IDDMG LBWLmHN 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
THE 
 
 BROKEN SNARE 
 
 BY 
 
 LUDWIG LEWISOHN 
 
 'Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers : the Snare is 
 Broken, and we are escaped." — Psalm cxxiv. 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 
 
 1908 
 
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 v^^^ 
 V 
 
 COPTRIGHTKD I908, BY 
 
 B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 
 RegisUred at Siationer's Hall^ London 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
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 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
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THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "I TOLD you not to hold it that way!" 
 A misery of exasperation vibrated In the voice 
 that rose above the shrill clatter of broken crockery. 
 Frances saw neither her mother nor the drab serv- 
 ant girl to whom the words were spoken ; but the 
 apartment was so small that she heard even the 
 angry rustle of skirts and the sound of dragging 
 feet on the bare kitchen floor. With quiet des- 
 peration she laid down the volume she had been 
 trying to read. The noises robbed her of repose, 
 not by reason of their loudness, but because their 
 quality expressed, with an insistence that tortured 
 every nerve, those elements of her life which she 
 abhorred. She was afraid that her mother might 
 come In and speak querulously of the servant's 
 carelessness. She would listen, as so often before, 
 quietly. It was a single remnant of grace that she 
 never protested, never repulsed the plaintive confi- 
 
2 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 dences of her mother, whom, at moments, she pitied 
 with such passionate tenderness. But if she could 
 escape ! She leaned so far out of the window that 
 she could see to the left the dusty August green of 
 the trees upon Mornlngside Heights. Masses of 
 sombre cloud shadowed the hill and heavy drops 
 of rain began to fall. She would have been glad 
 to slip out into the autumnal rain, could she have 
 done so unobserved. But her heart grew sick at 
 the thought of her mother's mournful solicitude 
 which she must first encounter. There was nothing 
 to do but to remain quiescent and let the grey hours 
 gather over her. 
 
 The fading afternoon light was merciful to the 
 mean respectability of the room, to the carefully 
 mended carpet, the heterogeneous chairs, the small, 
 old-fashioned piano, the general air of eager preser- 
 vation. But in her present mood Frances was 
 painfully conscious of these things. They were to 
 her the symbols of that ignoble solicitude which 
 poverty in her home entailed. She was not afraid 
 of privations. She would have welcomed a bare- 
 ness frank and unashamed. It was the tawdry 
 trappings above the stark sordidness of their life 
 that, in hours of pitiless observation, drew from 
 her tears which she, at her age, should not have 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 3 
 
 known. She heard her mother coming in, and at- 
 tempted to look more alert. 
 
 Mrs. Garnett gathered her apron in her worn 
 right hand and wiped her forehead with it. Her 
 face was cruelly furrowed, her brow puckered, not 
 with cares of a noble cast, but with small, miserable 
 and incessant worries. The scanty grey hair was 
 gathered into a knot no larger than an egg; the 
 greyish brown skin of her cheeks and neck hung 
 in loose, pendulous folds. Whenever Frances saw 
 the face and figure clearly, a compassion so immense 
 overwhelmed her that she yearned over her mother 
 with protecting care. The struggle to remain re- 
 spectable in New York on twelve hundred dollars 
 a year had made of Mrs. Garnett a thing of scorn : 
 It had made of her body a rag, and of her soul a 
 bundle of mean anxieties. Only her mother-love, 
 instinctive and unfortified by intelligence, had re- 
 mained to her of the more gracious possessions of 
 other years. The falling dark now hid her from 
 Frances. 
 
 "But, Fanny, you're not dressed yet?" 
 The girl hated to be called "Fanny." 
 "What's the use of dressing? Vm very well as 
 I am.'' 
 
4 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "But your father has invited Mr. Ware to din- 
 ner to-night." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, don't you see that you should try to make 
 a good impression?" 
 
 *'No, I don't see." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, don't be a fool I Ware, I 
 am told, has a hundred thousand dollars if he has a 
 penny!" 
 
 "Oh!" Frances moaned. 
 
 Mrs. Garnett came over to her and put an awk- 
 ward hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "I know just how you feel about it, my child. 
 But I tell you there's no curse like being poor. I'd 
 like to save you that. You don't understand ; you 
 think you don't want to give up your ideals for 
 money. All right. But if you have no money, I 
 tell you there's not an ideal, there's not a last rag 
 of decency that you won't have to throw away. 
 Don't I know it? Don't I know it?" 
 
 The woman's voice rose to a strident wail. 
 
 "Look at me I" 
 
 "Oh, mamma, please don't!" 
 
 Something in that crude and cruel self-revelation 
 stung Frances beyond endurance. It seemed to her 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 5 
 
 that her mother gloated, with violent self-pity, upon 
 her degradation and decay. 
 
 "You'll dress, won't you?" 
 
 "Yes, yes; presently." 
 
 When Frances was left alone she sat still with 
 her eyes closed. Visions passed before her, the 
 salient scenes of her life, which had tempered and, 
 she believed, warped her soul. But she also saw 
 the fine grey head of her father, and to think of 
 it comforted her. It was only at rare moments 
 that Dr. Garnett entertained a sense of his failure; 
 and she was glad that he, at least, however much 
 it may have contributed to their misery, was care- 
 less of material things. But his brief hours at 
 home were only tiny pools of light In the universal 
 drab of petty cares and compromises, intervals of 
 healing silence amid clamourous discussions of the 
 incompetence of servants and the cost of meat. A 
 memory came to the girl from which she drew back 
 instinctively with every nerve. 
 
 A few weeks ago she had accompanied her 
 mother on a Saturday night expedition to One 
 Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. They had 
 waited long to be served In a huge green-grocer's 
 establishment, and Frances had looked about her. 
 Under the sharp electric light stood, huddled to- 
 
6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 gether, scores of women of the lower middle classes, 
 in shabby black cloaks and bonnets grotesquely set 
 awry. With worn and callous fingers«they handled 
 the huge heaps of vegetables, meats and poultry 
 exposed for sale. They shook their heads in con- 
 temptuous deprecation of the wares, and haggled 
 shrilly with the tired and brutal clerks. Upon the 
 shrunken faces of the women glared a desperate 
 intentness to make the little sums, clutched in 
 clenched hands, go as far as possible. They grov- 
 elled smirkingly before a fat German, smiling be- 
 nevolently, but with eyes of steel, who was the pro- 
 prietor of the establishment. Most of the women 
 were elderly, but their grey hairs had brought them 
 no vestige of dignity or detachment, and Frances, 
 seeing them thus, had prayed fervently to perish 
 in the days of her youth rather than grow old to 
 mouth and chatter over broken meats under the im- 
 minent shadow, within close hail of the peremptory 
 voice, of death. 
 
 The vision haunted her. She pressed her fingers 
 upon her eyelids until she saw green and scarlet 
 circles, flashes and dots. And then a strange diz- 
 ziness came over her, and, at the same time, a mad 
 desire to escape from all the trammels of her life 
 into some freer, braver air, Into spacious chambers 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 7 
 
 looking upon cool fields and beautiful mountains. 
 To weep, to cry out, to protest passionately — once 
 only — how that would have cleared the atmosphere 
 of her soul ! But she had herself well In hand; for 
 ithe flat was small, no sound but penetrated to its 
 \itmost corner, and there was, as she told herself 
 with bitter frankness, no place for her to cry. 
 Would this unnatural repression revenge itself upon 
 her some day? So far there had been no oppor- 
 tunity. There were. In her existence, few Intervals 
 of repose In which her passionate soul might have 
 gained strength for an outburst. Its energy was 
 broken by a continuous clatter of petty Incidents. 
 
 Art had become her refuge. As a little girl she 
 had read the sound, old books In her father^s small 
 library. Others, too, which were not fit for a child, 
 and whose meaning (their Incidents and sayings 
 clinging to her memory) had gradually unfolded 
 Itself to her as the years went on. Then the more 
 j quiet volumes ceased to bite into her mind, ceased 
 to wrap her with a satisfying completeness from 
 the sordid hideousness about her. Thus, driven by 
 a great need, she had come Into contact with a good 
 deal of verse and prose that taught her something 
 of the more exquisite and morbid possibilities of 
 
8 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 life, and communicated to her senses an uneasiness 
 of whose nature she was not wholly Ignorant. . . . 
 Frances took her hands from her eyes and saw 
 that It was quite dark. She hurried to her little 
 room to dress. There seemed too little difference 
 between the frock which she discarded and the one 
 she would wear, but, quite mechanically, from the 
 habit of avoiding discussion, she obeyed her 
 mother's command. She felt a little resentful 
 against her father for Introducing a visitor; she 
 might have spent the evening over some absorbing 
 book, and the young men whom he occasionally 
 brought to their table had never Interested her. 
 They were, as a rule, young medical students, un- 
 formed, uncouth, given to talking shop, and ob- 
 viously afraid of her. Ware, she knew, was an 
 older man, and of a different type. He had drifted, 
 Idly curious, or seeking new sensations, Into the 
 medical school In which her father held a small 
 demonstratorship; he repudiated, she understood, 
 the supposition that he would practise any profes- 
 sion. He had a moderate competence and dabbled 
 in literature. Such a guest might, In a more hope- 
 ful mood, have been welcome. But the last few 
 days of rain and humidity had, with their conse- 
 quent discomfort, brought out the full acerbity of 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 9 
 
 her mother's temper, had prevented her from wan- 
 dering Into the quietude of Mornlngside Park, and 
 had worn her nervous endurance to a shred. She 
 could conceive of nothing that was not weary and 
 unprofitable. 
 
 When she had dressed she lingered yet a brief 
 while in her room. She pressed her forehead 
 against the cool window-pane, and saw, since the 
 flat was on the fifth floor, a rag of sky between the 
 tall houses. The clouds had parted and a friendly 
 star shone down upon her. It moved her im- 
 mensely, so white it was, so benign, so different 
 from the turbulent Inner fever of her life. She 
 welcomed It as an omen of fair fortune. Some- 
 where, somehow, she too would find her little por- 
 tion of serenity and joy. With Inarticulate thank- 
 fulness and supplication she turned her soul, for a 
 moment, to God. Her deep and abiding sense of 
 eternal things found no other expression than this. 
 She had been brought up In no definite form of 
 faith, and often turned with a vague desire to the 
 Church and Its visible symbols. But the conditions 
 of her life made an active affiliation with any body 
 of believers all but Impossible, nor would her pride 
 have suffered her to bear the vague patronage 
 which would have been, In the majority of churches, 
 
lo THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 her Inevitable portion. Such momentary commu- 
 nions, however, with a Power upon which the spirit 
 might lean often changed her mood. A star, a 
 flower, the waving of a leaf in the wind, a slender 
 poplar against the evening sky — at the exquisite 
 stir of such appearances she felt the sustaining 
 and fortifying presence of God. 
 
 When she entered the dining-room her heart was 
 lighter. The table, bright with immaculate linen 
 and a little good silver and china, pleased her. It 
 was a great pity, she reflected, that the room was 
 so absurdly small that their guest would be prac- 
 tically barricaded in his seat. She brought a few 
 flowers from her own room and put them in a slen- 
 der vase on the dining-table. It was now time for 
 her father and Mr. Ware to come. The process 
 of waiting induced in her, as It always did, a slight 
 but steadily increasing nervousness. She felt her- 
 self grow a little pale and went to the window of 
 the drawing-room to look out into the street. The 
 lamp-light shimmered upon the pavement, which, 
 still wet from the recent rain, mirrored the rare 
 passers-by in a phantastic reversal of their natural 
 positions. Vaguely superstitious, she refrained 
 from looking out any longer, with a sense that at 
 her show of impatience those whom she awaited 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE n 
 
 would be delayed. She looked Into the kitchen, but 
 her mother had gone to dress. On crossing the tiny 
 hall she heard the trill of the downstairs bell and 
 hurried back to the kitchen to press the button that 
 opened the door below. Her heart beat fast as she 
 iheard heavy steps upon the stair, and, in a mo- 
 ment, her father's clear voice bidding Mr. Ware 
 to enter. 
 
 The two men came into the drawing-room, which 
 they seemed to fill. Dr. Garnett was tall ; his vivid 
 blue eyes and white hair and beard were conspicu- 
 ous. Ware looked shorter than he was by reason 
 of his breadth of figure and heaviness of movement. 
 It seemed to Frances that his features, settled in a 
 somewhat sluggish repose, might flare up into su- 
 preme intelligence. He was homely, beyond doubt, 
 dark and awkward, but there was a signal of flame 
 in his half-shut eyes. She abandoned her observa- 
 tion under fire of her father's cheery talk. 
 
 "This is my daughter Frances, Ware. You 
 two ought to get along well. You have many — I 
 may say, nearly all — interests in common. You 
 haven't had a pleasant day, have you, Fanny? No; 
 the weather has been wretched." 
 
 He became aware of the young people's silence 
 and stopped in some embarrassment. 
 
12 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 *'You will excuse me for the moment," he said. 
 **I must get rid of some of the evidences of the 
 day's toil." 
 
 A faint smile at her father's facile magnilo- 
 quence seemed to mark the beginning of a less con- 
 strained attitude. Frances faced the young man. 
 
 "Fm afraid papa forgot to offer you a chair." 
 
 He sat down, bending forward a little and fold- 
 ing his hands between his knees. There seemed 
 to Frances something pathetic In this strong man, 
 gifted, she had been told, with unusual powers of 
 speech, struggling, so evidently, after utterance. 
 His voice, when he spoke, had in it a lyric note, a 
 chanting cadence, resonant and unaffected. It in- 
 terested her at once, as did the curious directness of 
 his speech. 
 
 **I am very glad that Dr. Garnett permitted me 
 to come and that I see you at last." 
 
 "At last?" She was quite willing to help him. 
 
 "Your father is very proud of you." 
 
 She noted, as once before, his faint, reluctant 
 smile. 
 
 "Ah, yes, papa talks of me, no doubt. But you 
 must not pitch your expectations too high." 
 
 "I was interested," he said slowly, "because 
 your father told me of your caring for certain books 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 13 
 
 and certain things which, frankly, women as a rule 
 disregard completely." 
 
 **0h, I read. What else is one to do?" 
 
 "No, don't put me off, please," — the words 
 sounded very nearly morose — "I'm incapable of 
 small-talk." 
 
 She laughed a little, and, with a characteristic 
 gesture, joined her hands upon her heavy hair. 
 The light shone full upon her : upon her changeful 
 grey eyes, her fair cheeks slightly flushed, the full, 
 rich moulding of her chin and lips. The loose 
 sleeves fell back, leaving her round, warm arms bare 
 almost to the shoulder. She saw his lids open wide 
 and his eyes fixed upon her with startling intensity. 
 A little shiver passed over her; she dropped her 
 arms, and heard, with distinct relief, her father 
 and mother approach the drawing-room. They 
 moved in a few minutes to the dining-room, where 
 the conversation became general. Ware hardly 
 looked at Frances, but addressed himself with al- 
 most tactless persistence to her parents. She divined 
 his confusion and was not aggrieved. The talk 
 seemed to her not very Illuminating, until, in dis- 
 cussing a recent play, she heard Ware's voice gather 
 earnestness. 
 
 "The whole plot," he was saying, "hinges upon 
 
14 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 a very noxious absurdity. Through the traditions 
 of chivalry a good deal of brutal Injustice has 
 come into the world. It Is firmly held that if a 
 woman of the gentler class grants a man the slight- 
 est favour she has thereby come Into possession of 
 him, body and soul, forever; she can take his life 
 and, if she will, ruin it. And yet, unless she is a 
 child or an idiot, she stands upon precisely the same 
 basis with the man, who asserts no such right. He 
 does not demand possession of her, however he may 
 desire It. She demands It, having really given noth- 
 ing that the man has not also given. The bargain 
 is too unequal." 
 
 "But would she grant any favour, would she have 
 committed herself in any given case at all," asked 
 Dr. Garnett, ^'except upon the tacit agreement that 
 the action gives her certain rights?" 
 
 "Certainly, she would. For It Is life itself that 
 compels her, even as It compels us!" 
 
 Mrs. Garnett looked at Frances anxiously. The 
 turn of the conversation seemed to her an unsuit- 
 able one. She had always opposed her husband's 
 frank discussions of life with their daughter, his 
 insistence upon the sanity that springs from know- 
 ledge. She gave the signal that dinner was over, 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 15 
 
 arose, and led the way through the narrow hall to 
 the front of the flat. 
 
 Ware, with a sensitiveness that at once pleased 
 and annoyed Frances, had read her mother's invol- 
 untary rebuke. He grew silent and ill at ease. 
 They had lingered late over their meal and the end 
 of the evening became flat and empty. Dr. Gar- 
 nett talked alertly and well, but Ware was not again 
 to be betrayed into definite speech. Shortly after 
 ten he arose to go. 
 
 "I am not often at leisure in the evening," he 
 said to Mrs. Garnett, "but if I might sometimes 
 call on you and Miss Garnett earlier in the day, I 
 should be glad." 
 
 Mrs. Garnett was exuberant in her friendliness. 
 
 "Do come," she said; "Fanny is often dull. We 
 haven't many visitors." 
 
 Frances blushed at her mother's vulgar oppor- 
 tunism and hardly touched the hand that Ware held 
 out. 
 
 When, presently, she had gone to her room for 
 the night, she found herself regretting that she had 
 not been kinder to him at the last moment. He in- 
 terested her and she knew that she wanted him to 
 come again. She did not put this desire into words, 
 unaccustomed yet to violate a final feminine reti- 
 
1 6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 cence, even to herself. But she would have liked 
 to feel another pressure of his strong, soft palm. 
 Slowly she undressed herself and passed her hand 
 gently over the delicate surface of her throat and 
 arms. Her own body appealed to her as it had 
 rarely done before; Its smooth whiteness gave her 
 an Indefinite pleasure. Involuntarily arose the 
 thought of Ware. She turned out the light hur- 
 riedly and crept, shivering, between the cool sheets 
 of her bed. Sleep came soon, but not before a half- 
 dreamy glimpse had been hers, a glimpse of some 
 faint vision of a richer life, and of a gradual prepa- 
 ration for new fortunes under strange stars. 
 
II 
 
 Weeks passed and Ware called often. Mrs. 
 Garnett speculated volubly as to his motives. Then 
 suddenly his visits ceased and Frances felt the brief 
 glow of expectancy fading from her. The leaves 
 in Morningside Park were shrivelling and losing 
 colour, the poplars looked peaked and thin, and the 
 dimness of Autumn crept gradually into her soul. 
 She was often dizzy and tired, but the weather 
 touched her with an immense poignancy of sadness 
 and aroused in her a new and indescribable yearn- 
 ing. Every vista seemed to her to lead straight 
 into some unattainable Paradise. She could not 
 look up Amsterdam Avenue, rising here with so 
 generous a sweep into the light, without tears. Her 
 thoughts were not consciously concerned with 
 Ware, but at the vaguest resemblance to him in 
 any figure on the street she flushed hotly and 
 seemed to feel her eyelids quiver. Passionate and 
 melancholy books were revealed to her with a new 
 intensity and plangent verses wove themselves into 
 
 »7 
 
1 8 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 the shifting patterns of her waking dreams. Con- 
 sidering some of these dreams In an hour of detach- 
 ment, she accused herself almost of vulgarity — so 
 full were they of gorgeous places and of Impas- 
 sioned sounds. But, to escape from reality, she 
 always abandoned herself to them again. 
 
 There was so much to escape from I The weary 
 rattle of the little household seemed to grind more 
 heavily along ; the common meals passed In silence, 
 broken only by her mother's shrill complaints. 
 
 "Fanny makes no attempt to help me; she hardly 
 speaks to me." 
 
 Dr. Garnett looked at his daughter, who seemed 
 inordinately moved. 
 
 *'What Is It, child?" 
 
 *'I don't know, papa; perhaps Fm not quite well. 
 My heart beats so." 
 
 He observed her furtively during the rest of the 
 meal. Later, alone with her In the drawing-room, 
 he suddenly laid aside his book. His blue eyes were 
 almost stern. 
 
 "We must bear our burdens with a gentler spirit, 
 my daughter." 
 
 *'Ah, If there were something to bear! Some- 
 thing definite and worth while I" 
 
 "Those are the crude dreams of youth, child. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 19 
 
 We are not here to solace victorious knights or Im- 
 molate ourselves on the altar of genius. God has 
 appointed as our portion, patience without reward." 
 
 Frances sat silent and disturbed. She had never 
 before heard her father speak such words. His at- 
 titude to her had always been one of bright and 
 comradely kindness. 
 
 'Tatience?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes; and in your case, patience with your 
 mother. If she is embittered It is not without rea- 
 son, and neither you nor I have been guiltless, 
 perhaps. Child, child, the least we can do is to be 
 kind I'' 
 
 She came to him and put her arms around him. 
 
 *'I try," she said; "you mustn^t doubt that. I 
 have thought of all these things, and I think I 
 understand. But lately it has been, oh, peculiarly 
 hard!" 
 
 They looked steadily Into each other's eyes. 
 Then Frances hid her face. It was almost the 
 first time she had ever done so; her manners were 
 not of the facile, girlish kind. Dr. Garnett was 
 pale and grave. 
 
 "I am a physician, my daughter," — the words 
 came with an effort — "and I speak as one. I have 
 always feared the results of your temperament. I 
 
20 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 know that you suffer, dear ; that you will suffer still 
 more keenly as you become more aware of your- 
 self. There Is no relief except in earnest and steady 
 occupation." 
 
 She stood before him, strong and unashamed. 
 
 "You say that there Is no help except — to for- 
 get?" 
 
 "Yes, since we are speaking quite openly. You 
 are not likely to marry." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "We are poor, child; we know hardly any one. 
 We must accept the conditions of our life as we 
 find them." 
 
 "So poverty robs a woman of everything — every- 
 thing, even the most elemental necessities?" 
 
 Dr. Garnett played with a paper-knife that lay 
 near him on the table. 
 
 "You put it brutally, child. I shouldn't have 
 supposed a woman capable of giving words to that 
 thought." 
 
 She came to him again. The sadness in his voice 
 was terrible to her. 
 
 "Have I shocked you, papa ? You see, IVe lived 
 so much alone, and read, and thought. . . . And 
 now we have talked about these things so sud- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 21 
 
 denly. . . . No; you mustn't think that Tm lack- 
 ing in delicacy. But life is so difficult, isn't it?" 
 
 "I wish you didn't know that yet, my child." 
 
 He looked white and old and all her power of 
 compassion was aroused. 
 
 "Truly, you must not worry about me, papa. I 
 dare say I shall be all right. It's good to know, at 
 all events." 
 
 They kissed each other good-night, but Frances, 
 in her light and fevered sleep, was still conscious 
 of her father's step pacing the drawing-room for 
 many hours. When morning came, her head and 
 eyes ached, and she put off her resolution to make 
 a great difference in her life until the morrow. 
 
 She felt, immensely, the need of some discipline, 
 of some interposition from without. Had she 
 lived in some closed and definite social group, with 
 specific standards that might demand from her any 
 measure of true respect, or had she been — this was 
 a recurrent thought — ^under the guidance of some 
 Church, her path would have been less difficult. 
 But she was unspeakably alone with her fevered 
 brain and ineffective will and the unending irrita- 
 tions of her daily life. Was not God unjust in 
 making her so different from others who lived in 
 a similar environment? For, surely, it was unim- 
 
22 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 aginable that many could quiver hourly and dally 
 with these tortured sensibilities which every con- 
 tact with the necessary routine of life seemed to 
 violate. . . . 
 
 The deceptive approach of Autumn was followed 
 by a space of Summer weather. A great and weary 
 heat parched the earth. Night after night the 
 parks were filled with poor folk who could find no 
 rest In their dingy flats. Frances, too, felt smoth- 
 ered between the narrow walls of her room. Her 
 heavy hair seemed to drag her down, and upon the 
 increasing pallor of her face her luminous eyes and 
 lips stood out vividly. She suffered often from a 
 painful throbbing of the heart and temples and her 
 good resolutions became impalpable wraiths which 
 she could not touch or hold. Every afternoon she 
 climbed the many steps of Momingside Park at 
 One Hundred and Sixteenth Street and walked over 
 to Riverside Drive past the airy portico of the Li- 
 brary of Columbia University. . . . There, sitting 
 on a bench, she watched the dainty pleasure-craft 
 upon the river, and let the cooler airs blow upon 
 her. She was listless and unhappy. The Intermi- 
 nable days and years before her — years, perhaps, of 
 just such life as was hers now — appalled her. It 
 was all so dim, so complete In Its hopelessness. At 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 23 
 
 times she drifted Into a vague resignation, but It 
 was, she knew well enough, only an effect of the 
 enervating weather. 
 
 In this languor the thought and image of Ware 
 had become dimmer. She seemed almost to have 
 forgotten him, when, upon an almost windless 
 afternoon, he turned from the path and stood be- 
 side her bench. Almost before she saw him she 
 had felt his presence, and gave him permission to 
 sit down beside her. But It was he who finally 
 spoke. 
 
 "I didn't think you would be in town during this 
 hot weather." 
 
 "We scarcely ever go away." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He at once divined his own tactlessness and 
 frowned. 
 
 "Because we cannot afford it." 
 
 He was anxious to dismiss the painful subject. 
 Any allusion to money, especially the lack of it, hurt 
 him acutely. 
 
 "I have not seen Dr. Garnett recently, or I would 
 have known that you were here." 
 
 She hardly knew what to answer. She felt again 
 the power of his presence, heard again the moving 
 
«4 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 note In his voice, but he was, as always, difficult to 
 approach. Suddenly he turned to her. 
 
 "No ; I haven't been telling you the truth. I was 
 afraid to come back again." 
 
 "Afraid?" 
 
 *'I hate to be compelled." 
 
 She laughed a little, scarcely daring to under^ 
 stand him. 
 
 "But ultimately," he continued, "I should have 
 
 come." 
 
 In her barren life the event of Ware's confessed 
 admiration loomed enormously. The very unusual- 
 ness of such homage. Its uniqueness. In fact, 
 strengthened her self-distrust. She could not be- 
 lieve that she had understood him. 
 
 "Am I," she hesitated still, "am I such an alarm- 
 ing person?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The word came with unmlstakeable meaning. It 
 was clearly Impossible to turn him from his serious- 
 ness. 
 
 "You have immense vitality," he said, "curbed, 
 repressed, but irresistible — like yourself I" 
 
 She still strove, weakly enough, and merely by 
 instinct, to fend him off. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 25 
 
 "A young lady In a book would be offended by 
 that speech.'* 
 
 "Oh, yes, and in life, too. But you are not — a 
 young lady." 
 
 He emphasised the odious words heavily. 
 
 "How do you know?'* 
 
 He shook his head angrily. His sudden lapses 
 into silence gave her a feeling of helplessness. She 
 did not know what to do. In her inexperience she 
 had not power to shape the situation, and, getting 
 up, she announced that it was time for her to re- 
 turn home. They walked together towards Grant's 
 Tomb, which, top-heavy and a little absurd, yet 
 shone with a refreshing whiteness through the dusty 
 foliage of the trees. Few words passed between 
 them. They were aware of the immense attractive- 
 ness they had for each other and made effort after 
 futile effort to get at each other's thoughts. But 
 their natural reserve, and the very tremour of pas- 
 sion that ran through them, made approach doubly 
 hard. Climbing a few steps in the park, he touched 
 her thinly clad arm and dropped his own as though 
 a living coal had seared his fingers. He was not a 
 patient man, and the image of this woman had, 
 somehow, got between him and the rest of the 
 world. But he hated the common and the common- 
 
26 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 place with a profound and irritable hatred, and the 
 obvious words were excessively hard for him to 
 utter. They came at last, with a certain fierceness, 
 and yet, because he was conscious of their frequent 
 facile usage, with formality. 
 
 "Frances, I love you." 
 
 She caught her breath. 
 
 "It sounds miserably banal, dear, but I've been 
 in agony these past weeks. Have you thought of 
 me at all?" 
 
 She thought the poor, despised words sweet be- 
 yond singing, and turned to him her deep, grey 
 eyes. He understood. Then suddenly she felt 
 weak again and dizzy, and, by a natural impulse, 
 leaned upon him. He took her to a little bakery 
 on Amsterdam Avenue and ordered tea. The tea 
 was acrid and dark, but she had been very thirsty 
 and felt better after drinking it. She saw fully for 
 the first time his smile, which was bright and ten- 
 der. With entire disregard of the frowsy girl who 
 waited on them, he covered her hand, which was 
 resting on the table, with his own. 
 
 "I don't believe," he said, "that you' even know 
 my name." 
 
 "I saw It on papa's list." 
 
 "Then say it I" 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 27 
 
 »7ullan." 
 
 The word sounded infinitely strange to her. But 
 at Its sound the barrier of reserve and convention 
 between them seemed to melt. She found herself, 
 presently, talking to him with a new vivacity, of 
 herself and her life. It was very wonderful to be 
 able to speak of these Intimate things to another 
 who understood. 
 
 *'So you live in a cage,'* he laughed. "I suspected 
 it." 
 
 "And not even a glass one. I have no glimpses 
 of what goes on outside." 
 
 "What will you do?" 
 
 "What can I do? I suppose Tm needed at 
 home." 
 
 He frowned at this. 
 
 "We must break through these cramping pieties. 
 Believe me, we help no one by losing our own lives 
 completely." 
 
 "I have never reasoned it out," she said slowly. 
 "I have felt the constraint and the misery, oh, so 
 bitterly! And I always hoped that somehow a re- 
 lease would come — " 
 
 "And when it comes," he broke in, "will you ac- 
 cept it?" 
 
28 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "I don't know, I don't know. ..." 
 
 They went down Amsterdam Avenue several 
 blocks, then through Mornlngside Park towards 
 One Hundred and Twenty-second Street, and 
 thence to Eighth Avenue. Here the rattle of 
 the Elevated Railroad made speech impossible. 
 Frances stopped abruptly at her corner, and Julian, 
 crushing her hands In his, said: 
 
 "You will hear from me soon I" 
 
 She just managed, with nervous haste, to slip 
 into the house In time for dinner. At table her 
 mother asked querulously where she had been all 
 the afternoon, and she answered: 
 ""In the Park." 
 
 Dr. Garnett saw a feverish light In his daugh- 
 ter's e5'^es, but determined not to harass her with use- 
 less questions. Upon all three fell a constrained 
 silence which Frances had not the courage to break. 
 By her answer to her mother's question, made In 
 thoughtless haste, she seemed to have rendered any 
 reference to her meeting with Ware impossible. 
 . . . For, had she spoken of It now, her first an- 
 swer would have seemed disingenuous. Not this 
 alone compelled her silence, but also her passionate 
 yearning to keep some little corner of her life her 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 29 
 
 very own, secure from prying and remark. The 
 want of physical privacy under which she had suf- 
 fered had reacted upon her whole attitude. She 
 knew that her mother, given the chance, would 
 speculate with sordid Intentions upon her renewed 
 acquaintance with Ware, and she wanted to keep 
 that relation Inviolate and inviolable. 
 
 After dinner she picked up an anthology of mod- 
 ern verse and turned its pages listlessly. Then sud- 
 denly, she came upon two lines that seemed to her 
 graven in flaming letters upon the page and to de- 
 tach themselves, soarlngly, from the context : 
 
 "But surely it is something to have been 
 The best-beloved for a little while. ..." 
 
 All the pathos and beauty of life seemed to her to 
 be enshrined forever In these simple words, Its su- 
 preme glory, which, however brief, was yet worth 
 dying for. Yes, renunciation would not be difficult 
 If one had only known the goodliest things for a 
 little while. But to renounce without having 
 known, to be huddled away into the oblivious earth 
 without the rapture of a single day I She saw her- 
 self, with morbid clearness of vision, lying in a 
 bare coffin, and heard some pitiful stranger (for no 
 
30 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 one of her own blood would be by) saying: *'No 
 man kissed these lips when they were red, or this 
 bosom when it was white. ..." She closed the 
 book before her and went to bed carrying the words 
 and their message securely in her heart. 
 
Ill 
 
 Frances was vaguely troubled by the deceit 
 which she had practised. A full sense of all the 
 strange happenings that might come of it did not 
 dawn upon her till a much later period, when its 
 sting was softened by a clear perception of the fa- 
 tality in all mortal things. She made out an ad- 
 mirable case for her action. By the almost invol- 
 untary omission of a few words she had preserved 
 to herself part of her life, and had rendered it safe 
 from vulgarity and exposure. And, after all, it 
 might end soon. Then the dear memory (for it 
 would be wonderfully dear) would at least be all 
 her own. If it were to end soon ! She was like one 
 suffocating to whom, after one delicious gasp, air 
 was again denied. It was a strange reflection to her, 
 especially in looking back afterwards upon these 
 early days, that she hardly asked herself whether 
 she loved Julian Ware ; and she inferred that a for- 
 mal recognition of love was rarer than it seemed. 
 For herself, she dwelt upon the memory of that 
 
 3' 
 
32 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 late afternoon when they had spoken together in 
 the golden dusk, treasuring his words, his gestures, 
 and remembering, with a swift exaltation, the thrill 
 of his touch. He seemed always near her, strange 
 and troubling: she gave herself to mystical delu- 
 sions, believing at times that his thoughts haunted 
 -her with a palpable reality. . . . 
 
 She had to wait four interminable days before a 
 note came from Ware. By a bit of good fortune 
 she secured it before it had been seen, and went to 
 her room to read it. Its wording frightened her: 
 "I want to see you — I cannot tell how much — and 
 I shall be — there, at the same hour. But I do not 
 ask you to come P' She was glad that her mother 
 never prepared a formal luncheon at home, but that 
 each of them ate alone. The hours thereafter 
 dragged wearily. Once or twice she called upon 
 her pride, asking herself whether she should go. 
 But she divined a hidden earnestness of purpose in 
 Ware*s note. Then, too, that horrible dizziness 
 came upon her, the room reeled, and she was glad 
 enough to escape into the spacious world. 
 
 She saw from afar his sturdy shoulders and 
 large, expressive head. He had placed his hat be- 
 side him on the bench and the wind was lifting his 
 dark, soft hair from his forehead. His smooth- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 33 
 
 shaven face was turned away, but as she came 
 nearer she saw his profile. The expression was tense 
 and severe; the line that ran from nose to mouth 
 deeply stamped. It was almost a forbidding sight, 
 but she was not afraid. For the first time in her 
 life she felt as though she were coming gladly 
 home. A whirling leaf on the path caught his eyes 
 which followed it. He turned, saw her and, com- 
 ing toward her, took her hand. It was so sweet to 
 be with him that she laughed a little. 
 
 *Tm afraid youVe given to being cross." 
 
 "What a child you are, what a child!" 
 
 He stroked her hand. 
 
 "WeVe doing the maddest thing on earth, abso- 
 lutely the maddest, and you trill like a lark." 
 
 She was a little hurt and vexed. 
 
 "Why is it so mad ? And even if it were, should 
 you tell me so?" 
 
 "I, of all people, should tell you. If I had the 
 strength and the courage — unfortunately, I have 
 neither — I would send you straight home. There^s 
 a good deal of love in the world that is safe and 
 quiet and smooth. Safe and quiet and smooth peo- 
 ple feel it. But I tell you that such passion as ours 
 tears and breaks. We're going to hurt each other 
 — ^perhaps to death." 
 
34 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 Something in her flared up as at a call to battle. 
 
 *'Would you care to be otherwise?" 
 
 ''God forbid I" 
 
 In every nerve she felt the thrilling resonance 
 of his voice, and they laughed together in the glad 
 consciousness of their fatal strength. 
 
 For a minute he looked almost boyish, filled with 
 the blithe spirit of adventure. 
 
 "How long do you dare to stay out?" 
 
 "Till half-past six." 
 
 "That doesn't give us much time. But we can 
 take a walk. Do you know what a fine, romantic 
 place New York Is? I dare say not. But one 
 should never tire of exploring It. It's hideous and 
 lovely by turns, but always new and surprising. 
 Wait, I'll show you — sweetheart, sweetheart!" 
 
 This was a new side of him, delightful to her 
 beyond words. She lost herself in the gladness of 
 his presence and protection. They walked over 
 to Eighth Avenue and, amid the grind of traffic, 
 but wrapt far above the hopeless meanness of the 
 way, as far up as One Hundred and Thirty-fourth 
 Street. Into this street they turned eastward, and 
 Frances saw Julian's eyes sweep. In sombre fascina- 
 tion, the shabby flat-houses. 
 
 "What lives, what passions, what miseries must 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 35 
 
 abide here!" he said. "Think of all the drab little 
 rooms and the men and women sitting or walking 
 there, dreaming, yearning, toiling 1" 
 
 He had taken her arm and pressed it. Their feet 
 kept step rhythmically and his imaginative inter- 
 est in this apparently so barren scene communicated 
 itself to her. Presently they emerged from the 
 press of houses and stood upon the hideous Madi- 
 son Avenue Bridge that here spans the winding 
 Harlem River. A film of cloud had swept over 
 the sky, no breath of wind stirred, and they stood 
 looking upon the grey scene about them. The 
 wooden barges on the sullen river seemed absolute- 
 ly moveless, the wharves and scattered houses de- 
 void of life. It was all leaden, sordid, bare of any 
 gleam of comeliness. But from river and barge, 
 from muddy street and the creaking bridge on 
 which they stood, arose a subtle spirit of melan- 
 choly quietude. They seemed to have entered some 
 void, waste gathering-place of the shadows of life 
 and death. Julian whispered: 
 
 "Do you not feel it?" 
 
 She answered him with a look. 
 
 "IVe stood here," he went on, "for hours, in 
 just such weather. And there the barges lay and 
 
36 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 no man was to be seen." His voice grew deeper. 
 "A river of forgetfulness." 
 
 But Frances was glad because she understood 
 him so thoroughly, because she too had an almost 
 morbid perception of the atmosphere of such scenes 
 which had helped to shape the life of her soul. 
 
 They crossed the bridge and came upon a tangle 
 of unpaved streets on which stood scattered wooden 
 houses, gaunt In their isolation. Empty building 
 lots filled with all manner of refuse formed the 
 intervening spaces. But across these were vistas to 
 distant woods and waters, to barren fields — all still 
 and empty of life. Suddenly Julian stretched out 
 his hand, and Frances, following its direction with 
 her eyes, saw, standing alone upon a little hill, an 
 oddly built and painted house which seemed to have 
 been carried here bodily from some immemorial 
 German farm-stead. Its conformation, its thatched 
 roof, its blinking, leaded panes — all had an air of 
 ancient peace and long habitation, as If, like its far 
 prototypes, it had almost grown out of the storied 
 earth on which It stood. And over It wheeled cir- 
 cle within circle of white pigeons. 
 
 "The place Is quite deserted," said Julian. "IVe 
 been here often before. No one in the neighbour- 
 hood could tell me who built it, since It was here 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 37 
 
 before the streets were laid out, and all the present 
 inhabitants of Mott Haven found it, picturesque 
 and empty, as it is. Some of the window-panes are 
 broken, so that it has become a vast pigeon house 
 and the birds have increased enormously. 
 
 "I shall remember it," Frances almost whispered. 
 
 "So shall I, dear," he returned, "doubly now. 
 And in the days to come when we have grown 
 weary of each other — I shall come here and 
 dream.'* 
 
 "You do not mean that." 
 
