
 nearness of some human being. 
 
 n 
 
 Just before dinner Ralph Dunham pushed his 
 doorbell and entered his house. The butler, 
 who opened the door in answer to his summons, 
 was not a little surprised at his master s un 
 expected return, though he was too well trained 
 a servant to evidence any astonishment. 
 
 Elizabeth, too, was startled when she heard 
 her husband s voice in the hall outside. And to 
 her amazement it gave her an unmistakable 
 feeling of relief to know that Ralph was there. 
 
 Such is the Almighty s method of working out 
 His decreed order of events. 
 
 Ralph Biunham entered his bedroom with a 
 heavy step. He was unutterably weary ; and he 
 felt terribly a lone. Yet he could not think of a 
 single soul on earth except one with whom he 
 wished to be. If he could see Elizabeth if he 
 could but look at her, to watch the play of ex 
 pression upon her sweet face and drink in her
 
 228 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 cool beauty with his thirsty eyes he felt that he 
 might feel refreshed. He sighed deeply as he 
 thought of her loveliness and realized that even 
 to regard it was torture an exquisite agony. 
 
 The small clock upon the mantel-piece struck 
 seven. At the sound, force of habit made him 
 think of dinner. Where should he dine? He 
 knew that if he went to one of his clubs he would 
 find a few stragglers there other unfortunates 
 who were detained in town. He did not want 
 to meet them. In the whole city there was no 
 one whom he wished to see. And as he 
 pondered upon his loneliness the desolation of 
 the empty house weighed down upon him griev 
 ously. Was there no friend to come to his 
 relief? No one to rescue him from himself? 
 
 Dunham was standing before a high chest 
 a huge, antique piece which contained many 
 drawers. Something moved him suddenly to 
 reach out his hand and open one of them. The 
 impulse was like the prompting of some evil 
 genius. Before his eyes the old-fashioned chest 
 revealed a revolver, a wicked-looking arm which
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 229 
 
 lay there fully loaded, ready at his bidding to 
 release its six messengers of death. 
 
 He lifted the weapon from its resting place. 
 The stock nestled closely in his palm and his 
 fingers closed about it in an answering caress. 
 Here was a friend! Here was a friend with a 
 remedy for his despondency. He looked down 
 curiously at the sleek blueness of the revolver. 
 The room was very still, and a sudden desire 
 came to him to interrupt the silence with a shot. 
 Slowly he raised the weapon and placed the 
 barrel to his head. He held the muzzle close 
 against his hot skin while his finger curled know 
 ingly about the trigger. One quick pull and 
 the thing would be accomplished ! He wondered 
 if he would hear the report. Or would the bul 
 let, crashing into his brain, silence his ears even 
 before the roar of the explosion reached them? 
 
 There was something seductively suggestive 
 of repose in the cold steel pressing against his 
 temple. Just one slight pull and that repose 
 would be his ! No one could take it from him. 
 He could see the doctors bending over him and
 
 230 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 listening for his heart-beat, listening in vain. 
 He could smell the choking fumes of the powder 
 in the room. He could hear the newsboys cry 
 ing their extras in the streets outside "All 
 about Ralph Dunham! Suioide! Suicide! Ex 
 tra! Extra! 
 
 He thought of the flurry in the market the 
 next morning. There would be a quick drop 
 in the Dunham stocks, so-called. Some people 
 would be ruined. But after a little things would 
 readjust themselves and he reflected bitterly 
 that the world would go on as before. It would 
 go on as if he had never lived in it. 
 
 What was that? He started suddenly. A 
 tap on his door? He dropped the revolver into 
 its receptacle and shut the drawer with a slam. 
 
 "Well?" he called. 
 
 The door opened softly. It was a servant, 
 who first begged his pardon for disturbing him, 
 and then told him that Mrs. Dunham was in the 
 house. "She wants to know if you are dining 
 at home, sir?" the man said. 
 
 Hope springs eternal. Dunham started at
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 231 
 
 the question. Elizabeth! "What did it 
 mean? 
 
 "Tell her Yes! "he said. 
 
 But when the man had closed the door quietly 
 behind him Dunham told himself fiercely that 
 he was a fool. He was a fool to think even for 
 a moment that things could be any different. 
 He cursed himself for a coward because he had 
 not ended his life. And the next instant a cold 
 sweat stood out upon his forehead as he realized 
 how close he had been to death. 
 
 Somehow he did not want to die not yet. 
 
 in 
 
 That night, for the first time in many months, 
 Dunham found himself facing his wife alone 
 across the dinner-table. To him there was some 
 thing oddly unreal in the situation. He had 
 great difficulty in persuading himself that he 
 was not imagining the event, for Elizabeth made 
 obvious overtures toward friendliness. He was 
 astounded by the change that had come over 
 her; and for a brief interval he forgot every-
 
 232 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 thing of the agony he had suffered because he 
 was supremely happy. 
 
 But in the midst of his bliss a horrid idea 
 came into his head. He had been wondering 
 what brought his wife to town at that season; 
 and then all at once he thought of Clifton. Had 
 she come to New York to see him f Dunham felt 
 a sharp pang as the suspicion entered his mind. 
 But try as he would, he could not rid himself 
 of the conjecture. Although he despised him 
 self for distrusting Elizabeth, he could not shake 
 off the fear that she was hoodwinking him. 
 
 She was young, he reflected, and it was only 
 natural that she should turn instinctively to 
 youth. He looked at her fresh skin and was 
 conscious of the contrast that it made with his 
 own face, lined with the record of a life-time of 
 struggle. He could remember Clifton as he had 
 last seen him eager, buoyant, debonair. And 
 Dunham did not marvel that Elizabeth found 
 her lover far preferable to himself. 
 
 But despite his misgivings Dunham was to 
 Elizabeth as the moth to the flame. He ac-
 
 233 
 
 cepted gratefully the favors that she bestowed 
 upon him that evening, torn though he was by 
 the doubts that assailed him. 
 
 IV 
 
 Weeks went by. And still Elizabeth con 
 tinued to grace her husband s house with her 
 cheerful presence. She was strangely altered. 
 Her spirits had undergone a marvelous change 
 which was apparent not only in her mood but 
 in her appearance as well. Her eyes were 
 brighter, her cheeks displayed a higher color; 
 even her voice was pitched in a different key. 
 
 Dunham recognized the transformation in 
 her. She was lovelier than ever. But he was 
 utterly at a loss for an explanation of the dif 
 ference in her. "What was the answer to the rid 
 dle? Was it to be found in Clifton? He did 
 not know. He was completely puzzled. For 
 Clifton no longer visited them. Nor was he 
 present at any of the houses of the Dunhams 
 friends. Ralph was at a loss to solve the prob 
 lem. And then one day he came across Clifton s
 
 234 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 name in the cable-columns of a newspaper, 
 which mentioned the man as among guests at a 
 European resort. So that was the reason for 
 Clifton s absence! It did not occur to Dun 
 ham that there had been any break between his 
 wife and her admirer. And in his harassed 
 state of mind Dunham was plunged again into 
 the depths of despondency. 
 
 Still Elizabeth continued to seek his society. 
 She arranged week-end parties at The Knolls 
 at which she insisted upon her husband being 
 present. She organized short cruises on the 
 Nomad to take place at times convenient to Dun 
 ham. And to his complete bewilderment she 
 even asked him to accompany her upon motor 
 trips. 
 
 It was all a mystery to him. Her actions 
 were quite beyond his comprehension. She no 
 longer shrank from contact with him. Indeed 
 the tables seemed to have turned completely. 
 Now it was Dunham who avoided her. If she 
 brushed against him, he drew away from her. 
 If she looked into his face when speaking to him,
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 235 
 
 his own eyes quickly shifted under her gaze. 
 He never voluntarily sought her companion 
 ship ; never suggested any project which would 
 bring the two of them together. He was blind 
 absolutely blind to the great fact that his 
 wife s sentiments toward him had undergone 
 an amazing change. Had he been aware of the 
 truth he could scarcely have marveled more than 
 did Elizabeth herself. 
 
 For she had proved the wisdom of Thomas 
 Cartwright s words. 
 
 When the old minister revealed his magic 
 formula to her she had been skeptical. But she 
 had done his bidding. At first she had to steel 
 herself to the line of conduct she was resolved 
 to follow. But to her great astonishment it 
 was not long before she came to regard her hus 
 band in a new light. She saw fine qualities in 
 him that she had not discerned before. And his 
 faults which previously had loomed big in her 
 eyes now dwindled into insignificance. 
 