 He stripped the glove from her hand and kissed 
 its warm palm, and each slim finger, long and close. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, my dear, I wish I and all things 
 were different." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He did not answer her, but, pulling out his watch, 
 said that It was time to start on the way back, since 
 she must be at home at a certain hour. He seemed 
 all at once sad and dispirited. A wave of pity and 
 love rolled over her and she could have covered his 
 tired eyes with kisses. 
 
 "Let me stay with you longer. It doesn't mat- 
 ter." 
 
 He drew away from her perceptibly. 
 
 "Won't the consequences be awkward?" 
 
38 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "I shall be glad to bear them." 
 
 He looked at her rather oddly, she thought, and 
 for a minute she was frightened. Then his reas- 
 suring smile made his face luminous again. 
 
 "I don't believe you know what the consequences 
 are. But you are dear and good. We must risk it. 
 Shall we dine somewhere?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 She loved him and she was reckless. She could 
 not bear to let him go. The thought had come 
 to her with a quivering pang that she knew noth- 
 ing of his life and could form no idea of whither he 
 would go after leaving her. And she wanted him. 
 He must not, should not, go, and be at ease in the 
 company of other men, or, perhaps, even women, 
 while she sat at home and ate her heart out. 
 
 "Julian, you do not wish to get rid of me?" 
 
 "No, dearest; it was for your sake that I warned 
 you." 
 
 But his voice seemed to her lacking in warmth, 
 and during their ride back on the underground rail- 
 road she repeated her question almost In terror. He 
 held her hand firmly In his and succeeded in con- 
 vincing her. Then they fell silent and Frances 
 blushed with shame at her absurd importunity. As 
 a rule she was full of calm reasonableness, but the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 39 
 
 experience of her past seemed of litde avail in the 
 mad sweetness and terror of these late events. She 
 seemed to lose her faculty of sane thoughtfulness, 
 and certain nobler Instincts, too, were beginning 
 to desert her. Thus she thought of her mother and 
 father waiting for her In vain, scarce swallowing a 
 mouthful of dinner In their anxiety, but pitifully 
 trying to persuade each other that all was right. 
 But though she was aware of the pathos of the vis- 
 Ion It moved her little. To let Julian go to his own 
 dwelling and his own friends, not to hear his voice 
 or feel the warmth of his shoulder against hers — 
 that alone seemed impossible. 
 
 They left the railroad at the high station of 
 Manhattan Street and walked over towards One 
 Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. The dark had 
 come and the street-lamps were flickering. They 
 said little, but walked close together, almost hear- 
 ing their blood run and their pulses beat. As they 
 neared the more crowded thoroughfares they drew 
 apart with a sudden consciousness of their passion. 
 At the corner of Eighth Avenue Julian bought 
 flowers from the vociferous boys who stood there 
 with huge hampers — violets and roses and lilies-of- 
 the-valley — and he filled Frances' hands with them 
 till she asked him to desist, saying that she had more 
 
40 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 now than she could carry. In the dimly lighted 
 passage that leUds into the West End restaurant he 
 buried his face in the cool roses at her breast, In the 
 red roses against her white throat. 
 "Frances, Frances, how I love you I" 
 They chose a table In the farthest corner of the 
 pleasant, roofless hall, and Frances placed her 
 flowers on It, while Julian ordered dinner. The 
 scent of the flowers rose exquisitely between them. 
 The whole atmosphere of the place, cool and clean, 
 was delicious to them. Very few people had yet 
 come to dine, so that In their corner, behind a 
 spreading palm-tree, they experienced a new and In- 
 toxicating sense of Intimacy. A low tinkle of 
 glasses and crockery came from an apparently ab- 
 surd distance. They were quite alone and, looking 
 up, could see that the clouds of the afternoon were 
 drifting away In the darkness and that the white 
 stars were slowly coming out. Frances felt a new 
 animation. She had often looked enviously Into 
 such pleasant places and had seen men and women 
 sitting together In them. It was, no doubt, a very 
 material form of pleasure, but It was material pleas- 
 ure which. In the terrible barrenness of her life, she 
 had thirsted after — something of the bright glitter 
 of the world and its mad Intoxication. Surely, her 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 41 
 
 life had been unimaginably grey and monotonous. 
 She was only clutching her most elemental rights. 
 Something of her content shone in her eyes, showed 
 upon her half-parted lips, rose and fell in the mo- 
 tion of her rounded bosom. She heard with a new 
 ring the lyric note in Julian's voice as he quoted : 
 
 "Life of life, thy lips enkindle 
 With their love the breath between them. ..." 
 
 His hand was over hers and his eyes dwelt upon her 
 with compelling power. 
 
 When, presently, they began to dine, the tension 
 was relaxed, and during the meal they spoke of 
 music, of books, and discovered, what each had di- 
 vined, that their tastes were in satisfying harmony, 
 that they could linger together over many identical 
 lines and passages. He was surprised that she 
 knew her Gautier and Swinburne without feminine 
 reticence and hesitation, that she had even read 
 some very modem verse and prose known in 
 America to a mere handful of people. As at their 
 first meeting, she said, laughing : 
 
 "What else was there to do?" And then she 
 added, "Until you came. . . ." 
 
 With a pretty, hesitating pronunciation, she re- 
 peated to him that marvellous rhythmic chant of 
 
42 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 Verlalne in which all that is sweet in life and 
 evanescent, and all but ineffable,, is told with im- 
 mortal music: 
 
 *'Le souvenir avec le crepuscule. . . ." 
 
 She confessed that she had never studied Ger- 
 man, and he insisted energetically that she must, 
 and spoke of Heine's lyrics with a fullness of knowl- 
 edge and delicacy of understanding that made her 
 very happy. It was delightful to feel that he ex- 
 ceeded her in learning and insight, that she could 
 look up to him and be taught. She smiled to her- 
 self at this intensely feminine satisfaction, but she 
 was not ashamed of it. 
 
 They lingered a short while over their coffee, 
 Julian smoking numerous cigarettes and inhaling 
 the smoke with avidity. The slender, gold-tipped 
 cylinders pleased her and she thought his way of 
 smoking at once graceful and manly. When they 
 left the restaurant they found on One Hundred and 
 Twenty-fifth Street a dense and steady stream of 
 people in the hot, clear night. They hastened east- 
 ward to Seventh Avenue and walked in the direc- 
 tion of Central Park. 
 
 Entering the park, they followed a sinuous path, 
 crossed the rustic bridge over the Loch and were 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 43 
 
 soon lost In deep thickets. The trees were still in 
 full foliage, though the leaves hung down, wilted 
 and athlrst In the narrower paths the air quivered 
 with heat and the large, lustrous stars seemed to 
 hang aloft In a palpitating mist. The benches were 
 all crowded, and the men and women upon them, 
 enervated at once and set aflame by the heat, ex- 
 pressed themselves with a terrible frankness of 
 passionate sound and gesture. They hardly heeded 
 the casual passers-by. Frances felt unutterably 
 weary, and Julian found a place for her after long 
 searching, upon a projection of living rock. All 
 was silent about them save for some low cry, now 
 and then, from a neighbouring thicket. They 
 leaned toward each other and Julianas arms was 
 about her. She was In a delicious languor, as If 
 she had died to all things but his presence and his 
 love. He kissed her hands, her arms, her throat. 
 She turned her head away, and he bent close and 
 kissed her hair and the tawny nape of her neck 
 above her low-cut dress, his hand following the soft 
 curve of her shoulder. Then abruptly he asked her 
 to turn around. She looked at him and saw that 
 he was very pale. 
 
 "Dear," he said, "it is late." 
 
 "Is it?" 
 
44 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 She had lost consciousness of time and of her- 
 self and of her whole past. With sudden amaze- 
 ment the thought came to her that she must go 
 home, that her father and mother were probably 
 watching for her or had started a search. Terror 
 gripped her and Julian could hardly keep step with 
 her as she walked. He was very quiet and strange- 
 ly humble ; she could not tell why. 
 
 "Are you very angry?" he asked. 
 ' "No, no; but I had forgotten — everything." 
 
 At the door of her house she turned to him as 
 if for protection. 
 
 "Come soon, soon. . . ." 
 
 He walked away sadly. 
 
 She ran upstairs, and, with overwhelming relief, 
 saw no light glimmer through the outer door of the 
 flat. Touching the door, she found it unlatched, 
 and slipped into the darkness and silence. As she 
 passed through the little hall she heard her father 
 deeply breathing as he slept. Had no one been sur- 
 prised at her absence? Had no one cared? And 
 the peace that reigned here smote upon her with a 
 deeper terror than grief or anger could have done. 
 
IV 
 
 The night was a fearful one to Frances. Her 
 restless sleep was broken by monstrous dreams, 
 evil faces leered at her, and the forms of her 
 mother and father assumed the terror of avenging 
 angels. She had to get up many times to dry the 
 perspiration upon all her limbs. And then she 
 would fall anew Into a light sleep and be tossed 
 about by fevered dreams. When the strange light 
 of dawn filtered Into the dreary air-shaft she grew 
 suddenly cold In anticipation of the coming day. 
 She sat down by the window in her loose night- 
 gown and agonised for a moment — If but a mo- 
 ment — ^^of calm consideration In which to smooth 
 out the horrible confusion in her brain. If she 
 thought of Julian at all, It was with a distinct feel- 
 ing of repulsion. She only knew that she was In 
 some frightful danger, that she was afraid of the 
 heart-slckening scenes of explanation and reproach 
 that would follow, as an animal Is afraid of the 
 lash. She had once seen a little dog cringe, with 
 
 45 
 
46 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 trembling flesh and the anguish of extreme terror 
 in its eyes, under a dressing-table. She knew now 
 what had racked the animal's nature. Worse 
 than all else would be the wretched futility of 
 making a scene with her, for she was beyond such 
 help as her father or her mother could give. She 
 could not return to the unrelieved drab of other 
 days, which seemed In retrospect of unimaginable 
 hideousness: she must fight her fight alone. De- 
 spite her terror and a grim physical wretchedness, 
 there was no real blindness In the girl's soul. She 
 knew that her brief repulsion to Julian would fade 
 and that she would not resist the inevitable. Her 
 Inexperience made it impossible for her to specu>- 
 late upon the future. That was dark. But the In- 
 sistent cry of her troubled heart was that she 
 wanted to be left alone — alone, since no one in all 
 the world could give her help and comfort. 
 
 When she was dressing she saw the dead pale- 
 ness of her face In the mirror. She was not given 
 to weeping, but the sight, somehow, brought tears 
 which burned her eyelids. She tried hard to com- 
 pose herself, and then, with final resolution, slipped 
 Into the kitchen. Mrs. Garnett was facing the win- 
 dow, and Frances came up behind her. 
 
 "Mamma. . . ." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 47 
 
 Mrs. Garnett's voice was curiously cold. 
 
 "Your father sent a telegram yesterday to tell 
 us that he would be detained down-town. He came 
 in about ten and I told him you were In your room. 
 I lied for you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Mrs. Garnett turned around slowly. 
 
 "You don't know your father." 
 
 Frances was thoroughly confused. 
 
 "I know it was — unusual for me to stay out late, 
 but papa would have been kind." 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 Dr. Garnett came from his room. He asked 
 whether breakfast was ready, saying that he needed 
 to be off as soon as practicable. Then the three 
 gathered around the table and Dr. Garnett spoke 
 of a faculty meeting that he had attended the pre- 
 vious evening. He looked sharply at Frances. 
 
 "You look pale, child." 
 
 His voice was very kind, and Frances felt like 
 crying. 
 
 "I'm not very well, papa." 
 
 "I think it Is merely the heat," he said. "It has 
 been very trying. Keep as still as possible." 
 
 He kissed her and her mother, lit a cigar and 
 hurried off. 
 
48 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 Frances felt a tightening in her throat. The 
 punishment was at hand. She saw a gleam of un- 
 usual intelligence in her mother's eyes. 
 
 "I think I know what kept you out, Fanny, and 
 it's hard to have a new anxiety added to all I bear. 
 ^Do you know what's going to be the end of this? 
 Just shame and misery, shame and misery I But I 
 don't want to see you turned out of the house, and 
 men can be so hard, so hard!" 
 
 "Papa would never desert me," Frances pro- 
 tested. 
 
 Mrs. Garnett broke down. The difficult tears of 
 age rolled grotesquely down her shrivelled cheeks. 
 
 "Hasn't your father kept us in poverty and dirt 
 all these years on account of what he calls his con- 
 victions? Don't you know that he might be rich 
 and well known to-day but for his stubborn ideas? 
 He has sacrificed us to them, and he thinks we 
 ought to bear it all without complaining. He is 
 hard, hard!" 
 
 "I have never found him so." 
 
 "Do you think I am telling you what is untrue?" 
 
 "No, mamma, no." 
 
 "When we were first married I used to complain 
 of many things, because, you see, we were even 
 poorer then than now. He would not listen to me. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 49 
 
 He used to say: *We don't need to be respectable, 
 only self-respecting.' That's a man's Idea !" Her 
 voice rose in shrill contempt. "So I stopped talk- 
 ing and Vm a miserable drudge in my old age. I 
 was as pretty and as fresh-looking as you are. He 
 never noticed how my face got wrinkled ; he never 
 cared whether my hands were burned at the stove 
 or callous with sweeping. He remained true to 
 his convictions. Oh, my God, how I hate that 
 word I I tell you, men have no pity, no regard for 
 others, and if he thought that you had wantonly 
 dishonoured yourself and him, he would turn you 
 out into the street!" 
 
 She laid her grey head upon the table in an 
 agony of bitter sobs. Her whole being had been 
 set on worldly splendour; she had no other inter- 
 ests, no other hopes, and she had married an eccen- 
 tric man of science, whose every thought and ambl^ 
 tion thwarted hers. Frances put her arms over 
 the shaking shoulders and the two women wept 
 together over the pitilessness of life. 
 
 "Dear mamma, I promise you I'll take care of 
 myself. Don't cry so, dear, don't cry." 
 
 Mrs. Garnett got up. She had dried her tears 
 with a corner of her apron and started towards the 
 
50 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 kitchen. At the door of the room she turned back 
 and looked upon Frances, not without tenderness. 
 
 "Believe me, Fanny, it's useless to struggle. I 
 have no time to think things out and Fm not clever, 
 I suppose, but life is stronger than we are — al- 
 ways." 
 
 Frances went about wiping dust from the fur- 
 nishings. They looked so forlorn in their shabbi- 
 ness that it seemed almost merciful to let the grey 
 film be their covering. This thought, she knew, 
 would never have occurred to her mother, who 
 wandered continually from room to room, drawing 
 her finger over wood or plush to see whether a dust- 
 mark would remain. At first the girl's movements 
 were of nervous energy and eager haste; but when 
 she came to the window-sill, and, leaning out, saw 
 the tall poplars on Morningside Heights tremble 
 and sway in the wind, the dust-cloth fell from her 
 hand, she slipped down on her knees and rested her 
 forehead against the wooden ledge. Beyond those 
 fragile, swaying trees, under that blue sky which 
 seemed to grow wan and far above the crowded 
 city streets, beyond those airy heights, there flowed 
 the broad, fair river, there the breezes blew light 
 and fine, there she had known a dear and imper- 
 ishable hour. It was over, of course, as she might 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 51 
 
 have known. What gracious thing had ever come 
 into her life? A hot regret burned in her heart, a 
 fierce and indomitable Will to Live. She recog- 
 nised the violence of her emotions and tried to 
 pray. But no sense of peace entered her soul, 
 rather a stern and forbidding vision. She thought 
 of the Saviour, not in His human and appealing 
 guise, walking with poor and simple folk upon the 
 Galilean hills, but as she had seen Him pictured in 
 some ancient German wood-cut, pallid, emaciated, 
 crowned with thorns, but in His eyes a se- 
 verity born of other worlds, upon His lips a cry of 
 woe upon the sins of earth and the flesh and a com- 
 mand to renounce, to abandon, to follow over dark, 
 unhuman paths into a sunless realm of peace ! To 
 Frances' fevered mind the vision was real and al- 
 most palpable. Revolt surged up in her. She did 
 not want to renounce, to die unto the world, but 
 to live, to enjoy, to love. Into her heart floated 
 the luring sweetness of those lines : 
 
 "But surely it is something to have been 
 The best-beloved for a little while . . .** 
 
 and the tension of her nerves relaxed. She wanted 
 to lie down in tall, cool grasses, under a sunny sky, 
 
52 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 to be kissed and crooned over and to wreathe the 
 poppled flowers of the field In her hair. 
 
 She had kneeled by the window so long that her 
 knees began to ache violently. She became aware 
 of the pain, little by little, and got up lamely. The 
 fervour had left her. There was nothing to do, 
 nothing to hope. Hour crept after weary hour in 
 barren desolation. She tried to read, but books 
 seemed faint and inadequate after the poignant liv- 
 ing of the last few weeks. No words could ever 
 render for her again the extreme sweetness of love 
 or the full bitterness of life. At last the day faded 
 into evening and evening into night. Dr. Garnett 
 was once more detained down-town, and Frances 
 went early to bed. 
 
 Towards noon of the next day she saw Ware 
 slowly pacing before the house. The sight of him 
 was like an imperious call — irresistibly strong. She 
 put on her hat with such trembling fingers that the 
 long bodkin pierced her skin. But she scarcely felt 
 the pain, and was downstairs and beside him in a 
 moment. He seemed gloomy and ill at ease. 
 
 "I was debating," he said, ^'whether to come to 
 you." 
 
 "You should not come unless you care — really." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 53 
 
 "Oh, I care. God only knows how much. But 
 what is to be the end of all this? I cannot ever — " 
 
 She interrupted him with energy. 
 
 "If you knew, if you only knew how it sickens 
 me to hear this constant weighing of consequences. 
 So far as I can see, everything in life leads to 
 wretchedness at last. We might as well take the 
 good things that come to us without so much anx- 
 iety. TheyVe few enough !" 
 
 He stopped abruptly, looking at her. 
 
 "Have you loved any man before me?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "And how old are you?" 
 
 "Twenty-four." 
 
 "Good heavens, child; where did you learn that 
 wretchedness is the end of all things?" 
 
 "At home, I suppose." 
 
 She pressed her hand to her bosom with a plain- 
 tive gesture. 
 
 "I'm so tired, Julian, so tired — ^not physically, I 
 mean, but at heart. Take me with you for a little 
 while. But I must be home in time for dinner. 
 Promise me that you'll let me go." 
 
 "I promise," he said gravely. 
 
 They passed on their way many bright and pol- 
 ished shop-windows, and Frances found herself 
 
54 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 frankly delighted with the neat wares displayed. 
 There was no shadow of desire In the pleasure she 
 could take In such things. She thought that she had 
 not been so simply happy for a long time. It was 
 surely quite Innocent, she told herself, to take a 
 walk with Julian In the clear day-light, and her life 
 was so empty of pleasures that It would be a mere 
 sullenness of asceticism to deny herself this one. 
 She laughed and talked gaily beyond her wont, and 
 crunched with her small, white teeth the confec- 
 tions that Julian bought her. But he would not 
 share her blltheness, and at last she grew discour- 
 aged. 
 
 "What Is It— dear?" 
 
 She used the word for the first time with tremu- 
 lous reluctance. 
 
 "Nothing, nothing, after all. ^Gather ye rose- 
 buds while ye may.' " 
 
 But long before It was necessary he turned back, 
 and Frances tortured herself with self-questionings. 
 Had she struck some discordant note In their rela- 
 tion? Had she done some subtle outrage to his 
 mood ? During the long hours It came to her grad- 
 ually how she had centred her life upon him and 
 the knowledge made her afraid. A storm of rain 
 rattled against her window and she was appalled at 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE SS 
 
 the prospect of a long, lonely day, during which 
 her nerves would twitch in horrible pain at every 
 ring of the door-bell. She was powerless to act 
 and must await his coming and his mood; she was 
 entering upon her heritage, the heritage of all 
 women, as literally now as in the folds of the pri- 
 maeval hills — ^waiting and sorrow. It was most 
 piteous to her to think of the weary eyelids, the 
 fevered hands, the impassioned hearts of all her 
 innumerable sisters who, in the endless ages, had 
 wept and waited. 
 
 Morning came, however, with a clean-washed 
 sky and a red splendour of autumnal sunshine. The 
 air was cool and clear and luminous, the very streets 
 seemed transfigured out of their sordid homeliness, 
 and Frances felt her mood change suddenly. On 
 so golden a day some delightful thing must surely 
 come to pass ; it was incredible that the world should 
 hold no bit of happiness for her, who, after all, 
 asked for so little! Nor was she disappointed. 
 Julian met her early. He seemed to have cast from 
 him some heavy burden, to have deliberately turned 
 his face to the light. 
 
 Upon this day and those which immediately fol- 
 lowed they were like two happy children. They 
 wandered through streets that seemed to theni of 
 
S6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 a delicious qualntness ; they came suddenly upon lit- 
 tle views of field or wood or river that enchanted 
 them with unexpected loveliness, and so seemed, in 
 some sweet and intimate way, to become their own. 
 Then they would drink tea in obscure and shabby 
 little baker-shops, and each of those places became 
 to them a home of romance and a haunting-place 
 of dreams. It was a time to them, not of rapture, 
 but of contentment. They tasted of the lighter and 
 more delicate poetry of love. He would put his 
 arm around her as she stood leaning over some 
 stone parapet, looking down upon the smiling river, 
 and just where her hair ended In a little wilder- 
 ness of curls kiss her warm, white neck. And then, 
 to punish him, she would drop his hat, which she 
 held in her hand, upon the sloping greensward of 
 the river-bank. They were like* two children whose 
 play was touched with passion. Fate kept her cruel 
 counsels upon these delicious afternoons; and they 
 themselves resolutely turned their faces from the 
 lurking beasts in the jungle of days to come. 
 
 At length the days grew chill and the dark 
 came early. It was no longer so pleasant to wan- 
 der aimlessly through street and park, and often 
 sharp showers overtook them. The choice of a 
 suitable shelter became increasingly difficult. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 57 
 
 Julian was fond of lounging In restaurants over 
 black coffee and cigarettes, but Frances felt some- 
 thing that weighed heavily upon her spirit In the 
 large, deserted restaurant halls of the afternoon 
 hours with a single, unkempt waiter, who shuffled 
 slowly about and watched them with sleepy eyes. 
 She began to wonder why, after all, she might not 
 ask Julian to visit her In her home, but since he did 
 not suggest such an action her natural reserve would 
 not permit her to speak of It. They drifted about 
 somewhat uneasily, until one afternoon Julian an- 
 nounced that they were going to an early vaude- 
 ville performance. Frances hesitatingly objected 
 to the publicity of a crowded theatre, but he as- 
 sured her that they would be nowhere eise more 
 entirely alone. 
 
 The theatre was dimly lit when they entered and 
 Frances had a haunting sense of the morbidness of 
 shutting oneself In with artificial light when the 
 clear day shone without. Thus the whole scene as- 
 sumed to her at once a subtle unreality. A close- 
 packed crowd surrounded them, and from It seemed 
 to pass an Infectious quiver of restless human 
 nerves. In order to avoid contact with a short, 
 red-haired man who sat at her left she had to press 
 close to Julian, so that they felt continually the 
 
58 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 troubling warmth of each other's bodies. Julian 
 bent down suddenly as If in search of something 
 and she felt his lips burnlngly upon her wrist. 
 When he raised his head the performance began. 
 So imperious had grown the excitement of her 
 senses that Frances saw the performers on the stage 
 through a dreamy film. She seemed to herself to 
 have passed Into a strange phantasmagoria 
 whence all life was excluded except the desires of 
 the body. Before her eyes flashed the white arms 
 and bosoms of the actresses. And every allusion In 
 song or monologue seemed to dwell with an In- 
 sistence, which at last became cruel, upon passionate 
 allurements. She felt hot and wretched and 
 ashamed. She wanted to tear herself loose from 
 all that, to escape Into the fresh and strengthening 
 air. 
 
 "Julian, Fm — ill. Please take me away." 
 
 He led her out and she saw with a great relief 
 the light of day at the far end of the entrance pas- 
 sage. 
 
 *'It was rather a bore, wasn't it?" he asked. 
 
 "It was dreadful!" 
 
 "Hardly that, dear; only quite ordinary and ab- 
 surd." 
 
 She told him that she preferred to go home at 
 
: THE BROKEN SNARE 59 
 
 once and rest and he consented wearily. There was 
 really no place for them to go and they parted al- 
 most coldly at her door. 
 
 When Frances went upstairs, nearly two hours 
 earlier than usual, she found her mother at ther 
 drawing-room window, wringing her hands in a dis- 
 tress that seemed not entirely sincere, but theatrical 
 and calculated. 
 
 "Why doesn't he ever come upstairs?" 
 
 Frances, taken unawares, flushed hotly. 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Has he asked you to marry him?" 
 
 "Mamma !" 
 
 "So he hasn't I Well, well, what then—?" 
 
 Mrs. Garnett laid her heavy hands on Frances' 
 shoulders. 
 
 "What then?" she cried. 
 
 Frances regarded her mother calmly. 
 
 "I warned you, but you went straight on. Now 
 youVe thrown yourself away on the first comer, 
 and what will it lead to ? Do you know where such 
 doings end ? In the streets — in the streets ! Oh, 
 my God, my God I" 
 
 "Not that, mamma, not that!" 
 
 A heavy silence fell upon the room. Only from 
 time to time resounded Mrs. Garnett's desperate 
 
6o THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 sobs which she seemed to tear from the roots of her 
 being with conscious violence. Frances' throat 
 seemed to burn like living fire. It seemed to her 
 as if she would never be able to speak again. Her 
 mother had brought before her with vivid brutality 
 the thoughts that she had put from her day after 
 day in order to secure for her soul a brief, if merci- 
 less, happiness. At last the silence grew so omi- 
 nous, the obscurity so deep, pierced only by a faint 
 yellow glare from a street-lamp far below, that 
 Frances could endure the tension no longer. 
 
 "Mamma, mamma, I swear to you, you are 
 wrong r* 
 
 Mrs. Gamett rose from the sofa on which she 
 had thrown herself. 
 
 "See that he marries you^ — and soon I Other- 
 wise — " 
 
 She spread out her hands with a last despairing 
 gesture and went out of the room. 
 
Mrs. Garnett carefully concealed from her 
 husband the attitude of almost Intolerable con- 
 straint in which she and her daughter lived. The 
 two women moved silently about the flat, involun- 
 tarily spying upon each other, and passionately 
 eager to detect, mood by mood, each other's 
 thoughts and emotions. In Dr. Garnett's presence, 
 at meals and during the few hours after dinner, 
 they played for his benefit, and by a silent compact, 
 a sufficiently adroit game of unbroken intimacy. 
 His coming was more than ever a relief to Frances. 
 During the long periods of his absence she felt as 
 if invisible fetters of dragging weight hung upon 
 all her limbs. Mrs. Garnett seemed to watch her 
 so closely that her most natural moods became con- 
 strained and awkward in their expression. She 
 strove to make her very breathing inaudible. It 
 was not that she was lacking in courage, but her 
 deep-seated social instinct taught her how really in- 
 defensible her position would be thought, and how 
 
 6i 
 
62 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 near she had actually been, at least once, to that ir- 
 revocable catastrophe which her mother had feared. 
 
 But she had hours of maddening intellectual con- 
 fusion, when all clarity of thought seemed to slip 
 from her, when It was not even necessary, as In the 
 days before, definitely to repulse a tendency to 
 weigh consequences — hours in which her soul and 
 her body cried out in agony after a new life, and 
 all that she had been taught as right and honourable 
 became to her, beyond measure, mean and repulsive. 
 She no longer felt the welghtiness of that inexorable 
 maxim of bourgeois poverty, that when a woman 
 has lost her chastity she has lost her whole life, 
 since she can retrieve herself neither by a bold Inde- 
 pendence of revolt nor by a marriage with another 
 man. These convictions that had impregnated the 
 very air she breathed became unreal and mere bar- 
 ren words. In the storm of her desires for love, 
 for light, for freedom — rectitude and piety, as she 
 had known them, floated afar, phantasmal delu- 
 sions, into the distance of dreams. 
 
 Out of this wrack rose luminous moments In 
 which she felt that a great change had been 
 wrought in her since she had known Ware. Deeply 
 as she had suffered before under the repressions of 
 her life, she had rarely doubted that these re- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 63 
 
 pressions were practised In the service of an essen- 
 tial righteousness. She had rebelled against a thou- 
 sand details of her life, against fate for placing her 
 amid such sordid and unhappy conditions. But 
 she had tacitly accepted the laws of that life as 
 binding. Ware had awakened In her all elemental 
 needs — all that Is crushed by reckless disregard in 
 middle-class society — and at the moment when she 
 had asked her father whether poverty means even 
 the denial of passion, she had begun to look, con- 
 sciously and tacitly, upon that as good which in 
 her class and station was the supreme evil. 
 
 Gradually, under the Influence of this recognition 
 of her changed attitude, the confusion of her mind 
 passed away. The whole process was rapid, since it 
 was merely a crystaHisatlon, under the stress of a 
 sudden recoil, of the fluid emotions of the past 
 weeks. She now felt with Impassioned anger the 
 wrong that life had done her and more and more 
 the troubling constraint that had oppressed her In 
 her mother's presence. Her mother had, to be 
 sure, been almost violently solicitous that she should 
 have decent apparel, that the dentist should look 
 after her teeth. But the very bread of life, without 
 which existence was a blunder and a shame — this 
 was denied her, except under a set of highly arti- 
 
64 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 ficial and not always attainable conditions. She 
 could have laughed In contempt of her past self, so 
 blind had been her desires, so unfortified by her 
 new sense of their sanity and justice. Nevertheless, 
 she intended that Julian should marry her, and at 
 the thought of his deep-rooted detestation of mar- 
 riage as an institution her heart ached sharply. 
 For a refusal on his part to marry her seemed to 
 her a complete denial of the love he professed. 
 Not for conventional reasons did she cling to the 
 traditional form of union. No; but were his love 
 real, must he not desire, above all things, to bind 
 her to him by all the most irrevocable vows, must 
 he not fear otherwise to lose her? Thus she Im- 
 puted to him her own feminine conception of love. 
 She desired ardently to possess and to be possessed 
 — wholly and forever. 
 
 For more than ten days she had not seen him. 
 First she had feared her mother's embittered 
 violence, and after that a deep sense had restrained 
 her that her struggle must be over before she could 
 see him again, deeply as she yearned for his sight 
 and touch ; that she must wait until she had wrought 
 from the turmoil of her soul some abiding clarity. 
 She could not quite account for this to herself, nor 
 for her reticence In the notes which, at his request. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 65 
 
 she wrote him. His own letters were ardent and beau- 
 tiful, but often ended with a harsh discord. And she 
 connected these discords with that rough change 
 of temper which she had noted in him, those sudden 
 outbursts of what was almost discourtesy, and for 
 the sake of which, strangely enough, she loved him 
 the more dearly. Her soul loved him because he 
 was often depressed ; even when he was violent and 
 harsh. She never resented these things, but in her 
 inviolable womanliness was exquisitely sorry for 
 him. 
 
 At last she could bear this separation no longer. 
 She determined, however, with childlike joy and, 
 for the time, complete unconsciousness of the signifi- 
 cance of such a step, to surprise him by visiting him 
 in his bachelor apartment. The superficial uncon- 
 ventionality of the step — for this, though this 
 alone, she recognised clearly — made it seem, in her 
 present mood, only the more attractive. She 
 dressed herself carefully in a close-fitting blue frock 
 and a coquettish little hat of the same colour. The 
 heavy strands of her brown hair were loosely 
 knotted at the back of her neck. She liked it best 
 so. 
 
 She had not a far distance to go, but the way be- 
 came strangely difficult. It seemed to her that all 
 
66 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 eyes must be upon her, and that the very loungers 
 before the corner barrooms on Eighth Avenue 
 laughed without mirth In suspicion of her unconven- 
 tional errand. She tried to fortify herself against 
 such folly ; but, little by little, something of her first 
 adventurous gladness passed away and she walked 
 the last block almost in fear. 
 
 It was with extreme difficulty and in a voice 
 hardly audible that she requested the pert mulatto 
 in the entrance hall to telephone upstairs and find 
 out whether Mr. Ware was at home. The answer 
 came that he was, and she was carried up in the lift 
 so rapidly that, for a moment, all things swam be- 
 fore her eyes. 
 
 Julian met her on the landing. He looked at 
 once grave and troubled. He took her into his lit- 
 tle drawing-room, furnished and decorated in rich 
 tones of golden brown and lined with book-shelves 
 to the ceiling. She held up her face to him timidly, 
 but he seemed not to notice it Then he turned to 
 her almost savagely. 
 
 "Frances, why did you come here?" 
 
 "To surprise you. I thought you would be glad 
 — ^yes, glad to see me." 
 
 Her voice was plaintive, but it seemed not to 
 touch him. His own was cold and monotonous. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE '67 
 
 "I do not know," he said, "whether to think of 
 you as very subtle or quite unsophisticated. Let 
 me explain, however. You are what the news- 
 papers would call a young lady of unblemished 
 reputation. By coming here you compromise your- 
 self very definitely. But that Is not all — you com- 
 promise yourself for my sake." 
 
 Frances grasped clearly, for a moment, the mon- 
 strous accusation of his words. Then the room be- 
 gan to wheel around and she fell Into a chair. She 
 closed her eyes and felt her senses adjusting them- 
 selves again. She saw Julian walk up and down 
 before her. 
 
 "I am quite conscious of the fact," he continued, 
 ''that what I say sounds Inexcusably caddish. But 
 society pushes off the whole ethical responsibility 
 upon me. It can be assumed by me only If I marry 
 you. Hence your coming here resolves itself into a 
 conscious or unconscious attempt to force me to 
 marry you. And I cannot render my love for you 
 official and Philistine ; I cannot enter upon a round 
 of hideous and vulgar domesticities, and I cannot 
 and will not perjure my soul with that monstrous 
 and Impossible oath to love you forever. I love 
 you now : whether I will love you in ten years' time 
 I do not know. No man can know of such things, 
 
68 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 and no woman, either. Half the misery in the 
 world springs from this contemptible folly of think- 
 ing that the finest and most evanescent emotions are 
 as definite and unchanging as a cobbler's last." 
 
 He stopped In his walk and looked upon her. 
 She was leaning back In the chair, her head slightly 
 lifted. Her face was pale and blue rings had gath- 
 ered under her eyes. Her beautiful hands lay 
 wearily upon the arms of the chair. Julian came to 
 her and knelt down beside her. 
 
 "Dear," he said, "I wish I were different — for 
 your sake. But this thing is stronger than I. It 
 has grown with my growth; it has strengthened 
 with my strength. I have seen. . . ." He held 
 his hand before his eyes as If to shut out the vis- 
 ible world and concentrate his soul upon visions 
 within. Then he spoke again in a voice that was 
 dry and even — a voice of colourless monotony, con- 
 scious of the fact that no emphasis would be ade- 
 quate to mark the intensity of the emotions in- 
 volved. "I have never told you about my father. 
 He was a good man — gentle and strong and wise, 
 a fine and distinct individuality. My own mother 
 died early, and to him I owe all I am, all I shall 
 ever be that is of good report. In his quiet, re- 
 strained way he cared deeply for the best things in 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 69 
 
 life and in literature and he taught me to care. We 
 lived in comparative loneliness — apparently — ^but 
 we had with us in constant companionship the 
 voices of the enduring dead." He arose and 
 walked to the other end of the room. There he 
 stood, facing her, and went on. "When I was six- 
 teen my father married again. Just how it came 
 about I hardly know. We couldn't talk intimately — 
 he and I — afterward. The woman was handsome, 
 adroit from the world's point of view — even, God 
 help me, good-natured. They came back from a 
 brief wedding-journey and she began ... to set 
 the house in order. The thing came upon my 
 father unexpectedly, dazing him for a while. Then 
 he arose in wrath and resisted . . . with his whole 
 soul . . . with every nerve 1 But her legal rights 
 were established ; she was in possession. The woman 
 declared our modest income beggarly; she wanted 
 to put my father in harness. She broke in upon 
 his quiet hours of work and brooding ; she laughed 
 at his scholarly repute. In society, in his presence, 
 she spoke with a faint smile: *Bookwormsl My 
 dear, don't marry a bookworm.' She dragged him 
 to routs and balls. He resisted, I have told you. 
 How did that help him? The very effort to resist 
 jarred his senses, destroyed his mood, slew the 
 
70 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 higher faculties of his soul. He had no redress — 
 none. Of what could he accuse her? His wrongs 
 were of a subtlety that defied words — such words, 
 above all, as might reach the coarse ears of the 
 law. And so the battle went on, day after day, 
 week after week, year after year. Gradually his 
 habits were broken, his friends alienated, his work 
 destroyed. Gradually, under the pressure of that 
 intolerable persistence, he became old and had hours 
 of weakness — ^weakness so utter that I have seen 
 my father, whom I loved, cower . . . cower be- 
 fore the distant sound of a woman's voice, to whom 
 a perverse law had tacitly given the right to rend, to 
 destroy, to crush. He had, to the last, his moments 
 of strength, when he fought for his ideals, for his 
 failing work, for his mode of life. But he was not 
 meant for such a conflict. It killed him. And the 
 woman — the woman stood beside that grave in her 
 impenetrable worldliness: Toor Mr. Ware! He 
 Iwas a good man, but so impractical — so unambi- 
 tious!'" Julian clenched his hands. "She had the 
 right ; he was powerless. But I swore by his grave 
 that I would never give a woman that right; not 
 the best, not the noblest. If ever I know a moment 
 of relenting I see that grave and I remember that 
 hour when I saw my dear father — whom I knew 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 71 
 
 in his vigour — shrink with fear and a horror of re- 
 pulsion in his eyes at the coming of a footfall and 
 the sound of a voice I" 
 
 Once more he came to her, took her cold hands 
 and pressed them against his cheek and forehead. 
 She looked at him and saw the fire of those evil 
 memories burning in his eyes. And suddenly she 
 wondered vaguely what her own father would have 
 been if her mother had added to desires the 
 strength of will to carry them into action. Yes, 
 she understood what he felt. But should not his 
 love tell him that she was different . . . different? 
 Could he believe evil of her? The bitterness of 
 this thought rang in her speech. 
 
 "And should you grow tired of me, should I dis- 
 appoint you, as I might, what would become of 
 me?" 
 
 He let her hands go abruptly. An angry redness 
 mounted into his forehead. 
 
 "Ah, that is just the attitude I hate — the ineradi- 
 cable smallness of woman. Are we not in precisely 
 the same position ? Can you mortgage your very soul 
 any more than I ? If you were to cease to love me 
 first, though it broke my heart and ruined my life,. 
 I would not inflict myself upon you. I would leave 
 
72 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 you free to be happy. But no woman has that mag- 
 nanimity!" 
 
 She flashed out for the first time. 
 
 "It is not magnanimity; it is heartlessness. No 
 woman who truly loves a man would desert him. 
 She would sacrifice herself for him to the very point 
 of death!" 
 
 "But if he has ceased to love her he does not 
 want her life — he wants his own." 
 
 "You do not understand." 
 
 "Only too well. I have seen it ! Your love is 
 merciless, your fidelity is implacable and your very 
 unselfishness enslaves !" 
 
 She arose and stood before him, white and ap- 
 parently calm. 
 
 "I am not concerned that you should marry me 
 for conventional reasons. My life has not been 
 very happy, and I might have borne shame and dis- 
 grace even — for the sake of love ! But I am right; 
 you do not love me." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because your only thought seems to be how — 
 some day — to rid yourself of me." 
 
 "Frances, you are utterly unjust; it is a principle 
 I fight for, a deep conviction." 
 
 She seemed to hear her poor mother's broken 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 73 
 
 voice : "But he remained true to his convictions 1 
 My God, how I hate that word!" She felt as if 
 in the man before her some incomprehensible and 
 sinister force was trying tO' crush and destroy her. 
 
 "I don't understand," she said; "I don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 Then, slowly, she arose to go. He came nearer 
 to her and nearer, and she let him put his arms 
 about her. His lips sought hers and she could not 
 resist. He kissed her eyes, her forehead, her hair. 
 
 "Dearest," he said, "you cannot go from me in 
 anger. Can you not trust yourself to me without 
 understanding?'* 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "No — if only you loved me; if only you loved 
 me . . .1 Now all my struggle has been for noth- 
 ing." 
 
 "I love you," he said firmly, "more than I should 
 have thought possible. When you want me you 
 shall find me at your bidding." 
 
 She freed herself gently from his grasp. 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye," he answered, and his voice shook. 
 
 They went into the hall and he rang the electric 
 bell for the lift. While it was coming up it seemed 
 to her that she saw in his eyes a plea for forgive- 
 
74 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 ness, but she was dazed and worn out and stepped 
 into the iron cage without a word. In a moment 
 his face had disappeared. 
 
 The immense recuperative power of her youth 
 abandoned her for almost the first time. Hitherto 
 every disappointment had been accompanied by an 
 immediate resurgence of the brighter forces of her 
 soul, by a swift and involuntary struggle to read- 
 just her spiritual vision to the new aspect of life 
 and draw therefrom a better consolation. To-day, 
 upon the windy, autumnal streets, she felt only the 
 dull ache of utter defeat. She watched, with a 
 strange curiosity, for that thin flame of hope to 
 flicker, swiftly at first and tremulously, in her 
 heart. All within her was dark and silent. But 
 her physical sight seemed suddenly to have gained 
 an acuteness that was akin to pain. The familiar 
 details of the street scene on Eighth Avenue stood 
 out with an unnatural clarity. Gradually one 
 street-lamp after another burst through the gather- 
 ing dusk, and with an instinctive sense of the pass- 
 ing of time Frances turned Into a street that led 
 to Manhattan Avenue. She passed a flaring saloon 
 in the corner house and, through the half-open 
 swing-door, saw a woman sitting at a small table. 
 The woman was dressed in a stiff gown of yellow 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 75 
 
 silk ; her short, crimped hair was of the same sharp, 
 yellow hue, and her eyes seemed to Frances of the 
 colour and hardness of amber. The sight fasci- 
 nated her. It was of an evil gorgeousness, and to 
 stare at It seemed to take her out'of herself. But 
 the woman saw her and, laughing, came to the 
 door. Frances fled down the darker street with a 
 new and overwhelming sense of her strange posi- 
 tion. It came over her now with startling clearness. 
 She had given up for the sake of love the measure 
 of peace that had made her old life endurable, and 
 had given It up in vain. 
 
 One thing was certain: she could not, at home, 
 explain the real state of affairs. And this thought 
 burned and hammered In her brain : he did not love 
 her. Something In his eyes, something In his touch, 
 of a great tenderness for her and a deep reverence 
 — these Impressions were graven upon her mind. 
 But they were, to her way of thinking, utterly and 
 shamefully belied by his words. He wanted her 
 for a little while, and then would turn from her, 
 and her face burned with shame at the thought. 
 No; she could not explain. And since no possible 
 explanation could convey the precise aspect of the 
 truth, she reasoned that an utterly false one would 
 really not be half so Immoral. She tried, with f ev- 
 
76 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 erish anxiety, to frame a story, but failed. She 
 could hardly loiter before the door to think of a 
 plausible way by which to cover all the facts of 
 her behaviour. And so she went slowly upstairs. 
 
 Mrs. Garnett, as was usual at this hour, pottered 
 about the kitchen. Frances^ with a sudden reckless 
 inspiration, called to her mother. At all costs she 
 must guard against questioning and discussion. 
 
 "Mamma," she said, "Mr. Ware asked me to 
 marry him this afternoon — and I refused." 
 
 Mrs. Garnett's face became a crumpled mask of 
 horror and surprise. 
 
 "Oh, you fool!" she cried. "You fool!" 
 
 "I don*t believe," Frances continued, "that he 
 really loves me. And I am quite sure now that I 
 do not love him. We shall not see each other 
 again." 
 
 Mrs. Garnett sat down and wrapped her apron 
 over her wet hands. 
 
 "Very well," she said wearily. "You might have 
 been rich and happy. Mr. Ware is a gentleman 
 and a man of means. You will regret your foolish 
 sentimentality to the last day of your life. But 
 IVe got to go back and get your father's dinner." 
 
 Frances went Into her room and sat down. It 
 hurt her fearfully now that she had lied so directly 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 77 
 
 and unblushingly. But what could she have done ? 
 A sense came to her of the stark poverty of the 
 means of human communication, of the clumsiness 
 and hardness of words. By what possible combi- 
 nation of them could she have told her mother the 
 truth — Julian's apparent love and his strange re- 
 fusal to marry her, and, stranger than all, his rea- 
 sons for his refusal ? She wept softly at last, pity- 
 ing herself that she had not a single friend, no soul 
 so close to her own that she could really speak. 
 God seemed terribly far away and unreal, and, as 
 often before, she thought with a warming of the 
 heart of the veiled confessionals that she had seen 
 in Catholic churches. But to her all sources of con- 
 solation were mercilessly closed. 
 
VI 
 
 September mornings came In with thick, milky 
 mists. Then winds arose and swept the mists sea- 
 ward and the wistful sweetness of Autumn hovered 
 over the city. The soft grey of the sky was heavy 
 with rain that rarely fell. From Mornlngside 
 Park the children, the visitants of summer, had dis- 
 appeared, and standing alone here upon some climb- 
 ing path of the hillside, Frances felt swathed in 
 elemental silence. Sometimes she would sit on a 
 bench and by her absolute quiescence lure the shy, 
 grey squirrels from their dripping coverts. She 
 watched their bright, black eyes and trembling lit- 
 tle snouts as they ventured nearer and nearer, com- 
 ing, for a moment scarce perceptible, to sniff deli- 
 cately her boot or skirt. One little fellow, bolder 
 than the others, would perch, for some delicious 
 seconds, on her shoulder, and brush her ear and 
 neck with his soft fur. After that she brought bags 
 of delectable peanuts for her pets, and it was a 
 strange enough sight: the pale, red-lipped girl, her 
 
 7» 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 79 
 
 brown hair sparkling with tiny, gemlike drops of 
 moisture, alone in the autumnal woodland, and 
 about her the troops of darting squirrels. She 
 loved this retreat, for it became to her a bourne of 
 forgetfulness. Here she could sit for hours and 
 let her thoughts wave indolently about simple and 
 natural things and not a sight or sound of the diffi- 
 cult world come to mar her peace. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Garnett, secure of the girl's truthfulness, 
 did not interfere with her walks In the near park. 
 But the hours consumed by these were, after all, 
 few, and the mornings and evenings seemed often 
 intolerably long. With a deep sense of the Im- 
 mense futility of life, Frances listlessly abandoned 
 her music and her former studies. At times, In- 
 deed, she almost hated the arts, for were they not 
 clamourous of life? The splendour of passion, the 
 rapture of wine, the adventurousness of dim sails 
 over the rim of the revolving earth — ^what had she 
 to do with these? She pondered over the exceed- 
 ing strangeness of the fate by which she had lost 
 her hold upon the bright realities of life, but she 
 could not unravel the inextricable strands. Being 
 a woman, and of little worldly experience, she could 
 not divine the nature of the motive that drove 
 Julian to words and acts of seeming ruthlessness. 
 
8o THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 What, after all, could she know of that passion for 
 independence, that fear, rising at times to the point 
 of madness, that a woman might destroy his single- 
 minded devotion to the ambitions that floated be- 
 fore him, might retard the fruits of his slow ma- 
 turity? He had told her, often enough, of how he 
 wore his heart out over the things he was trying 
 to write, and she had listened with intelligent in- 
 terest. She did not know that these halting at- 
 tempts which he would never show her were the 
 Imperious rivals of his love. She brooded over 
 that last scene with him. She felt the genuineness 
 of his convictions — their genuineness; against their 
 truth she rebelled. But in solemn hours of the 
 night she confessed to her soul that she still loved 
 him, and that nothing could cast him from her 
 heart. 
 
 Her father's keen, blue eyes would often dwell 
 upon her. He had never referred to their one 
 frank discussion, and his various preoccupations 
 made dim to his sight the conditions of his own 
 home. But she was pale and listless and he was 
 profoundly concerned for her. He would even re- 
 turn somewhat earlier In the evening In order to be 
 with her, for he knew that his wife had no Intellec- 
 tual resources. But Frances often found it difficult 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 8i 
 
 to respond to his efforts. Her thoughts were with 
 her heart and that was far away. 
 
 At last one evening he broke the essential silence 
 which surged over and beneath all their superficial 
 talk. 
 
 "Frances, I believe you should have some di- 
 versions. I've never thought of it until recently, 
 but I find it strange that you have no friends of 
 your own sex and age." 
 
 "Don't you really know why, papa?" 
 
 "How should I?" 
 
 'Well, you and mamma denied yourselves many 
 things to send me to an expensive school, and all 
 the girls I knew there are either married or busy 
 with sport and society. They have no time for one 
 who does not and cannot share their interests." 
 
 Dr. Garnett frowned heavily. 
 
 "You know we acted for the best, my child." 
 
 "Of course I know it." 
 
 A shadow passed into his bright blue eyes. Any 
 defection from duty, however unconscious, was a 
 terrible thing to him. 
 
 "If only our income were a little larger," he 
 said. "But it is too late in the day to consider that. 
 I could not make any real change In your life with- 
 
82 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 out sacrificing a portion of my life insurance, and 
 that is out of the question." 
 
 "Quite," answered Frances, wearily. 
 
 A few days later he came home with an unusual 
 eagerness in his manner. 
 
 "Fanny, I was introduced to Allendale, the 
 painter, at luncheon to-day. He invited me to his 
 Wednesday afternoon receptions and I told him I 
 would send my daughter instead. Do go. I am not 
 sure that the atmosphere there is quite desirable. 
 But you are old enough not to be influenced. You 
 may meet some Interesting people. And, yes, I 
 wanted to ask you: did Ware ever call? I quite 
 lost sight of him, and I thought at one time he 
 would be a pleasant friend for you." 
 
 "He never called, papa." 
 
 She was overwhelmed with the consciousness of 
 the insinuated lie. And her father was so eagerly, 
 if not skilfully, kind and thoughtful. She believed 
 that, at this moment, she might confess to him. If 
 only her voice would not tremble so. 
 
 "Papa—" 
 
 "My dear child, don't tell me you're not going. 
 Your vitality seems low, and vigourous contact 
 with people will be the best thing for you. You need 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 83 
 
 not be diffident. Allendale's functions are quite In- 
 formal, and you can wear a street-suit." 
 
 Frances went to her room appalled at the small 
 perversities of fate. . . . 
 
 On Wednesday afternoon Frances set out upon 
 her quest. It was distinctly that; since Allendale 
 lived in some far, green corner of the tangled 
 Bronx. She did not promise herself any extraordi- 
 nary pleasure from the afternoon, for It seemed to 
 her that In social diversions, as In nearly all things, 
 there must be, for full enjoyment, an element of 
 the habitual. This excursion was to her an event 
 so isolated that she would be. In comparison to the 
 other guests, at an Immense, though not easily de- 
 finable disadvantage. She would know, though 
 no one else might suspect It, that she had merely 
 emerged, for the briefest space, from the drab 
 waste of her life, to sink again at once. Was it 
 worth while, then, to have a fleeting glance at a 
 world, perhaps desirable, from which, after all, 
 she would be excluded ? Her motive In going was 
 simply not to render quite futile her father's kindly 
 efforts. 
 
 Wearied by her long ride in the underground 
 railroad, she was glad, on leaving it at West Farms, 
 of the large visible stretch of sky and the country- 
 
84 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 like air of the place. She discovered presently that 
 a tall, old mansion of wood, devoid of paint, but 
 with an ample portico, was Mr. Allendale's. The 
 house stood alone upon a little hill which Frances 
 ascended by way of a foot-path hardly distinguish- 
 able among the reeds and bushes. There was no 
 bell at the door, which stood open. But Frances, 
 with eyes fresh from the sun, could distinguish 
 nothing In the strangely fragrant gloom within. 
 Disheartened by sudden diffidence, she thought of 
 going away, when, apparently from nowhere, came 
 a small, fat, blond man with both hands stretched 
 out In unctuous greeting. 
 
 "This surely Is Miss GarnettI I know the 
 faithful who gather about me, and you are not one 
 of them. Thus I recognised you. But you will be 
 of us, I trust." 
 
 He was, she thought, excessively blond and fat, 
 and his body seemed to be bloodless. His wide 
 mouth writhed in the superabundant fullness of his 
 face. He took her hand with odious familiarity 
 and led her within. 
 
 All the Inner partitions of the house had been 
 removed, and the shell had become one large hall. 
 All the windows were thickly draped, and the con- 
 sequent darkness was lit only by tiny crimson lamps 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 85 
 
 that shed a flicker from deep niches In the wall. 
 Where the red light fell, long divans could be 
 faintly discerned and wooden stools In the grotesque 
 forms of fabled monsters. Long, narrow pictures 
 stood on easels near a few of the lamps — ^portraits 
 of women with cruel eyes, voluptuous lips and thin, 
 wasted breasts. Wherever one turned, smoulder- 
 ing joss-sticks sent forth delicate spirals of pale blue 
 smoke that hung with sickening heaviness upon the 
 air. And amid this astonishing farrago of Orien- 
 talism and decadence, clinked. If one approached 
 them too nearly, rusty suits of armour, helmets and 
 breast-plates. Allendale led Frances to a divan and 
 sat down beside her. When he spoke he attempted 
 to modulate his voice to a soft. Insistent music and 
 his enunciation was deliberate to the point of gro- 
 tesqueness. 
 
 *'You are early," he said; "and that is well. I 
 must tell you that so soon as your father mentioned 
 you, I was conscious of a mysterious sympathy be- 
 tween us. One must not search Into these Inscru- 
 table phenomena, but dwell In them with faith." 
 
 He pressed her hand and seemed not to notice 
 her silence. 
 
 "This house, as you perceive," he went on, "I 
 have transformed Into a real dwelling-place, have 
 
86 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 shaped It to the needs of my spirit. I am so glad, 
 so glad you have come. But now I must be ready 
 for my other guests. Will you come with me ?'^ 
 
 He preceded her to a huge screen, turned Its 
 comer, and here In the sudden and apparently fierce 
 Illumination of an undraped window, Frances saw 
 a small, thin woman with bright red hair. She 
 wore a gown of black which seemed to consist al- 
 most entirely of open-work, so that the woman's 
 pale, thin arms and flat bosom were horridly visible. 
 At a second glance, It was clear that she was the 
 model of the strangely voluptuous portraits under 
 the crimson lamps. 
 
 "This,'' Allendale murmured, with his softest In- 
 tonation, "this is Miss Bertram. We have elected, 
 for a space, to unite our lives. Valeria, this Is Miss 
 Frances Garnett." 
 
 Although her thoughts had In the past weeks 
 dwelt with a serious liberality upon the question of 
 marriage, Frances was appalled at this utter frank- 
 ness. She was not sure that she would not have 
 called It shamelessness and have been proud of this 
 conceivably bourgeois attitude. She was entirely 
 at a loss for words at this moment. 
 
 "Is not he wonderful?" Miss Bertram asked. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 87 
 
 "Allendale. Is not he very, very wonderful?" 
 
 Frances wanted to laugh, but she looked into 
 green eyes so solemn that she refrained. 
 
 "I have hardly known him long enough to de- 
 cide," she said, with a smile. 
 
 "He Is wonderful," repeated the woman in 
 black, and her thin bosom laboured, "but also ter- 
 rible. Strange things have gone to his making, 
 strange things. . . ." 
 
 Beyond the screen arose a hum of conversation, 
 and Miss Bertram, taking Frances by the arm with 
 her claw-like hand, led her into the soft darkness 
 of the main hall. 
 
 About thirty people seemed to have gathered 
 there, and as Frances' eyes became accustomed to 
 the gloom and began to distinguish individuals, a 
 shudder passed over her. It may have been the 
 weird and faint illumination, it may have been be- 
 cause some of the women had thrown about them 
 gaudy Oriental robes picked from a huge heap of 
 drapery upon the floor, but it seemed to her as if 
 she had entered an Inferno, where dwelt behind 
 pallid and evil faces all the corroding passions of 
 man. Allendale again took her by the hand and 
 led her to a group of women. One of them, a 
 deformed dwarf, who had on a gown of stiff sky- 
 
88 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 blue satin, began to chatter to Frances. It appeared 
 that she edited a sheet — evidently rather scandalous 
 in its nature — and wanted to know whether Frances 
 practised any distinguishing art or vice that would 
 justify a notice. Disappointed in this hope, she hur- 
 ried unceremoniously away, and Frances remained 
 alone upon her divan, watching this motley crew. 
 
 All vital forces seemed suddenly to leave her 
 as, to her vision. Ware's broad figure detached it- 
 self from a crowd of men that stood before one of 
 the paintings. Her lids, dry and hot, burned her 
 eye-balls as she looked away. Then, as swiftly as 
 the sudden weakness, a wave of gladness and tremu- 
 lous love rolled over her. She had not known how 
 much she loved him, how inexorably he was to her 
 the one centre and reason of life. In the sudden 
 joy of finding him so unexpectedly she could have 
 gone to him, there before all those hideous crea- 
 tures, and put her arms around him. 
 
 For some breathless minutes he wandered about 
 with a faintly ironical smile. The smile flickered 
 out abruptly as he perceived her. 
 
 "May I sit here?" he asked. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 He took possession of her at once in the strong 
 way she loved. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 89 
 
 "How did you get here?" 
 
 "Papa met Mr. Allendale, and so — " 
 
 "And are you enjoying it?" he broke in. 
 
 "No; there is something repulsive about Mr. 
 Allendale and his house and his guests — something 
 that chokes and smothers. You know Miss 
 Bertram?" 
 
 "The Corpse?" 
 
 "Don't," she protested. 
 
 "That IS her nickname. Allendale, whose nam.e, 
 by the way, is O'Hagan, being so nastily fat him- 
 self, has a lust for living skeletons." 
 
 She blushed a little at his drastic expression. 
 
 "Forgive me, dear," he said, "but, in regard to 
 these people, one loses one's sweet reasonableness." 
 
 "Sweet reasonableness is never your most shining 
 quality. But I thought you had rather a taste for 
 decadence?" 
 
 "Decadence! decadence! Open the windows, 
 throw out these tawdry rags, and you have left a 
 crowd of Philistines with all their common and dis- 
 reputable vices; true freedom of action does not 
 need red lamps and joss-sticks. A defiance of law 
 that Is not Ignoble does not need sickly sentiment 
 or pinchbeck mysticism." 
 
 "Then why do you come here?" 
 
90 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "I go about a good deal In these days, no matter 
 where. I go about — to forget. Fm weary for 
 you, sweetheart." 
 
 "Truly?" 
 
 "Really and truly," he laughed. 
 
 The blue smoke of the joss-sticks now made the 
 atmosphere stifling and the monotonous din of con- 
 versation seemed to hurt the nerves. 
 
 "If I stay here much longer," said Julian, "I'll 
 have a headache. Won't you come with me? 
 Won't you?" 
 
 The dear old lyric Intonation soared In his voice. 
 
 "I'll come I" 
 
 Allendale was slimlly voluble as they took leave 
 of him. He regarded them with a sympathy and 
 approval that were insulting. 
 
 "Listen to me," said Ware. "I've had the honour 
 of Miss Gamett's acquaintance for some time. She 
 permits me, therefore, to accompany her on the way 
 back. Understand?" 
 
 "But thoroughly, my dear Julian. How should 
 I not?" 
 
 Julian turned Impatiently away. 
 
 "What's the use of being annoyed by the crea- 
 ture? Let's go." 
 
 They did not realise how long they had been In 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 91 
 
 the house. But when they slipped Into the open It 
 was dark and the sky was full of stars. The streets 
 and fields about them were very still. A blithe wind 
 blew under the stars, and Frances breathed freely 
 once more, amid these sane and beautiful and last- 
 ing things. Julian seemed to her, at this moment, 
 at one with them in his temper and influence. He, 
 too, to her, was strong and sane and comely. In 
 her sensitive reaction against the dim atmosphere, 
 as of some putrid spiritual marsh, which they had 
 just left, she nestled close to him. But the monot- 
 ony and dull repression of her home, occurring viv- 
 idly to her, were almost more terrible than Mr. 
 Allendale's darkened hot-house. No; Julian was 
 her only refuge. Only with him did she live, only 
 In his presence was life worth the living. Surely 
 he could not wrong her, and perhaps — a very flame 
 and glory of hope came at the thought — perhaps 
 he would change his views, would see that love Is 
 an unending good without limit or reserve, Incapa- 
 ble of diminution or death ! She would teach him 
 — and save him I She clung to him unconsciously, 
 with an almost protecting gesture. 
 
 "Frances," he said, *'you remember our last con- 
 versation?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
92 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "It may be wrong, but I must appeal to you once 
 more. I love you with all my strength, with every 
 nerve, with every fibre of my body. I have been 
 living in the acutest misery, and yet — " 
 
 He halted. 
 
 "And yet you have not been able to overcome 
 your repugnance to marriage, to conquer a — 
 memory?'* 
 
 "Nol" 
 
 "You will overcome It." 
 
 "Dearest," — he took her hand, — "don't trust to 
 such a change. I must not, can not let you do 
 that!" 
 
 "And if I trust in spite of your protest? If I 
 have more faith in the endurance of your love than 
 you have yourself?" 
 
 "It isn't a risk, dear. It's a certainty. I can- 
 not swear impossible and absurd oaths; I cannot 
 set up a Philistine household. I cannot enter Into 
 a relation vulgarised and officialised by the greasy 
 sentimentality of a hundred generations. And then 
 — then-^there's something in me of the Wild, the 
 ancient Wild. I can't submit to any bond. I can- 
 not, cannot!" 
 
 "But if you love me. . . ." 
 
 "I do love you, absolutely." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 93 
 
 They looked into each other's eyes, there, under 
 the waving trees and white stars. It seemed to her 
 that her being melted into his as it had done afore- 
 time, somewhere in the illimitable universe, that he 
 was her mate, her protector, her salvation. She 
 leaned toward him gradually, like one in a dream, 
 until his lips met her forehead. 
 
 "You will come?" he asked softly. 
 
 She had no words in which to clothe her assent. 
 Speech would have been too coarse, too misrepre- 
 sentative. A space of silence passed between them. 
 Then she spoke: 
 
 ''I will trust you — you — !" 
 
 They agreed that he would write to her when he 
 had made a few necessary arrangements and ap- 
 point a time and place of meeting. But the sudden 
 momentous decision had exhausted her and she lay 
 back in the train in a half-dreamy state. He kissed 
 her at the door of her house, and in his eyes was 
 a look so deeply earnest, so full of a grave tender- 
 ness, that she treasured It against the inevitable 
 doubts and terrors of the night. 
 
VII 
 
 But the doubts and terrors did not come. Be- 
 fore this Imminent crisis she was sustained by an In- 
 flexible exaltation. That the extreme and vision- 
 ary sweetness of her mood was due to an alert an- 
 ticipation of the senses, that the recklessness of im- 
 memorial Instincts possessed her wholly — this ele- 
 mental truth she would have beaten off if it had oc- 
 curred to her. In the brave exhilaration of her be- 
 ing, hunger and thirst were consumed In the white 
 flame of an appetite still more Imperious. She was 
 intensely alive, caressing the cool pillow with her 
 warm palm and wrapping the sheet of her bed lux- 
 uriously about her. The coolness of her bed, the 
 softness of her skin, the silky smoothness of her 
 fhair — she enjoyed these physical sensations with the 
 'keenness of childhood. From this Immersion In a 
 delicate sensuousness she was recalled by a sharp 
 knock at the door of her room. Her mother's 
 voice, raised In acid Irony, followed the knock. 
 
 "Fanny, did you have a pleasant time?'* 
 
 94 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 95 
 
 *Tes, mamma, very." 
 
 *'DId you have dinner?" 
 
 *'No; but I'm not hungry — only tired." 
 
 She heard her mother pass stealthily along the 
 narrow hall, and this appearance of stealth, 
 together with the irony of her voice, frightened 
 her. It brought into her mind the one seemingly 
 unpardonable element of the situation — the deceit 
 toward those who were, after all, most intimately 
 dear to her, and to whom she owed, for years of 
 unflagging, if not the wisest, love, an unquestion- 
 able loyalty. The fatality which, beginning with a 
 single rash reticence, had entangled her in a woof 
 of lies, insinuated and direct, was too tragically 
 common to reflect upon. And surely her first reti- 
 cence, forced upon her by her mother's habit of 
 sordid speculation and criticism, had not been 
 wrong. That an action so innocent had been in- 
 evitably followed by the ugliest deceit seemed to 
 Frances a luminous example of that complete eth- 
 ical uncertainty which, as she had strongly suspected 
 for many weeks, is the dominant note of human 
 conduct. Driven by an unconquerable desire of 
 light and love, she had made a first fine breach in 
 the spiritual wall that enclosed her life. A series 
 of events which, as she looked back upon them, 
 
96 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 seemed, by their very maddening subtlety, beyond 
 the exercise of any direction, had widened the breach 
 until — to-morrow or the day after — the whole 
 structure might crash with ruin to the earth ! And 
 the ultimate cause of her defiance of the social law, 
 of the lies that were hateful to her, of the terrible 
 pain she would give her parents, lay not in any de- 
 liberate evil, originated by her will, but in the un- 
 changeable necessities of her being. This was the 
 more clear because she knew that she would not, 
 ultimately, draw back from the last and fatal step. 
 At the thought of giving up Julian, of returning to 
 the meaningless monotony of her past, a terror took 
 possession of her so elemental and unreasonable as 
 might grip one who, being led to death, pleads in 
 unmanned weakness, impelled by no cravenness of 
 spirit, but by a primal instinct stronger than him- 
 self, for life — life upon any terms. And so, star- 
 ing wide-eyed into the solemn darkness, she came 
 to that last and most ancient refuge of man — 
 beaten upon by the unpitying tides of conscience 
 and of resistless desires — an accusation of Eternal 
 Power. 
 
 "Thine hands have made me and fashioned me 
 together round about, yet Thou dost destroy me.** 
 
 This ardent girl, alone with the mysteries of her 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 97 
 
 life, seemed to herself to stand, for one awful mo- 
 ment, upon a promontory jutting out into the black 
 chaos of things, whence she could see that good and 
 evil were naught, that we are driven by desires not 
 of our own devising, by needs that, if denied, will 
 crush faith and loyalty and honour. And she 
 abandoned, for a space, that wistful communion 
 with God which so often In past years had helped 
 her to endure and not to faint. 
 
 Of the future she had no longer any fear. A 
 consciousness of power seemed to have arisen in 
 her, the recognition of something daemonic In her 
 personality. Was not Julian the first man who had 
 really had a chance to see and know her, and had 
 he not, by his own confession, surrendered to the 
 compulsion of her charm? Ultimately, if she de- 
 sired it, he must marry her. 
 
 She arose, lit the dim jet of gas, and stood be- 
 fore the mirror. Her heavy hair lay darkly in thick 
 folds upon her white night-gown; her grey eyesy 
 burned; the full, red lips gleamed strangely. The| 
 night-gown, falling open, revealed her throat and 
 bosom to the delicate curvature of her small, cup- 
 like breasts. A passion of pride and power and 
 the glory of coming days, of soaring liberation 
 from the constraints of the past, surged up in her. 
 
98 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 She was free to live, made to enjoy, strong to con- 
 quer! She returned to bed, but could not sleep. 
 Until the coming of the gaunt, grey dawn her 
 pulses hammered and she could not close her eyes. 
 Then she fell at last into a dreamless and unbroken 
 slumber. 
 
 It was late when she awoke — ^nearly eleven 
 o'clock. She was dimly surprised that she had not 
 been called. But no misgiving came to her. The 
 tense exaltation of the night persisted still. She 
 must follow her call — the call of life : If not upon 
 terms of which society approved, then upon others 
 which she had justified before the tribunal of her 
 own soul. She dressed slowly and with care. It 
 would be a difficult day, perhaps the most difficult 
 she had ever known. But she meant to get It over 
 without flinching. 
 
 A ray of feeble sunlight hovered in the dining- 
 room. The ugly furnishings, standing with rigid 
 precision, should have quailed under it. But they 
 seemed to Frances, like so many things In her old 
 life, to glory in the shame of their hideousness. 
 What struck her again upon this fateful day, as 
 so often before, was not the poverty of her home. 
 That she could have smiled at without self-con- 
 sciousness. It was the terrible respectability, the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 99 
 
 air of *'honest poverty," contemptuous of all grace 
 and loveliness as savouring of the immoral, that 
 roused in her a fierce repulsion. But all that was 
 at an end for her. She would look upon it now 
 with calmness. If she could have thought of her 
 mother with a pity less troubling and profound she 
 would have been happy. But it was, at least, con- 
 soling to think that her presence had added nothing 
 to her mother's content. She would have been, oh, 
 so willing to help, but she had steadily refused to 
 be a party to that mad career of cleaning and scour- 
 ing which seemed to be her mother's life. One 
 servant after another had lived with them in idle- 
 ness, and Frances had never been able to convince 
 herself that, since a servant was kept, she should 
 help to do her work. . . . Mrs. Garnett appeared, 
 pale and dishevelled. She put some eggs and a 
 cup of coffee before Frances. 
 
 *'I didn't call you for breakfast, because I wanted 
 to see you alone." 
 
 *'Yes, mamma?" 
 
 "Yes; I saw what happened at the door last 
 night." 
 
 "Julian kissed me." 
 
 "Fanny, have you no shame?" 
 
 The spring of love and compassion dried up in 
 
loo THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 the girl's heart before this stupid blundering of 
 abuse. 
 
 "When is he going to marry you?'* 
 
 Frances made no reply. 
 
 "So this is what youVe come to; this is the re- 
 ward your father and I get for our care, for our 
 sacrifices : that you have become this man's mistress. 
 And you dare to sit before your mother without a 
 blush on your face, you — ^you — " 
 
 "Hush, mamma; you'll be sorry. You don't 
 mean that." 
 
 "Every word of it, every word. I hope to God 
 you'll never see another happy day in your life. 
 But I know you won't." 
 
 "No," said Frances, in a colourless voice, "not 
 If I give up Julian." 
 
 "You have no shame, no decency, no honour." 
 
 Mrs. Garnett rocked to and fro, her hands 
 wrapped in her apron. Frances, cold and pale, 
 pushed the plates away from her. 
 
 "If you could give me any reason for your 
 prophecy," she said, "I would listen gladly. If you 
 were to tell me that in going away with Julian I 
 would be offending God and His law — I might not 
 agree with you, but I would understand. You say 
 nothing of the kind. It is because what I do seems 
 
THE BROKEN SNAte loi' 
 
 to you not respectable. You care only for the opin- 
 ion of people whom I never saw and who shall not 
 be my judges. What do they know of me or my 
 needs? What experience have you had In such 
 things? You do not even care for my happiness, 
 but only for a miserable fetish of propriety before 
 which you have grovelled all your life. You have 
 not been wretched because we were poor, but be- 
 cause, in spite of our poverty, you insisted on an 
 apartment In an expensive neighbourhood, on a sep- 
 arate drawing-room and dining-room ! Why? We 
 had no friends, no visitors. Because it is respec- 
 table to have things so ! Why didn't we live a few 
 blocks farther east and have a little more money 
 for food and amusements? Because it is not re- 
 spectable ! And do you think that I will order my 
 life In any such fashion ? No ! I must live, experi- 
 ence — be ! No man shall judge for me." 
 
 The girl stopped, surprised at her own vehe- 
 mence. It did not occur to her that she had brooded 
 over this arraignment, silently, for years. But she 
 spoke to a mind ossified In rigid grooves — a mind 
 inflexible and dead, which. In Its misery, hardly 
 took in the sense of her words. Mrs. Gamett 
 slowly unwound her hands from her apron- of 
 checked homespun. 
 
102 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "And the way youVe lied — lied to your father 
 and me!" 
 
 Frances' lips grew sullen and her eyes expres- 
 sionless. What was there to say? She was, by na- 
 ture, passionately truthful — this she knew. But 
 for the communication of truth, luminously the 
 thought flashed through her mind, there needs not 
 only the teller but the competent hearer. In her 
 mother's mind, the truth, had she told It, would 
 have become distorted, at every stage. Into a mon- 
 strous slander, an Intolerable He. Mrs. Garnett, 
 oppressed by her daughter's silence, began to cry 
 softly. 
 
 "Fanny, I don't understand you." 
 
 "No, mamma, you don't; you never will." 
 
 It was somewhat brutally said, but Frances, who 
 did not herself cry easily, was often Irritated by her 
 mother's tears. 
 
 The older woman's anger broke out anew. 
 
 "Don't flatter yourself that I don't understand. 
 It's easy enough. I know what you- try to hide 
 from me; I know you fling away self-respect and 
 modesty. But I won-'t say another word to you. 
 I'll see what your father has to say." 
 
 Mrs. Garnett went back Into the kitchen and 
 began to scrub with a contemptuous energy that 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 103 
 
 seemed to scrape upon every nerve In her daugh- 
 ter's body. Frances, hence, took refuge In her 
 room, and sitting there, on her bed, brooded, 
 strangely enough, upon the Isolation of each soul 
 alone as the separate stars in their tremendous 
 orbits, and Incapable of any message that should 
 make to vibrate harmoniously answering chords. 
 With Julian she could, at times, communicate free- 
 ly, and thus with him, In so homeless a world, was, 
 after all, her truest home. An Immediate choice 
 had been forced upon her. Their meeting had been 
 arranged for the day after to-morrow. But the 
 more she thought, the more she quailed before the 
 futile acerbatlon of a scene with her father. He 
 was not, she profoundly believed, hard or Inflex- 
 ible on vital matters, as her mother thought him; 
 and yet he, too, would urge her to an Impossible re- 
 nunciation. She put on her hat and gloves, drew 
 a thick grey veil over her face and softly went out. 
 Upon the landing It came to her with a pang that 
 she was leaving her father's house like a thief In 
 the night. It was only another example of the 
 boundless perversity of things. . . . 
 
 In the streets she breathed more freely. The air 
 was cool and sparkling. Even the tracery of shad- 
 ows thrown on the pavement by the huge structure 
 
I04 THE BROKEN. SNARE 
 
 of the Elevated Railroad was not unbeautiful. 
 Eighth Avenue hummed with alert life. The chil- 
 dren, playing before the shops, seemed almost to 
 flash in the sunlight. From carts against the curb 
 drifted the healthful aroma of apples; oranges 
 gleamed upon them, all gold. So bright and busy 
 were all things In the rarefied Autumn air that 
 Frances almost forgot the tragic ugliness behind 
 her. The road stretched before her, lustrous, kiss- 
 ing, in far distances, the pearly sky. It was goad 
 to be alive and free. 
 
 Her ardour was a little dulled when she found 
 that Julian was not at home. But her heart was 
 still hopeful, and she sat down on a bench In the 
 vestibule to wait. The uniformed mulatto porter 
 grinned impudently at her; but receiving no notice, 
 began to crack peanuts defiantly. Men came and 
 went through the vestibule, and each one glanced at 
 Frances, courteously, but with an unmlstakeable air 
 of faint surprise. Her cheeks began to burn and 
 her eyelids to ache. She looked at her watch and 
 found that only half an hour had passed. She was 
 very thirsty and the stiff, wooden bench hurt her 
 back. But she dared not leave the house, fearing 
 that she would miss Julian. An hour passed and 
 all her limbs began to ache. Her eyes grew dim 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 105 
 
 with tears of pain and humiliation; one fell and 
 clung absurdly to the meshes of her veil. The men 
 who passed in and out with such cruel frequency 
 looked at her now with a perceptible stare. She 
 had made of herself a public show, but the longer 
 she waited the more impossible did it seem to move. 
 At last, with a relief as incommunicably sweet and 
 precious as the cessation of some corroding pain, 
 she saw Julian enter the vestibule. His forehead 
 contracted slightly as he saw her. 
 
 "You here ? I thought we were not to meet un- 
 til day after to-morrow." 
 
 "Julian, IVe been waiting for you so long." 
 
 "Poor child! Come; we'll get some luncheon in 
 the neighbourhood. This is no place for you." 
 
 They went to a pleasant restaurant — a minute's 
 walk — and sat down. Julian insisted that she 
 looked fagged and should drink a cup of bouillon 
 before explaining her action. Then he looked at 
 her questioningly. 
 
 "Julian, mamma saw us at the door last night." 
 
 "Yes; well?" 
 
 "Well, we had a terrible explanation this morn- 
 ing — terrible I I had said that I would see you no 
 more. And now — ? I'm sick of deceit; I can't 
 go on that way — I can't." 
 
io6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 *'You could not have saved yourself the scene?" 
 
 "No. My mother is — oh, I can't speak of 
 it I She spoke words to me that I must never hear 
 again. And to-night, when papa comes home there 
 is to be — a tribunal ; and oh, what is the use, since 
 things are as they are?" 
 
 "Are as they are?" he echoed, and his eyes 
 burned as he bent them upon her. 
 
 She looked away. ^ 
 
 "Yes. . . ." 
 
 "You may trust me, my dearest," he said, slowly, 
 "me and my love. You are right — that life could 
 not go on. There is a fairer life before us. Thank 
 God that you have come." 
 
 He had grown pale with an exultant joy and 
 kept silent for a space, mastering his emotion. 
 , Then he looked at her thoughtfully. 
 
 "Of course, we've had no time for preparation. 
 And I've a pressing engagement for to-night." He 
 stopped a moment. "But, to be sure, you have 
 only the clothes you are wearing?'* 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "That helps us. It will be well for us to leave 
 New York for a while, and I will procure tickets 
 for us on a steamer sailing South at once. You 
 have never been in the South and you' will find the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 107 
 
 winter there charming. But I must have to-day 
 and to-morrow free to arrange my own affairs. So 
 you can use the time to buy yourself a complete 
 outfit." 
 
 "And where am I to be?" 
 
 "In a private hotel." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 "IVe explained the situation to you, dearest." 
 
 She wanted to tell him that she would never 
 again stand In such bitter need of him as during 
 these first few desolate days ; that, before the bare 
 facts, all the strange exaltation, all her Intellec- 
 tual certainty were pitifully melting away, and that 
 she felt like a lost child. But there was a sternness 
 in his look which silenced her. 
 
 They went to the nearest station of the Subway 
 and rode to Astor Place. On Eighth Street, near 
 Fifth Avenue, Julian rang the bell of a respectable 
 but secretive-looking house. The landlady, a Ger- 
 man woman, black-haired, quiet, but alert, came to 
 the door herself. Julian explained that the young 
 lady with him desired a room until the day after 
 to-morrow. With almost Imperceptible emphasis, 
 he added that he would call for a few minutes on 
 the morrow. The landlady nodded and left the 
 parlour. 
 
io8 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "My dear," said Julian, "you will not be an- 
 noyed here. To-morrow after twelve Til come and 
 we'll take luncheon together. In the meantime get 
 everything you need." 
 