 As the weeks sped by (they passed quickly 
 for her now now that she had thrown her heart
 
 236 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 into the performance of her duty) she found! 
 that her undertaking grew increasingly easier. 
 And eventually the time came when she did not 
 need to spur herself to her task. She instinc 
 tively sought her husband s society, because it 
 had become desirable to her. And one day she 
 discovered that she loved him. 
 
 v 
 
 It came about in this fashion. Ealph Dun 
 ham master of men that he was, because he 
 understood them, because he knew their virtues 
 and their foibles was woefully unable to 
 fathom the minds of women. Least of all could 
 he comprehend the actions of his own wife. He 
 was puzzled by what seemed to him to be capri- 
 ciousness on her part. Or was Elizabeth s al 
 tered demeanor deliberately planned to deceive 
 him? He could guess nothing of her motives. 
 The more he tried to determine what he really 
 thought about her the more undecided he be 
 came. And if now and then he seized upon the
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 237 
 
 temporary hope that she really cared for him, 
 he was prompt to discard it as preposterous. 
 
 The man lived in a veritable hell of doubts 
 and fears. What could he do to relieve the an 
 guish that was gnawing his very heart out? 
 In his despair he went to a doctor and asked 
 for some sedative which might at least enable 
 him to sleep. 
 
 It was some simple drug that the physican 
 gave him a mild bromide, which had no more 
 effect upon his frayed nerves than so much 
 water. For three nights Dunham took the po 
 tion, and tossed wakefully upon his bed through 
 hours that seemed interminable. 
 
 The fourth night, at bedtime, he pitched the 
 powders away in disgust. And he thought 
 grimly of that other remedy which lay in the 
 little drawer. That, he knew, was a cure that 
 would not fail him. 
 
 He crossed the room to the big chest and 
 looked at the drawer. The thing had a power 
 ful fascination for him. His hand stole out
 
 238 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 and closed upon the crystal knob. And slowly 
 he pulled the drawer open. 
 
 Something stirred gently in the room. It 
 sounded like a soft foot-fall behind him; and 
 with a start Dunham wheeled around. 
 
 It was Elizabeth. A peignoir of filmy silk 
 clung about her and only partially concealed the 
 snowy lingerie beneath. He could scarcely be 
 lieve his eyes. She had never come to him like 
 that before. 
 
 There was that in her husband s face which 
 alarmed her. On it was written deep despair 
 unfathomable despondency. And there was 
 a strained look about the eyes a tenseness 
 which both shocked and terrified her. 
 
 "What is it?" Elizabeth asked him. 
 "There s there s some trouble. I can feel it. 
 Tell me!" 
 
 But he only stared at her and did not speak. 
 
 She moved nearer him and laid her hand upon 
 his sleeve. 
 
 1 1 Ralph ! " she said. You frighten me. Oh ! 
 what is the matter?"
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 239 
 
 " Nothing you can help," he answered, not 
 unkindly. 
 
 " Perhaps I can," she said. "Let me try 
 at least let me try." She looked beyond him 
 then and saw the revolver lying in the open 
 drawer. 
 
 Ralph ! What are you doing with that ? she 
 asked quickly, as an awful fear swept over her. 
 "You weren t " She could not finish her 
 question. Her tongue balked at the horrid 
 words. 
 
 Dunham s glance fell away beneath her 
 searching gaze. 
 
 "You were oh! God!" she cried. And she 
 threw her arms about him protectingly. 
 
 "Don t!" he begged hoarsely. "Go away, 
 please. It s it s nothing. Don t be fright 
 ened. 
 
 But her woman s instinctive perception told 
 her the truth. He could not deceive her. 
 
 " No ! no ! " she said hysterically. I I can t 
 go. Not just yet. Don t send me away. 
 Please!"
 
 240 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 Kalph Dunham looked down at her as sobs 
 interrupted her impassioned pleading, and he 
 saw that she had guessed the truth. 
 
 Forgive me, he said with terrible calm. * I 
 am sorry if I startled you. But it s all right 
 now. Please go away. * He tried to free him 
 self from her arms. " There! there!" he said. 
 "Please! Don t make me hurt you! But you 
 really must go now. I I can t bear any more. 
 He was free at last from her embrace. 
 
 "I can t leave you," she cried. And she 
 caught his arm again and clung to him des 
 perately. "One minute! Let me stay just a 
 minute!" 
 
 "Well?" He waited for her to continue. 
 There was nothing absolutely nothing that 
 he could say to her. 
 