 Almost furtively, he placed a purse on the table. 
 Then he opened his arms. \ 
 
 "Don't be afraid, my own little girl. Think of 
 day after to-morrow. Then we'll be together." 
 
 "Always?" she asked tremulously. 
 
 "Always!" 
 
 He kissed her mouth and eyes and went out. She 
 heard the slamming of the front door and hurried 
 to the window. But he did not look back. 
 
VIII 
 
 Frances sat down In the shabby velvet arm- 
 chair. She felt utterly abandoned. She had been 
 brave enough with all the sustaining forces of her 
 past about her. Now she was afraid, lost, sick at 
 heart. A soft shuffling of feet In the hallway was 
 followed by the entrance of the landlady. 
 
 "I have not a front-room for you, Madame." 
 
 Frances tried to smile. 
 
 "It hardly matters for such a short time." 
 
 "No, and ze room I gif you Iss very nice. If you 
 viU now come up?" 
 
 She led the way upstairs to a large, cool room 
 at the baek of the house, with a distressing view 
 upon stony courts and fluttering clothes-lines, but 
 comfortably and, In truth, not unhandsomely ap- 
 pointed. 
 
 "Now, If you vlll vant any zing, you vlll yoost 
 ring ze bell. So, zat Iss right, not?" 
 
 She was about to go, but turned back. 
 
 "But I must not forget. ZIss Is yours, I zink?" 
 109 
 
no THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 She held out Julian's purse. 
 Involuntarily, before she could restrain herself, 
 Frances' eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "Yes." / 
 
 The German woman's face softened! , 
 
 "You must be more careful wiss ze money, 
 madame. It iss ze only real zing ve haf. . . ." 
 
 Frances divined the woman's meaning and 
 flushed furiously. It seemed to her, when the 
 woman was gone, that she could not touch the 
 purse. All the social Instincts of her womanhood 
 rebelled against the money. But she knew that 
 Julian would be Impatient If she delayed their 
 voyage by not providing the things that were, after 
 all, indispensable. Also, she reasoned that by im- 
 plication she had really pledged herself to accept 
 his support, and she was just enough to see that 
 she would inflict useless pain upon him by making 
 trouble over so ugly but so necessary a detail of life. 
 He had behaved In the matter with all the delicacy 
 — not very fine or subtle, to be sure^ — ^but with all of 
 which the situation was susceptible. If she accentu^ 
 ated the detail, the vulgarity would undeniably be 
 on her side. This reasoning would have satisfied 
 her fully, if only the landlady had not made that 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE iii 
 
 odious reference. Why, why had Julian brought 
 her here? 
 
 She opened the purse and discovered, to her 
 amazement, that it contained far more money than 
 she had ever seen, and, with this thought, a pleas- 
 ant sense of power came. Insidiously, to her. She 
 sat still, handling the bills dreamily. Yes, It would 
 be delightful to spend money upon herself with 
 what seemed to her a splendid recklessness. In her 
 young dreams she had spent a great many fortunes; 
 the poorer she had been, the more gorgeously had 
 she lived In her Imagination. And now — ? Julian 
 loved her and It was de^r and kind of him to be so 
 quietly generous. She would go out and buy some 
 things for a part of the money — not all, of course. 
 That would be abusing his kindness. 
 
 She put on her solitary little hat and walked the 
 short distance to Wanamaker's. There she In- 
 dulged all the feminine longings of her soul, so long 
 and so sorely starved. She bought dresses and hats 
 and gloves, long, beautifully woven stockings, and 
 daintily embroidered underwear, things flimsy and 
 charming such as she had never before possessed. 
 With a momentous little sigh she hesitated between 
 garters with solid gold buckles and those with 
 plated ones. She decided to take the former. They 
 
112 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 would be more satisfactory in the end. And now 
 she bought veils, and handkerchiefs like gossamer, 
 and, finally, wonderful shoes of graceful shape and 
 positively no weight at all. The hours passed in 
 a delicious madness, and when it was all over she 
 still had a considerable sum left. She ordered these 
 things to be sent at once to her lodgings, and with 
 a deep satisfaction tingling in her blood, went out 
 into the dusty street. 
 
 She discovered that she was very hungry, and 
 slipped into a modest little restaurant. There she 
 ordered tea and toast and salad and little cakes. 
 The meal, without soup or meat, was to her own 
 taste. But she could hardly finish it, so drowsy she 
 was. The day had been long and busy and varied, 
 but it was ending in soft dreaminess and peace. No 
 fear or misgiving disturbed her now as she entered 
 the lodging-house and then her room, and, wearied 
 with the intense living of so many hours, she fell 
 asleep at once. ... 
 
 Morning came, cool and windy, but full of lumi- 
 nous sunlight. Frances awoke, and seeing the 
 room In which she lay, the whole strangeness and 
 danger of the situation gripped her. But the sight 
 of her new trunks was calming, not because her 
 heart was set wholly, or even disproportionately, 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 113 
 
 upon material things, but because, by virtue of these 
 things, she had entered one of the valleys of the 
 faery land of her dreams, and a golden haze soft- 
 ened the sharp realities of life. No doubt it was 
 very heartless and frivolous, but she could not help 
 being glad that these charming things were hers, 
 that she need not hurry to the table and hear her 
 mother's exasperated complaints shrilling through 
 the dim shabblness of their Harlem flat. Never 
 had she felt so keenly, as In her new-found freedom, 
 how poverty enslaves and degrades. She tried to 
 force herself to think sorrowfully of her father and 
 mother, to press the thorn into her heart, but she 
 could only summon a vague pity as for things far 
 off and half forgotten. She got up and dressed 
 herself in her soft, new apparel. The delicate linen 
 and the silk stockings seemed to caress her flesh. 
 She put on a grey gown trimmed with smooth vel- 
 vet and rich Persian bands. Hat and gloves har- 
 monised with the gown, and she stood before the 
 mirror satisfied. With her pretty clothes she seemed 
 deliberately to have put on a new personality. She 
 seemed surer of herself and of others. The horri- 
 ble old torture of being so- often, externally, at a 
 disadvantage, and of being, In consequence, shy 
 and awkward, seemed unimaginable now. Her 
 
114 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 glance was directer, her step firmer, her manner 
 more assured. She was very clearly conscious of 
 the transformation and realised something of the 
 innermost spiritual reaction of the externals of life. 
 She went out, breakfasted, and took a short walk. 
 She was glad that It was already ten o'clock, so that 
 only two hours need pass, before Julian would come. 
 She bought a magazine, returned tc^ the house and 
 sat down In her room. But she could not read. 
 Her thoughts swayed In a whirl of light. She pic- 
 tured to hersdf the swift voyage on which they 
 were going, softly over Immeasurable seas, the 
 white foam following ; the palms and gaudy flowers 
 of the South, and love — love as a guide. Through 
 all the years she had yeurned with a heart-breaking 
 nostalgia for bright and beautiful places. She had 
 dreamed of wide, stately verandahs, with views of 
 far blue waters and vigilance above of everlasting 
 stars. There she had seen herself clad in lustrous 
 white, and beside her a figure, strong but indistinct, 
 who spoke adoring words. The dream was superla- 
 tively silly, fearlessly sentimental, victoriously ro- 
 mantic, splendidly reckless of time and place, and 
 the sad probabilities of mortal life — a dream of 
 youth. And it was coming true! This was her 
 hour of purest happiness, luminous forever through 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 115 
 
 all the years to come. She stood upon the immi- 
 nent boundary of the Land of her Heart's Desire, 
 where yet no cruelty of love could assail, no shadow 
 fall. Firmly she held the fair things that are not 
 and therefore are immortal. This was her 
 hour. ... 
 
 Julian came promptly upon the stroke of twelve. 
 He tilted her chin and kissed her. He was in one 
 of his sunny moods. 
 
 "What a little duck you look! Did you get 
 everything you needed?" 
 
 "Yes. Tm afraid I spent a great deal — and 
 here's the rest." 
 
 "No, dear; that's not the way we can manage. I 
 hate discussion about money, so let us settle this at 
 once. I'm not a Croesus. But what I have we'll 
 share. You use the money as you see fit, and say 
 no more about it." 
 
 She put her hands into his. 
 
 "You are good !" 
 
 "Don't, dear. No man is good — in a sense. And 
 now," he continued, "we must go out for some 
 luncheon. I have still to attend to innumerable de- 
 tails." 
 
 They talked with a bright restlessness of their 
 voyage and the Winter to come. He told her many 
 
ii6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 things of the country to which they were going, and 
 all the details seemed to her exquisitely romantic. 
 But they shared silences, too, more eloquent than 
 any speech, for there was before them that one 
 eternal adventure of mankind — love — more roman- 
 tic than any palm-girt land, more formidable than 
 any earthly voyage. 
 
 "I'm glad that I've never been anywhere, have 
 never seen anything," she said dreamily; "so now 
 everything will be so new, so» delightful. . . ." 
 
 She was a little Irritated at the businesslike thor- 
 oughness with which Julian ate' the successive 
 courses of the meal. He noticed her Irritation and 
 laughed. 
 
 "You must get used to It, sweetheart; I am, after 
 all, a mere man not made of air and fire, and good 
 food is a good thing. . . ." 
 
 His Irony hurt her and she kept silence. As he 
 continued to eat, her Irritation grew. He looked up 
 at her and his face grew grave. 
 ' "Did I hurt you, dearest? It was just a manner 
 of speaking." 
 
 But she was not so happy after this incident. 
 Carefully as he tried to conceal his feelings, he was 
 evidently apprehensive that she would make trouble 
 over little things. He left her at the door of the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 117 
 
 lodging-house, bidding her to be ready at eleven 
 o'clock of the next forenoon. He pressed her hand 
 and then lifted his hat courteously, but the kiss 
 which he had not been able to give her burned upon 
 her lips like fire. 
 
 It was only three o'clock and the interminable 
 hours stretched out before her. She looked list- 
 lessly at the engraved card which Julian had given 
 her. It bore these words : Villa Mercedes, Queens- 
 haven, South Carolina. The destination did not seem 
 so bright now. With a sudden yearning she thought 
 of the dark little home up-town, and her father and 
 mother left desolate; she thought of Morningside 
 Park, dim under a rain-drenched sky; of long, lone- 
 ly walks there and the twinkling black eyes of the 
 elusive squirrels. Her heart ached. What, after 
 all, did she know of this man with whom she was 
 going away, for whose sake she was abandoning, 
 at least, the security from the world's storms that 
 had been hers? He seemed to her suddenly a be- 
 ing strange, hostile and full of terrible possibilities. 
 How difficult life was, how difficult. . . . 
 
 She could not stay In her strange room with the 
 depressing view of fire-escapes and clothes-lines, but 
 went out Into the street. Which way to turn ? And 
 then, with a melancholy pleasure, the thought came 
 
ii8 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 to her to ride up-town. She might never again sec 
 the street and the house where her home was, or the 
 park where she had dreamed so often, or the win- 
 dow of the drab little drawing-room which seemed, 
 to her imagination, almost friendly now. She hesi- 
 tated, troubled for a moment, in the station of the 
 underground railroad, before she dropped her 
 ticket into the receiver. Then she passed on. She 
 entered an express train and in a few minutes 
 stepped from the tunnel entrance out upon Cathe- 
 dral Heights. The stately Hudson flowed on far 
 below, but she hardly glanced in that direction, hur- 
 rying eastward. 
 
 And now she was in her own street, and some- 
 thing rose in her throat. Life was so hard in it- 
 self, so transitory, and men and women in their 
 mad blindness increased its bitterness by wilfully 
 hurting and misunderstanding each other. It 
 seemed to her, at this moment, incredibly tragic. 
 She walked on slowly toward the comer and passed 
 the house where she had lived and dreamed so long. 
 Looking forward she saw, with a swift pang, the 
 nodding of a bonnet set awry. It was her mother 
 returning from some household errand. The older 
 woman looked grey and sad and shabby. Her eyes 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 119 
 
 were fixed on the ground. She came nearer and 
 nearer, still unseeing. 
 
 *'Mamma I'* Frances whispered. 
 
 The tawdry, pitiful old bonnet swayed to the 
 other side. 
 
 *'Oh, my child!" 
 
 Suffering had purged the voice of sharpness and 
 reproach. 
 
 *Tanny, are you coming home?" 
 
 The girl shook her head sadly. 
 
 "No, mamma, dear; I can't — I can't. It's too 
 late." 
 
 "Where are you?" 
 
 "Down-town; but we're going away to-morrow. 
 Mamma, will you write to me?" 
 
 She opened her purse and gave her mother the 
 card bearing her Southern address. 
 
 "I don't know. I'm not accustomed to write let- 
 ters, but I'll try. Fanny, It's very lonely at home." 
 
 "Oh, mamma, I'm sorry, so terribly sorry. 
 What does papa say?" 
 
 "Not a word; and he won't let me say anything, 
 either. Will you come up ?" 
 
 But Frances shook her head again. She could 
 not bear It. She put her arms about her mother 
 and kissed her long and close. The kiss was full 
 
I20 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 of remorse, of impassioned pity, and of the stern- 
 ness of fate. As she watched the door of the house 
 hide the last tip of her mother's bonnet her eyes 
 filled with scalding tears. This, then, was an end 
 of all the old things that seemed suddenly to have 
 grown dear. Resolutely she turned her head from 
 the house. She had chosen. Slowly she passed 
 once more through the familiar streets ; she saw the 
 grocery-shop, the butcher-shop, the bakery, whither 
 she had often gone with what had seemed to her 
 then a derogation of her girlish dignity. If it were 
 all to be lived over again, would she perform her 
 duties in a gentler mood and with a sweeter spirit? 
 She thought so, and yet knew the thought to be de- 
 ceptive. The old narrowness, the old ugliness, the 
 old repression would stir again the old passionate 
 revolt. Passing to Eighth Avenue, she ascended 
 the high tower of the Elevated Railroad at One 
 Hundred and Sixteenth Street, and rode back to 
 Astor Place. 
 
 In her room she was surprised by a long envelope 
 upon her table. It was a special delivery letter ad- 
 dressed in Julian's nervous handwriting. She tore 
 it open and the enclosure that fell out was a letter 
 from her father, sent to her at Julian's apartment. 
 Her hands trembled as she opened It and hurried 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 121 
 
 to a seat near the window where, in the evening 
 light, she read, not without tears, her father's 
 words : 
 
 "I am inexpressibly grieved, not only by your 
 conduct, which, though I condemn, I understand, 
 but perhaps more by the want of confidence in my 
 love and friendship that you have shown. Your 
 mother, with the best intentions, no doubt, exag-. 
 gerated what she conceives to*be my sternness. You 
 might have known me better! The problems in- 
 volved were so very, very different. But the words 
 I wish to say to you in all kindness, yet all serious- 
 ness, are these: The experience of numerous gen- 
 erations, the consensus of civilised mankind — these 
 things are based, you must believe, upon no light 
 impulse, no varying utility, but upon deep and con- 
 stant needs. The individual breaks through these 
 elementary restrictions at his own peril, and I sol- 
 emnly warn you and Ware either to separate or to 
 make your peace with society by marrying. You 
 have gone with him, I believe, freely consenting to 
 an Irregular union, and hence I accuse him of no 
 melodramatic crime, but Include him In my kindly 
 warning. I am firmly convinced, my child, that 
 you have made a terrible and sinful mistake, but I 
 
122; THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 wish to convince you, not to alienate you by vain 
 reproaches. Our home is very sad without you, and 
 I am lonely in my growing age. But it is not my 
 happiness that I am concerned for; it is yours. Re- 
 member, my dear child, that whatever happens, I 
 am your friend and protector, and my home is 
 yours. But you m.ust return to me either alone or 
 as a married woman; nor do I think it well that 
 you should write to me until you are either one or 
 the other." 
 
 The temperateness and kindness of the letter 
 touched her poignantly. She was in no mood to 
 heed its warning or follow its reasoning. Rather 
 did it give her hope for the future and gladness in 
 the recognition that life was not always cruel, not 
 wholly merciless ; that the victory was not always to 
 blind prejudice and passion, but to charity, to rea- 
 sonableness and to the understanding heart. 
 
IX 
 
 The grey dawn awakened Frances from her 
 light sleep. She drew apart the hangings of a win- 
 dow and looked out. A swift wind drove turbu- 
 lent clouds over a gaunt and pallid sky. It was a 
 day on which to bury one's old life and to set out 
 with the far-travelling winds on other quests. The* 
 spirit of the day passed into her soul. She was 
 glad that the sea would receive her and the im- 
 petuous wind carry her afar upon its wings. She 
 opened the window and let her hair stream in the 
 air — in the brave adventurous wind. The world 
 seemed rapturously wide. Oh, that there might 
 be no goal of faring and no end of travel. 
 
 It was impossible to return to bed. She dressed 
 herself warmly as befitted a far voyage. Then she 
 packed her trunks and, having done that, paced her 
 dim room in a fury of restlessness. The wind 
 whistled and raindrops splashed against the win- 
 dow-panes. But the insurgent wind was not so 
 
 swift as the running of her blood; the patter of the 
 
 i»3 
 
124 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 rain not so breathless as the beating, of her heart. 
 To be away, away, over a slate-coloured sea, under 
 a dim heaven, driven by vast, Irresistible storms, on- 
 ward to the ends of the earth I 
 
 At eight she ventured out. The wind blew upon 
 her, lifted her skirt, tore off her veil, worried her 
 hair. She fought her way along the street with 
 tingling pleasure. This was to live ! After a while 
 she became hungry and, entering a restaurant, ate 
 a hearty breakfast. Then out again, for she could 
 not keep still in this glorious travelling-weather, out 
 into the wind! 
 
 At length she grew a little tired and returned 
 to the lodging-house. She had only about another 
 hour to wait, and it would pass swiftly. Then 
 Julian would come to take her away. The slight 
 irritation during their last meeting was forgotten, 
 her own perilous position was forgotten, and her 
 father's grave words. She used to herself the an- 
 cient simile of the liberated bird. The doors of her 
 cage had opened at last. She ran up once more to 
 her room to see that she had forgotten none of her 
 new and precious possessions in her haste. Then 
 she returned to the parlour and gazed out upon the 
 scurrying Autumn weather. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 125 
 
 At eleven o'clock a huge four-wheeler drove up 
 to the door and Julian stepped out. He came in 
 swiftly and caught her as she ran to his arms. The 
 same feeling possessed both : this was the beginning 
 of life. But after that first embrace Julian was 
 brief and business-like. Abruptly he ordered that 
 the trunks be carried out. His own had been sent 
 on before. Then he called for the landlady, paid 
 her and dismissed her brusquely. He turned to 
 Frances. 
 
 "Are you ready?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Very well, then." 
 
 He gave orders to the driver and helped Frances 
 into the carriage. They sat close together and held 
 each other's hands. He lifted her hand to his lips 
 and kissed it. 
 
 "It isn't merry weather, is it, dear?" 
 
 "Ah, but I like it." 
 
 "Good! So do I. I thought perhaps you 
 wouldn't. It's just the day for a mad start." 
 
 "Julian !" She looked at him reproachfully. 
 
 "Sweetheart, it's a mad world. Life is mad, 
 death is mad, but love is the maddest of all things I 
 Wait, wait I" 
 
126 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 He kissed her mouth and eyes softly and tender- 
 ly, and she was satisfied. They drove through dim 
 and narrow streets on the lower West Side, through 
 Greenwich Street, the rumbling Elevated Railroad 
 almost filling it, and turned the corner of Spring 
 Street to the North River. There In the Indescrib- 
 able confusion of the wharf traffic, amid huge 
 waggons and drays, whose drivers, infuriated by de- 
 lay and rain, cursed hoarsely, the carriage slowly 
 made its way. At last It reached the passenger en- 
 trance of the Hope Line. Sleek negro porters as- 
 sisted Frances and Julian to alight and led them, 
 first through a narrow hall, then across a carpeted 
 gang-plank, to the clean-swabbed deck of the 
 Sequoia. 
 
 They stood still and looked into the black 
 waters idly beating the vessel's side. The flapping 
 of a rope, far in the tall rigging, seemed to be the 
 only sound. For the noises of the city had suddenly 
 melted away, as if already an immeasurable dls^ 
 tance divided it from them. Before them lay the 
 harbour, full of outgoing ships. The sight seemed 
 to Frances suddenly to estrange her from her whole 
 past. She turned to Julian and folded her small, 
 gloved hands on his breast. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 127 
 
 "Dear, I have no one but you now. You will 
 be kind and patient?" 
 
 For the first time since she had known him a 
 moisture gathered in his eyes. 
 
 "I will, dear heart, please God." 
 
The wind fell. Over calm waters but under 
 heavy clouds, the Sequoia steamed through the 
 harbour of New York. Heavy mists hid the shore 
 on either side and nothing was visible to the search- 
 ing eye save the grimy harbour traffic of coal-barges 
 and wheezing tug-boats. Forlornly the hoarse 
 whistles saluted each other ; and with eyes strangely 
 dull and lifeless, men from the cabin-windows of 
 barge and boat surveyed the steamer going South. 
 To them, In their coarse lives on the Inland waters 
 or along the river-front, the passengers of the 
 Sequoia were alien beings In an alien world. 
 Was there behind those heavy eyes no yearning to 
 leave the grime of coal and tar, the shriek of 
 whistles, the hoarse voices hurtling oaths, and fol- 
 low a fairer way along the ocean-path? It seemed 
 to Frances that there must be woe in these longing 
 hearts and lamentation. But Julian would not 
 agree with her. 
 
 "Your fanciful pity," he said, *'Is really a failure 
 
 128 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 129 
 
 in sympathy. For those men the world of their 
 own lives is real and tremendously insistent. Their 
 work is broken by coarse pleasures which suit them. 
 They have no time for vague emotionalism. Their 
 attitude to us, if they have any, is probably quite 
 satirical." 
 
 "And I was so sorry for them !" 
 
 *'Your pity is the last thing they want, and they 
 are right." 
 
 *'How hard you are, Julian." 
 
 *'As the truth is hard." 
 
 A sudden clangour startled them both. They 
 turned and saw a negro steward beating a muffled 
 kettle-drumstick against a huge, round gong. The 
 thunderous vibrations swept through their nerves 
 and quivered far down their spines. It was the 
 call to luncheon. A sense of the unreality of all 
 things came to Frances. She and Julian would now 
 go to their state-room to wash and dress for the 
 meal, and would be, for the first time, in the most 
 intimate manner, alone together. She could not 
 believe that these things had really come to pass. 
 Had she not, so far, played with things unrealised? 
 The reality was upon her. Julian divined her ner- 
 vousness and its cause and lingered yet a few min- 
 utes. But he was hungry, after all. 
 
/ 
 
 I30 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "Come, dear." 
 
 They had procured a state-room on the upper 
 deck. It was small, but neat and compact. 
 Frances glanced furtively at the two narrow, 
 white berths, one above the other. Then she 
 started to arrange her hair before the slanting mir- 
 ror. In It she could watch Julian, who had sat down 
 on the small sofa behind her, and she saw how he 
 grew pale and how his hands grasped the cushion 
 as the colls of her hair slowly unwound themselves 
 and rolled down her back. He got up and stretched 
 out his arms toward her. She closed her eyes for 
 a space and he kissed her soft hair and face with 
 an abandon of passion. Then he put her away, 
 laughing. 
 
 "I suppose we ought to go to luncheon." 
 
 It was strange to see him take off his coat and 
 bathe his hands and face. But his matter-of-course 
 air comforted her and she did not betray her emo- 
 tions. He sat down again on the sofa, polishing his 
 nails, and she noted the extreme precision and neat- 
 ness of all his personal habits. Then they went 
 down to the dinlng-hall. 
 
 The chief steward, a small, stout man, met them 
 at the door. He examined the tickets to discover 
 what places had been assigned them at the table, 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 131 
 
 and Frances, glancing over his shoulder, saw that 
 the second ticket bore the name of Mrs. Julian 
 Ware. She did not know why the deception made 
 her ashamed, seeing that she had accepted the sit- 
 uation of which It was an Inevitable part. But a 
 certain vulgarity seemed to cling to It, as to the 
 seductions In penny-dreadfuls of which she had 
 read very long ago. It seemed to her, at all events, 
 as if every eye must be upon her, as If even the 
 tawdry, cadaverous woman torn hither and thither 
 by two unruly and repulsive . children, who sat 
 across the board from her, must arise In denuncia- 
 tory wrath. That the woman sadly envied her for 
 her youth and apparent prosperity, did not occur 
 to her. Julian was delicately attentive, but she had 
 no appetite. She did not like the food, to which 
 clung a pervasive flavour of bananas and aromatic 
 grapes, and she felt 111 at ease among the people 
 who sat at the long tables. They were a strange 
 enough crew: retired shop-keepers, probably, and 
 mechanics, coarsely prosperous In a small but ob- 
 trusive way, wearing odd caps by which they 
 seemed to symbolise this adventurous break in their 
 humdrum lives; men with scraggy beards, gross 
 feeders, to whom the not very delectable but preten- 
 tious fare was of unusual splendour. They re- 
 
132 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 marked upon it with smacking of lips and a plenti- 
 ful use of wooden tooth-picks. Large-boned women 
 and girls in the finery of country shops sat between, 
 breaking out, at the veriest nothings. Into harsh, 
 empty laughter. The talk of all these people was 
 appalling in its sheer externality. They spoke of 
 the places In Florida to which they were bound, of 
 the chances there of hunting and fishing. Stories 
 were told of huge fish caught near Fernandlna. 
 The speed of the vessel was discussed and compared 
 with that of others of the same line. Not the simr 
 plest reflection, not the faintest idea illuminated the 
 talk. It was an Interminable clatter of things, 
 things, things — until Frances* head swam and her 
 eyes ached. She told Julian of her impression and 
 his eyes dwelt upon her with deep tenderness. 
 
 "I am so glad you feel all that independently. 
 Isn't the talk discouraging? When one considers 
 the average American's complete immersion in the 
 mere machinery of life one loses all hope in our 
 future. The blackest bigotry of the most unintelli- 
 gent creed would be better than this utter soulless- 
 ness!" 
 
 "Infinitely, of course. But is this the average 
 American ?" 
 
 "I'm afraid so, my dear. One hardly meets him 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 133 
 
 in the mass In New York. But so soon as one be- 
 gins to travel — there he Is, and always the same: 
 good-natured and by no means stupid ; full of a su- 
 perficial Intelligence, but utterly without Intellect. 
 He has forgotten his Bible and is cynical on the 
 subject of politics. What remains? An interest 
 in the mere mechanism of existence, the speed of 
 trains and the trade of ports. It would be merely 
 hateful If It were not so dangerous to our whole 
 national future." 
 
 Frances was glad to discuss serious subjects with 
 him ; glad, too, of their community of feeling which 
 showed itself so often. But the oppression of hu- 
 manity was upon her and she wanted to go out on 
 deck Into the keen sea air. Julian helped her up 
 the winding stairs, which seemed now to swing peri- 
 lously. She did not feel better on deck. They had 
 passed through the whole length of the harbour 
 and were out among the tumbling waves. The 
 ship rocked dizzily and Frances clung to the rail- 
 ing. A feeling of extreme helplessness and lassitude 
 assailed her. Julian put his arm around her and 
 looked smilingly upon her pale face. 
 
 "Fm afraid youVe not a good sailor, dear. But 
 try to fight the sea-sickness down; It sometimes 
 
134 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 yields to energetic treatment. And don't look at 
 the water." 
 
 He told her to keep still where she was and went 
 to fetch a long deck-chair. This he placed with its 
 back against the railing; then made her lie down 
 in it, and wrapt her feet in a travelling-rug. But 
 she was ill and afraid. The huge smoke-stack of 
 the ship, from which she could not take her eyes, 
 seemed alternately to fall towards her and then to 
 plunge into the sea beyond. She had never expe- 
 rienced such unrelieved misery of the body. The 
 sharpest definite pain would have been preferable. 
 iVague odours of food floated from the door of the 
 saloon, a wafture of tobacco-smoke from the smok- 
 ing-room on deck, and both distressed Frances hor- 
 ribly. 
 
 "Let me go and lie down," she begged. 
 
 "Try It a little longer," he suggested. "The 
 mental attitude is half the battle. Determine not 
 to be sick." ' 
 
 She hardly heard him In her wretchedness. 
 
 "Oh, I can't bear it, I can't bear it!" 
 
 "My dear child, no one has ever been the worse 
 off for an attack of sea-sickness, but If you really 
 must He down — " 
 
 "Please, Julian!" 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 135 
 
 He supported her to the state-room and, with 
 nimble fingers, helped her to take off her hat and 
 lie down In the lower berth. She sighed with Infi- 
 nite relief and hid her head In the pillows. He 
 stood by helplessly. 
 
 ** Don't stay here," she murmured. 
 
 * 'Shall I send the stewardess to you?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 *'Leave me alone — please." 
 
 He knelt down and kissed her hand. 
 
 *'Don't think that Vm not sorry for you, dearest. 
 But I know how slight a thing It is. You'll laugh 
 at yourself to-morrow." 
 
 He went out, and she noticed his shadow pass 
 and repass the window as he walked briskly up 
 and down the deck. Every now and then he would 
 stop and look In, but, seeing that she had not 
 changed her position, continued on his way. 
 Thought left her, though she did not sleep. The 
 sense of relief felt at first lying down was over and 
 she was conscious only of the pitiless roll of the 
 ship and the monstrous throbbing of the engine. 
 If it would cease for a moment — ah, but for a mo- 
 ment ! As the slow hours passed her brain cleared, 
 though the pain and nausea continued. She thought 
 of home, of the swift events which had brought her 
 
136 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 into her present state, and for a while lost her grip 
 completely, crying weakly as a child. Julian came 
 in and asked her whether she felt better. But she 
 turned her face away. He seemed a stranger. Sad- 
 ly he went out. It was a poor beginning of her 
 bright voyage. Night fell and she seemed to feel 
 a little better. But now she was alone. If she 
 could have run to her mother's arms she would have 
 been good and happy, she thought, forever after- 
 ward. But that was impossible — that was over — 
 all was over. . . . 
 
 For a long time all was dark about her and 
 within her. Then she heard Julian's hand fumble 
 at the door of the state-room and she was glad of 
 the sound. He touched the button and turned on 
 the electric light. He held awkwardly a tray on 
 which had been placed a glass of milk, a plate of 
 sandwiches and a little heap of oranges and grapes. 
 He placed the tray on a camp-stool that he had 
 brought in with great difficulty, and It was touching 
 to see him, with such gravity, perform these unac- 
 customed ministrations. She sat up a little and dis- 
 covered that she was really feeling better. 
 
 "You poor boy. It's a shame to put you to all 
 that trouble." 
 
 He knelt down beside her. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 137 
 
 "Oh, my dear, my dear, I'm so glad you're 
 better." 
 
 "You haven't been worrying about me?" 
 
 "But to be sure, I have. Not about your mat de 
 mer, but about the black thoughts." 
 
 "How did you know about that?'* 
 
 He laughed merrily. 
 
 "It's not for nothing that one tries one's hand 
 at writing stories. But now *It is an order,' as Kip.- 
 ling says, that you eat." 
 
 He supported her with one hand and fed her 
 with the other. It was very childish, she knew, but 
 very charming. She decided that the spoils of the 
 steward's pantry must be divided. It was a long 
 meal, but quite the most delectable that she had ever 
 eaten. When it was all over and Julian began to 
 gather the plates and glass, she felt drowsy. He 
 stood looking at her for a long time. 
 
 "You're tired, my dear, and it's near ten o'clock. 
 I'll go out on deck and smoke another cigarette and 
 In the meantime you can undress and go to bed." 
 
 She understood him gratefully. He did not come 
 in until late, when, half asleep, she heard him mov- 
 ing softly in the berth above her. 
 
 When she awoke next morning the steel-bright 
 sea, broken by troughs and furrows of golden and 
 
138 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 insufferable brightness, glimmered through the win- 
 dow. She noticed that Julian had already gone out, 
 and so she arose and dressed herself comfortably 
 and with care. When she stepped on deck she had to 
 close her eyes before the exceeding glory of the im- 
 measurable sun-washed sea and sky. The whole 
 universe was flooded with gold, and straight into 
 the adorable warmth and sunlight sailed the 
 smooth-travelling ship. Around the windy poop 
 came Julian, walking briskly. 
 
 "Good-morning, sleepy-head. Breakfast is over 
 for an hour." 
 
 "I don't care. It isn't pleasant below.'* 
 
 "Fve ordered the steward to send you up some- 
 thing." , 
 
 It was a perfect day, from the glory of the sun- 
 lit morning to the solemn splendour of the starlit 
 night. The air grew blither and warmer as the 
 hours passed on, and Frances' heart became jubi- 
 lant, for the unmistakeable reality lay before her, 
 the land of her dreams. She and Julian paid lit- 
 tle attention to tlie other passengers. They had 
 much to say to each other, much to discover in each 
 other during this first, most intimate and less fleet- 
 ing contact — from his opinion on the miracles of 
 Christ, to the golden tone of colour that, in certain 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 139 
 
 positions, flashed In her hair. And again, when 
 they had watched the stars for a tremulous hour, he 
 let her go to bed alone and In peace. But he told 
 her they must rise early In the morning, to see 
 the Sequoia enter Into Queenshaven Bay. 
 
 He awakened her before five o'clock and she hur- 
 ried on deck. The sea was of the colour of a dark 
 amethyst broken by scarce perceptible veins, deep 
 down, of a dull crimson. Hand In hand they stood 
 beside the railing as, at the very break of dawn, the 
 ship floated Into the calm, dark waters of Queens- 
 haven Bay. So gentle was the swell of the har- 
 boured waters that their surface seemed an expanse 
 of softly undulating silk. In the dusky sky burned 
 still, but with a fading brilliance, a clear moon and 
 a few quivering stars. The ship seemed scarcely 
 to move, so slow was Its progress, when, hesitating- 
 ly, over sky and harbour, poured a violet light, and 
 out of the far dimness rose columns and steeples 
 above the darker mass of the surrounding city. 
 Gradually the sky lost its violet hue, the shadows 
 of olive and purple faded, moon and stars grew 
 faint and wan, the light was rosy, nay, crimson, vic- 
 torious, sharp, and from Its centre, that seemed mo- 
 mentarily a pool of blood, leapt over wooded Island 
 and transfigured sky the first shafts of the liberated 
 
I40 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 sun, flung sudden fires upon the projecting rocks 
 of the break-water amid the sword-play of flashing 
 little waves, and, flooding far, raised from the dusk, 
 upon a narrow tongue of land between two shining 
 rivers, the stately vision of a luminous city of rest. 
 The houses, as they defined themselves upon the 
 water-front, had all an air of repose, reserve and 
 temperate dignity. They had no abrupt angles or 
 grotesque windows, the colour of their walls was 
 soft and warm, but their wide verandahs, looking 
 seaward, made them appear the fitting home of 
 dreams. And even in that first Southern dawn 
 there came to Frances a hint of that element of 
 pathos which, in Queenshaven, accentuated so often 
 beauty and repose. Many of these stately houses 
 harmonised so exquisitely with land and sea because 
 upon them had fallen a gentle touch of decay, a 
 faint shadow of dissolution. It had fallen upon 
 the swaying piers between which the Sequoia cast 
 anchor. But, in a moment, Frances came to see 
 rather the turbulent, strange life before her. In 
 and out of the serried rows of cotton-bales ran huge 
 negroes In small, round caps and open shirts reveal- 
 ing broad, black chests. They hallooed to each 
 Other with echoing, melancholy calls — deep, vibrant 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 141 
 
 and not unmusical. The gang-plank was lowered ; 
 the passengers, in narrow file, poured down it upon 
 the wharf. A little ragged negro grasped Julianas 
 valise: **Tote dat foh you, sah?" — and Frances felt 
 that she had come South. 
 
XI 
 
 In the suave sunshine of that October morning 
 the shadows of plantain and palmetto fell upon the 
 white walls of the Villa Mercedes. On the veran- 
 dah, under the graceful Doric portico, stood tables 
 and delicate wicker chairs. Two women, an older 
 and a younger, turned a faintly curious gaze upon 
 the newcomers. The younger arose and introduced 
 herself to Julian as Mrs. Pressley, the proprietress 
 of the Villa. The rooms which they had ordered 
 were in readiness. Smiling benignantly upon Fran- 
 ces, but without the slightest suggestion of profes- 
 sional courtesy, she introduced her to the older lady, 
 tall, thin, with severe lips but kindly eyes, who was 
 her aunt, Miss St. Preux. She rang for a servant. 
 "Show Mr. and Mrs. Ware their rooms." 
 It was the first time that Frances had heard her- 
 self called Mrs. Ware, and again, as at her glimpse 
 of the written words, something within her, dim 
 and undefined, revolted at the deception. The re- 
 volt was not entirely ethical, but of the reason. 
 
 14X 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 143 
 
 Why not marry and end the whole harassing prob- 
 lem If the absence of the legal bond was to be 
 scrupulously concealed? If their lives were to con- 
 form with such external precision to the demands 
 of society, why should they hover under the con- 
 stant peril of discovery and shame? But she 
 crushed her thoughts. For a space, at least, she 
 wanted to enjoy without misgiving — else all had 
 been In vain. 
 
 The rooms prepared for them were charming : a 
 sitting-room whose windows looked out upon the 
 endless blue of the bay, a cosy bed-room and bath. 
 I^Ight-coloured furnishings, light hangings, chairs 
 delicately fragile — the bright beauty of lasting 
 Summer seemed to have stolen into these rooms to 
 abide there. She looked out upon the gardens, upon 
 the waters and fertile Islands beyond, and wondered 
 how, with such scenes upon earth, people dared to 
 pass their few years of life in smoky cities, under 
 cold and pallid skies. Beauty dwelt here and the 
 supreme blessedness of silence. She stepped out 
 upon the little Iron balcony Into this world of blue 
 and gold. Julian followed her and she leaned 
 against him In sudden gratitude. 
 
 "Oh, Fm glad that weVe come here." 
 
 "We can stay here until May," he said; "It rare- 
 
144 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 ly rains. All the days are blue and gold, and the 
 nights — the nights are black and silver." 
 
 She understood the throb in his voice. He leaned 
 over and kissed her hair and throat. 
 
 "Not here, Julian." 
 
 She wanted to take a walk and see more of 
 Queenshaven at once. But Julian suggested that 
 they must first dress and have some luncheon. 
 Laughing, she ran into the bedroom and closed the 
 door behind her. . . . 
 
 They entered the airy dining-room some minutes 
 afterward and found places reserved for them near 
 the head of the long table. Mrs. Pressley's red- 
 dish-brown hair shone a conspicuous welcome. At 
 her left sat Miss St. Preux. Only a few others 
 were present : a stately woman of about fifty, with 
 sad. Intelligent, brown eyes; her husband, a mili- 
 tary-looking nonentity, and a fair, excessively slen- 
 der youth with cat-like delicacy and grace of man- 
 ner. Frances and Julian were Introduced succes- 
 sively to all present. The fair youth seemed to 
 dominate the Intermittent conversation. 
 
 "At luncheon only the faithful are present," he 
 said, with an Instructive air. "The profane, how- 
 ever, swarm to dine." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 145 
 
 "Then, Mr. Held," said the brown-eyed woman. 
 "I am surprised at your presence." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because I thought It your principle never to be 
 faithful." 
 
 "In matters of no importance," he returned, 
 "one can afford to be faithful. In things that mat- 
 ter faithfulness means stagnation and death." 
 
 "You are a heretic to all your doctrines to-day. 
 Since when do you admit that anything matters?" 
 
 "Absolutely nothing does; relatively, things do — 
 in so far as they are pleasurable or painful." 
 
 "To you, you mean." 
 
 "Precisely." 
 
 "What do you think of such doctrines, Mrs. 
 Ware?" asked Miss St. Preux. 
 
 "They seem very self-regarding." 
 
 "Ah, that is just it," Held almost sighed; "noth- 
 ing is beautiful that is not cruel. I am sure that 
 you are cruel, Mrs. Ware." 
 
 He looked at her with large, velvety blue eyes. 
 
 "Had you not better reserve your opinions?" 
 Julian said angrily. 
 
 "Oh, you must pay no attention to Mr. Held's 
 paradoxes," broke In Mrs. Pressley; "he only 
 means to be amusing." 
 
146 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 Held threw down his napkin with the air of a 
 spoilt child. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Pressley, don't attempt to define 
 me or my efforts. All that is quite beyond you, 
 quite." 
 
 The rudeness of his speech seemed to silence the 
 company. When Julian and Frances arose to go 
 Miss St. Preux asked: 
 
 "Are you going to look at Queenshaven ?" 
 
 "Yes," Julian replied. 
 
 "I hope you will like it, and don't form an opin- 
 ion too quickly. The real Queenshaven which 
 those find who are worthy is very lovely." 
 
 The old lady seemed moved, and Frances said 
 impulsively : 
 
 "I am sure I shall love it. It seems too good to 
 be true after New York." 
 
 "Ah, yes; I am told that New York is very large 
 and very ugly, as is natural from the influences that 
 have made it what it is. I have never been there." 
 
 Frances felt that she liked Miss St. Preux better 
 than anyone else here. She took the old lady's out- 
 stretched hand and pressed it warmly. 
 
 They walked through hushed streets full of gar- 
 dens that showed scarcely a sign of Winter. Trees, 
 lawns and flower-beds were subdued to quiet tints. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 147 
 
 Here and there, in the lower city, stood houses of 
 the Georgian period — faintly and beautifully old. 
 The effect of the whole was one of gentleness and 
 peace, but also of quiet high-breeding. The eigh- 
 teenth-century conception of classic elegance and 
 propriety lingered In the sunny porticos of many 
 houses. This, Indeed, seemed to Julian on that first 
 morning the distinctive note of all that was most 
 characteristic here: an English, eighteenth-century 
 sense of dignity and of reserved grace. Whatever 
 was new (and there was much) seemed In very 
 shame to have shed the crude glare of Its modernity 
 and to have melted Into the temperate comeliness 
 of the general effect. Not a few of the residences on 
 La Roche Street and Court House Street were suffi- 
 ciently handsome, but they exhibited none of that 
 impudent glitter of wealth which disfigures the bet- 
 ter portion of American cities. The cleanliness and 
 comfort of the rare tram-cars, the comparative ab-- 
 sence of the motor-car pest, added to the city's air 
 of dignity; and above all, the city — so much a sen- 
 sitive eye could make out soon enough — ^was aware 
 of itself, of its historic past, of its present difference 
 from so much in American life that is crude and de- 
 testable. And that self-conscigusness, serene but 
 
148 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 not obtrusive, was perhaps its last and crowning 
 grace. 
 
 Frances reasoned about none of these things. 
 Her individual perceptions blended into a rich sense 
 of well-being and love. She was quite sure that 
 she would care for Queenshaven immensely; that 
 here, too, if at all, one might attain spiritual certi- 
 tude and peace. She knew that she had neither, 
 and that. In spite of her well-being, she was not 
 perfectly happy. It seemed to her that complete 
 happiness demanded a sense of its own endurance 
 in the knowledge that the source from which It 
 springs is perennial, that it could never exist side 
 by side with these constant repressions of troubling 
 thought which her tortured soul made necessary. 
 She wondered whether Julian felt that too, but she 
 could not tell. For the moment he was completely 
 wrapt in the external charm about them. 
 
 They wandered on to King Street, a long, narrow 
 thoroughfare on which the principal shops of the 
 town were situated. But here distinctive features 
 of the city grew less salient. Standing before the 
 windpw of a jewelry shop, they saw Held. He 
 turned and came to meet them. 
 
 "You are looking at Queenshaven? She's a coy 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 149 
 
 old beauty with a prodigious stomacher and bare 
 shoulders." 
 
 "That's true, and yet your tone makes it de- 
 testably false," said Julian. 
 
 "Are you succumbing to her antique allure- 
 ment?" 
 
 "Yes, and I'm rather glad to do so. If you do 
 not, why are you»here?" 
 
 The blue eyes suddenly looked much older. 
 
 "There's less here that rasps on me than else- 
 where. So I retire to Queenshaven from time to 
 time — to rest." 
 
 Julian looked closely at the other man. 
 
 "Are you Arthur Langdon Held?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I didn't know you were a celebrity," said 
 Frances. 
 
 "A celebrity — such as they are at present. If 
 Mr. Ware did not in some way practise literature 
 he would not know of my verses." 
 
 "True." Julian's voice was dry. 
 
 Held smiled a curious, self-conscious smile. 
 
 "I must be off, but we will meet at dinner." 
 
 Julian seemed irritated. 
 
 "The man has prodigious gifts, but everything 
 
ISO THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 he docs Is false and rotten at the core. And that 
 seems the way at present of our most gifted men." 
 
 ''It is not true of your work." 
 
 "Mine — my dear? Let's not talk of It. I, at 
 all events, have you." 
 
 "But what Is the trouble with your work? You 
 have never really told me." 
 
 "Fm shy about It — even to you. The truth seems 
 to be that I matured late and that my faculty Is not 
 a rich or happy one. I write slowly and with infi- 
 nite pains, and what's more, IVe never had any en^ 
 couragement, which makes continued production 
 doubly hard. My work Is unpopular; It Is sombre, 
 pessimistic, if you will." 
 
 "And can't I help you?" 
 ' "By being what you are, dearest; not by doing 
 anything." 
 
 "Ah, you rate me very low." 
 
 "On the contrary: life Is infinitely more Impor- 
 tant than literature, beauty Is better than style, your 
 charm is far above singing." 
 
 He seemed to fall Into troubled thought 
 
 "Look at this fellow, Held ! I'm twice the man 
 that he Is in essential power, knowledge. Insight. 
 But his easy accomplishment, his smooth workman- 
 ship — all that's beyond me." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 151 
 
 She looked at him wistfully. 
 
 "Ah, sweetheart/' he cried, "isn't it a black 
 shame to be annoyed by such things to-day, of all 
 days? And, ultimately, It really doesn't matter." 
 
 She was sorry that he should think so meanly of 
 his talents, but she was happy that he seemed to 
 subordinate his work to her. And she nursed this 
 monstrous delusion with care. 
 
 They turned back to the sun-washed gardens of 
 the South and the soft romance of the city came 
 again upon them. Julian tossed pennies to ragged 
 little negroes on the curb who waved small, bat- 
 tered caps and showed rows of gleaming teeth. 
 They had returned to their holiday mood of simple 
 happiness. 
 
 When they went back to the Villa Mercedes 
 Julian said that he had a few notes to write, and 
 Frances accepted Miss St. Preux's invitation to sit 
 with her on the verandah. From there the waters 
 of the bay, doubly enchanted, could be seen only in 
 long blue and gold streaks through the trees of the 
 garden that separated the Villa from the stone 
 parapet of the shore. Frances felt uncomfortable, 
 as If she owed some account of herself to the tall, 
 old lady who seemed to glare at her through strong 
 glasses. She wondered what Miss St. Preux 
 
152' THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 thought of her, whether there was anything in her 
 manner that betrayed the unusualness of the situa- 
 tion. She tried In vain to reassure herself. The 
 hesitancy of her manner was unconquerable. Held 
 came in through the garden and sat down on the 
 steps. He took off his hat and passed his hand 
 lightly over his silky, blond hair. His eyes were 
 bluer and more naif than ever. 
 
 "I'm going away,'* he announced calmly. 
 
 "Again?" asked Miss St. Preux. 
 
 "Actually, this time. I'm satiated with blue and 
 gold. I shall go slumming in New York and see 
 horrible poverty and beautifully frightful disease. 
 It will be beatific — after this." 
 
 He looked at Frances as if about to make an ex- 
 periment. 
 
 "Last time I dived into Broome Street I saw a 
 man whose face was so eaten away by — " 
 
 "Spare us the details, Mr. Held," said Miss St. 
 Preux, severely; "we do not share your taste." 
 
 "I am sure Mrs. Ware was interested." 
 
 "She was not I" the old woman snapped. 
 
 Frances looked at her gratefully as Held stepped 
 lightly into the house. 
 
 "I try not to take umbrage at his remarks," said 
 Miss St. Preux, "merely for Susie's sake — that's 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 153 
 
 Mrs. Pressley — ^but he is a disgusting little cad. 
 Artistic temperament or no artistic temperament, 
 he could not have crossed the threshold of any good 
 house in Queenshaven twenty years ago." 
 
 For some reason not easily definable, Frances 
 felt aggrieved. 
 
 "Mr. Ware is an artist, too." 
 
 "Eh? But he seems to be a gentleman." 
 
 The tone was harsh. 
 
 "Seems, Miss St. Preux?" Frances burst out. 
 
 "Sit down, young lady. I hadn't the least in- 
 tention of speaking slightingly of Mr. Ware. But 
 that is the way of you shy people. Suddenly you 
 flash out." 
 
 She laid her hand with a very kindly pressure on 
 Frances' arm. 
 
 "Do I seem shy?" 
 
 "Very," the old woman returned. "And it is 
 vexing to be shy. I was similarly afflicted in my 
 youth ; but I had an old aunt on my father's side, a 
 gentlewoman of the oldest Carolinian stock, who 
 gave me some invaluable advice. *My dear,' she 
 said, *have self-confidence I Have presence I A 
 young woman who lacks that, lacks everything. 
 And when you are about to enter a room full of 
 people and feel bashful, fold your hands and say: 
 
154 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "O God, help me to remember that I am Miss St. 
 Preux!" I have found such ejaculatory prayers 
 most helpful.' " 
 
 Frances laughed, throwing back her head. 
 
 "And did you find the practice effective?" 
 
 "As you see." 
 
 The dressing bell for dinner rang and Frances 
 hurried upstairs. 
 
 Dinner was long and formal; the conversation 
 insignificant. Held sat next to the brown-eyed' 
 woman, whose white, well-preserved arms he took 
 every opportunity of brushing with his hand. Mrs. 
 Pressley was voluble in a perfunctory way. The 
 newcomers said little, but seemed Intent on their 
 own affairs. Julian was in good spirits and whis- 
 pered endearing nothings to Frances, whose arms 
 and shoulders gleamed as of silvery silk above her 
 darker dress. As for her, she liked the dignified 
 propriety of the meal. She had hardly ever before 
 dined in evening-dress, and she felt as if she were 
 indeed living In the great world. But she could not 
 eat much. A strange, sweet tremour shook her at 
 intervals. Her body was aware of what her soul 
 chose not yet to dwell upon. Julian, too, ate spar- 
 ingly, but under his curved lids his eyes glowed 
 with a changeful fire. After dinner, Frances 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 155 
 
 lingered yet a moment with Miss St. Preux. Then 
 she followed Julian to their rooms. 
 
 A small hanging-lamp of crimson glass provided 
 the only Illumination; It swung from the ceiling 
 of the bedchamber. The sitting-room was dark, 
 except for the faint radiance of the amber moon, 
 which could be seen through the window, resting 
 apparently, upon the smooth, dark waters. Over 
 and around it spread the troops of quiet stars. For 
 the twinkling of an eye, Frances saw them clearly, 
 and saw their unperturbed shining over the storms 
 of human passion. Then the unspeakably sweet 
 mystery of life called her. Julian's arms were 
 about her, and his voice seemed to sob, as he said : 
 "At last." They looked into each other's eyes, 
 deeply, steadily, and some subtle current passed be- 
 tween them and shook them until they trembled like 
 grass. Nearer he leaned, and nearer, and their lips 
 seemed never to part. . . . Thought seemed to re- 
 turn to him first. He opened his arms and she ran 
 into the sleeping-chamber. He stepped out on the 
 balcony and smoked a cigarette to soothe the thun- 
 derous beating of his heart. Then he went in and 
 drew down the shades over the windows. . . . He 
 found Frances standing under the crimson lamp. 
 Her hair fell about her like a mantle; her white 
 
156 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 night-gown made her seem slim and frail, and she 
 tried to conceal her small, bare feet in its folds. 
 He came toward her slowly and reverently, as to a 
 vision of divine grace. She dropped her hands, 
 swayed toward him, and his lips were upon her 
 breast. . . , 
 
XII 
 
 They were alone together in the days of pure 
 sunlight or rare, swift rain; in aromatic, purple 
 nights, spangled with trembling stars. The world 
 and its noises could not reach them upon their alti- 
 tude of passionate enchantment, and men and 
 women became to their centred vision mere irrele- 
 vant marionettes. The weather was so mild that 
 she could often dress in white, and those were their 
 days of completest union, since Julian loved the 
 crispness and fresh odour of starched linen, that 
 blended with the faint, sweet scent of the warm 
 flesh beneath. His senses were of an endless curi- 
 osity, his desires subtly varied ; he knew the ecstasy 
 of denial no less than that of union; and she, in 
 her flexible youthfulness, became an instrument that 
 gradually sounded, with complete and immediate 
 harmony, each lightly touched chord. Then he 
 taught her that love is not a monotony of indul- 
 gence; that it has its reticences, its hours of tense 
 cahn, its infinitely subtle interplay of mysterious 
 
 «S7 
 
158 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 forces, no less than its fierce storms. It seemed to 
 her that in these weeks she became aware of a 
 wholly new world. How faint were the things, 
 and uncomely, that she had suspected in her vir- 
 ginal ignorance! Innumerable new perceptions 
 crowded upon her as she felt the vibrations upon 
 her nerves of the complex symphony of love. . . . 
 Julian had brought a boxful of books, and in 
 the morning they usually read together. He pre- 
 ferred verse in these days, as more consonant with 
 his mood, reading to her Rossetti's sonorous son- 
 nets with a broad insistence upon their deep vowel- 
 music. He tried one morning to read her his fa- 
 vourite passages of Wordsworth, but his voice 
 trailed off into silence. The austere clarity of the 
 great verses seemed like a rebuke. They had been 
 up late the night before and she was tired. Drow- 
 sily her head leaned upon his shoulder, her soft hair 
 touched his neck, and her breath his cheek. From 
 her body, clad in a light morning-gown, arose a 
 troubling scent of perfume. A dimness came over 
 his eyes, and the hand in which he held the volume 
 of Wordsworth trembled. He removed her head 
 gently from its resting-place and walked up and 
 down the rooms. She followed his steps from un- 
 der half-closed lids. During the last weeks she had 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 159 
 
 grown plumper, and as she reclined there, half- 
 asleep, her round neck and bosom partly exposed, 
 she seemed to him to exhale an air of mere satisfied 
 instinct. 
 
 'Trances, would you care to go out?" 
 
 She opened her eyes a little wider. 
 
 "No; I'm so sleepy." 
 
 "Oh, you can sleep In the afternoon. Come now; 
 it's cool and clear outside." 
 
 She was querulous with drowsiness. 
 
 "Please leave me alone, Julian. You know Fm 
 tired." 
 
 More luxuriously she nestled Into her chair. She 
 closed her eyes, and to his strained nerves It seemed 
 that her face, in this somnolent repose, was almost 
 stupid. Its relaxation Irritated him. 
 
 "I wish you would rouse yourself, Frances. It 
 strikes me that youVe tired very often when I ask 
 you to do anything sensible." 
 
 She sat up. 
 
 "Whose fault Is it?" 
 
 "Yours ! You seem gradually to be losing every 
 activity, every sane interest." 
 
 "One is hardly Inclined to sane activities when 
 one Is a man's mistress." 
 
 She could have struck herself for uttering the 
 
i6o THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 words, so foolish and vulgar they seemed to her 
 ear. But why would he not let her rest? She w^ j 
 tired — oh, so tired ! 
 
 "My dear," he said coldly, "you are evidently 
 not In a fit state this morning to discuss anything.'* 
 
 He took up his hat and gloves and went out. 
 
 She felt only an Immense relief at his departure. 
 Now she could sleep, and every fibre of her body 
 seemed to cry out for deep and dreamless rest. 
 With eyes half closed, she went Into the sleeping- 
 chamber, threw herself on the bed and forgot all 
 things. It was near noon when she awoke, and her 
 first memory was of the ugly and violent words she 
 had spoken. She could not account for them. True, 
 she had been desperately sleepy and angry at being 
 disturbed. But this would hardly explain so strange 
 a thing. The more she thought, the coarser and 
 more hateful the saying seemed. She hoped that 
 Julian had forgotten, but she could not believe that 
 he had. It was just such a remark as her mother 
 would have made, and she wondered whether In her, 
 too, slept the seeds of acerbity, unreason and vio- 
 lence. She took the cold bath for which in the morn- 
 ing she had been too weary, and dressed herself in a 
 graceful, dark frock. She looked at herself In the 
 mirror of the dressing-table and was satisfied. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE i6i 
 
 Every trace of listlessness and lassitude had 
 passed. 
 
 Just before it was time for luncheon, Julian came 
 in with alert step. He was in better spirits than he 
 had been for some days, but he hardly looked at 
 her. 
 
 "I've been out walking with Held," he an- 
 nounced briskly. **The fellow may be a cad, but he 
 certainly knows his business. WeVe been talking 
 shop, and he's been giving me some hints on short- 
 story technique. I think I can develop an idea 
 which has been bothering me a long time. I never, 
 somehow, could find the inevitable form that it must 
 take." 
 
 He started off to wash his hands and face. 
 
 "Time for luncheon, I suppose, and I'm 
 hungry.'* 
 
 She was hurt — foolishly, no doubt — that he had 
 not noticed the change in her and that he had not 
 kissed her. She was hurt — and this seemed almost 
 monstrous to her — that he had forgotten their scene 
 that morning. She had been prepared to admit 
 herself in the wrong, to be kissed and petted and 
 forgiven. And the matter had been of so little im- 
 port to him that he had not, in all probability, 
 given it a second thought. Nor did he now remark 
 
1 62 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 upon her silence. " During luncheon he was pre- 
 occupied, and Held looked at him, half-humour- 
 ously, with his glittering, blue eyes. 
 
 Julian had scarcely swallowed his last bite when 
 he hurried away. He looked at her hesitatingly 
 just for a second. 
 
 "I shall try to do some work this afternoon, 
 Frances." 
 
 She nodded, but found It difficult to keep her self- 
 possession. She felt herself suddenly dismissed, 
 abandoned, and shut out from his life. And, to her 
 shame, the wide, blue eyes across the table, uncan- 
 nily Intelligent, seemed to understand the situation 
 perfectly. She laid down her knife and fork and 
 declined some fruit which the woman with the mel- 
 ancholy, brown eyes held out to her. The smallest 
 morsel would have strangled her now. 
 
 After luncheon she went out on the verandah 
 and gazed seaward through a blur of foolish tears. 
 She had not the instant self-command of a woman 
 living under unaltering social constraint, and Held, 
 loitering here, detected the tears In her eyes. He 
 laid his firm, white hand lightly upon her arm. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Ware, there are facts which It 
 is quite fatal to rebel against. They are of such sur- 
 prising sohdity. And, after all, why should you?" 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 163 
 
 She had not the social adroitness to repel his 
 impertinence. His voice was naturally high and 
 shrill, but he knew how to restrain and modulate it. 
 
 "A woman," he continued, "who has no rival 
 but a man's art Is, as the world goes, lucky enough." 
 
 She was too interested to be discreet, and his 
 words had a temperate reasonableness which ap- 
 pealed to her. A man who brought this disinter- 
 ested spirit to such problems could be trusted. 
 
 "No doubt you are right," she said, "but the 
 first perception hurts, for all that." 
 
 Something not unlike pity subdued the blue eyes. 
 
 "How inexperienced you are to be surprised and 
 hurt. Didn't you expect it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 In spite of herself her lip trembled. 
 
 He drew up a couple of wicker-chairs and they 
 sat down. 
 
 "May I smoke?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "We try to live our dreams," he said softly, 
 "and we always fail. The artist alone succeeds. In 
 a measure, and will not barter his dream-life for 
 beauty or wealth or love." 
 
 "Not even for love?" 
 
 "Least of all ; for if he gives his art for the sake 
 
1 64 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 of love, the gift is irrevocable. He may appear to 
 sacrifice his art; he may persuade himself, in some 
 brief hour, that he can sacrifice it. But he can- 
 not." 
 
 "Not even to his — ^wife?" 
 , "No; but his wife can still be measurably happy 
 since he returns to her at the call of deep instincts, 
 social and personal." The blue eyes flickered 
 strangely. "But let us pity the poor woman who 
 must hold him without acknowledged claims 1" 
 
 She felt herself growing white under that gaze 
 that seemed to read her soul. And his words were 
 of such sad sincerity that fear of her whole fate 
 overmastered her. She wanted to escape. But 
 again he laid his light hand on her arm. 
 
 "Why should you disturb him at his work? It 
 will only make things worse." 
 
 She sank back into her chair. His eyes looked 
 dreamily over the waters. 
 
 "There is nothing so pitiless as the love of 
 woman. It gives us much, but it would withhold 
 the one thing which we dare not lack — the undis- 
 turbed life of our own soul. If you leave Ware 
 alone, he will love you in the hours which he can 
 give to love ; if you rob him of peace In the hours 
 which he must not give, he will hate you." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 165 
 
 She turned her face away and the low voice at 
 her side continued: 
 
 "The man who does not marry the woman he 
 loves . . . invites his doom. Were he to marry 
 her, she would not suffer the fever to possess him 
 wholly at every moment. Her hold upon him 
 would be of an ultimate security and she would not 
 rob him and herself of peace. I am infinitely care- 
 less of society and its claims ; I acknowledge no law 
 but the law of my needs ; but I would not dare to 
 live with a woman and not marry her. No legal 
 bonds are of such crushing fierceness, no convention 
 is so throttling, as these lawless fetters. If one is 
 married one can at least — get a divorce." 
 
 It took all her power of self-control to speak 
 with impersonal calm. 
 
 "And this is your defence of marriage?" 
 
 "It Is. You think It a defence upon low grounds? 
 Dear lady, what is low, what is high? One must 
 live with the least possible friction. Practise that 
 and you will be happy as I am." 
 
 "Are you happy?" 
 
 His smile was radiant. 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 There seemed to her something repulsive in his 
 brilliant gracefulness and his blue eyes. And yet, 
 
1 66; THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 it was with an effort that she arose. He opened 
 the door for her and she passed into the house. 
 Then, suddenly, his words smote upon her. Was 
 she, to any extent, in this man's power? Surely he 
 was unscrupulous. She would tell Julian and they 
 might go away. The old cry arose to her lips: 
 * 'How difficult life is, how difficult. . . ." 
 
 She was a little dazed by all she had heard. 
 It revealed to her her own piteous inexperience of 
 the problems of personal intimacy between men and 
 women. She had never dreamed that such an in- 
 timacy raised any problems but purely external ones. 
 To love, to be beloved — was not that a sufficient 
 basis for enduring content? It must be, she 
 thought, in spite of Held's subtleties, that "love is 
 enough." The region of a delicate and largely in- 
 tellectual adjustment of relationship, which he had 
 opened to her, seemed unspeakably repulsive, cold 
 and ungenerous. She and Julian, who truly loved 
 each other, had no need of such repressions and 
 artifices. 
 
 She found him engrossed in his task at the small 
 desk in the sitting-room. Despite her rebellion 
 against Held's advice, she hesitated to disturb him, 
 but once more with a feeling of loneliness went out 
 on the narrow balcony. The scarlet glare of the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 167 
 
 sun had just dipped behind the purple line of the 
 low, wooded Islands that hemmed the bay, but his 
 rays, of an unearthly roslness of colour, Illumined 
 huge masses of white clouds towering above the 
 horizon. Frances watched the drifting dreamland 
 of the argent clouds, which now seemed a visionary 
 city with rosy cupolas and soaring spires, and now, 
 shifting its formation, a range of happy mountains 
 where rose and silver peaks led Into Paradise. But 
 the earth turned its face more and more from the 
 glowing west, the clouds grew dim and ominous 
 and leaden, and she was afraid that from her own 
 life its brief radiance would fade. She wanted to 
 be loved and comforted and reassured. 
 
 She went to Julian and bent over him. 
 
 "When will it be finished?' 
 
 He restrained a movement of impatience. 
 
 "Finished? Why, Fm working at the first out- 
 line." 
 
 "But youVe done enough for to-day. Come; 
 Fm so lonely." 
 
 He bit his lip, but arose. 
 
 "Fll rest a bit, but I must get back to It while I 
 have a grip on It." 
 
 He sat down In an easy-chair and stared into the 
 room before him while the dark drifted slowly in. 
 
i68 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 She came and nesded to his side. His hands 
 seemed cold and she pressed them close to her 
 bosom. Then she put her head on his shoulder and 
 was content. She had been so lonely and sick at 
 heart that it was wonderfully sweet to be thus en- 
 compassed by his presence, and she crept still nearer 
 to him. Thus they sat in the dusk and the tingling 
 silence. Suddenly he drew his hands away and 
 arose, and even in the dim light of the room she 
 could now discern a strange anger in his eyes. 
 
 "Frances,'* he said, and his anger seemed to 
 choke him, "you must not tempt me when Tm try- 
 ing to work. There are other things in the 
 world . . ." 
 
 "I never meant to " 
 
 "It does not matter what you meant. The result 
 is the same. When I am at work I do not wish to 
 be disturbed. You used not to be so devoid of in- 
 tellectual resources. Can't you employ yourself 
 for a while?" 
 
 She was overwhelmed by his cold rage and the 
 harshness of his words, but she understood now — 
 so well, so tragically well. 
 
 "Julian, whatever I had done you would not 
 use that tone to me if I were your wife. It is bit- 
 terly unjust, it is horrible and wicked of youi to 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 169 
 
 make me suffer for the sin which I committed for 
 your sake." 
 
 He looked at her hopelessly. 
 
 **If you can explain to me any conceivable con- 
 nection between my not wishing to be disturbed at 
 my work and our being married or not, I should 
 be obliged." 
 
 "It is not that, but your whole attitude shows 
 that you don't respect me. And the reason is, of 
 course, that we are not married." 
 
 *'I thought you had rid yourself of these intoler- 
 able follies. Do you respect me?" 
 
 *'Surely." 
 
 *'Well, I am not your husband. You are not my 
 wife and still I respect you. Respect is given to a 
 human personality, not to an official status." 
 
 "And do you think it quite the same for both of 
 us?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 She shook her head sadly. 
 
 "It isn't, Julian; it isn't. I don't know why or 
 how, but I feel it clearly." 
 
 "You are simply rooted in the vulgar officialisms 
 and domesticities of the bourgeois class." 
 
 "Would I have come with you if that were 
 true?" 
 
170 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "Such cases have been known. But I thought 
 you were different. I am sorry and disappointed." 
 
 He settled down again at the desk and did not 
 look up when the dinner-bell rang. For a while the 
 clock on the mantel-piece ticked horribly through 
 the silence. Then he turned around. 
 
 "Aren't you going to dinner?" 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 "And for Heaven's sake, why not? If I happen 
 not to be hungry . . . ? We are not galley-slaves, 
 tied to the same oar." 
 
 She was herself anything but hungry, yet she 
 thought it wiser not to resist. She dressed and went 
 downstairs. Miss St. Preux, who sat next to her at 
 table to-day, looked at her frequently. 
 
 "You look pale, Mrs. Ware. Are you not 
 well?" 
 
 The voice was warmly sympathetic, full of 
 womanly kindness, and Frances looked up grate- 
 fully. 
 
 "No; I don't think I am well." 
 
 The old lady saw the distressed look in her 
 neighbour's eyes and divined much. 
 
 "Come and sit with me awhile after dinner," she 
 said. 
 
XIII 
 
 Miss St. Preux was not a garrulous person, but 
 to-night she talked in a clear, thin stream of kindly 
 anecdote and gossip to the young woman by her 
 side. The moral which, with unexpected lightness 
 of touch, she insinuated, was that by forbearance, 
 by forgiveness, by believing the best, and trusting, 
 even when to trust seems foolish — that by these 
 things alone the rare miracle of human content is 
 compassed. She spoke of her own brilliant youth, 
 of the desolation suddenly wrought by the war, of 
 descending from the sheltered heights of wealth 
 and distinction to earn a living by her needle; she 
 spoke of patience, of renunciation, of the sustaining 
 power of a conscious submission to the will of God. 
 And it seemed to Frances that beside the immacu- 
 late flame of this noble and simple spirit, her own 
 life stood out tarnished and ignoble. She felt her- 
 self rebuked and touched when, near ten o'clock, 
 Miss St. Preux passed a caressing, old hand over 
 
 her cheek and bade her good-night. 
 
 171 
 
172 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 There was a vague stirring in her as of some- 
 thing that called for light and dominance. She was 
 dissatisfied with herself and her future^ — that 
 golden future of which she had dreamed with such 
 deep luxury of joy. It seemed to her, strangely, 
 above all things, that she feared the touch of 
 Julian's body against hers, and that she would have 
 been glad that night to sleep alone, afar off, beside 
 some Icy mountain pool under the cold stars. The 
 soft beauty of their rooms seemed repulsive to her. 
 With the abiding Instinct of humanity, pitiful and 
 sublime, not to relinquish Its hold upon high 
 dreams, she attributed her sudden reaction to all 
 noble Impulses, ethical and spiritual only — not to Its 
 true source, a passing satiety of the senses. Nor 
 did she suspect that the same cause was at the root 
 of Julian's sudden and fierce absorption in the 
 things of the intellect. 
 
 She found him still awake and dressed, calm but 
 tired. He turned to her with a wistful smile. 
 
 *' Where have you been all the evening, dear?" 
 
 "Talking to Miss St. Preux." 
 
 He nodded approvingly. Then, with an Impul- 
 sive movement, he caught her hands In his. 
 
 "Was I unkind to you to-day, dearest?" 
 
 She smiled at him through Irrepressible tears. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 173 
 
 "Forgive me, my little girl; forgive me. And 
 don't attribute any significance to such things. I'm 
 easily annoyed when I'm working; but we have 
 done nothing except play too long. I must get back 
 to my work ; and though I fail a thousand times, I 
 shall succeed at last. You must help me, sweet- 
 heart, and if the work goes wrong and I'm tired 
 and irritable, be sorry for me and not angry. Will 
 you?" 
 
 The appeal seemed fashioned for her present 
 mood. 
 
 "I want to help you in all the best efforts of your 
 life, Julian. I want to do that, above all things !" 
 
 He kissed her in gratitude and trust and friend- 
 ship, and peace came into her soul. 
 
 Next morning at breakfast Held was voluble. It 
 appeared that he had attended a prayer-meeting at 
 a huge negro church the night before and had re- 
 ceived a new sensation. 
 
 "It was superb," he declared. "The existence of 
 such primitive fervour in this sophisticated age is 
 not to be neglected. It was so strange and so beau- 
 tiful that I wept." 
 
 A smile of Incredulity passed around the table 
 at the notion of Held's weeping. Only Miss St. 
 Preux was grave. 
 
174 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 **Do you think it admirable to laugh at the faith 
 of simple souls?" 
 
 He turned to her suavely. 
 
 "You mistake my attitude entirely. The crudity 
 of laughter at such things is behind me. They 611 
 me with delicious wonder and all my primitive 
 senses vibrate in sympathy." 
 
 But he had not satisfied Miss St. Preux. 
 
 "The old-fashioned unbeliever had, at least, the 
 full courage of his negations. What have you?" 
 
 "Nothing, dear lady, except complete openness 
 of mind." 
 
 "Without faith or hope." 
 
 "But with boundless charity." 
 
 "Even, unfortunately, for yourself." 
 
 He looked sullen at the laughter which heralded 
 his apparent defeat. He pouted his full, red lips 
 and his blue eyes looked angry. He turned to 
 Ware. 
 
 "You agree with me?" 
 
 "Intellectually, yes. But my emotional attitude 
 is different." 
 
 "Ah, you should see what I have seen. It thrills 
 one ecstatically." 
 
 "I have no time at present," said Julian. "Would 
 you like to go, Frances?" 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 175 
 
 "I should be so charmed to act as escort," Held 
 broke In. 
 
 Frances hesitated; but remembering that, per- 
 haps, Julian would like an entirely undisturbed 
 evening of work, she consented to go, and he 
 seemed quite content that she should. The woman 
 of the sad, brown eyes ostentatiously dropped her 
 fork clattering upon her plate, but a look from 
 Held seemed to silence further demonstration on 
 her part. Miss St. Preux frowned and Frances was 
 aware that she was In the presence of some strange 
 complication. 
 
 "We start Immediately after dinner," said Held. 
 "The meetings begin rather early." 
 
 Frances nodded assent. 
 
 All through the day she shivered at times In 
 anticipation of the barbaric scene which she was 
 to witness. She had no Idea of what It would be 
 like, but she discovered In herself a craving for ex- 
 citement which might be satisfied. For Julianas 
 sake, who was preoccupied, she tried to master her 
 restlessness. But she did not want to think. It con- 
 fused and hurt her In these days, and sad, dim, 
 poignant memories came unbidden to darken for 
 her the blue and gold of Queenshaven. . . . 
 
176 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 The night air was mild and caressing when she 
 met Held on the verandah. 
 
 "It is like a summer night," he said. "Let us 
 walk." 
 
 "Is it far?" she asked. 
 
 "There are no distances in Queenshaven, nor in 
 the world — at times." 
 
 She wanted to resent his impertinence. But the 
 fear that evil knowledge of her and her fate might 
 be his, came sickenlngly upon her. For then he 
 might, by a word breathed, shatter her content. 
 And in spite of his words, his manner was elabo- 
 rately courteous. His eyes were dark now and vel- 
 vety; in their great, black pupils shimmered the 
 dancing yellow flame of the street-lamps, and from 
 them streamed a power to compel all languorous 
 and alluring thoughts. Frances, her first fear ban- 
 ished, yielded to their beauty and to the charm of 
 his artfully modulated voice. He was pleasant and 
 interesting. She permitted her mind to dwell on 
 nothing else. 
 
 The darkness In the Queenshaven streets was of 
 a liquid softness that seemed to flood and eddy 
 about house and wall and tree. And then the 
 moon arose and the highest boughs of the trees 
 ^flashed silver leaves in the light wind. They came 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 177 
 
 upon Marlon Square, and here the great moon rode 
 free in the sky, hanging for a moment like an aure- 
 ole behind the grim head of Calhoun upon his tall 
 monument. The great, silent space before the 
 ancient barracks of the military school was bright 
 with a pale, unearthly brightness, and so silent that 
 they could hear across it the measured step of a 
 single sentry by the iron gate. 
 
 Turning eastward into Calhoun Street, they were 
 caught almost unawares in a stream of loudly chat- 
 tering negroes which carried them, presently, to the 
 door of the church. It was a large, pretentious 
 building of red brick. But it was apparently in- 
 complete, and on one side, where a tower should 
 have been, a huge hole in the masonry was covered 
 by a wooden shed. Held and Frances followed the 
 crowd up an outer iron stairway and entered the 
 church. 
 
 It was a huge hall, as well equipped as the aver- 
 age Protestant church in the South, but, unlike the 
 temples of the dominant race, it bore signs of rough 
 usage. Carpet and cushions were torn and the 
 wood-work of the pews was covered by a thick film 
 of nauseating grease. With hardly an empty space 
 in the long pews, rose close-packed and seething in 
 the warm, fetid atmosphere line after line of 
 
178 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 faces, black and brown and yellow, already swaying 
 here and there with a slow, rhythmic motion. Held 
 and Frances had scarcely found a seat when an enor- 
 mous quadroon, clad in a frock-coat that was green 
 with wear, stepped on the carpeted platform and 
 gave out a hymn. The organ that played the pre- 
 lude was small and Its reedy quaver disproportion- 
 ate to the spacious room, but suddenly broke about 
 them from a thousand voices the words of the song. 
 It was a familiar hymn-tune, but never had Frances 
 heard It sung In this fashion. Not only were the 
 voices full of a wild fervour, but they transformed 
 the strain Into an echoing, melancholy wall that 
 rose and receded, thrilled and quavered In poignant 
 waves of Indescribably troubling sound. At the 
 close of each stanza the resonant voice of the 
 preacher called out: "All slngl All sing I Glory 
 be to Gawd!" And when the last stanza was 
 reached, hands were clapping and feet tramping to 
 the rhythmic beat, rise and fall of the Innumerable 
 voices. 
 
 The congregation knelt and the preacher prayed, 
 communicating to the conventional verbiage that 
 he used a plaintive appeal, and from here and there 
 in the hall rose single voices, as he prayed, ejaculat- 
 ing: "DassoT "Amen I" "Oh, Lawdy, dassol" 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 179 
 
 with fervent faith and gratitude. Another hymn 
 was sung, followed by the sermon. The preacher 
 used fairly correct English. His sentiments were 
 threadbare, but through the discourse sounded a 
 mad strain of incoherence and the man's voice rose 
 in almost superhuman strength. By the mere vol- 
 ume of agonised sound he seemed to wish to drag 
 sinners to repentance. He shouted echoingly of the 
 saving blood of Christ, called upon his flock to 
 bathe in that scarlet stream and cleanse themselves 
 of sin. "An' ef you don't accept the glorious offer 
 to come to Him and be clean, there's no hope for 
 you — no hope — ^no hopel" The voice was full of 
 wild sobs and lamentations as it repeated the words, 
 and then without wavering it changed to an incom- 
 parable glory of exultation and sang, alone and un- 
 accompanied by the organ : 
 
 "At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light 
 And the burden of my heart rolled away. 
 It was there by faith I received my sight. 
 And now I am happy all the day!" 
 
 Voice after voice took up the strain until the 
 church was again filled by the thrilling, maddening 
 storm of music. The singers arose from their 
 seats, threw up their hands, and turned up their 
 
i8o THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 shining, black faces and dilated eyes. When the 
 fervour was at Its height the preacher raised his 
 hand and commanded silence, for a space — the 
 silence of unspoken prayer. . ,.. 
 
 Frances discovered, to her confusion, that she 
 was clasping Held's hand. An emotional whirl- 
 wind seemed to have passed over her with little re^ 
 sistance on her part. She saw that her nails had 
 wounded him. She must have been mad. But he 
 would not let her speak. "Don't," he whispered. 
 "Wait." Stirred though he was, he had himself 
 well In hand, watching with Infinite curiosity the 
 beating upon his nerves of these barbaric emotions. 
 But Frances felt herself, especially now In this 
 tense silence, perilously adrift upon waves of sheer 
 sensation. . . . From the silence, which seemed 
 at length to grow intolerable with the suppressed 
 travail of troubling ecstasy, burst a long, Inhuman 
 shriek. A thin, consumptive negro woman arose 
 from her seat. The creature stretched her arms to 
 Heaven, panted, and from her lips fell flecks of 
 foam. *'I see He, my Jesus I Yeh, Lawd, I come. 
 Hallelujah!" Groans and cries answered her as 
 she continued to pour forth a cataract of epileptic 
 babbling, broken by wails and shrieks. Faster the 
 words came and faster ; her eyes became glazed ; the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE i8i 
 
 woman fell back lifeless; and over her surged 
 another sea of chanting and clapping and trampling, 
 and half-articulate sobbing cries: **She save' ! Oh, 
 Gawd! Hallelujah! She converted ! Oh! — '' 
 
 Without In the cool night air, Frances stood 
 trembling. She had been able to bear no longer the 
 waves of hysteria about her and had fled from the 
 scene. Held followed her. 
 