 "Let me help you," she begged him. "You 
 you were going to do an awful thing. I knew 
 there was something frightful, when you looked 
 around at me. And when I saw that " she 
 shuddered as she peered at the big, blue revol 
 ver "I knew what you meant to do. But it
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 241 
 
 can t be bad enough for that. Talk to me, 
 Ealph! Say something! I m your wife. I m 
 the very one you ought to come to when you re 
 in trouble. You ought to come to me for com 
 fort. Oh, Ealph! I ve been a wicked woman. 
 But I ve changed. God has helped me. I m 
 wicked still, I suppose. And I guess I deserve 
 any sorrow that might come to me. But I 
 couldn t stand it if I lost you now." 
 
 Dunham looked at her wonderingly. 
 
 "I don t understand," he said, half -dazed by 
 what she was saying. "I didn t think you 
 would care what happened to me. I thought 
 you would be glad to be set free." 
 
 Glad ? she exclaimed. 
 
 He nodded gravely. 
 
 "Then you could marry the man you love. 
 You could marry Clifton." 
 
 She smiled at him through tears that trembled 
 in her eyes. 
 
 You don t understand, * she said. * Listen ! 
 I haven t seen Craig Clifton for months. I 
 haven t heard from him. I don t even know
 
 242 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 where he is. I sent him away. I told him he 
 must never see me again. Oh! haven t you 
 seen? Haven t you known all this time? I 
 love you, Ealph! Don t tell me it s too late!" 
 
 She clung to him desperately now, as if she 
 feared that something would snatch him away 
 from her. Dunham felt an exquisite thrill as 
 her slender form pressed close against him. 
 Her dear face was upturned to his ; and her eyes 
 besought him for the answer that she craved 
 yet feared he could not give her. 
 
 The miracle had happened. The thing he 
 had hoped for in time gone by, and had relin 
 quished as beyond the realm of possibility, had 
 come to pass. As the light broke over him 
 Ealph Dunham gave a great sob and gathered 
 her inside his arms. 
 
 The blessed love which is every man s heri 
 tage had finally come to him. 
 
 VI 
 
 And so gladly she went to him, because he 
 was her lover. And so joyously he welcomed
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 243 
 
 her because she was his beloved! So joyously 
 that he bent down to her and kissed her sweet 
 lips. And with her two hands clasped in his 
 he led her from the room away from that place 
 where but for the grace of God he might have 
 been lying at that very moment, beyond all ca 
 pacity for sorrow or joy. 
 
 Dunham looked at her very fondly and very 
 tenderly, in the sacred silence of her bedroom. 
 He saw her quite distinctly, for his eyes had 
 grown accustomed to the subdued light, and to 
 his wonder she looked more beautiful than ever. 
 He had not thought it possible. With her soft 
 pale skin, and her amazing eyes, and the child 
 ish slimness of her figure, combined with certain 
 curves that were the curves of ripening woman 
 hood nobody since time began had ever been 
 quite like her, and and Dunham desired in 
 tensely that she should belong to him. 
 
 But in humble deference to her will for was 
 he not her devoted knight her humble subject 
 waiting in the court of love? in his great de 
 sire to do her bidding he merely sought one of
 
 244 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 her slim hands and led her reverently to a deep, 
 wide couch that filled one of the corners of the 
 room. 
 
 Her eyes were wider open, less shadowed and 
 more full of courage, and in some strange way 
 struck him as even purer than they had been be 
 fore. They had been timidly pure, now they 
 were bravely pure. 
 
 Her lips seemed fuller and softer, and with 
 out that demure compression at the corners, 
 which so often mars the beauty of women. 
 
 And her smile ah! now she was ready to 
 smile to smile gaily, tenderly, sweetly, hap 
 pily, simply, because she was at last in intimate 
 touch with humanity, through him. 
 
 Yes, humanity was now her kinswoman. She 
 could weep for the tears of those who wept, 
 she could rejoice with the gladness of those who 
 were joyous. 
 
 Birth, death, life she seemed to understand 
 them all at last, to marvel at their greatness, 
 to comprehend their infinite wonder.
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 245 
 
 She had a woman s heart, and to all the world 
 she was now able to stretch out a woman s 
 hands. Things which had previously appeared 
 uninteresting and barren were, for her, invested 
 with actual fairness and grace, and her pulse 
 beat time with humanity s pulse as the soul of 
 a perfect dancer throbs in time to the lilt of the 
 music. 
 
 She put her hand out and touched Dunham s. 
 How strong and capable it was! No dream- 
 lover of her girlhood days had ever caressed her 
 with a hand comparable to his! 
 
 "Oh, beloved!" she whispered. "All these 
 weeks I have longed to be here with you, away 
 from the world, and all the ugly things in 
 it" 
 
 Dunham felt a strange elation of spirit. 
 