 "You missed the best part," he said, "the last 
 hymn." 
 
 She tried to regain her composure. 
 "It was horrible." 
 
 "But the pastor knows his business. Ah! that 
 man Is an artist in his way. The methods he uses 
 are crude enough, no doubt, but how superbly ef- 
 fective!" 
 
 "Even you were moved." 
 "That Is just It. So few things can move me." 
 She was still under the influence of the scene. 
 All her nerves were preternaturally sensitive and 
 Held's light touch upon her arm was like some ex- 
 quisite pain. She had come lately to live In large 
 measure In a conscious play of sensations, and this 
 new effect was not unpleasant. The hand with which, 
 occasionally, he touched hers, was cool and smooth 
 and white as a glrPs. She herself ached with sup- 
 
1 82 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 pressed fever, and the coolness of his flesh appealed 
 to her, refreshed her, as Icy water would have 
 healed the burning of her throat. Where was the 
 ethical Impulse, the clear beauty of calm thought of 
 the night before? Her limbs throbbed, and It 
 seemed to her that she must In truth be wicked and 
 different from other women whom no wayward de- 
 sires stung and no weakness rendered defenceless. 
 She fought the sensuous thoughts that assailed her, 
 barely listening to Held's talk; she tried to hurt 
 herself by pressing a sharp ring she wore deeply 
 into her flesh, but the pain seemed only to accentu- 
 ate the craving of her senses. She strove to fix her 
 mind on grave and piteous and tragic things, but 
 the thoughts became a mere mechanical repetition 
 of unspoken words and her true consciousness dwelt 
 upon the fair boy at her side. 
 
 They came to the shore of the bay and stood for 
 a little while leaning against the Iron railing. The 
 bright path of the moonlight lay upon the waters. 
 
 '^Look closely," said Held. "The moon throws 
 innumerable rings of burnished steel Into the water, 
 and when they touch the surface — they break." 
 
 She gazed Into the brightness and saw that he 
 spoke truly. Not only did the glittering rings 
 break, but writhed like silver snakes upon the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 183 
 
 waves. She gazed for a long time and her soul 
 seemed to pass from her Into the flashing play of 
 the steel rings. She knew that Held was coming 
 nearer to her, but she could not take her eyes away. 
 He laid his cool cheek softly against her hot one. 
 With a supreme effort she moved away. 
 
 *'0h, why did you do that?" 
 
 "It was such a little, harmless thing," he an- 
 swered in his softest tone, "and you did not dis- 
 like It." 
 
 "It was hateful and insulting." 
 
 "It was not hateful to you, dear lady. You 
 think that it should have been, of course. I know 
 that. Nor was it insulting. But will you promise 
 to forgive me if I promise to offend no more?" 
 
 She was tired of struggling. Everything seemed 
 to conspire to bring into relief the baser qualities of 
 her being. But flight, at least, was possible. 
 
 "Let us go." 
 
 It was not late and the windows of the Villa 
 Mercedes were still like splashes of sharp yellow 
 behind the sheltering trees. On the verandah Fran- 
 ces thanked Held in conventional words for his 
 escort and went to her room. 
 
 As she passed through the softly carpeted upper 
 hall a door opened and the stout woman of th^ sad, 
 
1 84 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 brown eyes came out swiftly. She had on a loose 
 dressing-gown. 
 
 "You have been out with Arthur Held?" 
 
 *'I have. Why do you ask?" 
 
 "I want to warn you — you child. I know that he 
 IS evil through and through — merciless, brutal, de- 
 praved ! You don't suspect it ? No ; his eyes are in- 
 nocent enough. But don't let yourself be deceived ! 
 Don't . . . ! I know ... too well . . ." 
 
 It was crude and horrible and ugly. Frances 
 tried to pass, but the woman blocked her path. 
 
 "Have you heard what I said?" 
 
 "Yes, yes; please let me go." 
 
 She was almost ashamed to go to Julian after 
 all that had passed. But his whole attitude 
 smothered remorse. He was sitting in his shirt- 
 sleeves, lost over a pile of manuscripts, and held a 
 brier-wood pipe firmly between his teeth. His hair 
 was in disorder, his right hand slightly stained with 
 ink, and he appeared to her suddenly as ugly and 
 forbidding. Deliberately he completed the sen- 
 tence he was writing and then swung around. 
 
 "Had an interesting evening, my dear? I've cer- 
 tainly had a profitable one. Well, aren't you com- 
 ing to me?" 
 
 He kissed her and she tasted the acrid tobacco 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 185 
 
 on his lips. She could hardly restrain a movement 
 of disgust. 
 
 "Oh, yes; it was very Interesting, Indeed. But 
 Tm tired and I think I'll go to bed." 
 
 "All right, little girl. I won't just yet. I'm ia 
 good trim and it's only eleven." 
 
 She threw herself on her bed and cried softly, 
 fearing that the sound might reach his ears. He 
 did not care what became of her, whether she was 
 happy or wretched, clean or defiled. He had his 
 work, his detestable work. She almost hated him 
 as she stared, sleepless, into the darkness. 
 
XIV 
 
 Whatever had been its cause, the one hour of 
 reaction against the influences that surrounded her 
 had marked a period in the life of this woman 
 struggling under the careless stars with the imme- 
 morial division in the life of man. Isolated and 
 repressed from childhood by one of those pitiless 
 accidents (economic In their origin) of modem so- 
 ciety, she had cast off, in the strength of her youth 
 and passion, the intolerable fetters. She had found 
 a life of sensuous and sensual enjoyment; but her 
 mate, with a man's Indomitable strife after ob- 
 jective self-realisation, whether in words or Iron or 
 stone, had turned from her and left her In Idleness 
 with a hot yearning of the senses. But she had had 
 one hour when the state of her body permitted her 
 to divine that all was not right in her life and that a 
 strong disgust at It could assail her. The hour 
 passed and only Its memory remained, dim but 
 abiding. She endeavoured, as she saw herself gath- 
 ered Into a new entanglement of the senses, to recall 
 
 1 86 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 187 
 
 that clear, high, austere mood, but still In vain. It 
 needed tongue after tongue of the elemental flame 
 leaping from the furnace of life to purge her flesh 
 and to establish the equilibrium between soul and 
 sense, whose disturbance means death In life. . . . 
 She clung. In self-defence, to the Idea that Julian 
 was careless of her happiness and that he did not 
 respect her because she was not his wife. In her 
 heart she knew herself to be unjust, but she had a 
 fund of useful feminine perversity with which to 
 blind her eyes, voluntarily, and justify her ways. 
 He seemed to be always at work, and when he was 
 not, to want her to take long, bracing walks In the 
 clear, mild Winter weather. And still her flesh 
 ached with desire unsatisfied and she became queru- 
 lous and reproachful. He looked at her with eyes 
 so sorrowful, at times, that she wanted to cry on 
 his shoulder and tell him of her confusion. But 
 always Held's white face and blue eyes seemed to 
 intervene, and the more she turned from Julian the 
 deeper he, by a conscious effort, steeped himself In 
 his work. He had no time to puzzle out what was 
 happening : his task called him. Thus no outburst 
 that might have cleared the atmosphere of their 
 souls occurred and they passed each other brooding 
 and with averted eyes. 
 
1 88 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 One forenoon an explanation seemed Imminent. 
 She stood before him, completely exquisite, fasten- 
 ing her hat. 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 "^To see the works at the naval station." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 "No; with Mr. Heidi" she defied him. 
 
 "Aren't you — " 
 
 He checked himself and a dull crimson rose Into 
 his forehead and receded. He got up and, as she 
 drew on her gloves, opened the door for her. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, my dear. I hope you'll en- 
 joy yourself." 
 
 But all that day Held found her listless and ab- 
 sent. She was trying to pierce the mystery of 
 Julian's conduct, to weigh In her soul the motive that 
 withheld him from being betrayed into any expres- 
 sion of jealousy. Did he suffer? Pray God that 
 he did. Then all would be well — ^yet. . . . 
 
 At last Held became impatient. Their intimacy 
 had proceeded by leaps in the last ten days. 
 
 "My dear Frances, you are unconscionably stur 
 pid to-day." 
 
 She looked at him, and he seemed puny and ab- 
 surd with all his grace and youth. And for the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 189 
 
 sake of this artificial boy she was making a strong 
 man — the one man — suffer. She turned to Held. 
 
 "You will remember not to use my first name 
 hereafter. I'm going home." 
 
 "So am I," he retw.rned. "Perhaps you will feel 
 more human to-morrow." 
 
 She was angry at his refusal to be rebuffed and 
 spoke no word to him on their way back. She 
 panted for the evening to come. Something must 
 happen then, some word must be said to bring heal- 
 ing to the troubled heart. She would wring from 
 Julian a confession of jealousy which would assure 
 her of his love. She was hungry for such assur- 
 ances, and he, though kind, was silent concerning 
 the one thing upon which she craved expression. 
 
 At last they were alone together. Ages seemed 
 to have passed In waiting for this moment, ages of 
 alternate certitude and despair. Now she would 
 hear him speak the word that would make all well. 
 He seemed to divine from her restless eyes, from 
 her movements, that some subtle crisis was at hand, 
 and also to suspect something of its character, for 
 notable lines of sternness curved about his mouth. 
 She fluttered, with birdlike Inconsequence, from 
 place to place, object to object, and he sat silent and 
 
I90 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 watchful. Then, with a movement of petulance, 
 she threw herself Into a chair. 
 
 "I'm rather tired of Held's perpetual clever- 
 
 ness." 
 
 She had calculated with nicety how his retort, 
 "Then why do you seek his society?" would at once 
 open the flood-gates of her grief and fear and give 
 him an opportunity of declaring his emotional atti- 
 tude. Tensely she waited for his words. They 
 came. 
 
 "But his cleverness Is very genuine." 
 
 Then she arose in the violence of her weakness 
 and defeat. 
 
 "You do not care where I go or what becomes of 
 me. You are wholly selfish!" 
 
 "I care profoundly, dear. I care more for that 
 than for anything else In life. But I am not your 
 guardian. You are entirely free. The only com- 
 pelling power that I admit Is love. If you do not 
 love me enough to prefer my society to another's, 
 any words of mine would be not only superfluous, 
 but impertinent. That — If you will remember — 
 is the conception on which our union Is based." 
 
 She came near to him for a last attempt. The 
 words which he had spoken seemed to her sense- 
 less babble, irrelevant here and now. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 191 
 
 "So, Julian, you are entirely removed from or- 
 dinary human feelings — such as jealousy?" 
 
 His hands jerked and his lips opened, but by a 
 truly heroic effort he subdued his passion to the 
 calm of his theory. 
 
 "My dear, jealousy presupposes a right of posr- 
 sesslon In another, regardless of the other's will or 
 feeling. Such a supposition has always seemed to 
 me monstrous. There can be no question of jeal- 
 ousy between us. So long as you love me I shall be 
 glad. When you cease to love me I shall be sorry — 
 but not jealous." 
 
 How she would have loved him had he arisen in 
 the wrath of the primitive man and struck her to 
 the earth, or had he given Held a drubbing with 
 his nervous right arm and then taken her away. 
 Her gorge rose at his apparently cold Inhumanity. 
 She had been right, evidently. In thinking that he 
 did not care. No one, she thought — forgetting 
 that for ideas men have died — no one who bore in 
 his heart true love of any woman could speak thus. 
 And so she left him alone in the corroding silence 
 to which his theory condemned him. . . . 
 
 The next day, almost without warning, a party of 
 wealthy tourists swooped down upon the Villa Mer- 
 cedes, and Mrs. Pressley's hair seemed to emit 
 
192 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 sparks of excitement. She whispered to Frances 
 that these people were "tremendous swells*' and 
 that Mr. Held's Influence In fashionable circles had 
 brought them here. Upon the quiet dignity of 
 Queenshaven life these newcomers showed like 
 splotches of gaudy glare. Their movements were 
 like the phantastic hurrying of figures In a klne- 
 matograph. They seemed utterly incapable of re- 
 pose or thought. Queenshaven was to be "done" — 
 with thoroughness. Skirts rustled uninterruptedly 
 through the quiet corridors of the Villa; meals 
 were served at all hours; before the gate wheezed 
 and stank an abominable motor-car. The Boyds 
 and Hochstetters called Held and each other by 
 their first names and their voices rang continually 
 through the house. Julian studiously avoided an 
 introduction to them. The vulgarity of their kind 
 was hateful to him. They seemed to him those 
 phenomena of American life which, above all, a 
 wise man must treat with contempt. As economic 
 problems they had their Importance, as human per- 
 sonalities they were unworthy of notice. But Fran- 
 ces, through Held, was drawn into the swirl. She 
 was not lacking in sensitiveness to the desecrating 
 noises of the horde amid the storied gardens of 
 Queenshaven. But they offered her forgetfulness. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 193 
 
 Lucy Boyd, tall, stout, dressed invariably in light- 
 coloured silks, pronounced the city "slow.** Why, 
 she wondered in her unsubdued voice, had they 
 ever come here. Fred Hochstetter {^'Changez les 
 dames*' seemed their motto) passed his arm jocu- 
 larly about her artificially diminished waist. *'That 
 precious husband of yours dragged us here. It's 
 up to you to furnish us with amusement!" She 
 did. Excursions were organised, mad rushes over 
 space, whose purpose seemed not to be an enjoy- 
 ment, but rather a weary necessity of noise and mo- 
 tion. Motor-cars whirred through the solemn 
 woods, emerged unnaturally beside still creeks 
 and far-spreading, yellow marshes from which the 
 frightened marsh-hens rose with flapping wings; 
 hollow chatter assaulted the calm splendour of set- 
 ting suns over grey seas mottled with scarlet pools, 
 and in the melancholy sweetness of dusk sounded 
 the inexpugnable laughter of man. 
 
 Frances hated herself for sharing In this impious 
 revelry, but a spirit of perverse defiance clouded her 
 soul. An expression of irritation at the noisy rest- 
 lessness of Mrs. Boyd, which slipped from Julian, 
 seemed to sting her, and she defended her new 
 friends with intemperate warmth. Julian lifted 
 slow, sad eyes to her face. . . . 
 
194 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 She hurried out and left him. She could not 
 have told why she had spoken all these wild and 
 foolish words — she only knew that she was 
 wretched, body and soul, that her heart sickened, 
 and that, somehow, Julian was at fault. Blind re- 
 sentment against him followed, a boundless irrita- 
 tion at all his qualities of mind and body. And she 
 was so tired, so tired. . . . 
 
 For that afternoon a sailing excursion had been 
 planned and a small yacht hired. New awnings 
 were spread over the clean-swabbed deck and tables 
 and wicker-chairs placed on it. A refrigerator had 
 been stored in the cabin and a case of champagne 
 squeezed Into it. Weather even milder than usual 
 in Queenshaven, a sky of depthless blue, a level of 
 windless water, rendered the day propitious. 
 
 They started out in the early afternoon from 
 the harbour. A breeze from the northwest filled 
 the sail, patched and gaudy, as of some phantastic 
 Malay prau in the Intolerable glitter of an Orien- 
 tal ocean. The sapphire water washed with soft 
 plashing about keel and sides ; the motion was soft, 
 languorous, dream-like; an immense quietude 
 brooded over all things. No traffic disturbed the 
 far serenity of the bay. Only here and there lay 
 noiselessly at anchor a few graceful coasting ves- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 195 
 
 sels, with sails furled and slender masts like black 
 bars laid upon the horizon's boundless blue. The 
 sharp, red roof of the lighthouse, the only touch of 
 alien colour in that vast harmony of gold, sapphire 
 and the olive of island forests, accentuated the lu- 
 minous completeness of effect. They passed an 
 ancient fort, passed reaches of yellow marsh broken 
 by estuaries and glittering inlets, and landed upon a 
 steep and wooded shore. 
 
 But it was cool in the sunless, half-drenched 
 woods, and they determined to set sail once more 
 and prepare a luncheon on deck under the glow of 
 the westering sun. Various tins were extracted from 
 the ice-chest, fruit, and the apparently Inevitable 
 bottles of champagne. Boyd and Hochstetter ate 
 with the studied dellberateness of men performing a 
 memorable action. Mrs. Hochstetter, who was 
 thin and acrid, hardly tasted food, but Lucy Boyd 
 stuffed herself to an accompaniment of shrill criti- 
 cism on the scene before them. A morbid avidness 
 of mere size seemed to mark her mental process. 
 Queenshaven Bay was well enough, but she had 
 seen — ! Did they remember — ? 
 
 Frances was thirsty and drank several glasses of 
 champagne which Held, who was himself studi- 
 ously abstemious, brought her. Soon a thin film 
 
196 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 seemed to cover sky and water and all things to 
 become unreal. She had the most absurd desire to 
 wave her arms grotesquely; but, being fully con- 
 scious of the quality of the Impulse, she restrained 
 herself. The soft dark fell, and with It clouds 
 drifted Inland and swathed the sky, quenching the 
 glow of sunset. Lucy Boyd, wrapt In her cloak, fell 
 asleep. From the dripping prow came the voices of 
 the two men and Mrs. Hochstetter, with a recurrent 
 echo of the word "dollars," and In the stern Fran- 
 ces and Held were left alone — ^alone, as it seemed, 
 in the opaque darkness. In which the lights of the 
 city were like red and yellow holes punched Into 
 black velvet. The feeling of the unreality of all 
 things had quite conquered her now. She knew 
 that It was caused by the wine which she had drunk, 
 but the knowledge was of no avail. She lay back 
 in a low chair, wonderfully contented In this phan- 
 tasmal world. In truth a feeling of fatuous satis- 
 faction made her almost laugh aloud. She could 
 not help tapping her hand merrily upon the side of 
 the chair, and It was amusing that she could not 
 always find the side, but often dropped her hand 
 into empty space. She told Held about It and he 
 joined In her amusement. Then she began to feel 
 very sleepy and would suddenly fall fathom after 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 197 
 
 fathom into deep, strange, gorgeous dreams that 
 lasted but a second and seemed to cast her forth 
 again only half awake. Gradually the dreams grew 
 a little longer, a little deeper. She stretched her 
 limbs in luxurious rest. In her dreams she saw that 
 amber moon which, on her first night in Queens- 
 haven, had shone upon the balcony, upon Julian 
 turning away from all that outer glory unto her. 
 She saw him coming to her again, saw the strange 
 fire in his eyes, felt his hand strong upon hers. . . . 
 The grinding crash of the boat against the small 
 pier flung her from her dream; Held's shoulder 
 pressed hers, his eyes looked into hers, and, by the 
 flicker of a lamp, she saw those half-closed, satyr 
 eyes, those heavy lips half-open, that conquering 
 smile. Her consciousness sprang up like an armed 
 man. She had been weak, adrift upon a sea of 
 dreams. What if the boat had passed a little longer 
 on its gentle* course, a little farther . . .? 
 
 She pushed Held away and the pin of her brooch 
 left a livid stroke on his pale cheek. Her knees 
 shook with an indescribable horror and weakness 
 as she saw him wipe a crimson drop from his face. 
 He looked utterly repulsive to her in the faint light 
 and she hated him and herself. Buried instincts 
 arose in all their might. Though the irreparable had 
 
198 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 not happened, though no legal bond united her to 
 Julian, she knew herself akin to the woman whom 
 Christ had not condemned. . . . She moved as in an 
 evil dream. It was not she who answered the noisy- 
 chatter of her companions ; her real self lay hidden 
 deep below, withdrawn, stricken, shamed. It was 
 some gibbering marionette in her form that walked 
 by Held's side. 
 
 The lights of the Villa Mercedes came into view 
 and she shuddered as with sudden cold. She spoke 
 no longer. A numbing sense of failure swathed her 
 soul, for had she not failed utterly in every relation 
 of human existence to approach even a moderate 
 standard of goodness ? had she not been a faithless 
 daughter ? was she not, in the last analysis, a faith- 
 less wife? That was, then, what all came to — ^the 
 dim yearnings of her girlhood, the fretting at life 
 in her father's house, and love- itself ! It was all but 
 the fruit of the corruption of her own black heart. 
 
 She came into the dimly lit rooms and saw Julian 
 slumbering uneasily on a couch near his desk. He 
 looked pale and worn and she pitied him. But she 
 dared not waken him, for it seemed to her that now 
 her touch must be polluting and the sudden feeling 
 of kindness for him an unconscious self-deception. 
 Later, when he arose and came into the bedroom, 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 199 
 
 she feigned sleep, though the pulses In her temples 
 hammered and her brain was weary with thoughts 
 going eternally the same round. How had all this 
 come about? Why was It that she had so fallen, 
 was so lost ? She tried to scrutinise every thought, 
 every emotion, of the past months, but she could 
 find no continuity, no inevltableness, no law for evil 
 or good, but only a blind and bitter whirl. 
 
XV 
 
 There was no falseness in her plea next morn- 
 ing that she was ill. Her strained nerves had 
 broken down and she felt weak and lost. Boister- 
 ous messages of sympathy came from below, but 
 Frances heeded nothing. She watched Julian as he 
 moved about the room in kindly ministration and 
 condemned herself bitterly. But still she strove by 
 a process of thought to discern the interconnection 
 of the events and feelings that had brought her to 
 this pass, and, failing still, came only to an over- 
 whelming sense of the impermanence of all things, 
 of the perilous fluidity of the very elements of hu- 
 man character. She dismissed, half-angrily, the 
 brittle sophistries of a will potent, at all times, with 
 no external aid, to realise itself in terms of life. 
 Then her thoughts faded phantasmally into broken 
 images of monstrous significance, and she clung des- 
 perately to Julian's hand in her rebellion against the 
 tyranny of dreams. A physician summoned some- 
 what later in the day made light of her illness, but 
 
 200 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 201 
 
 spoke earnestly to Julian In going out. She half 
 hoped that she might be very 111 and thus gain long 
 days of quietude and then a space of refreshing con- 
 valescence. But Julian seemed rather ill at ease 
 than grave. 
 
 "What IS it?" she asked. 
 
 "The doctor says you may get up whenever you 
 feel strong enough, but that you must be careful of 
 yourself, because — " 
 
 He seemed to grope for words and, holding her 
 hand, looked away. 
 
 "Because — ^you are to become a mother." 
 
 She could have smiled at his helplessness before 
 this phenomenon, so strange to his masculinity. But 
 she was herself struggling against wave upon wave 
 of a new and sweet perturbation. 
 
 "Did you not know?" he asked. 
 
 "No," she hesitated. "I had no one to consult. 
 I suspected, but only at moments." 
 
 She closed her eyes, for she wanted to be alone 
 with this thing. She was glad that Its end was 
 far off, when the stains of life would no longer 
 rest so newly upon her. It would be Julian's child 
 and hers. . . . Days passed and she was still 
 too weak to go about, but sat by the window of her 
 sitting-room and looked steadily out upon the bay. 
 
202 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 A new and terrible care weighed upon her which 
 no reasoning would put to rest. The child would 
 be illegitimate. She was, after all, too firmly 
 rooted in the conventions and domesticities of life 
 to pass lightly over this fact. The anxiety kept 
 her weak and languid, she grew thinner than was 
 her wont, and watched the waters of the harbour 
 with eyes in which fear dwelt. She ceased entirely 
 to feel the beauty of what she looked upon — either 
 in its supreme brightness or when an adamantine 
 roof of slate-coloured cloud crept gradually over 
 the harbour and descended slowly upon the hori- 
 zon, narrowing the strip of bronze and blue be- 
 tween the flat Islands and itself. But when the 
 dimness was complete, then would she feel, at mo- 
 ments, a sad content. Voices floated to her from 
 below, but she had no strength to gather their 
 meaning. Her sou4 was concentrated upon itself 
 and saw no hope. The child would be an outcast 
 and she could not avert Its fate, for she had, so 
 tragically, lost all right of demand upon Julian. 
 He cared for her as one might care for a dazed, 
 sick child. How much he suspected of the devious 
 ways Into which she had drifted It was Impossible 
 to tell. 
 
 Very vaguely she had heard of the departure of 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 203 
 
 the Boyds and Hochstetters. But Miss St. Preux, 
 who often came to spend an hour with her, had 
 not dwelt on the fact. She dismissed these people 
 and their doings with a little droop of her fine, old- 
 ivory hand. Frances did not ask concerning Held, 
 but she was sure that he was still here. The be- 
 lief was confirmed, on a fair morning, by himself 
 in person. He strolled lightly to her side of the 
 balcony, having stepped upon It from the hall, and 
 stood deliberately poised (he seemed hardly to 
 rest on firm ground) before the window at which 
 Frances sat. He had assumed an almost Impalpa- 
 ble melancholy. 
 
 "I am going away," he announced softly. "I 
 could not go without seeing you once more," 
 "It would have been better If you had." 
 *'No; you are wrong there — oh, entirely wrong 
 — for it seems that you have taken to heart a cer- 
 tain brief dream that received us for a little while 
 in Its magic embrace. Why regret these things? 
 Do they not enrich life? And they — cleave no 
 mark." 
 
 Her eyelids trembled, in spite of herself, under 
 his gaze. It was so utterly clear and calm. 
 "If one has no conscience, no shame . . ." 
 "My dear Frances, why drag these horrible, 
 
204 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 big words into regions that lie on the farther side 
 of good and evil? Can you define, in any way, the 
 harm on which you insist?" 
 
 She pulled herself sharply together. 
 
 * 'Whatever makes one weaker to resist evil — 
 that is bad. Whatever is another step lower in 
 one's fall from good . . .'* 
 
 "Good— good?" 
 
 "If you do not feel what it is, no one can help 
 you. But please go I Don't you see that I am ill 
 and weak?" 
 
 A faintness was coming over her. He went. 
 But even then, with her eyes half-closed, she knew 
 that his presence had evoked in her a clearer per- 
 ception of her sin than any that the slow and silent 
 hours had brought. ... 
 
 The strength of her youth began to assert itself, 
 despite the gnawing at her heart of pain and fear 
 and remorse. But the stronger she grew, the more 
 unbearable the gnawing seemed to become. The 
 more clearly she discerned all that the past few 
 months had brought about, the more it seemed to 
 her to point, step by step, to a disintegration of her 
 character, and the gradual acceptance of life on a 
 lower and lower plane until, but for an accident, 
 she might have committed an irreparable, unpar- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 205 
 
 donable sin. She loathed herself, and was too in- 
 expert of the soul's life to draw from this very 
 loathing the prophecy of her own salvation. Her 
 life with Julian became a series of evasions, and 
 still the strong bonds of his central principle of lib- 
 erty in union kept him silent. Yet he evidently 
 hungered after the old, dear intimacy. His work 
 was complete; he had sent It out Into the world 
 to try Its fortune, and had banished the care of It 
 from his mind. She pitied him and felt her pity 
 to be an insult ; she loved him and thought her love, 
 necessarily, false ; she had no sense of the extremes 
 of good and evil that co-exist In our hearts. Once 
 only during these strange weeks did his restraint 
 break down. It was evening, and they were alone ; 
 he came to her and gathered her In his arms. So 
 sweet It was to rest there — yet she repulsed him, 
 gently but definitely. He stood before her, pale 
 and angryo 
 
 "We had better part," he declared abruptly. 
 
 She knew that he did not mean It, and was glad 
 of the depth of feeling that prompted the words. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because every purpose of our union seems 
 frustrated! I do not wish to become an object of 
 disgust and terror to you." 
 
2o6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 She came to him, putting her hands gently on 
 his. 
 
 "Dear," she said, *T love you — more, not less, 
 than ever. You have been wonderfully good to 
 me, patient with my waywardness, forgiving. . . . 
 Won't you, for just a little while longer, let me 
 walk alone? I want to regain — the right to be 
 loved." 
 
 She did not realise how terrible her words 
 seemed. 
 
 *'I did not know you had forfeited the right!" 
 
 An agony of suspicion writhed in his face. 
 
 "Frances, it is not possible . . ." 
 
 She understood. 
 
 *'Is it not possible to have sinned terribly against 
 love and faith without . . ." 
 
 "Absolute shame?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 "You did not think . . ." 
 
 He bent down and kissed her hands In confes- 
 sion of contrition. 
 
 "There are men who have no experience," he 
 said, "and they judge of others by an inner vision, 
 as they are temperamentally Inclined tO' faith or un- 
 falth. And other men, like me, who have lived, who 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 207 
 
 have known — ^too much, perhaps — learn that there 
 Is nothing so lofty nor anything so base that it may 
 not be true of anyone — spotless saint, vile sinner — 
 in all the infinite variations of the moral gamut. 
 They know that the purest woman may fall — once 
 — and that the veriest wanton may, for a moment, 
 enter heaven and hear the angels sing.*' 
 
 He went toward the door. 
 
 *'You will forgive me, dear?" 
 
 She nodded. Her shame kept her silent, for 
 only the breadth of a hair had divided her from 
 the final sin. She hid her face when he was gone 
 and yearned for some lustral waters into which to 
 plunge, to emerge clean in spirit, and then — ^to 
 seek him. 
 
 The day was of a rare gloom and loneliness. It 
 was Sunday — always a day of extreme calm in 
 Queenshaven, but this time of an oppressive quiet- 
 ude. The darkness of afternoon stole in through 
 the windows, and Frances felt the fear of It and 
 of being alone with her own soul. She dressed 
 in a grey, nun-like gown and went out. 
 
 The streets lay in a haze of vague melancholy 
 as in a Northern Autumn, and Frances walked 
 along In the dim light, unseeing. She could only 
 brood over the restless horror within. Memories 
 
2o8 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 came to her — poignant, pitiful, cruel — ^whlch 
 would not let her go, but enslaved her with relent- 
 less power, until one arose in which a touch of heal- 
 ing seemed to dwell. It was the memory of her 
 girlish longing for spiritual repose under the 
 shadow of the Church. Was it too late now, in 
 her great need, to turn to the visible embodiment 
 of the Eternal Love? The thought seemed won- 
 derfully exalting, and her immediate impulse car- 
 ried her along until she found herself kneeling in 
 the dark nave of a small but beautiful Catholic 
 church — one of the few basilicas in America. It 
 wanted still half an hour to the period of the ves- 
 per service, but already here and there knelt a quiet, 
 moveless figure with eyes fixed, through the gloom, 
 upon the crimson glimmer of the eternal lamp that 
 threw a faint ray upon the mild face of the Re- 
 deeming Lord, or with head bowed in contrition 
 on the wooden pew. Frances knelt, too, and the 
 heavy scent of the flowers floated to her from the 
 white marble altar. The undying appeal of the 
 ancient faith, in its full rigour, came to her. Oh, 
 to cast off one's burdens here at the foot of the 
 Cross ; to solve, by one glorious acceptance, all the 
 difficulties of life; to lay down all sins, all yearn- 
 ings, all fears, all uncertainties; to be upborne by 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 209 
 
 the Eternal Strength ; to rest In the love and bound- 
 less compassion of the Everlasting Arms ! All her 
 soul melted In a divine tenderness and she wept. 
 If only the dreamy statue yonder could quiver Into 
 life, could descend and stride down the aisle; If 
 only she could touch the garment of the living 
 Saviour, and kiss His feet, and be made whole! 
 She knew, even In her ecstasy, that without 
 this supreme miracle no lasting help could come 
 to her; that she was of her age, weak of faith and 
 under the tyranny of the troubling intellect. But, 
 for an hour, at least, she had found rest. . . . 
 
 A red-robed acolyte stole softly from the vestry 
 and passed behind the silver altar-railing. He knelt 
 before the shrine of the Eucharist, and the light of 
 the long taper which he held shone faintly on his 
 delicate boy's face and soft hair. He lit taper 
 aftei; flickering taper until the white altar seemed 
 dressed In brilliant, yellow gems. Frances stared 
 at the mystical flames till consciousness shrunk to 
 its lowest ebb and her soul seemed alone In the uni- 
 verse with the strange altar-lights. Then, appar- 
 ently from far away. In small and wistful tones, 
 floated the strain of the hidden organ, and through 
 the vestry-door walked to Its measure. In slow and 
 solemn procession, acolytes — grave children swing- 
 
210 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 ing fuming censers or bearing tall candles — -fol- 
 lowed by the celebrant priest. 
 
 The immemorial mystery of the Mass enfolded 
 her, softened her heart, and through its accessories 
 spoke imperiously to her senses. The candles flick- 
 ered faintly through cloud after white cloud of in- 
 cense that rose from the censers, which, as they 
 swung to and fro, clinked softly. Gold glittered 
 in cruciform lines upon the mystical vestments of 
 the priest: the glitter fascinated her, the incense 
 sank heavily upon her senses, but, deep below, the 
 pure emotions were stirred by the solemn roll of 
 the organ that seemed to raise her upon the wings 
 of one of God's great angels, even to the foot of 
 the Throne. The bell sounded ; the people bowed ; 
 the Host soared. Her blood leapt to greet the 
 sacred Flesh of the Divine Presence, and she knew 
 a moment of complete ecstasy. . . . 
 
 She stood at the door of the church, all her 
 nerves vibrating. A master-hand had struck them 
 into endless tremours. Dream, vision and divine 
 gladness vanished, or remained behind In the velvet 
 gloom of the nave: she was conscious only of the 
 trembling nerves, the senses imperiously summoned 
 to power, the resistless call of her blood. She had 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 211 
 
 sought consolation, and what had come to h'er was 
 the old fever. So potent it was that It dimmed her 
 sight to the beautiful light and shade of the Queens- 
 haven dusk, to the bronzed waters of the bay, the 
 gently waving trees, the pearl and amber and crim- 
 son of the western sky. For the clouds had parted 
 and the evening sky looked clear and fresh. 
 
 Her soul was silent. Against her will rose from 
 her throat tender words between a croon and a sob. 
 She hurried up the white steps that led to the por- 
 tico of the Villa Mercedes, but all was empty there. 
 Then she ascended the stairs, and, through the open 
 door, saw Julian sitting alone in the twilight. She 
 stood still upon the threshold — eager, deep-breath- 
 ing, erect. 
 
 He turned to her, but at the look in her eyes the 
 words he was about to speak faded Into the still- 
 ness of the evening. He arose, and she came to 
 him, nearer and nearer, until her hands rested upon 
 his shoulders. Then he found words. 
 "You have come home to me, dearest?" 
 "I have come home to you. . . ." 
 The stars burned over their second nuptials, and 
 they were once more alone with each other In the 
 homeless universe. They heard only the song of 
 
212 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 their blood, the rhythm of their pulses; they saw 
 only love glimmering under trembling eyelids and 
 upon fervid mouth. Midnight brought them no 
 hint of an awakening; dawn did not declare upon 
 them the judgment of the light. 
 
XVI 
 
 But Frances knew that she was living merely 
 the life of the body, and that even the magic of 
 that life had departed. Indulgence bred indul- 
 gence. They were both weary of the struggle in 
 their own hearts ; and so their existence became like 
 that of most people, since they strove no longer 
 against the unspiritualised ardour of the sense. 
 Gradually, thus, little courtesies and reticences de- 
 parted — signs of a pure and imaginative conception 
 of love — and they became immersed In an habitual 
 practice of rites now grown profane. To the man 
 and artist — artist, though thwarted and not fully 
 articulate — this state of things involved no deep 
 humiliation. To him were left the constant and 
 severe activities of his Intellect, through which, for 
 hours daily, he rose to a higher plane. To her, 
 whose love was also her life (not aiy portion of It 
 whose quality other aspects might redeem), came 
 a dull, throttllno" sense of utter degradation and 
 
 defeat. 
 
 213 
 
214 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 Her girlhood called to her. Its cloistral dreams 
 now appeared before her in vision as part of a 
 beautiful, irrevocable past. Then, at least, she 
 had had her dreams; she could let her thoughts 
 play about a future of her own imaginative crea- 
 tion. Now reality had robbed her of any power 
 over her own life. In dreams alone lay true free- 
 dom. All vistas were closed. On what should she 
 exercise desire or hope? She must grope on be- 
 tween the unassailable walls that had risen about 
 her — on to the sordid and bitter end. Such are 
 the sorrows of youth — so hopeless, so complete. 
 Any hint of the fortifying truth that all things are 
 outlived and overlived, that the human soul has 
 an Infinite capacity for adjustment and readjust- 
 ment — any hint of this last fruit of experience is 
 rigidly withheld. 
 
 And so, for the second time since her flight, she 
 wrote to her mother. It was a faltering letter, 
 whose words trembled from line to line upon the 
 brink of passionate confession and grief. It was 
 not pride that prevented Frances from an avowal 
 of defeat; it was the certainty — the old, appalling 
 certainty — that her words would be distorted into 
 something Infinitely below their Intention. And 
 yet she wrote on, wanderingly, and wise eyes might 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 215 
 
 have discerned there a piteous wistfulness, a crav- 
 ing for comprehension and spiritual rest. 
 
 Impossible plans suggested themselves to her, 
 such as making a confession of her unhappiness to 
 Miss St. Preux. But at once her soul shrank back 
 In its humiliation. How should she formulate her 
 ignoble cares to this serene, pure mind, whose very 
 existence rebuked her once again? She could not 
 speak to Julian. He seemed to her gross, hard, 
 definitely and abominably masculine. Signs of 
 jealousy in him, for which — so few weeks before — 
 she had yearned, now became hateful. She no 
 longer desired to be possessed or claimed. The 
 service of love was no longer a perfect freedom, 
 but a cruel compulsion. The desire to escape from 
 his unconscious mastery over her through her senses 
 became dominant, and she sought, helplessly and 
 blindly, for means of flight. She awaited with 
 growing anxiety an answer from her mother, delud- 
 ing herself, against her better knowledge, with the 
 hope that thence some help might, after all, spring. 
 
 Some perception of her state, dim and uncertain, 
 must have come to Julian. He made efforts, gen- 
 erally futile, to break through the barriers of her 
 great preoccupation. He was interesting himself 
 in the local history of Queenshaven, spent many 
 
2i6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 hours going through the library of the Historical 
 Society, and gathered notes with vague plans of 
 future work. He attempted to draw her Into the 
 circle of his studies. In vain. Thus arose In him 
 a slight contempt for her lack of Intellectual inter- 
 ests. He wronged her: elemental man and woman, 
 stripped bare of all superficial complexities, con- 
 fronted each other again. In their eternal enmity — 
 he striving to give reality to the conceptions of his 
 intellect, she to the hopes of her heart. 
 
 It grew colder In Queenshaven. The days were 
 still of blue and gold, hardly paler than In Sum- 
 mer, but mornings and evenings were cold. The 
 lower temperature made itself more intensely felt 
 here than In more Northern latitudes, and Frances 
 sat alone before the small grate, watching the blue 
 flames dance on the fiery coals. She experienced a 
 feeling of mental blindness — a new feeling. She 
 knew she could not see things as they really were; 
 that she was often unjust In her thoughts, erratic 
 in her emotional life. But she could not rise above 
 this perception of her own state or attain to any 
 clarity of vision. A new humility entered her heart; 
 not the old feeling of humiliation, but a sense of 
 her own faultiness that seemed to purge her soul. 
 She waited for Julian, not knowing in what man- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 217 
 
 ner to communicate to him all that was passing 
 within her, but trusting to the moment^s chance 
 and mood. 
 
 He came — a little tired and dispirited. If he 
 had spoken first her words would have come with 
 more difficulty. But he sat silent, leaning his head 
 upon his hand. 
 
 Julian," she said, **why cannot we be happy?" 
 
 He looked up, smiling wanly. 
 
 "What a question I If only I knew I" 
 
 She leaned forward in her seat. 
 
 *'I know IVe been unreasonable . . . that 
 IVe hurt you often; but / have been hurt myself." 
 
 He covered his eyes once more with his hand. 
 
 *'Can*t we forgive each other?" she asked all but 
 inaudibly. 
 
 "Forgive? forgive? What does that mean? That 
 does not help us. I love you, and, therefore, in 
 a sense, I forgive you all wrongdoing, because I 
 feel tenderly toward you — always. But does that 
 save the future? Does that stamp out the seeds 
 of discord? Shall we hurt each other, and then, 
 in a softer mood, forgive each other again and 
 again to the end of time? Is that sane, I ask you, 
 and is it — worth while?" 
 
 "After all, then, you do not love me?" 
 
2i8 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 A profound discouragement seemed to come over 
 him. 
 
 *'Dear, if you were only less — a woman. You do 
 not even try to understand me." 
 
 *'But what's the use of trying to understand if 
 you will not forgive me?" 
 
 ''I forgive you," he said, but there was no peace 
 in his voice. 
 
 They were both silent and estranged. Neither 
 had the gift of facile and moving speech by which 
 to understand and console the other. In both there 
 was an element hard, unyielding, and stonily silent. 
 Thus began another period in which each seemed 
 to the other a shadow passing and repassing before 
 eyes that saw not, in which life became to them a 
 weary dumb-show behind which lay misery and 
 yearning. 
 
 In Frances' consciousness a flame, once burning 
 only like a shadowy gem, burst Into flare and 
 seemed with its fierce glow to illuminate her whole 
 nature. Since all efforts failed; since, despite their 
 love, no word or act seemed potent over the grad- 
 ual estrangement between them ; since all had come 
 to naught, and since she could trace her sorrows 
 to no visible cause — it came to her, with new and 
 terrible force, that their sin was being visited upon 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 219 
 
 them; that all suffering sprang from the absence 
 between them of the bond approved and tested by 
 the ages and required by the laws of God and man. 
 It was a blind belief that came to her. She did 
 not bow before the reasonableness of the law, but 
 before its terrors and Its revenge. 
 
 She was not permitted of her own will to give 
 any active expression of her belief. The brutally 
 cruel consequences of a careless moment robbed her 
 of power. 
 
 Always afterward she remembered that morn- 
 ing. It came to her many times and far away in 
 dreams of the night; it grew to a phantasmal scene 
 in which all details became exaggerated and mon- 
 strous. . . . Across the sunshine of the Villa 
 Mercedes the shadows of the columns fell like black 
 shafts. Her eyes were dazzled and she could dis- 
 cern in the brightness of the street only a shifting 
 line of bluish grey — a postman, but in her feverish 
 memories of that morning, a fatal messenger. He 
 came up the steps of the portico and touched his 
 cap. Had there been In his smile a strange and 
 subtle irony? She remembered his teeth — large 
 and white, laid bare by that mysterious smile. He 
 took one from the package of letters that he was 
 gathering for the negro butler on the porch. 
 
220 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "Is this right? *MIss Frances Garnet, care of 
 Villa Mercedes'?" 
 
 She had made a step forward; then had remem- 
 bered, and, growing pale, had held back. An im- 
 mense nausea had risen In her breast, and before her 
 eyes the trees and bushes had danced grotesquely. 
 But the Inexorable butler, having seen her move- 
 ment, had brought the letter to her. She had 
 clutched it. Then, shivering, she had looked about 
 and had seen upon Mrs. Pressley's mobile face a 
 deep red of anger. A shadow had passed between 
 her and that condemning countenance, a hand had 
 been laid on her arm, and she had heard — and 
 heard forever afterward, as the one thing of com- 
 fort in that clamourous and garish day — the voice 
 of Miss St. Preux. 
 
 "Go upstairs, my poor child. They suspected 
 your misfortune. I'll help you — all I can." 
 
 Frances had gone to her room and lain down on 
 the bed. The horrible sickness, the oppression In 
 her breast, the dazzling In her eyes, had continued. 
 She had felt, in that hour, the touch of open shame, 
 and it had struck her down. . . . 
 
 She never asked, nor did Julian tell her, in what 
 manner Mrs. Pressley communicated to him the 
 fact that under these distressing circumstances she 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 221 
 
 could no longer offer them the hospitality of the 
 Villa Mercedes. He seemed, in truth, unwilling to 
 discuss the situation, but went about with an air of 
 defeat. They were to go as soon as possible; but 
 he left all the final arrangements to her, going only 
 to procure the tickets against their departure. He 
 seemed to brood confusedly upon many problems, 
 but he was sparing of words. Frances herself did 
 not feel the strength to enter with him upon any 
 explanation. Passing and repassing the mirrors in 
 her rooms, she saw her pale, drawn face and the 
 deep terror in her eyes. She felt as though she 
 must hide her face from the light of day, and creep 
 away into some dark, cool corner, away from the 
 seeing eyes and pitiless words of men. She read 
 and re-read the letter that had caused the catas- 
 trophe. She had not doubted, even in that tragic 
 moment, under the portico, that it was from her 
 mother ; that only her mother could have been guilty 
 of a mistake so crude. Yet she read the faltering 
 sentences with deep emotion. Mrs. Garnett was, 
 evidently, more acutely unhappy than she had been 
 in the old days ; unhappy, too, with a dumb wretch- 
 edness unlearned in the subtleties of grief, and 
 hence completely defenceless. From this letter, 
 too, Frances received an impression of her father 
 
222 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 that brought her the relief of tears. "Father," 
 wrote Mrs. Garnett, "looks so tired that I get wor- 
 ried about him. He hardly eats; and, what is 
 worse, scarcely talks at all. I believe that he longs 
 to hear from you, but forces himself to say 
 nothing. . . ." 
 
 They went, unfriended and alone, saying no 
 farewells, but In the manner of fugitives. Strangely 
 enough as It seemed to Frances, though In truth by 
 a common accident, It was again the Sequoia that 
 lay beside the clamourous pier and received them. 
 They had not long to wait. With a slow, stately 
 motion the steamer swung from its moorings and 
 passed down the bay. The city grew smaller and 
 smaller upon the horizon, until Its houses and stee- 
 ples looked like the wooden chalets of a Swiss toy- 
 box; the shore-line of the Islands grew thin and 
 faint; the smooth stones of the great breakwater 
 flew behind, and the ship adventured once more, 
 with Its freight of human souls, upon the turbulent 
 sea. 
 
 Of late it was the passing of things, whether fair 
 or otherwise, that seemed to Frances unspeakably 
 tragic ; and, though she had suffered In this city of 
 Queenshaven, though she had moved In It beset 
 by doubts and sorrows, by a great confusion both In 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 223 
 
 outer things and In her own heart, its passing from 
 her eyes left her In a blank despair. Nor, at this 
 moment of departure, could she see anything In the 
 eye of her mind but the gentle beauty of Its ways, 
 feel anything but the peace of Its supreme repose, 
 or call to memory aught but the brief hours of Im- 
 passioned happiness that had been hers amid Its 
 winds and under Its great stars. 
 
 She looked at Julian, who stood next to her by 
 the railing, but found no consolation in his sombre 
 eyes. She laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 "We have failed — so far," she said. 
 
 "We? Perhaps all the others have failed In 
 their relations toward us." 
 
 "But what does it matter?" she cried. "Oh, God, 
 what one wants Is a little untroubled happi- 
 ness — " 
 
 "At any price ?" 
 
 "The price that all men pay, and all women. 
 How do you know that you are wiser or better than 
 they, that you should have the right to decide dif- 
 ferently?" 
 
 "Have you forgotten . . ." 
 
 "What you have seen ? What you have known ? 
 No ; but look at us, see what it has brought us 
 your wretched experience." 
 
224 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 He turned to her coldly. 
 
 "The seed of our failure lay in your soul — In 
 your attitude — ^not In our actions. You never truly 
 assented to our union — upon these terms. You 
 had your reticences, your silent conditions; you 
 hoped, after all, for the ordinary domestic hearth. 
 Answer me, Frances; did you or did you not?" 
 
 "I have always hoped — " 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 "Because I felt — felt that we were wrong, from 
 the very first!" 
 
 "And you oppose that mere feeling to my experi- 
 ence, to my arguments?" 
 
 "Arguments, arguments — I will argue no more." 
 
 He looked at her earnestly and stroked her hand. 
 Then he turned away and began to pace the deck 
 with rapid strides. 
 
XVII 
 
 Frances sat m the dingy room of a New York 
 boarding-house. The windows gave upon a small 
 square of paved yard, upon huge poles connected 
 by clothes-lines, upon a single stunted tree whose 
 limbs were so contorted that they appeared to 
 writhe in endless agony, and upon a narrow space 
 of iron-grey sky. She wondered, not for the first 
 time, why Julian had chosen this place, and every 
 answer to the question was a disheartening one. 
 The house had that ultimate obscurity which be- 
 longs to the perfectly common, touching neither 
 poverty nor wealth, virtue nor vice : the house itself, 
 the room, the street, were indistinguishable from 
 an hundred others. Their secret — ^Julian's and 
 hers — ^was safe here. Ah, that he should be so 
 careful of it, so unwilling, apparently, to brave the 
 slightest external consequence of their love — this 
 was almost the only thought which could yet touch 
 her heart, so learned in the curiosities of grief. 
 
 The darkness of the Northern Winter fell early, 
 225 
 
226 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 but she was too tired to light the gas. Of late 
 Julian had often absented himself from her for 
 many hours, and she had learned to bear his neglect 
 with a dull patience. The flame and energy of her 
 girlhood seemed to have passed away, and she felt 
 herself becoming a tired, disappointed woman, bear- 
 ing a hidden shame In her heart Her indetermi- 
 nate ethical Impulses seemed to have led nowhither, 
 all her hopes to have failed, all sources of consola- 
 tion to have been sealed. 
 
 One pleasure remained to her, strange and pa- 
 thetic: to haunt, on early afternoons, the streets 
 and squares which she and Julian had trod together 
 in the dying Summer. Wandering here, she no 
 longer recognised the city she had known. It hung 
 before her, an ugly, modern Fata Morgana; but 
 ethereallsed and transfigured by a miraculous at- 
 mosphere. The ways that they had not known 
 clung to the flatness of the earth. But the ways, few 
 as they were, that they had known together reeled in 
 the Winter air under some solemn enchantment. 
 She felt, at this time, no poignancy of grief or of 
 regret; but haunted, with a strange tranquillity, 
 the city of her lost romance. One thing alone 
 stirred her more deeply — the music of the hurdy- 
 gurdies. They still played the same wailing tunes 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 227 
 
 that she and Julian had heard together. Then 
 they had scarcely been articulate to her ear; now, 
 like the scents of perished days, mournful and 
 troubling past endurance, they crept Into her nerves. 
 
 Of human companionship she had little and 
 wanted less. Mrs. Walker, who kept the board- 
 ing-house, a loud, stout, faded woman, often came 
 into her room, and Frances bore the disturbing 
 presence quietly. The woman came now, following 
 immediately her light knock at the door. She wore 
 a draggled skirt and a soiled white jacket; her hair 
 was dishevelled and her teeth yellow. She looked 
 about her with eyes at once hard and restless. 
 
 "Aren't you coming to dinner, Mrs. Ware?" 
 
 Frances looked up. 
 , "I didn't know the bell had rung." 
 
 Mrs. Walker shook her large head and her eyes 
 glistened. 
 
 "Yes, dearie, I know the feeling. We all have 
 troubles. But you mustn't forget your dinner. 
 You're not as bad off as me." 
 
 Frances submitted. 
 
 "You have had sorrows?" 
 
 "Gracious ! I never thought when Mr. Walker 
 was alive that I'd have to keep a boarding-house 
 and drudge for others. And my daughters have 
 
228 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 left me — both of them treat me coldly. Now, can 
 you understand that, Mrs. Ware ? Can you under- 
 stand such heartlessness ?" 
 
 Tears rolled down accustomed grooves in the 
 woman's face. In spite of them, there seemed in 
 her tone something mechanical, as though she re- 
 lated her sorrows habitually and In the same words. 
 
 "When Mr. Walker was alive," she went on, 
 "things were different. He was a noted lawyer, 
 you know, and of a good family — one of the best 
 families in New York, counted among the swellest 
 people. We used to live on Grammercy Park. And 
 when he came home in the evening we used to sit 
 in the drawing-room and smoke. He liked me to 
 smoke. He used to say It gives a man a feeling of 
 companionship. We used to be so cosy before the 
 fire — and now I have to go and attend to my board- 
 ers; and Kate^ — that's my oldest daughter — you 
 ought to see her, Mrs. Ware; she's so lovely, and 
 I love her, however much she neglects' me^ — now 
 Kate comes to see me once in six months- and asks 
 me if she can lend me some money. Isn't it hard? 
 And it all came suddenly — overnight." 
 
 Frances tried to murmur a consolatory phrase, 
 but Mrs. Walker shook her head. 
 
 "You're young, Mrs. Ware, and there are things 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 229 
 
 ahead of you. For me everything Is finished — ^just 
 finished and over.** 
 
 Frances thought of her mother, and touched the 
 woman's hand. 
 
 **You don't know; some unexpected hope may 
 come . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Walker shook her head dolefully. 
 
 *'No, no, it's too late. But come and eat your 
 dinner." 
 
 Frances was about to go, when Julian came in. 
 He nodded a curt dismissal to Mrs. Walker. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "you shouldn't hold Intimate 
 conferences with such a woman. There's an unclas- 
 sifiable moral shabbiness about her." 
 
 "I did not seek her. But even had I done so — 
 what then? You are not very careful to prevent 
 my being lonely!" 
 
 He threw himself Into a chair and sighed. 
 
 "I suppose you are right; I suppose so." 
 
 He looked at her. 
 
 "Will you go out with me this evening — now?" 
 
 "If you really wish It.'* 
 
 "Of course I do, and it will be a change for you. 
 I — I have affairs — of various kinds that keep me 
 late. It's a pity you have no friends.'* 
 
230 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "What friends can a woman in my position 
 have?" 
 
 "I thought we had silently agreed to leave that 
 subject alone !" 
 
 "Perhaps, Julian. The question is: will it leave 
 us alone?" 
 
 He got up and walked the room from end to end. 
 
 "My dear, I'm tired and nervous. Let us go out 
 together, but let us have no discussion. For God's 
 sake," he burst out in sudden wrath, "no discus- 
 sion!" 
 
 She looked at him with a sad astonishment. Per- 
 haps she ought not to go; but the thought of the 
 long evening in that dingy room oppressed her. 
 She put on her hat and gloves and they started out. 
 
 They took the subway down-town, for Julian 
 seemed to avoid the places which they had visited 
 of old In the first fervour of their golden passion, 
 and Frances gladly permitted herself to be directed. 
 ... It was a relief from thought and care. 
 At Seventy-second Street they left the train and 
 emerged, in a moment, into the large, clear space 
 at the crossing of Broadway and Amsterdam Ave- 
 nue. Here all objects stood out with a clarity as 
 definite as In daylight, but the silvery pallour of the 
 electric illumination gave them an air of frailness 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 231 
 
 and artificiality. The domes of palaces, the spires 
 of churches, lay pale and flat against the dusky 
 sky, as the pinnacles of a painted city In the white 
 calcium light of the stage. In the strange bright- 
 ness of this scene, amid its soft, swift movement, 
 there came to Frances, remembering her irremedi- 
 able sorrows, a haunting sense of the fragile con- 
 vention by which, from the nocturnal city. Its revel- 
 lers strive to exile a consciousness of sickness and 
 sorrow, of the gaunt face of life and the ineluctable 
 shadow of death. Upon the faces of the men and 
 women whom they passed she seemed to discern 
 a strange and heartless smile — a smile that symbol- 
 ised the spirit of the scene and of the hour, so avid 
 of nerves trembling like the strings of a tortured 
 violin, so conscious of Its rejection of care and Its 
 surrender to the lure of brief joy and transitory 
 loveliness. These people, modern, practical, alert, 
 had entered for a space their land of faery — a land 
 beyond the confines of good and evil, beyond the 
 shores of greed and toil, isolated from the common 
 earth and lit by silver suns. And Frances, unable 
 to throw off the thought of her cares, was angered 
 at this fleeting mockery and Its participants. What 
 right had men to make merry while there was In the 
 world such unhapplness as hers? even such woe as 
 
232 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 that of the drab woman in the up-town boarding- 
 house, whose husband death had stolen from her, 
 and whose children life? 
 
 Walking away from the square into the darker 
 streets seemed to Frances very much like better 
 times, so near, and yet, in a disastrous sense, so 
 distant. The shadows of the tall houses and of 
 the Elevated structure on Columbus Avenue quieted 
 her nerves. She yearned to say to Julian : ''Why 
 cannot we lay aside this corroding discontent, these 
 strange woes, and be happy, simply and quietly, in 
 the common way, as all men are? I will love you, 
 work for you. Only give me peace!" But she 
 knew that his m.ood forbade such words, that they 
 would not soothe, but only irritate him ; that Inner 
 defeat had made him stubborn and unyielding. 
 They walked, with apparent almlessness, up-town, 
 and passed the Museum of Natural History. Then, 
 suddenly, Julian turned to her. 
 •"Are you hungry?'' 
 
 "A little." 
 
 "I forgot that you had no dinner at the house. 
 Vm not hungry, only thirsty." 
 
 He took her to a little, white restaurant, full of 
 mirrors, on Columbus Avenue, and they sat down 
 at a small marble-topped table. He ordered for 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 233 
 
 her a slight refection and for himself a bottle of 
 Burgundy, of which he drank glass after glass 
 In rapid succession. His face became flushed and 
 his eyes softened. One of his rare hours of com- 
 munication came to him. 
 
 *Trances, did I speak harshly to you a while 
 ago?" He did not wait for an answer. "It is 
 merely an effect of jangled nerves. I did not know 
 what that meant — once. But, you see^ — ^you must 
 see — the maddening Intellectual confusion that has 
 come upon me I To choose the path that seems to 
 one so Inevitably right; to seek to escape thereby 
 all the hemming, harrowing, degrading pettiness 
 of life; In a word, to choose love and work Instead 
 of vile domesticities and middle-class preoccupa- 
 tions — and then — ^to fail, to suffer shipwreck, to 
 go under, in a sense — !" 
 
 He drank more wine, thirstily, savagely. 
 
 "And now?'' he asked. 
 
 Frances gathered herself together. 
 
 "Conform!" she said. 
 
 "Never — and it is you' who have made conform- 
 ity through marriage impossible. Had you entered 
 upon our union without any subtle reservations, had 
 you given it a fair trial, and had we then failed — 
 perhaps ! But you sowed the seed of ruin from the 
 
234 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 first, and you cannot now reap the fruit of your 
 desire." 
 
 "Then you have come to — hate me?" 
 
 He clenched his fists. 
 
 "There, again, is an utter confusion of thought. 
 It is not a question of love or hate, but of the 
 method of one's life." 
 
 "And do you think that any — good woman 
 would have entered that union without reserva- 
 tion?" 
 
 "I did think so." 
 
 "You are wrong, Julian; utterly wrong. No 
 woman who had entered it freely would have been 
 worth having." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I can't tell you. I can't give you reasons that 
 would appeal to your mind. But I know it." 
 
 He sneered. 
 
 "Our mental processes* are strangely different." 
 
 She almost feared him at this moment — feared 
 In him the merciless intellect that would square the 
 living world with Its own conclusions, however 
 hearts ached or nerves trembled, or body and soul 
 found only death in life. 
 
 "There Is one other solution," she said. "I can 
 go home." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 235 
 
 He laid his hand on hers In the old, dear way. 
 
 **I want you, Frances." 
 
 "But on your own terms?" 
 
 "Yes; I can't help It. That's the way Vm made." 
 
 "And you would let me break myself to pieces 
 against that condition?" 
 
 He looked at her with a strange blending of ten- 
 derness and hardness. 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 This was the first time In many weeks that they 
 had probed the depths of their lives, and no word 
 of clearness had been spoken. As they walked 
 back slowly and the lines of yellow gas-lamps rolled 
 away before them like a weird luminous ribbon, 
 Frances felt more than ever as though she lived in 
 a turbid dream. Julian pressed her arm from time 
 to time, but In his very tenderness she seemed to 
 feel an element of the unrelenting. Yet he had 
 been kind In that he had never, by word or look, 
 referred to the strange moral confusion of her epi- 
 sode with Held. His heart, then, was hers; only 
 the stubborn mind, fortified by memory in its work- 
 ings, was unbending. 
 
 They found the house, upon their return, in con- 
 fusion. The street-door was open, and heavy foot- 
 steps sounded on the stairs. Julian went ahead to 
 
236 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 see what had caused the disturbance. He came 
 back In a moment. 
 
 "It seems that Mrs. Walker has taken an over- 
 dose of morphine. She's unconscious and they've 
 sent for a doctor." 
 
 "Is any one with her?" 
 
 "Miss Godkln." 
 
 Frances remembered the tall, pale, Ill-looking 
 woman who had come to the house recently, but 
 who rarely appeared at meals. 
 
 "Don't you think," she asked, "that It would be 
 kind for me to go?" 
 
 "Kind? No! What can you do for her ?" But 
 Frances was on her way. 
 
 She found the woman stretched on a bed — ^yel- 
 low, ghastly, tragically hideous. The flare of a 
 single jet of gas seemed to give the bare room an 
 unnatural light. Miss Godkin stood at the head 
 of the bed, clasping, with thin fingers, a heavy cross 
 of plain gold which hung from her neck. Frances 
 spoke softly. 
 
 "Is there anything I can do?" 
 
 Miss Godkin shook her head. 
 
 "It's not very bad this time. . . ." 
 
 "This time?'* 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 237 
 
 "Yes. Did you not know that Mrs. Walker un- 
 fortunately takes morphine ?" The pale eyes rested 
 oddly on Frances. "IVe known her long . . . 
 come to her, left her, taken up the burden once 
 more ; but there's little hope. She started long ago ; 
 but since her husband left her — " 
 
 "Left her ? But she told me he was dead I" 
 
 "Yes, yes. She tries to comfort herself so . . . 
 by a make-believe. The consciousness of her guilt 
 rests heavily upon her." Again the thin hands 
 sought the golden cross. "She refuses to accept a 
 truer consolation." 
 
 "And her children left her for the same reason?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It seems hard." 
 
 "The wages of sin. ... It was a miserable busi- 
 ness. The man left her . . . she hates him now 
 
 . . . and yearns for her husband and her chil- 
 dren. . . . Here's the doctor, Mrs. Ware." 
 
 Frances felt herself dismissed. She went quickly 
 to bed, but not to sleep. She could not put out of 
 her heart and brain the scene she had just left — ^the 
 pale, yellowish room; the corpse-like figure on the 
 bed, and that other cold face bending above. She 
 thought of the wretched story, the wretched con- 
 
238 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 solation, the utter, bleak hopelessness that must 
 inhabit that weary, wayward soul. Here, as every- 
 where and always, the free following of the heart's 
 desire, the defiance of law and custom and the an- 
 cient compacts of man, had brought ruin. Was It 
 a brutal accident, a violation of the serene order 
 of the universe? Had this woman come to an end 
 so bitter merely because men must impose their will 
 upon all who defy them ? It seemed incomprehen- 
 sible that the breaking of an external law, a law 
 made and imposed by man, however useful, should 
 necessarily entail a penalty so awful I Why had 
 this woman's children no charity for her? why did 
 they follow the cold way of the world and leave her, 
 who had borne them, desolate . . . ? In the watches 
 of the night Frances saw before her the shape of a 
 great terror. Were not she and Julian, even now, 
 at the beginning of their punishment, because they, 
 too, had broken the law? Were they not reaping 
 discord, pain, confusion? Why must it be so? why? 
 She looked upon the sleeping form of him who 
 was not her husband and seemed to see upon his 
 face the shadow of troubling dreams and fateful 
 premonitions. But they might yet save themselves 
 — there was yet time to flee from the wrath to come 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 239 
 
 — and Frances determined that she would put pride 
 away from her, for his sake and hers, and for the 
 sake of the new life beating under her heart, and 
 plead with him on the morrow for their common 
 salvation. 
 
XVIII 
 
 But she could not carry out her plan. For soon 
 after the dawn a prodigious ringing was heard at 
 the house-door, and a telegram was brought up. It 
 was from Dr. Garnett, and informed Frances that 
 her mother was dangerously ill. She felt herself 
 grow pale and tremble. She realised swiftly that, 
 in the natural order of things, such an event was 
 only to be expected, her mother's body being weak 
 and overworn. But Frances had never permitted 
 herself — such was her vital repulsion to the idea 
 of decay or death — to dwell upon the last, grave 
 end of our nature. She sat up in bed, dazed and 
 forlorn. She could not cry or utter her grief ; but, 
 drawing up her knees, she rested her head on them 
 in mute misery. The silence was broken by Julian's 
 voice. 
 
 ** Aren't you going?" 
 
 She looked up. 
 
 •Tes . . . nowl" 
 
 She sprang from the bed and began to dress rap- 
 idly. She heard Julian speak as from afar. 
 
 240 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 241 
 
 "I suppose you will sleep there, too. That will 
 be best. I shall drop in every day to see you and 
 to find out how your mother Is. Don't you think 
 that will be the best plan?" 
 
 She turned around to him slowly. 
 
 *Tou are glad, Julian?" 
 
 His voice showed irritation. 
 
 *'Glad?" 
 
 "Of this chance to — get rid of me. You have 
 no compassion ... no love . . ." 
 
 Sobs shook her whole frame. 
 
 **My mother may be dying at this moment, and 
 it is I who have helped to kill her — I — and you I 
 And your only thought is that you — '*^ 
 
 "Will be freed for a while from hourly perplex- 
 ity and torture ? Yes. That fact doesn't make me 
 any less sorry for Mrs. Garnett's illness. But it 
 is not my fault that I feel so. It is yours." 
 
 It seemed to her that, at this moment, she could 
 bear no more, and with the thought a great calm 
 came upon her. She washed her eyes and continued 
 to dress. When she was ready to go she turned to 
 Julian. 
 
 "Goodbye." 
 
 "Goodbye." 
 
 He wanted to kiss her, but she drew back and 
 
242 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 passed swiftly out of the room and out of the house 
 into the grey, dawn-lit street. Here there was si- 
 lence; here she was, for a space, alone with her 
 own soul. She looked up at the faintly coloured 
 sky, at the grey houses; and from this subdued 
 quietude she gathered strength to go bravely into 
 the face of danger and sorrow and, perhaps, re- 
 proach. 
 
 But when she turned into the well-known street 
 where so large and momentous a portion of her 
 girlhood had been passed, and when she thought 
 of the circumstances of her return, she could have 
 wept aloud. She hung back, in sudden fear, hardly 
 daring to walk the few remaining steps. A force, 
 almost physical in its violence, seemed to hold her 
 back. It was surely the bitterest path her feet had 
 ever trod. . . . She entered the familiar door 
 and climbed the stairs, still covered by the old, 
 shabby carpets. At every landing she stopped to 
 rest, and heard, in the stillness of the house, the 
 beating of her heart. When she came to the door 
 of the flat she rang the bell. And this simple action 
 caused her so violent an effort that it was as if the 
 very roots of her being were rent. She stood very 
 still and heard slow footsteps approach in the hall- 
 way. Then the door opened and her father stood 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 243 
 
 before her — grey, bent, and old. She stood there, 
 trembling and ashamed — a child once more. He 
 stretched out his arms. 
 
 "Daughter I'^ 
 
 "Father I'' 
 
 Then he took her face between his hands, look- 
 ing upon her long and earnestly. 
 
 "You*, too, have suffered.** 
 
 Speechless, she nodded. 
 
 "Yes, yes — ,** he went on, and his eyes seemed 
 to look far away — "you, too, have suffered, and 
 suffering wipes out much . . . perhaps . . . 
 everything. ..." 
 
 He had drawn her into the little hall, holding 
 her close to him. 
 
 "And mother?" she asked. 
 
 He seemed, for a minute, tb have almost for- 
 gotten. 
 
 "She IS sick, child; sick unto death. She will 
 be at peace soon. Be very gentle with her." 
 
 She could not understand this strange detach- 
 ment, or the dreamy quietness of his manner; but 
 she was soothed and comforted. He led her in 
 where her mother sat in an invalid-chair, looking 
 small and old. Her body seemed to have shrunken 
 to half Its natural size; her skin was discoloured by 
 
244 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 yellow blotches; her eyes apparently vacant. Fran- 
 ces knelt before her and took her hand. Mrs. 
 Garnett's head twitched. 
 
 "Is it you, Fanny?" she whispered. **I was just 
 dozing. Father said he would send for you." 
 
 "Yes, of course, and . . . mamma . . . aren't 
 you a little glad to see me?" 
 
 "Glad to see you ?" Her voice had In It a shadow 
 of Its old querulousness. "Yes; I told father to 
 send for you weeks ago — ^weeks ago. ..." 
 
 Frances looked up. 
 
 "Why did you not send for me, father?" 
 
 He looked steadily Into her eyes. 
 
 "I had hoped that you would come — freely — of 
 your own impulse; but I now see that It was not 
 hardness of heart that kept you from us, but unhap- 
 plness. Am I right?" 
 
 She arose and went to him. 
 
 "You do understand, father." 
 
 "And does It comfort you, my dear?" 
 
 "Oh, so much . . . more . . . more than I 
 can ever tell you I" 
 
 "Then . . . some day ... we will talk." 
 
 She nodded as he turned to go from the room. 
 At the door he stopped and looked upon her once 
 again. That look, too, she understood. It was a 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 245 
 
 summons to do her duty, her whole, last duty, with- 
 out swerving or complaint. 
 
 It was no light or easy task that she had under- 
 taken. She was not strong with the repressed en- 
 ergy of old, and the long days and nights of watch- 
 ing wore upon her. Even when wakefulness was 
 not necessary she found sleep difficult. In the sick- 
 room a single light burned dimly, and in her 
 troubled drowsiness the events of the past months 
 stalked before Frances in phantasmal procession. 
 The walks in New York; the sunshine of Queens- 
 haven, now glaring, in her imagination, beyond en- 
 durance; Held's face, large, distorted, and white 
 as leprosy; and, finally, these later days of dim, 
 uncertain sorrow — all shaped themselves before 
 her, between the narrow walls of the little room 
 wherein her mother lay or sat breathing heavily 
 and struggling weakly against mortal ill. She would 
 start violently from such dreams and be a little glad 
 of the old, familiar things about her; would even 
 touch them to reassure herself that she was here — 
 here with sorrow and sickness; but safe, at last, 
 from the hourly combat. Thus, gradually, a feel- 
 ing of relief came upon her, and, amid work and 
 watching, restfulness. She did not know until now 
 how very tired she had been; and, like a bird trav- 
 
246 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 elling over silver leagues of unbroken Ice, she was 
 grateful for a single branch that the pitiless Winter 
 had left. Her only fear now was — a fear that 
 broke with sudden force upon her brief intervals 
 of rest — that the peace and quietude would end, and 
 that she would be driven forth once more from these 
 dim rooms into the glare* of the world and the har- 
 rying of its problems. 
 
 Julian kept his promise. During the early after- 
 noon hours he would come and insist that she take 
 a few turns with him in the street, asserting that 
 she needed air. But Frances, not without a pang 
 for him, knew that he could not, in spite of his con- 
 victions and his courage, look into her father's thin, 
 grey face without a feeling of shame. Julian met 
 the imputation, which she half-silently made, resch 
 lutely. 
 
 *Tou are quite right. One can't shake off all 
 one's inherited instincts In a single lifetime or a 
 portion of one. I feel that I have wronged your 
 father ; I know that I have not. I didn't — in the 
 old, sentimental, romantic phrase — take you. You 
 came to me — one equal to the other." 
 
 "Are you trying to persuade yourself?" she asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 His eyes darkened. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 247 
 
 '^Hardly. That's not a habit of mine." 
 She could not fully trust the suspicion that had 
 come to her. Were his elaborate intellectual de- 
 fences weakening? Had something of her own 
 emotional attitude come to him? She could not 
 dwell upon the matter in her thoughts, for a greater 
 preoccupation was upon her, and she felt daily as 
 if even this half-hour with Julian was stolen from 
 the sacred trust. And, as the slow weeks dragged, 
 and she became more and more immersed in her 
 homely cares, as she readjusted herself, so peace- 
 fully and gladly now, to the conditions of her old 
 life, he seemed to become strange to her and de- 
 tached. She ceased, almost unconsciously, to in- 
 quire into his doings, and even the rare days on 
 which he did not come hardly stirred her to a new 
 sense of their relations and their love. 
 
 Mrs. Garnett did not become worse as rapidly 
 as her husband had feared. But, under the pres- 
 sure of disease and age, her faculties seemed slowly 
 to drift from her. And yet this spectacle, painful 
 as it was, seemed not so tragic to Frances as the 
 thoughts that came to her mother in intervals of 
 mental life. Here, In the shadow of Eternity, if 
 the falling veil lifted for an hour, the old woman 
 would complain that she could no longer rule the 
 
248 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 material affairs of the little household; she would 
 insist upon seeing the simple provisions that had 
 been purchased, and criticise them with something 
 of her old energy. Frances felt herself powerless 
 to avert the attitude In her mother and the words 
 that stung her to the quick. Who was she to seek 
 to lead anyone in the way of the spirit? Had she 
 the right even to feel, and, in spite of herself, to 
 condemn? Through the silent method of commu- 
 nication that had grown up between herself and her 
 father of late, she told him of her pain. He fol- 
 lowed her out of the room and stood beside her in 
 the little kitchen. 
 
 "Do you not — pity the blind?" 
 
 Her old impatience flashed out. 
 
 "Were you always so long-suffering and chari- 
 table?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "It takes years and sorrows — many sorrows. It 
 takes, above all, a good dose of failure^ — even if 
 the failure is only worldly. It takes, in a high 
 sense, the surrender of hope." 
 
 "That's incomprehensible to me." 
 
 "At your age — it must be, whatever you have 
 suffered. You still see, from every valley, the far 
 blue hills. You will probably find — though I hope 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 249 
 
 'not — that the vision and the bleeding feet and the 
 consolation of a brave journey are all we ever pos- 
 sess. The hills themselves come no nearer. As 
 we go on, our hopes fall and our dreams wither, and 
 those who are dear to us disappoint or forsake us ; 
 but we forgive them, knowing that we, too, have 
 not only forsaken others, but so often — ^what Is 
 much worse — our own best selves. And so we learn 
 to be charitable with a boundless charity, and pa- 
 tient as the earth and the stars themselves." 
 
 "And what does It all lead to?" 
 
 "The desire to know that Is the most difficult 
 desire to lay aside. But that, too-, must be done." 
 
 "We can bear a thing without knowledge — ^yes. 
 But, father, we must act!" 
 
 "You are thinking of yourself?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The old man's blue eyes assumed the far-away 
 look that she had seen in them of late. 
 
 "Don't let us speak of that yet — not yet. Unless 
 you must take some decisive action at once?" 
 
 "No. But why wait? IVe had no one to whom 
 to carry my troubles." 
 
 "You have now, dear daughter; and yet, I coun- 
 sel you to wait a little while, to wait until you are 
 quieter, still quieter." 
 
250 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 She sank, in truth, Into a half-dreamy peace. Mrs. 
 Garnett seemed, despite her weakness, to cling to 
 life so tenaciously that the sting of an immediate 
 anxiety disappeared and day followed quiet day In 
 healing monotony. Frances found that the same 
 circle of Insignificant tasks gently absorbed her 
 thoughts, so strong and poignant of late, and she 
 likened herself to one who had fled from the turbu- 
 lence of life Into some cloistral isolation where the 
 soul is sustained by an unvaried chain of peaceful 
 observances. In the evening, the day's work over, 
 she would sit with her father near the familiar 
 lamp, reading or letting her thoughts wander across 
 the book, Into the distance of dreams. The fevered 
 visions of her flight, her passionate experiences, her 
 final shame — these gradually softened and then fled, 
 and in their place came a sense of the unreality of 
 all that had passed. It withdrew itself from her— 
 protected so securely in the grey quietude of home 
 — until, at times, a pang came that a dim forgetful- 
 ness could so soon creep over love and suffering and 
 regret. 
 
 Her talks with Julian — rarer and briefer now — ' 
 became constrained and almost conventional. De- 
 cember snow-storms and biting cold made walking 
 almost Impossible, and he still hesitated to enter the 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 251 
 
 House. She asked him of his work, and he told her 
 that he had done little, that his days seemed to pass 
 in languid wandering and futile attempts; but en- 
 ergy and even the desire for work seemed to have 
 left him. He spoke of these things like one groping 
 In darkness. 
 
 "My whole life is disorganised, broken — some- 
 thing has snapped. I can't settle down to any mat- 
 ter of Impersonal Interest. I've simply lost, Intel- 
 lectually, the Will to Live. Vm getting to the 
 point of self-contempt." 
 
 She was In a clearer mood. 
 
 "And you resent it to me?" 
 
 He looked at her calmly. 
 
 "Yes. I suppose it's bitterly unjust. But, I was 
 just beginning to see my way In my work; and then 
 comes — the sexual Interest, embodied in you, and 
 there follows dislntegrajtion, ruin — death. The In- 
 justice Is not Individual, though; woman is the en- 
 emy of man's work.'* 
 
 "Isn't that one reason — if it's true at all — ^why 
 society has established certain rules?" 
 
 "Within these rules the destruction is most 
 fatal." 
 
 Tears came into her eyes — tears of despair and 
 of defeat. He seemed unbending, unpersuadable. 
 
25^ THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 Death would find him unchanged. Then her grief 
 turned to anger. 
 
 "If you think that I have ruined your life, robbed 
 you of the power to work — go ! go I" 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "You've learned very little, after all. You say 
 'go' and imagine the word to have any meaning. 
 Take out of my heart the memory of you, rob my 
 senses of the yearning for you! Then tell me to 
 go. Until then — it is a mockery." 
 
 She clasped her hands. 
 
 "I can go, Julian !" 
 
 "I doubt it! You're in the same boat. Nature 
 doesn't do her work half-way with — ^picked ma^ 
 terial — ^like ourselves. We're inextricably bound 
 up in each other. Our very nerves have suffered 
 a change, passed into each other. . . . There are 
 no words for the process. We're in for it — in some 
 form — for life. I" 
 
 V His face softened a little ; then he went on : 
 ) "Go upstairs, dear, dear, and I'll stay away for 
 a few days and try once more to recover my equi- 
 librium. Then — ^we'll see." 
 