 She seemed so very different from other 
 women (it s true she was sweet and dainty and 
 like a thousand others who are fragrant and 
 fair as flowers but love s fallacious beliefs be 
 gin at the hour of love s birth!) there was an
 
 246 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 air of unconscious appeal about her which de 
 mands masculine protection, and that air of in 
 tense magnetic femininity which compels mascu 
 line ardor and passion. 
 
 "I love you I love you!" he murmured. 
 And raising her hand to his lips he kissed it with 
 all the fervor of his limitless adoration. 
 
 He was created to love this slim young girl 
 in blue to love her as a man never loves in 
 his flirtations or his amours, because he could 
 only love her as the one woman who seemed 
 different from all the others. 
 
 He felt all this vaguely though his thoughts 
 came crowding too tumultuously one upon an 
 other for him to think with his accustomed clear 
 ness. 
 
 He only knew that she was Queen-Empress 
 of that whole world that is peopled with lovers 
 that mystical, mythical, realm of delight called 
 1 The Land of Heart s Joy." 
 
 "I love you I love you!" He repeated the 
 words with a fierce intensity. "Tell me you 
 love me!" and command and entreaty mingled
 
 HOMING TOGETHER 247 
 
 strangely in his clear, strong voice, now so curi 
 ously shaken. 
 
 "Yes yes " she answered softly and 
 vaguely as the crush of his arms closed about 
 her inevitably, and held her a prisoner. 
 
 "Yes yes " Elizabeth answered again. 
 There was nothing else that she could, or needed, 
 to say. 
 
 And her mouth and her husband s met in one 
 long kiss. 
 
 Ah! that kiss was a beautiful kiss! 
 
 And for a time she lay passive in his arms. 
 
 Such strong, strong arms they were! arms 
 strong enough to be cruel if they were not pas 
 sionately kind instead. 
 
 "We were made for each other, weren t we, 
 darling? We are the only two people in our 
 world, to-night, aren t we?" And Dunham 
 held her yielding body close ; her slim, lithe, sup 
 ple form half -real, half-sprite she seemed, in 
 the faint light of the quiet room. 
 
 As he looked at her, he more than ever realized 
 the completeness of her charm.
 
 248 WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE 
 
 She was a woman, a woman with fervid throb 
 bing pulses, lawful desires, passionate tremors. 
 And he caressed her with a fierce tenderness. 
 
 THE END
 
 In the Fall of 1914 The Macaulay Company 
 
 will publish a rousing novel of love 
 
 and adventure in Mexico, called 
 
 The Trail of 
 The Waving Palm 
 
 by PAGE PHILIPS 
 
 author of the novel "At Bay" 
 
 ^1 Mr. Philips, who is still in Mexico in the interests of a 
 foreign newspaper syndicate has written a vigorous story 
 which appeals powerfully to human hearts and sympathies) 
 with plenty of good fighting and brisk wooing on the part 
 of its American hero. 
 
 ^1 Readers and critics everywhere have set their stamp of 
 approval on this new author s first novel, "At Bay," which 
 was based on George Scarborough s secret service play. 
 The following opinion of the literary critic on The Los 
 Angeles Times is only one example of the widespread and 
 instant recognition of Page Philips power as a story-teller. 
 
 *I Page Philips has novelized "At Bay with much 
 greater success than marks any other novelized drama 
 which has come into the present reviewer s hands. It has 
 escaped the halting quality, the abruptness, the lack of 
 literary unity which marks the majority of the others."
 
 If you are interested in reading the best of 
 
 the season s fiction, you will want a copy 
 
 of this captivating out-of-doors story 
 
 The Trail of 
 The Waving Palm 
 
 *I To all who have an affection for the open, and for whom 
 the out-of-the-way corners of the earth have a fascination, 
 the book offers a genuine treat. It gives a wonderfully 
 vivid idea of the risks of life in barbarous Mexico. Mr. 
 Philips has gone about the country with his eyes open and 
 he has found lying ready for his use an abundance of 
 material which needed only the powers of a raconteur to 
 capture its glamour and place it within the covers of a book. 
 
 ^1 Its pages are alive with real people- Americans, Mexicans, 
 and the host of soldiers of fortune from many climes whom 
 life lures irresistably south of the Tropic of Cancer; in fact 
 the enchantment of the sub-tropics pervades this fine, 
 open-air story from the first chapter to the last.
 
 - M __ II II II I i ill!! 
 
 A 001 196970 6
 
 Mil