 He took her right glove off and kissed her hand 
 with cool lips. Then he went. But she walked on 
 for a little toward Morningside Park. Frost and 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 253 
 
 rain had covered the trees and bushes, which 
 crackled under their glittering, silver dress. There 
 was a faery gleaming, a faery silence in the park — 
 the icy calm and restfulness of Winter. Frances 
 stood and gazed, lost in thought, upon the strange 
 loneliness of the scene. Then her eyes sought the 
 heights, on which the sky, filled with the last faint 
 glow of sunset, seemed to lean. The colour faded, 
 and a few large stars swung into view over the mo- 
 tionless tops of the bare poplars. She stood still, in 
 wordless, breathless adoration. Her mother was 
 sick unto death; he who should have been her hus- 
 band was bent upon strange wanderings from the 
 appointed path; her life lay under the shadows of 
 night — ^but the great stars consoled her, giving, as 
 is their wont, hope to her who was hopeless, and joy 
 to her who was in the sore travail of sorrow. 
 
XIX 
 
 Christmas Eve came with a whirl of snow. 
 Frances had hardly remembered the coming of it, 
 and wondered how so light a thing as her forgetful- 
 ness could pierce so deep. In other years she and 
 her mother and father had been wont, for this short 
 season, to put away all care. There had crept Into 
 the little dwelling a feeling of unity and love, and 
 happiness of a homely, child-like kind. She looked 
 at the snow-flakes falling steadily on the street, and 
 thought of the Christmas feelings of her childhood, 
 of Andersen's Winter story which she connected 
 with them, and of the two Northland children who 
 sang of the coming of the Christ-child. How every- 
 thing had changed! How life had taken and es^ 
 tranged her from her old self ! Sitting here In the 
 twilight at the window-pane, watching the snow- 
 flakes that now fell softller, Frances brooded deeply 
 and almost fearfully upon the strangeness of all 
 things. . . . Dr. Garnett came In slowly from the 
 next room and sat down close to her. His mood 
 seemed to be In harmony with hers. 
 
 *54 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 255 
 
 **Do you want your playthings, little girl?" 
 
 She smiled and nodded. 
 
 *'Do you remember how the fir-tree used to 
 smell?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes, yes, child." 
 
 "The trimmings must be somewhere still," she 
 said, "the gilt chains, and the glass balls and the 
 candle-holders." 
 
 "You think those were happy days — now?" 
 
 "How happy!" 
 
 The tears came In spite of herself, but she still 
 looked at her father. 
 
 "We must all put away our playthings, one by 
 one," he said. "The trimmings of the Christmas 
 tree are not the hardest to give up." 
 
 They were both startled by the ringing of the 
 outer bell. Frances went to the door and returned, 
 pale and dry-eyed, carrying a bunch of lustrous 
 crimson roses and a small box. She laid the roses 
 on the table, opened the box and displayed a jew- 
 elled bracelet. She placed it next to the flowers and 
 then stood still, hesitating. She touched the roses 
 and carried one, that had fallen, to her face. Its 
 fragrance smote upon her senses and brought a 
 wave of passionate yearning and regret. The deep 
 emotion gave her strength to turn and speak. 
 
2s6 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "Julian has sent these," she said softly. 
 
 "I see that." Her father's voice was stern. 
 
 She turned In an attitude of defence. 
 
 "He is—" 
 
 "Not your husband — " Dr. Garnett cut her 
 short. "And not that alone. He has now even 
 lost the right to be your friend." 
 
 She felt the blood surge Into her head with the 
 passionate Impulse to defend Julian. And thus her 
 living love of him stood clear. But she restrained 
 herself. 
 
 "Why has he lost all right?" 
 
 "Because he has wronged you ; because he might 
 have shielded you — even from yourself." 
 
 "Why do you blame him alone? You were not 
 so severe — at first." 
 
 "I see that you love him, my dear. You must 
 do — what you must. I had hoped — " 
 
 "That I would not return to him?" 
 
 "Yes. I can see no peace for you — there." 
 
 She leaned with her two hands on the table and 
 bent her head forward. 
 
 "You are right, papa, and I want — peace. I am 
 not going back to-day or to-morrow, and I shall try 
 to — to alter the conditions. But, finally . . ." 
 
 Dr. Garnett looked searchingly at her. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 257 
 
 'Trances, I have had, at times, a suspicion; it has 
 haunted me." 
 
 She did not avoid his eyes. 
 
 "You are right," she said slowly. "I shall be a 
 mother. But you do not know me if you think I 
 will return for that reason. I will not be forced. 
 If my free will does not take me, nothing shall." 
 
 "That Is sheer perversity. You have not made 
 the world; you will not change it. You must rely 
 upon the experience of mankind, and that experi- 
 ence dictates as your first duty to give your child a 
 father. I am sorry that I urged you not to go." 
 
 "Perhaps you are right. I have had glimmer- 
 ings of such a truth ; that we must rest upon wider 
 decisions than our own. But I know that the fact 
 of my motherhood alone would not compel me. It 
 may be wrong — ^but . . ." 
 
 "We are what we are. But we must try, try 
 to do the Will of God." 
 
 "How shall we know it?" 
 
 Dr. Garnett's eyes again became dreamy and 
 serene. 
 
 "The knowledge Is always given us. Only, some- 
 times, we do not recognise It and so — ^pass It by." 
 
 Frances turned pale, for, without warning, a 
 heavy fall sounded near the room. The sound was 
 
258 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 dull, strange, fatal, and she felt certain that it was 
 her mother. She followed her father into the hall. 
 There they found Mrs. Garnett, who had evidently 
 tried to come to them, lying upon her face. In 
 some occult way, from the very fold of the dressing- 
 gown that covered her mother, Frances divined that 
 that which lay upon the floor was no longer a being 
 but a thing, and the tragic horror of it gripped her 
 heart. 
 
 They carried Mrs. Garnett to her room and sum- 
 moned other physicians, but with a recognition of 
 the futility of such action. It was done hopelessly 
 and mechanically. Despite her terror and grief, 
 there came to Frances the vision (more clearly re- 
 membered later) of the calm upon her father's face 
 through all the sad offices of the occasion and the 
 hour. She herself was strangely stricken and over- 
 whelmed with a grief that had in It an element of 
 the impersonal. Never before had she seen death, 
 and though, like all men, she could speak of It 
 glibly enough, the staggering fact — ^the fact that, 
 first seen, throws us Into an Incommunicable despair 
 — ^was new to her. This body that had borne her, 
 that. In her childhood, had been to her the essence 
 of life, with which her tortured mind refused to 
 connect the thought of matter that can, like tree 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 259 
 
 or flower, know a complete dissolution — this body 
 was no longer her mother, but a thing dumb and 
 weirdly estranged. In the night-watches, terror 
 shook her over the intolerable fate of man. She 
 felt a wild rebellion, an impulse to let all control of 
 self go, to hurl herself blindly against the walls of 
 the room in which her mother lay in silence. The 
 loss of identity, seen at the moment of death so 
 sharply — that seemed the one supreme and im- 
 medicable woe, the terror before which men, futile 
 phantoms in the shadow of its certainty, should reel 
 with hoarse desperation under the lurid mockery 
 of the sun. 
 
 Dr. Garnett shared her watch, speaking to her 
 comforting words. But in the room floated a griev- 
 ous odour of carbolic acid that seemed to wring all 
 her senses so that she scarcely heard his gentle voice. 
 At last dawn crept up stealthily and stretched thin, 
 pallid fingers through the screened windows. Dr. 
 Garnett arose. 
 
 "Let us go, my daughter, and rest a little. There 
 is nothing to be done here." 
 
 She looked slowly about her. 
 
 "No; I suppose not." 
 
 They stepped out into the hallway and he put his 
 arm on her shoulder. 
 
26o THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 "Get some coffee, my dear, and a roll — some- 
 thing for both of us; we need it." 
 
 She looked at him, wondering, and went on. 
 
 "Yes; do just that, however heartless it may 
 seem. Nothing can serve us in the face of death 
 but life^ — and the simplest things are the best." 
 
 Frances went into the kitchen that looked 
 strangely white In the sullen dawn. She could 
 scarcely force herself to use the dishes and utensils 
 that now her mother would never touch again. Here 
 — the thought overwhelmed her — had centred the 
 life of the woman who had given her life. Here 
 had been passed thase tragically futile years — not 
 by any compulsion (the necessary work could have 
 been done with light touch and swift forgetfulness) , 
 but through some warped energy of self-torture and 
 self-humiliation. Mrs. Gamett had never trans- 
 formed the wearier duties of her life into contribu- 
 tions to some fairer end, but had wilfully submitted 
 her soul to their sway. The shadows of the long, 
 ignoble years made her death more piteous to Fran- 
 ces. Why had God not given her some loftier 
 strain by which to conquer for her life some element 
 of dignity and loveliness ? Why had He made both 
 of her life and death a thing of such intolerable 
 pathos ? Futile, futile — the word beat like a pulse 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 261 
 
 in Frances' head. And yet not wholly so, for the 
 dead woman had been a mother and had not lost 
 the love of her child. The thought consoled Fran- 
 ces deeply; she leaned her head against the kitchen- 
 table and wept with a sense of relief. Then she 
 completed her simple preparations and brought in 
 the food and drink. 
 
 Dr. Garnett looked troubled. 
 
 "I must go out, Frances. There Is much to be 
 attended to and I can't leave you alone." 
 
 Frances could not face the thought of being left 
 alone here and now. Then, with a flash that, for 
 a second, rendered the whole world luminous to her, 
 she remembered that there was one who loved her. 
 She looked straight at her father. 
 
 *'Send Julian here!" 
 
 The old man bowed his head. 
 
 *'I am glad to see you feel that you can turn to 
 him." 
 
 He arose and soon went from the flat, and Fran- 
 ces heard his receding footsteps upon the stairs. 
 She summoned all her vital forces to conquer the 
 dread that threatened to overwhelm her. Dim an- 
 cestral terrors crept Into her soul, weird racial mem- 
 ories; she saw white shadows behind her, felt 
 ghostly hands upon her, and trembled at the casual 
 
262 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 waving of a curtain in the morning wind. She lifted 
 a shade and looked out on the street. It was white 
 with snow and silent under an iron-grey sky. This 
 was Christmas Day, but to her a day of desolation. 
 The clock upon the mantel beat out the endless min- 
 utes like a pulse — ^with a fateful throb. All things 
 seemed inhuman to her and relentless; mercy had 
 perished out of the universe — ^mercy and life; and 
 there were left decay and cruelty and dumb de- 
 spair. . . . 
 
 The door-bell shrilled in mockery of the silence 
 of death. Frances ran along the hallway, with fear 
 at her heels, and once more, after the lapse of many 
 weeks, felt Julian's strong arms fold about her. 
 
 "My poor child, you are all alone?'* 
 
 "Yes; it was awful.'* 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "I understand. We're in the grip of things with 
 which we have no concern. You feel a peculiar 
 tragedy in the fact that it's Christmas Day. Of 
 course, that is irrelevant. . . ." 
 
 She led him in, and they sat down side by side 
 on a sofa. He seemed pale, and she noticed sud- 
 denly that his hair had grown grey at the temples. 
 The sight gave her a feeling of infinite sadness, of 
 the piteousness of all things. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 263 
 
 "WeVe both had a hard time, Julian." 
 He pressed her hand. 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And it all comes to that," she continued, and 
 pointed to the room in which her mother lay. 
 His sombre eyes turned to her. 
 "Ah, dear, that's not the worst. That means — 
 
 rest." 
 
 "And loss of everything — everything?" 
 
 "Fm afraid so. Our knowledge of the universe 
 leaves no hope for the survival of a conscious self. 
 But I think we have moments when we acquiesce 
 gladly in this fact." 
 
 She pressed her hands to her head. 
 
 "No, Julian, no. We can't, we mustn't; it turns 
 all life to death. Think of my mother, my poor 
 mother I She was kind and good, but — you know, 
 you understand — so warped and stunted by life. 
 And if this is the end. If she's to have no other 
 chance, . . . Julian, it's that thought that gives 
 me no peace." 
 
 He spoke softly. 
 
 "You think it matters whether there's another 
 chance because It matters to you. What does the 
 soulless universe, what do the infinite constellations 
 care whether one poor human woman had the right 
 
264 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 chance or not? Life evolves — life disintegrates. 
 In the beginning there was silence ... in the 
 end there will be silence. Dear, we must use the 
 little life we have as best we can. It's all we have." 
 
 She leaned her head on his shoulder. 
 
 "Frances," he said, "your duty here is nearly 
 done. When are you coming to me?" 
 
 The question frightened her. 
 
 "Fm tired, Julian, and wretched. Don't ask 
 me . . . wait!" 
 
 His grip on her hand tightened and he whis- 
 pered : 
 
 "Are you coming? Are you coming?" 
 
 She knew from of old his fault of sudden anger, 
 and sat up. 
 
 "Julian, be pitiful . . . my mother . . ." 
 
 And, as of old, he looked remorseful. 
 
 "Forgive me, dear. But you are life, life — my 
 life!" 
 
 She shrank, at this hour, from the resonant pas- 
 sion in his voice. 
 
 "We must wait, Julian." 
 
 She arose and stood before him. He regarded 
 her — nunlike in her black dress and with her pallid 
 face — and, bending down, kissed her hands. 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 265 
 
 "I can wait. . . . Is anything to be done ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Thereafter they sat for an hour in silence until 
 men came to perform the last, sad offices for the 
 dead. With them came Dr. Garnett. He kissed 
 Frances and then turned to Julian. 
 
 "I thank you for coming. There Is nothing more 
 that you can do.'* 
 
 Julian arose, bearing himself with quiet dignity 
 under the older man's Implied rebuke. 
 
 "I wish to come to-morrow." 
 
 "If you will." 
 
 Julian turned to Frances and kissed her on the 
 forehead. 
 
 "Remember what I told you. . . ." 
 
 Flowers came from Dr. Garnett's colleagues, 
 from a few acquaintances, and flowers that Julian 
 had caused to be sent: roses and violets and lllies- 
 of-the-valley. The heavy fragrance of the flowers 
 in the little flat sank upon Frances' senses and 
 numbed her. Grief, remembrance, passion, regret, 
 despair — all were drowned and whelmed In the 
 strange, poignant odour of the flowers. She passed, 
 tearless and calm, from room to room, scarcely real- 
 ising the stern, irrevocable rite that the morrow 
 would bring forth. 
 
XX 
 
 No more snow fell during the night, but the grey 
 
 of the heavens had deepened and the city lay In 
 
 dimness. It was bitterly cold, and Frances shivered 
 
 forlornly Into her clothes. She wondered at what 
 
 seemed to her, this morning, the bitter cold In her 
 
 own heart. All the well-springs of emotion were 
 
 dry. She looked listlessly out Into a dead, grey 
 
 world. Very vaguely her spirit detached Itself from 
 
 the agony of the time, and here — In her little room 
 
 — held counsel with Itself over the things that had 
 
 come Into her life. Memory, which, at the few 
 
 halting-places of her troubled existence, asserted Its 
 
 sway so strongly in her, absorbed the throbbing 
 
 sorrow that should have been hers. Into a larger 
 
 mood — a mood less piercing, no less sorrowful, but 
 
 with a nobler sorrow. She thought of the blither 
 
 years of her girlhood, the aching dreams of her 
 
 young maturity, of the coming of love, of many 
 
 days and hours that stood out from the wreck of 
 
 the half -forgotten past. Each of these days or 
 
 266 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 267 
 
 hours had clothed this little room with its own at- 
 mosphere ; and now the four narrow walls and the 
 simple objects that hid their bareness had the power 
 to resuscitate, through subtlest associations, the very 
 spiritual note that belonged to each pregnant period 
 in the obliterated years. All that was over now. 
 One thought, one memory, the sense of one fragile 
 human action lost forever, would hide all others 
 In the Immensity of Its shadow. Her mother 
 would never come again, at the day's end, to smooth 
 the hair from her forehead and commit her to the 
 blessedness of sleep. The motherless child arose 
 in Frances and tasted all the bitterness of the one 
 loss that marks a pitiless period in our lives. Yet 
 she remained calm, with the grey, dreary calm of 
 the sky and the trodden snow upon which she 
 looked. 
 
 She prepared breakfast for her father and herself 
 and took her accustomed place at the table. She 
 found herself noting all things with wonderful dis- 
 tinctness; the Interior before her became an etch- 
 ing of firm and definite lines. Her father's face 
 was white and delicately touched by age. His wrin- 
 kles seemed the slow accretions (they were more 
 deeply marked than usual this morning) of sorrow 
 and its wisdom, ruling many quiet hours devoid of 
 
268 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 vain and passionate strife, and preserving even In 
 Its depths something of a Rne measure and sobriety. 
 The clear, old, blue eyes looked Into hers. 
 
 "You must be brave to-day, dear. It's the hard- 
 est day.'' 
 
 She understood him fully. 
 
 "We have not learned," he went on, "to lay away 
 our dead simply and reverently. We make a black 
 show of It — a strident horror of what should be 
 the most peaceful thing In the world." 
 
 She felt her calm disintegrate under his grave 
 words. 
 
 "I can bear It all, I think, papa — all — ^but not 
 speech !" 
 
 He kissed her forehead and turned to leave the 
 room. 
 
 "Be ready at ten." 
 
 During the hour that followed she mastered her- 
 self with difficulty. A sick oppression settled upon 
 her chest, a weight of unshed tears and unlamented 
 sorrows. It seemed to her suddenly that to-day 
 life was asking too much ; that there should be for 
 her some door of merciful escape; that she should 
 be able to flee far Into the open, away from the 
 dread trappings of these obsequies, and be alone — 
 calmly and nobly alone — with her grief. But men 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 269 
 
 and women, she •knew, would stamp such an attempt 
 to escape as the last irreverence, the crowning turpi- 
 tude of a callous heart. The world demands not 
 only a show of grief, but a show rigidly adapted to 
 its coarse perceptions ; and Frances, bearing always 
 in her mind the failure of the central action in her 
 life, was in no mood to defy the edicts of society. 
 Slowly, painfully, summoning all her strength, she 
 started, with a calm exterior, to accompany her 
 mother upon the last journey. . . . 
 
 She sat in the carriage beside her father, bearing 
 as best she could the wearily slow pace of the pro- 
 cession. Seeing the tension upon her pale face, he 
 pulled up the curtain next to her and advised her 
 to look out. Spite of the sad, grey weather, men 
 were busy upon the streets and walked nimbly 
 enough, preoccupied with their affairs. They hard- 
 ly glanced at the hearse and the carriages, which 
 should have reminded them, Frances thought, as 
 by a hoarse and grieving bugle-call, of their own 
 last end. But they went* about their business with 
 a brave unconcern, a forgetfulness of their doom 
 that might have seemed to her in other moods splen- 
 did, but now looked only coarse and brutish. In 
 quieter thoroughfares the oppression of her heart 
 grew lighter, and lighter yet when they came to 
 
270 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 bare places, grim enough under the wintry sky, but 
 empty of the indecent, the blasphemous activities 
 of man. 
 
 As she entered the gate of the cemetery, she ex- 
 perienced a last struggle to weep, to cry out, to 
 escape afar. But this, too, she mastered, and stood 
 presently beside the newly dug grave. The clergy- 
 man read with simplicity the immemorial words 
 of hope, and, as he read, softly, beautifully, flake 
 by delicate flake, the snow began to fall. It fell 
 white upon his black robe, upon her own black 
 dress, upon the pitiless earth and the open grave. 
 Then it fell faster and thicker. The ancient kind- 
 ness of Nature folded her weary children, in their 
 bitter hour, in a cloak of white austerity, of cold 
 and healing peace. The coffin was lowered Into the 
 grave — "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to 
 dust." But Frances carried in her heart another 
 message: "It is sown in dishonour; it Is raised in 
 glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power." 
 Somehow, she felt, the ancient sanctity of these 
 words was not of the vain babbling of man. If the 
 oblivion of that cold earth, after the grievous dis- 
 honour that life inflicts on us, were all, man would 
 agonise in the madness of an intolerable despair. 
 But the universe does not madden us, does not con- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 271 
 
 fuse us. Form after form is obliterated; the an- 
 cient truths which are the conditions of life stand 
 fast. The grave was filled, and the snow fell upon 
 It and It grew to be a mound of white. Flowers 
 were laid upon the mound, but upon these, too, the 
 snow fell and the crimson roses became argent. But 
 Frances laid her head against her father's shoulder 
 and wept. . . . 
 
 Throughout all, stopping short only at the ulti- 
 mate moment, had been her consciousness of 
 Julian's wistful eyes. They were not, as was their 
 wont, sombre or serious or Impassioned, but fixed 
 upon her with an indefinite appeal. She pitied him 
 with an Impersonal pity, for she knew, instinctively, 
 of how deep a struggle that reluctant sweetness 
 must have been the evidence. But an austerer emo- 
 tion than pity or love held her. One of the single, 
 fundamental feelings of man^ — common as the 
 breathed air and as unobtrusive^ — had arisen to res- 
 cue her. The cumulative banality of the mouthing 
 ages, of creed and script, of church and conventicle, 
 had no part In It. In the presence of Inexorable 
 fate, she had met the unconquerable hope of the 
 world. Alone, unaided, she had found It — ^not as 
 a remembered teaching of childhood, not as an oft- 
 heard phrase now suddenly grown luminous. 
 
272 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 Driven by her own soul In its hour of need, she had 
 divined truth for herself — truth that brought her 
 a strange serenity. She had not huddled the indif- 
 ferent clay into the wintry earth: she had surren- 
 dered her mother into the hands of God. . 
 
 The carriage drove back swiftly, but the sound 
 of wheels and horses' hoofs was muffled by the snow 
 that still fell softly. Dr. Garnett spoke little — his 
 face was drawn into lines of pain; and Frances, in 
 her new exaltation, felt that she would minister to 
 him and protect him. In the shadowy room of 
 their home, that spoke so tragically of the one who 
 would never return here, the old man, for the first 
 time, broke down. 
 
 "They have laid my youth into the grave. . . ." 
 
 "And mine," she answered quietly. 
 
 He lifted his head from his hands. 
 
 "Yours, child?" 
 
 She came to him swiftly. 
 
 "It is so hard to say, papa. Everything that 
 matters is so hard to say. But I feel as if, until 
 to-day, I had been wandering . . . blind . . . 
 confused." 
 
 His eyes cleared and held hers. 
 
 "I thought one could live without faith of some 
 kind . . . some faith deep at the bottom of every- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 273 
 
 thing else, that some things are true and some are 
 false — always . . . and some things right and some 
 wrong — always, forever, no matter what your . . . 
 reason tells you. Do you understand?'' 
 
 "I have tried to show you that way." 
 
 "Yes; and when I stood out there . . . to-day 
 ... in the snow, I knew that if there were nothing 
 more than . . . that, no hope . . . nothing to 
 heal and make up for loss — her loss — ^we'd all go 
 mad— all I" 
 
 "I know It." 
 
 She came still nearer. 
 
 "The other day, by the light of his reason, 
 Julian denied any hope. So by the light of the . . . 
 reason he rules his life and — " 
 
 "Fails and must fail! Your own agony is the 
 proof. We must live by the experience of the ages, 
 by the unconquerable needs of the soul. The argu- 
 ments of to-day are with the arguments of yes- 
 terday." 
 
 He had arisen and stood with outstretched arm. 
 
 "I have been a scientist all my life; I have 
 sloughed off one intellectual skin after another, and 
 I've come back at last to a few fundamentals that 
 are not demonstrably, but undemonstrably and mys- 
 tically true. For a moment, just now, I forgot 
 
274 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 . . . one is so weak . . . but you have reminded 
 
 me. 
 
 They sat together quietly and long In the dusk. 
 Frances thought of her long and bitter struggles, 
 and knew that her soul had always been Incorrupti- 
 ble, that, beneath the call of the senses and the lure 
 of life. It had been vigilant. She hardly thought of 
 the practical problem before her. She knew that 
 strength would be hers even to renounce entirely 
 the love which she still carried, strong and inviolate, 
 in her heart. . . . 
 
 Julian came the next afternoon and wandered 
 vaguely about the little drawing-room, that still held 
 the faint odour of funereal flowers. Frances, deep 
 In an arm-chair, watched his uncertain movements. 
 The pride of her womanhood forbade her speaking 
 a word that might heal all. Narrow* as the concep- 
 tion seemed, she felt that she could not break 
 through it, especially as she saw clearly his compe- 
 tent head. He needed no help. And so her part 
 was a passive one. He touched one bit of brlc-a- 
 brac on the mantel, moved another a little farther 
 back, and tapped the fender with his foot. Then 
 he turned abruptly. 
 
 "You need air, light . . ." 
 
 "I must stay with father for the present." 
 
•THE BROKEN SNARE 275 
 
 "Of course; that is only right. But how long, 
 and what then?'* 
 
 **How long?" she repeated. *'He Is old and not 
 strong, so my strength must be his." 
 
 "And I?" he broke out, almost petulantly. 
 
 The light of her firmer beliefs illuminated the 
 ruthlessness of his desires. 
 
 "You have had — your share." 
 
 He looked at her in consternation. 
 
 "You wrong me, Frances, consciously; God 
 knows you do. We can't separate absolutely the 
 senses and the heart. I have loved you, not purely 
 In a sentimental way — I don't understand that — but 
 with the best love in me." 
 
 ^^Have loved?" She could not help emphasising 
 the first word. 
 
 He shook his head angrily. 
 
 "You quibble* over words, hasty and ill-consid- 
 ered. It's a question of life itself for us. Are you 
 coming back to me?" His eyes included signifi- 
 cantly her whole figure. "You have the strongest 
 right to my protection and love. Are you coming ?" 
 
 He arose and they looked at each other across 
 the width of the little room. The air seemed to 
 quiver with the unspoken words that, for both, pos- 
 sessed the field of consciousness. Once^ twice, his 
 
276 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 lips opened and closed; his hands sought vague 
 nothings on the mantel-shelf. To Frances the room 
 seemed to darken and shake; her dry throat 
 throbbed, her fingers tingled curiously. ... As 
 from a great distance she heard her own low voice. 
 
 "No." 
 
 It seemed to her that he grew pale^ — for an in- 
 stant. Afterward a sullen look, that she knew well, 
 darkened his eyes. His lids drooped and his whole 
 figure seemed to shrink. Then slowly, with lumber- 
 ing steps, without a backward glance, he strode 
 from the room. Her limbs seemed to melt under 
 her, but she dragged herself to the window. She 
 saw him go forth from the house and walk slowly 
 westward to Mornlngslde Heights. At the comer 
 of the Avenue he turned, and only the red disc of 
 the setting sun that swung over the heights glared 
 balefully into her face. Gone, gone! — she re- 
 peated the word with toneless persistence. She 
 had over-estimated her strength, forgotten the forti- 
 fying power of the consciousness that, until now, he 
 had been hers even in his absence. All light faded 
 from her soul : all desire to incarnate truth in action 
 seemed pitiable, absurd, monstrous. Her heart 
 cried out after him. Now that it was too late she 
 would have given life for a touch of his hand. She 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 277 
 
 turned from the window with the impulse to hide 
 in her room, but on the way she met her father. 
 He took her into his arms. 
 
 ''Child," he said, "you must not despair. One 
 conquers even the bitterness of death." 
 
 She raised herself with a last remnant of des- 
 perate energy. 
 
 "There is bitterness," she cried, "beyond the bit- 
 terness of death I" 
 
 Then the world turned black before her eyes. 
 
XXI 
 
 A SHARP illness followed. The strains of the 
 past months had culminated in that vision of Julian 
 turning the corner — a vision so prosaic to the ex- 
 ternal eye, so charged for her with final and fatal 
 meaning. She lay in her bed, weak and dreamy, 
 and watched a little spider running to and fro on 
 the ceiling. Day and night blended with each 
 other; light and darkness dislimned softly; time 
 stood still; the quivering nerves, the struggling 
 heart, the tired brain, were mercifully resting in a 
 long, dim period of moveless calm. Then an awak- 
 ening came, gradual and delightful — an awakening 
 into a beautiful bodily life that rested contentedly 
 in itself. Food and drink had, to her, a fresh and 
 exquisite savour. She came to be grateful for sim- 
 ple and natural things which, under the pressure 
 of intenser preoccupations, she had never noticed. 
 She sat, propped up by pillows, near the window, 
 and saw children playing in the street. Their ges- 
 tures seemed to her of an engaging grace, their 
 
 278 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 279 
 
 voices of a purity of bird-like tone, of which she 
 had never seemed conscious. The natural exercise 
 of the senses became a source of joy. She read a 
 little, but it still tired her. And so her eyes wan- 
 dered from the book before her to the blue sky and 
 to the changeful, floating clouds. . . . 
 
 From time to time she tried to regain a sense of 
 the continuity of her life ; to recover, almost with an 
 idle curiosity, an entire realisation of the emotions 
 that had swayed her so imperiously. In vain. Even 
 the fact that she would not now be a mother left 
 her unmoved. As the weeks went by and her body 
 grew stronger, her memory became clear and defi- 
 nite. But the eye of her soul saw herself and others 
 only as figures in a grotesque and violent panto- 
 mime. She recovered the gesture of life — not the 
 full impulse that had shaped it. Thus came to her 
 the solemn yet not wholly joyless knowledge of the 
 pervasive mortality of human things — the knowl- 
 edge that existence is sustained and made endurable 
 only by the death of that within us which once 
 seemed life itself. Not that she had forgotten that 
 grave upon which the snow had fallen, or had 
 ceased to love the man to whom she had given her 
 youth. But grief and love had lost forever the In- 
 tolerable sharpness, the wild turbulence of the past, 
 
28o THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 and had assumed a decent sobriety. It seemed to 
 her that she heard the music of life no longer as a 
 crying of Impassioned violins or a shrilling of angry 
 flutes, but as an organ melody, strong, solemn, and 
 subdued. 
 
 The mirror showed lines in her forehead and 
 about her mouth, and even In her hair were strands 
 of grey. And the smile with which she met these 
 discoveries was, to her mind, the final triumph of 
 that richness of experience and gain In character 
 which she felt to be hers. She recognised clearly 
 enough how narrow her experience had been, but 
 also the boundless wealth of Its extraordinary depth 
 and Intensity for all the years to come. 
 
 As her slow convalescence gave place to a gentle 
 glow of health, she had many talks with her father, 
 who had cared for her tenderly and almost alone 
 during her Illness. The talks were peaceful and 
 comforting, but for the fact that he seemed, at 
 times, on the verge of an utterance that he feared. 
 Hence, upon a day when she seemed to herself 
 stronger than was her wont, she urged him to 
 speak. He stroked his beard. 
 
 "It was to be feared," he said In an almost pro- 
 fessional voice, "that any excitement might cause 
 a relapse." 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 281 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 "We will take that for granted, dear father. 
 You are forgiven for withholding whatever you 
 have withheld. And now — ?" 
 
 "Some weeks after you were taken ill a letter 
 came for you." 
 
 He placed his hand on hers, as if to make her 
 feel the security of his presence and his love. She 
 held it firmly, for a great fear came into her heart — 
 a fear that the old agony would rack her again 
 and the old wounds bleed. 
 
 "Give it to me," she said softly. 
 
 He gave it to her and left the room. 
 
 She sat there with the letter in her lap and laid 
 her pale hand on it. Weeks must have passed since 
 he had written it: what weeks to him? A vision 
 of his strong impatience came to her, of the impas- 
 sioned energy with which he sought to bend the 
 world to his will. Ignorant of her long illness, he 
 must have interpreted her silence as a final repudia- 
 tion. He must have suffered; for she knew, and 
 was glad in the knowledge, even though it never 
 bore fruit, that she was rooted in his very soul. The 
 thought gave her strength to break the seal and 
 read the few lines within. His words were reticent 
 and almost halting. He asked her to meet him for 
 
2821 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 a last time, but drew from his request none of its 
 possibilities of pathos. For his reluctance to make 
 emotional capital of the situation, to turn its inevi- 
 table sadness into a direct appeal, she honqjured 
 jand admired him. No fear of a renewal of the old 
 conflict came to her now. Spring was at the door, 
 peace in her heart, and, deeper than both, the 
 strength to overcome without vain strife and cry. 
 
 Her father re-entered the room, and his blue 
 eyes rested anxiously upon her. She. felt that he 
 had the right to know. 
 
 "Julian wishes to see me again." 
 
 "And will you consent?" 
 
 She answered by another question. ^ 
 
 "What am I to do with my life? And yet," she 
 added slowly, "I have learned how to bear. An- 
 other struggle like the first is impossible. I can 
 do only one thing." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 "Wait!" 
 
 She lay back In her chair and looked up into the 
 boundless blue of the sky. A mild wind came in 
 through the window and swept lightly over her 
 forehead. Sitting there, she dreamed a dream of 
 patience and resignation, of a possible life near 
 great woods shadowing still waters — a life of un- 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 283 
 
 impassioned surrender to the influence of eternal 
 things. To renounce, to be content, to wait with 
 impregnable faith for the things that were her own 
 and of which time could not rob her — that seemed 
 now, to her vision, the true ideal. How it was to 
 come about she did not know and was satisfied not 
 to ask. She only knew that she had* gained a peace 
 that was independent of temporal and, therefore, 
 transitory things. 
 
 Days came and went and a wild, young Spring 
 shook with its winds the trees of Morningside Park. 
 The poplars on the heights bowed toward each 
 other; the new leaves twinkled in the sunlight; the 
 living rocks grew warm. Frances was now per- 
 mitted to walk here. She inhaled the fresh odour 
 of the earth, the stronger fragrance of the budding 
 leafage; she laid her warm hands upon the cool 
 trunks of trees that stood in shadowy places, and 
 felt in Nature* a power of spiritual restoration, a 
 source of strength and endurance and quiet joy. It 
 was no longer an echo of her moods or a refuge 
 from them (in either case a mere accessory of her 
 human passions) : it rose above and surrounded 
 her, serene, impersonal, passionless, and taught her 
 something of its own enduring calm. . . . 
 
 Only, at times, when she returned home, the calm 
 
284 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 would leave her and a human hope stir in her heart. 
 It was a hope which she could not define, not even 
 put into words, so vague, so fitful and so strange. 
 But she felt like one who, wandering long and 
 weary ways, knows that he must, in some golden 
 hour, come upon a bright fortune fallen from the 
 skies. At such moments she almost held her breath 
 when she opened the door of the flat, half-afraid 
 that she would find it flooded with the light of a 
 mysterious splendour. She smiled to herself at the 
 intensity which the hope assumed, at her foolish 
 little delays before the house, and the beating of 
 her heart as she went up the stairs. 
 
 But it was, at last, no strange gold that she 
 found : it was the sombre, taciturn figure of Julian, 
 leaning against the mantel of the drawing-room. 
 She stopped at the door. 
 
 "You . . .! you . . .!" 
 
 Her voice died away as he slowly lifted his eyes 
 to her face. 
 
 "You did not answer my letter," he said, "and 
 I waited till even pride failed me. Here I am." 
 He passed his hand over his pale forehead. "Here 
 I am." 
 
 She saw his profile outlined against the window. 
 His face was thinner and sharper than of old, more 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 285 
 
 deeply furrowed, almost to ruggedness, In these 
 few months. She looked again and saw that the 
 grey In his temples had crept higher; that the dear 
 head that had so often rested on her bosom looked 
 weary and forlorn. She stretched out her hands 
 to him. 
 
 "I could not read your letter for weeks. I was 
 111." 
 
 "Your father told me that just now. But 
 since . . .?" 
 
 She dropped his hands. 
 
 "What was the use ? I did not feel strong enough 
 for another struggle!" 
 
 He raised his head and his resolute eyes sought 
 hers. 
 
 "There would have been no — struggle!" 
 
 Joy fought In her with an unreasonable compas- 
 sion for him, compassion for that strength which 
 found It so difficult to confess Itself weakness. 
 
 "You have suffered through me," he went on, 
 "but If you can forget!" . 
 
 She waved that phase of It aside. 
 
 "If I could not forget I never loved you." 
 
 He turned from her to hide the emotion which 
 shook him. 
 
 "It's close here," he said abruptly, "stifling. If 
 
286 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 you will come with me for a little while. There 
 are things — things that must be said. . . . Can't 
 we go to the old place?" 
 
 A new strength filled her and she consented. 
 They walked over to the river, and it was to her 
 an inexpressible joy to see him again at her side. 
 Storms had passed over them ; but she felt that they 
 were one, despite the strange waywardness of his 
 soul and of their fortune. They sat on a bench and 
 looked down upon the river. He took off his hat 
 and once more passed his hand over his forehead. 
 
 "I have lived years in these past months," he 
 said, "years, and I have learned their lesson." 
 
 She would have given much to make easier for 
 him the words that must be said. But calmly, deep 
 within her, she knew that to hear them was her 
 right — a right which it would be dangerous to fore- 
 go. She scarcely moved during the silence of his 
 voice. 
 
 *T used to think," he continued, "that we should 
 not accept the imperfect, that we should not risk 
 its dominance over us, that we should resist the ele- 
 ments of evil that inhere in all human institutions. 
 It was a dream of youth I One must accept, accept 
 the good, forget the evil, live and be brave . . . 
 that is manhood I" 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 287 
 
 He lowered his head a little and spoke once more. 
 
 *'It was the selfishness of passion, not the sur- 
 render of love. I tried to evade life, life as it is, 
 as it has shaped itself, slowly, inevitably; I fought 
 not for a right, but for an exemption from the uni- 
 versal lot. It was . . . cowardly." 
 
 She laid her hand on his, compassionate to him 
 In his self-abasement. 
 
 "How did you come to think so?" 
 
 "When I went from you In my pride and stub- 
 bornness," he answered; "when it seemed to me 
 that I had lost you, then, at last, love came and 
 taught me. My need of you humbled me ; my need 
 of you gave me a clearer vision; but even if the 
 vision had not come, I would have returned to you 
 at your desire, upon your terms, becautse — I love 
 your 
 
 The wind grew stronger and cooler and they 
 arose from the seat. They chose a sinuous path 
 through the woodland of Riverside Park and 
 walked slowly. Their footsteps made no sound; 
 the birds had fled or fallen asleep. They heard 
 only each other's tremulous breathing. Gradually 
 a twilight melted down among the trees, and, un- 
 consciously, they walked closer together, their arms 
 touching. The hushed woodland seemed to enfold 
 
288 THE BROKEN SNARE 
 
 them more and more. But suddenly, abruptly, the 
 path turned and they stood together upon a prom- 
 ontory, the river far below and the sunset before 
 them. The trees and the other shore were purple, 
 the sky blood-red fading in an immeasurable dis- 
 tance to faintest mother-of-pearl; the river was a 
 pool of molten bronze. They stood there, breath- 
 less before this flaming splendour that lost, by in- 
 finitesimal degrees, its sharpness and faded into a 
 large, dim softness of empurpled glow. 
 
 Julian took her two hands into his and drew her 
 to him. 
 
 "Dearest," he said, and his voice shook, "dear- 
 est, I wanted to live by the strength of my pride, 
 of my power, of my intellect. But I looked upon 
 the dawn of the morning, and saw you there; I 
 looked upon the stars of the night, and saw you 
 there ; I went away, wandering among the clefts of 
 the hills, and your image was hidden in their hol- 
 lows; I wrote and the words grew into your name; 
 I turned from the world to find a refuge in my soul, 
 and found you there I Take me and keep me I" 
 
 She looked into his eyes, and then up unto the 
 stars that began to gather in the fields of heaven, 
 and it seemed to her that she had come at last from 
 the weary plains of life, beaten upon by scorching 
 
THE BROKEN SNARE 289 
 
 suns, choked with blood and sand, and had emerged 
 Into some fair, wide upland region of cool waters 
 and spacious winds, where the fountains are white, 
 and the stars, where love dwells, and blessedness, 
 and a perennial peace. 
 
 THE END 
 
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